#*shakes my fist in the air* NATHAN | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

clarepreed · 2 years ago

Text

Experimental

Story Content and Summary - 4,373 words. When Nathan's wife has a heart attack during sex, he is asked to participate in an experimental resuscitation procedure developed at the nearby research hospital. Explicit sex, on-site and hospital resuscitation, intercourse with a person who cannot consent.

“Oh, God!” Jessica threw her head back, eyes rolling. Her legs were spread wide, toes curled, her hand working furiously at her clit. Nathan thrust into her, hard, knowing she was close and that he wasn’t far behind.

She was panting and moaning, her free hand balling into a fist and pressing against her own chest. Her hips matched his thrust for thrust.

“It’s so good, it hurts!” she exclaimed, breathless.

This confused him, but she still seemed into it so he leaned over and kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth until she pulled away and gasped for air. At the same time, he felt her walls begin to spasm, the muscles rippling against his dick.

It was probably the most intense orgasm he’d ever observed; her eyes rolled back in her head and she stiffened, making a croaking noise.

Then she went limp.

Nathan continued to pump into her, his own orgasm close. He reached down and cupped her cheek, chuckling a little at how thoroughly wiped she was. Then he leaned in to kiss her.

To his surprise, she was unresponsive, her lips unmoving beneath his. He stopped thrusting his hips and patted her cheek. “Babe? Jessica?

Then he grasped her shoulder, shaking her. “Jess!”

Her head lolled, but she didn’t respond. Nathan withdrew and crawled to her side. “Jessica! Jess, babe, are you okay?!”

He shook her again. “Can you hear me?”

His erection softened as concern gave way to fear. She looked very still, her muscles completely relaxed as he shook her. Nathan put his hand on her face and tipped her head back, leaning his ear close to her mouth.

Several long seconds passed with no breath stirring against his cheek. He pressed his fingers into her neck, waited. There was no reassuring pulse against his fingertips.

“Oh my God!” He stretched his body across hers, reaching for his phone on the nightstand and dialing 9-1-1. As the line connected, he gathered Jessica in his arms and climbed down from the bed. He laid her out on the rug, cradling her head as he rested it on the floor.

“It’s okay, babe, we’re so close to the hospital!” The instructions for compression-only CPR trickled through his head.

“9-1-1, what’s your name and the nature of your emergency?”

“Nathan Spalding. I think my wife just had a heart attack! She isn’t breathing and she doesn’t have a pulse!” Nathan traced the line of her ribs and found her sternum. He interlaced his fingers and pressed the heel of his hand to the lower half of her breastbone. “I’m starting CPR now! Oh my God, Jessica!”

When he pushed down, her ribcage felt stiff. He remembered he was supposed to press down two inches, but hasn’t given a thought as to what that would actually look or feel like. Her chest caved under his hands, springing back up when he relieved the pressure. Her breasts wobbled with the force, her stomach bulging out.

“Your wife is not breathing?”

“No! And she has no pulse! I’m giving her chest compressions! Please send an ambulance to the Star Condos on Main! We’re literally just around the corner. Our unit is twenty-nine!” He shoved his hands into Jessica’s chest. Her head fell to the side, shoulders popping with the force he exerted on her sternum.

“I don’t know if I’m doing this at the right speed!”

“Sir, I have an ambulance crew leaving the hospital now. Make sure you have your hands on her sternum and you are pushing her chest down two inches. Come all the way up each time. Go ahead and count out loud for me each time you push down on her chest.”

“One, two, three, four, five, six…”

“Good pace, keep it up. Nathan, will the medics be able to get into your condo?”

“…eight… Yes! The doorman will let them in! Three, four, five, six…”

Come on, babe! I didn’t know you were sick! You have to breathe!

He could hear the sirens outside. They really did live extremely close to Suncoast Research Hospital. The medics could have almost walked there.

“…six, seven, eight, nine, ten, one…”

Nathan was breathing hard, sweat beading up on his brow. Both of them were still naked, which was a thought that had only belatedly occurred to him, but he decided that didn’t signify.

“Sir, Nathan, does your wife have any health conditions?”

“…three, four… No, I didn’t think so! Uh… she had chest pains right before she lost consciousness… seven, eight, nine…”

“Drug use?”

“One… Just pot! And not tonight… not all week! One, two, three, four…”

“Okay, Nathan, the ambulance has arrived and the crew is making their way to you. Stay on the line until they enter your condo, okay?”

“Eight, nine—okay! One, two, three, come ON, Jess!”

The speaker in his apartment activated with a series of beeps, and he heard a man say: “Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, EMS has arrived and has requested entry to your unit. I’ve sent them up the cargo elevator with staff and am buzzing them into your unit remotely. Please respond if you are able.”

“Yes! This is Nathan! Mr. Spalding! Please, let them in, I can’t… One, two, three, four…”

“I’m disabling your door lock for the next ten minutes. Please let me know if I can assist further.”

Nathan heard the front door lock disengage, and shortly after there was a loud knock and the door opened. “Mr. Nathan Spalding? EMS here!”

“…five, six… BACK IN THE BEDROOM!” He heard the sound of them wheeling a gurney down the hall, and then three men were in the room with him, all wearing dark blue polos and black pants.

“Thank you, sir, I’ll take over from here.” One of the men, a tall red head whose nametag read “Adam,” kneeled across from Nathan. Nathan leaned back, watching as the man pressed his fingers into Jessica’s neck. She’d gone gray, her lips dusky.

Nathan stumbled to his feet, felt someone grab his elbow. “I’ve got you, sir. Why don’t you sit down?”

“Need to put clothes on,” Nathan said, pulling free. This man’s nametag read: “Scottie.”

“Resuming compressions,” Adam said. Nathan froze, watching as the man began to pummel his wife’s chest, his compressions seeming even harder and faster than the ones Nathan had been performing. He heard air huff out of her, and then the third EMT kneeled at her other side, laying a mask with a bag attached by her head. He was also unpacking some kind of display. Nathan looked at his badge, registering that his name was “Joseph.”

He found his pajamas in a pile at the foot of the bed and dressed quickly.

“Has EMS arrived?” he heard the operator ask from his phone.

Nathan snatched it up and said: “Yes, they’re here. Thank you!”

“Thank you, sir. Disconnecting now.”

“Sir,” Scottie said. “Nathan. What’s her name?”

“Jessica.” Nathan sat on the edge of the bed, watching as his wife’s body twitched, her stomach bulging and her breasts wobbling with each compression.

“Thirty!” Adam called out, and Joseph squeezed the bulb twice, making her chest rise. Then Adam started compressions again. “One, two, three…”

“Nathan, I’m an Advanced EMT with your municipality.” Scottie crouched by Jessica, applying white defibrillator pads to her chest.

He flipped a switch, and the device announced: “Analyzing rhythm. Do not touch patient!”

The men all scooted back. Joseph held a small plastic piece against the side of Jessica’s face, careful not to touch her.

“Analyzing rhythm, do not touch patient. No shock advised. Resume two minutes of CPR.”

“Adam and Joseph switch, I’m calling for ALS. Nathan, Adam is going to put an airway adjunct in to help with her breathing.”

Two of the men changed places. Joseph started chest compressions, while Adam retrieved the plastic piece and tilted Jessica’s head back. He slipped the piece between her teeth and rotated it one hundred and eighty degrees before letting the flange rest on her teeth.

“How old is Jessica?” Scottie asked.

“Twenty-nine,” Nathan answered. Then he pressed his hands to his mouth.

“Thirty!” Joseph said, and Adam quickly fitted the mask to Jessica’s face and squeezed the bulb.

“Dr. Perkins, please.” Scottie crouched close by, speaking into his phone. “This is Scottie Wilson, unit one-one, A-EMT. I have a twenty-nine-year-old patient in cardiac arrest. No known pre-existing health conditions or drug use. Witnessed collapse with chest pains. Husband started chest compressions immediately and called 9-1-1. Since our arrival we have given her a full cycle of CPR and connected the AED. AED advised no shock. We are requesting Advanced Life Support.”

He listened to someone speaking on the other end.

“I’m sorry, repeat that question.”

“One, two, three, four, five…”

“What was the patient doing at the time of the arrest? I’ll ask—”

“We were having sex,” Nathan said, too worried to be embarrassed, his eyes on Jessica as her chest rose artificially.

“Patient and her husband were engaged in sexual intercourse.”

“…three, four, five, six…”

“You want us to transport her and bring the husband. Is that—No, I understand. I’ll establish an IV in the bus. Okay. Yes, Doctor.”

“Analyzing rhythm. Do not touch patient.”

The medics leaned back.

“Guys, we’re transporting her back,” Scottie said. “Continuing with the AED until we start moving, and CPR all the way.”

“Analyzing rhythm, do not touch patient. No shock advised. Continue two minutes of CPR."

"Switch while we package her up, then I will ride the gurney down.”

Adam started chest compressions while the other EMTs began gathering up their bags and putting things at the foot of the gurney.

“Sir,” Scottie said. “You should go ahead and grab anything you need to take with you. Insurance cards, ID, shoes for yourself. You’ll be riding in the front of the ambulance. Okay?”

“Okay.” He stared down at Jessica, watching the EMT Adam forcefully compressing her chest. The mask was sitting to the side of her face, and he could see the plastic airway device jutting out between her teeth. He had a question that was floating in the front of his mind, one he did and did not want the answer to. But he drew a deep breath and asked: “Are… are they planning on declaring her dead at the hospital?”

Scottie shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. They’re holding a resuscitation suite and a specialist for her.”

Nathan nodded and leaned over, briefly gripping his wife’s foot, the closest part of her body. “I love you,” he murmured, before making himself stand.

He found shoes and grabbed his wallet. He also collected Jessica’s phone off the dresser and her wallet out of her purse in the kitchen. He briefly considered calling her mother, but by that time the EMTs were wheeling the gurney out of the bedroom. They’d covered her lower half with a sheet, and Scottie straddled her, riding on top of the gurney as he thrust his hands between her breasts.

Nathan held the door for them and then paged down to the front desk to activate the cargo elevator. He locked the door and ran after the gurney, sliding into the elevator as the doors closed.

As they were exiting the cargo elevator, the AED tried to chime in. Scottie turned it off, stating: “We need to stay on the move.”

The next thing Nathan knew, he’d been bundled into the front of the ambulance, Joseph driving, and they were headed the short distance to the hospital.

When they arrived, he found an entire group waiting for them in the ambulance bay.

“Mr. Spalding? I need you to come with me right away.” A female nurse ushered him inside and down the hall after the gurney. He caught glimpses of Jessica’s hair, but he couldn’t get close enough to touch her. A nurse was astride her now, continuing the chain of chest compressions.

He was escorted to a small room with a table and chairs labeled as a “Family Consultation Room.”

“The doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse said, before closing the door behind her.

He didn’t wait long. He heard a quick knock as the door was opening, and a female doctor entered the room. She wore a surgical mask and carried a set of scrubs under her arm and a clipboard in her hand.

“I’m Dr. Perkins,” she said. “Have a seat, Nathan.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not.” He felt queasy, and his heart was beating fast. “Are you about to tell me you already called her? Is she dead?”

“Your wife is very sick. Based on the timeline, most doctors, programs, hospitals would be declaring her dead in the next five minutes. We don’t have any time, so I am going to have to rush you through this process.

“Your wife does not have any cardiac electrical activity. I have an experimental resuscitative process that I am pioneering. I have identified a hormone that supports electrical activity in the heart. I’ve named it corsexamine, and—”

“Do it,” Nathan said. “Do you need me to sign something?”

“Yes,” she said. “But you’ll need to be personally involved.”

“Okay… Sure, whatever you need me to do.”

“As the name might suggest, corsexamine is released during sexual activity. I am told your wife experienced onset of the cardiac arrest during sexual intercourse?”

Nathan blinked at her. She appeared to be interested for scholarly reasons only, so he nodded. “Yes, she said it hurt, but she didn’t want me to stop, and then she grabbed her chest, came really hard, and passed out.”

“She’s already tested positive via finger stick for a low corsexamine reserve. We need to do everything we can to get that elevated. This includes both natural and artificial methods.” She laid the clipboard on the table. “This document releases the hospital in the event that the procedure does not work, or if you develop PTSD or an STI. This process may be very disturbing and upsetting, Nathan. You’ll be doing something that would be illegal in any other context.”

“An STI?”

“Not a concern. If she has one, you’ve already been exposed.”

Nathan accepted the pen she offered her. He really wasn’t sure what they were asking him to do, but it sounded like he would certainly be going home without Jessica if he didn’t agree to this procedure.

He scrawled his signature. “I still don’t know what you need me to do, but I’ll do it.”

“We need you to have sex with your dying wife.”

Less than three minutes later, Nathan was barefoot and dressed in scrubs. A nurse retrieved him from the consultation room and led him down the hall, stopping in front of a set of swinging doors.

“Your wife is in here, Mr. Spalding. Prepare yourself. Now, Dr. Perkins is prepared to masturbate you should you need the assistance. Do you understand?”

“Er… Sure, yeah.”

The nurse escorted him into the room. He could hear a buzzing and a high-pitched whine and saw his wife laid out on the table. She’d been intubated and had a blue tube holder obscuring part of her face. A nurse stood at her head, squeezing a bag. Another nurse was giving her forceful chest compressions. He could see her breasts wobble with each thrust, her large areolas looking dusky in the harsh light.

To his surprise, a third nurse was thrusting their hands into her abdomen, moving in opposition to the chest compressions. The two nurses were bobbing like a see-saw over his wife.

“Interposed abdominal compression CPR,” his escort said. “Studies show it improves vital organ perfusion. Getting oxygen to them, I mean. we’ve also got a cooling vest under her, though we’ve had to unzip it for this procedure.”

There was a curtain drawn across his wife, blocking her lower half from view. The doctor, a tall woman with piercing eyes over her mask, stepped out from behind the curtain. His escort reached out and put her hand on his arm. “I know that we discussed the procedure already, but this part will be shocking. Are you ready?”

He stared at her, then nodded. “Go ahead.”

The nurse pulled back the curtain, and he understood why she’d stopped to ask.

Jessica’s legs were spread, her feet strapped to a pair of exam stirrups. A fourth nurse stood with her back to him. He couldn’t see what she was doing until the doctor motioned for him to come around the table.

“This is…” He didn’t hear anything else she said. His eyes locked onto what was going on between his wife’s legs. The fourth nurse had a vibrator pressed to Jessica’s clit and an arm wrapped around her thigh so that she could pump her gloved fingers in and out of Jessica’s pussy.

The doctor motioned for him to step closer. From this angle he couldn’t see Jessica’s face, just the underside of her chin and the long line of her neck. The nurses pounded her chest and abdomen, making her entire body shake.

“Do you consent to this procedure as described to you?” the doctor asked.

“Y-yes…”

He was staring between Jessica’s thighs again. In addition to the nurse working her fingers in and out of his wife’s vagina, a butt plug had been inserted. He had a vague thought that Jessica would be annoyed with the “butt stuff.” He felt his cock twitch in the borrowed pants.

The doctor reached out and pulled the scrub pants down to his knees. She held her hands out to the nurse in charge of the IV, who squirted a generous dollop of lube into her hands.

Then she reached out and took his dick in her hand, pumping his semi with one hand and cupping his balls with the other.

“How are we on time?” The doctor called as she stroked him.

“Nearing twenty-five,” one of the nurses said.

He tried to block out the sounds, and the violence of what was happening to his wife. He focused instead on the sight of the nurse thrusting her fingers into his wife’s pussy. She had three fingers inside of his wife, pumping hard and fast, all while the vibrator buzzed away.

After a minute, though, his eyes drifted up to Jessica’s breasts. The nurse there was caving in her chest, making her breasts bob. Her nipples were hard, and he surprised himself by groaning as the doctor jacking him off slipped a lubed finger inside his asshole.

Another minute of this, and the doctor directed the nurse to “remove digital stimulation” before withdrawing her finger and helping him to position himself between his wife’s thighs. He’d grown rock hard, something he would have sworn should be impossible in these circumstances.

“Enter your wife now, please, Nathan,” the doctor said.

He pressed the head of his cock against Jessica’s lubricated vaginal opening and then sheathed himself in one motion. He could feel the vibrations from the vibrator through her body. He pumped once into her before he restrained himself and glanced up at the doctor.

“I don’t expect you to try to match compression speed. Just keep a solid rhythm,” the doctor said. “It’s time for another dose of epi, then we will progress with this technique in two minutes increments. Remember, sir, you must withdraw if or when we tell you to so that we may use the defibrillator.”

He had a front row seat to the more traditional interventions going on, his hips pumping automatically as he took everything in. He saw the nurse assigned to medication press her thumb down, releasing medication into his wife’s IV. The nurse at Jessica’s head never stopped squeezing the bag. The two nurses working on her in the middle looked like they were making putty out of her internal organs. One thrusted down hard into her sternum, making her ribcage flex. Then, as that nurse raised their hands, the other would plunge his hands into her abdomen.

“After the next analysis, I need Parker and Bryan to switch, and Kyle and Marcy,” the doctor said.

Nathan wrapped his hands around Jessica’s thighs, pulling himself deeper into her. Her thighs were cool but her pussy was warm. He wondered how long he was expected to last in this situation, or if he should even try to cum at all.

“Pause compressions and vaginal thrusts,” the doctor said. Nathan forced himself to stop thrusting, though he remained buried inside of her. “She’s still asystolic. Resume compressions and thrusts. Push epinephrine, and ready the corsexamine.”

A nurse moved to the side, scribbling something in the chart, then returned with a syringe, which he handed to the doctor.

“Alright, everyone compressions and vaginal thrusts pause while we insert the needle.” Nathan stopped thrusting with difficulty. The doctor uncapped the syringe, watched while the nurse cleaned the skin on Jessica’s chest. Then the doctor palpated her way down Jessica’s bruised sternum before finding the spot she was looking for and inserting the needle.

She depressed the plunger, withdrew the needle, and sat the syringe to the side. “Corsexamine administered. Resume compressions and vaginal thrusts. I’m adding nipple stimulation now. We analyze again in two minutes.”

The doctor reached around the hands pumping Jessica’s chest and began rubbing and pinching Jessica’s erect nipples.

Jessica

She couldn’t move or open her eyes. But as awareness trickled back into her brain, she felt everything.

A tube down her throat. Air regularly inflating her lungs. Fingers pinching and rubbing her nipples. Strong hands on her sternum and her abdomen, forcing blood to pump from her heart with deep, painful compressions. She felt powerful vibrations on her clit, and a feeling of fullness in her rectum. Hands gripped her thighs, and she realized someone was fucking her vaginally, their thrusts hard and fast.

The sensations were overwhelming; Jessica could barely think with everything going on. Her body was responding regardless. The passage between her thighs was slick, her arousal unmitigated by the crackling pain in her chest.

The vibration pattern on her clit changed. She would have moaned if she could have taken an independent breath. Her muscles began to tense; her toes tingled. A whoosh of air inflated her lungs.

“Let us know if you feel her body orgasm,” a woman said. “Pause compressions and thrusts. Where are we on time?”

“Thirty minutes,” a nurse announced. "Two since administration of the medication.”

“We should have v-fib by now,” the doctor said. “Dammit, Jessica. Resume compressions and thrusts. Switching to oral stimulation.”

Warm, wet lips closed around her right nipple and applied suction. Her vagina pulsed.

“Attending to the other nipple now,” a male voice said, and then a second pair of lips locked onto her left nipple.

“I think she’s getting close!” A familiar voice said, sounding shocked.

Nathan?

The sensations built. Even the painful chest compressions began to arouse her. Her chest flexing, abdomen bulging. The pressure of the abdominal thrusts. The feeling of air artificially sating her lungs. The hands on her body. The mouths on her breasts. The pulsing vibrations on her clit. The warm, hard dick thrusting in and out of her.

“Hyperventilate her,” a woman’s voice said, mouth briefly pulling away from Jessica’s breast. The rush of air in her lungs increased, as though she were gasping for air just before orgasm.

“Increase the power of the vibrator.”

Oh, God…

“Nathan, don’t hold back. As hard and as fast as you can.”

Nathan…

He started jack hammering her, slamming his dick into her over and over again. Jessica was completely paralyzed. Normally she’d be meeting him thrust for thrust, writhing with pleasure. The sensations built and built and built until they crashed over her like a tsunami. Her body released a rush of fluid and her vaginal muscles contracted so hard they hurt.

“She’s coming!” Nathan cried out. She felt him spill himself into her, his fingers gripping her thighs to bruising. “God! So am I!”

“Pause compressions and thrusts while I analyze.”

Jessica felt Nathan withdraw, heard him breathing hard.

“V-fib! Continue compressions, charge to 200! Nathan, don’t touch her, hold tight! Okay, everyone clear!” The nurse squeezing the bag unhooked it and joined the rest of them in stepping back, arms raised. “Clear!”

There was a noise she couldn’t quite explain and then a mule kicked her in the chest, knocking her unconscious.

Nathan

Jessica’s torso jerked and the stirrups rattled. He watched as the doctor pressed her fingers against a spot in the crease of Jessica’s leg near her groin. Marcy grabbed Jessica’s wrist, and Kyle plunged his fingers into her neck. Parker reconnected the bag to Jessica’s tube and squeezed it

“Sinus!” Dr. Perkins shouted, looking up at the marker. “Got her! It worked! Close up the cooling vest, get her out of the stirrups, call neuro…”

Nathan sat down heavily on the stool. It was an odd place to sit; Jessica’s legs were still spread wide above his head. No one had explained exactly what had happened, but he gathered she had a normal heartbeat now. He covered his face with his hands and sat like that for a while.

“Nathan.”

He looked up, dropping his hands. One of the nurses, Marcy, was leaning over him.

“Why don’t you come see your wife for a minute before we move her? She’s still unconscious, but she may hear you.” She reached out her hand and helped him up, keeping a steadying hand on his elbow.

Jessica looked bad. Her body was bruised and pale, and her eyes were closed. There was a nurse still steadily squeezing the bag, inflating her chest artificially.

“You can touch her,” Nurse Marcy said.

He reached for her hand and then leaned close to her ear.

“Hey, babe. It’s Nathan. Hey, I love you. You’re going to be okay. You have to be. I’m gonna call our parents and tell them… some… of what just happened. I need you to work on waking up before your mom gets here. We both know how she is.

“I love you, did I say that? Listen, babe. Listen. You won’t believe what just happened…”

A related story: Sexual Healing.

#resus writing #cpr resus #female resus #s-cpr

149 notes · View notes

defectivehero · 2 years ago

Note

Dear Defective Hero,

Tis I the ominous crab. It’s my birthday tomorrow. May I have a silly villain and a serious hero? I think it would be nice to see villain just screwing around and seeing hero being annoyed.

Thanks,

🦀🔪

happy birthday!!! and of course you can! this is a bit short, but i wanted to make sure i posted it on the correct day for you. :)

“Gods, I’m so sick of this shit,” the hero announces as they enter the room, throwing their coat over to the coat rack and flopping down on a chair. They hear the telltale sound of their jacket falling to the ground, evidently slipping from the hook. This minor inconvenience only serves to anger them further, of course.

Their sidekick, Javier, laughs at their pain. There’s a hint of sympathy in the smile that takes over his face, but it fades within a few moments and morphs into mild amusement. The hero lets out another irritated groan and Javier finally acknowledges them, albeit with a look of disinterest and disgruntlement. “What’d Nightmare do this time?”

Nightmare, the hero scoffs internally. The title perfectly fits the villain. They’re an entire nightmare of a nemesis, a nightmare to interact with. Even the mention of their enemy’s name makes their fists clench and their lips pull tight in a thin line.

They don’t realize that Javier is still waiting for a response until they hear a pointed cough. The hero sighs. “They’re threatening to destroy Nathan’s. You know- the place we go to for dinner on Friday’s? I don’t understand. That doesn’t even.. Why would that benefit them?”

