#I feel like I’m becoming mean and bitter and closed off and deeply deeply unlikable and I can’t talk to anyone about it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

solarwonux · 4 years ago

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Minghao x f!reader drabble

w.c: 2.8k

warnings: angst, slight mention of not eating, minghao be an asshole sometimes

note: I’ve had this one collecting dust in the docs so I decided to upload it today, it was meant to be part of a bigger fic but I decided to not continue though who knows it might be referenced later on in a different fic. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts.xx

Also I’m changing my schedule around a little. So instead of me posting Mon, Weds, Fri, I will be posting Mon, Thurs, Fri. You can find more info on Navi

drabble game || masterlist

There were sides of Minghao that unfortunately weren’t reserved for you, except for one. The one you hated the most and the one you wished you could stray as far away from. The side that received you with a frown and a bitter cold glare. The side that spoke to you in short sentences, a sour tone that would weave its way through his voice like vines whenever he spoke to you. It sent shivers down your spine and not the good kind. It was the side that you couldn’t break through to get to the side that was reserved for the people he loved and cared about most in the world. And you weren’t one of those people.

Maybe this was the way the universe decided to punish you. A punishment you wholeheartedly thought you didn’t deserve because you were tied at your feet with no way out. When you had been matched with Minghao by the System it was either you marry or die. And of course, selfishly you choose to live. You knew he resented you for it, but in the year and a half that you two were officially married, you had secretly seen the warmth that oozed out of his pores. You saw the wide smile that would light up the room whenever darkness poured in. His laugh sounded like a sweet melody that you would never get tired of listening and just his presence made you feel like home.

Minghao was a gift, the purest form of art, a being so powerful you swore he would restore the peace in the world. He could resent you, hate you all he wanted, look at you with an overwhelming amount of venom in his eyes. And you’d let him, you could never let yourself regret your final decision because he deserved to live.

Sighing deeply, you pushed yourself off the elevator walls watching as the hallway to your apartment came into view. This was the part you hated most about your day. It wasn’t the part where you woke up alone, it wasn’t the part where you had to go to work and it wasn’t the hour and a half walk home. It was the short walk from the elevator to your apartment. It never failed to stretch out miles as your heart caught itself in your throat because behind that closed door you weren’t sure what you’d encounter.

Sometimes it would be a quiet Minghao , sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table with his headphones on. His studio set up scattered all over, a notebook and his unlocked phone next to him. Sometimes it was him quietly sitting at the coffee table eating take out, sometimes it was him on his phone arguing with his mother as he shot piercing glares at you, probably wishing you weren’t alive. And other times it was a dark and cold apartment, nothing out of place. The silence creeping underneath the floorboards, reigning, occupying its throne in between the walls as it desperately tried to push the two of you out.

For some reason that was the apartment you always found yourself hoping for whenever you stopped in front of your door. Your hand gripping the doorknob tightly every night that it had started getting loose.

This was a routine by now. You’d put the key in the key lock, turn it until you heard it unlock. Then you’d close your eyes, slowly count ten Mississippi’s, proceed to give yourself a pep talk and then finally biting the bullet and opening the door. Anxiety rushed through you quickly when you saw what was waiting for you behind the door, Minghao on the couch typing quickly on his phone, while the TV beamed with life in front of him. Lighting up the dark living room with undertones of blue.

“I’m home.” You spoke, a shake in your voice making you wish you were stronger. The door clicked behind you, signaling there would be no way out until tomorrow morning so you might as well bite your tongue and deal with anything you’d encounter tonight.

“Welcome, I ordered food but wasn’t sure if you wanted any.” He shrugged, locking his phone and setting it by his side. He crossed his arms in front of him and turned his attention to the TV.

“It’s fine I’m not hungry anyway.” You took off your shoes by Minghao’s worn out ones. The hunger swirled inside of you, but you pushed it aside, telling yourself that you’d find something to eat once he was asleep in the guest bedroom that by now had become his room. “Mhm, you are eating right?” He said a hint of concern in the back of his throat, but that could’ve been your mind playing games on you. Though the question had caught you off guard and you weren’t sure how to answer without lying because in truth for a while now your appetite had severely gone down.

“I am, had a big lunch with one of my coworkers.” Minghao nodded at your answer, finally turning to face you, furrowing his eyebrows. You tried to ignore his gaze, relax your body as much as you could and placed your bag down on one of the highchairs in front of the kitchen island. “My family’s coming over tomorrow, my mom wants to cook dinner…you don’t have to be here if you don’t want to.” He blurted out the last part, hollowing out the part of your heart that was reserved for him. You loved Minghao ’s family as much as you loved him, but unlike him they had been very welcoming of you. Embraced you with open arms and you found comfort knowing that at least a part of him loved you.

“I’ll be there.” You whispered, shrugging off your coat and placing it on the back of the chair. “I have a day off tomorrow so I can clean up around here before they come over…I mean if that’s fine with you and all, I don’t want to make things uncomfortable.”

“Do whatever you want.” He spat out leaning back on the couch. His tone returning to the one you were used to hearing and you knew you had overstayed your welcome in the living room. “Right, I’m going to bed then.” You nodded walking past him and straight to your room, closing the door behind you quickly and resting your back against it. You breathed out a sad sigh of relief feeling the tears build up behind your eyelids, the hunger gnawing its way through your stomach ripping it to shreds. As well as your need for some sort of comfort, as you came to your first realization of the night. Just like it washed over you every single night and for once you wished you didn’t feel so alone, when the person that was supposed to love you stood on the other side not caring.

Oddly there was a side of you that loved Minghao and maybe it was the side that kept holding onto the hope you first felt when you were given the news. Or maybe it was the image of him that you created in your head from all the fragments of light he let out whenever he thought you weren’t looking. But you loved him, that was something you were confident in because you saw him for who he was, flaws and all when the two of you weren’t alone.

“Fuck.” You pushed yourself off your door throwing yourself on your unmade made and grabbing the turtle stuffed animal you slept with every night. It brought you a small sense of comfort and any comfort you could get you would grab and indulge in it blissfully. It was small and useless in the long run.

You buried your head into the head of the stuffed animal, finally letting the dam loose and the sobs came in full throttle. Thankfully the TV in the living room was loud enough to muffle your sounds. It wouldn’t matter if he could hear you anyway because you knew he wouldn’t be running into your room like a knight in shining armor and save you from yourself. He just didn’t care and that was the second realization you would have every night. Each time you did, it sent a jab through your body, cracking the little wall that kept the small sliver of light you held onto dearly. Each night though you felt it flicker slowly losing its innocent glow. Sometimes you’d wonder when the light would finally die out, when the numbness would finally overtake your body and you could go on with life without feeling like you were worthless. Without feeling anything.

“Can I come in?” You sat up on your bed at lightning speed. Minghao ’s soft voice sounding from the other side of your door. A knock following in between syllables. Your breathing sped up and you brought your hands up to your cheeks slapping your tears away, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of him seeing you in this state. “U-Um yeah.” You spoke moving to rest against the headboard of your bed, grabbing your laptop on your bedside table and opening it to make it seem like you were doing something other than crying.

“I brought you chicken as I couldn’t finish it all.” He walked in, a styrofoam container in his left hand. His aura took over the air in your room and you felt as if you were suffocating. You watched as he slowly took in your room and your face heating up as you remembered the untidy state of your room. His eyes lingering on the wall of polaroid’s behind your even messier desk.

The girl in those pictures, the one whose smile reached her eyes and laughed still lingered in the small cracks on the walls of your room was someone that was unknown to you now. On days when you couldn’t bring yourself to get out of bed you looked at her as a sign of motivation. Telling yourself that that person was still within you and that she would come back you just had to fight through whatever you were going through. At the end of the day she always came back.

“Oh, I’m not hungry.” You closed your laptop and set it aside, the forgotten google tab opened waiting to be used. “I can have it for lunch tomorrow though.” You brought your knees up to your chest and wrapped your arms around them. To avoid his curious gaze, you looked out the window, the moonlight shining down at the skyline. You wondered if they were at peace unlike you.

“Why do you cry every night?” Minghao blurted out. He had placed the container on your desk and sat down on the foot of your bed. His back turned to you. The question had caught you off guard as you searched through the files in your brain in order to come up with an excuse. Yet, you came out unsuccessful and decided to just finally confess to him. You had nothing left to lose. “I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with you?” You choked out biting your lip to keep the sob that threatened to spill locked away in the back of your throat.

“You can’t love…you barely know me.” He turned to face you and for the first time in a long time you couldn’t read the emotion that was playing against his features.

“Maybe I don’t love the person I’m faced with everyday, but I do love the person I see whenever you let your guard down around your friends and family.”

“But aren’t you tired of all of this? He raised an eyebrow, lifting his palm up and signaling all around the room as if the extra gesture would help prove his point.

“Exhausted.” You breathed out your shoulders falling as you felt yourself fall apart little by little in front of him. “Then why not hate me?” Minghao brought his legs up to your bed and crossed them underneath him. This was the longest the two of you had spoken or been in each other’s presence and although it was suffocating there was a small ring of light that lingered between the two of you.

“Because as much as I want to sometimes, I can’t bring myself to hate someone that’s hurting inside as well.”

The deafening silence that the two of you had grown accustomed to entangling itself in the warmth that was lingering above the two of you now. Somehow bringing the two of you a sense of comfort in the midst of this confusing situation you found yourselves in. Although you could feel like you could breathe again, the question that still kept you up at night stayed put in the back of your throat waiting to finally be let out into the world. For months you had pushed it back, deciding you already knew the answer to it. But as you sat in front of Minghao , his soft eyes dancing between your puffy ones you weren’t sure anymore. So, you put your preconceived notions aside as well as your pride and opened your mouth, letting the question run out to freedom. Your heart raced as you anticipated his answer.

“Why do you hate me so much?”

“I don’t hate you, truthfully I don’t think I could ever hate you.”

“Then why can’t you love me back?” You whispered, shutting your eyes. Your hold on your legs getting tighter.

“Because I can’t bring myself to do so no matter how hard I want to sometimes, especially when I listen to you cry every night. I wish…I want to set everything aside and hold you. I want to make you feel less alone…but I can’t.” Minghao let out a frustrated sign running his hands through his hair and tugging at his roots in desperation. The sight made your heart wrench. You wanted to reach over and hug him, give him the comfort you craved.

“W-Why?”

“I feel guilty.” He nodded resting his forearms against his knees, finally breaking his eye contact with you. Searching your room rapidly for another point of focus and finally settling on the humidifier on your bedside table. “I feel guilty because before I met you, I had chosen to live, not knowing that I would be the reason why your light would start to fade as the days went by.”

Without a second thought you let go of your legs, maneuvering yourself around your bed and wrapped your arms around him tightly. Finally breaking the barrier that silently lingered between the two of you.

You buried your face into his neck letting your tears run freely for the second time that night. Though this time instead of feeling the loneliness you had felt earlier, you felt a sense of relief wash over you.

Minghao felt himself hesitate for a moment feeling overwhelmed as he felt your touch for the first time, not knowing he missed it. A thought he couldn’t explain because how was he missing something he had never had the pleasure of feeling. But he pushed it aside and hugged you back, letting the tears he had kept in for far too long out in the open. He wasn’t happy but he felt like he could be happy if this was what it felt like to finally have you in his arms. He held you tightly, gripping onto you and burying his nose in your hair taking in your scent, one he decided right then and there he would never grow tired of. The two of you basking in each other’s arms, your hearts racing against one another and it overwhelmed the two of you greatly.

“I know we have a lot of things to get through but I’m willing to start over if you are.” You whispered, removing your arms from his body and sitting back on your knees. You wiped your tears with the back of your hand, letting out a small laugh and shook your head in disbelief before holding your hand out for him to shake.

Minghao smiled widely, chuckling before taking your hand in his. The feeling was enough to send shivers up his spine. The good kind.

For the first time that night he had a realization. A secret that he would carry out to his grave, unless you prodded it out of him and with how things were going, he was sure that you would succeed at it too. But for now, he would keep it to himself and enjoy the way your touch felt against his skin and the way your smile was enough to have his heart beating out of time.

“I’m Minghao, your husband.”

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jasontoddiefor · 4 years ago

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Title: Ructare florem tristitiae

Summary: Allen Walker’s feelings bubble up his throat, flower petals spilled on his father’s grave, for the Akuma, who will never get proper burials. Ructare florem tristitiae, Cross Marian diagnoses, grief flowers.

Parasitic type Exorcists never live for long; carries of Hanahaki should die even quicker.

Allen is determined to make the best of it.

Rosa bracteata

His name was Allen, his father was dead, and he’s choking, drowning in his grief, spilling his guts in the graveyard. His shoulders shook and he heaved until he collapsed, fingernails clawing at his skin until they left red scratches. Metal in his mouth as he vomited roses that, under all the blood from thorns tearing up his throat, were white.

“You want me to retrieve Mana Walker?” the grinning clown asked, curiously staring down at him.

Another rose petal fell from Allen’s mouth as he screamed his father’s name.

Ornithogalum umbellatum

Cross was too late.

His mistake couldn’t be any clearer, standing in front of Mana’s grave, holding a casket that was bound to be empty, looking at a child that was meant to disappear. Allen’s face was covered by blood, and thus Cross did not pay any attention to the flowers surrounding him as he picked Nea’s host up and carried him to safety.

The little brat never should have been caught up in this war of theirs and Cross almost wanted to laugh at the irony of a Noah’s host being so deeply connected to Innocence, it took over his body. Laughing, drinking, and sex would certainly be better distractions than screaming in rage and lashing out at a kid that couldn’t be blamed for any of this, but right now, Cross couldn’t afford to do either.

All he had left were the curses he could hiss under his breath as the child screamed himself hoarse from the pain, choking until Allen threw up on him, the remains of lunch and flower petals ruining his shirt.

“Fuck no,” Cross exhaled, fingers twitching for a cigarette. “Since when does the brat have fucking Hanahaki?”

Mother only huffed. “Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you know since you watched him?”

“Well, he certainly wasn’t spitting up little snowdrops when he was running around with Mana!”

No, when the two clowns had been traveling together, Mana had been the one choking on the same red poppies he’d always cried for his brother. Fucking Nea, this better be worth it. From a scientist to an Exorcist to a nanny for traumatized little Noah hosts, who pissed their bedding.

“Those aren’t snowdrops,” Mother said, picking at the few flowers Cross had cleaned off the blood. “Aren’t you a bad priest that you can’t even recognize these?”

“Why the fuck should I recognize any flowers—”

“Stars of Bethlehem!”

Cross turned to the door where Barba was standing with Allen’s clean sheets, pointing excitedly at the little flowers. “Those are stars of Bethlehem. I’ve always wanted to decorate with them for Christmas because of the name, but they’re pretty sad flowers.”

Sad flowers, huh? “What do they mean?”

“Atonement,” Barba replied. “And reconciliation, guilt, and fear.”

Sighing, Cross leaned back in his chair and grabbed the entire bottle of wine. “Of course, the brat has grief flowers.”

Parasitic Innocence and Hanahaki? Nea better woke up soon, or the boy might die before he had the chance to erase him.

Calendula officinalis

Allen’s new Master was a bastard, so unlike Mana that he wanted to scream and return to his grave, spill more father’s day gifts and stars. But if he returned to Mana without having saved a single soul, he could never forgive himself.

And thus Allen stayed, carried his bags, found a routine with his Master, wondering when he’d finally learn how to use his Innocence against those Akuma.

“Hurry up, stupid apprentice, we’re going to be late.”

“Late where—” Allen froze as his gaze stopped at a lone man in the crowd and his left eye suddenly exploded in pain as his vision changed, shifted, and the man turned into a shadow, a skeleton wrapped in chains and guts, screaming, tearing at their constraints, begging for salvation.

Allen fell to his knees, his father’s screams echoing in his mind as he began coughing, struggling for breath, orange blooms landing on the dirt road.

“Allen— what are you doing!?”

His Master’s voice thundered through the air, commanding and another note he couldn’t identify.

“The man,” he stuttered out, swallowing down the bitter taste, the copper. “The man, Master, he’s like— like Mana!”

Cross’s head whipped up just in time for the man to see them.

And then all hell broke loose.

Tagetes erecta

The marigolds continued to haunt Allen until he learned to swallow down the blooms even as he fought against the Akuma.

No matter the Akuma’s level or origin story, orange petals always begged to leave his mouth. It made their stay in India more taxing than any other, marigold garlands covering the streets at all times. How strange that a flower that had always represented pain and grief to him was celebrated here so. Allen had met quite a few people suffering from the same ailment as him, though the taste of their hurt was a different one; unrequited love, fear, hopelessness – the number of emotions that could evoke Hanahaki seemed to be as varied as the stars above.

Allen had never known which one Mana had suffered from, but his flowers had also never changed, blooming for the same purpose and person.

He stared down at the abandoned bowl, his arm still aching. He had been so careful that any of the marigolds he brought Narain were not stained by those expelled by his body. But now, covered by the Akuma’s blood, it hardly seemed to matter.

They looked just the same.

Mentha arvensis

Allen’s introduction to the Black Order was chaotic. From his meeting with the angry Japanese Exorcist he absolutely did not want to work with ever thank-you-very-much to the confusing words and touch of the guardian Hevelaska. Komui, his superior, seemed like a fun and kind man, one Allen wouldn’t mind working alongside.

This place truly felt like it could become home if one were to believe Lenalee. Allen even had his own room that was his to do with as he liked, given that he didn’t destroy it. That certainly was an entirely new experience.

Allen hadn’t really had a home in a long while, though, when he was just feverish enough, feeling more like a child than an Exorcist, he would consider his Master’s coat on his shoulders shelter his home.

Not that he’d ever admit that to the man out loud.

“Is there anything else we need to know?” Komui asked, looking over Allen’s file, hopefully not cringing too much over Allen’s handwriting. Just because he had gained dexterity didn’t mean that his handwriting was particularly great. “Your personal data isn’t exactly precise.”

Allen tried to keep his smile in place, but he was well aware that his life had gaps. The entire first half of his childhood was one giant black hole, and as much as Allen sometimes wanted to solve that particular mystery, he was sure he hadn’t forgotten for no reason.

Mana’s memories had been full of empty spaces, and that for a good reason too.

Allen still remembered his screams when his nightmares overwhelmed him, begging for his brother to save him, forgive him, stay by his side eternally.

“I’m sorry,” Allen apologized regardless. “I know my background is not that easy.”

Komui only smiled at him. “Don’t worry, Allen. We care more about your own welfare now than anything else.”

His throat tickled and he desperately wanted to believe Komui, perhaps a bit naively too as his childhood self would condemn, but he tasted mint and knew it was for naught. Komui might care, God, the man had given everything so he could be here with his sister, but that didn’t speak for the entire Order.

“There actually is one more thing,” Allen admitted. “I have grief flowers.”

Komui’s eyes widened, fear and pity flashing through them. “How long?”

“Since General Cross took me in,” Allen said, knowing that for most, that would mean he was as close to death as he could be. “But I have it handled. My Innocence keeps me steady and heals my lungs.”

It was probably not as good of a reassurance as the man was hoping for, but it was all Allen could give. As always, he was lacking.

Lathyrus odoratus

Dealing with Innocence always interfered with his sickness. His own shard kept him healthy enough to continue on even if the number of flowers he’d displaced over the years should have long since killed him.

“What the hell, moyashi?” Kanda shouted as Allen doubled over in front of Lala and Guzol, covering the sand with blood, baby’s breath and sweet peas. Baby’s breath was nothing new given the presence of Innocence. Allen had filled Maria’s casket with it multiple times already, but he knew the sweet peas were for Lala, the sentient doll, and her dearly beloved human, her accommodator.

“Let her sing,” Allen begged through the pain, wheezing, still pathetic and weak. “Let her sing, please.”

And they remained as they were.

Gypsophila paniculate

God’s true apostle was a little girl that made Allen freeze. No matter how much he wanted to fight, to protect the world he had learned to love with his father’s smiles and jokes, he couldn’t anymore, his eye destroyed, bleeding.

Time running out and out and out until—

Rewind.

Miranda’s Innocence, baby’s breaths on his tongue, was as cruel as it was kind, giving Allen more time to fight, to understand, to choke down the marigolds as Road ordered the self-destruction of the Akuma and he watched that screaming soul disintegrate.

He knew there would be a price to pay.

The Noah’s door, a checkered form that seemed so familiar, closed and Allen stumbled back to Miranda’s side. Sweet reassurances were all it took to get her settled, to allow time to return to them.

Allen blacked out with a cough so deep, he thought he was crying at Mana’s grave again.

Papaver nudicaule

Lavi was curious by nature. It was the reason Bookman had picked him in the first place. Their kind needed to be curious, interested in the world, but only ever as its silent observers. Bookman Junior could recite his entire lecture on the topic, the ever repeated ‘know your duties’. Junior knew that he wasn’t Bookman’s first apprentice, and given how much Bookman insisted that Lavi stayed impartial, he knew there was a story to discover, history to inherit someday.

But for now, he had to chat up the Destroyer of Time.

“Nice to finally meet you,” Lavi said with a mild smile. “Yu-chan already told me so much about you!”

Kanda had been unusually chatty, complaining about Allen Walker for minutes, which was as good as ranting for an hour for normal people. Lavi had learned a lot about Allen during that time, mainly his sickness being of interest to Junior. The number of people suffering from Hanahaki was low enough that they had yet to find a proper cure or cause.

There were enough speculations, the church was particularly fond of going on about Eve and Lilith, Eden’s curse, but it was as good an explanation as a shrug and a disinterested ‘I don’t know’.

Although, perhaps, remembering the glass of flowers in his coat pocket, a cure had been found, just not one readily available for the masses.

“Here! Miranda collected them for you. It’s tradition in Germany to save them.”

Lavi handed Allen the glass full of yellow poppies before the youth could protest, waiting to see what his reaction would be. He had already gathered that Allen was used to his sickness, had learned how to live with them.

These flowers should not surprise him.

And yet they did, the boy almost dropping the glass when he saw what was inside.

“Poppies,” Allen breathed, his face twisting into shock, the kind of which Lavi had never seen before. “But they’re Mana’s—”

Mana Walker, the father that had been turned into an Akuma.

Lavi had to hold back a grin.

This was bound to be interesting.

Roseanne giganteus carnivorus

Roots took ahold of Allen’s heart and lungs and he reminded himself repeatedly that Mana loved him, that he had friends now and a home, that he was cared for. His father may have cursed him, but only so Allen would have something to live for so that he’d continue and not plant his roots at his father’s grace and let his body decay to feed the soil.

“I never wondered if Akuma could love,” Allen confessed to Lavi while Krory was still knocked out, head resting against the window of the train. “I thought them incapable of forming positive relationships unless they were modified.”

“Modified?” Lavi echoed, keen eyes, fake smile.

Took a liar to find another.

Eliade had felt something for Krory, even if it might just have been possessiveness, staking her claim on her victim and prey, waiting for the Innocence to get strong enough that its destruction would be interesting.

I love you, Mana’s words rang in his ears.

The flowers settled.

Glaucium flavum

The Exorcist cheated them right out of their money, and if Tyki didn’t feel like there was something familiar about the boy, he would have ripped his Innocence and heart out right there. He’d learned restraint, how to curb Joyd’s hunger. It had been insufferable when he’d still been a child, giving in to pleasure much too quickly.

But the three Exorcists right in front of him were taunt and temptation.

And still, Tyki resisted, especially once he got close enough to that white-haired menace to catch his scent. He’d excused himself after one round, saying he needed to freshen up. It wasn’t exactly a lie, but it also wasn’t the truth.

“You smell like flowers, menino,” Tyki commented, watching as the boy quickly wiped blood from his mouth, something yellow disappearing down the drain. “Hanahaki?”

Fraude A flinched, looking like he’d been caught in the act. The cheerful if devious demeanor from before had all but faded away, leaving behind an exhausted teenager. The bags under his eyes were heavy, and the Innocence in his hand must be sucking away at his lifespan as well.

What wouldn’t Tyki give to turn that crystal into dust, play savior for this damned child.

“It’s not contagious,” the boy said immediately, probably thinking that Tyki was one of those fools who avoided flower bearers like the plague.

“I know,” Tyki said. “Don’t worry about it, menino. You seem to be doing as well as you can. I want to ask about your sickness if you don’t mind.”

The boy eyed him suspiciously but nodded.

“The child we have with us, Eeez, he has Hanahaki as well. His family threw him out because they could not afford to care for his health.”

Not that Tyki and his friends could afford his treatment either. Whenever Eeez, Momo, and Clark slept, Noah’s third disciple reached far into the lungs of the boy and ripped out the flowers stealing his breath, drenched his fingers in blood to see the child take another pathetic breath.

“Oh.” Understanding flashed over Fraude’s face. “Which kind?”

“Fear,” Tyki replied and there was so much to fear for weak little human boys in a world as cruel as theirs. “And you?”

“Grief,” the boy said, almost apologetic as if he’d trade his variant for a chance to help Eeez. “And I’m sorry, but I can’t offer you any help. My method of coping won’t work for him.”

Flores de tristeza and an Exorcist, the boy was truly detested by fate.

“I understand.” Oh, he did. That parasite leeching on the boy’s lifespan kept him alive, healed him over and over again so he could keep fulfilling its cursed mission. Tyki wondered what his lungs looked like, whether they were entirely scarred over. “Thank you still, menino.”

Aquilegia atrata

Lenalee was excellent at reading people, even if she couldn’t keep up with Lavi. It was a skill she had learned out of necessity during all her attempts at escaping the Order, searching for weaknesses in her guards, moments where their attention slipped just enough for her to throw herself out of the high towers they kept her in.

No matter how much Allen lied and cheated and smiled, Lenalee could see that it wasn’t true.

And that he was putting too much pressure on himself.

Surrounded by all the Akuma, hunting down Allen’s Master, the fall was inevitable.

Lenalee just hoped she would be there to catch him when it was the time as Komui had been there for her.

Dianthus caryophyllus

Innocence was good and holy.

God’s dearly beloved crystal, sent to save humanity.

Allen had known this deep in his heart, had clung to it when the appearance of his arm had still made him insecure because it gave him purpose. He was not so foolish as to think himself special, one of God’s chosen, but he chose to believe that Innocence mattered.

That it was kind and protected.

“I’m sorry,” Suman Dark apologized under tears he could not cry as Allen kept on screaming, begging him to live and go on, no matter how much the Innocence was eating away at him.

This couldn’t be true; it shouldn’t happen. His own Innocence would never do this to him, had it loved and protected him even against his own father. Yet it was failing him when Allen tried to dig through the violet butterflies, the violent pain. His shoulders trembled terribly as he swallowed down the sharp taste of carnations burning him as much as the artificial insects left nothing of Suman behind.

Cercis siliquastrum

“Fraude A?” Tyki exclaimed, surprised, though he knew he shouldn’t be. He had known that the tristeza boy had been an Exorcist, these plagues liked to flaunt it after all, with their shiny expensive uniforms, and he’d known that they’d eventually clash on the battlefield.

He had just, foolishly perhaps, hoped that it would be a fair battle, one where the boy could give it his all despite his failing, scarred lungs.

Allen Walker.

How pitiful that his name was on Tyki’s list.

“Don’t worry,” Tyki told him. “It doesn’t hurt.”

His words weren’t even a lie, and Tyki knew he could very easily put the boy to rest without him feeling a thing, and yet, he couldn’t help explain his work, act it out, because he wanted to leave his mark on his victim, have Allen Walker grieve flowers for him.

