#Don't mind my shoes in the background lol

[l393ndjean]

y'all I have someone to introduce

Her name's Batilthaba.

[saffusthings]

You Know You're My Saving Grace

oscar piastri x personal assistant!reader

summary: the one where he comes when she calls. word count: 17.6k (i'm so sorry) warnings: descriptions and talks of abuse, trauma, disassociation, shock, other abuse aftermath, please don't read if any of this stuff is not the vibe, whump, poorly editing writing a/n: this is my first time doing something like this, so comments/feedback would be much appreciated! and let me if anyone wants a part two, bc i'm kinda getting the vibes for a multi-part fic lol

The sound of his ringtone feels louder and louder until finally, Oscar realizes it’s not just in his dream. Blearily, he blinks awake, before reaching across the bed to pick up his phone to check who the hell decided it was a good idea to call him in the middle of the night.

“…Hello?” he asks, voice heavy with sleep. Oscar is a man who knows the value of good sleep - he can’t imagine who’d be calling him at this hour.

He squints, vision bleary from his state of half-wakefulness. Huh? If the car had an issue or if he had a meeting, couldn’t she just wait until morning to brief him?

“Hello? A- Are you there?” she asks, voice hushed.

“Yeah, I’m here. What is it?” Oscar says with a yawn, now more awake, and propped up on his elbow in the bed. He reaches around, turning the bedside lamp on.

“I’m really sorry to disturb you but-”

Her hushed voice is interrupted by the sound of shouting in the background. When the booming voice finally stops, it’s punctuated with the sound of something shattering.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Oscar says quickly, his tone no longer groggy as his mind begins to put the pieces together. 

“Are you alright? Where are you right now?” Oscar asks firmly.

“Shit- I’m sorry, but-” And something else shatters. Suddenly her voice becomes a lot more hushed and a lot more hurried.

“Are you safe right now?” He sits up fully in bed now. He gets out of the bed and heads over to the window, looking down at the sidewalk below to check to see if her car’s here by any chance. No such luck.

“Can you come pick me up? It’s kind of an emergency.”

“Okay, take deep breaths. In and out,” he says, trying to keep her as calm as possible. “Now, where are you?” He haphazardly shoves his head into the first shirt he finds, before slipping into his shoes and swiping up his keys. Once he has the address, he’s quick to run from his apartment to his parked car.

“I’m on my way, so don’t hang up on me, okay?”

“Y- Yes, yeah.”

“Good,” Oscar replies, making sure to keep his voice steady, acting as the levelheaded one. “I’ll keep you talking until I get there, okay?”

“I- I’m not sure I understand, Sir.”

“I need you to stay on the line for me so that I can hear you and keep you safe,” Oscar instructs her, peeling out of the parking lot and speeding through the empty streets.

“I- I’m okay,” she tries in a delayed attempt to reassure him. She’s his assistant, after all - she’s the one meant to be helping him. Though she’s only a year younger than him, she always strives to fulfill her role well, and tries to give her 110%.

Oscar lets out a sigh as he keeps driving. “…Just, stay with me, okay? I should be there in a few minutes.”

There’s some more yelling going on in the background, and it seems marginally closer now. Her throat feels so tight that she doesn’t even register her boss’s voice through the phone.

Oscar immediately calls out her name, his tone sounding a bit more sharp as he raises his voice a bit. He needs her to focus on his voice. 

“Hey, talk to me, are you there?”

“Y- Yes.” Her voice shakes when she speaks.

“Now I need you to do something for me, can you do that?”

“I need you to get yourself into a room, any room, and lock the door, okay?” Oscar says, searching for her address amongst the row of houses lining the block. Different homes line the quiet suburban street, darkened windows and porch lights indicative of their sleeping residents.

“I’m in the corner of my bedroom,” she informs him. “I can’t lock the door or-”

“Okay, that’s fine. Now I want you to just stay there, don’t move and stay on the line, I’m almost there, okay?” he reassures. Why won’t this car go any fucking faster? 

Finally, he slides into the parking right outside the house. He gets out of his car, and heads up the driveway and to the front door.

“Be careful-” she warns, and that’s all he hears before he hears a shout, and then the line goes dead.

“No, no, no, no,” Oscar mutters to himself, his heart rate increasing and his pace quickens as he runs up to the front door. He tries the door handle, before realizing it’s locked. Without thinking, he steps back, before ramming his body against the door in an attempt to force it open. It budges, but only slightly. It does however seem to attract attention, as the yelling emanating from inside seems to come to a halt.

Oscar steps back again, taking in a deep breath. Years of physical conditioning and resistance training means he’s strong enough to break the door down, but he’d probably wake the whole neighborhood up if he does. So, not efficient.

He quickly scans the windows on the first floor, before he spots a small window on the side of the house. Though it's hard to tell in the dark, its position raises his hopes that maybe luck will be on his side. Without wasting another second, he walks over to the window and tries to push it open. It slides open silently, and Oscar quickly pulls himself up and into the house. 

He keeps his movements quiet and careful, eyes scanning the house that’s engulfed in darkness.

It’s then that he’s met with the realization that there’s not one, but two shouting voices - but none of them seem to be the familiar voice of his assistant.

Where the hell is she?

Oscar’s heart begins beating even louder. They don’t know he’s here, but he can still hear shouting from upstairs. Keeping his footsteps light, Oscar slowly heads up the stairs, stopping to listen for anything before proceeding further.

He hears the sound of something thump against the wall with force. 

Oscar winces as he hears it again, feeling his adrenaline spike. Exhales leave his lips in the form of carefully controlled puffs as he forces his heartbeat under control. Worst-case scenarios flash in his mind, and then he’s quickly taking the stairs two steps at a time as he makes his way to the upstairs hallway.

Halfway up the stairs, she pauses to listen, he finally hears the sound of twin pairs of footsteps retreating. As he cautiously walks through the hallway, the shouting gradually gets louder as he begins to approach its source. He finally comes to a stop in front of a door, which has faint light spilling from underneath it. Risking being discovered by an unfamiliar face, he whispers, “Hey, you in there?” He reaches for the door handle and tries to push it open.

He sighs in relief as the door opens, as his eyes quickly adjust to the dark. Scanning the room, his gaze finally falls on her, still sitting in the corner. The shadows only reveal her silhouette, but he knows it’s her. Oscar quickly walks into the room, over to her, and crouches down to her level.

There’s a shattered lamp nearby, pieces scattered on the floor. She’s sitting in the corner, curled into herself, her head tucked in.

He sits down right in front of her, placing a hand on her knee. “Hey,” he says, his voice gentle and soft. “It’s me. I’m here now.”

She’s trembling when he approaches. Barely concealed cuts and bruises litter her body - deep purple blooms and angry white scratches peeking out from beneath sleeves and her collar and the rest of her exposed skin. He looks closer to see whether the mark around her wrist is really the print of a hand, but the sleeve of her shirt conceals the rest of it, leaving him uncertain.

His eyes roam over her now visible injuries. The sight alone is almost enough to make him forget where they are, but reality persists. He squeezes her knee gently.

Startled at the touch, she jerks her head up with wide, wild eyes. 

He came.

“Hey, it’s me,” he says, trying to get her to focus on him. “Look at me. I’m here now,” he says, his tone gentle. He carefully moves his hand to cradle her face, tilting it up as his eyes search hers.

“Hey.” Her voice comes out shakier than Oscar is used to.

The sight of her is jarring - the shivering woman crouched before him looks nothing like the coworker he saw mere hours ago. His eyes move over her face again, taking in every little detail, his eyes lingering on the cut near the corner of her lip for a millisecond longer than usual. 

“Can you stand?” She nods rapidly, even as her legs shake. 

“Alright, come on,” he says, now standing up and holding a hand out for her to take. As soon as her fingers touch his, he feels like all sorts of red alerts go off in his head - she’s cold.

He can easily pull her to her feet with just a light tug, as he helps her up from the corner she was huddling in. He keeps a gentle grip on her as he looks her over again. Now that she’s in a standing position, he notices how her shoulders slump forward, as if she’s instinctively doing whatever she can to make herself smaller. He can only assume it’s because she’s trying to make herself less visible, as if she’s scared of being seen. Or worse.

“Can you walk?” he asks again, gently.

Seeing her boss, seeing Oscar here - feels surreal. 

He notices how she’s still refusing to look him in the eye, as if on instinct. Instead, her eyes are focused anywhere but on his face.

“Hey, eyes on me,” he says, lifting a hand to gently grip her chin and turn her face to his. Suddenly brought back to some semblance of focus, she quickly nods. It feels easier than words at the moment.

Now that her eyes are on him, he takes advantage, as he attempts to assess her state. Her eyes are wide, and he can see the slightest shaking in her hands. 

“You’re freezing,” is the first thing he says, noticing how cold her skin feels against his palms.

“They’ll come back,” she rambles hurriedly. “They’ll come back and they’ll-“

He can hear the rising panic in her voice, as he tries to think of a way to calm her down. 

“Hey, hey,” he whispers firmly, his hand moving to her arm, giving it a slight squeeze to get her to listen to him. “They’re not gonna come back. I’m here, okay?”

The sound of distantly approaching footsteps interrupts him, accompanied by hushed voices. Oscar’s eyes widen in alarm, as every part of him goes rigid. Those must be the people she was referring to earlier, and he’ll be damned if they come back here. His hands instinctively move to her back now, as he pushes her behind him. He shakes his head as he moves so that he’s blocking her completely from their view. His mind works quickly, as he tries to think of a way out of here.

“Be quiet,” he tells her, his voice hushed. “I’m gonna get us out of here, okay?”

She nods silently.

Oscar then starts going over all the potential exits in his head - the windows, stairway, the front door. He knows that the window is too small, and the front door would have them walking right into them. 

That only left the stairs. Shit.

He turns around partially so that he’s facing her again, his eyes flickering over her quickly to check for any new injuries.

“You’re able to run?” he confirms, his voice hushed to keep it from being overheard. She nods rapidly in agreement, desperate to do anything to make the dream of getting out of here come true.

That’s good enough for him, as he gently grabs her wrist and pulls her behind him. Frankly, the man has no idea what he’ll do if she’s not able to keep up, but he sneaks over to the bedroom door, quietly opening it so that he can peek out.

She listens for a moment. “They’re downstairs. In the room right under this one.”

A small plan starts coming up in his mind, as his expression morphs into something more serious. 

“Okay,” he starts, as he takes a glance back at the stairs. “When I say ‘go’, I want you to run down the stairs. Go, and don’t stop. I’ll be behind you, okay?”

When she shoots him a wary look, he’s quick to project that collected, self-assured image that he’s well known for.

“Just trust me.”

He can hear the footsteps in the room down below moving around, as the voices get slightly clearer, meaning they’re getting closer to the stairs.

She swallows hard. It does nothing to quiet the loud hammering of her heart in her chest. He sees the look in her eyes, and he can clearly tell how terrified she is. It’s up to him to gently push her in the direction of the door. 

“It’ll be okay - trust me,” he says softly, hoping it's enough to reassure her for this moment as he readies himself at the bedroom door.

He can hear the voices more distinctly now, and his pulse spikes up anxiously. He’s got to do this right, otherwise they’ll never have another chance. For a moment, everything falls silent, and the only thing either of them can hear is their own heartbeats as it threatens to beat out of their very chests. They wait there, poised to leave, their breaths held.

“Okay, go,” he says firmly, as he practically throws her out of the bedroom door and into the hallway.

He’s out right behind her, running down the hallway. He can already hear the voices in the room below turning to confusion as they hear footsteps. It’s in that moment that he realizes that he’s still gripping her wrist, and he mentally berates himself that that’s the only thing he can do. 

It feels like everything is moving in slow motion as they bolt down the rest of the stairs. She can feel her legs and her heart is hammering in her chest and she’s not sure she’s ever been so afraid in her life. But Oscar Piastri is here, and he acts like he knows what he’s doing, and so she does the scary thing and follows his lead.

Despite how hard they’re running, it still feels like they’re not moving fast enough, as he can hear the sound of the door down below swinging open. His grip on her wrist tightens as he practically yanks her to the front door, throwing it open with his free hand. Desperation fueling his every move, he pushes her out and follows right behind her, fighting every urge to look back. 

He’s never been more thankful to see the sleek metal of his car as he practically pulls her over to it. Throwing the passenger door open, he gently shoves her into the passenger seat and shuts the door behind her. Instincts override all else as hops into the driver’s side of the car, starting his engine.

Everything’s in flashes - Oscar’s grip yanking her along, the hard pavement beneath her feet, the night wind whipping in her hair, the rapid thumping of her frenzied heart.

He can barely focus on anything besides getting the hell away from that house, as he pulls the car out, driving as carefully as he can without drawing attention to them. Now that they’re seated, she finally takes a few shaky breaths, trying to allow her brain a moment of reprieve so that it can catch up.

He glances over at her. In the artificial lighting of the car. There’s a beat of silence throughout the car, no noise other than the sound of the engine, until he speaks up,

“You okay?”

She nods dazedly. His eyes move back to the road as he grips the steering wheel tightly, his knuckles turning white. 

“Are you hurt?” he asks, his eyes not leaving the road. He takes another left turn. 

“Yeah,” she breathes. Her voice still doesn’t sound like her usual self when she speaks, but Oscar is glad that she’s at least saying something. 

Having a moment to breath turns out to be both a blessing and a curse as her thoughts begin to run haywire. God, why did she bring him into this whole mess? She had tried calling the McLaren front desk but no one answered, and so Oscar’s was really the only other option whose number she knew by heart.

He takes another glance at her, noting her fidgety hands, and his tone softens again as finally catches his breath. 

“Can I see your hands?”

“M- My hands?” She looks up at him with wide eyes.

His eyes linger on her face for another second, taking in the wide-eyed, somewhat startled expression. 

“Yeah, your hands,” he clarifies, his tone a bit more gentle. “Lemme see ‘em, yeah?”

She nods once in quick agreement, but is so out of it that she forgets to actually give him her hands. He reaches over, gently taking one of her hands in his much larger ones. He runs his thumb over her fingers and knuckles, taking a closer look at her hands now.  They’re shaking violently in his grip, though that’s probably from the adrenaline and panic rushing through her body right now. His face falls the moment his eyes land on several of her knuckles. Some are badly bruised, and some more have small scrapes and cuts on them. He’s actually surprised that there’s no blood. 

He gently runs his thumb over the scraped knuckles, his fingers slightly curling around her hand.

“Ouch,” she says, voice sounding more faraway than it should. “I think that hurts.”

“Yeah, I’d say it hurts,” he responds gently, still continuing to gently run his thumb over the scraped knuckles on her hands. It then that he spots a nasty bruise on the back of her hand, which is in stark contrast to the surrounding skin. 

His eyes narrow when he sees the obvious shape of a handprint.

Coming to the same realization, she steals her hand away, tucking it back into its sleeve. Since when is the car so cold? He glances over at her, but her eyes are averted from him, looking out the window. 

There’s an unsettling feeling in his chest when she tucks her hand into her sleeve, as if she’s trying to hide it, and he knows why.

She holds her hands tightly together, as if desperately trying to warm them. Or to stop them from shaking. It’s unclear which of those it is.

Perhaps it’s both.

Oscar lets out a quiet sigh of relief when they arrive at his street, but he’s still focused on her. 

He takes one hand off the wheel. 

“Hey - listen to me, alright? We’re here now, and it’s gonna be okay,” he says as he tries to park the car. “That’s all you need to focus on, okay?”

“My heart…” she trails off. “It’s beating really fast.”

Instead, he responds with a soft, “Yeah, I know. I know. You’ll be okay, though, alright?” 

“Here’s what we’re gonna do, alright?” he says, his other hand still on her shoulder. 

“We’re gonna get out of the car, and I’m gonna take you upstairs, and we’ll get you all settled, yeah? And we’ll get some ice and stuff on those hands of yours, and we’ll just take it easy, yeah?”

Directions help thought. The way he talks her through it… it gives her things to focus on, details to center her attention toward. She nods, looking up at him.

“Let’s go,” he offers gently. 

She nods, allowing him to guide her. It feels a little bit like a lighthouse in a storm - your sole light, sole direction in the midst of the chaos and turmoil of everything else. She looks up dazedly at her lighthouse as he pulls her gently out of the car. 

Her lighthouse happens to have kind brown eyes.

He manages to unlock the door and push it open, and he holds it open for her to enter in before him. “Don’t go anywhere yet, alright? We gotta get some ice and antiseptic on those hands of yours first.”

“It’s nice,” she comments softly, looking around. She's been here before, of course - bringing him files he forgot late at night, waking him up when he overslept for a meeting, delivering his trainer-approved meals for the week so he can stock up his fridge. 

But never like this. She’s only ever been here as his personal assistant, not like… this.

Surveying the room, she notices things she hadn’t had the time to notice before. His apartment is more just plain simple then it is minimalist, but there’s still the odd touches here and there to make the place more personable. Throw blankets folded haphazardly on couches, potted plants stacked into a bookshelf by the window, a stereotypical wall of photos - there’s bits of Oscar’s touch scattered across the space. The air itself smells like dishwasher steam and some warm candle she can’t discern the name of.

He smiles, gently squeezing her wrist, tugging her to make her follow him to the bathroom. The light flicks on as they walk into the bathroom together, and he immediately steers her over to the small sink. 

Shades of charcoal contrast with white porcelain, making up the picture of the bathroom. There’s a hand towel hanging embroidered with a little whale on it, and a ‘rustic’ looking soap dispenser that turns out to be plastic upon closer inspection. As she notices the cool overhead lights, she feels warm hands guide her to stand in front of the sink, before gently letting go of her wrist so he can reach over to pull out the first-aid kit that’s likely been sitting there since his mother snuck it into his things. 

“Keep your hands up underneath the faucet,” he instructs, opening the box and quickly finding the antiseptic before turning his attention back to her. She audibly grimaces at the feeling of the freezing water seeping into her skin. The water pressure falls against her bruises and washes into the small cuts littered about her hands as well.

“Shit-” she winces.

He gently wraps a hand around her wrist again, tilting her hand from side to side to get the water flowing over all the scraped and cut parts of her hand. 

She immediately goes to pull her hands away from the stream of water, but his grip around her wrist doesn’t let her pull back by much.

“It’s too much, please, s’too much-“

The movement that she makes to pull away has his grip on her hand tightening slightly to keep her still, not letting her jerk her hand away like her instincts want her to. 

“Hey, hey, no,” he says, his tone still soft and gentle. “I know it hurts, but I gotta do this, alright?” 

His hand continues to hold hers in place, the water continuing to run over her cuts and scrapes. She whimpers in pain, still fighting him to pull her hand away. The unwanted tightening of his grip also reminds her of the events of tonight - a person’s hold on her that won’t go away even when she tries.

Immediately, her body responds by trying to pull back even more.

His eyes widen when she suddenly jerks back to pull her wrist back hard, as if she’s trying to fight him away. Instinctively, his other hand goes to gently grip the underside of her forearm, in an attempt to get her to stay still. 

“Hey - hey, we’ve gotta stay still, alright?”

“Let go of me,” she thrashes, trying to peel his hand off her. “Get your hands off me!”

Her struggle has his concerned expression growing more and more worried. He’s trying to calm her down, he really is, but the cuts need to be cleaned, so he has no choice but to tighten his grip on her. 

“You need to stay still,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady as she continues to struggle. “I need to get your hands cleaned and antiseptic on them, alright? You’re making this more difficult-”

“Stop!” she practically shrieks, voice hoarse. She scrambles away from him, prying his fingers off her in her panic and backing against the wall of the bathroom like a frightened animal. “Don’t touch me!“

When she finally manages to jerk her hands out of his grasp and back up against the wall, he can practically feel a pit form in his stomach. He immediately holds his hands up, as if in surrender, but still takes a step towards her.

“Stop! Stop!” she cries. “P- Please, please don’t do this.”

Caught off guard, his eyes widen and he holds his hands up again, simultaneously taking small, careful steps towards her. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he tells her, keeping his voice soft and gentle, but firm enough that it’d incline her to believe him.

She can feel her heart pounding in her chest, her lungs gasping in quick bursts of air. Her chest is heaving wildly as she struggles to just breathe and her eyes are wild as they dart around the room, refusing to focus on anything. 

When Oscar looks at her - wild eyes, flushed skin, and frantic breathing - it’s difficult for him to not go over to her to hug her, to comfort her in some way, but he’s afraid of spooking her even further than she already is.

“Hey,” he says again, trying to get her attention again. “Hey, look at me, okay?”