Javier stares at them in evident disbelief, eyes wide and lips parted slightly. The hero sits up more and glares at him expectantly, waiting for him to explain himself. “Have you ever wondered why Nightmare annoys you so much?” Somehow, his statement doesn’t clear anything up in the slightest.

“Honestly, I think it’s just because they exist,” the hero responds, tapping their chin in thought. The more they think about it, the more they begin to realize that the villain just always annoys them. “The mere thought of their existence irritates me.”

“Okay, wow,” Javier sighs deeply, clearly not expecting their answer. The hero shrugs. He asked for the truth, after all. “That’s not exactly what I meant. Why do you think Nightmare goes out of their way to annoy you?”

The hero feels as if their sidekick already knows the answer to the question, judging from the knowing look on his face. They stop for a moment. It feels like a trick question. They try their best to think of an answer, but they can’t come up with anything. Ultimately, Javier must get tired of waiting, because he breaks the silence.

“They want your attention,” their sidekick says, crossing one leg over the other and leveling them with a rather intense look. The hero’s heart races in their chest. No, surely that’s not the reason the villain is doing all these foolish things. Javier continues, oblivious to their internal breakdown. “Normally, you never give them the time of day. So, the villain instead resorts to doing things that irritate and frustrate you, because that’s the only time you pay them any mind.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” the hero groans, throwing their hands up in the air in a brief fit of childish frustration. They shake their head and walk back towards the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to stop Nightmare from destroying the only fucking restaurant in this city that I can actually tolerate!” They don’t bother to wait to hear their sidekick’s argument, instead stepping out into the hall and closing the door behind them. They have a restaurant to save.

Meanwhile, Javier watches the hero leave and shakes his head in disbelief. How the hero hasn’t worked it out yet, he has no idea.

endnotes below!

the hero: I just don't understand. Why do they keep doing this?! Javier, their sidekick, sighing to himself: I need a drink for this conversation.

the hero is completely oblivious lmao.

anyway, thanks for reading!

TAG LIST: @lateuplight @wit-is-wisdom @greengableswriting @whump-me-all-night-long @noawhite @rekhyt-of-arcadia @the-blind-one-speaks @sufferfictionalcharacters @basically-psyduck @alexkolax @subval01 @emerald-blade @felicia609 @surplus-of-sarcasm @ilickedanenvelopeandilikedit @a-chaotic-gremlin @unknownogre @prompt-fills-and-writing-spills

click here if you’d like to be on/off the tag list!

#defectivehero #hero x villain #heroes and villains #hero and villain #writing #short fic #snippet #creative writing #writers on tumblr #other tags im definitely forgetting

90 notes · View notes

theartofimagining13 · 2 years ago

Photo

REQUESTED BY: @clockgirl94

WRITTEN BY: A.Wölf.

AMBIENCE: Mountain rain

NOTES: Forgive me for taking forever with these requests. Here’s the prompt list because I know you’ve forgotten about it but then again, I did change your request to Nathan instead of Oscar. (I HAD HER PERMISSION lol) and the PoV because it’s been insert since we started because this is the end (I think) to these Nathan drabbles.

“…That’s what you and this fucking painting have in common.”

Nathan had been speaking and cursing for an eternity while standing in front of his Jackson Pollock and all you could do while strapped to that chair behind him was stare out the big windows to your right and lose yourself in the chaotic storm taking place outside in the mountains. Your long silence made Nathan turn around and cock his head at you.

“What?” He suddenly asked. “No snarky comments today?”

But you continued to ignore him and look the other way.

“Has that big mouth of yours shrunken all of a sudden?” He pushed then scoffed. “Hopefully not, otherwise, my huge cock won’t fit in it.”

But still, no reaction from you.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” He said and you felt his index finger and his thumb pulling your chin to meet his brown eyes. You were surprised to find a hint of worry in them. “You sick or something?”

Nathan put his right hand on your forehead but you moved away with a bored look.

“Yes, I am fucking sick and tired of your games, Nathan.”

“Oh, there she is!” He sang louder than necessary.

“How long are you planning on keeping me here? Haven’t you had enough? What are you trying to prove?”

“You know what? The silent treatment from a minute ago wasn’t so bad after all.” Nathan said then began to walk away.

You let out a dry giggle and shook your head.

“You’re a fucking joke.”

Nathan, as expected, wasn’t going to ignore that so he turned around with a menacing look on his face.

“What’d you fucking say to me?”

“You think you’re so smart working on your AI and the way you present yourself to the world but, Nathan, what you’ve done to me speaks volumes about your psyche. That narcissism of yours and God complex that make you think you can control everything, control me, even the future of mankind.” You added with another giggle. “But the truth is you can’t even control yourself, not with me, and you know why, Nathan?”

“You’re going to stop talking right now if you know what’s good for you.” He took a step closer to you as he threatened.

“Because no matter how many robots you build and how many prizes you win, you’ll always be too scared to say that four letter word.”

“Shut your mouth.”

“You’d rather fuck Kyoko and have me here against my will than say sorry for being a shitty boyfriend in the past and maybe ask for a second chance like any rational human being. You make fun of my daddy issues, Nathan, but the reality is that we’re both equally fucked up because we’re in lo-”

Your sentence was cut short after he suddenly reached you and gripped your chin while staring into your soul.

“I said… shut the fuck up.”

He was shaking and his face was twitching with anger but he didn’t utter another word and stared at your lips instead.

“The truth is…” You continued in a whisper. “you’re terrified because you love me as much as I love you.”

Once you said the words out loud they lingered in the air and it was as if the storm had lost all sound and you could only hear Nathan’s agitated breathing in front of you.

“It’s why you did this. It’s why you won’t let me go. You’re scared that if you untie me, I will just leave you again.” You added. “But I didn’t leave you because I stopped loving you, Nathan. I left because you never said the three words that would’ve made me stay.”

For the first time since you had met him, you saw true emotion in Nathan’s eyes but that didn’t stop him from brusquely grabbing a fistful of your hair. He was scowling at you, speechless and out of breath, until he knelt on the floor and crashed his lips against yours in a desperate and chaotic kiss. And without breaking apart and while his tongue explored your mouth like it hadn’t in a long time, he began to untie you. Your hands immediately found their way to the back of his neck finally touching him.

You stood up from the chair only to straddle him on the floor as you kept making out and you could feel how hard he was underneath you.

“I love you. I fucking love you and I hate myself for it.” Incorrigibly proud Nathan whispered with shut eyes and between lip brushes.

“I’m sorry, I did not hear you.” You joked.

“Don’t push your fucking luck.” He warned. “You got what you wanted. It’s my turn.”

He pulled away and stood up all of a sudden and the heated moment was stalled. You stared at him, still on your knees.

“You look so good right now. You know what I want.” He added.

You cocked your head.

“Beg me to fuck you.” He said with a hint of a mischievous smile.

#Prompt list request #Request #Nathan Bateman #Nathan Bateman x reader #Oscar Isaac

122 notes · View notes

yourimagines · 1 year ago

Text

Vegetables

* English is not my first language I apologise

* Triggers: fluff

- Summary; your son doesn’t like to eat vegetables, Nate reminds him every day he needs to eat them.

Nate POV

Junior was sitting at the dining table, looking disgusted at his plate. “I don’t like this mommy.” He pushed his plate away. “But these are baby carrots.” She says while he shakes his head. “No?” “No.” He crossed his arm over each other, pouting at her. She signs and picks up his plate. “Can I go play mommy.” “No.” They both looked at me. “Put the plate back.” She did what I said, placing the plate in front of junior. “Eat your vegetables.” Junior nodded and ate them with a disgusted face. “Next time you listen to your mama.” I picked up the empty plate and placed it in the dishwasher. “Can I play now.” “Yes you can.” She say, he jumps off the chair and runs off to his room. “Don’t be to harsh on him.” She wrapped her arms around my torso. “I’m not, he needs his vegetables.” I grabbed one of her hands and placed a kiss on it. “You’re to soft to him.” She giggles causing me to turn around to face her, she hugs me while looking up at me with big puppy eyes. “I can’t help it Nate, he’s a mini version of you.” I smiled at her. “He is a mini me.” I kissed her head.

————

“Give me the plate before your father sees it.” I heard her saying, I stood up and walked to the kitchen. I saw the lid of the trash can closing. “Did you eat your vegetables?” Junior nodded. “He did eat a few of his vegetables.” She was cleaning up the kitchen. “Can I play?” “Yes.” “Thanks daddy.” He hopped off and runs to his room. “You threw them away.” I leaned against the counter. “I did, but he really tried Nathan.” She walked over to me. “You are a sneaky little fucker.” She smiles and hugs me. “But you love me.” I pulled her close, kissing her head. “Of course I love you.”

————

“Junior, stop playing with your food.” I looked up from my plate, junior was tossing the broccoli around his plate. “I don’t like broccoli.” He pouted at her. “Junior.” He looked at me, I raised my eyebrows at him. He looked down at his plate. “But daddy…” I stood up from the dining table and walked to the fridge. I picked a can filled with home made applesauce. I closed the fridge and placed it on the table. “I don’t wanna hear ya anymore.” I said while starting to eat again. Junior just smiled as he opened the can and puts some applesauce over the broccoli. Y/N placed a hand on my thigh causing me to look at her, she smiles at me and pats my thigh.

————

Junior and I were waiting for the food. “It’s something new, it’s courgette out the oven.” Junior looked disgusted at the courgette. “It doesn’t look good.” She shushed him. She gave him a plate first. He looked at me. “Just try buddy.” She gave me a plate. “Thanks.” She smiles and makes an plate for herself. Junior shoved his plate away. “Iew.” He grabbed his glass of water and swallowed a piece away. “It’s not that bad junior.” I picked up a piece and putted in my mouth. ‘He’s right, it’s not good.’ I putted my hand in front my mouth and coughed. “You want some water?” I nodded at her. She filled my glass and gave it to me. “Is it that bad?” She tried it by herself. “Oh, way too much salt.” She stood up to grabbed a glass. “See, I already knew it by just looking at it.” “Oh please junior.” She said annoyed. I smiled at him. “Daddy, do we get McDonald’s now?” He whispered at me. “I think so buddy.” I whispered back. “Yes.” He made a small fist bump in the air. “Okay, let’s go to the McDonald’s.” She said while throwing away the food. “I’ll grab the keys.” Junior sprinted off. “It’s okay baby.” I helped her with the dishes. “I never try something new again what involves vegetables.” We both laugh. “I’m ready.” Junior stood in the door opening, shoes on, jacket on and holding the keys up in the air. “Let’s go to the McDonald’s then.”

#x reader #imagines #imagine #ufc x reader #x y/n #nate diaz imagine #nate diaz x reader #y/n x character #x y/n fluff #x you fluff #x you #x yn #y/n #y/n imagines #mma imagine

11 notes · View notes

knowltonsrangers · 2 years ago

Text

scrapped

[a/n: this is a scrapped chapter one of my gwash fic infectious. the first three paragraphs are stolen from what would be infectious ch1, but it felt weird taking it out. pls enjoy, I really loved this idea and I’m sorry I never pursued it :,) reader is f.]

TURN!George Washington x F!Reader

It’s not the setting he had wrote down when he was a child, on that little piece of white paper with black writing on the top.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

He can’t remember exactly what he put—a agriculturalist, maybe, something along the lines, but he knows he did not put this.

But it wasn’t that he hated this, no, it’s just in moments like these, maybe he wishes he was on a farm somewhere and was planting carrots.

“Washington, we’ve got problems!”

The door slams open, and in bursts Hamilton, waving a fistful of papers around as Lafayette follows him inside, quietly shutting the door over.

The man in question sits, thrumming his fingers along the top of his desk, watching as email after email pops up on his computer screen. As fast as he could blink, another appeared, then another.

The “Mr.” had fallen off Hamilton’s inquires years ago, after they had been well acquainted enough. Washington, himself, never cared if it was there in the first place, usually forgoing formalities when it came to himself anyways.

“Yes, so I understand. I have been notified by every department in the office.”

“We only have three, it’s not that many,”

They were, by all means, working on a small crew. Just a tiny district location of sorts—part of larger corporation—working on some rich bigs dime to develop security software.

As an old man at heart, he quite frankly had no idea what anyone was talking about at any given time. He was responsible for the numbers, the managing part, pertaining to checking that everything was right on the regular.

“You don’t seem so worried,”

George swears he can see Hamilton’s eye twitch, so he pushes aside his woes and drops his elbows onto his desk.

“I’ve just got the news alert, yes, the stock dropped significantly. I apologize if it seems I am ignoring it. My mind is not quite here today.”

“Are you not feeling well?”

Lafayette speaks from behind Hamilton, rounding the man to question him.

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

The sound of the phone echoes through the room, and he feels his hand reach over and pick up the device on autopilot.

“Washington.”

The person on the other end is speaking to him, but he’s hardly registered what they’ve said.

The air suddenly feels tighter, as if the realization dawns on him. He feels both Lafayette’s and Hamilton’s eyes on him, as he ends the call as calmly as he can.

“…Sir?”

“The stock is the least of our problems.”

It seems like such a difficult situation to enter, walking into a place that has already found it’s groove to now find solace in a now chaotic office.

Chaos would be an understatement, it appears, as you push into the double doors.

Paper…paper was everywhere. The printer seemed to be shoveling out nonsense, phones ringing off the hook, and the usual bustle of an once quiet floor now peaked at an extreme level.

“Oh…”

Your lips feel dry, but you hike your bag higher for the sake of trying to make yourself feel a bit better.

“Are you lost?”

Not realizing anyone had even walked behind you, you jump and swiftly turn around.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“N-no! It’s okay, Um, is this the subset of Culper Productions?”

“Ah, again, my apologies. No one usually comes in here looking for us.”

The man laughs, tucking a folder under his arm.

“I’m Nathan, pleasure to meet you.”

He extends a hand, and you happily shake it.

“I’m y/n, nice to meet you!”

Nathan smiles warmly.

“You seem to have caught us at a horrible time. But who are you to report to? I can take you to them,”

“Thank you! I appreciate that, I’m supposed to meet a Mister George Washington?”

“Boss, huh? Okay, I can do that. Follow me.”

He starts walking and you briskly follow, feeling a twinge of anxiety creep into your stomach.

“You’re kinda catching him on a bad day, so please don’t take this interaction for who he is. He’s a real nice guy, intimidating, but super nice.”

Suddenly, you’re in front of the door that has no inkling that it belonged to the man, George Washington. Just a wooden door, tucked away in the corner of the small office.

“I—thank you Nathan. I look forward to working with you,”

You swallow thickly. Nathan pats your shoulder.

“You too, y/n!”

As fast as he came, he was gone, and all that was left was for you to reach up and knock, but you never got the chance.

The door flies open, and a enraged redhead stands in the doorway, shouting things over his shoulder to someone inside.

Something tells you to step to the side, and as you do, he barrels past, waving around a folder as a blonde man follows quickly behind him, chattering away about something. From your spot, neither seem to notice you.

Now with the door open, and your heart in your stomach, you slide into the open doorway, knocking on the door.

“No, Tallmadge, I do not have the numbers from the tenth, you asked me three times already today.”

He…he would be your definition of ‘a man in authority’ if you could place a label on him.

His voice is a deep baritone, sitting behind a desk that is flooded with stacks of papers and folders. He has three empty cups of coffee in front of him, a fourth in his hand, broad shoulders sagged with pressure.

You clear your throat.

“Sorry, I don’t think I’m the person you’re looking for.”

His blue eyes yank up from the computer, jolted for a moment as he blinks wildly at you.

“My apologies ma’am. How may I help you?”

Nathan would be absolutely right regarding him being a bit intimidating, but not about catching him on a bad day.

His voice changes, a lighter tone, less…stressed, comes forward, as he stands from behind his mountain of work. He’s tall, very tall-an aura of authority just radiating from him.

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I was sent from the Delaware office, I’m here to help.”

Washington walks around his desk, crossing the room to with a perplexed look on his face.

“That…today is the fourteenth…isn’t it?”

“So it would be, yes!” You chirp, and Mr. Washington sighs deeply, a rumble of forced laughter following shortly after.

“I am so, so terribly sorry. I knew of this, I-you’re Miss y/n l/n.”

He extends his hand.

“y/n is just fine, but it really is a pleasure to get to work here, Mr. Washington.”

You watch the way his large hand envelops yours, handshake as firm as you’d imagined it be.

“You are very understanding, thank you y/n. I sincerely appreciate that,”

“Thank you! It’s my job to help in any way. Just send me wherever, and I’ll do what I can.”

The smile the man sends you makes the anxiety disappear from your stomach almost instantly.

“I would offer a tour, maybe introduce you to some of the office-but may I steal you for an hour or so? I’ve misplaced some papers and my phone won’t stop ringing. As I’m sure you’ve realized, I’ve also been nagged to death by Tallmadge about these charts from the tenth…”

When you left Delaware, the office was being dissolved and majorly merged with another office. For some reason, being the second receptionist wouldn’t fly at the new office, so you were sent to the smaller location that never really needed one.

But now, you can understand the need for it.

“Of course! Here, let me.”

Washington was shuffling through a stack of papers, mumbling about the tenth when you set your bag down on the chair in the corner.

“Paper pushing is my expertise. I can get all this organized, you work on anything else that needs to be done.”

Washington looks at you as if you’ve said something impossible.

“I can’t possibly ask you to organize this atrocity y/n, not on your first day, and especially not after I can’t even offer you a proper introduction to the company.”

“You look like you need a break from searching through papers.”

You walk over to stand next to him, swallowing a little thickly as you realize just how much taller he was than you. Nevertheless, you reach outwards, grabbing a stack and begin thumbing through the papers.

“Where have you been all this time? The Delaware branch must be so sorry to have lost you,”

Washington rumbles, and you can’t fight the twinge of sadness that pulls forth at the thought. Instead, you offer a laugh, neatly shuffling the papers before moving on to the next stack.

“Yeah…about that. Let’s just say, I’m very happy to be here. Extremely happy to help.”

As you catch the date of the tenth, you grab the packet by the staple and pull the papers out.

“Here you go, the data from the tenth for Tallmadge.”

Washington did nothing to mask his surprise.

You, in turn, watch the way his hand comes up to gently take the folder from you, thumbing it open, as if he just doesn’t quite believe you.

“My, y/n. If you’ve just saved me two hours of looking, alongside hours of Tallmagde’s droning, I could honestly be the happiest man alive.”

“Here to help.”

You reiterate, smile brimming as you glance up at him sparingly.

“I’ll get this all de-cluttered and organized. Please, you work on whatever has the most precedence.”

If anything, George knew that he and you would get along just fine. And, he would make sure that no one in this office abused the absolute gem of a personality that you possessed, because it seemed you were just so sweet for your own good.

“Maybe I can finally clean my desk…”

He turns, and you peek around him, finding once more the same manila folders filled with white sheets of printer paper.

“You get started, I’ll help.”

[a/n: I have had this so long in my drafts, and if anything, this could stand alone as a gwash fic if i never get back to it :) sorry again for the repeated intro. mwah.]

#sul writes #turn amc #turn washington's spies #nathan hale #benjamin tallmadge #alexander hamilton #marquis de lafayette #turn george washington #george washington #george washington x reader

29 notes · View notes

casspurrjoybell-24 · 8 months ago

Text

My Unwanted Mate - Chapter 22 - Part 1

*Warning Adult Content*

Tatum Briar

'He hates us... more than he already did.'

The way Calvin's expression hardened at the sight of us terrified me.

The smile he wore at the sight of his pup vanished and my own disappeared with it.

There was no taking back what we've done but I had already known that when I let Nathan leave with the pup.

There was no excuse, no apology that would make up for this.

Nathan didn't have the same thoughts however.

He had convinced himself that Calvin wasn't just looking for his pup but also us.

I didn't have the heart to remind him of our mate's rejection and maybe that made me just as delusional.

"Papa," Benjamin wiggled in his happiness at the sight of his father, unaware of the horrible situation we'd put him in the middle of.

With shaking hands, I reached for the pup to get him to sit, not wanting him to fall.

The threatening growl that left Calvin's throat made me flinch away as humans paused to look around in confusion.

I was surprised when a similar growl left Nathan as he jumped out of his seat.

His hopeful smile was gone, his back cutting off my view of Calvin as my twin stood in front of me protectively.

I could see that his own hands were shaking at his side, clenching and unclenching.

Benjamin looked between us curiously, not knowing what was happening but able to feel the tension within the air.

The pup whimpered, plopping down in his seat.

The sound of our mate's footsteps grew closer and my hand reached up to fist the back of Nathan's shirt.

The anger radiating off of the more dominant wolf almost had me falling to my knees.

He's going to kill us for this.

Nathan picked Benjamin up, holding the pup on his hip before Calvin could reach us.

It was an attempt to keep the male from attacking, a useless attempt.

Benjamin cried when he was snatched from Nathan's hip, abruptly.

There wasn't a second for either of us to react before the big male punched my twin.

Nathan's head jerked back, a sickening crack making bile rise into my throat.

My twin's screaming, the pup's crying, the growing crowd, brought me into a panic and I couldn't breathe.

"Fuck," Calvin raged, backing away from my twin who was holding onto his jaw sobbing.

I was too scared to look at him, my concern solely on my mate who was in pain.

Humans were staying clear of the huge male but some had taken out their phones.

We couldn't afford to deal with human law enforcement.

I needed to get us away but I felt trapped against the ice cream parlor window, my only exit being to pass Calvin.

I was too scared to get anywhere near him.

"Nate, Nate," I cried, trying to get his attention to calm him down.

His jaw was starting to swell, turning a deep blue... I knew it was broken.

Nathan only cried harder, his eyes wide as he started in the direction of our mate.

"I've called the police," a woman shouted, thinking she was helping.

"What the fuck did you do?" Alpha Robert said, pushing through the crowd of humans, his words directed towards Calvin.

Our Mate stammered over his words, seemingly at a loss while he held onto his crying pup.

"Go, now," Robby growled.

Nathan slumped and I only had time to pull him against me before we both hit the ground.

Alpha Robert was there in seconds, lifting my unconscious twin off of me.

I panicked thinking he was taking him from me.

"We need to get him to the clinic, Tatum," Alpha's voice was soft, clearly trying not to frighten me any more than I already was.

"He hit him," I cried, my whole body trembling as I remembered the sickening snap of bone.

"I know but I need you to show me where you parked so we can get Nathan help."

I nodded and pushed myself up from the ground onto unsteady feet.

My chest burned with every inhale but I needed to make sure Nathan was okay... he had to be okay.

Alpha Robert stayed close behind as I led the way to the car, glancing behind every few seconds to check that he still held Nathan.

Blood had seeped from between my twin's lips and I whimpered at the sight before hurrying my stride.

The car ride back into pack lands was a blur as I held Nathan in the backseat.

The scene kept playing over and over again in my head.

Our mate hurt him... the one person that was never supposed to and it was all my fault.

I should've never gone back to Calvin's with the Luna.

Nathan wanted to leave, we were going to leave.

I should have stayed with my twin and none of this would've happened.

Alpha Robert didn't say a word as he drove.

Occasionally he'd sigh and run his fingers through his hair but aside from that, nothing... I had no idea what was going to happen.

They'd punish us for taking the pup no doubt.

Back home that meant public lashings.

I didn't know what this Alpha would do to us and it terrified me all the more.

I didn't realize I was still trembling until Nathan whimpered from the movement, his head resting in my lap.

The right side of his jaw and cheek were swollen, the bruise almost black against his skin.

The sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach.

I should've stepped in the way, I should've reacted faster and tried to stop this from happening.

When the car pulled in front of the pack house there were already Werewolves there waiting for us.

A male in blue scrubs opened the back door once the Alpha got out and I attempted to hold Nathan closer to me.

"Tatum let the doctors take him. They need to see what they can do before he heals with his jaw displaced."

I knew what the Alpha said was true but I didn't want to be separated.

Nathan needed help though.

Unwrapping my arms I let the medic take my mate as he gently pulled him from the backseat.

I rushed to follow, my eyes glued to my twin's unconscious form as the infirmity staff rushed him inside.

I followed until a door shut in my face and I was left with the instructions to wait.

