#I will try to keep my fandoms separate but sometimes my finger slips

[listentothelittlebird]

welcome back to another episode of that was the wrong blog-

[roman-writing]

bring home a haunting (1/12)

Fandom: The Haunting of Bly Manor

Pairing: Dani Clayton/Jamie Taylor

Rating: M

Wordcount: 11,511

Summary: Dani almost has her life together, when a familiar face arrives back in town after ten years. A childhood friends AU written with @youngbloodbuzz

read it below or read it on AO3 here

“The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing — to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from — my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back.” - CS Lewis, Till We Have Faces

—

I: 1987

—

The sound of water sloshing through the pipes was a constant drone in the air. Dani stared at herself in the mirror. Her hand rested on the tap, holding it open. Steam crept in along the edges of the mirror as hot water continued to stream into the white porcelain bathroom sink, pale tendrils framing her face like smudged fingerprints against the glass. She was still dressed in pajamas, her hair a rumpled mess. There were dark shadows beneath her eyes. Her face felt puffy and her stomach heavy, but above all else she just appeared tired.

There was movement behind her. The bathroom door opened and her head jerked up in surprise as the door frame squared around Eddie's tall silhouette. In the misted mirror, his glasses seemed to reflect all light, obscuring half his face in a gleam like the sun glancing across the surface of a windscreen.

His reflection smiled. "You still getting ready?" he asked. "We need to go in ten, if I'm giving you a ride to work."

Abruptly, Dani twisted the tap, cutting off the flow of water. She cleared her throat. "Sorry. No. I'll — I'll drive myself."

"You sure? I don't know if your poor little car will make it."

"No. It'll be fine," she assured him, trying to sound far more confident than she felt. Never mind that the local mechanic had given her a list of incomprehensible ills that plagued her car the last time she had taken it into the shop after it had broken down again. "Thanks, though."

"All right," he said, but still he did not turn to leave. "You know, I was thinking. We should probably sell it."

"Hmm?"

Dani had opened the mirror door to reveal a jumble of bottles and toothpaste and toothbrushes, only some of which were hers. She scouted around for what she was looking for. Even after a few weeks, everything still felt so displaced. She struggled to find the smallest item these days, be it her favorite sauce pan or a bottle of — oh, there it was.

"Your car," Eddie was saying behind her. "Don't you think we should sell it? We don't really need two. Not now that we're living together."

Dani froze with her hands cupped in the water of the sink. She could see her own reflection weaving and waving from the disturbance until her face looked disjointed. Like some sort of Picasso. An eye here. A jaw there. Scattered into separate chambers.

Without answering, she leaned down and splashed her face, rubbing at her cheeks until a foam lathered, eyes squeezed shut.

"Well?" Eddie asked.

She bought herself a moment by rinsing the suds from her face and reaching blindly for a towel that she had perched on a nearby rail for just that very purpose. When she spoke, her voice was muffled through the cloth, "I don't know. I just think —" She lowered the towel and wiped at her neck. "Wouldn't it be inconvenient? You having to drive me around everywhere?"

In the mirror, his outline shrugged. "I don't mind. More time spent with you, right?"

She offered him a weak smile, drying her hands and folding the towel neatly back on its rack. “You’re sweet,” she said. “But really. I mean — What if I need to pick up groceries on the way back from the school? Or what if I want to visit your mother? Or —?”

“All right. All right. You win,” he laughed, softly. He came up behind her, hands settling on her waist, gentle but heavy all the same. “Just think about it. Okay?”

The steam at the edges of the mirror had begun to fade, and Eddie’s features came into sharp relief. Looking at their reflection was like looking at the picture in their living room where they were posed for prom. Eddie’s hands clasped at her waist, and Dani still with that deer in the headlights smile. It was almost perfect. It was almost enough. Being a fresh-faced fiancée. Wearing rumpled pink pajamas. Living together. Watching a life unfold before her as though it belonged to someone else.

She shrank away from him in order to turn around. “I should finish getting ready,” she said. 

He let her go but leaned down for a kiss. Instead, his glasses bumped the side of her face. Laughing, she pushed the glasses up his nose as he retreated with a wince. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Her hand was still lingering on the side of his face — scratch of stubble beneath her fingertips — and Eddie pressed a brief kiss to her palm before striding from the bathroom. Dani stood there, clutching her hand back to her chest, listening to his retreating footsteps down the hall. Something curdled in her stomach, though she hadn’t eaten anything yet this morning. She passed it off as hunger instead of guilt. 

Eyes squeezing shut, hand clenching into a fist at her sternum, Dani inhaled a deep steadying breath. Then, opening her eyes once more, she turned back towards the mirror and reached for a hairbrush. 

—

The coffee in the teacher’s lounge was always dark as sin and tasted of battery acid. Dani pulled on the tap, filling up her styrofoam cup until her hand burned and she had to hold it gingerly from the top with her fingertips. Enough creamer followed so that the coffee resembled milk more than the original brew. She tested it with a sip, crinkled her nose, and added sugar until it was barely palatable. It would still strip paint in a pinch, but it would also keep her going throughout the day. 

With a resigned sigh, she carried the coffee over to the round table in the back corner of the lounge, where her piles of notes and textbooks waited. The binders sported multi-colored tongues, every section marked with a tab and her broad loopy handwriting, and there was a satchel of pens and markers in every hue under the sky. Taking a sip of her cup of paint thinner, Dani pulled out a plain black pen. She trailed her thumb down the tabs until she reached the desired section, and flipped open to the correct page. There, she began to record her meticulous notes. She would pause every so often to flip through a textbook and double-check some figure or another that she had convinced herself she had forgotten.

The lounge was mostly empty but for her. It was still an early hour, even for her colleagues. Here, she felt like she could actually work. Back home she would inevitably feel like she had gotten in the way. Not of Eddie. Not usually. Though sometimes he would wander over to the table while she was trying to arrange a lesson plan and distract her with talk of banalities that always made her hand slip, that always made her lose her place on the page. Other times he would complain about how her work sprawled and took over the whole dining room.

Mostly it was the house itself. Still so fresh and new and clean, walls pressing in like a stomach lining. Spreading all her work notes out felt like she was intruding upon the space of the napkins and cutlery. As though all of the items people had bought them for their engagement were more at home there than she was. A house of cardboard boxes. Of clothes. Of china. Stuff. Things. Their things. 

Dani’s writing had slowed. She shook her head briskly and straightened in her seat. Another sip of fortifying turpentine, and she was scribbling away again. 

“Enjoy the summer holiday?”

Dani glanced up at the sound of that familiar voice. Hannah Grose, seamlessly elegant in a wine-dark skirt suit, stood with her hand on the back of one of the chairs around the little table. 

A smile broke across Dani’s face, and she said, “Yeah! And you?” She gestured towards the chair with her pen, adding, “Please.”

“Not much to report on the western front.” Hannah sat, delicately leaning her elbow upon the table so as not to disturb the sprawl of Dani’s notes. “But I hear that’s not the case in your camp. Congratulations are in order.” 

Dani could feel her cheeks strain with the effort of keeping her smile in place. “Thanks!”

“Well?” Hannah asked, her eyes agleam with warm curiosity. “Go on then. How did he propose?” 

“Which time?” Dani joked half-heartedly. When Hannah gave a little huff of laughter, Dani said, “No, seriously. He’s been asking me to marry him since we were kids.” 

“Well, congratulations,” Hannah said. “Do you have a date planned? Or is that still in the works?”

Dani fiddled with the pen between her fingers, repeatedly removing the cap and sticking it back on with a nervous jab. The plastic clacked dully against the unfamiliar band of gold around her finger. “Oh, no. Not yet. We — uh — we’re going to wait a bit. Eddie just started his new job, and I’ve — well. You’re the one who asked me to teach sixth grade this year. And I’m excited, but also I feel so unprepared for a whole classroom of twelve year olds.” 

“Don’t be nervous, dear,” Hannah said, and though her tone was soothing her small smile was teasing. “They can smell fear.”

Dani’s laugh was slightly too breathy and too short to be heartfelt. “Oh, I know. It’s just —” She made a flighty gesture with one hand, “— getting a new batch in. It’s always a little nerve wracking. There are so many names to memorize in the first week. And sorting out the dynamics of them all, how they interact, and — well, you know.”

“No, I don’t. Not really, anyway,” Hannah said. “I came up the ranks through an administrative route. Never had any classroom time to speak of.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Dani said.

Hannah gave Dani’s notes a nudge with her elbow. “What was it you were just telling me about the trials and tribulations of homeroom?”

This time when Dani laughed, it was far more relaxed. “The kids are the best part. Really. That’s why you do it.”

Hannah gave her a knowing look. “Yes. And that’s why I hired you.”

“Have I thanked you for that, yet?”

“Only once a year for three years.”

“My next gift basket is in the mail tomorrow, then,” Dani joked.

“Hang the basket and bring me a slice from the cafe instead.”

“With coffee?” Dani asked, grinning when Hannah wrinkled her nose at the idea. “You got it, boss.”

“Tea,” said Hannah primly, “is perfectly serviceable. Thank you. It’s eight thirty, by the way.”

Dani’s eyes widened and she checked her watch to find that Hannah was, in fact, correct. “Oh, shoot!” Hastily, she scraped together the loose papers, shuffling them back into their notebook. Tucking it beneath one arm, she snatched up her styrofoam cup and made a dash for the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mrs. Grose.” 

“Don’t forget to bring back a receipt for the slice!” Hannah called after her. “You must let me pay you back this time!”

“Put it on my next remuneration review!”

—

The kids were all filing into class, and Dani was hesitating at the blackboard. She held the tip of a piece of chalk against the dark grain. Her hand had frozen on the final downward stroke of the 'M' when she thought — should it still be 'Miss'? 'Ms.'? What were the rules?

The sounds of children jabbering away behind her, chairs scraping, things being thrown, urged her into action, and Dani wrote the name she had always written before turning around.

"All right, let's settle down, please." She waited until twenty-five faces were turned towards her in relative silence — as good as she could hope for given the circumstances — before smiling. Then, she set aside the chalk and picked up a clipboard full of names. "Hi, everyone. I'm Miss Clayton. Welcome to homeroom. Let's go through names. Make sure everyone's here."

It was the same, she told herself even as she meticulously took roll. How different could a bunch of twelve year olds be to her usual ten year olds? She even recognized one or two names from when she had taught a previous class. One of her former students waved at her from the back of a row of desks, and Dani smiled in return.

She skimmed right over the roll call and into the first introductions to the year. It happened so fast, that she hardly even registered a familiar looking name on the list. The boy in question merely raised his hand upon his name being called out, and Dani forged on to the next. With so many new faces to memorize, she did not even pause to mull over the presence of a Michael Taylor in her class. There were too many of them. Always too many. She never could keep track. Always remembering faces, but never names. Maybe if there were fewer of them, she thought. Maybe if they were younger. 

They never were.

—

Even after two weeks back in the classroom, the bell ringing never failed to make Dani jump slightly. She nearly dropped her chalk from where she was drawing on the blackboard. Already behind her she could hear the scrape of chairs and the excited babble at the arrival of the weekend. 

Setting down the chalk, Dani turned around and began wiping her hands against her skirt. She had to lift her voice to be heard. “All right everyone, don’t forget your permission slips for a trip to the community library! If you don’t bring back a signed form, you won’t be able to go, and you’ll have to stay here! And, Michael? Can you stay behind for a minute, please? I want to talk to you.”

Michael’s head whipped around at the sound of his name. A few other students shot him odd glances and his shoulders crept up around his ears. He shoved his books and notes into his bag — a dark blue canvas with silver stars that looked like they’d been painstakingly drawn on — then slouched at his desk until the others had all left. 

Sitting behind her own desk, Dani brushed at the chalk handprints on her skirt — she was always a mess by the end of a school week; chalk everywhere — and gestured for Michael to come closer. He hesitated before pushing himself upright and walking forward until he stood in front of her desk. His brow was furrowed but his head was bowed, looking contrite, as though waiting for some sort of reprimand.  

Dani gentled her voice. “Michael, I just wanted to -"

"Mikey."

She blinked, faltering. "I'm sorry?"

"My name," he said very firmly for someone who stood with such a stoop. "It’s Mikey. I don’t like Michael."

With a smile, Dani said, "Of course. Mikey. You’re not in trouble. I promise.” With a light tap of her palms against the surface of the desk, she pulled out a piece of paper from atop one of the stacks and slid it towards him across her desk. “This is your homework from Monday. Do you remember this problem here? Number eleven?”

Shrugging at the weight of his backpack, he nodded. 

“Well, I kind of messed up,” she said, lowering her voice and leaning forward as though revealing a secret. “And I copied this problem from the wrong section of the book. The back section of the book, I mean. Most of the others didn’t even try to answer it, and those that did got it wrong. Except —” Dani tapped a finger against the edge of the page, “— for you.” 

Mikey did not say anything. His gaze remained dropped, as though he were studying his shoes.

“Do you know what this ‘x’ is?” Dani asked, pointing to the math problem in question.

Mikey shook his head. “No. I thought it was like a question mark?” 

“Yeah.” Dani smiled. “Yeah, that’s right.”

He glanced up at her, saw her watching him, and then hastily lowered his eyes again, shuffling his feet. 

Leaning her weight on her forearms, Dani said, “I know you’re a transfer student this year, and you came from somewhere out of state. Did your other schools teach you algebra by any chance?”

Again, he shook his head. 

“Okay.” She ducked her head down in an attempt to look into his eyes. “I told you: you’re not in trouble. I just wanted to know — do you like math? Because it seems to me you’re really good at it.”

“I guess,” he mumbled. His hand tightened around the strap of his backpack. “Can I go now?”

Dani toyed with the edge of the page of homework. Then with a sigh she leaned back in her seat. “Yeah, you can go. Have a good weekend.” 

He murmured some pleasantry in response, but in the next moment he was gone from the room so fast she thought she must have imagined it. For a moment, Dani frowned after him. She pulled his homework towards herself, studying the page. Mikey’s handwriting was cramped and messy, but there was no mistaking the fact that he had written every answer only once. There were no eraser marks to be seen. He even showed the steps he took to reach his answers. 

Her thumb traced over his name at the top right hand corner. Then, with a little shake of her head, she set the page back atop the stack of other papers and began to clean up. 

Even after the kids had mostly left, there were always a few stragglers left behind. Some trotted through the halls in packs on their way to whatever extracurricular activities their parents had signed them up for. Dani kept the door to her classroom open, and the squeak of their shoes echoed down the corridor along with the sound of their fading voices. Tilting her wrist to check the time, she pulled out the latest round of homework assignments that had been handed back to her earlier that day. The set she hadn’t had a chance to mark yet. 

Best to just get it done with now. Her car was clinging to the last vestiges of life and had landed itself back in the workshop earlier that week. She would be here a while until Eddie got off work. 

She grabbed a red pen and pulled the first page towards her. The pen flicked officiously as she scanned through the questions, barely pausing until she circled the final grade at the top and set the page aside in favor of the next. And so on. And so forth. It was almost relaxing. As relaxing as a known constant could be. She could always rely upon the dependability of homework that needed grading. Just like she could rely upon the dependability of death and taxes.

She glanced up only rarely from her work whenever a flurry of movement flitted across the corners of her vision. A bird darting from a tree branch here. A janitor sweeping the floors there. Dani paused to push her seat back from the desk and make small talk, asking after the janitor's wife and kids until he shuffled along with a wave, pushing his long-handled broom, which looked more like a breed of shaggy dog than a cleaning implement. She had almost finished grading the stack of papers, when she glanced out the window towards the street. She looked back down at the papers, then did a double take.

That was a student sitting on the curb. She recognized that blue backpack with silver stars. Dani checked the time again. Nearly four in the afternoon now. With a hum and a frown, she returned to grading, but her gaze would wander after each finished page back towards the window.

Finally, she capped the pen and set it down atop the finished stack of papers. She would need to enter those grades into the system later, but that could wait. For now, Dani swept everything into her bag before slinging it over one shoulder. Her keys jangled from their lanyard as she locked up and made her way outside.

Mikey was still crouched on the sidewalk when she approached. Her shoes clacked dully against the pavement, and he turned to look over his shoulder at who was approaching him.

Dani smiled brightly. "Hi!" she said. "You’re still here?"

Mikey nodded, but gave no verbal reply. Some sort of magazine was hanging loosely from his fingers, half open and tucked between his legs as though he had been caught red-handed.

Setting her bag down on the ground, she sat beside him and craned her neck to get a look at the cover he was clearly trying to hide. "Wonder Woman, huh?"

His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, and he refused to look anywhere near her direction.

"You know," Dani said. "I used to wait up at night to catch all the episodes of the show as they were airing. The Lynda Carter ones? You ever watch it?"

His eyes were wide when he finally turned to look at her. He nodded. "Yeah. I love that show."

"I recorded them all," Dani confided in a whisper, as though the two of them were in on a secret. "Still have them on tape at home, though I haven't watched them in forever."

"My sister gets annoyed when I rewatch stuff too often," Mikey said. He had straightened his legs, and now the comic book was sprawled across his bony knees to reveal a few inked pages.

She nodded towards the thin paper booklet. "I never read the comics, though. Are they any fun?"

It was like opening flood gates. Suddenly, she found herself being regaled about the entire publication history of Wonder Woman, while Mikey gestured wildly with the comic so that the loose pages rustled with every motion of his hands. His face came alight when he spoke. Dani listened with amusement. She perched an elbow on her knees and propped her chin on her hand, nodding along, asking appropriate questions. Once she asked what was obviously a dumb question, for he made a face and explained her error in great detail.

The early autumnal sun was slanting through the trees by the time a boxy silver sedan rolled up to the other side of the street. Dani could see a familiar mop of dark hair and the gleam of glasses through the windows. The car puttered to a halt, engine idling, and Eddie pressed down on the steering wheel so that the horn blared briefly. 

Dani waved in his direction and said to Mikey, “That’s my ride. Are you going to be okay out here?” She glanced down the street for any approaching cars. “Someone’s coming to pick you up, right?”

In answer, he held up the issue of Wonder Woman. “It’s okay, Miss Clayton. My sister will be here soon.”

“Okay, then,” said Dani. Slapping her hands on her thighs, she pushed herself to her feet, bag hanging from one shoulder. She walked towards the car with a smile and a wave back at Mikey. “I’ll see you next week!”

He did not answer. He was already nose-deep in his comic book again. Shaking her head with a small chuckle, Dani continued towards where Eddie was waiting for her, tapping at the dashboard. It wasn’t until her hand was on the chromed door handle that she finally registered what Mikey had said. 

A sister. He had a sister. At first she’d thought — well, a sister who got annoyed with a brother who hogged the television set would surely be a younger sister. But a sister who drove to pick him up from school was definitely not a younger sister. 

“Danielle, are you all right? You look a little pale.”

The sound of Eddie’s voice made her jerk half out of her skin. She hadn’t even realized he had rolled down the window. 

“Yeah,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. “Yeah. Can you just - Can you wait a second? I’ll be —I’ll be just a second.” 

Dani shoved her bag through the open window into her seat, then whirled around and marched back across the street. Her hands were clenched into fists at her side. She could feel the bite of her short nails into her palms. Something acidic boiled in her stomach, twisting it into knots, until she stood over Mikey, struggling to find her voice. 

“You said you had a sister?” she asked. “An older sister? And — And your last name is Taylor?” 

Looking puzzled, Mikey shrugged. “Yeah?” 

This was impossible. There was no way. For a long moment, Dani stared at him, his brown hair, his brown eyes, his narrow shoulders, the almost familiar shape of his nose and face. 

Dani cleared her throat and tried to sound nonchalant. “And what — uh — what’s her name?” 

With a quizzical frown up at her, Mikey turned a page of his comic book to where Wonder Woman was punching stars from one of her foes. “My sister?” he asked, as if it were the most bizarre question in the world. “Jamie. Her name’s Jamie.” 

“Right,” Dani breathed, feeling like she’d just received a blow to the space beneath her ribcage. “Right. Of course. Sorry. I’ll just — Bye.” 

Without another word, she turned on her heel and strode back towards the waiting car. She willed her breathing to even out, even as she felt something coil around her sternum and tighten with every step. Yanking open the door, Dani slipped into the car. She pushed her bag down to her feet and pulled the door shut behind her. 

“Everything good?” Eddie asked.

“Yeah,” Dani lied, her voice sounding oddly high even to her own ears. It was difficult to swallow; her throat felt too tight. A rush of blood flooded through her ears in a deafening crash. She stared fixedly at the reflection of her own clenched hands in the slanted windshield, willing them to relax even as her knuckles went whiter. “Fine. Everything’s fine.” 

And Eddie didn’t question it at all. He merely shrugged, put the car into gear, and drove away.

—

It stayed with her afterwards. Like a bruise upon her skin, blue and purple, tender to the touch. That cloying sense of the air too thick. Molasses on a hot summer day, the dark shadow that clung to her heels in sunlight, haunting her every step. She couldn’t breathe with it, couldn’t escape it.

Jamie. Jamie, here. Jamie, home.

Somehow Eddie didn’t notice. It completely passed him by, the way her eyes darted around as they stopped to pick up groceries, her clenched fists held tightly to her sides, consumed with the uneasy notion that she might turn around the corner and Jamie would appear, as if summoned by the gravity of Dani’s pounding heart. 

It should’ve been easy — like most things eventually — locking it away. Erasing it. She had managed now for years, days, months. Except now the very thought of Jamie being so near again, so tangible again, made her somehow indelible. As if she’d always been there. Waiting. As if she’d never gone. It felt altogether at once like being peeled and stripped away, down to an exposed nerve. 

Dani wished she could say she slept easy that night. Instead, after spending much of the witching hour staring at the ceiling, she finally succumbed to the sound of Eddie’s soft snores, his arm splayed across her waist, only to wake up feeling as if she'd been cracked open and hollowed out. Somehow, in between the moments of stumbling out of bed and driving up to the blue bungalow across town with Eddie in the small rental truck behind her, Dani managed to go through the motions of call and response. Her limbs moving, her mouth speaking all of their own accord, and she could only watch it happening. She pulled on the turn signal. The click of the light like an errant drip of a tap. It was only when she was cutting the engine to stare up at the house that was once hers, that something tightened in her chest, shunting her back to earth. 

Carson met them by the front steps where he sat in his studded leather jacket that he wore regardless of the weather, two takeout cups in hand. 

“Took you long enough,” he grumbled, standing and offering one of the cups to Eddie who reached him first. “Thought I was gonna have to drink these myself before they got cold.”

Eddie huffed a laugh, taking the cup. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that,” he drawled before helping himself inside the house without a backwards glance, taking a long sip from his cup.

Carson stared after him for a moment before turning to Dani with a smirk, and said, “Someone’s in a mood.”

Managing a chuckle, Dani folded her arms around herself. “Yeah, he uh, he’s just eager to get it done, you know? Realtor wants the place empty by three today.”

“Well, in that case,” he said, holding out the last cup, his smirk softening to something kinder. 

“Oh, thank you,” she said, taking it. The brush of his fingers against hers was warm and welcome. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“Sure, I did,” he responded with a shrug, and nudged her to take a drink, “Go on.”

At the first sip of what Dani had thought was coffee was instead a sweet and rich hot chocolate. Her eyes went wide. 

Carson laughed at the expression on her face. “Thought you could use a little something sweet today.”

She smiled at him over the plastic top and took another longer sip. “Thank you,” she said, “For coming. You didn’t need to, but —”

“— You needed some extra muscle, which I’ve plenty of.” His grin seemed rueful. There lingered in Carson more of the boyish youth that Dani had seen in Eddie so many years ago. He wasn’t as gangly or as broad-shouldered as his older brothers, but he was always, without fail, a comforting presence in an otherwise rowdy O’Mara household. 

“And yet none of your other brothers showed up, I see,” Dani said. 

“Yeah, well,” Carson shrugged against his leather jacket, hands stuck into the pockets. “Guess, I’m just the only responsible one.” 

“I knew there was a reason why I liked you best.” 

He winked and lowered his voice. “Don’t let Eddie hear you say that.”

With a snort, Dani reached out and ruffled his perfectly coiffed hair so that it more resembled Eddie’s unruly curls. He ducked his head and swatted her away with a whine of complaint. She laughed when he stepped away to carefully fix his hair in the reflection of her car window. 

“You leave your pomade at home again?” Dani teased. “Thought you never left without it.”

She could just make out his face in the reflection, nose scrunching up as he raked his fingers through his dark hair until it was suitably tamed. The door of the house one over opened, and a young man strode out, wearing a bathrobe and clutching a mug of coffee. Immediately Carson straightened, as though he’d been tapped with the wrong end of a cattle prod.

Dani waved. “Hi, Jason!” 

Her neighbor lifted a desultory hand while he fumbled with his letterbox. “Last day?” he asked, voice raspy with sleep.

“Taking the last of it now,” she said. 

Jason shut the letterbox and scooped up the newspaper that had been tossed onto his lawn earlier that morning. “Let me know if you need an extra hand.” 

“I should be all right. That’s what Carson’s for.” She gestured with her hot chocolate towards Carson, who had his hands jammed back into his pockets and was now leaning against her car with an odd expression on his face.

Jason glanced over and nodded, no more than a jerk of his chin up, before walking back into his house with the newspaper tucked under one arm. The muscles in Carson’s jaw were clenched, standing out like the ropes of a sailing ship. 

After the door to Jason’s house had swung shut, Dani asked, “I thought you two were friends?”

Carson grunted a wordless note. “We had a falling out a few months ago. Anyway —” He turned on his heel, grin back in place, and started making his way towards her house. “Show me the heavy stuff. Come on!”  

By the time they first made their way inside, Eddie was already hauling out boxes filled with her things. The tops and sides of each cardboard box had been painstakingly labelled in Dani’s hand, the letters neat and blocky. Carson slipped by Eddie with an exaggerated pose as if squeezing through a tight space as they passed one another in the door. Eddie paused, arms laden, and turned his face to Dani while she climbed the steps leading up to the entryway. The extra step allowed her to press a chaste kiss to his cheek and, mollified, he continued on his way towards the truck. Once inside, she found that Carson was already heaving an armchair up with his hands. She moved out of the way so he could trot after his older brother, leaving her momentarily alone.

The house was bare. Most of her things had already been carted away the week before. The transition into their new shared home had been gradual, just like everything else in their relationship. Eddie settling in first and coaxing Dani along as though she were a particularly nervous show dog that had slipped the collar. Looking around now, hands on her hips, Dani felt like an intruder. Like she was an archaeologist who had wandered into someone else's burial site with a rusty torch and hammer.

It almost looked bigger now that it was so empty. Her footsteps echoed too loud on the wooden floors, the sound traveling further and longer. The bare walls once peppered with paintings and photos now like a skeleton expanding its ribs, waiting to expel her in one long sunken breath. Her thumb gradually drifted to her mouth as she took it all in, biting hard at her nail and skin, fixedly eyeing the spot where once a small reading nook used to be. 

The sound of footsteps behind her was harsh and loud to her ears. “Hey, what did I tell you about that?” Eddie said from beside her suddenly, his hand gently pulling Dani’s away from her mouth.

She swallowed heavily and pulled her hand carefully back to hold into a fist by her side, and said, “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I just —”

“I don’t like you hurting yourself,” he said, frowning. She couldn’t help but let her shoulders slump at the concern in his eyes, and only managed to give him a tenuous smile and a nod. “Look, we’re almost done. Soon we’ll be out of here in no time and we can finally just focus on our home. Just let me and Carson do all the hard work.”

“I can help,” Dani said. “I want to help.”

He sighed. “Danielle -”

“I have my inhaler in the car. I won’t keel over and die,” Dani said.

“Hey, Ed, buddy, what happened to that deadline, huh?” Carson said, leaning heavily on the wall and pointing behind him to the kitchen, “You gonna help me with this thing or not?”

Eddie rolled his eyes, and briefly placed a hand on her shoulder before disappearing into the kitchen with muttered grumbling. Dani grinned after him before catching Carson’s eyes, chuckling and shaking her head as he winked at her before following Eddie.

“Gotta give her a minute to breathe, Ed.” Carson’s voice was soft, but still Dani heard it all the same and wrapped her arms tight around herself. 

Clearing her throat, she strode off in the direction of her old bedroom. The bed had been taken away and put in their new spare bedroom for guests who might come to visit. The carpet still bore indentations from where the posts had once sat. Eddie had already been in here; the boxes were gone. Dani glanced around for any last remaining items that might have been forgotten. The closet door was slightly awry, and with a frown she pulled it fully open. There was a single wire coat hanger hooked on the bar that stretched across the closet. Her hand reached out to take it, when she froze.

There, tucked away into the corner beneath one of the built in shelves, was a small wooden box. She could hardly remember the last time she had seen it, let alone opened it. A layer of dust covered the top. Kneeling down, Dani pulled the box out and into her lap. She blew the dust off and had to wipe a bit more with the edge of her sleeve. It was made of plain wood with a bronze latch fastening the lid shut. Her thumb teased the corner of the latch. She worried her lower lip between her teeth before steeling herself and lifting the lid open on squeaky hinges.

Nestled inside were a series of photographs, faded with age. Something clenched in her chest as she touched the first one with trembling fingers.

She and Jamie looked so young, and they were. Barely fifteen. Jamie's arm flung around her shoulder, arm outstretched to snap the photo while she pressed a kiss to Dani's cheek even as Dani laughed and elbowed her ribs. Swallowing down the urge to be sick, she slipped the photo aside to see the next. Jamie was younger still. Her arms were outstretched as she balanced her weight on the narrow steel bar of the abandoned train tracks beyond the fields that surrounded the town. Dani could remember the day she took this with crystal clarity. The days of summer in those years had been longer somehow, stretching on into warm endless nights. 

She was a furtive grave robber, flicking through picture after picture, exhuming a past that she hardly recognized herself in now. And pictures weren’t all that were stored here. There was a band shirt that had been half eaten by moths over years of neglect. An old Zippo lighter with scratched edges along the chrome plating. A necklace that was actually just a worn old half dollar coin pierced through and hung from a cheap chain. A cassette tape labelled Jamie’s Mixtape (1978) in a messy slanted scrawl, long missing its protective case. And finally, an old battered copy of Valley of the Dolls, where if she were to flick it open, she would find a pressed blue morning glory hidden among the pages. 

She gently ran her hand over them, still trembling as if the living memories within the treasure trove thrummed under her skin with its own heartbeat. 

In the distance, she could hear footsteps and the back and forth between Carson and Eddie in the living room as they manoeuvred a couch through the front door. When the footsteps drew closer, approaching down the hall, Dani hurriedly stuffed everything back into the box and shut the lid. 

