#I always laugh when I read your threads because she throws the best shade

[rosiesdiner]

@emberwexley needs to know how much I love her character and I read all her dialogue in Alexis' voice

[live-the-fangirl-life]

Your fics are so cute. If you have time I would love to see this as a prompt for Rowaelin maybe? (Make it crazy if you want 😘)

“I would love to kiss you right now but my lips are on fire.”

For the Aesthetic

Aelin Galathynius x Rowan Whitethorn - Answered Prompt

“I would love to kiss you right now but my lips are on fire.”

Masterlist | Read on Ao3

Warnings: Language

1305 words

***

The party was in full swing by the time Aelin and Rowan arrived. If there was one thing Dorian did better than anyone else—even her, she’d begrudgingly admit—was throw a kick-ass party.

Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, bright purple and orange lights flashed, and dry ice was bubbling up from around the bloodied punchbowl. Aelin caught glimpse of her friends dressed like zombies, sexy cops, celebrities, superheroes, sexy superheroes, and a dozen other obscure costumes.

She smirked as she took in the cheap, generic-looking outfits. If Dorian won at throwing Halloween parties, then Aelin won at attending Halloween parties. She’d scoured the internet and thrift stores for the perfect pieces for her and Rowan’s ensembles. Her costumes were always the best, and she’d made sure that this year she and Rowan had the most amazing couple’s costume.

Rowan knew that Aelin would take reigns for Halloween, so he simply sat back and let her put together their costumes. Even if he tried to help or offer a suggestion, she shushed him and told him that Halloween was hers and that he could be in charge of one of the boring holidays. The insult was sweetened by lots of kisses, so Rowan didn’t put up much of a fight.

This year, she’d decked them out in full pirate costumes. Rowan’s shirt hung open to show off his broad chest, something Aelin had insisted upon with a wicked smirk. Aelin wore an authentic corset, and they both had shining swords hanging from their hips.

She had even found this website that specialized in edible glitter lipsticks. Aelin bought four different colors and was currently wearing the gold shade, making her lips look like shimmering sunlight or golden doubloons...and even more tantalizing than usual given the way Rowan could hardly keep his gaze off them for more than a few moments.

It didn’t matter that her lips had felt tingly ever since she put it on. Or that she felt a slight burn along her tongue after she’d licked her lips, but that was probably from the shot she’d taken before leaving the apartment.

They’d said hello to their friends before Aelin reached for a cup of the spiked punch. Maybe another drink would take her mind off her burning mouth.

Aelin dragged Rowan into the living room where the furniture had been pushed aside to create a make-shift dancefloor. He spun her around once they found an empty space before pulling her back into him, grinning.

Rowan’s hand on her waist tightened as he pulled her closer and moved his hips with hers in time to the music. Aelin let herself get lost in the dancing and the feel of Rowan as he leaned down and trailed kisses along the column of her throat. Aelin didn’t hold back her soft moan as he found the sweet spot right behind her ear, the music drowned out any noise she made, anyway.

When he brought his face up to hers, his eyes were dark and a smirk pulled at his lips as he admired the marks he’d left on her skin. Rowan bent his head to kiss her, but Aelin pressed a firm hand to his chest. He froze, the heat in his face dimming as he gave her a questioning look.

Aelin winced, wanting nothing more than to let him keep going, but she couldn’t.

“I would love to kiss you right now, Buzzard,” she told him, pulling him close so he could hear her over the music, “but my lips are on fire.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Rowan jerked back and his eyes scanned her face, landing on her golden, shimmery lips. His brows furrowed and he focused on her mouth before his eyes shot back to hers.

“Aelin, your lips are swollen.” He told her incredulously, “Did you have any strawberries?” he glanced over towards the food table, “I didn’t see any, but you know you’re allergic, you can’t eat them just because they taste good.”

She winced. Allergic. She must be allergic to the lipstick.

Rowan caught her wince and his concern deepened as he surveyed the food table with unerring scrutiny, searching for a fruit he wouldn’t find. She squeezed his arm, pulling his attention back to her, and told him, “No strawberries.” His shoulders relaxed a fraction, but he was still tense, trying to figure out why she was in pain, “I think it’s the lipstick.”

His eyebrows shot up as he focused on her lips once more. “The lipstick. Damn.”

It was her turn to look confused. “Damn? Why?”

He snorted but was already grabbing her hand to lead her from the dance floor and towards the door. “Because I really liked that lipstick.” He winked at her over his shoulder as he steered them out of the party. “I wanted to see it left on other places.”

Aelin blood turned molten...almost as hot as her lips felt.

She focused on them again and couldn’t contain the sharp inhale as she fully registered the pain she was feeling now that they were out of the suffocating party.

Her lips were on fire, so was the tip of her tongue, and she was positive they were swelling up to the point where she’d be unable to talk soon.

As soon as they got into Rowan’s car, Aelin dug into the glove compartment for her emergency bag to grab a pack of makeup remover wipes. Rowan started the car and got pulled out onto the road while glancing over repeatedly at her to watch as she scrubbed furiously at her lips, desperate to remove the cruel lipstick

It took three makeup wipes, but as soon as her lips were clean, Aelin immediately felt better. They were still swollen and felt like a dozen tiny fire ants were making their home on her face, but it was better than it had been on the dancefloor.

“Did it hurt the whole time you had it on?” Rowan questioned from the driver’s seat, reaching over to thread his fingers through hers.

Sighing, she leaned back and relaxed into the leather seat, “Yeah, but it wasn’t so bad at first. By the time we left it was only an incessant tingle.”

His head whipped towards her, “You felt it before we even left the house, and you still kept it on?” He shook his head trying to understand his girlfriend’s thought process. “You didn’t think maybe it’d be a good idea to get rid of the thing that was irritating you?”

She raised a single brow at him and smirked, refraining from making the obvious joke. He rolled his eyes, knowing exactly what she wanted to say.

Aelin used her free hand to tuck a stay wisp of hair behind her ear and lean closer to him across the center console. “It’s all about the aesthetic, Rowan. The lipstick completed the look,” she scoffed, “I wasn’t going to go to Dorian’s Halloween party with a sub-standard costume.”

Aelin grinned as Rowan loosed a long-suffering sigh and glanced side-longed at her, “And I suppose you have a reputation that not even physical pain would deter you from upholding.” He said drily.

Aelin just squeezed his hand in confirmation and he huffed a laugh before squeezing back.

“I might not be able to wear the lipstick,” Aelin murmured, inching closer to him, “But I do have a part of my costume you haven’t seen yet.”

His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel as his eyes flicked back to hers, now wicked with amusement. His gaze roved over her scantily-clad body before saying in a voice an octave lower than normal, “Part that I haven’t seen? Are you wearing it now?”

Her answering smirk had Rowan speeding the rest of the way home.

*****

Taglist:

@acourtofsnakes @allthebooksunderthemoon @astra-ad-mare @becarefuloflove @bisexual-genderfluid-loki @booklover41802 @charlizeed @cookiemonsterwholovesbooks @danibutterr @doubt-less @emily-gsh @enormousbooklover @foughtconquered @fromthelibraryofemilyj @hakunamatatazz @i-have-but-one-brain-cell @in-love-with-caramel-macchiato @jorjy-jo @lemonade-coolattas @mariamuses @mayhemories @midsizewitch @miserablesmusings @morganofthewildfire @nehemikkele @rowaelinismyotp @rowansfirebringer @sayosdreams @sheharahu @sleeping-and-books @stardelia @story-scribbler @superspiritfestival @surielandiareendgame @swankii-art-teacher @tomtenadia @westofmoon @whimsicallyreading @ladygabrielli1997 @moodymelanist @realbookloverproblems @gracie-rosee @julemmaes @yesdreamblog @the-regal-warrior @rowanaelinn @thestoriesyoutell @autumnbabylon

[libsterslobsters]

Whole Lotta Love

Synopsis: For some people, Valentine’s Day is another word for "stress", especially when you don't know what the other person is expecting. Several years into their relationship, Bucky’s pretty sure he has a good understanding of the Reader, until a word from Sam makes him question everything he thinks he knows. The race is on to make their first Valentine’s Day since saying their vows a special one, but as per usual, fate has it's own ideas about what will make the holiday truly memorable

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Fem! Enhanced! Super-soldier Reader

(Reader can see bits and pieces of the future in visions as well as speak every language)

Warnings: Smut, Fluff

Author's note: This fic contains references to earlier stories. For more information, click the series masterlist link. As always, the reader is unnamed so that this can be read as a self-insert, but at this point, I think of her as an OC.

The song referenced is Hearts Don't Break Around Here by Ed Sheeran

Series Masterlist

A The Song Remains The Same Fic

---------‐-----------------------------------

“So, Valentine’s Day.”

Bucky doesn’t look up from his laptop (or more specifically, the field report he’s typing) at Sam’s words. Despite his concentration, he can tell that his partner is staring at him, boring holes into his back with his gaze.

“Uh-huh.” He’s listening, but so far, he doesn’t care.

“What are you doing for it?” For Valentine’s day? Um…

“Not much.” It’s a Tuesday this year, right? Then probably working, like most other people, he’d imagine.

The room is silent as he types, so Bucky assumes that settles the matter. That is, until Sam mutters a quiet, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“About what?” How many paragraphs does he have to type before he can pass this off as a full report? When he joined the Avengers, he thought the hardest part of his job would be the bad guy of the week, not doing paperwork!

“You’re really not doing anything for Valentine’s Day? Seriously?” He nods absentmindedly and clicks the save icon. He’ll finish this tomorrow. It’s five o’clock. Time to head home. Home to-

“What’s your wife gonna think about that?” He shrugs and cuts the power to the laptop.

“She thinks that the whole holiday is a rip-off. See you Monday?” He turns around for confirmation, only to catch Sam staring at him, mouth hanging wide open. “What?”

“A rip-off?” Is he just going to be stuck repeating himself?

“Yep.” Told him that the first February 14th they spent together.

“And you actually believed her?”

He nods. “She’s not one to lie.”

Sam nods incredulously. “Uh-huh. And are you planning to ever have sex again?”

He’s not going to dignify that with an answer (because really, isn’t it obvious?).

“Fine.” Sam shrugs. “You do you, man. All I’m saying is, if I had a wife who looked like that-” he indicates the lock screen of Bucky’s phone (a picture of her laughing, telling him to put away the damn camera after wrestling the dog for the tie to her favorite robe). “-I’d have my V-day plans set up a month in advance.”

Normally Bucky would take what Sam says with a grain of salt, but he is after all a man out of time, so maybe it’s worth considering that his partner may be right.

“What would you suggest I do?”

“Outside of the bedroom?” He narrows his eyes at the Falcon. “Okay, bad joke.” Sam scratches at the back of his head, thinking. “I don’t know, man. That’s your girl. You know her best, but flowers are always a good place to start.” Good to know that hasn’t changed since the 1940s. Although, last time he brought her flowers, she spent the afternoon sneezing until he eventually convinced her that it was okay, he wouldn’t be offended, she should throw the damn things out. Then again, that was before she was a super soldier.

“Flowers.” He repeats, earning a nod from Sam.

“You can get creative. Do a little research. But I’m just saying, when a woman waits five years for you to reappear, the least she deserves is a few flowers.” On that, they can agree.

He must bid Sam some sort of goodbye and make his way through the Avengers compound, but he’s unaware of anything until he’s in the parking lot, sitting behind the wheel of his car, googling “What to do for your wife on Valentine’s Day.” There’s a web page that boasts twenty different selections. Might as well give it a look.

___________________________________________________________________________________

She’s nearly home when her phone dings with a text from Barnes. “Just got in. Forgot to get milk. Can you swing by on your way, or should I go to the gas station and pick up a gallon?” A frown forms on her face. It’s pretty rare that Bucky forgets things. Must’ve been a hell of a day at work, then. Either that, or his brain has completely turned to mush thanks to typing out field reports. Either way-

“I got it. See you in twenty.” She thinks about tacking on a “love you”, but the light turns green before she can.

The grocery store is packed thanks to so many people getting off work. There’s only three carts left, all with bad wheels. She chooses the least squeaky option and, grabbing an add on her way, heads into the grocery store. Milk, and if she remembers right from this morning, they’re running dangerously low on coffee and tea. Despite caffeine having absolutely no effect on their enhanced bodies, both of them are nightmares to be around in the mornings without their beverages of choice. Force of habit and all.

She’s halfway to the checkout when she sees it. A sign, decorated in garish shades of red, pink, and purple. “All Valentine’s Day chocolates 10% off.” Shit. Yeah, that is coming up. To tell the truth, she’d completely forgot all about that day halfway through February. For most of her life, it only meant giving homemade cards at school when most kids had store-bought. Then, once she reached adulthood, it was a reminder that she was destined to be alone. Who would want someone who’s on the run, and what’s more, sees the future? Once she and Barnes got together, it didn’t change much. That first Valentine’s Day, he mentioned the holiday, and she shut it down immediately. They were both broke (or at least, he had no legitimate way of making money while she was broke), and celebrating a mostly commercial holiday seemed like a waste. Plus, she didn’t want to put a strain on a new relationship. Over the years, the subject never came up again, and she’s content for it to stay a non-starter, thank you very much. In her opinion, you should show your partner you love them every day of the year, not shoe-horn it into one twenty-four hour period. Call her unromantic if you must.

She’s completely immune to the various displays of cheap chocolate in heart-shaped boxes and overly sentimental cards as she approaches the register and starts to unload her items. Milk. Tea. That one specific brand of coffee that he likes because, “It tastes like what we drank in basic training. Terrible, but I kinda got used to it, so now everything else tastes like it’s trying too hard.” whatever that means. He’s right; she’s tasted it, and it’s fucking awful. Still, every morning, he drinks at least three cups while she drains her pot of tea.

“You got a hot date for Valentine’s Day, hun?” The cashier asks her, never breaking her rhythm as she rings up the items.

She chuckles. “As a matter of fact, yes.” The cashier’s eye go wide, and she holds up her left hand. “And every other day.”

“Ooh, nice. How long have you been together?”

“Nine years.” Wait… “Or four years, depending on which of us you ask. He blipped, I stayed.”

The cashier nods. “So are you older than him now?”

Physically? They’re not completely sure, but if you calculate the times he was off the ice with HYDRA and add that to the age he was before the serum, then they’re not far off. But chronologically- “No, he’s still older.” And yes, it will always be funny that Sam responds with “Okay, boomer” whenever Bucky makes an outdated reference (even if he’s off by a good twenty years).

With a little more light chatter, she pays for her items and leaves. Now, for home.

As soon as she opens the front door, she’s greeted by their dog, Sarge, barking excitedly and hopping around like he’s on a trampoline despite missing a leg. Bucky’s not far behind, placing a quick peck on her forehead before taking the bags from her and unloading them in the kitchen. Tonight’s his night to cook, but unless her nose has suddenly decided to give out, he hasn’t started dinner yet. She doesn’t mind taking over tonight, and when he sheepishly apologizes while she begins her preparations, she brushes it off. Although, for the second time in an hour, she’s seen proof of his unusual absentmindedness. Oh well. She’ll ask him about it later.

Despite being relieved from tonight’s chef duties, Bucky stays in the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar scrolling through his phone as she cooks. His expression is neutral, which can mean one of two things; a) he’s just killing time and there aren’t any interesting posts or articles vying for his attention, or at the opposite end of the spectrum, b) he’s deep in thought, possibly angry, sad, or even frightened, but he’s gone into Winter Soldier mode and shut down so that she won’t pick up on his mood. Damn the man and his poker face.

Eventually dinner is served and she sends him off toward the fridge in search of two beers while she serves their plates. Just as she’s spooning a generous helping of salad into her bowl, it happens. A vision, but a limited one. All she’s seeing is a phone. Well, that and the hand holding it. She’s not sure whether to be proud or embarrassed that she immediately recognizes the hand as Bucky’s, but that goes by the wayside as she takes in the article he’s reading. “Should you do something for Valentine’s Day even is she says no?” It’s a thread on some anonymous discussion board. The reply that has his attention is in reference to a now divorced individual who “was dumb enough to believe that, on our first V-Day as a married couple, she didn’t want anything.” Oh boy. Not good. This will be their first Valentine’s Day since exchanging vows, and if the fact that he’s read this reply (if not already read, will read soon) means that it’s at least crossed his radar that she might be feeding him bullshit. That’s not the case, but after his research, she knows from experience that no matter how much she tries to convince him otherwise, a small part of his mind will be stuck on, “But what if this is a big deal?” Which means-

“Doll, are you just gonna stand there with the salad tongs in your hand?” That snaps her out of it.

“No. Just a vision.” He frowns as she passes him his plate.

“Anything important happen?” Should she say?

“No.” She’s not sure if the smile or not, so she takes a bite from her roll to cover it. “Random sneak peek.” It’s not a lie. What she saw really isn’t important. Still, if he’s in that mindset, she should probably go on and do something for him just in case. After all, why should it only be the ladies who reap this holiday’s benefits?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Not flowers. That’s the one thing that, after copious amounts of research Bucky is one hundred percent certain about. They may still be a common romantic gift, but since they were also a go-to back when he was courting girls in the 1940s, it’s safe to say they’ve been overdone. Plus, he doesn’t really want to remind her of that time she had such a severe allergic reaction to the flowers he picked her on a walk through the park in Bucharest that her eyes nearly swelled shut and she sneezed herself sick. That doesn’t exactly seem like prime romance.

Chocolates or other candies have the same issues as flowers. Contrived and predictable. A bottle of wine is nice, but neither of them can so much as get mildly tipsy thanks to the super serum. The fourteenth is his day to cook, so he guesses he could do some reading and try to create something a little more special than spaghetti (he thought about going to a nice restaurant for dinner, but there’s a few issues with that, not the least of which is they’re likely to be recognized without their disguises, and he’d rather not look at his wife through sunglasses on Valentine’s day), but that seems a little underwhelming.

As he loads the dishwasher (she fell asleep half-way through the third episode of whichever nonsensical comedy they’re watching this week, so he sneaked back downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes), he thinks back to the dozen separate articles he read on the subject of Valentine’s Day gifts. Jewelry was a common theme, but that’s out. She’ll say thank you to his face, but worry about the cost behind his back. Plus, he has absolutely no idea what she’d like, and there’s no sense in purchasing something only for her to hate it.

Another common one was lingerie. Bucky almost choked on his tongue when he saw some of the examples given with that option. None of it looked comfortable (in fact, he’s still scratching his head about how you even put on one of the pieces that popped up on the web page) and he doesn’t want to give her the impression that she has to dress up for him. Even putting all that aside, he has no idea what size she’d even wear. He likes to think that he knows his wife pretty well, but somehow, in all their years together, it never occurred to him to ask her for her clothing sizes. That, and have you even seen the bra sizing system? Does it make sense to anyone, because to Bucky, it’s all gibberish. 32 B? 36 DD? What the hell? Somehow, when HYDRA was training him to extract information, they failed to go over the translation of a woman’s bra size. He supposes he could ask, but he’s not sure there’s a non-suspicious way to work, “Hey, sweetheart. What size are your breasts?” into casual conversation.

Sam said to get creative, so he tried to think outside the box. What’s something she really needs? A new vacuum cleaner is the first thing to come to mind, but he’s not stupid enough to think that would make a good gift. He knows she’s had her eye on a set of throwing stars, but that doesn’t seem to correlate well with what this holiday is all about. That’ll keep until her birthday.

He’s still wracking his brain for anything at all that might work when he feels a wet nose poking at his hand. Sarge. “Hey, boy. Has your mom gone to bed?” The response is a quiet “woof” and lick to his palm. He scratches the mutt behind the ears, smiling to himself as Sarge’s back leg thumps at the treatment.

“What do you think we should get our girl? Huh?” There’s no reply (of course not, he’s talking to a dog), but he nods, pretending all the same that Sarge has offered up a suggestion. “A bone. Yeah, somehow I don’t think that’s her thing. Try again.” The dog blinks at him lazily. “No, you’re the one who wants new tennis balls. Not Mom. Although you’re right about her liking peanut butter.” At this rate, he might as well get her a bone and some tennis balls, because he’s sure not coming up with any ideas.

She likes music. The thought pops into his head while he’s brushing his teeth. All sorts of music. Over the years, he’s tried to make sense of the songs he’s heard her listen to, but has yet to find a discernible pattern in her listening habits. She doesn’t seem to stick to just one genre or era. More like she picks songs by how they relate to what she’s feeling at the moment. Wait a second-

“A mixtape.” His reflection mouths the words back at him. Despite technology having moved on from the days of burning CDs, she still has a thick stack of the disks stored in a cabinet and plays them on the regular. He’s even seen a few that she made herself, pasting together the songs she likes to make a “Cleaning mix”, “Workout Mix” and “Pissed off Mix”. Bucky’s sure he could figure out how to burn a CD, but it’s not like she’d be able to listen to that everywhere she went. That leaves a playlist. She uses one of those apps to listen to music on her phone, right? Surely he can put something together for her using that.

Quietly, he climbs into bed next to his sleeping wife and pulls her back against his chest, slinging one arm over her waist as usual. He closes his eyes, but his mind is alight with activity. A playlist. Of course. He’ll put some extra effort into whatever he cooks that night, stop by a bakery and pick up some sweet treats for dessert. Hell, maybe they’ll both dress up and act like they’re on a date. Then, once they’re sitting down to their meal, he’ll pull out his phone and hit play. It’s perfect. At least, he hopes it is.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Putting on a lacy bra and panties set underneath her regular work attire seemed like a brilliant idea this morning. Today’s a short day; she’s only got three classes to teach, and Rhodey called last night to tell Bucky that he’s suspending work hours at three pm “Since most people have holiday preparations to make.” Her plan was to be waiting on the sofa in the living room when he arrives home, professional button-down blouse open just enough for him to get a good look at what’s underneath, pencil skirt pushed up enough to reveal the stockings and garters she’s donned for the occasion. It’s fun, with just enough cheesiness to match this whole holiday. And, well, it’s a guarantee that by the end of the night they’ll be in bed together, both rumpled, sweaty, and satisfied. Perfect, right?

Wrong. On her drive to work, her skimpy underwear began to ride up, giving her a wedgie, and there was no way to adjust without running the risk of wrecking. She was so distracted by her discomfort that she missed her exit, and by the time she arrived at the college, she was running so behind that she didn’t get the chance to run to the bathroom and readjust. Her lecture on sentence diagrams was pure torture before the underwire from her bra decided to join in the fun and poke her directly in the ribs, but with that addition, she was especially impatient with her students’ tendency to joke around a little too much in class.

Luckily, she had just enough time to wrap the exposed metal bit in tissues before her next class, which eliminated the pain in her chest, but did nothing to alleviate the discomfort once her stockings began to slide down, having at some point disconnected themselves from the garters. She taught like that for the next two classes, but as soon as they were over, she pealed the whole ensemble off in the teacher’s restroom and changed into her gym clothes. Alright, screw the whole seduction routine. She needs to blow off some steam and fast, or else she’ll be in a bad mood all night.

That’s why, thirty minutes later, she finds herself in the training room of the Avengers compound, working over a punching bag. “Fuck-” Her fist connects, making the bag swing crazily from it’s hook. “-this- whole- day!” It goes sailing, and she feels a little better.

“Ouch!” The voice comes from behind her and she whirls around, gaze resting on-

“Sam.” The man in question holds up his hands in an “I surrender” gesture.

“Don’t shoot! I come in peace.” Rolling her eyes, she holds up her middle finger, receiving a snicker in acknowledgment.

“Just working off a little frustration before I head home.”

“Good.” Sam chuckles. “’cause otherwise, I’d be worried that when Barnes pulls out his dick tonight, you’ll bite it off.” She thinks about telling him that there’s no chance of that, but she might just cut off his if he crosses her. However, that jogs her memory.

“Has he left yet?” Sam nods.

“About an hour ago. Said he had to pick up groceries.” Shit. There goes her plan to shower, throw the damn lingerie back on and proceed as planned.

Bidding Sam a hasty reply, she makes tracks towards her car and, once inside, heads for home. Fine. New plan. She’ll shower once she arrives and then when the evening is drawing to a close, wait for him in bed. Nodding to herself, she puts the car in park and climbs out. Now, to psych herself up enough in the next few hours to put the damn lingerie back on.

___________________________________________________________________________________

Where did he go wrong? It takes all of Bucky’s self control not to spit out the spoonful of sauce he just tasted. This was supposed to be an easy recipe for Chicken Alfredo (or at least, that’s what the website boasted; he should’ve known better than to get his information from the internet and stuck to a good old-fashioned cookbook from the library). Not… whatever the hell this is. Maybe even if the sauce is nauseating, the chicken is okay?

He pulls open the oven door, and immediately smoke billows out, making his eyes water. Okay, chicken’s a little well-done. Who is he kidding? Black. The chicken is burned black. And the pasta… he lifts the pot lid and stirs, only to come to the realization that the pasta is completely stuck to the bottom of the pot. Wonderful.

It’s inevitable; over the years, he’s had his fair share of cooking disasters, but usually he does okay. Tonight though… who the hell up there did he piss off, because the only explanation for how badly this is going is his karma coming due.

Still holding the offending spoon, he looks over at Sarge, who’s staring at him, long pink tongue sticking out as he pants. “Trust me, boy. You don’t want any of this.” There has to be something else he can pull together on short notice. Normally he’d be worried that she’s running late without so much as a text, but today he’s relieved. At least if she’s running behind he’ll have time to… what? Maybe order takeout? Before she gets-

“I’m home.” Shit.

Sarge yips, shaking with excitement, and starts towards the kitchen door, then turns back, uncertain. “Go on. I know you’re dying to jump on her and lick her face.” Something they really should be training out of him because he’s getting too big for that sort of behaviour but, well… there’s a reason they call them “puppy dog eyes.”

Not needing to be coaxed, the dog takes off, tripping a little in the momentary lapse in his memory that he’s a tripod, but easily catches himself and goes on his merry way, leaving Bucky to clean up his mess. From the sound of things, a game of fetch is going on in the living room, so she should be distracted for a while.

He manages to pour the sauce down the drain and scrape most of the pasta into the trash while Sarge is acting as a decoy, but there’s absolutely no way he can dispose of the chicken without tipping her off (damn enhanced senses, it’s a wonder she hasn’t already smelled it). Finally, he decides to just go for it. She’s going to notice whether he throws it out now or two hours from now. Might as well get a head start on cleaning.

Sure enough, not ten seconds after he empties out the oven, he catches a movement in his peripheral vision, and the familiar sound of her breathing tips him off that he’s no longer alone.

“Hey, Doll.”

“Hey, Bucky. Did something burn in here, or-” He holds up the pan for her inspection before continuing his scraping.

“That’s one way to put it, yeah.” He slams the lid back on the trashcan and turns on the tap, intent on rinsing out the pan. “Another is whoever the god of culinary arts is has it in for me today.”

She chuckles. “You know, that would be funnier if we didn’t actually know a god.”

“Yeah, but he’s in control of thunder.” He meets her eyes, smirking slightly. “Although it did look like I electrocuted the bird.” Her lips quirk up into a smile, and he takes the opportunity to kiss her, cupping the back of her head gently to hold her in place when she tries to move away, muttering something about being sweaty.

He’s not entirely sure how it happened, but by the time they come up for air, her back his pressed against the wall and he’s got her pinned in place. Not that he’s complaining.

“Anyone ever tell you that the tip of your nose turns pink after you’ve been kissed?’ Her cheeks go rosey in response.

“I think so. One guy did. I told him it’s only when I’m kissed properly.”

He really would like to continue the playful banter, but there’s still the small matter of whatever it is they’re going to eat.

“What do you feel like for dinner tonight?”

“Apart from electrocuted chicken?” He responds with a swat to her ass, which earns him a snicker. “Let’s keep it simple. Pizza. Your choice of toppings.” Right, that’s easy enough. Plus, if they have to wait longer than thirty minutes, it’s free.

