#I WOULD DIE I WOULDN’T SURVIVE A KISS FROM THIS PERFECT MAN

[wildsaltair]

I would rise from the dead, dig my way out of a grave, and travel for decades over miles of earth and sea to get to this man

(I think I might have screencapped these from @losthavenmine’s amazing gifs awhile back, but lmk if I am incorrect because I can’t remember)

[kahlanmars]

BAD FEELING part. 8

HIIII, I did have some troubles with the story but I'm here now!

MASTERLIST (parts 1 - 7)

8. The Interview

*gif not mine*

You wake up sweaty and crying. 

A murderer, you are a murderer, you are a killer, you are a monster. 

«Haymitch!» You scream, panic in your voice. He comes close and hugs you tight, allowing you to kiss him through the tears. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t cuddle you like you are a kid, but he stays there.

«I’m sorry I woke you up.» You whisper, when you are calmed down a bit. Gosh he had the roughest night and he has to console you.

«Nonsense.» He replies, but you know he is tired, his eyes are baggy and puffed and his hands are trembling. 

«You were having a rough night and I…» He stops you with a kiss. 

«And you cleaned up my mess and stayed with me. Stop. This. Nonsense.» 

You shut up and kiss him again. You feel guilty because you get to kiss this amazing guy and that man is dead, but most of all you feel guilty because you don’t. You tighten his embrace and pepper kisses on his face. It’s weird how different he can be at night. 

You are not feeling guilty because the man you killed was a violent rapist. One less in the world. You murdered him and now he won’t assault other victors. And you were protecting the people you loved. You were protecting them. You repeat that to yourself like a mantra.  

«Are you feeling better?» You ask him with a concerned look on your face.

«Yes, sweetheart, I feel better. Sleep, we have a rough day ahead of us.» 

You would really want him to know you understand. You may not get completely what he experienced, but you get what an addiction is. He is severely traumatised. 

You are in love with him. You may be dead in two days and you are in love with someone for the first time, and you know Holly wouldn’t be pleased - a grumpy man fifteen years older than you. But if a miracle happens and you win the games (the only chances are whatever happened to Annie Cresta, maybe), you are sure you want to spend the rest of your life with him.

He doesn’t get to say a word about it.

Today is the day of the interview. Today is the last day you have to pretend to be a perfect princess to survive. 

You just decided.

The preparation team comes in the morning, so you make sure you are in your room and not Haymitch’s and you wait for them to arrive. Everybody is still sleeping, Katniss and Peeta included. 

«Girl, hi! You were so good, a TEN? We may have a winner this year!» You hear Portia’s voice and go to hug her. You don’t think Twelve will have a winner this year, you are probably dead already and you can’t even mention Clark winning it, but what could you say? “No, I’m gonna die”? No, you have to play pretend. 

«I’ve thought of something pretty special for you.» She can’t contain the excitement from her face. 

«I’m in your hands.» You assure her. 

The next two hours are fully dedicated to preparation and when you get to look yourself in the mirror you remember how happy you were the first time someone made you this cute. Sure, you hate the Capitol, but you can’t help it, you love fashion, dresses and make up. Just not as much as you love, you know, staying alive.

Your raven hair is silky smooth, your eyes are painted with silver glitter but the dress is what is really stunning. Blue and silver, with diamonds on the shoulders and the neckline, long lace sleeves and a massive gown. You look like an ancient goddess of nature, not a twenty-four year old tribute.

«You are a princess!» Portia is behind you, looking at her masterpiece. You don’t know who the interview will be, but there is no doubt the dress will be remembered.

«You think so?»

«Are you ready? We have to go or Effie will blame it on…» Haymitch appears in the room but soon his words fade. «Me.»  

«Do I look good?» 

He just nods until you are in the elevator, for Portia’s sake probably. Still, you are selfish and you really would want him just to scoop you up and kiss you in front of everybody. This is impossible, you know that. 

«Do I look good?» You repeat, even if your friends at home would say against it. This is not a great technique, being utterly in love - in lust - with someone who can clearly notice it. You should play hard to get, maybe? But then again most of the people don’t die in two days, so you feel no shame in saying that you really like him. 

«If only this elevator wasn’t transparent.» He winks at you and then, probably after a few words in his mind, he places a hand on your back.

«What would you do, mentor?» You grin, you can’t help it but flirt with him, especially on something that you like so much like the dresses.

«Teach you a few things, sweetheart.» 

«Don’t call me sweetheart if you don’t want to kiss me!» 

He stops you before you could go for a cuddle, because he knows you too much. «After, in the penthouse. I will be in the audience and Effie and Portia will be with you on the sofa.»

You bright up at the mention of your escort. «Do you think Effie will like the dress?»

«You are gorgeous, it’s impossible not to love it.» He says, clearly annoyed. 

«Good. But to be fair she is gorgeous-gorgeous, like naturally a goddess so I don’t think it counts.» 

He rolls his eyes. «I don’t even want to know if I need to be jealous.» 

«You should just keep an eye on us.» You joke. 

Turns out you are not that ready for an interview.

«That I don’t mind.» He kisses you on the cheek, and in a moment you are ready for the interview.  

You are a little ashamed of yourself for being scared. You love people, you love talking, and you actually like being Panem Sweetheart when they don’t talk about puking to eat more or bullshit like that. You wanted to be a teacher, you are not exactly an introvert. 

Then why are you so nervous? 

You want Effie or Portia, they would bring you up. In situations like these you always want your friends. 

You really, really tried not to think about your friends at home, because if you think about them you wonder if they watch you, if they have food for the month, how are the kids at school and the one you babysit. You miss Madge, the major’s daughter. She is a little younger than you, Katniss’s age, but you two bonded while you cleaned the major’s house. 

Now is not the time to think about it, Daisy.

«So, District 12. Do you miss home?» Caesar asks. This year he has a purple wig, less beautiful than last year’s one. He is in front of you and he still manages to look like he's on television. No wrinkles, no flaws, very Capitol. It’s kinda scary.

«Of course I miss home, I miss the children. I wanted to be a teacher, and I’m a babysitter. I was.» You correct yourself with a bright smile. «But I discovered I like dresses and fashion.»

«Really? Not many tributes say thay!» Yeah, maybe because we are dragged here to slaughter each other. 

«Oh well, Caesar, I have to say that Capitol City surprised me, but the people are very nice!» Liar liar. The only nice people in the Capitol are Effie and Portia, and from what you saw, Cinna. But of course you can’t tell that to Caesar Flickerman, Panem's most beloved showman. «And thanks to my escort, Effie Trinket, I now know what it feels to be pretty.»

If President Snow got to threaten Effie because of you he is aware you love her so much, so for what it’s worth you want her to have the recognition she deserves.

«You seem very fond of your escort.»

«Yeah, I mean, Effie is a genius, and so is my mentor, Haymitch Abernathy. I wouldn’t have been able to have a ten without them, I have a chance thanks to them. And to Portia, who designed this beautiful dress!» You really want Effie to be happy, but you feel like you have to mention your entire team. You can see Haymitch in the audience, nodding at you. 

«Oh, and this beautiful dress is for someone in particular? Like a suitor?» 

«Not exactly. No, mom, I don't have a boyfriend!» You look directly at the camera, and you hear that the people in the audience are laughing. Good. «But I do like someone.»

«A boy from your district?» Caesar leans towards you, like you are gossiping in the market. You play along. 

«A man from my district. The most awesome and handsome and intelligent man I know.» 

«So you have to win for him.» He takes your hand. As much as you despise Capitol City, you don’t think Caesar Flickerman is a bad person. He is really trying to make you look good, maybe he is like Effie, simply livin’ in luxury, not aware of what happens in the districts. 

«I will win for me. But yeah, I think he will be a good bonus!»

You are quickly dismissed with a lot of claps. It went well. 

You want to go to the penthouse, but Clark is there and truth to be told you don’t even want to listen to him, your interview went well and you just want to go back to relax for the last time, but of course your mentor and escort are not only yours, so you have to wait on the sofa with Effie and Portia.

«You are a talent, girl! When you will be out of the arena I will make you a star!» Effie is not delusional, so she must be a real hopeful woman to say when and not if. Or maybe she really loves you. You hug her tight, just in case, and she gives you a kiss on the cheek like Haymitch did before.

«If I win for a miracle I want to become a dressmaker.» You decide. Not a fancy one, just for the district. You like clothes too much. 

«I expect nothing less, darling girl.»

«Will you be my first model?» 

«I will be honoured.» 

She smiles at you. You made the right decision earlier, you couldn't risk her. Not Effie.

«Let’s watch Clark, then you have to tell me about this man of yours.» 

You roll your eyes - everybody knows you and the other tribute don’t get along, there’s no point in deny it - but stay there to be with them.

«So, Clark, tell us about you. You are from District 12.» Caesar tries really hard to make the guy shine, but all the answers Clarke gives him are dry, laconic and terse. You know he doesn’t want to be there, not shit, you are not really fond of interviews on your last day on earth either, but sponsors could be watching. Doesn’t he want food, supplies and medicines too?

You don’t listen to what he says until he tells Caesar something which catches your attention.

«I don’t think I will win, if I have to be honest.» Liar. He is arrogant and you can see it in his eyes, maybe that’s the strategy he decided with Haymitch. To be… you don’t know what’s the word, pathetic?

«Oh c’mon don’t say that! You are strong, you have a fit body, don’t be humble!» 

You know before he could open his mouth that he has an asset. It’s written all over his bloody disgusting face. 

«Well, it would be easier if my fellow tribute didn’t sleep with our mentor. Really helps with the sponsors.» 

Fuck. You are gonna kill him.

[namelessalessandra]

First Meeting

Charles Leclerc x Reader

Summary: You’re at a party in montecarlo and your cousin introduces you to some of her friends

Warnings: alcohol usage, speeding, Charles and Pierre

Also English is not my first language so there could be some mistakes

I reach out my hand to the tray held in balance from a waiter and grab the first drink that happens to me, if I’m going to survive this evening I definitely won’t be sober. I move around the crowd, looking around trying to find my cousin who practically begged me to follow her to this party full of rich presumptuous people from Montecarlo, I feel totally out of place while I sip from my glass with fake confidence. The long, black and adherent silk dress that I chose to wear does not help me to breathe any better since my corset holds me at the waist, plus it’s so hot I could die.

-(Y/N)- I hear shouting and so I turn around looking for the source of the voice, hope filling my eyes. My cousins comes towards me, smiling. She wears a beautiful golden dress with a very sexy split on the leg, and a non vulgar neckline that stands out from her torso.

-Oh, thank god I found you. When can we leave?- I ask getting closer to her, some spoiled rich young man slams against my arm, making me almost spill the drink and I would like to shout at him but I don’t even know half word in French so I contain myself. When I decided to take the plane from Italy to come to Montecarlo to my cousin’s without even knowing a sentence to introduce myself I didn’t worry that much. And it wouldn’t have been a problem if I had decided to stay for a couple of days or a week, but the three summer months proved to be a very long time in a country when anyone who talks to you seems to call you a stupid in every situation. My cousin laughs when she sees me rolling my eyes and surrounds my shoulders with her arm

-I remind you that I can’t speak French, so how do you want me to communicate to your friends if I can’t even introduce myself?- I ask raising an eyebrow, my perfect cousin hints a laugh that only causes me more confusion

-there they are! Boys!- she exclaims raising her arm and moving like a possessed, I follow the direction of her gaze, my face totally red because of embarrassment since some people around us turn to look at us, but when I see the two guys my cousin’s talking to, all those daddy’s boys around us disappear. I hear my cousin say to me ‘come with me’ before pulling me faster and we reach the two guys.

-(Y/N), he’s Pierre- my cousin says pointing to the first guy, he has blue eyes and fleshy lips pulled into a mischievous smile, surrounded by a light uncultivated beard. He hands me his hand that I squeeze quickly

-piacere di conoscerti, (Y/N), tua cugina ci ha parlato molto di te, finalmente ti conosciamo- (nice to meet you, (Y/N), your cousin told us a lot about you, finally we meet you) he says in perfect italian, I’m totally taken aback.

-He is Charles- my cousin starts talking again, pointing to the other guy. His eyes are clear too, but a different shade from Pierre, even though I can’t recognise it that well because of the sun downing. His lips are less flashy but his smile is surrounded by a couple of really cute dimples. He takes my hand and kisses it’s back without ever taking his eyes off of me, I’m speechless and so I just blush like a fool

-ci ha detto che eri bella, ma non così tanto- (she had said that you are beautiful, but not that much) he says, always in Italian, after letting my hand go. My cousin snorts a laugh

-always a Casanova, Leclerc- I hear her mutter amused, out of the corner of my eye I see Pierre surrounding her hips with his arm before taking her to the dance floor where some guys started dancing. I’m alone with Charles who hands me his hand again

-do you want to dance? These parties are not that much of fun, but there’s alcohol and food and dancing is a good excuse to get to know you- he comments in English making me laugh, I accept his proposal and in a moment we’re next to Pierre and my cousin, who are moving on a slow and not particularly tempting dance. The total opposite from the guy who’s holding me against his body. I can feel the muscles of his toned arms against my body and his perfume gets into my nostrils, and I don’t know if it’s the alcohol that I drunk o some other reason, but it smells so good that my head starts spinning

-So, (Y/N), your cousin said that you’re spending summer with her, but you’re not from here. Where do you come from?- Charles asks while moving in time. Reluctantly I distract myself from his good scent to try and give him a good answer.

-I’m italian. My mother and my cousin’s mother are sisters, both italian, but my aunt met a monegasque and moved here while my mother stayed in Italy- I answer shrugging my shoulders. Our eyes meet and my breath shakes. Is it me, or is he the most handsome guy that I’ve ever seen?

-And how do you know Italian that well?- I ask back, Charles raises his eyebrows almost shocked, but it only lasts one moment because then he comes back smiling at me

-I work with Italians so I had to learn- he explains and when I’m about to ask him about his job, the song ends and my cousin takes my wrist exclaiming something about appetisers. My gaze stay for a while chained to Charles’s while I let her drag me to the buffet, I only turn around when I see him come towards us with Pierre.

-So, what do you think?- my cousin asks taking a shrimp tart, I take a salmon one, shrugging my shoulders amused

-shrimps are not really my cup of tea, you know I prefer salmon- I joke making her roll her eyes. She gives me a small slap before whispering

-I meant Charles. What do you think about Charles- she explains herself even though she knows I understood the first time. I am saved by the arrival of the subject of the speech and his friend. My cousin hands Pierre a tart and he takes two champagne flutes. Charles hands a flute to me too and I gladly accept it. I see him taking a tart too.

-So is this how you guys party?- I ask the three of them, who look at me confused. I shrug without hiding my disappointed expression -from someone so devoted to luxury I expected funnier parties. Come on, you go around aboard Ferraris and Porches, swim while listening to music on your enormous yacht and then have such boring parties?- I add, my cousin laughs. We often joke about our countries different cultures.

-Tell us, then, how do you party, you little ungrateful italian?- Pierre asks without hiding an amused smile, my cousin looks me in the eyes, praying me not to do it by shaking her head. I extend my hand to the blond one.

-Come on, give them to me- I say amused, and I talk again at his confused gaze: -the Keyes of your Porsche, or Ferrari, or whatever it is- I am careful to also move my fingers to highlight my expectation. Pierre looks at my cousin as if he’s asking her confirmation of what’s happening. She sighs

-(Y/N), please, don’t do that. You don’t know what you’re getting into- her voice is full of embarrassment, I raise my eyebrow at the blond man at her side who’s still hesitating

-you know what? Here are the keys of my car, let’s see what you can do- Charles intervenes giving me his keys. I smile at him, satisfied, and thank him before moving towards the parking with them close behind. I click on the key looking for the right car. A dark grey opaque Ferrari with a red strap and a blank one on the hood. I’m not that good at recognising cars, usually, but the symbol in plain sight gave me the clue. I get on the driver side and turn to the owner of the car after putting on my seat belt.

-Are you coming or not?- I ask smiling at him, I feel full of adrenaline and my cousin understands it because she pushes Pierre to the next car

-hurry up, let’s get on the car before we lose her- she says to him in a whisper. Charles takes place beside me and puts the seat belt on while I turn on the car. I turn to the drivers on the car next to ours being careful to make the engine roar

-meeting point is the pizza place on the seaside. You think you can beat me?- I ask not holding back my fun. Pierre looks at me as if he’s thinking ‘are you serious?’ before we both start driving. The distance from the party terrace to the pizzeria will be no more than ten minutes, Charles' convertible car makes my hair flutter in the wind that is created with my speed and I can't help but scream with excitement. Pierre, beside us, seems as amused as I am while we challenge each other to who is faster. Charles next to me laughs incredulous as I press more on the accelerator and put a hand out of the window to feel the air flowing. When we’re about to arrive, Pierre surpasses me for one minute and I let him be with tranquillity. Charles tells me to surpass him and I look at him. I smile mischievously and when I see the pizza-place’s sign I press on the accelerator surpassing his friend, just then I stop the car in front of the entrance. Pierre joins us after a second and I see my cousin take off her seat belt and come towards me with big steps.

-Before shouting at me, how do you want your pizza?- I ask putting my hand in the neckline of my dress. The positive in wearing a bra is that I’m not obliged to take my purse with me because I can put my money inside it. My cousin rolls her eyes before shrugging her shoulders.

-Okay, I’ll take care of it. Do you guys have preferences?- I ask turning to the boys who still look at me upset but amused. Both of them shake their heads and so I get inside the pizza place. Within a few minutes I get back in the car, and pass the cartons and beers to Charles.

-Hey Pierre, do you think you can keep up with me? We are about to reach the free beach at the end of the promenade- I raise my voice to talk to the blond who makes the car roar in response. So we leave again, challenging ourselves in the three minutes car ride to reach the designated point. We stop at exactly the same time, luckily there are no cars around because there is a party in the city center, so we can park calmly and get out of the cars.

-Where did you learn to drive, little Italian?- Pierre asks amused, I burst out laughing shrugging my shoulders

-If I told you where would the fun be? - I ask before taking off my heels because we reached the beach. My cousin intertwines her arm with mine letting the two go forward. A tell-of is coming.

-I love your immeasurable ego, cousin, and it really looks like it brought you luck. You really didn't understand who those two are?- she questions scolding me in a low voice so as not to make them hear us, I shake my face before looking at her curiously.

-The typical sons of dad you introduced me to even a few years ago when I came to see you?- I ask uncertain. She sighs raising her eyes to the sky, hitting her forehead with the palm of her hand.

-Charles Leclerc and Pierre Gasly are two Formula 1 drivers- she exclaims in a low voice and my heart loses a beat. I widen my eyes gasping like a fish and she nods. We both burst out laughing because this is exactly one of the things we would both expect from me, and the we reach the guys. We spend the rest of the evening eating pizza and drinking our beers, talking about this and that, until Pierre proposes to throw us in the sea. He and my cousin immediately take off their clothes and go into the water, leaving me and Charles alone. I remember the news my cousin gave me before we sat down to eat and I decide to say something.

-I would never have challenged him if I had known you run in a car for work. I didn't want to look like a buffoon or anything, I just thought you were the typical dad's children that my cousin introduced me to when I was little- I say in a low voice, embarrassed. Charles, who just took off his jacket and shirt, turns to look at me. His toned torso distracts me for a moment as I see him approaching.

-I don't think Pierre's ego was scratched in the slightest, in fact I think he had fun- he responds to reassure me, so I nod and give him my shoulders moving my hair from my back to one shoulder

-Could you unty my dress?- I ask and I don't have to repeat myself twice because a second later his fingers touch my back. My cousin screams, then we hear the sound of water and Pierre's laughter.

-Hey you two lovebirds, are you coming? The water is beautiful- he yells at us as my cousin resurfaces and throws herself on his shoulders. I turn to Charles thanking him

-Now let's hurry, or Pierre comes to get us by the hair- the brunette jokes making me laugh. I take off my dress and he takes off his pants and we run to the water, where we clash in a war of splashes all against everyone.

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Title fic:The wind that shakes the Barley.

 Here’s the thing about memories. They don’t make you older. They’re just there. They’re feelings and thoughts and can fade over time, disappearing into the ever never to see again.

 However, sometimes they don’t always fade. They linger in your mind, playing over and over again. Sometimes they stick in your brain, making you unable to forget. Ever.

 Sometimes, you die and wake up again, remembering a life long past. And sometimes that changes things.

---

 A small bang echoed through the apartment, Midoriya Inko barely looking up from her book as she sat on the couch.

 “Any injuries?” she called out, turning a page. 

 “No!”

 “Anything damaged?”

 “No!”

 “Alright,” Inko said, picking up her cup of tea to sip. Elsewhere in the apartment, a young boy named Midoriya Izuku sighed as he turned to his notebook, crossing off a line.

 “The addition of vodka to the mixture did not cause a significant change in freeze point. Rather it exploded.” Izuku muttered as he wrote down his words. “Possibly add antifreeze? Mom said she’d only allow it if I can prove I won’t be harmed by it. Do more research.” Izuku closed the notebook with a sigh, turning back to his experiment. Recreating the Flask of Frost from his old life was more challenging then he’d hoped. The Flask of Fire had been pretty simple, as had remaking the flame proof liquid to treat his clothing and body with. But he found himself stuck with Frost. 