He waits for her eyes to shift towards him, which takes longer than he’d like it to, but he can’t push her. Her panic is high and he has to take this carefully and gently. 

“I’m not going to hurt you. Alright? I swear. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe, alright? You’re safe.”

Her eyes flicker towards him again, and he takes another step towards her, only for her to jerk away again and press more firmly against the wall. Her irises reflect an even greater degree of panic now, and the pit in his stomach deepens. 

“Hey,” he says again, a bit more firm this time. “Hey, look at me. I need you to trust me, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

He takes another step towards her again, trying to keep his stature as non threatening as possible, while keeping his tone firm, but gentle. 

He wants to reach out and pull her into a hug. He wants to wrap his arms around her and soothe her, and promise her that he’ll keep her safe. But she’s pressed so hard against the wall like she’s trying to fuse with it, that he doesn’t want to risk sending her into a panic attack by touching her.

“Alright,” he murmurs, as he takes another step closer, closing the distance further. “I’m gonna try something, alright?”

He waits for her to respond, but all she does is look at him, wide eyed. He takes that as permission enough to continue, and slowly reaches out, gently gripping her wrists.

She clenches her eyes shut, trying to fight her breathing into control. He tries not to use his full grip on her as he gently takes hold of her wrists, but the way she turns her head away, as if she’s bracing herself for something, as if she’s scared he’s going to hurt her, makes that tightness in his stomach worsen.

She nods, a tad slower this time. Her heart is still thudding against her rib cage, but warm, honey-brown eyes meet hers.

He takes a deep breath, the kind that’s meant to release some of that live wire feeling from his muscles, his thumbs still soothingly stroking the inside of her hands as he speaks. “I’m not going to hurt you, alright?” he says again, his tone quiet, but firm. “I need to get your hands cleaned. D’you trust me?”

A beat of silence.

“I’m gonna bring you to the sink, alright?” he asks quietly, continuing to state his actions aloud in advance. “I’m not gonna hurt you, I just need to clean your hands because there’s blood all over them. You trust me?”

After a moment of her eyes flitting across his face, she gives him an almost imperceptible nod. Despite the firm grip around her wrists, she focuses on remembering that this is Oscar.

Oscar Piastri.

The same Oscar that ran late to meetings because he kept stopping to pet street cats while they were in Jeddah.

That Oscar.

Careful not to let go of her or make any sudden movements, he slowly starts to tug her towards the row of sinks, taking baby steps so as to not startle her again.

He takes careful note of how she responds when he phrases it as a question - like she’s somewhat included in the decision-making process, that it’s not just being done to her. He can see that maybe some of the tension in her body has left her and she’s not as taut as she had been against the wall, but something in his gut tells him they’re far from being out of the woods yet, and he needs to proceed carefully.

“We’re here,” he says quietly, as they reach the sink. He turns on the water, making sure it’s warm, but not too hot, before he looks towards her again. 

She’s still breathing pretty heavily, but her panicked eyes have cleared somewhat, as if she’s not quite as panicked as she was before. 

“We gotta get your hands cleaned up, alright?” he says again, as he turns to look back at her. “Will you let me clean your hands?”

Slowly, her face turns towards him, her eyes still a bit out of focus. He swallows hard. “Hey,” he says, his tone gentle and quiet. “I’m gonna touch your hand now, alright?”

She moves her head in a single nod, and it’s all he needs, and he slowly eases one of her wrists from his grip. He gently, slowly, carefully turns one of her hands so that her palm is facing up, so he can start cleaning the blood off of it.

“W- Will…?” she tries to ask, but her voice comes out shaky and hoarse.

“Will it hurt?” he asks, finishing her question for her. At her slow nod, he gently shakes his head no, as he continues to hold her wrist with one hand, and starts softly wiping the blood away from her injured hand using a clean bit of tissue with the other. 

“No, I’m being very careful,” he assures her, his tone soothing. “I’m very gentle, I won’t hurt you, yeah?”

She watches carefully as he works. He’s surprisingly careful and gentle, taking care to pay attention to each and every part. The lighting of the bathroom paints him as a portrait, his eyebrows scrunched, his lips pressed together in concentration. Smooth fingers delicately dance across the skin of her hands, wiping them with feather light touches.

He can feel her gaze on him as he works at gently wiping the blood off her hands, keeping his pace slow and steady. Each movement is careful and precise, and he does his best not to hurt her more than she probably already is as he cleans the blood and dirt off her skin. He doesn’t say anything, not wanting to distract her, but every so often, his gaze sneaks up to glance at her face anyway.

“Thank you,” she murmurs into the late hours of the night, sat atop the surface of his bathroom sink. “For coming tonight.” Oscar had never even considered a universe where he didn’t. Of course he’d be there. “Of course, anytime," he tells her. “But you know you don’t have to thank me.”

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand, she doesn’t know that she’s so much more than just his assistant, and that he cares more about her than just as the person who brings him his coffee and files his paperwork.

He mutters under his breath, his hand holding her chin. “You’re not just my assistant, alright? You’re so much more than that, you’ve always been more than that to me.”

Her brows furrow, trying to understand. “I mean, I’d like to think we’ve become friendly over the past two years-“

Friendly. Friendly. It’s so much more than that. 

“Friendly,” he laughs, practically mocking the word. “That’s not even close to what I mean, and I don’t think you’re stupid enough to not know that.”

“Unless you’re trying to call me stupid, I’m not sure I’m understanding what you’re saying.”

“You’re not stupid,” he sighs. “I’m trying to tell you that I care about you much more than just my assistant. How do you not get that?”

There’s a beat of silence where she tries to process the words, turning them over in her mind as she analyzes them. When she speaks, her voice is quiet, her tone polite. “That’s kind of you to say.”

Kind to say? Kind? 

It feels dismissive, like she doesn’t quite believe him. But the truth is - he’s not being kind, he’s trying to tell her the goddamn truth, and she doesn’t believe him.

Her eyes scan his face, looking for any indication that he isn’t being truthful. She knows his tells by now - almost two years of paying attention to him when he lies to get out of an interview or when he fibs about how late he’ll be to the meeting. She knows these habits of his, his little quirks. 

She knows him. 

He nods, his eyes holding her gaze. 

The fog of night settles around them like a haze, silent and ever present. Looking at his face, pale skin reflecting moonlight and irises dark with exhaustion, he appears like a dream. When he’s stood before her like this, after everything that unfolded tonight, time seems to transcend reality. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, throwing her arms around him. She almost doesn’t care that her dislocated shoulder is screaming in pain - she adjusts it marginally to make it a bit more comfortable. She hugs him in gratitude, eyes closed so the tears of relief don’t slip out.

He freezes as soon as her arms go around him, stunned, but his body quickly catches up to his mind. His arms wrap around her immediately, like it’s an instinct. One of his hands slides gently up her back to rest against the back of her head, holding her to him. “You don’t have to thank me,” he manages to gasp out, his words choked, as he tightens his grip on her.

When she goes to pull away, it’s almost like he’s acting on autopilot, like his body is just moving on its own, without regard for reason. He gently grasps her arm again, his fingers wrapping lightly around her wrist, and he gently pulls her back towards him, his other hand resting gently but firmly against her hip.

Oh.

He has her against his chest again, her smaller frame held against his, and his brain registers just how good this feels, how right it feels - having her in his arms like this.

If she could just get her heart, that has randomly decided to beat out of her chest, to calm down, then maybe she’d be able to speak. She’s breathing fast, her heart beating a mile a minute against his chest.

Then, he does the stupidest thing in the whole world when she starts to speak, something he’s been silently wanting to do for months now. He bends down, ignoring her starting words, ignoring absolutely everything but the fact that he wants to do this, and finally closes the rest of the gap between them. His lips press against hers, silencing the rest of the words she’d been saying.

She’s stunned. Her brain is somehow working both too fast and not at all at the same time. What the fuck just happened?

She freezes in place, completely still.

He freezes as soon as he breaks the kiss, realizing in a flash that he just kissed her. His assistant. 

He kissed her. He had kissed the woman who basically helped run his entire life for the last two years, the woman who probably had no idea how he feels about her, and still thinks they’re just boss and assistant. Perhaps not his best work. 

His brain scrambles, trying to come up with some sort of an explanation, anything to justify what he just did.

Immediately, he’s desperate to hear her voice, to prove to him somehow that he hasn’t just ruined everything. He needs her to say something that will indicate that things won’t be horribly, terribly awkward between them after this.

She tries her hardest to come up with something to say – she really does. But she keeps coming up empty. So instead, she follows the next impulse her brain comes up with: she pulls him closer by the shirt and kisses him.

Oh. He sure as hell wasn’t expecting that. 

For a single beat, he’s frozen, stunned, like his mind can’t really comprehend what’s happening. Then, all at once, his whole body reacts. He responds in record time, calloused hands cradling both sides of her face as he kisses her back. He kisses her with fervor, with a passion that he’d been holding back for months, ever since he realized that he had feelings for her. The kiss is desperate, as if he’s afraid he’s going to never be able to kiss her again, as if this is his one and only chance at having her like this, in his arms, against his body.

She pulls away out of her body’s need for oxygen. Stupid oxygen.

When she does pull away, she looks up at him, tentative, hesitant – she both needs to and is scared to see how he will react.

He groans as she pulls away from him, and his lips automatically try to follow hers as she moves, as if he’s unwilling to let her move away from him, as if he needs her to always be this close to him. When she finally does move away from him, his arms automatically loosen their grip around her, though his hands stay on her. He looks down at her, his breathing coming in short pants, and he can’t help the look of awe that appears on his face.

She ends up being the first to speak. “That was-“

His brain automatically tries to finish her sentence for her - he’s spent so long with her, working with her, that it’s almost second nature to him now, to try and finish her sentences when she can’t find the words. 

“A mistake?” he supplies, his tone suddenly hesitant as he watches her. Part of him knows that it’s true, that this shouldn’t have happened, that he shouldn’t have kissed her. 

Another part of him doesn’t give a damn.

“Oh.” Truthfully, that wasn’t what she was going to say. In fact, if it were up to her, there was a high likelihood that she would have said it was nice. Really nice.

She had never kissed anyone before, but if every kiss was just as spectacular for everyone as this one was for her, then she could certainly see the appeal. That certainly doesn’t seem to be the case for Oscar, however.

Subconsciously, she pulls back, away from him.

“No,” he says, his hands immediately moving to grab her again, to stop her from pulling away. He gently tightens his grip on her, wrapping his arms around her, and pulls her back against his body. 

“It’s just that-“ he starts again, trying to find the right words, “You’re, well, you’re my assistant. You work for me.”

“Yeah,” she breathes half-heartedly. “Yeah, I’m aware.”

Oscar can hear the resignation in her voice, the disappointment. He hates that he put it there, but he can’t help the feeling of relief that washes through him as he realizes just how okay she is with the fact that he’s her boss. 

“I’m just saying that it’s-“

His brain scrambles for the words again, his mind trying to think of some sort of excuse, some sort of reason why she, his assistant, is here in his arms, why he’s holding her against him.

“It’s alright,” she says, trying to steady her voice as she slinks out of his arms. “I understand, it was a mistake for you.“

“No, it wasn’t a mistake!” he protests, his tone sounding more insistent than he’d intended it to. He mentally smacks himself - he’s the one who started telling her that it was a mistake, why in hell is he sounding so mad now that she’s agreeing with him?

He reaches out, wrapping a large, strong hand around her wrist.

“I’m trying to explain myself and I’m doing a shit job at it, aren’t I?” he says, his voice half amused and half frustrated.

“Yeah,” she laughs lightly, breaking some of the awkward tension. “Yeah, you kinda are.”

Some of the tension between them does ease - her laughter is a good sign, he thinks. She’s relaxed enough to laugh with him, and so he can breathe a little easier.

“It’s just-“ he starts, trying to think of the best way to try and explain. He can’t say I’ve had feelings for you for months because he’s not sure she feels the same way.

She watches him fumble over his words for a minute, first trying this sentence then that. After a moment, some deity has mercy on him, and she decides to help him out a little.

Her hand, gentle, barely there - goes to rest on his shoulder. She’d squeeze his shoulder reassuringly if everything wasn’t broken or bruised right now. Instead, she settles for rubbing it gently up and down against his arm.

“Breathe. Tell me what’s going on in your head,” she offers gently, her kind eyes looking up at his. 

She’s the only one who knows him like this, he thinks. The only person in the world who would know when and how to give him a moment to collect his thoughts, knows how he prefers green tea or energy drinks instead of coffee, knows what his tells are.

He looks at her and finds the same kind face that become an integral part of his life and function over the last two years. Sure, it looks a bit different, with the cut on her lip and the bruise peeking out of her hairline - but the face is the same one that’s been unbearably patient with him on hard days but also kept his ego in check on the good days.

God, the timing may be awful, but… it’s her.

Her hand, small and gentle, rests gently on his shoulder, rubbing it up and down to help soothe him and calm his mind, and it works. 

He takes a deep breath, closing his eyes as he gathers his thoughts - he has to tell her something, something that’ll let her know that what just happened was more than just some sort of a “mistake”, that there was something behind it.

“Talk to me,” she prompts him quietly.

He takes another deep breath, opening his eyes to look down at her. Her hand is still on his shoulder and he lets the feel of it ground him. He hesitates for a beat - he isn’t sure how she’ll react to what he has to say - but he has to say something, and so he decides to just speak and not think. 

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he says, making sure to keep his tone firm, like what he’s saying is absolute fact.

“Okay,” she acknowledges, tone carefully neutral. There’s a pause there, a moment for him to think. A small, kind smile appears on her face, trying to reassure him. She can clearly see there’s something else he’s trying to say - he’s just having trouble finding the words.

“C’mon, you know the drill. Talk to me, even if it’s messy. And then…” she takes a deep breath, as if to steady herself. “And then we can figure it out from there.”

It’s what they always do - whenever he’s excited about an idea or rambling about a theory or trying to figure something out, this is what they do. She lets him ramble to her about it, no matter how disorganized or chaotic or downright crazy he feels he sounds. And then, they parse through the craziness together. It’s gotten to the point where people around the paddock joke that she’s the one who can understand what he’s saying when he’s like this - Lando will often drag Oscar over to her office before a meeting to have his ideas “translated from yapanese” for the team to understand.

He looks down at her, at that kind, familiar smile of hers, and he feels something in his chest relax and loosen. He knows how this works, how they work, and he lets himself fall into the familiar rhythm of it all, even if this is different than every other time they’ve discussed ideas or ranted about something - this is foreign territory, and that makes this all the more scary. 

He takes another deep breath, looking down at her, and he just… speaks.

“That thing that just happened,” he starts, his voice still firm and insistent, even though his heart feels like it’s about to beat out of his chest. He looks down at her, and he makes sure that she’s not just hearing his words, but also listening to them.

“It wasn’t a mistake. It was…“

He hesitates again, struggling to find the best words to explain why he did what he did.

“It was…?” she tries to prompt. However, she’d be lying if she said her heart wasn’t also frozen in anticipation.

“…A confession.”

He says the word with such finality, as if now that the word has been spoken, it’s the absolute truth - as if it can’t be denied. 

“A… confession?”

Her question makes him falter - he can’t quite read her tone, can’t figure out what that question means. 

She can’t be that stupid, he thinks - she’s smart, one of the smartest people he knows - there’s no way she’d be that confused by the concept of someone confessing to someone else, so he can only assume that she’s asking him why he’s confessing.

Instead, what she does say comes completely out of left field for him. 

“Look, it’s been a long night, and…” she trails off. It seems it’s her turn to search for the right words now. “And I get it. People do weird things when emotions or adrenaline is running high. I get it, I do.”

There’s a pause before she continues, finally settling on what it is she’s trying to say. “So I’d understand if that’s what this is. Was. Is. Whatever.”

His brain stalls when she speaks. 

No, he thinks, no. That’s not what this is, this isn’t just some sort of “adrenaline rush”, this has been building up between them for at least a few months now, if not longer. 

He stares at her, frozen as he tries to figure out what to say - how does he convince her that this is more than just a stupid thing caused by adrenaline?

“I- I’m giving you that out, I guess,” she finally says. “If that’s what you’re looking for.”

God, why the hell does it feel like her heart has suddenly forgotten how to do its job, beating irregularly instead?

She’s giving him an out - she’s saying that if he wants to just sweep this whole thing under some rug, she’ll believe him. She’ll believe him if he says it was just a moment of “weakness” or “high emotions”. That maybe that’s all it really was.

God above, that’s the last thing he wants - he’s spent the last month trying to keep his hands to himself, trying to keep his feelings in check…

“Hey,” she calls softly. Her voice sounds a lot less scared, a lot less uncertain than she feels. “I need you to talk to me, yeah?”

He looks down at her - her tone is still gentle and reassuring, telling him that she’s open to listen to him, that she wants to listen to what he has to say. It takes a lot for her to speak this clearly and calmly, especially given everything that’s happened, he imagines. 

He reaches up and gently wraps his fingers around her wrist again - he needs to touch her, needs to feel her, needs to know that this is actually happening, that this isn’t some weird fever dream. She winces as his fingers wrap perfectly around the hand shaped bruise that’s already developing around her wrist. She tries to bite back the grimace before it slips out, but it’s still there. He instantly notices her wince, her grimace barely suppressed, and his hold loosens on her wrist almost instantly. 

“Sorry,” he says quickly, his eyes scanning over the bruise that’s already forming around her wrist, anger flaring through him as he looks at the angry, dark mark. He gently prods at the bruise, testing to see just how bad it is.

“It- Shit- It’s okay, I should’ve been more careful.”

His jaw clenches when she winces again when he pushes against the bruise, and all he wants to do is go find her parents and beat the ever-loving crap out of them for having the audacity to put their hands on her like this. 

He’s careful when his fingers brush over the bruise, his touch light as his fingers ghost over the injury.

“…You were saying something?”

Damn. 

She’s so damn calm at the moment, and it’s making this all the more difficult for him. It would be easier if she was crying or yelling, because he knows how to handle those outbursts, but damn, she’s so put together right now. 

His gaze softens as he looks down at her, his hand moving from her wrist to cup her face. 

“You have to know,” he says softly, his voice steady, “that wasn’t a mistake.”

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Her eyes look up at him expectantly, waiting for him to elaborate.

He knows that he should probably take a step back, give her some space as he tries to find the right words to help her understand, but he just can’t make himself do it. He keeps his hand on her face, thumb gently stroking over her cheek. 

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he repeats again, his voice still soft and firm. “It wasn’t an adrenaline rush. It wasn’t a-“

He almost says he didn’t mean to do it, but the words feel like a lie. And he’s tired of lying.

“I- I’ve wanted to do it longer than I can remember,” he admits, his voice quiet. “And I don’t know if that makes me a horrible person or not, but that’s the truth.”

He watches her face, searching for a reaction, trying to figure out how she’s processing all of this. He hates the fact that she’s so stoic, so neutral - it’s not her. She’s expressive and animated and she’s always letting him know what she’s thinking. 

She leans a little bit closer to him. Her eyes flit upwards, meeting his, before looking back down again, to where they’re both standing just inches apart from each other. They’re now standing so close to each other that she can feel his warm breath mingle with her own.

Then, she kisses him.

He’s frozen when he feels her breath ghost over his lips. 

He’s not expecting her to kiss him, not after everything he’s just said. He’s expecting, if anything, for her to step back, to tell him to give her a minute to cool down. But, when her lips brush against his, it takes him a few seconds to register what’s happening. Once his brain does catch up, his reaction is immediate. His hand gently grabs her face, pulling her back in as he kisses her back.

The initial kiss this time is awkward, hesitant, clumsy. It has all the trademarks of someone who hasn’t really done this before. But it works nonetheless.

Her soft lips brush against his – once, twice. Right after is when she finally puts her poor heart out of its misery, and tilts her face ever so slightly so she can press her lips against his, her eyes falling closed.

The feeling of her lips against his is like electricity - he feels goosebumps erupt on his skin, and he lets out a low sound from the back of his throat as he responds to the kiss. He gently cups her face, tilting her face up more, wanting more - needing more contact, needing to feel her and taste her.

She can taste him. He tastes like saliva and jaffa cakes and that little bit of toothpaste from when he probably brushed before bed. It’s so uniquely him that she fears she could get high on it.

The sound she makes when he deepens the kiss a little, his tongue slipping into her mouth, is a muffled thing, almost a whine. His brain is struggling to process everything that’s happening - it almost feels like he’s drowning in her, slowly drowning in everything that’s her. When they finally pull apart for air, their gazes are immediately drawn to one another.

