#Hope I drew his nose big enough for the resemblance

[josh-lanceero]

*looking disrespectfully

[annie-sae]

Wouldn’t mind

Pairing: Kazutora x fem!reader, past Baji x fem!reader

Hurt/comfort

Author note: This is my way of dealing with Baji’s death finally being animated, this is me comforting myself so I don’t keep crying.

Also, I posted this on AO3 as well:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/33561445

Part of the reason you decided to get close to him was kind of the same reason why you decided to help out Chifuyu and the remaining founding Toman members in any way you could; even if that meant putting yourself in various fights. It was a way to honor his memory.

You met Baji Keisuke; your Kei; as nothing more than a child because you were neighbors and your mom happened to be friends with his mother which ended in them arranging lots of playdates for you both ever since you could remember.

Your mothers always said you were meant to be and they were right, so yeah, they were delighted once you two finally stopped denying yourselves and started to date.

You two got together after one time in which Baji got into a particularly bad fight and you found him on your way home; his hands all bruised but despite how much they must have been hurting he was smiling in that unique way of his that always told you that no matter the pain he won and enjoyed himself.

To be honest you didn’t like that he always got into fights nor how reckless he could be but you had to admit that there was always something about the way his eyes glinted that drew you in.

You dragged him inside your home, knowing that his mother would flip out if she saw him and taking advantage of the fact that your mother was to get home late, you pushed him to the couch, went to the kitchen for a bag of frozen vegetables, grabbed his hand after cleaning the blood off and held the bag to his knuckles hoping that it would bring down the swelling.

There was no way of knowing who made the first move but next thing you knew after that was that you two were kissing; the frozen bag laying on the floor long forgotten. After that you finally acknowledged your feelings and started dating. There was no grand gesture, it was just one of many moments that you shared daily yet it was perfect.

Baji liked to keep you away from Toman businesses so for the most part you didn’t actually know the rest of the members except for Chifuyu; whom you met on various occasions while going to visit your boyfriend; and Mikey that you met as a child since you were always following around Baji and in a way became your friend too; but that was it. He kept that apart from the side of his life that involved you because he was well aware of how messy it could get and he didn’t want to drag you into any trouble.

Yet his gang life caught up to him, crashing into your world and pushing you into a lonely abyss that still to this day left a hole in your chest.

You’d always remember that dreaded day when your mother came home later than usual without letting you know anything, eyes teary and red rimmed. The moment she looked at you, she pulled you into a strong hug and sobbed as she caressed your hair murmuring a string of words you couldn’t really make out.

She was the one to deliver the news of his passing, how she was late because she was at the Baji household and had to accompany his mother to claim her son’s body after the woman received a call from the police station telling her that the boy had been stabbed and bled to death.

The day would never come when you’d forget the pain that shot through your body as you learned that he was gone. It hurt unlike anything else you have ever experienced, as if someone was crushing your chest like it was made out of paper, air knocked out of your lungs and the only thing you could do was scream helplessly his name as you held for dear life onto your mother’s frame. You felt bile rise up your throat so fast that it was a miracle that you didn’t throw up.

His funeral wasn’t any easier. Not when you arrived and his mom pulled you to his casket saying just how handsome he looked, inviting you to see him in a way that you couldn’t refuse.

Around an hour after yourself, arrived Chifuyu who went to you after giving his condolences to his best friend’s mother that held him the way she used to hold her boy but now she’d never get the chance to do anymore.

If you were being completely honest, you couldn’t remember much more of that day, your mind was hazy, too many gaps in the memory of all that transpired.

Only two things were clear as day in your mind. First was the way that Kei had looked inside that coffin smiling peacefully and for a moment you almost fooled yourself into thinking that he was just sleeping, but he was pale, his canines weren’t showing and his eyes were slightly sunken but you had to agree with his mom because he looked handsome indeed. The second was that Chifuyu stayed by your side throughout the whole thing, in fact he was the one who told you what actually happened and you were thankful for it all.

He told you what Baji did and why he did it and you believed it the second the words left his mouth because you knew him well and if there was anything that defined your beloved boyfriend was his heart, how willing he was to give anything for those that he cared about; his unwavering loyalty; you just wished he hadn’t put himself on the line for that.

Twelve years have passed and a lot of things changed since his parting, for starters you became a member of Toman.

One night; around a month after everything happened; you went to the Musashi temple fully aware that it was the place that the boys used as their base and in front of everyone gathered there; bracing yourself; you walked towards Mikey, bowed deeply and begged for him to accept you as a member.

At first most of the guys there laughed at you while others frowned and called you names shooing you away but you stayed still, that was until a big hand grabbed you by the arm and that was when you pulled away from it and punched the guy square in the nose remembering the time Baji taught you how to pack a punch. The guy tried to send a blow towards you but was stopped by Chifuyu yet the whole commotion came to a halt with Mikey’s commanding voice.

“Y/N, you know this is a guys-only gang”

“I’m aware, Mikey, but” you clenched your fists “but Keisuke cared about this gang so I feel like I must join, to protect everything he fought for” you raised your head “he also taught me how to fight so you don’t have to worry about me being a burden on you and I know a few things about first aid, I can carry my own weight” you were thankful for your mother being a nurse and having taught you a bit.

He stared at you, his eyes giving away nothing.

“The first division can take her in” Chifuyu supplied.

Mikey raised a brow and looked at another blonde guy.

“Takemitchy, you are the first division’s captain, do you agree to take her?” the guy straightened up and after sharing one look with Chifuyu he nodded.

An uproar started as a lot of guys started to complain about how bad of an idea it was to admit a girl in the gang but Draken stopped them with one word.

Mikey looked at you once more, then he sighed and nodded.

“Then welcome, Y/N L/N, from now on you are a member of the Tokyo Manji Gang under the first division”.

Later that day you gave your thanks to Chifuyu and Takemichi, for getting behind you and promised to help them in any way possible but Chifuyu made you promise to be safe and only join them as a last resource because he couldn’t allow Baji’s girlfriend to get hurt since he promised him he’d take care of you.

You knew that your parents wouldn’t be happy with you being a part of a gang but you had to do it, it was a way to stay close to Kei and you needed that or else you would have gone crazy, you were also thankful because life had it that you were assigned to the division that used to be his.

Shit happened but you always took things head on and you had to admit that Chifuyu and Takemichi played a crucial part in you surviving all the crappy things that happened until the gang disbanded. While still a member you were extremely grateful for makeup since it helped you hide from your parents a good amount of nasty bruises that came from the fights.

The second thing that changed was that you moved out of your parents’ house from the moment you started college and although at first it was hard and you were living in a tiny apartment that resembled more to a matchbox yet it was the only thing you could afford at the moment with the part time job you had but you were decided to not return home, not because you weren’t comfortable with them but because they were already doing too much for you by paying for your studies so you didn’t want them to be spending any more money on you.

You managed and after a while you got a better job that meant a higher pay grade and you moved out of your tiny place to your current one that was bigger and just a couple of minutes away from the cemetery where the Baji family grave was.

Even when you had exams due the next day, even when you were way too busy, you still made it a habit to go visit him daily, it didn’t matter if you had to walk for long or that you were so tired you could have fallen asleep while standing, you still went to see him.

Your mother told you once that maybe you should let go, that he wouldn’t like to have you clinging to him this much and to appease her you went to a couple of dates once every three months but you never made it past the first date but funnily enough that landed you a few long lasting friendships with some of the guys you tried to date.

One time his mom talked to you and told you just how grateful she was with you for loving her son the way you did but that you didn’t owe him anything, that you could move on because she was sure that was what he would have wanted and maybe she was right; to hell you knew that she was; but it wasn’t a matter of you feeling like you owed devotion to him but more like no one ever compared to him, not a single person awoke in you the same feelings he did, not with the same intensity it was kind of like a beautiful curse because you grieved daily his absence but you wouldn’t want it other way, even if you went back and told yourself that by loving him you’d end up in pain, you’d still go through it all because the time spent with him was worth it and you told her that so she smiled and even talked with your mother making her stop begging you to date and leave you to your own devices.

Another thing that changed was you because you cut your hair really short; yet without needing it you still wore a hair tie on your wrist daily as if it was some sort of amulet because it reminded you of him.

Also, with the bigger place you adopted three beautiful cats that you loved dearly, first there was Blue; whose black hair shone blue under certain light hence his name; then there was Leo; an orange tabby cat you found one day and adopted instantly; and Jin; a maine coon that was your appointed guardian and didn’t like anyone around you nor him.

The three always slept with you; which made you thankful for getting a big bed when you first moved; and in a way they made your life less lonely because in their presence you felt as if Keisuke was right there with you which made sense because you two had made plans about living together once highschool was over and then adopt a ton of cats, all the cats your parents never allowed in the house when you were younger.

Of course things don’t always end up the way we plan them, you knew that better than most although to be completely honest you never expected Kazutora to come into the picture.

You new who he was, on one occasion Kei told you that him speaking on his behalf and taking the full blame for what happened with Mikey’s older brother was a big factor on him staying out of juvie so in a way you were thankful to him but you also knew; through Chifuyu’s retelling; what happened on that horrible halloween when you lost your whole world.

Even when you knew that everything had been planned out by Kisaki, for the longest time you were resentful towards Kazutora, even going as far as to curse his sole existence because hadn’t it been for him then your Keisuke would surely still be with you. It took you years for you to come to terms with everything and accept that Baji chose to leave all because he cared about that boy way too much.

You came to realize that by hating Kazutora, by wishing him the worst and spending so much energy in resenting him you were betraying Kei’s wishes.

His final will was to keep Toman’s funding members; Kazutora included; safe, he chose death, going down as a villain to his friends, all just to protect them, to save him so the least you could do was carry on his wishes and look after them, not only after Chifuyu and the others but you also felt the moral obligation towards Keisuke, to welcome Kazutora and help him back into his life.

Now, you went to help around Chifuyu and Kazutora’s shop, fully aware that it was their way of honoring his memory, by living out the dream he never had the chance for.

You could understand them because everyday you did the same, hell, you even went to study veterinary because that had been the plan all those years back; he was supposed to open his pet shop and you were supposed to be the one to tend to the animals, he always said that you had the best shot because you usually did rather good at school.

You met Kazutora the day after Chifuyu picked him up from prison. You already knew that he would be joining you two for lunch the following day because he told you in advance in case you weren’t ready to meet the man that had played a big part in your old boyfriend’s death.

Chifuyu by that point had become your best friend in the world, your constant support. What started as a way to cope with Baji’s loss, as both of you searching in the other for any vestiges of his existence with the passing of the years turned into something more, a fraternal bond forged through shared grief.

Chifuyu was like a brother to you and you knew that he saw you as a sister, you cared about him deeply.

If you were being completely honest, you were a bit torn when a month prior to the release, he announced to you that he’d be picking up the guy and was planning on welcoming him as a roommate and as an extra hand at the shop; that is if the other accepted. I mean, you’d have to be crazy to just accept it as it was, no questions asked because whether manipulated and messed up in the head, it didn’t change the fact that he was the one to stab him.

Of course you knew it hadn’t been easy for him to reach that, it was obvious that he had thought it through, you could see in his eyes just how much went into making that decision but that he was sure that that was Baji would have liked and you knew that as well because that was the type of person Keisuke used to be, a bit rough on the edges but so caring and willing to give for those he loved, and he sure as hell had proven how much he cared about the guy.

You had never talked to him, what little you knew about him was what Baji had mentioned all those years back when he almost went to prison and what Chifuyu told you, how he was getting the help he needed and seemed to be making progress but that was it.

To say it was awkward at first was a big understatement. He was extremely quiet and even after you greeted him he refused to make eye contact while you kept fidgeting in place trying to come up with something to say. Thank god for Chifuyu since he was the one to introduce you although he could have been a bit more careful when he introduced you as Baji’s old girlfriend, although you couldn’t blame him because there was no way around it, that was what you were.

The moment he understood who you were he froze, eyes focusing on his hands under the table. You noticed how uneasy he became and with a look you asked Chifuyu to give you a minute, thankfully he understood and trusting you excused himself from the table.

You reached out, stilling your hand in the middle of the space between you when you saw him flinch, something that reminded you of the time when you encountered Leo for the first time; hurt and scared. Kazutora in a way resembled him, something lonely and broken about him that gave you the final push to get close.

Just like you did way back for Leo you extended your open hand towards him, facing upwards to show him that you had no ill intentions and you rested your hand on the table just a few centimeters away from his arm, not wanting to startle him but wanting to show him that you were trying to get close.

“I don’t hate you, Hanemiya-kun”

His gaze zeroed on your hand and then eyes of the color of the lightest brown you’ve ever seen; almost the same shade as amber; met yours wary and trembling but you simply nodded confirming that you were being completely honest.

“Why?” his voice came out broken.

“Because Keisuke cared about you” you smiled, feeling your eyes get watery and Kazutora’s face became blurry due to the tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I- I wish I could take it all back, I really do, I...” you heard the words come out cracked and you shook your head and reached for his arm.

“I know...it’s fine. Like I said, I don’t hate you, it’s been a while since that happened and I’ve made up my mind, I’ve already accepted it as part of life” that’s a lie and you know, you miss him every day so much that you still cling to the little things he left behind, that’s the reason why you haven’t been in a relationship after him.

You quickly wiped the tears out of your eyes and looked at him once more. “I’d like to be there for you, maybe be friends even, that is if you’d like that”

Kazutora’s mind was running laps. Was he hearing you correctly? Did you actually say that you wanted to be friends with him? Be friends with the guy that killed your boyfriend nonetheless. He couldn’t wrap his head around that thought, it was simply impossible, he was a villain, a rotten fruit that nobody had ever liked and that poisoned the only good things he had in his life, why would anyone want to be near him?

First there was Chifuyu; who for all he could gather used to consider Baji as his best friend; welcoming him into his apartment, offering him a place to stay and even a job no questions asked, that was already hard to understand, but now having you willing to welcome him? That was almost ridiculous because you surely knew, he saw the way you interacted with Chifuyu, there was no way in hell he didn’t tell you, so why?

Why were you being kind to him? So gentle? Why couldn’t you just scream and curse him? Heaven knows for how long he has been cursing himself, regretting everything he did, from Shinichiro to Baji. He deserved to be yelled at, to be shunned away from society, he was deserving of pain and should be tossed to the abyss of loneliness, forever in the dark, far away from the sun.

He couldn’t fathom why on God's name was Baji’s girlfriend in front of him extending her delicate hand towards him. But even when he couldn’t understand he wanted to accept it. He knew he deserved nothing given how he had taken two lives but he wanted the embrace so badly.

He wanted company, friends, he didn’t want to be forever an outcast due to his bad decisions but instead he wanted to belong, to feel some sort of comfort, he wanted to bask in the sun’s warmth and for once in a very long time feel a bit of peace, he wanted saving, someone to tell him he was worthy even when he knew he wasn’t.

He looked at you once more, and something felt warm inside his chest; even his throat tightening; when he saw that you were still smiling gently at him despite the rebel tears that had escaped from your eyes.

“I’d like that” he smiled wobbly. “Also, Kazutora is fine”

“Then let’s be friends, Kazutora-kun” your smile grew broader and that was the start.

Surprisingly after that, it didn’t take long for you to grow comfortable with each other. He was quiet and would often be found spacing off but he was considerate towards you, actually he returned the same kindness you gave him, although it was evident that he was still wary and a bit rough on the edges he tried hard and you could see, so whenever he was having a bad mood you tried not to take it personally.

Through gentle words and patience, you won him over, even those around you were surprised at how quickly he warmed up to you but there was just something in him that pulled you, maybe that same thing that pushed you to adopt Leo when you found him malnourished and hurt on your way home from the cemetery or maybe it was something else.

Just as he warmed up to you, you warmed up to him. It was easy to talk to him, he was always willing to lend you an attentive ear, listening to your ramblings about the monotonous things that happened at the clinic, it didn’t matter that he knew nothing about the people you mentioned, he always listened like it was the most important thing in the world.

At first your interactions were always in company of Chifuyu, mostly at the shop while you went to visit which actually ended in you helping around to organize the merchandise or on the usual checkups on the animals to ensure that they were in the utmost condition for the moment someone decided to welcome them into their home.

Then, Kazutora started to walk you to the station but slowly that turned into him accompanying you all the way home and since he was taking the time to go with you you started offering him a cup of tea at your house before he’d leave again to get back to his and Chifuyu’s place.

That wasn’t the end of it because one cup of tea turned into two, then three and finally what started as a thanks for the inconvenience turned into hours-long talks about the most menial things just because.

Your cats loved him; Blue was always rubbing himself against his legs while Leo wasted no time to go lay on his legs and with a meow demand to be petted at the moment; but the most amazing thing of all was that Jin didn’t hate him, in fact he got way too comfortable with him which was a thing that you’d never seen, the only other person besides yourself that he liked was Hina, hell, not even Chifuyu had been able to charm the bigger cat and now apparently he didn’t mind Kazutora trailing behind you when even up to that day whenever he was visiting Chifuyu would get a growl from Jin but not Kazutora.

He was nice to your babies, he liked them and you could see that he didn’t change his demeanour towards them even when he thought you weren’t looking, in fact his voice got softer when directed at them and you were also the kind of person that trusted animal’s perception so the fact that your beloved cats liked him really told you that he had changed from what little you knew about his ways before being sent to prison after Baji’s death.

Kazutora started noticing the little things about you, for starters the way you’d always be singing a random thing off tune but with such energy that it was amusing but when asked he’d swear on his life that he wasn’t bothered that he actually liked it even though you knew very well that you weren’t a good singer but the opposite yet there was something powerful about having him joining in the middle of your singing, even when he didn’t know the lyrics he’d be humming along.

You were a sight to behold for him because in all the mess of his life he had never encountered someone as lively as yourself. Even after losing Baji you tried your best, you were determined and hardworking and so kind, not only to him but to every living thing no matter if they were animals, people or even plants, you amazed him because you were always so willing to be gentle to anyone.

You were a soothing presence.

That was not to say you didn’t have your bad days, after all you were only human and it was simply impossible to be at one hundred percent everyday the whole day, but you pushed through and you were always quick to ask for forgiveness if you had an outburst towards someone, you were the kind to not withhold apologies even when you weren’t at fault. He could remember a handful of times in which you apologized when he was the one to step on your toes.

You, of all people apologized to him, a social reject, a vermin, you apologized to him as if he was worthy, as if that was the logical thing to do but he knew that no matter what you did he knew that he was the one that still owed you a lifetime of apologies.

He wasn’t an idiot, he knew how much Baji meant to you even to that day, he noticed the little pieces of him lingering in your everyday, like how you always wore a hair tie around your wrist even when your hair was way too short for you to ever need it and whenever you had to get your bangs out of your face you used hair clips, never the tie on your wrist, the way you always cracked your knuckles as if getting ready for a fight even if you were only checking the animals and the way you carried yourself in a way resembled the way Baji used to.

He never told you but a few times he found you at the cemetery by coincidence while visiting Baji and there was something heartbreaking about seeing you kneeling on the ground with trembling shoulders despite it being a hot day. He regretted what he did, not only because he felt guilty or ‘cause he missed his friend but also for your sake because he wanted to see your happy smile, he never wanted to hear your cries ever again.

Just like him, you started seeking his company more and more, not only were you inviting him to stay and talk after walking you home but you made plans with him and just him, to go window shopping, for a cup of coffee, lunch dates, movie premieres; because you liked going to the movies so much and discovered that he was an enthusiast as much as you; movies on the couch, even just lazy sundays at your house playing the entire day with your cats.

Of course reaching this state was quick yet slow, it was hard to explain, like you were close to him and enjoyed his company, but it was different than it was with Hina or even Chifuyu yet you wouldn’t call it romantic, not at first.

Sure, there was something to Kazutora, you weren’t blind so you could see clear as day that he was rather handsome, probably one of the prettiest guys you’d ever met but there was something more, something that pulled you, something broken and lonely that tugged at your heart and told you to care for him.

At such a young age he had been to prison on two occasions and you could actually see that that was simply the tip of the iceberg. He had to mature too soon, he mentioned vaguely that his relation with his parents wasn’t the best and his eyes at times looked older than he actually was, plus it took a long time for him to get used to your affectionate ways because your love-language was physical touch. You had a special fascination with hair and all of your friends were used to that but Kazutora was like a kicked puppy that was only learning to trust in people once more.

You were a new breeze of air into his life, with your caring ways and funny nature he fell. For the first time in his life he had someone like you, at first it was difficult for him to realize that the fuzzy feeling inside his gut whenever he looked at you or even heard your voice meant what people called love but it was a given because he had never felt that way before.

For the longest time he felt like love was a lie, he remembered how bad his home life was, how strained and full of pain the things between his parents were, even now from time to time he had nightmares of his mother crying as his father hit her and then her begging him; only a child; to pick sides.

He wanted to hold you close, to keep you away from harm and to listen to your laugh for days on end, for once his heartbeat quickened for someone, he found a safe place in your presence, you were an oasis after years roaming the desert. You were such an unusual kind of certainty in his life that he never had but that he had searched for so long.

While Kazutora realized rather quickly; in comparison to you; that you had wormed your way into his heart making a home for you it took you around three years and others pointing it out for you to actually realize that he meant to you more than a friend.

The first one was your mother although not as subtly but rather by saying that she was happy that you were now with Kazutora which took you by surprise because you weren’t.

That wasn’t the end of it, but only the beginning.

The next one was Hina one day you were sleeping over at her house, but the cherry on top was Chifuyu.

“Hey, I know it’s not really my business, but when are you going to get together?” he asked one time when you went out for coffee.

“What?” you asked mindlessly, stirring some sugar into your beverage.

“Yeah, you’re kind of driving me crazy, it’s kind of annoying feeling like a third-wheel without actually being one, just get it over with” he spoke before taking a sip from his own cup.

“What?” you snapped your head back to him.

“Is that the only thing you’re gonna say?” he looked at you through half-lidded eyes.

“Yes, because I honestly don’t understand a single thing of what you’re saying” you shook your head and took a sip from your coffee.

“What I’m saying is that it’s obvious that you like Kazutora” he said matter-of-factly.

“Of course I like him, he’s my friend, I like you too”.

“No, you don’t, you like me as your friend but you like Kazutora in a different way, a lovey-dovey way” he deadpanned.

“No, Kei-” you began just like you did whenever your mother used to bring up your love life or thereof lack of it.

“Baji-san has been gone for years already” he cut you, wincing as he said that and to you his words felt like a slap across your face.

“Look, I know, trust me, I do, but it’s been long enough and if there is someone that makes you feel good you should go for it, he wouldn’t want you being unhappy for him” he sighed and with a hand pushed his hair back.

“He asked me to take care of you because he wanted you to be alright, he wanted you to be happy and he’d probably punch me if I simply stood by and watched you being miserable” he pushed his cup to the side, leaned over the table to grab you by the shoulders and looked into your eyes seriously.

“I know you like him, don’t be an idiot, it’s painfully obvious with how you look at him and spend almost all of your free time with him, Baji-san won’t be mad at you for finding someone new and I believe that he’d be happy that it is Kazutora of all people”.

Before you could respond to that, the sound of a new message cut you off and when you looked sideways to your phone on the table, a soft smile graced your lips when Kazutora’s name appeared on the screen. Without thinking you opened it and it was some random video of a kitten; somewhere along the way it became a thing between you and it reminded you of how Keisuke used to send you daily pictures of the cats that went to his house.

“It’s Kazutora, right?” Your face grew hot once you came back to reality, remembering suddenly with whom you were and what you were talking about.

“I’ll let you be, but don’t be an idiot and let yourself be happy” and just like that Chifuyu ended that conversation and quickly changed topics.

You knew you liked him, you felt warm whenever he was around you, his voice soothed you even on the worst of days and you looked forward to his messages. You had learned to find comfort in his eyes but they were a wrong shade; not brown enough.

He wasn’t Keisuke. He’d never be.

A few days later you found yourself in the shop, helping around but constantly sending glances in his direction, his back facing towards you, looking painfully similar to Kei’s even down to the hair length, although the color wasn’t the right match with it’s blonde streaks you could still fool yourself into thinking it was him.

But then he’d turn to look at you and send a smile your way and there would be a beauty mark under golden eyes and a tiger tattoo where it shouldn’t have been and that smile was lacking a pair of prominent incisives peeking through.

You knew it was wrong to look at him searching for Keisuke, searching for your lost love in another, clinging to the remnants of his passing through the world but you missed him so much.

At times you felt like you couldn’t even breathe, you had even fallen asleep in front of his family grave after a long day if you went to visit at dawn after not being able to make it at morning but you had to visit him daily in order to feel in his company because if you ever thought of skipping a lump appeared in your chest crushing your heart.

Yet, even then, even when you realized it wasn’t Baji your heart would skip a bit and your stomach would twist.

Later that night you found yourself walking home with Kazutora by your side in complete but comfortable silence, feeling the warmth oozing from his arm that was left hanging at his side lightly brushing against yours, rising even the tiniest hair of your arm.

Kazutora had been going at it over and over for months. At first, when he realized what he felt for you he decided to bury it deep and forever carry it in silence but as time went on he craved your presence.

He started wishing for more, more smiles, those smiles to be only for him, he even found himself looking forward to getting hurt while playing with your cats because it meant that you would be cleaning up his hands and putting on a band-aid with the utmost care and attention even if they were the most insignificant scratches ever.

He liked having your attention, he liked that you replied to any message from him almost immediately; unless you were attending to a patient then you’d reply as soon as possible; he also liked how your eyes would get bigger whenever something amazed you or if you found something even remotely cute.

Your constant ramblings plagued his mind at every hour no matter if he was asleep. Hell, he even went to Baji’s grave to ask for permission to love you, even if he did so in silence he felt like he owed that much to his old friend because you were his girl after all.

Why did it have to be you? Why Baji’s? Why did you have to come into his life and be like the sun? You were too much for him, too perfect, too good while he was nothing but a mess, too fucked up, too far away from repair. For fuck’s sake, he was the one that took your boyfriend away, he would have been better off handling your hate but instead you were there giving him so much it almost pained him, only adding up to his guilt.

This had to be some sick game of the universe. God must have been having the time of his life laughing at how the killer fell in love with the victim’s old love.

Before any of you knew, you had already gotten home and like it became custom you invited him inside for a cup of tea.

As soon as you opened the door, your three babies rushed to the entryway to greet you, Jin being the very first, you hadn’t taken two steps inside when he was already brushing himself against your legs. The other two weren’t too far but to your disappointment Leo approached Kazutora before even looking at you.

“I’ll stop bringing you here, you’re stealing them away from me” you pouted while kneeling down to hug Jin who looked at Kazutora with no distaste, then you picked up Blue and let him nuzzle your neck, after that still holding him you went to rub Leo with your free hand once he finally took notice of you and remembered who bought him food and toys.

Kazutora’s hearty laugh filled your ears pulling your mouth from the pout into a smile.

“Leo knows who’s the cool one” he winked your way. “I’m kidding, he likes you more” he looked down at said cat “right pal? Isn’t your mom the absolute best?”

“Oh, shut up, flattery won’t take you anywhere” You felt blood rushing to your face so you stood up hiding your reddening face into Blue’s fur.

You hurried to the kitchen and then, out of his sight was when you put Blue down and started to boil some water, hearing over it as the door closed and seconds later Kazutora appeared with the other two trailing behind.

You ended up splayed on the bigger couch in your living room, your back leaning against his side while Jin laid on top of your legs while in Kazutora’s rested the other two cats. At that moment you were with your eyes closed, mindlessly caressing Jin while you listened to Kazutora talk to your cats in a baby voice that you wouldn’t have expected from him the first time you met.

For him it wasn’t easy to keep his cool, he had to school his face even if you weren’t looking at him and oh, his heart was so loud it was about to jump out of his chest and he wouldn’t mind but he didn’t want you to listen.

I’m sorry Baji.

A  meow of protest fell on deaf ears since he had stopped caressing Leo and Blue, instead turning his full attention towards you.

You turned your head and suddenly you found yourself way too close to his face; so much you could’ve counted every single of his lashes; staring up at a pair of golden eyes that were looking at you and only you as if you had been the one to hang up the stars in the sky.

His features were delicate, so beautiful it was heartstopping, he looked almost otherworldly; and not only because the ghost of Baji’s face lingered in his in a particular way; but there was a certain glimmer in his eyes that you had been noticing from a few days leading to that one, only that then it shined brighter than ever.

Unbeknownst to you, your eyes were reflecting Kazutora’s shine and your heart was beating to the same tempo as his starting up a melody of their own with your breathing getting caught up in your lungs making up the rhythm accompanying your song.

You were being drawn into each other like opposite poles of a magnet, barely any resistance was there and soon enough you met in the middle. At first it was the softest brush; like when you first dip your toe before jumping into the water; but it started a whole revolution inside both.

The brush became a second and then your lips were pressing against each other, basking in the warmth that radiated off that single contact that sparked a bunch of reactions at the same time. Your heart went off, your lungs closed; forgetting for that moment that they needed air and not that man to keep kissing you; and for the briefest moment your mind stopped thinking about Baji.

Kazutora was ready to die, if he was sent to hell at that very moment he’d be glad because at least he got a taste of heaven and it was more than enough. He decided then and there that he was bound to be cursed because how did a monster like him manage to get a kiss from an angel such as yourself? It must have been a sin for something so tainted to even look your way.

He didn’t know when your hand placed itself on the side of his neck but he knew that he was yours, if there was any doubt of that up until that point, it vanished with the way you were gently caressing his tattoo as if you were tracing it by memory, as if you had paid close attention to him, as if he mattered, as if he was something more than a broken thing.

Something inside you moved when a whimper escaped his lips the first time you pulled away for a mere second in order to get air before going in once more, this time ready to open your mouth and let him take while you explored. It felt nice, new; which was to be expected since the last time you had kissed someone this way had been with Baji.

Keisuke.

You opened your eyes and suddenly pulled away, almost as if his touch burned you; and in a way it could be said to be true; and your violent movement startled the three cats that you had ignored moments before, making them leave for your room.

The image of your beloved; death; boyfriend took Kazutora’s place, brown replaced gold and the beauty mark vanished, the yellow strands that framed his face turned jet black and the smile you’d been missing like crazy; that particularly his that showed his teeth was there.

You blinked a few times and his image left, allowing you to see Kazutora for who he was and not the ghost of him.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what came to me” he looked at you with tears gathering in his eyes almost pleading and you realized how it must have looked to him.

“No, Tora, I-”

I’m an idiot, I blew this up. Again I’ve just gone and ruined what good I had.

“I’m going now” he stood up and left for the door, leaving you alone and cold on the couch.

I’m sorry Keisuke.

You stood up and went after, finding him in the doorway hastily putting on his shoes but you grasped his arm to stop him.

“I will leave right now, it’ll be like nothing happened” you caught a glimpse of a tear trailing down his cheek and that sight prompted you to speak.

“No” your other hand reached for the fabric of his shirt, securing him.

“Y/N”

“I don’t want you to leave, I-” the words choked you, there was too much you had to say and your mouth wasn’t responding as fast as you would’ve liked.

“Don’t ask me to stay because if you do it’ll only hurt more when you tell me it was a mistake”

“But it wasn’t a mistake, I want you, okay? Kazutora, I like you” you at least managed to say the one thing that was clear in your mind, that had been clear for a long time but only got accepted after that one conversation with Chifuyu.

That certainly stopped him, for he turned around to fully face you and you saw his eyes filled to the brim in tears that he refused to let run freely.

You reached for his face as slowly as the first time you two met, giving him enough space to retreat, but how could he when the thing he wanted most was to be with you and bask in the calm that your presence brought into his messy life? When he didn’t give any signs of pulling away you smiled and cupped his cheeks as if you were holding a piece of glass; and in a way Kazutora was just as fragile as that material when it came to you.

He leaned into your touch, and you were bold enough to pull him in and rest your foreheads together, looking with all seriousness into his eyes, having deja vu of the first day.

“Why? Why? I- what I did to Baji, you know what I’ve done, I don’t”

“I really can’t say, I just do, it’s, it’s hard, okay?” you closed your eyes for a brief second before continuing.

“I swore that there wouldn’t be anyone else and now, now you are here and I like being with you but I know that is way different from how it is with anyone else, it’s something more, something I never thought I’d be able to feel again”

He smiled through his tears because after all he’s done, every mistake in his life said that he didn’t deserve you and yet there you were.

“But I also have to be honest with you” he braced himself for what would be your next words.

“I still love Keisuke, I will probably still be loving him even fifty years from now and that is something that will never change, he was my first friend, first time holding hands, my first love, first kiss, many firsts, he took most of them” you gave out a wobbly smile.

“He’s forever imprinted in my skin and I’ll always be his” he lowered his gaze at that. “But if you can accept that I’m willing to try this, I never dated; not really, not an actual relationship; after him but I wouldn’t mind it being you, I think we deserve a chance”.

His heart was thumping inside his chest making it harder to process everything so you waited while his mind raced. Kazutora looked into your eyes and knew he had to take the chance because you were what he needed and even if he was undeserving you thought him worthy.

A selfish part of him, the bad side said that he should be glad because if Baji was there he knew you would have chosen him, a thousand times you’d have chosen Baji over Kazutora and that pained him but what pained him the most was the fact that a tiny part of him was happy because now he had the chance to be with you.

He was taking the life Baji should’ve had, but he’d take good care of you.

He could live being second best if that meant he got to have you.

[stylistiquements]

The Sorcerer pt. 1

Corpse Husband x gn!reader

Reincarnation AU | Summary :

The same candle lights up on Corpse’s desk every time you are reborn and turn 23. He has been looking for you during centuries but this time you might be closer than anticipated.  {Playlist}

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 : 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞

You’re about to blow your 23rd candles and Corpse is about to experience the consequences of it. Somehow, something about your rebirth is different this time.

☾ Words : 6009.

☾ Warnings : angst, mention of death (only suggested and not specific), grieving, swearing 

Masterlist | Next 

What does it mean to be a sorcerer in 2021? Corpse wonders as he chooses an outfit for his black bean character, lightly tapping his fingers in a crafted rhythm against his dark wooden desk. Nothing, really. The modern days turned his kind into a groundless concept, legendary creatures at best and it’s truly a shame when you think about it.

“Alright, are you ready?” Corpse asks as he moves his mouse above the “start” button and projects everyone into a new round.

“I won’t forgive you like I did last round,” Karl warns Corpse, dash of amusement in his tone.

“Sure,” he scoffs and the devious ghost of a smile shines on his lips when the bloody word “imposter” appears above his virtual pink cat hat.

Sorcerers used to be the rulers of this world and the most famous of well-hidden secrets; no one talked about it yet everyone knew. You just had to be here, respect and adoration followed their every move. People from all horizons went out of their way to meet them in hope of witnessing a miracle.

