#I am deeply and painfully familiar with the topical

[snakegirllovehandles]

I did not brush my teeth more than once or twice a month for more than fifteen years.

I finally managed to start brushing my teeth before bed in about 2017. I even floss semi regularly too! I cannot manage to brush in the morning, I just forget. But at night, I feel weird if I haven't done it. Do you know how I got started?

By scrubbing my teeth with tapwater and a wet toothbrush. By making it easy for myself. Perfect is the enemy of good. Half ass it. Quarter ass it. Swish your mouth out with water. Use a toothpick. Keep floss in your purse and floss once a month. Make it easy on yourself. Take shortcuts. Do a bad job. Do the smallest part. Sometimes all you need is a little inertia to keep going.

You can do it. You can start.

it's never too late to start brushing your teeth again. i basically never brushed my teeth for a whole 10 years. a decade. A DECADE. i still struggle to brush my teeth once a week, but it all started with brushing my teeth once every few months. so i mean it when i say brushing your teeth once a week, a month, a year, or even a decade, is better than nothing.

and still, nothing is not shameful. it is not immoral to struggle with self care. and it is also not pointless to keep trying. anything you can do, even if its wiping plaque off with a towel, is enough. it is good to take care of yourself however you can, even if it's just trying to muster the will to. reading this post is good, too.

i believe in you and i am proud of you, even in the smallest of steps. it's okay. you can give yourself grace.

[sparklingdemon]

not sure if this is where i deposit the opinions but hacker cody is interesting. as of now, i interact with them as a topic harshly to get a reaction+make a show. i know ive done that at least once, hopefully. but aside from that, i think hacker cody was just….

kinda an ass, but was reasonable. not sure. they sound familiar to someone i have had. deeply unpleasant experiences with, given that they apparently went bitter for no reason, put the blame on everyone else, and was planning to ghost their friends with no warning, at least according to Cody. They seemed deeply combative at the least, and very snarky. I hesitate to take the 3 ghosts’ personalities and cody’s as a basis for what the hacker was like, given the ghosts are just. extreme for emotions, and Cody isn’t hacker cody, despite how much the 3 ghosts think they’re similar. this may be bias, but i’m just running off info Cody provided + their actions+ …very minimal sprinkling of my biased experience. admittedly, if i factor in the ghosts, they seem more like someone else who was equally bitter that i had a more pleasant experience with. both people cody remind me off though…they weren’t actually that nice, were still combative, and easily turned to anger.

I believe hacker cody was unaware of the sentience of Cody and the ghosts, and the possibility that it WAS probably crossed thier mind when red/leaf went off script, but ultimately, it was just a game. I don’t really blame hacker cody for not knowing, and even then, we don’t exactly…know. because then there’s thier unknown death to factor in. so thier game was finished, but was it irreversible to what thier had wanted it to be? was it sudden? was it tied to what red/leaf had said? depending on how you view it, hacker cody DID have a reaction to red/leaf and CODY, since CODY learnt they could turn off the game because of what they saw.

In general, i’m not even sure if this is right but Hacker Cody as of now, is just. someone who died, they were combative, possibly depressed and lashed out at everyone for it, and did not take accountability for things their fault. they are innocent in terms of the creation of pkmn monochrome, and the thought it was real was never fully realized, though we dont know if thier death is tied to red/leaf’s plea and cody, and if they had a true reaction. I mean, people write dark stories and bad things happen to characters. you’d be strange to throttle the author for that. and if was explicitly stated red/leaf kept thier sentience a secret UP until the end. i dont blame hacker cody, i’d probably brush them off but it’d probably unsettle me. but aside them that, they’re just a person who died, and what mostly matters are the other characters’ pov and feelings towards them. i interact with hacker cody as a topic..like hitting a hive’s nest. carelessly (as one would because who hits a nest without planning) and painfully. again, puts on a show.

as a asker on the blog, i put a persona of a inuniverse person caring about cody MOSTLY because it’s “practical”(firmly believing the game shouldn’t be reset since cody is interesting with or w/o the ghosts) and using the chance to basically demean + antagonize whoever can be affected the most. mostly blastoise, since he’s the only one aside from cody who gets upset. the persona used in pkmn monochrome also tries to despite and argue with almost any topic without regard. cody’s feelings do factor into how they act, so hacker cody is a topic they cant throw out willy nilly. so that’s my opinion on hacker cody + how i generally interact with them as a. topic. for the long post+ derailing hope this was the right spot/okay.

👀

(i can't say much abt hacker cody bc spoilers but i am eating this. thank you for sharing.)

[shivunin]

hello hello i am in your inbox to ask what's a favorite passage/paragraph that you've written? any reason at all, just something you really like and why. 😊

ooooh thank you for asking! that is a fantastic question c: I think the scenes that a story grows from always wind up sticking with me the most, and this scene from Wander the Drifting Roads was one of the first ones I imagined. Cullen has lost his memory after exposure to red lyrium and this is the moment he decides he has a right to know who he was before:

Cullen knelt before the chest and just looked at it for a moment. That symbol was burned into the leather, the eye so like the Seeker’s symbol, the blade that extended below. He knew it. He knew it. Why couldn’t he remember–

He slid the iron block behind the curve of the lock and brought the hammer to bear. Once, twice, three times, and the twisted metal fell away. He set it aside with care and rested both hands on the lid of the trunk. 

Whatever it was he’d lost, whatever he’d done, the answers were in here. Six–no, nine months of waiting and…this was it. He swung the lid open and was glad he’d thought to open a window when dust flew up at the motion. 

The initial contents were painfully anticlimactic. Armor–a cuirass, pauldrons, vambraces–rested on top, a red cloak with a thick fur ruff tucked in beside it, and a pair of black gloves. He removed these carefully, noting the sparse scratches and scuffs. Whatever he’d done wearing this armor, it couldn’t have been much active fighting. Below the armor was a sheathed sword–he drew it from its scabbard and held it to the light–and a shorter, empty sheath. It looked to be a matched pair–longsword and dagger–but the dagger was missing. Strange. He set these aside as well.

Below that–clothing, tunics and trousers a little larger than ones he might wear now. Belts, a lyrium kit he had the good sense to immediately move out of his sight, a prayer volume and beads, books, a smaller box of miscellany–in short, nothing useful. He huffed at the trunk; had he really thought all his secrets were within? But Cullen was nothing if not thorough, so he sat back and removed the contents one by one anyway. 

He lifted the top tunic (why hadn’t it been folded? Most of the clothes were folded) and caught the slightest hint of an unfamiliar scent. Feeling a little absurd, he lifted it to his nose and breathed deeply. 

It smelled like–like lavender and leather and elfroot. Achingly familiar. He knew that scent, but what–

“Do templars take vows?”

He shifts uneasily; this is not the best topic of conversation with the headache beating at his temples, even if he knows why she might be curious. But he answers easily–he lived it for so long it’s all rote by now–until she tilts her head 

“Are templars also expected to give up…physical temptations?”

His thought process creaks to a halt, and when he takes a deep breath through the nose to recover his composure he can smell her instead. He hadn’t realized she was standing so close, and yet–lavender and elfroot, that’s what she smells like. And with her new armor–the sharp, earthy scent of leather, too. Maker, he wishes he hadn’t noticed. Can she tell that he spent half this conversation staring at her bottom lip?

Frustrated, he set the tunic aside and removed the smaller box. 

Letters on top, which he did not have the patience to peruse. Beneath that, a handful of things: a piece of sharp green glass, a scrap of white leather, a smooth black stone, and a small, round wooden box he knew all too well. 

He picked up this last piece carefully and lifted the clasp. Deep green velvet lined the inside, a contrast to the heirloom it held. The ring inside was yellow gold with a single white pearl in the center. The band was etched with vines and leaves that framed the pearl on either side. He lifted one finger and traced the smooth pearl, the ridges and bumps of the band below. Yes, he knew this very well indeed.

When Cullen had been small he’d admired the ring, a precious piece for a humble farmer from Honnleath. His mother told him that his father had saved for years to ask her for her hand. He’d knelt before her on a spring afternoon beside the creek where they’d met as children and laid out all his life for her–all his faults and foibles, all his missteps and mistakes. She’d listened to them all and told him he was horrible with words, but he’d better hurry up and marry her before he tried the speech on some other poor girl. They’d been married that week and had never once looked back. 

Cullen had liked hearing that story as a child, though he usually favored more heroic tales. He liked that his father had needed to work for this gesture; he liked that his mother had always told Cullen she’d never loved anyone else, no matter what foolishness his father had said. 

This ring was the single most expensive thing his family had ever owned, aside from the horses. After his parents’ deaths, Mia’d had it moved to a bank in South Reach for safekeeping. Why was it here, in this dusty trunk? 

A heaviness in his chest told him why, but he carefully set the box aside anyway and reached for the correspondence. 

Letters: letters from Mia, who alternately berated and teased him for failing to write. Letters from people whose names he didn’t recognize, thanking him for this or that–none of those meant much to him. Who had he been to them? And the last, bound in worn green ribbon: three letters marked with his first name alone. No titles. 

This was it. He knew this had to be it. He stopped anyway, closed his eyes and took several deep breaths to still his racing heart. The red hum was there, the faintest of counterpoints, and it had risen with his heart rate. He waited until he could still and silence it again, until it lay quiescent in his chest, and then he slipped the first envelope from beneath the ribbon. 

[iwonderwh0]

Hey! Do you know anything about "Uncanny valley effect"? I watched some videos on YouTube recently and was so impressed! I like your analysis posts about android nature and I would be interested to know what you think about this. The detailed examples from DBH are especially welcome!

First I want to thank you for this question because thinking about it evolved into an argument within my head about the definition of the term that I am now super excited to share. Yes! Yes, of course I know about uncanny valley and referred to it in my previous posts.

And I want first to talk about this effect in details.

To those who don't know (if there are still people who haven't heard of that term before ) the uncanny valley effect describes the feel of unease or even fear that we, as humans, experience when confronted with something that looks like human, but just sliiiiightly off. The example of that would be mannequins or just dolls, anthropomorphic robots or even other actual humans, whose behaviour seems "not human-like". Probably the best example of uncanny valley to this day is this infamous video "I feel fantastic" where this doll that looks like a woman, sings a song with this creepy robotic voice. This video is The definition of uncanny valley effect in it's purest form.

Y tho

I've seen an explanation to the question why would we feel this kind of fear around those objects that look like humans, but off, which was "Because we're naturally afraid of dead bodies, duh. Simple as that!" to which I strongly disagree, because it doesn't answer the question why would this robotic voice be so scary in itself, even without this robot girl. And I have an answer to that, which may be a little different from the others I've seen so far. I like to think about the uncanny valley effect as a subset of this more general fear, caused by ruined expectation of something in our reality that we're really-really familiar with. In a traditional understanding of uncanny valley effect - that "something" in question would be humans. But let's think further, as generally a fear caused by something, that's supposed to be familiar, but for some reason is not.

I have a good picture to illustrate this more general "uncanny valley" effect that isn't linked to human-looking/sounding objects.

It's this fucking picture

On the first glance it looks like something we instantly recognize as "some table with a bunch of junk on it", but the really next moment we go "Oh..wait.." and this sickening moment you realise that yes, it's familiar, but also completely utterly not, is the uncanny valley. For me at least.

Being a microtonality fan that I am, I can't help but draw the parallel between uncanny valley effect and the feeling people get when they first listen to microtonal music. It is described painfully similar to how people would describe uncanny valley, as something that's making them feel deeply uncomfortable for a reason they can't exactly name. It sounds like music (it looks human), but also there's something fundamentally different about how it sounds (acts, looks, smells) that makes it uncomfortable and scary, because it's something that's supposed to be familiar, but isn't. I'll take this opportunity to link a microtonal piece that struck me the first time I heard it with it being both uncanny and stunningly beautiful. When I played to other people they reacted almost as if it was physically harming them, lol.

I realise I dwelled away from the original topic, sorry.

With uncanny valley being attached specifically to androids within dbh there's actually not so much to say because in this game it's specifically emphasized that androids = humans without a proper attempt to make it androids != humans, but even so they deserve to be treated as such. I suspect it's because if they were actually shown as really different from humans, it'd make it harder for a player to emphasize with them, as player will be just as uncomfortable thinking about androids receiving rights. If only they looked and acted slightly less human the whole plot of a game would be perceived from a completely different angle, it'd actually put a game within a "horror" category solely because of it all being uncanny.

But even so, there are SOME examples of uncanny valley within the game.

Starting from the most obvious one, singing Kara's head that can be found on a landfill along with others mutilated androids. This right here is almost a dictionary example I gave earlier, I wonder if it was intended as a reference to "I feel fantastic" (other than a reference to Kara's first short film) but other than that there are barely any examples. Like yeah, their blood is blue and the insights are slightly different (although they do look similar to human's) and they can be brought "back from the dead" in a way, and their voice can get slightly glitchy when they're corrupted, but all of this is only hinting at being uncanny without actually being uncanny (at least not for us to feel it like this). It's even kind of weird that in a game absolutely fucking NO ONE is scared of androids for them being uncanny, but instead everyone hates them for replacing them at their work, which is honestly a really valid reason that isn't just "I hate them for being different" kind of thing. Sure there is Lucy, there are Zlatko's modified androids, all those things. Not uncanny, not nearly enough.

That's why it's so fun to imagine it actually being uncanny in a post-revolution setting and thinking about how will it actually affect interpersonal relationships between characters when one of the characters is stepping away from being perceived as just another human, who just happened to have a few quirks like having blue blood instead of red. When you actually acknowledge this inhuman part of the question. This is something I want more, so I write some of it myself. Here's a little piece of text from it that basically summarises what I want to see discussed more

[duskholland]

Cuddle Buddies | Peter Parker

summary ↠ you’re touch-starved, Peter’s your best friend, and there’s a whole lot of unresolved romantic tension between you; friends to lovers.

word count ↠ 3.4k

warnings ↠ uh oh.... there’s only one bed..? additionally maybe two swear words? also copious amounts of fluff lmao

a/n ↠ so apparently I really wanna cuddle Peter Parker. wbk. this is very cute and made me so soft when I wrote it. I hope you enjoy it! please let me know if you have any thoughts :D

“God damn, MJ, I think I’m actually going to die if I don’t get a hug soon.”

You’re rambling, your voice full of heavy frustration. Your hair is unkempt and messy from all the times you’ve run your fingers through it, and you stare at Michelle with a wild look in your eyes that makes her press a hand to her hips and laugh lightly.

“Has anyone told you that you’re really good at being dramatic, Y/N?” She replies casually, causing you to mock an outraged gasp. You sit down at the lunch table together, setting down your trays in front of you.

You manage a glare at your friend. “You’re so mean to me,” you whine. “You don’t understand how desperate I am.”

MJ narrows her eyes. “I don’t think it’s possible to die from lack of human contact,” she chimes.

“Who’s dying?”

You startle as a third, familiar voice joins the conversation, and crane your neck to see Peter slipping into the open seat beside you. He gives you an easy smile that stretches all the way to his soft, lovely brown eyes, and you feel your heart ache.

“No one’s dying,” Michelle replies. When Peter shoots her an inquisitive look, she adds, “Y/N thinks she’s going to perish if she doesn’t find someone to hug.”

You scowl at MJ, biting the inside of your cheek as you try not to let the embarrassment show on your face. It’s one thing to have this conversation with MJ - your close friend and number one confidant - but Peter? It’s an entirely different story. He may be your best friend, but your feelings are far more than simply platonic when it comes to him.

“Oh…” Peter looks at you curiously, his eager eyes darting over your face. He leans his elbows on the table and rests his chin in his hands, looking utterly adorable with his face pulled into a cute smile. His grin widens as you meet his gaze, and he nods knowingly. “Hugs are nice.”

You nod in appreciative agreement. “Exactly!”

MJ just rolls her eyes. “You guys are so weird.”

Ned joins the table and begins talking to MJ about a chemistry project, and Peter turns to you properly.

“Hey, so, are we still on for that study session later?” He asks you, his teeth briefly gliding across his lower lip. You try not to focus too much on the curve of his mouth, but it’s very difficult.

“Um, yeah,” you squeak, feeling your cheeks heat up a little as you remember the arrangement you’d made with Peter earlier in the week. “Mine or yours?”

“Yours?” Peter suggests.

“Okay. My parents are still away on business, so it’ll just be us. Is that okay?”

Your friend nods his head, his fluffy brown curls shifting around his face. “Sounds great.” Peter gives you a nervous smile, and it sets your heart racing. “I can’t wait.”

-----

Peter turns up a little after 7pm, a box of pizza in his hands. You spend a while chatting and watching Star Wars, and then eventually pull yourselves around to studying. You opt for your bedroom, with its very comfortable fluffy carpet, and you spread out all of your notebooks and pens around you before lying on your stomach and lazily flicking through your notes. But you can’t quite focus because something is amiss.

Peter is acting very oddly tonight. And he’s normally a little hyperactive, but it’s as if he’s on another level entirely. He keeps glancing up to you, then looking away the moment you bring your eyes up to meet his, and he hasn’t stopped drumming his fingers over the front of his maths textbook all night. You’re already nervous enough being around him, alone and within such close proximity to him, and his antics aren’t helping you at all.

You might have a teeny tiny crush on Peter Parker. Possibly. But you’d never tell him that.

“Pete,” you say, reaching breaking point when you catch him staring at your face for the fifth time in one minute. You sit up and turn to look at him, meeting his guilty, rose-tinted face. “What’s going on? You seem so unsettled. Are you okay?”

Peter opens and closes his mouth a few times, his eyes meeting yours nervously. His voice is more a squeak than anything else as he says, suddenly, “Do you want to cuddle me?”

You blink, totally blindsided by the change in topic.

“Uh, cuddle you?”

“Um, I mean, sorry, that’s such a weird thing to just come out and say, I- I just remembered earlier, with MJ, what she was saying, and I was wondering if you’d want to hug me, if you- if you want a hug so badly.” Peter breaks off, a disgruntled groan coming up his throat as he buries his flushed face in his hands. “I’m sorry, Y/N, shit, that was such a weird thing to ask. Can we just pretend I never said anything?”

You chuckle, your lips pulling into a wide smile. “You would let me hug you?” You ask gently. Peter parts his fingers and looks at you through the gaps, nodding slightly. “I’d like that, Peter.”

He looks so shocked by your statement that it brings another quiet laugh from your mouth. “O-Okay.” Peter clumsily opens his arms. “Um, here?”

It’s painfully awkward at first. He’s sitting at the foot of your bed, his back resting up against the mattress, so you have to do a weird sort of crawl over to him, feeling his wide, anxious eyes pressing onto your figure the whole way. It doesn’t help that you’re practically shaking from nerves now.

You’ve known Peter since the start of high school, but you’ve not really hugged him before. The most you’ve shared is a brief celebratory high-five after acing a biology presentation together, and even that contact had lingered in your mind for days after. The concept of crawling up to and hugging your crush makes your palms sweaty and your mind a numb anxious mess, but you do it, because it’s Peter, and the opportunity to cuddle up next to him is so enticing you think you’d do anything just to feel his arms around your body.

The angle is difficult, but Peter spreads his legs out across the carpet and pats his thighs, and you realise he wants you to straddle his lap, so you clamber into his hold gently. He’s sturdy beneath you, with a pair of dark denim jeans stretched over his firm thighs, and he’s quick to wrap his arms around your waist and pull you in. You let your hands find his sides, and then you settle into a very close, very intimate hug with your best friend.

It’s lovely.

He smells of soft bubbles and peppermint, and you bury your face in the crook of his neck, partly because it’s comfortable, but mostly because you don’t want him to see the massive, embarrassing grin fixed to your mouth. Your heartbeat’s going crazy - you can feel it pressing against your ribs almost painfully, and it only doubles in speed as Peter’s hands move slowly across your back, rubbing large, soothing circles over your hoodie. You savour the moment, your eyes closed as you enjoy just being held by your best friend.

“Is this okay?” Peter asks, after a few moments.

You hum against his neck, squeezing his torso softly. He’s wearing one of Midtown’s navy hoodies, and it feels particularly soft against your forehead. “Thanks, Pete,” you mumble, enjoying the moment entirely too much. “You’re really good at hugs, you know that?”

“You’re also a very nice hugger,” Peter replies. You swallow deeply as you feel him tighten his grip on your sides and pull you even closer.

“Sometimes it’s just nice to be held,” you find yourself saying. You’re starting to feel really comfortable now, and find yourself relaxing and shifting further into him.

“Definitely.” His voice is still ringing at a higher pitch than you’re used to, but you put it down to the late evening hour. “Um, Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“If you, uh, ever need another hug, you can always text me.”

You’re so glad you have your face buried in Peter’s warm neck because the grin latched to your lips is so large you think you’d die from embarrassment if your friend could see how giddy his words make you feel.

“Okay,” you say. “Thanks, Pete.” You pause for a moment, and take stock of the way he seems to be clinging to you just as tightly as you are to him. “You can always text me too, if you ever want a hug. Or anything, really.” You manage to collapse your smile so it’s more of a weak grin, and you pull back to look at Peter. His hands fall down to loosely grasp at your hips, and you find him looking at you with warm, attentive eyes and a wide smile hanging from his pink lips.

He looks so cute, and relaxed, and perfect, and you really can’t believe your luck that you’re sitting holed up in his arms just now.

“Thanks, Y/N,” he mumbles shyly, eyes flittering across every part of your face. “You’re a great friend.”

You deserve an Oscar for maintaining the smile on your face, despite the way his words stab painfully at your heart.

“You too, Pete,” you mutter. “The best friend ever.”

The air between you holds just a little too much tension, so you shift and push your face back into his shoulder, hugging him again. Peter’s arms tighten around your waist, and you sigh softly, revelling in rare the feeling of him so close to you, even if it isn’t under the circumstances you crave. You’d take anything Peter could offer you, even if it makes your heart ache.

------

It easily becomes a habit.

Soon enough, it’s been three months, and you’re spending almost every evening with Peter. The more you meet up, the more natural folding into his arms becomes, and soon you find that your favourite parts of the day are the moments you share curled up together.

Sharing affection with Peter is easy, but it comes at a cost - it ties your heart up in knots to spend so much time pressed up against his chest, acting so intimately with him, but then to pull back and go back about your day like nothing really happened. Every second you spend hugging him hurts you because your heart yearns so deeply to have more, but you just can’t bring yourself to tell him how you feel. You value your friendship with Peter too much to risk ruining it all because of a stupid crush, and you’re not ready to stop your evening shenanigans, so you decide to just put up with it and suffer in silence.

A few months into your arrangement, you find yourself at Peter’s when the power across the city goes out in the middle of a thunderstorm.

“Holy shit,” you mutter, shivering as you glance outside and see a flash of sharp lightning cut across the city. The rain pelts down against the pavements so loudly that you can hear it through the gap in the window. You turn and look at Peter, wide-eyed. “Bet you’re glad the Stark internship let you leave earlier than usual today. I’m not looking forward to walking back in that later.”