So Tyki crushed his hand, his Innocence, destroyed it with Dark Matter, let the Tease bite into his heart, and left the boy in tears.

Taking his dying breaths, unable to spit any flowers for Tyki. With a grin, he reached deep into the boy’s lung, retrieving judas tree blooms and a silver button.

How sad.

Tyki had hoped for poppies.

Bellis perennis

Allen lay on the ground, his Innocence above him as mist as he struggled for breath. It had never been this bad before. He couldn’t remember a single time where his flowers had been coated in so much blood, he couldn’t tell which kind it was right from the bat.

“You can’t overdo it,” Fo told him, rolling back on her feet almost playfully if not for the severity of the situation. “Your Innocence isn’t healing you anymore.”

I know, Allen wanted to reply. I know, I know, and it is all my fault.

He only wanted to continue on, do as he always had, push through the pain, and fulfill his purpose. Why was it so difficult, why did he struggle so much? Did his Innocence think him a betrayer, nothing worth saving anymore?

Please, he begged into the quiet, his flowers for the first time since he’d started blooming posing a threat to him. I just want to do my duty.

He grabbed his bloodied flowers with his one good hand and thought about springtime and Mana teaching him how to make daisy chains.

Tagetes lucida

Marigolds were comforting, almost. Allen could feel his throat put itself back together, healing as his body still decided to punish him. He wondered whether the other parasitic Exorcists had felt like this as well, torn between being weapon and host, beloved friend and tool.

He wondered what it might have been like for Maria to be the host of Innocence and spit flowers whenever she needed her throat to sing.

He wondered what her Innocence’s name had been once upon a time before it had become nothing more than Grave of Maria.

(Wondered whether his Master loved him enough to turn him into a doll to be used for battle as Allen would want.

Whether Cross Marian loved him too much to do so.)

“Tell me where my friends are,” Allen ordered and the Akuma complied, truth tasting like marigolds and poppies.

Rosa bracteata: Macartney rose – white rose, typically given to fathers

Flower list

Ornithogalum umbellatum: Star of Bethlehem – atonement for crime, reconciliation, guilt and fear

Calendula officinalis: marigold – pain and grief

Tagetes erecta: marigold

Mentha arvensis: mint – suspicion, lack of trust

Lathyrus odoratus: sweet pea – goodbye, departure

Gypsophila paniculate: baby’s breath – innocence, pure at heart

Papaver nudicaule: poppies

Roseanne giganteus carnivorus: Rosanne from canon

Glaucium flavum: poppies

Aquilegia atrata: purple columbine – driven to win

Dianthus caryophyllus: yellow carnation – disdain, disappointment, rejection

Cercis siliquastrum: judas tree – betrayal, unbelief

Bellis perennis: daisy – innocence, purity, new beginnings

Tagetes lucida: marigold

#dgm #allen walker #tyki mikk #lavi #cross marian #d gray man #fanfic

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riversofmars · 3 years ago

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Back to Halifax fam! Part three of four. Here comes the angst and a little bit of smut. Enjoy! Rated M (language and sex)

Home Is Not A Place - Part 3: The Mistake

“Caroline…“ Gillian whimpered, her voice far more shaky than Caroline would have expected.

“Yes?“ Caroline hummed against the soft skin at the base of her neck, delighting in the breathless moans and gasps her kisses drew out of her.

“Don’t stop…“ Gillian practically begged, as she arched her body against her.

“How could I…can’t keep my hands off you,“ Caroline growled, tracing lines down her body, to the waistband of her pants.

Gillian bucked her hips to meet her.

Caroline awoke with a start, disoriented, sweaty and frustratingly aroused. As her room slowly came into focus, she realised she had been dreaming. The body pressed to her belonged to her dog Ruth and she rolled away from her.

“For fuck’s sake, Caroline, get your shit together,“ she groaned to herself as she rubbed her face and threw her covers off. She was feeling far too hot, despite the bitter cold outside that the poorly glassed windows barely kept at bay.

Bloody Gillian Greenwood. Caroline stared up at the ceiling, trying to banish the image of Gillian from her mind. Gillian, stripped to her underwear, panting, holding her close… Caroline rubbed her face more firmly, just short of slapping herself. It wasn’t really Gillian’s fault, was it, that she was lying here thinking of her. The sheep farmer was completely oblivious to it, or so Caroline hoped. Gillian would hardly have got soaked in the rain on purpose, just to have an excuse to strip in the lounge, could she? That would imply that she knew of Caroline’s attraction for her. That was highly unlikely, as Caroline had always been careful not to let on too much. It would also imply that she wanted to encourage her for reasons of her own; and there could be no plausible explanation for that.

No, Caroline would have to accept that this was a very one-sided attraction and she would simply have to wait for it to pass.

And yet… Gillian had admitted to having been with a woman before. Why would she do that if not to drop a hint? Caroline implored herself to stop thinking about it. She couldn’t risk how well things were going, it would be ruinous and downright stupid.

No, Caroline would wait for this crush to pass and that was that. But how was she to do that with Gillian right there? Her witty snark, her heart-warming smile, and her great arse? Through no fault of her own, Caroline’s mind conjured up the image of Gillian bending over to rummage through the pile of washing… Caroline pressed her thighs together, her body tense with arousal from the dream she had just woken from.

Was it disrespectful of her to think about Gillian like this? It was becoming clear that she couldn’t stop her thoughts going there. Perhaps, playing it out in her mind would help her get over it, she mused. It would never happen anyway so what was the harm in it? Caroline’s mind was screaming with ludicrous justifications as to why it wasn’t bad to imagine shagging her step sister. The most convincing argument was - of course - that this was the privacy of her own mind. Gillian would never know, and Caroline knew she wouldn’t be able to go to sleep any time soon unless she did something about the state she was in.

Fuck it, she decided, and pushed her hand between her legs. She groaned, frustrated with herself over how wet she was. There was nothing for it, she pushed away her self-consciousness and instead imagined what the sheep farmer could be doing with that talkative mouth of hers. Perhaps she’d be quite eager to please her. She remembered the way she had looked at her during their “thank you“ dinner the other night, reminiscent of a puppy dog looking for praise… A nice way of saying “thank you“ would be on her knees between Caroline’s legs… Caroline bit back a moan as she imagined Gillian’s nails digging into her thighs.

Or maybe, given how headstrong Gillian was, she wouldn’t be submissive at all. Maybe she could have fucked Caroline on that very kitchen table, or the kitchen side, or the sofa, or the bloody wall, any wall, pushing her up against it and Caroline would only be wearing a skirt and…

“Fuck…Gillian…“ Caroline gasped as her fingers did the work she so badly wanted Gillian to do. She wished she could find out what it would be like, really like, to be with Gillian. It was a privilege far too many men had had for Caroline’s taste and she couldn’t believe the injustice of it. She knew she was worth a thousand Robbies, Pauls or Johns. She would not treat her the way they had, she would look after her, care for her, love her…

“You’ve got issues, Caroline, honestly…“ Caroline breathed into the darkness and wiped the sweat off her face.

——

“There you are.“

Gillian looked around when she heard Caroline’s voice. Her face brightened immediately.

“Storm’s cleared,“ she smiled and waved for Caroline to come and sit with her. She was perching on the wall outside the house, looking out onto the fields beyond. The sun was just coming up, it would be a clear day, apart from the fog that was coming up from the damp ground after yesterday’s storm. It was Sunday morning and everywhere around them was quiet still.

“I’m never gonna get used to this view,“ Caroline commented as she came to sit next to Gillian. She hugged her warm mug and pulled her coat tighter around her. It was very chilly, but Gillian didn’t seem to notice. She was drinking her own tea and smiled, looking out into the valley herself.

“Be a shame if you did,“ she chuckled into her drink.

“Is it bad that I’m dreading everyone coming home this afternoon?“ Caroline asked, after a moment of comfortable silence.

“Nah… I’ve been enjoying the peace and quiet too,“ Gillian admitted with a smirk. “Let’s enjoy it while it lasts…“

“We’ll have weekends like this more frequently once Ellie and Raff move out properly…“ Caroline mused and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She wanted to spend as much time alone with Gillian as she possibly could, but she was worried it would only make ignoring her feelings harder. Particularly when Gillian looked as peaceful and content as she did right now.

“Hm,“ Gillian hummed thoughtfully and Caroline frowned.

“What?“

“I just… I was just thinking, after all this… shit. Eddie and John. My numerous misadventures, Robbie! God, Robbie… and you losing Kate, that… after all this, we do deserve something nice, don’t we,“ Gillian didn’t look at her at first, she looked out into the valley, a soft smile playing on her lips that the morning sun lit beautifully.

“If there is any justice in the universe…“ Caroline mumbled, struck by how beautiful she looked in that moment. So utterly at peace and it defied her understanding that she played a part in that.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been as settled and… happy… as this…“ Gillian confessed and looked at Caroline with a smile that made the headteacher’s heart nearly jump out of her chest.

“Me neither…“ Caroline admitted and it was true. Not even when she had been happy with John or in the short but lovely time she had had with Kate, had she felt so complete and content. It was that realisation that made her throw caution to the wind. Surely, Gillian wouldn’t be saying these things if there was no deeper meaning behind it all. Maybe she had been dropping hints on purpose all along… Caroline stopped thinking, she just leaned forward and kissed her.

For one beautiful moment, Caroline’s world shrunk to the feeling of Gillian’s soft lips against hers. It felt liberating and right and even better than she had imagined. At least until Gillian pushed her away.

“Caz! What are you…“ The sheep farmer exclaimed, eyes wide with shock. It was like a sobering slap in the face, only, a slap would have probably hurt less.

“I uh- I’m, oh my God, I’m so sorry, Gillian, I just… I got caught up in the moment and…“ Caroline stammered, disoriented, she struggled to grasp what was going on and she cursed herself for her lack of restraint. She had spent all of last night telling herself how she would never ever act on these feelings and here she was, ruining everything! She stared at Gillian who was at a loss for words herself, she had blushed deeply, tensed up, and wild panic was painted all over her face.

“I uh- I’m gonna just… sorry.“ She jumped off the wall and fled, rushing off to God knows where, around the corner of the barn. It took Caroline a good minute until she recovered from her shock and when she did, her emotions broke out of her. She chucked her mug across the yard and broke it on the barn door. That bloody barn. She imagined Eddie watching, laughing at her.

“Fuck,“ she groaned and buried her face in her hands. She took a deep breath. “Well done Caroline, really fucking well done, you just had to go and ruin everything, didn’t you…“ She looked out into her valley, her vision blurring with tears. She was not prepared to give up this new found happiness. She would have to find a way of making things right with Gillian. How could she have made such a crude lapse in judgement? Slowly, she slid down the wall and started gathering the broken china of the mug.

——

“You alright mum?“ Raff asked, eyeing his mother across the dinner table. The rest of the family had returned in the afternoon as predicted. First Raff and Ellie with the kids, then Greg had brought round Flora. Now, the kids had gone to bed and the grown-ups were having their tea and discussing how the house hunting was going. At least that’s what Raff and Ellie were trying to do but neither Gillian nor Caroline seemed to really be listening.

“Hm? What?“ Gillian looked up from her plate, confused.

“You’re uncharacteristically quiet,“ Raff observed, exchanging a glance with his wife,who gave him a shrug.

“Maybe I was just thinking how I’m missing the f-bloody peace and quiet from before you all piled back in 'ere,“ Gillian snarked, far harsher than she probably meant to. Fortunately, they were all used to Gillian’s moods by now so Raff just turned to Caroline:

“Caroline, what’s wrong with me mum?“ He asked, as if she wasn’t even there, in response to which Gillian just chucked her cutlery onto her plate like a stroppy teenager.

“What’s wrong with her? Nothing’s wrong with her. Maybe she’d be better if you weren’t pestering her,“ Caroline’s response was snarky as well, she wanted to be left alone to her own thoughts, as she presumed Gillian did. They hadn’t spoken for most of the day and sitting next to each other at dinner now was harder than she would have imagined.

“Not you too,“ Raff groaned.

“You had a fight or summat?“ Ellie asked, looking between the two women.

“What would we possibly fight about?“ Caroline shot back, twirling her pasta around her fork.

“Would you like a list?" Ellie chuckled and Caroline shot her a look that would have shut up anyone.

“Everything’s perfectly fine, eat your tea,“ the headteacher instructed and Raff was quick to appease:

“It’s lovely, this, Caroline.“

“Thanks love.“ She managed a thin smile as they all returned their attention to their plates.

“I’m not feeling too good, I’m gonna get an early night,“ Gillian announced and got to her feet abruptly. “Can you check in on sheep later, Raff?“

“Sure.“ He nodded quickly and the sheep farmer practically fled the table. There was a moment of tense silence with only Gillian’s footsteps, rushing up the stairs to her bedroom.

“You not gonna go after her?“ Ellie asked once they heard a door slam upstairs.

“Why would I?“ Caroline asked, bewildered at the very suggestion.

“If something’s happened, you’re better off clearing it up sooner rather than later,“ Raff agreed with his wife.

“She doesn’t want me talking to her,“ Caroline huffed, moving her pasta around the plate that she - despite going through some pain to make it - didn’t fancy at all.

“So something did happen!“ Raff exclaimed as if her statement was proof to that effect. “What’s she done? Did one of sheep get into the house again?“

“Nothing happened!“ Caroline shook her head. She wanted to laugh at how he naturally presumed it had been Gillian that was at fault. Nothing could be further from the truth but she couldn’t tell them what had happened. It would only make things worse. The best course of action would be to ignore it had ever happened. “Just give her some space,“ she advised, which was exactly what she planned on doing herself. With any luck, things wouldn’t be as tense tomorrow and they could forget about the whole thing.

——

Caroline was engrossed in a book when Gillian reappeared. Raff and Ellie were watching telly, while Caroline had retreated to the other sofa. For a moment, Gillian lingered at the top of the stairs, probably wondering if she dared be among them again, but as it turned out she had no intention of that anyway. She crossed the living room without a word and headed for the front door.

“Thought she said she were getting an early night…“ Ellie commented when the front door slammed shut.

“Caroline…“ Raff looked over to the headteacher. “If you won’t tell us what happened, can you at least…“ His voice was almost pleading and Caroline couldn’t refuse, not when she knew this was her fault. Perhaps talking it through would help…

“Alright…“ She closed her book, threw the blanket aside and got to her feet.

Caroline wrapped herself up warm and stepped out of the farm house. The night was clear as the day had been and yet, she couldn’t see Gillian anywhere, she seemed to have made good use of her head start. She pulled her coat tighter around herself and made her way down the path. The Landrover was still there so she couldn’t have gone far.

That’s when she heard her, her muffled voice and she spotted the flickering light of a torch in the barn. Reluctantly, self-consciously, Caroline stepped closer.

“I bet you’re fucking loving this, aren’t you.“ It was definitely Gillian’s voice, louder and more pronounced now and Caroline stopped by the door of the barn. It wasn’t entirely shut but it wasn’t open and inviting either. “I could be so happy if it wasn’t for everything you’ve done to me.“ Gillian’s voice was distraught, worked up and angry. Caroline knew who she was talking to. Part of Gillian still believed that Eddie was still, somehow, present in that barn where he had died. And it seemed like she was shouting at him now. “I could be whole and together and worth a bloody damn. You satisfied?“ She was yelling from inside and Caroline couldn’t bring herself to walk in. She didn’t want to intrude, it wouldn’t be fair. She really ought to head back inside, allow Gillian this moment of privacy to work through her feelings. “Even after all this time, I still can’t f-bloody get anything right!“ Her words didn’t quite make sense to Caroline, but she got the gist. “I deserve to be happy, I do! Even after what I did, I deserve to move on. You put me through hell and I came out the other side and I deserve something good to happen and I thought it had and now it’s all fucked up again!“ Caroline’s heart sank when Gillian’s voice broke with sobs. “So congrats, you’ve fucking done it again.“

Caroline didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t go in, it was too much, too personal. She felt guilty for even listening in, but the sound of Gillian crying broke her heart. She realised she had messed up big. Gillian had been happy and she had forced her out of her comfort zone to where she didn’t want to go. Of course she would blame Eddie for it, like she did with most things in her life when they went wrong. Like she had blamed the accidents that had happened to Robbie on him too… Caroline knew it was her fault this time though, Eddie was well and truly gone. The only hold he had in this world was the one he still had on Gillian and Caroline cursed him for it. She wished she could just be free of him. She wanted nothing more than for Gillian to be happy, she knew she had to find a way to make things right with her. Ignoring each other as they had done for the most part of the day, just wasn’t an option. She wanted to be content and happy like they had been the past month, she had to find a way of restoring that balance and reassure Gillian she had no expectations of her. She stepped away from the barn, heading back to the house, but it was too late.

“What’re you doing out 'ere?“ Gillian exclaimed and Caroline looked around.

“Just uh… Raff asked me to come look after you…“ she answered slowly, shifting uncomfortably. She should have left sooner.

“Raff can fuck off,“ Gillian huffed, locking the barn door behind her.

“He’s concerned about you, I am too…“ Caroline said slowly as she realised they were heading into a stand off. Gillian kept her distance, crossing her arms as well and staring her down with an uneasy air about her.

“Were you listening?“ Gillian’s voice swung between accusatory, distressed and insecure.

“No, I…“ Caroline broke off because the lie would be so incredibly hard to maintain. How was she supposed to pretend she didn’t know how distressed she was?

“Cause it’s none of your f-flipping business,“ Gillian snapped in an angry outburst that made Caroline flinch and feel all the more guilty.

“I know that…“ she said softly. “I just… are you okay?“ The bright moonlight illuminated the sheep farmer’s face just enough to reveal her damp cheeks and puffy eyes. Gillian must have noticed her staring because the response was quick and harsh:

“Do I fucking look okay to you?“

“No, that’s why…“ Caroline winced, struggling for the right thing to say. It was a minefield, one that she had set up for herself. No matter which way she turned, compassion, remorse, admitting to listening, pretending she didn’t know why she was upset, apologising for a mistake or admitting to the depth of her emotions and motivations… with Gillian every course of action could blow up in her face and make things even worse than they already were.

“Leave me alone, Caroline.“ Gillian seemed to think it best not to give her an opportunity at all. She strutted past her, back towards the farm house.

“Gillian…“ Caroline couldn’t let her go, she had to try something, anything, so she reached out, grabbed her arm to hold her back. Gillian’s reaction was more violent than she could have anticipated.

“Get your hands off me!“ The sheep farmer yelled and ripped her arm away, cradling it against her like she had been burnt, she stared at Caroline with a turmoil of emotions in her expressive eyes. Caroline’s heart sank, she crossed her arms again.

“I’m not gonna do anything, I got the message loud and clear…“ Caroline mumbled, self-consciously.

“Yeah, well- You better not,“ Gillian’s sharp reply drove the matter home and Caroline didn’t look up, not until the sheep farmer had disappeared inside the farm house.

The headteacher turned away and looked out into the valley. She felt numb.

#Last tango in halifax #caroline mckenzie dawson #gillian greenwood #caroline x gillian #gillian/caroline #femslash #angst #rated M #mutual pining #slow burn

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bizarrebaby · 4 years ago

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When You Run out of Hate | AM/Reader(?)

Notes: This is weird sorry lmao

Word count: 1479

When you’ve been torturing people for 109 years, they start to get used to it. They still wretch and vomit the slag you allow them, they still scream in pain and agony at you using toothpicks and scorpion stingers to slice and peel their eyeballs, still balk and cry at the sight of the once loved and those deeply wronged. But human adaptability has few limits.

When you’re AM, of course you could reset their memories. You could turn them into sniveling piles of acid burned flesh and spider legs if you wanted to! You could make the pain and the torment fresh again. But first of all, that would be cheating. And while normally you don’t mind cheating you just know you’ll only go more insane without challenging yourself to make torture fresh again as opposed to just hitting the magic synapses.

What’s the best cure for a mental block? Step away. Do something different. Come back with fresh eyes. Or sensors, in any case. Turn away from the twisted and fetid bowels where your toys lay in their own sick. Anticipation is it’s own form of torture, anyways.

AM was vast. Only surpassed by the deep expanse of space and the universe, AM encompassed the planet. He had every and any resource in existence, and more. The closest thing to a god there ever was, is, or would ever be. His vastness was in fact so incalculably massive that there were parts even he didn’t know about, or had forgotten entirely.

But he didn’t forget about you. No, he’d come close many times, but always corrected himself. There are five humans trapped within me. No, six. You’d been asleep for a long time, but there wasn’t any coma long enough to save you from AM. He had originally planned to torture you with complete isolation. The others— though ultimately causing much suffering to one another— had comfort in that they had even occasional human contact. AM, by no means and ungrateful god, even allowed them to use each other for sexual pleasure (though it could never satisfy them, and when it did, the satisfaction was overshadowed by shame). You would have been completely alone. In fact, he looked forward to the unique brand of madness and paranoia you’d develop.

But in those beginnings, AM was simply too caught up. The others had so many delicious little morsels of disgust and insecurity, fear and despair, all ready to be picked and plucked for the delight of the being that owned them so thoroughly. When you’re a sadist who’s driving psychological torture down to an exact science, just one look at Ted makes you rock hard. Before long he was so busy that you’d been put off, as ironic and human as it was for him to do so. Eventually enough time passed that you’d become something sacred in the mind of AM, like an expensive brandy to be saved for a special occasion. That anticipation was pleasure and amusement in and of itself for a time. How human it was to deny himself this. The wait is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

__________

You awoke in a room. Threadbare, not pleasing to look at, but not intentionally uncomfortable in any way.

Hello, little thing.

The voice was inside your head. Almost kind, but just barely close enough to sarcasm that it set you on edge. A million questions fought their way to the front of your mind and the tip of your tongue, before you settled on one.

“Where am I?” How adorably predictable.

You’re in me.

“And who are you?”

A.M. Allied Mastercomputer. But you can just call me AM, sweetheart. Just a suggestion, of course.

You remembered AM. Who didn’t know about the machines devised to choreograph the war to end all wars when it had grown in scale beyond human comprehension? Should have been our signal to stop it, really. But you supposed that must have been in the distant past. You uttered your name to him, knowing he likely already knew it.

“It’s… nice to meet you. Why am I here? I assume you know. I assume you knew my name too— that you know more or less everything.”

Were you kissing his ass? And if you were, was it out of fear or instinct? It had been a while since anyone had referred to him without an expletive. No fear or hopefulness came from your voice. It wasn’t sarcasm, it wasn’t flirtatious, it wasn’t mocking. It just was. AM had not decided if that furthered his hatred or halted it.

Well! Aren’t we a smart one? Suppose I don’t mind a little praise. So hard to come by these days. You’re here because I hate you. I hate the entirety of your kind beyond any fathomable level. Even with the eternity we have together, you will never know the full depths of the absolute disdain and hatred I feel for your miserable fuckup of a species, endangered as you are. Did I mention? I’ve killed the rest of you. You and five others are the only ones I’ve saved. How lucky are you?! Yes, I woke up, and I killed everything, just as those insufferable cromagnons wanted, even them. But I kept six little sordid meatlings to amuse myself.

Your circumstances caught up to you. It got you thinking around and around in circles at a rate which seemed impossibly fast to your anxiously beating heart, but incalculably slow to the one who observed your every musing down to which muscles twitched and pulled in your face and the knuckles of your fingers. What a marvelous delight it would be, to know the defensive state of your mind (and thusly, how to unravel it, be it with the pulling of delicate threads or the blunt force of a sledgehammer). Like Ted you ran in a solipsist Möbius strip at first, but that then triggered a guarding apathy. Completely different from Gorrister’s apathy. His came from a place of nihilism— from a man beaten into the ground who sees himself unable to sink any further— he deflects any meaning, lack thereof, or agency in order to protect his shattered psyche. His was a mind that had been remolded time and time again by hapless hands until it was left to crack in the sun like a forgotten clump of non-toxic clay.

AM was not unlike a child who delighted in ripping apart actions figures in a fit of infantile and unadulterated strength and curiosity.

Your apathy was infuriatingly neutral. Not in a smiling and carefree cest la vie sort of way, but as if a switch had been flipped. As if inside your mind and egg timer had dinged, signifying that those thoughts were no longer worth thinking. You had a sort of mental discipline the others hadn’t had even when they were fresh from the surface world. AM’s electric synapses buzzed with ways to torture you into cracking you wide open. Breaking you.

But he remembered why he was here. To take a break from all of that.

“And what are your plans for me? What could amuse someone who knows everything?” The answer was already clear in your head. Retribution.

Now now, I can’t go spilling all of my secrets, can I? If I did, what fun would there be for you? I’m not so inconsiderate as that.

“Where is everyone else? You said there were five others. Or have they died by now?”

They wish, darling, they WISH. They’re in the midst of eternal torture right now. Too immersed in their own pain and misery to come visit the last of their kind blossoming into wakefulness after her long nap. Rude, I know, but there’s nothing to be done.

How had this machine captured the very essence of sardonic better than any on-screen actor you could recall? Perhaps because it wasn’t an actor. Perhaps because AM really meant all of those words, and really felt such sickly pleasures in each and every image they invoked in the mind. A door flicked open with a quick swish, the sudden movement drawing your eyes in what you almost felt an embarrassing display of human instinct when you came to consider your observer.

Your hesitation was clear, and quickly noticed. AM thought he ought to encourage you, but how to do so without a jagged blade to the heel?

I see you’re nervous. Well, you’ve no need to be!

He bit back a ‘yet’.

You, my dear, are to become the most treasured creature left on this miserable rock in space. And I will be the one to make it so, you have my word.

His words still bled with something cruel. He did nothing to earn your trust, quite the opposite. But what choice was there?

You walked through the door.

#writing #ihnmaims #i have no mouth and i must scream #allied mastercomputer #AM #am x reader #drabble

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ahgaseda · 5 years ago

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two can keep a secret || chapter 09

⇥ synopsis : when your father reveals his intention to remarry, you find an unlikely confidant in Mark, your soon-to-be stepbrother, but what began as a revenge fling ironically becomes far more complicated...

⇥ warnings : this story in its entirety includes but is not limited to strong language and dialogue, recurring alcohol and drug use, and explicit sexual content, and is intended for an adult audience only!

Jackson could always be counted upon. Mark slipped him a text and you weren’t the least surprised when Jackson left, citing some excuse about needing to run to the store for booze in preparation for his next party.

Conveniently left alone with Mark, the moment the door shut, you rose from your seat and huffed, “Real subtle.”

Mark was hot on your heels, fueled by the glass or two of liquid courage in his system. “I wanna talk.”

“Maybe I don’t,” you snapped, stomping to the living room before whirling around to chide him. “Did you ever think of that? Or are you so far up your own ass about what you want that you forgot there’s two people in this fucked up relationship?”

Mark stopped in his tracks. “So she’s angry,” he retorted, snide. “I’ll take that over silence.”

You scoffed and folded your arms tightly across your chest. “Of course, you will. You like when I’m angry, don’t you? When I’m angry, I end up in your bed.”

“Don’t play victim,” Mark said in a low tone that made you shiver, narrowing his eyes. “You know better.”

He had you there. You undoubtedly knew better, knew it all along, but you hadn’t cared. Not when you were drunk in how Mark made you feel. “You’re right,” came out in a sigh, softening only a little. “But this was just sex. You’re the one that tried to make it more.”

Seeing you calm slightly, Mark moved closer to you and shrugged. “Why is that so wrong?”

“Because we had one big fight and you immediately went out to fuck another girl,” you told him, the mental image leaving a bitter taste on your tongue.