His hand lingers on her face, his thumb brushing over her bottom lip - he can’t help the way his eyes are glued to her face. He tries to sort through the thoughts in his head, but most of his brain is just completely shut down right now, trying to process the fact that she kissed him. 

She was the one that kissed him - she initiated, she made the first move.

“That was…” she trails off, breathless. Something akin to molecules of light dance in chest thrumming in her veins and tickling her fingertips.

He nods slowly, his lips curving into a small smile before he lets out a soft huff. “I didn’t expect you to make the first move," he admits, his voice quiet. “I actually thought you’d be mad as hell.”

“I kissed you back before too,” she reminds him.

He lets out a soft huff of laughter, his smile widening. 

His gaze is still focused on her face, and his thumb brushes over her jawline in a soft, soothing gesture. 

“That you did,” he agrees softly. “Why?”

“Honestly?” she asks.

“Honestly,” he affirms, his smile still on his face, his gaze still on her. He gently grabs her chin to ensure that she’s looking at him as he waits for her response - and so he can look at her.

“Because when you kissed me I was caught off guard, and so I just froze like an idiot,” she rambles. She takes a deep breath, trying to be a bit more calm and collected. “Because it felt like the right thing to do. And honestly?” she pauses. “Because it felt really, really nice.”

The confession makes his smile widen into a grin. 

“Oh did it now?” he asks, his voice quiet. His tone is teasing, almost sly as his hand moves from her chin to her neck, his hand wrapping gently around it. 

“It felt nice?” he repeats, his thumb gently stroking over her pulse point.

She hums thoughtfully. “Enough that I did it again.”

“You did,” he says, his grin never leaving his face. 

He takes a step closer, his hand on her neck gently pulling her closer, his body now pressed against hers. “I think you need more experience though,” he murmurs, his voice quiet. “You should probably… practice. Frequently, if possible.”

“Yeah? You think so?” Her smile is small and weak, but it’s there.

“Oh absolutely,” he agrees. He loves the fact that he’s the one who’s making her smile when a minute ago, she was trying so damn hard to stop crying. 

“I think it’ll help you… perfect your technique,” he says, his voice quiet as he moves his hand from her neck to her hair, playing with the strands of hair. She shuts him with another kiss - this time, her lips lock firmly against his, her hands splayed out flat against his chest.

This one takes his breath away.

His response to the kiss is immediate, nearly automatic. His hand in her hair moves to her waist, pulling her closer as her hands make contact with his chest. He makes a soft sound in the back of his throat - almost a moan - as she kisses him, as she’s pressed up against him. 

“…How’s that for technique?”

His brain takes a few seconds to turn itself back on - he’s practically stupid after that kiss - but he eventually manages to put together a response. He lets out a soft laugh, his hand moving from her waist to her hip, holding her close against him. 

“Oh yeah,” he agrees, his voice slightly rough. “That’s a good technique, yeah. But I think you might need a few more… practice rounds. To truly get a feel for it.”

“Oh? Sounds serious.”

“Very serious,” he says, his voice still hushed, his fingers now tracing soft lines up and down her hip. “It’s important to be well-practiced in this skill.”

His hand moves from her hip to wrap around her waist, grabbing her more intently, his hand spanning the entire width of her waist. 

“And I don’t mind providing the… equipment you’ll need for more practice.”

“Hmm,” she hums, pretending to consider it. “I could be talked into that. Maybe over coffee…?”

His grip on her waist tightens - just briefly, just for a moment - at her words. His brain is struggling to put words together right now, and the idea of coffee with her doesn’t help. He’s trying to get his head to stop spinning, and the last thing he wants to do is say something stupid, but all he can think about is her - the feel of her, the taste of her lips. 

“Yeah,” he manages, his voice still hushed. “Yeah, coffee. Coffee sounds nice.”

She gives him a small smile. It's faint, but at least it's there.

Standing close to him, she lets her bods lean in against him. Her head falls against his chest as the two stand there in his bathroom. Silence envelopes them, allowing her a moment to breathe. It's been a whirlwind of a night, with both highs and lows.

He lets her lean against him, wrapping one arm around her waist and pulling her tight against him, his other hand moving to gently cup the back of her head, his fingers gently stroking her hair. 

He’s silent as well, his chin resting on her forehead as his hand strokes her hair. He’s not thinking, not really. He’s just existing, just… feeling the comfortable weight of her against him.

“Sit down on the counter, yeah?” he says, his voice still soft. “And take your shirt off, I need to see the damage.”

"No." 

His hand that’s been gently stroking her hair stills at her response. “Why not?” he asks, his voice still soft and gentle. “I won’t hurt you, I just want to check you over.”

"I'm not taking my shirt off," her voice shakes. Oh, right. 

He realizes the issue. “I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to,” he says quietly, his eyes focused on her face. “But I’ll have to patch you up, and I can’t do that with your shirt on. Just your top half, yeah? I won’t look at anything else.”

"I..." her voice quivers, as she tries to think of a way out.

“You don’t need to be embarrassed or scared,” he says quietly. “It’s just me. There’s nothing I haven’t seen,” he assures her. “I just want to fix you up a bit. That’s it. I won’t look anywhere else.”

"It- It's not that..." she eventually stammers out.

“Then what is it?” he asks, his voice still soft and gentle. “You can tell me.”

"I, uhm, can't?" she says awkwardly so it almost sounds like a question.

“You… can’t?” he asks, a frown settling on his face as he tries to work out what she means. “What do you mean, ‘you can’t’?”

"My left shou-" she grimaces in anticipation of what she's about to tell him. Fuck this.

His frown deepens at her grimace - a sense of foreboding and worry sets in. “What’s wrong with your left shoulder?” he asks quietly, dread already building inside of him.

"My left shoulder," she tries again. "I can't, uh, move it much."

It's dislocated, she should tell him, but she can't seem to bring herself to say the words.

His heart nearly stops in his chest at her words. God, what have her parents done to her?

He tries to keep his voice calm and even when he responds, but it’s a struggle. “You can’t move your left shoulder at all?” he asks quietly.

"Just this-" she says, demonstrating by moving her arm about four, maybe five inches off her side. She winces when her shoulder screams in protest.

“Your shoulder is dislocated, yeah?” he asks, trying to keep the worry and dread out of his voice. “That’s why you can’t move it?”

"Yeah," she answers..

“How do you know it’s dislocated?” he asks quietly, his voice still steady.

“Not my first rodeo,” she says, an attempt at humor to break the tension. He desperately wants to ask who did it, what happened. He doesn’t want to press her for the details now, when she’s in enough pain as it is. 

He’s silent for a moment, trying to figure out the best strategy to take her hoodie and shirt off. 

“Alright,” he says eventually, his voice soft. “I’m going to take your hoodie off, yeah?”

Hesitantly, she nods.

He hesitates for a moment himself, worried that he’ll do more damage to her shoulder - but there’s no way around it. 

He gently grabs the hem of her hoodie, and starts to carefully pull it over her head. A slight gasp escapes his throat as soon as her bare arms and collarbone are revealed.

“Ahh!” She bites her lip, trying to muffle the sound as white hot pain shoots up through her shoulder at being moved.

His hands release the hoodie and pull back the minute he hears her gasp, his jaw clenching to stop himself from swearing. His eyes roam over her collarbone and arm, taking in the deep bruises and angry red scratches. 

She’s biting her lip so hard she’s worried it’ll split open again. Fuck, moving that shoulder hurts. She’s trying her best to contain it, but hot tears prick at her eyes.

Oscar’s gone concerningly still in front of her.

The moment the hoodie finally comes off and he’s left with the full view of her body, the breath gets stuck in his lungs. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but it wasn’t bruises and scratches and scars. God, the sight of it feels like a damn sucker punch to the chest.

He wants to say something, anything - but he’s so incredibly angry that words just don’t come. He’s paralyzed by anger for a moment, before he’s able to pull himself together - but the fury is still there. The sight of her bruised, cut and beaten body in front of him, her arms covered in scratches, her collarbone a mess of deep purple, and her lip split… it’s a rage he’s never really experienced in his life. He has to take a deep breath to keep himself composed. 

Once it’s finally off, she lets go of the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Immediately, her gaze goes to Oscar’s face to note his reaction.

He does his best to keep his face neutral, although his expression still betrays a hint of anger and outrage. He doesn’t want her to know how much it all angers him - because, knowing her, she’d try to say it wasn’t as bad as it looks or that it’s not a big deal. 

But to him it is. It’s the biggest deal in the world.

She sits before him now in just a bra and pants, and his eyes take the opportunity to scan over the upper half of her body. He takes note of each detail - the bruise beneath her hair line, her split lip, the one around her wrist. 

Scanning lower he finds more. When he finally takes a look at her torso, he has to try and force himself not to visibly react.

It isn’t easy.

There’s a nasty bruise on one side of her collarbone, he briefly wonders how much force it actually takes to bruise a person’s collarbone. He sees the shoulder he’d reset for her - it looks sore still, but it seems to be doing marginally better. 

But what his gaze lingers on is the parts he didn’t get to see before - the deep blue mark that blooms on the left side of her rib, the deep red scratches on her side and her forearm that were previously concealed by the hoodie. 

He lets his eyes linger over each bruise or injury that he finds. Every single one of them makes him angry again - that somebody put their hands on her body, left their mark on her skin, hurt her.

She can feel her heart rate spike when he moves closer, but she does her best to stay perfectly still for him. Seeing the way she tenses up and her heart-rate increases, he knows that she’s scared. 

This is why I hate your parents so much.

“Lean back on the counter,” he instructs, his voice still soft. “Let me look at your shoulder.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She pulls in a tight breath, like both inhaling and exhaling hurt too much with the pain shooting through her arm. 

He’s completely focused on her - all he cares about right now is getting her shoulder back in the right place and getting her patched up. He watches as she struggles to breathe through the pain, and it hurts him. It hurts him that he can’t do anything to help her, that he can’t take the pain away. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says quietly, both for his benefit and hers. “Just lean back for me, yeah? Don’t worry about anything else. Just let me look.”

She leans back - gradually, as if it hurts her to move every centimeter. A shaky exhale finally escapes her once she’s leaned all the way back.

He takes a moment to survey her collarbone - it’s even more bruised up than he had originally thought. His eyes linger on one particular spot that looks an awful mix of pinks and deep purples, and he wants to rage until his vocal cords give out. But she needs him to be calm and logical right now, so he pushes down the anger as much as he can. 

His eyes next move to her shoulder, and he grimaces slightly. The joint is visibly swollen, and it’s clearly out of place. A wave of nausea overtakes him as he thinks about how much pain she’ll be in when he moves it. 

“I’m gonna have to move it into the right place,” he says quietly. “It’s going to hurt - but try and relax for me, yeah?”

Nodding, she takes a shaky breath. It’s then that she speaks up, voice strained.

“Could you… could you talk?”

He’s a little surprised by her request, but he understands why she wants it. Any sort of distraction will take her mind off the pain, so that’s exactly what he’ll do - he’ll talk. “Yeah,” he says quietly, his eyes focused on her face. “What d’you want me to talk about, exactly?”

“Anything,” she mumbles. “Just… Just talk.”

He hates that he’s about to cause her even more pain, but he knows there’s no way around it. The longer they wait, the more it’ll hurt in the end. 

One of his hands reaches out and cups her cheek, gently stroking her bruised skin. “I’m going to count from one to three, yeah?” he tells her, his voice still quiet. “And on three, I’m going to move your shoulder back into place. Ready?”

She nods.

“Okay, here we go,” he says, his voice still soothing. 

He places his other hand on her upper arm to get a good grip.

“One,” he begins slowly, his eyes fixed on her. “Two…” 

He notices the way she’s tensed up against the counter, bracing herself for the pain. “Relax,” he instructs quietly, his thumb rubbing her cheek. “Just listen to my voice. Don’t think about anything else. One more counting till three, and then it’ll be done. Deep breath. Ready?”

Once he’s satisfied that he’s given her enough time to mentally prepare, and now it’s time to finally deal with her shoulder. 

“Just listen to my voice,” he tells her again, his hand still gently stroking her cheek. “Okay, one… two-“

She nods. She’s just begun to inhale, when-

Without any further warning, the muscles in his arm tense as pushes her shoulder back into place.

“Shit!”

He’s never heard her scream like that before. His heart clenches in his chest at the pain she’s in, the way she’s screaming, the way he’s caused her even more pain. 

“I know, I know it hurts but it’s done now,” he says quickly, keeping his voice soft. “It’s over, okay? You’re okay. Just breathe.”

She chokes out a dry sob, until it finally devolves into short whimpers of pain. He hates this so much. He hates the fact that her shoulder is in so much pain, that she’s sobbing, that he had to be the cause of it. 

“You’re okay,” he repeats again, trying to reassure her. “It’s over now. I know it hurts, but it’ll get better. I promise.”

She falls limp against him from the exertion, as the whimpers meld more into soft murmurs, her breath hitching as her body adjusts to the relocation of the joint.

As her body slumps against his, he brings his other arm around her, gently guiding her into his chest. He holds her against him, hoping that the physical contact will reassure her. 

“You’re okay,” he repeats again, speaking into her hair. “I’ve got you. You’re safe. Just breathe for me.”

She continues to whimper in pain, the soft whimpers being the only sound in the bathroom. Oscar feels as a few stray tears fall against the fabric of his shirt, wetting it.

His heart clenches in his chest at the feel of her tears. He can’t even begin to imagine how much pain she’s in. 

“I know it hurts,” he repeats quietly, bringing one of his hands up to gently pet her hair. ��I know it hurts, love. But it’s almost over, I promise. You’re doing so good. Just breathe for me, yeah?”

She gives him a weak nod. Feeling a bit more settled at that, she resumes leaning against him. Eyelids droop, heavy with exhaustion - it has been a long night.

He feels the way she’s gradually going limp in his arms. He understands that she’s been through enough tonight. “Let’s at least get you seated, yeah?” He suggests quietly. “You look tired. We need to get you taken care of and then you can rest, alright?”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, nodding into his chest.

Her voice is soft when she speaks, like a cool balm. “I am sorry.”

He almost laughs at the absurdity of that statement. 

“Don’t apologize,” he replies, shaking his head. “It’s not your fault. None of this is your fault.”

“For throwing this all on you, I mean. I… I should’ve thought twice before putting all this on you – I know it’s a lot. I didn’t mean to bring you into this mess when I called you tonight, and that’s on me,” she explains.

How is she even worried about him right now? How? He almost wants to laugh, she’s so ridiculous. “Don’t you dare apologize,” he mutters, gently tucking a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Don’t- I- God, you have absolutely no reason to apologize, alright? So just... stop.”

“You’re upset,” she replies, observant. “Maybe I’d even say angry, if I didn’t know you any better.

He tries to find an argument against her claims - he tries hard. He tries to deny it, at least a little bit, to make himself seem better somehow. But he can’t, and she’s too observant to let him slip one past her anyway. “Maybe angry is a generous assessment,” he admits, his jaw clenching again.

Her eyes are drawn to his face, waiting for him to elaborate.

“I’m pissed,” he finally responds, his voice still somewhat restrained. “God, I’m pissed. I’m angry. At them - at your parents.” His eyes dart to hers to check her reaction, to see if he’s crossed a line.

“You have no idea how angry I am, actually,” he continues, his frustration rising more and more by the second. “I am… furious. They laid a fuckin’ hand on you.”

She listens to him while she reaches out to gently clasp his hand in her own, bringing it closer to her, guiding him to rest his palm in the space between her fractured collarbone and where her bra covers her chest. His hand is placed directly over where her beating heart lies. 

“Do you feel that?” she asks softly, looking up at him.

He nods wordlessly, his anger and frustration momentarily subsiding to give way to the feeling of her heart beating. Her pulse is thumping against his palm, her heart racing beneath the skin of her chest, and all he can do is watch her intently.

“I’m here,” she whispers, brushing a loose lock of hair back from his forehead. “I’m alive, I’m okay.”

He doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until the moment she touches him. His shoulders sag as he lets out a breath, his hand gently rubbing the skin where her heart beats as if it would help soothe his temper. 

“You’re not okay,” he replies quietly. “You’re... the opposite of okay, Y/N. I don’t know why you’re trying to pretend like you are.”

“I’m alive,” she counters gently. He wants to argue - he wants to tell her that being alive doesn’t mean being okay. He wants to insist that she’s not okay, to try and convince her that she’s been hurt, that she-

But he knows that it’s a pointless exercise. She clearly refuses to admit there’s a problem. Instead, he shakes his head in frustration before gently shifting his hand to graze her injured ribs. 

“You’ve made your point, Oscar,” she concedes quietly, wincing at the contact - a very real reminder of the damage done.

He knows he’s won the argument, but he doesn’t quite feel victorious. 

“So why are you still pretending like you’re okay?” he asks, shifting to sit on the bed next to her. 

“I felt bad for making you worry. I feel relatively okay, I mean.” She pauses for a moment, and her voice gets quieter.

“When I called you tonight…” The way she suddenly drops her voice has his jaw clenching again. 

“What about it?” he asks, trying to keep his voice patient. It’s like he wants to hear what she has to say but is also dreading the answer at the same time.

“When I called you tonight…” she says, trying desperately to make sure her voice doesn’t shake. “It was because I thought I was going to die.”

There. It’s out in the open now.

“I called the front desk at MTC first, and then my friends, but it’s the middle of the night, so naturally, they didn’t pick up. Yours is the only other number I know off by heart.” She exhales, letting out a soft chuckle. “I guess I’ve had to call you so much for work that dialing your number was muscle memory.”

She takes a deep shaky breath, before continuing. “So yes, I know things are bad. God, you don’t think I know that? Of course I do. But right now I find it hard to throw myself a pity party when I’m so fucking grateful to be alive, to have gotten out, to be here.” With you. To be here with you, she was going to say.

“So, there it is,” she mumbles. It’s there, out in the open for him to hear and dissect and know. The confession is a lot to take in, especially coming from her. She’s always so collected, so composed, so good at keeping a cool head. He takes a moment to try and process everything she’s just told him, his mind struggling to grasp the reality of it all. 

“You-” he begins, still struggling to find the right words. How do you tell someone that you’re glad they’re not dead?

He eventually settles for reaching forward and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her to him gently for a careful hug. 

“I..“ he begins, stumbling over his own words as he struggles to get his mind to form a coherent sentence. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m so goddamn glad you’re here,” he finally manages to say, resting his forehead against hers.

Foreheads touching, his face so close to hers… the moment is quiet and intimate. It makes her glad she’s alive, that she didn’t die before she could experience this with him, that she’s here with him now. Her eyes are closed but a few tears of relief slip past anyways. The feeling of her tears against his skin nearly breaks him in half, and it’s everything he can do to reign in his own emotions right now. Just hold it together for her. That’s all he has to do - just hold it together long enough for her. 

“Hey, hey,” he whispers as her tears wet his skin. “You’re safe now. I’m... I’m here, and you’re safe.”

“God, I was so scared, Oscar,” she cries quietly, shaking against him. Her words and her sobs send a sharp stab of pain through his heart, his arms clenching a little more, holding her a little tighter. 

“I know, I know,” he mutters, his own voice shaking as he fights to maintain his composure. He can’t break down when he needs to be strong for her. “But it’s okay. You’re here, and you’re okay, and you’re safe.”

It takes a few minutes of reassurance before he feels like her crying is slowing. Her body is still shuddering in his arms though, and he lets her cling to him, letting her bury her face in his shoulder. His hand finds its way to the back of her head and he runs his fingers through her hair, trying to provide any comfort he can.

Finally, once she settles, her sniffles tapering off into what resembles normal breathing, Oscar tilts her head up to look at him. He notes the exhaustion in her face, in her body. It’s been a long night, for both of them.

“You need sleep,” he mutters quietly, his hand still tangled in her hair.

“Can’t,” she mumbles, giving him a small, lazy smile. “My really hot nurse won’t let me rest until he’s patched me up or something.” He rolls his eyes affectionately at her, unable to help a smile rise to his lips at her comment. 

“Very funny,” he mutters, shifting his hand around to rub her jaw gently between his fingers. “Let’s get you cleaned up, smartass.”

“Least m’your smartass,” she mumbles under her breath, before carefully sitting herself upright again so that he can finally finish patching her up.

“You think I’d let anyone else call me a hot nurse?” he retorts, pushing himself up and standing in front of her. He takes a moment to study her body – all of her body – in front of him, trying to take stock of the damage.