“Y/N, you can’t go home in the middle of a thunderstorm, especially if the power is out,” Peter tells you firmly, his arms crossing over his chest. He looks so cute with his eyebrows scrunched into a caring scowl that you can’t stop yourself from smiling. “Stay here tonight. May’s out of town, but I can sleep on the sofa. I don’t want you to go across the city by yourself at the moment.”

You bite your lower lip, eyeing the slants of rain that pour over Queens. “It does look pretty horrible out there,” you admit. Your expression shifts into guilt as you eye Peter closely. “You can’t sleep on the sofa, though. I will.”

“No, I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

“Peter, it’s your apartment, I’m not about to kick you out of your own bed.”

“Then join me.”

“In your bed? With you?”

“Yes.” Peter’s face is a bright red as he flusters, “Um, only if you’re comfortable with that though, Y/N. You don’t have to. I just thought that- because, y’know, we’re kinda… close now, you might want to. But you don’t-”

“I want to,” you say, the words tumbling out before you can think them through properly. You’re rendered utterly incapable of sensible thought, because Peter’s looking at you so intently that it whips the breath straight out of your lungs. “Really, Pete, that would be nice, if you’re sure you don’t mind..?”

“No! I want to,” he replies. Peter runs his delicate fingers through his brown waves, pushing his strands away from his face easily. His smile is gentle, and it grows as you return it shyly. “I’ll go get you some clothes.”

You make light conversation as you both get ready for bed together. Peter even finds you a spare toothbrush in the cabinet beneath the sink, and you pull faces at him in the mirror as you brush your teeth together side by side. It feels so domestic, but also incredibly comfortable and normal, and you decide that you feel more at home by Peter’s side than you do anywhere else in the world. You realise that maybe you’d just been deluding yourself each time you’d dismissed your feelings for him as simply a crush. Maybe, your feelings run a lot deeper for your friend - far deeper than you’d ever intended for them to grow. Because you realise, as Peter laughs loudly when you pull a face at him in the mirror, that your feelings for the boy have taken firm root in your heart, and you’re absolutely fucking in love with him.

“So, um, I normally sleep on the left side, but I can swap if you want that side,” Peter tells you. The power has finally come back on and the weather has cleared up, but neither of you comment on it as he closes his bedroom door behind you and gestures at his nice, gingham-patterned bedspread.

“I can go on the right side,” you offer.

Peter turns off the light and you both shuffle to your respective sides of his bed. You’ve been in his room a thousand times before, but you’ve never ventured beneath his lovely soft covers, and you find yourself sighing slightly as you shuffle beneath the duvet. His pillows are light and feathery, and your head sinks into them easily.

He seems intent to stay as far away from you as possible, and he clings to the far edge of the mattress. It brings a frown to your mouth, but you let him be; if that’s where he has to be in order to feel comfortable, then you’ll let him stay there. Just because you feel something else fluttering about in your heart for him, does not mean he feels the same way - even if you were sure he’d been hugging you a little closer, recently, and staring at your lips more than he used to. But maybe that was all in your head.

“Do you need anything?” Peter asks slowly. You stare up at his ceiling, your eyes taking in the dark curves of his smooth roof.

“No,” you reply. “Your bed is very comfortable.”

You hear the sheets ruffle as Peter slowly turns over. You fold over onto your side and find yourself facing him, his bright eyes twinkling slightly beneath the light that streams in from the city outside. He looks very cute, with the duvet bunched up beneath his chin and his fluffy hair all messy and waved out across his forehead, and it makes you happy to see him so relaxed and free. Sometimes it feels as though Peter carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, and you’d give anything to see him gentle and carefree like this. It makes you feel a surge of pride to know you can give him just a little bit of peace.

“Yeah, I dunno where May got the mattress but it’s amazing.” Peter breaks off, shifting around a little, and you freeze up when you feel his hand brush against yours beneath the covers. “Oh, uh, sorry,” he mutters, immediately jerking his hand back. You can just about make out the dark flush of his cheeks.

“‘S okay,” you murmur, biting your lower lip. A beat passes, and then you add, “We hug all the time, Peter. You can touch me, y’know.”

He takes it as an invitation, and he tenderly reaches out. His warm hand finds the curve of your waist, and you stay remarkably still as he slowly shuffles a little closer.

“Is this okay?” Peter whispers into the air.

“Yeah.”

Finally you unstick, your heart beating rapidly in your chest. You shift towards him, as if magnetised, and your hand goes up to rest on his side, too. His t-shirt feels soft beneath your hold, and you find your mind reeling as you take in his warmth, his scent, his touch.

Peter’s face is very near you now. Your legs are tangled together. Your head shifts onto his pillow, and suddenly he’s holding you flush against him, your noses almost touching.

“Y/N,” he says slowly. His eyes are wide and nervous, and they keep dipping down to settle on the curve of your lips.

“Pete,” you respond, your voice fragile. You can hardly keep still, for how nervous you’re feeling now. He’s pulled you right against him, and for the first time, you question whether your feelings are actually one sided. His warm fingers burn against your side, tracing delicate circles over the material of your borrowed shirt. “You’re really close.”

“Do you want me to move?” You’ve never heard him like this before: all warm, and gentle, and inviting. It ignites a whirlwind of butterflies inside your chest, and you really can’t stop yourself from saying, quietly,

“I want you to kiss me.”

Peter’s lips are on yours before you know it. Soft, at first, and a little bit bumpy and awkward. But he loosens up as you reach up and wrap your fingers around his hair, and you kiss him back with all that you have. Peter pulls you closer as you kiss him deeply, savouring the feeling of his warm, pillowy lips and enjoying the way your heart blooms in your chest as your best friend kisses you back. He releases a small noise of enjoyment into your mouth as you nibble over his bottom lip, and then he’s pushing his tongue into your mouth, and you’re making out, your figures lazily intertwined.

It feels so right to be kissing Peter that you briefly wonder why you’ve never tried this out before.

“I, um, I really like you, Y/N,” Peter whispers against you, when you finally pull back. Your lips tingle as you giggle into the air, your fingertips trailing through the soft strands of his chestnut hair. “In fact, I… I’ve been in love with you for months.”

Your mouth runs dry, and all you can really do to stop the tears of relief from slipping out of your eyes is lean in and kiss him again, hard. You kiss him like you’ve been dreaming about for months: slowly, passionately and lovingly - growing in tempo as you fervently try to convey everything you’ve kept hidden away inside your heart.

When you break away, you keep your lips nuzzled against his and breathe out a deep, “I love you too, Peter.”

You giggle together, and you feel so overcome with adoration for the boy that you simply have to kiss him again.

“D’you want to go on a date with me?” Peter asks gently, between gaps in your soft kisses. You finally move away from his lips and settle nearer, your forehead finding his chest as his arms encircle your waist and he holds you close in a warm, consuming cuddle.

“I would love to go on a date with you, Peter,” you mumble against his front. You smile softly as you feel his lips trail across your forehead, and your heart stirs happily in your chest.

“Okay,” he says, sounding immediately relieved. “I’m excited.”

You hum sleepily into his chest, your fingers curling around his strong back. “Me too,” you mumble.

“Night night, Y/N,” he says, his voice already being carried away as you drift further into dreamland. “I love you.”

“Love you too, Pete,” you reply. You know nothing else will compare to the feeling of being holed up in your best friends arms, with his lips scattering a dusting of kisses across your forehead, and you try to cling desperately to every single moment and sensation. “Sweet dreams.”

Peter leaves a final kiss on your forehead, and then you drift off to sleep with him, your figures entangled, and, for the first time, your hearts beating together as one.

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

any feedback?

masterlist

[isthisthingeven0n]

i’ll marry you someday : j.w

brief summary: jeff hopes that someday he’ll marry you, but after an accident that lands him in hospital, he’s more certain than ever 

word count:  2.5k (i kinda went off on this) requested: yes by the sweetest anon. i adore this idea and cause i’m super dramatic well, you’ll see   warnings: mentions of a car crash, some graphic descriptions. nothing too threatening, but if these are sensitive topics please read at your own discretion or miss this one (your wellbeing matters more than anything!)

* masterlistin’ / masterlistin’ 2.0

(everything on my blog is my own writing. if it is shared on another page or website know it hasn’t been approved me unless specified. all rights reserved. - i have to start doing this as I had some shit on my other blog with plagiarism)

DO NOT STEAL MY WORK - IT IS ALL MY OWN WRITING

“You know, I’m gonna marry you someday,” Jeff mumbles as you curl up against his chest as you struggle to keep your eyes open long enough to focus on the film.

“That so?” You whisper, looking up at him as he smiles down to you, his fingers gliding through your hair as you hum in content.

Jeff nods, unable to hide his grin as your eyes close.

It’s true though, Jeff really means it when he says it. Even if you think he’s just joking around. As a matter of fact, in all his life, Jeff has never been more certain about something. That being with you, and spending the rest of his life alongside you, and only you. After everything he’s been through, the consequences he’s faced from his actions you’re just a ray of sunshine.

You didn’t care about his past, the things he once did. He’s grown, matured as a person into someone you want to be with and love him regardless.

*

Standing in the doorway, Jeff’s bags pile up outside whilst Todd patiently waits for his friend to depart from his house. If only it were easier said than done.

“Do you have to go?” You pout as your arms remain around his waist, not wanting to let go.

Jeff chuckles as he glances behind you, seeing Todd filming on his camcorder in the pathway. “I’ll only be gone a few days, baby.” Jeff reminds you, hearing you sigh loudly as your hands begin to slip away from him.

“Just, stay safe.” You nudge his arm as he picks up his bags before leaning down and kissing you softly. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” He blows one last kiss to you before walking out from your house, leaving you with Nerf sat by your side watching his Dad get into the passenger seat of Todd’s car.

“You really love her, don’t you?” Todd speaks up, noticing the way Jeff looks at you as if you’re the only person in the entire world.

Jeff can’t help but think of the ring he’s picked out and reserved at the jewellers, a quick pitstop on route to his and Todd’s destination. “I do, Toddy.” Jeff sighs as they pull away, moving further away from you, but closer to the next step in your future.

“So, airport?” Todd looks over to Jeff before returning his attention to the road.

Shaking his head, Jeff points to the left hand turn coming up, the opposite direction. “I just wanna make a short stop first.” Jeff states as Todd turns the car, and as they follow the road Jeff can see the old shop sign.

Feeling his heartbeat quicken pace, it isn’t something that goes unnoticed by Todd. “We going where I think we’re going?” Todd asks with a hesitant smile before Jeff points at the shop whilst Todd parks up just down the road.

“Yeah.” Jeff runs his fingers through his hair as he opens the passenger door, hearing Todd mutter his name as his right leg hangs out of the car.

“This is it, huh?” Todd chuckles, an attempt to hide his nerves for his friend. “You’re gonna ask her?”

“I really am, Todd. Got it all planned out.” Jeff states, feeling that familiar sense of uneasiness return to his stomach as he climbs out fully, his arm resting on the top of the car as Todd remains in the driver's seat. “Gotta say, I’ve never been more certain of anything.” He admits before turning away from the car, crossing the street toward the shop in question.

Whilst Jeff is crossing, Todd’s fingers tap on the steering wheel, humming to himself. Yet, Jeff doesn’t make it across the road.

Glancing through his rearview mirror, seeing a car speeding down the narrow street, shortly followed by a sharp break and a loud thud.

“No, no.” Todd mutters, feeling everything play too quickly for him to process. “Jeff?!” Todd yells, looking behind his car to see the small car in question with the window smashed as the driver crawls out, coughing violently.

A few shop owners and customers gather around behind the driver's car, some converse whilst others call for help. “Is he alive?” Todd hears one lady question whilst another bends down, her feet sticking out from behind the car as Todd hesitantly walks closer.

Fearing the worst, Todd took a deep breath as he moved between the gathering crowd to see what his fears be a reality.

“Jeff? Buddy?” Kneeling down, Todd couldn’t stop his hands from shaking as he reaches out as blood dribbles from Jeff’s mouth as his eyes remain closed. “Has someone called for some help? Fuck!” He looks around, desperation lacing his tone as faces blur together whilst blood coats his face and exposed limbs.

“An ambulance is on its way.” Someone speaks up, resting a hand on Todd’s shoulder with a sympathetic smile.

“You’ll be okay, buddy,” Todd mutters, forcing back his tears as Jeff’s limps are splayed out, lifelessly.

*

You couldn’t process the phone call as it came through. Part of you thought it was a sick prank call until you heard Todd’s hushed voice down the line, loud enough to understand without it cracking.

David picked you up with Natalie, understanding you were in no fit position to drive.

No words were exchanged as you sat silently in the passenger seat, thinking about what Todd had told you. He hadn’t even left town, they were making a pit stop and some sick fuck was speeding.

Tearing the images from your mind, you open the car door and rush inside without checking your friends were close behind.

“Is Jeff Wittek here?” You ask bluntly, remaining emotionless as you bite your lip, holding back a sob.

The receptionist looks up at you before averting her attention to her screen. You wait painfully as she types into the system, now aware of David and Natalie either side of you. Natalie rests her hand on your forearm, squeezing it lightly as a single tear spills from your eye.

“He’s in room 207. Turn left down the hall, and three floors up.” The receptionist tells you and before she can ask if you need anything else, you’re gone.

You can’t keep up with your own feet as you race to his room, a distortion of voices play as Natalie and David converse as they try to catch up to you, but you’re oblivious to everyone else.

Slowing down, you can see someone hunched over on a seat outside of a room. A tuft of brown hair, slouched form and his hands clasped in each other.

“Toddy?” You call out weakly, seeing him rise to his feet and rush over, engulfing you in a tight hug as you sob against him.

Natalie and David hang back as Todd focuses on Natalie with watery vision. “I’m so sorry, Y/n.” Todd mumbles into your hair as your whole body shakes. “He, he just wanted to get something. I should’ve gone with him.” Todd rambles, but you lean back, shaking your head to him.

“It’s not your fault, Todd.” You tell him bluntly. “Do not blame yourself. It was an accident.” You breathe deeply as you force yourself to look at the door number behind him. “Is he, is he awake?”

Todd scratches the back of his neck as he takes a hold of your hand, guiding you closer toward the room. “He’s still unconscious, but he’ll be alright,” Todd tells you, but you can tell there’s something else. “but he got hurt bad, Y/n.”

Taking a shaky breath, you nod. “How bad are things?”

Shutting your eyes, you wipe away your tears forcefully as you listen to Todd listing off Jeff’s injuries. Two broken legs, fractured ribs, a collapsed lung. He was lucky to make it out alive.

“Can I see him?” You question quietly.

Todd opens the door and guides you inside to the room where Jeff is being monitored.

As you lift your eyes up, the sight before you breaks your heart.

You listen to the sound of his monitor beeping as various tubes are connected to him. Discomfort is worn heavily in his face, despite him being unconscious as stitches line his cheeks and forehead. Bruises are starting to form across his exposed skin, but the damage evidently lies deeper than that.

A sob wracks through you as you cover your mouth, muffling the sound as you fall to the ground.

“It’s okay, Y/n.” Todd hushes as he helps you to your feet. “Jeff’s strong, we know this.” He reassures you as you step closer toward your boyfriend, sitting beside him.

Reaching out, you rest your hand alongside his.

Both you and Todd sit in silence until visiting hours are over, and at this point, you can feel your entire body is numb. You didn’t want to leave him, you didn’t want Jeff to be alone in that room, left in pain without anyone by his side.

*

Two days you were sat in the room, sitting in silence beside him as Doctors and Nurses passed by. Checks were made, vitals were monitored and silence was a frequent friend.

You saw many faces, most with sympathy etched into their smiles as they tried not to focus on the damages covering Jeff’s body or the tiredness lining your eyes. It felt like an ongoing cycle, just waiting for any kind of update.

Everyone was just waiting, waiting for him to wake up. And after three solid days of waiting, sitting by his side for as long as you were allowed to, Jeff started to stir in the bed.

“Where the fuck am I?” He mumbles, and you quickly jolt up from sleeping at an angle on the plastic chair beside his bed.

“Jeff?” You call out, blinking rapidly as your vision begins to focus on his confused expression as he winces. “Oh thank god.” You reframe from wrapping your arms around him, knowing he’s still fragile. “I, I’ll go get someone, I’ll be right back.” You tell him quickly as you rise to your feet, finding the first Nurse to pass you by.

Whilst you talk to a nurse, Jeff looks around the room as the events of that afternoon replay. He remembers seeing a blue car speeding toward him and being on the ground with faces surrounding him. But after that, everything is simply blank.

Jeff watches as you walk back in, your angelic smile plastered across your face as bags wear heavy beneath your eyes.

Sitting beside him, you rest his hand in yours as the Nurse checks his vitals and explains exactly what has happened to him. As you listen to the Nurse, you feel Jeff faintly squeezing your hand, letting you know he can feel you beside him.

“So, I got hit bad, huh?” Jeff tries to joke but winces at the pain spreading across his ribs.

“Take it easy, babe.” You remind him as he lies back down, letting out a strained sigh.

“Seen worse in jail, let me tell you that.” He continues his efforts to make you smile, even if tears fill your eyes as you focus on him, how casts cover both legs and bandages across his stomach. “Hey, Y/n, I’m okay.” He reaches out as you lean closer toward him.

Feeling his hand rest across your cheek is enough to comfort you as you let out a shaky breath. “I know, I just, I don’t know what I would do if you were,” You struggle to finish your sentence as Jeff wipes away your tears that fall.

“Don’t think ‘bout that, baby.” He hushes you, peering over your shoulder to see Todd leaning against the door frame. “If it isn’t my saviour,” Jeff calls out and you laugh lightly, leaning back as Todd walks in.

Rising to your feet, Todd hugs you lightly as you pass him and exit the room in search of the bathroom.

“Hey man.” Todd sighs as he sits down, taking your seat temporarily whilst you’re gone. “Good to see you awake, you, you had us worried for a moment.”

“Just a moment?” Jeff raises an eyebrow, ignoring the bruising around his eye and the stitches below.

Todd shakes his head as he reaches into his pocket, taking out a small velvet box. “I, I picked this up, thought you might want it.” Sliding the small box across the bed, Jeff hides it underneath the covers of the hospital sheets.

“Thank you, Todd.” Jeff smiles, and Todd simply nods as you return.

“Did I miss anything?” You call out as Todd stands up, moving away from the chair as he shakes his head.

“Nothing too eventful. Good luck getting him to pee for the next few months though.” Todd laughs, nudging you lightly as you roll your eyes, missing the wink he sends Jeff.

For the next few hours, you just sat with Jeff as the Doctors explained the next step in Jeff’s recovery. It wasn’t going to be easy, and you understood that there would be hard times, but you weren’t going anywhere.

“Thank you, Doc.” Jeff speaks up, processing everything he’s just been told.

“Looks like you’ll be my bitch for a while, huh?” You tell Jeff, hoping to see a smile cross his lips to ease the pressure of the detailed recovery process.

Jeff chuckles, looking up at you as you keep a smile on your face. “You’re seriously something else, Y/n.” Jeff shakes his head, watching as you shrug a shoulder. “You know, I’m gonna marry you someday.” He reminds you, and you laugh lightly.

“I know, baby. You tell me almost every week!” You smile brightly, but Jeff shakes his head as he reaches into the sheets, taking a hold of the velvet box.

“I really mean it, and, and I know this isn’t probably the way I envisioned it. And I can’t even stand, let alone get on one knee right now, but,” Taking a deep breath, Jeff reveals the diamond inside of the box, looking up as your lips part.

“Jeff,” You start, but Jeff shakes his head.

“Y/n, you’re unlike anyone I’ve ever met. You, you’ve seen past all the shit in my life, you’re willing to help me through this and wheel me everywhere for possibly months. I can’t imagine being with anyone else, and I don’t want to.” Jeff reels off all of his thoughts as you remain in a state of shock. “So, Y/n Y/l/n, will you marry me?” He finally asks the question, feeling his heart pause as he awaits your response.

“Yes.” You mumble, nodding as you rise to your feet, leaning closer and kissing him passionately. “Yes, yes!” You laugh excitedly as you sit back down, letting Jeff place the ring on your finger. “So, this is it, huh?”

“I told you, baby.” Jeff smiles brightly, fighting through the pain as his monitor continues to beep at a slightly rapid pace. “I’m gonna marry you someday, and that’s a promise.”

[spareseratoninplz]

More Than Pain Bakugo x Y/N reader insert Ch. 2

“Miss…? Excuse me, miss…?” I was gently shaken awake by a hand, and when I woke up a friendly looking gentleman was smiling down at me.

“You’re miss (L/N), right?” He asked, and I nodded.

“Yes… how is my mother?” I asked, my brow immediately furrowing. He placed a hand on my shoulder to keep me from getting up, and took a seat across from me after pulling up a chair to sit on.

“Your mother is in stable condition… her case however… well, it’s uncertain.” He said, and my heart dropped.

“Case…? Uncertain…?” I echoed, and he cleared his throat.

“Your mother had a very serious seizure. Her brain was deprived of oxygen for too long, and this has caused her to slip into a coma. As I said, she’s in stable condition, but if she’s going to have any sort of chance of recovery, we’ll need to perform surgery…” He said the last few words very carefully, and I swallowed a lump in my throat.

“H-How much…?” I asked, and he hesitated before sighing deeply.

“54,200,000 ¥…*” The doctor spoke, and I felt my mouth go dry.

“Your mother’s insurance will pay for her accommodations here at the hospital until the money for surgery can be raised… with any luck, then surgery won’t be necessary. And she’ll simply wake up. Still, there’s the topic of muscle atrophy, and getting her the physical and psychological therapy to recuperate afterwards…” His voice faded out as my brain grew numb with the same question. How in the world am I supposed to raise that much money? As a middle school student I’m not allowed to have any sort of part time job. Not only that, but how was I supposed to pay for rent, power, water, and food when I had absolutely no income whatsoever?

“Miss (L/N)?” The doctor called out my name, and I snapped out of my stupor.

“Did you hear what I said?” He asked, and after a moment of hesitation, he realized I hadn’t.

“There is a program- a temporary service if you will- one that will place you in the care of a foster home… at least for the time being.” I nodded quietly, not really knowing what else to say.

“Come with me and I’ll introduce you to the program’s coordinator.” He ushered me along, and I followed blindly, my eyes growing heavy with exhaustion.

*One day later*

“Here we are! Oh, you are absolutely going to love this couple!” The coordinator opened the door for me to step out with nothing but my backpack on.

“Oh dear… are you certain that’s all you wanted to bring?” She asked.

“I don’t plan on being here for very long.” I said, walking passed her towards the front door. She followed me quickly, and rang the doorbell as I examined the outside structure of the house. It was rounded at the top with a subtle but elegant grey stone layout. The windows were large and somewhat tinted to reflect the incoming sunlight, and I couldn't help but think how clever that was of the designer to come up with. My attention was grabbed when the front door slowly opened to reveal a tall, muscular  man with spiky brown hair, glasses, and the slightest hint of  a mustache.