“Okay. I’ll order while you shower?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He’s just pulled up the menu on his phone when the sound of her clearing her throat attracts his attention. She’s standing in the doorway, combing through her freshly let down hair with her fingers, a playful look in her eyes.

“Or you could join me. Just a mild suggestion.”

Dinner can wait for a while.

___________________________________________________________________________________

The Brooklyn townhouse they live in has many nice features. There’s a functional if small screened in back porch, big enough to hold a table for two and a grill. Two bedrooms, on the off chance someone from work needs to crash for a night or two. A kitchen with a dishwasher. A working fireplace. Good closet space. And an en suite bathroom.

Maybe it’s a little ridiculous to call a bathroom luxurious, especially when, in comparison to what’s featured in many brownstones, it’s more than modest, but she can’t help but think of it as such. There’s a double sink so that in the morning rush to get ready, Bucky’s able to shave and brush his teeth without having to wait for her to finish applying her makeup. Shelving above the toilet makes certain that even if the last person to shower took the towel with them, another one is on hand. Speaking of the shower, it’s not the largest one in the world, but both of them can fit in comfortably at the same time, which is what’s lead to their current situation.

She’s just finished allowing the water to course over her body, easing the sweat from her skin, and is about to begin the process of washing her hair, scrubbing her body, but she hesitates. She might as well ask. It’s only practical after all.

“Do you want to start now or get cleaned up and have dinner beforehand?” It’s obvious what she’s referring to, so she doesn’t bother to spell it out.

His brown knits, and if she didn’t know him as… intimately… as she does, she’d actually believe he’s confused.

“Oh, so you’re just assuming there’s gonna be sex involved at some point tonight?”

She shrugs, wringing out her hair.

“Seemed like a safe enough bet.” She glances pointedly between the two of them. “After all, we’re already undressed. “

His laugh is a quiet huff, barely discernible over the sound of the water. “Then I’d say start now, have dinner, then go for round two. Sound about right to you?”

She nods. “Solid plan.”

“Then get over here.”

Unlike the welcome home kiss they shared not half an hour ago, this one is less tender, more electric. Hands twist in hair, bodies press together. Tongues begging for entrance quickly give way to teeth nipping at bottom lips, an unspoken sparring match for who’ll be in control this time around. Ultimately he wins, grasping her hips and lifting as she wraps her legs securely around his back.

There’s no need for prep; the teasing of their earlier words is foreplay enough. Back pressed against the wall, her body easily welcomes him in as she braces one arm against the glass shower doors for balance. Any concerns about slipping and falling wash away as they move together like so many times before. She’s sure her nails will leave marks on his back, fingertips digging in for purchase and it’s a guarantee her hips will be littered with fingerprints from his grip, but she can’t find it in her to care, and if the desperate, bruising kiss assaulting her lips is anything to judge from, neither can he.

“So damn good, Doll.” It’s panted against her neck. “Always. So damn perfect for me.” All she can manage is a moan in response.

She feels him twitch inside of her and knows he’s close. So is she, but she can’t quite get there without-

As if he’s read her mind, he reaches between them to touch her where she needs it most, and on instinct, she readjusts, locking her arm around his neck to stay in place. “Let go, sweetheart. Can you do that for me?” She couldn’t disobey if she wanted to.

“Fuck.” As her walls contract around him, he pulls out just in time to paint her middle with his release.

“That’s one word for it.” She’s still fighting to catch her breath, but she shoots him a shaky smirk, which he returns.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mrs. Barnes.” Snickering, she releases him to stand on unsteady legs and pecks his legs.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. Barnes.” Maybe there’s something to this holiday after all.

___________________________________________________________________________________

“You want the last slice?” Bucky considers it for a moment before deciding-

“Nah. You can have it.” It may not be exactly what he planned, but it’s been a good night. Between the two of them, they’ve gone through two large pizzas while watching the new version of Beauty and the Beast (she rolled her eyes when he asked if this was her way of saying he reminds her of a certain hairy, horned character) in their pajamas.

“No, really. You take it. I don’t want it.” She nudges the mostly-empty pizza box towards him. The noise makes Sarge lift his head from where he was snoozing beside her on the sofa. That gives him an idea.

“I don’t want it either, but I can think of someone who does.” He cocks his head towards the now-drooling dog. “How ‘bout it, boy? Wanna help us out?”

Snickering, she picks the pepperonis and pieces of sausage and ham from the pizza, forming a pile. “Here, Sarge. Catch.” She tosses a coveted treat in the air, and Sarge’s jaw snaps, swallowing it whole. “Good boy.”

They sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes before she speaks again.

“You know, I actually did have something planned for you.”

“Oh, yeah?” She nods.

“Absolutely. Had a whole seduction plan laid out. Tiny underwear, lacy bra, and stockings with garters included.” Huh. Guess she wouldn’t have taken the “lingerie” option the wrong way. He’ll file that away for future use… along with a mental note to ask her bra size. “That is, until I tried wearing the damn things for longer than an hour. Turns out, hiding a dirty secret under your clothes is more itchy than sexy.”

He can’t help it. He laughs, producing a pout from her which quickly turns into her own quiet laughter.

“Well, that fits in perfectly with my fancy dinner going up in smoke.”

“We really do have shitty luck with the whole “romance” thing.” She’s joking, but he decides to respond anyway.

“I don’t know about that.” Entwining his fingers with hers, he lifts their hands, twin wedding bands catching the light. “You waited five years for me to reappear after the blip, and I convinced you to elope with me. Seems pretty romantic.” Although, that reminds him…

“Don’t move.” Releasing her hand, he stands and goes in search of his phone.

“Bucky, what-”

“Don’t move, Doll. Stay right where you are.” Ah. On the kitchen counter, just where he left it. Jogging back into the room, he resumes his place on the couch next to her. Ignoring her questioning gaze, he pulls up the app and, selecting the correct playlist, hits play.

Immediate recognition blooms on her face at the opening lyrics. “She is the sweetest thing that I know. Should see the way she holds me when the lights go low.” He’s not one for modern music, but when he was googling “songs for Valentine’s Day” and this one popped up, he couldn’t help but think that the lyrics were fitting.

“I didn’t know you’d heard this one.”

He chuckles. “Even old men have a few tricks up their sleeves. That, and a wifi connection.” She rolls her eyes but leans closer, which he takes advantage of to show her the playlist.

“This is the app you use, right?” Receiving a nod, he continues. “Feel free to scroll through and add whatever you want. I haven’t listened to all of them the whole way through, but they seemed to fit the mood.”

Her hand closes over his, covering the phone. “Thank you, Bucky. It’s perfect.”

As the singer goes on about how hearts don’t break around here, he presses his lips against hers.

“I love you, Doll.”

“Love you.”

Not bad for a disastrous Valentine’s Day. Not bad at all.

[smellss]

city lights - mako x reader

gif credits: @ahhhsami

request: @salemgirl

“hello, can i request a mako x reader where they are childhood friends who have romantic feelings for each other but think they have crushes on someone else but korra,asami and bolin who both are aware help them relied their feelings and ends with them confessing.”

hi lovelies,

this request was a really great concept! i really liked writing it i’ve been getting some messages about my spelling i usually come back and edit the day after i post so sorry if you read straight after i’ve posted. keep requesting!

- smells x

mako unlocked the apartment door, his eyes feeling droopy from his long shift

you just had to see those benders robbing the bank at the end of your shift didn’t you mako

the firebender sighed as he took off his shoes and placed them by the door breathing in the sweet scent of the apartment and a fruity smell coming from the kitchen

“bolin, i swear to the spirits if put your finger in the bowl one more time i’m going to kick your ass all the way into the spirit world” y/n growled at bolin, snatching the pancake mix away from the young boy walking over to the frying pan to start cooking

bolin pouted stomping out of the kitchen and went to sulk on the couch with pabu

“y/n’s cranky when she hasn’t seen mako isn’t she pabu” bolin complained to his companion poking his tounge out to the girl

“hah hah very funny bo, i would just like mako to have something to eat when he comes home” y/n stated matter of factly, raising her eyebrows at the earth bender boy

“i appreciate that greatly peach��� mako exclaimed wrapping his arms around the girl as she jumped

“mako, spirits don’t sneak up on a person like that also how many times have i told you not to call me that!” y/n exclaimed whacking him with the spatula, chasing him around the kitchen

mako threw y/n over his shoulder, dancing around the kitchen with her the young girl squealing at the boy, mako eventually putting her down

“wow you to are almost like a couple” bolin pointed out with a snicker, both individuals turning a bright shade of pink from the comment

“i have to um go-o, i’m getting ready at wu’s but i’ll see you both at korra and asami’s for the party?” y/n said collecting her thing placing kisses on both boys cheeks as she walked out the door trying to seem unfazed by bolin’s comment

“yep we’ll see you then” bolin waved to the girl as she walked out the door, the second it closed a hand whacked his head

“ouch mako what was that for?” bolin whined rubbing his head from the impact, sinking into the couch

“why would you say that in front of her bo? it made her nervous and you almost exposed everything” mako stated crossing his arms together,

“well maybe it’s time you told her come on mako, we’ve know her our whole lives don’t you think you come clean about your little secret?” bolin teased throwing a cushion at the boy, which he easily dodged

“what’s the point though she has a thing for wu, she’s been spending so much time with him and it makes her happy i can’t ruin that for her” mako sighed out walking to his bedroom to lie down and sulk

why did i have to fall for her

“so then bolin said, wow you too are almost like a couple” y/n huffed out falling dramatically onto the bed, covering her face with a pillow letting out a muffled sigh

“pfft he actually said that” wu laughed coming out to show y/n yet another outfit option for the party

“yes he did and it isn’t funny in the slightest, next outfit too green” y/n stated waving the boy away, wu walking off to his wardrobe to find another outfit

“what am i supposed to wu? i’m not supposed to have feelings for him i’ve known him my whole life, he’s been my rock for me in my darkest place and now i’m going to ruin our whole friendship with my silly feelings” y/n rambled out, putting her head in her hands tears threading to spill

y/n felt a hand on her back, wu gently raising her chin up for her to look at him face to face

“y/n hey look at me, everything with mako will work out but you need to talk about it with him if he’s really your best friend he’ll understand” wu smiled at the young girl, before standing up

“now tell me this outfit is perfect and we can go” wu stated giving the girl a twirl, causing her to laugh at the prince

“yes it’s perfect now let’s go” y/n giggled linking arms with wu skipping out the door

wu and y/n arrived to the party lights strung from the ceiling people filled the apartment everyone was there, well except for him

“hey asami, have you seen mako?” y/n yelled over the music to her somewhat tipsy friend

“he said he’d be here soon he just had to pick something oh” asami getting cut off as she saw who walked through the door, y/n turning her head to see who it was her eyes widened at the sight

it was mako and bolin but a girl linked the two boys together, mako whispering something to her making the gorgeous girl giggle

wow she’s beautiful, mako deserves a girl like her someone who will grown old and have beautiful children

y/n began to feel her eyes swell with tears she began to stumble her emotions and the loud, pounding music beginning to overwhelm her until she felt a hand on her shoulder which guided her out to the balcony

“y/n, hey y/n are you alright” wu exclaimed to the girl softly hugging her tightly

“i shouldn’t even care he’s with another girl, he deserves a beautiful girl like her” y/n chocked out, resting her arms on the railing looking out towards the city lights

wu came up behind her hugging her placing his face in the crook of her neck, before leaving her shutting the door to the balacony

the young girl stood out there staring at the lights remembering the times she had on the streets with mako and bolin

how simple things used to be

y/n chuckled to herself before hearing the sliding door open, she kept looking out towards the city

“mind if i join you it’s getting a little stuffy in there for me, i brought you a drink” mako said handing the girl a cup of cactus juice, before walking over to the railing of the balcony

the two stood in silence listening to the city, mako gazing over to y/n but her never returning his gaze.

“y/n are you upset with me because if you are please tell me what i did wrong, if it’s about what bolin said this morning...” mako began to ramble staring at the girl trying to read her face

“yeah was your girlfriend upset when you told her what happened” y/n scoffed downing her drink, she knew she was being unfair but she was a bit tipsy and was upset

“girlfriend, y/n what are you talking about...do you mean opal, bolins opal?” mako exclaimed out trying to surpress a chuckle from his best friends comment

“she’s not my girlfriend y/n and besides who would you care you’re practically dating wu, always hugging him and stuff” mako stated angrily to the girl crossing his arms looking out towards the city

“mako wu and i aren’t dating how many times do i have to tell you this for you to get it through your thick skull honestly i have feelings for you mako god can’t you see that i-”y/n voice muffled by mako’s lips

y/n wrapped her arms around the boys neck, his arms slinking around her waist mako’s lips pressing against y/n’s roughly feeling all the emotion built up between the two

breaking apart there two foreheads pressed against each other breath heavy fluttering on each other’s faces

“i have feelings for you too” mako smiled to y/n kissing her again, lips pressing softly together y/n smiling into the kiss

“took you two long enough” bolin yelled out the whole krew high fiving and smiling at the pair

mako and y/n laughed at there friends antics before hugging looking out over republic city.

[schmuckyschmarnes]

Daffodil

anon request: I have a request if that's okay. Could you maybe write about Bucky protecting the reader from some douchebag in a bar?

warnings: unwanted advances, unwanted physical touching (hand on thigh/leg) author notes: this ended up being a lot longer than i intended, i hope this is at least close to what you were after, but if you’d like me to make any changes, please feel free to let me know!!  i included a best friend character and tried not to use any names so it sounds a bit clunky but the y/n ybfn abbreviations always kill it for me when i’m reading so i hope this is ok!! edit: i forgot to mention i also wasn’t sure if you wanted them to already know each other so i wrote a kind of pre-meeting so you could have it both ways 

There was a chill in the air as you hurried down the street, half walking-half running, your heels tapping sharply against the concrete.  An aggressive series of vibrations interrupted your thoughts and you fumbled for a moment, attempting to balance the large bouquet of flowers you were holding in one hand so that you could retrieve your cell phone from the pocket of your trench coat.  The brown paper rustled noisily against you as you finally grabbed your phone, sliding the bar across the screen and putting it to your ear.

“Hey!  I’ll be outside in just a sec, I’m so sorry I’m running late!” you said immediately, feeling heavy with the litany of apologies that you would relay until you arrived at your destination.

You were met with a happy laugh on the other end of the line.  “How long have we been friends?  Did you think I’d wait for you to get started?” your friend teased, and you could hear the beginnings of a slur licking softly at her words.

“I’m offended that you wouldn’t wait for me, you said you would this time!” you accused, biting at a smile as you crossed the road.  A car sped around the corner, tires screeching, and the driver slammed down on the horn as he approached you.  “Oh piss off!” you called, as the car continued to honk after you'd skipped out of the way.

“And you said you’d be on time!” your friend giggled, oblivious to your rage-fuelled exchange.  She had you there.

“I did say that,” you relented, as you walked up the footpath, your destination in sight. “Okay babe, I’m outside, I’ll see you soon.”

“Yaaaaaaaay!” she shrieked, and you moved the phone away from your ear, wincing.

The bar you’d decided to meet at was an old favourite.  Busy enough that you weren’t uncomfortably visible, but not too rowdy.  Perfect for catch ups and your favourite game, people watching.

As you reached your hand to pull the door open, it swung at you, and a body collided with yours.

“Oh shit-”

“Fuck-”

You felt an arm wrap itself around you as your heel wobbled, and when you opened one eye, face scrunched up (still bracing yourself for what you considered an inevitable fall) you found yourself mesmerised by a shade of striking blue. The stranger steadied you, releasing you from his grip.  You opened your second eye, taking a step back sheepishly.

“I’m so sorry-”

“Hey, that was all me,” he interrupted, his hand pushing through the long waves of hair that had fallen into his face.  “I wasn't watching where I was going.” 

He was gorgeous, sharp lines and stubble and pink lips that stood out against the otherwise dark shadows.  A black t-shirt stretched itself over his broad shoulders, and a pale blue long sleeved collared shirt sat loosely over the top, buttons abandoned and sleeves rolled halfway, giving way to the black gloves on his hands.

“Good reflexes, though,” you noted, moving out of the way of a couple who wanted to head in.  “They make it look so easy,” you said, sighing dramatically as the couple disappeared into the bar without incident, and the stranger laughed. It was warm and deep, and you could’ve sworn you felt it reverberating in your own chest when you saw his eyes crinkle at the corners.

“Maybe one day we’ll get the hang of it,” he joked, a crooked smile tugging at his lips.  He could feel the moment slipping. You tilted towards the door, and he didn’t want you to leave, he wanted to memorise you, and as his eyes ran over you a frown settled over his features, his face darkening. “Aw jeez, I ruined your flowers,” he groaned, clearly distressed.  You looked down to find that a few of the petals had been crushed, but all things considered, they’d held together pretty well.  An overwhelming desire to comfort this complete stranger seized you.

“Oh hey, no, it’s okay!” you said.  “Look, if we just-” and you pulled off a few of the sad-looking petals, “see, they’re good as new!” You waved them proudly in his direction and a single daffodil drooped sadly to the side.  “Okay, they’re good as new except for this one,” you amended, pulling the offending stem out, and he chuckled, face brightening once more.

“You’re a miracle worker,” he stated, as he took in the fresh-looking bouquet, and something in his voice made you think he could say anything and you'd believe it.

“Ah, miracle worker is my day job,” you said, smiling.  “I’ve got to get these flowers to the person I bought them for, but here, a souvenir of our time together-” you broke the stem off of the single daffodil you were still holding, throwing the long end to the side, and threading the crumpled flower through one of the open buttonholes of his long sleeve shirt, your palm resting for the briefest second on his chest.

"I knew my outfit was missing something.  Thanks, doll,” he joked.  

"Anytime..." you trailed off, realising you didn't know his name.

"James," he supplied, putting out his hand and then looking down at the glove with uncertainty.  It seemed important to him.  You took his hand in yours and shook it.

"Anytime, James," you finished, turning to the door.  "Okay...take 2," you said, adjusting the flowers and pulling the door toward you.

"Wait," he called out, and you turned back, holding the door open.  "What's your name?"

The chatter from the bar swallowed the sound of your voice as you answered him.  You watched his lips mouth it, repeating it to himself as if he was determined to remember, and you smiled one last time at him before finally stepping inside.

You’re immediately hit with a wave of warmth, bodies huddled close together, legs sprawled beneath booths, hanging off of stools, hands gripping and fingers holding loosely, glasses that all glinted in the comfortable low light.  A screech from across the room startles you and when your eyes find the source, you can’t help but smile.  You begin to make your way over but you’re immediately hit by an assortment of limbs, this time you move the flowers off to the side.

“You came!” she shrieked, arms latched around your neck, a few people nearby looked up at the commotion before returning to their conversations.

“I came!” you laughed, squeezing your best friend. “Congratulations, you badass, you deserve this promotion so much.”

“I really do,” she nodded solemnly as she released you. “I’ve worked-” she hiccuped “-so hard.”

“You really have,” you agreed.  “This should’ve happened a lot sooner but I’m so happy for you, these are for you.” You thrust the bouquet toward her, and she gasps, taking them in one hand and looping her arm through yours as she leads you to the table she had occupied. 

“They’re so pretty, I love them,” she gushed, and you laughed again, amused at how sweet and affectionate she was when she had been drinking.  “Listen, Jake’s here,” she said, waving at the man in question, slowing down before you reached him, “and we might not stay too long because to be honest with you, I gotta get laid, babe, it’s getting dusty down there.”

“Girl, it’s your night,” you replied, “I don’t mind at all, we’ll have a few drinks and then you go celebrate properly.”  

“Hey Y/N.” Jake said as you finally arrived at the table, standing to give you a quick hug.

“Hey, Jake!  How proud are we of our girl here?”  you replied, as you removed your coat and settled into your seat. 

“Never been more proud,” he answered, throwing his arm around her as she beamed up at him.

The drinks arrive, or, more drinks arrive, and empty glasses are cleared from the table as you catch up, relive what feels like ancient memories, and laugh too hard at stories that continue to hold the title of “funniest thing ever”.  After the tenth round of people watching (definitely divorced, owns a cat “-or a bird”, enjoys infomercials and nasty sex), they announced that it was time to leave, and you were shocked to see that almost two hours have passed.  

“Enjoy cleaning out the cobwebs,” you said as you hugged goodbye, and she giggled, leaning on her boyfriend for support as they walked out. 

You reached for your trench coat, intending to trade the table for the counter when a man sat himself opposite you, and a strong stench of cologne slammed into you.

“Hey,” he said, “can I buy you a drink?”  He smiled, and you could tell that it was meant to be charming, but something about it felt...

“Oh…” you began, unsure of how to proceed. Off.  It felt off. “I’m okay, thank you, though.”

“Come on,” he persisted, “let me buy you a drink.”  

You looked around at the bar and your eyes stopped when you saw him, James, sitting a few tables away, laughing at a joke one of his friends had just made.  He had come back?

“I-”

“Just the one,” he said, holding up a single finger and tilting his head to the side.

“Sure,” you replied, unsure of how else to get rid of him.  “One drink, okay.”

He was an investment something or other.  He liked to golf, he travelled often, his- His tie was distracting you as he spoke, something about the gold and the brown didn’t make any kind of logical sense in your mind and you pondered over it for the entirety of his monologue, sipping gingerly at the drink before you for something to do.

“So what do you do?” he asked, and it caught you off guard.  He had been speaking about himself for so long that had it not been a painful experience you might have actually begun to doubt your presence in the conversation.  He shifts his chair closer, leaning forward when you reply, and places his hand on the bare skin of your leg.  “I think that’s so hot.”

You shift your legs so that his hand falls away, but a few seconds later, it's back, and higher than it had been the first time.  

“Hey, I’d rather you didn’t-”

“Oh come on, baby, I bought you a drink, didn’t I?  Let’s keep enjoying each other’s company.”

You don’t respond.  Your chest filled with panic, your head with static, everywhere else felt as though you’d been dunked in ice.  Your eyes moved around the room again frantically, and this time, when you saw James, he was looking at you.  His expression shifted as he noticed your own, his head tilted the smallest bit, his eyes flitted to the man beside you, and followed his hand to where it was clamped around your thigh.

He stood abruptly, not excusing himself, and you watched as he approached, ignoring his friends who had called out to him.  

As soon as he arrived at your table, you felt the static cease.

“Hey, doll,” he said, his tone casual.

“Excuse me,” the man interrupted, hand still on your thigh. “This table’s taken, we’re getting to know each other here, so if you wouldn’t mind-”

“Oh, I can see that, James interrupted, looking down at the man’s hand.  “I see you’re getting to know her real well.”

“Okay, well-”

“I’m going to give you a few seconds, because I’m feeling generous. My friends tell me that counting down helps relieve anger, and honestly, I haven’t found that to be true, but I think if anyone was to benefit from me calming down, it would be you,” James said, voice steady as he placed his hands on the table. 

“Dude, you’re literally wearing a flower right now,” he said, smirking at the daffodil still hanging from James’ shirt.  The man - Chad?  Brad?  You couldn’t remember, scoffed as if to say “this guy, am I right?” 

The second the sound had left his mouth, Bucky’s gloves had come off.  Literally.  You saw a flash of silver and then the heat from your leg was removed as the man went flying across the floor of the bar, knocking into some chairs.  James looked towards his friends and both gave a single nod as they stood, and made their way over to Chad/Brad, having a quick word with the bartender as they dragged him yelling out of the bar.

“You okay?” James asked, bringing your attention back to him.  His gloves were back on, and his hair had fallen into his face.

“Yeah.  Yes, I-” and you were cut off by a sound that, you realised a second too late, had come from you.  Tears spilled down your cheeks and the air you were expelling left you faster than it could come in.  James sat down next to you, and you could tell he was unsure what to do.  “Oh my God,” you said, once you could catch your breath.  “This is such an overreaction, I’m so sorry, I-”

“You’re not overreacting.  That asshole was trying to take advantage of you, you have every right to be upset,” he said.  Your head dropped down into your arms, and as the tears continued to fall, you briefly wondered when the last time was that this table had been cleaned.  “I don’t know what to-” he began.  “I’m just gon-” and he stopped again.  “You tell me if this isn’t okay,” he said, placing a hand on your back.

“‘S okay,” you said, and he moved in soothing circles as your breathing evened out and your sniffles slowed down.  “Sorry for all the crying, it’s just, you always think you’ll know what to do in this kind of situation and when you freeze it’s terrifying like, why can’t I do something right now, you know?  I mean, you probably don’t know, but-”

“I know,” he said.  It was soft, and you believed him.  

“Listen, I’m okay,” you said, lifting your head and wiping the tears from your face. “You should get back to your friends, I’m sorry for interrupting your night, you don’t have to comfort me, I’m a complete stranger-”

“What do you mean, ‘complete stranger?’  We go way back,” he said.  It caught you off guard and you laughed, shaking your head.  “I’m going to sit here until you feel okay,” he said.  “Because that’s what friends who go way back do, and because I enjoy your company.”

There was quiet as you looked at him, his hand was still resting on your back and he suddenly didn’t know if he should leave it, or move away now that you weren’t crying.  His eyes searched yours, and he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, almost unnoticeably before you spoke. 

“I’d like that.” 

[demauryss]

murphy’s law | 1/2

anything that can go wrong will go wrong. eliott just learns it the hardest way possible.

or, kind of an expansion of hold you here my loveliest friend

 alt er love advent calender, day 18

(for my dearest mtea @bluronyourradar, this is the thing which i was writing for you. i tore my heart in half while writing this hehe hope you enjoy reading this. part two coming soon i promise :-))

The thing about giving your heart to your best friend is, you never actually see it happening. You don’t see it coming. It just happens. Maybe at the speed of tar moving over the road. Maybe at the way the sunlight fades behind the darkness of the night. Maybe in the blink of an eye. But it happens.

You see, they’re always there. You find their smile punctuated by the way they look at you, and their words sweet like honey and heart as warm as a stream of water on a hot day. The fluttering of their hands over your skin and in your stomach burning like the crackling fire you’d have stood in front of, smoke from the ashes mixing with the tears in your eyes as you’d have turned away. They’re always there, so you don’t see.

(Maybe sometimes you do. Amidst fleeting glances and stopping heartbeat and sometimes, concrete as the sky and bottomless as the ground beneath your feet. You don’t.)

And it’s the best thing, those short moments where you don’t have to worry about someone else having a hold of your heart, twisting it to their desires. It’s the best thing about giving your heart to your best friend. Because you’re as blissful as you can be around them. Because you’ve always felt this welcoming warmth radiating from them which envelops your bones and makes a home for you inside itself, stopping you from stepping out of it into the unbidden cold, which is sharp and sinks itself over you.

And when your best friend gives their heart to you, you take it without any questions asked. You hold it close to the space where yours used to be. You spend your nights dancing through the grass and your days lifting the feeling slowly settling in your head, blurring your thoughts and fading every sense of reality. You hold on to their heart tighter than your own, and maybe that’s the first mistake you make.

Because then your grip on your own heart starts to loosen. Till a time comes that it completely shifts away from you. Because your brain is busy protecting your best friend’s heart and forgets the part of itself which you have given away.

And because. Because you let yourself. So there comes a time when your best friend hands your heart back to you. They hand it back, warmed and loved and wrapped in a curtain which makes it to look like it hasn’t been used before. They hand it back, a delicate bundle of fibers and beats mixing into one.

And you’ve spent so much time in cutting all the nerves and vessels tying you to that beating flesh. You’ve spent so much of yourself living without that part of you. And when you get your heart back, despite of your wishes, you don’t know what to do with it. You place it beck inside your chest, behind that cage tightening against the walls, hoping it would find its place back. But it sits there, a foreign and estranged piece of you; a displaced swing finding its equilibrium again; a stretched elastic held against its wishes to recoil.