“Would you?” she asks curiously, her head tilted drowsily.

His eyes take in the way she looks; disheveled, he concludes. Her hair is completely ruffled, the skin of her stomach littered with scratch marks and bruises, and god, those dark blue marks on her chest and collarbones - he has to push down the anger that threatens to rise to the surface again. 

“No,” he replies after a moment, his eyes roaming over her body again. “Absolutely not.”

“Yeah?” she smiles softly, a glimmer of something sparkling in her eyes before she tilts her head back, closing them. He continues to work on her when he hears her mumbling.

“I think I like that.”

“Which part?” he asks, his voice soft as he wipes at a particularly bad-looking scratch. “Me not letting anyone else call me a hot nurse, or the fact that you’re the only one who does?” he teases a little as he continues to gently clean her.

She winces at the feeling of antiseptic against her cuts.

“Hmm, both,” she hums.

His heart leaps at her words, a little thrill of excitement rushing through his gut. He tries to hide the way his cheeks warm at that, busying his hands with  cleaning a particularly ugly scratch on her collarbone. “And what if I also said you’re the only one I’d call my smartass?”

She audibly hisses at that one, her collarbone sensitive from the fracture. Trying to relax a bit, she focuses her mind back to his question. “Yeah?”

“Mhmm,” he hums in agreement, gently pressing another piece of gauze against the cut. 

“I’ll be your smartass if you’ll be my dumbass,” she offers.

He actually laughs at that, a bright sound in the dark room. “I’m a dumbass, huh?” he asks, looking up from his work to smirk at her.

“My dumbass,” she corrects, “if this deal of ours works out.”

 A small, happy smile rises to his lips at her words. 

“Your dumbass,” he echoes, his heart fluttering again. 

Your dumbass. 

He could probably get used to that. He continues to work over her skin gently, carefully cleaning each bruise and scratch.  “You know I don’t like sharing, right?” he says after a minute, breaking the silence with a hint of possessiveness in his tone. His face is twisted in careful concentration as he works, only pausing to smile or laugh or react to her comments.

She likes his smile, she decides. And perhaps his hair, too.

“Good,” she replies. “Me neither.”

 “Goodnight” he says quietly, before slowly taking a step back and switching off the lights. He heads towards the door, quietly switching off a bedside lamp on the way out. 

“If you need anything, just let me know,” he says, pausing by the door to throw a glance over his shoulder. 

“…Osc?” she squeaks out, voice small. At the sight of Oscar about to go, leaving her on her own in this dark and foreign room - even if it is Oscar’s -  has her heart beating a little harder in her chest. After everything that happened tonight, being left like this has something resembling fear melting her chest like hot wax.

This room is dark and foreign to her - she doesn’t have the layout memorized, or the exits, or hell, even the light switches. Which means that if she were to be in danger again–

“Yeah?” he prompts gently, his voice quiet in the dark.

“Do you…” she hesitates, before finally deciding to just do it. “…Could you stay?”

He pauses for a moment, the request taking him a little by surprise. “Yeah,” he replies, his voice quiet. “Of course I can stay.”

The anticipatory tightness in her chest loosens a bit at that.

He walks around to the other side of the bed before slowly slipping under the covers next to her. He tries not to think about the feel of her body heat next to his, as he adjusts his position slightly to try and give her as much space as possible.

She lays there for an unknown amount of time, but sleep eludes her. For some unknown reason, despite having the longest night of her life and being exhausted beyond belief, her body feels as taught as a live wire.

Still, she tries to even her breathing as a sleeping person would, making an effort not to keep shifting around. There’s a high probability Oscar’s asleep, and she doesn’t want to disturb him.

Oscar is, in fact, not asleep. 

He’s acutely aware of her body next to his, every little movement, twitch and twist of her body. She’s trying to stay as still as possible, and for a minute he wants to point out that she doesn’t have to, that she can make herself comfortable - but then she lets out a small sigh of frustration, and he decides to say something instead. “Can’t sleep?” he dares to whisper, breaking the silence.

She freezes at the sound of his voice. Shit.

“Yeah,” she admits, voice small. “You?”

He gives a small shake of his head, keeping his voice low like . 

“Nah,” he says, his voice a little groggy, “I’m awake.”

For a long moment, silence falls between them again. He can literally feel how tense she is.

After a long moment passes, she asks, “Why?”

That actually gets a small snort out of him. “Could ask you the same question,” he retorts quietly, shifting slightly in the bed. “Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Unh unh,” she tuts in denial. “I asked first.”

He chuckles quietly at her response. “Can’t shut my brain off,” he finally relents, keeping his voice quiet as he tries to answer her question. The comfort of night embracing them like a favorite blanket has a way of loosening people’s tongues. “Too much thinking going on up there right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

There’s a brief moment of silence before he speaks again, his voice soft and gentle. “Can I ask you something?”

She hums drowsily, granting him permission.

He hesitates for a moment, trying to find the right words to phrase his question. “Why did you ask me to stay?” he finally asks, not sure whether he’ll get an honest answer from her or not.

“You’ll think it’s stupid.”

“I won’t think it’s stupid,” he reassures her quietly, shifting in the bed next to hers. “Just… tell me, alright? Please?”

She’s grateful she’s still turned away from him at this point.

“It just…” she trails off awkwardly, unsure how to explain. “I dunno. Just thinking about being here, on my own, after everything that happened at home…”

She shrugs. “Even thinking about it made me feel… kinda like antsy? I don’t know how to explain.” She huffs in frustration, trying and failing to find words that sound more coherent than whatever the hell this response has been so far.

“You… you make that go quiet.” She mumbles quietly. And then, even quieter: “You feel like… like safe, I guess.”

Oh.

He’s honestly a little stunned, at both her admission and her choice of words. 

You make that go quiet.

You feel like safe. 

After silence takes the place of any audible response from him, she painstakingly makes the effort to turn over so that she can face him in the dark.

“Is that… weird?” she asks nervously.

“No,” he rushes to reassure her, his voice quiet and a little strangled with emotion. “No, it’s not - I just…”

He trails off for a moment, swallowing against the lump in his throat. “I just wasn’t expecting that to be your answer,” he admits hoarsely.

“Oh,” she replies dumbly.

He’s glad he’s lying in the dark right now. 

She’s turned over to face him, and the thought that she’s laying a mere few inches away from him, with a bruised and battered body and telling him that he’s her comfort, is both the most amazing thing he’s ever heard and also so painful his chest physically aches. 

He clenches a fist around the sheets.

“You want to know what I’m thinking?” he finally asks, taking the opportunity to shift the conversation away from her question.

“Always.”

“That if I ever met your parents,” he finally admits, his voice pained and his breath hot against her neck, “I’d probably break their goddamn jaws.”

She winces at his words. She turns away from him.

He immediately grimaces at her reaction, sitting up slightly in the bed as he sees her turn away from him. “No, don’t turn away,” he says quickly, his hand reaching out reflexively to grasp at her nearest arm.

He gives her arm a little shake. “Hey. Look at me,” he instructs, his voice low.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she replies coldly.

He falters for a moment, taken aback by the coldness in her voice. “And why’s that?” he questions, still reeling from her immediate retreat.

“Because I am tired,” she deadpans.

There’s a long moment of stunned silence as he processes her response, and then she hears his bed creaking faintly before his voice rings out in the dark. 

“Come here,” he orders quietly.

“Why should I?”

“Because I said so,” he replies, his voice still quiet. 

He shifts on the bed, moving closer to her. “Come here,” he says again, a hint of gentle firmness in his voice. Disguising it as stretching, she moves marginally closer to him. The second she shifts closer to him, he takes action, moving until he’s directly behind her. He scoots closer to her, his body curled protectively around hers, and wraps an arm around her torso. 

“There,” he murmurs. “That’s better, right?”

She lets out a small huff. Just because being in his arms is surprisingly warm and comfortable and soothing doesn’t mean she’ll just forget what he said about her parents.

“It’s… fine,” she lies through her teeth. He needs to know that the matter isn’t resolved that easily.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure it is,” he replies sarcastically, not falling for her half hearted attempt at indifference. 

“I know -” he lets out a quiet huff, his arm tightening around her before he even speaks. “- sorry for saying that. I didn’t mean to…”

“I- “

For once, he’s at a loss for words, his thoughts swirling around in his head. 

He did mean the words. They were true for a reason, after all. 

“Don’t -” he finally tells her. “- Don’t you dare feel sorry for them, you hear me? Just- just don’t, alright?” He shifts, moving his face away from her neck to speak. “You don’t need to feel guilty at all for the way they’ve treated you, and for the shit they’ve put you through,” he says fiercely.

She sighs exasperatedly, letting her eyes fall short for a moment. 

He knows she’s not as receptive as he’d hoped, but he can’t stop himself from spitting out the next few words like a curse. “I don’t care that they’re ‘family’, or that they’re your parents - because they’re abusing you. They’re hurting you in the name of ‘tough love’ or whatever shitty reason parents think they have for treating their kid like that,” he all but growls out in the dark.

After a beat of silence, she asks quietly, “…Would you ever like to hear me say that about your own parents?”

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. Once, twice, and maybe even three times, until finally, he manages to force out a response. “…That’s not the same,” he tries, and immediately wishes he had just kept his mouth shut. He sighs, swallowing hard before mumbling out a confession - “It’s just…“

He presses his face into her neck again, his breath coming in heavy, uneven puffs as he struggles to keep himself together. “They’re supposed to protect you, goddammit,” he grits out against her skin.

“Yeah,” she agrees softly.

“They’re supposed to care about you,” he all but mumbles into her skin, his fingers tracing circles mindlessly against her stomach as the angry words spill out. 

“Okay.”

“It’s not ‘okay’,” he grits out. 

He tightens his arm around her, shifting slightly until he’s got a thigh over her legs as if he’s holding her in place. 

“You’re not the one who’s wrong here,” he adds, frustrated with the fact that she’s the one who’s bruised but he’s the one who’s getting choked up.

“Let it out,” she encourages softly, gently stroking her thumb across his cheekbone.

Goddamn it. Something about the way she says it, like she’d be willing to share the burden of the sky if that’s what he needs - it gets to him. He’s trying to be the strong one here, the one who’s supposed to be protecting her - not the one on the verge of a goddamn breakdown. But she’s just too damn sweet. 

He lets out a quiet huff and buries his face in her neck again. “Okay,” she agrees. “Whatever you need.”

“Stop with the agreement thing,” he mumbles into her skin, his voice frustrated even though it’s lacking the edge from before and more filled with emotion. 

He swallows hard, his hand tightening momentarily on her stomach. He’s angry at himself for so many reasons.

He’s angry that she got hurt and he can’t take away her pain. He’s angry that he’s got a goddamn lump in his throat right now because he can’t handle seeing her hurt. He’s angry that he’s the one getting emotional when she’s the one who’s supposed to be falling apart. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” she coos softly, using her hand to gently guide his face out of the crook of her neck so she can actually look at him. “What is it? What’s going on in that head of yours, hmm?”

Those eyes are really going to be the death of him. He swallows hard, shifting slightly so he’s facing her a little better. 

“I’m not supposed to be the one falling apart right now,” he admits, his voice coming out quiet - so quiet that he almost hopes she misses it. “It’s not… it’s not going how its supposed to go.”

“Oh?”

He lets out a frustrated sigh, his fingers tapping uselessly against her stomach.

“It’s not going how it’s supposed to - you’re supposed to be the one falling apart, and I’m supposed to be the one picking up the pieces,” he mumbles out, his voice still quiet. 

“But now I’m the one on the verge of losing it, and you’re being annoyingly sweet and supportive and nice and I don’t know what the hell to do with that.”

“Okay,” she tells him, her voice all level and sure and reassuring. “Okay, that’s okay.”

He takes a shaky breath, and it’s taking everything in his power to not bury his face back into the crook of her neck because the feel of her skin against his might actually help. 

“No-“ he shakes his head, his voice quiet again. “It’s not. It’s not okay. You’re supposed to be the one falling apart right now, but I’ve got… I’ve got this damn knot in my throat and I can’t tell if it’s anger or guilt or something else-“

“Breathe, Oscar. You gotta breathe for me, okay?” she says, gently rubbing her palm up and down his sternum in what she hopes is a soothing motion.

She doesn’t know that the gentle touch against his skin is a little too much right now, the feel of her palm across his bare skin and her voice in his ear and just the sight of her looking at him with that kind look in her eyes is making his head spin. 

But he does as she says - tries to steady his breathing, letting it out in slow, even puffs as her palm moves up and down his chest. “There we go,” she says, giving him a drowsy smile. “Just like that, yeah? You’re doing so well f’me.”

“Jesus,” he mutters, clenching his jaw for a moment because of the way her words make something in him flutter. “That’s not helping,” he grits out, his voice coming out a little rough as he takes another slow, shaky breath.

“Alright,” she says, her hand stopping its movements. “Okay, I’ll back off.”

“No, no-“ He shakes his head quickly, his fingers grabbing her wrist to bring her hand back down against his chest. 

“Just- Keep going,” he says, his voice coming out gruff and quiet. “Don’t- don’t stop that, just-“

He swallows hard, closing his eyes for a moment. She can probably tell he’s still a little shaky, but she listens to him as her palm tentatively starts moving over his chest again, and she lets out a soft exhale. He closes his eyes when he feels her hand on his chest, a slow exhale of breath leaving his lips involuntarily as her palm glides across his skin. 

He lets go of her wrist and moves closer, his head dropping against her shoulder, and mumbling into her skin. “M’sorry. I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “This is dumb. I’m freaking out over nothing.”

“Is that what you would tell me if the roles were reversed?”

“No,” he responds, almost immediately. 

He would tell her that she had every right to feel what she felt, and he would pull her close and tell her that she should let him help carry the burden, and he would do anything to keep that sweet, broken look off her face.

“Then I need you to believe me when I say – I get it. I understand why you’re freaking out – anyone in your position would. You can’t be calm and collected 100% of the time, and no one expects you to. No one.” 

Her hand traces broad strokes around his body - across his chest, over his shoulder, up to his cheekbone. She finds herself playing with the locks of hair that keep flopping onto his forehead.

He tries to steady his breathing as her hand continues to glide gently over his body, the touch of her fingers against his skin and the feel of her body so close to his is making his head spin all over again. He feels himself shiver as her fingers brush over his cheek and through his hair, leaning into the touch. “How are you always so goddamn patient with me,” he grumbles, lifting his head slightly to look at her.

She shrugs.

In the sacredness of whatever this bubble is that exists here and now, the words slip past her lips before she can even think of stopping them.

“It’s like breathing.”

She’s really going to be the death of him one day. The fact that she doesn’t even need to think about it just makes him want to pull her close even more and press messy, thankful kisses against her skin. He swallows back the urge instead, trying to regain some of his composure. He lifts his head, taking her in as she continues to gently trace her fingertips over his face.

“You’re thinking something,” she notes, fighting back a yawn.

Her words drag his attention back up to her face, and he can’t help a small, lopsided smile at the fact that she’s tired right now because of how well she knows him. 

“Is it that obvious?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Maybe not to other people. But to me it is.” She gives him a small smile. “My whole life revolves around knowing you.”

He’s almost certain that he stops breathing for a moment, because her words are like a punch to the chest for multiple different reasons. Of course he knows how much of her work life centers around him, but it's the way she says it.

It means that she knows him better than anyone.

And, when paired with the fact that she’s half-naked - in his clothes, no less - and just inches away from him right now it just makes it even harder to control that flutter in his chest.

She brings him back to the present. “But I need you to talk to me,” she says, tentatively trying out the pet name again after he’d said no earlier. “Need you to tell me what you’re thinking so we can figure this out, yeah?

He pauses for a moment, then speaks, his voice low and coming out a little grumbly.

“If I tell you, you’re not going to like it.”

“Maybe. But keeping it in will only make it worse, won’t it?” she smiles sadly.

She waits for him to continue, her fingers slowly tracing the skin of his jaw. She can basically see the thoughts rushing through his head. He leans into the touch a little more than he means to, his eyes half-lidded as he tries to get the words out. 

“It’s just…” he repeats, his voice coming out gruff as he swallows again. “It was so hard to stay calm, alright? I was trying so fuckin’ hard to stay calm, but Christ, you just…” 

He takes a shaky breath. Before he can continue, she speaks.

“You did so well. You kept your cool, you were exactly what I needed when I called you to come get me tonight.”

“Oscar, you need to get it out of your system. I know you’re angry. Your allowed to be, as long as…” she pauses, taking a steadying breath. “Just… talk to me.”

He glances at her again, gauging how she’s reacting before he continues. He takes a shaky breath, swallowing hard. 

“It’s just…” he repeats, his voice coming out barely a whisper now. “When I saw you… and all the… the marks, and the cuts, and the… the scratches-“

He breaks off abruptly, trying to regain control of his breathing. His fingers start tapping restlessly against her stomach again, trying to soothe himself. 

“It just made me so… angry. And the fact that they left these goddamn marks on you- goddammit, you don’t understand how hard I had to resist just punching a wall right then and there.”

She nods in understanding, tucking herself a bit closer to him by leaning her forehead against his chest.

He lets out a shaky breath as she leans against his chest, his arms instantly wrapping around her, pulling her close - his grip isn’t hard enough to hurt her, but it’s tight enough that he has her completely pressed against his body. One hand comes up, reaching up to grab gently at her hair, guiding her even closer to him.

“I’m sorry I put you through that,” she mumbles, voice weary, against the fabric of his shirt.

He makes an instant noise of protest at the apology, shaking his head. 

“No,” he says, almost sternly. “No, don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, alright? None of it is your fault. ”

The emotions that have been curling in his gut like a hot coil fuel the stem of his words. “They’re idiots,” he continues, the word spoken fiercely. “They have no idea how goddamn lucky they are to have you as a daughter, and even less of an idea about what they’ve just done to you.” 

His hand in her hair continues to brush through it, almost on autopilot, trying to soothe her and him. Oscar is surprised when instead of staying silent or outright refuting what he’s said, he finds her mumbling against his chest.

“I guess so.”

He glances down at her when he hears her speak up, a little surprised to actually hear that she agrees with him. He pauses, then continues combing through her hair - she hasn’t complained yet, so he doesn’t stop. 

“You guess so?” he says, gently pushing her. “You guess so? You’re so goddamn good, you have any idea how many people would kill for someone like you?”

“It's not that big a deal,” she murmurs.

“It is,” he shoots back immediately, a fierce bite to his tone. “It is a big deal. Don’t- don’t do that, alright? Don’t try to brush it off and pretend like you’re not the best thing that’s ever happened to me - to anyone.”

“I’m your assistant,” she says with a small smile, as she tries to stifle a yawn. With each blink she sees less and less of Oscar’s silhouette in the dark of the room, her eyelids heavy with sleep as she’s trying her best to stay awake to listen to what he has to say.

Oscar’s jaw clenches at the sound of her holding back a yawn - she’s probably exhausted and in some kind of pain, and that’s not even considering the emotional trauma she’s just been through tonight - and yet here she is, still trying to stay awake. 

He glances down, noticing her eyes keep drifting closed, and he lets out a huff. “You’re much more than my assistant,” he mutters. “More than I deserve.”

He looks down to see what she has to say in response.

Only to find her fast asleep, passed out from exhaustion.

The warm cocoon of Oscar’s arm, the steady lull of his heartbeat, and the rhythmic feeling of his fingers running through her hair was enough to help her loosen up enough to finally fall asleep, it seems.

He looks down at her with a little smile - even asleep, she still looks like a goddamn angel. 

He’s not expecting to sleep any time soon, he’s had enough caffeine on top of the adrenaline still pumping for him to be completely wired. So instead he just holds her - her face pressed in between his chest and shoulder, his arms wrapped around her, his eyes focused on the ceiling.

Part 2

a/n: if you stayed this far, thank you so much! i'd love to hear what you thought of it :) and credit to @saradika-graphics for the lovely dividers!!

[inactivewattpadauthor]

Liu Kang x Friendzoned Reader: Saving Kotal

This could be a sequel to the chapter you get friend zoned, idk ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Standing aside from the group of Outworlders, you all waited for the three to come back: Liu Kang, Kung Lao, and the one that secretly makes you spite everything, Kitana. Maybe it was a good idea you stayed back. It would've been a shame if the pettiness inside you acted on the intrusive thoughts. You kept everything down though, knowing your feelings weren't important in this matter.