Carson leaned in the doorway. At some point he had shed his leather jacket, so that now he only wore a white undershirt that was two sizes too small, tucked into his jeans. “You good here? We’ve loaded the last of it into the truck.”

“Yeah,” Dani said. She pushed herself upright, clutching the box to her chest as though it were an heirloom. “Yeah, that's everything.” 

His eyebrows rose and he nodded towards the box. “What do you got there?” 

Dani’s grip tightened. She could feel the grooves of the box pressing into her skin. “Nothing important.” 

—

Dani went about her routine on edge. At the supermarket, gripping the shopping cart between her hands and turning down the different aisles. At the gas station, stepping out of her beat up old car to work the pump. At the school, peering out the window at all the parents dropping off their kids in the parking lot. At the local cafe nearest the elementary school, picking up a newspaper and a slice for Hannah. Hoping for a glimpse of Jamie and dreading any encounter with her all at once.

Except Jamie never appeared. And Mikey sat at the back of the class, doodling in his notebook, not paying attention but knowing all the answers regardless whenever Dani called on him to participate. She could always see him after school sitting on the curbside and reading a new comic issue, or thumbing through a book from the paltry school library or scratching at his homework with a pencil. Not once did Dani loiter long enough to see him get picked up, and she felt a stab of irritation that he should be left alone for so long. But it wasn’t her business, and he got along well enough with the other kids during recess. 

Dani was still stewing silently over the whole affair at dinner with her future in-laws. She sat at the dining table, chewing at the skin of her thumb, with Carson at one elbow and Eddie at the next. Mike, Judy’s soft-spoken stooping husband, sat at the head of the table, while Judy herself set the last of the platters down and invited everyone to tuck in. 

“How’re the kids this year?” Judy asked as she spooned peas onto her plate. 

Dani made a noise in the back of her throat, before lowering her hand into her lap. “Yeah, they’re great! I — uh — I actually have a transfer student.”

Judy made a sound to indicate that she was still listening even while she passed a platter across the table to Eddie. 

“He’s really smart,” Dani continued. “I don’t really know what to do with him. He — well, he always looks a bit bored, to be honest.”

“Don’t they have some sort of advanced program for kids like that?” Mike asked. He had already tucked into the food even though his plate was only half full. 

“I’d need to talk to the parent or guardian first,” Dani said, her stomach flipping at the thought. The peas had made their way around the table to her now, and she slowly scraped the last of them onto an available corner of her plate. Swallowing heavily, Dani concentrated hard on the steady movements of her hands, and said, “Judy, I don’t suppose you’ve heard of anyone new coming to town?” 

Judy’s mouth was full. She frowned thoughtfully as she chewed, and swallowed before answering. “No, I haven’t, now that you mention it. I’ll have to ask around the ladies at the book club if they’ve seen anyone.” 

Any hope Dani might have nursed of learning something new about Jamie’s presence in town flickered out like a snuffed candle. “Thanks,” she said, already feeling the conversation wander towards other topics. “Can you pass the salt, Carson?”

—

Sitting here in her Sunday best with Eddie’s warm hand in hers and a book of hymns in the other, Dani was sandwiched in the pew between her fiancé and her mother. Karen smelled sharply of cheap mall perfume, her dress pressing in tight on her ribs. The priest’s voice echoed from his place declaming near the altar, but Dani wasn’t listening. She was too preoccupied with the way her heart pounded in her chest, the clench of her stomach and the restless nerves that someone might have seen her. 

She hadn’t planned on going to the movies yesterday, not at first. Not until she had seen the ad in Saturday’s morning paper, an art house theater two towns over advertising a one-time showing of Desert Hearts. It had caused such a stir in the community a few years ago that any curiosity Dani had felt toward it had died and shriveled up inside of her. Yet her Saturday afternoon had been free, and Eddie had been mercifully busy after helping her move the last of her things. 

And now Dani sat in the same church she’d been going to her entire life, feeling like a marionette whose mouth was puppetted by invisible strings as she joined the others in song. The priest leading them through a hymn wasn’t the same man who baptized Dani as an infant. The bench she was sitting on wasn’t the same she sat in week after week. The woman on her right was virtually nonexistent. The man’s hand she was holding loosely in her left wasn’t the same man who she grew up with, he wasn’t the boy who asked her again and again to marry him. 

This Dani, this new Dani, lied to her fiancé and drove an hour out of town the day before with a whispered prayer on her tongue for her car to just hold on for once, for just one more day to see a film that left her blushing scarlet and her stomach dropping not uncomfortably, sitting alone in the dark with a carton of untouched popcorn. This Dani would return to her car, and her first thought would turn to whether this would be the kind of movie Jamie would have picked as her choice of their weekly film showing — knowing immediately that the answer would be 'yes.’ And just as abruptly as the thought appeared, she promptly squashed the idea of even contemplating such a question. 

Dani’s voice faltered, wavering over the words as a flash of guilt washed over her when the heat returned to her skin. She looked up at the cross, hanging on the back wall over the priest’s head, and glanced furtively at Eddie to see where he was in the verse, praying no one had seen her stumble. When service finally ended, and the ritualistic gossip on the front steps had been entertained, she allowed herself to be led outside. Eddie’s hand was warm and steady, completely enveloping her own, pulling her to the warm air where it finally felt like she was able to breathe again. 

She felt a heady rush of relief when her mom begged off brunch, claiming to suffer from a headache as she walked to her car with a half-hearted wave. Relieved two-fold when Eddie needed to run off to the office for preliminary work for Monday, kissing her on the cheek in a goodbye that she barely registered before rushing off to his car. Until she was only left with Judy. 

“So,” Judy asked, and for a brief terrifying moment Dani thought she might know, she might have finally seen her. In the end though all Judy said was: “How about that lunch?” 

Judy linked their arms, pulling her in close until all Dani could do was smile and say, “Lead the way.”

The bistro Judy directed them to was relatively new, Dani had passed it multiple times over the last couple weeks but had never actually gone in, always driving by with casual curiosity and a bemused but charmed smile at the name: A Batter Place. 

“You’re gonna love it,” Judy said, guiding Dani in with an arm linked in her own, “Their macaroons are to die for.”

Gamely, Dani smiled along to Judy’s enthusiasm as Judy pointed to various fixtures of the restaurant, steadily ignoring the strain building in the back of her neck. It wouldn’t be fair to say that Judy made her nervous. There were too many good intentions behind her warm eyes and her warm hugs, always with her hands full of containers of hearty food, always holding on a little longer than Dani expected, like she was afraid Dani would drift away. Judy, she knew, at least cared. 

Perhaps that was why, after settling in their seats and ordering their lunch, Dani hid her hands under the table, fingers trembling as they picked at the skin of her thumb. 

“So, how have you been, honey?” Judy asked over her cup of coffee, smiling that kind, good-intentioned smile. “I feel like I’ve barely seen you since school started up again.”

A small pressure valve released in Dani’s chest, and she finally allowed herself a real smile. “I’ve been keeping busy, and well — you know how it is with a new school year. This year especially is different.”

“Because of the higher grade?”

“Right. And I just — I want things to be perfect, you know?” Dani said, and chuckled ruefully, “Though twenty-five twelve year olds will certainly be a challenge.”

This she could manage. This she could at least be grateful for, the way Judy allowed the conversation to steer towards something that filled Dani with a sense of purpose, smiling proudly at her over the din of conversation around them with no mention of Eddie or long overdue wedding planning. 

Judy took a pointed sip of her coffee. “Well, I know you like the challenge, but you can’t forget to take care of yourself,” she said, her lips pulling into a familiar smile. One to be used when nearing a cornered animal. Dani’s stomach sank, when Judy continued, “Now, I know you and Eddie need time to get used to living together, doing all the things couples have to learn to do alone but, you don’t have to steer clear of the house forever. I know we all recently just had dinner together but —”

Dani glanced away. 

“— You could come over at any time. Like yesterday! What were you up to yesterday? I would have made lasagna for you.”

“Oh, uh —” Dani gave a nervous breathy chuckle, hoping to hide the grimace at the memory of the two women who had stared brazenly at her when she had exited the art house theater yesterday, Dani in her too bright blouse and high jeans, looking frazzled and out of place. She took a long sip of her coffee, hoping to hide the same feeling under her skin now. “You know. Busy.”

Judy waved her explanation away with that same smile. “Oh, well, never mind that. It doesn’t matter now. There’s always next weekend,” she said, and her hand reached over to clasp Dani’s before she could hide it again. “I’m just hoping I get more time to spend with my favorite future daughter-in-law before things get too crazy. Wedding planning and teaching a class of twenty-five kids is one thing, but thinking about raising a baby is another.”

A moment passed before Dani could process the words. A baby. Of course. 

“Oh,” was all Dani managed to say, a polite smile frozen on her face as Judy’s grip on her hand tightened in a way that anyone else would have found comforting. The hand that Dani so wanted to pull away, to press against her chest. A pressure building inside her ribs, pulling her skin taught and straining at the edges. A ringing in her ears that sounded more and more like the whistle of a tea kettle or the whine of an over-revved engine. 

She was only saved by the grace of their food arriving, the pressure abating to something manageable as Judy freed Dani’s hand to make room for their plates. It gave Dani the opportunity to down half of her coffee, hot enough to scald, and to clench a fist under the table, her nails pressing hard into the soft skin of her hand.

At the first bite of food, Judy hummed and sank back into her seat. “Now that is delicious,” she said, gesturing with her fork. “Go on, take a bite.”

Dani took advantage of the moment, letting the previous topic of conversation pass over them untouched as she pulled her own forkful of food in her mouth. She blinked in surprise. 

“Wow,” she said after swallowing, sharing an incredulous chuckle with Judy. “That is really good.”

“I’m telling you, this new chef knows what he’s doing,” Judy said with a grin, as if she had known exactly how Dani would have reacted. 

It should have been comforting, being so well understood. And for the most part it was. Afterall, Dani had spent much of her youth at Judy’s table, being fed day in and day out as if she were Judy’s own. Always having a safe haven. A home away from home, where she would be welcome. No questions asked. It should have been an absolute solace. Yet somehow, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being made of glass. As if she were standing there and Judy was looking right through her at someone else that didn’t exist. 

The bell attached to the door rang as it swung open, and the sound drew her back to the table, almost startling her. She swallowed down an unexpected thickness in her throat, ignoring that steady pressure in her ribs, and shared another unassuming smile with Judy, taking a second bite. 

“We should come here again,” Dani said, hoping to alleviate some of the pressure that was building in her lungs. 

“Then it’s a date. Next Sunday.” Judy smiled wide. 

It was so easy, making Judy happy, making her smile wide and bright like she’d won the lottery. It was something Dani was good at, pleasing others. The very thought of speaking up and potentially ruining the moment was enough to cause a vein of dread to thread its way through her. Yet something in that moment caused Judy’s smile to flicker, the sound of the bell ringing again as the front door swung open with a squeak of unoiled hinges. Judy’s eyes glanced over somewhere behind Dani’s shoulder and they slowly widened to an expression Dani had only seen once before — when Eddie announced their engagement during family dinner. 

“Jamie Taylor?” 

Dani tensed and turned around, and sure enough, there she was. Jamie Taylor herself. Dark jeans, big work boots, and a brown jacket, strolling into the bistro like she’d never left town. Like the air from Dani’s lungs hadn’t been sucked out by a gut punch releasing every single pressure valve at the very sight of her. 

“Oi, Sharma! Whatever happened to you saying you could fix those hinges without my help?” Jamie’s voice rang clear across the room.

“Danielle, honey, you didn’t tell me that Jamie was back,” Judy said in a rush of breath, already out of her seat and walking toward Jamie like a woman on a mission, as if there wasn’t a hurricane forming within Dani’s chest. As if a swell of feeling wasn’t rushing through her as she sat unmoving with wide eyes attached to the lines of Jamie’s back, to the curl of her hair, unchanged, unkempt, and yet completely different. 

Whatever Dani had expected to feel upon hearing that voice again, it wasn’t to feel all of it at once. She didn’t know which feeling to land on, watching Jamie turn at the sound of Judy’s voice, catching sight of the familiar lines of Jamie’s face as they twisted in surprise and fell into a charming smile as Jamie conceded to a tight hug from Judy; the fluttering of happiness, the rush of anxiety, the desperate desire to flee, the shock that belied the anger and muted resentment. 

In the end, Dani just sat there, unable to move and unable to look away. 

The pair pulled out of the hug, with Judy briefly and affectionately framing Jamie’s face with her hands like she used to. And Jamie rolled her eyes good naturedly with a crooked smile, burying her hands in her pockets. It was like no time at all had passed. They were teenagers again, and Judy was sending them off back home from dinner with warm hugs and piling their hands with leftovers in tupperware. 

When Judy gestured over towards their table towards Dani, it was all she could do to not run and excuse herself to the washroom, to not slip out the back door. But it was too late, tension coiling in her body as Jamie’s head turned towards Dani and their eyes finally met. 

It was suddenly incredibly hard to breathe. Dani blinked, and the look on Jamie’s face at the sight of her — startled, mouth agape — was gone, and all that was left was something entirely unfamiliar. A polite placid smile as Judy talked her ear off, answering Judy’s questions and gesturing across the counter towards a handsome man with a thick moustache wearing an apron. Even so, Jamie only had eyes for Dani, her gaze occasionally roving back, her expression unreadable. 

Before Dani could do more than stare, Judy was guiding Jamie back to their table, a hand on her back. Dani’s stomach twisted itself into a knot at their approach. Her heart began crashing against her ribs until it was all she could hear. Jamie was looking at her with that crooked grin, and Dani didn’t know what else to do but stand from her seat, faintly dazed, a hand brushing against invisible lint and wrinkles along her sky blue dress. 

“Look who I found!” Judy said as they pulled up to the table, as if Dani hadn't been on the verge of a nervous breakdown in the last minute. The last decade, if she were being honest with herself. 

All Dani could do was give a trembling smile. “Jamie,” she said, almost breathless, the name feeling foreign on her tongue. “Hi.”

Jamie’s grin shifted into something like a smirk, gaze drifting over Dani so fast that she felt it on her skin like a flash fire. “Danielle,” she said, and Dani’s smile faltered. “Been a minute.”

“It has,” Dani said in between barely gritted teeth, the feeling in her stomach souring. 

“I was just telling Jamie how this is the first time I’ve brought you here,” Judy interrupted, oblivious as ever. Jamie’s smirk dropped back into something softer, an eyebrow quirked and her head tilting curiously. “How today of all days, that we all walk in the same restaurant together. It must be kismet.”

“Don’t know about that, Mrs. O’Mara. Was never much one for kismet,” Jamie said with a shrug, looking so much like she’s sixteen again that a dull pressure returned to Dani’s chest. “World’s too chaotic for that.”

“And yet here you are.” Judy shuffled back into her seat and gestured to Jamie. “Come, come sit. Just for a while until your takeout is ready.”

It was only by the grace of luck and Judy’s affection for Jamie, that she gestured toward the chair next to her instead of Dani. Jamie didn’t argue, taking the seat, and Dani following after, almost a second delayed from the shock of it all. She could feel Jamie’s eyes on her as she settled in her chair, but Dani kept her attention low and focused on her food, feeling distinctly like she was in a dream.

“Danielle, truly, I can’t believe you neglected to tell me Jamie was back,” Judy admonished with a teasing grin. 

She clenched her teeth. Dani had a hard time believing it herself. “Must’ve slipped my mind," she said.

“How long have you been back again, honey?”

“About two months now,” Jamie said. At the admission, Dani finally pulled her eyes away from the table to look up at Jamie, lounging back in her seat like she had all the time in the world, noticeably avoiding Dani’s gaze.

Two months. Two months, and not even a phone call. Not even a letter. Dani took another heady swallow of her now lukewarm coffee in an effort to ground herself. Some things just never changed, she guessed. 

“We were so worried when you left, after — after everything, especially. We all were. I thought about you for so long afterwards. Kept you in my prayers,” Judy said, and while the words were sobering with the memories of those days, Jamie’s expression remained unchanged, detached and ambiguous, the corner of her mouth quirked. 

“Then I guess I have you to thank,” Jamie said, “All that praying must’ve done something good. Mikey and I have been getting on quite nicely, if I do say so myself.”

Judy gasped, a hand clutching at her chest. “Oh, Mikey! That sweet boy, how is he? Oh, I can’t believe it’s been so long. He must be — what? Eleven now?”

“Twelve actually,” Jamie said, then chuckled. It was something new. The way her eyes turned just a bit brighter, her smile more gentle, as she reached into her pocket to dig out a beat up leather wallet, flipping it open towards Judy. Judy gasped again, holding onto the wallet with a laugh. “Twelve years old and already reaching my chin," Jamie continued. "The little gremlin’s gonna have me beat by next year at this rate, I swear.”

“He’s wonderful,” Judy said, her eyes alight with emotion, “Gosh, he looks just like you. Except for the eyes, those sweet brown eyes. He’s definitely going to be a heartbreaker.”

“Not on my bloody watch,” Jamie grumbled. 

“Have you seen him yet, Danielle?” Judy held out the wallet to Dani, who had to refrain from recoiling back, as if Judy was holding out a live snake. 

“I have,” Dani admitted quietly, “He’s one of my students, actually.”

“Oh, so that’s what all those questions were about the other day,” Judy said, and tapped Jamie playfully on her arm resting on the table with her wallet. “What did I tell you? Kismet.”

Jamie flipped the wallet shut and returned it to her pocket. “Mikey did mention the name once or twice. Miss Clayton this, Miss Clayton that, and I thought: what are the chances?”

Dani swallowed down a scoff and the bitterness brewing in the back of her throat. Her left hand ached from clutching it so tight in her lap, knuckles white, crescent-shaped grooves in her palm. She stretched her hand out and ran it through her hair, her fingers trembling as they smoothed down the gentle waves and curls she put in that morning. 

“Ah, so he’s done it then,” Jamie said, apropos of nothing. She leaned forward on the table, staring so abruptly and intently that Dani shifted away in her own seat slightly, hoping she hadn’t noticed. 

It was the first time Jamie had fully addressed her since that singular hello. Dani frowned, that ever present knot in her stomach twisting tighter. “Sorry?” 

“That nice big shiny rock on your hand.” Jamie gestured down to the aforementioned rock, and sure enough, there was her engagement ring, shining bright against the afternoon light pouring through the window. “Must’ve cost a damn fortune.”

Dani had thought the same, when Eddie had dropped to his knee, proffering up the box where the ring lay, his face flickering through a wide array of emotions — adoration, anxiety, hope. At the time all Dani could think, staring down at the large square cut diamond, was that it looked heavy.

“But isn’t it gorgeous?” Judy gushed, reaching out to grasp Dani’s hand to pull it closer for Jamie to see. Dani breathed out an awkward laugh at the sudden motion but let herself be dragged along. “I went to help him pick it out, and — gosh, well, we all know how many times he’s asked over the years. Our Danielle always liked to keep him on his toes. I just about died at the news when they officially announced the engagement a few months later.”

Jamie whistled low. “I can imagine,” she drawled.

Judy continued to ramble about the announcement. She released the hand that Dani tried to surreptitiously and swiftly return under the table, hoping to hide the desire to shrink under the table as well. Meanwhile Jamie seemed to be only half-listening, watching Dani with a tilted head and a sharp glance that left Dani feeling like a strip of overexposed film. Her eyes strayed to Jamie's old scar against her will, landing on the long stretch of a pale line that started from her lower lip and descended down towards her chin. It was usually hard to see, but today it was easy to find in the light of the room.  

Dani swallowed thickly and glanced away. 

“So, how’d he do it?”

“Mmm?” Dani looked back up, a little dazed. 

Jamie’s head tilted pointedly towards her. “Ed,” she said. “How’d he go about it this time? To be honest with you, I had my bets placed on senior prom night, like he’d always planned. Flowers in the park after the dance, and all that rubbish.”

“He told you that?” Dani frowned. 

“Wouldn’t shut up about it.”

“Oh.” Dani fiddled with the ring, glancing down at it. “No, it was um — “ She smiled, a frail subdued thing, only to fold her right hand over it, covering the diamond so that it dug into her palm, “ — it was during a dinner date.”

Jamie lifted an eyebrow. “In public?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah.”

“Christ,” Jamie breathed, looking somewhat horrified. 

“Language, sweetie,” Judy piped in, seemingly instinctively. 

And like clockwork, Jamie ducked her head sheepishly. “Sorry,” she said, not looking sorry at all. 

Judy laughed, patting Jamie’s arm. “Gosh, just look at us,” she breathed, her eyes shining as they bounced between Dani and Jamie. “I still can’t believe it. Me and my girls back together again. Who’d have thought?”

Dani breathed out a chuckle, her cheeks aching from the force of holding a smile in place, not knowing what else to say. And what could she say, really? That none of this felt familiar? That it all felt so wrong? That after years of absence, to finally be just arm’s length away from Jamie, only to feel like she was meeting a stranger wearing a familiar face?

No. No, that wasn’t right. She worried her lower lip between her teeth, but Jamie had never stopped watching her. A shared look passed between them and it was there, finally, that she found something warm and tangible. The ghost of a memory of sitting across the table from each other at Judy’s during dinner, sharing a secretive knowing smile, while Judy gushed over Dani’s help in the kitchen, or admonished Jamie for yet another skinned knee. A smile pulled at the corners of Dani’s mouth, slow and real. Jamie blinked, her gaze softening as she mirrored Dani’s smile, and for the first time in a long time, Dani felt something in her chest unspool.

A bell rang. Jamie glanced away, and the moment was gone, leaving Dani chilled in its absence as if she had stepped out from a warm building and into a storm.

“That’s my cue,” Jamie said, sounding just as she had before, as if nothing had transpired between them. “Can’t let the kid starve without some lunch.”

She moved to stand but Judy’s hand held her in place. “Don’t think you can get away again this time without at least letting me give you my number,” Judy reprimanded not unkindly. "We got a new one at the house, you'll be surprised to hear."

Grinning crookedly, Jamie said, “And I imagine you’ll be wanting mine, then?”

Judy pulled out a pen from her purse and waggled it back and forth. “You know me too well.”

Grabbing a spare napkin, Judy jotted down a series of numbers. “Now don’t you forget to give me a call, all right? I want to hear all about your time away,” she said, handing over the pen and napkin for Jamie to rip out her piece, and note down her own number. Dani’s eyes strayed down to the confident, angled numbers, just barely able to decipher them from her vantage point. “And I hope you know, you and Mikey are welcome any time over for dinner. I want to meet that young man. See if he’s anything like his older sister.”

The words were fond, but Jamie snorted all the same. “Don’t you worry, Mrs. O’Mara. He’s my better half.”

Dani rose to her feet out of politeness when Judy stood to give Jamie a parting hug. For a terrifying moment, she thought Jamie might expect one from her as well, but Jamie only lifted her eyebrows and nodded before turning towards the counter to collect her order. She didn’t glance in Dani’s direction again as she left, pushing through the glass door and striding off down the street with the breeze in her hair. Dani watched her go, jaw aching from how hard she was clenching her teeth together.

Judy sat, and Dani followed suit as though she were simply mimicking Judy’s movements. “Jamie Taylor back from the dead after ten years. Imagine that.” Judy chuckled to herself and picked up her fork. “Feels just like old times, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dani breathed. “Just like old times.”

[persefone88]

10 + 1 Wangxian Recs - Theme Gods and Demons

I am currently mostly in MDZS (Mo Dao Zu Shi/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) fandom. And fully and wholeheartily shipping Lan Wangji/Wei Wuxian. And since I have collected 2000+ Wangxian bookmarks on AO3 I thought it was high time to pick out some of my favourite fics to Recommend. But since it is hard to pic just a few I decided to separate them into themes.

This theme is fics where either/both of Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are some kind of God or Demon or Eldritch Creature.

Demonic Cultivator's Blessing, or: Curse of the Bunny Gods by FayJay

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21806698

Summary:Written for the Reverse Big Bang Challenge, to illustrate the beautiful art work below, by Saph0000 (qr-sa on tumblr).Her prompt was to write something about WWX and LWJ ascending to become deities; I took the liberty of slightly crossing over MDZS with Heaven Official's Blessing for the worldbuilding, and set myself the goal of bringing a smile to the faces of Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen.So: a story in which the newly-ascended bunny gods set out to give Jiang Cheng's love life a boost, and find a way of cheering up Lan Xichen along the way.

don't wanna go to heaven if they don't want meby butchgoth (GremlinGirl)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23173873

Summary:Rolling thunder shook the Heavenly Realm, tremors nearly toppled whole palaces, and a bright shot of light illuminated the Martial Square. A new ascension had taken place, and amid the chaos stood a new God donned in black robes with a red ribbon fluttering in his hair.Wei Wuxian, a villain who murdered three thousand cultivators at Nightless City, shocks the world when he ascends to Godhood. With him, he brings a lowly doctor and a fierce corpse, and he meets no rule that he won't break. The Heavens are shocked and offended by his very presence, and talk about him is endless. The noble, graceful Martial God Lan Wangji, one of the Twin Jades from the Palace of Lan, becomes entangled with him, and a plague brought on by wicked cultivation strikes the populace. One of them the pride of Heaven, the other its shame, two Gods work together to unravel who is responsible and how they can stop the plague from claiming the lives of the ones Wei Wuxian loves.

We'll Build This House on Stone (Altars) by FluffyHippogriff

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24690373/chapters/59670793

Summary:Maybe, just maybe, Wei Wuxian shouldn't have looked for an abandoned temple in the dead of night.Maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have broken in and invoked the name of the ancient god supposedly residing in said temple.And maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have kept coming back to socialize.

Ashes and Moonlight by Anonymous

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20335783

Summary:For a long time, what separated gods and demons was defined only by where they went: up or down.

寒光殿: The Palace of Winter's Light by crimsonghost

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170688

Summary:The day Lan Ya jiangjun lost his godhood, a faint snowfall fell over the Heavenly Court.The day Lan Wangji was born, a once-in-a-century blizzard battered the mountains of Gusu.Lan Wangji is a pseudo-reincarnation of a martial god from the previous heavenly "dynasty". There's something going on with the new Heavenly Court, and the Qishan Wen Sect is up to something. If only he remembered who he was, maybe he'd be able to solve both problems.

Mirage by mondengel

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27593869

Summary:The thing sprawled across the Jingshi was massive and amorphous

Now I'm slipping through the cracks by MirageBeaumort

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23884108

Summary:His baby born die... or so Wei Ying had announced, holding a small body between blankets.Eldritch AU

baby, take a chance on me by Anonymous

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29603424

Wei Wuxian has been carefully avoiding the darker edge of his occupation for hundreds of years, content to keep his head down. When that becomes an impossibility, he decides that it's high time he takes a shot at getting what he wants.Summary:He’s not even that destructive, all things considered. He prefers his little tricks to outright decimation and sometimes all he has to do is bat his eyes and the humans just take it from there. They really are a rowdy, horny bunch, very easy to rile up. He’s glad he was never like that, which is kind of funny considering his exact job description.Wei Wuxian, Class A Succubus.

a sword for a tongue by martyrsdaughter

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26690338

Summary:Esteemed cultivation professor Lan Wangji demonstrates how to deal with demons.He does not recommend marrying them as a general rule, but it's worked out well for him so far.

Ambrosia by misbehavingvigilante

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28394556

Summary:The God of Wine is dead. His sister’s grief shrinks each harvest more and more and his almost lover threatens to coat the world in an endless winter now that his Sun is gone.There is also a new God of Death.These two events may not be as unconnected as they seem.

Remnants of a Past Here Pass Like Light Through Dust by MavisMelisande

https://archiveofourown.org/works/28585359

Summary:"Please, you have to help him." Wèi Wúxiàn whispered into the dark, fingers scrabbling against the stone altar. His face was wet with tears, and he felt desperate, empty, cavernous in his despair. In all the times he had been here before, he had received no response to his offerings, no sign of the god that was once worshiped on this lost island. But he knew, he could feel the presence here. "And what do you give in return?" The voice was a deep rumble, disembodied, a part of the temple and the water, the fish and the lotus, and nothing at all. "Anything," he sobs, and he finds he means it. It was his duty to protect his brother, and he failed. Whatever Hánguāng-jūn asks, Wèi Wúxiàn will pay. "You will remain," the voice echoes, and Wèi Wúxiàn chokes. But yes, of course he will. If Jiāng Chéng is restored, it doesn't matter if he spends the rest of his years living in a koi pond. He laughs brokenly, stung by the inappropriate insanity. But then the voice continues: "for one year." One year. Yeah... Wèi Wúxiàn can do that. One year. "Yes."Wèi Wúxiàn begs an unknown god to restore Jiāng Chéng's core after Wēn Níng is caught trying to sneak them out of Wēn occupated Lotus Pier.

[mammoney-honey]

Summoning Circles: What to Offer the Brothers GN!MC

MC doesn’t need to set up anything to summon them since they have their pact but sometimes its just nice to add a bit of drama. It’s also a good way to get the brothers to accept Just Because gifts. So what would would MC lay out as an offering for their favorite demon in their pentagram?

