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pin-k-ink · 7 months ago

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the sequel // suna rintarou

tw ⇢ childhood friends to lovers, so much angst, hurt/comfort, alcohol consumption, yearning, happy ending

wc ⇢ 5k

a/n: i never cried so much while writing something

Suna felt like he was watching a movie. A sad, tragic fucking movie that he couldn't tear his eyes away from no matter how much it hurt to keep looking.

Frame by frame, moment by excruciating moment, he watched you - his best friend, the love of his life - fall in and out of love with someone else. Again.

If his life really was a movie...what role would he play? The sidekick? The comic relief? No, he decided with a bitter twist of his lips. He wasn't even important enough for that. He was just an extra. A background character that no one noticed or cared about.

Someone who faded into the scenery while the bright, beautiful protagonist - that was you, always you - took center stage and shone.

Suna had known you his entire life. His earliest memories all featured you, front and center, with him orbiting around you like a satellite, like a moth drawn to a flame.

You'd taken your first wobbling steps together, hands clasped and eyes wide with wonder. Babbled your first words to each other in a language only you two could understand. Gotten into mischief and skinned your knees and learned about the world side by side.

For as long as he could remember, you'd been his constant, his touchstone. His north star. The axis his whole world turned on. Life without you was unfathomable. Unthinkable.

But somehow, as the years scrolled by like frames on a reel...Suna started to feel like he was watching from a distance. Like there was an invisible wall between you, thin as glass but strong as steel, that he could never quite break through.

No matter how close you were, how many secrets you traded and inside jokes you laughed over and half-spoken conversations you could hold with just a glance...you always felt just a little bit out of reach. Like a mirage that would dissolve into mist if he tried to touch. Something too good to be true, too precious for the likes of him to grasp.

And how could he even think of reaching out, of trying to hold onto you the way he desperately wanted to? How could a mere background character ever hope to stand alongside the radiant lead, the brightest spot in every scene?

No, Suna was content to stay in the shadows. To watch and support and be there in whatever way you needed him, even as it killed him by inches. As long as he could keep you in his life, as long as he got to stay by your side...that would be enough. It had to be.

But god, it was getting harder. Harder to paste on a carefree smile and listen to you gush about your latest boyfriend. Harder to swallow the jealousy and longing clogging his throat when he watched you with stars in your eyes, so incandescently happy in someone else's arms.

Harder to bite his tongue against the confessions that always wanted to spill out, to choke back the pleas and promises and declarations his treacherous heart whispered in the dark.

"I love you," he wanted to say, every minute of every day. "I've always loved you. You're my forever, my reason, my home. Pick me. Choose me. See me. I swear I'll spend my life making you happy, if you'll just let me try."

But he never said it. Never took that leap of faith, too terrified of shattering the fragile status quo. Too scared of losing you entirely.

So he stayed quiet, stayed still, even as he felt like he was cracking apart inside. He watched you fall in love again and again, watched each bright-eyed boy promise you forever. Watched your smile dim and your shoulders droop when they inevitably let you down, broke your big, beating heart so carelessly.

It was a particular kind of agony, holding you while you cried over someone else. Seeing the light go out of your eyes, powerless to do anything but wipe away your tears and murmur empty platitudes. Every hitched sob was a barb in his skin, every sniffle a dagger to his ribs.

He wanted to shake you sometimes, wanted to scream "Why can't you see what's right in front of you? Why can't you see how much I love you? How I would never, ever hurt you the way they do?"

But he never did. Just folded you close and stroked your hair and let you dampen his shirt with your grief. Let you give him tiny glimpses of the mosaic of cracks in your chest before you pasted on a wobbly smile and soldiered on, determined not to let the world see you bleed.

Those cracks scared him. Scared him in a bone-deep way few things ever had. Because he lived in dread of the day they splintered apart entirely. The day your seemingly endless capacity for love and joy and trust finally ran dry, bled out by a thousand careless cuts.

He couldn't bear the thought of your light going out forever. Of those glorious eyes going flat and dull, that incandescent smile withering on the vine. You were the sun and he was just a planet in your orbit - he genuinely didn't know if he could survive without your warmth. Without you, everything would wither.

So he would endure. He would be your rock, your safe harbor, your shelter from every storm. Even if it killed him, even if he shattered to pieces in the process, he would hold you together.

Because a world without your laughter, without your brilliant, untamable spirit...that was no world at all. And maybe his love could be enough to keep you shining. Maybe if he believed hard enough, if he poured enough of his own flickering light into you...you would be okay.

And just maybe, someday...you would turn that supernova smile on him. Maybe you would finally, finally see him. Not as a background character, not as a sidekick...but as a man who loved you with every fiber of his being.

As someone who had been there all along, just waiting for you to look a little closer. To see the shape of his devotion, the staggering depth of his feelings written in every line of his face, his heart in his eyes and your name carved into his bones.

But until that impossible day, he would watch. He would wait. He would bide his time until the credits rolled and the movie ended...and just pray that there would be a sequel. One where he finally got to step out of the background and into the spotlight of your eyes.

Where you were his co-star, his partner, his love. Where you wrote a new story together, one frame at a time, and the only tears were happy ones.

It was a beautiful dream, fragile and gossamer and so painfully far out of reach. But it was all he had, so he clung to it in the hidden depths of his heart and kept watching the scenes play out.

Kept hoping that someday, if he was patient enough, if he loved you hard enough...the dream would become reality.

And you would finally, finally be his.

As the years scrolled by, Suna watched you grow and change, always from a step behind. He watched you navigate the perilous waters of adolescence, cheering you on as you blossomed into a beautiful, vibrant young woman. Watched you stumble and pick yourself back up, watched you learn and evolve and become more yourself with every passing day.

He was there for all of it, every milestone and heartbreak, every triumph and disappointment. When you got your first period and cried from embarrassment, he was the one who biked to the store for pads and chocolate, the one who held you and reassured you that it was all normal and okay.

When you got your heart broken for the first time at sixteen, he was the one who showed up at your window with ice cream and terrible movies, the one who let you sob into his chest and rail against the unfairness of it all.

When you got accepted into your dream college, he was the first person you called, screaming with joy down the line. He'd shut his eyes against the sting of tears, against the yawning ache in his chest at the thought of you leaving him behind...and told you how proud he was, how happy he was for you.

Always, always, he was your person. Your touchstone, your safe place. The one who knew you inside and out, backward and forward and every way in between. He was there in all the big moments...and all the little ones in between that made up a life.

Like the lazy summer afternoons spent lounging in the park, shoulders brushing as you read your respective books, content to just exist in the same space. The midnight walks under a canopy of stars, hands casually entwined, no words needed in the warm, honeyed dark.

The cups of coffee he'd bring you on drowsy mornings, made just the way you liked. The way you'd curl into his side during scary movies, face hidden trustingly in the curve of his neck, his arm a protective shield around you.

All those insignificant, in-between moments...they were everything to Suna. He hoarded them like a miser, turned them over and over in his mind like precious gems on nights when the ache in his chest got too big to breathe around.

Each one was a flicker of light, a tiny ember of hope that maybe, someday...you would see. You would understand just how much he loved you, how much he had always loved you. You would realize that he was right there, that he had been there all along, just waiting for you to really look at him.

But you never did. Your eyes always seemed to skim right over him, to look through him like he was made of glass, transparent and inconsequential. He was furniture to you, he sometimes thought despairingly. Part of the scenery of your life, always there but never really seen.

Never the one you wanted, the one you yearned for. He was the one you settled for, the one you came back to when the newest bright-eyed boy let you down. The one you cried on, the one you leaned on...but never the one you loved. At least, not the way he wanted you to.

God, how he wished you would love him. It was a physical ache, a bone-deep longing that never went away no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. He felt hollowed out with it, scraped raw and empty.

Late at night, he let himself imagine it. Let himself paint a picture of a world where you wanted him back, where you looked at him with even a fraction of the desperate, clawing need he felt for you.

In his weakest moments, he let himself believe it could be real. That someday, you would wake up and realize that he was everything you'd ever wanted, that he could make you happy in a way no one else ever could.

That you would take his face in your hands, eyes wide and wondering like you were seeing him for the first time. That you would breathe his name like a prayer, like a revelation, and kiss him with a tenderness that set his soul alight.

That you would tell him you loved him, that you were sorry for taking so long to understand, but you wanted to make up for lost time. That you wanted to be his, wholly and completely, for the rest of your lives.

It was a beautiful dream, fragile and perfect as a soap bubble. But like a bubble, it always burst, leaving him blinking away stinging tears and feeling like a fool.

Because this wasn't a movie, no matter how much it felt like one sometimes. There was no guarantee of a happy ending, no artful resolution scripted in the stars.

In the real world, the guy pining in the background didn't always get the girl. Sometimes he just stayed in the background forever, watching her life happen without him, until the credits rolled and the lights came up on his lonely little corner of the world.

But oh, how he wanted to believe. He would never be the leading man, he knew that. He was too quiet, too steady, too content to let you shine while he basked in your reflected glow. You needed someone as brilliant and dazzling as you, someone who could match you spark for spark and set the world on fire.

Someone braver than him. Someone who would risk it all for a chance at your heart, instead of staying safe and silent on the sidelines.

He wasn't that guy. He never would be. But a tiny, desperate part of him still held out hope that maybe, someday...he could be enough for you, just as he was. That even if he wasn't the star of the show, he could still be an integral part of your story.

The one who was always there to catch you when you stumbled, to hold you up when you couldn't stand on your own. The one who knew your secrets and your scars, your hopes and your fears. The one who loved every messy, imperfect, beautiful inch of you, unconditionally and irrevocably.

Maybe he could be your co-star, your partner in crime and love and life. Maybe you could write a new story together, one where the quiet, steadfast best friend got his chance to step into the light and be seen, really seen, by the only eyes that had ever mattered.

It was a slim hope, gossamer-thin and liable to tear at the slightest touch. But it was all Suna had, so he held it close and carried it with him, a tiny flicker of light in the dark.

And he kept watching, kept waiting. Kept loving you with everything he had, even as it wore him down to the bone. He would play his role in your movie, would be whatever you needed him to be...until the day came when he could finally step out from the background and into your arms.

Until the day when "I love you" wasn't just a secret whispered in the dark, but a vow made in the light of your smile, your hands in his and your heart beating against his chest.

Until the day when the movie of his life finally got its happy ending...and you were right there beside him, radiant and real, as the screen faded to black and the credits rolled on a love story for the ages.

He just had to hold on until then. Just had to keep believing, keep loving, keep watching.

Because in the end, he knew it would all be worth it. You would always be worth it.

Even if it took a lifetime, even if it killed him...he would wait for you.

Always.

As the years went by and you both grew older, Suna watched you evolve and change in a thousand tiny ways. He watched you graduate college, watched you land your dream job and move into your first adult apartment. Watched you navigate the ups and downs of adult life with the same resilient grace he'd always admired, always loved.

Through it all, he was there. Your constant, your touchstone. The one you called when you got a promotion, voice bubbling with excitement. The one you leaned on when your grandma died, eyes swollen and voice thick with grief.

He was the one who helped you move, lugging boxes up endless flights of stairs and quietly assembling IKEA furniture while you flitted around like a hummingbird, arranging and rearranging. The one who showed up at your door with soup and medicine when you got the flu, who sat with you and watched terrible reality TV until you fell asleep on his shoulder.

He was woven into every part of your life, as essential and invisible as air. Always there, always just a phone call or a text away. Your best friend, your rock, your safe harbor in every storm.

But still, even as you grew closer than ever...there was a distance there. A wall that Suna could never quite breach, no matter how hard he tried. Because no matter how much of your life you shared with him, no matter how many secrets you whispered into the dark...there was always a part of you that held back.

A part that you kept locked away, hidden behind bright smiles and breezy deflections. The part that held your heart, your deepest hopes and dreams and fears. The part that Suna longed to know, to understand...but that you never quite let him see.

It hurt, that distance. It ate at him like acid, slow and corrosive. Because he wanted all of you, every messy, complicated, beautiful part. He wanted to crack you open and crawl inside, to burrow into the hidden depths of your soul and make a home there.

He wanted to be the one you turned to with your whole heart, the one you trusted with your most vulnerable self. He wanted to be your person in every sense of the word, not just the one you leaned on but the one you loved, the one you chose.

But you never did. No matter how much he longed for it, no matter how many nights he spent staring at the ceiling and wishing...you never saw him as anything more than a friend. A best friend, sure, but still just...a friend.

And god, it was getting harder to bear. Harder to swallow back the words that always wanted to spill out, the confessions and pleas and promises. Harder to bite his tongue and smile when you gushed about your latest boyfriend, to offer a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on when they inevitably let you down.

He felt like he was drowning, sometimes. Like he was being slowly crushed under the weight of all the unspoken things, all the pent-up love and longing and desperation. He felt like he was fading away, bit by bit, worn thin by the constant effort of holding himself together, of keeping his heart locked away behind a friendly smile and an easy laugh.

He wasn't sure how much longer he could do it. Wasn't sure how much more he could take before he shattered completely, before he just...broke.

But what choice did he have? He couldn't lose you. Couldn't bear the thought of a life without you in it, even if being near you was slowly killing him. You were oxygen to him, necessary and vital. Cutting you out would be like cutting out his own heart.

So he endured. He swallowed the hurt and the jealousy and the desperate, clawing need, and he was there. Always, always there, waiting in the wings. Waiting for you to see him, to really see him.

Waiting for his chance to step out of the background and into the light of your love.

It was getting harder to hold onto hope, some days. Harder to believe that there would ever be a right time, a perfect moment. That he would ever find the courage to lay his heart at your feet and beg you to take it, to cherish it the way he'd always cherished you.

But he had to believe. It was all he had, this fragile flicker of faith. The tiniest spark of possibility, glowing in the dark.

So he fanned it carefully, tended it like the precious thing it was. He held it close on the nights when the loneliness got too much to bear, when the ache in his chest made it hard to breathe. Whispered it to himself like a mantra, a prayer:

Someday. Someday. Someday.

Someday, you would see. Someday, you would understand. Someday, he would be brave enough, strong enough, to reach out and grasp the future he wanted so desperately.

Someday, your movie would reach its climax. The music would swell, the camera would pan in...and he would finally, finally step into his destiny. Into the starring role he'd always been meant to play, the one he'd been rehearsing for his whole life.

He would take your hands in his, look into your eyes...and he would say it. The words that had been living in his throat for years, the ones that beat against his ribs like caged birds, desperate for freedom.

"I love you," he would say, simple and honest and achingly true. "I've always loved you. And I know I'm not the kind of guy you usually go for, I know I'm not exciting or flashy or whatever, but...I'm here. I've always been here. And I always will be, if you'll let me. Because you're it for me. You're everything."

And maybe, just maybe...you would hear him. Really hear him, the way you never had before. Maybe you would look at him with new eyes, with dawning realization and wonder and joy.

Maybe you would see all the love he'd been holding back, see the shape of his devotion in every line of his face. Maybe you would understand that he was your person, your forever...just like you were his.

"Oh," you would breathe, soft and reverent. "Oh, Suna. I...I never knew. I never saw..."

"I know," he would whisper, leaning in to rest his forehead against yours. "I know, baby. But I'm here now. And I'm not going anywhere. Not ever again."

And then...then you would kiss him. Soft and sweet and filled with promise, filled with all the love he'd always dreamed of. You would wind your arms around his neck and press close, and he would hold you like he'd always longed to, like you were the most precious thing in the universe.

Because you were. God, you were. And finally, finally...you were his.

His best friend. His soulmate. His happy ending, the one he'd always been chasing.

The credits would roll, the music would fade out...and a new story would begin.

The evening had started like countless others - just you and Suna, a few too many drinks, and a forgotten movie playing in the background as you laughed and joked and reminisced. It was comfortable, familiar, the kind of easy intimacy born from a lifetime of friendship.

But as the night wore on and the alcohol flowed, Suna found himself growing quiet, a melancholy settling over him like a fog. He watched you through increasingly blurry eyes, taking in the way the soft light played over your features, the way your laughter seemed to fill the room, bright and effervescent.

God, you were so beautiful. So vibrant, so full of life and joy and everything good in the world. And he loved you so much it hurt, a physical ache in his chest that never went away, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.

"You know what's really pathetic?" he found himself saying, the words slipping out before he could bite them back.

You turned to him, head cocked, a curious smile playing about your lips. "What's that?"

Suna swallowed hard, suddenly feeling like he was standing on the edge of a cliff, toes curling over the precipice. He knew he should step back, laugh it off, change the subject. But the alcohol had loosened his tongue, lowered his inhibitions, and suddenly...suddenly he couldn't hold it in anymore.

"Me," he said, voice rough and scratchy with emotion. "I'm pathetic. Because I've been in love with you for so fucking long, and I've never had the balls to tell you."

Your eyes went wide, lips parting in shock, but Suna barreled on, the words pouring out of him like water from a burst dam.

"I've loved you since we were kids," he said, staring down at his hands, vision blurring with unshed tears. "Since the day you punched that kid for making fun of my haircut in third grade. Since the summer we were twelve and you broke your arm falling out of that tree, and you held my hand the whole way to the hospital even though you were the one in pain."

A smile flickered across his face, small and fond and aching. "I loved you when we were sixteen and you got your heart broken for the first time, and you cried on my shoulder for hours. I loved you when you accidentally burnt toast because you were singing in the kitchen. I loved you when we graduated high school, and you looked so beautiful in your cap and gown that it took my breath away."

He risked a glance up at you, finding you staring at him with a stricken expression, tears tracking silently down your cheeks. "I loved you through every boyfriend, every breakup, every lame movie night and inside joke and 2 AM phone call. I loved you on your best days and your worst days and every day in between."

Suna's voice broke then, a sob catching in his throat. "I love you now," he whispered, raw and ragged. "I love you so much it's like a physical thing, like a part of me. Like I can't breathe right when you're not around, can't think straight when you're near. You're in my veins, in my bones, in every beat of my fucking heart, and I...I can't keep pretending anymore."

The tears were flowing freely now, hot and fast down his face, but he made no move to wipe them away. "I know I'm not...I know I'm not what you want," he choked out, chest heaving with the force of his emotions. "I know I'm just your best friend, just the guy you call when you need a shoulder to cry on or someone to laugh with. But god, I want to be more. I want to be everything to you, the way you are to me."

He reached out with shaking hands, cupping your face, thumbs swiping at the tears painting your cheeks. "I love you," he breathed, pouring every ounce of longing, every shred of desperate devotion into the words. "I am so fucking in love with you, it's like...it's like I don't know how to be anything else. And I just...I needed you to know. Even if it ruins everything, even if you don't feel the same...I couldn't keep it in anymore. I couldn't keep lying to you, to myself."

Suna closed his eyes then, unable to bear the sight of your face, the pity or gentle rejection he knew must be written there. He felt flayed open, raw and exposed, heart lying shattered at your feet.

But then...then he felt your hands on his, warm and steady. Felt you lean in, forehead pressing against his own, the salt of your tears mingling with his.

"Suna, you idiot," you whispered, and he flinched, bracing for the blow. But your voice was soft, achingly tender, suffused with a warmth that made his eyes fly open in shock. "How could you not know? How could you not see that I...that I love you too? That I've always loved you, from the minute we met?"

He stared at you, hardly daring to breathe, to hope. But you were smiling through your tears, eyes shining with a light he'd never seen before. "You're not just my best friend," you said, hands sliding into his hair, cradling him like he was something precious. "You're my soulmate, my other half. The one person who knows me better than anyone, who's always been there, always loved me, even at my worst."

You pressed your lips to his forehead, his cheeks, the corners of his trembling mouth. "I love you, Suna Rintarou," you murmured against his skin, each word a benediction. "I'm in love with you. And if you want me...I'm yours. Forever."

A broken sob tore from Suna's throat, disbelief and joy and overwhelming relief crashing over him in a tidal wave. He surged forward, capturing your lips in a kiss that was messy and desperate and perfect, pouring every ounce of love, every year of longing into the press of his mouth on yours.

You kissed him back just as fiercely, hands fisting in his shirt, holding him close like you never wanted to let go. And god, he never wanted you to. He wanted to stay in this moment forever, wrapped up in you, in the love he'd craved for so long, the love he'd never dared to hope could be his.

When you finally broke apart, breathing hard, Suna couldn't stop touching you - hands skimming over your face, your hair, your shoulders, like he needed to convince himself this was real. That you were real, that this was happening.

"I love you," he rasped, resting his forehead against yours. "God, I love you so much."

You smiled, radiant and blinding, and pressed a kiss to the tip of his nose. "I love you too," you whispered. "Always have, always will."

And as Suna gathered you into his arms, as he buried his face in your hair and breathed you in...he felt something slot into place in his chest. A piece he hadn't even known was missing, a hole he'd carried for so long, suddenly filled by your love, your presence, your promise of forever.

From those early days when you first stumbled into each other's orbits, he'd watched your lives play out together like adjacent movies running on parallel screens. Two stories inching closer with each passing year, edging tantalizingly near but never quite converging into one. He was the yearning protagonist, you the luminous star burning bright just out of reach.

But now, in this transcendent moment, the projectors had merged. The credits were rolling on that old, achingly familiar film that had been his constant lonesome companion. And when the lights came up, when the screen flickered to brilliant new life...it was a sequel. Your sequel together at last, 3D and eye-searing in its vividness.

No longer was he resigned to loving you from afar, playing the supporting role in your story. Now you were his co-star, his perfectly matched lead - twin suns burning brilliantly side-by-side in their own cosmic romance.

This was just the beginning. Your beginning, the sequel he'd waited his entire existence to see... and it was more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fluff #haikyuu angst #suna x reader #suna fluff #suna x reader fluff #suna rintarou #suna rintaro x reader

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samuel-de-champagne-problems · 1 year ago

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Hi so I wanted to request something I just thought of if that’s okay! A little meet cute story from season 4 where reader is the midwife who helped deliver Henry and her and Reid meet in the hospital and just hit it off🥺

this is so cute! this strays a lot from the plot of the episode because i haven't watched it forever and don't feel like it lmao

The Lanky Guy in Room 603

She wasn't sure if the long, lanky man curled up in the uncomfortable chair was Jennifer's brother or husband. He looked young; with a blemish-free baby face and a mop of soft brown hair. She could tell it had a slight curl to it and she had to resist an urge to tuck the stray pieces that fanned out behind his ear. Perhaps it was because she spent her days and nights caring for expecting parents, she just couldn't help but want to care for the sleeping man.

Jennifer was watching television, a pained look on her face as she held her round belly.

"You said it would be today," Jennifer groaned, the pain of labor evident on her face, "It's almost tomorrow."

Y/N sat on the stool beside Jennifer's bed, "I know I did, honey." She pressed a damp cloth to Jennifer sweaty face, attempting to cool down her body temperature. "But it seems like this little baby's got a mind of their own."

"Just like her mother."

The voice came from behind her. The sleep man, now not sleeping, unfolded himself from his pretzel-like position on the chair. He joints popped as he stretched his legs. Y/N noticed his socks were patterned. His left foot donned socks with gray tabby cats and a navy blue background. His right foot donned pumpkins on a lavender background.

Jennifer smiled, thanking Y/N for the damp cloth, as her companion checked her vitals. He peered at the numbers, probably attempting to decipher their meanings regarding his wife's health.

"Your wife is perfectly healthy, sir. You''ll have a healthy, sweet, baby within the next day. I'm sure of it."

Jennifer chuckled, "He's not my husband. Spencer's my....."

"Co-worker. Very proud godfather of her soon to be born baby girl?" Spencer injected, still reading the vitals.