“Oh? Hey, you must be (F/N)! Mitsuki, she’s here!” He called behind him, and I could hear the sound of fast footsteps as she made her way to the front door, and nearly knocked the man over in the process.

“Who is it Masaru? Did you say (F/N)?” She asked. She poked her head out, and my eyes immediately focused on two distinctive features, her eyes and hair.

“(F/N)! It’s so good to meet you!” She exclaimed. Before I knew what was happening, she’d already pulled me inside.

“Katsuki! Come meet our guest!” She called out, and the moment she shouted that name, my blood ran cold.

“GO TO HELL!!!” He shouted back in response. Mitsuki only smiled at me briefly as the tension settled in the air. After a moment she turned to me with the same smile on her face.

“Wait right here dear, I’ll  be right back.” She spoke softly and gracefully ascended the stairs to what I could only assume was Katsuki’s room. There were a few light knocks on the door before it sounded like the ceiling was falling in.

“HOW DARE YOU SPEAK TO YOUR MOTHER LIKE THAT YOU LITTLE SHIT!” She screamed. She then proceeded to drag Bakugou down the stairs by his ear, much to his protest, and tossed him onto the floor in front of us. My eyes locked onto a coat rack in the corner near the door, and I didn’t dare tear my eyes away for a moment. He stood to his feet and swung around as though he were going to strike his own mother, but instead she smacked the back of his head, and he fell to his knees right in front of me. I jumped back, and accidentally met his eyes. If looks could kill, I’d already be dead.

“(F/N) Is going to be staying here for a little while, and I want you to be the one to show her to her room.” Mitsuki ordered, and Katsuki simply glared at me before sliding his hands into his pockets and walking back towards the stairs.

“You comin’ or not?!” He demanded, looking at me sideways as though I were supposed to read his mind. I glared back, unimpressed before following behind him up the stairs.

We took an immediate right, and he placed his foot against a door before roughly kicking it open and stepping inside. I followed him in, and took a look around. Everything was so neat, tidy, and fresh smelling. They had even changed the bed linens and had a fluffy black bathrobe neatly folded on the bed along with a set of clothes. What was this place? A hotel? “What the fuck are you doing here?” He demanded, and I glanced at him over my shoulder.

“Your parents didn’t tell you what’s going on?” I asked, and he scoffed.

“All they said was we’d have a guest for a couple months. They never said anything about it being some dumb bitch.” He said, expecting to get a rise out of me, but I remained quiet.

“I’ll stay out of your way.” I said, giving him a cold look that he seemed taken aback by.

“The hell’s your problem?” He asked, and I exhaled slowly through my nose before neatly placing my backpack on the back of a nearby chair.

“Why? So you can degrade me on that too?” I asked, my tone just as cold as my icy glare. For once he had nothing to say as he stood there with the same angry look on his face.

“I get that you don’t like me, and I’ll stay out of your way while I’m here, so, just go do… whatever.” I said, my tone bland as I turned to  start unpacking things from my bag. After a moment of silence I assumed he had just left, so when I heard the shuffling of feet, and suddenly found myself pinned up against the desk as his hands gripped the edges at my hips, trapping me in place. His body and face were both very close to mine, and radiating heat that I didn’t know could be generated from a human body.

“Listen here you, don’t come into my fucking house thinking you’re better than me just because you have some stupid-ass quirk, you got it?” He hissed, and my brow furrowed.

“What did I say to insinuate that I think I’m better than you?” I asked, pressing my hand against his chest to move him away, but he quickly caught my hand and gripped it tightly, maybe even painfully if pain was something I could feel.

“What was that shit you pulled the other day in the hallway, huh?” He asked.

“Let go of me.” I hissed, and he smirked in an almost challenging way.

“Make me.” He growled. I felt something swelling up within me. This anger that I wasn’t at all familiar with coupled with something else. I felt my body begin to shake, and I forcibly grabbed his wrist with the hand that he was holding me, and his eyes widened for a split moment before I flipped him onto his back. He grunted as I stood up and moved away from him, looking down at my own two hands as though they weren’t mine.

“Shit…” Bakugou cursed under his breath before sitting up, and rubbing at the back of his head. He shot me a bewildered look before standing straight up and marching over to me. He looked me over expectantly before clicking his tongue, and heading for the door. He froze just before walking through, and glanced back at me over his shoulder.

“Bathroom’s down the hall on the left… dinner’s at 5:30… and don’t touch any of my shit!” He spat before shutting the door behind him roughly. I sighed before shaking my head, and pulling my laptop from my bag. I settled in on the bed, and began surfing the web in hopes of winding down, and ignoring what had just happened with my quirk. I had never been able to use it that way before… then again, no one has ever made me feel so frustrated before either.

“Hm?” I hummed in thought as my eyes caught a glimpse of a flashy headliner. I clicked on the link as the webpage opened completely.

“UA RECOMMENDATION EXAM REPORTED TO BE REWARDING HIGHEST RANKING ENTRANT 55,300,000!”

All I could do was stare at the screen with my mouth hanging open, unable to think or speak. 

It seemed all too easy, enter the exam, pass with the highest score, and win the money that I would need to get mom the surgery she needed… an additional  1,152,320¥ never hurts either… I quickly began looking up anything and everything that I could about this exam, and found out quite a bit about it relatively quickly.

“Let’s see… consists of a written exam, practical exam, and an… interview…? Alright, no problem, but… what would I do about references? That would be the main thing I need, right?” I mumbled to myself and groaned before flopping backwards onto the bed.

I can’t believe I’m even playing with thoughts like these. To think I’d even stand a chance against anyone who’s recommended to UA? It may seem like easy money, but now that I think about it, there’s no way it would be that easy. There was suddenly a gentle knock at the door, and I quickly stood from the bed to answer it.

“Mrs. Bakugou, I’m sorry was I being too loud?” I asked, and she chuckled before waving me off, and shooting me a smile.

“Not at all dear! I just came up to check and see how you were getting settled.’ She said, and I nodded before giving her a thankful smile.

“Oh yes, I’m fine. You have a beautiful home.” I said, and she smiled even brighter.

“Aren’t you the sweetest, thank you!” She giggled before banging her fist once against the door directly behind her before shouting.

“YOU HEAR THAT, KID?! WHY CAN’T YOU BE SWEET LIKE HER?!” Mrs. Bakugou shouted.

“WOULD YOU SHUT IT, YOU OLD HAG?! I’M TRYIN’ TO STUDY!” Bakugou shouted back. So, his room was directly across from mine…? Good to know. I thought sarcastically.

“WHY YOU-” I cut her off before she had a chance to shout again. She looked as though she were about to break down his door.

“Bakugou is actually a pretty nice guy at school!” I blurted out before I could think. She froze, and turned to me with a skeptical look.

“That’s not what I’ve heard…” She said, her brow furrowing.

“What? No, really. He helped me to find my locker and the cafeteria on my first day of school, and he’s always willing to help out when I need a partner during study period.” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie. He had helped me find my locker and the cafeteria on the first day… he just wasn’t super polite about it. As for the study partner thing, really we had just been paired up together by the teacher, and did our own work silently.

“He may seem a little harsh at first, but Bakugou is someone who is really very dedicated to his goal of becoming a pro hero. I admire him for not being afraid to speak his mind about things… it’s a quality I wish I had.” I admitted, and I suddenly found myself wondering why I was suddenly singing Bakugou’s praises when I didn’t really know two things about the guy.

“You’re too sweet, (F/N)... by the way, you’re welcome to call me Mitsuki.” She offered, and I nodded politely. She turned towards Bakugou’s door again, and lifted her hand ready to bang on it once more, but after a moment her body seemed to relax as though she had second thoughts, and she lightly knocked instead.

“Supper will be ready in about an hour, hon.” She said gently. After a moment of silence, Bakugou responded. “Whatever…” His voice sounded tired almost, but it held no anger. Mitsuki smiled gently before giving me a small nod, and heading downstairs. Somehow I felt good about what I did, and turned to return to my room, only to be met by the sound of Bakugou’s door creaking open.

“So what’s your deal, huh?” He asked. I looked up to see him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed, and a bored expression on his face. I shrugged before resting my elbow against the doorframe, and pushing my hair back out of my eyes.

“I don’t know… I guess maybe you just don’t hear it as much as you should.” I said. His eyes lowered to the floor as though he were considering something.

“Hear what?” He asked. I swallowed hard, knowing what it was I was wanting to say, but I wasn’t sure how he would react.

“You’re a good guy, Bakugou… and I know you’ve built this reputation as the school’s hot head or whatever, but… I can tell by how hard you work that you truly do want to be a hero… and I don’t think you’d want to be a hero if you didn’t like people.” I said, and he remained silent, now resting his head against the door frame, and looking off down the hall.

“You’re so full of shit.” He spat, somewhat taking me by surprise, but I didn’t let it show.

“The other day, you were telling me to ‘grow up’... saying shit like ‘you’re not very heroic’- such bullshit.” He hissed, and for some reason an unfamiliar sensation hit me directly in the center of my chest before spreading to the rest of my body.

‘Is this… pain…?’ I thought to myself. Without realizing, my hand had come up and grabbed my shirt directly over my chest. My breathing began to increase, and my skin began to feel warm and flush.

“What is it? Just now realizing I’ve called you out on your bullshit?” He asked, crossing his arms again and smirking in an unnerving way.

“What? No, that’s not-” My breathing only increased, but it felt like all the air in my lungs had left me. I felt my eyes begin to burn as tears began to slide down my cheeks uncontrollably.

“Wh- hey. What’s wrong with you?” He asked, and I felt my body begin to shake as sobs began to rack my body.

“Shit, hey-” He kneeled beside me, and I hid my face from him. I’d never felt this way before in my life. As though someone had lit a fire at the center of my chest, but the rest of my body remained cold as Ice. How is it even possible to be freezing, and yet sweat at the same time?

“Calm your breathing and relax.” He said, his voice lower, and I felt him rest his hand on my back awkwardly, not knowingly exactly where to put it. After a moment I seemed to calm down, but I was still in shock at what had just happened.

“Wh-what… what was that…?” I mumbled to myself.

“You just had a fucking panic attack.” Bakugou said, now sitting on the floor next to me, and resting his head back against the wall. I could feel him watching me carefully, and after a moment he sighed.

“Look I… I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t think sayin’ that would… cause a panic attack alright? I always thought you didn’t have emotions.” He said.

“I… I usually don’t feel anything. Pain, anger, fear, sadness… I can absorb it back into my body, channel it and use the energy to heal myself or others…” I said, and suddenly realized I hadn’t ever really explained how my quirk worked before.

“So that’s what happened the other day? You didn’t block my attack, you absorbed it?” He asked, and I nodded.

“And that’s how you healed yourself?” He asked, and again I nodded.

“Yes… the stronger the quirk, the faster I heal.” I said, and he just stared ahead at the wall.

“Well… it’s not the shittiest quirk I’ve ever heard of.” He said, and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. We sat in silence for a bit longer before I spoke again.

“I need to get into UA on recommendation.” I said, and his entire body stiffened.

“WH- THE HELL DID YOU JUST SAY?!” He demanded, and I sighed.

“It’s not what you think okay, so don’t blow a fuse.” I said. I passed him my phone with the headline on it, and his eyes quickly skimmed over it.

“Yeah, I heard about that… so then what’s the deal? I thought you weren’t tryin’ to be a hero.” He said, and I ignored the fact that he knew that about me, and took my phone back from him.

“I… I just need the money, alright?” I admitted. I pulled my knees to my chest before resting my arms on top, and then my chin.

“What do you need with a shit-ton of cash like that?” He asked, and I laughed humorlessly. He didn’t respond after a moment of silence, so I sighed, and felt my brow furrow.

“Katsuki, (F/N) dinner’s ready!” Mitsuki called.

“HOLD YOUR HORSES WE’RE COMIN’!” Bakugou shouted back, but I was already standing.

“We should go eat. School in the morning.” I said, and he looked up at me with a stoic expression before standing himself and walking towards the stairs. I walked past him at the top of the stairs, and he grabbed my arm to stop me before I could continue.

“We’re not done yet.” He said, holding my gaze for several moments before turning away, and descending the stairs. I lightly brushed my fingers across my arm where he’d grabbed me, and felt an odd tingling sensation where his hand had been.

“I’m losing my mind…” I mumbled to myself before descending the stairs, and stepping into the dining room.

“Here you go (F/N) I’ve saved you a spot right next to Katsuki.” Mr. Bakugou said whilst drying his hands on a kitchen towel as Mrs. Bakugou finished placing the final plate of food on the table. I nodded silently before taking the seat I had been offered.

“The coordinator gave us a list with some of your favorites, so I made you some kakitama jiru!*” She exclaimed, very pleased with herself.

“It looks great, thank you Mrs. Bakugou.” I said, smiling kindly as I spooned it into a bowl along with some crispy noodles and a spoonful of green onions on top. The aroma was intoxicating, and I felt myself relax somewhat at the familiar smell.

“Would you like some Beef?” Mr. Bakugou offered, holding the plate out to me. I nodded before plucking a few pieces out, and placing them neatly on my plate before adding some steamed veggies and rice. Everything looked and smelled amazing. I couldn’t recall eating in the last few days, so this was more than welcomed.

“Have you had any news on your mother?” Mrs. Bakugou asked, and I felt the color immediately drain from my face. Any appetite I previously had was gone now. I lowered my chopsticks from my mouth before I could take a bite of food, and felt my hand shake slightly.

“Oh… uh… no ma’am. Nothing yet.” I said plainly, hoping she would just drop it.

“Oh… well, I’m very sorry to hear about what happened. We really hope she gets out of the hospital soon.” She said, and I felt my eyes drop to the table, suddenly intently focused on the pattern of the tablecloth, and nothing else. I wanted everything to fade away, and be silent. I wanted to be by myself where no one could see me like this because it was all new to me as well.

“Um… th-thanks…” I silently cursed myself for stuttering. They probably couldn’t tell I was uncomfortable since my body language wasn’t showing it. Would it be disrespectful to tell them that I was uncomfortable?

“Hey, we’re gonna eat upstairs.” Katsuki spoke up suddenly, his voice breaking through the haze of my hectic thought process.

“Huh? But you’ve already sat down.” Mrs. Bakugo said, dejected.

“I’ve been havin’ some trouble with English lately… she said she’d tutor me, so…” He lied, but I kept my mouth shut. Mrs. Bakugou looked utterly dumbfounded, but quickly smiled.

“Oh, of course!” She said gleefully. Katsuki grabbed his bowl, and I grabbed mine. I said my goodbyes as we ascended the stairs once more, and he all but forced me into my room. I placed the bowl down, and took a few deep breaths.

“Shit…” I mumbled to myself once my breath had come back.

“What’s going on with you? Why do you keep freaking out?” Bakugou scoffed, and I swallowed hard.

“Look, I’m not used to feeling emotions like this, okay?” I said, a bit more anger behind my tone than I had probably intended.

“Turn your shitty quirk back on then…” He said, as though it were the easiest thing.

“I… I can’t… I don’t know why but for some reason, I can’t.” I said, and he lifted an eyebrow.

“What you said before… when you said I’m ‘full of shit’... I don’t know how, or why, but for some reason or other, it caused my quirk to dissipate. That’s why I freaked out.” I said.

“So… you turn off your quirk, and you have a panic attack, or what the hell?” He asked, and I shook my head.

“No, no… look, I’ve had my emotions shut off since I was a child… sometimes they slip out, but I’ve always been able to keep them under control until a little while ago. At that time, I dunno…” I trailed off, taking a few breaths before continuing.

“I guess all the emotions that I’ve been holding back hit me at once.” I concluded, and Bakugou continued to sit there in silence.

“Why turn them off?” He asked, and the question caught me off guard.

“What?” I asked.

“Your emotions. Why turn them off?” He asked again, slightly annoyed this time at having to repeat himself.

“Oh… I dunno. It just seemed easier I guess.” I answered honestly. After a moment Katsuki stood with his bowl in hand, and headed for the door.

“Whatever… I’m goin’ back to my room.” He said, and something made me ask. “Bakugou…?” I called out, and he stopped to turn and look back at me.

“How did you know I was having a panic attack… I mean- how did you know how to handle it?” I asked, and his eyes widened momentarily before his brow creased in its usual pissed off manner.

“What the hell kinda question is that, dumbass!” He huffed before throwing the door open and storming out before shutting it behind him. I blinked a few times before sighing and shaking my head. I’ll never understand how this guy’s brain works… but maybe that’s for the best. I sat at the desk with the bowl of soup in front of me, and sighed as I picked at it with my chopsticks. The noodles were mush at this point, and the broth was surely cold. I pushed the bowl away, and stepped towards the bed. After moving my laptop and the clothes aside, I curled myself up on the comforter with my head resting against the plush pillow, and felt my eyelids growing heavier by the second. After a few deep breaths, I felt my body relax into the mattress, and sleep finally found me.

[kat-hawke]

The Not-So-Dead

(Following [Visitations])

As Kat preferred it, the hospital room was silent, aside from the various ambient sounds of neighboring rooms and the shuffle of medical staff in the hall as they would pass by. It was the final day she would be confined to the bed, the glorified prison, and she passed the time reading over the last chapter of the naval strategy book Alexa had left her. Out of the corner of her eyes, she caught a figure appearing in the doorway, assuming it to be a staff member.

"You look like shit." A familiar voice piped up with a smile.

Kat looked up again as her heart dropped upon recognizing the voice, those striking blue eyes were hard to miss, and she froze in shock. Immediately she began to tell herself this wasn't real; that it was another dream, a nightmare, and waited for something twisted to happen. Her eyes widened at the corners as if she had seen a ghost, and the lower lip began to tremble. Kat closed the book in her lap with a shaking hand and set it on the bedside table, refusing to look away from Riley. A breath hitched in her throat as she continued to stare, silently before an inhale was sucked in through shuttering teeth and water pooled at the bottom of her eyes.

That was all it took for Riley's walls to come crumbling down as she dropped the usual attitude she wore like armor, and her own eyes quickly began to well up at their corners. She rounded the corner of the bed in only a few strides, setting down at its edge, and with as much care as she could muster in the moment, gently wrapped her arms around Kat's shoulders and pulled her into an embrace she would be reluctant to pull away from for some time. "I was only kidding," she murmured, as tears began to spill freely down her face, "you don't look -that- bad..."

Physical contact. She was in reality. This was real, Riley was truly here.

Without hesitation, Kat curled her arms around Riley and nestled into the crook of her neck, and began to sob. A chuff of air pushed out, and Kat shook her head. She knew Riley was joking about the appearance. "I thought ya' were dead. Riley, I..." She choked on her words as her arms squeezed around the woman in front of her. "Days turned t'weeks, weeks t'months. I needed ya', I needed ya' so badly, and the only way I could cope was convincin' m'self ya' were gone. Forever. Now yer here and I just—" Another hard sob lurched in her chest as tears poured over each cheek, turning just enough to place her lips gently on Riley's jaw.

"That makes two of us, yeah?" Riley managed to choke out some semblance of response between her own shaking sobs as she held onto Kat. "Last time I saw you... I was so fucking afraid you'd die in that tent. Feels like I spent a lifetime looking for any trace of where you were, not knowing if you were alive or dead..." she trails off, shaking her head. Leaning back, she took Kat's face in both her hands and pressed a lingering kiss to Kat's forehead. Her eyes close for a moment before she leans back once more to meet Kat's noticeably dulled gaze. "Never been so glad to be wrong in all my life."

"Makes two of us. Never been so happy t'be so wrong." Kat echoed back in a whisper as her eyes peeled open to meet Riley's gaze, a smile creeping through the trembling lips. Dulled amber hues shifted searchingly across Riley's face as the tears continued to spill over uncontrollably, the upper row of teeth raking over the lower lip as another shuttered breath was sucked in. Confirmation that it was indeed Riley who showed up while Kat was in a coma, a fact that opened up so many more painful questions.

"So it was ya' Benson talked about. I couldn't believe it. I had so many doubts." Kat's eyes narrowed in a painful expression as another sob lurched from her core, and the river of tears picked up. "I'm so sorry, Riley. I didn't want ya' t'see me like that; I didn' want anyone t'see me like that. I heard ya', wot ya' said t'me then, in th' tent. I thought it was my mind playin' more tricks, but now I know it wasn't."

Riley flinched at the mention of Benson's name, sucking a breath through her teeth as a wincing smirk took residence on her features. "Ehhh, yeah. That was me..." she paused, taking a quick glance over her shoulder as if the doctor herself would appear out of thin air. "Bit of a hard-ass, that one," she whispered, looking back to Kat with a small chuckle in her throat, "but I suppose it would take a hard-ass to keep you here in this bed long enough to recover." Unable to stop herself, Riley pulled Kat in for another tight hug, nodding gently. "I love you," she murmured, as though she was afraid she wouldn't get another opportunity to say it. "Don't ever scare me like that again, and I promise to do the same..."

"Last day in this fuckin' bed," Kat breathed, "she's th' only one with my full file. Better th' devils ya' know, I suppose." Wrapping back up in Riley's embrace, Kat rested her chin on the woman's shoulder, holding her tight as if she'd disappear upon letting go. 

Hearing those three words nearly made her heart drop and a breath caught as she closed her eyes again. Slowly she pressed lips beneath Riley's ear and broke all her own rules as she whispered those three words right back. "I love you."

Riley was the only one who sat within the line between business and personal relationships, something Kat vehemently would keep separate, yet refused to admit the exception with this only person.

Kat leaned back with a sniffle, the faintest hint of a smile touched the corners of her lips as she looked into those piercing blue eyes. "I'll hold ya' t'that promise Riley Flynn, all th' way t'my grave."

Another choked sob escaped Riley's throat as she gave one last tight squeeze before meeting Kat's gaze once more. "Let's not be in a rush to get there, yeah?" A softly-rolling chuckle accompanied the gentle tease as she wiped away a few tears from Kat's cheek with the edge of her thumb. "No more talk of graves. Not for a while, at least." Her hands fell to cradle one of Kat's between them.

With a shallow nod in agreement, Kat smiled faintly as Riley wiped the tears from her cheek. "Yeah," she whispered, glancing down as her hand was cradled. Her thoughts were spinning, but she failed to find the words to voice them all.

"One more day. Good." Riley nodded slowly. A knowing look shared between them in the brief silence that followed. "Suppose it would be pointless to say we've got a lot of catching up to do, but here I am, saying it anyway."

Slowly Kat rolled her thumb over the upper hand's edge in which hers was cradled, smirking as Riley stated the obvious. "A lot is an understatemen', luv'." As Kat's eyes trailed upward they stopped on the azerite stone around Riley's neck. Tentatively her free hand reached for it, the wrist resting on Riley's chest as fingers hovered an inch from the stone before curling away, resisting the urge to touch it, knowing what would happen if she dared to make contact.