Sitting on the worn chair, my eyes stared ahead blankly at the clock on the wall.

The silence was uninterrupted for what felt like hours... hours that I spent in constant worry.

My nails had been bitten down until they bled but I didn't notice until a throat was cleared.

A pregnant female sat on one of the couches across from me, a maternity magazine in hand.

I wasn't sure when she had gotten there.

She glanced at my hand that was against my mouth and I quickly dropped it in embarrassment.

I didn't know what was happening with Nathan.

No one ever came to give me any updates.

If we had been able to complete our bond, I would be able to reach out to him but we hadn't... we couldn't.

My fingers ended up back between my teeth, my worry only intensifying the longer I sat here.

There were Werewolves in the hall talking lowly amongst themselves and I strained my ears to try to pick up on the conversation.

I couldn't make out anything they were saying though.

I waited another hour before giving in and pulling my cell-phone out of my pocket.

"Hey, pup," Daddy answered, excitedly.

I couldn't hold back my tears at the sound of his familiar voice.

So I told him everything.

He didn't interrupt me once, only listened silently as I cried.

When I had finished and was trying to catch my breath, I heard him growl before there was some shuffling.

"Baby doll," Momma must've taken the phone, his soft voice making me cry harder.

"It's okay. We'll be there soon."

1 note · View note

angelsdvsts · 11 months ago

Text

"i know, i know -- my bad." he puts his hand up in defense, knowing that he didn't really mean those harsh words. he was simply just teasing the two boys with their sudden lady friends that they've encountered. "like east said, you keep doing you.. and let us know once you're out of the friendzone," lips curves into a smile as he fist pumps in the air. his attention moves over towards easton, brow rose in curiosity. after hearing his words, his eyes shortly falls back over towards kaiden as he burst out in laughter as well. "she thinks your an angel? oh god, that poor girl doesn't know what's coming." he shakes his head, trying to refrain himself about making a comment about how she might soften up the other. "i'm happy to hear that i'm not left behind in the dust of best friends.." nathan trails off dramatically, always glad to have a guys night with the both of them. lips curves into a smile at kaiden's words, nodding his head. "no relationships.. yet, wait till valentine's day rolls around." he teases, moving his arms over his chest as he rises a brow. "hear that? iri, he already has a nickname for her!" he exclaims as laughter coats his throat. "y'know what? we would totally throw a killer party.. we should do that. i need to meet this female friend of yours and kaiden we already know you're a lover, so i'm excited to meet your future girl."

"hey! don't be a dick, that's my forte." easton said pointing over at nathan before looking at kaiden, "he didn't mean it keep doing your 'caring for the girl your pining after' be better than us." he said causing kaiden to furrow his brows shaking his head looking between both his best friends, "we're not here to argue about us hanging out with other people but like i'm with nate on this, how'd you manage to win her over?" he said looking at easton now. closing his eyes easton let his head fall back, "when did we become gossiping school girls?" he muttered before he looked between both men, "i don't know how i did it, but i'm not questioning it. she considers me an angel, i don't know why but she's cool to be around." he shrugs then and for a brief moment silence takes over before kaiden bursts into laughter not being able to even comment on what easton had just said before he looked at nathan, "of course we showed up. its bro's night it's tradition." he smiled before nodding his head at nathan's explanation, "ah okay that makes sense. but don't worry we're not in relationships just friends. even this weird one." he tilts his head at easton who just rolls his eyes. "oh my god iri is not mysterious. if anyone is mysterious its-" he paused because he wanted to drop it. "yes lets just all go to winter wonderland or if that doesn't work we host a new years thing invite them all and if they get along great no one is fifth wheeling and you both could see that i'm just friends with a girl."

#drcamsx #( &&. nathan | interactions )#( &&. nathan | easton | kaiden )

6 notes · View notes

leossmoonn · 3 years ago

Text

Scott’s Girl

masterlist

pairing - lucas scott x fem!reader

type - fluff, angst

note / request - taken from one of my concepts! “Stealing an idea from the person who requested the matt concept lol - jealous Lucas Scott concept? Fluff not smut please :)” this is my first lucas fic! sorry about my baskteball terminology, after 6 seasons i still know nothing lol. enjoy!

summary - you see a new side to lucas as a rival teammate talks to you

warnings / includes - mild language, poor basketball terminology, ending alluding to sex. not edited, if u see spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes lmk lol

————

*gif isn’t mine*

“And the Ravens score another three-pointer. Something must be in the air tonight. This is the first night in a long night where they are ahead of the game.”

“Woo, go Lucas!” You cheer. You jump up and down in the bleachers, cupping your hands around your mouth as you continued to shout.

Lucas smiles at you, lifting his arm and pointing at you while blowing you a kiss. The crowd awes, Brooke and Haley cheering for you two and making kissy faces and noises. You roll your eyes, deciding to walk down the bleachers and over to your friends.

“Thank you for drawing attention to me,” you say. “Oh, please, you already had all eyes on you,” Brooke smirks.

“Yeah, you and Lucas are becoming the “It” couple,” Haley says.

“Awe, are jealous, Hales,” you grin. She rolls her eyes. “The opposite, actually.”

You shrug, “I’m just being a supportive girlfriend, is all. Nothing to it.”

“I heard the other team wants girlfriends just like you,” Brooke says. You raise your brow. “can’t their moms cheer for them or something?”

“Well, they don’t really want to kiss their mom’s after winning, do they?” Brooke smirks. You grimace, “ew, Brooke!”

“What? Am I wrong?”

You and Haley shake your heads with a smile.

“Oh, speaking of basketball players, douchy one coming at 12 o’clock.” Haley juts her chin behind you.

“You can just say it’s Nathan,” you remark. You spin around on your heel, surprised to find that it was indeed not Nathan. It was a player from the other team. “Oh, hi,” you greet shyly.

“Hey. You’re the Raven’s number one fan, right?” He asks.

“Oh, is that what they’re calling me now?” You raise your brow.

He chuckles, “I’m afraid so. What’s your real name?”

“I’m Y/n. And I take it you’re number 13 from the Knights?” You ask.

“That is me. But my alias is Ryan,” he answers. You give him a kind smile. “Nice to meet you. Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but why are you talking to me?”

“Well, I’m benched for the rest of the game, and you finally came down,” he explains. “Oh? You know, you could’ve just come up. Nobody was sitting next to me,” you say.

“I’m a little shy,” he shrugs. “Nothing wrong with that,” you say. You turn towards the basketball court, clasping your hands in front of you as you continue to watch the game. You meet eyes with Lucas, giving him a wave and a smile as he passes you.

“How long have you two been together?” Ryan asks.

“About six months,” you answer. “Oh, so you’ve been with him before he was a basketball player?” He asks.

“He’s always been one. Just not for this team.”

“Ah,” he nods. “Where did he play before?”

“Why are you so interested in him? Shouldn’t you be watching your team and rooting for them?” You turn to face him.

He lets out a little laugh. “I’m rooting for them inside of my head. The shooting guard and I communicate by telepathy.”

You can’t help but giggle. “Oh, really? Did you just tell him to miss the shot, then?”

Ryan scratches the back of his head, looking down at his shoes shyly before looking at you through his dark lashes. “I was too busy talking to you. That’s why he missed it.”

You roll your eyes with a smile. “Smooth.”

He grins, “I try.”

Across the court is Lucas who is death-glaring Ryan. He can’t ignore the anger bubbling up in the pit of his stomach. He stares as you laugh again at whatever Ryan was saying. What could he be saying that’s so funny? Lucas thought. His hands ball into fists as you turn your body towards Ryan, giving him a toothy grin.

Lucas couldn’t be mad at you. You were obviously just being friendly and making conversation, and Ryan was keeping you engaged. You never were one to ignore someone, even if you didn’t know them. Your kind heart and friendliness was sometimes burden, Lucas thought.

“Hey, stop staring at Y/n. You’ll be able to kiss her after the game.” Nathan nudges Lucas’s arm.

“It’s not that,” Lucas shakes his head. Nathan stands next to him, smirking at you and Ryan. “Oh, I see.”

“What is so funny?” Lucas mutters. “Does he have a bunch of joke memorized or something?”

“I don’t know, man, but she seems pretty into him. I’d quit the Ravens and go back to being her full-time boyfriend,” Nathan remarks.

Lucas glares at his brother. “Maybe I should suggest to Haley that she breaks up with you so you can go back to being full-time jackass. Oh, wait, you already are.”

Nathan’s raises hands in defense. “I was just joking, dude. Y/n loves you, she’d never leave you for a guy who looks like he’s 30.”

Lucas chuckles, eyeing Ryan up and down again. “He kind of does, doesn’t he.”

Nathan nods, “now, c’mon. We can’t win the game if we don’t play.”

“Right,” Lucas agrees. He keeps his eye on the two of the for the rest of the night, his jealousy growing.

Ryan got closer and closer to you with each passing second. You didn’t even notice, too busy with focusing back and forth between the game and your conversation.

“You’ve never played a sport?” Ryan asks. “No? Why is that so hard to believe? Are people not allowed to not play sports?” You cross your arms around your chest.

“No. I guess it’s just that everyone i knows plays or has played a sport.”

“Well, consider me special, then,” you say. He smiles, “I will. What do you like to do then?”

“Well, I love to read and write.”

“Do you write essays for fun?”

“No!” You laugh. “More like… novels or short stories. Lucas does, too.”

“You gonna collaborate on a book together?” He asks. “Oh, no,” you shake your head. “He’s more focused on basketball than anything else right now. Plus, I’d rather do my own thing, you know? It’s more simple that way.”

Ryan nods, “understandable. Have you published any of your books?”

“No, but one of them are finished. I always end up getting burnt out or stuck on another idea. My mind is always running with ideas.”

“That’s so cool. I wish I was that creative.”

“Well, you can play sports and you’re great at is. That’s something to be proud of, too.”

“Not when you get benched all the time,” Ryan sighs. You frown, putting your hand on his forearm and squeezing comfortingly. “It’ll stop happening soon, I’m sure. You’re only 16. You got your whole career ahead of you.”

Ryan smiles, “thanks. You know, Lucas is really lucky to have you.”

“Yeah, I heard I’m everyone’s dream girl.” Your hand drops to your side.

“Can you blame us? You’re gorgeous, fun to talk to, smart, creative,” he lists off. You give him a shy smile, hear crawling up to the back of my neck. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he flashes you a charming smile.

Your attention flickers back to the game as clapping and whistling sounds. Your eyes grow wide as you see the scoreboard.

“Oh, my god! Ravens won!” You squeal. You jump up in excitement, turning to Ryan and hugging him. You practically tackle him as you wrap your arms around his shoulders.

Ryan wraps his arms around the small of your back. “Good for you guys.”

Your body goes rigid and you pull away quickly. “I-I’m sorry. That was weird.” You step back, putting your hands behind your back.

“No, it wasn’t. It was a perfectly normal reaction,” Ryan shrugs.

“Thanks.” You smile shyly. You turn your head, your smile lighting up your face as Lucas runs towards you. “Hi, baby!” You exclaim. You put your arms around him, pecking his cheek as you hug him. He wraps his arms around you, hugging you tightly against him.

“Good job! I’m so proud of you!” You whisper excitedly. Lucas smiles, “thank you.” He pulls away, keeping one arm around you he captures your lips into a bruising kiss. Your brows raise in surprise, but you melt against him nonetheless. Your fingers rake through his damp hair, your hands setting down to the nape of his neck and cradling his head.

He pulls away, smiling widely as he turns to Ryan who is rolling his eyes.

“You’re the guy who was keeping her company, huh?” Lucas asks.

“Yeah, hope you don’t mind. She looked kind of bored,” Ryan says.

Lucas narrows his eyes at him. “I definitely don’t mind. As long as you weren’t bothering her.”

“Luke!” You hiss and slap his chest. Ryan offers a cocky smile. “She didn’t seem too bothered to me. She seemed relieved, actually.”

“Oh, so you’re Mr. Nice Guy, then, huh?” Lucas asks.

“If that’s what you want to call me, then sure. We had fun, though. Right, Y/n?” Ryan looks at you.

“Yeah, talking to you was fun,” you confirm. Ryan grins and Lucas rolls his eyes.

“Well, I have to go. Good game tonight.”

“Oh, I agree. It was real nice watching you play,” Lucas remarks.

Ryan chuckles sourly as he walks away. You frown up at Lucas. “What was that for?” You ask.

“What? He was being a dick,” Lucas answers. You roll your eyes, stepping away from his grasp. “I have to get my things and talk to Brooke and Haley. I’ll meet you in the car.”

“Y/n!” Lucas exclaims helplessly as you walk away. He sighs and heads to the locker room, deciding to wait for you in the car like you said.

You follow Brooke and Haley to the locker room before you leave.

“He was just being so rude! It was annoying,” you say.

“Honey, he was jealous,” Haley says. You laugh, “what?”

“Don’t act all innocent! We all know you were talking to Ryan on purpose,” Brooke smirks.

“I wasn’t!” You disagree. “He just came up to me, and we started talking, and I didn’t even —”

“Brooke is just being Brooke. We all knew you meant no harm,” Haley cuts you off. “And I’m sure Lucas knows that. He just also knows that you’re too good to lose, and he’s afraid that’ll happen.”

“That’s bogus,” you scoff. “Guys are naturally jealous and spiteful creatures,” Brooke states.

“Just let him know Ryan didn’t mean anything,” Haley suggests.

“Show up naked in his car,” Brooke giggles. “I’ll pass,” you chuckle. “I guess I better go and talk to him.”

“Oh, boo! You’re no fun!” Brooke exclaims. “That’s me!” You grin before you walk off.

You stuff your hands into your jean pockets as you approach Lucas’s car. You knock on the window as Lucas’s head is buried in a book.

His head shoots up, his eyes darting from each window, his body relaxing as he sees it’s you. He unlocks the car and you open it, settling into the passenger seat.

“You hungry?” Lucas asks as you buckle your seatbelt.

“Yeah, but I’ll make myself something at home,” you answer.

“You sure? I can pick you something up on the way.”

“I’m good.”

“Alright,” Lucas nods. He fires up the ignition, switching the gears to reverse. You put your hand on top of his and his head whips to you. “What?” He asks.

“Put the car in park. I want to talk,” you say.

He does as you as, turning his body towards you. “What’s this about?”

“Why are you jealous?” You ask. He frowns. “I’m not jealous.”

“Okay, maybe not now, but you were 15 minutes ago.”

“Look, I was tired and maybe I said some things —”

“Stop being such a guy!” You groan. “Just admit you were jealous so I can continue.”

“Alright, fine, I was jealous! Happy now?”

“Yes,” you nod. “Why were you jealous, Luke?”

He sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. “I… I saw your smiling and laughing at his jokes. And then you touched his arm, and then you hugged him. And he wrapped his slimy little hand around your waist. God, I just watched to k—”

You put your hand on his knee. “I didn’t mean anything by it. Honestly, I was just excited and I was trying to comfort him either times. I don’t like him that way.”

He sighs, slouching in his seat. “I know. I-I’m sorry.”

You shake your head. “It’s not your fault. We all get jealous.”

He nods, “but you don’t deserve —”

“Nu-uh. Don’t tell me what I deserve, Lucas Scott. I know what I deserve,” you say. You lean against the arm rest, leaning towards Lucas. “You know I love you right?”

Lucas blushes and smiles. “Yeah, I know. You know I love you, too, right.”

“I’m not sure, actually,” you sigh, feigning sadness. You crawl your fingers up his leg, looking at him through your lashes.

Lucas smiles and rests his hand on your upper thigh. “And what can I do to make sure you do know, then?”

“I don’t know,” you huff. “Get me something to eat?”

Lucas chuckles, “definitely.”

“And maybe we can have some dessert after,” you hum. Biting your lip as you smile.

Butterflies flutter in his stomach as you palm the tent in his pants. He coughs with a smile, his hand moving up to the zipper of your jeans. You lean over the middle of the car, kissing Lucas. You suck on his bottom lip gently, your tongue sliding alongside his. He bums contently, his hand moving to the small of your back and pulling you closer to him.

You rest your forehead against his as you stop kissing him. You nuzzle his nose with his. “I’m your girl, Lucas. Always.”

“You know, people call you —”

“Raven’s number one fan. I know,” you chuckle.

“Maybe you should be known as “Scott’s Girl”,” Lucas suggests.

You nod with a smile. “I think that would be perfect.”

“Then guys like Ryan can back off.”

“Or maybe they’ll come onto me stronger than ever. You’re hot when you’re mad, you know,” you smirk.

He raises his brows. “Oh, really?”

“Yep,” you nod. You pull away, setting back into your seat. “C’mon, I’m hungry. This car won’t drive itself.”

Lucas smiles as he puts his hand onto the stick shift. “You better be ready to not sleep tonight.”

Your heart drops to your stomach and you grin. “Don’t worry. I’m always ready for you.”

————

Like and Reblog!

taglist form

(crossed out means i cant tag)

@arkofblake @murdockcastleslut @lmaoidekanymore6

#lucas scott x reader fluff #lucas scott x reader #lucas scott #lucas scott imagine #lucas scott imagine fluff #lucas scott angst #lucas scott x reader angst #lucas scott x reader smut #lucas scott smut #one tree hill

854 notes · View notes

writefightandflightclub · 4 years ago

Text

Calm after the storm (dad!Nathan x fem!reader)

Summary: dad!Nathan / ex-husband!Nathan and angst. He comforts your son during a storm. You were always better at dishing out comfort, but Nathan is trying his best to learn how. He’s had to, since you left him. If only he could get you to come home, after he pushed you so far away.

Author’s note: my 1st go at writing something emotional / angsty with Nathan. Different to my other Nathan stuff, so won;t be offended if you don’t like it! No-one asked for this but this popped into my head and ended me and I figured I’d drag you down with me. Will add taglists tomorrow :o) (If you DO happen to like it, please let me know! Writing has been so slow for me lately and honestly I’m just pleased to have finished something.)

Warnings: language, themes of children, divorce / separation, angst, alcohol abuse / misuse, parent!reader.

Warning that there is zero smut in this. Nathan is literally a father when I say daddy here. Just to be clear. Some may feel this is ooc (I may have used a bit of license with his character to achieve angst, but actually, I don’t think it’s too far from a potential truth?)? Mistakes etc. maybe, but I can’t look at this a second longer so here it is.

Word count: 8.8k (sorry!)

Nathan’s head whips up from his computer screen as he sees a tiny, shadowed figure appear in the doorway to his lab. He pauses his frenzied typing, but retains the frown weighing on his brow.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, buddy,” he says sternly, bathed in a pool of blue light and looking at the child from beneath his lenses. Hell, when did it get so dark?

“I’m scared,” a tearful little voice says, and Nathan sighs, pushing back his chair with a small, thin-lipped smile as he regards the boy. His soft, dinosaur-adorned pyjamas have been twisted by sleep, and he is rubbing his balled-up fists into his cheeks, a pet lip trembling beneath. Nathan never did understand the kid’s obsession with dinosaurs.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Things long dead and gone? Nathan didn’t like to look back, after all. He looked ahead. Moved forward. There’s nothing for me over my shoulder.

With his headspace out of his work, Nathan suddenly notices the rain drumming down against the skylight. The rumble of thunder and flash of lightning carving the sky open.

“The storm?” he asks, rising to meet the boy as his little feet pad with trepidation across the cold lab floor to his father. The boy nods. He looks slightly uncertain, since he’s not allowed in the lab, but enters and sticks his arms up into the air all the same. He does that tentatively too, since Nathan hasn’t historically been generous with affection; and yet, this time, Nathan wordlessly scoops him up on to his hip, his heart clenching as the boy’s wet, grabby little hands fist into his Henley. His severe gaze softens instantly; though not all the way. The gesture is still a little rusty.

“That’s illogical, bud - it’s not gonna hurt you. Let’s get you back to bed.”

Irrational. Emotional. Unlike father, unlike son.

You were always better at the comfort stuff. Of course you were. Still, Nathan thinks he’s learning, without you. He’s had to learn.

Nathan quietly carries the little spider-monkeyed bundle back to his bed. He offers no words of comfort, but he does offer a firm and reassuring pat on his back as he walks. The boy smells of bath bubbles and baby oil, mixed-in with fresh detergent and that indescribable kid smell, and Nathan feels alarmingly soothed as he inhales the scent.

A flood of memories comes back, but he pushes them down. There is nothing for him over his shoulder, after all. Nothing in the past he would care to resurrect.

Carefully balancing the boy with one strong arm, Nathan peels back the covers and slots him back into his soft bed, the glow of the nightlight illuminating the boy in a blue halo.

Like father, like son.

The man securely tucks him in and smooths the covers, his eyes alarmingly gentle now, even amidst his stony face; however, the boy is still not entirely placated. His eyes are still wide. His bottom lip is still trembling.

Nathan sighs and lowers himself on to the edge of the bed, his genius brain struggling with this problem. Apparently, simply telling a 4-year-old they’re being illogical doesn’t cut it. Children; so inefficient. So tiny and fragile and…

The best thing I ever created.

Let’s hope he doesn’t grow up to stab me in the chest.

“Okay,” he begins, with a sweep of his hand over that buzzed head of his. “Do you know what static electricity is, buddy? One of the forces which attracts or repels things? Remember?”

“Repels. Pushes things away?” the small voice asks him.

I pushed her away. I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

Fear is often based on lack of knowledge. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Still, the 4-year-old looks up at him in confusion, little fingers tightly gripping the edge of the bed covers. His mess of curls splaying over the pillow like a rolling black cloud.

Maybe you did get your mother’s average brain.

We can hope you got fuck all from me, kid.

“Come on, champ, we talked about this...” Nathan sighs, with mild impatience, and then he thinks some more – just like he’s always thinking, except algorithms make sense to him, and how could he hope to solve this?

Nathan shuffles up on to the bed until his back is against the wall, perpendicular to the boy. “Okay,” he says, slapping his palms gently against his thighs. “Remember when we were at Ankita’s party, and you rubbed that balloon on your head, huh? And then all of your hairs stood-up and it kinda tickled?”

The child giggles – a sound that punches Nathan in the gut. “Yeah, Daddy, and it didn’t work on your bald head.”

Nathan exhales through a small smile which doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“So, you remember,” he nods, waving his hand in the air as he tries to find simple language to continue his explanation. “Well. It’s like the sky is having a party, and the clouds are rubbin’ up against each other, making all this static. Understand?” Nathan continues, and the child is rapt, listening to his father’s deep, steady, sandy voice. “But clouds don’t have hair-“ there is another giggle, and this time Nathan’s eyes do crease with his smile, “-so instead they send their lightning forking out in all directions. You got it?”

“A party?” the boy enquires, still unsure. His hands gripping more tightly to the covers and his face inching further below them as a particularly loud rumble of thunder sounds overhead.

“Right. A party.” Nathan runs with it, pleased that he’s getting somewhere. Moving forward. Making progress. “And parties can be noisy, right? All that dancing and singing and scraping chairs around?”

The kid briefly looks at his father as if he’s stupid -a trait you’d always had nailed- but in the next heartbeat he seems to accept the explanation given, the fear in his eyes beginning to ease, though not entirely gone.

He’s still afraid.

Like father, like son.

It’s evident that Nathan needs to devise something even more soothing. He vaguely considers trying to explain the unparalleled lightning and surge protection in-built into this facility, but he thinks better of it. He instead plumps for something he dearly hopes the kid will understand somewhat better than he comprehends static electricity. “You’re safe here and nothing can hurt you,” he says, raising his eyebrows up from beneath his frames and delivering an intent stare, smoothing a broad hand on the boy’s chest and shoulder. “I promise, kid. Would Daddy let anything hurt you?”

“No,” the boy answers, peeking up at Nathan with big eyes, shaking his little head and rustling his curls against the pillow. It breaks Nathan’s heart that his voice wavers, as if he’s a little unsure of his answer.

“Exactly. Not in a million fuckin’ years.” Nathan says adamantly, his deep, dark eyes intense with conviction to emphasise his point.