Because you know if you let it go it would return to them in a heartbeat.

And that’s another thing about giving your heart to your best friend. The first time it happens, you don’t realize it. But the second time, when your heart literally crawls out of your chest, and walks away from you and back to your best friend. It rips your skin in the way, leaves your hands frozen, unable to stop the process, as you watch it run away from you.

And you watch, realizing that it will never be yours if you stop it now. So you watch. And you let it go.

And with it comes the realization that the thing beating inside you was never meant to stay there and hide. That even after they return your heart to you under the guise of doubts and ache, it’s ready to turn away in a second. That no matter the layers you put over it and the pain you go through to cover the fierceness with which it is beginning to tear itself from you; it won’t work. And there comes a time where you’re left to collect the pieces of your skin and the fibers your heart has left in its trail.

And that’s the worst thing about giving your heart to your best friend, you see. The realization, the feeling, the fucking knife which keeps on twisting in your chest and you keep screaming for it to stop, just stop. But the blood seeps away and the wound gets deeper and you find yourself filling it with the dust in your lungs and the shivers in your hands. But it fills your mouth with iron and your legs become studded with lead when you realize – you realize that no matter what, your heart will never be yours to keep after that.

    Lucas’s mother owns a candy shop. When he hugs Eliott his hair smells of butterscotch and banana, all combined into one. It’s peculiar, but the thought fades into the back of his head when Lucas nuzzles his face into his chest, and as his hands squeeze the space above Eliott’s hips in a frantic cry of help.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, muffling a laugh behind the wild mess on Lucas’s head which needs to be toned down desperately – but Eliott isn’t complaining. “What is it this time?”

Lucas separates himself from Eliott, his lips puffed in a pout and eyes filled with a look of great disgrace as he grimaces. “Blueberry and basil! Like would you believe that?” He shudders effectively, his eyes going wide as he looks at Eliott. “It tastes terrible.”

Eliott shakes his head, “Terrible as in sriracha and peanut butter or terrible as in terrible?”

“Terrible!” Lucas throws his hands up as he starts walking into the shop. Eliott follows him. “Like how you’d expect someone's locker to smell like after months of dirty clothes accumulating there.”

Eliott shakes his head, a smile playing at his lips, “That’s oddly specific, and besides, I don’t think it’s that bad. I mean, you said the same thing about orange and tarragon and it ended up tasting bloody amazing!”

“I knew you would say that,” The small rainbow embroidered at the left side of Lucas’s olive green sweater catches Eliott’s eyes when he turns around to frown at him. Eliott has half a mind to remove the piece of lint and fraying thread from it, like they used to do before. Pieces of wool caught on Lucas’s hair, eyelash on Eliott’s cheek. Dirt smeared on Lucas’s face, and charcoal on Eliott’s fingers.

He has half a mind to fall back into the circle he barely made out of alive, and blow away the lint for it to catch something somewhere else. But he stops himself.

They don’t do it anymore.

“What makes you think so?”

Eliott’s first memory of Lucas is from the same spot Eliott’s standing on with the two jars of Ali’s homemade orange marmalade. Lucas’s eyes are a shade of an orchestral blue which he finds tainting the memory, and there’s a troubled smile blooming over his features a minute later when he hears another pair of footsteps coming closer.

“Eliott, is that you, dear? Please help me in letting this devil know he’s wrong. You’re the only one who can help me right now.”

Lucas lets out a wounded groan, his eyes widening as he whispers, “That.” Eliott smothers his laugh when Lucas starts to rush in the opposite direction to the resounding footsteps.

“I don’t work here and you never saw me.”

Ali nears into Eliott’s view just as her son disappears behind a display of colorful candies wrapped in pretty ribbons. Eliott, even when he was stumbling about his footing around Lucas, had always been awed by the intricate knots and the curves Ali has placed in the ribbons. When she approaches him, her eyes soften into a blue much like Lucas’s, but still on a different side of the spectrum.

“Lucas’s being a diva again,” she tells him, holding out a wooden spoon dipped in a questionable mixture in a purple bowl. It smells strongly of sugar and home, an exact opposite of what Lucas had so graciously – and wrongly – described. Ali holds out the mixture for him to taste, and he does so, dipping in a figure in the velvety warmth gathered on the tip of the spoon and bringing it to his mouth.

“It…actually, it tastes so good.”

He knows Lucas is hiding behind the shelves somewhere. Before, when it used to be as simple as Eliott using his fingers to do the counting on, or the stars simply dotting the sky without meaning anything, Ali would have Eliott and Lucas spending hours in her little kitchen, having them as the testers of whatever she would have made. It started out as a rush of a breeze for Eliott quickly picking up space before transforming into this pleasant routine he hasn’t departed from yet.

(Despite letting go of the person it all started out with.)

Ali’s smile brings Eliott into a cocoon of familiarity, “Tell this brainless idiot hiding here somewhere. I swear God really messed up when he gave Lucas those taste buds.” She shakes her head and Eliott laughs.

“Please stop talking about me like I’m not here,” He hears a muffled voice, one coming from directly behind him. Lucas emerges, licking around an orange colored candy which Eliott is absolutely sure isn’t meant for eating by him at all. His suspicion is confirmed when Ali gives her son a disapproving look, which he absolutely dodges when his eyes start burning brighter.

“And you please stop stealing the stuff I made which you previously rejected with those abominable taste buds of yours.” Ali bites back and Lucas turns a faux-offended face towards her. It’s familiar. It’s warm. It burns.

“I’ll have you know my taste buds are anything but that; very high in demand too. Tell her Eliott!” Eliott is more shocked on the mention of his name than the suffocating feeling the simple request brings as his lungs almost collapse on themselves. Lucas is unaware of the weight his words had on Eliott, as he struggles to keep his breathing even and heart forcibly inside his chest. There’s something very primal about this feeling – the one of tightness in his lungs and restlessness in his legs – something which takes him back to the very first time he’d seen Lucas a decade ago – right here in this candy shop with butterscotch in his smile and sugar in his hair, gripping Eliott in a saccharine tanginess bound to hold him for the rest of his life.

Lucas says something, and Ali threatens to catapult the bowl of the gooey mixture over his head. Eliott watches, silent, when Lucas shakes his head – all faux annoyed – as his mother stands rolling her eyes at her bratty son.

“Anyways,” Lucas says, looping his arm through Eliott’s at a place where a familiar burn seeps through the material of his shirt. “Since all of your attempts of stealing Eliott from me have considerably failed, can you let us go now?”

Eliott makes a sound of indignation in his throat. As if –

“As if you need any permission from me.”

Ali hasn’t even completed the sentence, and Eliott is being forcefully dragged towards the door. He’s always been amazed by the strength Lucas holds, now even more so when he finds himself just near the door between shouting a goodbye to Ali and taking his next breath.

“Hey,” Eliott starts when they’re outside. He’s resisting the pull Eliott has on him. It’s somewhere around the sun beginning to set behind the clouds. “Slow down, will you?”

Lucas looks at him, eyes narrowed as if he’s seriously judging Eliott, “Yann will have my head on a plate if we do.”

And Eliott would like to know where that we in this conversation came from. But before he does…..”And we can’t have that now?”

Lucas grins, “You know we can’t.”

  Lucas Lallemant is a tide –

He’s a force which keeps on moving forward, carving shorelines and curved shapes in places Eliott finds hard to keep up with. He’s high when the moon comes, rising on his toes to offer Eliott a hit of the blunt curled in his fingers, sometimes snug between his lips. Sometimes he rushes away. Sometimes he crashes against Eliott – but then he slips out of the gaps between Eliott’s fingers, through the cracks in his skin – and settles somewhere hidden, alien, and then Eliott has to crawl – follow the trajectory he would have carved, only to find him crashing against his walls with a rhythm impossible for Eliott to match, to get hold of.

He’s a force which keeps on giving – to shores, to coasts.  To the moss gathered on stone wearing with time and tide – with him. He gives – he gives till Eliott finds himself surrounded in every pore, every grain that is Lucas. He comes like this: little ripples on the surface of Eliott’s skin setting in motion

And that’s when he takes. The sand which lines the edges and the plants covering the base, tearing away their roots, dissolving them into smithereens much like Eliott’s heart in his hands and the blood in his mouth from biting his tongue too hard as it escapes; his heart among the waves melting on the floor and rising upwards, higher, faster. Till the blue of him surrounds Eliott in a lightning contrast against the warmth of his hands, resting, curling in his chest and plunging him into once deep then hallow darkness as he rises.

And when the ebb comes – Eliott drowns in it.

    Idriss takes him by the lapel of his jacket onto the balcony once they’ve reached Yann’s flat.

“Hey,” he says, his voice weighted by the bass which beats under his feet. Lucas gets swarmed into the crowd, one part of it taking him, another forming a barrier for Eliott to reach him.

“How have you been?”

It doesn’t register in his brain; the grave being which holds Idriss's words together for Eliott. He hums out a non-committal response, which does little wonders to ease Idriss off of his case.

“Eliott,” the end syllable of his name catches on a sigh as it comes out of Idriss’s mouth. But he wonders. It’s his name, isn’t it? Then why does it feel so foreign when Idriss says it; like the Eliott in his name and the Eliott that he is are two completely different beings.

Outside it’s cold, but still there is a feeling of warmth – all nebulous and out of place. Eliott doesn’t know what it means, just that he isn’t used to feeling this way.

“What is it?” His voice feels hollowed, and it must have been a trick of light, but he sees Idriss flinch.

“You stood up,” his voice sounds equally grave, “again.”

Eliott has to grasp behind the lines to understand what he means. “The date,” Idriss complies, when he sees the lost look on his face.

Eliott stills for a moment. He was supposed to go on a date. But, did he want to.

“Idriss,” Eliott sighs, turning around and putting all of his weight on the railing, hoping it would swallow the thing weighing him down like mercury. “I don’t want to be set up on dates. You know that.”

Idriss doesn’t speak for a moment. But then, “You can’t keep doing this to yourself Eliott,” He lands a hand on his shoulder, “you can’t.”

Eliott stays quiet, he doesn’t know what to say. What is it he’s doing, exactly? “Forget it-,” He says, at length, “- just leave me on my own. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Eliott feels it, inside him, the feling holding him getting impregnated with lead and rust when Idriss replies, “But did you – with Lucas?”

What?

Idriss reads his confusion. “Did you talk with Lucas about the reason why he didn’t want to be with you anymore?” Eliott bites his tongue and something other than physical pain fills his senses at the soft reminder of what went down mere three weeks ago.

“No,” His voice sounds scratchy, like it has taken him a great strength to get the simple word out. “Lucas doesn’t owe me an explanation. Besides, you can stop feeling for someone you thought you liked, no?”

The air is still and Eliott feels desolate from the domain outside his mind. He almost doesn’t register Idriss and his quiet, “But can you?” Almost.

There, something burns in his eyes and his chest and his throat feels awfully familiar to a thorny stem Eliott has grasped in his hands. There, outside, as leaves begin to fall and Idriss lets out a small whisper of comfort, that Eliott feels overwhelmingly small and separate from the significant part of the universe holding Lucas and the currents of waves rising from his touch.

Just tell him, Idriss says and when he leaves Eliott chants a mantra of too late too late too late in the havoc of his mind. And then Lucas comes, like a tide. He looks up at Eliott with fire behind the blue in his eyes and water raising it up instead of dimming it out. He takes away Eliott’s heart, yet again, the space in his chest feeling like a hollow piece of log left to be accumulated as moss on stagnant water and dew on drooping leaves. 

And when he leaves, he robs Eliott off of his breath like a flood does one of his belongings, leaving him wrecked and floating uncertainly in the sea of the world.

    He makes a mistake one day.

They are on the roof of Eliott’s building. Lucas’s hands are covered in gold which glitters in his soul and the stars above. His tongue tastes of mulberry and wine when Eliott licks in his mouth. His lips bleed soft kisses into the place Eliott’s neck meets his jaw. His eyes are dusty asteroids which circle into Eliott’s orbit with a force which knocks him of gravity and his breath when they close with laughter as Eliott finds the particularly ticklish spot on his neck.

I’ve been waiting for this, Lucas says, his voice light and warm and so, so soft. Eliott feels a cloud of smoke in his lungs. Me too.

He makes a mistake that day. He falls.

But then he’s standing next to the fire which Idriss and Yann created using plastic wrappers and leaves they found lying around. Lucas is a comet, the, his cold hands gripping Eliott’s as the fire pricks his eyes and the smoke in his lungs becomes a relic from before.

I can’t do this Eliott, He chokes, his voice heavy and sad and laden with so much hurt that Eliott has to take a step back. We’re – we will be better as friends. I’m sorry I just can’t.

So Eliott swallows around the charred cage in his chest doing little to keep his heart still. Okay, he whispers. Lucas’s red-rimmed eyes curving into a sad, watery smile burn like a star in Eliott’s gut.

He makes a mistake one day. He doesn’t stop falling.

    November comes, and Eliott finds himself shifting between cold winds ruffling his hair and tinging his cheeks with a cold he feels in his bones. It takes him skipping rocks among dirt and catching falling leaves in the palm of his hand. It takes him to Lucas, nestled between the shelves in his mother’s shop, eyes wide and engulfing warmth as sugar and syrup drips from his mouth and stains Eliott’s shirt in a stubborn red.

Eliott sees Lucas, sees him coming for his heart, and the pang which rises inside his chest feels sound in the void which grows around him. It becomes foreign, the security the pain brings him. But he drowns in the cold warmth encompassing him when Lucas smiles and asks him about another constellation, or when he brings Eliott’s coffee from the shop on the curb – when they talk, and their once, five month relationship becomes a fleeting whisper; a puddle after rain gone when the sun came up.

They don’t mention it, and neither their friends. Somewhere between that, Idriss takes the hint and stops trying to get Eliott to go on dates. His heart grows accustomed to having Lucas’s hold over it, and the thorns growing in his throat shrivel. They don’t fall like Eliott thought they would, and sometimes it happens that Eliott feels them digging into his windpipe, swallowing his voice when he sees Lucas from across the room. Or when his eyes glisten like gold and honey all combined into one.

He keeps taking Eliott apart, piece by piece, but Eliott grows familiar to the feeling making a home inside him. And when Lucas holds his hand and points to a falling star much like Eliott looking for a place in the universe, it doesn’t hurt.

Except when it does.

    There’s a hole in his jacket.

Eliott finds it the noon he’s inside the video store he worked at. He must have gotten it when he’s jacket got stuck in his neighbor’s fence, and in his haste, he must have pulled it, hard.

Lucas finds it funny for whatever reason when Eliott delivers him the news with sadness. His laugh rings through the speaker of Eliott’s phone. “You and that jacket, I swear.”

“It’s my favorite,” Eliott says, hoping his tone would convey his feelings to Lucas, “It’s been with me through thick and thin.”

“Yeah I know,” Lucas sounds solemn, “We’ll make it right,” Eliott believes him.

“But listen,” Lucas pauses, then begins again, “the reason I called you – I wanted to ask you something.”

Eliott holds on the phone, “Yes?”

“Sarah let me off with two passes for this art exhibition tonight. I wanted to know if you – if you’d go with me?”

Eliott’s chest gives a resounding ache which travels like water through his body, chilling his fingertips so much he can barely feel the phone held in them. The thing is – they don’t do this anymore; this just Lucas and him alone thing. He hasn’t done anything like this in such a long time that he forgot what being with Lucas – just Lucas – is like.

And he can't wait to remember. So. “Yeah,” he breathes out, “of course I’ll go.” With you.

“Perfect,” Lucas’s voice hold quiet happiness, something Eliott is sure is so fragile he’d break it if he takes another breath.

So he holds it, deep inside his lungs when Lucas says, “I’ll be at the store at 6:30. We’ll walk together.”

And he holds in when he says goodbye, a promise tethering on the edge of something so strange yet so comforting at the same time. His lungs burn, and his chest caves in.

But Eliott gets to work.

    Evening drags November to a cold, scruffy end. He can’t feel his hands when he accounts the last of the sales into the computer. It hits close to six when he finishes, and decides to spend the rest of the time till Lucas’s arrival sorting out the DVDs left on the counter.

It’s between that, one moment picking up the assortment and the other spent looking over his phone lying on the side as it lights up with a notification, that there’s the sound of someone closing the door behind them.

Eliott whips around, heart in his throat at the prospect of seeing Lucas, but the person standing in front of him takes him by surprise.

“Hi Eliott.”

Lucille’s smile is warmer; her hair is shorter, blonder. Eliott takes a hard minute to reply.

Lucille,” He’s sure his tone doesn’t do justice to the feeling she brings inside him. It’s been long – a long time since he last saw her. And that too ended on partial good terms.

But still he tries his best to smile.

“How have you been?” He asks, awkwardly placing the DVDs from where he picked them up. Lucille shrugs her shoulder, and a small laugh leaves her lips.

“Good, I’m good.” She says. Eliott nods, then, and tries to shake off the uncomfortable tension settling around him and over his shoulders. Lucille comes to his rescue, thankfully.

She points to the array of movies behind him, craning her neck to the side as she speaks, “I – I needed a recommendation, actually.”

Huh. “The movies. I – I kinda need one for uhm- this date night. My girlfriend- uh, Sophie is into screenwriting and stuff, so I want to do something to impress her.”

Eliott turns his neck sideways, “And I’m the only one you can come to for that?”

Lucille smiles sheepishly, “You know you are.”

He laughs, bright, and turns to sift through the movies he pretty much knows her girlfriend will surely appreciate. He’s always loved doing this, rec-ing stuff when asked – whether it be movies or artists or funny enough, dubstep artists to listen to.

(The credit for the last one goes mainly to Lucas, and Eliott feels proud to share that at least he’s helped him get into the kind of music he himself loves. Even when the insults Lucas throws after listening to the music are worth keeping in a jar and remembering for later.)

Lucille takes the movies he picks out.

“How are you and Lucas?”

Her tone carries an infinite amount of casualness which Eliott is sure she isn’t faking. But it makes him still – you and Lucas in a sentence together. They don’t go like that. Never have.

“We uh – we’re not together anymore.” He says, voice low and taut as he rings her up. “Uh- yeah. We broke up.”

Lucille is silent. Then, “Oh. I’m sorry.”

 He stays silent. When he’s done with her items, she takes it from him without a word. I’m sorry. It’s funny how many times he’s heard that.

“Um- Thank you,” She’s quiet, soft. Eliott smiles, as terse as that may be. “I’m happy to see you, Eliott.”

“Yeah, uh, I’m happy too.” He admits, because he is. Because she’s familiar. Because he knows her.

Lucille smiles, as she clutches the items to her chest, “If – If you’re free some time, I’d like for you to Sophie. She uh - knows about us, and I’m sure you both will like each other.”

“You’re sure?” He teases, and she slaps him lightly on his arm; familiar. Rolling her eyes, she bites back, “Yeah, idiot.” Eliott laughs; it’s warm.

“I’d love to meet her,” is what he settles on, and it’s what which has Lucille brightening up further. “Great,” she says, and leaves Eliott not before rising up on her toes and giving him a half-awkward, full warm hug which Eliott gladly accepts.

When she leaves, it becomes a game of watching the hands on the clock move. It’s fifteen minutes over the time Lucas and him and decided. But still Eliott sees no sign of him. He’s worried. There’s no text or call from him either, and Eliott knows he could do so too, but it doesn’t guarantee him not sounding desperate.

Five minutes to seven and he gives up, closing the store and walking out into the clear night sky. He spots a couple of uncluttered, adrift stars he doesn’t know yet. Cold air nips at his skin, eyes search for the sign of the familiar boy walking towards him. But he finds nothing.

He sighs, then, and starts walking in the direction of his apartment. Maybe something came up. Maybe Lucas is okay. Maybe he forgot. Maybe maybe maybe.

It’s then that the phone in his holed jacket rings, bringing him back to the now. He hustles to take it out, and as Lucas’s name blinds his eyes, his heart returns with a hopeful tingle in his chest.

His breath fogs in the dark as he whispers, “Hello?”

“Eliott,” Lucas’s voice feels distant, like they’re the same poles of a magnet and the field between them is just pushing them away.

“Lucas, are you alright?” It hurts, that it’s the first thing which comes to his mind. That something happened to Lucas – with Lucas, and he wasn’t able to make it to him. He hates it. He hates it.

“Yeah uh – I got held up. I’m sorry I couldn’t- can’t make it. I just – I didn’t – couldn’t find time to call you sooner. I’m so sorry I -.”

Eliott cuts Lucas off, “It’s alright,” his heart beats on the floor. His legs remain frozen on the sidewalk. It’s not Lucas’s fault if he found something more important than Eliott. He doesn’t owe him anything, anyway.

Eliott doesn’t hear the rest which follows. There’s something – someone on the phone behind Lucas, someone who calls Lucas – “You’re coming back Lu?” Eliott hears the voice.

Then he hears Lucas, loud and clear, “Yeah, baby, you go ahead. I’ll be with you in a second.”

Baby. Lucas only ever called Eliott that. He feels something twist inside him as his lungs burn with a ferocity which leaves him aching all over. His fingers go numb, and his feet drag painfully on the gravel.

Lucas seems to be talking, and Eliott only catches the end through the static in his head.

“I gotta go. But I – I promise I’ll make it up to you, Eli. Okay?”

Eliott purses his lips, doesn’t fight his hear combusting as a layer of heavy rust settles over it, preventing it from moving back to Lucas as he lies motionless there, on the concrete, forging stars from its dying matter.

Okay. Eliott whispers when Lucas hangs up. Then he releases his breath and starts walking.

[scandalousfemale]

Ch. 4 Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Chinese!OC x Kelce

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Zombies were meant for apocalyptic movies and TV shows where one could binge watch for a day and return to their mundane life. But something happened, a lab test went wrong and suddenly the outbreak started. This story takes place exactly three weeks after zombies slowly started to take over the planet.

Series Masterlist

WC: 5,320

Warnings: Violence, a whole lot of violence. Violence involving knives and guns. It’s a zombie fic, this chapter have zombies in it! I tried my best not to get too gory but at the same time, it does kind of go there. Main character deals with PTSD. I think that’s all the warnings right now. Like I’ve mentioned before, violence. Please, do not read if you’re not comfortable with that topic.

A/N: This was a harder chapter to write because of the fighting scenes and trying to get Kaili to spend them with characters so that you as a reader can also experience these characters in this universe. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it! I know that the support I get from this fic is amazing and keeps me going, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to read this. Also... how do you think Kelce will feel about the end of this chapter?? 

“Fuck,” Kaili cursed. The air escaped her lungs as her body hit the ground for the second time in a minute. Rafe had dragged her out of her room at first light, telling her that for her to have breakfast, she’d have to fight her way back in. At first, she thought he was joking, surely the boy couldn’t have been serious. But the minute she laughed, her eyes still half shut from sleep, he stepped in front of her with his arms folded across of his chest.

All sleep escaped her when he pushed at her shoulders to try and knock her off her feet, which wouldn’t have been that hard to do, considering he was a whole foot taller than her and probably a hundred pounds heavier. At that point, she wiped at her face and told him that he'd lost his mind, trying to evade his grasp as she stepped sideways from him. As big and bulky as Rafe looked though, he was fast. And he was able to push her back again, causing her to fall this time. They went on like this for maybe half an hour. Until Kaili started fighting back, throwing a punch that he blocked twice. The third punch landed solidly on his cheek but it was almost like it didn’t faze him, he continued instigating her.

Of course, he wasn’t quite doing this out of pleasure, even though Kaili would beg to differ. The group of kids had promised each other that they’d train the other in what they were good at. Seeing as the situation is only going to get worse from here on out. So, training began. Kelce promised her shooting lessons, Kiara had offered her cooking lessons, Rafe offered up his fighting skills (which, when she had asked where he learned, the younger kids in the group seemed to have a couple of things to say), JJ offered lessons on how to make weapons out of practically anything. And of course, Pope had offered her a lesson on pretty much anything boy scouts related; such as how to tell which direction she was going in and how to start a fire.

She didn’t expect anyone to go easy on her, she didn’t need them to, but Rafe seemed to be the type to give tough love more than he praises. Every time she learned one step or studied his movements, like learning when to move back when he showed signs of moving forward, he’d tell her to do better. He’d always find another flaw. His reasoning was a valid one, of course. He was punishing her for almost getting JJ killed.

Rafe was adamant that if she was insistent on running into the face of danger then she should be able to hold her own. In which she reminded him, in the nicest way possible, that she did, as she pointed to her knives. But he did make a point, on the off chance that she didn’t have her blades, she’d lose. And so she found herself, in the crack of dawn, on the ground panting and hoping that she could knock Rafe off his feet just once.

“Get up,” Rafe had said harshly as he wiped the sweat off his face with the back of his hand. His height more intimidating now as she laid on the ground, trying to catch her breath. 

“No,” she breathed out, her hand coming up over her face as she blocked the rising sun from her eyes. Suddenly in the shade, she knew he had taken a new spot over her. 

“What did you say?” Rafe grit through his teeth and she wondered if this man had ever relaxed in his life. 

“We’ve been going at this all morning!” She groaned as he gripped her forearms and yanked her up to her feet. 

“The next guy to come at you is not going to give you time to take a breather,” he reminded her.

Kaili didn’t say anything back, only narrowed her eyes at him because he was right. Again, Kaili had taken a deep breath in and quickly reached out for his arm, intending to twist it behind his back but she must’ve gotten the grip wrong because, in just two moves, he had her against his chest with her hands trapped against her chest and his arm. The scene was far too similar to the one the guy at the camp had set her up in. Without realizing it, Kaili had tensed up completely, clenching her eyes shut as she tried to block out the feeling of the man violating her.

She felt sudden darkness come over her vision, her ears ringing, and all she could think about was that she needed to get out of his hold. Suddenly, she was kicking her heel to his shin, thrashing in his arms as she threw her elbows back. Maybe she was even screaming because when she came to, Rafe had her on the floor again, one hand over her mouth as his legs pinned her arms down. She blinked the cold and dark night away, the image of that man’s blood spilling out to the floor as her blade was stuck in him. Slowly her vision was returning to Rafe’s wild eyes and his moving mouth. She couldn’t grasp what he was saying but the panic of not being able to move her arms freely was bubbling back up inside of her.

She closed her eyes again, trying to calm down before she had a complete meltdown at the immobility of her arms. That’s when she finally could focus on what Rafe was saying, he was telling her to stop. All he kept repeating was the word, “stop”. As she laid there, unmoving, she felt her wet cheeks underneath Rafe’s hands. Slowly, he moved his weight, lifting his body from her arms. She let out a sob then as she hugged her arms to her chest before quickly going up to his hands on her mouth, trying to peel him off her. 

“If you scream again, the zombies will hear you and come our way. If they haven’t already fucking heard you. Promise you’re not going to scream again,” Rafe’s tone was much less aggressive than it was throughout the whole morning.

Kaili only nodded, quickly backing away from him when he finally removed his hands. Still sitting on the ground, she had hugged her arms around herself. Embarrassed and confused at what had just happened, why she reacted that way, and why that man is living in her memories when she wanted to forget him.

“I’m sorry,” Rafe knelt in front of her, his tone apologetic and sincere. His hands carefully placed beside her so that she saw them in her line of sight but not close enough to touch. “I didn’t know— didn’t think you’d have PTSD from… whatever that happened to you,” he threaded carefully and Kaili reminded herself that he wasn’t there to see it happen. He didn’t know. “I also didn’t think you’d go fucking batshit but now I know, I won’t touch you like that again.”