Lucifer

Lucifer is hard to get gifts for because hes a man of few words and fewer guilty pleasures

MC does their best to keep an eye out for things he does like and finally sets things up when they feel that Luci needs a bit of a break

They mostly offer things that would make for a good date night but with one small exception: special gourmet dog treats 

He won’t admit it, he says Cerberus is just a well trained guard dog, but that big boy gets only the best and MC knows that Lucifer will appreciate the gesture

The rest is all about setting the mood so Lucifer couldn’t possibly say no to staying

The first thing to accomplish this is the finest bottle of hellfire aged wine, a special request put through to Diavolo for whatever he thought Lucifer would like most

And to accompany a good drink you need some good food as well. A charcuterie board supplied with recommendations from Barbatos and Luke. The little guy should be called a mouse rather than a dog with how much he loves cheese. It took a long time for him to stop talking about it

One of the things that MC looks most fondly on of their time with Lucifer was quiet nights in listening and dancing to new music. They didn’t always share the same tastes but they were always willing to give it a go

So MC would find a vinyl, the only thing Lucifer would listen to the purest that he is, of their most recent favorite song or band so that they could share it with him

The last thing offered is that which Lucifer would want above all else as his own, MC

They can think of nothing else that would gain Lucifer’s attention more than offering their full and complete self. His pride could never allow him to deny taking MC when they offer themselves so willingly

He appears in full demon form, he can’t think of who would be ballsy enough to try and summon him and he has to pull back on his full power once he sees its MC

“MC, my dearest love, the pageantry is appreciated but overall unneeded. All you ever have to do is call my name, all I wish is to hear my name on your lips. But now that I’m here lets make sure you are screaming it”

Mammon

He is another one who is hard to gift things to but for the opposite reason as Lucifer. He likes too many things, wants everything and so it makes it impossible to tell what would actually mean something to him

MC tries their best to lay out things that will show how much they love and appreciate their favorite demon

Money of course is the first thing that is set out but not just spare Grimm or human cash

No, MC will put gift cards out for Mammon’s favorite places or for a date that they can have together. It feels more personal that way and they hope it shows that they pay attention to the things he likes

Mammon has a wardrobe to rival Asmo’s but he insists that it all has to do with his job as a model. Gotta keep up appearances and all that yanno. Hes just a label whore though and everyone knows it

He also just melts at the idea that MC might be thinking of what he would look good in so if they put out a new outfit or accessory, even if its just new sunglasses or a belt, he just about explodes

He will scoff and say that hes not sure if human styles are really his thing but of course puts whatever it is on quickly

Next would be a very special edition of the TSL dvds, a directors cut that even Levi couldn’t get his hands on. He has watched it with MC so many times he could practically recite it but they were always borrowing from Levi so it was about time to start wearing out their own copy

The last two things are more personal, something that shows just how much MC thinks of and misses being with him

The first of that is MC’s favorite set of pictures they took with Mammon, a silly photo booth strip that captured their first kiss. MC had surprised him on the first snapshot and it showed a progression of him getting redder and redder before finally kissing them back

Lastly is a page from their diary, as intimate an offering as they can possibly give. Its from a day where the longing for Mammon was at its strongest and filled with sweet words of how much they miss their first man

Mammon is freaked out at first thinking he is being summoned by another witch and is confused to see MC before taking it all in

“H-hey you don’t have to go through all this. I mean of course The Great Mammon won’t say no to the the things he deserves but ... b-but you only ever need to say my name, there is no where I’d rather be than with you”

Levi

Levi has a bad habit of just buying whatever he wants but considering that he has so many fandom’s its not hard to find some piece or another he doesn’t have 

MC feels like his brothers don’t give much thought to his gifts though, just typing in a name they know and getting whatever they find. They want to give him something more personal and can’t just be bought and shipped in two days

MC starts to watch a lot of craft, cooking and cosplay YouTubers to try and put everything together themselves. It felt more genuine that way at least to them

MC tries to keep things diverse, hitting a couple of Levi’s favorites but mostly avoiding anything Ruri related since they are afraid of messing it up lmao

Instead they focus on the anime’s and games that they watched and played together. Almost like a collection of inside jokes that they are using to summon him

The first thing MC sets out is a prettily decorated plate of macrons, doing their best to replicate the colors and flavors described in the one bakery time management game they always played

MC also went through Levi’s super secret fanfiction accounts I will fight you he is totally a fic writer because he has so many self inserts and fix it fics  and wrote out comments for every single thing he had written. They printed them out not because they didn’t think he read them but to show that they were the ones that left them

Along with the comments MC also created art for Levi’s most beloved OC, creating cute enamel pins of them in chibi form with the cannon character he paired them with

 The last two things came as a sort of combo, a couples cosplay from the romance anime they had watched together. The protagonist had been a shut in otaku who had found his soulmate when they were reborn into his world and Levi had latched onto him immediately 

It had taken a lot of blood sweat and tears trying to get both of the outfits cannon perfect but damn it MC was not going to settle for anything less

At one point they forgot they were making it for Levi and just got caught up in the the drama that was finding the perfect buttons and trim color

Overall they were so proud of the sewing skills they just wanted to call on him the moment they were done so he could see but they got a hold of themselves so they could set up what they had planned

Levi was summoned into the circle still wearing his headset and fingers tapping at a controller that had been left behind

His demon side comes out at having been cost a serious match from the sounds of it but his anger turns to confusion at seeing MC and then into wide eyed amazement at all of the things in front of him

He started to gush about every single thing he saw before he realized that MC was there beaming at him 

“You went through all this trouble to prove that you aren’t a normie and yet you summon me this way?? J-just say my name like you’re supposed to! I kind of like hearing you say it anyway ...”

Satan

Satan surprisingly doesn’t like being the center of attention and thus doesn’t really like surprises or receiving gifts. He also doubts that anyone understands him enough to give him what he wants cocky ass that he is

The idea for the things to set out in his summoning circle came to MC when discussing love potions with Satan and Solomon one day. They were talking about how smell plays such a strong part and Satan let slip some of the things he might smell after MC listed some of theirs

So while MC doesn’t have much, well any, experience in magic or potions they do want to try to stir up those feelings those smells produce in Satan

The first thing he had said came as a surprise to no one, the smell of parchment and ink

MC used each of them as their own separate offering on the pentagram. They used a fancy new calligraphy quill dipped in green ink that matched his eyes to write a long love note for him

The ink was still wet on the parchment that they set down and left the quill and remaining ink as the second gift

The next thing he mentioned was another one MC expected: tea leaves

So MC just walked into their local tea shop and let their nose lead the way. Anything that caught their attention or made them want to keep smelling they bought, creating their own special blend just for Satan

It wasn’t necessarily something that Satan would say for himself but MC had started to burn different candles in their room when he would come to rant when he was angry, trying to find a scent that he could associate with being calm when they helped him work through the anger

Whatever candle seemed to work the best is the candle that MC sets out for him. Probably something woodsy, pine or balsam or even sandalwood. It brings back good memories for MC, kissing all those worries of his away and hopes it does the same

The last item is one that made MC blush when they heard Satan admit it, he had liked the scent of their shampoo

He hadn’t said that specifically but he had closed his eyes and described a scent that he couldnt place but that he adored and when MC was taking their shower that night it clicked 

It might have been a little lame, leaving a bottle of shampoo out for Satan but MC knew that when he realized what that scent he loved so much was that he would get the cutest blush

They weren’t disappointed when they summoned Satan. He hid his shock of being summoned this way well, taking his time to walk around the circle and examine each offering. He immediately knew where they had gotten the inspiration and teased them about being such a sap

He stopped when he got to the shampoo though, not sure how that fit into the equation until he smelled it. It dawned on him and there was that blush that he tried to hide by turning his face away

“You always did like to make things difficult on yourself didn’t you? I’m only ever a call away for you kitten. Now come here and let me really breath you in, you’re simply intoxicating to me and I can’t stay away.”

Asmo

Asmo is never shy about when he doesn’t like gifts that people have given him but he has only ever cherished what MC has gotten him. Every small trinket and gift he has on full display in his room and he will wear something that MC got them when he misses them the most

He also will do it when he wants to bother his brothers and show off that MC simply lavished him in gifts (Mammon and Levi are the only ones who fall for it lmao)

So MC decides to offer Asmo things that will allow him to parade around their love for him, things to keep them close when MC isn’t there

The first thing that MC gets Asmo is new nail polish, a color that they agonized over finding because they wanted it to match his eyes perfectly

Asmo has a very organized planner, its how he keeps track of all the events he is invited to, when he has dates, who hes slept with, who hes going to sleep with and everything in between

MC commissions custom made stickers for him so he can decorate the pages of his planner even more. Specifically a whole sheet of cute stickers of them together he could use for when they planned date nights

The next thing was something for Asmo’s room which he was always changing and refreshing so it looked forever interesting for Devilgram pics

MC gets a large print of Asmo’s favorite picture of them together and puts it in a beautiful frame that perfectly matched his favorite decorating style. Perfect to show to the world that Asmo was their favorite demon and that they looked so good together

And so they can take even more pictures of themselves together MC buys a Polaroid camera for Asmo. His phone will always be his favorite thing to take pics on but this way they could have them printed instantly and it continues to let him be trendy

Lastly MC gets Asmo a necklace. A dainty rose gold chain that he can wear with practically everything and with a diamond accented heart shaped locket that could easily be tucked away if needed. It was an enchanted locket, thanks to the help of Solomon, and it warmed when MC was thinking of him

Its the first thing Asmo grabs and quickly puts on, showing it off for MC

“Oh MC you are simply the cutest thing I have ever seen~ I’m sorry I don’t have something to give you in return. I hope the fact that my heart beats only for you will make up for it, now come here I’ve been without kisses too long.”

Beel

Its SO hard not to just grab whatever is in the kitchen at the time and throw it in the summoning circle and call it a day for Beel

But he is more than just his hunger and MC is always striving to show him that they understand that 

It was harder than expected, just because asking anyone what Beel might want always got them food answers. They thought Belphie might be helpful but only got told “he probably just wants a nap ... its what I would want”

MC starts to think of all the most special moments they had with Beel, trying to think what about them made them so memorable and they knew for a fact that it wasn’t the food

The first thing they come up with is a banner that MC made to cheer him on at one of his games. It had gotten a little tattered and torn because it had rained that day but they just couldn’t let it go

Mostly because Beel after winning had ran up into the stands and kissed them for the first time. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t ever kissed but they had always been the one to make the first move but this time Beel had come to them. Of course in the biggest gesture possible

It was cheating a little bit offering a cookbook, it was still food related, but it felt better than putting in actual food 

This particular cookbook was special to MC too, they had spent several months trying to recreate one of the recipes from it down in the Devildom when MC didn’t have it. Even their D.D.D had been no help in finding the human world dish they were trying so hard to recreate

It had finally been Beel who had found someplace that sold the food they had been craving. He had even been able to bring it back completely untouched just so that they could have it all though he didn’t complain when they offered him several bites from their fork

MC pulls the next thing from their own shelves at home, a well read copy of Lord of the Flies. The spine cracked and little notes about their favorite parts scribbled in the margin

It was one of the human novels that Satan had and one of MCs favorites from school. Beel had caught them reading it and thought the title was ironic but the more he watched MC get engrossed in reading the more curious he got

He eventually asked MC to read it to him, he actually liked books even if most didn’t take him for the type it was just that he had a hard time actually reading himself. He always got distracted by food but audio books always worked well for him when he was working out, it turned out to be even better when MC read to him when he was eating

It was the best of both worlds for him and he found the story actually pretty funny, slightly worrying MC but they figured they couldn’t blame a demon for getting enjoyment out of a story like that. He did find their lack of food concerning though so at least there was that

One of the things that Beel often complained about when MC was living in the devildom was that when he went to go eat they weren’t always there. Sure Beel would ask them to tag along whenever possible but it didn’t always happen. He would call them from the kitchen at times and tell them that he missed them

MC was sure the other brothers would have something to say about it but knew that Beel would genuinely enjoy the next thing MC offered. Amagnet with his favorite picture of them. It was MC caught in a candid he took, mid bite in a dessert he had made them and his hand could just be seen wiping some whipped cream off MC’s cheek

It was a way that Beel could have MC with him at his favorite place every time

The last thing that MC laid out was something that was inspired by Beel. He had once given them a coupon for a free meal by him and they had thought it was just about the cutest thing ever

They made him a whole coupon book of favors ranging from cooking any meal he wanted to recording his workouts for him and of course lots of coupons for hugs and kisses

Beel isn’t used to being summoned at all so hes slightly disoriented when he finds himself suddenly in the human world. As soon as he sees MC though its nothing but smiles and he doesn’t even notice the gifts until after

“MC did you know I was thinking about you? Sometimes I just say your name and hope you will appear ... so if you ever think of me just say my name. I want to be here, even if its during dinner” 

Belphie

Belphie is not one to beat around the bush at all. He is a creature of habit and just wants more of the same things that he already has. Dont fix something if its not broke right?

So its fairly easy to fill his summoning circle with things that he loves, just adding to his ever growing collection of happy nap time things

That isn’t to say that MC just grabs whatever blanket or pillows they have laying around, they still want it to be special for him

So yes the first two things they offer to Belphie is a pillow and blanket, there was never going to be anything else but MC spent a long time putting their love into finding just the right ones for him ... and still couldn’t find what they wanted

MC used this as an excuse to create something themselves for their sleepy boy. They dived deep into youtube and pintrest and spent more money than they care to admit on materials until finally they made what they wanted

The first was a quilt large enough for three cause the twins like to make MC a sandwich in a cow print pattern that matched his pillow and demon form marks, lined with the softest fabric she could find that was the same purple as his eyes 

His pillow was another quilted design, this time of a cloudy night sky with a sleepy cow jumping over the moon. MC stitched his name in pretty gold thread on the back long with a sweet ‘I love you’

There was one last fluffy thing to give to him, this one MC knew he would probably scoff and tease them about but they couldn’t help it. They saw the angry looking cow plushie and just could not walk away 

They have actually been sleeping with it when they miss him most and even if he doesn’t like the plushie the fact they have slept with it so much will make him a bit fonder of it

Even though they were pretty sure that Belphie knew every star in the sky MC couldn’t help but get a book with stories about the constellations. He might already know them all but they thought that he might still enjoy hearing them read to him as he drifted to sleep

The last thing MC has to offer him is also star related. A star map of the day that they made their pact. It was the day that MC had fully forgiven everything that had happened before and their relationship had truly began

When Belphie was summoned he was half asleep but knew who it must be even in his sluggish state. He gave a big yawn and looked around at all the things around him 

“At least things are already set up for the perfect nap, including having you. MC next time just say my name alright? Its much more of a drag this way ... and I want to know when you are dreaming of me”

[let-me-love-you-loki]

Practicing Too Late

I turned toward the nearby table, setting my paintbrush and palette on the splattered drop cloth. My back ached from reaching and stretching to paint the palm leaves on the top of the trees. The nursery in Nick’s house was halfway finished, but I was almost finished with the beach scene in the one in Matt’s place. I sighed, kneading my fingers along my spine.

           We’d found out that we were having a girl a few weeks ago, and both Matt and Nick were happier than I’d ever seen them. They’d cried as they looked at the grainy grey and white image on the screen in the doctor’s office. There was one copy of the photos on the fridge in each house. Sometimes I would walk in and find them sitting together, one of the photos in front of them, whispering about the little girl that was coming into our lives.

           When they left on a new loop, they took the pictures with them. I could only imagine how often they pulled those out and stared at them on those nights in the hotel and the long road trips. The thought made me smile.

           I made my way out of the nursery and down the hallway. I could feel our baby girl shifting and stretching as I walked. She was becoming more active the further along we went. She was shaping up to be a healthy, active child.

           There was a faint, mumbled noise bleeding from Matt’s living room. They’d been home from the most recent loop for just over a day and, unsurprisingly, they’d slept for the first seventeen hours. Between the time difference and the long flight back from Japan, they were exhausted. I couldn’t blame them.

           When I turned the corner into the living room, I couldn’t help but grin lopsidedly. Nick sat on the sofa, his glasses on and a hair tie between his teeth. Matt sat on the floor between his knees with his phone in his hand. The garbled noise was coming from the phone, a video playing.

           I leaned against the wall, watching them quietly to see what they were up to.

Nick

           I could do a lot of things, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever master this. I couldn’t keep one bit separated from another. The video Matt had up on his phone made it look easy, but it really wasn’t.

           “Ow!” Matt grunted as I tried to start over. “You’re not trying to yank it out!”

           “I’m sorry!” I replied around the hair band in my teeth. “It’s not as easy as she’s making it out to be.”

           Matt growled and backed the video up. The voice over began again as a pair of hands started working with a stylist’s head. “Let’s begin simple,” she said. “Brush the hair out and pull it together at the nape of the neck. Then split it into three equal sections.”

           I brushed my brother’s hair back and pulled it together in my hand. With the other, I pulled the hair tie out of my teeth. “Is this as weird to you as it is to me?”

           “Dude, you have no idea.” He laughed and held the phone up so I could see it.

           I carefully separated his hair into three sections, holding one in each hand with the third hanging in the middle. “Okay, let me see what happens next.”

           The video started up again, and I did my best to follow along as she wrapped and twisted the sections around each other. I tried, but couldn’t get it. My fingers were too big or they were getting in the way or I was just stupid and couldn’t do it at all. Matt’s hair looked less like a braid and more like a knot had been tied in it.

           “I’m useless at this,” I grunted, throwing my hands up. “You’re going to have to do it. I’ll tie shoes, clean up poop and vomit, but I’m not going to be able to braid hair.”

Matt

           I switched off YouTube and opened up my camera app, trying to see what Nick had done. My scalp ached, and I was pretty sure there were strands of hair yanked from my head and spilling over the sofa cushions. When I turned my head, I couldn’t help but laugh. Nick wasn’t lying. He was useless at this.

           “Well, I don’t understand the video either. You’d think with hair like ours we would have learned how to this a long time ago.” I reached back and tried to undo the knots and tangles my brother had wound into my hair. A headache had taken root across my forehead from how tight he’d pulled and twisted. “Jesus, we should have just called Mom. Or DJ.”

           I turned to find Nick twisting and flexing his fingers. He stretched them out, interlocking them and pushing them until they popped angrily. He sighed and threw his head against the back of the sofa cushions.

           “Maybe we should just get Y/N to teach us how to do this.”

           “That’s not the point,” I grunted. “This is supposed to be a surprise for her. We’re going to be girl dads. Don’t you think this is something that we should be able to do before the baby’s born?”

           Nick planted his feet on the floor. “We could tell a little fib. That we want to know how to do it for shows.”

           I rolled my eyes. “And then she’ll point out that we have hair people for that. Besides, Nick, she’s smarter than the two of us put together—she’ll figure it out in half a second.”

           “Call Mom?”

***

           I watched them, my hands folded over my stomach as they tried to learn to braid. My heart skipped a beat, warmth rushing through me. I felt the soft push and stretch of our little girl’s foot against my fingers and smiled. She was livelier by the day, stretching and shifting inside me. I loved her so desperately even now. Even knowing that she was still so far away.

           Before I could stop myself, I turned the corner. Nick looked up, guilt rushing over his features for half a second. His blue eyes were lively and bright, crisp in a way that reminded me of the morning sky in winter. A smile chased its way over his face as he unfolded himself from the sofa and crossed the room toward me. His arms slid around me and lifted me from the ground.

           “You have paint on your cheek,” he said, bumping his nose against mine. He smiled even broader and ghosted his lips playfully over mine.

           I laughed and threw my arms around his neck. “Of course I do. I’m short and palm trees are tall.”

           Matt stood up from the floor, still trying to pull the knots and tangles from his hair. I tried to act like I didn’t see it. He loped across the room, his cheeks rounded in a smile. “It makes you look cute.”

           “Don’t I always?” I teased.

           They gathered me up in a sandwiched hug and drew me toward the sofa. I let them pull me down into the space between them. Nick sat sideways on one side while Matt stretched out, his head in my lap. I grinned and tilted my head against Nick’s chest as I slowly slipped my fingers through Matt’s thick, brown hair. He let out a faint hum of happiness as my nails skimmed across his scalp.

           “I love your hair,” I sighed. I snuggled into the crook of Nick’s neck. “Both of you. I could do this forever.”

           As gently as I could, I tugged his hair gently from the place it was trapped against my thigh. My fingers combed slowly. I hummed beneath my breath, smiling as I carefully separated out three sections. Matt’s eyes were closed, but I could sense Nick watching my every move.

           “One, two, three,’ I whispered softly. “Left over middle, right over middle. Left over middle, right over middle.”

           The barely there murmur of my voice and the soothing sweep of my hands against his hair put Matt to sleep quickly. He snored softly as I finger combed the braid free and started again, quietly repeating the instructions again. I did it once more, my head still tucked peacefully against Nick. He kissed the top of my head.

           “You heard us, didn’t you?” my other husband said after a while. His fingers slid beneath my chin, tilting my head up so that our eyes met. There was mischief in his blue eyes.

           I nipped my bottom lip and grinned sideways. “I might have heard a thing or two. And seen you tangle Matt’s hair into a rat’s nest.”

           Nick grinned, a soft chuckle in his throat. “We’ll never get anything past you, Mama.”

@mox-made-me-do-it​

@not-that-kinda-gurl08​

@lilred91​

@imagineall-the-fandoms​

@maelleoute​

@librathepheonix13​

@justamess44​

[givemeonebreath]

A big, messy Linked Universe playlist

Link for Links

Heavy on the angst, because of who I am as a person. (At the same time, don’t take it too seriously, man.)

Influenced by canon, manga (TP Link is really Going Through It™ ), my personal perceptions, and popular fandom canon.

A pretty wide variety of genres, with a bias towards metal and prog rock.

I kept snippets of lyrics for most songs, also because of who I am as a person. (Some were particularly hard to narrow down to just one verse or chorus.) Those - and a little more rambling - are under the cut if you really want, in the order of the playlist. But. It’s long.

I didn’t initially make this with the intent to share, but hey. Throughout my past year+ of listening, I’ve been haphazardly adding songs to a playlist I very creatively named Links. If something reminded me of them, whether through the music or lyrics or both, I threw it on the playlist, so some songs might seem odd or vague. Some are really on the nose, as subtle as a sledgehammer. (Sky for Sky? Dude. Sorry.) Some are there because of a fitting line or two that stuck in my head. Ultimately, music - like any form of creative expression - can be interpreted in a multitude of ways. 

My listening habits and tastes are erratic, which is why this is one big, jumbled playlist and not separated for different Links. Not to mention if I did that, some (Wild, Legend) would have a lot and some (Wind, Four) would have none, both because of my own familiarity with them, and because of the general themes of the music I tend to listen to. Most songs are a general ‘hero’s spirit reborn’ mood, anyway - those are the first part of the playlist. The second half is more nuanced to specific Links, plus a few Ganon vibes.

1. Deep Purple - April (Koji Kondo, composer of the original Legend of Zelda theme, was into Deep Purple as a kid, and it shows.)

2. Kamelot - Regalis Apertura

3. Au4 - So Just Hang On, Beautiful One (I’ve posted this here before. I can’t hear it without thinking of LU now.) So I slipped in through the gate almost unknown. All my border stamps were late. Seven days old. Cold hand griped my shoulder blade, broke the bone. Bloody nose and turned away, all the way home.

4. FC Kahuna - Hayling Don’t think about all those things you fear, just be glad to be here

5. Glass Animals - Youth Boy, when I left you you were young I was gone, but not my love You were clearly meant for more Than a life lost in the war

6. Pain of Salvation - Restless Boy A restless boy in a world too slow A flame born into cinder, ash, and glow I've given everything I gave it all Yet find myself alone

7. Haken - The Endless Knot Our design shifted frame by frame! Across the line our cycle starts to fail. Our design shifted frame by frame! Across the line we die to live again.   We need a story to believe in. We need a hero to prevail. We need a challenge we can overcome, it takes a tragedy to make us one 

8. Kamelot - Memento Mori (I particularly associate this with Time and Twilight) I am the god in my own history The master of the game I may believe if she would come to me And whisper out my name Sometimes I wonder where the wind has gone If life has ever been Sometimes I wonder how belief alone Can cut me free from sin

9. Katatonia - Fighters Look I told you so We never stop If we said that We'll back it up For sure You know We're fighters

10. Megadeth - This Day We Fight! (I mean, all Links, but particularly Warriors) For this I was chosen, because I fear nothing With confidence I tread through the dead of the night Off to another war-torn, faraway battlefield Wherein lies a demonic enemy horde

11. Moon Tooth - Igneous Well, the spirit took me And this old broken body leapt up and danced Settin’ out Settin' out with all my heroes in a bundle at my back Hawk am I More wings span in my shadow than overcast Yeah, you know what they say Always need something to look up to, ha

12. Samael - Moongate Destiny, tomorrow is today Destiny, without boundaries How many nights will we spend together traveling infinity back and forth and again How many times will we go together questioning eternity about us about our wonders...

13. TOOL- Parabola This body holding me reminds me of my own mortality Embrace this moment, remember We are eternal, all this pain is an illusion

14. Lunatic Soul - Blood on the Tightrope No matter how hard you try To shut down your feverish thoughts They hunt you down with no regret Cause you have to fix it all

15. Hybrid - Keep It In The Family

16. Soul Savers - Unbalanced Pieces Gone, now carry on Through violent seasons I call you mother, mother, mother In vain, absent chain The twilight's bleeding And the playing board has two unbalanced pieces

17. Steve Von Till - Valley of the Moon All she gives is a stone facade Like ill-given flowers at a dead man's wake Here we slave for the dreams of another And fight over scraps like wayward dogs

18. Ludovico Einaudi - Experience

19. Lunatic Soul - Summoning Dance Three stones on the right side Three stones on the left My vicious circle of life and death   “Oh you want it” I hear it again “Oh you want it” My burden Curse to break

20. Lunatic Soul - Through Shaded Woods Run through your shaded woods Run through your shaded mind Run through the night Run away Run through the darkness Run

21. Lunatic Soul - Naavie

22. David Bowie - Nature Boy There was a boy A very strange, enchanted boy They say he wandered very far Very far, over land and sea A little shy and sad of eye But very wise was he

23. The Dandy Warhols - Sleep Well, I could sleep forever But it's of her I dream If I could sleep forever I could forget about everything 

24. Au4 - Everyone is Everyone (and Everything is Everything) Tripping and tumbling, Flipping and fumbling. Flowing on the rivers of sadness That have been forever rumbling.   But from dawn until now Of all the paths that I could have gone down Of all the valleys That I could have been flowing through.   In spite of all the chaos And all that has come between us, How is it I still find myself Here with you. 

25. Kingcrow - Everything Goes Your hands again upon the ground Falling rain for hours and hours As you learn the game Time dispels the fog ... Ever been there? Ever felt like prey? Ever thought your mind was feeble? Lot of things that don’t make sense

26. Pain of Salvation - Icon As a child I felt too old And now when I'm grown-up I feel too young A different kind so I've been told Just slightly out of reach and out of time

27. Sophia Loizou - Divine Interference (I got spooky dungeon vibes. Also, the title.)

28. Carpenter Brut - Fab Tool Runnin Gunnin Forward in the phantom shatter so grand Splatter grand, arcanum fuel Wrought iron out of the sky Over me, tells no lie

29. Blue Stahli - Death Will Have to Run All on the open road Where none will ever grow A journey toward the known With countless miles to go

30. Gyroscope - Mistakes & Ladders I am the first? No I can't be the first A continuous nothing, destined for something Tell me who you are and why you trapped me here

31. Queens of the Stone Age - Run, Pig, Run Run, pig, run Here I come

32. Chali 2na & Krafty Kuts - Guard The Fort The swords are drawn and odds are stacked And we clash the impact's a thunderous clap Calm demeanor Even though we are under attack [...my turn to guard the fort ready for combat]

33. The Great Discord - Army of Me (lol)

34. Kongos - Terrified I think I'll start again and change my name You only live once or twice, what a shame Somebody fucked up when designing this game

35. Woodkid - Run Boy Run Run, boy, run! This ride is a journey to Run, boy, run! The secret inside of you Run, boy, run! This race is a prophecy Run, boy, run! And disappear in the trees

36. The Beta Machine - The End A million miles away from you this time I'll do what it takes I'm on my way If lines are in the sand I'll go under If I can make it in time I will bring you back with me

37. Devin Townsend Project - Gump When we last met who was I? I'm sorry we no longer see eye to eye The energy to keep you in while keeping myself out I'm sorry how you'll take this  But I just don't have the patience anymore 

38. Arrested Youth - Riot! I can't get much satisfaction living in this cave It's tough to breathe, I'm in the belly of the beast Can't sleep with all my rage With me and all my generations living in this cage Pick up your guns and tell your sons, tonight we break the cage

39. Led Zeppelin - Friends So anytime somebody needs you Don't let them down, although it grieves you Some day you'll need someone like they do Looking for what you knew

40. Faunts - M4, pt 2 (Wild) Fight your foes you're not alone Holy war is on the phone Asking to please stay on hold Bleeding loss of blood runs cold And I need you to recover   Because I can't make it on my own

41. Faith No More - Ashes to Ashes (Wild) I want them to know it's me, it's on my head I'll point the finger at me, it's on my head Smiling with the mouth of the ocean And I'll wave to you with the arms of the mountain

42. Devin Townsend - Jupiter (Wild) I know you At least I think I do Everything's changed But in the days that are so dark It's wonderful

43. Katatonia - Neon Epitaph (Wild) Shadow of my shadow Cling not to my grief I am long left behind now You are free

44. The Smashing Pumpkins - The Beginning is the End is the Beginning (Wild) Time has stopped before us The sky cannot ignore us No one can separate us For we are all that is left The echo bounces off me The shadow lost beside me There's no more need to pretend Cause now I can begin again 

45. Katatonia - Lacquer (Wild) My voice travelling Soaring bird above your head The house we lived in Ridden with disease ... The levee breaking I can't live to fight once more The road to the grave is straight as an arrow I'm just staying around to sing your song, baby

46. Eskimo Joe - This is Pressure (Wild) There is no romance in suffocation  The walls fall down like your expectations You want to scream  And you want to shout But you've built up steam  And you can't let it out This is pressure 

47. Portugal. The Man - 1000 Years (Wild) We'll wait 1000 years  Until the end of time We'll wait 1000 more Dressed up in gold and white We'll climb the mountain sides  To find what's in the sky We'll dig through mountain sides  To find what's deep inside

48. Au4 - An Ocean’s Measure of Sorrow (Wild) Forgot my name and who I was. Memories of nothing floating up. All of the sorrow we once knew, Colours the ocean's water blue.