"I'm concerned about JJ's vitals. Are you sure that her lab work is updated? It needs to reflect the high stress nature of her job. And her blood pressure? It was last checked thirteen minutes and twenty seven seconds ago. And does the satellite birth center have enough blood in the bank. On average a laboring mother may loose about...."

"Spence," Jennifer, or JJ as the man named Spencer called her, "I'm going to be just fine. The baby is going to be just fine. Please don't harass the midwife. Or I'll have to switch you out for Penny instead."

"You know if you wanted to get stuff done, you should've picked Hotch or Emily," Spencer countered, "I'm just going to be a nervous wreck."

"You're going to be fine. And think of it as practice for when your wife is pregnant. You'll be a pro by the time that rolls around."

Spencer chuckled dryly. His cheeks blushed crimson as he checked the clock. "It's now been fourteen minutes and thirty four seconds." He whispered under his breath.

"Are you and your wife expecting as well? It kinda smart for her to send you here for a dry run?" Y/N commented, making light talk with Jennifer and Spencer. Through her couple of years a midwife, she learned that many laboring parents and their companions need to have their minds occupied.

"N-no, no wife," Spencer said, his lips formed a tight smile as he looked at Y/N and then back to Jennifer, "We have a very time consuming job. Dating is hard. And family life is even harder. It’s common for many families in the BAU to end with divorce between the two partners.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Spence,” Jennifer quipped as a wave of labor pains came over her.

“I don’t mean you and Will,” Spencer backtracked, “You’re not even married to him.”

Jennifer rolled her eyes at Spencer, and Y/N got the sense that the Spencer and Jennifer shared a sibling-like relationship. It made sense, she supposed as she watched Spencer continuously checked Jennifer’s vitals. He hovered like a mother hen, but made no attempt at physical contact like the husbands usually did.

“Distract her,” Y/N whispered to Spencer, “And don’t talk about how her marriage is statistically likely to end in divorce. That’s not the way to comfort a mom that’s about to push a 8 pound baby out of her vagina.”

Spencer shut his mouth quickly, returning to Jennifer’s side. As Y/N walked out of the room, she noted that the soon to be godfather asked her if she needed anything.

***

“Y/N!” Nurse Lorraine said from her perch. “That tall kid from Room 603, the one that looks like he’s about to faint? He’s looking for you.”

Room 603? Y/N checked her chats, shuffling through the pile of laboring parents.

Ah! That would be Jennifer Jareau. And her very eager friend/co-worker/godfather of her child.

“Oh, Spencer? He’s a sweetheart. Trying to help her. He could teach those husbands a thing or too.” Y/N said, as she typed away at her computer.

“He’s not the husband?” Lorraine questioned, her tone making Y/N stop typing.

“What are you doing, Lo?” Y/N sighed with exasperation. “You’re meddling. And it’s not a cute look, I’m afraid.”

“It’s been how long since that idiot of a man dumped you for his unpaid intern? Todd? Taylor? What was his name again?”

“Tyler. He was an ass. I don’t think I’m ready to get myself back out there. He really did a number on me.” Y/N lamented. She took a sip of her third coffee of the day. It was a distraction from tearing up or worse, actually crying in front of Lorraine, the hardass nurse who makes Attendings cry.

“Y/N, honey,” Lorraine sighed, “Don’t waste your youth or your beauty on someone who doesn’t deserve it. I’m not saying that man in 603 deserves you, but he’s holding his coworker’s hand as she’s delivering a baby that’s not his. All because her boyfriend is stuck at work in New Orleans. He’s a good man. And he’s looking for you. And he blushed when he asked for you.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at Lorraine’s gossipy tendencies. “How do you know all that? I’ve been with him all day and I hardly can get him to tell me his name. Beside the snide comments about me not checking the vitals enough.”

“See! He’s protective over people he cares about, even if talking to the gorgeous nurse terrifies him. I can lock you two in the supply close if you’d like. I mean the piles and piles of extra large padsicles and bed pens aren’t very romantic, but maybe romance isn’t what you need right now.” Lorraine quipped.

Ignoring Lorraine, “I’m going to see what he wants from me.” Y/N said, recoiling because she knew Lorraine would twist her words into some sort of sexual innuendo.

“Go get’em, Tiger!” Lorraine called from the Nurse’s Station with a mischievous glint in her eye.

***

“Spencer?” Y/N whispered, noting that Jennifer was sleeping in her bed, “Nurse Lorraine said you wanted to speak to me.”

Even in the dark room, minus the glow of equipment monitoring Jennifer, Y/N could see his light blush. He was cute. She thought that before Lorraine even broached the subject. She though that when she silently wondered if he was Jennifer’s husband or not.

He was cute. Handsome, even.

Spencer couldn’t be more than 26 or 27. He had brown eyes that were kind and warm. Spencer looked gentle, and that was evident by the easy way he cared for Jennifer.

“I wanted to make sure I was doing it right,” Spencer confessed, “I’m not really good with all this,” he waved his hand around the room to show what he meant, “My mind can only focus on the possibilities of what can go wrong. I’m not cut out for this.”

“For what being a companion? A godfather? Spencer, Jennifer clearly cares for you and wants you in her baby’s life. She sees that you’re kind and caring and gentle.”

Spencer cracked a smile, warming Y/N heart. She hated it. Yet she liked it. And that only made her hate it more.

“Thanks.” Spencer said, taking a sip of his probably now cold coffee.

“You know there’s an excellent microwave in the nurse’s lounge room. Lorraine bullies enough attendings that I can totally sneak you in there to warm up your coffee.” Y/N offered, “Jennifer needs sleep. It’s the best thing for her right now. Besides, I can teach you how to swaddle a baby and change a diaper.”

“I know how to deliver a baby,” Spencer said, “It’s a lot messier than I thought.” He said with a shiver.

“Are you in healthcare?” Y/N asked they walked to the nurse’s lounge. It was so late that most of the families were either sleeping, in labor, or being discharged. “You certainly know a lot about medicine. And for the record we do have plenty of blood in stock. But we’re looking for donors every third Tuesday if the month.”

“Not technically. Well, not the doctor you’re thinking of at least. I have three PhDs. In mathematics, chemistry, and psychology. It’s….a lot I know,” He offered a small smile, “People either think I’m like some super genius or a freak. But not. I’m just….me.”

“Well I happen to think that you’re pretty awesome just being you. I can’t technically say it, but you and Jennifer are my favorites of the night. So it’s only my duty as a L&D nurse to make sure you are the best baby swaddling godfather in the metro area.”

“Now that’s quite the title to live up to. Do we use real babies or dolls to practice?” Spencer inquired.

Y/N giggled as she reached into the supply closet, “I’m in the business of delivering babies. Not kidnapping them, Dr. Spencer……?”

“Reid.”

“Reid.” She nodded, handing him a baby doll to practice with. “If it was twelve hours earlier I would be making you wrap my burrito to practice.”

“I think I’m going to equally as bad as wrapping a burrito as I would be a baby.” He confessed.

“Fear not, young grasshopper, your teacher is here.” Y/N teased, grabbing Spencer by the arm to the table where she ate lunch every day with Lorraine and Hector, her favorite to nurses on the floor.

She laid out a blanket and a baby on the table as her and Spencer stood side by side. “So fold the corner of the blanket down for the baby’s head to rest. And the you gently lay the baby down. Now wrap over the left triangle to the baby’s middle.” She watched as he followed expertly, “Good! Now fold up the little triangle at the baby’s feet. Make sure it’s snug, but not too tight.”

“It’s easier than it looks,” Spencer said as he folded the last part of the blanket and held up a swaddled baby doll.

“Now try when it when a baby is screaming at you and you’ve been on your feet for ten hours.”

“I’ll sit to my day job,” Spencer joked, “But call me if you ever need a swaddling partner.”

Y/N’s face heated at the thought of calling Spencer, of talking to him beyond this night when he friend was about to give birth.

“Where did you learn how to deliver a baby?” She asked, hoping to divert the conversation.

“I read about it.” Spencer replied.

“In college? Did you take a human biology class on pregnancy as well?”

“Uh, no,” Spencer said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly, “I read about it. I read it today when JJ was getting admitted.”

“Getting admitted takes like 30 minutes? How on Earth did you read about human delivery in 30 minutes?” Y/N asked with awe on her face.

“Actually, it took 31 minutes and twelve seconds. Which is 2 minutes and 39 seconds faster than the average,” He blushed when Y/N raised eyes meant his comment only added to her questions, not answered them, “I have a very good memory. And I can read fast.” He explained.

“Oh,” Y/N said, taking out two mugs from the cabinet, “that explains the three PhDs and how you hounded me about vitals before. You’re brilliant. And a very good friend.”

“I don’t get brilliant often. Genius, yes. Freak, yes. Strange, yes. But brilliant isn’t usually reserved for me. I think my quirks out weigh my strengths and thus that changes how I’m perceived.”

“Well, I don’t see a freak or a stranger,” Y/N told him, “I see a man who’s probably 6’3” that crammed himself into a tiny plastic chair and has been fetching ice chips and throwing down with the toughest nurse to get his friend a blanket. That’s not a freak. Or a weirdo. Or anything besides a good, gentle, kind man. I don’t really know you, but it’s my job to watch people here. I watch all these husbands who don’t dote on their wives as they push a whole baby out of their bodies. They complain to them about how long it took to find parking, or that they had to pay 10 bucks for a decent cup of coffee at the cafe, or that the chairs hurt their back. I haven’t heard you say that once. You’re good, Spencer. There’s a reason Jennifer wants you to be her baby’s godfather.”

Stunned, Spencer’s lip twitched into what resembled a smile. He bit his lip as his eyes scanned the room.

“Thank you,” Spencer whispered, “it means more than you know.”

“Good. You seem like the kind of person that deserves to hear good things. And plus, I’m sure your wife or girlfriend will be very happy you spent the night learning how to swaddle babies and change diapers.”

“Uh, I’m not committed to anyone.” Spencer corrected, the blush returned to his face, this time it crawled all the way up to his ears. It only increased his cuteness as it increased the way Y/N’s heart pumped blood. Her nervous system was on overdrive and she hasn’t even touched the man. Yet there was something about him that drew him to her.

“Oh, seeing someone casually and don’t want to freak her out?” Y/N offered. “Because I will admit that’s not what you want to say to the girl you have a situationship with.”

“A situationship?” Spencer questioned, shaking his head. “Never mind. I’m not seeing anyone casually or otherwise. It’s never been my strong suit.”

“Seriously?” Y/N said, pouring her coffee and Spencer a cup, “That’s very surprising.”

“Why?” Spencer asked, accepting the coffee with a tight lipped smile.

“Not to cross any professional boundaries, but you’re literally what most girls look for when they want a partner. Especially one that they want to you know,” she gestured to the baby doll on the table, “settle down with. You’re husband material.”

“Husband material?” Spencer asked, clearly beyond confusion. It was like it was his first time hearing that he was desirable to women. An overwhelming urge to tell him just how desirable he was to her overcame Y/N.

She fought it hard.

“You know,” she started, “you’ve got a great job, nice and normal friends, you’re close friends with a woman, but there’s zero sexual tension between the two of you. That means a lot to girls. It means that you can see women as whole people.”

“What else would I see them as?” Spencer questioned aloud. “They’re people. Not props or conquests.”

Y/N threw her hands up in surrender as if she finally has given up. “See, you’re like perfect. Not to mention you’re very nice to look at.”

Spencer gulped a big sip of coffee, but the burning liquid spewed out all over him and the table. Y/N dodged it, spending nearly three years getting out of the way of mysterious liquids from all different patients had certainly paid off.

“Sorry, sorry, god that was embarrassing,” Spencer lamented. “I hope I didn’t get it all over you.” He apologized.

Holding in a giggle, Y/N waved off his fears. “Don’t worry. You’re just fine, Spencer.”

In more ways than one, she thought silently to herself.

“I apologize if I made you uncomfortable. It’s highly unprofessional of me to comment on your appearance.”

No matter how attractive she finds him.

Spencer’s face melted as she apologized. “No!” He practically yelled. “Don’t think that. Please don’t think that. I didn’t mind it at all. It’s just, I’m not used to hearing it. Especially from women that are like you.”

“Like me?”

“Smart. Hardworking. Kind. Funny. Beautiful.” Spencer confessed.

The last one hit a certain part of her heart that went pang. Tyler never called her beautiful. He would call her hot and sexy, but not beautiful. But maybe once he did. But he said she “looked beautiful” not that she was beautiful.

There was a difference between looking beautiful and being beautiful. And she was looking right at it.

“Spencer,” Y/N whispered. “Once Jennifer is discharged from L&D could I maybe take you out on a date?“

Spencer nodded, and she swore she could see his eyes light up at the possibility of something between them.

“Sure. Isn’t there a blood donation clinic next week?” He smiled and took a sip of his coffee, “I promise I won’t spew coffee all over you when you compliment me again,”

***

Tagging people who are active But please reblog and comment if you stumble across this. It’s a great way we can show our love :)

@reidsbookclub @boldlyvoid @foxy-eva @candlesandsoftrain @radiant-reid

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fluff #reid all about it #spencer reid x y/n #criminal minds #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction

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octuscle · 8 months ago

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Total and life-changing solar eclipse

Michael was more than pissed off. He had been planning this April 8, 2024 for over two years. Almost all his friends from astronomy class had gone to Mazatlan, Austin or Niagara Falls. Despite all the logistical challenges, Michael wanted to see the solar eclipse at the Epi Center in Nazas. He was on the road for over 36 hours. And now his luggage with all his equipment had not arrived. And he was three and a half hours late. All he had was his special sunglasses. No telescope. No binoculars. All lost somewhere between Dublin and Mexico City… The sky was already darkening. The excursion he had signed up for was long gone somewhere in the mountains. Here, right in front of the airfield, it was full of amateurs. Idiots who didn't understand the significance of this eclipse from the Saros cycle. They probably thought it was a miracle. Michael checked Google Maps. He didn't have time to drive to the hotel first. There was no cab. But according to the satellite image, there was a large parking lot or something similar not far away. Good north-south orientation. Michael should have a good view. And hopefully it was emptier and quieter there…

He cursed the fact that he had to watch the eclipse with the naked eye. He cursed the fact that his sun cream with the sun protection factor was God knows where. His red hair shone in the sun. And he could feel himself getting sunburnt. He probably stank of sweat. The last shower had been during the stopover in Chicago. Maybe he should have flown to Toronto after all. But now he was here. And totality was getting closer and closer.

Michael had been fascinated by astronomy ever since he could read. And he had taught himself at the age of four. Michael was the epitome of a nerd. Unathletic. No friends. Assistant in the computer science department at Dublin University. And now he was standing here alone in the sweltering heat in this parking lot. His head on his back. Above him, a spectacle that rarely existed in this form. His anger evaporated. His fascination with the play of sun and moon prevailed. He no longer felt the heat. In fact, it was starting to get cooler. Cooler and cooler. And it was also slowly getting noticeably darker. Until it was as if someone had switched off the light. Michael stared open-mouthed at the sky. He was overwhelmed. The Black Sun was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. All his exertions were forgotten. The thousands of euros he had spent on the plane tickets: all a trifle for this spectacle in the sky. He put his head back even further in fascination. And he fell backwards onto the ground.

Maldita sea, Miguel thought. He must have fainted a few seconds after falling to the ground. He held the back of his head. That could be a nasty bump on the head… His sunglasses had fallen off his face… He looked at the sun with a wink. Yes, you could still see the shadow of the moon in front of the sun. And? What was so special about it? It got dark every evening. Today it was also noon. Miserable astronomy crap… Even his kunkels had all gone out to a hill outside the village… He didn't care.

His ball had rolled a few meters further. Miguel took it and practiced shooting baskets. By the time his buddies got back before that nerd thing, he was in shape. And then he would beat the losers. Like every time. Miguel was simply the basketball star of his village. And he was happy when all the strangers had finally left and things were quiet again.

#male tf #muscle tf #reality change #race change #ai image

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avocadoguru · 2 years ago

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He was staring at her in a way no one had in her entire life. She couldn’t read anything in his eyes - not surprise, not fear, not malicious intent - nothing. (wolfrry, werewolf!harry, alpha!harry, ranger!y/n)

Lupus Noctis- Masterlist, Author’s Note & Warnings

Chapter 4 / alternatively, read on wattpad

Chapter 5 (word count: 14k)

Harry walked to the trailhead nearest Y/N’s apartment and the moment he entered the thick of the forest he shifted and began to bound through the woods toward his community. He missed his big bed and his nice house. But he didn’t particularly miss the members of his pack.

His community was within the preserve, well hidden. A road that led from the center of the village out to just beyond Silver Wolf Preserve was hidden and gated and led to a back road that eventually connected with a rural street that led into the city. No one had ever found it because it was well concealed. And if Harry's kind was good at anything it was the ability to disguise. They were masters at hiding in plain sight and their clever tactics meant that no human had ever found their safe haven in the preserve.

Many of the homes were small and simple, but the leaders and the noble members had nicer ones. Harry’s was amongst the nicest. His pack was mostly self-sufficient, though they did rely on working with humans for money and had to interact with humanity often.

The village ran on solar energy and natural resources to get power electricity. And their satellites provided internet just like a modern human community. The difference was, that everything they used was built and made by all the pack members themselves. No outsiders had been brought in.

Walking into the village you’d think it was a regular town. Shops, markets, houses, parks, a school, and a town center with a community building. But many times, his members would leave and visit the city and go to supermarkets or malls to buy things they wanted. They also worked among humans doing various menial jobs. Some were office workers, others construction, and some even worked for the government - all under the guise of being a human.

But of course, technically, he was part human. He identified mostly as human, but just better. He had all the components of a man and the genetics (plus a few extra mutations which allowed him to shapeshift). He also felt emotions like a human and now, for the first time ever, found himself attracted to one.

“Alpha! How goes it?”

Harry was pulled from his thoughts at the sound of one of the pack members just as he was getting close to his house without being seen. He thought he’d gotten lucky. But of course, everyone was always on the lookout for him. And they could smell him.

“Things are well, Daniel,” he spoke quickly as he kept walking, hoping to avoid a conversation. He knew he smelled of the girl. He’d already thought of an explanation for it if he was asked. And it wouldn’t be too crazy for anyone in his pack to come back smelling like a human. They had to work with them after all. But he knew the smell of Y/N was strong on him after their proximity at her apartment not an hour earlier.

The man asked a few questions about the upcoming meeting but nothing about the obvious smell of the female human on him.

After answering what he could, Harry waved at the man, “I’ve got to get going. It was nice to chat with you, Daniel.”

Harry stepped through his front door and sighed once it was closed behind him. The silence inside his house was welcome. He was glad he declined to have help around the house. It was offered to him upon taking up the title of alpha. He could have had a live-in staff but he didn’t feel that was necessary. He liked his privacy. Instead, he opted for help only on certain days of the week while he was not home.

And now that he was finally alone, he needed to take care of the physical ache in his body that had been pushed down since the night before.

Harry threw his clothes in the washer immediately and jumped into the shower in his state-of-the-art en suite bathroom to get rid of any remaining traces of her.

He let the water pour over him, resting his forehead against the tiles and trying to get it together.

He grabbed himself, moaning when he squeezed slightly, and felt some of the tension leave his body. He’d been hard ever since he left her apartment. Hell, he’d been hard most of the time she’d been in his proximity.

As he stroked himself languidly, he asked himself yet again- what was it about this human that drew him to her so much? He just couldn’t understand why he was reacting to her that way. He’d been through this before, trying to get to the bottom of it in his head, and he never could understand why she had this hold on him.

Growing up, of course, he’d always known about mates and their bond. That was deeply ingrained in his brain, was what he’d been taught all his life. But she was human. Surely this couldn’t apply to them.

Yet, the way he felt about her, the way he responded to her, physically as well as emotionally, without knowing much about her even–

Argh. Stop it, you bloody fool.

But images of her were swarming in his head. She’d let her guard down, she’d been vulnerable with him, both while slightly inebriated and later on, in the evening, when the alcohol had worn off…

He’d resisted her all day, all those glances and remarks and even the way he knew she was heavily turned on, maybe just as much as he’d been, after all- he had the advantage of smelling it on her, and then, finally… he’d had her right there in his arms. Willing, and pliant in his hands. She’d left it up to him to make the final move, and he loved that- loved that she seemingly backed down a bit and let him take control where it mattered. He was a dominant creature, yes, but he found that he enjoyed the way she challenged his authority. Still, she recognized when to give over the reins to him completely, and it made it all the more enticing.

He could still feel her under his fingertips, the way they sunk into her plump skin, the way he could feel her whole body tingling in anticipation under his hold. And the way she would throw her head back and elongate her neck, offering it up to him like that… it was as if she knew what he’d be doing if he had his way, as if she knew he’d sink his canines into her delicate flesh there and mark her as his mate.

It was as if her body knew. As if she were his mate.

He groaned, speeding up his movements, he was close, so close, and envisioning her underneath him like that, or even previously when she’d sucked his fingers into her mouth, he could only imagine her taking him down her delicate throat. She’d struggle, and gag and her eyes would no doubt tear up, he knew no male human came close to his girth and length, but she’d beg for it, she’d drool for him until he’d give her what she wanted. Until he’d coat her throat with his release and she’d moan and roll her eyes back in ecstasy when she’d finally bring him to climax.

Instead, he wasted all that precious load on the tiles of his shower and winced at the loss.

He finished cleaning up and patted dry, plopping into the big, plush bed in his den that he’d missed so much. Maybe he was nearing his rut. This was entirely unusual behavior on his part. Now that he’d orgasmed he did have a bit more clarity of mind.

Maybe he should show that alpha female that had been eyeing him heavily a good time, get his mind off things for a change. What was her name…

Great, he couldn’t even remember the name of his supposed mate- or at least- that’s what people were expecting her to become. Ever since he’d had to step into his late brother’s shoes and take over ruling over the pack, everyone was putting so much pressure on him to mate and start procreating. As if that was the most important aspect of being a pack leader; ensuring lineage.

Even so, Harry believed the rightful heir was Edward, his nephew. He was far too young right now- but he was his father’s son, and Harry was planning to step aside when the time came for him to finally come of age and take over. It was the right thing to do, it was what his brother would’ve wanted. Harry was an alpha, but he wasn’t meant to be a pack leader. It hadn’t been his destiny, having been second born, and he firmly believed Edward was meant to be the future leader. He was just going to ensure the interim.

However, the way the pack was treating his nephew was severely lacking. He could tell people didn’t feel the same way at all. In their eyes, Edward would never be worthy of taking over because of how he’d gotten stuck in his wolf form. But they didn’t understand this was temporary, Harry knew the young one would be able to shapeshift again- he was just stuck, the shock of it all hadn’t worn off. After all, he’d been there that night his parents had been killed right before his eyes- the poor child had shifted into his wolf form in an instinctual effort to protect his parents, but of course, he was no match- his wolf form was a mere pup.

But even so, his instincts had been highly attuned to the danger of the situation. He’d done right by his parents. Which said a lot about his strength of character, even at such an early age. Unfortunately, though, he hadn’t been able to switch back ever since. And especially since he couldn’t communicate in this form, Harry knew there was a lot of unprocessed trauma there, things he couldn’t get off his chest, and as much as Harry had tried to comfort him and encourage him to shift back, it seemed as though he had an emotional blockage he simply couldn’t get past. Or maybe he genuinely didn’t want to shift back…

Unfortunately, that also meant that the pack was questioning Edward’s abilities to be a proper leader one day. To them, he was considered to be underdeveloped and even seen as a bad omen.