“Daddy!” The boy gasps when Nathan curses, little palms rising to clamp down over the shocked “o” of his mouth.

“Ah, shit. Don’t tell your Mama I said a naughty word, okay?” Nathan sucks air through his teeth and delivers a sheepish half-grin.

“I miss Mommy.”

The boy blinks. His eyes sad, his emotions constantly unmasked. Feeling. Always feeling.

Unlike father, unlike son.

Nathan’s chest tightens. He scoops up the plush dog, Crunchy, from on top of the duvet and settles her in the boy’s arms, buying him some time to arrange his busy thoughts.

Thinking. Always thinking.

The dog is so named since it spent the boy’s early years crusted with dried-in food and mud and whatever else. Nathan had dubbed it Crunchy Mutt, and the name had stuck. Memories nip at his heels, but he doesn’t let you creep back in. Doesn’t fill the gaps.

Nathan emits a shallow sigh. He misses you too.

Like father, like son.

His eyes are almost soft, almost apologetic as they meet the boy’s again. He is sorry, in that moment, for depriving the boy of you for half of his time. He shouldn’t have to miss out on you. You shouldn’t have to miss out on your son. Nathan knew all this was because of him.

Nathan had sworn never to let anything hurt you, either. To look after you, and yet...

I pushed her away.

I’m a force. A force of nature.

A storm.

“Mommy’ll be here to get you in the morning.” Nathan says in a taut, gruff voice, his beard bobbing as his throat wrestles around a hard swallow. “To take you… home.” At that, finally the boy finally looks content and sleepy, stretching his little face into a big yawn. Still, selfishly, Nathan no longer wants to be alone in this storm - alone with himself - and so, he keeps talking. “You know, your Mommy loves storms like this.”

“Really? Mommy doesn’t get scared?”

“No.” Nathan shakes his head, eyes becoming burdened with memories. “We would sit out on the deck, wrapped in blankets, and watch the lightning. Listen to the rain.”

“It’s science 101, genius. You can’t work in the lab during a storm. You might create Frankenstein.”

“Fuckin’… how many times? It’s Frankenstein’s monster, sweet cheeks. Frankenstein is the doctor.”

“I know, asshole. At this point I just say it to rile you. Never fails. You stay here then, and play at creating life. If you want to play at living one, I’ll be out on the decking.”

“How about I do both?”

“What are you saying, Nathan?”

“What about we make something together, while the sky is fucking rife with creation?”

The boy springs up in bed, capturing Crunchy in a choke-hold in excitement.

Nathan raises himself to standing - beginning to backtrack, and snapping back to the present day. Compartmentalising you. Putting long dead things to rest. He knows better than to look over his shoulder for too long.

“Can we go outside and watch it, Daddy?”

“Nuh uh. I don’t think so, buddy. It’s way past your bedtime. Go to sleep now, okay?” His voice is sterner again - his gaze back to being more severe.

Still, he guides the boy back down to the mattress and plants a soft kiss on to his forehead, brushing his dark curls back. He kisses Crunchy on the head too, as he is routinely instructed to do.

“Night, kid. Night, mutt. Come on, off to sleep.”

His hands move to his hips, elbows cutting a sharp shape in the near-dark. The boy, however, looks wide awake, a smile playing at the corners of his lips, and an excited glow on his face.

“Please, Daddy?” the boy pleads, with big, puppy dog eyes. So closely resembling your eyes, which Nathan always was a sucker for.

Yep. He’s definitely your son.

Nathan is about to use his stern voice, and his finger is moments away from wagging. And yet…

“Fine. Quickly then,” he concedes. “Get your coat and shoes on. And find your little red hat with the Pom-Pom that you look fuckin’ adorable in.”

“Daddy! No bad words!” the kid scolds, even as a smile of glee bursts on to his face and he wriggles out from beneath the covers.

“Yep, sorry! Don’t tell Mommy,” Nathan repeats on autopilot.

The boy springs out of bed and zooms with enthusiasm to his little closet, while Nathan gathers up some blankets from a neighbouring chest.

Sure - it was past the boy’s bedtime. Yes, Nathan had a lot of coding to rehash. But Nathan had lost you. He had let work consume him until there was nothing left for you. He was always looking ahead to what could be, and he didn’t pay enough attention to what he had, when he had it. He wasn’t going to make the same mistakes again. Not with his son. This time, at least, work could wait.

Once the pair are both dressed in their outerwear, Nathan hoists the boy up on to his hip again, and carries him out to the decking, on the side of the house with the best view of the storm churning over the miserable valley. He clings on to his son tightly as the pulse of lightning illuminates his awed little face, a perfect mixture of your features and his, and yet someone entirely his own. The boy gasps and shrinks back from the vast, roaring sky, nuzzling closer into Nathan’s chest, grabby hands fisting in his clothes again.

“It’s okay, buddy. It can’t hurt you, understand?” Nathan reassures.

The child visibly relaxes, absentmindedly tangling his fingers into the soft texture of Nathan’s beard.

He does that when he’s nervous. Seems to calm him down, Nathan notes, and files for later.

“Look, Daddy!” the kid points as forks of lightning raze through the blackened sky, sparkling eyes following the display.

“I saw it, champ,” Nathan confirms, as the storm lights up his child’s face in more ways than one. However, Nathan is more awed by his boy than the storm. By the boy you and he created, on a night not unlike this one.

He fixes his eyes on him as he grows in confidence, facing his fear of the braying wind and rumbling thunder. Being a parent is everything Nathan anticipated he would hate. Full of things you can’t control, and yet, he loves every way this boy surprises him.

Shit, he’s braver than me, Nathan thinks, as he cradles the boy in his arms, holding him just a little bit closer – a little bit tighter.

Nathan isn’t afraid often. In fact, in his adult life, he’s only been truly afraid a handful of times. On those occasions, he didn’t face it like the boy did. He tended to bury his fear, in a landslide of work and drunkenness and insults and excuses. To cocoon himself in his own self-interest.

Nathan was afraid when he fell in love with you, even despite his best efforts not to. He was terrified he didn’t deserve you.

He was afraid when you told him you were pregnant; he was terrified of creating another thing that hated him.

But Nathan has never been as afraid as when you left him, and took the boy with you. He was terrified that you would never come back.

You were brave. You were so brave that you never ran away from a storm, and yet you had fled from him.

What kind of storm am I, if even you ran from me?

Despite his fears though, Nathan was learning to be brave. He’s had to, since you’ve been gone. For his son, for you, he would fight off any foe or threat. Turns out, he would even do the hardest thing of all, and fight his own demons.

Yes, Nathan knew he was a stern man. Serious. Flawed. Unyielding. An asshole, a lot of the time.

He hadn’t been ready. To be humbled. By you. By the boy. Hadn’t been ready to face his shortcomings and his demons and look them in the eye.

He was afraid of creating something that hated him, but he hadn’t been prepared to create something better than himself. A child who was open, and kind, and brave, and loving. Who wasn’t afraid to feel, and to be kind.

Unlike father, unlike son.

The boy made him strong. The boy was just like you.

“Wow!” the boy gasps at another display of lightning, even though he jumps slightly as a loud rumble of thunder sounds. The shock makes him laugh - a sweet, musical, innocent noise that makes Nathan’s chest tear in half like the sky. The boy watches for a while longer as the storm tires itself out and the boy with it, the rain dying off to a pleasant lulling noise.

Nathan looks up at the sky too and he feels almost complete, until he looks to the other side of him; where you should be. Until he looks over his shoulder. To where long-dead things still haunt him.

“Mommy will be sad she’s missing the storm, won’t she Daddy? Can we send her a selfie?”

No tech after 5pm. Bed by 7pm. One of the co-parenting rules rings in his head.

It’s 2:30am, and he worries you will ride him for this, but surely this is an exception, right?

“Sure we can, bud,” Nathan responds, and he fishes his phone out of his pants pocket. The boy nuzzles into his chest in that adorable red hat, and gives a thumbs-up as Nathan extends his arm to grab a quick selfie. “Great photo. She’ll love it. What shall we tell her?”

“Hmm...” the boy thinks, and then he lands on the perfect words. “Say… I wish you were here,” he says with a toothy grin, unaware of the emotional sucker punch of his words.

Nathan’s chest tightens again, and he attempts to school the frown from his face.

I wish you were here.

Like father, like son.

Smoothing himself, he types out a message.

“Storm watching with Papa bear. Kid says: I wish you were here.”

“Ok,” he says softly, pinging the message away to you. “Done.”

The boy beams at his father.

“Will she type back?”

“Dunno, kid, she might be asleep.”

Tiredness hitting him, the boy nuzzles closer and Nathan gently rocks him on his hip, the boy’s eyes gradually closing.

When Nathan feels his phone vibrate, he lifts it back up, bathing the pair in a halo of blue once again. He is surprised to see a photo. There you are, wrapped up in a chunky cardigan and blanket on your new porch.

You’re watching the storm too, and god, you look so beautiful that it hurts him.

Beneath the picture, you have typed out: “Storm-watching, Mama bear edition. Wish I was there too, baby bear. I’ll see you in the morning. xxx”

He knows the smile and the wave and the words are solely for your son’s benefit, and not for him, but oh, how he wishes.

“Mommy’s watching the storm too!” the boy says sleepily, barely able to keep his eyes open in the comfort of Nathan’s warm, strong arms, as his soporific movements rock him back to sleep.

“Yeah, bud, she is.”

And Nathan tugs the boy into his chest, bouncing him on his hip and stroking his hair -as much for his own comfort as anything- until he is soothed too.

***

After the boy is safely back in bed, Nathan plods sullenly back down to his workshop, bathing himself once again in a blue halo. His fingers gravitate naturally towards the keys, and though he should work, his mind is very much elsewhere. His mind is wrapped up with long-dead things.

With a heavy sigh, he fishes his phone out of his pocket again, and spends a wistful moment staring at the picture you had sent him.

“Fuck it,” he says, and he lifts up the photo frame he’s had face down on his desk for some time now. For months.

Longer.

It’s a picture of you and him and the boy, out on a hike a few years ago. Nathan is carrying your son in a harness on his front, and you are side by side with them, clasping the baby’s hand in yours, and your head leaning on Nathan’s shoulders. You’re all smiling, though none of you had managed to look at the camera, only at each other.

The sight of it makes Nathan’s throat constrict. Lights a fire of yearning in the pit of him. A fire he’s tried to quell and resist for so long – hasn’t let himself feel, because he’s afraid of the power of it.

He stares at his phone again, so many things he wishes to say, but all he has the courage to type is:

“Just letting you know. Byron’s back to bed now, before you ride me for keeping him up. Woke up scared.”

Your reply pings back almost immediately, as if you were expecting him.

“Come on, Nathan. I’m not a monster. It’s a sweet picture. He looks happy.”

Nathan scratches the top of his buzzed head, and he sees the tell-tale dots disappear and reappear, signalling you are considering typing something further.

“Say it,” he types out to you, blunt and demanding as ever, and although the dots disappear for a moment, you come back - finding some courage yourself, perhaps?

“I wish I was there too.” He wonders if you held your breath while typing it, like he did when reading it.

This time, it is Nathan’s turn to convey nothing but dots to you, as he struggles to respond. As his pulse thrums in his ears.

“Say it,” you echo, just as plainly.

He takes a deep breath, knowing he’s going to curse himself for his stupidity even as he types the message. He has been earning your trust back. He has been rebuilding. He hasn’t pushed you too far yet, and yet he can’t help but plead with you now.

He says what he most needs to say.

“Come home.”

He stares at the phone, his heart hammering in his mouth.

But there’s nothing. No message. No dots. He throws the phone down on the desk.

Fucking idiot, he chides himself, launching himself out of his seat with a surge of nervous energy, and coming to rest his forehead and elbow against the cool window pane as he tries to steady his nerves. This is why he doesn’t let himself feel. Because when he does, it’s too much.

Nathan’s best quality is also his worst. He isn’t a man of moderation. He doesn’t know how to stop. When to stop. He never has.

Doesn’t know when to stop working, drinking, striving, fighting.

Loving.

He loved you enough to split the sky open, and god damnit, he doesn’t know how to stop loving you. How can he solve this problem?

I pushed her away and she might never come back.

He feels a tightening in his chest - worse than before - and he has thoughts of reaching for a bottle until he’s blackout drunk, or hitting the punchbag until his knuckles bleed, but he bites those urges back down.

He has to. He has to, because his kid is in the house. For him. For you. For his own good too.

Gradually, Nathan -who once naively believed he had already attained perfection, superiority- has become a lot stronger, and a lot braver. A lot better at feeling his emotions instead of pushing them down. He has learned it from the boy, who learned it from you.

Still, despite this newfound courage -or, perhaps as a result of it- he has his moments of weakness, just like anybody else. He’s not untouchable. Not a god any longer.

Nathan is weak when it comes to you. He loves you. And he doesn’t know how to stop.

Overcome by the impulsive need to hear your voice, and ignoring all reason, he tracks back to the desk and calls you.

You answer almost instantly, as if you were expecting him.

“Nathan...” you say, in your eminently familiar voice, and he can he the agitation and accusation veiled as you say his name. What are you thinking? Always thinking. He’s always thinking. Yet, no- this time, he is only feeling. Finally feeling.

Still, Nathan doesn’t respond until a taut pattern of breaths has been laid like a tightrope for him to walk across.

Then, with a deep exhale, he asks you again. A plea. His face sharp and contorted in the blue light. He is terrified of falling.

“Come home.”

“Nathan...” you say, again. What are you thinking? And the sound of his name in your mouth causes a lump to rise in his throat. He hears your discombobulated breath on the other side of the line, and it is all too familiar. You were always charged, rubbing up against one another, causing static. He was always a storm; the one storm that could drive you away.

Come home.

“I wouldn’t even know how,” you insist, your voice paper thin, syllables soft and measured and sorry like raindrops drumming against a window pane.

You were always his release. If he was the energy and commotion and anger behind the storm -the severe, withholding clouds- you were its beauty and majesty and release. Together, you created life, and you destroyed each other.

Nathan hunkers over on the desk, leaning his head in his spare arm for some morsel of comfort, his guard up over his face.

“Just walk through the door tomorrow and stay,” he says tiredly, as if it’s simple.

He hears you sigh again, exasperatedly - the sound he induced all too often, when you were together.

“It didn’t work Nathan,” you say through your teeth, like lightning might spark through them at any moment. “How would this be any different?” Still, he can hear the tell-tale break in your voice. A gentle plea. God, could you really want to come back to him? If he could find the right answers to your questions?

“I’ll be different,” he promises, all the muscles in his face pulled taut. His face and his body aching with the tension of the sky splitting open, creation or destruction imminent.

Fuck it. Fuck everything else. Enough of this. The measured conversations, the co-parenting, the negotiations. You are what he wants - his family back together; home.

True- love hadn’t come easily to him at first. He was an asshole, a misanthrope, a closed book. Sex came easily to him. Desire. Infatuation. Thoughts of you, bordering on obsession as they took over his busy mind. But love? That too came, in the end. But love as a verb- the act of loving?

Nathan had sworn he didn’t want love at all, but then, there was you. He has sworn he had no desire for the legacy of a child, and yet, then there was the boy. For all his arrogance and grandiose dreams of the ways in which the whole world might remember him, he was finally ready to admit that all he wanted was to be remembered by you as a good husband, and by the boy as a good father.

He had never wanted to create another thing that hated him.

It didn’t come naturally to him at first. He was withholding, stubborn, rigid, and self-involved. Still, when he was motivated, there were other, finer qualities Nathan possessed too. Dedication, focus, discipline. When he was motivated, he possessed those in abundance. Turns out, love is one hell of a motivator.

Turns out, sometimes it is still not enough.

“I’m doing better,” he offers as he is met with silence, clenching his fist in discomfort as he hears you sniffing intermittently through the phone.

“I know,” you enthuse, your voice almost sickly with sincerity. “I know. I’m proud of you, Nathan.”

But Nathan doesn’t want your platitudes.

“Baby, please. I love you,” he pleads, and even in his plea his voice is stern. He refuses to let it crack. He states his truth as a cold, hard fact. He loves you. It’s undeniable. It’s logical, that you should be together.

“You know…. You know that I love you too.” you say, your voice small and full of holes. A sigh billowing out of you. “Shit, Nathan…” You sniff on the other end of the line with greater frequency – definitely crying. Nathan knits his brows together, his eyes brimming with tears that he fights back.

He thinks of all the times you cried and he didn’t reach out to you. He would give anything now to wipe your tears away.

“Come home, then,” he pleads, bluntly, swirling with hurt like silt stirred up by the rains. It hurts. It hurts to feel things. “Fuck, why are you so fucking stubborn?”

You huff out air as he snaps and instantly, he knows he’s fucked it. He wishes he could retract the words but it’s too late. They’ve already become breath. Already thunder, splitting his sky in two all over again.

He throws himself back in his chair in defeat, his hand rasping over his buzzed head in some unconscious attempt to comfort himself. “Shit, look, I just-”

When your voice interrupts him, it is perfectly smoothed out. Cold. Withholding.

So that’s how it feels.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Nathan.”

There is a beat, and you soften. You always soften. “I’ll come get him later so you can have some extra time, okay?”

Nathan sighs loudly, catching a glance of his calendar on the illuminated screen.

“Fuck. I have a meeting at 11am- I thought you would collect him early so I booked a board thing-” he says tiredly.

“Fine,” you bite off.

“No. Wait, I’ll rearrange,” he backtracks. “Let me have more time,” he reasons, his voice softening. He tips up the photo frame – that blessed and cursed item- and brings it to rest on his thigh, torturing himself with your smiling face. “Please. I need more time.”

You are silent for a moment, and this time when your voice comes back, it is level, but infused with intentional warmth. He hates that tone. That tone where he knows you are placating him rather than speaking your mind, just so he doesn’t do anything stupid. He hates that it must feel like you have a guillotine hanging over your head at all times, because you feel like you can’t push him over the edge.

“Fine. Get some sleep, Nathan, okay?”

He huffs out air, a sharp, self-pitying guffaw, and he rubs his eyes underneath his glasses, the frames lifting from the bridge of his nose. “Right. I can’t even fuckin’ sleep without you.”

There is another pattern of breaths, and whatever tightrope Nathan might have tried to walk across to reach you snaps. “Don’t do that, don’t guilt me, Nathan.”

The worst thing is, you don’t even sound angry. You just sound… tired.

“I’m sorry,” he pushes out, muffled through a hand over his beard, and though this time he means it, the words come out sounding entirely insincere.

“Sure. ‘Night. Try and get some rest, okay?”

Now that -that sounded genuine. Sincere. You never stopped looking out for him. Even if you couldn’t stand to be around him any longer.

“Yep,” he says tautly, with little feeling, and he hangs up, tightening his grip on the photo frame in his lap before slamming it back down on the desk along with his phone.

He leans back in his chair for a moment and buries his face in his hands. “Fuck.”

I pushed her away. I did that. I pushed her away.

With a knot building in his chest, partly out of need and partly out of habit, Nathan drags opens the desk drawer where an ever-replenishing stash of vodka used to reside. Where instead, he has taped a picture drawn by his son. For moments like this.

It helps, but it’s not always enough.

Nathan knits his brows together, his face set with a stony resolve, and his dark, turbulent eyes awash with a storm of emotion.

The boy. He’s braver than me.

Somehow, because he has to, perhaps- because he’s had to learn how, Nathan smooths himself. He cannot solve the problem of how to bring you home, when this simply isn’t home to you anymore. So, instead, he bathes himself in blue light. He basks in the glow of algorithms he can solve, and works and works his mind until it shuts off. Feeling to thinking to nothing.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

He can do anything he sets his mind to.

And… fuck. I pushed her away.

Anything, perhaps, except bring you back.

***

The next day, you arrive to collect your son.

It is familiar by now. It is an encounter that Nathan both longs for and dreads, in equal measure. Today, especially so; especially both.

Byron runs down the hallway and leaps into your arms, the sound of your laughter scooping Nathan out from the inside as you pepper the boy with kisses, a toothy smile on his angel face.

In these encounters, the moments are always too fleeting; always slipping away too quickly. It seems to happen so fast that it’s a blur to him, his mind zoning-out and working through a million things he wants to tell you, and simultaneously hyper-focussed on every single aspect of you he’s missed desperately. He wracks his brain for the right things to do and say, as if desperately searching for the one remnant of code- the one function or command that will simply make you stay.

With effort, he tunes back in to the scene as the boy wraps his arms around his leg.

“Did you pack Crunchy?” you ask Nathan, as he hands over the kid’s weekend bag to your waiting, outstretched arm.

His mouth opens to respond, but you are already unzipping it and rooting through the bag, checking in amongst the clothes and tiny boxing gloves and dolls for the dear mutt. You find him nestled in there safely, and you smile softly at Nathan for remembering.

You shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks. He remembers things – he remembers everything. It’s forgetting he typically needs a little more assistance with. Maybe he does look over his shoulder more than he’d care to admit.

You ruffle the boy’s crow black curls as he clings to his father’s leg, snapping your hand back as if you’ve been burned when Nathan opts for the same gesture in the same moment.

You opt to fold your arms against your chest instead, casually clearing your throat. “What did you do with Daddy then, baby? Have you had a good time?”

“We watched the storm,” the boy begins animatedly, swinging around Nathan’s sturdy leg, “and we did boxing and I learned a new combo,” the boy looks up at his father who nods and smiles gently in proud confirmation, hoisting the kid up on to his hip – a gesture that is becoming increasingly less rusty- “and we did a new trail to the glacier, and, um, what else Daddy?” Byron asks, waving his up-turned palms in the air and turning to his father for guidance. Nathan dips forward to whisper a prompt in his ear. “Oh yeah! And we watched Trolls and I put lots of my dolly’s bows in daddy’s beard,” the boys giggles, and scrunches his fingers through Nathan’s wiry hairs.

The kid’s smile is infectious, even fracturing Nathan’s stony resolve, and it has the three of you joined in a smile for a moment, until Nathan sees your eyes mist subtly over with tears as you observe the father and son together. You quickly quell them, but they don’t go unnoticed.

“Oh yeah?” you ask, voice expertly smoothed, and a masking smile on your face. The strength of you. “Did he look pretty?”

“Yeah, I guess he looked pretty,” the boy giggles. “And this morning Daddy taught me about static electric.... um-” the boys stumbles over his words for a second, and again looks to Nathan for guidance.

“You got it -go ahead,” Nathan encourages firmly.

The boy gains confidence, brushing his black curls out of his face with a little hand before continuing. “Static electricity, right?”

“Right, champ,” Nathan says, and as the boy barrels happily through his recital of events, Nathan barely realises that he’s holding him a little tighter, because with each moment that passes, so fleetingly, he feels it’s getting increasingly harder to think about letting him go.

“And Mommy, did you know this whole valley was made by a glacier that crawled all the way along and carved out all the shapes of the hills and then melted, like, a super long time ago?”

“You know, I did know that, but that’s smart of you to know too, baby,” you say fondly, a tremble at the corner of your lips that the kid doesn’t see, but Nathan is sharp enough to catch.

And then, suddenly, Nathan has no trouble contemplating passing the boy over into your arms, because you look like you need someone to hold too. However, as he motions to do so, Nathan can see tears threatening to spill out of the corner of your eyes. You shake your head subtly at Nathan in apology as you brush away a stray tear, in a moment you hope the boy won’t see, so, instead, Nathan sets your son down on the ground. He crouches and pulls the boy’s shoulders squarely to face him, providing you with a discreet moment to compose yourself.

“Hey, buddy,” he says softly. “I remembered I need to talk to your Mommy about boring grown-up stuff. Gas prices and 401ks and… major yawn. So, hot tip, you might wanna go and play in your room for 5. That okay, champ?”

“Okay,” the kid says, unphased, and skips off down the hall.

That leaves Nathan and you in the hallway. He hover-hands his palm against your lower back and gestures, with his other arm, towards the living space, guiding you towards the seating area.