49. Band of Skulls - Carnivorous (Twilight) I am corrosive and cohesive Like a chemical bond I'm all together undone I am the broken kingdom I'm just so, so, so  So carnivorous

50. Glass Animals - Flip (Twilight) I wanna go back with a club and attack I wanna take to my guns and break you I gotta make my little foe take his own

51. TV on the Radio - Wolf Like Me (Twilight) My mind has changed my body's frame, but, God, I like it My heart's aflame, my body's strained, but, God, I like it

52. Kamelot - The Spell (Twilight) All my demons cast a spell The souls of dusk rising from the ashes So the book of shadows tell The weak will always obey the master

53. OSI - Radiologue (Legend) I was dreaming I was heading west thirty days faster Had a fever woke up in a sweat bailing out the water  Can't go on Can't go back   Heard your voice coming through the noise wrote it in the radio log Hurt my head, wondering what you said so I threw it overboard  

54. Katatonia - Don’t Tell A Soul (Legend) I have been destroyed by the perfection that is a lie see I'm moving soon see my feet are already on the road and if you know where I’m going don’t tell a soul

55. Haken - The Mind’s Eye (Legend) The shape of things to come are closer than they seem Changing your design every time you disappear I'm planning my escape through portals of your mind Where people seem to drop like flies

56. Pain of Salvation - Species (Legend) Sometimes I hate my fucking species Yet most days I'll do anything to please it  My generation was fooled to pursue our dreams But it is not what it seems You never need what you want And you rarely want what you need

57. Euringer - Do You Kiss Your Mama with That Mouth? (Legend) All my life, misunderstood I'm fuckin' too smart, too smart for my own good The last question, before I go is "Hey motherfucka, do you kiss your mama with that mouth?"  Yes! I kiss your mama with this mouth

58. !!! - Pardon My Freedom (Legend) Like I give a fuck, like I give a shit Like I give a fuck about that shit Like I give a fuck about that motherfucking shit

59. Team Sleep - Ataraxia (Legend) Froze asleep Coma deep I dream I'm out with you Alone at sea

60. Oliver Tank - Embrace (Legend) You're in my dreams The world is torn apart at the seams And I don't wanna leave Wearing my heart on it's sleeve

61. Machine Gun Fellatio - The Girl of My Dreams (Is Giving Me Nightmares) (Legend) The girl of my dreams is giving me nightmares I don't know what it means but she's got multi-coloured hair When she stands in the sand I dream of peaches And I'm not sure what that means either

62. Earl Greyhound - Shotgun (Legend & Hyrule) I am nobody, nobody is who I am I am a traveler on this land And nothing, nothing, nothing in my hands

63. TV on the Radio - Staring at the Sun (Hyrule) You're staring at the sun You're standing in the sea Your mouth is open wide You're trying hard to breathe The water's at your neck There's lightning in your teeth Your body's over me

64. Echo & The Bunnymen - The Killing Moon (Time) Fate Up against your will Through the thick and thin He will wait until You give yourself to him

65. Sufjan Stevens - Sugar (Sky) Don’t break my heart, don’t break my flow now And all this rage has got to go now Let’s take up this lifeline Come on, baby, gimme some sugar Don’t make me wait Don’t make me wait too long Don’t make me sing the sad song Come on, baby, gimme some sugar

66. Obsydians - Ascension (Sky) Rise above the hardships you’ll face I will sign and keep on rising As long as you are giving me your soul and keep me awake Feel like home and spread your light around I will listen and just be there As long as you are giving me your love I’ll give you my soul

67. Sonique - Sky -_-

68. Enter Shikari - The King (Ganon) Watch your back, my friend I'm about to kickstart a cycle Of never ending revenge And this time it's primal, it's tribal

69. Saul Williams - WTF! (Ganon, Hylia) "You've been polluted, uprooted by time You have been muted, computed but I'm A living vessel of the one, of the moon, of the sun" Hey! You ain't as dead as you seem, what the fuck? Hey! But you keep living your lies

70. These New Puritans - We Want War (Ganon/ Dark Link/ any nemesis I guess) Shadows dance back up, it's happening again If you listen carefully you might hear them whisper: "We hold all the secrets, we hold all the words; But they're scrambled and broken so you'll never know" Can't you see them Floating like black ash? Can't you feel them Crawling down your back?

[stayextrafrosty]

I’m Not Usually Spiteful but Here We Are

Summary: Alex and Michael are good at sex. They were always on the same page about that. How to deal with Mr. Jones on the other hand? Not so much. But maybe sex can fix that too. Not Forrest Long Friendly. Not Maria DeLuca friendly.

A/N: A gift for @prouvaireafterdark because I always see her mentioning that not enough authors write cock warming in this fandom. And I’m inclined to agree. So I gave my best shot at it. 😊

Warnings: Shameless smut, Dom/sub elements, top Alex, bottom Michael, implied switching for both, cock-warming, orgasm delay/denial, angsty in the beginning but it’s resolved pretty quickly

Title is both me talking and how I with Alex would think sometimes.

Read on AO3 // Masterlist

-

“I swear to fucking god, Guerin! Why do you treat me like some kind of broken toy,” Alex screamed at him.  Michael ran his fingers though his hair, letting out an exasperated sigh.

“I just don’t think you should be involved with an insane alien on the loose who could be stronger than all of us!” The table separating them was the only thing keeping Alex from strangling Michael. It was always like this recently. Whenever they needed to any sort of mission, he would shut him down.

Ever since Michael had walked out in the middle of his song, he’d been keeping a distance. Forrest has been great. The most caring guy he’d ever dated. But something was just off. Forrest was too gentle with him.

While he appreciated the consideration he had, sometimes he just wished for some action. They rarely went out to do things than involved running anymore. They had yet to return to the paintball range. Forrest was careful with his prosthetic which was fine. But he seemed to think he couldn’t do things because of it.

And now Michael was here. Telling him that he didn’t want Alex to help because it’s not ‘safe.’

“That’s bullshit and you know it!” His fingers gripped the edge of the table. Too bad it was attached to the floor or he might have flung it across the room.

“Why? Is it so hard to believe that I’m trying to protect you?”

“Quite frankly, yes! You abandoned me for my best friend!”

A pin could have dropped and it would have deafened them. Michaels eyes closed as he took a deep breath. Alex regretted saying anything. Even if it was true.

“You have no idea how much I’m going to regret that,” he said calmly.

“Regret? Really? You intentionally said things to hurt me, Michael.” Alex watched as he pushed away from the table, straightened his back and walked to the other side standing behind Alex.

He wasn’t going to turn around. There had to be a barrier. Michaels breathing tickled the back of his neck, triggering goosebumps up and down his arms. He cursed himself. After all these years and all the pain, he still couldn’t stop his body’s reaction to him.

“Alex. There is nothing I regret more than saying those things to you. I was scared. And I know it sounds like an excuse. But if you truly resent me for that, please tell me.” Alex turned to face him slowly.

“I’m with Forrest.” The pain that crossed Michael’s face was brief. If Alex didn’t know him as well as he did, he might have missed it.

“And I want to you be safe for him. So you aren’t coming on this mission.”

Alex snapped.

He grabbed fistfuls of Michael’s flannel, shoving him back and flipping them so he was the one against the table. Michael blinked in surprise

“I am not as week as you two seem to think I am. I will not break,” he threatened. Michael’s eyes flicked over his face eyebrows drawing together.

“You’re not weak Alex. Far from it. But you don’t have to be strong all the time. That’s all I want for you. To have a place where you don’t have to be strong.” Alex’s grip loosened on his shirt, trying to ignore the buttons that had come undone. His hands shook.

“Then why do you keep leaving,” he mumbled, averting his eyes. He focused instead on a spot on his neck. A spot he wanted to press his mouth against since the last time he had him. “You’re the only one I have ever been able to feel that way with.”

Michael didn’t say anything for moment. His hands came up to cover Alex’s, rubbing his thumb over his hand and wrist slowly. He inched forward a bit more, their legs pressed together.

“Do you want someone else to be in control?” He shook his head, meeting Michael’s intense stare. He wouldn’t look away. Damn him.

Alex hardly registered what he was doing as he pressed his mouth to Michael’s. It didn’t last long before he jumped back, realizing what he had done. He muttered out an apology, releasing his shirt, planning to run away.

Michael grabbed him, yanking him back against his chest. He didn’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved when his arms wrapped around him, one hand tangling in his hair. Alex wrapped his arms around him in return. Just a hug. His pulse spiked as Michael pressed his mouth against his neck.

“Not enough,” he felt him mumble. He dragged his mouth up to his jaw, letting the tip of his tongue touch only slightly. Alex couldn’t stop the roll of his hips or the way his head fell backward, giving him full access to whatever he wanted.

Michael nipped at his jaw gently before pulling back and meeting his eyes again. ‘Not enough’ was a hell of an understatement. Alex kissed him again, loving the low groan that escaped Michael’s lips. He released his grip on the back of his shirt to finish undoing the buttons on the front, shoving it off his shoulders.

It was thrown somewhere behind him but he couldn’t care less as Michaels hands moved from their place to tug at his own shirt. His brain screamed at him that this was a bad idea. Maybe the worst he’s ever had. But stopping was out of the question.

It felt too fucking good.

Their lips detached for only a second as his shirt was pushed over his head and tossed to the side. Michael’s hands were all over him, leaving his skin burning wherever he touched. His hips rolled again, pulling another moan from Michael. He felt him grin before he pulled back.

“You’re so easily excited… are you pent up?” Alex refused to answer, opting for kissing him again. He laughed but didn’t deny him, digging his finger into his hips, massaging them.

Truth is, he was pent up. He and Forrest hadn’t been having sex recently. Alex hadn’t been into it. He was never… rough enough.

He was jerked out of his thoughts by Michael cupping him through his jeans that were quickly becoming too tight. He let out a whimper, and Michael took the chance to lick into his mouth. Alex dragged his fingers over his torso to the belt buckle.

They broke away from each other, panting, as he tugged the belt loose, immediately working on the button of his jeans.

“Fuck Manes, just tell me,” he stilled Alex’s hands, “Tell me you need me as much as I need you.” He looked into Michael’s eyes, both of them breathing each other in. The smell of rain wrapped around him like a bed he never wanted to leave.

“I need you, Michael. I think I’ve needed you since the day I met you.” Michael kissed him again, gentle and slow. Making his heart race so loud he was sure Michael could hear it.

His hands ran up his arms, letting him resume his task of undoing the button on his jeans. His nails scratched over his arms and shoulders, making Alex shiver. He pushed his jeans down along with his underwear and wrapped a hand around him. Michaels hips jerked forward and a low moan slipped out of his mouth.

Alex jerked him off slowly, much to the dismay of Michael, he noticed. His head fell to his shoulder, little moans escaping with every slight squeeze of his hand. This didn’t stop him from undressing Alex further. The button on his own jeans popped open and he was tugging him down his legs.

Michael stopped his hand again before falling to his knees in front of him. His cock jumped at the anticipation. There was no hesitation as he wrapped his mouth around him. He groaned loudly, leaning froward to grip the edges of the table.

The heat and wetness of his mouth had him closer to the edge than he wanted to be. Michael moaned around him and the vibrations made his hips thrust froward, forcing him to the back of his throat. He didn’t even gag as he held him there, before pushing his hips back slightly then sinking down again.

“Michael… If you keep… I’m gunna…” He pleaded. His hips moved almost of their own accord, fucking into his mouth. He released the table with one hand to tangle it in the beautiful curls, pulling gently. Michael moaned around him again.

His orgasm crashed into him. His hips stuttered in their movements and he held Michael in place. His name tumbled from his mouth over and over again. Alex’s legs felt weak, his grip on Michael’s hair released.

Michael stood slowly, careful to no throw him off balance. His arms wrapped around his waist and he pressed his mouth to Alex’s. He whimpered at the taste of himself on his tongue. Michael’s still dripping cock poked at his abs, rubbing ever so slightly. He grabbed in and started stroking slowly.

“Futon,” Alex mumbled. They had moved it in here when Alex and Kyle had started spending nights working late. It was nice if they were too tired to drive home. But now it was needed for a completely different reason.

Michael nodded, pulling back. He took the hand that was wrapped around him, instead placing it on his shoulders. He raised an eyebrow as he wrapped his arms around his neck.

“Hold on to me,” Michael said. He hardly had time to register before he was being lifted into his arms. Alex swore he could feel the tingling of the telekinesis but he was too embarrassed to say anything. The heat in his face made him positive his cheeks were red.

Michael set him down gently, leaning over him before attaching his mouth to his neck, sucking a bruise into the junction near his collarbone. Alex moaned at the attention. He wanted to return these feelings to Michael but he was preoccupied with driving him absolutely crazy. He cold feel himself getting hard again.

Once he was satisfied with the mark, he kissed down his chest and stomach making his back arch. Alex froze when his hands found the edge of the prosthetic. He noticed and stopped immediately, looking up at him, waiting for further instruction.

Alex took a breath and sat up, pulling Michael with him, pressing light kisses to his lips. This was Michael. He wasn’t worried about the possibility of this turning him off. He knew that he loved—Wait.

Michael resumed his movements but slowly, tugging his jeans over the plastic and metal, careful to not pull too hard. His shoes came off along with the jeans and his heard pounded as he was completely bare before Michael. His fingers ran over the edge of the prosthetic again.

“Can I take this off,” he asked hesitantly. Alex couldn’t bring himself to speak. He trusted him. He just nodded. A small smile snuck out as he first kissed his thigh and left a trail to his knee. Warmth and affection rolled through Alex.

Love. This is love. He loves Michael Guerin. Present tense. He knew it as he sang that song to him but he never said the word.

Michael’s fingers were precise and careful. The pressure released as he pulled it off gently, setting it to the side, then rolling the sock off as well. He kissed the areas as they became exposed and his heart pounded.

“Michael,” he choked out. He looked up at him, eyes soft and needy. Alex grabbed his face, hauling him back up to crush his mouth to his again. A soft groan caught in his throat, making Alex grin. It was his turn to service.

He couldn’t move as quickly without his leg but it was enough. Using a move he learned in basic, he flipped them over, sitting on Michael’s hips. The rough texture of his jeans against his half-hard cock made him roll his hips, earning another groan from the man below him.

“You’re wearing far too many clothes for this to be fair.” Alex took his time undressing him, nipping along every area of exposed skin as he rolled his jeans down. He kicked his boots off, helping Alex as much as he could.

With both of them naked, it was like nothing had changed. Their hands running over the other as though they had never stopped. Muscles tensed and relaxed, remembering this dance well.

Michael’s fingers found their way to Alex’s ass, squeezing and teasing at the entrance. He shuddered at the feeling, pressing back against those damn fingers.

“You want these inside you baby? Or maybe something else,” Michael mumbled against his neck and shoulder. His cock was fully hard again. He did want Michael inside him. But he wanted to drive Michael crazy just like he did for him. Alex grabbed his hands pinning them above his head.

“Later. I believe it my turn to play with you,” he said, low and threatening. He felt his cock jump at the suggestion. He kissed his neck, loving the way his body responded to him. He released his hands as he moved down, only pinning them again when Michael tried to touch him.

He shook his head and smirked as Michael groaned at being denied. Alex moved over him in what he knew was a torturously slow pace, especially for Michael. His hips were rolling, searching for friction before he even got down to his hips.

His scent was so much stronger here, understandably so. Here and his neck, as though he wore cologne. But it was all Michael and he could get high on him alone. He looked up at him through his eyelashes as he kissed the head of his cock.

“Alex, are you trying to kill me,” he half joked.

“Just drive you crazy a little. Let’s call it payback for all the times you would show up with a half open shirt, a cocky grin, or jeans that were noticeably too tight. Or at least they were after you looked me up and down.” His head fell back as he moaned. Alex took the head into his mouth but didn’t linger long.

“How could I not get horny when you look so damn good all the time?”

He smiled then proceeded to drag his tongue over his length and towards his hole. Michael’s legs fell open further, granting him more access. His hips rolled as he prodded at his entrance, forcing Alex to hold his hips down, earning another tortured groan.

“Behave,” he scolded. Michael’s breath came out in ragged gasps as he massaged the area with his tongue, occasionally nipping. His hands grabbed at the fabric of the futon.

“Fuck, Alex. I’m gunna come if you keep that up,” he warned. Alex stopped immediately, grabbing the base of his cock.

“Don’t you dare.” His back arched, but he held his hips steady.

He resumed his efforts without waiting for a response. When he was confident he wouldn’t come, he moved his hand to his mouth. He sucked on his fingers briefly before pushing one into his ass slowly

Michael cursed, obviously wanting to move but doing his best to stay still for him. Alex smiled, hooking his finger, looking for the spot he knew would earn him another moan.

He didn’t disappoint when he pressed against his prostate. Michael’s hips betrayed him, though he decided to let it go in favor of pressing the spot again. His cock jumped as he searched for friction he wouldn’t find.

He pulled his finger out only to go back in with a second, working him open. Alex smiled as he gave up any attempts at being quiet, moaning and groaning every time he pushed his fingers in.

“Fuck, please Alex. I need to come,” he pleaded. He thought for a moment, pulling his fingers out. He crawled up so he was face to face with Michael. He leaned in as though to kiss him but stopped short.

“No,” he whispered.

Grabbing the base of his cock again, he shoved three fingers inside massaging the muscles. His own need was becoming distracting. He wanted to be in him. Needed to be in him. He pulled away and Michael whined.

“You ready babe? Remember, no coming until I say so,” He said, pressing the head of his cock against his hole. He spit in his hand, coating his cock. He pressed forward slowly, groaning at how tightly he was being squeezed.

“Fuck, loosen up babe, or I’ll never get it in,” he teased. Michael glared at him but with no real malice.

“Who’s fault is that for bringing me so close to the edge,” he accused. Alex smirked and pushed again, gripping his hips for leverage. Michael’s eyes glazed over as he tried to relax. His body shook from overstimulation.

He thrusted in and out slowly, moving deeper each time. Eventually he was fully settled. He rolled his hips slightly but otherwise didn’t move. Michael panted, clenching and unclenching his fists in the fabric.

“Alex, move,” he pleaded.

“Oh, but I’m quite comfortable like this. Feeling every time your body clenches around me. Being so ready,” he taunted, leaning forward to press kisses to his chest. He met his eyes turning serious. “But if you want me to stop. I will.” Michael shook his head immediately.

“God no don’t stop. I just need so much more.” Alex smiled, rolling his hips only once. He cursed, eyes pleading. He watched as Michael tried not to squirm. He ran his hands over his chest, dragging his nails through the hair, earning a shiver and a squeeze from the muscles surrounding him. Alex groaned but kept his hips still.

“You want to come right? Go ahead.” His eyes widened at the permission. He tried moving but Alex held him steady. His cock twitched. He watched Alex as he moved his hand to grab it, checking if it was allowed. His fingers had just wrapped around himself when a loud buzzing made them both jump. It rang twice before an idea popped into Alex’s head.

“Get that for me please.” Michael blinked.

“But—”

“Now. Before it stops.” Soon the phone was floating over to them. Alex plucked it out of the air. Noting that this was Michael’s phone.

Maria’s name flashed on the screen. He had never considered himself petty before but maybe it was time to change that. He pressed the answer button, never moving from his place inside Michael.

“So you finally answered me?” he could hear the sadness in her voice. He almost felt bad.

“Not exactly, Maria.” Michaels eyes widened and he began to move away but a look from Alex made him freeze. He mouthed the word stay.

“Alex? Where’s Michael?” She sounded truly surprised though he didn’t know why. He looked down at the man below him, cock leaking over his abs.

“He’s preoccupied. Thinks he’s onto something. Really full of himself.” He didn’t think Maria caught the emphasis on the word but he definitely did.

“Alex,” Michael whimpered quietly. Alex lifted a finger to his lips, shushing him.

“Right well. Can you tell him to call me back or pass a message?”

He started squirming. One hand was not enough to keep him still. He moved his free hand to cover Michael’s mouth before smirking at him.

He finally pulled his hips back and thrust them forward roughly. He did it again and again, his moans getting louder behind his hand.

“Look. Just tell him that I’m sorry and I miss seeing him around. And I know that—”

“Maria. I love him. And asking me to pass along ‘I miss you’ messages is arguably cruel. I doubt he wants to hear it anyway.” He ended the call before she could respond, tossing the phone to the side.

Michael let out a long moan when he removed his hand from his face. Alex let his hips snap forward, fucking him like he knew he wanted. His name fell from his lips and Alex grabbed his cock jerking him off.

“Fuck! Gunna… come…” His back arched from the futon, ribbons of white painting his chest.

He didn’t let up even after he watched his cock empty itself. Instead he pulled him up and on top of him, refusing to come again until Michael did too. His legs shook from the over stimulation.

“Alex, take it out. I can’t take it,” he begged.

“I bet you have one more in you. I still need to finish,” he said, biting his shoulder. He held him down on his cock, though if he really wanted off he could easily remove himself.

Michael grabbed his face, kissing him passionately. Then he started moving his hips again. Up and down and his mouth dropped open, Michael taking the opportunity to lick into his mouth again.

“You’re so good baby. So fucking good. Your ass squeezes me just right.” A shudder ran through his lover’s body. He could feel his cock hardening again. He angled his hips slightly, so every time he came down it would run against his prostate.

“Alex, I love you,” Michael panted out. He looked up at him immediately, unable to stop the smiled that broke out on his face. Their lips met again, Alex’s hands on his hips, guiding him.

“I love you so much, Michael.” Their hips lost the rhythm as they both sped towards the edge. Michael bounced on him hard and fast, taking him all the way every time. Alex moaned and his upward thrusts were faltering.

He crashed over the edge like the first time with what felt like no warning. He gripped Michael’s hips, holding him down as he thrusted once, twice, and a third time right into his prostate. A string of curses left his mouth as he reached his own climax. It ran down his shaft and between the two of them.

Michael continued moving, but slowly, milking him for all he had. He twitched inside him, his mind beginning to clear. Their lips met softly, exchanging wet but sweet kisses. He ran his hands through the beautiful curls, laughing when he got caught in some tangles.

“Believe me when I say I’m going to get you back for that,” Michael warned as he nuzzled into his neck, breathing him in.

“Did you not like it,” he questioned nervously?

“Oh I liked it. Far too much,” he answered nipping at him gently. “I just remember you saying ‘later’ to my offer earlier. And I plan to collect.” Alex laughed as he kissed his neck and up his jaw.

“We need to talk about this,” he said, pushing him back slightly. He was afraid he would ruin the comfortable bubble they had built around themselves. But when he met Michael’s eyes, there was no indication of that at all. In fact, he was just smiling. More pure than Alex had seen in so long.

“We will. Because I just want to be clear. I love you Alex. And no one is going to take you away from me again.” He thought he felt a tear slip from his eye but Michael brushed it away. All he could do was nod.

They cuddled on the crappy futon, both eventually drifting off into a light nap. Alex was the one who woke to the sound of the door to the bunker opening. He jerked out of Michael’s arms, because as much as he wanted to just lay there, someone (probably Kyle) was going to get an eye full.

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me god.” + “ Tell me what you want” with Geralt pretty pretty please ?

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Geralt x ReaderWord Count: 1,871Rating: ETaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle a/n: Now here we have some Definitely Smut action for you. Enjoy!

You’d promised yourself that you were just going to watch.

You knew that Geralt snuck away because he wanted the time alone and that he took his meditation very seriously, but there was something about the sight of the usually commanding presence looking peaceful that piqued your curiosity until you found yourself stealing away after him into the forest. You’d taken your lessons seriously and though there were a couple of close calls, he never realized you were after him. When he found the familiar clearing and seated himself, closing his eyes to focus on his breathing, you watched, hiding behind a tree.

Your eyes hungrily traced the planes of his face, sharp angles softened in repose. The strong nose and the beautiful lips. The silver hair that gently rested on his shoulders. The usually furrowed brow resting though you could see the grooves in it built from years of glaring. The striking, yellow eyes that looked intently into yours…

Wait.

You spun behind the tree though you both knew he’d seen you and could hear the way your heart pounded.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice not angry as you’d expected but just a bit resigned. You slunk from behind the tree and walked towards him, eyes on the ground like a child who’s been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. If you were Jaskier you would have tried to play it off as happenstance or charm your way out of it, but you weren’t the silver-tongued bard. You were just a red-cheeked woman.

“Y/N, if you can sit quietly you can stay,” he said and you looked up at him, eyes shining with excitement that he wasn’t sending you away. You scrambled over to a nearby fallen tree and perched on it, trying to seem calm though you knew he knew better. He gave you a small smile and then closed his eyes, returning to center.

Or at the very least, trying to. But he couldn’t block out the sound of your heartbeat. Or the catch in your breath as you watched him tense and relax the muscles of his neck. Or, most distracting of all, the scent of your arousal. He knew that no one, likely not even you, could be aware of it but it was all be could focus on which was doing the opposite of calming him down. Which made him cranky.

“If you interrupt me one more time, so help me gods,” he snapped after the 10th attempt at grounding himself only to get swept up in thoughts of what he wanted to do with you. Your eyes widened in shock.

“I haven’t said anything!” you argued. He sighed heavily, running a large, calloused hand through the wavy silver hair.

“I know,” he relented, “You’re just… very distracting.”

“Well I don’t know how to be less distracting than sitting here like a literal bump on a log,” you argued, throwing up your arms in exasperation, “I can go!”

“No, don’t,” Geralt said quickly, surprising himself with his vehemence. He usually preferred his solitude but having you near, though maddening, was also oddly calming in its own way.

“Tell me what you want,” you said, getting a bit grouchy yourself. You were startled by the intensity of Geralt’s gaze as he considered your question. The striking eyes peered into yours and you could see him grappling with something, though you weren’t sure quite what. You’d traveled with Geralt for some time now and while there were moments you caught him smiling at you or gazing at you with an unreadable expression, you often told yourself he was just happy to no longer be alone. But the way he looked at you now was something different. It wasn’t about not being alone, it was about being with you. And gods, did you want to be there with him too.

“Come here,” he said, his tone pleading and you were eager to comply, hopping down from your perch to walk over to where he sat. He took your hand and gently guided you until you were sitting across from him, mirroring his kneeling pose. One hand gently cupped your face and still you saw the conflict in his eyes, a part of him that struggled to know if this was ok, if he was asking too much. You licked your lips and his eyes caught the quick glimpse of your tongue, a look of yearning in his eyes that gave you the courage to reach a hand into the long, silver hair and press your faces together. His arms quickly wrapped around your waist and pulled you onto his lap where you could see the hardening length against your thigh. You moaned into his mouth and he tasted the need you felt for him, angling his body so you straddled him and could pressed him between your legs, clothed bodies grinding against each other in a pantomime of coupling.

He was surprisingly gentle though unrelenting, from the way he kissed you, tongue probing and learning the taste of your mouth and the rough brush of your teeth against him, to the way he caressed you, hands roaming slowly and pressing against you firmly as though he were a blind man seeing through touch alone. His lips traveled down your neck, learning the spots that made you gasp as his hands roamed up your skirt and you felt the rough grip against your knee then thigh then sliding, possessively and intently, between. At the first brush of his fingers against your folds you choked out a little laugh and he began to pull his hand away but you grasped his wrist and held it firm. His eyes sought yours for understanding and you gave him a kiss.

“It’s just… sometimes something feels so good it’s actually ridiculous,” you tried to explain, “Like you know how sometimes something is so bad you just have to laugh? The same can happen for something so good. Just… keep doing that.”

Geralt shook his head a little, still clearly confused but he did not stop when you barked out another little gasping laugh that melted into a moan as he laid you back on the ground and his fingers slipped inside of you.

“So wet,” he murmured against your collar bone, a brief stop on his path to your breasts. He tugged the fabric that separated them from his mouth quickly, rending the fabric. You opened your mouth to protest and declare that he would be replacing that shirt but your head fell back and you gave a lusty moan as his clever mouth pulled the tip of your breast into his mouth, laving at the nipple as he continued to thrust his fingers inside of you, teasing you with dual sensations and leaving you a trembling mess that would have satisfied him if you did not inspire such an insatiable need in him.

Your orgasm snuck up on both of you, your cries tumbling out of your mouth faster than he could catch them with his and he was out of his trousers before the last wave of pleasure hit your body. He took himself in hand and you swallowed hard at the sight of him. You’d always suspected that he would be, well, a lot, but the plain proof of it gave you pause. Geralt stroked himself a couple of times though he was more than hard enough, just taking the time to enjoy how you looked spread before him, soaking wet and still slightly shaking. When the golden eyes roamed up to your face he laughed at the pensive, determined expression on your face as you stared down his cock.

“What?” you asked.

“You look like you’re going into war,” he explained, still smiling down at you in a way that was endearing and somehow even sexier. Why men felt that they needed to glare and pout to be sexy when a broad smile was the quickest way to get you weak at the knees escape you. Not that you’d been immune to his usually stern looks.

“Well I suppose I am a little bit. That’s alright. I will close my eyes and think of Cintra,” you said, dramatically screwing your eyes up tight for effect. Geralt laughed and you felt him brush the head against your entrance, your back arching to meet him on impulse.

“If you’re worried, this doesn’t happen. I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, his voice soft and his hand finding your face again. You opened your eyes quickly and gave him an aghast look.

“Oh this is happening,” you insisted, spreading your legs wider for emphasis.

“Good,” he murmured as he stole another kiss. You felt him press himself inside of you, slowly, stretching and filling you so gently, as he kissed you and helped your body relax and take all of him without any pain as he’d promised. Once inside he held still for a moment to let you adjust to the size of him and he stared into your eyes, holding you as close as two people can physically be, just gazing into them with a thousand words that didn’t need to be spoken because you felt them. You felt him. You rolled your hips back, forcing a guttural moan from his lips and the eyes shifted from adoring to hungry as you lay beneath him, primed to be devoured.

His thrusts were still gentle, moving slowly at first, methodical in his movements as he learned what angles drove the best sounds from you and when you flashed him an impatient look he followed the silent command, rutting into you faster and harder. Your nails pressed crescent shaped marks into his shoulders that he would wear as a badge of honor for days and when you came this time he saw it approaching, felt the way you clenched around him and when you cried out his name it triggered his own release and he marked you in turn, biting down on your neck, the moans sliding out through his teeth and your bruised flesh.  

He rolled off of you and pulled you with him so you rested against his chest, one hand placed above his fast-beating heart.

“Why did you follow me?” Geralt asked after you’d both caught your breath.

“Oh I just wanted to look at you. Oh, that sounds weird doesn’t it…” you said, and you felt the low rumbling chuckle shake his body, looking back up at his face to see him shaking his head.

“You don’t have to sneak after me. Just ask,” he said.

“If I had asked would you have said yes?”

“Probably not.”

You rolled your eyes and sighed.

“Well then I guess I’ll just keep sneaking after you,” you said simply. He gave you a little swat and then eased the sting with a gentle massage.

“Hmm,” he said, a sound that suggested he didn’t enjoy that plan.

“What’re you going to do about it, Geralt?” you asked, “Punish me?”

One eye slid open, peering at you from the side, and he heard your heart skip a beat. Oh yes, you’d be getting nice and punished soon.

But first, a nap.  

[thathopelessromantic]

Reckless Good (5/?)

Fandom: Boku no Hero Academia/My Hero Academia

Fic Rating: Explicit

Chapter Rating: Teen+ 

Pairing: Todoroki Shouto/Midoriya Izuku

Note: Thank you all again for being so wonderful <3

Todoroki Shouto had accepted his fate as a public figure when he became a pro-hero, but there are some parts of his private life he would like to stay private. When he gets invited to be a speaker in a college lecture series, he goes to the meeting with one goal: to give the coordinator a piece of his mind and finally put an end to people hounding him for information about his family.

The last thing he expects is the curious, and quirkless, hero- and quirk-study professor, Midoriya Izuku, who has no interest in his family’s history, and, somehow, even more ties to the hero industry than Shouto. Intrigued by the professor, Shouto tentatively agrees to the lecture series, unknowingly intertwining their futures.

But the more Todoroki sees of Midoriya, the more questions he has. When a villain attack leaves them living together until the culprits are apprehended, maybe he’ll finally get some answers.

AO3: (x) Beginning/Chapter One: (x) Previous Chapter: (X)

Shouto’s first few days back to work after his Momo-mandated break are mostly uneventful. There are a handful of small attacks, robberies mostly, patrols are simple and straightforward, and his arm, predictably, gives him no trouble at all. He’s almost excited for the debriefing on last week’s attack just for the change of pace. It’ll be nice to get more information and the confirmation that they’re moving ahead with investigating the attack, obviously, but there’s usually nothing more dull than sitting through a formal debriefing.