 The boy quickly began cleaning up the mess created. He tucked a strand of hair that had fallen out of it’s bun behind his ear with a shoulder, juggling his mess. He missed Kihm and Sera. Those two would have delighted in helping him figure this out. Honestly the two would have had a blast in this world, the science so far ahead of everything. Izuku certainly enjoyed it.

 He dumped the items in his arms into the box in his room, meaning for disposing of his creations before he removed his soot-covered apron and goggles, dropping them into the hamper. Leaving his room, Izuku passed by his mother who simply glanced up to make sure he was okay before going back to his book. 

 “I’m going out tonight,” Izuku told her as he went to the kitchen for some water.

 “You have school tomorrow.”

 “Ha.” Izuku snorted. “School.”

 “Izuku,” Inko said mildly. Izuku groaned, rolling his eyes and dramatically flopping onto a kitchen counter.

 “It’s so duuuuuumb. And the teachers are assholes.”

 “Language.”

 “Mother I have heard you during poker night.”

 “Trying to be a good parent.” Inko said quietly. It made Izuku get off the counter to walk over to where she sat. He hefted himself over the back of the couch so he could lean into her, arms wrapping around her.

 “You’re a great parent. Fuck anyone else saying otherwise.” Izuku kissed her head, Inko putting the book down to hug her son’s arm.

 It really was true for Izuku. He wouldn’t call Inko perfect; he’d never believed anyone could be perfect. But she was a great parent. Better then his old life where his parents were criminals who only had him to continue the Cadash family. He’d loved them distantly but man they’d been terrible parents. Inko though? Inko was great. She took every bit of his wildly scattered personality he’d had to rebuild in stride and loved him more then anything. He’d heard her threaten Hisashi within an inch of the bastard’s life. That meant a lot.

 “I love you baby,” Inko said, squeezing his arm. “School is still mandatory.”

 “Uuuuuuugh,” Izuku groaned. “Fine I’ll only hunt for a few hours and come back before midnight.”

 “Good.” Inko patted his arm as he let go. “Now go and clean your room.”

 “Fine.” Izuku shook his head with a laugh as he got up. He loved his mom.

-0-

 Izuku used to be known as Malika Cadash. He’d been a she then, a criminal who was told to go spy on the Conclave to see how things would work out. Back to buisness or would they need a new way to make coin. She’d ended up surviving an explosion and somehow found herself leading an entire organization where people claimed she was the face of a human god. Funny given she was a dwarf and the Chant said she was less then any human in the world.

 It hadn’t been all bad, Izuku knew through the shattered dreams and memories. Malika found friends, love and even became a hero. All with just a pair of daggers and some science knowledge. 

 Frankly she’d also sucked at daggers and took to the more sinister side of rogue work easily. So it really was a surprise to Izuku to remember that. 

 It was what inspired him to try and recreate his old tools, learn his old tricks. He would be a hero again. Even if he was Quirkless. 

 Sitting on a building’s roof edge, Izuku peered down at the fight going on below. Amplifier was fighting a pair of villains with what looked like the same Quirk but… it felt off. Izuku squinted, seeing one of the men fighting spit and the other… oh eww.

 “He just swallowed the spit,” Izuku said in disgust. He wrote that down in his notebook anyway. “He probably has a Copy Quirk. Works with spit the guy swallows…  ewww.”

 “Good to know,” a voice said from behind Izuku. He didn’t flinch.

 “Hi Eraser!” Izuku said as the erasure hero settled beside him for the briefest of seconds before dropping down into the fray. He watched as the two heroes worked together to take the villains down. When they finished, Eraserhead spoke with Amplifier, motioning up to the roof. Izuku waved as the heroine looked up. She shook her head, probably amused. 

 Eraserhead used his scarf to scale the building after they secured the villains, Amplifier obviously calling for some police. Izuku waited patiently.

 “It’s late kid.” Eraser grunted.

 “I’m aware. I’m going home soon.” Izuku groaned. “I hate school but mom can’t get me into online stuff.” Izuku would think the woman hadn’t even tried if he didn’t know her so well. She had, multiple times tried. But nothing worked. 

 “School is important.” Eraser said.

 “Well duh.” Izuku snorted. He went back to writing down his analysis of the fight he’d seen. “But between the Quirkist teachers, the bullying and the fact it’s a very low ranking school it’s not worth it. Particularly with Bakugou around.”

 “Bakugou?” Eraserhead asked. Izuku hummed. He’d known the hero for a while, hunting heroes at night tended to do that. While at first the guy used to try to make Izuku go home it evolved into him just nagging about the time and chasing him around when Izuku decided to mess with him. Most of the other underground heroes were the same.

 “Guy whose been told for his entire life he’s got a perfect Quirk. Never faces any consequences for bullying or using it either.” Izuku shrugged. “System worked against him but he’s also been always a bit of an angry brat. Knew him since we were born. Very vivid memory of before age four the kid giving me a nickname to mean useless.”

 “Personality disorder?” Eraserhead asked.

 “Possibly. Or could just be an angry child who never got taught consequences are things that can happen.” Izuku shrugged. “Honeslty he’s really not creative with his bullying either. Typical smart jock who is the apple of the teacher’s eyes. Loud bragging, some Quirk use on other kids. Not as much as when we were little but like…” Izuku shrugged.

 “So a budding villain,” Eraserhead said.

 “Oh no. Well maybe not. A budding Endeavour yeah. He’s got skill and drive but needs a cold hard reality check more then anything.” Izuku said in disagreement. “I hope he does get into UA cause I think having super strong people from all around the country be in his class might shake him from his big fish mentality.” Izuku shrugged. It wasn’t like Bakugou bothered him. Not really. The bullying was boring frankly after years of being poisoned by his trainers to build up an immunity coupled with the backstabbing the Carta had in its ranks. Oooh I’m going to hurt you with my Quirk. Izuku started dumping his fireproofing on himself in their third year of elementary school. Oh I’m going to beat you up. Izuku could climb and hide better then the other kid. Izuku did step in when Bakugou bothered other kids, but that was about the extent of his involvement. More so when Bakugou realized he couldn’t hurt other children like he could try to hurt Izuku in school.

 Systematic bullying and abuse was awful. Izuku though could withstand it.

 “Well you are tweleve. That gives you time,” Eraserhead said.

 “Ha! I knew you knew who I am!” Izuku grinned. “Yeah, it does. Hoping for a different middle school honestly. Aldera suuuuuuuucks.” Izuku rolled his eyes. “Maybe look for an analyst specialized school.” 

 “Smart.” Eraser hummed. “And of course I know who you are you problem child. The only reason I don’t do anything is I’ve seen you use that chain of yours.” Izuku grinned. He closed his notebook with a sigh.

 “Alright I’m going home.” Izuku announced. He stood up to stretch before reaching under his hoodie to pull his chain out from where it was wrapped around his hips. “See you Aizawa.” With a hard snap, Izuku used the chain as a whip, wrapping it around a fire escape on another building before jumping off the one he stood on. A nice trick he’d picked up from Aizawa actually. He used to use chains to wrap around enemies and launch himself forward to them, and this new trick wasn’t much harder.

 “Wait you know-“ Eraserhead said before his voice was lost in the wind. Izuku just laughed. Hacking was easy, and his new worlds form of lock picking. It wasn’t hard to figure out who Eraserhead was with that. 

-0-

 Izuku tapped his fingers on the desk, staring at the screen in front of him. He’d been randomly wandering social media when he saw it. A post from a random account on Tumblr. Not something he’d pay attention to normally. If it wasn’t for two things.

 One, the name of the blog was IronFuckingBull. A phrase the Iron Bull, his husband, used in Izuku’s past life. 

 Two, the post had the same message written out in Qunlat, Tevinter, Elvish, Dwarven and Inquisiton code.  A code Izuku helped his spymaster develop his past life. 

 There were others like him out there. And… a very strong possibility Bull was one of them.

Notes: Ran out of steam, this is one I DO want to do. Basically it would be following Izuku as he and his friends adjust to their new lives. Some other notes: Nezu is Solas who died at the hands of the DA4 protag. Izuku had been with them and sat with him while he died.

Iron Bull is Tetsutetsu. Krem is Awase.

Momo is Varric while Hawke is Kaminari.

Fuyumi is Vivienne and has already exposed her father and entered politics with her husband Hawks (Duke Bastian reborn to)

Others would come.

Pairings: Izuku/Tetsutetsu, Momo/Kaminari, Fuyumi/Hawks. Others TBD

[kptssecretsanta]

Merry Christmas, @monochrome-crisis!

Dear @monochrome-crisis, I have really enjoyed writing this for you, and I hope you like it. Your prompts were delightful and it was a lot fun playing around with these two. Happy Holidays if you observe, and happy fic-gift-day to you if you don’t! Best, your anon gifter. 

TAGS: established relationship, secret relationship, arranged marriage, road trip, sort of, running away, 

SUMMARY: Chay stands quite still and watches him for several seconds, but it doesn’t help to make the jumble of nonsense words rearrange themselves into useful sentences in his head. 

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly. “An inauspicious start to what, precisely?”

“Why, to your marriage, of course!”

*****

can’t let this wait one more day

It’s Tankhun who accidentally breaks the news to Chay, on a rainy October afternoon when he’d expected to face nothing more challenging than a couple of hours playing the new Spider-Man game. A problem with his XBox has him venturing down to Arm’s office-cum-armoury-cum-tech lab, where he finds Tankhun sitting cross-legged on the floor, cutting pictures of floral arrangements and men in alarmingly colourful suits out of a vertiginously tall stack of bridal magazines. He snips some of them out with painstaking precision, and scratches the scissors angrily across others, his choices made according to some arcane and unknowable criteria. The images that survive his process are passed to Arm, who dutifully and efficiently pastes them down into a pastel pink, faux-fur-covered scrapbook.

“Khun? Is everything… Are you ok?”

“Auhhh! My favourite brother-in-law!” Tankhun cries at a volume that isn’t quite ear-piercing, but is certainly louder than required given the three of them are alone in an echo-y room, and Chay’s ears are less than thirty centimetres away from his mouth. “Everything is so much more than fine! It’s all wonderful! Practically perfect, in fact! Only do say you’ll let me dress you, nong, it would kill me to see you walk down the aisle in someone else’s shoes! And you wouldn’t break my heart like that, hmm, not on your wedding day? It would be a harbinger of so, so much bad luck! Such an inauspicious start, no?!”

Chay stands quite still and watches him for several seconds, but it doesn’t help to make the jumble of nonsense words rearrange themselves into useful sentences in his head. 

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly. “An inauspicious start to what, precisely?”

“Why, to your marriage, of course!”

***

“Nothing is set in stone,” Arm promises him, trying to calm him down while Tankhun flaps off to find Porsche. “It’s just an idea, at this stage, that’s all. Just something that was suggested - really, it’s more like it was vaguely alluded to - at the last family meeting. It doesn’t mean you have to marry anyone you don’t want to.”

The atmosphere in Arm’s little misery-bunker has always been a bit sad, but it’s never felt quite as overwhelmingly damp and awful as this moment in time. 

“I know you mean well, but ‘we might not marry you off against your will’ isn’t actually as reassuring as you seem to think it is,” Chay points out. He’s just pleased he can still form coherent words; that must mean the worst of the panic attack is subsiding.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Arm says, and Chay tries very hard to find the deeply sympathetic look on his face comforting instead of terrifying. 

***

Chay: hey 

Chay: u busy?

Chay: i need to see u its urgent

Chay: ive run away im at the boba place 

Chay: the one with the cute plants inside where you kissed me that time 

Chay: pls don’t take long they’re cutting me off

not my secret bf: be there in ten

***

Macau picks Chay up in his older brother’s convertible, stolen for the occasion, and drives off without any questions. The extent to which he’s ride-or-die is, in Chay’s opinion, one of his absolute top-ten best traits. At Chay’s request, he heads out of the city, no particular destination in mind. He doesn’t say anything until they’re far enough out they’re relying on headlights, and the sound of rain on the windscreen is louder than the traffic. 

“Whatever happened, it’s ok, babe. I promise.”

“You won’t say that when you know!” Chay cries. “Hia wants me to get married, Cau, it’s really serious!” 

“What?”

“That’s what Arm said. And Khun! I’m sorry, babe, I know he’s your cousin, but also. What the fuck? How could he know something like that and not tell me!” Chay’s voice rises frantically, reaching a fever pitch as he vents his frustration at once again being the last one to find out important information about his life. “Oh my god, what if it’s to some disgusting greasy old man who wants a good little wifey, that Kinn needs to sign some business deal with?” Chay says suddenly, face awash with horror. 

“Ok, first of all,” Macau says, glancing over at Chay from the driver’s seat of with a grin of a distinctly gremlin-y variety creeping across his face, “if Kinn needed someone to sign a contract that badly, he’d just break their fingers until they signed it.”

“That’s not reassuring, Cau.”

“And second of all,” Macau presses on, ignoring Chay’s point completely, “I’m not gonna let you marry anyone else, so it doesn’t matter anyway, hmm?”

“You really think they’ll listen to you?”

Macau frowns, impish grin fading as quickly as it had appeared, and clicks his fingernails on the wheel, the way Vegas really hates. “I dunno. Maybe? And if they don’t, we could just… leave, I guess.”

“I’m not - listen, babe, I love you, but your uncle kept my mum locked away in an attic for eighteen years because she married the wrong guy, so like. I don’t have that much faith in Kinn or Korn or Vegas to be super chill about someone trying to leave the family.” 

Macau shoots him a quick glance, eyes slicking sideways before snapping back to the road. “Well, if you put it like that…”

“Look, you don’t have to come with me,” Chay says, voice laced with grim determination. “I know you – all your family are here, your whole life is here. But I think I have to leave.”

“Ok, ok. But you don’t have to go now,” Macau says. “We can come up with a real plan, take a little time.”

“I can’t go back. I can’t walk back in there. I can’t spend another second there.”

Macau swerves suddenly and pulls up on the side of the road, switching the engine off but leaving the headlights on, so the curtains of thick rain ahead of them are illuminated in their glow. Turning to face Chay, he reaches over and takes his hand, linking their fingers together and squeezing gently. 

“Hey,” Macau says softly, which catches Chay’s attention more than any amount of screaming would have. “I’m sorry my family is such a fucking nightmare. I’m not - of course I’m not gonna make you go back. If you wanna leave tonight and never come back, we can do that.”

“But?” Chay asks nervously. Macau lifts a questioning eyebrow. “It sounded like there was a ‘but’ coming next.”

“Nope,” Macau says easily, shaking his head and letting Chay see the truth shining bright in his eyes. “No ‘but.’ I’d follow you anywhere, Porchay.”

“Cau…” Chay says, releasing the name like an invocation into the night air. 

Macau stares at him, gaze far too intense to bear for long, and then he turns to look out at the road spilling away into the darkness ahead of them. “Chay, you know, we could - if you want - they can’t make you marry anyone if you’re already married.”

“Fuck.” Chay lets out a breath, a long, deep exhalation that carries away half the tension in his whole frame. “How are you so perfect when your family is so…”

“Shit, no idea.” Macau laughs and it’s not pleasant. “This is why I didn’t want to tell them about us. They ruin everything they touch, and I wanted to try and keep you whole as long as possible. So I’d get it, you know, if you don’t want - augh!”

Macau shrieks a little, very bravely, as Chay throws himself across the centre console and clambers eagerly if awkwardly into his lap, winding long slender brown arms around his neck and kissing him fiercely until one of them accidentally jams a knee into the horn. 

***

The hotel is not quite clean enough to be boring, and just a little too rundown to be charming. It’s the last place anyone would ever think to look for them, which means it’s Macau’s new favourite spot. He pays for one room, daring the older man behind the desk to say something about the way he has his arm wrapped around Chay’s waist, fingers tapping out a gentle rhythm on his hips. Chay’s arm is draped over his shoulder in turn, so he can lean easily into his side, soaking up his warmth. 

There’s a horrible pause where the guy hangs on to the key a little too long, and then Macau tips his chin up defiantly. His hand closes around the key and whisks it away from him. 

“We can find it ourselves,” he says. It’s not until they’re halfway down the hallway to their room that he realises the guy had absolutely no intention of helping them with their bags. 

Not that they have bags, per se. Chay has his old school backpack with him, which he’d hurriedly stuffed with a couple of pairs of underwear and some clean socks, a spare power bank for his phone and laptop, and more snacks than Macau’s seen in one place outside of a child’s birthday party. 

Macau, on the other hand, has his phone, battery currently hovering around 19%, and his wallet. 

“I thought,” Chay says defensively, when he catches Macau eyeing his stash, “that I might have to get the bus somewhere.”

Macau shrugs out of his bomber jacket and tosses it haphazardly across the room. “You shut your mouth. My fiancé doesn’t take the fucking bus.” 

“Fiancé,” Chay murmurs to himself, rolling the word around his mouth. “Shit, Cau. Are you sure?”

“I am if you are.” Macau swallows and ignores the too-fast beat of his heart. Chay’s hand wraps around his wrist, fingertips pressing gently against his pulse point. Macau loves his touch so much; he hates why they’re here, but he’d be lying if he said he hates getting this much attention from Chay all at once, after months of existing from one stolen moment to the next.

Macau’s vague idea of showering and then planning the rest of his life is quickly shelved. He’s too busy letting Chay tumble them into bed, rolling over so Chay can pin his wrists and grind his hips down. Chay licks into his mouth and then laughs at the dramatic whine he lets out when he pulls away again too soon. It’s just for show; they both know Chay would never leave him so unsatisfied. 

They make love on scratchy sheets in a cheap hotel on the outskirts of the city, because neither of them could bear to drive any further, because they both need to get their hands on each other, because Chay doesn’t mind being Macau’s dirty little secret but he’s damned if he’ll be anyone else’s husband, and because Macau has had a lifetime of watching his family destroy every good thing that wanders into its path, and he’ll be damned if he lets Chay be their next target. 

As they fall asleep curled into each other, all warm skin and slow breathing, soft lips and steady heartbeats, Chay gives Macau the other reason he couldn’t marry anyone his hia chose for him. “I want to wake up next to you. Tomorrow. All my tomorrows.”

***

Arm wakes Chay gently, shaking his shoulder and stepping back discreetly as his eyes flutter open. Years of practice avoiding the flailing arms of a recently-roused Tankhun, Chay assumes. 

“Shit. How did you find us?” he mumbles, pulling the sheets over his head. 

“I don’t know where to start. You and Khun Macau have about twelve trackers between you, not counting your phones and his credit card.” Arm tugs the sheet away and turns his tablet around; it’s a mass of blinking dots concentrated in a small cluster. 

“Where’s Macau? What have you done to him?” Chay cries when he realises he’s alone in bed. 

“It’s ok, Khun Chay, he’s just getting coffee,” Arm says. He sounds calm, but Chay’s seen him like this before and knows it doesn’t mean he’s not alert.  

“If you try and keep us apart, I’ll scream so loudly that everyone in the hotel’s gonna think you’re murdering me,” Chay says. “I’m a singer, I can do it, phi. My lungs can do things you wouldn’t believe!” He’s aware that he doesn’t look all that threatening, probably, sleep-dopey and with his hair all mussed up, but it’s worth a try. His hia raised Chay very carefully, though, and the second most important lesson he ever taught Chay was not to back down from a fight he believed in.

(The first lesson was not to start fights you can’t win, but Chay is deliberately choosing to ignore that.)

“Ah, no, it’s ok, nong,” Arm says quickly. “Look, here’s Khun Porsche, I’m sure he can explain it all better than I can.”

As the door opens, Chay snorts the snort of a man who has a deep fraternal understanding of Porsche’s ability to explain anything at all. 

“Hia!” Chay leaps off the bed and strides angrily across the room, shoving at Porsche’s shoulder before the door has even swung closed behind him. “You son-of-a-bitch! You couldn’t even tell me to my face, what the fuck!” 

“Chay – ” 

“No! NO!” Chay pushes him again, hot tears of frustration welling in his eyes and making his brother’s face mercifully blurry. “How dare you? I had to find out from Tankhun, of all people?! And it’s not until I leave that you suddenly give a damn what happens to me? Get out of my way, I’m going to find Cau and if you try to stop me, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll. I’ll fucking bite you, I don’t know!” He’s properly crying now, beating his fists uselessly against Porsche’s chest. 

“Chay,” Porsche says again, far more gently this time, and he catches Chay’s wrists before pulling him into a tight hug. “Chay, it’s ok, it’s all ok, I promise.”

“Hia!” Chay squeezes out between loud sobs. “Hia, please.”

“Arm,” Porsche says, craning to speak over Chay’s head. “Arm, I think you need to go fetch Macau now.”

***

“The thing is, Khun Chay, that while the relationship between the major and minor families is much closer these days – ”

“You mean because hia and Khun Kinn can’t keep their hands off each other,” Chay asks. He knows that’s not really why, but it’s funny to see Arm trying to work out how to answer the question in front of Porsche. He’s currently sitting on Macau’s lap, arms wound around his neck, and while he hasn’t actually growled or snapped his teeth at anyone who comes near them, his demeanour is carefully cultivated to suggest that he might.

“Uh, yeah. Yes. That’s not how I’d – but yes, I suppose Khun Kinn and Khun Porsche do have quite a noticeable physical connection,” Arm admits reluctantly. “And it’s good that they’re married. That’s great! But obviously there’s the deposed remnants of the former minor family to consider – oh. Umm. Sorry for your loss, Khun Macau – but the point is that now we all have some distance from the attempted coup, Khuns Kinn and Porsche thought that, uh.”