The necklace identical to the one she always wore, knowing exactly where it came from. The desk in her home office. "I'm sorry..." Kat's calm tone was heavy with guilt, knowing now that Riley had seen her home's condition and the evidence of the hard, rock-bottom spiral. This also confirmed that it was Riley who found Alyssa's dagger, a thought that caused a knot to twist in her stomach instantly.

"No," Riley shook her head, pulling in a slow breath as she gently lifts Kat's chin with the crook of her finger, "-I'm- sorry." The words, while simple, pained Riley deeply  — and that much was evident in her gaze. "You needed me here, and I wasn't here. Not that I can say for certain that it would have changed the outcome, but I would've done my damndest to keep you from going down whatever path it was that led you here."  Dark brows furrowed, and another sigh exhaled through the nose. "We've both got plenty of things to be sorry about, but needing help isn't one of 'em. I should have been here. Even if it was just to listen to one of your whiskey-fueled rants. I should have been here."

"And ya' needed me, and I wasn' there!" Kat immediately protested. "I should have looked harder, focused more on findin' ya', on makin' sure ya' were okay. But instead, I spiraled and got lost in th' dark." Shaking her head, Kat let out a shaky sigh "Yer right... Yer right, but I'm still sorry. Fer everything. I won't make that mistake again. Ever." Kat's hand abandoned the azerite stone and pushed a stray raven strand behind Riley's ear as she looked into the bright blue eyes before she painfully inquired, "Wot happened to ya'?"

"You fucking better not," she half-teased, shifting the stone to the side so it could be tucked away beneath her shirt, which Kat watched with a distant stare. The sight of azerite triggered a buried addiction that scratched toward the surface.

While seemingly simple, the question gave Riley a noticeable pause as she searched her thoughts for words she hadn't yet been able to find since she herself returned. "It's... complicated." She began, pulling in a slow breath to exhale a sigh soon after. "Something— someone, from my past. It was a door I tried to close a long time ago. Tried to close it, lock it, and bury it forever, if I'm being honest." She paused again, her gaze briefly distant. "The past doesn't like being buried, as it turns out." 

A shaky chuckle rumbled in her throat. "When we can talk on our own - when your out of this bed - I promise, I'll tell you everything. I have a feeling we'll both need a few drinks, and I doubt Benson would let me sneak a bottle in here..."

Kat's expression shifted, brows knitting at Riley's distant stare, sharing the ambient pain the topic brought. Her lips twitched at the corners, and the ghost of a smile made an appearance as she fingers pulse around Riley's hand, a silent reminder that she was still here. "I know the feelin' when the past won't stay buried. We've always carried that with us, ya' and I, haven't we?" The query was rhetorical, and a soft chuckle hung in the back of Kat's throat.

"I get t'go home tomorrow, and I could really use a fuckin' drink. They won't allow a single sip in here." Aside from the shots worth that Sarah had been sneaking her, that is. "We can get rightly shitfaced and catch up lon' into th' night. Think I still got a wretched bottle of absinthe stuck behind th' whiskey."

Riley's nose wrinkled at the mention of absinth, but even her wince was mirthful as a chuckle spilled past her lips. "Normally, I'd tell you to keep that shit stuck right where it is, but given the way this year's been going, I figure we might need something with some decent potency behind it."

"Don' worry, we'll stop at absinthe and no' get into hard drugs." Kat teased, even if it was in poor taste, considering her downward spiral.

They both chuckled with a smile that reached their tear-stained eyes, letting the moment linger to appreciate each other's company, fingers gently gliding over one another. Kat was unable to peel her gaze from the striking blue eyes across from her, afraid this was all another dream, and Riley would vanish the second she turned away.

"I fucking missed you." The sincerity in that simple statement was palpable and wholly understated at the same time. "You got someone to see that you make it home and get yourself settled alright? I know you've had more than enough people worrying about you, but unless someone stopped by your place and cleaned up a bit..." she trailed off.

"And I fuckin' missed ya'." Kat immediately echoed back, equally sincere as she let the freehand rest atop Riley's between them, now it was her turn to cradle a hand. "Are ya' implyin' I can't manage t'get home by myself? Or was it a subtle offer?" Kat teased a bit through a weak smirk.

Riley only narrowed her eyes at Kat's remark, but couldn't keep the smirk from tugging subtly at the corner of her mouth all the same; it was very in-line with their usual humor. "I know you're tougher than most of those twits walking around in full suits of plate, with actual skills to back up that attitude, but I was only -mostly- joking when I walked in here." The tease was gentle, though carried an inescapable truth, given Kat's current physical state.

"Twit-plates." Kat smiled as she spoke the mocking nickname. Her head dipped, looking down at the overlapping hands for a moment as Riley continued to talk.

"And there's nothing subtle about the offer — if you don't have anyone already planning on seeing you safely home, then I'll be the one to do it myself. I know you're probably aching for some time to yourself, but you'll need someone to help get you settled at the very least."

Kat looked to Riley with another soft smile, glancing upward through a few errant strands of raven hair that cascaded down over the brows. "No plans of such. I'm sure yer no' surprised t'hear that I was going t'just stroll out of here and all th'way home. But, if yer going t'insist then I guess I am unable t'refuse." One shoulder rose in a faint shrug as her head moved, tossing the longer than usual hair over one shoulder.  "I've had nothin' but time alone over the last month or so, and if I'm bein' honest, I really don't want t'be left with my thoughts, at least no' fer a while."

Behind that vague confession lay pain, evident in Kat's eyes. She was quick as always to deflect, wiping away the expression and leaning closer to Riley to tease again. "Skip leavin' a bouquet of flowers t'find when I open th' door though."

"O,h c'mon, you know me better than that," she shot back, chuckling through her words, "can't promise I won't have a celebratory bottle of something higher-end waiting for you, though. Or a decent meal."

Uncontrollably Kat's lips twitched at the mention of a meal, a mixture of pain and happiness lasting only a second before it flitted away. Memories flashed in her mind of the long nights where Alyssa would have a hot meal waiting for her. It had become their routine, and that simple mention threatened to dredge up every emotion attached to the memories.

Reaching forward, Riley pushed Kat's hair back over her shoulder, taking a moment to realize just how long it had grown, but decidedly kept that observation for herself. "We can both keep our demons at bay for a little while. Deal?"

Kat couldn't help but poorly stifle a chuckle of her own to Riley's response, nodding once in agreement. A celebratory bottle she could handle. "Might want t'make it two bottles, one fer ya' and one fer me." Her eyes shut as the hand pushed her hair, head, moving with the motion to assist, she drew a slow breath and held in before exhaling softly. Touch starved, blatantly so, as a subtle curve in the lips and corners of the eyes emerged with the soft touch to the raven strands. "Deal," Kat answered firmly in an affectionate tone as the dimmed eyes opened again.

Pulling Kat back into her arms — into an embrace that edged on protective — Riley just held her for a moment in comfortable silence. A few tears escaped without warning, racing down Kat's cheeks and landing on Riley's shoulder.

"Two bottles," she murmured, nodding as she leaned back and wiped an errant tear from her own cheek.

Smiling through a quiet sob as Riley confirmed two bottles, Kat whispered through a hitched breath, broken chuckle, and a faint smile. "I fuckin' love you." Watching as Riley wiped away her tear, she noticed another stray droplet clinging to the edge of her lips, and with the tip of her thumb, Kat reached up to wipe it away.

"Think a certain larger-than-life fox'll be pretty happy to see you again. I stopped by a few times to leave him something from the butcher, though that was mostly for my own benefit than his actually -needing- anything." She laughed softly, another sigh as she gently cradled the side of Kat's face for a moment and teased. "I should probably let you rest before I get chased out of here."

"That cranky bastard always seemed t'like ya' more than did me," her eyes rolled quickly, "at least ya' two had each other." With another slow breath and long blink, Kat couldn't help but press her into the hand, which cradled the side of her face, lips instinctively pressing a kiss to the base of the thumb. "I don't want ya' t'go," she admitted in a somber tone, "but yer right, Benson will chase ya' out before long."

"And I don't want to leave," she affirmed her own hesitation, not having to voice the implication that she feared, somehow, if she walked out that door, Kat would somehow disappear. Subtly she passed a small enchanted stone into Kat's hand, a familiar communication method, which Kat quickly whisked beneath the sheet in her lap. "You need anything, between now and when you're out of here, you tell me. I won't be far."

There was an unshakable sincerity to her words, an unspoken promise that she was already making good on her promise to be there when Kat needed her. Pulling her gently forward, Riley tilted her chin down until their foreheads came to rest against one another, her eyes closed in that moment of tender affection. "Alright," she breathed a sigh, motivating herself to actually move as she stood from the bed — but not before leaving another press of her lips against Kat's forehead. "Rest up. Don't give Benson any excuse to keep you here longer, yeah?" As she smiled down at Kat, a gentle squeeze was given to her hand.

A few gentle nods to convey understanding as another small smile creased her lips, picking up on how promptly Riley was looking to make good on her promise. Kat let the moment of silence linger peacefully as their foreheads rested together, holding back a winch when Riley finally spoke to motivate herself to move. Kat sat there and watched, biting the inside of her lip, sharing the fear that the other would disappear once through the door. "The papers were already signed; she can't keep me here any longer." Returning the squeeze to her hand, Kat reluctantly let her digits slide free and collect on her thigh.

"I'm not above breaking you out of this joint, if it comes to that," she winked, reaching down to give Kat's wrist one final, reassuring squeeze. "Sleep well. We'll have you home before you know it." With that, Riley seemed to have to force herself to turn and head for the door, but not before pausing just passed the threshold to look back at Kat with a smile — it was a smile that said more in its silence than words could suitably convey, and only then did she continue down the hallway towards the stairs.

Kat had to bite back a smile, stifling a laugh. "Nobody else I'd like t'be a fugitive with," she teased as Riley began to leave. From her seat on the bed Kat could only watch as the woman exited, content to let the silence linger as she would move through the door. Knees bent, and legs pulled in against her chest, arms draping over the shins as a tear-stained chin propped against the kneecap. Riley's pause in the doorway was unexpected, and the smile she shot across the room coaxed one of the very same nature to Kat's lips.

Even after Riley was long out of sight, Kat continued to stare into the empty doorway as thoughts began to churn again. There was no mention of Alyssa, which sparked a great sense of concern in Kat's heart. For a moment, she worried that Alyssa had forfeited her life in the process of saving her's. The pain of such a thought was sharp, like a dagger to the gut, and tears threatened to fall again.

[ @blue-eyedraven​] [ Mentioned: @preyontheweak​, @alyssa-ward​, @tirasiantrouper​ ]

( [Chapter I] [Chapter II] [Chapter III] [Chapter IV] ) ( [pt.I] [pt.II] [pt.III] [pt.IV] )

[s-trawberryv-eins]

The Birthday

NOT MY GIF

The Birthday

Summary: Caroline Stark died in the snap that wiped out half of the population of the universe. She died two months before her 21st birthday. She was brought back to life in the October after what would've been her 26th. On the evening of what should be her 27th birthday, she feels as though she doesn't know who she should be anymore.

Warnings: Angst, loneliness, swearing. Not as sad as it seems though!

Please read here before reading!

Stark!OC x avengers

Word count: 3308

The Caroline Stark Series Masterlist

AUGUST 11th, 2024

AVENGERS COMPOUND

UPSTATE NEW YORK

As she lay with her head in Pepper’s lap, she made no effort to fight the hot tears that built up in her chocolate brown eyes. Delicate fingers worked through soft hair that spilled across her lap. Watching the girl with a look of heartbreak in her eyes, a sigh fell from Peppers lips.

“Please talk to me, baby.” Pleading with the girl in front of her, she felt at a loss. Having her daughter come back from the dead was a miracle; something she'd lost all hope for in the first few months after the snap. It never occurred to her the trauma Caroline now carried on her shoulders, however. Here they were, Caroline laying with her adoptive mother, sobs wracking her body on the eve of her birthday.

“How old am I, Momma?” Caroline had asked an hour earlier when she arrived at the Stark women’s quarters from the lab. Peppers heart broke for the girl, distress written clearly on every one of her delicate features. The woman said nothing, instead she simply sat on the couch and opened her arms wide for her daughter.

As it drew closer to midnight, the eldest Stark daughter couldn’t find the energy to be excited. She couldn't find the want to be excited. Tear stained cheeks red and puffy, eyes sore and bloodshot, the Potts woman wracked her brain for a way to cheer her daughter up, and perhaps salvage her birthday even the slightest bit.

“Am I 20 or am I 26? Because there’s a big difference, you know?” Stuttering through her speech, she couldn’t catch her breath. “Do you remember what we had planned for my 21st? Me, you, and Dad were gonna go to Coney Island? Fairground rides and hot dogs and a bonfire on the beach?"

“Yes, and then you were going to see Amelie and the others, and pretend it was your first-time drinking.” A sly smile crossed Pepper’s face as her daughters’ eyes widened comically.

“Dad promised he wouldn’t tell!”

“Tony knew?!” The brief silence quickly dissolved into giggles as the two women recalled the memories fondly.

-

“I know it’s last minute, but it’s really important!” Pepper spoke with equal parts frustration and excitement as she worked to pull her thoughts together. Caroline had long since fallen asleep on the couch, a blanket placed delicately over her sleeping form. After the less than cheery conversation the two shared, the CEO decided she knew exactly how to cheer the girl up.

“Barnes, I swear to all that’s holy this had better work!” Setting her phone down on the coffee table, she headed off to bed, knowing tomorrow would be a roller coaster of a day.

-

AUGUST 12th, 2024

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAROLINE” The loud girlish scream startled Caroline awake. Propping herself up on her elbows, Pepper met her eyes, offering her a sympathetic smile. Morgan, upon deciding she was simply not close enough, hopped up on to the sofa, all but climbing on top of her sister. A blinding smile and a big cuddle from the youngest Stark wasn’t a bad way to start the morning, Caroline thought to herself.

“Thankyou, baby.” Planting a kiss on her head, the scientist reached for her mother, who wasted no time in joining the sisters in their cuddle.

“We’ve got a surprise waiting for you in the kitchen.” Trying to muster up some enthusiasm was proving to be difficult, so she plastered on a fake smile and headed upstairs to change. Despite the early August sun shining down without relent, she pulled on a black sports bra and leggings, and threw her favourite black cropped jumped on over the top. Comfort over anything else, she decided. Jogging back downstairs, Morgan grabbed her sister’s hand and tugged her firmly in the direction of the communal kitchen.

Much to her relief, it was almost empty. As the three Stark ladies entered the room, they were greeted by FRIDAY, and Bucky Barnes.

“Good morning, Caroline! Happy birthday!" Thanking the AI, she placed Morgan on one of the kitchen stools before trying and failing to catch the Winter Soldiers attention, too engrossed in whatever he was cooking.

“I need to head to my office for a little while. Will you two be okay?” Kissing each of the girls on the forehead, they watched silently as their mother went off to work.

“Bye, Momma” Morgan piped up when Pepper was definitely out of earshot, earning a look of confusion from Caroline. “Uh…Uncle Buck?” Watching the soldier with entertainment, she reached out with tiny hands to grab a handful of napkins, throwing them haphazardly in his direction.

“UNCLE BUCK!” Spinning on his heels, cheeks flushed red and a lazy smile on his face, Morgan waved innocently. Receiving a wink and a high five from the soldier, a smile broke out across her face before she pointed at her sister. “It's sissy’s birthday.” The bluntness of her statement made him chuckle, but he simply nodded and motioned for the doctor to join him.

“Morning, Sergeant. What're you cooking?" As she rounded the corner of the island to have a nosy, he pulled her in for a sideways hug. Relishing in the feeling of being close to him, she hummed softly as he pressed a kiss to her hair.

“Happy birthday, doll. Pep told me that Tony always made pancakes on the day of; not that I've ever seen the man cook." A ghost of a smile appeared on her lips, the memory painfully bittersweet. The Winter Soldiers gesture left her heart fluttering and she made no effort to stop herself as she threw her arms around his middle.

“Thankyou, Bucky. It means more than you can know.” His surprised demeanour soon softened as he returned the embrace. Not feeling is necessary to respond with words, instead the sergeant tightened his grip on the girl, the pair enjoying the feeling of being so close.

“Smells like burning.” Morgan’s nose wrinkled as she inhaled deeply, her nonchalant comment sending the soldier into a panic.

“Your big sister distracted me!” Caroline rolled her eyes fondly but took her seat next to Morgan all the same, the moment being well and truly over.  Bucky plated up two portions of pancakes, toppings already set out before their arrival.

“Here you go! I’ve gotta run some errands with Sam, but I’ll catch you in a bit, yeah?” Sending a warm smile in the girls’ direction, he hurried out of the room. The sinking feeling of disappointment hit Caroline only briefly before her sister turned to face her.

"Are you and Uncle Bucky gonna get married?” taking the scientist entirely by surprise, Caroline struggled as a mouth full of pancake lodged itself in her throat awkwardly. After composing herself, she turned to meet her sisters’ eye.

“Where on earth did that come from?” The look on the youngest Stark’s face was one of complete innocence, as if she’d asked about the weather and not her sisters relationship status.

“You and Uncle Buck. You hug a lot and he makes your face red.” Pressing her hands to her cheeks, the doctor felt them grow warm as Morgan spoke. "Like that!” Shoving more food in her mouth, she tried to steady her heartbeat.

“If you must know, your uncle has made it quite clear that we are only friends. Now finish your food.” Throwing a piece of fruit at the small girl, she made it as obvious as she could that the topic was closed, despite the smile on Morgan’s face.

-

“FRIDAY, where’s momma?” The Stark girls had spent all morning in each other’s company,  wandering the compound and causing chaos, but they found that they were alone; with the exception of agents and officials they didn’t really know. Being a Stark had its benefits; Caroline had free reign of the compound, and the pair found that those that did catch them doing something they shouldn't were far more lenient upon realising who they were.

“She’s not here, Miss Morgan. Mrs Potts-Stark had to run a few errands. She’ll be home by 4.” A frown etched itself on to Caroline’s face, disappointed by her mother’s disappearance.

“Who is home then?” The AI created by Tony was all but a mind reader. It didn't matter how vaguely she was addressed, she always seemed to know what the team needed. Knowing that 'who' meant the team specifically, and ‘home’ meant their private living quarters, the AI responded immediately.

“Nobody, I’m afraid. It seems everybody is taking advantage of the peacetime, Miss Stark.”

Turning away from her sister with a huff, tears pricked at her eyes and that all too familiar lump formed in her throat. Yes, she’d requested her birthday remain a small, private affair, low key and homely. She hadn’t however, realised that this meant she’d be completely forgotten about. The sour taste in her mouth that appeared when she thought about this god-awful day was borne of confusion and grief and uncertainty. The last thing she wanted was to be completely alone.

As if sensing the shift in the room, Morgan took a gentle hold of Caroline hand, and began her trip across the green that separated the living quarters from her lab and workshop. The youngest Stark had access to the lab providing she was with an authorised adult; the measure had been taken after small hands had caused a rather large explosion when unsupervised - nobody was hurt, luckily.

Upon arriving in the lab, it took less than two seconds for Morgan to request her usual. “Do the suit.” Her statement offered no room for questioning, so Caroline planted her feet firmly on the pads in the corner of the room. Morgan watched with glee as the nanotech supersuit quickly covered every inch of Caroline’s body, travelling from the ground upwards. Inspired heavily by the Iron Man suit, she had used her fathers nanotech mark to create a stealth suit of her own. It lacked rocket launchers and the ability to fly, and she had changed the colour scheme somewhat; charcoal black with the iconic red of her father’s suit highlighting detail.

The changes were made to prove to everybody  - the public, the team, herself – that she is not taking his place; there would only ever be one Iron Man.

"You look like Daddy!” Awe poured out of her eyes, as if the sight before her was the most magical she'd ever seen. The comment hit Caroline straight in the heart, pride and love shining in her eyes.

The two played and tinkered for hours, loneliness only creeping back in that evening as the sun began to disappear. Morgan appeared restless, sighing and studying the clock on the wall with resolve, despite her inability to correctly tell the time.

“Miss Morgan, the little hand just hit 4.” Jumping to her feet, the smallest brunette yanked the goggles from her eyes, tossing them to the ground.

“We gotta go, Care!” Furrowed brows and delayed reactions caused Morgan to huff loudly. “I want juice pops, we gotta go!" Taking a stance behind her sister, Morgan began to push her sister with as much strength as she could muster.

“Okay, okay! I’m going! Stop pushing!” Failing to scold the child as she’d already raced off ahead of her, Caroline sighed, but picked up her pace all the same. Hearing the automatic doors open, Caroline ran faster, wanting to stop her sister from running off without her.

“Morgan! You can't just run off like that!" The two girls stood just outside the building, on the edge of the green. Only interested in her sister’s safety, Caroline hadn't yet taken in the change of scenery. "I was scared-" her words died on her tongue as she looked out around them.

The large expanse of grass had been transformed into what appeared to be a fairground. Fairy lights lit up the surrounding area, revealing a ferris wheel, and merry-go-round, and several other rides that sparked a heavy feeling of nostalgia in her heart. A popcorn machine and a hot dog stand and a fire pit with huge cushions and blankets surrounding it.

“What is this? Mo?” Her voice a breathless whisper as she spoke, tears pricking her eyes once again.

“It’s your birthday, baby.” A voice startled her, she spun around to find her mother and the rest of the team waiting. Her family.

“I KNEW ALL ABOUT IT.” Morgan made sure everybody knew about her part in the plan, the most important, she announced.

“Sorry for leaving you all day. We received instructions for mission not-so-impossible at two am.” Clint explained their absence with a bright smile on his face.

“We weren’t about to argue with Momma Stark here” Sam added with a wink. As she took in the overwhelming scene before her, she couldn’t stop the tears rolling down her cheeks. Two pairs of arms appeared around her, giggles filled her ears.

“Come on,” Wanda whispered, Nat smiling happily next to her.

“We made you your own Coney Island. Let’s go have fun.” Holding on to her two friends for a second or two more, she nodded her head, taking their hands in hers.

-

After 5 hours of candy floss and helter-skelter filled fun, the night had started to settle down. The group found themselves gathered around the fire pit, sharing drinks, snacks, and stories. The ‘adults’ – Pepper, Rhodey, Happy, and May – were ready to turn in for the night, only to find that Peter, MJ, and Morgan were perched a few feet off the ground in a hammock that Peter had cleverly created for youngest Stark, who was completely enamoured by her 'big brother’ and his spider-talent.

The Avengers were scattered about the pit, little conversations of all varieties taking place. Caroline, Wanda, and Sam were discussing an upcoming mission in Bucharest; Nat and Clint were taking turns trying to get Banners other half to join the party; Bucky and Steve were studying Steve’s phone as they tried to figure out how to queue a song that they liked.

“All I’m saying is, the four of us-“

“Stop saying that! There are three of us going on this mission!”

