#AND I KNOW THAT HIM GETTING TAKEN AWAY IS REALLY GONNA START A RIPPLE EFFECT OF PROBLEMS FOR MATT AND GABBY

[dylanconrique]

suspicious man following casey around, and i already know it's gonna be louie's dad wanting to take him back. let them be!!! LET THEM BE A FAMILY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!!!!!!

[hotwings0203]

I JUST SAW FIGHT CLUB AND HOOOLLYYY-

Bro could you IMAGINE FightClub!Bakugo?

Tw:noncon, language, harassment

Okay okay get this: you’re down in the basement listening to the usual men holler and punch each other around while you do your job as their cute little “accountant”. While many of them have good jobs and a real life, the actual members don’t have time or the intellect to juggle the numbers and money around as fast as you can. You’ve been coming here for a while now, and you’re used to the jeers and wolf-whistles coming your way since you’re basically one of the few or only women who dare to come down here.

But there’s one fighter who just can’t seem to take no for an answer.

Bakugo fucking Katsuki.

The man is ruthless, he’s relentless, he’s a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. You swear he’s had to have taken a shitload of steroids in his youth, otherwise how else could he have built up that much muscle? There’s no way an average gym-goer has that kinda build.

He’s always the first and the last one out in the rink, swaying back and forth with his fists up, a twisted grin on his face that was so reminiscent of a wolf before it lunges for its prey.

It usually took more than two men to pull him off the unconscious bodies that he had just beaten to a pulp, effectively breaking one of Fight Clubs Rules: get up when someone is down.

But he’s too good to let go, no one has the balls to tell him to take his money somewhere else since they’re all scared shitless of him.

Which leads him to believing that he’s practically a god down here, that he can conquer anything: including you.

No one really calls it harassment because no one really cares. What’s so wrong in a guy having a little crush? What, you came down here seeing all this testosterone but you can’t deal with it yourself? Don’t be a prudish bitch.

“Bakugo, I’m at work right now, I don’t want to.”

“C’mon toots, this ain’t even real work, you’re just fumblin’ my hard earned cash.” He grins slyly and crosses his bulging muscular arms, leaning against the doorway of the little office you’re given to work your magic.

You turn in your rickety seat and glare at him, ignoring the way he licks his lips and lets his eyes roam all over your body. “If I’m so shit at my work then go somewhere else and stop bothering me.”

He chuckles in his baritone voice and shakes his head at you. “Naw, can’t do that sweets. If I did then I’d never be able to see your pretty face again now, could I?” Bakugo leers at you and you turn your face in disgust.

“I don’t wanna go out for lunch, or ever with you. Now get out before I have to call someone in here.”

“Oh, is that so?” He uncrosses his arms and steps through the threshold, his body growing larger and more menacing as he slowly draws closer to you. Luckily a fight had broken out near the office months ago so there was no more door from the aftereffects, but that didn’t mean you felt safe even with open space.

“G-get out. I’m serious, Bakugo-“

“-Call me Katsuki, angel. And you don’t really mean that, do you? Look at you, you can barely look me in the eye when you say such mean things.” His voice drops an octave as he comes to stand in front of your seated form, towering above your wide eyes, clenched fists and trembling figure.

He leans down and you flinch and gasp as his breath ghosts over your face. He places both arms on either side of your chair so you have nowhere to look but him.

“You’re such a nice breath of fresh hair down here, through all the blood and violence. You’re like a flower...” he tucks a stray hair behind your ear and breaths out a laugh when you turn your head and squeeze your eyes shut.

“A flower, so fragile...a flower that smells so fucking good...” you feel like you can’t properly breathe as he leans in next to your ear and inhales deeply.

“A flower waiting to be deflowered herself.”

“What’s going on here?” A lanky body in the doorway appears.

Bakugo pulls back and turns his head ever so slightly towards the dude, growling under his breath at the interruption.

“We’re in the middle of something here, so you can just get the fuck ou-“

“-Well, it doesn’t really look like she’s into whatever you’re doing,” the man scoffs and takes in your pale face and shaking hands.

Bakugo stands to his fullest height, almost neck and neck with the man at the door.

“Yeah? I didn’t hear a complaint from her.” He cocks his head and stretches, allowing his muscles to ripple with each movement, something that didn’t go unseen by your much skinnier savior.

But he doesn’t back down. He only swallows and rubs the back of his neck.

“Well, we’re all being called out to put our bets in for the next match anyways, so you better come out before we get our asses kicked.”

The blond grumbles about weak men and no balls, then casts a dark look at your frozen figure before shouldering past the man at the door, almost knocking him down.

As soon as he’s out of your line of vision, you exhale and relax into your seat.

“You okay?” The fallen soldier scrambles back up and cautiously approaches you, looking over your body in a way that didn’t remind you of Bakugo undressing you with his eyes...rather, it was a protective, and worried once-over.

“Yeah, he’s just...a lot to handle sometimes. Doesn’t know when to quit.” You laugh shakily and run a hand through your hair.

“No wonder the dude’s a menace. He’s used to getting what he wants, I guess.” The man acknowledges this grimly, and for the first time you’re relieved that finally someone hasn’t turned a blind eye to your harassment.

“Are they really calling us down for bets?”

“No, I just said that to get him off your ass. Didn’t seem like you liked whatever he was doing.”

You give him a wobbly smile and he returns it.

“Sooo we should probably run before he comes back up here, right?”

“Oh most definitely,” you actually giggle before leaping out of your seat and joining the man to bound up the steps two at a time to freedom.

You both end up bonding pretty well over the weeks, even going out for coffee and lunch dates here and there. You’ve come to really like him, his shyer demeanor more than a majority of the ragtag men down in the basements, his chivalry refreshing to you amongst the blood and foul language thrown around the ring.

You feel like a woman with him, not some piece of ass like you were used to.

Bakugo noticed all this, of course. You started avidly avoiding him, ducking your head down and hiding behind your new ally before he could open his coarse mouth and stalk towards you. He couldn’t find you in your dingy office anymore either, because your savior was up in a cafe doing the calculations with you, laughing away about the latest matches.

That has to change. Effective immediately.

“Yo, newbie. How you been? Haven’t seen you fightin’ here for a while,” Bakugo claps his meaty hand on the scrawny guy’s back, nearing sending him toppling over.

“Yeah, y’know, just haven’t been feeling it lately.” He rubs the stinging feeling away from his sore shoulders and side eyes the blond suspiciously. He had seen firsthand just how bad-news of a guy he was, and he didn’t wanna get caught up in all that.

But Katsuki wasn’t just all brawn. He had some brains, too.

“Look, I know I prolly gave off a weird first impression with Y/N back then. But it’s all in good health, ‘was just messin’ around like I always do.”

“Yeah, sure...”

“How ‘bout we get some coffee or somethin’? You seem like a solid dude, plus we got shit in common to talk about.”

Like fucking around with my bitch.

“Uh, you sure? I kinda’ wanted to see the last fight,” he trails off unsuredly, scratching his jaw as Katsuki steers him away from the growing crowd.

“There’ll always be fights, man. I wanna show you that I’m a nice guy.”

Bakugo Katsuki was not a nice guy.

And everyone knew that too, which is why when some shifted to give the duo a curious glance he met them with a death glare. Any gazes locked on Katsuki’s hand wrapped around the lanky guy’s shoulders were immediately casted down.

You didn’t see your savior for a while.

It had been two weeks since he mysteriously disappeared from his usual place in the outskirts of the crowd, because unbeknownst to you, a certain fighter was keeping him away from you and convincing him to have a friendly brawl over lunch.

You only found out about it on a Friday night, when a crowd much bigger than before was gathered in the dim basement, voices hushed and whispering.

“What’s going on? Why’s everyone so quiet?” You whisper to one of the usuals.

“‘Heard Bakugo’s fighting some dude that was handpicked by himself. He somehow managed to convince the poor bastard to have some kinda’ match with him.”

You felt your heart sinking.

“Who did he pick?”

“‘Dunno, some skinny guy, a newbie I think. Hasn’t been around for too long so I guess he doesn’t know how big of a monster he’s gonna be beaten by.” The groupie shrugged, and you felt the blood drain from your face.

Without saying another word, you spun around and started running around all over the place looking for either of the two.

You end up stumbling into the men’s bathroom, desperate beyond salvation to stop this bloodbath.

He’s there, he’s at the urinal and he yelps when he hears you barge in. You avert your eyes and let his adjust himself as he sputters indignantly.

“Y/N? What’re you doing in here? This is a men’s-“

“Don’t fight him.”

“What?”

“Don’t fight Bakugo, please, he’s gonna kill you, I know he is-“

“-Calm down, what’re you so worked up about? C’mon, I would’ve thought you’d had a little bit more faith in me to be able to stand my ground.” He teases you but you don’t find it funny, on the contrary you’re terrified out of your mind for his life.

“Did he put you up to this? How could you fight him, you’ve seen what he does to the other guys in the ring!”

“Well yeah, but he knows not to go that hard on me. Actually, he’s not that bad of a guy, we’ve gotten some drinks for the past two weeks and I was wrong about him.”

You gape at him. “Wrong? You saw how he cornered me that one day!”

He shrugs, not put off by the distant memory. “The guy just came back from a fight, he still had testosterone going through him. You can’t blame him for wanting to let a bit of it out, right? You should really give him a chance y’know, he talks about you all the t-“

But you can’t hear anymore, this is madness, there’s barely 10 minutes left until they’re going to call the two down for their death match. You need to find the source of this problem firsthand.

And somehow, a little voice inside your head tells you exactly where you know he is.

You round the corner to your office and there he is in all his glory, seated like a king on your chair, leaned back with his knees spread, carelessly looking through your bank statements and bet papers.

He barely looks at you as he says, “Oh there you are, I was starting to think you’d miss the show.”

You sink to your knees.

He looks up at that.

With a tight chest and burning eyes, your dry throat barely permits you to choke out, “Bak-Katsuki, please, please don’t do this. Please don’t fight him.”

He cracks his neck and leans forward, regarding you with dark vermilion eyes. He looks your position over appreciatively before speaking.

“Why not? He’s so good and great isn’t he? I’m just trying to show you how right you were, after all. I’m sure he’s got a fair chance of beating me.”

You shake your head vigorously, knowing what he’s playing at.

“No, no, you’re better, please. I was wrong about him, I shouldn’t have been friends with him, please don’t fight him Katsuki I’ll do anything-“

“-Oh you’ll do anything I say regardless of if I beat him to a bloody pulp or not. You wanna know why?”

You can barely contain a whimper as he stands and walks over right in front of you, his bulging crotch mere inches away from your face.

He suddenly grabs your hair and you cry out before he yanks your head up to meet his cold eyes.

“Because no one in here is gonna say shit to me. I run things here, toots. And if you want your little boy toy to live through today, you’re gonna watch every blow I give to him, and you’re gonna kiss the fucking knuckles I beat his face with. Got that?”

You sob as he grinds his clothed erection against your tear-streaked face, sniffling when he moans loudly and bucks into your open mouth.

A loud knock on the bare hinges stops Bakugo from pulling the front of his shorts down.

You both turn your heads and see a red-faced side-liner looking down and mumbling something about the match starting.

“‘Be there in a minute. Tell the guys to give my girl here a special front-row seat to this match, she’s gonna wanna see her man win, after all.”

The runner scampers off, leaving you both alone.

He bares his teeth down at you and you cower under his painful hold, the roots of your hair ripping from their strands.

He eventually tosses your head to the side after a few seconds of staring you down, and the second he does you clutch your sore cranium.

“I better see you down there in a minute sweet thing. You gotta get used to it anyways, since you’re gonna be getting accustomed to my rituals before and after matches.”

[wackywritings]

Rafe Cameron - Stare into my eyes

Summary: Y/N and Rafe have a complicated relationship. One minute they're on the brink of kissing, the next they're fighting because he's wanting to get high again.

Warnings: cursing, mentions of drugs, fighting.

If it wasn't for the loud music at Barry's and the chatter of people under the influence of god knows what concoction of substances, perhaps she would've heard him arrive on his bike. But alas, she didn't. She was blisfully oblivious as he stumbled up the few steps leading to the trailer, his eyes searching the crowd for her.

"Country club! What you doin' here bro?" It was Barry's voice that made her blood run cold, the conversation she was previously engaging in long forgotten. He was here.

She stood up abruptly, her chair scraping over the wooden floor making an awfully high-pitched sound, piercing the ringing in her ears. She passed by him on her way to Barry's bathroom, not even having to spare him a glance to know he was trailing close behind as soon as he tracked her movement, only to leave a confused Barry behind. He never quite understood the relationship between the two. It's a good thing she didn't look up at him, because she would've no doubt seen the change in his eyes upon meeting hers; hard eyes void of emotion, fleeting around the room anxiously turning into a soft gaze that didn't focus on anything but her. If it wasn't him, now, it would've been almost endearing.

But it was.

He followed her into the bathroom, locking the door behind him as soon as they were both in the cramped space. It was quieter here, but instead of bringing some peace, it only made their thoughts louder. She wasn't looking at him yet, her back to him as he pondered over how to break the silence. How to address this wrack-up of a matter he'd gotten himself into.

"So. I'm a bit high." He cringed immediately after the words left his mouth, internally cursing at himself.

"Yeah, I figured that much, Cameron." She held up her hands in exasperation, but her frustation soon turned into worry as she finally took in the boy's appearance. His right eye sported a new bruise, green and purple and red mixing together on his sunkissed skin.

"You're hurt."

"Clearly. Why else would I get high?"

"Because you have an addiction?" Her eyebrows raised as she crossed her arms over her chest. She was not afraid of him in the slightest. "C'mon, Y/N." His tone was pleading, no, begging. In any other instance, he would've loved her having an attitude, doing anything in his power to rile her up even more. But right now he just needed someone to take care of him.

Her stance softened considerably as she took in the rest of his appearance: the bags beneath his eyes, the locks of hair - not gelled back like usual - sticking to his forehead that was covered in a sheen of sweat, not unlike his polo.

"Okay." She whispered, ever so slowly nodding her head, before moving past him to unlock the door. He didn't smell like the cologne he normally wore, a mix of alcohol and sweat floating between the small space between them. "Let's get you something to change into, alright?" Though she didn't wait for his answer as she opened the door, moving straight to Barry's room.

"You gonna dress me in a wifebeater or some shit?" He inquired with a chuckle as he followed her, plopping himself down on the bed as he intently watched her rummage through Barry's wardrobe. Most of his high had worn off already, and he could begin to feel it.

"Are you kidding? He'll notice it's his and have your ass for it. I'm sure he has some decent shirts he never wears. It'll be less obvious." She reasoned as she opened multiple drawers to find what she was looking for. A victorious 'aha' left her as she finally found what she was after, turning around with the blue longsleeve held high in her hand, only for her proud expression to change into shock, her mouth hanging open.

He'd taken the liberty of taking his shirt off already, something she hand't noticed him doing. She should've said something- anything, so he wouldn't question her change in demeanor. Joked teasingly with him, or even just asked if he thought it would fit. But she couldn't utter a single word as she looked at him. His shoulders broad, arms more muscular than she imagined them to be under his usual attire. Not to mention his chest, or the muscles in his abdomen that rippled underneath his skin (God it looked so soft. She wondered what it would feel like under her grazing fingertips) as he moved to stand up from the bed. She felt her heart hammer against her chest, flushed cheeks as she tried to look anywhere but his shirtless form.

"Gonna give me that?" He was pointing to the shirt still firm in her hand, an amused look on his face. The smugness made her snap out of it - as if his ego needed any more boasting.

"Don't flatter yourself." She scoffed, though she made no attempt to throw him the shirt. It took three, maybe four quick strides for him to be right up in her personal space. She was trying to stand her ground, straighten her back and keep eye contact to seem less affected by their current predicament. She was sure he could hear the hammering of her heart anyway. "Just took me off guard, 's all." She managed to murmur, bringing her bottom lip between her teeth to keep herself from shyly smiling.

He wasn't one to play with her feelings - he knew the kind of effect he had on her. But he quite enjoyed dancing around the subject with her, flirting and teasing and tender touches shared after spending long days together. It was their thing. He had convinced himself it was all he needed from her. God forbid he was honest about how much she meant to him, how much he craved her presence.

"Hm. Did you rather have me change in the bathroom, doll?" He came incomprehensibly closer to her, a breath too deep would have their chests touch. His eyes were boring into hers, now at eye level with her as he bent down slightly.

"I-" She wanted to say something. Tell him a warning would've been sufficient, adding a wink just to tease him back. Maybe say she wanted to be the one to take his shirt off, if she so dared. But his blue eyes were so mesmerising - specs of light shimmering in the dark blue pools of his irises, his pupils focused on her and only her. She could look away to stop the tight feeling from spreading in her chest, sure, but then she'd have to look at his large shoulders covered in freckles and sweat, or his chest rising with every breath he took. Warm breaths that she could feel hit her lips ever so softly. Getting lost in his eyes really was the only option she had. Inevitably, so was losing her words.

And it made him smile. A real, genuine smile. If he wasn't so close perhaps she wouldn't have noticed the way his eyes twinkled, how creases at the corner of his eyes formed, how that dimple arose on his chin.

As if that wasn't enough to make her weak at the knees and her breath hitch in her throat, the bolt of electricity that she felt when his long fingers touched hers, tracing around them like it was some kind of game to him, would've done her in.

"That's what I thought." His voice was raspy and dangerously low as he whispered it - so close to her mouth she wished he would just close the goddamn gap already. But it's Rafe, so of course he didn't. He just tugged on Barry's shirt held tight between her fingers, grabbing it and putting it on a split second later.

"How do I look?" His questioned as he couldn't find a mirror in the room, hopefully glancing at her.

"Peachy." She nodded as she wiped her hands on her jeans. She was upset at the loss of proximity, so perhaps what was supposed to be a comment of teasing nature came out harsher than she meant. Something that didn't go lost on him. Maybe he did take it too far just now.

"Alright, well. I gotta find Barry." He discarded her previous comment, rubbing his nose. The high had officially worn off completely now, and he was dying for more. Though he wasn't sure if it was because he wanted to forget his earlier fight, or forget her. How he felt about her, and how he wasn't ever gonna be enough for her. How he would never have the guts to do something about it.

"Rafe-" She started sternly, glaring at him. Though she quieted down as he held his hands up.

"No, not this again, okay? You don't have shit to say about this, you hear me?"

"What, that's it?" She let out a dry laugh as she stood in front of him, blocking the door. "You're just gonna get high again. Seriously?"

"Y/N, don't start with me now." His voice was threatening now, glaring on the edge of venomous.

"It always ends the same, Rafe, and you were high just minutes ago. Don't you think that was enough? Don't you ever get bored of this shit?" She was asking too many difficult questions for his liking. Her tone was exasparated, too. Tired of having to deal with him and his stupid issues. Of having to patch him up and take care of his pathetic self that just couldn't get fucking clean. He felt the urge to scream, but bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from acting on it.

"What, you're not even gonna say anything?"

"Stop." He gritted his teeth, jaw clenched as he spat at her.

She threw her hands up, before running them through her hair. How was she supposed to stay calm - or approach this situation when he wouldn't even talk to her?

"I just- you're hurting people with this. You're not you, Rafe. Not anymore. I mean look at you." She gestured towards him.

"You don't know who I am."

"But I do!" She all but screamed at him. He kept his composure and his cold glare, but she noticed the way his shoulders tensed upwards at her outburst. So she closed her eyes and took a deep breath to try and calm herself down. "I know you. You're sweet and gentle and caring and so incredibly smart."

"Y/N." He wasn't used to compliments, or feeling this many emotions, for that matter. He could feel the need for another line coursing through every inch of his body. He just needed a little bit. Just needed to be able to breathe again.

"No, I'm serious. You're a great brother to Wheezie, you're great to me."

"Don't." He twisted his head to the side, his eyes rolling back as he felt his whole body heating up again, Barry's shirt no doubt already showing sweat stains. But she was far too invested in telling him how amazing he was, eyes trained on the ground as her brows furrowed, words flowing from her mouth at such a rate that in any other situation would've made him wonder where she found the time to breathe. So she didn't listen nor notice how he was struggling.

"You're always trying to please your father."

"Y/N, do not-"

"No, Rafe. I know how much he means to you, but you're never gonna be able to please him if you keep using! He's just going to keep abusing you and you're gonna keep being disappointed and running to Barry to stop yourself from feeling it."

He was proper boiling right now. Sweat was trickling down his forehead, jaw shut tight as he balled his fist at his side. They always say anger looks red, but even with his eyes shut tight all he saw was white. Pure, white, blinding rage. Everywhere in his mind - dying to creep out all at once.

"And it's just this vicious cycle that's never gonna end. And I worry for the day that it becomes your death, Rafe!" She all but yelled his name, voice hoarse and filled with unplaceable emotions.

"Shut your fucking mouth!" He bellowed out, two quick steps bringing him right in front of her, his fist making contact with the door behind her before he even knew he moved his fist in the first place. She cowered down at the proximity of the sound. His body was flush against hers now, even closer than they were before. He was breathing hard, his arms on either side of her as he trapped her between him and the door. His skin touching hers felt hot and damp, but it still made her shiver. Not in a good way though, not like before.

The worst of it all wasn't even his anger, or the drugs, or the fact that she knew she wouldn't be able to stop him.

It was his eyes.

The ones that she had so lovingly stared into mere minutes ago. The ones that held so much adoration and passion for her. The ones that twinkled under the light, sparkled with mischief as he playfully teased her. The ones that she could look into and feel safe - no matter what. The ones that she considered to belong to her home.

They were darker now. Harsh and fierce, flaring up with anger as he looked into her frightened eyes. His eyebrows were furrowed hard, a frown between them. The shadows they casted leaving sharp edges prominent on his face. The specs of light weren't not visible anymore, they were simply gone. She couldn't even distinguish the blue from his pupils. She'd never been the subject of his rage before, and she never understood how most people feared him. But now? As he looked down on her with no emotion but anger written on his face, he looked scary to her for the first time. And she wondered if his eyes would ever feel the same again as her own filled with tears.

"Don't talk about my father again." His voice was strained but louder than she expected. He leaned into her even more to give power to the threathening statement, before completely pushing off. Large hands wrapped around her arms, fingers digging into her skin bordering on putting enough pressure to leave a bruise. He forced her away from the door. Perhaps he expected more of a struggle from her, but she was so shocked by his behaviour that she could only take small and hasty steps away from the door, scared to anger him more. He janked the door open, the sound of the loud bass of the music hitting her ears. The sensory stimulation was too much for her to bear, and she looked up both in a prayer for him to leave and to keep the tears from falling.

"And don't talk to me. We're done." He added. She wanted to look into his eyes. As much as they scared her now, she needed to know if they held any more emotion than his completely void voice just did. But he'd already slammed the door shut.

She was left looking at the closed door as she finally allowed the tears to soak her cheeks.

[kyberphilosopher]

Eunoia

The Mantis crew decides to take a well deserved break.  Word Count: 2422

Warning(s): straight fluff, short Requested: yep This can be read for a female, male, non binary, or any other reader.

Eunoia is the shortest English word containing all five main vowel graphemes. It comes from the Greek word εὔνοια, meaning "well mind" or "beautiful thinking”. It is also a rarely used medical term referring to a state of normal mental health. In rhetoric, eunoia is the goodwill a speaker cultivates between himself and his audience, a condition of receptivity. In book eight of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle uses the term to refer to the kind and benevolent feelings of goodwill a spouse has which form the basis for the ethical foundation of human life.

* ✭ ˚ ･ﾟ ✧ *･ﾟ * ✭˚･ﾟ ✧* ･  *

Cal is actually not as observant as people think he is. You know because you’ve been leaning against his doorway, watching him, for about two minutes now and he hasn’t noticed a thing. 