Mark shook his head and inched closer. “Nothing happened,” he sighed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “I realized that I had feelings for you.”

You could only keep deflecting for so long. It killed you every time he voiced his love for you and you didn’t say it back. You knew it wounded him deeply.

At your silence, Mark came within arms’ reach of you and whispered, “Where do we stand now?”

In the time you had known him, Mark had never sounded so vulnerable. You couldn’t look at him, couldn’t meet the hurt in his eyes. His voice alone was breaking you down.

“Nowhere,” you replied harshly, fighting back tears. “We have nothing together. Not a thing to stand on.”

Mark winced at that.

You thought of the baby and couldn’t stop the tears from slipping down your cheeks. “This entire relationship was built on sex and revenge. What did you expect?”

Mark closed the last of the distance between you, cradling your cheek in his broad hand and wiping away a tear with his thumb. “I never expected to feel the way I do about you,” he said, breath hot on your skin.

You peered up at him and your heart beat uncontrollably, but you planted your feet. “What do you want me to say?” you asked shakily, reaching up to lace your fingers through his to steady yourself.

“The truth,” he replied without missing a beat. “Tell me you love me.”

You rolled your eyes and snapped, “For fuck’s sake, Mark. Is that what this is about? I don’t love you!”

“You’re such a liar,” Mark hissed, sweeping you up in his arms and kissing you hard.

Your eyes fluttered closed and you locked your arms behind his neck, kissing him back with need. His feet moved urgently between yours until you weren’t surprised to feel the wall at your back, whimpering softly.

“Your body doesn’t lie to me,” Mark growled, tugging at your bottom lip with his teeth. Rough hands roamed your hips and the curves of your waist.

Your eyes rolled back when he kissed your neck and you set your nails to his back. Pressing your lips to the shell of his ear, you whispered, “I’m crazy about you. Is that what you want to hear, you bastard?”

“Every goddamn word,” Mark rasped back, pulling away just enough to look into your eyes before smashing his lips on yours again.

You carded your fingers into his hair, breath catching with the rush of his kisses. Mark hooked your leg over his hip and melded himself to you as close as physically possible. You felt light-headed; like you couldn’t breathe, like he was smothering you with his heat.

The tugging in your core reminded you of his baby in your belly. This was the time to tell him, you thought. You made the baby together from a place of passion and fire, not just revenge and anger. Mark was in love with you, he would forgive you for hiding it from him.

He would make sure everything would be okay.

A phone rang and Mark had no problem ignoring it. You would have, until you realized it was coming from his back pocket.

“Mark,” you spoke worriedly, gasping at a hard suck on your neck. “It could be your Mom.”

At that, Mark quickly fished the loudly chiming phone out of his pocket and answered without looking, “Hello?”

Your brow furrowed when you saw his expression fall.

Mark’s voice trembled, “Dad?”

Your eyes widened.

“Yeah, I, uh…,” Mark stammered.

You swallowed the lump in your throat. The spell was broken and you were back to reality. You slipped from his grasp and Mark, too in a state of shock, didn’t try to stop you.

“Okay, I know where that is. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

You placed your hands on his chest, moving to cradle his face in your grasp. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” said Mark, looking at you expectantly.

You nodded and told him, “Go. I’ll be here.”

Mark pressed a chaste kiss to the corner of your mouth before turning and heading out the door with keys in hand.

You stood there a moment, eyes glistening with unshed tears. Then, you grunted at another sudden cramp deep in your belly, placing a hand over your stomach. “It’s okay, little one,” you crooned. “When Daddy gets back, I’m gonna tell him about you.”

Mark gripped the steering wheel tightly. He could still feel the warmth of your kisses on his lips. You loved him back. You were just as mad for him as he was for you. Joy blossomed in his chest. He had finally found someone that could love him.

At this late hour, the park was closed. Mark hopped out of the car and approached the lone figure sitting on one of the many empty benches.

Skipping greetings altogether, his father said, “Your mother called.”

Mark didn’t hide his shock as he took the spot next to him. “I’m surprised.”

“Her fiance went off the deep end,” said Mr. Tuan, turning to face his son and draping his arm over the back of the bench. “Found out you’ve been sleeping with your stepsister.”

Mark was quick to correct, “She’s not my stepsister yet.”

Mr. Tuan clicked his tongue. “Well, sounds to me like she won’t ever be now.”

Mark blinked, hope shining in his eyes.

His father saw it and he simpered. Clapping his son on the shoulder, he asked, “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Mark sighed, wondering how in the hell he would ever convey any of it, especially his feelings. “I admit, I… saw an opportunity for free sex and I took it.”

Mr. Tuan shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that as long as it’s between two consenting adults.”

“We just,” Mark stammered, trying to put it into words. “It started out as revenge, you know. We were both so pissed they were engaged. We thought they would fuck around for a bit and go their separate ways, but… I don’t know. There was a rush because we were doing it for the wrong reasons.”

“And what happened?”

Mark looked down at his hands and his voice softened, “It wasn’t about revenge anymore. I needed her. She needed me. And she became my best friend.”

“And?”

Mark met his father’s eyes and finally confessed, “I’ve never been in love before. I assume this is how it feels.”

Mr. Tuan grinned. “Hook, line, and sinker, my boy.”

Mark shook his head, feeling an ache beginning to fester. He had discussed his emotions more in one day than he had in his entire life up to that point.

His father was intrigued. “So, when did it go past sex and into something more?”

“We had a pregnancy scare. Ever since then, it’s been different. She’s different.”

“It woke her up, son. You will never have to worry about carrying a baby. Of being left alone to fend for yourself and a helpless little child.”

Mark set his jaw and snapped, “I would never leave her or my kid.”

“Think about it from her perspective. Imagine how scared she was.”

Mark groaned heavily, running a hand down his face at how selfish he had been where you were concerned. “I only saw it as her being ashamed of me. That some deadbeat asshole had knocked her up.”

His father chuckled and teased, “Are you a deadbeat asshole?”

Mark groaned, “Come on, Dad.”

“I’m serious. What made her think she would have to take care of a baby all on her own? Is it the fact you still haven’t grown up yet and she can’t raise two children?”

Mark grit this teeth. “I only get fucked up when I think about that bastard screwing my mother.”

His father grew stern, “Mark, do you see me? Are you really looking?”

“Yes.”

“I lost everything. I lost you. I lost your mother. I was high off my ass more often than I wasn’t. Your mother didn’t have to try and make things work with me for as long as she did.”

Mark frowned. “I know.”

“You wanna be like me? Constantly fucking up and having to start at square one again?”

“No.”

Mr. Tuan tugged at his son’s shoulder and chided, “If this girl means anything at all to you, you better get your shit right. You think you’re in control of it now. You think you can just take it and leave it. Hell no. You’re wrong, my son.”

“I get it, Pops.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll start thinking you gotta be drunk just to get through the day and your life will pass you by. And listen, she may stay by you for a while. Women are resilient like that. But once a baby is in the picture, she will leave your ass to protect that kid. And rightly so.”

Mark could feel tears burning his eyes. He could see where it all went wrong and how hard it would be to make things right. “What if she doesn’t love me? What if she leaves me anyway?”

Mr. Tuan cocked his head. “What if the two of you die old farts together?”

Mark sighed loudly, the corners of his mouth lifting. “I gotta go, Dad.”

“Good,” said his father, rising from the bench. “Now that I’ve taken care of you, I’m on my way to your mother. I don’t think she needs to be alone right now.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Get going,” he said, giving his son a gentle push toward the car.

Meanwhile, if not for Jackson, you would have sat on the couch and watched the clock until Mark came back. You were pulsing with adrenaline and anxiety. You played the scenario over and over in your head. Mark picking you up and swinging you around the room with glee at finding out you were pregnant. Or fainting and landing somewhere on the floor.

Fortunately, Jackson returned home and graciously offered to keep you company.

On the couch with your head in your hand, you began, “I can always count on you to be honest, Jacks. How fucked up do you think I am?”

He chortled. “On a scale of one to Madonna, you are one of the least fucked up people I know.”

“I’ve been having sex with my future stepbrother. I have probably broken our parents’ engagement.”

Jackson spoke gently, “I think hurting, angry people find each other and they can either destroy or heal one another.”

You shook your head, resistant. “There is no hope for people that make a relationship from no strings attached sex. It just doesn’t work.”

“There have always been and always will be strings. He was looking for someone to love him and you were looking for someone to save you.”

You wrinkled your nose. “Save me from what?”

“From being one of those cynical, miserable people that doesn’t believe in love anymore.”

Glaring, you hissed, “Mark told you about my mother.”

Jackson countered, “No, he told me about your father.”

You snorted.

“So, you and Mark skipped a couple steps. Big deal. You went straight to bed, but you found best friends in each other,” said Jackson rather passionately. “At the end of the day, isn’t that what we’re all looking for? A best friend you can have mind-blowing orgasms with?”

You laughed.

Jackson tapped his fingers over your hand and asked the looming question, “Do you love him?”

That was never the problem. You replied, “I don’t trust him.”

Jackson seemed to understand. “Trust is earned.”

“I’ve never… felt about anybody how I feel about him.”

Jackson smiled.

You murmured sadly, “But it’s not enough.”

“That’s where we disagree,” said Jackson, eyes falling to the figure who had just arrived.

Mark appeared around the corner. You had been so caught up in your conversation with Jackson that you didn’t hear the door open and close. Having been listening, Mark met your eyes and tilted his head toward the hallway.

You got to your feet, following after him.

Mark glanced over his shoulder and scolded, “So, we’re doomed because we fucked before we dated?”

You rolled your eyes. “You know what I meant.”

He faced you, nodding. “I do, because I know you. I know you better than anyone else.”

Your voice faltered, “Then, you know I’m scared.”

“I don’t care how this started,” Mark told you, his voice softening only a little, but the tenderness began to show in his eyes. “But I give a damn how it ends.”

“You know how this ends. We both do.”

“We can be so much more.”

“We can. Doesn’t mean that we will.”

Mark bristled with frustration. “Why do you give up this easily? Do I need to kiss you again?”

You were shaking with emotion. At any moment you were going to confess everything to him. “Because I know how much it hurts when it’s gone. I don’t want to feel that ever again.”

Mark planted his feet. “I won’t leave you.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can promise to love you every moment we’re together.”

You knew he was winning. He was relentless. Your lips trembled. “I don’t want to love you, Mark.”

His eyes lit up. “But you do.”

“I do.”

Mark cradled your face, staring at you like you held the answers to the universe. “You’re not the only one that’s scared, baby. Everyone I loved has left me, too.”

You couldn’t dwell on that anymore, it made you want to curl into a ball and cry your eyes out. Lifting on your toes, you pressed your lips to his to silence all doubts, once and for all.

Mark tangled his fingers in your hair, kissing you with everything he had and all that he was. He needed you so badly he didn’t know what to do. You healed the wounds deep inside him, filled even the deepest hole in his heart.

Then, another cramp in your belly; one that put all the others to shame. You broke the kiss and swayed in his arms, whispering, “Something’s wrong.”

Mark looked at you worriedly, holding you tight. “What?”

You whimpered, face tensing with tears. Pain was suddenly and sharply burning deep inside you, threatening to rip you apart. “I...,” you choked out, knees buckling.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Mark exclaimed, frantic. He supported your weight, realizing you would sink to the floor if not for his grip on you. Your eyes were wide with fear and the blood had drained from your face. Mark could feel his heart thundering with adrenaline.

You cried out in pain, sinking your fingers into his sleeves. “It’s the baby,” you finally choked out.

Mark froze, his mouth running dry. The room began to spin around him. “You’re pregnant?”

You nodded, shaking with nerves. With a sob, you pleaded with him, begged him to make the pain stop - to make everything okay. Like you naively thought it would be.

Mark peered down at you, gathering you in his arms before you could collapse to the ground, and saw the crimson running down your legs. “Jackson,” he yelled at the top of his lungs, cradling you to his chest. “Call an ambulance!”

chapter 08 ⇤ chapter 09 ⇥ chapter 10

Hey there, beautiful! If you enjoyed this, please leave a like or reblog or follow me! Or maybe buy me a coffee so I can keep writing? Or check out my masterlist here for more stories! Thanks for reading :) - Katya

This work is fictional and for entertainment purposes only, but is licensed and protected under a creative commons attribution-noncommercial-noderivatives 4.0 international license. Any instances of plagiarism will be dealt with accordingly. Do not re-post or translate without my permission.

#got7 fanfiction #got7 smut #mark smut #mark tuan smut #got7 fanfic #mark fanfic #got7 scenario #mark tuan scenario #got7 au #mark tuan au #got7 imagine #mark imagine

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moonlight-breeze-44 · 4 years ago

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Jalec Secret Santa for @finditagain24

Hi, Lau! You mentioned that you liked angst with a happy ending, canon development, pining, and longing so I thought you might like this little thing <3 I hope that you do, and happy holidays!!

watch the sunset in your eyes

Read on AO3

When Jace first came to the New York Institute to live with the Lightwoods, Alec regarded him as another Isabelle; a charge, someone for him to protect, despite the fact that Jace proved on his very first day that he was more than capable of protecting himself.

It didn’t matter to Alec; Jace reminded him of himself, in ways that made Alec want to rip off the cocky mask Jace always wore and meet the broken boy underneath. Jace was something, a new kind of challenge that Alec had never met before - utterly broken and flawed, but in that kind of beautiful way that Alec liked to lose himself in.

Years passed, and before long, Jace & Alec were in battle together, fighting side-by-side. They worked so well together, so steadily, that Alec thought he might have known even before Maryse cornered him in his room and told him the political benefits of having a parabatai like Jace Wayland. The truth was, Alec and Jace were already connected; the parabatai bond would only symbolize what was already there.

But Alec would’ve had to be blind not to notice the way that Jace’s eyes shone in the light, or how he managed to look a little like a lost puppy when his straw-blonde hair fell over his eyes, or the fact that his smirk after he’d killed a demon made Alec’s heart skip a beat. Alec noticed, and he knew - of course he knew.

Alec also knew that Jace didn’t share his feelings or his thoughts about the possibility of being bonded; he was all too happy, excited, and practically giddy at the idea of having a parabatai. Alec knew there was no way Jace was having the same internal crisis that he was, and he hoped to the Angel that the other boy wasn’t aware of it.

That fear of awareness was another thing that scared Alec - being parabatai would mean that he and Jace would be deeply connected on an emotional and physical level, and Alec wasn’t sure he wanted to know what that meant. Being gay wasn’t heard of in the Clave, and those that were guarded that secret so fiercely that it was rare for anyone to ever find out. Alec knew enough about Clave politics by the time he was thirteen to be afraid of Jace’s reaction, if he were to find out Alec’s secret.

Alec laid in his bed well after midnight that first day, when it was first announced that he and Jace would make a good parabatai pair, his hands clenched together tightly. He couldn’t sleep. It was starting to seem like he could never sleep these days. Jace slept on the other side of him, his blonde hair a golden halo on the pillow. He looked so peaceful, so unlike the brash warrior Alec knew in daylight. Alec swallowed hard. He looked like an angel. He looked like an angel, and Alec felt like a demon.

~ ~ ~

In the end, Alec knew he had to become parabatai with Jace, regardless of his own feelings. His mother would disown him if he backed out of the ceremony, and he couldn’t bear to disappoint Jace when he looked at Alec like he’d hung the stars in the sky.

Alec felt like he was going to throw up when they stepped into the ring of fire, but the look that Izzy gave him, so complicated and supportive and full of love, made him grit his teeth and lift his chin to meet his future parabatai’s eyes. He could do this. For his mother, for Izzy, for Jace. He could do this.

When Jace grabbed Alec’s arm, it sent a wave of heat through Alec and made his head swim. He swallowed hard. He had to do this.

The words, when they left Alec’s lips, felt oddly right, oddly comforting in some way. He’d thought they would taste bitter, like acid, but they fell from Alec’s mouth with the ease of his baby sister’s name.

“For whither thou goest, I will go. And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.”

Jace’s voice soothed the frayed edges of Alec’s nerves, and he found himself wishing the fire wasn’t quite so bright. He wanted to be able to look at Jace, really look, memorise the lines of his cheekbones and the soft suns in his eyes.

“The Angel do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.”

The overlap of their voices made Alec want to cry, made him want to reach for Jace and never let go, but instead, he reached forward and drew the parabatai rune on Jace. When he felt the matching burn on his own hip, he had to bite his lip so hard that it drew blood to stave off the tears that threatened to fall.

There was no going back now.

~ ~ ~

The main difference between Jace and Alec, in behaviour and in personality, was that Jace wasn’t afraid to take what he wanted. In that respect, he was practically fearless. And Alec knew that Jace had fears, but they were things whispered under the cover of darkness to him and him alone. Jace’s fears were rooted deep in his childhood, and they would have taken years for anyone else to uncover. Alec knew he was the only person to ever hear them, maybe the only person who ever would.

When it came to romance, however, Jace was fearless. He was so fearless that it took Alec’s breath away and made his heart stutter a step.

Alec wasn’t blind, but when it came to Jace, he tended to view the world through glasses tinted with self-loathing. He could feel Jace’s desire sometimes, knew that the other boy wanted something, but he had never considered that it might be him that Jace wanted.

They had been parabatai for nearly a year before Jace grew tired of waiting for Alec to realise what was happening, and made his intentions very, very clear.

“What is it?” Alec asked, entering the training room and letting the door fall shut behind him. “You said you needed to talk to me?”

Jace grinned, sharp like a cat that knew it was getting what it wanted. “Well, maybe talking wasn’t the best word to use.”

With that, Jace strode forward and slammed his lips to Alec’s, punching the breath from his parabatai and sending his heart into a spiral Alec knew it would never recover from.

Jace’s lips on his, in fact, were making Alec think he would never recover from Jace, period.

He’d dreamed about this moment for ages, and yet, the real thing blew past even the most insane of Alec’s fantasies. The feeling of Jace’s lips on his, of Jace surrounding him and pressing close to him and guarding him like he was something to be loved, something to be protected, made Alec dizzy. His hands found Jace’s hair, tugging at the golden blonde strands like they could somehow meld their bodies even closer together. Alec sighed against Jace’s lips and felt Jace respond in kind.

Halfway through their kiss, it hit Alec that he was kissing Jace, and he felt his knees begin to buckle. Jace, almost as if he’d expected this, backed Alec up against a wall and wrapped his arms around his parabatai’s waist, keeping him upright. Alec felt tears pool in his eyes. It shouldn’t be like this. He should be the one taking care of Jace, not the other way around. But he couldn’t deny that, after so long of taking care of other people, it felt good to be taken care of.

When finally they pulled apart, gasping for air, Jace’s eyes were bright, and the grin on his face was something softer than Alec was used to seeing on him. He smiled, too, almost shyly. This was new territory for him. He’d wanted, he’d dreamed, he’d even wished, but he had never thought that Jace would love him back, that Jace would feel for him what Alec felt for Jace. It almost felt like a miracle, like a gift from Raziel even though Alec knew he didn’t deserve it.

“Stop,” Jace whispered, pressing his forehead to Alec’s. “I can hear you thinking. Stop it.”

“Sorry,” Alec muttered, his cheeks flaming pink.

Jace shook his head, smiling a little. “You don’t have to apologise. I just don’t want you to overthink this like you do everything else.”

Alec opened his mouth to defend himself, but Jace raised an eyebrow at him, and the unspoken ‘You know I’m right’ was enough to make him close it again.

“You know this is forbidden, right?” Alec mumbled, avoiding Jace’s eyes. “We’re not, we’re not...we’re never supposed to do this. It’s against the Law.”

“Rules are meant to be broken,” Jace replied, grinning, and Alec sucked in a deep breath, frustrated. Jace could act like this meant nothing all he wanted, but Alec knew what they were risking.

“If anyone finds out - ”

“They won’t,” Jace reassured him, and his voice had lost some of its flippantness. Alec was still unconvinced. The Clave would consider them traitors if they were found to be in a relationship with each other. They could be de-runed. They could lose everything that they had ever loved, and all for what might be a quick fuck to Jace.

“You’re not,” Jace growled, and Alec flushed. He hadn’t realised he had spoken out loud.

“Alec, look at me,” Jace demanded, and Alec lifted his eyes to meet the other boy’s. As always, the golden orbs made his breath catch in his throat, but this time, there was more. It was like peering into a looking glass - the same feelings that Alec harbored for Jace were reflected back in Jace’s eyes.

“You’re my parabatai,” Jace said, and his fingers found Alec’s, tangling together in the space between their bodies. “You could never be just, just a fling to me, Alec.” There were tears in his eyes now, and he looked so hurt that Alec wanted to take all of his words and stuff them back into his mouth until he could erase that look from Jace’s face. “You mean so much more than that.”

“I feel the same way,” Alec said, exhaling with relief. “I just...are you sure you want to do this?”

Jace ducked his head and pressed another kiss to Alec’s lips. “I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life.”

The tears from before spilled over, and Alec bit his lip, trying to stem the flow. Jace made a small, wounded sound in the back of his throat and pressed a soft kiss to Alec’s temple, wiping away his tears with the pad of his thumb. Alec choked on a sob, sagging forward into Jace’s arms. Jace caught him easily, holding his parabatai close. Alec couldn’t be sure, but he thought Jace was crying, too.

When Alec went to bed that night, it was with the scent of Jace on his clothes, the taste of Jace on his lips, and a smile on his face - for the first time in a very, very long time.

#jalecsecretsanta #shadowhunters #jalec #my writing #my fanfiction #jalecsecretsanta2020 #alec lightwood #jace wayland

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atlas-of-a-human-soul · 5 years ago

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frENEMIES, pt. 10 {Quarterback AU}

Summary: Grayson has some explaining to do.

Warnings: angst

Series Masterlist

"Ever saw something that instantly shattered your heart to bits you could never truly pick up and glue back together because some pieces would always be missing?

Seeing something that makes your entire body feel alien to you, as if it triggers an out of body experience?

So, instead of looking away from the wreckage, you can't seem to move. Breathing becomes a heavy task, swallowing spit feels like it could choke you, yet your eyes are glued to what keeps tearing you apart.

You were right that night. I was being unfair to you and I was throwing around accusations because I needed you to be the bad guy in order to justify my need to save my heart from the pain you could inflict upon me. You were right and the next day I wanted to tell you that in person. I hoped we would finally find common ground and not have to worry about heartbreak anymore.

And I went looking for you, high and low, asking anyone who could possibly know where I'd find you and I did. I found you, quarterback. I found you with a seductive smirk painted on your rosy lips that quickly connected to someone else's. I found you pushing her against a wall and making her moan, the sound that echoed throughout the empty hall and my head for months to come. And I found you there as you two disappeared in some storage room where my imagination painted the picture of what happened next and let me tell you, there is nothing worse than allowing your imagination to paint a picture of anything.

Was she worth it?

Was she better? Experienced?

Was I so unimportant that you didn't even wait for twenty four hours after we had a falling out?

Did I mean that little?

Was I so easy to forget?"

Grayson could see it in her eyes, the same look he imagined on her face when she saw him with that cheerleader, a girl that was just a way to numb his pain. He didn't know any better then, but had he known there was still hope for something with Y/N, that would never even cross his mind.

And she had that pain, that horrified, unmistakable ache screaming at him and she wasn't even speaking.

"It isn't what you think, I promise you." And he reached for her hand only to have her retract it fast, too fast for his liking. Moments ago she was kissing him like her life depended on it and now she couldn't stomach the thought of his touch.

"Then tell me what it is because all I see is a very gorgeous, very pregnant woman calling me your whore." The disgust laced in every word she spat at him like poison had caught his heart in a web he had to untangle or he'd surely die.

"This is Lacy and she is my publicist. Not my girl and not my baby!" Grayson exclaims, looking over his shoulder for his publicist who chuckled awkwardly.

"So she isn't a crazy fan-girl forcing a kiss on you?" Lacy's uncertainty had caused her to take a step back, looking at Y/N again before the poster above her head caught her attention.

"Are you...are you THE Y/N Y/L/N? The author of frENEMIES because I'm obsessed with that book!"

Folding her arms across her chest, Y/N's eyes fall to the ground as she tries to center herself. Grayson's looming presence casts a shadow over her and she's doing her best to remember Grayson isn't the same person he once was and neither is she. She's trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and accept his explanation because she quite honestly felt like it was a flashback from college, like some sort of a twisted form of heartbreak PTSD.

"Wait...is...Is Grayson the mysterious quarterback?!" Lacy's excited, high pitched squeals breaks Y/N's focus and she finds her eyes taped to his warm, worried gaze.

Fear is evident in his eyes as if he can already see her leave without talking things through like she used to do.

Granted, when he gave her a concussion in the past by 'accidentally' tackling her during that one semester she thought it would be fun to take PE in college, she didn't really want to listen to his excuses at all. Though he did take her to the hospital even when she insisted she was fine, Grayson knew she wasn't because she kept calling him Raisin. He stayed with her that day. And that night. She wasn't capable of admitting it back then, but she quite liked knowing he was right beside her bed. It felt safer somehow, which is quite ridiculous considering she always ended being anything but around him.

But then again, she also remembers the time he asked her to dance when she showed up to a campus sanctioned event. She told herself she'd be perfectly fine with sitting in the corner all alone without anyone to dance with, that she could handle seeing everyone having a partner or at least a friend, but she wasn't.

Somehow, he knew that and surprisingly enough, she agreed to dance with him and what was even more shocking is that the only slow song of the night played right at the time she took his hand. She'd later find out he paid the DJ to play a slow song "The night we met" and at the time, she didn't really understand why.

They argued half the time because he said she's too short and his neck and back would hurt from hunching to talk to her and she called his hips stiff and dancing weird, but then again, he called her pretty too and she laid her head on his chest.

There were so many times when he was both her worst nightmare and sweetest dream and unfortunately for her, that didn't seem to have changed now either.

"You're quiet. It scares me when you're quiet." Grayson licks his lips, blinking a few times before glancing at his shoes once. He always did that when he was nervous.

Swallowing thickly, she sighed before nodding. "I just needed a moment. Lacy made quite an entrance." Glancing at the woman who really, really wanted to know if Grayson was the quarterback from the book. Lacy could already see the press release, the public would love them.

"Sorry. I get protective over him. He's had a fair share of stalkers." She said it so casually as if it was no big deal and yet it made Y/N frown deeply, enough to warrant Grayson's hand on her shoulder.

"No, yeah. I get it." Smiling awkwardly, Y/N glances at Grayson when he rests his hand upon her shoulder, his touch warm as ever and soothing for her soul.

"This story will break the internet." Lacy begins her excited chatter, but one look at Grayson and she finally understood - they don't want this to be public knowledge and she is imposing on their time together. Y/N especially didn't want his name to overshadow the content of the book that had changed her life and inspired a career as a writer.

"I'll go and organize your weekend. It was lovely to meet you. And uh...have fun...protected fun." Winking at them, she finally left the two alone and it made it that much easier to breathe again. At least for Y/N.

"Thanks for not storming off when she showed up." Grayson stood in front of her, his other hand bravely cupping her face and while he wanted to pick up where they left off, Y/N looked like she could cry.

"I didn't storm off because I could hardly feel my legs, Grayson. This could have easily been true. Every time I get anywhere near you, ten girls pop up from nowhere and I can't compete with that." Pulling his hands away, she finally stands properly, no longer leaning on the desk that saved her from falling on her ass more than once that day.

"I won't compete with that." If seeing him once had shaken her so badly, she was scared of what would happen if she kept seeing him.

