#I wrote it the day before yesterday I think and then I finally reread it today and...yeah no. not proud of it.

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

After writing this 1.2k words fic and realizing how much I disliked it, I was really hoping that re-reading it would inspire me to write a new fic (or rewrite it, basically), but after re-reading it, my muse is like 'Hmmm nah, I got nothin'.' D:

[osarina]

ᡣ𐭩 WASTELAND, BABY (I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU)

FEATURING: dazai osamu

SUMMARY: at the beach house, you can pretend that nothing is wrong. you know that avoidance will only get you so far, but you can't help but want to treasure the time you have with dazai... you don't know how much longer you'll have before everything catches up to you. until then, you'll enjoy the peace that you have, even if dazai does seem oddly intent on ruining it.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: another week of minimal activity </3 sorry lil love bugs ive been so busy. BUT take civzai6!! and treasure it because this is the only chill chapter for quite a bit!! HAHAHHH no but for real i enjoyed this chapter so much that i literally had to split it in two because i wrote too much HAHAH, same goes for the next chapter ;) as always, reblogs are very appreciated!

GENERAL WARNINGS: fem!reader, port mafia executive!reader, civilian!dazai, dazai's struggles w suicide & sh, reader partakes in mafia business, dazai isn't dazai without a bit of obsessiveness and possessiveness (the possessiveness doesn't come til later but the obsessiveness starts from day 0).

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 17 & UNDER FOLLOWING THE SERIES: partially copy and pasted from the other series - if you guys read waterloo, you know the deal. y'all knew what you were getting into. this is the smut chapter. but again, i'm not going to ask y'all to not interact/read a whole chapter just because there's 2-3k words of smut, but i am going to say here the smut is in the FINAL scene. there is very little plot development in the smut itself, so i ask you guys, again, to respectfully scroll past it. i'll make the sentence when the smut starts red like this so you know that's when it starts, and then you can continue reading at the next divider. thank you for understanding! there is NO plot development in the smut, i'll reiterate that at the end where i put the summary in waterloo, i restructured to make sure none of it was in it.

CHAPTER SPECIFIC WARNINGS: hardly edited - i've been busy. dazai has some insecure thoughts. he's also actively being self destructive. this is an easy chapter—calm before the storm. not much to warn. i don't think i'm missing anything but pls lmk if i am, i didn't have time to reread

SMUT WARNINGS: unprotected sex, praise, dazai cries a bit, lil bit of body worship (f->m), sub!dazai, mostly pretty vanilla - short and sweet

SEE: WASTELAND, BABY! SERIES MASTERLIST

Dazai wakes up to the sun peeking through the blinds of the bedroom he’d shared with you and the scent of pancakes wafting through the air. His lips twitch up into a small smile as he stretches, letting out a soft sigh as he sinks into the comfortable mattress. 

He thinks he slept better last night than he’s slept in his entire life. He’s always been plagued with restlessness, he can hardly ever sleep and when he does, he’s haunted by faces he’d rather not see again: Oda’s bloodstained face looking up at him as he dies in Dazai’s arms, the glassy eyes of his mother as she swings slowly from a rope, his aunt’s twisted expression as she throws Dazai to the ground in Suribachi, the hurt look in Ango’s eyes as he took all of the vile insults that Dazai spat at him. Dazai dreads sleeping about as much as the average person dreads ever having to confront their worst fear.

But last night? Last night, Dazai slept peacefully. He fell asleep curled up in your arms, laying on top of you—you’d still been awake, tracing patterns on his back through his shirt. You’d been distracted by something all day yesterday; from when you picked him up at the hospital to when you laid down with him in bed that night, something had been bothering you. Your phone had been buzzing nonstop, call after call and text after text—you didn’t bother checking it but he could tell it was stressing you out.

He tried to ask you about it but you blew it off every time. Dazai supposes he should have expected that from you but your evasion was still irritating, especially after the conversation the two of you had yesterday. You had the nerve to try to distract him with movies and figuring out how to bake a cake with him; he had the nerve to fall for the weak attempts at distracting him.

He yawns as he pushes himself to a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes and tossing the blankets off. He tugs at the short sleeves of his t-shirt, feeling a bit too exposed. The bandages covering his wrists and arms are frayed—he’ll need to grab new ones to rewrap them soon, he hasn’t checked the bathroom to see if you had any stored. His shoulders ache a bit, he winces as he rolls them before making his way out of the bedroom and down the hall to the kitchen.

You’re standing at the stove, hand on your hip as you frown down at whatever you’re cooking. You’re still dressed in your pajamas—a thin black cami and loose shorts—and Dazai yearns, he feels it deep in his chest, feels it as a lump in his throat and a heaviness in his stomach. Because he could… he could picture it… he could picture a future with you.

He could imagine waking up to you every day—you’d always wake up before him because you somehow always wake up at the ass crack of dawn. You’d usually be dealing with some of your shady business when he wakes up, sitting at the kitchen table typing away at your phone, maybe you’d sometimes be on calls and you’d lift a finger to your lips to hush him when you realize he wakes up. Every once in a while, he’d wake up to you making breakfast for him—you told him that you enjoy cooking when you have the time for it, so Dazai imagines that it would be a rare treat.

Like today.

But still, he can’t help but wonder why today? Your phone had been blowing up last night and now… now, it’s sitting on the marble counter, screen dark and not buzzing at all. He glances up at you once to make sure you’re still looking at the stove and then shifts over to the counter quietly, discreetly pressing his finger against the screen to see if your phone is even on and then frowns when he realizes that you did, in fact, turn it off.

What is going on that has you so avoidant that you’d rather turn your phone off than confront it? His mind races to all of the things you’ve been bitching to him about, remembers that you told him you weren’t responding for days because you’d been busy finishing up negotiations with the Shimazaki-kai… is it something new, maybe? But why aren’t you handling it then? It doesn’t make any sense.

Dazai makes his way over to you, feet padding softly against the ground until he’s standing behind you. He slips his arms around your waist and plops his chin onto your shoulder, humming softly as he nudges his nose against your ear before resting the side of his head against yours.

“Good morning,” he says, voice still a bit rough with sleep. “Whatcha making?”

“Pancakes,” you reply easily and Dazai’s heart swells when you lean back into his chest, fueling the fantasy of his imagined future even more. God, he’s been waiting for the ball to drop since you talked to him out on the cliff’s edge—you can’t keep giving him hope like this, he can feel it blooming in his chest and he knows that there’s going to be something to ruin it because that’s just how his life goes but… “I don’t think they came out good though.”

“I’ll eat them anyway,” Dazai says immediately.

“You’ll probably get food poisoning.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

You do.

Two words, so simple and yet they ring through his head over and over again so loudly. You care. You do care. You implied it last night when you told him you wanted him, that it scares you how bad you want him because of his life being at risk, but you hadn’t out right said it until now and it’s a devastating blow. Fatal, really.

The puff of air he lets out is shaky and when you turn to look at him, confused, he can only barely muster a smile as he asks hesitantly, “You do?”

The last time he asked you this, you changed the subject and evaded answering—he took it as an answer in itself, that you don’t care… but now, he’s let himself hope again, hope that maybe this time your answer will be different. What a treacherous thing, really, because even now he can feel the dark claws of anxiety start tugging at his heart in different directions, yanking it around and stretching it until it’s painful. He thinks it would’ve just been easier to carve it out and hand it over to you.

“I do,” you finally say, voice quiet. “I care.”

Dazai lets out a long breath, one that he hardly recognized he was holding, dropping his forehead down on your shoulder to hide his face against your skin. His arms tighten around your waist as his lips curve up, he presses his lips to your neck but for some reason, he can’t fully discard the dreadful feeling in his chest.

Even with your assurances and finally verbally admitting that you care about him, it’s like he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for something to shatter his idyllic paradise. And he has a feeling he knows exactly what will do it. So because Dazai is Dazai and he has been self-destructive since the day he was born, he brings it up.

“Why’s your phone been blowing up?” he asks, keeping his voice deceptively light like he’s just trying to have a normal conversation with you—you don’t fall for it. When you immediately stiffen in his arms, Dazai almost wants to backtrack.

“Nothing important,” you say, voice tight, forcing a smile onto your face as you step away to look up at him. “Nothing to worry about. Want to help me remake the pancakes?”

You use the same tactic Dazai used on you after Nakahara Chuuya showed up at your apartment. You’re good too because even though Dazai knows what you’re doing, he still wants to give in. Wants to play domestic with you, make breakfast together and then sit at the table and eat. But he can’t, so while you’re good at using the same tactic that Dazai used against you, you’re ultimately unsuccessful because he doesn’t show you the same grace that you showed him.

“Tell me anyway?” Dazai asks softly. “Even if it’s not important?”

You stare at Dazai for a moment, your lips pressed together and he could imagine the thoughts running through your head—how he’s never satisfied, and how he always has to push you. He can imagine you voicing it again, telling him how it’s always what he wants, but you don’t.

Instead, you shake your head. “I don’t want to talk about it, it’s stressing me out. I would rather just make breakfast with you,” you say. 

Your voice becomes a bit more tense and Dazai knows that he should stop pushing, that it would be smart to stop now, but Dazai’s track record for dumb decisions gets longer instead.

“Maybe I can help,” he prods, taking a step closer to you, reaching out to rest his hands faintly on your hips. He nudges his head forward, pushing his nose against yours before smiling softly and pressing his lips to yours. “Tell me, please.”

Let me in.

Dazai’s eyes are big and earnest as he stares down at you, fingers digging just the slightest bit further into your hips. Your expression is unrelenting, much to his distress.

“It’s mafia business,” you finally say.

“You’ve told me about mafia business before.”

You exhale sharply, brushing his hands off of you and taking a step away, and Dazai knows he’s pressing too much—doesn’t even know why he’s pressing because he knows that it’ll shatter the illusion of peace that the past half a day in the beach house has given him. 

Maybe that’s what he wants, for it to be ruined before he can get used to it.

You look out the window and don’t speak for a moment. Dazai itches to move closer to you again but his feet are rooted to the ground. Finally, you let out a heavy sigh and let your head fall forward a bit, shaking it as you turn back around to face him.

“Another organization has arrived in Yokohama,” you say, lifting your eyes to meet his. “A dangerous one. The Port Mafia… the executives are meeting to figure out how to handle the situation.”

Dazai stares at you for a moment. “You’re an executive.”

“I am.”

“You’re here.”

“I am.”

“But… why?” Dazai asks, voice hitching at the implications of it, not wanting to get his hopes up but unable to stop himself from it at the same time. “Why are you here?”

You stare at him silently for a moment and then you say quietly, “The call for the meeting came at the same time I got the voicemail from the hospital. I chose to go to you.”

Dazai’s breath catches as he breathes in and shakes terribly as he breathes out, unable to draw his gaze away from you. You… “You chose me,” he whispers.

“I chose you,” you repeat, swallowing as you turn your gaze down. “I did. I chose you.”

“Do you regret it?” Dazai asks softly—he wonders if he hopes you’ll say yes, that you’ll quash his hope before it’s too late.

“No,” you say. “I don’t.”

And Dazai doesn’t know how to respond to that. He’s never been wanted before. Never been someone’s first choice. Dazai has always been the one left behind for others, discarded for a better option. His throat is uncomfortably tight and his fingers are shaking a bit, and he doesn’t have pockets to hide them in now so they’re in full view of your vision before he clasps his hands behind his back.

But it’s too late—you’ve already seen it and you’re taking a step closer to him. You reach out to cup his cheek with one of your hands and Dazai’s eyes flutter shut as he leans into your touch.

“I don’t regret anything about you, Dazai Osamu,” you say quietly, so honestly that it makes a shiver run down Dazai’s spine, unintentionally letting out a soft noise in the back of his throat that he’s unable to smother. “Not a single thing.”

“Well, that can’t possibly be true,” Dazai tries to joke, to play off how much you’ve rattled him with only a few words, but you aren’t fooled by his tricks.

“It’s true.”

Dazai stares at you, his eyes sting and his fingers are shaking even more than they’d been before. The pads of your fingers burn against his cheek and Dazai thinks you’ve ruined him. You’ve ruined him entirely. You’ve shattered all of his carefully crafted walls, the ones that protect him from situations just like this, the ones that prevent him from being burned just like he has countless times before. You’ve ruined him and Dazai doesn’t think he’ll be able to put himself together again if this ends poorly.

He doesn’t know what to say in response to your words and he can’t handle the way you’re staring at him so intensely, so Dazai decides to change the subject with a shaky smile and a terrifying amount of hope blooming within him.

“Maybe you just need a fresh set of eyes. Tell me about this organization, I can try to help.”

You don’t even know why you’re considering this. 

Dazai bounds next to you in the sand chatting about his poetry workship. He still won’t tell you what the project he’s writing on is about but he does seem to be mighty pleased with how it’s coming out since he’s bragging about how his is clearly the best of all of his classmates’ and that he’s sure he’s going to get the best grade on it. It’s cute, you think, a fond smile twitching to the corner of your lips as you watch him from the corner of your eye.

It’s still only mid-morning, the sun paints a pretty glow over the private beach and Dazai looks so… alive beneath it. His smile is bright and genuine, skin flushed and radiant, eyes reminiscent of pools of honey—you don’t think you’ve ever seen him so bright before. His fingers thrum excitedly against the book he’s bringing down to the beach with him: The Aeneid—he’s read it before, he very snootily told you when you side-eyed him for grabbing it, he just needs to refresh on it for his creative writing class.

When the two of you get down to the shore, you sit down in the sand right near the water’s edge, dipping your feet into the cool water. Dazai plops down next to you, pressing his shoulder against yours and you itch to wrap your arm around his waist, slide your hand under the comfy sweatshirt he’s wearing to rub circles over the bandages covering his skin, but your hands stay stiff in your lap as you stare down at the phone resting on your lap.

You have half a mind to toss it right into the bay. 

But then Dazai nudges you, waiting for you to start talking, and you sigh, looking back across the bay.

“They call themselves the Guild,” you finally say. You can feel Dazai’s eyes on you, curious, and you think maybe you should quit while you’re ahead but you find yourself speaking anyway. “They’re a kind of… secret society. Based in North America. They’re powerful. A lot of influence throughout the world.”

“Why are they here?” Dazai asks and you can feel the way his face twists as he then adds, “More influence than you?”

You can’t help the amused smile that twitches to your lips at his words. “I’m not the end all of political influence, Dazai,” you tell him, the tension in your shoulders slipping away as you tilt your head to the side to look at him

Dazai gives you a look. “Please, I was at that event. I heard the way people talked about you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the most influential person in Japan.”

“Probably the eastern hemisphere,” you correct, quite humbly, snorting as Dazai rolls his eyes. “No, I’m kidding. I have a lot of influence but there are plenty with more than me, especially considering I’m held back by the fact that I can’t make myself a public figure. Having to perpetually work behind the scenes is pretty… crippling.”

“You go to the big government events though,” Dazai frowns. “Those are-”

“Very, very confidential unless certain cockroaches worm their way in and feed information to the public,” you say dryly, watching as Dazai gives you an offended look. 

“Did you just call me a cockroach?”

“If the shoe fits.” You shrug.

“My bella hates me,” Dazai sighs whimsically, dropping his head on your shoulder. “She thinks I’m a bug. A cockroach.”

You soften when he comes in contact with you, lifting your hand to cradle the side of his head. Your lips curl up into a small smile when Dazai’s lashes flutter shut as he leans into your touch. You brush your fingers through his hair, choosing your words carefully as you continue to explain what’s going on in spite of your better judgment.

“Anyway, they have more influence than me. I’ve been working all night trying to figure out what to do, pulled as many strings as I can trying to get the government to push them out of Yokohama but they’ve eaten their way right into the heart of Japan. They’ve been granted diplomatic immunity and they’re putting pressure on the government to try to get us—the Port Mafia—and some government agencies that are protesting the invasion of the city to back off. They’re trying to get their hands on a skilled business permit, we don’t know why but…”

“But you have suspicions,” Dazai finishes for you, sitting up straight again to watch you, ever perceptive. “Right?”

You don't respond for a moment as you watch him carefully. Dazai has always been perceptive—you’ve noticed it from early on when you would talk around the truth and he would train that sharp gaze on you, knowing that you were skirting around something but unable to figure out what. 

Honestly, it should be concerning. Dazai’s smarter than almost anyone you’ve ever met. He’s sharp and quick—proved it with the way he managed to get his hands on the tapes behind the Tokyo City Hall to get evidence of your mafia affiliation; even proved it before that when he recognized that he had to go about information gathering in a different manner, trying to pin down your political opinions because he knew which sectors supported which opinion and wanted to know which one you were a part of.

“Does it have something to do with me?”

“You’re so conceited, not everything has to do with you.”

Dazai flushes red, scowling at you and physically turning his back to you. “Well forgive me for assuming because you’ve certainly been acting like everything has to do with me.”

You smile as Dazai huffs shifting closer to press your lips against the nape of his neck, arms slipping around his waist. He gives you a dirty look but relaxes back into your chest, leaning into you. You slip your hands beneath his sweatshirt, smoothing them out over the bandages covering his slim torso, feeling the way his breath hitches at your touch.

“They’re here because of something I did,” you finally admit quietly, ignoring as he looks up at you curiously. “One of the boys you met when you came to my apartment the first time… they had a bounty on the black market on him for seven billion yen.”

Dazai chokes, splutters over air as he looks up at you and squeaks out, “Seven billion-why?”

“We don’t know,” you say honestly. “I… didn’t think it was a good sign that they were putting so high of a bounty on a seemingly random ability user. It made me think there was more to it than meets the eye, that it would be… dangerous for us to hand him over to the Guild.”

Dazai’s brows furrow as he nods. “I mean, it makes sense. That much money for a what? Eighteen year old kid? Is his ability special?”

“He can turn into a tiger,” you tell him. “Can’t even control it.”

Dazai sits back up straight again, holding his book in his lap as he turns to face you, crossing his legs together. You feel a bit of fondness bubbling in your chest when you see how quickly he seems to be thinking, you can all but see the gears running swiftly behind his dark eyes.

“Is he the tiger? Is the tiger something of its own sentience? I did a research project on ability users two years ago, mostly I was just reading the studies of how they’re dragged into criminal organizations at a young age, but some of them talked about how some ability users can’t even control their ability because it’s like… a separate consciousness. Maybe it knows something? Or there are parts of his ability that he hasn’t been able to unlock yet?”

Is it sentient? Atsushi hadn’t made any mention of it and you hadn’t thought to ask. It wouldn’t be… unheard of. Dazai is right in that there’s been a record of ability users who claim that their abilities have a consciousness of their own. There’s a member of the SDUP, a higher up in the Family who you met a few years back, and even Chuuya. Arahabaki is its own sentient being within Chuuya, could that be why Atsushi can’t control his ability? You don’t know, you hadn’t really considered it but it’s definitely a possibility, and it would explain the Guild’s desperation to get their hands on him.

“Either way, I mean, I think you were definitely right to keep him close,” Dazai shrugs. “They clearly want him badly for a reason and since it’s not one that can be seen at face value, who knows what it could be.”

“I wish you had been at the meeting where I had to argue with all of them about it,” you say bitterly, still irritated over the hours you spent arguing with the other executives, who were dead set on getting the money from the bounty.

Dazai tilts his head to the side, an unreadable look crossing his face for a second but then he shakes his head and asks, “So political pressure isn’t working?”

“No. I mean, they don’t want the Americans here anymore than any of us but they don’t have a choice. After you fell asleep, I spent most of the night on the phone with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, talked to the US ambassador in Tokyo and asked our ambassador in the US to try to work with their government to get the Guild out of Japan. Got nowhere with it. If something could’ve been done politically to force them out of here, I would’ve gotten it done.”

You even called Tolstoy last night. You don’t like going to outsiders about domestic problems but you feel as if you’re backed into a corner—it’s your fault that the Guild is here and you can’t even do anything to fix it. And now-and now Dazai is at risk too. You have half a mind to keep him locked up in this beach house until you can figure everything out but you doubt that he’d stay in one place and he’s better off at your side than on his own.

He doesn’t respond for a moment, oblivious to the thoughts running through your head—or maybe not, he probably knows exactly how stressed you are about this. You’ve never been without your phone and you know you’re making a mistake by turning it off now but you just can’t bring yourself to turn it on, dreading whatever messages you might find. Chuuya’s rage at your disappearance, Kouyou’s disapproval and worst of all, Mori’s disappointment.

He would know where you are. Who you’re with. Why you disappeared and why you were unable to fix this before it became a major problem for the Mafia. He promised not to intervene if it didn’t affect Port Mafia business and you let it anyway. You ran to Dazai when you should have gone to the meeting and you can’t even bring yourself to regret it even when you know that you put him in danger, not just from your enemies but also from-

You feel Dazai’s hand brush your cheek as he reaches out, brows knit in concern as he looks at you and you realize that your breath has quickened noticeably, shallow and uneven. You try to calm yourself down but it only makes your heart rate spike more because you can’t figure out why you’re unable to get yourself under control.