“Redwing is as much a member of this team as you or me, Maximoff. Don’t you forget it” Sam’s sassy response sent Caroline into a fit of giggles. After a few drinks, Sam became one of the girls; his snappy comebacks, bratty attitude, and overall lack of tolerance for anybody’s shit was impossibly entertaining. It definitely helped that the rest of them had a slight buzz too - even the super soldiers, thanks to Thor’s constant supply of Asgardian strength alcohol.

The warmth of the fire and the soft glow of the fairy lights brought a feeling of contentment to Caroline’s heart as she tuned out of her conversation to look around. She truly felt as though she was at home.

-

The fire had started to die down. Pepper had taken Morgan to bed, and Happy had taken May and Peter back to Queens. Steve, Banner, and Rhodey had also taken their leave, bidding the group good night and wishing Caroline a last happy birthday. The others stayed out, the drinks continued to flow, and the conversation did too. Natasha sat huddled in between Stark and Maximoff, the three exchanging private giggles and whispers, a conversation the boys were not privy to. As they discussed Caroline’s most recent (god awful) date, a very wobbly Bucky Barnes appeared in front of them, hastily shoving Natasha out the way to sit next to the birthday girl.

“Hey cutie.” After she’d stopped laughing, Wanda pulled her friend up and yanked her elsewhere, giving Barnes some time with Caroline.

“Hey Buck.” Beaming up at him, her mind flew to Morgan’s earlier comments. She’d long since accepted the fact that Bucky didn’t want her, but she couldn’t help the butterflies that refused to settle in her stomach when he was near.

“Sorry for running off so quick this morning. I wanted to stay, but these heroes needed my help setting up.” Shaking her head with a giggle, she insisted that he need not apologise, the pancakes were wonderful, and she managed with Morgan.

“I hear Morgan was asking questions?” His tone was teasing but his words tore the smile right off her face.

“Oh, uh – yeah,” she cringed as she spoke “I put her right though. Don’t worry.” Refusing to make eye contact, she missed the look of disappointment that passed over his features. Rubbing his hands on his thighs, Barnes sighed.

“Really messed up there, didn’t I?” Caroline’s head snapped up, brows furrowed. Bucky caught Natasha’s eye and nodded, which she took as a signal to drag everyone inside discreetly to give the two some privacy.

“What does that mean?” The Sergeant winced at the harsh edge to her tone, Hope dwindled in her eyes, along with uncertainty and fear. He’d broken her heart before, and she was impossibly sure that he could do it again if he wanted. “Bucky?”

“I was so cruel, that day in your lab. I never even apologised.” Now it was his turn to avoid her eyes. Her heart ached as she recalled the day he spoke of. "Didn't even say sorry. Because I am, Care. I am so sorry.” It’d never really crossed her mind. After their argument, she’d avoided him for a few days, trying to give herself space to heal. Things slowly returned to normal (especially after Bucky broke things off with his girlfriend), as if there'd been an unspoken agreement to forget about the whole ordeal.

Forcing a small smile and a nod seemed to be all she could manage to do. Nothing was said for a few moments, and whilst the silence wasn’t awkward, she did want to draw out her time with Bucky. Gently leaning into him, he picked up on the hint and let his flesh arm wind over her shoulder, covering them both with a blanket as he did so. Readjusting slightly, she positioned herself so that her back was against his chest, the two sat with legs stretched out on the giant cushions.

“So then, birthday girl. Did you decide how old you are?" His voice was a whisper, lips just barely grazing the shall of her ear. Inhaling sharply, she let herself fall deeper into his embrace, his arm shifting from the girl’s shoulder to sit firmly on her waist. The feeling left her dizzy, and she fought to compose herself. Letting her head fall back onto his shoulder, she closed her eyes.

“Yes actually, I did." Pausing to think for a moment, she searched for the right words; a challenge considering the tipsy haze making words difficult to find. Bucky simply waited for her answer. Pepper had explained her feelings, and he knew not to rush her.

“I’m 21. I’ve lost so much. Thanos took so much. I don’t think I should have to lose this too.” For the first time, the Stark girl didn’t feel like crying when talking about it.

“Well in that case –“ the softest of kisses was pressed to the side of her head “happy 21st birthday, Caroline.” Pulling herself from the soldier’s grip, she turned to face him. Just before she could open her mouth to respond, a loud crash followed by an eruption of drunken giggles sounded from behind them. Letting her forehead fall sharply against Bucky’s shoulder, he just chuckled and turned around to see what the commotion was.

Sam, Wanda, Clint, and Natasha were rolling around on the floor in their laughter, right next to a fallen popcorn machine. With a fond sigh, Bucky stood up and offered his hand to Caroline, pulling her up to join their friends.

It had truly been a tremendous birthday.

TAGS: @hailqueenconquer​

[monstersandmaw]

Male orc x reader (nsfw)

Edit which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

This one is a little bit different, and sort of happened by accident, which is why my Patreon supporters hadn’t met Noah before in any character profiles etc.

It comes with a couple of warnings for content, but it all happened in the past, and it's a story about moving forwards and reconnecting with the things that matter. It was deeply personal to me, and I really hope you enjoy reading it.

It's been on early release on my Patreon, and it’s time to release it on Tumblr now! It's partly set in Starfall Springs, and partly in the city.

Length: 6647 words Content: death of a child, suicide, loss of loved ones, alcoholism (all past), recovery, reconnecting with family

********************

The  orc that moved in next door to you was really quiet for an orc. True,  your only real experience of orcs to date had been the rugby club at  university, and their ‘legendary’ dorm parties, but still; he was very  quiet by any standards, let alone by orcish ones.

He  never had noisy lads’ nights in, never held rowdy garden parties as the  summer went on… The most noise he ever made was coming and going on his  motorbike at either end of the day. He just drove it into the garage in  the evening, unlocked and opened his front door door, closing it quietly behind him, and that was it.

One  afternoon, towards the beginning of summer, you stepped outside to clip  a few flowers from the sweet peas growing in the tubs at the front of  your house, and saw him sitting on the steps of his front porch, holding  something small and delicate between his big hands with his gaze fixed  on it.

You  paused, looking but trying not to stare. His shoulders, huge and broad  as they were, had the heavy slump of grief to them. You knew you should  leave him to the privacy of his reflections, but something about his  whole demeanour made you ache to go over there.

Glancing  down at the bunch of cut sweet peas in your hand, you sank your teeth  into your lower lip, sighed, and came to a decision.

The soles of your boots rang on the tarmac, and as you neared his driveway, he looked up.

You didn’t even know his name.

His  dark green skin practically gleamed in the late summer sunlight. He had  long, dark hair, as did so many orcs, and it was plaited back off his  handsome, rugged face, and as he glanced up, you found yourself staring  into two breathtakingly beautiful, dark amber eyes.

They  shone with a glaze of grief, and suddenly the flowers in your hands  felt utterly inadequate for the depth of this stranger’s feelings.

“I...” you faltered, guilt and awkwardness warring for prime position in your chest.

He  looked steadily up at you, his bare, muscular forearms resting on the  nondescript, beige material of the shorts covering his thick thighs.

“Hi,” he said in a gentle, deep, quiet voice.

“Hi,” you replied, swallowing thickly. “I... er...  I saw you while I was picking these,” you said and waggled the flowers a  little, “And I thought that since we haven’t really introduced  ourselves yet, I would pop over with them.”

His  already soft expression slackened a little into a genuine smile, and  something flopped over inside you at the sight of it. “Thank you,” he  murmured, that golden gaze sliding from your face to the flowers in your  hand.

As he lowered his head, you saw what it was he held in his hand, and your vision slid sideways for a moment.

A  small, child-sized bracelet dangled from his fingers. It was beaded,  the faded, dyed leather of the cord a dusky pink, and the letters of the  carved beads spelt out a girl’s name.

He  saw where your attention had snagged, and slowly closed his fingers  around it with a tiny, private smile. “I’m Noah,” he said.

You  introduced yourself by name, and he hitched his smile a little higher,  repeating your name, as if testing out the feel of it. He raised his arm  and extended his hand towards you. You shook hands and felt the smooth,  hard calluses of his warm palms against yours. His hand engulfed yours  and both of you chuckled softly at the sight of it.

One  evening a few days later, you heard the familiar rumble of his  motorbike driving into the garage as you began to wash up the dishes.  The regular rhythms of the suburban road were suddenly shifted, however,  when the click and snap of his front door did not sound, and instead  you heard your doorbell ring.

Wiping your hands on a towel, you left the pans in the sink and headed for the front door.

Standing on the step with a bunch of freesias in his hands was Noah.

“Hi,”  he said, that heart-stopping, slow-dawning smile lighting up his  clean-shaven face. “I wanted to get you something to say thank you for  the other evening. I know we didn’t talk for very long, but you did me a  world of good, and I wanted to thank you.”

You  stared at the lovely flowers, radiant in hues of magenta and gold, and  breathed in their delicate scent. “They’re beautiful,” you said. “But  you really didn’t have to...”

“I wanted to,” he insisted.

“Would  you like to come in? I’m just washing up the remnants of the pots and  pans, but there’s a curry in the slow cooker that will be ready in maybe  half an hour or so. You’re welcome to stay for dinner. I always make  enough food for about four people anyway and I just have it throughout  the week. I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

He  laughed his earthy laugh, eyes sparkling, and he said, “Sure. I’d love  to come in. It’s been a long time since I shared a meal with someone.”

“Oh?”  The question popped out of you as you stepped back to usher him inside.  He had to stoop a little to get through the doorway.

“I’m  on my own now,” was all the explanation he offered. “And I’ve not been  in a place where I want to think about dating or whatever. It’s nice to  make a new friend.”

“In that case, I’m glad,” you smiled.

Noah gazed around the simple house and his eyes went glassy again. “You like plants, I see,” he observed with a cheeky grin.

Your lips drew into a wry, thin line, and you chuckled. “They keep me company. Them, and Gawain.”

“Gawain?”

“My cat. Well, he’s not so much my cat as I’m his human.”

“Is  he the lean, black, bird-hunting machine I’ve seen prowling along my  back fence, I wonder?” Noah asked, eyes still crinkled at the corner.

“Probably.  You don’t want to know what he brings me back as ‘presents’ half the  time. Anyway, can I get you anything to drink? I’ve got a range of  stuff...”

“Just a glass of water or juice would be fine, thank you. I don’t drink alcohol.”

Another unusual fact about him to be silently filed away; a quiet orc who didn’t drink.

Your  surprise must have shown on your face because he snorted and said, “Not  anymore. I... I went through a bad patch about five years ago. Lost  control of a lot of things, if you get my meaning.”

“I do,” you said with quiet reassurance as you handed him a glass of juice. “Here.”

“Thanks.”  He nodded at the kitchen counter where the slow cooker sat, and inhaled  ostentatiously, his orcish nostrils flaring. “That smells amazing. Do  you always cook for yourself like that?”

You  nodded. “I try to cook a couple of times a week. It’s not all that much  fun cooking and eating a meal for one, but I’ve always enjoyed the act  of cooking, and I think I’m pretty good, so...” You shrugged. “I hope  it’s alright...”

“I  like cooking too,” he said. “Maybe we should cook for each other once a  week or something,” he suggested, following you into the sitting room  and easing himself onto the sofa after you’d settled into the chair by  the window.

He  watched the way you curled your legs up underneath you, and his eyes  lingered on you for a moment with something akin to nostalgia in them.  “I’d like that,” you smiled.  

You  began a regular rhythm after that. Every other Friday, he would come to  your house, and on the Fridays in between, you went over to his.  

It  was plain from the way he had furnished his house that he was deeply  connected to his orcish culture. He had a carved mammoth’s tusk in one  corner of the room which you knew represented the gods and spirits which  orcs worshipped, and he had rugs and wall hangings and cushions that  were all woven in traditional orcish fashion with orcish patterns and  colours. He never spoke about his family though, which struck you as a  little odd.  

Family  wasn’t a topic that came up until one Friday evening when you were  sharing a meal at his house. Noah sighed and set down his knife and  fork, food mostly finished. “I’ve loved doing this with you,” he began  awkwardly. “I… I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with.  Socially speaking, I’m quite hard work, I know.”

“I don’t find you hard work,” you said immediately. “I mean, you’re quiet, sure, but so am I. I think we just click, you know?”

Noah  smiled but it was a painfully sad smile. “I want to tell you  something,” he said. “It… It won’t be easy for me, but we’ve known each  other for almost a year now, and I want you to know.”

Your heart leapt to your throat, wondering what he was about to share with you. “Alright,” you said.  

He  sipped his water and inhaled deeply. “You’ve never asked me about my  family, for which I’m very grateful. You’re intuitive, and sensitive…  and… I’m sure you’ve worked out enough about what happened already, but  still, thank you for giving me that space. It’s not easy to talk about  this.”

“I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to share it,” you said. He smiled, eyes twinkling briefly with gratitude.  

“Well,”  he drew something from his pocket and turned his hand palm-up on the  table. It was the child’s bracelet you’d glimpsed on that first  afternoon all those months ago. Apparently he carried it around with him all the time. Kishara: the little carved beads spelt out the name ‘Kishara’.  “This… This belonged to my daughter,” he said, voice already cracking  with emotion. “She was pretty healthy when she was little, but as she  got a bit older, she got very sick. I married young, by human standards,  but it’s normal for orcs to marry at about eighteen. Anyway, we spent a  lot of time shuttling between Starfall Springs where we used to live  and the city where she was receiving treatment.”  

Tears  brimmed in his eyes, collecting around his long, thick eyelashes, and  he began to thumb the bracelet as though it were a set of prayer beads.  Drawing strength from that, he ploughed on.  

“She…  She didn’t make it…” he said. “She died when she was five. And my wife…  she… she took it badly. She… She never… recovered. About six months  later, she… uh… she…” He blinked furiously, tears starting to roll down  his rough-hewn cheeks. “Yeah,” he croaked. “She took her own life.”

“Noah,”  you breathed, your heart going out to the orc, to your friend. You  reached for his trembling hand and squeezed your fingers around his  wrist, saying nothing. What could you possibly say to that? ‘I’m sorry’  seemed utterly inadequate.  

He  took the gesture for what it was, and offered you a wonky smile. “After  that, I…” he puffed the air out of his cheeks and shook his head. “I’m  ashamed to say that I became an alcoholic. It takes a lot of drink to  keep an orc drunk, let me tell you, and I lost my house, I lost my job,  and in time I lost my family too. They didn’t know how to help me.  There’s… There’s a temple in Starfall Springs that… well… I don’t  worship there, but every faith is welcomed. The priest who tends it  helped me a lot. After I got myself together a bit more, I left Starfall  behind and moved to the city. I got a new job, and I joined a support  group for recovering alcoholics. I’d been doing pretty well with most of  it… until I met you.”

Your  heart dropped and the sudden shock must have shown on your face because  he flipped your hand over and grabbed it, crushing it almost painfully.  

“Shit,  I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I meant… I was doing ok, but  then you showed up and… it was like… like colour started to come back  into my life. I’m not just doing ‘pretty well’ now. I’m doing great. And  that’s all thanks to you.”

“Not gonna lie, Noah, you scared the shit out of me with that one…” you said, relief washing through you.  

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I’m not much good with words…”

You  tightened your grip on his hand and then wiggled your fingers into his  big palm. He stared at the place where the two of you touched, and  smiled.  

You  swallowed and then said, “Thank you for sharing that with me, Noah. It  can’t have been easy to tell me that, and I’m… I’m so sorry that you’ve  been through so much. I can’t even begin to imagine how I’d have handled  any of that, let alone all of it.”

“I  regret the way I cut myself off from my family,” he said. “I was  ashamed and I didn’t know how to face them, so I just… left.”

“Family is a big thing for orcs, isn't it?”

His honey-coloured eyes became unfocused. “Yeah,” he rasped.  

Something in his demeanour made you ask, “Is there a reason you wanted to tell me this today in particular?”

To  your surprise, a rolling laugh rumbled in his chest and he closed his  eyes as he leaned back a little in his seat. “Yes,” he said. “Gods, but  you’re perceptive. Yes, there is.”

“What is it?”

Still  chuckling slightly, he said, “It’s coming up to my younger brother’s  twenty first birthday. That’s a really significant one for orcs. He’ll  get his first tusk cuff, and… traditionally, it should be his older  brother who gives it to him.”

“Ah.”

He let go of your hand and pushed back from the table. You sat there while he disappeared into the kitchen and reemerged  a moment later with a small leather pouch in his hand. He undid the  drawstring at the top of it and upended it into his cupped palm. A  single silver cuff tumbled out, engraved with orcish runes and symbols,  and it lay there sparkling in his hand while the pair of you stared at  it. He sighed. “I had it made about six months ago. I just… I don’t have  the courage to go back. I can’t even pick up the phone.”

“Do it now.”

“What?”  

“You  heard me. I bet you know your mum’s number off by heart. Call her. Tell  her you want to come home for your brother. Tell her you’re doing  better - I bet she’ll be proud of you - and tell her you want to do  right by him.”

“I…” he faltered, looking afraid.  

You grabbed his colossal arm and shook him slightly, the cuff rolling around at the sudden movement. “Do it.”

He took a deep breath and smiled. “Alright.”

And he did.  

He crossed to his house phone, punched in a number, and waited.  

Your  heart was hammering in your ears with nerves for him, and you suddenly  wondered if you should give him some space. You pushed back from the  table and took the plates out into the kitchen. As you returned to the  living room, you heard him speaking in halting orcish, and smiled.  

“Good  luck,” you murmured under your breath as you crossed to the window and  looked out at his back garden. There was a small cherry tree in the  middle of the tiny postage stamp of a lawn, and you watched the birds  playing amongst the branches while his deep, rumbling voice drifted out  to you.  

When  he set down the phone a while later, his dark green face looked pale  and ashen, and he sat down heavily on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.  

“Noah?”

You  approached and sat down gingerly beside him, touching him lightly on  the shoulder. He smiled slowly at you and then reached out and silently  drew you into his lap, hugging you gently. He held you so close that you  could feel the pulse thrumming at his neck and you heard the rapid-fire  rhythm of his heart beating in his cavernous chest. He cradled you  against him in almost the same way a child holds a teddy bear. “Thank  you,” he said, and you realised he was crying again.  

You hugged him back and the pair of you sat there for a long time.  

Eventually  Noah sniffed and released you with a muttered apology. You drew back  and climbed off his lap while he ran both hands over his face and rubbed  at his eyes with the heels of his palms.  

“So?” you asked. “I take it that it went ok?”

He nodded. “Yeah. She wants me to come to Raph’s birthday celebration.”

“You are going to go, right?”

He nodded again. “Will… Will you come with me?”

“Will it be alright with your family? I mean, I don’t know any of them…”

“Mum  wants to meet you,” he said. “I told her about you. Don’t worry about  being a human at an orcish thing though. She said that most of Raph’s friends aren’t orcs.”

“If  you’d like me to come, then of course I’ll come,” you smiled. “I mean,  you came with me to that work thing last month, and that was boring as  all hell. I’m pretty sure I owe you for that anyway…”

His expression fell just a little bit. “You don’t have to go…”

“I’d like to. When is it?”

Three  weeks later, you crossed the street to Noah’s house wearing the nicest  clothes you owned, and when he stepped out into the sunshine, your  breath caught in your throat at the sight of him. His white shirt fitted  his huge shoulders and chest to perfection, and he had his grey jacket  slung over one arm as he pulled his front door closed behind him and  locked it up.  

“You look amazing,” you called and he turned, grinning.

“So do you!” he laughed. “You ever been on a motorbike before?”

“Never, and yes, I’m terrified.”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not so bad. Here,” and he tossed you his spare helmet.  

The  ride out of the city was gorgeous. It was early enough in the day that  the traffic wasn’t heavy, and you soon got the hang of leaning into the  turns with him. He let you loop your hands around his thick waist and  you tried not to cling to him and crumple his smart clothes.  

Perhaps  two and a half hours later, you passed the cheery wooden road-sign that  welcomed you to Starfall Springs and Noah slowed as he entered the  town. It was a stunning place, the architecture and warm, golden stone  seeming as timeless and ancient as the hills around it, and the salty  tang of the sea air not far away wafted refreshingly over you from time  to time.  

A  huge old house was visible at the top of the cliffs which sheltered the  town to the north, and Noah pulled over on a bridge into the town and  pointed up at it. “That’s the ancestral home of the Silkfoot family,” he said. “They’re driders, and they own a lot of the land around Starfall Springs as well. I went to school with their eldest son.”  

You  nodded, and Noah continued his little panoramic tour, pointing out the  old watermill and the glitter of the sea and the harbour down to the  south.  

It  didn’t take you long to cotton on to the fact that, although he was  keen to point out landmarks and interesting features, he was stalling.  You hugged him and said, “Why don’t we get to your mum’s, and then  tomorrow after the party you can show me round the town?”

You  felt the way his chest expanded with his inhale, and then he nodded.  “You’re right,” he said, his voice still muffled by his helmet. “Come  on.”

His  mother lived in a large, three-storey house on the edge of the town,  and as he parked up outside it, you saw the streamers hanging from the  windows and the flags which all said “21!” blowing and flickering in the  breeze.  

He  took his helmet off and let you slide off the bike first before  following suit. He stood there for a moment outside the house and you  slid your hand into his. Noah looked down at you and smiled. “It’s been  seven years since I last saw this house. Or my family.”

“I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed to see you again, Noah, but we’ll take it as it comes, ok?”  

He  didn’t have time to respond because the door flew open, bouncing back  off the wall with the force, and a huge orcish woman barrelled out and  flung herself at Noah. You stepped back so that you didn’t get  flattened, and watched as she sobbed into his neck. She was as tall as  he was, if not a couple of inches taller. Where his hair was simply  braided, hers had long dreads woven with beads of all colours and  materials from precious metal to wood and horn.

She  cried into her son’s neck for a long time, and he simply embraced her  back, his own face hidden from view. Orcs, it seemed, were very free  with their emotions.

After  a while, you glimpsed a smaller figure standing in the doorway and  realised that a young orcish girl was standing there watching the  exchange. When Noah’s mother finally extricated herself from her son,  she stepped back and wiped her face, giving you a better view of her.  She looked very much like Noah, you realised. Her cheekbones were high,  her nose flat and wide, pierced at the septum, her gleaming tusks huge  and rounded, and her eyes a dark amber too. She was wearing a long,  flowing dress, belted at the waist, and sleeveless, and her arm muscles  were almost as big as Noah’s too. She was a formidable and beautiful  orc.  

“Hi mama,” he croaked sheepishly.  

“Oh, my boy,” she sniffled. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of you. I’ve missed you so much. We all have. Welcome home.”

It  was refreshing to see a people so free with their emotions, and as you  watched the tears rolling down Noah's face, he wiped them on the back of  his sleeve and turned to you and said, “Mama, meet my neighbour and my  very good friend, and the person who’s responsible for me phoning you in  the first place.”

She  turned to you and she shook her head, smiling. “Thank you, dear,” she  said, sounding more than a little choked. “You brought my boy home  again.”

Embarrassed, you mumbled, “He was the next thing to doing it himself… I just gave him a little nudge.”