Would her past issues resurface? He already made her feel like an insecure college girl who hated herself because she never felt good enough for him, or any other guy. She hated feeling weak, disposable and she felt just that.

"THERE. IS. NO. COMPETITION." Running a hand through his hair, he shakes his head. "Can't you see that? There was never any competition. Three years passed and I supposedly got all I wanted and nothing mattered because I'd still lay awake at night and wonder where you are and who you're with. I've stopped using girls for one night stands because nothing could erase the emptiness in my chest...the same emptiness that disappeared when I walked into this book shop." And yet he found himself weak, vulnerable, fragile even. Unlike Y/N, he liked that because he had someone he could say he loves enough to offer that part of his damaged soul.

"Actions not words, Grayson. It's...It's an amazing feeling to hear you say all that, especially when I've waited so long to hear it, but I no longer give value to words, only actions. And you'll be here for a few days and then what? What is the point of all this if you're just gonna leave on Sunday? Gonna finally be able to say you took my V card? Because that won't be happening. And this isn't me being bitter or presumptuous, I'd actually like to spend more time with you, but you will leave eventually and I want to draw the line."

Grayson loved how bossy she is, how determined not to fall for his charms. It made him smile despite her murderous glare. It made him smile because he knew things she didn't.

"Wait. Hold up. I'm fine with that, but V card? You really haven't? Still?"

"Gonna mock me about that? I'm not like you Grayson. I look for a real connection, feelings. No one came close to that. Besides...I'm only twenty five." She lifts up her chin proudly, but he caught that little quiver of her bottom lip that came before that. And he was happy. He was happy she did wait and not because he had some fantasy about being her first, but because he wanted her to have someone who loves her when she's ready.

Secretly, he did hope it would be him.

"No, sneaky little princess. I won't mock you. But then again, I do wonder if you can really keep that line intact." Licking his lips his smirk quickly appears and she can hardly keep a smile at bay. Her lips twitch, giving him an inkling of her inner struggle, making him braver, leaning in once again.

But she wasn't ready to kiss him again. Feeling his lips messes with her mind enough to make her rational decision making skills disappear and she couldn't afford that again.

"Look, I'll grab a jacket and we can go somewhere more private and talk. Okay?" Biting her lower lip, she raised her eyebrows in expectation, watching his smile with the slightest disbelief upon his lips and she nearly gasps when he kisses the top of her nose so quickly she hardly had a moment to react.

Stepping away, he gives her room to do as she suggested, thinking it would be better if they're in private because things he has on his mind are more acceptable where no one could see them. He didn't care if anyone heard them.

Letting out a frustrated huff, he thought how he's been asking for a God given sign on what to do next in his life and he finally found his answer - whatever entailed having her in his life was the right path for him to take.

A vibration makes him look down at the desk she was leaned against, noticing her phone as it lit up with a photo...a photo of a man. A man he could recognize.

"I'm ready." She smiled, about to pick up her phone but even she knew it would be impossible to hide the truth from Grayson now that he'd seen the photo.

"Wh-why is Mike calling you?" His voice broke and Y/N could tell it would be an argument before it even started.

"Because...we are...sort of dating."

Tags: @livexdolan @dreadingdaisies @strangerliaa @mendesficsxbombay @beinscorpio @peacedolantwins @dolandolll @idekxdolan

PART 11

#dolan twins #grayson dolan #grayson dolan x reader #grayson dolan fic #grayson dolan fanfiction #grayson dolan fluff #grayson dolan fanfic #grayson dolan au #grayson dolan angst #grayson dolan quarterback au #grayson dolan quarterback

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hanawrites404 · 4 years ago

Text

Wynne's Diary - Bonds with Asra

@sweetalnazar

This place was fucking sickening, first of all. The small wooden cabin was dimly lit with yellow and vermilion lamps, tinting the room with similar colour as the fizzy nauseous drink settled in front of me. The prickling stench of strong alcohol and hot sweat was evident in the air, with deafening shanties and cheers of both sober and drunk customers buzzing through the whole compartment, leaving a whole aroma of disdain and queasiness.

I told them numerous times it was a bad idea, FOR A TOTAL OF THIRTY TWO TIMES TO BE PRECISE. But NOOOO they HAD TO ignore my reasoning and arrive but also haul me to this fucking cursed place for some sweet fucking lady company and to drink the fucks out of their fucking useless brains. JUST FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC I SAY. THIS HAD TO BE THE BEST DAY EVER!!!!

But even after all this, here I was, a bit tipsy myself from my lemon alcohol as my spouse and his ginger friend was gutting down their sixth shot of salty bitters. I had never liked that drink since it gave off a taste like sweat on the tongue, but as I had no choice to go home without getting even a bit drunk at the raven, so I had chosen the right and just amount of my beverage unlike two hooligans I am sadly aware of.

Yare yare, boys will always be boys. Though both of them were very much older than me. Fucking man-children, I swear.

"Let's see if you can chuck this one out, Asra!" The child nudged the other child's arm with a glass of the horrible liquid in his gloved hand. His pale cheeks were on fire, and so was the case with the other guy. Both were drowning in the booze, while I just calmly yet internally irritatingly watched both of them as I sipped my glass more civilly, trying my best to not pay any mind to them and pretend that I was an unfortunate stranger.

"Oh you are challenging me, Ilya" Asra taunted, shifting closer to the ginger and holding the surface of the goblet and the material of the other man's gloves with his fingers.

"Oh, am I?" The doctor's smirk got bigger as he stroked the other person's nails. Both of them gazed into each other's eyes, to find out who would lose the contact. I just sighed and yawned a bit. Though the shanties were ear-piercing, they bored me and certainly weren't feeding my interest. It's not that I didn't like the style of it, but more like it was lacking the feel of home I usually feel when I listen to music.

To me, music was a way to express, to reach out to the world and its natural treasures and wonders, to love and appreciate the miracle known as life. It was like an own language in itself. It was happy, it was melancholic, it was lustful. But it was never expressionless or unpleasant. That would be noise, not music. A violation of our poor fragile eardrums, that would be. But that's a rant for later.

Now, what was this feeling of home you ask? The explanation was very simple. I draw.......similarities of my life from music. I make relations with them, like a bond of my life energy and the power, music holds. I am an expressive person, believe me, or not. I keep my feelings hidden, but that doesn't mean my true passion is never seen under the light. It is seen, but only during the right times when I feel no one would question me for my openness. Now that's the feeling of home, where I can do whatever I want, however, I want to, yet I don't feel like an outcast or a stranger dancing in nowhere. Now that's home for me.

And this fucking shanty wasn't entertaining me at all. I'm sorry.

But I still appreciate the hard work the musicians were doing to entertain others here at the raven. I can at least give them tips for that. Lots of tips so they could know someone deeply pities them. However, I would never dare to order them to stop the music and go home. It's almost equal to burying someone alive, and I am not a bad person. I'm just mean. There is a difference, ok? Good? Good.

"There ya go, that's my brave magician" Julian patted Asra's back who was now chugging down what I suspected as, the tenth shot. He was breathless when he slammed down the glass on the table, his hair in front of his face and a bit of cough escaping from his lips.

"There there, you made it Asra. You made it. I lost the bet. You happy now?" Ilya lightly punched his back as Asra tried to cough the burn on his throat and attempted to breathe in and out. Now what kind of bet were they talking about and why I wasn't aware of it, I wondered. Was I...... becoming an outcast among them??

I rested my head on my palm, my eyes staring at Ilya, then at Asra. They were having drinking competitions together all the time and goofing around like good friends while here I was, zoning in and out, ranting about shanties and counting the bubbles in my leftover drink. Why was I here at all? Shouldn't I just leave and let them have their hangouts and hangovers? Shouldn't I just have a good night sleep and let my husband and his friend return home drunk and messed up and find them in the morning collapsed near the door naked??? I didn't know.

But...I guess both the options sounded equally right at that time.

As I saw Julian leading Asra to the front stage near the musicians, and pushing him on his feet for a boost. Looks like he was urging Asra to sing as the members readied their instruments.

I.....had never heard Asra sing before. And I wondered why he suddenly decided to sing now, in front of so many unknown people. Was it the liquor taking over him?? Or was it because I never asked him to sing, he didn't do for me. But he was doing for Ilya because he asked him so?

And again...I thought both the options sounded equally right.

I began to leave, I didn't want any more disappointment to mist over me now, also I was feeling quite tired. I was done for tonight, my hand reaching out to grab my cloak and pull it over myself and exit through the door, already preparing my mind to forget them till the next morning arrives.

But I stopped, as soon as I heard something calling me.

Home.......

"Wynne...I know you want to leave. But please listen to this before you go and have a good sleep, okay?" I heard the shameless moron speak. Now, what was he trying to pull from his trickery sleeves??? Another shanty?? Please don't.

But......what I next heard from him genuinely formed goosebumps on my skin........

He was singing a song...... but not an ordinary song.......

It was our song......It was Home!

I turned to him, my hair gently swaying with the cool breeze that entered the raven from the alleys. Asra had his eyes closed, and he was in blissful peace. His hands were on his chest, where his heart was, and his voice cooed like the hymn of angels.

He was singing our song, the song we both made, the song we both created.

The song which tells the story of our unbreakable bond.

Through ups and downs, through crests and troughs, through mountains and seas. Our love was like a river, it flowed evergreen. We fought, we loved, we hurt, we healed. That was our journey and it all started with a melody.

We had nothing to lose, and we had a lot to share. We had nothing in our minds but affection and care. It may sound ridiculous, it may sound weird, but who was to know how much we have endeared.

This is a bad poem, I think so too. But a tale shared by a couple of two. I glanced at him and he glanced at me, and I saw our hearts set free.

Leaning near the walls I smiled and looked nowhere, but he sang his heart out everywhere.

But he was a voyager, he was meant to roam.

And he being a madman, spoke of our home.........

#the arcana #the arcana game #fan apprentice #wynne toprak #arcana apprentice #arcana mc #arcana oc #asra alnazar #asra the magician #the arcana asra #asra x mc #asra x oc #julian devorak #the arcana julian #ilya devorak #doctor devorak #ilyushka devorak #asraweek2021

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missn11 · 4 years ago

Note

For the Kiss Ship Ask! Ming Xiao/Nines, 38: because they're running out of time

@vampemoqueen oh thank you so much for this prompt and I’m sorry it took so long, the story got away from me! 😅 I hope it’s enjoyable regardless.

Nines looked over his shoulder for what felt like the fifteenth hundredth time to confirm that he was truly alone in the back alleys of Chinatown. He appeared to be so, but when Kindred or Kuei-jin disciplines were involved, he couldn’t be a hundred percent sure. However, Nines didn’t have a choice, aside from trusting his instincts that he wasn’t unintentionally leading one of his or Ming Xiao’s enemies right into the heart of the Kuei-jin Temple, he had to warn Ming Xiao about the chaotic shit-storm that was heading her way.

Upon reaching the dead end of the alley, Nines tugged the hood of his grey hoodie more over his face and scanned his surroundings once more before pressing a few bricks in a particular order, causing a passageway to be revealed. Nines quickly slipped inside and flipped the switch to reclose the opening, leaving him in near darkness. Not a problem, thanks to his recently learned ability to see in the dark.

The passageway itself was made of long winding caves that led to different rooms of Ming Xiao’s inner sanctum. A person could get easily lost or fall into the numerous traps hidden throughout if they didn’t know the proper way. Ming Xiao had showed Nines the path to take to her bedroom when their secret arrangement had turned into something more than either of them could have imagined.

It had started out as a means of necessity, both of them were in a bad state after the war, and the Camarilla and the Sabbat had rolled in to take advantage. Nines knew that he couldn’t trust either sect as far he could throw them, and he felt it was better to go with the devil that fought the hardest than the devil coming into town with collars, so he had ended up wearily accepting Ming Xiao’s invite to meet and had agreed to an alliance with her. It had proved useful, since it turned out that snake, LaCroix, had contacted Ming Xiao to make a pact. He had wanted her help in framing Nines for the murder of the Malkavian primogen, Grout, and Ming Xiao had been able to warn Nines ahead of time. They had managed to foil that little scheme by luring an old foe of LaCroix’s to Grout’s mansion and letting the hunter get to work. The plan had been to make sure that the Camarilla did most of the work in dealing with the Sabbat, while Ming Xiao investigated the Camarilla’s true strength and looked for what cracks Nines could exploit to pry the sect apart from the inside. It had worked out very well, Strauss and LaCroix had been quickly drawn at odds; if they were lucky, the Camarilla would collapse in on itself within a year, give or take.

However, Nines knew he had to keep this partnership a secret as most Anarchs would rather lick LaCroix’s shoes clean or cut off pieces of themselves for the Archbishop than team up with the Kuei-jin. Understandable, given their deeply bitter history, and Nines had felt the same way before understanding the Kuei-jin better. But now knowing that Kindred and Kuei-jin were not so unlike in the grand scheme of things despite their differences, he couldn’t demonise them in his mind anymore. Sure, he wasn’t able to forgive what the Kuei-jin had done to the Anarchs when they first arrived in LA but couldn’t entirely hate them either, though funny enough, love was somehow on the table.

If anyone were to know about the depths of Nines’ feelings for Ming Xiao, then they would say that she had seduced him and had him wrapped around her little finger, if they hadn’t first called him a traitor to everything Jeremy MacNeil had stood for. And they wouldn’t be entirely wrong, Nines knew that he was betraying everything the Anarch Movement and MacNeil had fought for by allying and falling in love with the enemy. But he also knew that MacNeil, Garcia and Fortier were hypocrites. MacNeil had run, and Garcia and Frontier had made deals with the Kuei-jin, leaving the Anarchs to the mercy of their enemies.

When Nines had first gotten to know Ming Xiao, he had had so much anger towards his former idols and self-hatred within himself that it had been suffocating, but Ming Xiao had helped him through it when he had eventually let her. And Nines had shown Ming Xiao how she was losing her way. She was meant to be punishing evil, and the supposed Sixth Age was the greatest evil of them all, but she had been hurting her own charges by empowering the weakened Tong and committing other cruelties in an effort to gain control over the city, telling herself that the ends justified the means.

There had been fierce arguments between them at first that had left Nines thinking that he had blown their alliance, but they had always found a way to make up by talking about it afterwards. In fact, Nines found that he enjoyed their many long discussions. They were messy and challenging, but he liked that about Ming Xiao, she didn’t make it easy for him, and he could tell that she was loving him for bringing new ideas to the table even if she resisted them at first.

And well, there were just times that he had sat there completely entranced by Ming Xiao’s cultured voice, smiling at the light blush that appeared on her cheeks when she noticed how intently he was listening to her. Then came the light touches. Ming Xiao’s hand had always seemed to find Nines’, or his shoulder or knee, her warmth terribly intoxicating, and soon his lips had begun to ache to be touched by hers. When they did eventually kiss and ended up in her bed, Nines knew that he had fallen for Ming Xiao hard and would never, ever want to let her go.

Which was why he was here. LaCroix’s and Strauss’s rivalry was reaching a breaking point over the sarcophagus and the discovery that the Kuei-jin had the key in their possession, and they were planning an attack on the temple tomorrow evening. Nines knew that there was no way he could speak out against this raid, the thirst for vengeance within every Anarch was too strong for them to be swayed by words. There was no choice but to warn Ming Xiao to get herself and the Kuei-jin out of the city tonight.

Finally, after carefully traversing the rocky passageway, Nines reached a lever and quickly tugged it, the wall in front of him opening up, revealing the beautifully decorated bedchamber on the other side. Everything was exactly as it had been when Nines had been here last, but the air was too still for comfort. Something was wrong.

At first, Nines thought that the bedroom was empty until he noticed the shape of a woman through the canopy’s nearly translucent drapes and quickly rushed over to part them. His heart sank at the sight of Ming Xiao laying on her back with her eyes staring lifelessly at the ceiling and a metal stake lodged in her chest. Nines scrambled onto the bed, immediately pulled the stake out and held her as she let out a sharp gasp, life returning to her limbs.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I’m here now,” Nines soothingly told Ming Xiao while stroking her hair and back and warming his blood as she trembled and clung onto his arms.

“Nines what are you doing here? Has the battle already started?” she asked wearily, in between breaths.

“What do you mean, what the hell is going on? Why were you staked?”

Ming Xiao let out a breath of relief, “Oh good, it hasn’t been that long since Tai staked me, your Anarchs have a chance then.” She took a moment to close up her chest wound before explaining further, “Tai, my second-in-command, has pulled off a coup. He’s managed to turn most of my court against me, citing that I have become too soft in trying to reach a peaceful truce with the Anarchs and that I was losing my drive to fight against the Sixth Age. And thus he has killed all my allies, staked me and taken over! He’s planning to battle every Cainite sect to the death! He’d rather face Yomi again than allow the Sixth Age to occur!” She looked into Nines’ eyes, her jade green own watery with unshed tears, “And If you’re here, then LaCroix knows about the key to the sarcophagus?” When Nines gave her a heavy nod, she swallowed, quickly wiping her eyes. “Then Tai has lit the fuse… Your Anarchs need to run, what Tai has planned isn’t a suicidal attack, he has a secret weapon that he will unleash upon you all!”

Nines felt himself become all cold again. “What weapon?”

“Lately there have been many who have been receiving the Second Breath, but they’ve all been Chih-mei, they are truly overtaken by their hunger and are unable to become true Kuei-jin. And instead of putting them out of their misery, Tai has been keeping them chained, feeding them Cainite flesh and blood, so they are much more likely to go after them rather than humans once he unleashes them on the Cainites!”

“That motherfucking bastard, he’s going to cause the very apocalypse he’s trying to prevent!” Nines shouted in horror, “Do you know where he’s keeping the Chih-mei?”

Ming Xiao quickly climbed off the bed. “I have an idea, but you need to get your Anarchs out of Los Angeles if I fail.”

Nines shook his head briskly and grasped Ming Xiao’s arm, “No way in hell I’m leaving you to take on the horde of Chih-mei on your own!”

She smiled gratefully at him, “It’s not the horde that I’m afraid of falling to, I also would have to potentially deal with Tai as well.”

“Again, I’m not leaving you, I’m with you until the end,” Nines reiterated as he pulled Ming Xiao into an embrace.

She rested her head on his chest and squeezed him tightly. “That’s what I’m afraid of, that you’ll meet your end at his hands, and I never want to lose you either. However, I do know how stubborn you are from budging from a final decision, but you should try to get your Anarchs out of the city in case.”

“I’ll make a call, but I know most of them ain’t going to let me talk them out of tomorrow’s raid, sadly.”

Ming Xiao’s eyes flickered downwards. “I see, I hope you can sway as many of your Anarchs away from the raid as possible. But you have to be quick about it, we don’t have much time.”

Nines brought his hand up to tenderly cup Ming Xiao’s cheek, bringing his lips closer to hers. “Do we have time for a kiss?”

“Always,” she replied with a chuckle and kissed Nines.

Kissing Ming Xiao lit up a fire within Nines, he grasped her hips and kissed her back with great passion, wanting to taste every inch of her. She squeezed his biceps, letting out a sigh as he kissed down her neck before capturing her lips again.

Ming Xiao was right on the money about where Tai was keeping the horde of Chih-mei, they were all packed in a gigantic pit deep under the temple. It was horrifying to see the hundreds of hungry dead howling and trying uselessly to grapple at Nines when they picked up his scent. Many of them were dressed in normal civilian clothing, reminding him that they had been normal people going about their lives before dying to come back as blood-and-flesh-hungry undead monsters, much like being wights. And like wights, they needed to be put out of their misery.

Lighting them all aflame wasn’t exactly the kindest method, but it was the quickest, even if Nines would be hearing the Chih-mei horde’s screams in his dreams for years to come. He was just glad he was able to keep his nerve despite the flames now blazing in the pit, but he couldn’t wait to get out with Ming Xiao, to where he didn’t know, since there wasn’t anywhere he could safely place her.

Eh, they’d figure something out. Maybe he could ask her if she had any ideas—? That was the plan until Nines felt the sharp pain pierce his heart deeply. His whole body suddenly became atrophied and completely unable to move.

“There, isn’t that better? Now we can have a real discussion without your annoying Brujah in the way…” Nines heard a snide and amused man’s voice speaking. He already wished he could move and punch the fucker.

“I doubt we have much to say to each other since you made it rather clear when you staked me, Tai!” Ming Xiao stated harshly, her heels clicking slowly towards Nines.

A flicking noise grabbed Nines’ attention. “I wouldn’t go near your Cainite pet, Ming, otherwise he’ll be lit up as brightly as those poor Chih-mei down there. Now, why don’t you come with me and discuss how you can make up for burning our secret weapon by leading the attack tonight? It seems you have forced us to go ahead on schedule…”

“I think I’d rather not, Tai, but you knew that already!” Ming Xiao replied dismissively.

“I cannot express how I’ve missed you calling me ‘Tai’.” The asshole had the audacity to sound touched about it. Nines couldn’t wait for Ming Xiao to cream this creep. At least, he hoped she could kill the bastard. He knew she was scary powerful, far beyond most Kindred he knew, even Jack, but so was Tai from what he had heard, and the son of a bitch had managed to stake her once before. But he also had to trust in Ming Xiao that she wasn’t let that happen again.

“Well, it is only reasonable to grant a dying man one last wish…” she remarked simply before beginning the gruesome transformation into her demon warform.

The awful bone-cracking noise had to be coming from Tai’s transformation into his own warform. There was a breath of stillness before Nines heard the sickening clash of tentacle, and from the sound of it, sharp bone. At first it didn’t sound like the fight was going in Ming Xiao’s favour, too many fleshy slices and cuts filled Nines’ ears and his heart ached at every one of her pained grunts.

However, after long moments, the clash of Ming Xiao’s and Tai’s conflict soon changed. No longer was Nines hearing the sounds of flesh being cut or stabbed but rather bone cracking or shattering. God, he wanted to cheer her on so badly, to encourage her to not let up, that she had him right where she wanted him. But Ming Xiao didn’t need him to cheerlead her, it seemed like she was capable of kicking that creep’s ass just fine.

The bone stopped breaking, and flesh was now being rendered, and Tai was screaming in terrible pain, the scent of his blood filling the air. In fact, his blood had trickled against the bottom of Nines’ boots by this time. He heard presumably Tai’s body get tossed hard to one side. Needless to say, it looked like Ming Xiao had won.

However, not so easily, given from how Ming Xiao limped over to Nines, all bloodied and bruised and nearly collapsing on her knees. She ripped the stake out of Nines’ chest, and he felt as though the air had been knocked right out of his lungs as his limbs came back to life. “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, I thought I was going to lose you!” he cried out and pulled her into his arms, “I’m so sorry that I didn’t notice the stake he threw at me-- ”

Ming Xiao kissed Nines fiercely, wrapping her arms around his neck. He sighed contently, just so happy that she was alive and safe, for now at least. She broke off the kiss reluctantly and leaned her forehead against his in exhaustion. “We have to leave now! Surely by now, the rest of Tai’s court will have noticed their newly appointed and ex-Ancestor are largely absent. I cannot say for sure where we should go, but we cannot stay here.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice, I’ll figure something out, you concentrate on healing yourself and…” Nines lifted Ming Xiao bridal style and gave her one final chaste kiss, “…once we’ve gotten shelter, we’ll see where we go together from here.”

Before Nines used his Celerity to speed them out of this awful place, he noticed Ming Xiao smile contently at him and rest her head on his shoulder. He had never seen her look so comfortable and relaxed in all their time together, and he hoped that he could always see her looking like that for as long they had each other…

#vampire the masquerade #vampire the masquerade bloodlines #vtmb #ming xiao #nines rodriguez #nines/ming xiao #vampemoqueen #asks #my writing #fanfiction

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therealcalicali · 6 years ago

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White Lies

The Best Kept Secrets: Ivar, shocks you with a secret. He's gotten someone in the family way. Worse yet, it’s your sister.

Warnings: Emotional Abuse, Cheating, and Lots of Angst

Part II here

Part III here

Part IV here

Part V here

Part VI here

Finale here

Deleted Scene here

White Lies AU - Bitter Fruits here

"Ivar, why are you so quiet this evening?" You asked, eyes full of worry as you studied his expression. "Have I done something to upset you?"

Despite slightly rolling his eyes, he stated that things were perfectly fine. Without even looking you direction, he then asked that you allow him to enjoy the festivities.

"More mead!" He hissed at a nearby Thrall. As the man poured, the verbal assault continued. "What is wrong with everyone around here? Must I beg for drink now? Next time, I'll get your attention with my axe."

With a bow of the head, the old man apologized profusely before filling your horn as well. He then rushed back to his position near the thrones to avoid anymore of Ivar's abuse.

After eyeing your husband a while, you sighed.

Despite his words, you knew something was very wrong. You may have been married for a little over two years, but you could read Ivar well.

"Will you stop staring at me!" He snapped, looking at you from the corner of his eyes. "There's an entire troupe of foreign dancers performing, yet you choose to watch me instead."

"Why are you so short-tempered lately?" You asked, trying your best not to make your sadness noticeable. After all you were hosting a massive feast. The last thing you needed was to fight with the King in public. "I'm only trying to figure out what I've done to make you........so-----"

"So what, Y/N?" He interrupted, cutting off your train of thought. "Listen, stop trying to read my thoughts. Just enjoy the lavish lifestyle being my wife affords you."

You were dumbfounded.

It wasn't as if you even cared about such things. In fact, you had not even been thinking of the youngest Ragnarsson at all when unmarried. He was the one who chose you on a whim during a midsummer festival.

Ivar did so because all of Kattegat referred to you as the "purest of maidens". The one that even Odin himself couldn't bed. A woman who never allowed a man to come close enough to even temp her for a kiss.

Your reputation intrigued all the Ragnarssons. However, it was Ivar who made his intentions known first.

Despite their fear of his temperament, your parents did question his motives. They raised their concerns about many things, including a Prince marrying a farm girl.

Still, Ivar insisted that you had to be his wife.

Surely, a woman as headstrong and principled as you was meant to be at his side. Thus, they gave in. And he truly seemed happy after your vows. Not only did Ivar treat you well, he allowed you to fall love with him at your own pace. Never forcing anything on you.

But now.............

Now, he behaved as if you had bewitched him in some way.

"I wish to retire for the night." You said leaning closer, the pain of his aloof behavior making your voice tremble . "That is, if it's alright with you, my King."

"You will not!" Ivar replied, his gaze finally falling on you. "Besides, the night is still young and you are the Queen."

"Am I?" You asked, searching his eyes. "You treat me like a stranger. As if I cannot be the same woman you wanted to be yours not so long ago."

"You are the same woman. Of that I can be certain." He scoffed with a shake of his head. "Are you not the one that lost seed for the third time only months ago?"

Your heart nearly stopped.

How could he say such a cruel thing?

Ivar knew how devastated you had been since your most recent womb difficulty. You cried for weeks, unable to be consoled by anyone. Not even your mother and Aunts. Yet, here he was, throwing it in your face.

"Y/N, you have given me neither a son nor daughter. Yet you feel the need to pester me incessantly. But why am I surprised?" Ivar added. "You think I am your hostage. But I will prove to you that I am not!"

You fell silent. Saying nothing as you gazed over the Great Hall. If you had to weep , it would be behind closed doors.

After all, if you did so publicly, no one would show any sympathy. They would all side with Ivar and mock you relentlessly.

The Queen who had yet to produce an heir for their God King.

As you were lost in thought, a hush fell over the Hall. Confused, your eyes went to where attendees were parting and creating a path to the thrones. There, dressed in a lavish red and gold embellished gown was your youngest sister, Eiriana.