Maybe if you were in his position you’d be the same. That seems about right. He’s hunched over his desk with the lamp on bright, tinkering with something that you can only assume is for BD-1. He’s probably lost in thought. Maybe he’s dreaming of better days. Or maybe he’s just trying to figure out which wires and bolts connect to which. There’s no way to be certain from your position. He’s the mechanic, you are not. 

So why have you been watching the redhead from his doorway for three minutes now? A simple answer. He is your friend, and you enjoy his company. Even when he’s not giving you attention, completely unaware to your presence in moments like this one, lost in his own world, it’s his warmth that really counts. Cal is such a relaxing bout of fresh air compared to everything else in the galaxy, in your life. It’s like being at a great party, but whether you enjoy it or not, stepping outside and tasting the air and the smell of something wonderful. Even if you had a day full of talking to people and had become burned out, talking to Cal would have been no problem at all. Maybe in a way that makes him your favorite person. 

Yeah, maybe. 

BD-1 jumps onto Cal’s desk. His head looks at the boys hands, cocking about as if observing. Then he meets your gaze, only to find a smile. One index finger raises to your lips, prompting the little droid to stay quiet about this, before you turn away and head towards the main part of the ship. 

“Where’s Cal?” Greez gruffs upon seeing you. He’s shaking spice onto a steaming brown plate, which puts a pep in your step. Greez’s cooking always makes life better. 

“In his room,” you answer. You turn from the doorway to the counter, where something hot does cause stringy, swirly puffs of air to waft upwards from a large metal container. With your back to Greez, you pull a plate for yourself and begin hulling it full of food. Some sort of rice or grain?  

“Hmph, that reminds me,” the Latero begins mid-chew. “Me and Cere was talking about taking a vacation.”

“Vacation?” you scrunch your eyebrows and put the lid back on the container. “Where to?”

“The beach maybe?”

You scoff as you turn around and lean on the counter. One hand holds the plate while the other uses your index finger to prod at the mush. It smells alluring. The individual pieces of it stick to your skin. They burn and sting, but it’s so small it doesn’t bring much of a reaction. “I don’t know a lot of beaches.”

“Well, ya know,” Greez shrugs. “Just a thought.”

* ✭ ˚ ･ﾟ ✧ *･ﾟ * ✭˚･ﾟ ✧* ･  *

It was more than just a thought. Six days later, the Mantis touches down on Scarif. But first there’s the issue of landing. 

“Watch that tree,” you point, leaning over Cal’s shoulder as he co-pilots beside Greez. A second later, the ship gives a great rock and the palm tree crunches beneath it. “You weren’t watching the tree.”

“Sorry,” Cal offers sheepishly. 

“What?” Greez says. He’s the one in main control of the ship. He’d never let Cal take over the whole thing. “What he do?”

“Ran over a tree,” you snort. 

“Cal!” Cere scolds, turning around in her chair. 

“I said I was sorry!” Cal defends. 

“I’m telling the wookies what you did,” you whisper.

“Don’t,” Cal whispers back, though it’s still desperate. 

The Mantis parks itself in a field of tropical emerald on the cuff of a beach. The sand is white, the waves cyan and royal blue and sloshing. There’s several beaches on the planet. All of which are very beautiful. Would be a true shame if anything were to ever happen to Scarif. It’s so different compared to so many other planets in the galaxy- not occupied by Imperial forces or scumbags. 

Greez waves everybody off. Cere exits first. Cal is ahead of you, but he steps to the side and rather gentlemanly insists, “You first.”

You hum and move past him. The Scarif air hits your face with a warm breeze. It smells of salt and water and some kind of flower. The horizon goes orange and pink and salmon with the setting sun. It is... serene. It nearly knocks you off your feet. It takes his voice to realize Cal is beside you at the bottom of the ramp. 

“Woah,” he offers simply, in as much awe as yourself. 

“Woah,” you repeat in agreement. It’s still for a second. “Come on. Let’s join them. Or else I’ll have to cast a Jedi mind trick on you.” Your fingers wiggle up and down by Cal’s face for dramatic effect. 

Cal rolls his eyes. “Shut up,” he utters with a push on your elbow, urging you forward into the sand. 

Okay, so maybe you like Cal more than just a friend. But who can blame you? Things had been feeling different between you two lately. You’d always gotten along pretty smoothly. You made up for skills that Cal seemed to lack himself, and his abilities- human and nonhuman- never ceased to amaze you. He was a friend. And then, when you tended to the stab wound he’d gotten from Vader, there was a moment where you held each others eyes. After that, the joking became more constant. The little touches on the shoulders and elbows and forehead taps happened more often. And you started watching him from his doorway sometimes and... and at some point you just caught feelings. 

Cal Kestis seemed to feel the same, but who could really say? No use poking that bear right now. 

The sand is soft, even beneath your boots. Cere stands in front of the water, just breathing in the air. The light breeze makes her vest ripple. It’s tempting to just join her. 

“Gotta say,” you hear a familiar voice say from your left and below. “We picked a nice place.”

“Maybe we should stay a while,” you joke, though you secretly hope for it, to Greez. 

“Yeah,” Greez rolls his eyes. “Until this moron gets us into trouble again!”

Cal perks up. “What did I do?”

“Anybody who can lift things with their mind is gonna attract some attention, kid. You just brought it on us.”

“So true,” you jump on with a smirk to Cal. 

“Alright,” Cal turns away towards the beach. You position yourself so you’re closer to him, and Greez takes the opportunity to waddle away further ahead to waves.

“Sorry for bursting your bubble, Cal,” you continue with a smug grin. “Maybe in the next life, don’t be born with force powers? Just a suggestion.”

“You think you’re so funny,” Cal tells you, though he’s smiling too. His pale green eyes spare a glance at you, thick lashes dancing on his boyish face. 

Your knees bend until you collapse on your bottom in the sand. It’s so soft, it doesn’t even resist your weight. It makes way for you easily, like a blanket. “I do.”

Cal joins you in the sand quickly enough. You’re both face to face, the wind in your hair and the water at your side. It crashes every few seconds, but it’s peaceful. Some kind of bird flies overhead, and butterflies are in the forested area behind you. The light of the sunset illuminates Cal’s hair more than usual. The brightest points of his eyes are highlighted. 

“He loves you,” you offer. 

“You think so?”

“I am one hundred percent certain... Just don’t touch the ship.”

Cal raises his hands as if surrendering. “Understood. Hands off.”

You turn your head to the water. Greez and Cere are standing ahead, most likely having a conversation of their own. The tide carries so much of the stress your shoulders hold away from you. Everything with the holocron, the empire- it was ridiculous what living in hiding could do to a person. It’s hard to imagine how Cal did it for so long. How painful that must’ve been for him. How painful it is to imagine him in pain. 

“How’s your stomach?” you decide to ask at last. 

Cal tilts his head for a second. “Better.”

“Perfect?” you raise your knees to your chest and rest your arms on them. 

Just then, a little whirring noise pulls both of your attentions away. BD-1 bounds down the ramp of the ship, twirling around in observance as if excited. “Hey, BD,” Cal greets. “I know, buddy. I know.” The droid places itself in Cal’s lap, still looking around at the change in scenery. 

“We’ve never been able to do this before,” you tell him. “I mean, I wasn’t here for the whole adventure. But I was here after and before and... and just... we’ve never done this.”

Cal is quiet. “I haven’t either.”

You look at him. 

“Taken a break. I guess time on Bracca was the closest thing.”

You smile softly. “I’m sure it was really nice.”

Cal rolls his eyes along with his head, though the corner of his chapped pink lips turn upwards. “As nice as it could be with the Empire.”

“That’s pretty nice.”

Cal and you huff a humorous puff of air in unison. 

“What were you doing before the Mantis?” Cal suddenly asked. 

“Oh,” you roll your eyes and wave your hand. “Not important. Don’t even worry about it.”

“Come on!” Cal shifts. 

“I’m serious!” you defend. “It’s boring stuff. You wouldn’t want to hear about it. Not as interesting as the force.”

“Well anything related to you is interesting,” Cal says casually, one of his palms lifting in the air for effect as he shifts again. 

Well that makes your face feel hot. Anything related to you is interesting. How often do people get to hear that? And how casually it comes out of Cal’s mouth, the shrug of his shoulders that you tie so easily to him, that’s how you know it’s honest. Not only have you heard something intimate that not many people will in their whole lives, but it was also heartfelt. 

“Yeah,” you mutter, though it sounds distant and far away as you watch Cal’s eyes. He doesn’t seem to mind. Then you snap back to reality. “This is gonna be good.”

Cal watches you pop to life, standing up entirely and running towards the water. BD-1 perks up as well to watch you just in time to see your much bigger form nearly knock the Latero over. And, much to Cal’s surprise, the little droid jumps from his lap and bounds after you. The red head decides he’s next to follow. 

“BD-1,” he rasps, also nearly pushing Greez to the ground. “Don’t touch the water!”

But it’s too late. However, nothing happens. BD-1 stands in the shallow waves, unelectrocuted and unbroken. He doesn’t spark a bit, only cocking his head in wonder at his friend. 

“Think fast!” a voice calls. 

A splash of warm and salty water slaps against Cal’s face. He cringes, turning his shoulders away on impact with a little gasp that makes his throat burn. “Hey!”

Another splash. 

Cal turns to you. You’re standing with your hands on either side of yourself, open and matching your smug and proud face. Your boots are still on, which can’t be comfortable given that they’re now submerged in water. BD-1 is on the back of your shoulders- something Cal thought was only between him and the droid. Apparently not. 

“What’s wrong, Cal? Can’t handle the current?”

Cal stills himself. Then he bends down himself and flicks water upwards. 

“Hey! No!”

He does it once more. 

“No!”

So you too repeat your original actions and begin forcing salty liquid up into the air in Cal’s direction as well. BD-1 grips onto your collar for stability while you both go to town, careful to not open your mouths too wide and taste the saltiness. 

“Be careful you two!” Cere calls from the shore. Neither Cal nor yourself heed her words, continuing on in disrupting the tide. 

“They’re fine,” Greez assures with the wave of one of his many arms. 

“Are you sure about that?” Cere responds with a hand on her hip as she watches you tackle the Jedi to the sandy terrain below the shallow water. 

“Completely fine.”

You push both of Cal’s shoulders down jokingly, careful not to subdue his head under the water. He cranes his neck to keep it above the waves. Through his soft lashes, Cal can just see your smiling, evil intentioned face with BD-1 on your shoulder gazing at him. 

Honestly, it feels just how it did last week- the last time you had watched Cal in his room. Gazing at him, admiring him. Just now you get to touch him, relax with him, splash water at him, even. You wish you could capture this moment if not forever, then for a while, and Cal wishes the same. 

* ✭ ˚ ･ﾟ ✧ *･ﾟ * ✭˚･ﾟ ✧* ･  *

Sorry it’s short. Idk if it’s my best work certainly but I haven’t written for Cal or Star Wars in a while. But I didn’t kill the reader in this fic or have someone sick or in danger! So it might be my first ever straight fluff? I don’t know. But what a good character to do it with. I’m glad to give Cal a break. And i hope the requester enjoys. 

[gohyuck]

the purge: society

pairing: firefighter!san x reader

genre: purge au, angst, some fluff

warnings: mentions of violence (especially violence against cops), murder, blood, injury, weapons (guns, knives, metal baseball bats)

word count: 2.4k

note: this was originally meant to be a drabble and it’s still pretty short so i didn’t get to elaborate on the characters but honestly maybe i’ll explore a purge universe with ateez someday because this was fun (i’ve never watched any of the movies though so i’ll have to get on that)

“What the fuck?” 

He hadn’t expected to see anyone left alive on this street.

“Shut up and get down,” You hiss, reaching your good arm up to grab onto the man’s jacket collar before unceremoniously pulling him towards you. He stumbles, falling gracelessly onto you. A scream bubbles up in your throat as he accidentally puts pressure onto your already free-bleeding bicep, but you get ahold of yourself just in time, only letting the quietest of wounded moans escape you. 

“You’re the first person that hasn’t tried to kill me before talking to me all night - oh, shit,” The stranger trails off, swearing when you effectively stop him from speaking further by placing your switchblade right under his skin. It’s only then that he even pauses to take you in: your back is up by the police car door, sure, and your left arm has a massive gash in it, but you’re armed. There’s a pistol laying idly in your lap, kept company by a metal baseball bat. 

Not to mention, the knife at his neck. 

“What the hell are you doing, walking around unarmed and with a first aid kit? Also, how the hell are you unarmed and with just a first aid kit? What the fuck?” You let the questions out in a rapidfire fashion, and he can’t help but clock the slight rasp in your voice. It’s easier to recognize than the pained wheeze you’re trying very, very hard to suppress, but neither escape him. He’s trained to notice the little things, anyways. 

“You need to bandage that shit up,” The man ignores your questions, moving his head just enough to miss your blade but also enough to be able to look you in the eyes. “How long has it been bleeding?”

“That’s none of your business,” You grit out. “Answer my questions or I’ll kill you right here and now.”

“If I answer yours, will you answer mine?” For some reason, he doesn’t seem to be panicking just yet. His gaze is sincere, but it’s too solid to be that of a bona fide idiot. You suck in a breath of air. Threatening him would be so much easier if he didn’t seem like a nice guy. It’s hard enough to live through the night, you don’t need guilt on your hands, and you know you’re going to feel guilty when you kill him. And you will kill him.

You need that first aid kit. You’ll do anything for it.

Anything, starting off with lying. 

“Sure,” You reply, steeling yourself for any sudden movements he might make now that you’re faking amicability. Maybe he’ll believe you to be vulnerable and try for your pistol or your bat, or maybe he’ll be properly cruel and finish off your arm. You don’t want to think about it. He lets out a sigh of relief, and you can’t help but wonder if you’ve actually affected him after all. “Now speak.”

“Not unarmed, there’s a police-issue pistol in my jacket and a tactical knife in my jeans. I’m not totally nuts. First aid kit’s for my buddy, though, I’ll be real, you need it way more than him.” There’s something resembling concern in his expression as his eyes flit between your torn arm and your face, but that barely interests you. You haven’t truly registered anything after ‘police-issue’.

You lean in, pressing the edge of your knife against the skin directly above his adam’s apple. For the first time since you’d cornered him, your mystery purger’s breath hitches. His eyebrows draw together in confusion. It’s no matter. You no longer regret the fact that you’ll have to tear his jugular out yourself. 

“You’re a hog, huh,” You stare him down, any sympathy you might’ve had gone. For a moment, it seems as if he has no concept of what you’re saying. A second passes, though, and his gaze clears. 

“Firefighter,” He responds, though the word is garbled due to him attempting to keep his movements to a minimum. You pull back slightly, very slightly, to let him explain. “I… found a dead cop, jacked his pistol. I’ll show you my ID, if you want.” 

“Let me see it.” You nod your head at him as if giving him permission to live a little longer, though you both know full well that identity theft and identity fabrication are legal, too. Might as well see how much effort he puts into a fake. The man waits until you pull back just a bit more, enough to let him slowly reach his hand into his back pocket before producing a lanyard. 

You grab it out of his grip with your hurt arm, not willing to move your knife too far away from his throat. You simply don’t have a good enough read on - you glance down - San Choi, ACT Firefighter, Employee ID: 018-102-4 to allow yourself any leeway with him. 

His gently smiling face stares up at you from the plastic card, protected only by a clear sleeve connected to a red lanyard. San’s photo has black hair and an undercut, styled so his forehead is on display. A pair of dimples makes a guest appearance, and, overall, he seems like a genuinely sweet guy. The ID looks real, too, so maybe you aren’t totally fucked. 

The San under your knife has bleach blond hair that almost falls over his eyes, though you suppose you can’t blame him for skipping out on the hair product tonight. He seems slightly tanner than his photo, his skin beautiful even now as dust from the aftermath of the explosion starts to settle against it. 

Right. The explosion. 

Recalling the events leading up to you meeting San forces you to remember that you have a gaping, bloody gash in your left arm. You’re honestly lucky to be alive, having ducked and used the car you’re against for cover from flying debris after a building down the block had exploded. You’d just finished driving your knife into a cop’s side - third cop of the night, eighth of your career as a purge cop killer - to make sure that he was dead when you’d heard the bomb go off, and you’d dropped before even thinking about it. Something had hit your arm on the way down, and when the adrenaline had finally left your system, you’d taken note of your blood-soaked sleeve. 

You’d closed the car door after that, sealing your third murder of the night in the vehicle just so you could lean up against the door. It had been 6:31 in the morning then, and you had figured that someone would come by and kill you in the last moments before legality ensued again. You’d assumed that you’d fight, of course you would, but your arm being totally fucked definitely put a damper on your belief in your ability to overcome anyone or anything else. 

Instead of the disgruntled, trigger-happy purger you’d expected to eventually find, though, you’d been found by San Choi. San Choi, who’s currently staring at your wounded arm like it’s grown eyes and can stare back. 

“Come on, let me fix it up,” He pleads, lifting the kit up with the hand that’s farther from you. “You might not trust me, or whatever, but the purge is about to end as it is. I have a paramedic friend, Seonghwa, who’s taught me the basics of -”

“Shut the fuck up.” You tell him, though you’re quickly losing your bite. He obeys regardless. God, your arm really, really fucking hurts. Before pulling your knife back, you check the watch on your wrist. 6:47. Stay alive for 13 more minutes, 780 more seconds. You’ll be fine. You take the shakiest breath you’ve ever taken. 

You pull your knife away from him. 

Nothing happens. 

“I’m going to use an alcohol free wipe and then wrap gauze around your arm, okay? You’ll just have to hold out until we can get you to a working hospital after that,” San speaks as if he’s talking to a child, or a scared animal, and you can’t blame him. He doesn’t seem like a purger, but you technically are one. You wouldn’t put it past yourself to attack on a whim if you were him. He, very slowly and with his hands in your full view at all times, opens the kit and pulls out the requisite materials. 

“Gonna need you to rip your sleeve off above the cut.” He continues, leaning back as you bring your knife up to your clothes and slit the cloth right above your wound. You tear the remainder of the sleeve off your arm before throwing it behind you somewhere. San gently grabs ahold of your elbow - his palm is calloused in a way that tells you he lifts regularly, and you’re sure of this as he discards his jacket and you watch the muscles ripple in his arms under his thin black shirt - and places the wipe against your cut. 

Your reaction is instantaneous: now that you’re completely past the adrenaline stage, the feeling of something, anything against the gash has you reeling to cry out. Before you can even process that you’ve made a sound, a hand presses hard against the back of your head, shoving your mouth against San’s. 

He doesn’t know how else to shut you up. 

His lips are chapped, but the sensation of being kissed so suddenly jars you out of your pain. San attempts to pull back, and you can already feel the apologetic wince he’s about to give you, but he brushes over your wound with the wipe again and your pain doubles back. It’s you that pulls him in this time, pressing your lips to his sloppily but forcefully as if it’ll alleviate the burn in your arm. 

Kissing him only slightly muffles you at best, but you no longer care. The purge isn’t over yet. You could both die at any second. Hell, San could kill you at any second. His hand moves from the back of your head to cup your face as he leans in towards you to deepen the kiss. His lips are chapped, yes, but they’re soft. He tastes like mint and copper: there’s a cut in his lower lip. You don’t mind. 

San pulls away for a moment, but only does so to grab the gauze from the kit. Once he’s wrapped it around your arm once, twice, thrice, he leans back in and your mouth accepts his own eagerly, your other hand coming up to drape over his shoulder. Neither of you know why you’re doing this, kissing a stranger with such fervor as one of you bandages the other up, but you both know that there’s really nothing else to do. 

It’s only after he finishes taping you up that the two of you pull away fully. His eyes are still just as kind as you’d thought them to be at first, though his lips are far more swollen than they’d been mere minutes prior. You admire your handiwork, eyes tracing his features as he admires his own, thumb very, very gently running over your gauze. Both of you raise your heads to smile sheepishly at each other at the exact same time.

Three things happen in rapid succession. 

“Good?” San’s voice is barely above a whisper, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. Just as you’re about to speak - 

“San!” A voice, low and hoarse, interrupts you, and you look up to see the barrel of a gun pointed directly at the space between your eyes. You’re frozen in place for a split second before you start reaching for your own pistol. Your fingers brush the grip when - 

The clock strikes seven, and sirens go off all around you, signalling the end of the purge. 

The gun is out of your face. Your hand moves off of your own.

“San,” The owner of the gun pays you no mind, suddenly, his entire focus on San. The gun-owner reaches a hand out, and the firefighter beside you takes it, allowing himself to get pulled up to his feet. “You okay?” 

“Yeah, Yunho, I’m totally good,” San responds, giving the taller man a cat-like grin of reassurance. Yunho’s got a fireman’s helmet on, and you suppose it’s good as protection. He must be a fellow firefighter, then. He’s tall, and though he’d seemed nothing short of severe mere moments ago, he seems softer, kinder now that the purge is over. The transformation is enough to give you whiplash. His right hand is wrapped in bandages, and this catches San’s sight at the same time it catches your own. “What the hell happened to you, though?” 

“That policeman you killed had buddies,” Yunho replies with ease, but you don’t miss San’s wince. Seems like he hadn’t just happened upon that police-issue pistol. You can’t help the small grin that fights to make its way across your face. “They tried to get into the station, we had to fortify ourselves. We’re mostly fine, just that Woo’s lost a finger. He’ll live once he stops whining about it. We were mostly worried about you, honestly, taking fucking forever just to find a first aid kit. Who’s this?”

Yunho moves the topic of conversation over to you so naturally that you barely even realize what has happened before San is reaching a hand out to you to pull you up to a standing position. You grab ahold of your pistol, though you shove the bat off your lap before allowing yourself to be brought up. Without thinking, you practically plaster yourself to San’s side. Now that he’s for sure what he told you he was, and now that you’re no longer in danger of dying, you can’t help but feel inexplicably connected to him even though neither of you know each other. San wraps an arm around your waist naturally, and neither of you miss Yunho’s eyebrow raise. Neither of you acknowledge it, either. 

“This?” San asks rhetorically, turning his head slightly to look at you. He’s smiling again, and you find that you want to see it more often. Maybe you’re experiencing the onset of delirium. You hope not. “This is…” 

“(Name),” You reply, being honest. There’s no need for you to lie. Besides, you owe San answers, right? You stick your uninjured arm out, letting Yunho shake your hand. San’s grip tightens around your waist. 

“I’m (Name).”

[kckenobi]

Okay I could not resist any longer. For the comfort prompts: “just breathe. breathe with me.” with hurt Obi-Wan and caretaker Anakin? YOU’RE AMAZING THANK YOU 💕💕💕

“just breathe. breathe with me.”

you know I couldn't resist mixing some search-and-rescue whump with claustrophobic obi-wan. thanks for the prompt!!

It was almost dark when they finally dug him up.

The building had gone down that morning—a rogue bomb had triggered a sinkhole, bringing the whole Republic base to the ground in a matter of seconds. Only a few troopers had been inside, thankfully. The medical team fixed up the survivors as they were found, while Anakin led the rest of the troops in the search.

But by sunset, there was only one person unaccounted for.

"Status report, Commander."

Anakin approached Cody, who straightened immediately.

"Still no sign of General Kenobi, sir," he answered. "There's an area of the rubble that's particularly thick, and it's blocking our scanners. It's possible he's down there—but we haven't picked up any life signs yet..."

"Well, do better, Commander. "Possible" isn't good enough."

If Cody was taken aback by the sharpness in his tone, he didn't show it. He offered Anakin a stiff salute. "Yes, sir."

"Sorry, Cody. That was..." He exhaled. "I'm just worried."