“Hey,” Dazai says quietly, almost as if he doesn’t want to startle you, but he sounds like he’s underwater. Or you’re underwater. Something isn’t right—you know what isn’t right, you know what’s happening but you can’t stop it. “Hey, it’s okay-”

It’s not okay. It’s very much not okay. Your fingers dig into the sand, the small grains getting stuck beneath your fingernails as you try to physically ground yourself. You never should have started talking about this with him—you’d known it was going to force you to confront everything you’ve been avoiding the past few hours, your failure and incapability but he asked you and you couldn’t-

You couldn’t say no.

You need to-

“You need to make them want to go back.”

You’re so caught off guard by Dazai’s words that it startles you right out of your spiral. Your gaze focuses on him and you watch as he starts to light up, excited. His hands drop to your wrists, holding them gently as he urges you to pay attention to him. 

“You need to make them want to go back,” he repeats, faster this time. “You can’t force them, so you have to make them choose to go on their own.”

You shake your head, still unsteady from your sudden bout of panic. You briefly shut your eyes and then say quietly, “Dazai, that’s a lot easier said than done. How-”

“The best defense is a good offense,” Dazai quotes at you, nearly vibrating. “Counterattack, do something to make them have to go back to America.”

Oh.

Oh my god.

“Oh my god,” you voice out loud, little over a breath. “Oh my god. Octavio.”

“Who?” Dazai blinks, staring at you as you fumble to turn your phone back on.

“Octavio Paz,” you say hurriedly, willing your phone to turn back on. “He’s the leader of one of Mexico’s biggest cartels, has been trying to expand his foothold into the central parts of the US for years but one of the Guild members—Twain, maybe, Steinbeck, one of them—they always prevented it. If I can get him to do something now-”

You’re stupid, you’re so stupid for not thinking of this sooner. Mori has always taught you it—the one that strikes the first blow wins the battle—you should’ve had Octavio Paz making movements in the US as soon as you decided to keep Atsushi with the Port Mafia. As soon as you were considering keeping Atsushi with the Port Mafia. You were stupid and you let the Guild make the opening move of the game, and now it could cost you.

But if you can act fast enough then maybe…

As your phone finally starts to turn on, you look back up at Dazai.

“I could kiss you,” you breathe out, watching his face light up at your approval. 

You almost find yourself a bit suspicious of how quickly he came to this conclusion, how naturally this thought process seemed to come to him. You had been struggling trying to figure out what to do and you have over a decade of experience now—you were too focused on the fact that they were already here, so focused on the defense that you were scrambling and blinded to the prospect of an offense. And yes, it might’ve just been stupidity on your part—stupidity and carelessness, that is—but Dazai is a twenty-two year old literature student, how the hell was he able to figure it out in a span of a handful of minutes while you’ve been so lost?

“What’s stopping you?” Dazai prods, leaning forward.

His eyes are wide and imploring, a warm golden color beneath the rays of the sun; his lips are curved up into a sweet smile and you let all of your suspicions wash away. You reach forward to cup his cheek, watching as he immediately presses his face into your hand, eyes sliding shut as he brushes his lips to your palm before looking back up at you, expectant.

You lean in and graze your lips against his but just as you consider deepening the kiss, you notice that your phone screen has finally flickered on, so you lean back, not catching the way Dazai’s face instantly falls.

“I’m going to go make a few calls—I have to head back to the house to grab my laptop. You want to come in or stay out here for a bit?” you ask absently as you rise to your feet.

“I think I’ll stay out here for a bit,” he says quietly. “Hopefully everything works out.”

You don’t respond as you make your way up the beach back to the house, wincing as you see a spam of nearly forty messages from Chuuya, a dozen from Piano Man, and a handful from Kouyou come in.

Worse, there’s not a single message or missed call from Mori. 

A few hours later, you’re sitting with Dazai on the couch in the beach house watching a movie. He’s resting back against your chest, your arms loose around his waist—you think he’s falling asleep actually, every time you look down, his eyes are drooping shut but then snap back open whenever he realizes that you’re looking down at him. 

You’re being spammed with calls again now that your phone is back on—both Chuuya and Piano Man have been calling and texting incessantly. You think they’re taking turns, honestly, when one isn’t calling, the other is. You had to put their numbers on do not disturb but you did reach out to Klaus and Akutagawa, giving them quick orders to do what they can to fuck with the Guild. 

Now, you’re waiting for a text from Paz to confirm he’s made the necessary movements into the central parts of the US—you had to redirect a weapons shipment from South America up to Paz and his men, so you have to compensate for that with Machado down in Brazil, but he’s always been easily appeased. You’ll just have to take a trip down there some time soon to wine and dine him as an apology.

As soon as you get the confirmation from him, you can put your phone away and just spend the night relaxing with Dazai. Maybe try to figure out what’s going on in this movie. Honestly, neither of you are even really watching the movie so you don’t even know why it’s playing but it’s nice background noise at the very least. 

“Can I ask you something?” Dazai asks quietly after a few moments, playing with your fingers and tilting his head up against your shoulder to look at you.

“You have no idea how much I dread those words coming from you,” you say dryly. “Go ahead. Ask.”

Dazai pouts at your words but there’s a serious look in his eyes that has you on edge, a bit concerned to what he might want to ask you.

“What did Chuuya mean the other night?” Dazai asks after a few moments, as if trying to figure out how he wants to phrase his question. When you only give him a confused look in return, he adds on, “He said that you couldn’t save someone last time. That this time wouldn’t be any different.”

 Immediately, you stiffen and Dazai straightens up from where he’s sitting to turn to look at you, concerned. “I don’t-” you start to say, voice strained and tongue heavy in your mouth. “I-”

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Dazai tells you, seemingly a bit taken aback by how you’re struggling for words. “It’s okay. I was just wondering.”

You think you should take the out given to you because even just the thought of talking about what happened two years ago with Chuuya and his girl and the Serpent’s Tongue. Even after all of the time that’s passed, the image of Chuuya hunched over her body is still burned behind your eyelids. You still wake up gasping and sweaty with the sound of Chuuya’s screams still ringing through your ears. There are still days where the guilt of what happened is so crushing that you can hardly breathe. 

“Chuuya… he was dating a civilian two years ago,” you find yourself speaking instead but your voice sounds distant, like you’re not talking but instead listening to someone else talk. You don’t even register that your lips are moving, they feel numb and prickly but the words tumble from your lips. “She was our age, a year older maybe. In her third year of university, on track for med school—I think she went to YNU actually. She wanted to be a doctor. I only met her a few times, but Chuuya never shut up about her, would brag about her to anyone who would listen.”

You sit up straight, smoothing your hands up and down against the skin of your thighs a few times anxiously. Your tongue feels weighted, you can hardly bring yourself to continue; you don’t want to continue so you don’t know why you’re trying to force yourself. Dazai’s gaze is so intense that you can’t even bring yourself to look up at him, you keep your eyes trained on your lap even as he reaches out to entwine his fingers with yours.

“How did they meet?” Dazai prods curiously, purposely trying to steer the conversation to a lighter topic when he hears the way your voice wavers.

“He was stupid,” you say, the wry smile that tugs to your lips is a bit more genuine. You pause and then amend, “We were both stupid when we were twenty—thought we were untouchable—but Chuuya especially. Was a bit too arrogant on a mission and got three bullets in the back because of it. He dragged himself out of the warehouse they were ambushed in and into an alley—she was coming back from a late night class and ran into him. Took him back to her place and patched him up, he couldn’t move for three weeks and he didn’t have his phone on him. I went crazy looking for him, thought he was dead or worse, captured.”

Crazy might be understating it, honestly. In the three weeks Chuuya was missing, you all but upended the entire Mafia. There was no information on who the assailants had been, the entire warehouse had burned to the ground and the only three survivors were comatose, so you orchestrated the end of five different organizations that had been pressing their luck in Mafia territory, hoping that one of them had been the culprit. 

Realistically, you had known that if any of the organizations had captured Chuuya, they would have made it known that they had him, but you’d been so viciously angry that you hadn’t even cared in the moment… and you had thought at the time, that if he wasn’t captured, he was almost definitely dead, so you hadn’t wanted to consider the alternative as an actual option.

“But no, he was with a civilian girl who knew damn well from the wounds and his outfit what he was involved with but still decided to help him,” you say, rolling your eyes and shaking your head. “She was just as stupid as us, I guess.”

“How did you meet her?” Dazai asks curiously. “Did Chuuya introduce you?”

Your smile softens a bit at the edges as you pull his hand into your lap, tracing along the lines of his palm and up his fingers. “Nah, Chuuya tried to keep her out of this as much as possible. Talked all about her but never brought her around, was careful to never give up too much information about her to people he didn’t fully trust.”

You sigh, gaze drifting from his hand over to the window, watching absently as the wind smacks a tree branch against the glass. You think there must be a storm rolling in—you’d noticed that the skies were getting cloudy before the sun had set earlier but you hadn’t thought anything of it. You hope it doesn’t knock the power out—you don’t think this place has a generator. 

“I only met her by chance—was in the area with Klaus handling a small gang that was causing trouble for civilians because I had nothing better to do. I get there and lo and behold, they’ve got Chuuya’s girl backed in an alley. We got there before they could do anything but she was shaken, obviously. Was sweet though, she recognized me from pictures Chuuya has, invited both me and Klaus back to her apartment and made us tea. Chuuya flew across the city when I texted him, crashed right through the window.”

Your lips quirk up into another smile as you remember the way that Chuuya had quite literally crashed through her window, panicked and furious that some lowlives had tried to fuck with her. The way she spent thirty minutes shouting at him for breaking her window and forcing him to go replace it before he even had himself oriented.

Dazai snorts and then quietly asks the dreaded question, “What happened to her?”

“We were stupid,” you repeat, softer this time. “Thought we were untouchable. Chuuya—he’s the strongest ability user in the world—and I’m set to take over the strongest mafia in the eastern hemisphere. No one would dare try to attack either of us because they know it’s futile—a death wish. And we… forgot that the people we love aren’t as protected. That there are people out there who would do anything to try to cripple us if given the chance.”

Your throat swells, an uncomfortable lump forming as you stare ahead blankly, the movie still playing but none of it processing through your brain. You don’t even know what’s happening on it, all you can see are indecipherable blobs moving on the screen. Dazai doesn’t press you to continue but you can still feel him looking at you and the way he squeezes your hand, so you take in a deep breath before continuing.

“It was a Thursday night. Chuuya was meeting her on campus to bring her out of the city for the weekend as a surprise. She never walked out of the building her class was in and when he asked around, they said she never showed up. He went to her apartment to check on her because he realized something was up and the whole place was trashed—blood everywhere, windows shattered, they even killed one of her fucking cats. Chuuya called me but he couldn’t even speak properly, I tracked him to her apartment and realized what had happened.”

He had her other cat in his lap, you remember, stomach twisting uncomfortably. Was kneeling in her blood next to the other one with the living one curled in his lap, licking his wrist as if begging him to get up and snap out of it. You’d never seen him like that before—face so pale that he looked bloodless, eyes wide and haunted, not processing anything around him—he was usually good in emergencies, never froze up, always moved forward. He didn’t even fight Klaus and Akutagawa when you told them to get him to your apartment, to not let anyone see him like this.

“I… he wasn’t in the right state to lead or plan an operation, so I did. I took over,” you say quietly, “and I failed.”

It wasn’t your first failure. Itou’s death was your fault no matter how much people try to convince you otherwise. Even if the information you’d been given wasn’t accurate, you still should’ve been quicker on your feet. You’ve circled the what-ifs in your head over and over again, there were so many routes you could’ve taken but you’d frozen up in the face of a situation out of your control and it cost Itou his life.

Wasn’t your first failure, but it was the first that had been entirely in your control. You took too long to figure out who had her, took too long to get the Black Lizards organized, by the time you got to their base, she’d already been dead.

“They were called the Serpent’s Tongue. A younger organization that had been based in Kyoto before they came to Yokohama. We hadn’t been taking them seriously,” you tell him, voice hoarse. “Should have been, obviously. By the time I’d figured out who had her and where they were… Chuuya was demanding to come with us, wanted to be the first face she saw after getting her out of there. Wouldn’t budge on it. We got there and they left her head for us to find. Chuuya had barged into the room first and…”

You still hear the way he screamed her name in your nightmares, still see how he’d fallen to his knees. He’d unleashed corruption in his grief, devastating the area and nearly killing you with it—when you pulled him out of it, he told you that you should’ve let it take him. You let out a heavy breath, gaze drifting to the side again. 

“I don’t have a good track record for saving people,” you say quietly. “I don’t… her death destroyed Chuuya. And if you… if something happens to you now when I know better…”

You’d never recover from it. Never.

“... That’s why you were so mad,” Dazai realizes after a few moments. When you give him a confused look, he elaborates. “The day we got my suit tailored and I texted you.”

You snort. “I had Chuuya on standby and was about to put the Mafia’s equivalent of the special ops on standby because I thought you were in trouble.”

Dazai flushes bright red. “I didn’t know,” he complains. “How was I supposed to know?”

Your lips curve up into a fond smile as you reach out for him, beckoning him to come back over to you. He pouts but he crawls back over, wrapping his arms around your waist and pushing you back until you’re laying on the couch so that he can lay right on top of you, burying his face in your chest. You bring one hand up to cradle the back of his head, the other sliding down to his back to hold him close to you.

You feel his lips pull up into a smile as he tilts his head up, big brown eyes peeking up at you, a soft brown under the dim lighting of the room, sweet and adoring. You’ve never had someone look at you that way in your life—like you’re something worth being treasured, someone to treat gently. Your breath catches in your throat as he leans up to brush his lips against your jaw and-

And you think you love him.

The thought is so jarring that you almost physically flinch as soon as it crosses your mind. You only realize something’s wrong when you notice that Dazai’s eyes shot open in surprise and instantly, your mouth floods with ash.

No way.

“What?” he breathes out.

“What?” you echo, voice flat.

“What did you just say?” he asks, a bit more rushed, eyes bright but expression hesitant—as if he’s trying to not get his hopes up but can’t help himself. “Tell me what you said. Say it again.”

You have half a mind to deny it but Dazai just looks so… he looks so happy. Hopeful. Like you’ve told him something that he never expected anyone to ever say to him. So all you can do is steel yourself and clear your throat as you say quietly: “I think I love you.”

Dazai doesn’t respond; he stares at you and you think he’s hardly even breathing. His eyes rapidly search your face, desperately trying to figure out if you’re telling him the truth or not and when he finds his answer, he looks entirely devastated, as if you’ve taken his world and ripped it right out from under him.

“I’m not someone made to be loved,” he tells you, voice so quiet that you barely even hear it. His fingers clutch your shirt tightly like he’s scared to let go of you.

Your smile softens. “Yet here I am.”

“You’ll regret it,” Dazai says shakily, throat bobbing as he swallows. “You will.”

A part of you wants to tell him no, that if anyone ends up regretting anything, it will be him—that if anyone isn’t made for love, it’s you—but you don’t have it in you. You raise your hand to cup his cheek, watching as his lashes flutter shut; you lift your other hand to brush his hair back behind his ear.

“I won’t,” you tell him quietly.

“You will,” he insists. “You really will. I-”

“I won’t,” you say again, firmer this time, and Dazai lets out a noise in the back of his throat, dropping down to lay flat against you, hiding his face in the crook of your neck.

His lashes are wet, you can feel the dampness against your skin, and you can also feel how hot his face is. You smile as your hand slides to the back of his head again, absently playing with the dark locks as you tilt your head to the side and kiss his temple.

Dazai takes in a wet, ragged breath at the casual and unexpected action. You can feel his shoulders shake as he tries to regain control of himself and your free hand rests between his shoulder blades, thumb drawing circles against his skin. 

“What happened to the cat?” Dazai suddenly asks after a few moments of him trying to settle down, voice cracking and wavering over the words as he desperately tries to change the subject to something that doesn’t have him on the verge of collapse.

“The cat?”

“The cat, the one that lived. What happened to it?” he asks more insistently, not bothering to even look up from where he’s hiding his face against you.

“Oh.” You realize what he’s talking about. “Chuuya took it in.”

Dazai makes a sharp noise of disgust. “Gross,” he complains. “He doesn’t even seem like a cat person.”

You can’t help the puff of laughter that escapes your lips. “What is your problem with him?” you ask. “You’ve had it out for him from day one.”

Dazai sniffs. “I just don’t like him, that’s all,” he says defensively. “I don’t need a reason.”

“Sure,” you agree, amused. “Whatever you say.”

Dazai lights up suddenly at your words. “Whatever I say?” he prods, finally lifting his face to look up at you, eyes gleaming. You give him a suspicious look but Dazai only gives you a sweet smile in return.

“Nothing,” he sings without you even needing to say anything, making you even more suspicious, but then he lays back down on top of you, nudging his nose against the side of your face. You feel him smile against your skin, he kisses your cheek once, twice and then a third time before settling back down. “Let’s watch Despicable Me.”

“No.”

“You said whatever I say-”

“No!”

“Are you asleep?”

Dazai pouts as he nudges you gently—he’s been wide awake for over an hour now and he knows he shouldn’t bother you considering you didn’t sleep the night before, but he still finds himself seeking out your company. He’s half laying on top of you, head resting on your shoulder as he continues to bop his forehead against your chin to wake you up.

The two of you had gone back to the bedroom a few hours ago and you’d fallen asleep pretty quickly. Dazai had dozed off for a bit too, but he found himself startled awake by a particularly loud cracking noise from outside, a tree toppling over from the wind probably, and now he couldn’t fall back asleep.

And a Dazai left with only his own mind as company is not a good Dazai.

He tried to distract himself with you for a bit. Watched you sleep for a while—creepy as it is, he found peace in watching the steady rise and fall of your chest, the soft puffs of air that left your lips, how every time he tried to pull away from you, your brows would furrow and your arms would tighten around him. He’s never had someone who wanted him before, much less someone who wanted him so genuinely and unconditionally that even in their sleep, they seek him out and want him close. He didn’t even know what to think of it, honestly, a part of him was still waiting for you to start laughing and telling him that this is all some big joke.

I think I love you.

His breath shakes the same way it does every time your words echo through his head, fingers trembling from where he’s running them up and down your arm softly. 

Love. Love. Love. 

You love him. Him. Someone who can hardly function on an everyday basis, someone who has to wrap himself up in bandages because he’s embarrassed of what lies beneath them, someone who has only ever had death and misfortune follow him around his entire life. You love him even though you’ve listened to him fumble over words like a fool because he gets tongue tied in your presence, you love him even though he blackmailed you into giving him a chance because he was that desperate for your attention, you love him even though you had to pick him up at the hospital after a failed suicide attempt because he has no one else in his life to call. 

You love him. Him. You love him in spite of all of his flaws—and he knows very well there are a lot of them. You love him in spite of all of the pushback from the people around you. You love him in spite of the fact that your world is completely different from his, in spite of the fact that you could do so much better than him, in spite of the fact that Dazai is Dazai and you’re you and you’re so far out of his league that Dazai doesn’t even think he should be breathing the same air as you, much less curling up next to you in bed. Even though it puts so much at risk—your life, your occupation, everything—you love him still and Dazai just can’t understand it.

And Dazai loves you. 

He does. He thinks he’s known it since the beginning, since that day at the school library when you came over because he was sitting all alone at a table that was clearly meant for a group of individuals and not just one, when you realized something was bothering him so you gave him your name even though he had been rude to you when he got embarrassed over having no friends. Since that day at his apartment complex when you showed up to deal with his shitty landlord; he’d made a joke about how you should waive his rent, not expecting anything of it, and you did. Since you rushed to him while he was at the men’s warehouse—he’d thought it was odd that you seemed so irritated by his dramatics trying to get you to come to him, but now that he knew it was because you thought he was in trouble, thought he was in danger and rushed to him like he was the only thing that mattered even back then…

Dazai loves you, and he didn’t tell you when you told him—he wants to tell you even though the thought of pushing those words out of his mouth terrifies him, so he returns to trying to wake you up.

“Wake up,” Dazai complains quietly, booping his forehead against your chin again. “Wake up, wake up, wake-”

“What’s wrong?” you finally ask through a yawn, voice rough with sleep as you shift a bit. One of your hands comes up to run your fingers through his hair and Dazai hums at the feeling, eyes drooping shut again as he sinks back into your chest. “Dazai?”

“Osamu,” he corrects quietly, “... will you call me Osamu?”

Your fingers still in their steady strokes through his hair and for a split second, Dazai thinks that he misstepped. But then, you lean your head down to press your lips against his forehead and he can only let out a shaky breath, nuzzling his face into your body.

“Osamu,” you repeat, voice soft and a bit more awake—and god, the sound of his given name leaving your lips is almost heavenly, he thinks. 

He can’t remember the last time someone called him by his first name, his aunt was probably the last and it was her screaming at him to get out of his car before she left him to die in Suribachi. It’s an unpleasant memory, and he thinks that maybe he’s only been able to associate his given name with unpleasantness because of it, but this… it makes him feel light and cozy, like the warmth of a hearth surrounding him after spending years alone in the cold wilderness. He thinks he could hear you say his name a million times and never tire of this feeling.

“Osamu, tell me what’s wrong. Why’d you wake me up?”

His lips part to say the three words he planned on saying but they wither and die on his tongue when his eyes meet yours. Even with your words ringing through his head, he can’t bring himself to say it. And it’s silly. It’s silly because he’s scared that if he says it, it’ll be the trigger the gods need to finally rip you away from him—everything he never wants to lose is always lost the moment he obtains it, it’s true, he told you this and he’s been treading such a fine line and he’s terrified that speaking those three words out loud will be enough for the twisted gods above to finally rip the rug out from under his feet.