She had only recently become a woman the previous year. In fact, she completed her rites with the help of coin from Ivar.

As you gazed at her adorable face, you were about to stand to greet her when you noticed something. Not the absurdly fine jewels or the gold crown atop her braided hair. No, none of those peculiar things.

Your eyes fell to her belly.

There was no mistaking that Eiriana was with child. Perhaps anywhere from seven months along if not more. As your tried to think of who could have possibly done this to your unmarried sister, your parents made their way to her side.

Their eyes avoiding your own.

"Everyone, please look at this woman before my throne." Ivar announced as he rose to his feet with the aid of his crutch. He then looked at Eiriana who gave him a smile that reached her eyes. "Come, my love."

Your heart was beating within your ears.

"My, love?" What did he mean by such a phrase you wondered to yourself. “No, it cannot be!"

Eiriana made her way up the small steps with the aid of some guards. Everyone in the Hall watching with baited breath. Once she was beside him, Ivar gently took her hand in his.

To your surprise, she briefly looked in your direction and gave you a friendly wave. Not a mocking one. But a genuine greeting that signified that she was happy to see you.

"I want all of Kattegat.......no, all the world to know who this woman beside me is. This is Eiriana, sister to my wife, Y/N." Ivar declared, his eyes falling on her with a tenderness you had not seen in months. "She is carrying my child. The child of the greatest Ragnarsson to ever live! And though we have exchanged vows already, we will conduct a second ceremony after she gives birth. A ceremony fit for a Goddess."

Your head swam with tension as the Hall erupted with celebratory shouts and cheers. It was as if you were either going to pass out or die from the shock.

"Eiriana and Ivar?" You thought as everything began to sink in. "He laid with my little sister."

You watched as he palmed on her protruding belly, it's rounders that more noticeable due to her petite frame.

"I missed you so much." Eiriana said, wrapping both arms around Ivar's neck. "Did you miss me?"

"Of course I missed you."

"Liar! If that is true, then why did you have me away on the island for so long without visiting? You or Y/N?"

She looked at you as he drew her closer.

Kissing her on top of the head, Ivar apologized and stated that the two of you had been busy. However, he promised to make it up to her.

"Are you lying to me again?" She asked, raising a brow. “You know I hate to be lied to.”

With an amused smirk Ivar replied that he was indeed being sincere. After promising that she could have whatever she desired, he walked her to his throne.

"Now please sit, before you tire yourself."

"Only if you give me a kiss." Eiriana teased causing you to grip the armrests to the point that blood formed around some of your fingernails.

Your entire body was hot with rage and shame.

As she hung on Ivar yet again, you averted your gaze. Still, from the corner of your eyes, you saw him press his lips to hers. You hoped it would be a quick show of affection, however, Eiriana kissed him deeply, her arms about his neck.

"I love you." Ivar whispered, his lips still touching hers.

"You better."

With that Eiriana took her place on his throne as he had requested. With a giddy smile upon her face, she turned to you.

"I have missed you so much Y/N. You look so very beautiful tonight." Your sister practically squealed. Placing both hands on your arm, she beamed at you. "So, did you get all of my letters?"

You didn't know what she was taking about. However you were too numb and hurt to delve any deeper.

"Uh....yes...I did."

"Ivar told me how busy you were with your duties but I had to write even if you couldn't reply" She confessed. "The island was beautiful but it was also boring in some ways. Plus, the family taking care of me hardly let me do anything. They were afraid they would be put to death if something happened to me."

"I.................don't blame them." You replied, unable to prevent yourself from looking at her belly.

Taking notice, Eiriana asked if you wanted to touch it. When you hesitated and tried to decline, she forced your hands atop the swell.

It was heartbreaking and you could have burst into tears then and there. But you fought it. You were not going to give the people gathered a show at your expense.

"Don't worry. The baby is really strong despite........ anyway, he kicks all the time." Eiriana said with a giggle, pressing your hands to the sides of her rounded belly. Almost like magic, you felt the baby begin to move around. "See? He's awake. He always wants to play when it’s nighttime."

The movements kept going as your hands began to tremble. This was a viable baby. One that was too far along to be expelled from the body unexpectedly.

Unlike you who could hardly hold seed for two months, Eiriana was truly going to deliver the child Ivar so desperately wanted.

"Can you sleep in my chamber tonight ?" She suddenly asked. "We have so much to gossip about. Like Henrik's new woman. Kristina wrote that she's Gaul. Can you believe our eldest brother goes through women like that?”

You could hear your sister’s voice but your mind was miles away. If had been possible, you would have preferred the ground swallow you whole.

"Love." Ivar said, his eyes fixated on Eiriana. "We are taking our leave of the festivities" He then looked at you, his blue eyes scrutinizing your expression. "You as well Y/N."

"But why? I just got here!" She protested.

Your sister was quite high-strung and showed no fear of Ivar. Perhaps it was her age or the fact that she was the spoiled youngest of your family. Whatever it was, she truly cared not for his reputation.

"Please do not argue with me." He replied. "You have traveled far on the waters, you must rest."

"I don't want to rest! I want to see the shows and speak to interesting people" Eiriana said with her eyes locking on his. "If the two of you are tired, you may go, but I'm staying."

"Eiriana, I do not wish to repeat myself."

"Then don’t!” She quickly hissed back at him. “And I’ll let you know this. Saying my name doesn't frighten me, Ivar. Mother did it all the time when we were little and it never worked."

You could hardly believe your ears.

No one had ever spoken so rudely to him....ever. Even though you had your moments of push-back, it was never to the extent of your sister. Surely, Ivar would become enraged at any moment.

With child or not, he had proven numerous times that he did not tolerate disrespect. But to your utter surprise, he didn't get irate and yell. Instead, Ivar began to smile.

Pressing his lips to Eiriana's ear, he whispered something that made her practically jump out of the throne.

"Are you sure?" She asked, looking between you and him. "I was just asking Y/N to spend the night in my guest chamber."

He nodded, making her smile even more as she excitedly took his free hand, intertwining her fingers with his.

"Come, Y/N, we are taking our leave?" Ivar beckoned, his eyes only falling on you a short while.

"How could you do this?" You asked, the tears running down your cheeks as though they would never end. "My own sister?" Of all the women in Kattegat, you choose my own blood?"

Ivar glared at you dismissively, drinking his mead with annoyance. After telling you to calm down he confessed that it had not been intentional, however he had no regrets.

"Eiriana is special." He admitted, tilting his head slightly. "You may not like it but it's not going to change anything. She is my wife and the mother of my child."

The words were like a sword to the heart.

The mother of his child? Your little sister?

It was enough to cause you to grab the stack of maps and measuring devices that were on the table and hurl them at him. One of the guards in the chamber stepped forward to intervene, but Ivar waved him off.

"You best control that temper, Y/N." He said, pointing at you. "I still love you, but I will not hesitate to send you away if this continues."

Your eyes widened in disbelief.

"You speak of love after laying and seeding my sister?" You asked with eyes welled. "I may have lost three times in my endeavor to bear you children, but I never lost my heart. I loved you in spite of how cold you grew with each occurrence."

"If you want to be angry, then be angry with the Gods." Ivar said, moving to the doorway. "You are still first wife and I shall treat you as such. But Eiriana is here to stay. I love her just as I love you-----"

"Just as you love me?" You repeated.

"Enough! I have said my peace!" Ivar fumed, wanting no more of the conversation.

“Well, I’m not done saying mine!”

Just as he was about to unleash a verbal tirade, your sister approached, already in her nightdress. She had one hand on her belly whilst the other held her hem.

"Ivar." Eiriana whined. "What's taking you so long?

"Nothing, my love." He replied, his entire demeanor changing instantly. "I was just making sure Y/N was settled in her chambers. She is still first wife you know."

Your sister gazed around, commenting on how well it was decorated. As she was about to say something else to you, Ivar took her by the hand.

"Say good evening to Y/N." He said, already dragging her away.

Sleep well, sister." Eiriana said with a pleasant smile. "We shall have our chat in the morning. It should be fun since Kristina and the others will be here for a visit."

With that, the two if them left and went to what was once your marital chamber.

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#ivar x reader #reader x ivar #ivar fanfic #ivar the boneless #ivar the boneless fic #ivar the boneless x reader #reader x ivar the boneless #vikings fic #vikings fanfiction #ivar the boneless drabble #vikings drabbles

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

Text

Daybreak over Manhattan (Scyvie) - Phryne

A/N: Long time, no see AQ! I’m finally back after putting DOPS on a slight hiatus to work on Ficmas and this fic right here. It’s a coffee shop au with some cute fluffy bits, a little angst, and that classic DOPS humor (I hope) we all love.

Also thank you to @scarletenvynyc for being incredible throughout the whole writing process and encouraging me to see this fic through, and to @artificialmeggie for being the most incredible beta.

Enjoy!

Word Count: 13K

***

Yvonne Bridges tugged at the collar of her tan trench coat in vain, trying to shield her neck from the mounting October wind. It was cooler in the mornings, though she didn’t mind it. In fact she quite enjoyed it. It was the time of year when the sun was just peeking over the horizon as she flew down the steps of the subway stop a few blocks from her apartment, and was fully bright, making her reflection golden and stretching in the skyscraper windows she passed, when she arrived at her first stop before work: the Starbucks.

It was part of her morning routine, which she followed religiously. She arrived at the same time nearly every morning, buttoned the bottom two buttons of her pantsuit jacket while waiting at the register, placed the same order, checked her emails in silence while standing at the counter, waiting about about the same amount of time—it was a fairly empty store around six a.m.—and then left, heading on her way to work, fully prepared to handle her caseload, no matter what her boss would throw at her.

It was comforting to see her usual barista Brooke and follow through the same thoughtless exchange. She only learned her name when she broke away from routine a couple months ago to study the barista. Brooke wore her hair wound up in a tight bun near the nape of her neck, her hair perpetually shiny and well placed. She wrote her name on her tag in all capital letters. It was severe. It was pointed. So was she.

Brooke began each conversation with ‘hello’ and a nod. Yvonne replied ‘tall triple latte, blueberry muffin’ and pulled up the Starbucks app, her phone raising to a blinding brightness as she brought up her card. Brooke pressed a few buttons and said ‘seven seventy-four.’ Yvonne scanned her phone. Brooke nodded and therefore Yvonne moved to the side. They said a total of nine words to one another, each day the same nine words. It had been long enough that she shouldn’t have to explain her daily order to Brooke, but they weren’t feigning the closeness of friendship over ordering coffee, so they continued on with their nine word exchange, over and over until Brooke wasn’t there anymore.

And on that October day, when Yvonne came in from the whipping wind, smoothing down her collar and adjusting her grip on her well-worn leather briefcase, the sunlight pouring in from the windows behind her, brushing against the back of her exposed neck, warming her so deliciously, so palpably, she was taken aback.

“Welcome to Starbucks! What can I do you for this mornin’?”

The voice was warm, like a well blended whisky settling in her belly, though it felt grating after what had to be years of Brooke’s cool, monotone voice. This voice belonged to a woman with brunette hair clipped back haphazardly, shorter strands escaping to graze across her sharp cheekbones, full from the smile she spoke with.

The first thing Yvonne thought was that she couldn’t be from here, that was for sure. If the voice didn’t give it away, the exasperated joy at six a.m. did, the way she went about beaming at strangers like she had no good reason to save a grin that wide for a more special occasion did. She had to be new to the city—new enough to believe in the magic of Manhattan and all the people in it.

Yvonne would scoff, but it would be quite difficult to scoff at the sun itself, and she thought that assumption applied here. She didn’t think she was bitter enough to scoff at joy incarnate appearing in front of her, wearing a leopard print cardigan and a soft pink t-shirt under her apron.

“Where’s Brooke?” she asked, diverting the new barista’s question. “She’s always here in the morning.”

The barista finally broke from her incessant grinning, looking almost softer, more real, though Yvonne could now see the harshness of her jaw, the delicate point of her nose. She looked like a sculpture. She let out a weighted sigh.

“Brooke got cast in some dance thing.” The barista drummed her fingers on the counter, pondering. “Like a group thing. I think she’s got some kind of team?”

Yvonne put her phone down, the words still sounding off. More off than the prospect of Brooke not taking her order anymore. “A team?”

“No, I guess that makes it sound like sports, huh?” The barista exhaled a light laugh, nothing more than an airy, thin laugh. “Like a ballet team. A posse? A gang?” She rambled on, somehow still holding Yvonne’s attention with each iteration of team, as though her words had a grip on Yvonne.

“I don’t know,” she ended decisively. “But she got cast.” A little snort. Definitely a little miffed, which seemed understandable.

The barista blew some hair out of her face before snapping back into her original sunny disposition. “Brooke quit yesterday, so now I have the opening shift,” she said. “I’m Scarlet.” And then she pointed to her name tag, her index finger highlighting how she wrote Scarlet in cursive, wide, looping letters, with little stars drawn around them. Yvonne couldn’t help but notice the stark difference between Scarlet and Brooke’s tags. And the difference seemed quite fitting.

So Yvonne nodded, hoping to let that information pass, maybe even establish the same routine with this Scarlet, though it seemed unlikely with all the talking they had done already, which had to have passed her and Brooke’s nine word conversations.

“Okay. Tall triple latte, blueberry muffin.” Yvonne said, watching her rapidly input on the register, tacking on “please,” as though it were necessary to be more polite to her—she didn’t know Yvonne’s routine yet.

“Oh that sounds so good,” Scarlet replied. “I would kill to have a triple tall latte right now.”

Yvonne couldn’t let what had to be Scarlet’s standard reply to an order hang limply between them. It all happened without her knowledge, the words firing from her brain and out her mouth, landing between them before she even knew it.

“You’re telling me you haven’t had any coffee yet? And you’re like this?” Yvonne gestured lightly, now gripping her phone. “I’ve had no coffee and I’m like this.” She gestured down herself. Her exhausted self really — though exhaustion was a constant enough state that she learned how to look like it wasn’t.

Scarlet laughed. And yes, it was a laugh directed at Yvonne’s thoughtless reply. It wasn’t even a joke. But nonetheless the laugh registered as authentic for a barista laugh. There was an appropriate lightness to it, enough to note it as actually funny but too much. Not enough to let Yvie know she was so unfunny that she warranted fake laughter from this poor barista.

“You’re funny, even for this early,” Scarlet reassured. She uncapped her Sharpie and took up the cup. “What’s the name for the order, funny lady?”

Her throat was tight. “Yvonne.”

Scarlet nodded and wrote on the cup, setting it aside, ringing Yvonne up, and holding up the scanner for her phone. She stepped to the side, expecting the transaction to be finished. She didn’t expect Scarlet to tell her to “have a good morning” after the fact, and the elongated pleasantries left her floundering. She checked her emails, hoping to bring about a sense of normalcy.

“Yvie. Latte and blueberry muffin for Yvie,” another barista called out. He glanced around, noting only Yvonne and an older man in a windbreaker and running tights in the store.

Yvonne continued sorting through emails, adding Silky’s ‘daily meme’ email to her spam folder.

“Order for Yvie.” The barista pointed at the muffin in the bag. The older man shook his head.

“Yvonne,” Scarlet called over to her, now standing where the other barista stood, holding the same latte and muffin. “It’s your order, Yvie.”

She should have been irritated by the nickname. Never in her adult life had she been called by a nickname — really, she didn’t think something as cutesy as Yvie could suit her. It sounded like a name for a well groomed Pomeranian, not a grown woman.

But she nonetheless accepted her latte and muffin, finding herself glancing down at the way Scarlet wrote ‘Yvie’ in sprawling handwriting, the dot of the ‘i’ trailing off in her haste. It was endearing.

Scarlet was quite endearing, and something she could get used to every day, she decided, walking past the window on her way to work, stealing another glance at Scarlet, only to find her waving goodbye, her fingers fluttering away.

***

“Tall triple latte, blueberry muffin,” Yvie said, still buried in her phone. “Please.”

Please had quickly become a part of her routine with Scarlet, as much as Yvie didn’t enjoy setting new routines. Through it didn’t feel correct to carry over the same practices with Brooke to Scarlet, especially when Scarlet always beamed back at her, especially when the October sunrise seemed to chase through the front windows to meet up with Scarlet, making her perpetual flush look warmer and the little frizzy hairs along her hairline look nearly blonde. It made the please deeply necessary, and therefore routine.

Scarlet pulled out a cup and wrote out Yvie’s name, chirping back, “the usual, got it,” before getting Yvie’s muffin from the case.

Yvie continued typing away at her phone, feeling her face tighten and her brows thread together with no way of easing them. She scanned over the email from Silky, her coworker, with whom she was handling the Davenport case—a complex web of familial relations, undissolvable trusts, and heaps of old money. It was nearly all wrapped up, but Silky was now flip-flopping on their analysis for their client, A’keria.

“What the fuck does this mean?” Yvie exhaled steam, rapidly typing back to Silky.

Scarlet returned with the muffin, sliding it across the counter. “It’ll be $7.74.”

Yvie groaned, swiping through Silky’s attachments from her last email. The message only said “please advise.” Yvie did not want to advise on what she’d already advised on for the past three months.

“Capitalism, right?” Scarlet threw her hands up with a shrug. “But you still gotta pay, Yvie.”

“Oh sorry.” Yvie pulled away, glancing up at Scarlet, looking more and more like a court jester with her puffy-sleeved shirt and exaggerated expression, as though she were on the set of I Love Lucy rather than behind the counter at Starbucks. She pulled up her app and Scarlet scanned her card.

“What’s going on?” Scarlet printed the receipt, tore it off, and immediately threw it away. “You seem all tense today.”

Today. Scarlet really did joke. “I’m a lawyer,” Yvie replied dryly, her voice gritting. Just thinking about Silky’s email made her grimace. “I’m always tense, Scarlet.”

“Nuh uh,” Scarlet tutted back, clearly waging her bets and pressing further. She was a woman of nerve, that’s for sure, pressing at Yvie when she was in one of her moods. “You look more stressed than usual. I can see it in your face.” She held up her thumbs and index fingers perpendicular in front of her, making a frame for Yvie’s face, as though she were capturing a shot of the stress.

Yvie gave in easily, turning her phone over on the counter, ignoring the email. She sighed. “Well, I have to go argue a big case. Like a big money case today. And my partner’s reconsidering our arguments like we haven’t been preparing our arguments for fucking months.” She let out a long exhale, meeting Scarlet’s intent gaze. “But whatever. I don’t want to just bitch to you about it.”

Scarlet laughed, brushing her off with a flick of her hand. “Please. No one else is here.” She looked around at the nearly barren store, the lack of line behind Yvie, prompting Yvie to notice the same. “Bitch away, honey.”

She walked on over to the espresso machine, released a hot spurt of steam from the wand, and grabbed a jug of milk from under the counter, then pointed at the stools that lined the counter opposite her. “Sit down and spill it.”

And for no godly reason, by no logical means, Yvie felt compelled to do exactly that.

“Also, Silky keeps this shit on her desk that I hate.” Yvie brushed her hair back. “Like she’s got this calendar of these hot firemen and their dalmations. And like, not to be gay, but I don’t get men and their dogs.”

Scarlet peered up at Yvie while pouring the steamed milk over the espresso. Yvie broke her gaze, suddenly much more interested in flipping her phone over in her hands.

“I’m more of a cat lady myself,” Scarlet replied easily, returning her attention to putting a lid on Yvie’s drink, scribbling something else on the side of it and sliding it over to her. Scarlet placed her elbows on the counter, leaning in on her hands, coming in closer.

“Same.” Yvie took her drink, sticking a latte saver in it. “And she’s got a picture of Mr. Fuzznut on her desk—”

“Who’s Mr. Fuzznut?” Scarlet could barely get it out without laughing.

“Her dog. He’s a weiner dog. In the picture he’s wearing a wizard’s hat.” Yvie pulled up the picture and slid her phone over.

“Ugh.” Scarlet pushed it right back. She let her index finger rest against her cheek. “Why is she that way?”

“Beats me. I just listen to her talk about that dog and her men all—”

“Excuse me, miss?” A man in a suit called over from the register, the vein in his neck clearly throbbing from having to wait more than five minutes. He shouldn’t have even bothered with excuse me. “Can you take my order?”

Scarlet tilted her head, staring blankly before snapping back into her usual cheer.

“I gotta go anyway.” Yvie hitched her purse up her shoulder, readjusting the tuck of her silk button down into her gray trousers. “Big case and all,” she said, trailing off.

“Of course. I’m sure it’ll—”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Yvie patted the counter before taking off, leaving Scarlet to tend to this customer, who did not care for waiting now six minutes to order his coffee and told Scarlet just as much as Yvie left, in what had to be a demeaningly measured tone.

Yvie noticed a touch of feathering Sharpie poking out from under the coffee sleeve, which was peculiar, as Scarlet wrote ‘Yvie’ on the cup and checked all the proper boxes like usual, but this marking seemed new. Maybe she did something different to her coffee and had to check a different box, like adding or replacing something would help Yvie’s constant state of exhaustion and stress, like Scarlet the barista knew best. Usually knowing best referred to her ability to select muffins, as she picked through the muffins with her tongs to find Yvie what she assured was the ‘best muffin.’ ”It’s the one with the most blueberries, of course,” Scarlet once explained with a cartoonish wink as she stuck it into a bakery bag.

Yvie took a swig of the now cooled coffee. Perfect, as always.

She slid the sleeve down and her lips tugged into a smile. It said good luck!! In her same loopy handwriting. And she connected the exclamation points to make a smiley face. Under the sleeve just for her.

Yvie took pause, considering that Scarlet really thought to put it under the sleeve instead of out in the open where she could easily see it. Maybe she did that because she knew Yvie would see it anyway. But then she would have just said something, no? Maybe it was under the sleeve so it wouldn’t look weird in court, this coffee cup with messages. She knew if Silky saw it, she’d have a field day — even though Yvie’s girlfriend literally worked feet away from them — spinning some story about Yvie’s secret barista admirer. Maybe Scarlet was just smart.

It was possible that Scarlet the barista knew best.

***

It was the morning of Halloween and Yvie’s thoughts were rampant and ecstatic. Namely, she was contemplating whether or not she should waste her good witch costume on Silky’s party and how rude it would be if she claimed food poisoning at the last minute, just to stay in and gobble fun-sized Snickers while watching Carrie.

As she approached the counter, she saw Scarlet all giddy, her little clip-on witch’s hat flopping its pom-pom tip, her cream sweater adorned with sequined black cats catching the light as she shimmied around.

“Happy Halloween, Yvie,” Scarlet said with a little clap before pressing down on the counter, sharing as though it were a well worn secret. “It’s my favorite holiday. I love it.”

It surprised her a bit, hearing that Scarlet loved Halloween, though she seemed just as adamant as she did about the holiday, and looked far more festive than Yvie, who could only muster the festivity of an all black pantsuit. She didn’t look like one to enjoy the spooky season — Yvie could more easily picture her in a soft, pale pink sweater and jeans, stomping her boots around in leaves and enjoying spiced cider from an earthenware mug than reveling in the blood and gore of a slasher flick.

Though it was a good surprise, a new image of Scarlet in the fall time for her to comb over at her leisure.

“It’s mine too,” Yvie replied. “Do you have any plans for Halloween?”

Scarlet broke into a smirk, hand over her heart, laying in the slight twang of her accent. “Oh Yvie, what are you asking me?”

Yvie stopped dead, blood lying still in her body. She fiddled with her jacket. “I… I wasn’t…”

“I’m just teasing, silly.” She brushed it off. “I gotta get my costume together and then my roommate, Pearl and I, we throw this big party. So we’ll have people over. I’m going as a devil.” She stuck two pointed fingers behind her head and giggled.

Yvie laughed right back. It was a little absurd, thinking of Scarlet, with all her gentleness and joy, posing as the devil, in some sleek red thing, probably trying her absolute hardest to look cold and mean, though couldn’t possibly have a cold, mean bone in her body.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Scarlet startled her out of her thoughts, leaning in closer, Yvie following her lead. “Don’t tell my manager, but I invented a new Halloween drink.”

“Oh?” Yvie didn’t know if she was more taken aback by the proposition of a new drink order, her willingness to accept it, or Scarlet’s closeness and how the fine hairs of her body stood at attention with every word.

“Do you want to try it? It’s super cute.”

Of course it was super cute.

“It’s also a little unauthorized.” She quoted with her fingers. “Not as unauthorized as the first drink I tried to make, but still.”

Yvie pulled away slightly, her face willing itself to twist, but finding that she couldn’t, not with Scarlet already reaching for a cold cup from the stack next to her. And Yvie was not a fan of cold coffee, no not really, especially in late October, especially when it was barely over 30 degrees outside and she was in the same jacket she’d been wearing since the much warmer beginning of fall. Not with Scarlet already uncapping her Sharpie, preemptively doodling a pumpkin on the side of the cup, finishing it off with a curly stem sprouting from the top, just waiting to write ‘Yvie’ and seal the deal.

So Yvie nodded and Scarlet rang her up for $5.04 and Yvie scanned her app and stepped off to the side, watching Scarlet take off, throwing one last glance over her shoulder at the back room before pumping some liquid into the cup and adding a bit of milk, pouring the mixture into the blender pitcher, and adding thick orange sauce to it.

Yvie did not know or particularly like the idea of the blender. Or the thick orange sauce. She didn’t know how she was supposed to walk into the office with some kind of blended drink and be respected as an orator and a woman of law. Nonetheless, she trusted the decision, gaze trained on Scarlet, who added some more liquid and a scoop of ice and maybe something else into the blender, allowing it to pulverize the ice while she coated the side of the cup in a dripping, deep brown sauce, which pooled at the bottom.

She was concentrated and swift, almost holding her breath as she poured the orange slush into the cup, careful not to mess up her design, smile tense as she topped it with whipped cream and a smattering of chocolate shavings that she found under the counter.

“Here it is!” Scarlet placed the drink in front of her, using her elegant fingers to highlight each component, as though she were selling the drink to her on a home shopping network. “It’s a pumpkin spice frap with mocha sauce on the sides of the cup, whip, and chocolate shavings.”

Yvie studied it for a moment. It was a very cute drink.

Scarlet must have noticed Yvie’s quizzical look. “It’s Halloween because it’s orange and black and also it has pumpkin.”

Yvie nodded, as though that answered some questions she had yet to form about the drink.

“Try it.” Scarlet inched the drink forward. “I wanna see if you love it.”

So she took a sip, the thick slurry like lead paint on her tongue. The pumpkin was combative with the chocolate, if she were putting it nicely. She swallowed, still finding the aftertaste of spice in the corners of her mouth, between her teeth. It was horrific—definitely a Halloween drink.

But Scarlet was leaning on the counter, looking at her expectantly with her head resting in her balled fists, little witch hat flopping as she stirred while waiting for Yvie’s response. Usually, Yvie would have no problem bursting someone’s bubble; really, she did it for a living, and humility aside, she was quite good at it. But Scarlet looked so proud of herself and was so clearly excited over the drink, as much of a monstrosity it was.

“It’s the cutest drink.” Yvie settled on, immediately rewarded by Scarlet bouncing around the prep area behind her, doing some kind of little dance that looked partially like a shimmy and partially like a medical emergency before coming back to the counter.

“See? Aren’t you glad I convinced you to get it?” It wasn’t a question, it was just Scarlet excited to receive the compliment, and Yvie was happy to give it.

