#I wanna b on the train for when they actually get together | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fiendishfables · 9 months ago

Note

Hello! Can I plz request Lucifer (Hazbin Hotel) x reader where he meets the reader and is attracted to her but after he sees her transform into a beautiful Light Fury dragon (How To Train Your Dragon) he's like: they have to be mine.

pairing: Lucifer Morningstar x Female! Lightfury Shifter! Reader

summary: ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴇᴛ ꜱᴛᴜᴄᴋ ɪɴ ʜᴇʟʟ ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀ ᴇxᴛᴇʀᴍɪɴᴀᴛɪᴏɴ ᴅᴀʏ; ᴡʜᴇɴ ʟᴜᴄɪꜰᴇʀ ᴄᴏᴍᴇꜱ ᴛᴏ ʜᴇʟᴘ ʜɪꜱ ᴅᴀᴜɢʜᴛᴇʀ ʀᴇʙᴜɪʟᴅ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇꜱ ꜱᴜꜰꜰᴇʀᴇᴅ ᴅᴜᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴀᴅᴀᴍ ᴀɴᴅ ʜɪꜱ ɢᴏᴏɴꜱ, ʜᴇ ʀᴇᴄᴏɢɴɪᴢᴇꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ʜɪꜱ ᴅᴀʏꜱ ɪɴ ʜᴇᴀᴠᴇɴ. ʜᴇ ᴏɴʟʏ ᴋɴᴏᴡꜱ ᴏɴᴇ ᴘᴇʀꜱᴏɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀʙɪʟɪᴛʏ ᴛᴏ ᴛᴜʀɴ ɪɴᴛᴏ ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ᴍᴀɢɴɪꜰɪᴄᴇɴᴛ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛᴜʀᴇ…

warnings: cursing, slight angst, fluff, Lucifer + reader are secretly in love and are complete dorks about it

words: 6k+

a/n: I saw this request and immediately got to work; I love HTTYD, so I hope you enjoy its inclusion in this fanfic. I was thinking about adding 1-2 more parts to this; just let me know in the replies if you guys even want a second part to this; wanna give y'all what you want. Thanks again, anon, for requesting this! ^_____^

A Dragon's Vow

(Part 1?)

Lucifer had been standing in the lobby of the Hazbin Hotel, speaking with his daughter, Charlie, when he first met you. He had come by the morning after extermination to check on her, as well as the other residents of her hotel (for whom he didn't particularly care for, in all honesty; especially not that Alastor fellow).

They had been speaking about renovations to the hotel after the events that took place prior and during the extermination. The hotel had suffered many damages to both its interior and exterior; damages that normally would take one a while to fix if they weren't in Hell. He promised Charlie his help with fixing whatever needed fixing.

And that's when he first saw you.

Everyone was gathered in the hotel lobby, residents and all. His eyes had begun scanning around all the potential bodies that would be helping with the reconstruction of his daughter's life-long dream of a project, when he had spotted a head of pure white hair in the group's mass. He squinted his eyes, as he couldn't remember seeing such a color that stood out as much as it did, but when he saw your face it was all over for him.

You were absolutely stunning.

Your hair had to have been a result of your transformation into the afterlife. He had never known any being to have such a pure color for hair while still being alive. At least, not naturally.

Your body, from what he could see, appeared to be dusted with white glitter markings, highlighting your already beautiful skin. The light coming through the broken windows of the hotel seemed to gravitate towards your figure, as if sensing the need to accentuate how unique your presence actually was.

In Lucifer's mind, it was almost like looking straight at an angel.

Only was he shaken from his thoughts when he finally noticed the pair of snapping fingers that had been in-front of his face for who knows how long. They belonged to his daughter.

"Dad!" Charlie exclaimed, continuing the snap of her fingers in-front of his eyes until he finally gathered his bearings with a blink, turning to look at her.

"Huh- oh, did you need something dear?" He asked, blinking his eyes slowly, like a toad who'd been sitting on a log all day without interaction. Charlie gave a sigh and put her hands together as she then tried again to reach her father with words.

"I said," She began, a smile creeping its way up onto her face, "Dad, I would like you to meet our newest resident to the Hotel! Her name is Y/N! And, Y/N, this is my dad, Lucifer!"

Then, "I just wanted to introduce you both since we will all be spending lots of time together, trying to rebuild the hotel! I want everyone to get along!"

It was just then that he had realized that you were now also standing in-front of him, alongside his daughter. Your beautifully colored eyes were pinning him under their gaze. Your sparkling skin looked even more enticing up close. It really made him wonder what sort of hybrid you must've been to be able to adorn such a naturally beautiful look. Your eyes had looked at Charlie with such a softness, before turning their now piercing daggers onto him.

Wait...did his daughter say...Y/N?

That had to be a coincidence, he was sure. Such a familiar name, it was just making him think of those he used to know.

Yet, the leap of his heart in his ribcage didn't fail to go unnoticed.

He wasn't given much time to delve deeper into his confused thoughts, because he was already being pushed slightly closer towards you, as a means to encourage him to introduce himself instead of just standing there like an oaf, he assumed was Charlie's idea behind it all.

A goofy grin overtook his face as he took a step forward on his own accord, without any help from his daughter. He was going to nail this 'introduction'. Or so he thought.

As he began the simple motion of extending his arm for a polite handshake, he was surprised to see that, once he re-opened his eyes after a blink, you were no longer standing in-front of him.

Rather, in your place now stood a white, glittery colored dragon, lips pulled back in a snarl, baring your teeth, snout wrinkling with the motion.

Lucifer hardly had any time to react, let alone back up, before you let out an earth-rumbling roar; the sound caused him to instinctively reach a hand up to steady his top hat atop his head, to make sure it wasn't blown off by the force of your bellowing sound. He shut his eyes against the harsh gust of wind that suddenly swept past his face following the noise; the complaints and confused murmurs of the other hotel residents were barely audible as he was the one experiencing this head-on. More to the face than head, but same thing for him.

Once the whirlwind of noise had stopped, he opened his eyes just in time to see you turn tail and flee, going up the main stairs and off to one side of the staircase, disappearing deeper into the hotel. No one went after you. He supposed from that reaction he got just from trying to shake your hand, that was what you most preferred.

In that moment, he realized that Charlie was once again trying to tell him something, but his eyes were still trained on the last spot you'd been.

"Heh...sorry, Dad." Charlie said, rubbing the back of her neck with her big, awkward smile that he knew so well; she got it from him. "I-I forgot to mention that she's still a bit skittish. She was pretty banged up when we first found her during extermination. I've noticed that she doesn't seem to want to be touched or even remotely looked at for too long, for that matter. I shouldn't have pushed her or you, I'm so sor-"

"Charlie, it's fine." Lucifer assured, finally turning his body towards his daughter as they talked, leaning on his cane nonchalantly. "New sinners always need time to warm up to things down here! I can...always say 'hi' later." He assured, giving her a big grin of his own.

His eyes found themselves instinctually looking back over at the stairs and railing, then down the dark hallway where you had disappeared deeper into the hotel. A soft glimmer lit his eyes.

So it was true. He had thought you looked a little familiar...maybe a bit too familiar when he first laid eyes on you. The white hair might have been what threw him off to start, but there was no mistaking it now. The Lightfury form was a dead giveaway for anyone who knew you personally.

It was you.

Y/N. His acquaintance; the person who had tried to help him rebel against God, prior to his falling. Always he had wondered what had happened to you, being his helper in his schemes, after he fell. What had God done to you? Were you punished as well? He had never known and still didn't, for that matter.

At the time he had hoped, even though it was selfish to wish and he knew it, that you too, would be cast from the clouds and bound to join him in the afterlife down in the various cities of Hell.

What he had gathered from your sudden appearance here, at his daughter's Hotel, told him that you were most likely still living in Heaven, and probably against your will. Whether you were still an angel or not, he didn't know.

All he knew was that you weren't where you were supposed to be.

But he was determined to find out why you were here, and how on Earth you were still managing to be as beautiful as the last day he laid eyes on you.

Whilst everyone else was out helping with fixing hotel damages, Lucifer had snuck back into the hotel; he was searching for you, to put it plainly. You had caught his interest earlier, and he just wanted to apologize to you for being so forward and making you uncomfortable enough to scurry away like you had. He was also terrified that he had already made a horrible impression on such a beautiful woman, which whom used to work right alongside him back when they both spent their days in Heaven. He had lost you once; he couldn't afford for that to happen again, especially not when he could help it.

He practically skipped up the stairs two at a time to the second floor of the hotel, as that was where he had watched you disappear an hour or so ago. He assumed that meant your room was somewhere nearby.

It surely didn't take him too long to find your room. The side of the door exposed to the hallway had some unique-looking, luminescent vines hanging down from the top of it; some tiny glowing crystal shards were embedded into the wood of the doorframe.

Lucifer stood outside that door for a good five minutes. He swallowed many times, as if trying to physically push the nerves back into his body.

What was he supposed to say? What should he do? How should he act? Would you even let him near you? Did you remember him at all? Did you...hate him?

He remembered receiving some pretty angry sounding letters from you when he fell from Heaven. Claiming to him about how the angels, as your side of the punishment, had started using you for tests to try and better understand your hybrid anatomy; forcing you into executing angels who refused to follow the rules with your plasma blasts. He had then sent a letter back, asking why they didn't cast you out like they did him. You told him it was because the angels deemed you 'too valuable' to just be thrown down into 'that wasteland', as they put it.

Lucifer shook his head. He was still stalling. You were just on the other side of this door, someone who he used to call his partner in crime; his friend. He sighed, straightened his outfit whilst taking a deep breath, then knocked a total of three times.

He waited patiently, tapping his foot outside the door silently, mentally willing for you to open the door and possibly (hopefully) greet him with open arms.

But like all the other things pertaining to your complicated relationship status, he knew that was amongst the many things that was very unlikely.

He raised his fist to knock again but there was no need. The door opened a crack. He stiffened in surprise, moving his head to peer into the small crack the sudden opening provided. A soft glow could be seen within the room but besides that, the interior was shrouded in darkness. Although you yourself had not physically come to the door to let him in, he took this as an invitation rather than a deterrent. Stepping inside, wincing at the small creak of the door on its hinges, he shut it behind him without so much as a sound.

Lucifer looked around, taking in the interior design of your room. The half shrouded in blacks and greys looked like any of the other hotel rooms. It held a fancy, well-kept king sized bed; a nicely crafted wooden desk with a chair, a small carpet under it additionally to avoid scratching the floors; a large dresser; a decent sized standing mirror beside the bed; a small nightstand on either side of said bed.

The other half of your room was a totally different story completely.

And he had to admit, it was pretty amazing.

The second half was an expanse of forest-like figures. It held high rocks that seemed to stretch to the endless ceiling of the room, while the original half of your room had a short-stopped ceiling just high enough for five-star comfort. Said rocks held many various colored crystals on them, each which glowed a slightly different color than its neighbor, each bearing that welcoming yet cautioning signal to any beholder.

The wooden floor gave way to a grassy texture; the grass was glowing lightly, looking more like an expansive patch of algae rather than everyday grass. He could tell it was most likely very soft though, as it swayed lightly, subtly, as if a draft were coming through from somewhere not visible to the naked eye. There was even a little pond in the distance he could see!

As he thought to himself more and more, he realized that he did know what this stuff was. Landscape one would see in The Hidden World. In your Heaven days, the both of you would sit around for hours and swap stories with one another, going all the way back to the times when you were alive and what life was like for you. You always spoke to him about The Hidden World; the homeland and birthplace of all the dragons of your kind. From what you had told him about it, he had deemed it pretty amazing in his mind. He remembered you speaking about the glowing necessities, the luminescent markings on dragons, the crystals you sometimes liked to collect, and the overall peaceful atmosphere. He was able to get a general image in his mind of all the things pertaining to the homeland that you mentioned; looking at this area of your room now, he told himself it was probably safe to assume that this whole area was a resemblance of where you come from. He felt as if he could almost puff his chest out in pride for remembering something so important to you. Of course, he had to stay humble now if he wanted any chance of getting you to talk with him once again; maybe not like old times, but a greeting would be nice, surely.

You had said that The Hidden World was truly a place that you felt peace for the first time in your life whilst you were alive. Then you had proceeded to tell him after that, that he now provided that same feeling for you. That sense of safety. Security. Belonging.

As he made his way across the normal part of the room to get to the additional beauty, that's when he noticed you there. You were, hanging from a bare tree by the tail, it looked like. Your beautiful, white wings were wrapped around yourself except for a tiny crack in their merging.

And in this crack between your wings, was a thin-slitted pupiled eye staring straight at him.

The sight caused him to freeze in his tracks, with one foot now in the glowing, algae-like grass. He gave a nervous smile your way, which only caused you to narrow said eye further and uncurl your wings. Like the most skilled acrobatic, he watched as you unfurled your long, slender dragon body; walking along the branch, you then jumped down to the grass below.

Your eyes were still slits as you approached him now, slowly, cautiously. Almost as if he were the prey and you the predator. Honestly, that's how Lucifer felt right now.

But then, instead of pouncing, you just stopped and stared at him. Your long, elegant tail lashed slowly, barley touching the grass as it swayed freely, yet with a controlled fashion. Eyes still narrowed, you let out a snort of annoyance, rolling your eyes, before tossing your head in an irritated gesture and finally coming to sit on the grass, still a ways away from him.

"...You're ruining my grass..." You huffed, narrowed eyes taking him in, raking over him as if you could pick him up and toss him out of your proximity with just a gaze.

He blinked at your dragon form, confused. Then he looked down, seeing how one of his shoes was sunken slightly into the delicate, glowing grass. He gave a sheepish smile, quickly removing his foot and placing it back on the hardwood, rubbing his neck with a nervous chuckle. Although he knew there was a human soul beneath the dragon you were currently transformed into, he also knew that you could probably reach him in a faster time than he could scream. So, he wanted to try and keep you happy, especially if it meant you would keep talking to him, even if in a condescending tone. And especially since he didn't know your current feelings towards him.

"Sorry, I-"

"Save it. I don't want to hear your excuses, Lucifer. Don't you think you've given enough of those already these past hundred years?"

He looked up at you, eyes shining with a little bit of hurt. That might be the first time you had ever used his full name since he first met you. He was so used to you calling him Luci.

Lucifer just...didn't sound right. Not coming from you.

"I-"

"Then, you come in here and trample my grass; the same grass of my homeland; the grass my ancestors before me walked on!"

"I-its just grass, darling-"

Your head snapped in his direction quite violently due to the nickname and his response. Your body stood up on its own accord and began slowly stalking over to him.

"Just...grass? Just GRASS?! I was born on said grass-"

You continued walking towards him, pupils back to those dangerous slits that signaled your current emotional state; upset and angry. You kept rambling to him about the grass and its importance to your true home. You got so close to him to the point that he had to start taking steps backward, until there was no room left to do so. He was at the door to your room, back pressed roughly to it as your dragon form prowled closer to him, flat snout right in-front of his face; he could practically feel the hot air being emitted from your nostrils. By this time, you were nearing the end of your rant.

"and at the end of the day-" You let out a hiss, baring your teeth. "...it really is just grass."

Your face relaxed almost immediately. Your wrinkled snout became smooth again, the luminescent glows from the vines on the door making it sparkle lightly. Your bared teeth dropped their snarl, turning your dragon lips into a sly smirk. You turned tail and lazily sauntered back to the grassy expanse of glowing vegetation. Doing a few circles in one spot you then decided to lay down on your side, eyes never leaving his. Almost as if you were taunting him to draw nearer.

"I- oh. Wait, what? W-What-"

Lucifer sighed and awkwardly leaned on his cane, rubbing his temples. He knew you to be intimidating back then but holy shit, now? Now thinking about it, he never really had experienced your fury head on before. He hoped he never had to.

Seemingly sensing his hesitation, you sighed.

"Oh for fucks sake, Lucifer. I was kidding. You of all people should know how dramatic I like to be."

Seeing as he still didn't move a muscle, as if wanting to respect your personal space and not get any closer if you really didn't want him to, your cylinder-shaped ears flattened against your head, an almost worried look overtaking your features.

As if he didn't believe you were real.

"Am I really that scary?"

As soon as that question left your lips, he was by your side. Having teleported, it made you jump a little when he so suddenly appeared by your side on the grass, sitting cross-legged.

You let your muscles relax once again, letting out a silent breath. You offered him a toothy, cute dragon smile. He gave you his big, signature grin right back.

"No, no, no. You're one of the most beautiful dragons I have ever seen! Absolutely no one can compare to your beauty, light one!"

With the way he spoke, as if he was presenting a speech, it made you let out a huff and a snort, which was also the dragon equivalent of a laugh in most cases. It also made your heart thump rapidly in your chest, hearing him use the nickname he often used for you back when you both resided above the clouds together.

Light one.

You figured it was only fair to change back into your human body, since it had been so long since you had seen one another in person, that he deserved to talk with you face-to-face and not to the face of a dragon, no matter how much he claimed you were beautiful both ways.

In a span of seconds, there was no longer a large dragon sitting beside Lucifer in the grass, but rather another individual, just as himself. Your legs were crossed just as his were, mimicking his body language. The two of you sat in silence for a long while, although throughout it all you could feel his eyes on you. With how quick he was to reassure you of your beauty, you knew he must be dying to ask you a bunch of questions; catch up on all that you had missed of one another's life since his falling and sparse letters in between.

You sighed and folded your hands in your lap, looking at your soft, glitter-dusted skin. It was hard to think of things to say when you really need not say anything at all. The silence, for you at least, said all that words could not and so much more beyond that limitation.

"Look, Luci, I-"

A sudden force knocked you onto your side, arms wrapping around you in the span of a second, squeezing you tightly. You yelped in surprise, although it was quite obvious the only person it could be.

"Oh my goodness, it really is you!" Lucifer exclaimed happily, eyes shut tight as he buried his face into your neck as your hug proceeded. "I knew it! Oh, I knew it as soon as you transformed back in the lobby- when you called me Luci just now. Oh my gosh, it really is you!"

He sounded exactly like a little kid might on Christmas, just getting their first train set, with many more to come after that within the following years. Alongside that excitement usually followed laughter, and oh was that universal sound flowing in the room at this moment.

You were both hugging and laughing to your hearts content after you had gotten over the initial shock of him bowling you over. For a little man, he surely had strength, that was for certain. Yet you knew best that he was not to be underestimated.

"Shit- yes, yes, it's me, I promise! I know the looks a bit new, but its me!" You said, trying to speak coherently through his own rambling and excitement of having finally found his friend after so long. The person who had been by his side through all his rights and wrongs whilst in Heaven. His wingwoman. His ride or die.

The person whom he had loved since first glance, but was too much of a coward to ever admit it. He always knew you deserved better.

"I-I'm sorry, I just...I can't believe you're really here! After...after all this time. Oh, Y/N...how I've missed you..."

Lucifers voice had dropped to a whisper at this point. You had to strain your ears to hear him, but made sure you did. You always heard him, whether he thought so or not.

"I've missed you too, Luci...really. I'm so sorry we got separated. I should've fought harder for your safety, I should've tried harder to convince the council, I-"

A finger found its way to your lips, shushing you with one, quick motion.

"Stop. Just...stop." Lucifer said, brows furrowed, a sad look overtaking his features as he sighed, eyes closed. "It was my fault for even convincing you to help me in the first place. I should've just kept you out of it."

He sniffled softly, turning his body away from yours a bit, not wanting you to see how emotional he was getting. He could still remember the way you cried his name as you got a front-row seat to watching him fall, courtesy of Adam.

Adam. That son of a bitch. He could only imagine the cruel and unusual punishments the sadistic man had thrown at you in return for helping the Devil himself (although he hadn't had that role back then just yet).

"What have they done to you...you know, since I left? They knew we had a good connection. I can only imagine the things they did to you as a result of helping me. I know you said they refuse to kill you or cast you out..." He muttered, now having his knees up to his chest, his chin resting on top of them.

You frowned, mainly in pity for him, watching him seem to curl up into himself like this. You had been thinking about all the ways the separation had been hurting you all these years, but now you had come to realize that you hadn't done much thinking about how it was affecting Lucifer. You figured that, since his fall, he had been doing just dandy down in Hell with his wife, Lilith. God, you hated that woman, or at least you had when they had decided to cast Lilith down into Hell with Lucifer instead of you. Many nights you had cried yourself to sleep, wishing so desperately that you could be down in this wasteland with him, comforting him about the recent events. You knew Lilith most likely wasn't doing it, and even if she was, you knew you could do better. He was your truest friend. You knew him both inside and out. Better than anyone.

"Its not of importance what they did and still do to me, Luci-"

"Yes it is! It's very important!" He burst out, making you raise an eyebrow. "It was supposed to be my job to protect you from any harm that came our way, remember? Remember what I said? I-I promised to always protect you from danger, to keep you safe, and I couldn't even do that without messing up!"

He threw his hands up, exasperated, using a gloved hand to cover his eyes and rub them. You gave him a soft, sad smile, one you were not sure if he saw, but knew he could sense. He was being way too hard on himself, you knew.

You had made the choice to help him, and wouldn't change a thing about that decision.

"Lucifer..." You spoke lightly, as if speaking to a scared animal. In a way, you were. "None of what happened to me is your fault. None of what is still happening to me is your fault. If someone has to take the fault, it should be me. I knew what I was potentially getting myself into when I agreed to help you. Those possible consequences never mattered to me."

You had to look away from him for a split second, some tears falling from your eyes as you blinked, then onto the lush grass beneath both your bodies. A deep breath inflated your chest before you allowed yourself to continue talking.

"All that ever mattered to me..." You began again, voice shaky as you maintained your composure, "...was the fact that I was getting to help my closest friend. The first person in Heaven who welcomed me, took me in with open wings. The first person to ever hug me. The first person to show me how unique and special I was, as well as my abilities and hybrid form. The first person who...didn't look at me like I was some sort of monster, due to the fact that I could transform into a dragon."

This seemed to shock him, for he raised his head to stare at you once again, cheeks lightly tear stained.

"People thought you a monster?" He asked, eyes wide and confused. "Why? H-How-"

You shrugged and picked at the grass beneath you with a finger.

"People tend to be scared of the things they don't understand, Luci. Things they've never seen before, such as a hybrid like myself. Even angels get scared sometimes, believe it or not."

Lucifer was at a loss for words. The angels had seen you as a monster when you first appeared at their gates? Someone as beautiful, majestic, and powerful as you? He truly couldn't believe that. He made a silent promise to himself in that very moment to give Adam a little extra punch for treating you like that upon your first visit to Heaven. You had never told him, either. Or, at least you hadn't had the time to before he fell.

"Apparently." Lucifer grumbled, whilst rolling his eyes. "Damn idiots never know what the hell they're talking about..."

At this, you raised both your eyebrows, and couldn't help the small giggle that left your lips at his protective nature. After all of this time not seeing one another, he was still as protective over you as the first day you met. It was refreshing to see that some things really never did change when it came to the King of Hell. Since the day he became so.

He perked up as you began to giggle, a shot of red flashing across his features from embarrassment. Then, despite himself, he too began to chuckle.

The steady rhythm of his heart made itself well known in his ears as the two of you continued to laugh together, just like old times in the clouds.

Although when you were together it felt like no time had passed at all, you both were aware that that was far from the truth.

You had some catching up to do.

The hellish sun beat down on the Hazbin Hotel. All the other residents, including Charlie, were outside helping to rebuild and design a new look for the previously destroyed hotel.

You and Lucifer had finally come out from your room after chatting it up for what had to have been over an hour. It was nice, now knowing the truth behind some of the things that had happened to him, and you were sure he felt the same about the things pertaining to you. He had promised you he would deliver quite the ruthless punch to Adam's groin when he saw him next, due to the things he had put you through after his falling. This had made you roll your eyes, but the idea wasn't dismissed. You'd allow it. Maybe even a couple times. Especially if it meant you got to see Lucifer happy.

Now, both of you were currently outside with everyone else, helping to rebuild the structure of his daughters hotel. You were in the form of your Lightfury, whilst Lucifer was standing proudly on your back as you flew laps around the perimeter of the hotel, giving him range to shoot blasts of magic, where building parts would then materialize before ones eyes.

You craned your neck around to look at the little man on your back, who was already looking down at you, smiling like the dork you knew him to be. This was almost like the perfect moment, especially after the deep conversation you both had back in the hotel room-

"DAD! No riding my residents, please! I'm glad you're making friends though! Proud of you! I just don't think we have the insurance to cover an injury yet!"

Charlie's voice cut through the atmosphere like a knife, causing both of you to startle and look down at her. She had a finger pointed up at you both, an adoring smile on her face; following it were the rest of the residents eyes. You both were now the spotlight of attention.

Your smooth-skinned dragon face had a bit of a red tint to it now because of the princess's words, and you didn't even have to look at Lucifer to be able to say that he looked the same. His daughter didn't even know how deep the history went between you both; she didn't even know you two knew one another prior to this. Nor did she really need to know. It could be you and Lucifers little secret. Something just for the two of you.

You snorted at her words, managing to screw your face into an extremely unamused expression quick enough to hide the blush, making sure to keep flapping your wings so you wouldn't falter in your hovering.

"Dear, you may just find yourself jealous because I have a dragon and you lack one! You see this beauty? Extraordinary! Such a great species too, infact-"

You managed to look even more annoyed than you felt, as Lucifer continued to take it upon himself to deliver a little speech on your back whilst you were just hovering there, explaining his good fortune to have found a friend in you once again and now being able to get free rides. But, no one seemed to tell him that you were the one steering this ship.

In the span of a millisecond, you had tipped your body to the side, sending him sliding off your back and plummeting towards the ground, following with him yelping in both surprise and momentary fear. You snorted in amusement and instantly tucked your wings and went into a dive, following right after him.

The wind whistled past your sensitive ears as you were now falling right beside him. You looked at him with your wide, cat-like eyes, a curious coo escaping your throat as he just smirked at you, putting his hands behind his head as you both fell through the air, as if in some sort of movie. You then narrowed your sharp eyes and struck him playfully in the chest with a paw, sending him spinning off balance and crashing into some nearby bushes.

Quick to steady yourself, you quickly turned around midair and swooped just low enough to snag Charlie from off the ground, holding her in your arms, before letting her climb onto your back and sitting comfortably. Her smile was wide and cheerful, making you laugh as you shot back up into the air.

"Woo-hoo!" Charlie hollered, holding onto your neck by wrapping both her arms around its thick expanse as you warbled in response, showing off your toothy dragon grin as you flapped your wings vigorously, taking both you and the daughter of Hell off into the surrounding city.

Lucifer sat up in the mas of bushes, spitting out some leaves and rubbing the side of his head. He could've used his wings to slow his fall but he figured if it made you smile, he would get a little banged up. He still had that same grin plastered to his face.

He couldn't even be annoyed as he picked off thorns from his suit and top hat, watching with a soft sparkle in his eyes as his two favorite girls flew away together into the sunset.

Upon Charlie finding and helping you on extermination day, which had been only yesterday, you had now become an official resident of the Hotel. You kept telling yourself it was temporary until you were able to go back up to Heaven, but the more time you spent under the clouds and the feet of those still alive and walking, the more you came to realize that this place felt more like a home than the one you came from originally.

Lucifer had promised to wait for you in Hell after he fell, even for all eternity if that's how long it took for your pure soul to deserve damnation.

In return, you had promised never to truly leave him. To never abandon. To never relinquish your connection. And you would hold that promise, through and through.

It was your vow.

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nyarlathotep-thecrawlingchaos · 1 year ago

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Your resident Crawling Chaos, back with more OPLA headcanons.

Another huge thanks to everyone who's been sharing and liking and following. You're all just amazing. I'm working on getting through these headcanons alongside an ask request, that latter of which I'm almost finished with and may be up tonight.

Without further ado, it's headcanons with everyone's favorite green-haired swordsman, Zoro!

Whoops, wrong gif.

I'm SORRY I COULDN'T RESIST.

I mean it's totally normal to pick at the people you love.

So, headcanons. Like Mihawk and Shanks, ranging from total fluff to spicy, and very much NSFW.

LA!Zoro X Fem!Reader

A— Through —Z(oro)

A — Afterglow (How are they have sex?)

Considering how much effort he exerts training on a daily basis, he's going to fall asleep pretty quickly.

But you're not going anywhere.

Not with his arms curled around you, holding you against his chest.

Even if he's already asleep, his grip is going to tighten around your waist, keeping you close.

He hasn't been close to many people in his life, and he's pretty starved for physical affection, so your warmth is positively addictive to him.

B — Backrubs? (Do they like them? Like giving them?)

Looks at you like you're speaking another language if you offer him one.

"Wha...why?"

But he's not going to turn it down.