"I know, sir."

"Yeah." Anakin ran both hands through his hair. "But I shouldn't use that as an excuse. You're trying your best. We all are. And he's—he's your..."

He didn't finish the phrase. Sensed Cody probably didn't want him to anyway. But it didn't matter, because suddenly they were both whirling around as a trooper's voice called out:

"We've got him, sir! He's here!"

And then they were both running.

The trooper was holding a scanner over the rubble, and it was all Anakin could do not to rip it from his hands. Anakin dropped to his knees and tried to probe through the ground with his mind, searching for a familiar life Force. And yes—it was weak, but it was there.

"I can lift the rubble away," Anakin said.

"Sir, respectfully, any movement should be approved by the engineering squad; the mass is unstable, and might collapse—"

"Fine, then. Show me which rocks to move. But do it fast," Anakin snapped, then huffed. "How far down is he?"

The trooper consulted the scanner. "About 10 meters, sir."

"And his air supply?"

Neither Anakin nor Cody missed the trooper's hesitation. "It could depend on a number of factors," he said cautiously. "It's...in our best interest to move quickly."

"Roger that."

And so Anakin and Cody began distributing orders, mobilizing the rest of the team and planning the most effective movements. Obi-Wan had always excelled at this sort of thing, Anakin thought—at leadership in the midst of disaster.

If only he were here now.

When he'd gotten approval from the lead engineer that the rubble was ready to move, Anakin pulled Cody aside.

"Commander...there's something else," Anakin said quietly. "When we pull him up, have a medical team ready. But no one else. There's...well, we want to give him space."

And so, even knowing Obi-Wan would be furious, he gave Cody the abridged version—how Obi-Wan wasn't fond of being trapped.

He couldn't bring himself to explain why.

"Sir, can I ask one question?"

Anakin nodded.

"General Kenobi told me once...well, how his Master died," he said. "Does this...his aversion to being confined...does it have anything to do with...?"

"Yes."

Cody nodded.

They left it there.

Anakin could feel the troopers watching him as he closed his eyes, their awe and neat disbelief rippling through the Force like waves. He used their hope, their light, to harness it now—to begin to lift the rubble.

The time passed quickly—at least for Anakin. When the sounds of the troopers' voices began to fade back into his consciousness, Anakin lightly set the rubble down and opened his eyes, unsteadily rising to his feet.

And then he heard the coughing.

"Sir," Cody said. "We've uncovered him, but the rubble on either side is unsteady. We have to extract him quickly."

"Send me down," Anakin said.

And he didn't wait for an affirmative.

Anakin rushed to the edge of the pit he'd created when clearing the rubble, peering over the side. Then, he leapt down into the crevice.

"Obi-Wan!"

Anakin pushed back some more rocks he'd been advised not to move, and slid beneath a slab of concrete. And there, coughing into his dirt-caked sleeve, was his Master.

Obi-Wan was sitting with one leg outstretched, bandaged with a piece of his tunic to quell the bleeding. The other knee was pulled to his chest, his arms wrapped around them tightly. His face was coated with dirt and blood and ash, his eyes wide.

He was breathing fast.

"Hey," Anakin said, relief and worry flooding him all at once. "There you are."

"Anakin. I--" His voice was more of a rasp. "The air—I still can't—"

"You're okay. Hey, you're okay." Anakin sunk to his knees and reached for Obi-Wan's wrists. "We found you. And we're gonna get you out."

Obi-Wan nodded. His eyes were dull. "Please."

Anakin pretended not to notice how his voice broke.

With a quick squeeze of Obi-Wan's arm, he crawled back under the concrete slab to call up to the others.

"Got him!" Through the dust, he could just make out Cody's face up above. "You can toss it down!"

A few moments later, the rope landed in front of him.

Anakin crawled back to Obi-Wan. His eyes were closed, and his breathing sounded more like a wheeze.

"Hey. We're gonna help you up, but you need to breathe. Breathe with me, okay? Nice deep ones."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Can't."

"Yes, you can. Listen to my breaths, and--"

"No, I can't." He swallowed, wincing. "Hurts."

Oh. Anakin looked him over. If he was breathing shallowly, and the air was thin in here...

"Are you dizzy?" A nod in response. "Think you can crawl through there, then stand?"

A shrug, then a nod.

"Okay. Now your knee doesn't look good, so take your time with the crawling. After that...I've got you. You'll be fine."

He sounded sure. He wished he felt sure.

The crawling was painful for Anakin to watch--Obi-Wan's breathing came harder and more ragged until at last he popped out on the other side and rolled to stretch his leg out again. It looked like it had started to bleed again, too.

"There we go," said Anakin. "Hard part's done. You ready to get out of here?"

Obi-Wan seemed to be beyond talking at this point. He offered just another nod.

The rope had a few knots and a loop at the bottom, a place for Anakin to put his feet and somewhere to grab. Anakin tugged to let Cody know they were nearly ready, then turned back to Obi-Wan. He was still on the ground. Eyes closed again.

"Don't go to sleep on me now, old man," Anakin said. He went around behind Obi-Wan, reaching under his arms. "On three. You try to stand, I'll lift. One...two..."

Obi-Wan cried out as he put weight on his leg, and soon enough Anakin was holding him up almost entirely. They hobbled over to the rope again, and Anakin got them situated. Then, he tugged the rope one final time.

"See?" Anakin said. He was holding Obi-Wan up, and Obi-Wan's head lolled against his shoulder. "I told you I've got you."

He nodded into Anakin's tunic. And up they went.

Both of them tumbled to the ground the moment they reached the top.

"Medics!" Anakin called out, even as they already rushed forward. Obi-Wan cried out as they turned him over. There was a stretcher nearby, and Cody waited behind it. He couldn't even fathom the willpower it took Cody not to rush straight to Obi-Wan's side. Force knows I don't have it.

Kix and the other medics lined Obi-Wan's sides, to where was lying on his back. "Sir, we're going to lift you onto the stretcher."

Obi-Wan hummed. "Thank you."

The first two words he'd uttered since they'd first found him. As the medics lifted him, Anakin winced at the sharp breath he choked out.

"Kix--the base was destroyed," Anakin said. "Do we have enough medical supplies to--"

"Affirmative, sir. We don't have a lot to spare, but we have enough," Kix replied. They began to push the stretcher toward the ship. "My first assessment indicates the leg wound isn't deep. Potential fracture in the ankle. And probably a punctured lung."

"Sheesh, Master, you weren't kidding--you really couldn't breathe," Anakin said. "I thought you were just panicking."

"That too."

The subtle humor took Anakin by surprised, and he looked down to the stretcher. Obi-Wan gave him a small smile.

"Thanks for coming for me," he said softly.

"Obi-Wan," Anakin replied. As the stretcher moved along, Anakin reached down and squeezed his shoulder. "You know I always will."

comfort prompts

in case anyone was looking for the other fics in my claustrophobic obi-wan head canon:

the lift // six feet under // ray shields

[maxwell-grant]

You have done an (excelent) post on how to reinvent Batman as a Pulp Hero. Do you think you could do one to Superman as well? Or do you think it is impossible to do this with the progenitor of the Super Hero genre without transforming him in a totaly diferent character?

Well, you saying it as impossible only makes it seem ever more tempting of a challenge, but yes, it is a bit harder. I'm gonna link my Batman post here as a reference point.

Partially because Batman's a franchise I've thought extensively about for a long time in regards to what I like about it or how I'd like to approach if given the opportunity, which is not something I can really say for Superman until more recently the Big Blue to start orbiting my brain. I don't have years worth of redesigns or fan concepts saved on my galleries and files to comb through to pick and choose here, and my experience with Superman as a character is considerably different, in some aspects more deeply personal, and not really something I'd like to go into in this blog, at least not now.

Part of the reason why it's harder is also because Batman and Superman have very different relationships with their pulp inspirations. Batman was, ostensibly, a pulp character adapted to comics, a dime-a-dozen Shadow knock-off who picked up and played up diverging traits from other characters and gradually ran with them to gradually forge a unique identity. Superman right from the start was rooted in a much stronger conceptual underpinning: the Sci-Fi Superman and Alien Menace who, instead of being a tragic monster or a tyrannical villain, becomes a costumed adventurer and social crusader. Even the name Super-Man was taken from an early story of Siegel and Shuster about a telepathic villain who ends the story lamenting that he should have used his powers for the good of mankind instead of selfishness. I hesitate to call what Siegel and Shuster were doing “subversive” because that term's picked up a real negative connotation, and it's not like Siegel and Shuster were out to upend their influences (they were pulp aficionados themselves), but rather putting a more positive, new spin on them.

Which is why it also becomes a bit harder to do what I did with Batman and align Superman with some of his pulp-esque inspirations, like John Carter, Flash Gordon or Hugo Danner, without just making it "Superman but he's John Carter", "Superman but it's Flash Gordon", and "Iron Munro / Superman but everything sucks" respectively. It's harder to create a character that wouldn't feel reduntant and derivative at best, and actively contradictory to Superman at worst.

I guess if I had to come up with a "Pulp Hero Superman" take I liked, well first of all I'd have to take steps to distance it from the likes of Tom Strong or Al Ewing's Doc Thunder, those two are as good as it gets in regards to Pulp Supermen. I stipulated for Batman a "No Guns, No Murder, No Service" policy partially to distance my takes on Batman from all the "Pulp Batmen" that just add guns and murder and take Batman back to the barest of basics. Likewise, I'm adding a "No Depowered Science Hero" rule here, which means it's a take that's likely going to veer off a lot more into fantasy and probably enough tampering with Clark's character that it does risk becoming a different character.

Frankly I don't think I'm gonna succeed at doing these without just making it a new character entirely, because with Batman you can get away with just upending the character's aesthetic and setting and even origin and still keep it recognizably Bruce Wayne (in fact Batman does that all the time), which isn't really the case with Superman, who needs those to remain recognizably Superman as he goes through internal changes and character shifts. I guess what I'm gonna do here is more taking the building blocks of Superman/Clark Kent and see a couple new ways I can rearrange them to create a Pulp Superman

Perhaps something we can do is to scale back or recontextualize the "superhero" parts without diminishing Superman's role as a superpowered fantasy character.

One way we can start is by picking on that connection between Superman and the sci-fi supermen/alien monsters of pulps I mentioned earlier and play it up further, to create a Superman who's deeply, deeply alien in a way that no mild-mannered disguise or colorful outfit can really disguise, something so dramatically powerful and alien, that instead you could get tales about the kinds of ensuing changes and ripple effects this has on the world upon the The Super-Man's arrival. And for that I'm gonna have to quote @davidmann95's concept for Joshua Viers' absolutely stunning Superman redesign on the left side of the image above

The red, the goldish-orange and white, the alienness, the angelic, sculpted feeling, the halo, that innocently curious expression: it’s genuinely beautiful. Superman as a redeeming science-angel from beyond our understanding, as much past the uncanny valley of limited human comprehension as a Lovecraftian monster but tuned to the opposite key - you could spend an endless procession of human lifetimes trying and failing to understand this being, but all you’ll ever know for sure is that it is beyond you, and it knows you, and it loves you.

Superdoomsday from Earth 45, healed and transformed into the savior it was originally envisioned as? Some descendant of his, or a future of the man himself? An alien who picked up on a broadcast of Superman from Earth, and so inspired reshaped itself in his image to spread his ‘gospel’ to the stars?

Alternatively, to come back to Earth a little, many, many pulp characters and series were built off the antics and personalities of real people, celebrities getting their own magazines or serials or fictionalized takes on them, so perhaps one way to make a "pulp" take on Superman would be to emphasize a bit more of Superman's real-world roots, trends that inspired his creation directly or indirectly at the time. The Jewish strongman Sigmund Breibart and Shuster's interest in fitness culture, Harold Lloyd's comic persona, the rising "strongman" film genre in the early 20th century, actors Clark Gable and Kent Taylor that supposedly named his secret identity, Clark Kent being a socially-awkward journalist based of Siegel's own school experiences.

Maybe one start to an authentic Pulp Superman, who would still be Superman, would be to just ask the question "What if Superman was a real person and/or a celebrity, and they started making pulp magazines and serials dedicated to him? What would those look like?". You wouldn't even have to restrict it to just a story set in the 1930s, in fact you could even play around with the rise of new mediums over the decades.

This third one is a little closer to some plans I have for my own take on a Superman character, not necessarily what I would do with Superman proper but one of my ideas for a Superman analogue. Superman's a character I'll always associate strongly with childhood and childhood fantasy, and to tap into that I would emphasize the other end of the fiction that influenced Siegel and Shuster: comic strips, in their case specifically Little Nemo and Popeye.

In my case I would bring additional influences from some of the comic strips I personally grew up reading like Monica's Gang and Calvin and Hobbes, and I already talked a bit about Captain Fray in terms of how he’s a Superman character despite being a villain. I guess you could call this one "What if Superman was a public domain comic strip character, stripped of the importance of being the founding figure of a super popular genre or extended universe, and also was kind of ugly?".

He's not "Sloth from the Goonies" ugly, I swear I didn't actually have Sloth in mind when typing out this idea, I've never watched that film nor did I know until now that he actually spends the film in a Superman shirt. That's not really what I'm going for. Visually I was thinking of modeling my take on Superman heavily after Hugo from Street Fighter and his inspiration Andre the Giant, to really emphasize the “circus strongman / freak wrestler” aspect of Superman’s inspiration, particularly in regards to how Hugo’s SFIII version strikes a really great balance in making Hugo ugly and both comedic and fearsome in battle, as well as lovable and even a little dopey (without being outright stupid, like his IV self) in his victory animations and endings.

He's still Superman, he still goes on fantastical adventures to help people, he's still a deeply loving and compassionate soul whose face beams with joy and affection and who's got wonderful eyes and a great smile. It's just that this smile has a couple of mismatched stick-out teeth or some missing ones, and he's got a crooked smile some people take as smug or malicious, he’s got a strongman’s gut instead of a bodybuilder’s abs, his nose is a little busted (maybe he’s had too many crash landings), and his hair is a little wild or greasy, and he doesn't exactly have very good people skills because of how others usually react to him and, y'know, he doesn't get the kind of publicity Superman would get despite doing ostensibly the same things. He’s not deformed, he’s incredibly intelligent and capable, but in comparison to how superheroes are usually allowed to look, he might as well be Bizarro in the public eye.

It becomes a running gag that people tend to assume some nearby fireman or cop was the one who rescued the hundred orphans out of a burning building single-handedly, meanwhile he's getting accosted off-panel by police officers who think he set the building on fire, or think they can bully this weird man dressed funny. He goes to rescue old people in peril and occasionally they yell at him that they don't have any money. He doesn't get asked to lead superhero meetings or teams even though many in the community advocate for just how much he does for the world, he gets censored out of tv broadcasts or group shots (even his face is sometimes pixelated when they do show him), people invite him on talk shows and don't really let him talk or assume they got the wrong guy. He goes to rescue a woman dangling off a building, and then he gets attacked by like three different superhero teams who assume he must have kidnapped the poor damsel. He was the first superhero, he is the strongest of them all still, but he never really gets credit for it, it nor does he even want to. None of this at all stops him or deters him, except for some occasionally funny reactions.

This never really changes for him, he doesn't really earn people's approval nor does he have to, instead the stories, outside of the gags and adventures you’d expect from a comic strip, veer more towards others learning to be less judgmental and him learning ways to better approach people. He isn't any lesser than Superman just because he doesn't look like most people would want him to look and he doesn't have to look like Superman. Really I think we could use more superheroes that don’t look all so uniformly pretty.

Again, probably not a take that would work for Clark proper, but it’s one way I would take a shot at doing Superman with my own

I have other stuff in the works for this character but I'd like to keep them to better work on them for now, but yeah, these are three of my shots at developing a Pulp Superman.

Alternatively here's a fourth idea that's more pulp than all of these: Join up Nicholas Cage with Panos Cosmatos again, or whatever weird indie director he decides to pair up with next, and let them do whatever the hell they want with Superman. Give us Mandy Superman. Superman vs The Color Out of Space. Superman vs Five Nights at Freddy's. Superman’s quest to find THE LAST PIG OF KRYPTON. Anything goes.

[sweetcathedral]

🕸Haikyuu! — The Butterfly’s Ripple Effect🕸

Note: Currently a developing short story as I’m trying to figure out how to format it on tumblr, so that it’s easy to read (might take me a few months for the rough draft). The plot and ending is solidified, just need to piece together the scenes. Of course all Haikyuu characters are post-timeskip, it’s easier for me to write them as adults. It doesn’t make sense, but it will when I have the whole story down!

⚠️: blowjob, raw, forceful (?), cheating, giving in to temptation

The warmth of the sun gently wakes you up, making you flutter your lashes and wince at the brightness of the room. Memories of last night play back in your head as you pull the covers over you, but you look around to see that there was no sign of Kuroo. You hesitate to go back to sleep or look around the house to see if the others were okay from last night, since it wasn’t as loud as it should be.

“G’morning,” Kenma was leaning at the doorway with a cup of tea in his hand and a plate of omelettes in the other. “May I?”

You nodded, rubbing your eyes to fully wake you up.

“It smells nice. How are the others?”

“Oh, Kuroo’s driving them back to Sendai. The others wanted you to tag along on their road trip, but I told them that you’re probably jetlagged and needed the rest. They helped unload your stuff at the entranceway though,” he settled the tea and omelettes on the nightstand before pulling out a bed tray table from one of the drawers.

“I didn’t know you were the type to have breakfast in bed.”

“I’m not. A friend left it here last year, forgot about it and told me to keep it in the end. I just thought you’d like breakfast in bed today,” as Kenma was about to unfold the table, he paused in hesitation. It looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he lowered his head onto your lap. Thinking nothing of it, you run your fingers through his soft hair,

“Tired?”

“. . . I guess . . . I don’t know . . .”

You started humming the tune Kenma used to sing to you back then, when the two of you were still normal. The familiar feeling began to cloud your judgement, letting your fingers trace down the nape of Kenma’s neck. He immediately grabs your wrist, startling you from your trance.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he lifts his head.

“I—, sorry, I didn't mean—”

“Your food’s getting cold,” he changes the subject and continues to set up the bed table, arranging the tea and omelette. Before he was able to leave the bed, you reach for his hand,

“Kenma, wait . . .” the words you’ve always wanted to tell him is caught in your throat, “. . . I’m sor—!”

His hands clamp over your mouth as he gently kisses your forehead, softly dragging his cold fingers down to your throat. Unable to shake off the way it made you feel, he left you in silence.

After closing the door, Kenma briskly walked towards the bathroom, turned the faucet on and locked himself in. He leans against the door, slowly sliding down to the floor and pulled his hoodie completely over his head,

“. . . what am I doing? . . .” he sighs, pressing his head into his folded hands.

A moment later, the sound of your footsteps makes him jolt back up to turn the faucet off. He opens the door to see you standing there, knees clasped together.

“Don’t just stand there, move!” you push through him to get to the toilet and quickly kicked your panties off, landing at Kenma’s feet. “Phew, okay, you can leave now.”

Just as you finished cleaning yourself up, he picks up your wet stained panties.

“Hey! Give me those!” you tried grabbing them back from him, while covering yourself.

Fuck it. Kenma decided to cross the line he drew for himself. At this point it didn’t matter to him anymore, nothing mattered to him anymore. Everything that’s been holding him back has reached its limit, and he was more than ready to risk it all.

“What, it’s not like this is my first time seeing you naked.”

“Kuroo can walk in at any moment,” you argued back.

“He left two hours ago. It takes a total of eight hours driving to and from Sendai, plus the amount of stops he probably took to settle them down,” he quietly closes the door. “Which means I’ve about six hours to have you all to myself.”

The weight of Kenma’s words dawned on you. The sound of your heartbeat echoes in your ears, racing at the pace things were moving in. It’s only been a day since you got back, but Kenma had been displaying signs of temptation. You knew he was selfish, but you didn't know he can be this selfish—to the point of sleeping with his best friend’s girlfriend. Maybe you should’ve set the boundaries right then and there when you and Kuroo told him about your relationship. But you’ve been sleeping around with Kenma for so long that you didn’t realize that these things weren’t normal for someone in a relationship. It wasn’t right at all, especially to Kuroo. It’s cheating, but—

“Don’t worry, it’ll just be between you and me. I promise,” Kenma cups your face so that your eyes meet with his and draws you into a kiss. You quickly pull away from him,

“Kenma, we can’t. You know we can’t, I’m dating Kuroo, and . . .this is cheating—”

“Only if we get caught,” his fingers trace up your thighs.

You grip his wrist with trembling hands.

“Kenma . . . please, I—I can only hold back so much,” your voice begins to break.

“Do you trust me?” he pauses, waiting for your reply.

With guilt, you shyly nodded.

“That’s my good girl,” he lifts you up onto the edge of the sink. Kissing you along your neck and collarbones.

“Not there, you’ll leave a mark,” you stop him.

“Right, . . . sorry,” he pouts. With how far you’ve already taken the situation, you decided to let go of all senses of your morals.

“Come here,” you reach for his face, pulling him back into a kiss. Shocked that you took the lead, but relieved, he places his hand on your wet spot. The feeling of his fingers brushing over your clit makes you throb inside.

“Look at how messy you’re getting and I haven’t even put my fingers in you yet,” he crosses his fingers. “I know you like it when I do this.”

The twisting motion inside you sends waves of pleasure throughout your body, making your toes curl. Hot breaths escape your wet lips, feeling yourself come closer to ecstasy. Before you could reach your climax, Kenma pulls his fingers out.

“No, no no,” you whined.

“What’s wrong?” he cocked his head, knowing damn well what he’s doing. “You know begging doesn’t work on me, you need to show that you want it.” He leans in closer to your blushing ear. “Now get on those pretty knees of yours.”

The glazed look in your eyes catches Kenma’s attention. A smirk tugs across his face, gently gripping your throat, embracing you into another wet kiss. His teeth softly grazes your bottom lip as he pulls away. Reluctantly, you get on your knees.

You work your tongue, stroking up and down his cock. “Fuck,” he grunts, giving you a sense of pride. Impatiently, you start to touch yourself to relieve that aching feeling,

“Ah, ah, ah,” Kenma pulls you by the hair to get you off his cock. He grabs both of your wrists and pins them over your head against the edge of the sink, preventing you from touching yourself. “I’m not gonna let you take that satisfaction away from me. Now open your mouth nice and wide, and stick your tongue out.”

Your hips squirm and tremble, doing as he says.

“Hrmph!” the impact of his cock thrusts to the back of your throat, his grip tightening around your wrists. Tears stream down your cheeks and saliva dribbles down your chin, taking in every thrust he gives you. You choke on his load, filling you so much that you can’t do anything but swallow.

“You think I’m done?” he pushes you to the floor and turns you over, pinning one leg to your chest. The glint in his eyes tells you how long he’s been waiting for this moment. A single, long, moment to put you in a sloppy daze. You can feel his thumb brushing over your slick folds before pressing it in. Although you’re already a soaking mess down there, he wants to make sure you're fully prepped before going in raw.

“Don’t forget, I have you all to myself for more than a few hours,” he says in your ear as he slowly penetrates you. The tip hits you in the right spot making your walls flutter. Only the sound of your panting and moaning escape your lips.

You forgot how rough Kenma gets when his stress builds up and he has nowhere to vent it off on, but that privilege was taken away from him when you and Kuroo started your relationship. Admittedly, you miss Kenma from before he knew about your relationship with his best friend. You didn’t know how he truly felt about it and didn’t want to ask. You avoided wanting to ask ‘cause you’re scared about knowing how he really feels. The day you confronted him about it was also when he started to become distant and detached from you. 

Slowly, your mind enters a daze, getting lost in the comfort you find from his guilty pleasure.