Kitana was to convince Baraka to side up with her to rescue Kotal and defeat Shao Kahn, hopefully all of them weren't shredded down there. It felt awkward being around all these Outworlders too. But no worries, they all return with the allegiance of Tarkata.

Letting out a small smile you went to them. "Glad you guys are back." Glancing mostly at Lao since you were still bitter about the other two. Liu sensed your vibe, awkwardly nodding at Lao before walking off with the princess.

The hat wielder pulls close to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulder as you two walked closely. "So we all are going to the Kolosseum," You already were aware of the next dangerous leap. "Liu wishes for me to tell you that you don't have to go. It is very dangerous."

You scoff and push away from Lao. "So what? He couldn't tell me himself? Maybe he actually just doesn't want me to go because... of her."

Lao grimaces. "See, this is why he made me speak to you." He murmurs before clearing his throat. "No. He just thinks it wouldn't be fair for you to risk your life for something mostly for Kitana. Though the realms are at stake. But it's up to you if you wish to not participate. He understands."

"I'll go." You sigh. "And Lao," You place a hand on his shoulder. "Don't be his messenger. You're too much of a good friend for that." You walk off.

He smiles at you when you walk away and as you go completely out of sight, his face drops into a frown. "Shit."

---Time Skip To Kolosseum---

You stood far back as Kitana lead the large group to the doors of the caged battle arena. As they were forced open, you could tell any second late, Kotal would've had his head bashed in. Standing back, you could barely hear what the princess and Shao Kahn spoke of.

"-exactly like you, 'father'." That's when the battle began, Kitana striking Shao with her fan blades and everyone else getting into it. You fought smoothly, knocking any foe that approaches off their feet with easy defeat.

Turning your head, you see Liu fighting honorably as well, but it would seem he didn't hear the enemy approaching behind him, readying his sharp weapon. Without any hesitance, you rushed to that swine, heart pumping in fear he would strike him.

You deliver a strong high kick to the back of the opponent's neck, sending the heel of your shoe through, making the swine choke up on his own blood. The sound made Liu jump back and his eyes widen as you pull your heel out, watching in despise as the Shao Kahn follower collapse dead, blood seeping from the hole you caused.

"You came!" Liu looked at you with warmth. "Why?"

"I'd give my life for you." You cross your arms, looking away blankly. You said it so simply, he stands there confused. He always sort of thought you disliked him ever since he had to put you down. The champion would've understood if you resented him all the way, but he was happy you came through.

"I owe you mine's now." Liu bows gratefully to you.

You scoff and roll your eyes. He is confused to why you step towards him until you wrap your arms around him, his mind fading out as everyone else was dying in the background and the audience cheers with glee.

But he smiles and returns your embrace, resting his chin on your head.

You two hugged it out for long up until you hear a pained yell from Kotal. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ I do a little trolling in this chapter lol

[lawbin-archive]

The chemistry between Law & Robin

Yes, I'm talking about Lawbin's chemistry today.

Before you reading it, I have nothing against other ships. Law and Robin have chemistry with others as well. And I'm not comparing lawbin with any of them.

If you comment something like "[other ship] better" "I hate them" "even [a character] has more chemistry than them" "this ship is boring" etc., these kind of unreasonable, without proofs and rude comments. it's just proving that you are an immature and narrow-minded person that can't read or accept other opinion. Please respect each other and our personal space. I do welcome any other opinion with polite and civilized attitude.

If you are wondering why I need to set up a warning every time, it's because there are tons of annoying people in the internet.

I know I talked about their chemistry on twitter already, but I want to rant more about it lol so let's dive in.

Before everything, let's define chemistry. The definition of chemistry is "a quality that exists when two people understand and are attracted to each other" - from Cambridge dictionary So first of all, do Law and Robin understand each other?

In my opinion, yes and the first evidence is Robin can tell Law told the navy about green bit just by his face. and Law can also understand the danger of CP0. You might say they were just being investigative, observable and knowledgable. But that's the qualities you need to understand each other. In any relationship, you need to be communicative, have the same knowledge and observing each other emotions to understand each other.

Well, that's just the surface of understanding. Other than that, Law and Robin also have the same understanding on how hard is to learn the history (including void century and will of D). It's important to both of them because that's what Robin and Law dream of. Personally, I would say it's really difficult to find a person who has the same dream as you, understand how hard it is to archive and can archive with you. Especially, with all the Ohara's scholars eliminated and Robin searching poneglyph by herself for so long, she almost gave up and finally there is someone who has the same dream as her and can accompany her. I would say this is a very strong foundation of understanding and connections.

You might say, but she's already searching poneglyph with straw hats. But none of them really cares the history. Of course, it's important that the straw hats are supporting her and having her back. But only Law can fully understand her dream and know how hard it is. That's the special bonding they have.

Now that we know they have the same understanding on ponelgyph, isn't the underground Wano scenes more meaningful? Robin was searching poneglyph all by herself and now Law can accompany with her. All what Law did before defeating Doflamingo is to get revenge for Corazon, and now he finally found something he wants to do and he is interested with. And he's not achieving the goal by himself*.

*Note: Yes the straw hats helped him to defeat Doflamingo, but no one - I don't think even Robin knows the real reason. He has been taking all the responsibility and stress by himself. You can tell when he said he want to die with Luffy. That's how much burden he had. He didn't even want to involve the Heart pirates to begin with. To me, he's truly free and looking for what he's really interested after defeating Doflamingo.

side notes: Robin discovered ruins of Shandora by herself on the left panel, Robin and Law discovered ruins of underground Wano on the right panel. They both discovered in a square shaped tunnel, coincidence? On top of that, they have similar background and experience*. Why is this important? Because it makes them so easy to understand each other. They don't need to put themselves in each other's shoes to know how the person's feel. They have been through what each other been through. They already felt what each other felt. They can build connection instantly just by sharing their background. *I will make another post to talk about their similarities - it's kinda crazy to me how similar they are lol, but if you're interested what similarities they have, please read this.

Well Oda hasn't shown they know about each other experience yet, but Law already knew Robin can read poneglyph, with Law's personality and always updated with news, isn't hard for him to figure it out that she's the sole survivor of Ohara which is the same for him. Another thing is Law trusts Robin enough to tell her his real name. You might think is not a big deal, but Law is a distrusting person and it's a family secret, I don't think he would tell a potential future enemy his full name with so little of trust. [he was kinda threatened when he told Baby 5 & Buffalo, he only told Sengoku and Doflamingo he is a D*] Robin is the only member of straw hats that know his full name. *You might asked but Sengoku might be an enemy too, first he's retired, second he's the father figure for Corazon, that alone can let Law trust him enough to tell him the D and third he thinks he might know something about it. And for Doflamingo, I think he just wants to provoke him.

So they did build trust and bonding before he told her real name. It might be she saved him, it might be the alliance, it might also be they talked about their experience. Just one of my assumptions. Robin also told him she's also interested in the same thing. And here you go - they build an understanding and connection with their goals and dream.

Besides, they both have a similar dark humor. It's important to understand each other joke, right?

So they know each other have similar goals, similar background and similar personality. Isn't it really easy for them to understand each other and build bonding?

So, are they attracted with each other?

I would say maybe. Let's define what's attracted means. "If someone is attracted to someone else, he or she likes the other person or is interested in that person." - Cambridge dictionary Let's look at Law → Robin first, because I think that's a more obvious one. We talked about Law told Robin his real name which is something that drawn them closer. So that's one of the evidence. Another scene is when Law finds Robin in flower capital. Yes I'm brining it up again, because their conversation is so interesting.

Law said "You weren't with the others...so obviously I was suspicious." I found Law very cute here, because when did he get suspicious before? LOL From my memories, you can correct me if I'm wrong, Law never get suspicious to any straw hats for the entire alliance, and now he's getting "suspicious"? On top of that, straw hats were separated, Nami was having fun with Otama, Jimbei was having dinner by himself. There are tons of people in flower capital, he only notice Robin is missing and he's only "suspicious" about Robin.* He also searched the whole flower capital and the palace just to find her. I think that's a proof that he cares about her and her whereabouts. *You might say he followed her because of the poneglyph, I already explain it before so I'm not gonna repeat myself again. Please just refer to this post.

Also, when Robin crawled up on the tunnel. Law using his ability to switch places between him and something else. In the anime, it was Robin's sweat, but in the manga it's Robin's hair accessories. (the pop effect on Robin's head) Of course, it's really polite of him to not crawl behind Robin haha But how long did he look at Robin until she reached to the window and searching for something that he can switched place with.(I don't think he can shambles randomly at this point lol) That's also one of the reasons I think he's attracted to her - always paid attention to her and create proximity with her.

Let's talk about Robin → Law, I think Robin also shown she's interested to Law. As I mentioned above, she already told him she's also interested the meaning of D. I think talking about what you're interested is also a sign of you're interested to the person and willing to engage with them with the same hobby. Besides, Robin teased Law twice. The first one is in Dressrosa when she said "You have a sly look on your face." And the second time is the scene above when she said "I'm surprised you sniffed us out."* *Note that the original japanese text didn't indicate the subject in this sentence, but from their conversation, it's implied that Law only suspicious about Robin. I don't think he had interacted with Sukiyaki before lol

If I remember correctly, Robin rarely teasing other people except when she's interested. The only time I remember she teased someone is when she asked Luffy to let her join the crew which when she's interested in Luffy (non-romantically).* *again, I might be wrong, maybe there are other times. Other than that, I found it really cute when she said "No fair...". Robin rarely shown her childish (in a cute way), jealousy side of her. [I think when she said "No fair" means Law used his ability, kind of like jealous of his ability or he's cheating because she crawled all the way up] And it's interesting that she shown this playful side of her in front of him twice in this scene.

On top of that, Robin risked her body to save Law during Dressrosa. She was worrying about Law too. I think if it's someone you don't care, you won't worry or save them. If I really need to pull out another example, she didn't bother to help Bartolomeo when he was falling. But on the other side, she did care about Rebecca and saved her as well. (to provide different views) Also, Robin did worry about Law when she's under green bit and she was worrying about he's losing his arm.

I think it's pretty rare for Robin to worry about other guys outside of straw hats. And that might be a proof that she cared about Law and might attracted to him.

One piece rarely shown mutual romantic relationship, so it's surprised me that it's kinda hinting they are interested to each other especially the scenes in Wano. Although it's not obvious and not everyone sees it in that way, I think their relationship is cute regardless.

I actually found this post is really hard to write especially when you need to explain something that's a feeling and not something logical.

At the end, I think having chemistry or are they attracted to each other are really subjective to every one. Even though I pulled out definition, I think everyone has its own definition on chemistry. In my opinion, I think chemistry can appear in friendship, family or romantically. So if you only see their chemistry as platonic friends or comrade, I think that's totally reasonable. I'm not writing this to let everyone agrees with me. I just want to provide my perspective of their interactions. And personally, I like connections in emotionally & mentally more than physical intimacy, hence, why I like them.

It's really long post again, thank you for reading it. Again, I appreciate any opinion if you comment politely! :)

[chubbygrape]

In my very unserious read of the Dionysiaca so take this very 'unseriously' as well but Semele is hysterical to me in the first volume

After she reached Godhood my notes literally changed from 'this is so beautiful :')" to "OMG HER AGAIN??" - like my girl is insufferable.

It will be a random scene, not involving Semele even as a background character, yet she'll still somehow appear screaming from the heavens (COMPLETELY unprovoked) how all other women of Zeus are inferior to her (like girl?), as well as their sons are inferior to her son, managing also to offend said sons in the process (Hermes heard it the worse if you ask me lol) This happens at least 3 times...

If you're reading this you don't need me to say this, but just in case, friendly reminder said women of Zeus are the likes of HERA and Leto, while the sons literally Apollo, Hermes and Ares... (pretty sure Hephaestus caught a stray as well somewhere in there) With how fragile the egos of Gods are i am shocked we didn't get like 4 books extra detailing every God haunting Semele for sport after the nonsense she spewed every other page hah

But also poor Dionysos? lolol

Imagine you're just born (just barely mind you) and youre trying to get through life and got big shoes to fill in, meanwhile your mother is already setting you up for failure by openly declaring you're better than and positioning you against all your ESTABLISHED OLYMPIAN HALF-BROTHERS

It's giving 'mum you're embarrassing me'

Anyways love the books xx

[chaotic-on-main]

Sunrise | ModernAU One-Shot

☾ Pairings ➼ Levi Ackerman x gn!Reader

☾ Content/Warnings ➼ best friends to lovers, parental emotional abuse, FLUFF, slight hurt/comfort

☾ A/N ➼ This might be a little self indulgent, but I hope y'all like it anyways. The things the mom said may or may not be things my mother has said to me. I'm okay, before anyone asks lol. I hope this is comforting to others out there. Love you guys! Time to start of June's outline. :3

☾ Word Count ➼ ~2.2k

text convo made by @humanitys-strongest-bamf <3

Your silver sedan sits in the street in front of Levi’s apartment, headlights glowing on the other cars around you. Soft rock plays through the speakers as you drum your fingers on the steering wheel in impatience, the vibrant blue console lights lighting up your face. You had sent him a ‘here!’ which was left on read, meaning he was still up but still nowhere in sight. Maybe he couldn’t find his shoes? No, that wasn’t like him. He has a cubby by the door for them, which he kept immaculate. Just as you were going through other impossible scenarios, there’s a sharp knock on the passenger door that makes you jump. It’s Levi, double fisting two teas in to-go cups as you requested.

“Will you get the door, dumbass? My hands are full.” You hear muffled through the glass. It takes a bit of strain, but you lean over to unlatch the door and push it so Levi can kick it open with the tip of his shoe carefully. The internal lights pop on, blinding you momentarily but when your vision adjusts, you see Levi extending a long-sleeved arm to you with your drink.

“You remembered!” You exclaim, grabbing the warm cup from him so he can place his own down in the cup holder before sliding himself in the seat next to you.

“You asked for it.” He grumbles as he buckles himself in and then stares over at you, deadpan. His eyes widen a bit as he takes in the sight of you. "Is that my sweater?" You were indeed wearing Levi's thick, gray turtleneck. His favorite one, at that. You notice he says nothing about the red puffiness around your eyes.

“Well hello to you too, grumpy.” You smirk over at him as you take a careful sip of your tea, ignoring his question and relishing the flavors that Levi chose. It’s a blend that Levi had made special for you a while back, strong and smooth and a little fruity. Levi wasn’t a fan of it, but you loved it - for more reasons than you wouldn’t dare say.

“I’m not grumpy. And I’ve been looking for that all week. I’ll take it from you by force if I have to.”

“Mmm, kinky.” He scoffs but says nothing, looking away. You shift in your seat so you're facing him, linking your fingers together and resting your chin on them as you stare over at him. He gives you a side-eye, then a scowl.

"I am not driving, forget it." Levi snaps at you.

.

“So, what was it this time?” Levi mutters over to you from the driver’s side. He has the window down, hair wind-swept as he stares out into the very early morning darkness. His index finger taps on the steering wheel to the beat of the song playing in the background.

“Hm?” You don't bother looking over you as you speak. You have your arms placed up on the door with your head resting on them, your face lighting up every couple seconds from the glow of the passing street lights.

“What kept you awake this time?” You think for a moment about how you want to word what made your heart ache today. Even after 17 years of friendship, you still struggle with talking about your feelings with him. An emotional disconnection you’ve had since before you met him so long ago. He understood though and never asked, which is why he sat so patiently while you pieced together your thoughts. Nothing coherent came to mind, though.

“I don't…" You trail off, clearing your throat in discomfort. You bring your hand to your mouth and start chewing on your thumbnail.

"…know how to word it?" Levi finishes for you. As always, he was so good at reading you.

"Look at you finishing my sentences. You know, the whole friend group thinks we're secretly dating. Hange even has a bet."

"Oh yeah? What did shitty-glasses wager on this one?” Levi quips without missing a beat. He rolls to a stop at a four-way and takes this time to give you a full exasperated stare.

"Something about cleaning Miche's and Nanaba's shared apartment if they lost.“ You laugh before taking another sip of your tea. It's sweetened just the way you like it. Levi is great at remembering the little things like that.

“Tch. Then they better start cleaning.” Levi grumbles as he pushes down on the gas pedal gently. Levi didn't press, but you knew the conversation was well from over. He would never tell you, but he always wanted to know what was on your mind, especially when you were this upset. To you, however, he didn't need to. His quick glances at you every other stoplight told you enough how present he is for you, and always would be.

You stick your head out the window and smile at the warm breeze against your face. When you stare up at the sky, your vision is filled with pale stars and a bright moon. A couple clouds float by, lit up from the moonlight. It really is a perfect right for a drive.

"Do we have a destination in mind?" He turns the volume dial up a bit, the same soft rock from before now at a moderate level. You wouldn't mind it being louder, but with Levi's question now lingering in the air, skull shaking volume would have to wait.

"I don't, actually. I was hoping you’d just drive and see where it takes us." You give him a huge grin and a finger gun, and Levi just snorts in response.

"Alright then. Let's see where this takes us."

.

Around an hour and half later, Levi and you find yourselves still in the car on a gentle incline. You have no idea where Levi was taking you but now with the faint light of the early morning, you can see you're somewhere with lots of trees. Both of you are far from tired, disposable cups now empty. You’ve been staring at Levi for the last ten minutes with glazed eyes as your mind wanders. His voice snaps you back.

“Before you say anything about the eye bags, just know you’re part of the problem.” He says dryly with pursed lips.

“Pfft, your sleep problems are yours and yours alone.” You roll your eyes at that, but you can’t hold back your smile. The car slows down before turning off on a dirt path to your left. It’s still quite dark from the canopy of leaves above, so your view is limited to what the headlights illuminate.

“Oh, is this the day? You’re finally going to murder me and dispose of my body in the forest where it belongs?? What is it, head bludgeoning or a gunshot?” You feign an excited tone, wide eyes and toothy grin to accentuate it.

“Trust me. When I get rid of you, it’ll be much more thrilling than either of those.”

“Boo.” You stick your tongue out and pout.

Levi rolls the car down the path slowly, keeping his eye out for anything that might be in the way. It was relatively safe with only fallen leaves and small twigs littering the road. There’s a light at the end of it and after a moment, the car breaks through and then Levi puts the car in park. Your breath is taken away in a mere second.

You unfasten your seat belt and throw yourself out of the car quickly. Not bothering to shut the door behind you, you run over to the edge of the cliff that you find yourself on. You’re not sure how high up you are but it’s a considerable distance because the trees that litter the valley beneath you are quite small. It’s all green, broken up by a wide river that you suspect is the very same one that cuts through town. A layer of low fog weaves through the whole valley, and you imagine how pretty the morning dew must be from it. On the horizon, you see the beginning of pinks and oranges start to paint the sky. The sun is about to break.

Raising your hands above your head, you scream with exhilaration. A warm gust of wind blows against your face, throwing your hair back and tangling in the breeze. This was the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen, you think.

“Levi Ackerman, you jerk! How could you keep something like this from me!?” You yell as you turn around quickly, meeting his stormy gray eyes. He’s staring at you with a lopsided smile while he leans against the driver’s side door, arms and legs crossed.

“I can’t let you in on all of my secrets. That’s just not fair.” He shrugs with nonchalance.

“Does almost two decades of friendship mean nothing to you?” You smirk over at him.

Levi makes his way to the hood of the car and sits back on it, patting the spot next to him for you. You raise your eyebrow at him but amble over to him anyways before pulling yourself up as well. Your legs curl up under you as you cross them, noting the metal underneath you bending more than you’d like. Whatever, your car is on its last leg anyways.

You both sit in silence for a moment. Birds chirp and sing behind you in the trees, the rustling of the leaves signifies the start of their early morning routines. The sun still hasn’t made an appearance, and you gauge it’ll probably be another fifteen or so minutes until it wakes up for the day.

“So. What happened?” Levi pipes up next to you. When you twist your head to look at him, you notice a softness in his eyes; a look he reserves for when it’s just you and him. Pulling your legs up to your chest, you rest your cheek against your knee as you continue to watch Levi.

“My mother called me again.” You frown a little, now matching the one Levi points your way.

“You answered, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I told myself not to but then I got worried that maybe something happened. So, I picked it up. It started off okay…” You trail off as you reposition your head so that you are now resting your chin in the crook of where your knees met. The oranges and pinks glow brighter with every passing second.

“What did she say this time?” he asks gently.

“Oh, the usual. ‘You know how I feel about quitters’ and ‘it makes me sad to see your wasted potential’ then ended it with something along the lines of ‘being selfish’.” You laugh sardonically at that, heavy bitterness seeping into your tone.