“They thought it would be convenient to get me married off, I know.”

“No, hang on, it wasn’t - it was just a silly thing Khun suggested, and Kinn said it - ok, yeah, he said it would be convenient, yeah, but we weren’t going to actually do anything about it!” Porsche throws his hands up in exasperation, nearly knocking the tablet out of Arm’s hands. “You didn’t have to run away on a whim, Chay!”

“Hang on, what does this have to do with Vegas and I?” Macau asks, at the same time as Chay mutters ‘It wasn’t a whim!’

“What do you mean?” Porsche asks him, leaning forward with genuine confusion on his face. (Chay recognises it from the days when he used to ask Porsche for help with his algebra homework.) “It was – the plan was – well, no, it wasn’t a plan, but Khun’s idea was that you two should marry each other.”

“Oh shit,” Macau says, squeezing Chay’s waist tightly. “Oh, shit, babe! Do you know what this means?!”

Chay wriggles around in his lap to face him, disbelief and hope warring on his face. “Is he saying what I think he’s saying?”

“I think he’s saying that they’re not gonna stop us being together, actually,” Macau says. He reaches up to stroke Chay’s face gently, running the back of his knuckles reverently along his cheekbones. 

“Hang on,” Porsche says. “Hang on, are you two – is that why you shared a room?!” He turns to stare at Arm accusingly; Arm quickly buries his head in his tablet and starts tapping away furiously. Porsche tuts and turns back to the disgraced runaways. “Macau! Did you fuck my brother last night?”

“Of course not!” Macau says quickly, and then his little gremlin grin returns. “Fun fact, phi, your baby brother is a very talented top.”

“Gah, shut up, shut the fuck up,” Porsche shouts, then covers his ears and starts humming when Macau opens his mouth to elaborate. 

“Stop antagonising him, and I’ll stop Tankhun from dressing you in cerise on our wedding day,” Chay murmurs to Macau, slapping a hand over his open mouth. Macau licks his palm, mostly out of habit, but nods his agreement. 

“It’s ok, hia, you can listen again,” Chay says. Arm leans over without looking up from his tablet and taps him on the shoulder. “I said, it’s ok. We’ve decided to take a rain check on the eloping plan today.”

“Oh, Khun Nu will be so relieved,” Arm says. “He was so worried.”

“Aww,” Chay says, willing to be far more lenient now things are going his way. “He was worried about Cau and I? That’s so sweet.”

“Oh, yes.” Arm pauses briefly. “Well. That, and he was worried he’d ordered a custom Armani for nothing.”

[poeticexhalations]

I Killed My Brother At Birth

His name is (Name). 

I’d die for him. I’d take a bullet for him. I’d leap into fire for him. I’d kill for him.

But he is such a pain in the ass.

Which I guess is fair, because apparently, his face was in my ass for the entire nine months we floated around in my mother’s womb. It was my first power play.

No wonder he is such a kiss ass. But I rest my case.

My mother wanted children, and my father wanted my mother, so he accepted children. Begrudgingly. After a few affairs with red-headed women, I suppose my father saw him “gifting” children to my mother was the contribution he could make that would save their rocky marriage. After three miscarriages, they almost stopped trying. But at age thirty-two, my mother’s pregnancy finally stuck. Twins.

She celebrated. He was in dread.

The pregnancy was rough on my mother. From what my father said, it changed her forever. I wish I knew more; who was this wild woman before a man forced her to settle down into this life? She wanted children, yes, but at what cost? She sacrificed her music, her sketching, and even her proximity to her family for him. It was truly the beginning of the end for her, which is ironic, because it was the beginning-beginning for me.

Eight weeks early, my mother’s water broke. My twin brother supposedly started to die inside of her. He choked on the umbilical cord until he was purple. They say it was because two babies were inside one womb, so I guess you could blame it on me. At thirty-two weeks pregnant, my father rushed my mother to the emergency room. He went in with a wife, a daughter, and a son. The doctors told him that he would likely be leaving with “one daughter”. 

My father is a heartless bastard, but he isn’t a heartless bastard.

He claims he punched the vending machine in the waiting room so hard out of grief, and rage, and helplessness that he fractured his hand.

My mother coded twice on the table. My brother wasn’t breathing. I suppose this is one of the few times my life went smoothly, because my birth was apparently perfect. The moment I left my mother was when everything went wrong. They resuscitated both my brother and my mother, but I’ve always wondered if this death is what changed her, not the pregnancy my father claims it to be. One of the first things I saw in my life was my brother and mother die. 

How does dying affect someone?

How does watching someone die affect someone?

Unfortunately, I know the answer to the ladder. We all miraculously survived, and made it home. Within seven weeks of my existence, my father was going on business trips with stunning blonde women, and returning weeks later a stipend to pay my mother for her troubles at home. At this time, they lived in TX, but they wouldn’t be there for long. NM called my father home within the first few years of my life, and that is where I spent my childhood. 

[cosmicsnowleopardcrusader]

I saw a furry brown skinned male feline lyran (same color as my new brown eye shadow ‘fawn’ from glossier) and he had huge blue/grey eyes and hair dreads exactly like lil durk - that matched his furry skin color. He was so vivid. His energy felt so kind and caring and careful.

I also remember being on a tram that turned into a magical bus - then a pod of 1– that I was flying so vividly- there wasn’t really anything to hang on to, I was basically close to falling out the whole time it felt. In my current earth life, Ive been on a mission to lucid dream more and more— and to consciously catch myself mid-dream so I could see things from a new perspective. I DID THAT WHILE I WAS FLYING!!!!! I was like whoa I’m back in the dream flying and I’m aware of it happening. So We were trying to escape. I was with dad Jack and someone else at dads we had a team of AI or dark programmed people who claimed to be watching us- the soldiers included guys my age plus older guards. I was soooo horrified and scared in the dream… like pure terror. I was afraid to die.. just the pain, not the death itself. I wanted it to be over with.

At one point I was standing where dad’s old playground was and a massive rectangle piece of what HAD to be tenants of a space station blown to bits (and what felt like the size of 2 cruise lines wide / long) that was about to be slammed down onto the ground (not sure by what— I feel like it was just humans and crazy ancient giant war planes in the sky so I can’t tell where the evil source was. I saw the giant cement like war scrap coming down to be slammed (slow motion like a video game) and knew it was gonna miss me but when it slammed down I saw hundreds of thousands of people get smushed. Some even just injured and not killed- which scared me even more in the dream. I knew once I died, it wouldn’t even hurt and I would flow right I to another life or place. I knew I was in a dream in that way. I just wanted to die so much so the horror would be over, but I kept escaping and surviving. Looking back, if this was a movie, there’s no way I would’ve survived. Time after time the evil kept coming in the dream and I was terrified. Until all the sudden, everything seemed to be over, and the military guys were just actors trying to book flights home lol.

At one point I remember dad and Jack still alive, it was suuuuuper rainy and slippery at one point and I was scared dad was gonna slip and fall.

And at the end I had found a new love who seemed so familiar that our hearts telepathically knew we were destined to be together and we didn’t have to say any words. Im sad to wake up from that part of the dream bc it felt as real as the terror.

At some point the experiment during the battle was over and I survived through attacks and I was vibing with one of the men who was hired to be there— a soldier of sorts— it’s almost like they were actors… and the war scene was over— anyway I fell in love with him at first sight, we had a kiss toward the end and after the kiss I overheard him tell his other female teammate “I’m goin to Omaha” which meant he was booking a one way flight to stay with me and start a new life— bc I had felt that connection with him and I felt safe. And I felt like he was real now and not the soldier from earlier lol. I remember the female soldier he told kinda rolled her eyes and laughed like “really soldier” but it felt perfect and I felt sooooo connected with him even when we weren’t in the same room.

In the end of the dream, once I figured out I’m still alive and not meant to die in that game, I went thru my things in my room I was staying in, only took a couple things, I remember thinning- “oh where I’m going I don’t even need any of that”

Why am I always packing / heading back to Omaha at the end of every dream?!

The man reminded me of Mikey Purlingy— my cubs bleacher buddy I meant last summer lol

[violetrainbow412-blog]

“Someone got lucky last night,” Derek responds with a grin. “It must be the hair. I heard that long hair gets all the ladies nowadays.”

Derek has a point there

“That’s not a bad thing,” he says through a laugh, swatting Emily’s hands away. “Being a gentleman. Some women prefer it over the whole macho act.”

YES, I PREFER IT LOVE

“Don’t give me a moral dilemma, Hotch. This isn’t a hypothetical,” Spencer counters, finally finding the little device buried at the bottom of his satchel. “When I– when the incident with Tobias Hankel happened, she never gave up on me. She went out on a limb for me. I’m returning the favour.”

I love that Spencer has his priorities straight. I mean, this isn't morally right but he doesn't give a damn.

He tells himself to relax but how can he when he very well could die in here? He knows the statistics; only 55% of those who receive aggressive treatment survive. He doesn’t like those odds.

TURN OFF YOUR STATISTICS, PLEASE

“Don’t bother, it’s not going to do me any good. I’m already infected.” Spencer knows that if you were still part of the team that you would be scolding him about being so stubborn. Hell, you’re not even on the team anymore and you still scold him about it.

In my case we would be two idiots fighting to see who can be more stubborn.

“I– uh– I need you to record a message. Two messages. One for my mother and the other for… for (Y/N). In case anything happens to me.” His voice cracks as he speaks, his hand trembling because oh God, this really could be the end. After everything he went through going to those Narcotics Anonymous meetings, getting clean, going to therapy… this is how it ends?

I KNOW nothing happens to Spencer but I can feel the pit in my stomach like when I saw the episode. My poor heart can't bear to think of something happening to this man!

Derek grimaces before finally saying, “What if (Y/N) were here? Would you tell her to go?” “(Y/N) wouldn’t mind seeing me naked.”

OF COURSE NOT, AND HE KNOWS IT

“You ass,” you respond tearfully, your voice cracking as you swat him lightly on the arm. “You refused treatment?”

The poor guy was about to die and that's what we tell him??? STOPPP

“I do,” he murmurs, his cheeks flushed and a giddy smile on his face despite where he is. He looks at you, you and his oversized CalTech hoodie. The hoodie in itself is ugly; a muted grey with a half-assed logo slapped to the front and Spencer has hated it ever since he bought it with what little funds he had back in college. Yet, for some reason, he doesn’t hate it so much when you wear it. “You look beautiful.”

PLEASEEEEE, HAVE MERCY MAN

He reaches a hand out to hold the back of your neck, his thumb stroking the line from your ear to your jaw. “I love you,” he says into the space between you, before kissing you again.

This is what I like, what my heart needs to feel full

Thanks, perfect again!!!

06 — untouchable

summary: “come on, come on, say that we’ll be together/”i’m caught up in you.” pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader genre: best friends to lovers, mutual pining, fluff, slow burn,  warnings: rated 16+ for two mentions of nakedness, short blood mention, brief mention of dead things, mostly canon compliant (s4 e23 ‘amplification’), wc: 4.3k a/n: thank you again to the lovely @astrophileous for beta-reading <3 good luck on your thesis babes MWAH SERIES MASTERLIST // MAIN MASTERLIST

38 Hours Before the Phone Call – Monday, 8:42AM, BAU Office

Spencer arrives at the office with a stupidly giddy smile on his face. His cheeks are flushed as he grips a hot takeaway cup of coffee in his hands. He taps the cup idly with his fingers, bouncing on the heels of his feet as he steps out of the elevator unable to shake the smile off his face. It’s ridiculous and insane and borderline delusional but he knows it’s far from that. After all, he has a perfectly good reason as to why he is in such high spirits and that reason is you. After years of pining and psyching himself up (only to psych himself out) he managed to actually ask you out on a date. And, he reminds himself with a silly smile, he actually kissed you. And it wasn’t one of those platonic kisses, no, this was an actual kiss to the lips and he couldn’t be happier. 

He thinks back to the previous night, visualising the way your cheeks grew warm and the way your lips felt against his. His own cheeks flush at the thoughts and he remembers committing that version of you to memory. How on earth are you so beautiful? Even while sleep deprived with dark bags under your eyes or unruly hair, he still thinks you’re the most beautiful girl in the world. 

“Pretty boy,” Derek comments in a teasing sing-songy voice as Spencer takes a sip of his coffee, trying to appear nonchalant. “Ooh, I know that look.”

Spencer chokes a little, wiping his mouth with a tissue in his bag. “What look?”

“Someone got lucky last night,” Derek responds with a grin. “It must be the hair. I heard that long hair gets all the ladies nowadays.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Spencer is quick to deny, walking through the big glass doors of the office. 

“Who got lucky last night?” Emily asks, poking her head out of her little stall. Her eyes flit to Spencer and she grins. “Oh… I see how it is.”

“Nothing happened last night,” Spencer says adamantly, swiping a hand over his face. “It isn’t like that. Whatever we have is good. It doesn’t need to be–” He coughs quietly as blood rushes to his ears– “to be sexual. I like her. More than physically.”

Emily coos at his confession, twisting around her desk to ruffle his hair. “You’re such a gentleman, Reid.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” he says through a laugh, swatting Emily’s hands away. “Being a gentleman. Some women prefer it over the whole macho act.”

“Hey, I am plenty gentleman,” Derek says swiftly, holding a finger out. “And chicks dig the macho thing.”

*** 

14 Hours Before the Phone Call – Tuesday, 7:09AM, BAU Office

It was supposed to be a normal morning. It was supposed to be an average Tuesday with your average, run-of-the-mill serial killer with daddy issues but instead, JJ called the entire team in the early hours of the morning, saying to get to the BAU as quickly as possible. 

“Case must be local. JJ said not to bring a go-bag,” Spencer says as they enter the office. 

In moments they were met with a complete arsenal of military personnel, bustling around their desks and storming throughout the office. Others were answering and sending phone calls, demanding for processes to be sped up as Hotch speaks to a group of people in his own personal office, Rossi beside him.

“What’s the army doing here?” Derek asks, his brows furrowed.

“What the hell is going on?” Emily demands, eyeing the uniformed professionals as they splay casefiles across their desks. 

They all enter the conference room where JJ was waiting for them, along with a neatly dressed Asian woman with her hair tied up in a ponytail and out of her face. 

“Guys, this is Dr Linda Kimura, Chief of Special Pathogens at the CDC,” JJ introduces, filling up styrofoam cups with water and placing them around the round table. 

“Hello. I’m sorry to meet under these circumstances,” she says as she places pills on a shiny metal tray. 

Spencer frowns at that. “What circumstances?”

Hotch enters the room instantly, gripping a case file in his iron fist. “We need to get started.”

“Last night, twenty-five people checked into emergency rooms in and around Annapolis. They were all at the same park after 2PM yesterday. Within 10 hours, the first victim died. It’s now just past 7AM the next day, we have twelve people dead,” JJ explains as the rest of team look through the manilla files. 

“Lung failure and black lesions,” Derek murmurs thoughtfully. “Anthrax?”

Spencer flicks through the papers, scanning the tox screen. “Anthrax doesn’t kill this fast.”

“This strain does,” Kimura says, an edge of fear in her tone.

“What are we doing about potential mass targets– airports, malls, trains?” Emily asks, turning to Hotch who shakes his head. 

“There’s a media blackout.”

“We’re not telling the public.”

Derek looks over at Emily. “We’d have a mass exodus.”

“The psychology of group panic would cause more deaths than this last attack,” Rossi explains.

“Yeah, and if it does get out, whoever did this might go underground or destroy their samples,” Spencer says as he sifts through the papers. 

“Or if they wanted attention and didn’t get it, they might attack again. Doesn’t the public have the right know that?” 

“If there is another attack, there’s no way we’ll be able to keep it quiet,” Hotch says urgently. “Our best chance of protecting the public is by building a profile as quickly as we can.”

Spencer wets his bottom lip nervously, his thoughts drifting to you. You work indoors all day. You’ll be fine, you have to be. “What do we know about this strain?”

“The spores are weaponized,” Kimura explains, “reduced to a respiral ideal that attacks deep in the lungs. Odourless and invisible.”

Rossi nods, almost as if he wasn’t surprised at all upon hearing the news. “A sophisticated strain. Only a scientist would know how to do that.”

“These lesions are doubling in size in a matter of hours,” Derek points out, gesturing to the less than positive crime photos in their files. 

“It’s not the lesions I’m worried about,” Kimura begins, taking an ultrasound scan of a patient’s lungs and presenting it to the team. “Its the lungs. We don’t know how to com2bat the toxins once they’re inside. And the reality is, we may lose them all.”

“The remaining survivors have been moved to a special wing at Walter Reed Hospital. Our offices will become a small command centre,” JJ tells them.

“We’ll be working with military scientists from Fort Detrick,” Hotch adds on.

“General Whitworth is coming here?” Rossi asks.

Hotch nods in the affirmative. “He’s in charge of sit containment and spore analysis. Determining what strain this is will help inform who’s responsible.”

“My team is in charge of treating all victims,” Kimura goes on to tell the team, looking at each person.

“Reid, go with Dr. Kimura to the hospital, interview the victims,” Hotch says, dishing out responsibilities. “Morgan and Prentiss, there’s a hazmat team that will accompany you to the crime scene. There’s Cipro. Everybody needs to take it before we go.”

Linda hands a small plastic container, each one having two round tablets resting inside. “We don’t know if it’s effective against this strain, but it’s something.”

Emily lets out a nervous breath as she toys with the rim of the container. “This… is really happening?

“We knew this could happen. We’ve done our homework. We’ve prepared for this. This is it,” Hotch says as reassuringly as possible before knocking his head back and taking the two Cipro tablets. 

“Cent’anni,” Rossi toasts, holding the little container out. “May you live one hundred years.”

*** 

Everyone rushes about, gathering files and resources before the head off to complete their allocated assignments. Regardless of how much is at stake in this certain situation, Spencer feels his heart spike with anxiety. It’s against protocol, sure, but shouldn’t he call you? Tell you to take a sick day and stay at home, or to just stay indoors the entire time you’re at work. Maybe if he’s lucky he could get you into witness protection. 

“I know what you’re thinking,” Hotch says slowly, seemingly appearing out of thin air behind him. 

Spencer freezes, his hands pausing as they rummage through his bag in search of his cell. “I’m not.”

“You’re not thinking?” Hotch asks, raising an eyebrow. “I know what you want to do.”

“I can’t just– I can’t just keep her in the dark, Hotch,” Spencer insists, continuing to feel for his cell phone. “She could get infected and–” His mouth runs dry at the idea and he swallows thickly. “If I can protect her, then why shouldn’t I?

Aaron sighs, his forehead wrinkling as his eyebrows knit together. “I know you care about her and I know you’re worried, but she isn’t on this team anymore. If we all called home and used this information to give them the advantage that other people don’t have… is that really the right thing to do?”

“Don’t give me a moral dilemma, Hotch. This isn’t a hypothetical,” Spencer counters, finally finding the little device buried at the bottom of his satchel. “When I– when the incident with Tobias Hankel happened, she never gave up on me. She went out on a limb for me. I’m returning the favour.”

Hotch is quiet for a moment before finally, “What about the guilt?”

Spencer balks. “What?”

“If she is saved because of the information you gave her… can you imagine the guilt she would feel? She’s a selfless person, Spencer, and knowing her… well, you can guess what she would do,” Aaron says, glancing back to his office where Rossi is waving him over. “I’m sure you’ll make the right decision. Kimura is waiting for you.”

Hotch is gone before Spencer could say anything. He huffs quietly, guilty after hearing Hotch’s words. Even though he doesn’t want to admit it, he has to accept that his boss is right. The best way to keep you safe is by finding this UnSub before he could hurt any more people. He rubs at his eyes in frustration, stalking out of the BAU offices. Hopefully you’ll forgive him.

*** 

“Dr. Lawrence Nichols? Yeah, I read about him. He was highly respected doctor who studied anthrax prior to the attacks in 2001,” Spencer says as he gets into the passenger seat of Derek’s SUV. He rolls up the sleeves of his dark purple shirt, brushing some sweat from his forehead. “They think that he’s behind it?”

“There was a video of him at a conference with the with the National Defense Committee. He was paranoid after the Amerithrax attacks in 2001, proposing some crazy high budget to ‘protect the people of America’,” Derek explains. “He matches the profile exactly. Prentiss and Rossi are heading to his work. Apparently he got demoted into working with influenza.”

Spencer grimaces as he stares at the overgrowing rose bushes at the front of Dr. Nichols’s house, his nose scrunching up in distaste. Do people not hire gardeners anymore? He squeezes past a few bushes to follow Derek closer to the house, hissing when his hand gets caught on one of the thorns. He shakes his hand out, a scratch already blooming on the back of his hand with small droplets ot blood already emerging. 

He continues to walk into the house as Derek’s phone rings, entering the house through a glass sliding door. The whirring of the fan above him grabs his attention and he frowns. The fan is on but the door is open… someone must have left in a hurry. He takes another step forward, jolting when he hears the sound of glass being crushed under his feet. Shit.

“Reid?” Derek yells, and Spencer jumps. 

“Morgan, get– get back!” Spencer yells, slamming the sliding door shut so hard that the glass shakes. “Get back! Get out of here!”