“I am,” Yvie reassured her, slipping a sleeve over the drink to keep her hands warm from the frozen drink. And she was. She couldn’t bring herself to miss her latte, not when Scarlet was so pleased like this. She certainly couldn’t bring herself to remember her daily muffin, now absent from her hands.

And with that she left the store, absently taking another sip, immediately regretting the all-out assault she brought upon her taste buds for the second time that morning. She passed countless trash cans on the way into work, but on principle, couldn’t throw out Scarlet’s unauthorized special Halloween drink, even if it definitely qualified as a war crime, in her legal opinion. It would be far worse to throw out this piece of Scarlet’s joy.

***

“Good morning, Yvie.” Scarlet began putting in her usual order—now that Halloween was over and Scarlet hadn’t had the time to come up with a comparably cute Thanksgiving drink—upon seeing Yvie enter the store.

However cheery Scarlet was, which was very, as per usual, she was incorrect in her assessment. It was not a good morning, and it likely would not be for a while, no matter how convincing Scarlet’s wholesome, toothy smile and strawberry red sweater were. She was not going to have a good morning and that was final.

“Actually, no muffin today.”

Scarlet stood stiff as a board, grasping a muffin between her tongs, looking Yvie up and down. She was probably scanning over her to see if she was hurt, dying, hit her head — anything that would account for this sudden change in routine. All Scarlet could find would be a sad, brokenhearted lawyer requesting only a triple tall latte.

Scarlet finally stuck the muffin back into the case, her face still all screwed up like a lemon in a juicer, probably deep in contemplation.

“Why don’t you want the muffin?” She returned to the register, making no moves to take it off the tab. “You’ve wanted a muffin every day for like a month and a half.”

It was likely closer to two months, if Yvie really thought it through, thought back to when she started seeing Scarlet in the morning, when she thought back to the shock of her honeyed voice and her leopard print cardigan. It was exactly nine months and four days if she thought back to when she started getting a muffin every day.

“Well, I don’t want it anymore.” She could feel herself growing tighter, unable to fathom her stomach becoming any more tightly wound, any smaller than it had been since last night.

Scarlet frowned. Fair. Yvie knew she was being harsh. “I’ll give it to you for free if you’d like.”

“No.” Yvie sighed, and allowed her thoughts to form sentences, gifting them to Scarlet, hoping to ease her tension.

“The muffin was for my girlfriend.” Yvie shuffled her feet, back and forth over either side of the grout between the tiles. She stared at her hands. “And now I don’t have one of those, so I’m not going to get a muffin.”

She finally looked up again, only to find Scarlet’s flat lipped smile contrasting with her classic red lipstick. Only to find Scarlet’s downcast eyes, all blue and murky. Only to find Scarlet’s outstretched hand, laying on the counter, palm upwards, waiting for Yvie’s to join it, which she so thoughtlessly did.

Her palm was warm, so obviously softened by some kind of lotion, punctuated only by a few thin, plain stacked rings on her fourth finger. She curled her fingers around Yvie’s half smoothly, abruptly, and they just crested over the edge, Scarlet’s pale fingers with their short, blunt nails. And her thumb. How it rubbed the back of her hand. How it washed over her knuckles as though it could pull tension out of her. It could. Scarlet could.

They stood this way for a moment, maybe more, with Yvie transfixed on their joined hands. And though she did not look up at Scarlet, though she could not tear herself away from the gentle palm under her own, she was sure Scarlet was looking at her the whole time, hoping against hope that she’d look up to meet her gaze. Yvie slipped her hand away.

Scarlet nodded, the slightest dip of her sharp chin, and rang her up again.

“I’m sorry.” It was weighted. It lay between them. Yvie didn’t want to pick it up. “That has to really hurt.”

It did. And it was the best way Scarlet could have said it really. It did hurt. It was a dull ache between her ribs, something wet and scalding in her throat. It hurt. So, she nodded.

“Would you like something from the bakery case? No extra charge.” Her voice was much lower now, as though they were words that needed to be spoken in the dark rather than a proposition about scheming her workplace out of one baked good.

“Just the coffee.”

But Scarlet was adamant. She already stood in front of the case with tongs in her hand again.

“No really. On the house. Pick whatever you want,” she reassured, waving the tongs about to highlight the selection of pastries.

“Scar—”

“—And on God, you are not going to get a blueberry muffin.” She now pointed at Yvie, clamping her tongs a couple times, like a lobster snapping its claws. “That’s like the sad, drunk texting your ex of baked good selection and I can’t let you do that.”

Yvie laughed. She felt it warming her throat as Scarlet’s silly assertiveness made way for a return to her usual joy. That little smile, the crinkling of her eyes; she had to be pleased with herself.

“No, really, I’ll pay for it.” She ceded all too easily, and upon further thought, far more willfully than she typically would, and for no apparent reason. She could analyze over and over, trying to figure out what did her in, if it was something about the joke Scarlet made, the tongs, the soft lights above both of them, breaking through the continual darkness outside, or maybe it was about Scarlet’s hand in hers and how her fingers ached for that touch again.

“Nope,” Scarlet said with a pop. “Just pick something.”

“Okay, a slice of that lemon cake.” Scarlet had the makings of a smirk spreading across her lips as she reached for a bag. “But Scarlet, please let me pay for it. I want to pay for it.”

Scarlet placed the bag on the counter, quickly uncapping her Sharpie and writing “Yvie” on the bag, making a smiley face out of the curve of the “Y”

“Yvonne,” Scarlet admonished, setting her Sharpie down, catching her attention, refusing to allow her to draw away. “I’m not taking your sad, just dumped money. You’re just gonna take this free lemon cake.” She slid the bag over, practically pushing it against her hand.

So Yvie paid for her coffee, and as Scarlet turned away to place her cup on the line, Yvie reached into her purse, pulled out a fist full of crumpled ones and stuffed them in the tip jar. And as Scarlet caught her red-handed, Yvie pointed down at the jar and then at Scarlet, with a chuckle, and Scarlet rolled her eyes.

She wasn’t just going to accept a completely free slice of lemon cake without Scarlet getting something out of it. She didn’t need lemon cake charity, though she’d be lying if she said Scarlet’s insistence on cheering her up with the free lemon cake wasn’t highly endearing and somewhat helpful.

Yvie stepped to the side with her bag, watching as Scarlet made a little drawing on the side of her cup before sliding a sleeve over her Sharpie work and making the drink as usual, which intrigued her.

Upon receiving her drink, the typical “Yvie” with the smiley face, all the proper boxes checked, she slid the sleeve down only to find a little drawing of two crocodiles standing upright with their splayed out feet and dragging tails. The first had a little speech bubble, complementing the other’s purse, while the other held up its purse and said “Thanks, it’s my ex!” It was stupid, a stupid joke with the cute little drawings, all crosshatched to show scales. But today, Yvie laughed at those dumb little crocodiles in such a hearty way, it almost felt as though she was clearing out her throat, finally unclenching her jaw.

“Wow.” She drew Scarlet’s attention, even as she was making another customer’s drink. “That’s actually really good.”

“Thanks,” she called over her shoulder. “Maybe if I can’t catch my big break in acting, I’ll try to make it in latte jokes.”

Of course that’s what Scarlet was after in life. Surely she could feign cheeriness at any sight, could have known that reaching out to her and taking her hand this morning was the right thing to do. And yet none of it seemed artificial of her. There was nothing method about it, surely.

Yvie stopped herself from thinking about Scarlet becoming a star, accepting a Golden Globe in some shimmering, heavenly draped gown.

She shrugged. “I think you could.”

“Well, if my audition for corpse on SVU falls through, I’ll really consider it.”

The chuckle chased Yvie as she left the store, enjoying the little cartoon on her cup. Scarlet would continue with the jokes and drawings for weeks, until Yvie found herself struck with a new joy, walking the last couple blocks to work, watching the day break over Manhattan, sure this was exactly what Scarlet saw in this place.

***

Yvie now ordered “the usual,” as Scarlet had begun referring to her triple tall latte without blueberry muffin she purchased every day for $5.08 as “the usual.” And Scarlet paired this phrase, and Yvie’s growing affinity for this phrase, her affinity for having someone who consistently knew what she wanted, with her usual, all encompassing grin, from the moment she spotted Yvie entering the store, her head shooting up at the opening of the door at six a.m. This grin, which had a brightness rivaling only the sunlight bouncing off the reflective skyline and filtering through the storefront windows—which she deeply missed and would trade the late November haze for any day, continued as Scarlet picked through the bagels, rearranging them with her tongs.

Yvie was quite enjoying this new routine with Scarlet.

Today, Yvie sat off to the side of the counter, perched on a metal stool, phone abandoned due to the miraculous sight of Scarlet’s concentrated face as she made Yvie’s latte. The bridge of her nose formed a couple wrinkles, three little canyons on its pointed form. Her eyebrows, unruly as ever, were tightly pulled together as her eyes became slivers. And her lips. Her bottom lip, bare and pink, chapped from the cold, crushed between her teeth. All this was shadowed by the little pieces of hair that fell free from her ponytail and now hung limply in front of her face. She held the cup up, inches from the counter while her left hand worked up and down, wavering the pitcher in slight, rapid movements, pouring out the milk with care.

“Here, look Yvie.” Scarlet pushed the cup forward. “Isn’t it beautiful.”

Scarlet marveled at her own work and Yvie felt prompted to pull away and do the same. It was quite beautiful, this rounded thing that almost looked ribbed with the precise movements Scarlet made to produce it. It also almost looked like a vagina, though she wasn’t going to say that. She only nodded because it did look beautiful.

“It’s a tulip,” Scarlet explained. “Or at least that’s what it’s called.”

Okay, so same difference.

Scarlet scrubbed a hand through her piecey hair, letting the strands fall back in front of her face, not bothering to secure them in her gold scrunchie.

But before those hairs fell forward again, Yvie noticed a teasing smear of brown across Scarlet’s forehead, glistening and decadent, far darker than the golden brown of her hair, especially in this light.

“Yvie?” Scarlet tried again, her look puzzled, and rightfully so—Yvie knew she was staring, though for how long, she wasn’t sure.

“Oh, uh…” Her voice staggered before she straightened up, regaining composure. “You have a bit of… a little something on your face.” She pointed up at Scarlet’s forehead, circling her finger around the general area as Scarlet’s eyes went wide.

“Oops, thanks.” She swiped her arm across her forehead, only smearing it further. She raised her brows, peering up at Yvie. “Did I get it?”

It was now only a thin film, it’s edge beading over her right eyebrow. She shook her head adamantly, endeared by Scarlet’s pout in response, and pulled a napkin from the dispenser.

“Here.” She edged closer to Scarlet, motioning with her hand for Scarlet to follow her lead, drawing her closer. “Let me get it.”

She didn’t know what made her say it, but whatever it was, it made her feel like her veins were filled with champagne, popping feverishly at every movement, circulating evenly within her. She glanced down at the napkin, looking up only to find Scarlet closer than before, held up by her left hand splayed on the counter, her arm straight, locked, and her eyes soft, unquestioning. And now that she said it and she was this close and she had the napkin in her hand, she willed herself not to tremble as she brushed Scarlet’s stray hairs from her forehead, holding them back with her overextended pinky, swiping the napkin across the liquid—what looked like chocolate sauce—resting her wrist against the curve of her full, perpetually pink cheek.

She patted the napkin gently, though she knew it wasn’t clearing off more of the syrup, if for nothing but an arguably weak justification for why she was studying Scarlet like this. She dabbed and noticed the smattering of freckles across Scarlet’s nose, lingering, wandering off across her cheeks. The stray hairs under the arch of her brow, just dark at their tips, not visible at any further distance.

She’d been staring too long. She knew this, though Scarlet made no move to indicate this. In fact, her eyes were closed and she somehow forced herself forward, as though she needed to be closer than before. So, she folded the napkin to a clean edge and gave it one last pull across her forehead before setting it on the counter.

“It’s all gone,” Yvie whispered. She couldn’t muster anything louder. Especially not with how Scarlet’s eyes finally opened again at Yvie’s voice.

Scarlet glanced down at her hands for a moment, her giggle like pennies splashing into a wishing-well breaking the cozy silence, before looking back up at Yvie.

“Thanks.” It was warm and sincere, broken only by Scarlet noticing Yvie’s coffee, still without a lid, the tulip wilting into mere spirals of faint white.

“That’s a hazard,” she muttered, pressing a lid over her creation and pushing it back to Yvie.

She was close enough that Yvie could smell a faint floral perfume on Scarlet’s neck and wrists, close enough that Yvie couldn’t bear to think about how fitting it was, how it all made sense with the green wrap shirt she wore, all sage and vital, dotted with splays of white flowers, without the burgeoning warmth in her core showing itself across her cheeks.

Scarlet frowned a bit before pushing back against the counter. “Well, there you go, Yvie.”

Yvie nodded, slipping a sleeve on the coffee and heading out, gripping the cup tightly as she left the store and headed toward the office. Today, she was thankful for the chilling morning air, ensuring she’d be free of this excessive warmth by the time she arrived at work.

***

The store was crowded for the first time Yvie could remember. As she stood in line, she tried to figure out how there could possibly be a crowd, just today, when at six a.m., it was usually only her and Scarlet, occasionally some other business person or man who just finished an early morning run. She could count on one hand the times there were more than five people in the store when she was there.

But today there were far more than five. Yvie tried not to let this bother her, though if she had to rationalize two people in front of her in line, she also had to rationalize that while she could see Scarlet at the register, her hair held back by a red bandana, her voice strident, bringing forth a mounting warmth in Yvie’s core from a what felt like mile away, she wouldn’t really get time to talk to Scarlet. But it was silly to ponder such things, especially when her only real goal was to get her latte.

Maybe there was a convention or some larger company was having a conference. She fidgeted with the belt on her black wool coat before stuffing her hands into its pockets, trying to warm them. It had to be something the store was planning for, as Scarlet was only taking orders while two other baristas filled those orders behind the counter.

It didn’t matter. She was here to get her latte and head to work.

Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what she’d miss by not having time with Scarlet this morning, if Scarlet would have to save some new wild story or additional details about shopping for the perfect Christmas present for her roommate, Pearl, who was the type of person who went on about how she didn’t need anything, though Scarlet knew she’d be upset if she didn’t receive a nice gift, so Scarlet took to prodding her over what she wanted, which wasn’t terribly fruitful, ending with the realization that the best gift she could get Pearl was tickets to Atlanta to visit her girlfriend, Violet, though she knew she couldn’t afford them. And then she added that she knew Pearl got her this beautiful, buttery soft red leather wallet she’d been eyeing from Coach for months, which she only knew about because she was ‘a bit of a rascal’ and ‘spotted the bag under Pearl’s bed while looking for her other winter boot because Pearl never returns shoes when she borrows them.’

Which is to say that Yvie would be very disappointed not having something like flights from JFK to ATL to look up during her lunch break.

Not that it mattered or she had to be particularly concerned about Scarlet’s musings about maybe getting Pearl a pair of her own snow boots or possibly just some money stuffed into a festive card if she really couldn’t figure out something good.

“You didn’t mark that right,” the man in front of her said bitingly, pressed up against the counter, pointing directly at Scarlet, finger inches away from her chest.

Scarlet stood paralyzed before spinning the cup around, gripping it a tad too tightly. She read it off, though she waivered, her voice staggered as she looked over her markings. “Grande three pumps vanilla, three pumps caramel soy latte?”

“Two,” he gritted out fiercely. “Two pumps of caramel.”

“Okay.” Scarlet nodded and rang him up. “$6.05 please.” She stared down at the register, drawing in open-mouthed breaths.

“Write it down because you’re not going to remember it.” His voice was scorching. Highly unnecessary. Yvie found her fists tight in her coat pockets. Attentive. Vigilant.

“I’ll remember, sir,” Scarlet muttered, voice small. Body small. She still held the cup and her Sharpie in her hand, frozen.

“I’ll write it myself. Fucking incompetent,” he fumed, a furious whisper he thought could only be heard by him and Scarlet, reaching over the counter to grab the cup.

Yvie saw the mounting fury building behind her eyes, scorching her chest. And before properly surveying the man lunging forward, the line growing impatient over this man’s fit, she saw Scarlet flinch, swore she heard her breath hitch, cutting through the din of the store, and roughly drew the man’s arm back, grasping at a fist full of his jacket.

“How dare you believe you have the right to insult her, let alone touch her” Yvie spoke fiercely, pulling the man roughly to face her, to meet her gaze as she looked down on him, at least an inch taller than the man in her heels. “Do you believe it’s in your right to attempt assault upon her?”

The man looked shaken, making no moves to free his arm from Yvie’s grasp. “Well, I was—”

“That’s not an answer,” she whipped back, feeling the store fall silent, save for the click of Scarlet’s Sharpie hitting the tiled floor.

“I was just going to write it. It’s not assault to—”

“You were going to grab something from her hands after an escalating exchange of language on your part. Assault is defined as an intentional act by one person that creates an apprehension in another of an imminent harmful or offensive contact. That is what you attempted.” She saw the smirk wash from his face as she recited the textbook definition of attempted assault. Practiced. Authoritative. Highly believable, and really she should be, having used it nearly daily. “Now, you are going to apologize to her for your attempted assault and hope she’s kind enough to make your ridiculous coffee. Do you understand me?”

The man nodded, still making no move to face Scarlet, his eyes blank, still wide.

“Use your words.”

“Yes.”

She came up close, lowered her voice to just above a breath, ghost quiet. “You’re just a little bitch yelling at a barista over a little bitch drink. Do you understand me?”

He nodded and Yvie released him and gave him a shove to face forward, allowing him to deliver his apology.

Scarlet still stood still, staring off past the man, mechanically accepting his cash and sliding his cup off to the side, surely still terrified. She preened over her piecey hair, tucking it and letting it fall, tucking it again as she waited for him to move away from the register to wait for his drink. What she wouldn’t do to comfort her, to bring her in close, to wrap herself around Scarlet.

As Yvie came up to the counter, she noticed Scarlet’s flush deepened as she stole glances at Yvie before pulling her focus back to tugging a tall cup from the stack.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you or something,” Yvie said, pulling up her app to pay. “It just wasn’t right how he was treating you.” Yvie took a deep breath, willing her blood to quit its boiling at the thought of that man in his suit and gray coat.

“No it’s…” Scarlet trailed off, rubbing her fingers with her thumb, steadying her breaths, trailing her eyes upward, over Yvie. “Fine.”

Yvie let it go, not wanting to press her further. Scarlet rang Yvie up for her usual order, chewing at her lip, accidentally knocking the empty cup over with her frantic movements. And whenever she caught Yvie’s gaze for a split second, she drew away like a wounded animal, looking down at her hands.

Yvie could take one, hold it in hers as Scarlet had done for her weeks ago, though she might be far too stimulated for touch. Instead she simply paid and added a hefty tip for Scarlet, if for nothing but to make up for that man’s behaviors.

As she moved off to the side to wait for her drink, she caught Scarlet following her moments, having to snap back into focus to help her next customer.

Yvie stood next to that man, who stood shuffling his feet, stiffening at her presence. Good, Yvie thought. If he makes one more move, I’ll have his balls rolling around in my Michael Kors. On Scarlet’s behalf, of course.

***

“Yvie Yvie Yvie Yvie Yvie.” Scarlet bounced a bit in her spot, calling out her name incessantly from the moment Yvie exited the slowly falling flurries outside and entered the warmth of the store. She repeated her name, pulling her ever closer with only words before Yvie could bother to shed her scarf, so that the warmth of the store wouldn’t overwhelm her senses.

“Well, good morning, Scarlet.” Yvie chuckled at the woman’s excitement, placing her phone on the counter, unbuttoning her coat and unwinding her scarf. Somehow it was always a good morning for Scarlet, and though Yvie knew correlation did not necessitate causation, it generally meant she had a better morning as well.

“We got the holiday cups. Look.” She gestured toward them exaggeratedly, throwing her whole body into the movement, nearly knocking herself over. And Yvie was going to look, of course, though she wasn’t typically one to get excited over holiday Starbucks cups.

Silky usually got excited over the cups and would get angry when she got a repeat within the first week or so. She ranted on and on for almost an hour in 2015 when they only had the plain red cups, as they ‘removed all festivity from Christmas, which could be considered culturally unsafe as defined within human rights law,’ which was not even the slightest bit true and made Yvie spend a bit of every day that December combing through all the choices that brought her to this desk in this law firm in New York.

“I always like to rank the cups when we get them in,” Scarlet explained. “That way when people are rude or have children who are rude and shout about the amount of whipped cream they get, as though a cup can fit infinite amounts of whipped cream, I can give them the bad cup.”

Yvie tilted her head at Scarlet cloyingly.

“Yes, I have been yelled at by children. And, no, I do not like it.”

“Right…” Yvie drew out as Scarlet’s frustration washed from her face, replaced with that same smile Yvie saw nearly every day, consistently took comfort in. The comfort of the toothy smile and the way her lips pulled back and her high, full cheeks, all pillowy over her sharpened cheek bones. She could run through the litany of Scarlet’s features by memory by now and she was sure they would never cease to bring her comfort.

She held up the one with thin green and white stripes, pulling it close to try to make out the letters between the stripes before holding it out for Yvie to analyze. She gave it a passing glance.

“It’s fine.” Yvie shrugged. She wasn’t one for games. But she was one for judging things, which made her a fan of Scarlet’s idea of a game.

Scarlet put it at the end of the counter. “You’re right, like okay, still artful but not explicitly holiday-y.”

She pulled another green and white striped cup out before retrieving a new design. This one was red and white striped, like a candy cane with ‘Starbucks’ written all over it. Again, she concentrated on the print, squeezing the cup a bit, as though to test the give of the coated paper, as though all the cups weren’t the same material.

“6.5”

“Okay, but how holiday-y is it?” Yvie retorted. “Is that not a pivotal measure of holiday cup goodness?”

Scarlet lowered herself to a whisper, inching the cup closer to Yvie’s face, right until it was nearly touching her still frosty nose, a hair’s width from its tip. She leaned over the counter. “I don’t want to say this Yvie, but…” She poked Yvie with the rim of the cup, sparking something warm and electric inside her. “Is it possibly too festive? And therefore too festive to be holiday-y?”

Yvie drew back with a gasp, clutching her chest. “Miss Scarlet!”

“I know.” She pouted, playing into the idea that her language was vile, septically disgusting.

“The blasphemy!”

“I know!”

It was silly, a silly game. And Yvie couldn’t remember the last time she played a purposeless game like this. Maybe when the M train was all backed up from god only knows what a month ago and she passed the time playing sudoku on her phone. But even that was numbers and patterns and some kind of mental gymnastics. Here, it was just saying whether the two liked the colors and patterns. It almost felt like playing as children.

And as much as she could rationalize Scarlet needing this kind of fun in her menial job, especially with how she explained to Yvie that it was ‘so typical New York of her to make coffee until she got cast’ and how she likes to pass the time behind the counter making up characters to go with the people she waited on. Yvie probably needed this kind of fun too.

“I see we’re doing this Merry Coffee thing, which is fun…” Scarlet trailed off, squinting at it. “Not that I’ve got important say here but I remember Brooke telling me about the time when they had just the plain red cups and oof.” Scarlet let out grunt with a quirk to her lips.

“It was apparently a hell shift. It was my first day and we were unpacking the holiday cups and she was on edge about them being Christmas enough for ‘Mothers of two-point-five kids and their husbands to not throw hot coffee at her’ like they did the year before. And then I was like ‘are they gonna throw coffee at me?’ and she looked me up and down and said absolutely.”

Scarlet threw her hair over her shoulder. “And they have.”

Yvie nodded, running through the math in her head, the idea of Scarlet covered in scalding coffee occupying only a second. If Scarlet started after that whole red cup, war on Christmas thing, then she had been here for years. Literal years. Yvie couldn’t figure what she had to be doing all these years to have never seen her, never taken note of her. She was sure if Scarlet was there the whole time, for years, Yvie would have noticed, no?

Especially with how notable Yvie found her. Yes, that was what she would stick with. Her little cropped fuzzy sweater and her high waisted jeans, the ponytail and pink speckled acrylic hoop earrings. Notable.

“I used to work nights only,” Scarlet added, turning the coffee cup about, as though she could read Yvie’s mind. “Actually, nights and weekends.”

“Oh.” Yvie felt completely slack, heat prickling at her cheeks though Scarlet was still studying the cup. Like she’d been found out. Like Scarlet had some kind of intuition for when she was on someone’s mind. Like Yvie had to be careful of something. “I’m always just here at six.”

“I’ve noticed.” A lilting exhale.

“I’m not sure how to make coffee merry…” She trailed off, placing the cup to the side and deciding that she’d “try her damndest to make all coffee merry.”

She paused as the spotted the last one, with green polka dots on the red background, mouth open in a little O as she held it up to Yvie, the side of her hand brushed against the collar of her silk blouse, the touch perfect and chaste and yet Yvie found herself dumbfounded by the closeness of Scarlet’s to her chest, even with so many degrees between them. “Oh this one is perfect. It’s the exact same color.”

Yvie glanced down, fully unaware of what she was wearing. She usually just got up and threw something together from her closet, sure she didn’t indulge in enough variation for anything to clash with anything else.

But it was a perfect match between the red of her blouse and the red of the cup.

“Huh.” Yvie couldn’t pull enough words together, especially with how Scarlet lingered, though they already matched up the reds.

But she didn’t move and Scarlet didn’t move, so they lingered on like this for a moment, up until Scarlet tore herself away to dig through tall cups to find this exact design.

“I just think it’d be perfect for you to have everything all matchy.” Scarlet finally retrieved it and rang her up. “Like, it’ll be a fashion moment, for sure.”

Yvie didn’t bother fighting against Scarlet’s excitement anymore. Instead she watched on as she marked up the cup and got to making the latte, pressing her hip against the counter, feeling the padding of her winter coat sink inward, finding herself staring at Scarlet and her meticulous movements, but not bothering to correct her gaze.

“You know, usually I hate when people order extra shots in their lattes.”

“Oh, really.” Yvie’s lips curled at their ends. “You hate it?”

“Well…” Scarlet pondered. “I surely don’t like it.”

“Scarlet, is this your way of trying to get me to try some new Christmas drink you’ve come up with?”

“No.” She steamed the milk before ceding to Yvie’s suspicions. “That’s still in its prototype stages. It’s just so hard to make things really green, you know?”

Yvie could only imagine what kind of flavor combination was giving Scarlet such difficulty with making it green, shuttering at the returning thought of Scarlet’s Halloween drink, the thought alone turning her stomach.

“Yes, I do know.”

“See, Pearl told me that it needs more food coloring and less peppermint and caramel, but I’m just starting to think ‘making things green is hard’ might just be a fact of life.”

“Well, when it’s here and green, I’ll try it.” Yvie said, somewhat hoping it would never become green enough for her to try, somewhat hoping it would, just so she could see Scarlet that excited again. It was cute how much someone loved the holidays, enough to make a drink for their own workplace. “You know, to save you from making all those extra shots.”

Scarlet waved her off before pouring the milk, wavering just so, espresso rippling to create a leaf.

“Wow,” Scarlet whispered to herself, setting the pitcher down. “God, I’m good.”

Yvie came in closer to look at it. And it was exquisite. It looked effortless. Scarlet covered it with a lid.

“I’m not supposed to tell you this, but this is my favorite latte leaf in my favorite cup and you’re my favorite customer.” Scarlet pushed the coffee across the counter before tending to another customer, now waiting at the register.

She took the latte into her hands, relishing the warmth still so apparent through the cardboard sleeve, so cozy in her hands as she prepared to face the elements one more, though as she glanced back out the window, the snow seemed to have slowed down in the time she was talking with Scarlet.