Kaili just shook her head at him as she used her shirt to wipe the tears and the sweat away. Wanting to laugh at his comment and hit him in the mouth at the same time, she just leveled her eyes with him, “that guy I killed at the camp, he had me in that hold,” she explained soberly. She could tell the second that her words clicked with Rafe because apologetic and slightly annoyed turned into realization, which quickly turned into anger. He glanced at her wrists, the purple bruises that decorated it, and then back at her face. His lips pressed into a thin line before he wiped a stray tear from her face and sat down across from her if only to watch her back, as his long legs stretched out on either side of her. 

The silence between them wasn’t awkward, nor was it truly comfortable. Rafe glared at the spot between them and then released a long exhale. “I didn’t think about how that could’ve affected you before I dragged you out of bed today,” he began, still not making eye contact with her. “I was just so angry at the situation you’ve put yourself in. The one you put us in. That I made it a mission in my head that you wouldn’t put anyone in danger again by worrying about you if you just knew how to fight. I didn’t think that was how the bruises were caused.”

“It’s fine,” Kaili assured him but her voice was distant, “I didn’t even know I’d react that way. I’m sorry.”

Rafe’s hand was immediately on her knee, as his eyes met hers, “don’t apologize for how your brain deals with trauma. Trust me, I’d know. It’s not something you can control,” and it’s almost like he said it was a snarl but he was trying to be nice. Or at least Kaili believed he was. 

“How old was your cousin?” He inquired, seemingly lost in the thought that had upset him.

“She’d just turned sixteen,” the girl replied, noticing how his grip tightened for a second on her.

“Not so much older than Wheezie then.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat as she shook her head, “had her whole life ahead of her, you know. All it takes is one little mistake. A lapse in judgment. A second. Then it’s all over.”

“I think that’s why I’m so angry all the time,” his voice barely audible as the morning sun rose and the noises around them started to stir. She never noticed how loud everything truly sounded when she’d gotten used to the silence and company of just one other. “It’s not fair to her. She had her whole life to live and now she’s trapped in this nightmare. I’d go through it alone a hundred times if it meant she didn’t have to,” he kept his voice low, his furrowed eyebrows and angry eyes scanning behind her as he noticed the noises of the neighbors and their housemates, himself. 

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” Kaili put her hand over his, trying to comfort him but it doesn’t seem like her words or actions can get past the boy’s anger. “I’m sorry…for your sisters.”

“Yeah,” he said as he took a look at her, “and me for you.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. I didn’t know your cousin. It sucks but I can’t say I care much about her death. But I do care about you and how it’s affected you. How it still affects you and for that, I’m sorry.”

It took a bit for Kaili to digest his words. She had to rearrange his sentence and fill in the empty areas herself as she tried not to be offended that he had just said that he didn’t care that her cousin died but also, he was right. He didn’t know her cousin. He couldn’t have known how incredible she was and how much the world was missing without her. “You’re right. You’re shit at this comforting thing.” Kaili settled on a response.

She didn’t expect to make the boy laugh, the hardness in his eyes softened if only for a moment before returning. Shaking his head as if to get a thought out, he was suddenly serious again. “You know if it ever came down to it. I’d rather die than turn into one of them.”

“Well, technically you’d already be dead.”

“No, for real, before I turned — before anyone of you even turned. I’d pull the trigger for you. I hope someone will do it for me.”

Kaili processed the request and then nodded, “I think if the time comes, which I hope it won’t, you’d have a whole group of people here that would do anything for you.”

Rafe shook his head as if he didn’t quite believe that but he didn’t comment more on it. Moving his hand from underneath hers, he stood up, pulling her up with him. “Come on,” he said as they both started towards the house again, “wouldn’t want Kelce to think we’ve fallen in love and ran away together.” He teased, as her cheeks flushed, trying not to think about what Wheezie had also said the night before about Kelce.

——-

Four days have passed since the group arrived at the house. Kaili truly only kept track of time through how much food was left in their inventory...which on the fourth day, was almost out. Even when she and a couple of others were skipping their portions to make sure that John B could eat because he was healing and Wheezie could eat because honestly, they didn’t want to hear her talk about how hungry she was.

A trip to the store was starting to feel inevitable, even though no one was volunteering to be the one who went. JJ offered the idea to raid the houses next to them but Kiara pointed out that there might still be families holed up in their houses, too afraid to leave, and it would be unfair to strip them of their hoard. Yet even when she inserted her input, she wasn’t keen on being the one to get the food herself either.

Kaili, out of necessity and annoyance, had stalked up the stairs into what is now her room and had gotten back into her first day outfit. The one that they had found her in; the black long-sleeved shirt, tucked into her black jeans, that were tucked into her combat boots. The weapons belt neatly secured around her thighs and her hips but now she had a newly added gun to her waist. Kelce has been teaching her how to shoot while she had been giving a masterclass on first aid and knives.

Once Kaili had arrived down the stairs again, Kelce was already meeting her, wrapping tape around the cloth wrap he’d put around his arms to prevent anything from biting through. Kaili would’ve said that his thought process was sexy and the fact that he ripped the tape with his teeth was even sexier but he’d been avoiding her ever since the first time she fought with Rafe.

Okay, maybe avoiding isn’t the right word because it’s not like he left the room when she walked in but what he did was worse. He didn’t meet her eyes. She’d try to talk to him and all he’d do was hummed in response or reply to her question and shut down again. She was getting irritated since nothing that she had done had brought this on but she also didn’t want to confront him because he must’ve had a lot on his mind and maybe he wasn’t doing it purposefully. So, she allowed it to slide. 

“Where are you going?” She couldn’t help but be snippy at him when he attached the long automatic gun onto a sling and put the strap across his body.

Looking at her as if she had asked the most obvious question that he couldn’t believe he’d have to answer to, he replied slowly, “with you.”

“Uh, I’d rather go with someone who’d communicate with me out there,” she said, forgetting that she was going to let his silence slide, as she leaned against the kitchen counter with her arms crossed. “At this rate, you’d probably let a zombie kill me just to avoid looking at me.”

In a blink of an eye, Kelce had her boxed in with his arms on either side of her, gripping onto the counter as his eyes met hers. Something about the intensity in his gaze made her want to just push him onto the floor and have her way with him but she didn’t. Instead, she just rolled her eyes at his actions, looking irritated at their current position. 

His eyes searched hers as if he was trying to come up with the right words to say but couldn’t settle on one. “Have I been avoiding your eyes? No, look at me because it seems like you have something to say. Have I ever once ignored the hundreds of glances you’ve thrown my way and thought I hadn’t noticed?” 

“Yes,” she breathes the word almost immediately. She wasn’t prepared for where this conversation was headed nor was she prepared for his confession that he made seem so unimportant.

“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” he explained. Which didn’t make Kaili feel any better and in any other situation, with any other person, she’d feel claustrophobic between his arms — though he hadn’t touched her once. 

“All the more reason for you to stay,” her tone trying to sound indifferent as she stared at his necklace that was dangling between them. 

He chuckled humorlessly, “staying isn’t going to change anything for me. Besides, I’m not going to stay here while you’re out there.”

And maybe Kaili was imagining it but it felt like he had gotten closer to her as if his mouth could have grazed hers but he had walked off before she could even make sense of it. As the boy met up with Rafe in the living room. Kaili shook her head at the interaction, now was not the time for a distraction.

Rafe had decided to come along with Kelce and though others might’ve used him as a buffer for the situation that had just happened, Kaili had decided that the best route was acting like it never happened. It was simple enough. JJ had secured them a compact car that they could use and as they passed the fourth hoard of zombies when they had gotten into town, she was starting to become very thankful for him. Kaili hated the sight of them. Their greenish and gray bodies jerking about as some lacked their body parts. One of them, she could’ve sworn, looked right at her. The zombie’s one eye trained on hers as they drove by. The other eye dangling from its socket like some cheap Halloween costume. Kaili wondered if her cousin was now one of them if she could handle seeing her like that.

Her heart thumping in her chest as they pulled up to the grocery store, a couple of people running in and out of the store. Even as she saw the scene, she didn’t trust them. Humans were just as bad as zombies, if not worse. She wiped the sweat off the palm of her hands onto her jeans. As the car pulled into a stop. Rafe looked back at her from the driver’s seat, as if to ask her if she was ready. She wasn’t but she nodded regardless of her emotions. As she exits out of the car, she noticed that the atmosphere around them was a chaotic silence. People with shifting eyes, wiping their heads back and forth as they whisper to their company instead of trust their voice to be low enough not to get attention from the flesh-eaters. 

“I’ll take care of the water, you go for the first aid and some nonperishables,” Rafe whispered to her, and then to Kelce he had instructed him to find any type of meat they could cook if there were any left. If not, then canned foods were never a bad idea.

Kaili walked into the grocery store and dug her nails into her palm as images of Wei popped into her mind. No, she had a task and she was going to complete it. She didn’t have time to get lost in her self pity, not when there were other people’s lives at risk. Looking up at the signs above her head, she started walking to the correct aisle, sticking any food she deemed useful in her currently empty backpack. Not five minutes have gone by until she heard this blood-curdling scream from outside of the store. In the wake of her panic, she had zipped up her bag and clutched it in her hands before peeking through the end cap, towards the entrance. 

Her knees locking themselves in place as more people started screaming and running, she couldn’t tell if they were running in or out of the store. Hell, her fight or flight didn’t even kick in until she spotted a little girl in the middle of the entrance just crying. Now, the smarter option would’ve been to keep hidden, go out through the back as all the flesh-eating creatures ripped through the victims who were waiting there for them but she couldn’t. Kaili pulled the backpack straps on her back as she ran towards the girl, sliding on her knees as she scooped her up and began for the other side of the store.

“Where’re your parents?” She asked the girl as people ran by her and blood splattered onto their shirts. She couldn't get the girl to calm down as the shelves began being toppled over in an attempt to crush the creatures but all it did was create more noise.

“What are you doing?” A female voice was shrill as she ran down an aisle, “that’s my daughter!” The woman said as she picked up the little girl and cling onto her. 

“Then don’t leave her alone,” Kaili snapped at the woman, pulling the gun out of her waistband and firing two shots right behind the lady and her child, as the zombie was getting too close to them.

The woman had run off with her child, with no sign of even a simple thank you. Kaili didn’t think too much about it though, her main concern being that she needed to get out of here alive. Fuck, she needed to find the boys. Putting the safety back on the gun, she decided that it would probably be best to keep her bullets and use the machete instead and so she did.

Hearing a growl behind her, she quickly turned around, only to be knocked down by a drooling zombie who’s missing a jaw. It crawled on her with the jerking movement and she could hear its bones popping with every single move. She had moved her blade up between them and tried to move the creature off her with that, so she would get better leverage in the fight but it didn’t budge. Its tongue moved around in her line of sight, the top row of teeth mimicking the motion of snapping the jaws together if he were to have a lower one. Pulling her knees up, she was able to kick off the zombie, not thinking that her shoes had just touched the exposed ribs. Scrambling to get herself up quickly, she jumped onto the zombie with her blade in its forehead. She had cleared off some zombie necks as she made her way through the aisle, suddenly realizing how many dead people were around her, soon to be undead.

The urgency to find her friends has kicked in. In the midst of it all, she had sliced her hand on a sharp corner of a shelf. Finding a woman screaming for help, she was able to push the zombie away from her and jump on the creature to stab him in between his eyes. Before she even pulled the blade back from the oozing brain in front of her, she was met with a snapping noise near her ear. Instinct had pulled her back but that was before she noticed that the snapping monster wasn’t advancing towards her, that it couldn’t. With the overwhelming smell of human flesh from the creature spitting at her as it tried to bite into the air next to her, she recoiled back away from it. There was a hook around its neck and at the end of the handle, Rafe was holding on tight to it and flinging it off to the side. The thing was too brainless to get up by itself anyway. He had pulled her up quickly and grabbed her hand as he led her towards the entrance of the store, not stopping once to help the rest of the people who were still fighting the zombies. 

Kaili wanted to pull back but she willed herself not to look around, knowing that she wasn’t alone and it was about priorities. She wasn’t going to kill Rafe because she wanted to help someone she didn’t know. She concentrated on not tripping over the bodies and obstacles in her way that Rafe barely even saw as a hardship. Dragging her out of the doorway, as if he’d been in and out a hundred times before, he swung a bat that she hadn’t even noticed was in his other hand to clear a pathway. Kaili, seeing that they were heavily outnumbered, even if there were other people in the parking lot fighting these zombies as well, began swinging her blade next to him. Before she could even get the words out that she was looking for Kelce, a car had turned a corner and screeched as it zoomed towards them. Rafe pulled her steady to his side as the zombies were knocked over like bowling pins, the sounds of bodies hitting the floor forever etched into her mind.

Seeing Kelce through the driver’s window, they had quickly loaded themselves into the car and drove away. Neither of them said anything at first or even acknowledged what had happened until Kelce fixed the rear view mirror so that he could see her from the front seat as he drove, “are you okay?” 

It was a dumb question, of course. She wasn’t okay. Who could be okay after that? 

“Yeah,” she replied, hissing when she tried to grab onto her wrist to ease the pain of her palm bleeding but then accidentally gripping her bruise.

“Were you bit?” Rafe turned suddenly from the passenger seat, staring at her intensely as if he’d be able to make her crack if she was lying.

“I wouldn’t have gotten into the car if I was,” she spat at him, irritated that he had even asked that question. As if she’d put all of them in danger because she was too scared to face her death. No, that’s the thing about it, she wasn’t afraid of dying. She was more afraid of watching the people she loved die. Though at this point, she felt like she was getting used to it. “I cut myself.”

“You should’ve been more careful,” Kelce inputs his opinion into the conversation, definitely not reading the room that the girl in the backseat didn’t want to hear what she should and shouldn’t have done.

“Gee, you’re right. Next time I’ll make sure I don’t accidentally hurt myself...on purpose.”

“Okay,” Rafe raised his voice, sounding annoyed at the exchange as he tore his shirt off over his head and wrapped it around the gushing wound, the way that Kaili had shown him how to. Honestly, she didn’t think he was even listening when she was showing the group how to do it and now she couldn’t help but feel a little impressed. He knew the look on her face immediately and flashed her a smile, his eyes still dead as ever.

When they had reached their temporary home again, Wheezie had rushed out of the house to greet them but quickly ran back into the house when she saw the state of the car. The blood that covered it and the random torn arm that was stuck underneath the car, Kaili figured it must’ve been a grizzly sight for someone her age. Someone who’s never been face to face with a zombie.

Once they were all showered and bandaged up, they were sitting in the living room, Rafe had taken over as the speaker of what had happened earlier that day. Though he had embellished some parts, including the part of the story where he saved her from the zombie that was trying to eat her face off. Kelce didn’t like that part of the story much and Kaili didn’t attempt to correct Rafe that it wasn’t entirely like that. It was the only time that she saw his eyes shine in excitement so she let him tell it how he remembered. She did joke with him about it though, serves him right if he was painting her out to be the damsel in distress.

“All in all, I’d rate the rescue a six out of ten,” she said casually as she shrugged her shoulders, a smirk playing along her lips.

“I saved your life,” Rafe reminded her, his eyes about to pop out of their socket.

“Yes, but you also told us to split up in the first place. Honestly, Rafe, that’s a rookie mistake, to begin with,” and with that, the whole group had started talking over each other. As they finished their dinner. The first real one in a while.

____

After Kaili had cleaned up everything and made sure her bleeding stopped, she made it known to the group of people that were still chattering that she was headed to bed. She wasn’t at all that tired but she needed space to decompress. It was hard for her always being around people but even though she was grateful that she was with them and not alone, she needed to clear her head from the day that had just passed.

She closed the bedroom door and made her way to the window, overlooking the neighborhood, the lights in some houses were on while some people chose to patrol the streets with their big guns for a show as if that would scare off the looters but everyone knows that those desperate enough to loot already have nothing else to lose.

Finally curling up in bed, Kaili wrapped the blanket around her body and drifted off to sleep. Her slumber only lasted about an hour before she was awakened by someone shaking her. She jolted awake, knocking the intruder on the floor and jumping on top of him.

“Are you planning on fighting me with your eyes closed?” a familiar voice whispered and she tried shaking the sleep off of her, rubbing at her eyes to see JJ below her.

“I’m sorry, what happened? What’s wrong?” She said hurriedly as she got off him and made her way towards the door but JJ pulled her back and pushed her back towards the bed.

“Nothing’s wrong, relax,” he whispered at her and then paused, “well, something wrong happened in my room and in my bed but that’s why I need to stay here tonight. It was either you, Topper, or Kelce, and you are the nicest of the three.”

Kaili eyed him, now more curious, “listen, if you’re a bed wetter, you gotta tell me now.”

“No!” JJ denied almost a little too loud, which made Kaili purse her lips to the side and crawled back underneath the covers with suspicious eyes. “Pope and Kiara are like...fucking next to me. Typically I wouldn’t care if someone did that but it was in the same bed and they wouldn’t even let me join.”

At that, Kaili couldn’t help with how hard she laughed. Knowing him, he was probably serious. So, she patted the space next to her, “jump in Romeo,” she instructed as she yawned and turned to her side.

“Thank you,” he said the words so fast, they sounded like one. He jumped into bed next to her and spread out on his side of the bed, she guessed that must be more comfortable than sharing a bed with three people. Especially if those two were a couple.

“People need to get their priorities straight around here,” JJ mumbled, sleep taking over his voice as his eyes drifted close.

“Tell me about it,” Kaili couldn’t have agreed more.

Tags: @rafej-cambanks​ @downbytheouterbanks​ @anxietyandtacos​ @bedazzledbanks​ @millyelliot​ @stargazingstarkey​ @stfukie​ @jellyfishbeansontoast​ @rafecameron​ @queenk00k​ @kindahavefeelingskindaheartless​ @thegreatestofheck​ @starlightstarkey​ @spideymyluv​ @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar​ @pogue-writings​ @pankowrudeth​ @deathcompass​ @butgilinsky​ @cutiecolbsss​ @bricksatanakinswindow​ @outerbankslut​ @jiaraendgame​

[dizzydancingdreamer]

“First Lines” | Tag Game

Hey Y’all I have gotten tagged in this a few times— thank you so so much @auroracalisto @mikaelson-emma and, of course, @hellotvshowtrash— I haven’t had much time to read them and form coherant thoughts but expect some soon. 

So the rules are you post the opening lines to 20 of your most recent fics— or all the ones you have if you don’t have 20— and it kinda just shows who you are as a writer and it’s just fun!

I decided to include some WIP’s— and expose to everyone who is not @activist-af the sheer amount of fics that I start and then set aside. Please enjoy y’all I got a kick out of compiling this list!

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“Barnes, you’re on protection detail.”

He must be dreaming— he must have fallen asleep with the tv on again. That’s been happening a lot lately; he’s trying to catch up on normal life. On all the shows and movies and music he’s missed throughout the years. He’s trying to catch up. Or maybe he’s just trying to drown out the silence. It doesn’t matter why, to be honest, all that matters is that he is asleep and what he is hearing and seeing are the workings of a bad dream. There was a marathon last night. Yeah, there was. Movies, a few of them. Something about bodyguards. He’s just dreaming about the movies. Right?

(WIP | Persephone’s Symphony | Bucky Barnes)

_

“Did you pack my dress!” A shrill voice assaults her eardrums as she scurries towards the door.

It comes from a tall, thin, young woman. Her face and fingers are boney, her blonde hair falling in perfect waves down her back. The faintest aroma of honeysuckles and violets wafts off her creamy skin. She is beautiful, her step sister Anna. At least in theory. The sneer on her cherry lips and the hatred in her cerulean eyes, unclouded and accusatory, can’t be hidden by any length of silky dress or ruby lipstick, though. She is ugly, even if just on the inside.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter One | Loki)

_

The ride to the capitol takes three gruelling days. Each night is spent at a different tavern. It is the same story each time; Estrid and Anna spend the night in a lavish bed and Y/n is left with the horses, curled under her thankfully baggy cloak. It is neither warm nor comfortable, sleeping on the bench seat of the carriage. She never really falls asleep, she only dozes in and out of consciousness. It is almost always interrupted by footsteps or the murmurs of animals or her own mostly empty stomach growling into the night. That one is twofold- usually her stomach is in so much nauseating pain that she cannot sleep but, on the off occasion she can, she is then awoken by the loud roars it makes.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Two | Loki)

_

“Please Surtr.”

Her voice rings through his ears on a loop, the most beautiful and agonizing melody that he has surely ever heard. She must be magic- something strong and powerful and like nothing he has ever seen before. There is no other explanation. It had been magic when she appeared to him, literally falling into his lap as if out of thin air. He is the god of tricks but even he cannot do that- he cannot make women that smell like flower petals land in his arms at will. He wishes he could- more than anything he wishes he could pluck her out of his dreams and bring her back to him. But he cannot because that was not a trick. That was something else entirely.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Three | Loki)

_

Y/n’s heart thunders as she gazes up at the glittering golden gates of the castle. If she was not so bogged down with bags she would throw a hand over her brow— a futile attempt to keep her eyes from burning out of their sockets. Do they really have to be this glittery? She thinks they are marvellous, that is not the problem. The problem is that she is not marvelous. Not in the slightest. Not worthy of such magnificent, splendid, rich architecture. She glances down at her simple dress— the loose green threads hanging from the side of the garment— she had meant to fix those— is this really where she must stay? Surely there must be a stable somewhere. A barn for animals like her.

(Posted | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Four | Loki)

_

“On the balcony,” Frigga calls back, brushing her blonde hair over her shoulders. “We have company!” She adds, seemingly as an after thought— she is too busy pouring wine from a glass feeder into a beautifully ornate cup.

At least, Y/n thinks it is wine. She can smell the fermented berries— sweet and tangy and warming her nose as all wines she has encountered before have— only this wine is a pale violet shade. It is not an opaque rouge, not a barely there chartreuse. Nothing like what she has ever been able to get her hands on by way of bartering or shared celebration. Weddings and births. She takes a seat in one of the golden chairs, trying not to think about how out of her element she truly is. The little details are starting to show though. Not just extravagant pools and marble hallways. Even the food here is luxurious.

(WIP | The Servant and The Prince / Chapter Five | Loki)

_

She would have never thought it possible. Never. She’s the type to sit at home and crack open a good book. Maybe make a nice cup of tea. Lately she has been finding hibiscus tea to be a nice way to end the night. That’s besides the point, though. The point is that she is nothing like her older sister Jane. She is a dreamer, not a doer. Not a traveller.

Especially not a traveller of space— of foreign planets.

(WIP | Untitled | Loki)

_

“Are you heading home this weekend?” Lily twirls a strand of blonde hair between her fingers, “Mama told me there’s an event.”

Your best friend lays on your bed as opposed to her own, her legs dangling over the edge. Her eyes are closed, probably halfway to being asleep. It’s been this way since the two of you left for college three years ago, always more in your space than her own. You’re lucky that way, you have a best friend who would follow you across the country if you wanted her to. Honestly, you would do the same. Luckily, though, you decided on only two hours away away from home. Just far enough to find your footing. At least, that’s what you tell yourself.

(Posted | Everything, Everywhere | The Mikaelson Boys)

_

“Get away from me, Kai!” Y/n snarls, pushing her way through the grill with a huffing witch on her heels.

She had been eating her meal- staring at her meal more like— and trying to ignore the constant buzz of her phone. He was incessant, texting her non— stop as if it would make it all better. After the thirtieth text she had turned her phone off, preferring to look at her food in silence. No text can erase his voice in her head. She means nothing to me.

“Not going to happen, kitten,” Kai purrs, his hand wrapping around her arm and tugging her to his chest, “you’re not going to ignore me.”

(WIP | Untitled | Kai Parker)

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New Orleans isn’t all that it was cracked up to be she muses to herself as she winds her way through the tombs. They tower over her, shadowing her with the sins of so many people before her. They’re lonely. That’s all she can think, over and over again. They must be so lonely. There can’t possibly be enough people to visit each of them. There aren’t even any people to visit her, let alone thousands of lost souls. She laughs to herself, a cruel sound breaking through the crashing silence. She is a lost soul.

(WIP | Do You Have A Moment? | Kol Mikaelson)

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A little bit outside the city lines of New Orleans, tucked precariously off highway 109, there stands a roadside market. It isn’t too far, nor is it too close; it’s just right, like the porridge in some half assed, uninspired fairytale. It’s nestled perfectly on the edge of the bayou, drawing in just enough business to keep the two girls running it in business. The jam is sweet, the ham is honeyed, and the women have smiles that look a little bit like rain in a drought: necessary for life but too much water on dry soil is a recipe for disaster. It’s all a little bit too perfect. Too clean cut and wholesome. But this isn’t a fairytale, after all. It’s the story of the girl who got away with it and the girl who helped her do it.

(WIP | Hey Tommy | The Mikaelsons)

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The Salvatore house has always smelled the same; like oranges and rum. A lot of rum. It is a welcome scent, one that smells almost like home. It will never truly be home, those scents are already reserved in your very essence, but it’s close. You’ll always be happy to walk through their door. Today is no different.

(WIP | Forever and Always | The Mikaelsons)

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Kol drags a hand through his hair, his eyes locked on the book in front of him. His eyes wander the page, the corner of his mouth lifting when he skims something particularly interesting. You, too, have a book in your hands but, unlike him, your focus is elsewhere. To be exact, your focus is four feet away, basking in the sun on the lap of one shirtless vamp.

(WIP | Best Friend Things / Part Two | Kol Mikaelson)

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“So, love,” a pair of arms snake around your waist, pulling you into a warm chest, “these are the famous pumpkins?”

A familiar blonde head, the one you woke up to this morning, settles against your shoulder. He must be leaning significantly given the fact that he’s at least a good head taller than you. You break the rain spell you had been working on, laying your wand next to your pumpkin starts. That’s the beauty of magic, you can grow in any season. You turn to face Klaus, a soft smile on your face.

(WIP | Pumpkin / Harry Potter Universe AU | Klaus Mikaelson)

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The salt clings to her sticky skin, her hair grainy and matted from the surf. Thunder rolls overhead, chasing her through The Cut like. It’s only half past noon but shadows layer the street, casting everything in a dusky gloom. The pavement smells sharp; the rain is coming and fast. She hikes her tote higher on her shoulder and wishes for a moment that she hadn’t dove for as many shells today. She feels like a beached whale with all the dead weight. Business is business, though, and the tourists go crazy for a handmade necklace.

(WIP | Thunderstorm Afternoons | Jj Maybank and John B. Routledge)

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She shoves her key into the lock of the Smith’s beach house, turning it with an audible click and smiling when she pushes the door open to the smell of warm pizza and oranges. Try as the boys may, Mrs. Smith’s affinity for essential oils will always prevail over the mass amount of cheap pizza they consume on what is— unfortunately— the daily. She hauls her bag higher on her shoulder, closing the door behind her and thanking the heavens she remembered to pack some of the chicken her mother made for dinner on her way out the door. No Domino's tonight, thank you very much.

(WIP | Sleepovers | The Kook Boys)

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“Y/n, darling, come here,” her mother’s sweet voice trickled over her from the front hall, “I have some people I want you to meet.”

She stepped into the hallway, coloured lights pouring over her. It was Christmas time, her favourite time, and everything was extravagantly decorated. Garland lined the grand staircase, there was a tree in almost every room, and, her favourite, holly strung in every doorway. Her house radiated magic, more so than usual, that is.

(WIP | Hufflepuff Princess | Draco Malfoy)

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Her feet hit the pavement with careful clicks, her heels— while undeniably killer— a little loud for her taste: a product of her day spent in practice with the other debutante girls. She has to force herself to make her steps light. This isn’t New York, it’s Mystic Falls. Being a southern woman is not a choice; it’s an obligation. A prior commitment she agreed to before she was old enough to truly fathom what it meant. For the most part she loves it— the elegance and refinery, the teatime giggles and flouncing skirts— but the heels? That’s a hard no.