Of course, nobody would dare say all these things to Harry’s face about his nephew. But he could hear people talk when they thought no one was around or thought he wasn’t listening. As an alpha, his senses were a lot more acute than others’.

He could also hear them questioning his own abilities to rule over them.

He knew they thought he was much too young at 25 to take on this huge task. And some argued he was never meant for this, having been secondborn. He couldn’t blame them, since he felt the same way. But that didn’t mean he was happy about it, or that he would allow anyone thinking like that about their alpha. Whether they liked it or not, he was their leader, and he wanted to do right by his late brother in doing what he could to ensure the pack’s survival.

He just wished things were different.

Sometimes… he wished he could just live a life he’d choose for himself, not one that’d been forced onto him by fate.

He envied his good friend, Niall. He’d renounced the pack and taken off on his own. A lone wolf. People were calling him a renegade, but Harry looked up to his courage and perseverance.

He was determined to live life on his own terms, in the human world. Fend for himself, after having given up the pack’s protection, knowing that if he somehow put the secret of their existence in jeopardy he’d still have to face the consequences. And Harry admired the shit out of him for having the courage to live the life he wanted.

He wished he could do the same.

Maybe, that way–

But no. Harry couldn’t go there. He couldn’t set himself up for heartache like that, envisioning any kind of future with the girl. Simply because he knew- she would never want him once he told her the truth. She couldn’t possibly understand that he was… different. In fact, it was unlikely she even believed in such things. Most humans didn’t. The ones that did were made fun of or called crazy. To humans, his kind was a myth, a story told in fiction books and movies full of other mythological creatures. He was a fable. His kind didn’t exist in much of the world. And he would never keep such a horrendous truth from her, it wouldn’t be right to rob her of knowing the full extent of what she’d be getting into with him. Harry was a beast with inhuman ability and the occasional violent tendencies (only when necessary of course) and she was a normal person that was leading a normal happy life. Even if it wasn’t forbidden for him to allow himself to indulge in her the way he wanted, he couldn’t do that to her. It could potentially ruin her life. And that was the last thing he wanted. It was just as much for her own good as it was for his. He could only imagine her look of horror and disgust, the same way he’d imagined it when she mentioned how his eyes were turning golden. He imagined himself shifting in front of her and her being horrified, and he could never unsee it now. She’d think he was a monster. And he couldn’t bear her looking at him that way.

They simply weren’t meant to be.

Y/N was pissed. At first, she was hurt, embarrassed… but the more she thought about it, the more she figured that he must have a girlfriend or even a wife. That could be the only answer as to why he reacted the way he did. They were just about to kiss. She knew he was feeling the pull and the sexual tension she was. She could tell by the way he was breathing and the way his eyes took her in. The way he touched her, his fingers lingering and even squeezing at her sides.

So the only explanation for him to stop like that was that he was feeling guilty. And what else would have a man feeling so guilty in a situation like that? It had to be the answer.

And she felt like she needed an answer too because his abrupt change in demeanor had her head spinning. It made no sense otherwise.

But then where was this supposed girlfriend last night? And that day at the lake. Or the night in the woods when she first saw him. And what about the pup and that cabin? She saw nothing that suggested a female’s presence in any way.

The more she pondered the situation the more confusing it became. And the deeper she started getting with her thoughts the less she believed he actually did have a girlfriend or significant other.

She even went so far as to imagine that he was involved in some shady mafia-like organization that led to him needing to hide out in an off-grid cabin deep in the forest. But that still wouldn’t explain why he ran out so suddenly. So then what was it?

Shaking her head of her thoughts that were only going in circles, she sent a text off to Nick and her boss in a group text saying she needed the following day off to recover because she’d twisted her ankle and had planned on getting it looked at.

With that out of the way, she determined it was time to find a doctor for her foot, now that Harry was most likely not going to take her to see his. And then her mind wandered once again to the fact that Harry had driven her car so he was without one when he left her apartment.

She shrugged to herself. Not my problem.

It turned out that looking for a doctor that specialized in orthopedics was not a very easy task. Especially one that might have an opening the following day.

Giving up her chore she gently limped into her living room and settled on her couch to binge-watch the new television series she’d just started. She needed to get her mind off the tall man with pretty eyes. Junk TV would be the answer. She hoped.

A heavy knock at her door startled her as she sat up from her couch. Where she’d been since the night before. Well, she had gotten up to make tea and hopped around to do things that were necessary (like brushing her teeth and using the bathroom), but otherwise, she stationed herself on her couch. The bed and what had (almost) happened there would’ve haunted her dreams, she could still smell him in her room.

Hopping toward her door she looked out the peephole and the sight of the person on the other side of her entry had her even more startled than the knock he issued moments prior.

She considered not answering and just ignoring the intrusion. It wasn’t even 9 am and yet he was at her door.

Slowly she opened the door, not allowing him to have a full view of her body. She was still in her sleep clothes and her hair was messy while he was fully dressed and looking fresh. Did he ever not look perfectly put together?

“What are you doing here?”

Harry looked at her with confusion, “I told you I was going to take you to my orthopedician. Are you ready?”

Y/N looked down over her body and then back to Harry, “No. Of course not. I didn’t think you were actually going to show up…”

Harry huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, “Okay. Well, get dressed. The appointment is in thirty minutes.”

Y/N blinked her eyes in puzzlement and opened the door up a little further, “Uh… I didn’t know– you… I mean, after yesterday I thought…”

Harry raised his brows as he feigned confusion but then stepped into her apartment when she finally gave in and opened her door the rest of the way.

He could tell right away that she’d been sleeping on her couch, “You shouldn’t be sleeping on your couch. That’s a good way for you to hurt your ankle yet again.”

Y/N closed the door but just stood in place. Was he really here? Like nothing had happened? Was she dreaming? What was going on?

Harry turned to look back at the girl, “What? I told you I was coming. You should have been ready. Go do what you need so we can leave and make it on time.”

She was at a loss. She hadn’t expected to see him again. She thought that was it when he walked out of her door the day before. But here he was with soft curls, a sheer silk shirt, those haunting green eyes, and of course, the heeled chelsea boots. But today’s boots were gold. He was wearing gold chelsea boots.

“Yeah, but–”

Harry took a step forward, “Do you need help or something? We’re wasting minutes discussing my being here. We’ll be late.”

Y/N rolled her eyes at how he so easily dismissed her concern. She really wanted to mouth off to him after that remark- do you need help or something? But instead, she bit her tongue and decided it was a good opportunity to get a doctor to look at her ankle since she’d been unable to find one the night before. She hobbled to her room, closing the door behind her to get ready as fast as humanly possible.

Harry looked around her living room and on her coffee table he spotted an empty mug with two used tea bags next to it lying atop a spoon. He noticed a book and upon picking it up breathed a laugh through his nose when he recognized the title. It was one he read himself not so long ago. Putting the book back down on her coffee table he folded her blanket and draped it over the back of her couch and then picked up the empty mug and the tea bags and brought them to her bare kitchen, finding the trashcan under the sink and placing the dirtied dishes in her sink.

The truth was, Harry knew why she was acting like she was. But he wasn’t going to discuss that with her. He didn’t want to get into why he was actually there or how they left things the day before.

He had considered not showing up. It was better to just leave it as it was. It would have been exactly what he wanted in the first place. It would have solved everything for him.

But even after he spurted his come onto the tiles in his shower the day before after imagining what she’d look like on her knees before him with his prick stuffed into her pretty mouth it didn’t actually quell his thoughts of her. It only made them worse. So then he began thinking of her in other positions as he did mundane tasks around his house, made some calls, prepared a draft for the new proposal he'd go over at the upcoming meeting, and even got a hard workout in- all to get his mind off of her.

But the moment he stopped moving and sat for a moment he couldn’t help but feel something. What? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And he even regretted putting his shirt in the wash because then that meant he wouldn’t be able to have her smell near him when he snuggled into his bed for the night.

He imagined allowing her to ride him with her palms down on his chest holding herself up. Normally he preferred taking the dominant position on top but the thought of having her wriggle over him and attempt to take him in that position, sliding herself down over him, was even more appealing since he was particularly curious how she would handle him. But amongst all of his dirty thoughts at the forefront of his mind was the look on her face as he backed away from her before their lips could even meet, and knocked over her little porcelain figurine. She was hurt.

He hurt her. And that was what eventually had him disregarding his own good senses. For some reason, the idea that she was hurt because of him wasn’t sitting right, not to mention she was actually hurt and needed his help to drive her to the doctor. He'd promised her.

When Y/N opened her bedroom door, Harry peeked down the hall to see her slowly limping toward him. Wearing shorts and a sweater and a tennis shoe on one foot, she had her hair pulled back into a ponytail which showcased her full neck to him.

Harry scolded himself for the kind of thoughts that something as innocent as her neck invoked. And he even took care of himself before leaving his home that morning in hopes of keeping his reaction to her at a minimum.

“The doctor will see you now,” the receptionist smiled at the two of them in the waiting room and Y/N smiled back curtly while Harry blew an exaggerated huff, promptly standing up and helping the girl off her chair.

“There he is–”

“Right. There I’ve been, for the past 20 minutes. You were supposed to see us at half past.”

The man shrugged smilingly, “That’s why it’s called being a patient. ‘Cause you have to be patient.”

“Harry…” Y/N widened her eyes at him suggestively and then cast her gaze back on the man sitting at his desk “It’s alright, doctor. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, I really appreciate it.”

“Please, call me Niall. All of Harry’s friends are my friends. And you must be one hell of a friend for him to be pulling strings like this, eh? He never asks for favors.”

The girl stammered while Harry glared at him, “Sure, if that’s what you want to call it. I’d call it you owing me, but we’ll let it slide. For now.”

“Yeah. That definitely sounds more like you…” Y/N muttered under her breath and Harry cleared his throat uncomfortably.

“We’ll reconvene on this,” the young man laughed. “Let’s see what seems to be the problem, eh? Sit on there for me, will you?”

Y/N did as instructed, and laid her affected leg on the examination bed, reaching to take her sock off but Harry beat her to it. She noticed the young man raise his eyebrows at that as he approached them but switched over quickly to the good-humored expression he always seemed to be sporting.

He palpated her ankle carefully, then further up along her calf, and then called in an assistant to take Y/N over to the X-ray room so he could have a full picture of what was going on.

Harry wanted to take her in himself but the assistant assured him she had it covered, which earned her a small grunt in return.

“Thought this was someone from the pack, but clearly our dear patient appears to be oh so very human. Could’ve given me a heads up, maybe? Would have hated to slip something about her injuring herself during shifting or something and giving you the satisfaction of ending me right there and then, alpha.”

“Maybe it was a test.” Harry couldn’t help but smirk at his friend. Truth was, he trusted Niall with his life. It’s why he allowed for him to go live his life the way he intended to outside the pack. He knew he’d never do anything to endanger the pack.

“Well, hope I passed. So what’s the deal with this chick, then?”

Harry peered out the window, “How long does an X-ray take?”

“You really gonna ignore all my questions about her?”

“Do you think it’s fractured?”

Niall laughed incredulously, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Harry furrowed his brows, “Is it?”

“It’s probably just a sprain but I wanna be extra sure- for you. As a favor. So does the pack know they’re gonna be taking orders from a human soon?”

“Didn’t you just say she must be one hell of a friend?” Harry glared at him.

“You don’t have friends. I’m your only friend, that is.”

Harry resumed looking out the window, “Maybe some torn ligaments?”

“I’d be surprised. What kinda sex positions are you bending her into for her ankle to sprain like that though–”

Niall’s laughter came to a sudden halt when Harry flashed his golden eyes at him, “She’s human, as you so keenly observed, doctor. What do you take me for?”

“I mean. It’s not forbidden. Or if it is, then I’m afraid I have some explaining to do…”

“Well, you’re not an alpha, are you? I, however… would probably break her.”

“So you have thought about it.” Niall beamed, pleased with himself. “I know you’re oh so much bigger and stronger as an alpha, but your human form she can take, I assure you. If you were looking for medical clearance in that regard,” he winked at his friend and the latter scowled.

“I’m not,” Harry warned.

“Mhmmm… I’m sure you’re not. But just in case at some point, you know… there’s no reason you two couldn’t have a little fun. You definitely can’t get her pregnant, since she’s human so that’s just physically not possible.”

Harry didn’t know why, but hearing he couldn’t get her pregnant if he tried felt like a pang in his chest. He’d suspected as much himself, of course, what with them being practically different species. But this was just another reason not to pursue her in the grand scheme of things.

“Just think of that as a bonus! Maybe don’t knot in her though. Would hate for the alpha himself to deconspire our sacred secret.” Niall realized he should shut up when Harry began to emit a low growl.

The assistant brought Y/N back into the office and handed Niall the X-ray, and he immediately placed it over the negatoscope. “Okay, good news my dear. Everything looks great, bone-wise. I’ll prescribe you something for the swelling to go down faster, but maybe just keep weight off of it for a couple more days. Then resume walking as normal, but nothing too strenuous for a week or two.”

“Oh… at all? I’m glad it’s nothing serious, but do you think taking all these extra precautions is necessary then? My work kinda demands I walk quite a lot… on uneven terrain.”

“Oh? What do you do?”

“I’m a forest ranger.”

Niall looked up at her, interrupting writing down her prescription, “Oh. Interesting. Over at Silver Wolf?”

“Yeah.” she smiled, “Have you been?”

Niall smiled to himself, resuming his writing, “Oh, yes I have. Grew up around those parts, pretty much.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

Niall shot Harry a knowing look, handing him the prescription since he was standing closer to the desk then looked back over to her, “I’m afraid you’re gonna have to ask your colleagues to fill in for you on ground duties for a bit, Y/N. Otherwise, it’s gonna take ages to recover. Not to mention you're prone to injuring yourself again. Alright? I’m sure you can arrange something. Officer.” He winked at the girl and she smiled back, then he walked them out of the office, with Harry avoiding making eye contact til the very end when the two shook hands and he made sure to remind his friend of the difference in strength between an alpha and a beta.

Once they were back in the car things were silent again. Glancing over toward the girl he wondered what was going through her mind. He preferred her little attitude rather than her silence. It led him to think that he actually had hurt her in some way by leaving so abruptly the day before. But that was for the best. For both of them.

Yet here he was once again, testing the waters, so to speak. Why was he doing this to himself? He probably knew the answer to that. It was hard to admit that he was feeling this way for a human. But no one else had piqued his interest the way Y/N had.

Harry helped her back to her front door but was quick to say his goodbyes, mentioning he had things to do, which he did of course. Edward had been left alone for too long and as much as he wouldn’t mind sticking around with Y/N a little longer, his nephew was his immediate priority.

Y/N couldn’t figure the man out. Just the day before he’d run out on her and left her in a very vulnerable position. And then he showed up the very next morning acting as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t had his hands on her legs and pressing the pads of his fingers into her waist. As if he hadn’t been looking at her with the same longing she felt in her chest.

But he didn’t even come in after he helped her to her door. In fact, he didn’t do much in the way of any sort of signal that he was interested. He’d barely even spoken to her on the car ride back to her house other than to ask her for her ID when they stopped at the drive-through pharmacy to pick up her prescription. She tried not to let the small bit of disappointment that was simmering in her tummy surface at that thought. Maybe she’d misread everything and the brushes of his fingers on her skin and the look in his eyes were all in her head. She couldn’t wrap her mind around why she found that dispiriting. Because she barely even knew him. She didn’t need to get involved with someone like him. Someone who was likely involved in something illegal.

Sitting down on her couch she realized her mug and tea bags weren’t on her coffee table, and the blanket she’d been cocooned in before Harry arrived was neatly folded and draped over the back of her couch.

Huh, that’s weird.

She knew Harry must have done it because she hadn’t gotten around to cleaning before he showed up. This kind gesture was just another thing to add to the list of her confused feelings.

She wondered what Harry was doing that had him leaving so quickly. Maybe he really did have things to do like he said. She imagined him driving up to some sketchy abandoned warehouse in his crazy expensive Mercedes G-Wagon he’d picked her up in. She shook her head with a laugh. He was a mystery for sure. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was actually up to.

When Harry was about 100 yards from his cabin he smelled a distinct scent. It was faint but familiar. It was the scent of the girl. He knew it was because she’d been in his bedroom and lying on the fabric of his blankets and pillows, but he hadn’t expected that specific scent.

He licked his lips and walked through his front door to see Edward on the couch with his ears perked but Harry could barely pay attention to the pup because her smell was overwhelming to him. It shouldn’t have been that strong. Not that particular one anyway.

Following his nose to the bedroom, he wasn’t surprised the fragrance was coming from inside the room. He crawled onto his bed and inhaled picking up only trace hints of the smell he was honing in on. If it wasn’t coming from the blankets on his bed…

Another sniff led him toward the floor in the space between the wall and the bed. He put his feet down on the floor and crouched. There was a piece of blue fabric under the bed. Harry reached for the sacred garment, knowing exactly what it was. He’d seen it on her the day before and now it was lying on the floor in his bedroom.

Harry’s salivary glands began to react immediately and he huffed as he clenched his teeth. Without a single rational thought in his mind, he brought the blue panties up to his nose and inhaled deeply. The flavor overwhelmed his senses. He sighed and inhaled again, his heart beginning to pound wildly.

Harry plopped down on his bed and raised the panties up so he could get a good look. Basic bikini style in a cotton blend. Nothing like what he’d seen in the dresser at her apartment. These were her more practical panties but to Harry, there was nothing plain about them. He lifted the crotch upward and turned the material inside out to press his nose into the spot that had been sitting against her skin for many hours.

It was delightful. It was the best thing he’d come across in a long time (aside from Y/N herself). He smiled when he permitted his tongue to taste the fabric and he panted, a small whine falling from his throat just before he began to vibrate with a purr.

He forced himself to pull the panties away from his face when a very different kind of whine interrupted his delicious train of thought.

His nephew was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, no doubt expecting to spend some time with his uncle having been all by himself for longer than what he was used to. The accusatory look in the young one’s eyes made Harry stuff the panties deep into his pants’ pocket and stand up abruptly.

“I’ll go get us something to eat, alright? Come on, go outside for a bit till I get back.”

And Harry did go hunt- although he hadn’t planned for it. He’d planned to take Edward back home with him. He only ever brought him over to the cabin while he had stuff to do outside of the pack, simply because he didn’t wanna leave him alone. He truly didn’t trust his own pack enough to do so. Which was food for thought…

So whenever he wasn’t at home, he’d take the pup with him and leave him at the cabin, then pick him up on the way back. The previous night he’d simply needed some time alone. His house back home was definitely big enough for privacy, but it made more sense to come back for his nephew the next morning. Only, he decided last minute he was going to take Y/N to see Niall after all, against his better judgment, and he’d gotten delayed. He felt guilty, in truth. Edward was probably wondering where he’d been for so long. And then when he got back to the cabin, he went straight for the panties and almost forgot about him being there entirely upon finding them.

So yes- he would bring them back something to eat, but he had something more urgent to take care of first if he wanted to be somewhat normal for the remainder of the evening.

Finding a good soft spot to sit on, leaning against a tree trunk far enough away from the cabin, Harry took out the panties from his pocket with shaky hands. His eyes were surely glowing with how out of his mind he felt, the scent invading all of his senses. Another taste and a deep inhale had him hard in his pants again. His crude wolf nature wasn’t going to be able to let this go. He needed this. Part of him felt silly for being so hard up and not being able to control his urges. But another part of him was feral and unable to resist the temptation.

Harry spit into his hand and over his tip, smoothing the saliva over himself. He bit his lip to keep his groans to a minimum. With one hand holding the crotch of the panties up to his nose and mouth and his other stroking himself quickly he worked his way toward an orgasm in record speed. The smell and the taste could have him getting off without touching himself if given enough time. He was sure of it.

Imagining her ass in the air and his hands grasping her soft hips as he plunged deeply into her felt so natural. It felt like his base response was the right one. With her soft voice and smooth skin, her lips parted and her body being jolted forward and spread apart for him…

A shaky moan fell from his lips when he began to come, pouring his release onto the forest floor in relief. With heavy breaths, he put the panties back into his pocket and wiped himself up. God, he wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with this. He couldn’t imagine enjoying the alpha female as much as he’d just enjoyed masturbating to Y/N’s panties. The alpha was pretty and she smelled nice, but that’s where it ended for him. And he just wasn’t sure that it was enough.

Harry was a mess. He wasn’t sure how he’d made it through the night. He ended up not going back home since he brought food back to the cabin to share with his nephew. He made sure to spend enough time with Edward, telling him about his day- well, as much as he felt like sharing of course, and even shapeshifted again and played around with him for a bit to tire him out.

Making sure to close the door to the bedroom after the little one had fallen asleep on the couch, he spent the night in the bed Y/N had slept in. It’d been pure torture. But he relished in it, like a masochist. He played with himself again using her panties. He wished he could preserve her scent somehow, though it was wearing off with how much he’d been sniffling and rubbing at them. But he couldn’t help himself. He felt possessed.

Then after he’d found his release again, he buried his nose into the pillow and it felt like heaven. He’d seen her softer side a bit, and his imagination played into that. He liked to imagine her whispering sweet nothings into his ear while scratching at his scalp after he’d pleasured her over and over again, and they were both still breathing heavily, coming down from their highs. He imagined her satisfied and sleepy but still making sure to cradle him into her loving arms and dote on him before they both gave in to sleep. He’d be spent and he’d fight to stay awake and listen to her sweet voice some more. He’d make sure to switch and take her into his arms before he fell asleep so as to not accidentally crush her, nuzzling his nose in the crook of her neck and wishing he could mark her there for the whole world to see that she was his.

So when he woke up after alternating between sweet and filthy dreams of her, he tried to busy himself, get his mind off things, but he knew it was futile. One thing kept replaying incessantly in his head, over and over.

She was his.

He knew it was impossible. He knew he was fooling himself, feeling reckless for every moment he allowed himself to even entertain the idea. But he at least needed to see her, quite desperately so.

He shapeshifted to reach the station as quickly as possible, making sure to switch to his human form within considerable distance to be safe. On his way there he was growing more and more worried- he hoped he’d find her there and not on patrol somewhere, as per Niall’s orders. He was genuinely concerned for her.

It was as if he couldn’t get there fast enough. He felt some sort of urgency in his bones he’d never experienced before. And when the ranger station came into view he could immediately tell why. She wasn’t alone.

Rationally, Harry was well aware that Y/N had co-workers. He was also well aware that most rangers were men. But the closer he got, the more he could pick up on the conversation she was having with one of them, and it made him stop in his tracks a few times to listen in before he made his presence known.

“It’s no bother at all, Y/N. Why take a cab when I can drive you, really now… you should’ve given me a call this morning, I would’ve come and picked you up on my way.”

“Really, it’s fine.”

In truth, Y/N didn’t want Nick to know where she lived. She just had a feeling it was better if he never got to know that about her. But for some reason, he was making a big deal out of her slight limp and how she had to do office work for the next 2 weeks. She’d talked to her superior about it and handed him the note Niall had written for her work, and now Nick was lingering around the station when he should’ve been out patrolling on his own.

Her eyes widened when a familiar presence came into view. He was standing in the doorframe, and Nick hadn’t heard him come in. Hell, she hadn’t either, but there he was, taking his aviator glasses off and hooking them into the neckline of his shirt, he’d skipped buttoning it up and it showed quite a bit of his torso, as per usual. She tried not to let her eyes linger but there was no helping it. He looked… good enough to eat.

Harry cleared his throat and looked the man straight in the eyes once Nick eventually turned around, “What can we do for you, sir?”

Harry disregarded him completely and shifted his gaze onto Y/N, “How are you? Any better?”