And he's never going to turn it down again after the first time.

"O...oh. Oh—that feels—oh shit yeah..."

He thought that "sore" was just the default state of anyone who spent the vast majority of their time physically active.

He'll try to return the favor if you want one. He's a little clumsy about it since it's not exactly something he's used to doing, but his hands always feel nice and he takes instruction well enough.

It's not long before his hands are wandering, though.

Not that you're complaining.

C — Cuddling (Do they enjoy cuddling a lot or only at certain moments?)

Zoro likes having you close, but mostly in private.

He loves to bury his face in the crook of your neck while you comb your fingers through his hair.

Wrap his arm tight around your waist and just breathe you in.

D — Dance (Are they good at it? Do they enjoy it?)

Says he has two left feet, but he's never realy tried.

He'll let you try to teach him, but he's going to complain the whole time.

"Come on, what's the point in this? Can't we just spar instead?"

And probably blush a little about how close you are.

And definitely never admit out loud that he actually enjoys it.

E — Extravagant Gestures (Things they do to make you feel loved)

Zoro is pretty new to this, so you're going to have to bear with him.

He's spent the entirety of his life focused on his career as a swordsman and never taken any time for romance before.

Doesn't really think much about doing anything extravagant.

But he will literally put his life on the life to keep you safe.

Even if he knows you're pretty strong yourself, he goes completely ferral if he sees you've been hurt.

F — Fighting (How do they hand arguments/apologies?)

He has to always get the last word in.

Turns into a bit of an overgrown toddler, honestly. Slamming doors and being in general grumpy about the whole ordeal.

Refusing to talk about the problem for a while, then feeling guilty after the fact.

Approaching you later when no one else is around, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Look, I probably...could have handled that better. Not really used to this, but—y'know. Sorry."

If he sees you've been crying he's instantly gutted.

G — Going Out (What do they do for dates?)

If you have anything specific in mind, you're going to have to do the planning.

It's not that he doesn't enjoy spending time together—he just doesn't really understand what constitutes a "date"

Gets a little awkward about asking.

"Hey, ah—you know, I'll probably get lost if I leave the ship by myself so...wanna go do something?"

H — Heartache (How would they handle it if you broke up with them?)

He's going to do everything in his power to act like he's unaffected.

But everyone notices it.

Snapping and being more short-tempered than usual.

Spending more and more time training and napping.

Deflecting when anyone asks about it.

Unable to get you out of his head and working himself to the point of overexertion just to try to ignore his thoughts.

I — Intimacy (When are they intimate with you? And how often?)

Mostly in private.

Will probably curl his arm around your waist when you stand close.

Straight-up blushes when you kiss him in front of the rest of the crew at first, even on the cheek, but he gets used to it over time and starts returning the gesture.

In private, it's a miracle if he's not holding you.

He absolutely loves it when you lay across his chest with your cheek at his shoulder.

J — Joker (How do they make you laugh)

Not really one for cutting jokes, but his sarcastic one-liners are an art form.

Especially when he gets into an insult-match with Sanji.

Even if you are typically the one who has to break it up before comes to blows.

K — Kissing (How good? How often?)

He honestly loves kissing you, and he's going to take any chance to pull you aside to do so.

He's starved himself of physical affection for the vast majority of his life, so he savors every second of it.

Pulling you against him by your hips and wrapping an arm around your waist.

Or walking you back into the wall and leaning over you with his hand over your head.

Slow, deep kisses when you wake up in his arms are his weakness.

L — Lay down (How do they sleep with you? Are they a cuddler or do they prefer their space?)

He has to have you against him.

Laid across his chest with an arm around your back.

If you wake up before him, you're not going anywhere until he's ready to move.

If you're too busy to nap, he's going to wait until you're not.

Absolutely refuses to lay down without you at any given time.

M — Making babies (Do they want to settle down and have kids?)

Yeah, no.

At least not for a very long time.

His dream of being the world's greatest swordsman takes precedence right now. Having a kid would make that borderline impossible.

N — Nervous? (How confident are they when it comes to romance?)

As confident as Zoro is about everything else, this whole romance thing has him pretty out of his element.

Had a few one night stands and flings during his time pirate hunting, but never anything serious.

He would never admit that he's nervous, but he's more obvious than he thinks.

Trying to act aloof but stumbling over words.

Getting legitimately surprised when you do the simplest little things for him.

O — Oral Fixation (Giving or recieving? And how good are they?)

Your mouth makes him weak.

Shivering when you wrap your hand around his cock and trail your tongue up the length and wrap your lips around the head.

Gripping your hair with both hands, alternating between laying his head back and watching you.

He's pretty sure he'd go crazy if he watched you the entire time, especially with the way you gaze up to meet his eyes.

Holding your head still when it gets too good to hold back and thrusting back to your throat.

"Oh fuck I love it when you gag on it—"

He's definitely returning the favor.

Picking you up and setting you on the nearest surface—a bed, a hammock, a table, anywhere he can tug off your panties and pull your legs over his shoulders.

Slow and sensual, but not teasing—he just loves hearing your little moans and whimpers, feeling your thighs trembling.

Pushing one or two fingers in and out of you so he can feel you tighten up when you come.

P — Pet Peeves (Things they don't like in a partner)

Nagging. You asked him to do something and he's going to do it, don't get pushy about it or it's going to take him even longer.

Lack of communication—he is new to this whole relationship thing, you can't expect him to know everything you want all the time if you don't tell him.

Flirting with Sanji. Just don't. He can and will murder that shitty waiter.

Q — Quiet Time (How much alone time do they need, or do they want to be with you 24/7?)

He's always been a solitary person, and it surprises him juat how much time he wants to spend with you.

Doesn't want you glued to his side or anything, but he'd rather be with you than not be with you.

Especially in a new place. He knows you can handle yourself, but still gets worried something might happen to you and takes it upon himself to act as your personal body guard.

And let's face it, he'd get lost if he went off on his own anyway.

R — Romance (How romantic are they? Do they have to force it or does it come natural?)

For not having much experience, he's honestly incredibly sweet when you're alone together

Playing with your hair.

Foreheads touching just so he can look into your eyes.

Slow, tender kisses and gentle caresses.

"You're way too good for me."

Gets absolutely flustered if anyone walks in, and you giggling about it doesn't help.

S — Spending Money (How much do they like to spend on you?)

To be fair, he doesn't really have much money. None of you do.

But he's pretty insistent on paying for both of you if you go out together, even if that's all he can do right now.

He wants to buy things for you, and if the crew ever strikes it big, he plans on making up for it.

T — Trust (Are they trusting of you? Jealous?)

Zoro has a lot of trust issues in general, but he's pretty trusting of you.

You haven't given him any reason not to trust you.

He still hasn't told you everything about his past, but he's getting around to it.

U — Underwear (What kind do they wear, and what kind do they like on you?)

He's not very particular about his own underwear.

Definitely comfort and maneuverability over looks, but if you have a preference he's fine with it, as long as it's not thongs or something.

Don't even ask, he's not.

But he loves seeing you in a thong. The skimpier the better.

If he can reach under your skirt and feel your bare ass, he's going to be absolutely ferral for you in an instant.

V — Vulnerable (How vulnerable are they with you? Is it easy for them to open up to you?)

He's more vulnerable with you than he is with anyone else.

Still doesn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve, but he's trying.

Used to handling everything himself so it's a steep learning curve.

Tries to voice things that bother him, even if it comes out a little forced and awkward, but he makes the effort, and you're proud of him for it.

W — Wine and Dine (Do they prefer meals at home or going out with you? Who does more of the cooking?)

A cook Zoro definitely is not.

He'd rather take you out and not have to deal with Sanji, but money is an object.

He loves watching you cook. He might even offer to help, but you probably shouldn't let him.

He could burn a pot of boiling water.

X — X-Rated (How good are they in bed? What do they like?)

Very passionate, and a little playful.

It drives him crazy when you tease him.

Bend over in front of him in a skirt and he's going to be dragging you off somewhere private in seconds.

Pushing you up against a wall and pushing your skirt up your hips.

Kissing you hard enough to bruise and pulling you against him by your ass so you can feel him get hard.

Shivering, kissing and growling against your neck when you rub him through his pants.

"God, you're such a little fucking tease..."

And he absolutely loves it.

Not wasting any time in pulling your shirt and your bra off so he can feel every inch of you.

Teasing your nipples with his thumb while he grips your ass harder to grind against you.

Wrestling out of his shirt when you get on your knees in front of him.

Tangling his hands in his hair and groaning when you wrap your lips around his cock.

Losing control fast and holding your head still to fuck your mouth until you're gagging on him.

Letting you go when you dig your fingers into his hips and pulling you back up by your hair, picking you up by your ass and kissing down the column of his throat while he catches his breath.

Laying you down on the nearest surface and kissing down your body.

Trying to get himself back under control so he doesn't cum within two minutes.

Pulling your skirt down and flinging it away, before giving you a grin and tugging your panties down with his teeth.

Pulling your thighs up over his shoulders and tugging you to him by your hips, immediately pushing two fingers inside you and sucking your clit.

Rolling his tongue in slow, firm circles, keeping his pace steady while you grip at his hair and arch your back and moan.

Giving a little purr/growl when you come, gripping your hips.

Absolutely craving you now, shifting up to lean over you, rubbing your thighs and thrusting into you before your orgasm is even over.

Going hard and heavy right from the first stroke.

Gripping at your thigh and your hair and groaning into your neck while you cling to him.

Reaching between you to rub your clit, bringing you right back to the edge in minutes.

"Come on, baby. Come for me again. Come on my cock."

Watching your eyes roll back and swearing under his breath when he feels your walls tighten around him.

Losing it immediately when you cry out and arch your back under him.

Pulling out and tugging on you by your arm until you lean down and wrap your lips around him again.

Pulling your head forward and groaning, holding you in place by your hair while you suck the cum out of him.

Collapsing into bed with you and pulling you onto his chest, kissing your neck and your forehead, telling you how good you are while you both catch your breath.

Y — Yearning (How long will they pursue the person they're interested in before losing interest?)

Not very long, honestly.

He'll shoot his shot a couple times, but if you're not interested he's not going to press it.

He respects your boundaries completely, and he doesn't abide the whole hard-to-get game.

If you decide you're interested after that, you're going to have to approach him.

Z — Zen (What do they do to wind down and relax? Do they prefer to do it alone or with you?)

As much as he trains, he needs a lot of downtime.

And he definitely wants you there for it.

Holding onto you like you're his teddy bear, having a beer or two with you, nuzzling into your hair.

He never really considered the possibility that he'd be as close to someone as he is to you, and doesn't want to waste any time being away from you.

He's still pretty reclusive, but you're the one exception to that rule.

#zoro x reader #opla #zoro opla #rorona zoro x reader #one piece live action #opla headcanons #opla fanfiction #zoro one piece #smut #one piece headcanons #one piece fanfiction

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 8 months ago

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Treat You 7

Warnings: dark elements, noncon, violence, abuse, other dark elements. Proceed with caution. (Tall!reader)

Note:Please let me know what you think as it helps me a lot with ideas and I love interacting with you all.

Part of The Club AU

When Peter returns, he’s not alone. You stand, feeling gangly as you hunch, as he introduces his friend; Ned. You offer a tense smile and your name. He’s friendly, like Peter, but still a stranger.

“Yo, Pete,” Ned approaches the TV, “why are we not racing for the mushroom cup right now?”

“Ned,” Peter drones.

“He’s a sore loser,” Ned scoffs as he grabs two colourful shapes; one red, another blue. As he nears, he holds one out to you. The buttons on it suggest some sort of controller. “So, how about it, you ready to dethrone the champ?”

“Take it easy on her, Ned,” Peter slides a tray of crackers and cheese between the bowls of chips.

“I’m sure she’s not half as bad as you.”

“Um, I never…” you take the controller and rub your lips together, “I’ve never played… actually.”

“Ah, a noob, no worries then,” Ned plops down on the couch, “we’ll play easy.”

“Oh, uh, okay, I guess, but er…” you look around, “if Peter wants to play–”

“Actually, I need to listen for the door,” Peter counters.

“Right,” you turn back to the TV and sit. You thumb the stick and examine the buttons as the loud music erupts from the speakers.

“So this one you can steer, or you can tilt the controller,” Ned explains, and you press this button to go…”

You try to keep track but you’re not too sure. It seems pretty intuitive. You think.

A new screen comes up and there’s an array of characters to choose from. You choose the princess in the yellow dress over the dinosaur. You wait for the first track to load as your hands sweat around the controller.

The first lap has you veering and crashing but on the second you get a handle of it. It’s not as hard as it seems. Your usual clumsiness doesn’t translate to the digital. You come in fifth. Not as bad as it could be.

As you wait for the second race, voices carry from behind you. You turn as two girls and a guy enter. Ned peeks over, “hey.”

“Hi,” one of the girls chimes back as she approaches, “oh, you must be the one Peter mentioned. I’m Gwen,” she announces, “MJ,” she points over her shoulder, “and Harry.”

“Oh, okay,” you stand again, awkwardly swaying on your long legs, “do you wanna play?”

“We can wait,” she assures, “actually, we’re going to check out the snacks.”

“Right, uh, nice to meet you,” you murmur and sit back down.

Ned asks if you’re ready and you nod. He hits a button and a new race begins. You’re silent as you focus on staying on the road.

“I’m no good at parties either,” he says suddenly, “not that this is much of one. Peter’s not exactly the cool guy.”

“Right, er, it’s… just a lot of strangers.”

“Relax,” Ned says, “I’m gonna get you good. You’re gonna beat them all.”

You laugh, a bit less nervous as he keeps it light, “yeah, I… I’ll try.”

“Pizza,” Peter’s voice punctures the din.

“Finally,” Ned groans but keeps playing, “save me a slice of deluxe.”

The savoury, greasy scent permeates the room almost instantaneously. Your stomach roars but you focus on the screen. You bump another character out of the way as you squint. You’re almost done the last lap.

“Hey,” Ned says, “that was me.”

“Oh, sorry,” you utter as you cross the finish line.

“Woo, first place,” he nudges you lightly, “see, you’re a natural.” He stands as your stomach continues to gurgle, “I’ve trained you well, young padawan.”

“Um,” you furrow your brows.

“Right, not a Star Wars fan, noted,” he smirks, “anyways, I’m starving. How about we feed that dragon in your belly?”

You look down, embarrassed.

“I’m okay,” you say.

“There’s plenty to go around, better get it while it’s hot,” he insists and leaves the controller on the armrest.

You reach over to do the same but stay seated. Your stomach really hurts and your head is starting to pulse. You should eat but you just feel… out of place. Like you shouldn’t be here. You don’t belong and you don’t deserve to share all this nice food.

“Hey, you like cheese,” Peter sits beside you, “got double.”

He holds two plates, hovering one before you.

“Oh, you didn’t have to…”

“You can always switch up if you want pepperoni,” he holds the plate before your nose. You salivate. You can’t hold out any longer.

“Thanks,” you accept the plate, nearly shaking as dizziness swirls in your head.

“No problem,” he sets his plate in his lap and lifts the first slice.

You mirror him and take a small bite of the end. You chew slowly, trying not to betray how your stomach clenches violently. You could devour the slice in a single bite but you don’t want them to judge you. You continue with measured nibbles.

“If you don’t like pizza…”

“No, I do,” you assure him. “Thanks, it’s really good.”

“Well, next time, I’ll make sure to get your fave toppings. You like mushrooms? Oh, don’t tell me you’re an anchovies girl.”

“Oh, no, I haven’t… had that,” you shake your head as you pick at the crust.

“Or maybe you’re more into hamburgers? Oh, how about pasta? Sushi?”

“No, no, I like pizza,” you assure him.

“Well, you can help yourself, there’ll be lots of leftovers, I’m sure,” he stands up, his plate empty as you break the crust of your first in half, “you need more water?”

“No thanks,” you focus on your plate.

“Be right back,” he promises and shuffles away.

“So,” the girl named MJ comes around, chewing while she talks. You look up at her and put the crust down. “You and Peter, how long have you been together?”

“Pardon? Together? Oh, I only just met him a few weeks ago–”

“You two must be getting serious,” she says, “you’re a cute couple.”

“What?” Your heart hammers. “No, I–”

“You know,” Gwen approaches, “just like Peter to spring a girlfriend on us without warning.”

Your mouth opens and you blink dumbly. They think you and Peter are together?

“I’m not his girlfriend,” you say.

“Oh, ha, sorry, no labels,” MJ winks, “it’s only what he told us.”

“He said that?”

“To be honest, when we saw you, we didn’t believe him,” Gwen snickers.

You swallow and stand up. You don’t know what to say so you don’t say a word. You take your plate to the table and put it down. You grab a paper towel from the roll and wipe your fingers off as you head for the stairs. You’ve never been more embarrassed in your life.

They couldn’t believe Peter would be with someone like you. They’re right to doubt that but it still stings. Just as always, you’re not good enough.

#peter parker #dark peter parker #dark!peter parker #peter parker x reader #drabble #au #the club #series #mcu #marvel #spider-man #avengers #treat you

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octuscle · 1 year ago

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Support dude, it’s me again, Mike. I hit you up so much I feel like I should pay you. And hey if you need that, I’ve got you just tell me. I owe you a shit ton, dude. Since you last helped me, Jack and I tied the fucking knot (and had a hell of a honeymoon haha hadn’t gotten so many noise complaints since high school) and I even moved into his place. Real big and nice like, would make a suburban man cream his pants and even a socialite would do a double take. For as filthy as he can be with me, big boss knows how to fucking live.

But I wouldn’t be hitting you up if everything was all sunshine and rainbows, eh? (Though one of these days I might convince Boss to let you in on our thing for a night or two, just to say thank you if that’s a thing you wanted wink) One of the neighbors apparently doesn’t like it so much when I invite some of the guys at work over for our, let’s call em team bonding events. He bitches and moans about how loud and rowdy we get and how it’s ruining the value of the neighborhood. I almost kicked his ass the first time he came by all bossy and shit, but Boss told me he was President of their HOA or whatever the fuck and that I couldn’t. So I’ve been trying to ignore the prude but if he comes over and ruins another good night I might lose my cool and I don’t wanna let down Boss like that.

Any way you can make the neighborhood meet our lifestyle choices better, dude? I don’t wanna give up this lavish living so soon, it’s nice as hell. But I don’t want it to change me. I wanna change it! Ain’t no reason we can’t live it up without being able to get down if you catch my drift. Can you help me?

I have not invested so much time in my favorite customers, so that you now become adapted suburban bourgeois. So it's time for me to take care of your neighbor. He may be the president of the HOA, after all. But that doesn't give him the right to regulate your private lives. But I could add a little spice to his.

Actually, the boring buffer is not a visitor to the gym. Thank God. So at least you have peace from him there. But today he feels like working out his muscles. And of course, when he enters the locker room, you run right into his arms. And the slimy ass-kisser can do nothing but shake your hand in a friendly way, as if you were best friends. Oops, sorry that your towel slips down.

Normally you are hard as granite when you come back from training. At the sight of your neighbor, the 8 inches dangle limply between your legs. He still seems impressed. To warn your man, you send him a quick message about what to expect during his workout. And write him that you are already preparing everything for dinner at home. "Everything is fine, stallion! daddy wont b disturbed during his workout. Ill b home in 2 hrs"

Your neighbor is blocking the very stations where Jack wants to work out. He has memorized the gym rules and points out every pissy infraction to your husband. In the beginning. But the more Jack sweats, the more musk he exudes, the hornier your neighbor gets. And slowly he starts to change. Actually, sleeveless tops are not allowed in the gym. You both don't care. And your neighbor now too. With the white wifebeater he looks almost like Jack's gym buddy. And he's starting to smell like one, too. It's hard to believe that just a few minutes ago he was the overgroomed suit guy. His armpit hair is sprouting. He obviously hasn't been to the barbershop in a few months either. He stops regimenting your husband. The two of them start working out together as if they've been doing it forever. Steve (your neighbor) can't get enough of having Jack's sweaty workout shorts hanging in front of his face during the bench press. His bulge gets bigger and bigger. And the damp spots in his shorts aren't just from sweat. Jack asks if it's not time to go to the locker room. Steve replies that he was already afraid that Jack wouldn't even ask.

"is it k if i bring a pal 2 dinner" texts Jack. "he 1't want much mor then ur cum and mine." "then he shud bring big appetite" you reply. Shit, this time when Steve shakes your hand, nothing is limp between your legs. Enjoy the evening with the president of the HOA to the fullest!

Pics all found @thelockerroomblog

#male tf #muscle tf #reality change #chronivac #male transformation #muscle transformation #inked man #wife beater #revange tf

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my-great-big-book-of-fan-fiction · 6 months ago

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Gojo Satoru SFW alphabet (NB)

HELLO ALL. This is part one of my super awesome 100 follower celebration! Coming up next is the Gojo Satoru NSFW Alphabet, and, despite all that is good and holy, the Katsuki Bakugou SFW/NSFW alphabet. I know he didn't win the poll, but so many of my followers are here for Katsuki centric content, so it only makes sense to me.

In this, the reader is as nb as I could make them while sticking to my concepts, although there is a "I wanna get u pregnant tee hee" joke that you should probably be aware of.

Cred for template goes to ONE MORE SHOT

Word count: ~6000

Warnings: Cursing, light angst, and...that's it, I think!

A = Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) He prefers physical affection above all else...at least, that's what you'd think based on how much he hangs on you when you're together. Always he's touching you, making it so there was no question about whether or not you were together. Truly though, that was just for you. He liked it, loved it, loved any form of affection to and from you, but The thing that gave him the most butterflies was acts of service from you.

He was so used to doing everything for himself, and to being better than others at everything, that he never really knew what it was like to be cared for in that way.

Anyone could technically hug him, or spend time with him, or give him gifts, or tell him he did something good...but only you could make him breakfast before he gets a chance to, or do the dishes more efficiently, or beat a part of a game he can't for some reason. It makes him weak in the knees, like he can relax with you.

"Whatcha doin?"

"Makin' your lunch for tomorrow. Why?" You glance over to him, smiling as you watched him curiously peer over your shoulder.

"...No reason..." He mumbled, a smile growing on his face about as fast as that blush. He brings his arms around your waist, his chin on your head as he watched you work.

B = Best friend (What would they be like as a best friend? How would the friendship start?)

You are his best friend. No doubt about it. If you weren't he wouldn't be dating you, it only made sense to him. Was he yours...? He didn't actually know, and to be honest he didn't care. If he wasn't, he'd definitely tease you about it, but otherwise he was perfectly content treating you like his bestie.

"I'm going out with my friends," you called out, slipping on your shoes.

"Why? What about me?" Satoru whined, staring at you with a sarcastic pout from the couch.

"We're gonna be drinking," you laughed, raising your brows.

"...so?"

"So you're a lightweight."

C = Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?)

He's a cuddler, but a lazy cuddler 9 times out of 10. His arm gently around you on the couch as you rest your head on his shoulder. His cheek on your scalp as you do literally anything that requires you to stand still (cooking, on the train, grocery shopping). Still, there's that one time where he holds you like you might dissipate if he doesn't.

Maybe after a nightmare, maybe after a mission a bit more dangerous than he or you let on, whatever it was, it was like he might lose you.

He does it when you're asleep, when he thinks you're not conscious enough to feel him being soft. The only reason you know is because sometimes he wakes you up with it, and he's too emotional to notice.

you'd be laying in bed with Satoru, nearly one in the morning, sleeping peacefully. Then, you feel his arms wrap around you, tight enough to wake you up. His mouth would be pressed to the top of your head, his breath slow, as if he were savoring the scent of you.

"You won't leave me, right...?" He wasn't talking to you, really he was talking to himself.

"...nah. You wouldn't..."

D = Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking and cleaning?)

You know those people who try to go to the gym to get their life together, but really just like the aesthetic and can't follow through? That's Satoru with Domestic life. He'd love to settle down in one spot with you and do all the cute domestic things, like cook dinner every night and go grocery shopping every week, but he just can't focus for that long, he always has to be moving. Changing apartments, trying new restaurants, going wherever on a whim, they were all things he loved and domestic life lacked.

That's what he thinks, and that's what you let him think, but little does he know he hasn't moved in three years (a record for him), You've been "sleeping over" for the entirety of those three years, and you take turns making meals any time you're together, as well as split household chores.

Kids are another thing, he wouldn't willingly have kids. If you two conceived, or somehow managed to accidentally receive a child, he'd be content taking care of it with you, but truthfully he likes the calm personal life he lives, not to mention the fact that it wouldn't be ethical to him to raise a child while living such a dangerous life.

"Have you ever thought about having kids?"

"...getting you pregnant? sure. Kids...not so much."

"ok, good. I don't really want them either."

"We can still try for one, though~"

E = Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?)

He loves you too much to end it for reasons other than external forces, so there are two ways I can write this. One...

He makes himself the bad guy. Being flaky, being extra condescending, ignoring you more. He distances himself in the hopes that you see how bad he's being and call it off. He never wants you to think that he doesn't love you, or that he could ever find anyone better, so he acts like he's the shittiest boyfriend to ever boyfriend. Of course, you inevitably see through this, and he has to be honest.

"Listen...I...We can't do this anymore. You've been through a lot, I've been through a lot, and if we stay together, there are things out there that'll just make it worse. I might be selfish, but I'm not selfish enough to keep you with me when I know it'll hurt you."

And, prompt two would be...

Satoru breaking up with anyone but you, people he doesn't care about...He's ruthless. He could be with his partner at the time in the middle of a date, probably on his phone from the amount of boredom he experiences simply from being in the presence of this person, when he just announces, "Let's break up."

"H-huh?!"

"Yeah, fun while it lasted, it's not you it's me, all that," he sighs, walking off to find something else to quell his boredom.

I would like to say that personally, I think that most of his dating happened early in life, teens to early 20s, before he realized how difficult it would be in his line of work for numerous reasons and eventually gave up. Until he met you, of course.

F = Fiancé(e) (How do they feel about commitment? How quick would they want to get married?)

He is constantly talking about marrying you. He "proposes" once a week, you'd think you were already his fiancé by now.

his head in your lap as he watches you click away on your phone? "Marry me~"

You doing the dishes as he comes up behind you, wrapping his arms around your waist? "I'd consummate a wedding so hard with you right now~"

Doing- well, uh, this third example can wait for the NSFW portion.

Long story short, he constantly talks about it, but neither of you truly predict a wedding. First of all, you wouldn't even take his name because of how dangerous it is to be tied to the Gojo clan, and second of all...you're kinda already married. You have everything but the ring and the paper.

You live together, you'll never leave each other (unless a situation like in E arises, in which case it'd be especially helpful to not have the shared legal documents a wedding would bring), and you cook and clean for each other.

Lastly, he doesn't see the appeal. He understands the want to celebrate love, but to him, he doesn't need one special day when he can make every day special. Why buy you one ring for one day when he could buy you a new ring every day? Why put on nice clothes and promise to give you the world one measly evening when he could do just that every Saturday? He was just fine being your forever boyfriend.

"Mmm...Let's have a spring wedding," Satoru cooed, holding you by your hips as you chopped vegetables.

"There's too much pollen in the spring," you countered, an amused smile on your face.

"Winter then?"

"Too cold."

"Summer?"

"Too hot."

"...I'm beginning to think you might not actually wanna marry me." You could just hear the smile in his tone.

G = Gentle (How gentle are they, both physically and emotionally?)

In the SFW sense, he treats you like glass, physically at least. He kisses you with a sort of soft passion, like he wants you to melt in his arms...and you do. He holds you with feather light brushes of his hand, caressing your body and face because you're a work of art. He never wants you to be afraid of him, and although he knows you're strong enough to handle him, he couldn't bear the thought of losing you because he's too rough. He's gentle because he knows what he has.

Emotions are different, they're hard for him, and seeing as he's been through so much he doesn't understand why you get worked up over "little things." When you rant about something annoying that happened to you, he listens, but he doesn't empathize. He's on your side, always, but he's rather indifferent to your daily issues. Because of this, It makes you feel like you can't tell him things because it won't merit the reaction you want from him. He'll try for you, though.

"And so he said that I was being irrational, but I wasn't being irrational, I was..." You trailed off, looking at Satoru's sympathetic yet empty smile. "Do you think I was being irrational?"

"No! Of course not..." he said quickly, sitting up a little straighter. Did he? Well...He didn't...not think you were being irrational...but he also didn't agree with that other guy. Fuck that other guy.

"Well you have to tell me if you do, I don't wanna look stupid..."

"Relax, babe," he sighed, although it wasn't clear even to himself if he was referring to the situation or to you thinking he thought you were in the wrong.

H = Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it? What are their hugs like?)