Derek frowns, tugging at the handle. ‘What are you doing? What’s wrong?”

“No, don’t!”

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks again, tugging once more at the handle; Spencer is a lot stronger than he expected.

“What’s wrong?”

Spencer pushes his hair out of his face in frustration as he locks the door, turning back to his friend. “I’m sorry.”

It is in that moment that Derek’s eyes turn to the ground, his eyes widening in disbelief as he sees the white powder in the room leaking from a broken test tube with a bright yellow symbol for ‘biological hazard’. 

It feels like hours before Hotch and the military arrive at the house, along with an ambulance and a hazmat team. The stench of Dr. Nichols’s dead body lingers in the air even though the air-con is blasting and the air is circulating through the room. He doesn’t even want to think about the dead animals and test subjects in the cages, his stomach churning at the mere thought. From what he could tell, the doctor was dead three days ago, meaning that he couldn’t have been the one to infect those people at the park. His head is pounding and his throat itches and all of a sudden he can’t breathe. He tells himself to relax but how can he when he very well could die in here? He knows the statistics; only 55% of those who receive aggressive treatment survive. He doesn’t like those odds. 

“Hotch, I really messed up this time,” he says hoarsely into the phone, wiping the sweat off his upper lip.

“Reid, we need to get you out and to the hospital,” Hotch says firmly, and Spencer watches as he puts the call on speaker. 

“What– no, I’m staying right here,” Spencer insists, frowning. 

Derek interrupts swiftly, “No, you’re not, Reid.”

“I’m already exposed,” Spencer says, his voice straining as he turns back into Dr. Nichols’s makeshift lab. “It’s not gonna do me any good to stop working the case.”

General Whitworth grimaces in response. “He’s already infected. Now, if Nichols created the strain, he may have also created the cure.”

“My best chance is to stay here, see if there’s a cure, and try to figure out who killed Dr. Nichols,” Spencer insists as he searches through the lab for what seems like the millionth time. 

Test tubes, files, and text books litter the lab, a flurry of papers splayed across the floor. The sight of them remind him of the first time he met you when you had ran into him on his first official day at the BAU. You were a swirling rainstorm as you practically slammed your head against his chest, the paperwork you were carrying flying into the air as you toppled over like a house of cards. In that moment, Spencer could have sworn that you were untouchable. You were like a fire, burning brighter than the sun, and he would be damned if he ever made that flame flicker away. 

“Come on, Hotch, say something to him,” Derek tries again, worry laced in his tone.

Aaron hesitates as he considers his options before sighing. “He’s right. His best chase is inside. We’re gonna get a suit and mask in to you right away.”

“Don’t bother, it’s not going to do me any good. I’m already infected.” Spencer knows that if you were still part of the team that you would be scolding him about being so stubborn. Hell, you’re not even on the team anymore and you still scold him about it. 

As he continues to try and search for more clues and filtering the information he finds through to Derek, his thoughts continuously drift back to you. You and your blissfully unaware state. He thinks of the way you smile and the way you felt in his arms that day. He is sure that the universe is playing tricks with him because the one moment he finally has you, you’re ripped away from him. His mind wanders back to the way your eyes lit up and the way your lips felt against his and in that moment he’s begging. He’s begging whatever higher power there is that he is part of the 55% of people who survive an anthrax attack after treatment. 

“Hey, Reid,” Penelope’s voice echoes through the phone, sad and mopey. It’s unlike her, incredibly uncharacteristic and Spencer chokes out a quiet laugh. 

“Reid? Wow, no, uh… no witty Garcia greeting for me?” He asks, running his fingers through his damp sweaty hair. It’s disgusting and gross and he hates it because he knows that it’s a symptom of the disease. 

Penelope chuckles weakly from the other side of the line. “I can’t be my sparkly self when you are where you are.”

He doesn’t know how to respond to that so instead he asks, “Garcia, do you think you can do something for me?”

“Anything.”

“I… I know I can’t call… I know I can’t call (Y/N) or my mother without, uh–” he coughs, wiping his face with the palm of his hand and feeling his clammy skin– “without alerting everyone.”

“What do you need?”

“I– uh– I need you to record a message. Two messages. One for my mother and the other for… for (Y/N). In case anything happens to me.” His voice cracks as he speaks, his hand trembling because oh God, this really could be the end. After everything he went through going to those Narcotics Anonymous meetings, getting clean, going to therapy… this is how it ends?

“Oh, nothing is gonna happen to you,” Garcia says, wholeheartedly believing it. “You’re gonna brilliantly find ut who did this and we’re gonna treat this strain.”

Spencer lets out a nervous breath. “I hope you’re right. But if you’re not, I just… I really want to make sure that they hear my voice. Both of them.”

“Okay. Just– just give me a second,” Penelope mumbles, clicking away on her keyboard. 

“Are you ready?”

“Ready.”

“This– um, it’s for my mum first…” He clears his throat, trying to keep his voice even. “Hi, mum. This is Spencer. I just– I just really want you to know that I love you, and– and I need you to know that I spend every day of my life proud to be your son.”

Penelope presses pause on that message, murmuring, “Okay. And– and for (Y/N)?”

“Is it on?” He asks quietly, coughing as the itchiness in his throat refuses to relent. “Hey, angel, it’s me, Spenc– Walter. It’s your Walter.” His voice catches in his throat as he speaks, tears slipping past his eyes as he tries to choke out the words. “If you’re getting this then something happened and I just wanted you to know that– that– that I love you. I didn’t get the chance to tell you that before but I do. I love you and I wish it didn’t turn out like this but I am– I am so glad that we had that moment.”

“Reid?”

Dr. Kimura enters the room through the sliding door, clad in a bright red hazmat suit. “Prep the victim for transfer.”

“I gotta go,” Spencer says quickly, hanging up the call and pocketing his phone. 

“Dr. Reid,” Kimura says, walking over to him.

“You look nice,” he says drily, staring at the uniform. It looks very similar to an astronaut costume and if he were in any other situation, he would have started to laugh.

Kimura chuckles quietly. “I haven’t been in this outfit for a while.”

“How… how are the patients doing?” Spencer manages to ask, and suddenly it feels as if all the air is kicked out of his lungs. His head throbs with each attempt he makes to take in a breath and sweat pools at the top of his lip. 

“Let’s worry about you.”

“I actually… I feel fine,” Spencer lies through gritted teeth, the muscles in his shoulders aching with each heave of his chest. 

Kimura nods, her concern palpable. “Okay, if you feel any pain, I can give you something.”

In an instant, the fear of losing all the progress he has made in the past year pools to his stomach and he shakes his head adamantly, ignoring the way the room spins. “No, I’d rather not take any pain medication.”

“We can at least make you feel more comfortable.”

“I am comfortable and I don’t want to take any narcotics!” Spencer says firmly, and he can see the realisation dawn in Kimura’s eyes. 

“Okay… tell me how I can help.”

“I think the cure for this strain is in here somewhere,” he says through heavy breaths, sucking in a mouthful of air with every sentence. 

It isn’t long before the hazmat team has Spencer in a decontamination tent, the smell of sterile plastic filling his nose. They’re hosing him down behind a clear plastic curtain, Derek standing in front of him. The feeling of the cold water splashing against his back is uncomfortable, and Spencer grimaces at the feeling of his clothes sticking to his skin. It’s gross and his work shirt is growing heavy from the waterweight, sagging down on his shoulders. The anthrax isn’t helping either. It’s too hot and too cold all at once, it’s too hard to breathe and it’s like his head weighs a million pounds. 

“Go help Hotch,” Spencer croaks out to Derek, shivering as they continue to spray water on his back and front.

“Hotch has plenty of people helping him,” Derek dismisses. 

Spencer shakes his head and regrets it immediately, his head starting to spin. “He needs you more than I do.”

“Reid, I’m gonna see you off to the hospital.”

“I’m about to get naked so that they can scrub me down. Is that something you really want to see?” Spencer deadpans.

Derek grimaces before finally saying, “What if (Y/N) were here? Would you tell her to go?”

“(Y/N)  wouldn’t mind seeing me naked.”

Derek’s eyebrows shoot upwards at Spencer’s less than innocent words, immediately turning away. “We are having a conversation about this later. Take good care of him, please.”

The ambulance is stuffy and cramped, and the scrubs that he has to wear is itchy and uncomfortable. They’re menial thoughts that don’t even matter considering the severity of the situation, and Spencer wheezes out of a cough; a reminder that he might not even live to see the next day. The nasal cannula that is attached to Spencer’s nose isn’t doing much to assist him to breathe, and he coughs again. 

“How are you feeling, Dr. Reid?” Kimura asks as she checks his vitals. 

“My throats a little dry, but other than that I feel– I flee– feel…” He blanks. His mind knows the words but they get stuck on his tongue and he panics. It can’t end like this. He refuses for it to end like this. “Flee– fleel– I–”

Kimura nods in understanding, a sense of urgency behind her words. “Okay. Okay, you’re doing okay. Driver, faster!”

“Call–” Spencer tries again, the words spinning in his head. “Pelen– Penel… low… len…”

Call Penelope, he tries to say, the lights in the ambulance growing brighter and brighter. She needs to give (Y/N) the message, she needs to… she needs to…

All the sees is white.

*** 

The first thing Spencer notices when he regains consciousness is the smell of lavender and oranges overpowering the sterile scent of antibacterial wipes. It’s comforting and familiar and he wracks his brain as he tries to remember where he remembers it from. He doesn’t remember much; only getting into the ambulance and Kimura asking him questions. He shuffles around in his hospital bed, stretching his aching muscles. He forces his eyes open little by little, and he quints at the woman at the end of his hospital bed. 

“(Y/N)?”

“You ass,” you respond tearfully, your voice cracking as you swat him lightly on the arm. “You refused treatment?”

He smiles a little, sitting up on the bed. “Hey, angel.”

“Don’t ‘hey angel’ me,” you sniffle, taking hold of his hand and stroking his palm with your thumb. “You scared me.”

Spencer hums softly in acknowledgement, squeezing your hand back. “I know, I’m sorry.”

“Dr. Kimura said that you should be free to go in a couple of days but you need rest afterwards,” you tell him, brushing a strand of his hair behind his ear. “You owe me a date.”

“I do,” he murmurs, his cheeks flushed and a giddy smile on his face despite where he is. He looks at you, you and his oversized CalTech hoodie. The hoodie in itself is ugly; a muted grey with a half-assed logo slapped to the front and Spencer has hated it ever since he bought it with what little funds he had back in college. Yet, for some reason, he doesn’t hate it so much when you wear it. “You look beautiful.”

You roll your pretty eyes at him, moving your chair closer to him. “Liar.”

“Never,” he whispers. “Never to you.”

You smile at him again, bringing your lips to the back of his hand. “You told me you loved me. Is that true, too?”

“Love,” he corrects you quietly, “and I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

Heat rushes up your neck at his words and you beam at him, kissing his cheeks. “I love you.”

He reaches a hand out to hold the back of your neck, his thumb stroking the line from your ear to your jaw. “I love you,” he says into the space between you, before kissing you again. 

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[evita-shelby]

The First Time

Gif by @peakyfckingblinders-blog

Smut, first time i write it and probably the last lol.

Some parts will feel familiar because the middle part is chapter 6 of Between the Shadow and the Soul and the last part is the oneshot tasted heaven on his lips.

Minors and people who don't read smut/porn please don't interact.

This was not the first time she snuck Tommy into her bedroom at night.

This past fortnight he’d mastered the art of creeping in like a thief in the night and he leaves before dawn so no one knows he’s been with her.

He is a gentleman with her, never doing anything she isn’t comfortable with and taking things slowly because almost everything is new to her.

Eva loves him and feels like she won’t be able to survive without him. Which is why tonight must be perfect.

Tonight she will give herself to him and prepare herself for her imminent death.

“I think I like your gin better when I taste it on you, mi amor.” She says breathlessly after kissing him like she might never taste the too sweet gin ever again.

“Should’ve brought a bottle of it, I bet it tastes better on you too. Maybe next time.” He said and emphasized his next words with kisses on her neck. “Next time I’ll lick it off your lips, your stomach, your tits.”

The world stops existing after that, Eva lets herself enjoy how good his mouth feels as he guides her to the pretty Victorian couches he first held her on as she mourned her family and peace of mind.

Forget there won’t be a next time.

Eva doesn’t know if the tears she wants to shed are because she aches for him or because this time she doesn’t want to die.

“Not the couch, you said the first time you fuck me has to be in a real bed.” She reminds him when his lips come back to hers and she fights the urge to tear his shirt open and kiss the sunburst on his heart.

They’ve danced this dance before, but something always stops them from the point of no return. Tonight, the witch is determined to finish the dance and know the love of a good man before she is executed for her crimes.

“Witch.” He says ,but lets her guide him upstairs.

She makes no noise, a lifetime of sneaking out and dancing en pointe had made soundless walking a habit.

First time he came to her bed, he said she looked like she was floating on air.

His shirt is off as are his shoes by the time they make it to her bed.

They know the song, they know the steps, and as always, the interruption catches them just when it was getting good.

They are panting heavily as he leads her through the beginning of this dance and his rough hands are just about to pull her nightgown off her when her grandmother wakes up across the hall.

“I heard a noise, Evie, sweetheart.” Her grandmother says to her locked door.

“Oh, I just had a bad dream, nanna. I must’ve tripped on my shoes.” Eva tries to catch her breath and tries not to fall as she climbs off her lover to assure her granny nothing was happening.

“Go to her,” Tommy mouths as he sits back.

----

“I am so sorry about that, normally she sleeps like the dead." she apologized as if it were her fault her grandmother had almost caught them.

And yet, old Mrs. Smith didn’t see a half-naked Tommy on her granddaughter’s bed. The old woman would have died and taken him with her if she had seen him sitting with his back to the bed board only wearing his trousers.

He wants her badly, aches for her just as he knows she aches to be with him, but neither wanted to risk her grandmother waking up again.

They haven't fucked, they barely had privacy or time to kiss let alone fuck, but soon enough they wouldn’t have to worry her grandmother, or, worse, Finn asking why he had his hand under her skirt at the pictures.

“Something is bothering you, love.” Tommy doesn’t ask, if he asked, she could choose to lie about it, so instead he makes a simple observation.

If he played his cards right, he wouldn’t have to confront her about it and they could talk this out like rational adults.

“I might have to go back to my country.” she doesn’t look at him and sighs, Eva doesn’t like pity, she’d had enough of it after her family died.

“Your solicitation was denied.” He could pretend he didn’t know, but Tommy had seen the rejection letter perhaps two hours before it was delivered to her grandmother’s home.

That had been enough time to make an appointment with a jeweler in Birmingham and make sure they had enough drinks at the pub. Eva would choose her ring tomorrow morning and after that they’d celebrate their engagement at the Garrison.

“You already knew then.” She moves quiet like a cat and almost silently climbs back into her bed with him. The bedsprings make no sound even when she comes and sits on his lap. Tommy swears Jack must’ve had someone put a curse on the bed because it only made noise when they tried to fuck.

“One of the boys stole your correspondence and showed me the rejection letter. I gave him a thrashing instead of the shilling he asked for before sending Charlie to make sure he returned it to the post man.” Tommy couldn’t keep secrets from her. Came with the Second Sight, or so she had told him.

“My cousins have told me the government has been discreetly killing people who were part of the rebel armies. I thought I was safe here, but ---.” Eva admits and he interrupts her. She could ask him to save her, but she doesn’t. If it were up to her and her damn pride, Eva would be on a boat back to Mexico to never been seen again before asking someone to help her.

“The best way to become a British Subject is to get married to one, love.” Tommy interrupts with his suggestion and only logical solution to her problem.

“I can’t take your freedom just to save my own skin, Tom.” She looks at him, almost angry that he would even suggest that she exploit his feelings for her to stay in Small Heath. Most women he has been with wouldn’t have hesitated to take his offer, but Eva, much like Greta once upon a time, wasn’t the type to use a man for her personal gain.

“No one could force me into anything I don’t want, Evie.” He smiles, reminding her she wouldn’t be marrying any man, she’d be the wife of the leader of the Peaky Blinders.

“Then ask me”, she says as if he wouldn’t be able to get her to say yes.

“Miss Eva Smith---,” Tommy starts and doesn’t get very far.

“No, It’s Eva Smith-Riley, Mexicans use both last names.” She corrects him as her hands move from his chest to the buttons on his trousers. Teasing him as if he wasn’t already close to ruining his clothes.

“Fine, Miss Eva Smith-Riley, will you—” his groans. If it weren’t for her hesitancy to take things further, Tommy would have thought she’d done this before. “Will you put me out of my misery and marry me?”

“You make it sound as I’m torturing you.” Eva teased as she continued her slow torture of him. His witch would drive him out of his mind before he could get the damn words out of her wicked mouth.

“Every second you draw this out is torture, Evie.” Thomas plays with the hem of her bunched-up nightgown on the top of her thighs before slowly lifting it up. He likes the contrast the white cotton dress makes against her tanned skin and dark hair, but Tommy would enjoy the sight of her more if the nightgown was on the floor.

“A witch naked in the moonlight is a dangerous thing, Thomas Shelby.” She laughs softly and lifts her arms so he can pull it over her head and toss it aside. The way she says his name makes him want to risk the wrath of her family and take her despite the noise her bed springs made.

“You haven’t answered my question, Eva.” He reminds her. Even if she refused to marry him now, Tommy knows Jack Smith won’t let her refuse after tonight.

“Ask me again, and maybe I’ll give you an answer, love.” Eva smiled wickedly as she unfastened his trousers. Other men would feel emasculated but letting their woman take the lead, but Thomas Shelby wasn’t like any other man.

“Will you marry me, Eva?” he asks again relishing the feeling of her naked body pressed against his.

“Yes, I’ll marry you, Tom.” She kissed him to confirm her words. With only the moonlight as their witness, Thomas Shelby became her first and Eva Smith became his last.

----

“I love you.” She kissed him again like this is just the beginning of a new life. A new life with him where he won’t leave her alone in this bleak world.

“I know.” He pressed his forehead against hers as her hands slowly trailed his chest, stomach and undid the button on his trousers. “I love you too.”

This part she knew, she knew how to make Tommy come undone with her hands. To rub him from tip to base like there was nothing more wonderful than her lover’s cock.

Always at a slow and torturous pace, no ones chasing them, no need to take things too fast.

“We don’t have to do this if you don’t feel ready.” He struggled to make the words come out of his lips even if he’s been saying that sentence forever.

“But I want to, I want you so badly, Tommy.” Eva said as she let him explore her body and drive her mad with passion for him.

It's no wonder why women here are insane for him, Tommy’s too good at this. His rough hands are enough to have her lose all coherent thoughts.

There is only him, his fingers in her cunt as he prepared her with promises of forever. His mouth whispering praises on her hot skin, telling her how good she feels, how no woman he’s had compares to his witch, how he won’t ever want anyone who isn’t her.

Eva’s still feeling the high of her pleasure when she is faced with the edge of the precipice.

This time she jumps.

This time she lifts her hips and he guides his cock inside her.

It hurts, even with all the pleasure he’s given her with his fingers there is a sweet pain as he fills her and claims her.

“Evie, love, you feel so good.” He groans into her neck as her nails dig into his back as her body adjusts to his.

And so the real dance begins.

His grip is tight on her hips as she lifts hers and tentatively lowers herself on him again.

It feels good, impossible good and the knowledge that it will get even better has her seeing stars.

She moans out his name a little too loudly, forgetting they’re supposed to be quiet. But she can’t, it feels too good to remember restraint.

“Tommy, oh god, Tommy.” That’s all she can articulate as he his hips rise to meet hers as she rides him.

It feels better than anything she’s done before. For her first time, its perfect. He’s perfect, makes her feel like she’s a goddess being worshipped.

Screw the sweat, the creaking if her old bed, the incoherent noises she’s making as he fucks her.

“I’m close, Evie, I want to finish inside you. Just this once, love.” Its punctuated with hard upward thrusts and all she can do is nod against his shoulder.

Doesn’t matter anyways, they’ll get married soon enough and it won’t matter if she’s pregnant out of wedlock.

Tommy kisses her, mouth, neck, collarbone, and even her breasts as he goes in deeper and harder inside her as his hand went between her legs and swallowed her cries with his mouth as they came together.

“You’re mine, Eva, mine and no one else’s.” He is panting, they both are as they come down from heaven itself.

“Yeah, I’m yours, mi vida.” she says feeling

She asks him once she gotten most of her bearings straight, “Can I say the same about you?”

“Let me take my pants off and I’ll show you.” He says with a grin.

-----

“I don’t scare you, don’t I?” He asked her, just minutes before dawn would come. He needed to leave, but she didn’t want him to go.

Besides it doesn’t matter anyways, they’re engaged and it really save them time if Linda Matthews were to catch them here when she comes for her shift at seven o’clock sharp.

Last night he had made her his, made her feel like she had touched heaven and tasted it in his lips.

Eva wants to taste it again and again. He was as addicting as the opium he used to smoke.

No wonder Grace was hoping he’d be the type to forgive her, all men fall short of this Adonis in her bed.

“Could never scare me, amor de mi vida.“ Eva had been with a woman, but never with a man. She won’t ever be with any man who wasn’t Tommy, she knows it for sure.

“I’ve killed people, Evie.” He says as if that was reason enough.