Nick stepped aside, as Harry approached her. She took in just how much he towered over her coworker and how confused the latter looked. She was enjoying this, she couldn’t lie. Both Harry’s attention coming in to check on her, and the fact that Nick was trying to figure out what it meant. Good. She wanted him thinking that maybe she and Harry had something going on, maybe he’d get the hint and stop hitting on her if he thought Harry was in the picture.

“She’s alright. And you are?”

Or not.

“Talking to her,” Harry replied, staring him down. “Shouldn’t you be out patrolling?”

Nick opened up his mouth to say something but hesitated. He looked over to Y/N and she put him out of his misery, “Go. You’re losing daylight. You’ve got more ground to cover without me and I really don’t wanna be late home this evening.”

“... Alright. Good day,” he nodded towards Harry, and when the courtesy wasn’t extended back he finally took his leave after locking out his rifle.

“I don’t like him.”

“Somehow, I picked up on that. What are you doing here?”

“You never answered me,” he nudged towards her foot that was propped on a smaller stool. He was glad she was heeding Niall’s advice. Good. She’d soon make a full recovery.

She shrugged, “It’s… a bit better? Can’t really tell. Pain wise it’s a lot better, I’ve been taking the anti-inflammatory Niall prescribed. Uhm… I never got to properly thank you yesterday for taking me in. I really appreciate it. Thank you.”

The smallest smile pulled at his lips as he looked from each of her eyes and then took her face in. The way he looked at her suddenly had her forgetting all the doubts that she battled with just the day before. This was the look that haunted her.

Before Harry could reply the station’s phone rang. Y/N reached across the desk but Harry picked up the receiver and handed it to her, pushing the phone closer towards her as he did so.

“Silver Wolf Preserve. Yes, we organize guided tours. What area would you be interested in? Let me check our calendar.” Y/N went through their scheduled appointments on the PC and held the receiver between her shoulder and ear to type in the new appointment once she made sure they had an opening available on the requested date. She typed all the necessary info in and when she finally hung up, she looked around and Harry was gone.

Wondering if maybe he’d wandered off through the station, nosy as she knew him to be from how he very blatantly inspected her apartment (though she supposed that was kind of pot calling kettle black), she called out for him, “Harry?”

Finally, she noticed a post-it stuck on the pencil holder facing her, “See you around, officer.”

She audibly exhaled through her nose. She supposed it was for the best. She had work to do, and he was… distracting.

Y/N was happy to be finally able to put on two shoes instead of just the one that morning. Progress. She was still limping, keeping weight off of her foot, still stuck doing office work at the station for the foreseeable future, but it’d started raining for a bit and so, she wasn’t all that upset about it in the end.

She was sipping her coffee at the desk, ready for a slow day when Nick walked into the station. She furrowed her brows at him confusedly, “Hey, you. Filling in for Tom?”

“No. He’s not here yet, then? – Good. I wanted a word with you in private.”

Y/N’s breath caught. That sounded like trouble. She’d hoped Harry had scared his advances away, “...Nothing you could have told me over the phone?”

Nick halted in front of the desk, hands on his hips, “How well do you know that guy from the other day? The one with the cocky attitude.”

“I… uhm, why are you asking?”

“He’s bad news. I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

Y/N felt like asking him what else was new, but instead, she cleared her throat and tried to feign ignorance, “What are you on about?”

“He followed me. More like stalked me. I went out after work last night, had a couple beers at the bar down the street from where I live. Parked my car at my building and walked there. Had my umbrella with me since it’d started pouring and really didn’t notice anything amiss. I was half a beer down when this guy sits next to me at the bar and when I look to my left, there he is. That guy. I initially thought that was just a weird coincidence, but your pal had a message to get across.”

“... What did he say?”

“He told me to stay away from you if I knew what was good for me. Told me to keep my dirty little paws off you, or else.” Y/N was at a loss for words. Stammering to get a word out, Nick cut her off, “He also kept calling me Mickey, he said it was like that pathetic little mouse, and that it was fitting. I swear to God, Y/N. I really had to hold back, I wanted to punch him in the face, but I didn’t wanna risk losing my badge over this. Who the fuck does this asshole think he is?!”

Y/N fought to keep her amusement to herself. Both for the Mickey Mouse remark, but especially for the way Nick actually thought he could take on Harry.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Nick…”

“He’s trouble, Y/N.” He warned, pointing his finger at her as he walked out of the station, “He better not let me catch him in here again if he knows what’s good for him!”

When Y/N heard Nick get back into his car and drive off from the outside parking space, she allowed herself a chuckle. But sobering up, she recognized this was unacceptable on Harry’s behalf. Who did he think he was to do such a thing? It was unacceptable. He’d crossed a line. She wished she could get a hold of him and tell him off.

Making the trek to his cabin was out of the question with the state of her ankle, and with it raining she wouldn’t have even tried. Plus, he might not even be there for all she knew.

If only there were an easier way to get to him…

Glancing over to the PC, she searched on Google Maps for Dr. Niall Horan’s private practice. Two could play that game.

When she dialed the number, to her surprise, a familiar voice greeted her, rather than a receptionist.

“Hello! Um… hi! This is Y/N Y/L/N, from the other day?”

“Oh yes! Harry’s friend. How are you doing? Is everything okay?”

“Yes, actually my ankle is much better already. I was just surprised you answered the phone and not someone else. Caught me off guard,” she laughed.

“Oh yeah, Mitzy isn’t in yet, I got here before her to sort some paperwork prior to starting for the day. You’re calling quite early, are you sure everything is alright?”

Y/N grimaced, realizing he was right. It wasn’t even 9 yet. She’d been in such a hurry to get a hold of Harry after what Nick had just told her that she didn’t even think about that aspect. “Yeah, sorry– I didn’t realize I was calling that early. I just got into work myself. I wasn’t even aware of the time. I have to uber here now, and you never know how busy they are… so I just rather be early than late. Anyway– I’m digressing. I’m calling for a favor actually, I hope I’m not overstepping, though…”

Niall chuckled “Don’t worry about it, us early birds gotta stick together. What can I do for you, Y/N?”

“Well… this is gonna sound silly, but I recently updated my phone and lost all my contacts. I was wondering if you could give me Harry’s? I have no other means of contacting him, and it’s kind of an urgent matter…”

Niall smiled to himself. Yeah. She wouldn’t have any means of contacting him, that’s for sure. He was also pleased to see his hunches had probably been right about the duo. “Oh, I dunno, Y/N… that would be breaching that doctor-patient confidentiality…”

Y/N could hear the humor in his tone and mirrored it, “Well, seeing as Harry is your friend, you could maybe turn a blind eye just this once?”

Niall laughed at her retort and gave her the number. Normally he wouldn’t dream of sharing Harry’s info like that, but for very different reasons than what she was imagining.

Thanking him and wishing him a good day ahead, Y/N shook off Niall’s infectious good mood. She was pissed, and she was gonna get some answers.

When Harry answered in that deep, coarse voice she pushed down the initial response to swoon at the sound. She was on a mission.

“Listen here, Harry… I don’t know who you think you are but you cannot go around stalking my co-worker and then threaten him! Why would you do such a thing? And you followed him? Do you not find that weird? Because I sure do! And what business is it of yours to tell him to stay away from me? Huh?”

Y/N kept going on with her tirade and Harry listened. He opened his mouth once or twice to respond but she didn’t let up.

“Furthermore, I barely even know you! What makes you think you can tell anyone what they can and can’t do around me? I don’t know what was going through your mind! What did you mean when you told him to stay away from me? That’s a weird thing to say to someone that I have to work with!”

When Y/N finally paused to take a breath Harry took the chance to finally respond as cooly as possible, “I’m sorry, who is this?”

Y/N could hear the smirk in his voice. He was playing games with her.

“You know good and well who I am. Are you not going to answer any of my questions?”

“Did he really go running off to you to tell on me? Scared him off that badly, did I?”

A scoff fell from her mouth at his amused voice, he sounded mighty pleased with himself. “You’re something else, you know that? What you did was wrong and all I’m looking for is an explanation!”

Harry chuckled and that only served to piss her off further.

“Ughhh!” And with that, she pressed the end-call button and let out a breath to calm herself. She hoped she made her point clear. It felt good to tell him off like that.

Harry saved her number into his contacts and made a mental note to have a word with Niall for sharing his info without checking with him first. Not that he minded in this particular case, but still his friend knew better than to share his number considering how he knew he had to keep a very low profile. No, he was actually delighted to have this new means of communicating with her, already thinking of ways he could take advantage of it.

Usually, Harry never acted on impulse. He was a very calculated man, and so, he very seldom regretted any of his actions. However, he’d regretted confronting her co-worker as soon as he’d gotten back into his car that rainy night. He actually felt a bit embarrassed by what he’d done. By following Nick and telling him to back off he revealed that he was more interested in her than he wanted to let on. But that was all done and it couldn’t be changed. He was slightly amused by her upset, however. For some reason, he got a kick out of riling her up. Any passionate reaction he got out of her tickled him. But as much as he enjoyed her attitude he didn’t want her thinking she had the upper hand here. She was the only person he would allow to talk to him that way. If she only knew…

Grabbing her things off the desk and stuffing them into her backpack, Y/N was ready to call an uber at the end of her day at the station. Lindsy, the one who would be taking over the night shift was there, and her partner she’d patrolled with had already left.

The truth was, she was stalling. She wasn’t used to her days going so slow and uneventful. She was alone for most of the day, cooped up at the station, and then going home she’d be alone some more. She knew the reason she was probably overly emotional was because she’d just started ovulating. Probably why she acted on impulse and did all that to get a hold of Harry’s number that morning to tell him off as soon as possible after what Nick had told her.

She was a bit regretful now, though. Knowing Nick, he’d probably exaggerated. Harry could’ve just been at that same bar by coincidence. And yes, he did overstep, telling him to stay away from her, but at the end of the day, that’s what Y/N actually wanted. He’d kinda done her a favor, although she was still not appreciative of the liberties he took in doing so.

But knowing what little she knew about Harry, he’d meant well. He could probably sense Nick’s interest in her when he’d been at the station and the way she wasn’t all that happy to have him reply in her stead when Harry had asked how she was feeling. So, he’d pieced together that he was probably annoying her, and he’d been right.

Obviously, with the way Harry had laughed it off, he’d not seen it as that big of a deal.

But she always got a bit into her feels, much more predisposed to act on impulse when she was ovulating, and he’d been on the receiving end of it. She probably should’ve held off confronting him about it when he’d no doubt show up out of the blue again. She did miss him popping in unexpectedly, had kind of gotten used to it… and found that she even missed his presence.

She’d probably go home now and watch some sappy drama on Netflix while she scarfed down the ice cream she kept in her freezer for this monthly occasion. Although she kinda wanted to check and see first if her co-worker maybe wanted to order in something at the station, to share dinner.

“I thought that was your uber outside, but it can’t be. Right? Like who the hell ubers in that?”

Y/N furrowed her brows, limping over to the window where Lindsy was looking outside to the small parking space they had out front of the station, “No, I haven’t called one yet…” she trailed off when she saw none other than Harry’s fancy Mercedes.

The engine was audibly cut off, and then Harry stepped out of the car. Lindsay whistled lowly, “Well, damn. I was about to go off about visitors bothering us this late, but this kinda visitor I don’t mind– shit!” She took a step back when Harry looked straight at them through the window, “Do you think he heard me?”

Y/N took in her flustered co-worker and fought off her amusement while she grabbed her backpack, “Don’t be silly, he’s all the way out there. Ok. See ya, Lindsy. Have an easy one!”

Y/N was secretly gloating on the inside knowing her co-worker’s jaw was about to drop when she’d see her greeting Harry outside. “Here to challenge my colleague to a duel or something? He’s off duty today unless you got some issue with my other co-workers as well,” she glanced back over her shoulder to the window, and sure enough, Lindsay was standing there dumbfounded.

“Nah. She doesn’t seem to be into women.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at him “Oh? That’s pretty presumptuous of you. So let me get this straight… you only have a problem with anyone who would present any interest in… me?”

Harry’s lips curled into a smile, as he raised his own eyebrow at her before pushing his body off of the side of his car and opening the passenger door for her, “That’s what I came here to say, actually. I was just looking out for you. Men can be dangerous when they get rejected, and I could tell he was making you uncomfortable the other day. I’m, uh…” he lowered his gaze while he kept the door open, waiting for her, “I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

She got closer to the door, looking him in the eye, “I appreciate that. But you were right, he does kinda make me uncomfortable. So even though you went about it all wrong, behind my back, I’m lowkey glad you did. Maybe he’ll back off now.”

Harry wasn’t expecting that. She was always taking him aback with her candor, the sincerity with which she expressed her emotions. He wasn’t used to that at all. His kind were not in the habit of being vulnerable like that, their emotions always kept at bay, lest it clouded their judgment.

He lingered for a bit before closing the door after she got in, and walked to his side, joining her in the car.

He cleared his throat, starting the engine, “I, uh, was thinking… I could take you home, or, there’s a much more exciting second option…”

“... Which is?” Y/N smiled widely at him when he finally met her gaze. He was acting bashful and she ate it up.

“I know you must miss your little routine, swimming down at the lake. I could help you in and out of the water. Since the weather let up and it’s actually a nice, warm afternoon… sounds perfect to go for a dip, wouldn’t you say?”

Y/N was grinning in earnest now, “That does sound perfect, actually.”

Harry smiled back at her, a lopsided smile that showcased his perfect teeth and even a dimple she hadn’t been aware of before. She hadn’t really seen him do much else beside scowl until then. It was quite… disarming.

The drive was relatively short. Knowing her colleagues had patrolled for the night, they were safe to park the car on the nearest pathway without anyone ever knowing they’d been there. It was still a bit of an off-trail trek, and Harry insisted she’d piggyback again. When they got there, it was close to sunset, a bit later than her usual time frame, but that was her own fault for dilly-dallying at the station. She didn’t ask, but she had a hunch he’d stood parked there for a while until she finally left.

Y/N didn’t know why he was doing this. He’d apologized, and that was enough for her. He didn’t have to go out of his way like this. But she was secretly glad he did. Maybe a bit more than just glad.

Harry was losing his mind. He didn’t know whether it’d been the fact that he’d resisted temptation and hadn’t seen her in a bit- he’d grown so used to her presence already, but something about her was heightening all of his senses. It felt as though he had her panties flush against his nose the whole time. Her scent was ten times more potent than before. It made his eyes roll to the back of his head.

Reaching the lake, finally, he began unbuttoning his shirt right away and nudged at her to follow suit. She bit her lower lip and began mirroring his actions, and Harry had to swallow the lump in his throat when she shrugged her shirt off. Her bra wasn’t one of the ones he’d seen in her top dresser, but even so, the view was spectacular. Her cleavage was making his mouth water, he could even see her pointed nipples through the fabric. Her whole body was littered in goosebumps and he wondered if maybe this was going to be too cold for her. His own body temperature was much higher, and he could withstand much colder environments without any discomfort, but he was aware of the fragility of her human condition.

“Too cold?”

She blushed furiously when she saw him looking at her erect nipples, “No, it’s good. I’ll get used to it. But I usually come in a bit earlier, I get out of the water just as soon as the sun goes down and the temperature starts dropping considerably. Not to mention, you know… animals coming out. Can be dangerous.”

“You tell me when you start getting cold, alright? Don’t worry about animals. I’m here.”

She furrowed her brows, smiling at him. Yeah, he’d somehow scared those wolves away that night, but they were probably just caught off-guard. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to fight off a bear though, should one happen upon them.

He crouched to help her with her shoes and then slid her socks off, and she unbuckled her belt, letting her trousers pool at her feet while he was still down there. Harry fought off a smile before standing up again and helping her to step out of her pants and tried for her sake not to ogle at her almost naked body.

“You’re not planning on swimming in those, are you?” she tried to keep her voice steady.

“I’m not, just not in the habit of, uhm… wearing underwear.”

Y/N felt her throat go dry, “What, like, ever? You just go commando?”

Harry kicked his chelsea boots off, “Yeah.”

“Isn’t that… uncomfortable?”

“It’s just a preference,” he shrugged, “Consider that a heads up.”

He then undid his fly and she barely had time to look away before she heard him discard the skinny jeans.

Harry scoffed, “Nothing that you haven’t seen before, sweetheart.”

“I was caught off-guard that first time!” she defended.

“Yeah- only took you the amount it took me to get to the shore to figure out I was naked, hm? I don’t mind it, obviously. Are you gonna keep all that on?”

She slowly turned to face him again, making sure her gaze only met his, “Yes. Shall we?”

He nodded “Are you alright with me carrying you like this?” he gestured to himself, referencing his state of undress.

“Yeah…” her voice was small but she was determined this wasn’t going to be an issue. It wasn’t an issue. He was right, she’d already seen him naked. Would a pair of boxers really have made that big of a difference?

…Probably yes, but it was too late now to back out of it. It wasn’t making her uncomfortable, in truth, just very shy, and she didn’t want to appear weak or silly in front of him. She didn’t want him knowing the level of effect he had on her.

She let him take her into his arms and walk them into the water. When the soles of her feet first touched the cold surface, she flinched, pulling away, and contracted her muscles which of course made her cry out in pain a bit.

Harry cursed at himself for having overlooked that. There was only one way to cut her suffering short though- and that was submerging the both of them fully into the water now that it had gotten past his middle- it was deep enough.

Resurfacing, Y/N wriggled her way out of his hold. He’d propelled them deeper and now they were deep enough for her to float. She splashed water at him, inhaling sharply through her mouth and panting heavily, “You jerk! Why’d you do that for?!”

“You were hurting your foot– this was the fastest way to get your body accustomed to the difference in temperature!”

“Couldn’t you at least warn me?! Hey, Y/N, hold your breath in for a sec?”

Harry threw his head back, laughing, “I don’t sound like that!” He splashed water back at her for mocking his English accent.

Y/N was momentarily frozen into place taking in the sight of him laughing with his whole body. It left her breathless, more than she already was. She averted her eyes when he looked back at her running his fingers through his wet hair, slicking it back.

Floating on her back, she allowed herself to calm down and enjoy the feeling of being weightless, something that was downright therapeutic for her injured foot, “This feels amazing.”

Harry just looked at her, taking her all in. She looked at ease, and he was happy for it. He was also glad to have her scent watered down a bit. It was driving him wild. He didn’t know how he was going to drive her all the way back home.

They both swam for a bit, and Y/N took note of his technique. He was a natural. Surely he must’ve done this his whole life. He moved in the water seamlessly. The sun had gone down and the moon was up in the sky, with stars slowly coming into view as well the darker it got.

She floated on her back again, taking in the view she so rarely got to see from inside the water. The sound of crickets and frogs were getting louder and louder, and Y/N felt her batteries recharge. She’d missed being out in nature, even though she's been cooped up in the station office for just a few days. She glanced over to her side and noticed it had actually gotten much darker than she realized. She could barely see the outline of Harry’s profile, illuminated by the moon, as he floated on his back near her. Somehow, as though he’d sensed her looking, he turned his face to the side to meet her gaze.

“Getting cold?” he murmured.

She nodded, submerging herself up to her torso, her toes touching the floor of the lake if she wanted, “A bit, yeah. I don’t want to go, though…”

He mirrored her actions and got closer to her. His skin glistened in the moonlight, and his eyes seemed all the more brighter. She could never get over his eyes. They were mesmerizing. She hadn’t even had the presence of mind to realize that he’d brought his arms around her until she took note of how closely she could look into his eyes. He was holding her close to his body. Impossibly close.

“Better?”

Y/N nodded slowly, not sure what to do or say next. She could hear the water droplets break the surface of the water as they rolled from off of his face, that’s how close they were. Could hear him breathing.

She brought her hands over his pecs, tracing the outlines of the swallows tattooed on each side, then rested her palms flat against them, “You’re so warm…”

He was seemingly emanating warmth. Her own hands were cold as ice against his skin. She looked back into his eyes, ungluing her own from her palms resting over the tattoos. Then her gaze inadvertently dropped to his mouth, and she wondered whether his lips would be just as warm. As if reading her mind, his tongue peeked between them, wetting his lips, and she glanced back into his eyes. But his were focusing on her own mouth, his lids heavy and his breathing a bit shallower. His heart beating a bit faster under her palm- or was she just imagining it all? She couldn’t break away from under the gravity of the moment to be able to tell. She felt as though she was in a trance.

She felt his fingers squeeze at her midsection a bit, pressing her even closer to him, flush against his body, and she gasped feeling him poke into her abdomen in doing so.

“Are you going to keep these on when you get dressed? You’re going to soak your clothes…”

His voice was deep, yet quiet. Barely above a whisper. It sent shivers through her body, and not because she was cold anymore. In fact, she felt as though she was on fire.

“I… I suppose not.”

Harry was teasing her a bit for not having foreseen having to take off her underwear anyway- but the reaction he got out of her was much better than he could’ve ever anticipated.

Without taking her eyes off his, she bent her arms so that she could reach the clasp at the back, unhooking her bra and peeling it off, throwing it into the water without a care. The top of her breasts were barely breaking surface, her nipples still obscured from his view, but Harry’s mouth fell open at her brazen act. His hands wandered further up her body, until his thumbs reached the undersides of her breasts, thumbing at the curve of them there, back and forth, ever so slightly.

She allowed herself to let her hands travel further as well, the tips of her fingers reaching underneath his wet curls at the nape of his neck. In doing so, she’d pushed her body slightly higher up in the water, her torso emerging from underneath the surface completely.

His hands went under her bum on instinct, supporting her fully, bringing her eye level to him, and her legs went around his torso, his hardened cock now pressing into the underside of her left thigh. She couldn’t help but card her fingers through his hair, their noses coming into contact, him tracing the tip of his around hers until tilting his head sufficiently to the side and capturing her lips between his. He sunk his fingers into her fleshy bum when she opened up her mouth and invited his tongue in with a breathy moan.

The moment his lips met hers he was changed. Her soft mouth and wet tongue tasted and felt even better than he’d imagined, and he’d certainly imagined it. And her sweet moan would have made him weak in the knees if he were standing on land. He’d never felt anything so hot and intimate in his life. A part of himself knew that once he kissed her he’d be unable to stop pursuing her. He was already obsessed. But the feel of her fingers in his hair, her plush thighs wrapped around his middle, the way she slid her tongue against his and sipped at the tip when she closed her mouth around it… he could barely hold it together. This had just gone beyond obsession.

He wanted to bring her to the shore and show her what else his mouth and tongue could do. Hear more of her little moans and whimpers as he satisfied his hunger for her.

With his fingers digging into her bottom he pulled her in closer and felt the skin of her thigh pressed hard into his prick. She gasped at the feel of it and he smiled into the kiss. His own heart was pounding so hard he could hear it. He wished that she wasn’t wearing underwear so he could press himself to her center, just to feel the heat, the slippery mess he knew must be leaking out into her panties.

Keeping hold of her bum on one side with one hand, he slowly moved the other upward, over her ribs, and ghosted the underside of her breast again, needing another feel. He really wanted to lay her flat on her back and knead them in his hands and then flip her to her tummy and do the same with her bottom before stuffing his face into the fragrant warmth between her thighs.

Another moan fell from her lips and Harry parted from her with a gasp. Both of their chests rising and falling quickly. With his forehead leaning against hers, Harry kept his eyes closed because he was certain they were glowing golden with how worked up he’d gotten. He would have continued kissing her all night but he could feel her shivering, despite his own warmth surrounding her. He needed to get her out of the cold water. And he needed to calm himself with a few deep breaths.