You sit on opposite sofas, positions stiff and formal, hands clasped on laps. Your gaze looking just past Nathan because you can’t seem to meet his eyes.

“Wanna talk about it?” he asks gently, feeling a lump grow in his throat. He hates this- how tense it is, when you used to be so intimate and relaxed around each other. “Why are you crying?”

Unlike Nathan, you were usually an open book, yet this time, you decline the invitation to share. You pinch your lips in between your teeth.

You’re so strong, and so brave that it breaks Nathan to see you succumb to tears like this. Plus, you’ve given so much already- so much love, and so much heart, and he hasn’t given you nearly enough back.

Still, he looks at you from beneath his lenses, gently encouraging, waiting until you are ready to share. Your gaze fixes on a spot in your lap. “I… It’s just. Seeing you and Byron together. Why in the hell couldn’t you have been this man while we were together, Nathan?”

Nathan’s heart aches at your words. Years ago, even months ago, he would have bristled. He would have snapped back at the insinuation that he was ever in the wrong. Ever less than godly.

This time though, he lets the sad truth settle over him like a dark cloud. And, as much as he wants to pull you towards him, he also- and he can’t believe he’s going to do this- he realises he needs to push you away from him one more time. There is only one way to solve this. To let you go. To realise it’s your choice. You are out of his control. Unsolvable.

He shifts his position, until he is perched on the coffee table in front of you, his palms resting on your knees and smoothing circles there. His dark, calculating eyes intent on yours, and for once unobscured by agendas. For once, he has things to say to you that aren’t intended to provoke a particular response, or establish a particular gain. He has things to say that he simply needs you to hear.

He needs to show you his fear. He needs to face the storm he was never too afraid to create, but was always quick to flee the wake of. Nathan imagines if he explains the storm, he can demystify it. Take its power away. Then, even if you don’t come home, at least there can be calm. Calm after the storm. Both of you able to move on, with all the cards laid out on the table.

With effort, he begins.

“I’m sorry,” Nathan says gently, and even with those two words a gentle sob wracks your chest, perhaps with the relief of a weight you didn’t know you were carrying. “Honestly, I don’t think I told you that and meant it yet. So, I’m sorry. About last night, by the way. But, shit, about everything that I did, and didn’t do…” Your hands come to clasp his in your lap, fingers gripping fingers tightly as his face contorts with regret. His dark eyes wander over your face as tears stream freely down your cheeks. Where once he would have shied away from you, in a state like this, now he has courage enough to be present.

“I missed you,” he continues, his voice tattered by emotion. “I miss you. I didn’t want to tell you that. Didn’t want to admit that I’m scared either. But I am. Of losing you. Scared that the best thing for us… the best thing for you, might be being without me. To get out of the black hole I suck everything in to.” Nathan tears his eyes away from yours as his vision becomes blurry with tears, his voice cracking. “I’m scared because I love you, and I love that fucking kid and I... I’m scared that I might get better, and be better… but that you, and him… that you still might deserve better. Better than me. So, I’m sorry. Actually fuckin’ sorry, for all the ways I’ve been a dick. Shut you out. Put you last. Made you hurt.”

“Nathan,” you breathe through tears, as if you can’t fathom this onslaught- this emotion tearing your chest in two, like the sky on that night.

He reaches up to fumble some tears away from your cheek with the pad of his thumb. “I need you to know that I finally see it, even if it is too late,” Nathan nods to himself, eyes fixed down at your hands clasped in his. “I see that if had to lose you to realise what I had; I never did deserve you. You’re so… fuckin’ unreal. And he’s just like you. And,” Nathan presses on, despite the mortifying ordeal of baring his heart to you. Despite the tears which finally spike out of the corners of his eyes too. “I need you to know. Even if it didn’t last forever… This fuckin’ family? It will always be the best thing I ever created. And if there’s one thing I want to be remembered for- any fuckin’ legacy I wanna have, I just… I need it to be known that I love you, and I love that fuckin’ kid. I want you to be happy, and I’ll always regret that I didn’t make you happy while I had the chance to.” He huffs out another small, self-pitying laugh “Guess in the end, I’m an idiot; not a genius. Guess I should have realised that when I got stabbed by my own AI…”

He drags his big brown eyes back up to meet yours from beneath his lenses, and your eyes are shining softly at him, brimming with bittersweet pain, and you tug him into you for a hug, holding him close and your tears wetting each other’s shoulder.

After a moment he pulls away and settles himself back on the edge of the coffee table, already missing your embrace.

“You did. You made me happy, Nathan,” you promise. “So, so happy, and so, so miserable,” you let out a small, self-pitying laugh too, and then suddenly you are both laughing, as bizarre at that seems, as you palm the tears away from your puffed cheeks.

When the laughter fades, you reach out and place your palm fondly on the side of his face. Nathan knew that even in all his years of marriage, he had never been so vulnerable with you as he had been just now. He knew that had been precisely part of the problem. He had thought it would feel horrible to open up, but he finds that he feels fresh, like ground after nourishing rain.

Your gaze flicks back to him, and he swears he can read the look in your eyes.

Why couldn’t I have been this man when we were together?

Then, it is as if you remember you are touching him. You snap your hand back from him, and back from the brink as if you have been burned. It would be so easy, Nathan thinks. So easy to just fall back into you. As if wrestling with the exact same thought, you surge up from your seat, wiping the remainder of your tears away and immediately putting some distance between the two of you. You track to the nearby mirror, leaning forward to fix your appearance a little, before the boy returns.

Nathan watches you fondly. Longingly.

You turn back to him again, a little more composed, and retake your seat opposite him – in the same spot, but feeling much further away this time.

You bite your lips between your teeth, gazing at that same spot on your lap again.

He wishes he could reach out to you. Take in the textures and scents and feel of you in all your glory. But he does not want you to jump away as if you’ve been struck by lightning.

“I miss you too, you know? I miss our family. When it was good it was…” your voice is small and you trail off, perhaps not wanting to look too far over your shoulder. With a visible effort, you seem to drag yourself back to the present. “Byron adores you, you know that? I don’t think I’ve told you this since we… but you’re a good father, Nathan.”

A pride ignites in Nathan unlike anything he’s felt before.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, and instantly closes it again, his throat bobbing around a hard swallow before he can push his words out.

“Just a terrible husband?”

You shake your head. “No,” you say, with a wistful expression on your face, and Nathan is surprised that you sound sincere. “No, not terrible at all.”

Nathan knew his flaws well enough, but you always reminded him of his attributes. You never poisoned the boy against him, even though the split was largely on him – a fact he had denied for a long time, because it was your decision. And, because of your strength and commitment to that, the three of you -oddly- had never made a better team than you do now.

He examines your face. Your beautiful face.

Come home. Please.

For your sake, he makes an effort to lift his thin smile up until it creases the corner of his eyes.

“I think you’re forgetting what an asshole I can be,” he smiles lopsidedly at you and succeeds in lightening the air. Lightening it a little too much. Enough that there is an alarming hint in your eyes of what used to be there for him. He hopes it is not the shining of false hope.

It would be so easy. So easy to kiss you.

You chew some words over in your mouth, and Nathan can see their failure to launch on a couple of breaths as you wring your hands in front of you.

“You, um. Last night… you asked me to come home.”

Nathan’s breath stalls in his chest.

“Did you mean it?”

Nathan can’t speak suddenly. He can only nod, slowly, tears sparkling in his eyes as he looks at you.

“I could… I could never just move back in. It didn’t work, Nathan. But… maybe…”

Nathan holds his breath, like a latent storm, the hint of a new energy buzzing in the space between you.

“Maybe,” you continue tentatively. “We could start over again. See if we can build something new. Not the same old patterns. No looking over our shoulders or trying to resurrect what’s long-dead. Instead, maybe we – I don’t know- try to create something… new?”

While the sky is rife with creation.

“You’re good at that. Building things,” you finish, fondly, everything about you tentative yet somehow hopeful, and Nathan’s chest constricts, his blood thrumming nervously through his body in a blind panic.

Just shut up, Nathan, and don’t fuck this. Just refrain from being a dick for five fuckin’ minutes.

The muscles in his jaw twitch. The vein on his forehead pops, yet his whole body is still. Breath bated.

“Like, fresh code?” he asks, with shining, hopeful eyes.

You nod, and it is the tiniest gesture, but one that means the absolute world to him.

A new way of doing things. Moving forward. Looking ahead.

“Sure, I guess - fresh code.”

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, you fucking shithead.

“Yeah,” he agrees weakly, yet with all the conviction in the world. “How?”

Anything.

You nibble on your lower lip, thinking things through as you go. “Take me out for dinner. A first date. Somewhere away from this goddamn house. From everything that happened. All the… mistakes.” As Nathan’s eyes swim with guilt and regret, you squeeze his hand, dipping your head towards his to catch his gaze. “Yours and mine.”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok,” Nathan responds, his eyes glowing as they meet yours.

He immediately feels you withdraw from his burning hope, and so he consciously tries to reel his natural intensity in.

“No promises, Nathan,” you caution, firmly.

He nods, slowly. Outwardly disciplined and measured.

Don’t fuck it. Do not fuck this, you mother fucker.

“And please, don’t get his hopes up?” you say as a quick aside before delivering a broad smile over Nathan’s shoulder, signalling that the kid had arrived back in the vicinity.

The boy runs over and starts happily wheeling a toy news truck over Nathan’s thigh. The man unconsciously, automatically, winds his arm around his son and dips a kiss into his black curls, causing your eyes to shine softly in admiration. “I love you, champ,” Nathan says, the words heavy with the weight of his feeling even as he reaches to tickle the boy’s tummy, earning a chaotic giggle.

“Love you too, Daddy,” the boy replies, but Nathan pats him gently on the back.

“Time to go though, bud.”

“Yeah, baby. We should… go,” you announce, and yet there is a tug of hesitation in your voice. A rope binding you to Nathan which he is desperate to reel in; however, he pushed you so far away, and he knows that if you do come back to him, it must be on your terms. In your own time. He understands now.

Nathan leads the two of you to the door and helps pile all of the bags into the trunk of your truck. You strap Byron into his car seat, and Nathan dips to bid him farewell. “Ok, get out of here, kid. Look after your Mommy, you hear me? She’s special.”

There is a moment, before you open the door to slot into the driver’s side that Nathan comes to face you, his hands stuffed into his pockets, a familiar furrow in his brow and tight-lipped expression on his stony, impassive face. “When was the last time you had your tyres checked?” he wonders idly, shifting forward to poke at the tread on the front wheel and finding them satisfactorily safe.

He is surprised to find you smiling softly at him when he looks back at you. You seem like you can’t help yourself, but you lean forward and press a kiss into Nathan’s cheek, your face lingering against his as he closes his eyes and leans in to it, just a little.

You pull back from him, your hand clasped around his upper arm. “We love you, Nathan. Will you be okay?”

His eyes grow overcast. “Uh, don’t like it when you go,” he states plainly, his brow pulled down and cloaking his big, brown eyes with shadow.

You nod in understanding.

“Text me later. About dinner,” you add casually before you slot yourself into the truck. Still, he can see you tearing up, just a little.

“You mean it?” he asks, his stare intense.

“Dinner and we’ll see, okay? No promises.”

He had made you so many promises that were broken.

Nathan nods his agreement and you clasp the door shut. Reluctantly, Nathan steps aside as you swing the truck around, and he doesn’t stick around to wave you off, aside from a quick hand in the air for the boy.

He doesn’t like it when you leave.

He knew he had pushed you away, and now, just maybe you would come back to him. He feels hopeful- ecstatic even- at the prospect, but he can’t help but feel a little guilty. A little selfish too. He feels as though he’s sucking you in to a black hole all over again. He thinks maybe it would be better for you if you could escape him.

But, as Nathan settles back in his chair down in the lab, and gazes at the framed picture of his family, he knows that as much as he has grown and changed - because he’s had to, with you gone- that he will never quite be selfless enough to let you go.

I’m a force. A force of nature. A storm.

You had always revelled in storms. You were always happiest when it rained. Maybe this time, he could make you so, so happy, without the miserable.

Oh, how he hopes.

Don’t fuck it up, Bateman, he thinks, glancing at the picture one more time. Don’t you ever fuckin’ push her away.

This time, he pledges to stop looking over his shoulder, and looks ahead to something new.

That’s what he’s best at.

Fresh code.

He types away, and his chest feels lighter than it has in a long time.

The calm after the storm, perhaps.

#nathan bateman x reader #nathan bateman #ex machina fanfiction #oscar isaac #nathan bateman angst

587 notes · View notes

dangerouscommiesubversive · 3 years ago

Text

fought on your side long before you were born

Fandom: Kamen Rider, Batman, Kamen Rider W Characters: Hongo Takeshi, Tachibana Tobei, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Hidari Shoutaro, Philip, Damian Wayne Song: "Father to Son," Queen (playlist here)

1977

Tachibana’s got a shop now, something he can use to support his family now that he isn’t traveling, and the first thing that greets Takeshi as he walks in is the thick smell of motor oil. There’s a bike in pieces at one end of the shop floor around which several young men are clustered, arguing cheerfully. Another young man is sitting in a corner near them, inexplicably playing acoustic guitar and responding briefly whenever he’s addressed. It’s new, but it feels like home, and Takeshi can feel his shoulders instinctively relaxing.

“Hongo!” Tachibana himself emerges from the shop office, beaming. “When’d you get back to Japan?”

“Just now, I came right here.”

“Damn right you did.” There’s some hugging and back-slapping and general affectionate ribbing, and then Tachibana says, “So what do you think? Nice place, right?”

“It’s wonderful. How’s your son?”

“Healthy as a horse, running me and Mari ragged.” Tachibana gestures to the huddle of young men at the other end of the room. “Plenty of help around here, though.”

Takeshi grins. “I can see that. Who’s the one with the guitar?”

“Oh, him? American kid. Funny story, really, I’m closing up one day when this young guy just materializes—no, not literally, he’s just real quiet—and asks, am I Tachibana Tobei? Only Dr. Jin in Madrid says I’m the best in the world and will I teach him about motorcycles! And he hands me a letter of introduction from Keisuke!” Tachibana sounds like he’s holding back laughter. “So he’s renting our spare room at the house and working here for a few months. Quick study, too. Shiro taught him guitar, he’s in town for a bit and they hit it off. Here, come on, I’ll introduce you to everyone.”

They head over to the disassembled motorcycle, and the young men fall all over themselves to be introduced, which Takeshi bears with good cheer. They’re young, of course they’re enthusiasts.

The American boy is last, and Takeshi is shocked to realize that he is a boy, no more than eighteen or nineteen, a pale youth with blue eyes and a lonely look that reminds Takeshi of Shiro. No wonder they get along. He sets his guitar aside and bows, stiff and solemn, and says, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hongo. Mr. Tachibana talks about you a lot.”

“That I do! Hongo, this is Bruce Wayne, he’s the summer guest I was telling you about.”

“Good to meet you, Wayne. Your accent is excellent.” The boy’s got a firm handshake. “What brings you to Japan?”

“Study, sir,” but the boy’s tone says that’s not all of it. “I’m trying to learn all I can. Maybe I could ask you a few things later, if you don’t mind.”

Takeshi blinks. “Not sure what you’d want to ask, but I don’t see why not.”

He eats dinner at Tachibana’s house that evening, because of course Tachibana isn’t going to let him get away unfed his first night back in town. Mari greets him at the door, Joji in her arms, beaming.

He’s intially surprised to see that the American boy is there too, until he remembers, of course he is—Wayne’s renting the spare room. And he’s barely noticeable for most of the meal, silent, although he’s clearly listening to everything that’s said. After dinner he also helps Mari with the dishes, entirely unprompted, which Takeshi approves of, and then spends some time gently entertaining the toddler.

Later, Tachibana and Mari step away for a moment to get their son to bed, and Takeshi looks at the silent young man sitting in the corner and says, “So. Wayne.”

“Yes, Mr. Hongo?”

“You said you had something you wanted to ask me, and we’ve got a few minutes now. What can I help you with?”

Wayne remains quiet for a long moment, and then fixes those piercing eyes on Takeshi and says, “Mr. Tachibana says you’re the strongest person he knows. What does it mean to be strong?”

Not what Takeshi had been expecting. Granted, what he wasexpecting, he doesn’t know, but…not that. He thinks about it, frowning. “I’d say…kindness.”

Wayne’s forehead wrinkles. “What do you mean?”

“Look, Wayne, you can get as powerful as you want in life, but it’s only strength if you can use it to be kind. Otherwise it’s just tyranny.” Takeshi leans forward and holds out his hand, as if to shake. “Anyone, any fool on Earth can take their hand and make it into a fist. To reach out to someone when they need help, that’s strength.”

Slow nodding, and Wayne reaches out to him in return, clasps his hand for a brief moment, and says, “Thank you. That’s a valuable insight.”

Takeshi nods. “Ask Tachibana that question, too, and Shiro. It’s a good thing to ask. Tells you a lot about the person answering.” He considers it for a moment. “Of course, there will always be some people you won’t be able to help, we share this world with monsters. But you must always try to be kind. That’s strength.”

2017

Bruce checks his watch as he walks up to the restaurant, satisfied to be a precise fifteen minutes early, and then looks up and is surprised to realize that for once Dick’s beaten him there. Not only is he there, too, he’s talking to someone Bruce doesn’t recognize.

The stranger seems to be about Dick’s own age, a man in a black fedora and slightly old-fashioned dress clothes from a minor Japanese fashion label. His tone suggests an awkward tourist, but his stance says he’s a fighter, and the way he watches his surroundings indicates that he’s memorizing as many details as possible. He’s got a guidebook in one hand, and a notebook sticking out of his pocket, and he’s speaking Japanese, which is not one of Dick’s stronger languages. Bruce steps forward, thinking he might need to translate, but Dick replies to the other man in English, which is met with a thoughtful nod. So—they’re about the same level in each other’s languages. Better at hearing than speaking. Convenient for them.

“—so if you’re looking for something in his field, the natural history museum is great. If you want somewhere more romantic,though, the Thorndike is amazing, and there’s this restaurant right near it, I forget the name—oh, hey, Bruce! You’re here! What’s the name of that restaurant across the street from the Thorndike Museum?”

“San Sebastian Jatetxe.”

“That’s the one! Thank you!” Dick beams at him, then turns to his companion. “I’ll write it down for you.”

“<Thank you, I’d appreciate that.>”

“Of course! This is my foster father, by the way, Shoutaro-san.Bruce Wayne. Bruce, this is Shoutaro Hidari, he’s visting Gotham for a couple of weeks.” To Shoutaro again, “Bruce’s Japanese is much better than mine.”

Bruce nods. “<What brings you to Gotham, Mr. Hidari?>”

Shoutaro relaxes visibly at the question; it’s likely the only new voice he’s heard speaking his mother tongue in days. “<My partner is attending a conference here, so we decided we’d make it a vacation.>”

“<Aha. Curators and archivists?>”

“<How did you guess?>”

“<A friend of Dick’s and mine is also attending, she mentioned that international registrations are up significantly this year.>” Bruce pauses. “<If you’re looking for date spots, the Thorndike is excellent, as Dick said, but the Botanical Gardens are also very nice this time of year.>”

Shoutaro blushes warmly. “<Thank you very much for the recommendation.>”

He doesn’t think much more about Dick’s tourist friend until that night, when he and Damian are out on patrol. It’s a quiet night, so they’re stopping a mugging as gently as possible when the mugger—a repeat offender and sometime informant, Bruce makes a note to check in on him at home out of suit—says, “So, uh, Bats. Who’s the new guy?”

Bruce frowns. No one new should be operating here.“Which one?”

“You know, the bug guy. My buddy texted about him, said he was speaking some other language. Well, he said it was a bug ninja who spoke Japanese, but he watches a lotta anime and he gets real excited, so I ain’t sure he’s right.”

“A bug. What color?”

“Oh, it changes, it’s cool as hell.” He shows Bruce and Damian a picture on his phone. “He a friend’a yours?”

“Yes. He’s visiting.” Bruce peers at the photo and then hands his informant two hundred dollars. “Buy dinner and go home, Nathan. Tell your aunt I say hello.”

“Yo, sure thing. Thanks, Bats!”

They’ve only been searching a few minutes when their earpieces crackle and Babs says, “Roof of GPL Central Branch. Someone I don’t recognize, they just took out some Joker goons who were robbing a jewelry store at the corner of High and 26th. Dick’s on his way too.”

They touch down at one end of the Gotham Public Library’s roof as Dick’s landing at the other and survey their guest, who’s looking between the three of them with something that’s likely surprise, although given that their face is entirely concealed it’s not certain. The insectoid red eyes and sharp antennae on the helmet and the white scarf drifting in the air from the back of the right shoulder send a shock of recognition down Bruce’s spine. He considers speaking first, but then nods to Dick instead. For better or for worse, Dick is good at putting people at ease.

“Hi there.” Dick waves to the stranger, tone cheery but guarded. “We haven’t seen you around before, mind telling us what you’re doing in Gotham?”

The stranger cocks their head to the left for a moment before saying, haltingly, “We. Ah. We are…tourists? We did not mean to…um…” The left eye of the helmet flashes as they’re speaking. A beat, and then the righteye begins to flash, and they say, in an entirely different voice that’s noticeably accented but much more fluent, “I’ll handle this part if you don’t mind, partner. Good evening, we’re Kamen Rider W. Our apologies, we didn’t mean to intrude on your territory. Are we addressing the famed Batman and his companions?”

Bruce says, slowly, “That’s correct. You’re a Rider?”

“Oh, you’re familiar with the term! That’s wonderful. Yes, that’s correct. We’ve been in operation as such since late 2008, although of course primarily in Japan.”

“Tt.” Damian scowls. “<If you mostly work in Japan, what are you doing running around here?>”

The left eye on the helmet begins to flash again as W responds in the first voice, in Japanese now. “<It wasn’t exactly the plan, a man in clown makeup waved a gun at me and tried to take my wallet and once I’d knocked him out I noticed that there were about five more clowns breaking into a jewelry store down the street. I couldn’t just leave them to it.>”

Dick is also frowning now. “I—have we met before? I recognize your voice. The, uh, left-hand one.”

“” says the left-hand voice, and then the right-hand one breaks in with, “Actually, based on his memory of your speech patterns, I believe you and my partner met earlier today, you recommended a couple of date locations and a Basque restaurant I’m eager to visit.”

Bruce can see Dick’s eyes going wide from halfway across the roof. He’s visibly biting back the urge to address their guest by name, which would be discourteous, to say the least, with everyone in costume, so Bruce cuts in with, “Is my understanding correct that we’re speaking to two people currently?”

“That’s correct!” says the right-hand voice, sounding delighted. “We two are a single Kamen Rider.”

Dick blinks. “Is this like a Firestorm thing? Are you fused?”

“Not unlike, but no. My physical body is currently unconscious in our hotel room, which is certainly much more comfortable than some of the other places in which I’ve passed out. Although as my partner wasoriginally going out to get us something to eat when he was accosted, I ambecoming concerned about my caloric intake.” And the left-hand voice says, “<Yeah, I was thinking I’d be able to get us something decent at the Seven-Eleven, but the ones here are different from the ones at home.>”

“I think,” Bruce says, “this conversation would be better continued elsewhere.”

Twenty minutes later they’re all out of suit and seated around a table at an all-night diner, and Shoutaro’s partner, introduced only as Philip, is inspecting the menu with interest. “This is intimidatingly lengthy, do you have recommendations?”

Dick grins. “Get one of the meat-lovers omelettes. And then if you still have room get some baklava, the owner’s mother makes it and it’s amazing.”