“So have I, Tom.” She reminds him.

“I’m a criminal,” he tries again.

“So am I, just because I don’t get my hands dirty doesn’t make what my family does any less illegal.” She reminds him again.

If he knew that the bounty on her head was worth more than this house, Eva wonders if he’d look at her the same.

He wouldn’t, her Thomas would never do that.

“Your family might not like me.” He traced her lower lip with his thumb.

“Fuck them if they can’t see what great man you are.” She says propping herself up on his chest. “I’m yours, I won’t be anyone else’s.”

[bloodybigshiplucille]

Shame To My Name

With her father's return a new chapter begins for (y/n) Grimes in a world where the dead started walking. Rick and his daughter had quite a troubled relationship in the past but will the apocalypse help them getting closer again? Or will (y/n) get even more distant from her father?

Chapter 1: His Return

„If you think this is bad wait till you start shaving.“ That voice. Hearing his voice is enough to get my blood boiling. The combination with his know-it-all and I-got-every-right-in-the-world-to-be-sitting-here attitude definitely has me wishing for a walker to strive by and making me their lunch. „Tell ya what. Get through this with some manly dignity and tomorrow I’ll teach you something special…“ Of course Carl’s eyes light up at that. „I’ll teach you to catch frogs.“ They’re both eating out of his hands. Carl looks like he’s the rebirth of fucking Jesus Christ himself and Mom is basically drooling at this point. It’s pathetic. And hella disrespectful. The world went to shit only a couple of weeks ago and it hasn’t even been two months since my dad was shot. Sure, my parents weren’t the most perfect couple that has ever graced the earth but holy shit that woman could have at least waited a little longer before hitting the sheets with dad’s best friend. Of course she thinks that I don’t know about it. I’ve always been my parents naive little girl who’s never going to make it in the real world. I once ears dropped on mom and dad when they were talking about me in the middle of the night. While mom was concerned I would never make it into college (which by the way: WHAT? I was 14 years old back then. It’s not like my friends have gotten their acceptance letters to Stanford at that point) my dad only worried about me not finding a man „with that attitude of hers“. Sorry I’m not buying every bullshit people present me and that I used to have an opinion. However, dad made it very clear early on that my opinion didn’t matter… a fact that only got worse when my brother was born. When dad found out he was having a son he was beaming. From that moment on the Grimes family exclusively turned around Carl. I love by baby brother, I really do and it’s definitely not his fault but the older he got the more attention he received and the worse my relationship to my parents got. When Shane told us that dad was shot on duty and got taken to the hospital I felt numb. Mom and Carl started crying but I just stared at Shane like he told me my school caught on fire. I haven’t cried since. „I’ll go take a leak“, Shane announces and starts heading for the forrest. With the new found peace and quiet I return to my book. Even though I am re-reading the same page for the 5th time I have no idea what it’s all about. My mind keeps drifting of to any place anywhere in the world but here. I always imagined hitting the road after graduating. When my mom was concerned about me not getting into college she was right. The only difference is I never wanted to go to college. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to go to Europe. I wanted to fall in love with a hot-blooded Italian in Capri, I wanted to spend most of my evenings drinking wine in Paris while watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle. While my friends’ worst nightmare was ending up as a waiter I wouldn’t have minded a job like that. A job that gave me enough money to survive but wouldn’t demand too much time. I just wanted to live. Now I don’t even know if Capri or Paris still exist or if anarchy has gotten the best of these places. Now most walking creatures are generally lacking blood and I am very far away from ever falling in love with anyone. I’ll probably die without ever being kissed. „Okay, handsome, we’re done here!“ Mom announces and Carl basically jumps up from mom’s grip. „His haircut is looking good, right, (y/n)?“ I could be honest and tell my brother that mom’s an equally good hairdresser as I am a good rocket scientist but why putting effort into being an asshole when the whole world is falling apart? „The girls will be standing in line“, I absent-mindedly say but as I said it’s not like anyone really cares about my opinion. „Can you watch your brother for a little while? I need to take a nap. I’ll be in the tent“, mom states and heads over to our made up camping ground. She’s so obvious. I am 17 years old and she really believes that she can convince me that she’s not going to the

forrest searching for Shane. She actually believes that I haven’t seen Shane winking at her when he left. She believes that I don’t hear them fucking every other night with Carl and me in the tent next to them. „Yeah sure…“ I tell mom and watch her leave. I look around and see Dale on top of the RV eying after my mom. His gaze turns to me and gives me a knowing look. They all know. Everyone knows that my mom didn’t even wait until my dad was officially pronounced dead before she jumped into another man’s bed. Even though our new group feels like a completely dysfunctional family I feel more at ease with them than I’ve ever felt at home. With the world basically ending and the dead walking there’s no expectations left. Nobody gives a shit about what you’ve achieved in your life or what you have done wrong and which expectations you haven’t met. Today is about survival and whether you can contribute to the groups chance of survival or not. We’re all fighting for each other. Everyone’s giving their all to protect the kids of the group, Carl and Carol’s and Ed’s daughter Sophia, and even the clearly very idiotic Dixon brothers are more or less adhering to the group’s rules and laws. „Do you think we will every get to eat ice cream again?“ Carl asks me. It’s his new thing. Asking whether we will do stuff or see certain things ever again. And even though it drives me against a wall I keep on reminding myself that he’s only 12 years old. I want to protect him and the later he realises that we will probably never live an even similar life to our lives before the better. „I don’t know, buddy. I certainly hope so. If you could have ice cream right now which flavours would you take?“ „Probably strawberry. Or chocolate. Oh, or lemon. No wait! Maybe caramel, but also…“ Before Carl can go on naming every flavour he could possibly think of a siren is going off somewhere. I motion for Carl to stop and take a look around. „Dale?“ I shout over to man on top of the RV. „I’ll me damned…“ „What is it?“ Amy asks next to me. „Stolen car is my guess“, Dale goes on watching through his binoculars. The siren is getting louder and you can clearly hear a car coming nearer. „What is going on?“ Mom suddenly asks next to me and Carl. She throws her arms protectively around Carl with Shane, oh wonder, appearing behind her. We see a bright red Dodge Challenger turning the corner and heading straight over to our camp. Its alarm system is going off like crazy, the fact that walkers haven’t appeared yet is nothing but a miracle. The Dodge comes to a halt and the driver opens the door. „Holy crap! Turn that damn thing off!“ Dale starts yelling at a smiling Glenn who turns out to be the driver. „I don’t know how!“ Glenn keeps on grinning like death isn’t literally around the corner waiting for any sound of life. Shane sprints towards the car and opens its hood. The alarm is off within seconds. „Where is Andrea? Is she okay?“ Amy keeps on shouting at Glenn asking for her sister’s whereabouts. „She’s fine! She’s fine!“ „Is she okay?“ „Yes. Yes, she is. Everybody is. Well,… Merle not so much…“ Glenn admits quietly. Somehow it seems like nobody heard that last bit of information because Shane starts yelling at Glenn for driving an alarm system on wheels all the way through the mountains and basically handing us to the walkers on a silver platter. Before their argument can get too heated though a moving truck stops behind the red Dodge. The truck’s engine gets killed and seconds later Morales and Andrea jump out of the truck. Morale’s wife and kids start running for their missed husband and father and Amy starts crying in Andrea’s arms. Moments like these are already a routine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m hella glad Morales and especially Andrea are back save and sound. Andrea really turned into basically a sister for me as well. She’s probably the first person I maybe ever opened up to. I told her about my dreams and aspirations which obviously vanished into thin air but still Andrea listened to them and didn’t judge me. She’s even the first person I’m somehow

comfortable with when it comes to talking about boys… it’s not like that’s a daily conversation between me and my mom, I mean have you seen her taste in men? „It’s good to see you“, I tell Andrea once her sister let go of her. „It’s good to see you, too!“ She says and throws her arms around me. Okay, I’m actually really, really glad she didn’t end up as walker food. „How did y’all got out there anyway?“ Shane breaks the cheerful reunion. „New guy. He got us out“, Glenn replies. „New guy?“ I ask, still in Andrea’s arms. „Oh yeah, he saved us…“ „Hey, helicopter boy!“, Morales shouts. „Come say hello!“ I turn towards the moving truck just when a the door of the driver’s side opens. My breath completely halts when a man closes the truck’s door and turns around. Brown short hair. Blue eyes. Slight stubble. An unmistakable police uniform. All the things I’ve seen before. All the things I’ve known my whole life. The sight I’ve been waiting for for five weeks. The sight I’ve been dreading for five weeks. I’m paralysed. I can’t move, hell, I don’t even feel my legs anymore. I can’t breathe. „Dad!“ I hear Carl screaming. My brother rushes past me, my mother on his heels. „Dad!“ Carl keeps on screaming and starts crying the second he reaches our father. Dad is tearing up, his arms close tightly around Carl. Mom stops a couple feet in front of them. She looks shocked. Happy tears are rolling down her cheeks as she kneels down into her husband’s arms. But I see through her. She might be beaming right now but I definitely haven’t missed the terrified glance in her eyes. Life has just taken another 180 degree turn. I’m still unable to move when my father lets go of Carl and mom and starts heading towards me. All I can do is stare at him. „Hi, peanut“, I hear my dad say before he throws his arms around me. For the first time since the dead started walking I feel tears rolling down my cheeks.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

[nikakistos]

The Perfect Closure of EreMika

The title is pure clickbait (as always), there will be lots of tags (as always) and this post will be huge. As always. So, let’s examine and evaluate the perfect conclusion of the most important relationship in Attack on Titan. We will analyze why this is the best conclusion they could have gotten and of course we are going to talk about what their scenes meant for their relationship, their feelings for each other and the themes of the story.

First, let’s ask the question: What was the purpose of this chapter? Ending the fight obviously, but also giving closure to the relationship between Eren and Mikasa. Now, there were 3 questions that needed to be answered in order for the two of them to have closure. 

Why did Eren say to Mikasa that he hated her?

What does Eren feel for Mikasa?

What would have happened if Mikasa had given Eren a different answer back in chapter 123?

Isayama answered all 3 of them in a spectacular way. Let’s see how he did it. The chapter literally starts with Isayama, via Mikasa, setting up the closure. This was achieved by having her wonder if this really was the end for her and Eren. Could it be that their last interaction ever ended with him saying that he hated her? 

Isayama answers that with a big, fat NO.

That’s the purpose of Mikasa’s vision. Mikasa’s vision is not there to introduce us to Alternate Universes or to portray her as a delusional fangirl that can’t cope with reality. It’s purpose is to answer the above 3 questions. And that it does.

Essentially, Mikasa’s vision is a “What if” scenario. If Mikasa had chosen the ideal for her answer back in chapter 123, Eren would have abandoned everything and lived with her. This means that Eren is also in love with her.  He said that he hated Mikasa, because he wanted her to forget him. That’s why he also asked her to throw away the scarf.

Mikasa though, being the truest representation of all major, positive themes in the series says no. She chooses to remember him. That’s essentially the meaning of life. That’s what Armin taught to Zeke back in chapter 137. Memories of everyday life. That’s the meaning of life. Back in Trost, Mikasa said that she couldn’t die, because she wouldn’t be able to remember Eren. Even back then, Mikasa always knew the true meaning of life. 

Afterall, the series heavily criticizes the usage of memory manipulation. Deleting memories or altering them have been methods empoyed by the Royal Family for years, hiding the truth from the people. One of the themes of the Survey Corps is remembering their fallen comrades and carrying on the torch. Mikasa forgetting Eren would be an insult to the themes of the story. As would be if Eren was revealed to have been sending fake memories and dreams to Mikasa out of pity for her. 

Finally, Mikasa decides to kill Eren. Not because he hated her or because he didn’t have romantic feelings for her. Because she had to save the world and because that’s exactly what Eren wanted. Back in chapter 133 Reiner foreshadowed Eren’s desires. He explained that it is very hard for Eren, mentally, to handle the murder of the entire human race. Through Reiner, Isayama reveals that Eren wants someone to end it all for him. That someone was Mikasa. That’s why Mikasa knew where to find Eren. His relieved face when he saw her swinging the blade said it all. That was Eren’s design and Mikasa delivered.

And so, the chapter that starts with Mikasa thinking that the only closure she would get with Eren was the “I’ve always hated you”, ends with the first and the last kiss between the two of them that puts all of her worries to rest.

Is Mikasa delusional?

I’ve seen this being thrown around, so i have to also tackle said point. No, Mikasa is not delusional. This wasn’t a fantasy that only she experienced. This dream of hers is the same dream that Eren had back in chapter 1. Eren experienced the exact same things she did in the dream. We even see him with his titan marks. It is clear as day that they shared these moments.

Also, i have to give credits to Isayama here for his usage of “itterasshai”. The word generally means “Go and come back safely” and is usually said to people leaving the house. For Mikasa, Eren is her home, but she is also home for him, as shown in the RtS arc:

These were the perfect parting words for the two of them. Nothing else could encapsulate their relationship better. Eren of course, won’t come back, but that’s the irony of the word here.

Moving on to the next point, Mikasa’s characterization in this final arc is about her seeing Eren for the person he truly is and stop ignoring his faults. It starts from the Marley arc and it concludes with chapter 123 where she realizes that this was simply part of Eren’s nature.

He always had it in him to become the monster that he became. However, he always had a different side to him. A side that had been shown to her a few times. At first, when he wrapped the scarf around her and later when he asked her “What am i to you”. Finally, it manifested as a desire to live quietly with her in their shared dream. It would contradict her development and characterization in the final arc, to have Mikasa start seeing an incomplete Eren again, after realizing earlier who he really was. Mikasa understood who Eren truly is and she accepted him and continued to love him anyway, even though she didn’t agree with his genocide. 

It is not out of character for Eren to run away with her either. At least not in that instance. The series highlights the moment that he asked Mikasa “What am i to you” as a pivotal one. Sure, under normal circumstances, Eren would have chosen to fight, but we saw him breaking down just moments earlier. The only person that could have saved him was Mikasa. Alas, that wasn’t meant to happen.

In any instance, the biggest indicator that Mikasa is not just a delusional girl who kissed the decapitated head of the man she loved, when he never really loved her in the same way, is Ymir’s face at the end of the chapter.

Ymir, as i have mentioned in previous posts, is a girl who never knew real love during her lifetime. She didn’t understand what she was looking at, when she first say a couple kissing with their friends cheering them on. And after that she was sentenced to a cruel life, with a man who never loved her and only viewed her as a tool. This girl, remembers longinly that scene of the couple kissing for 2000 years. She was waiting for 2000 years to see real love again.

She witnessed that through Eren and Mikasa. In a scene that would have otherwise been painted in a negative light, Ymir’s warm smile at the sight of the final act of love between two people who never got to be together the way they wanted to, clears any and all doubts regarding Eren’s feelings for Mikasa and the latter’s sanity. Eren reciprocates Mikasa’s feelings and he was alive for enough time to kiss her back, before completely fading away. Eren and Mikasa replaced the married couple and Ymir replaced the crowd that was cheering at them from 2000 years ago.

Of course, one might ask, could Eren really kiss her? Didn’t she just take advantage of him? No, he did kiss her. The way the scene was directed, it shows us that the events, which take place in their dream, mirror the events in real life. Just look at Eren’s lips one moment before Mikasa kissed him and compare them to the picture above, where they kiss. They are different.

 Also, you have to remeber that decapitation doesn’t kill immediately and does not immobilize facial muscles. That was the entire reason that Eren and Zeke managed to get the Coordinate. Eren survived long enough from Gabi’s shot to make contact with Zeke. Even his facial expression changes as you can see below:

More importantly, was there really any chance that Ymir would look at Mikasa beheading and kissing Eren, while also smiling in approval, if Mikasa was a delusional girl who was unable to understand Eren’s feelings for her up to the very end? Most of all, do you think she would have allowed him to die, without experiencing real love? She died in such a way and she stayed for 2000 years in the Paths waiting for someone to show her real love. Eren was her benefactor. Would she ever allow him to die in such a way, when she was being mistreated (sexually and in many other ways) by King Fritz? I doubt it. Actually no. I don’t doubt it. I’m sure this is not the way we are meant to interprete the scene.

Eren’s relationship with Mikasa, from the very start, is an allegory for the world of AoT. The world is cruel, but is also very beautiful. Eren’s story with Mikasa starts with him murdering in cold blood her kidnappers (cruelty) and then warmly and gently welcoming her to his family by wrapping a scarf around her (beauty). Their story ends with Mikasa decapitating him (cruelty) and kissing him (beauty).

Eren’s tendency for violence has always been portrayed as going hand in hand with his better side. That side has always been represented by Mikasa. It is only fitting for them to have their most beautiful moment happening almost at the same time as their most cruel one. This is how Isayama juxtaposes this duality:

If we interprete this scene as Mikasa being delusional and Eren not being in love with her we get a very disturbing and creepy scene, between an obsessed, psychosis-suffering girl who can’t understand the feelings of Eren, a genocidal maniac who never had any chance or willingness to live a normal life, even though there are hints of that, and a 2000 year old ghost who just happily smiled at the decapitation and forceful kissing of her emancipator. I am pretty sure this is not the message Isayama wants to send. Not simply, because it is a disservice to Mikasa as a character and to her relationship with Eren, which has been one of the most prominent and consistent part of the series from the very first chapter, but because it is also a huge disrespect to Eren as a character as well. Does anyone really think that Isayama would choose to write Eren’s death like that? Not a single important person in the entire story has gotten such an exit. Not even Floch. Even Zeke, who thought that his father never loved him and only used him as a tool, got to see that his father truly did love him, before finally dying. Of course Eren and Mikasa would get the same treatment.

What i mean to say is that Eren and Mikasa’s closure won’t be recontextualized in a way that will paint their feelings for one another and their relationship in a negative light. If anyone’s expecting that, he/she will be disappointed. Eren and Mikasa were confirmed as a canonical couple in chapter 138.

On the other hand, if anyone’s expecting that this wasn’t their real closure and that they will get an even happier ending, he/she is also coping hard. Eren died here in this chapter. There won’t be a scarf rewrap (i’m here to eat my words if it happens), because Isayama gave the couple a kiss. A kiss that was in the makings ever since chapter 50 dropped. And of course, there is not going to be a baby born to Eren and Mikasa. Like, no way it’s happening. Eren is not coming back to life as that would turnish the series and it’s ending.

In conclusion, Eren’s relationship with Mikasa ended in the same way it started. Violently and Beautifully. Tragically and Happily. They acted on their romantic feelings for each other the very moment they had to part ways forever. This is how Isayama hurts us. The essence of a bittersweet conclusion.

EDIT: EATING MY WORDS AS PROMISED. EREN DID REWRAP MIKASA’S SCARF. HE KEPT HIS PROMISE.

[dbzebra]

126 for marten :>

Sorry this took a little bit!

I love GT, especially the Baby Saga, so I wanted to try something with that! Imagine this being a little AU where Goten actually went with Trunks, Pan, and Goku to space like we was supposed to lol

I’ve always wanted to do a full Baby Saga rewrite with MarTen, but this’ll do for now lol

When Goten came back to earth after searching for the Black Star Dragon Balls with his dad and Trunks, he thought it was all over.

They had killed that bastard Baby and saved the planet.

Or, he thought so.

Baby had survived. Not only that, but the thing has infected the entire world. Even got Trunks too. He had no idea what happened to his father. Goten sensed Goku’s energy disappear a while ago…

Goten escaped all the way to Roshi’s Island. Everywhere else was compromised. When he landed, he wholeheartedly expected an infected Master Roshi to attack him.

The last thing he thought he’d ever see was a teary eyed Marron practically bursting out of the door, and throwing herself at him after she knew it was really him.

“M-Mar, what’re you doing here??”

“After everyone started moving to the Tuffle planet, I got away… that guy got my parents, Goten! I’d rather die on Earth then go to that horrible place. They were about to kill me, but Uub… he… he saved me. Then he brought me here because it’s so far from civilization that most forget it’s even here…

“Uub is okay?! Where is he now?!”

“I don’t know. He said he had to go after Baby so he left. What about you??”

Goten explained to her the whole story, about the Machine Mutants, Dr. Myuu, and Baby.

“We thought we killed him. We made sure of it. But somehow he survived. When we showed up here it was too late. You should’ve seen the look on Pan’s face when her own parents attacked her. She’s just a little kid, she doesn’t deserve all this…”

“how’d you avoid infection??”

“Luck, I guess. The thing attacked Trunks first. Trunks managed to expel it from his body. He went for me but Dad managed to blast him to pieces, and then in the chaos we lost him. He hides in people and we have zero way of knowing.. Even with my power, it wasn’t enough…. I’m too weak! My dad bought some time and ordered me to escape. I didn’t want to but—“ he frowned. “It’s my fault… My dads probably dead because I wasn’t there to help him.”

“Stop that!!” Marron shouted, surprising him. “You did nothing wrong, sweetheart. The fact that you’re alive now means we can still fight back. It was an unfair fight. I saw them. Gohan, Trunks, Bulla, all of them looked so twisted, following Baby’s orders like some sort of puppet. And I know you, Goten. You wouldn’t be able to fight them for real even if you tried. Your have such a big heart…” Marron gently kissed his cheek.

Goten smiled. “You’re right. We’ll figure something out… but man I’m hungry… let’s order food. I haven’t eaten since before I got back!”