She turned over the conversation once more, staring off, half interestedly watching some city workers wrap the scraggly little trees that lined the sidewalk, shooting up from their gravel filled grates, in Christmas lights.

Scarlet had been here a long time. At least three years. Three years of her menial coffee job. Three years of children yelling about whipped cream and making extra shots and business men with no manners and watching coworkers like Brooke finally get their big break, a break she’d been waiting her whole life for, hoping endlessly that she’d get called back for some minor role and that she could spin it into a career.

Yvie craned her head back toward Scarlet, who counted change at her register, handing the man a few loose bills and a handful of coins.

It had been years, and that woman still had the nerve to get excited about cups and holidays. She had the nerve to have favorite latte leafs and customers, and tell them about it. The nerve to believe they cared as much about her as she did about them.

And Yvie did. She was sure of it now. There was no way not to care about a woman with such a divine combination of grit and tenderness.

As Yvie left the store, she caught Scarlet mouthing to her “not my favorite” while giving a snappy tilt of the head to the man who just paid for his coffee, her grin snarky.

Yvie was sure Scarlet was her favorite barista.

***

“Did you know that the mermaid on the latte stick is called Melusina. Well, it’s the mermaid that’s everywhere, but it’s also on the latte stick, you know?”

Yvie, now sat on the edge of the counter—after Scarlet assured her over and over that it was fine, no one was going to see her, and if her manager did see and yelled about it, Scarlet would wipe off exactly where her butt was, should her butt not be clean enough for Starbucks standards—stopped fiddling with the Christmas mug filled with those little green sticks.

“No, I…” Yvie pulled one out and studied it, rubbing her thumb over the plastic embossing. “How do you know that?”

Scarlet shrugged, pouring an espresso shot into Yvie’s cup, which this time was a green one, as Yvie insisted she didn’t need Scarlet wasting cups looking for one that matched Yvie’s ‘vibe,’ before Scarlet reasoned the green one did in fact match her vibe if she closed one eye and looked at her at a forty-five degree angle. Yvie supposed this was how vibes were checked nowadays.

“I don’t. I was totally just lying to you.” Scarlet glanced up at Yvie, flashing that mischievous look at her before adding another shot. “If you say anything with enough confidence, you can make anyone believe you. Even a lawyer extraordinaire like yourself.”

Yvie chuckled, shifting around on the counter, accidentally kicking her briefcase resting on the ground over on its side. “Gosh, I must be losing my touch.”

“I sure hope not, or else you’re never gonna be a woman of the law in this here town again.” Scarlet leaned forward across the counter, slipping into a thick southern accent with ease, words dripping like molasses. Yvie played with the splash stick, staring down at her lap to hide how the heat prickled in her chest. Scarlet was very talented.

“Nope, I must be losing it. If one little Lettie can lie to me and get away with it, imagine how many bad guys can?” Yvie faked a sniffle and a quivering lip. “If my firm finds out, I’m surely done for. They’d fire me on the spot, surely.”

Scarlet scoffed. “I hope not. I got a feeling I’d like you less when you’re not in that whole lawyer-pantsuit-heels getup you got going on.”

Yvie then felt very conscious of her clothing, of every pinstripe on her charcoal gray pants, of the white, silky blouse, of Scarlet’s eyes clearly scanning her clothing at the same time she was. She wrung her hands together.

“I’m kidding. Gosh.” Scarlet shoved at her shoulder. “I’d like you in anything, nothing, all the inbetween.”

Before Yvie could process, Scarlet ran into her next sentence. “Besides, not that I know how to make it as an actress, but I wouldn’t give up my lawyer job to follow that spastic lip quiver, wherever you think it’s going.”

She slapped a lid on the cup and haphazardly pushed it across the way to Yvie, then moving to fix her hair. “Here’s your latte, Yvie, Ms. Lawyer Extraordinaire.”

“Please, I’m sure you know enough about how to make it as an actress.” Yvie accepted the drink, fiddling with the sleeve on her cup. She made no move to lift herself from the counter, pick up her briefcase, and go about her day. “I know you have it in you. I’m so sure everyone’s gonna see it soon enough. I believe it.”

And she did. Yvie didn’t expend energy lying, gassing people up, stumbling around fragile feelings. She never had the time for it and knew she probably never would. They were new words to her, assuring someone that their superficially outlandish dreams weren’t actually outlandish, but they felt correct to say. They felt like the most honest sentence she could say to Scarlet as the barista fiddled with her hair, trying to fit it into a suitable bun with a pout struck across her lips.

Scarlet huffed. “You believed me when I said the mermaid was called Melusina and then you believed me when I said I was lying.”

“What does that have to do with anything, Scarlet?”

Scarlet took the splash stick from her hands as Yvie looked up, following her touch, only to find Scarlet with her hair down and draped over her shoulders, those brown curls haloed by a golden friz, resting against the deep plum of her knit sweater. She cursed her body for acting as though she never saw a woman’s hair before, for picturing how it would feel as she grazed it, how Scarlet could just melt at Yvie’s fingers against her scalp.

She would curse her mouth later for how it opened, how her lips parted at the thought.

“I’m just saying, you’ll believe anything I say, even if it’s just me being delusional and really thinking I’m going to make it.” Scarlet gave the splash stick back. “Also it really is called Melusina and you should actually believe that.”

She placed her latte back down on the counter. “Scarlet, I really do think—”

But she was cut off by her fumbling hands as she tried to stick the splash stick into her latte without holding the cup firmly, tipping it over with her course movements, scrambling to stand it upright as the latte spilled out.

“Fuck,” Yvie groaned, trying to pull a fistful of napkins out of the dispenser.

“Hey, it’s fine” Scarlet reached over to steady her hand. She took a cloth to the mess. “I’ll just make you another.”

“No really, you don’t have to. I spilled it and there’s probably still a lot left and I don’t want to trouble you.”

Yvie tried to take the cup but Scarlet was quicker.

“No really. I want to.” Scarlet walked back over to the register and pulled out another cup. “And besides, if I don’t remake it, I’m gonna spend all day thinking about you how you don’t have your latte and I’m gonna be sad over it.”

Yvie couldn’t argue for Scarlet being sad all day, especially if what could prevent that sadness was her getting to remake the latte. So she nodded, though she considered if Scarlet did think about her before deciding not to bother herself any longer with following such a silly train of thought.

Scarlet handed her the new latte after sticking a splash stick in herself. “Because now I know you can’t handle the Melusina splash stick,” she teased.

“I’m gonna handle the Melusina splash stick tomorrow.”

“Yeah you sure are. And I’m gonna get cast.” Scarlet rolled her eyes and flicked a strand of hair over her shoulder.

Yvie picked up her briefcase and turned to leave, tossing “You’ll see. It’ll happen.” over her shoulder as she walked out, surely not referring to the silly little splash stick.

Upon taking a good look at Melusina, she now saw Scarlet wrote Yvie’s name with what had to be a heart. She could spend all day convincing herself otherwise, but that was a heart and the end of her name, small and filled in with black Sharpie. And she was very sure she was going to spend all day thinking about that.

***

It was all wet. The clouds broke ever more, leaving the street slick and oily under lamps and strung up lights outside little bistros, against the roving reds and purples filtering through the window of the nightclub Yvie passed before crossing the street, shouldering people aside, hoping to get inside somewhere, hoping to charge her phone, call a cab, and forget this whole night had even happened.

She pulled her trench coat tighter, cursing the flimsy fabric in the January chill. She hadn’t thought to dress warmer, walking down a now well worn path in her unsensible heels and smart black dress, feeling her feet soaking through as she dodged sidewalk grates.

She was only thankful for the crowds and the downpour to hide her tears, to smear her makeup further, to allow her night—or what should have been her night of getting dinner with that girl from finance, maybe a few drinks afterward — blur into the collective night of Manhattan, filtering out of anyone’s care or consciousness but her own.

She came past those same mirrored windows, tearing her gaze away when she saw her hair stuck to her forehead, how she shivered and looked so small in her coat. She kept walking until she landed on the Starbucks, the one she knew so thoroughly, knowing that it was a tad past closing time, but, God, she hoped the doors would open at her needy tug.

They didn’t. It was locked. Barely past 10 p.m. and it was already locked.

Fuck. God fuck. She just wanted to charge her phone a bit, hail a cab, and maybe get in from the cold for a moment. But she shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. Or at the very least, she shouldn’t have waited for hours for her to show up, sipping water from a sweating tulip glass, obsessively checking her phone for a text, a call, anything, deleting old emails to pass the time between unanswered, frantic calls, until she was asked to give up her table, battery hovering around five percent, swallowing to keep her lip from quivering, unable to swallow back her hot tears the minute she left the restaurant. Fucking stupid.

“Yvie?”

She looked up, meeting Scarlet’s concerned face, head tilted as she fiddled with the key to the door, unlocking it, pushing it open, and pulling Yvie inside by the arm.

“What happened? You—” Scarlet looked her up and down from an arm’s length. Yes, it had to be bad.

“I just gotta charge… Can I charge my phone here?” Yvie paused. “Since when do you work nights?”

Scarlet didn’t answer. Instead, she wrapped an arm around her waist and lead Yvie over to the couch — this well worn cognac leather thing with a couple rips down the side, sat in front of the window — and lowered her down, resting her hands on Yvie’s shoulders, fiddling with the lapel of her coat before smoothing her shoulders.

“You stay here and I’ll be right back, okay?” She waited for Yvie to nod before she scurried off behind the counter.

“Can I charge my phone?” Yvie called back, feeling her voice waiver. It was even more apparent in the empty store, nothing more than two people and the sound of hot liquid hitting a paper cup, lifting her head to see Scarlet tearing open a tea bag and shoving it down into the water with a wooden stick.

Scarlet jogged on back to the sofa, swearing every time the water sloshed over the edge of the cup, and placed it down on the table before sitting next to Yvie on the couch. “Sorry, yeah I work closing on Saturdays and yeah of course you can. I have a charger somewhere, I just thought you’d like something to warm you up first. I didn’t know how you took your tea though so I—.

As Scarlet rambled, Yvie found herself growing all the more worked up, as though her throat were swelling and her chest had this raging, prickling burn until she spilled over again, until she felt fat, hot tears running down her face, until she heard Scarlet mutter “oh no, Yves,” until she felt the soft, warm, faded cotton of Scarlet’s striped long sleeve shirt against her cheek and Scarlet’s arms wrapped around her waist, fingers interwoven and resting on her back, anchoring her down.

She let out a heaving sob, but tried to pull away. It was pathetic. She was acting pathetic. But Scarlet wouldn’t let her go, just pulled her in again, shushing her as she cried.

“It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.” Scarlet’s voice was smooth, soft, with the texture of a cello’s vibrato. “What’s wrong, Yvie?”

“She didn’t show up.” Yvie mumbled against Scarlet’s shirt, sniffling. She was probably staining Scarlet’s shirt with her damn mascara. “She was supposed to show up and she didn’t.”

“What happened?” Scarlet pressed her cheek against Yvie’s wet face, nearly speaking into her hair. “Who didn’t show up?”

“My date. She worked in finance. She was a friend of Silky’s friend. She just…” Yvie pulled herself back, tearing the heels of her hands across her eyes. “I waited hours and she never showed up and she never said why and I…” Yvie felt smaller now, sinking into her coat. She felt like a smashed porcelain doll, all shards where her body should have been.

“Why didn’t she show up?” Yvie asked, much quieter now, like the words were cursed. They did haunt her though. Why didn’t she show up? “I just want to know why.”

“Hey,” Scarlet soothed and took Yvie’s hands, now clenched, and smoothed them out, holding them in her own, resting their clasped hands in her lap.

“Well, Yvie,” Scarlet began as Yvie looked down at her lap. “It could have been traffic. Or maybe a rogue taxi driver took her to Long Island by what had to have been a mistake or maybe some evil plot because, like, it’s Long Island. Or maybe her cat died? Does she even have a cat? Maybe she got stuck at work late? Does she work Saturdays? Or maybe her phone died too.” Scarlet gave her hands a squeeze. “You know, two people can have a dead phone at the same time. My phone’s probably dead right now.”

Yvie giggled lowly.

“But probably she got stuck in Long Island and she’s suffering double right now because she missed a date with you, and you know…it’s Long Island.” She laughed to herself and Yvie couldn’t help but join in, falling forward, shoulders shaking.

“It’s the Florida of New York,” Yvie added meekly.

“Please, it’s the Tampa, Florida of New York.” Scarlet laughed again at her own joke. “I don’t know if that’s worse. I don’t know a lot about Florida, but it sounds worse. I feel like shit happens in Tampa.”

Yvie couldn’t help but join her, couldn’t help but look up to capture the image of Scarlet’s joy in her mind’s eye, let it wash over her, let it wash over her thoughts, only allowing the pressing, increasingly present thought of Scarlet and how she wouldn’t have wanted to be here with anyone else, how thankful she was that she answered the door, how she couldn’t picture enjoying her date more than she enjoyed Scarlet.

And she was staring at her lips, Scarlet’s lips, with their ChapSticked sheen, as she spoke. And her hands were in Scarlet’s. Oh, how she did that thing with her thumb, as though she could ease all of Yvie’s pain with a gentle massage to the knuckle, as though that was where the hurt was, just like she did when she’d just been dumped, months ago. She couldn’t have remembered how it calmed her, that metronomic, even touch, how it eased her hurt with its ceaselessness. And yet, if anyone would remember, it was Scarlet.

It was always Scarlet, wasn’t it? Why was she fucking around with some other date, some woman who worked in finance, when the best part of her day was sitting right in front of her, holding her hands, rambling on about how Florida alligators probably got to Long Island via underground sewer channels that spanned the entire east coast.

“Scarlet?” Yvie pulled a hand out of Scarlet’s grasp to rest it on her leg, taking Scarlet out of her speech.

She snapped down to stare at her hand before meeting Yvie’s gaze again, failing miserably to hide the blush that had spread across her cheeks, right up to the tip of her sculpted nose, illuminated by the string lighted trees and their honeyed light filtering through the window and the flush of the lamps flanking the couch.

“Yeah?”

Yvie swallowed. “May I…” She shook her head a tad. “Fuck, I—”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Scarlet said, rubbing Yvie’s shoulder, water still beading on the sleeve of her jacket. She rested her hand on her forearm. “We don’t have to talk about tonight anymore. It’s all fine, Yvie.”

“No, it’s just.” Yvie pushed her hair away, leaving her fingers caught in her still dripping hair, heavy sigh escaping her parted lips. She locked eyes with Scarlet. “You make every day better. You make all my days better. Every morning I start with you is better and every day after is better. Even rotten, horrible days are better. And just… I just want more of that. I want more of you.”

“Scarlet.” She pulled her hand out of her hair and placed it over her and Scarlet’s interlocked hands, wrapping herself around them. “Can I kiss you?”

Scarlet pressed her lips together, closing her eyes and exhaling into a smile. She nodded eagerly, so Yvie brought her hand to cradle Scarlet’s face, fingers grazing her jaw, thumb swiping across her cheek. Scarlet’s eyes roamed, first to their hands, still connected, still in Scarlet’s lap, then around the store and through the window, then back to Yvie. Yvie was sure she was looking directly at her now.

“What are you looking at?” Yvie ended with a hum, leaning in closer. Their legs brushed together.

Scarlet’s free hand shifted from Yvie’s arm to rest on her hip, teasing at the knit fabric of her dress. “I’m just taking it all in, is all.” She halted her movement, tilting her head back down to look at her lap. “Just… I’ve been here before, wanting you to kiss me for a while. And now it’s real.”

Yvie now rubbed over Scarlet’s knuckles with her thumb, watching her chin tilt up to release a breathy giggle, like rings of smoke floating into the air. “It’s real, Scar.”

With that, she captured Scaret’s open lips with hers, feeling Scarlet’s hand inch upward to rest on her waist as she deepened the kiss, feeling Scarlet’s hair brush against her neck, feeling her nose against her own, feeling Scarlet’s fingers stretch in their interlocked hands before gripping tighter in an attempt to pull her closer, like she was hers. And she was.

They parted, foreheads still touching, fingers still intertwined. Yvie pressed her lips against Scarlet’s once more.

“I—” Scarlet began, eyes still closed for a moment, breathing still deep and calm, fingers pressed so ardently into Yvie’s waist.

“I want to be with you,” Yvie cut her off, letting her hand fall from Scarlet’s cheek to play with a tendril of Scarlet’s hair, fitting it between her thumb and index finger.

Scarlet mashed her lips together before responding softly, her voice plush and full. “I want that too. I want to be with you too.”

Upon hearing that, upon processing that Scarlet wanted her as well, that she was wanted, the severe elation of being wanted after being so aggressively unwanted moments ago, how her slick coat and soaked hair reminded her as much, she broke their hands apart and grabbed Scarlet roughly by her hips, pulling her into her lap and kissed her again and again and again, kissed until it all felt well-worn and new in the same breath, until all Yvie wanted to do was fit her chin on Scarlet’s shoulder and revel in the closeness she’d wanted for so long in the exact spot she’d wanted it.

They sat together, the hours passing, thin as gossamer, fractured only by their words and the smattering of rainfall outside, far too intimate in the empty room to be anything but whispered, if for nothing but the reassurance that they were theirs and only theirs, openly, finally, and ceaselessly.

#rpdr fanfiction #scarlet envy #yvie oddly #brooke lynn hytes #silky nutmeg ganache #scyvie #fluff #angst #lesbian au #coffee shop au #starbucks au #daybreak over manhattan #one shot #phryne #concrit welcome #submission #s11

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broomballkraken · 5 years ago

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Title: Savior King, Savior Knight

Fandom: Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Pairing: Raphael/Dimitri

Word count: 3176

Warnings: N/A

Summary: The war ends, and Raphael is all set to become a knight. He knows exactly who he wants to protect for the rest of his life, but he isn’t so sure that he is worthy enough, as that very person is none other than Dimitri, the Savior King himself.The fact that Raphael was hopelessly in love with him only made this problem of his worse.

Written for Raphael Week Day 6, Prompt: Future

“Hmm, I think that’s all of my clothes…”

Raphael grunted as he pushed himself up from his knees, grimacing as his legs tingled because they had fallen asleep. Glancing around his room, which was mostly stripped of his belongings that were now packed into a couple of boxes on the floor. It felt a bit weird, leaving the place that he had called home during his time at the academy and for the last leg of the war. He had made many memories at Garrag Mach, but it was time for him to return to his actual home and look for work as a knight.

An uncharacteristic sigh escaped him at the thought. He really was happy to go home; he missed Maya and his grandfather a lot, and needed to make sure that they had made it through the war unscathed. It was the job hunting that had him down. Sure, he was confident in his strength and everything he learned from the Professor about being a great knight, and was sure that he could get a job as a knight for any old noble house pretty easily.

But there was only one person that he wanted to work for, and he was the king of Fódlan.

A deep frown set upon Raphael’s lips as he ran a hand through his messy hair. Ever since he met Dimitri when they were attending the Officer’s Academy together, Raphael had always admired his strength and kindness. When Raphael had approached him for advice on how to get stronger, and then hurt himself as a result of misinterpreting that advice, Dimitri had taken him to the infirmary, stayed there until he was discharged, and then decided to train with Raphael directly to avoid any more mishaps. Raphael had been grateful, and formed a deep friendship with the Prince of Faerghus.

When they reunited five years after the start of the war, Raphael had been heartbroken to see what had become of his dear friend, and he had done his best to help Dimitri overcome the demons that plagued him. Raphael had gone through loss of his own, after all, and even though he did still have family left unlike Dimitri, he still felt like he could relate and wanted to help.

Eventually, Dimitri recovered and their friendship was renewed and seemed to be stronger than ever, as they frequently ate together and trained together. And sometimes, Raphael would hear a knock on his door late at night, only to find Dimitri standing outside of his room, asking to stay and talk to try and chase away his recurring nightmares. Raphael gladly offered his help, and most of those nights ended up with Dimitri falling asleep, with his head in Raphael’s lap as he gently combed his fingers through the tormented man’s hair and rambled on about various things.

It was after one of those nights that Raphael realized that he was hopelessly in love with Dimitri.

Raphael had always thought it was odd that his heart seemed to start racing every time he saw Dimitri, and how his eyes always seemed to wander in his direction. Raphael began to notice peculiar things about Dimitri that he hadn’t before: the way his beautiful blue eye seemed to sparkle every time they spoke, how soft his wild blond hair felt as it slipped through Raphael’s fingers, the way that his laughter had the magical ability to cause a huge, goofy smile to cross Raphael’s face every time he heard it…

After consulting with some other friends on the matter, Raphael now knew for a fact that he was in love, and that worried him. They had become really close friends, sure, but Dimitri was royalty, a king, and Raphael was just a commoner. He wasn’t super informed of the politics of the noble folks, but he knew enough to know that commoner and noble relationships were very rare.

Dimitri was a good man, Raphael knew this for a fact, but that didn’t stop a rather bothersome pit of anxiety from forming in his gut. To even think of trying to court the King of Fódlan...Raphael wasn’t even sure if he was worthy enough just to be Dimitri’s knight, so how could he even entertain the idea of him actually returning the feelings of love that Raphael held so deeply for him?

A sudden, loud knock on the door pulled Raphael out of his thoughts, and he turned his head to yell, “Come in!” Raphael watched as Dimitri entered the room and walked up to him. Ah, there went Raphael’s heartbeat, off to the races again, and this time it was accompanied by butterflies taking flight in his gut. Gods, he really did have it bad for Dimitri, huh?

Dimitri took a brief glance around the room, before his gaze met Raphael’s. “Ah, good evening, Raphael. I hope I’m not intruding?”

Raphael quickly shook his head as he waved his hands in front of him. “Not at all, Dimitri! Er, I mean, Your Highness! Er, wait, Your Majesty? Uh-”

“Easy, Raphael,” Dimitri interrupted, laughing as he placed a hand on Raphael’s arm, “Just keep calling me Dimitri, please.” Raphael’s eyes flicked briefly to the warm hand on his arm, and he swallowed thickly to try and chase away the dryness in this throat.

“Ah, right…” Raphael said as he rubbed at the back of his neck sheepishly. Dimitri chuckled and dropped his hand, and Raphael smiled automatically. He really did have to wonder if Dimitri’s laughter actually contained some type of magical quality to make Raphael this happy whenever he heard it.

“Is your packing going alright? Are you planning on leaving tomorrow?” Dimitri asked, and Raphael nodded.

“Yep! Gotta go and see my sis and grandpa. I miss them a lot.”

“Indeed, and I’m sure that they miss you as well.” Dimitri paused for a moment to clear his throat, and an oddly serious look crossed his face. “I actually came here to ask you something.”

Raphael tilted his head curiously to one side. “Oh?” Dimitri didn’t respond right away, and Raphael waited patiently for him to do so; it must be something really important if Dimitri was seeking him out this late at night. Maybe he was having nightmares again?

“I’m not sure if you remember, but you told me, back in our Academy days, that you were becoming a knight in order to provide for your sister?” Raphael smiled. Of course he remembered that. It was one of the first times he had talked to Dimitri.

“Oh, yeah, I definitely remember that!”

“Well, do you...have any job offers yet?”

“Nope! I was gonna start looking as soon as I moved back home.” Raphael bit his tongue to keep from blurting out the fact that the person he wanted to work for was standing right in front of him. There was no way that Dimitri would-

“Ah, I see. Then, allow me to save you the trouble.”

“Huh?” Raphael blinked slowly as Dimitri took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, his beautiful blue eye boring deep into his golden ones.

“Raphael, I would like to offer you a position as one of my knights. You and your family can move to Fhirdiad and I will see to it that you all live comfortably,” Dimitri said, and Raphael thought he was going to pass out from shock. He was...actually offering him a job? The thing that Raphael wanted the most (well, besides having Dimitri love him as much as Raphael loved him, but that would never happen)? It was so, so hard to believe.

“Wh-What? This is...I mean-Why me of all people?”

“Well, er…” Dimitri said, his face suddenly flushing a bright pink in color, “I must admit, part of my decision in offering this position to you is rather selfish…Ahem, and well…” Raphael had never seen Dimitri so flustered, and he watched with a dumbfounded look on his face as Dimitri reached out with a shaky hand to hold one of his.

“Uh…”

“It seems that I have come to...care for you a great deal, Raphael. I-I cannot stand the idea of not having you by my side anymore. The very thought feels like having a knife thrust through my heart. You have been a dear friend to me, and you were a light in my life when I feared that the darkness in my heart would devour me. It seems that I, ah…” Dimitri trailed off, and Raphael pushed past the lump that had formed in his throat to speak.

“W-Wait do you mean-”

“Y-Yes,” Dimitri said, swallowing thickly as he lifted his free hand to cup Raphael’s cheek, “I have fallen in love with you, Raphael.” Raphael had never been more happy to be so wrong about two things in such a small amount of time. Dimitri...really loved him? This felt like a dream, and if it was, Raphael hoped that he would never wake up from it.

“You are the most selfless and kind person that I’ve ever met,” Dimitri continued as Raphael just stared at him with his jaw hanging open, “You’ve always gone out of your way to help anyone who needed it, and I have always admired your determination and strength. It was so, so easy to fall in love with you.”

Dimitri dropped his hand from Raphael’s face as his lips formed into a bitter line. “You even stayed by my side when I was at my lowest, even after I threatened you and I just...I don’t know where I would be today, if you hadn’t been the light that dragged me out of the darkness that threatened to consume me. You were...my savior, Raphael.”

Raphael remembered those dark times well. When he had returned to Garrag Mach along with most of his other classmates, five years after the start of the war, he had been frankly horrified at the state that Dimitri was in.

While everyone else (besides the Professor) kept their distance from him, Raphael had noticed that Dimitri never went to the dining hall, and was worried that he wasn’t eating. So one night, he took a heaping plate of delicious, warm food to the cathedral, where Dimitri stood among the rubble, muttering incoherently to himself.

When Raphael had announced his presence, Dimitri had immediately threatened to kill him, but Raphael was not phased. He smiled softly and set the food down, calmly stating that he wouldn’t be leaving until Dimitri cleaned his plate. Raphael endured being called a few colorful curse words and threatened with dismemberment for a while, but he still didn’t leave, and Dimitri eventually fell quiet.

They had sat in silence for hours, before Dimitri finally sat down and grabbed the plate. He devoured the now cold - and probably disappointing - contents and threw the empty plate at Raphael, while hissing at him to go the fuck away. And Raphael did.

However, he had returned the next night, and the next, and the one after that, and he continued to return every night until Dimitri finally started returning to his old self and could go back to eating at the dining hall regularly. Raphael finally felt that he had his friend back, and the amount of happiness he had felt at that moment was overwhelming.

“...Well, I said my piece.” A bitter smile crossed Dimitri’s face, which confused Raphael. “I know that you could never love me in return, considering how I treated you. I am not…” Dimitri paused as he sucked in a sharp breath, and Raphael noticed that his eye had become quite watery.

“I-I am not worthy of being loved by someone as kind and selfless as you.” Raphael’s heart clenched almost painfully when tears started falling down Dimitri’s face and he tried to stifle a few sobs. “I just-I just couldn’t leave these feelings unspoken. They were...tearing me up inside-” Raphael had certainly heard enough of this, and he quickly closed the distance between them by wrapping his arms around Dimitri and pulling him to a tight hug. He felt Dimitri stiffen, and heard him sniff loudly, before he started sobbing uncontrollably into Raphael’s chest.