The meeting is hosted in a nondescript office building a few blocks away from the police station. He takes the elevator up to the fourth floor where the doors open, not to a hallway, but directly into a large conference room. There are tables filling most of the room facing the front where a projector screen has been set up. There are a few uniformed officers gathered at the front of the room, going over some notes, but most of the people in the room are other heroes. Shouto recognizes Mr. Smith talking with a few heroes from neighboring prefectures that he has never worked with before, and Ingenium and Uravity talking to someone sitting at a table in the back. Well, Ingenium is talking to them, Uravity looks like she’s mostly just using Ingenium to keep standing while she doses off. The only hero he personally worked with during the attack that seems to be missing is Architect. Though he was only part of a support team, if Ingenium’s information was correct, Shouto realizes he had assumed he would be included since he had seemed to know Kou.

Ingenium moves just as Shouto is debating if he should say hello to them, giving him a clear view of who they are talking to. Midoriya. Shouto freezes for a moment, surprised. Since Shouto sent the first message while he was with Momo and Kyouka the two of them had kept up a steady, albeit at times one-sided, text conversation. With their busy schedules, hours often passed between messages, but despite the large gaps in time, Shouto found it surprisingly easy to keep the conversation going. He knew Midoriya was Kou’s doctor and he obviously would have some insights on the case, so perhaps he should have just inferred that he would be here, the same way he assumed Architect’s prior knowledge of Kou would get him on the case.

But still, it feels…odd somehow to think he had just been texting Midoriya less than an hour ago but somehow had no idea they would both be here.

Midoriya looks up, catching Shouto’s eye just as someone else throws an arm around his shoulders, using all their body weight to knock him off balance. Shouto stumbles, doing his best to offset the weight and not fall on his ass.

The flash of yellow in the corner of his eye tells him who his would-be assailant is, even if he didn’t already know there are only a few choice people who would tackle him in such a way. “Chargebolt.”

“Man, one of these days I’m going to get you, Entropy.” Chargebolt laughs against his shoulder and Shouto feels a small shock through his uniform. He pulls away, slapping Shouto’s shoulder. “I was hoping to see you here. Your ice held that melty guy longer than anything else we had thrown at him before that. We’d be lost without you.”

“I doubt that.”

Chargebolt shakes his head at Shouto’s simple reply but rather than argue with him any, he jumps into a tale of what he’s been up to recently. Shouto is still trying to place why one of the stories he’s telling sounds vaguely familiar when he realizes Chargebolt has effectively herded him to the other side of the room while distracting him.

“Chargebolt, Entropy. It’s nice to see you both again.” Ingenium greets them with an enthusiastic wave that knocks Uravity off his shoulder.

She makes a small whine that sounds suspiciously similar to “Tenya” before the sound is covered up by Ingenium’s apology. Uravity waves him off after a moment of his fussing. She leans around him to give Chargebolt a hug and waves to Entropy.

“I haven’t seen either of you in ages! Sucks that it has to be another attack that brings us all together, but I guess that’s kind of what we signed up for.”

“I was surprised to see you here,” Chargebolt replies. “You weren’t part of the original fight.”

Uravity shrugs. “I’ve been helping the clean up crews the last few days. And Izu-” She slaps a hand over her mouth and then winces at the over the top reaction, quickly bringing her arm back down. “Er, I mean, Dr. Midoriya thought my quirk would be a good counter against one of the villains. They’re in custody for now, but, well you never know, so I signed up.”

Despite catching her own slip quickly, the doctor’s name brings their attention to him. Uravity sighs and gestures to him. “This is Dr. Midoriya, he’s a consultant at Lemillion’s agency sometimes.”

“We’ve met,” Shouto replies. “Though consultant is a new title for him.”

Midoriya makes a face at Shouto he can’t figure out. “Entropy was injured during the fight and I escorted him to the hospital,” he explains to Uravity. “I also…invited him to be a part of my Hero Talks series.” He adds, almost reluctantly.

Uravity’s brows shoot up in surprise. Shouto can practically see her begin to vibrate with questions, but before she can begin an interrogation on either of them considering Shouto and a public lecture series, Chargebolt suddenly snaps his fingers.

“Oh! You’re that Izu-Midoriya.”

Midoriya blinks a few times, seemingly just as confused by Chargebolt’s recognition as everyone else before some kind of recognition dawns on him and Shouto sees his expression change. “Midoriya Izuku. Nice to officially meet you, Chargebolt. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

Somehow, Shouto gets the sense the two of them are having a separate conversation all on their own.

Before they can continue with their not-so-private conversation, or anyone else can call them out on the weirdness of this first interaction, someone at the front of the room calls for attention and the heroes around the room shuffle into their seats. Uravity drops into the seat besides Dr. Midoriya while Ingenium, Chargebolt, and Shouto find a seat nearby.

The man at the front of the room introduces himself as Officer Uchida, the one who was in contact with everyone through email before the debriefing. Without any further introductions, he jumps into an explanation of the information they’ve gathered so far.

They believed the attack was targeted intentionally at the hospital and that the child they briefly kidnapped, Kou, was most likely the intended target due to the nature of her quirk and the potential healing capabilities it might have. The information about her quirk is still vague due to her young age, but this wasn’t the first time she had been targeted.

Shouto had a feeling Midoriya might know more about her quirk than what the officers were letting on, or perhaps more than what he had even told them, but if he thought less information would keep her safer, Shouto found he was already comfortable trusting Midoriya’s instincts. There was a high probability they would try to target her again and, while they have had officers at the hospital keeping an eye on her, the heroes gathered here would also be asked to join the rotation of guards.

The villain they had been unable to stop during the first attack was known in some circles as Melting Point. One of the villains they had initially apprehended, known to some as Ricochet, broke through the restraints officers had used during transportation and was currently missing. No reports of similar quirks being used have shown up in the area since his escape, so the police believe he is underground for the time being.

The news of Ricochet’s escape sends a wave of displeased whispering through the room as many of the heroes gathered, Shouto included, hear this for the first time. Shouto glances back at Midoriya and Uravity as the officers try to calm the room. There’s a worried crease in Midoriya’s brow and he’s chewing on his bottom lip, obviously thinking deeply. Uravity looks torn between being upset with everyone else and worrying about Midoriya’s surprising silence.

When the room finally calms enough for the officers to continue, they bring the discussion back to the last villain, the one they had caught early on in the fight. So far they had not given them much information to go on. Whatever quirk they might have is not in any local records, finger prints have not matched any existing ones in the system, and they’ve refused to give their name or any information about their team members.

Shouto remembers the news report from shortly after the attack and the pacifying remarks about how it wasn’t an organized attack or anything for the people to worry about, but he can’t help but think there is something more sophisticated in this attack than something random.

The officers flip through a few slides before stopping on pictures of the villains. Melting Point is just as Shouto remembers from their fight but he had never seen the other two during the attack. There isn’t a clear picture of Ricochet available so most of the pictures are a blurred humanoid shape just as it collides with a building. But for the last, nameless villain they have a mugshot.

A crack echoes through the room. Everyone in the room turns to look. Shouto’s eyes settle on Midoriya who is staring at the screen with barely-contained rage and two halves of a broken pen clenched in his fists. The ink is beginning to stain his hands and the papers on the table in front of him.

Uravity leans towards him, whispering something quickly under her breath. She reaches over, carefully taking the broken pen from him. Midoriya finally looks down at himself with a grimace.

“I apologize for the interruption,” Midoriya says, just barely loud enough to be heard across the room.

Officer Uchida looks uncomfortable but he waves off the apology.

Midoriya excuses himself from the room for a moment to clean up and Uchida goes back to his presentation. Shouto finds himself watching the door more closely than the presentation. What does Midoriya know about this villain that no one else does to inspire such a strong reaction? When Midoriya finally returns he meets Shouto’s eye for a moment before he looks past him. He gives a subtle nod and Shouto looks back again to see Uravity watching Midoriya with concern.

“Who are the underground heroes gathering intel on this case?” Midoriya asks once he’s returned to his seat, interrupting Uchida's break down of Melting Point and Ricochet’s quirks as experts understood them so far.

Uchida looks around the room for a moment as if he cannot figure out who spoke. “Excuse me?”

“Who are the underground heroes on this case?” Midoriya repeats calmly, over emphasizing each word.

Three heroes off to the side of the room raise their hands. If Shouto is remembering correctly their names are Jackal, Screech, and White Noise but their quirks escape him for the moment. As far as he can remember, he’s never worked with any of them so he doesn’t know much about them. Though, he thinks, Midoriya probably knows their names, quirks, and arrest records just from a quick glance, even if this is the first time he’s met with any of them.

Midoriya nods his thanks to the three and they lower their hands. “I would like to suggest Hypno be added to the case.”

Chargebolt jumps at the mention of Shinso’s hero name, just enough for Shouto to notice the reaction.

Officer Uchida looks like he can’t decide if he’s more confused by the change in direction of the debriefing or upset by the interruptions.

“Well I’m sure Hypno does fine work, but-”

Midoriya scoffs and Shouto has a feeling that’s all it takes for the officer to make his decision.

“What authority do you think you have to even make these kinds of suggestions?” He demands.

Ingenium stands up so quick Shouto wouldn’t be surprised if he used his quirk. “Dr. Midoriya is a highly respected hero- and quirk-analyst. He is regularly brought on as a consultant for large cases like this. He is also the victim’s personal doctor. He is more familiar with her case than anyone.”

Uchida clearly wasn’t expecting someone else to jump to Midoriya’s defense quite so quickly, or adamantly, and takes a moment to come up with a reply. “Well that is good to know but-”

“If the good doctor says Hypno should be on the case, I would listen to him.” Chargebolt adds, though he stays slouched casually in his seat. “He’s here right now on request of Lemillion.” The lie slips out so naturally even Shouto believes it for a moment.

That gets some attention and a small wave of chatter moves through the front of the room. Chargebolt leans around Shouto to wink at Midoriya who nods his thanks to him, hiding a small, grateful smile behind his hand.

After a few minutes of discussion, the officers seem to come to a decision. Officer Uchida sits down.

“We will contact Hypno’s agency to see if he is available to be a part of this investigation.” A different officer declares calmly. When no one else seems inclined to argue, they continue on with the debriefing as if Midoriya hadn’t said anything at all.

Midoriya and Ingenium take their seats once again but as soon as the majority of the room’s attention is turned back to the investigation, Shouto can make out muffled whispering from Midoriya and Uravity, though mostly Midoriya, behind him.

Eventually, there’s a call for a break. Shouto and Chargebolt turn in their seats to face Midoriya and Uravity. Ingenium moves a chair to join them.

“Thanks for that,” Midoriya says to Chargebolt as soon as they’re settled.

“Yes, thank you for adding your vote of confidence,” Ingenium says sincerely. “Though it really would be better if we did not have to use the number one hero’s name like that. Especially when it is a lie.”

Uravity bumps his shoulder. “C’mon it’s not technically a lie. Midoriya is kept on his agency roster even when he isn’t officially on a case. That’s close enough that no one’s going to have a problem with this.”

Midoriya’s expression changes so quick Shouto almost thinks he imagined the displeasure before he schools his expression into something more impassive. “As long as it gets Hypno on this case, I don’t care about the technicalities right now.”

“Can I ask why it’s so important?” Shouto finally speaks up. He feels Chargebolt perk up next to him and knows he’s been wondering the same thing.

Midoriay scrubs a hand, still slightly stained with ink, through his hair, ruffling the curls. “That last villain. The one they don’t have any information on. He does have a common alias – Siren. Hypno’s been tailing him for months. If they would just…communicate more, maybe this first attack could have been prevented altogether. Who knows what connections there might have been between the three of them before this that could have clued us in on what was happening. It’s such an over-I…I just mean…people, especially Kou, could have been seriously hurt. If we could have stopped it…”

Shouto can practically hear the forceful way Midoriya cuts himself off before diving into a much longer rant. If it wasn’t for where they were, and the limited time they had before they had to continue the debriefing, Shouto doesn’t think he would mind hearing everything else Midoriya is thinking but holding back from saying. And based on the expressions of the other three heroes with them, he doubts he’s alone.

The second officer calls the meeting back together, starting in right away on the different teams they would like to set up for guarding Kou, gathering information, and gathering the villain’s old contacts when the elevator doors slide open with a quiet chime, and Shinso – Hypno, technically, though he’s still in civilian clothes unlike everyone else, steps through.

The officer stumbles over her words for a few moments before she greets him weakly.

“Hypno, thank you for joining us…We didn’t realize you would be able to respond. So quickly.”

Hypno gives her a dull look and continues into the room without any other acknowledgement. He grabs an extra chair from an empty table and noisily drags it across the room to join Midoriya and Uravity’s table. The metal legs grating against the floor cuts through the room so harshly the presentation is halted until he finally stops, dropping into the chair casually.

“You can continue,” he declares with a dismissive wave of his hand, as if just now realizing everyone was waiting for him.

Chargebolt snorts loudly, belatedly trying to cover the sound with a cough. Shouto reaches over to weakly pat him on the back. The glare the officer sends them makes him feel a little like being back in high school, disrupting the class. Except that Aizawa’s glares were always a lot more effective.

The officer bristles for a moment before regaining her composure and returning to the presentation, turning away from their side of the room as much as she can manage without turning her back on the room.

 The meeting starts coming to a close roughly an hour later. The officers are still taking questions from some of the heroes gathered who weren’t a part of the first attack, and team assignments are being made. When it seems no one is paying their corner of the room any mind, Chargebolt leans around Shouto to look at Hypno and Midoriya.

“How did you get here so fast? There’s no way they contacted your agency that quick.”

“Izu-er, Midoriya texted me,” Hypno explains with a shrug. Shouto could be imaging it, but he’s almost certain Midoriya glances at him at Hypno's slip of his first name. At the very least, Chargebolt’s comment about ‘that Izu-Midoriya’ was starting to make a little too much sense. “And I was already in the area.”

Midoriya considers this for a moment. “You still got here surprisingly quick, you definitely weren’t at your apartment. Where exactly in the area were you?”

“I was visiting Inko.”

Midoriya startles at the reply. Shouto doesn’t recognize the name, but Uravity and Ingenium both seem to, perking up in interest. Shouto looks to Chargebolt, but he seems as confused as Shouto.

“Why were you visiting my mom?” Midoriya asks. Ah. Well that explains…something. Shouto can’t decide if Midoriya sounds concerned or horrified as he asks Hypno.

Hypno shrugs again, sending him a smug look. “She likes me more.”

“Excuse me, I’m her favorite,” Uravity jumps into the conversation while Midoriya sputters at Hypno’s answer.

Hypno looks like he’s about to argue with her when Ingenium interrupts them with a wave of his hand. “I don’t believe this is the appropriate place for this discussion.”

Hypno rolls his eyes, but relents, holding up a hand in surrender. “Sorry, class prez.”

Uravity pouts besides him but doesn’t argue.

Shouto isn’t really sure what to make of the entire discussion. Somehow Hypno being close enough with Midoriya to be close to his mother isn’t a particularly shocking revelation despite Midoriya’s previous attempts to downplay their relationship, but he can’t quite figure out how he feels about it. He also can’t quite make sense of Uravity also knowing Midoriya’s mother.

Someone clears their throat, interrupting the conversation. An officer stands nearby, holding a folder with their assignments tucked inside.

“Since you all seem comfortable with each other, for now you have been assigned to a team.” The officer explains haltingly. “Except for you, of course, Dr. Midoriya. As a civilian, I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course.” Midoriya replies with a pacifying smile, appearing the perfect picture of cooperation, but his tone is cold, almost condescending.

The officer stands there for another moment before dropping the folder at the end of the table and fleeing.

“I didn’t realize we were quite so scary,” Uravity says cheerfully as she picks up the folder. Shouto is actually fairly certain the one the officers are most wary of is Midoriya. And he wonders what is says that the single civilian among five pro-heroes is the scariest.

Uravity flips through the pages and hands out the assignment sheets to the respective heroes around the table. Hypno glances through his before silently handing it off to Midoriya.

Shouto watches the two scan over the page for a moment, heads bent close together and whispering over details.

“Midoriya, you’re connected to Lemillion’s agency, correct? Will Architect be involved in the case?” Shouto asks suddenly.

Midoriya and Hypno fly apart, both staring at him in shock. Uravity mirrors their expressions only a moment later. Confused by reactions, Shouto looks to Ingenium who suddenly appears to be avoiding his eye.

Still, no one says anything so Shouto continues on. “He was at the first attack and he recognized Kou. At first I assumed he knew her name through a quirk, but if she’s been targeted before, maybe he was on the case then? He-"

“He was…at the first attack?” Hypno interrupts suddenly, voice strangely calm.

Shouto nods. “I just met him at the end, after Melting Point had disappeared, but-”

Uravity looks like she wants to say something when Midoriya finally clears his throat. Like Ingenium, he won’t meet Shouto’s eye. “Architect cannot be included on the case.”

Shouto looks around the table, but only Chargebolt seems as confused by this information as he feels. And, no offense intended to Chargebolt, but he’s growing increasingly frustrated with being out of the loop with him.

“Architect is classified as a vigilante. His…work is illegal. He can’t be included on cases, officially. And heroes aren’t supposed to allow him to help, unofficially.”

Shouto looks between Midoriya and Ingenium. He’s not surprised Midoriya knows this about Architect, though he has no idea if they’ve actually met, but he’s positive no one mentioned anything about his being a vigilante when they first met.

The silence around the table grows tense and Shouto knows he’s missing something.

Before he can try and push for more details, Officer Uchida stands at the front of the room and calls the meeting to a close, reminding them of the next meeting in a few weeks.

Uchida had barely stopped talking when Hypno stands up, practically hauling Midoriya out of his chair and starting to drag him from the room. Uravity follows after them with only a quick wave sent back to the three left at the table as an afterthought.

“Okay…what the hell was that about?” Chargebolt finally asks.

Shouto would really like to know that as well.

“Entropy, may I speak with you for a moment, privately?” Ingenium asks, standing up from their table abruptly.

Chargebolt pulls Shouto to the side before he can follow Ingenium. “Any chance you’ll fill me in on what’s going on with those four?”

“If I can figure it out myself.”

[bjy-on-ao3]

Would you be willing to write a fic for Levi (from Obey Me!) where the reader gives him a blow job while he plays video games? Thank you!

(As usual, you can find the AO3 version of all my uploads [and some things I don’t post here to tumblr] via my Masterlist blog page.)

Obey Me! Is apparently just my fandom now for when I want to write fics without heavily plotting out the dialogue first. I don’t know why, but it seems to work out well enough. Thought this one seemed like it didn’t require a ton of coherent speaking, as I imagine Leviathan would be an incoherent mess in a case like this.Fulfilling as a request from a Tumblr anon for reader giving Leviathan a blowjob while he plays video games.  I likely won’t take other Leviathan requests besides this, simply because of all the brothers, Levi and Mammon are the lowest on my list and I find I have the hardest time studying for them when I write stuff like this. (This should be gender neutral, but if for some reason I overlooked something, and it’s not, someone yell at me so I can correct it.) Summary Reader interrupts Leviathan while he’s playing some games on his computer. They want to play a little game of their own with him. Tags/Warnings Blowjobs, Oral Sex, Reader-Insert, Shameless Smut

Distraction (GN! Reader/Leviathan)

The sudden sharp rap of knuckles on the door of his made Leviathan nearly jump in his seat, snapping him out of the focus that previously had belong to the game he was playing. He sat up straighter in his chair, golden eyes flickering between the monitor and the door. The interruption at a crucial moment earned him a game over and the prompt to begin again. The knocking rang out again, more forcefully, followed by a voice.

You waited outside for several seconds, hearing nothing. Raising your curled fist to drum on the door a third time, thinking he had fallen asleep or was out picking up some new figurine or game that Akuzon didn’t have. But as you drew your hand back, the customary TSL question that came with knocking on Leviathan’s door met you.

You smiled at the question, which always sounded passingly suspicious. You wondered if he always asked, even when he knew who was on the other side of the door, simply because he enjoyed the exchange more than he let on; a reminder the person in the hall still shared interest for one his favorite things. You thought for a moment, trying to recall the answer needed. You called it out loud and clear so he wouldn’t mishear through the door.

There was another period of silence and you waited, positive your answer was the correct one. Sure enough, the door opened and Leviathan was already moving away from the frame to let you in, leaving it to you to close the door behind you.

“Oh crap, did I interrupt you?” You asked sheepishly, glancing over at his computer monitor and noting the ominous screen prompting him to ‘try again?’.

“N-no, I mean, yes,” Leviathan began. That cute nervousness you saw a lot concerning your presence was already at work, it seemed. His face fell for an instant as he realized you might misconstrue his answer as blaming you. “But that’s alright! I can get back there again, easy!” He declared, the previous shaky tone drowned out by his confidence in his gaming abilities.

You stifled a small laugh in your throat, looking over at the screen again. It looked like a game you had seen before, one that Leviathan had shown you, in fact. You had seen that prompt too many times in the beginning to not recognize it.

“Would it be alright if I watched for a little bit?” You asked brightly, meeting his eyes.

The nerves bubbled up again, and you could see them clearly, but were quickly replaced once he processed your question. The new expression on his face was nearly ecstatic, nerves dying all over again in the joy or you expressing interest of watching him play.

“Oh, sure. After I beat this level, we can play something together… i-if you want?” The sentence was strong and happy to start, but trickled away into a soft apprehension.

You beamed at him and nodded. “Sounds good to me!” you cheered and noted the cute blush that tinged his cheeks from your enthusiasm.

Turning away, Leviathan made his way back to his chair and plopped down. You followed once you ensured the door was closed securely. The last thing you needed was to give one of his brothers an excuse to come barging because you accidentally left it ajar or unlatched. You looked at several other seats scattered around his room, to accommodate times when he allowed others into the room to play with him, but didn’t sit down. You opted instead to stand behind him, peering past his shoulder.

You knew it made him a little nervous when you got close, but it was fun to see his focus waver and watch his cheeks color more while he was aware of your presence - at least until he sank back into his zone of focus. Once everything faded away, it was like you weren’t even there and he would relax. It was a game you played in the past, and you knew just how to break his focus over and over when he slipped into it. Your intentions weren’t malicious, of course, and had he asked you to stop, you gladly would have done so.

You lay your forearms over the back of the computer chair, careful not to press down too hard and tilt it back. Leviathan glanced out of the corner of his eyes, cheeks still cutely pink, but he turned back to the screen, trying to ignore the new distraction. ‘It doesn’t mean anything,’ he told himself. Sure, you had confessed before you loved the time you spent with him, more so than your time with his brothers or the others outside the House of Lamentations you were close with. Still, he had trouble believing anyone could truly have an interest in a shut-in like himself.

You made short, quiet quips regarding the game as you watched him play, accompanying each with a gentle touch on his shoulder or neck. He answered dutifully, though his voice quivered whenever your fingertips brushed over his skin. His skin was pleasantly cool to the touch, despite the reddish tinge creeping past his cheeks and down his neck, too. You let one finger linger a little longer than the others.

The grating sound denoting Leviathan had died again in-game burst from his headset, and the game over scared flashed once more. He heaved a small, frustrated sigh,  and you couldn’t but smile mischievously behind him.

“This level seems pretty hard,” you commented absently, working to suppress your grin.

“O-oh, y-yeah, it can be kinda tricky,” Leviathan answered, relieved to have an excuse for the death. He didn’t want you realizing you were the distraction knocking down his skill level.

“I’m sure you’ll get it soon. Don’t mind me though, no rush!” you reassured him. However long it took Leviathan to complete the level, you got to have fun. If it took him a while thanks to your ‘help’, it meant more lingering touches and teasing, and if he finished it early enough, you got to spend some time bonding over the game picked out next. A win-win situation, to be sure.

He nodded, staring at the game again. You waited innocently for a moment, repeating the same subtle actions as before, as if you weren’t quite paying attention to what you were doing, letting him settle a bit before you moved on. A look of determined slowly fell over his face, the flush in his cheeks a little less obvious. But his normally narrow pupils had dilated, just barely visible beneath his fringe of violet hair. You debated if you should just let him be for the evening and have your fun some other time.

‘No,’ you decided, letting your hands slip away from Leviathan’s shoulders, leaning further onto the chair. Your chin rested near his shoulder, hands poised on the armrests on either side of him. The telltale signs you were distracting him shone through again once he noticed how much closer you were, even though separated much by the back of the chair.

But he could feel the heat of yours and face near him, much more pleasant than his chill skin. Your breath tickled lightly, and he had to stop from squirming in his seat, lest he give himself away. He was determined not to react, to pay it no mind, stubbornness assuring him again it meant nothing despite what his screaming brain suggested.

You had to give him credit for the levels of denial he achieved now and then. Sure, you appreciated he never assumed more of you than you meant to give, but sometimes it became frustrating, making it hard to make an obvious enough trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow. Not because he was stupid, but just stubborn and lacking the confidence to assume you could mean what your hints suggested.

Your attention faltered from the display, ignoring the sound of another game over, and you glanced down at Leviathan’s lap. It wasn’t the most prominent, but you could make out a bulge growing in his pants, a sign you were having more of an effect than making him blush and stutter or impeding his focus. Though you hadn’t caught his full attention in that regard, not yet, not with how he was surely trying to push the unchaste thoughts aside and ignore your proximity. You wondered how much could ignore from a real distraction, though.

“Hey, Levi, it’s not that I’m not enjoying watching you play or anything, but would you mind if I entertained myself a little while I wait for your to finish?” you requested, still leaning close, so your words skated over his ear. You smiled at the shiver he couldn��t stifle in time before he spoke.

“I-I-I...s-sure. It’s fine, I’m sure it’s boring!” he said, tripping over words and trying to shake off the haze threatening to distract him further.

“Oh, no, it’s not boring at all!” you reassured him. You didn’t want him thinking you found him or what he enjoyed doing boring. “Just, don’t mind me and keep playing, okay?” you insisted, standing up straight.

What you were planning was a leap for sure, but you were going to give it a shot. Your curiosity wouldn’t let the thought go once it had surfaced. You hoped once Leviathan realized what you intended, he’d enjoy it.

You swept around the chair, ducking down and beneath his desk, pressing both hands to his knees. Instantly, all focus Leviathan had left exploded, and when you looked up, his was a brilliant crimson, eyes round and enormous. A torrent of nervous gibberish flooded past his lips, his brain short circuiting.

“Levi, it’s alright,” you reassured him. “Just keep playing. Remember, I said not to mind me?” You waited, searching and listening for signs he wanted you to stop, and wasn’t just flustered.

“I-I… b-but.” He took a deep breath, as if it would allow him to restore his sanity, before turning his gaze up, trying not to peek back down.

“Do you want me to stop?” you asked from your knees. You wanted to be sure whether it was his insecurity and embarrassment or true distaste and uncertainty causing him to protest.

His words tumbled out explosively, face screwing up, red and flustered as he tried still not to focus on you too much. “I-I-I… that’s not… y-you don’t have to…” Leviathan trailed off, pausing before continuing in a mumble. “N-no, you can keep going, I just thought…” His words became so soft you couldn’t really make them out anymore, but you sadly knew he was likely battling with his self-esteem again, declaring himself a gross otaku or some other awful moniker for the umpteenth time.

“Just so you know, I’m doing this because I want to and I like you a lot, Levi,” you told him unwaveringly. He didn’t answer, sitting there tomato red. He nodded and turned his attention back to the controller in his hands.

Your own attention flitted down, back to his lap, where the evidence of how you affected him had grown more prominent than before. Rubbing soothing circles on his knees, after a moment you reached for the hem of his shirt, pushing it up and hooking your fingers beneath the waistband of his pants. A sharp inhale hissed through the air, and your eyes danced up for an instant before focusing on the task at hand. You dragged the waistband of his pants down carefully, pulling his boxers along with them.

The erection you knew had been straining against his underwear sprang free, standing proud and unashamed in contrast to its embarrassed owner. You heard the tapping of buttons above you, the faint sound of the game from before filtering down from Leviathan’s headphones, though slower and less practiced. Tentatively, you wrapped one hand around his shafter, stroking up and down smoothly. He rewarded you with another sharp inhale and small, stifled sound.

You tightened your grip, pumping your hand up and down a little faster. Even more soft noises met you, the clack of the controller stalling, though you could tell Leviathan was doing his best to do as you asked. You eyed the wet bead of pre-cum that leaked from the head of his cock and flicked an impish glance up to him before focusing back down.

You leaned in, opening your mouth and letting your tongue loll out, lapping coyly at the pearl of fluid. Its bitter flavor burst over your tongue and you licked at the head again, the salty tang of his skin complementing the first taste. Above you, Leviathan let out a groan you weren’t sure if couldn’t suppress or hadn’t wanted to. You didn’t think on it long, the lingering taste of him and the heady smell of musk filling your senses.

Your lips wrapped around the head fully, mouthing and sucking and twirling your tongue around it. You shifted your grip, one hand caressing the base of his dick, the other cupping his balls and massaging them gently. The noise of the game pause for several seconds, as if Leviathan had momentarily forgotten about it. You took the chance to take in more of his cock, rubbing your tongue along the underside and you went, tracing the line of a thick, throbbing vein.

He whimpered loudly before you had even taken him halfway, and you heard your name follow in a needy, strained tone. His chest heaved shakily above you, and you looked up again as best you could with your lips around him. His fingers moved over the controller in a way that was very clumsy compared to his typical video game dexterity. Your distraction was shattering his concentration quite successfully, but you appreciated how hard at least he was still trying.

When you reached the bottom of his cock, the tip pressing against your throat, you swallowed, and a half-choked moan spilled out from Leviathan’s lips. His hips stuttered a little involuntarily, and you drew back, hollowing your cheeks. You pulled back until only the tip of your tongue flickered over his tick, teasing the head again and making choke out another embarrassing sound. You sank back down to engulf him in your hot mouth all over again, savoring each new, obscene sound it elicited from him.

You nearly jumped back when something cool and soft and leathery brushed along your hand and then your cheek. You calmed when out of the corner of your eyes you realized it was only Leviathan’s tail. Another quick half-glance upward confirmed in his arousal and distraction, he had shifted into his demon form. His tail wrapped lazily around and down, the pleasantly cool, scaly skin stroking your cheek and neck tenderly.

From the sounds above you as you continued to lave his dick with attention, glistening with your saliva as you pulled away each time, it sounded as if he had gone completely to pieces. Sure enough, his breathing grew even more labored, and the sound of his fingers on the controller stopped altogether. Clack. The loud sound of the controller clattering to the desk reached you. His focus was broken entirely, and he couldn’t pretend any longer.