Oh, how the tables have turned now. They didn’t have to hide their face back then and it all went the harmonious way until a certain day when their fate met a tragic outcome. The day when life took a turn for the hidden.

Corpse is somehow retired now. Maybe that’s why he started doing youtube in the first place; because the craving of being needed had to be fulfilled one way or another. Or maybe because the thrill of life has been gone for so long he had to try everything to fill the void in hope of feeling a drip of something again. The weariness of a mere life stiffened in his rib cage from time to time, preventing a proper breathing.

He could have still been able to practice his magic facelessly -he wouldn’t be the first one to do so after all- but it seems crazy, surreal even, for him to picture being so public about such a heavy little secret nowadays. He found comfort in the concealed, in the invisible so long ago.

See, that’s the most important reason why Corpse is who he is today but stopping the explanations there would be neglecting the truth. Corpse would, but I'm more honest than he is.

Somehow, he believes a little too seriously that a kid’s app was designed to ruin his life. He feels this rotting taste that burns his tongue every time he thinks about it, he always talks about it with great passion; as if one minute videos could compete against the thundering energy that travels from his veins to the tip of his fingers. Witchcraft tiktok got the last bit of his ancestral pride and that’s a damn shame.

His character ambles around the hostile corridors dipped in yellow light, looking for a prey to slice in half. He doesn’t have a plan yet but he sure knows how to improvise by now. Corpse deems that he’s rather good at it. He meets Tina in O2. She’s wandering around, running like a headless chicken. What if he took that expression a little too seriously? Alas, he can’t wrap his mind around the idea of the unforgivable and she escapes his reach. Corpse’s nose wrinkles, better luck next time.

His fictional blood thirst gets stronger when he hops inside a vent and observes Rae’s red character doing her tasks. Corpse knows what comes next, it’s inevitable. A hint of excitement and nervousness hatch on his chest.

At the same time on the other side of the country, the ones you love are carrying a big cake to your table. It seems so silly and it leaves you slightly embarrassed that people are celebrating the fact that you were born but, somehow, you can’t forbid that smile to reach your ears.

When you look at the cake, a snort escapes your control. Your friends drew a glazed picture of you but you find yourself hoping that there isn’t much resemblance between that Picasso-ish designed cake and your actual face. I mean, except for that particularity your face displays; eyes that don’t match in colors, one green and one hazel, it really just looks like a kid's doodle.

23, what a weird number. It doesn’t sit quite right with you for some reason. 22 is fine, same goes for 24 but 23 … Somehow, it feels like something is either missing or too much. You’re not too sure which one it could be.

The warmth that emanates from the candles is sweet and tickles your chin softly and everyone is singing along the most disastrous birthday wishes. You’re preparing for your wish. What could you need more? You’re a faceless horror narrator on youtube and life is just about good. I mean, there really isn’t much to complain about and that should be enough.

Your mind drifts off for a second, contemplating what the dream life could be about while one of your friends is already complaining about wax getting all over your glazed face. You could wish for material things but they come and go and their meaning is only ephemeral, maybe 23 is about getting more than that.

Ah, found it. You close your eyes. May I find the place where I truly belong. 23 candles are blown in one breath, not a bad performance.

That’s when the candle on Corpse’s desk starts shining a delicate and orange shade.

Corpse doesn’t notice it at first, too impregnated by his hunt, but when the unusual warmth finally informs him of the merry event, he wrestles to keep his mind into the game. His virtual character stands motionless for a second as he mutes his mic and takes his headphones off.

Fuck, not now please.

Somewhere, a new version of the love of his life turned 23. His mind drifts off, wandering near this idea as his eyes meet the flame.

It’s been hundreds of years and that fucking candle kept you hostage of his mind. Because Corpse couldn’t forget about you, he built those walls to provide you from slipping away, from invading too much of his busy mind. It was a compromise he made with himself so he couldn’t reach you entirely and, therefore, miss you completely. Yet, your rebirth leaks through the pores of his brain and past the fences no matter how hard he tries.

Corpse battles to breathe, he tries to get his mind back on the game but somehow his throat is already filling with a dangerously acidic concoction. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t notice immediately the way his fingers start shaking at a painstaking rhythm.

He moves his character around. Left and right. It’s mechanical and meaningless, nothing but a lost cause. Corpse clenches his grip around the mouse, hoping that the unsteadiness would pity him. How much longer can he carry that feeling? It sits on his shoulders and his chest. It tests out his patience, his own resistance to pain.

“Corpse!” Rae shouts wholeheartedly, rooting him out of his spiral. “Where are you?!”

Fuck; he has no ounce of idea of what is happening in real life, too busy going down this familiar and intimate loop once more. He swallows it all, praying that you would spare him some earned mercy. You’re always so cruel, unabashedly sneaking in and taking over his space despite all his efforts.

“I-huh- I’m in medbay, I have scan," he bluffs, hoping that no one would notice the way his voice cracks at the end.

Because if anyone did, he would have to admit that he’s not okay, that he never was and doubts that he ever will be. Just as if conceding the facts would’ve allowed him to feel how flourishing his despair was. There’s this knot inside his throat. It’s painful and he’s so tired. How many times was he left crawling on his bathroom’s floor when his heart fractured a little deeper? He misses you every fucking day but each rebirth brings back more and more longing.

He would love to abandon himself to the aching pleasure of this unsolicited reminiscence but he knows that if he did, you would possess him wholly and never give him back. You plague his mind like a mist that grows thicker and thicker on his lungs. It diffuses everywhere and intoxicates what’s left of him.

“Sure sleepy but that’s bullshit,” Tina whines. “We know it’s Corpse. He’s been sus’ the entire round!”

“He said he had scan, right?” Sean interferes, believing that Corpse is the jester. “Why don’t you give him the benefit of the doubt?”

They’re all waiting for Corpse to step in, to defend himself but he’s no longer here, too busy trying to swallow the emotions that are leaking all over the place. It gnaws him alive, piece by piece and it hurts so fucking much. Will it ever stop?

Silence is convenient, “I voted” badges get pinned on everyone’s chest. His black character falls into the lava, what an ironic metaphor.

“Sorry guys, something came up and I gotta go.” He finally says, hurry in his voice. He doesn’t try to hide it. In fact, he can’t.

“Are you s…” Rae’s voice gets cut abruptly when Corpse quits the call without further notice.

Corpse knows what’s next, when his head gets overcrowded by feelings and his heart too empty. It’s ugly, it’s messy and oh how he wishes it would be different this time.

The room is spinning from the crumbs of your sweet face and the trickle of your voice that drips through his ears as if you were still here. He clings onto that distorted and stained picture as if it was the ultimate proof that you were real. Were you even real once ? Remembering feels like repeating a word over and over again: with time, it loses its meaning. It wasn’t you he remembered, Corpse figured it out a long time ago. You weren’t there anymore.

The thought of it drives him crazy. He wishes he could get rid of that fucking candle, constant reminder of your rebirth away from him, constant reminder of the defeat he has to endure every time you turn 23 and you’re still not by his side. He has been looking for you everywhere for hundreds of years, from the biggest capitals to the most secluded parts of this world, without a single hint of your existence. You’re his greatest failure and he can’t, he won’t stand that.

Corpse grabs the candle and it collides with the floor with a thud that tangles with his raw voice. His chest moves heavily. It's scattered and in discord and there is this distorted gaze on his face when he remembers that the candle cannot be shattered. It’s this unsolicited spark of self-awareness that brings him closer to reality. Fuck. What the fuck is he doing? Corpse finally lost his damn mind. His hands wander uncontrollably in his hair and he looks around frantically for a second, trying to remember how to survive.

Corpse’s head is pressuring him, rushing him to turn off his computer and spill the words that are stuck on the back of his tongue on a piece of paper. That grip is unforgivable and unclear but he starts writing as if it was the only thing left to do, maybe it is. It feels like survival instinct at this point, it feels like the last attempt to collect the pieces of himself you left behind.

Dear you,

Happy birthday, wherever you are in this world. Another letter is about to join the pile. How many are there already? I wouldn’t know. I stopped counting since it made me sick.

As every time, I hope it’s the best birthday you have ever had. I remember the twenty-third birthday we spent together as if it were yesterday. I can no longer recall the way your eyes wrinkled under your bright smile or the sound of your echoing laughter but I do remember that warm feeling inside my chest, the pain in my cheeks from laughing with all my heart. How pleasant was it to be able to live it all with you? To be able to embrace you, to breathe you, to see you. Forgive me, my love, for I am no longer capable of picturing anything of you. I wish I could. I wish I could be haunted by a proper ghost, at least, and not just a glimpse of the range of emotions that animated me when you were by my side. All I can remember now is that you felt like a firework and that my eyes never met a prettier human. It’s so truly unfair to think about the fact that no one matters as much as you still do.

I am drifting off, am I? I always tend to do that in those letters. I hope you’re doing well, I really do. Did you spend your birthday with the ones who love you? I hope you’re happy and healthy. It’s the only important thing, or at least that’s what I have learned so far.

I hate those letters, they make me realize how lonely I am. Somehow, it feels like I’m expecting an answer that is never going to arrive.

Fuck. My skin aches from the lack of your touch. I miss you so fucking much. Just tell me what to do. I tried everything and you’re still stuck inside my brain. I’m a sorcerer for fuck’s sake, one of the most powerful beings to have ever existed and yet the concept of one single human defeats me day after day, rebirth after rebirth. I’m a fucking shame for my kind. I hate you. I love you so very much. Happy birthday.

Yours truly, Corpse Husband

The paper is stained by the storm that has been building up in Corpse's mind for hours. The letters are deformed now. Look at the mess you just made. He throws the letters away, where he can no longer see it and brings his knees to his chest, resting his head between his legs. He feels like screaming one more time but he’s choking. Sweet and sore agony grips his throat as his veins are burning with thick poison.

Don’t be fooled, Corpse would have been able to cast a spell or two to forget about your existence and spare himself a bit. Yet, it would only erase the last proof he had of you, not his feelings. He would have to bear the burden of a quest he could no longer figure out. He would be left longing for something that no longer existed. As if it wasn’t the case already. He wishes he could sleep, life would be so fucking easier if he could just fall asleep.

A few days have passed since your birthday. The thread between days and nights is thin and confusing and the candle on Corpse’s desk is still radiating with as much energy as the first day.

Corpse’s head is heavy, aching, he wonders if he could still carry it on his shoulders if he wasn’t lying on his bed. That sore body feels like it has been drained from an eagerness that has been growing for too long. Corpse groans, trying to figure out what’s sheets and blankets and what’s limbs, living up to the name he chose for himself.

Every ray of the sun is burning his skin. It leaves his body smelling like heat, he doesn't like that smell. Now, he could just get up and draw the curtains but that laziness is as weary as infiltrated. If only it could rain, maybe it would soothe his nerves and his growing migraine.

After a few minutes of silent fulminations, Corpse finally unlocks his phone and opens his texts one by one just to ignore them. He’s curled up on himself, as if a compressed version of his darkness could help in order to block the light. Sorcerers are supposed to be tied with nature, with every ray of the moon and the sun. His bond with the sun is molded, if not completely doomed to grow untie. Corpse is a sorcerer like no others and that goes without saying.

One text captures his breath and his attention, bringing back some interest into the numbness. It’s coming from you, y/n. Or at least, the “you” from this present life. The “you” who isn’t aware of the past and the “you” Corpse doesn’t know is the one he has been looking for during eternity.

In this life, the two of you aren’t close enough to be friends -and he would never let you take that role- but, by the time of your first Twitter interaction -which consisted of you tweeting emo Sykkuno with tattoo pictures and Corpse replying with a meme that said "If life is a simulation please turn it off", Corpse knew you should be near him at all time. Not too close for you to actually be able to touch him but definitely not too far. It’s peculiar but something that has to be felt, not explained; a primitive hunch so loud it couldn’t be unheard.

His mind is awake again. The plan for today, which consisted of him rotting in his bed, seems compromised right now. Corpse turns to lay on the left side of the bed, where the sheets are cooler. His brows furrow and he sighs heavily as he rubs his eyes with his thumbs.

Corpse really doesn’t know why he’d feel that way in the first place for someone like you. You always seem so organic, radiating, so free in the way you choose to exist. He envies you for being so authentic when all he can afford to do is remain hidden, where no light can really reach him if not to draw a faint shape of his being. No harsh feelings though, it’s just the way he feels about anyone who doesn’t sound fake. There is still a bit of remaining endearment in the way Corpse’s words are thrown at you, you just have to know what to look for.

Now, Corpse trades his horror narrator's advices against some social media help. Those things are bigger than him, he’s too old for that anyway. You think the way he still uses symbols as emojis is charming -no one does that anymore- but Corpse just can’t keep up with today’s slang and way of showing emotions via texts. Kids these days are just too creative with the way they express themselves.

[Hello, Mr Sorcerer, hope you’re doing good. I need your help on something.]

Huh.

He meets your words and his mind gets coated in sweat, frozen blood preventing the next heartbeat from happening. Who told you?

Corpse can’t wrap his mind around the fact that his most precious secret is being exposed with that much negligence. He can count on his fingers the number of people who are aware of his true nature, half of them are actually other magical beings of some sort. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

His head is hammered by thoughts. He thinks he’s screwed, that everyone will know. He can already foresee what is about to come. That’s why there is a bit of fear in the way his eyebrows are arching. His alerted mind screams for him to just throw his phone across the room but his fingers, covered in panic, are faster. The first text he sends is not directed to you, but to Sykkuno, his familiar.

Familiars are to sorcerers what assistants are to magicians. In short -but not limited to- a massive help.

Corpse’s link with Sykkuno transcends the law of words and thoughts. They just understand each other and the way they do, without even having to see each other, is just something that has to be witnessed once in a lifetime. It’s a sort of energy that travels through space, a special connection. It's light and invisible but leaves a warm trail on its way.

However, what doesn’t transcend their bond is the concept of time zone -which Corpse forgot about for a second. Sykkuno is probably asleep right now. Corpse’s panic takes back its race once he realizes he’s on his own and he types:

[Haha, very funny. You know, if you wanted to talk, you just had to say hi :)]

Denial, that will do the trick, right? You can’t be that persistent. Or at least that’s what Corpse hopes when he leaves his phone on an unstable balance on his forehead, waiting for an answer he hopes would spare his mind from yet another issue he has to take care of.

[I knew you’d say that but don’t worry, I promise I won’t snitch,] you reply, lips twitching under a sly smile. [I’m way too afraid of you cursing me or something.]

[Who told you shit like that anyway?]

[I just know someone.]

His expression hardens, that head keeps throbbing harder and harder by the minute. You’re so impetuous and it turns him into an impatient and choleric fog. The topic is too important, crucial and it shows how you truly have no idea what you’re talking about when you act as recklessly as you do.

[Some crazy folk told you about magic and you believed them, huh? Thought you were smarter than that.]

[Dream would be pretty upset if he knew you called him “some crazy folk”.]

Corpse stares numbly at his screen before sitting back on his bed, pulling away from his vision the curly strands that fell down. He throws a bunch of silent curses at the sun which is still attacking him, if not even more now. He types a few words but erases them in a snap, repeating the process once or twice more. Now he has to send another text, this one is for Dream : “we need to talk.”

What a weird day.

Questions, Corpse has so many of them but he can’t stop shaking his head with confusion. He had no idea you knew Dream. Why would Dream reveal something so critical as Corpse’s identity? Why would another sorcerer send you his way? That’s not how things are done unless it’s something they deem they wouldn’t be able to handle and there’s really a few things Dream wouldn’t be able to do. Corpse hesitates for second, fingers fidgeting in the air. He doubts that he would ever be capable of doing something Dream can’t do but does it really matter when, right now, you’re holding information you should never be holding in the first place?

[Feeling like trading secrets under the full moon?] You outbid. It’s always so tempting to tease Corpse when he sounds like a grumpy old man.

[A sincere fuck you.]

[That’s very rude, Mr Sorcerer.]

The way you avoid providing any sort of explanation grows in his mind like weeds that need to be ripped off. Really, from all the good timing in the world, you had to choose the worst one. But there’s the faintest hint of a smile on his lips when he does the math and realizes that, if you wanted to use that secret to your advantage, you would have done it by now. A slow relief that softens his headache. Also, Corpse is well aware that, as annoying as you can get, he can’t refuse you a thing.

[Fine, tell me what you need.]

[So I keep seeing the same number again and again and your name keeps appearing in my head at random times. Still don’t get the correlation but I know there is one. I wanna know the number’s meaning and how I can get rid of you.]

Corpse huffs, he’d like to know that himself. He’s about to laugh it off when he reads the text one more time. Something about it is mysterious enough to pique his curiosity. You mentioned his name, it bothers him. Not that he doesn’t appreciate you thinking about him but because it sounds odd enough to be something related to magic in one way or another. There’s this mix of excitement and apprehension that fills the pit of his stomach and now half of a smile is embellishing his lips. This buzzing sound in his brain, maybe it’s the final signal that he should start practicing magic again, the final signal his life will feel thrilling again.

[Call you in 5. This is a consultation by the way, I’m not doing this for free.]

[Fine, you rat.] You answer with a victorious smile.

Corpse’s words linger in the air. It’s smooth like velvet -you could almost touch it if you pictured it hard enough- and it’s soothing in some way. It’s deep mumbles and bits of light chuckles and a little magic. You’re spinning slowly on your chair, playing with strands of your hair. There’s a different tone in Corpse’s voice. He sounds tired and it’s mixed with something else you can’t really pinpoint. For the best or the worst, that, has yet to be determined.

“So.” Corpse says, bringing you back to reality. “What’s that number you were talking about?”

“Right. So, I keep seeing the number 5 everywhere. I wake up at 5:55 every morning. When my eyes are looking at the clock, it’s 5:55PM and it extends to absolutely everything.” You faintly slap your palm against your thighs in exasperation.

Corpse is silent for a moment as he tries to collect the bits of knowledge that are still hanging here and there inside his mind. As he expected, the pressure below his left eyebrow makes it hard to think. He really doesn’t get why Dream wouldn’t be able to take care of a matter that sounds so frivolous. It feels like the most important piece of the puzzle is missing , the one that makes the whole picture makes sense.

“Okay, this is not really my specialty but the number 5 is an interesting angel number.” Corpse hums. The word “specialty” echoes. Dream talked about that once and somehow, that’s how you finally realized that Corpse was, indeed, a sorcerer. Not that you wouldn’t believe the information in the first place but there’s a remarkable difference between learning and experiencing. What would be his specialty then?

Dream introduced you to this new veil a couple of months ago and you never fully believed in it before getting involved. Maybe that’s why you never talked about it to anyone. Even now, your skeptical nature always finds its way back to you. He said all sorcerers had specialties and that his was clairvoyance. You don’t really know what that means but you wouldn’t ask too much. Knowledge seems like a curse in that field, or at least that’s what you have learned from Dream’s distressed tone when he talked about the past. He always sounded like a broken record, a little out of tune, as if his soul was still partially stuck back there and maybe that’s why Corpse always sounded that way too.

“Do you believe in guardian angels?” You raise an eyebrow, high voice brimming with confusion.

“Do you?” Corpse pauses, you’re silent for a couple of seconds and he realizes that he won’t get an answer to that. “The number 5 is your guardian angel trying to tell you that things are about to change in your life. In fact, it means that the process already started.”

“You’re kinda scaring me though,” you say as you readjust your sit, nose wrinkling under an almost grimace. You don’t like it, you don’t like their world. It’s not yours, you’re only a human with a mere life and an almost mere job. Sometimes, you hate Dream for letting you on this secret you were now forced to keep. It always felt so two faced.

“You don’t have to be scared, the change is only gonna benefit you.” Corpse’s voice is soft and the way you can tell he believes in the words he is speaking is almost as surprising as reassuring. You can’t help it, you don’t like change. The unknown is called that way for a reason and maybe this reason is the explanation for why it needs to remain that way.

“Sure,” you coy. “What do I do about you? That’s what really interests me.”

He scoffs. Trust me, that’s what interests him the most as well. Yet Corpse knows no answer to that. He hesitates for a second and his eyes wander into the void. Should he let you know that he doesn’t have a clue, that it somehow scares him as much as it intrigues you? It feels like his broken sorcerer ego would crack even more if he did. Maybe he just had to find out before letting you know.

“Are you obsessed with me, y/n?” Corpse winces. Why would he have to travel through sarcasmland(™) to escape the question? His eyes go wide for a second, flickering on corners of his empty room. It’s only fair that he would tease you like you tease him, right?

“You’re just being annoying now,” you mumble, cheeks flushing in a vivid tint of pink and Corpse snorts.

Corpse almost forgot about himself for a second, about that damn candle, but it hits him once the conversation fades away and the static silence is the only thing left. So he gets up, grunts in complaint rooted out by sore muscles, turns his computer on and plays some rain sounds. The melody of droplets hitting the ground is reminding him how to breathe.

“Rain sounds, huh,” you whisper. “You like those.”

Corpse hums and the two of you are left listening to the rain. It tickles your ears pleasantly, so you close your eyes and relax in the back of your chair for a moment. It’s a beautiful disharmony if you really pay attention, just like Corpse is. You feel like the conversation is about to end, you don’t want him to hang up just yet.

“Corpse?” Your voice trails for a second and Corpse hums again. “Why did you decide to be faceless?”

“What did Dream answer to that question?” His tone is interesting, a bit higher than it probably should have been. What came up as conversation modalities turns into a piqued interest.

“He never answered me," you mumble.

“So people like you can’t take advantage of our nature in real life too,” he lies and you can tell by the half chuckle that travels with the answer.

You know you won’t get more from him, way less than you wish you did. Those faceless sorcerers always leave you hanging. They let you in on their little Hannah Montana life but never bear the consequence that is this endless and flowing well of questions. The rain rings heavily through your ears. It’s time for the call to end.

"Goodbye, Mr Sorcerer,” you sing before hanging up.

When the darkness finally surrounds Corpse, he slips into a strange place that greets him with a familiar smell; vanilla and freshly cut grass. The birds are singing. He takes a long inspiration, his body knows before he does. Corpse looks around, trying to let the image of the surrounding setting sink in.

That place seems oddly familiar, yet totally new; a kitchen made of golden wooden walls. It's decorated with an old and distinguished taste. The wooden table is dressed with a pretty blue and red tablecloth. Vases of fresh flowers displayed on parts of the kitchen, dried herbs hanging above the sink in front of the window. It’s dipped in sunlight, too bright to be real. The rays of light are swaying with the shadows of branches which are dancing outside with the wind. Corpse doesn’t mind the light for once, he even closes his eyes for a second to let every pore of his body get soaked in it. God, did he miss that place.

“Honey, I was waiting for you.”

Corpse’s heart jumps a little before clutching harder. He knows who’s here, he knows it’s his unforgettable love and the idea makes him almost want to never open his eyes again. He can feel it, the profound kindness and sweet smiles that are surrounding you like it always have and it makes his eyes burn with tears that are ready to trail down his cheek, sobs jostling inside his throat. Corpse wishes he could just cover you in embraces and kisses but he can’t, he can never do that in those dreams.

Corpse tries his hardest not to let the frustration immerse him in bitterness by controlling his breathing which could get carried away at any moment now. He finally swallows it all to look at you. There’s a significant disappointment on his face when he realizes yours is as blurry as always. He wishes he could just witness this beauty one more time. He doesn’t remember what your face looks like, you’re not real. It’s nothing but a dream and you’re not here.

“I made some cookies for you.” The ghost of you says as it points out a chair that seems to have appeared out of nowhere, inviting him to take a seat as it does the same. “Those are your favorite, remember?”

With a voice sweeter than honey, so bewitching, Corpse’s body works on its own and mimics your gestures. His eyes are frozen on your silhouette. He tries to remember the shades and colors that were once painted on your face. If only he could remember.

“Did you redecorate our kitchen?” Corpse asks as he takes a bite of the cookie.

“Did I?” Your past self wonders out loud. “It’s been so long, I can’t tell.”

The treat tastes as good as it always has, Corpse takes another bite. The silence in the kitchen is delicate, contemplative. Outside, the weather is lovely; white clouds floating above the endless and bright green meadows. Corpse tries to take everything he can from that dream, from the peacefulness he feels now deep inside, and the perfume of your skin, to the sweet voice that caresses his ears. If Corpse could stay here forever, he would.

“Why are you here, my love?” You suddenly ask, forcing Corpse’s attention which he refuses by looking away.

“I wonder if the wind is warm or cool outside, maybe I should check.”

Corpse knows what happens every time you visit his dreams : you end up asking this question, he answers and suddenly he’s alone and you vanished into thin air. The response is always the same; because I miss you. It leaves him feeling lonelier than ever, craving a presence he can no longer be blessed with. Just a little bit longer, please. He blinks rapidly to expel the few tears that are forming in his eyes, so the knot inside his throat wouldn’t become more unbearable than it already is. Corpse is left feeling so desperate and helpless.

In a precipitation he almost can't control, he gets up and walks towards the door. He just wants to feel the wind on his skin. Please, just a bit longer. Corpse is almost at the door when his eyes deform with stupor under the pressure of a hand that grabs his sleeve. His heart stops, he was never able to touch you in a dream before. What changed? There’s a moment of hesitation before his eyes travel from your hand, to your arm, to your neck, to your face and he can no longer swallow his emotions when he dives into your eyes. Your eyes, he can see them.

When Corpse wakes up, wiped out of his dream, his breath is short and sweat pearls down his forehead. He’s in a rush, he remembers something about your face, something important. He knows what to look for now; your eyes, your irises. They don’t match in color. The left is green, the right has a pretty hazel color.

☾ A/N : Welcome on this new AU my friends I’m so excited to have you here with me on this new journey! I hope you liked the first chapter. A big thank you to @moontwinkles for beta reading the chapter and being a big help 💗 How are we feeling about this? Faceless leo men being sorcerers and familiar Sykkuno??? Idk I’m a little too passionate about it. Don’t worry the next chapter won’t be as angsty as this one but I needed to express my thrist for angst lmao anyway let me know what you think! Until next time (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc)

☾ 𝑻𝑨𝑮𝑳𝑰𝑺𝑻 *OPEN* : @open-minded-chip-101​ ; @lochness-butmakeitsexy​ ; @bizarrebibitch​ ; @bellomi-clarke​ ; @ladybismuth​ ; @katyasrussianaccent​ ; @satanhauntedourcats​ ; @owl-llie​ ; @teenloves​ ; @notannis​ ; @mcntsee​ ; @rottenroyalebooks​​ ; @peachdoppi​ ; @mirahg​ ; @foxxtrot-116​ ; @koi-soi​ ; @lupinpetersclearwaterodairparker ; @butterfly-skinnylegend ; @fanworrior ; @stickystrawberrysyrup ;

[hysteriium]

𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑩𝒍𝒖𝒆;

(𝐆𝐢𝐟 𝐢𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞)

(𝐀/𝐧 ): This is the first I’ve posted in ages!!! I can’t recall how long it’s been, life has truly been hectic but I’m getting back on the saddle!!! We’re starting with my boi! I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun writing this! I’ve been experimenting with the way he talks so it’s not as overt as I’ve previously written! I feel like the intonations may break the flow a bit so I’ve tried to make it more cohesive! Lmk what you guys think! Also shout out to my amazing partner @lilliryth​ they’re the light of my life and helped me edit this!! They’re such an amazing person and I would not be where I am today without them. 

( 𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲 ): Wedding. That is all. It’s not what you think. 

( 𝐏𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 ): DK! Joker x Reader. 

( 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭 ): 7,600+ k words!

( 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 ): Angst (very little), swearing, violence. 

The first time you’d asked, he simply stared in disbelief. 

“Come again?” The bright red hues of confusion painted his husky voice. 

The question had been wreaking havoc in your thoughts for the past month, unsure of how to slip out from ambiguity onto the sureness of the tongue. Such a bold yet silly little request was sure to be large and repugnant to the man hovering above you. While the darkness of his eyes was accentuated by his stygian greasepaint, hints of cocoa peeked through, prompting shy flutters of anxiety in your abdomen.  

You can do this.

Your tongue slid across the arid cracks of your lips, wetting them. You cleared your throat, “I need a date to a wed–” 

That was all you could get out before he blinked a few times and strode off.

The second time, albeit similar in difficulty, thankfully didn’t result in him running. 

You tiptoed into his makeshift office with an air of mischief, his room sombre except for the lamp that spotlighted his desk. Hunched over blueprints which you suspected were his next big scheme, his eyes never drifted from the intricacies on the paper. 

“Boo!” You shouted, catching his hips with an unbreakable hold when you closed the distance. While his body tensed, he couldn’t control the breath of amusement that left his nose.

“I can see you really tried there.” 

You knew he followed your stare when his long fingers worked to roll the sheet. They were fast – so fast the pinched ends stuck out in layered rings that almost resembled winding mountainous trails. He couldn’t have curious eyes ogling his extra top secret will-have-to-kill-you-if-you-found-out criminal plans, now could he? 

“What?” you started, while your hands fell and your footsteps whispered away from him. You felt the creases of your mouth wobble, ready to smile at any moment, and so you bit the inside of your tongue. “Don’t you trust me?” 

“No,” he smirked, petting your head. 

Curse his height. 

“Now, uh, what is it, doll?” 

You let your smile leap free, “I need to ask a super dooper big fav–”

“I’m not going.” 

“But whyyyyyy? My parents are harassing me! They think their daughter’s going to grow old and grey and be alone forever.”

“Gee, I can’t imagine why.” 

You shot him a look, one that only fuelled his amusement.

“J, I can’t just not show up.” 

You watched his figure rise slightly as he drew and released a breath. 

“I don’t like wed–” his tongue stuck out like he’d tasted something bad before he cleared his throat “–dings, they’re full of false hope, drunks and...” he shuddered, “romance. You see, they’ll end up killing each other in a few years. I can picture it now: dearly beloved wife kills cheating husband. Oh how could this have ever happened?” 

He scoffed.

“You’re so dramatic. I promise it would only be for a few hours.”

“And pumpkin, how exactly are you gonna sneak me into a… place like that when I look like this,” he said, hands motioning to his face – mostly his scars. 

It broke your heart. You could've sworn you heard it splinter, the downturn of your brows impossible to hold back. If only words were enough to convey complex feelings, to convey the pile of bricks nestled in your chest, to convey the desperate crave to comfort and rebut, the need to protect – even from himself. You had yet to find a way, and so you were stuck behind the thick lock and chain of language with no key in sight; restricted and bound to tools you never thought were enough, but could only hope were enough.   

“Hey,” you whispered, reaching up to cup his face. In his eyes you saw the emotions flicker, almost as tangible as they were transparent – anger, fear, shock. Stood still and stiff, you nodded softly, giving him a smile of equal warmth. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”  

He squinted before hesitantly giving in, shifting so his cheek rested against your palm. He had to lower himself a little more to do so. 

“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with how you look. They’re beautiful, and I’ll keep saying so until there’s no breath left in my lungs.”

You held him ever so gently while he flitted his eyes shut. Your heart galloped then, its swell too big for your body and for a moment, brief as the breeze, the chaos he prided himself in was absent; for a moment there was peace.

“If you weren’t The Joker, I’d say go as is. Though, I have a plan!” 

“Oh, do you now?” He said, shaking his head and returning to work. It was clear he was rapidly reaching his patience threshold.

Damn it.

“They have food!” You trailed off unsurely, as if it was a question – pinning your last hope on appealing to his raccoon inclinations.

It didn’t work.

The third, well… 

You had just about given up and accepted the fact that it wasn’t his scene, that him meeting your parents would never be an option – a reality you had started to think of as a good thing the more you thought about it. 

And so, the third day had been your acceptance. Self-care. Instead of chasing after an ideal, your hands were clutching a book, almost too hard, as the part you had been anticipating since very early had reached its finale. With your legs curled underneath you and practically asleep, your eyes flicked furiously from word to word– 

That is until a looming figure shadowed the page completely, concealing all light from the lamp next to you. 

Annoyance creased your features as you looked up at the clownish culprit. Your eyes met and a staring contest ensued, the intensity of his eyes beckoning a response until he, uncharacteristically, broke first. 

“Will this make you, uh, happy?” 

All traces of irritation were washed away by bewilderment, “sorry?” 

“My being with you.” 

“You mean to the wedding?” You asked, wide-eyed. If you hadn’t been as shocked as you were, you would have snorted at his continuous inability to say the word ‘wedding’. 

He shifted on his feet, eyes darting away for a second before he licked his lips. “Yeah.” 

“Is this a joke?”

“I’m not that cruel.”

You paused to hum obnoxiously, your finger tapping your chin to challenge the notion.

“Never mind,” he waved his hand in the air and was about to walk off before you grabbed his hand and sprung off your seat. You felt him try to wiggle out of your grasp with a grunt, but it was too late. “Thank you!” You shouted. 

You missed the way his surprise melted into a genuine curl of his lips, twitching; the muscles unused. Instead, you were too busy stuffed in his vest, with your arms swathed around him. You both stayed there for a while basking in the warmth of each other, as his hands, which you guessed were hanging awkwardly in the air and unsure of what to do, encircled your waist.

Third time’s the charm. 

Shaking fingers twirled sapphire silk, gliding over your cinched waist before finally moving up to the delicate exposed flesh of your neck. You glanced over the spaghetti straps that curved comfortably over your shoulder, and the simple silver circle necklace that laid between them, its chilled presence clashing with the heat of your skin.  

Knock knock knock!

“Just a minute!” You said, jumping at the sudden rude intrusion. 

“Not even funeral parlors take this long,” you heard J say from the other side, the distinctive departure of footsteps following promptly. They seemed faster than usual.

You puffed air at his complaint after calming your racing heart. Then you scrambled to finish up the final touches of makeup, at last winding the nude colored ribbons of your heels around your calves. Your head felt light, and your shoes only worsened the sudden gelatinous state your legs took on. Never before had you dressed up in such a way, not for years and much less in front of someone you dearly cherished. The line between fashionable and laughable was blurred and never truly had been exercised. Waving away the fuel your anxious thoughts provided, you decided to try and move. Your heels wobbled trying to avoid the flowing material pooled by your ankles, and you’d just managed to slip one foot out through the thigh-high slit. No matter how much you sighed, the pressure remained, weighing like an anvil. And so, with nothing much to lose, you made your way to the door; the dampness of your fingers leaving its foggy signature upon the knob.

This was it.

You breathed in one last time before opening the door.

“Okay, I’m re–” 

You exhaled sharply, feeling the earlier intake of air leave you – taking with it the remaining wind in your lungs. You couldn’t control the twinkle of your eyes, nor the flip of your stomach as you gazed upon him.