Bruce, meanwhile, is turning Shoutaro’s business card over in his hands. “<You’re a detective?>”

“”

“<I’ve heard of the Fuuto Museum, they hosted an intriguing exhibit on Mesopotamian artifacts last year.>”

“<You heard about Nitoh’s exhibit here? That’s amazing, I’ll have to let him know.>”

“<Please tell him I was very impressed with his thesis.>”

Damian’s been scowling silently into his milkshake, but suddenly he slaps the table and everyone jumps. “I knew I recognized that name!” Then, to Shoutaro, “”

“<I—you did? Really? It hasn’t had any translations, how did you hear about it?>”

“<My, uh.>” Damian shifts awkwardly. “<My mother gave it to me, I like detective stories. I enjoyed it. Although that copy was lost.>”

“<Oh, I’ll send you a new one if you like, I don’t imagine it’d be easy to get here.>”

The waitress comes by, and her eyebrows slowly rise as everyone orders, presumably at the quantity of food on request. When she’s left again, Philip turns to Bruce and says, brightly, “I also take it that you’re the sponsor Ms. Gordon mentioned, we had a very stimulating chat at the conference earlier today.”

“Somehow I’m not surprised to hear that you met her.”

“Coincidence and fate figure largely in our lives, Mr. Wayne.” Philip smiles like a cat; it’s oddly charming. “We’re superheroes, after all. Here,” to Damian, “Dick mentioned to me that you like animals, would you like to see a picture of my cat? He used to be a supervillain.”

After they consume a truly astonishing amount of diner food it’s time to part ways, and Bruce shakes hands with Shoutaro and Philip and says, “<It was good to meet you both.>”

Philip beams. “<Likewise, thank you, it’s been a pleasure. And I’m looking forward to seeing more of Gotham.>”

Shoutaro looks up at him for a moment. “<It’s been good talking to you, Mr. Wayne. You…remind me of someone I used to know.>”

“” Bruce turns to go, but then turns back. “”

They nod, precisely in sync, and Philip says, “<Yes?>”

“<What does it mean to be strong?>”

Silence for a moment, Shoutaro and Philip glancing at each other while Dick and Damian wait in puzzled silence, and then Shoutaro says, “<Kindness,>” and Philip says, “<Love.>” Another shared glance before Shoutaro continues. “<Anyone can hurt someone else. Helping them, that’s strength.>”

Bruce nods. “<Somehow that’s what I knew you’d say.>”

#hongo takeshi #tachibana tobei #bruce wayne #dick grayson #hidari shoutaro #philip #damian wayne #fanfiction #30 day shuffle challenge

18 notes · View notes

cyberdreamlandwriting · 4 years ago

Text

Just for a Moment

Summary: Nathan doesn't react to your pregnancy the way you thought. In fact, he doesn't react at all

Authors note: So this is my first reader insert fanfiction ever, which is a bit scary! Luckily I had the amazing help of @writefightandflightclub This story is even inspired by her own dad!Nathan story! This story is also for her, I truly hope you all enjoy! Nathan is a bit ooc in this, especially near the end. Oh, and no beta reader, apologizes for the mistakes. Wrote this in a few hours too.

Word count: 2.6k

You two had been so careful. So, so careful!

Well, except for that time when he took you on the counter-top for nearly three hours. Or when he fucked you in the shower. Or when you bounced on his dick for a hot minute in his lab. Or the time-

Okay, well, maybe the two of you hadn't been careful. Big whoop. You'd been dating for nearly a year, stuck in his, as you called it 'Futuristic House of Doom' after the incident where his A.I tried to murder him.

But he didn't like to talk about that.

Regardless, it didn't matter. You two were happy and in a stable relationship. And now you were going to have a kid.

But neither of you had ever even mentioned kids.

You'd wanted to have them in your teen years, you even picked out names for your future children.

Names that you'd long forgotten and didn't care to try and remember.

Then straight out of college you somehow got a job at Blue Book. And over the past five years, you'd been making your way up the ladder. Slowly but surely up the ladder. You had been too busy to have children, and you weren't sure you even wanted them.

But now? You were quite positive you wanted them, or at least one.

But Nathan, fuck, what would he think? He didn't show much affection, you'd only gotten one 'I love you' from him about a month ago.

That wasn't to say he was a bad boyfriend. He still snuggled with you on the rare nights he actually slept. He made love to you several times a week, occasionally worshiping you while doing so, calling you his goddess until you would cum.

He'd make you food when he was out of the lab. He taught you how to use the punching bag correctly. He'd press occasional kisses to you when he walked past. He had carried you back to the house when you had fallen and twisted your ankle, not complaining once about the trek or the fact that you had made him miss out on an entire day of work.

He did show affection in his own Nathan way.

You eyed the pregnancy test in your trembling hands.

What's the worst thing he could do? Scream and yell at you? Send you home and never speak with you again?

Those were all possibilities but Nathan didn't scream or yell much. He'd only yelled once when something he'd been working on for eight hours crashed without him saving it. And of course that's not counting the times he yelled in bed. But for the most part, he didn't yell.

You shoved the test into your pocket and wondered if he already knew.

You went into town twice a month, and had bought a test on your last visit. You'd shoved the box into the closet behind a stack of blankets when you got back home. Could he have found it?

Could he be expecting you when you exited the bathroom, arms crossed, eyebrow raised?

Plus you hadn't been eating much, but he never commented on it. You ate when he offered food to you, but otherwise stuck to crackers and water. Maybe he hadn't heard your retching in the toilet at three a.m. The lab was far enough away that he probably couldn't hear it, especially when the door was closed. Or maybe he had and just didn't give that much of a shit to check on you.

Or did he truly have no idea and you were about to give him the shock of his life? You washed your hands, making your way towards the lab. Your legs shook, but you continued on until you could hear the clacking of his keyboard. You exhaled and knocked on the glass, but he didn't look up.

"Nathan, can I talk to you?"

He doesn't pay any mind to you as you enter, something you would huff and whine about usually, but now you were gonna start crying if he didn't give you something. A grunt, a look, a word....something.

"Well, it's important. Like, super important."

He grabbed a pen and scribbled something down, then went back to scrolling.

"It's life changing news."

Still nothing.

You clenched your fists and walked up next to him. "I'm pregnant." You pulled out the test and shoved it in his direction but he didn't look up from the screen.

You pulled the test away, your body feeling like jelly. You wanted to call him a fucking asshole or a piece of shit. But you couldn't find any words or emotions besides heartbreak. Was this his way of saying you needed to leave? To say you weren't welcome here anymore?

You turned and went to the kitchen, grabbing some crackers and stumbling back to your room. You slammed the door, heart pounding. She couldn't cry, not yet. He was going to come in tonight and apologize, explain he was doing something important but that he's all done now and he's here to listen.

Or he'd tell you the helicopter is coming to pick you up in the morning.

You really hoped it was the former.

You opened your laptop and curled up under the soft blue blanket you had insisted on him buying the first time he came into town with you. Because as you had said. 'Your house is boring as shit, it needs some color. We're buying this.'

You put on your headphones and searched for something pleasant to watch. You found some mindless crime show and started on some random episode in season seven. Your eyes glazed over, not listening to a word being said.

You curled your knees up to your chest, your head resting on the pillow he had used two nights before. It still smelled like him, causing you to hold it close, imagining he was giving you a hug.

You felt fucking pathetic.

You woke up confused, face covered in your own drool. You blinked rapidly, the room dark. What had woken you?

Then you felt your stomach clench and your throat burn. You sprinted to the bathroom and threw up into the toilet, not bothering to shut the door this time.

After a few minutes you rolled off the toilet and groaned, flicking on the light switch. You hoped he would be standing in the doorway, eyes full of concern but alas...nothing.

You groaned and flushed the toilet, washing both your hands and your mouth and flicking off the light before entering the hallway. You hesitated, wondering if you should go see if he's still in the lab.

You made your way down the hall, and sure enough you could hear his keyboard and the soft scratch of pen against paper.

You turned and went back to your room, flopping onto the bed with a groan. You checked the time, nearly two a.m., and tried to fall back asleep.

You tossed and turned, tossing the blankets every which way, grumbling as you stretched over the side of the bed to grab the thrown blankets.

You soon gave up and grabbed your phone, mindlessly scrolling through social media.

After nearly two hours of scrolling through frightening politics in your home country and stupid memes that occasionally made you giggle, your phone buzzed with an alert about your battery.

You quickly plugged it in and rubbed your eyes. There wasn't a way you could fall back asleep, so you grumbled around for your laptop, thankfully with enough charge to get you through another hour or two of another show, you settled on a soap opera from the nineties.

You watched but absorbed nothing, as the sun began to rise and the wisps of light filled the room you couldn't even remember the main character's name. You shut the laptop at that, plugging it in and making your way to the lab. Surprisingly he wasn't in it, so you made your way to the kitchen. But again, it was as empty as his lab.

You then went out into the cool morning air to see Nathan, fists wrapped as he punched the bag.

You lean against the door, and this time you're less nervous and more annoyed. "I'm pregnant." You call out again, but he keeps punching. You give him a minute, listening to sounds of the birds waking up. "Bateman I'm pregnant, we need to talk about it." You shout, but he ignores you, not even sparing a glance. You feel your face getting hot, tears at the corners of your eyes. "Fine." You hiss, slamming the door and marching back to your room.

As soon as the door opens you burst into tears, throwing yourself onto the bed. You feel your body shaking, your heart pounding so loud it rings in your ears. You let out a muffled scream, snot running down your chin and mixing with the tears that cover the sheets.

You let yourself cry until your head is throbbing and your eyes are bloodshot. You can only whimper, you don't have any more tears left in you, at least for the moment. You crawl over and flick the switch on the wall, which covers the window in thick blinds, shutting out all the light. You flop back into bed, the room now pitch black. You pull the blanket around you, reaching for the pillow once again. But this time it doesn't smell like him, it only smells like you.

You bury your face in it anyway, the silence washing over you until your eyes flutter shut and the world around you vanishes.

When you wake up again, your stomach is screaming about how empty it is. You get up, smacking your lips and slam your way out of bed. You hit the floor with a thud and grumble. You're lightheaded from hunger and heartbreak, you need food.

You drag your legs down the hall, blue blanket trailing behind you. You don't even notice the lab until-

"Hey."

You freeze, looking over and seeing him standing in the door frame. He looks tired, more tired than usual. His eyes are more bloodshot, and his body is more reserved.

"Are you alright?"

You think something is wrong with him because he just asked if you're okay in such a soft and gentle voice that you only heard once or twice when you fell asleep in his arms and he would mutter your name.

"What?" You ask, not even trying to hide your shock.

"I asked if you're okay. Are you?"

"No, because you haven't been listening to me." You mutter, pulling the blanket around you.

"I have, I'm just, not good with words. Come here." He takes your hand and leads you back to the room, wondering if he just wants a quick fuck. But he stops in front of the room across the hall from yourself and opens the door. It was a guest room, where you used to stay before you two started to share a bed.

And now it's empty, and-

"I um, I ordered some stuff. For like a fucking nursery or whatever." He mutters. "I thought it looked nice, but it's up to you when it arrives. Should be here tomorrow."

He turns and heads toward the kitchen, you hot on his heels. "You need something to eat, even if you don't feel good you gotta eat something."

"Nathan, are-" you pause, "You're okay with this?"

He pauses as he closes the fridge. "Honestly Y/N, I'm fucking terrified and kinda wish you were joking." He runs a hand through his buzzed hair before leaning against the counter. "But I assume you want it."

"Yeah, but only if you'll be there, for me and for the baby and for yourself."

"Myself? What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You can't take care of a baby or your pregnant girlfriend if you can't care for yourself."

"I do take care of myself-"

"That's a fucking lie. You've gone days without eating or sleeping-"

"Hey, I'm practicing, babies are loud and need attention-"

"Just like you," you take his hand, locking your fingers together. "But I'm serious. I worry about you, a lot."

"You don't need to do that. I'm the one who's gotta be fussing over you. Making sure you eat and sleep and whatever fucking else a pregnant woman needs. After you told me in the lab my brain kinda….stopped working for a few minutes. Then I spent all day researching babies and pregnancy. Read a bunch of stuff, some helpful, others not. Then I ordered all the nursery stuff, I picked blue and beige, thought it went well together. That isn't me wanting a boy, more me trying my hand at interior decorating. Probably gonna look like shit but we can always buy whatever you actually want." He rubbed a hand over his face.

"Then of course the terror set in, the fact that I was going to be a father. I don't need to worry about you in that aspect, you're gonna be a fucking fantastic mom. You're so fucking kind and sweet and you know when to put your foot down and-" his voice cracks but he continues. "I just know I'm gonna fuck up this poor kid's life. So I boxed, and then you came out and I was too much of a coward to face you then. I kept going until..." he holds up his knuckles which are a nasty shade of blue and purple, "but that doesn't hurt nearly as much as knowing I made you cry. And I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry I messed you up like that. That I did that to you. I'm bad with people, I always will be, but I don't wanna be bad to you, I adore you."

A million thoughts are pounding in your head. He's teary eyed, he's terrified, he bought things for a nursery, he just said he's going to be caring and fussing over you, he said you were gonna be a fantastic mom. But most of all, Nathan fucking Bateman just apologized to you.

You feel the tears coming hot and fast. "N-Nathan, do you mean that? All of it?”

He nods and you race into his arms, knocking the air out of him. He pulls you close and you feel tears drip into your hair. Nathan is crying into your hair and you're soaking his shirt. His shoulders are shaking and you aren't sure how to react. You slowly pull back and wipe away a tear.

"Do you want this?" You whisper. He only nods, letting you continue. "Nathan, you're gonna be an amazing father, I just know it. You can be soft, I mean look at you right now!" You shake your head. "You don't need to worry about that at all. I love you, I love you so much."

"And I love you baby, I love you more than you'll ever know. So we're gonna have a baby, aren't we?"

"We're gonna have a baby!" You smile and jump around him, causing him to smile

He presses a kiss to your knuckles. "The mother-to-be needs food, what do you want?"

"Your baby and I want pancakes."

"Then so be it, I mean, you two are the bosses after all." He turns on the stove as you take a seat on the counter to watch.

Nathan is scared, he's so scared of fucking this up, and that fear never goes away.

But when the cry of your baby is heard six months later and the midwife declares it's a healthy baby boy and places him on your chest, the fear vanishes, if only for a moment.

Nathan takes a seat on the bed and presses his lips against the side of your head, softly whispering praises into your ear.

"What's his name?" The midwife asks, smiling at the three of you.

"Byron," You answer as the newborn wraps his hand around Nathan's finger, and all is right in the world, even if it's just for a moment.

#nathan bateman #ex machina fanfiction #oscar isaac #nathan batman x reader #my writing #ex machina

136 notes · View notes

seanfalco · 4 years ago

Text

Bad Kids | 02. Ruth

Nathan Young x f!reader

Word Count: 4.8k Rating: M Warnings: Swearing

[ masterlist ]

It had been nearly a week since you buried Tony.

When he mysteriously stopped showing up for work a new probation worker was assigned to your group, a woman named Sally, and to be honest, you liked her even less than you’d liked Tony, and he’d tried to kill you.

The first day she showed up she lined you all up, grimly asking if you might have any clues to Tony’s, or Gary’s whereabouts.

“Have you seen anything unusual? Anything at all?” she asked, looking you all up and down, as if assessing you.

No one spoke.

After a moment however, Nathan raised his hand reluctantly, drawing Sally’s attention and you glanced down the line at him, narrowing your eyes, no doubt as curious as the others what he was gunna say. After all, he was the one who’d urged you all to say nothing, pretend everything was normal.

“A few days ago… I went into the toilets, and Tony and Gary were in there,” he began, his serious expression already beginning to deteriorate, “they were butt naked. Tony had Gary by his hair, like this--” he explained, grabbing a fistful of his own curly locks at the back of his head. “--And he’s just doin’ ‘im, y’know doggy style,” he exclaimed, humping the air while Sally scowled, crossing her arms over her chest as he continued, taking the joke way too far, getting really into it.

“Who’s your daddy? I’m your daddy, I’m Big Daddy! Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeahh I’m Daddy Cool!” He instantly stopped, planting his hands on his hips. “So I”m guessing they’ve ran away to continue their illicit homosexual affair.”

Sally didn’t say a word, a pained expression crossing her face before she walked away and the rest of you merely gaped at Nathan.

“What th’fuck was that?” you mouthed.

“What?” he asked, shrugging.

Later, down in the car park, garbage bags in hand Nathan was back to speculating what his yet to be discovered powers were, while also throwing in guesses as to what your power might be as well.

“Maybe I can climb things, like Spiderman style!” he exclaimed to a chorus of groans.

“And why would that make sense?” Curtis asked.

“Well, it ain’t like any part of this situation is backed up by a wank-load of logic,” Nathan countered. “Maybe [Y/N] can control fire or something, I dunno.”

Curtis stopped suddenly, Nathan almost running into him as he pointed with his trash picker. “What… is that?”

Looking where Curtis was pointing, you gasped, taking a step back. A man lay curled up, peacefully asleep in the middle of the asphalt, completely buck naked.

“Is he breathing?” Kelly asked as you all gathered around him, Alisha poking his ass with her picker.

“Hey nude guy, you’re naked!” she exclaimed and he stirred, rolling over.

“OH!” you all cried, getting more of a look than you wanted, while Simon snapped a photo on his phone.

“Wait,” Nathan muttered, locking eyes with the man on the ground, alarm filling his voice as he pointed. “You!” he cried as the man seemed to recognize him in turn, his eyes growing wide as he rolled to his feet and took off running. “Hey!” Nathan called after him, shoving past Simon as he watched the man sprint away.

“You wanna tell us how you know that guy?” Alisha asked, still shaking with laughter.

Nathan turned, his eyes wildly searching your faces, “He’s my mum’s… he lives with my mum,” he finally explained disjointedly.

“Your stepdad has got a massive cock,” Alisha pointed out as Kelly and Curtis giggled in response.

“What? No! Jay-sus!” Nathan cried, completely freaked out. “And he’s not my stepdad, alright?”

“Why was he naked?” you asked.

“Well, he’s obviously some sort of pervert,” Nathan spat disgustedly.

“Maybe he’s gay,” Alisha suggested.

“Oh maybe he’s a rapist,” Kelly threw in. “There’re loads of ‘em around here.”

“He could be a werewolf,” Simon said matter-of-factly.

A week ago that suggestion would have been a lot less believable, but after everything you’d seen so far of the others’ powers and what had happened to Tony, you were starting to wonder just how possible that might be.

Nathan frowned, unimpressed. “Twat!” he exclaimed, pointing his garbage picker at Simon, obviously not wanting to entertain the possibility.

“It happens in films all the time,” Simon argued calmly. “You turn into a werewolf, you kill someone, and then wake up somewhere... naked.”

“He’s not a werewolf, alright?” Nathan exclaimed, “This guy’s such a pussy, he needs my mum to open jars for him. I’m sure if he were a werewolf, he’d be able to open a jar of peanut butter for himself.”

“What if he got messed up by the storm too?” you asked, voicing what the others were thinking.

“That-that’s bollocks, okay? What are the chances?” Nathan asked, his eyes darting around anxiously and you wondered if maybe there was some truth to it after all.

——

The next day when you arrived at the community center you found it filled to the brim with old people-- the central hall turned into some sort of dance floor for geriatrics. Sally had you stay in your street clothes, lined up off to the side as she gave instructions for the day.

“Just help out, y’know, talk to them. Make sure they’re having a good time.”

When none of you reacted, instead glancing awkwardly around at each other, no one wanting to make the first move, she grimaced. “Move!” she exclaimed, ushering you out onto the floor.

You followed Kelly and Nathan, stopping in front of a man decorated in war medals, seemingly, hopefully asleep in his wheelchair and Kelly frowned. “Is he dead?” she asked, crossing her arms. “I think he’s dead,” she decided, glancing from you to Nathan who shrugged, moving closer, crouching down in front of the man.

“She’s stealing your pension!” he said loudly next to the man’s ear, rousing him, not so gently, as he gaped around, alarmed and unsure where he was. Turning back to you and Kelly Nathan grinned, before standing and taking off again, “No, he’s fine.”

Rolling your eyes as he left, you ambled away as well, unsure exactly what to do, as Kelly sat down across from the old man, looking like she’d rather be anywhere else. Curtis and Simon were soon paired up with frail old ladies out on the dancefloor, and Alisha hurried past you, looking upset before Nathan’s raucous voice caught your ears.

“Okay, Joan. Let’s pick up some speed here, let’s get that wind flowing through your hair! Let’s get that wind flowing through your scalp, come on.”

Across the room, you watched as Nathan pushed an elderly woman’s wheelchair around the edge of the dancefloor, probably faster than he should be before simply letting go, letting her roll away as he stared transfixed at the girl who’d just entered, wearing a colourful sundress, her wavy blonde hair bouncing as it framed her face; his eyes going to her backside as she passed him, glancing over her shoulder to flash a flirty smile at him and soon he was trailing behind her like a lost puppy.

Suddenly it felt as though a block of ice had dropped into your gut and you frowned. This is ridiculous, you thought, turning away, searching for anything to keep you busy. The last thing you wanted to do was watch Nathan make a fool of himself while flirting with some other girl -- the making a fool of himself part, that was, not the other girl part.

Turning, you nearly ran into Sally as she stood before you, her arms crossed over her chest. “If you’re just going to stand around, why don’t you grab Miss Bailey over there and go man the drink station, hm?” She flashed you a thinned lipped smile before hurrying off to see to something else.

——

“I think I’d rather be pickin’ up garbage than doin’ this” you grumbled, standing next to Kelly after you’d both been relegated to the refreshment table.

“Why’s that?” she asked, glancing over at you.

“I dunno,” you mumbled, your gaze taking in the room. “Old people, y’know? Makes me uncomfortable,” you answered, your eyes once again catching Nathan across the room, still chatting it up with the blonde girl in the sundress who was also volunteering.

Then I wouldn’t hafta witness that disgusting display, you thought sourly, your stomach twisting with an emotion uncomfortably close to jealousy, not noticing the frown Kelly directed at you.

What’s so bloody great about her anyway — little miss goody two shoes? Who just volunteers for th’fun of it? I mean, she can’t seriously be interested in him, she’s way out of his league.

Sloshing punch over the side of the plastic cup you were filling, you reached for a napkin to sop it up at the same time Kelly did, your hands touching momentarily.

Is she seriously jealous over ‘im?

Kelly’s incredulous voice filled your ears and you turned to gape at her as her eyes flicked from Nathan to you.

“What?” she asked, noticing the way you were looking at her, your hands on your hips.

“What did you say?” you demanded.

“I didn’t say nothin’!” she exclaimed, her brows furrowing as she towered over you. What’s she on about?

“I’m not jealous,” you spat, holding Kelly’s glare.

Kelly blinked suddenly. “Wait, how’d you hear that?” she asked.

“You said it!” you insisted, not backing down, “I heard yeh!”

“I didn’t say that—“ Kelly hissed back, “I thought it.”

“What?” Her words brought you up short and you frowned.

“Can ya hear what I’m thinkin’?” she asked, lowering her voice and glancing around to make sure no one was close enough to overhear.

“No,” you admitted. “Are you thinkin’ something right now?”

Kelly nodded. “How come you heard that and not anythin’ else?” she wondered.

Chewing your lip you ran back over everything that had happened in the last few minutes and that’s when you realized what was different.

“I touched yeh,” you exclaimed before clarifying. “When we both reached for the napkin I brushed your hand and right after was when I heard it.”

Kelly nodded again slowly, coming to the same conclusion you had. “Alright then,” she said with a shrug, thrusting her hand out toward you. “Try it again.”

Nodding, you hesitantly reached out and placed your hand atop Kelly’s before looking around the room. As people passed the table you heard snippets of their thoughts, all overlapping, ringing loudly in your ears.

Is it workin’?

You heard Kelly’s voice over the others’, louder, probably because she was right next to you.

This is what you hear all the time? you asked, glancing at her and she sighed.

Yeah, sucks don’t it?

You can’t like, tune it out?

Nope. Or at least, not that I’ve figured out how to.

Damn, I’m sorry, you thought, definitely not envying her her power.

Surprisingly this time it took several minutes for the voices to fade, silence taking their place after you let go of Kelly’s hand.

That’s weird, you thought, could it be like a delayed reaction?

“What you mean?” Kelly asked.

“As soon as I let go, I thought it would stop, but it didn’t. Not right away. It took a couple minutes.”