“You know better than to-“

“Than to answer I know.” You snap. You continue to stare at an invisible airplane in the distance. The wind starts stinging your eyes, or was it tears? You blink hard to get whatever it was out.

“- than to believe any of that shit.” Levi retorts. He shifts next to you, the groaning of the metal underneath you both breaking up the momentary silence.

“I know, and it’s just so frustrating that it still gets under my skin. It’s been years since I’ve left. You’d think I’d be over it by now.” Your voice gives you away with a crack. You sniffle and rub your eyes with the sleeves of Levi’s sweater. Your tears leave dark marks against the gray. Levi mumbles your name, and you sit up and turn your head back to him. He just stares at you with his lips parted, thinking of what he wanted to say.

“Healing isn’t linear, nor is it clean. It’s going to have its moments where you feel like you’re falling back and it’s becoming too loud and chaotic. But you are healing, you need to be patient with yourself.” He says over to you gently, before bumping against your shoulder with his own affectionately. He’s a lot closer than you thought he was. “And don’t answer her calls anymore.” You continue to stare at him, this time in wonder.

“Hey Levi?” You ask softly.

“Hm?”

“You know you’re my best friend, right?”

This time Levi stares at you, but with what you’re not sure. You don’t get a moment to think as Levi leans into you, slowly. His lips linger across from yours, as if waiting for you to pull away. You don’t. Pushing yourself into him, your lips meet his and they’re so soft against yours. It starts off gentle, but then the kiss deepens as he moves his arm in a way to hold you closer to him. He tastes like bitter tea leaves and sweet honey. The sun breaks over the horizon, pale yellow now lighting up the surroundings.

When you both pull away, you notice a pink flush burning into his cheeks as he stares over at you. A laugh escapes you, loud and chest deep. A small smile tugs at his lips as he watches you. The way the early morning sun hits his face, you want it ingrained in your brain.

You grab his shirt and pull him back into another kiss, smiling into it as you do.

“Don’t tell Hange, I still want to watch them clean.” Levi mumbles against your mouth.

This moment, right here. You wanted to stay forever, you think.

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[crocwork-clockodile]

So, it's been over a month now since I actually finished Night Watch and I did mean to write another post about my final thoughts. But in my defense, I was moving provinces and starting grad school up again. But anyway! On to a few of my thoughts:

Warning for spoilers, I suppose

Firstly, oh my gosh, it made me cry. It made me so sentimental, in the way only Pratchett seems to do to me. Probably more so, since this was my dad's first Discworld novel, and I wouldn't have read any of them if not for him. I just felt very emotional about finishing it. I mean, having read Thud! before already, I knew in my heart that Vimes would be okay. I knew he'd make it back and that Sybil would be able to safely deliver Young Sam, but that whole thing at the end, where it's looking dicey and he has to call on Dr. Lawn and then their son gets named after Sam, but maybe not even this version of Sam, it just made my heart swell. Vimes will continue to nurture and care about this child, and allow him to maintain his optimism, in the way he was kind of doing for the Young Sam that he just trained up during the Glorious Revloution!!!! Cycles!!!! My favourite literary device!!!

I kinda liked how Lord Winder died. Just literally scared to death by his own paranoia. The Assassin didn't even have to do anything but look Assassin-y.

One thing that really impressed me about Vimes, after they take down Bloody Mary, is how he thinks about everything in how a city functions. Like Vetinari, in that way. This isn't a musical, this is a real thing that's happening in a real city, but the commerce and functions of the city that aren't concerned with Ankh-Morpork politics are still trying to happen. Things don't just pause. You need to be organized and think about how these things work. I'm impressed with this mostly because I know I'm bad at planning for things like that and forgetting about necessary things until I need them and don't have them lol.

On that note, Reg Shoe. Darling, idealistic, Revolutionary Reg. He is so so earnest and I genuinely think he really wants that ideal world for everyone, but again, he is so bad at planning the mundane-but-critical background stuff. Beloved, you should be at the club.* It's kinda gratifying to learn he was always so annoyingly idealistic and community-minded. I knew he'd make it out (kinda) okay, but oof, his death (however temporary) still hurt my heart

I think that's the majority of all my thoughts for right now. Sam Vimes is still one of my greatest, dearest blorbos. I finally know why we wear lilacs on May 25th. Now I was there, and I knew them, and I can advocate for Freedom, Truth, Justice, Reasonably-Priced Love, and a Hard Boiled Egg.

GNU Terry Pratchett

[marcspectorstannie]

⁂Meet the parents⁂(Steven grant x f!AA! reader)

Summary: reader takes Steven to finally meet her parents for dinner and has to prepare him for what her family is like

Warnings: slightly cursing most likely, a little angst if u squint, black trauma

A/n: this is intended to be a female/feminine and African American reader so just a heads up! I've been thinking about writing smth like this for a while now

A/n2: this is honestly so fuckn long and I'm so sorry LOL

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"Now I have to warn you, my family is a bit...much." You both sat in the car in front of your parents house. The car was turned off so you were both is a weirdly comfortable silence. As much as you loved your family it was always rough bringing people to meet them as they always scared them away by being too loud or gossiping a bit too much. But Steven insisted on meeting them, even after your constant warnings.

"Your family can't possibly be that bad, love. I think you're just being a bit of a scaredy cat." Steven raised his eyebrows at you and tapped your nose playfully. You rolled your eyes and smiled a bit. He never met your family personally, he just knew the little stories that you would tell him that you remembered from your childhood. You closed your eyes and sighed softly "I'm not scared I have nothing to be scared of. It's just..." it was hard to tell him straight up that black families are a lot different from other families "they have their many differences to say the least, and I'm not even sure if it's just my mom and dad there or if they invited my cousi-." Cutting you off, your phone rang violently. It was your mother. Hesitantly you picked it up and placed it on speaker.

"When you gon' get here? This food gon get cold now." Your mother questioned, the pots and pans clattering in the background. "We're actually just looking for parking mama, we'll be there soon don't worry." You looked over at Steven with a nervous expression. "Aight now don't be making me wait for you and you bringing company ova to my damn house.. " You rolled your eyes at your mother's comment. "I'm not mama, I'll see you in a few." And before you could say anything else she had hung up. You sighed loudly once again and placed your head on the steering wheel. "I guess we shouldn't keep her waiting, might ring you again." Steven said softly. "Don't worry, this night will so swimmingly. " You smiled at his vocabulary and opened your car door. "Let's get this over with."

Soon enough you were knocking on the front door. Your mind was racing with all sorts of thoughts of what could happen throughout the night. "And when you're speaking to any adult just say yes or no sir or ma'am, you will quickly be called disrespectful. " You rushed out any last warnings to Steven at the door. Surprisingly he was the more calm one for once. "Breathe. I've got it. Besides,im always respectful." Just after he finished the door swung open and you both were greeted by your mother, wearing her good blouse and church shoes. "There's my baby! Come in, both of ya! " Your mother let you in and closed the door behind you. The house was exactly how it was after you moved out. That yellow-orange tint to the lighting and brown cabinets and floors. The scent of homemade food traveled through the whole house.

"Ray! Get in here, your daughter and her lil friend are here!" You'd forgotten what her yelling sounded like after so many years. She knew Steven was your boyfriend but still denys it, especially your father. You watched your father hobble into the living room with his patterned button up shirt and glistening bald head. "Though you had forgot about us, so busy thinking you grown and allat." You smiled and shook your head. You looked over at Steven at seen him picking his nails and examining the old house."Mama, dad. This is Steven." He finally looked at your parents after hearing his name and gave a small smile, sticking out his hand for them to shake. "Happy to finally meet you both,I've heard so many nice things about you." Your mom chuckled and shook his hand "Good things huh? Back then we were such awful parents to her apparently, couldn't wait to get out and live her own grown ass life." You smiled out of embarrassment "Mama I never said that at all." She put a hand on your back "Come, let's get to what y'all really came for, that good food. "

After a while of getting settled and your mom blurtting out your business to everyone, you all finally sat down in the to eat in living room. You had a kitchen and dining room, of course, but your mother would have lost her head if anyone got food in the dining room. Steven had helped your mother pass out the plates as you stayed and talked with your father on the couch.

"So tell us a lil bit about yo self, Steven. What's yo last name?" He felt his face get warm from embarrassment, "Grant, miss." Your mother turned to you with an eyebrow raise, "think you got a cousin with that name, think they up there with the Lord now though." Your eyes widened as she continued to eat as if nothing happened. "So what do you do for work, son? " Your father finally chimed in to speak after almost eating half his plate. You looked at Steven as he looked at you as well. You knew how this was going to end. "I used to work at a gift shop at a museum but I got um, fired.Sir." You saw him look down at his plate and tried to eat to distract himself from your parents reactions. "Don't be letting him use you for yo money, girl. Don't be hangin' 'round no bums." "He is not a bum, mama! How and why would you even say that?" You quickly shut down your mothers disrespectful comments. "Don't be getting smart with me girl! I can still whoop yo ass at yo grown age, don't phase me none." Your father placed a hand on your mothers shoulder, "Not in front of company, Jeanine." "I don't give a damn, Ray. I don't want my daughter with a bum. Ian saying that he is, I'm just lettin' her know to remember that."

You bit the inside of your cheek to hide your anger and you look over at Steven. He had his chin almost to his chest as he picked at his plate of food to distract himself from the argument happening in front of him. You grabbed his hand from under the table, causing him to pick his head up. "Wanna head out?" You whispered to him. He hesitated before he shook his head no,"I can handle it.." You pressed your lips together and squeezed his hand tightly. "Ok mama, I get it. Can we at least try and act presentable?" She shrugged and continued eating her food. "You watch football? Basketball? Anything like that?" Your father knew bringing up sports would annoy your mother, but it was better than the constant arguing. "No sir, I'm uh more of a cricket person myself." Steven gave him a small shy smile. "Ahh" he exclaimed "I just noticed you had that lil accent, where you from son?" "England, sir. I moved here about a year or two ago.Been trying to pick up on the american slang, so many different words."

Steven and your father talked for a few while you and your mother sat in silence. You didn't wanna say anything, the slightest thing said to you by her would be considered disrespectful and get the black slapped off you. She was silent until she suddenly let out a weird comment. "You know them British didn't like us black folks, we was slaves to them back in the day." Your eyes widened as she continued to talk "Had to follow what they said. Yo great grandmother was a slave to those British people until she was finally a free woman and had yo grandma, may her soul rest in peace." She drew the cross across her chest and pointed towards the sky. Your face was so scrunched up you almost couldn't see. Why would she bring that up, especially in front of company? It was like she wanted to embarrass you. Ever since Steven said he got fired your mother has been slick with her comments and disrespectful remarks. And of course, your father fails to do anything. You had to go home.

"You know what, it's actually getting pretty late. Think we should start heading out, he's got that job interview tomorrow." That last part was a lie, but you know your parents believed it. You just wanted to get out of there. "Lemme wrap that food up for y'all then, bring me yo' plates." Your father grabbed the plates and headed into the kitchen. Your mother didn't do anything but continue eating, not looking up once. It was like the memories from your childhood started to flood back to you just standing there. Steven took the 2 plates that your father had placed in a bag and shook his hand "Pleasure meeting you both, sir. Have a wonderful evening." Your father smiled and went to hug you. "Bye baby, sorry about your mother." You gave a fake smile to him and hugged him back before finally walking out the door. You didn't say anything until you finally got into the car and put your hands in your head.

"I'm sorry, love." Steven said quietly, placing the food on the floor of the car. "I should have insisted on meeting your family so much,this would have never happened." You felt your eyes began to sting as you quickly blinked them away. You removed your hands and shook your head, "Just wish she would change.Nothing changed since I left." You grabbed your keys and started the car before finally driving home in silence, thinking about your mother.

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[kingspacebar]

Is there any particular artist, show, game, or movie that inspired ur art style? It’s so pretty ^^

I have so many!!! I definitely can't name every single one but heres a few that have been extremely influential to me!! This took me 2 hours to write i am SO sorry lmao

Puyo Puyo (Specifially Fever, Quest, and Tetris)

CUTESY BRIGHT BRIGHT COLORS!!!!!! Thats everything I love!!!!!! I'm pretty sure I talked about this when I first got into puyo puyo but I for SURE instantly decided that yep Im steering my style in this direction sorryyyyyy!!! I just think its so fun and silly and cute and rahhh it makes me so happy.

Especially for the work I do most often, which is character portraits without backgrounds, I will often look at puyo puyo posing just to get ideas!! (I've drawn Arle's dumbfounded pose 100000000 times becus I love it so much). The puyo puyo anatomy has very noodly arms and legs but with big ass shoes and accessories which is probably my favorite design thing in the world....

I seriously recommend just looking through the Puyo Puyo Nexus wiki for pose ideas (if you want something cute/silly of course) because every single one is just perfect. I am trying to get out of some dumb art habits of my own right now, but hopefully in the future you'll be able to see more goofy poses with sillier effects :3

Muse Dash Again I want you to look at the COLORS. Its so bright and this time you can really tell where I took my shading style from. I dont want my shadows to be dark I want them to be PINK or PURPLE. thank you. For my own art, I really try to make it so the darkest "black" is actually a deep purple or blue, and as I keep making art that dark color keeps getting just a bit lighter haha...

This is also the reason I color my lineart the way I do. I just really want to add as many colors as possible into the image. And if the image looks a bit more pink after that then thats just an extra perk!!

I also need to bring up the animation because they're just so bouncy and alive!!! This is like an instant stunlock for me, I have to look at them, theyre so BOUNCYYY!!!!!! I don't do much animation but every other week I get the sudden urge to try tweening again just to eventually get to the point I can make something similar to these for my own ocs lol

Great Pretender This show has some of the most gorgeous art ive ever seen. All the backgrounds are so bright and colorful. I dont usually draw art with backgrounds anymore sadly, but when I used to I really tried to study these for them. And I hope in the future I can make more art and show how far I've come.

Though I;ve changed to a more chibi style in recent times (thanks puyo puyo), this was still one of the first times I had ever watched a show and said "Oh my god I love this artstyle I need to get better at art" and Its always in my mind for that reason.

Ive definitely stolen lots of elements from the style. Though they've gotten more subtle over the years. I dont really know how to describe it any further but I hope you understand what I mean by looking at these screenshots,,,

[igncrxntripley]

I love your stories so much!!! I was thinking of a idea of malaki black and woman who complete opposites but he sees something in her?

goody two shoes

a/n: MY FIRST AEW IMAGINE YESSSS!!! i'm not sure if this is what you were looking for but i just took an idea and ran with it so i hope you like it! methinks there's going to be a part 2 for this as well...

mentions: SFW, fem!reader, goody two shoes!reader, slight stalker-ish vibes from malakai

taglist: @thesithdiaries @cassiesgreta @roseheartsworld @theworldofotps @babybatlover @ripleyswhore @auburnwrites @obl1vionblackhart @emogoblin-666 @hereliespumpkin @embertargaryen @neptune-lover @bunnysmyname @i-have-issues-lol @ares-athena @thatonepansexual2000 @witcherfromwallachia @infamousvampcx @christinabae 

nothing about you screamed 'spooky'; you were one of the more juvial members of the roster, and everyone in AEW saw you as, for lack of a better term, a real goody two shoes.

for that exact reason, you tended to stay away from people like the members of the house of black. the only real interactions you had with them was matches with julia, and every time you were in their presence they really gave you chills that ran down your spine.

let's be real; four people, three of them very large men, who wore all black and had the spookiest scariest of personas? yeah, wasn't always your cup of tea.

but you began to notice malakai being...around. more often than he normally would be when everyone was backstage. the house members tended to keep to themselves, but noticing malakai on his own and coincidentally in your presence was beginning to feel a little off putting.

you did your best to ignore him though, you went about your regular business, interacting with friends and crew backstage that you always had, and trying not to pay any mind to the man who'd started to make his presence known around you.

the most recent AEW taping, however, is when things changed a bit. you didn't have any matches planned that night and mostly kept to yourself so you could take it easy and enjoy the show. malaki had progressed from just hanging around in the background, to finally approaching you when you went to your locker room.

you barely even heard him sneak in behind you. the closing of the door was what shook you, and you found yourself staring into the eyes of one of the most ruthless, soulless members of the AEW roster.

"i don't know what you think you're doing but you better-"

your words were cut off by a singular finger that malakai had raised to his lips, his way of effectively silencing you. you couldn't explain it, but the once unsettled feeling this man's presence used to create now had you somewhat spellbound. every move he made, had your full attention.

he'll finally speak up, his breath hot on your face and his voice a quiet (and slightly terrifying tone), "i just want you to listen to me, little bird."

you'd never admit it, but malaki calling you that made your stomach twist and turn in the best way possible. with a gentle nod, you let him continue and your eyes focus on his and their two different colored irises.

"i've been watching you for awhile now, and i can't keep myself away from you. someone too pure, too sweet for this industry...yet i can't stop myself from watching your every move."

a finger drifts from your cheekbone down to your jaw and your breath catches in your throat. the fact that malakai wanted anything to do with you...that he was watching you...it made you so uneasy but had you infatuated all at the same time.

malakai's next statement catches you even more off guard; "the house has a spot with your name on it, little dove. let us take you in. show you your true potential."

he can sense your hesitation, your silence enough of an answer for him to understand you weren't sure what to say. malakai leaning in closer gives you goosebumps, but you don't make any effort to back away from him. "i'm going to keep coming back to you for an answer, doll. so i'll give you time to think, but don't think i'll forget about you."

with that, malakai gave you one more knowing look and walked away from you. but his face never once left your thoughts, as well as his proposition, and you had started to think about the possibility of accepting his offer.

[hypersonic04]

Part One:

I haven't written anything in so long, but today I had a sudden burst of inspiration for an enemies-to-lovers series with Ross? If anything, this is for me to simply live my fantasies (lol). word count: 1,467

My shoes are squeaky on the floors, and it's like the fluorescent lighting of the hallway makes me even more conscious of the nails-on-a-chalkboard noise emanating from my footsteps. I cringe to myself and pray that the band aren't recording anything important right now - I don't think the sound of rubber against wood flooring in the background of his song is something Matty would see as valuable to the band's development.

I try to blame my lack of sleep and hydration for the swirling feeling in my stomach, however I reckon it's probably more to do with the fact that today is my first day working with them. Working in music is something I've always wanted, but throwing myself in at the deep end with one of the biggest bands in the industry was not exactly my plan. When someone like Jack offers you the opportunity to write with The 1975, you don't pass it up.

I reach the room that Jamie pointed me in the direction of, a sign stuck on there with blu-tack - 'WRITING IN PROGRESS'. My lungs feel like they can't fill up properly as I attempt to take a deep breath, my hand drifting to the doorknob.

It was almost like I commanded the door to open with my mind. It swings open aggressively before I can even touch it, and I'm met with what I can only describe as a biblically-accurate Jesus.

He's frowning, and I can't help but feel like I'm already in their way. He excuses himself past me with pursed lips and a raised brow, slipping past me and swiftly making his way down the hall I had only been nervously pacing minutes ago. His shoes didn't squeak, though.

"Uh, hi!" I say, perhaps a tad too sprightly for the atmosphere of the room. "I'm Iris, I-"

"Lovely to meet you, Iris. I'm Adam," He stands up and holds his hand out, the first out of the four of them to greet me. It seems like they were having a meeting of sorts, the three remaining men in the room each sat on sofas. Adam almost seems relieved that there had been a change of topic upon my entrance, the tension in the room easing slightly as he shakes my hand. "This is Matty, George..." He gestures between them and they give me a friendly smile each, the kind you might give to a new colleague in an office.

I stand awkwardly in the doorway, and it's at that moment that I begin to question everything. What was I thinking? Why did I possibly think that writing music with a very established, very successful band was a good idea?

"I, uh-" I wrack my brain for what I'd practiced to say next, but the whole situation is nothing like I had expected. I mean, there's only three of them here, for a start.

"Jamie played us a few of the songs you've worked on, you're really talented." Matty states matter-of-factly, still sat with his legs spread wide, an acoustic guitar leaning against the side of the sofa.. "I didn't realise you'd worked with Phoebe."

"Thanks," I smile quickly and subconsciously run my hands over the denim around my hips, immediately stopping when I realise how visible my nerves are. "Yeah, we met through Jack."

"How do you know Jack?" He asks, and it takes me a few moments to recognise that his bluntness is not a reflection of his opinions of me, but rather just his general manner.