“Let’s get you out and dried off so you can warm up,” Harry whispered softly so as to not break the delicate moment. He held her close so she couldn’t see his eyes as he brought them both out of the water, going a little slower than he normally would to give his body and his wolf time to settle.

With his hands releasing her thighs he gently placed her down, unable to deny himself from the briefest glance at her bare breasts before quickly looking back into her eyes. He couldn’t look at her body for too long or he’d start to lose it again.

He quickly bent to her pile of clothing and went for her shirt to bring it to her, but before he could straighten back up, she threw her drenched panties right under his nose.

Harry tried to keep his composure, making sure to keep his eyes on hers as he approached her again, placing her shirt over her shoulders, and then running his own hands up and down her frame to warm her up.

Y/N melted at his affectionate gesture, especially after throwing her panties over to him like that. She expected him to look at her hungrily, maybe even try for more, but his priority was getting her warm. And she was getting warm. From the inside out.

He bent to get her pants next, while she shrugged her arms into the shirt properly, buttoning it up. He crouched in front of her the same way he’d helped her take them off, and she placed one hand on his shoulder for stability, noting how he was keeping his eyes firmly on her feet, gently helping her by bringing the material up her legs and when he reached the hem of her shirt he sat up straight, looking her right in the eyes again.

She tucked it into the trousers and secured her belt while he retrieved his own pants. She wished she could extend him the same courtesy but she wasn’t as strong as he was. Not only that, it was hard to miss.

Y/N already knew that his dick, even in just its flaccid state, was more sizable than any man she’d seen before but she was not quite prepared for its aroused state. Watching him move with his fully erect cock, heavy and swaying under its weight had her clenching and squeezing her thighs together involuntarily. She imagined the way it felt so hard and thick under her thigh when they were in the water. It made her palms sweat just knowing that that had just been pressed against her body.

She watched with labored breathing as he winced with a scowl, trying to tuck his erection into those skinny jeans of his. Which proved to be an issue when he had been unable to button his pants, his thick crown was pushing out over the top of the waistband of his jeans in a teasing call. Her mouth dropped open. Maybe that’s why he preferred going commando. Perhaps it was out of necessity more than preference given that it seemed unlikely anything could contain him.

He next bent to pick up his own shirt and on his way back up, he halted, taking her in. Her shirt had clung onto her damp body, the outlines of her breasts still deliciously visible, her wet hair dripping over top and making the shirt even more see-through. He’d just seen her naked but this was just as enticing. Getting her clothes on had done nothing to dampen his desire for her.

Instead of putting his shirt back on, he decided to add another layer of warmth to the girl, placing it over her shoulders. She wasn’t shivering anymore, but he could tell she felt cold still, and he really didn’t need it. Looking at her engulfed in his much nicer, larger shirt, knowing his scent was going to cling onto her now and follow her into her bed that night made him even more feral. If nothing else, this would be the way he’d brand her as his in that moment. It was a far cry from what he actually wanted to do, but it was making him wild nonetheless. He imagined her swaddled into the nicest furs in his den, her skin just as damp but from sweat and their mixed juices, her body trembling from ecstasy, not cold.

He swiftly placed his hand around the front of her neck and pulled her in for a quick, wet kiss that had her feeling dizzy. She’d never had a man put his hands on her neck before and the way Harry had done it, so tenderly, and confidently would have her rethinking all of her favorite intimate experiences. Surely this one had just replaced them all for top spot. No, it most definitely had.

His hand lingered on her neck as he rested his forehead against hers, and rubbed the tip of his nose to hers, trying to collect himself once more, “We need to leave before I lose my senses completely, Y/N. You don’t know how much it’s taking me to keep from doing unspeakable things to you right now. And you’d let me, wouldn’t you?”

His voice was low and he’d even added a slight squeeze around her throat at the end there, for emphasis. It almost rendered Y/N unconscious, but not for lack of airflow. She felt like she was floating. Her voice came out small and shaky with need, “Please.”

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, exhaling deeply through his nose and forcing himself to push his body away from hers. He didn’t trust his hand around her fragile neck with the state he was in, he didn’t trust his hands on her body at all, or even himself in her proximity. He wanted to devour her.

“Careful what you ask for, sweetheart.”

Chapter 6

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honorarysimp · 5 months ago

Text

3: Dissection of an Urban Legend

series masterlist

"So here’s what we’ve got so far," the Sheriff grunted, his voice rough with clear exhaustion as he gestures to the investigation board in the wall.

You look at him for a moment before approaching, carefully taking in all and every little detail.

The investigation board was a jumble of photographs, maps, satellite imagery, notes, news articles, and pieces of string connecting various people and places together. Each victim's photo was pinned to the board, along with the date they were last seen. The locations of their disappearances were marked on a map, and notes of potential sightings or clues were pinned around each location.

The center of attention, however, was a single image: a picture of a dark, slender figure with a hood pulled low over its face, just barely giving sight of a pale white face underneath. Scrawled beneath it was the name "Ghostface."

As you scan the board, taking in all the details, you can’t help but feel a sense of helplessness. The disappearances seemed to have no rhyme or reason, no identifiable pattern to follow.

The Sheriff watches you take in the board, his expression unreadable. "We've tried everything," he starts. "We've scoured every inch of these woods, the lake, searched every house and building in town. But there's nothing. It's like these people just disappeared into thin air."

This makes you frown, eyes still moving over the board, taking in every detail. "So… you’re now considering the possibility of a supernatural entity being involved?" you ask, voice careful.

The Sheriff's frown deepened, his jaw clenching. "I don’t believe in that kind of nonsense," he grumbled, his tone dismissive. "But I’m running out of explanations."

You nod, turning away from the board to look at the sheriff again. "What about the locals?” You inquire. “What are the official rumors or tales about this Ghostface?”

The Sheriff rolled his eyes, his demeanor shifting from annoyed to irritated. "Oh, don’t get me started on those rumors. The folks around here are superstitious as anything, always blaming anything strange or out of the ordinary on that damn ghost creature."

He leaned back in his seat, rubbing a hand over his face. "Supposedly, Ghostface has been responsible for disappearances and strange events for a while now. But honestly, I think it’s all just tall tales and urban legend."

You nod, absorbing the Sheriff’s words, but you can’t shake the feeling that there was more to this story than just local superstition. Someone is behind this.

"What about the disappearances themselves?" You ask, leaning forward as you rest your hands on the back of the seat across from the Sheriff’s desk. "Are there any patterns or commonalities? Anything unusual about the victims?"

The Sheriff sighed, pulling a file towards him and flipping it open. "Not much to go on," he says, skimming over the report. "All the victims were local, all went missing under different circumstances. Some just disappeared from their homes, others vanished from the woods."

He looked up at you, his expression sober. "And the timing of the disappearances is strange as well. Every month, like clockwork, someone goes missing. Been happening on and off for decades, if you can believe it.”

Your eyebrows shoot up, the new information sinking in. "That long? Every month?" you echo in surprise, a small shiver running through you. "That's... unsettling."

He sat back in his seat, your mind racing with the implications of the pattern. It suggested an organized, methodical approach to the disappearances, not the random work of a simple urban legend.

You shift in your seat, your expression serious as you voice your thoughts. "This kind of precision and regularity..." you begin quietly. "It doesn't feel like the work of some mindless entity. There's intelligence behind these disappearances.”

You pause, looking at the Sheriff before continuing. “And that makes me wonder—what if it's not some supernatural entity that's responsible, but a person or family? A bloodline of killers, carrying out these disappearances as a kind of generational tradition?"

The Sheriff snorted at the suggestion, dismissing it immediately. "That’s ridiculous," he shakes his head. "No one in this town would keep something like that quiet for generations."

But even as he says it, you see a small flicker of uncertainty in the Sheriff's eyes, the hint of doubt that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't completely dismissing the idea.

You slip around the chair and sit, leaning forward and resting your forearms on your knees. "Maybe it’s a stretch, but it's a hell of a lot more plausible than some supernatural entity," you say firmly. "And at least it gives us a place to start looking. But sitting around debating the existence of a ghost isn’t going to help us find these missing people."

The Sheriff opens his mouth to reply, a sharp retort on the tip of his tongue, but you cut him off before he could speak. "I’m not saying I’m right," you continue, holding up a hand. "I’m just saying it’s worth looking into. But we can’t rule out anything, no matter how ridiculous or far-fetched it may seem."

The Sheriff grumbles under his breath, but he couldn’t argue with the slight chance your logic may unfortunately make more sense. Reluctantly, he nodded. "Fine," he said gruffly. "We’ll look into the possibility of a family or individuals being behind these disappearances. But I still think you're barking up the wrong tree."

“Well, if I’m wrong” you lean back in your chair and holding your arms out loosely at your sides, “we’ll go on a ghost hunt.”

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#tara carpenter x you #tara carpenter x y/n #tara carpenter x reader #tara carpenter

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aromanticautiesworld · 1 year ago

Note

finn x fem reader whos really into science, rambles on a bunch and finn actually listena to her which she hasnt seen anyone do and actually CARE about what shes saying and immediately starts crushing (they were og friends but it just made her heart flutter and it was a pretty sunset)

YES YES ABSOLUTELY love this <- fixated on astrophysics since he was six and is considering becoming one in the far future

////

finn with a fem reader who’s a science nerd

word count: 745

Finn called you over for repairs to their telescope not too long ago, something about a fight with the Ice King where he cracked the lense. The sun had already gone down, and the stars (now more visible after all the human’s pesky light pollution was gone) came out of their hiding spots along with the crescent moon.

You stopped the video game you were speeding through, the call being a necessary distraction to pull you out of what would otherwise be many hours straight of gameplay, and a significant lack of self-care.

You pack your bag with snacks, and (of course) books about astrophysics and astronomy (just in case the hangout became a sleepover, or you suddenly needed them. Things can get very chaotic very quickly with Finn), two of your favorite and very closely related sciences. Unlike him, you didn’t want to adventure for your whole life, you did eventually want to become an astrophysicist, maybe study with Peebs.

“Why do you even have a telescope if you never use it?” You say, looking down at the new lense you were trying to install.

“‘Cuz we need it to see any incoming baddies,” Finn waves his sword around, whacking imaginary enemies.

“What about, like. Using binoculars instead,”

“Telescope sees better,”

“Fair point, fair point,” You raise an eyebrow at him, “You do actually know what it’s for, right?”

Finn pauses to think. “I mean…you look at the stars. At least I think you do. I dunno why you’d look at them through that when you can see ‘em perfectly fine from here,”

“It’s cool, trust me! It’s to see them in more detail,”

Finn stares blankly at you.

“So, in space, there’s, like. a hundred billion things—things we can’t even see from here—and this telescope lets you look at all the stuff you can’t see and all the stuff you can see but better,”

Finn sheathes his sword, “I thought there was just the stars, planets and the moon in space?”

“Oh, well. Yeah, but there’s also asteroids, meteoroids, all those decayed satellites from before the mushroom war, supernovas—oh oh oh! Do you know what a supernova is? They’re so cool—they’re basically a big, big star that after becoming a red supergiant they implode in this huge burst of energy that lasts years—and at the end it either makes a neutron star, or a black hole. Black holes are actually super cool too, they don’t let anything out—not even light! Most black holes are smaller than Ooo but there are some massive ones at the center of every galaxy—which is a whole other thing—that could’ve been formed by being compressed at the center of giant stars back in the ancient universe. Also, they’re probably going to be the last thing in the universe but because of hawking radiation eventually they’ll fade away too, and…um…”

You look back over at Finn, who now sat criss cross on the floor of the balcony. He’d been intently listening (even if he didn’t understand some of it) but in your eyes you were boring him. Most people don’t have the energy or desire to listen to your long rants about space, and once you start, the conversation fizzles out and they’re too tired to talk to you.

You look down at your hands, “Sorry, I was rambling again. We can talk about something else if you want, haha…”

“No, no no no,” He had zoned out many times during PB’s talks of numbers and other things kinda irrelevant to him, but for you it was different. Maybe he just likes hearing the sound of your voice, he doesn’t know. “Can you keep going?”

Your heart flutters.

Your rambling continues on into the night, moon and stars slowly moving across the skies. Finn doesn’t add much to the conversation, mostly watches with a fluttering feeling he couldn’t figure out in his chest. Man, you were pretty when you talked.

Many hours later (you don’t know it, but the sun’s coming up soon), you sit by Finn’s side, both of you sleepy from staying up all night.

Finn looks over to you, “Tonight was fun,”

You’re quiet, “…the funny thing is, most peeps don’t like to hear about it. The stars,”

“I wanna hear about the stars, if it’s you talking about them,”

Your eyes practically sparkle, and you pull him into a hug. Finn’s face grows hot, and he freezes before hugging you back.

“Tier one, dude,”

“What?”

#mariner talks #mariner writes #finn the human x reader #finn x reader #adventure time x reader #finn the human

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alectoperdita · 11 months ago

Note

Heeyyy there, can you do 36, 30 or 7 from the ask game???? Joukai of course. Thank uouuuuu!!!

From Put That Guy in a Situation(TM) Ask Game

36. Avalanche/huddle for warmth & 30. Only one bed

Ahhhhhh! Sorry this one took so long. It's longer than usual, though, so I hope that makes up for the wait. Thanks for your patience. ;;;_;;;

Read on AO3

tags: hurt/comfort, minor injury word count: 3,265 words

---

Skiing was stupid. People who skied were even dumber.

Rich, arrogant, good-for-nothing assholes skied.

Case in point, Kaiba skied.

See? Jounouchi's argument was ironclad. Unassailable even.

"Watch it, you oaf," a voice colder than the biting wind howling around them snapped in his numb ear.

"I should've left you to become a popsicle," he grumbled, squaring his stance in the soft, powdery snow and readjusting his grip on Kaiba, careful not to jostle him and set off another tirade of complaints.

"I could say the same for you."

The fingers burrowed under the fold of Jounouchi's scarf bit into the nape of his neck. Hard to tell if it was because of an involuntary reaction to pain or a deliberate warning. Either way, it and Kaiba's words took the wind right out of Jounouchi's sails.

Yeah, so skiing might be stupid, but it was even dumber to attempt a slope beyond his novice ability only to get lost off the trail. Especially as a winter storm brewed. But he couldn't stand how effortlessly Kaiba made everything appear, so suave and eye-catching in his ski gear. Or how he turned his nose up at Jounouchi.

It inspired a familiar feeling, one that drove him to act recklessly.

So it was Jounouchi's rotten luck that Kaiba, as the group's most experienced skier, ultimately tracked him down. Kaiba predictably berated him for his idiocy, Jounouchi snapped back, and they fought. And then, in a begrudging attempt to extract Jounouchi from a ditch, the man fell and busted his leg instead.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he studied Kaiba's beet-red face. Kaiba wore his ski goggles atop his head like a hairband, pushing back his bangs and exposing his forehead. So it wasn't hard to spot the pained grimace wrinkling his brow. Flurries clung to his long lashes, no matter how often he tried to blink them away. He was sweating buckets despite the frigid temperature.

Jounouchi sympathized with that. Underneath his thick winter coat, his own clothing stuck uncomfortably to his skin. He'd kill to be back at the lodge and enjoying a hot shower.

"We need to get out of the open," Kaiba declared.

Jounouchi swept a critical eye across the windswept landscape. Nothing but trees and snow as far as he could see, but his vision's range was limited. Visibility plummeted as the storm intensified.

"Can't you, like, call for help? Doncha have a satellite uplink on you all the damn time?" asked Jounouchi.

"You don't think I tried? Atmospheric conditions affect satellite communication," Kaiba sneered, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world.

It probably was to a guy like him. Jounouchi merely rolled his eyes and focused on their terrestrial concern, repeatedly putting one foot in front of the other to make the most painstaking progress forward. It was the only way they'd get out of this if they couldn't count on rescue incoming.

"Who would've guessed you had such dainty ankles?" He winced when it sounded like a shout as the howling wind died down at that precise moment.

"Excuse me," hissed Kaiba, tightening his grip. Ouch. Ouch! Bastard was definitely squeezing his neck on purpose.

Jounouchi had already dug his hole, so whatever. "I think you need more calcium in your diet, dude. Ya twisted that ankle like nothing. If you're not careful, you're gonna start breaking your hip like 'em little old grannies."

"First of all, it's not a fractured ankle, it's a fractured tibia. Second, my calcium intake is fine. Better than yours, given the trash I've seen you shovel into your mouth. And third, I'm taller, which means I have a higher center of gravity, which affects..."

Jounouchi tuned out the rest of the rant. He could feel the nervous energy bleeding from Kaiba into him. As long as Kaiba kept running his mouth, he stayed awake and alert. It meant he kept working with Jounouchi to cross the increasingly treacherous and snow-blind slope.

A stark shiver wracked their bodies. Jounouchi paused to assess his companion's condition again.

Kaiba's teeth chattered. Sweat blanketed his forehead. Neither were good signs.

"You okay? Cold? In pain?" he asked softly.

"Yes," was Kaiba's reply. Which was as clear and helpful as mud.

Jounouchi sighed and urged them onward. He could only guide them toward what he hoped was the downward direction and pray that they stumbled back onto the trail.

After limping for what felt like hours, their footsteps dragged heavier and heavier behind them as snowfall and fatigue weighed them down in equal parts. That was when Jounouchi spotted what he prayed wasn't a mirage beyond a thicket of trees.

Slanted rooftop, horizontal wooden slats, the glint of glass windows—a cabin!

Giddy from the sudden shot of adrenaline, he nudged Kaiba. "Hey, hey. There's a cabin up ahead!"

Kaiba blinked blearily. He'd grown strangely quiet during the recent stretch. Now, he squinted, scrutinizing the building in the distance, perhaps wondering like Jounouchi if it was real.

The decision made itself.

"Let's go. You know what? I'm gonna carry you on my back. It'll be faster." Jounouchi was already carefully lowering Kaiba onto the snow-blanketed ground while keeping the weight off his injured ankle.

"No," Kaiba snapped. He clung to Jounouchi's biceps.

"It'll be fine, ya stubborn bastard. I swear I'll never tell another living soul so your damn pride can stay intact. I dunno about you, but I wanna get out of the cold ASAP."

"And if you drop me? Or what if you break your ankles next? What then?" challenged Kaiba. There was an increasingly frantic light shining in his eyes.

"Trust me. I don't wanna die out here any more than you do!"

For several terrifying beats, Kaiba stared at him. His claws were locked in rictus, threatening to rip into Jounouchi's padded jacket.

"C'mon, we're both freezing our butts off."

Jounouchi didn't know what convinced Kaiba in the end. Maybe the poor bastard was too wrung out to pick a fight.

"You drop me and it'll be the last thing you ever do." The threat lacked teeth, though.

Kaiba's hands trembled as they released Jounouchi's sleeve. They shook when they planted themselves on Jounouchi's shoulders. Kaiba was heavier than anticipated. Turns out there was meat on those bones after all. But it was a weight Jounouchi could shoulder.

The strangest sensation by far was the hot and heavy feeling of Kaiba breathing down his neck. Yet it was a soothing reminder that Kaiba was alive. Jounouchi huffed and puffed the final stretch to the tiny cabin, but he never dropped Kaiba.

Once they climbed onto the raised porch, Jounouchi deposited him against the railing and shook the accumulated snow from his gear. Eyes drilled into his back as he removed his beanie and brushed his hair clean.

The dog comparison he was certain was incoming never materialized, though. Kaiba must really be tired.

Hobbling on his feet, Kaiba's gaze stayed fixed on the door. "How do you propose we get inside?"

"Uh... Key under the mat?"

Kaiba leveled a disgusted look at him.

He banged twice on the door with his fist. "Hello? Can anyone hear me?"

Right. Also wouldn't hurt to check if there were already people inside. Preferably someone who could help them and wasn't going to hunt them across the mountainside for sport. He blamed Bakura for that last thought.

Leaning close, Jounouchi peered into the window, straining to see through the gap between the curtains. It was dark inside. There was no movement. No one was home. That made sense. The ski racks out front stood barren.

They'd long abandoned their gear, too. No point in dragging extra weight along when Kaiba was already injured.

"Stay here. I'll check around back," ordered Jounouchi before hopping off the porch.

He circled the perimeter at a jog. It hardly took any time. To call it a cabin was probably generous to someone like Kaiba. But it looked sturdy, and it offered shelter from the storm. As he passed one window, he noticed a small sign in it that read "Ski Patrol."

He raced back to Kaiba. "Cabin belongs to ski patrol. There might be a phone inside!"

Kaiba turned and greeted him with a key ring dangling from his index finger.

"Where'd you find those?"

"Hideaway inside a fake rock." Kaiba gestured to a pile sitting in the porch's corner.

Jounouchi laughed. "So I was right. That's basically under the mat. God, I hope they're the spares to this place."

Hopefully, they wouldn't have to go with his backup plan of busting through a window.

Braced against the doorframe, Kaiba went through two keys on the ring before he unlocked the door. Jounouchi whooped in celebration. Then, he moved forward to shoulder Kaiba's weight and usher them inside.

To Jounouchi's relief, the cabin came equipped with indoor plumbing and even a gas stove in the open kitchen out in the main room. There was a small round table and several chairs, but nowhere to lie down.

But in another interior room, he found a bed.

One cramped twin-sized bed squeezed between the wall and a narrow nightstand. There wasn't room for much else.

He went back to the main room to report his findings. Kaiba sat at the dining table where Jounouchi left him, but he had his injured leg propped up on a second chair, ski boot and all.

"Phone's down," Kaiba grunted. "There's electricity, but there's no telling how long the generator will hold up. It's best if we don't use it until we must."

Jounouchi groaned. Guess it was too much to hope for. "Cool, well, there's only one bed."

Kaiba stared at him, unblinking for long lengths. Yeesh, did the bastard really think he was going to fight an injured person for the sole bed?

He approached the table. "You should take it. You're the one with the busted ankle. Want me to carry ya, princess?"

Laughing, he barely dodged the ski goggles Kaiba flung at his head. Somehow, that restored the equilibrium between them.

"Make yourself useful and find a first aid kit," barked Kaiba.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

Inside a kitchenette cabinet, he located a red bag with a white cross.

"Found it!"

A soft swear answered him from behind. He glanced over his shoulder and watched as Kaiba hunched over his elevated foot, struggling with his bootstraps. Jounouchi heaved a sigh, and on his way back to the table, he grabbed an afghan blanket folded on a shelf. He deposited the first aid kit on the tabletop and the blanket onto Kaiba's head, where his hair turned damp from the melting snow.

Kaiba cursed, louder this time, his arms flailing under the blanket. Jounouchi kneeled down next to him, shed his gloves, and started working the snaps open. Above him came a snarl. He peered up just in time to see the outrage on Kaiba's face melt into shock after he ripped the wool away. Fighting a sudden wave of self-consciousness, Jounouchi lowered his gaze and kept going. His fingers, slowly warming, fumbled briefly on the next clasp.

He waited for Kaiba to say something. Anything. Bark an order. Throw an insult. But Kaiba had gone deadly quiet, howling in his silence. The behavior was so strange Jounouchi wondered if Kaiba also hit his head when he fell.

Either way, Jounouchi felt the other man's stare drill through the top of his head.

Next came the hard part: getting the boot off without further agitating Kaiba's injury.

Again, his eyes flicked up to Kaiba's face, where he noted the almost contemplative expression that now dominated its planes. "Ya ready for this?"

Kaiba squared his shoulders, then nodded.

Jounouchi removed the boot as carefully as he could manage. Yet afterward, the man's forehead was drenched with sweat, his face stripped of all color. Jounouchi went straight to the first aid kit and fished out the painkillers. With trembling hands, Kaiba snapped up the packet, tore it open, and swallowed two pills before Jounouchi could ask if he wanted water.