“Bout as long as you held on for,” she pointed out and you nodded in agreement. “Wonder if it works with any of th’others.”

“Yeah,” you murmured, your eyes seeking out Simon and Curtis in the crowd. Perhaps some further testing would be required.

Was that all your power was then — borrowing other peoples’ powers? What did that make you? You wondered, chewing your lip. It wasn’t exactly off the A-list, power wise, as Nathan had put it.

“Hey,” Kelly exclaimed, nudging your arm with her elbow and pulling you from your thoughts — which she no doubt heard. “Don’t think I haven’t forgotten what you was thinkin’ earlier,” she teased, an amused grin tugging at her lips and you scowled.

“Oh lovely,” you muttered, filling another cup as an elderly man took the last one from the table. “Can we just drop it?”

“No, no, I’m curious,” she insisted, clearly amused. “What exactly is it about that git that gets you all hot and bothered?” she asked, nodding across the room toward Nathan.

“Ew!” you cried indignantly, “that is not—!” you cut off, unsure how even to continue. “He doesn’t--”

“Oh please,” Kelly said with a smirk, “I can hear your thoughts, remember?”

“Yeah, well, kindly stay th’fuck outta my head!”

Shutting your mouth with a heavy sigh, you practically glared daggers across the room at Nathan, too oblivious to even notice. With his luck, you hoped he might’ve struck out by now, but by the way the blonde girl was smiling at him you had a feeling he was gunna get lucky after all. Shoving the thought out of your head you turned back to Kelly, who merely raised her eyebrows at you expectantly.

“Look, I dunno!” you exclaimed, throwing your hands up. “I know he’s an arse, alright. Y’think I don’t realize that?”

Tilting her head as she waited, it was clear she wasn’t going to back down.

“He’s funny,” you said sullenly, shrugging uncomfortably, “I have a thing for guys who can make me laugh, okay?”

Kelly shook her head. “What I don’t get, is why you shut him down constantly when he’s all over you,” she pointed out.

“I ain’t no slag,” you scoffed, eyeing her. “Thought you of all people would understand that.”

Sensing she’d struck a nerve she sobered, nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I get that,” she admitted softly.

“Besides,” you added, your eyes one again finding the tall youth across the room, “I… didn’t even know I had a thing for him until…”

Kelly’s gaze followed yours and she shrugged. “Ah, he’s a prick and an idiot. Who needs ‘im, right?”

Sharing a grin you got back to work as Sally ambled past, her sharp gaze, almost hostile, sending a shiver down your spine, but you were thankful for Kelly’s words, glad she was there to distract you.

Focusing on keeping the refreshments stocked and a pleasant enough grin plastered to your face, you reminded yourself you only had to make it through a couple more hours of this before you could skip out and head to band rehearsal — eager to be away from bitchy probabtion workers, smelly old folks, and Nathan fucking Young.

——

Later in the locker room you were leaning against the lockers between Kelly and Alisha when Curtis spoke up, pulling something from the inside of his locker door.

“Someone knows,” he exclaimed, holding up the sheet of paper that had been taped in his locker. “They know we killed our probation worker.”

It looked like a photocopy of one of those ransom notes you always see in film, the ones with the letters clipped out of magazines, and it read “I know what you did.”

Nathan merely rolled his eyes, turning back to his locker.

“Is this a wind up?” Kelly scoffed next to you.

“Was this you?” Alisha demanded, turning to Nathan who slowly spun to face everyone.

“If I was trying to wind you up, I think I’d be a little bit more creative.”

“This isn’t funny,” Kelly interjected.

“Seriously, if I wanted to freak you out, I would’ve dug up the body and stuck that in your locker,” Nathan exclaimed.

“If it wasn’t him, who was it?” Simon asked softly.

“Well, we’ve all done stuff, how d’you know what they’re referrin’ to? They could be talking bout anything,” Nathan pointed out, and you had to admit he had a good point.

“It was in your locker,” you added.

“This was meant for all of us,” Curtis argued, “They’re talking about the probation worker!”

“Okay, say you’re right,” Nathan replied, throwing his hands up, “If they actually knew anything they wouldn’t be dickin’ around sticking notes on lockers. They would have already gone to the police and we’d all be banged up in prison gettin’ gang-raped in the showers.”

“It does seem purposefully vague,” you reasoned, glancing around at the others. “I mean, think about it, it seems more like they’re trying to bait you into confirming somethin’ that they don’t actually have any proof on.”

“Yes, exactly!” Nathan cried, gesturing to you, “This means they have no evidence. No proof. Nothin’. Besides, I’m still convinced it has to do with something completely unrelated that you’ve done,” he said, getting right up in Curtis’s face.

“So, if we’re all done freaking out here, over nothing, there’s somewhere I need to be,” he announced, clapping a hand on Curtis’s shoulder sarcastically before flashing you a grin and slipping out of the locker room.

“Please tell me you don’t actually believe that prick?” Curtis demanded as soon as Nathan was gone.

Kelly shared a look with you and Alisha before turning back to Curtis. “Well, whoever did it is just trying to freak us out, right?” she reasoned, “So, just act normal.”

Curtis didn’t seem to like that answer, but you had to agree with Kelly, and as much as you hated to admit it, Nathan had brought up some good points as well. However, as soon as you left the locker room you pushed those thoughts aside, looking forward to letting off some much needed steam with your bandmates.

——

The next day as you walked into the community center to get changed you stifled a yawn behind your hand. Your band practice had gone later than usual and you’d spent several hours after that with your mates drinking and catching up, just hanging out-- it had been a nice change of pace. But unfortunately, you were back in your orange jumpsuit, ready for another riveting day of community service.

Out in the main hall Nathan was showing Kelly something on his cell phone and when he saw you he motioned you over. “Look,” he exclaimed, making space for you to stand between him and Kelly, a disgusted look on her face. “It’s him. It’s the guy who lives with my mum. He was out there last night. This is evidence,” he insisted, pointing at the phone screen.

“What am I lookin’ at?” Kelly asked as you leaned in, squinting in an attempt to make out the blurry photograph under your nose.

Nathan frowned at her question before pointing at the screen. “Cock, anus, bit o’ ball-sack,” he explained.

Kelly grabbed the phone for a better look, her mouth falling open as she showed you. “Eww, what’s that?”

“That’s ball-sack,” Nathan answered as if it were obvious. “It’s from a low angle, Jesus.”

“And why do you have a photo of that?” you asked, glancing up at him. When he met your gaze he hesitated for a moment and you realized how close you were before he answered, spluttering.

“Like I said, it’s evidence!” he exclaimed.

“And why were you here last night?” Kelly asked pointedly, cocking an eyebrow, her arm brushing yours as she planted her hands on her hips.

“Oh shit, that’s right. She knows I’m a homeless.”

In the split second your arm had touched Kelly’s you heard part of Nathan’s thoughts and your eyebrows shot up. Wait, he’s homeless? You thought, glancing over at Kelly. Did that mean he was staying here, at the community center?

Kelly grimaced, having clearly not meant to expose Nathan’s secret, but at least he didn’t know you knew yet.

Snatching the phone from her hand Nathan hurried over to show Simon the photo as a distraction. “Look, this guy is living with my mum. We’ve got to do something.”

“Like what?” you asked.

“Can you get me a gun?” he asked, turning to Kelly.

“I ain’t gettin’ you a gun.”

“Oh come on, just a little one, nothing too lairy.”

“There’s no way I’m gettin’ a dickhead like you a gun,” Kelly replied pointedly as Simon spoke up. “You can get a gun on the internet.”

Nathan considered for a moment. “What if we go round there tonight, we’ll talk to him? We’ll be mature and polite, yeah? And then we’ll just tell him to fuck off,” he exclaimed, as if it were easy as that.

“What if he says no?” Kelly said, picking up the chairs you were all supposed to be putting away.

“I don’t know! We’ll improvise,” Nathan exclaimed exasperatedly. “So, who’s with me?”

When no one spoke up, Nathan looked around frowning, throwing his hands up. “So, it’s like that, is it? So much for being united by a horrific, life-changing, shared experience?”

“What’re you talking about?” Alisha asked, glancing up from the magazine she was flipping through.

“Last week? You know? The situation…”

Still no one seemed to know what he was talking about.

“We killed our probation worker!” he exclaimed loudly to a chorus of frantic shushing.

“God, you’re such a dickhead!” Kelly hissed, continuing to work.

You were deliberating on offering to help or not when Simon spoke up. “I’ll come with you. You know, if you want someone to go with you. I’ll come,” he offered and Nathan turned to him, eyeing him up and down as if that were the last thing he wanted.

“I’m not being funny, but me and you, buddying up, kicking ass! I’m just not feelin’ it, but hey. Lovely thought. Cheers,” he exclaimed before brushing past Simon who hesitated a moment before walking away stiffly.

You watched him go, feeling a bit sorry for him before turning to Nathan who’d plopped down in one of the chairs.

“God, you’re a dick,” you said, smacking him across the arm.

“Ow! Wha--?” he exclaimed, jumping slightly before grasping his arm and gaping up at you, scandalized. “What was that for?”

“You wanted someone to help you, and he offered to help you, and then you treat him like that? You’re such an ass.”

“Well, I was kinda more hopin’ you’d wanna help me,” he exclaimed, cringing when he realized how it sounded, quickly backpedaling. “But obviously, you’re too good for that.”

“Yeah, obviously,” you muttered under your breath, before turning to go help Kelly.

——

The next day you were back to spending time with the old folks and this time everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves out on the dancefloor, everyone except Nathan. You caught sight of him sitting dejectedly off by himself and made your way over. In the couple of weeks you’d known him, you’d never seen him look so… lost before.

“Hey,” you murmured, nudging his foot with your shoe and he glanced up at you, “can I sit?” you asked, gesturing to the empty chair next to him and he rolled his shoulders in a noncommittal way.

“You okay?” you asked as you lowered yourself to the seat, Nathan looking down at his hands.

“Yeah, I’m… I’m great. Just peachy,” he muttered hollowly, not meeting your eyes as he straightened, leaning back in his seat to stare out at the dancefloor.

You couldn’t help but notice that the cute volunteer he’d been flirting with the other day, Ruth, was nowhere to be seen. Not that you’d looked up her name on the volunteer sheet or anything.

“So… you strike it out with Ruth or something?” you asked, your curiosity getting the better of yourself.

Nathan swallowed, shaking his head, his unruly curls bouncing. “I don’t really wanna… talk about her,” he mumbled, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

“Sorry, I…” Suddenly Nathan’s expression changed, something akin to horror flashed across his face and you cut off, your gaze seeking out what had terrified him so before he scrambled to his feet and hurried away with a startled yelp. In front of you, looking lost and helpless, an elderly woman stood, leaning on her walker, her eyes following Nathan sadly as he practically ran away from her before she looked back to you, her face falling.

“Uhh,” you faltered, unsure what to do as you hesitantly got to your feet, hovering next to the woman; feeling like you should do something. “I’m sorry about him, he… uh. I’m sorry,” you offered, not really certain how to explain Nathan’s actions, but feeling bad for her. “Would you like to sit with me?” you asked instead, hoping to help in some way, but she merely shook her head sadly and turned away.

Nathan still hadn’t returned by the time Sally had the rest of you suit up for more trash duty and it wasn’t long before you found him, sitting under the flyover smoking a cigarette.

“Hey, what happened to you?” Curtis asked as you all ambled over to cluster around him.

“I will not be in a room where that song is playing,” Nathan exclaimed with bravado, though you could still see the haunted look in his eyes.

“Some old woman was looking for you,” Kelly said.

At her words Nathan tensed, his eyes darting warily between Kelly and the rest of you before he bit his lip and looked away quickly, his shoulders hunching suspiciously.

Moments later Kelly’s eyes went wide and her mouth fell open. “You shagged her?” she exclaimed disgustedly and everyone else turned to gape at him before he plastered a grin on his face, that was fooling no one and attempted to cover with a joke.

“Oh yeah, yeah, good one. I gave her a right good seeing to.”

“You’re kidding… right?” you asked hesitantly. “You seriously fucked an octogenarian?”

Curtis and Kelly groaned as Alisha’s face lit up with laughter. “You totally screwed her!”

“No,” Nathan cried, scrambling away. “No!”

“You nailed that old woman?” Curtis asked with disbelief and Nathan looked mortified.

“Did you enjoy it?” Simon asked, a smirk lighting up his face, pleased he wasn’t the butt of the joke this time, and clearly enjoying turning the tables on Nathan for once.

“That’s so wrong,” you exclaimed, remembering the way the old woman who’d approached him had looked at him. Maybe it was true, you thought, your stomach twisting at the thought. “That’s beyond sick. You’re not seriously into that, are you?”

Nathan growled in frustration. “Noooo! She didn’t look like that when we started, okay!” he exclaimed. “You remember that bird, Ruth, from Tuesday? Beautiful, yeah? That wrinkly old bint, that’s her!” he cried, his eyes sweeping the group, carefully avoiding yours.

“It was the storm. It made her young again.”

When his explanation only brought more teasing he turned away, disgustedly.

“Nathan, wait!” Kelly exclaimed, brushing past you to apologize. “I didn’t mean to tell everyone. It just came out.”

“Well, great job. Nice one,” he snapped, pushing away from her. “And stay outta my head!” he called over his shoulder as he stalked away.

Frustrated at his reaction, Kelly frowned, clenching her hands into fists. “Granny fucker!” she called after him, turning and striding away in the opposite direction as everyone began to disperse, getting to work. You stood rooted in place for a moment, watching Nathan walk off, torn between wanting to go after him and giving him space. Although, at the moment, he probably didn’t want you around to rub it in. Shaking your head you turned as well, kicking the dirt as you followed after the others.

——

“I told you there’d be other people out there who got messed up by the storm, and you didn’t believe me,” Kelly said pointedly, several days later as you were all dressing to go home.

“Yeah, well, I was wrong, wasn’t I?” Nathan snapped irritably, though he’d come around to being mostly back to his normal self; though you could’ve sworn he’d been avoiding you since that day under the flyover.

“There’s a hurricane of weird shit out there,” he muttered, leaning back against the locker as Alisha mimed eating pussy again, still not ready to let him live it down. “Oh, another oral sex gag. Brilliant,” he sighed exasperatedly.

Simon abruptly shut his locker door with a clang, drawing everyone’s eyes. “We need to be ready for when they come after us,” he said ominously, bringing a hush to the locker room.

“What are you talking about?” you asked.

“The other people who got caught up in the storm.”

“Why would they come after us?” Curtis asked before you could.

“Because that’s what people do,” he answered cryptically, fixing all of you with his intense gaze.

“Yeah, well, if they do we’ll just tell ‘em it was your fault,” Nathan scoffed, turning to open his locker and freezing.

Glancing over your shoulder, you noticed what he was looking at, taped to the inside of his locker door and a chill ran through you.

“You know that note you found in your locker?” he asked Curtis, slowly turning. “I think it was talking about the probation worker, after all…”

The rest of you moved in slowly, reading over the missing person’s flyer, showing a photo of Tony and the words “I KNOW” written across it in permanent marker.

“Holy shit,” you whispered, sharing a worried look with the others. Maybe just burying the bodies wasn’t enough to allay suspicion afterall.

#misfits #misfits tv #nathan young #nathan young x reader #nathan young imagines #my writing #fic: bad kids

275 notes · View notes

dcbutinamrev · 3 years ago

Note

“Please…I need you” for Ben/André

Of course! This is based off of and from the episode "Trial and Execution" (s3, ep. 10 in Turn: Washington's Spies.) and some of it my own imagination. I'm using a transcript of the episode to help me with this because I remember very clearly Andre and Tallmadge having a conversation in the carriage in the episode but I couldn't remember the exact words. If you'd like me to do a ficlet for your favorite amrev ship, send me a prompt with your ship and I'll try my best to make a ficlet of it!

***

Congress still refuses to pay me.

John Andre's coming here.

In exchange for 20,000 pounds, I shall transfer to you the plans for West Point.

Arnold's a traitor.

~~~

The accused, Nathan Hale, having been found guilty of espionage and treasonous conspiracy against His Majesty King George III, shall here by be executed as a spy on this day the 22nd of October, 1776. If the condemened has any last words. Let him speak now.

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.

~~~

Major Benjamin Tallmadge shoots upright in his cot in his tent, his bright blue eyes wide and jaw slacked slightly. The bedsheets drape around his waist and he huffs and puffs as he sucks in gulps of air, blinking the dots he sees in his eyes. Still trying to catch his breath, Tallmadge clenches and unclenches his fists on the linen sheets as he glances around his surroundings. He begins to relax, his breathing much slower and calmer, as he realizes where he is. Tallmadge squeezes his eyes shut and bits his lip hard, hard enough for it to draw a small drop of blood. He swallows thickly and grimace as though a hand were clenching around his throat and it'd be difficult for him swallow. He lets out a shaky breath and blinks his eyes fast as he sits himself up agianst the pillows surrounding him. He feels his heart racing, fast as a lightning strike during a storm. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck tingle and his arms shake. His fingers twitches and he flops back down onto the pillows, his golden blonde hair untied from its standard tight braid.

He stares up ast the tent's ceiling, letting his arms drop and dangle on either side of his bed as he begins to be calm once more. His breathing now steady and his heart rate somewhat slowed, Tallmadge sits himself back up once more, running a hand through his hair as he lets an arm drape over his propped up knee.

It's quiet, Tallmadge thinks to himself. He frowns, swinging his legs around and grimacing when his feet touches the grass, still damp from the early morning's dew. He furrows his brows as he glances out at the small crack of the entranceway to his tent. Too quiet.

Tallmadge pushes himself up, straightens his bed and walks over to the wooden chair at the desk nearby where a couple of unfinished corrospondences are still laid upon the desk, his uniform draped over the back of the chair. Tallmadge huffs out a breath as he slips on his white shirt, adjusting the ruffled cuffs and buttons and tying his neck cloth and cravat rather quickly, his fingers fumbling over themseleves. He fixes his hair into a tight braid before slipping on his blue Continental coat.

Tallmadge gives himself a quick glance in the mirror and nods his head in approval once, his jaw clenched, before stepping out into the open, the flaps to the tent flapping behind him as he exits. He glances up at the sky, an overcast sky, and lets his eyes take a moment to adjust. Tallamdge jerks when he hears someone whistle, trying to get a horse's attention perhaps.

Tallmadge follows the noise until he sees General Washington and Colonel Alexander Hamilton along with the Marquis de Lafayette standing nearby. Tallmadge walks up to them, his back straight when he locks eyes with the General.

"Ah, Major Tallmadge," the General says, his voice gruff and smooth. Deep and raw at the same time. "Morning."

Tallmadge nods and bows respectfully before standing up straight again. "Morning, Your Excellency, sir."

"You do remember what occurs today, correct?" the General asks, quirking an eyebrow at Tallmadge expectedly.

Tallmadge grimaces and nods, swallowing hard as he remembers Hale. He licks his lips and grips his hands behind his back. "Yes, sir."

"We shall see you there," the General says.

Tallmadge nods again but doesn't reply as he watches the trio turn swiftly, their cloaks flapping along against the back of their legs as they disappear around the corner. Tallmadge closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath.

Oh, Nathan...

Is the last thing he thinks.

~~~

"Major Tallmadge," a smooth, elegant and rather light British voice says suddenly nearby as Tallmadge now stands next to a carriage, waiting. He ticks his eyes towards a man, a young man who happens to be in his late twenties to early thirties with smooth, combed back dark brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail, a braid behind his ear. A rounded chin and hooked nose, a thin smile and laugh lines on his cheeks. His uniform is clearly distinct, as it is a bright red indiciating his loyalty to the British. He smiles and nods once as he approaches Tallamdge. "Allow me to say that it is an honor to properly meet your aquaitance."

Tallmadge frowns, his brows furrowed as he presses his lips together. He swallows again and keeping his eyes trained on Andre with his jaw clenched, he forces a smile to appear and nods in greeting. Tallmadge steps aside as he watches Andre climb up the steps into the carriage and sits himself down. Tallmadge follows and watches a servant closes the door before walking around them. Tallmadge turns to face Andre once more. Andre grins as he pulls out a crumbled paper and charcoal and begins to sketch a rough line in what Tallmadge must think is the beginning of the subject's eye.

"Did you study portraiture back in Europe?" Tallmadge asks.

Andre ticks his eyes up from the paper and smiles thinly. "I did."

Tallmadge watches as he begins to sketch out the right eye. He bites the inside of his cheek, wondering what to say now.

"I wonder if you might indulge in my curiosity" Andre says suddenly, breaking the silence as the carriage begins to move. "Do you remember when you first heard my name?"

"Oh, I remember it well," Tallmadge says, keeping his eyes on the paper, watching the pieces come together. "It was a brisk Thursday, January, '77. Mr. Nathaniel Sackett, a friend of mine, he was telling me how he had managed to place a man within your inner circle posing as a Coldstream Guard.” He grits his teeth and curls his fists in his lap. “That man was later killed by a knife, as was Mr. Sackett.”

Andre pauses his work and presses his lips together before glancing up at Tallmadge. “I would like you to accept my apology for Mr. Sackett. My orders for Lietuenant Gamble were to avoid violence at all costs.”

Tallmadge eyes Andre before nodding once. “I accept.”

A pause.

“Though, I will not apologize for the punishment Lietuenant Gamble recieved of any kind,” Andre says. “Gamble knew well the risk of our particular business.”

“I suppose Sackett knew the risks as well,” Tallmadge says. I must say that he was quite impressed with the ruse that you concocted with Sutherland and Shanks.” A pause. Tallmadge scoffs mixed with a laugh. “ A master stroke, he would have called it.”

Andre hums, dotting something onto the paper. “Hardly.”

Tallmadge swallows, watching the man across from him. He bites his lip, seeing the twinkle in the dark brown irises, the sharp cut of his jaw, the braid behind his ear, the thinness of his lips, a blush pink. Tallmadge clears his throat, blinking his eyes.

“I sometimes wonder if Sackett would have seen right through Benedict Arnold,” Tallmadge says, attempting conversation once more.

Andre frowns and clenches onto the charocal. “Arnold was a faliure.” He looks up. “Culper is the master stroke. Seeing as I’m about to take a vow of enternal silence, who was the Culper contact in New York City?”

Tallmadge narrows his eyes, clenching his fist and jaw and glances out the window, blinking his eyes. The vision of Hale before him, his Hale, his dear Hale, flashes right in front of his eyes before he could stop himself. He clearly sees the flaxen blonde hair, almost white, a glimspe of icy, cold blue eyes, the rough feel of pale skin against his. Tallamdge shakes his head befoer turning back to Andre, who has an eyebrow raised mostly out of concern.

“I had...had a classmate in Yale College,” Tallmadge says, “by the name of Nathan Hale. I followed him into the army of ‘76. He was tracked and caught by Robert Rogers and...” Tallmadge lets out a shuddering breath and lifts a shoulder. “Subsequently hanged as a spy...”

“And do you think his case and mine are alike?” Andre wonders.

Tallmadge’s expression is blank, passive. “He did his duty for his country. You did yours for your king.”

“Then I want you to know I see honor in both.”

“Then you are mistaken.”

Andre sighs and glances out the window, staring at his reflection as he watches the trees blur together as they roll by before glancing back down at the paper and smiles softly before glancing up at Tallmadge. “I didn’t do it for the king. I did it for a woman. That is the loss I regret more so than my own life.”

Tallmadge doesn’t reply. He watches Andre fold the paper up and stuff it into his pocket along with the piece of charocal. He smiles thinly, a warm smily as an idea clicks into his brain. Andre reaches behind towards his braid behind his ear and grabs hold of the end of it. He pulls out a pocket knife and chops off a small piece before tucking the knife back into his pocket and grabbing Tallmadge’s wrist and placing the small piece of braided hair into his palm. He stares at it in shock and confusion before glancing back up at Andre.

But Andre only smiles and glances out the window.