"We met at The Brits. I was there on a uni placement, and we just kind of got talking." I nod, as if the gestures affirms my place in the room.

"Do you want a drink or anything, before we start?" George stands up suddenly and it's almost a comfort, a swift diversion from my professional accolades and connections.

"Yes, please," I smile. "Just water will be fine, thank you."

I take a seat on the sofa and grab my notebook, scraps of verses and snippets of bridges scribbled down in virtually unintelligible hand-writing. Looking up as George hands me the bottle of water, I notice the look they exchange between themselves.

"I'm really sorry, I don't mean to be forward, but isn't there supposed to be four of you?" I break the silence, an airy chuckle masking my anxiety.

"Uh, yeah," Adam starts, but is quickly cut off by Matty.

"Yeah, Ross." He looks at me with a face that suggests he's pissed off. "but someone's in a bit of a mood today, so he's not going to be joining us." He sighs.

We start by discussing what their main focus is at the minute, the direction they want their fourth album to go in, their usual creative process. It feels like a priviledge to have such knowledge, my brain simply a sponge for information like this. I think Matty can sense me engagement as he talks, going into detail as I make notes like it's a lecture. The icy atmosphere in the rooms thaws gradually, as do my nerves and apprehension at being in a recording studio alone with three strange men. I admire their respective passions for music, whether it be playing it or producing it, and it's as if there's a sense of respect between the four of us as we discuss our plans for writing.

The conversation flows easily, until it doesn't.

The door swings open, exactly as it did about an hour ago when I was on the other side of it. My breath hitches as he enters the room, my eyes glued to the notes sat in my lap. There's an almost frosty silence creeping in, and I wonder what could have possibly happened between them to cause this.

"Ross, this is Iris." Matty introduces me as offers me an apologetic smile, his eyes creasing at the edges.

I look over to where he's stood, the door closing behind him and suddenly making the room feel a lot smaller. Ross' eyes are dark - really dark. Nearly as dark as the hair he wears pulled back, and the beard that decorates his face. I swallow nervously as I give him a smile, the twisting feeling in my stomach worsening when he doesn't return it. I look away, half because of the anxiety pooling in my chest, and half because I'm convinced that if I'd have stared for any longer, I wouldn't have stopped.

"Nice to meet you." He replies, his back turned to me as he fiddles with the knobs and faders on the dashboard. I hear George inhale sharply, his frustration clear. Adam shifts uncomfortably in his seat, clearing his throat.

"We've just been showing her some of the songs we're working on. Feel free to join us." Matty says sharply. "You know, seeing as it is actually your band, too."

Ross turns around quickly and rather that aiming his stare at Matty, it finds me. I involuntarily raise my eyebrows in surprise, looking to the other boys in search of answers, perhaps. His icy glare lands on me for a few seconds before he appears to give in to something, huffing loudly and making his way to the seat furthest from me. I wonder whether it's intentional as he folds his arms across his chest and looks between the four of us expectantly.

The discussion carries on, and it takes everything in me not to get up and run. His mere presence makes my muscles stiffen, and every time I look up and see him staring at me from across the room, I feel sick.

"So are we all ok to meet again tomorrow? I think it would be better if we use Real World, it's better for recording the strings and stuff." Matty talks as he gathers his notebook and belongings from the coffee table in front of him. We all agree, and before we can make further arrangements, Ross is already leaving the room. I stand there, my hands by my sides, a sense of disappointment overwhelming me.

"It's nothing personal, Iris." George tries to justify, raising from his seat as frowning at me. I nod, also gathering my things and stuffing them into my tote bag. "Honestly."

I don't know what I expected - they've known each other forever. It was naive of me to think that I was going to swan in and connect with them all immediately, writing some gems and leaving with a paycheck and four new friends. Nevertheless, the disheartened feeling that swells in my chest hurts.

"We'll see you tomorrow, yeah?" Matty rests a hand on my shoulder, and the whole sense of familiarity in the exchange makes me feel a tad better about the impression I've made.

"Yeah, I'll be there, 12pm on the dot."

[stayandot8]

The Listener

Genre: angsty-fluff i guess

Relationship type: established boyfriend/girlfriend

Important Contents: reader has a bout of a depressive episode and pushes Chan away, Chan won't take that lying down

a/n: every angst I write turns fluffy again, I don't know why lol. I guess I don't like the idea of either him or the character in my mind that I'm writing about (me?) in pain for very long. I was also inspired by The Trick by AJR when I started this and then it developed into this but I still might use my original idea! Just some background

WC: 2.5k

“I don’t think you should come over tonight.” I never thought I would say those words to him, but they were out before I could stop them. Our phone calls were fewer and far between, Chan’s busy schedule playing more into my unconscious plan than I thought. But this particular phone call was happening more and more often lately. 

“I haven’t seen you in weeks. Just for a few minutes. Please?”

“I’ve got so much going on and I know you do too. Just focus on that, okay?” I hung up before he could see through my lies. If I saw him face to face, I wasn’t sure what I would do. I might not let him leave and that was just as dangerous as the alternative; the opposite. What I didn’t know was that he would come over anyway. 

I was flickering through my TV from my spot on the couch, trying to find something, anything that would take my mind off of him. I was thinking about him more and more often nowadays, which scared me even more. See, here’s the thing. I have always been the type of person who didn’t need to depend on anyone. I made my own life for myself, I’m always the friend that people relied on and the person they went to for anything. When they needed advice, they would come to me. When they wanted to rant about something, I was the sounding board. If they wanted to gush, I was the one they ran to because they knew I would be happy for them, no matter what. I never had that person. I was just bothering them when I would need to return the favor or the subject would turn back to themselves and I found myself slipping into the familiar role of The Listener. 

Now, there’s someone who wants to hear everything I have to say. Every question he asks, he wants the real answer, not the one he wants to hear. And this is new for me. Which is why it’s terrifying and also the reason I've avoided his calls, texts, and apartment for the last couple weeks. 

I hear keys jingling from the hallway outside my apartment door along with heavy footsteps. I make nothing of it until the shuffles stop just outside my door and my door knob jiggles. My head snaps to the door as I sit up, ready to run for my bedroom. Then Chan bursts through my door, his eyes wild until he finds me. His brows raise in a slightly annoyed expression, his once excited posture now dropping.

“‘So much going on’, huh? Yeah, really seems like you’re busy these days.” He drops his bag by his shoes that he’s just taken off and casually strides halfway between me and the bedroom door my shoulders are leaning towards. He leans on the wall, crossing his arms as he sets his jaw and mouth in a tight line. “Care to explain?”

My shock that he had just showed up was quickly replaced by annoyance that he had in fact just showed up. 

“You can’t just walk in here-” He held up a hand before I could finish.

“You gave me that right when you gave me your spare key. Now why did you lie to me?”

I sat back into the couch facing away from him and crossing my own arms, knowing he was right. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything so we just existed in silence for as long as he could stand. 

“Okay, fine.” He left his place on the wall to sit on my coffee table in front of me, trapping me there unless I wanted to physically climb over him to run away from the eyes I knew could get me to do anything. The thought had occurred to me, what route I wanted to take when I eventually did run away from his gaze. My eyes roamed to every possible way I could go until he forced his finger under my chin, forcing me to look at him. The annoyance in his face was still present but his eyes only held concern now. “Why did you lie? Did you really not want me here?” I bit my bottom lip to stop the trembling I knew was coming. I shut my eyes and shook his finger out from underneath my chin. When I opened them again, the concern was replaced by pure sadness. 

“Just go home, Chris.” I stood, my stomach now directly in front of his face. He kept his eyes forward, now leaning his head against me.

“What did I do?” His voice cracked, breaking my resolve that much more. I looked to the ceiling, my lips trembling violently. 

“You didn’t do anything.” My voice was just as quiet as his, breaking in its own way. I finally climbed my legs out from between his and made a break for my room, knowing he’d follow me. I shut my door just in time to see him stop in the hallway, three feet from my door and with that sad look still painting his features. I turned to slide my back down the door and sat, curled up on the floor and trying to keep my sobs from coming out too loud. I felt the door thud, him doing the same as me. I heard his voice through breaks in my cries. 

“Are you trying to break up with me?” I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. 

“No.” I said quietly. I heard him sigh, his frustrations catching up to him.

“I can only ask so many times before I give up. I have my limits too.” I heard him get up after a long few minutes, his footsteps receding down my hallway. I never heard my front door close though, so I assumed he was still there but it was the ‘why’ I couldn’t put together. I crawled to the foot of my bed, not yet strong enough to climb onto it. I grabbed a random sweatshirt from the floor to act as a pillow to cry into. I didn’t know I had fallen asleep until the sound of snoring woke me out of a dazed half slumber. When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a nose, followed by the rest of his face coming into sharper view as my vision focused. I wondered why he was still there, especially on the floor with me. 

As I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth, I couldn’t help but notice the tears I had cried were causing the dryness that I was currently feeling there. My aching limbs were punishing me for trying to use them, rising from my place. I made sure not to wake up the sleeping boy next to me as I walked out to get some water from my kitchen. 

Leaning against the sink gave me the space I needed to think clearly about what had just happened.

 Do you want to break up with him? 

No. Plain and simple.

Then why are you pushing him away?

Because I’m getting too close.

No, that’s not it and you know it.

But I don’t know the actual reason.

Yes you do.

Now tell him before you lose him.

That annoying voice in my head was always right. I imagined it was that voice that stopped me from doing all of the stupid things my brain had wanted to do throughout the course of our entire relationship. I downed two glasses before I got the courage to retrace my steps back to my room. I found Chan sitting on the bed, back against the headboard. He eyed the glass of water I had brought with me for him. My feet padded against my rug to where he was, silently handing him the glass. He took it but didn’t drink. I sat down on the edge, giving myself and him the space to think. 

“Why did you stay?” I fiddled with the string of my hoodie, waiting for his answer. It was a full minute before he spoke. 

“I thought you would need me.” He said simply. “So I slept on the couch but it was so uncomfortable so I checked in here to see if you were asleep. Then I found you on the floor. You looked so sad, I couldn’t leave you like that. You had this deep frown that I couldn’t ignore so I laid down beside you and watched you sleep. I was wondering if I was the one who caused it when I drifted off too.” He took a sip of his water. I did the 180 spin to face him but not meet his eye. I picked a spot on my blanket to stare at. He took several deep breaths. 

“You can’t even look at me, can you?” My blanket was all I could see. It was the only stable thing I could focus on, a constant I could rely on to stay present in the conversation we were supposed to be having. But I wasn’t saying anything. Why am I not saying anything? I tried to move my mouth to speak but my tongue was glued to the roof of my mouth. I couldn’t move. 

“Why are you pushing me away? What did I do?” The pain in his voice caused me to finally meet his gaze, the familiar tears coming back. I could only make out those eyes, begging me to tell him the truth. That closed off space in my heart was begging to be let free, just waiting for someone with the right-shaped key. And that person was sitting right in front of me, imploring me to let him in. To let him see everything, every ugly thing I had ever said or done, every thought I had he wanted to know. The moments I paused, running every possible way that this could go wrong in my brain, gave him the impression that I was closing him out again. His shoulders sagged in defeat, the sad look in his eyes hadn’t left since he crashed through my door. He looked to the floor, unsure of what to say next. He shifted his weight to leave, leave me behind. Suddenly everything went in slow motion. The worst possible situation was happening in front of my eyes, every good thing I had known was grabbing his belongings to desert me like they all did. My breathing came quicker, panic fully setting in. No. Not this one. 

I grabbed his wrist before he got too far, forcing him to stop and turn back to me. 

“Please don’t go.” I whispered. “I don’t know who I am without you.” My voice was so low I could barely hear it myself. I still wonder how he heard what I said but he did. I know he did because he kneeled in front of me.

“Every relationship I have ever had, romantic or platonic, I’ve had to pretend to be people that I thought they would want to love. I wanted to be loved so badly that I would transform into different people to please them. I would like things I don’t, do things I never thought I would do in the worst way just to make people happy. I’ve done that my whole life. Except… when I met you. I found that when you were asking me things, the only answer I could give was the real one. You would ask me what I wanted to do and for the first time, I wasn’t secretly thinking ‘what do I think he wants to do?’ You never made me feel like I had to be someone else. I feel like I’ve never met myself until I started hanging around you. And that terrifies me.”

“But why? Why does that scare you?”

“I thought you would notice that and push me away. So I did it first.”

He sighed, his shoulders drooping as he rested his forehead on my knees. That’s when the shaking started, the vulnerability of this moment starting to take over.

“I’ve always been the one people depend on. I’m not used to having someone like that. I feel like I can’t breathe without you. And I’ve never felt that before. I’ve never needed anyone like I need you. All the time, everywhere.”

“Well, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m the same way. I have seven kids that I have to be strong for. That I have to be stable for. And you keep me stable. I have millions of people who rely on me because I bring them strength and comfort. I don’t know how, but I have to believe what they tell me. I feel like I put too much on your shoulders because I’m in this relationship with you. I know I can only be around so much and my attention has to be split between so many things. But you have been such a breath of refreshment every time. I can relax around you.  I don’t have to be anyone else with you. I don’t have to put on a mask or be a professional or someone else. You make me appreciate the simple things about myself. You remind me that I don’t have to be Bang Chan all the time. With you, I can be Chris.” He stood only enough to be eye level with me, bringing his hands to catch my tears from falling all the way down. “Sometimes I think I’m a little too obsessed with you. I feel like I crowd you too much. I know I can be very clingy but it's just because I can’t possibly be around you enough.”

 I chuckled through the remainder of the tears, simply for something else to do. 

“I never had to depend on anyone before you. I was the one people depended on.” 

“Even the dependable people need someone to lean on. The listeners need someone to listen to them.” The way he whispered it against my forehead sent a shiver down my body. “And now that we’ve established that, can we please sleep on something other than the floor? I know you’re exhausted.” I nodded, looking longingly at my pile of pillows, exhaustion taking over my limbs. I knew this conversation wasn’t over but for now, I just missed him too much. We both moved to our respective sides, his arms opening to invite me in. I let myself be pulled up into his chest, his warmth surrounding me as his chin rested on the top of my head. 

“I missed you.” He sighed, his breath tickling my hair on my neck. I had no more words left so I just did the only thing I knew could express my feelings at that moment. I just hugged him tighter. My last thoughts before I drifted off were the ones that had been going through my head since I met him.

 Please don’t leave me.

[nanaloco]

part 2 of being best friends with jaemin pls ... i cried /pos

More than friends? Pt 2 - Best friends to lovers

Wc: 2.08K

This is a part 2 of the it’s complicated series’ Jaemin part (part one), but this is pretty much stand alone <3

Warnings: none really. Girly pop Jaemin, Kdrama-like-cheesyness, shy Jaemin (at the beginning *lol*), emojis in my writing 😁, although it’s quite short, I’d say it’s slow burn, lots of beating around the bush, one off dick joke, minimal swearing

Genre: bestfriend!Jaemin x Gn!reader, best friends to lovers. Tooth rotting fluff, crack fic kinda (a lot of bickering)

Featuring - 7 dream lol

Tysm anon for requesting 💕

It was an ordinary day meaning an ordinary hang out at Jaemins place with him and his friends who, a this point were your friends too. Jaemin had been quick to his feet to get some meat for a barbecue (after you had said you were craving ribs) along with Jeno, and Jisung who had tagged along for snacks; leaving you with Chenle, Renjun and Mark as Haechan was arriving later.

“ Y/n, I know that we've kinda asked this question before, but we wanna like reaaally discuss it this time” Mark starts with his hands clasped, thumb rubbing over the back of his hand. “Have you ever like, with Jaemin like, have you ever-“ “seen him as more than a friend?” Chenle cuts him off eagerly, Renjun staring at you with anticipation. “Uhmm, what does that mean?”

Truth is, you hadn't actually really thought about it. It's only at times like these when one of these three slyly ask you these types of questions, only then is when you really think back on your relationship with Jaemin. 'Y/n, really think about it okay.’

He's a really reliable person, call him and he's there for you, whenever you need. When you're hungry, or when you've had a bad day at work, or a bad week, just wherever a pick me up hang out sesh is in order. Even when you don't need him, he's there, invading your personal space or in your kitchen cooking food. In other words, you really trust him and he's someone really special and important to you as you want to be the person he can rely on too. A shoulder to lean on. Someone you can always count on.

How he would always offer to pick you up from work or to just be your chaperone in general. The activities he books for you two, How he put his hands over yours while you were making pottery mugs. Not just your booked activities but things you two do together, buy groceries together, head to the market together he'd even go with you to any cosmetic appointments like nails,a hair cut, being your hair done, no matter how long because he loves you (but you still remain oblivious.)

"Hmm well, he might make a good boyfriend..

They're all almost giving you deathglares at this point a really good boyfriend" "aaaaaaaand?"

"And? We're just friends, I know that how he sees it, he's just that nice to everyone, thats jow jaemin is." "YIn, what are we going to eat today?" Renjun deadpans "who shot up out of their seat and threw their shoes on as soon as you said you were craving Barbecue meat" chenle adds "Be so serious Y/n..

Truthfully, the possibility Jamin ever liked you never crossed your mind, you just thought he was kind to everyone, which is why you refrained from seeing him in that way.

"Would you kiss him?" Mark questions while smirking and raising his eyebrows.

Would you kiss Jaemin? You thought to yourself covering your face out of shyness, Thinking back to the times you'd see his teasingly try to kiss jisung and everyone else when teasing, skipping you (out of respect) only wishing you'd be included too. Thinking back to the vlogs he'd take randomly in the day and send to you where half his face takes up the whole camera when you notice your lips drifting towards his as his soft voice ambiently rambles on in the background of your chaotic thoughts innocently going on about what this old lady said to him in on the way to work.

You uncover your eyes only to be met by Haechan right in your face, lips puckering. "EW HAECHAN GROSS" you say whacking his head to the side. "Everyone THIS is a NORMAL REACTION to thinking about kissing your bestest friend in the world, not that minute long evaluation" haechan goes on to explain after conducting his research. “Ok y/n you're not fooling anyone, it's so obvious you like him" Renjun blurts out. "But it's ok, we're here to help, we're not going to tell him anything, we're here to support you Y/n" Chenle adds. "I'm afraid if you don't take our Jamin off of us, no one will" Haechan says faking tears. "yeah man, that dude hasn't even held hands with anyone before-" Renjuns hands is flying to marks mouth at that pin point "we're supposed to be hyping him up" he says massaging his nose bridge out of stress.

Little do you know, Chenle has been recapping your whole conversation, taking notes of your body language in their groupchat Y/n and Jaemin K-1-S-S-I-N-G' with Chenle, Mark (because he begged to be added), Renjun, Hyuk and Jaemin

*what a liar*. So Jamin knows what's going on, and throughout the conversation, the 4 sitting in-front of you had been slyly messaging in the groupchat, and when Jaemin, Jeno and Jisung get home, it's time for phase two of their self curated plan.

Jaemin sits down on the other side of the couch next to you while Jeno stands over the nearest couch to the door, Jisung sits right im between you two to show you the snacks he got meanwhile the original for audibly sigh, slap their foreheads and roll their eyes (this is why Jisung wasn't added to the g) they all get up, Mark signalling to Jeno to go and Chenle grabbing Jisung by his hoodie and dragging him out.

God, what's going on, what have they done your thought to yourself as you're left in the room with a very nervous Jaemin.

Jeno had gone to start the barbecue, Jisungs probably in the basement playing games and who knows where everyone else is.

After an unusably long moment of silence, Jaemin takes a breath and goes "do you want to go out to the patio dining area?" You agree and the two of you are now outside, on your backs opposite each other on his garden chairs, staring at the stars.

The sky is clear, with the faint smell of the barbecue and smoke in the distance, and the crickets chirping. It's a good day today, what a relaxing way to end it. "Hey" he says, "hey" you say turning to look at him who's already looking at you. You guys are never this awkward. What's going on.

"Let's finish this conversation another time" he says swiftly getting up, heat rushing to his cheeks.

You get up following suit "let me see what Jenos doing" he exclaims preparing to run away; but before he can you grab his wrist, spinning him back around. "Why should we continue it later?"

You ask.

"Because." "Because what" "it's too

hard" "what's too hard?" You say in disgust, taking a step back "NOT LIKE THAT GOD Y/N" he screams swinging his hands to his head gripping his hair while crouching down. "I'm joking" you say giggling to yourself. Shooting back up "it's that" he says pointing at your smiling mouth. You just look up at him confused and he does a little 360 spin of frustration. " listen, let's talk another time he says turning back around to go to Jeno, which you only grab his wrist and spin him back round. "Don't want to" you tease as he covers his face.