(WIP | Untitled | Kai Parker)

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She sighs, her toes burying themselves in the carpet as her arms reach well past her head in a much needed stretch. Her room is dark, the only light coming from her cheap desk lamp. The pounding in her head, for once, isn’t enough to drown out anything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours. None of this was supposed to happen, it wasn’t supposed to get this far. It was always just a game, wasn’t it? She runs a shaky hand through her hair, her knees wobbling slightly at the thought. Get it together, y/n.

(Posted | The Bet | Rafe Cameron)

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Her bubblegum lip gloss attacks him from all the way across the café, cutting cleanly through the aroma of coffee and donuts and sending his heart racing at the obscenely sweet scent. He should hate it. No, scratch that, he shouldn’t think anything of it at all. It’s not in his nature to enjoy things- or to feel things at all, to be frank- but he can’t help it. The drugstore brand, wildly over-scented balm makes his head fuzzy like nothing else.

(Posted | Bubblegum Princess, Cherry Angel | Kai Parker)

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I don’t really know who to tag because I haven’t been active these last few days so I am tagging people I have not seen do this yet and if you have just ignore me : @elijahs-wife @draconisxcaput @imaginearyparties @dumble-daddy 

[delightsan]

FLAME (II) | CS

⁕ genre: fuck boy!san, bad boy!au, college!au, fluff, angst, enemies to lovers

⁕ pairings: choi san x fem!reader

⁕ words: 6.4k

⁕ description: keeping the title of being the best student on campus isn’t easy for you, especially when your mind was occupied only by him and his annoying smirk, the popular bad boy who once decided to sets on fire your heart without anybody’s permission

⁕ warnings: explicit language, suggestive remarks, smoking & alcohol

read the prologue and the chapter one

The sociable cafeteria is filled with people whose names you can't remember, but their curious stares welcome you with affectionate embrace, as soon you enter the huge space of the room. The embrace you crave, since San planted the promising rays of hope in your heart, it's devastating to you, because the only concern which matters are his gleaming eyes, full of chestnut color and mischievous spark. His presence is absolutely breathtaking. You're indeed a fragile prisoner of his burning touch, and the lustful gaze, soon as you would gentle rub affectionate circles on his arms tattoo's beauty, the night before, where the only sound was your rapid heartbeats and heavy breathing. He left the blurry trace of passionate kisses down your pale neck to remind you about his intentions, when you see the purple marks of his unspoken words.

Choi San's eerie relationship with you are the cause of your ruthless nights, but you will gladly suffer for him if it meant he would hold your hand in his warm palms, and smooch your face in kisses.

Rushing at the end of long line to the bufet, you scan the surroundings in a haste glance to spot his glowing figure, seated between the rest of his friends, it's utterly mindblowing, the way your stomach churns with pleasant anxiety when his starry eyes meet with yours. San's dazzling existence throws you into the vortex of emotions, where the love is struggling against the malicious demons of your fears. He's dressed in his usual clothes, the color black highlights his sharp facial features, and the used martens on his feet shows his rebellious side. 

You bow in grateful at the elderly woman, who give you the meal of the day, thanking her for the extra portion of rice, as your stomach grumble at the lack of the daily food intake. The kindly gesture make you smile in delight, while the other students talk feverishly about the last soccer game in which the boy, whose angelic voice is like the sweetest honey, Jongho won a golden tropheum for the school's team. He becomes a hero in the eyes of the thousands of people and Hongjoong's, who is proud to call himself a father figure. ATEEZ have a lot of outstanding achievements on their side, they are a gang of gifted kids with deadly stares and auras, for example Hongjoong godly hands are great at crafting, he is a owner of his own fashion brand, called "star1117", in which "Mars" is a main model, and that's your beloved saviour Seonghwa. Yunho's long to heaven legs are born to dance on the big scene, along with Wooyoung's powerful movements and San's acute technique. Yeosang is the expanded mind behind the drones, Mingi is a soundcloud rapper, who still takes baby steps in his career, but is already famous on the campus, and Jongho is a star of the football team.

The pretty girl, who would wave in excitment at seeing your presence in the entrance to the cafeteria, before your spirit had lost his way on earth, to land in the gates of hell by San's intoxicating appearance is your bestfriend. Her name is Yeji and she is a lovable person, the definition of your half missing, with a adventurous heart and daring smile, catching the attention for her stunning looks in both genders, but the confessions of the admirers are always denied in order to search for her unrequited love in Wooyoung's sparkling eyes. You know she deserves someone better than a mere boy, but Wooyoung is a perfect example of being out of her league. The hands contaminated with sins of his could never reach her, as you protect her through the life, like a guardian angel, who failed himself agaisnt the bright side of good, as he signed a pact with the devil, to let his heart rotts in hell.

She is excessively pure to be in a dark place, the same as you, where you are fighting with your sins, doubouting the feelings of innermost love and the power of God. To be honest, you had grown to have a loads of faith in every existence, which drifts in the subconsciousness of your mind, while trying to defeat the ghosts of cruel prejudice, as you want to believe in his sincere words and his innocence. Perhaps Wooyoung's adorable giggles and goofy smiles, that creates with care his mesmerizing crescents eyes, which are underlined with smoky eyeliner, aren't plaugued with demons, maybe his easy going aura isn't fraud in lies, maybe he is way more different than you think.

Truth to be told, you shouldn't ponder over it and you shouldn't be hanging around San or his friends as much as you do, but you can't help the desire to.

You greet Yeji with a soft grin, muttering a faintly "hi", while taking the free spot beside her at the wooden table, at which she beams at you in delighment, happy about your your presence, but soon her strong gaze gets bored of you, and wanders towards the source of her happiness. "What's so interesting, hm?" you say, acting dumbfounded at her behaviour to ignore the pain inside your chest, the betrayl it is. She's long lost to the paradise of him, Jung Wooyoung is the reason behind her loving stares and fast heartbeat, you failed miserably at being her guardian angel, but maybe that's what the destiny write in their galaxies.

Yeji bites her plump lips in anxiety, curling a lock of her black hair between fingers, the feeling of infatuation on her face, and you sigh, while she spares you a glance, it's filled with deep affection, and a smile ghosts over her cherry lips. The view of the boys belonging to the ATEEZ came into your frame, as she bumps her head towards them, where all of them eating their lunch in peace, and her smile is reciprocated by Wooyoung. "Oh, Wooyoung? Is something there between you and him?"

"No, well not yet of course, but maybe soon." Yeji says with a sorrow, it's obvious, groaning in annoyance like a lovestruck teeneger, who can't decide which kind of dress would be the best option for a memorable date with a crush, a cute ribbon dress or sexy tight dress. The mischievous cupidin, who travels the world in search of his miserable victims, not only hit you both with his influential arrow, making you a fools for his entertainment at your clumsy attempts to feel being beloved.

She is dedicateted to the idea of Jung Wooyoung being selected by gods to be her first and last love, but he likes to deny the allegations of being the leading light in her life, even if she deeply cares for him and treasure the feeling of dedication to him.

You want to beliefe it also, maybe some souls are meant to be together, bound by the red thread of destiny to the end of their fulfilled life.

The obnoxious sight of the stupid girls at the left side of the room, who would swoon over the holy eightly of boys, in which Wooyoung's high pitched laugh is heard everywhere, because San's another corny joke about big dicks is hilarious to him, is a painful sight for Yeji. Her significant other is looking at the stranger blonde with a lewd eyes, the picture is what trashes violently your heart and your lungs feel as if on fire, you pity your besfriend, she doesn't deserve the treatment of feeding up with his false hope. Jung Wooyoung likes to play a sick roulette with her genuine feelings towards him, doesn't give a single fuck about the consequences of his sinful actions.

Choi San does seem to care, though, because he catches your furious stare, which could burn the holes in Wooyoung's shaky with laughter figure, the devil itself apologize for the behaviour of his beloved friend. Bad habits are tough to break, blinded by a hand of foolish lust in frail attempts to take the boredom out by being an asshole, as the bitter aftertaste of forbidden fruit never tasted so good. You smile softly to him, to reassure him it's not his fault, because he can't control the actions of the other person. Rubbing small circles on the back of your friend to lift her ruined mood, while Seonghwa notices your gaze filled with adoration towards San, he smirks in a mockery, and you make a disgusted face, as Hongjoong giggles like a sweet kid at your exchanges, but you throw at Seonghwa a middle finger, at which he gaps offended. San's concerned face is what make you bashful of your previous poor actions, as he narrow his cat like eyes at you in order to search for a cause of your outbusrt.

Fuck, Seonghwa you are dead to me.

You hide shyly behind Yeji's small shoulders like a scaredy cat, who was caught at scratching the favourite furniture of his owners, the feeling of shame is creeping at your face, while avoiding his puzzling glare. "So he likes me, huh?" you whisper in a hush, trying to convince yourself once again about the sincerity of those significant words, which sound like sweet nothings in a romantic fairytale in your mouth. The tight grip of yours at the girl's pink blouse is a definition of your tiresome doubts, you wish to the vivid stars to save you from oppression of the snares of love.

You don’t know when you fell in love with him. You don’t even know if you fell for him at some point in life or if you’ve loved him from the beginning of your life, or maybe far before the two of you existed, but his declaration of love locks you in a cage of wonders, making you a helpless bird. 

Yeji is astonished, when she comprehend your remark, and she quirks her eyebrows at you. "Wait, hold on. (Y/N) is there someone interested in you or my delusional mind is playing tricks on me, because I heard that someone likes you."

The light shade of pink adorns your face like a spreading flu, the trembling of your hands and the dizziness in your head it's the effects of your disease, which San is the cause. Unlike the flu, it won't disappear, when you treat it with a care, the only way to get rid of the disease it's by hurting him right through with a piercing bullet, but you can't do it, when he looks at you with a smile, that can melt your heart. You quickly shake your head, don't knowing about the breath you were holding, when she ask you the question. "No, what do you mean." She wouldn't let you go so easily, she do know about your defensive position, as you like to run away without  giving a proper answer.

She sighs. "Okay, listen. Maybe I'm not the smartest kid in our school like you, but I can't ignore the way San is looking at you. He is eye fucking you everytime he sees you, it's fascinating to per say." she mocks you in a childish manner. "What the fuck? Yeji, shut up! It's embarrassing, while you say it like that." "I don't care, tell me what's between the two of you." 

To fight her in an unequal battle is hopeless, because the possibility of you winning is none, the victory is negligible, as you would never win an argument with her strong points. She is like a brave lioness who defends her children against the threats by other animals, she also have a soft spot, which is Jung Wooyoung, but you wouldn't dare to touch the burning subject of her love, as you could die in the agony, and there would be nothing left but ashes of your mistake. "Fine, you ass." you roll your eyes at her, maybe admitting to your obscure desires is a good step to believe in impossible. The weight of your insistent insecurity is tugging you down, but your desire to fly between the old friends, made in heaven where the clouds are the epitome of warm embrace is stronger. "I like San." you confess. "He said he likes me, when I was with him in the library, he confessed to me about his love, and the world suddenly started to overflow with it colors.  I want to try, but my insecurities are making it hard to believe, but we kissed-" Your voice is shakier and more broken than you’d ever thought it could be.

"Hey, don't. You need to understand that you are amazing." she cooes. "I'm not surprised he likes you, you have heart made of gold and personality who shines like the brightest gem in the world, everything about you screams perfect." her reassuring words, which soothe your strained nerves in pleasure of joy, as you nod in agreement are a reason behind your shy smile. Yeji is a great friend, you believe that the only reason you became best friends was the fact that you didn’t let her vanish into the sea of doubtness, when there was no one who would extend a helping hand to her lifeless body. "Give yourself some time and most importantly trust him, everyone deserve a chance."

Your romance is not like any other love story unless you consider painful longing to the point of self-destruction as normal occurrences, he demolishes your soul and paints the idea of spending more time with him into the world of unknown, because you are, once again, convinced that Choi San was born to mess with your heart. The idea of being devoted lovers, burns the unseen scars at the pit of your stomach, because it feels distant, but also so close within reach, it sounds unfeasible, but also so beautiful, as you think about his hot touches on your skin. You care for him deeply, he knows the struggle of being misjudged just based on the foolish decisions made in past, but everyone do mistakes, which leads to a irritating effects in the future, haunting us like the worst nightmare.

We need to understand that people aren't faultless. 

The longing picture of San's getting out of shackles of the rebel, sealed by his sins, drifts into the subconscious state of your mind like a dove of hope, letting you imagine to be the person, who is willing to help him and experience his transformation, it's fullfilling your senses. To dream about the future next to him, where kisses are laced with love, the passion and where fondly words of utter adoration are whispered in the deadly night is deadlier than anything else in this world. But you pray to God, promising to be a good cause of his wrongdoings, which will lead to his change, because no suffering like this would ever break him free. "You are right, thank you."

"We are friends, it's not a big deal. Now promise me, you will never doubt yourself again." 

"I promise." you smile.

You're deep lost in the meaningful conversation with Yeji to notice the flaming presence of San, whose delicate hand touches your fragile shoulder to get your attention on him, and you melt the moment his burning touch you. He smells like cotton candy, when he wasn't smoking, and his whole aura seems to brighten entirely at the prospect of your sparkling eyes on his, and you allow a giggle to slip past your, when his cherry lips grins at you in a toothy smile, the round cheeks after the meal makes him adorable, how can he be a personification of the devil. His red hair is styled back, showing perfectly his forehead and the intensity of his eyes, the charming dimples you grow to love don't ever disappoint to take away your breath. "Be at the library at 5PM, don't be late." His tone is soft and gentle and you decide, that you hate Choi San for making you fall so carelessly in love with him. He was gone, by the end of the bell sound, and his intoxicating scent also gone with him.

And the warmth, you are already missing.

"Good luck, (Y/N)." Yeji squeezes your arm, and make her way towards the next lecture.

The rest of the day went smoothly, sharing some classes with San doesn't help you with your studies, it's a poison to your grades, but an antidote for your lonliness, as the monotonous lecture with Mr. Kim is coming to an end soon. You chuckle at his little love letters, which he puts in your sweater pocket, most of them consists of a cheesy pickup lanes, like "For some reason, I was feeling a little off today. But when you came along, you definitely turned me on." and "Kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?" His hot breath on your neck, makes you shiver in a pleasure, when you sit in front of him, as you decide to abandon your pet's teacher seat in the displeasure of the scolding look of the lecturer, but you couldn't care less. "Come meet me at your locker." the last letter says, and you are introduced the state of euphoria.

The bell once again rings, not only signaling the end of the lecture, but also the rapid beating of your heart.

You turn around, exited to see his beautiful face, but you are slightly late, as he are already nowhere to be seen in the class along with his table partner Yunho, who reminds you of a big polar bear. Packing your belongings, you got a message form an unknown number, which shocks you to the core, "Don't trust him, he is not worth it." those words are driving you mad crazy. What the hell. You don't think much of it, but there is an empty feeling in your chest, as if a dark force settled down your stomach to bug out your day. Choi San has turned your life upside down and has brought you onto an edge that you enjoyed more than you cared to admit, it was too late to take a step back.

"Fuck this." you curse under your breath, exciting the class to look for San.

You take the steps, needed to arrive next to his strong figure, Yunho nowhere to be seen, and you offer him the bestest smile you can, perhaps, filled with every emotion you can't hide. The air around you is suffocating, he radiates an angelic glow, uncommon to him, you can't help but place a gentle kiss on his cheek, when he leanded nonchalantly against your locker, his shoulder relaxes visibly at your loving presence. San sends you a sly grin and tugs at the end of your blue sweater to draw you into his arms, eyes focused onto the sweet source of his happiness. "What was that for?" he pats the top of your head and places his hand on the small of your back, his actions are enough to make your heart stop beating, because his beauty defined by high cheekbones and dark arched eyebrows are the defenition of perfection. 

"I don't know." you splutter. "I suddenly got an urge to do it or maybe I wanted to prove to you about the theory of meteorite impact to the ground, which would kill all of the dinosaurs. " 

"Oh, why did you make me aware of death of dinosaurs, it's sad. Can you kiss me again to make my pain go away?"

"Kiddo." his forehead presses against yours, as you lean into him and press your lips against his ear, hands intertwined tightly and the scent still overwhelming. You place a fond kiss at the hem of his ear, whispering about sweet nothings, the boldness of your actions are enough to make him stiff in place, as you take your time to look at him, to drink in his perfect features. He’s sun kissed, you notice, and his lips are red and curved into a small smile. Choi San has turned your life upside down and has brought you onto an edge that you enjoyed more than you care to admit. "No more kisses." you laugh.

You pull away from him, and his bottom lip pops out, forming a pout and you have a strong desire to trace it with your fingers and your mouth like you did back then on the balcony, where the bright sun embodied your serene emotions. "I can always steal it, princess." he teases, and you break out into an easy grin, as he placed a chaste kiss at your soft lips.

"Let's go. I'm not in the mood to study anymore." 

"There is still one lesson ahead of us, San."

"So what? I want to spend rest of the day with my girlfriend. Now come on baby, don't make me beg you." 

He promised to make you fall in a twisted snares of love with him, his burning touches which ignites the fire will be the answer to your hopeless eyes, and he will prove the sincerity of his intentions, when you decide to run away with the knight in laether jacket to find the source of your happiness. There is no place for deep reflections, you want him to degrade you with his dark life, and to be a part of his kingdom, because ruling without the queen was already hard for him. The world can burn in noxious agony, if it means he would be there with your connected soul, holding you closely in a affectionate embrace, as your trembling hands finds way to his sharp face adorned with the most attractive smile.

"Fine, let's go." you mutter under your breath, and San lets out a quiet and triumphant yes slip from his lips, as he eagerly grabs your hand in his warm one, to assure you about the correctness of this choice and leads you to the courtyard, where his black motorbike is parked. 

Choi San is the love of your life, you decide, as you watch him, hand held tightly by him. San is everything you want and more, he is fullfilling your senses with wholesome ecstasy, you drink up his presence in the gleaming sun, a view satisfying like the miracle oasis in the middle of tropical desert. You look at him and smile. 

He is beautiful.

He attentively puts a helmet on your head, his face scrunch in concentration, his tongue pokes out of his mouth, when he was focused on protecting you from inevitable, he flashes you a dimple grin, which you return. "It will protect you. I hope you aren't afraid of speed." The thrilling feeling of adrenaline kicks in, as San's motor roars in the air like a obsessed mantra, your heart beating abruptly in your chest at the frantic sound. You are terrified, but the look of pacification on his blissful face, you long to is enough for you to hop into the embrace of death, hugging his calming back from behind. "Good girl."

The fast ride through the city with San reminds you of playing with fire, it could be a lethal weapon in the wrong hands, taking away your reckless life, when you handle it without proper caution. Life isn't beautiful without taking a risk, perhaps it's easier to put your faith in devil's sharp claws, than look for the light in angel's halo, because San's calming presence is enough for you to endure the feeling of frighten. He is aware of your trembling hands, you can't control, the swift breaths you take to soothe your racing nerves, while you melt into his figure to gain the courage, as he speeds up down the road. The destination is unknown to you, he hasn't metioned where he wish to take you, kissing you with the burning passion, holding you close in his arms till your worries of unrequited love vanish into the void, leaving a space for an attachment.

You trust San with the remaining strength in you, it isn't difficult, but you can't resist fluttering shut your eyes to ease the throbbing of your heart, you know nothing awful will happend to you, if he is here to remind you of his close proximity. "Baby, we are here. Open your pretty eyes, you can't miss the view." The ride came to an end when his divine voice comes out of his throat, the moment his yearning palms touch your gentle face to reveal you from the helmet, it's devastating for him, he can't let go of your pure smiles and soft chuckles at his sugared praises about your bravery. He is mesmerized by your angelic purity, the taste of blissful heaven never tasted so delectable at his tongue, as he molds your lips in a heated adventure between clouds. His intoxicating scent make you lightheaded, teeth clashing together in a messy battle of dominance and you let his lustful desires win, the low whimper escapes from his mouth. Believing in God is unnecessary for him, but believing in the miracles of blue paradise is right, because he could meet you.

The mesmerizing view of ocean absorbs your attention, it's beautiful, the sun is near to set and the colors of orange and red are visible in the sky, interwined together in a fierce dance to create a gorgeous convolution of emotions, where the stray souls would find the answer for their longing questions. San's head falls down into the crook of your neck, inhaling your sweet perfume, the smell he craves, his warm embrace on your waist grow in strength, as the cold breeze hit his back. He place another chaste kiss down your neck, your delicate hand is gripping at the red hair on top of his head, when your lips tremble at the close inticimaty, but he pulls away completely and you feel cold and empty, as he flashes you a sly grin. 

"I thought it would be nice to enjoy the sunset, while we will be busy making out like horny teenegers." San's glowing eyes forms the crescents, his sharp features softens in the vivid twilight, when he teases you, as he ruffles your hair with a precious laugh. He is uterrly beutiful in every way, you think, from the reflection of luminescent stars in his eyes, the freckles on his neck made of stardust, you yearn to explore with your desirable touch, to his flawlessly shaped waist, as it fits perfectly in your arms. But he is brighter than all stars above. "It was a joke of course, but it doesn't sounds so bad in my opinion." He flashes you a mischievous grin, eyes flaming as he stared you down with an interest.

You giggle, subtly pressing harder against him, the heat rolling off his body, he will be the death of you, but the state of limerence is amazing, you can't restrain from his charms, the God had taken his time with him, so why he had to banish him to the gates of hell? "You're gross." you flicker his forehead, smiling with adoration, when his face pouts a disappointment, a little whine escapes his mouth. Then you realize the God is awful, maybe San isn't uninfected with sins, he never prayed, but he tries to be good in his own, unique way. 

Because Choi San is open minded, the heavy curtains of the cruel world aren't enough to fool his divine eyes, and maybe you're dancing with the devil, but it doesn't frighten you. Being partly good is better than being artificial pure. San laid his leather jacket that smells like his cologne on your shoulders, as he sees you shivering under the circumstance of cold wind, his arms now exposed fully to you, the antic makes you blush and you throw him a sheepish smile to hide the cherry like flush. "No, just madly in love with you, princess." he takes out the cigarette from the back pocket of his jeans, lighting it up immediately, with a cunning smirk, it's the sin he is addicted to, the smoke surrounding him seems to embrace him gracefully.

The motorcycle seat beneath you is like a safe home to you, when still in place without the danger of speed, it's comforting you in every possible way, and his godly presence makes it even better, it's like the best antidote for solitude. "Are you always this smooth with your words?" you ask, biting your trembling lips, as his intense stare is burning holes on your redden face. He hums in dismiss, heart beating faster and faster as the seconds passed by. "Can I have one?" your breath hitches in your throat, when his large palms clutches your chin in a gentle touch. 

Choi San is the cause of the swarm of butterflies in your stomach.

"Can you be honest with me? Tell me, have you ever smoke?" he says, searching in your eyes for a genuine answer, but you can never lie to him, as the weight of the repulsiveun untruth is inordinately heavy, you couldn't carry it throught the life. 

"No."

"Then the answer is also no, angel." his delicate grip on you has loosened, as he lets go of your chin, brushing a strand of your hair behind your ear, and you whimper in his chest at the lose of his warmth. He doesn't fancy the idea of ​​you being addicted to the awful nicotine because of him, the deadly treat isn't worth losing your flawless purity, and for San you are a good girl made of pure porcelain, too fragile for this dark world. Good girls don't smoke. You clutch at his black shirt, as he lowers his head in order to move his lips to your cheek, while you inhale deeply his intoxicating scent and you’ve never felt more alive than you did then, in San's arms – the one boy who sets your heart in flames.

"But I want to try, please San. Let me, it will be my first and last time. I promise." you whine, the high hopes in your mind, because San can't resist your soft pleadings, as he is a slave of your angelic voice, but he doesn't mind as long, as you are his cause of rapid heartbeat. Truth to be told, both of you are too lost into the world of love, Choi San has committed to you, and you seal the deal with the devil itself, as you press an open mouthed kiss on his neck and then on his jaw, landing on his lips at the end. And yes, maybe it can bring the pain and sorrow, but the embrace of the devil is worth it.

He chuckles, and it’s low and throaty, his right hand ends up on your neck in a firm grip, leaving a trace of hell, which burns you alive. You aren't afraid of his crimes anymore, beacuse Choi San is the reason of the flowing sensation in your veins, as he pushes you harder into his body, taking a deep inxhale from the cigarette with the other hand. He molds together your plump lips in a sensual kiss, the other hand finds the way to your cheek, the metal cold rings on his fingers are sending you to overdive, as his mouth opens against yours and his tongue licks eagrly at the entrance of your lips. You give in to his burning touch, mouth feeling hot and a heavy, the sensation of fullness settles into the pit of your chest, as he kisses you harder and more urgent, exhaling the deathly smoke into your lungs. San is needy, but you don't mind, as your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him impossibly close. There’s no reason to hold back, you desire his proximaty and he desires yours, it's the definition of selling your soul to the bad side.

Your fingers reach for his hair, feeling the fluffiness of his locks, as San breaks the kiss, when the overflow of smoke in your mouth chokes you, and your hazy eyes still fixated on his swollen lips, which forms a cocky grin. "I can't believe you said it was your last, when you are looking at me like this, sweetheart." You struggle to breathe, as his hands cup your face in between them, rough fingertips rubbing circles into the skin, and you blush harder than you thought possible, when a low and guttural moan leaves the back of his throat. "Fuck, it's hard for me to restrain."

"Sorry."

The overwhelming weight of the intense battle, filled with lustful touches and hot kisses, leaves you hot-blooded, and you wish it would last longer, because San is the reason of your mad addiction and sins, which pulls you down into the hole of thirst. You don't regret giving up, the pit in your stomach deepens and your thoughts swirl around in your head like sweet promises, because you can see the love oozing in his chestnut eyes, and you swear you fell in love with him once again. San rests his forehead against your heart, the sound of your rapid heartbeat is like a beloved lullaby for him, cooing him to fall into the marvellous dreamland, but the gates to the underworld of Hades are watching him, proud of his actions, because you sinned, and the God will never forgive you, but if that means rotting in hell together with San, then it's alright to do so. You are sure that you can endure it, because Choi San is your medicine for pain.

"Don't be, it's my fault. I got too carried away, but I can't help it, you are driving me crazy." his fingers brush at the strands falling into your eyes and he presses another quick kiss onto your longing mouth. There is no air left in your lungs, and they burn with need yet you neglect them. "Do you like the place?" he flashes you a gentle smile, pushing up the jacket on you, which had slip when you were too engaged in each other mouths, and he moves away completly from you to let you see the breattaking view, as he stands next to you. It eases your neglected pain.

The beautiful place pulled straight out of a fairy tale, reminds you of the place, where you had spend most of your childhood, but you can't recognize it, as your memories are blurry. "Yes, I do!" you answer, looking at the sunset in awe. "I feel like I was here before, but I can't remember it." you sigh. "I have a feeling that I used to spend a lot of time here, coll-" you say in a daze, but San interrupts you with a unreadable grin, when you look his way, to see how the sun is glowing at his honey like skin, making him a untouchable piece of art, the messy hair stand on all sides from the previous actions, but he still looks saintly.

"Collecting the colorful sheels and screaming about the invisible fishes in the water, which would scare you to the bones?" he finishes the sentence for you, and you, quite simply put, forget how to breathe. San smiles a bright smile, pearly whites on display, and you see the glimmer of the orbs in his eyes. You blink at him in confusion. "Yeah, something like that, but how did you know?" you ask bewildered by his words.

"I was the kid with the blonde streak at the top of his head. Girls swooned over me, and I only had my eyes for a girl, who would smooch my bruises on knees, from falling too many times on the hard rocks near the shore." he chuckles, finally looking at you with beaming eyes full of adoration, the late realization hit you like a bolt from the heaven.