“Must have been some nudge to get that lump of muscle moving,” the young orc said from the doorway.  

Noah hadn’t seen her until she’d spoken, and he gasped. “Brie?” he asked, eyes wide. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” she grunted. “Glad you haven’t forgotten me completely, ‘brother’.”

The  sharp resentment in her tone drew him up short, but their mother gave  them both a sharp look and told them to behave. Then she made you all  come inside.  

Noah  cast you one sidelong look and you took his hand briefly in yours. “You  knew this wouldn’t all be easy,” you reminded him when you saw how  crushed he looked by his little sister’s words. “Give her time.”

“I know. And I deserve it too…”

“Don’t think like that, Noah,” you said.  

You’d  barely made it two steps inside when another huge orc collided with  Noah and flung his arms around him. Noah cursed in orcish, staggering  back and trying not to step on you as he absorbed the impact. This, it  seemed, was Raph.

If  you’d though Noah was big, Raph was in a different category. Given that  he was years younger than Noah, he should perhaps have been a bit  smaller, but he was easily seven and a half feet tall, wide as a bus,  and colossally strong. His black hair was longer than Noah’s, hanging  right down to his backside, and you could see that his arms and neck  were tattooed heavily with orcish designs. Noah had some, you knew from  what he’d told you, but it seemed like Raph had taken his love and  respect of orcish culture to another level.  

While  the two brothers reconnected, their mother took you through the  beautiful townhouse to meet some of the others. Brie was apparently  actually called Briar, but she didn’t like the name and was seemingly as  prickly as her namesake about a lot of things. Raph’s friends, all  gathered out in the garden at the back, were easier to get along with  and they welcomed you with warm smiles and friendly gestures. There was a  naga, a good number of orcs, a couple of fauns, one chunky satyr, a  tiefling, a vampire, and a small contingent of goblins.  

Noah  emerged from the house a while later with his brother’s arm slung  around his shoulders, both their eyes sparkling. Raph yelled for quiet.  “Oi! Shut up, shut up! Everyone, shut up!” he called, laughing. “This is  my big bro, and he’s had a really shit time of things in the last few  years, but he came all the way from the city to be here today. I’ve  missed the heck out of him and apparently he’s only here today because  this tiny little human kicked him up the backside and made him come.”

Raph  grabbed a drink and poured a glass of homemade lemonade for Noah and  shoved it at him. Raph then raised his glass aloft and roared, “To tiny  kick-ass humans who aren’t afraid of calling us orcs out on our shit!”

Noah  laughed and looked you straight in the eye. Your stomach flopped over  at the unexpected intimacy of the gesture. “To tiny kick-ass humans,” he  murmured, and drank to you as the cheer went up from the rest of them.  

The  party lasted all day, with music and food and laughter and dancing. The  goblins, it turned out, were some of Raph’s best friends, and it was  comical the way they bossed him around and teased him with deep  affection. As the sun began to set, you watched Noah talking with his  mother and sister in a quiet corner, and Raph came over to you. He  plonked himself down on the grass beside you and said, “Thank you.”

You  smiled at him. “Noah really wanted to be here for you today,” you said.  “He was just… I think he was afraid that you wouldn’t want him back  here after he’d been away so long.”

“He  went through hell,” Raph murmured quietly. “I get it.” He had the same  big tusks and heavy jaw as his brother, but his voice was a bit deeper.  “It was awful watching him just… disappear inside his grief, you know?  He loved his wife a lot, and Kishara was the light of their life. And  then when she got really sick… They were a really close unit, but her  death was just too much for them.”

“It’s not something you just ‘get over’,” you said. “I can’t even begin to imagine how I’d handle something like that.”

Raph  nodded. “I missed him a lot. We were really close. He… He changed when  he was drinking though. I’m glad he’s sober now. He’s the Noah I  remember. Bit quieter, but he’s my brother again.”

“He’s toughed it out. It can’t have been a pleasant journey, and he’s still going…”

He shook his head. “He seems pretty good now though. We talked earlier. He spoke about you a lot.”

“We’ve become good friends this past year,” you said. “I’m so glad we got talking.”

Raph shot you a sideways glance. “Just friends?”

You felt your cheeks heat. “I like him. A lot. But if anything else were to happen, I think it’d have to come from him.”

Raph  nodded, but before he could reply, one of his goblin friends hurled a  balled-up paper napkin at him and yelled, “Presents time, ugly!”

He laughed and looked down at you. “Thanks for bringing him back.”

“I’m glad he brought me along for the ride.”

There  was a bit more ceremony to the gift giving than you’d anticipated, but  finally it was Noah’s turn to give him the gift that would mark Raph’s  transition from late boyhood to true adulthood.  

His  eyes shone in the twilight, the little twinkling fairy lights  glimmering in them from around the garden. Whatever words were spoken  between the two of them as they stood, heads bowed, foreheads touching,  were not meant for the rest of you, but everyone watched in silence all  the same. You knew it was traditional for the older brother to give  advice at this time, and you imagined that Noah had some wise words for  him from his own experience.  

Raph  said something back, Noah kissed his brother affectionately on the  forehead, the pair laughed, and then Noah took his brother’s hand in his  and held it aloft. “My little brother - all grown up,” he said, “Not so  little any more… Mama, what the heck have you been feeding him?”

Everyone  laughed, and the brothers embraced one more time before parting. Their  mother gave her gift then, and Noah came over to stand with you. “I’m so  glad I came,” he said without looking at you.  

“Good. For what it’s worth, I’ve had fun too.”

“You tired?”

You nodded.

“Do you want to head home?”

You shook your head. “Your mum said we could stay over if we wanted.”

“Would you be ok with that?” he asked, glancing down at you.  

“Sure. She’s lovely; your whole family is.”

He smiled sadly. “Yeah. You can see why I was so ashamed of myself and the way I’d behaved.”

“Grief does unpredictable things to people, Noah,” you said. “And you’ve worked hard.”

“Yeah,” he rasped without looking at you.  

The  music started up again after that, and he turned to you and held out  his hand. There was a stone patio at the back of the house where Raph  and he had been standing to conduct the only formal part of the gift  exchange, and now couples and friends were using it as a dance space.  Noah’s mother was sitting on the edge, tapping her toes and laughing  with the vampire, but most of the others were dancing.  

“You want to dance?” he asked awkwardly.  

“Love to.”

He  moved you gently and his hand found its way to your waist. The warm  steadiness of it was almost intoxicating, and you found yourself leaning  into the contact, distracted only by the way his fingers curled around  yours as you moved to the music. Your earlier words to Raph floated into  your mind, and as you looked up at Noah, trying not to crick your neck  as you did, you realised that over the course of the last year that  you’d known him, you’d been falling for him bit by bit. He was gentle  and empathetic, quiet, reserved, and sensitive, and you knew with  astonishing clarity in that moment that if he kissed you, you wouldn’t  pull away.  

Noah did not kiss you.

He  smiled down at you, and continued to dance, and when the song ended, he  stepped back and thanked you. You tried to bite down the  disappointment, and as his sister came to wish him goodnight before she  turned in to bed, you took the chance to slip away.  

The  garden was a large one, and at the far end darkness pooled between the  tall elderberry bushes and apple trees. You leaned your body against the  back fence and stared out at the road that led out of the town and into  the dark hills beyond. Lights flickered here and there, but mostly it  was a dark, inky wash beneath the waking stars. Music wafted down the  garden, carrying a few snippets of conversation with it, and you rested  your forearms on the fence and sighed. He was a widower. He had lost his  child and his wife, and the woman he’d been married to had been an orc.  He’d given no indication that he found you attractive, or that he was  looking for anything else. And why should he?  

In  the wake of the brief moment you’d allowed yourself to hope, crushing  disappointment flooded in. You cursed yourself, letting guilt plunge to  the pit of your stomach like a handful of gravel. Today wasn’t about you  at all.  

The  rustle of the grass behind you was the only warning you got before a  large hand gently pressed itself against the small of your back. “You  alright?” Noah’s warm voice asked softly. “You’ve been down here for  ages.”

“I have?”

“Mmm.”

“Oh. I… I didn’t realise. I was just… thinking, you know?”

“You want me to leave you in peace?”

“No,” you said, a mite too quickly. “No,” you added more quietly, swallowing thickly. “I don’t.”

He  slid his palm around your waist and drew you close to his body. “I  never thought I’d feel anything for anyone ever again,” he said, making  your heart skip a beat as the meaning of his words began to sink in.  “You gave me time, and you gave me space to work things out. I can’t  pretend that I’ll love you the same way I loved… I loved her, but…  you’ve come to mean a very great deal to me.”  

“You  wouldn’t have to love me the way you loved your wife, Noah. I’m a  different person. Heck, I’m not even an orc. I didn’t know you liked  humans…”

“Nor did I,” he chuckled. “But I like you. And… I’d like to see where this goes, if you’re ok with that.”

After a moment of silence you said in a husky voice, “I’m more than ok with that, Noah.”

“Shall we go inside?” he said. “It’s getting chilly.”

You nodded and let him steer you inside.  

He  took you upstairs and pushed open a door to a small bedroom. It was  furnished with orcish crafts and handiwork, and it was clearly a guest  room. “This used to be my room when I was a kid,” he said, smiling  fondly. “Mum redecorated it when I went to university.” He cleared his  throat and said, “If you want to take this one, I can sleep on the sofa  downstairs.”

“No,” you said. “Stay.”

He did.  

After  he’d found you a new toothbrush, and after you’d both showered and he’d  given you a t-shirt of Brie’s to wear to bed, you climbed into the  double bed and he joined you a few minutes later.  

It  felt strange to be lying next to your friend, but it had a rightness to  it which, as you nuzzled up to him and laid your head on his bare  shoulder, sparked a deep contentment in your chest. You trailed the  lines of his orcish tattoos with your fingertips, breathing softly and  finding no need for words.

He  lay there with his arm around your shoulders, hugging you close to the  heat of his body, until he fell asleep, and not long after that you  slipped into dreamless sleep as well.  

Dawn  filtered through the curtains the next day and woke you slowly. You  were still lying on your side, half draped over Noah’s massive body,  with one arm across his torso and one leg hooked across his thigh. The  length of his morning wood pressed against you and you moaned.  

Noah  grunted as you stirred, and he pressed a kiss against the top of your  head. “Morning,” he mumbled, voice thick and gravelly with sleep.  

“Morning yourself,” you replied, shifting slightly.  

“Mmmph,”  he complained and moved his hand down to readjust himself. Your hand  beat his to it and he gasped and threw his head back, chin and tusks  jutting towards the ceiling. “Fuck,” he hissed.  

“Would you rather I didn’t?”

He shook his head.  

You  palmed the hard length of his cock through the fabric of his underwear,  the friction making him roll his hips up into the contact, and you felt  it stir beneath your hand.  

You  slid your fingers under the waistband of his boxers and drew them off,  springing his hardening erection free. His cock was beautiful, thick and  slightly curved, the veins straining as he grew fully hard. He parted  his legs slightly and you watched his balls clench softly for a moment.  

“Someone’s  horny this morning,” you murmured playfully, running your fingers up  his torso. He had a slightly soft belly, which was frankly gorgeous, and  you enjoyed the way he gasped as your fingertips found his nipples.  

“I dreamed about you,” he laughed. “I think that got me going.”

“Did it now?” you grinned. “You’ll have to tell me about it…”

It  wasn’t quite possible for you to close your fingers all the way around  the girth of his cock, but that didn’t really matter. You stroked his  length a few times before thumbing a cheeky circle over the head of his  cock through the pre-come that was beading profusely at the tip. He  gasped and cursed in orcish.  

Using  your mouth and your hands together, you got to work in earnest, and in  no time he had begun to tremble. His thighs shook as you lavished  attention on him, and his breath came in fast, heavy pants. He tried not  to thrash as you sucked the tip of his cock, using your tongue to tease  the ridge around his head and the underside of his cock while your  hands worked the rest of his length, occasionally cupping his balls as  well.  

“Shit,”  he gasped a while later, balls suddenly clenching, “I’m… I’m not gonna…  I can’t…” and without any further warning, Noah came with a stifled  grunt.  

Thick  ropes of come painted his soft stomach as he curled his torso inwards,  eyes screwed tight, hands balled into fists at his sides, one knee  drawing up as the sheer force of his orgasm tore through him. You tried  to stroke him through it but he tipped into oversensitivity almost  before he’d finished coming, and he whimpered softly, trying to swat you  away with a vague motion of his hand. Finally he lay back on the bed  and let his knee fall to one side, leaving his hips open with a gorgeous  view of his twitching, drooling cock as it now lay over his hip bone.

He  took a while to come back to you, and when he did, he looked up at you  and his unfocused eyes sparkled. “Look at you,” he said. “I’m sorry…”  

You  had a splash of his come over your cheek and down your chin, and he  reached for you and thumbed it away with a gentle gesture.  

“Fuck,” he hissed. “It’s been a long time since I’ve come like that.”

“My pleasure,” you grinned.  

“Distinctly  mine, I think,” he countered. He glanced at the sun rising through the  little crack in the curtains and turned his attention back to you. “Give  me a minute, and maybe help me clean up a bit, and then let me repay  the pleasure…”

You  nodded and he tugged you down to lie beside him. You glanced down at  his slightly soft stomach and ran your finger through the come that  covered it, making him groan. “What a mess…” you smiled.  

A smiled “Uhhnff,” was his only reply. 

************************************

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[into-crazy]

Man Under the Makeup Pt. 7

Arthur Fleck/Joker x Female Reader series

Warnings- Cursing, mentions of violence, more sadness, talk of bad eating habits, Arthur breaking down, lots of FLUFF🥺🥰

You can find the other parts RIGHT HERE and through the “Man Under the Makeup” tag lovelies!💘

Freshly cleansed, Arthur steps into your living room. Following the scent of something delicious drawing from your kitchen. You stand over the stove, mixing sauce in a pan. The spaghetti noodles boiling on the burner next to the sauce. Unaware of his presence behind watching you focus on your cooking, humming to the tune barley coming from the small radio on the counter. Everything about you is so angelic to Arthur, your own signature qualities he adored witnessing as you obliviously displayed them.

"Something smells good."

Arthur's voice startles a slight jump. Turning to a smiling Arthur, wet hair framing his handsome face. Clear of the blood and makeup. No shirt on, displaying his thin, bare torso. He's wearing a pair of your light grey sweatpants. Not to worry, he made them fit. In fact, they dropped a little low on his hips. Exposing his lean waistline in all the right ways. No underwear. It's difficult not to stare, especially when his lower regain practically challenges your wandering eyes.

"Spaghetti sounded good, thought I'd make some." You acknowledge handing him a fluffy robe. Again, one of yours. That'll surely help keep your mind out of the gutter. Hesitant in taking it, he leaves your arm hanging. "Don't be like that," you laugh with a humorous roll of your eyes. "It's cold, take it. No one's going to see you." Waving the article until he takes it.

Sighing, he accepts it. How could he deny the comfort you so blithely provide? He wraps the fabric around his body, it's warm and soft. Okay, yeah, maybe the robe was a good idea. "Spaghetti huh? Sweetheart you know it's past 10, right?" he laughs.

"Have you ate?" You blink at him.

"Well I- no," he answers in playful defeat.

To which you snarkily reply, "hm, that's what I thought. Well then looks like we're having pasta tonight." Draining the noodles, you start fixing him a plate.

Of course he hasn't ate. There's no way he could lie to you about that. The only time he'll eat a proper meal is when he's with you, and you took note of this. So when he's in your presence, you make sure he's well fed. Though you know better not to push it. Naturally appreciating every aspect of his- which includes his slender frame. Finding him beautiful in his own skin. You just don't want him to ever go hungry.

After dinner, Arthur watches the news station while you clean up in the kitchen. He kindly offered to help out, but you refused. Telling him to relax on the couch. That might have been a mistake- the channel's replaying the 'breaking news' segment from a few hours earlier. There was a mention of the Joker and his gangs activity, plus a death resulting from it. They didn't go far into detail about the man, quickly transitioning into the next topic. You felt it was best, for Arthur's sake.

His leg bobbed up and down, he's craving badly for a cigarette. The carton sat next to his revolver by the door. However he's choosing not to have one, since he knows you're not fond of it in your home.

Once finished up, you grab a blanket from the room. Taking a seat next to him, wrapping the blank around both of you. The news isn't mentioning him anymore, yet his eyes are still widely glued to the television. He's in deep, worrying thought, you sense it. Grabbing the remote from the table, you switch the power off. He doesn't move, like he didn't even notice you turned it off. It's dead silent.

"Arthur?" You ask scooting closer, "baby, everything alright?" Shutting his eyes, he slowly shakes his head no. "You know you can talk to me. I'm here for you." Resting your head on his shoulder, you rub his arm.

"That's, that's just it.." he whispers.

"What is?"

He signs deeply before opening his eyes. "You're so good to me, so kind. Even after all the horrible things I've done."

Having gotten your full attention, you straighten up. "What are you saying?" You face him, uncertain by what he's trying to explain.

"I've done some bad shit," his tone is serious, "I guess what I'm saying is I don't.. deserve you."

Taken aback by his words, you couldn't believe he really said that- thought that! "Don't say that-"

"It's true!" He cuts you off, "Y/n, I've hurt people, killed people. Those wall street guys, Murray, people from the jobs, my- look I never told anyone this but- even my adoptive mother." You gasp in surprise, placing your hand over his. Hearing about a parental figure for the first time. "Yeah, that's right. The only woman I killed, was Penny Fleck. See, she was in the hospital. I had found out she adopted me at a young age. I was abused, neglected, lied to.. finding that out I felt so angry. When I went to see her I took a pillow-"

Arthur talked in grim detail about how he suffocated Penny to death. Describing how relieved and happy he felt when she fell lifeless. "Ha, you know she used to call me Happy? I always hated it, how I had to smile through everything." Then he goes on to describing how he also felt after shooting Murray and the guys on the train. Even some guy formally known as Randall- the gruesome stabbing followed by the furious bashing of his head against a wall. You stayed silent the whole time, carefully listening to every recited incident.

"Now do you see me for what I am? I am a monster." He tells you, ashamed. Not from what he's done, but of how you'd react.

"No you're not, not to me."

He can not hold back the fit that surges out. Unable to move, his body clenches up as the hysterical coughs and laughs emerge. Laughing so painfully hard his chest and stomach hurt. This right here, is the worst you've seen his fit take over him. Tears roll down his strained cheeks. He's crying, really bawling, it shatters your heart.

Taking his head in your arms, "that's okay, cry. Let it out. I'm here." Assuring him while he slowly calms.

"I just- I just don't understand," he whispers, "my hands are stained with blood, scarred from murder, yet you trust them- trust me- completely.. Why?" He's confused, you should be repulsed by him, despise him, hate him even for what he's done. You're a beautiful, perfect soul- giving this monster to the world your unconditional care and compassion. Is it out of fear, pity? "Why do you care so deeply for me?"

His words are like stab marks to your chest. Deeming himself unworthy of your affections. Talking terribly, tearing himself down. You choose your words carefully before answering in all honesty. "I don't judge people off of their worst, Arthur. No one in this world is perfect. You.. you're real. Been through so much, guided by your pain and anger, taking a beating from this terrible excuse of a society. But, you're free now. You've been so real, and so good to me." You reply, shedding a few tears of your own. "I'm not here to judge you. Not going to tell you what to do unless you ask for it. I won't tell you how to live your life. I'm here to hold you, comfort you. Just as you've done for me, because I care for you- I find you beautiful. I accept you, all of you. The man underneath the Joker, under all that makeup." You finish, lightly rocking him in your arms.

It's obvious he's never been familiar with this amount of kindness, endless supply of pure affection. Surely he'll question what he's not used to. And it's okay. He has you here- to show him, give him what he's been missing out on. He knows all too well that he can be a handful. A complicated man. He'll have his good days, and he'll have his bad days. It's bound. There's nothing he can do to push the bad out of his life. But, no matter how rough, how gloomy- you will be there with him through it. He's starting to realize. Fully accept it finally. He doesn't have to be unsure anymore.

Releasing your hold on him, he takes your face in his hands. Rubbing his thumb over your soft cheek. He's exhausted, telling by the heavy bags beneath his tired eyes. Giving you a heartfelt kiss, his tongue glides slowly among your own. You caress his jaw, kissing the air out of one another.

Taking a breather, his forehead rests on yours. "Is.. is it too early to tell you I love you?" He whispers deeply, causing you to giggle. Oh, how he adores those little giggles.

"You can tell me anything you're ready to tell me." You laugh.

He squints, "well, um, do you?"

"Do I, love you back?"

He nods against you, thinking maybe he's brought it up too soon. Having only been in a relationship for over two months. Heck, you're not even living together! Yet, here he is already talking about "love."

Rubbing your nose on his, you answer, "I love you." No sign of regret or dishonesty when it rolls off your tongue. You mean it. Getting to know him over time, no issue accepting his flaws. He's only human, after all. Every human has their flaws. You'd undoubtedly give your love to Arthur, in a heartbeat.

"I love you," Arthur smiles. You've become his safe haven, his genuine happiness. Because of you, he feels whole.

Kissing his temple, you nudge him over. "Alright, you should get some rest, come on." Positioning back onto the couch, you invite him in.

He removes the robe, to avoid getting hot and sweaty under the blanket. Wrapping your arms around him, he lays comfortably between your legs. Head settled atop your stomach, his hands make way underneath your thin shirt, caressing your smooth skin.

"Now, you just go ahead and fall asleep baby." You purr massaging his scalp, "I'll stay awake a little longer."

"Okay.. wait y/n, don't you work tomorrow?"

You shrug, "Not a problem. I'll call in sick." With the reassurance, Arthur drifts into a peaceful, much needed sleep. Listening to the beating of your loving heart. His relaxed breathing soon inducing you to join him.

End of part 7. Not gonna lie, I was on the verge of tears writing this up😭 Also, there’s a lovely smut piece coming up next!😆

[emilianopavone]

Self Para 002.

“If I didn’t know you better, I would be worried.” 

The voice pulled Emil’s deeply divided attention away from Monty’s retreating form with a tonal whiplash that couldn’t keep the genuine surprise from his own voice. “Hugo?” The man seemed to materialize from the shadows of the night, sleek black suit and matching mask  that covered most of face, leaving only his voice and familiar foreboding presence as clues to his identity. 

“For someone I pay to keep secrets, a little more discretion might be in order,” Hugo admonished, tone striking a strange balance between friendly and professional as he took a prowling step along the greenery’s edge, casually circling the fountain clearing that Emil still found himself standing at the center of.

“My apologies, I was just a little surprised. I was told you were otherwise engaged this evening,” he replied, making a concerted effort not to turn around and check for Montgomery. 

“The company is engaged. I am free to visit old friends,” he corrected, gaze sweeping around the gardens and back towards the muted sounds of laughter and music before turning back to him, “And new ones.”