Marron rolled her eyes. Only her Goten would say that at a time like this. “We’re literally fugitives of the state. If Baby’s forces find us, I’ll you’ll be killed!!”

“So no pizza?”

“Dummy! We have to think of a plan!”

Goten frowned. “Alright, lunch can wait. I do remember hearing my brother tell me a story about how him, Piccolo and your dad saved the world from Garlic Junior by finding this thing called the Ultra Divine Water. It purifies people.”

“That’s perfect!” Marron happily said.. “I can save my parents! And your mom! And everyone else, then we can go home!” She jumped up, ready to race out the door.

“Just one problem.” Goten grabbed his fiancé by the hand and gently pulled her back to the floor. It’s up on Kami’s Lookout. And I’m guessing Dende and Popo are infected too. Who knows who else is there.”

“Dammit…”

“They’ll sense us if we fly, and I’m still too tired to teleport, but i think we can use Nimbus. I can’t leave you here, so you’ll have to come with me. If I distract them, could you get the water for me?

“What if I fail… the world is counting on me… I don’t even know where it is! That temple is huge!”

Goten brushed a lock of hair out of her face. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right there with you, babe. We got this, okay?”

“R-Right!”

Together, the young couple climbed on Nimbus and shot off towards the Lookout. As Marron clung to his back, Goten’s eyes flashed a brilliant green. “I’m coming for you, you bastard.”

[sukirichi]

earned it [05]

Gojo Satoru is a firm believer that if you work hard for it then you shall earn it. But on the other side, he’s not unfamiliar with his own sins. He also believes that there is punishment due for his sins as he’s earned it.

cw. domestic abuse, car accident, slight angst, sexism, suggestive scenes, unedited and my naoya simping is obvious with this one, 

notes. TEAM NAOYA LET’S GOOOO *sighs* finally got this out from my drafts. anyways, here’s an earned it update while i recover from migraines because my schedule was so hectic last week and i’m so tired, might be sleeping a lot these days hence the hiatus :( also ik i keep saying this but future chapters will finally be more...UH SPICY AND MORE DRAMATIC, I guess? this is mostly an angst fic btw so please don’t expect too much fluff of heartwarming romance. there WILL be romance,,,it just takes some time hehe, anways ENJOY...or not :)

series masterlist

Women were weak. Trained to be voiceless, compliant, and unable to fight – Naoya found them weak.

His own mother was the perfect epitome of that. For years, he’d watched her leave his father’s room with dried tears, wiping them away with the back of her sleeves. When she saw a little Naoya standing at the edge of the hallway, she’d immediately usher him back to his room, her tears replaced with a smile so convincing Naoya wouldn’t have believed she’d been crying if he hadn’t seen it for himself.

Naoya wasn’t stupid. How could he be when day and night, he’s surrounded by tutors, expected to take over his clan and lead them all to a brighter future?

How could he be stupid when he can’t sleep at night, for the screams and cries of his mother, the sound of palm hitting cheek resonating just from the other room, accompanied with the insults directed her way by his own father?

How could he be so stupid when he looked up to his mother – who he believed was the only source of light in the rather desolate walls of their manor – only to see that her beauty faded with each passing day, the brightness of her eyes now filled agony, with pain, with fear? She no longer smiled; not even for him. She no longer came around his room to read him bedtime stories no matter how much Naoya pleaded because he’d gotten tired of reciting scriptures and poetry. She no longer kissed him on the forehead as a morning greeting, opting to stay in the sidelines with her head bowed, acting as if she was a servant and not his mother.

Naoya wasn’t stupid. As the future leader of the Zen’in Clan, it was his duty to hear and see everything, to be wary of everyone around him and to observe. He knew his father abused her. He knew his father hated her, looked down on her, stepped on her at each moment he could. And as if that wasn’t enough, Naoya found out they weren’t married in the first place.

She had been nothing but a mere concubine whose role was to birth an heir. Now that Naoya had come to life, her purpose to live ceased to exist. And people who had no role in the Zen’in estate had no reason to stay any further.

“Mother,” Naoya cried out, tugging at his mother’s sleeve. “Mother, please don’t go, don’t leave me!”

She was crying again; he wished she’d stop doing that, that she’d stop being so weak. He wanted his mother to be strong and fight back, but she’s not even attempting to wipe her tears away this time, displaying her vulnerability and meek self to him. Had his father been there, she’d be scolded again, claiming that Naoya shouldn’t be exposed to behaviors of surrender and weakness.

His mother cupped his face, trying her best to keep the younger version of himself from dangling onto her robes; the expensive, silk material the last evidence she’d ever been a part of them.

“Naoya, baby, it’s okay. You need to grow up strong and be the clan leader, okay?”

“But why do you have to leave? Why do you never fight back?”

“I’m sorry, dear...” was all she said, finally kissing him on the forehead like she’d failed to do so for the past months. Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better. Instead, Naoya’s cries grows louder with each minute, loud enough that he caught the attention of his manservants who paled at the Young Master’s wails that was sure to displease his father locked inside his study. His mother sent a glance their way that expressed messages he couldn’t yet understand due to his innocence. Strong arms wrapped around his smaller frame until they dragged Naoya away from his mother, the sight of a luggage behind her turning him weak in the knees.

“Remember, Mother always loves you.”

“No!” he fought against their hold. His servants did all they could to not harm the Young Master’s skin, but Naoya was too strong, too desperate that they were unable to hold him back.

Naoya kept running and running, uncaring of the fact his loose robes hindered him from going at full speed. He didn’t stop, even as his servants had trailed after him, desperate pleas for the Young Master to come back falling into deaf ears. His mother had arrived on a nearby bus from the open roads that led outside the Zen’in Estate’s outer gates, her hand frozen on the doors with her head slightly tilted to the side.

That slight moment of hesitance – to look behind or leave everything behind – was what made Naoya stop in his tracks. He breathed hard, sweaty palms on his knees as he silently prayed to the divine beings to bring his mother back, for her to look at him one last time.

But she didn’t.

And Naoya was frozen in his tracks, everything colliding into one crash and burn that he failed to make sense of everything. He stood there and watched his mother hop into the bus, her decision to leave him behind final and irrevocable. What had rung louder then? The way his heart shattered into pieces, or the loud honking of an incoming car that not even his skilled team of guards could protect him from?

Naoya figured it must’ve been the muffled cries of his mother behind the windows that rung the loudest even if he hadn’t heard it.

Until now, he carried the mark his mother left behind; a gnarly scar running inches from his kneecaps that throbs until now. It reminds him every day what could happen to someone once they’re weak, once they’re vulnerable, the horrifying consequence of not being strong enough to face in this world like a huge slap in his face. In a way, he felt grateful for the scar; at least it was proof he’d done his best to run after his mother, and this injury just taught him it was best to face things head on instead of running away.

This scar would always tell him that running away was never the option, and that was why Naoya felt so strong, so disappointed when he met you. Naoya saw much potential in you – the wrath firing in your eyes and the will to fight back is what pulled him in on the first place – and yet you were already trembling on the ground, your sweat dripping on the floor.

“Stand up!” he demanded, tapping his cane on the ground as he wobbled to his feet. “Do you really think being weak will make you survive in this world?”

“I’m trying!”

“You’re not trying hard enough,” he spat out, matching the intensity of your glare. Had you been any lesser of a woman, a servant, he’d have your eyes gouged out. But to him, you were a vessel of hope, an embodiment of strength he could help you hone that he let you off. Still, he felt extremely let down that he expected so much from you, and you’ve been pathetic so far.

Naoya shook his head as he left. “You’re going to die the moment you step out of here. And to think I actually had high hopes for you. As expected, you women are weak and pathetic. Each one of you is useless.”

He didn’t get very far when his injury throbbed again. Naoya fell to his knees and immediately bit down on his lip to conceal his groans, but it was too late. You’ve rushed to him in an instant, already pulling his slacks upwards to get a good look at his knee. Worry is painted all over your features still drenched in sweat and exhaustion, and he pried your hand away, a frown deep on his lips.

“Get away from me. I don’t need a woman’s help.”

“You’re so uptight, you know that?” you rebutted with a roll of your eyes. Naoya watched as you skipped to the nearest medical kit he always kept in his training grounds (which he rarely used) and popping out painkillers to hand to him. “Just shut up and let me take care of you. Unlike you, I don’t walk around calling people weak, and you having this injury never made you weak in my eyes, but you’re not impotent either,” scoffing at him, you pushed the bottle of water to a very annoyed looking Naoya. “At least let me take care of you every once in a while.”

His whole life, Naoya knew nothing but the familiar bitter cold. Being served tea, scaring his servants with his mere presence, the toxic view that everyone was below them drilled into his own head – that had been his life, and his feelings about it were neither hot nor cold.

To him, it was just the way he’s supposed to be.

But the warmth of your hands, the tenderness of your touch to his scars not because you found him weak but rather you cared for him…it tugged at his heartstrings. That had been at least five years ago and Naoya still remembered that moment very clearly.

He couldn’t understand whether he hated his inability to run away or not, because to be around you confused him to no end. One moment, he saw you as nothing but his one way ticket to fortune, but when he was alone with you, he was beginning to see you more as a woman rather than a pawn to his game. Soon, you became more than that, and nothing had terrified him even more that he let someone in his heart just like that.

Did he love you? No, most definitely not. A man like him didn’t know how to love. But with you – every time he saw you – Naoya is confident to admit that he could somehow understand what love meant.

It had been a hellish trip – one he’d never admit it out loud that he wished to never go on again. He was just happy to be home before he laughed, because home? He’d never thought he’d ever say that, yet there he was, beaming at the sight of you pushing your weight off the limousine.

You looked as stunning as usual, running up to him even with your heels before wrapping your arms around his neck. Usually, Naoya didn’t like public displays of affection since it could greatly deter his reputation, but everyone knew both of you weren’t each other’s weaknesses that he didn’t care whether his people could see their leader grinning as his wife welcomed with a kiss. Naoya balanced himself on his cane to encircle a hand to your waist, pulling you closer and burying his face in your hair.

“I missed you,” you mumbled with your head buried in his shoulder.

Naoya’s smile wasn’t any less affectionate. “I missed you more.” And he did – a whole lot. Even as you both made it inside the limousine, the tablet passed to him per the usual to update him on what happened on the few days of his absence, Naoya couldn’t keep his hands to himself. His cane balanced between his knee and the door, while his free hand intertwined with yours, mindlessly caressing the matching rings that symbolized more trust than love.

“How did it go?” he brought your knuckles up to his lips and kissed it, his attention still focused on today’s stock market. “Did you convince him to lend us the lab?”

“Yes, my love, everything is under control. I told you I had it.”

“Cunning little minx,” he smirked at the confidence and triumph dripping from your voice. Naoya shut his tablet off with a click, hauling you until you were resting on his lap. Giggles erupted beautifully from your lips as you pressed your forehead to his, both your smiles equally mischievous. “Did you sleep with him?”

“No. Satoru is still hopelessly in love with me, so it didn’t really take much to push him to the edge with a few tears and white lies,” you smiled at him, soon dropping from your face when Naoya’s eyes darkened with an unreadable – no, unfamiliar hint of worry behind them. “Naoya,” you caressed his leg, “I don’t care about him anymore, you’ve got nothing to worry about. I just want to survive and put everything behind,” you cupped his face and forced him to look you in the eye, making sure he heard every bit of sincerity in your voice. “You know I love you, right? I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth. Him coming back doesn’t change a thing.”

“I know that,” he said, although deep down, in the dark recesses of his heart, something agonizing stirred within.

You were a smart woman – too intelligent that he may have feared you had he been any lesser – who could easily read through him, but Naoya wanted to be a step ahead of you that he caught your lips to stop you from seeking beneath his soul already. He knew that if you looked a little too close, you’d see everything, and that would be the last thing he wanted.

Snaking his tongue past your lips, he greedily swallowed your moans. Naoya’s touch was possessive as he gripped your thigh, seconds away from ripping off the material of your dress. He only stopped once he saw his driver pale in awkwardness, and he chuckled to himself, squeezing your hips to stop you from grinding on his thigh.  

“You’re always so good for me,” he praised, “I might just reward you once we get home.”

Home. Prior to meeting you, home had been nothing but a word in his extensive vocabulary. Home had been nothing but something that carried a meaning but no significance in his living, but now that he’d met you, home felt familiar. Home smelled like rose-scented shampoos, it resonated of bubbly laughter and curious hands finding its way to its belt. Home…you’d just given him something to lose.

As per the plan, you managed to sneak past Satoru’s defenses. Naoya had once said that your secret weapon was not your tempting nature as a woman, but rather your intelligence that sometimes put his to shame. He’d shamelessly announced his plan to use you again with the goal of taking matters into your own hands, looping Satoru into the picture until you have him wrapped around your finger again.

It turned out to be easier than expected. Truthfully, you wanted to refuse. It wasn’t because you were worried you’d beat yourself in your own game and fall for Satoru again, but because it felt so uncomfortable to hold him like that, to kiss him like that.

Each second you spent with him just served as a painful reminder of how he’d mindlessly pushed you to the side from a failed plan of ‘protecting’ you.

However, you couldn’t complain nor deny Naoya’s wishes. He wanted to use your abilities to the fullest of its extent and bring out your potential. Besides, you trusted him wholeheartedly that you’d never question his motives, even if it included seducing Satoru with crocodile tears and a faux broken heart to get him to bend and move at your will. After all, your will was also Naoya’s, and that was what made the both of you so dangerous together.

Standing here now in Satoru’s laboraty, sending him phoney desperate glances as you clutched your husband’s hand, the game had just begun.

He was giving you both a tour of what you could use from his laboratory, and Naoya had kept silent the whole time. The whole drug manufacturing was more your expertise than his. He simply observed everything with watchful eyes, his gaze darting between Satoru’s longing ones and yours. It was a play pretend of push and pull, everyone in the room except for Satoru unaware that soon, you’d bare your fangs to rip his neck apart, and then you’d stand aside and let Naoya finish the business.

You would’ve laughed had Naoya not tightened his grip on your hand. Both you and Satoru paused as Naoya desperately shushed you up, his eyes wide and floating from one corner to another.

Suddenly, a loud explosion came out of nowhere. The blast crushed half of the building to bare rubble and concrete and you saw nothing but black, inhaled so much smoke that your lungs quivered. The ringing in your ears didn’t stop as you wobbled to unsteady legs, waving the smoke away and coughing whatever filled your system. Satoru was right beside you, his long limbs quicker than yours before he hauled you up, checking to see if you had injuries but you were too scared, too desolate to care for his worry.

For your husband laid under a pile of rubble, an arm and his head the only parts of his body saved from the explosion.

“Naoya!” You screamed and pushed Gojo away, taking your heels off before darting straight to where he was. Jumping from broken debris to one another, your feet scraped and burned with each contact, the ringing in your ears growing louder along with the pounding of your heartbeat.

“Naoya, baby, no!” you tried to pick up the heavy slab of concrete that had crushed his body, tears blurring your vision until Naoya’s blond hair swiveled with his dark clothes. “Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t you fucking dare-”

“Gojo,” he choked out blood. You fell to your knees as you cupped his face and grasped his hand all the while, your entire body shaking. His name kept falling from your lips as you asked him to stand up but he pushed your hand away, not sparing you another glance as he glared at the shock still man behind you. “Take her someplace far – somewhere he won’t find the both of you. It’s T-Toji.”

“No, Naoya, please! I’m not leaving without you!” It was too late. Satoru had easily carried you and threw you over his shoulder, running away from the scene because that was what he was best at. You pounded at his back as the smoke enlarged and covered the entirety of the building that had fizzled with chemicals inside, your husband starting to disappear from view. “Satoru, let me go! We can’t just leave him there!”

“Listen to your husband! He knows what he’s doing!”

As the smoke cleared for a split second, your world stilled. Naoya’s face was smothered with dirt and stains, pain evident on his twisted features, and yet – he was smiling. “Go,” he mouthed, hands outstretched far enough for your matching rings to glint under the sparkling lights. “Live.”

You slumped into Satoru’s arms. It was too late.

You couldn’t comprehend the events that happened afterwards. Satoru had pushed you inside his car before taking off to who knows where. All you knew was that you’d left your husband behind, and you stared emptily at the streets that flashed by, unable to feel or understand anything. It wasn’t until Satoru dragged you out by the wrist and a plane whirring before you snapped you back to life, your feet turning heavy as you plant yourself on the ground.

Satoru looked back at you.

“I’m not going anywhere,” you shook your head, “I’m not leaving him behind, Satoru, he’s all I have. I need to save him – even if it means I die.”

“You’re not going to die,” he starts off slowly. Satoru moves to place his hands down on your shoulders as if to brace you, even going as far as to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, but you couldn’t really listen, not when the plane hummed to life and remnants of the explosion still clung to your skin.

“Listen, Naoya is a smart man, okay? You know that yourself. He’ll survive, you just need to trust that he’ll make it. Now we have to go before Toji catches up to us and we end up all dying here!” he shook you back to life when your sobs overpowered his speech that fell on deaf ears, and you cried harder, much less like a little girl who quivered in his arms. Satoru sighed, perhaps just as broken from seeing you this way. “He told you to live. Naoya isn’t asking you to die for him, he’s asking you to live and if you don’t get on the plane, we can’t fulfill his wish,” he convinced, but you only bit your lip, still looking back at the car. You could steal it – one punch to his nose and you could easily get away, get back to Naoya, until he said, “You love him right? So respect his wishes.”

You love him. You love Naoya. He would’ve wanted me to live. He asked me to live.

That was the only consolation you could give yourself as you allowed Satoru to take you inside. His right hand man, Geto or something, quietly closed the cabin doors behind you. He was making sure his boss was situated, who in turn was fretting over you. All it took was one last warning glare sent Satoru’s way before he backed off, raising his hands in surrender and falling back to his seat.

Sooner than you’d like, the plane had took off, leaving your heart right behind with each passing second. The higher you flew up in the air, the number you became.

“Where are we going?”

“I have a base in Italy. We should be safe there for a while. Gather resources, plan our next move, contact friends...we’ll be fine,” Satoru pinched the bridge of his nose. It was hard to believe things would be fine when he too seemed restless; whatever happened between him and Toji must’ve really left a scar; not that you cared. You huffed away from Satoru and stared outside the windows instead, your heart dropping the farther Japan was becoming. “Hey. You should get some rest. You’ve had a long day.”

“Whatever,” you snapped at him. You couldn’t stand his voice, not even if he’s saved you.

The only thing that mattered now was living up to Naoya’s wish, and as much as you hated it, Satoru was right. You had to hope he would survive.

The chances of him making it out were low, but knowing Naoya, low chances weren’t zero. As long as he had a little bit of something, he would keep pushing. You just had to place your trust in him.

Kissing your dusty ring, you wiped away your tears one last time, eyes shut tight as you chanted over and over, live, live, live for me! Live! Naoya couldn’t give up that easily. You both had a long way to go, still so many places to travel, thousand more enemies to conquer and defeat. He promised you the fun was just beginning and that you’d get your revenge soon, and Naoya never broke his promises. So you had to trust, had no other choice but to believe that soon he’d be right beside you. He may not be able to completely walk anymore, though none of that mattered. You just wanted to be with him again.

You didn’t realize you’d fallen asleep until Satoru’s hushed whispers woke you up. Sitting up straight, you saw him scowling to whoever he’s talking to on the phone. He looked grim, long, slender fingers caressing his forehead as he sighed. Whatever he heard, it couldn’t have been good, and curiosity got the best of you before you could help it.

“What is it?” Satoru stilled at the sound of your voice, having not expected you to be awake. He refused to meet your eyes as he shut his phone. It angered you further and you stalked his way, slapping a palm down the table before him. “I said, what is it?”

“It’s Naoya...” he said through clenched teeth, still refusing to look you in the eye. “He didn’t make it.”

notes. team naoya...let’s go...cry 😭 when I said I would write more gojo x reader scenes and that they’re still the pairing, I meant it, I just had to take a dark route anyways DO YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND WHY IT TOOK SO LONG FOR ME TO UPDATE THIS, I DIDN’T WANT TO DO THIS TO NAOYA BAE 😭 but on the bright side, italy arc is gonna be SHEESH

taglist open (lmk if you want to be added/removed): @sixeyesgojo @shingekiyofeels @q-the-rockaholic @whatthefuckisthatthing @rogueofbullshit @kat-su-ki @kellyyween @sebootyforlife @asshxcm @charlie-xo @aoi-turtle @ladywaifuuwrites @savantsoulfinder @my-reality-is-in-my-head @hannya-quinn @90s-belladonna @tinyfrogsinmybrain @kinekyuroo @evesmores @ambiguous-something @lilith412426 @kakashiharusohma @aizawap @yumeneji @dora-the-grownup @jotazinha @themrsgojo @d34r-s4t4n @marai-t @toji-bee @hai-cool @badsadbby @stesphy @peach-buns-unicorns @misslezah @riri-marley @gracefullyfallinglikeanime @iwaplant​ @mikiminaccch​ | bolder users cannot be tagged

[shorkbrian]

Taking the risk of scaring you I must go on w my Tama thirst. I just can find a blog to I welcome my twisted self 😭 so Tama... I just want to kiss every part of him, kiss him through his pants, give hickeys to his thighs and after I use him throatfuck myself (I'm sure he'd go limp), I'd just overstimulate him to the point he isn't shy to be vocal, I'd give his balls, inflated or not, much love!! then I'd beg him to go balls deep in a mating press but I'msureIdwastehisseedasIcanthelpbutrub

Bro I am incapable of being scared, there is no kink shaming here ever!