So, he doesn’t say it.

“Osamu,” you frown—he’ll never tire of it, he has half a mind to ask you to say it over and over and over again, doesn’t care if it makes him seem crazy. “What’s going on?”

He needs to say something—the longer he sits here evading answering, the more concerned you’re going to get, and the more concerned you get, the harder it’s going to be to lie. Dazai’s throat spasms as he instead broaches a different topic that has been bothering him for a few weeks.

“Are you attracted to me?”

It has been a rather persistent thought in the back of his head, even more so since the two of you spoke at the cliff yesterday. At first, he thought maybe it was just because you didn’t really want him—that you were trying to evade any physical intimacy with him because he was backing you into a corner and you were uncomfortable. 

But now? Knowing that you do want him? He doesn’t have any other explanation than the fact that maybe you just aren’t attracted to him… and he’s not sure he can blame you. Who would be attracted to someone who hardly takes care of himself and wraps himself in bandages like a mummy?

You stare at him for a moment, expression too blank for comfort before your brows begin to furrow. The longer you take to respond, the more embarrassed Dazai is.  

“What?” you finally ask, voice stunted and perplexed.

Dazai’s face heats up, regretting his words immediately. 

He should have just told you what he wanted to say originally.

“Nevermind,” he says, rolling over so that his back is to you, not wanting you to see his red face. “Forget it.”

“Hey, no,” you say, suddenly sounding all too awake and Dazai squeezes his eyes shut, wanting to crawl into a ditch and die. “Osamu, what? What are you even talking about? How is that even a question?”

He feels you sit up in the bed next to him and pointedly lays on his stomach to bury his face in the pillow to try to hide himself even as you shift to look over at him. It’s to no avail because you’re a brute and decide to just grab his shoulder to forcibly roll him back onto his back. Dazai scowls up at you, face still aflame. 

“Don’t manhandle me,” he grumbles, averting his gaze but you only shift right back into his line of vision, frowning. “Stop, it’s nothing. Forget it. Really.”

“It’s not nothing,” you say, reaching out to cup his cheek and Dazai thinks you’re entirely unfair because he is simply too weak to your touch so he can already feel himself giving in when you look at him with a slight frown and say, “Tell me.”

Dazai huffs. He huffs and he bristles like an irritated cat, he scowls up at you for forcing him to explain himself and then his shoulders slump in defeat. 

How embarrassing.

“I just… have tried to… initiate things and you… don’t ever… want to?”

Dazai thinks a gun in the mouth might be kinder than this.

And then-

And then you have the nerve to laugh at him. Or, you don’t laugh but you smile and you look like you’re about to laugh, so Dazai jerks up into a sitting position, offended. Your hand falls from his face and instantly, he’s yearning for your touch again. 

“You’re laughing at me,” he accuses, voice dripping with disbelief. “You just laughed at me when I was opening up to you.”

“No,” you say and then laugh. You laugh and Dazai stares at you in abject horror. “No, I’m not laughing at you.”

“You’re laughing at me right now,” Dazai squawks. “You’re-I can’t believe you’re laughing at me.”

“Osamu,” you say, smile softening as you look at him. You reach out again, fingers brushing his skin before your palm settles against his cheek again, thumb so close to the corner of his lips. Dazai’s breath hitches, lashes fluttering as his eyes meet yours. “I knew that if we started something, I wouldn’t be able to stop. So I didn’t want to let it start. I… still thought you’d be better off away from me, out of this life, and I wouldn’t have been able to let go if I let anything happen between us.”

Dazai stares at you for a moment, processing the words, and then confirms, “... So you are attracted to me?”

“Yes,” you say, unbearably amused. “Very.”

“... But why?” Dazai asks quietly, voice a bit too vulnerable for his liking.

“What do you mean why?” 

He clears his throat and looks up at the ceiling as he says, “I’m not anything special, y’know?” He’s careful to keep his voice light and airy, void of all of the insecurity that’s been ripping him apart since the two of you met. “I just don’t get it. You could have anyone you want—literally—so why me?”

You click your tongue and Dazai hears you shift around again, breath catching when you sit yourself right on his lap, lifting both hands to his face now to force him to look at you. With his face settled between your hands and your body flush to his, Dazai has no choice but to meet your gaze head on and he almost dies at the intense look in your eyes, can hardly breathe.

“Do you want me to show you why?” you hum with a teasing smile.

Dazai inhales sharply, eyes widening at the offer. His lips part to respond but no words leave them, so he just nods. You’re not pleased with that response, clearly, from how you raise your eyebrows.

“Yes,” he rasps out. “Show me. Prove that you want me. Please.”

You don’t even waste a second before you’re leaning in to press your lips against his. Dazai’s eyes flutter shut and his breath hitches as you press him back against the plush pillows of the bed. He’s suddenly acutely aware of the rough bandages covering his body that are probably prickling your skin uncomfortably, of his chapped lips and hair that’s a bit too dry because he never properly washes it. 

“The first thing I noticed about you was your eyes,” you say quietly, pulling away from him so your gaze could meet his. He tries to chase your lips but you don’t let him. “I could hardly look away from them. I tried to walk away from you that night at the bar but every time I looked at you, I found myself lost in them.”

Dazai’s throat spasms, face flushing. “Don’t lie,” he tells you, voice hoarse. “Nobody likes my…”

Too wide. Too black. Too empty. Dull. Hollow. Soulless. All things he’s heard people say about his eyes—no one can ever look him in the eyes for too long before they find themselves uncomfortable. 

“I’m not lying,” you say with a soft smile, there’s almost a wistful look in your eyes as you continue. “Right now, they remind me of the night sky, dark and endless, filled with countless glittering stars… I love the stars… They remind me of home.”

Dazai chews on his bottom lip as he stares up at you; he tries to speak but again, he finds himself unable to. You don’t force him to this time though, bringing your hand back to his cheek and running your thumb over his bottom lip as if to stop him from biting at it.

“Under the sun, they’re gold,” you tell him quietly. “The first time I noticed, it was the day we met at the ports. Sunset. You were standing right at the opening of the alley I’d been waiting in with Klaus and the sun hit you just right. You looked so pretty beneath it that I was almost tongue-tied. If we hadn't been interrupted, I would’ve made a fool of myself.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Dazai’s voice wobbles terribly. “You-”

“I’m not,” you murmur. Dazai’s breath shakes as you lean back down to kiss the corner of his lips. This time, instead of going back to his lips, you kiss down to his jaw slowly. “The second thing I noticed about you was your smile.”

Too fake. Too teethy. Too strained. Unnatural looking.

“Not the fake one you love to put on,” you say, nipping his skin gently. “Your real one. I got a glimpse of it that day at the cafe—the second time we met—when you realized I’d actually been listening to you that night at the bar. But I really saw it that day at Kido’s when we started talking about poetry… I don’t even think you realized you were smiling, the corners of your lips were curved up and your expression was just so… soft. Peaceful. You looked happy and I think that was the first time I really realized that a large majority of the time you put on a mask when you’re around people.”

When you kiss down to the edge of the bandages around his neck, Dazai thinks you’ll ask him to take them off and he braces himself for the question. Braces himself for the discomfort of being bare in front of someone for the first time… ever maybe, because it’s not like he can say no if you ask him to take them off after he badgered you into this.

But you don’t. You kiss over the bandages as if they’re not even there, you tug at his shirt to get him to lift his arms up for you to pull it off and when you do, you continue kissing down his chest—over the bandages—and don’t even show the slightest bit of discontent about it.

“You��ve seen through me… since all the way back then?” Dazai swallows thickly when your hands rest on his slim waist, breath quickening. “But then why…”

Why did you stay?

“That day at the boutique… I was supposed to cut you off,” you admit quietly, sitting back on his thighs as your hands rest on his hips, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, but you don’t move to pull them off. Dazai’s body is uncomfortably hot, head frighteningly fuzzy, he can only barely bring himself to listen to your words. “My first thought when I realized that I’d gotten my first glimpse behind your mask was that I wanted to see more of you, wanted to see you smile genuinely, wanted to learn more about you, I wanted you. I’d realized I let it go too far—that I was starting to actually fall for you and I was putting you in danger—but even then, I couldn’t do it.”

His breath shakes as he breathes in and out, fingers digging into your thighs. He parts his lips to say something but you continue before he can.

“I spoke to Chuuya that same night—he told me that this had to stop, that I was going to get you killed. The next time we met was at the ports. One of the Port Mafia’s enemies had seen us together,” you say, expression a bit more serious now. “Klaus killed him. I had the entire organization exterminated that same night.”

Dazai thinks that shouldn’t have turned him on as much as it did. His heart rate spikes at your words, breath quickening and that pool of heat in his lower abdomen gets impossibly hotter, his mind almost entirely shatters at what you’re saying. Your grip on his hips tightens just a bit, lips pressed together as you look down at him with an unreadable expression.

“I would do terrible things for you, Dazai Osamu,” you tell him softy. “I have done terrible things for you and I would do them again and again and again.”

“Please,” Dazai breathes out, and he’s not even sure what he’s saying please for, but you do. 

You do. As always, Dazai is seen when he’s with you and he can’t help the whimper that spills from his lips, the way his eyes mist over with tears. Dazai is seen and he is loved and-and he’s happy. He’s happy—really, truly happy for the first time since Odasaku’s death.

You lean down to kiss Dazai again—this kiss is sloppier than the last few, a frantic clashing of teeth as your hands slide down his body to pull his sweatpants off. Dazai lifts his hips to help you get them off of him, his own fingers clumsily tugging at your silk shorts to try to yank them off of you.

Once he gets them off, his hands drop down to your hips, pulling you down so that you’re sitting flush against him. He moans into your mouth when he finally gets the friction he’s so desperately been aching for, grinding his clothed cock against your panties. He feels almost dizzy with need, lips sliding messily against yours, nails digging crescents into your hips. He thinks maybe he might be able to cum just from this and the thought is embarrassing but he can’t even stop the way he’s rocking his hips up.

Your lips trail from his down to his neck and Dazai tosses his head back against the pillow when your teeth scrape against his skin before you bite down hard, a lewd moan escaping his lips.

“Please,” he gasps again, voice breaking over the only word he seems to be capable of saying. “Please.”

You lean forward as you reach between your bodies to ease his cock out of his briefs and Dazai nearly cums on the spot when he feels your fingers wrap around him, fingers sliding against the precum dripping down his length. You rest your forehead against his, lips dragging across his cheek back to his lips as you press the tip of his cock against your entrance.

He almost says it in that moment—foreheads pressed together, sharing the same sliver of air, both of you breathing shakily as his tip just barely sinks into you—those three words, he almost says them. They almost slip out when his gaze meets yours and he sees the soft, enamored expression on your face as you look down at him.

Dazai’s eyes knock back when you sink down on his cock, lips parted in a silent moan, vision white. For a terrifying moment, Dazai thinks he might’ve cum just from the feeling of your walls warm and tight around his cock. His whole body trembles, his head feels foggy and garbled—he’s speaking, he realizes, but he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. He can feel his lips moving, can hear something leaving them, but he’s so out of it that he can’t even process what it is. 

You nip at his lips once, then twice, before you trail kisses to his ear, savoring in the way he shivers when you tug at his earlobe. You only start to rock your hips when your lips get to that spot behind his ear that makes him entirely incoherent. You suck and nip at the skin as you roll your hips slowly, each drag of his cock against your walls makes him choke over moans. 

He’s not going to last long, he realizes absently, unable to even be mortified by the thought considering how focused he is on your body, warm and flush against his. His hands are moving sliding up your body to your chest, back down your body to your ass—he doesn’t even know what to do with them, honestly, wants to touch every part of you all at the same time, wants to make you feel half as good as you’re making him feel but he can’t even think with your lips sucking at his skin and your cunt squeezing his cock.

His moan breaks suddenly, cracking and quavering as it slips into a sob. His breath is ragged and shuddered, and his vision swims. He feels his cheeks wet and your hands leave from where they’re braced on his shoulders to cup his cheeks. 

Your thumbs wipe away the tears spilling down his cheeks, you lean down to ghost your lips against his temple, and your voice is soft, so soft as you whisper, “I know, baby, I’ve got you. Let go.”

And he does. The taut cord in his abdomen tightens impossibly more before snapping, his nails drag down your thighs, leaving long red marks, his hips snap up and he tosses his head back against the pillows. One of your hands slides from his cheek to wrap around his neck firmly and Dazai is gone—his vision goes dark and spotty, a choked cry of your name escapes his lips and Dazai cums so hard that he thinks he blacks out momentarily.

You lean down and press your lips against his, moaning into his mouth as your walls spasm around him. Dazai’s breath is sharp and quick, lashes wet and heavy, his body twitches and trembles as you ride out your high on his spent cock. He can feel you panting against his skin, your lips sliding from his to press against his cheek as you try to catch your breath.

And Dazai thinks he could stay like this forever, basking in your presence, the feeling of your body pressed to his, his cock still snug in your cunt and one of your hands cradling his face while the other cups the side of his neck, fingers absently playing with the ends of his matted hair. Your forehead rests against his cheek, savoring his presence just as much as he is yours.

He feels warm, he feels safe, he feels loved.

He feels loved.

You shift back just enough to look him in the eye, close enough so that your nose is still brushing his, that you’re still sharing air. Your thumb runs along his cheekbone and your eyes are soft and adoring as you look down at him. As you admire him.

“I could give you countless reasons as to why I want you,” you finally say quietly, “but when it comes down to it, the main reason is because you’re you, Osamu.”

He feels loved. 

Your weekend paradise with Dazai shatters with a single message not even six hours later.

Chuuya: I need you. Going to use Corruption.

smut development: minimal besides some dialogue. she told him that when she saw through his mask, her first desire was wanting to see/know more of him. also tells him what happened after she met him at the ports (ie. having the yakuza exterminated). tells him: i'd do terrible things for you - i have done terrible things for you and i would do them again. then at the very end, she tells him that the reason she wants you is because she's him.

[knotwerk]

holy shit i fucking love editing. (remind me i said that in two weeks.) 

i’m working on the proper hydration series finale aka PH6. i finished writing the first draft on 4/6/24, clocking in at 85k words. and then i sat on it for a few days before rereading it, did an extremely cursory once-over edit, and sent it off to my first reader & og beta @demolitionwoman-blog (CHEERS!!!). she started working on the beta, and by the time she hit chapter 3, she made the observation that the next step in the editing process for this might not be a typical beta read, but a structure/development read, and maybe a reverse outline would be a good next step. 

and i was like, i have never heard of a reverse outline. like, i have never heard of most things, really; i just started writing fiction in fucking august 2022 and am having a FUCKING BALL learning by doing. so i googled reverse outline, read the top three hits lol, and was like OH FUCK YES. 

because i do not Outline-outline when i write. all respect to those who do!!!!!, but i just Can Not. i have tried, and i get both daunted and bored, and that combo is like fucking kryptonite to my brain. for a longer piece (or a piece that doesn’t just burst out of my fingertips in response to a gifset or bts drop or tweet or gc comment 😅), i do make a sort of vibes outline. like, i open a fresh doc and splort down all the themey ideas i’m able to put words to at that point, and i make notes on whatever beats have already formed in my head, but it’s loose and sketchy at best. and then i write and see what happens as the story unfolds, and i go back to that notes doc to sort of talk to myself about it, to update the vibe outline as i get further in my draft, etc. 

but PH6 is the longest & most complex thing i’ve written yet, so by the time i got to the end of the first draft—by the time i’d put the whole story into words—i was like, oh my god, what is this. like, has this done the thing i wanted to do, per my vibe outline, and also, what did it actually do, and is it legible (whatever that means; like far be it from me to tell the reader what they should get out of something, but, generally speaking, is it cohesive.). now that i have told the story, like… what the fuck is the story about please, and does it "work." 

so i “finished” my reverse outline yesterday and omfg it’s helping so much and it’s SO EXCITING!!!! LIKE, THIS IS HELPING ME WRAP MY MIND AROUND THE THING I DID, SO I AM BETTER ABLE TO SEE WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO!!!! AND I CAN WORK WITH THAT!!!!!

it’s like i had a bunch of kittens scrambling around in my brain and while i was writing i was like 'oh i love these kittens so much, and i really hope this story herds these kittens effectively so they slow down just enough that people can really see their cute little faces (including me, i am people)' and then i finished the first draft and was like 'ahhh did the story herd the kittens??? i can't tell, they're still moving too fast in my brain' and then the reverse outline showed up and was like I COME BEARING TUNA AND FIFTEEN CARDBOARD BOXES and now i can see the kittens better. 

and then! i slept on it last night, and this morning my brain was like, “oh, here, why don’t i just efficiently articulate the vibes and arrange them in a tidy visual diagram that reveals how they all flow through the story for you?” WHEE!!

and then i got so excited that i had to put it down and write all this instead of working on it further 

(this, which could probably use its own reverse outline lmao)

like, i’m reading Mary Ruefle’s Madness, Rack, and Honey, which is a book of collected lectures that i cannot stop screaming about and that slaps so hard i keep having to throw it across the room, and just the other day i read, in the chapter “On Secrets,” 

I used to think I wrote because there was something I wanted to say. Then I thought, “I will continue to write because I have not yet said what I wanted to say”; but I know now I continue to write because I have not yet heard what I have been listening to.

and i think the reverse outline is helping me hear it a little better, and that is fucking exciting.

[novel-nook-blog]

Camp NaNo – week 1

Monday (7/1):

It's 9:30 pm and I finally opened my laptop. Uff, what a long day. Ngl, I'm exhausted. I woke up at 5:30 am to get ready for work. I left at almost 4 pm. Then there was a problem with my car (stressing af) and I had about 20 minutes to get to a meeting in another town so... very nice. The meeting was 'till 6 pm and around 6:30 pm I was finally home. Now let's get to writing.

It's 10 pm and I'm falling asleep as I write so it's time to put my laptop down and get some rest before my work, tomorrow. I haven't written much, but I didn't want to start with a 0 tomorrow.

Wordcount: 326

Tuesday (7/2):

It's 17:40 and I'm opening my second draft. I'm so hyped even though I just got home 😂... maybe I'm even overhyped because an hour ago I had a veeeery strong coffee and I mean wow, it just kicked in and I'm overflown with energy. So my writing is either going to be very good or very bad, we'll see.

On my schedule is: finish chapter 1 (I started it yesterday); start reading The Throne of Glass. I read that book a lot of times already, but it has similar writing style as I'm using in this book and I found out I'm repeating the same words again and again, so I want to use this reread for the benefit of my vocabulary (plus I want to reread the whole series this summer, although I wanted to finish reading Iron Flame first... so complicated, right?)

My plans for the day have escalated quite differently. We had a game night so after about 200 words I stopped writing for several hours and just before I head to bed I wrote up to 752 words. It's still not much, but I can't focus anymore. We'll se how tomorrow's going to be. I was planning to write all day, but I found out we're going to the ZOO. I'm very excited for our little trip, but at the same time I have no idea how the heck I'm going to get the wordcount I need. This challenge is going to be fun.

Wordcount: 752

Wednesday (7/3):

It's 10 pm and I just opened my laptop. This day could be divided into two parts – the awesomest one and the worst stressful nightmare. Me, my mom and my sister went to the trip to the zoo. It was a wonderful day. But after that there was a family matter that we had to solve so I didn't have time for writing...

Wordcount: 0

Today it's Tuesday, 9th of July... I'm so sorry for my delayed post but the thing is I am sick. I have the stomach flu since Saturday, but have been feeling so off most of the week so the last time I've written anything was on Friday and it wasn't much. Hopefully I'm going to be back on track soon but now I'm feeling so bad that the only thing I do is sleep and watch TV.

Also on Thursday I had an 11 hour long shift at work so very tiring day. On Friday my friend had a birthday party so I was with her all day and when I got back I started feeling sick but I didn't think it was something to worry about. On Saturday me and my dad went to visit my aunt and when we got back the stomach flu started in all it's power and hadn't left since.

I'm not sure how I'll get 45k words in my draft by the end of July but now health is my priority. So I'm going to get back when I'm feeling better.

[acourtofthought]

Taking into account that we have two more books (acotar 5 and acotar6). What plot do you think each will be focused on? couple + romance + background plot

I'm sorry it took me over a day to respond, yesterday was CRAZY for me. I can't remember the last time I moved nonstop all day long.

I know what I'm about to write doesn't line up with other Eluciens and Gwynriels or even what SJM herself said recently about CC3 being the next release but in my mind, and considering the crossover having now been introduced, this is where I see the next two books going:

I know most think Gwynriel is next but for some reason I still struggle seeing it.

There's a back of the book interview being shared which tells us where SJM was at with this series a few years ago:

At one point SJM had no clue who the third book would be about. She knew the first was Nessian's, she knew who the second was about, but not the final one. In ACOMAF, Elucien became Mates then we were left with a will they / won't they in ACOWAR. ACOFAS set up for the upcoming spinoffs and in it we have many hints as to Elain's developing powers (her stealth like behavior) and Feyre encouraging Elain to get to know Lucien though she claims she has no interest in a Mate or a Male. Mor also talks about Elain and Lucien needing time to figure themselves out before they'll be ready to deal with the bond. In the back of the book interview we see that SJM did a bunch of research for Elain’s book. If she knew Nessian was first, and always knew an Az book was second, why would she claim she had no idea who the third would be about while doing research for Elains book? In my opinion, Az had not had the same build up and as many unresolved storylines as Lucien and Elain so again, it seems like she wasn't always 100% certain Az would be getting his own story until closer to when she wrote SF.