“I-I tried, but…” he began in a groan, his attempt to sound apologetic ruined by the huskiness of his voice.

To assure you weren’t displeased with him, you increased your pace, sucking harder. Without the game to focus on, Leviathan melted into a pliant, desperate puddle. One newly freed hand moved to stroke your head and accompany his tail, while the other held the edge of his desk like a vice. His hips bucked in small, needy motions and you moaned around his cock.

Leviathan moaned and whine freely now, save for biting his lip, though even still he was pleasantly loud. You wondered absently what his brothers might think if they heard the noise or knew what you were doing. Not that it was really any of their business, of course.

From the frantic way Leviathan rocked his hips, his heavy breathing, and the way his dick twitched and throbbed, you knew he was so very close. He whimpered your name again, once, twice.

“I-I’m gonna…” Leviathan’s tried to warn you, but the arrival of his release silenced him, the warning a little too late as he came hard.

You greedily took in as much of his cock as you could as he finished, swallowing each salty, bitter jet of cum that washed over your tongue. You groaned as you swallowed, and above you his voice reflected the lust of the sound. When finally he had no more to offer, his chest rising and falling harshly, you pulled back. You stopped only to clean anything you had missed, before sitting back and licking your lips. You looked up at the still very red and flustered demon. He looked utterly exhausted, but his golden gaze skittered away shyly when you met it and you smiled at how cute he looked again.

He mumbled an apology again that was only partially audible, and you shook your head. “You did great, Levi, don’t worry. Besides, ti was fun. And, you know, if you want, we can practice some more so you get can get even better,” you suggested bawdily.

Levi looked torn, both mortified and excited by the idea, seeming as if he might combust. But you knew he wouldn’t say no the next time around.

[sailorspazz]

[Fanfic] Internal Rhythms

Yup, my 10 Dance obsession has reached the point where I need to create fan works, since there’s so little out there (I don’t understand, this manga started 9 years ago, where are all the fics and fanarts?! There’s not even much in Japanese!)

Title: Internal Rhythms

Series: 10 Dance

Rating: M (for sexual content)

Words: 5,200

Summary: Suzuki and Sugiki are having issues syncing with each other's rhythms while practicing the quickstep. Sugiki's suggestion for how to get back in tune ends up pushing their relationship to a place it has never gone before.

Where to read: Posted on fanfiction.net and ao3. Or just stay here and click below!

Ah shit, here we go again…Somehow, I’ve wound up falling into a tiny fandom that has barely any fan works, so I guess I have to help fix that :P Since 10 Dance is an ongoing series, I actually have tons of speculative ideas/headcanons developing for what could happen, but for now I’m content to wait and see what direction the story heads in. Instead, I’ve chosen to write a smutty one-off based on chapter 32; though there are some details referenced from that chapter, if you’ve at least read through the end of volume 5, you should have enough context for where their relationship currently stands (as in, they definitely wouldn’t be messing around with each other at this point…and yet, I still couldn’t stop my dirty mind from imagining scenarios where they push things further >:D). Hope you enjoy this take on what could’ve gone down during a late-night training session!

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

The wall clock inside the Sugiki Dance School struck 1:20am as both Shinyas took a few final sips of water and prepared to start their usual overnight practice session. Though at first it had felt awkward to spend so many hours together even after they had chosen to no longer pursue their romance, they had been able to effectively push their feelings aside and maintain a professional training partnership—even as both were keenly aware that those desires still remained simmering just under the surface.

“Alright, let’s give the quickstep another shot,” Suzuki stated as he walked over to where Sugiki stood loosening the top buttons of his shirt. “We lost out on practice time yesterday since our rhythms were off or whatever, so we gotta make up for it today.” He was eager to finish learning the basics of all five standard dances so he could spend the remaining months before the 10 Dance perfecting his movements and refining his style.

“Indeed. Let’s waste no time getting started, then.” They joined hands, and Sugiki instinctively closed his eyes as Suzuki’s arm wrapped around him and pulled him snug against his body. He began to hum a tune, as he knew his late-night partner benefitted from having music to dance to, and they started to move. Though they started out smoothly, it was not long before their feet were clearly moving at different paces, causing them to nearly trip and fall before catching themselves in each other’s arms.

“Dammit. Not again,” Suzuki sighed in frustration as he broke out of hold. “Why’s this happening now? We’ve never had this issue before. Not even right after…” He trailed off, not wanting to bring up the breakup that still felt too raw and heartbreaking to talk about a couple of months after it had occurred.

“I believe it is simply the nature of this dance. Since it relies so heavily on the two dancers being in sync with one another and dancing as one, any variance in their internal rhythms can throw it entirely off balance.”

“I get that, but do you got any bright ideas for how to fix this, Mr. ‘standard expert’? Has it happened before with other partners?”

“It has, and the solution was…well…” He paused a moment, looking slightly amused by the memories he was recalling. “When it occurred with partners I was romantically involved with, we would express our intimacy to get back in tune with each other.”

“What, you mean fuck?” Suzuki said bluntly.

“Eloquent as always, aren’t you?” he replied with a chuckle. “It needn’t go that far in most cases. Usually just a simple kiss would suffice.”

Suzuki found himself dwelling on Sugiki’s implication that he had dated more than one of his previous partners. “Just how many partners did you…ya know what, never mind.” Though he already suspected it was true, getting confirmation that Sugiki had a tendency to fall for his partners would make what they had shared feel less special.

“I have never shared that sort of relationship with Ms. Yagami, I can assure you.”

His response was not assuring in the slightest. “Yeah, thanks, but I wasn’t worried about you getting busy with your married partner. It just seems like you…” Suzuki stopped himself from finishing his thought, as he was still concerned that the answer to his earlier unfinished question was one he did not want to know. “Whatever, I said forget it already.”

“You’re one to talk,” Sugiki retorted, not allowing the subject to be dropped just yet. “I’m quite certain that percentage-wise, you have been involved with more of your partners than I have.”

Suzuki looked flabbergasted at this accusation. While it was true that he had had romances with one hundred percent of his partners, when that number only amounted to two people when he included the man in front of him, it was hardly a fair comparison. “Are you shitting me? Don’t go twisting this around to make me look bad! You know damn well I’ve…” Before he got too far into his tirade, he noticed the satisfied smirk Sugiki was wearing. Clearly he was riling him up on purpose for his own amusement, and Suzuki had unwittingly fallen into his trap—though there was a part of him that did not mind being baited by him, and it was something he had actually missed when their relationship had been in a more fragile place following their separation. “This ain’t helping solve our problem, smartass. You got any solutions that’re actually useful?”

“We could try it,” Sugiki murmured under his breath, just barely loud enough for Suzuki to hear.

“Huh?” Suzuki wondered if he was really implying what he assumed he was, but was almost afraid to ask. “What exactly do you wanna try out?”

Sugiki met his eyes with an expression that to most would come across as stoic, but because they had spent so much time together, he could see a twinge of heartache behind it. “We shared a romantic bond before. Perhaps we could realign if we connected in that manner once more, however briefly.”

The acknowledgment that he was suggesting exactly what he had suspected caused Suzuki’s heart to leap. Despite continuing to share incredibly close contact every night as they practiced, neither one had broken down and expressed the desire to rekindle the affectionate side of their bond, even though it was something they could mutually sense from each other through their touch. Now Sugiki had finally gone and voiced it aloud, and Suzuki did not know how to feel, his elation being tamped down by the memories of how badly things had ended before. But he found he could not just shoot down this suggestion outright. “So…you’re saying we should make out?” he asked incredulously.

“It can be much chaster than that. Perhaps just a light kiss would do the trick, like the ones you gave me to help loosen me up during our early Latin sessions.”

His face now looked inscrutable, to the point where Suzuki could not tell if he actually thought this would be helpful, or if he was just looking for an excuse to kiss him. However, there was a growing part of him that did not even care if it were the latter. We really shouldn’t do this, he thought to himself. But his inner doubts did not match the words that came out of his mouth. “Well…if you think it’s worth a shot, then…”

Suzuki sauntered closer to Sugiki. As they stood facing each other, both looked unsure if they should actually go through with this. It was an unfamiliar awkward tension that neither wished to endure any longer, so the two began leaning their faces toward one another. However, Suzuki noticed something and grabbed Sugiki’s face, squishing his cheeks with his hands. “Hold up, what’s this I see?” he asked suspiciously, peering into his partner’s mouth. “Looks like the tip of your tongue is poking out awful far for someone who was just gonna kiss me lightly.”

“And what about you, Suzuki-sensei?” Sugiki brought his thumb up to the other man’s mouth and ran it gently across his bottom lip. “I was peeking as well, and those lips of yours were parted quite wide.”

Neither could truly be upset at the other since both were guilty of the same offense. Which made it even clearer that it would be incredibly difficult to restrain themselves and keep to just the gentle kiss they had agreed upon. Suzuki knew this meant they needed to stop, but as he stared into his partner’s yearning eyes, he found it impossible to turn away. He wanted him, he had missed sharing this with him, and he could not allow this opportunity to slip away, even if he knew he might regret it later. “Ah, fuck it,” he mumbled as he slipped his hand around and clutched the back of Sugiki’s head, smashing their lips together forcefully. They quickly locked together in a tight embrace, their tongues thrusting vigorously into each other’s mouths. As ballroom professionals, they had previously compared their make out sessions to different styles of dance: sometimes their tongues slid smoothly together in a gentle foxtrot, at other times they undulated in a sensual rumba. This time, as months of pent-up passion poured out of each of them, it was more like an unconventional paso doble between two matadors battling for dominance.

Why’s it so easy to fall right back into this? And why does it feel so good with him? Suzuki wondered as they continued their maddening yet thrilling dance, relishing the feeling of Sugiki’s fingers twisting through his hair and tugging at his curls. Though in the past he had been more accustomed to romantic partners who would yield to him, there was something about the aggressive push and pull between the two of them that was undeniably appealing—in fact, he even preferred it now.

Sugiki began sucking on the tip of Suzuki’s tongue, causing a moan to slip out. Shit, this is getting out of hand. The urges he had harbored before about ravishing his late-night partner were coming back in full force; he needed to end this before he tried something regrettable again. Against the will of his body that was screaming for more, he managed to dislodge his tongue from Sugiki’s mouth and pull his face back. They breathed heavily as they gazed at each other, and Sugiki made a move toward him again, but Suzuki turned his face so the other man’s lips landed on his cheek instead. Sugiki seemed to accept this alternative, and placed a sequence of tender kisses along his jawline. “I knew this was a bad idea,” Suzuki lamented with a deep sigh.

“Why do you say that?” Sugiki whispered, pressing his lips to Suzuki’s ear.

“’Cause it’s gonna be really hard to stop now.”

“Indeed, I can see how…hard it is,” Sugiki noted with a sly glance downward. “That’s quite a bomer you’re sporting.”

Suzuki’s face turned red, though he also snorted out a laugh. “I seriously can’t tell if you’re fucking with me at this point, or you really don’t know that word. It’s boner.”

“Ah, right.” The sexual tension between them had cooled a bit during this brief exchange, but Sugiki found himself still craving more of his Latino partner. The fact that July was fast approaching and Norman would soon be arriving to take over Suzuki’s coaching made him truly want to make the most of the remaining time they had together. He was on the verge of suggesting something they had never done before, but struggled as he weighed his desires against logic telling him they should not take this any further. “It would be difficult for you to attempt to dance in that state. Perhaps…” His uncertainty caused him to trail off without finishing his proposal.

“Ah, y-yeah,” Suzuki laughed awkwardly. “I guess I could take a break and…”

Before he could walk away, Sugiki grabbed his arms and held him in place. “Perhaps,” he started again, sounding more confident this time as he met his partner’s eyes. “I could…take care of it for you.”

Suzuki’s eyes widened in disbelief. For one, he had never seen someone offer to get him off while wearing such a gravely serious expression. But more importantly, the fact that he was making this offer now when they had never gone beyond kissing was completely unexpected. And he knew allowing this to happen could jeopardize the comfortable working relationship they had developed with each other. Despite that, something awakened in him at the sound of the other Shinya’s words, and there was no way in hell he was going to turn him down. His mental state quickly switched over to the seductive mode that he typically got into when he went out to pick up women—though ever since their trip to Blackpool early in the year when he had started to recognize his feelings for Sugiki, he had actually not slept with anyone at all, and was currently in the longest dry spell of his adult life. Even if they were never officially dating, and even after their romance ended, it would have almost felt like cheating since he had sincerely fallen in love with him. A sensual grin spread across his face, his eyes half-lidded as he softly stroked Sugiki’s cheek. “Oh yeah? How do you plan to do it?” he purred flirtatiously.

Sugiki shivered as he was taken in by the sudden shift in Suzuki’s mannerisms. He did not give him an answer, but instead kept his eyes locked with his partner’s as he dropped down to his knees and reached for the waistband of Suzuki’s pants.

Suzuki raised an eyebrow. “I thought you weren’t willing to do that.”

“Certainly not under the circumstances you presented me with before. That would have been highly undignified,” Sugiki explained in an agitated tone. “Under the right conditions, though, I don’t have a problem with it.” He pulled Suzuki’s pants down to his lower thighs, then slipped his hand through the opening in his underwear, pulling out his erection.

Suzuki chuckled as he noticed that, though Sugiki seemed to be willing himself to keep his expression as calm as possible, his eyes told the story of a man suddenly feeling apprehensive as he held another man’s dick in his hand for the first time in his life. “You say you’re fine with this, but it’s not like you’ve done it before.”

“Yes, well…” He did not finish his reply aloud, but thought to himself, For you—and only you—I’m willing to try just about anything. His hunger for this man had compelled him to push things further than he had intended, but at this point he could not back down. He gave Suzuki’s member some soft strokes with his hand, feeling it grow bigger and firmer. He brought his lips forward and placed them gently on the tip, then poked his tongue out and swirled it in circles around the head. He was stalling a bit due to his hesitation, and he knew Suzuki could sense that as he stared down at him in anticipation, so it was time to take the plunge. He moved forward and slipped the head of Suzuki’s erection into his mouth. He sucked lightly as he pressed him just a bit deeper inside, moving back and forth slowly as he got used to the sensation of having a foreign appendage inside his mouth. Once he got a bit more comfortable, he removed his hand and pushed further yet again, reaching a place where he had most of Suzuki’s length in his mouth. He began to relax a bit, and his head movements went from halting and erratic to smooth and consistent.

Holy shit, this is really happening. Suzuki closed his eyes and exhaled a lustful sigh. I can’t believe I’m getting a blowjob from a guy. He smirked as he thought on it further. No, not just any guy. The Shinya Sugiki. The Emperor. A man who sits near the top of the world, down on his knees for me. Fuck, that’s hot. The ego boost he got from this realization aroused him even further, making him want to feel the sensation of being completely enveloped by his partner. He gripped Sugiki’s hair and tried to hold him in place while shifting his hips forward, but Sugiki’s hand flew up and gripped the base of his shaft, preventing him from going any deeper. He shot a warning glare up at Suzuki, but did not stop what he was doing, now using his hand in conjunction with his mouth to stroke and suck him simultaneously. It seemed the balance of power was an issue between them, as it always had been; even though Sugiki had put himself in a vulnerable position, he still wanted to remain in control. Suzuki could respect that need, and though he still kept his hand resting on his partner’s head, he merely ran his fingers through his hair rather than made further attempts to steer his actions through force.

Suzuki recalled that the reason this had all started was because of their mistimed internal rhythms. There was certainly no more intimate demonstration of one’s rhythm than what Sugiki was doing to him currently, so he decided to concentrate on the pace of his partner’s actions. As soon as he put his focus on it, he was struck by how even and steady it was. Like a piece of music…oh my god, what if he’s playing a waltz in his head? A chuckle nearly escaped him, but he bit down hard on his lip to hold it back. Nah, he doesn’t even need music. He’s probably doing it to the count. One two three, four five six, one two three…it’s like I’m getting blown by a metronome. That mental image made him snicker aloud, causing Sugiki to stop and peer up at him quizzically. “Sorry, sorry. I just…thought of something weird.” He could tell from the look in his eyes that Sugiki was miffed that he was letting his mind wander when he was going extremely far out of his comfort zone to do this for him, so Suzuki felt the need to encourage him a bit. “Please don’t stop. It really does feel amazing.” Though he still looked slightly wary, Sugiki quickly got back into the same rhythm he had been using before. Clearly, thinking about anything was only going to get Suzuki in trouble, so he chose to just relax and enjoy Sugiki’s efforts.

Though the pace he was keeping felt good, it was not quite reaching the speed Suzuki would need to finish. The situation already felt delicate, and he did not want to seem like he was making demands of his partner, so instead of saying anything, he used the fingers resting on Sugiki’s head to gently tap out a faster rhythm. He immediately picked up on what Suzuki was subtly requesting of him, and altered his pace accordingly. Sugiki’s other hand reached around to squeeze one of his partner’s well-muscled ass cheeks. His fingers slipped ever closer toward the center, an avenue Suzuki was not ready to explore. “H-hey,” he protested firmly, causing Sugiki to return to merely caressing his backside. “Ah, Sugi…hngh…mmph.” He could not help but vocalize his pleasure as he drew closer and closer to his climax. He figured it was also probably fair to warn the other man so he could be prepared. “I’m gonna…gah!” He did not even finish the words before tossing his head back with a moan as a wave of ecstasy coursed throughout his body. Though Sugiki had been aware that this would be happening soon and had tried to brace himself, it was still a shock to feel another man’s essence spilling into his mouth. He swallowed a little bit, but the thick, unfamiliar texture sliding down his throat triggered his gag reflex and made him cough, causing most of Suzuki’s cum to dribble down onto his shirt.

Suzuki offered a hand to help Sugiki stand up. Even after pulling him up, he continued to grip his hand, flashing him a contented smile. “Well, I sure didn’t expect a training session like this.”

Sugiki could not help but grin back at him. His heartbeat quickened as they stared into each other’s eyes. He wished they could stay this way forever, but he knew that the longer they continued basking in the afterglow, the harder it would be to tear themselves away from each other. “Well then, shall we get back to training?”

“Whoa, hold on a minute,” Suzuki squeezed his hand tighter, keeping him from breaking away. “We might’ve solved my issue, but now it looks like you’re having one of your own.” His eyes darted downward to the obvious bulge in Sugiki’s pants, then looked back up at him with a lecherous grin.

“Ah, well, I…”

Suzuki swiftly eliminated the gap between their bodies, wrapping one arm around him while his other hand rubbed against the front of Sugiki’s pants. “Sucking me off got you pretty worked up, huh?” Suzuki murmured coquettishly. Sugiki could feel his neck and ears growing warm as he was once again being taken in by his partner’s highly effective seductive mode; it was hard to believe that a man who was so enticing in his everyday existence could amp up his sex appeal even more, but somehow Suzuki managed to pull it off. “You got such a low opinion of me that you didn’t think I’d return the favor?” he teased impishly.

Truth be told, this had all been quite an impulsive whim on Sugiki’s part, and he had not really thought ahead to what Suzuki might do for him in return. But now that the offer was on the table, there was no way he was going to pass it up. Sugiki draped his arms over Suzuki’s shoulders and gazed amorously into his eyes. “If you insist,” he answered softly before leaning forward to press his lips to his partner’s. The pace of this kiss was much more languid than the one they had shared earlier, yet still steeped with the passion of a tango as their tongues slipped past and against each other.

Suzuki began to shuffle his feet, leading them toward the side of the room as they remained attached at the mouth. They reached the benches and sat next to each other, then Suzuki pushed his weight toward Sugiki until he had him lying down. He brought his lips down upon Sugiki’s neck, kissing and sucking at his bare skin. Sugiki noted that he was definitely going to wind up with hickies from this, and would need to remember to keep his shirts completely buttoned up in the presence of others for the next few days, including at home with his mother.

Suzuki’s mouth drifted toward his throat, and he started moving on a pathway downward, placing kisses on each section of newly exposed skin as he undid his shirt buttons one by one. His other hand reached up to play with his nipples, and Sugiki could feel a part of him that wanted to resist; a man like him who was used to being in control was not entirely comfortable being put into such a submissive position. Still, he was willing to go against his own nature in this instance, as he craved the release his Latino partner was offering him.

After making his way down to Sugiki’s bellybutton, Suzuki went to work undoing the other man’s belt and unzipping his pants. He reached down into his underwear, frowning slightly as a realization hit him. “Um, wow. I could tell you were packing when our dicks said hello to each other in that first practice session, but god damn…” He sat up again and unveiled Sugiki’s erection, gawking at its impressive length. “Makin’ me feel inadequate here,” he muttered under his breath. Though he had desired Sugiki sexually for several months already, somehow he had never mentally prepared himself for the blow to his ego of being with a man who was better endowed than himself.

“You’re perfectly adequately sized, I can assure you.”

Suzuki looked dumbfounded for a second, then growled, “Your assurances are really shitty, ya know. How the hell’s being called ‘adequate’ supposed to make me feel better?!” In his mind, he added, Maybe someday I’ll fuck you, and we’ll see if you think my dick’s just ‘adequate’ then, but thought better of expressing that prospect aloud.

Sugiki was struggling to maintain a neutral expression, feeling a grin threatening to break out across his face. Getting Suzuki flustered was one of his favorite—and often easiest—forms of entertainment, and it was when he found him the most adorable. Though on second thought, perhaps this was not the smartest time to aggravate him, as it could cause his hot-headed partner to go back on his offer.

Suzuki narrowed his eyes at him, now noticing the smug glee Sugiki was trying to conceal. “You son of a bitch…” He had gotten him again, and though he was a bit peeved, he nevertheless loved seeing the spark of joy in the other Shinya’s eyes, which had become a rarer sight following their breakup. “You’re lucky I’m such a nice guy,” Suzuki said with a bit of a sneer as he began moving his hand in long strokes up and down Sugiki’s shaft. His partner sighed softly, closing his eyes and turning his head to the side, but Suzuki reached up and grabbed his chin, forcing him to face him again. “Hey. We ain’t dancing the waltz here. Don’t look away from me.” His lips curled up in a lascivious smile. “I wanna see your face when you come.” His grin widened even more as he watched Sugiki’s entire face turn beet red. “Wow. I’ve never seen you blush that hard before.” After repeatedly falling victim to his partner’s efforts to mess with him, Suzuki was pleased to achieve a small victory of his own.

As Suzuki continued to caress him, Sugiki tried to maintain the eye contact that the other man wanted, but it felt too intimate, to the point where it was uncomfortable for him. He continued facing upward, but instead of concentrating on what was in his field of vision, he fixated his attention on the rhythm Suzuki was using to pleasure him. Like when he danced, it was a bit inconsistent and unconventional, yet imbued with passion and enthusiasm. In any case, after spending months secretly wondering what it would be like if they pushed beyond just kissing, being touched by Suzuki like this was quite the thrill.

Suzuki saw a blissful smile appear on his partner’s face, which in these circumstances actually annoyed him. Ugh, why’s he always so elegant? I don’t wanna see that gentlemanly front when I’m jerking you off. He started pumping his hand faster, hoping to coax more of a lustful reaction out of Sugiki. His response of breathing slightly faster and biting down lightly on his lip was not nearly enough to sate Suzuki’s desire to see him let go, so he quickened his pace even more. Soon after, a slight hitch in Sugiki’s breath and his body tensing under him were the only signs Suzuki got to indicate that his partner was climaxing, which was immediately followed by the sensation of ejaculate spilling over his hand.

After taking a few moments to recover, Sugiki arose from the bench. “Let me get something so you can clean up,” he offered as he started walking across the room. He returned shortly with a towel and handed it to Suzuki.

“So…did you like that?” Suzuki asked curiously as he wiped his hands.

“Hmm? Of course. Why would you think otherwise?” Sugiki answered, looking confused.

“I mean, you weren’t really reacting very much, so…”

“Does the end result not make it obvious that I found it pleasurable?” He glanced at the towel Suzuki held, seeming to view it as proof of his point.

“Okay, yeah, obviously you got off, but I’m just more used to…”

“Oh, is it that you usually have women screaming your name in bed?” he chortled.

“That’s…not what I was trying to say…though it is true,” Suzuki acknowledged. “I just thought maybe I’d…I dunno, get to see you let loose a bit, get sloppy or something.”

“Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I don’t tend to do that.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Despite his best efforts, he had not succeeded in making Sugiki drop the impervious guard he kept around himself. Maybe I can’t get you to show me that side of you yet, but someday…

Sugiki could tell it was frustrating for the other Shinya that he had not given him the sort of responses he was accustomed to, but the fact was that it was difficult to open himself entirely up knowing that they could not be in a relationship at this point. Still, he could not let go of the hope that they might one day be together. If anyone’s capable of pulling that side out of me, you’ll be the one to do it.

Once they finished cleaning up, Sugiki disposed of the towel and changed into a new shirt before returning to his partner once more. “All right, shall we resume practice, then?”

“Yeah, but could we work on some dances I already know first? My brain’s a bit…foggy right now, so it’d be hard to try something so new.” He always fell into a fairly relaxed state following sex, so he wanted to save Sugiki the headache of trying to teach him quickstep when it was likely he would absorb very little.

“Certainly, but do you not think we should at least try to see if the compatibility of our rhythms has improved at all first?” He looked at Suzuki with a sly smirk. “That is why we did this, yes?”

“O-of course,” Suzuki stammered. “Yeah, let’s test it out a bit.” They positioned themselves in hold once more, beginning to move to the tune of Sugiki’s humming. Their feet flew across the floor in the basic quickstep patterns Suzuki had learned so far, each of them keeping in mind the feeling of the internal rhythms they had sensed from each other. This time around, they were able to continue moving at high speeds without stumbling, dancing around the room for a while before coming to a stop. Both were panting heavily from the effort, and as they stayed in hold a bit longer, Suzuki blushed slightly as Sugiki beamed at him with a dreamy smile on his face.

“Perfect.”

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Oh ho ho…my Shinyas are very naughty boys! Much more so than they’ve been in the story so far (I suppose a similar level to the Taboo side story, but that’s not exactly canon). I’m excited to get this done and add another fic to the very small pile that currently exists. I really hope more fans will join me in celebrating this beautiful manga and its central pair of dance crazy dumbasses who can’t yet—but will hopefully, eventually—figure out how to make it work between them *cough*just be switch goddammit*cough*. In the meantime, I’ll keep wallowing in headcanons that might possibly become fics if the mood strikes me again. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it! ^_^

[wonderlandandotherplaces]

so it’s six am, ive been awake for the last twenty four hours internally screaming at my dissertation (believe it or not from this absolute trash of a post & the six (now seven am) grammer, but i am months away from getting a degree in english lit/creative writing) so here is my first & last contribution to this fandom because im probably gonna get murdered for this absolute garbage.

okay so this all happened because i saw that caleb wore this cool ring on his ring finger & whilst it’s probably costume jewellery he wore it in several scenes so i kinda assumed that caleb either is or was married. i personally don’t think this dude is a straight & yes, his actual backstory in the show is probably gonna be quite tame (& better than this) but i headcanon that he has a ghost partner out there in the world. (or trapped somewhere its caleb, he inslaves souls his relationship probably isn’t a functional one)

so his ‘ghost’ partner in my headcanon is a dude for starters.

probably met doing something to do with entertainment, caleb was definitely some kind of performer & his partner could’ve been some kind of writer for a show/wrote songs possibly.

they were discreetly together before they died i doubt he was from a time where it was accepted because, from his outfits mans either really into the idea of looking as dramatic as he possibly can like an evil ghost gatsby (bitch, he probably was gaytsby) or he died a long ass time ago).

it wasn’t exactly an ‘official’ marriage, but they wore rings & they knew.

they either died together or separately. they could’ve been murdered, could’ve been killed by a plauge or they genuinely could’ve just died of natural causes (people died young back in the olden day’s, my ma said that if someone got to their late forties in the 70/80’s it was considered an old age)

they were ghosts for a while before the devil showed up. let’s say they were active ghosts with nothing much to do other than haunt people.

probably haunted all the new owners of their home because caleb & his husband didn’t like how new owners redesigned their home.

there’s different levels of haunting from them both: caleb’s husband ‘lightly haunts’ but caleb goes to the extreme then goes further.

at first, his husband is mildly annoyed if caleb somehow ends up killing someone because that blood is not coming out of the mahogany floors & just why are we murdering people now.

but after a decade or so he just goes a long with it because they just want to do everthing they can do as ghosts.

they just like some excitement in their existance & sometimes murder will be on the agenda.

they’re just living their best ghost lives & probably racking up quite a body count which is when the devil decides to pop by.

idk what he offers caleb but caleb’s partner isn’t there when this happens (because the devil has been keeping tabs & knows that caleb’s husband 100% reigns him in & would be skeptical of a deal) & if he was offered extreme ghost power, new digs (which he could choose the style of i always kinda picture the ghost club as a pg hotel cortez ngl probably because caleb reminds me of a pg version of will drake), infinite new outfits & just a lavish existance, i think he’d like the idea & agree.

the devil explains the terms (putting stamps on souls & keeping them inslaved, probably feeding them to the devil over time (idk how dark we want to go here) & caleb probably wasn’t even that fazed (he’s still a bastard)

so, husband returns & caleb explains that they’re being given this wonderful opportunity & just decides not to tell his husband the price (deep down he knows that his partner wouldn’t agree)

yes his husband is skeptical & is like ‘how did you do this, who did you murder now? & actually I don’t think I want to know.

let’s say that, partner actually thinks that they’re slipping away from this plane of existance & seeing as they don’t know what is after being a ghost, he’s willing to try something new.

so they get the ghost club. caleb has a hundred & one flamboyant name suggestions ‘to make a statement’ & it’s his husband who names it ‘the hollywood ghost club’

they fill it with entertainment, making sure it goes with the times but also honours ghosts of entertainment past.

whilst haunting (sometimes murdering) people was a decent pastime, this is their calling & they love it.

his husband writes some snazzy musicals whilst caleb keeps to his deal & does the less than snazzy soul inslaving work (discreetly)

his husband is of the impression that they’re just helping lost souls & that when they disappear it’s because they’ve found what they were looking for or were at peace.

caleb’s husband actually cares about the souls that pass through their club & finds joy in helping them learn how to haunt, how to use their powers etc.

he tries not to actually adopt the sad young ghosts he comes across.

it’s when he actually does want to adopt some ghosties that shit goes down.

because caleb tries to discreetly warn him that it’s not good to get attached because they’re inslaving these poor unfortunate souls & it blows up in his face.

because his partner wants to adopt some ghost kids because he thinks it would be great for all parties involved.

however, caleb is not into that idea & it becomes painstakingly evident that it isn’t just because he’s not that fond of the idea of raising/trying to dad kids/teens.

idk how, but caleb’s husband would find out (via willie???) & it would get ugly.

he knew that caleb probably did something dodgy but not something on this level.

caleb would be like ‘so you can excuse dabbling in murder but you draw the line at enslaving souls’

his husband would be so angry & disappointed.

they keep a distance from each other after that.

either his husband gives into the pull to the unknown & eventually vanishes into the void leaving caleb heartbroken.

or he starts trying to tear what they’ve built apart & the devil takes him out.

or he tries to take the soul stealing buisness out & the devil tells caleb he’s gotta take him out & because he absolutely could never destroy his own husband has imprisoned him.

or he’d either leave caleb & set up his own place somehow where he could care for & nurture innocent souls & that’s what he’s been doing, trying to ignore what his husband has been doing all this time.

until somehow someone (probably willie or someone willing to destroy caleb’s entire career) finds out about him & figures he could help take caleb down because he’s still hurt by what happened.

or if he’s imprisoned & julie is ready to slap caleb into the other side after everything he did to her himbos & nick, somehow frees caleb’s husband from where he’s been imprisoned.

despite his ‘bitch plz, like i care’ attitude, caleb does care & he is heartbroken without his other half.

probably wears his wedding ring from time to time (caleb does wear a ring on his ring finger during ‘the other side of hollywood’ i know it’s just costume jewellery but this is where this bullshit began)

either way, it’s angst all around & despite the fact that caleb thought that he’d at least be able to spend eternity with his husband, he’s ended up destroying it & now despite his facade the idea of eternity isn’t as exciting as it once was.