Figures Kaiba was the kind of freak who swallowed pills dry.

As Kaiba slumped forward and placed his head down atop the table, Jounouchi helped him out of the remaining boot as well. He set the footwear, both emblazoned with fancy KC logos, aside.

"Thank you."

The words stunned Jounouchi. His head whipped up, and he gawked at Kaiba. He couldn't see Kaiba's face, but the tips of his ears blazed bright red.

After several seconds of awkward silence, Jounouchi replied, "That should be my line. You're the one that found me after I got my dumbass self lost. So thanks for coming to get me."

To his surprise, Kaiba didn't lift his head. His bangs smeared across the tabletop as he nodded, though.

"And sorry you got hurt because of that," Jounouchi added quietly. His eyes darted back to Kaiba's elevated leg, but the thick pants made it impossible to gauge the severity of his condition. "How bad do you think it is?"

The table muffled Kaiba's reply. "Are there scissors in that kit?"

"Yeah."

"Cut the pant leg up to the knee."

Knowing that the alternative was somehow peeling Kaiba out of said pants, Jounouchi obeyed without complaint. He worked carefully, though, not wanting to cut Kaiba. A gigantic bruise sat halfway up to Kaiba's knee, right around where his ski boot ended. The entire area was swollen, but there was no sign of blood.

"No bone pushing through the skin, so that's a good sign." Kaiba said, suddenly right next to Jounouchi's ear. His warm breath puffed over Jounouchi's cheek.

Jounouchi jerked back, grabbing the chair's back to steady himself.

Thankfully, Kaiba was too preoccupied with examining his leg to notice his overreaction. "I should splint it."

Jounouchi jumped to his feet. "Splint, yeah, makes sense. Ya need a stick or something, right? I'll look for one."

As luck would have it, he dug up segments of PVC pipes already cut in half. Kaiba also appeared pleased when he presented them, kindling a warm glow within Jounouchi's ribcage.

"Can I help with anything else?" he asked, despite not knowing how to make a splint.

Kaiba hesitated before replying, "I have it handled. But I'll let you know if I need anything."

Jounouchi nodded automatically. He bounced between one foot and the other as Kaiba worked. But when Kaiba peered up at him for a second, something inside him snapped. He spun on his heels before declaring, "I saw a firewood shed out back. Gonna see if I can get a fire going for us."

Without waiting for a response, he fled the small cabin. The cold hit him in the face like a slap. It was invigorating. Got his blood pumping in a good way.

It wasn't until he dropped several split logs that he realized he'd left his gloves inside. Instead of going to retrieve them, he sank to his knees and cupped his numb hands to his mouth, blowing hot air over him. He couldn't say how long he stayed like that before the chill finally drove him back into the cabin.

Kaiba barely acknowledged him when he returned. That made Jounouchi feel simultaneously better and worse. The bastard hadn't even waited for Jounouchi to return before he somehow hobbled his way over to the loveseat close to the fireplace.

He focused on the fireplace instead.

Once the fire got going, the temperature inside warmed considerably. Unsurprisingly, Kaiba had to be bullied out of his outerwear before he could be swathed with blankets over his shoulders and his newly splinted leg.

Save for the seldom pop and crackle of the fire, it was silent.

Kaiba glared at his smartphone, occasionally adjusting its position as if that would catch a stray signal bar. Jounouchi also checked his phone, but he was sure his coverage was shit compared to Kaiba's.

Jounouchi also hung up his jacket to dry and shed his ski boots by the door. He didn't hesitate snatching the quilt off the bed in the other room, huddling under it while standing next to the fire.

"You stand any closer and you'll catch fire," came a dry quip from behind him.

He turned to face Kaiba and found the man with his phone facedown on his lap while squeezing the bridge of his nose. He lay lengthwise along the too-small loveseat with his legs elevated on the armrest and his sock-clad toes peeking out from under a blanket.

Despite that, Kaiba looked cozy? Shit, Jounouchi felt a bit insane even thinking about that. But Kaiba appeared comfy. His sharp angles and harsh lines blunted under the woolen cover.

Disarmed. Soft. Jounouchi had never seen him that way before.

"What?" snapped Kaiba, jerking Jounouchi from his hazy thoughts. When he shivered, though, the entire fabric mass shook with him.

"Still cold?" Jounouchi asked as he padded closer.

Kaiba dropped his gaze to his pale hands clasped on his lap. "Nothing to be alarmed about. I've always had circulation issues."

Jounouchi laughed. "Cuz you're a skinny beanpole."

Kaiba glared, but he didn't argue.

Another insane thought crossed Jounouchi's mind. One he shouldn't dare entertain, but being cold probably wasn't good for Kaiba's leg in his current state. He had already dedicated himself to Kaiba's well-being to this point. Might as well ensure neither of them froze into popsicles before Kaiba could get proper medical attention.

"Alright, budge up."

Kaiba should hurry. Before Jounouchi lost his nerves.

"Excuse me."

"Ya heard me. Make room. We're gonna share body heat."

"Why?" Kaiba's voice rose an octave. He gave Jounouchi a frantic once-over from head to toe.

"So we don't freeze, duh."

Kaiba looked at him as if he was insane.

Jounouchi felt insane.

"Look, you're still cold, and I'm not giving you this blanket too. It's the last one," he argued.

For a moment, Kaiba looked as if he might eject Jounouchi from the cabin entirely, busted leg be damned. But then a miracle happened. Kaiba, after lowering his gaze, scooted forward, making space for Jounouchi to join him on the furniture. With his heart in his throat, Jounouchi squeezed in, carefully wiggling until he bracketed Kaiba's tense frame with his legs. Without asking, because he was positive the answer would be no, Jounouchi pulled the other man's back flush to his chest.

Kaiba stiffened. He froze as if he had been left outside in sub-zero temperatures. That gave Jounouchi an opening to slip an arm around Kaiba's waist, but he left the limb atop a layer of quilt.

From this angle, he could only make out the back of Kaiba's head and the tip of his flaming ears.

Kaiba remained strangely mute. Only the steady rise and fall of his chest signaled his consciousness. Another shudder wracked through his body, and Jounouchi could feel it, from the hissing inhale to the tensing of back muscles to the exhale and shoulder slumping under the woolen weight.

Kaiba stopped shivering afterward, though. So that counted as a success, right?

"Don't worry, I don't mind sharing the bed with you if you want a space heater there too," Jounouchi joked. A hard lump formed in his throat, and he fought the urge to tighten his arms.

In response, Kaiba elbowed him in the stomach. But it was a light touch for him.

Jounouchi wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was content to remain here. Just the two of them huddled under blankets until the storm finally passed. And when Kaiba leaned back against him, he gave the impression he didn't mind either.

Read other prompt fill ficlets here

#replies #lorennaaaaaaaa #yugioh #puppyshipping #violetshipping #kaijou #my fanfiction #writing prompts #in case you're wondering i imagine them as skiing in Nagano #look at them and their dumb crushes on each other but channeling it into being competitive with each other instead #i still have two more of these to go #will hopefully get to them soon #thanks again for your patience <3

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azems-familiar · 9 months ago

Text

more of the ascian Azem au beneath the cut: aka i finally wrote the Sundering (and wow was it hard to get the tone right)

They’re standing on a street corner conferring with Elidibus and Lahabrea - or rather, Hades is conferring with them and Azem is only half-paying attention to the conversation, keeping their eye out for their little follower, who they last saw skulking in the shadow of a nearby residential building half-destroyed in the Final Days and yet to be reconstructed. They should try to get her name out of her when she follows them home tonight, Azem thinks absently, and maybe some paperwork to establish their apartment as her current residence. If- if she wants to continue staying with them. Someone will need to have guardianship of her if she’s to be properly taken care of, and she at least seems to allow Azem to help.

The first sign that something is wrong comes from Elidibus. He stops speaking abruptly, turning to stare up at the strange white satellite that’s been visible in the sky off and on since Zodiark was imprisoned. “What is She doing?” he says, voice low - and then his eyes widen behind his mask and he almost sounds like Themis again, younger and far more present, when he says, “No, don’t!”

And the sky fills with Light. There’s a sound, more felt than heard, like shattering glass, like a crystal cracking down the center, and the world warps around them - ripples on water, wind through leaves, sunlight on windows, a reflection that shifts and morphs and grows, the very ground beneath their feet folding in on itself and then stretching apart on a spider’s web of a million invisible fractures. Against the glaring brightness of a magic just as if not more powerful than Zodiark’s creation, a brightness that sears Azem’s very aether, a bitter burn they can feel all the way to their soul, all they can think of is the child, and they sprint in her direction, ignoring the way Hades cries their name.

They barely make it to the building before there’s a grinding sound that seems to come from everywhere at once and the Light turns so bright they can’t do anything but close their eyes and cower away from it, away from the blade that passes by them so close they can feel the wind of its passage against their skin. It isn’t a real blade, it can’t be, but they feel something cleave anyway, and there’s that awful noise like the star itself is tearing apart-

Then all at once, it stops.

The silence in the air is absolute. Azem opens their eyes, slowly, and- and still they stand where they were a moment before, just inside the main entrance of a residential building’s lobby, but there is something inexplicably wrong about it, as if everything around them has somehow…diminished. Become lesser. A drabness, like the haze of grey they’ve lived in since Helios’s death has manifested over the star itself, all color dimmed and the sunlight shading in through a window weak and thin as if it’s falling through a heavy layer of water. And the aether, when they look at the world through that second sight, drifts past in pale streams so faded as to be nearly intangible, like motes of dust in a sunbeam. One spell, were they to cast it by drawing on the star itself the way Helios has always done, might drain those currents entirely dry.

Horror builds in their throat like nausea. This is wrong. This is wrong. Sickly and feeble and empty, a distorted shadow of what should be-

They suck in a shaking breath, turning in a slow circle, and everything is as it was but nothing is as it should be. They- they can barely feel Zodiark’s presence anymore, His power a muffled pulse that echoes across some unimaginable distance. Not long ago they probably would have been glad for the space between them and His overwhelming Darkness, but now they just feel cold.

Footsteps draw their attention and they turn to see- golden hair, red eyes, their little follower, drifting across the floor towards them. Her mask is gone and there is something- different about her, a dullness to her eyes - and in the aether, in the aether she is nothing but a shade, less present than the weakest animal, more a ghost than anything living. She’s not- she’s not a person anymore - the tiny, fragmented soul they can sense would barely elevate her from the classification of ‘arcane entity’. There is no life in the empty gaze she casts briefly over Azem, unrecognizing, before she simply moves on, a spirit borne on the wind.

She looks exactly as Helios had, when he laid there unmoving on the dirt, unseeing and unhearing and gone.

Azem gathers their aether and pulls themself across the aetherial sea to the aetheryte near the Capitol, something desperate clawing its way through them, as if- as if they can prove that this is just an outlier, as if the world will suddenly change - but everywhere they look they see dead faces somehow still walking, empty-eyed husks shuffling through a fragmented reality, all of them walking away as if driven by some echoing impulse. These- these are not Azem’s people, who they love, who they have given their life to shepherding. This is some ghastly mockery, puppets being drawn across an invisible stage, except they recognize the barest traces of aether left behind in many of these bodies.

They can’t- breathe. The air is too thin, the aether is too thin, the star is too thin-

Hydaelyn did this, they think numbly, and it feels like ice freezing slowly over the surface of their soul, sealing them away within. Not Venat - Venat is gone, has to be, if there was any shred of her left she would never have struck such a blow, would never have broken the star and the people the way Hydaelyn has. These faded and frail reflections of life - why would She do this? Light lingers still in the air, a persistent sharpness that sinks into their bones, and they stare up at the sky, at the satellite that mars its even curve, and wonder if Her blow had missed them so deliberately as some sort of punishment.

Bear witness to what your failures have wrought, they can nearly imagine Her saying, with that hardness in Her eyes that Venat had developed the moment she learned about the future. It feels apt. One last lesson to the wayward student who has ever been the lesser choice for their seat: abandon your duty and it will be taken from you.

Perhaps Etheirys should have burned, if this is to be its fate.

Some indeterminate time passes around them. A breeze stirs up; it blows right through them. They are not here. They are not anywhere, adrift on the ice floes of their soul. The sky darkens, the stars spill across it like pinpricks of fire against an endless expanse of ink, and Zodiark and the souls He is made of remain frustratingly out of reach. They do not need to look to know that Amaurot is empty.

A warm hand on their shoulder brings them back to the ground, eventually. They blink away the static and lower their head, wincing against the crick in their neck, almost afraid to turn - but then they do, and standing next to them is Hades, his mask loose around his neck and his cowl down. His eyes ache with unshed tears, but they are alive - he’s alive. Hydaelyn’s blow missed him too. That simple fact - that they are not alone - makes them want to cry, though they don’t.

“...everything is dead,” Azem says, as hollow as the rustling leaves. “I’ve seen the people. What is left of them, the shades they are. But…” They swallow, gaze drifting away from Hades’s face to the silent street behind him, and whisper, “I do not know if they are the condemned ones.”

Hades makes a soft, choked sound almost like a sob and pulls them closer, wrapping his arms around them, and they let him maneuver them until he can rest his head on their shoulder, his face tucked into the crook of their neck, his tears cool on their skin. For a long moment they just- stand there, eyes caught on a faded lavender leaf swirling in little circles over an embossed sidewalk panel, caught in the grooves in the material, and then they slowly let out a breath and slide one arm around his waist, tilting their head sideways to lean their cheek against his temple.

When Lahabrea and Elidibus find them later - the last four living things in all of Etheirys, spared the blade of Light in what cannot in even the most twisted sense be called a mercy - Azem does not let go.

#ramblings #my writing #ffxiv #unsundered azem au #azemet #i guess?? it's technically Not That but the other two parts of the weird polycule are dead. so #i'm just fucking around. this is rough draft #ascian azem au #oc: seleukos

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buckywritessometimes · 10 months ago

Text

beautiful.

Buried in the cold, I feel it is almost my time to be born anew.

The tip of my nose feels stained, the way the red has blossomed from the center outwards, rushing to my cheeks and the tips of my ears. My hands are stained, too, burned scarlet from the freezing temperatures I’ve condemned myself to.

Even my nails are caked through with red.

“Neptune’s ocean,” I mumble to myself--and suddenly, laughter overtakes my body, and before I can even think about it, I’ve tossed myself into the snow at my feet as choking laughter inflates my crystallized lungs, making my body shake and heave with uncontrollable fits of giggles.

Fucking Macbeth.

It’s cold. Really cold. My fingers are screaming with misplaced heat from the burn of touching the frozen snow that litters the ground around me; my hands shake in bursts of one, two, three, four, cast in time to the quick-paced drip, drop that echoes around me, twisting musically through the air as it intertwines with the fading sound of my laughter.

Red on white. It’s pretty, isn’t it?

I turn to the sky, but it’s just an empty plane of darkness. There’s only one star winking back at me, and somehow, I know it’s not even a star, but a satellite.

A mimic.

I can barely feel my feet. There’s a budding warmth in the tips of my toes that burns ferociously beneath my skin, sending strikes of white-hot pain through the arches of my feet up to the beginnings of my knees, where the snow has melted through my beat-up slacks and begun to freeze the skin, leaving big patches of purplish-red showing through the worn holes in the fabric.

I don’t know how long I’ve been out here.

I don’t know how long we’ve been out here.

But I don’t want to leave.

I’m not one to abandon my work.

Slowly, shakily, I crawl back to the man laying face-down in the snow a few feet from me and pick up his limp hand. It’s cold, I know, but selfishly, all I can think is that it’s not as cold as mine.

With a great heave, I roll him over onto his back, and push my face close to his.

His lips have dropped open, revealing a quickly-blueing tongue that lolls out unsteadily. One of his eyes is open, the other has fallen half shut.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper, a grin tugging at my lips. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”

Blood is still dripping into the snow, leaving pretty patterns of crimson-stained ice as it ever so slightly melts into the ground, small divots forming and pooling with quickly-cooling blood.

Even as my hands shake relentlessly, I brush the snow off of his face, taking great care to be gentle around his eyes as I clear his eyelashes of the little flakes.

The wind has bitten relentlessly at my knuckles, leaving them scrubbed red and raw; worse, my skin is terribly dry, small flakes shedding with every flex of my joints, drifting down into the beautiful carmine snow.

I stand up. I’m stuck at an angle, my back bent at an unflattering angle as I hobble over to the other side of the man. It almost looks as though I’m bowing in some awful stage production, with a cast of amateurs and the production value of some backstreet dog fight.

But I am no amateur.

And dog fights never caught my eye.

This, though; this sensual experience of human interaction that ends in frozen blueish-purple lips and bright red snow? This is where I feel at home.

I’m not wearing anything particularly warm. I never do. My white dress shirt is thin, my slacks are cheap and retain no warmth, my shoes are leather with no insulation, and I barreled straight past the coatrack when I left. But make no mistake, this was not an accident. This is the thrill of becoming beautiful.

The cold creates the possibility of rebirth. It is only when I am nearly frozen solid, ice crystals in my chest cavity and the heavenly blood of a too-perfect angel on my hands, that I will be able to be remade in the face of a God who has never once accepted me.

Acceptance. It makes me want to laugh.

I have prayed, and I have screamed, and I have banged my fists against the walls of a confessional waiting for my own fucking turn, but it has not come.

God loves all of His children, they tell me, before they spit in my face.

God creates all His children in His own beautiful image, they recite, before they push me aside and laugh at my terribly ugly form.

And I have looked at these people, the supposed angels of our time, dressed in their best Sunday wear with kitten-heeled Mary Janes and expensive wristwatches, and they have looked back at me with contempt and a fear of who I may become, and each time it makes me sick to my stomach until all I can manage to do is kneel on the cold ground of a world that abandoned me and pull the body of Christ from my own mouth and drip His blood from their veins onto the paper-white snow.

The dead man in front of me is beautiful. I never have been.

So I make myself beautiful in all the ways that would make his God cringe and shrivel up into the pathetic mess of uncaring that he has always been to me.

Suddenly, I turn away from the man and look up into the sky, meeting the eyes of the satellite that watches me from the heavens; and slowly, steadily, I begin to speak.

“Are you an angel?” I ask, curling my nails up into my palms. “I am.”

It doesn’t respond.

“I have made myself one, I think. And I think you have too. God did not create you, man did; and yet, you send messages from a space we cannot reach alone, and you overlook humanity and cast uncaring judgment onto us. I think that makes you an angel.”

Still, it doesn’t respond, and I fall back in the snow with a solid whump of weight, my arms outstretched as though I’m about to create a snow angel.

I snort. Ironic, eh?

“Do you think I’m pretty?” I ask, staring up at the angel.

From the corner of my eye, off in the distance, I can see red and blue flashing lights.

I love the red, but hate the blue. It muddies up the stains in the snow and on my hands.

Though I know my time is running short, I don’t stand up. Instead, I stare at the sky, making eye contact with the satellite as it stares back at me, the unblinking light etching itself into my eyes.

Even as I hear the sound of doors slamming, I don’t stand up.

Even as I hear yelling, I don’t stand up.

Even as I am pulled from the ground, my snow-angel-cross imprint left in the snow, I don’t make any effort to stand up. They half hold, half drag me, my feet stumbling in the thick snow that made me.

I can hear the frantically hushed conversation of the blue men around me.

“There’re crosses carved in his chest,” one of them whispers, his eyes practically bulging out of his head. I make eye contact with him and smile as best as I can, and his eyes widen even more, before he suddenly turns away.

I’m mercilessly shoved into the car, but I don’t care. Carefully, I crane my neck around and shove my face against the window, reaching as far as I can in the hopes of seeing the satellite--and there, just barely, I can see it.

I smile my crooked smile again, and somehow, I think it smiles back at me.

#yes i borrowed some terms and concepts from other older writing concepts. shhhhh #my writing #writeblr #creative writing #writers on tumblr #writing #writblr #tw murder #tw mutilation

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ifearifearifear · 5 months ago

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The FNAF Multiverse (2/10)

Part 2, here already. I wish I could say I'm surprised, but I know myself too well for that =]

Chapter 2: Canon

Canon has always been a point of contention among the community, and for good reason. It’s dense, confusing, misleading, and has had at least one retcon take place. And that is reflected in the multiverse. Canon is the infinitely dense, ever-expanding cosmic horror at the center of the Five Nights at Freddy’s multiverse. The creature that spawned all of the universes that came after it.

That last point is particularly relevant to the Games canon. And unlike the people slogging about on Twitter, I don’t particularly care if you think the anthologies are canon to the games, or if the novel based around the movie retconned things. Because regardless, there are too many universes to keep track of - and because of the way the community is, there will be a universe where they are one in the same, and there will be universes where they are distinct. Everything that could be, is. And everything that might be, will. It’s just a matter of people speaking it into being.

There is no clear distinction between canon and canon-adjacent. The true canon has never been identified by the creators, and so, it remains a mystery among the endless sea of speculative universes. Which universes are the true canons remain something only the creators know.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of canon/canon-adjacent universes and timelines based in canon universes.

The GAMES Canon - Consists of the Clickteam-era and Steel Wool-era games. The true breadth of this canon remains a topic of heated debate amongst the community. Depending on who is talking, it may or may not include FNAF: Special Delivery, FNAF World, Fazbear Frights, Into The Pit, and Tales from the Pizzaplex. Has several alternate timelines, including the non-canon endings of FNAF 3 and Sister Location, and the various endings of Security Breach.

The TRILOGY Canon - Consists of the official FNAF novel trilogy: The Silver Eyes, The Twisted Ones, and The Fourth Closet. Despite initial confusion within the community, this trilogy is generally considered to be a distinct universe, due to various incompatibilities with other universes. Keen readers may consider the graphic novels to be a separate timeline, due to being generally comparable, but slightly different.

The MOVIE Canon - Consists of the FNAF Movies. As of posting, the second movie is in development, and the canon is thus unfinished, leaving many mysteries up in the air. The novelization is considered an alternate timeline, due to various small differences and mistakes.

Uniquely, canon is functionally untouchable, only making it more difficult to distinguish. Any attempts to interact or even perceive the true canon result in the immediate production of a unique 'satellite universe', prone to mutations. No two people will have the exact same perception of the canon, and that is reflected in the mechanics of the multiverse. Where one may find a character unilaterally evil, another may find them sympathetic. No one universe is more invalid than another, as each is as real as the rest. Proximity to canon is difficult to parse, and even official content deviates from it, at times.

In our next chapter, we’ll get into the other side of the coin. Fanmade universes.

- Chapter Navigation -

- 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 * 6 * 7 * 8 * 9 * 10 -

#ififif-FNAFM #Five Nights At Freddy's #Five Nights At Freddys #FNAF #FNAF AU

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drtusharbhatt · 4 months ago

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spookyspaghettisundae · 10 months ago

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What He Signed Up For

The EMD’s battery whined. Green, yellow, and red bars glowed on the side of the futuristic weapon, set for maximum power output.

A measured response to a Tyrannosaurus Rex. A mighty dinosaur in the flesh. Its deafening roar curdled Chloe Grant’s blood and shook her to the core. Their previous encounter with a Purrusaurus had haunted her nightmares with memories of the giant crocodile, but it paled in comparison to this tyrant lizard and its towering appearance.

The earth quaked with every step the beast took. Despite its frightening mass, it displayed an even more terrifying agility. The T-Rex ducked underneath metal girders connecting different parts of the oil rig. Gigantic claws crashed down and kicked up clouds of dust, suffocating the crystal blue sky behind it.