I also think it makes more sense for an Elucien story to come after Nessian because theirs will probably involve less of the IC than we're used to seeing. If you think of TOD, it took us to new parts of the TOG world and only had mentions of Aelin and the gang. Chaol and Nesryns journey's were still important because the relationships they made were vital to the war in the final book which is when we returned to the others. Elucien feels similar to me. That the ties Lucien has to other Courts and the relationships they build on their travels will be necessary to the war in the final book. And an Az book being the last book will bring it back full circle, back to the IC. Gwynriel will be the main characters of that one but it can't be denied that you can't have a final battle without Feyre and Rhys being heavily involved (and Nessian). Gwyn and Az will have the closest relationship to these characters. And a final battle would make sense from a warriors POV rather than Eluciens.

As far as plot, I think Eluciens book will be next. Not only from what I've stated above but also the fact that the Feysand Bonus Chapter says "let's help one sister before we help the next" and Nesta places Elain's rose carving on her father's headstone "as the marker of beauty and good he tried to bring into this world". Tell me the fact that this being on the last page of SF doesn't seem like foreshadowing that her book is coming up?

Quick takes for plot as I've written longer posts on this and don't want to bore you with having to reread through it all:

I think Lucien will still be stationed in Spring and Elain will either felt drawn there by the Mothers voice, the drums of Fire Night or Rhys will figure out a reason to send her that way. I think Elain will not only be an owl shifter but have healing powers which will be important in helping her heal the lands of Spring and restore the faith to its people. I'm seeing a Great Rite scene with Elucien and I also see them traveling to the continent with Jurian to defeat Koschei and free Vassa. I see Lucien discovering that Helion is his father and everything that goes along with that (his relationship with Eris, his mother, Beron). I'm sure Elain will have some minor confrontation with her sisters though I don't imagine anything dramatic because she doesn't seem to hold major grudges with them and she has already apologized to Feyre for the past. And I see both Lucien and Elain overcoming any past feelings for their lost loves.

Then I see Gwynriel being the final book. I think Gwyn will discover she is a Siren of some sort and that will initially upset her because she'd worry that having a power like could be too tempting. For me, canonically sweet Gwyn needs a touch of darkness to really be an equal match for the darkness in Az so maybe she's bothered by the fact that she wants to use her power for revenge and that won't seem priestess like to her. I think Az will show her that it doesn't matter if you have darkness inside of you, that you are still "good" as long as you're making the choice to only use it against those who harm your loved ones. I think his helping Gwyn realize that will also help Az understand the same about himself. I think his journey will involve his past issues with the Illyrians and I think their story will also involve Eris taking over Autumn, Az and Eris's past with Mor, and I think Gwyn will find Narben. And of course, the final battle against the Asteri who will make their way through the portals and land in Prythian.

[beautyofsorrow]

🎶✨🎢!!

🎶Do you listen to music while you write? What song have you been playing on loop lately?

not usually! sometimes i will turn on a george winston album (plains or summer or autumn, depending on the time of year), but lyrics distract the hell out of me. if my neighbors are being noisy (...all the time these days...) i will turn on rainymood to help drown out the tv/music/screaming

notable past exceptions have been "burning house" by cam which i looped the entire time i wrote a certain saffianna fic (and now cannot listen to OR read because of it) and "sweet but psycho" by ava max which has been an earworm since april 2022 and the soundtrack to like every saffi fic i wrote between 2x07 and 2x10 airing. for some reason i was able to write with those on

usually i just loop a song obsessively before/after i write tho. like yesterday when i looped "another kind of love" by amy grant for 5 hours and pretended not to see the religious parts so it coded as aro. or "tokyo sunrise" by LP which was the soundtrack to plotting the saffianna fic that ends origin stories. or that time i looped "soolaimon" by neil diamond while writing [fic i cannot remember because i write too much]. (update: i triangulated using ao3 and my youtube history and it's most likely "call me maybe") (no i did not loop that song while writing that fic but yes i have looped that song in the past) (it's catchy)

however. i think the song i have looped the most often aside from "sweet but psycho" is this ava max/avril lavigne mashup. tremendously good earworm. 257billion out of 10

✨ Give you and your writing a compliment. Go on now. You know you deserve it. 😉

u put so much thought into your titles and epigraphs. absolutely wild how they add five more layers to an already deeply layered fic. gonna be thinking about this for the next 5-10 business years <- things i have said aloud to myself while obsessively rereading a certain l'una fic

also your character voices are Impeccable <- thing i have been thinking A LOT because i have finally unlocked the secret to una chin-riley and i'm starting to get there with chapel and la'an

🎢 Which of your fics would you call your wildest ride?

it's the AU. we have not even begun to get to the wild parts, but anything that takes tamsyn muir as inspiration is going to be balls to the wall buck wild. unfortunately for you all it mostly lives in my head. but i can say with confidence none of you are ready. except maybe zanna bc they get my unhinged notes in DMs all the time

writing-wise i think that time i revised/expanded my seven/jay fic and typed a combined total of 23k in 1 week was. a lot. there was also the time i decided to write smut for the first time and i decided to do it at work and people kept coming into my cubicle to chat and i had to pretend i didn't have 1000 words of naked women on my screen. don't write smut at work, kids. it's not worth the stress

fanfic writer emoji ask

[ladyazulina]

August 1st

Hello! I'm happy... or content, happy sounds in a wavelength a bit extreme.

July finished and I have new projects to work on. Isn't it a bit weird that just the change of days from 30/31 to 1 also change so many things?! Like, they're just two consecutive days, but... objectively? They're so far apart. It's weird.

I would rather change projects when I finish some, but like that's not really happening soon, I will have to be weird too.

I didn't think about doing a sort of 'closing of the month'... that makes me remember Patreon and it's nothing fond to remember, so... but I do want to share the big chunk of words I wrote last month! (Yesterday! And the thirty days before it!)

So, for July I wrote an impressive account of 25.770 words. I worked mostly in Iron Valley (with 9.725 words - and still didn't get to finish the first day of Linney's Campaign), and here on Tumblr (counting the words of all my posts, adding to a 7.421 total). I also wrote more of Mimi that I remember... oh, yeah! I finished Chapter 4, finally (with 5.849 words, not the chapter per sé, it has a lot more words than that). There were a few other things, but that was the biggest part of the whole account.

This month, though, even when I want to still write on Mimi and Iron Valley and maybe other stories, my priority is to make an outline of AngelDemon.

I initially wrote it around 2015~2016, a story from a perspective of an angel and a demon, the same story. I wanted to remake it (the same way as every other old project) because I'm intending to take part in an award competition I no longer remember the name of next year (because it's impossible for me to make it this year). I have a plan that I expect to adhere to and it starts with this month of making an outline. I'm going to read that old work to take the information from there to make the outline. So at least for this month, it should be easy to write about other things too... let's see how much of that is true.

I forgot about 4thewords until this precise moment, but as this is the last writing of the day, I will be using all the other writing to make out the first part of it.

I will continue battling these dudes, though

I still have 15 more to go.

(5 more to go so far)

SO, I wrote this post earlier today

Worked in: Narrative Elements. Words written: 178.

I think I was kind of productive today, I also made

Worked in: A post for my personal Instagram. Words written: 342.

And so far, I'm doing good with my August main project

Worked in: AngelDemon. Words written: 1.554.

I didn't know until today how I was really going to work on it, and how it's a double POV story with the same amount of chapters (26) on each side, I think I will work on one chapter of each per day. I did so today, I doubt the chapters are too long to be difficult to work with. I started doing bullet points, but finished developing those bullet points in concise, precise information for the future, to try to erase the need to reread while rewriting next month.

The point is that it was successful.

Pretty very much successful. And I'm very content.

So I will be running this very post through 4thewords to know how many more- uh, Reenu are defeated, so that would make...

Worked in: This very post. Words written: 672.

(Only 2 more are left)

And to wrap this up for today, the summary:

Total words: 2.746. Lower daily goal: 100 ✅ Higher daily goal: 300 ✅ 4thewords goal: 444 ✅

A lot of talk on the first day of the month, don't get accustomed to it.

We have tagging now 😭: @aziz-reads

[miutonium]

OMG SORRY IT TOOK ME LONGER THAN EXPECTED AGSAHSKSKSSKSJSKQ ANYWAYYYYYY My third assessment was yesterday and oh my god the past two weeks was HORRENDOUS, especially last week. I already bought at least 3/4 of the stuff needed for my FYP 2 weeks ago and it's not until last week I finally get it so like last week is the time I can finally piece everything together and oh god my body hurts my leg hurts as I typed this 😭😭😭 I literally go to school almost everyday (except 1 day because I was legit sick lol) from morning until 9pm just so I could finish all the prep I needed yesterday. The stupid box took me 2 days to paint and the rest of the week is me looking for things to fix and then attending class oh god my body aches just thinking about this 🙃

Anyway my assestment went well! I've been stressing the fuck out the entire week thinking about it to the point I just barely sleep at all (like I only sleep for 4-5 hours per day and not sleep for 2 days because I'm just too anxious and my mind is racing all the time) so yesterday after school I hit the bed around 8pm and wake up by the time I wrote my prev reblog lol

I'm straying away from my topic but okay anyway my assestment went well! My supervisor really like my work (and the reason why they keep pressuring me to do well because they really like my topic) and want me to finish the rest of it before my pre viva in 3 weeks. So far I've reach 70% of my FYP progress and now I have to finish the rest of the 30% before I hit pre-viva week.

I like to thank everyone that commissioned me in my previous batch and current batch for trusting me and actually waited for me, I really needed that since I honestly didn't expect my schedule to be this hectic. I want to add an assurance that I absolutely did not forget about my commission and in fact I really missed drawing and painting because I seriously haven't made anything in detailed since February (and my concern is that by the time I am free from school, I forgor how to render akdhwkaiqp dont worry i actually document how I do my renders so if that's the case I can simply open my txt. file and reread it until I understand my process again hskskalsial). I also want to thank my commissioners again because I have been funding my FYP using my commission fund and I don't think I would reached progress if it weren't for the kind people who trusted me and my work 🥺💗

I also want to thank everyone that still sticks to me and this silly blog til' this day despite I don't post anything selfship related since February. I really missed selfshipping and I am so sorry for ignoring everyone too, it's just that right now I am too tired and anxious and busy to even think about self-indulgent thing right now zzzz Final years has been the toughest for me physically and mentally and I'm hoping by the time I'm done with everything I can go back to normal and be silly again on this site.

On to the meh news: My funds are running out and I don't think I'll be able to add more things to my fyp so I'll be reblogging my commission post again just so I could buy the things I needed. I haven't made the clean calculation and I will still need to survey a cheaper option but right now I need to buy a smoke machine, another camera, touchup and safe deposit (at the gallery I'm displaying my work at) and that's going to cost me roughly around $150 bucks. I don't want to make a ko-fi and open donation it just sit right to me when I still can provide something so I rather have people commission me so they can have something in return.

I appreciate every reblog I get on my commission post and I also very much appreciate every kindness I get from people here because I honestly don't thi k I'll be able to be the place I am right now if it weren't for the people here that has been so kind to me these past years so I am so serious in a not silly but also very lovingly way that I am so so thankful for the people here. I love you guys so much 💗💗💗💗

I had my assestment yesterday and oh god give me a moment I need to do my chores aaaaa 😭😭😭😭

[duskwoodgirl4life]

Please Stay With Me

Chapter 11

⚠️ Trigger warning contains some sexual language ⚠️

While MC and Jake where out taking their walk MCs phone buzzed, she took it out of her pocket and saw that it was Jessy again.

MC: I am getting sick of this bitch now enough is enough

Jake: what's wrong?

MC: here take a look

MC showed Jake the message that Jessy had sent, his eyes widened with shock at what Jessy had just sent.

MC:

hey bitch!! You think that's going too get too me? Your wrong me and Jake couldn't be happier, oh and btw I loved having Richy's hard cock deep inside me he told me I fuck better than you. He even told me it was the first time he'd cum in a long time, you just couldn't get the job done he faked all the other times.

Oh and when he would go into the bathroom afterwards, yeah that was too finish him self off.

Jake: what did you do?

MC: I gave her a taste of her own medicine she thinks she can destroy what we have

Jake: don't worry MC, I will never let her come between us ever again.

MC put her phone back in her pocket and they continued their walk along the beach stopping at a little bar too get a cold drink each.

Jessy had finally got her self together when her phone buzzed, she picked it up and saw the message from MC her anger began too boil too the surface. She had too calm her self down if she was ever going too get this test done.

She pulled her self together and went too the doctor's appointment, she had the test done and was told too wait in the waiting room as they were able too find out that day for her.

With time on her hands she pulled out her phone and reread the message that MC had sent.

Jessy: you think you can get under my skin by saying that, your so very wrong soon you will see that Jake is the farther of the baby!! And when that result comes out I will make sure everyone knows it!!

After she sent the text she sat there looking at what she wrote feeling pleased with her self. Before she knew it she was being called back into the doctor's office, they had the results of the test and they came back that Richy was indeed the farther.

Jessy sat there in shock she couldn't believe it, she didn't know what too do next should she tell Richy? Instead she decided too be even more spiteful and send another message too MC.

Jessy:

So thought you wanted too know you need too congratulate Jake for me, he's going too be my baby's daddy!!

After taking everything over MC and Jake where back on the same page, they were not going too let Jessy ruin what they had.

Just as they were about too leave MC got another emaaage from Jessy.

MC: OMG!! Please say this isn't true

Jake: what is it?

Jake: MC what's wrong? Please tell me

MC just stood looking at her phone frozen too the spot she didn't know what too do, she finally managed too look at Jake in the eyes and started too hit his chest tears falling from her eyes. Jake grabs hold of her hands and trya too claim her down the best her can.

Jake; baby please, what's wrong? What ever it is we can sort this out I promise

MC: y-your the f-farther, you are actually the farther of that bitches baby

Jake: what!! That can't be right

MC: but it is, all that bullshit you told me yesterday was all crap. You and I both know you didn't use a condom you fucked her and got her pregnant!!

Before Jake could say anything, MC slammed the engagement ring down on the side of the bar and walked off. He tried too call after her but she didn't answer, she got back too there room and started too pack her stuff. Before she had a chance too finish packing, she started too feel dizzy the room spinning MC fell too the floor. She just about managed too grab her phone and called Jake.

Jake: MC I'm so glad you called

MC: j-jake, please i-i-i need your help

Jake: where are you?

MC: in our room

Jake: don't worry baby, I'm on my way

Jake got back too the room and found MC on the floor, he rushed over too her side and helped her onto the bed. He grabbed his phone and phoned for an ambulance, MC was taken too hospital the doctor's ran all the tests they needed too and made sure the baby was okay.

Jake: MC, I am so sorry please I love you so much I can't lose you

MC: I need time too rest Jake please

She took hold of Jake's hand giving it a light squeeze, Jake pulled out his phone and opened up a chat with Jessy.

Jessy: what the hell do you think you are playing at!! How dare you tell MC that I am the baby's farther!! Because of your little stunt MC ended up in the hospital I hope your happy now. Oh and btw I will find out the truth!!

While waiting for the tests too come back MC got some sleep, so Jake pulled his laptop out of his bag and did some digging into what Jessy had told MC.

Jake's POV

You think you can destroy the love I have for MC, you think you can break up apart by spreading your evil lies. I will find out what you have done I have a feeling that I can not shake, deep down I think Jessy is not telling the truth.

After doing some hacking into Jessy's hospital records, I have finally uncovered your lies I am not the farther you just decided you would stick the knife in even further and tell MC I was the dad.

MC started too wake up so Jake put his laptop away and held onto her hand just as the doctor came in, they explained that MC's blood pressure was slightly up and was stressed, she was told too get plenty of rest and she would be fine the baby was also doing really well, and that there was nothing too worry about.

MC was allowed too leave after a few hours, while they waited for a taxi too arrive Jake told MC what he had found out.

Jake: I decided too hack Jessy's records and she was lying, I am not the farther

MC: you really mean that? It was all lie?

Jake: I really mean it, It was all a lie I love you so much MC

MC: I love you too Jake, Jessy is going too pay big time for this!!

[blysse-and-blunder]

in lieu of a break

10pm, sept 25, 2022

the title is a lie, today and yesterday have both been breaks in their own ways! but the days do start coming and they really don't stop coming, do they. kay @girlfriendsofthegalaxy did a really nice couple of posts not long ago explaining the Theory of her tuesdayposts, to which i have only to add that-- i think for me these are turning into a steam valve, where i let out whatever is happening in my head that has built up over the past little while; they are analytical or creative endeavors in their own way, sometimes, but i mainly write them for myself and my own recall (so that i can go back and check out what i wrote about first watching the untamed, for example, please see iclb 2 or 3 from way back), and to keep track of my days. which is going to mean they aren't Reviews or really Criticism, though i may dabble in both, and any enjoyment or enlightenment anyone else gets out of reading these is incidental. for this one, it's a real head empty no thoughts list of titles, so hold on to your butts let's go.

reading the big mention here is that i just finished susanna clarke's piranesi, which i didn't know how to feel about until like 30% of the way in, and then began to enjoy quite a bit as the whole conceit became clearer, and then found...melancholy but beautiful by the end. honorable mentions over the past mumblemumble weeks to (checks storygraph): squire by tamora pierce (reread), ancillary justice by ann leckie (also a reread); the raven tower (not a reread, also by ann leckie--though i still haven't finished it); and the duchess romance which i did finish mostly out of morbid curiosity.

watching strangely this will be the largest section for once! the escapism has been strong lately-- and there have been many excellent movie and tv show friendship opportunities. in reverse order, i have now seen two episodes of the new netflix bee and puppycat and find it delightful if inscrutable; i have now seen two episodes of the second season of fate: a winx saga also on netflix which i found less delightful, even more inscrutable (since i hadn't seen the first season or the previous show, lmao) but extremely funny to watch alongside more deeply invested jammies; i have now seen the first three episodes of andor and found diego luna as charming as ever; i have now seen the prestige (2006) and it did lodge in my brain in the way only very rare movies do; i have now seen the newest three (?) episodes of star trek: lower decks and did think the most recent one with the recruiting booth and the rutherford memories plotline to be incredible star trek and some of the best lower deck stuff yet; i did make my housemates watch a double-feature of the princess diaries (2001) and the princess diaries 2: royal engagement (2004), which were extremely fun and also wild opportunities for early- oughts media criticism and an in-depth examination of the portrayal of hereditary monarchy (and on the heels of qe 2's death, no less);

i FINALLY took advantage of living where i do to get to a festival screening of a film during the actual festival and have now seen catherine called birdy (2022) on the big screen (it'll be out on prime soon) which i genuinely enjoyed as a huge fan of the book and despite my feelings abt lenaham herself-- bella ramsey was perfect, andrew scott and billie piper didn't disappoint, and i could go into excessive detail about what i liked and didn't like as a medievalist but the takeaway here was 'way better than i expected, yes even that part'; *breath* AND i have now seen true grit (2010) and had some more thoughts about tragedy/catharsis/the fragility of human life. i have, as they say, the range.

huh--that's an interesting commonality i hadn't considered before, the number of 14-year-old girl protagonists in this list-- can you even imagine maddie true grit, mia from the first diaries film, and catherine birdy in a room together.

listening checked out rina sawayama's new album hold the girl (2022) and will drop in the video for the title track here. as with her other stuff, i really like her voice, her timber/range/etc seems really rich and pleasing to me, and then there'll be just...something about a song's production or whatever that turns me off of it. in this particular song, the lyrics are what got me to listen, and then the melody and her delivery next-- but i continue to be irritated by whatever spice girls pop production beat-track kicks in at like 0:27ish. this is the part of me that prefers rock to hip hop i guess, like! just commit to a drumbeat and channel the power / grandiosity from everywhere else in the song into its rhythm! is this a genre thing? is this because she's aiming for 'dance' music? ugh.

playing mostly stardew, but not as much as over the summer, now that i'm back in term time. i think i have noticed a pattern, which is that i feel the same way about trying to complete a timed errand or request in stardew that i do about trying to finish a libby ebook on time; in both cases, the deadline helps me prioritize but doesn't help me plan ahead really, and the consistent feeling of struggle just to fall short (missed gus's omelette by one egg because i didn't THINK and of course had already given him 23 other eggs so those were all forfeit) at the last minute is. hm. disappointing. keeps me coming back to try again and see if i can get it the next time though, that it does.

making made some drop-biscuits yesterday which were rich and pretty good despite not having any attempt at layers; did some mending on wednesday during dnd which was mostly not successful but did keep my hands busy (and will be the groundwork for Actually patching those leggings when i can get the sewing machine); and have now helped my housemates do some seriously refreshing furniture-and-clutter rearranging. also i opened a word doc and now have a few dozen words of creative fiction? which i keep thinking about even as getting back into it seems more and more daunting? it turns out writing for no one but yourself can be fun, wacky and wild huh.

working on this week was a turning point, in that i found reason (and was given permission) to basically abandon the direction i'd been going in all summer, in favor of working on my second chapter and coming back to the other stuff when things are a little clearer. this feels like the right call, and i hope i don't waste the reset it offers me. it does mean that i am i think officially in violation of the pact i made with @witcheryen this summer, since the writing i'd pledged to do is now...going to happen in the spring maybe? please let me know when and if you'd like to exact the agreed-upon penalties, eek. headed to a conference in a little more than a week (!), just finished coming up with a vague direction and pitch for the talk i'm giving to my on-campus research community in exactly a month (!!), and won't see my supervisor in person again until june probably. this does all explain the manic tv / movie watching up above, doesn't it. apparently i need to work on having an 'all or nothing' approach to my days, thank you @ therapist dana.