Emil offered a thin smile at the intended compliment, trying to ignore the surge of adrenaline burning through his veins as he forcibly clamped down on his fight or flight instincts. “Of course.” And if he thought he was burying his panic with any degree of believability, Hugo dashed those hopes quickly.

“You don’t seem happy to see me.”

“No it’s--I’m just worried about security,” he explained, glancing over his shoulder to the party and finding Monty nowhere in sight, a needed confirmation that both eased and heightened his anxiety. “If I had known you were coming, I would have tried to get you more information. Make me worth that money you’re paying me.” Falling back into step with a well-placed excuse for his distress, Emil started to remember his lines, something more confident and calculating with a hint of wit and charm. Putting on a mask that was easier to don when he could hope Hugo was the only one who would see him wearing it.

“Appreciated but not necessary. They rarely put locks on the things that matter,” Hugo returned, taking clear pride in a private joke that the Affiliate picked up on quickly. Keeping up had always made him more valuable to the man.

“Not everyone can afford those kinds of locks.” The ring on his finger felt heavy, the weight of his life held in the balance with the sharp reminder that it wouldn’t just be enough to remember the lines. He had to remember the person who would say them, and once his ring was off, he would need to remember how to be that person too.

“Lucky for me.” If Hugo’s gaze shifted to his hand, Emil couldn’t tell, but he was quick to fill the pause that followed his words, not wanting to linger unnecessarily on the topic.

“Find anything interesting?” he asked, a casual curiosity that he didn’t need to fake, but it was more to stroke the man’s ego. A chance to brag about the secrets he stole from unsuspecting minds, and Hugo was happy to oblige.

“He’s in love with you.” There was no question in the statement, at least not to its truth. A secret Monty had only just given him, a precious and closely guarded vulnerability offered in a whisper between hope and ambition. The same secret that was ripped from him without a second thought by a man who had already taken more than his fair share of the Head Significant. It robbed Emil of any easy reply, settling on something he could pretend was cocky instead of terse with regret.

“I know.”

“He hated you.” And there was no question there either, just another truth, uglier this time. It wasn’t one Emil had forgotten, but it was one Hugo seemed keen to remind him of.

“I know.”

“Care to explain?” And that was a question, but not one he wanted to answer. Emil knew the lie would be convincing, he just wasn’t always certain if it was a lie. Because the truth was a malleable concept, one he twisted into the shape he needed, but he’s in love with you wasn’t a truth he wanted to touch.

“I promised I’d smooth things over,” Emil explained a smug smile swallowing the memory of Monty’s words. You said this mattered. “Unconventional methods, but I got the job done, didn’t I?” So how much of it are you willing to kill?

“I would hardly call seduction unconventional, but I’m still impressed. So is this your new opportunity?” Hugo asked, undistracted by the dichotomy of his spy’s thought, a war he waged silently behind a confident smile and golden wings.

“Partly.”

“You are aware he’s our biggest security risk, yes?”

“He could be our biggest asset,” Emil shot back, bold, but not uncharacteristic in his working relationship with the telepath.

“You tried to sell me on this before, Mr. Pavone. Why should I be convinced this time?” The remaining distance between them closed in a few short steps, Hugo striding forward to scrutinize the man’s rebuttal, a quiet contest of wills as they each waited to see who would blink first.

“Because he’s still powerful. Arguably more so now. He almost single-handedly planned and executed the raid,” he started, getting cut off before he could finish the thought.

“You’re proving my point, not yours.” There was an edge of frustration to Hugo’s tone, one that Emil had been on the receiving end of only once, but it was enough to make him more careful with his next words.

“A raid I knew about. Because he told me. Because I spent the night at his house.”

“A raid that wouldn’t have happened without him,” Hugo snapped.

“I’m not in charge of security, I’m just trying to cover up their mistakes.” There was a long pause after the words, and Emil was left with the sinking dread that he had overstepped the line between critical and insubordinate. If it was fair to place blame on the Institute’s failures, and by extension, Hugo’s, it was still a dangerous way to shift blame away from himself, so he changed tactics as the silence stretched on. “Look, he’s out; he’s alive; he’s talked. Try to kill him now and you just make a martyr. Optics matter,” he reminded, trying to put them back on the same page and take Montgomery off of it, “I don’t need to tell you that.”

“And yet you are.” This time it was Emil’s turn to be quiet, conceding to his mistake with more subdued humility as Hugo let out a terse sigh and continued on. “Fine. If he’s talked, then I assume he���s talking to you.” That, after all, was what he paid him for.

“He is,” the Affiliate assured him quickly, nothing he needed to lie about when he could say with uncomfortable honesty that Montgomery talked to him more than he talked to anyone these days. A trust he’d earned or stolen and right now it felt too much like the latter.

“Then has he told you how he got around our protective restraints?”

“No he...generally doesn’t like to talk about anything from...that experience.” Emil carefully sidestepped the more accurate phrases to encompass the trauma the man had endured, well aware that Hugo’s obsession with optics extended even to his own employees.

“Well I’m sure you can get him to. Unconventionally.” He tacked the word on with a smile, one Emil could hear even if he couldn’t see and he tried to return it.

“I’ll see what I can do.” For a moment, that seemed like the end of the conversation, and as Hugo glanced briefly to the side, Emil assumed he was debating the value of staying in the lion’s den. A dwindling window of safety that he couldn’t tell if he was personally dreading or awaiting, a swiftly slipping perspective on whether Sentinels were his enemies or his allies.

But Hugo had another moment to spare for him, considering him for a few seconds with a question he never seemed to voice. Instead, he took his left hand and held it up between them, running his thumb across Riley’s ring in a gesture that was sickeningly familiar when he’d done the same to Montgomery only a few hours before. “You’re still wearing your ring,” he commented, a lethal threat dropped with utter casualness, and Emil thought if he couldn’t hear his thoughts, then surely he could hear the thud of his heart in his chest.

“Occupational hazard,” he replied, playing off the words like a well-worn office joke as he tried to fit his thoughts back into the right shape. But he could find a way to smother the too-close memory of how Monty had looked at him, or block out the radiance of his smile when it wrapped around the words he asked him to repeat. He couldn’t block out the sun when it had long since eclipsed his waking thoughts, a devotion and adoration that left him with the faint sensation of burning. So instead he tried to hold onto the thought that even if they didn’t do better than the gods, maybe it was still worth it.

“Smart.” The one syllable reply cut the conversation to a sudden and confounding close and before Emil could wrap his mind around the implications, Hugo had released his hand and was turning back to slip into the shadows. It was a strange and ominous farewell that left him momentarily dumbstruck, checking his hand to see that the ring really was still there, before looking back up to find himself finally and painfully alone. If there was any relief in the solitude, it did little to stop the shaking in his hand.

[heartbreak-of-a-marauder]

Forever and Always My Little One (3)

Title: Katarina

Pairing: Kol x OC

Summary: Parties and bloodlust rarely go well together in Fayne’s experience.

Words: 2,736

Note: Lil’ bit of NSFW action in this part!! Previous parts linked below:

 <- 3 ->    

~*~*~*~*~

1492 – English Countryside  

The Mikaelson Manor was an imposing structure that stood out against its green English background. The opulence could rival King Henry the sevenths stately homes but I doubted anyone would be foolish enough to openly insult the king. We were surprisingly isolated from the lives of our neighbours, although, when Niklaus held a ball they would descend in droves with women hoping to catch the fancy of one or all of the brothers.

The next gathering was to take place tomorrow evening and the guests who had managed to procure special invitations had already arrived making it increasingly difficult to wander the grounds without comments of how a lady should not be unchaperoned should she value her worth.

The quiet of my secluded section was soon disturbed as a women's laughter floated on the breeze. “The gardens are as beautiful as you promised Trevor.” I smiled to myself at the compliment knowing that if Niklaus ever heard it his ego would inflate.

As they rounded the corner Trevor's adoring demeanour was clear, he was a pace behind the woman as they walked allowing him to gaze lovingly at her without her realising. But the scene was short-lived as the expression melted away when he realised another was watching. Leaving the secluded perch, I wandered to greet the pair.

He stretched out an arm before us in a sweeping motion. “Katarina, may I introduce Lady Fayne, she is Kol’s ward and a family friend of the Mikaelsons.”  

“Hello.” Katarina greeted politely while dipping slightly. Waves of dark curls cascaded down over her shoulders while the deep purple of her gown complimented the slightly olive tone of her complexion. Her face was disarmingly innocent, but there was something worldly behind her eyes. Oh yes, the brothers would certainly like this one.  

I hooked my arm around Katarina’s and smiled sweetly at her. “Don’t worry Trevor, I shall return her to you unharmed.” He looked uncertainly at me for one moment before bowing.

We walked at a leisurely pace around the gardens for most of the afternoon, the sunshine gently warmed our skin. It wasn’t long before we had dropped the honorifics and were speaking as though we had been friends since we were girls.  

“Fayne, I think we should retire indoors, your fingers are freezing.” She stated staring at my hand in concern. Smiling politely, I nodded.

_ _ _ _ _

I had retired to my rooms after returning to the house, and now sat in front of a warm fire nursing a goblet of warmed wine in my lap. It had been a while since my last feed and the effects were beginning to show, but with the grounds soon to be crawling with guests my window was closing quickly. I was thinking through my available options when the sound of footfall stopped slightly behind my chair.

“I hear you have been making friends, little one.” I could almost picture the obnoxious grin on Kols’ face.

“Yes, an acquaintance with Trevors’ special guest, a young girl by the name of Katarina Petrova.”  

“I take it she is a pretty little thing.”

“And you will end up with your hands cut off. Trevor intends to present her to Niklaus.”  

“You know how much I like a challenge.” He teased.

Pivoting in my seat, I cast a glance at Kol to see him staring back at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He was always creating trouble and normally I would have happily joined in on his hell-raising antics but not tonight. Tonight was Niklaus’s birthday celebration. I hoped that I would not need to act as a conscience for Kol and keep him out of trouble.

“Must I accompany you this evening Kol?”  

He fixed me with a deeply curious look that had me itching to move. Getting up I paced the room to the furthest point away from him. Since my earliest days as a vampire, hunger had been my adversary, able to sour my mood quite easily.

“Of course, you must, we are celebrating Niklaus’ birth.”  

“Yes, I simply do not see why I must attend also... Surely my absence would not be noted.” I bargained.

“Do you forget that you owe him your life little one? Surely you would not wish to offend him by rejecting his invitation.” I narrowed my eyes at the smug look resting on Kol’s face. He knew of my discomfort and was revelling in it.

“His actions were very generous indeed Kol, but you must understand my need to not be present.”  

“You have my sympathy for your frustrations little one, perhaps this shall serve as a lesson.” He grinned like the cat who’d caught the canary before sauntering towards the door, pausing on its threshold. “I expect you to be presentable by sundown Fayne, no slipping away.”

“Kol,” I whined as he made his exit.  

We had unfortunately been through this before, the importance of regular feeds had been a heated topic on many occasions for us. A way to keep us a cut above the rest is how he phrased it once. I myself had never been particularly good at remembering, and much like now, my ignorance would cost me.

I need more wine.

_ _ _ _ _

Irritatingly true to his word, Kol rapped his knuckles against my door just as the sun had begun its descent below the horizon casting a warm orange light through the window which created long-reaching shadows. I sat in the high-backed chair facing the door, raising the goblet to my lips I took one final deep swig of wine, draining the cup, before placing it next to the empty pitcher on the table to my right. Without warning the door swung open with great force causing it to crash against the stone wall. Still, I was resolute and did not move from my chair. I’d stewed in discomfort and copious amounts of wine since our meeting earlier that day. I was agitated and soon Kol would know it. He’d flit across the room and was dragging me to stand by my elbows before I could blink.

“Come now little one, or we shall be late.” Kol did not release his hold and jerked me roughly when I made no attempt to move. “Behave.” He said icily before pulling me along with him.

The great hall was lit by candlelight casting its occupants in a soft glow. Their wealth highlighted by the occasional glitter of jewellery. As we descended the stairs, guests turned to look at us, there weren't many familiar sights in the sea of faces before us.  

“Heavens above, did he invite all the gentry across the land?” I whispered to Kol while offering a small yet polite smile to any guests I made eye contact with as we skirted the edge of the room.

“It would appear so...” He trailed off as he scanned the room before us looking for someone or something, failing to locate them.  

“Dance with me.” He demanded, I glanced incredulously at him.

“No,”  I replied curtly only to have my elbow seized in another stronghold.

“Fayne,” He whispered low, the warning clear.  

“...we agreed you would behave.” Squaring my shoulders, I turned to face him fully, removing my arm from his grasp.

“I am!” I hissed. “If you force me into that throng, I will not be held accountable for my actions.”

“Fayne if you-”  

“Goodnight Kol.” My tone was cold and final as I moved away from him, allowing me to catch a glimpse Katarina blushing at something Niklaus had said.

I made a mental note to seek her out after this evenings celebration when I could be sure my words would not be overheard by the wrong people. She was a sweet yet painfully naive girl. She understood the finer arts of female seductions, this was clear from how Trevor trailed after her but was undoubtedly unaware of her current pursuers' nature. I had known this family long enough to see when something would end in tears.

Grabbing a goblet of wine from a passing servant I hid away in a dimly lit alcove. From here I would not be disturbed and I could peacefully observe the room. When my patience had started to dwindle at the availability of food I wasn’t allowed to touch, I decided to retire.

The sounds of the revelry downstairs grew quieter as I wandered through the manor towards my chambers. Reaching out I dragged my fingertips across the coarse stone wall of the corridor, I was irritated, the wine I'd consumed had dampened my pallet but did nothing to quell my hunger. Sighing deeply, I inhaled again through my nose and nearly choked. There it was, the rich, tangy iron scent of blood. The rough texture of the stone pushed into the palm of my hand as I braced all of my weight onto the wall. It was faint at this distance, but base instincts were difficult to ignore. I resumed my former leisurely pace of walking as I followed the scent, it sent a wave of anticipation through me as though I was nonchalantly stalking unsuspecting prey.  

I arrived just short of the source, staring at the wooden door separating me from it. The bottom of my stomach fell away as I realised who the room belonged to. Gripping the cold handle, I entered the room as quietly as I could, leaning against it once closed.  

Bodices and skirts were strewn about the room, some with ripped seams of fastenings. Three goblets and an empty decanter of wine sat forgotten the side table. Unmistakable puddles and splotches of red were visible on the bedsheets. The three occupants were still unaware of my presence.

Kol sat in the middle of the two young girls, his shirt and coat had also been discarded onto the floor. The brunette on Kol’s left was left in her shift and corset, the cotton sleeves had fallen from her shoulders exposing her breasts to him, he fondled one breast in his left hand, tweaking the nipple occasionally as his right secured her wrist to his mouth. She let out breathy moans as he touched her. The muddy blonde on his right was bare to the waist as her shift pooled about her hips, she pressed herself into his side, paying him her affections by noisily kissing his skin while her hand ventured below the loosened strings of his breeches. Their heavy breathing and soft moans punctuated the air, one may think it a simple overindulgence of the nights' festivities if it were not for the bite marks that marred the girls otherwise blemish-free skin.

“Kol...” I said trying not to breath too deeply.  

His head popped up from the brunette to look at me, a lazy smile spread across his face, remnants of her blood staining his teeth. He shimmied away from his company to sit on the edge of the bed, the girls eagerly followed after him desperate to remain in contact.  

“Little one,” he drawled. “You appeared to be having such fun at the ball that I thought ‘why not have some of my own’?” he gestured to the women still groping at him with a smirk.

“You are breaking his rules Kol,” I warned for his benefit and for my own. If he were to be caught there would be hell to pay and the smell of their blood would linger for days. With my resolve already fraying it would not take much for it to snap.

“Who cares about the rules, it is a party Fayne, enjoy yourself.” He lounged backwards, resting on his elbows still smirking as the ladies ran their fingers over his abdomen.

“Kol please, Niklaus forbade it... Please,”  

He sensed the way my voice strained; I knew it from the way he suddenly sat upright again pushing his company away. I watched as he gave me a once over, noticing how I hadn’t moved an inch since entering and how my hands fisted my skirts behind me.  

“A small taste will not hurt Fayne.” He said gently after a while, he was coaxing me.  

“No.” He stood at my protest, slowly walking towards me. “You do not hunt where you sleep! Especially when the grounds are filled with humans.” I stressed as he stopped an arm's length away.

“A taste is not the end of the world but it will help.” He affirmed taking hold of my hand.

He tugged me softly but I stayed stuck to the door like glue. His expression wasn’t unkind as I shook my head and pulled back. Instead, he snapped his fingers and the girls came to him, flanking the sides. I was enveloped in the scent of their blood, Kol’s bite marks still oozed, my mouth ached as I fought against my fangs descension.  

“Little one,” he cooed bringing the brunette's wrist nearer to me. I could feel my face change as I cast one more look at Kol before giving in to my urges.

I latched onto her wrist with force sucking greedily trying to coax more of the delicious red liquid forth. Deciding her wrist wasn’t yielding enough blood quick enough I moved to the more preferred but volatile spot that was her jugular. Biting down the warn liquid gushed forward into my mouth, with some dribbling down my chin as I was unable to drink fast enough. The brunette never made a noise of protest so I continued until she went limp in my grasp. I let her fall to the floor with a dull thud as I focused my sight on the blonde, my arm snapped out and seized her by her neck pulling her hair as I dragged her towards me. Once she too was drained of her usefulness I turned to face Kol again.  

“What are you thinking about little one?” His forehead creased in confusion.

“You,” I reply with a coy smile.

“Me?” He cocked an eyebrow flashing me another roguish grin.

My smile quickly dissipates as I shove Kol backwards with renewed strength, having caught him unaware we stumble back into the room but age allowed him to quickly regain dominance that sends us sprawling onto the tiled floor, the forgotten clothing providing us with some cushioning. I am instantly overpowered when Kol gained the high ground allowing him to pin my hands on either side of my head.  

“Stop it... stop it,” Kol commands as I wriggle, eager for my freedom. “Enough!” I stare breathlessly up at him, surprised that he had raised his voice.

“You are proving to be quite the nuisance tonight Fayne,”

I scoff. A quiet, hassle-free evening is all I had wished for. I had been content in not attending the evenings gathering knowing from experience that they never go smoothly with something almost always going pear-shaped. Now here I lay, trapped against my will being called a nuisance.  

“It is times like these that I understand my brothers’ disapproval of you...” He continued unaware of my deepening frown.

“I have never been more insulted-”

“Simply look at the mess your recklessness has gotten us into, I was quite content with a sip,” he nodded gesturing to the state of the room and the two deceased women.  

“Me?!” I cry incredulously at his smirking face. “You good-for-nothing, low life cad! You knew the consequences, you knew...” My train of thought stops as I feel Kol begin to laugh, his frame vibrating in mirth.

“You son of a-”  

“Oh, come now Fayne, at least hold on to some semblance of dignity,” He cuts me off again, rising from the floor finally freeing me.  

“You baited me,” I look disbelievingly at him, still seated like a sulking child.  

“We should get this disaster cleaned up before dear old Niklaus discovers us,” He extends a hand down to me, offering to help me up.

Slapping his hand away, I stand on my own. “Clean your own mess, you wretched man.”

I don’t look back at Kol as I stalk towards the door, as I leave I can hear him chuckling softly to himself.

‘Damn you Kol Mikaelson’ I think to myself with a small sardonic smile on my face as I realise my hunger has been fully sated. ‘Damn you’.

TAGLIST: @xceafh

[daveyjacobss]

a home made of warmth | davey jacobs

french vanilla part six

reader x davey jacobs

[ modern newsies au ]

summary: you are the best home i’ve ever known, you keep me warm in the coldest of colds.

a/n: hello everyone, long time no see. sorry i keep taking writing hiatuses :(( but happy 2nd birthday to the original french vanilla!! i posted the first part on october first two years ago, and i’m trying to uphold that tradition until the series is over. i won’t exactly be doing inktober this year but i am gonna try to write more this month :) anyway, hope you guys enjoy this!! it’s a bit messy and not up to par with my personal standards for this series but i wanted it done today so badly lol, so this is what you get

(french vanilla masterlist)

__________

__________

There air was bitter. It was freezing outside, cold enough to keep people locked up in their houses, safe in a place where the wind couldn’t reach them. Despite the winter chill, Y/N was practically skipping down the street. She was going to Davey’s apartment again, supposedly to be working on the novel—but also because Sarah and Davey had been baking and ended up with more cookies than they could eat. Truthfully, she had no doubt that, if given the chance, the boys would finish off the cookies in no time. But they hadn’t offered them to the boys, they had offered them to her.

She was practically giddy, smiling to herself as she rode the elevator in Davey’s apartment building. It felt like the first time, like two years ago when they had first met and were determined to spend every waking moment together. Like two years ago, when their love had only just started blossoming and she didn’t know his mother’s name or his favorite book or which side of the bed he slept on. Like two years ago. Two whole years.

Two years was such an unbelievably long time, and yet that one year they had spent apart felt even longer than the years together. Still, it didn’t matter, because as that elevator lifted her upwards she could feel those years dissolving behind her. They were too heavy to carry, weighing her down with each step. So she let them fall. She shrugged off the weight and continued onward until she was standing in front of Davey’s door feeling like she was floating.

She had barely knocked when the door swung open, a smiling Davey greeting her. He looked the same. That first day they had met, she supposed he had looked different because she had not yet been familiarized with his face. She had yet to know what his lips felt like on hers or what it felt like to have her hands on his cheeks as he kissed her. She had yet to map out his every feature, tracing his jawline in the night as they lay facing each other, grinning. He was grinning then, and she was too, and they were just two fools standing on either side of a doorway smiling at each other. She wondered what it was like for him. Did he think she looked the same? When he looked at her was he able to keep thoughts of what they had once been at bay? Had he let go of those two years, like she had? Was he floating, too? Flying alongside her as she drifted upward into the clouds?

“Hi there,” he said, finally, a joking tone in his voice.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she replied, still smiling so bright her face sort of hurt. Good god, he was like something straight out of heaven. No one else had ever made her feel like that. He laughed at her, and led her inside, where Sarah was already eating a cookie.

“Hey!” She smiles as Y/N walked in. “Hot cocoa is on the way, just waiting for the water to boil. It’s so cold out, isn’t it?” Dreadfully cold, she thought. A type of killer cold that seeps into your bones and takes hold of you and doesn’t let go. It is oh so awfully cold outside and yet I am so warm.

“Is it? I hadn’t noticed.” Sarah stuck her tongue out at her, making a waving motion as if she was shooing Y/N away. Y/N laughed. Sarah smiles. Davey reached out and touched her arm to get her attention and Y/N had never, ever felt so warm.

Her and Davy worked for a bit, but they didn’t get much in. Sarah came in with the cocoa only a few minutes later and they all got distracted talking. And then Sarah and Y/N got on the topic of movies and then Davey suggested they watch one and then Y/N was sat on the couch between the two elder Jacobs siblings with a warm mug in her hands and a plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of her.