“You're too much for me, I don't know how much longer I can do this" he sighs "DO WHAT!?" « CAN'T SAY!" "WHY NOT" "BECAUSE | SAID SO!???"

"Na jaemin you drive me crazy"

" DRIVE YOU CRAZY!?" he laughs pointing to himself and you as he says each pronoun, wiping his forehead and turning around, laughing at what you just said.

*You can't even imagine what I'm going through" he says as he runs his hands through his hair

"THEN JUST TELL ME!!???" "NEVER" you push him onto the couch and get on top of him, holding him by his collars "Na Jaemin I swear to god" *if you don't tell me right now I'm going to lose my mind" you say holding up your fist at him who's shielding his face.

—-

Meanwhile

"OH MY GOD THEY'RE GOING TO KILL HIM I CAN'T WATCH" Haechan exclaims covering his eyes yet peeking through the gaps *SHUSH THEY'RE GONNA HEAR YOU" Renjun whisper shouts. I can't believe he only lived until 22" he says wiping his fake tears *if I knew this was how it would turn out I wouldn't have said the things I said" Mark cries, with genuine tears "dude are you seriously crying?" "SHUT UP LOOK LOOK LOOK"

—-

". fine.. I'll tell you..... if you get off of me"

You agree, releasing him, standing with your arms crossed "shoot'

"So I-* he runs away before he finishes, instinctively you run after him, tackling him to the ground when you catch up to him.

Both breathing frantically, hearts beating fast as you land on top of him, hovering over him, just staring into each others eyes.

"What is it" you whisper, curiosity eating you alive

"Fine, l'lI tell you" he whispers matching your tone, looking down at your lips and then back to your eyes.

“Y/n" he pauses, looking back at your lips then to your eyes, “I think, I like you" he says in his low whisper voice, his voice sounding like honey dripping down your ears.

Everything about this is perfect wow. Your heart has been beating abnormally fast for too long to blame it on the running you did moments before.

You two just stare at each other for a while, your elbows now reaching the floor, your hands delicately above his head grazing his silk strands, his hands on either side of his head.

"Am I being rejected?" He smiles responding to your silence.

"no.”

"do you like me as much as I like you?" "maybe."

"Can I kiss you?"

"Yes"

His hand delicately holds your jaw, your eyes fluttering closed as he brings his head up off the ground to join your lips together, in a short, sweet kiss. He draws back slowly opining his eyes, and you follow suit. His lips form into a wide grin, and you pinch his cheeks,he just stares back at you, with joy filled eyes.

"So can you get off of me now?" "Hm?" "I said can you get off of me now?”

He repeats again in a teasing way, tickling your sides, you roll over squealing to lay on your back next to him, staring up at the sky, heart swelling with happiness. I can't believe he likes me.

Your sweet moment is soon interrupted by Jamins balcony door opening to see Renjun, Chenle, Haechan and Mark come out cheering 📣📣

"JAEMIN YOU'RE SO COOL!!!!" You hide your face in the crook of Jamins neck. *Jaemin what are we Haechan screams cooing, imitating your voice to which you put your fist up and he hides behind Renjun. "Man I wish Jeno was here to see this" mark sighs " who said I wasn't he comes out of the barbecue section on the side of the house with his phone on record mode. Only making the situation ten times worse.

"Jisungs too stupid to understand this, leave him out of this" Chenle grimaces. "RIGHT, EVERYONE ASSEMBLE ON THE PATIO FOR A CELEBRATORY BARBECUE" Haechan shouts from the balcony while Chenle messages Jisung that there's food.

You're now all seated at the outside seating area, enjoying the barbecue that you so rightfully suggested, noticing Jamins eyes constantly on you, which you chose to ignore. But every time your eyes meet, you just feel more and more queasy, lovesick and you need a break. His smile only grows more and more from ever dirty look and action you make trying to get him to stop looking.

You're now all seated at the outside seating area, enjoying the barbecue that you so rightfully suggested, noticing Jamins eyes constantly on you, which you chose to ignore. But every time your eyes meet, you just feel more and more queasy, lovesick and you need a break. His smile only grows more and more from ever dirty look and action you make trying to get him to stop looking.

"So can I be your boyfriend?" Jaemin blurts out across the table, Jisung in shock.

"OOOUUU JAEMINNN" everyone but Jisung coos

"Yeah,I guess" you say looking down at your lap, Haechan beginning a group applause.

"Damn, she stole my bitch" Jisung sighs

"Jisung you're actually so cringe" Renjun sighs

"Never say that ever again" Chenle adds.

——-

Thank you so much for reading!!! This is my first full length fic and I have to admit I got a bit carried away, but I hope you enjoyed

As always, love you guys 💕

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 100 FOLLOWERS LOVE YOU ALL MWAH 💕

Let me know if you want to be added to my tag list as I want to make one at some point.

Planning on making a direction page but idk if I should make it now or later ;/

[thevaultwriter]

Intro and Background

So, as you can tell this will be the introduction to the story. It is a x Reader story with Bakugou.

Y/n will be gender-neutral. So you can use whatever pronouns you wish.

Y/n is relate to the Todoroki siblings. You and Shoto are twins.

There will be two quirks. Kind of like Shoto but not really. You have the same ice and fire power but, you also have the other two elements. Don't ask how that's possible lol. I just want it to be.

Y/n is going to be 16 in this. They are very stubborn and has anger issues. They are also a very independent person. They don't like being told what to do.

Background

You're life has been nothing but difficult. First you're older brother touya left and then, a couple years later your dad kicked you out of the house with no warning. He didn't even have a good reason you were just no use to him especially since he had you're twin Shoto. You never hated Shoto. Though some people would if they were in your shoes. So after your dad kicked you out, you ended up living on the streets for a couple months. That's when Shigaraki found you. You were only 7 at the time mind you. So your brain was very gullible. Tomura offered you a place and an opportunity you couldn't refuse. You've been there ever since. You made good friends with Toga and Twice. After your 14th birthday Dabi told you the truth about his identity he couldn't hide it from you anymore. Believe it or not he grew a liking to you after you started living at the base. And that brings us to now. You're now 16 and you had a hatred for the world and people that called themselves heroes.

So that is it for the intro and background. Hopefully this somewhat makes sense of my vision for this story. First chapter should be out in a couple days or so.

[glo0b]

Twisted wonderland Ocs follow up

Hellllo Besties! I'm here to share my TWST Ocs \(≧▽≦)/

Ge ready for a long bit of reading friends!

Background info to know so you don't get confused about Alken: Alken is a god from TWST. He was banished to Yuu's world by the other gods after getting in a fight with his brother and killing him. Alken ruled over Yuu's world for hundreds upon thousands of years (He was a very bad god) until he fell in love with a human that so happens to be Yuu's ancestor. Unfortunately for Alken Yuu's ancestor despised him and wanted to end him no matter what. Yuu's ancestor was able to kill Alken's living form and send it back to Twisted wonderland so Alken wouldn't be able to heal it. Alken was trapped as a spirit watching his love and killer live on with a happy family.

Basic Oc stuff:

Yuu Klein-

Birthday: June 25 Hair: curly black Eyes: light blue eyes Skin: Pale with moles scattered over body, heart mark on back of neck, she has a cattle hot branding on her back Height: 5’5

Body: slightly chubby Age: 16 Likes: Jazz music, camping, cheesy and spicy food, gymnastics, practical jokes, frogs, Puns, gymnastics Dislikes: puppets (Creepy and they remind her of herself) guns, shoes (mhhh toes out)

Family: Father (Simeon), Mother (Mary), Little brother (Donnie), baby sister, Adoptive father (Crowley)  

sexuality: Pansexual

love intrests?: Yes, many (Sebek, Silver, Rook, Neige, Grum, Rollo. They're all my husbandos lol)

Unique magic: Alter ego- Can let Alken control her body for a short time period Info: Yuu is a cherry girl whom acts like a mother figure. She raised her brother in a cottage with some help from Alken. Yuu sometimes has night terrors about the night she met Alken. Alken can also enter Yuu’s body almost whenever he pleases. Likes to speak her native tongue German. Yuu's personality: She's more mother-like, she's not the smartest since she didn't go to school. she's quite thick headed when it comes to romantic relationships and can barely pick up on flirting, really sweet to everyone but if you make her mad (Which is hard) prepare for hell

Donatello Klein-

Nickname: Donnie

Birthday: February 1 Hair: curly brown hair that covers his eye Eyes: he only has one eye but his real eye and prosthetic eye are both light green Skin: pale and clear, small heart mark on ankle, he has a cattle hot branding on her back Height: 5’4 Body: lanky, no muscle and barely any fat Age: 13 Likes: STEM, archeology, history, sugary foods, psychology, gaming Turtles  Dislikes: sports, people trying to get with his sister, school events with families (Reminds him he doesn’t really have a “Family”), talking about H.M.B.R, clowns or jesters 

Sexuality: Aromantic

Unique magic: Clowning around- makes any trick or prank he can think of but it takes up a lot of energy to do so Info: Donatello is Yuu’s younger brother. He’s quite a bright young man, which allowed him to skip grades. While Yuu was gone in TWST he saw how Alken truly acted so he ran away and a twisted science organization found him. They trained him and taught him all about the human body. At the science organization (H.M.B.R: human mind and body research) they did lots of unethical and messed up experiments to research the human body and mind, Doney will not speak of his time there and what he did. Doney's personality: he's usually quite cold to people (Except for Yuu), he's incredibly smart, quite sarcastic, is sweet when he REALLY gets to know people, smoll bean

Alken- 

Hair: long and messy bright red

Eyes: black voids 

Skin: pure white, red nose, what looks like clown makeup

Height: usually 6’9

Body: usually lanky

Age: ??? (Waaay older then Lilia)

Likes: Jokes, magic tricks, playing cards, YUU, pranks

Dislikes: people finding out about his tricks, people tricking him, Info: S̶̙͈̳̜̭̰̫͚̝̗̙̻̩̘̑̊́̕͠T̶̢̢̛͚͙̜̮̙͓̖͓̬̰̍͌̓̇̃͜͠ͅͅͅƠ̴̜̝̙͎̭̗̖̦͚̗̹͎̻̈̋͑̒̓̆̊͒̐͊̈́P̵̢̡̞̗̗̟̲̣̣̔̌̾̋̂̑̅̀̒̅̏̒͌̃̚͘͠ ̶̨̹̥͓̘̰̞̱͇͎͗̈́̑͒͝L̶͇̤̯̬͓̉͌̔̒͑͋́̌̉̇̓̉͝Ơ̸͚̦͙̫͖̤͉̥͈̑̃̋̅Ǫ̴̛̳̙̪̲̗͖͍͆͂́́̐̒̈́̃͂̽̅͛͛͛̃͘K̷̢̧̤͚̘̗̞̲̪̔̓̅̀̌̇Ḭ̸̡̹̻̹͖͙̜̘̙̦̝̈́͗̔̅̾̀̎̽̅͘̚͝N̶̨̨̡͚̝̮̠̘̭͔̹̲̹̗̎̌͑̍̑̈́͑̊̑͜G̸̢̨̢̬̬͍̬̝̻͎̚͜ (He's the god of chaos and destruction)

Alken's personality: Tries to be a father figure to Yuu and Doney at times, pranks everywhere and to everybody, fucked up and twisted, basically Floyd and bill cipher from gravity falls

Kasche (said like Katchie)- 

Hair: White, long, and silky hair 

Eyes: night blue

Skin: pale skin with no scares 

Height: 5’3 

Body: he has a fair bit of muscle on his body

Age: ???

Likes: Astronomy, fluffy pillows to nap on, tormenting the souls of mortals that have insulted him

Dislikes: mortals insulting him, sweet foods, the monsters his father makes, people calling him short

Info: Kasche is the god of death, he is the son of Alken and a goddess who is not known yet. His current lore is that he believes Yuu is the Goddess of life and fertility he also believes that the goddess of life and the god of death should be together

(Note to self: You need to put more info for him, like seriously)

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(Of course Yuu got to Twisted wonderland like the perfect but just slightly different so I explain how both Donnie and Yuu got there)

How Yuu got to Twisted wonderland: Yuu was out picking berries for a pie when she tripped on a rock and was sent flying off a cliff. Yuu passed out which let Alken take hold of her body. Using Yuu's body Alken opens a portal to Twisted wonderland (His original domain) to find his damaged body but Yuu is able to exile Alken from her body. Yuu being very weak from Alken taking over her body passes out on the side of the road where the black carriage picks her up and takes her to NRC.

How Donnie got to TWST:  (When Alken used Yuu's body to enter TWST he was unable to close it since Yuu exiled him from her body before he could so that's how Donnie enters TWST) There’s a big explosion outside the school. Crowley goes to investigate and finds a young boy around 14 years old with brown hair. Crowley takes the boy to the infirmary. Crowley tells the dorm leaders (and Yuu) about the boy. They all go to the infirmary (Yuu drags Grim, Ace, and Deuce) the young boy is awake but you can’t really see his face because of bandages. Once he sees Adeuce he starts to freak out. The young boy tries to attack Adeuce but is held back by one of the dorm leaders. Yuu realizes that the boy has the same heart scare that is on his ankle as hers and takes off the bandages to see Donnie’s face all scratched up. Yuu tears up and gently hugs Donnie. All the guys are confused till Yuu explains that Donnie is her brother.

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Back story: Yuu and Donnie did come from a loving family. Their father would take them camping all the time (which led Yuu to have a pretty good survival instinct) and their mother would always make cookies for them, you know normal family stuff. It seemed like a perfectly amazing family but one day the father found out Donnie actually wasn't his kid and that Yuu's mother had cheated on him with another man which got her pregnant with Donnie. Yuu's father got drunk and killed her mother in a drunken rage. Yuu's father realized what he did and quickly hid the body (Yuu saw it all). The day after, Yuu's father takes Donnie and her out for a "Fun family camping trip like usual". It seemed normal till at midnight Yuu's father rolled a tarp out and placed a sleeping 6 year old Donnie onto it. Yuu's father grabs his gun and hands it to Yuu whom he had woken up once he placed everything together. Yuu's father tells her to shoot Donne but she refuses with a terrified look on her face. Yuu's father tries to angrily grab the gun from Yuu but she keeps tugging it away, after a bit of tugging Yuu accidentally pulls the trigger shooting her father in the head and killing him. Yuu, terrified of what she did (She's 8 at the time) grabs supplies and places a blanket over her father's head. Yuu wakes up Donnie and pulls him along into the forest without showing him their Father. (While running Donnie scrapes his knee) After a long while of running the two siblings come upon a cleared out area of the forest that has rocks lined up in a circular in some sort of ritual-like way. A tall man dressed as a jester approaches the two, he offers some food which the two hungerly scarf down as the man magically heals Donnie's scrape. The man offers a place to stay at “his” cabin, Yuu accepts and the man takes the two to his cabin. In the cabin the two siblings see pictures of clowns performing in the circus. The jester-like man offers for the two to stay longer if they're willing to help him. The two agree and shake the man's hand, the two feel a painful burning sensation on their bodies. A small red heart appears on the back of Yuu's neck while a red heart forms on Donnie's ankle. The man then introduces himself as Alken, the god of chaos and mischief. Yuu raises Donnie in the cabin but Alken sometimes helps too. When aloud, Alken can sometimes possess the two's bodies like puppets. After a long time Yuu is now 16 and she goes out to pick berries for a pie. She trips over some rocks and tumbles down a steep hill and passes out, once she wakes up she is now in TWST.

Other lore of the back story: Yuu used to live in a village that would kill people that were found to be "Witches" (Think of the witch trials in America during the 1800's). When Yuu was five some of the community accused her family of being witches since they used herbs to heal and believed in many gods the just one like the towns folk. They chased Yuu's family out of the village and into the forest. Yuu's mother had just given birth to a little girl who was terrible deformed which caused her a lot of breathing problems and since Yuu's mother had just given birth she was extremely weak and couldn't run far. The towns folk were able to catch up. Yuu's pleaded with the villagers that had chased his family to let them go. The villagers however did not listen to his please but instead said they'd leave them alone if Yuu's father gave the new born baby (They called the baby a monster since they thought she was a hell spawn) to them and never returned. Yuu's father did as the villagers demanded and gave them the baby. Yuu's family left to leave in a cottage in the woods after that. a few years later when Yuu was seven she and Donnie snuck back into the village to go to a fair. even though they both wore masks and disguises they were found out and given the "Witches mark" which was a hot brand that marked them as witches. The village would give "Witches" the witches mark to show someone was accused of being a witch. The villagers would give "found witches" a "Second chance to be purified in the eyes of god and ridden of the devil's trickery" but even if that rare chance they would still be treated worse then slaves or servants.

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Nicknames Donnie calls people-

Rollo- Virgin Pope man

Silver- bed head

Sebek- Ear burster

Lilia- Peepaw

Malleus- Dragon boy

Idia- Emo Fire

Ortho- Lil home boy 

Riddle- Red hulk

Trey- Baker boy

Deuce- Egg head

Ace- brain dead Ed Sheeran

Cater- Instaboy

Azul- octopussy

Jade- thing two 

Floyd- thing one

Epel- Gigachad 

Rook- French stalker 

Vil- #1 Queeny 

Jack- Happy Doggo

Leona- cat nap

Ruggie- Broke Homie

Jamil-  Snakeman 

Kalim- Sunnyboy

Chenya- Smiley

Neige- Princey

The seven dwarfs- lil men

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Yuu's messy family tree:

(Lillian and Yuzu are my friend Oc's)

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That's it for now friends! I hope you like reading this although I think I might have forgotten a thing or two but oh well. Bye-Bye now! (人◕ω◕)

@onefeather-endlessocean  I love you Homie! (ﾉ≧∇≦)ﾉ ﾐ ┻━┻

[birchwoodbark]

@shmorp-mcdurgen

ive scrapped the forgiven au idea but i wrote a little thing for fun lol

probably out of character but.

TW: body horror, character death, blood, implied suicide. ask to tag if you need to.

(still dunno how to do the 'read more' thing 💔)

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"CESAR, YOU BASTARD! I KNOW YOU'RE NOT THAT THING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MY DOOR. YOU FUCKING TRICKED ME!" Mark yelled into his phone, "I DON'T KNOW HOW MUCH LONGER I CAN FUCKING TAKE THIS. YOU'RE THE REASON I'M GOING TO DIE. YOU AND ALL THE POLICE. I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY."

He ended the voicemail, throwing his phone across his room.

[...]

Cesar almost immediately played the voicemail, the volume startling him. Disturbing laughter was in the background, sounding almost just like him.

He suddenly found himself running to Mark's house as fast as he could. His breathing was rather heavy by the time he arrived. His suit was ruined, it wasn't meant to be run in. That didn't matter. He knew an alternate was in Mark's house but he had to do something. He needed to help Mark. His best friend would do the same for him. He tried to open the door only to find it barricaded. He saw a broken window but he knew the glass would slice his hands up. That didn't matter. He went through it anyway.

He looked around briefly before bolting up the stairs. He skidded to a stop as he realized he was too late. Blood was everywhere. He didn't need to see Mark to know he was dead.

He fell to his knees and began crying, hugging himself. The voicemail echoed through his mind.

Mark would never know he tried to help.

The alternate was still there but he was too distraught to acknowledge its existence.

Suddenly, the alternate shoved past him, running off. He looked up to see what drove it to fleeing. The sight made his blood far colder than ice.

Mark was staring down the hallway. He was scared, the right side of his face cracking like glass. The bloody shards fell onto the floor.

His eye… his… his teeth…

"M–Mark…?" Cesar squeaked.

A sudden, brief cacophony of screams frightened the two of them. Mark was evidently scared and angry.

"I'm—I'm sorry, Mark. I heard your voicemail and I–I ran… I thought I could help y–you or s–somehow save you o–or something… I'm sorry, I was too late… I'm so sorry, Mark…"

Mark looked at Cesar's bleeding hands, his ruined suit, dirtied dress shoes… Cesar valued those things greatly.

How would he play the piano if his hands healed poorly?

His suit and shoes were expensive. He only had the one, he couldn't afford another.

He was wearing his favorite dress shoes.

He sacrificed his favorite things trying to help him.

Mark stiffly walked to Cesar and hugged him. Cesar was scared for a moment before understanding that Mark had forgiven him.

"...Thank you, Mark…"