His form was angled against the wall and his arms were crossed – that was, until he dragged his eyes over to you. His limbs then dropped to their sides and he quickly, almost stumbling over his shoes, righted his position. The bob of his Adam's apple was clear while both of you stood meters from each other with widened eyes. You knew he had the ability to pull off a suit, but the royal blue he donned was stunning. The stark colour complemented his blond locks, while his foulard tie with its blends of pinks, purples, and its navy base matched his socks. 

It seemed you were both in the same boat, consumed by swells of giddiness and the need to fidget. The fingers that were dressed in dark brown leather gloves drummed against his thigh, while one of his cedar suede shoes tapped furiously against the floor.

“What.” He finally stated, rather than questioning. 

You dropped the necklace your fingers had started circling. 

“Nothing! You just look… really nice,” you uttered earnestly, unable to contain the sweet smile that broke through awe. 

“Yeah, yeah. Uh… you too,” he said, the last part coming out less steady. 

He avoided eye contact when you trotted over to him, fiddling with his cufflinks, though his tending to them immediately vanished when you began to accentuate the swish of your hips. 

All fidgeting stopped.

You were sure he was expecting something else, rather than the delicate cupping of his cheek once you reached him, soft lips meeting with roughened skin as you kissed his scars. You took your time with each one, whispering affection, before claiming his mouth. He growled against you, and you could feel him tighten his hold. 

The tip of his tongue traced the stain of lipstick, a wordless demand for entry which left you weak. Almost parting your lips to allow the gentle slide of his tongue, he suddenly reared back with a smirk. 

“Peach,” he cooed. 

You were going to have to reapply later. 

With a small smile you extended your arm to the couch, and knowing time was beginning to pass, he complied. As he advanced, you peeked at the orange lining in his blazer. The hue was similar to his purple coat, though slightly lighter. You smiled to yourself, the small detail so characteristically him. 

“Alright. Let’s get this over with,” he sighed, bracing himself. 

Already a step ahead, you had brought out the makeup needed just prior to getting dressed. Sitting on one of the nearby surfaces, you picked up a small translucent bag with little red hearts on it – a fact he’d snickered to himself at when he first saw it – and walked over to him. 

“As you wish, grumpy,” you simpered, “now hold still!” 

True to his new title, you heard him mutter something unintelligible under his breath. The tap-tap-tap of his foot against the floor was most of the noise for a good while, and although distracting, the fidgeting of his hands was less noisy. You knew more than anyone he needed to squirm around, some movement at the very least, and so you endured. You deduced that he’d not been this close to someone in so very long, let alone allow them to do his makeup. That task, intimate and personal within itself, was not something others could be trusted with. 

“Time to hide these little guys,” you murmured, focused as the beauty blender sat between your fingers and dabbed on concealer. “Not that they need hiding. I’ll miss them.”

“Really?” He chimed in, eyes shut while you did your work. 

“Yeah, they’re a part of you and I’d never want you to hide or be ashamed of who you are.” 

“Hmm,” he trailed off. 

Occasionally his mouth quirked, his tongue darting out to lick his scars; an involuntary movement. You were patient, and even if he wasn’t overt about his guilt of messing up your progress, you reassured him lightly with a kiss on the head, sometimes playing with the dirty blond waves that lacked any sign of green. 

The day before he’d washed out the colour in preparation for the big day, groaning until he caught sight of himself in the mirror; contemplative. Ethereal and almost delicate he seemed. How precious it was to witness such cracks in the fortress, where the basking rays of sun illuminated what once was – and still is, only shrouded by shrubbery and thorns, so overgrown and disordered that they had forgotten to take care of even themselves. Forgotten how.  

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he groaned as you finished blending the concealer on both cheeks. Grabbing the foundation you had colour matched, you dabbed a bit on your hand before applying that too.

“Honestly, me neither,” you replied, feeling no need to sugarcoat the shock from your tone. You knew he appreciated the truth. “But I’m glad you are! You’re doing so well!” 

He squirmed a little at the compliment but settled seconds later. Soon after finishing the blending, you reared back and observed your labour. Although it wasn’t perfect, and if you looked hard enough you could still see the intricate crevices in his skin, it passed. 

“All done!” 

As soon as you spoke, J pushed off his palms. He was halfway off the chair when you stopped him.

“Wait! I have to walk you through something.” 

At this, his eyebrows quirked up. You knew you had his attention. 

“Conditions!” You announced.

“Ah. Now there are conditions.” 

“Yes! I don’t want you to throw a tantrum and blow up the whole reception.” 

“My my, aren’t you a little fire stopper.” 

“Promise me.”

He flicked his tongue and rolled his eyes. With one hand on his chest and the other raised just next to his head, he bowed a little. “I swear.”

You wrinkled your nose, “I swear there will be no funny business, and I’ll be on my best behaviour – oh and no crossing your toes either!”

“You know me so well,” he sighed, admitting defeat, “Fine. I swear there’ll be no funny business and I’ll be on…” he cleared his throat and brought a closed fist to his mouth, “my best behaviour.” Then he shone his impishly wide grin, one that only intensified the pit of doubt in your stomach. 

It would have to do, though.  

“Okay,” you whispered. 

He stood up now, towering over you. 

“Okay,” he mimicked, dropping his hands at the base of your hips. 

The last few days had been full of surprises, his agreement to attend trumping all. However, his overt display of affection was a close second. Never before had he been so forthcoming and so comfortable with physical contact. 

As his hands laid there, unmoving and making their home in your curves, you inched closer to him; a specific craving only his warmth could ease. Though, those very same hands around you tightened when you tried to step forward, holding you in place. Curiously, you looked up at him, brows furrowed. 

“What are you–” 

It seemed he couldn’t help himself. The evil laughter he’d been trying to restrain bubbled from his throat and bounced off the walls. The eagerness to ask what he was doing quickly died – hard – when you could no longer feel the ground beneath your feet. It instead morphed into protests and occasional bouts of laughter as your arms dangled along his back, your pelvis against his shoulder. One gloved hand rested crudely just below the curve of your ass, occasionally squeezing your upper thigh and holding you in place, while his other arm hung unobstructed. 

“We–” he clicked his tongue, “–wouldn’t want to be late now, would we?” He finished, purring. 

The location was a couple hours outside of Gotham on the coastline in an area you’d practically never heard of. If it wasn’t for J’s gift for navigation, and his frustration when you kept leading him down wrong turns, you would have been hours late instead of just missing the ceremony. The last straw had been assuring him the early exit was your turn off despite his gut instinct, despite the countless times he asked ‘are you sure?’ and despite his sneaking glances – something he stopped doing when he almost crashed into the car next to you, too focused on craning his neck. All of this combined had resulted in the brutal demise of your map reading days. 

Stopping where he could after taking the wrong exit he held out a gloved hand, a wordless demand for the navigator. Before long, you were back on the freeway, thankfully heading the right way. The directory rested in his lap as he balanced the seemingly breezy tasks of reading and driving. 

Clearly safety was his middle name.

Once the two of you arrived at the venue, the first thing you both noticed was the heat. Warm and uncomfortable, the seabreeze made this bearable. The next notable feature was the rambunctious clamour of the crowd; music, laughter and shouting. 

After worming your way out of the van, comically wedged between two much smaller cars, you headed towards the reception, stopping short from the asphalt-sand border. J stared at it as if it had foiled his genius villainous plots, as if it was the cause of all his misfortunes, as if it was responsible for the brutal murder of his first pet. Then, he made a face – a mixture between a scowl and disgust. 

He sniffed, “it smells like...” he paused to grimace, “high society.” 

The ghastly look was then directed ahead to each moving – breathing – organism he could see. There was no doubt in your mind the crowd had already made it on his hit list.

“For once I miss the stink of Gotham.” 

“Well at least it’s at the beach!” You exclaimed, not recalling the last time you’d been. Trying to think that far back made your brain hurt, the tingle of overworked cogs and Brain Fog a lethal combination that coerced your forfeit in seconds. At the very least you were happy to be making new memories, hopefully some you’d be able to remember in the future; memories you prayed were not, later too, guarded by the merciless Brain Fog and his ravenous desire to generate headaches.  

“I hate the beach,” J delivered flatly, hatred distilled rolling off his person in waves.  

“Oh, you hate everything!” You pouted, brushing off his pessimism. 

“It’s hard not to.” 

“Well…” You stopped to think, wracking your brain to prove him wrong, “what about me?”

That had to get him. 

“You especially,” he grinned, eyes twinkling with a mischief that spoke nothing other than ‘you walked right into that one, sweetheart.’ 

You were unable to help the sigh that sailed past your hued lips, “well, come on sunshine. You can’t stare daggers at them all day.”

“I can try,” he spat sourly. 

You rolled your eyes and dragged him along but immediately dropped the act when you quickly realised it hauled unwanted eyes, like metal to magnets. Yet, J followed even though you were certain he saw the cursed asphalt-sand barrier as the very gates of hell themselves. In fact, he seemed a little bit too eager to start his anathematised exploration of the 9 circles as when you looked back, expecting to see his long limbs hanging in defeated protest, you were met with, well, nothing.

One moment he was there, the next he was gone seemingly stalking off into the unknown, hiding among the sea of people. It wasn’t like he was easy to lose either, his height and his aura of absolute discomfort is what set him apart from the rest. He protruded like a broken bone – so why couldn’t you find him?

“Damn it, J!” You harshly whispered to yourself, unknowingly stamping your foot until the insidious specks of sand tumbled their way into your shoe, under your feet and between your toes. Easily conquering your layer of protection, their coarse presence made you want to grind your teeth. 

Maybe this was a mistake.

Before you could go off and search for the lost irritating puppy, you heard shouts. At first they seemed like ordinary yells, distinctive deviations from the crowd which happened to catch your attention at the right moment. Though, the more time passed and you wandered around like a newborn giraffe looking for its mother, you realised this was not the case. Most telling was the way those vague cries morphed into the familiar syllables of your name. And then finally in view, the supposed sweet comfort of childhood embodied neared; their worn features staring into your own, different from all those years ago. 

You fought the urge to run. 

“Hey honey!” Your dad beamed.

Two pairs of smothering arms made their way toward you, enveloping. With your fingers clutching separate materials, each as scratchy and glacial as each other, your head started to spin and you felt yourself holding your breath. 

“Hey mum, hey dad, it’s nice to see you two again,” you said, feeling the slow ache from clenching your jaw starting to set in. You quickly swapped this expression for a small smile when they released you.

“How’ve you been?” Your dad inquired, the shimmer in his eyes a sight you couldn’t help but double take at. You noticed there was no glass in his hand. 

“Don’t bombard her dear,” your mum rolled her eyes, “where’s this date you were telling me about?” 

She lingered on the word with an emotion you couldn’t quite discern while her adjudicating eyes swept over your outfit. Her eyebrows then lifted, scrunching her nose with it. “Not bad.”

Her scanning forced you to shrink into yourself, the automatic motion of your palms relentless in their pursuit of wrinkles, a fact you did not pick up on until your mother cleared her throat at your unprompted staring contest.  

“My question dear, it’s rude to ignore your mother,” her thin brows creased and the folds just above them rested along her forehead in a similar fashion.  

You scrambled for an acceptable answer, the question just as ambiguous to yourself.

“He’s… um… getting us drinks! I was actually just about to go check up on–” 

“Well if a man can’t even fetch you a drink he’s hardly useful,” she scoffed, turning to her husband to whisper, “can’t imagine what this prince charming looks like.” 

Anger, lava-like and boiling, rose up in your throat. The pressure seemed unbearable as you tried to keep your mouth closed – tried not to defend the one you loved with your entire being. How dare she judge someone she had yet to even meet? She had yet to see the beauty that radiated in and out. 

It had only been minutes and you’d already been zapped of your energy for the day.

“I think I should go check on him now.” “Yes, of course. Come back to me when you have something to show,” your mother smiled. You watched her lips stretch, her wine lipstick as pigmented as the red coating your vision. 

Her hand clutched the necklace around her chest. Her fingers traced the glistening diamond which hung overtly, screaming it’s pricelessness to all passersby as she went to go have another sip of her champagne. At the corner of your eye you noticed movement, a pair of worn hands clutching suit pants. Hard. You turned automatically and when you met his eyes your dad shot you a strained smile. It almost looked like an apology. 

Your stomach turned. 

You tried your best to conceal the stomping as you promptly departed, promising yourself to at least wait until you were out of their view and blending in with the crowd. Once you merged with the patches, you quickly discovered that navigating your way out of it was going to be just as hard as trying to find J. Left and right amalgamated, looking the same no matter how many times you tried to compare differences and so did everyone’s outfits. You could have sworn you’d seen the same red dress three times, though you also could have sworn you went all different directions to the last; the truth was you were no more knowing than a sailor stranded at sea lacking a compass, the same indistinguishable shapelessness stretching out for miles and miles with no end in sight.  

Then, a miracle – a clearing of people which shrieked hope and a long portable table with flowing white lace harbouring all kinds of food. Amongst the good news, a blotch of royal blue caught your eye and a flash of blond. Focusing your view on the table and its few inhabitants, one of which was the blue wearing stranger, you quickly realised your missing date was fixed and firm in place at the snack area. No sooner than this revelation processed you dashed over, the anger returning once the relief had run its fleeting course. As you stormed your way over to him he failed to look up, too preoccupied with the food he was collecting. Lacking in subtlety, you grabbed his arm. 

“Jesus there you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!”

J, who had been waiting to stuff his face with what you identified as another cupcake, mouth ringed with strawberry frosting, crumbs and sprinkles, dropped it in surprise and turned to you with widened eyes. They shrunk as soon as they showed an inkling of surprise and instead shifted to speckled guilt. 

“Cupcake,” he managed to mumble with a full mouth.

Your fiery frustration was immediately put out by how cute he was, and you felt a surge of guilt yourself. It wasn’t fair to be taking out your personal frustrations on him. 

After closing your eyes and taking a breath, you reset. 

“They think I’m lying about you.”

He swallowed.

“You wanna leave? I, uh, know I want to,” he said much louder than the whisper you wish he’d used.

Such a comment warranted an elbow jab into his waist as you smiled ear to ear and sickly sweet at the passing guest who had clearly heard J. The middle aged woman with short brunette hair, white pom-pom earrings and beady eyes shot you two a blazing look before rutting her nose into the air. The reek of pretension wafted off her. Now you could see what J was saying earlier. 

Pee-yew. 

Everyone here sucked. 

“I’m gonna kill her later,” he murmured, squinting after her. 

“J, you promised to be good!”

Even if she was a grandiloquent old bitch who deserved it.

His ominous response was to pour himself some punch, the clown-in-disguise bringing the plastic up to his lips. As the cup masked most of his face, the only thing visible was his deadly gaze which bounced from congregation to congregation.

“How much longer.” Again, it wasn’t phrased as a question, more a statement. 

“The bride and groom haven’t even danced yet.” 

He scrunched his nose, though dropped the subject. At least verbally.

“You’re so crabby. You do know that you’re drawing even more attention to yourself this way?” 

“Hmmph.”

It was silent for a few minutes before, without warning, he grabbed your hand. The hesitant and jagged strokes of his thumb followed and even though they belonged to a novice, the delicacy was still there.

The message was clear: 

I’m new to this. 

Your lips upturned, the gentle quirk hidden by transient hair flowing along the salty breeze. His touch was warm and paradoxically amiable; his presence a shelter cutting the chilly current that had picked up around noon. Stained lips, of which you had forgotten about until the sticky residue imprinted boldly on his glove, aimed to ease his buzzing mind. Expecting a grumble for the lipstick mark, what you got in return was the soft gaze of dark brown eyes – a sign of taming raging waters. He didn’t seem to mind, in fact the window into his soul for once could be identified as just that – a window; crystal, without the dirtied stains of camouflage and trepidation. 

Something had changed. 

Before you could get another word in, it was announced the bride and groom were going to have their first dance. The crowd gathered around the newly wedded couple as the music suddenly switched. The speakers were loud as they played a waltz, the couple’s limbs intertwined and swaying to its dramatic pace. They twirled and swayed with the grace of swans tiptoeing and beguiling the creeping ocean on the golden sands. Even though you knew virtually nothing about them, and were convinced that in fact this whole invite was your mother’s scheme to pry, the sight was a beautiful one to behold. The epitome of love – reciprocal trust and utter surrender; it had you wondering where you’d gone wrong previously, and if such a thing was as formulaic as it seemed to be, or if they were freefalling into the abyss as much as everyone else was; blindfolded, but nonetheless with each other. Welded in each other’s hearts.

How long had you projected your yearning at the couple and vicariously lived through their magical moment? You couldn’t say, though it was only the sudden grip on your shoulder that had managed to break your fixed admiration. It was firm, but nowhere near the realm of rough, and it even contained a fraction of gentleness, an action that wordlessly said ‘are you okay?’

At the sudden presence, you looked over your shoulder to find J, his guarded eyes holding a knowledge which only deepened the crawling feeling of embarrassment. Blood rushed to your cheeks. As you rounded your gaze back to the couple, you quickly saw the crowd was beginning to join them, all dancing at their own pace as the music continued its intimate lull. J’s hand slid down your arm while you watched and returned to hold your hand. Content and about to lean into him, your sudden love struck daze pounced away when he started to walk, dragging you along with him. 

“Hey– what are you doing?”

No response. 

“Let me go!” You said, your tone coming out a lot angrier than you’d expected. You guessed this alerted him because even though you were mere meters away from the rest of the crowd he stopped to explain. 

“I saw the way you were looking at them. You know, cupcake, you’re not hard to read,” he drawled.

You pursed your lips, looking away for a moment. 

“So what? What are you doing?” 

“What does it – ah – look like?” 

He’d seemingly taken your lack of response as a positive and continued forward. He grinned once he had you in position and placed his palm on the small of your back, his thumb rubbing gentle circles. He then maneuvered his other hand to grab yours and stretched it forward. From his first few steps you knew immediately it was the Viennese Waltz. The fast tempoed dance was one you weren't all too familiar with, but you’d learned its slower English counterpart.

“I didn’t know you could dance,” you gasped, trying your best to conceal your astonishment. You didn’t want to seem rude, though he just didn’t seem like the person interested in such a thing. Nor have the time. You were certainly finding yourself more curious about the origin of such a talent, and all the other potential abilities that were sneakily tucked away. 

“Well aren’t I just full of surprises.”

He dipped you slightly in time with the halt of the orchestra. He held you there for a moment before the tune resumed its boisterous charm, climbing steadily to its crescendo. 

“Here’s to another,” he said, his smile widening. If you didn’t know him so well you would have believed the expression to be completely innocent and honeyed. Standing there intertwined with his limbs you knew that devilish gleam was anything but. 

And, seconds later, this suspicion proved right. 

Suddenly he lifted you, twirling you around in such a way that made you feel like you were the bride. You’d only seen such a thing in Disney movies and cheesy rom coms – to be cherished, to be loved and cared for in such a delicate way was a fantasy; a taste of nostalgia and a serenade to the hopeless romantic within.

“J, put me down! Put me down!” You felt yourself swallow when his hands tightly gripped your hips. For a moment the irritation you’d experienced all day from a full face of makeup and wandering had all been worth it. 

His laughs slipped out, too; a direct contrast from his often irked facade, a musically heart-warming phenomenon which no instrument could emulate. The whole time you kept your eyes on each other and never once did they deter, focused on drinking in the beauty of each other. The cheers from the crowd you’d gathered fell upon both your deaf ears, transfixed by each other’s magic in your own closed off bubbles. 

As you continued to dance, the act itself felt like flying. The crowd separated when you neared – that is, until everything stopped. Sharp and prompt. 

Neither of you had much regard for the abrupt bump when it happened, there were people everywhere and mistakes occurred. It was no big deal. At least that’s what you told yourself until such a collision was followed by a violent shriek and a splash. 

Loud gasps replaced the background noise of applause.  

In a few frightening seconds your brain made the connection – linking who you’d just seen in the same area minutes before, inches from the ocean. 

“Oops,” you squeaked, too scared to turn around. However, despite your better judgement you did just that. 

The groom stood in shock, evidently unable to come to terms with the sight he was seeing. One moment his new wife was safe within his arms, dancing as if it was only two of them in the universe, the next she was below him, swimming with seaweed. Then, his form began to tremble, a telltale sign that what was to come was nowhere near the realms of good. 

He turned around with searing red eyes, a wrinkled nose and bared teeth. The eyes of the bull met the petrified, and his stubby, squared and well-manicured finger pointed directly at you. 

“You fucking bitch!” He roared.

You jumped, feeling yourself cling to J. His arm wrapped around you reassuringly and although you trusted him with your life, being confronted by a raging groom was still nonetheless intimidating. The groom who apparently cared more about telling you off than helping his wife, who was still floundering in the crashing waves, began his march over to you. 

“Do you know who I am?” He continued, and you wondered if he was still aware there was a crowd around. J almost instantly stood in front of you and had to hunch further to scowl at your aggressor.

“What was that?” J grabbed the man in front of him and slipped the blade hidden in his sleeve between the groom’s lips, angling it against the crease of his mouth. 

“Hmm? Why not try your luck, princess. Say it again.” 

The groom froze, the flicker of fear evident even on your end, though he kept up his brutish facade. 

“You’re both going to be 6 feet under when my dad’s through with you.” 

“Aww… run along to daddy so he can fix all your problems,” you could hear the pout in your boyfriend’s voice, comfortable and in your eyes even elated, to spit out the toxins he’d been gathering from just being here all day.

“So you do know who I am–” “The second most spoiled kid of Gotham’s underbelly.” 

“And yet, you’re still holding the knife.” 

“Of course the first would be your brother though, hmm?” J continued, completely ignoring the man's statement.

The groom gritted his teeth. 

“I bet it stings to not be the favourite. To not even have him here on your big day.”

“I’m going to fucking kill you,” The groom spat, bullseyeing J’s shoe. You saw red pooling at the corner of the man’s mouth, the mere act of expectorating on your boyfriend’s shoe more urgent than self-preservation. 

Yeesh. 

“Now that’s not very hygienic,” J growled, wrinkling his nose. His grip on the knife tightened and in one quick motion, the groom was screaming. 

While you couldn’t see the infliction from where you were positioned, the blood dripping onto the sand was clear as crystal. The screams of those around you were piercing, their horror and disgust forcing you to cling tighter to your boyfriend.

“J, please! That’s enough, it’s okay!” You pulled on his blazer. Feeling the hundreds of widened eyes staring holes into your being was no longer a concern. What mattered most was him. Getting out of here. 

With a quick glance to his right, J met you, then looked back at the groom. 

He smacked his lips. 

“Seems you are lucky,” he purred, the shimmer in his eye reflecting nothing of the warmth he concealed so carefully – nothing of the warmth of when your eyes met. Instead, it was serrated and reflected jeopardy. He possessed the force of a hurricane. A gravity; the way in which he commanded the direction of things and uprooted the fortitude of the righteous, the sure, a mothernatured finesse. 

He looked back at you again before shifting his hold on the man, fisting his wrinkled and bloodied shirt, then barked, “why don’t you go join your blushing bride?” 

With the element of surprise, J raised his knee and shot it between the man’s legs, the man falling down almost as fast as the foreign presence made an impact. You could have sworn someone at the corner of your eye jolted, most likely fearing the worst while others let out shrieks. Fear of the unknown, the seduction of one’s imagination and its ability to fill in blanks was the most manipulatable aspect of consciousness. Rather than bleeding out and rocking lifeless against the cradling waves like so many had thought, the groom sat there, soaking in the shame of defeat and crimson. He hollered while his new wife crawled to his side. 

“Tell your precious father I said ‘hi.’”

All eyes now turned to you both as you speedily departed, J dragging you along once more. The colony of sand in your shoe that had begun its formation hours ago was well in its breeding season now, the leathery insole most likely buried along with the newly wed’s marriage. Before you fully exited the cooperative crowd, forever to forget the merging faces of horror, two familiar ones caught your eye. 

Hah!

“Some date, huh?” You smiled, staring at your mother straight on. The way her face twisted up in a myriad of emotions – surprise, disgust, embarrassment – was something you’d never forget. You were sure you destroyed her little snobbish social circle by the mere association. Pride swelled in your chest, a childish victory that didn’t seem so childish when you later reflected on your relationship with her. 

When the two of you escaped back to the van successfully, there was a moment of contemplation. 

“I – heh – think that went well!” J laughed to himself, rounding his body to face you, “you think your parents like me?” 

“I think I should be asking the same to myself,” you said.  

“Cheer up buttercup, at least your parents know you’re not dying alone anymore.”

“To be honest, after that shitshow they’d probably prefer it,” a sigh left your lips and you began to bite them, unconscious of the small action until the taste of metal blew up your taste buds.

“Eh. Who needs parents, anyway?” 

You began to fiddle with your hands, suddenly finding them incredibly interesting. From the lack of interruptions you concluded he knew you were miles away, trapped in the wilderness of your own thoughts.  

“So I’m guessing you only came because you found out whose wedding it was.”

It took a lot to break the silence, and the air suddenly shifted to a heaviness. You weren’t sure you were the only one tensing. 

J clicked his tongue but didn’t answer. 

“It’s okay… I think I’ve had my fill of weddings for a while, anyway. And parents. And honestly, maybe people,” you answered for him, despite the swirl of hurt brewing in your gut. 

He breathed out his amusement. The lack of transience had you swallowing, frantic to keep the growing weight on your chest from expanding – from consuming your entire being with emptiness. You didn’t know how long you had until the stampede made its mark, the thunderous thuds of terror already echoing in the distance. 

Those were only thoughts you could entertain alone, sunken in the decaying paradise of your bed. 

Silence prevailed again.

Dazed and lost of direction, you remained fixated on the lines of your palms. 

“The husband had a temper. You know, I thought they were so lovely at first.”

“That’s what they want you to believe. Their little golden castles sparkle in the sun and it’s only until the rain pours that you can see them for what they really are. Wet cardboard. Looks can be deceiving.” 

“They certainly can be,” you looked up at him, smiling softly. 

Even with the friction, you slowly reached up to cup his face. This time on his end, there was no fear or hesitation. Instead, just an unspoken mutual trust between two wandering souls. You looked down at his lips while your thumbs stroked the hidden lines of his scars. The gentle caresses wore down the makeup until finally they were visible again. 

The marks of a survivor – beautiful and bold.

“Wait,” he said, the word simple and yet so labyrinthine. He reared back and looked at his hands while your own moved to rest on your knees. Curled into fists, his slowly unclamped like a blooming flower. What they revealed had your heart thumping, dancing its rhythm in your throat. You felt your eyes widen and the sadness immediately leave you, as if all its colour had been drained from you. You felt like a 1930’s cartoon, so shaken to the core that all you could see was greyscale. 

“It wasn’t the only reason,” he whispered, the commanding presence absent.  

He cleared his throat and finally looked up at you, “in fact, these were my only reason.” 

“You son of a bitch,” you bit your tongue in awe at the binding pieces of metal in his hands. They twinkled in the holiday rays, beckoning, unuttering whispers of fabrication. Was the weight of those dual bands as heavy as his heart? As heavy as the solemn expression as he processed your jabbing words?

“I-I know it’s not much but–” he stuttered, and was promptly interjected. 

“Oh! No, no, no! I didn’t mean–” 

You both smiled. Yours wide and brazen, his small and seraphic. 

“My J. Always starting fights, always getting what he wants,” you took the ring from his finger and darted to your left hand, slipping it on its rightful throne, “how can I resist?”  

You kissed him mellowed and full of saccharine and he sighed, his reciprocation just as tender despite the usual dash of coarseness. 

“Mine,” he murmured, resting his forehead against yours. He fluttered his eyes shut and his breathing began to steady. 

“Mine,” you whispered. 

In all that was and all that ever could be, never would you have believed such a moment possible. Magical and idiosyncratic, you wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Nothing big and extravagant in front of many eyes. Just the two of you, inside what you now considered the best moment of your life. What many described as a lock and chain, a prison for the rest of one’s life, you would describe as the only thing you had ever wanted. As much as before, everything felt complete. 

Supernal.

You don’t know how long you stayed like that, breathing in unison, basking in each other. All you knew was that it was all too soon when you hit the road again, starting the long journey back to Gotham. After a lot of the same scenery – trees, cars, rocks, more cars and occasional bodies of water – your eyes had become leaden. Resting became impossible to oppose and before long your eyes gave into its stinging demand. 

Somewhere within the haze of half-consciousness, a mysterious material was draped over you. It was silken on the inside, your arms softly grazing it occasionally, and linen on the outside, your chin brushing over it when passing uneven roads. Subtle ripples of cologne drifted from the fabric as you finally fell prey to sleep’s siren song. 

“Sleep well, sweetpea,” lulled a sweet voice. 

[hanibalistic]

#006DB0 | HWANG HYUNJIN.

genre | angst to fluff (basically, angst and fluff), established relationship au

word count | 1324

warning | none

note | hello josie (ɔˆ ³(ˆ⌣ˆc) picking the hardest prompt i put on the list, huh! this was fun to write, though! i hope you like it, love you lots ♥♥♥

request | @scxrlettwxtches​

there was a pink glow in you and hyunjin's shared room.

there was always something about the color pink. the color of barbie princesses, the color of cherry blossoms, the color of baby cheeks and romantic bento boxes. you didn't realize what it was that drew you to the color until it came to your senses that it resembled something strong within you.

it resembled the color red—heated, strong, persistent, and eye-catching. much like your blood that boiled for hyunjin, every minute and every day, as well as your fervent love that would blossom over him in the sunrise mornings and the dead of the nights.

pink was just a gentler version of red, a more feminine version of red, a lighter version of red. like the blush beneath your sharp skeleton when his lips trailed along your skin, and the pigment in your eyes when he smiled into them, and the sky in your chest where he curled himself against to fill the empty space.

if red was passion, then pink would be something along the lines of it. you couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was, but they were made out of the same stardusts, pink simply comes toward you as the ushered waves of the shore instead of the sparkling calamity of the thunderstorm.

they are both love, one way or another.

there was a pink glow in the shared bedroom.

it has not been pink for a while; for about a week, it has been a shade of crying ink-blue. the cowering of your laugher caused by the recent screams you two threw at each other, and the shrinking of your mixed scents forced by the emptiness of your bed where you have been sleeping alone in.

you two had a terrible fight with each other. both of you cared too much about each other, and two positives turned into a big negative at the end.

he wanted you to relax and stop worrying too much about him so you could save time for yourself, while you wanted him to take a break from work so he could look after his health more. in the heat of the moment, after a good-intended snarky remark that was taken less than likely, all the good intentions were twisted and hidden behind poisonous words—you were annoying, he was careless, you were bothersome, he was exhausting, you were clingy, he was stupid.

and the final verdict: "you don't love me enough."

it showed.

when someone doesn't love you enough, it shows, physically and overwhelmingly it forces you to see it with your eyes. and it showed when hyunjin was gone, thus unable to take care of you by himself.

the one shirt at the corner of your bedroom was never picked up and draped on the back of the chair, the heated blanket was never turned on beforehand so you could head to a warm bed, your fallen toothbrush was never placed back upright, and your shower towel was never hung back up after you carelessly dumped it on your bed.

hyunjin was accommodated to living with you. he knew how to share the same space with you. after he left and never came back, you had to adapt to living with yourself, and finally, you realized just how much of a messy hassle you were.

the blue glow in your room didn't tell you hyunjin didn't love you. it just made a comparison to when he was here and when he wasn't, how much you were cared for when he was here and how sloppily you lived when he wasn't. the blue glow made you realize with hyunjin, you never noticed how disastrous you were, and how much you couldn't deal with him not being here.

but it was gone today, the blue was gone.

the pink glow came back tonight.

you could see it. someone was in your room—hyunjin was in your room.

your shirt was gone, presumably hung back up in your shared wardrobe. the button to the heated blanket was turned on. the table light, illuminating an ugly yellow you didn't bother to change, turned back to the white ceiling glow. and your night light, the heart-shaped night light by the end of your bed was finally plugged back into the socket.

only hyunjin would have done this. nobody else knew you had to have white desk light, and nobody else knew you still needed to use your pink night light—and his arms—to fall asleep.

you dropped your bag on the floor and headed inside your room. your eyes were fixated on the night light, the pinkness of it illuminating the corner of your room. then, stumbling out of the bathroom, there came hyunjin with his hands still wet from washing.

he looked at you, his steps halting with surprise, then he gulped down a nervous breath and spoke, "you need to wash the hand cloth, you know that right?"

you, indeed, had not bothered to wash it the whole week. and hyunjin knew that would mean it has been sitting on the hanger on the wall for two weeks now since he exchanged it two weeks ago before he impulsively left the apartment to cool down.

"i forgot," you replied, rubbing the tip of your nose before letting your hand fall to your side.

he gave you a pursed smile, an awkward one that you didn't like seeing, and he gave you a nod before moving away from the bathroom. you panicked when you saw him leave the bedroom—you were afraid. in your eyes, the lingering pinkness was washing away with each step he took, and the glass of the night light was cackling with the threat of shattering.

"wa–wait! where are you going, are you leaving?" you asked, stepping toward him and reaching an arm out timidly.

hyunjin paused at the sound of your sheer anxiety. the sound of someone on the verge of tears, where their voice was wavering and there was a heavy knot sitting at the middle of their throat, and they were trying to push their tongue back so they could block the broken noise from surfacing their mouth.

at that exact moment, he couldn't think of much else but what he has done by not coming home.

"i'm just gonna make a snack, do you want something to eat?" he asked.

you ignored his question. "you're back, right? you're back home."

he nodded. "yeah."

there was relief in your chest. and with relief came a drop of solace, the solace that makes you breakdown. like the burst of a bubble that used to float wobbly and unstable in the air, at risk of everything around it, and just the tiniest thing could make the rainbow chemicals spill.

hyunjin was your bubble, he always has been; strong and unbreakable. and then you became your own bubble, and you were breaking because he came back as a needle you didn't see coming.

hyunjin watched your face scrunch into tears. your hands misplaced each other before your chest, curled into little fists he loved wrapping his hands around, and you took big strides toward him. he engulfed you in his arms immediately, his hand vining through your hair and his lips pressing apologies and love letters across the side of your face.

"i'm so sorry, baby, i'm so sorry. i will never do this again, i'm so sorry."

he kissed your cheek, he kissed your eyes, he kissed the tears that fell down your skin, he kissed your temple, he kissed your forehead, he kissed your lips—hyunjin kissed you, all over, and you cried until you laughed.

and everything felt okay when you looked into his eyes again, where his smile wasn’t polite but genuine and lovely.

there was a pink glow in you and hyunjin's shared room. along with the bedroom, you, too, glowed pink beneath his arms, and that will always be your favorite thing.