As I said before, he's constantly hanging on you, his hugs ranging anywhere from a quick squeeze to a desperate clutch. He just always wants to be touching you. That said, he only gives hugs to you. If one of his students or even a colleague hugs him, he'd be fine with that, but he only willingly gives hugs and physical affection to you.

"Whatcha doin?" You looked up at your boyfriend from your seat in front of the couch, who had a controller in his hand, his legs on either side of your body.

"playin video games." That's not what you were asking about, and he knew that.

"...is me being here really necessary?" You glanced down at his arms, which were resting on your shoulders and caging your head between them as his eyes stayed locked on the screen.

"Uh- y- fuck, fuck fuck fuck," he muttered, before GAME OVER scrawled across the screen in big letters. He feigned sadness, using it as an excuse to lean over you, pull you closer to him, and press his face next to yours. "Damn it, now you've gotta make me feel better..."

I = I love you (How fast do they say the L-word?)

You two were friends long before you started dating, and you didn't start dating until he knew he loved you...or rather, he knew it was safe to. You were strong enough to hold your own against his enemies, so he would never have to worry about you getting hurt, and therefore he could love you without being afraid.

That said, he didn't tell you he loved you until after you told him.

Truth be told...he forgot about it. He was so exited to be able to love you freely that he forgot about actually telling you, after all he had shown it loads before without words.

"Satoru...I love you..." you whispered nervously, confessing to him late at night in his arms.

"Uh-" he practically choked on air, not about the fact that you told him you loved him, but specifically about the fact that you were nervous. You seriously didn't think he'd say it back? Was he that confusing?

"I love you too," he announced quickly, pulling back slightly to look into your eyes.

J = Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What do they do when they’re jealous?)

Jealousy? He can't comprehend it. He's not jealous in the slightest, he knows he's special, and he knows you know. That said, he does take the time to remind you how great he is when someone else tries to flirt with you. Buying you a random gift, showering you with praise, doing you a service, whatever it is he thinks he needs to do. It's almost like he's trying to prove it to the other person, even if they're not necessarily there to see it.

"No, Sorry," you say gently to the man who just asked for your number. He wasn't aggressive towards you, he took your rejection nicely, but what bothered Satoru was the fact that he was standing right there. Did he not look enough like your boyfriend? Was he not clearly holding your shopping bags?

He also gave the man a superficial smile, bringing his arm around your shoulder and pulling you into him. "You're too hot for the public, I should keep you inside forever," he teased, kissing your scalp.

He's really not a jealous person. He doesn't worry about anyone taking you away, but he also doesn't want anyone to forget you're his.

K = Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

Kisses everywhere, all the time. He kisses your head the most, because that's the easiest access for him, but he will and has kissed every inch of your body. He kisses you in different places in different ways for different reactions, and it's all entirely dependent on both of your moods. Trying to cheer you up? A quick peck on the cheek, accompanied by a goofy grin. snuggled up in bed, spooning? a couple kisses on your arm, or little smooches below and slightly behind your ear. I could make a chart of all the kisses and what they mean.

Personally, he likes kisses from you most when he needs them. Nothing eases him better than resting his head on your shoulder as you plant gentle kisses to his forehead. All kisses are loved equally by him, but if he had to pick one kind...those would be it. He couldn't live without them.

You stood in front of the mirror for a moment, frowning slightly as you took a glance at yourself. You didn't feel the most confident today. With a sigh, you moved on, walking back into the bedroom. Satoru saw all of this and knew exactly what was going on, crazy considering the moment lasted all of 3 seconds, and he made his way over to you.

He stood right in front of you, blocking you from your path.

"What're you doing," you ask, laughing a little as he looked down at you curiously.

He smiled, taking your hand by the ends of your fingers, bringing it up to his face as he said, "Nothing..."

He planted a long kiss to your knuckles, giving you those bedroom eyes that made your stomach flutter. "Just admiring you~"

L = Little ones (How are they around children?)

He finds Little ones entertaining as hell, but as I said before, he wouldn't want one at home. That said, there are some pros and cons to Satoru being around children.

First of all, god forbid they play something competitive because Satoru Gojo isn't taking an L from a 6 year old, that's for sure. tag, hide and seek, pinball, Mario kart, he's crushing spirits in all of them.

Another thing, he treats kids like they're little adults, which is great from a respect standpoint, but not so great when they talk shit. He does not care if he hurts a kid's feelings if they say something rude.

"My mom says you're a Psychopath," the 10 year old says, grinning.

"Yeah? Well my mom says you suck, and also you're bad at math," Satoru says, sticking his tongue out.

On a similar note of taking children too seriously, playing pretend is an art form to him. A friend's kid wants to play magical fairy princesses? He IS a magical fairy princess. His name is Vanessa and he has a magic wand made of glitter and dreams.

Yeah, he thinks kids are the best from an entertainment standpoint, but he knows he's not responsible enough to have any...at least not yet.

M = Morning (How are mornings spent with them?)

He's a morning person to his core, not because he needs to be super efficient and get a ton done, but because he just wakes up early and can't take the time to fall back asleep, especially when you're right next to him. Why try and sleep when he could pick on you?

If you're a morning person like him, you probably wake up around the same time, and get ready for the day together. Washing up, getting dressed, eating. If you're into working out, you two go on little work out morning dates.

If you're a night owl, he will pester the hell out of you until you do, kissing your neck and mumbling in your ear and flipping you around in all different directions. If your willpower is strong, and you don't get out of bed, he will first snap a ton of photos of you before getting up himself and getting his day started.

It depends on what time you wake up, but you could find that the apartment is empty from him going to work out, or full with the sound of him simply living. You usually find breakfast made for you, all 5 food groups, sometimes you eat together sometimes you don't get the chance to.

"Had to go to work early, you're hot love, Your Perfect Boyfriend"

That note was placed neatly over a little metal box, the contents being a warm waffle with chocolate sauce and berries. The sauce still had it's structure despite sitting in a metal container with a hot waffle, meaning he just left.

Damn it...he is perfect.

N = Night (How are nights spent with them?)

Every night with Satoru is different, It all depends on how both of your days went. If work was especially hard for either of you, the night would consist of at home activities, like playing videogames or watching a movie.

If you both had a bit of an easier day, especially over the weekend, you went on dates, and that could be anything. It ranged from going to a park and walking around, from going to a Michelin star restaurant and eating something deconstructed.

Of course, no matter what it was, dessert was happening at a place that was made for dessert. Patisseries, Ice creameries, cookie shops, whatever it was, it was always a part of the date.

"You're so gorgeous," Satoru sighed dreamily, resting his chin on his hand.

"Well you're gorgeous too," You laughed, looking up at him. "Although, I do think I can do better than sweats," you said, looking down at yourself.

You both were sitting on the couch, waiting for Mario Kart to boot up as you ate some gelato Satoru stocked up on during his trip to Italy.

"Nahhhh. 'S perfect."

O = Open (When would they start revealing things about themselves? Do they say everything all at once or wait a while to reveal things slowly?)

You still don't know everything about him. After so many years, friends to best friends to lovers, he still hasn't told you everything. You can probably think of one time he's been open with you, after going out and getting drinks with the usually sober Satoru. You remember having to cut yourself off early in order to care for him, calling the night and taking him home.

He ended up sat on the floor, back to the wall as he was wheezing at how the word "company" sounded like it started with a different word, his head on your shoulder.

After he calmed down, he said, "Y'know, I don't deserve you," he laughed, smiling at you with a red face.

"What're you talking about," you said with a nervous chuckle. "You do..."

"No, nonononono, 's ok, I don't," He said hurriedly, putting his hand on your shoulder. "I mean, you're actually too good for me," he slurred, looking into your eyes.

"What do you mean? what makes you so 'unworthy'?"

"Mmnnnnnn...have you killed someone?" He got all serious, nose to nose with you, before whispering, "I did...It wasn't fun, but I hadta..."

He sounded sheepish, like he was scared. Gojo Satoru was scared.

You weren't as upset as you could have been, being a sorcerer meant you understood having to take...drastic measures. After light encouragement, you managed to get most of the story out...er, stories, plural. He has a checkered past, and while you're pretty sure he doesn't remember that conversation, you want him to feel like you can listen, and any time he wants to open up again, you'll be more than ready to.

P = Patience (How easily angered are they?)

He has optional patience. He's not going to wait in a line without some sort of entertainment for longer than 5 minutes, but he also is willing to work tirelessly for years and years to reach a goal. He just can't stand doing nothing, he needs to be doing something always.

Now, if it came to anger, he has the patience of a saint. When you get to the level of power he has, getting angry over something below the injury of loved one just felt stupid to him. Now, if you get into a fight, he does get worked up (obviously), but he doesn't get mad so much as frustrated. "Ah, shit," he sighed, sounding nothing more than peeved. You glanced over, eyes widening as you saw his piping hot coffee not in his mug, but in his lap.

"D...Doesn't that...hurt?"

"Me? Nah," He says, standing to go change.

Q = Quizzes (How much would they remember about you? Do they remember every little detail you mention in passing, or do they kind of forget everything?)

He's weird because he pretends like he knows nothing, but it seems like he truly knows everything. If you challenged him to some game where you quiz him on the things he knows about you, he's walking away with first place. He just likes listening to you talk about your interests. You told him about your favorite show 3 years ago and he remembers the entire plot, but...

"Hey, have you heard about [enter show here]?" He was sitting on the couch, remote in hand.

"Oh, yeah! God, I used to love that show," you said excitedly, walking over and sitting next to him.

"Yeah? What's it about?" He's so in love with you.

R = Remember (What is their favorite moment in your relationship?)

His favorite moment is when he realized he's in love in you. He remembers the day clearly, you two were messing around with some weak curses, or at least weak to you, and he noticed then that you could keep up with him.

YOU could keep up with HIM.

It's not like he thought you were weak or anything, he just couldn't believe that there was another on his level. It's lonely at the top, and he came to terms with that, but the idea that he could have someone joining him was kind of mind blowing.

Maybe this wasn't when he realized he loved you, but it was when he realized he was allowed to.

"What," you ask him, laughing a little as you land a deadly blow on a curse before he could. He was just staring at you, a mixture of curiosity and adoration on his face.

He just turned and smiled, laughing a little to himself. "Nothin'..."

S = Security (How protective are they? How would they protect you? How would they like to be protected?)

He knows you don't need him to protect you, and for the most part he rather enjoys that, but he will get defensive over you when it comes to the slander of your name. Physically, you can handle yourself, and he knows that if someone were to be rude to you directly, you could handle yourself, but when someone is talking about you when you're not around, you can't defend yourself. That's where he comes in, your very own security guard.

He's not normally an aggressive person, you don't really like that side of him, and so if you're not there to see it, it's like it never happened.

"(Y/N)? Ugh, I hate that class...yeah, exactly! Right, sooo annoying... I just can't stand- Exactly...! And always getting of track..."

A girl on the phone, a brand new student at the Kyoto Sister school where you worked. Satoru was visiting to eat lunch with you. Lucky him, to over hear something like this.

He catches up to her, only needing to take a couple long steps.

"Oh! Are you a student of (Y/N)," he asks cheerfully. She was immediately weak in the knees, it was inevitable given his looks and status.

"Uhhhhh, yeah! Sir!" Meanwhile, her friend on the other line kept saying, "Is that Gojo Satoru? Are you talking to Gojo Satoru?!"

"I know (Y/N), actually," He said, looking down at the girl with a smile, the angry glare in his eyes hidden behind his mask.

"Really," she asks absently, before looking between him and the phone in realization. "W- uh, I was just-"

"What's your name?" The two of them stopped walking, Satoru's cheerful tone taking an underpainting of malice.

"uhm...A-Ayako..."

"Ayako..." He repeats, committing the name to memory.

"You don't go here anymore, Okay Ayako?"

Her jaw drops, eyes wide and blinking as she takes in his words.

"You...You can't- I didn't- That's not fair and-"

"Yeahhhh, it sucks, huh? you just weren't Jujutsu High material, sorry," he says apathetically, perhaps even joyfully, walking off to eat lunch with the love of his life.

T = Try (How much effort would they put into dates, anniversaries, gifts, everyday tasks?)

He doesn't try because doing things for you is effortless for him. I went into dates a lot in M and N, so I won't be touching on that so much here.

Anniversaries are always filled with gifts and outings, so much so that you feel inadequate trying to provide for him in that area. You could get him tons of seemingly perfect gifts, and yet somehow he still outdid you. He didn't mean to (mostly), he just really loved you and loved showing that.

To top it off, his reactions to your gifts aren't really all that grandiose. He tries, but you can tell it's feigned.

"Open it," you say excitedly, smiling wide as you hand him a black box. You were both sitting on the couch, it was his nary celebrated birthday, at least before you.

He sets the box on the coffee table before him and does so, inside a bottle of high end cologne.

"Wow," he says coolly, opening it and giving it a whiff. "Smells good," he muses sweetly, giving you a smile.

You groan, hanging your head with a wry laugh. "If you don't like it we can get it replaced," you sigh, smiling with some dissapointment.

"I do like it," he exclaims, moving to your side to comfort you with concern. "See, I'm gonna wear it, watch," he says, spritzing it on.

You laugh, he was so adorable.

Truly, he loves your gifts and puts them to use, but what really excites him is simply being with you. He likes taking the time to just be normal with you, or as close to normal as you guys can get.

He likes buying you stuff daily, small things like candy or some new lipstick, he just sees it and thinks of you. As I said before, he doesn't really try all that hard, he almost never has, and that's what's so great for him.

He used to worry about if he'd be able to even show his love for someone if he ever found himself in the situation, and to see that he's getting the message across with little strain is exciting to him.

U = Ugly (What would be some bad habits of theirs?)

What. A. Flake. You can never tell if he's going to turn up to important events, and if he does he's always late. The thing is, when he really cares he shows up punctually, which means he has the capability to be reliable. There have definitely been more meetings than you can count where you've had to cover for him, as well as fights he's been late for because he wants to make a grand entrance.

"where have you been," you chide in a hushed tone, watching as he casually plops down next to you. "I had to tell them you were having an emergency," you scoff, pinching his arm.

"You did?" He looks at the annoyed expressions of his bosses and coworkers, cocking his head slightly with a sly grin. "Yeah, no, I wasn't, just didn't feel like coming," he admits carelessly, shrugging. Idiot.

Relationship wise, he's had some issues with respect. He sometimes treats you and your issues like they're unimportant, and maybe they are, but dammit they're important to you! He got better about this eventually, but not after tons of hardheaded arguments about this ugly trait.

V = Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

if I had to pick one word to describe Satoru...well, it'd be cocky, but if I had to pick another it'd be effortless. He doesn't take concern with his looks because he needs to do nothing to look so good. That's just how he is, and he knows it. He places some amount of value in his appearance, but overall he's not too vain. He has confidence, is all.

"Man, You sure are lucky to have such a hot boyfriend," Satoru sighs sarcastically, teasing his hair in the mirror while you put on your shoes.

"Yeah? You sayin' I couldn't get one normally," you ask tauntingly, raising your brows.

"Hey..." he says, knowing he had fallen into a trap.

W = Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

He wants so dearly to not need you, but he knows he does. He knows he just might break if he loses you. You're his other half, you make him whole. A break up, he could handle, because there was still the hope of having you back, but if you died...

I can't write an example of this, I can't do it justice. The pain, the absolute and ineffable pain of losing yet another of the few people he got close to would eat him away until there's nothing left, and you just can't put that, in all of its horrific beauty, in simple words.

X = Xtra (A random headcanon for them.)

a little something xtra for you...He loves his mask and sunglasses for the extra benefit of not being exposed for staring at you. His eyes are constantly on you, figuratively or literally, and if he were anyone else he wouldn't be able to take down his enemies with you there because of how distracted he would be. He was him, though, and he could very much multitask. He also has a habit of flirting or messing with you during meetings, taking down curses, training, really at any time.

Satoru, on the other side of the meeting table, was stretched out, arms behind his head. His foot was touching yours, it was kind of cute in a way.

Then, he nudged your ankle a little, and you looked over at him with curiosity. He didn't look at you, keeping his eyes on who was speaking. You nudged him back, and he smiled, which means he did that on purpose.

He nudges you, you nudge him.

Then the nudging becomes playful kicking.

Then the playful kicking becomes competitive kicking.

Then the competitive kicking becomes getting scolded by both of the headmasters.

His grin never leaves his face.

Y = Yuck (What are some things they wouldn’t like, either in general or in a partner?)

First of all, greek yoghurt pisses him off. Yoghurt should be sweet and frozen, and nothing else. Give him greek yoghurt, god forbid he takes a bite because the unpleasant surprise will lead to half an hour of talking about how horrible it is. Yuck.

More seriously, he doesn't like people who think they're better than they are. He deals with them frequently, in the form of stupid curses trying to take him on, and he takes pleasure in putting them in their place.

He's of the mind that He earned being cocky, because he's actually just that powerful and good at everything, and therefore anyone else that's cocky has to earn it too.

when it comes to humans he can't eradicate, he simply shows off his power with as much leisure as possible, just to prove he's a million times better than the offending.

"Guess what," Satoru says on the phone, his smile audible.

'What," you ask cheerfully, knowing a good story was coming, or at least one he thinks is good.

"So I was fighting this curse, right?"

"Right..."

"Well, it was already annoying because it was stupidly weak, but it still came after me, and this thing..."

He kept talking, going on and on about how weak and annoying the thing was, and you simply smiled as you listened. Adorable.

Z = Zzz (What is a sleep habits of theirs?)

He's a complete bed hog, he takes up all the space you give him. He starfishes out, snoring like a vacuum cleaner, and when he's not doing that he's tossing and turning.

The only remedy for this was, surprisingly, getting closer. If you sleep next to him, he can't sprawl out. If you sleep holding onto his arm, his limbs on that side of his body are still for the rest of the night. If you lay with your head on his chest, making sure you fall asleep with his arms around you...all of him stays still and in one spot. A couple other poses work for this too, spooning of any kind, a honeymoon hug, things where you're practically fused together. Summer is a hard time for you two.

Another thing he does is mumble in his sleep. It's nothing too crazy, most of the time unintelligible, but every once in a while you can hear some keywords. You've found that whatever's most prominent in his life at the time is what he talks about. You don't really get any insight to how his mind works or anything, it's just a cute habit of his.

"Mmmn...Zzz...donrelgtothedohmvie...."

You smile, letting out a little puff of laughter from your nose as you strain to hear him.

"Yogottabkddngmbaby...."

Baby! That was a word.

You tried listening in for more, but you really heard nothing else...nothing else, of course, besides your name.

Ok, this took my like a month, which is wayyy longer than my usual stuff.

and, if we're being honest... ᴵ ᴴᶦᵗ ¹⁰⁰ ᶠᵒˡˡᵒʷᵉʳˢ ˡᶦᵏᵉ ² ʷᵉᵉᵏˢ ᵃᵍᵒ

but I'm only a few over so it still counts!? Love you, get ready for the next thing, and Let me know how this was and if you agree or disagree with my headcannons!

#fanfic #fan fiction #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru #gojou satoru x reader #satoru gojo #gojo x reader #jjk gojo #jujutsu gojo #jujutsu kaisen #jjk satoru #satorugojo #jujutsu satoru #gojo

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squib-2006 · 7 months ago

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So I’ve finally got some of my thoughts on the new season in order and letting my self sit on it for a while

Dragons rising season 2 spoilers!!!!!

So first off holy shit this season has managed to completely wipe out any fears I had for season two. I’m a generally anxious person and am pretty naturally pessimistic about most things and was pretty anxious about season 2 because from the stuff shown in trailers and promotional vids it looked like a “Lloyd chosen one” plot line and I have a history of hating that kinda thing because it’s been beaten to death in ninjago at this point. While a bit of that was there I found it was done quite tastefully and didn’t overwhelm everything else story wise.

I felt that the pacing of the first 6-7ish episodes was a bit all over the place. Having the training arc and the Cole-Zane plot lines happen in the same episode with the pov switching back in forth felt a little bit off to me.

Sora and arins character arcs are shaping up to be pretty good. Soras more confident in her self than season one and she’s trying to help Arin but I feel like the whole using her elemental power to help Arin will backfire into her face. Arin’s insecurity and the whole how can I be useful if I don’t have an element I fell is being handled way better than the dumb kai arc in season 11(dw I will get to that when I get to kai) and it’s about on par with the Lloyd powerless plot from hunted. I am really excited to see what they do next and if Arin will be really mad at sora or not cuz like he’s super nice and stuff and I fell like he would be sad instead of mad.

Nya didn’t really have a lot going on personally except the stuff with Jay which I’m iffy on because so much of Nyas character in older seasons revolved around Jay and I just hope they don’t go back to that and let her character breath a bit.

In the topic of Jay I really really REALLY hope he isn’t evil. That the idea because it’s really out of character and they are already pushing my buttons with the lost memory crap because that’s something that I’ve rarely seen done well at all and it makes me very nervous and I just don’t like it. I do like that Jay just seems to be a guy who hates his job tho that’s fun.

I think the writers are just having fun with Zane and I think that’s cool. I do wanna punch the administration guy who said Zane isn’t a person because he is and he’s a bean and I will not allow this nobody to slander him.

It was nice to see more of Cole this season. I swear him and geo are so cute. The hand holding and the fact that they basically adopted two kids together is amazing and I am fully on board for this ship.

The villans were really interesting. I hope they keep up the quality with them because the mystery of ras’ master and wtf happened with jordana is really exciting. Cinder was intresting and as someone who has no interest in men what so ever I am kinda baffled at why so many people want this man but hey you do you. I do wonder what happened to ash tho. The member of the forbidden five looks interesting too and part of me is hoping that the leaked “evil jay” minifig is actually this guy just powered up cuz the color palette is similar enough and I just don’t want an evil jay.

Wyldfyre is amazing her whole leg being broken then sneaking on the ship to the exasperation of kai (like he would totally have pulled something like this a few seasons ago the hypocrite <3) and the others was so good. I am curious about her talk with egalt she mentioned one of her family members getting the wasting sickness but it can’t be heat wave cuz he seems fine so maybe she had more than one dragon guardian??? I do hope that Kai’s portal abduction does affected going into part 2 and that she bonds with nya and the others over it.

Egalt and rontu were very interesting to me and I’m glad they didn’t go the route of them being the actual creators of spinjitzu and kept the lore consistent I was slightly worried about that. Hope they come back in part 2 too.

Bonzle was a big surprise for me. I likes her personality in season 1 but I didn’t expect her to be so important. She’s really sweet and the scene with wu was great too.

And finally last but definitely not least, the best character in this entire show and my favorite comfort character to beat the shit out of

KAI

IT WAS SO FREAKING GOOD. I LITERALLY HAVE NOT BEEN THIS HAPPY WITH AN EPISODE SINCE SEASON 4 EPISODE 7 THE FORGOTTEN ELEMENT (iykyk) I was literately kicking my feet like a little girl and crying and screaming my head off to the point I woke up other family members. Him unlocking the rising dragon technique by having his sister help and being in harmony with his family is so fucking sweet and I cried like a little bitch it was so good. I am also so happy that they used his old hair and didn’t just slap a smaller version of his current hair onto him (tho I kinda wish they had used the fucked up custom hair that was in the older episodes but I doubt that model is even in their hands so whatever(side side note I love the fucked up hair so much it’s so stupid I love it and will forever miss it)) him being such a dad to wyld fire was so sweet and then using the rising dragon technique after he saw his family in danger was just perfect. I do kinda wish there was more of a dramatic reaction to him getting yeeted by ras into the portal (kinda like any of the other ninja “deaths/major injuries”) but im fine with what we got. Except I kinda hate that only nya has an outward reaction in the aftermath. No lloyd reaction no Cole reaction and nothing from Zane and it makes me mad because every other time a ninja had their moment there was a whole team reaction. But I’m feeling like that’s to nitpicky and there’s still ten more episodes to fix that so fingers crossed. But kai also encouraging bonzle to close the portal even if he’s trapped inside is such a kai thing and hit me like a truck. Also him calling bonzle kid dispite her being much much older than him is funny and sweet cuz Kai’s big brother/father figure side is coming through and it’s so sweet. And the ninja never quit line is so great I was sobbing even more after that. (Tho I don’t know why he said he got it from Lloyd when it would have made more sense to have it be from master wu cuz that’s where he learned it but eh whatever).

While im really happy about kai finally getting some well deserved angst im also very anxious about it too. This could be the perfect opportunity for the writers to just conveniently forget about him for a while and idk if i could sit through that. Kai is a huge part of why I watch ninjago and he’s always been handed the shortest stick character development wise and technically he never got his own focus season either (and no i dont count the pilots because that focused mainly on all the ninja and was only two episodes, i also don’t count season four because it was more a group season, and season 11 doesn’t count because he got a half baked b plot that sucked) I’m very worried that I will loose enjoyment in the show because I dropped the show out of disappointment after season 11 because A LOT of premonitional material made it seem like a kai season and I got my hopes up and was let down so much. I’m very cautious when getting excited about things involving kai in particular because of that and I’m just hoping the writers don’t fuck it up.

Ok that’s enough negativity for once. I’m so excited for more and am foaming at the mouth for more!

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fernacular · 10 months ago

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pls talk more abt the stupid art trend of only drawing neutral faced white women no matter what its something that has been eating away at me as i see the community of artists growing ever more. it frustrates me so much cause like??? is that really the extent of your creativity? some... nameless attractive woman?

I'm really not an art historian or even an extremely analytical person, so take all I'm about to say with a grain of salt, it truly is just my off-the-cuff assumptions.

First of all I wanna clarify I don't think painting a pretty girl for the sake of painting a pretty girl is inherently creatively bankrupt, I'd be a hypocrite if I said that. Plus there are many many examples of artists having a POINT when choosing that subject matter and I don't wanna be throwing them under the bus. If you know a Pretty Girl(tm) piece of art that you think actually has a message that is enhanced by the usage of that sort of face, assume I'm not talking about them.

What really bugs me is the sheer prevalence of it EVERYWHERE and how incredibly unexamined it often gets from both the artists themselves and the audience observing.

because here's the thing, I'm pretty sure I know why they're choosing a perfume-ad-type woman as their subject. Over a very very long time that specific type of face has become the Neutral Beautiful Subject in art. A: it's a human face, which our monkey brains immediately respond to. Humans see a human face, we instinctual pay attention, that's just kinda how we work. B: it's a young unblemished face with no indications of personality or personal agency or identity that could impact the viewer's attraction, and it is assumed the viewer finds the face attractive. C: It's a white feminine face/form that has an extremely long and complicated history that I won't be able to adequately layout here (again, not a historian) but is firmly entrenched in western society as being, of all the bodies, the most synonymous with beauty and art.

So from the artist's perspective, this is a very very useful subject matter because we, as an audience, have been trained not to read into it as the Neutral Beautiful Subject Matter. The assumption is that we will like looking at it, but it won't distract too much from what else the artist is doing, the technical skill they're putting in or the unusual medium or whatEVER it is they wanna flex. That specific face is visual shorthand for beauty, and we're not intended to read into it beyond that.

But that's, like.... bullshit?

It's BULLshit that we are supposed to just accept that face as the neutral symbol of beauty. It's not neutral!!!! It's EXTREMELY political!!!!!! When you make that face the subject matter of your art with NO indication that we are supposed to take ANYthing else away from it, then you, as an artist, are in fact making a statement that you are seemingly completely unaware that you are making.

All SORTS of very very heavy social things go into that seemingly passive face. The dehumanization, sexualization, and commodification of women. The deification of white femininity. The fear of age, of disability, of injury, of sexuality outside man-attracted-to-woman. The very idea that all of this could in any way, in any universe, be considered neutral.

And I don't think all the artists who create using this kind of face are rubbing their hands together going "nyehehehe, today I will support a lot of heinous cultural bullshit for profit nyehehehehe" Most of them just aren't looking at it past face value. Again, it's a useful device. It's largely popular, it will get you views and attention and as an artist myself I fucking GET IT man. I want money too. I have rent too.

But i'm just... tired. I'm tired of it.

I'm tired of how unquestioned it gets. Of how much it's rewarded.

I don't have anything else to add, I don't know how to fix any of it, just, augh.

#ramblings #long post #apologies #I had more to say than I anticipated

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maccreadysbaby · 6 months ago

Text

A Hundred Ways to Become a Wayne

batfamily + oc insert

tw: gore, contemplated su*cide, more gore

wanna read more? here’s the table of contents!

want to read the first fic in the hundred days series so you understand what’s going on here? here it is!

so the big chapter is here… bentleys plan goes about as good as you’d expect

part forty-two

❝ REALITY CHECK ❞

SATURDAY — SEPTEMBER 12 — 8:01 PM

ONE THING BENTLEY HAD NEVER, EVER, EVER IMAGINED, IN HIS WHOLE ENTIRE LIFE, WAS FOR HIM TO ACTUALLY HAVE SUPERPOWERS AND ACTUALLY BE SUITED UP AS ROBIN. (But he was! And he did! And he had no idea what he was doing!)