[concussed-to-pieces]

The Mettle Of A Man; Part Seven

Fandom: Fallout (4)

Pairing: Eventual Paladin Danse/Female Sole Survivor

Rating: Holy shit M.

AN: Enjoy!

Part One: ArcJet

Part Two: The Prydwen

Part Three: Orders

Part Four: Finding Brandis

Part Five: Weston Water And Oberland

Part Six: Meeting Preston And Matthew

Paladin Danse, pride of the Brotherhood of Steel, yawned loudly right before he took the shot. The radstag looked up, alerted to his presence, but it was already too late for the beast.

  Danse lumbered down to the water's edge, hauling the body up onto the withered grass and then drawing his combat knife. As messy as field dressing creatures could be, Danse found himself soothed by the memorized motions. He wondered idly whether he could have been happy doing something like this. Just hunting to support his own needs, staking a claim on some forlorn piece of land and slowly shaping it into a home, maybe even starting a family...

  He almost nicked his thumb due to his inattention and Danse grunted, a little irritated to have caught himself daydreaming about a more domestic existence. You're a member of the Brotherhood of Steel , he scolded, start acting like it! Imagining fake lifetimes was reserved for those who hadn't sworn the Creed, dedicating their lives to carrying out the will of their Elder and honoring the tenets of the Brotherhood.

  Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die.

  Danse's familiarity with the task made quick work of butchering the animal, the paladin rolling everything neatly into the bedraggled hide he had peeled off the beast. The inedible bits of the animal he buried, not wanting to draw any predatory attention to the site. 

  With the lumpy, makeshift sack slung over his shoulder, the paladin trekked back up the hill to the station. Preston waved at him from the fortified wall and the paladin saluted out of habit. 

  Danse found himself powerless to stop his smile when a freckled face popped out from the doorway of the station, Matthew staring down at him. The child's fear seemed to have evaporated overnight, replaced by the verbose curiosity that so many of his age group eagerly employed. It probably helped that Danse had left his power armor behind the station.

  "Whatd'ja get?" The boy asked, skittering down the stairs.

  "Radstag. Notoriously gamey, but ultimately acceptable for consumption." Danse replied as he rinsed off his hands and knife, surprised when Matt nodded solemnly.

  "My papa and older brothers get them sometimes. He says I can't see them shoot one yet though. When I'm older I can come along." Matthew squatted beside the paladin, watching intently as Danse unrolled the pelt and separated out the different cuts of meat. Some would benefit immensely from being aged, but out in the field there was little chance of a reliably-cooled environment. 

  Danse frowned. He had been hoping for smaller game, like some mole rats. He hadn't wanted to pass up the prolific meat the larger beast offered, but now he felt a bit foolish for impulsively going after a creature they may not be able to consume entirely before it spoiled. He couldn't spend all day cooking or preserving it either, he had promised Preston he would finish the wall--

  "Good news!" Garvey called, a spring in his step as he approached the two. "Matt's folks are coming 'round to collect him as soon as possible. I'd expect them by noon, if not earlier."

  "Does your family need food, Matthew?" Danse asked the boy bluntly, gesturing down at the meat. 

  "I got three brothers and four sisters, Mister Danse sir." Matt said by way of reply, his eyes a little wide. "We grow some stuff and my mama makes pretty things to sell, but food's kinda' tight." A flush rose on his face. "We're not poor though! Not poor. We have a place to live, and clean water." He continued defiantly.

  Danse was stunned silent for a moment, and Preston cleared his throat. "You need a hand with that, Paladin?" 

  "I...yes. Thank you, Lieutenant." Danse mumbled, struggling to gather his thoughts. "I may have bitten off more than I could chew as far as resources go. If you would...just...uh, wrap the…"

  "You want them to have the decent stuff, or the larger stuff?" Preston asked simply, crouching down.

  The paladin grimaced. "The whole damn thing, but I'm certain they wouldn't accept it." He muttered incredulously under his breath, " eight children." 

  "They're lucky. A lot of times, pregnancy doesn't really work out so well." Preston rumpled Matthew's hair. "How about you decide, big man. You want the whole deer, minus what we eat for breakfast?"

  "What, really? All of it?!" The boy asked excitedly, looking up at Danse like he was waiting for confirmation. Danse nodded jerkily, unsure of exactly which emotion was choking him at the moment. "This will make my mama wicked happy! I hear her cry sometimes about food. S'why I went to the water place, I was tryin' to scavenge for stuff like my big brothers do."

  It was hardly Danse's first time encountering a family that was low on resources. He had grown up a scavenger himself, alone and hungry. The Capital Wasteland had been rife with desperate people who were willing to try their luck against fully armored BoS troops. Danse couldn't even begin to count the amount of times hostile situations had erupted due to the Brotherhood sitting pretty atop a mountain of supplies. 

  "I'm glad it'll be put to good use, then." He managed to say, his fists balled up tightly. 

  At least right here, right now , he could help.

  …

  Danse trudged across the lot yet again, dragging a massive fallen tree behind him. Thanks to his power armor, the paladin was a machine of industry when it came to building the remaining two sides of barricades. Backhand was just grateful that he had waited until after eight o'clock to begin. Her sleep had been poor, filled with dreams of chasing after Shaun.

  Danse worked almost silently aside from noises of exertion, and it seemed as though his mind was elsewhere. If Backhand had learned anything during her brief stint of traveling with the paladin it was that when he pondered, he appeared to devote his whole body to the task.

  "He's really somethin', General." Preston commented. "I mean, just look at him go! If more folks in the Brotherhood were like him, I feel as if the tide would finally start to turn for the Commonwealth."

  "You're not wrong." Backhand agreed, wiping the sweat off her forehead. After Danse had assured her that he was more than up to the task of finishing the fence, she had decided to start planting the crops. So here she was, General of the Minutemen, up to her elbows in dirt, tato seeds and corn kernels while Matt 'supervised'. "I think he likes helping."

  "Kindred spirits?" Preston teased. 

  "Maybe so!" She laughed, flicking his knee with dirt-covered fingers. "I think the Commonwealth could always use more people willing to lend a hand, though."

  "The Minutemen certainly can, even if the rest of the Commonwealth wants to stick its head in the sand." The radio on Preston's lapel crackled to life and he dashed off, practically bounding up the steps to the station so he could get a little higher and clear the signal. " Lieutenant Preston Garvey here… "

  "I hope my parents come soon." Matt said quietly. He toed at a mound of dirt, his expression troubled. "D'ya think they'll be mad at me?"

  Backhand grimaced. "I doubt it. They'll be happy that you're okay. You're really lucky, y'know."

  "I know." Matt continued staring at his feet, "I just didn't want my mama to cry anymore. I wanted to fix it."

  Backhand raised her hand and placed it on his shoulder, giving him a little shake. "Hey, sometimes we're just not big enough to fix stuff by ourselves. Sometimes we're not strong enough, even when we think we are. But that's how you learn, right? So you gotta' pick yourself up and try to help where you can." The little boy still looked dejected. "I'll tell you what, Matt. As General of the Minutemen, I'm giving you a field promotion to Intel Lieutenant."

  "Intel Lieutenant?" Matthew echoed in confusion, his eyes wide. 

  "Yep. You're observant and resourceful, excellent qualities in an intelligence operative. I need you to keep your family safe, and that includes keeping you safe. A smart intelligence operative always ensures the safety of the people around them. Can I count on you, Lieutenant?" Backhand asked, wiping her hand off on her jeans and extending it to the boy.

  "Yeah. Yeah! Yeah, I can do that!" Matthew puffed his chest out a little, small fingers grappling her own when he shook her hand. "What's my first order, General ma'am?" 

  "Your first order will be to work in tandem with Preston and secure the perimeter. You walk the inside beat, he walks the outside." Backhand instructed, barely stifling her laugh at the child's stiff salute. 

  "Matthew?" An unfamiliar voice called, a thin woman slipping through the doorway Danse had left in the fence. "Matthew!"

  "Mama!" Matthew hollered, bolting across the settlement to fling himself into his mother's arms. The woman sank to her knees, holding her son close and crying into his hair as he clung to her.

  Backhand's throat ached and she looked away, blinking away the tears she wanted to shed at the reunion. She noticed that Danse had stopped mid-motion, the paladin appearing to silently watch the scene unfold.

  Preston trundled down the stairs, his smile kind as Mrs. O'Brian tried to thank him. "All part of the job, ma'am. We were happy to help." He assured her. "Really, you can thank that curmudgeon Rob. Without him telling the General about the super mutants, she never would have gone to Weston."

  Backhand rose from the dirt, brushing her knees off and meandering forward. Mrs. O'Brian launched into a new wave of thank-yous which Backhand attempted to graciously deflect, and in the midst of their conversation Mr. O'Brian arrived. He was wheezing a bit from the climb, freckled face red with exertion.

  "Matthew Amadeus O'Brian!" He thundered, and Matt lunged for him.

  "Papa!" The little boy cheered, hugging his father's leg. 

  "You had us out of our minds , young man!" Mr. O'Brian scolded, the relief in his eyes belying his sharp tone. "Don't you dare wander off like that again!"

  "I won't, I promise!"

  "We seriously can't thank you enough, we...we've been so worried ." Mrs. O'Brian daubed at her eyes with her sleeve. 

  Backhand caught her arm and carefully took her aside, speaking in undertones when she said, "Matt told us that he was trying to scavenge like his older siblings did. Apparently he overheard some discussions about food scarcity."

  Mrs. O'Brian froze guiltily, looking back at her son and husband. "I...well, the winter was so hard , General, and caps have been tight because the corn wouldn't pollinate properly. We'll get by, though. We always have." She said staunchly. 

  Backhand cocked her head towards the motionless Danse. "My friend Danse butchered a radstag earlier today. We ate our fill this morning, and Matt already promised us that you'd be willing to take the rest. It'll just go to waste, otherwise." She reasoned, watching the other woman's eyes glisten with tears all over again.

  "Oh General, we...I mean, if you're sure -?" 

  "Absolutely. Myself and the paladin will be going our separate ways from Lieutenant Garvey today, and that much meat will definitely spoil before we reach our next destination. Please, I insist."

  "I thought the Brotherhood of Steel wasn't willing to help civilians?" Mrs. O'Brian whispered cautiously, her eyes flitting to Danse.

  "I can't speak for anyone else, but my friend Danse is a cut above your average grunt." Backhand said proudly. "Once this settlement gets up and running I hope to establish a caravan between here and Starlight. If we can get the logistics squared away, hopefully that will make trade a little easier. I can't promise anything, but-"

  "I can already tell better days are coming." Mrs. O'Brian said softly, her hand clasping Backhand's own. "Now that the Minutemen are back...well, it gives folks hope again, and sometimes that's all you need." She then waved Danse over.

  His power armor grinding loudly, Danse obligingly approached the two women. "Citizen." He addressed Mrs. O'Brian with a polite nod once he was within earshot.

  "I wanted to personally thank you, Paladin Danse." The older woman announced, her voice wavering slightly. "For finding my son, a-and for the food."

  "Oh, you don't...er, thanks are not necessary, citizen." Danse floundered, rubbing the back of his neck. "A good Brotherhood of Steel soldier knows that their responsibilities lie with the people under their protection." His smile was slow, and a bit awkward. "I am simply glad that we discovered Matthew before any serious harm could be done, though I have to apologize for the cut above his eye."

  "Matt was hiding in a wall when we entered the facility, and we thought he was a hound. We may have gone through the wall." Backhand explained with a wince. 

  "The super mutants would have done much worse. Hopefully that little scrape helps him learn." Mrs. O'Brian brushed off their apology ruefully. "He's very fond of getting into trouble. I call him my little wanderer."

  "If you'll excuse me." Danse murmured, offering the older woman a salute and then turning to Backhand. "I should be done by fifteen hundred hours or thereabouts. At that point, I believe it would be prudent for us to return."

  "Are you sure? You're already burning your grease, Paladin." Backhand pointed out worriedly. 

  Danse shook his head. "Paladin Brandis will have reported in by now. I can get my armor serviced at the base."

  "Alright, I'll have everything locked and loaded." 

  The paladin nodded and headed back towards the framework of a wall that he had constructed. "God, he is tall ." Mrs. O'Brian muttered. "And stiff." She seemed to remember herself after a moment. "Uh, anyway! We really appreciate everything that you've done for us, General. Everything . If there's anything you need, or...even if you're just in the area, you're more than welcome to stop by. We'd love to have you visit!" She said, loudly enough so that Danse could hear her. 

  He simply nodded again and heaved a log up into his arms, then slammed it down over his armored knee to snap it in half. The bark essentially exploded off the trunk, bits and pieces landing on the ground as Danse shoved the crude beam into the dirt. Where the first half of the wall had been constructed with various scrap, the second half was much more reliant on raw lumber. It looked more like a stockade wall than anything.

  "Oh." Mrs. O'Brian said weakly. "Are they all...like him?"

  "I imagine some of them are way worse." Backhand chuckled. "We'll leave him to it. Let's get you that radstag."

  Mr. O'Brian was a touch more reserved than his wife, but he still expressed a wild amount of gratitude to Preston and Backhand. The entire time Matt was glued to his leg. "I'm just happy to know that there's still damn decent people out here." The older man remarked, looking a little misty as he secured the pelt over his shoulder. "We owe you a lot, General. You can count on us if the Minutemen ever need help."

  "I'll hold you to it, Mr. O'Brian. Lieutenant Matt." Backhand inclined her head to the little boy, who saluted her. "It's in your hands now, soldier. I'm depending on you. I know you're up to the task." 

  "Uh huh." Matthew replied, sounding a bit breathless. He scrambled away from his father right before they departed, fumbling with the knotted bandanna around his hand. "Here, General! I gotta' give you your luck back before I go." He said seriously, unwinding the cloth and returning it to Backhand. Without waiting for a reply, he then rushed at Danse. "Mister Danse! Hey, Mister Danse!" 

  Danse halted where he was. "Yes, Matthew?" He replied.

  "I wanted to say thank you. And I'm sorry I thought you were scary before. You're not that scary." Matthew said plainly. "You're nice even though you look scary."

  Danse arched a brow. "A charitable allowance, citizen. Maybe I'll bump into you again someday. In the meantime, try to stay out of mischief and listen to your parents. You are…" Danse paused, his expression sad. "You're very lucky to have them, Matthew."

  "I know!" The boy answered brightly, wrapping himself around Danse's greave in a makeshift hug before skipping back to his parents. "Bye, Mister Danse!"

  Danse raised one large gauntlet. "Goodbye, Matthew."

  …

  There was no easy way to say it. Danse was in a slump . It felt like the closer he got to the airport, the harder it was to force himself to keep moving forward. He doubted the amount of labor he had done earlier was helping matters, as the joints in his armor protested vigorously with every step. 

  When Knight Vega tentatively suggested that they find shelter for the night, Danse hated the relief that flooded his body. "The next suitable structure we come across." He promised, knowing that she must have spotted the radstorm he had been tracking on the horizon for several hours. 

  Steaming rain began to fall as Vega pointed out a ramshackle-looking lean-to, butted up alongside a collapsed house. "There, c'mon!" She said urgently, running through the tall grass alongside the road. 

  "Vega-!" Danse began to protest, lumbering along in her wake. Green lightning split the sky in the distance, the odd warbling thunder that accompanied radstorms rolling shortly thereafter. "Knight Vega, you don't know whether that's inhabited! "

  "I don't care!" Backhand retorted, shoving open the door with her shoulder and vanishing inside. 

  Danse tried to enter through the doorway, but it was too narrow. "Dammit Vega, you need to think your trajectory through. Don't just go running off whenever you get an idea in your head." He scolded, swapping his rifle to his right hand and flicking on the tact-light as he sidestepped gingerly through the door instead.

  The beam wavered in the darkness, playing over the battered walls and half-tarpaulin roof. It did appear that the tiny structure was deserted, and Danse wasn't sure if he should be even more cautious. What could have caused the previous inhabitants to depart? 

  Backhand stood in the middle of the room, her arms folded around herself as she shivered. "C'mon, get in here. The wind is picking up and I'm freezing ." She complained.

  Danse attempted to oblige, nearly cracking his head open on one of the ceiling trusses in his haste. The paladin grimaced, ducking and then carefully closing the door behind him. "Better?" He asked, a little irritated with her demanding attitude. 

  "Y-Yes." She replied, her voice sharp. She immediately began stripping her armor off, as well as the Vault suit beneath it. 

  Danse flinched, turning his head away. "Vega, will you-"

  "Please just...just give me a second." She begged. 

  Danse's brow furrowed, and the paladin shot her a look. Thunder rumbled in the distance and...was that a flinch? "Vega, are you-"

  "Just give me a second! " Backhand cried, probably louder than she had intended. Danse took a reflexive step back, his gauntlet clattering against the wall. "I'm sorry, I...I'm sorry, Danse. Paladin." She apologized after a second, floundering with her greaves. "It's the rain, I can't...it makes me feel sick to my stomach." 

  "You should have said something earlier, Vega." Danse chided gently. "We could have found a more defensible position."

  "I thought if we moved quick, we might make it back to the airport before it hit." Her motions were jerky as she yanked the Vault suit down, unlacing her boots as an afterthought. "But now we're stuck here for the night."

  "At least the roof appears to be sound." Danse tried to look on the bright side of their incarceration, and tried to not look at her as she stripped to her smallclothes. He was dry aside from his head, the gorget seal at his neck saw to that. But Backhand had no such luck. "I'll put my armor in front of the door to barricade it." Danse offered after a moment, taking the opportunity to turn his back to her. He didn't get a reply, and he honestly wasn't sure if he had even expected one in the first place. 

  Danse emerged from the armor, stepping down and back smoothly before he urged the hatch closed once more. He then popped the fusion core out and tucked it into his utility belt. He knew he was being overly cautious and performative when it came to giving Knight Vega her privacy, but at this point he was doing this for his own sanity as well.

  After a pregnant pause, he heard her shift her weight. "Okay, I'm decent." She mumbled.

  The scent of lantern oil wafted past his nose and a light flared up behind him, turning his shadow into a pitch black silhouette on the wall. Danse took a gamble and slowly turned around.

  Vega had thrown on a shirt that reached her mid-thigh. That was her idea of decent? She scuttled around bent nearly double, spreading her bedroll without even bothering to clear the floor beneath it. "Vega." Danse addressed her quietly, then a bit louder when she failed to respond, " Vega . You'll do serious damage to your back if you sleep so rough. Take a minute to prepare."

  "I-" Backhand's eyes were wild when they met his own. For a moment, Danse wasn't certain she knew who he was, or if she even saw him . 

  "Knight," He paused, clearing his throat and then mumbling, "Elizabeth." Saying her actual name, the name she had given Matthew, felt oddly inappropriate. "You're alright." He assured her calmly. "You're fine. We have shelter, light and food. You're alright."

  "I know ." Backhand retorted. "I-I know. And don't call me that." 

  "What?" Danse asked in confusion. "I apologize, I didn't mean to-"

  "Paladin, please ." Backhand's eyes had gone fierce, pale blue snapping in the light from the lantern. "I'm not his fucking Beth anymore." She practically snarled the words.

  "I didn't call you Beth. I called you Elizabeth." Danse replied, trying to gentle his tone.

  "Oh. I... God , Danse, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to be all…" she trailed off helplessly, making a vague gesture. "I didn't sleep well and getting sick from the rain wouldn't help. We used the last of the Rad-X for you."

  Ah . Danse should have known. This wasn't about her getting damp or being uncomfortable, it was the usual resource scarcity that had her on edge. "It'll be alright, Knight Vega. We're only a few hours out from the airport." He hesitated, unsure if he should continue. "I apologize for using your first name. I was unaware that it was a raw subject for you."

  "It's not , not really. I just...he used to call me Beth and I'm not that person anymore. It's been so long since I heard Elizabeth that I must have just assumed you said Beth. I'm sorry, Danse." She was wringing her hands nervously.

  "Logan." Danse murmured.

  "What?"

  "Fair's fair, right? My first name is Logan. I regret that I have no nickname to give you."

  …

  Backhand's eyes widened. Logan . It was a good name. It suited him. She mouthed it once to herself. "Don't encourage me to give you a nickname." She joked, aware that she probably sounded a little too reedy. "I can guarantee you'll regret it."

  Danse's eyes crinkled good-naturedly at the edges when he smiled down at her. "I don't doubt it," He allowed, repeating, "but fair is fair, Knight."

  "I don't like the radstorms at all." Vega blurted out, a blush staining her face. "The thunder, it's wrong and I hate it."

  "Understandable, Knight. The noise is highly unsettling." Danse had her gather her sleeping bag back up, the paladin using a spare piece of plywood that he found by the door like a makeshift plow to shove the debris off to the side. "There," He said finally after he was satisfied with the state of the floor, " now you can lay down. Without worrying about tetanus or a herniated disc." He teased.

  "The Brotherhood will not forget your sacrifice." Backhand ribbed in reply, smoothing the wrinkles out of her bedroll.  

  "And this is how I'm promoted to star paladin." Danse said dryly. "For my dedication to the art of proper slumber in the field." He shook his head ruefully, unrolling his own sleeping bag and spreading it lengthwise at the base of his armor. He was blocking the door, Backhand realized after a second. Like the immobile armor wasn't enough!

  "Hey, come over here." She requested boldly, patting the cement beside her. 

  Vega didn't expect him to obey, the larger man dragging his bedroll parallel with hers after a moment of thought. "I suppose the floor is more level here." He reasoned. "Good eye, Knight."

  "Oh yeah, it's not because you're probably warm or anything. I was definitely looking out for you."

  Danse's chuckle was soft. "Understood. I am a commodity." He lowered himself onto his sleeping bag, waiting patiently as she dug through her satchel. 

  "So for dinner, we have a wonderful assortment of Cram. After that, I'll brew us some tea." Backhand said finally, digging two cans out of the pack. " God I wish I'd had the stuff to bake bread, would have made us some back at Oberland." 

  Danse shook his head. "It spoils so fast out on the road. Though during the harsher months there is nothing quite like a fresh slice of hot bread with a little grease alongside the meat stew from the mess hall." He sounded wistful, despite the fact that Backhand knew he was talking about military food and therefore it probably wasn't anything to write home about.

  "Remind me to bake you some bread." Backhand tossed him a can of Cram, and then opened her own with less-than-steady hands. She did her best to ignore the storm that was raging closer and closer, steeling her spine from flinching at every rumble of thunder.

  Danse all but devoured the canned substance, the large man obviously starving from his day of labor and walking across the Commonwealth. He drowsily watched Backhand set up the small coffee pot she lugged with her, the lantern now doubling as a brazier of sorts. Backhand pried open her tea tin after a momentary struggle, grabbing one of the bags inside and dropping it into the pot of dubiously-clean water without much ceremony.

  The tea was a hubflower blend, lacking in caffeine and bearing a sweet, calming scent. Backhand often employed this beverage when she had difficulty sleeping, finding that the entire tea-brewing process tended to calm her racing mind.

  Danse dug out the cup from his mess kit for her to pour into, the thin metal thoroughly scoured clean and dented from use in the field. "Be careful, it's really hot." Backhand warned, gingerly scooting the cup across the floor to the large man.

  He nodded absently, cradling the cup close. He looked pensive, as though he wanted to ask something but couldn't quite think of how to phrase it. "Knight... how do you know of the way to get into the Institute?" Danse's tone was wearily quizzical. "That information is...it's unprecedented , but I assume you must know that already."

  Backhand exhaled, staring up at the ceiling as she tried to gather her thoughts. It was a relatively straightforward story, all things considered, though some portions would sound insane . So she started talking.

  She told Danse about going to Diamond City and employing the assistance of a well-known detective. Finding out that Kellogg had been there, with a ten year old child. The grueling endeavor of tracking him across the Commonwealth, culminating in a ferocious gunfight against the mercenary and his group of synths. The grisly discovery of the devices implanted in his body, and the slow unraveling of the truth from the escaped Institute scientist in the Glowing Sea. Teleportation .

  Backhand conveniently left out the fact that Detective Nick Valentine was a synth, and that Virgil the Institute scientist was once a man, who had in turn become a super mutant by force of necessity. 

  She sipped her tea, realizing that her throat was parched from talking. The look that Danse was giving her was one of extreme incredulity and she grimaced into her cup.

  "Christ, Vega." He said hoarsely. "What happens now?"

  "Well, if I have any luck left , I figure out how to convince someone to help me build a giant machine that I don't really understand." Backhand shrugged glibly. "Sturges has been working on a few things, but I think this project might be beyond his scope of expertise." 

  "Maybe Proctor Ingram should take a look at the plans you have? If there's anyone I know that can make sense of a mess, it's Ingram." Danse suggested tentatively. "Her and Haylen are...just outstanding ." The warmth in his tone whenever he spoke of Haylen never failed to make Backhand smile, but this was the first time he seemed to notice her doing it. "What? Did I say something funny?"

  "Not at all! You just talk about Haylen like she hung the stars." Backhand pushed down the brief flare of envy she felt. "It's sweet."

  " Sweet? " Danse sputtered, a flush rising on his cheeks. "I am not...she isn't--Knight, you misinterpret my admiration. She is a phenomenal soldier, an immensely talented field scribe. I sponsored her as an initiate. She and Rhys are...they're the only ones left of Gladius. I'm thrilled that they've decided to pursue a relationship." Danse's eyes were soft and haunted in the dim light of the guttering lantern, but his words were sincere when he said, "They deserve to be happy."

  "What about you, though?" Backhand asked gently before she could stop herself. Danse tilted his head, appearing confused. "Don't you deserve to be happy too?"

  His smile was sad. "I am a paladin of the Brotherhood of Steel, Knight Vega. I am sworn to uphold the tenets and be an example to the troops. My own happiness was doomed to irrelevancy the moment I accepted the promotion." He folded his hands in front of him, leaning forward a little and staring at the floor. "Truthfully, it was rendered obsolete long before then."

  …

  "Why?" Vega sounded curious and Danse cursed himself for even bringing up the topic.

  He could lie, or simply brush off her question. But that didn't sit right with him. Danse sighed heavily and began to speak.

  He talked about growing up alone in the Capital Wasteland, no parents or siblings that he could recall. Always alone, picking through the ruins for anything edible or salvage that he could trade. He talked about opening his own little stand in Rivet City once he was grown, and he was ashamed of how his voice broke when he mentioned Cutler. Joining the Brotherhood had been a no-brainer, like it was the only course of action possible. Everything had gone so well. He had felt like he was actually making a difference. Until the day Cutler disappeared on a scouting mission. Danse vaguely remembered arguing with Paladin Krieg, his sponsor attempting to shout down the then-knight. But Danse was fiercely stubborn.

  He tried to tell her what he had found when he had finally tracked the remains of Cutler's squadron down, tried to continue his explanation as to why his personal happiness held little to no ground in his life, but the lump in his throat left him incapable of speech. 

  Backhand's touch on his arm startled him and he jerked, looking up at her. Her eyes were sorrowful. "Hey, you don't have to say any more." She offered him a weak-looking smile. "I get it. I lost my C.O. during an assault on an enemy bunker. You feel like it's your fault and you stay up all night trying to figure out what you could have done to save them."

  "I know it's futile to think of such things. " Danse rasped.

  "And yet you do it anyway." Backhand rubbed his arm. "Empathy is some rotten stuff, Paladin Danse, but we need to be reminded that we're human sometimes." Her sigh followed the tail end of a rolling boom of thunder. "I was incapacitated by the same explosion that killed Sergeant Cathan. He bled out next to me. I was shipped home with him technically, although I wasn't in a pine box. I went to his funeral, got to listen to his widow try to keep her shit together when I knew all she wanted to do was bury every single uniformed asshole there that had sent her husband to die." Backhand scoffed. "I knew because I felt the same way."

  "I was furious with Arthur for sending Cutler's squadron out to that corner of the wastes." Danse admitted. "It was shortly after I had discovered what happened to Cutler that Ar-" He stopped short, horrified that he had nearly let the information slip.

  " Come on Danse! " Arthur had complained, rolling his eyes . " I know you did this stuff for Cutler. "

  Danse cleared his throat. "It doesn't matter." He breathed. He had always been a terrible liar and he knew Vega didn't buy it for a second . 

  Those pale blue eyes narrowed and she scooted even closer, her sleeping bag pooled around her knees as she studied his face. Danse just tried to avoid eye contact. "What did he do, Danse?" She asked softly.

  " Nothing ." Danse stressed the word, his tone sharp. "I said it didn't matter, and it doesn't."

  "Hey." Backhand murmured, "I'm on your side, okay? Don't lie to me. Whatever it is, it's eating you alive."

  Danse's breath hitched. How could she tell? How could she pierce through the stoic facade he had painstakingly crafted over the course of his military career? 

  The answer came to him suddenly and he felt a little foolish for not having seen it sooner. 

  She wanted to. 

  Ludicrously simple, almost child's play. It was because she dared to bother . In a world that was more than content to let appearances be, she did the unthinkable and probed past the first glance.