(What to expect - NSFW, safe, sane, and consensual.  You’re hot for Tamaki and he’s BURNING for you babe. Body worship, hickies, throatfucking, overstim. Everything the ask contained basically lol.)

The thing about Tamaki, is that no matter how much he wants, anxiety takes over and stops him in his tracks.

His day is spent thinking of you, your sweet voice, pretty eyes, soft hands.... He’s always so distracted by his thoughts of you, it’s hard to get his job done.

But when he bumps into you, he’s a blushing mess, can barely talk, and usually ends up turning tail and heading somewhere else, just because he doesn’t know what to do. He’s afraid that you think he’s weird, or that he’s weak and limp and can’t compare to the brick houses that are Mirio and Kirishima. That he’s not a real man, can’t even build up the courage to talk to people for more than five minutes without freaking out.

God, you love him though.

So you’ll have to make the first move, have to invite him out for dinner or drinks. At first, he freaks out and shoots you down, stuttering out some excuse that doesn’t make any sense. But it’s obvious that he’s interested in you, so you ask Mirio how to get through to his friend.

Next time, you ask Tamaki to come watch a movie at your house, and Mirio is right there by his side, answering before Tamaki can blush and stumble his way through an apology.

“He’d love to! Friday night?”

Secretly, Tamaki would be thanking the lord for Mirio, but also cursing his existence at the same time. How was he supposed to survive being alone with his crush?

He was going to die.

The movie happened, then another, and then you argued that it was too late for Tamaki to go home, that he should just stay over.

And damn it, Tamaki didn’t know what came over him, maybe he was swayed by your eagerness, maybe it was because he himself was eager and wanting, but he said yes.

You offered to let him borrow a shirt, but it was obvious they wouldn’t fit, so Tamaki walked himself through the five second rule. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - and then he was stripping off his shirt, even though he felt anxious.

Would you laugh at his body? Mock him for being smaller than other heros? He had some muscle, but he was definitely on the leaner side.

To his relief, you breathed out a little sigh, an “oh-” that had the tips of his ears turning red at your tone of voice.

“Tama... can I-can I touch?”

He felt himself bobbing his head, gulping as you stepped closer, greedy hands rising to his chest.

At first contact, he felt goosebumps erupt down his arms, your fingers slightly cold upon his skin. You flashed him an apologetic smile, before suddenly leaning down, placing a small kiss right below his left clavicle.

Tamaki stuttered out an awkward laugh - he felt like he was short circuiting.

Somehow, the two of you ended up in your bed, in nothing but underwear.

The man was beet red, trying to be respectful and not ogle your chest, drool over your tummy, stare and lick his lips with his eyes fixed on the jewel between your legs, the beautiful flesh covered by thin panties.

But you directed his gaze with a soft hand under his chin, a gentle “Don’t you like how I look?”

And immediately he was bobbing his head yes, staring into your eyes when you smiled down at him, directing his gaze to your body with a wave of your hand, giving him permission to shamelessly gaze at your body.

You were so beautiful, he could look at you forever. Tamaki didn’t even know how he got this lucky, being able to share this moment with you, where you both appraised each other’s bodies with awe.

But you were impatient, crawling forward to gently push Tamaki onto his back. Your eyes flickered up to his as your hands ghosted over his chest, as you leaned down until your lips were mere inches from his skin. 

“Is this fine? Tell me what you’re comfortable with.”

And oh god, oh god, this was more than okay. This was everything he could ever want, everything he could ever dream of. 

At his enthusiastic nod, his “I’m-I’m good.... please.” You gave him a soft, loving smile, before touching your lips to his chest.

Kisses were placed everywhere, his chest, the quivering flesh of his soft tummy, his delicate shoulders. You peppered his slender throat with soft pecks, grinning when Tamaki unsuccessfully tried to hold back an embarrassing, keening whine when you closed your lips around his adam’s apple.

“Feels good? Tell me.” But he was too shy, shaking his head as his hands found purchase in your hair. He didn’t have the words to explain how you were making him feel.

You huffed at his forced silence, drawing away from giving little smooches, just so you could look at his face. He was sure his cheeks were red, eyes blown out and huge.

“Tamaki, I want you to enjoy this. If you aren’t feeling good, or wanna slow down, tell me. I don’t want to do anything you aren’t okay with, alright?”

Tamaki felt his heart clench a little - you were so careful with him, so tender. He nodded again, trying to find his voice.

“Yes, yes (Y/N)-this is good. I want.....” He held himself back. What if you weren’t comfortable with this? What if you wanted an out? He didn’t want to force you either, he wanted you to enjoy yourself. Right now though, his thoughts felt jumbled, like his brain was rolling around in a hamster wheel.

“What do you want Tama?” Your voice was breathy as you leaned down to whisper in his ear, and Tamaki almost came in his fucking pants when you nibbled at the lobe. His ears were so sensitive, and he was so embarrassed by the way his hips involuntarily shifted when you continued to give his ear attention.

“I want-I want.... um, more? P-Please?” God, his voice kept cracking, he felt like a teenager again, nervous and awkward and scared of rejection.

But you were there to alleviate his fears with a soft laugh, a kiss to his cheek. “I’ll give you whatever you want.”

And then you were kissing down his body, brushing past his boxer-clad erection-oh god.

Down to his thighs, which you parted easily, helped by Tamaki’s eager movements. He wanted to let you have all of him - just as you wanted to give him anything, he wanted to give you everything.

You latched onto a thigh, a few inches above the knee, sucking at the flesh with a smile, tongue circling and patting and it felt good-

Then you moved to a different area, higher up, intent on sucking a beautiful bruise into his pale skin.

Tamaki had to grab the sheets, already close to cumming from the sensation of your lips against his skin. He wanted you so much, you were so perfect. He tried to hold back his voice, keep his moans and gasps and sighs in check, but it was difficult. Still, he didn’t want to weird you out or anything, so he tried his best.

The man really wanted to hear your own voice, hear you talk to him, walking him through what you were going to do to him, what you wanted to do. Wanted to hear you moan and laugh and say his name over and over again until you couldn’t speak.

For now, he was content with watching you suck at his thighs, leaving messy trails of saliva as you got closer and closer to his dick.

You stopped at the hem of his boxers, teasingly licking over the fabric, before scrunching it up with your fingers, letting your nails scratch lightly against his sensitive skin.

“Oh-” Tamaki breathed, before shooting his hand up to cover his mouth, eyes trained on your mouth. You smiled, lifting your eyes to meet his own, and he-

You were so pretty, so beautiful. Tamaki felt so insignificant in your presence, so lucky. How did someone like you find someone like him attractive?

Those thoughts were quickly purged from his mind as you quickly closed your teeth around the skin of his inner thigh, close enough to his cock that when it twitched, it skimmed against your nose briefly. Tamaki had to tear his eyes away from yours, falling back on the bed to grasp at the sheets, breathing hard as he willed himself not to cum.

Working at the skin between your teeth, you sucked at the flesh, swirling your tongue around it, making sloppy little sounds. Tamaki was going to melt, he couldn’t stop thinking about your mouth around his cock, how your pink tongue would feel digging into his slit, drenching the crown, laving over the veins on the underside.

He was gasping now, a hand clutching his naked chest, eyes squeezed tightly shut, legs twitching.

You pulled away with a sultry chuckle, and this was it - Tamaki was going to get his dick sucked, Mirio would be so proud-

But you moved to his other thigh, starting at the knee again, licking and biting at the skin.

Tamaki didn’t know whether to feel frustrated or relieved.

The process was the same, teasing little bites, hard suction to purple the skin. It all felt good to Tamaki, but as you got close to his crotch, he found himself tensing up, wanting to clench his thighs together and rub his cock.

But you were leading now, and he wanted to follow.

Holy fuck, he wanted to touch his cock though. He was aching, boxers getting a little damp where his tip rested against them. Tamaki felt himself twitching, tender and wanting. 

He couldn’t stop himself from reaching down, quickly palming over his cock as you got closer with you mouth, using your nails again to roll up the hem of his boxers, to right underneath his balls. They scraped over the globes slightly, and Tamaki’s thighs tried to snap shut, stopped by your body between them.

“Sorry, here, let me?” Your hand covered his own, and he let you move it to the side, unable to stop his chest from heaving. He was so worked up already, he felt like he had just finished running a marathon.

Instead of palming over him with your pretty, soft hands, you brought your lips to the bulge, kissing it quickly, drawing back and giggling when it twitched.

“Oh, please-please touch me.” Tamaki didn’t feel bad about begging at the moment, too caught up in the physical sensations, and you seemed to like his voice. 

Without another word, you met his eyes, simultaneously opening your mouth and letting your tongue loll out flat. Still maintaining eye contact, you lowered yourself closer and closer, and Tamaki couldn’t catch a goddamn breath, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight before him.

You were so enthusiastic, licking at his cock through the material of his boxers, grabbing at the fabric with your teeth, pulling it back only to let it go, let it snap against his cock and make him keen. You went from soft, loving kisses to fast licks, closing your lips around part of it and sucking quickly, and Tamaki was losing it.

He was struggling to keep his hips down, to stop himself from thrusting into your face, chasing the heavenly feel of you. It felt so good, he didn’t have words, couldn’t even begin to quantify how he was feeling, other than good good good, and he wanted more.

“Don’t tease, please don’t tease. ‘M so close-” He gasped out, slim hands patting your head quickly, trying to catch your attention as he wiggled underneath your ministrations.

With a laugh, you pulled away, meeting his eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.” Thumbs hooking into the waist band oh his boxers, you couldn’t stop yourself from pulling the band, letting it slap down against his skin and make Tamaki jerk and his lungs punch out a gasp.

“Can I take these off?”

“Yes, yes, anything. Just-just touch me please.” He stumbled over his words, face aflame. “But only-only if you w-want.”

“Oh-” you smirked, beginning to shimmy his boxers down his hips, licking your lips when you managed to free his cock. “-I want to touch so bad.”

And then his boxers were off, and you were gripping his cock with your fucking perfect hands, giving him a cursory stroke that was dry and rough but so fucking good.

“You’re so lovely, everything about you is so handsome.” You spit over his cock, and Tamaki fisted his fingers into the sheets as the saliva hit the head before dripping down his length.

You used your spit to slick him up, running your hands gently over his flushed cock, enjoying the squelching sounds.

Tamaki almost died when you put him in your mouth.

Lips pursing around the head, you twirled your tongue over his skin, lapping at the slit, digging underneath the rosy crown. Tamaki barely had time to process the sensation though, because you were sheathing his entire length down your throat.

“Oh-h god!” he yelped, hips bucking upwards before he could stop them. He felt so bad, you gagged a bit and drew off his cock, coughing. “I’m-I’m so sorry! I d-didn’t mean-”

“Do that again, fuck my throat Tamaki.” You rasped, immediately swallowing him down again.

What if he hurt you? What if-

He didn’t get the chance to be anxious. 

You didn’t like how he wasn’t moving, his muscles tensed as he kept his hips still. Taking it upon yourself, you began bobbing your head, up and down, and Tamaki wanted to cry because it felt so good.

“I don’t w-want to hurt you, oh god, please wait!” He yelped, and you immediately pulled off, spit dripping down your chin.

“Hey, hey, don’t worry.” You breathed, patting his hip comfortingly. “I want you to do this Tama, I’ve practiced. No gag reflex, see?” You grabbed his hand, curling his fingers until only two were held straight, and promptly stuffed them into your mouth, pushing at his wrist so his fingers went as far down as possible.

Tamaki’s throat had never been dryer. It’s like he couldn’t speak, only dumbly nod his head as he felt your throat convulse around his fingers, all wet and velvety smooth. 

You pulled his hand away, licking seductively at his fingers before letting go. “I want you to fuck my throat, please.” You were looking at him with such honesty, such desperation. “I want to suck you off and have you cum down my throat, want it to fill up my stomach Tama.”

The ravenette could barely nod, eyes glassy, chest heaving. He wanted that so bad, you sounded like a vixen, looked like one two, batting your eyelashes at him like that.

You settled between his thighs again, giving his cock a nice, lengthy lick on the underside before fixing Tamaki with a confident stare. “Don’t hold back, I want you to feel good.” 

He was already feeling good, but if you insisted.

Cautious at first, hesitant, Tamaki was afraid of pushing too deep, moving too fast. But you grew impatient again, moving your own head while tapping his hip, encouraging him to speed up.

And he did, a bit, but he was still measuring his thrusts, trying to keep his head steady despite the tight suction of your throat.

You grabbed his hands, guiding them to your head, pressing them flat so he could hold your head. You looked up at him, completely stilling your movements, forcing your mouth as wide as it could go, fixing him with the most intense gaze.

Tamaki got the message.

He gripped your head tight, kept you in place before snapping his hips up, and you closed your eyes, as if you’d finally got what you had wanted. 

It’s like his restraint flew out the window, now that he was confident that you wanted this, sure that it wasn’t hurting you. His balls slapped against your chin, a lewd rhythm of smacks and gurgles and wet sucking coming from your mouth.

Drool was dripping off your chin, onto his balls, over his taint. When the liquid touched his hole, Tamaki shouted, eyes suiting shut as his stomach flexed. He felt so good, this was more than he had ever dreamed of, more than he could've ever imagined.

And then he was cumming, probably far too soon, but you wouldn’t make fun of him, he knew that.  He cursed, holding you flush against his hips, cock twitching against your tight throat as he shot his seed down your throat.

A few last desperate rocks of his hips, and then he was pulling you off, tiredly patting you face as you coughed.

“Are y-you okay?” And you, the angel you were, smiled, giving him a cheesy thumbs up.

“Couldn’t breathe for a second there, but that comes with the territory. Did that feel good though?”

Tamaki nodded, eyes closing blissfully. You were too good to him, too good for him.

Where did he go from here? Should he offer to finger you? He didn’t know how, he never thought he’d be in a situation where he’d be naked in bed with anyone, let alone you, a literal walking wet dream.

“You’re so quiet Tama-” You noticed, a hand stroking over his quivering tummy as he calmed down from his orgasm. “-I kinda want to hear you.”

With that confession, your mouth was on his cock again, slurping and suckling at the sensitive length.

“A-h-h! W-wait! God that’s too-fuck, no, wait!”

You pulled off quickly, wiping your mouth with the back of your hand. “I’ll stop if you want me to, I’m not gonna force you to do anything, ever, okay?”

Tamaki nodded, cheeks flushing. “I just need... a moment. You’re-you’re good with your mouth.”

A smile graced your lips, and you tilted your head. “I still wanna hear you though, you’ve been holding back your voice this entire time. I like it when you lose yourself.”

Another nod, the man biting his lip. ‘I just don’t want to-to scare you off or anything. I’m loud, and I sound-I mean....” He averted his eyes bashfully “-My voice can get kind of-of h-high.”

That was embarrassing to admit.

You didn’t miss a beat, clambering forward until you were laying beside him, face even with his own. “But I like that Tama, I think it’s sexy when you lose control like that.”

The admission made Tamaki gasp, blushing even further, and you leaned in for a kiss, which the man eagerly returned. 

“I-I think you’re sexy too.” Was his lame reply. He wished he was better with his words, could describe how amazing and beautiful and stunning you were.

Your hand fell to his cock, drawing him out of his self-doubt. You were pumping him gently, focusing more attention on his balls, lightly pinching the skin, massaging the flesh, before giving him another stroke.

“I wanna see you cum again, and this time, you’re gonna moan nice and loud for me, yeah?”

Again, you were whispering in his ear, biting at the shell, liking over the cartilage with your warm, slippery tongue.

Tamaki drew in a breath.

“And I don’t want you holding back any of your cute sounds. If you do, I’ll have to make you cum again and again until you’re too fucked out to feel self conscious.” The promise made Tamaki’s stomach burn hot with arousal, and his cock was starting to throb again, hastened along by your helping, smooth hand.

“I’ll-I’ll try.” He whispered, voice catching in his throat. He could imagine it now, him writhing in overstimulation as you sucked at his cock, holding his hips down as he cried and shivered and moaned about how good it felt.

“Then, I’m gonna finger myself while you watch, and when I’m nice and ready, you’re gonna fuck me.”

Tamaki felt like passing out, blood rushing down to his cock so fast that he felt all fuzzy and weak.

“I’m gonna lay back, and hold myself open, and you’re going to stick your pretty little cock deep, and you’re not gonna stop until you cum inside.”

The ravenette had never been felt more turned on in his entire life.

“Sound good?” Your voice was soft, sweet. he knew that you were giving him an opportunity to say no, to express any discomfort or unease he felt.

But Tamaki only felt lust.

With a sudden surge of confidence, he turned to his side, lips seeking out your own. He kissed you desperately, eagerly, probably clumsy but he didn’t care.

When he separated, he paused for a moment, breathing against you while he tried to find words to convey his excitement.

“Ruin me, (Y/N). Make-make me cry.”

[shurisneakers]

shut in [epilogue]

Summary: When your high profile mission goes terribly wrong, you’re forced to hide in a safehouse with a man you’ve never met before. With seemingly nowhere else to go, you’re forced to work together to figure out who is trying to have you assassinated before it’s too late. (Sam Wilson x Reader, Hitman AU)

Warnings: anxiety, ptsd, swearing

Word count: 4k

A/N: annnnd we’re done :)) thank you to my resident bully @midnightsunfae for really getting this fic off the ground and helping with the planning. ily upo and thank you to everyone who’s read this series over the 5 months it’s been going on. it’s meant the absolute world to me :’)

Previous Part || Shut In Masterlist

Your fingers tapped rhythmically against the table, an indicator of the nervousness that was building to a crescendo in your chest.

“Are you sure you wanna do this?” he asked, hand placed gently on your forearm.

You nodded, eyes downcast. If you looked at him, you wouldn’t be able to find it in yourself to follow through with it.

“I am,” you said quietly, swallowing to get rid of the lump in your throat.

“Okay,” he confirmed, letting his arm drop gently.

Ten minutes to go. You took a sip of water nervously. The glass had already found itself shifting back and forth on the table in search of the perfect place. It was a fruitless quest anyway.

The door was painted a dark green, steps leading up to it from the pavement.

“Are you sure he won’t mind?” you asked quietly, standing a stair below him in apprehension. Neither of you had contacted him or sent a message, just showed up at his place exhausted and covered in a thin layer of dirt.

“I know he won’t.” Sam raised his fist to knock thrice, a pause before knocking two more times.

A code.

He turned around slightly, checking to see if you were fine. The longer you stood out there, the more afraid you were of someone spotting the both of you, putting an end to your life before it even began. You had a feeling that paranoia would continue for a long time.

The door swung open, revealing a tall man with blonde hair leaning against the doorway with one arm. There was a nick above his eyebrow, an old scar that hadn’t faded over time. Even though his other hand was concealed behind the door, you could tell that he was holding something by the way his muscles were clenched. Years of training wouldn’t disappear overnight.

"Sam." Surprise overtook his face in a second. "You're alive."

"Don't sound so happy, I can't handle it." Sam rolled his eyes, an affectionate smile on his face. "This is Y/N, we need a place to stay."

“It’s just been a while since I heard from you, man. Coming from a hit?” Riley didn’t think twice about moving aside, scrutinising dried blood on your person as you walk past. “Nice to meet you, I’m Riley.”

It was a cane in his hand. Sam’s mention of his limp flashed in your mind.

You gave him a small wave and a quiet re-introduction of yourself, following Sam into the house.

“You could say that.” Sam paused, a hand on Riley’s shoulder as he says something out of your ear shot to him.

Riley’s face turned stoic immediately, a nod of his head and a deep exhale soon following. “Stay as long as you need.”

“Thank you.” You pressed your lips together in a straight line with a corner quirked upwards, a half smile of sorts.

“Bathroom’s down the hall, to the right.” He pointed out the direction. “I’m getting you some food. Gumbo still your thing, Wilson?”

“Anything other than peanut butter.”

Riley was a blessing you could have never prepared for; knowing exactly what you both would need and anticipating emotions you had no idea you’d be feeling. For someone who had guests show up completely uninvited to crash on his couch, he was ready as ever, given that he had been through the same thing a while ago.

It was difficult. Fuck that, it was one of the hardest things to go; not pretending like everything around you would fall into soon and that you would be fine because you had to. You had worked too damn hard for you not to be.

But you knew things weren’t going to be fine right off the bat and it would be foolish to think it was.

“Sam, look at me,” you commanded gently, but there was an edge of firmness to your tone. You were sitting on the bench near the entrance of the park.

“I’m sorry, things were going good and I thought-” He shook his face that was hiding in his palm, elbows resting on his knees.

His attacks didn’t come nearly as frequently as yours. It was easy to think that he had no trauma just because he learnt how to deal with it better.

“Look at me, Sammy.” It was just a walk in the park, a stroll that should have lasted twenty minutes tops. You had been on that trail before for the same purpose but something triggered him today, someone’s gaze who lingered too long on the both of you.

He clenched his fists, lifting his head to meet your gaze.

“Breathe with me.” You exaggerated the movements to have him follow, a system the both of you had come up with when anxiety attacks used to hit at random. A temporary solution to an aftermath that would go on for hours, days even.