The story of you and Choi San didn't start the moment the saviour Seonghwa introduced him to you, but it started at the very beginning of the hot summer holiday, both of you were still an small mere imitaions of your parents, made of nothing, but the blank pages, who later would be neglected by your bad words and poor choices. You met him at the age of 12, he wasn’t the tallest, but he was endearing, when he walked confidently into the blazing sand, in his hands toys and a happy smile on his face. San had one desire back then, the childish one, to defeat everyone in the competiton of building the highest sand castle, and the prize was a date with the most beautiful girl on the beach, and yes you were her.

He succesfuly won the first place, after many devastating for a kid failures, but his motivation to win was more powerful, just like him today. In this young age boys grossed you out, they were noisy and disgusting, and they were talking only about games, but he was different, a little mysterious. You were under some sort of aura that managed to take your breath away even back then, when he was nothing more than a boy, who was raised by his granparents, with a stupid name "Shiber Choi", but he soon turned to be your best friend and that's how your two months teeneger crush, filled with nervewrecking adventures and deep conversation started.

"What? That was you, no fucking way, San! You were my first love, you asshole!" You flush in delight and raise on your tiptoes to press a lingering kiss to his mellow cheek, putting your hand over his heart. "I love you, San." You whisper quietly into his shirt, sound muffled by the fabric and you hope he hears you, especially now, that you are held by him so tightly. He hugs you tighter and kisses the top of your head, fingers coming to comb through the hair at the nape of your neck. 

Choi San is your first love and you hope to also be your last.

[timexistsnow]

my baby (oh my pup)

Chapter 5: a flower (for us)

Techno and Tasha go on a walk and have a pleasant couple of days.

Techno’s hands were ruined for the time being. A while back, maybe two hours ago, he had made the wise choice to wrap them but even that hadn't saved him from a day of hoeing. This was not what he had planned to do in retirement, becoming a farmer, but then again, he never really had a plan. The whole idea was to escape L’Manburg and their governmental control, so farming was close enough.

When he wiped the sweat from his brow he hissed. Even in a biome like this, he was still getting sunburnt. Later he would have to rub some magma cream on it. Either it soothed or burned, he would find out.

Tasha was lying by the fire, leg muscles destroyed from all of the crouching. Techno grumbled, he could relate.

He helped her up, ignoring the tingling in his fingers. The bandages were useless by now and would infect his wounds if he didn’t change them. Just as he had with the potatoes, Techno switched had off of hoeing to planting, cacking his pants, hands, and fingernails in dirt. And Tasha… was not much better off.

Her already clumsy movement coupled with the unsteady ground led to many spills. She got the job done, but it wasn’t a very clean job.

Bath time.

He warmed the water in the fireplace and brought the buckets back upstairs. He needed a better system for bathing and water if this was to happen often. He did have a spare room now, the bathroom could go down by where the dining table used to reside. The purpose of the small cabin was to use every space, and the little alcove was just a place to put a tall bookshelf right now.

Techno… shelved that thought and helped Tasha into the bath. The few inches of water were already turning brown with the clumps of dirt falling from Tasha’s fur. The soap came out, lathered all over the pup. She scooped up a handful of bubbles, watched them pop, and shoved them into her mouth. “Gross.”

“No kidding,” Techno laughed. He couldn’t blame her, when he was a kid he had taken a bite out of the first bar of soap he had come across. And then the next. And the one after that. Okay, it took a while for Techno to figure out that the reason why soap tasted so bad was because it wasn't food. So what if he was dumb, sue him for being new to the world.

Techno… he needed to know, “Did you have fun?”

“Soap? No.”

Techno rolled his eyes, “The potatoes, Tasha.”

“Oh. With. You. Yes.” She averted her eyes, clapping bubbles into the air.

Techno watched the bubbles float around the room, his scrubs paused. “You don’t- We can stop next time. Tasha, you can always tell me if you get bored,” Tasha still didn’t bring her gaze back up to Techno, “I won’t get mad.”

She caught a bubble in a soapy hand and brought it to her face, blowing it off, “Together. Make. Worth. It.”

Techno- he supposed that made sense. He just didn’t think that Tasha would have the same idea. His scrubs resumed, focused on her fingers. The other hand continued to play with the bubbles.

“Missed. Together. In. Nether.”

Swallowing, he tried to say lightly: “You had a together? I… assumed your family-”

“You. Killed. Family.” She said family like it had hurt her. Hmm, maybe not the best simile.

“Oh,” he said. Was he supposed to say sorry? He wasn’t, not even a tiny bit.

In the silence, Tasha chose to barrel on, “Me. Had. Friend,” she tugged on her ears and tusks, a piglin then. “Run. Around. Ride. Hoglin.” Her hands mined two pairs of legs scampering along the lip of the bath. “Miss. Them.”

That… was not good, “Do you want to go back and visit them?” How: he wasn’t sure, but for Tasha, he’d make do.

“Dead.” One of the hands fell off of the lip and into the water, splashing around.

Oh. “What was their na- their word?” There had to be a way to save the conversation. Neither of them needed to deal with all of this angst.

“Never. Told.” The clean hand was put into her mouth but she continued to talk around it, “Scared. Them,” a hand fell into the water, “Warned. Them. In…” she waved at Techno, “Speak.”

“You said something in English. Kiddo, that wasn’t your fault.”

She protested, hand falling, getting back up, and falling again and again. “Should. Known.”

Techno grabbed both of her hands, “No, Tasha, the piglins- they don’t deserve your time. You are so different from them, so much more,” she tried to wiggle her way out, so Techno switched gears, “It was just a mindless mob. Sure, for a moment it might have felt pain but not like you did-” Techno slammed his mouth shut, Tasha clearly being able to pick up what he was referring to and flinching away. He tried for a third time, “You are better than them.”

That was enough, Techno guessed, and Tasha wiped away the stray tear that had escaped. He helped her out and dried her off with a soft blue towel. When she stood awkwardly, he patted her on the head, “Try to not let it bog you down. You don’t want things like that to ruin your fun.”

He let her walk off and refilled the bath with clean water. He always figured that Tasha would have her own trauma, but he never got around how he would fix it. His methods were proven to be… lacking, at the very least.

Spending nowhere near as long as Tasha had, Techno scrubbed himself raw. He might be a pig but he did not like being dirty. With dirt. The blood of the people who had wronged him- he might be able to compromise.

Stepping out of the lukewarm water and into the frigid room, he grabbed the other towel on the rack and dried himself off. He didn’t have any clothes so he opened the door a crack and strained his arm to grab something out of the chest of clothes next to it. It was one of his less frilly white button-downs and a pair of thick pants. Techno was always tempted to get some thigh-high leather boots to complete his outfit, but his hoofs would never allow it.

Leaving the bathroom, Techno realized that in his vanity he had caused the chest to spill out. Tasha, who was seen wiping her snout and eyes in a hurry, sat down at the foot of the mess and started sifting through it. She ended up settling on some of his spare blue wool and fabric.

“Favorite. Color?” All of it was blue, so perhaps…

“No, I like pink.” He sat with her and studied the weight and feel of it. Thankfully it wasn’t all one shade but an array of hues ranging from baby to royal blue. From wool to cotton to silk, from thick yarn to thread, he had quite the collection.

Techno chose the yarn, digging further through the pile for some needles. He had a book hidden somewhere in his library, ah, there it was. The bounty was dropped down in between the two. Tasha flipped through the pages, letting out an oink at the pictures.

She stopped at the first set of instructions and did her best to replicate the hands displayed on the pages. Techno… had no idea what the book was talking about, even as he read the captions. Sewing, he could manage. Knitting? Making something out of almost nothing? Unless it was a war effort, it was far out of his grasp.

All Techno did from there on in an attempt to help her was getting her to a page that told of a simple child’s sweater. She patted his face and set off to work.

That left him to his own devices.

The pile of blue was tempting Techno. “I never planned on getting this much stuff in the beginning,” Tasha nodded absently, “Uh, I guess my… interest in fashion started back when I began fighting.” He ran a finger over his cloak, a staple he had taken from his first win in the Area. “When I would win, I got the first pick of the losers' loot- including their clothes. It was just supposed to be a gag, something stupid I could do to make fun of them, but the pile grew and I wasn’t doing anything with it.

“Throwing it all out felt wrong, like I wasn’t winning for a reason. Eventually, I figured out that I could take the things I liked about each piece and put them together into something decent.” The cloak was a cape an opponent had dropped and the fur came from someone dressed as a sheep. Strange, but look at him now.

Tasha was trying her best to pay attention, but her pace had crawled to almost a stop, so Techno let her work in peace.

Instead, he took out the dress he had taken for Tasha and started hacking at the seams. He had learned a trick where you trace the different pieces of cloth, improve the design, and cut new ones. Techno was relieved to be getting rid of the old villager clothing, and the dress wasn’t that pretty to start with, so Techno got to have some fun.

Out came the ink and light blue cotton, Techno added a waistline and some frills to the bottom edge. A couple of times, Techno stabbed himself with the needle, but he made sure to not get any blood on the new dress.

He must have spent hours on it, because when he looked up, Tasha was done with a sleeve. There were a few stitches that looked a little wonky, but, “That looks really good!” Tasha startled and smiled back at Techno. Her smile was a little lackluster, her eyes drooping. “Come on, it’s bedtime for us.” Techno didn’t bother with staying up, his eyes were starting to itch and the strain the farming had put him through made him almost weep at the thought of staying up any longer.

When he woke, the day started just as the last had, Tasha tucked against his side.

Gathering up his gear, the flower resting on his journal wasn’t abandoned any longer, Techno couldn’t bear to let himself lose it. Into the ender chest it went, filling up the last slot.

“More?” Tasha asked upon seeing him put the dandelion away.

Techno sighed and smiled, “Sure.”

“Get. More. Today.” she decided, nodding to herself.

They did need more wool if Techno wanted to keep making clothes, so, “Whatever you say.” A walk would be a good way to spend outside time without doing labor.

He grabbed his armor after a second of thought. There was a good chance that it was unnecessary, but not a one hundred percent chance.

The food was handed out, Tasha getting the last potato in the chest. Her carrot- Techno paused: did she need gold? He wasn’t planning on taking it away from her, don’t get him wrong, but she was progressively getting more and more aggressive with her chomping as the days went on. Maybe it would be a good idea to get her something more permanent. Something she couldn’t eat.

The first option was a crown- Techno scratched that off immediately, he had earned it. Perhaps a trinket or jewelry of some kind?

As Techno helped Tasha into a clean coat over her new dress (which she liked very much) and got her down the porch steps, he kept thinking it over.

“Techno. Okay?” Tasha pulled on his cloak. She was having to rush to keep up with Techno’s pace. He slowed, allowing her to match his strides with less of hers.

He ruffled the fur on her head, “Yeah, just thinking,” at another tug: “What do you like?”

Tasha grabbed a bundle of his cloak but stopped her tugging. “Techno. Snow. Yellow… Flower?” He supplied her with dandelion and she nodded. Hmm, those were pretty generic things- the voices started screaming at him in rage, appalled at the mere suggestion. Okay! Not generic. If they made Tasha happy, that was all he needed.

Techno… wasn’t used to such simple needs. As different as Tasha was, she was still just a child.

He wasn’t exactly feeling snow or potato, which left yellow flower. Yellow: that was convenient. A little gold dandelion. It could be a pendant on a necklace or bracelet. Techno looked down at her, she was stumbling through the snow, scanning the horizon for a flower patch.

“Up you go,” he warned, scooping her into his arms. After a moment, he put her on his shoulders. Her hands tugged on his ears like they were reigns on a horse.

The needles on the spruce trees were already imposing on Techno’s personal space, so when Tasha was added to his height, she got a mouthful of pine. She sputtered and Techno chewed on his lip, he would try to avoid the overhanging branches. Mostly.

A sharp tug and Techno was about to scold her, even more so when she tugged again. “There!” Tasha squealed. Oh, she was treating him like a horse, steering him to the right. He grumbled but followed her directions.

Through the forest they went, Techno still not knowing how Tasha could see. Of course, she did have the height advantage, but she was only a block tall, if that. Even combined, they weren’t impressive.

Or, just possibly, Techno realized, it could be the fact that he broke his glasses in the process of destroying L’Manburg. Huh. That… could be it.

“Stop! No. Step. On. Dandelion.” Techno halted, seeing a patch of yellow spread out around him. Yup, it was time to fix his glasses.

Tasha shimmied down from his shoulder once Techno crouched down low enough. Nearby, a baah echoed through the forest. “Tasha, find yourself a good flower, I’m going to find the sheep. I’ll be back, I promise.” Tasha scrambled back to Techno from the flower patch. Techno smiled, “Pinky promise, no one can break those,” he held out his finger and waited for Tasha.

A piggy finger wrapped itself around his.

Tasha turned back to the flowers. Techno wandered off.

There were only three sheep when Techno found them. They were hiding around some bushy fur trees and grazing on the exposed grass protected from the wind and snow. Trying not to startle them, Techno placed his ender chest a ways away from the three and brought out his lapis lazuli and iron. A second later and he had dye and shears.

Techno didn’t want to leave Tasha for long, so he only waited around enough for the sheep's wool to grow and be sheared three times each. The blue was a little conspicuous, Techo gnawed at his lip. As long as Tasha didn’t see him killing them, he figured.

He brandished his axe, one mighty swing taking out the first. Then the second. Then-

“Techno!”

Techno abandoned the last sheep and sprinted through the forest, Tasha coming into sight around the branches and trunks. She was- not fine, but alive. “What’s wrong, Tash?” he grabbed her up. She struggled, trying to get out of his grip, “Tash!”

A hiss.

Techno twisted around, shielding Tasha with his body. He held her tight and the explosion blasted snow and pine needles onto his back. His ears rang. After a moment of piercing silence, Techno rolled to his side, still curled around Tasha.

“Came. Back,” Tasha whispered.

Techno scooped her up. It was home time, their walk was over. “The pinky promise never fails.” She stayed in his arms, Techno didn’t want to risk another creeper or an arrow from a skeleton hiding in the foliage.

She shouldn’t have gotten hurt.

Techno shouldn’t have left her, actually.

But, still, piglins were supposed to be neutral with hostile and other neutral mobs. Hoglins were an exception, but creepers? Tasha should- Tasha was different. With it being so soon after Techno had insisted it, he should have listened to his own advice. Even Tasha looked a little… skeptical when he made the claim, he supposed.

They hurried- or rather, Techno hurried- over the roots and fallen tree branches. The forest thinned and the clearing their cabin resided in stuck out over the horizon. Up the stairs, and they were safe.

Tasha’s dress had picked up a bit of snow, so Tasha batted it off before entering. Both of them wiped their hoofs off on the rug and set themselves up at the table. The flower, Techno thought she had dropped it, was set in the middle.

Techno brought down Tasha’s knitting and his notebook and ink. When he came back downstairs, Tasha greeted him with a rumbling stomach. Out came her food: two carrots, as the potatoes were still growing. Just as he had expected, she gorged herself on them.

Into his notebook, Techno went. The page titled with Tasha’s Needs was in need of some updating. Food was checked off, they had finished the farm, all they had to do was regular maintenance and weeding. Clothes for Tasha were not yet completed, but he did want to add a new idea: ,i>matching/blue for Techno. Yes, it would add extra work, but imagine the absolute adorableness… or style that would seep from their very beings. A quick gold dandelion pendant was scratched in at the bottom, almost forgotten. He ignored the rest of the list.

Across the table, Tasha was getting through the second sleeve of the sweater. Her face was screwed up, tongue sticking out and flickering around her tusks.

Techno put a hand to his own tusks, an extra set growing out of his upper jaw. They had always been a point of embarrassment for him, clearly belonging to a feral wild pig rather than the preferred barnyard pig. People always looked between him and the pigs they had in pens, comparing the two and trying to find similarities. The tusks had been a saving grace in those scenarios, functioning as a barrier from him being mocked.

The two tusks poking out of Tasha’s mouth had come from her ancestors, though piglins now used crossbows and swords instead of tusks and hoofs for fighting.

Techno shifted in his seat, running a hand over his list and the matching/blue for Techno. They weren’t that different, he supposed.

Tasha was an innocent version of Techno.

Techno would keep her that way.

[hieludoboi]

Again?

A/n- I needed to take a break from my Daichi series, I want to be able to write it organically and not pump it out like some factory, so I decided to write this :)

Pairing- Tsukishima/Fem!Reader

Summary- Sometimes things fray, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be fixed

Trigger Warnings- Not a lot really, just a little angsty and a mention or two of just some blood!

Y/n sighed as she stepped past the cherry stained door frame. The bag that clung to her shoulder slipped from her grasp, clattering against a pile of heavily weathered shoes. She cringed, the sound of needles, embroidery scissors and plastic bobbins most likely becoming a mess of tangles and thorns in the black bag. She was tired though and left the bag where it was, practically kicking off her shoes. Her life was going pretty okay, she guessed. Asahi snagged her a spot with a well-known brand as soon as she graduated. She was doing something she loved, threading beautiful tapestries onto ridiculously expensive shirts, reveling in the way designer brands vied for her and her work. It was a nice change from home. Home should feel warm and open, that’s what her sister had told her. So why did her living room feel like a closet?

It was quiet, all the lights were off. There was no trace of Kei in the house, except for his messily piled shoes at the door. How long had they been living like this? In a limbo of bitter feelings? Coming home to empty rooms and dusty clutter on the coffee table? Y/n felt her shoulders sag, her body becoming numb as she trudged into the kitchen, the smell of sweet strawberry shortcake still clinging to the kitchen walls, a subtle reminder of the love she desperately felt for her lover. Love? No, that wasn’t the word. Being with Kei wasn’t love, it was comfortable and normal, mundane at best. There were no soft touches, no gaps of silence suddenly filled with bursts of airy giggles. Lately, her relationship with Kei felt like a construction site. Kei lugged around beams and barrels of concrete as he built up his walls, Y/n standing still on the other side of the barrier, lazily throwing pebbles at the infrastructure he had built overnight. She had stopped trying long ago.

Her fingers felt heavy as she pulled open the fridge. The taste of yearning coated her tongue, clinging to her throat and building a home in her chest. She missed him. She missed the way his voice would float with every chuckle, the way he’d roll his eyes with that tender smile, the dopey smirk on his lips when he would wake up in the morning, their legs tangled among cheap comforters and puppy like love. Y/n sighed through her nose, tired eyes searching the fridge for something filling, only to land on the cake she had made him sitting untouched in the back of the fridge. She had made it for him, knowing it was a favorite before she had to leave for a work trip. She would be stuck in Italy for a few days working on some fancy designer piece. Their relationship was in tatters, but she hoped that the sight of warm cake on the counter could patch up the gaping holes in the fabric of their relationship. How silly of her.

She racked her brain, her head racing along non existent horse tracks while a wispy detective walked idly by on the forgotten roads of her memories. Why? What had she done for him to just leave her on standby? Yet still, she couldn’t be bothered. They had fallen out of sync long ago, only staying with one another out of complacency. The house was big, and it was easier to save money when there was someone to share bills with. Love didn’t exist inside their four walls anymore, but climbing into bed with someone felt better than laying alone and lingering on your thoughts. The feelings were gone, but at least the sex was good, right? Staying together was forgetting, forgetting about their problems, ignoring the depression that dug at their intestines with bottles of strong liquor and clumsy kisses. Forgetting was better than remembering.

“Hey,” Y/n turned from the open fridge to come face to face with Kei. She had been staring at the molded frosting and fuzzy strawberries in the fridge for longer than she thought. Nodding a response, she turned back to the fridge, pulling out the cake to throw it away. “I’m sorry, I forgot about it. Thank you though,” Kei’s voice was soft, his eyes focusing on the black bag that sat on the floor, a frown tugging at his lips. They had loved each other at some point, Kei knew they did. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss it a little. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” Kei questioned, walking into the kitchen with an annoyed look on his face. He had gotten home late after going to catch up with Tadashi at some little cafe after work.

“Tired,” is all Y/n said as she threw the rotten cake into the trashcan. She’d have to take out the garbage later. Kei huffed, normally, Y/n would be dragging answers from his lips with the claws of her questions, but today seemed different. Had she finally given up? He could feel a frown clinging onto the corners of his lips, but why did it bother him so much? They had never ended their relationship, just watched it waste away, hoping someone would cut the tether before they got married out of complacency. He didn’t know why, but the nagging feelings of change gripped onto his chest, begging for him to do something. What was there left to salvage?

“I’ll do chores tonight, okay?” It was so simple, but the small gesture was enough for her heart to fall into a frenzy of jitters. The look in his eyes was softer than it had been in months, and oh, suddenly his hair seemed brighter, his eyes oozing honey and warmth. Pathetic, she thought to herself. He was just offering to do chores, that was all, Y/n tried to reason with herself. But this was Kei. The smallest of gestures were always the most complex. He didn’t like big shows of emotions after all.

Kei watched as Y/n nodded, her eyes showing the way her mind swam in pools of confusion. This is stupid, Kei thought to himself, sighing through his nose as he pulled the bag from the bin, tying it closed before carrying it to the buckets outside. Doing the chores wouldn’t bring about any change. There wasn’t a remedy for a wandering love. There was no bait that could hook it back to their shores, so why should he even bother? And then he was walking upstairs to their shared bedroom, passing photo after photo of her pretty smile, tripping over the gift bags that littered the steps and finally passing the embroidered dinosaur that sat in a frame on the wall. A gag gift turned favorite by Kei.

He stopped to look at the cloth in the frame, admiring the stitching and shading that ran across its back. He could only imagine all the pricks she had sustained on her fingers because of that stupid little dinosaur. Kei couldn’t help the laugh that breached past his lips, the tender warmth of memory that climbed over the barbed wire around his mind.

Y/n had been working on some piece for a Tokyo based brand when she came to Kei with watery eyes and bloodied fingers. At nearly twenty years old, he never expected to be taking on the role of nurse. He had shaken his head, laughing to himself as he gently wrapped up her fingers, making a quick quip about the way he wraps his own fingers before matches before she interrupted to tell him she knew exactly how he wrapped his fingers. They had spent the rest of the night on the couch, Y/n’s tongue poking out from between her lips as she perfectly wrapped up his fingers. It was such an insignificant gesture; she knew how he wrapped his fingers, so what? But she knew how to wrap them. She came to his games so often that she knew; she paid attention to all his little quirks, and the fact that she paid attention was enough to make him swoon. Not long after that, Kei had become her first.

He shook his head, turning away from the frame to twist the door nob and step into their bedroom. Y/n was sat in bed, the only thing that clung onto her body being the oversized hoodie he had bought for her about two years ago. Why had they fallen out of sync? Things were perfect, simple and so warm. Why had they disconnected? It was, of course, because of Kei’s lack of communication and Y/n’s fear of confrontation.

Y/n looked up at Kei from the manga she had been reading, putting it into her nightstand drawer. Why did she do that? Kei wondered, pulling the glasses from his face and setting them on his dresser. Because you hate having the lights on when you sleep, and she doesn’t want to turn the lights on to read. It bothers you, Kei reminded himself. Lowly humming to himself, Kei walked towards the air conditioner in the room, bumping it down to the lowest setting and angling the vents to blow air to the left. It was a habit, ingrained into his muscles, something he couldn’t go to sleep without doing, but why?

Y/n thought the same thing as she settled into her side of the bed, making sure to leave most of the blanket for Kei. He didn’t exactly like a freezing cold room, so why had he been doing it for so long? You hate sleeping in a warm room, he’s always made sure you’re comfortable before you sleep, Y/n reminded herself, her eyes focusing on the glossy ceiling. Maybe they hadn’t forgotten everything.

“Do- do you think…” Y/n trailed off, rubbing her hands across her face. What was she thinking? Of course there wasn’t, right?

“Hmm?” Kei hummed, feeling the mattress dip under his weight.

“Do you think, that maybe one day we could… Fall in love again?” Y/n whispered, her hands fisting into the quilt they lay on. Kei looked over at Y/n, his face seemingly expressionless. But Y/n knew, with just one look into the pools of honey reflected almost every emotion that ran rampant in her chest.

Kei stayed quiet for a moment, eyes staring at the same ceiling Y/n had been staring at for the past five minutes.

“I want to believe we will…”

[carmenlire]

Lover of Mine

read on ao3

Alec stares, unseeing, at the sea of glinting silver before him. Instead of rolling green hills and the daily monotony of life, it’s eerily silent.

Alec’s never felt more alone.

He doesn’t startle at the voice behind him, merely keeps his attention focused on the legion of men marching toward him in their chainmail, weapons held aloft. He imagines that, if he could see their expressions, it would be a cast of smug confidence.

Their closest allies are two day’s ride away.

“My lord,” calls out a quiet voice. “You called for me?”

Without looking up, Alec asks, “Have you secured the servants and their families?”

He hears his bodyguard pause on the threshold, can feel the intensity of his considering gaze as he finally answers. “I have. The only people still on the premises are our soldiers.”

Alec smiles but it’s faint and a dozen shades of grim. “And those of our enemy.”

“My lord, I beg of you, won’t you reconsider--”

“Magnus,” Alec calls out tiredly. He finally casts his eyes away from the imminent carnage below to look at his bodyguard, his most trusted advisor after all these years. “I beg of you, let’s not allow formality between us at this last hour.”

Magnus’s expression shifts several times before it lands on heartbreakingly honest. “Alexander,” he whispers and a part of Alec thinks that it must be magic, the way the soft words reach him. “You are to be king. A king never leads the charge.”

Turning to face Magnus completely, Alec ignores the world for a moment longer. He allows himself this small retreat and loses himself for the thousandth time in warm brown eyes he knows as well as his own.

“That is not the king I’m to be, Magnus.” He laughs but it’s bitter. “It appears I’m not to be king at all.”

“Don’t say that,” Magnus snaps. “It is my responsibility as your bodyguard to keep you out of harm’s way. I can ready the horses and we can go through the tunnels right now--use the secret corridors and be at Herondale’s fort in two days. There are no innocents to slaughter, Alexander. We can leave Aldertree’s men confounded and return with a force to overwhelm him.”

For a moment-- just a moment, for that’s all he’ll ever have when it comes to Magnus-- Alec allows himself to think about it. He could come back commandeering an army that would smite Valentine’s men like the rats they are.

That’s never been his style, however, and he sees in Magnus’s eyes that there was really never any other way this could end.

“Come here, Magnus.”

Magnus stays still for a moment in the only rebellion he’ll ever give Alec before he’s walking across the room. In Magnus’s eyes, Alec sees everything he could have had in another life and everything he’s giving up in this one.

His throat aches at the surrender even as he chastises himself for putting personal feeling above his duty.

“I am an honorable man, Magnus, and an honorable man would never leave his soldiers to die at the hands of a madman unconcerned with the casualties of war. I will lead my men into the fight of our lives and should we die, we’ll die with honor.”

Magnus’s voice is broken as he hoarsely mutters, “For once in your life, I wish you would be selfish, Alexander.” Bitterness and the slightest edge of hate drag through his tone as he offers in vain, “We could run away, you and I. We could settle down in a village far away and be no more than Sir Alec and Magnus.”

Alec laughs, just a little. “I could open a small bookshop and you could establish a bakery. Our existence would be so simple.”

“But happy,” Magnus replies softly. “And most importantly, we’d be alive.”

Alec turns away from the tears he sees in Magnus’s eyes to the fields below. Valentine’s men are getting closer and there’s no time.

There’s never enough blasted time.

“I have to go, Magnus. I will give it my best try and hope to the gods that it’s enough.”

Magnus, too, looks outside and Alec watches as his expression hardens into the warrior he’s carved himself into.

He nods once. Without looking at Alec, Magnus says, “I will follow you anywhere, my lord. Even if it’s to your own funeral.”

“Remember me fondly?”