It only took him about fifteen or twenty minutes to make it to the heat of battle with his water for transport. Most of downtown Gotham was a disaster. Everything was burning — literally, on fire, with flames licking out of piles of rubble that used to be buildings, and especially in the pitch black of night, everything was glowing. Two dozen buildings had to have been flattened, probably more — the destruction was moving and swirling in a circle around a tall, untouched building in central Gotham (the same one Asten tried to jump off of), which had a huge dome of fire on top of it. Bentley assumed that’s where he was. Every sound, the crackling of the fire, the crumbling of buildings, the shouting of metahumans — it all meshed together into one insanely loud, menacing rumble that never seemed to end.

Bentley stood (hovered) off to the side for a few moments, out of the radius of the chaos, kind of terrified. Firstly, Damian’s armor didn’t fit him right, especially on his arms and legs, so a nicely placed blow could probably knock it straight off. And his cape kept getting all in the way and whipping around, and while it looked cool, he wasn’t sure how much he liked it. (The answer was he didn’t. He didn’t like it.)

Secondly, he had no idea where anybody was. He was simply hovering on water a whole lot of feet in the air, high enough to be above the crumbling buildings, and he could hardly see down far enough through the smoke and fire to make out people on the ground. So he had no clue where his family or any metahumans were.

Thirdly… he was about to, like, fight people, for real. The only people he’d ever, quote-on-quote, fought, were Dick and Damian and occasionally Jason and Tim when they were training him in self-defense. Y’know, people without superpowers who weren’t actually trying to kill him.

But… there’s always a first patrol, right? Robin always had a first patrol. He just guessed this would be his. (He couldn’t back out now.)

As he drew ever-closer to the epicenter of the destruction (slower than Christmas, because he was pretty horrified), he turned his earpiece on so he could hear what everybody was saying. His line of sight was slowly getting clearer, so he was starting to see all the multicolored metahumans moving around on the ground through the smoke (and in the sky, in a few cases), with flashes of light and so many different… colors, and sounds, and things. He could see what he was pretty sure was Mandy Todryk flying through the air with her massive raven wings, and he knew exactly where The Void was due to the blinding flashes of purple.

“Robin,” Bruce’s Batman voice came through his earpiece, gruff and serious and not happy sounding in the slightest. The tone was just sour and flat enough that Bentley knew he meant him and not the real Robin. “You are not permitted to be on the field.”

Bentley looked around from his spot in the sky, levitating on water, until he spotted the big black blob that was Bruce on the ground, fighting against a metahuman with blue hair.

“Sorry, B! Please don’t be mad!” He replied shortly, his eyes darting every which way. Bentley wasn’t sure how good he’d do in an actual fight against any of these metahumans, but he was pretty sure he could help his family when they needed it. So that’s what he would focus on — helping them. When they needed it. “I just want to help!”

“You need to return to the cave immediately!”

Bentley cringed. “I’m sorry!” And then he clicked the earpiece back off.

Bentley didn’t have time for a lecture just then — he was too busy trying to figure out who the little figure was flying in repetitive circles around the giant glowing bubble of fire on the center building. It was a small person, with no wings or anything, and it only took another second for him to realize that… he was pretty sure it was… Nico, trying to get to Asten.

“I found him, Charlie!”

Bentley shouted in terror when someone grabbed him by the arms and violently ripped his feet out of the water that’d been holding him up. The beating of loud wings filled his ears — Mandy Todryk’s wings.

She laughed maniacally, and Bentley nearly threw up on queue as he watched all of the destruction move under his feet. The feet in question were dangling uselessly hundreds of yards in the air, and the far-off ground was moving at least sixty or seventy miles per hour below him. “Let go of me!”

“You’re choice!” Mandy chided. She let go of Bentley and, before he could react any more than another shout of horror, dove down and grabbed him by his feet instead, so he was dangling upside down. His cape whipped around and covered his face, making it impossible to see. (Seriously, how did they wear those things?)

Bentley only narrowly missed slamming his head into the top of a building (that Mandy had to have dipped toward on purpose.) He couldn’t seem to think, couldn’t seem to breathe — the water he’d been standing on was following them, but he could only see half of the time and it wasn’t fast enough to catch up.

“Let’s test if little bluebirds can fly!” Mandy chorused, waving Bentley back and forth as she flew in a way that made him so very nauseous.

“It’s a Robin, loser!” Bentley looked up just enough to see a blob fly into his vision from the other direction, going at least the same speed as them. It and Mandy collided in the middle, and the little figure latched onto Mandy’s wings and jerked them with all of their might, twisting her entire body and sending her veering off-course like a broken plane. Bentley slid from her grip and was suddenly freefalling.

And then he was very suddenly not, but someone was holding onto his torso very, very tight. (Which also made him want to hurl.)

“Jesus, your suit doesn’t even have blue on it,”

Bentley was only halfway breathing, watching the ground move what seemed to be miles beneath them, but much slower. “Nico?”

“Yeah, buddy, it’s me,”

They hovered around in the sky for a few moments before Nico found a suitable, not-falling-apart or burning rooftop to set Bentley down on. It was on the outskirts of the circle of destruction where Asten’s power hadn’t reached yet.

He sat Bentley down (mostly) on his feet, and the redhead immediately sat down on the tar rooftop, relieved to be on something solid again. He was sucking in air like he’d never breathed in his life. “I’ve only been here five minutes and I already want to hurl.”

Nico landed next to him, panting like he’d been running a marathon. His t-shirt and sweatpants were both soaked through with sweat, and his hair was a floppy wet mess, probably from flying so close to the fire. He held up three fingers. “Three times already.”

Bentley furrowed his brow, pushing himself off the rooftop and peering off the building at the destruction around them. “You’ve thrown up three times?”

“These powers are trying to kill me, I think,” Nico stated, waving Bentley off. “It’s fine. It happens every time I use them.”

“You can go to the cave if you need to,” Bentley replied, watching a few metahumans move around on the ground, a couple losing a fight pretty badly to who Bentley was pretty sure was Red Hood. “Have you been able to get to Asten?”

“Nope,” Nico started, drifting up by his side and peering off the edge of the building. “The dome thing he has going on is way too hot to get close to. Air only makes it hotter. But you know what definitely doesn’t make fire hotter?”

Bentley looked over at Nico, who had a dorky look on his face. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“Maybe you could get us in there so we can talk to him,”

Bentley looked over at the dome of flame that was spitting and spinning like some kind of lava. “I could try. It looks pretty hot, though.”

“It is insanely hot, yes,” Nico agreed. “But getting through it is pretty much our only way to him.”

Bentley nodded, peering over the edge of the rooftop toward the dome. He could feel the water sloshing and moving in the pipes below them, and not a second later, there was a small pop, and water began to seep from the cracks and crevices in the tar roofing and slither over toward his feet.

“That’ll never look normal,” Nico muttered, and Bentley shook his head as the water wrapped around his feet and began to lift him up.

Get to the dome. Put water on the dome. Calm Asten down. A foolproof plan. (Mediocre at best, really.)

“Ready?”

With a heavy sigh, Nico shook his hands out by his sides and began to levitate. “As ever.”

Bentley looked at the ground below to find his family. It didn’t take long — Dick was the first he found, fighting hand-to-hand with a metahuman who kept throwing bolts of electricity at him. (It wasn’t the metal controlling guy, which was good.) Jason was still fighting a group of metahumans that were losing very badly. (No vines.) The Secret Keeper was standing on top of a turned-over car, doing nothing but watching and tugging on Davis and Titus’s collars every now and then. (Which meant she wasn’t with Tim or Bruce.) Damian was sword fighting a girl that had a sword made of green light coming out of her hand?

With an exhale, Bentley let the water carry him off the edge of the building and over the deafening chaos and destruction again. Buildings that hadn’t been touched yet were starting to fall now, the circle of terror was getting bigger. Bentley knelt down on the little surfboard-like oval of liquid and tried to focus really hard on the dome and not the war going on beneath him that was all his fault. All his fault. All his fault.

As he and Nico drew nearer to the dome of fire, the temperature raised exponentially, and a sound like a blowtorch grew ever-louder. It went from bearable to magma in a split second, and he still had to be at least half a soccer field away.

Suddenly, a strange, shrill thunder-like noise sent them both whirling in the complete opposite direction of their objective. Bentley’s eyes darted around wildly, combing through the fire and rubble and fighting until he spotted a swirling purple portal high in the sky above them, in the center of the destruction with no buildings around it at all.

Not three seconds later, Damian fell out of it.

There weren’t any buildings for him to grapple to. At the bottom of the drop waited nothing but concrete and rubble and ash.

She wasn’t lying.

Bentley didn’t even hear his own shrill “No!” Before his instincts took over. And his first instinct was to absolutely throttle himself in that direction as fast as his water would let him move.

By that direction, he meant toward the ground. Damian was far away, falling really fast, and the only way Bentley would be able to reach him was if he somehow went even faster. But closer to the ground meant closer to all the metahumans. And that meant…

That something really tight grabbed Bentley’s ankle before he could make it to Damian’s landing spot, ripping him off of the water with enough force to make his ankle pop and spike with pain. He only felt air for a split second before he hit the concrete and rubble, back-first, with a dull thud and an embarrassing noise.

With a groan at the sudden dull pain that was radiating through every bone of his body (had he really been that high?) he looked up (why was he seeing two of everything?) just enough to catch a glimpse of some gnarly looking, deep green vines wrapped around his ankle.

He didn’t even get to turn over before they pulled on him again. They drug him through the rubble and debris without remorse, scraping up his exposed skin and tugging at his Robin suit until the vines decided to pull him off the ground and dangle him in the air, upside down. (Again.)

He could see Damian falling. He could see buildings cracking. He could see a random, bright red fire hydrant, jutting out of the ground.

With as much power as he could muster (even with his whole body being in a state of pain, and being upside down, again.) he willed the water up and out with such force that the entire fire hydrant was ripped from the concrete and shot into the air with a dull thunk.

Hundreds of gallons of water came spewing out, straight up into the night sky, and Bentley used them to make a massive pyramid-shaped cone of water what he was pretty sure was beneath Damian.

But he didn’t have time to see if it worked. Instead, the vines around his ankle moved and crawled up his whole body in a split second, curling around him like ropes and tying his legs and arms down so they couldn’t move. The vines continued to move, to wrap around his face, his eyes, his mouth, like a blindfold and gag. He tried to make a sound, but all that came out with a muffled mmm.

“I’ve got the little runt, Charlie. He ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Said a guy’s voice, only a little ways away from Bentley. He could feel himself moving, but he couldn’t tell what direction. He couldn’t shout, couldn’t see, and couldn’t hear anything but roaring destruction.

He felt Damian moving in the water. But he couldn’t see it, which meant he didn’t know what it looked like, which meant he couldn’t imagine it doing something else, which meant his powers were pretty much useless.

Amidst all the chaos, he heard something akin to a shnnk.

Three seconds later, there was a shout of pain, and the vines loosened around Bentley, sending him crashing onto the concrete again. Head first, of course, and so hard that for a minute, he couldn’t see anything but stars or hear anything but a skull-piercing ring.

A moment (or a few? He couldn’t tell.) later, someone pulled him until he was sitting up. They were talking, but he couldn’t hear good, and he was pretty sure it was Damian, but it looked more like two Damians.

Finally, as his vision and hearing started to come back fully, he forced himself onto his feet with a groan. His ankle (the same ankle he’d hurt by jumping out the window last year, by the way.) gave out halfway and he fell forward into Damian, who was literally Robin, (which wasn’t embarrassing at all.)

(Yes, it was.)

(Being a superhero was so freaking hard.)

Thankfully, Damian didn’t do anything like shove him or scoff at him. Instead, he helped him stand, and as Bentley’s cognitive abilities returned, he realized that Damian was squinting at him through his domino lenses. “It is absolutely idiotic for you to be here.”

A beat passed. Bentley’s eyes flicked down to the bloody katana in Damian’s hand.

“I suppose I should not have expected anything less,” Damian muttered, and he brought his empty hand up and touched Bentley’s forehead, which twinged with a sharp pain. “Your head is bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” Bentley stated, looking back at the bloody sword, and Damian did, too. Bentley then scoured the nearby rubble for bodies, but the burning debris came up empty. There were no vines and no metahumans.

“I only cut some of his fingers off. Then The Void took him away,”

“Oh,” Bentley muttered, blinking twice. “…Thanks.”

“You kept me from hitting the ground. I believe we are even,” Damian replied. “You-“

Before he could speak again, a purple portal opened right over Damian’s head, and The Void fell out of it right on top of him, pinning him to the rubble below. Her purple hair was cut weirdly, shorter on one side like Damian had gotten it with his katana. “Got you, you little rat!”

In one quick movement that Bentley could barely comprehend, she ripped a batarang from Damian’s belt and lifted it over her head.

“No!”

In another quick movement that Bentley could hardly comprehend, a massive column of water flew over like a battering ram, whamming into The Void and literally sending her flying at least a few yards away from them. She kept the batarang dutifully clasped in her right hand until she stopped tumbling and settled in the debris.

“You’re a little nightmare!” She screeched. A portal appeared beneath her, and she fell into it and disappeared.

Bentley didn’t even have time to make it to Damian before a portal appeared right in his face, an arm came out, and something pinched Bentley’s chest. The portal disappeared.

It took him a solid five seconds to look down and realize what had happened.

She’d stabbed him instead.

One half of the shiny batarang was protruding from the center of his abdomen, and his red suit was getting suspiciously redder. It didn’t even hurt that bad. Why didn’t it hurt that bad? It only felt like when Damian kicked him during a spar, but he could clearly see that half of the batarang was inside of him. He was stabbed. He’d been stabbed.

(Superheroing sucked!)

“Batman, Robin is compromised. I repeat, Robin is compromised,” He could’ve sworn that was Damain talking, but he couldn’t exactly hear right. His blood was pumping too loud.

He lifted a shaky hand and grabbed the batarang, jerking it out with a nearly inaudible whine. “It's okay. I’m okay.”

Bentley vaguely heard Damian giving Bruce a location, but he couldn’t hear very well over his own blood. Did blood have water in it? Bentley looked down at his own abdomen and focused really hard on the blood that was leaking out. Blood had water in it, didn’t it?

The bloodstain started getting smaller. Going away. Going… back in?

It was a strange sensation -- although, so was being stabbed -- that wasn’t exactly painful but definitely wasn’t comfortable. Bentley’s heart was pounding in his ears and he could hardly believe what was happening, even though it was literally happening.

“It… it's okay. I can keep myself from bleeding,”

Damian looked at him like he was stupid. “You have been stabbed in an area that houses many vital organs.”

In the distance, Bentley saw Batman coming.

If he went back to the cave now, they could still die.

What had he been doing? Trying to put out the dome of fire? To get in it, if possible? To stop this? To save his family?

He had to do this.

Water came up and around Bentley’s feet and picked him up, bloody batarang still in his hand.

“Don’t you dare,” Damian threatened, but Bentley was already off the ground and floating toward the dome.

…Sort of. His floating wasn’t all it used to be since he was having to focus so hard to keep his blood in his body. It was taking double the focus it usually took to keep himself in the air, and the punched feeling was starting to turn into searing pain, which made the focusing even worse.

Damian yelled. Bentley ignored it.

“You’re psychotic!”

Bentley turned until his eyes met Nico’s wide blue ones. He was flying down from the building with the dome, face panicked, gaze locked on Bentley’s abdomen. “You were stabbed!”

“I’ll be fine,” The redhead replied, floating past Nico at a glacial pace. “I just need to get to the dome.”

“I don’t think you’re comprehending the severity of this situation correctly. You were stabbed,”

“I know,”

“Stabbed,”

“I know!” Bentley replied, wincing at the pain caused by the effort. “I’ve been shot. That was worse.”

“You’re losing your mind!”

Bentley said nothing as he grew close to the dome of fire, the heat washing over him and making him feel ten times closer to dying. He held the batarang out just a little farther when he got as close as he dared. He had to be here to save them.

“You need to- wha… what are you doing? Oh, God, don’t tell me you’re…”

Bentley kept the batarang out there until it started to turn red hot (which took an alarmingly short amount of time, during which he was very thankful for the fireproof gloves.) and as soon as it was ready, he tore the Robin suit a little more at the hole and pressed the metal against his skin with no hesitation.

He wasn’t sure who screamed first — him or Nico.

Everything was a blur of white-hot agony, and for a second, he couldn’t see, the next second, someone was holding him under the armpits. The water wasn’t under him anymore. “Stop, no, no, I forbid you from passing out while we’re in the air. Absolutely forbid.”

A second (hour?) later, he was laid down on a rooftop.

“Bentley, dude, buddy, stay awake. How do I work your earpiece? How can I talk to them without leaving you here?”

Bentley’s senses vaguely started to come back to him for a second time. “I’m okay.”

“Shut up,”

“I’m-“

“Shut up! Just tell me how to talk to your dad!” Nico ordered. His face was hovering above Bentley, along with a smoky, starry sky, but there were about three Nicos at the moment.

“Am I bleeding?”

Nico looked down at Bentley’s stomach. “I-I… guess not, but-“

Bentley pushed himself upright.

And it was a horrendous idea. A wave of pain so absolutely devastating seared through his abdomen like he had gasoline for blood. It reverberated through every bone in his body, and the world went dark. He didn’t hear himself scream.

—

He wasn’t sure how long it was before he came to, but when he did, he was still on that rooftop, and Nico was crying next to him.

He blinked and let out a groggy groan.

“Bentley? God, dude, stop passing out! You’ve done it, like, five times!”

Bentley blinked some more. Five times? He’d woken up and passed out five different times and he couldn’t even remember it?

Everything was starting to feel like a mixture of pain, pain, and more pain. His whole body was sore from being thrown around, his head was throbbing, his stab wound was still blazing with a fiery agony, and he was really tired.

Nico sniffled. Bentley was pretty sure his head was on Nico’s lap, because his face was upside down and right over Bentley’s own. “Jason has been talking to Asten. I think the dome is cooling down a little bit, if you think you can-“

Someone thudded on the rooftop next to them.

“So close, yet so… far, Whittaker. You really thought you could change the future I put in place,”

Bentley pulled himself upright with a grunt of pain, just so he could get a good look at The Secret Keeper. She looked giddy as ever, her bright, excited amber eyes making her twisted stitched smile look even more twisted. She no longer had Davis and Titus with her.

“You’re so… naive. I show you one little lie and you move forward without question. You don’t understand, Bentley, that I control you,” The Secret Keeper held out her hand, and Bentley felt something in his mind change. He started to move, but his brain wasn’t telling him to move, her’s was. “It’s all been games until now. Watch what Bentley picks, it’ll be fun. But now is the time that I get to win.”

Bentley watched Nico’s eyes turn amber, and not a second later, his nose began to bleed. “I have dominion over everything. I can control you. I can control your thoughts. I can control your powers.”

Water started seeping out of the tar roofing of the building they were on without Bentley telling it to. It floated into the air in a stream, like a rope, and began tying itself in a knot. Bentley tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come out of his mouth. She couldn’t just… control him like that. There was no way.

“I’m going to kill you… and then I’m going to kill everyone you love. I’m going to watch this city burn,” The water rope twisted and swirled itself into a noose. “And you’re not.”

As hard as Bentley tried to fight, he couldn’t. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t control the water. The noose came and went over his head, and then he walked to the ledge of the building even though he was telling his body to stop, even though his agony just got worse with every movement.

This could not be how it ended.

He was facing the building with the dome in the center, overlooking all of the destruction. He could see faint figures moving below. He saw The Void appear behind Damian and kick him in the head, sending him thudding into the rubble. He saw the guy with half-white-half-black hair shove Dick into some debris. He saw Tim and Bruce, back to back, with at least twelve metahumans around them. Duke and Steph and Cass were doing something similar with even more metahumans around them, far off.

The dome of fire flickered, then went away.

“Aw, pity. They were so close,” The Secret Keeper muttered, running a hand through Bentley’s hair from behind in a very creepy manner that he wasn’t allowed to move away from.

Asten and Jason were the only two on the center building’s rooftop, talking, but Bentley couldn’t hear them. Asten fell on his knees and more buildings shook, one in particular right next to them collapsing from the bottom up with plumes of smoke and a deafeningly loud crash.

The Secret Keeper’s breath brushed against Bentley’s face when she whispered: “Listen.”

Time seemed to move slower than normal, and Bentley could suddenly hear Asten and Jason even over the massive distance between them.

“-this out,” Was the tail end of Red Hood’s sentence that Bentley caught. Asten shook his head, his eyes still glowing a bright orange and overflowing with waves after waves of tears.

“I-I can’t control it. I can't make it stop,”

“You can, I know you can,” Jason tried. He stepped forward and, ever so slowly, took off his helmet. “I believe in you.”

Asten’s eyes widened, but only for a second, because he flinched again when another building fell, looking off the roof. “I can’t. I can’t, Jason, I’m killing people.”

“You can,”

Asten’s eyes flicked up to Jason, and in one sharp movement, he jumped off of his knees and ripped one of Red Hood’s pistols out of a hip holster, pressing the barrel against his own blue hair.

“I’m murdering people and I can’t make it stop!” Asten shouted, a few violent sobs wracking his body.

“Your death is not the answer. It’s never been the answer,” Jason shouted, moving closer, one hand out. “You’ve lost so much, but you still have so much to live for.”

“I’m killing people that have so much more to live for than that,” Asten replied, the gun shaking against his temple, tears streaming down his face. “I deserve it.”

“Asten, please, listen to me. I know how bad this world can hurt you, but giving up isn’t the answer. Kicking it's ass is,” Jason explained, stepping closer. “Please, give me the gun.”

Asten didn’t move. He just stood there.

“We’ll help you through this, but please… please don’t give up,” Jason moved his hand closer. “Give me the gun, kid.”

Instead of handing it over, Asten passed out. His eyes rolled back into his head, and the gun clattered on the rooftop. Thankfully, Jason managed to catch Asten before he hit.

“Poor little thing. It’s a real shame he won’t make it,”

Won't make it? The Secret Keeper was a dirty liar. How on earth would Asten not make it? His powers couldn’t kill him, could they?

Bentley watched Jason perform a few procedures that grew more and more frantic. Then he reached up and turned on his comm. “B, this kid isn’t breathing!”

And suddenly, Bentley couldn’t hear them anymore. All of the fire in the city died down, the destructive roar fading to a dull hum now that the source was gone. Everything seemed to still in a very eerie way, even the metahumans on the ground, who all looked around in confusion.

There Bentley was, stood on the edge of a building with a noose of water around his neck, and the Secret Keeper’s hands on his shoulders. Strangely numb, feeling rage and desperation and vengeance that he couldn’t display, not even in a scowl, because his body wasn’t his own. It was her’s.

“Forward,”

Bentley’s foot moved closer to the edge, tauntingly. He closed his eyes and focused hard on the Secret Keeper, but he couldn’t — he couldn’t sense her, or any water, or anything. He was blind.

“Go on,”

He stepped closer.

In the back of his mind, he heard something so softly he could’ve missed it. Something moving. Blood pumping. Bum, bum, bum, over and over, moving through veins. The Secret Keeper’s blood.

“Over the edge,”

Bentley, mustering up every tiny bit of willpower he had left, muttered through clenched teeth: “No.”

The Secret Keeper shoved him anyways.

Bentley wasn’t sure what he expected it to feel like, but he didn’t exactly expect it to feel like his whole head was going to explode. He very suddenly couldn’t breathe, and it was difficult to move his arms to try and tug at the noose. The whole thing spun around with him in it so he was facing the Secret Keeper, who was smiling maniacally.

Bentley was about to die.

Bentley Whittaker was about to die.

With one last push of energy, he channeled everything he had into her. Every little drop of rage he could muster from anywhere in his mind, from the pesky nightmares, to this, to chasing Asten the first night, for tormenting his family — every ounce of raw emotion and power he could force his body to give, he focused it all on her, on the blood in her veins, for one last, final hoorah.

(If he was dying, he wasn’t doing it alone.)

The Secret Keeper doubled over and vomited crimson all over the rooftop. But Bentley kept pushing. He kept going until

it was pouring out of her nose, dripping from her ears, running from her eyes like tears. The world was getting darker. He could feel her heart pounding, pounding, pounding well over double or triple the speed it was supposed to, but he didn’t stop. She hit her knees and started screaming. Nico’s eyes turned blue again, and he fell unconscious behind her.

“You’re going to kill me!”

The screaming got loud and torturous then. Like someone was cutting her up piece by piece, as every once of blood was drained from her body, she screamed and she screamed and eventually… she stopped.

The water went slack, and Bentley started freefalling.

With whatever he had left, he formed a bubble of water beneath him that he could land in.

When he hit, everything was black. He couldn’t think. He was only just remembering how to breathe, and his head was throbbing like nothing he’d ever experienced. The water he landed in went slack around him and left him laying on a pile of wet rubble.

His body was in so much pain at the same time that it was so numb. He could feel everything and nothing, all at once. He felt that his stab wound had reopened, and was now pouring a warm liquid all over him that he didn’t have the willpower to stop. His neck was sore, maybe even bleeding, too. He couldn’t tell. He couldn’t really feel it. He wanted to yell for Bruce but he couldn’t.

“You killed her,”

Bentley peeled his eyes open just enough for a hazy, tilting, doubling picture of a metahuman to come into view. It was the guy with half-white-half-black hair. There were metahumans behind him, looking around strangely, like they didn’t know where they were. Was Charlie really dead? Did that mean the mind control wasn’t working anymore?

The rubble beneath him shifted, and a large, mangled piece of metal began floating out of it.

“You killed Charlie,” The metahuman repeated. The mangled metal made it's way to Bentley, hovering in the air straight above him. “You’ll pay for that.”

Was the Secret Keeper really dead?

The mangled piece of metal was thrusted into Bentley’s chest with force so strong that he felt it hit the rubble on the other side.

It was only then that he realized, this was what she showed him.

Him and Jason, in the lazarus pit, him dressed as Robin. Dead, impaled by a piece of metal debris.

This…

This was the reality where Bentley Whittaker died.

—

dedicated to @sassenashsworld 💚

—

tag list! (If you want me to remove or add you, ask in comments!)

@fleur-alise @sarcopterygiian @flyrobinflyy @skylathescholar @gayboss-too-close-to-the-sun @xiaonothere @beatyoutothatusernameloser

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jungle-angel · 9 months ago

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The One Where They Go To Florida: Part 1 (Frat!Rhett x Reader)

Summary: What happens when 70+ frat boys decide to take a vacation to Florida during Spring Break? The adventure of a lifetime

Warnings: Dumb frat boy shenanigans, mentions of a sexual incident with an apple pie, Rhett giving the newbies some sex ed lessons etc.

Tagging: @floydsmuse @attapullman @callmemana @bradleybeachbabe @rhettabbotts

"Alrighty boys," Rhett said, pacing up and down the row of pledges who were seated before him. "First thing's first, Spring Break is the most important part of Greek Life and therefore it is critical that ya'll pay attention."

A few of them scratched a few notes in the notebooks they had been given while Rhett continued.

"Our destination this year?" Rhett continued, turning to the portable chalkboard behind him. "Florida Keys, the ultimate spring break destination for snowbird college students. Now mind you, you will very quickly see why this earned the nickname, Florida Fuckfest."

"Um.....Professor Abbott? Can you expand a little further on this?" one of the pledges chuckled.

"Oh thank you Toby, I'm actually glad you asked," Rhett answered, trying to keep it together. "The term was coined in 1984 by a former Delta Tau member after witnessing the usual spring break bacchanalia in Miami. Many, many things thoroughly fucked that year including a flagpole and........a warm apple pie."

Rhett and the others shuddered at the memory of the apple pie incident.......wouldn't be the first time something like that had happened in the Delta Tau house.

"Now I know most of ya'll probably have never made it with a girl before," Rhett elaborated. "Ain't no shame in that, your big brothers were once there before too. But we're here to get ya'll ready for the royal shithouse mess that is this trip. Kayce?"

Kayce stood up from the window seat and hauled out of the living room closet, everything that would be needed for the demonstration.

"Alrighty boys," Kayce said. "Ya'll got the Delta Tau sex manuals?"

The boys held up their manuals, save for poor Oliver Scott who was still slightly engrossed in it.

"Oliver?"

"Yeah?"

You poor little dude you," Rhett chuckled, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "If ya'll haven't memorized that by now, you're a lost cause."

Oliver gave him a slightly sheepish look through the heavy duty lenses of his glasses.