[raleighcarrera]

best of me

ride or die | logan x mc (ellie wheeler)

a picture of logan and ellie in their thirties for @rodappreciationweek and the time capsule challenge 🌼

tags: @choicesarehard ; @lovehugsandcandy ; @pixeljazzy ; @troublemakerinspace ; @zigtheeortega ; @jaxmatsuo

~2.3k words | T

“mr. wheeler!” 

logan looked around the parking lot, squinting into the sun. one of his students was running at him full speed, holding his cell phone aloft and waving it around excitedly. “what’s up, alex?”

alex drew to a stop in front of him breathlessly. “i got in,” he said, lips splitting into a big grin. “cal tech, i got in.”

“hey, that’s awesome!” logan said, reaching out to clap the student on the shoulder. “congrats, alex. that’s a huge accomplishment.”

“dude, thank you so much for your recommendation,” alex said, nodding enthusiastically. “you’re honestly the best teacher i’ve ever had.”

“give yourself some credit,” he smiled, “you worked hard, and cal tech is lucky to have you. just don’t forget to come back and visit, yeah?”

“for sure,” alex agreed. with one last grin, he was gone, and logan finished getting his things in the car so he could head home, the rest of the students and faculty in the parking lot of mar vista high well used to the roar his devore’s engine made by now, after three years of teaching.

ellie’s car was already in the driveway when he arrived back at the house, and logan frowned when he parked on the street and jogged up the walk to their front door. it was early for her to be home; usually his day ended well before hers. as he walked inside, he wondered absently if the fact that she’d had an early afternoon meant she’d started dinner, and if he was possibly lucky enough that she was making that noodle thing he liked so much.

“ellie?” his keys landed in the bowl by the door with a familiar clink, his shoes kicked off one by one on the mat. “babe?”

“in here!” the stressed-out voice of his wife filtered in from the spare room. as soon as logan took a step towards the hallway, there was a sudden and aggressive rapid tap-tap-tap on the hardwood floor, and their dog ran at him at full speed, jumping up onto his legs with an excited bark.

“hey, clark,” he said gently, bending down to scratch the dog behind his floppy ears, “everything okay in there?”

the pointed silence that followed seemed to speak for itself. he followed the hallway down to the spare bedroom and found ellie sitting on the floor, surrounded by ripped-open cardboard boxes and indistinguishable small plastic pieces.

before logan could ask what she was doing, she frowned up at him and said, “i’ve been trying to put this baby carrier together for three hours.”

he arched his eyebrows at her, looking over the small mess she’d created in the middle of the room. “you’ve been here for three hours?”

ellie pulled a face at him, her lips twisted into a grimace. “morning sickness that lasts all day again,” she explained, scrunching up her nose. “jack caught me coming out of the bathroom and sent me home after lunch.”

“oh, no,” logan said sympathetically, dropping down onto his knees on the one free space of carpet. “i was hoping that’d’ve gone away by now.”

“you and me both,” ellie sighed, puckering her lips at him for a quick kiss. “i guess it was too much to hope for a baby without a rebellious streak a mile wide.”

“i’m still holding out for your dimples,” he grinned, “and that laugh. as long as the baby gets both of those, they’ll be set for life.”

“the baby is five minutes away from sleeping on the floor. i’m about to trash all of this and go take a nap.” the downtrodden expression on ellie’s face tugged at his heart in a way her cute little sighs always seemed to manage to. logan was already smiling when she squinted up at him hopefully and asked, “will you help me try to put it together?”

as if there was ever a chance he’d say no. “’course,” logan answered, “two heads are better than one, right? although you are an engineer...”

“believe me, graco is going to be hearing from me,” ellie grumbled, rolling gingerly to the side to shuffle awkwardly out of the way of the pile of pieces she’d already started putting together. she was just a few months along but already starting to show and moving about differently for it, unaccustomed to her new shape. “there is no reason these instructions should be more complicated than my master’s thesis.”

logan laughed, leaning over to take a peek at the paper spread out between her legs. “hey, they’re not so bad.” he easily snapped two pieces into place, forming the base of the carrier. “there we go.”

“show off.” ellie rolled her eyes, pushing another piece his way with a disdainful sniff. “i’m still calling them to complain.”

“and you totally should,” he said easily, “because they suck and you’re brilliant.”

“exactly,” she agreed. without looking up he could tell that her eyes were narrowed, her lip curling further with every piece he added onto the carrier, the methodic click of each settling into place ringing out loudly in the silent room. finally, ellie groaned, “god, i hate you. i knew this would be so easy for you.”

“okay, but that’s what i’m here for,” he reminded her with another soft smile, reaching out with his free hand to squeeze her knee. ellie huffed when he continued to turn a plastic screw one-handed. “to handle all this shit for you so you can relax. i know you have the hardest job, here.”

“you are the most annoying person i’ve ever met.” ellie’s sigh sounded wistful. when logan lifted his gaze he found her staring at him adoringly, her eyes wet. “i love you.”

“i love you too, baby. any idea what you want for dinner?” he looked away to concentrate on lining two tiny pieces up, frowning when they wouldn’t stick quite right. “come here for a sec, yeah? need some tiny fingers.”

ellie shot him a look, but leaned over anyway, wiggling her hand in the tight space he indicated until the two pieces sealed together with a pop. “maybe i don’t need a refund on my degree after all.”

“they should’ve paid you to take it,” logan agreed indulgently, nudging his shoulder gently against hers. “dinner?” he prompted again.

his wife groaned theatrically, flopping back onto the carpet. her arms and legs spread out like she was making a snow angel, disturbing the bubble wrap and cardboard that littered the room. “i want sushi,” ellie said sadly, “and a wine spritzer.”

“what about apple cider?” he asked gently, eyes still on the baby carrier even as one hand felt blindly for her calf and dug its thumb into her muscle for a massage. “it’s almost the same thing.”

“it’s not even close,” she sighed. “but fine. thank you.”

“you got it. why don’t i finish up in here, and you see what we have in the kitchen? it’ll just be a few more minutes.”

“rub it in,” ellie muttered, rolling slowly to sit up. “okay. i feel like i should do something nice for you. maybe i can make that noodle thing you like.”

logan beamed at her, leaning in to steal a kiss. “that’s sweet of you, babe. thank you.”

ellie laughed, kissing him back before she asked, “why do i feel like this was all an elaborate set up to get me to make your favorite dinner?”

“because you’re a naturally suspicious person?” he guessed, lifting his hand to smooth her hair back off her face. “i don’t know.”

“i think it’s because you’re too charming for your own damn good.” but ellie was smiling when he pulled away, and that was all that mattered. it was the only goal he ever had. 

“no such thing,” logan smiled back, gently nudging her away. “i’m right behind you.”

“yeah, yeah,” she said, waving dismissively, “show off.”

he watched her walk away, staring until she disappeared around the corner, and then turned back to the mass of plastic and screws that was slowly starting to resemble an actual baby carrier. squinting down at the instructions, it was only a matter of minutes before he had the rest of it assembled, and then a few more while he backtracked, checking over his work to find where he’d missed the one remaining piece that had been left over.

he took the time to clean up in what was eventually going to be their nursery, eyes sweeping over the boxes and gifts that cluttered their spare room. there was a ways to go before they were anything even close to ready for the baby, and he knew ellie’s due date would be here in the blink of an eye.

would he ever really feel ready? it seemed insane, when he sat and thought about it -- he and ellie were going to be parents. more than home or dog owners or two people with jobs and bills, it seemed like a responsibility he felt no where near prepared for or equipped to deal with. sometimes he still felt like a stupid kid himself.

though he had absolutely no doubts about ellie. ellie took to every kid she met like a natural -- his students adored her, riya’s twins thought she was the greatest thing in the world and were still only lukewarm where he was concerned. the kids in the program they volunteered with couldn’t get enough of her.

she kept their house running and all their plants alive. she kept him so happy he was delirious with it, in a way that had felt utterly foreign at first but now seemed so common. 

enviously, he knew she’d be mother of the year without even having to try.

the rest of the room was tidied on autopilot as logan remained lost in his thoughts, and when he finally made his way into the kitchen it was, to his delight, to the tune of ellie in the middle of making his favorite dinner, the room smelling as amazing as the sight of her rushing around so domestically looked.

his heart gave a weak lurch as he stepped up behind her at the counter and wound his arms around her waist. his nose pressed into the dip at her shoulder with a sigh. “all done. next stop... crib.”

“don’t remind me,” ellie groaned, “my dad has been on my ass for weeks.”

logan winced. if there was one thing he knew about detective wheeler, it was that he was just as opinionated as his beautiful daughter. “maybe he could come with us to pick it out.”

“maybe he could mind his own business,” she suggested instead, stirring the boiling pot of pasta on the stove. “he acts like he knows everything there is to know about babies.”

“well,” logan said, nosing at the hair at the nape of her neck, “he did raise the most amazing person in the entire world. maybe we should give him some credit.”

“okay, kiss ass,” ellie laughed, “he can’t hear you. but fine. if you really want, we’ll all go next weekend.”

he shrugged. it was personally something he felt indifferent towards, but a few extra points with ellie’s dad never hurt. most of the time he was pretty certain detective wheeler still wanted him dead. “i think that’d be nice.”

“i bet you do,” she murmured, twisting around to hold the spoon she was holding out. “taste.”

he did, chewing and swallowing slowly. “it’s done,” logan said sadly, knowing the words meant he’d have to move away. ellie laughed as he pulled his arms back and went to set the table instead.

he headed to the fridge for the bottle of sparkling cider, making a show of popping the cork like champagne and pouring ellie a generous amount into the giant wine glass she hadn’t been able to use in awhile. she rolled her eyes at him as she put the serving bowl on the table. “it’s not the same.”

“it’s pretty close,” he argued, lifting his own glass up and swirling it like he’d seen many pretentious people at restaurants that made him uncomfortable do. “it’s a beautiful vintage,” he declared, as though he had any idea what that was supposed to mean, “with notes of... apples.”

gratifyingly, ellie dissolved into giggles, shaking her head. “i can’t stand you,” she said fondly, all smiles. he grinned back at her, lifting his glass to his lips. 

“to the baby,” ellie said suddenly, lifting her glass, too, and bumping it into his.

“to you,” logan corrected her, clinking his glass into hers a second time.

ellie narrowed her eyes at him. “to you.” their glasses knocked again.

“nuh uh,” he countered childishly, “you’re the baby’s mom.”

“you’re the baby’s dad,” she laughed, bouncing up on her toes to try to get at his glass even as he lifted it above his head and twisted out of her way.

“this is ridiculous,” logan grinned, “just let me toast you, oh my god.”

“no, it was my toast,” she said, jumping up and splashing apple cider out of her glass and onto the floor, “stop trying to hijack it!”

“okay, okay.” he held his hand out to concede, backing away to drop into his seat at the table. ellie followed suit, smirking triumphantly at him. she still loved to win. “to all of us, jeez. me and you and the baby.”

“to all of us,” ellie repeated, and this time, their glasses touched gently, the sound barely audible over the giggles that were building up in her throat again.

he flashed her a goofy grin before he tipped his head back and drained all his cider in one go. 

sure, it might’ve been nice to have had something stronger, but --

“mmm,” ellie sighed, smacking her lips as she set her glass down, “you were right. this is so much better.”

[toh-writings]

Fortunes of Love Pt 5 (Eda x OC)

Summary: Niliana has a long night ahead of her.

Pt 1 Pt 2 Pt 3  Pt 4 Pt 5

It was late into the night and the house had gone dark, the only light coming from the orbs floating around the ceiling in the living room. Luz and King had gone to bed hours ago after saying their goodnights. They had wondered if they could give Eda a hug goodnight but a warning growl kept them away, at least for now. Nily had no doubt they would attempt it again in the future.

Despite the late hour, Niliana couldn’t go to sleep. Not that she didn’t want to. Her eyes stung from exhaustion, lids drooping often, and she felt like she could drop off at any time. But she couldn’t sleep thanks to the giant owl monster in the house.

At the very least, she wasn’t screeching at everything. If she made any sound it was a soft chirp or coo, which meant she wouldn’t wake the other two up. Unfortunately, she grew bored of playing with the little bubbles of light and instead turned her attention to the only other thing of interest in the room, Niliana.

She had tried working on her stuffed animal at first and for a little bit Eda just stared from across the room, still hesitant to approach the witch. Still, when she was attempting to grab more fabric from her box the owl beast was suddenly approaching her, scooting over a bit before pausing to gauge her reaction then scooting over a bit more until she was by the witch’s side. Nily froze, only watching as Eda sniffed at the sewing box, chirping curiously.

Then she tried to eat the box.

Nily moved the box away before she could, giving a gentle but firm, “no”. Eda blinked at her owlishly, then looked back to the box with a grumbling sort of sound before trying to eat it again. Nily moved it out of the way again with a sigh, putting all her supplies away and vanishing the box with a flick of her wrist. Eda stared at where the box had been for a moment before looking back to Nily, head tilted to the side and a little whine escaping her throat.

“Sorry, hun.” Nily said, giving the beast a comforting smile. “You can’t eat my box.”

Eda whined again, ears drooping. She just looked so sad Nily couldn’t help but chuckle at her. Eda’s ears perked up at the sound.

“I guess I should find some blankets and stuff, huh?”

Eda didn’t reply, just kept on staring. Nily sighed, hefting herself to her feet and stretching. Her body made a few odd pops as she stretched, making Nily groan. Man, she was feeling old today.

She decided to search for bedding in the downstairs hallway, creating an orb of light to see what she was doing. She went through a few different doors, mostly closets and what looked like a workshop, before finding the right closet. The shelves were filled with various moth-eaten blankets, most looking quite run down. She let out an irritated little huff, pushed up her sleeves, and got to work sorting through all the worn fabric. As she worked she could hear Eda shifting about in the other room, grumbling and chirping to herself. The thudding footsteps soon found their way into the hallway she was in and she could feel her hot breath on her neck.

Finally, she found a few blankets that weren’t too terrible and even a pillow. She dragged them off the shelves, doing her best to try and keep the others in place. It wasn’t like the closet was tidy to begin with, but she preferred not to move a whole lot, especially since it wasn’t her house.

She turned around, coming face to face with Eda. She didn’t jump purely because she already knew the beast was there, but her heart still skipped a beat at just how close she was.

“Hello dear.” Nily found herself saying, even though she was sure Eda wasn’t quite able to understand her. Of course, now she had the issue of getting past the giant creature so she could put her find on the couch. She would probably be sleeping there for the next couple of nights. She tried shooing her away but she didn’t budge, just blinked at her. So, she tried to shove past her as gracefully as possible. Technically, it did work as far as she got past Eda, but she came out the other side with her hair messed, well, more than usual at least, and covered in stray feathers. It was only then that Eda turned around to continue following the witch.

Nily dropped her load onto the couch, desperately attempting to comb her hair with her fingers and get it back into the resemblance of tidy. It was rather difficult, considering all the kinks and knots that had accumulated over the day.

Eda started pacing from one end of the room to the other, occasionally glancing over to the witch on the other side of the room, occasionally glancing at the shiny orbs, and occasionally glancing at her feet as she walked. Her wings stretched as far as they could go, nowhere near their full length, before falling back to her side with a rustle of feathers. Nily watched her curiously as she laid the blankets and pillow out.

Niliana sat down on her makeshift bed, just hoping it would be enough to let her sleep for a few hours or so. She laid down with a sigh, dragging the blankets over herself and shifting to face the back of the couch. She yawned, long and wide, and tried to go to sleep.

And Eda kept pacing and ruffling her feathers and making an odd noise here and there. At first, Nily felt that she could ignore it. But then time passed and the pacing never did stop and it became far more distracting the harder Nily tried to ignore it. She gave up when the pacing stopped and she felt herself being nudged by a large hand. She sighed. It was his fault, really. She shouldn’t have expected to get sleep sharing the room with a giant nocturnal monster.

She rolled over, glaring up at the creature who loomed over her. Eda made a sort of cooing sound, nudging her again. She sighed.

“Alright, alright, I’m getting up.”

So she did, debating what she was supposed to do now. Eda was rather fidgety, that much was clear. Perhaps she needed to go out for a while, get some energy out. But it wasn’t like she could just go running off into the night! Anything could happen! She could attack someone wandering in the dark, Nily could lose sight of her and she’d never return, she could get caught or killed, really, the possibilities were endless.

But then again, staring at the poor creature as she continued her fidgeting about, it would be cruel to force her to stay in the house. So, she thought it over a bit more before giving a nod. Yes, that was an idea.

She drew a circle in the air and for a moment it sat there, shimmering. Eda glared at it, giving a little hiss, but then cocking her head to the side in confusion when the ring of light vanished and it appeared that nothing had happened. It took her a moment to notice the color around her neck, glowing faintly in the dark. She growled at it, tried prying it off with her claws but it was firmly in place.

She was distracted when Niliana got up, stretching and heading for the door. She grabbed her staff from where it had been resting against the wall and looked back.

“Come on, dear.” she said, opening the front door.

“What exactly are you doing?” The door spoke in the most irritating voice Niliana could have possibly imagined. She looked on the other side, where Hooty appeared to be attempting to glare at her. “You told me to keep Eda in the house.”

“And now we’re going for a walk. Unless, of course, you want her destroying the house.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm, okay!” He all but shouted. Nily looked back into the house, smiling at the owl beast who just kept staring.

“Come.” She said, beckoning to Eda. She crowed from inside, shifting from one foot to the other. Then, ever so slowly, she approached the door herself, sniffing at the night air, so much fresher than inside. She gave a screech of delight, hopping outside and running in a big circle. She was finally able to stretch out, her wings extending to their full height and her claws digging into the soft earth. She gave a few powerful flaps, sending the leaves around her flying in the draft. Black eyes turned back to the witch who was walking towards her.

“Go on.” Nily motioned towards the woods. “Run off. I’ll keep an eye on things.”

She didn’t need any encouragement, of course. She had taken off before the witch had finished speaking.

Nily followed on her staff or at least did her best to follow.

---------------------------------

In the morning, Luz didn’t run down the stairs like she usually did. She had enough self-control to be a bit quieter, just in case Eda was sleeping. Sure enough, when she peeked into the living room she could see the owl beast fast asleep, curled up in the middle of the room. She smiled, eyes shimmering with delight.

“So cuuuuute!” She whisper-screamed. For a moment she wondered if she could get away with booping her nose or petting her. Instead, she went to the kitchen for breakfast.

Niliana leaning back against the counter, her head in her hands. She looked up when Luz walked in, managing a faint smile. Even the oblivious teenage girl could see she was tired. It was in the way she held herself and the circles under her eyes.

“Hey, hun.”

“Hi, Nily!” Luz chirped, just as bright and happy as ever. “Do you want me to make breakfast?”

The witch debated it for a moment, a hand coming up to rub her hands. Ultimately, she decided she was too exhausted to make anything properly.

“Alright, if you want. Let me know if you need my help.”

“Okay!”

Luz wasn’t the best cook, but there were a few things she was pretty good at. One of those things just happened to be pancakes and luckily they had everything she needed to whip some up for everyone.

She was just starting to mix everything together, Nily keeping an eye on her, when the two witches heard a squeak from the living room. A moment later King appeared in the kitchen doorway, looking like he was trying to hide how shaken he was. Luz had a smirk on her face, trying not to giggle as the little demon went and sat at the table.

“Hey, King.”

“Yeah? What do you want?”

“What, uh … What was that sound we heard?”

King huffed and crossed his arms.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really? You sure about that?”

King gave a decisive nod.

“Cause it sounded to me like you squeaked. Like a little squeaky toy!” Luz's voice got louder as she tried harder to not just outright laugh at him.

“I am not a squeaky toy! I just … I forgot about Eda for a moment and was maybe caught a little off guard.” He finally admitted.

Luz finally laughed, almost spilling some of the batter. Nily just smiled a tired smile.

During breakfast, Luz informed everyone that she was going out with her friends today. They were going to practice some of their magic in the woods. Nily nodded and accepted it. She let them know she was going to take a nap before going out herself. She needed to grab some of her things and maybe check out a book or two on beastkeeping. King volunteered to keep an eye on Eda while everyone was out. Nily was hesitant to leave him alone with the owl beast but eventually gave in. She was probably going to be sleeping the whole time anyway and it wouldn’t take her long to get her things.

So, they all left to do their own things. Nily yawned as she settled on the couch, dragging the worn blankets over her shoulders. Nearby, Eda slept fitfully after a long night of running and flying about. The witch fell asleep quickly to the sound of her grumbling snores.

[andrewmoocow]

Steven Universe Alternate Future chapter 18: Growing Pains (originally published on July 12, 2021)

AN: Welcome back everyone. Now, this is going to be a pretty heavy chapter for me to write. Well, mostly the A-plot, the B-plot will be courtroom nonsense ala Phoenix Wright and Harvey Birdman. But I'm getting off track, as someone who have faced some very tough times before in my life, I hope I can be as respectful to both the original episode and everyone who watched it as possible. Now then, let's get rocking and rolling.

Synopsis: Steven goes to his first doctor's appointment and realizes how deep his problems run.

Cast:

Zach Callison as Steven

Estelle as Garnet

Michaela Dietz as Amethyst

Deedee Magno-Hall as Pearl, Volleyball, Yellow Pearl

Grace Rolek as Connie

Mary Elizabeth McGlynn as Priyanka

Tom Scharpling as Greg

Christine Pedi as Holly Blue Agate

Charlyne Yi as Navy

Hayley Kiyoko as Morganite

Jennifer Paz as Lapis, Zuli

Shelby Rabara as Peridot, Squaridot

Uzo Aduba as Bismuth

Amy Sedaris as Yellow Zircon, Blue Zircon

Patti LuPone as Yellow Diamond

Featuring Casey Lee Williams as Cat's Eye

--

The day after his failed date with Connie, Steven stayed in his bedroom for most of the morning where he was surrounded by ice cream and watching the preview for a new Dogcopter movie, which showed the titular canine standing on top of a black car chasing a blue car and a mail van while a pug gave him orders.

"I know you're eager to catch the mail truck Dogcopter, but it's really a decoy!" the other dog at the wheel named Drew ordered Dogcopter. "Chase the blue car instead! Good boys chase the blue car, and you're a good boy Dogcopter!"

With a fearless expression, Dogcopter leaped off the black car and used the propeller on his back to fly towards the black car, followed by using a pair of extendable hands to open up the trunk, revealing a bomb and a ring box inside.

"Nice work DC, now get the bomb outta the trunk and off the bridge!" Drew congratulated Dogcopter. "We're almost out of time!"

However, it was too late for Dogcopter. The bomb went off as he tossed it off the bridge, and the resulting explosion blew him away. As Dogcopter collapsed on the bridge, the ring box fell from his mechanical hands and onto the asphalt.

"Dogcopter, no!" Drew cried as he burst from the car to keep his friend alive. "I can't lose you Dogcopter!" Luckily, Dogcopter was unharmed and he woke up to pop open the ring box, which contained a ring shaped like a dog bone that he presented to Drew. "Is that?"

"DOGCOPTER 6: TILL DEATH DO WE BARK: I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU MAN AND WOOF!" the announcer read the film's title as it appeared on the screen, making Steven groan in agony at the irony of the trailer he was watching.

"Everyone's getting married except me!" Steven yelled as he sank into his bed and started turning pink. "Even Dogcopter succeeded in popping the question! I feel like poop." Steven then picked up his phone and tried calling one of the Crystal Gems, but he unfortunately got no answer. "Wish the Gems weren't doing a field trip to Homeworld today. I wonder if they got any reception?"

--

Meanwhile, on the Gem Homeworld, it was a rather tense time. Following the exposure of Black Rutile's revolution and attempted massacre of the Crystal Gems, the citizens were in fear of who among them could still be a supporter of her. And three followers, in particular, were about to be put on trial.

Garnet, Amethyst, Pearl, Peridot, Lapis, and Bismuth led their classes into the Diamonds' throne room, which was already set up like a courtroom with stands for the judge, jury, witnesses, attorneys, and the accused. Those accused were Holly Blue Agate, Morganite, and Navy, who sat down at the plaintiff's bench with varying expressions of irritation, resignation, and sadness.

"Now class, we want you all to be on your best behavior," Garnet advised the Gem students. "This is a serious time for our kind, and we want absolute silence for most of this trial. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Garnet." The Gems obliged before they retreated to the jury box while their teachers took their seats at the prosecutor's stand. That was when Garnet took notice of Pearl sticking her nose in the book by George Ikari that she had gotten at yesterday's signing.

"I see you're keeping yourself busy Pearl." Garnet remarked, forcing Pearl to look up from her book.

"Thanks for noticing Garnet." Pearl replied to the fusion. "I've just been a little enraptured by this little tome lately. George uses such flowery terms for such simple concepts, and the concepts in question could be very useful to Steven too."

"All y'all, shush!" Amethyst ordered her two seniors. "Here comes the judge!"

"All rise for the honorable Yellow Diamond!" Yellow Pearl announced, serving as the bailiff for this trial, before her former Diamond emerged from the curtained entrance and made her way to her throne.

"Good day to you Gems." Yellow Diamond greeted the other Gems in the makeshift courtroom with utmost seriousness. "In case you are wondering, Blue and White Diamond are out searching for more of Black Rutile's supporters, so I shall serve as sole judge for these proceedings." She informed. "Now without further ado, read the charges."

"Holly Blue Agate-12B, Morganite-8HK, and Ruby-EJ9, you stand here accused of your support of the intelligence officer turned terrorist Black Rutile." Yellow Pearl announced as she read off a hologram. "How do you all plead?"

"Not guilty!" Holly Blue declared, speaking on behalf of all three of them. "Black Rutile is no terrorist, she had big dreams for our kind! She simply wanted to restore us to our old ways because she believed Steven had made us weak, no doubt weak enough to be so easily conquered!"

"Liar. Kinda not surprised you would do this." Amethyst snarked in-between fake coughing, inciting a glare from the Agate before she continued her plea.

"If you can find it within yourself, your most grand clarity, to scrub this silly trial altogether and let us go, it would be most grand." Holly Blue continued.

"Request denied." Yellow declared coldly. "If you really insist on begging on your knees this whole time, then I guess your defense attorney might not be needed."

"Wait, attorney?" Amethyst wondered out loud just as a new Gem stepped into the room.

"Sorry for being so fashionably late, Yellow!" a tall, confident Gem apologized as she strode into the throne room. In addition to the honey yellow pantsuit with large diamond-shaped buttons she wore to match the gemstone above her upper lip that resembled a mole, a straight bob-cut, and a cat's tail emerging from her rear, this new Gem also wore a large sunhat, a neon fur coat, sunglasses, high heels, mustard yellow opera gloves, and a cigarette holder in her left hand. "Had to quell a few uprisings a few districts over. Hope you're not too mad."

"Oh goody." Bismuth shared the sentiments of her fellow Crystal Gems as they grimaced at the cat-like defense attorney, all except for Amethyst.

"Who's the new pussycat here?" Amethyst asked about the attorney.

"That's Cat's Eye, one of the most affluent uppercrusts on Homeworld." Bismuth informed the smaller Gem.

"And one of the most irritating." Lapis groaned as she buried her face in her hands.

"She's almost like an Earth cat in a way." Peridot added. "Incredibly smug, loves making others mad solely for her amusement, and that grin on her face just rubs me the wrong way."

"So Cat, how have you been lately?" Pearl asked the opposing attorney with a strained smile.

"Miserable, my darling Pearl. Perfectly wretched." Cat's Eye answered as she made her coat, hat and sunglasses disappear with a snap of her fingers, revealing a pair of cat ears atop her hair. "Now then, let us get down to business." With that, Cat's Eye took her place alongside the prosecuted trio and kicked her legs up on the table.

"Oh Cat's Eye, thank you so much for coming out today!" Holly Blue exclaimed gratefully. "These horrible traitors have framed us for a crime we clearly didn't commit, and now we could lose every-"

"Could you move approximately 30 centimeters away from me?" Cat's Eye raised a paw-like hand to Holly's face while filing her sharp nails. "You're invading my personal space." The Agate meekly complied and returned to her seat, causing Amethyst to laugh raucously.

"That cat may be trouble, but seeing Holly put in her place will always crack me up!" Amethyst cackled, but her chuckling was cut short when Cat's Eye turned her cigarette holder into a riding crop to whip Amethyst in the hands with. "MEOWCH! Bad kitty, what the H?!"

"Order in the court." Cat's Eye declared crossly as she returned her weapon to her gem and took a stand. "Now, without further ado, I'd like to make my case for these three Gems and call a witness."

"Go right ahead Cat's Eye." Yellow rolled her eyes before the cymophane made her plea.

"Your honor, Gems of the court, these three stand here wrongly accused by these band of ingrates for allying themselves with a known terrorist who once filled a high seat in White Diamond's court." Cat's Eye stated. "But, maybe they could've been spared this fate if the Crystal Gems had simply shown them a little kindness."

"OBJECTION!" Pearl yelled and pointed an accusing finger at Cat. "We tried to show Navy here kindness, but it was all a ploy to steal back her squadron's ship!"

"That is true." Navy agreed. "But I simply played nice because you left us all to drift forever in space, even after Steven said you'd get us all back!"

"I'll admit, she raises a good point." Garnet found herself agreeing with the Ruby. "We were in a rush to get back to Earth, so rescuing the Rubies just flew over our heads."

"I rest my case." Cat's Eye declared with a prideful smirk. "Now, if we have nothing else to discuss, I'd like to call Yellow Zircon to the stand."

The Gems in the gallery began muttering among themselves as Yellow Zircon sadly got up from her seat and marched to the witness's stand, while her blue counterpart gave her a cheeky grin. "Whatever you do," Yellow Zircon said to Blue Zircon. "don't make a fool out of me."

"Oh, I won't." Blue Zircon said innocently as Yellow Zircon made her way to the stands, where Cat's Eye sat down in front of her with a seductive gaze.

"Now my dearest Zircon, do try to not make a fool of yourself for me." Cat cooed, cupping the Zircon's face in her hand and squeezing her cheeks, making her usually arrogant witness blush.

"I-I won't." Yellow Zircon sheepishly obliged and sat down in the witness's box. "But how did you become an attorney? You don't know the first thing about law and order!"

"Well, I'm here because I'm smarter than you think I am!" Cat's Eye yelled at Yellow Zircon's face, a far cry from the smug seductress she presented herself as. "Not because I'm so gorgeous! Though I really am."

"This is going to take a while." Pearl groaned before picking up her book again. "I wonder how Steven is doing."

--

Back on Earth, Steven continued to scroll through all the numbers he had on his phone. Pretty much most of the people in his contacts had either already began to drift away from him, would probably be too busy to call, or simply didn't have time for him. All except for one.

"Hi, Steven!" Greg greeted his son on the other end after Steven decided to give him a call.

"Hi Dad, how's it going?" Steven asked his father.

"The tour's been going great!" Greg replied happily. "Which reminds me, how have you been doing? You been throwing any dope ragers while you got the house to yourself?"

"Yeah, you know me. Steven the party animal." Steven responded sarcastically. "I'm glad you're finally coming home tonight Dad. I wanna talk to you about something that's happened between me and Connie?"

"Oh, this isn't that whole situation after you came back from Homeworld the first time again, right?" Greg asked sympathetically. "By the way, Sadie and Shep wanna say hi while they're working on a new routine that they're excited to show off. And guess what? The tour got extended!"

"Wow, that's-that's great." Steven tried to sound happy for the musicians and their manager, but at the same time, he was sad that he'd have to wait a little while longer for his dad to come home.

"Yeah." Even if they were far apart, Greg could sense the disappointment in his half-alien son's voice before trying to turn things around. "I get that you want to see me again soon, but this manager job is working great for me! Takes me back to when I was touring as a lad. Anyways, we're gonna go through a tunnel. You wanna call me back about your Connie sitch?"

"I-it's not really important." Steven fibbed.

"You sure?" Greg asked Steven. "You know, I can make a quick stop when we pass through Delmarva."

"No, I'm totally fine. Have fun!" Steven reiterated before hanging up and letting out a deep sigh. "Maybe I should get some more ice cream."

Steven then walked down to the kitchen to fetch some more of that dairy goodness from the freezer, but when he opened the freezer door, he discovered Connie's glow bracelet left in there after last night. Taken by surprise, the depressed half-Gem once again turned pink, but this time was different.

This time, parts of Steven's body began swelling up like a balloon and tearing through his pajamas as he accidentally tore the freezer door off its hinges before slowly turning back to normal. As Steven was left aghast at this new development, he decided to take a breather on the couch. However, his body began swelling up for the second time in a row as Connie began calling him on his phone.

"I shouldn't worry her." Steven tried to hang up on Connie upon realizing her promise yesterday to call him at noon. "You know what, I'll let her go to voicemail!" Steven's body had other plans as his right arm began to inflate and took the call for him, allowing Connie to be seen on his screen while the arm returned to normal.

"Steven, are you there?" Connie asked through video call.

"Hey Connie, what's up?" Steven casually asked, trying to hide the strange new changes his body was going through.

"I've been worried about you Steven." Connie answered when she noticed how pink her best friend was. "Um, are you glowing?" she asked before Steven's face began to puff up. "Good grief, what's wrong with your face?!"

"Wait, my face?" Steven mumbled through his inflated head. "What's wrong with my face?"

"Uh…." Connie replied.

"Oh right, the swelling." Steven realized what his would've been-wife was talking about. "Parts of my body have been randomly growing for some reason. But I'm sure it doesn't hurt, I'm perfectly fine!"

"How long has this been happening?" Connie inquired.

"Since this morning." Steven meekly replied, causing his face to blow up some more.

"What do the Gems think?" Connie began pressing further.

"Can't reach them right now." Steven answered as his face returned to normal while the rest of his body kept growing. "Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl were asked to serve as prosecutors for a trial on Homeworld, so they decided to make it into a Little Homeschool field trip." As Steven finished, his form returned to its normal size. "It's really nothing to worry about."

"You don't look well." Connie nervously observed. "I think you should see a doctor. I can ask my mom if she'd like to give you a checkup."

"I wouldn't want to bother her." Steven declared. "Besides, I already got a pretty okay idea of what doctors do when I went to see Lars in the hospital after his crash landing."

"Steven, you need to see a medical professional," Connie demanded. "Doesn't matter if my mom can see you or not, you need help."

"Okay, you're right." Steven accepted the opportunity while his face began to deform yet again. "Call me when she's ready."

--

Thankfully for Steven, Connie's mother had an opening and soon enough, Steven was sitting in her office with Connie by his side.

"You're lucky I had a cancellation today," Priyanka stated as she prepared for work. "Usually, I'm booked weeks in advance."

"Think you'll be able to help Steven out?" Connie asked her mother. "Even if this is some sort of Gem issue?"

"Gem issue or otherwise, he still has a human body, which means we can run tests." Priyanka remarked. "At the very least, we can see if you're suffering from a non-Gem condition, Steven."

"See? Everything will be fine." Connie assured Steven. "I'm sure everything will be fine." As Connie left the examination room, she began dialing on her phone and put it to her ear.