[satendou]

⟼  inopportunity is key

⍣ clueless chemistry series | previous | next

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⇢  pairing: bokuto kotaro/f!reader/kuroo tetsuro

⇢ au: clueless chem!au, college!au, poly!au

⇢ summary: kuroo has a conference call, but bokuto’s just come home from a week away. you really can’t help yourselves.

⇥  masterlist

⇥  requests are open! | rules

⇢  warnings: established relationship, polyamory, smut, fingering & oral, couch sex, teasing of kuroo, masturbation, voyeurism

⇢  word count: 3.7k

・‥…━━━━━━━☆☆━━━━━━━…‥・

⇢  a/n: this is technically posted the day after it was supposed to be but no one will notice right? thank you as usual to @keijiskitten​ for editing this for me, yk ilysm. uh...thinkin about redoing this header but it’s 3am and i’m not doin it tonight.

“Uh, remind me what this is for again?” you asked, glancing over your shoulder at Kuroo. You were standing at the counter stirring a cup of tea while he fixed his tie in the fridge reflection, mouth twisted into a frown as he fought with it. “That would be easier with a mirror.”

He groaned, glaring at you from the corner of his eye. It had taken him ten minutes to get the tie right the first time, and then Bokuto had kissed him just a few minutes after and screwed it up again. He was frazzled and annoyed. “It’s for a science conference with the rest of the group. We have to discuss the potential impact of praseodymium on the environment if used in industry.”

You hummed thoughtfully even though you had less than no idea what he was talking about. However he always sounded so passionate about it that you didn’t care, trying to be interested even though he always lost you six words into his tirade. You suspected he knew as much because he had started slowing down his explanations, taking the time to explain certain things when your brows furrowed in confusion.

“Just come here, Tetsu. Let me fix it so that you can get started,” you said, waving him over. He sighed in relief and stooped over in front of you, chin tilted up while you fiddled with the knot. After a few moments, you patted his chest. “All done. Go get ‘em, tiger.”

He kissed your forehead, sighing against it. “Thanks, babe.” Then-- “Bokuto.”

The third slice of your trio poked his head around the corner into the kitchen, looking every bit like his name sake. Yellow eyes wide and innocent but sparkling with yet undecided mischief. “Yes, Kuroo?”

You snickered behind your hand and turned back to your cup of tea, now cool enough to drink. Taking a sip, you listened to Kuroo lecture Bokuto, who was now leaning against the doorframe, nodding even though he had clearly spaced out. It was all going in one ear and out the other, his eyes locked on you and a small grin on his face. He had something planned but you couldn’t fathom what.

“...and this is really important so I really need you guys to behave. I know how you get when you get bored, but _____ please try to corral him.”

You put on your best serious face and nodded when Kuroo turned to look at you. But as soon as he turned around, you snickered. He had missed it, but Bokuto had given you a very corny eyebrow wiggle. He was not taking this seriously and you were going to have to find something to occupy him before he actually did interrupt Kuroo’s conference. You loved him, but Bo was all volleyball and that left no space for seriousness.

Kuroo stomped around him and into the living room. You knew his laptop was already set up and open to the chat app the group was going to be using. It had been agreed upon that you and Bokuto could watch TV or hang around in the living room so long* as you-- but mostly Bokuto-- didn’t create a disruption. Kuroo plugged his headphones into the computer and then you heard him talking quietly.

“So, what should we do? Movie?” you asked, moving to stand in front of Bokuto. He towered over you, all broad and rippling muscle and you wondered if you’d actually get through a whole movie. He had only just gotten home from an away game the day before and, after a week away, you had missed him. His arms came around you and you fell willingly into his chest, soaking in the warmth you had been missing for days. Nothing felt right when either of your partners was gone, and you nuzzled into his chest, breathing in the warm smell of fabric softener and your own vanilla body wash because he insisted on using it instead of his own.

“A movie sounds good, so long as you sit in my lap,” he pouted, rubbing his cheek on the top of your head, “I missed you and need cuddles.” It was hard since you were several inches shorter than him, but he wasn’t above bending in half to get affection. Away games sucked, and he had to get by with video chatting, which he demanded every night before the three of you went to bed. He absolutely could not sleep without hearing your voices and seeing your faces.

You led the way into the living room, pulling him along behind you by the wrist. Pausing to kiss Kuroo on the cheek while he chatted, you received a round of waves from the rest of his group and waved back before moving to the couch. Before you could sit, Bokuto caught you up in his arms and fell down, dragging you into his lap just like you promised.

“Alright, alright,” you said, trying your best to stifle your giggles as he peppered your neck and shoulder with kisses. “Tetsu is gonna get mad at us and we won’t be able to watch the movie.”

Bokuto whined in the back of his throat and nipped at your neck, right over your sweet spot, and you squirmed at the heat that it caused. He pulled away, resting his chin on your shoulder and grinning as he picked up the remote. The TV buzzed quietly in the background until he flipped it to Netflix, the familiar sound jarringly loud, and he glanced at Kuroo, who was staring at the two of you with a glare. Bo shrugged, letting a guilty grin slip onto his face as he turned it down in a hurry.

Pushing at him, you guided him to relax against the back of the couch as you got comfortable, sliding off his legs and crossing yours over his thighs. He whined and gave you a pout until you settled in right against his side, and he threw his arm around your shoulders, preening as you snuggled against him. 

He flipped through the movie list, humming in thought at a few until he landed on Terminator 2 and looked at you for confirmation. He knew you weren’t going to be paying attention but the way you laid your head on his shoulder, trying to cuddle closer, made up for it.

Kuroo’s voice covered the sound of the movie, except for a few of the louder sound effects from time to time, but it was as low as it could be without being unable to hear it, and the subtitles were already on. You shifted, crossing your ankles and catching Bokuto’s attention. You were still absorbed in your phone, giggling at something he couldn’t see, and you jumped when you suddenly felt his fingers drift up your calf.

“Ko, stop, that tickles,” you whispered, swatting at his hand half-heartedly, but he only snatched his hand away and did it again, eliciting another giggle. You had set your phone aside and wound one arm around his thick neck, tugging as you tried to pull your legs from his hand. 

He caught your ankle in his grasp and pulled your leg back straight, holding it in his iron grasp and looking down at you. Your face was twisted with amusement, a wry smile on your face as your eyes glittered with happiness. 

“_____, you’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he whispered, and watched the glitter intensify as your eyes widened, pupils blown wide as he let go of your ankle and swept his hand up to your thigh, squeezing it just below your crotch. You weren’t the only one who was pent up, and he had half a mind to take you to the bedroom.

You could immediately tell you were in trouble when Bokuto’s eyes narrowed-- that mischievous glint he always carried increasing tenfold as he asked, “Can you be quiet?”

Throwing a glance over his shoulder, you caught Kuroo looking at you with what might have been a glare, which was overpowered by the interest his eyes held. Something in the chat gathered his attention for a moment as they asked if he was alright. Tugging at his tie, he nodded, glancing at you quickly before trying to focus on his work.

If the two of you really wanted to play, he would be the adult and ignore it. Or so he thought, until another glance at the two of you revealed Ko’s fingers sliding underneath your shorts. Your lips were parted as he whispered something into your ear, your eyes fluttering while you nodded.

“You’re so wet already, baby. Did you miss me that much, _____?” Bokuto breathed, nipping the shell of your ear while your thighs clenched around him. You pulled at his hair, breathing out a shaky moan as one thick finger probed at your slick folds. “I missed you, babygirl. Need my cock in this tight pussy to make up for it, you want that?”

You nodded, a high whine leaving your throat as he crooked his finger, walls clenching around him when his thumb ghosted your clit. It wouldn’t take long for you to come undone; the way his finger thrust in and out of your tight pussy was mind blowing, and when a second finger forced its way in, you lost it. A sharp gasp escaped before you could help it, barely containing a moan and you bit your fingers to stifle anything more.

Kuroo lost track of the conversation again as he watched you come undone all over Bokuto’s fingers. He would never get tired of the flush in your cheeks and the arch of your back, and he already knew there was a mess in your panties.

You squeaked when Bokuto withdrew his fingers, drawing one into his mouth and savoring the taste. There was nothing better, in his opinion, than tasting you after he’d made you cum. It was like a reward for his hard work. “You taste so good, baby. Here, see?”

His other finger still glistening with your juices prodded your lips and you opened obediently, letting it settle on your tongue. He was throbbing as your tongue wrapped around his finger, sucking like you would his cock. He thought that sounded pretty damn good too, but Kuroo was watching, humming along with whatever his group was saying. He was just managing to give them some semblance of an answer to their questions, and Bokuto intended to give him a show.

Smirking at him, he quickly yanked your shorts off your legs and threw them, landing just beside Kuroo’s laptop. 

One of the members ask what that was Kuroo passed it off, saying you had dropped something on the table beside him and glared at Bokuto. He was aggravated that his partner had decided to play this little game, but there was no denying that he was enjoying himself too. Knowing that he had a show to occupy himself while his group sat oblivious, droning on about their work with no one to tease them. He was living the dream and he knew it.

But he was still annoyed.

As Bokuto pulled his shorts down his thighs, you pulled your shirt over your head, pinning Kuroo with a coy smile and cupping your own tits, pinching and pulling at your hardened nipples. As much as you tried to deny it, he knew you enjoyed teasing him just as much as Bokuto-- probably a product of spending too much time with him.

Kuroo almost moaned when Bokuto positioned the two of you so that you were facing him, Bo leaned against the armrest with you sitting just above his leaking cock, your back to his chest. You wrapped a hand around it, pumping a few times and smearing precum across the tip. Bokuto’s head was tipped back, eyes closed while you worked him up, fingers kneading and squeezing your hips.

“Can’t stand it, babygirl. I’m gonna cum if you keep it up and I wanna paint your pretty insides white,” he growled at last, using brute strength to lift you up and settle you over his cock. Your hand was still wrapped around him as you guided him in, your jaw falling slack as his fat dick spread you wide. As always, Bokuto was far too large to handle, but you wanted more, sliding down even as tears rolled down your cheeks at the intense stretch. 

Kuroo had a clear view of your gaping pussy, thighs trembling with a mixture of pain and pleasure and his fingers curled into his palm as he stared. He heard the call of his name and glanced at the screen, finding them waiting for him to answer the previous question still. 

“Um, yeah, three should be fine, but make it five if you can,” he said, knowing he should end the call early, but something kept him rooted to his seat and his mouth firmly shut. Maybe it was the taboo, or maybe he just had a voyeur kink. As much as he wanted to join you, to punish the both of you for your teasing, there was a larger part of him that was getting off on just watching.

A whine tore from your throat when Bokuto thrust his hips up experimentally, burying his cock fully in your tight heat and your eyes rolled back. It felt like he was dragging out of you, your tiny pussy clinging onto him so tight that you could feel every vein rubbing against your walls. 

“Fuckfuck,” you gasped before clapping your hand over your mouth.

In punishment for your slipup, Bokuto reached up and harshly pinched one nipple, his head falling back when you squeezed down around him in response. “So good, baby, so fuckin’ good. Do that again.”

To make you, he pinched your other nipple, hips still moving at a languid pace in and out of you. The slick noises your cunt was making was just barely audible to Kuroo, and he hoped the interference in the video chat prevented his group mates from hearing. They didn’t ask about it, only commenting on his lack of focus and asking if he needed to go. But he shook his head, forcing himself to pay attention for a few moments, watching you bounce from the corner of his eyes.

Your head was tossed back against Bokuto’s shoulder, the veins in his arms standing out as his muscles flexed, pushing and pulling you like you were his own personal fuck toy while you gasped and whined in his ear. In the back of your mind, you really didn’t* want Kuroo to get in trouble, but it was too good to stop and catching his eyes on you made you warm. They were filled with arousal and the promise of payback, and you shivered in Bokuto’s arms.

“Play with your clit, babygirl. Make yourself cum all over my cock while I fuck you,” he whispered, hips curling. He was slamming you down, forcing the breath from you with every thrust, watching Kuroo’s eyes follow his cock disappearing into you. He could feel the mess you were making all over his cock, dripping down his balls and to the couch and he moaned a little louder. Tangling his fingers in your hair, he littered kisses up your shoulder to your neck, and you bucked your hips up when his teeth sunk into your neck before he began to suck, working to leave as large a hickey as he could.

Even from across the room, Kuroo could see the vivid red mark on your skin, slick with saliva and shiny like Bokuto’s lips. His eyes met Bo’s, who was almost feral at that point, eyes wide and wild as he pounded into you. He followed the slide of your hand down to the juncture of your legs, thighs tensing as the first pass over your clit sent jolts of pleasure sparking through you. He wetted his lips at the way your lips parted, wanting to slide his aching cock between them and punish you for torturing him. But it could wait, he decided, discreetly adjusting himself below the view of the camera. He knew you were close, knew your tells. The way your back would arch, your toes would curl, breath leaving you in pants--

You almost shrieked when Bokuto flipped you forward without warning, leaving you empty for just a moment before he was forcing his thick cock back into you. You swallowed him so easily, already fucked open and the head of his cock met your cervix with the new angle. His large hand met the center of your back and pushed, forcing your back to arch and your chest to meet the couch. With your ass up in the air, he wasn’t taking care to keep quiet anymore, his hips pistoning into without mercy and forcing broken moans and whines from your lips.

You were too fuzzy with your looming orgasm to care about Kuroo’s partners hearing, nails scrabbling for purchase on the cushions while Bokuto held you in place with one strong hand.

Kuroo was quick to realize he couldn’t hide it anymore and muted his mic, typing into the supplied chat that he wasn’t feeling well and had to go. It took his computer far too long to register that he had exited the chat and he groaned in relief when it closed, slamming the laptop shut. His belt buckle clanked as he undid it in a hurry before pushing his slacks down to his knees. He was so hard it was painful and he moaned when he wrapped his hand around his weeping cock. There was a wet spot in his boxers where his precum had soaked in, and he had no trouble coaxing more out with a few thrusts, but it wasn’t enough. 

Spitting on his cock, he grunted, squeezing his length tighter and forcing his cock through the tight ring of his fingers. Eyes locked on you, listening to the slick noise of Bokuto fucking your tight cunt and imagining it was him pounding you.

“TetsuTetsuTetsu,” you cried, his name falling like a mantra from your lips and it sent a jolt through him, his hand squeezing his shaft and the dam broke. 

“Fuck, princess,” he snarled, drinking in your fucked out, wide open expression. Focusing on the sensitive spot just underneath his head, he worked himself through his orgasm, drawing it out and splattering cum on his dress shirt. “You’re so pretty, taking his cock. You gonna come for him? He’s treated you so good, it’s the least you could do to cream all over him.”

You whined at his dirty words, watching him slump back and relax, his softening cock rest on his stomach and his arms slung across the back of the couch. His eyes were narrowed and teasing as he stared at you, licking his lips and smirking, looking very much at ease. 

“Gonna cum, Ko, please make me cum. You fuck me so good, baby, I can’t think, can’t think fuck,” you babbled, clenching down on him. A twist of his hips had him rubbing along that one soft spot inside you, head slamming into your cervix and you toppled over the edge with a scream of his name. 

He didn’t stop as he chased his own high, eyes locked onto his glistening cock covered in your cream, groaning as he forced himself into your clenching pussy again. You were whining with overstimulation, still squeezing around and he choked out a curse as he hilted himself inside you and came. He doubled over, resting his forehead on your back as he pumped you full of his cum, hips rocking to jerk himself off with your tight pussy.

“Fuck, babygirl, you’re so amazing,” he whispered, voice hoarse. He swept your hair to the side and pressed open mouth kisses all over the back of your neck and shoulders, tasting the salt on your skin. You shuddered as he pulled out of you, the mess of his cum spilling down your thighs, and he helped you to lay down.

Kuroo was already there with a wet cloth and together they cleaned you and then Bo up, Kuroo’s rough hand gently running the cloth over his soft cock and the mess you had made all over it. Dropping the cloth, his hand trailed up over his abs, watching them twitch and flex until he could cup his chin.

Pressing a kiss to the corner of Bokuto’s lips, he grinned, a feral, manic look in his eyes as he whispered, “You two are in so much trouble. Better rest up now, because when I’m done you won’t be able to walk or practice for days.”

The grin Bokuto gave him screamed mischief, and Kuroo laughed under his breath as he realized his partner had planned this. Carefully, he scooped you up in his arms and you snuggled into his chest, leaving lazy kisses to the underside of his jaw and down his throat. The tie had long been undone and flung somewhere behind the couch, and your nimble fingers plucked open the top buttons of his shirt, your lips blazing a trail on the newly exposed skin.

He could hear Bokuto’s heavy footsteps behind him as he walked down the hall, kicking the bedroom door open with his foot. 

Depositing you on the bed, Bokuto crawled in beside you while Kuroo undressed, watching the two of you cuddle up and whisper together, giggling like co-conspirators and it dawned on him that the conference call was never going to end any other way.

“You two are such little shits, you know that?” he growled, kneeling on the bed and towering over the two of you. “Hope you’re ready, _____. You have to make it up to me.”

Your answering smile was as brilliant as it was devious. “Come and get me then, daddy.”

⇥  return to masterlist

⇥ taglist: @umihami​, @kunimwuah​

[lastbluetardis]

Sacred New Beginnings (1/?)

Summary: James Noble thought he traded away his chance at love and a happy-ever-after when he signed a contract with a record label that turned him into an international celebrity. But a chance meeting in a dive bar may prove him wrong.

Ten x Rose AU, @doctorroseprompts

This Chapter: Teen, ~5500 words

Note: Er... surprise? This idea has been in my head for months but my brain took it and ran with it this weekend. I plotted the whole thing and am gonna try to update every weekend. I don’t anticipate this being more than like... 7-10 chapter? I’d love to keep it under 5 chapters but that might be trimming things down too much for my liking. Anyways, I really hope you enjoy this little story!

AO3

Flashing lights and shrieks of his name greet James the moment the back door to his armored car is opened. His head of security ducks out first and James can only see a mass of feet and legs but it’s more than enough to let him know it’s a heavier than usual crowd. Not surprising, considering the news of his latest break-up just dropped while he’d been flying back from a visit to America.

He slides out of the car, helped by hands that pull him as much as guide him through the throng. He ignores the shouts of his name—telling him to look left or right or up or down or every combination therein—and the barrage of questions and jokes that aren’t funny.

Was it you or him that ended it?

Three weeks, is that a new personal record?

Another notch in the bedpost, eh James?

Got another beau lined up yet?

If you’re looking for candidates, what do we have to do to get our names in the running?

“Ignore them,” he mutters to himself, too quietly for anyone except his security team to hear.

In answer, one of them gives his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as they reach his front door. Someone has already unlocked it for him and the darkness within is a blessing he’s all too willing to be shoved into. The cacophony muffles once the door shuts, and finally he’s alone, a rarity for him. If it’s not his security, it’s personal assistants and writers and producers and photographers and the paparazzi.

Or his lover of the month, as the papers have taken to calling his partners.

But nope, his home is empty and quiet and bloody freezing. A shiver ripples up his spine as he treads to the thermostat controller. Summer finally released its hold on London, and the muggy heat has been replaced with a damp chill that burrows down into his bones.

Several button-presses later, James hears the familiar clank of the radiator and he can smell the heating kick on. It’ll take a while for his house to warm up, so James keeps his peacoat on for the time being as he putters around his home, checking the fridge and the cabinets. As always, they’re well-stocked. He hasn’t had to do anything as mundane as grocery shopping in the five years since his YouTube channel full of acoustic covers of popular songs went viral and landed him a lucrative deal with a prestigious record label. Only in his wildest dreams had he expected to find fame and fortune in the hobby he loved so much—for it to have actually happened still took him by surprise, as though any minute he’d be told “it was fun while it lasted, but it’s time for you to leave wonderland now.”

Shaking his head of those thoughts, he goes to the antique dining table that can easily seat ten people, which is great for holidays or in-home meetings, but just plain depressing every other day of the year. A stack of mail has piled up, and he spends the next five minutes attempting to sort it before giving up and telling himself he’ll look at it in the morning, once he’s not quite as groggy—transatlantic flights always take it out of him.

Instead, he rootles around his fridge until he comes up with the necessary items to make himself a ham and cheese sandwich. With the prospect of food in front of him, James realizes he is starving. He shoves a whole slice of ham in his mouth while he assembles his pitiful meal, heaping on lettuce and sliced tomatoes as though that’s enough to negate the pile processed protein and greasy chips he layers in for crunch.

It’s tastier than any sandwich as a right to be, and he nearly makes himself a second one before catches sight of his phone screen and the slew of incoming notifications. His work is never finished, is it?

There are several texts from his publicist, Donna, welcoming him home and congratulating him on not making an arse of himself just by trying to walk up the front drive of his home. (To be fair, he felt entitled to channel his inner crotchety old man and tell reporters to get off his damn lawn if they encroached on his personal property.)

“Though some photos are surfacing of your trip to New York… Anything you need me to get ahead of?”

He rubs his fingers into his eyes, knowing she’s probably referring to his last night out in the city, where he went bar hopping until the wee hours of the morning to try to forget the text his subsequently-ex-boyfriend had sent him.

Thanks for everything, but I need to focus on my career. Cheers mate.

The career that James had kickstarted for him by introducing his rising actor boyfriend to several of his friends in the film industry, because James had been so damn desperate for affection that he’d once again let the wool get pulled in front of his eyes.

And so James had reached out to mates who lived in New York and they’d all gone out and acted half their age and had a wonderful time once James forgot about why he’d gone out in the first place.

But none of that now. Nope. No sir.

“Not that I’m aware of,” he replies. “Let me know if you catch wind of anything.”

Despite the fact that he only just got home and he’s jetlagged and still feeling the effects of his night out in New York, James can’t stay in his house right now. It’s so quiet that his brain is creating its own white noise. He can’t stand being in his head on a good day, and today is not a good day.

He grabs his keys and wallet and makes for the back of the house. His property is landlocked with the back gardens of other houses; the paps have learned the hard way that James is dead serious about protecting his neighbors’ privacy and will not hesitate to phone the police to arrest and sue anyone caught trespassing on private property to snag a photo of him. James hosts dinner for his neighbors several times a year and buys them gifts any chance he can to show his appreciation for their patience and tolerance.

In the dead of night, he slips out into his back garden, the crisp October air burning his lungs in the best way as he ducks his way through the neighborhood, his feet taking him far away from the crowd of reporters that are still stationed in front of his own home. Hopefully they’ll all have dispersed by the time he gets back. Perhaps he should have turned on music or a movie or something, made them think he was settled in for a lazy night in.

He wanders aimlessly for a while, enjoying this taste of freedom and trying to remember the days when he could leave out the front door of his flat without any fanfare.

It’s dark, and thick clouds obscure whichever moon phase they’re in, but the street lamps glow yellow on the damp pavement, lighting his way forward. A crisp autumn breeze ruffles his hair and the leaves, sending them tumbling around him and skittering across the residential street that’s so much quieter than the bustle of New York. It’s good to be home, though.

He arrives at a bus stop and catches one headed into the city proper. It’s no secret that James lives in London, and therefore the general population has gotten used to glimpsing him on the tube or walking on the street or frequenting pubs. He knows people snap quick photos of him, and he’s always happy to stop and pose for a selfie with respectful fans, but mostly he’s left alone when he’s out by himself like this.

Nevertheless, he hears the excited undertones of people trying to inconspicuously point him out to their oblivious friends. He keeps his head down, mindlessly opening and closing apps on his phone for something to do as he pretends he doesn’t notice them. He won’t be on the bus much longer anyway.

Several people get off the bus with him, including a group of teenage girls who are whispering heatedly among themselves. It’s almost funny, watching them debate amongst themselves before one of them approaches him.