"We'll getcha there," Rhett promised him. "Don't worry, ya'll just need some extra help."

Rhett and Kayce set up a few mannequins in the living room, each one with a black lace bra and matching panties on it. No one had any idea what they were in for, only that they were being prepared for something that every Delta Tau would be faced with in the days leading up to spring break.

"Alright hotshots," Kayce said to the pledges. "Your training for Florida Fuckfest starts now. Your goal is to get the bras off these mannequins in less than thirty seconds, GO!!!"

The pledges each rushed for a mannequin, trying with all the speed they could muster to unhook the bras on the mannequins. Rhett and Kayce cheered them on, urging them to go faster and to not knock the mannequins to the floor. The oldest of the pledges had the best time, getting it off in less than fifteen seconds.

"Looks like ya'll did pretty good," Rhett remarked, eyeing their handwork. "But remember, ya'll will be handling real girls and what ya'll do with a dummy, you cannot do with a woman. Remember that."

The next task was a little less than pleasant, a little lesson that every pledge and college student in general feared.

"Alright boys," Rhett said to the pledges. "General rule of sex ed?"

"Wrap it before you tap it," the pledges answered.

"Always, always, always," Rhett reiterated. "Till one or more o' ya'll are married, absolutely no raw doggin and if ya'll happen to be gay, Foster will tell you the same thing. A.......that shit hurts like hell for some people and B........ya'll don't wanna risk anything unseemly or knockin your partner up."

It was all too apparent that the pledges were nervous as hell, even as they looked at the little wooden holders each containing a cucumber and a wrapped condom next to it.

"Your task, should you choose to accept it," Rhett informed them. "Will be to unwrap the condom and have it around the cucumber, same timing as before. In most cases ya'll might have less than that......so get to it my pretties."

Kayce started the timer and the boys hurried to get the condoms out of the wrapper and onto the ends of the cucumbers. It wasn't easy at all, some of them being put on backwards, some a little too small or some a little too clumsy for their own good.

As soon as the time was up, Rhett went up and down the line, inspecting their work. "Think we're gonna have to spend some extra time on this," he concluded.

The boys went through each and every lewd task as Kayce and Rhett each made a note of who had done well and who needed work. "Poor Oliver, dude," Rhett chuckled as he marked off the scores on a sheet. "This kid's strugglin real bad."

"Think he'll be able to make it in time?" Kayce asked. "I mean not all of'em did too bad."

Rhett sighed and ran his hands over his face. "We've got a long way to go," he said.

#rhett abbott #rhett abbott x reader #kayce dutton #frat!rhett #frat!rhett abbott #outer range #outer range x yellowstone crossover

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the-book-life-chose-me · 4 months ago

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hey momo! i finally finished one of those "omg i should put these together and put them in a post!" things! BE PROUD. [author's note and asides] @geronimomo-spd and i brainstormed a wonderful concept last night: The Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society in BBC Merlin.

The Society lives in/comes from Cornley, a town near Ealdor on the borders of the kingdoms. They are a traveling theatre troupe, currently split up because Chris and Robert argued one too many times about the travel budget and role distribution. Robert arrives first at the court in Camelot, and is allowed to stay because Uther finds him amusing, and is first delighted (socializing as a contest and he is WINNING), but by the time everyone else arrives, he drags Chris in to bail him out. The Society is there to put on a play, but this is complicated by a. their usual problems somehow almost killing Arthur multiple times (which, b. makes Merlin spying on them to figure out their eeevil plan, because that many accidents can only be magic) and c. they are actually slightly less bombastic than usual in their rehearsals because the actual Big Bad of the week is trying to use their play to gain control over Uther (think: something like the twin bit in Most Lamentable). Merlin discovers that Chris has magic and convinces him to help; the spell needs to people to speak the counter-spell in unison. As such, in the climax Merlin can easily do this behind the scenes, but Chris delivers an ad-hoc "speech" across a distressed Vanessa (who did not expect CHRIS of all actors to go off-script for no reason!), having to shout the last bit over Robert who has come on stage to complain about Chris hogging the spotlight. Up until this point, their usual problems half-happen due to the BBEG helping them (aka: they are still wildly incompetent, but for their usual, it's going well! No one has been grievously injured/knocked out, lost their clothes, or destroyed the set). Once the spell is finished, though, everything falls apart Very Quickly [Maybe they start fires?] whilst they have to Leave Quickly to avoid being thrown into jail. Another episode would deal with the society discovering Chris' magic, reacting to that, and probably also discovering their own magic.

Chris: magic comes out as frustration despite a magical lock on his powers Robert: learns magic (excited to mind control people, doesn't want to be one-up'ed by Chris to whom he's all "ur not special") Dennis: most powerful one, part magical creature (distantly related to Kilgharrah), initially a druid, but adopted later by a poor farmer (doesn't know ) Sandra: glamour/illusions, druid child had a fairy neighbor that took her under her wing Trevor: alchemy [i totally forgot alchemy was a Thing in Merlin] elements especially metal!!! unexpected reactions, stuff either explode or grow in weird ways (he was so crafty he just. Got magic) Max: Telepathy (comp.: delight at the audience reactions in canon). Helped out an old lady with a severe case of bitchface, who blesses him to always know what people are thinking. Hasn't discovered how to talk to people telepathically, but he does know how to tune out Chris specifically when he is being shouty. Vanessa: does know she is a Druid, and trying to hide (hence her canon anxiety of spontaneity). Not a lot of magic because she hasn't used it in so long, really good at convincing people, street urchin druid kid Annie: most versatile, shape-shifting (comp.: stagehand AND actor training in canon), had magic when she was a kid. She is like… slightly suspicious about everyone else thinking they're maybe magic users? but it would be insane to have so many magic users in one spot ahahahha

Misc. notes I couldn't put in anywhere:

Dennis randomly stumbles across Kilgharrah (still trapped in the dungeon), no one believes him

Merlin initially assumes Jonathan is the mastermind behind the "murder attempts" because he never manages to get on stage

Robert: u gotta get Arthur in this i wanna impress Uther Chris: why do u wanna impress Uther he KILLED PEOPLE

#the goes wrong show #bbc merlin #tgws #mischief theatre #god i hope someone likes this and im not just clogging up the tags #thanks momo this brainstorning helped calm me down a little lmao

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sex-obsessed-lesbian · 10 months ago

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The Tale of SOL's Highly Mediocre First Hypnokink Play Partner

CW: mediocre consent practices.

I realized that I posted this on Twitter but never on here, so for anyone who hasn't heard this one before, buckle up for the story of SOL'S Highly Mediocre First Hypnokink Play Partner!

It's the fall after i graduated college, I’m starting to dabble in the scene, I’ve found hypno tumblr and am like “omg this thing I’ve always fantasized about is REAL and people actually use it for SEX???”, and I go to a nearby university's kink group meetup about hypnokink.

As part of the class we pair up and try some stuff. I pair w/ this guy—a college senior, he’s actually tranced to files etc. so he knows a bit more than me at this point about how this works IRL. He does a perfectly middling progressive relaxation induction on me.

I say “Oh okay i think i see how this works” and proceed to ZONK him because like, I'm a good top and have good instincts (and also improv training).

And after that, we proceed to meet up a few times as practice partners—I still live with my parents so I come over to his dorm and he exiles his roommate (Jesus Christ i thought I’d be done with this shit when I graduated).

So the problem with this situation is that I never got a proper pretalk or explanation of what trance did/n't feel like, what hypno could/n't do or make you do, how safety and agency work... So I was both SO WORRIED about doing things against my will or losing control, AND SO WORRIED about it not working on me, that i was unhypnotizable and couldn't do the thing. I can’t realllly blame him, he was as new as I was, but it was… not a great situation.

The thing I CAN blame him for was when I was said “I don’t want any triggers” and he was like “aww come on a reinduction trigger would make it so much easier” and kept wheedling me about it. Not a good look.

(OFC part of the reason he really wanted a reinduction trigger was because he (like me, at the time) only knew how to do 10-minute progressive relaxation inductions, lolsob.)

And I think both times we got together I was like “Dude I’m a lesbian, I'm here for kink practice and I don’t want to kiss or get physical with you” and then at the end he’d be like “Waah I want to kiss you!!”

Against my better judgement I went along with it cuz like, we’d just been doing hours of kinky shit and I was turned on, but like. Surprise surprise, I'm a lesbian. (Also he... wasn’t all that good a kisser. Shocker, that.)

The kicker is, after the second time this happens, he texts me to say “So i just found out i have mono” like SIR I DID NOT EVEN WANT TO BE KISSING YOU AND NOW YOU HAVE MAYBE GIVEN ME MONO???

He did NOT give me mono, turned out I already had antibodies, and I didn’t ever play with him or see him again, so it’s mostly a happy ending but like… bruh.

But on a more serious note, I... still carry some of that baggage with me. (Though obvi this is nothing compared to many people's genuinely traumatic or abusive first hypno/kink experiences and i don't wanna take away from that!)

Never having gotten a real pretalk, going into my first trance experiences so scared (in both directions), feeling like a """bad subject""" (b/c he wasn't great at dropping me AND b/c I didn't feel comfy with him)... has really stuck with me, unfortch.

I am still unlearning that stuff, and so thankful to all the FAR, FAR SUPERIOR hypnotists who have helped me in this journey. It's also why I'm waging a holy war against people who use the term "bad subject" or don't give proper pretalks.

No one should feel uncomfortable when exploring this kink! (Or like, as non-uncomfortable as possible.) I hope it's a joyous thing for as many folks as possible! And that's why I have SO many thoughts about pretalk and framing for new subjects (see e.g. my class notes on Setting Your Subjects Up for Success).

So ummmm uhh thanks for coming to my TED talk, treat your partners right and don't try to kiss people who've explicitly told you not to kiss them, there are more kinds of inductions than just progressive relaxation, stay hydrated! <3

🦈 FIN 🦈

#true stories #true story #stories from SOL's life #thinking about kinking #look y'all comfort and trust are soooo important #i just want everyone to have a good and sexy time

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sugar-omi · 1 year ago

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Is it ok to make a request after the last one? Like everything about the eloping was just a dream in this one. And Mc is still married to Cove but after getting that nightmare they get all guilty over something that didn't happen and fear if they'd actually do something that would hurt everyone, especially Cove that badly. So they decided to isolate themselves somewhere no one would find them for a while with little explanation to Cove when they leave. Any location really like a cabin in the woods idk. They were supposed to be only there for a week then a woopsie happens and now they get stranded for more than a week. You're choice on how it ends and whether they tell Cove or not about the dream.

Seeing Cove suffer hurts me so I wanna see the MC suffer (more) :)

HAHA I LOVE IT, YESSS LET MC SUFFER !!!! also ik i wrote it as a "y/n" post but i was like imagining jamie as MC/"y/n" and inserting myself in cove's happy ending <3 lmaooo no one said "y/n" couldn't be someone else 😋 i imagine a lotta ppl read y/n fanfics with their oc's or the default name though too but yes tysm for this ask bc this heals my heart, this is smth i would do!!! one time i read 2 separate fics with character A died and in the other fic character B died n i was like "oh okay theyre happy together now<333" ITS SILLY BUT IT MADE MY HEART FEEL BETTER

[read the post mentioned above: "leaving cove for baxter"]

tags : Hurt/(No) Comfort, step 4/wedding dlc, nightmare about cheating, running away, keeping secrets, arguing <3 (cove snaps abt you leaving)

synopsis : you have a nightmare about leaving cove, so you run away to calm down. maybe you should've taken a different approach...

you wake up in a cold sweat that night.

you're shaking and trying not to wake up cove because his arms are wrapped tightly around you but you can't help the tears running down your face.

somehow you shake yourself from your husbands hold and go to the bathroom to cry...

that morning you're very distant, and since cove has to leave for work as he's been away for awhile for your wedding and honeymoon, he just kisses you and tells you that you will talk later.

when he comes home you sit him down and tell him that you've just going through a bit of depression and burn out, and that you're going to go visit lee for a week and come back.

cove frowns up, of course he understands what you're going through and he understands that things are hard but do you really need to go away?

"y/n, please. i understand you're going through something but, can't you stay? isn't there anything i can do for you?"

you shake your head, "i'm sorry, it's just 5 days and then i'm coming back. i just.. i just need some time."

cove feels a bit angry now, you just got married and everything was fine, you were happy yesterday and now you've done a total 180 overnight and won't let him help you!

"y/n you can't just leave, i really don't understand what's going on."

you shake your head, standing up and releasing your intertwined hands. "i just need a little break, i promise i'll be back soon."

you do go visit lee like you said, but after the 2nd day she leaving town for a show.

"i'm gonna miss you!" lee squeezes you in her arms, not wanting to let you go. "you just showed up, its gonna be forever before we see each other~" lee whines.

you laugh, patting her back. "its okay lee, we'll get together soon."

she pulls away, needing to leave soon if she doesn't want to miss the train. "okay.. i'll call you everyday! have fun on the rest of your trip, okay?" a worried look comes on lee's face, taking your hand in a soothing manner. "i hope you can work through that burn out."

you nod. yeah, burn out...

lee sticks her hand out the window, waving the whole way (thank god someone else is driving) until you can't see each other.

you sigh, walking to your car and make your way to the hotel you booked for the rest of the week...

the beach reminds you of your honeymoon... you aren't sure why you're torturing yourself like this.

you sigh, thinking about the dream. well, nightmare to be correct.

there was nothing inherently scary. but since it was from a first-person point of view, your mouth moving out of tune with your thoughts and everything happening so vividly, it was scary enough.

you feel tears well up in your eyes as you think about everyone's reaction.

would your ma really tell you to stay away from the house like that? and lee.. you can't imagine not talking to her.

fuck, you're crying... just thinking about everyone's disappointment and the scorn on everyone's face is enough to send chills down your spine.

you cringe, thinking about cliff and krya, their messages and how cliff looked so distraught when he saw you when he came for the last of cove's things on your nightmare.

you couldn't bare your in-laws hating you. cliff has always been someone important to you, and now he's your father-in-law. he's a sensitive soul as well, and he loves cove so much. of what had happened was real... oh man, the simple idea of how much regret cliff would have makes your body shake with sobs.

and even though you try not to think about cove's reaction to you leaving, its so prominent in your mind.

you start wiping at your tears, even though there's no one around since this is a little edge of beach off the edge of a hiking trail near your hotel, you feel so ridiculous for crying over this.

you sniffle and go to stand up.

it's getting dark, you've off the trail, and you have an early day tomorrow.

the only problem is... you're a bit lost.

you didn't realize how far you were. you're back on the trail but do you go left or right? does it matter if it all leads back to the hotel?

you swallow, you're so fucked.

everything is just going wrong.

first, you get lost on the shitty trail and don't find your way back until daybreak, and now your car isn't starting up, and the mechanic said it'll be a few days before they get it up and running.

you sigh loudly and fall back into the bed. thankfully, the hotel let you extend your stay so at least you have that going for you...

you startle from the sound of your phone ringing... it's cove.

you hesitate to pick up, you still feel sensitive, but you miss cove, and you've already texted him about the situation for the most part..

"hey, cove.."

"y/n! are you okay?" cove's worried voice crackles over the phone.

"yeah, i'm alright, uh.. listen, cove."

you trace the stitch pattern of the quilt on your bed. "apparently, it'll be a few days before the car is up and running. something about a busted something, i don't know what he said. i wasn't, uh, paying attention very well..."

cove sighs. "y/n... I'll come get you or something, and then we can talk about this, okay?"

you feel your heart pick up. "no! th-theres no need for all that, you just hold down the fort, tell the fish I said hi." you laugh shakily.

you can practically hear the frown in his voice. "y/n. why did you go on this trip, seriously. what are you hiding from me?"

cove's voice is rising and cracking with tears at the same time.

it breaks your heart. you can't answer him and it just makes cove more upset.

"do you regret marrying me or something? is that why-!"

"no!" you exclaim. suddenly regretting your outburst but you can't help but deny it since that's not it and you don't want cove to think that...

"then fucking tell me!" cove is obviously crying at this point. "all I know is my spouse left for a 'break' and is now telling me they don't want me to pick them up? be fucking serious y/n!"

you exhale shakily, wiping your own tears.

"i'm sorry..." you whisper, burying your face in your hand.

"sorry for what, y/n? leaving me after we just got married? lying to me? shutting me out?"

cove's voice is deep and his words have an edge.

he's right though, what are you apologizing for? you're acting out and letting your problem consume you...

there's silence, and then cove mutters over the phone.

"... do you not love me anymore?"

you snap up, sliding off the edge of the bed as you snatch up the phone. "no! it's not that! don't say that!" you cry, "I love you so much, cove! don't even think otherwise!"

cove is silent. since you can't see his face you can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

"you know what i... i can't take this right now. I'll call you later."

the phone clicks.

now all you're left with is silence and your own thoughts...

when you finally come home it's 11:47 at night.

cove should be asleep but instead he greets you from the door.

you swallow, psyching yourself up to go to him.

something about the way he watches you from the moment you came into view on the street, to watching you pull your bags out the trunk and then maintaining eye contact (more like boring holes into you since you can't look him in the eye.) as you creep up the pathway to the door of your marital home.

he's silent. just watching. no "hi" or "I love you" or "I missed you, I barely survived while you were gone", just.. silence...

you finally look at him. his eyes are hooded with lack of sleep if the eye bags are any tellers, and yet he stands in front of the illuminated doorway like an unmoveable wall.

your heart skips and clenched. what if he doesn't want to let you back in?

you go to speak and he talks over you.

"was it worth it?"

you gape at him, frowning at his question.

"of course you can't say anything. what did I expect..." cove pinches his temples between his thumb and forefinger.

you gather up some words, uselessly trying to grasp for forgiveness.

"i.. i thought it'd be better if i worked things out on my own... i'm sorry.." you fiddle with the keychain on your luggage. "i shouldn't have done that and uh.. I'll deal with my problems without running away.."

cove watches you blankly. he can't believe you're serious.

"you're not gonna tell me, are you?"

you don't nod or shake your head. you just look at the ground and pray he forgives you.

he stands in front of the door for awhile longer, before he takes your luggage, a little more like snatching it since he grabs it by the side of the handle and tugs it out of your hands, pulling you forward.

"come inside. did you eat?"

you gape a bit, wondering how cove can care for you in a time like this but it reminds you more of a mother who's making sure her naughty child doesn't need anything else before they receive their punishment..

you shake your head. "i'm not hungry right now.."

cove doesn't nod or insist you eat like he normally would. "shower and go to bed then. I'll join you later."

you nod, letting cove's orders sink in.

the bath water is getting cold. and the sound of the echoed sound of water clapping against the edge of the tub makes you self-conscious.

you stand up, letting the water run off of you and robotically dry yourself with a towel before slipping into the clothes cove threw on top of the sink for you.

when you slip out of your bathroom, the bedroom is dark except for the moonlight coming through the window.

you tenderly tuck yourself into bed and close your eyes. waiting for something. anything. maybe for everything to become undone or for time to move past this.

just while you start to get deep into your thoughts, tears pooling in your eyes, cove's footsteps thump against the floor, and you halt your breath, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

the bed dips on his side. you don't feel him leaning over you or getting into bed and so you turn around, looking at the broad expanse of his back and waiting.

"you're not gonna tell me, are you?"

you say nothing.

"not what's wrong? what happened? how can I help?" cove's desperate at this point. "nothing?"

you pause, fingers twitching because you want to reach out to him but if you did he'll just shrink away from you for sure.

"I don't know.." you finally mumble.

cove hangs his head, fiddling with something in his hand and he lays down without looking at you, flipping over once he's gotten under the covers.

you're both awake, there's no way he isn't and you touch his back.

he doesn't flinch like you thought, nor shake or tell you to fuck off.

so you creep closer. maybe that's a bad idea, wrapping your arms around him as the worst he can do is reject you but you missed him. and everything is eating you up that you just want his comfort..

he let's you, surprisingly.

you rest your forehead between his shoulder blades, curving your body against his.

you reach for his hands, finding them clenched weakly around something.

you wanna shake and cry when you realize it's his wedding band...

he let's you take it from him, and he holds onto your other hand that's tucked under his body.

you shakily slip the ring back on his finger.

maybe, maybe one day you'll tell him.

but when the next morning comes, and cove greets you with a bright smile and "good morning" that only has half his usual cheer, and he continues it for weeks until months have passed since then and it's as if nothing happened, you aren't sure you ever will.

#our life: beginnings & always #olba #cove holden #cove holden x reader #cove x reader #cove x mc #cove holden smut #cove our life #our life cove #cove holden x mc #cove holden x reader angst #angst #hurt/comfort #hurt/no comfort

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heyidkyay · 1 year ago

Text

I guess I’ll take this pain, instead of your name |

Part Twenty-Four - Part B

A/n: Hey, Part B is finally here!! It was a struggle to write but I'm so grateful to know that a lot of you were looking forward to it! Means so much. Again, like the previous part, this will be a collection of flashbacks! Please read the warnings on this one! Hope you enjoy x

Summary: In life, things changed. The boys you'd once grown up with were men now, and famous ones at that. The type that toured the world and had millions of adoring fans.

The five of you shared a shit ton of history. But you also shared a lot of mixed emotions for one of them in particular, a certain drummer.

Warnings: Lots of swearing as per usual, talks and acts of violence, abuse and sexual assault mentioned, description of sick/blood

Masterlist

“London?”

I nodded, eyes fixed firmly on the hands I held in my lap.

“London?!” Matty exclaimed again, only louder this time. He’d stopped pacing to stare down at me. The rest of the boys who had gathered on the sofa were all strangely quiet.

“Yeah, Matty. London.”

“The fuck she want to send you there for?” He argued back, and although I knew his anger wasn’t directed towards me, rather the situation at hand, I still couldn’t quite look him in the eye.

Things at home had gotten… worse. Not that I’d ever let them know. And although I didn’t want to leave the lads for the summer, I didn’t think I could handle staying there another second longer.

“My nan’s down there. Reckons it’ll be good for me, to get away.” I told him in reply, unable to help the small shrug I gave before I begun biting at a loose thumbnail, “It’ll only be for a week or so.”

“But, but what about the EP? And our gigs!” Matty fought back and, honestly, I was all too thankful for the moment when I heard Hann intercept the start of what would only be another long spiel.

“It’s not like she can really tell her mum no, mate. Besides, it’s like she said, it won’t be for long. We’ll still have the rest of the summer.”

Hann looked around at the rest of the boys, hoping to see their nods. He sighed when Matty only continued on, as though he hadn’t even said a word.

“You can stay here! Lou’ll be in Spain with Dad, Mum’s still filming so she won’t even notice- not that she’d mind.” Matty started to plan, glancing towards the rest of the room for some sort of approval. “It’s a good idea, ain’t it? That way, we can all still be together.”

I exhaled, not quite a sigh, “And what do I tell my mum, when my nan phones her up and asks why I’m not there?”

Matty groaned in agitation. “Tell her to piss off! And that you’re spending the summer with your mates.”

I wish it was as easy as that.

“Matt.” Ross cut in with a certain gruffness that made Matty pause. Ross turned towards me afterwards but I couldn’t force myself to look back at him, eyes trained somewhere to the left of his head.

Ross wasn’t stupid, I knew that much. In fact, none of the boys were. But Ross was also obnoxiously observant, more so than most, and I knew that during the last few months he’d been taking notice of more things than not. He was catching on. Brushing off my excuses. Listening to the lies I weaved into truths and narrowing his eyes. He knew something was up.

“B,” He called to me- short for George’s nickname I supposed, but he hardly ever used it. My eyes skitted between his own, then away again in fear he’d be able to see it all written as plain as day across my face. “Listen, if you wanna go down to London, then go. Ignore this twat-“ Matty squawked indignantly. “The band stuff, the gigs, they’ll all still be here when you get back.” The ‘we’ll still be here’ went unsaid, but it was heard. “Only a few weeks, just like you said. If your mum wants you down there, must be a reason, ey?”

I wiggled my jaw. If only it was that simple, I thought, but simply shrugged again. “‘Spose.”

“What, so you actually wanna go?” Matty cut in, looking almost betrayed, always one for the dramatics. “Just leave us here, when everything’s finally fallin’ into place?”

I frowned at him, “No, I don’t wanna go. But-” I don’t want to stay in that house any longer.

“Exactly! Just tell her that then, babe!” Matty rushed out before I could even think of an end to that sentence, “She’ll understand, let you stay, and then we can have the entire summer, yeah?”

He was grinning so wide, it was hard to do anything but just nod in defeat. Ross and Hann shook their heads at him as they huffed and drew themselves up onto their feet.

“Alright, can we get to startin’ practice now then or is this family meeting still happening?” Hann not so subtly suggested, quirking a brow at the lot of us. I was just grateful for the opportunity to cut my loses and run, Ross was already moving over towards the amp, and Matty was nodding his hasty agreement.

“Gonna grab some drinks first though.” The curly haired singer added, and he darted out of the garage before Hann could stop him. I chuckled under my breath at Adam’s pained expression and settled further into the settee, making myself comfortable there. It was then that I caught George’s eye though and he jerked his head over towards the driveway, a quiet indication.

I chewed on the inside of my lip before I ultimately nodded, holding back a sigh. He got up first and then I followed, ignoring Hann’s exasperated huff and the lingering look I felt from Ross.

I thought that’d been it, the London topic dropped. But luck was never on my side and even though I had no idea what George would possibly have to say on the subject, I could see that he’d been far too quiet in there. Something was coming.

He wandered a way away from the garage door, slipping round the side of the house and towards the garden gate before he finally stopped, pausing to settle against the low brick wall there. It was a place we often favoured whenever we wanted a breath away from the others, sheltered by overhanging trees and bushes, you could sort of feel invisible there.

George was quiet even as he tugged an already opened pack from his jean pocket and plucked a cigarette from its case. On impulse I pulled out my lighter and flicked it open for him, lighting the end like I usually did.

“How’s Steven doing?” He asked rather abruptly, so much so that a wad of spit caught in the back of my throat at the question and I had to fight not to choke.

“Why the fuck are you asking me that?” I retorted, swallowing harshly and catching my breath.

He didn’t look at me, eyes hard and focused on the opposing wall. He shrugged a shoulder lazily, but I knew better. “You never mentioned London.”

“And what the hell has my mum’s dick of a boyfriend got to do with London?” I sputtered back heatedly, already knowing the answer.

George levelled me with a look and inhaled slowly, gaze finding mine.

“You know what.”

I scowled and folded my arms promptly across my chest. “Fuck you.”

He rolled his eyes at my reaction and billowed out a breath of smoke above us, handing me the fag in quiet offering. I shook my head. He sighed.

“I thought-”

He tried, but I quickly shut him down, “Fuck what you thought, you don’t know a thing.”

George held a single hand up in mock surrender, ash falling with it. I steeled my gaze on the thick cement tiles below us.

“Not claiming to, Birdie.” George said in his usual tone, unaware of what that nickname of his did to me. “But I know something’s up. Reckon the guys are noticing things too.”

I rubbed the curve of my arm subconsciously, knowing there was truth in his words.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked exhaustedly, all the fight I typically had had been drained from me.

The question had been mostly rhetorical, but George wasn’t the type to care. “The truth.” He answered and I could feel his stare trained on me now.

“The truth?” I scoffed tiredly, the bitten flesh of cheek I so often ground between my teeth was scarred, bumpy as I pressed my tongue to it and thought the whole thing over.

‘Truth’ was something we’d taken to using for a while now, in the buzzing hum of our frequented cafe, within the confines of the shed at the end of my garden, sprawled on his bedsheets whilst getting high. It’d started after a small falling out I’d had with Vicky a few months prior and had continued on almost unconsciously.

Now though, I didn’t know what to tell him, what truth to acknowledge. What he wanted to hear.

George mimicked the low hum I made, cigarette pressed between his lips but otherwise unmoving. “Who’s idea was London then?”

“His.”

We both knew who I was talking about.

“Right.” George nodded once, “She just agreed then?”

She, being my mum. I dipped my chin, a silent confirmation.

His thumb was tapping away at the jut of his knee now, a rhythmic tic I often stilled with a hand covering his own. I couldn’t find it in myself to reach out and touch him now though.

“Why’s he want you gone?”

In truth, I really didn’t know. Maybe I’d gotten too much. Perhaps he’d gotten fed up.

“Think he has better things in mind than having me hang ‘round all summer.”

“You want to go?”

I let his question hang there for a moment. I was toeing two sides of the line with my answer. To go would be easier on everyone, I’d see my Nana, get to explore a whole other city, and have the chance to escape them. But being away also meant leaving the boys.

George didn’t mind not hearing my verbal reply, I think he already knew my answer. He just wanted to be sure of it. He went on, “My mum’s back in town next week.”

A truth for a truth.