There’s a moment that seems to freeze them together in this macabre tableau. They are nothing more than two men, a would-be king and his trusted advisor.

They could be so much more, though, and in this moment separate from reality Alec can imagine the taste of Magnus’s lips against his and just how sweet selfishness would taste.

Time speeds up, however, and before he’s quite ready, Alec is leading Magnus down to the castle’s foyer.

And then he’s standing in the bright sunshine as scores of men march toward him awaiting their commander’s call.

His last thought before the heat of battle is how he wishes he could be a different person-- a man free to love as he yearns, someone who could answer Magnus’s silent plea with anything else but rejection.

--

Alec takes the punch that fairly cracks his jaw and retaliates with his own wicked roundhouse kick. The man in front of him groans low and vicious satisfaction courses through him at the the sound.

“Give it up, Bane,” Alec pants as he takes a step back.

Magnus, for his part, shakes his hair out of his eyes to level Alec with a glare. “Now, why would I want to do that, darling? This is my assignment and I refuse to let the assholes at Idris Inc. take my payday.”

Wary, Alec slides his gun out of its holster. He holds it idly and knows that Magnus’s sharp eyes haven’t missed it. “I have my orders,” is the only thing Alec offers. “They don’t include letting a rogue assassin take over the mission. Walk away, Bane.”

“No can do, Alexander.” Magnus smiles pleasantly and Alec imagines if they met on the street, he’d never be able to see the darkness that hides behind his eyes. “We could work together, you know?”

Alec recoils at the offer, taking a sharp step back. “What the fuck?” He sneers. “Why would I ever work with someone like you?”

Magnus huffs. “You’re lucky I don’t rescind the invitation with that attitude.” His smile curves wickedly. “Maybe, Alexander, you’d want to work with me because you’re being played the fool.”

“What’s your angle, Magnus?” Alec lowers his guard imperceptibly, intrigued despite himself and Magnus’s bold claim.

“No angle, darling. I’m just saying-- things at Idris Inc. haven’t always been above reproach. In certain circles, they’ve never managed to clean themselves up.” Magnus pauses for a moment and his next question leaves Alec reeling. “Haven’t you ever wondered what happened to your parents? They were Idris’s best couple and then one day, just-- poof. They disappeared, never to be heard from again. Don’t you think it’s suspicious that an organization such as the one they swore their allegiance couldn’t find them?”

“What the hell, Magnus? How do you know about my parents?”

Magnus raises his hands in an appeasing gesture and looks at Alec from beneath his lashes. He’s equal parts coy and lethal and Alec doesn’t know what to believe. “Your parents disappeared after a mission gone ostensibly wrong. There’s a lot of threads hanging loose, Alexander, if you know where to pull.”

“You’re lying. You’re just trying to drag me down to your level.”

Magnus shrugs but his focus doesn’t leave Alec’s. “I’m offering an olive branch of sorts. I’ll help you, if you like. Let me have this client and I’ll help you find answers. We could be a great team, darling.”

Unsure but unwilling to throw away everything he’s ever known, Alec barely thinks as he brings the gun up until it’s pointed at Magnus’s chest. “You have to be lying, Bane. I don’t like when people underestimate me.”

For the first time, uncertainty flickers in Magnus’s eyes but he holds steady. “I’m not playing games, Alec. Camille means more to me than she ever will to Idris. Let me take care of her and then I’ll help you find out what dirty secrets Idris has been keeping from you and your family.”

Alec pauses for a long moment and it seems like the room seems to draw its own breath, anxious and still. Something niggles in the back of his mind, whispers about the Lightwood legacy and rumors that Idris’s hands haven’t always been so pristine.

Still. Alec’s dedicated his entire life to the organization. Loyalty to Idris is ingrained and it will take more than a smooth talking rival to make Alec’s world crumble.

Magnus proposed a partnership but Alec’s always worked alone. It’s with that newfound conviction that Alec steels his resolve and does something he should’ve had the guts to do all those months ago when he first ran into the man.

He’d entertained the possibility of something more for far longer than was either wise or appropriate. Bane had become his own thread and Alec was finally ready to cut him loose.

He looks into Magnus’s eyes and pulls the trigger.

--

“I’m getting married,” Alec says softly. He tosses back the rest of his whiskey and relishes the burn. He tries to pretend that it drowns out the choked gasp he hears behind him.

“What?”

Without looking behind him, Alec repeats, “I’m getting married. My family’s situation has only grown more dire since the war broke out and my parents have found a suitable match with the daughter of a manufacturing company in America. She is on a steamboat to Britain as we speak.”

“I thought you were planning to remain a bachelor for all your days?”

Alec grins wryly. “Plans have a way of changing, Magnus. You should know that better than anyone else.”

He hears his best friend take a single step closer before he’s asking, in a voice that makes Alec want to take back every wretched word he’s ever said to cause Magnus pain, “I can take care of you, Alexander. You don’t have to do this.”

Turning around, Alec makes his way back behind his desk and braces his hands on it as he lets his head fall down until the only thing he can see is the mess scattered across the polished wood. “I can’t let you do that.”

“Why not? Give me one good reason, Alec. I have more than enough money to keep you afloat, however long you need it.”

Alec raises his head. “And how would it look if word ever got out, huh? Magnus Bane, shipping magnate, whose tastes are known to run rather unusual helping elusive bachelor Lightwood with his finances. I won’t be some man’s whore, Magnus. Especially yours.”

Fire ignites Magnus’s eyes as he crosses the room to lean across the desk from Alec. “Especially me? What the fuck is that supposed to mean? We’ve been best friends since we were children. We went to Eton and Oxford together. Our estates neighbor each other. If anyone make any queries-- which I highly doubt-- everything can be explained away by our fraternal relationship.”

Alec sighs and sits down, the fight leaving him abruptly as he gestures for Magnus to take a seat as well. “I have a family to think about. Jace and Izzy and Max, they all still need to find matches and that means the Lightwood name has to be above reproach. I refuse to be a source of gossip for my family. There are rumors, Magnus, and they don’t paint either of us in a favorable light. You know what could happen if we were ever found out.”

“You really think a constable will be banging down our doors about such matters?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time something like that’s happened and with the war overseas, any behavior considered deviant will be cast in the harshest light. It’s too risky, Magnus. We are friends. I hope will continue to be friends. But I’ll still be married by the end of the year.”

Magnus doesn’t say anything for a long moment and then he’s heaving himself up and walking over to the drink cart, splashing a liberal amount of brandy in a glass and tossing it back like it’s water.

“So that’s the end of things.”

“I don’t know what you want from me. We both knew we could never have everything we wanted.”

Alec studies Magnus from across the room and thinks to himself that he’s never seen his best friend look so small, so utterly defeated.

“We were to remain bachelors until old age, darling.” Magnus’s voice is so soft it almost hurts Alec to hear it as he continues, “Our estates are joined and out in the country, there would be no one to know if we lived together. If we shared meals and afternoons in the drawing room and a bed.”

Magnus looks up at that and the look in his eyes flays Alec alive. “It wouldn’t be perfect by any means but we would be together and that’s all I ever wanted. But now, out of nowhere, you tell me you are to be wed to an American heiress. What, are you to father children with her? Live in domestic bliss? Am I to believe that this is anything but a tragedy, not just for you but for your wife and me as well?”

Alec’s throat aches and he can’t find any words to soothe Magnus’s accusations. “It’s better this way,” he offers in a raw voice.

“Is this it, then,” Magnus asks, staring into the fire. “You won’t fight for us? After everything, it comes down to Alec Lightwood being a goddamn coward.”

Alec flinches but doesn’t fight back. “I had hoped we could at least salvage a true friendship, Magnus. Surely after everything, we could do that.”

He watches as Magnus shakes his head, a slow back and forth that seems almost subconscious. “No, Alexander, I don’t think we can. I can’t be simply friends with a man I am in love with. I’m sorry, but I don’t hate myself as much as you do.”

Stricken, Alec stays silent. Magnus clears his throat, backing away from the fire and blinking rapidly before he turns and looks at Alec. “Should the wedding go on, we will become nothing more to each other than acquaintances who meet at the country fêtes and occasionally in London. Everything will be above reproach between us, darling. Mark my words.”

“Goodbye, Magnus.”

Alec watches Magnus walk out of his study and it takes everything he has not to call him back. He watches his heart leave him and wonders that there’s not a bloody trail that leads right out of Lightwood Manor directly to Bane’s estate.

With a sigh, he takes out the letter that had been left for him several days ago.

Lightwood,

For the small price of 100,000 pounds, I will keep the secret of your association with Bane just that. I give you until the end of the month to come up with the funds. I expect a reply within a fortnight and trust that you will make the right decision.

Just imagine the trouble that could befall your siblings should your deviancy reach public ears. Not to mention the criminal consequences. . .

Sincerely,

A Concerned Conscience

Alec crumples the paper into his fist and throws it into the fire. It might feel like he’s a dying man still breathing but there’s never a world where Alec doesn’t protect those he loves.

As the blackmail letter burns to ash, so do the last of Alec’s dreams.

--

They meet on a Tuesday and for a brief moment, it feels like the man in front of him is the answer to every single question Alec’s ever had.

It doesn’t take long for Alec to come to his senses however. He looks down at the red string tying his hand to this Magnus and can’t stop an involuntary shudder.

The string feels like shackles.

“Alexander? Do you want to find somewhere to talk? I must admit, I was starting to think I’d never find you.”

Alec takes a step back. He can’t look away from the string connecting him to Magnus, the string that means he’s just met his soulmate.

His soulmate, who’s supposed to be his other half, who is supposed to complete him.

So caught up in his thoughts, Alec doesn’t see the way Magnus’s face falls, the way his warm smile cools into something icy, the way the fire in his eyes grows banked at Alec’s initial rejection.

“I don’t want this,” Alec croaks out.

Magnus’s gaze snaps to his because while he may have anticipated some reticence, surely Alec doesn’t mean what he thinks he does.

“I’m afraid I don’t follow, Alexander.”

Gesturing sharply to the space between them, Alec shakes his head and it’s not frantic. It’s resolute.

Alec looks up to meet Magnus’s eyes and can’t imagine a world where this is a start and not just a tragic ending.

“I’ve never liked the concept of soulmates,” Alec utters and tries to ignore the stab of guilt as Magnus’s face bleaches of all color. “I want to cut our tie.”

“Alec, are you sure? That means neither of us will find another. We’ll both be destined to be alone.”

“I’m sorry, Magnus. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me but I never wanted this.” I don’t want you remains unsaid but heard all the same.

“By all means then,” Magnus replies in a calm voice. “I would never want to force someone to be with me, let alone my supposed soulmate.”

Alec’s breath shudders and while there’s a part insisting he not go through it, there’s already relief trickling through him at being unbound from such a weighted promise. He figures the small part of himself not on board is merely trying to fit into societal ideals. As he steels himself, he pushes down the part that wants nothing more than to fall at Magnus’s feet and declare something. Not love but maybe interest. The acknowledgement of possibility.

Fate has never been his friend.

Alec knows himself well enough to know things would never work out with a soulmate, no matter how perfect they supposedly were for him. Alec’s always had himself and he’s always had a choice.

He chooses this.

“Cut the tie.”

--

The silence falls in the loft at Magnus’s hushed confession. Alec doesn’t know what to do with the quiet yet sincere words that had just escaped the warlock.

For that’s what he is, all he should be to Alec. The High Warlock of Brooklyn who had done more than enough for shadowhunters for one day.

Still. Alec can’t hide how alluring Magnus is in the low light of the loft as he tells him, “You’ve unlocked something in me.”

Alec opens his mouth but no words come out. He can’t find the right words to string together to tell Magnus that he’s alluring, that he makes Alec think about what could be and the blasphemous wish that duty could fall second to personal desire, just this once.

A ringing phone breaks the tension between them just when it seemed to be reaching its crest and Alec answers the phone only to hear Maryse barking a slew of orders at him. He turns away from Magnus for the duration of the call, not wanting to taint the connection he can feel growing between them with his mother’s venom.

When he hangs up, though, Magnus is still right there. Close enough to touch, Alec’s heart whispers traitorously.

Still, Alec’s never shirked his duty before and he’s not about to start now, not when he can just see the edge of chaos barreling towards him and his family at the hands of that Fray girl.

“Duty calls,” he explains apologetically and makes some move to leave.

Magnus turns around from the window and takes a few steps closer to him. Alec wonders if the warlock can hear his heart beating fast, way too fast for what should ostensibly be a professional, if friendly, interaction.

“A furrowed brow,” Magnus murmurs before his lips quirk up in a grin. “Maryse must be recruiting you for something unseemly.”

It’s said in jest but Alec sees the bitterness of distaste in Magnus’s gaze and figures now is as good a time as any to leave. He stumbles over his words, not quite sure what he’s trying to say or where he’s trying to go but every thought comes to a halt as he watches Magnus lift a single finger up to his lips.

His eyes follow the gesture and he can’t stop the smile that catches on the corner of his lips at the coyness, at Magnus’s ability to be so confident but relaxed.

It’s a combination Alec sorely needs.

His thoughts focus as Magnus says, “I understand.” And he thinks that’s the end of it but then the warlock just has to take it one step farther. “Stay for one more drink? And then decide?”

Lifting the glass up is a temptation and Alec thinks about what would happen if he accepted. He imagines that he’d share a few hours of Magnus’s company and maybe the warlock would dig his nails into him a little deeper. He imagines the stories Magnus could regale him with and knows that he has a few he could share in turn.

It doesn’t sound bad at all, Alec thinks. Right now, at this moment, there are very few things he’d rather be doing than drinking a too-strong martini in Magnus Bane’s home as he lets the warlock entertain him.

He’s a Lightwood, though. This-- whatever this is-- has never been an option for Alec. The man in front of him is kind and Alec can already see his prejudice cracking at the edges, the lessons painstakingly drilled into his head holding not a candle to the reality in front of him.

Still.

Duty is Alec’s constant companion and it wouldn’t do to shrug it off now.

“I’m sorry,” Alec starts and he sees the smile on Magnus’s face wither a little, right there. “I’d love to, maybe another time. It’s just-- things sounded urgent on the phone--”

Magnus waves him away. “Say no more, darling. I should know better than most that when Maryse Lightwood calls, it wouldn’t do to delay.”

Alec nods once and can’t help but feel like something more precious than he can conceive has just slipped through his fingers. “Listen, Magnus.”

Magnus lifts a finger again but this time it just fills Alec with sadness. “I understand, Alexander.”

The silence of the loft is oppressive as Alec desperately wracks his brain for something to say to ease the tension.

Magnus beats him.

“Go on, shadowhunter. Duty calls.”

Unable to think of anything to say to get that warm look back in Magnus’s eyes, Alec just nods sharply and turns on his heel.

He walks out of the loft and feels a chill down his spine all the way to the Institute.

--

Annoyed, Alec stumbles into the coffee shop. His hair is dripping and he scowls at the downpour outside before the interior of the shop grabs his attention.

It’s warm and inviting, downright cozy really, and as Alec walks towards the counter, he wonders how he’d never found this place before.

It was on his way home, after all.

So busy staring at the menu, Alec doesn’t notice the barista eyeing him from behind the espresso machine, idly cleaning. Alec jumps when he calls out, “How can I help you today, darling?”

Looking over, Alec’s struck with the man’s good lucks. His brown eyes are friendly and a little flirty and Alec blames that for why he becomes so tongue tied.

Raising a brow, the employee lets him struggle for a moment before smoothly interrupting. “You look like something the cat dragged in during a monsoon. Didn’t you know it was supposed to storm all day?”

Sighing heavily, Alec relaxes against the counter. The barista mirrors him as his expression shifts into bemusement. “I was running late this morning and didn’t have time to look at the weather,” Alec explains sheepishly. “I’m hoping I can spend a little while here and warm up.”

“You’ve come to the right place, then. What can I get you?”

Alec orders a cappuccino but when he pulls out his wallet, he’s waved away.

“Don’t worry about it, darling.” The man winks. “My treat.”

Biting his lip, unsure, Alec finally offers, “Well, I suppose it’s only fair if I get the name of the man who’s treating me to coffee. That’s damn near third base for me.”

He’s delighted to hear the man’s laugh as he starts foaming the milk. “My name is Magnus and I’m the owner of this little establishment. What’s your name?”

“Alec.”

Smiling at the machine, Magnus focuses on the task at hand before he throws out, “Take a seat, Alec, and I’ll bring your coffee to you.”

They both look out into mostly empty coffee shop before Magnus dryly tacks on, “I’m sure you can find a place.”

Looking at his watch, Alec sees it’s that weird time of the afternoon when dinner is nearer than lunch but still too far away to linger. He picks a seat by the window and people watches. There are a considerable number of unlucky bastards like him who have caught themselves out in the storm and he grumbles in sympathy as he sees a woman run into a puddle wearing heels.

“Here you go, Alec. If you need anything else, just let me know.”

Magnus is by his elbow for a brief moment to set down his coffee but he retreats without a backwards glance, gone before Alec has time to look away from the window.

He calls out a thanks, nonetheless, and brings the cup up to his lips to blow across its surface. He spends an hour like that, watching the rain and the people.

Magnus stays busy behind the counter and it’s not as awkward as Alec might have thought, to be the only person here. A few people wander in and order something before immediately leaving after they get their coffee but mostly, it’s just him and Magnus.

As the sun starts to set on the horizon, Magnus comes back over with a to-go cup in his hand.

Alec looks up at him quizzically. “I didn’t order this.”

Smiling, Magnus’s free hand comes up to run along the cuff in his ear. “I thought you might be near empty and you don’t strike me as the type of person to cut caffeine from their diet before dark.”

Alec frowns a little and reaches resolutely for his wallet, only to still when Magnus’s hand comes up to cover his. “On the house,” the barista says quietly and flashes a last smile before taking a step back and turning towards the counter.

Watching him leave, Alec can’t help his own smile at such generosity. Taking that as a sign that he should probably start towards home, Alec stands and grabs his to go coffee.

He waves cheerfully at Magnus on his way out and is glad when the man in question waves back in a gesture just as unexpectedly awkward yet endearing.

The rain has stopped and the sun has just started peaking out from behind grey clouds as Alec strolls down the still-empty streets.

He’s almost to his apartment when he hazards a look down and sees writing on the cup.

Stopping in the middle of the sidewalk he sees a phone number and a little message.

How about another drink sometime. Your treat?

Alec grins and before he quite knows what he’s doing, he’s taking his phone out and entering a new contact.

He manages to wait until he’s inside his place before he can’t take it anymore. The barista was cute and kind and anyone who can brew a cup of coffee as good as the one Alec had this afternoon has to be damn near perfect for him.

With all of his thoughts revolving around yes, Alec texts Magnus. He has a good feeling about this.

It’s an innocuous enough start for a story that never ends.

[ao3porcelainstorm]

poison ivy & stinging nettles 25

On Ao3

Masterlist

Pairing: Sherlock/OFC

Rated: M

Warnings: eventual violence, torture, swears, adult themes (no explicit smut)

Chapter 24 - Chapter 26

Chapter 25-  Sunflower 

“I understand that this is a good idea for the long term,” Amelia said. “I really do, but I think we should have started with something simpler.”

She, Sherlock, and John were in her bedroom, with John carefully wrapping the potentially broken ankle she had managed during that day’s “training”.

“You need to be careful with this ankle,” John scolded. “You’re too old to keep injuring the same spots over and over.”

“That was months ago,” Amelia protested, but paled when John pressed a finger into a particularly tender spot. “I’m not old. I’m young compared to the two of you grumpy old men.”

“I don’t understand what was so difficult about the instructions,” Sherlock complained, lounging in Amelia’s chair by her fireplace. “I warned you to jump.”

“And then you pushed me over!” she insisted. “That’s not a jump, that’s a dodge or move out of the way.”

“I was trying to surprise you,” he explained. “A real threat isn’t going to announce what you need to do.”

“It’s been a month, I can barely throw a punch,” she replied.

“The bruise on his shoulder suggests otherwise,” John supplied quietly, tying off the wrap. “You should be all set. I’ll see if we can get you in for X-rays in the morning.”

“It didn’t take me this long to learn self-defense,” Sherlock continued, tossing a bundle of hair scrunchies in the air above him.

“I’m incredibly out of shape, and have noodles for limps,” Amelia added. “I’m not even attempting to attack this at the level you would have. I’d die.”

“I think you’re doing great,” John assured her. “You’re getting faster and your reflexes are getting better.”

“John’s my new head coach,” she high fived the doctor.

“John’s in charge of firearms,” Sherlock turned to face them. “We’ve been over this.”

“There was that nice Judo guy who wanted to show me something,” Amelia reminded him. “You just get mad when anyone else touches me.”

“That’s not true, I’m fine when you hug John,” he stated.

“Hug,” Amelia repeated with a laugh toward John. “He’s fine when we hug.”

“You’re too casually affectionate in general, but as long as it’s directed toward our friends, that’s tolerable,” he clarified.

“I’ll keep that in mind for my afternoon shag with Judo guy,” she retorted.

He looked to John for support, but the doctor did what he did best when the pair disagreed- held his hands up and backed out of the room.

“Not my fight,” he replied. “I’m going to shower.”

“I’m not casually affectionate,” she paused. “Just to you guys. And Mrs. Hudson. And Molly of course.”

“You touch everyone and everything at all times,” he raised a brow. “You’re very open with your feelings.”

“Oh,” she replied, voice dropping. “That’s not ideal, is it?”

If she was going to play detective with him and John, it probably was not in anyone’s best interest to show what she was truly thinking at a crime scene.

“Do you need to conceal your true thoughts on anything?” he asked.

She considered the question. If she was being frank, the answer was no. Most of her time was spent around those she cared for and loved. If she was happy, she was happy. If not, she certainly was not the type to try and hide it for very long.

“Am I a bad liar?” she asked.

“You have a tell,” he replied, leaning forward with a hint of amusement in his eyes.

“What is it?”

“You laugh,” he answered. “When you’re nervous, when you’re being sarcastic, and when you’re lying. Anytime you’re being disingenuous, you laugh.”

“That’s not too bad,” she considered, biting down a chuckle that threatened to rise. He just raised a brow and she sighed in defeat. “I’ll work on it.”

“Just like you’d work on beating me in Cluedo?” he challenged, standing up from the chair.

“Rematch, tonight,” she stood to meet his eye line, poking him defiantly in the chest. “We’ll have John play too, even the playing field a bit.”

“You’re going to lose.”

“You’re-,” she stopped, thinking about her reaction, pulling back the scowl that emerged. “Nope. I’m going to win.”

“I know you’ve been looking up strategies online, and they aren’t going to help you,” he looked down. “Because I’m the best there is, and you especially can’t fool me.”

“Maybe,” she hummed back. “But I can distract you.”

She moved to kiss him by stepping on her tiptoes, but having forgotten her ankle, ended up crashing forward when it collapsed under the shift in weight.

In a mass of momentum, they crashed to the ground, Sherlock buffing the fall with an arm, and dropping his head back when she landed on top of him.

“That could have been so much cuter if we’d landed on the bed,” she noted, peeking down at him. “Are you okay?”

“How did you make it to adulthood in one piece?” he asked. “There was no way you should have made it past infancy with how clumsy you are.”

“Recently I’ve had handsome gentlemen catching me, it’s been pretty nice,” she smirked. “I mean, look at this view.”

They were face to face, Amelia grinning over him, while Sherlock’s eyes traced every inch of her face.

He pulled her toward him, devouring her in a passionate kiss. Hands threaded through her hair; her arms wrapped around his shoulders.

Amelia shifted for a better angle when her foot kicked a pile of canvas tucked next to her bed.

The artwork tumbled free, and she peeked up to see what had caused the commotion.

“Oh,” she turned and grabbed one of the pieces, a small painting of one of Mrs. Hudson’s teacups. “I forgot about that one.”

Ignoring Sherlock’s drawn-out sigh, she busied herself with replacing the knocked over pictures, pausing when she came to the last one.

“I never showed you the painting I meant to send to Brooklyn,” she realized, staring forward at the painting in question.

He sat up, realizing the moment was lost and tilted his head in her direction.

“You never sent it?”

“Never had the chance,” she replied, turning, and holding the large piece up.

The silhouette was familiar, a lithe man standing in a room covered top to bottom in books. He held a violin, his back to the viewer. In the foreground was a pile of sheet music with a single bookmark stuffed between piles of pages. On the bookmark was a delicately drawn sunflower.

It was painted with darker shades than most of Amelia’s other works, less floral and more warmth. Sherlock could picture the living room of Baker Street perfectly. The sound of fire crackling, the smell of leather bookbinding.

This was what she saw. It was comfortable, a little mysterious, but familiar. An old friend.

An adored lover.

“Does my hair really look like that from behind?” he asked, earning a snort from his companion. “I like it. The bookmark is a sentimental touch. What did you call it?”

“Faith,” she replied. “It’s one of the many meanings behind a sunflower. I thought it was appropriate.”

“How so?”

She looked at him, genuinely bewildered by the question.

How did he not know?

“You inspire people,” she answered, looking back at the details in the portrait. “You give people hope in a way. People believe in you.”

It was difficult to explain out loud- hence the portrait (she was an artist after all)- but Sherlock didn’t seem convinced at her explanation.

“Do you believe in me?” he asked simply.

“I painted you a portrait,” she laughed lightly. “I still live here after everything, and we spent the last five minutes making out on my floor. I’ll always believe in you.”