She’s red-faced but determined as she blurts, “Can we get a photo?”

“Sure thing,” he says good-naturedly, inclining his head for them to come closer. “Need me to take it?” He holds out a lanky arm and flops it around a bit. “Got a longer reach than any of you.”

He’s certain one of the girls is about to start crying with joy as they all nestle into his side and hand him a new-model iPhone. Damn, it’s fancier than his own. When he was their age, he had an old flip phone that lost reception if he breathed on it wrong. It was a tank though—he’d dropped that thing hundreds of times, and nary a scratch.

“Do me a favor,” he says, handing the phone back to its owner, “and don’t ping our location if you post to social media, yeah? I appreciate it.”

“You’re my favorite person ever,” one of the girls squeaks.

His face splits into a grin and he tucks his hands into his pockets. “Is that so?”

The girls spend the next five minutes chatting with him about music and how they’ve been following him ever since his YouTube days. He listens and chimes in every now and then when they ask him a direct question, but he prefers being passive in exchanges like this, content to hear peoples’ stories. It makes him feel normal, if only for a little while.

Finally, they take their leave, and James turns in the opposite direction even though the destination he had in mind is down the street the girls had just taken. But he’s been burned far too many times by encounters with seemingly innocent fans, only for them to begin following him around and showing up outside his house to talk to him again. He makes a point of not drawing out public encounters with his fans.

He wanders down a street he’s vaguely familiar with, figuring he can backtrack in a couple blocks. The night is too beautiful for him to be upset about needing to take a detour.

Everything looks different in the dark, the glow of neon signs bathing everything in hues of greens and blues and pinks and yellows. Shops and restaurants are mostly shut up for the night, their windows dark or blinds drawn. Dingey motels with pay-by-the-hour rates are in full swing, as are the pubs that have a revolving door of people in varying states of intoxication.

Deep bass that he can feel all the way in his chest catches his attention, and he gets turned around a few times, but he eventually finds the establishment: Bad Wolf Brews. At first, he doesn’t think it’s open, and that he must be mistaken about where the music is coming from, but the heavy front oak door opens, and he realizes the glass on the door is tempered so that the interior lights don’t shine through. The music is clear and heavy and vibrating in his bones. He doesn’t think twice before catching the door before it closes and slipping inside.

The air is humid and smells of sweat and stale beer. Bodies are writhing and gyrating to the rhythm blasting through invisible speakers. The acoustics are phenomenal; none of the layers are lost and the sound quality is nearly as good as if he were listening to the record at home on his own stereo system.

The lights are low, and he’s sure he trips into a few people in the minute it takes for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, but finally, he’s at the bar. There are three open stools, and he claims one between a blonde woman and a red-haired man as he wonders what the hell this dive bar serves. He can see beer taps, but he’s more of a cocktail guy. He must look as lost as he feels, because the bartender hands him a menu that looks like it was hand-written and then photo-copied. It jives with the overall vibe of the pub.

The bartender checks in with him a minute later. James opens a tab and orders a sidecar sans sugar, and is pleasantly surprised by the quality. Not to make assumptions, but he’d figured an establishment such as this would have cheap liquor. If the alcohol in his drink is cheap, it’s well masked.

When he’s drained the last drop and about to signal for another, a hand rests on his shoulder. “Can I buy your next round?”

James looks up into the face of a stranger. It’s a woman with striking green eyes and a disheveled pixie cut. Judging by her crimson cheeks and glazed eyes, she’s three sheets to the wind. There’s buzzed, then there’s drunk, and then there’s plastered. He prefers not to let himself get to that last category, and by extension, he doesn’t really like to associate much with people who won’t remember the night come morning.

“Thanks, but I’m good,” he says with his most charming grin. “G’night.”

He has no idea if the woman knows who he is, but the way she shrugs and saunters to the gentleman sitting beside James, he doubts it.

He gets clumsily propositioned a few more times and always politely declines with a smile. So far, nobody here seems to recognize him and he is going to ride out this anonymity for as long as it’ll last. It has been too long since he’s been able to sit in a pub and drink quietly. Well, quietly, insofar as crazed fans or paparazzi aren’t harassing him—the music is loud enough that he’s sure to have ringing in his ears for a few hours once he gets home.

But he’s not really in any rush to get home, and so he orders his fourth cocktail before making his way to the loo. Alcohol goes right through him, and it’s nearly gotten him in trouble on tour a time or two.

There’s no line, but the loo is crowded, and he tries to ignore the double-takes as he stands in front of a urinal to take care of business. If he wakes up tomorrow morning to find that someone snapped a photo of him having a piss, he’s going to lose his goddamn mind.

Bladder tended to, James keeps his head ducked and shoulders his way back into the bar. His stool is unoccupied, and when he steps forward, he realizes why. A purse sits on it, seemingly reserving the seat but he can’t figure out for whom. He’s about to take the cocktail the bartender hands him and stand against the shadowed wall when someone picks up the purse.

It’s his blonde-haired stool mate. She flashes him a broad grin that lights up her entire face and squeezes something deep in his stomach.

“Saved your seat for ya,” she says with the ease and confidence of someone who’s known him his whole life.

“Thanks,” he manages through a suddenly dry mouth.

Feeling like an idiot for standing and gaping, he slips into his seat and downs half his new sidecar in one go. It’s as though the ice has been broken now, and she turns to him, her elbow on the counter and her cheek propped on her fist.

“Pretty sure you could outdrink a fish, mate,” she drawls, smiling again in that easy way that does too many strange things to his insides. “You’ve been knockin’ ‘em back for over an hour now.”

Has it really been that long? James checks his watch, and yup, it’s half past ten. The paps should be gone from his house by now, but he feels no draw to leave this place. The alcohol has left him pleasantly tipsy and warm, but he’s more drunk on the fantasy that he’s just a normal bloke having a nice night out in a newly-discovered dive bar.

“Fish don’t really drink though, do they? They absorb water through their gills via osmosis,” he replies, and he wants to bite his tongue off because what the fuck was that??

This woman, whatever her name is, doesn’t seem to mind his answer though, because her face scrunches in a giggle. His body is hot and throbbing with more than drink now, and he wants to hear that sound again but his brain has stopped working.

“Is that so different from you absorbin’ alcohol through your bloodstream?” she muses, finishing off whatever is in her short tumbler.

“Can I buy your next round?” he blurts rather than responding to her question, which he’s almost certain was rhetorical.

Her smile melts into something softer, something private and a little shy. “If you’d like.”

“I do.” He flags down the bartender and glances at his new companion expectantly.

“Gin and tonic,” she says. She thanks the bartender, then James when she takes her first sip. “I’m Rose, by the way.”

“James,” he says, feeling stupid because his face is plastered all over London, which likes to boast that it’s the home of international celeb James Noble. But wouldn’t he seem more of an arse if he just assumed this gorgeous woman knew who he was?

Nevertheless, his stomach sinks a bit when she snorts into her drink and says, “I thought it was you.”

“Yup, it’s me,” he forces, his voice flat. He hides his frown with his glass, knocking back the rest of his sidecar like it’s a shot. The room sways slightly with the violent motion of his head, and maybe he’s slightly drunker than he’d thought.

If Rose catches on to his sudden sour mood, she doesn’t mention it. “What brings you here to Bad Wolf?”

He shrugs and blows out a noisy breath. “I dunno. Went for a walk, ended up here.”

“Those are the best sort of adventures.” She hums wistfully. “Sometimes you find what you didn’t know you needed when you let yourself get lost.”

That observation is far too astute for his current state of mind, so instead he says, “Would you like to dance with me?”

Her eyes flicker across his face for a brief moment before she says, “Okay.”

He hops down from his stool, but Rose hesitates, clutching her purse and coat awkwardly. The bartender helpfully tells her to keep them on her stool, and he’ll keep an eye on it. Rose flashes him a grin that James would rather she flash at him, but he realizes that is utterly absurd, so he simply rests his coat on top of her things to better hide them from view. He then holds out his hand for her. Her palm is soft and warm against his as he leads her to the crowded dance floor.

They find space towards the back of the pub, hidden in the shadows of a hallway that states it’s closed off to patrons. And of course, of fucking course, right when he rests his hands on her hips to find the rhythm of the song, a new one comes on, and his own voice belts from the speakers.

“Fucking hell,” he mutters. He loves his music—he made it, after all—but he can’t help but feel pretentious and more than a little silly to dance to it like this.

Rose, however, grins and says, “Oh, come on, this is one of my favorites.”

She catches his hands where he’d loosened them at her waist and forces him to grab hold of her. She’s wearing high-waisted trousers and a top that leaves a sliver of her belly exposed. His thumb grazes the skin of her bare side, and it’s enough to send tingles through his body. Rose, meanwhile, slings her arms around his shoulders and begins to rock her hips from side to side in sync with the bass, embellishing the motions until she looks absolutely ridiculous but so, so beautiful.

He can’t help but grin and laugh, and he mirrors her movements until they’re both dancing like idiots to his music.

“This is how my baby brother dances,” she explains, bouncing up and down while twisting her hips. “We have regular dance parties together.”

“How old’s your brother?” he asks.

“Just turned four.”

He blinks, and blood rushes from his face. “And… and how old are you?”

“A perfectly legal twenty-four,” she drawls, reaching up to flick his nose. “You can start breathing again.”

Thank fuck.

“That’s quite the age gap.”

“My mum got remarried when I was nineteen,” Rose says with a shrug. “She and my stepdad didn’t waste much time.”

“Clearly,” he mutters under his breath.

“It does feel a bit like they’ve started over,” Rose confesses with a too-stiff shrug. “New family, new life, and I’m the interloper.

There is no way this vivacious woman in front of him could ever be considered an interloper, but before he can tell her that, she continues, “Mum does her best to assure me otherwise, but still. It’s hard to watch all the things Mum and Dad are able to do for Tony—that’s my brother, Tony—when Mum struggled so much as a single mum with me.”

“Your dad’s not in the picture?”

A sad smile pinches her face, and he regrets asking.

“No, I never knew him. He died when I was a baby.”

“I… I’m so sorry.” Well, he’s totally buggered this all up, hasn’t he? He wracks his brain on how to salvage the easy banter they’d had at the bar, but draws a blank.

Rose seems to realize they’ve lost the mood, but she breaks out into a lazy grin and says, “Since you seemed so opposed to dancing to your own music, it’ll please you to know a new song’s on. C’mon, show me your moves.”

He’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and so he follows her lead, watching her dance her heart out until her cheeks are pink and her hair is damp with sweat. He’s sure he doesn’t look much better, since he can feel the perspiration beading down his back and beneath his arms, but he can’t bring himself to care. Tonight has been the most fun he’s had in a very long time. Clubbing in New York had been a lark, but he’s been swarmed by his American fans half the night, and had been busy drowning his latest heartbreak to fully enjoy it. But here, now, with Rose, it’s like he’s any other bloke in a pub, chatting up a pretty girl he wants to get to know.

Their bodies are wrapped around each other with the ease and grace of partners who have known each other for years, and he forgets that he has known Rose for all of a few hours. He never wants this night to end. He wants to cling to this fairytale and pretend that the clock isn’t about to strike the proverbial midnight.

But time marches on as always. The clock really does strike midnight, and the bartender begins to clear people out of his establishment. James is as exhausted as he is exhilarated, no longer drunk on booze but rather the company of Rose and the magic they made together by simply dancing the night away.

They head back to the bar to retrieve their coats and her purse, and to close out their tabs. James slides his credit card to the bartender and asks him to charge everyone’s tab to his card. If the bartender is surprised, he hides it well. A few minutes later, James is signing off on the receipt of purchase of several thousand pounds-worth of alcohol. His personal assistant is sure to be confused as hell when she wakes up to see the charge. He fires off a quick warning text to her so she doesn’t open up a fraudulent charge claim.

James salutes the bartender, knowing he’ll come back to this pub as often as he can until he’s found out and this place once again becomes somewhere that’s overrun with his fans.

The night is refreshingly cold when he and Rose emerge into it, a nice change after the stifling, sweaty heat of the bar. However, she hunches her shoulders against the chill, prompting him to wrap his arm around her waist and tug her into his side, all too eager to lend her some of his body heat.

“Can I walk you somewhere?” he asks, glancing around the street that is now full of the drunken patrons who’d been in the pub with them. They all disperse in different directions, stumbling home or to a different bar that is still open. “Or wait with you ‘til you catch a cab?”

“Yeah, sure,” she says, pulling up her phone to order a ride. She taps on the screen for a few quiet moments then says, “Done. Should be here in a few minutes.”

They descend into a slightly awkward silence that James wants to break, but he can’t think of anything clever to say. So he says nothing, and finally headlights wash over them, momentarily blinding them before a taxi pulls up.

“D’you wanna share?” she asks, opening the door to the back seat.

Is she as reluctant to leave him as he is to leave her? Or is she being polite and eco-friendly by ride sharing? Nevertheless, he nods and slides into the back seat beside her.

There is something incredibly intimate about sitting with Rose in the dark interior of the taxi, and he feels like he’s fifteen and wondering how to hold his date’s hand after a cheap night out at the cinemas. He fists his hands together, knotting his fingers until his knuckles pop.

The driver goes to the address Rose provides first, and all too soon they’ve arrived.

“I’ll cover the fare,” he says when she makes to hand over some bank notes to the diver. “It’d be my pleasure.”

She hesitates, but nods, then opens the door to climb out of the car. His pulse quickens as he watches her walk away with nothing but a, “Goodnight.”

“Can you wait just a minute?” he asks the driver.

“Meter’s still runnin’,” he grunts.

“That’s fine.”

James scrambles out of the taxi. “Hey, Rose?”

She turns back to face him, frowning.

“I… er… I had a great time tonight,” he says lamely, but her frown relaxes into a smile. “It was fun. With you. I had fun.”

“Yeah, me too,” she answers.

He licks his lips; his mouth is bone dry and his pulse pounds in his ears, making his vision throb with each frenzied beat.

“Do you… do you maybe wanna do it again some time? Hang out together? I… I’d really like to see you again,” he says, cursing his clumsy, fumbling words.

She scrutinizes him for a long moment, her expression indecipherable. His stomach sinks. Maybe this was a one-off, a story for her to tell her mates.

You’ll never guess who I met at the pub last night. James Noble! He paid for all my drinks and we danced like idiots.

He stews in his misery of doubt, and just when he’s about to tell her to forget about it, she slowly nods.

“Yeah, okay. I’d like that.”

“Really?” he asks, a hopeful edge creeping into his voice.

She laughs. “Really.”

“Brilliant!” James fumbles in his pocket for his phone, and he thrusts it at her. “Give me your number? I’ll text you. Or call.”

He rocks back and forth on his toes and heels, waiting for her to finish up with his phone. He has a sudden, potent bolt of panic that she’s snooping through his private messages or photographs for something to use against him to make a quick profit, but before that panic can take root, she hands his mobile back to him. It’s open to a new texting conversation.

From: 🌹 Bad Wolf Girl 🌹

Now I’ve got your number too 😉

He beams at the name she’s given to herself in his contacts, then he pockets his phone.

“I’ll see you later,” he says.

“You better,” she replies with that knee-weakening smile he’s grown to love over the course of the night. “See ya.”

“Bye.”

He stands there like a moron until she’s safely inside, then he turns back to the taxi and climbs in. The deserted streets streak by as the driver takes him to his neighborhood. He never gives his address though; he always chooses a destination a few streets away, just in case.

James generously tips the driver and bids him goodnight before slipping into the night to his home. He was right: the paparazzi are gone. There is no fanfare as he slips his key into the lock and lets himself into his house. It’s warm and cozy, but still too quiet for his liking.

Between the plane ride and his night out, he feels greasy and disgusting, and indulges in a hot shower before bed. He washes Rose’s scent off of his body, an intoxicating blend of jasmine and vanilla that’s as sweet as it is musky.

He’s groggy by the time he crawls into his giant, king-sized bed and burrows deep into his mounds of pillows and duvets. One of his ex-girlfriends once teased that he turns into the marshmallow man when he sleeps.

His sleep is deep and dreamless, and when he awakes with the sun the following morning, he feels more refreshed and invigorated than he ever remembers being. He’s got a full day of meetings with his songwriting team to brainstorm his next album, and he is ready.

But first, he checks his phone. There’s nothing from Rose, which makes him a little sad, but also nothing from his publicist, which is always a good sign. If ever she messages or calls him first thing in the morning, it always means there’s some sort of dumpster fire to put out. Usually a dumpster fire full of compromising photos of him.

He makes a point of not Googling himself, but he does occasionally check his social media pages for new posts about him, wanting to know when, where, and how his fans came across him in the wild. He easily finds the photo that he took with the group of teenage girls, and makes a point to like the original post and type a quick, “Nice to meet you all. Thanks for chatting with me last night - J” in the comments section. He snorts to himself as his comment blows up within seconds.

But other than some grainy photos of him riding the bus, he can’t find any other photos of himself. Nothing of him wandering the streets or drinking in the pub or even having a wee in the mens’ room. And best of all, there’s nothing of him and Rose. No photos of them dancing together or sharing a cab. If Rose has a social media account, it didn’t post any sneaky photos or bragging stories about dancing all night with James Noble.

He can’t quite believe it; he managed to have a fun night out drinking without it all being thrown back in his face the next morning. Within seconds, he’s grinning to himself and pulling up Rose’s contact information. It’s still in his phone, further proof that his night with her wasn’t some sort of jetlagged fever dream. She was real.

“Good morning. I hope you slept well. Thanks for last night.”

She responds almost instantly. Good morning to you too. I should be thanking you for paying my drink tab and taxi fare 😉 And for being an excellent dance partner.

“The pleasure was all mine, on all counts.” He sends that message, then types out a new one, “I’m gonna be in meetings all day (yes, I know it’s Sunday), so please don’t be discouraged if I don’t reply. But I’d really like to see you again. Want to do dinner or drinks or coffee or something?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer, needing to make himself presentable for when his driver picks him up in an hour. Yet he can’t help but check his phone every three seconds, until finally there’s a message from Rose.

Yeah, I’d like that. I work ‘til five most nights, but I’m free after that. Or we can wait ‘til the weekend.

With spirits lighter than they’ve been in months, James steps out of his house with a broad, stupid grin that the ever-present crowd of paparazzi are all too happy to photograph.

[untitledtheunknown]

So I wanted to come clean about whats been going on really. Life has been chaotic in the worst ways and a really strong passion just doesn't exist right now like it used to. I still love my characters, my friend's characters, and more importantly my friends but have had to step back and away to figure things out.

This past summer, a very close friend of mine and a prominent member in our TTRPG group had taken his life. For months there after nobody wanted to play, our GM didn't want to continue story paths without him, and we were stuck at a moment grieving our friend and not knowing how to continue. His death had this ripple effect through a lot of things, most notable was the games we played together. I had originally met him via Destiny and had brought him into Cyberpunk with us, and for a long time I struggled to touch either game. And while others have dragged me back into Destiny, Cyberpunk has been very much a chaotic scene of trying to figure things out.

On average our group meets once maybe twice a month as a whole. Our GM handles most of the story arcs with a few of us helping when needed, but now we're trying to rewrite and untangle a lot of things that are ending up just getting thrown away. Its a constant battle of if we just erase his characters and stories or keep them involved but no longer progressing. Also hurts a lot of the main campaign and our team balance. We've played a little bit, but a lot of it boils down to how are we moving forward? Which nobody really knows how to do. And its just killed a lot of passion of wanting to pick up my own characters. I love them, but they come from this world that we created, Umbra was also his project with me, and it just feels like a void is there now.

Dealing with all that also started to develop this sense of imposter syndrome here. I've gotten a number of kind messages from people which I appreciate, but its that back feeling that I never really belonged here. I'm not involved in any group on here really, just existed within the space. And it constantly goes back and forth of does it really matter when everything feels artificial. No fault of anyone's but my own really, still it sucks. And with that drives down the interest of creating even more.

Im not really sure where to go with anything. I'm playing other games to keep myself distracted, work is demanding more time, been writing a little bit here and there and working on other characters. The part that sucks is I want to get back into Cyberpunk, I miss it, there's just no drive to do so and feel like if/when I do get back into it its still gonna be a while until I start doing pics and vids again. I know there's a more silent group that follows me that waits for more stuff and I appreciate them, just don't know what and where to go right now.

TLDR;; life fucking sucks and I have no motivation to get back into things I once enjoyed. Send help.

[enchantcdstories]

Jealous of a Joy Toy

Words: 2012 Tags: Mentions of sex, implied sex, language warning, unbeta’d

A/N: Here it is! My jealous johnny fic! I hope it doesn’t suck!

Summary:  Johnny makes V feeling less than pleased after a shared memory leaves V aching for more. What he didn't anticipate was V actually doing something about it..

V didn’t dream anymore. Her dreams were sometimes replaced with flashes of Johnny’s memories now. Little memories like him taking a piss in an alley, the first time he smoked as a teenager, eating food at a random restaurant with the band. V usually didn’t complain- it was a side effect of the chip. His memories overtook hers. Johnny said that he could see her memories though...she just couldn’t see her own. V was warned about this, so she couldn’t be too surprised. Still hurt like a son of a bitch though.

That night’s dream was...erotic and different. Johnny’s dream, clearly. Were they linking that closely now? When she slept she saw his dreams? Of course it was sex. V suspected it was some roadie that wanted to work her way through the band. What else did Johnny think about besides blowing up buildings? V could barely make out what was going on by the end of it, but when she woke up with a start in her bed- all her senses rippled her body like flames licking at her. She was covered in sweat and suddenly the buzzing feeling between her legs was all too noticeable and hard to ignore.

“Fuck.” V groaned, pulling herself out of her bed. She was drenched in more ways than one. V also knew for a fucking fact that that son of a bitch was feeling the same way. Fuck, she probably dreamed it to begin with cause he was horny out of his skull. “Fucking gross.” She muttered, stretching her back out. Her mind was racing a mile a minute, her heart thumping loudly in her chest. V looked at her clock, groaning at the time. 2 am.

“Fine, you wanna play like that, let's dance, pretty boy.” She said, throwing her shoes on and shoving her way out the door. V was in nothing more than sleep shorts and a crop top, but she couldn’t care less. She could see Johnny phase-out of view in the corner of her eye, a smirk on his face. Fucker thought he won, V echoed in her mind.

V was glad that Night City was warm at night, and that the sweat was dripping down the back of her neck didn’t look completely out of place. V had just rounded the corner to her car, well- Johnny’s car that is. V may jokingly hate Johnny, but damn he had a good taste in cars. Johnny, of course, was already waiting inside- feet on the dash and his arms behind his head.

“I can see most of the things in your head, but not this. What happened in your sleep that has you so bothered?” He said, his gruff voice filling V’s head.

“You tell me. You seem to be having some real fun in your little memory dream bullshit, so I’m gonna go make my own fun.” V said, turning the keys to the Porsche and listening to it roar to life. V couldn’t see the look on Johnny’s face, but she just knew it’d be priceless.

Jig Jig street wasn’t too far, but with V’s heart racing and the buzzing between her legs almost making her numb- it felt like a lifetime. When she finally skidded the car to a stop, Johnny started to panic.

“Wait wait wait, you’re gonna fuck some joy toy?” He said, appearing outside of V’s car door before she could get out. V opened the door, clearly through him without issue. His laws of physics were strange. He could push her to the ground but she couldn’t throw a can at his head without it flying through him.

“Yup.”

“I can feel what you’re feeling too, ya know, you really think some meaningless sex with someone who won’t remember you will sastify you?” V rolled her eyes, slamming the Porsche’s door shut and leaning against it. Alright, she’ll bite.