“You never mentioned it.” I said, picking at a fraying edge on my denim shorts.

He gave a slow shrug, “You never mentioned London.”

“Only found out a couple days ago.” He raised a brow in return, thinning his lips. I sighed, “Alright, I should’ve said something sooner but I was thinking it over.”

George hummed, “Dad only told me this mornin’.”

Maybe that’s why he’d been so reserved since we’d met up. The whole way to Matty’s he’d barely spoken a word, but I’d been overly anxious, knowing I was planning to tell them about London, which meant that I’d been talking a mile a minute- an attempt I often used to cover it.

“What are you gonna do?” I asked him, peering up at his solemn features through a lock of fallen hair.

“What I always do. Stay out of her way.” He told me honestly before he took a longer drag. I watched his chest rise with it, observed how his eyes fluttered slightly. He was always so interesting to watch.

“Could come to London with me. Hide out there.” I offered and was met with the slight quirk to his mouth, he was amused by my words. “I’m serious!” I reiterated and bumped a shoulder against his arm, “Me and you. Together. Nana loves strays.”

George just laughed at that and I couldn’t help the soft smile I made at the sound. “Sod off.” He told me around a chuckle, “London does sound nice though, be good for you I reckon.”

“For us.” I insisted, the idea fully lodging its way into my brain now. “Come on, G. Don’t you think it’d be fun?”

“Yeah sure, but the wrath Matty would rain down on us fucking won’t be.” George snorted, shaking his head at me softly.

“So?” I pestered again, shuffling round on the wall to face him properly, shin pressing against his outer thigh. He glanced down at it and then away, inhaling again. “I can phone her when I get in,”

“Phone who?” George interrupted just as my fingers found the flannel he’d thrown on that same morning. I toyed with it, rolling my eyes.

“My Nana! Keep up.” I huffed at him, “I’ll phone her, ask if she’d be okay with you coming along too and you can just tell the guys you’re being held hostage by your mum, she wants family time, forcing you to go and see an aunt or summat.”

George was wearing this barely there smirk, one I recognised as a crack in his usual stoic resolve. I was wearing him down.

“Think about it, G… You can avoid your mum and waste half your summer away with me.”

I raised my brows at him, hopeful, but he just stared back at me.

“And what would I tell my dad, my mum?” He retorted, finally stubbing out the end of his cigarette and flicking the butt of it into the soil behind us.

“Tell your dad we’re going camping. All of us. And we can leave before your mum gets in.” I explained, in full out planning mode now. I could see it all coming together in my head and tugged on the cuff of his sleeve in excitement. “Come on, G. Please? Be our little secret.”

George’s gaze trailed over my face, his expression as serious as my own. “You really mean it, don’t you?”

I tilted my head, confused by his sentiment. “Of course I do. If I could, I’d take you everywhere with me. It’s us against the world, G. Always.”

He cracked the tiniest of smiles, an action I knew he had no control over, and it only seemed to grow as I matched it. I had him.

“So we’re really doing this then?” He breathed out in amused disbelief. I nodded with a painfully large grin as I wrapped my arms around his neck, leaning in closer.

“Best believe it.” I replied just as he knocked his forehead against mine. Both of us unable to bite back our smiles.

“London.” George whispered.

“London.” I mimicked, marvelling at the very idea of it.

To think, I’d been dreading this entire conversation. How things so quickly changed.

And change they would…

—

“Yeah, yeah!” I prattled away, hardly holding back my anticipation.

I’d been back barely five minutes before I’d hurried over to the landline, having snuck in through the back gate and shuffled up the drainpipe to my bedroom. I’d waited until I heard the front door slam then made a run for it, scurrying down the stairs and almost throwing the phone off its hook in my hurry. I had half hour until mum was due back from wherever she usually pissed off to, and didn’t have to worry about Old Steven seeing me as he’d just left for the pub.

“‘Course I’m excited, Nana. Haven’t seen you in ages!” I told the older woman, warmly, through the phone, twirling the chord around my finger as I did.

She was rambling away now, had been ever since I’d said hello. She’d been gruff in her answer at first, having thought I was one of those poxy telemarketers she could often never shake, but was over the moon to know it’d been me once she’d heard my voice.

Apparently she was rather excited to know that I was coming down to visit, though she hadn’t heard a word of it until I’d brought it up then- fucking mum. Still, she told me she’d set up the spare room and let my aunt know too, she sounded just as pleased as me. It was then that I thought it best to try and bring up George.

“Aunt Del will be so pleased to see you, love. Have to cook up something proper for when you arrive too, won’t I?”

I smiled fondly at her voice, her heavy accent so different to mine. “Don’t have to go to too much trouble for me, nan.”

“Oh bugger off, you daft cow! My granddaughter’s comin’ to see me, I’ll do as I please.” Nana scoffed and I bit back a giggle.

“Alright.” I appeased her, then she asked what day I’d be heading off. I thought it over for a second, knowing that G’s mum was due back Sunday night, so that morning probably gave us enough time to set off and make the train. “Sunday, Nana.” I replied and she hummed, but before she could say anything in actual reply I was quick to mention the deal-breaker. “Actually Nana, whilst I still have you, I um, I was meant to ask you something. Just, I don’t want to put you out or nothing…”

“Sweet, you’d best spit whatever ask you have out ‘fore you swallow your own tongue. I ain’t gettin’ any younger and the days ain’t gettin’ any longer. So out with it.” She demanded. She was just as I remembered, headstrong to a fault and overly blunt. The woman said what she pleased and if you didn’t like that then you’d simply have to deal with it, nowt to do with her.

I huffed a mirthful chuckle, “Sorry.”

“None of that now, sunshine. Tell me what you’re after.”

“See, I have this friend…”

“Oh, a friend, is it? Let me guess, this friend of yours, they headed down my way too?” She never missed a thing that woman, I’ll give her that.

“Might be.”

Nana laughed and I could hear her shuffling about, probably in the kitchen from the sound of pots clinking in the background. “Just like your father, I tell you. Cheek on the pair of ya.”

My heart caught at her words, no one spoke of my dad. To hear that I was similar to him in any way, well that paused my whirling mind for a split second.

Though to my Nana, it had just been an off handed comment, a slip of the tongue, because she was already breezing on by whilst I fought to catch up.

“Tell me about this friend of yours then. They nice? Treat you well?” Nana pestered, last she knew of my life here up North was my closeness with Vicky and my lingering eyes which were often casted towards her older brother, Jamie. How things had changed.

I smiled at the questions and thought of George. He was a hard person to describe in truth. There wasn’t a thing I disliked about him. There were things that annoyed me about him, sure- he was one of few people who knew exactly what buttons to press- but describing George, well it sort of felt like describing myself. That, plus, I didn’t want to give too much away.

“He’s nice, Nana.”

She hummed and I heard the sweet drawl to it, as though she was grasping at something. The sound made me flush a tad. “He’s nice, is he?”

Put my foot right in it there. Could’ve tried getting away with it by being vague, have her think it was a girl ’til George’s ginormous self gangled his way through her door, but nope.

“Yup.” I popped back, too far gone to backtrack now.

My feelings towards George were honestly a confusing mountain of mess, but they had yet to make me force him away. Hearing my nan allude to something of the like did not help at all.

“Hm, and he’s wantin’ to follow after you, is he? Down ‘ere to see little old me.”

I shook my head even though she couldn’t see. “It were my idea. I-”

She stopped me short, “No need to explain, dove. He sounds like a very nice friend, this boy. One you’d like to keep near I assume?” I hummed noncommittally and could hear her devious smile, “Handsome is he?”

“Nana.” I droned out, regretting ever having even mentioned it now. Should’ve just surprised her, at least then she wouldn’t be teasing me like this. Actually, scrap that. That was a complete lie. She so fucking would.

“‘Course he can come along, love.” She allowed, relenting with her teasing a tad, or so I thought. “Just got the one spare room though, so if you don’t mind putting up with him for a couple nights… or I ‘spose I could just make up the sofa.”

“Whatever’s easiest for you, Nana. And thank you. I,” I inhaled slowly, the sound sharp in the quiet of the house, “I really do appreciate it, you putting me up and that.”

“Nonsense. Always worryin’ ‘bout you up there, that mother of yours never phones.” Nana tutted. If she only knew that half of it, I thought to myself. “But anyway darlin’, there’s nothin’ to thank me for, only way you could is with a pack of Rothmans Blue- Superking, mind.”

I snorted to myself, “Consider it done. Sunday paper, too?”

“Oh, you know me so well. Daily mail, none of that other shite.”

I mouthed the last few words as she spoke them, knowing that they’d be coming, and grinned when I was right.

“‘Course not.” I said with a smile, “If you need anything else picking up, call this time Saturday, yeah?”

“You got a schedule or somethin’ there, lovie?” Nana joked, laughing lightly even as my own smile faltered slightly.

“Something like that.” I murmured, then thought I heard the key turn in the front door.

My head snapped towards the sound, sheltering the phone against my shoulder to listen in closer.

Yeah, someone was definitely home.

Wary, I hurried to say my goodbyes, “Listen Nana, think that’s mum headed in now with the shopping. I’d best go and help her.”

“Shoppin’? This late?” Nana questioned but I was already standing, bouncing from foot to foot, praying to every star in the night sky that it was mum and not Steven.

“Yeah, she had a late shift tonight. Is that alright, Nana? I’ll call before I leave Sunday, okay?”

I was fretting now, heart racing as the door hinges begun to squeak.

“‘Course it is, love. Say hello to your mum too, won’t ya, sweetheart? And I’ll see you Sunday.”

“I will, love you.” I rushed out and was left with the beginnings of a smile when I heard her parrot it back to me. I hung up just as the front door slammed closed and jumped towards the kitchen sink like a trapeze artist would a free-falling rope. More than grateful to see that there were a few cups littering the basin.

I was washing up just as she walked in, I heard her paused in the archway, probably surprised to see me down here.

“What you doin’ that for?” She asked me and I glanced over my shoulder, holding back a shaky breath whilst I flashed her smile.

“Just thought I’d be helpful, mum.” I replied and turned back to the task at hand to subtly release the balloon of air that’d been swelling in my chest.

She hummed indifferently and tossed her purse down onto the kitchen table, “Steve in?”

I shook my head, “Wasn’t here when I got back.” Liar.

“Right.” She worked her jaw, staring off into space before she headed over towards the fridge, plucking up a cider. “Gonna run a bath, back’s been killin’ me. You alright to make your own tea?”

I swallowed back the hollow laugh that wanted to escape me, I always fixed my own tea. Did everything myself. “Yeah, mum.” I told her instead of voicing that though, choosing not to glance her way again.

“Right.” She repeated and then I heard nothing for a few beats before her feet were wandering out of the kitchen again and up the stairs.

I let myself slump against the counter as I listened to her disappear, hands covered in soap duds and not caring for the water that dripped its way down my forearm. I let my eyes fall close for a brief minute. That’d been too close for my liking.

—

I told George of the talk I’d had with my nan, along with the plan, the next day. We’d leave about nine, Sunday morning, to try and make it to London before the rush of lunch, and my Aunt Del would then pick us up from the station soon after.

We’d been sat on the school playing fields, waiting for the rest of the guys. Just lazing about there, seeing as we only had a couple days before school finally let out. Days like these were always the best kind though, when the teachers gave up on teaching us anything and just stuck a film on. Hoping it’d quiet our ever growing excitement. Did it fuck.

“I didn’t think you were being serious!” George exclaimed with a light laugh once I’d finally finished, eyes wide as he glanced down at me. I was sprawled out on the grass, head in his lap.

“Of course I fucking was! Do you not know me at all?” I replied in the same tone he’d used, titling my head back to exaggerate my own eyes. “We said it! We agreed!”

“So? I said I’d pull the plug on Matty’s life support machine if he ever ended up braindead, don’t mean I’ll actually do it.” George snorted right back, hands toying with the ends of my hair.

“Well, he’s not far off, is he?” I teased, even though Matty wasn’t around to hear. “And besides, I’m not Matty. I’m me. And you,” I exaggerated, pointing a finger up at him, “can’t say no to a face like this.”

“When d’you get so vain, ey?” Was all that George replied. I rolled my eyes and huffed.

“Please, G. Nana’s excited to meet you now. Can’t let her down, can you? Imagine what it’ll do to her poor old heart.”

He dragged a thumb across my lip, wiping the pout I wore right off my face. The surprising action didn’t deter me though, neither did the sickening butterflies I felt.

“Heartless heathen. Just watch this space,” I told him in false seriousness, “See when I turn up all alone and she’s devastated. So utterly heartbroken.”

“Oh shut up, would you?” George huffed, tugging on a strand of my hair and rolling his eyes at my scowl. “I’ll go.” My face quickly morphed and I knew he saw it when he leant in closer to cut off whatever I’d been about to say, our noses a breath apart. “But, only if you help me break it to the boys- my dad as well.”

I mulled it over, “I could do that.”

“You say that now.” He chuckled down at me, brown eyes dancing between my own before he pulled away and glanced over to see the boys headed our way.

To say that the rest of the band had taken the news of George’s departure easily was an utter lie. As expected, Matty had gone off on one, all grumpy and disheartened. Hann had sighed, but said that they could put off any recording sessions for a week or so. And Ross had just sat there grinning lazily at us like a overweight cat stretched out in the sun, unbothered by it but also looking a little too smug for my liking.

I’d narrowed my eyes at him but said nothing.

George’s dad on the other hand was a whole other story.

I’d only met the man twice. Once when he’d caught me up in George’s bedroom, splayed out on the floor after having fallen out of a handstand his son had dared me into. Then a second time in the supermarket on the high street, I’d been grabbing food for the house seeing as no one else could be bothered, and he’d been on the phone to someone or other, heatedly whispering away. We’d caught each others eye, gave a strange awkward wave, then sped off down separate aisles.

I’d been mortified both times. Not the best impression to have left on anyone, let alone your mate’s dad.

Still, I’d agreed to help and so now here I was. Sat in George’s kitchen, him at the stove, me perched by the table, both of us waiting for his dad to come home from work.

I was biting at my knuckle nervously, eyes trained on the door, George swatted my arm when he finally noticed, passing by me to pull a pack of pasta from out of the cupboard. “Why’re you so worked up? He’s harmless, plus you’ve met him before.”

Harmless, that’s how Matty often described George. I wondered if the two of them were much alike. Like my dad and I.

“I’m not.” I defended, but was levelled with a look telling me to cut the bullshit. “Fine, I just- I don’t know! Okay? Will you just run me through the story again?”

George chuckled to himself, pouring pasta shells into some salted water. “I’ll start, hint that a few of us are wanting to go camping. He won’t ask who, but if he does just say the lads. Like Hann and that- don’t mention Matty though, they’ve met.”

“He doesn’t like Matty?” I questioned with a pinched brow.

George’s shoulders moved with an unsure shrug, his back to me as he checked on the sauce he was making. I found it strange how I never knew he could cook til now. Or at least I hoped he could, I was supposed to be eating this.

“Nah, not that he doesn’t like him. Just thinks he’s a bit…” He replied, searching for the right word.

“Over the top? Eccentric? Loud?”

With a snort, George nodded. “Yeah. So, just be wary.”

I hummed, fiddling with the coasters that sat nearby. George’s house was nice, looked hardly lived in but it was tidy and inviting. Nothing as extravagant as Matty’s, but not quite like mine either. His family did well for themselves, you could see it.

“You don’t have to do this, you know. I was just pulling your leg earlier.” He told me after a minute or two had passed in quiet.

I shook my head. “I said I would, didn’t I? Don’t go back on my word.” I ridiculed, giving him a knowing look as I thought back to his first agreement over the trip to London. George just rolled his eyes at me and turned back towards the stove again.

Besides, I thought to myself, I was here now. Might as well.

The telltale sign of a car pulling up onto the drive sounded then and my eyes widened on their own accord. “Oh shit.”

I was regretting everything now. I had no idea how to act, or what to say. I wanted to crawl under the table and hide until it was safe to come out again. My mind screaming at me to just make a run for it before I fucked the entire thing up.

I was sat staring a hole into the kitchen door, just waiting anxiously, when George carded a hand through my hair. I hadn’t even heard him approach.

“Don’t stress.”

I glanced up towards him, then blew a heavy breath out of my nose, letting my forehead fall against his stomach.

“How can you say that? I’m freaking out, G.” My words were muffled by his t-shirt and so I felt it when he gave a muted chuckle in return. Strangely, the movement soothed me, but the gentle hand he held to the back of my head helped too.

“You’ll be fine, B.” He murmured out into the kitchen and I pulled away when I heard the front door rattle. “Besides, when have I ever let you down?”

I released a shallow breath and then plastered on a more convincing smile. I caught George’s hand in mine just before he went back to watching the boiling pot and squeezed the digits, he returned the gesture kindly. I was thankful to have him, I realised in that moment, the easy way we worked only just hitting me then.

George was back by the stove when the kitchen handle turned and we both glanced over in the direction of the door to watch his dad walk on through it. The man was tall, that was the first thing I noticed, he had to duck his head to wander through the frame so that he wouldn’t hit it, and he also looked a lot like George. They shared the same eyes.

“Oh.” The older man paused when he spotted me at the table, slowing his movements ever so slightly to process it. It seemed that syllabic reactions were also something that the pair shared too.

“Hi, Mr Daniel. Hope me being here isn’t too much of a bother.” I greeted him, trying for polite, my voice was quieter than I expected though and I noted the way George’s furrowed brow turned towards me when he heard it too.

George’s dad stepped further into the kitchen, placing a carrier bag down on the kitchen counter before he walked over to drop his briefcase onto a wooden chair.

“Not a bother.” His accent was peculiar, it held a hint of, what I could only assume to be, Dutch, that was overpowered slightly by his low speech. “And I’m Jules, no need for formalities. You must be Y/n.”

I nodded and gave a smile when he quirked one of his own, however tiny. “I am, it’s nice to properly meet you.” I told him as he propped himself into the seat sat opposite me.

“Yes, I agree. Though I have heard a lot about you, George has spoken of you before.” Jules informed, analysing eyes flitting over to where his son was stood, pretending to be absorbed in his cooking, before they settled back on me, “He speaks highly of you.”

A genuine smile broke out across my face then and, unable to stop it, I glanced down to my lap in hopes to hide it.

“That’s kind of him.” I laughed softly and was pleased when George’s dad chuckled along with me, it was a resonant sound one that came from deep within.

“My son’s a good boy. A kind one. I hope he’ll turn into a good man also.”

The look he casted George was sweet, one I couldn’t relate to but adored all the same. This man held his son in high regard, he loved him.

George decided to grace us with a bit of input then. “Are we done talking about me now?” He quipped, looking a bit self-conscious which was new. “Just waiting for him to start telling you my most embarrassing moments or pull out the baby photos.”

I flashed his dad a hopeful grin, “I’d love that.”

Jules just laughed and glanced towards his son. “I like this girl. Where did you find her?”

George shook his head in retort, rolling his eyes but not hiding his fond smile. “She found me.”

The two of us shared a look then and laughed- he had a point.

“Oh?” Jules said, questioning gaze jumping between the both of us now.

“I heard him play. At school.” I acquiesced the older man’s wondering and instinctively he knew I was talking about drumming. “He was hiding away in the music room when I’d been walking past, decided to poke my head in.”

“Ambushed me, more like.” George scoffed, a tea towel slung over his shoulder, looking every bit like the chef he was feigning to be.

“I did not!” I gasped.

George laughed loudly, I was marvelled by the sound but I didn’t let it put me off upholding my honour.

“You did.” He affirmed, “Gave me an address on a piece of paper like some slick gangster and told me to be there.”

“I- it was-” I tried to find the right response but he had me there- although, slick gangster was quite the compliment if I was being honest. “I was just trying to be helpful! Besides, you hardly said a word to me. I thought you hated me at first!”

George quirked a brow, as though this was a surprise to him, maybe it was.

Jules cut in, his question held a hint of mirth, “An address?”

George glanced towards his dad and nodded once more, “For the band. That’s how I joined.”

“Ah.” George’s dad sounded, “Are you in this band too?” He asked me.

George snickered and I tried not to glare at him as I answered Jules. “No, just the boys. I keep them all in order though.”

“The world would crumble without a woman in charge. Count yourselves lucky.” Jules sent a grin towards his son, it was toothy and I noted that the fine lines around both his eyes and mouth resembled those I’d seen on George. His familiar eyes found mine next, “Do you play though?”

I shook my head, if only. “I can play a few chords on the piano but I’m no Chopin.” Adam’s doing, that.

“Sing?” Jules questioned and I found myself wringing my hands beneath the tabletop.

“A little. Not in front of people though.” I told him honestly, not paying mind to the pause George made or the way his expression deepened. “It’s something of my own.”

Jules looked to me then, really looked at me I mean, and dipped his head in an earnest understanding. “Some things are meant for the heart, these are the things that keep us grounded.”

I nodded too, thankful that he could relate in some way, and the kitchen settled into a peaceful lull for once. No nervous energy to be found. George turned his back on us to drain the pasta and stir a pot.

After a few muted minutes filled with George just puttering about, he padded his way over and placed two plates before his dad and I. We thanked him and he returned with one of his own as well as a bowl of grated cheese. He and his dad tucked right in, loading up on the mountain of parmesan, I however passed.

George cleared his throat once we’d all settled in, his foot finding my ankle beneath the table. I peered over to him but he was still staring down at his dinner. “I forgot to mention, dad. There’s this trip coming up.”

“At school?” Jules asked him, not noticing George’s awkward stance, the way his shoulders were hunched over his plate. I nudged my knee against his encouragingly.

“No, um just a group of us. To celebrate the end of the year.” He replied, having paused in his eating now to watch his dad’s reaction, who was still chewing happily away. “Camping.”

That did catch the man’s attention. “Camping?” He mimicked, one brow raising as he looked to George. “Where?”

“Down by the coast. Margate way.” Wow, he’d really thought this through.

His dad hummed around his next mouthful, then turned to me. I tried not to falter under his attention and the sudden pressure I felt. “Are you going, Y/n?”

I swallowed.

“I am. It’s a big group of us. Seven or so.” I replied. In truth, there was an actual trip happening with some of the kids in our year- Vicky was actually going. They were all headed to some festival, a few of them camping out there, others staying in hotels nearby or with mates. When Matty had first heard about it he’d wanted to tag along, but then he’d saw the lineup and thought better of it.

“And your parents don’t mind?” Jules prodded, ignoring the sharp look George sent him.

“My mum is looking forward to the peace.” I joked with a soft chuckle, aiming to ease some of the nervousness I felt. “But she doesn’t mind, as long as I keep in touch and stay safe.”

God, I’d really pulled that one out of my arse, hadn’t I?

Jules seemed to buy it though and hummed again, folding his hands together. “When is this?”

“Next week, they’re leaving Sunday.” George answered, taking a sip of the drink he’d made us earlier.

“Your mother-” His dad attempted to say but George was swifter, “I know, that’s why I’m asking you now.”

Jules didn’t look too happy about the interruption or having been put on the spot, but didn’t comment on it, nor did he add to George’s explanation.

“I could call her, mention it.” Jules murmured, thinking it over as his eyes passed over his son’s. “But I don’t think she will mind. As long as you have fun, ah?”

The older man grinned and I felt the tightness in my chest loosen, going back to my food as the duo continued to talk more about the trip and then the football match that was supposedly on later tonight.

I smiled to myself, figuring that this was probably the most normal family interaction I’d been apart of in a long time. And my smile only grew when George trapped my ankle between both of his feet, a silent acknowledgement.

He walked me home later that evening, hands in our pockets after having said a quiet goodbye to his dad, who’d looked just about ready to nod off on the sofa.

It was quiet out and the walk was short so we decided on taking the long way, talking amongst ourselves, me staring up at the stars, him kicking at the pebbles we passed by.

“You never mentioned singing before.”

George’s sudden mention of the earlier topic faltered my step briefly, but I kept looking on. “Not something I tell most people.” I replied with a lazy shrug.

“Why?” He asked me, and if it’d been anyone else I’d’ve told them to mind their own. But this was George. George who new more parts of me than most. Who knew and didn’t judge. Who never whispered a word of it to anyone.

I rolled my lips against one another. “It was just something I always shared with my dad.”

George didn’t say anything for a minute or so, probably mulling it over, thinking of something to say. People always got so tense whenever I mentioned him. Death made people weird.

“You any good?”

That ask prompted an unexpected laugh from me and I peered over at him with a bright smile, teeth brushing against my lower lip.

He knew me so well. I didn’t need pity, apologies, sympathy.

“The next Britney, me.”

George grimaced and I chuckled some more before gazing down at my feet.

“I don’t know. My dad liked to hear me, said it reminded him of when his grandad used to take him to the local market down by the lock near their house. The women there used to sing on the barges that passed.”

George hummed around a sweet smile, “Will you sing to me?”

“Not even on your dying day.” I quipped right back, laughing when he stopped to narrow his eyes at me.

“Come on, just a song. A verse!” He attempted to bargain but I wouldn’t budge, shaking my head.

“You’re going to get me in trouble, you know.” I told him with a laugh, “Was meant to be home twenty minutes ago, I’ll have to shuffle up the drain again.”

“Well, we’re already late so you’ll still have to make do with that drainpipe of yours, or I can offer you a shoulder up.”

I snorted softly, “What a sight that’d be if a neighbour saw.”

George gifted me a lopsided grin and continued on walking, “So no chance of a song then?”

I shook my head.

“Not even if I swore to moon the headmaster tomorrow morning?”

I wasn’t quick enough to swallow down my loud cackle, not having expected that response from him.

“As if you’d showcase your spotty arse to the entire school.”

George hip-checked me, “Fuck you, I do not have a spotty arse.”

“Well, how would I know? I’ve never seen it.”

“This your way of asking?” He smirked back, winking at me.

My jaw dropped at his blatant cheek, honestly so surprised I struggled to find a proper retort. “You wish.”

George snorted at the flustered reply and continued walking on with a proud grin. He’d bested me there, we both knew it.

I huffed and let him have the win. Mostly because we were fast approaching my house and I could already see that the lights were still on.

With a sigh, I slowed my steps, all but lugging myself along the pavement now. George seemed to notice, but when did he not?

“You can always call me, you know? Just a text away.” He spoke, voice trailing out along the late summer air.

He knew I was dreading going inside, but that was to be expected. I always felt that way.

Instead of making any fuss though I merely grinned, waving him off. “I’ll be fine. But make sure you put your dad to bed, hey? Heard him complain about his back as he bent down to get in the freezer. He’ll regret kipping on that settee come morning.”

George gave me a small smile, finding amusement in my truthful words, but I could see the concern in his eyes. The worry lines that aged his face.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” I assured, smiling up at him. “Last day and then we’re home free, G!”

George nodded at the reminder and tugged a hand out from his pocket to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, fingertips trailing along my jaw ever so gently. I held my breath. Wondering if he’d finally close that distance between us. If he knew I wanted it just as badly.

But then he pulled away again and I tried to hide my sinking disappointment.

“See you tomorrow, Birdie.”

I gave him a crooked smile and pushed up on my tiptoes to press a careful kiss to his cheek. “Tomorrow. Night, G.”

…

I was on a bit of a high as I made my way around the side of the house, trainers dodging the dried out mud puddled beneath the kitchen window before I slid through the wearing wooden gate.

George hadn’t made a move but it was a baby step.

Ross’s words repeated on a loop in my head as I climbed my way up onto the garden wall to grab at the ledge sat just above the backdoor. Once I was stable there I shuffled my way up and over to my bedroom window, always just leaving it off the latch.

‘He’s half fucking in love with you.’

‘But that’s alright, I guess. Seeing as he has no clue that you like him too.’

He was a wise one, our Ross. But I don’t know, part of me was desperate to believe him, the other fearful- of what, I wasn’t quite sure.

I forced out a heavy breath as I lugged my body in through the open window, being mindful not to make too much noise as I stuck my landing.

With a breathless exhale I spun around to close the window again, startling when I saw a figure sat in the corner of my room, looming in the old wicker chair I’d had there for years.

My hand jumped up to my racing heart as I processed the shock, biting back the sudden fear that crawled its way up the back of my neck when I noticed his predatory grin.

“Been wonderin’ how you’ve been sneakin’ in and out without me noticing.” Steven commented causally, as though it was perfectly normal for a grown man to be sat up waiting for a teenage girl in her bedroom. “‘Cause at first, you see, at first I reckoned you were just pretty stealthy. Funny that, what with you bein’ so lard.”

He snorted at his own joke, but I paid his cruel words no attention, far too used to the rotten things he’d often spout. Men were all the same, only Steven just didn’t have a single good bone in his body.