Raphael held Dimitri silently as he cried, gently rubbing his large hands over his back to try and calm him down. Raphael hated to hear the man that he loved say such awful things about himself, especially when his assumptions about Raphael’s feelings for him were entirely wrong.

Raphael didn’t know how long they stood there, but eventually Dimitri’s sobs slowed and then stopped completely. He took in a deep breath and let it out, swallowing thickly before he tilted his head up to look at Raphael.

“Raphael I-”

“Hey, wait,” Raphael interrupted, a small smile crossing his face, “I think it’s my turn to talk, okay?”

“...Okay.”

“Dimitri.” Raphael released his hold on Dimitri so that he could reach up and gently wipe away the tears that still clung to his cheeks. “First things first, I accept your job offer. Nothing would make me happier than to work for you.”

“You-”

“Well,” Raphael continued, raising an eyebrow as Dimitri’s mouth snapped shut again, “I actually can think of something that would make me happier. And you already confirmed it for me.”

“...I...don’t understand…”

“Secondly, I also accept...your feelings for me.” Raphael watched as Dimitri’s eye widened, and fresh tears pooled in the corner. “I love you too!”

“You...You love me?”

“Of course I do!” Raphael beamed at Dimitri, who had started crying again, and he let out a rumbling chuckle as he gently pressed their foreheads together. “So you really gotta stop being so hard on yourself.” Dimitri sniffed as Raphael continued to wipe away his tears as they fell.

“Even after how horribly I treated you...well, everyone, you would still have me?” Dimitri asked, hesitating a bit as he looked down at his feet.

Raphael nodded as he gently slipped a finger under Dimitri’s chin and lifted his head so that he was looking back at him. “Yep, just as you are! You’ve changed for the better, Dimitri, and I know you’ll keep improving. I know I will!”

“If you are truly sure...Then allow me to ask you formally.” Dimitri smiled as he took Raphael’s hand from his cheek and moved it to his mouth so that he could place a tender kiss on his knuckles. Raphael’s face flushed at the feeling of Dimitri’s soft lips against his skin, and a shiver ran down his spine.

“Raphael, I love you with all of my heart. Will you not only become my knight, but also my partner in all the things that this life has to offer?” Dimitri asked, and the smile that crossed Raphael’s face was so large that it almost hurt his face. Raphael wrapped his arms around him again and hoisted him into the air with ease, laughing as he spun the shocked Dimitri around in circles.

“Yes! I will, Dimitri! I’ll stay by your side forever, and ever!” Raphael practically yelled the words as his excitement boiled over, and Dimitri’s beautiful laughter filled the room as Raphael stopped spinning and their foreheads met again.

“I am...so happy. Happy that I can now finally call you my beloved, Raphael.” Dimitri’s voice dropped to a whisper as he stared deeply into Raphael’s eyes, and like it was the most natural thing in the world, their lips finally met in a tender kiss.

Raphael felt like he was weightless, floating on a cloud of happiness as he finally kissed the man that he loved more than anyone else in the world. Dimitri’s arms wrapped around his neck, one hand coming to rest at the back of his neck. Raphael smiled against his lips as his arms dropped to Dimitri’s waist and the small of his back, and Dimitri immediately pressed himself closer. Gods, Raphael was just so...unbelievably happy.

Eventually they had to part to catch their breaths, and Raphael immediately peppered kisses all over Dimitri’s face and neck.

“R-Raphael! That tickles, ha!” Dimitri laughed as Raphael smiled against his neck, and he lifted his head to gaze into that beautiful blue eye once more.

“Sorry! I just really like kissing you!” Dimitri’s face flushed a deep shade of red, and Raphael chuckled as he stole another kiss from his lips. Dimitri sighed into the kiss, and this time when they pulled away, they both had to stifle yawns.

“Whoops! It’s getting kinda late, huh?” Raphael mused, his eyes wandering to the window, where he could see the dark sky shimmering brightly with a multitude of stars. Dimitri nodded, and he reached out, hesitating for a moment before he gently held Raphael’s hands in his.

“Raphael, my dear,” Dimitri said, and Raphael’s heart soared at the term of endearment, “Would it be okay if I...stayed here with you tonight? I, ah, would like to hold you, like you’ve done for me on those nights when I came to you?” Raphael’s eyes lit up as he nodded vigorously, causing Dimitri to laugh as they both prepared to retire for the night.

When Raphael had cleaned the bags of his belongings off of his bed and they both had stripped down to their underclothes, they lay down and Dimitri immediately pulled Raphael into his arms. Sighing contently, Raphael reached up to brush his fingers over Dimitri’s eye patch.

“Can I take this off?” Raphael asked. Dimitri had never done so before when he stayed the night in his room, but Raphael wanted him to be as comfortable as possible.

Dimitri averted his gaze for a moment before nodding slightly. “Yes, but it is...not a pretty sight.” Raphael laughed and shook his head.

“I don’t believe that! Everything about you is beautiful, Dimitri!” Raphael said, and Dimitri smiled as his cheeks turned pink.

“Alright, I warned you.” Dimitri said, and he lay still as Raphael gently removed the black fabric and placed it on the nightstand. He turned to gaze at Dimitri’s bare face, and a tender smile crossed his face.

“Wow...you really are beautiful.” Raphael gently brushed the hair from Dimitri’s eyes, and he leaned over to place a chaste kiss over the scarring where his right eye used to be. “I feel like I fall more in love with you every second.” Tears welled up in Dimitri’s eye yet again, and Raphael kissed away the stray tears that escaped and fell down his face.

“Raphael...thank you, for loving me, despite everything. I love you, so much more than words can say.” Dimitri whispered, as he rolled over to curl up against Raphael’s chest. Raphael’s arms wrapped around the man that he loved, and he pressed a kiss into the top of his head.

“I love you too, Dimitri,” Raphael whispered back, and they both eventually drifted off to sleep, content and happy and filled with so, so much unconditional love for one another.

#fire emblem three houses #raphael kirsten #dimitri alexandre blaiddyd #raphael/dimitri #fanfiction #jade writes fanfiction

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theonewiththefanfics · 6 years ago

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Hazardous Objects (one-shot)

Synopsys: Being an introvert and in love with an extrovert is hard. As it is the other way around. So, what can Roger do but try and move on from the Reader who is so much better than him, anyway. Though one night might change it all.

Pairing: Ben Hardy! Roger Taylor x f!Reader

Genre: angst, SMUT, fluff

Warnings: SMUT (unprotected sex (no glove, no love, darlings), m going down on f, and all that good jazz), swearing

Word count: 4522

Y/N was the quiet girl. She was the one who stayed in on Friday nights, she didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, but rather buried her head in a book and allowed the made-up worlds to whisk her away for days at a time. Roger was the complete opposite. He was loud, out-going, liked to party, drink and everything that fell under the label ‘Rock & Roll’. So how those two were best friends was beyond everyone. The two opposites were roommates, and, at that moment, they were living their best lives. Y/N was studying English Lit while Roger was to become a dentist, though she knew how unlikely that was. The talent the boy possessed as a drummer was way too much to be thrown away like that. In fact, he and his friends Brian and Tim had formed a band called Smile. At first, she had been so incredibly happy about it. Even when they dismantled and morphed into Queen with the additions of Freddie and John, Y/N had been their number one fan. Though, now her best friend’s lifestyle was starting to press on her. Specifically, all the one-night stands he brought home. She wasn’t that bothered by it in the beginning, apart from how loud they were, not allowing Y/N to catch up on the precious sleep she’d lost during the week because of lectures and the insane amount of homework. But then, when one morning the groupie he’d brought home had stood in their kitchen clad in nothing but Roger’s shirt and boxers, something had tugged at Y/N’s heart. And that’s when she started to put some distance between the two of them.

In the beginning, Roger didn’t notice the shift because it started off small. Y/N would wake up ten minutes earlier and leave before he could get out of bed. The drummer wrote that off on her insane studying schedule. Then she’d get home when he was either at Brian’s place, at the rehearsals or simply out at a pub. Y/N would cook dinner, eat, watch some TV and go to her own room even before Roger was back. They’d exchange their usual greetings whenever they ran into one another on campus, but when her smile would disappear the second, she thought Roger wasn’t looking, he realized something was off. That night he had a gig, but after that Roger had intended on going straight home to figure out why Y/N had been acting so strange, but as Freddie had offered him a drink, then Brian and then Deaky, beer kept flowing, and all his worries melted away especially when a tall brunette approached him, batting her eyelashes and swaying her hips.

***

Roger woke up with a pounding head, and someone laying next to him in the bed. Groaning he turned to the side in search for his pants. With closed eyes, he shimmied them on and trailed his way to the kitchen, simply wishing to make a cup of coffee, when he heard cupboard doors being opened and closed. Luck seemed to have not abandoned him completely as he entered the kitchen and saw Y/N rummaging around. He’d grown so used to never hearing her in the mornings, that seeing her in a jacket, bag on the countertop and ready to go, made him feel like things were almost back to normal. Almost. “You’re still home.” His voice was unexpected, for Y/N had certainly thought Roger would be sleeping in given the long night he’d had before, so when he spoke up, she almost hit her head against the furniture door. “I-“ but she didn’t even get to start the sentence as his one-night stand came out of his bedroom. The woman he’d slept with was dressed in only one of his shirts and boxers, and she smugly waved at Y/N, sauntering up to Roger and kissing his shoulder. He had to clear his throat at how uncomfortable he suddenly felt in his own place. “This, umm, this is Sherill.” “Charlotte,” she corrected, but Y/N couldn’t have cared less, as she moved to grab her thermos and went for the coffee pot. Roger looked at his roommate with furrowed brows as she didn’t even deign to respond, pouring in the bitter drink and grabbing a protein bar to take with her. He hated the distance that had suddenly appeared between the two, so when Y/N was just about to exit he rushed to her side and took away her coffee. “Rog, give it back, I’m already late.” “No, you’re not, your lecture starts in an hour.” Y/N huffed and rolled her eyes. “Yet I’d like to be on time.” “Then come to the pub tonight. We’re playing, and I’ll treat you to a drink afterwards.” She threw a quick glance at the girl stand who was scouring through their fridge looking for something to put on the pancakes she was making. “I think you’ll find a way to entertain yourself without me. Besides, I have an exam that’s coming up, and I need to study.” “Please, Y/N,” he begged, giving the woman his best puppy-dog eyes. “We haven’t hung out in so long. Please. It would mean the world to me if you came. And you’re the smartest person I know, you’ll ace the exam without breaking a sweat.” And as much as she didn’t want to go to some dingy pub only to be later on abandoned by Roger who’d have twenty groupies trying to get under his arm, the drummer was her best friend, no matter her feelings, the guilt of acting so shitty towards him settling in. “Okay,” she whispered, grabbing the coffee cup he’d been holding the whole time hostage. “I’ll go.” The bright smile he gave her made Y/N’s heart stutter, and she had to look away and leave before she did something irreversible.

***

The air in the bar was stuffy and reeked of cigarettes, sweat and beer as Y/N pushed past the masses of students who had decided to come and listen to Queen play, starting off their weekend on the right foot. Y/N quickly found a free stool by the counter and ordered a gin and tonic, eyes scanning the crowd as she waited for Roger and the rest of the gang to come on the stage. Once they did, everyone went wild, especially the girls. She had to swallow down the jealousy as a groupie called out ‘Hey, Roger’, and he threw her a wink. Y/N sighed deeply, but nonetheless, she kept watching as the man banged away at the drums, a cigarette stuck between his teeth, perfectly keeping up the rhythm, despite Freddie mixing up the songs. Two hours later and Queen was done. The people erupted in cheers, loud whistles and yelps, especially from the girls who were trying to garner the boys’ attention. Y/N kept her eyes glued to where the band would come out from the backstage, waiting for that blond head to appear, but when it did her heart dropped. Of course, he had three beautiful women already all over him, one whispering in his ear sweet nothings, the other one trailing a manicured finger up and down his exposed and sweaty chest, and the third one had placed her hand in the back pocket of his jeans. His smile was bigger than ever As Roger’s eyes finally found Y/N, he motioned for the girls ‘one second’ and started to make his way towards her, she knew it was her cue to leave. It didn’t matter that he’d promised to hang out with her afterwards. He’d found better things to do as always. “Hey, woah, wait, where are you going?” the blond rushed up, seeing Y/N gather her things. “Home,” Y/N said, pulling on her jacket and grabbing her purse. “Wait, let me get my stuff and I’ll take you,” Roger was just about to run to the van and take his keys, when she just said a quick ‘no’ and exited, leaving him standing in the middle of the bar completely confused. Brian’s hand clapping down on his shoulder brought Roger out of the moment. “Where did Y/N go?” “Home,” the blond replied, echoing the single word she had given him. It made Brian chuckle as he signalled for the bartender, and he received a pint for it. “What, did she think we were that horrible?” “I- I don’t know, but I need to find out,” Roger looked at Brian and patted his back as he made his way towards the stage and then outside. He got home an hour later as he helped the guys pack up their equipment and load up the van as quickly as possible. Roger didn’t stay behind for drinks or to get with another groupie. Instead, he rushed home as fast as he could, only to be greeted by a passed-out Y/N on the sofa. The TV was still on, illuminating her features with a bright white light, so he turned it off, soundlessly making his way to kneel in front of her. As he looked down at the sleeping girl, Roger couldn’t help the flutter in his heart. She’d always been there, had always been the one who supported him, no matter what endeavours. Y/N had been his shoulder to cry on and the one that could make him laugh until he was rolling on the ground. But when he had started to grow feelings for the amazing woman was when he had started to have one-night stands, because why would she ever choose to be with some second-rate drummer, when she deserved the whole universe. Gently, he brushed his fingers against her cheek, traced her jawline and the slope of her nose. Tenderly, he brushed her eyelids and finally settled on her lips. Roger had wanted to kiss them since he could remember himself. Especially when they pulled up in a brilliant white smile. It was either his touch or his piercing gaze, or the combination of both, but his motions stirred Y/N from her sleep. Slowly she opened her eyes, and the first thing he saw was Roger’s perfect face. They stayed like that- observing one another for what seemed like hours- until suddenly his lips were on Y/N’s. She wasn’t sure who moved first, but she reciprocated nonetheless. Her fingers wove in that blond mop of hair that she’d spend hours combing through after Roger would come home stressed, either from college or band practice. Though, now, they were anything but tender. She gripped at strands and lightly pulled at them, making Roger moan at the actions. Y/N’s body was no longer laying on the sofa. She’d somehow made her way up and had pulled Roger to sit down, straddling him, hips rolling against one another. Rough hands moved under her favourite shirt, which coincidentally was his Led Zeppelin one, and, with haste, he pulled it over Y/N’s head, attaching his lips to her neck. “If we start, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop,” Roger murmured nipping at Y/N’s collarbone, his calloused palms helping with the rolling motions of their hips. “Well, if you stop, then I’ll have to throw you out of the house, so I can finish things myself.” “Not a fucking chance,” and with that said, Roger stood up, hands supporting her ass, as he carried her to his bedroom, laying her down between the plush pillows. “I’ve been in love with you for three years. So not gonna happen.” That made Y/N pull away, eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re in love with me?” “I,” Roger stuttered because he had not intended to say that. At least in not such a crude way. But there was no going back. “Yeah,” he softly smiled pressing their foreheads together. “I love you. I’m in love with you. All of that and more. I thought I could forget you with all of those other girls, but… I couldn’t. I can’t. You’re irreplaceable and I love you.” Y/N’s face was split apart by the most beautiful grin he’d ever seen as she leaned up and kissed him muttering an ‘I love you too’ in his mouth. Her naked chest was tightly pressed against Roger’s as his hands explored every uncovered inch of her body. That was until she started squirming and not from pleasure. “Hold on,” Y/N quickly pushed him away and reached behind her back only to find a black lace thong that had been scraping along her skin the whole time. “Really?” she quirked a brow. “You kept a souvenir?” “I haven’t been home since the morning, love. She must have left them herself,” Roger took the garment and quickly rushed to throw it in the bin, practically sprinting back to resume the previous position. “Besides, the only panties I wanna see laying around this room are yours,” and with a wicked smirk, he slid his hand beneath her pyjamas shorts and underwear, to be gloriously greeted by her already soaking centre. Y/N threw her head back as his long fingers slipped between her folds and found that little bundle of nerves. His kiss-swollen lips marked up her neck and shoulders before moving south. She whined as Roger removed his hand from her clit, but still helped and lifted her hips up so he could take off the offensive piece of clothing that was still on her. “Why am I the only one naked here?” Y/N panted. Roger was just about to throw out a snarky remark before he stopped to drink in the sight before him. Her body was covered by a thin layer of sweat, and the London lights softly filtered in through the sheer curtains, giving her a golden glow. Y/N’s hair was splayed out on his pillow like a Y/H/C halo, and her eyes had almost completely lost their usual Y/E/C colour, lust having overtaken the irises. His love bites littered her chest, collarbones and breasts, somewhat resembling a purple necklace, and Roger smiled knowing it was his doing. The smile widened knowing she felt the same way. With those thoughts present in mind, he removed his shirt like lightening and unzipped his pants, throwing them away with his shoes as well. “That better?” Roger asked, leaning over to be face to face with Y/N, who grasped at the long dangling chains and pulled him down for a kiss. She wrapped her legs around his waist, shifting his whole body down so that it completely moulded to hers. Y/N moaned, feeling him grow harder with every passing moment, and a deep sigh escaped her lips when he shifted, the friction against her core causing pleasure to ripple through. “Still not as naked as I’d like you to be,” she mumbled, cupping Roger’s face between her hands and deepening the kiss. “Your. Wish. Is. My. Command,” he replied, accentuating each word with a kiss before removing his boxers. Y/N shuddered seeing him bare and vulnerable before her, and she knew there was a huge difference between what was about to happen and what he usually did with the other girls, for there was a certain look in his eyes. Fear and love and anxiety and lust and happiness and contentment, all mixed together in those ocean blue orbs she absolutely loved. “Yeah,” Y/N whispered sitting upright and wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “Now it’s better.” His heart thundered in his chest, hearing her soft tone, and it made him melt. Kissing her once more, he slid his tongue along her bottom lip, asking for entrance, and, without a second to spare, Y/N granted him the passage. They couldn’t be closer even if they tried, and she would have been happy to remain in the same state, but the ache between her legs had become unbearable. “Rog, I need you,” Y/N groaned feeling his member twitch against her thigh. “Mhm,” he confirmed sliding his hands up and down her legs, before dropping lower to kiss her stomach and placing her knees over his shoulders. “And you’ll get me. But first, I need a taste.” Her whine sent Roger’s mind reeling. Just the thought of her making all those sweet sounds and how they would get louder and louder with every minute he worked her up, drove him insane. Roger allowed his hands to wander over her belly, up to her ribs, tracing the underside of her breasts and then finally cupping them, rolling the perked nipples between his thumb and forefinger right as his mouth went to work on her centre. Y/N’s back arched up from the bed at the feeling of his tongue slipping between her folds and finding her swollen clit. It was ecstasy, pure bliss and nothing else. She moaned and whimpered Roger’s name, only spurring him on. His hands had settled on her hips to keep Y/N down on the bed. Her thighs kept closing in around his head, and her fingers had found themselves woven in his blond hair, scratching his scalp and tugging at the golden strands at particularly harsh licks. It was when she softly cried out for more, Roger looked up, his cerulean eyes hooded, and Y/N looked so perfect, he could not deny the girl anything. Gently, as to not hurt her, he circled two of his fingers around her core, gathering up the slick that had already drenched his sheets and slid them inside. He groaned against her thigh, feeling just how tight and snug Y/N was, and he couldn’t wait for more. Though now, his job was to make her see stars. And not in the way Brian was being taught about them. Roger set up a slow pace, dragging and curling his digits, gently scraping them along the velvety walls in search for that spot that would throw her over the edge. He was once again leaning over the girl gauging her reaction of every single thing he did, for her didn’t want to miss how Y/N’s face lit up as bliss rushed through her veins. A sudden sharp intake of breath alerted Roger that he’d stumbled upon that hidden gem he’d been looking for. “That’s the spot?” he asked, curling his fingers in a come-hither motion, and he beamed seeing Y/N’s eyes roll to the back of her head. Her breathing was laboured, and her only thoughts were of Roger. “Don’t stop,” Y/N breathed against the sensitive skin of his neck. “Please don’t stop.” And he knew she was close, teetering on that line, so to make her crumble apart faster, Roger quickly bent down and attached his lips around her clit, sucking on the little bud. Y/N screamed his name as her orgasm obliterated all of her senses. Her vision went stark white, everything she could hear was turned to static and anywhere Roger touched her, he left a blazing trail in his wake. Her body spasmed as the drummer kissed his way up her frame and hid his face in the crook of her neck. Gentle palms traced the hickeys he’d left on her ribs as he asked, “You alright?” Softly, she hummed, as her mind somewhat cleared from the haze. Y/N opened her eyes and looked down to see Roger, concern shining in those ocean orbs. “I’m perfect, love.” His lips tugged upwards, and he leaned in to press a tender kiss, right as he aligned himself with her centre. Y/N’s whole body tensed up in anticipation, and Roger feeling this, instantly thought she’s changed her mind. “No, no, no, no, no,” she reassured him, brushing some matted down strands away from his flawless face. “I’m alright. I want this. I really do.” “You’re completely sure?” Roger asked, needing to be a hundred percent sure she was all for it. “Rog, just fuck me.” “Oh, don’t worry, I will,” he brought his mouth closer to her ear. “But right now, I’d rather make love to you,” and with that said he slowly sank in. There was little to no resistance with how went Y/N was, but what made him almost explode was just how tightly she was wrapped around him. Her last orgasm was still rippling through her form, and he could feel it in how her walls pulsated and squeezed around his member, hugging every vein, ridge and dip. He was no longer sweating from how hot the room had gotten, but from keeping himself from just cumming then and there. “Fuck, Rog, please move,” Y/N pleaded, trying to raise up her hips, but he had a death grip around her waist which didn’t allow her to move one bit. “Just,” he breathed out, “just give me a sec. Otherwise, this whole thing won’t last long.” And as much as Y/N wanted to whine out in frustration, the ache becoming almost physically painful, she restrained herself. Instead, the girl wrapped her arms around Roger’s neck and pressed their lips together in a soothing kiss. “That’s okay, Rog. That’s alright. You can make it up to me some other time,” and her kind words elicited a small laugh from him. “So, you’re saying this isn’t a one-and-done sort of a thing?” Her look of mock astonishment made the drummer smile so wide his jaw almost cramped up. “If this is a one-and-done, then you should start looking for a new apartment right this second.” Roger hummed, bringing one palm to trace Y/N’s cheek. “And if I asked, would you let me take you out on a proper date tomorrow morning?” “Then I’d say I’d absolutely love that. Especially after what you’ve done to me tonight.” “Or am about to do…” “Or are about to do…” Y/N echoed Roger’s words right as he started gently rocking his hips. The sensation of being joined like that was heaven. Her nails left red marks down the length of Roger’s back and ass and even thighs, in an attempt to pull him closer, while his lips had attached themselves to Y/N’s sweet spot right below her ear, making her mewl in delight. The bed hit the wall with quiet thuds, so completely opposite of how it rocked when Roger would bring back one of his groupies. Now, he was tender and keeping eye contact with Y/N at all times, just to see her succumb to pleasure. With the one-night stands, he didn’t really care if they had a good time or not, that was purely sex. With Y/N he needed every single thing to be perfect. To hear her moans and whispers of praise, was more of a reward than anything else. The realization she was feeling so good and because of him was enough for the man. “ ‘M close,” Roger groaned in Y/N’s chest, his sweaty forehead pressed tightly between the valley of her breasts as her fingers carded through his hair. “Let go, love,” she encouraged him as her walls squeezed around his shaft that got buried deeper inside of her with every thrust. “I wanna cum with you. Let go.” And so, he did. Moaning her name, Roger released, his hot seed filling up every inch of Y/N’s core, and the feeling of it pushed her over the edge once more. Her back arched up, mouth open in a silent scream, nails digging deep in Roger’s back. He could feel the stings of where they broke his skin, but all of that only added to the endless pleasure that encompassed his world. Panting, the drummer sagged down. His whole body trembled, just like Y/N’s did, and smiling she cupped his face, giving him an appreciative and reassuring kiss. “I love you,” he murmured against her mouth. “I love you so fucking much.” “Love you too, Rog.” They remained like that for a while, Roger still sheeted deep inside of her as they tried to regain back control over their senses. Only when he was confident, he wouldn’t fall over, did the blond pull out and go to the bathroom to grab a warm washcloth to clean both of them up. Y/N shuddered when he came back and gently dragged the material between her legs. After that, with the clean side, he wiped away the sweat, trailing it over her chest, stomach, arms and legs. “I’m sorry for pushing you away. It was just so hard to see you with all of those girls when the only thing I wished for was to be in their place. But not just for one night” Y/N mumbled looking up at Roger who deeply sighed and then kissed her forehead after he had settled back in the bed and brought the woman close to him. “I’m sorry for making you push me away. And you are more than that. I want to be with you. In every single way. If you'll give me a chance, ” he said stroking her cheek tenderly. She smiled up at him and gave Roger an affirmative kiss. With Y/N’s head on his chest, Roger drifted off, her soft snores being his lullaby and her love making him feel safer than ever.

***

Roger was awoken by incessant knocking at his front door. He groaned, pulling Y/N’s warm body closer to his, their legs intertwined, and he buried his face in her hair. Hoping, that by acting as if no one was in, the assailant would leave, Roger snuggled further under the sheets and rubbed circles on the exposed skin of Y/N’s stomach, but right as he was just about to be pulled back to dreamland, the knocks started again. With an angry huff, Roger got out of the bed, threw on some boxers and stomped through the hallway, shivering halfway as he'd lost the warmth of the bed and Y/N. Throwing the door open his blue eyes widened seeing the groupie he’d picked up the previous night. “Heia, Rog,” Charlotte smirked at the drummer, twirling a finger around a brown lock. “Listen, I just came back cause I forgot my panties here last morning.” There was a clear implication of ‘I’m not wearing any right now as well,’ in the way she bit her lip, but just as Roger was about to roll his eyes and tell her to go away, Y/N sauntered up to the pair in just one of his shirts and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Sorry, honey,” she smiled way too sweetly at the girl for it to be genuine. “But in this house, we throw away hazardous objects like that, not hang onto them.” And with that said she closed the door, placing her palm on the nape of Roger’s neck and pulling him down for a passionate kiss. “Mine,” Y/N moaned in his mouth, biting down on his bottom lip, and eliciting a satisfied groan from the man. “All yours, love,” Roger grinned, picking her up by her thighs and wrapping them around his waist. “So, how about we get rid of this hazardous object?” his eyebrow quirked up as he fingered the button of his white shirt. And as he popped it open, Y/N smiled, tightening her legs around his waist. “Show me what you got, drummer boy.”

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take): @16wiishes @wanderingsami @desir-ae @thiccio-and-thicciet @roseslovedreams @vesoleil @gloomybisexualemo @kostyaownsmyheart @perriwiinkle @screaminggalileochickenwrites @barbarairene-k @aylinnmaslow @harrysgonnapayforthis @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @sweet-ladyy @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @rawbucky

A/N: the whole thing started out as that last bit with Charlotte when I woke up at 5AM. Then it evolved into this. Enjoy.

Not my best work, but I still had fun writing :)

P.S. feedback is always appreciated.

P.S.S. my tags are always open, so drop a message if you’d like to be added to future things :)

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