“How come you have your panties in a knot? Aren’t you Mr ‘fuck anything that moves’? Why do you care?” She said, crossing her arms. V could see some potential partners lingering around, and the buzzing feeling only lingered. Johnny sighed, pacing. He always paced when he was stressed or his brain was working too hard.

“I didn’t fuck no joytoys though. It’s not the same, gotta find someone you know at least appreciates you. Makes sure you are taken care of. Lets you finish at least.” He sounded..strained, like he was trying to drive V away from the men and women in jig-jig street.

“Oh yeah, cause I got tons of those lying around. You had like what? Adoring fans? You had endless options of fuck buddies that weren’t joytoys.” V pushed herself off the car door and towards one of the beefy looking male joy toys. V could practically feel Johnny seethe. He walked beside her, moving so he was walking backwards while facing her.

“You really think that a joytoy is gonna be able to get you off? It’s a joytoy.” Johnny said, causing V to stop and cross her arms again.

“What? And you would?” V said, her voice coming out a bit more venomous that she’d like. That made Johnny stop as well, the engram flickering just a bit more than usual. Johnny put on his signature smirk, but it did nothing to hide the red flush that was spreading on his cheeks. It was his turn to cross his arms.

“ ‘Course I would, princess. Way better than a fucking joytoy.” It was V’s turn to blush. She looked over towards where the joy toys lingered.

“Okay, but that’s just your cocky demeanor talking. Now are you gonna let me go rail a joy toy till my legs go numb, or are you gonna let me go back to bed without dreaming of fucking a poor roadie senseless?” V spat, running a hand through her hair. Johnny started pacing, running his own metal arm through his soft raven locks.

“You don’t fucking listen to me anyways, why do you fucking care? Gonna go do your own thing anyways..” His voice sounded...hurt, hesitant. V rolled her eyes, storming off in the direction of the largest looking joytoy she could find.

“Wait, Wait, V… wait!” Johnny’s hand reached out and gripped V’s arm tightly. To the outside passerby, It looked like V was fighting with herself and getting pulled back on her own accord. Typical Night City wacko shit. V knew Johnny could manipulate her body, he could push her to the ground- make her knock herself out off a window. Still, she almost had the breath knocked out of her when Johnny’s ‘ganic arm grabbed her.

“I promise you- I can do a hell of a lot better than a fucking joy toy.” His voice was deadly serious. No jokes, no sarcasm. V just looked at him, still a bit shocked that he had grabbed her which such...force. She found her voice, but it was more gravely than normal.

“What makes you say that?”

She wasn’t sure why she questioned him when she knew the answer. She knew the answer and she mentally begged him not to say it. This entire time, V knew that her answer was the same. She fucking loved him. She loved him and cherished him and knew that at some point- She’d have to say goodbye to him. Either because she died or they found a way to pry him out of her head. V also knew Johnny could see all these same thoughts.

“Because I fucking love you, alright? I love you and I’ve been inside your head long enough to know that I’d be miserable to see you with anyone else.” He said, stopping his pacing enough to get a good long look at V. She ran a hand over her face, the sudden lack of sleep and the urge to go back to her bed was hitting her like a rock to the face. “I didn’t like you at first yeah, but spending every waking second with you...something changed.” Johnny paused. “Must not feel all that great to have the thing killing you fall in love with you.”

“Fuck...I...I wanna go back to bed. I need time to think. ” She said, spinning on her boots and heading back to the car.

Her bed was still warm when she got back, thanks to Nibbles curled up next to her pillow. The cat jumped down when he saw that V was back. Instead of rubbing against her leg like he normally did, he rubbed against- and passed through- Johnny’s, who had appeared standing in the middle of her apartment. V closed her eyes, sighing a bit and leaning against the wall.

“I’m sorry for...you know, all that shit back there” V had gathered the courage to apologize to him in the car, frankly because she knew she’d be confessing the exact same thing to him. She overreacted when she had sprung out of bed and drove halfway across Night City.

“You love me too, I can see it.” Was all Johnny said, doing nothing but staring at V as she kicked her shoes off. V nodded.

“I do,” V said, lightly. She opened to mouth to speak before closing it again, gaining the courage to keep speaking.

“So all this, the sex memories, the jealousy-”

“Wasn’t jealous.”

“Whatever. All of this was just your way of saying you love me? What would you have done if I did have sex with that joytoy?” V said, walking over to her bed and sitting down onto the mattress. Johnny had moved so he was in her little living area, sitting on the edge of the couch with his hands in his jeans pocket.

“Would have asked you to take some suppressors first so I didn’t have to witness that.” He shrugged. V just looked at him briefly before looking down.

“ I..I love you too. You know that. I didn’t mean to you know… hurt you..” V asked, her voice softer and more tired. Johnny went back to pacing before taking a few strides to close the gap between the two, taking his metal arm and pushing V roughly to the bed. It was very reminiscent of when the pair first met. V was suddenly very grateful that she could physically feel Johnny's touches, though the last time wasn’t such a great time.

Johnny straddled her, kneeling over top of her with his knees on either side of her waist. Before V knew it, Johnny was planting rough and sloppy kisses on her neck. It was sudden and unexpected but fuck, V needed this. That buzzing between her legs only skyrocketed as V put her head back- giving Johnny more room to have his way. He felt strange, V could feel the pressure sitting on her hips. She could feel the sensation of someone kissing her neck- but it wasn’t the same. Something just felt off and different.

Johnny pulled up briefly from her neck to lean on his hands on either side of her head. V looked up at him, completely at his disposal now that he was straddling her. Somehow she was sweating more now.

“So have I earned the right?” Johnny asked, leaning down to nip at her neck on the other side. V’s eyebrows furrowed.

“What do you mean?”

“Your name. You said before that only people really close to you can say your name. I think I qualify for that.” He said, between breaths and kisses that trailed from V’s neck to her collar bone. V thought about that for a second, her brain foggy from the actions he was performing.

“Yeah. Yeah, you can, think being in my head alone deserves that.” V sighed, her voice sounding more pleased than normal, causing Johnny to smirk. V continued.

“So where do we go from here? Friends with benefits? A relationship? You don’t seem the type.”

“For now, Valerie, I show you how much better I am than a joy toy.”

[mintchocolateleaves]

Cost of Freedom (44/52)

Summary: In which two groups converge, emotions are shared and two criminals reunite.

A/N: Here’s the Apr chapter! I hope you’ll all enjoy! Next update should be May 22nd!

[Full Chapter List]

Hattori leads them to an abandoned shrine in the middle of nowhere, and Kaito is torn between thinking ‘really, this was the best you could find?’ and ‘oh, this is an amazing hideout.’

He supposes they lose points for style, seeing as it’s unlike all of Kaito’s hideouts, and his are all amazing, but it’s very obviously effective. Their path bulging with tree roots, ivy rising up the side of buildings – everything about this place screams that it is lost to time, untouched by a society that they’re trying to escape.

They drive up most of the way, before they have to abandon their bikes, pushing them the rest of the way. Squinting through the dark at the undergrowth shows faint tire tracks. Kaito doesn’t blame Hattori for having them traverse the rest of the trek by foot – with the sun having set and unable to see properly the terrain beneath them, driving through seems like an accident waiting to happen.

Especially since Kaito doesn’t know the area.

“It ain’t too far,” Hattori says as he pushes his motorcycle along, his visor pushed up as he turns back to them. “Five minutes max, if you don’ walk too slow.”

Kaito nods. Removing his own helmet and passing it to Aoko for her to hold, he focuses on pushing the bike along, memorising the path so the likelihood of being caught off guard at any point will be vastly lowered.

“How did you find this place, Hattori-kun?” Aoko asks, as they continue down the path. Her tone is light, curious and Kaito tilts his head slightly in her direction as if to agree that he’d also like to know.

“When Kazuha an’ I both got our licenses we spent a lotta time just explorin’ the neighbourin’ areas.” He pauses for a moment, before sheepishly adding. “We actually found this place completely by accident. Got lost and wound up findin’ this place.”

Aoko lets out a small laugh. “Who was the one who got you both lost. You or Toyama-chan?”

Hattori lets out a small sound that seems almost like he’s spluttering, before grumbling that their usual route had been under construction that day.

Kaito takes that to mean that it was Hattori who got the pair lost, then.

“I think I like it out in the nature like this,” Aoko says, as they break through a small group of trees, breaking out into the old remnants of the shrine courtyard. “It’s a nice change of pace from Tokyo.”

Of course – Aoko had never really been given the opportunity to go on trips like this. The most she’d been on were their school trips. Her father had never really taken long enough breaks from work for them to travel.

“Me too,” Heiji agrees.

“You’re both weird,” Kaito decides. “I prefer the city. So much more is happening.”

Aoko snorts, shaking her head. Kaito raises a questioning brow in her direction. She shrugs.

“Of course, you like the city more,” Aoko says. “You like crowds.”

Kaito opens his mouth to protest, before closing his mouth. Because hey, it’s not like she’s wrong.

Hattori leads them to the edge of the shrine building, towards the side of the building where another motorcycle has been stashed just out of sight. He leaves sets the stand up on his own, before stepping back and allowing Kaito to do the same.

Then, he heads up to the door, offering a short knock before pushing it open. The door opens, the building inside practically encased in darkness. Hattori steps inside, ushering Aoko and Kaito to follow behind as he steps into the dark.

Kaito supposes this is the moment where the horror would begin if he were living inside a horror movie.

“Kazuha?” Hattori calls, once the door is closed, words lingering in the air before Kazuha’s voice echoes from a room further inside the building.

“Heiji?” She asks. The sound of a door creaking open offers a faint glow of light filling the corridor as Kazuha pokes her head out, staring in their direction. “In here.”

Kaito follows Hattori down the corridor. Standing in the doorframe, Kazuha offers a small wave as she spots him.

“Welcome back,” she says, and Kaito offers her an easy grin as she steps to the side, letting him into the room. He barely focuses on Kazuha and Aoko as they greet one another, as he steps into the room, because Shinichi is sat at the table staring up at him.

Kaito stares back at him.

“Nice place you got here,” Kaito says, and immediately feels like an idiot for it. He steps further into the room, making his way over to the table.

Shinichi seems to be watching him carefully. The room, lit by portable lamps, doesn’t offer the best lighting, but from what Kaito can see, Shinichi doesn’t look well. His eyes are wide for a moment as he stares before his lips tug upwards into a half-smile of pure relief.

“Yours had heating,” he says, “but this place has its own perks.”

-

They reach Yurakucho station without any further incidents.

Saguru stumbles into the station, Ran limping after him and for a moment the crowd carries them forwards, acting like a protective barrier. They manage to get through the crowd down to their specific platform with little notice before people start to really notice the pair.

Even then, all it really takes to avoid people notice is for Ran to grab her handkerchief from her bag and wipe away the blood on Saguru’s face. Doing so results in a wince, but he doesn’t say anything more.

They’re both in a state of shock – Ran isn’t surprised.

“I thought I made you promise not to get hurt again,” Ran whispers, wiping away the blood. It doesn’t remove completely, specks of dried blood remaining, but that’s to be expected. Hopefully, people will perceive the blood as being rosy cheeked until they can wash it away. Ran breathes out a sigh – it’s not like they have another choice.

Saguru frowns slightly, leaning closer to her, into the hand that wipes away his blood. “Sorry – I… What was that?”

Ran frowns, but repeats herself, a little louder this time. This time, he offers a wry, self-deprecating smile.

“I said I’d try.”

Ran shakes her head and lifts the handkerchief, taking in the wound he’s received. He’s lucky – especially so – that the bullet hadn’t gone been even a centimetre to his left. The wound begins just above the right side of his mouth in a diagonal line up across his cheekbone and in the skin above his ear.

The skin seems split open in tags, torn open by the bullet and Ran resists a wince of her own. She wonders if her leg looks similar, the skin seared by the bullet, blood welling around it.

She lowers the handkerchief back to the wound to keep it covered, letting Saguru take hold of it instead.

“I think you’ll need more stitches,” Ran says lightly. Her gaze drops down to her trousers, to the rip in the fabric, a faint dye of red around it. “…I think maybe we both will.”

Saguru’s gaze narrows in on the wound. “I should’ve realised…”

“It’s alright,” Ran says. The subway train comes into view, the doors opening as people exit. She indicates for them to get on, and Saguru staggers after her. “I didn’t really notice it much until now. The adrenaline.”

“It’s… the bullet isn’t inside?”

Ran shakes her head, watching the doors to the subway train close. She finds herself watching the crowd more than she had before, knows that Saguru is as well. “I don’t think so.”

“There’s a pharmacy at Tokyo station,” Saguru notes. “We should probably get some bandages in there… gauze too.”

Ran nods. They should be able to help patch each other up. Washing the wound and bandaging things up won’t be the same as seeing a doctor but right now… the idea of finding a doctor seems too risky.

“And some new clothes,” Ran agrees. “I think there’s a UNIQLO at the station too…”

Train tickets out of Tokyo would have to come first but after the past fifteen minutes they’d experienced, something as minor as changing into clean clothes would be highly relieving.

-

Stepping out of the lit room, Kazuha glances to Heiji and offers a faint smile.

“We should leave ‘em to it,” she says quietly. She glances over her shoulder to Shinichi and Kaito, before turning back to him. “We need to get home anyway.”

Heiji nods. He’d mentioned that they wouldn’t be able to stay long when he arrived so Kazuha knows that he understands. She turns to Nakamori, watching as she places down two motorcycle helmets and offers what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

Kazuha doesn’t know what to say to her, so hopefully the smile is enough.

“We’re gonna go,” Kazuha says as Nakamori looks up at her. “We’ll all catch up properly tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Nakamori says, pushing herself back up. “I’ll see you both off.”

As she speaks, she leans forward, slowly closing the door behind them all.

“You don’t have t’ do tha’,” Heiji says, but Nakamori shakes her head slowly following them back outside of the shrine.

“I actually wanted to speak to you Toyama-chan,” Nakamori says, as the breeze ruffles the fabric of Kazuha’s blouse, a reminder to put on her jacket for the ride back. “If you both don’t mind staying for a little longer.”

“As long as it’s quick,” Kazuha says. She lifts a hand, waving around the area with a small flourish of her wrist. “We could walk around the grounds, if you wanted?”

Nakamori nods. “I’ll try to be quick.”

Kazuha shares a look with Heiji, who offers a shrug, before turning back to Nakamori. They fall into a gently walk beside each other, in silence as they walk away from the building and towards the remains of the chozuya. The small fountain is decaying now, moss growing at the edges of stagnant water.

“What did you wanna speak abou’?” Kazuha asks when they’ve moved far enough to no longer be overheard.

Nakamori presses a finger into the pool of water, sending ripples across it, algae clinging to her finger. She lifts her hand back up, inspecting the slime with a faint look of distaste before wiping it away on the fabric of her trousers.

“I wanted to ask about all of this,” Nakamori says, her gaze flicking back towards Kazuha. She offers an almost wry smile. “Or, I guess more specifically, I wanted to ask about Kudo-kun.”

Kazuha exhales. Long and unsurprised. “Ah.”

She wonders which direction this line of questioning will take, whether Nakamori will be angry like she had been, by Kudo’s involvement of someone dear to her. Whether she’ll blame him for the shooting, for being the reason people had been willing to shoot.

Part of her is glad that Nakamori has come to her first, so she can see what sort of conflict might arise later.

“What abou’ him?”

Once more, Nakamori dips her fingers into the pool of water, splashing the water with the pads of her fingers. She remains quiet as she does, brows furrowing slightly as she considers.

“What’s he like?”

“Kaito-kun hasn’t told you abou’ him?” Kazuha asks.

“Oh, he has,” Nakamori says. “I just think your opinion might be more objective than his or Hattori-kun’s. You’ve only known him a short time.”

Kazuha considers it. She can understand why Nakamori might be asking, why she might want to know. In such a short time, her closest friend is asking her to trust in someone the world has decided to be guilty.

“He’s been through a lot,” Kazuha begins, after a moment. “And I worry ‘bout how it’s all affected him. He doesn’t seem to be copin’ as well as he wants everyone to think he is. But he’s not a bad person. He’s tryin’ to do th’ right thing.”

Nakamori lifts her fingers and, this time, lets the water drip from her fingers.

“I see,” Nakamori says. She offers a faint grin. “That’s all I wanted to ask about, really. Or well… I guess I just didn’t want to be in there while they both got all mushy and stuff.”

Somehow, Kazuha thinks that’s not all it is. Especially as Nakamori turns, glancing back to the building they’d left behind, her eyelids narrowing.

“He tried to warn Kudo-kun about th’ shooting,” Kazuha says, “even though we told him it’d be dangerous.”

“Oh,” Nakamori says, faintly. “Kudo-kun did?”

“And he didn’t want to leave Tokyo without helpin’ Kaito,” Kazuha continues, “Heiji pushed him to leave before it became impossible to with all th’ searches.”

“I wasn’t blaming him or anything,” Nakamori notes. Her voice is light, no underlying hostility or frustrations that Kazuha had been nervous might be hiding beneath the surface. “You thought I was?”

“I don’t know,” Kazuha says. “I don’t really know much about you, about wha’ you might be thinkin’. Thought I’d tell ya just in case you did.”

Nakamori hums. Leaning back against the fountain, she tilts her head, considering. “Do you blame him, Toyama-chan?”

Kazuha’s lips part slightly in surprise from the question. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Nakamori studies her closely. “Hattori-kun broke a lot of laws to help Kudo-kun escape. It would make sense if you did.”

For a moment, Kazuha is compelled to refuse, to say that there’s no residual anger, that she didn’t blame Shinichi in the slightest. But hadn’t she snapped at him the day she’d found out about everything. She’d even been tempted to turn him in, would’ve done it if the following murder hadn’t occurred.

“I…” Kazuha sighs. “A little.” She pauses. “A lot, actually. He put Heiji in danger with all o’ this, and I am angry abou’ that, but there’s nothin’ I can do to change it now.”

Nakamori remains quiet.

“And it’s not really th’ time for it right now, you know?” Kazuha continues. “I can be angry ‘bout it all later.”

“Did he ask Hattori-kun to help,” Nakamori asks. “Or did Hattori-kun offer?”

“Huh?”

“Well, if Hattori-kun offered before Kudo-kun asked, then you’re probably mad at the wrong person.” Nakamori’s pull into a sardonic smile as she pushes away from the fountain, a small jump in her step. “I’m probably just overstepping, it’s not really any of my business.”

Kazuha lifts her hands, tugging on the bow in her hair. Her ponytail tightens as a result, tugging at each strand in a way that leaves her scalp aching.

“Maybe it isn’t,” Kazuha says, “but you sound like you speak from experience.”

“Oh, definitely.” Nakamori doesn’t turn back to look at her, heading instead back towards the main building. “Drive home safely, Toyama-chan.”

-

The first available train with two tickets available heads to Nara. Twenty minutes, the board says, until departure and as relieving it is to know they’ll be able to disappear within that time, Ran can’t help the anxiety that builds either.

The vote seems almost unanimous to go down to the platform until the last possible moment, lowering the risk of being followed onto the train.

Until then, they move between stores. First, the pharmacy for anything they think necessary. Bandages, gauze, antiseptic, among other things. Then, they move on to UNIQLO, grabbing baggy clothing in their sizes to change into once they’ve treated their wounds.

The only thing they wear on their way out, are matching ‘I <3 Tokyo’ caps, each pulled down in an attempt to keep anyone from seeing their features as easily.

By the time they make their way to their seats on the train, they’ve fallen into what Ran hopes is an effective ‘tourist’ role. Saguru seems to follow suit, playing the part with a quiet certainty. She supposes since he’d grown up moving between England, he’s used to being perceived as a tourist when trying to gain his bearings of a set country.

It’s as they sit in their seats, people sitting around them that Ran realises – it’ll be difficult to patch up their wounds without anyone noticing.

“Saguru-kun,” Ran says quietly as the train lurches into movement. When he doesn’t immediately turn to her, she pokes his shoulder to gain his attention. “Are you alright?”

“As alright as the situation permits,” Saguru replies.

Ran supposes that’s the max they can ask for right now. They’re not going to be bright and overjoyed – of course not. It would be impossible for them to be, to smile and mean it in any other way than relief they’ve managed to survive since yesterday.

Truthfully, if they were alright, Ran would be worried. What would that say about them? The ability to adapt to a new situation and push feelings down until it’s safe to react fully to them is completely different to being unaffected.

“Do you think we’ll be able to find a compartment somewhere,” Ran asks, before he can as if she’s alright too. Perhaps he knows better than to ask, but it’s something she doesn’t want to get into out in the open like this. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

Saguru lifts up from his seat slightly, looking up and down the train’s carriage before dropping back down into his chair with a long, heavy sigh. He shakes his head. “I doubt this model has individual compartments.”

“The restroom then,” Ran says, using the armrest beside her to stand without applying any pressure to her leg. “It has a lock on it too, so we should be able to avoid anyone questioning us.”

“Not the most hygienic of places to stitch a wound,” Saguru sighs, standing beside her and following her into the aisle. “But it’s not like we have a wide variety of options.”

-

Shinichi is suspended in silence. Unable to find the words to express just how relieved he is to see Kaito alright, to know that he’d not been responsible for someone else’s murder… His fingers curl into claws aiming for his own throat, but he manages to catch them before they move, uncurling them in a long process of self-restraint.

Kaito watches him, Shinichi knows he’s watching, as calm as ever – not showing everything he’s feeling but enough of it to be comforting.

“Hattori told us about how he found the place,” Kaito continues, and Shinichi glances past his shoulder to the now-closed door. “Interesting idea to hide in some place he couldn’t find until he was lost.”

It’s very Hattori, Shinichi can admit that much.

“Yeah,” Shinichi says, slowly. He tries to cling to the relief that’s filling him, holding onto him in an attempt to push away the dread that follows so closely behind it. The best part about working with Kaito towards a breakout was the way he chose the right time to share his feelings, keeping everything neutral outside of that but now…

Now Shinichi wishes he were less opaque.

“I’m sorry,” Shinichi blurts out. “I – shouldn’t have let you go to the heist alone and I should never have just left you either. I’m sorry, Kaito.”

Kaito opens his mouth, stands quietly for a moment before closing it again, one brow raising in an exaggerated version of surprise. It’s not a purely natural expression – or at least, it isn’t on the Kaito that he knows.

“Where’s all this coming from?” Kaito asks.

Shinichi shifts, uncomfortably. “I wanted to apologise, that’s all. You were caught and hurt and I didn’t… I could’ve helped and I didn’t.”

There’s more silence. Kaito glances down at the table, one hand tapping his typical repeat of ‘pandora’ in morse code against the wood.

“Alright,” Kaito says, “sure, but you really don’t need to be apologising for it. It wasn’t your fault.”

You know what? Shinichi would like to refute that. He does, and it had been. If… listen, there’s so much that he should’ve done, choices he could’ve changed and after everything with Kyoto and Vermouth, he just…

“Shinichi, look at me.” Begrudgingly, he does. The exaggerated expression has shifted into seriousness – lips pursed together, face more neutral – and only in its absence does Shinichi realise it had probably been exaggerated in an attempt of lightening the mood. “You weren’t responsible for any of that stuff. Why’re you blaming yourself for it?”

“I should’ve…”

“Stop it,” Kaito says, lifting his finger up and wagging it in front of him. Ah, Shinichi’s missed his inability to remain serious for long periods of time. “I’m not letting you do this.”

“What, apologise?”

“I’m not letting you beat yourself up over another thing that isn’t your fault.” Kaito lies his hand flat on the table. “Everything’s worked out, and now we can just continue where we stopped off. It’s no big deal.”