It took him a few staggered breaths to get there, finally falling into routine with you. He could feel his heartbeat slow to what it was but the pit in his stomach wouldn’t subside for a while.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“You have nothing to apologise for,” you reassured, still making sure he was breathing with you. You were nervous too and your eyes were still darting about to survey your surroundings, but he needed you at that moment. “We’re safe. We’re okay.”

“No one’s here,” he mumbles, interlacing your fingers and bringing it to his forehead to lean against your hand.

“We’re okay,” you repeated, giving him the space he needed. “We’re okay.”

“Will someone be joining you?” The waiter prodded softly. If it wasn’t your incessant tapping at the table, the clammy palms and constant checking of your watch was a clear giveaway that you could use a bit of kindness that day.

“Yeah, any minute now.” You smiled at her. She simply nodded, refilling your glass of water before leaving you alone.

You looked at your watch and sighed.

Seven minutes.

Things were fine. Things were good.

Sam and you were… undefined. Labels almost seemed too constrictive for now and it wasn’t like the both of you didn’t know what the other felt. It was kind. It was soft. Sometimes you kissed his cheek when the sunlight bounced off his face while he watered the succulents and the smile he gave you was addictive. Other times he snaked an arm around your waist and leaned his head on your shoulder while you watched the street from the kitchen window.

It made you happy, and so you tried to force away the stem of doubt that creeped into your heart.

Riley had introduced the concept of movie nights and the occasional mob movie would make it in there just to poke fun at. He showed you around the city, inviting you to go grocery shopping with him at the farmers market, the best places to get a glimpse of the music scene or to subtly point out potential date night spots.

He was a genuinely nice guy, and if you thought Sam was fun to hang out with, you were not prepared for the both of them together. You could tell why Sam adored him.

“Y/N, I don’t know how you stayed with him for all that time and didn’t murder him in his sleep.” Riley glared at Sam who had once again left his collection of music CDs strewn around on a couch. It was all in jest; it was well known that Sam found an anchor in music that kept him up late at night for a sense of calm.

“It was a close call sometimes,” you added playfully, giving Sam a grin.

“You weren’t exactly easy to survive with either.” He scoffed. “How many times did we watch Megamind in a row? Eight?”

“You wouldn’t stop watching Die Hard,” you accused, arms crossed over your chest. “It was payback.”

“You made the rule saying we couldn’t watch things more than twice in a row and you broke it first.”

“I’m gonna go,” Riley interjected. “But y’all keep at this. I heard it’s good for your soul.”

“Stay there,” Sam demanded, pointing to where he was standing a second ago. “You’re gonna be play judge since you started this shit.”

“I really don’t want to.” He shook his head, staying put nonetheless, amusement clear as day on his face.

“The laundry.”

“The dishes.”

You both narrowed your eyes at each other. His argument didn’t hold a match to yours.

“You know what, I was wrong,” Riley announced to no one in particular. “I’m pretty sure you guys would kill each other under any other circumstance.”

The smile on your face faltered but you straightened it back out with a clearing of your throat before firing a comeback.

It was barely a second, almost unnoticeable. But Sam caught it.

Four minutes.

Almost time.

The tapping became more intense, and the rate at which you pulled out your phone to check the time increased.

Fuck, this was a bad idea. How were you supposed to behave with him after all this time?

Something was wrong. Something was off.

Sam wasn’t blind to it. He could see it under the smile you eased into at game night, the complaining when too much food was ordered for three people to eat, the good natured teasing when he rolled over to your side of the bed at night to steal your blanket.

Something was eating at you, gnawing at you from the inside.

His suspicion was confirmed when you whispered at 2am one night to what you thought was an asleep partner that you wanted to move out. Find a place of your own.

His stomach dropped instantly but he didn’t so much as move a muscle.

“I need to get out. I need to have a life,” you sniffed, doing your best not to wake him up as you traced circles into his skin lightly. “I don’t know what it’s like to be independent. I won’t know unless I figure it out myself.”

The air had a chill to it and it was one of the times you had asked him to sleep in the guest bedroom with you instead of on his own, knowing that it was one of those nights where you could use a little extra warmth.

“Even when we were in there I couldn’t stop thinking about whether this thing between us was just because we were forced to stay together. You said it wasn’t, and I know that but I can’t help but think-” Your voice cracked. “Would you come back to me if things were different?”

He didn’t answer, even though he knew what he wanted to say with all the certainty in the world. Your fingers continued to draw on his skin. He continued to let you.

Sam didn’t even bring up the conversation that morning, or that week. Instead, he held you a bit closer whenever he could and gave you the space to hopefully open up to him on your own time, letting you know that he’d be there to listen.

It took a while. You both were in the middle of watching a movie that wasn’t Die Hard when you told him that you needed to talk to him about something. The hesitancy in your voice and the fixation your fingers had with the hem of your sweater was painful to witness.

He understood, of course. He always did. That you needed to experience what it was like to live, not survive. That decades of living with other kids, living under an abuser, living in a safehouse for months, was restrictive and suffocating and you needed to find what made you happy.

And so did he. It was something both of you had to do eventually, exit the bubble you had been staying in under such ardent protection for those two months.

Riley was wonderfully supportive of it, vowing to find you the best apartment that New Orleans had to offer. You didn’t doubt it.

His place had been colourful and bright and everything you could have asked for after the monotone walls you were used to. But it wasn’t yours.

A few weeks later you had moved out. Sam left a lingering kiss on your forehead, a sign to say that he’d be here whenever, whatever.

You made a Shakira joke. He laughed.

A completely fresh new start. If you failed now, it was all on you.

And what a terrifying thought that was.

It had been four months since you had left Riley’s apartment behind.

Four months since you had seen either of them.

The cafe was starting to feel too small for this event. Too intimate, too-

When the bell above the cafe chimes, something at the back of your mind instantly wakes up, sending you on high alert.

“Y/N?” he called out from behind you.

You knew he’d be early.

“Sam.” You breathed out, standing up to face him.

Video calls didn’t do him any justice. He had a particular glow to him, an aura of confidence that wasn’t there the last time you saw him. His beard was neatly trimmed and the smile that tugged at his lips the minute you caught his eye was beautiful.

You didn’t realise how different he looked until the time apart. Months of makeshift workouts and peanut butter as your only source of protein had done a number on him. You remembered him being leaner, and what you now realised was the constant burden of fatigue on his face.

“You look good.” An understatement escaped you, but he did.

He had a deep blue shirt on that hugged him in all the right places. Months of seeing him only black and grey had you damn near drooling when he wore other colours after you got out.

Not that you were staring, but his biceps had definitely made a wonderful return.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” Sam sent you a smile that instantly put you at ease. “Independence looks good on you, sweetheart.”

You gave a small laugh, gesturing for him to take a seat. Should you have hugged him? Shook his hand? Kissed hi-

“It’s been a while,” he politely interrupted your overthinking. “How are things going?”

You let out a small breath. It was a big question, one that you had answered over text and call a few times but it was different now. He was in front of you now and you couldn’t bullshit the way you used to on call occasionally.

“Weird,” you admitted. “I don’t know what to do with myself now that I have all this time.”

“It takes some gettin’ used to.” He nodded in agreement, leaning back in his chair.

A lot of your time went into trying new hobbies. Knitting, pottery, drawing- anything that you could get your hands on. Things didn’t always catch on, some discarded just after the first week. Others stuck, bringing you bits of triumph every time you moved forward with your newfound skill.

“You still seein’ your therapist?” He flashed a smile at the waitress who filled his glass of water.

Ah, yes. Dr. Bishop had been one of the first people you sought out.

“Yeah.” You took a sip of water. “See her weekly.”

You still had money left over from all the hit jobs that you had done. As much as you wanted to leave every inkling of that life behind, you needed the cash to live. You had enough for the time being, but you knew that eventually you had to start working; if not for the money then for the peace of mind.

“How’s that goin’?”

“She thinks I talk in elaborate metaphors. The gang’s what I call my toxic family, he was my abusive father, stuff like that.”

There were moments where you thought you saw someone you knew standing at a corner, vendors giving you icy looks from across the street, footsteps outside your door that seemed too damn loud. But nothing ever came of it.

“Thanks for the tip, by the way.” You extended a smile to him in appreciation for the idea.

“Worked with my therapist, figured it would be the same with yours.” He shrugged casually. It wasn’t like you wanted to lie to her, and you weren’t. But some things were better left in the dark.

“But I think it’s helping.” You exhaled deeply, eyes downcast. “The nightmares are reducing.”

“That’s a lot of progress.” The corner of his mouth quirked upward in pride.

Several feelings erupted from that look, some that you’d spend the whole day revelling in if you didn’t force yourself to move on.

“How about you?” you diverted the subject back to him. “How’s Riley?”

“He says he misses ya.” Sam laughed. “Says he can’t handle me alone, that he needs you back to save him.”

“What have you been doing to that poor man?” you teased, easing back into your seat. “He was fine when I left him.”

“He’s got a fancy new job now and it’s been going to his head. Needed a little humbling.”

“You’re not going too hard on him, are you?” Even though you knew he wasn’t, it was fun to make sure.

“Nah, I’d say it’s just about the right amount.” Sam grinned and you felt the familiar flutter return to your stomach. “I’ve been doing good. Working on getting my license.”

“Oh yeah, how’s that going?” You were thrilled when he said he was going to look into becoming a youth counselor, knowing that it was something he had been genuinely wanting to do for ages.

“With my background, or lack of it, it’s a little trickier than I thought it would be,” he divulges a bit more seriously. “Riley’s been pulling a few strings and I got a few contacts but it’s gonna take some more time.”

You bit your lip, worry rising for him. He deserved it, he earned it. It fucking sucked that it wasn’t going to be an easy, direct path.

“We’ll figure it out,” you said quietly, reaching out to intertwine your fingers with his in reassurance.

The contact brings with it a small spark. You wondered if he still felt it.

“Yeah. We will.” He sent you a soft smile at your action, not making any effort to move it. “You been on any dates lately?”

You let out a snort at that. “Loads. Have fellas lining up at every corner for me.”

“I bet.” He’s more bold, a bit more open than he was in the first month when you both got out. “How many of them do I have to fight off?”

“I’d say six as a rough estimate.” Your expression mimicked one of consideration. “I hope you’ve been getting your hours in at the gym.”

“I’ll kick it up a notch,” he promised, hands raised in surrender.

“You better. We’re supposed to go for laser-tag.” A dumb callback to a joke he made on one of your last days there.

“Or paintball.” He remembered. It made you unnecessarily giddy. “I added an escape room to the list too.”

“Hilarious,” you fired at him, rolling your eyes slightly but the happiness on your face proved otherwise.

His laughter died down eventually, paving the way for the comfortable silence that lingered between you both. Your eyes fell down to where your hand still held his, biting your lip to conceal a smile.

“Y/N,” he called out, pulling your gaze back to his. “Jokes aside… how are you?”

You let out a breath at his question. You knew it was coming.

“Riley found me an apartment,” you murmured.

Sam looked up from his phone. “Yeah?”

“It’s a nice place. Lots of sunlight. Quiet too.” You toyed with your fingers. “But it’s about an hour away. More if you consider traffic.”

Sam set his phone down gently on the bedside table, indicating that you had his full attention.

“I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you, because I’m not. I wouldn’t, I just-”

“Hey,” he interrupted calmly, twisting his body to face you. “I don’t think you’re abandoning me. If this is what you need, then you should do it.”

“I don’t know if this is what I need. I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ve never been-” the frustration in your voice only increased as you went on. “-I don’t even know if this is going to work. What if I hate it?”

“Finding out what you hate is just as important as what you like, I think.” He watched you toy with the fidget square he had gotten you. “And you know that if you don’t feel like it, then you can come back here at any moment.”

“I know.” It was a comforting thought. A safety net.

“But would this make you happy?” That caught you by surprise.

It wasn’t something you had thought of. You thought of the negative consequences, the devastating effects it could have on you, how it could be the worst possible decision you’d ever make.

“I don’t know,” you mumbled, a new anxiety setting in. “I guess we’ll see.”

You liked the neighbours who played the piano way too loud at 2am, the really terrible coffee at the therapist’s office and the feeling the paper plane on your dresser gave you when you occasionally looked at it.

You didn’t like how hot the apartment could get, especially during the afternoon, or the guy who sold magazines down the street who cursed at everyone for no reason, or the gentrified Indian food they served at the mall.

But Sam was right. Figuring out what you didn’t like was just as beautiful a journey as figuring out what you did.

“I’m happy.” You breathed out. “Or I'm working towards being happy. But it’s there.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. Simply slipped his palm under yours to lift your hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

“I’m proud of you.”

If anyone could feel the heat that rose to your face they would probably think you had a fever.

The fear that you had, the one of what things would be like if you weren’t forced to survive in a confined space together, had begun to fade the minute he called out your name that day.

It was Sam. Your Sam.

You shake yourself out of your train of thought with a small smile, making a move to gather up your belongings without letting go of his hand for a second.

“Well, c’mon then. Those paintballs aren’t going to shoot themselves.”

“Are you saying this is a date?” There was a smirk on his face that wasn’t there a minute ago.

“Would you still consider it one once I annihilate you?” You tilted your head in a challenge.

“That would never happen, first of all.” He scoffed. “Second… I was thinking that maybe we could do something normal for a change.”

That had you more interested than the prospect of adventure sports. You had enough of it for a lifetime, frankly speaking.

“Lead the way, Cinnamon.” He only rolled his eyes at the nickname, sending you a vaguely threatening look. You just laughed.

“This place got good coffee?” He looked around at the establishment and its patrons.

“One of the best.”

“Then I don’t see why we have to go anywhere else,” he offered and you nodded, relaxing back into your place with the same sense of warmth in your heart that only intensified with his proposal.

He raised his hand up to flag the server, the same girl who had been helping you out since you got there, asking for two menus.

The smile he sent her was infectious. It was good.

“Sam,” you began quietly. “I missed you.”

His eyes softened, the sunlight reflecting in it making it shine like dravite. “I missed you, too.”

“Ready to order?” The waitress stands beside you with a notepad.

He looked at you and you nodded with a smile.

Things were different. You were different.

And he still came back to you.

--fin--

here’s my ko-fi if you’d like to support my writing <3

thank you so much for reading!

[weareparanoidcynicalpeople]

what putting henna on the brothers would be like

a/n: this is my first obey me headcanon post and i really liked it so i might do more. this one’s for my poc obey me players bc we need more content.

lucifer

• best to approach him at the end of a working day, when he needs to wind down. he’s unsure at first but caves when he sees how excited you are to share this part of your culture with him.

• he asks for a simple design at first but you add more and more onto it as you progress bc he chose the most boring one. the design is only on the outside of one of his hands. i think black henna would look nice on him. black henna also doesn’t last that long, and i feel like he wouldn’t want it too long despite how pretty it looks.

• he finds the feeling of the henna on his hand weird at first but relaxes into it. more distracted by the way you’re holding his hand in place.

• his hands are way too stiff and you have to gently manoeuvre his fingers to get them at the right angle. one time you do it whilst he’s in the middle of talking and mans immediately shuts up.

• finds your concentrated face adorable and loves this excuse to have his face this close to yours but would rather die than admit it.

• you sit with him while it dries, talking to him and tidying up little things on his desk to help him relax.

• admires the henna for like five seconds then put his glove back on bc he’s annoying.

• gives you a small smile and thanks you. inside he’s dying bc you spent all that time with him and all he can see now is how lovingly and carefully you etched out the design and how happy you looked when it was done and how cute you-

• stares at it when you’re not around and smiles to himself, tracing the pattern with his finger.

mammon

• 100% up for it until you take his hand in yours and he realises how close you two are going to be the whole time.

• nervous, flustered mess the whole time and therefore moves around a lot and causes the henna to smudge.

• gets the outside of both hands done. i think red henna would look perfect on him and i think a heavier design on the fingers than the rest of the hand would suit him.

• complains about how long it takes but loves the way you’re gently holding his hands, pulling them closer or slightly tilting them to get a more precise pattern.

• makes you scrape the dried bits off his hand when the henna’s set. big mistake bc you have to be really rough when to take it off. and we all know mammon would be complaining the whole time.

• shows his henna off at his next photoshoot and tells everybody his human did it for him. also thinks that it makes his hands look prettier when he holds his cards at the casino.

• tries to subtly hint that he wants it again when the henna fades away

“ya still got some of those henna tubes? what no- of course i don’ wanna do it again! but majolish said it would suit my next shoot. not that the great mammon needs anything to make himself look cooler!”

leviathan

• you ask him when he’s in the middle of a game. he says yes automatically, out of habit, not realising what he just agreed to.

• very shocked and flustered when you suddenly take his hand at the end of the level, henna tube at the ready.

• very reluctant bc a) he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to survive being that close to you for so long and b) doesn’t think it’ll look nice on his hands

• i don’t even have a things for hands but levi’s hands are *chef’s kiss*

• the traditional brown henna would suit him really well. his hands suit a pattern that goes along the back of his hand from his wrist to the tip of his middle finger, with minimal design on the other fingers. on his other hand i think he would suit a few minimal designs on his fingers only.

• jumps a little every time you pull his hand closer or turn it, but has less smudges than mammon.

• obviously you two are watching an anime whilst the henna dries.

• i also feel like he’d keep curling his fingers as the henna dries, which is a big no-no as it means the henna won’t set properly.

• tells you that you shouldn’t have wasted your henna like that.

• completely melts when you tell him how elegant his hands look as you trace the patterns with your fingers.

• gets distracted by his hands when he’s gaming.

satan

• easy to convince as he’s pretty much as curious as those cats he loves.

• you ask him when the two of you are having a reading session in his room. he’s heard of henna but never had it done on himself so says yes.

• black henna for him. i think he would want design on the outside of on his hands and on the inside on the other. on the outside of his hand he’d have a design similar to levi’s but on the inside of the other he’d have something a bit more dense.

• uses magic to hold a book in front of his face as you work. claims it’s to read but really he doesn’t want you to see his blushing face.

• asks you about the history and science of henna and when you’ve run out of answers for him he’s happy to listen to your own personal stories about doing henna for weddings, eid and other events.

• picks at the dry bits of henna and smudges the wet henna bc he wants to know what it feels like.

• stares at it once it’s done. at first you think he doesn’t like it but then a smile starts to play at his lips and his eyes land on you. he takes you hands in his own and pulls you closer.

• some evenings, if his temper’s beginning to show signs of flaring up, he’ll ask you to bring your henna tubes to the garden and the two of you will sit there, talking about the most mundane things as you gently draw the patterns onto his hands.

asmodeus

• having a little sleepover together and you casually mention how this reminds you of the evening before an aunties wedding when you were doing everybody’s henna.

• asmo is immediately intrigued and asks you to get your henna tubes.

• absolutely this boy is getting white henna. he thinks it looks the most elegant. i’ve seen a lot of designs with white henna that look like lace gloves and he would get those done. does both sides of his hands and does his feet too.

• loves how intimate it feels and brings his head as close to yours as possible without disrupting your flow. presses his nose to yours on multiple occasions.

• the best of the brothers to put henna on bc he’s used to getting manicures done so would sit nicely and leave the henna alone until it’s ready to be taken off.

• would immediately ask if he could do yours and if you let him you’ll find that he’s surprisingly good at it. just. don’t let him near your feet.

• absolutely adores his henna and won’t shut up about it. every demon who he passes needs to know about this “gorgeous human trend” stops calling it a trend when you tell him it’s an important part of your culture

• would ask you to do his henna the night before some of his shoots.

• also i feel like the devildom has a very eurocentric view of the human world so asmo would 100% be a big advocate of incorporating other human cultures into the spotlight once you tell him about them.

beelzebub

• you had scraped off the dried bits of henna on your hand when beel walks into the kitchen for a snack. when he sees the patterns on your hand, he gently takes one of your hands in his and traces the henna with his thumb.

• adorably happy when you ask if he wants henna too.

• brown henna on the outside of his hand, with simple designs on his fingers and more elaborate design on the middle of his hand. he’d have the same design on both hands.

• you would have to do one hand and wait for the henna to set before you moved onto the other so that beel would always have one hand available to eat with.

• there’s a small smudge on his index finger from where he licked the henna to see what it would taste like.

• feeds you snacks as you work to make sure you don’t go hungry.

• loves the way you’re gently holding his hand and is smiling like a happy puppy the whole time.

• i feel like beel is really close to his fangol team and when he shows them his henna and hypes up how good you are, they all want henna too. it’d be cute if it became a pre-game ritual.

belphegor

• you were planning to do your henna but went up to the attic to ask belphie if he’d be interested too. and, of course, you find him asleep.

• you decide to skip the asking part and just make it a surprise for when he wakes up.

• black henna suits belphie and i think he’d look good with a design that goes all the way up to his elbows. and he’d look good with the same design on both arms.

• since he’s asleep you can make the design as complicated as you want - just make sure he doesn’t roll over in his sleep.

• wakes up in the middle of the second arm. he’s surprised but not annoyed. it’s pretty soothing and soon enough he’s asleep again.

• he’s not getting up anytime soon to scrape the dried henna off so you have to get a bowl and scrape it off yourself then rise the bits down the sink.

• pulls you down onto his mountain of pillows once you’re done and you can feel his smile against your back. you intertwine you fingers with his and stroke the henna with your thumb.

• wears short sleeves around the house to show off.