~~~

Major John Andre climbs out of the carriage first once they have arrived at their destination, followed by Tallmadge himself. A servant slams the door shut. Tallmadge checks the ropes binding Andre's wrists in front of him before guiding him towards the tree where his fate lies. Tallmadge tenses as he appraoches slowly, swallowing the bile he feels rising up down his throat. He breathes shakily in and out as they march closer with each passing second, keeping his head up, back straight, shoulders sqaured, eyes narrowed and determined.

Andre turns to Tallmadge when they stop. Discreetly, Tallmadge clutches onto the braid in his palm. He can't seem to make his arm stop shaking. He swallows, licks his lips and turns to Andre. Andre nods reassuringly, a small smile on his face as climbs up the steps under the tree.

Tallmadge steps back between the Marquis de Lafayette and Colonel Hamilton. Hamilton glances at him worriedly for a quick second, which causes Tallmadge to clench his jaw and breathe in slowly, holding his breath as he tightens his grip in his palm. He wants to close his eyes, not watch as he Hale in Andre's place. But he remains strong and keeps his eyes trained, locked on Andre's.

Andre is given a white blindfold and he takes it. He stares at it for a breif moment, before ticking his eyes back with Tallmadge's. Tallmadge stiffens when he sees Andre giving him a small smile and a nod. He thinks he hears, "It'll be but a momentary pang."

That doesn't settle Tallmadge's nerves and fears. He presses his lips together, stands taller than before which causes the Marquis and Hamilton to excahnge concerned and confused looks breifly before returning to attention. Tallmadge tightens his grip on the braid still in his palm, helplessly watches Andre wrap the blindfold around his eyes. Tallmadge breathes in once again, holds his breath, and squeezes his eyes shut.

Please...I need you... he suddenly thinks.

"If the condemened has any last words," a rough voice declares. "Let him speak now."

Tallmadge squeezes his eyes harder, tightens his grip tighter and bites his lip hard enough for it to draw blood. His arms tremble, his fingers tingle against his skin from how tight his grip has been, he hears ringing in ears. He sees Hale before him instead of Andre, those piercing, icy, cold blue eyes, that pale skin, that light-blonde hair--almost white.

"I pray that you all bare me witness that I may bare my fate like a brave man."

There's a deafening crack and Tallmadge whimpers, breathing sharply in and out, trying to control his racing heart as he blinks his eyes open only to find that the world is smeared before him. He hears a voice calling his name, a French accented voice, the Marquis, out of worry and concern.

Tallmadge doesn't hear him, can't hear him due to the ringing in his ears. He unfolds his palm, his hand shakes, as he stares at the braid in his palm. He clenches his fist and glances over his shoulder where Andre was alive not but a moment ago.

Please... Tallmadge thinks, swallowing the lump down.

I need you...

18 notes · View notes

gloriainalbis · 4 years ago

Text

Strangers

Part 1 - Losers (S1E1)

Nathan Young x Reader Words: 4.4k Warnings: Swearing, mentions of sex, drugs Songs: Strangers - The Kinks Bad Reputation - Joan Jett

“So you've been where I've just come From the land that brings losers on”

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Masterlist | Ao3

As bad days go, you’re having a pretty horrible one when you arrive at the Wertham Community Center. It’s the first of many to come, part of the court-mandated service that goes along with your ASBO. Your dad keeps telling you that you’re lucky the judge had been so lenient and should be grateful that he’s allowing you to stay with him and your stepmum again– even though you have no one to stay with and nowhere else to go. And he’s your dad. “In the future,” you tell him while getting out of the car, “I think I’ll walk.”

Striding through the frosted glass of the front doors, you continue on to the locker rooms to change into the orange jumpsuits you find waiting for you. You choose a locker on the far wall and dump your stuff there. You decide to leave your t-shirt on underneath, zipping the suit up most, but not all, of the way. Finished, you lean back to take a look at your designated companions for the 200 hours to be dispersed across the next few months. One girl has chosen her locker to be in front of the mirror. Her hair is short, curly, and pinned back on the side to form some cute bangs-like fringe. You notice an ankle monitor adorning her lower leg as she strips down to a pink lace pushup bra and panties and steps into her jumpsuit, rolling up the sleeves and bottom cuffs and adding a gold belt around her waist to complete the ensemble. The color of her earrings and bangle bracelets– both large, round, pink, and plastic– match her underwear. She steps back to take a look at herself and smiles. Another girl brushes her hair back into a high and tight ponytail. She looks curvier than the first girl, but just as confident, pairing smoky black eye makeup with shiny, pale pink lip gloss and gold hoop earrings. The guy who’d taken a locker near yours fishes a cigarette out of his pocket and sticks it between his lips. He looks equal parts cute and odd, tall and lanky with a mop unruly, curly hair framing his face. He wears a red and black checkered shirt and an air of swaggering cockiness radiates from him with a pungency usually reserved for uncommonly offensive odors. He smirks at you slyly. The guy with the locker across from the two girls looks vaguely familiar to you. He has two gold chains, one with a cross, and a grey tank top. His jumpsuit is only zipped up halfway, with the arms tied around his waist. He looks remarkably fit, and, not having much of an affinity for sports, you wonder where you recognize him from. The last person you see in the locker room is shadowy and reserved. His hair is short and neatly combed and his jumpsuit is buttoned up all the way to the very last button. He holds a small, black camera phone in his hand and shifts his gaze between people nervously. As you start to file out, one last person stomps in front of you, looking you up and down as he nearly bowls you over. You grimace as he winks. The first thing you notice about him is the immaculate green flat-brimmed baseball cap. You suspect that this hat and others like it are a large part of his personality. Once you’re all together, a man introducing himself as your probation worker, Tony, leads you outside and has you line up against some railing as he gives what you believe is supposed to be a rousing speech. From left to right is Curtis, Gary, Nathan, you, Kelly, Alisha, and Simon. You would learn their names later, but for the purposes of clarity, we’ll start using them now. Tony paces before you, attempting to assume the macho, fear-inducing demeanor of a boot camp officer. “This is it,” he barks. “This is your chance to do something positive. Give something back. You can help people, you can really make a difference to people’s lives. That’s what community service is all about. There are people out there who think you’re scum. You have an opportunity to show them they’re wrong.” He has the tone of someone who has given this speech before and is just barely holding onto their faith in its underlying message. The girl to your left, Kelly, looks mildly offended at the word “scum,” as if Tony had been speaking directly to her. “Yeah, but what if they’re right?” Nathan interrupts on your right. He looks around at the rest of you, “No offense, but I’m thinking some people are just born criminals.” You smile to yourself and try to hold back a chuckle as a look of anger flashes over suspected-douchebag-Gary’s eyes and he bursts out with “Are you looking to get stabbed?” “You see my point there?” Nathan asks, turning back to Tony. A phone rings and Alisha answers with a casual “Hey,” while twirling a curl between her manicured fingers. Tony tries to continue, but he’s becoming increasingly exasperated. “Doesn’t matter what you’ve done in the past-” “Doin’ my community service,” Alisha speaks to her phone. “Hey!” He tries and fails to catch her attention. “Boring as fuck,” she continues. It was getting harder not to laugh and you glance at Nathan out of the corner of your eye, amused at the part he had to play in the deterioration of Tony’s speech. “Excuse me!” He tries again. “Hello, I’m still talking here.” “What, I thought you’d finished?” She didn’t care, evidently. “You see my lips still moving, that means I’m still talking.” He tries to assert something akin to authority but clearly doesn’t realize how poorly that approach tends to work on rag-tag groups of rebellious young offenders. “Yeah, but you could have been yawning, or chewing,” Nathan points out facetiously in a drawling tone. Tony ignores him, but you are full-on laughing at this point. “End the call! Hang up!” He shouts at Alisha to no avail. “My probation worker,” she explains to the person on the other line. “You all right there, weird kid?” Nathan leans past you to point at Simon, who stood alone at the far end of your lineup. Tony fumed. “Don’t be disgusting. I’ll call you later.” She finally hangs up, looking over at Nathan, who was approaching Gary and making kissing noises at him. “I’ll rip out your throat and shit down your neck,” Gary snaps back. He looks amusingly short in comparison, you now realize. Curtis grimaces and leans away from the touchy ball of anger standing next to him. “I shouldn’t be here, man.” Kelly gapes at his arrogance as Gary starts to scuffle with Nathan, grabbing at his jumpsuit. “We need to work as a team here. Hey, that’s enough!” Tony takes a few steps forward. “Can I move to a different group? This isn’t going to work for me,” Curtis continues, even though Tony is clearly otherwise engaged. You lean back, nearly bumping into Kelly as she steps to Cutis’ indirect insults. “Um… What makes you think that you’re better than us?” “What is that accent?” Nathan comments, drawn out of his conflict by the way her “us” sounded a lot more like “oss” “Is that for real?” Curtis scoffs, rolling his eyes. “What, are you tryna’ say something or yeah?” She speaks, the latter half her sentence mostly lost due to her lack of enunciation. “Its- you- that’s just a noise! Are we supposed to be able to understand her?” Nathan exclaims. You shake your head and raise your eyebrows at their audacity and Kelly’s incoherence. She sticks her hand out and flips him off, “Do you understand that?” Things escalate again when Nathan puts an arm around a violently unwilling Gary who responds by grabbing him and preparing to punch. “Hey, pack it in!” Tony lunges forward to separate them “It’s love, man!” Nathan yells. You double over, stepping back to get out of the way. Kelly meets your gaze and smirks at the growing scene before you. Alisha laughs, a high-pitched giggle. Tony stood between them now, pulling Gary further and further away from Nathan, who assumed a boxer’s stance and put up his fists comically. “Do it man! Do it! You’re a prick, man, look at you!” Gary calls, trying to push past Tony. “What the fuck are they doin’?” You say to everyone behind you as Kelly looks between you and Alisha. Simon looks like he’d rather be elsewhere, as does Curtis, but for different reasons. Nathan had taken to punch the air, which only served to further aggravate Gary. “You’re a fuckin’ pussy, bruv! He’s takin’ the piss, come here!” Cue the intro music. -- Tony eventually diffuses the conflict between Nathan and Gary and finally leads everyone to some benches by the lake, which you are told to paint white. Paint drips everywhere, from your shoes to the concrete sidewalk, but you hardly care. How different is this from the reason you were here in the first place? You were reprimanded for painting on someone else’s property and were told to instead paint on someone else’s property to pay for it, how is that supposed to work? The only difference is that the first time had been art, and this was largely pointless. They wanted to cover up the graffiti on these benches, but the new paint job would only make future acts of vandalism easier to see. You did it anyway, though, happy to peel off with Nathan and Kelly as Curtis and Alisha and Simon and Gary pair off to the benches on either side of you. You watch as Gary leans down to pick up more paint on his brush, his hat brushing dangerously close to the fresh paint before it finally touches, leaving a stark white smear on the brim. You poke Nathan’s shoulder and point as Gary notices, ripping off his hat in horror and stomping off in a huff, kicking a bucket of paint into the lake and leaving behind a violent burst of white. “Oh, man! There’s paint on my cap, this is bullshit!” “Ooh!” Alisha whistles as he walks past. Everyone turns and stares as he struggles with a shopping cart that’s in his way, kicking it at first before trying and failing to shove it into the lake as well when it simply falls in front of him, still blocking the path. “I know you,” you hear Alisha say to Curtis, perking up due to your own curiosity. “No, you don’t,” he brushes her off. “Yes, I do,” She continues, unphased. “You’re that runner guy. You screwed up big time.” That’s it. You’d seen him years ago at your secondary school’s track meets and races, and later in the news for his accomplishments and subsequent arrest. “You noticed, yeah? Thanks for reminding me.” He grew increasingly annoyed, and it was abundantly clear. Overhearing, Nathan glances up at Kelly and tries to strike up a conversation, “So I’m guessing shoplifting?” She ignores him. “No?” He was about to speak again when she cuts him off, “Don’t act like you know me, ‘cuz you don’t.” “I’m just makin’ conversation!” He motions to you and Kelly, “This is a chance to network with other young offenders. We should be swapping tips. Brainstorming!” He looks at you to continue, but you stay silent, also curious about Kelly’s infraction. You shrug and he looks back at her. “Come on, what did you do?” “This girl called me a slag so I just got into a fight,” she admits, slapping her paintbrush to the bench in annoyance. “Was this on the Jeremy Kyle show?” He jokes. “No, it was at Argos.” “Argos?” you ask, finding the store an odd place to get into fights. “You know what you should’ve done? You should have got one of them little pens and jabbed it in her eye.” He was referring to the pens for filling out the catalog cards at Argos and you smirk at the image, but Kelly just stares at him incredulously. It’s an odd thing to say to someone you barely knew. He turns to look at you, “And you? I need to know what we’re workin’ with here.” “Ah…” You glance between Nathan and Kelly before continuing, “Graffiti, mostly, and throwing a party that bugged my neighbors, breaking the peace.” You had broken the law, technically, but it was nothing compared to punching someone and getting into a fight in the middle of Argos. He raises his eyebrows curiously, “Is there a story behind it or was it just mindless vandalism?” “It was on the wall of my apartment, my landlord saw it when he went to break up a party that my friends were throwing and he said he’d report me.” “Oh, what a wanker!” Nathan exclaims. “The worst part is I lost the apartment and now I’ve gotta live with my dad and stepmum again and it’s a living nightmare.” You don’t want to exaggerate or sound like too much of a cliche, but your stepmother is one of the meanest people you have ever encountered. You could understand it to some extent, as she has two young children and you aren’t the greatest of influences. You call these siblings stepfuck and stepcunt respectively, case in point. “Well, I can sympathize with that. But at least yours is a stepmum, they’re, like, inherently kinda hot, amirite?” You glare at him and begin to understand some of Kelly’s annoyance. He redirects, turning his attention to Simon, who is now painting his bench all alone after Gary’s outburst. “What about you, weird kid? Don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but you look like a panty-sniffer.” He holds his hands up beside his face, mocking a disgusting sniff of some invisible panties. “I’m not a panty-sniffer,” he responds. “I’m not a pervert.” He tries to return to painting the bench, but Nathan begins walking towards him, pretending to jack off with his paintbrush still in his hand, grunting disgustingly. You sigh and roll your eyes, glancing at Kelly. He could be funny, sure, but you were quickly learning about his tendency to take things too far. Kelly shrugs at you. “I tried to burn someone’s house down,” Simon blurts out to get Nathan to stop. Everyone who’d heard snapped to attention, as arson seems considerably more serious than vandalism or a few punches. “Fire?” Nathan laughs and walks back. Kelly looks up at him, “What did you do?” You were still curious about the fire and arson, but you let the conversation move on regardless. “Me? I was done for eatin’ some pick ‘n’ mix.” “Yeah, right,” you scoff. “Bollocks,” Kelly agrees. “What is goin’ on with this weather,” Nathan muses, distracted, as thunder rolls down from overhead and you quickly noticed the growing dark storm clouds in the sky just across the lake. Huh, odd. That hadn’t been there just a few minutes ago. “How did that happen?” you hear behind you, looking around to see Tony returning, an angry look instantly plastered to his face. He points to the overturned paint can, part of Gary’s carnage, and holds his arms up in exasperation. “I mean, you’ve been here five minutes. It’s painting benches. How’d you screw that up? You tell me, because I’ve got no idea.” From out of nowhere, a giant white ball of something smashes down on the car behind Tony, completely caving in the roof and sending the car alarm blaring. Shocked, you jump back and duck amid the various screams and cries of “What the hell was that?” and “Oh, Jesus!” Nathan’s smug grin immediately falls and transforms into fear and wonderment. Alisha shrieks, crying out in a warbling tone, “What’s goin’ on?” Tony turns around slowly in disbelief and gasps, “That’s my car!” “Oh, fuck,” you mutter under your breath. But Nathan isn’t taking it as seriously. “Classic,” he chuckles, thinking it to be some sort of prank. But then another thing falls from the sky into the lake behind you, whizzing past your heads and spraying you, Nathan, and Kelly in an onslaught of lake-water. “Okay, so I’m a little bit freaked out!” he admits. “No fucking shit!” you agree. “What is that?” Alisha asks, turning your attention to the storm Nathan had pointed out just moments ago. It had grown, somehow, turning dark and dangerous as it travels at an unnervingly fast pace towards your group. Simon holds his phone up to film the storm and its effects just as another ball crashes into the dumpster beside him, knocking over the heavy, metal container and spewing ice at him as he ducks and runs from it. More and more ice falls from the sky, huge blocks larger than your head, and you don’t want to think of what could happen if one of them hit you. “Right, let’s get everyone inside,” Tony instructs as more and more of them fall all around you. “Move! Move! Run!” You sprint back to the community center at top speed, holding your head as ice shards rain down on you, pelting and stinging your face and arms. Your heart practically beats out of your chest. One ball of ice pummels into the sidewalk in front of you, breaking a concrete tile. Another falls into a phonebooth, and the glass shatters to the ground around your feet. The storm seems to get thicker as you near the center, and your hair is plastered to your face from the mixture of sweat and water that you were drenched in. You could barely hear Tony yell “Keep going!” over the crashes and booms that fill your ears as you run for your life. Curtis reaches the door first, pulling on the handles and banging on the glass before stepping back and yelling over the din to Tony, “It’s locked! Open it!” Tony groans, “Come on…” and fumbles with the keys. You throw yourself against the wall, as far away as possible from the mega hail storm, and scream, “Just fuckin’ unlock it!” “What is happening?” Kelly shrieks as another massive ball of ice falls onto the pavement beside her. “Open the door, come on!” Nathan yells as Tony grows increasingly frustrated. “I’m finding the right key!” he bellows back “Open the door!” Curtis yells again, and Alisha agreed. “Open the fucking door!” Tony whips around in a burst of anger, “Don’t speak to me like that!” You were about to berate him for his poor priorities when a bright white burst of cold lightning cracks in front of you and sends you flying backward in a chorus of screams. Time slows as you fly through the air and the electricity transforms from a chilling shock to a burning flare, searing and snaking through you as you soar and tumble backward onto the hard pavement. You hit the ground with a sickening thud, from which groans and cries of pain follow. A few remaining snowballs hit the ground around you, but the storm appears to have passed. “I feel really weird,” you hear Kelly say. Your vision is still black, which has you worried until you realize it’s only because your eyes are still closed. You open them and sit up, rubbing the back of your head, which is still screaming in pain. “That’ll be the lightning,” Curtis says to try and explain what just happened. “We should be dead,” Simon points out. “Well, that’s comforting,” you snap back. “A little reassurance might be nice, you know,” Nathan agrees, instead directing his comment to Tony, who is sprawled before the door of the center and has just started to sit up. “‘You’re fine!’ ‘Looking good!’” he elaborates. “Wanker…” Tony groans, pushing himself up onto his elbows. “Did he just call me a wanker?” Nathan asks, indignantly glancing at you and everyone else. He snaps his fingers at Tony, “Hey? Hello?” You see a quick look of anger flash across Tony’s face before he grumbles, “Is everyone alright?” “We could have died, you dick,” Alisha adds. “Are you alright?” Kelly asks tentatively as Tony shakes his head and coughs out a growl. “You’re actin’ like a freak.” He ignores her, “Maybe we should call it a day.” -- Tony finally manages to unlock the door, and you return to the locker rooms to gather your things. You feel like you should be annoyed, leaving early only means you’ll have to spend another day here, but you are too exhausted to feel anything. That was probably the closest you’d ever been to death. You can still feel your heart beating, a deep, steady drumbeat, and your lungs ache from the running and adrenaline. Beside you, Nathan closes his locker and leans against it before turning to you, “Do you think we’ll stick together now, bonded by our shared experiences?” “Dunno. I’d rather spend as little time here as possible,” you explain, closing your locker and stepping away to put on your hoodie. “Oh, you’re one of those types, are you?” Nathan smiles. “What type?” You glare at him. “The I’m-too-cool-for-this type.” “No, that’s Curtis,” you quip, knowing that he’d already left the room. “I just happen to not like community service.” Or any of these morons, all the other girls are total slags. “Hey!” Kelly snaps, swinging around to glare at you suddenly. “Oookay?” You turn away awkwardly and leave, you can’t imagine anything you’d said having offended her. Maybe she just really loves community service or something, but that is decidedly not the impression you’ve gotten from her so far. You walk out to the waiting area by the vending machines, where you find Curtis and Simon standing around in heavy silence. Nathan follows after you moments later. “Do we just go, then?” Curtis asks, clearly annoyed. “Where’s the probation worker?” “I think there’s something wrong with him,” Simon speaks up. “It’s like he was having a spasm.” “He was probably just faking it, trying to get some compensation. Cheap bastard,” Nathan scoffs. “I don’t think he was faking it,” Simon insists, looking back down at his phone. “And you know all about being… mental.” Nathan takes a few steps forward as he talks, leering at Simon and lowering his voice. Then he pretends to convulse and yells “Wanker!” You punch him in the shoulder. “Ow, what the hell was that for?” He sticks his head out at you almost comically. You stick your head out back at him. “Stop being such a prick, he might have a point.” Alisha walks in, already looking bored. “Are we waiting for something?” “Probation worker,” Curtis explains. She scrunches up her face in disgust. “I’m not hanging around for that dickhead.” She turns on her heel and leaves, which everyone else seems to take as their cue to leave as well. You can’t be bothered to be the only one waiting around, so you follow suit. Once outside, everyone pretty much goes their separate ways. Nathan, however, trots after you. “What’re you doin’?” You ask. “Thought you looked a little lonely, and, well, I’d like to recommend my own company as recompense.” He motions to himself like he’s all that, which honestly has you snorting to hold back your laughter. “You can’t be serious.” You raise your eyebrows. “Fine, I happen to live along this way, alright? I’m Nathan, by the way.” “Y/n.” You smile at him. “And I’ll have you know that to date, I haven’t had a single complaint.” He says it like you should be impressed or something. “Can’t have complaints if you haven’t been with anybody,” you joke, smirking. His jaw drops in mock surprise, “Oy! I have, too!” He keeps trying to impress upon you the depth of his sexual prowess, offering many stories as proof, all of which have you in stitches. He peels off when you were about halfway home. You say your goodbyes and wave as he walks away, grateful for the company. A few houses down from your own, though, you stop walking, contemplating what to do next. Home doesn’t seem like a particularly fun place to be right now, but it’s not like you have anywhere else to go. It’s still the early afternoon, so it would probably be only your stepmum at home, with your dad at work and your step siblings at school. It’s practically a worst-case scenario, as you doubt she would believe that they let you go early. You wish this day had gone differently. As you’re musing and trying to work up the courage to walk the thirty or so meters left to your front door, the skies begin to darken. You look up to see if a cloud had rolled in overhead, not exactly trusting the weather as of late, but as soon as you do so, it disappears and the sky goes back to normal. You think nothing of it, which is probably a poor choice on your part, but you are too burned out to care. You finally reach the front door, closing it gingerly behind you, but to no avail. “Y/n? Is that you?” You hear from the other room. “Yup.” You stand in the doorway to the kitchen, knowing you need to address this, but desperately wanting to leave. “They let us go early today.” She eyes you quizzically, “Really?” Now here’s the thing, the truth isn’t even remotely believable– There was a freak hail storm and everyone in our group got hit by lightning or something but now we’re all okay and our probation officer did too, he let us go early and then disappeared– so you have to lie. “Yeah, ‘cuz it’s the first day. They mostly showed us the ropes, got us started on something, and then let us go.” You wait, holding your breath. “Oh.” She looks disappointed. “I thought you’d be out today.” “Yeah, well I did, too,” you mumble as you walk away, not really caring whether or not she heard. “What’d you say?!” she calls after you. “Nothing!” you yell back as you walk as quickly as possible to your room. Once inside, you sigh and collapse onto your bed. You feel like a teenager again and it’s horrible, being forced to be somewhere where you’re treated like immature crap every day, living at home again, constantly having a row with your stepmum. You hope, but doubt, that the next day will be better.

#misfits #misfits tv #nathan #nathan misfits #nathan young #nathan young x reader #nathan young misfits #nathan young imagine

92 notes · View notes