I walked over to my dresser, fiddling with the rings there before I reached for a hair tie. I was trying not to show him that I cared, that I hated him for invading my space, that I wanted to run as quick as my legs would let me away. If I did then it was game over, he’d win.

I almost didn’t hear him stand, so I tensed slightly when a floorboard creaked beneath his weight. He approached from behind, his face coming into view beside mine in the dresser mirror. I didn’t look him in the eye.

“Where you been then? Out with yer mates, or were you gettin’ your leg over?”

Bile rose, it suffocated my senses for a moment before I steeled myself. He wouldn’t get the upper hand here. I wouldn’t give him a reaction.

“Saw you outside with that lad. Harry down the pub says your often with him, sees the two of you out late most nights.” Steven said snidely, “Do you love him, pet? Reckon he loves you back, do ya?”

My eyes flew up towards his in the mirror, “Did you want something, Steven?”

He whistled lowly then and I watched his mouth tug up into a menacing smirk as his eyes grazed over my face in the reflection, slowly making their way down to the curve of my neck and then lower. I kept my head held high even as I turned to slide out from between him and the dresser, only I wasn’t quick enough.

His hips jerked out instinctively and he pinned me to the wooden drawers. My mind buzzed, I was panicking now. He’d never gotten close like this. A punch here, a shove there. But, never like this.

“Let me go.”

“Why, petal? Don’t you think we could have some fun?”

“Let me go.” I repeated, firmer this time, fists steeled against the countertop.

When he only laughed at my reaction I took the chance his ego gave me, kicking back swiftly with my leg to hit him just below his knee and buckle him. He did, but only just, springing out to claw at me as I darted my way to the bedroom door.

I screamed when I felt his hands catch at my waist, but the handle was already in my hand and so I tugged as hard as I could. It opened, flying out to catch the side of my face.

Shocked by the sudden impact, my head fell limply and I stopped struggling for a moment. His hold tightened though and I knew I had to keep on, get to the stairs, then to the front door.

Just get out.

“Let go!” I screeched, scratching at his greedy hands and tugging my body relentlessly towards the hallway.

It was a game of tug-of-war, and for him I supposed I was the prize. But I wasn’t too easily won. I sent another kick backwards, he avoided it. I used the same foot to crash down hard on his toes, he yelped and loosened his arms slightly in surprise, enough for me to break out into the hall, crashing into the wall opposite my room.

His fist collided with the back of my head just as my cheek bounced off the photo frame mum had hung there, I slumped lower, wiggling my way downwards and towards where I knew the banister would be.

“Don’t, be, difficult.” He grunted out.

“Fuck you.” I spat back.

On the floor now, I rolled over and ignored the carpet that burned the skin of my arms. I kicked harder, vision hazy as he loomed over me. He struck me again for talking back, like he often did whenever he was home, but then hit me twice more just because he could. Laughing about it now.

I forced myself backwards, the hallway was dim, the only light coming from the bedroom at the end of the walkway. I wondered if she was in there. If she could hear all of this. “Mum?” I called out, wailing almost. “Mum!”

Steven laughed harder at that. “She ain’t here. Even if she were, she’d be no help to you, you little tramp. Now get up!” He ordered and I felt the back of my hand brush against the wooden beam of the banister. “Up!”

I did as I was told, legs trembling before me. He struck me back down again, then ordered the same. “Up!”

I could hardly feel anything but the licking fire that flooded my veins, every inch of my body hurting. But I couldn’t let it show.

I stumbled to my feet, vision so blurred I ought to be concussed. He pinned me to the wall there, hands roaming, I whimpered and he only grinned, getting in my face.

“Pretty when you try, ain’t you?” He snarked. I gritted my teeth and thrashed about, spitting in his face when I couldn’t smash his head away with my own.

He worked his jaw for a moment, blinking once at me before another disgusting smirk replaced his thinly pressed lips.

“I could kill you, here and now. Make it hurt, do it nice and slow. No one would even notice. Would they? No one would be none the wiser. You hear me?” He hissed brutally into my ear, I was quivering now, whimpering as he drew closer and closer, pressing against me. “Yer mum would thank me, kiss my feet even, for having gotten rid of the tart she birthed. She cries, you know. All the time. Tells me she wishes it were you who died, and not your old man.”

I choked on a sob, thrashing again. He laughed joyfully.

“Is that it? Do you miss yer daddy, little girl?” He taunted, mouth pressing against the skin of my cheek now, breath hot as his fingers worked at the button of my shorts. “But he ain’t comin’ to help you, petal. No one is.”

I turned my face further away from him, as far as I possibly could. Lip trembling and arms falling slack. He chuckled, shaking his head at me and tutting, but his mistake was thinking I’d make this easy for him. He could go fuck himself.

As soon as he released one of my wrists to paw at the cut of my shorts, I shot my knee out, colliding with his lower half hard. He groaned in pain, fingers flexing against the jut of my wrist when I shoved him as hard as I could away with my free hand.

He twisted the arm he still held as he stumbled slightly, but I couldn’t react, not even to the sharp pain that flew up towards my elbow. I had to take the chance while I still had it, thrashing even more and grabbing blindly for the ancient ornament my mum had kept on the shelf nearby for years. I brought it down hard once my fingers wrapped around its metal, smashing it against the hand that still encased my arm. He shouted out and in his agony flew his uninjured arm back at me, knocking the side of the ornament I still gripped and sending its pointed top sailing towards my neck. It pierced the thin skin between my collar and shoulder blade.

I pulled it free thoughtlessly, gawking at the sight of it before he came flying towards me. On instinct I chucked the hefty ornament back his way, catching the side of his head when he attempted to duck away from it. I darted towards the bathroom in the same second, the closest room available, and slammed the door shut behind me. Fiddling with the lock, it slipped through my fingers three times before it finally latched.

I looked around the room for anything to protect myself with, shaking violently, but my only option was the plunger and the cabinet on the adjacent wall. But I wasn’t even sure that it could come away. My next idea was the window.

Steven banged at the door then, a flight of fury, anger creeping in from the tiny gap beneath it as he shouted at the top of his lungs. I was already crouched in the sink, heartbeat filling up my ears. I fumbled with the window’s latch, coating the white windowsill in red as I forced the tiny pane open as far as it’d go.

I glanced out helplessly, trying to actively ignore the harsh thumping coming from behind me. I was a whole story up and had nothing to catch me down below, not even a ledge or a pipe to help me with my descent.

I paused for a moment to try and think things through, but that was my mistake, the bathroom door behind me splintered under the full force of his weight and he all but jumped across the tiled floor to grab at me.

I didn’t even think about it, throwing myself out of the open window in my panic, but not quick enough it seemed because his hand wrapped itself halfway around my leg like a snake would its prey. I was practically dangling upside down out of the window now, my hands desperately clawing at the brickwork to find something to hang onto. Still kicking as he tried to pull me back inside.

I’d rather die, I thought in the hectic haze, or maybe I screamed it.

I heard her voice then. Her screaming out his name, my eyes shot up to see a flash of her hair above me in the bathroom. But it was in that moment that he chose to finally release me. That he finally let me go. And I fell. Dropped. Barely even feeling the ground as I splattered against it, face full of grass, hip colliding with the concrete patio.

She called out for me then. Said my name. It was the first time I’d heard her say it in weeks.

My vision begun to flash, coming in and out of focus in thick streaks, I dragged myself upwards. Pain radiated throughout the length of my body as I did, but I just kept on going. Knowing if I kept on going then this would be the last of it. It would all be over.

Struggling, fighting with myself to just keep on, to escape, I staggered down the garden path to pass through the side gate and out onto the sheltered drive. I clung to the wall there, using it as a crutch to aid me along.

I could still hear their shouts over the ringing, the incessant ringing that distracted me from most of the pain. I kept on pushing, forcing myself out onto the street now. Someone was coming after me, I’d heard the door rattle open but hadn’t dared look back, too focused on moving forward.

My name.

I heard her call my name over and over.

But somehow, by some miracle, I managed to break into a limping run. My lungs ached and I was gasping for air, but once I’d made it far enough, as far as I was capable, I felt my body drop against the curbed pavement. Head buried in the gravel road, hand clutching at my throbbing shoulder.

Next thing I knew there were lights, people. Sirens.

I kept on screaming.

“Don’t touch me! Please!” I sobbed, utterly distraught, “Don’t!”

They couldn’t touch me. I wouldn’t- they couldn’t. I wouldn’t let them.

So many voices flittered in and out of focus, attempts to talk me down, to help.

Everyone had gathered around to witness, it seemed, and I caved further into my shivering body, unable to focus on their whispers, the gasps, the looks. I didn’t know where I was. I was too scared to even ask. Too shocked to notice the familiar faces that littered the neighbourhood, looking down at me. Too terrified that he’d find me. That I’d be dragged back.

I sobbed harder. Eyes flicking to and fro. Trying to assess the situation, looking for any and all warning signs. An escape. But I couldn’t. Head too heavy to concentrate, my thoughts shutting down.

Then there was a scuffle off to the far side and I tensed at the shouting that pursued, someone nearby was ordering people to step back, to go home.

Home, I wanted so desperately to scoff. How could I go home?

“Hey! You can’t be here.” They repeated, their voice itching at my skin, tightening every single muscle in my body. “Move away. Step away now!”

“She’s my friend! Let me fucking through. Y/n! Y/n!”

Breathless, my head snapped up at the call of my name and through my hazy vision, I caught a glimpse of him. Him. How he’d known I was here, I had no idea, but he was there.

“George.” I sobbed openly, and that was the signal that seemed to allow him access.

He all but threw himself towards me and the woman crouched about a foot away called out a warning to him, but I was reaching out too. Desperate for that safety that’d been so easily ripped away from me.

I continued to sob, for who knows how long. He held me, tight. An anchor and a protector. He never let anyone get near. The sirens and flashing lights faded, and all I could hear was his voice. He sounded so lost. I wanted to apologise. I wanted him to hold me tighter.

“Come on, B. You need to get up now, alright? I need you to let them check you over. You won’t stop bleeding.”

He kept on repeating himself. Over and over. I couldn’t understand why. I was fine. Terrified but fine. I didn’t need them. I didn’t need to be touched. I didn’t want to be looked at.

I wanted to go home. But where the fuck was home?

It wasn’t back there. It wasn’t with him.

I cried harder.

“Birdie. Hey, Birdie, babe. Listen to me please. I’m here. I’m here and I’ve got you. Come on, we’re going to get into the ambulance, okay? Together. Just me and you.”

Me and you. “Me and you.” I repeated, his hand tightening a fraction in mine.

“That okay? Can you do that for me, love?”

I think I nodded, I couldn’t be sure. Uncertain of which way was up and which way was down. I leaned against his sturdy frame. “George, I lied.” I gasped out to him through my relentless spluttering, clawing at his chest.

He didn’t reply.

“I lied, G! I said I’d be fine.” I cracked, barely even aware of the words I was spewing to him. “Can you stay? Please can you stay? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

He wrapped himself further around me, hand in my matted hair.

“Yeah, Birdie. I’ll stay. I’m not going nowhere.” He assured me, gentle as he lifted me up and into the ambulance. “I’ve got you.”

—

I’d always hated hospitals. Ever since my dad had died.

I hated the fact that I was here again, in the same one he’d left us in. Left me in.

I didn’t pay much attention to anything, only ever reacting when someone touched me without warning. Waking when a nurse would pop her head in or when someone would pass outside the door.

George was dozing in the chair beside my bed. I couldn’t remember calling him. I couldn’t remember much. I suppose I didn’t want to.

I ached. Everywhere.

But it was my mind that caused the most pain. Relentless in its pursuit to keep me under. To never let me forget.

I could still feel his hands. The groping, the press of his mouth. The breath on my ear.

I shivered, forcing back the tears and swallowing past the harsh lump.

My eyes fluttered again. Heavy now. Heavier than ever. The room faded, George’s faint breaths lulling my mind, sleep dragging me under.

——

“Fuck!” George hissed out, slamming his fist into the opposing wall to keep from chucking up whatever else his stomach had left to give. “Fuck.” He repeated, only with a lot less conviction, less drive.

She wouldn’t stop crying. She wouldn’t let them come near. She’d been so defenceless.

And where was I? His head screamed at him.

Where the hell was I?

His fist collided with the wall above the toilet again, face scrunched up tight to keep from crying too.

His breaths grew ragged, hands clenched hard enough to hurt, all whilst feeling sick to his stomach.

He startled.

A knock had sounded from just outside and he inhaled a sharp breath, waiting a moment, before he croaked out, “Yeah?”

He sounded so weak. Voice shaking.

“Um, there’s a call here for you, sir.” An unfamiliar voice spoke through the thick door, “Asking for a George Daniel.”

He swallowed thickly, the action doing nothing at all to dull the nausea that rolled through him. “Yeah.” He rasped in reply, pulling the toilet chain and moving towards the door as his insides flushed away.

He stepped out into the quiet corridor, to where she now laid asleep in the room opposite. George’s tired, albeit alert, gaze honed in on a nurse dressed in blue staring carefully back at him.

“They’ve phone three times now.” She told him, voice soft. “I kept them on the line, but I can’t hold them off any longer.”

George swallowed again and nodded to her, casting a long glance into the room beside them.

The nurse followed his eye, “She’s strong. They’ll let her go soon enough.”

He dipped his head and reluctantly let her lead him down towards the ward’s reception desk, to where a phone was sat off the hook. She gestured towards it with a nod and then left him to it.

It was late enough that there weren’t many people mulling about, let alone any visitors, he’d only been allowed to stay because she’d refused to be treated otherwise.

“Hello?” George answered, voice cracking, having picked up the phone and brought it to his ear.

“Fuck. George, that you, mate?”

Ross.

“Yeah, yeah it’s me.” He answered in a slow breath, “How’d you know to call?”

“It’s everywhere, mate. They say she got jumped, is it true? Is she alright?”

Jumped.

His mind lingered on that word. Staring off down the corridor. Lingered on the fact that people in their shitty fucking town were already gossiping about it. It made him hate himself a little bit more.

“She’s asleep.” Was all that he replied.

“Is she. Okay. George.” Ross demanded before the line went quiet once more, eerily George could still hear the other boy’s resolved glare from down the phone. It was a hard image not to picture.

“She’s,” He had to pause, force down the wetness in his tone, the tears that were coming. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Ross stressed and George had never heard him sound so serious. So grown up.

“They found her on the road just off of mine. Some woman.” He swallowed again, though the salvia was just pooling in his mouth at this point. “Y/n. She, she was screaming- sobbing. I only knew about it when I heard the sirens, the lights. I- I just had a feeling, Ross. I ran down, hoping, praying, but… Fuck.”

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and pinched the bridge of his nose, breaths laboured.

“George?” Ross called out to him, “You still there?”

“Yeah,” He rasped in reply, straining to keep his voice even as he wet the flesh of his lip. “She. She’s been checked over, they have her on a drip. No broken bones, just a few sprains. Said she jumped from a window.”

“She did what?”

“I don’t know. I don’t fucking know what happened, but it weren’t good.” George muttered to himself, bloodshot eyes trained on an off-centred tile a way away. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. She- there was so much blood, Ross.”

“Blood? What the fuck are you talking about, what went on?” Ross hissed down the phone, George knew that he wasn’t really asking him.

“Stab wound to her shoulder.” He answered though, needing to get it all out, in fear he’d never be able to again. “Wasn’t very deep but they stitched it up. Along with the cut on her head.”

“Hang on- stabbed? George, what?”

“I don’t know, Ross!” He stressed, tears blurring his vision now as he thought back to her sat there on that roadside, beaten, alone, sobbing. “I don’t know, okay! I just- I don’t know what to do. What do I do? What do I say?”

A long pause.

“It’s my fault.” He whispered brokenly into the receiver, “I let her leave. I let her go home.” He admitted quietly, tear rolling down the skin of his cheek. “It’s my fault, Ross.”

“G… mate, you can’t say that. It’s- you didn’t know.”

He did. He knew. He’d known for a long time how bad it was. How bad it’d been. He knew. He knew. He knew.

“It’s all my fault.”

A piercing scream startled him then and he all but dropped the phone to dart in its direction. Three long strides and he was at her door, shouting at the idiot that’d come in to tamper with the IV beside her, his entire body trembling.

“Get out!” He demanded, hands shaking in fury, in fear. Before he looked towards her, hating that he saw that same terror reflected on her face. He rushed to her side and she grabbed aimlessly for his hand, he let her take it. Let her burrow her face in his chest as he wrapped an arm around her and settled on the edge of the bed. “I’m here.” He murmured into her hair, “I’m here, Birdie.”

——

No one should’ve known, no one had heard it from me.

But everyone did.

The police had been by. Twice.

So had Matty’s mum, she’d charged in this morning and started making demands. Not daring to touch me, to ask questions.

She sat with me whilst they ran more tests, George outside with the boys. They were quiet. All four of them. I would’ve felt humiliated, deep down I probably did, but I couldn’t feel much of anything with how horrified I was. With how my mind never let up, never let me rest.

He’d been arrested, an officer had told me. Not charged, not yet. Maybe not ever.

My mum had come by asking questions, someone had sent her away. I hadn’t seen her.

Next thing I knew I was being carted out of the hospital and into the back of Denise’s car with a pile of leaflets and a therapist to contact. No one said a word.

The police were outside of Matty’s when we arrived, I ignored them until my eyes found George hunched on the settee. He was still in the same trackie bottoms from before, I could tell because they were still littered with specs of my blood. The white t-shirt was gone though, replaced by one of Matty’s biggest hoodies, which still looked too small on him.

Denise and George stayed with me whilst I was questioned again, repeating the same answers again and again. The boys just outside. I told the officers most of what happened. Told them about the way he’d treated me, and mum. How she wasn’t to blame. How scared she’d been. Liar.

They spoke to Denise as though I wasn’t there afterwards and, in a way, I supposed I wasn’t. Not really. Mind off elsewhere.

George had let me hold his hand through the entire thing, fingers pale against mine. He’d kept looking at me, every few seconds, as though he was scared I was going to disappear or maybe just fall apart.

I kept thinking back to him. To the ambulance ride. To the whispers he’d gifted me, the promises he’d made. How I’d lied. Liar.

School had been and gone, my last day snatched from not just me, but all the boys too.

Denise let me have the guest room, running me a hot bath and laying out some clothes. I’d been thankful for the offer but wary, George had followed me up in silence and then planted himself on the floor outside the bathroom without a word.

He’d still been there when I’d let the door creak back open, lifted his head and given me a tired smile before we’d both puttered into the bedroom.

It was barely even afternoon before I crawled into the bed upstairs. Larger than I was used to, having been holed up on the same twin sized mattress I’d had since I was thirteen.

I was fearful that George would go home at that point, but he merely showered and borrowed some more clothes off of Matty. He dwarfed them but I smiled as he entered the room to silently set up the blow up mattress Denise had brought in.

Matty had stopped by to say goodnight, pain in his pretty brown eyes, but with a brave smile limning his lips. I’d let him squeeze my hand before he’d left, shutting the door quietly behind him. George took up space on the mattress below and I shuffled all the way to one end of the bed to reach my hand out towards him. He took it without a second thought and I fell asleep like that, with his hand tucked safely in mine, his thumb soothing careful circles into the back of my wrist.

—

“Are you sure, sweetheart? I mean, you’re barely even out of hospital.” Denise fussed over me as I waited for George to join us downstairs.

It was finally Sunday. Which meant we were leaving.

“I’m sure.” I told her quietly, she hid her frown well but I could still see it there, behind the lingering look she gave me.

“At least let me drop you both to the station, or pack you something to take with you.” Denise continued, I smiled when she cradled my cheek. “You’ve hardly eaten since I’ve seen you! Worries me.”

I knew it did. Matty had already brought me up both breakfast and lunch, and it was barely gone ten.

“I’ll take the lift if you really are offering.” I acquiesced and watched a smile bloom on her face.

“Right then, I’ll go grab my keys.”

She puttered off just before George shuffled his way down the stairs, Matty talking his ear off all the while. I smiled at the sight of them, at the way George rolled his tired eyes.

He’d hardly slept, same as me, but I still felt a twinge of guilt ripple through me when he caught my staring.

“Oh look! It’s the second half to the pair of traitors I once called friends.” Matty scoffed as he bounced off the third step and dropped down onto the floor, he turned his nose up at me and I rolled my eyes in return. Unfazed by his melodramatics.

“Don’t be jealous, Healy. You’ll always be my favourite.” I smirked at him, hoping it looked as genuine as it felt.

Matty grinned in turn whilst George settled the duffle he’d picked up from his yesterday by the front door, he strolled back over to join us.

“Hear that, G? I’m her favourite.” Matty boasted, sniffing with an overly pleased smile.

George wrapped an arm around my shoulder and, naturally, I leant into him. “Don’t think it matters, mate. You’ll still be stuck here, whilst we’re off in the city.”

Yeah. Matty now knew of our little secret.

It had all come out late last night, when I’d fought tooth and nail with George about the trip down south. I still wanted to go, more now than ever. But he’d had his reservations.

With a childish scowl, Matty made a face in retaliation and propped himself up against the banister bar. “Still can’t believe you lied to us. I mean, where’s your sense of camaraderie?”

I chuckled to myself, hiding the soft sound in the groove of George’s shoulder.

“I’m stuck here, all fucking summer long, with Hann and Ross… mum too! I can already picture it! The four of us down at the pub, just drowning our sorrows and sniffling into our pints. You can’t actually leave me here with them!”

When I glanced back up Matty had seemingly decided to drop to his knees to beg for an invitation, hands clasped before him, that was also the same moment Denise decided to pop back in.

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Matthew. What in heavens are you up to now?” She scolded with a half-hearted huff, tutting as she shook her head at her eldest son.

“I’m making a plea, mum.” Matty told her in all seriousness, barely sparing her a glance as she passed by.

“For goodness sake.” Denise sighed, unable to do much else, which was almost always a given with anything Matty related. “Get up off the floor and make yourself useful, would you? I’ve got the hoover plugged in, be a dear and run over the rugs for me.”

Matty’s hands fell limply to his sides just as his mouth dropped in disbelief. He glanced back towards George and I. “You see what kind of hell you’re leaving me in? What teenage boy hoovers??”

“Mine!” Denise told him simply, poking at his shoulder to get him to stand with smile, “Now, run along. I’ve got to drop these two off before their train leaves, haven’t I?”

George and I took that as our queue to start grabbing at our things, him swiping up the small suitcase Denise had taken from mine yesterday before I had the chance. I flattened my expression, showing my displeasure.

“Mum.” Matty all but whined, neither one of them paying much attention to us now. “Can’t I just come? You know, see my mates off and all.”

Denise wasn’t a woman to be bargained with. “No, you’ll see them soon enough. Now, if you’d like to make your goodbyes while I start the car then have at.”

I bit back the giggle that wanted to escape me upon seeing Matty’s dejected face, whilst Denise double checked for her car keys and purse then slid out the front door yelling, “Five minutes!”

“You make it sound like I’d been sentenced to death, woman!” Matty shouted out after her and his mum’s reply was what broke the dam, letting a flood of muffled laughter escape me. “Hoover and you might just live to tell the tale, Matthew!”

Matty grumbled to himself, shaking his head before he peered back over at us with his hands on his hips, looking like a little old lady.

“So, you know what happened here then if I’m missing when you two get back.” He sighed, as though he’d already gone and accepted his fate. “Tell the coppers it was her, yeah? And have a party at my funeral, no fuckin’ tears or nothin’ either. Oh, and I want my coffin a bright pink, the flowers can-”

“Matt.” George spoke with an amused chuckle, cutting into Matty’s longwinded rant. He opened his arm out wide and snorted when the curly haired freak catapulted himself across the hall at him.

“Gonna miss you lot.” Matty mumbled into George’s shoulder before he pulled away and stepped towards me, a little warily. I moved over to him, silently assuring him that I wanted a good cuddle too. He grinned down at me and I felt him press a gentle peck to the top of my head when he’d wrapped me up in his arms. “Make sure you bring me something back, yeah? Something sick.”

I smiled fondly as we parted, squeezing his fingers briefly. “Promise.”

Matty’s gaze trailed between the two of us then and a sly smirk begun to overwhelm his features. “And I want all the details about this-” he waved a hand between us, “when you get back.”

The fucker. Way to make things awkward, I thought.

I honestly did go to correct him, to tell him that nothing had happened between George and I. But G beat me to it.

Well, not really, because he didn’t deny anything of the sort, just laughed as he treaded closer to the door. “Bye, Matty.”

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” Matty called out after us, and I chuckled as I followed George out.

Always one to make a scene though, Matty stood and waved us off from the front step of the house once we’d both settled in the car and Denise had just begun to pull away.

His mum only sighed.

—

I shifted again for what felt like the umpteenth time.

I was uncomfortable. Incredibly so, enough that I was quickly beginning to regret having been so stubborn about not postponing this entire trip when the offer had been there.

“You alright?” George asked from where he sat across the table from me, his hands toying with a ticket.

We were on the train now, the journey just under three hours. But we weren’t even a quarter of the way through yet and I was already dreading the rest of it.

I nodded in reply, still shuffling about. “Just can’t get comfortable.”

My body ached, my head and spine were bruised to bits, but it was just my hip that wouldn’t allow me to settle in my seat. The doctors reckoned I’d sprained it falling out that upstairs window, but they couldn’t do anything for the cramping I kept feeling other than offer me a prescription, which had just been an over-the-counter pain relief.

Tough fucking luck, hey?

“Here.” George motioned to me. I watched him jump up from the seat he’d fallen into when we’d first boarded and then jerk his head down at it.

I frowned slightly but stood carefully before rounding the tiny table which had separated us, observing closely as he rolled up his hoodie and bundled it against the car’s window. He ushered me in afterwards and I went, letting him take the seat beside me so that he could pull my legs up to lay across his lap.

“Better?” He questioned, a hand wrapped loosely around my ankle now.

I smiled and gifted him a grateful nod. It’d helped a ton actually.

“Good.” He replied, then pulled out a tiny notebook from the duffle he’d brought with him, “‘Cause now there’ll be no excuses when I beat you in hangman.”

I laughed at that. “Oh, you’re on.”

—

George’s quiet laughter only agitated me further as I mumbled to myself about ‘fucking trains’ and ‘toffy twats who didn’t know when to shut the fuck up’ as we manoeuvred our way through the hectic crowds of Kings Cross Station.

We’d spent the last half of our journey surrounded by a bunch of rowdy university lads, who were obviously on their way back home. But listen, because I’m the very last person to have a bitch and a moan about people just enjoying themselves or having fun- even when it inconvenienced me, yeah? But these fucking ignorant twats had really pushed my limit.

I mean, who the fuck starts a loud debate over their fucking political crushes? And then go on to boast to one another about where they’d be spending their summers whilst simultaneously mocking anyone who holidayed in ‘the isles’ or didn’t at all.

I’d sent a wide eyed glance at George when they’d first started up and my disbelieving frown had quickly grown into me just biting my tongue to keep from ripping them each a new one when they’d started snickering at the rest of us. At the tiny family down the far end of the car, with its single mother and her chocolate covered toddler who was sporting an upset frown. At the elderly bloke cooped up in the far corner, who kept nervously jumping whenever the train rattled too hard against the tracks. Even at George and I. Because of my fucked up face and George’s nonplussed reaction.

George’s calming hand had been the only thing to keep me stated. Otherwise they never would’ve made it to the station.

Should count themselves lucky.

“Don’t laugh, George. I hate people like that.” I grunted out as I rubbed at my hip again, thankful that I hadn’t fought him when he’d taken my suitcase. “Looking down on others, acting like their shit don’t stink the same.”

George visibly fought not to snort outright at that and I huffed.

“Keep on, Daniel, and you’ll be hearing a lot worse.” I told him pointedly, but smiled politely at the ticket officer as we passed through the barriers.

“Don’t doubt it.” George replied, hiking his duffle up higher over his shoulder. “But B, you’ve got to learn not to let people like that affect you. Otherwise I’d be having to fight off every idiot that looked at you funny.”

“I can fight my own battles, thank you.” I retorted primly.

George huffed out a chuckle. “I know that much, but no one’s gonna hurt you again with me around.”

My gaze focused on the buzzing swarm ahead, at the giant boards hanging high above us, anything but him. “I thought we weren’t talking about it.” I murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear and wincing when I forgot about the stitches in my shoulder.

I heard him sigh and said nothing more on the topic.

We’d just about made it to the taxi rank, where Aunt Del had said she’d be waiting for us yesterday, when George spoke up again. “I’m gonna grab some deodorant and shit from the pharmacy over there- forgot to pack it in with the rest. You want anything?”

I watched as he settled our bags down beside a bench and then jerk his head over towards a Boots nearby. I shrugged, “Maybe a drink. If you don’t mind?”