  She was like Cutler. Perhaps a bit too much like Cutler. Curious to a fault, whip-smart and witty. Danse's heart ached in his chest. The idea of opening himself up again like he had with Cutler was... terrifying , mind-numbing, it was like standing on the deck of the Prydwen knowing that one misstep could send him plummeting to his demise. He had barely survived the depression that had engulfed him after he was forced to end Cutler's life, knowing that it was what the other man would have done in his stead but also hating himself for being able to carry it out at all. What did that say about him as a person, that he could stare into the eyes of the only individual he had been truly intimate with and kill him without a word?

  Danse was a model soldier. He was relatively certain that he would be following orders until the day he died. No one had ordered him to go after Cutler. He could have left it alone, simply gone along with the " missing, presumed dead " verdict. But those damn emotions he struggled with so much had reared their ugly head, made him volatile to the point where he had gotten into a screaming match with Paladin Krieg . 

  The person he had really wanted to shout at had been Maxson, both for assigning Cutler such a far-flung post and for doing it without warning. Danse hadn't even been able to say goodbye , damn it.

  And then the hive, the empty suits of power armor covered in blood and gore and fragmentary human remains and Cutler , babbling nonsense in a voice that grated and shrieked. He hadn't recognized Danse when the other knight foolishly removed his helmet. Instead, Cutler had lunged at him, trying to tear him apart with his newfound mutant strength--

  "Danse?" 

  The paladin jolted at the sound of her voice. "It doesn't matter, Knight." He repeated dully. "We should get some sleep." Without waiting for a reply, he shifted down a bit in his bedroll and tugged the fabric up over his shoulders. 

  Backhand stayed up for a bit longer, probably finishing her tea. The rain continued to beat on the roof, the occasional flash of green lightning blazing through every crack and crevice in the dilapidated lean-to. 

  The Capital Wasteland hadn't gotten storms like these. Danse had to assume that they must blow in from the Glowing Sea to batter the surrounding landscape. 

  He heard her shuffling around, and her whisper of " good night, Danse ." He didn't reply, hoping she would believe he was asleep. 

  Vega sighed softly and Danse barely kept himself from jumping when he felt her back press against his own. He wasn't sure if the defensive sleeping position was really necessary what with his armor in front of the door and all, but he appreciated the strategic forethought. 

  It felt like he had only closed his eyes for a second, the rain pounding on the roof lulling him into a doze and then he was being blinded by a particularly vibrant beam of sunlight. Danse grunted, half-lidding his eyes to try and adjust to the light.

  He idly watched over the top of Vega's head as motes of dust wafted lazily through the beam, the paladin feeling weirdly peaceful and unhurried. As if he could take the time to simply observe the world. He noted that he had rolled over in his sleep, and so had Elizabeth. Backhand. Knight Vega . 

  His thighs were pressed against the jut of her knees, her elbows tucked into his stomach through the layers of their bedrolls. Backhand apparently slept with her hands folded beneath her chin, but her left arm was threaded up beneath the hem of her shirt to do so. It pulled the fabric to bunch just above the bottom of her breasts and only through extreme self control did Danse manage to exhale slowly through his gritted teeth, knowing that his face must be bright red. 

  He flicked his gaze back up to the sunbeam, feeling like a lech. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He could pretend like he was still asleep, but that may come at the cost of their progress. He'd rather not sleep rough yet again, although if it was beside Vega--

  No , Danse reprimanded himself sharply. Maxson had given him hell for his lack of self control the last time he had seen him. The last thing he wanted was to give Arthur the satisfaction of…

  Of what? Having something else in Danse's life that he could ruin or take away? 

  Danse reached out slowly, cautiously, taking hold of the fabric of Vega's sleeping bag and drawing it up and over her shoulder to preserve her modesty. Then, the paladin eased his body away from hers to rise, his back protesting a little when he stretched. 

  The sooner we get back to the Prydwen, the sooner I can get my armor serviced , he mused, still opting to let Backhand sleep a bit longer as he checked over their weapons and his gear.

Part Eight

[momentofmemory]

FICTOBER 2020 - day eleven

Prompt #11: “I told you so.”

Fandom: MCU (Avengers: Infinity War & Endgame)

Characters: Gamora, Natasha Romanoff

Words: 1233

Author’s Note: Because if you’re stuck in something called the soul stone, you might as well do a little soul baring, too. Gamora POV. Part II of II.

>> live just a little

"I blew up a hospital, once,” Natasha says.

Gamora glances over the rim of her mug—they’ve long since figured out that if the soul stone only contains the things they bring in with them, then that can include alcohol, too—and waits for her to continue.

“I only had one mark,” she says. “Not a great guy. I probably wouldn’t mind killing him again. But the medical center… I didn’t even check for survivors. Just waited long enough to make sure he was dead.”

It’s become a bit of a game.

There’s little else to do in the empty realm other than sit and talk, two things neither of them has ever been any good at. There only so many times they can bare their souls before somewhere along the line, their backstories turn from painful confession to a darkly ironic version of one upmanship.

Gamora plays with the glass handle on her mug, wondering if the water droplets beading on the rim were all that different from the red-orange ones just a few feet away.

“I poisoned the waters of an entire city,” she says.

“Hm.” Natasha tips back her shot glass; reaches for another. “I helped destabilize governments.”

“I assassinated governments.”

“Killed kids.”

“A whole town.”

“My own best friend.”

Gamora scoffs. “Half the universe.”

Natasha’s fingers still.

It’s been—a long time, Gamora thinks. Since she’s tried to fix the memory locked in the pavilion. Even longer since she first entered the soul stone—or maybe it’s been hardly any time at all. It’s hard to keep track of time when there’s no sun, or moon, or any other body (heavenly or otherwise) to speak of.

Natasha clears her throat, and there’s a vulnerability to her eyes Gamora’s never seen before.

“When do you think it became our fault?”

Fault.

It’s a tricky concept.

She knows she isn’t to blame for what she did when they first took her—she was child; six years old. No one would fault a six-year-old for doing what it takes to survive. But at some point, a six-year-old becomes a seven-year-old, and a seven-year-old a ten-year-old, and a ten-year-old an eighteen-year-old.

A lot more people would blame an eighteen-year-old for murder than they would a six-year-old.

Gamora toys with the edge of her sleeve, wondering at how the question that’s rattled around in her chest for so many years could finally escape through someone else’s lungs.

“I don’t know if it ever did,” Gamora says. “And if it did, then maybe it always was.”

Beside her, Natasha grunts in agreement. “What’s done is done. Can’t rewrite the past”

There’s something niggling at the back of Gamora’s mind, and she frowns. In the distance, red and orange light reflects across the surface of the water and bounces back to meet the same-colored sky.

“No,” Gamora says, “But you can leave it.”

Natasha looks at her curiously.

“Look at the horizon,” she says. “At some point, the water ends and the sky begins. The separation between the two is real, but no matter how far you travel, or how close you look, you’ll never been able to define the exact second one fades into the next.”

An arched eyebrow in response. “But we still call one of them the sky and the other water.”

“We do,” she accepts. “But only because we don’t live in the horizon itself. We exist either in the sky, or the water.”

Gamora lets the liquid fall out of her glass to splash into the water, instantly merging and dissipating into the larger body. She leans over and lets her fingers trail along the waves, swirling about for a few seconds. Then she removes her hand, and the water droplets slide away.

Gamora places her hand—dry, untouched—onto Natasha’s shoulder.

“Neither of us has lived in the water for a very, very long time.”

______________________

She goes to the pavilion.

She’s ready when he shows up up this time, no longer worried about what she’ll say to try to change him. It doesn’t matter if nothing about him changes.

It isn’t for him anymore.

“Daughter,” he says.

She turns, slowly, head held high as she looks down at him.

“Did you do it?”

She doesn’t ask because she doesn’t know. She asks because she wants to make him say it.

“Yes.”

It’s one word—so terse, economical. Nothing like the grandiose speeches he used to give about how magnificent the galaxy would be once he’d finally freed it of its overabundant populace.

It’s almost pitiable, but for the trillions of lives that suffered because of it.

She flexes her jaw. “What did it cost?”

Again, not a question. An accusation, and judging by the expression on his face, a difference that he understands.

“…Everything.”

The word tumbles out of his mouth like he’s had to drag it bodily out of his chest. It sits between them, heavy, but Gamora knows how little it weighs next to the scales of the universe.

She tilts up her chin, fists clenched to her sides, and speaks just as he begins to fade away.

“Then you have won nothing.”

She doesn’t look back when she leaves this time. It’s just as well she doesn’t.

The pavilion isn’t there anymore.

______________________

“I think I’d forgotten what color looked like,” Natasha says.

“Serves you right for having sky-colored hair,” Gamora replies, fully aware of her own highlights.

Natasha laughs. They’ve done a lot more that, recently.

“It was just red,” she says, by way of explanation. “Just reds and blacks and whites. The orange showed up when you did.”

“Huh,” Gamora says, staring out at the analogous colors. She’s glad she wasn’t the first to arrive.

She feels a pang of regret.

“Peter was always trying to get me to dance,” she confesses, suddenly. “Neither of us really knew how.”

“I could teach you.”

Gamora’s startled. Natasha’s never been anything but reticent about her expertise, so she phrases her response with plenty of room to bow out. “You think we have time?”

Natasha looks up at the sky, and shrugs. “We’ve already died once. Let’s live a little.”

They walk to Natasha’s old dance floor, a fixture Gamora is surprised to find how has a stone pavilion over it.  When they step under its roof, both of them stay firmly locked in the present.

Natasha guides Gamora through the basic steps, softly humming a Russian folk song to keep the rhythm. Gamora’s quick to get the hang of it—the fluidity feels a lot a like fighting, the moves just a little bit more telegraphed. Communicating one’s position instead of hiding it.

She thinks she likes it.

(A voice in her head that sounds suspiciously like Peter whispers I told you so.)

“You said Thanos destroys the stones?”

If Natasha’s surprised by the conversation topic, she doesn’t show it. “Yes. Sometime after the first snap.”

“And time runs linearly?”

Natasha hums. “Just not correlatively.”

Gamora considers this, carefully following Natasha’s steps. “So we could die at any moment.”

“Yes.”

Natasha slips the word in so smoothly the rhythm of her song continues unbothered, and Gamora allows the last bit of tension to drain from her body.

“Not that much different from our old lives, then.”

“No. No, it isn’t.”

On the horizon, the first few rays of yellow begin to seep into the red-orange sky.

[humanityinahandbag]

good omens: bagged lunch

This summer I volunteered abroad in Israel, and lost all connection to home, and in that time a certain fandom exploded and I missed the beginnings of it. So here I am now. Sauntering vaguely downward into hell with some ideas of my own.

There’s this little idea for post Good Omens that I just can’t seem to shake, wherein Aziraphale (connoisseur of all things delicious and human that he is) would always feel the need to pack Crowley lunches whenever he was off to meetings in Hell, tutting, “Oh Crowley, I know you don’t feel as if eating is essential, but for my sake, dear, can’t you just try to nibble on a biscuit or two? You’re all sinew and wobble!”

And even if he protests, Aziraphale can usually tempt him with promises to pack boiled eggs and tuna and all sorts of smelly things that would disagree with noses. How ghastly and malicious of him, it would be to bring that into a meeting! The Agreement practically begged for this sort of cooperation, didn’t it?

(And tuna is Crowley’s favorite. Especially when Aziraphale remembers to chop up the little cornichons inside and slice it triangularly.) 

So Crowley, to appease his Angel, dutifully takes the paper bags handed to him before the both of them venture to their respective places of meeting. 

The thing that I can’t make myself quite get over, though?

Aziraphale and Crowley spent so much time swapping notes quietly over duck ponds or trading secrets in three separate rendezvous locations. 

Notes are something the Angel has not only acclimated himself with, but they’re something he enjoys. The dangerous side of him wants to send them in lieu of being a spy. The Angelic side of him wants to be caring. The Best Friend/Something More side wants to pour affections. The human side? 

Well. 

How very human it is to show affection through food and the little notes that such a gesture would also contain!

He always thought it clever when humans sent little messages in lunchboxes! Food and love? At the same time? His heart bursts just thinking about it. 

It’s a custom he’d be quick to adopt. Scribbling little messages on bits of scrap paper and tucking them away next to a small bag of sliced apples. 

What I’m saying here is;

Aziraphale would 100% send Crowley to Hell with a paper bag lunch and a written note. 

And when Crowley is drooping, bored after hour three of a pointless Demon meeting, he’d reach into the little bag as loudly as he could and peel the sandwich out, trying to play it smooth, until the little piece of paper would flutter out unexpectantly into the center. 

Hastur would grab at it while Crowley was mid bite into a wonderfully crunchy cornichon'd tuna on white bread. 

“Dearest,” the demon would read out loud, squinting at the paper. Crowley froze mid-chew. “Enjoy lunch. I remembered to pack it the way you like. You’re ever so wonderful. Don’t forget to voice all those smart ideas of yours at the meeting. Pick up the laundry. And take off your glasses once to give your eyes a break. Remember the last time you strained them? Heart Heart Heart.” Hastur stared at the note and held it up to Crowley, whose glasses were slipping down his nose. “He drew some flowers, too. Do you want to see?” 

Crowley quickly snatched the note away. 

Beelzebub, from down at the head of the long table, blinked languidly. “Right,” they said. “So back to our monthly quotas, then?” 

Later he’d beseech his Angel not to do something like that again. 

“But it’s a human expression of affection,” the Angel protested. “And I don’t see how it ruins your reputation at all, having notes sent down. People pray to the devil all the time. I’m sure his mailbox is brimming.”

“With evil! No one sends him lots of little hearts and flowers.”

Aziraphale would sniff. “Fine,” he’d say. “No more flowers.”

“Thank you.” 

Aziraphale would keep his promise. Next time there was a joke. 

It landed in the center of the table when Crowley dragged out a double dark chocolate cookie. 

Beelzebub was the one who got to it first, that time. 

“Why don’t they play poker in the jungle.” She stood on her chair, reading aloud. Crowley was face first on the table, gently smacking his forehead against a squished bag of deviled eggs. 

Ligur piped up, “why, or Lord of Hell!”

Beelzebub turned the paper over, scanning the lilac ink. “Too many cheetazzzz.” It took a moment for collective recognition to kick in. Once it had, they were all doubled over. “I understand! Word play! How drab! Crowley! Tell your Angel to keep zzzending these!” They flipped over the paper again, unfolding a little corner. “Oh. Sorry. Forgot to read; XOXOXOXO - lots of kisses, darling. Eat your vegetables before the cookie.” She looked down to where Crowley was face down on the table, pillowed by squished eggs. “There are pepperzzzzz in that bag,” they glared. “You did not follow the Angelzzz instructions.”

“Got it,” he groaned. “Will do. Next time.” 

“I am going to tell him,” said Beelzebub. “Ligur. Write a letter to the Principality Azzzziraphale. Send it through Gabriel. Crowley did not eat his vegetablezzz first.”

“I shall, Lord of Hell.” 

Crowley dropped his head to the table. 

It only gets worse from there. Because Aziraphale, who often did a lot of people watching from the flat above his shop, began noticing that doting parents would often drew on the paper bags. 

And wasn’t that to be a whole other story. 

“Look!” A lesser demon held up the bag excitedly. Crowley rubbed his temples. “He drew a picture of them married. Wrote A + C under it and everything!”

“What a gallant gezzzzzture,” said Beelzebub, eyes sparking up new ideas for the Archangel with whom she’d been speaking to for the past few millenium. “Crowley. Pick your head up off the table and gazzzzze upon the mazzzzterpiece your Lover has created for you.” 

“No. Thank you. M’good,” Crowley groaned. 

“As Lord of the Underworld, I command it! Gaze! And be enthralled!” 

The only way the entire situation gets any better, is when Crowley begins to pack lunches for Aziraphale. 

Angels, who are attracted to Love like moths to a windshielf wiper, would likely stop an entire meeting just to dote and fawn upon the notes Crowley would send Aziraphale’s way. 

“He’s doing this to be spiteful.” True enough. He was. Aziraphale trapped his face between his fingers. “Don’t indulge!” 

“Oh, but Principality! He has drawn the most delightful series of hearts upon this paper!” Michael stroked the little bit of torn off notebook paper. “And he has even written you a poem! Shall I read it?”

“No!” 

They read it anyway. 

Crowley does more than that. 

Sometimes, when he’s feeling particularly devilish (or Aziraphale cut him off of wine the night before and how fucking dare he do that - he’ll get his revenge) he’ll send more... risque notes.  

With illustrations. 

Both of which an angel will find when they lunge for the lunch bag emanating love. 

“Principality,” Urial with announce, voice like thunder and wind chimes and vengeance and hope all at once, holding the torn paper up like a flaming sword. “It is foretold by this message that your Demon would like to...” she’d squint at the note, nodding. “flip you like a crepe and smash you to next Armageddon.” 

Aziraphale was quietly asking God to smite him. 

“Principality,” says Michael, sitting primly at the table. “We should reply.” 

There was a nod and murmuring appreciation round the table. 

“Ah,” said Aziraphale, quietly, clearing his very dry throat. “I think we’d better not.”

“Nonsense! This note radiates affection. Love! He is a demon who yearns for your forgiveness and heavenly warmth. It is your duty to reply, Aziraphale!”

The next half hour is spent crafting a good note back while Aziraphale begs God to please, if he asks really, really nicely, can’t she just smite him a little? 

“Sir!” Urial jumps up triumphantly. “I have found a website on my mobile telephone! It is called urban dictionary!”

“Splendid! What’s it do?”

“It apparently helps craft love letters for Demons! It suggests we write back that Principality Aziraphale would find great joy in seeing Dat Ass in some apple bottomed jeans, sir. And that he’d very much like to bang him like a tamborine, sir.” 

“Poetry!” Exclaims Gabriel. “Someone get a pen!” 

Aziraphale decides that if God won’t smite him, he may have to smite Crowley when he got home. 

[anotherkpopvictim]

Fingers Intertwined - TaeGi Littlespace Drabble

(Gif Source - taegidda)

A/N: So, as I was searching for inspiration for a story, I watched BTS’ Winter Package in Helsinki and Taegi’s adorableness was too much for me to handle.

Happy Birthday to our wonderful Min Yoongi <3

Pairing: Little!Yoongi X Caregiver!Taehyung

Rating: G (little bit of kissing)

Words: 2376

Fluff, pure fluff

PLEASE NOTE: This story involves kissing during littlespace, so if that makes you uncomfortable then please do not read. It isn’t anything hot and heavy, but I thought I would put a warning anyways.

ALSO, to explain the dynamics in the story better - while this is a TaeGi fic, their relationship is developing, so Seokjin and Hoseok are Yoongi’s main caregivers at this point in time, and the rest of the boys typically only help out sometimes.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

It was a joke within BTS (and the fandom) that Yoongi liked to hold hands with his bandmates, and honestly, he couldn’t deny it. The feeling of someone’s warm hand linking with his own, knowing that they were right by his side - it was a reassurance to a man who had always had a hard time expressing his feelings that his friends understood and were there for him.

In the few weeks following BTS’ month-long break, everyone had been so busy that Yoongi didn’t notice that he hadn’t cuddled any of his members since their quick getaway for Bon Voyage. He hadn’t even held their hands!

The thought hit Yoongi while he was lying awake in his hotel bed in Finland and his little side was appalled. Speaking of his little side, he’d also been neglecting his younger headspace for a good few weeks now. Yoongi could feel that urge to slip growing as the hours, the days, pass him by.

Jin and Hoseok, Yoongi’s main caregivers, had been keeping a close eye on him lately, their worried gazes far from subtle. The others had also started looking at him, trying to spot any signs of abnormal fatigue or sadness. Yoongi hated worrying them, he hated worrying them so much.

Filming for the group’s very first Winter Package found the members in Helsinki, Finland, a beautiful and chilly landscape that was perfect for the concept they were going for. The rainclouds hovered unrelentingly above the city for the first two days they were there, and though the eldest rapper actually enjoyed the rain, their final day allowed them to see the wet greenery sparkle in the light of the sun, the clouds sparse in the sky.

Yoongi and Taehyung had teamed up to go sight-seeing at some museums and such for the day, a common interest between the two that they could share. The older was dead set on visiting a famous cathedral he’d been reading about in the city’s travel guides and Taehyung wasn’t about to tell him ‘no’.

“What’s your team name going to be?” Hoseok - the dedicated MC for the day - had asked.

“Team Holding Hands,” Taehyung replied without hesitation.

The rest of the members let out a chorus of oh’s at the creative name, while Yoongi chuckled a bit. He made a show of picking up Taehyung’s outstretched hand and linking their fingers together which caused the others to laugh. He tried his best not to revel in the warmth of the younger man’s palm.

Their free time came around a couple days later.

As the two of them walked down a quiet street, only a few others wandering around, they appreciated the picturesque scenery around them. The gentle breeze carried a bit of a chill but the sun provided them some warmth.

They visited the cathedral and it was as grand as Yoongi had expected. The place had an aura of the old days, and that was seen as well through the architecture and design.

After spending a good amount of time there, Taehyung and Yoongi decided to walk and enjoy the nice but chilly day. The cameraman that had been following them around all day took a few minutes to rest with them at a coffee shop.

As Yoongi sipped at his hot coffee, he wasn’t expecting a large, warm hand to envelop his own just out of sight under the table. The rapper glanced at it with wide eyes before looking up at the culprit.

Taehyung kept speaking nonchalantly with the cameraman as if he wasn’t holding his hyung’s hand under the table.

It obviously wasn’t an accident, however, as the younger let their fingers link and began rubbing his thumb over the back of Yoongi’s hand in slow, soothing motions. Yoongi was definitely not blushing.

Despite being a little overwhelmed by how much he was enjoying the soft touch, never once did he attempt to let go.

When they got up from their seats and inevitably their hands separated, the older had to hold back a whimper at the cold feeling that overcame him. Yoongi bit his lip and gathered himself together enough to get through the last hour of filming.

The two of them made easy small talk about the scenery and such, and Yoongi just prayed that the redness of his cheeks could be explained away by the chilly breeze rustling the trees.

As they returned back to their accommodations, finished off for the day, Yoongi gathered up what little courage he had and reached over to grab Taehyung’s hand once more.

The younger looked over at him, surprised. “Hyung?”

Yoongi’s eyes went down to his feet shyly. The warmth and softness of Taehyung’s hand intertwined with his set off a flood of endorphins flowing through the rapper’s system.

Taehyung squeezed his hand reassuringly, “Are you feeling little, hyung, or did you just want to hold my hand?”

“Both,” the rapper replied quietly.

Taehyung lifted their interlaced hands and pressed a kiss to the back of the older’s pale one. Yoongi wanted to simultaneously squeal at the top of his lungs and melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Alright, let’s get back to the room and we can cuddle, okay Yoonie?” the tender tone to Taehyung’s voice didn’t help Yoongi’s rising emotions.

The little hummed in affirmation softly and allowed the other to lead him through the maze of hallways until they reached the group’s shared room. As they entered, it became clear from the silence that none of the others had returned yet, but neither could find it in them to mind.

Taehyung assisted Yoongi in removing his shoes by the door and then tugged him in the direction of, surprisingly, Jin and Hoseok’s shared bedroom.

“Now, where do you think your Daddy and Appa hid your bag of little things, Yoons?”

The little just looked up at him with big eyes and a shrug.

Taehyung sighed, fond. “Well, they probably put it in the emergency bag...”

The “emergency bag” which Taehyung was referring to was a large duffle bag that they filled with all the important items one of their members might need in the case of an emergency. However, besides just including a first aid kit, the bag had both Jungkook and Yoongi’s little supplies, panic medication for Namjoon and Jimin, as well as each of their favorite movies (for nights where they felt a bit depressed).

The emergency bag was one that the group took with them everywhere. To dance practice, vocal lessons, and most importantly on tour. It made sure that no matter where they were, their comforts were right there within arms reach if needed.

“...and here it is!” Taehyung exclaimed as he held up a smaller sack from within containing some of Yoongi’s little supplies. He walked over to the bed and opened it, first pulling out a set of fuzzy pajamas and a red pacifier.

The little’s eyes seemed to light up at the sight of the pacifier and he reached out for it with grabby hands.

“Hang on,” Taehyung smiled, “Let me make sure this is clean before I give it to you, bub.”

After returning from the bathroom, Taehyung held the pacifier up to Yoongi’s mouth, who sucked it in eagerly.

“Alright, now let’s get you dressed!”

Yoongi immediately began whining when he caught sight of Taehyung unfolding the diaper. He felt too little to use words, so he simply shook his head and hoped it got his point across.

Taehyung gave him a knowing look, “I know you don’t like diapers, kitten, but Daddy and Appa and Hyungie want to make sure you don’t make yourself icky.”

Yoongi normally probably would have fought again, but this time his mind was a little preoccupied with the new pet name Taehyung had just called him. Kitten. Yoongi really, really liked being called kitten.

Taehyung seemed to have noticed too, so as he began slipping the little’s diaper on, he smirked and asked, “Has no one called you kitten before, love?”

Yoongi was starting to blush by now, shaking his head from behind his hands.

“Well,” the caretaker concluded, “I would love to keep calling you kitten if you’re alright with it.”

Almost instantly, Yoongi was nodding, albeit shyly. “Yoonie okay wif it. Yoonie like it.” The words were so quiet and soft and they absolutely melted Taehyung’s heart.

“Well then, kitten, how about the two of us cuddle up under those comfy-looking covers over there.”

Little Yoongi absolutely loved cuddling, especially in a comfy bed. He wobbled his way from the end of the bed until he could sneak under the blankets like a cat burrowing.

Taehyung changed out of his clothes in favor of slipping on some sweatpants and a t-shirt. As he stretched, he said, “Well, I don’t know about you, but all that walking made me a little tired.”

“Yoonie too,” the other replied with a nod.

Taehyung joined Yoongi under the covers and quickly pulled him into a warm embrace. As the little made himself comfortable on the other’s chest, he found himself also reaching out for Taehyung’s hand once more.

With a fond smile, Taehyung complied, linking their fingers just how Yoongi liked. Now the little was definitely blushing because the sight of the other’s hand on his own was making his heart race.

Big Yoongi often found himself with butterflies in his stomach when Taehyung gave him one of his famous boxy smiles or when he laughed heartily, but that didn’t mean that Yoongi liked Taehyung, did it? But when he really thought about it, as much as he loved the others, they didn’t snatch his breath away or pull his gaze to them like a magnet. Not like Taehyung did.

So, yeah, maybe Yoongi did like Taehyung as more than a close friend.

The sudden realization made Yoongi’s eyes pop open and his whole body tense.

Taehyung, noticing the other’s rigidness, pulled back so he could look at him with concern. “Hey, what’s wrong? What’s going on, kitten?”

Yoongi couldn’t help the whine he let out at the pet name. “H-Hyungie...”

Taehyung eyed him expectantly, but the words were stuck in the little’s throat. Yoongi, for the second time that day, gathered up his courage and took a deep breath. Then, he slipped the pacifier out of his mouth and leaned up to press his lips against Taehyung’s in a sweet kiss.

Despite being taken aback at first, Taehyung quickly adjusted and responded to the kiss. His hands slipped down Yoongi’s body until they settled in a more comfortable position on his waist.

It was a quick kiss, nothing too passionate, but it still caused the little’s cheeks to flush a dark red when they pulled away. “T-TaeTae...”

“Thank you for the kiss, love,” Taehyung said with a gentle smile. “I think I understand what you’re trying to tell me, but we’ll talk more later, okay? Right now let’s just cuddle.”

Yoongi felt himself relax completely at the other’s words, relieved that Taehyung was allowing the kiss to go unacknowledged for a bit. It would be no use trying to talk about it while he was still in littlespace, and frankly, he was still attempting to gather his own thoughts about it.

Taehyung pressed a kiss to the little’s forehead before guiding him to lay on his shoulder.

Yoongi, who felt suddenly overwhelmingly tired, was thankful when Taehyung nudged the abandoned pacifier against his lips. Like this, with warm arms around him, it was impossible for the little not to fall asleep.

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

“Oh my god, they are so cute!”

“Shh! Keep your voice down Jimin! You’ll wake them up!”

“Yeah, I need to get some blackmail photos!”

“Jin-hyung!”

“What, Joon? I’ll get Yoongi to do the dishes without complaint for the next few weeks with these!”

Taehyung groaned at the voices invading his dreams and opened his eyes to see what the disturbance was all about. He found himself looking at his five members standing at the end of the bed, phones in hand and pointing at the sight that was Taehyung and Yoongi cuddling. The only one not holding their phone was Jungkook, and instead, he was smiling brightly at the two of them.

“Really guys?” Taehyung whined quietly, trying his best not to wake the little still peacefully asleep on his chest.

Hoseok rolled his eyes, “You’re in our room! On our bed!”

“Oh,” Taehyung replied intelligently. “I forgot about that.”

“Geniuses,” Jimin remarked.

Taehyung pouted and wished he didn’t have his arms full so he could punch his friend. “I came in here with him to get his little stuff and we just...ended up staying here.”

“Well, that’s okay,” Jin replied, “I got some great blackmail photos out of it.”

“Some...what?” the gravelly voice of Yoongi came suddenly, making it obvious that he wasn’t in his little headspace anymore. His eyes blinked open and locked onto Jin. “What photos, Jin-hyung?” he asked, tone eerily calm.

“Um...” the eldest looked like a deer in headlights. “Just...some pictures I took of you and Taehyung cuddling...”

Yoongi took a deep breath and sighed, “You’d better start running, hyung.”

Jin didn’t waste a moment, immediately turning on his heel and bolting out of the room. “This is not what I planned!” he shouted.

The others laughed until Yoongi turned his piercing eyes on them. “You too, boys. I’m coming for blood today.”

Hoseok and Jimin followed Jin’s path out the door. Namjoon chuckled and shook his head before he walked out as well. “Dumbasses. They should know Yoongi doesn’t run for anything.”

Jungkook was the only one who stayed in the room, giggling a little before he crawled under the covers with Taehyung and Yoongi. His bunny smile was still lighting up his face. “Yoonie and TaeTae-hyungie look so cute!”

Hearing a fellow little, Yoongi almost immediately slipped back into littlespace. His cheeks became a little pinker and he smiled shyly. “Really, Kookie? Yoonie is cute?”

The maknae nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah, the cutest!!”

“Ugh,” Taehyung groaned, “You two are the cutest. Seriously, what am I going to do with you, huh?”

The two littles looked back at him in response with innocent grins on their faces.

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A/N: So, there’s the fic. It’s definitely not my best work, but when I say that writer’s block has been plaguing me this past month, I’m not joking. I felt like its a bit awkward in places but I hope that you guys at least still enjoyed it.

Also, I am still working on a request for a JiHope fic. It’s taking longer than expected, but I refuse to post it until I’m somewhat happy with it. Hopefully only another week or two. Fighting!