[plant-flwrs]

hello love! i was wondering if you could write a fred x gryffindor reader in which she is in the same year as ron and he’s constantly flirting with her, so she gives him the same energy but inside she’s afraid he’s like that with everyone and that she might be just another one but the truth is that he’s hopelessly in love with her? maybe george can give him a push? maybe a fluffy ending? thank you so muchhh 🥰

smiling kisses // fred weasley

masterlist!

a/n: ok when i wrote this i had interpreted it as you wanting ron and the reader to be friends and now i’m rereading it and you didnt explicitly say that, so i hope you don’t mind that I made them friends lol! i love the flirty but clueless trope and fred is the perfect person for this. thanks for your request! i’m actually so proud of this and I hope you like it!!!!!

(4.2k)

------

“I don’t see what the big deal is!” Ron said, rolling his eyes at Hermione.

“He’s your brother, certainly it must bother you,” she retorted, undeterred by his exasperated tone.

You bounded down the stairs, your hand grazing the wall as you turned to meet your friends. They looked at you, and Hermione’s face flushed red.

“Talking about me?” you teased, sliding onto the couch in between the two of them.

Ron smirked at Hermione, and her face grew redder.

“You were, weren’t you?” you said playfully, throwing your arms behind each of them, pulling them closer.

“Hermione was,” Ron mumbled, and Hermione reached across your lap and pinched Ron’s arm.

“Ouch!” he said, and before you could ask what they were saying about you, the topic of Hermione and Ron’s previous conversation sauntered through the portrait hole.

It only took Fred a second to find you, sandwiched between his brother and Hermione. He and George strolled over, leaning over the back of the couch and putting their faces close to yours. They were on either side of you, and Hermione squeezed out of your grasp and cringed away from them. Ron wrapped a long arm around George’s neck, pulling him over the couch and onto the floor in front of you.

“That was a mistake, Ickle Ronniekins,” George taunted, leaping from his spot on the ground. Ron’s smile faded and he scrambled to move off the couch, missing George’s grasp by an inch as he stumbled up the stairs.

“Ah, boys,” you exhaled, pretending to be awestruck. Hermione giggled from her spot in the corner of the couch, and Fred retracted his head from beside yours.

He walked to the front of the couch and took Ron’s spot, sitting close to you. Your thighs touched, and your school skirt had rose while sitting. Fred’s eyes drifted to the exposed skin, and he raked his gaze over you. You watched his eyes move, and when they met yours a smirk flirted on your lips and you rolled your eyes.

“Very charming, Fred,” you said, moving to pull your skirt down.

“Don’t cover up on my accord, darling,” he said, leaning back into the couch and spreading his arms across the length of the cushions.

“Really, Fred?” Hermione said from besides you, shifting uncomfortably and scowling.

“You look nice too, ‘Mione,” Fred gave her a charming smile and her scowl deepened.

“Don’t let him bother you, he’s all talk and no bite,” you said, turning towards Hermione and away from Fred.

He tugged at a piece of your hair, and you turned to face him again, an eyebrow quirked.

He had an evil smirk on his face, and his eyes were a little darker than usual.

“You think?” he asked, a flirtatious tone dripping from his tongue.

Hermione groaned loudly, fed up with the antics of teenaged boys. She stood and grabbed your hand, pulling you from the couch. Fred was disappointed to see you leave, but he enjoyed the view. You looked over your shoulder, and sent him a flirty wave, which only widened his smirk.

George had given up his chase after Ron’s dormitory door slammed shut in his face. He walked down the stairs in time to see Fred nearly drooling on the couch, watching you leave through the portrait hole with Hermione.

“You’re hopeless,” he said, sitting opposite of Fred on an armchair.

“Shut up,” Fred retorted, still staring dreamily at the portrait hole where you had been moments ago.

“When are you gonna tell her?”

“I tell her just about every day!” Fred said, turning to look at his brother.

“No, you flirt with her. There’s a difference,” George said, picking off a piece of lint from his sweater.

“How can she not know by now?” Fred sighed, sinking deeper into the couch and covering his face with his hands.

“You have to be upfront with her, tell her outright,” George proposed, beginning to twirl his wand between his fingers.

“Maybe,” Fred mumbled.

“It’s disgusting!” Hermione shouted for the twelfth time, her tone just as disapproving as the first.

“I’m sure he’s like that with everyone,” you reassured her, “and I don’t even mind it.”

“How can you not mind it?” she said, looking at you like you were out of your mind.

“I don’t know,” you twirled your fingers behind your back, “I think it’s a bit charming. He’s not always that unseemly, usually, it’s much tamer.”

“How often does he do that?” she asked, her tone softening a bit.

“I don’t know, most times I see him, I guess,” you admitted, smiling at the thought of it.

Hermione stopped walking suddenly like she was frozen in her spot. You turned to her, and her mouth was agape.

“You like him!” she shouted accusingly, pointing a shaky finger at you.

“Hermione!” you moved towards her, pushing her finger down.

Your eyes were wide at her accusation, and you felt your face become very warm.

“You do! You absolutely do!” she said again, her voice still too loud.

“Shut up!” you hushed her, pulling her to keep walking.

“Please tell me you don’t,” she pleaded, her face twisted like a child begging their parent for candy.

“Stop!” you hushed her again, wanting to forget about Fred.

“Just tell me, and I’ll drop it, swear,” she said, pulling you down an empty corridor.

“Fine! I like him, just a little,” you admitted, resting your forehead on your hand and looking at the floor.

“Why?” she asked, seemingly dumbfounded.

“I don’t know! Why do you like Ron?” you retorted, and her eyes grew wide.

“I-” she started, stuttering through her words, “that’s not even relevant right now.”

“See? Not as simple as you thought,” you said, crossing your arms and leaning against the wall.

She did the same, standing next to you, and you both slid down the wall until you were sitting. The stone was cool against your back, and hard beneath your head.

“I suppose it makes sense,” she said finally, turning her head towards you.

“What?” you asked, meeting her eyes.

“Well you’re both always flirting with each other,” she said, recalling all the times she nearly gagged as Fred said something flirtatious to you.

“He flirts with everyone,” you said, sounding defeated, “that’s why I didn’t tell you. He doesn’t like me back.”

“He doesn’t flirt with me,” Hermione started, furrowing her brow, “and he doesn’t look at anyone else the way he looks at you.”

Her tone of disgust changed to the tone she had when she was trying to figure something out, looking at it like it was a puzzle.

“Logically, you have to admit that he may have feelings for you. I mean, who would do all that flirting just to want a friendship?”

You rolled your eyes at Hermione. She sounded like she might be right, but she hadn’t accounted for something; Love and Fred do not follow the rules of logic.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Fred drawled, sliding into the bench next to you.

“Morning,” you said plainly.

You were a bit haunted by Hermione’s words. You had never thought in depth about yours and Fred’s relationship. He flirted with you, so you flirted back, simple. Now, the threat of real feelings loomed behind each of your words, and the pressure was too much.

“Sleep well?” he asked, leaning his shoulder into you as he scooped some eggs onto his plate.

“Yeah. You?” you kept your head buried in your newspaper, reading the moving advertisements over and over.

Fred looked at you curiously. You were never this dry with him, you always had something on the tip of your tongue. He was worried he went too far yesterday, maybe he had been too obvious. Did you not reciprocate his feelings after all?

“I slept wonderfully. Dreaming about you, of course,” he continued, sounding awfully proper and dragging out the syllables.

You felt your cheeks burn beneath the newspaper, and suddenly Fred’s long fingers were pushing the paper down so he could see you. You struggled to keep it up, but the thin paper eventually crumbled and you dropped it. You looked up at him, his smile widening when he saw your blush.

“Aww,” he said, moving to pinch your cheek endearingly.

He had only been able to pinch one before you swatted his hand away.

“Stop it,” you said, no infliction or seriousness in your voice.

“Can’t help it,” he said, balancing his cheek in his palm and staring at you.

You fought the shy smile rising on your lips and rolled your eyes at him. He was leaning closer to you, smiling. Just as he was inches away, peering into your eyes, you pulled the newspaper up to separate you two. Ron laughed evilly next to you, having watched the entire exchange.

Fred reached behind you and hit Ron upside the head. He cleared his throat awkwardly and straightened his tie, moving his attention to George who was sat across from him.

Fred caught his twin’s eyes and widened them as if to ask “did you just see that?”. George gave him a sympathetic nod, feeling some second-hand embarrassment for his brother.

Hermione pulled you away from Harry and Ron the second you left breakfast, and you wondered why she hadn’t tried out for beater with the grip she had.

“Ouch! Hell of a grip, ‘Mione!” you mumbled to her when you were out of the boy’s earshot.

“I wanted to talk to you, mind if we go the long way?” she asked, not waiting for your answer as she pulled you down a hallway with long rays of sunshine casting onto the floor.

“What’s up?” you said, finally being released.

“What was all that with Fred? It looked like he was going to kiss you for Merlin’s sake!” she waved her hands while she talked, nearly hitting your shoulder.

You ducked and widened your eyes at her evaluation of breakfast. Was Fred trying to kiss you? At 7 in the morning? That was his grand plan if he did like you?

“No he wasn’t!” you said with disbelief. It had come out more like a gasp than a protest, and Hermione’s eyes widened at your cluelessness.

“He was! And you put up the newspaper! It was horribly awkward, really,” Hermione rambled, ignoring your loud and embarrassed groan and the sound of your palm hitting your face.

“I thought he was just being annoying,” you mumbled, replaying the events in your mind, “I mean who kisses someone right before breakfast?”

“This is going to be difficult,” she said, seeming to be lost in thought.

“What is?”

“Getting you two together, of course,” Hermione said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

George was tired of Fred’s elongated sighs and downcast lips.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he reassured his brother for the millionth time.

“It was awful,” Fred groaned, hiding his face into the wall they were leaning against.

“She probably didn’t even realize, mate,” George said, but he knew he didn’t mean it. He had very little hope for his brother.

“She doesn’t fancy me, it’s confirmed,” Fred said miserably, trying to suppress the very real sadness he was feeling.

Fred moped around for the next few days, and it was starting to affect George. Fred never wanted to go to the common room in case you were there, and they locked themselves away in their dorm most afternoons.

George had to cheer his brother up, Lee was no replacement when it came to pranks. The idea had struck him one of the many afternoons he spent looking out the window by his bed, longing for Quidditch season. He had been thinking about how amazing it would be to be out on the pitch, beating Slytherin 100-0, when he was inspired. He sat from his spot on the windowsill and told his brother all about the genius plan.

The next morning, they had gotten to the Great Hall early, as they discussed. They had cast all the charms and were waiting to watch the results. The other tables slowly began to fill up, and the genius of George’s plan was that he knew Snape was calling a house meeting this morning. This meant that when all the Slytherins would come down for breakfast, everyone would already be there to watch the prank.

Even though his eyes were locked onto the Slytherin table, Fred did not miss you walking in with Ron. You and Ron usually slept late, and often missed breakfast if it weren’t for Hermione. Fred watched your eyes divert his own, instead, focusing very hard on what Ron was saying. His happiness faltered for a moment, until George elbowed him, bringing his attention to the herd of Slytherins walking in.

The first people to sit on the benches were promptly launched into the air, and one of them happened to be Draco Malfoy, which really was the icing on the cake in Fred’s opinion. More and more people began bouncing on the bench like it was made of a bouncy rubber (it was) and laughs filled the hall. The bench made a comedic wobbling sound as it bent and curved to each student falling onto it. Arms flailed and eyes widened.

Dumbledore’s icy eyes looked entertained for a moment before he waved his wand and all of the students were frozen in the air. He guided them to the ground safely and instructed them not the get back on the bench. The group of students in green ties scowled, immediately looking towards the Gryffindor table. The twins smiled and waved innocently, standing to the sound of wild applause. They couldn’t help it, they were willing to take the credit if it meant detention.

And it did mean detention. Snape had walked over so fast, that Fred and George felt a gust of air as the black cloak halted in front of them.

They were charged with polishing the hundreds of cauldrons in Snape’s room and had to take extra care to Snape’s personal large cauldron in the front of the room.

They had been doing this for a few days, their spirits yet to be broken. They were given a brush the size of a fingernail, though, so they weren’t making much progress.

Sneaking out past curfew wasn’t something you and Harry did often, but tonight you found yourselves doing it quite easily. You realized, while studying with Hermione, that you had left your Potions textbook at the girl's bathroom in the dungeons. You made Harry go with you to retrieve it because you were too scared to go on your own. He offered you the invisibility cloak and you gladly accepted, moving close to him as he slid it over you and you made your way to the dungeons.

You held your breath almost the entire time, and Harry had to remind you to keep your eyes open. He nearly yelped when you stepped on his foot for the fifth time.

“Sorry!” you whispered, giving him an apologetic look.

You eventually made it to the dungeons, slowly creeping down the stairs. You entered the hall and saw that the door to Snape’s classroom was open, some light coming from it. Harry looked at you and you shrugged.

You slid from under the cloak and slipped into the bathroom. You easily found your textbook and hurried to the door. When you opened it, you figured it might be stuck, because the door wouldn’t open. Harry might be playing a joke, you thought, so you chuckled and pushed harder. The door swung open, and you fell to the floor. When you got up, dusting your knees, you realized who you had knocked to the ground. Snape was a mess of black clothing, his greasy hair scattered across his face.

“Professor! I’m so sorry!” you began, still speaking in a hushed tone.

“I hadn’t realized you were out here, I thought the door was stuck!” you continued, watching him slowly get to his feet, a look of rage slowly overcoming his features.

“What are you doing out past curfew?” he snarled, dusting off his robes.

You looked around, and couldn’t find Harry. He must have put the invisibility cloak on. You couldn’t blame him, he definitely would have gotten the worst of it from Snape. You glanced behind Snape, towards his classroom. Two redheads were peeking out from the crack in the door. It was Fred and George. You remembered they had gotten detention for their prank a few days ago. Your cheeks became a deep red, out of fear and embarrassment.

“I was trying to study sir, but then I realized I had left my textbook down here. I had to get it, I have to finish the essay you assigned,” you said, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

You heard a snicker from Snape’s classroom, undoubtedly from Fred, and Snape whirled around to face them.

“You two! You’re dismissed, back here tomorrow, same time,” Snape snarled, and when neither of them moved he raised his voice, “go!”

They walked off slowly, looking over their shoulders at you. You ducked your head down, trying to hide your face.

“You will be joining them for detention this week,” Snape snarled, peering down at you with disgust, “cleaning my cauldrons.”

You sighed, nodding your head. It was already Wednesday, so you supposed you’d only have to do it for two days.

“Yes, sir,” you mumbled and rushed past him and up the stairs.

When you climbed the stairs, you put your hand over your heart, trying to slow it down. Coming to the final step, you were met with three too joyful faces.

“Rotten luck,” George said.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Harry said, only his head peeking out from the cloak.

“Professor! I’m so sorry!” Fred finished, imitating your voice and tumbling into George as you had tumbled into Snape.

You blushed, even more, feeling your entire face get red.

“Some help you are, Harry,” you said, shoving his invisible shoulder.

He stumbled back and gave you an apologetic smile. You and Harry walked a few paces in front of the twins, arguing over whose fault the whole thing was.

Fred watched you, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He had so much he wanted to say to you, so much he wanted to finally confess, but it was stuck in his throat.

“Well, now you’re going to be stuck in a room with her,” George began, talking only so Fred could hear him, “maybe now you’ll tell her.”

Fred rolled his eyes, “Yeah, and maybe the sky will be red tomorrow.”

George huffed out a breath, tired of hearing his brother’s excuses. George was a big believer in saying how you felt, and he was sick of this little cat and mouse game you and Fred were playing.

The four of you slipped into the portrait hole, and you were upset to see it was just as crowded as when you left. Hermione and Ron were huddled over their Transfiguration homework, and she was talking animatedly to Ron about a vanishing spell she had read about.

“Y/N, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!” Hermione said as you settled into the couch next to her.

“Just Professor Snape,” George teased from an armchair next to her.

“You got caught?” she said as if she was asking if they had also killed someone while they were out.

“Oh yeah, Snape caught her right as she fell on top of him!” Fred called from where he stood behind George.

Harry offered no help, sitting lamely on the floor by Ron’s feet. You hid your face behind Hermione, slumping into her.

“Are you alright?” she asked, trying to lift your head from her shoulder.

“It was so bad,” you said, cringing as you remembered it.

The twins laughed loudly, drawing the attention of anyone who was near them. Harry began to chuckle and Hermione hit his shoulder.

“What happened?” she asked, finally sitting you back upright

“Harry was supposed to keep watch!” you said, standing and pointing down at him accusingly.

“I was!”

“Then how did Snape end up right in front of the door?”

“He just walked there? What was I meant to do?”

“I don’t know! You could have given me a little knock so I didn’t bust the door down on him!”

You and Harry yelled at each other with no real aggression, and a smile flickered on your lips when you couldn’t suppress it anymore.

George jumped from his chair and pulled Fred to stand in front of everyone. George pretended to be pushing down a door, which made Fred become brooding and intimidating like Snape. He twisted his face into a scowl and hugged his arms around his waist as if he was holding shut a robe. George fell onto Fred, sending Fred to the ground. George stood, putting on an exaggerated innocent look and covering his pouting mouth with his hands.

“Professor!” he raised his voice to the highest octave it would go, “I am so sorry!”

“Detention!” Fred screamed, copying Snape’s signature drawl.

“Yes, sir,” George screeched, putting his hands in his face and pretending to cry.

“I did not cry!” you said, laughing.

“Oh, you didn’t? Could have sworn we heard some crying,” George said, wrapping a brotherly arm around your shoulder.

“You got detention?” Hermione asked, standing from her seat with a bewildered expression.

“Yeah, two days with these idiots,” you said, pointing a thumb at Fred and George.

You met Fred’s eyes, and his laughter soon faded to a look of admiration. You looked away from him, blushing.

“Oh, that’s awful!” Hermione said, falling back into the couch.

You moved from George’s arm and sat next to Hermione again, pulling your Potions textbook to your lap. You peaked at Hermione’s, trying to find the right page.

Harry and Ron were still laughing, and a smile ghosted your lips.

You managed to finish your Potions essay, and upon seeing Snape’s glare when you turned it in, you were not looking forward to detention.

You said goodbye to a disappointed Hermione, and giggling Ron and Harry, sulking down to the dungeons where you had to spend your evening.

“Here,” Snape handed you the smallest cleaning brush you had ever seen and shoved a filthy cauldron into your arms.

You sank into a stool and cradled the heavy thing in your hands, dipping the brush into a cleaning solution Snape gave you. He left the room with a sweep of his robes, and the thought of using magic to clean the cauldrons crossed your mind. You decided against it though, figuring Snape would just give you some other act of labor to do instead.

You waited for the twins to stumble in, they were already late. When they eventually showed up, according to your watch, 20 minutes late, there was only one of them. Fred’s tie hung undone around his neck, and his collar was unkempt.

“Hello, love,” he said, pulling up a stool across from you and moving a cauldron between his hands as if it weighed nothing.

“Hi, Fred,” you said, smiling politely at him, “where’s George?”

Fred sighed and put the brush to the cauldron.

“Prank backfired, he’s in the infirmary for warts,” Fred explained, gesturing to his face, where George presumably had the warts.

“Yuck,” your fast twisted with disgust, but a smile was still there.

Fred chuckled at your reaction and nodded.

“So it’s just us tonight,” Fred said, and insinuation on the tip of his tongue.

“Guess so,” you said, unbothered.

“Haven’t spoken in a while,” he said, looking up at you while you kept your eyes locked on the cauldron in your lap.

“Been busy?” you asked him, hoping he wasn’t going to mention the newspaper incident.

“Oh, this and that,” he said, abandoning the cauldron and resting his elbows on the table, “you?”

“This and that,” you replied, looking up to meet his eyes.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, a smirk contrasting to the genuine tone of his words.

“That’s sweet, Freddie,” you replied, shocking yourself with the levelness of your voice.

“Freddie?” he repeated, undeterred.

“Freddie.”

“Only girlfriends have called me Freddie,” he said, smirking still.

You felt your face warm, “Oh the long list of girlfriends you’ve had? Who was there?” you paused, pretending to be in deep thought, “Angelina for a week or two?”

Fred chuckled, gazing at you.

“Future girlfriends too,” he said simply.

It took you a second to realize what he had meant, and when you did you were sure you were bright red. Your hand brushing the cauldron stopped. You tried to think of something to say, focusing on keeping a steady voice, but all you could think of was: “Shut up.”