Shinichi feels like it’s impossible to brush this off as just something that’s no big deal, but he supposes this is as resolved as the issue will ever be. He sighs, stills as Kaito pushes back up to his feet towards the door.

“Uh?” He says, eloquent as ever.

“I’m going out of the room,” Kaito says, “and then, we’re going to try this whole reuniting thing again. Alright?”

-

The door to the train’s restroom locks with a faint click and while it’s cramped having two people inside, it’s not uncomfortably so. Ran lowers the toilet seat, placing their bags on the seat before placing the pharmacy supplies in the tiny sink.

“I’ll have to buy a new handkerchief,” Ran notes quietly, as she lifts her hand to Saguru’s wrist, slowly pulling his hand – and the handkerchief in question – away from his skin. “I doubt I’ll get out all the blood from this.”

“Sorry,” Saguru sighs. “It wasn’t a gift, was it?”

It had been part of a set – two handkerchiefs each with sakura petals stitched into the fabric, one black and the other pink. She’d found them in a small souvenir store on a visit to Kyoto she’d taken with her father, years ago, had given Shinichi the other. Sometimes she wondered what had happened to the one she’d gifted to him. Perhaps it was lost in old boxes of the Kudo household, maybe it was gone completely.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ran says, voice soft. She’ll purchase her and Shinichi a new matching pair when all of this is over. A better set, a more fitting design. “I’ve been considering changing the design anyway.”

She doesn’t think she’s been able to see sakura petals in the same way, hasn’t been able to since Shinichi’s arrest so long ago, that night when she’d been left waiting alone despite their previous plans to view the cherry blossoms together. What had once been a symbol of new beginnings had, to her, before a symbol of pain.

A fitting end to her handkerchief then, for it to be involved in concealing more pain.

“Either way,” Saguru says, “sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Ran turns, taking the handkerchief and placing it on the sink. She rummages through their bag for some wipes, placing the pack on the sink countertop as well. “Honestly, I didn’t like it that much anyway.”

She removes the bag from the sink long enough to wash her hands, before placing it back inside, turning to Saguru.

“Maybe you should sit down while I do this,” Ran says. He follows her request easily enough, the bags shuffling awkwardly onto the ground as he turns his face to the side. “Tell me if you need to take a break.”

He doesn’t ask for any break. Even as Ran sews his skin back together with a small needle and thread, the most Saguru does is close his eyes, brows furrowing with concentration as he attempts to keep from scrunching his face up.

She finishes the stitches to her best ability – they’re not exactly the neatest, but the most experience with stitches Ran has is with holes in fabric. Not tears in skin.

Dressing the wound is a little trickier. She fixes it in place with more tape than is probably needed but at least it fixes easily into place. She sits back, taking in the dressing before her gaze focuses onto a second problem.

Saguru’s ear is bleeding, fluid dripping from his earlobe. Not a heavy bleed, but specks, enough that she purses her lips together with concern.

“Your ear,” Ran says, leaning in to get a closer look. “It’s bleeding.”

Saguru shifts, letting out a long sigh. “I’m not surprised. When I pushed you out of the way, the barrel was right beside it.”

Oh.

Ran hadn’t even thought of that complication, of the fact that the sound vibration from the gun would be enough to leave damage like this. Her attention had been stolen mostly by the tearing of his skin.

“It’s fine,” Saguru stands, moving her gently to take his place. “Or well, there’s nothing to be done to help it – it probably ruptured my eardrum, that sort of thing heals naturally.”

Ran settles, letting out a long sigh. “Can you hear out of it?”

“Not really,” Saguru says, after a long pause. It explains why she’d had to repeat herself sometimes or tap him for his attention. “It’ll come back though.”

Ran presses her lips together. “Alright.”

“Enough worrying about me” Saguru says. “You’re still bleeding. Let’s deal with that.”

-

The traffic on the way back to Osaka is light, and they make good time as they bring their bikes back to the Toyama household. And yet, the entire drive, Kazuha feels her thoughts whirring, muddling in her head. One thing in particular repeats in her head, over and over, unable for her to move on from.

As they bring their bikes to a stop, Kazuha clicks the stand into place before stalking up to Heiji and immediately jabbing him in the chest. Hard.

“Don’t you ever tell me to go on ahead without you again,” she says, as he pulls his helmet off, indignant frown skewing his features. His brows draw downwards, forehead crinkling into a frown.

“We were bein’ followed Kazuha, I didn’t want you to get into any trouble,” Heiji protest, the words irritated.

“I don’t care about trouble you ahou,” Kazuha replies, frustration leaking into her voice. “You told me to go on thinking you were walkin’ into danger and I had to go and just hope you’d be alright? No way – that’s not fine by me.”

“Yeah, well, lettin’ you walk into danger isn’t fine with me, Kazuha!”

Kazuha grits her teeth together. Heiji’s always had the tendency to find himself in dangerous situations, it why they have matching omamori, to keep him safe. He’s been in dangerous situations, yes, but he’s never been such a… such an absolute idiot about them in the past.

There’s always been a more developed plan and Kazuha has always had a role in some way or another. They’ve always been a team.

“Letting you walk into danger isn’t alright with me, either!” Kazuha hisses. “Don’t you know how awful it was leavin’ you behind? What if that had been the last time?”

Heiji’s irritation lessens, slightly.

“Idiot,” he says, “It was fine.”

“And what if it wasn’t?” Kazuha crosses her arms close to her body, before immediately unfolding them. She doesn’t know what she wants to do with her hands – she’s reminded of the anxiety she’d felt earlier that afternoon and now it settles around her like an old, heavy coat. “What if it wasn’t fine?”

Heiji doesn’t say anything at first, mouth opening and closing as he considers her words. Kazuha decides to continue.

“I care about what happens to you, ahou,” Kazuha says. “I don’t want you to ever get hurt if there’s something I could do to help.”

And oh, she does know what she wants to do with her hands – she wraps them around Heiji’s waist, hugging closely into him.

“Why do you think I’m helpin’ with all of this you idiot?” Kazuha asks, as he lifts his hands up to return the hug. “We’re meant to be a team. Don’t ask me to leave you to do something stupid alone again.”

Heiji is quiet, but after a moment his arms tighten around Kazuha, squeezing her gently. “Okay.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Geez, what do ya want, a pinkie promise or somethin’?” Kazuha steps back, raising her pinkie and waiting. Heiji splutters. “Wha– I wasn’t bein’ serious.”

“But I am.” Kazuha narrows her eyes. “Don’t offer if you’re not gonna do it then. You mentioned it, so now I’m makin’ you – come on.”

Heiji lets out a long groan, as if this is all an inconvenience, but he’s not hiding the smile as he shakes his head.

“Fine,” he lifts his own up, their fingers interlocking. “I pinkie promise not to send you away again. Better?”

“Better.”

-

They train deposits them in Nara and Ran leads them out with little knowledge of where they’re actually going. She considers briefly, asking Saguru to look it up on his phone, before shaking her head.

They’d turned their phones off for a reason – to keep their phones from pinging any signal towers and broadcasting their location hidden from anyone who might come looking.

It also has the added bonus of keeping them from any news alerts that might pop up on their phones. Ran doesn’t want to see and judging from the ever-growing quietness on Saguru’s side, she can assume he doesn’t want to see it either.

“We should find an internet café or a library,” Ran says, as they leave the station behind, scanning the road for any signs of life. They don’t need to speak to know they’d each prefer to remain on busy streets rather than side streets where people might strike to attack. “See if we can find somewhere to stay for the night.”

Saguru nods, the movement minute as he follows behind her.

They walk at a steady pace, slow enough that it doesn’t further agitate their injuries, following street signs and roads until finally the outline of an internet café comes into view.

Ran holds the door open for Saguru and after a quick payment for a ‘couples booth’, they climb the stairs up to the second floor, walking past shelves of manga to their booth in the far corner of the room.

“It’s not exactly private,” Saguru mutters as they settle by a small desk, two computer monitors showering light over them as he moves the mouse. “But we could stay here overnight.”

Ran wrinkles her nose – there’s nothing wrong with the space but… they won’t be able to talk without the risk of being overhead. She shakes her head. “We wouldn’t be able to investigate in the same way.”

“Maybe we should find some sort of hotel that won’t ask for too many details,” Saguru says, settling at the computer. He begins typing, the keyboard keys clicking beneath his fingertips. Ran settles on his left. “Get a room somewhere if we can. Hopefully, we can find someplace cheap.”

“Somewhere with complete privacy...” She considers, lips pressing together as her cheeks begin to burn pink. “Saguru-kun, how about a love hotel?”

[criminally--reid]

breath play

the spencer fic I've been talking about for weeks lmao

Warnings: dom!spencer, breath play, degredation, being tied up, praise, dirty talk, (this ended up being a lot less intense than I anticipated lmao my b I guess :/ )

Pairing: spencer x fem! reader

Word count: 3.2k (3,203)

○•○•○•○

A sexualsadist serial killer in Wisconsin fulfilling his ‘bdsm’ fantasies by foreplaying with his victims and unfortunately asphyxiating and stabbing them. How fun. 

Reid had been suspiciously uninvolved in this case. Well.. as uninvolved as the most intelligent member of the team could be without ruining the operation. Quick blurbs of information only adding general details to the case; nothing to narrow anything down. No constantly working on the case. When Reid wasn’t needed it’s almost like he wasn’t even there. Oddly distant; his mind was always somewhere else. Something about this case in particular bothered him. It was so unlike the doctor to be so uninterested in a case. Normally, he let the case swallow him whole; engulfing him in his entirety. Mind, body, and soul set on finding the missing pieces and solving the puzzle… but not this one. 

“Something on your mind, Spence?” I ask, sitting down opposite him on the jet; finally able to relax after a long day in the field. 

“Did you know the average person only has sex about two times a week. Things like culture, health, and social status all effect how as well as how often people have sex. But still, just about twice a week on average.” 

“There’s a lot to unpack there, so I’m just gonna say ‘no.’” Spencer chuckles, and I join in. 

“Seriously though. You’ve been so distant lately. Like something about this one in particular has been bothering you.” 

“I mean.. Murder cases aren’t something I often enjoy, so yeah, this whole ordeal has been kind of bothersome.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant, Spence.” 

“It’s just that-” he contemplates for a moment before patting the seat beside him for you to accompany him. You do so, and he leans toward you, so he can whisper. “I really, really hated this case… as you could tell- obviously. I- I’ve been thinking about how the unsub used aspects of foreplay before killing his victims - you know, the tying-up and the asphyxiation stuff - and about the stuff I’ve been kinda interested in.” 

You mull over everything Reid’s just said. It’s not such a longshot surprise to you. I mean with the degradation on the first encounter and the handcuffs the second, you weren’t really taken aback with what he was hinting at. “I’m gonna ask again. What exactly is bothering you, pretty boy?” 

He sighs and closes his eyes; brown knitted together tightly. Whatever he’s about to say is going to come out really fast, and you prepare yourself to catch and process it all. “I’ve been thinking about how I fantasize about choking and degrading and tying up my partner and all that stuff, but with this case - this- this monster using that to inturn kill people - what if that’s me? What if I take things too far? You know my mother’s schizophrenic; what if I’m dangerous?-” 

“Woah, Spence, calm down. There’s nothing wrong with being a li’l’ freaky. Just because someone used things like that to fulfill their murderous fantasies doesn’t make you a bad person. And just because there’s a possibility that you’re carrying schizophrenia, doesn’t automatically make you dangerous; you know that. There's nothing to worry about, Spence. I promise.” You put your hand on his thigh for reassurance. He places his hand a top yours, lightly tapping his fingertips on the back of your hand. 

“Can we try something?” he asks quickly, making and holding eye contact with you for the first time since this conversation started. 

“Doctor Spencer Reid, are you asking to choke me?” I ask fake flabbergasted. “Are you really asking to-” 

“You know what, nevermind. At this point, I’d rather choke myself.” 

“That was a joke, Spencer,” you say rolling your eyes. “But when? Now?” 

“Wow, eager are we?... I was thinking more like when we land and head home for the night. We wouldn’t want to risk the rest of the team waking up to sounds of you being a pathetic mess for me, now would we?” 

“N-No, sir. Of-of course not,” you gulp, taking notice of how his dominant personality is already taking shape before you. 

“Perfect. We land in thirty.” He pats your thigh and turns away from you, returning to the book he was reading prior to. He motions for you to return to your seat across from him, and as you do so, he looks up at you sending a wink your way before he returns to his book indefinitely; allowing the anticipation and excitement to course through your veins for the next thirty minutes. 

The landing comes soon, and the team moves to grab their stuff; eager to get home and relax for the night. You grab your bag and hurry off the plane, dragging along behind emily. 

“What were you and Reid talking about?” Prentiss turns around suddenly, taking you by surprise. 

“I, un, I thought you all were asleep..” 

“Eh, I was in limbo I guess; you know. I just heard him rambling and hoped he was okay.” 

“Oh yeah. He’s fine. Just uh- just something in the book he’s reading.” 

“That’s good,” she smiles and continues off the plane. 

You turn around when you feel a hand drag down the curve of your ass. You glare at Reid and mouth ‘you fucker’ to which he chuckles and holds up his hands in surrender. 

“Hey, y/n/,” Derek says walking over to your desk as you put your files away and zip up your go-bag. “Garcia, Emily, and I are goin’ out tonight. You wanna come?”

“I’d love to.. But I’m exhausted. Maybe next time?” 

“Yeah forsure,” morgan replies before looking at Spencer, silently asking if he’d like to join them. 

“Yeah I’m gonna have to pass, too. I think I’m gonna memorize a book instead.”  

“Whatever, boy genius,” Morgan replies with a laugh. “We’ll be missing you guys.” He fake frowns before heading out with Emily and Garcia. 

“Wait for me!” JJ calls in a sing-song voice as she rushes to catch up with the rest of the group, slinging her arm around Garcia’s shoulders. “To the bar!” she exclaims and they all laugh before finally leaving the office.  

The clicking of a pen catches your attention and becomes even more prominent in your senses the closer it gets to your desk. You look up from your desk to see said pen held in none other than Spencer’s very attractive, fidgety hands. 

“So,” he drags out, tossing the pen onto your desk with a light clank. 

“Is there something you need, Doctor Reid?” you pry, looking at him innocently through your lashes from your seat at your desk. 

“You.” 

“Well,” you begin, standing up out of your chair to stretch. “Lucky for you I just declined the amazing offer to go out, all so I could spend tonight with you.” 

“Mhmm.. Lucky me,” Spencer replies lowly and looks you up and down, drinking you in. Absorbing your beauty. Somehow after two long days of working in the field, you managed to be drop dead gorgeous. Absolute perfection in his eyes. 

“Your place or my place?” you ask, maneuvering from behind your desk to in front of it. 

Spencer looks at his watch. “It’s only.. Ten thirty. I’d say we have time for both.” 

“My house it is,” you chuckle and turn around, earning a firm slap on the ass from Spencer. A shockwave of pleasure runs straight to your center, and you gasp. Closing up your currently case file, you turn back around and your eyes lock with Spencer, who’s smiling back at you innocently. 

You throw on your jacket and toss your go-bag over your shoulder. Spencer laces his fingers with yours as you walk out of the building and to your cars. You feel the excitement swell inside your belly. Racing back to your house to let none other than your colleague ravage you like a wild animal. Desire and lust driven, taking your clothes off followed by his; hands grazing up and down your sides, raising chill bumps in their wake. You can feel it now. His touch. The wetness pooling beneath you, soaking your underwear through. The arousal bumps already beginning to slowly creep down your arms and up over your chest. There was no way in hell you could get home fast enough. 

You finally arrive at the parking garage that accompanies your apartment building; Reid quick in tow, parking right beside you. He clambers out of his car before you get the chance, and he comes to meet you at your car door. The two of you race up tp your apartment, eager to rip each other’s clothes off. 

The door shuts, and it's game over. Spencer's hands travel to the bottom of your shirt, peeling it up over your head and tossing it on the floor. Your back meets the cool surface of the door, goosebumps rippling down your back. Reid's lips attach to yours as his fingertips dance around the bumpy terrain of your back. Your hands travel up and into his hair, tugging ever so slightly making him groan. He fights for dominance over the kiss and you allow him in. As his tongue dances with yours, savoring your taste, his hands soon find solace at the waistband of your pants as he unbuttons them and drops them to the floor with a light thud; exposing your already-soaked panties. 

Spencer's lips roam from their start of your lips to your jaw and down your neck. You catch your breath as he unbuttons your blouse and pushes it off your shoulders and down your arms; dipping his supple lips further into the valley of your breasts. 

A shaky breath escapes your plump lips as he draws your lips nipple into his mouth; excitement flowing to the now erect bud as he switches to the other one, doing the same. He releases your right nipple and comes back up to meet your eyes. His lust and hunger filled expression softens to one of passion. You move your trembling fingers to the too button on his lavender button-up as his lips meet yours once again. 

Soon, all his clothes accompany yours in disarray over the floor, and the two of you are waltzing over to the bed; you landing on it softly with a light thud. 

"Look at you," he says slowly from his position at the foot of the bed; standing, glistening in his pre-sex glory before you. "All laid out on display for me." You subconsciously pull your thighs closer together, trying to conceal your wetness. Slowly, he begins his crawl onto the bed, hovering over you and lowering his lips to your ear. "Don't hide from me." 

Retracting his face, your reach up and gently trail your fingertips over his cheek, drinking all his features of perfection."Spencer." The delicate sound passed through your soft lips as Spencer swiftly moves to encompass them with his. Gnawing on your bottom lip gently with his skillful teeth before pulling away and whispering, "It's Dr. Reid." 

He begins his travels back down to your area, leaving wet, open-mouthed kisses in his wake. He looks up at you through his eyelashes as he pushes your thighs apart; a string of your arousal stretching between the two. Collecting it his forefinger, then lifting it to his mouth, he wraps his lips around the digit relishing in the taste of you before delving into your core. 

You buck your hips, aching for more contact; more friction. Spencer's hands wrap up and around your thighs, holding you to the point where you can't move. 

"Doctor Reid.. please." The sound tumbles quickly from your mouth before you even know what you're asking for. Your head falls to the pillow and your mouth gaped in ecstasy. Your hands fly from their positions at their sides and tangle in Reid's hair, desperately trying to pull him just a little closer to your center. 

Reid groans as you pull at his roots, sending shockwaves of pleasure straight to the depths of you. So close to the edge already, just from Spencer using his tongue. Almost falling over the edge… 

But then he pulls away. 

"Mnnguh, Spencer," you draw out, the pout apparent in your voice. 

"No touching, princess." His face glistens with your slick, and you quiver at the sight momentarily before he collects all your juices onto the back of his hand, making eye contact the entire time.he licks it off; savoring every last drop of your sweetness. 

He clambers out of the bed leaving you frustrated and aching for that release that you so close to seconds ago. You watch as he stands facing away from you - his delicious back on display - as he scans the room. After a moment of deep contemplation, he goes over to your bottom dresser drawer and pulled out a long piece of rope. 

You didn't appreciate how he knew where your stuff was. However, you couldn't blame him. You were profilers after all, and he probably knew more things about you than you knew yourself. 

Spencer smirks at you on his way back over to the bed. You follow him with your eyes as he takes each of your wrists and ties them together and to the headboard. "What's your word?" 

"M-my word?" you stumble over the question as your met face to face with Dr. Reid once again. 

"Your uh safeword. Whenever anything's too much, just say it, and I'll stop." 

Knowing what Spencer was capable of, you weren't sure you'd ever want him to stop. Nonetheless, you pick a word. "Purple." More specifically, the lavender purple button up that Spencer wears. The color that - no matter where you see it - you associate with him. 

"Purple it is," reid replies cheekily, once more descending to your dripping core. 

You writhe beneath him in pleasure and his skillful tongue and fingers bring you to your second orgasm. "D-doctor Reid, ple-please." 

"Please what? Use your words, y/n." 

"God- fuck! Reid, fuck me please. I n-need you-" 

"Look at you," he says as his eyes drink in the sight before him: his co-worker, needy and begging beneath him. "Such a pretty slut. Begging to be fucked by her co-worker. Do you really want me to fuck you y/n? You want my cock deep inside your pretty pussy?" 

You feverishly nod your head, but the answer isn't enough for Spencer. "Say it," he seethes by your ear through gritted teeth with his hand wrapped tightly around your throat, slowing your breath intake. 

"I.. want your cock.. insi..de me, D-doctor R-reid," you struggle to form the plea. 

His hand still around your neck; fingers lightly pressing onto your airways, but now at arms length as he uses his other to trace your folds with the tip of his member.  He slips into you easily, and you involuntarily close your eyes; the pleasure consuming you from the inside out. His thrusts agonizingly slow as he relishes in the feeling of your tight walls wrapped around him. 

"Spencer-" 

"What's my name?" 

"Dr. Reid, please go.. faster. God please- fuck!" 

"Gah, such a needy whore, hm. Taking my cock so well. I bet this is what you were thinking about all day. Isn't it?" He speeds up his pace tenfold, rendering you speechless; reaching the deepest parts of you, almost tossing you over the edge once more. "Mmh, gonna cum for me? Don't hold back, baby. Let go for me." 

And on cue, you release around him, your juices seeping down your thighs and dampening the bedsheets beneath the two of you. 

His pace never slowing down, and his grip on your throat doesn't ease up any either. Your air supply is running low, but you don't care. The sight before you is enough to send you barreling into the abyss of euphoric pleasure. Spencer above you, his sweat-coated torso as arms length and his features contorted in pleasure as he relentlessly pounds into you. 

You admire the god holding himself armslength away from you. The sweat glazing over his torso and dripping fro his forehead. His eyes squinted and mouth agape in pleasure. You clench around him once.more as your fourth orgasm threatens to erupt.

"God fuck." His disgruntled voice coming in as music to your ears. "So fucking tight. You- you gonna cum again, huh? Dirty slut. Cum for me, baby." 

Your forth orgasm rushes over you like a tsunami. Strangled obscenities, moans and groans escape your mouth. You can't take any more. His grip on your throat has barely let up any since he started. And your orgasm count was insane. No one had ever gotten you over four times. The pleasure was more than intense, and you weren't sure how much longer you could last. 

"...purple…" you whisper as your vision goes spotty. 

A look of worry replaces Spencer's previous pleasure-apparent expression. He quickly removes his hand from your throat and pulls out of you. 

"Shit.. shit. Shitshitshit! A-are you okay? Did I hurt you? Fuck. I'm so sorry. Really, I never meant to-" Spencer nervously rambles on as you take a much needed deep, refreshing breath. 

"I know. Spencer, shut up. It's okay. Just please keep going." 

"Y-you sure?" 

You nod feverishly urging him to continue. He re-enters you slowly, filling you all the way up. You arch into him, meeting his agonizingly slow thrusts. "Mmh.. faster, Doctor Reid, please!" 

His pace returns to as it was before. The squelching sound and skin slapping against skin echos through the room once more. One hand white-knuckles the sheets while the other one reaches for Spencer's hand at your side. Grabbing his wrist, you bring his hand back up to your throat, wanting so desperately for him to choke you again. He makes eye contact with you - as if asking permission - as you place his lanky fingers around your neck. Swallowing hard, he applies pressure and your mouth falls open in a lazy smile. 

Your fifth orgasm creeps up on you quickly, but so is Spencer's. "I'm.. so fu- so fucking close," you let out raspily. 

"Me too," he replies, dropping his head. His free hand maneuvers down to run quick circles on your clit, throwing you into convulsions as your fifth orgasm hits you like a truck. 

A few more pumps, and Spencer pulls out of you, cumming on your stomach, moaning your name and mixed profanities. He finally brings his head back up to look at you and undoes your restraints, freeing your wrists. A weary smile accompanies his fucked-out expression. He searches around in the floor, finding something to clean you off with before climbing back into the bed and pulling you up snug with him. 