Mischchenko shot first. Electric blasts discharged into balls of lightning where they struck the giant lizard. It roared in pain. Its roar petered out into an angry growl—a single shot from the EMD, even at full capacity, was not enough to knock the dino out.

Grant flipped her internal safety switch. Stopped thinking. Acted on that dread that had been paralyzing her at the sight of the T-Rex, and now acted like she used to in the field, as a soldier. How different could it be from shooting at a tank?

Two blasts from her EMD hit the T-Rex in its snout, dead center. It roared again, reared back, and metal squealed where the lizard’s body smashed through the oil rig’s girders.

From the flanks, more EMD shots sliced through the air, three in number. Ruiz, crouched upon an old blue container shell, sniped at the T-Rex from his elevated position. His first shot sent the beast reeling, stumbling back another few thundering steps. Static crackled around the scaly beast’s body. It shuddered, barely staying standing. Before it could recover, a second and third shot elicited a strange mewling sound from the T-Rex’s maw.

Mischchenko ducked. In doing so, she covered the dirt-caked boy in the blue container behind them. The boy shivered behind her, whimpering, cowering at the sight of the T-Rex. Small hands covered eyes, screwed shut in terror.

Grant stepped farther out from the container, aiming down her EMD’s scope at the beast. It stumbled back another step.

Ruiz’s voice on intercom crackled, tinny, commenting with coldness.

“Careful now. I ain’t carrying that big-ass lizard back to any Anomaly.”

The T-Rex looked disoriented. Its toothy maw opened and clamped shut, and its massive claws kicked up more dust, tearing up ground around the abandoned Midland oil rig.

Grant muttered into the intercom, “How the hell did nobody spot this thing on satellite image? Yo!”

Mischchenko skipped the answer to her question. She barked, “We need a location on the Anomaly! Yesterday!”

The T-Rex lurched forward and the ground shook again.

Murder flashed in reptilian eyes.

“We aren’t getting anything here!” Singh whined across the airwaves. “Not even a visual! Where are you?”

Grant kept her gun’s muzzle trained at the dinosaur’s head. She clicked her tongue.

The T-Rex reared back another thundering step. Its tail whipped around and tore a chunk of metal out of the old rig’s body. Metal bars bent and groaned and screeched where unstoppable saurian force tore them apart.

Huge legs buckled. The EMD shots always hurt.

“It’s going to run,” Burch said over the radio. It dawned on Grant that Burch could see everything they were seeing at the oil rig, as their helmets were continuously transmitting visual feeds. Burch repeated, with more urgency, “It’s going to run!”

Mischchenko took a step forward, Ruiz stayed as still as a statue, and Grant’s finger curled around the trigger.

Time slowed to a crawl. A single second turned into an eternity.

No thoughts. Only action.

Grant shot first, then Ruiz, then Mischchenko. Five more EMD discharges total, and the T-Rex emitted another mewling groan. It stumbled again. It crashed. A living earthquake, shaking their world. Flakes of rust snowed down from every metal girder, and the blue containers rocked. All metal groaned.

The three field operatives breathed steadily, keeping their weapons lined up for more shots.

The T-Rex’s tail slapped the ground, whipping up another violent cloud of dust.

There was almost a tragic beauty in how the dust broke the rays of broad daylight in this Texan desert.

Nobody else on the team commented. Stunned, they watched what the helmet feeds transmitted.

The T-Rex no longer budged. Its maw closed with slowness. Eyelids fell shut.

The dinosaur slept off its stupor. The EMDs had taken it down. For now.

“Specimen incapacitated,” Mischchenko confirmed. “We need eyes on the Anomaly, damnit!”

Nothing. The huge cloud of dust surrounding the T-Rex still settled, slowly. Ever so slowly.

Doctor Solomon broke the silence. “Working on it. I think something’s interfering with our detectors. And something else is affecting the satellite images. Standby, please.”

Ruiz sighed. “We ain’t got all day, and we’re gettin’ spread thin. Wasn’t there another dino out here we need to worry about? And the federales team?”

Stantz replied via radio. “Me, I’m on the military, don’t worry about it. We need to find out if there’s more damage I need to control. Carter—you should regroup with the rest of field ops. Two o’ ya keep your eyes on the T-Rex, two start sweeping the area. How hard can it be to find another big lizard and a big glowing orb of energy?”

“Doctor Trémaux would beg to differ.” Doctor Solomon interjected. “It’s not simply energy, it’s—”

“I don’t care, man,” Stantz cut in. “You eggheads worry about quantum physics or whatever it is you do, I worry about keeping the lid on things.”

“No objections from me,” Carter growled. “Except the part where you’re the media guy, and not our C.O., Stantz. That being said, I got no arguments about our next steps. On my way to rendezvous with y’all, Mischchenko. Sit tight.”

Ruiz hopped down from the blue container. He lifted his helmet’s visor to reveal symmetrical features and a three o’clock shadow on his face. Brown eyes sparkled as he stared daggers at the downed T-Rex.

In a fluid motion, he produced a crumpled pack of cigarettes from a pocket, then brought one of those cigarettes to the corner of his lips.

Mischchenko cleared her throat. She emerged from the blue container with the small boy, helping the child to climb out.

“Not concerned about setting a bad example?” she asked Ruiz.

He shrugged and lit up his cigarette with a blade-like flame from a storm lighter.

Mischchenko sighed. She lifted her visor and hunkered down next to the boy, meeting the child at eye level, and resting a gloved hand on his shoulder. In hushed tones and a soothing voice, she spoke to the kid, soon learning his name was Aiden, and telling him that he didn’t need to be afraid of any dinosaurs as long as they were around.

Figuring Mischchenko had that situation handled, Grant shouldered her EMD rifle and sauntered up to Ruiz.

While he smoked, they kept watch on the unconscious T-Rex.

The dinosaur’s sides heaved with an almost peaceful tranquil. Breathing steadily.

Part of her wanted to approach it. Part of her imagined removing a glove, running her fingers over those scales, to learn what it felt like.

The rest of her body and instincts screamed at her. She was as close as she needed to be, and didn’t even want to imagine what would happen if that beast bit anybody.

Instead of approaching it and sating that lethal curiosity, Grant stood still as a statue, a sentry.

Ruiz scratched his chin and smoked, eventually peeling his attention off the T-Rex, and meeting Grant’s gaze.

Smoke billowed from his nostrils and he chortled. “Well, would you look at that. Feels like yesterday when Carter was complaining about walkin’ into a T-Rex on a mission, huh?”

Grant forced herself not to study his handsome face. He looked like an artist had chiseled a perfect likeness of a man into the shadow of his helmet.

Ruiz must have picked up on it. A smirk played around the corners of his lips, framed by a subtle twitch that he wrestled back into a stoic expression.

Grant had no idea what Ruiz knew. He knew why Future Proof’s team had missed the Anomaly, and still had no visual on the T-Rex. Or them, for that matter.

Just that morning, the mystery woman with the red hair had briefed him on it. Briefed him on it all.

* * *

“We’re about to leak this intel to Future Proof,” said the mystery woman. Loretta Corsino.

If Ruiz’s smirk bore self-confidence, then Corsino’s smirk was smug.

This morning, however, long before Future Proof’s team arrived in Midland, Ruiz wasn’t smirking at all.

He was frowning.

Flipping up and down the brief on the tablet’s screen, its contents were painting the frown on his face.

Corsino’s group, the nebulous company who was wiring obscene amounts of money to Ruiz for his espionage work at Future Proof, had finally gotten a leg up on them.

The screen displayed grainy satellite images of dinosaurs on the loose in the dusty outskirts of Midland. And satellite images of an Anomaly, a glittering, glowing orb in a wasteland.

Ruiz scrolled past a picture of Captain Dariel Rose—bearded, dark, carved with wrinkles from black ops abroad, staring into the camera with a grim expression—acting head of the military operations team en route to secure the specimens.

He scrolled past number crunching, cold mathematics. Corporate language, callous in its specificity, with all the fluff cut out for clarity. Ruiz scrolled past it all. He wasn’t interested in the details. The specifics made his stomach churn and knot.

The stats summed up a preliminary death toll, measured in civilians. They weren’t doing a damned thing.

Ruiz wasn’t liking any of this. It wasn’t what he had signed up for.

The tablet, dropped from his hand in frustration, clattered on the café’s table between them.

Loretta Corsino still smirked at him. Maybe she was just sadistic enough that his reaction amused her. Impossible for him to read. Hers was a beauty to rival his own, and her role in all of this… it frightened him.

Valentìn Ruiz thumbed his upper lip and stifled a sigh.

“What am I supposed to do with this, now?” he asked, throwing up his hand in frustration.

Corsino’s eyes sparkled in the morning sun. She took a timid sip from her cup of coffee, and the smirk never faded from her lips.

“You do your job, Mister Magician. Show up to work, play dumb, and be our eyes and ears at Future Proof. We want to see if Doctor Solomon can beat our new toy before we pull the plug. If this works out right, we’ll always be a step ahead of Future Proof from here on out, and you can expect another big, fat paycheck for your good work.”

Ruiz almost muttered “fuck me” with another sigh. Almost.

Instead, he took a deep breath and sipped his coffee. Suppressed the shake in his hand.

Almost like the shakes he used to have, back in the day of work as a sharpshooter. First Recon. The shakes had gone away after he left the service, went private. Didn’t even need booze or drugs to take off the edge.

And here it was again, the shakes, threatening to return.

What had it all even meant?

The coffee cup almost rattled against the saucer when he put it back down.

Corsino still smirked at him.

He needed to play it cool, always. But the shakes were coming back.

* * *

His hand shook as he smoked while standing next to Grant outside the abandoned oil rig. Ruiz suppressed it again, taking a long, deep drag from his slim cancer stick.

Grant shook her head, staring at the downed T-Rex.

“Seriously, though,” she said. “How does a bunch o’ trained pros miss a damn T-Rex on live sat imaging?”

Ruiz shrugged again. Blew out smoke.

“Who knows,” he growled. “That lizard snuck up on us, too. Maybe something about the oil fields, tech that’s interfering?”

“Unlikely,” responded a voice on their intercom. Doctor Solomon. His voice crackled with static. He added, “Unlikely the energy companies out here had tech like that in place, let alone leaving anything like that behind when they shuttered operations out here. But—not impossible.”

Carter also growled on the radio. “Speakin’ o’ which. Should we be worried about EMDs settin’ off fires, with the oil around here, and stuff? Seen some—”

“Yes,” replied Doctor Solomon. “Yes, Mister Carter, you should be worried about that. I advise caution whenever wielding your EMDs. I saw several puddles of leakage on the airlift. And given how dry the flora out here is this time of year, one misplaced shot could be a recipe for disaster.”

Carter groaned.

Grant and Ruiz both stared at the cigarette cinched between Ruiz’ black-gloved fingers.

He shook his head, dropped the cigarette, and stamped it out, grinding it under his heel into the dust.

Mischchenko joined them. Her EMD rifle hung from her shoulder by the sling. With her free arm, she held hands with the boy.

“This is Aiden,” she introduced them to the kid.

Aiden only shot them furtive glances. His stares lingered on the futuristic rifles they bore, and he stole glimpses of their fearsome black armored jumpsuits, and the name tags emblazoned on their chests.

“Hey, Aiden,” Grant said. Her voice cracked.

She had a problem with dogs, but not with kids. Immediately felt sorry for this boy, and that sentiment only deepened by the minute.

His was a thousand-mile stare. Blank, hollow, piercing outward from a face caked in dirt and dried blood spatters. Grant had only overheard fragments of Mischchenko’s conversation with the boy.

His family was probably dead. Probably definitely dead. Killed by stampeding dinosaurs. Eaten alive. Traumatic shreds of descriptions had bled through his stammering earlier. Grant hadn’t listened to all of it, and didn’t particularly care for the details. She shuddered at the thought of growing up like Aiden would have to grow up now.

She couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of therapy he would need. She only found solace in the thought that her work here at Future Proof might ensure her own family never met such a fate.

“There we go,” Doctor Solomon said on the radio, every syllable vibrating with confidence. “The figurative fog has lifted, and we can start reconstructing tracks on satellite visuals. Burch? Burch, come, look at this.”

“Once Max gets here,” Mischchenko told Aiden, “We’ll escort you back to camp. You’re safe now.”

Someone grumbled on the radio. Likely Max Carter. Grant gathered he didn’t care for kids.

Aiden stared blankly up at Mischchenko. His tiny hand in her gloved palm looked feeble. Lifeless. She squeezed, to punctuate her words with earnestness.

Ruiz cleared his throat, and nodded.

“Just listen to whatever Missus Mischchenko here has to say, okay? We’ll take care of the rest.”

He took a knee and rested his Type-3 EMD rifle on his palms in front of the kid, like a knight, presenting his sword to a small king. Ruiz spoke with a surprising calm. Also made Grant wonder if Ruiz had experience with kids, or just younger siblings.

Ruiz said, “It’s lighter than it looks. Go ahead, won’t break easily. Maybe you’re gonna do this kinda work one day, too.”

Aiden hesitated. His eyes flashed. The thousand-mile stare focused on the silvery rifle in Ruiz’s hands.

Slipping out of Mischchenko’s grasp, two small hands shakily grabbed the EMD rifle.

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azertyrobaz · 1 year ago

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Satellites (7/7)

The last chapter! And it's extra long, but also extra angsty before the promised happy end (I can't write sad endings). Hope you enjoy! I've wanted to write a reverse "Reckoner" (my first Mando fanfic) for a while, and I feel like I've finally managed that. See you soon for more adventures! :)

************

What if Grogu hadn’t returned to Din in The Book of Boba Fett? What if he hadn’t been given a choice? – Modern AU setting: Grogu is now twelve, and he has to rely on his memories as a young child to track down the person who changed his life. The only person he knows who will be able to protect him from the bad man. The bad man who precipitated his separation from the only family he’s ever known. He embarks on a road trip to piece together his past, and reconnect with the people who might help him find his family again.

Read below or on ao3.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

************

They slowly settled into a routine. It was now the middle of summer and it grew hot some days in the cabin, but the nights were always cool. Some nights though, the stars and satellites he stared at before retiring to bed didn’t quite manage to keep the shadows at bay. The ones that would come to his mind, unbidden, around 3AM. The ones that had teeth.

“Up already?” asked his father, returning from his morning run, drenched in sweat.

Grogu shrugged, his mouth full of cereals. He didn’t want to admit that he’d been awake since before dawn, unable to find sleep again, and had finally given up when he’d heard him leave. But something in his dad’s eyes told him that he knew – a tensed sadness, and Grogu couldn’t look any longer. Instead, he stared at the tattoo at the center of his chest: one of the newer ones, a constellation almost perfectly in the shape of a diamond, right above his heart. Not for the first time, he realized that the wound it covered could have been fatal, given its location.

“Shower, then coffee,” his dad said, and Grogu nodded. Maybe one day he’d figure out how to ask him about it. The operation that had gone very very wrong. But anytime he tried broaching the subject, his father would smoothly brush him off. And Grogu knew better than to push – they’d finally found some kind of balance, and he didn’t want to ruin it. What they had worked right now, and his father hadn’t once mentioned that he needed to leave or go back to the institute – he wanted to keep things that way. Forever, if possible.

“I think I’ll be done with Winta’s computer today,” he announced over coffee later.

Part of his dad’s current work required helping setting up new identities for people under witness protection, which he did through air-gapped computers – brand new laptops that had never been connected to the Internet, for security reasons. But this meant they could only be used once. Usually, he’d then wipe their content and either sell them again if it was safe to do so, or keep some of the parts, but he’d agreed one could prove useful to Winta, who’d been saving up to buy a new one with the money she’d given Grogu.

He had listened, fascinated, as his dad explained what he did, and learned a lot about online security, IP addresses, fake identities and VPNs. For the past couple of days, he’d made sure the laptop was okay for Winta to use, and installed some software he thought would be useful to her for college.

“Sounds good, then we can ship it tomorrow or something,” his dad replied, and Grogu nodded. He’d told him that as long as they were careful to use an untraceable PO box as a shipping address, it was safe to use the post. He’d also confirmed it was fine to send her emails from here, which he had done after digging up her address on her high-school website. His friend had been thrilled to get news from him, and he’d mentioned he was sending her a gift, but he hadn’t said what it was yet. He’d have to email her the password to log into her – almost – brand new laptop, so that might tip her off sadly. This was one of the last things he needed to setup, and he was having way more fun with this than he expected.

“Want to go to the mall before lunch? Then grab burgers?” his father asked as he was clearing the table – they’d been eating mostly in silence, but that was their usual way. Grogu forced himself to smile but didn’t look up. He was still out of sorts after his short night, and he apparently hadn’t been able to hide it. His dad often suggested trips to the mall when he thought he was too bored or too quiet. And it was true that he always felt slightly better afterwards. They kept going to different malls, but it usually entailed getting a couple of new books for him or a Lego, and a greasy but enjoyable meal somewhere.

“I think I’d rather go for a ride this morning,” he eventually said. His dad had gifted him a bike – a sturdy, second-hand mountain bike with thick tires – which had proven to be a wonderful way to clear his mind, and to discover the many tracks surrounding the cabin. He’d gotten lost a few times, but it had been worth it. He hadn’t made fun of him either when he told him he wasn’t very good on a bike – that was just not something they did at the institute, and he’d never really learned how to ride – and simply gave him pointers and advice to find his balance and slowly get better at it. Grogu was now a lot more confident in his ability and even loved going for long rides on his own.

He risked glancing up. His father stared at him with his usual composure, brown eyes unblinking, but he’d mechanically picked up one of his small notebooks from the counter. It made a tap, tap, tap sound against the wood. He was nervous, and craving a cigarette.

“Alright,” he sighed, with a forced smile of his own. “Carson might call later so I’d better stick around anyway, but we can make burgers for lunch on the barbecue. It’s a scorcher today, so remember to take some water with you.”

“I will,” Grogu promised, exiting the kitchen to get dressed.

************

Grogu biked aimlessly for a while, but his father had been right – it was only a little after nine but the day was proving very hot already. He thus made his way to a large pond he knew, and rested under the shade of a willow tree. He’d filled up his water bottle and put his current book – The Odyssey – in his new backpack, but he didn’t feel like reading. He didn’t feel like anything, really.

“He’s only going to blame himself if I say anything,” he told a nearby frog, who was also enjoying the cooler temperature in the shade. He’d discovered the frog colony the first time he came upon the place, but they had never answered back. Still, it was nice to pretend their sluggish croaks were them agreeing with him.

“He doesn’t want to know about my nightmares, and it’s not like talking about them helped a lot in the past, not really.”

Grogu had talked to a counselor a few times at the institute, but his nightmares had faded away with time. He thought it was exceptionally unfair that his bad dreams would choose to return now, when he was finally reunited with his father, the one thing he’d wished for for years. But then the very fact that he was here – and that he had been allowed to stay – was linked to Gideon’s return, so he guessed it made sense.

“I know he still feels terrible about handing me over to Doctor Pershing that first time, but he didn’t know Gideon was behind it and yeah, I also know he wasn’t such a great person back then but he did come back. And he came to my rescue as well when I was kidnapped that second time. It wasn’t his fault.”

He wondered who he was trying to convince. Certainly not the frog, whose unblinking dark eyes were slowly starting to set his teeth on edge.

“I’m sure the nightmares will go away once Gideon is caught, and Bo-Katan and Ahsoka are probably getting close, dad said they were following several ‘promising leads’ the other day. I’m glad he’s letting them handling it. And then once that’s done we can have an actual talk and I’ll tell him I want to stay and he’ll understand. I think he’ll be open to it. I think it’ll work.”

Grogu exhaled and picked up a flat rock. Maybe skipping stones would help. Maybe it would calm his nerves. Maybe if Gideon caught him the tests wouldn’t hurt this time. Maybe he didn’t need his blood anymore. Maybe he’d plug him to a machine and ask him to move objects with his mind instead, like in that Netflix show he’d watched with other kids at the institute. Or maybe he’d open him up to look at the inside of his brain. Maybe that way he’d finally understand his so-called ‘powers’ – what a load of bull, he was smart not magic. But surely that wouldn’t hurt because then he would be dead.

Grogu launched the rock with all his strength and the loud noise it made when it dropped in the water scared the frog away.

“Sorry,” he said to no one in particular.

He tried reading for a while but couldn’t concentrate on the words. He felt lonely and sad and decided to bike back to the cabin. He’d be able to read there, he knew. Even if they didn’t say anything – and they usually didn’t – knowing his dad was nearby was the only thing he needed. And since he’d mentioned that Carson might call, it meant he could be away for the night. He’d only done that a couple of times but he’d always been there the next morning, so it was okay. And he knew the work he was doing was important and paid for his food and his things.

Grogu convinced himself he would be fine on his own as he pedaled back home. His father would be bound to check with him before agreeing to anything – Are you sure you’ll be okay here alone? – like he’d done the previous times, and Grogu had known just looking into his eyes that if he’d even seemed unsure, or worse, if he’d lied, his dad would stay with him and refuse the job.

The area was secured, and he’d been shown on the computer how to access and check the alarms and cameras that were hidden all over. He knew how to shoot, and his father had even entrusted him with a gun of his own, which he kept in a special pocket of his backpack. He’d been given the combinations of all the safes should be need more firepower. He’d learned how to use the satellite phone and the CB radio. Grogu felt safe here. He didn’t fear he would be attacked. Even if his father was away. The only thing he feared was what was in his mind.

************

Carson Teva was a US Marshall. As such, he oversaw the protection of key judicial assets, managed rescue operations of fugitives, and supervised the smooth running of the witness protection program in the state. Through Greef at first, he’d started employing his dad as a contractor on several tasks. It had actually been funny to hear him talk so uncertainly and almost bashfully about it, as if Grogu was going to admonish him or make fun of him for working – for lack of a better word – for cops. People his father had been careful to avoid back when Grogu was younger, if not openly bad-mouth.

But this had been then and this was now, and there was no mistaking the fact that his dad was and had always been very good at what he did – finding people. And thus, unsurprisingly, helping them stay hidden as well. Not only that, it seemed clear to Grogu that he liked what he was doing. And what he liked even better (obviously) was for an entity that had done its best in the past to try – and fail – to catch him red-handed in some unsavory scheme to now pay him actual money for his services.

He hadn’t met Carson yet, but he now recognized his voice, which welcomed him back when he returned to the cabin. Grogu couldn’t hear their actual conversation – his father had taken the conference call in his room – but he enjoyed the background noise it created as he settled on the small living room sofa to work on Winta’s computer. This was a safe sound.

Over lunch, his father predictably announced that he would need to be away for the night, but for the first time, when Grogu asked him if he would be back the next morning as usual, he hesitated before replying.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “This one might take a little longer, but you can of course call me on the sat phone if there’s anything. Is that okay?” Piercing eyes staring into his and making sure he wouldn’t lie.

“It’ll be fine,” Grogu replied calmly, scratching his wrist – the watch his father had let him keep felt heavy and uncomfortable all of a sudden. “I have food for days,” he joked – they’d cooked way too much meat on the barbecue.

“Sure?”

“Certain. As long as you promise to take Winta’s laptop with you, it’s ready to be shipped,” he added.

“Deal,” his father easily agreed, and finally stopped looking at him. Grogu had the vague impression that he also didn’t want him to stare at him too closely, but the feeling passed and they had coffee followed by an easy afternoon until his departure.

Grogu spent the night on the roof – it was still hot in the cabin, too hot to find sleep comfortably, and he wanted to be that much closer in case his dad returned early the next morning.

He didn’t.