Fred laughed, his shoulders shaking. He shook his head with something like amazement at you, grinning like a fool.

“Do you want to call me Freddie?” he said suddenly after it had been quiet for a while, his tone a little serious.

“What?” you squinted your eyes in confusion.

“Do you want to call me Freddie? Like a girlfriend would,” he said, and his face was stern. His eyes were locked onto yours.

“Do I want to be your girlfriend?” you repeated to him, your mouth open in shock.

“Do you?” he said, leaning over the table, closer to you.

“Fred,” you said, feeling dumbstruck. You didn’t know what to say, but a smile crept onto your face.

“Yeah,” you said finally, and his eyes widened.

“Really?” he said, smiling like a mad man.

“Really,” you repeated, nodding.

“Cool,” he said, still smiling widely and not knowing what to do with himself.

“Cool?” you laughed, putting the cauldron down.

Fred stood from his stool and pounded his fist into the air, celebrating.

You laughed, covering your face in your hands.

You felt him move to stand next to you, and you lifted your head, looking up at him. He gazed down at you, still smiling.

“Freddie,” you teased, dragging out the word.

His smile turned into a crooked grin. He pulled your face up to his, cupping your cheeks.

His dazed smile didn’t falter as he pressed his lips to yours, and you found it feeling quite awkward. His lips were pulled tight into a closed smile, and his eyes were wide open with glee as he kissed you. You pulled away, laughing and ducking your face into his chest. You felt his chest move with laughter, his arms snaking around you. His fingers toyed with the hem of your sweater until his long, nimble fingers ducked under it. He traced little swirls on the skin of your lower back, and you pressed your cheek against his chest.

“Call me Freddie again?” he said, and you could hear the smile on his face.

“I don’t know,” you trailed, pulling your face away from him and looking at him through your eyelashes, “you might enjoy it too much.”

He groaned teasingly, his head lulling back as he looked at the ceiling. When he met your gaze again, his smile softened into a plain face. He pulled you from your seat, stepping back an inch to give you just enough room to stand. You were still pressed against him, his arms wrapped around you.

His resting lips were much nicer to kiss, your faces met in just the right way. You thought the two of you may have melted together somehow, moving in perfect synch. One of his hands trailed up your back, tickling you ever so slightly and rested on the back of your neck. He pulled you closer there, deepening the kiss and slipping his tongue in. It grazed your bottom lip, and you felt his eyebrows furrow against your face. He breathed in deeply, his hand on your neck moving to burrow itself in your hair. He grabbed a fistful of it and pulled you back gently. You struggled to open your eyes for a moment, and when you did you saw Fred grinning at you.

You leaned in close again, this time going to his ear. “Freddie,” you whispered.

He leaned back, as if in a fit of laughter, and pulled you into a tight hug. He groaned playfully again, and you laughed at the reaction you could cause.

You slid out of his grasp and back onto the stool. He pulled up the stool next to you and sat very close. Your knees touched, and he watched you dreamily as you began to scrub the cauldron again.

“Finally!” George said as he strolled into the classroom, wart free.

“All patched up?” you asked him, and Fred acted as if George wasn’t even there, still staring at you.

“Oh, yeah, easy fix,” George said, taking Fred’s previous seat across from you. He continued Fred’s cauldron, picking up the discarded brush.

“So you two finally got together?” George asked after some time had passed, glancing up at you while you cleaned.

“What makes you say that?” you asked, elbowing Fred as he leaned very close to your face, like he was memorizing every detail.

“Well, I think Fred is drooling,” George said, kicking his brother’s leg under the table.

[chaninfused]

NO, I BOW BEFORE YOU

Speaking in Tongues: Part Two | Yang Jeongin

◤“This was how you would face the world. You would wear his horrors like the nobility did their jewelry. Proud. Unbroken. And you would see to his downfall, even if your initial plan had failed.”

After a siege goes wrong, the general hastens to remedy the disaster and find the lost victims while the rogue dancer left behind continues to fight the ghosts of her past.

◤Disclaimers: From the world of Danse macabre (no need to read beforehand). Fantasy inspired by Arabian mythology. Lots of angst, no fluff really. Includes descriptions of violence and injury, as well as murder and death. Please proceed with caution. Depictions of a human trade. Alludes to mature themes (not explicit) and recalls occurrences of sexual assault (not romanticized, obviously). This does not refer to a historical event of my knowledge, nor does it reference real life nations or people. Female reader insert. View the glossary here. Playlist.

◤Word count: 13.6K

◤Note: This idea is a 100% mine and any case of similarity with someone else’s is purely coincidental. Events are pure fiction. Please do not take my content without my consent. masterlist.

Part One | Part Two: Sword and Storm | Part Three

“Mawlati!” Jeongin crashed through the door of the elegant office, terror making disarray of his appearance.

The queen stood from her ornate velvet chair, both startled and confused. She didn’t recall seeing the general perturbed like that before. “What’s wrong?”

“We need…to send a message to the governors,” he spoke through strained breaths as though he’d run across the palace to find her.

“Of course.” she motioned for her messenger, though the frown of confusion never left her graceful features. She knew that the general had an important mission that night. “What happened at the Junayna?”

He looked at her as though it shamed him to admit his next words. “They abandoned it. I’ve dispatched several squads to find them. We need to alert the other cities and the harbor before they make it too far.”

Keep reading

[kishillaa]

SSM21 Day 10: Distant

"You'll write for me. Promise me you will." She said between her sob as she started to feel unconsciousness overwhelming her.

-

Being in a secret relationship without give anything away to Kakashi and Naruto, or anyone else for that matter, was simply hard.

Now that she is so far away from him, making it even more difficult. Him being at Orochimaru's hideout, while his darling Sakura is all the way in Konoha. Without even mean to, he has created distance in between them. And at the moment like this, when it's dark and cold and pin-dropped silence, all he could think of is her heart shaped face, her emerald expressive green eyes, and of course her beautiful pink locks. He does like how she looks in her short hair, even though he did previously prefer the long one. She had said that it got in the way while they're in the wild as an excuse for Naruto and Sasuke personally agreed to that action, although he did know the real reason behind the chopped mane.

And then, there's part of him that miss her that he wouldn't dare to admit to anyone.

He missed her hugs; Sasuke definitely enjoy the warm and comforting embraces of Sakura.

"Sasuke-kun. Don't struggle too much, please. I just need to hug you right now." She had said, with her teary eyes. When Sasuke was sure Naruto and Tsunade had left the room, Sasuke snakes one of his arm around Sakura's waist and buried his face in the crook of her neck. It makes her cried even harder.

He missed how she desperately asked him for dates too, in spite of their usual secret night meeting.

Naruto was there with Kakashi and they had just finish one of their D-rank missions, "Sasuke-kun." She calls out, earning his attention to look over at her, "Let's get something to eat, j–just the two of us."

And then something like,

"Eh, Sasuke-kun, do you think you can help sharpen my weapons?" She bites her lips before letting it out as she continus, "There's this new restaurant open in town, we can try the new food while you're sharpening."

Really, it gets weird over time. While he usually makes rude remarks and bluntly reject her proposal, he genuinely impressed with her effort.

Thinking about that, Sasuke remembered her blushes. He missed that cream colored cheeks changed to the color of her hair–or brighter, when something excited or embarrassed her.

Sasuke touch her cheeks, "You're wrapped up." he had said, gesturing at her wounded shoulder he had cleaned and wrapped with bandage. She has gotten stabbed by Amegakure genins as she shield Idate from the attack. At their closs proximity, and his touch, Sakura went red as she blushed. She tucked few of her fallen strands of hair behind her ears before she place a soft peck of kiss on his cheek, "Thank you, Sasuke-kun."

He most definitely missed their innocent kiss too. Sakura usually the first to initiate that. Only until he's comfortable enough then he will be the one started it, which isn't bad because he likes kissing her, and if that's not enough, then Sakura's delight expression makes it worth even more.

Tucking Sakura's falling hair behind her ears–which he noticed she often do before kissing him–Sasuke leaned down cautiously and cover her waiting lips with his, softly kiss her before he pulls away. He stares at her deep green eyes as he examined how she takes it before Sakura yanked him closer by his neck and kiss him for real.

He especially missed her coconut smell shampooed hair she had started to use after the Chunin Exam.

"Your hair smells different." He commented when they sat on the dock at the Uchiha district, his hand acted as a comb as it makes it through her hair releasing the few knots here and there. The pink haired girl was leaning against him, her hands circling around his waist as they sat side by side, legs dangling at the edge of the dock.

It was always very silent in the Uchiha district, and no one dare to go into the district, somehow afraid of the ghost of Uchihas still lingering around. Sasuke likes it better that way, especially now that he needed all the silence in the world as he sits with Sakura, liking the secrecy of their relationship.

Sakura makes a face as she pulls her face away from his shoulder, "Pakkun used the same shampoo I previously used. So, I had to change to this one, coconut with vanilla scent." She bites her lips as she looks at him from under her lashes. "Do you like it?"

"The smell?"

Sakura nodded.

"It's fine." He replied nonchalantly as he looks straight ahead.

Smiling in content, Sakura change to embrace his arm instead, tighten it a little and rest her head on his shoulder again, "Are you okay?" She asked.

That stopped Sasuke from his train of thought. Cautiously, he lowered his gaze to look at Sakura. Her eyes closing as a small frown cover her face, albeit she looks like she's comfortable with her head on his definitely not comfortable shoulder, "Why should I not?"

"Something's coming." Her voice coming out soft, almost like she's going to cry. "I can feel it, Sasuke-kun. This bond we're having, it helps me understand you more. And right now, something isn't so right. I hope I don't loose you so soon."

He had put his face into her hair that night, lightly kissed her temple and sniff into her coconut and vanilla scented hair. A few days after that, he left the village, leaving everyone behind.

When Orochimaru first taught him summoning jutsu, and he finally mastered it, he has sent Sakura a letter through the snake summons. It's probably risky, but that is the extend he is willing to make just to get in touch with her.

Right now, he is staring at Sakura's third letter.

Sasuke-kun,

I went to clean up your apartment again yesterday, and stopped by at the dock to uproot the grass and and clear up the growing moss that had started to cover the dock.

To answer your questions, I've been well. And you heard that right, I'm doing apprenticeship with Tsunade-sama. Training with her was hard; she didn't just train me healthcare stuff, she helped me sharpen my combat skills too, but of course, I'm sure it isn't as brutal as your training.

Speaking about training, Sasuke-kun. How has you been doing? You know I can't tolerate with you overwork yourself, right? I'm not there to scold you about it, but I hope there's another me to take care of you over there. If there isn't someone else, please take care of yourself for me, Sasuke-kun.

I know you didn't ask this, but I'm sure you'd like to know as well. Naruto has return from his travel with Jiraiya-sama yesterday. Kakashi put us on the bell test again. This is where it got interesting though.

NARUTO FIGURED OUT HOW TO DEFEAT KAKASHI-SENSEI!

I'm pretty sure you're rolling your eyes right now and think how could Naruto–our Naruto—thought of something to fight Kakashi-sensei off and won. ~I'm actually laughing right now thinking of you saying it, gosh I missed you so much~

But he actually did it. It was stupid, really. Jiraiya-sama just published the latest book for Icha Icha series, so Naruto just recite the ending part of the book for spoiler–Mind you, he actually did read the book. Kakashi-sensei eventually let his guard down and we were able to snatch the bell from him.

Anyway, I know I said this in my previous two letters many months ago but I am so happy you wrote to me. Thank you, Sasuke-kun. And I missed you so damn much!

This has gotten too long, I hope I didn't trouble your summon. He seems like he loves those rats I caught for him, though he said the exact opposite. He and you are so alike. See you, Sasuke-kun.

Love you always,

Sakura.

He reread the letter again for the second time that day. Just like the first time he read it, his face soften at the first paragraph, feels grateful for what she had been doing. It was one of not so many things they did together when he was still in the village, and in their kind-of-dating relationship; clean up as much part of Uchiha compound as they could when they're free from mission and Kakashi's training. He felt somewhat blessed to have someone like Sakura by his side, who is terribly in love with him, to company his lonely days and do things he didn't ask her to.

He of course rolls his eyes at her over caring demeanour, and non logical uneasiness regarding his health. She has always put everyone else before herself, that's what he dislike the most about Sakura.

At the part where Sakura predicted Sasuke's reaction to Naruto's idea, he couldn't help but smirk. She knew him a little too well, despite the yesrs of his absence in her life.

Sasuke touched the cursive writing of her name. Huge part of him feels content that, even after years of separation, Sakura still loves him. And to that, he is genuinely grateful.

For this time, they had to be distant. But when everything else is done, he promised he will go back to her, to the girl that he knew will always wait for him, always love him.

After all, distance means so little when someone means so much.

[mylifeisactuallyamess]

So I wrote a one shot. I watched the film 10 Years a few days ago and it inspired me to write a Star Wars version 🤣 it just focuses on Poe though let’s face it. This is me after all! Poe Dameron lover forever! I didn’t even name it anything interesting.

Yavin High Reunion.

Modern!Poe Dameron x Female Reader

Warnings: mention of divorce, mention of a child, angst! Fluff, smut NSFW 18+, alcohol, did I mention angst? Swearing and possibly a happy ending 👀 Apologises for any mistakes I cannot be bothered to reread it.

Word Count: 7759

You straightened your dress as you got out of the cab, passing money to the driver before turning to look down the high street of your old town. The sky was dark and the shops you had haunted most of your youth were lit by the garish orange street lamps, you smiled slightly as echoes of memories came to you. You had lived in this high street, spending holidays, or a few hours here and there after school, you could always be found here with your friends. But this was the first time you’d seen it since you left when you were 18.

You were late with everyone inside already, just the way you wanted. You placed a hand on your stomach as you breathed deeply trying to control the butterflies that fluttered manically inside you. As soon as High School had finished you left, the only person you really stayed in touch with was your best friend Jess. She had kept you up to date with what everyone else in your group of friends had been doing and you went through stages of missing them, longing for the summer days where you all hung out at the beach, eating picnics, barbecues and getting drunk as the sun finally set.

You closed your eyes briefly before turning to look at the hotel where the reunion was taking place. The grey bricks gave the impression it was a lot fancier than it looked but this hotel hadn’t changed on the outside at all. Music and laughter floated out of the open windows above you and again your stomach cramped nervously. Your last year at school had been a difficult one and you were ashamed with how you dealt with what happened….Jess had said he was coming and really he was the only reason you had come. Steeling yourself you finally took the last steps towards the entrance of the hotel pushing the door open and letting the warm air wash over you.

The foyer was empty, you wrote your name on a sticker and placed it gently on your dress, you could see some class mates had scribbled in the memory book already and you smiled slightly as you read it realising that no one had really grown up in 10 years. Stands displaying photos stood behind the desk and you made a note to come and look at those later. You saw a camera but no camera man and you wondered if that was better, you were leaving straight after this anyway. Your heels rang out on the stairs as you made your way towards the noise of the reunion.

As soon as you opened the door you felt overwhelmed, the beat from the music thrummed through you and you instantly headed towards the bar ordering a double gin and tonic to calm your nerves. You surveyed your surroundings, it had been decorated with the school colours and you winced at the mix of orange, white, red and black realising how much you hated the colours together. You took your glass as your eyes searched the crowd trying to find a face you recognised, well you knew most of them, older but you knew them as they danced smiling at one another. You spied another room and you hoped there was food in that one, you made your way round the edge of the room quickly slipping into the larger room. This room was quieter, long tables laid out with hot plates of food and round tables that were littered with little pockets of people as they caught up.

Some double doors lead outside onto a balcony and you saw the crowd standing out there, you’d never really mixed with them at school but one caught your attention. From where you were standing you could see him perfectly as he lounged on the sofa, his long legs taking up so much room, he looked smart in his suit his long dark hair hadn’t changed in the passing years but he had a serious look on his expression, gone were smiles he used to have at school. You froze as his hazel eyes caught sight of you and he tipped his head slightly in recognition. Kylo Ren had been the one you turned to all those years ago, he had been the one to drive you to the airport even giving you money and helping you get a job so you could flee. You thought about going over but then the blonde head of Phasma came into view as she laid herself all over him and you quickly moved out of sight. Not much had changed in 10 years at all. You felt sad and you debated leaving as you lost your appetite when all of a sudden you were grabbed. You grinned as her dark hair fell all over your face and she squealed loudly in your ear making you grimace in pain .

‘Jess! Ouch!’

‘Oh my god you came!!’ She almost screamed at you .

‘Yes yes! I told you I would!’ She grabbed you for another hug and you squeezed her back, oh how you had missed her! Video calls had nothing on giving your friend a solid hug in person. ‘Where is everyone else?’ You heard yourself ask and she smirked knowing you weren’t really bothered about everyone else. You just wanted to see him.

‘There’s another room, this one has desserts in so clearly we camped in there,’ she winked and you smiled back but your stomach just went into overdrive as she led you back into the bar and across the dance floor. Of course they were in the dessert room, he had such a sweet tooth. You saw them straight away and a wave of people rose to greet you, Finn was first lifting you off the floor as he squeezed the air out of your chest, then Rose and her sister Paige.

‘Aren’t you too old to be here?’ You whispered to her and she laughed.

‘I snuck in no one saw me,’ she winked and let Snap spin you into a dizzying embrace, he gave you a kiss on the cheek before letting your feet touch the floor again. Next you were embraced by his wife Kare, followed by the clowns of the group Beaumont and Ronith. The group parted as they all sat back down and your breath was taken from you as you laid eyes on the love of your life for the first time in so long. Everything melted away as his intense brown eyes blazed into yours, his curls a dark unruly mess on top of his head and you saw he still wore his Dad’s leather jacket; it just fitted him now, perfectly. He rested one leg on his knee, one of his arms was draped over an empty chair and he didn’t get up to greet you. You swallowed plastering a smile on your face and you felt eternally grateful to Jess as she dragged you over the tables to look at the cakes. But you couldn’t see them, your vision swam and you tried desperately to compose yourself.

‘Well, that was intense,’ Jess mumbled as she passed you a plate. You jumped slightly as you heard his rich laugh rise up from the group, you didn’t know you were going to feel this so strongly, the guilt ripped through you and now you really wished you hadn’t come.

‘He hates me,’ you whispered mindlessly spooning some chocolate cake onto your plate.

‘He doesn’t…’

‘Well he should,’ you snapped softly. You slowly walked back to the table with her heading for the empty chair next to Snap but Jess was just a step ahead of you leaving the only chair available was the one Poe had his arm thrown possessively over.

‘C-can I sit here?’ You were acutely aware the group was watching you both as they talked extra loudly trying to cover up the tension. He moved his arm and you slipped into the chair moving it into the table and slightly away from him. You were immediately pulled into the conversation as Beaumont started recounting some funny drunk story and finally you felt yourself relax but only slightly. Your skin tingled every time he spoke or joined it but it was never directly to you and you desperately tried to ignore that.

‘Oh god and then there was prom!’ Ronith blurted out and you instantly felt Poe tense up. A buzzing noise started in your ears as everything drained away, the memory replaying like it was yesterday in your mind.

You looked at yourself in the mirror, your hair looked amazing, your makeup was perfect and your dress was stunning hugging you in all the right places. You looked up at the knock on the door and you knew it was Poe, you bit your lip as you stood at the top of the stairs, your Dad letting him in. You couldn’t hear what they were saying but you didn’t care as Poe caught sight of you. His jaw went slack and his brown eyes widened as he swallowed nervously, your eyes raked over his outfit and his navy suit matched your dress perfectly. You slowly made your way down your hand dragging lightly on the banister until he stepped round your Dad a lopsided smile now spreading over his face as he offered you his arm.

‘You look stunning my love,’ he murmured before shooting a nervous glance at your Dad.

‘The limo is here!’ Called your mum and you both stepped outside, your parents took so many photos you tried to hurry them up but Poe was loving it. His eyes barely left you and neither did his hands, until the glare of blue lights chased away the descending darkness. You all frowned as an officer got out of the car along with Poe’s father, you knew something was instantly wrong by the look on Kes’s face.

‘Can we talk inside?’ The officer asked and your parents ushered you all inside. You had sat next to Poe holding his hand when they broke the news to him that his mother had died in a car crash, she was driving back from work hoping to catch him before he left for prom but she never made it. In that moment you had seen him break, completely fall apart before your very eyes and there was nothing you could do to help him. Shara had been a wonderful person and you adored Poe’s parents having grown up in their house as a second home. Seeing his pain had damaged something inside you and all you could think about was running away.

‘Am I right? You two,’ your eyes rose as he gestured to you both of you, ‘must have had a great time at prom we barely saw you…’ Snap punched Beaumont on the shoulder as silence settled on the table. You and Poe had never made it to prom, instead heading to the hospital so he could say a final goodbye. You got up, fumbling a quiet excuse as you hurried away from the group. You needed out, the noise cascaded over you from the bar and you could feel yourself panicking as you raced down the large staircase to head outside to the gardens. They were only small but you found a bench tucked away and you finally allowed yourself to feel. Tears slid down your face as you silently cried. You remembered everything, all the promises you made him saying you’d be there and help him through his pain but really you should have looked to yours. You didn’t even attend her funeral, turning to Kylo Ren of all people. His parents own a huge company and they got you a job in England, an apprenticeship and you took it, fleeing your old life and falling head first into a new one. Poe had every right to hate you, you hated yourself enough, hated for running out as soon as you could.