He seemed content with that answer, his hands snaking around her waist and encouraging her to replace the picture and pick up where they’d left off.

~~~

“This was a bad idea,” John voiced for the third or fourth time since the game started.

Amelia was wrapped up in Sherlock’s robe, fingers drumming on her chin while she studied the Cluedo board. She lifted her notecard, lowered it, and continued gazing at the board.

“She’s under this delusion that she can beat me,” Sherlock scoffed, twirling a pen between his fingers, leg jittering under the table.

“I will, this is it,” she announced, moving her piece. “Colonel Mustard, with the wrench, in the observatory.”

She motioned for John to open the packet; brows knitted in focus.

Even Sherlock leaned forward, watching their friend with interest.

“That’s right,” John held up the three cards. “You got it.”

Amelia threw down her cards and grinned, jumping up victoriously.

“I actually did it!” she looked to Sherlock, hands squeezed at her sides in excitement. “I beat you at Cluedo.”

“Impossible,” he grabbed her cards and notes, reading through everything. “How did you know I had the garden?”

“You showed John,” she replied excitedly. “I saw him scribble it down.”

“That’s cheating!” Sherlock snapped back.

“That’s deduction, my dear Mr. Holmes,” she smirked. “I thought all was fair in a game of Cluedo? Those were your rules.”

“I didn’t expect them to turn on me,” he huffed.

“I’m texting Lestrade,” John announced, phone pulled out. “He’s not going to believe this.”

“Don’t you-,” he whirled around at Amelia who was rapidly typing something into her own phone. “Who are you texting?”

“Mycroft,” she answered quickly. “He owes me twenty pounds.”

“You bet against this game?” he scowled, glaring back down at the board. “You must have cheated. John? Did you tell her anything?”

“You would have noticed if we’d been conspiring against you,” the doctor replied. “You lost. Accept defeat.”

“Unacceptable,” Sherlock paced out of the room toward the kitchen, returning with his finger pointed toward Amelia accusatorially. “You distracted me.”

“What?” she blinked up at him innocently.

“In your room, you threw yourself at me and threw my focus off,” he replied tersely. “You knew you could get the upper hand.”

“That sounds like a personal problem to me,” she smirked. “Besides, I’ve never distracted you before.”

“Are you naked under that bathrobe?” he demanded, stepping toward her.

“Jesus Sherlock,” John stood up. “She’s wearing pajamas, you can see them.”

“What did you do?” Sherlock pulled open the robe to reveal an old band shirt and a pair of plaid pajama pants. “You tricked me.”

“I outsmarted you,” she laughed. “Without being totally naked. I’m the superior detective. Dr. Watson, mark the date that I ascended to alpha detective within Baker Street.”

Sherlock’s face fell into a mix of horror, confusion, awe, and shock.

Without another word, he grabbed Amelia by the waist and threw her over his shoulder, trussing back to his room.

“John, find something to do that isn’t here,” he called over his shoulder before slamming his door shut.

Sherlock’s scramble to get Amelia undressed was met with her own quick hands tugging his belt free.

Frenzied hands up and down, pulling at buttons, running through one another’s hair, with hungry kisses, with Sherlock hiding her backward toward the bed.

“Are you sure?” he asked when she was down to a bra and underwear. She was ethereal. Her chest was flushed, her cheeks a mix of blush and freckles, curly hair astray-

“I’ve been waiting much longer than you have,” she purred, pulling him forward and meeting him with her lips.

John was partially out the door when he heard the ruckus upstairs. Mrs. Hudson peeked her head out of her flat, looking up and exchanging a knowing look with the doctor.

“About time,” she sighed, a bit of relief. She cringed when something crashed above them. “I hope that wasn’t the china.”

“I’d put those headphones Sherlock got you for Christmas on,” he advised dryly. “I think we’re in for a long night.”

Chapter 26

[eeveevie]

Are you still taking sensory prompts? If you are, how about 46 for Mads please?

The waver in a person’s voice when they’re stressed

Deacon x Madelyn Hardy (Agent Charmer) 

because one day I’ll write a fic where Deacon calls Mads by her actual freakin’ name right? 👀

1417 words (under a cut because I have no shame) | Ao3

Deacon could still see the smoke on the horizon as he stoodoutside the Old North Church, wispy plumes of grey floating up into the eveningsky as he stared Northbound. Bunker Hill—while the Railroad had beensuccessful in keeping the escaped synths alive and out of the Institute’shands, the battle was far from a walk in the park. No, it was more like a walkin a minefield, with a mass of teleporting Gen-1s and Coursers—oh—andthe Brotherhood of Steel. How they managed to find out about the battlewas beyond him, but it turned an already sticky situation nearly to disaster.

More Railroad agents were lost to both the Institute and theBrotherhood. While Bunker Hill had been saved, it was no longer a viablelocation for the Railroad. Worse yet, whatever undercover operation Charmer hadbeen working on within the Institute walls was no longer a possibility. She haddisappeared from the battlefield—out of Deacon’s sight—reappearing at Railroadheadquarters not too long afterward looking completely dejected. She didn’toffer much to Desdemona, only that she had been banished from the Institute andthat the Railroad’s in, was out.

Their only hope now was to work with the Minutemen—a groupCharmer had long been supportive of to begin with. More than that, she was theirGeneral for Christ’s sake. Desdemona more than encouraged it, seeing thealliance as the golden opportunity the Railroad needed to end the Instituteonce and for all. Then again, the boss was always good at seeing things bigpicture.

Perhaps selfishly, Deacon wasn’t happy—at least in themoment—and decided that the best thing to do was to quietly remove himself fromthe room before he said something stupid in front of Charmer. The last thing hewanted was to hurt her with mean-spirited words when she was already visiblyupset. No throwing a tantrum or dramatic words for this guy—boy, had hechanged—Des was bound to be suspicious, if she wasn’t already. It wasn’t untilhe was outside, defusing himself with a cigarette that he realized walking awaymaybe wasn’t the best idea either. Charmer didn’t deserve to beabandoned, not right now, when she was at her most vulnerable.

Jesus—he was a terrible boyfriend—lover—whatevertheywere.

He inhaled deeply, letting the gentle sting of nicotinesettle in his lungs for a few moments before breathing out. Charmer, if she wasthere, would rather he not smoke and so after one last huff he flickedthe stub to the ground, snubbing it out with the toe of his boot. Just in time,he noticed a familiar shade of blonde hair out the corner of his eye slinkingalong the church sidewalk. For once he allowed her to sneak up on him, turningslightly towards her so she knew he wasn’t completely blocking her out,despite his earlier exit.

“Hey,” she said, quietly, testing the waters.

Deacon was suddenly very nervous. All with one word—shetruly had him wrapped around her finger—but did she even know it? He nodded ather, reining in his emotions. “Hey.”

Charmer’s expression was difficult to read. Even after allthe time and emotional strife they had shared, she was a chameleon, soperfectly good at masking what was truly running through her mind. But hefocused on those stormy blue eyes, the same he had been steadily falling inlove with for months now. She was clearly troubled over the day’s events—moreso from her conversation with Shaun, than what transpired at Bunker Hill. Atleast, Deacon was guessing there was a conversation with her son, or at least adisagreement, or else they wouldn’t be here now.

“Are you okay?” she asked next, and there—subtly, hecould hear it in the tone of her voice. She was asking him the questionbut oh man—Deacon could’ve choked on the guilt he felt rising in hischest.

Charmer shouldn’t be the one checking up on him when she hadbeen the one doing the brunt of the emotional legwork for the Railroad.Institute infiltration? Zapped in and out without a clear indication of hersurvival? Running around Bunker Hill in a field of enemy soldiers and synths? Yeah.Comparatively, Deacon’s qualms were tiny. Minuscule. Practically nonexistent.Made him wonder why he was so resistant to helping the Minutemen in the firstplace. Weren’t they…on the same side?

“Woah now,” he started, reaching out his hands to rest onher shoulders, giving them an affectionate squeeze before shifting to brush afew fallen curls back behind her ear. His fingers lingered along her cheek andhe offered a small, sympathetic smile. “I should be asking you. Aftertoday—”

He stopped, hating the way the words sounded and decided to startover. Even Charmer seemed momentarily confused by his pause, blinking at himuntil he spoke, “Hey, I’m sorry for storming out.”

“Is that what you call storming out?” she questioned, theslightest glimmer of amusement returning to her features. “I would love to seewhat a full-blown Deacon-diva breakdown looks like.”

He smirked, threading his fingers through her hair in softlittle sweeps. “Shouting from the rooftop, extended monologues, broken glass…ohand nudity.”

Her eyebrows raised with a small smile as she hooked herarms gently around his waist. “Nudity works,” she paused, releasing a longsigh. “Today was…not how I wanted things to go.”

Deacon nodded, allowing her all the time she needed to workthrough what she wanted to say. Charmer’s brows furrowed, and she frowned. “Afterall the time I spent searching for my son, whatever I had hoped to find,whatever relationship I had hoped to build with him—all I have isdisappointment. The Institute—”

She broke off, eyes glazed over with tears that she blinkedaway. Her fingers twisted against the leather of his jacket as she shook herhead. “I can’t blame him for the circumstances. He’s still my son, I still lovehim, I always will. But I can’t stand by and let him destroy the Commonwealth.”

Charmer didn’t say anything else, just settled herselfagainst his chest as she hugged him, arms wrapping tightly around his middle.Deacon didn’t speak either and did what he could to comfort her in the momentand just held her, caressing her hair and running his hand down her back insoothing circles. Even if she was quiet about it, she was trembling in hisarms, clearly crying, her hands clenching the back of his jacket as she hid herface in his shoulder.

How long they stood there, he wasn’t certain, but Deacondidn’t move until she did, slowly peeling away to glance up at him with a shakysmile. “Ugh, I’ve got snot all over your shirt.”

He reached to push at his sunglasses, so they rested on hishead, snagging along his pompadour wig. Only Charmer got to see him like this, intheir private little moments, but more and more he felt like the action was becomingnatural. He softly chuckled at her half-hearted attempts to wipe at hischest, catching her hand in his.

“Is this an inappropriate time to make a joke about bodilyfluids?”

Charmer’s laugh was a joyous relief, echoing out into theNorth End neighborhood night. She gazed at him, soft eyes just saying more thanshe ever needed to, those red stained lips curled up in a secret smile savedjust for him. She rested one hand on his cheek—a gentle touch of her soft skin asshe leaned up to kiss him—gingerly at first but it never stayed that way, notwith them.

“You need some gum to chew on,” she teased him between heatedkisses, tasting the smoke that lingered on his lips and tongue. But she didn’tstop, grinning against his mouth when he wedged her between his body and thechurch wall.

“No,” Deacon insisted, tucking her closer to himself. “Ijust need you.”

More kisses, more laughter and then it was just the two ofthem, stronger than ever, ready to face whatever the world was to throw atthem.

“Where to next?” Deacon asked, knowing she had a plan.

Charmer shook her head, hugging him closer as she nuzzledher head into the crook of his shoulder. “Nowhere. At least not tonight,” shereplied in a soft voice. “Tonight, I think we should just be.”

[xoexoxhoe]

Ateez Reacts: S/O Sex Scene on a film set

@wonhosgyrl​ Request: “Omfg can I please get an Ateez reaction on how they would react to their significant other acting and having to do a sex scene with someone else. Thank you so much. Love your writing”

A/N: Let me tell you; When I say my co-writer and I had fun creating this thread, that would be an understatement henny cuz we were SCREAMING. Thank you so much for the support and here’s the thread! Hope you love it! 

ATEEZ & Y/N 

Hongjoong:

He’d be supportive at first, ultimately congratulating you on your success as an actress no matter how big or small the job may be.

He’d come to every single one of your shoots with coffee in a canister for you as well as all of your favorite snacks, being there for you at your beckoning call.

BUT- as soon as the camera started rolling, he wouldn’t be able to watch you. He’d probably have to sit in your trailer, watching his youtube and partaking in the onset food that PD’s probably give to him to hold him back from stressing for you.

“How is she doing? I swear to God- Hey! Hey, you! Is Y/N okay? Is she drinking water? You know how she gets when she has to do a crying scene! She gets dehydrated!” *PD’s eagerly handing him free choco pie and choco puffs in order to distract him as they politely push him back into your trailer*

When you told him about your sex scene, his eyes widened, leading him to stutter, “You’re- With another- Wait, like- It’s not me? But… I’m baby.”

You’d laugh, reassuring him that you loved him, and he’d hug you, still being the most supportive little bean ever.

Seonghwa:

Seonghwa would basically be your manager, standing in the back of an episode reading with dark shades on, his starbucks in hand, just monitoring how everyone does.

He most likely jumps the director on set one morning when you are in hair and makeup

“Um hi, I was wondering why y/n doesn’t have more parts in today’s shoot.”

“…..Seonghwa, she’s the lead.”

“Exactly. That’s why I made a few revisions to the script to fit her in some more. Like you know, what are you trying to say, that I’m dating a mediocre actress? I think not, she needs more parts.” *Flips non-existent hair*

He gets your script for the sex scene before you do. You were on a different set, preparing for the wardrobe change into what is, of course, scandalous bedroom attire.

Snatches you away from your touch-up artists and starts to haul you to the car

“Y/N, you aren’t gonna do anything of this sort. We are going home.”

When you protest, not sure of the situation, he swirls around to face you and places a hand on your shoulder

“You don’t get paid enough to do this. Tell them to use your stunt double.”

The movie is literally a rom-com; you don’t have a stunt double.

Yunho:

He packs a lunch for you every day, sometimes surprising you at the set; but sadly, lunch in his eyes means a PB&J sandwich because you won’t let him touch the stove at home.

He loves to watch you, telling every single person walking past him that you’re his girl, sometimes too excited, but you love it.

Yunho takes advantage of all of the free food on set, sometimes sneaking cheese cubes too often resulting in a stomach ache.

The day of your shoot for your sex scene in the most recent episode of your tv show, Yunho sat behind the PD team quietly eating the PB&J sandwich you refused to accept and allowed him to eat.

You walk quickly out of hair and makeup with a long robe on, darting your eyes toward his beaming face. “Wow! Y/N; Babe. You look amazing, but why the robe? I mean it’s flattering-” *Male lead walks in on the set with a matching robe and only boxers* “WHAT IN THE GOOD LORD’S NAME IS HAPPEN-”

He most likely shoves the PB&J into a PD’s face, “Hold my sandwich.” He then proceeds to stomp on set, hitting his chest and staring at the director, “Yah! Mr. Director, PUT ME IN COACH. RIGHT. NOW.”

The PD rubs his temples, looking at you disappointedly as you just shrugged and gave him a sheepish smile while running to stop Yunho. You grab his hand, telling him you love him and it’s just acting.

“I took an acting class in high school, Y/N.�� You pushed him out of the door, pecking his cheek, “Honey, it doesn’t work like that.”

As the door to the set began to close you saw him drop to his knees in the parking lot, “BUT SOFT! WHAT LIGHT THROUGH THE YONDER WINDOW BREAKS?”

“BYE YUNHO.”

Yeosang:

Yeosang normally loved to let you work, allowing you to be private and come home to a stress free environment. But, on this day on particular, he came to set early to pick you up.

He parked near the staff lounge side of the set, reclining his seat as far as he could sporting a black hat and the darkest sunglasses money could buy.

PD’s and other staff pass his car, whispering about your potential sex scene for the movie and how it was to be filmed today.

His eyes ripped open, “Not today, Satan.”

He marched on set and into your dressing room where hair and makeup were working on you quickly. You looked up to him, “Yeosang!” You turned to your friends helping you, “Guys, this is my boyfriend, Kang Yeo-”

“No.”

“Wait, what?” You tilted your head and he dismissed the makeup artists with a flick of his hand. He went up to your ear, trying to whisper but still being ~ hella ~ loud, “You don’t think I know what you’re filming today, Y/N?! This is SIN… Ister…” He pouted.

“Babe… it’s a movie, it’s my job. I have to-”

“No.”

He began to pull you away but you stopped in your tracks, “Kang Yeosang, wait.” You explained to him the logistics, giving him the rundown of how safe it was and how a lot of it was fabricated.

With hesitant eyes, he nodded and just pulled you into an embrace, leaning down to whisper into your ear once more, “Fine… But I get to stay on set and watch this asshole.”

San:

Choi San might as well be the lead role in your movie as he and Shiber were even more popular on set than you; but you wouldn’t change it for the world.

He was always cheering you on and sitting in your chair while you were filming. He cried when you cried, got angry when you got angry, and of course, he ate when you ate in the movie.

San always commented on how good you looked in your outfits, sometimes even attempting to dress you up himself, confidently presenting you to your stylist who always  shot him down, saying that he can’t dress you in leather pants every day, nor can he place a turtle neck on you when it’s 80 degrees outside.

You and San were sitting on the couch in your trailer during downtime on set when you decided to tell him of the impending sex scene.

San looked up, screaming while pressing his chest against Shiber, looking to his stuffed animal, “Shiber- Did she really just say that she was gonna do a…” He whispered, “sex scene?”

You smiled, taking Shiber into your own arms and looking to the puppy, “Please tell San that his baby will be safe and does not love the male lead, only Choi San.”

San stole the plushie back, putting Shiber to his ear, “Shiber says that this is NOT a viable option in this situation.”

You stood up to San, laughing while using your free hand to flick his forehead, “Let me work, San!”

He rubbed his forehead, pouting but eventually giving in, “Fine. Just don’t let Shiber catch you staring at the dude or he’ll have to have some words with you, got it?”

Mingi:

Mingi never did pay attention to your rants at home, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t supportive. He always reassured you that you were the woman for the job, kissing you constantly and reminding all the staff around him that you were his and you were the best.

Mingi was especially interested in this movie you were filming as it was an action film, and the male lead was someone he really liked to watch.

He was very polite to all of the staff, always helping them to reach things off the top shelves of the prop-set as most of the PD’s were too short.

During a production meeting with the entire set, Mingi sat quietly in your chair, holding your purse and watching you intently. The director stood on the podium, “So today, we’re filming the love scene between Y/N and Lee Min Ho.”

Mingi’s jaw dropped, he stood up from your seat, shadow boxing the air and gritting his teeth before composing himself and raising his hand. “Um- I object, your honor.”

You dropped your face into your palms. The director tilted his head back, trying to disguise his laughter, “Mr. Song, Y/N is gonna be fine.”

“I PLEAD THE FIFTH, SIR.”

“MINGI!” You yelled across the set, bursting into laughter.

“WE, THE JURY, FIND THE DEFENDANT-” *Points at Lee Min Ho, attempting to hold back his own laughter* “GUILTY OF BEING TOO HANDSOME FOR THIS SCENE AND KNOWING Y/N WILL GIVE INTO HIM.”

Wooyoung:

Wooyoung was always cocky on set, yet all of the staff adored him as they knew he was in the popular group Ateez. They enjoyed his snarky comments and charm.

He never bothered you at work, just continually took selfies and posted them on the Ateez social media but sent them to you first for approval.

On the morning of the sex scene shoot, he was strangely calm. You told him about the situation way before hand where he just nodded, giving you a kiss and telling you that you were gonna be amazing.

“Babe… I’m nervous.” You closed your eyes as he pulled you into an embrace, laying his head on yours and rubbing your arm.

“You’re gonna kill it, Y/N. You always do. And I’ll be right there if you need me.”

You smiled, thanking him and kissing him before sauntering onto set and taking your robe off, smiling and bowing slightly to your male lead who bowed back.

Wooyoung just looked at you, waving a little and winking at you. The director of the set shouted to his PD’s, “We need the mood music, people. Where’s the playlist?”

All types of ~ mood ~ music began to play but lo and behold, your Jung Wooyoung walked up to the aux cord, unplugging the old ipod and throwing it behind him. “You people call this mood music?” He scoffed, “I got a song for ya’ll.”

Wooyoung saw the surprise in your eyes and grinned. Desire by Ateez blared on the speakers, causing your heart to race, getting flushed just thinking of Wooyoung and the song and what it did to you.

As the scene proceeded, he never took his eyes off of you. Everytime you looked to him throughout the song, he mouthed the simple words: “I own you.”

Jongho:

Jongho never liked to come on set with you. He always stated that, “Movie sets are like scary dreams. Every time I see a green screen, I just imagine Spy Kids and the scene where they’re being chased through lava by tinker toys.”

You took his hand, “Baby, it’s not that kind of movie. This is a rom-com.” He pulled his hand away and shivered, “That’s even scarier.”

On the day he found out you had a sex scene, he just so happened to buy you your favorite lunch, marching onto set happier than you’ve seen him all week, but stopping dead in his tracks when he noticed your skimpy attire. “Um- Hi? Yeah, why are you,” He motioned his hand towards your body, “Like this?”

You told him about what was to happen in the scene and he dropped the bag of your lunch on the floor, “Oh- and now’s a good time to tell me? Yeah- Where’s the security?”

“Jongho, why do you need security?”

He paced the set, “I’m literally gonna break something, they need to hold me back.”

“Babe- No- NO!”

He screamed, “JOHN CENA- TOO LATE.” He swiftly punched through a prop door that a PD was carrying onto the sound stage, causing the poor boy to falter and ultimately get slammed by a fist.

Jongho had no remorse, kissing your cheek, “Fuck, at least you look amazing…” He began to walk away as the crowd of staff members watched him with wide eyes. “I gotta go before I start breaking more shit-” He looked to the director, “Yeah buddy and you BEST BELIEVE I am NOT supporting this film- hell no.” He punched the door on the ground again and the PD, still pinned beneath it whimpered. Jungho let out a frustrated sigh and turned to face everyone while pointing to you, “By the way let’s just set it straight now that this is coming out of her paycheck.”

[littlemessyjessi]

James Potter : Fluffy ABC Headcanons: Plus Size Reader

Fluffy Alphabet (Shoutout to my lovely friend, Traenon! She literally saved these for me months ago from something she read and sent it to me through messenger.  So credit to OP for the prompts!)

James Potter  Headcanons James Potter x PS Reader

X Reader: PS Reader, Plus Size Reader

A = Attractive: what do they find attractive about the other?

Well, the mushy answer is your courage.  He's in love with that fierce "Mama Bear" thing  regardless of gender.  The fact that if someone even breathes a little angry at someone you care about...you just fucking lose your shit.   He's real into that ish.

Physically?  Hmm, probably them thighs!  Yasssss, he could stay there all day.   In a sweet fashion...or a naughty one, lol.

B = Baby: do they want a family? why/why not?

As an only child- yes he wants a herd of children.  I'm not joking.  He told you he wanted six.  You nearly killed him but he did say that he was ok with adoption too. The whole carrying a baby thing is fine to him but he's also cool with adoption.  He just loves you and wants to have kids around.  And to spoil them like he spoils you.

C = Cuddle: how do they cuddle?

Ha, good luck.  You're not going anywhere.  James is not above pushing the bed against the wall, forcing you to the inside and trapping you between him and the wall.  He loves you.  You're his favorite.  He's not about to give up one ounce of cuddle time.  

D = Dates: what are dates with them like?

He does love a good ride on the broom on a clear starring night.  I mean, that's just a perk.  But honestly?  Some of the best have been in detention.  He's purposefully gotten you both in trouble before just so you could hang out alone together, lol.

E = Everything: “you are my ____” (e.g my life, my world…)

You are James' inspiration.  You're his drive.  You are the light of his life and the fire to keep him running.   For you?  He'd do anything.

F = Feelings: when did they know they were falling in love?

When Sirius' mother showed up at the school and started screaming at him.  And you?  You hexed her six ways from Sunday.   It's your protective nature that really drove it home for James that day.  Also, sidenote- Sirius sees you as his sister and you're his favorite.  He steals you away from James all the time so you can hang out, lol.

G = Gentle: are they gentle? If so, how?

For all his boisterous personality, James really is a sweetheart.  he'd do anything for you.    You're amazing to him.

H = Hand/Hold: how do they like to hold? how do they like to hold hands?

Listen, if you're near James...You're fucking stuck.   That boy, lol.  Omg, I hope you're not sensitive about your fingers because he's threading them together and they're in a vise grip...forever.  If for some reason, you have to leave to I don't know- void your bladder- prepare to be yanked back into his chest and he'll whine for ten minutes.  Only when your bladder is on the brink of explosion and you unlease your rage will he let you go....and maybe not follow you.

I = Impression: first impression/s

Your first impression of him was that he was a git.  Second was that he was a pretty awesome quidditch player.  You didn't actually give him the time of day until about 5th year and even then you broke his nose when he swatted your bottom playfully.  He got the fucking message, lol.

J = Joker: are they into pulling pranks?

Please, he's the king of pranks.   He pulled one on you....once. You retaliated to the point of near death.   He got the fucking message.

K = Kisses: how do they kiss?

They're so random sometimes but super special and sweet.   Never fail to make you smile.

L = Love: who says I love you first?

He did.  He's been saying it forever anyway.   But the first time for real? He did and it was super cute because he was loaded with firewhiskey.   But he remembered the next morning 6 am when the hangover hit him.  Poor guy, pajamas barely hanging out and he's screaming up the girl's dormitorities until someone shoved you down to him.

"I just realized I said I loved you last night." "Yeah, I know James." you laughed rubbing sleep from your eye. "I was shit faced." he said. Your laugh was a bit dimmed, "Yeah, I know.   You weren't really all there at the moment." "No, that's not what I meant." he said taking your hands into his.  "I mean, - what I mean is that I do love.  I mean it.  I meant it then.  I've wanted to tell you for a long time." "James you've been telling me since we were eleven." you laughed. "Yeah, but not for real." he said. "And I mean it- for real.  I love you." "I love you too, you crazy boy.  Now go back to bed and sleep off your hangover.  And for the love of god brush your teeth before you try to talk to me again."

M = Memory: their favourite moment together

He adores the time you nearly beat someone on an opposing team to death because they cheated during a quidditch game.   He flew right into the stands to kiss you.  Both to quell your rage and because he loved you.

N = Nickel: do they spoil? do they buy the person they love everything?

He does but it's usually vintage finds.  Little things you come across together.  The both of you have this completely useless matching pocket watches.  They don't work and it gets stuck half the time but they match and they're special.

O = Orange: what color reminds them of their other half?

Well, he loves house colors on you of course.  But he also favors you in blue.  Just something about it on you looks amazing.  Doesn't matter the shade.  Just blue.  

P = Pet names: what pet names do they use?

He's totally a 'babe' person.  

Q = Quaint: what is their favourite non-modern thing?

James actually loves going antiquing with you.  It's a favorite thing. There's a whole cabinet of useless junk you never do anything with but he likes it.  And looking at it makes him smile because he remembers the little dates you went on when you got it and how you got whipped cream on your nose when the two of you stopped for ice cream.

R = Rainy Day: what do they like to do on a rainy day?

Whines.  He whines, lol.  Truthfully, he doesn't mind the rain.  He just doesn't want to be stuck inside.  So you drag him up the tower where you can be sheltered but still be outside, technically.  You cast a protective, warming, moisture wicking spell and it's all fine.  Until his love for you gets the best of him and he tries to get frisky.  You threaten to throw him over if he doesn't stop pinching your butt.

S = Sad: how do they cheer themselves/each o ther up.

He cheers himself up by sticking to you like glue.   You cheer him up by telling him how much you love him. He cheers you up with the most delicious treat to ever deliciously treat.

T = Talking: what do they love to talk about?

He's a whore of a gossiper, lol.  And he knows everyone so he's always got it.   As quidditch obsessed as he is, you'd think he'd talk about that.  But nope.   It's juicy gossip.

U = Unencumbered: What helps them relax?

Baking.    Honestly.  Baking.   A trip to the kitchen and a little experimenting.  Somehow baking up a cake or making some cookies puts him at ease.

V = Vaunt: what do they like to show off? What are they proud of?

Everyone knows he's amazing at quidditch but he loves to show you that he's intelligent.

Pranks are fine.  Quidditch is fine.  Magic is fine.  But he knows you're impressed with the mind and so he enjoys acing things and making you swoon.

W = Wedding: when, how, where do they propose?

When: Every day from the moment you started dating him.   Been calling you Mrs. James Potter since you were 14. The guys literally call you Mother Prongs or Mrs. Prongs.

But he really asks you one day seemingly out of the blue.  Truthfully, he's been thinking about it for ages.    

"I call you my wife.  Everyone says you're Mrs. James Potter.  But honestly, babe.   That's something I think about all the time." "Are you asking me to marry you?" "Honestly, woman.  I haven't even got the question out of my mouth and you're already questioning?" "James." "Give a lad a chance!" "James." "I mean-" "James Potter, if you don't ask me within the next five seconds I'm marrying Sirius." "How dare you!"

Still didn't ask you for six days out of spite and protest. So you acted like you were marrying Sirius.  

He held strong until Sirius asked him to be the best man and he nearly killed him, lol.

X = Xylophone: What’s their song?

"My Girl" - The Temptations. And he sings it to you and whoever else who happens to have the unfortunate experience of being around..... Whenever, wherever. Quidditch? Hospital? Funeral? Grocery store?   Just know that if it strikes him...he's singing it and you'll have to bare witness to his one man concert whenever he feels the need.

Y = You’re the ___ to my ___ (e.g the cookies to my milk, the macaroni to my cheese)

"You're the snitch to my seeker, babe.  Can't keep from trying to catch you." "You're a chaser, James." "And you're a keeper. Get it?" "Be very happy that I love you. No one else would put up with this level of cheese." "You got it, babe."

Z = ZZZZ: How do they sleep? Surprisingly light and usually not for very long.  Years of quidditch has made him an early bird so he's usually up first.  You hear his ass blundering around.  But on the plus side, there's always hot tea for you when you do get up.

Hello darlings! Hope you enjoyed this little piece and have a wonderfully awesome day!

If you wanna see more of my content just check out my blogs! @littlemessyjessi is the main blog full of fandom fictions, imagines, headcanons and sickeningly sweet fluff! Yeah, I know, lol. Barf.  But hey, I like it. @witchyweirdness is the magical blog full of witchy content And last but not least !   @monsterbaesbymamakennysaurus is my monster blog full of all kinds of monster related content! So I hope to see you there! Love, Kenny

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Love, Kenny