"Okay, give me all you got." Steven said reluctantly to the doctor.

"Alright, let's check for symptoms first." Priyanka said before putting a thermometer in Steven's ear to check his temperature. "Mild fever." She observed before walking away to pick up a stethoscope, returning to find that Steven is starting to once again glow pink. "Glowing pink color to the skin." Priyanka continued as she put the stethoscope to Steven's heart and then his gem. Next, she reached for a blood pressure device to check Steven's blood pressure, but it caused his arm to swell up and break the machine, causing his doctor to fall over in alarm.

However, Priyanka was quick to regain her composure as she looked over the notes she had taken. "Blood pressure is high!" she realized as she got up. "Well, these readings are quite interesting. Tell me, Steven, if you don't mind, who's your GP?"

"GP?" Steven wondered.

"Your general practitioner?" Priyanka explained to her patient. "As in, your regular doctor?"

"I guess you?" Steven answered confusedly. "I never have been to a doctor's appointment before, mostly because I have the Gems, my dad, or my healing spit to rely on whenever I get hurt."

"You're almost seventeen and you have never seen a doctor?!" a shocked Priyanka yelled, causing Steven to once again turn pink and inflate before she tried to calm him down. "I-it's okay, it's okay! I'll talk with your father later, but now we'll just need to run some more tests."

Steven looked nervously at Connie's mom as she walked over to a cupboard, opening it to fetch some hospital gowns. "Get undressed, then we'll help you into a gown." Priyanka ordered.

"Is that one of those blue things that don't cover your butt?" Steven asked embarrassedly before he was thrown a hospital gown.

"Yes, now let's get started." Priyanka declared before snapping on a rubber glove.

--

"Thank you for your testimony little Peridot." Cat's Eye thanked Squaridot, while licking the back of her hand, as the square-headed Peridot finished her testimony. "Tell us your designation so we may enter it into the records."

"Peridot, Facet-4E3M Cut-7ZY." Squaridot stated as she left the witness's stand and rejoined her classmates. "But everyone calls me Squaridot."

"Squaridot?" Cat's Eye repeated with utter disgust. "Who comes up with these abhorrent names?! I mean, Laz, Zuli, and now Squaridot?!"

"Would you care to get to the point?" Bismuth snarked to the catlike defendant.

"Gladly." Cat's Eye answered before clearing her throat. "Gems of this courtroom, the testimonies we have heard so far have given me enough to make my deduction." She announced to the courtroom. "These Crystal Gems are only kind to other Gems who treat them kindly in exchange. And that DOES, NOT, MAKE, SENSE!" She emphasized her declaration by slamming her fist into her open palm with each word. "If they say that they practice restorative justice, then why didn't they use that kind of justice on my clients here?"

"OBJECTION!" Amethyst yelled. "Girl, did you even see the Human Zoo back in the day?! Holly Blue was treating my quartz peeps like garbage!"

"That is because they were beneath her in the caste system!" Cat's Eye argued with Amethyst. "I swear you droll quartz, did you emerge yesterday or something?!"

"Actually, she was," Pearl answered for the purple Gem. "And you're just making stuff up in the hopes of sounding smart!"

"Do I have 'stupid' written on my gem, you no-good servant?!" Cat's Eye shouted at the white Gem, making sure to whip Pearl's hands for added emphasis. "Let's review what we have learned so far. Those two Lapis Lazulis retaliated violently when ordered to not terraform and their friend came close to poofing them both, yet 2F8D immediately forgot all that when coming to your silly little school!" she analyzed. "That does NOT, MAKE, SENSE!"

"Laz and I argued about going to Little Homeschool!" Zuli objected to Cat's Eye's observation. "An argument you obviously weren't there for-" Before Zuli could finish, she got a whip in the hands by Cat's Eye's riding crop.

"No backtalk!" Cat's Eye exclaimed as she returned to her statement. "Back on subject, then came Miss Squaridot here," she once again cringed at the name while gesturing to Squaridot. "who was given a second chance, yet was poofed without a second thought! That does NOT, MAKE, SENSE!"

"I tried to give Squari a second chance after I released her from her bubble," Peridot began. "but she then just ran off and got herself taken over by Hessonite's warship."

"Ah yes, the swashbuckling vigilante Hessonite." Cat's Eye said smugly. "Tell me, why isn't she here today to give a testimony?"

"Hessonite is off weeding out more of Black Rutile's supporters across many of our former colonies, alongside Citrine." Yellow Diamond answered.

"Speaking of Black Rutile, what if, and a very big if here." Cat's Eye stated. "What if Black Rutile wanted to do better than the Crystal Gems by offering these lost Gems a helping hand?"

"OBJECTION!" Pearl roared and once again pointed straight at Cat's Eye. "That no-good Rutile didn't care one bit for her subordinates! Not only did she let them all get defeated by us, but she abused her Topaz as well!"

"As I had stated earlier with Holly Blue, the Topaz was merely a subordinate to Black Rutile, especially since the Rutile had such a shockingly high status in White Diamond's court." Cat replied.

"Same with my Ruby and Pearl that fused into Rhodonite," Morganite spoke up. "It was only natural that we mistreated those beneath us."

"And on the topic of Pink Diamond's entourage," Cat declared. "allow me to call her former Pearl to the stand."

Rising from her seat, Volleyball separated from her Little Homeschool classmates to walk to the witness's stand, where Cat was awaiting her.

"My dear Pearl, you truly deserved a better Diamond than Pink." Cat cooed to Volleyball while stroking her broken eye, which was now showing the absolute faintest signs of a pupil following her fusion with her white-colored successor at the Reef. "Tell us all this court needs to know sweetie,

"Actually, you can call me Volleyball now." Volleyball corrected the defense attorney. "That's the name Steven gave me."

"VOLLEYBALL?!" Cat's Eye shrieked outrageously at the top of her lungs, quickly returning to her normal condescending tone. "I shouldn't have spoken too soon after complaining about that Peridot." She muttered while pointing a thumb over to Squaridot. "Now tell me, word on the street is that you may know a thing or two about this revolution. Is this true?"

"Yes, it's true." Volleyball revealed remorsefully, shocking the prosecutors and the jury. "Not too long after Era 3 began, I was left wondering what purpose I could still serve now that Pink Diamond was gone, until Black Rutile and Holly Blue Agate approached me with the chance to seek revenge by spying on their enemies."

"That is a bold-faced lie if I ever saw one!" Holly Blue fibbed while beginning to sweat profusely. "I never approached her in the slightest, the poor Pearl came crawling to me in tears, begging, no, pleading that she get some sort of payback for the abuse she suffered!"

"Really laying it on thick Holly." Morganite stoically muttered to the Agate.

"Yes, I can clearly see you lying." Pearl added before she walked over for Volleyball. "But as for you Volley, is it true? Did you really join Black Rutile and spy on us this whole time?"

"I'm truly sorry Pearl, they gave me no other choice." Volleyball apologized, now on the verge of tears. "I was so horrified by how they wanted to fight back against you, that I decided to back out after you and Steven offered to fix my eye." Volleyball then began to sob as she rushed out of the witness's stand and into Pearl's arms. "Please forgive me, I just didn't know any better!"

"It's okay VB, I'm here." Pearl comforted her crying fellow ex-servant. "Just let it all out."

"Wah wah wah, I betrayed your trust!" Cat's Eye mockingly cried. "Please forgive me even though I was allied with a proud sociopath! Oh brother, this era has lost all sense of justice. At least give her a week's punishment, anything."

"Big talk coming from the alleycat who doesn't have a single clue about justice." Pearl growled at Cat while Volleyball's tears started drying and she returned to the jury.

"Big talk coming from a Pearl who wanted to be free despite still essentially serving her Diamond." Cat snapped back at the Pearl. "And on that note, I feel we are ignoring the big Jasper in the room." Biggs Jasper raised her hand. "I wasn't talking to you!" Biggs lowered her hand while Cat kept a stiff upper lip. "But really, I wish to speak of a certain Jasper that has been housed on Earth lately."

"Here we go." Lapis rolled her eyes at whatever outlandish claims the defendant was going to make now.

"You see, the Jasper is just as much of a victim of Pink Diamond's faked death as pretty much everyone on this planet." Cat's Eye proclaimed. "And did the Crystal Gems ever try to extend a hand in friendship and sympathy? NO! They just let her get dragged to the bottom of the ocean in an unstable fusion, fall into an earthquake, rocketed sky-high by that Lapis, and later corrupted! That does-"

"Not make sense, we get it." Garnet interrupted what was essentially Cat's catchphrase at this point. "We tried so many times to help Jasper, but she just kept refusing out of her vendetta against Rose."

"And doesn't anyone find it ironic that Jasper has a burning hatred for a Gem that was her Diamond in disguise?" Cat shook her head with a cheeky smile. "Oh, how cruel fate can be."

"Good grief, how long can this puddytat keep yapping?" Amethyst whispered to Pearl, who just groaned and got back to her book.

--

As for Steven, Priyanka had gotten to work on examining her unusual patient. However, with each test she made him take, things just kept going wrong. Sticking a tongue depressor in Steven's mouth made him glow pink for the second time this appointment, taking his height stretched his neck up high, and testing his reflexes bubbled the hammer she was using. But it was taking Steven's X-rays that really clued Priyanka in on what was going on.

"So this is an average human skeleton." Priyanka demonstrated the X-ray image of exactly that to Steven before moving on to X-rays of the Crystal Gems. "By comparison, these are X-ray images that the Crystal Gems allowed me to take for research purposes. Their charts look like this."

Due to Gems having bodies of light, only their gemstones could be pictured. And in Amethyst's case, whatever she ate that day could be seen too. The doctor then showed off Steven's own skeleton, which was covered in cracks. "And this is your chart." Priyanka continued. "Definitely the skeleton of a human your age, albeit quite a large amount of fractures in the skull." She pointed out the various cracks that decorated Steven's skull. "Yet despite the injuries, everything is still perfectly aligned. Almost like the injuries healed just as fast as they were gained."

"That's good, right?" Steven nervously asked.

"Well, you've made miraculous recoveries," Priyanka replied. "but that doesn't change the fact that you've clearly been traumatized. You may have recovered physically, but what about mentally?"

"Are you saying there's something wrong with my brain?!" Steven cried as he glowed pink.

"Not wrong!" Priyanka assured Steven while kneeling to his gaze, turning his body back to its normal hue. "It's that adverse childhood experiences, or childhood trauma, can leave a lasting impact on how your body reacts to stress." She explained. "This can affect all kinds of development, social, emotional, and physical. When humans are in crisis, their brains release a hormone called cortisol. It can cause your heart to race, your muscles to tense, among other effects. I wonder if your body is perhaps reacting to the Gem equivalent of cortisol, if any. Steven, can you recall any childhood experiences that particularly stuck with you?"

"I can list so many." Steven stated before he began recounting some traumatic experiences. "It all started when I learned my favorite ice cream was discontinued around the same time I nearly got eaten by a bug monster. Then there were even more monsters that threatened my life, I got stuck in a bubble & nearly drowned, I made a new friend who nearly killed me; which is pretty often, I got turned into a giant pulsating blob of cat heads after an attempt at shapeshifting, got so old I nearly died, saw the Gems die multiple times, I woke up on a spaceship with a black eye, and more recently got tossed off a cliff."

"Steven, this is serious!" Priyanka yelled worriedly.

"That was only some of the earlier stuff!" Steven cried. "You really should've been there when I was tossed off the cliff. Black Rutile was a sociopath and proud of it!"

"I think all these experiences have subjected your body to an almost inhuman level of stress, and it's affected your ability to healthily react to new forms of stress." Priyanka deduced as Steven looked back on more harrowing experiences he's been through, from legitimately traumatizing moments to parts that would at first be seen as mere jokes or accidents. "You've been dealing with genuine threats to your life from such a young age, whether big or small, your body is responding to such minuscule threats like your life is always in danger!"

"But, why am I only swelling up now?!" Steven began fretting as he slowly felt his body change once more.

"Stress can be far less harmful when we have a circle of loved ones who can help you," Priyanka advised, causing Steven to flashback to yesterday evening's failed proposal. "Maybe if you've been drifting away from people who would've supported you, or if a recent experience had felt particularly off-"

Before Priyanka can finish, Steven began trembling in place while bolting from his chair before he began to swell up to possibly the biggest size he's ever been today, to the point of cracking the ceiling with a bash of his head.

--

"There are just some who don't want to be helped, and we try to respect that!" Pearl kept arguing with Cat's Eye while everyone else in the courtroom awkwardly spectating the event.

"And there are also some who you've forced to change without their consent!" Cat's Eye replied, baring her sharp teeth at the former servant. "Think of it, Black Rutile believed she could be a better ruler because she would take into account the feelings of everyone!"

"Are you sure you're not another one of her spies?!" Pearl asked, folding her arms and turning away from the defendant.

"I couldn't care less about what she's doing, I just think she raises many good points for a maniac!" Cat answered while her stuck-up image began cracking apart more and more, slowly revealing the petulant aristocrat underneath. "For example, in ending an oppressive empire, Steven created an even worse one where all who don't agree with him are deemed outcasts!"

"Steven is simply trying his best!" Pearl yelled back.

"You know, I am so glad that we invited our Homeschool classes, because this is way too much fun for just us three to get involved in." Amethyst whispered to the other Little Homeworld teachers.

"You're right, watching an uppercrust get humiliated puts a real big smile on my face." Bismuth grinned.

"They've been going on for too long." Morganite mumbled as her face was buried in the table. "Can't we just shut them up and reach a verdict already?"

"Well, if you're so loving towards Steven, then where is he now?" Cat's Eye asked one final question. "Did you actually care for him to begin with?"

"That is where you are absolutely wrong Cat." Pearl declared with a smug grin as she presented George Ikari's book to her opponent. "Steven is currently going through some tough times, and we're trying our best to help him thanks to this book from Earth. The author has a son much like Steven who lost his mother too, so he knows what he's talking about." With that, Pearl returned the book to her gem and took a bow. "Court adjourned."

It was here where Cat's Eye finally lost all control and lunged at Pearl with a mighty yowl. Gone was the smug and austere wannabe lawyer, and in with the furious predator going in for the kill.

"I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS!" Cat's Eye shrieked as she wrestled with Pearl and kept trying to chomp at her face. "I AM CAT'S EYE, AND I WILL NOT BE TALKED DOWN TO BY A MERE PEARL!"

"Woo, catfight!" Amethyst cheered before Garnet put a stop to her revelry and prepared for a fight.

"Get ready Gems, we're in for a fight." Garnet declared while summoning her gauntlets, and the other Gems prepared for battle against the feral defendant. But fortunately for them, and unfortunately for Cat, the judge finally decided enough was enough.

"Okay, I've had enough sitting down and watching." Yellow declared fiercely before getting up from her throne and flicking a ball of electricity at Cat's Eye, making yellow lines course through her body and finally poofing her, leaving only her small gemstone to be collected by Yellow Pearl. "Now that that's settled, have we reached a verdict?"

"I believe so." Pearl responded after getting up and dusting herself off before turning to the other Gems. "What shall be decided?"

The Gems in the jury all rose up, their decision clear as day. "We, the jury, hereby declare Holly Blue Agate, Morganite, and Navy guilty as charged. In addition, Cat's Eye shall be tried for public assault of the prosecutors." Squaridot announced on the behalf of her classmates, to the horror of Holly Blue as she and her two compatriots were escorted away by Amethysts. While Morganite and Navy had resigned themselves to their fates, Holly was far less than pleased. In fact, she was furious.

"Get your hands off me, you no-good Kindergarten spawn!" Holly Blue shrieked at the Amethysts dragging her away by the arms before turning to the Crystal Gems with hatred in her eyes. "I hope you're happy Crystal Gems! Era 3 has destroyed this planet!" she yelled at the Gems. "Pretty soon, this planet is going to burn! We're all going to die! The Gem race shall be driven to extinction all because of you!"

As soon as Holly Blue was fully removed from the premises, all was finally quiet in the makeshift courtroom as the trial adjourned. Pearl let out a dramatic sigh as Garnet and Amethyst helped her back to her feet and walked her back to the prosecutor's table.

"Court is usually a lot more funny on TV." Amethyst remarked. "What Cat and Holly tried to do was just sad."

"Still, what if they're right?" Pearl moaned in exhaustion and grief. "What if we are soon to be our kind's downfall? Maybe we should've just ended colonization and left it at that."

"Don't get too down on yourself Miss Pearl." Blue Zircon lent some comforting words to Pearl. "You all tried the best you could, and that's all that should matter."

"Uh, can I go now?" Yellow Zircon shakily inquired to her fellow Gems, still reeling from being publically humiliated at the witness's stand.

"Yeah, you're dismissed." Blue Zircon told her fellow Zircon and turned back to Pearl.

"Yeah, we tried our best with Era 3, kinda like how we're trying our best with Steven." Lapis reiterated the other blue Gem's kind words. "Speaking of which, wonder how he's doing?"

"I'll go call him right now!" Pearl stated eagerly as she unsheathed her phone from her gem and began dialing Steven, but she got no answer. "Darn, no signal on Homeworld." She huffed in frustration. "Well, I hope he's doing fine."

--

Little did Pearl know, there was more than one reason why as to why Steven was unable to reach her, that reason being he was so stressed out, he was swelling up to a massive size.

As Dr. Laurie walked past the office Steven was in with a cup of coffee, he took one look at the giant pink boy, then back at his mug before dumping its contents into a nearby drinking fountain while Connie raced back to the office to aid her friend.

"Mom, what's happening?!" Connie asked her mother while they watched the inflating Steven fill up most of the doctor's office.

"I'm not sure dear, I just asked if he had any stressful experiences lately." Priyanka answered, trying to remain as calm in a crisis as possible while other doctors huddle around the window to watch what was happening, along with a man in sunglasses who seemed to blend in with the crowd.

"Steven, you don't think?" Connie then asked Steven.

"It's not you Connie, it's everything that's been going down lately!" Steven yelled as he grew larger and larger with every second.

"What is he talking about?" Priyanka asked, glaring at Connie.

"You haven't told your mom yet?!" Steven yelled.

"Told me what?!" Priyanka started yelling as well.

"It's not your fault Connie!" Steven tried to assure Connie amidst his growing stress. "But I still think you need to leave!"

"I refuse to leave your side!" Connie's mom fiercely declared. "This is a medical emergency!"

"Hey, you know one of us can take over!" one of the doctors watching Steven called from outside.

"No, he needs to be alone!" Connie stated. "I think anyone else being in here with him is making things worse!"

When Steven's height increased to the point of ripping his hospital gown, breaking the ceiling over him, and causing alarms to sound, the doctors took it as their cue to leave. "Point taken." That same doctor who suggested one of them take care of Steven realized before rushing away.

"Oh no!" Steven was in full-on panic mode now. If he grew any larger, the hospital would surely be destroyed. "Please, just go!"

"Steven!" Connie yelled sorrowfully.

"I just…" Steven began to cry before starting to get angry. "I CAN'T BE AROUND YOU RIGHT NOW!" The Maheswarans braced for impact as Steven's screaming broke the window behind them when suddenly, Greg came barging into the office.

"Steven!" Greg called his son's name while Connie and Priyanka turned to notice him.

"Dad?!" Steven exclaimed while finally beginning to settle down at the sight of his father.

"I'm here for you kiddo!" Greg declared as he ran up to his giant son, turning to the Maheswarans who took it as their cue to leave the area as well.

"Come on Mom, let's give them some space." Connie said to her mother as they abdicated the office.

"Alright." Priyanka agreed and took her daughter's hand while Greg took Steven's side.

"How did you know I was here?" Steven asked Greg.

"Connie called me an hour ago." Greg answered comfortingly. "Plus, I was the only one she could reach since she told me the Gems were off in space today."

"Connie?" Steven called for his friend when she and her mother were outside. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Connie beamed and spoke to him through the broken window. "I'll come when you're ready."

"I'm so sorry Steven." Greg apologized to Steven. "If I had known, I definitely would've been a big help."

"It's alright Dad," Steven sighed. "you were super busy and I didn't know what was going on."

"Come on Steven, talk to me," Greg suggested. "Just you and me, father to son."

"I, well, um," Steven stammered before tears began welling up in his eyes again. "I tried proposing to Connie!"

"You what?!" Greg yelped in alarm. "Steven, aren't you a little too young to think about marriage right now?"

"I know." Steven kept on crying. "That's one of the reasons why she said no."

"Oh, Steven." Greg sighed.

"My body, it keeps reacting like it's always the end of the world." Steven kept on complaining tearfully. "I think I've nearly witnessed the end of the world so many times now, that everything that goes wrong for me just feels that extreme! I should be feeling happy these days, Earth is at peace and it's Era 3, but Black Rutile is still out there saying I'm a bad person and I'm swelling up over all these third-era problems! What do I do now?! How do I move on after every horrible thing that's happened to me?! How can I still live my life when every day it feels like I'm going to die?!"

Despite Steven being overcome with trauma to the point of sobbing, Greg was there to lend a hand like he always did. "It's going to be alright Schtu-ball." He said while holding his son's giant finger. "I'm here for you till the end of the line."

At long last, Steven finally calmed down and began to regress to his normal size, and he only had one request for Greg. "I just want to go home."

"You bet." Greg obliged, and Steven began to fetch his clothes while Connie and Priyanka stepped back into the office. "So, what's up doc?"

"This has certainly been an eventful appointment," Priyanka stated shakily. "Real eye-opener. As I'm sure your son has already told you, he has been through more stress than is normal for a human. I suggest finding ways to monitor these breakdowns."

"I'll see what I can do." Greg nodded while Steven returned to his side fully dressed when Connie gave Steven a big hug.

Outside the office, the doctor in the sunglasses from earlier peeked from behind a corner and spoke into an earpiece. "Giant boy crisis averted." He spoke in a deep voice to someone on the other end. "Yes sir, retrieving copies of the Gems' X-ray scans as we speak." Looking around to see if anyone had caught him, the man then took off his doctor's coat to reveal a black suit underneath and walked away with no one the wiser.

--

That night, Steven had been returned home and taken to bed, where Greg had prepared him a warm cup of tea and a sympathetic ear to his son's plight.

"I guess I thought I could follow Connie to college." Steven explained to his dad while sipping the tea. "Like, if we got married, I'd know what to do with myself for once. But turns out I still gotta figure everything out on my own."

"Cut yourself some slack, kiddo." Greg smiled earnestly. "It's okay to be worried and make mistakes when figuring out what to do with life, nothing unusual. Okay, maybe turning pink and the swelling is kind of unusual, but I'm sure the Gems will know what to do. And if you want to be a giant boy, I can lend you the carwash to take a shower in."

"Yeah, that's the thing." Steven revealed calmly. "I haven't told the Gems everything yet because I don't want them to worry so much, just like the old days when I was just some little kid who was way over his head." That was when he made a realization and spat out his tea. "Wait Dad, your tour!"

"Don't worry about me." Greg assured his son. "Shep and Sadie will be fine on their own. Just get some rest Steven; you can't just solve every problem in one night. Speaking of the Gems, where are they?"

Just then, the father and son heard the Warp Pad activate from Steven's conservatory, and the Crystal Gems marched into his room utterly exhausted from the trial they had just returned from.

"If I meet another Gem like Cat's Eye ever again, I swear I'm going to freak!" Pearl yelled with her hands buried in her face when she noticed Steven and Greg in the same room. "Oh, good evening you two. How was your day?"

"Nothing really special you guys." Steven fibbed. "Nothing at all."

--

So ends Growing Pains. Have to say, this might be one of the longest chapters of Alternate Universe yet, probably because of the B-plot. How hateable did you think I made Cat's Eye? I specifically wrote her with Cruella de Vil and Franziska von Karma in mind. And speaking of despicable characters, next chapter has Steven facing quite possibly his greatest challenge yet: making Kevin a better person. Oh, this should be fun.

[nosferatvpussy]

distorted lullabies [chapter XVII]

Word count: 4,033

Warnings: vulgar language, ahem

Pairing: Dracula x female reader

AO3 link

______________________________

A foreign sound echoed inside the room. A laugh. One that I could only recognise as my own because I touched my chest to feel it shaking. 

This is it . I’m really going into hysterics now .

Isdda couldn’t be. If it were true, it was never the bond. All of it was me.

_______________________________ 

“No,” I said, still giggling. “You are a liar. As big of a liar as I am. Renfield and Zoe already knew about you, that’s why the bond didn’t stop me. But I couldn’t reveal what you are to anybody else.”

“Did you try?”

“Of cour–” I began, but that was a lie. I had just assumed that I wouldn’t be unable to talk about it, like I had a gag in my mouth that even when removed still felt normal pressing against my tongue. I laughed again. “I didn’t. God, I didn’t try .”

“You fell for me all on your own,” he affirmed. 

I nodded, my nose bumping into his, laughing as hot tears rolled down my cheeks like I had lost my mind. 

“Kiss me,” I asked softly when I stopped laughing. I locked my eyes on his. “Will you kiss me? Or do you hate me?”

Dracula grabbed the back of my head and ensnared my hair in his knuckles. His mouth was hard, forcing his tongue past my teeth to eat up my breath. I tried to do the same, to consume something of him as he did with me, but I was the only one left breathless. I held his bottom lip between my teeth, sucked and licked it, and bit down until a sharp, sweet taste blossomed. He pulled back and chuckled. Blood seeped from where I had bitten him. 

“I need to know,” he said, his tongue swiping at the spot to clean it.

“Do you, really?” I pleaded in a small breath and placed a light kiss on his mouth. “It’s past us.”

I crashed my lips to his again, tongue probing to sway a reaction. If I kept kissing him, wallowing in the sweetness of it, then the rest would disappear. 

“No, it isn’t,” he said into the kiss. “You know every…” more of his blood poured in my mouth when pressed my tongue to his bottom lip and he groaned “..way I have wronged you... I must... know.”

Again, he pulled back. I went to grab him and he caught both my wrists in one hand. The hand on my hair pulled and twisted, forcing my head to the side. Instinct should have told me to push him away yet I didn’t. My chest heaved. 

“Do it, bite me, get it over with then,” I said. “Take the words I can’t say.”

We stared. His black eyes glowed until they became infused with red; his teeth doubled in size, sharpening to needled and serrated points, and then he bent down to bury his face on my neck. Pressure instead of pain bore down on my throat, both suffocating and relieving. My whole body felt cold, yet pulsating heat throbbed beneath my skin, my blood bursting between his teeth like seeds of a pomegranate. The blue and violet lights of the penthouse diminished and the room darkened. I felt like I was being pulled out of my body. 

Feeling returned to my toes and tips of my fingers; I found I was holding onto Dracula’s hair while another hand dug on his back, driving him closer. I felt Dracula’s arms holding my torso up and the floor pressing harshly on my back. At some point, my knees had been rendered useless and Dracula had laid me down. The pressure stopped. He raised his head and suddenly I was whole again. I blinked to clear bleary eyes and focus past the haze. Predatory eyes gazed at me, unknowing. I opened my mouth to speak and as I did, droplets of blood glimmered on the corners of his lips. They resembled rubies for a second, twinkling under the lights, but then more of them appeared to coat his bottom lip, drip on his chin and on my face. I flinched slightly at the hot touch of blood on my cheek. It felt like the first drop of rain out of the sky, but it was mine and it had none of the soothing quality of cool water.

“Ah, you surprise me so,” he murmured, holding me in his arms. “I had hoped that Doctor Helsing was the one to pull you into her web but the other way around is more accurate, isn’t it? My darling Delilah… you almost caught me.”

“Almost,” I said but my voice was no more than a whisper. “But I don’t want to catch you anymore. I want you for me, you know that.”

“I do. But you’ve learned how to lie, perhaps your blood has, too.” He raised his eyebrows. “Do you still want me now?”

My gaze fell on his bloodied mouth. 

My blood, his lips. I could still taste his on my tongue. 

I shut my eyes, lifted my head closer and kissed him. The viscous, slippery feeling was easy to ignore but the sharp tang of my own blood wasn’t. Even so, I pushed my tongue inside to relish what he had taken. To share. I felt the edge of a razor-sharp tooth with the tip of my tongue when he kissed me back. Blood ran down my chin, wetting my clothes, sticking hair behind my ears. Good sense should have kicked in. Surely I still had it, but it remained silent, and we devoured each other without restraint. I tried moving my legs to wrap around him but they were weak from blood loss. Dracula, perhaps sensing my movement or reading my intentions in what he drank, pushed to fit between my thighs. 

Mindless need filled me and I laced limp arms and legs around him as blood trickled down to my chest, its heat spreading to wash the cold I felt inside. Dracula settled on top of me, his weight crushing my body down and making it hard to breathe. The metallic scent and taste of blood was hardly noticeable now, the taste having grown alluring to my senses as our tongues laved one another. 

He drew back to sit on his ankles and, before I could so much utter a whimper in protest, he pushed my skirt up. The red of his gaze considered my black tights as fingers followed the seam starting near my navel, tracing down to caress my skin through the thin mesh. The trail stopped where my underwear dipped in the vale of my thighs. His thumb moved down until it pressed to feel the slickness that had built there. My hips struggled to accompany the movement and in my anticipation I rose them off the ground, pushing towards his touch to increase the pressure. Dracula responded by pinning me down with that same hand and rolling his thumb on my clit. A gentle touch to tease me and elicit whimpers from my mouth as I squirmed uselessly under his grip. 

Buttons popped and bounced on the floor when Dracula pawed at my blouse. The ruffles of my blouse fell away and, exposed to the cool temperature, my nipples hardened under the scarlet coat of my own blood. He shoved the bra aside and pinched a nipple. Pain shot through my nerves as my toes curled and my shoes slipped out of my feet. I grabbed his forearms with both hands as he pinched harshly again and this time held on until I squealed. His fingers working at my center drew circles, kneading in this exquisite torture. Agony bordered pleasure. I wasn’t sure if I was even able to differentiate the two anymore or if they had not always been one and the same. Embarrassed by this new finding, I bit my lip to stop my cry from becoming a moan and perhaps from asking him to do it again but the slyness in his gaze told me he knew that I had enjoyed it. 

He let go of my breast completely and I gasped at the sudden rasp sound of clothing tearing. No amount of sewing would save my nylons now. A rush of cool air over the wetness there made a brief shiver course through my body, although the sheer brutality of having my clothes torn off and my flesh pinched probably had more to do with it. 

Dracula moved in a blur too fast for my eyes to detect. He laced his arms under my knees and got on top of me again, pushing my legs up so that I was practically folded underneath him. I felt the tip of him brushing at my entrance and understanding dawned that the fast blur was him removing his trousers.

“Wait–” He seized my lips in his before I could begin speaking and penetrated me at once. A harsh moan escaped me, muffled by his kiss, as I stretched forcibly around his length. He had left me aching as my body still resisted his size, as I knew it would, but I welcomed the slight pain. I wanted it. There was no mercy in the man I had grown to love and, despite all that we had both done, I wanted him, pitiless. I wrapped my legs around his waist, the heels of my feet pressing on his back, my fingernails scraping his shoulders, trying to tear his shirt as I held him with all my strength to keep him still, my lips raw from kissing and scraping them on his sharp teeth. 

“Your shirt,” I begged, unable to say more than two simple words at the slew of sensations.

“Tear it,” he said. He captured my mouth in another dizzying kiss as he pressed against me, adding friction to our intertwined bodies and sending shivers through me so that my nipples puckered. 

I pulled against the fabric, using his own back as leverage to my effort, but it didn’t budge. 

“Can’t,” I gasped when he gave me a chance to breathe. 

My legs were released for a quick, nearly imperceptive moment as his shirt came off. I went to touch and to caress his chest but his own hands were swift and my arms were pushed and held above my head, denying me the pleasure of touching him. I was imprisoned by his touch and the red in his gaze, luring me to give everything I had until I had nothing left. Dracula pulled his hips back slowly and snapped them forward, filling me to the brim and stealing my breath. Whimpering, I arched into him as a silent plea for more, each of his rough strokes making me wet enough that the initial pain turned into pleasure. He freed me from the hold of his gaze and bent his head to suck my sore nipple. A hot tongue lapped the tenderness away and granted me some relief before he opened his mouth wide and bit down on my breast to slice through skin and veins. It stung for as long as the teeth pierced my flesh but when he drew back all that remained was a throbbing heat setting me alight. The pace of his hips grew urgent as he licked the blood from my chest. Soft cries left my mouth as I felt ecstasy nearing closer and twisting in my loins.

Dracula left me altogether, and the emptiness made me whine. I wanted the tormenting rush of his teeth in me, of his size pushing inside and the fear mingled with complete indulgence of acting like a savage creature, covered in blood and still wanting more.

I was suddenly flipped so that I stood on my hands and knees and he entered me again. A string of words came from him but it was either in another language or my brain had been made void by how much thicker he felt inside me as he started pumping deeper and faster than before. My elbows trembled, unable to support me up, and I bent in a sort of worship position with my arms curled under me as if I could find some solace in them. My cheekbone pressed to the cool floor, sending small jabs through my nerve endings. He held my hips up lest my knees gave in like my elbows and continued his unrelenting thrusts. 

He groaned as his hands dug into my buttocks so that I felt that I might tear apart at his brutish touches. I pushed back using the remains of my strength to seek some relief to the building despair, rolling my hips in tandem with his movement, an outpour of near sobs escaping my throat. 

“Up,” he commanded.

I simply shook my head, panting as I tried to reach what I longed for with him inside me. 

Dracula moved over me, evoking a harsh gasp of me as I took more of him than I thought possible. It was delightful to feel that much and also agonising for he had broken up his pace and stolen my release. I was yanked back not a second later as my knees struggled to keep me up. Arms caged me to pin my back to his chest. A hand clamped over my breast, the piercing burn on my nipple surging anew and making me grow wetter for him to resume thrusting. 

“You’re mine,” he said, his mouth on my ear. Mouth hanging open as if the ability to speak had been taken from me, I nodded. “Say it.” I tried but I couldn’t seem to summon air into my lungs with my body overcome by dizzying ache and throbbing. He pinched a nipple so that it pricked in pain and immense pleasure as the other one did. “Say it and I’ll let you come.” He abandoned my chest and his hand went searching low to where I most craved it. 

“I’m yours!”

His lips sealed over the bite on my neck and pulled in the same moment his fingers massaged my clit. My eyes rolled back and a wail left me along with the last threads of breath. Shivers followed to render my body writhing to overflow with sensation. I was afraid I felt myself growing addicted to the heady feeling of being cast out of my body and plunged in the abyss of it again, over and over and over. Dracula held me up, humming as he drank me. Thrusting, untiring, taking. I shut my eyes. I tensed and shook and whimpered, then went completely limp on his arms. 