With leftover burgers for lunch, Grogu decided it was still too soon to start to worry, but he kept the surveillance laptop open, so that he could see all the camera feeds from outside. Just in case. He tried to read, work on a Lego, figure out what to tell Winta in his next email…but nothing managed to hold his attention for long. He kept looking at the door of his father’s room, as if he would suddenly come out.

By evening, he decided to have a look inside. He usually didn’t venture there, even during the other times his dad had been away, feeling like an intruder, but today was different, and he was starting to feel a little scared. He hoped he’d be able to feel his presence there and ease his anxious mind.

He stared at the constellation map for a long time, tracing familiar patterns. He felt like he was missing something – something crucial. But he couldn’t focus on anything except his mounting worry. Sitting on his dad’s impeccably made bed, he took in deep, calming breaths. His eyes settled on the collection of small notebooks above his desk – the kind he always carried around, pocket-sized, with a plain black rigid cover. He knew he’d find his drawings in there, and he wasn’t disappointed. Doodles of creatures – real or invented ones – covered most pages. Neatly written notes of what he expected to be surveillance jobs. Sketches of places. Drawn maps. Random numbers and calculations.

There were no dates or addresses or important information that could be used in case someone came upon those notebooks, but Grogu still managed to find older ones, from several years back. The drawings clued him in – he could see how he’d decided which tattoos to get to cover injuries he’d sustained during the two years they spent together. There were even sketches of him – sleeping in the car, playing on the beach, eating a waffle… He’d forgotten those moments, but seeing them now on the page, he remembered.

In the next few notebooks, the doodles and sketches had disappeared. He saw a lot of gaps, strikethrough text, half erased words and incomplete sentences. The few drawings were messy and abandoned halfway through. Grogu didn’t have to figure out long when those entries had been made, as he came upon the start of a couple of letters, which had clearly been thought about and amended several times, but never sent:

Kid Dear Grogu,

Skywalker said I could write to you How are you? You must be learning tons and I hope you’re getting plenty of food and becoming smarter and bigger every day. If you want to I was wondering whether you wanted

Grogu,

Hopefully you’re not too angry I thought now was a good time to reach out, because I wanted to ask you if

Grogu swallowed hard and closed the notebook. He felt like he had just read something he definitely shouldn’t have. Something so private he wanted to burst into flames and disappear through the cracks in the floorboard. But he’d seen his name and –

Why hadn’t he sent those letters? Why hadn’t he reached out? Why hadn’t he said anything now that he was back? And where the hell was he? Why hadn’t he come back yet? Had something happened? Something bad? Was it all too late to say anything now? Was he injured? Dead?

Shaking with fear, hot tears blinding him as he stepped out of the room, he checked the surveillance laptop again. All the cameras. All the angles. Made sure all the alarms were working. He inhaled deeply and reached for the satellite phone. Its twin was with his dad. There was no answer after he let it ring for a full minute. He waited for 5 minutes then called again. Then again. Nothing. He couldn’t text or leave a message, but then he had no idea what he would say. Should he give him one more night or should he really start to freak out?

Grogu reached for the CB radio and used the code his father had taught him to call Greef. He hadn’t seen his dad, and he hadn’t heard from Carson either, but he was supposed to meet with him the next morning. He offered to come to the cabin, but Grogu refused – he could take care of himself.

He forced himself to eat dinner, then grabbed the binoculars and the surveillance laptop, and climbed on the roof. Grogu didn’t sleep and his father didn’t return.

At dawn, he put food, water, the sat phone, a change of clothes and extra ammo for his gun in his backpack, then waited until there was just enough light and climbed on his bike. He’d be in Nevarro in just under two hours.

************

“ – think that’s where he might be?”

A man was talking to Greef at the door of his office – his assistant had been kind enough to let him through, but then he’d probably looked quite the sight with his wind-swept hair, and she took pity on him. Grogu thought he recognized his voice.

“Are you Carson Teva?” he asked, unconcerned about the conversation he was interrupting.

“Who’s asking?” the balding man with the grey beard answered.

“I’m Grogu. Din Djarin’s…son.”

“I didn’t know he had a son, but I guess it makes sense.”

Grogu didn’t have time to ask him what he meant by that. He still hadn’t even told him if he was Carson Teva, but his voice was really familiar.

“If you’re Carson Teva, then can you tell me where you sent him? He’s not picking up his phone and he should be home by now.”

“I didn’t send him anywhere.”

Grogu started breathing a little faster – a feat, since he still hadn’t gotten his breath back from his bike ride. “The other day, your call, I heard you. And then he left. He said he had to work. Where is he?”

But Grogu already knew what his answer would be, because he’d just realized something – something that threatened to turn his worry into full-blown terror. His father had never explicitly said he was off to work on a job for Carson. Grogu had just assumed. As his dad knew he would. ‘This one might take a little longer.’

“I don’t know where he is, kid. I’m sorry. I’m also looking for him. I thought Karga would know, that’s why I’m here.”

“And I don’t either,” said Greef, looking pained, and this time Grogu decided he needed to sit down. Which he did. On the floor. Then ran his hands over his face and blocked his ears so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Carson and Greef’s panicked exclamations as they rushed to his side. He needed to think. And breathe. Not burst into tears.

He could do this. He could figure out where his father had gone. He was counting on him.

“I’m fine,” he eventually mumbled, standing up shakily, ignoring the two men pressing questions. They shouldn’t focus on him, they should focus on finding where his dad was. They were running out of time – he’d been gone for over 24 hours.

“What were you talking about that last time on the phone?” he asked Carson, staring at the floor through burning eyes.

“The next job I needed his help on. He was supposed to do some surveillance for me today.”

“So nothing about…” And there Grogu hesitated and looked towards Greef, who knew the most about his situation, but apparently he needn’t have worried.

“Nothing about Moff Gideon,” Carson confirmed.

“He didn’t say anything to me either, kid,” Greef added. “Only that Bo-Katan was still working on some leads in the Midwest.”

“I know Ahsoka Tano is on a job not far from here – ”

But Grogu had stopped listening again. This wasn’t helping. He didn’t have time to stop and wonder why Carson, Bo and Ahsoka all seemed to know each other either. Was his father investigating alone? Was he working on something completely unrelated? Had he simply broken down somewhere? Been in an accident? Was he injured? Dying in some random hospital?

“ – she asked me about abandoned or disused labs in the region.”

“Labs?” Grogu interrupted Carson again, the word one he disliked profoundly. That stopped his mind from going somewhere even darker – he’d been there before. He’d been certain his father was dead once already. He couldn’t go through it again.

“Tano seemed to think it was relevant,” the man replied patiently, keenly aware of his distress. “That Gideon might be trying to recruit a new team of scientists and rebuild. But there were so many possibilities. The state is full of places that would fit the bill.”

Grogu started walking again and let the two men talk, his legs stiff and uncooperative. He couldn’t stay still.

“I’ll call her,” Carson said, phone in hand, presumably talking about Ahsoka still.

He breathed out deeply and forced himself to stand still and listen to their conversation, hands deep in his pockets to stop them from shaking. He could feel tears threatening to spill from his eyes again – he couldn’t cry in front of them. If he showed weakness they’d start wondering what the hell a twelve-year old kid was doing here asking all those questions. Carson was a cop. He had the authority to send him back to the institute, or worse. His dad hadn’t told him about his existence or about him staying at the cabin, which had been the smart move. Even if it made him a little sad.

The conversation proved short, and Grogu knew what her answer had been even before Carson hung up, but at least she’d picked up. Greef was also on the phone, and equally unsuccessful.

“Tano doesn’t know where he could be either, he hasn’t mentioned he was investigating Gideon to her,” Carson related.

“Bo-Katan and her team haven’t heard from him,” Greef added.

“What do you think, kid? Would he be investigating this alone? Did he tell you anything?”

Grogu stared at Carson. Equally proud and terrified to be asked such a question.

“I don’t know,” he replied honestly after a beat. “But I do think he was hiding something from me.”

The half-truths. The stares. The worry.

Grogu’s right fist tightened around the crumpled bills in his pocket. He’d mechanically grabbed the cash he still had from Winta before leaving the cabin – just in case. How far could he go with $400 before he was caught? But that suddenly gave him an idea.

Winta.

“Let me use your phone!” he asked Greef, running towards him. The man didn’t question his request, seeing the wild look in his eyes, and handed him his phone, unlocked.

There was one program he hadn’t removed from Winta’s laptop, thinking she might find it useful, and it should still work with the credentials he’d used – unless she’d received the computer already, but Grogu doubted this very much. Or at least, he wished it wasn’t the case. And that his dad hadn’t had the time to ship it yet. With shaking fingers, he entered the account data he remembered well, and pressed the button ‘Find’.

Please don’t be at a post office. Please don’t be at a post office. Please –

“Here,” he showed Carson urgently. “Was there an old lab there?”

Carson looked at the map with a frown. The red dot wasn’t very far from here, in a wooded area. But there was no indication of any building, abandoned or otherwise. The US Marshall checked his own phone, looking for information there. This was taking forever, they had to go, now! The laptop was right there! So surely his father –

“Yes!” the man said eventually.

************

They saw smoke before they found his dad’s car and Grogu’s heart clenched. He was gripping the grab handle above his window so hard he was certain it would come off. Greef had already called for reinforcements and Ahsoka was supposed to meet them at the scene. But Grogu couldn’t wait – as soon as the car had slowed down enough, he opened his door and ran, caring very little about any remaining danger.

“Hey!” yelled Carson.

Grogu saw that the smoke was coming from an old building in the distance, but the fire seemed mostly contained by now. He guessed an explosion had caused it, since he spotted rubble and debris here and there, blackened or burned. He tried yelling for his dad but he couldn’t make his voice work, either because of the smoke or because of the panic tightening around his throat and making him deaf to the yells behind him as Greef and Carson made their way closer.

His car was here, intact. Winta’s laptop in its shipping box on the backseat. But no sign of his father anywhere.

Grogu kept running towards the destroyed building, his vision tunneling, stumbling on loose rocks and branches. The area was densely wooded and extra hard to navigate in his state, but he couldn’t wait. He saw a figure to his left but didn’t check whether it was alive or dead after ascertaining it wasn’t his father. He didn’t care.

A soft sound to his right – a mumbled word – and only then did he wonder if he should grab the gun from his backpack. A shape was half-hidden next to a tree trunk, partly covered in foliage used for protection or warmth. A pale hand was poking out, with a distinctive blue arrow tattooed on it.

“Dad!” Grogu breathed, coming closer.

Another whispered word, but he couldn’t hear what he was saying over his own loud breaths. He almost fell over him in his haste, moving the leaves covering him to see him better. His eyes were open and staring right at him. Breathing just as fast. Alive, but just. He was worryingly cold, his lips almost as blue as the tattoos on his hands.

“Over here!” he screamed over the lump in his throat, his voice hoarse and barely recognizable. “He’s over here! He needs help! Quick!”

“Grogu…”

“Shhh, it’s alright!”

But it wasn’t. He could now see that the arm he was cradling against him was at a weird angle, and that he’d taken off his shirt to cover a wound on his side. It was drenched in blood.

“How…did…”

“Don’t talk!”

“How…” his father repeated, his stuttered breaths worrying Grogu even more than the blood or the paleness of his skin.

“Winta’s laptop,” he said in a rush, in the hope that it would be enough of an explanation and that he would stop talking and straining himself. How long had he been lying there injured? A few hours? A whole day?

“Smart kid,” his dad smiled, and his eyes started to close.

“No, stay awake!” Grogu urged, terrified he wouldn’t wake up again. This couldn’t be their last conversation. It just couldn’t. There was too much he needed to say. His dad’s eyes snapped open and he groaned. Carson had reached them, checking his wound.

“I think you pierced a lung,” he provided unhelpfully, pressing his own jacket against the bleed.

“No…shit,” his father managed laboriously.

“Greef’s calling an ambulance.”

A nod, but that seemed to cause him more pain, and Grogu didn’t know what else to do but hold his free hand.

“He’s too cold!” he told Carson.

“He’s gonna be fine, kid, that’s just shock,” the man replied, but he didn’t sound convinced.

Grogu reached inside his backpack for his sweater, draping it over his father’s exposed skin. But not before he finally realized what he’d overlooked all this time. He felt a stab of cold terror pierce his brain, almost like an electric charge. The tattoo over his heart. The constellation in the shape of a diamond. Ursa Minor.

“I’ll be okay, little bear,” his father whispered, his eyes resolutely closing. And no matter how loud Grogu yelled at him, tears running freely on his cheeks by now, he couldn’t make him open them again.

************

Grogu only remembered glimpses of the ride in the ambulance. Greef’s insistence to take him to Nevarro’s hospital. The news that Ahsoka had found Gideon’s body in the ruins. His small hand clasping his dad’s much bigger one as the paramedics worked. Surely he should have been warming up by now. But he was still so cold.

He was forced to let go so that he could be rushed to the operating room – pneumothorax, broken collarbone, shattered humerus – and someone directed him towards a plastic seat in a waiting room. A hot chocolate was placed in front of him. A sandwich. Grogu was paralyzed. His backpack still on and his bloodied sweater clutched to his chest. His dad’s blood on Winta’s sweater. There was a burning sensation behind his eyes. Born of numbness and exhaustion. He’d cried all the tears he could cry for now. The Ursa Minor tattoo over his heart. The Little Bear. He’d been right there and he hadn’t known. All this time.

Hours passed. Greef showed up. Carson. Ahsoka. No, he was fine where he was. No, he wasn’t hungry. The surgeon came. His father’s heart had stopped during surgery, she said. He’d lost a lot of blood. But he’d pulled through. And he could go sit with him for a little while in the ICU, would he like that? And yes, yes he would.

He almost didn’t recognize him under all those tubes and white bandages. His hand was still cold. He was still pale. But all the machines were beeping just right, the doctor said. He was strong. And yes, Grogu knew that too. He’d be moved to another room later but for now he had to leave him. Greef convinced him to go eat something in the cafeteria. The sky was dark outside. It was nighttime. He looked at his watch and realized he’d left the cabin over 17 hours ago.

He didn’t feel like saying anything so he let Greef do the talking, but the man wasn’t his usual chatty self either. He was worried too, and it made Grogu feel better instead of worse. He wasn’t alone. Thanks to him, he was allowed to rest for a few hours on a cot in the staff room. This was a small hospital, and Greef had a lot of pull in Nevarro. No one bothered Grogu or asked what a twelve-year old was doing here unaccompanied.

Come morning, he showered and changed into the clean clothes he’d brought in his backpack. Bought a coffee from the vending machine. It tasted awful. He got a second one just as Carson showed up again. Grogu was ready to bolt if he so much as suggested he couldn’t stay here any longer. He knew very well he wasn’t supposed to be here alone. He was a minor. He’d ran away from his state appointed home weeks ago. He was at the mercy of Child Protective Services.

“I thought you should have this,” Carson Teva said instead, handing him the shipping box containing Winta’s laptop. “We had to impound your dad’s car for the investigation, so it will be safer with you.”

“Thanks,” Grogu replied blandly.

They sat in the uncomfortable plastic seats of the waiting room in silence.

“So Moff Gideon is dead?” Grogu asked eventually – this he wanted confirmed. Yesterday’s terror and numbness were slowly being replaced by a stark feeling of awareness. Maybe it was all finally over.

“We’re still combing the area and IDing bodies but yes, Gideon’s dead, as well as several disgraced scientists and con men we’d been keeping an eye on.”

“They died in the explosion?”

“Some also had gunshot wounds.”

Grogu hummed in reply and Carson thankfully didn’t add anything else on the subject. They both knew what his father was capable of.

“Think he might go to prison?”

Carson shrugged. “We found a lot of destroyed equipment in the lab. Dangerous volatile substances. Explosion could have been an accident.”

“And the gunshot wounds?”

“Maybe they had a disagreement before the explosion.”

Grogu bit back a humorless laugh.

“No one will mourn those people, and Moff Gideon was a dangerous, awful person.”

“I know,” said Grogu with feeling. That didn’t make it right exactly, but he could live with it.

His father was moved to his own room in the afternoon, and the armchair next to his bed proved a lot more comfortable than the ones in the waiting room. So there Grogu remained, and saw color slowly returning to his dad’s skin. By evening, his eyes started to open.

“Dad?” Grogu said, clasping his hand.

“Mmh?” he replied, gripping his hand back with more force than he’d expected for someone whose heart stopped beating on the operating table.

“I don’t want to go back to the institute. I want to stay here and live with you,” he told him quickly, having rehearsed the words. He couldn’t wait any longer.

“Okay,” his father said simply.

“Gideon’s dead,” Grogu reminded him.

“Good.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy.”

And he closed his eyes again. Grogu hoped he’d remember their conversation when he woke up. Exhausted, he fell asleep as well, his head resting over his crossed arms on his father’s bed.

************

“You don’t mind the cabin? It’s very small.”

Grogu slowly emerged from deep sleep and sat up against the armchair, the sun shining brightly through the window. He was achy all over. He’d woken up a few times during the night when nurses came to check on his dad, but this had still been the best sleep he’d had in a while.

“What?” he mumbled, thinking those words had been part of the strange dream he’d been having – he couldn’t remember it now. Something about wearing a robot costume. Probably his muscles complaining via his subconscious for the previous nights.

“The cabin. Do you want to move?”

His father sounded a lot better, almost like his regular self. If not for the many tubes still coursing through him, he could have pretended they were having a normal conversation.

“I like the cabin,” Grogu replied, happy that he hadn’t forgotten what he’d told him the first time he woke up.

“I’ve made a lot of enemies throughout the years, so we’ll have to stay hidden.”

“I know.”

“But we don’t have to disappear completely either, we can move around a little freely now that Gideon’s gone.”

Grogu wondered how long his dad had been awake, rehearsing his own words. Now that he was a little more cognizant, he could see a certain tenseness around his eyes and mouth. His free hand was clenching and unclenching around the bedsheet.

“You’re in pain,” Grogu realized. “Let me call a nurse – ”

“No, there’s a few things I wanna say,” his dad stopped him. “The drugs make me sleepy.”

“But – ”

“It’s important, you have to hear this,” he pressed, his eyes intent, and Grogu sat back down.

“The cabin, your room, your bed – it was always meant to be for you,” he started in a breath. “I didn’t know then if you’d want to see me again or stay for long, but it was for you.”

Grogu was stunned. Even if he’d guessed some of it through what he’d read in his notebooks. Or his general caginess when he’d asked about the brand new bed in his room. Or his grades on the fridge.

“That last mission with Bo-Katan and her team… It went badly. Really badly. I didn’t think I’d make it. And you were my one regret. I had to make things right. And then you showed up before I figured out how to get my head out of my ass and ask you. Skywalker was supposed to talk to you about it. I guess it was difficult for him too, I don’t blame him.”

“You asked Luke?” Grogu pressed, incapable to put a name on the emotions he was feeling at the moment.

“Of course,” his father frowned, sweat beading at his brow. He needed painkillers, but he was too stubborn. And Grogu knew they needed to have this talk. “He said he wasn’t sure you liked being at the institute anymore, but he would let you choose. And then the Gideon thing happened and…” A deep exhale.

It wasn’t betrayal, not really. Even if they’d both acted behind his back. There was even some relief there. Somehow, the two of them had known without him saying anything.

“Why did you lie?” he eventually asked in a small voice, because it was the only thing that still really hurt. “You never said you were investigating Gideon on your own, and I thought you’d just be gone for the night, on a job for Carson. Nothing dangerous.”

“I’m so sorry,” his father spoke through clenched teeth, his pain not only of a physical kind now. “I couldn’t bare seeing you like that. You were so scared because he was still out there. So worried. And you wouldn’t say anything. Wouldn’t talk about it. Your nightmares – ” he was out of breath. He exhaled slowly and started again. “It was too much. And when I found out it was actually him you’d seen at the mall – ”

“It was?” Grogu interrupted him, incredulous. His father nodded slowly, his eyes shining bright with unshed tears. This was ridiculous.

“Dad, let me call – ”

“No,” he said forcefully. “Let me finish. I was wrong to lie to you, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. But I had to get Gideon. I knew he was close since he’d managed to track us once. And I was right.”

Grogu knew this was the best he could hope for in terms of apologies. “I was really worried.”

“I know.”

“You could have died.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, you can’t do that anymore, I need you to stay alive,” he tried to explain, badly, his tone rising, legs bouncing up and down against the seat.

His father sighed deeply, his eyes so full of pain it hurt to look at him directly. “I know.”

Grogu wanted to believe him. Desperately. Tears forming in his own eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Maybe this was how happiness started, he thought. With trust.

“Okay.”

And this time he didn’t stop him when he pressed the button for the nurse.

************

“Why did it have to be an explosion?”

It was mid-afternoon. His dad had been sleeping for most of the day, but Grogu didn’t mind. He’d unpacked Winta’s laptop from its box – he’d have to get it ready again, that was okay – and had made good use of the Wi-Fi provided in the hospital to do some research.

“I like a good explosion,” his father slurred. The drugs did make him sound a little drunk, but he’d known exactly what Grogu had been talking about. He’d been given a morphine pump and a remote to control his intake of painkillers and had been using it less sparingly since his surgeon had shown up earlier to tell him they’d be able to remove his chest tube the next day, and that yes, it was going to hurt. A lot.

“I just didn’t time it right,” he admitted.

“You messed up your calculations.”

“I did.”

“I wouldn’t have,” Grogu pointed out.

“I know,” he sighed, and pressed the remote once. Grogu gave him a few minutes before talking again.

“I just enrolled in Nevarro’s high school, I’m starting in September. Greef put in a good word with the principal.”

“I thought you already passed your SATs. Skywalker said – ”

“Yeah, and I’ve got an amazing GPA, I don’t care, I want to go to high school, do something normal. I can go to college later, I still want to be an astronaut, I just want to do it at the normal speed, you know?”

“And you’re not going to be bored?”

Grogu shrugged. “Maybe a little. So I enrolled in a couple of university courses as well, just in case.”

“You’ve been busy,” his father noted. But Grogu wasn’t done.

“I also checked the State’s requirements: you need a GED to get a private detective’s license, so I signed you up for next January, that should give you enough time.”

“What?”

“I don’t see why you can’t have one like Ahsoka, that way you’ll be able to find work more easily.”

And be taken more seriously. And stop thinking he was dumb just because he dropped out of high school.

“Grogu, I don’t know, I’m not smart like you, I can’t – ”

“Being smart is overrated, trust me. And I’ll help you. I know you can make it, dad.”

He was silent for a while and Grogu thought he’d fallen back to sleep. But looking up from the laptop’s screen, he noticed that his eyes were still open. He was staring in the distance, lost in thought.

“I know the morphine is making me a bit loopy, but it’s funny how easy it’s been to get used to that word. That name.”

It took a few seconds for Grogu to figure out what he meant but when he did, he smiled brightly. And decided he should perhaps press his luck.

“Once you’re better we should go to Sorgan. Winta deserves to be given her computer face to face. She saved you, after all. And I need to give her back her cash, too. But you bled all over her sweater so I think she’ll let me keep it.”

“Alright,” he agreed with yet another sigh.

“You’ll have to decide on your next tattoo as well. To cover the spot where they put your chest tube,” Grogu added, thinking the prospect would cheer him up a little.

“That’s okay, I’ve decided.”

“Already?” Grogu marveled.

“Well, it’s obvious. It will have to be Ursa Major.”

The Great Bear and the Little Bear. And Grogu nodded, because it did make perfect sense.

#the mandalorian #grogu #din djarin #carson teva #greef karga #fanfic #star wars #mandalorian #modern au #angst with a happy ending #found family #my fics

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