George flashed me a smile, waving off the second part of my comment. “Diet Coke, yeah?”

I nodded, flashing him an overdue smile, “You know me so well.”

He shook his head lightly, lips still upturned as he headed in the other direction. I sighed whilst slumping onto the bench.

I’d been in London five minutes and already I felt overwhelmed. The station was hectic, even on a Sunday! There were people everywhere, lights and signs adorned every possible space, and there was never a lulling moment of peace. Everyone was just go, go, go.

Saying that, it was possibly the best place I’d ever people watched. There were all sorts of personalities down here. I mean, it wasn’t everyday you spotted a 6ft woman with a mohawk the length of a tennis racket walking through the streets of Wilmslow. Or an old hippy dressed in a black bin bag, waving a guitar.

It was pretty incredible. And I took the time to search for all the anomalies littered amongst the suits and denim jeans, a game of Where's Wally?. I much preferred their eccentricity.

“Alright, they were out of the stuff I usually get so I got this instead, smelt nice enough though.” I glanced up at the sound of George’s voice and spotted him making his way back to me whilst peering down at the deodorant can he held in his hand. My drink was tucked up under his left arm and he had a carrier bag dangling from his wrist. “What d’you think?” He asked when he reached the bench, holding the can out towards me. I sniffed at the scent whilst he settled the drink he’d purchased beside me and quickly tucked the bag into his duffle.

“I like it.” I told him honestly, glancing down at the label. “It’s different.”

“That good or bad?” He chuckled in reply and I smiled.

“Good. You’ll pull any one you fancy now that you’ve got something to cover that awful smell that often follows you about.”

His eyes wrinkled as he pulled a face in retaliation, “Hilarious, you. Why’d I ever let you talk me into coming again?”

I chuckled to myself, grinning up at him when he moved in closer to swipe the deodorant from my grasp. “‘Cause you’d be lost without me- dead bored too.”

He hummed, as though mulling it all over. Then leaned down towards me, nose almost touching mine as his face broke into a smile. “Sounds about right.”

I wanted to crane my neck up in that moment, let my lips brush against his. It was all I wanted in truth. But I didn’t dare. Too terrified of how he’d react. If every lie I’d heard ever told about me turned out to be true. If I was just as worthless as their words painted me to be.

“Yeah. It does, don’t it?”

George’s grin was large but still soft somehow, and his brown eyes danced between my own whilst the station continued to buzz around us. He hummed again, rocking on his feet, edging ever so closer.

Smash!

We both jolted apart at the sudden commotion, heads snapping up and over towards the loud bang. We both snorted at the same time, having spotted the culprit.

“They’re a fucking whole different breed down here.” George laughed lowly, shaking his head at a hefty looking pigeon that had seemingly taken the opportunity to try and nab a sandwich from out of an older woman’s hand- only it’d flown headfirst into a shop’s swinging sign.

I could only agree with his statement before I pivoted slightly, pausing only when I spotted another older woman waving her arms about wildly just outside the station doors. My jaw dropped for a second before I found myself chuckling at the sight, nudging George’s side to grab his attention too. He only raised his brows at the mad cow dressed in orange dungarees and a striped tee who was so obviously waving at us.

“I reckon everything down here’s different, G.” I snorted before I was waving back at my Aunt just as eagerly, already gathering up our stuff.

“No shit.” Is all I heard George say in return.

…

“Oh my Christ, ain’t you just grown so big!” Was the first thing Aunt Del said after she’d sprinted over to wrap me up in a long-overdue hug. “My, I swear you look like the double of me when I was your age.” She breathed out, her bright red lips matching her cherry coloured hair, gentle green eyes gazing down at me.

“Hi to you too, Aunt Del.” I chuckled, smiling back at her. She hadn’t changed at all from the day I remembered her, just as bubbly and as lovable as ever.

“Oh psh, none of that hello nonsense!” She retorted, blowing out a willowy breath as she waved a hand between us both. “I’m too excited! Have been ever since your Nan mentioned the visit. I can’t believe how long it’s been, doll!”

“I know.” I said in quiet agreement, my hand finding hers just before I shuffled over to reveal the tall teenage boy stood not too far behind me. “Oh Aunt Del, this is my friend, George. G, this is my Auntie Delany.”

Aunt Del’s eyes brightened as she took in all George had to offer, grinning a wry little smile before she squeezed my hand tightly. “Your Nana mentioned you were bringing a friend…” She let slip and then nodded her head for George to come closer, “But she never said he’d be a looker. How’re you, love? The train treat you alright?”

I gave a silent snort at the wobbly expression George’s face pulled itself into when my aunt tugged him into a hug as well. He gifted me a bewildered glance from over her shoulder and I shrugged, attempting to bite back my mad smile. He knew it was there though, I could tell from the brief scowl he sent me before they were pulling apart.

“Tall, handsome… you smart as well, darlin’? Or are you only a pretty face?” Aunt Del pondered as she stepped back and tilted her head up at him.

“Del.” I warned, but George’s mouth just quirked upwards ever so slightly.

“Smart enough to know when to use the pretty face to my advantage.” He quipped back easily, and I was relieved to hear Del’s sweet laugh.

“Oh, I like this one, Y/n.” She whispered theatrically, glancing over her shoulder at me before another flood of people escaped the station and she started ushering us away. “Come on now, kiddos. Parked the car over here, din’t I?”

My forehead pinched in concern, “In a taxi rank?”

“Well, where else?” Del laughed, dragging my suitcase along ahead of us while George shot me another bewildered look.

I could only assume that we’d be loaded with a hefty fucking fine.

But before I could voice that, or at least allude to it, Aunt Del had already pulled out a chain of gangly keys on an old piece of string and wandered over to a pink coloured cab.

I blinked at the sight of it. Del caught the look because she was grinning over at me from where she’d just placed my suitcase in the boot. “Good old Hewson here always gets a few heads turning, don’t you, beaut?” Aunt Del said as she patted the cab’s side, I was still taking it all in.

“Sorry, Hewson?” I questioned as she motioned to George to throw his duffle in the back too, “You named your car Hewson?”

But before Aunt Del could answer me, George cut in. He had his thinking face on.

“Hewson as in Bono?” He wondered aloud and Del spun right around to grin at him, he shut the boot for her.

“Bingo. I knew I had a good feeling about you!” Aunt Del exclaimed with a finger extended towards the chuckling teenager. She turned back to me, shaking her head in mock disappointment, “I thought for sure you’d get it, dove.”

With a wry grin I could only shrug my shoulder at her, “Sorry to disappoint, Aunt Del, but G here is the music expert between us.”

Del’s smile only appeared to widen as she shot around to the drivers side door, “Well have I got a playlist in here for you then! Only the greats, mind. So you’d best have brushed up on your seventies trivia.”

George all but beamed as he followed her over and opened up the backdoor for me, very much in his element now. I slid into the cab first, smiling at the leopard print seats and sequinned roof, then G swiftly followed.

“Oh, a gentleman too, is he?” Aunt Del cooed from the front where a pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror, her hands gripping at the neon coloured wheel. “You’ve hit the jackpot with this one.” She winked at me and I looked away to hide my flush. “So my Georgie-pie, you get on alright with The Jam?”

George’s hand found my knee as he leant forward in his seat to grin alongside my aunt, the pair of them chatting away whilst she jolted into reverse and out of the bay. I gripped at the door’s handle to keep from being thrown about when we took off down Pancras Road, Town Called Malice blasting out over the noise of the noisy city.

…

My cheeks had begun to hurt from how hard I’d been smiling throughout the entire ride down to the simple terraced house my grandparents owned in Bethnal Green. From what I could recall, it’d been the house my grandfather had grown up in, he’d only inherited it after the Second World War when his own mother had passed away from fever, his father having died earlier on whilst stationed at the frontline. He’d raised both of his kids there, my dad and Aunt Del, after his stoop in prison, before they’d both grown up and he’d eventually passed on as well. Leaving only my Nan and Delaney left.

It wasn’t a very busy street, all the houses old and built right beside the other, but it was nice, pretty even. A vast change in pace to the busy streets of the city we’d driven through on the way over.

Del was still talking a mile a minute when she pulled up into a marked bay, only narrowly avoiding hitting the curb whilst an old Grateful Dead tune continued to blare through the speakers. George hopped out first, slipping around to my side and opening the door for me so that he could help ease me out as well, his hand stayed in mine even as we moved to join Aunt Del by the boot.

“Here’re.” Del said, divvying up the luggage between George and herself. I sighed, but it fell into more of an unhappy groan when I reached up to shut the back door of the car only to have George beat me to it.

“I haven’t lost all capability.” I muttered to him whilst Aunt Del locked up the cab and took off down the pavement, excited to get us inside.

George’s fingers linked between mine and he tugged me closer, his duffle back on his shoulder. “I know that,” He murmured into my ear, breath tickling the skin of my neck, “But it makes me feel useful, yeah?”

I sighed again, only softer this time around, as I slumped into his embrace, letting him have this one thing. At least for a short while. I knew that soon enough it’d start to drive me mad.

“You two lovebirds comin’ or am I gonna have to stand here all day?” Del mocked from where she was now rocking back and forth at the top of a set of high steps, stood in front of an indistinct door.

I shot her a sharp look which she only grinned to, before George and I ascended the short staircase too. Del already had her gangly keys back out again and we watched on as she shoved a Yale cut key into the top lock, shouting out a warning as she tumbled on through it, “Mum, I’ve brought back Northerners!”

I giggled to myself as I followed in after her, eyes racking over everything that they possibly could. We’d entered into a long narrow hallway where an old cast iron radiator still stood atop a mosaic tiled floor. The walls here had been painted a softened white and victorian blue, the blue sat beneath a moulding halfway up and spilled out onto the staircase that’d been fitted with a warm beige runner. Photo frames littered the place, diving beneath a carved ceiling arch and around a few brass fixtures. It was beautiful, homey.

George shut the heavy wooden door quietly behind us and I heard a shuffle sound farther up ahead. Del gestured us further inside, dropping our luggage at the foot of the stairs before wandering down the walkway. We followed silently, both George and I feeling the nerves edge in now, and we were quite surprised to shuffle into an open kitchen and spot a petite looking woman relaxed in an dining chair, cigarette in one hand and a TV Times in the other. She glanced up once we’d entered and the sight of her had my heart climbing to my throat, her toothy smile reminded me a lot of the pictures I'd seen of my dad.

“Well, ain’t this lovely?” My Nana chirped, already moving to stub out the remnants of her fag in a glass ashtray before standing. George released my hand so I could go meet her, legs trembling slightly. “My little dove, how you’ve grown, hey? All big now. Too tall.” She grinned at me as I dipped down a tad to bury my face into her neck.

“Hey, Nana.” I whispered, my smile shaky as she ran a soothing hand over the length of my back.

When she pulled away she pressed a thin, ring clad hand to my cheek, eyes taking me in. “You’re alright, darlin’. Looking so beautiful too. Oh, how I’ve missed ya.”

I chuckled wetly, but didn’t let the shimmering tears that’d begun to well fall, “Missed you too.” More than she knew. “It feels so mad to be here, I remember bits and pieces but not much.”

“Ah the last time you were ‘ere, ought to’ve been when you were about six. You made a right old mess of this kitchen. Treckin’ in mud and kickin’ your feet. My God, your dad had gone mad- couldnt help his grin though when you’d started singin’ that tune he so loved. What was it again, my darlin’?”

“You Make My Pants Want to Get Up and Dance.” I answered her in a whispered chuckle, the song a vivid reminder of days we’d spent dancing around this very room.

Nana released a sweet laugh and turned to Del, “You remember, don’t you, Del? The pair of ‘em, prattling about the place.”

Aunt Del shared a conspiratorial grin with me, nodding from where she’d taken perch over by the fridge. “Oh yeah. That one Christmas mornin’, it was all that’d been on. Drove me bloody mental.”

“See?” Nana enforced, hand falling to my upper arm, “What I tell ya? Might be gettin’ on a bit but my mind’s still as quick as a whip.”

I smiled, but that was when she finally took note of the giant stood crowding her kitchen doorway. George wore a soft smile that only grew in nervousness when my nan’s gaze sought him out. “And this must be the famous friend!” She teased, already motioning him over. “Come on, love. I don’t bite.”

George blew out a small chuckle and walked over to join us, surprising me when he leaned down to wrap an arm around the petite woman. My Nana smiled proudly and gently squeezed George’s wrist when they pulled apart.

“It’s good to finally meet you.” George assured her, his tone quiet, warm.

“And you, sweetheart.” My Nana spoke, smiling up at him. “But my, ain’t you tall? Remind me a bit of my Charlie, you do. He was a giant too, always dwarfed me in size whenever he took my hand. Only ever saw his tie when we was dancin’, and din’t he just love to complain of a sore neck, bendin’ down to greet me whenever he came home from wherever he’d been.”

I giggled quietly to myself, watching the pair. Enamoured.

“Got those eyes of his too, kind but quick. Too smart for yer own good, ain’t ya sometimes? Trouble finds you.”

George’s eyes glanced over towards me at that and he could only agree. “She does.”

Both my Nana and Aunt Del laughed at that, catching on to his sentiment whilst I just tutted and shook my head. “You’re lucky to have me.”

“Ain’t he just.” Nana confirmed with a dip of her chin, her blue eyes twinkling now beneath the kitchen light. “A right pair you make. Reckon we’ll have a few more stories to tell once you leave.”

“You’ve gone and jinxed it now.” George chuckled teasingly, obviously settling in fine, “Only got yourself to blame.”

Nana clucked her tongue, eyes on Del whilst she motioned her head in G’s direction, “Funny, this one. You hearin’ this too, Del? Quite the joker we have.”

I could only grin and watch on as my seventy-three year old nan cajoled George into the chair beside hers. It quickly fell though when I heard how she was planning to spill a few stories from my childhood to him. And I couldn’t even stop her because Aunt Del was already dragging me back out of the kitchen, claiming she needed help picking up dinner from the local takeaway. George merely sent me a reassuring grin when I’d casted an alarmed glance back over my shoulder, and I felt the anxiety in me fall away.

—

It was a long while after dinner when George and I finally got the first bit of quiet since having left Manchester.

The four of us, being Nana, George, Aunt Del and I, had all camped out in the living-room shortly after Del and I had returned to the house with a couple bags of food- fish and chips actually, from this tiny little shop up on the main road that Del had raved about.

We’d all been more than hungry so we’d been quick settle down. The tele had been stuck straight on, the very same that’d been there a decade prior, and apparently Nana’s preference for game shows hadn’t changed either, so we’d all spaced out around it, not paying much attention to who was winning or losing. Just talking about the things you did with family.

Nana’s dog, Cyril, had plodded in from the upstairs landing as soon as he’d sniffed out the food. He was this big slobbering beast of a thing that I immediately fell in love with. A great bullmastiff with a red and fawn-coloured coat, who’d gone and plopped himself down on the tops of my feet. George had been taken with him too, cooing to him in the armchair opposite and pouting when the dog hardly spared him a glance. Both Nana and Del had chuckled, Aunt Del saying, “Cyril ain’t too fond of men- din’t give dad the time of day when he was home either. Only ever noticed him when he had a lead in his hand.” George had looked determined though.

When the plates had been cleared away, Cyril jumped up on the sofa between Nana and I, he’d sniffed at her leg before she’d shooed him off down my end, and he did as he was told, looking over at me with these big puppy-dog eyes. I’d let him curl up beside me, head in my lap, stroking the scruff of his neck as we continued to catch up, Nana asking after George and his life. She was set on getting to know him.

A couple hours had passed before the older woman had shuffled the pair of us on up the staircase when I’d started yawning though, and Aunt Del said that she’d let Cyril out into the garden before she took off home herself, promising to pop back round the very next day. George had helped tidy the living-room away as I’d said my goodbyes to her, catching Nana in the hallway once the door had closed.

“I know you don’t want to hear it, but thank you.” I’d whispered to her in the quiet warmth of the evening light that’d fluttered in. She’d simply taken my hand and gifted me a soft smile in turn.

“You were always welcome here, sweetheart. Just needed you to see it.” Nana had replied, “And anyway, I should be the one thankin’ you. Ain’t had such a lovely time since it was all of us living here together. Feels nice havin’ the house full of people again. And that lad of yours is a real charmer, in’t he? Lovely, lovely boy.”

I’d gone to correct her, mouth halfway agape when she’d just chuckled and pointed a finger up at me. “None of that now. Only known him a couple of hours but I see the way he looks at you, my love.”

It was eerily similar to what Ross had said to me all those weeks before.

“He’s patient too. Bit like your grandfather there. And gentle, which is somethin’ that’s obviously needed when knockin’ about with you. ’Cause don’t think for one second I’ve not noticed the big black eye you’re sporting under that makeup of yours, or the face you pull each time you sit or stand up.”

I’d looked away from her aged eyes, so full of emotion, to hide my guilt. Nana had only grasped my chin though and steered my face back towards her, “But that’s for another time, alright darlin’? You need sleep- must’ve been mental bein’ on all those silly trains. I’ll tell you something now, I never could step on another after the war’d ended, too many reminders, you know?”

Too many reminders. Yeah, that was something I did know.

I’d only nodded silently at her though and the pair of us listened to the quiet murmur George had made when he’d tried once more to make friends with Cyril. Nana had chuckled and squeezed my chin between her fingers before George had stepped out into the hallway to join us, a little surprised to find us there. An apology had been on the tip of his tongue, obviously not having meant to interrupt, but Nana had swiftly cut him off, stating that she’d already made up the spare bed and laid out a few towels for us.

I’d given her cheek a gentle kiss in an unsaid thanks, still so beyond grateful, and George had followed, smiling to himself when he’d bent down for her and the older woman had whispered something in his ear. She’d shooed us on up after quickly after, patting George’s back just as Cyril trotted to stand beside her at the bottom of the stairs. Our light footsteps had trailed all the way up and then across the landing.

So as I’d been saying, the quiet that’d settled upstairs in the far bedroom was something of a reprieve. As much as I’d loved spending time with Nana, Aunt Del, and Cyril too, it was nice to shut the door on all the noise and madness and take a second to just breathe.

The spare bedroom sat at the very front of the house, it looked out onto the street below and homed sash-windows which were currently being illuminated by the evening sun shining through. The floor was made of hardwood, glossy and dark in comparison to the lighter walls that had been panelled with pretty mouldings. A fireplace sat at one end too, directly opposite the bed, it was old, one I’d have to ask Nana about using, but had a delicate vase of lilies sat atop it as well as a brass framed mirror.

My eyes flittered about the space, taking in the ancient radio on the windowsill with its lengthy aerial, the large chest sat at the foot of the bed, as well as the wearing guitar propped up against the wall in the corner. George’s eye caught on that too and he wandered over to it first.

“Belonged to my dad.” I told him as I tiptoed over to the edge of the bed, taking a seat there as my gaze continued to roam. “It was his room, shared it with Del when they were kids but then she took over the downstairs den when she’d hit fourteen. Den’s gone now, think they knocked it through to make more room for the kitchen’s renovation after she moved out.”

George hummed and put the instrument back in its place before spinning on his heel, his gaze trailing between me and the bed.

“You still alright to share?” I asked him, wondering if perhaps he was thinking better of it now. “I could set up the sofa if not.”

Shaking his head, George must’ve shaken off whatever other emotion that’d made him pause because he padded over to join me. “Nah, it’ll be fine.”

His voice was low and as he flopped down onto the mattress beside me I could only smile, thankful for the fact that he hadn’t changed his mind.

“Good.” I responded, grinning over at his slumped form sprawled out on the crisp white sheets, “‘Cause if you can spoon with Matty then you should be alright spending a couple nights shacked up with me.”

George snorted, hands resting on his chest, eyes turned towards the ceiling. “That’s different. We fell asleep on the settee, and he’s a cuddler.”

Still amused by the picture my mind conjured up, I hummed. “And to think you two once hated each other.”

“Wouldn’t say hate. Bit strong there, B.”

I rolled my eyes before glancing down at the spot beside him, silently deliberating. George must’ve noticed because he took my hand in his and tugged me down, laughing when I yelped in surprise.

We stayed there for a short while in silence, his fingers grazing gently at my arm, both of us listening to the heavy paws of Cyril on the stairs and the cars that passed by outside.

He inhaled a little deeper, “How you feeling then?”

I turned my head against the sheets to peer up at him. “Being here?” I questioned him and he nodded, “I feel good. Tired, but good. Happy. Didn’t realise home could feel like this, you know?”

George blew out a breath and scooted a little closer, close enough to drape an arm across the space above my head and come to rest on his side. “Do you want to talk about it now?”

I knew what he meant. He wanted to talk about that night.

I raised my good shoulder in a shrug. “Not much to say. I hope he rots in a cell for a bit though, ‘cause we both know they’ll let him back out soon enough.”

George’s jaw tightened at my words but his eyes stayed soft, locked on me. “Well I hope he finds a decent cliff and takes a dive off it.”

I shot him a look. “G..”

He shrugged, uncaring, but the gentle touch of his fingers tangling themselves into my hair was anything but. “Ain’t gonna lie to you, Birdie. He deserves worse. I-” His eyes slipped closed as he took a breath to calm himself, “Look, I can’t take back what happened. Turn back time and all that just to erase it all. But I can make sure that it never happens again.”

“You can’t be sure though, George. That’s not how life works.” I murmured into the quiet that followed his solemn assurance.

“Well it’s how it’s gonna have to work.” Was all that he replied to me. Ever so stubborn.

His eyes were still closed, that familiar warmth of his sheltered behind fluttering lids, I reached out to trail my fingers across them and then down the bridge of his nose. “This okay?”

He hummed sweetly, mouth twitching when my fingertips traced its curve. He was always so close, only ever a breath away, but even now it felt like we were toeing at invisible lines, both of us too afraid to make that jump.

“I like your nan.” He told me then and I huffed out a small chuckle at the unexpected revelation. “Del too.” He added.

“I’m glad.” I replied with a soft smile of my own, staring down at him even as he blinked his eyes back open. They roamed the entirety of my face, taking in every detail.

“They remind me of you.”

My smile broadened, pleased to hear that. “Oh yeah?”

George hummed a low confirmation. “You want to know what your Nana to me said as we were headin’ up?”

My eyes flickered up to meet his whilst I trailed over a constellation of freckles on his cheek. “What?”

He chuckled deeply, grin wrinkling his nose. “She said, run her a bath, will you? And keep the noise down if you ever do get the balls to make a move.”

A sharp laugh escaped me, eyes wide and alive. “I swear, she’s an actual menace.”

George smirked lazily, “Right though.”

I blinked, all humour suddenly lost as I stared back at him.

“Right about what?” I asked him quietly, heart in my throat.

His hand stilled in my hair and he knocked his forehead against my own, our noses brushed just above the sheets and he gifted me the sweetest smile. “This.” He whispered back, right before he titled his head and grazed his lips against mine.

—

I’d been on a high all morning. Having woken up in George’s arms under a stream of sunlight.

There’d been a light scuffle out in the hallway, probably Nana getting up to let Cyril out, and I’d laid there listening to the gentle song of the birds outside as well as George’s quiet breathing. He looked different in this light, lashes casting dark shadows across his apples of his cheeks and lips poutier than I’d ever seen them. It’d been struggle not to reach out.

Instead, I’d reluctantly slipped from his grasp when the urge to use the loo became too much to bare and decided to finally have that bath Nana had suggested last night whilst I waited for him to wake.

Yesterday had honestly been everything I’d been waiting for. With George I just felt so safe, so… loved. Was that a strange way to feel? Maybe it was. But I didn’t care, I thought about it though as I let the steam from the water engulf me, the heat of it doing wonders for my aching bones.

We hadn’t gone any further than kissing. Though if he had tried to cop a feel I wouldn’t of denied him. He was rather sweet about the whole thing actually and we’d spent the time afterwards shooting each other coy smiles as we got ready for bed.

I pulled myself up out of the tub once my hands had begun to wrinkle, hating the feel of it. I wrapped myself in a fluffy towel and combed through my hair once my feet had dampened the bath mat, but groaned when I realised I’d forgotten to grab some clothes beforehand.

Wiggling my jaw as I clasped my bottom lip between my forefinger and thumb, I contemplated just heading back out into the bedroom. George was probably still asleep and I could simply roll my suitcase back in here without waking him.

Yeah, that sounded like the best option.

So I took a deep breath as I silently slipped out of the bathroom and across the landing into the shared room. I was in for the shock of my life though when I spotted George sat up in bed, duvet pooled around his hips as he rubbed tiredly at his eye. His head turned towards me when he heard the handle lift and he stilled in his movements.

I must’ve looked a right picture, frozen in the doorway with my gob halfway to the floor, and I watched a slow but obvious smirk creep across George’s features as he dropped his arm to get a good old look at me.

I narrowed my eyes in retort and feigned as much confidence as I possibly could with his eyes stuck on me, before I made my way over to where my suitcase was sat. “It’s rude to stare, you know.”

George laughed, it was a gruff and low sound, littered with sleep. “Just wonderin’ if I’m still dreamin’- nice sight to wake up to ’s all.”

I scoffed out a quiet, disbelieving chuckle, “Oh yeah, black eyes get you going, do they?”

“On you? Anything would.”

I flushed at his comment and dropped down to hide it as I worked my way through the pile of clothes I had in my case, gripping the top of my towel.

“Who are you and what have you done with George?” I tossed the question over my shoulder, still feeling his eyes on me. “‘Cause the real George would never act this shameless.”

I could feel his shrug ripple throughout the room. “Teenage boy. Besides, you know I’m the real deal ‘cause when have I ever lied to you?”

My tongue was in my cheek as I shifted through a few tops, he wasn’t wrong there. “I just forgot to grab some clothes before I jumped in the bath. Thought you’d still be asleep.”

“Woke up just before you came in.”

I hummed. Talk about timing.

“You sleep alright?” He asked and I could hear him shuffling about now behind me. I wanted to take a peek, see what he was up to, but focused on grabbing what I needed instead.

What had he asked again? Oh, “Um, yeah actually.” Best one I’d had in weeks, if we were being painfully honest. “You?”

“Knackered after that journey yesterday but I stayed up a bit after you passed out.” George replied and I jumped ever so slightly when I felt him drape his arms over my shoulders, chin resting against the side of my head. “You look angelic even when you snore.”

I elbowed him lightly and shook my head. “I don’t snore, you knob.”

“Oh but you do.” George chuckled roughly, “Sounds a bit like this.”

He then proceeded to make horrible snoring sounds in my ear, making me cringe and forcing me to wiggle out of his grasp to escape them. “Ah don’t do that! It makes me feel all bleh.” I shivered to exaggerate the feeling whilst he simply laughed.

“What?” He exclaimed teasingly, “That’s what I had to deal with, all night!”

I chucked the top I’d been holding at him. “Idiot. And to think I let you kiss me.”

A beat passed between us and I feared I’d fucked things by bringing it up. I casted a nervous glance at him when I went to try and retrieve a hoodie or something like it.

“Surprised you broke first. Was betting that I’d have to.” George told me, wearing a lopsided grin, he walked over to the duffle that was laid open by the dresser and grabbed at a grey sweatshirt. “Here’re have this.”

I glanced down at it, then back up at his face. I took it carefully, “Thanks.”

He hummed and moved back towards the duffle to find some clothes of his own to wear.

I was then reminded of what he’d just said, “Hang on, you made a bet with yourself?”

George shot me a toothy grin, “‘You don’t do that?”

I shrugged, unsure. Hadn’t really thought about it. “So, we’re still okay then? You know-”

“After you kissed me?” He teased and I scowled.

“After you kissed me, you mean.”

“Whatever you say, Birdie. But I ‘spose we’ll never truly know.” He was being a twat.

“You’re being a twat.” I told him rightly, but unable to help my light chuckle, “You know you kissed me first.”

He hummed, unconvinced.

“G!” I complained but he merely laughed before waving me off.

“Go get changed, will you?”

“Why?” I challenged him, a bundle of clothes tucked up under my arm. “I’m rather alright as I am, thanks.”

“‘Cause you’re driving me half mad stood there like that.” He quipped back with a hand extended out towards me, “Besides, your nan will come looking if neither one of us turns up to breakfast.”

I grinned, “Reckon I’m that easy do you, Georgie?”

He paused and stopped his riffling to meet my gaze head-on. “No, I just know that if you’d let me I’d spend as long as I could admiring every part of you.”

Pursing my lips to fight my smile, I said, “Nana was right about another thing.”

George titled his head at me, sporting a pleased grin. “And what would that be?”

“You, George Daniel, are a right charmer.”

He snorted with a roll of his eyes then turned back to his duffle. “You love it.” He snarked back, sounding sure.

And he had every right to be, because that was one of the many things I loved about him.

Part Twenty-five>

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