He didn’t stop moving. Suddenly he was too thick to fit and having him inside was more affliction than relief. I clamped my legs together and tried to push forward for him to let go. He unlatched from my throat and blood flowed lazily down my chest and back. I was whole again but he still kept me trapped in his arms. 

“ Please ,” I begged through ragged breaths as he kept pounding. But I didn’t know what I was begging for.

Dracula grunted and hissed on my ear. My face grew hot and tingly. Tears formed on the corners of my eyes as the feeling of bursting returned. It demanded for more. He continued his kneading at my center while his free hand found its way inside my mouth. Fingers pressed on my tongue and I tasted the sweetened iron of his blood. I grabbed his forearm for support and sucked on what was offered to me as though I could find some comfort on the taste or the simple feeling of being thoroughly filled until I was flooding. He used these fingers like a muzzle to guide my head so it rested on his shoulder and I was forced to gaze into his eyes, black and inebriated with hunger. 

“Once again, darling,” he urged. “Together.”

Unable to fight it, I complied. I clenched around him repeatedly, my body seeking to push him out or pull him in. Blood and saliva dripped from my mouth. The only sounds came from him. Harsh moans, almost growls, in his frantic need until they turned soft and hoarse as he stilled his movements and simply gripped me, tight to him, holding me through his own climax.

He slumped to the ground with me in his arms. I felt him at my back, lying side by side, wrapped into him. My breath was a chill in my throat as he withdrew his fingers from my mouth and my face was allowed to rest on the hardwood floor, which felt soggy and somewhat swollen under my cheek. He remained inside. The tang of blood saturated the air. I was faintly aware of the rags of my clothing clinging to my body and sopping with sweat and blood. 

Consumed by exhaustion and by him, I was lured in a promise of rest, to doze off. I was nearing sleep, or perhaps nearly fainting, when Dracula turned me, leaving my depths, and held me flush to his chest. I laced an arm over him and tangled a leg with his to retribute this half embrace. I laid my head on his shoulder and gazed at him. The lower half of his face was coated in red – as mine was, I supposed – and his eyes appeared excessively bright with what he had taken. I wondered if my eyes appeared glazed over to him; I certainly felt that way, but also elated and depleted of worry or fear. 

I wished to tell him that, but my tongue felt fat and unable to produce such words. Instead I said, “I think we ruined your floor beyond repair.” It was no more than a whisper but he seemed to hear me for he chuckled.

“I believe so, yes. I’ll have it cleaned later until I can get a new one.”

I hummed in simple agreement and snuggled closer. Looking past him I saw the legs of chairs and above us a solid black slate obstructing my view to the ceiling. I looked to where our legs lied, covered in azure and violet lighting. The rest of our bodies were clouded in dark. 

“Are we… under the table?”

“Yes.”

I made another sound of agreement. Dracula must have rolled us under it when we collapsed to the ground. He leaned his head closer and kissed my forehead. Then, each of my eyes, my cheeks, the tip of my nose, my chin. My smile grew with each kiss. His mouth hovered over mine and I pushed closer to join our lips. It was sweet and metallic and there was no consuming of anything between us. My lips were chafed from his fangs earlier and I expected some sting from the smalls wounds, but the pain never came. 

“Will we forgive each other?” I asked when I pulled back and gazed intently into his eyes. 

His fingers delved in my hair while his palm rested on my cheek. His hand on my back stroked back and forth. 

“Forgiven and forgotten,” he told me.

“Do you mean it?” 

“As long as you don’t conspire against me again, yes.”

“I won’t.” I started shutting my eyes but then I saw his hand leaving my hair and the slices on his fingers. “You’re cut.”

He flexed his fingers before his face. There were hollow gashes on the soft padding of four fingers. His skin was coloured scarlet red yet no blood trickled from the wounds. 

“Yes.” His thumb traced the clean cuts and I pictured one of his claw-like nails cutting it open. “You wanted to share. You gave yourself. I thought it fitting to give back.”

I hadn’t voiced that desire to him but I didn’t need to. It was in my blood. As I watched, he closed his hand tight in a fist and rubbed his fingers together. When he opened his hand again the wounds were gone, as if they had never been there in the first place.

“What happens now?” I questioned, still staring at his hand. 

“I suppose you’ll want a bath. The tub is big enough for the both of us, although I would prefer to simply use my tongue to clean you,” he glanced at me, lowering his hand to caress the arm I had over his chest. I fought a smile and shook my head. “Now you blush? Aren’t you demure?” A single finger glided down my spine; a feathery touch that tickled and made me arch. His touch slid to where my back dipped. Lower until he found my ass, and squeezed. His nails would leave marks on my behind for days, I was sure of it. I was also sure that for the next few days, every time I left the shower I would turn around to admire the marks, until they disappeared.

“Not demure, no. I bet I look nothing less than savage right now–”

“And you’ve never looked lovelier,” he interrupted, squeezing me again until I winced and breathed out.

“Of course you think that. Blood will always be lovely to you.”

“It’s my favourite garment.”

He turned so that we were facing each other and, as if to make his point, licked my jaw. The lick became a soft kiss on the same spot and then rough, tugging and sucking my skin into his mouth, and coercing a moan from me. 

“I meant…” I tried to concentrate. Dracula laid me on my back and kissed the valley between my breasts. The colour of my skin peeked out of the cascade of glossy blood. He licked the red and I saw more of myself rather than red.

“Hm?” It was more purr than a question.

I forgot what I was going to ask.

I looked down in time to see him take my nipple in his mouth and I hissed. Bitten and pinched as my flesh had been, it burned and throbbed at this attention. I squirmed and dug my nails on his shoulders for him to let go. He stopped. But now he gathered my breast in one hand and simply licked the sensitive bud as a wild animal might have done to a meal. As promised, he started licking me clean. I saw the teeth marks around my nipple and with each careful lick, the punctures diminished in size. Smaller and smaller until they were gone. 

“How–” I blinked. I hadn’t imagined it. It was gone. It didn’t feel tender anymore. “Have you made me like you?”

“No, darling,” he said and grinned. “Not yet. I’ve closed it. I have no intention of tearing you to pieces. I can’t quite set my teeth in pieces, now, can I?”

“You can close wounds?”

“Only the ones I’ve made, if I so will it.”

If he willed it. He had the power to go unseen, unnoticed and unthought of, yet he didn’t use it. He could cover his tracks. If he had licked my wounds clean that night at my door after Camden, would I still be here? Lying on his floor wearing my blood as clothing and the taste of his own in my mouth? 

No, I wouldn’t. 

“And the one on my neck?” I turned my head, fingers fluttering over the new wound. It was warm to the touch of my fingertips but it felt numb. Dracula raised his head from my chest and lied next to me.

“I’d like to keep that one.” His reddened tongue traced his bottom lip.

“Why?”

“It marks you as mine.”

“You don’t bear my mark,” I said. 

“No.” He furrowed his eyebrows lightly.

I grabbed his face with both my hands. My vision blurred. Even so, I gazed into the black pits of his eyes.

“I won’t be yours unless you’re mine, too.”

“Nothing can mark me,” he said. My heart was plunged into my stomach. “I cannot bear your mark but I’ll be yours forever, as you are mine.”

I kissed him. Chastely. A word that should have left my vocabulary after it all.

“I’ll accept that bath now,” I said into his lips.

 .

.

A/N:  I dragged you all through 16 chapters, I hope THIS was good enough. One could argue it was a bit... much, but I think it suits the breakdown in the previous chapter, and yeah, I'm indulging myself. I've always wanted to write a scene like this. Not apologising. *shrugs*

Taglist: @festering-queen @crossoverqueen89 @rheabalaur @deborahlazaroff @guiltyfiend @feralstare @a-dorky-book-keeper @girlonfireice @thorin-smokin-shield @mr-kisskiss-bangbang @saint-hardy @xoxodrac @illbegoinhome @dreamer2381 @princessayveke @25ocurer @vampirescurse @blue-serendipity @sunscreenfeverdream @iwasjustablur @daydreaming136 @hello-itsbarbie @bittenlove @newyorkrican922 @soph3228 

[notchesandbullets]

Saving Her (Ojiro Mashirao x Wolf!Reader)

Part 9: Playdate with Ojiro’s little sister. You calling Aizawa ‘Dad’ for the first time. 

Word Count: 4.3k

"Holly-chan!!" You greet excitedly as you open the front door to Heights Alliance, heart warming at the sight of the little girl standing on the other side. "Welcome!!"

"Y/N-onee-san!!" She cheered, rushing to give you a hug. "I finally get to meet you!!!"

You ruffled her hair, careful not to mess up her hairdo. Sparkly clips were holding back the golden fringe from falling into her eyes, revealing her cute features and freckles. Her kind eyes and bright smile were so similar to her older brother's, she looked just like him.

Her dress was a light blue, edged with lace and fell just below her knees. Perfect for summer.

Ojiro had warned you that he had talked about you to his little sister in the letters he wrote to her weekly and you didn't know why he looked so nervous, it was the sweetest thing in your opinion. You were flattered he included you in those letters.

"Are you ready to go? Where do you want to go first?" You asked, locking the door behind you as you stepped out. "Oh, are you hungry? We could go get something to eat first."

Holly pondered it for a moment, toying with her small bag slung across her body as she mulled it over. "When can we see Onii-san?"

You maintained your smile. "We can see him after classes are done. Until then, we have the whole day to do whatever you want!!"

Your energy was infectious and the little girl mirrored your smile, good spirits restored.

Ojiro had told you last week that with his parents gone all the time and himself away at school, there hasn't been a lot of fun things for his little sister to partake in. School events usually required a guardian and there was no one around the house so that she could bring friends over after school was done for the day.

He was worried about her since he hadn't seen her since he moved out.

After asking Aizawa, he had gotten permission for her to visit for a day and worked it out with his parents. They paid for a private car to take Holly to UA and spend the day with her big brother, but the dates had gotten mixed up.

Instead of coming the following weekend, she was set to come next week during a school day for him. Since it was too late to change everything around on his parents' end, Ojiro was seriously contemplating skipping school to make sure his little sister was taken care of.

You had intervened.

"Ojiro, we'll be fine." You insisted for the tenth time as he paced back and forth in his room.

You were sure by now he was wearing a hole in the floor. It had already been a couple hours since the news broke and he had been stressed.

You were sitting on his bed, curled up in a blanket. You had taken to wearing your own clothes now but neither Ojiro nor Aizawa took back the hoodie or scarf they had lent to you.

"I'm worried, Y/N!!" He exclaimed, flopping down beside you, his tail slumped as it laid in between the two of you. "What if something happens?"

You covered his hand, bending down to nudge his temple with your nose.

"Nothing will and even if it does, I'll make sure to call the police." You soothed, rubbing your thumb over the back of his hand.

Ojiro's eyebrows drew together, still concerned. "But—"

"Mashirao, we'll be okay." You reassured softly and he stopped.

Running a hand through his hair, he smiled at you sheepishly, apologizing for overreacting. You simply shook your head, reassuring him that you understood.

He had pointed a finger at you after that, the light back in his eyes but his voice still shook. "You be careful now, okay?"

You nodded, ears flopping and you smiled at him, happy that he was on board. "I promise."

The sun shone high above the two of you as you took a cab to get off the school grounds. Your tail was tucked away and your ears were hidden by a large hat.

"How old are you, Holly-chan?" You asked, holding her hand as the two of you got on the crowded train.

She held up her fingers cutely. "I'm eight!! Onii-san says I'm a big girl now!!"

You giggled, drawing her close as some else squeezed aboard the packed train car. "You are a big girl!! And big girls get to choose wherever they'd like to eat, so take your pick, m'lady."

She laughed, pulling your hand as she sped on ahead once you arrived at a familiar place.

Initially, Ojiro was nervous about you taking her to the shopping mall, vividly recalling what had happened the last time you were there. This time, you would be going alone with only his sister. He was worried something would happen to both of you.

But he had seen your strength in the training arena. You had grown a lot stronger since back then. And Jirou had been teaching you how to use that cell phone she got you in case you were ever in a pickle and needed to call for help.

There were pre programmed numbers on speed dial and Aizawa was your emergency contact.

Aizawa was also against you going by yourself but you insisted. You were the best choice to look after Holly when she came to visit. You didn't have classes the same days as everyone else since they still hadn't managed to track down the people hunting you to protect your identity.

Reluctantly, the two of them caved, the elder making you promise to text where you would be at all times so that he could check-in with you. You had joked that you were going to disrupt his class if you did that but were surprised when he immediately said he didn't care.

Ojiro had chimed in, asking for you to do the same for him and you nodded in defeat.

You supposed it wasn't unreasonable for them to ask, but a small part of you couldn't suppress the inkling that they were doing that because they didn't trust you to be strong enough to protect Holly.

Your eyes shot open wide as you realized you had said that last part out loud. That wasn't what you had meant to say. It was an irrational and fleeting thought, you knew full well that they were worried about the Quirk Traffickers they had yet to pin down.

But panic rose in your chest and gripped your heart, making it hard to breathe.

The stunned silence was suffocating and you wanted nothing more than to flee but the instant you swiveled on your feet, Ojiro caught you with his tail.

"Wait, Y/N!!" He exclaimed, his eyes imploring you to believe him. "That wasn't what I meant!!"

Aizawa's forehead creased. "It's not a matter of whether or not you are enough to protect Holly, but if you get attacked by the Quirk Traffickers."

Of course you knew that, but for some reason, there were too many things running through your head and making it hard to think clearly.

"I'll be fine." You insisted, straining against Ojiro's tail for a few seconds before giving up with a huff. "I'll make sure she's okay!!"

"You're not listening." Aizawa hissed, stalking towards you.

You gulped frightfully as he loomed over you, resembling the man that used to visit your cell more and more. A whimper slipped past before you could stop it and realizing what you had done, your flight mode kicked in.

Ojiro's shock in hearing you afraid loosened his grip on your waist just enough for you to escape. His shock increased as his teacher cursed in front of him.

"Aizawa-sensei?!"

"Not now." He said, gripping his hair in frustration so tight, his knuckles turned white. "You should go after her. She'll listen to you."

The guilt welled up in his chest and he sighed heavily once his student left to go after you. He didn't know what made him say that or come onto you as forceful and intimidating as it was. He knew you had a problem with people confronting you like that, he was the one who helped you deal with it, for crying out loud.

Why did he always have to screw things up with the people that meant the most to him?

You shook your head, clearing your thoughts. Soon after you raced out of the classroom, you ran and ran until your legs couldn't carry out anymore. By the time Ojiro found you, you were sobbing openly into your knees.

The feelings of rejection and abandonment resurfaced and you cried.

The sound of your anguish sent a shot through his heart.

At least twenty minutes had passed before you were able to calm down and there was another ten minutes of silence before you sniffled and said that you were okay.

Ojiro asked if you wanted to talk to Aizawa but you shook your head, unable to stomach another confrontation right now and he understood, accepting your decision without making you feel bad about it.

You couldn't really put it into words.

You were scared that Aizawa wouldn't want you anymore, that he would throw you away like everyone else. Deep down, you hoped that it couldn't be possible. But too much cruelty had made your mind grow foggy at the possibilities of him abandoning you and you clung to Ojiro as if he were your lifeline.

The boy just let you, letting you calm down until you passed out. From there, you had speculated he carried you all the way back to the dormitory since the next memory you had was waking up in your room.

You felt bad he had to take care of you after your breakdown and you wanted to apologize causing trouble for the both of them but today was the day that Holly was coming and you needed to be ready.

So you pushed aside your personal feelings and plastered on a friendly smile as you got ready. It soon turned into genuine excitement as the possibilities that the day held got to you and there was a skip in your step as you ran downstairs.

Mysteriously enough, there was money on your nightstand along with a note that told you not to be frugal with it, and you could only assume that was Ojiro's doing.

You wiped your mouth with a napkin, handing another one to Holly so she could do the same.

She had eventually settled on a food stall on the outskirts of the Kiyashi shopping ward and the street food might be greasy but it tasted so good that you didn't think twice before digging in. The honking of the cars was loud out here and your ears pivoted every so often, picking up new sounds and you made sure to keep an eye out for anyone weird looking or seemed like they had malicious intentions.

Holly chomped on her kabob, smacking her lips loudly and you giggled at her theatrics. She definitely was not similar to Ojiro in that sense, that boy couldn't stand when people looked at him longer than two seconds.

Texting both Aizawa and Ojiro separately to let them know you had arrived safely, you directed questions towards the little girl between bites until you finished.

Both of you full, the two of you skipped into the mall.

You looked at everything that you had missed before the last time you were here. Holly had led you to a toy store, pointing out all the stuffed animals and board games she liked to play with her big brother.

You rather liked how she told you a story every time she saw something that reminded her of a memory.

She had told you she was quirkless but that it didn't bother her.

You were in awe of this little girl who seemed so mature for her young age as she told you that she admired her brother so much. She had wanted to be just like him but felt discouraged when her quirk never showed up.

He had been the one to reassure her that just because she didn't have a quirk, she wasn't any less special of a person. His constant reminder and showering her with unconditional love when their parents couldn't, helped convince her that no matter what, she'd always had him.

He was her beloved older brother.

Clapping your hands, you praised her, telling her how dazzling she looked as she did a twirl for you in a floral patterned dress. You were currently in the clothing section of a store that had her size.

Merchandise was packed here, making it a little bit hard to see but as you navigated the aisles with her,

"You look so cute!!" You squealed and she beamed. "Very beautiful!!"

Holly's eyes rounded in awe. "Really?!"

"Of course!!" You replied, standing up from the cushion the staff had placed in the waiting area, separate from the changing rooms.

You had made sure to keep her in your sights at all times though, wary of the strangers that milled around you. No one had done anything to warrant your suspicion, but you really didn't feel like letting down your guard when a little girl's safety was entrusted to you.

Holly dashed back into the fitting room and you took a quick glance at your surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary. No one who approached you carelessly.

You were safe and hidden within the masses.

"Are you ready to go?" You asked as the door unlocked and Holly came back out carrying a pile of rumpled clothes whose weight looked like it was crushing her.

A smile formed on your face as she giggled and you rushed to help relieve her of the outfits she had selected.

"Can we get them?!" She asked earnestly, bouncing on the balls of her feet and your heart shook at her wholesomeness and pure excitement.

"Yes, I think we can." You said as you put the ones she wanted in the cart as she ran to put the ones she didn't want back in their respective sections.

You followed her around, making sure she didn't get lost in the sea of people. Taking the chance while she wasn't looking, you picked out some other things you had caught her looking at when she thought you wouldn't notice.

At the cashier, you purchased countless toys and several new pieces of clothing that she modeled for you all at once, watching her eyes light up when she saw the impulsive buys from you.

You smiled as she marched around, waving the new notebook and sparkly pen you had got her.

You would have to thank Ojiro later for thinking ahead, you loved to see her so happy when you were able to purchase them for her in his place.

He had let you know ahead of time that his little sister wasn't the type to explicitly ask for anything. He had teased that Holly was like you in that sense and you giggled, promising to take extra care to pay attention to what caught her interest.

The two of you agreed to get whatever she set her eyes on, since he didn't get the chance to spoil her as often anymore.

It kind of made you feel like Holly was the little sister you never had. You liked that warm, fuzzy feeling inside of you as you looked out for her.

Before you knew it, the allocated two hours you set aside for this excursion was gone in the blink of an eye.

"Hey, Holly-chan." You called, swinging her arm to get the little girl's attention. "Do you want to go see him now?"

"Yayyy!!! Onii-san!!!" She cheered, nodding vigorously, pulling you along as fast as her little legs would carry her.

You laughed and together, you two raced each other to the train.

Hopping off, you heaved a sigh of relief as you made it back onto UA's grounds without a hitch. The slight tremor of your heart finally eased as you arrived back to safety and as much as you didn't want to face it, you were just as scared as Aizawa and Ojiro was.

But you knew that if you didn't face it, face the world, you would always be kept in the dark and live in fear of everything.

You didn't want that life. Especially not after getting a taste of all that life could be.

Filled with laughter and warm memories, filled with people who cared about you just was much as you did for them, it was intoxicating and made your head spin in the best way.

You poked the cat ears she had put on, both of you collapsing in a fit of giggles when the cheap black plastic displaced under your touch.

She had begged you for them after catching a glimpse of your ears.

You didn't know why you felt so happy.

Hand in hand, you walked her to the giant door of the 1-A classroom, waiting outside of the room as she ran in to greet her brother after months of not seeing him.

You had told yourself it was because you didn't want to get in the way of their reunion or have anyone's attention on you but while that was true, that wasn't the driving factor as to why you didn't go in.

You felt ridiculous but you couldn't help it. You just couldn't face him.

An entire week had passed since you ran out on Aizawa. A full week of doing everything you could to confront him and apologize but ultimately chickening out and running in the opposite direction every single time you got close to making it to the classroom after hours.

You needed to fix this.

And what did you do when you needed to make amends? Make him food, of course.

It was way too late at night when you crept downstairs, unable to get any sleep because of the unresolved tension between you and Aizawa.

He had been avoiding you but to be fair, you sort of were too. Every time you had training, it was Present Mic that came instead of your guardian. Extra classes with him were replaced with ones under the instruction of Midnight instead and you were miserable.

You missed him.

The playdate with Holly had come and gone. It had been an entire week of this nonsense and every single time you tried to gather up your courage to go see him and apologize, beg him not to give up on you, you backed out.

You couldn't do it.

What would he say? What would you do when he finally said he didn't want to take care of someone so troublesome anymore?

Swallowing your fears, you willed your feet to move. After endless nights of thinking this over, you decided you couldn't wait for this to blow over. You had to be brave and confront him, and apologize for what you did wrong.

Easier said than done.

It being close to four am didn't negate your usual clumsiness and not even a full minute into cooking the gyūdon, you yelped, holding your now burned hand from where you had scalded it against the searing hot pot.

You jumped in surprise as the front door slammed close, bringing your claws out to defend yourself.

"What do you think you're doing, kid?"

The low rough voice edged with weariness made you relax, retracting your claws.

"Aizawa-sensei!!"

He had come in to check-in on his students but he wasn't expecting any of them to be awake at this hour. Much less trying to make food.

"Did you not eat today?" He asked.

"I did!!" You huffed out defensively, avoiding his gaze.

You, in fact, had eaten a total of two eggs and some rice for the whole day, but it wasn't your fault!! This ongoing conflict with him made your stomach hurt and you couldn't keep much down without feeling like you were going to throw up.

The older man rubbed the nape of his neck uncertainly, standing at the edge of the kitchen, not wanting to crowd your personal space.

You fidgeted, discreetly blowing on the burn.

His eyes narrowed, catching the movement without fail.

"You're hurt." He deadpanned disapprovingly and you winced.

Aizawa sighed. "Let me see."

You uncurled your fingers gingerly and he grasped your wrist, tilting it in the light and he frowned as he spotted the red welt on the palm of your hand.

Without a word, he got some ice from the freezer and applied it to your burn. Luckily, it wasn't too bad so hopefully the cold would soothe it enough for there not to be any lasting damage.

Recovery Girl wasn't available right now and Todoroki was sleeping. It wasn't worth waking the boy up from whatever little rest he was able to get just so that he could soothe your burn.

Besides, he recognized that your injury was minor enough to skate by without their help for now.

"A little late for dinner." He remarked monotonously.

You cracked a smile at the subtle jab, finding his dry sense of humor amusing.

"Yeah, I guess so." You whispered.

Aizawa told you to keep the ice on while he cleaned up the kitchen. You were fidgeting on the stool by the kitchen island, sneaking worried glances at him. After three times, he had enough.

"Look, kid." He sighed, eyes closing momentarily to ready himself before opening them again. "I'm sorry."

Your head snapped up. That wasn't what you had been expecting at all.

Aizawa hadn't looked up from where he was staring blankly at the sink, this past week's events replaying over and over again in his head.

Still, you heard him easily enough. That regret in his voice would be hard to miss.

"It came out wrong, I never meant to upset you." He said, referring to the same thing that had been plaguing your mind ever since it happened.

Dishes clattered in the sink from where he had knocked it over accidentally, his hand shaking from the effort to get this right.

"I'm really sorry, kid."

Met with a silence that unnerved him, he accepted his defeat of trying to reconcile with you. He moved to dry his hands on the towel when arms hugged him from behind. His eyes went wide as his exhausted and sleep-deprived brain registered that you were in fact, hugging him.

"Don't leave." You begged into his back, burrowing your face between his shoulder blades. "I-I'm so sorry!!"

Your grip on his sweater was tight, like a child who needed the reassurance of their guardian. Needing to be reminded that they weren't going to leave or stop loving you.

Aizawa tried to turn around but you couldn't let him, just desperately shaking your head as if he would walk out on you any second.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry!!" You kept repeating it over and over again, crying out until he couldn't take it anymore.

Prying your arms away from him to loosen your hold on him for a second, you weren't even given a chance to cry out as he gathered you up in his arms.

"I know, kid." He mumbled into your hair as you sobbed into his chest. "I know."

He stroked your hair, patting your head to calm you down. Minding your fluffy ears, his eyes softened, guilt weighing on his chest for not being a responsible adult and taking care of you first, regardless of the lies his head told him that you'd rather not see him.

"I'm not going anywhere, kid."

That was all it took to keep you from spiraling any further and you sniffled, eyes aching at how much you cried. A week's worth of emotional buildup was a lot to release all at once.

Aizawa just held you as you let it all out, holding you tight. Grounding you. Reassuring you.

You wanted to apologize for the mess you made of his shirt but he only shushed you, patting your head comfortingly.

Allowing yourself to take the comfort he was so willingly giving to you, you sighed, discreetly snuggling into him more. He was warm and you didn't want to let go.

He chuckled and you pulled back but not all the way.

"You alright now, kid?"

You nodded. Your eyes were rimmed red but the smile on your face outshone it all.

"Thanks, Dad."

You both froze as the word you had just said hung in the air.

"I—"

All protests, half-witted lies to cover up what you had just called him, died on the tip of your tongue when he surged forth, engulfing you in an embrace that was just as desperate as the last one.

"Don't take it back." He croaked, internally pleading to hear it once more if you never wanted to say it again.

Your eyes widened.

With the faintest of hopes, he grumbled out roughly. "It's fine."

You laughed tearfully when he didn't reject you, hugging his neck tightly. He didn't need to state it explicitly. You knew what he meant.

"Dad." You beamed, eyes puffy but your bright smile outshone it all.

Aizawa let out a sound that was a cross between a happy choke of disbelieving laughter and faux irritation.

In all his years of living, he hadn't known one word to make him as happy as that one did.

Resting a hand on your head, he shook his head fondly as you batted a hand playfully against him.

"That's right kid, you've got me."

Taglist: @katsukis-sad-angel​

[ryuichirou]

I saw one very stupid post on my dash about how snk is OBVIOUSLY nazi propaganda and trying to convert all of us into imperialists and white supremacists. tbh it’s not the first time I’ve seen that kind of stuff and probably won't be the last, but for some reason this time it gave me a lot of anxiety (I got wordy, I'mma need to send another ask, sorry)

(part 2) It's been more than half and hour and I still feel this awful sensation in my chest. It's just overall pretty fucked how to have something you hold dear being misinterpreted in the worst way possible, and I was just wondering what are your thoughts on this situation or how you deal with people claiming all sorts of awful shit.

(part 3) I imagine that as an artist some people probably direct their issues with snk towards you, 'cause I don't even post that much fanart and I've gotten anons "trying to educate me" on why this series is so wrong, after posting drawings. Of course, you don't have to reply, maybe the topic makes you anxious too and I don't want to bother you, so sorry for the depressing topic (｡•́︿•̀｡)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Tiiish, I want to hug you, I’m really sorry that this happened to you. I hope you’re feeling a little bit better now.

Like we already mentioned a while ago, when we were talking about that darn article, after we read through it and did a little fact checking (and I mean it when I say a little, because there weren’t many facts to check), we stopped caring about it. It’s not research at all, just a manipulatively written speculation on Yam’s motives and worldview, but sadly, people easily believe these accusations because they hate SnK and want to find a valid reason to hate it and shit on its fanbase. Because “I hate it because it’s nazi propaganda” sounds much cooler than “I hate it because it’s popular”, doesn’t it?

It’s easier to ignore the article itself though, and it’s much harder not to think about tumblr posts or those Twitter threads that get very popular (although there are a lot of bots on twitter, trust me…), and it’s especially difficult to ignore it when it’s specifically directed at you. But the only thing that these people deserve is a good ol’ block and (if they’re getting too offensive and abusive) a report for harassment. The thing is, their opinion doesn’t matter: it won’t change SnK’s story, it won’t affect its success and popularity, it doesn’t affect anything other than our mood (temporarily lol). Because they aren’t critics who actually give a flying fuck about the subject matter, they’re just random assholes with a hateboner for SnK, who sit in their echochamber and discuss the same shit over and over again. And if they’re “fans” of the SnK, it’s just them “consuming it critically” 🙄 such a convenient phrase and so easy to abuse.

If we think about these accusations again… they’re so damn nonsensical, it’s almost amazing. I’m not going to reread it or to make a proper counterpoint article out of this ask, so this is just based on how we remember these accusations.

Like, what part of SnK approves and pushes the idea of imperialism in any way? When the entire idea of the story is that war is bad? When people like Onyankopon, whose homeland was invaded by Marley, exist? And it’s never portrayed as a good thing? Having only one country dominating the world’s situation is literally the main reason why everyone’s suffering??

And come to think of it, Isayama is one of the few manga artists to kind of sort of openly critique Japan: he literally drew Kiyomi losing her cool and drooling while thinking about all the profit and wealth she would get from the deal with Paradis. Why do people never talk about that? What is it, if not a critique of greedy and two-faced nature of people from Azumabito clan, who are heavily implied to represent Japan? I don’t read a lot of manga in general, but do you know how many mangakas I’ve seen who directly talked shit about Japan while being Japanese? Two. Excluding Isayama.

Isayama is clearly invested in the Western culture and he understands the World’s History. He understands that political relationships are complex and that there are no “bad” or “good” countries. I don’t want to make assumptions about how much perspective of the world’s relationships the average person from Japan has, but I still feel like Yams has a pretty good understanding of it. He did his research for the subject matter, and while it’s obviously not perfect, it’s clearly there.

These people also claim that SnK is anti-Korean and anti-Semitic, but if Hetalia had taught me anything, it is that if the story has or used to have any anti-Korean undertones, the Korean readers wouldn’t want to have anything to do with it. They would be the first people to ditch the manga, they would be the first people to critique SnK, and rightfully so. They burnt Uniqlo clothes, their overall domestic policy is pretty anti-Japanese, so there’re literally zero reasons for them not to destroy SnK if they see it as anti-Korean. But the size of the Korean SnK fandom suggests otherwise, doesn’t it.

And the “big noses = Jewish caricature” argument, seriously? How anti-Semitic can you get? Who the fuck looks at people and goes “oh, those have big noses, bet they’re caricature of Jews”?? Sorry I’m getting heated lol The argument about “Asian artists portray Westerners with prominent noses because that’s what we look like to them” has been done a lot of times, I’m not going to go over than again.

And god forbid Isayama to use Germany and Europe to draw a story where his characters are (approximately) Germans and Europeans! Let’s go fetch our pitchforks to punish Isayama for using their aesthetic to make his story look more believable and authentic, right? “Oh, those areas where they hold Eldians resemble places from real life”, like no shit???? Ofc they would??? That’s what references for making the story more grounded are used for??? If I were to write a story about a fictional place based on a real one that I don’t live in, I’d use some visual references to help me to make it more believable??? Why do I even need to explain that?

In my previous post I talked about the armbands and ghetto and stuff, but I’ll reiterate: even if there are thematic similarities, it doesn’t mean that the story mirrors our history. And it doesn’t mean that there is an analogy, since Eldian’s situation is quiiiite different than what Jewish people had to go through. It’s just thematic similarities. And it still doesn’t plant any specific idea in the reader’s head, other than “having people shoved into ghettos with 0 civil rights is a horrible thing”, and I can’t comprehend what’s anti-Semitic or imperialistic about it. Also I’m sorry, but nazis are not the only people who genocided a bunch of people, breaking news. Nor did they invent armbands. Same goes for Japan in WWII.

And now for my favourite argument: Erwin is nazi because his name is Erwin and he was born on the same day than some nazi guy died… I won’t even talk about why this idea is hilariously stupid, I just want to appreciate the level of nitpicking that’s going on here.

So… yeah. People who have nothing else to do but to complain about the show they hate don’t matter. And people who consider themselves a part of the SnK fandom and still say this bs (yep, there are people who do that) are huge hypocrites. The heck are they doing in this fandom then?? Of course, any story is up to interpretation, but this is so backwards?

Sorry for rambling so much… anyways. We’re happy enough not to encounter any hate related to this topic, but we think it’s because we ship Ereri and people already hate us for that, so the majority of shit we get is related to that, I guess we’re a lost cause for them. We’ll see if anything happens after this post though.

But once again, I’m very sorry that you had to go through this. Please remember that this isn’t personal at all, and people who harass strangers on the internet just want to flex their high moral ground while acting like complete assholes. You don’t have to explain anything to them, you don’t have to talk to them, you don’t have to listen to them or give them any attention. I hope you’ll never stumble upon anything like this; but if you ever do, please block them, don’t even bother reading their attempts at “educate” you. Isn’t worth it.

Please have a good day, Tish. And everyone who’s reading this reply.

[prurientpuddlejumper]

Out Tonight (Part 2)

K!nktober 2020 Kink Bingo!: Papi

<- Part 1 | Part 3 ->

Summary: After a night of karaoke, Barba teaches you some Spanish, gives you some slightly patronizing advice, and follows you up to your hotel room. (Lo siento por mi español. Por favor dime si cometí algún error!)

Rafael Barba x female reader

Warning: NSFW/18+, Dub-con!! Everyone is enthusiastically willing, but also super drunk.

For @thatesqcrush​’s kink bingo!

6,089 words

“So… Rafael Barba,” you changed the subject away from today’s trial. His failure to get a conviction had sent him into such a steep emotional spiral he cried in your arms at the bar, despite having just met you an hour ago. “That’s Spanish, right?”

The vulnerability in his eyes flattened. “Cuban,” he said, already bracing for the “but you don’t look Latino” comments, or worse, something about rafts or cigars. Instead your eyes got wide like he just ripped off a mask and revealed himself to be David Bowie.

“Cool!”

“I… guess?” There were eighty thousand Cuban-Americans living in New York, but sure.

“Hablar… I mean, hablas español?”

“Sí, lo hablo,” he answered with wry amusement, pinching the bridge of his nose.

You chewed your lip in thought before slowly saying, “Aprendí un poco de español en la escuela, y lo me gusta mucho.”