Lots of places had felt like home to Y/N over the years, but none more than this. Nothing could beat the sense of home that Davey provided, radiating light and goodness and love and warmth. God, she felt so warm.

__________

He wanted to hold her hand. She was sitting there with one hand wrapped around her mug and the other picking at the blanket Sarah had given to her, and he wanted to reach out and take her hand and not let go. He wanted it to be something natural and instinctive. He wanted it to be like before.

(Except it wasn’t. He knew that—really, he did. It was just that sometimes he would look at her and he would forget that any time had passed at all.)

He did not hold her hand. She reached for a cookie and when she was done she kept both of her hands wrapped snuggly around her mug, curling up even more with a content smile on her face. He was so absolutely in love with her. It was overwhelmingly intoxicating to be sitting next to her—even worse to have to be pretending like he didn’t love her anymore.

(Dear god, is that what she thought when she looked at him? Did she look at him and think “he doesn’t love me anymore”?)

(It didn’t actually matter, his brain told him. She doesn’t love you anymore.)

(His heart broke at the thought.)

They weren’t getting any work done, and they wouldn’t get any done because once the movie was over she would probably go home. She would go somewhere where he wasn’t and it would be home for her, but when she left she’d be taking his home with her. He was already thinking of movie suggestions when they were only halfway through the one they were watching, trying to come up with something to get her to stay longer. The apartment was brighter with her there. Sarah was so giggly and free with her there. Davey was unbelievably relived with her there, feeling like he had been holding his breath until she had come home. (Not home, he thought. Not for her.)

When the movie was over Sarah and Y/N starting talking about it together. He would have participated but he was so captivated watching her. She looked over at him with an amused grin and he smiled back at her.

He wanted to say that he was in love with her. He wanted to tell her that he had felt empty and hollow without her and that having her back was a breath of fresh air after a year of suffocating. He wanted to tell her that she was it for him, that he would never love someone as deeply and painfully as he loved her again. He wanted to tell her that his mother missed her and that his little brother thought she was the coolest and cried when she was gone. He wanted to tell her that he had never felt as happy as he did when he was with her. He wanted to tell her that just then during that movie he had wanted to hold her hand and hadn’t and he should have. He wanted to tell her that he loved her and that nothing else mattered because that love would be consuming him from the inside out for the rest of his life.

But he knew better, so instead he just asked: “Do you wanna watch another movie?”

__________

She was hazy with warmth and sleepiness. The movie ended and she slugged her way through a conversation with Sarah, trying to wake herself up while also basking in the comfort. She turned to Davey when she realized how quiet he had been, smiling to hide a laugh as she caught a glimpse of his zoned-out face. He grinned back at her. She thought about how she wouldn’t mind staring at him for the rest of her life.

“Do you wanna watch another movie?”

She tried to say yes, anything I can do to spend more time wrapped in the warmth you don’t even know you radiate. She tried to to say yes, because I will do anything you ever want, all you need do is ask. She tried to say that she loved him with all of her heart and that he made her feel warm after a year of frostbite. She tried to say that she didn’t want to go back to her apartment because right there with him was the only home she would ever need. She tried to say that she still dreamed about him and that she still caught herself leaving spaces in her life where he should be. She tried to say that she was fairly sure he had ruined love for her because there could be nobody else after him, nobody who would be able to follow him. She tried to say that it was so very cold outside but he made her feel warm and safe and like she was floating and she wanted to spend the rest of her life flying by his side.

But it came out as: “Sure, got any in mind?”

__________

It was dark when Y/N left Davey’s apartment. Sarah followed soon after, leaving her brother with a kiss on his cheek and a knowing smile. Sometimes Davey thought he told her too much, given her teasing and mischievous tendencies, but he trusted her more than anyone else in the world. She was the only one who knew about him and Y/N rekindling their friendship, and he wanted to keep it that way. The boys’ reactions would be....unpredictable, and whatever it was he had with Y/N was still uncharted and rocky territory. He was terrified to take one wrong step, make one wrong move.

(She doesn’t love you anymore.)

Jack got home late in the night, paint stains on his hands and a scarf wrapped around his neck. They talked for a bit before Davey retired to his room and Jack went to the kitchen to get something to eat. If Jack knew what Davey was doing—hanging out with Y/N again, giving himself hope for what could be—he would freak. Jack had been furious when it all went down, angry at Y/N for hurting Davey. And he wouldn’t listen to Davey, either, about how it was his fault. Jack wouldn’t have any of it. He placed the blame on Y/N and allowed himself to be sour about it. Davey had eventually given up on fighting Jack about it, convinced he would never see her again anyway.

(She doesn’t love you anymore.)

Sometimes he thought Jack had been angry purely because he had needed to channel his emotions into something he could understand. Jack had liked Y/N a lot, Davey knew that. He knew that it didn’t take long before Jack had started considering Y/N one of his closest friends. And then she was gone, and Davey was a wreck, and so Jack did what he did best and got mad and painted and acted like a child because he had too much emotion running through him to process it like an adult. Davey loved him for it, but it was slightly terrifying to think of how Jack would react if he found out Y/N had been sitting on his couch earlier that day.

(She doesn’t love you anymore.)

He laid in bed with his phone in his hand, debating whether he should text her or if that was coming on too strong after spending the day together. He hated having to deal with all these small formalities and anxieties again, as if there hadn’t been a time where they knew each other inside and out. Thinking about all of it was strange. He was scared of how his friends would react, but he couldn’t even imagine how would react if he could go back in time and tell himself from just a few months ago that he would be letting Y/N back in, offering himself up to broken again. He might have cried, though from joy or sadness or relief he didn’t know. Y/N L/N had a talent for making him feel things he didn’t quite understand. He supposed that’s what made it so easy to understand Jack in that respect, to understand that there was no real malice behind Jack’s anger—just a boy with too many feelings to handle.

(She doesn’t love you anymore.)

He loved Y/N with all his heart. But sometimes he wondered if would be better to just quit while he was ahead, to just end it on a high and never look back. He would certainly save himself the heartbreak. He could avoid the crying and the hurt and the friends and family not knowing how to comfort him, if he really wanted to. But he could also show up to his parents house holding her hand and watch as they hugged her joyously. He could take her with him to meet Les and watch as his brother’s face lit up. He could bring her to a gathering with all his friends and maybe, just maybe, see them welcome her back with open arms. He could wrap his arms around her and never let her go and always feel at home. He could.

But he wouldn’t, because it didn’t matter how much he loved her. She didn’t love him anymore.

__________

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[gladiatortale]

Baz Pitch Songs - Ben Platt

TL;DR: Baz’s anxious internal monologue lives in the lyrics of Ben Platt’s album, Sing to Me Instead.

I’ve been breaking my own heart for days now with this information and I need to share it with the WORLD. 

Okay so I am still an overflowing well of FEELINGS after reading Wayward Son, and in the wake of this I come to the conclusion that there is no better encapsulating soundtrack for the mood of this book than Sing to Me Instead. 

The entire album is a goldmine of angst and adult-ulescent zeitgeist (that shitty late teen/ early twenties age where nothing makes sense and there is no road map for anything). But I’m going focus on two song’s in particular that are so unbelievably Wayward Son Baz, that they smell like fucking cedar and bergamot. OKAY.

Song 1: Grow as We Go

Something I needed to continually remind myself as I was reading Wayward Son is that Baz doesn't actually know that Simon is thinking of breaking up with him. Nevertheless Baz’s pain, confusion, and ongoing identity crises - built out of months of stewing silently in between the first and second book - comes through in every single one of his actions. This is especially true in the book’s early chapters. 

To anyone who has been with a partner suffering from depression, the scenes in the flat and at the airport ring through as painfully familiar,

“He’s lovely. A bit of a sad mess. Dull and pale and rough around the edges. But still so lovely.” (Wayward Son, Chapter 9)

Baz loves Simon so much that it hurts him to even think of not being with him. And yet despite not actually knowing Simon’s intentions before Penny slammed a door on his face, (lol) Baz’s anxiety grows from a true fear of losing him; whether that’s losing him to someone else or to depression, the fear remains the same.

ENTER BEN PLATT.

The opening lyrics of Grow as We Go sound like they were written by Baz himself in a letter to Simon,

“You say there's so much you don't know You need to go and find yourself You say you'd rather be alone 'Cause you think you won't find it tied to someone else.” (Grow As We Go, Ben Platt)

(Knowing British people as I do, it’s a bit too much sharing all at once to be something Baz would say all at one time, but I’m getting off topic). These lines encapsulate the bleeding heart bargaining Baz feels as he worries Simon is slipping away from him, while at the same time focuses on the fact that Baz still feels they are destined to be together after everything they’ve survived so far. 

“Ooh, who said it's true That the growing only happens on your own? They don't know me and you.” (Grow As We Go, Ben Platt)

Baz would say to the rest of the world, even to Simon himself, that they make each other better by being together.

“I don't know who we'll become I can't promise it's not written in the stars But I believe that when it's done  We're gonna see that it was better That we grew up together” (Grow As We Go, Ben Platt)

There’s SO FUCKING MUCH to unpack so I’ll keep in brief. This entire passage links back to motifs from Carry On. 

Beginning with the star motif (which I could and MIGHT write a whole separate essay about); Stars have been known to appear during incredibly vulnerable, shifting moments in Simon and Baz’s relationship. We first see the motif when Simon shares his magic with in Carry On, and the motif reappears more with a more cautious, anxious tone in the back of Shepard’s truck withWayward Son. Which is why when it so poetically appears in this verse, it feels like the perfect match to Baz’s tone.

However, the real gut punch of this song comes when we examine this line from Chapter 11, in conjunction with the aforementioned section of the song,

“‘They’re not that far apart,’ I say. ‘Not to you; you grew up in a mansion.’ ‘I grew up at the top of a tower,’ I say. ‘With you’.” (Wayward Son, Chapter 11)

The final line of this section of the lyrics are SO important because they connect to these specific lines from Wayward Son painfully well. They encapsulate Baz’s wish to grow old (as much as he can… ohhh WE’RE GETTING THERE), more specifically to continue to grow old with Simon. Together these passages highlight that, despite Simon’s gradual attempts to pull away from Baz (ironically due to what Simon perceives as kindness), Baz still has faith enough in the strength of their relationship to try and keep them together.

In essence, go listen to the song. It’ll smash your heart into a million pieces, but you’ll still thank me for recommending it.

Song 2: In Case You Don't Live Forever

AAAAAAAAAAAAH. OKAY. 

Here’s where shit reeeeally hits the fan. I’m going to get the obvious out of the way right now. 

For the first time in the series, we see Baz actually confront the reality of his immortality in Wayward Son. I know there is still a question mark hanging above this statement because Baz is an semi-unreliable narrator and we only can know what he does, but his conversations with Lamb brings to light the true reality of his condition: Baz can, in theory, live forever. What is also frighteningly true - and a fact which Rowell herself hasn’t even fully articulated yet - is the fact that Simon, as far as we know, won’t live forever.

CUE BEN PLATT AND HIS SAD PIANO MUSIC.

“You put all your faith in my dreams You gave me the world that I wanted What did I do to deserve you?” (In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Ben Platt)

This self-depreciative, I-dont-deserve-anything tone is PAINFULLY in line with Baz’s own internal monologue. Throughout the majority of Carry On (as well as the just under a decade which preceded the events of the book) Baz have lived convinced that Simon is going to kill him one day. When that inevitably DOESN'T happen and they end up together, Baz cannot believe his luck.

“I've waited way too long to say Everything you mean to me” (In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Ben Platt)

AND DESPITE HIS PERCVIED SPECTACULAR LUCK, this FUCKING numpty waits until the LITERAL second to last page of the SECOND book to say how he really feels,

“I raise my voice: ‘Why cant you see that I wouldn’t be happy anywhere without you?’ He sits back, like I’ve slapped him.” (Wayward Son, p. 353)

This ties in beautifully with - so much so I was screaming at my desktop as I listened to it - the second verse of In Case You Don't Live Forever,

“I, I've carried this song in my mind Listen, it's echoing in me But I haven't helped you to hear it We, we've only got so much time I'm pretty sure it would kill me If you didn't know the pieces of me are pieces of you” (In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Ben Platt)

Baz’s hesitation, whether born culturally out of a stubborn British habit not to share your emotions for fear of oversharing, or hesitation specific to his relationship with Simon, has kept him from speaking his mind. It has kept him from speaking about how deeply his life has been changed by Simon, and how fleeting and short their time together truly is.

WHAT MIGHT PROMPT BAZ TO SAY SOMETHING LIKE THIS?? Perhaps the realization that Simon won’t live forever, that he has to say these things to him In Case You Don't Live Forever.

MIC DROP. 

Aaaaaand cue the saddest line of the song, please...

“In case you don't live forever, let me tell you now I love you more than you'll ever wrap your head around In case you don't live forever, let me tell you the truth I'm everything that I am because of you” (In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Ben Platt)

The absolutely heart wrenching scene (“Simon… love… get up. We still have to save Agatha.” NOPE. Still not over it!) as they fight The Next Blood in the dead spot, when considered together with Lamb’s words from earlier in the novel, is truly the moment when Baz realises he will lose Simon someday.

In this way therefore the song connects Baz’s internal monologue as it looks forward toward the events of Anyway the Wind Blows. 

Now. I would not DARE try to put words in Rowell’s mouth, but when viewed holistically with Baz’s final actions in Wayward Son (his realization of the temporality of Simon’s life against the length of his own, and his brash declaration that his life is hardly worth living without Simon in it) Platt’s song sets to music the logical trajectory of Baz’s emotional state and desires in a way I sincerely hope we see in this next and final novel.

THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.

BONUS:

THESE LINES FUCKED ME SO MUCH I CAN’T EVEN B E G I N TO UNPACK HOW MUCH THIS IS JUST THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND THE WAY BAZ SEES SIMON.

“I have a hero whenever I need one I just look up to you and I see one I'm a man 'cause you taught me to be one.” (In Case You Don’t Live Forever, Ben Platt)

GGGGGAAAAAAH  I’M DONE BEING ANALYTICAL. THAT LINE JUST FINISHED ME OFF. 

[robbyrobinson]

DDLG: Enemies Within (VI)

(A @dokidokiliteraturegirls fanfic)

The girls arrived at the mall as Sayori had told them to. They entered through the double doors of the mall's entrance and scanned the building for any sighting of their missing friend. As they walked, they came upon the map documenting where each department was located. Monika pulled her cell phone out of her pocket beginning to text Sayori. She waited a few seconds before her phone buzzed. Monika immediately opened her messages to read it.

"She says that she's at the food court."

"Which one?" Natsuki asked.

"The one that sells those cute cookie pizzas," Monika clarified. She sighed, her precious little girlfriend and her sweet tooth.

"Well, we should be heading there without haste," Yuri noted.

The group of friends followed the signs leading to the food courts. There was a plethora of food courts to choose from: Philly cheese steak sandwiches; Mexican food; Japanese-style food; the choices were infinite. Waves of people flocked at the food courts. Nothing more but rows upon rows of heads of varying shapes and sizes. Anthy was slightly creeped out by this.

"Do you guys know why all of these people are…shadowy?"

"Oh, that," Monika chuckled, "you know because of the limitations of this game we could not afford to copy and paste random people on the internet into it?"

Anthy shrugged her shoulders. "I take it that they are all NPCs then?"

Monika nodded. "Something like that…just do not look into their soulless eyes for too long; it might drive you insane."

"Whatever." Anthy spotted a taco booth. "I'm feeling like having tacos; you guys want anything?"

"We're fine, thank you," Monika said. Ako had once again forgotten that Monika was a vegetarian. Though to be fair, it was not a topic that Monika would allude to much.

Anthy then turned her attention to Ako. "Anything you want, babe?"

Ako blushed at the sharp-toothed girl. "No, but please come back soon."

Anthy kisses Ako's cheek and started to trot away.

As Anthy walked away, Monika and the other girls slithered through the crowd of NPCs to search for their missing friend. Their movements were met with a rough grunt of annoyance from the customers. "Sorry," Ako said timidly, "we are trying to find our friend."

They rummaged through the waves of blackness until Monika spot the all-too-familiar red bow of her coral-haired girlfriend. "Guys, I found her!"

Sayori was sitting at a table with a big cookie in the middle of it. It was a chocolate chip one that had red icing on it. On the cookie was a message that read "Welcome, Literature Club."

Sayori somehow sensed their presence and looked up. She had a wide smile on her face. "Hey, girls!"

Monika's eyes lit up. "Sayori! I'm so glad you're safe!"

She ran towards the coral-haired girl with her arms outstretched. Before she could scoop up Sayori into an embrace, Sayori inched herself away out of Monika's reach. Monika opened her eyes seeing that she was hugging thin air. It perplexed her.

"Sayori? What's wrong?"

Sayori reflexively reaffirmed her smile. "Oh, it's just that I was worried that you would misstep and accidentally fall on top of our cookie."

Monika stared at the cookie. Monika nodded her head trying to understand but she nevertheless felt hurt by Sayori's sudden coldness with her. "I guess that makes sense. You got the baker to write that down?"

"Yep! Enjoy, everyone."

The big cookie was already sliced up leaving the girls to merely take a slice out of it. It started off with Natsuki taking a piece and eating it. Yuri followed suit, then Ako. Monika was the last one to partake of it. Lifting it to her mouth, she could not help but notice that Sayori was closely looking at her. Sayori's bright, blue eyes became darker. Throughout all this, Sayori said nothing; she just concentrated on Monika.

"Uh, Sayori," Monika said, "you are kinda creeping me out."

Sayori blinked and shook her head. She smiled again, but her smile had become artificial and disconcerting. "Oh, I just hope that you especially enjoy it!"

"Oh, okay then."

Monika bit into her cookie slice. Before she could take a second bit out of it, there came loud rioting. "What the?"

The taco booth was utterly decimated. Anthy was sprawled on the floor in a daze with her tummy bulging out. She felt a nauseous spell wash over her. The owner of the booth was painfully mad shouting different words in Hispanic. From the way he was reacting, they were most certainly obscenities.

"Looks like Anthy ate all of the tacos," Monika groaned. She got up from her side of the table and began to walk over. "You guys, I'll be right back. I have to fix this problem before the mall cops get called in."

With Monika gone, Yuri, Natsuki, Sayori, and Ako were left. "Oh, this reminds me," Ako said, "are you learning how to make cakes now, Yuri?"

Yuri nodded faintly. "That's correct. After a few trial and errors, my cute little girlfriend helped me to master it."

Natsuki nodded. "You're doing great, dear. You came a long way from when you accidentally made a salad from butter, eggs, and the like."

"Wait, how did she make a salad out of eggs and butter?" Ako asked.

"That's—not something I am fond of thinking about," Yuri said. She lowered her head in shame.

"Oh, okay, sorry," Ako replied unaware that it was still a fresh wound from Yuri's end.

Natsuki got up from her seat and allowed her eyes to scan her surroundings. "Since I am here, I need to talk to Sayori for a minute."

Sayori was too invested with eating more of the big cookie, she almost did not hear her. "Hm?"

"Oh, dearest me," Yuri replied, "is it something alarming, cupcake?"

"There's nothing to worry your pretty little head about."

Sayori got up from her seat and followed the pink-haired girl. "What's going on?"

Natsuki turned and looked sternly at her. "Follow me to the clothes department."

A sudden course of events. Sayori batted her eyelashes. "Sure?"

Entering the clothes department, the two girls walked past clotheslines centered around feminine clothing. Sweaters; dresses; summer and winter outfits some frilly, others…somewhat revealing. Natsuki skimmed through some of the clothes her cheeks becoming tomato-red. Sayori did not take much notice, becoming bored immediately.

"Natsuki, what do you want of me?" she finally asked.

"You know that my anniversary with Yuri is coming up, right?"

Sweat beat down from Sayori's forehead. "Sure…sure I do."

"I was wanting to get her something special. Every time we walk with each other, she would notice this scarf." She pointed to a scarf. "It's a lavender colored, fluffy one. It really brings out my darling's eyes, does it not?"

Sayori waved her hand to indicate that she was still listening. Natsuki expectantly responds back. "Do you think she'll love it?"

"Sure. It looks good." Sayori answered.

Natsuki sighs happily. "Thanks, Sayori, I knew I could count on you."

Natsuki takes the scarf of its hook and gathers it in her hands. As they were on their way to the front to check out at the cash register, Natsuki stopped.

"Natsuki?" Sayori said confusingly.

Natsuki's eyes widened. She was lost in spiraling thoughts for before her were some cute clothes that typically would fit her style. Her eyes were glued on the clothes. Natsuki's throat started to close. She gripped at her collar. The clothes were giving her feelings of discomfort, and yet, she was fixated on them.

"Uh, Earth to Natsuki," Sayori repeated. That time it snapped Natsuki out of her trance.

"What? What is it?"

"You seemed to be obsessed with those clothes," Sayori pointed out.

"It's nothing," Natsuki insisted.

"Natsuki," Sayori emphasized.

Natsuki crossed her arms. "Can you keep a secret?"

The two girls walked into the dressing room. Selecting the last open stall, Sayori closed the door behind them. "You aren't going to propose to me?" Sayori snickered.

She stopped laughing when she saw that Natsuki was fidgeting. "Are you sure you want to know?"

"Go ahead," Sayori said, "we are already in this stall, so hurry it up."

Natsuki sighed. "Okay then." She inhaled deeply and exhaled. "The truth is I was biologically born a boy."

Sayori's eyes widened. "Oh my god, does Yuri know?"

Natsuki covered Sayori's mouth. "Shush! Not so loud! But yes, Yuri does not know. We are not that far in my relationship that she knows my dark secret."

Sayori rubbed her chin. "Are you…like having that preop thingie?"

Natsuki silenced her again. "I am hoping so. If you are going to ask about my Dad…he knows that I identify myself as a girl…he is…conflicted about it, but I want to make my own decisions."

Sayori nodded her head. "Do you think that it is wrong for you to keep such a bombshell from Yuri?"

Natsuki frowned. "I will tell her. Slowly but surely until I feel the time is right."

Natsuki sighed in relief and reached out to open the door to the stall. The coast was still clear when the two exited the stall. They both walked to the front of the department and placed the scarf on the counter. The cashier scanned the barcode and added the sales tax to it. Natsuki pulled out a pink coin purse to give the cashier the right amount. With that done, the scarf is inserted into a shopping bag and is given back to them. "Have a good day."

Sayori and Natsuki exited the department seeing that Monika had worked her magic again and reassembled the destroyed taco booth. Yuri looked at them and smiled. "Everything is going swimmingly, do not worry!"

Sayori and Natsuki chuckled and walked towards them. Natsuki leaned in and whispered into Sayori's ear. "Remember that it is a secret only me and you know."

"Relax, Natsuki," Sayori assured her, "I would never tell anyone about your secret."

Behind her back, Sayori had crossed her middle finger over her index finger. Yuri naturally noticed the bag in her little girlfriend's hand and inquired her of it. Natsuki simply stated that it was a surprise that she knew she would enjoy.