You had tried to forget Poe in England and for a time you did, you fell for someone and he swept you off your feet and you got married. But the cracks that started off tiny just got bigger and one of the last things he said to you was your heart clearly wasn’t in it. And it wasn’t, you’d left your heart here with Poe you just didn’t want to acknowledge it. You blotted your eyes trying to gather up the courage to go back inside when someone materialised out of the shadows, his hands in his pockets as he stood a few paces away from you.

‘Hi,’ he said as he stood awkwardly. You slid across the bench silently inviting him to sit with you and he did.

‘Hi,’ you whispered, clasping your hands in your lap as you turned to face him. ‘Poe…’ he shook his head interrupting you.

‘Let’s not,’ he looked up at the sky. ‘Let’s not drag that up.’

‘Good idea.’ You both sat together falling into a familiar silence but not really looking at each other until he spoke again.

‘So you went to England? Jess said…’

‘Yeah, I quite like it over there.’ He smirked slightly.

‘You have an accent.’

‘Poe Dameron I do not!’ His smile got wider as he ran a hand through his curls, a motion you had adored in High School and still did it seemed.

‘It’s cute.’ You swallowed as the butterflies restarted in your stomach and you tried to find anything else to talk about.

‘So what about you? What do you do now?’

‘I followed Dad didn’t I, became a mechanic but I work on planes rather than cars.’

‘Wow that’s impressive,’ you fiddled with the material of your dress as the next question fell from your mouth and even to your ears it sounded strained. ‘Got a wife?’ He looked down at his shoes as he shuffled them in the dirt.

‘Nope, apparently my heart wasn’t in it,’ he said bitterly and you froze hearing those words again, letting out a shaky laugh as he looked at you.

‘Well I’ve been told the exact same thing,’ he frowned as you glanced at him quickly. ‘My hus….ex husband said the same thing to me and he was right.’

‘Husband….you got married?’ You could hear the hurt in his voice and you felt the well of sadness threaten to rise inside you again.

‘Not that it worked out. I left my heart here anyway.’ He opened his mouth to reply when a shout caught both your attention, it was Snap.

‘Guys! We’re heading to Maz’s place, you coming?’

‘Yeah sure,’ you coursed together. ‘Though I want to look at the photos before we go.’ You smiled slightly at him as you stood.

‘Come on then.’ You followed him back inside and you joined Jess at a photo of the pair of you.

‘You ok?’ She asked quietly as she pointed out one of Poe and Snap looking all fresh faced and happy.

‘Yeah I’m ok,’ you replied. You paused at a photo of you all, Poe was standing next to you and he was looking down at you as you smiled at the camera.

How different your life would have been if you’d just stayed, but you had come across Kylo one night at the beach. About 1am in the morning and even though you weren’t what you would call friends you had been so desperate to talk to someone you had spilled everything to him and he gave you the way out you so desperately craved. You looked up as Poe came up behind you.

‘Come on, let’s get drunk,’ he suggested. ‘It will be like the old days,’ he said as he nudged you in a playful way. You went to step away when his hand caught your arm and he held you back from the group. ‘For the record, your ex husband doesn’t know what he’s losing,’ your breath hitched as his warm hand slid up your neck and he planted a kiss against your cheek, his stubble rubbing against you slightly before moving away and you fell into step beside him.

You noticed how suddenly the dynamic had changed between you, now he wanted to sit next to you, he followed you, his hand lightly touching you now and again as he spoke to you. You tried not to think about the way his body pressed against you as you all squeezed into two cars, the scent rolling off his leather was undeniably Poe and it made you swoon slightly. Finally spilling out of the car you gulped in some fresh air trying to curb the feelings you had creeping up on you.

The bar was exactly how you remembered it, dingy and dark perfect for making out in without getting caught. Your eyes were drawn to a booth in the corner and Poe saw you looking.

‘You remember?’ He murmured.

‘Of course I remember,’ you whispered in reply looking up at him. It had been the first place you’d kissed and right now you felt exactly as you did then as you caught up in his eyes, his scent, his expression.

‘Guys! Shots!’ You dragged your gaze away from the man next to you as you grabbed a glass off the bar, all downing the burning liquid before Jess gestured for another lot. You ordered a gin and tonic and took the glasses over to the empty booth, you slipped in and Poe slid in next to you. The rest joined and you couldn’t help the little flutter in your chest as he brushed up against you when he took his leather jacket off, his white shirt top buttons were undone and you caught sight of a necklace. Poe had never been one for jewellery and you pointed feeling curious.

‘What’s this?’ He pulled the chain out and you recognised the silver ring instantly. ‘It’s Shara’s.’ He smiled and let you take it in your hands, turning it over with your fingers as you felt how warm it was from being against his chest.

‘Pack it in you two! I want to hear all about England!’ You let the ring drop and your eyes flew to Poe’s in panic. You hadn’t told any of them except Jess you were married and you had only just told Poe you were divorcing.

‘Let’s get another round in,’ Poe said loudly trying to draw attention off of you but Kare was relentless.

‘Sure sure get some drinks, but I want to hear about it, you’ve been out there for 10 years not even heard a peep from you. What’s so captivating over there?’

‘Oh you know, I’ve just been working hard, I was offered an opportunity and I couldn’t pass it up.’ You rubbed your arm feeling a chill as Poe got up from the table, Snap going with him to the bar.

‘Doing what?’ You shifted uncomfortably as you looked at your friends faces.

‘Well, I help run the British side of the Alderaan Haulage company.’

‘Wait wait,’ said Beaumont holding his hands up. ‘You work for Kylo Ren?’ You could feel the blush creeping over your cheeks as Poe started heading back to the table.

‘He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ you said trying to keep your voice low.

‘Is he still as much of a douche as he was at school?’ Poe’s attention snapped to the table at Ronith’s very loud question and you felt yourself die inside a little bit.

‘I don’t have any problems with him,’ you said shrugging.

‘But then he left you alone at school,’ sneered Kare. ‘He had a crush on you soooo bad,’ said Jess.

‘Who are we talking about?’ Said Poe as he slipped a drink over to you and sat back next to you, his shoulder nudging yours.

‘Kylo Ren,’ said Kare as Snap sat down gently beside her. ‘He had a crush on the traitor here.’

‘Guys that’s my boss you’re talking about and he just walked in,’ you hissed, sinking into your seat slightly as Poe flung a possessive arm around your shoulders. You felt surprised as the sudden obvious contact and you saw Jess smirk as she sipped her drink.

You all watched as the crowd piled in, they had been the popular cool kids at school, Kylo with his rich parents had ruled the year, Armitage Hux was still hanging onto his every word, Phasma still shamelessly thirsting after him. Then there were the guys, you and your friends had called them the Knights as they always surrounded Kylo like a beefy entourage, as if he needed protecting. Kylo clocked you before they swarmed the bar and you did a stupid hand wave in acknowledgement.

‘That was embarrassing for you,’ sniggered Jess as they all started laughing into their drinks.

‘Laugh it up fuzzballs! I bet I’m making more money than all of you combined!’ Thankfully that started a new debate and you sat back into Poe’s side as you let them argue. You shivered as his hand gently brushed up your arm, you were sure he didn’t even know he was doing it but you didn’t mind. You had daydreamed so much over the last few years and every time you hit a low point, memories of Poe had helped you through. Your phone buzzed and you cursed as the name came up on the screen.

‘I need to take this,’ you mumbled, climbing over Poe not even getting to enjoy the way his hands helped you out as all you could think about is why he was ringing now.

‘Hello?’

‘Mummy?’ You instantly grinned hearing your daughter's little voice.

‘Hey baby, you ok?’

‘Yeah,’ your 4 year old daughter's voice brought tears to your eyes and you remembered why you had hesitated in coming. ‘Just missing you mummy.’

‘I’ll be home in a couple of days baby. Is daddy being good?’

‘Nope, he won’t let me eat chocolate before bed.’

‘Well that’s good…’

‘Mummy...bye.’

‘Bye baby…’ you heard some rustling on the other end of the line and you frowned as you heard your ex husband speak.

‘So when will you be back?’ He demanded.

‘Well my flights in just over 24 hours then I’ll be home soon after that.’

‘I don’t see why you had to go…’

‘Yeah well maybe I needed a break from it all,’ you snapped, already feeling weary from talking to him.

‘I’ve got papers for you to sign.’

‘Can we talk about this when I get back? And not in front of Flick?’ You looked up at the night sky blinking back tears, fed up with the fights, the paperwork and hiding it all from your daughter as best you could. For now anyway.

‘Say goodnight to mummy it’s dark over there…’ you grinned at your daughters sing song voice before wishing her a goodnight and putting the phone down.

‘You ok?’ You wiped your eyes hurriedly as Poe stood by the door to the bar.

‘Yeah I’ll be in a minute.’ But he came up to you, pulling your hands away from your face.

‘I know you. I know when you’re upset. What did he say?’ You could hear a hint of annoyance in his tone and it warmed you inside that he still felt protective over you.

‘Not much, he was just reminding me I have papers to sign and letting our daughter say goodnight to me,’ the words left your mouth before you could think of what you were saying, not that you were ashamed of your child but you just wanted to have a night and be that person you’d been 10 years ago, now you thought with a heavy heart, Poe would look at you differently.

‘A daughter?’ His voice was monotone almost like he was trying to cover up his shock.

‘Yeah, maybe I should have brought her up before, I don’t know I just wanted to be me for a night.’

‘And you flew all the way out here to do it?’ He asked.

‘It’s been hell,’ you stated simply. You took a shuddery breath trying to quell the rising storm inside you but you felt Poe was the one person you could really be yourself around and at a touch of his hand your barriers fell. He pulled you to him and you cried loudly into his shirt, you hated this and you wished you’d never come but you so desperately needed to escape your situation at home even if it was just for a few days. You felt confused as you clutched Poe’s shirt and he just held you, ever dependable Poe. You pulled away not wanting to rely on him like this.

‘I’m ok, I just need to compose myself,’ you said sniffing.

‘Do you want to get out of here?’ He asked his voice slightly husky as he looked down at you.

‘Yeah I should probably find a motel or something.’

‘Come back to mine, I’ve got a spare room. You’re not here for long, call me selfish but we have some catching up to do. I want to spend time with just you.’ You looked at him, you wanted to, oh god you wanted to go. Your brain said no but your heart said yes and today your heart won.

‘Sure, I’d like that.’

‘Let me get my jacket, stay here. I’ll be subtle.’ He planted a kiss on your head and you closed your eyes still warring with yourself. You told yourself you deserved this, even if a small voice at the back of your mind said you were going to break his heart all over again. He returned within minutes, his hand firmly pressing against the small of your back as he led you away from the bar. ‘Jess clocked me,’ he said just as the door opened. He grabbed you as he darted down an alleyway, he clutched you to him tightly as he peered round the corner. ‘She’s looking for us,’ he whispered and you couldn’t help but grin remembering you used to this back when you were dating. He looked down at you, his hand coming up, brushing the hair over your shoulder before gently swiping your cheek, his thumb trailed softly over your bottom lip and you ran it through your teeth as he tickled you.

You gasped as his lips connected with yours, the kiss was quick as he pulled away seeing your reaction. Your brain froze as long gone feelings rushed to the forefront.

‘I can’t….I only have tonight. I have to go back…’ you whispered feeling sad that you couldn’t just get lost in his arms without hurting him. He rested against the wall with a sigh as he thought about what you said, his curls flopping over his forehead in the way you loved so much.

‘What if we just take tonight. Don’t think ahead, let’s just have tonight.’ His voice was low and you heard the edge of need in his tone stoking the fire inside you.

‘Just tonight…’ you whispered as his hand wrapped around the base of your neck pulling you to him but he paused, his eyes looking deeply into yours as his lips brushed you gently.

‘Just tonight,’ he whispered back. He pulled away dragging you into the night.

Once you were inside his house you felt nervous, like a teenager and your parents were away but they had expressly said no partners. Yet you broke the rules anyway. That’s exactly how you felt, the air of anticipation surrounded you both as you silently slipped your shoes off at the front door. His house was homely, slightly messy but you didn’t care, grinning as he grabbed some stuff to throw in the washing machine.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t expecting visitors.’

‘You were never the tidiest person,’ you said following him into the kitchen and you couldn’t help the smile spreading over your face at the noise of indignation he made.

‘I am an adult! I can live how I like!’ You laughed remembering his Dad used to say that.

‘When you grow up you can live how you like, but until then! It’s my rules!’ You both descended into laughter as you finished off Kes’s phrase. He opened the fridge and pulled out some bottles.

‘What would you prefer, cider or beer?’

‘Ooh cider!’

‘Think fast!’ Your hand shot out as he threw the bottle at you and thankfully you caught it.

‘Poe Dameron! I was not ready!’ You said punching him gently on the shoulder, he held out his bottle and you took it automatically snapping the metal cap off with your teeth.

‘I’m glad that never changed,’ he said before taking a swig, his dark eyes trained on you. You snapped the cap off your bottle and took a sip feeling the cool fruity liquid flood your mouth. You were going to have a headache tomorrow.

‘Can I have a snoop?’ He shrugged and you slowly made your way to the living room. It was clear only Poe had lived here, you paused at the sofa, your fingers threading into the blanket thrown over the back. You recognised it instantly, your nan had taught you how to crochet and you had made a blanket with orange and white colours to create some circular patterns. You had been so shy giving it to him sure he was going to think it was stupid but he took it giving you a hug and saying thanks. And here it was 15 years later on the back of his sofa.

‘Poe..’ you looked at him leaning on the doorframe as he watched you.

‘It was all I had of you after you left.’ You took a steady breath at the sadness lacing his tone as you fisted your hand into the blanket. You took a long drink out of your bottle hoping to fight back the tears as you chucked your head back, the bubbles danced on your tongue and you tried to concentrate on that sensation but you could feel him behind you.

His hand took the bottle from your grasp and you let it slide from your fingers as you watched him over your shoulder. Next he removed your coat softly dragging it down your arms and you got goosebumps as his fingers trailed over your skin. He gently brushed your hair to the side and you had to bite your lip as he kissed the hollow in your neck. His hand tracked down your body as you leaned into him, resting your head on his shoulder. You stayed like that for a moment as his arms tightened around you and he breathed softly against your neck, his nose buried in your hair. You could feel the tension building inside you and you shifted against him, biting your lip again when you felt how hard he was through his trousers already.

You could feel your heart racing as you spun in his embrace, you could feel the edge of the sofa digging into your lower back as he pressed into you. You slipped your hands into his leather jacket, teasing it off his shoulders and laying it down over the sofa. His hands went back to your hips and his eyes roamed over your face, your chest heaved as you studied his face. A face you had desperately missed, you slowly traced his lips with your finger and his eyes glowered at you with a smouldering heat.

‘I’ve missed these,’ you whispered gently brushing his soft curls away from his eyes and he leaned into your touch.

‘I have missed you. More than you realise.’

‘Show me,’ you whispered. ‘Show me how much you've missed me.’ His lips were on you in a second, his tongue in your mouth as he pressed up against you. The kiss was fierce, full of hunger and need as his lips caressed yours, his tongue possessing your mouth in a way that left you dizzy and wanting air. Your body trembled as you pulled at his top and he tugged at your dress straps, you pulled your arms out pushing it down to expose your breasts and the smoulder in his eyes made you press your thighs together in anticipation. A fire had awoken inside you, a fire only Poe could create. It felt like his hands were everywhere at once and you groaned loudly as he sucked on your neck, kissing that spot that only he had been able to find. You pulled your dress up your thighs and wrapped your legs around his hips pulling him closer as you leaned back slightly. His hands supported your back as his mouth trailed searing hot kisses along your exposed collarbone and you worked his shirt out of his trousers, sliding your hands up his toned back. You moaned as he stepped away, his hair disheveled from your fingers, his lips red where he had kissed you hard, his eyes glittering with heat and his chest heaved as he tried to steady himself.

He pulled on your hand and you slowly followed him as he led you upstairs, he looked back giving you that lopsided smile that was always full of unspoken promises. He pulled you to him, kissing you gently as he backed into the bedroom, he turned and shoved you onto the bed and you watched with hooded eyes as he undid the buttons on his shirt, pulling it apart before he crawled between your legs, which you opened to accommodate him. His hand slid up your body, trailed up your neck and he pulled you to him for another kiss. You pulled on him and slowly he lowered his body onto yours, his skin warm to the touch and you rolled your hips into his eliciting a groan from him.

‘Baby you’re so needy,’ he whispered as his hand slowly trailed up your inner thigh, gently brushing your underwear and you almost whimpered in desperation for him to touch you. He hooked a finger in the band and began to shimmy them down your legs, leaving a line of wet kisses down your leg as he did. You were so consumed by your need for him everything else flew from your mind as he grabbed your thighs and pulled them apart. The cold air teased your wet core and you weren’t even ashamed with how wet you were, your hips bucked as he ghosted a hand over your bundle of nerves. ‘Patience.’ His brown eyes raked down your hot and bothered body before he dipped down, his face pressed into your inner thigh and you wound your fingers into his curls. You gasped, your eyes closing tightly as his tongue licked up your wet slit, your back arched as you felt a finger nudge at your entrance. ‘You are so wet,’ he murmured with a moan as he pushed a finger inside you.

‘More!’ You gasped and he obliged with another finger stretching you slightly but you wanted even more. You groaned as you tossed your head to the side just concentrating on the sensations he was giving you and the third finger that stretched you perfectly. A groan ripped from your chest as he gently swiped a thumb over your clit.

‘God, you make the best noises,’ moaned as his head dipped down again and you tightened your grip on his curls as he began to suck on you. His fingers dragged in and out of you causing cries of pleasure to bubble up from inside you. Your orgasm came at you in a rush, pleasure flooding your body as you tensed around him, you could feel just one more suck, one more motion and he’d have you tipping over the edge. Your legs shook and your mouth opened wide as the tidal wave of pleasure rocked your core, it spread through you and momentarily you didn’t know where you were, just lost in the wave of pleasure as it swept you away. You hummed as finally your legs relaxed, he crawled his way up you, kissing you as he shed his shirt and trousers in a rush. You wiggled your hips at the feel of his hardness against you burning the skin of your inner thigh, slowly he entered you and you both groaned at the sensation as he pushed into you. You were both so wet he slid in easily, slotting against you like he was made for you. His hands swiped the hair off your face as he kissed you deeply, his hips finally moving as he settled into a steady rhythm. You zoned out to the noises he made, the way his chain jingled against you both, the little huffs and groans he made when you wiggled a certain way had you moving closer to a second orgasm quicker than you’d like. His face buried in your neck and you felt him falter slightly against you and you knew he was close. You slipped a hand between you gently rubbing your clit, his eyes met yours as he quickened the pace. ‘I’m so c-close,’ he stuttered.

‘Mmmm let go!’ He pressed his forehead against you as he pumped into you, bringing you both over the threshold, your cries mingling together as you both released at the same time. He sagged against you kissing you lazily as you both rested in the post orgasmic bubble with each other. You wrapped your arms around each other, enjoying the company but as the feelings trickled away from you both cold realisation set in that this wouldn’t last for much longer.

‘Poe…’ but he stopped you with a hand over your mouth.

‘You promised me,’ he kissed your cheek. ‘An entire,’ he kissed your other cheek. ‘Night.’

‘We best carry on then,’ you whispered as a smile crept over your face.

‘Have you got anymore in you baby?’ Before he could react you flipped him onto his back.

‘You have no idea,’ you said as you nudged his face with your nose kissing him gently.

‘Promises…’ he murmured.

You stood by the edge of the bed looking down at him still sleeping. As you had predicted you had a headache but what did you expect from mixing your drinks. You knelt down next to the bed, not wanting to wake him but not wanting to leave without saying goodbye either, not again.

‘Poe…’ you nudged him slightly. ‘Poe….’ He groaned one eye opening sleepily.

‘Is it time?’ You smiled to try and cover the tears that were threatening to well up in your eyes and you nodded. He looked at you for a moment before pulling you to him and whispering in your ear as he embraced you. ‘We said, just tonight.’

‘I know I know!’ He pulled back slightly kissing everywhere he could reach as he held your face. The tears fell silently as you kissed him back before getting up, time was marching on and you couldn’t afford to miss your flight. ‘I have to go...my flight.’

‘Let me walk you out.’ His fingertips were touching you the whole time until you were at the door when he kissed you. His tongue swiping your lips as he kissed you deeply, you felt the wall behind you as he tried to press as much of himself against you as much as possible and you tried desperately not to cry into his mouth. You felt awful, walking away yet again leaving him standing here alone. ‘I don’t hold it against you,’ he murmured as he tucked your hair behind your ear. ‘If I could have left 10 years ago, I would have.’ You cleared your throat before you spoke.

‘But I should have stayed…’

‘No. You did the right thing, I didn’t think so at the time but for you, maybe for both of us. It was the right thing.’ He lifted your head, your eyes locking with his.

‘But the life we could…’ he shrugged. His muscles rippling under his smooth skin as he held your chin.

‘So what? Don’t dwell on the past, it could have been a really great life or we could have ended up hating each other.’

‘But I love you…’ a sob gripped your throat and you fell against him wishing you didn’t have to leave, not knowing when you could come back.