His brow raised. You actually knew more than he expected, which is to say, you could string more than two words together. “Not bad. Toda mi familia es de Cuba, así que el español es mi lengua materna. Soy el primer estadounidense.”

He spoke faster, at a natural pace, expecting you to follow, but when your eyes glazed over and you awkwardly squeaked out, “...Qué?” it became clear you did not, in fact, speak Spanish.

“Let’s stick to English,” he grimaced.

You whined in disappointment. “But that was so hot! Please? Un poco más. Dime algo en español!”

“Algo.”

An unflattering snort erupted from your nostrils, and you started giggling like a manic school girl. Barba shook his head with second-hand embarrassment, though a smile crept over his lips as you continued struggling to contain yourself, pleased at how well his bad joke had gone over.

“Come on, teach me something,” you pouted, leaning towards him, pushing your chest out. “Por favor… papi?”

He choked on his drink so hard burning whisky shot up his nose. “Ay, dios!” He pounded his chest and ordered a water. “OK, OK, bueno,” he put up his hands in defeat. “Hablaré en español. Solo para ti, mamita. Te gusta?”

“Mucho, papi.” You were taking advantage of calling him that now that you’d seen his reaction. He didn’t nearly die this time, but a red blush was sweeping up his neck under his shirt collar. Emboldened, he leaned toward you, eyes heavily lidded as he flirtatiously held your gaze.

“Tienes novio?”

“A husband? Do I look married?” you flipped your ringless left hand back and front and worried about your age.

He laughed, raising a hand to his forehead with his palm shading his eyes. “That would be esposo.”

“Oh. Right.” Your face darkened. “No, yo soy… single.”

“Estás soltera,” he prompted.

“Ah, gracias. Estoy soltera. Y tú?” you tilted your face down shyly and looked up at him through your lashes. “Tienes esposo? O novia?”

“Nope,” he popped the p, staring into the empty bottom of his scotch glass and wishing he hadn’t decided to cut himself off. The sip of water he took was boring and not numbly soothing at all. He had been single for a depressingly long time, in fact.

“Muy bien,” you smiled with delight, and he suddenly realized his years of failure at relationships were, tonight, a positive. It was the answer a very beautiful woman was hoping for. He may have been suffering from a string of humiliating losses, but winning you over reawakened his cocky self-assurance.

“Acércate.” He curled his finger to beckon you closer, and you swung onto his lap. God, you were so close. Your body fit so perfectly in his arms and you smelled like strawberry lemonade from that cocktail. Before he could help it, he was kissing you again. Softer and a little less desperate this time. A little more… something else. He just met you, but the way you made him feel cared about was stronger than he had ever felt, depressing as that was to admit. The one time he had put his whole heart into a relationship, he’d had it shattered so badly he was still picking up the pieces. Since then, he chose relationships that were mutually guarded, partners he knew he would never connect with, and who didn’t expect anything back. Barba did not open up to people. He’d never let himself cry on anyone before, except his abuelita. He must have been extremely drunk to let his guard down so much, but he pushed the realization out of mind as your fingers curled through his hair around the back of his head and pulled him deeper, your strawberry tongue slipping between his bitter lips. He wanted this. He needed it. He felt so close to you, so right—that was all that mattered.

He started whispering to you in Spanish between kisses, phrases you couldn’t understand, some that you got the gist of. He cringed a little at your attempts to reply in his first language, but kissed you more softly each time. You were trying, at least. You were trying very hard to understand a piece of him. The phrases he murmured against your lips grew progressively more filthy, which your keen ears picked up on even if you weren’t entirely sure what they meant.

“Como se dice, ‘fuck me harder’?” you asked in a low voice full of lust, fingers tightening against his scalp.

“...damelo más duro,” he said with a shudder. His cock twitched and he wondered if you’d noticed the growing erection pressed against your thigh as you sat in his lap. What you would think. But you must have noticed, and you weren’t moving to get away from him.

“Damelo duro, papi,” you purred, leaning to say it into his ear, your breath warm and tickling.

He swallowed, heart hammering in his chest. Barba, always so eloquent under pressure in court, could barely form words to express a coherent thought. You were just joking. You must have been. To you it was a foreign language, and it didn’t sound like a real request to your ears. This was just a flirty game, teaching you naughty Spanish. “Y-you are… getting into dangerous territory here,” he tried to laugh jokingly, but his throat was dry. He swallowed again.

You lowered your voice and your eyelids. “I mean it,” you whispered against the shell of his ear. To punctuate your point, you rolled your hips, deliberately grinding your inner thigh against his forming erection. He was so wildly aroused with alcohol he thought he would come right there, but its effects were also preventing him from getting completely hard yet, something he should probably have been concerned about, but wasn’t.

“Would you like to go somewhere?” he said, voice strained with urgency. “I would very much like to go somewhere immediately and fuck your brains out, please. If that’s… alright with you.”

***

The streets of Midtown were as bright and crowded as they were during the day, just a little less hurried—except for two people. You held Barba’s large hand, long elegant fingers laced with yours, laughing giddily in the warm summer air as you raced toward your hotel, stopping only to desperately kiss each other, fingers in each other’s hair, reigniting the flames that pulled you together.

Barba broke away panting, his lips wet with your saliva. The fresh air had a sobering effect, and something serious occurred to him. He had been animated and outgoing all night at the bar, but he suddenly very much resembled the shrewd lawyer whose picture you had seen in a news article. You felt like you’d been called to the principal’s office under the severity of his gaze, waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

“Did you take any pictures of us together?”

“I… might have taken a few selfies,” you admitted, terrified you’d committed a heinous faux pas.

“Good,” he said. “Do you have location data enabled? You should send those to someone you trust, along with the time you left the bar, and where we’re going.”

Gears in your head turned slowly to put together an intelligible response. You opened your mouth and declared, “...whuh?”

“You’re out drinking alone, taking a stranger home!” he gripped your shoulders as if to shake you. “Do you know how many cases never get off the ground because there’s no ID, no proof the victim and assailant were ever in the same room? Those photos would establish a timeline and a suspect, and would be enough for a warrant. Do you know what I would give to have evidence like that in every case? A lot more rapists would go to jail.”

“Are you… saying you’re a rapist?” you said slowly, cocking your head.

He stiffened, mentally replaying his own words. His eyes darted to the side, up, down, and three other directions in rapid succession. “N-no… But you have no way of knowing that. You’re too trusting. No matter how charming someone seems, it’s better to be paranoid and take precautions.”

“Uh-huh. Real charming. You know, it’s creepy telling someone that right before you’re going to sleep with them. How do you say that in Spanish?”

He groaned and looked so crestfallen it impressed upon you how much horror he must deal with every day, prosecuting special victims cases in the big city. How much that weighed on him and made him see nothing but worst-case scenarios around every corner. It didn’t seem so strange now that he was single—it must be impossible to connect with anyone when you live like that.

“I just… want you to be safe,” he said quietly, eyes down. A swelling of sympathy flooded your heart, and formed a lump in your throat. Before you could think twice, you’d pulled him into your arms.

“I feel very safe with you, Rafael.” Your words drew a tiny, strangled noise from his chest, and his grip around you tightened.

The mood had shifted catastrophically, to the point that it seemed unlikely a one-night stand was in your future any longer. Barba walked slowly by your side, lost in reflective silence. Sex or no, you invited him up to your hotel room. You would never get enough of being around him, and couldn’t bear to say goodbye, even if you were only sitting up talking of somber issues late into the night.

But by the time the elevator doors closed, leaving you completely alone together for the first time, your libidos overpowered the gloom and his hands were all over your body, his mouth hot and fervent against your throat. You moaned wantonly, confident in the privacy the elevator afforded as it whisked you upward toward the eleventh floor. You slipped your hands inside his jacket, feeling his solid pectoral muscles stretching his shirt, and he cupped a hand between your legs, kneading the crotch of your pants. Even through your jeans, it sparked a fire that sizzled through your whole body. You pulled at his back, drawing more of his weight against you.

The elevator chimed and the doors slid open. Several cleaning ladies stared unimpressed as you and Barba quickly unhanded each other, stood straighter, and tried to pretend you were dignified professionals just riding an elevator together and definitely not almost having sex in there.

They were far more used to seeing this sort of thing than you were, judging by their almost bored eye rolls, but as you passed them on your way into the hall, one of them muttered something in rapid Spanish that made the other women giggle and Barba trip over his feet, face neon red, and look down at the front of his pants which were sporting a very conspicuous tent.

“Madre de Dios,” he groaned.

Shoulders convulsing with laughter, you took his arm and led him to room, uh… You fumbled in your purse for your room key with the number written on it.

“This is my first time doing this,” you confessed as the magnetic lock clicked and the light on the door changed from red to green.

“Having sex?”

“With someone I just met. In a bar!” you teased, turning the handle.

Part of you wondered when both of you were going to wake up and realize you were acting like horny teenagers—that you shouldn’t be doing this. But you hoped you wouldn’t, at least not until morning. You weren’t nervous. If you had been introspective that night, that would have surprised you the most. The whole confident, sexy Mimi Márquez, Out Tonight act was just a character you put on for karaoke to get psyched up and out of your shell. If you had been questioning yourself, you would have wondered how a shy good girl was having a one-night stand with a handsome Manhattan lawyer wearing a suit that cost more than your mortgage and not having an anxiety attack. But you weren’t questioning yourself, and you weren’t nervous. You looked in his intelligent eyes that were as pale as the underside of a silver maple leaf or dark as a dense hemlock grove depending on the lighting, and you simply wanted him.

***

He followed you into the dark hotel room, which was disappointingly small and shoddy for how expensive it was, so you left the lights off to preserve some mystery. The city glowed through the window brighter than a full moon, anyway. Barba pulled off his suit jacket, tossing it recklessly aside as he prowled toward you. Almost immediately, he thought better of this and found the heap of designer fabric on the floor next to the sandals you had kicked off, picked it up, smoothed it out, and carefully folded it over the back of an office chair at the little desk. He removed his tie and did the same.

You grinned behind your hand. Changing tunes so quickly from ravenously horny to prim—it didn’t surprise you that a guy who dressed as sharply as he did would have his priorities on wrinkle-avoidance even in the heat of the moment. It might have rubbed you as snobbish if it wasn’t so funny.

When he returned to you, his back was to the window, so you couldn’t make out the expression on his shadowed face, but the silhouettes of his shoulders were tense and his voice sheepish as if expecting a rebuke. “Sorry. I couldn’t leave it there. It’s a Brioni and—”

You slid your fingers under the pink-striped suspenders at both shoulders, closed your fists around them, and tugged. He lurched forward, and you caught his lips with yours. Letting out a surprised moan, he closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around you, grateful you weren’t accusing him of vanity. You held firm to the elastic bands like a leash on him, pulling him closer when you wanted to deepen the contact until he was so enraptured he needed no extra encouragement to shove his tongue between your lips as they parted, his hands roaming your sides, your hair, and over the swell of your bottom, grabbing a handful.

“You really do… have the best ass… below 14th street,” he said devilishly, in between crushing his hungry mouth against yours.

Running down the length of his suspenders, your hands took a tour of his entire torso, enjoying the firm bulk of his chest, and the softness of his belly. You liked that there was something to love there. Gym rats with nothing but hard muscle were painfully dull. His stomach twitched ticklishly at your probing touch and he broke away from your lips to protest, so you continued your suspender tour all the way to the bottom, where the leather straps attached the elastic bands to his pants. His hips rocked forward, and his clothed cock pressed into your thigh. You let out a sultry breath and pushed your own hips back against him, lining him up against your clit to ignite a burning, tempting pressure between you. You couldn’t even kiss him. Your mouth hung slack, and all you could focus on was the friction of his hard cock against your aching cunt. You had to get out of these clothes.

“Bed. Now,” you huffed.

“Yeah.”

As he toed off his leather shoes, you slipped his suspenders off his shoulders and were slightly disappointed this did not immediately make his pants fall off. He climbed on top of the blanket, and you climbed onto his lap, throwing a leg over his hips.

An impressively sized hand with a vein meandering across it curled around that tempting leg, palming the tight denim stretched over your thighs. The hand rode up, found the bottom hem of your blouse and dove under it. You shivered as warm fingertips crested over your jeans and found your waiting skin.

“Are you okay with this?” he rasped, eyes flicking across your face.

“Keep going,” you nodded, the prickles of your skin screaming in protest at the thought that he might stop. His hand worked up your side, exploring new territory under your shirt. Every point of contact sent warm waves vibrating out to your most intimate parts. You lowered your mouth to his and your lips melted against his, pussy soaking through your underwear as you felt his body respond beneath you. His clever fingers found the band of your bra and inched over the fabric.

“Is this alright?” he paused his advance to check in again.

You leaned close and whispered, “I want you to touch me, papi,” darting your tongue just below his ear, and rolling your hips over his cock again. “Touch me everywhere.”

He growled, deep and throaty and thick with lust, his own hips bucking up to grind himself against yours. With your carte blanche permission given, a switch flipped inside him and he dove in, roughly palming your breasts with both hands, rolling the fat and finding your hardened nipples through your bra cups. Even through the thicker fabric, his thumbs circled and pinched the sensitive peaks hard enough that you whimpered with every sensation. Your hips were moving without your leave, desperately driving against his cock while your hands quickly worked to unbutton the front of your shirt. He had become an animal, his eyes unfocused, breathing heavy, lost in voracious need.

“S-slow down,” you tried asking, wondering if he would—if he could at this point, despite all his earlier talk of consent.

His hands were off you in an instant, and he was apologizing and asking if you were OK.

“Just testing your off switch,” you smirked as you finished the final button, and your blouse opened up. Marveling at the man beneath your legs, you unhooked the front clasp of your bra and felt his cock stir at the naked sight of you. Any lingering uncertainty was gone—you managed to score the most principled lay in all of New York sitting by himself in a karaoke bar, and you trusted him completely. “Since I already know your on switch, don’t I papi?”

He swore in Spanish, some excitingly lusty expressions you would have to take note of later.

“What was it again? Cómo se dice...” you teased, tapping your index finger against your lips in thought. You watched his pupils widen as you pinched your finger between your teeth. “Oh yeah. Damelo, papi. Damelo duro.”

Hearing those words from your perfect sensuous lips drove him wild. Grabbing your hips, he rolled you onto your back, swapping positions. His fevered mouth pressed wet kisses all over your exposed skin, heated breath dancing over your neck as his tongue flicked out to taste you. You reached down to curl your fingers into his thick, dark hair. He pushed your breasts, which had fallen to the sides, back together and ran his tongue through the cleavage. You drew in a sharp breath. “Just like that, papi,” you moaned. He took a nipple in his mouth, sucking and circling his tongue over it until your cunt was pulsating and your breath coming out in hard, ragged whimpers, then pinched it between his teeth, drawing a yelp of pleasure mixed with pain. You yanked at his hair and your hips bucked jerkily. Your core ached with emptiness, longing to be filled by his cock. You wrapped your legs around his lower back and pulled his hips down against you to feel more of him. The strangled noises in his throat were practically feral as his clothed sex rutted up against you, valiantly striving to be inside you through your pants. His mouth sloppily devoured your breasts until they were burned raw from his stubble.

He released your nipple with a wet noise and sat up to free his straining erection from his pants. The latching mechanism didn’t seem particularly hard, but after nearly a minute of fumbling he had made very little progress, and you held up a hand and told him to stop.

He whined and gave you puppy dog eyes, but did as you asked. “Is this another test?”

“No. It’s just… those pants are not that complicated.”

His head tipped in confusion.

“You’re really drunk, aren’t you?” You were tipsy yourself, but considering you could at least manage buttons, you had a sudden, sinking realization that he was far more incapacitated than you. He was so well-spoken and thoughtful you hadn’t noticed, but he was a lawyer—staying controlled and eloquent was his job. You might have been drunk, but he was drunk drunk. “If we have sex right now I think that would make me a predator.”

He frowned, cock still straining against the binds of his pants. “Technically, in New York state, being intoxicated does not invalidate sexual consent.”

“Don’t you lawyer this! I don’t care what’s technically legal—you are way too drunk. And I don’t want you waking up with regrets.”

His shoulders fell, because he knew you were right. It was a law he considered a glaring loophole, and he admired you for doing the right thing, but ¡maldita sea! he wished you were just a little less ethical. Deep down he knew he wouldn’t be doing this if he were in full command of himself tonight. But that was why he was so desperate to do it now. He would never let himself go again, not for a long time, and he would miss out on experiencing an intense—if ultimately not real—connection with someone. He would miss out on getting to be with you.

“Well...” you hesitated, watching the disappointment in his eyes displace what had moments ago been confidence and excitement, and tormented by your own unsatisfied ache. “I mean, we can still fool around, right?”

He laid his body down alongside you, his breath still coming in hot, shallow pants. His comforting weight settling beside you on the soft hotel mattress stirred up the coiling insistent heat between your legs. “Is this OK?” he whispered, voice heavy with lust. Blood pounded in your ears as his hand slipped under your waistband.

“Y-yeah, that’s OK,” you nodded. A compromise. It wasn’t sex. Technically.

Trapped tightly between your skin and your jeans, his fingers reached your slit, spreading it with surprising deftness to find your clit. Waves of pleasure exploded through your body as he pressed an irresistible finger to it, making your thighs spasm and lift off the mattress as you bit back a sinful cry. You were almost screaming from just one touch. The sound of throbbing blood in your ears was deafening, and your cunt throbbed in time with it to an unbearable tempo. God, you wanted him to fuck you with his cock.

He drew in a shaking breath as he observed your response, his lust-clouded eyes boring into you with a hint of the keen perceptiveness he used in court. He risked probing deeper, pushing a long digit farther into your panties, dragging it through your pussylips as you squirmed beneath him, then drew it back, dripping, to circle your clit, and smiled as you clamped a hand over your mouth to keep a neighbor-waking vocalization in check. You were soaking wet for him, and it made his erection strain jealously against the closure of his slacks. It had been too long, since he’d allowed himself time for anything other than work. It was almost unbearable having someone moan for him and not be able to fuck them. But you said no, so he focused on what you would allow him to do—on giving you the most earthshaking orgasm you’d ever experienced.

The tightness of your jeans was too restrictive, and you quickly unbuttoned them and zipped them down. “My papi’s fingers feel so good,” you groaned. “I want more of them.”

“You feel… so good,” he answered, lowering his mouth to yours for a fervent, but surprisingly tender kiss as he moved his fingertips over your swollen, stimulated cunt. He traced over your dripping entrance, and pressed in just the tip of one finger, leaving you gasping for more. He withdrew from your pants and brought his fingers to his lips, sucking them clean, his eyes closing as he savored it. “You taste good, too,” he whispered low and gravelly, almost a growl, though not one you would describe as predatory. There was no danger lurking behind those perceptive eyes—the thrill he gave you had a different source. Your tongue darted over his, dipping into his mouth to taste yourself on his broad tongue.

“Is papi going to fuck me with those fingers?” you challenged, enjoying the way his breath hitched every time you called him that. You’d heard it in passing and knew it was something like calling him “daddy,” but you’d never expected it to have such a big effect.

He helped you pull your jeans down below the swell of you ass, not bothering to take them all the way off and interrupt your pleasure any longer. Once he had all the access he needed, he plunged his fingers into you. He observed carefully, gauging your reaction in the way the slick walls of your cunt gripped and twitched around him, and the tone and frequency of your pleading moans. When one finger wasn’t enough, he added a second, satisfied with his judgment as you cried out and arched against him, your hands gripping the blanket at the stretch. “Te gusta, mamita?” he purred, but you were too breathless to give an answer except a throaty carnal whimper.

Adapting himself to your responses, he alternated penetrating you with his fingers and teasing your clit, kissing you hot and fierce, ramping up his intensity to draw louder and louder cries, leaving a trail of wet bruises down your neck. Curling his fingers inside you, he hit a sweet spot that made your legs begin to tremble. You wailed uninhibited and raw, too overwhelmed with pleasure to try to rile him with another “papi.” He sucked your pulse point under your ear, savoring the feeling of your blood racing beneath his lips. Knowing how turned you were, how much he was affecting you was so deliciously invigorating to his ego. As easily as he could command a courtroom, he’d never had the same confidence in his body. Past lovers would say he had perfect technique, but no soul, no intuition for what a they needed—but here you were, cunt twitching on his fingers, moaning over and over for him.

Your eyes kept closing to focus on what he was doing between your thighs, but when they opened you saw how intensely he was watching you. The arousal on his face as he watched was intoxicating. You had never seen such anyone look at you with such wanton lust, and it heightened your excitement.

“Rafael… Raf—oh, fuck,” you hissed, jerking your hips up to deepen the penetration. “Keep going... deeper!”

“Dime, ‘más profundo,’” he ordered softly, but confidently.

“M-más profundo, papi.”

“Eres buena estudiante,” he praised, a smile lighting his eyes as he sank his fingers deeper with enthusiasm. You were getting close, the fire singing between your thighs blossoming outward through your entire body but always coiling tighter in your core, building an unbearable tension that threatened to break you. He rocked his hips, and the heat twisted tighter at the feeling of his iron-hard cock grinding against you.

You squeezed your hand between your two bodies, groping blindly down his stomach until you found his pants and the massive tent he was pushing into your leg. You grasped the hard outline of his cock, squeezing it and working it through his clothes. He drew a sharp breath and for a moment the rhythmic thrusting of his fingers stuttered and paused. His hemlock-green eyes were black with arousal as they examined you. Then he rocked his hips, thrusting into your palm with a low groan, and his fingers pumped into you again with renewed vigor.

“Que buena chica eres… Just like that,” he croaked. His breathing was growing ragged, he was starting to fall apart with your hand working his cock.

He adjusted his weight to free his other hand, stroking the side of your face as he pressed a passionate kiss to your lips. His thumb kneaded your cheeks as they smiled against his mouth and went slack with lust. His mouth wandered lower, teasing your collar bone with light nips to make you yelp and sigh, then bending to take a mouthful of breast. He withdrew his two slick fingers from the depths of your cunt and circled your clit slowly, gently—then fast and rough as he sucked at a hardened nipple, drawing a shattered gasp from your throat. You rubbed his cock frantically, trying to repay some small amount of the pleasure he was giving you. When he plunged his fingers back inside, he added a third, and you moaned at the added fullness—at being stuffed tight, almost too much for you to handle, an intense pleasure threaded through with pain.

“Oh, fuck,” you cried out, eyes rolling back as you felt your climax build, every nerve ending in your body on fire.

“Is that a good fuck, or a bad fuck?”

“Good,” you stammered, barely holding yourself together. “Don’t stop, papi, I’m almost there.” The hint of pain faded into pure bliss as you imagined it was his cock splitting you open.

His eyes gleamed wickedly as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, watching you come undone with every stroke. This horrible week, he had felt so helpless, useless. It made him doubt himself. But this—this he had control over. Your body. Your arousal. Everything that had fallen apart wasn’t his fault; it was because of circumstances outside his authority to influence. When he was given complete control, this was his effect. He could get any result he wanted, elicit any twitch of your cunt, any moan from your lips, and have you singing in ecstasy just from his fingers. Imagine if you let him fuck you, the songs he could have you singing then.

He angled his hand so his palm was rubbing against your clit as he thrust, and he could tell you were riding the edge of the precipice by the helpless mewling whimpers pouring from your lips with increased fervor, how your walls began to invite him deeper, taking more of him until he was buried three knuckles deep and you were still bucking your hips to intensify each thrust, starving for more. His own hips began rocking at a frantic pace into your hand.

“Rafael… Oh, Rafael,” you moaned. You loved the shape of his name in your mouth. It was like you weren’t even strangers, the more you said it. For him, it would have been too personal for a casual hookup most nights, but for some reason it turned him on even more than when you called him papi.

“Ven conmigo,” he urged softly, his hips stroking at a delirious pace that did not match his calm tone. You didn’t recognize what it meant, but the sound of Spanish rolling over his tongue mixed with the wet lewd noises of his fingers fucking you drove you to the edge.

“I’m gonna—I’m gonna...” Your voice broke.

He ducked his head back to your chest and drew a nipple between his teeth, sucking hard just as you came over the precipice and pushing you off it with a violent shove until you wailed out loud, careening into a free-fall steeper and farther than you’d prepared for, your back arching and your walls crashing around his fingers, clenching and convulsing around them.

“Open your eyes,” he said. “Look at me.” You could hear the lawyer in his voice—controlled, assertive. Not quite a command, but your eyes fluttered open obediently. Holding eye contact while your body was being rocked by wave upon wave of fierce climax was too intimate, but he repeated his request low and soft as a tiger’s purr. Your met his gaze and held it. The look of lust on his face, his lips softly parted, lower lip quivering, renewed the strength of your orgasm and sent another shockwave coursing through you.

He kept pumping into you through your orgasm, riding out the aftershocks, until your legs were shaking and weak. The sensation of you coming on his fingers turned him on so much, he only needed to rock into your hand once more, flick his tongue over your breast, and he lost control. He was not vocal as you were as his thighs trembled with his own release, but his hips slowed, and then stopped, their desperate thrusting, and you felt a warm, wet spot soak through the front of his pants. Your gasping cries were stochastic and desperate now, overstimulated—you pushed his hand out of your underwear to stop his relentless fingers, and he rolled off of you heavily.

Laying back on the soft pile of hotel pillows, he slowed his breathing, then sucked his fingers clean one by one with a lascivious growl of pleasure. You watched him, shivering with fascination, and he glanced back at you with a piercing gaze. “I want to fuck you next time. Por favor, déjame a cogerte.”

Next time. You turned away, your cheeks burning up. You never assumed there would be a next time to this, but your heart wouldn’t stop beating at the thought.

“Next time sounds good. That was…” You turned back to praise him, but his eyes were already closed, and a light snore was emanating from his nose. “...Amazing, you lightweight.”

The dizzying effect of all the booze was catching up alarmingly quickly now that you were spent. After the strenuous effort of tugging the blanket out from under Barba so you could tuck it over him, you were completely worn out, and within a minute you were fast asleep as well, cuddled under his arm, your chests rising and falling in unison.

[lets-break-free-from-our-chains]

Too Close for Comfort, Fairchild

(A/N): Hey guys! I know it’s been a long time since I posted, and for that I am sorry. However, I have overcome my writer’s block and I hope to be posting a few more imagines and one-shots in the future. Please enjoy this new one-shot that is apart of my on going series, ATOFG.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any writing belong to the rightful owner of the mortal instrument series. I do not own any characters expect Evie and any other new original characters I decide to create. I am in no way Homophobic, I LOVE MALEC and I am in fact apart of the LGBTQ community. I am merely exercising my fantasy in writing on my tumblr. If this makes you uncomfortable then please just be nice and do not read.

Pairings: Alec x Evie(OC), Clary x Evie(Platonic), Clary x Jace

Word Count: 1,610k

Clary and Evie had always been remarkably close, starting within the early years of their lives, and they had always known they would become Parabatai one day. One way or another.

 Platonic Soulmates.

 That is the way Jocelyn had explained it to the two eager girls hungry for all the knowledge and traditions of their people. If they were forced to spend their lives in exile away from their home and people, as well as their shadow-mates, then they would settle for nothing less than learning every single aspect of their heritage. Their birth right.

 Parabatai were more than brothers and sisters, they were soulmates. In a nature, that is similar but entirely different, and platonic, compared to bonds between shadow mates.

 It was a bond and tradition that they wanted so badly to participate in that Jocelyn arranged for the Silent Brothers to officiate the ceremony in secret. If Jocelyn couldn’t let them grow and live in the shadow world that was their blood right, then she could at least give them this.

 For that, Clary and Evie had always been very affectionate towards one another. Since being completely introduced to shadow world they had noticed that plenty of other Parabatai were affectionate with each other. It was something they noticed among the female Parabatai-bonded Shadowhunters more than the male Parabatai, but it made them feel elated and gave them a sense of acceptance and belonging.

 When they were in the mundane world, they had to continuously tell people that they weren’t romantically together, but just very loving friends. They couldn’t tell them the truth. Not only was it against their peoples’ laws and customs, as well as very private sacred privilege, it was something the mundane world could never appreciate. Mundies would never understand, let alone respect, the depth of the bond between Parabatai.

 However, there was one man who was vexed by the touchy-feely relationship between Evie and Clary. Alexander Lightwood was possessive man, and who could blame him. He was the eldest Lightwood child, which means; heavy lies the crown. He has always put his family first, and thus has given everything that is his to the family. Evie is the first person he could call his own. The only thing or person in this world no one expected him to share or give away.

 She was his shadow mate and god if it didn’t irritate him more than anything to have to share her with anyone else. Especially Clarissa Fairchild. She had never intentionally done anything to him, but that didn’t change the fact that he felt threaten by the reality of having to share his Parabatai, and his mate, with the mouthy redhead.

 Alec and Jace had just finished training and were walking towards the library in hopes of catching glimpses of their respected mates. Having come up empty with the green house and the fact that they came from the training room, the only other places left to look was the library and their shared rooms.

 As they drew closer, they heard the shared musical laughter of the young women and shared a victorious smile with each other. They pushed the heavy doors open, entering the extravagant library, and stood at the top of the staircase to watch the girls, who were obvious to being watched.

 Clary threw her head back and let out a joyous cackle; “You’re making this up!”

 Evie gave a heartily chuckle and shook her head, “I’m so not making it up! While Simon was spray painting over that god-awful band name on his van, so you could repaint the van, Maya was standing behind him tagging his jacket with her own can of spray paint.”

 Clary looks at Evie in humored awe before the two best friends made eye contact. At which point they both began to howl in laughter.

 They calmed long enough for Evie to muse between heavy giggles, “I don’t know how in the hell Simon didn’t notice what Maya was doing. The back of his jacket had a remarkable amount of detail…”

 Clary started to heave she was laughing so hard and the two watching men had to agree Evie’s story was quite hilarious. All her stories are. If you want a good laugh, all you would have to do is ask Evie to tell you a funny story.

 Clary calmed down and gave a big sigh of content before she leaned forward from her reclining position on the couch, her and Evie had been laying on together. With her legs still laying across Evie’s lap, Clary moved her face towards Evie’s and rubbed her nose sweetly against Evie’s in an Eskimo kiss.

 Evie smiled endearingly at the small display and returned the gesture with an Eskimo kiss of her own to Clary, whilst tucking one of Clary’s unruly curl behind her left ear.

 Clary leans into the palm of Evie’s right hand, placing a chaste kiss on the inside of her hand, and shifts her legs from across Evie’s to curl underneath her so she can lean into her warm side and nuzzle her face into Evie’s neck and waves of hair that resembles spun gold.

 Evie moves her left arm that was resting on the back of the couch and wraps it around Clary, leaning her cheek on a head of thick red curls. Jace smiled at the heavenly sight of his cherished sister and his beloved mate spending much needed time together.

 Alec, however, couldn’t help the surge of immense jealously that rushed through his veins at the sight of someone other than him so close to his mate. He briefly feels guilty seeing as they are Parabatai and it was perfectly normal for female Parabatai to be so close, but that didn’t change the fact that he didn’t want to share his mate.

 All his life, Alec has shared everything that was his, and he would be damned if he shared his mate. He watches with guarded eyes as Clary lifts her lips to Evie’s jewelry clad ear and whispered with a small amused smirk. Evie’s eyebrows and lips quirk upwards with slightly surprised amusement before she opened her eyes and the golden orbs lock with his blue ones immediately.

 “It seems your right, Clary. I suppose this is all the affection we can have with one another for now.” She says, while they both rise from the Victorian sofa, “Lest my poor mate loses himself to the madness of his own irrational jealously.”

 Her playful teasing, and that loving smile she reserved just for him, helps to erase the jealously from his system. The men make their way down the stairs to meet the women who eagerly greet them with kisses.

 Evie and Alec’s lips crash together in raw intensity and one of his strong arms wraps around her while his free hand grips her jaw firmly, but lovingly, whilst her small hands grip his broad shoulders. He softly bites her lip, begging for access, and his tongue quickly tangles with hers once she surrenders to his lustful onslaught .

 They easily get lost in the others presence, and they would have continued to get lost in each other; if not for the forced cough from Jace and giggle from Clary.

 They reluctantly pulled away from the passionate embrace and look at the other couple.

 Jace appears to be thoroughly unimpressed but watching Alec “attack” his elder sister, but Clary merely slipped into the spot just behind Evie’s left shoulder and with a teasing smirk spoke; “Wow, Alec. I didn’t think I could get under your skin that easily, but yet again you surprise me.”

 Alec glowers at the redhead for her dauntless taunting and bites out in a growl; “Too close for comfort, Fairchild.”

 The brazen girl relents with a surrendering smile, after seeing the mindful look the taller blonde headed girl throws over her shoulder,

 “Sorry, Alec.” The girl halfheartedly offers; not looking one bit as apologetic as she appears to sound, “I was only teasing. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

 In one last ditch effort to amuse herself and irk Alec she says her goodbyes to Evie for the next few hours. She reaches around and places a small and sweet kiss to the graceful sloping of Evie’s angled jaw, and the painted nails of her fingers brush Evie’s shoulders lightly before her right hand continues on to trail down Evie’s spine. Said redhead then parts from the blonde; leaving with her highly entertained mate.

 Alec all but snarls and spits at the firecracker’s relentless audacity to annoy him. Evie grabs his shoulders once more and begins to massage the tension from them as she speaks,

 “The only reason she continues to taunt you is because you continue to give her exactly what she wants.” He turns to his beautiful mate and watches the small smile curl on her lips.

 “So, stop doing that. It’s no fun for her if you don’t look like you’re ready to spit nails.”

 He chuckles deeply at that last statement and wraps his arms around her waist, tugging her into his chest, “I know, but I can’t help but want you all to myself.”

 She makes a small noise, by sucking her teeth, with a pout whilst brushing his hair back from his eyes, “I am yours. All yours; for all eternity. We were made for each other.”

 Alec nuzzles his forehead to Evie’s with a content smile and speaks.

 “Destined, my true love. Therefore, where one shadow goes; then the other will surely follow…”

 She beams at him and they seal the shadow-mate motto with a deep kiss.

[gyllenhaalstories]

Hi can you write a fic about dad!jake because there’s not a lot of them on here (if u want) and plus your writing is amazing hands down one of the best jake blogs on here ♥️

i do agree, there is a cruel lack of dad!jake. it’s so unfortunate! i mean, he looks like uncle goals and he would make the best dad in the entire world! thank you so so so so so much anon! you have no idea how happy your kind words make me! you didn’t give any specific setting so i went for the ultimate softness! just because i love naming characters, let me introduce you to toddler (ish) rose gyllenhaal! EXTRAS: i suggest you listen to the cinematic orchestra’s to build a home to get in the same mindset as i was while writing this. i found the gif on google image and couldn’t find the original creator, i’m sorry! WARNINGS: none except i don’t know how kids act and like what they are except very strange creatures so i’m so sorry if my awkwardness is showing through this fic! i hope you, and everyone reading this, will enjoy it! ( 1500 words)

BUILD A BEAR

“Teddy Bear!” Your daughter pointed, her head and arm peeking from the pillow fort you helped her build in your living room. “Big Teddy Bear!” She pointed at her father.