"That's what I was afraid of you know," he says barely above a whisper. "Hurting you." 

"You didn't hurt me, Spence. I just needed to breathe," you reply with a slight laugh, then placing a kiss to his hand that's draped over.you. 

"You staying?" You ask after a bit of silence. 

"You're a fool if you think I'm going anywhere." He pulls the blankets up over the two of you and pulls you in even tighter; drifting to sleep in no time. 

[mason-knight-retired]

follows X (but before X lol)

Every now and then, the universe gives you a gift, Mason has the barest wherewithal to think. It hands you everything you never knew you wanted - wrapped up in a stylish suit, a gold flecked eyes and six little words that change everything.

He stares at Ethan, his breath sharp on an inhale and held… held tight because he can’t have this so close, handed to him on a platter and have it taken away. Maybe it’s not real, maybe he is really just asleep on his bunk dreaming this while the stars pass outside, maybe Ajax had made good on his thinly veiled threats or maybe the fury finally wholloped him hard enough to hard to send him to the med bay-

But no, there’s no mistaking this reality or the tortured look on the face of the man in front of him. There’s no fight in Ethan now and Mason has never seen him so shattered, so weak but to Mason, he’s never been more beautiful.

“Ethan, I…” He shakes his head, raises a fist to his mouth and tries to blink back the sudden wetness in his eyes. His voice is so rough, tight through his throat when he tries to speak. “Ethan, I swear to god, this had better not be one of your games.”

There’s a flash in Ethan’s eye that Mason immediately regrets.

“If it was, do you really think I’d be here? I had to beg my way onto this ship. I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life, Mason, and that’s saying something.”

“You have to know…” Panic makes Mason’s hands tremble. It’s right there. Everything he’s never let himself dream to want. It’s right there in front of him for the taking. And suddenly he’s terrified. “You have to know how I feel about you. You do know, that’s why you broke it off and now? Coming here, saying this… god, Ethan, you have to know what this is going to mean to me. What I want out of this-”

Ethan’s mouth twist twists ruefully. “Kind of counting on it, actually… If you don’t hate me.”

“Hate you? Hate you?” Mason laughs incredulously, shaking his head. “You mean too much to me to ever hate you, god. I was pissed, yeah, but don’t… don’t fucking say it if you don’t mean it, Ethan. I don’t care if you don’t, I can live with that, but don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I swear, Mase. I love you,” Ethan says it again, like a levee has broken and he can’t keep the words inside him any longer. Like he’s desperate to make Mason understand. “I’m in love with you and I-“

The rest of Ethan’s words are lost under the crush of Mason’s mouth.

He doesn’t remember moving. He doesn’t remember crossing the tiny space between them, only that he couldn’t hold back from touching the man in front of him after being apart for so long - not for another second, not with those words and all that they mean hanging in the air between them. He grips Ethan tight, hands around his waist and in his hair, running over the muscles of his back until they settle against Ethan’s jaw – and hold him there. Ethan returns in kind, hands up to grasp at Mason’s face, with a strangled sound that vibrates up his throat into Mason's mouth.

The need that burns through him, the feeling of Ethan against him is like coming home. The shuddering of Mason’s universe settles and shifts and clicks back into all the places it should be.

Home. Here was his home.

“Ethan,” he whispers, pressing his forehead against Ethan’s when they’re finally forced to draw apart for air. He's not sure if it’s him that’s crying or if the sounds are from the man he’s about to offer his heart to. It doesn’t matter anyway, not when he finally has Ethan’s skin under his palms and his whiskey sweet breath on his tongue. “I love you too. I’m in love with you,” he whispers, peppering kisses between each phrase. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“Mase-” Ethan’s hands are on him then, hungry and insistent, like he’s been starving for too long. The grip on Mason tightens, hard enough to bruise but Mason welcomes the bite of pain, hopes there will be marks left behind even through the dermal weave of his skin to remind him of this moment. So he can trace them and watch them bloom and know that it’s not just a fantasy and that this is real, that Ethan is really here and not just a phantom of Mason’s unacknowledged wishes.

Mason tears his lips away long enough to suck in air and catch Ethan’s gaze. He cups Ethan’s head and presses their foreheads together. His heart is beating so fast, like it might burst out of his chest at any moment and his cheeks feel damp. He’s sure he tastes salt in their kiss. “God, I missed you.”

Ethan pulls him close and Mason tucks his face against Ethan’s jaw, breathing him in. “I missed you too. I couldn’t breathe without you.”

The wave is intense when it rolls over him.

“So, why?” Mason whispers helplessly then, the one thing suddenly plaguing him. Maybe it’s not the time, but he has to know, even if a little voice inside of him tries to scream its doubt. A small shudder ripples through him and he pulls back to search Ethan’s gaze. “Why did you break it off- If you knew I loved you, and you feel the same…” Mason thinks about the last few painful weeks. That they could have been avoided.

“It may come as a startling surprise,” Ethan drawls tiredly, but Mason catches the weary smile in his voice. The relief. His own heart becomes light with the knowledge Ethan is his now and the last of the secrets between them are gone. “But sometimes I’m not always the smartest person in the room.”

Mason’s lips suddenly twitch with mock suspicion as he leans back and eyes Ethan critically. 

“Alright,” he says teasingly. “Who are you really and what have you done with the real Ethan Sinclair? Did Cynthia send back a clone? Are there more of you? Because I might be into that-”

Ethan’s brows snap together in irritation and Mason finds himself pulled into another smothering hug to stop him talking. He swallows down his laugh, almost giddy now, high on life and and unstoppable, like a kid at the candy bar at party indulging in too many sweets and not even caring about the inevitable crash later because he knows Ethan will be there to catch him.

“Not even remotely funny, Huntsman.”

Mason allows himself to be stifled, just for a moment, before nuzzling against Ethan’s jaw and brushing his nose against the stubble there. He breathes Ethan in, reminds himself once again he’s not dreaming. He recognizes the struggle it took for Ethan to be here and takes comfort in the proof of it.

He presses a kiss to Ethan’s mouth in a silent apology, serious again.

“You were trying to protect me, I get it. But I never wanted protection from you, Eth. Never needed it until now. But fuck, promise me you won’t go back. Promise me you won’t ever go back. That’s not your home anymore.”

Ethan brackets Mason’s face with his big hands and stares into his eyes. “I know that now.”

“Good,” Mason lifts his chin, wanting another kiss but there’s a flicker of hesitation in the gold flecks he loves so much. “Ethan, what is it?”

Ethan glances away. “Mase, I can’t promise I won’t fuck it up-“

“One day at a time, Sabre,” Mason gives him a rueful smile, presses another kiss to the side of Ethan’s perfect jaw and grips his hips with his palms. He pulls Ethan against him, grinds slightly so Ethan knows just the effect he’s had on him, not that he could ever doubt it. “We’ll just take it one day at a time. Like we always do. It’s all we can do.”

Ethan’s eyes drift closed. “Marie could only get me forty two hours. Forty one now, probably.”

“It’s enough.”

“Is it?”

“Enough for you to show me just how much you mean it.”  

Ethan’s eyes go dark like Mason knew they would. The secret thrill that it only takes a few words to ignite the embers in the man in front of him. He hopes it stays like that between them always.

Mason draws Ethan close once again, cupping the back of his head as he sweeps his lips over his first in a gentle kiss that belies the heat already starting to spark inside him. He revels in the familiarity of Ethan’s embrace, the way their bodies align flawlessly to each other as though they had been created with the other in mind - perfect counterparts to a single whole. Even their biotics hum and flow in bone deep harmony around the edges of their skin. It’s Mason’s world made right, the equilibrium that had been so shaken until now settling and solidifying into something perfect and real and eternal.

There’s one, single fundamental truth that settles into his bones: He has everything if he has Ethan.

Their kiss deepens, and Mason shivers as fingers of desire walk up his spine and greedy hands pluck at clothing and tongues and lips hungrily sweep over skin. He’s inching his hands up under Ethan’s shirt when Ethan suddenly draws back, a frown on his face, like he’s heard something in the distance he can’t parse. Mason senses it too, a fraction of a second before the door hisses open.

“What the hell?”

Ethan blinks at the small whir and click of metallic feet. “Mase, is that a Loki mech with a plant stuck to it?”

The drone toddles in and Mason wants to groan. “I’m gonna kill all of them,” he mutters, gritting his teeth instead. “I finally get you back and now I’m being cockblocked by a plant with legs?! The fuck.”

He peers around the door, Ethan at his shoulder and of course, they’re all there, even the engineer, despite Nico’s valiant efforts to herd them all away. There’s a final holler from Ben at the end of the hall before silence descends and they’re left alone again.

Mason catches Ethan’s eye, a silent exchange travelling between them before their lips twitch. Ethan laughs then, the first real laugh in weeks and Mason catches the way it lights up Ethan’s face, savours it and files it away to turn over in his mind over and over for when their forty two hours are up.

His own smile is light when he reaches for Ethan’s hand and rubs a thumb over the back of his palm. Ethan’s fingers entwine with his and grip him back tightly.

“I suppose you’d better go say hi, or Ben’s timing might be a lot worse next time.”

[bbyx]

ripple effect - part four

Summary: During her fourth year at Hogwarts, (y/n) Deauxville falls for none other than Cedric Diggory. But it's not easy when you have to deal with protecting your family's fortune, keeping your father's illness a secret and having two of your closest friends catch feelings for you.

Pairings : reader x cedric, reader x draco, reader x harry

"(y/n), my dad wants to know if you want to come over for the rest of the summer?" Ron asks, running after you as you near the portkey station.

"Really?"

You had heard all about the Burrow from your friends over the years. It sounded like a wonderful place. You had been friends with the so-called "golden trio" since your first year at Hogwarts but it was hard to really get close to them because of your different houses.. You were overcome with joy because this invitation meant that they enjoyed spending time with you as much as you did with them.

"Yeah, my dad agrees with us, you shouldn't spend your last two weeks of school alone in a big manor."

"I would love to!"

When (y/n) arrives at the Burrow, the first she notices is how cheerful and welcoming it looks in the dawn light. Then she notices a little woman with the signature ginger Weasley hair burst out of the front door and sprint towards Mr.Weasley.

"Oh Arthur- I've been so worried- so worried"

She then seizes the twins and gives them the tightest hug.

"Ouch! Mum, you're strangling us!"

The woman then goes on into a rant about how she shouted before they left and would never be able to forgive herself if anything happened. You couldn't help but smile at how wholesome the entire exchange was. Then the woman glances at you and is taken aback.

"Hi! Mrs.Weasley i'm (y/n) Deauxville, i've heard so-"

She cut you off excitedly.

" You're (f/n)'s daughter. Your father and I went to Hogwarts together. You look just like him with that hair! How is he these days?"

"He's alright. He's decided to take a couple years to travel around Europe and expand his business now that me and my brother are old enough to look after ourselves." You lie while flashing her an extra bright smile.

"Good for him! You know, your father was quite the charmer during his Hogwarts day, In fact he used to date my best friend at the time, Cassidy Blavatsky, and -"

She dove headfirst into a story about your father serenading a girl next to the black lake while she ushered you into the kitchen. Fred and George grab the newspaper from Mr. Weasley's hands. The group argues about a false article concerning the death eater attack published by Rita Skeeter.

"Blimey, Ron, looks like (y/n)'s stolen the love of your life." George says, staring at the paper, hiding a smile.

"Always knew those bulgarians had a thing for veelas." Fred comments, his eyes never leaving the newspaper. You yank it out of your twin's hands.

"The fuck are you talking about?"

Your eyes scan the paper until you find it. It's that picture that Rita Skeeter took of you and Krum shaking hands after the game. Below it reads:

HAS BULGARIAN QUIDDITCH STAR FALLEN FOR REAL ESTATE HEIRESS?

After his defeat last Sunday, Viktor Krum was spotted canoodling with millionaire (f/n) Deauxville's daughter. Witnesses say that they saw her trying to cheer the seeker up after Bulgaria's staggering loss . Miss Deauxville is currently in her fourth year at Hogwarts while Viktor Krum is in his last year at Durmstrang. The Daily Prophet has reached out but both of them have declined to comment on the matter. Could this be the wizarding world's new power couple? Stay tuned for more information.

"You've got to be kidding me! I'm going to fucking murder her!"

"Murder who?" Harry says as he grabs the paper from your clenched fists.

"Rita Skeeter. She's the one who wrote this bullshit article."

"That picture looks pretty real to me." Ron asks, eyebrows slightly raised. You glance at Harry and he looks hurt, you brush it off.

He's probably just tired.

"Yes, but all we did was shake hands after the game. Everyone was shaking hands with everyone and I was trying to get out of there and-"

Hermione cuts you off.

"You don't have to explain yourself (y/n), we believe you." You smile relieved.

"Mrs Weasley, Hedwig hasn't delivered any letters, has she?" Harry asked.

"No there hasn't been any post at all dear."

Harry, Ron and Hermione looked at each other then at you. Ron grabs your hand.

"C'mon, let me give you the royal tour."

You head up with them but instead of showing you around they go straight into Ron's attic bedroom.

"What's up, Harry?" says Ron.

"There's something I haven't told you." He starts. "On Saturday morning, I woke up with my scar hurting again."

Ron and Hermione's faces contorted between expressions of terror, shock and worry.

"What scar? It's probably just infected or something." They look at you incredulously.

"Oh shit you mean like the scar!"

"It hurts whenever Harry is near You Know Who." Hermione says.

Ron looks dumbstruck. "But - he wasn't there, was he? You-Know-How? I mean - last time your scar kept hurting, he was at Hogwarts, wasn't he?

"I'm sure he wasn't in Privet drive" Harry said "But I was dreaming about him ... him and Peter - you know Wormtail. I can't remember all of it now, but they were plotting to kill ... someone."

Hermione and Ron looked horrified. You were very lost.

You Know Who? At Hogwarts? Worm tails? Are they high?

They kept talking, forgetting about you. You were lost in thought trying to piece what they had just said together. They said something about Professor Trelawney, a prediction, more about the worm tails and something about being serious. Hermione gasped and dropped Crookshanks. They all looked at you with worried expressions.

" I am being serious." You answer quickly. Ron almost dies trying to stifle his laugh.

"No not serious, Sirius, as in Sirius Black." He chokes back.

"Like the murderer?" You say, confused.

"He's not a murderer! He's my godfather." Harry says defensively.

"What are you talking about Harry?"

He sighs and looks at Hermione and Ron.

"I reckon we should tell her." Ron answers.

" Tell me what?"

Harry starts "Well,um, last year, you remember Profesor Lup-"

Hermione interrupts him. "No, Harry, you have to start from the very beginning."

For the next two hours, you sit barely saying a word as they recount their adventures from the past three years. When they finish, Harry slightly shakes your shoulder.

" You okay (y/n)?"

"Yeah, yes i'm okay it's just a lot to take in." You answer shakily.

"Yeah um sorry for dumping all that on you" Harry says looking straight into your eyes.

" No, I'm honored that you would trust me with all of this. But why? I mean why tell me?"

Ron and Hermione look away from your eyes while Harry blushes.

"No.. um no reason we just wanted to burden you with this information for the rest of your life." He stutters a little bit.

"C'mon Harry let's go play some Quidditch. We can do three on three, Bill and Charlie, Fred and George too. You can try out the Wronski Feint..."

"Ron! Harry doesn't want to play Quidditch! He's worried about Sirius and.. And" Hermione fumbles for words.

" Yeah, I want to play Quidditch!"

She rolls her eyes at him and mutters "Boys".

The last two weeks of summer spent at the Burrow were wonderful. You had grown so much closer to Harry, Ron and Hermione and were almost sad to go back to Hogwarts because it meant seeing them less. As Mrs.Weasley hugs you goodbye on the platform you hear Charlie and Bill mumble something about " it's gonna be an interesting year at Hogwarts".

You, Harry, Ron and Hermione climbed on the train and went hunting for an empty compartment.

Almost as soon as you sit down in your compartment do you hear a familiar snobby voice coming down the hallway.

"...Father considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts you know. He knows the Headmaster..."

The sound of Draco's voice made your blood boil. You were still angry with him about what he had said during the attack at the world cup.

Just then Neville and Seamus walked into your compartment.

"Did you two go to the World Cup?" Ron asks the boys.

Seamus nods and Neville sighs.

"Gran wouldn't let me get tickets."

Seamus pipes up "Hey (y/n) I heard you were dating Krum, think you could get me his autograph."

"Oh god I'd forgotten all about that. Seamus it's not true, just some gossip columnist having some fun."

Seamus looked deeply disappointed.

"We saw him right up close, as well," Ron said. "We were in the Top Box-"

"For the first and last time in your life, Weasley."

Draco slid into the doorway.

"Don't remember asking you to join us Malfoy" Harry said coolly.

"Not here for you Potter I want to speak to (y/n)" He looks at you with those icy grey eyes. " Why aren't you sitting with us? Why are you hanging around these-" He stops.

"What is that?" Draco points to Ron's second hand dress robes draped over Pigwidgeon's cage. He seizes it before Ron has a chance to put it away. Draco, Crabbe and Goyle start making fun of it while poor Ron turns beet red.

You tune it out trying to think of a simpler time when Draco wasn't such an asshole when he says something that catches your attention.

"So... going to enter, Weasley? Going to try and bring a bit of glory to the family name? There's money involved as well, you know... you'd be able to afford some decent robes if you won..."

"What are you talking about?" Snapped Ron.

"Are you going to enter?" Draco continued. " I suppose you will, Potter? Never miss a chance to show off, do you?"

"Either explain or go away, Malfoy." Said Hermione. A flash of delight swept across Draco's face.

"Don't tell me you don't know? You've got a father and a brother at the Ministry and you don't know? My father told me about it ages ago... heard it from Cornelius Fudge himself. But then maybe your father's too junior to know about it, they probably don't talk about important things in front of him. If you really want to know, just ask your dear friend (y/n)."

"Draco, leave." You say looking him straight in the face. His smirk slightly falters and he slides out the compartment. Ron breaks the glass in a fit of anger.

"What was he talking about (y/n)?" Hermione snaps.

" I have no clue, I swear."

"What about that deal with the minister? What did he want?" Harry asks you.

You tell them about the deal, about Fudge's strange words and the ridiculous price they paid. After that the ride was strangely silent. Hermione was reading, Harry was sleeping and Ron was still too furious to speak.

"I'm gonna go see Daphnee and Millicent." You whisper to Hermione.

"Allright, say hello to them for me."

You head down the hallway and hear the voice of the last person you want to see right now, Draco Malfoy. Without thinking, (y/n) throws herself into the nearest compartment and hits someone with her elbow. One of your brother's friends, Jeremy, you think his name is. Red liquid starts seeping out of his nose incredibly fast.

" Merlin! I am so so so sorry. Oh god, is it broken?"

"Ah if it isn't my famous little sister, breaking hearts and noses, I see?" Nick chuckles.

Of all the compartments in this goddamn train, I just had to jump into his.

There are six boys in there: Nick, the unfortunate Jeremy, two seven year Slytherin boys playing wizard chess, one Ravenclaw boy sleeping and Cedric Diggory.

"How's Krum doing, by the way?" One of the Slytherin boys asks, not looking up from his game.

"Bloody Hell!" Jeremy mumbles as blood streams out of his nose.

" You look like a bloody hell." Says the Ravenclaw boy, having just woken up.

"Fuck you, Xavier" Jeremy says while spitting out blood.

" I'm so sorry, is there anything I can do to help?"

"You can start by getting the fuck ou-" Jeremy looks at you in the eyes and stops. His face softens. "Nevermind."

" What are you doing in here anyways?" Asks your brother.

"Hiding." You say quickly.

" He looks like an extra in The Shining, let's get him cleaned up." The Ravenclaw says while yawning. Everyone looks at him for a second before he elaborates.

" It's a muggle horror movie."

All the boys leave the compartment with a trail of blood following them, except Cedric.

" So you and Krum, huh" He huffs.

" Don't tell me you actually believe that crap."

" I don't know, could happen, he's famous and all." Cedric mumbles. Why was he acting like this? What did it matter to him?

"Well it's not happening, all Krum does is sulk and play Quidditch."

"What about our date, is that happening?" He flashes you his signature lopsided grin and your mind blanks.

"Date? What date?" You say slowly as you remember that night and the campfire. "Oh right! I didn't think you were serious about that."

He cocks his head slightly to the side. "What do you mean?"

"I thought it was just a conviennent way to get out of that dare because, you know, i'm part ve-"

"First weekend at Hogsmeade?" Cedric blurts out, giving you a shy smile.

"Sure." You answer while sliding the door open. Something hits you in the back of the head. You pick it up, it's a chocolate frog. You look back up at Cedric who's grinning.

"Heard they're your favourite." He says.

(y/n) laughs.  You're taken aback by his thoughtfulness because chocolate frogs are your absolute favorite candy. "Chocolate frogs are everybody's favourite."

" No, I'm more of a licorice wand type of guy."

You pretend to gag. "Cedric! Ew no. That's disgusting, licorice is horrible. I might have to reconsider this whole date thing." You tease. He shakes his head and smiles.

"But anyways, thank you, for the frog." You walk out and set off trying to find Daphne and Millicent.

Finally you stop at a compartment at the back of the train. As soon as the door slides open a flash of bouncy red hair sweeps you into a hug.

"(y/n)! Where have you been! We thought you missed the train!" Millicent shrieks at you. You peel out of her hug and go over to hug Daphne. You stop when you notice a third girl with thick chestnut hair in the compartment.

"This is my little sister Astoria, she's starting Hogwarts this year." Daphne

" Oh hello Astoria, I've heard all about you. Are you excited about going to Hogwarts?" You offer the girl a welcoming smile. Except for her hair colour, she looked like a clone of Daphne with her cyan blue eyes and her small round mouth.

" Is it true?" The small girl asks, her eyes full of curiosity. Daphne looks slightly embarrassed.

"About Krum? No! God has everyone on the planet read that dumb article?"

"No, about you being a Veela." Astoria says very fast.

"Oh, uh yeah. Well part Veela anyways. My grandma on my dad's side was a Veela."

"That's fascinating." She says dreamily.

"Not really, I can't do any of the cool shit." Daphne shoots you a look. " I mean any of the cool...stuff. I can't turn into a bird creature or" You start waving your hands in an overly mystical way. " Enchant men into falling in love with me. The only thing I got is glossy hair, I guess."

"How tragic!" Millicent snorts sarcastically.

"Sorry (y/n), we saw a Veela on vacation in Germany and my horribly annoying little sister" Daphne says while tickling her sister. " has been obsessed with them ever since."

" Speaking of vacations" You perk up. " How was your summer with the Parkinsons, Milli?"

Millicent turns pale. "Dreadful." She says, over exaggerating every syllable.

"Oh god, say no more." You reply dramatically clutching your chest as the girls burst into laughs.

Millicent's parents had decided to go renew their vows in Tahiti and had left her with Pansy Parkinson's family for the holidays. It wasn't a secret that you and Pansy couldn't stand the sight of each other and you felt terrible that Millicent had been stuck with her all summer.

"Sooo (y/n), I read that article about Viktor Krum and you." Daphnee says with a sly grin.

" You know it's bullshit, right?" You look at her worriedly. All the girls laugh hysterically.

"Of course! I can't believe people actually believe that crap." Daphne gasps between laughs.

" And to make things worse, he is SO not my type." You bleat.

Millicent shakes her head. " I actually think he's quite attractive." Yet again, all the girls start laughing uncontrollably.

The rest of the train ride is giddy and happy as you laugh at Millicent's stories about Pansy and think about Cedric and his perfect lopsided grin just as Hogwarts comes into view.