You chuckled, realizing that Jake has returned from running errands.

“You learned new words? I’m very proud of you, sweetheart!” Jake frowned, confused, as he planted a kiss on your forehead, then your daughter’s. Proud was an understatement. He would brag about how smart your daughter was at the simplest thing. Whether she fed herself without making a mess, drew an absolute chaotic art piece with her crayons or found her way to snuggle up in her parents’ bed despite being told not to, he was so proud. She amazed him.

It amazed him how she looked exactly like the two of you combined. She had his piercing blue eyes, but they had your shape, soft and cheerful. She had a bright smile like him. She had your button nose. She had that little curl in her hair that resembled yours. A bad encounter with the coffee table during a tickling session left her with a tiny scar on her chin, which looked exactly like one of Jake’s shaving accidents when he was young and innocent.

It amazed him how fast time flew by. Not even yesterday, the two of you were hearing her first cry and hugging her for the first time. It amazed him how much love he had to give this bundle of joy, while he believed he could never love someone or something as much as he loved you.

Rose repeated the nickname again and again. Maybe it was her new obsession. Last week, she tasted her very first lemon and kept screaming lemon all the time. Quite the learning experience, she had her father’s vocal chords that was for sure.

Jake shrugged it off and brought the mail to the kitchen table. He did not bother taking off his jacket, he kneeled with the two of you. He opened his legs and arms, hoping Rose would crawl and sit with him, but she just laughed and pointed at his face again. “Bear, Daddy is a bear!”

It finally hit you and you brust into laughter, leaving Jake in his confusion.

Rose pretended that her fingers were scissors and she mimicked the snip snip sound as she ran her little hand around Jake’s beard.

“She thinks you look like a bear.” You, too, brought your hand to Jake’s face and you stroked it lovingly. Rose agreed by nodding her head frantically. “You know, with the beard.”

“That’s not nice! I’m not a bear!” Jake pouted and pretended to be sad, which resulted in your daughter covering his face with kisses.

“No sad Daddy, I love my teddy bear!” She hugged him tight and Jake widened his eyes. He mouthed that she didn’t have a teddy bear and suddenly this looked like the biggest emergency in the world.

He scooped her up like she was as light as a feather, pulling out the cutest giggles out of her tiny body. “Get in, sweetheart, we’re going shopping!”

You told Jake you preferred to stay at home and clean around the house. He insisted he would prefer to have his princesses with him, but you gave him a wink. He was quicker to understand it meant you were clearing their evening schedule for something more entertaining than laundry, baby food making and bento box lunches binge watching.

So Jake got the little toddler ready. He let her pick her hat, her scarf and her mittens while he put on her boots. She usually hated that part, but he had this magic trick of singing a silly tune as he did so. It made her want to sing too, and forget about the heartbreaking moment her feet leave her favourite slippers. She opted for teal mittens, an orange hat with a pink pompom and a purple scarf with stripes. “She’s New York Fashion Week ready!”

You laughed, kissing them good bye.

*~*~*

Jake drove to the nearest mall and carried Rose over his shoulder until they reached the door of the shopping center.

“Where are we going?” She kept asking, from the moment she was in the car to now, when Jake was all scrunched over to hold her tiny hand.

“It’s a surprise, Rosie!”

“I love surprises!”

He made the walk to the Build a Bear store fun. He went to grab a muffin from a food stand and shared it with her, washing her hands so she would not stick them every where. He even stopped by a clothing store, taking notes of the pieces she liked from the front windows so he could get her new outfits. And when they finally made it to the store... She was running and dragging Jake along. He was surprised by her strength, but he really should not be. Ever since she was a baby she was strong like the Hulk, or like her mother. He liked to think she got it from you, his super woman with super strength and super everything.

“You can pick one, okay? And we’ll bring it to life together! Poof!” He added sounds to his explanations, catching her attention.

Rosie was impossible to control. She ran from one corner to the other, apologizing adorably when she bumped into a friendly employee. She would pick up a giraffe, no a cat, no, a dog, no, a dragon... Honestly Jake wanted to buy them all. He was aware the mall was closing soon, and he knew better than to torture these poor employees with an excited child who skipped her nap and would crash at any moment (or well, she would when he would stop giving her M&Ms to buy her concentration).

She finally made up her mind on a light golden bear. It came with a flower on its ear and pink paws. “It’s perfect, just like you!” Jake exclaimed and booped her nose. He let the employees teach Rose how to fill the plushie with stuffing until it was the best cuddle buddy in the world.

“How should we name her?”

“Jake!”

He shook his head, trying not to be insulted by the fact she still associated bears with him.

“No!” She listed possibly fifteen names that made less and less sense and gave the employees a headache.

Rose pulled on Jake’s pants, asking him to come down to her level, which he did. “What is Mommy’s favourite flower?” She asked and he answered.

“Daisy!” They both said in sync. It was a perfect name, because the bear had a daisy on it and Jake and you really had this flower theme going on. You, in fact, hesitated between so many flower names for your kid.

“Let’s show Mom your new friend!”

*~*~*

Jake managed to spend the entire car ride without a cry, a scream or a word of complaint until he accidentally woke Rose up from her nap by picking her up. She was tired and fussy. It was dinner time, but you and Jake decided it was better if she slept a bit more before. Your plans for the evening got bumped to tomorrow, but you could not care any less. Rose and Daisy were the new partners in crime and they were too adorable to resist.

“I have another idea!” Jake announced and set Rose down on the couch, inviting you to do the same. He disappeared in the laundry room, where he threw a soft blanket in the dryer with a dryer sheet. He then ran to the kitchen and prepared a platter of hot chocolate. He made sure that Rose’s was just warm enough and he placed a big marshmallow on it. He set the platter down and left again, only to come back with a warm blanket.

He turned on the television to play Frozen and sat on the couch with Rose in between the two of you. Your bodies were wrapped in a coccoon of warmth. And your heart felt the same. Rose quickly fell asleep, she did not even make it to the pat where Olaf appeared, and it was her favourite moment. She snored lightly, clutching on Daisy.

Your head was resting on Jake’s shoulder and you looked up to him.

If somebody told you a couple of years ago that you would live a life like this, you would have never believed it.

You have a beautiful house to live in. A job you love that allowed you as much family time as you wanted. A significant other that was nothing less than your soulmate. And you had this precious soul sleeping soundly with her mouth covered with hot cocoa.

You took a deep breath and Jake stared back into your eyes. The silence said it all.

You wanted nothing more in life than this: the taste of hot chocolate, your child being so peaceful and happy, Jake’s content face lighting up the evening sky and this never ending smell of fresh laundry. Your family was like a basket of clean laundry. So warm, so satisfying, so comforting.

Jake built Rose a bear.

And Jake, Rose and you built a home.

[lovelucybradford]

I Pretend You’re Mine (4)

A/N: Hi all! I know it’s been a while. Unfortunately adulting sucks and I was so caught up in my work situations that I had no more left to give. Thankfully, the writer’s block has gone away (for now). I planned to have this up on Valentine’s Day, butttt *writer’s block*. So, to make up for it, I’m (hopefully) giving you two chapters this weekend. Chapter five is a continuation of four; it was just so long that I decided to split it into two parts. Hope you enjoy, and thanks for all the love! 

Masterlist

Tags: @empath-bunny​

@ityagirljay​​

@wolfarrowepz​

@supernatural-crazed-girl

Chapter Four: Drag Me Headfirst, Fearless

As soon as the plane landed on the tarmac in sunny Florida, the reality of Rosalie’s upcoming situation had hit her like a freight train. She’d been a nervous wreck since. Rosalie jiggled her leg so much on the Uber ride to the port of call that Stiles, the human form of the Energizer bunny, had placed a hand on her knee and urged her to stop. At that point, Rose figured she’d better cool it before she completely lost her resolve and ‘jumped ship’, so to speak.

So, Rosalie began listing things that she could count on in an attempt to center herself. It was something that the woman had been taught and perfected over many years of intense therapy sessions. She rattled off the list in her mind as she concentrated on the quickly passing palm trees on the side of the highway.

Things That Rosalie Could Count on For the Trip from Hell:

One: Knowing Rosalie’s stepmother Evelyn, who made her career out of creating high-class soirees such as this, everything would be meticulously planned out, down to the minute. If it were up to her, she’d even plan the times that they could use the toilet.

Two: Rosalie would most likely be the talk of the event, until the gossip hounds found something, or someone, juicier to bite into. The last time that she had seen the relatives, all twenty of them (minus her Uncle Joe and Aunt Natalie, who wanted nothing to do with her father), was three days before Drew and Rose had their untimely breakup. Drew, who was more family to them than Rosalie ever was.

Luckily, if she had to go through hell, at least…

Three: Rosalie’s support system would be with her 100%. She had Lydia to give reassuring hand squeezes and the family subtle insults. Her brother Levi who, as much of a jackass that he could be, would defend his sister’s honor to the (metaphorical) death. Stiles and Rose would lounge around the open bar and mock her Uncle Tom as he attempted to ‘dance’, or Aunt Sarah who would undoubtedly flirt with Derek.

Derek… Rose’s confidante, her best friend, her anchor, who hadn’t spoken a word since they stepped foot on the extravagant vessel.

Rosalie could chalk it up to being so breath taken from the scenery that Derek had nothing to say. Even Stiles had repeatedly commented “Holy shit this is so bougie” ten times in the last five minutes. (Not that she couldn’t agree. Her  father Jason was the poster child for ‘go big or go home’) To be fair, it was beautiful. The atrium was adorned floor to ceiling in shades of gold, a large diamond chandelier smack in between two beautiful staircases.

Staircases that gave Rosalie an eerie sense of déjà vu. Only because she had seen something bearing a high resemblance to them in a movie featuring her fictional doppelgänger, a fellow redhead who shared Rose’s name.

Part of her wondered if this was her father’s idea of a sick joke. Rosalie had always said that Drew and her were ‘Jack and Rose’. Turns out Drew was more of a Cal Hockley than a Jack Dawson. As for Rosalie, she was still Rose, forever searching in that freezing sea for her Jack. She should have known that she and Drew were doomed to sink beneath the waves.

Sink beneath the waves… Rosalie’s heart began to pound faster as she grabbed ahold of Lydia’s wrist, relying on her cousin to guide her through the maze of humans and staircases to the staterooms.

Derek and Stiles walked ahead of the two, the former’s back stiff with tension.

Was he predicting, too, that this plan of theirs would go down like the Titanic?

Or was he dreading playing Rosalie’s lover in front of a ship full of pompous asses and the occasional normal person?

Derek normally exuded confidence, from the strong set of his jaw to the way that he entered a room. At that moment, he looked more like a frightened schoolboy than a man with enough swagger for their whole friend group.

His blatant anxiety just heightened Rosalie’s. Before she could really process it, Lydia was pulling her arm away and gently shaking Rose’s shoulder.

“Rose? Rosalie!”

Rosalie shook her head, clearing her thoughts and focusing on the hazel of Lydia’s eyes. “Hmm? Sorry.”

Lydia let out a puff of air, blowing upwards the tendrils of hair that weren’t securely fastened in her high ponytail. “We’re here. Go settle in and we’ll meet you in a bit.”

Lydia then shoved Rosalie towards Derek, who caught her with a hand on her elbow. He took the key card from Rose’s sweaty palm and slid it into the slot on the handle, opening the door to a stateroom with a balcony overlooking the crystal sea. The stateroom… with one bed.

Rosalie tried not to hyperventilate thinking that Derek and she had to share that.

“You can take the bed,” Derek commented as soon as he too laid eyes on it.

Rose ignored him, deciding to handle that situation later, flopping full-bodied onto the plush mattress. The white comforter smelled like a swift ocean breeze, and she couldn’t help but press her nose further into it.

“What is it with you and smelling things today?” Derek chuckled.

Rosalie threw a nearby pillow at him, her face still buried in the bed. “Shut up, asshole.”

The bed shifted to the right of where she lied, the fabric dipping a foot away. That made her feel better. At least if they had to share it like when they were kids, there would be enough space between the two of them so that things wouldn’t happen. Which Rosalie would make sure of. Well, sober her would make sure of it. Drunk her could not be trusted.

“I didn’t hear a word you said, but I assume it was something along the lines of ‘you’re an asshole.”

Rose rolled onto her side. “Close, but no dice…” She lost the train of thought as her eyes caught on a glittering cardstock pamphlet lying between the two of them.

Martin Family Reunion 2019

Day 1: Thursday, June 13th

5:00 pm- Disembark from Cape Canaveral

7:00 pm- Welcome Cocktails in the Stardust Lounge, Deck 6

All must attend.

Proper Cocktail Attire required for entry.

Rosalie groaned so loudly that a masculine laugh resounded from the other side of the wall.

“What?” Derek responded to his friend’s displeasure. Without a word, the woman passed him the pamphlet, watching out of the corner of her eye as his beautiful olive eyes took in the itinerary. His face contorted into a sour expression, and he put down the paper at once.

With a pat to Rose’s thigh, Derek got up from the bed and grabbed his wallet and the aviator sunglasses that were resting on the vanity table. Her eyes followed his form, waiting for some kind of explanation as to where in the hell he thought he was going.

“You and Lydia have fun getting ready. Stiles and I are going down to that bar we saw in the atrium.”

Rosalie gaped, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “Wh—what? What about—”

“Would you chill? I’ll be back before seven. I need a drink before I see The Stepford Family.”

Rosalie snorted rather unattractively at Derek’s choice nickname for her father and his new family. Evelyn and her daughters certainly were like characters dragged out of The Stepford Wives film.

Derek was about to leave the room, when he paused, two fingertips grazing the golden door handle. He turned his body slightly to face Rose, a mischievous look in his eyes.

“It’s all-inclusive, right? Everything we buy with the key card goes on his tab?”

She assumed that by ‘his’, Derek meant her father, Jason.

“Yup,” Rosalie replied, popping the ‘p’.

“In that case, I’ll make sure to get the most expensive liquor that they have,” Derek smiled deviously, lazily waving the golden keycard.

She was momentarily distracted by his pretty face, and the familiar but unwanted fluttering in her stomach. By the time Rosalie snapped out of her thirstiness, he was gone.

__________________

Rosalie stumbled in her Louboutin’s for the sixth time, looking quite like the person who’d had three shots of Whiskey that was bottled before she was born.

Derek, the one who actually had, so smoothly wrapped his arm around Rose’s waist for support. The heat of his palm warmed her skin, even through the mint green cocktail dress she was wearing, but it was the last thing on her mind.

With every step that they took towards the wooden double doors at the entrance of the Stardust Lounge, the more Rose’s stomach churned, and her vision blurred. Eventually, her heart pounding through her ribcage was the only sound that Rosalie could hear.

Rosalie stopped abruptly, frantically searching for a bathroom, for a garbage can, for a balcony that she could jump off of.

Derek continued walking but was pulled back by the hand that was grasping Rose’s still figure.

 “I can’t do this. Oh god, I can’t do this. I think I’m going to throw up,” she breathed shallowly, the urge to vomit slowly creeping up her throat. Rose hastily removed Derek’s grip from her waist, struggling to find her balance, and teetered towards the opposite wall. Before she could go very far, Derek’s rough hand was in hers, squeezing it in a likely attempt to bring Rosalie back to center.

“What?” She heard Lydia begin, but Derek had silenced Lydia instantly with a rushed command of “Go, stall for us. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

“Hold your breath, Rosie!” Stiles called as Derek led a dazed Rosalie to a cream-tiled room.

Stiles’ advice brought Rose back to the time, years ago, when Lydia had told her that she’d kissed Stiles mid panic attack after his dad was shot pursuing a perp.

“When I kissed you, you held your breath,” Lydia had said to Stiles.

Rosalie had thought it romantic at the time. So romantic. But she prayed that Derek didn’t try that trick on her. Rose couldn’t handle it, not when…

Derek grabbed hold of either side of Rosalie’s face with both hands, forcing her to look at him.

“Rose. Rosie! Look at me. Breathe,”

His face so close to hers just made her breathing speed up, not slow like he intended.

“Fuck Rosalie,” Derek voiced, sounding almost as breathless as his best friend.

He nodded once, then took a deep breath through his nose and out through his mouth, his eyes never leaving Rosalie’s tear-stained face. “Breathe with me, babe. In, out.”

She tried to follow his lead, but only to appease him. Rosalie couldn’t stand that desperate look in his eyes, the frantic shifting of his gaze, or the tense set of his jaw. The thought of him being in pain like that, even emotional pain,it physically hurt her.

“Good. Good, Rosie. Keep going.”

She took a few more breaths through her nose, the world-ending feeling lessening with each exhale.

“You good?” Derek questioned, his thumb rubbing lightly up and down the woman’s cheek.

Rosalie nodded softly, still not having the breath to voice any thoughts.

She leaned back on the countertop, feeling the coolness of the tile and the mirror behind her. Rose hadn’t noticed before, but they were hiding from the family in a large single bathroom. Rosalie laughed to herself. It wasn’t the first time that she’d had a mental breakdown next to a toilet. And it probably wouldn’t be the last.

“Thanks,” Rose commented hoarsely, not daring to look at Derek in fear of what he might think of her. Weak was the only word that came to mind. “Sorry for freaking out. Never thought you’d have to console someone in a bathroom, did you?”

Derek snorted, and Rose’s heart dropped a bit at the sound, thinking that he was mocking her. “Actually, you’re not the first crying woman that I’ve held in a cramped bathroom.”

She raised one brow at him, a wordless cue to elaborate.

“I may or may not have had a girlfriend with a pregnancy scare back in college.”

“Of course, you did,” Rosalie said before she could really think about it, heart once more dipping in her chest. What was she thinking, pretending to be engaged to someone like Derek Hale?

Derek Hale, who could have any woman he wanted. Who would think that he would settle for someone as quiet and average as Rosalie?

“Hey.” Derek stepped in front of her, further away than he was minutes ago, but not by much. “Never apologize for being human, for having feelings and fears. Especially not to me.”

All Rosalie could manage was a small smile, to which he reciprocated with one of his own.

“You’re still the strongest woman I know. Stronger than Cora, stronger than mom—”

“I don’t know about that,” she replied playfully.

Derek rolled his eyes and continued on with his motivational speech, every word loosening the tense muscles in her shoulders. “Yes, even my mom. But don’t tell her I said that. Hey, if you’re worried about your family, then fuck them. They should be thankful that you’re even here after all the shit they threw at you.”

Rosalie nodded, fingers playing absently with the sapphire ring on her left hand—thinking about the last time she had worn a diamond on the same finger. And the man that put it there. Who took it so easily and put it on someone else. Not just someone else: Ashleigh.

“No, I can see it in your face. You’re worried about seeing Drew again, aren’t you?”

Damn him for being so perceptive, and for knowing her so well. Rosalie went to deny it but found that she couldn’t lie to him.

“You know what, we’ll walk in there, I’ll see him, and you know what I’ll say?”

He was smiling again, grinning ear to ear like he thought he was hilarious. It was so rare to see him like that that she humored him just to keep that smile on his face.

“And what will you say, may I ask?”

“’Me thinks thou art a general offence and every man should beat thee.’”

Rosalie couldn’t help herself as her head swung back in a fit of giggles. “Oh my God, Derek Hale. You are such a dork.”

“Ah,” he countered, holding up a finger, “You can’t say that. Not when you totally got my joke.”

Rosalie beamed up at him. “Ok, fine. We’re both dorks. Happy, Derek the Bard?”

“Yes, princess. I’m enthused. You ready to go?” Derek gestured with a thumb towards the door. The door that lead to the hallway. The hallway to the Starboard Lounge, where all of Rosalie’s family would stare at her like she was some rare creature on the auction block.

“No,” Rose said weakly.

Derek rolled his eyes again, a look that Rose was more familiar with than the Cheshire Cat grin that previously lit up his face. “Yes, you are.”

Rosalie stared at herself in the large, lighted mirror, checking over her face and hair for damages. Trust Rose’s family to point out a single flaw in her appearance. She looked mostly put together, save for the tiny specks of black mascara under her eyes and the slightly faded red lipstick. Rose grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall, wetting it and dabbing under her eyes until all of the mascara smears disappeared.

Satisfied, Rosalie tossed the towel in the garbage bin and grabbed her clutch. “Do I look okay?”

Derek’s eyes swept her form, taking in everything from the pale white of Rosalie’s untanned legs to the lace of her dress, to the retro curls in her hair. She suddenly felt self-conscious, even more so when Derek stayed silent.

Rose nudged him with her elbow, hoping he would say something, anything, and end this deafening silence. His eyes flicked back towards Rosalie. “You look beautiful.”

She opened her mouth to protest, to tell him that she knew he was just saying that because he’s her best friend and he has to.

“I mean it, Rosalie,” Derek added firmly.

“What about me? Do I look good enough to fit in with high-society?” Derek asked, hand sweeping down his body.

Rosalie took it as an unashamed excuse to study him. The unbuttoned suit jacket that he wore hugged his biceps so nicely that it was hard to not stare at them for too long. The white shirt under it was buttoned, except for the two closest to the top that were left open to show a peek of dark chest hair.

In short, he looked like a snack, and damn was Rosalie hungry. Not that she could tell him that, of course. So, she just repeated what he already knew. “Of course. You know you’re hot.”

Derek’s eyes widened, his ears turning slightly pink. “You think I’m hot?”

“You think you’re hot.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Um, yes you do. You get that look on your face when you’re flirting with girls like ‘I’m sexy and I know it.’”

“God, that was one time Rosalie! It guess I will never live it down.”

Rosalie snickered at the memory. “No, you won’t. Now be a good pretend fiancé and help me walk.”

“Why the hell are you wearing those stilettos if you can’t even walk in them?”

“Lydia made me.”

Derek said nothing, knowing that there was no arguing with Lydia Martin. He offered his friend his arm, ever the gentleman. In turn, she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, trying not to get too distracted by the muscle under it.

[seungminotes]

A Walk Home 

best friends to lovers w/ Kim Seungmin

a/n: I'm back from my hiatus and happy to say that I really like this piece tho it got kinda dramatic lmao hope you like it too! Always feel free to leave feedback!

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: cursing (like twice?) / gender neutral (please tell me if I messed up with something) / sort of slow-burn and not much payoff but I'd like to think it's very fluffy throughout!

"What took you so long today? I've been waiting here for at least 5 minutes," Seungmin complained at the sight of you finally approaching him. 

It usually didn't take you this long to reach him from your last class, heck sometimes he even had to drink water and you'd get to your usual meeting spot before him. 

Seungmin wasn't particularly the best at waiting on others, for whatever the reason really, he would have probably left anybody else behind by now. But alas, it was you he had been waiting for, and if facing the possibility of having to wait even longer for you, he most likely would. 

"Sorry, I had to talk to someone before leaving," you smiled at your friend, who was now pouting slightly.

You reached up to pinch his cheeks only for him to slap your hands away. 

"No pinching, let's go," he grabbed your wrist, dragging you in the direction of your usual route home. 

You'd known Seungmin for nearly six years now. Having met him when you both were in middle school after moving to the then new town, Seungmin had once been quite fickle towards you, but once he got over his initial disinterest, he realized you were quite special. You'd spotted him taking pictures of the daisies in his front lawn and annoyed him to no end to explain his interest in them. You remember the day vividly, especially now that the firm grip Seungmin held on your wrist highly resembled the same he held on that very first day you met him. 

-

"Aren't daisies a bit plain?" You snuck up behind the boy crouching in an awkward position, clutching his camera so tight his fingers were losing color. 

Seungmin held no reaction to the sudden appearance of someone around his own age spying on him from the sidewalk in front of his own home. In fact, he sighed with a tinge of annoyance at your unwithheld statement and hardly looked up at you, why couldn’t people mind their own business, he thought to himself. 

"I find them quite interesting, actually." He deadpanned, no intention of expanding upon his opinion to someone who he already deemed to be unworthy of his time.

Damn Seungmin was quite stubborn back then, he had barely even glanced at you, but good thing you were quite nosy. 

"How come?" You inquired further. 

Thirteen-year-old Seungmin was not in the mood to explain the complexities of a perfectly amazing daisy to someone who would most likely not care as much as he did about capturing their beauty. 

Nonetheless, he glanced back to where he had seen you standing to notice your figure now hunched over, examining a daisy closely, nose almost touching it's petals, as your lips parted slightly to blow softly onto the flower, clearly in your own little world.

Your rather odd gestures told him you may actually be interested in what could possibly be interesting about the small flowers sparse all over his lawn. 

He slowly approached you, more aware of your presence than before, and snapped God knows how many photos of your posing.

That was at least until he saw your hand reach up to pick the delicate flower from its stem. That’s where he drew the line! Promptly walking over to you and tightly withholding your hand with his awkward grip on your wrist. 

You’d taken the opportunity to look into his big, brown eyes and examine his now blushed face, ultimately deciding this boy was inexplicably ethereal. You could drown in the deepness of his irises and the urge to pinch his pouty cheeks was overpowering your own sense of respectfulness to this stranger. 

-

You remember how he later apologized and  quietly explained to you the meaning of daisies. After bringing out two peanut butter jelly sandwiches from the kitchen onto his porch, where the both of you shared the lunch, he began to ramble on to you about the perfections of a simple flower that was not so simple at all and it's symbolism of true love. 

And from that very moment on, you knew you had fallen in love with Kim Seungmin, the nerd next door who explained the very composition of flowers to you over a sandwich at age 13. 

And unbeknownst to you, Kim Seungmin had developed a disgustingly soft spot in his heart for his absent-minded  new friend next door. 

-

Nothing much had changed now. You were still hopelessly in love with Seungmin, who was as focused as ever on his studies and baseball team activities just six years later. 

-

The memory and realization fade just as soon as it came to you with Seungmin's grip on your wrist, which now that you look back down was still quite firm about a minute into your usual walk home. 

Though you could almost guarantee it wasn't anything intentionally done by Seungmin, it didn't fail to put a stupid smile on your face. 

So far Seungmin had noticed your rather quiet disposition, something he deemed off about you.

"Are you okay?" He asked. 

"Perfectly fine," you grinned, narrowing your eyes into happy crescents as you lifted the arm that currently clinged Seungmin's own hand, much to his embarrassment. 

He'd quickly released your arm at your teasing, opting to scratch the back of his head as he scoffed. 

"Who'd you stay to talk with today?" He asked. You'd assumed he was simply trying to change the subject from his embarrassment, but in fact, the thought of who you could have possibly spent just five minutes with after school had been eating him alive for the past minute. You had never made him wait, at least not without some sort of warning.

"Just a guy in my chem class, I met him by my locker on the way out," you responded, not giving your answer much thought. 

"What did he want?" He asked again. 

Seungmin sure had been asking an awful lot today. 

"Don't be so nosy, Seungmin! It really doesn’t suit you. It doesn't really matter much anyway. And how do you know I wasn't the one who wanted something from him, huh?" You teased him slightly, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"Can't I ask about the whereabouts of my best friend when they leave me out in the hot, melting sun waiting for them!" He teased back, stopping in his tracks to begin to poke your sides harshly.

"Fine, fine, fine!" You give in. "Just stopppppp," you shook his hands away.

"Hyunjin offered to tutor me in chem. I'm officially failing," you laugh off, "he wanted to ask what days we should schedule our study sessions for." You explained.

"Wait, Hyunjin? As in Hwang Hyunjin? The pretty one?" Seungmin's eyes widen at the thought of a rather good looking and outgoing guy offering you tutoring lessons out of the goodness of his heart, he almost scoffs out loud. 

"Stop asking so many questions, Min!" You softly punch his arm, bursting his thought bubble. 

"Besides, 'the pretty one', Min? I didn't know you liked Hyunjin like that? Want me to put in a good word for you?" You teased further, laughing at his choice of words. Sure, Hyunjin was pretty well known by most for his good looks, but he had simply offered you help in your studies in a subject he happened to excel in and that had no such thing to do with his looks. 

"Shut up," he rolled his eyes, taking his turn to lightly punch you back from before. 

Afterwards the walk fell to a comfortable silence between the two of  you. 

At least that was how you would describe it to be. While you happily hummed and thought of what snacks you could whip up once you got home, Seungmin seriously pondered why you hadn't told him you weren't doing so well in chemistry. Or why you hadn't come to him for help first, he had already taken the class after all? And why the very thought of Hwang Hyunjin being with you by your locker afterschool while he had to wait outside for you made him so uncomfortable. Was uncomfortable the right word in this situation? He thought some more and concluded the thought of Hyunjin near you at all made him exceptionally mad, not just uncomfortable, for whatever the reason may have been (though he did have a hunch as to why he was feeling this way).

You looked over at the quiet boy next to you, noticing his intense state of thought, as he harshly bit his lower lip, furrowed his eyebrows slightly and kept an adamant gaze ahead of him. The sight was quite cute actually, cute enough to make you laugh. 

"Earth to Kim Seungmin, you are wanted here immediately, please report for duty," you giggled, dramatically waving your arm in front of his face to snap him out of his daze. 

"Sorry," Seungmin suddenly looks at you, cheeks hot and hands clenched onto the straps of his backpack. 

His gaze is not like anything you'd ever seen come from him. It looks serious, yet almost sad? The way his eyes look glossed over have you wanting to kiss his cheeks and lift the corners of his mouth to reveal his signature smile, the one you love so much.

But you know better than to let your imagination get the best of you and you quickly shake your head to get rid of such thoughts about your best friend in his very presence.

"No worries, just talk to me if you need to, okay?" You reach over to comfort him, rubbing his arm softly in assurance of your words. 

Little did you know you were killing Seungmin RIP. 

You were now approaching your front porch, ready to whip out your keys and say home sweet home. Seungmin always came over for a bit after school to talk and mess around a bit before starting homework and today was no different. 

But just as you opened the door with the thought about what video game Seungmin would want to play today floating in your head, you noticed the boy had yet to move from the step of the porch. 

"Seungmin? Don't you want to come in?" You walked back over to him, choosing to stay standing on the step above him. 

"Y/n," he practically whispered. 

Suddenly, at this close proximity, you realize the tension in his face and the worry behind his eyes and the burning of his cheeks. 

You softly reach over and unclasp one of Seungmin's hands from the strap of his bag, taking his hand into your own and rubbing your thumb over his numb knuckles for comfort. 

"Are you okay Minnie? Do you need water? Are you sick?" You reach up to his forehead with your other hand to check his temperature. 

"No, I just think I need to tell you something, now." He spoke formally, no hint of his usual teasing or playfulness when it came to you. 

You could only nod at his strange current state, you were quite concerned. 

"Don't take Hyunjin's help." He stated firmly, as if reading it from a list of rules. His serious disposition did not falter one bit, as if he had given out the most simple order. 

"Is this what this is about? Min, how am I supposed to pass that dumb class. Seungmin I'm failing, like with an F, I know you don't know what that's like, but neither did I until now and I have to fix it somehow! We can't all be straight A students without even having to try!" You were practically tearing up at the intensity of which your words came out, you'd slightly lost control of your emotions in the moment, but Seungmin remained calm through the sharp words you threw, knowing you were simply frustrated with your grades and held no ill intentions with them. 

"I can help you study, I can stay with you at the library all day explaining it to you if I have to, I'll take notes on your textbook and give them to you. Why didn't you tell me you needed help sooner?" He looked at you even more intensely, if that were even possibly. Then reaching over, he held your free hand in his own free hand. 

At this point the worry in his eyes only made you want to hug him for the rest of your life, but there was so much tension surrounding the two of you right now.

"Min, you don't have to do that. If you don't want me getting help from Hyunjin, I won't. I trust you. But you don't have to waste your time being my teacher, trust me on that, you'll regret it." You attempt to laugh off your answer while swinging his hands in yours to lighten the mood, even if it's just a bit. Unfortunately, your teary eyes from your previous outburst give you away as a tear rolls down your cheek. 

Seungmin was unsure about how to go about this further. He wasn't sure how you didn't seem to get it? That he would sacrifice his sleep to help you pass a class, just so he could be the one to help you, not some Hwang Hyunjin. That he wouldn't hesitate to do anything, and he means anything, if you simply asked. That he currently had more photos of you on his camera and phone than he did selfies of himself. That he liked you for fuck's sake. How could you have not seen it in his blushy mess of a nervous state right now. Was he really that freaking deep in the friendzone? 

"I want to waste my time teaching you chemistry because I know I won't regret it. Because I'd never regret time spent with you." His words remained calm and precise, again as if he had prepared them and read them off a notecard. He looked down at his shoes, unable to confront you after the cheesy words left his mouth. 

He felt his hands begin to moisten with sweat in your grasp and tried to remove them from your hands. However he was met with your refusal, as your hands tightly gripped his own. 

"Kim Seungmin, I like you. Like really like you. Like, like-like you. And you cannot say those things to me and be protective of me and be cheesy with me and expect me not to want to just hug you and kiss you as if we weren't just best friends!" You blurted, in a sing-song whine much like your usual tone with your best friend.

You took in a very long breath of frustration and looked down as well. 

You were so caught up in thoughts of the implications of the words that had left your mouth so quickly, that you did not bother to notice how Seungmin had in fact perked up at your words and practically resembled a tomato at this point, not that you looked any less of the shade of red.

“Wait what????” Seungmin was awestruck from your outburst, was he hallucinating? This was not the time for his imagination. 

“There is no way, I’m repeating that,” you pouted.

“Not even if, I tell you I feel the same?” Seungmin smiled.

“Maybe after…” you swung your intertwined hand again.

“After ….?” he mocks

Seungmin suddenly closes the already small distance between the two of you and lands his soft lips just barely on the surface of your cheek. 

“Can you say it again now?” he teases. 

All tension dispelled, the mood is suffocating with the puppy love-struck expressions emitting from both your eyes. 

- 

“Seungmin, how can you kiss me before you even tell me you like me?” 

You’re both inside now, after your apparently long-awaited confession, Seungmin had decided a cuddle session was called for in celebration, not that you were complaining. 

“I thought it was just obvious?” Seungmin replies 

“We could have been dating for so long by now,” You both sigh to one another at the thought you’d both had looming in your heads for the past hour.

“Guess we’ll just have to make up for lost time,” Minnie nuzzles his head into your neck trying to hide from his own sly remark. 

“Can we study chem now though, I’m still failing,” You whisper into his ear, the notion of that failing grade still very much prominent in your head. 

“In a bit, do you know how long I’ve waited for this?” The arms around your waist tighter their loose grip and Seungmin pulls you even closer to him, enough to feel the warmth emitting from his chest and suddenly you thought chem could wait.