‘I love you too, I always have and I always will, but.’ He placed his hands on your shoulders pushing you away as he swallowed harshly. ‘We said. Just tonight. You have to go back.’ You nodded miserably, he was right you did have to go back.

He opened the door and stepped away from you leaving you no choice but to head outside, your taxi chose that moment to pull up with a squeal of its brakes. ‘Your taxi is here.’ You nodded sniffing slightly as you looked at him.

‘Bye Poe,’ it was barely a whisper like you didn’t want to say it but you had to struggle out the goodbye this time. You owed him that.

‘Goodbye, my love.’ It took all your effort to compose yourself at the use of his old nickname for you, it was his way of saying he’d keep you close to him always and forever. As the taxi drove away you didn’t look back, you couldn’t or you’d break down, shriek at the taxi to stop, fall back into his arms and you’d never find the strength to go back to England. You pulled your phone out with shaky hands and looked at the photo of your daughter smiling up at you. You were going home for her. The streets turned into a blur around you as the taxi sped you away, back to your life and tearing you away from the one you wanted.

You opened your eyes as the weak sunlight streamed through your curtains highlighting the cardboard boxes stacked up in your room. It had been over a month since you’d got back from America and things had moved quickly, the papers were signed, the house was sold and you bought a small two bed for you and Felicity. She was with her father this weekend and in all honesty you hated when she left. You walked through the house in your baggy t-shirt cursing softly as you stubbed your toe on another box in the hallway, hopping the last few steps you managed to ease yourself into your chair and woke your computer up. With a sigh you checked your emails annoyed to see you had nothing to attend to at this ungodly hour on a Sunday. You slumped at your desk, laying your head on the table trying not to get sucked into the swirling whirlpool of dark thoughts that struck you whenever you were on your own, threatening to pull you in the murky depths of hopelessness. A ping made you sit up and you saw Kylo had sent you an email. Finally, you thought, something to do! But you paused at the words on the email.

You have this week off. Enjoy.

Regards

Kylo

You stared at the email, you didn’t book time off? You’d been working 7 days a week almost every week since you got back. Furiously you shot an email back saying he must have made a mistake but the response was almost immediate.

I do not make mistakes. Don’t make me change my mind.

Kylo

You sat back in your chair frowning, you had nothing coming up, no one's birthdays, it wasn’t Easter or Christmas, no school holidays….your mind spun wildly as you entered the kitchen putting the coffee machine on. You really had no idea why Kylo would give you this week off, maybe he was rewarding your hard work but it was so out of character for him.

You swiftly grabbed your coffee as a knock sounded at the door, you quickly ran a hand through your hair but you just successfully made it worse. You pulled the door open expecting to see you ex bringing your daughter home early but your eyes were playing tricks on you. Shock held you rigid, your fingers gripping harshly to the door but you didn’t register the pain shooting down your arm. You had no words as you blinked stupidly at the person before you all coherent thought leaving your brain as he grinned at your reaction.

‘My love, are you going to let me in?’

‘I — I, yes…..’ you finally managed to step aside noting the large bag on his back as he gently prised your fingers off the door closing it softly behind him. You still couldn’t process he was really here as he leaned against the door, his eyes heavy and weary after the long journey. ‘Here.’ You held out the coffee and he took it, his eyes darting behind you.

‘Is she here?’ You shook your head, your heart beating erratically in your chest as he took a step towards you. ‘So I can do this?’ He whispered as his hand slipped round your waist, pulling you towards him he kissed you deeply. You pushed away, your hand flying to your tingling lips as you stared wide eyed at him.

‘You’re here.’

‘I am, sorry it took me so long selling the house was a pain and convincing Dad this was the right choice…’

‘You’re moving here? For good?’ He turned to look at you, his dark eyes hesitant.

‘I can buy my own place until you’re ready..’

‘No.’ You grinned, a stupidly big grin as you stared at Poe Dameron in your hallway, in England. ‘You move in here, we have wasted enough time.’

‘Only if you’re sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. Holy fuck you’re actually here?’ You let out a short laugh in disbelief.

‘Tired, but I’m actually here.’

‘Jess told you where I was didn’t she?’

‘For once, yes she did.’ He held up a hand moving towards the front door. ‘I brought some extra gifts.’ Loud shouts erupted from outside as you saw all your friends standing on your doorstep. Tears filled your eyes as you greeted them all.

This is what you’d wanted, your friends and the man you had loved your whole life in your life always. Bet you’re glad you went to that reunion now.

[official-weasley]

Love, William (Bill Weasley x OC) - Chapter 9

WARNINGS: if fluff is a warning 🤭

Chapter 9 - Love, William

Theodora had a hard time keeping track of the days as they were going by so fast and so many things have happened. She hasn’t been in her room for 2 days staying with the twins after Mr. Weasley’s attack at the Ministry.

They told her that they were okay but she knew them better than that so she decided to stay in their room to show her support. George has been more agitated than Fred but she thinks that Fred is just better at hiding his fear.

She sat down at her desk, pressing her fingers against her temples, trying to stop the worrying thoughts in her head.

Not having a dad around and only getting a letter from him a few times per year now, Mr. Weasley grew on her as a father figure, and as much as she tried to be strong for her two best friends she couldn’t help but be concerned while being on her own.

Something caught her attention on the edge of her desk. It was a letter from Bill. She has been so occupied making the twins feel better that she completely forgot about it. She always felt better when she read his letters and writing back to him has been kind of therapeutic so she was glad she could reply to him at that moment.

Dear Theodora,

I am sorry to burden you with this but how are my siblings doing? How are Ron and Ginny with everything that happened with dad?

I don’t want to imagine how shocked Ron was when Harry told him that something attacked our father. Is he alright?

How are the twins handling it? I know they like to hide their emotions and usually tell people they are doing fine but I know you know them better than that and I know it’s not my place to tell you this but please watch over them.

It was traumatic for us all at how fast it all happened. Just a week ago I talked to dad and then suddenly, he was in the hospital.

The whole event only confirms that I’ve made the right decision to come back home. I would never forgive myself if I was so far away – I know Charlie is losing it but he simply can’t get a day off to come home. I think I might visit him in a few days. Merlin knows it would both do us good.

Bill

Theodora pressed the letter to her heart, trying hard to hold in the tears. It was enough that the twins weren’t doing okay with what happened to their dad and seeing Bill so concerned simply broke her heart. She has never wanted to hug him more and wished she could do anything for him to not be so worried about his family.

Dear Bill,

Please stop saying that you are a burden. Of course, you’re worried about your siblings. Ginny is doing okay. I had lunch with her yesterday and your mum wrote to her that dad is going to make full recovery. She cried happy tears and her mood improved greatly because of it.

Ron can’t stop thanking Harry for having a vision and saving your dad’s life. He is beyond grateful for it and he is doing better as well. I think he is getting more concerned about Harry and the dreams he keeps having. He said that they are getting more frequent and more terrifying and I kind of worry too.

I stayed with Fred and George for two days in their dorm. They said that they are fine and that there’s no need for me to do so but I didn’t take no for an answer. I know when they are not okay and even if they wanted to appear strong for Ron, Ginny, and Harry’s sake I know that they silently worry too.

With your mum’s letter, they are all doing better and they are going back to their old routines. George didn’t want to come down to eat for 3 days and Fred didn’t feel like pranking Filch at all so you can imagine it was pretty bad.

Did you go and see Charlie? I know he would appreciate you being with him for a while. I wrote to him too, he seems to be doing better but I think he wishes he could be closer to the family as you are.

How are you doing with everything? I know you had the liberty to visit your dad more often in the hospital. I wish I could do more for you – you sounded pretty worried in your letter and I hate seeing you like this.

I know it’s not much, but I want you to know I am here for you if you ever need to talk about anything. I know it’s hard to let your guard down as the eldest in the family and I know you think you constantly have to keep your composure and be strong for your younger siblings but know that you can share your worries with me.

Sending you a tight hug,

Theodora

—

The second Theodora got Bill’s letter at breakfast she got up and went straight to her dormitory. She wanted to know how Bill was doing with everything that has been going on, completely ignoring the suspicious looks she kept getting from her two best friends whenever she hid Bill’s letter from them.

Dear Theodora,

I apologize for needing so long to reply to your last letter. I visited Charlie in Romania and I can say that my visit made him miss family a bit less. I promised him that I will send him letters more frequently to inform him of everything and he seemed more relaxed because of it.

I don’t even know how to reply to your last letter.

You have no idea how much your words mean to me. It’s comforting to know that I can talk to you and I am not going to lie that writing to you has helped me through these past few months.

With so much going on it’s nice to sit down and open your letters. There’s no point denying that I caught myself several times waiting for one or getting an owl and hoping the letter is from you. I am looking forward to every single one I get because I know that no matter what you’re going to write you will make my day.

I am doing fine. Dad has fully recovered and is home now and already making jokes about his accident so I think it’s safe to say he is going to be okay.

I am not going to lie, the whole incident shook me pretty hard but we can’t dwell on the past. He survived thanks to Harry and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

Will I go too far if I tell you that I wish you were here and not at school? I miss having you around and at times corresponding with you through letters isn’t enough.

Please ignore the last paragraph and just know I am deeply touched by your last letter. Thank you.

Love, Bill

Theodora couldn’t stop rereading his letter. She never imagined this is going to be Bill’s reply. She just wanted to let him know she is there for him. It wasn’t a big deal at all but she couldn’t help to stop the warm feeling in her chest when she saw just how much it meant to him.

She kept staring at his signature.

Love, Bill

She read all his letters more than once and she was certain that he never wrote anything next to his name before, let alone that word. What is she supposed to reply to him?

He told her he missed her and that he loved corresponding with her. She felt the same way. She was longing for his letters every day but is she going to admit that to him? He did, so perhaps there’s no harm if she expresses that she feels the same.

Dear Bill,

it makes me so happy to know that Charlie is doing better and that your visit helped him. You’re a great brother.

I miss being around you too and know that you didn’t go too far with saying that.

Corresponding with you has become a routine of sorts and I love every letter you send me and it seems I can’t wait to reply to you. Writing to you has been comforting, especially with Umbridge finding out about DA.

She doesn’t know where to search yet but it’s only a matter of time before we would have to seriously do something about it.

I keep thinking of last summer. I know we didn’t speak at the end with what the twins and Charlie pulled so I never got to tell you how nice it was stargazing with you. Whenever I am anxious and am feeling like things won’t get any better I think of those moments with you and it brings a smile to my face.

I wish we could do that again.

There it was – the time to sign her letter and fold it has come. Was she overthinking this? Perhaps Bill was just so emotional to see her being such a good friend that he simply signed the letter as he did so she shouldn’t beat her head around it so much, right?

Love, Theodora

There. She did it. No turning back now.

Dear Theodora,

please be careful around Umbridge. Ron told me that she is trying to bribe students to talk where your meetings are held. I don’t know her but if she found out that you are up to something she probably won’t stop until she gets to the bottom of it.

Be prepared for the worse in case she busts you. If you can – run away. If you can’t – fight.

I can’t tell you enough how happy it makes me that you are thinking of our stargazing moments at the Burrow. My mind often wanders there as well and I wish we had more time to spend with each other.

I know I shouldn’t apologize again for that prank in the broom closet. However, I would like to apologize for how I acted afterward. I shouldn’t just stop talking to you but I thought it would be easier for you and it stopped the teasing.

Know that I didn’t lock myself in my room because I wouldn’t want to be around you – I hope that you know that I didn’t wish for anything more than to spend more time with you.

George wrote a letter to me saying that you got the shop and nothing else. I think he was just so excited that he couldn’t write the details. How was it? Are you excited as well to start your own business?

Thinking of the summer for a better day.

Love, Bill

Theodora couldn’t believe her eyes. He wanted to spend more time with her?

Dear Bill,

don’t worry. We are keeping it together here. They think they are on to us but the room we picked for practice was the right choice and they haven’t figured out how to get to us yet.

Fred, George, and I are almost done with our plan to get at Umbridge and we hope we are in time for our strike back! We won’t give up that easily, trust me.

I can imagine George being over the roof about the shop! We all are. This year can’t finish fast enough that’s how excited I am to finally run it and to see the boys sell all their amazing inventions! You have to come and visit – I think they are going to make you very proud.

The last few days of the summer have been a blur if I’m perfectly honest. The twins still apologize to me from time to time about what they did to us. Do know that they feel bad about it and so does Charlie – he wrote me a whole letter about it despite coming to get me in the forest.

I apologize for storming out as I did. It was really unpleasant and uncomfortable and I just needed to be alone at that moment, I hope you can understand.

I was thinking of knocking on your door and talking to you about the whole situation but you seemed like you didn’t want to be bothered and I didn’t want to talk about anything that you would feel uneasy about.

Know that it’s long forgotten and I am happy the teasing stopped as well.

Love, Theodora

She sent her letter with a lighter heart knowing that she had a chance to talk to Bill about what happened in that broom closet. He didn’t have to know how she felt but she could make him see that she doesn’t blame him for not talking to her. She did miss him but she preferred it that way – she knew nothing good could come out of it and they were friends now and that all that mattered to her.

Dear Theodora,

I know you are all smart enough to trick Umbridge. I am not big on breaking the rules and pranking never was my cup of tea but know that I am rooting for your plan to succeed.

Show that woman that she shouldn’t mess with the students of Hogwarts!

I will be there when you open the shop, don’t you worry. I am proud of my brothers for choosing this path and I am proud of you for being by their side, supporting their dream, and creating your own path at the same time. It’s truly inspiring to see how amazing you are and how much you’re growing.

Since I am working at Gringotts now and you’ll be working in the shop, we could meet up sometime, if that is okay with you, of course. It would definitely make our correspondence easier (not that I mind writing letters to you).

Your number one fan against the evil toad (as Ginny called her).

Love, Bill

Theodora giggled as she read the last sentence. She felt as if she could conquer anything with Bill’s encouraging words.

Then she bit her lip as she reread the part that they could meet up. She was intrigued by the idea and couldn’t deny that she was thinking of asking him the same herself but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Writing letters to each other was one thing. He couldn’t see her grin when she opened his letters and couldn’t see her blush when she was replying to him. It made the words easier to come out on paper than if they were face-to-face.

Their correspondence grew on her and she completely forgot about the fact that she was supposed to get over him. She stopped caring what he meant with every word and just wrote back as she felt.

Dear Bill,

Umbridge has officially started interrogating people to find out where we are holding our meetings. Everything seems to be getting out of hand and I can’t wait to get out of here.

Hogwarts used to be our haven – a place for learning and spending time with friends. Now, all we can think about is waging a war against her and getting her the hell out of our school.

Thank you for supporting us as you do. I’ll make sure to tell your brothers to give you a discount if you would like anything from the shop.

I would love to meet up. I don’t want these letters to stop but I can’t deny that it would be easier to talk in person either.

I am sure you will get an invitation from your brothers the second we open and we can arrange our meeting then.

Excited to be a businesswoman!

Love, Theodora

Theodora folded the letter and put it in an envelope. It was kind of short but if she said anything else, she knew she would take it too far. Now that Bill will see she wants to meet up he will stop sending her letters and she can mentally prepare herself to see him when they open the shop.

Theodora,

I can’t stop thinking about you.

Theodora was sitting on a toilet lid in the second-floor bathroom. She didn’t expect to get any more letters from Bill but her heart fluttered nonetheless when it arrived.

Fred almost snatched the letter from her and if she is reading its content correctly, it wouldn’t end well.

She kept repeating the words in her head. She knew the letter was from Bill without his signature. She knew his handwriting by heart now.

What is she supposed to reply to this? Or better yet, why did he write that?

She took a deep breath and quickly put the letter away before Myrtle would show up again. She decided to try and forget about it throughout the day as she couldn’t bring herself to write something like that to him.

It would be wrong, wouldn’t it? What would her two best friends think if they knew she was secretly corresponding with their eldest brother in that way?

Of course, she couldn’t get him out of her head either but is she going to admit that to him?

Dear Bill,

I can’t even find the words to tell you how much these letters mean to me. I love the book you got me for my birthday but this correspondence was an even better present that just keeps on giving.

I can’t stop thinking about you either and I miss spending time with you.

Love, Theodora

There, she said it. Now if only could her heart calm down. Her mind kept going in circles, saying that this no longer felt like friendship but she stopped her thoughts every time. She has to be wrong about it. He can’t simply have feelings for her. He told her loud and clear that she was too young for him.

Dear Theodora,

I am sitting in my office replying to your letter. I have just finished work and I wish nothing but to spend the rest of my day with you.

I truly miss you and would I be crossing the line if I tell you that I no longer miss you just as a friend?

Love, William

Theodora inhaled sharply. If Bill keeps writing to her like this she is going to lose it.

Love, William

She read again. He changed his signature again. What was he doing to her?

She closed her The Standard Book of Spells Grade 7 at once. She needed answers. She can’t go on and on about it in her head any longer.

Dear William,

I am not going to lie, I was deeply touched by your last letter as much as I am confused about it.

I am not trying to overthink what you wrote to me as it was clear last summer that I am too young for you, so would you mind terribly, explaining what you meant to express with your words?

Love, Theodora

She didn’t know if sending the letter was a good or a bad idea. She didn’t know if she was ready to find out what he meant by that. She didn’t want to get her hopes up but what else could he have meant by it?

Dear Theodora,

I reckoned I should’ve made it more clear in my previous letter what I meant with my words. Truth be told, I simply didn’t know how to explain.

I know what I said last summer and the person I was back then meant every word. You were 17 and no matter how mature you are for your age I simply couldn’t wrap my mind around being with someone so young.

I guess what I was trying to say is that I can no longer deny that I have feelings for you. I tried, believe me, but getting to know you better through these letters, waiting every day for your reply, you telling me about your day is driving me insane not being with you.

I was always the one to think with my head but when it comes to you, the heart speaks louder.

I hope this won’t scare you away. I know what a risk I am taking for admitting this to you but I know I would regret it if I didn’t.

Anxiously hoping for a reply.

Love, William

Theodora brushed a tear off her cheek. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. He had feelings for her? He wanted to be with her?

She has never wished more that she could apparate from the school grounds as her whole body was aching – wanting to be close to Bill.

For the first time since they started to talk to each other, she didn’t feel nervous to write back. She was shaking but in a good way – excitement ran through her body and her stomach was full of butterflies. She didn’t even care that her heart was beating hard against her ribcage. She could finally tell him how she feels.

Dear William,

how could you even think that you could scare me away? I thought it was visible from the moon that I fancied you last summer.

I tried bottling everything down. I didn’t want to admit it to myself. I knew where you stood and I didn’t think in my wildest dreams that you would change your mind about me being younger let alone to think of the possibility of you feeling the same way.

This school year really can’t come to an end fast enough now. I wish I could see you, to press my body against yours in a tight embrace.

Thank you for gathering the courage and telling me how you feel. You truly are brave and even though I’m a Gryffindor I don’t think I would ever be able to do it.

Those nights at the Burrow when we were stargazing together – just you and me – have been my favorite part of the summer and I hated how we stopped talking. It makes me smile every day that we started writing to each other and I don’t even know when I stopped caring that my feelings for you got stronger.

I don’t want to deny them anymore. I don’t want to bottle them. I want to be with you.

Love, Theodora

There, she did it. She told him how she feels. Now what?

[demurecas]

Six months. It's been six months.

It's all Dean can think about as he gets up and starts his day. Rubbing the restless sleep from his eyes, trudging through the quiet halls of the bunker, pouring himself a cup of coffee, sitting himself down in front of his laptop and the same pile of books as the day before.

Six months on the same case, the same question with no answer.

How do we get him back?

Jack joins him at the table first, a quiet "good morning" murmured as he opens a notebook where he's been recording his research. Some mornings he's more cheerful, bounding in with enough optimism that it's contagious, but today isn't one of those days. He quietly reviews his notes from yesterday before cracking one of the books on his stack.

Sam and Eileen swing by an hour later with donuts, which is a nice gesture, even if Dean's stomach is too sour to really enjoy the taste of the maple bar he plucks from the box.

At least the kid seems happy, carefully choosing an unnaturally pink donut with colorful sprinkles to munch on while he reads.

They make some small talk, mostly about what today's leads are and who is researching what. At one point Eileen puts a hand on Dean's back and rubs a soft circle over his tense shoulders, but mercifully she doesn't ask him to talk about what he's feeling.

Because what he's feeling is failure. What he's feeling is shame and loneliness and fear.

What he's feeling is a loss of hope.

"Dean?"

When he looks up from his laptop, the donuts and coffee have been cleared and replaced with a bowl of pretzels and bottles of Gatorade.

"Yeah bud?" he says blearily in Jack's direction, rubbing his face to distract from the way he's made himself wince. Bud. Buddy.All the stupid fucking names I called him.

There's no answer and it's only when Dean drops his hand away from his eyes that he sees why.

In Jack's hand is an envelope with Dean scrawled across the front. The handwriting is familiar enough to send Dean's heart racing.

His eyes dart from the envelope up to Jack's face with an unspoken question.

"I was saying I grabbed this tome because I think I have a lead on a combination of sigils that seems promising," Jack smiles timidly as he taps the large book in front of him with his free hand, "And this was tucked into the pages."

This time, Dean's eyes look from the envelope to Sam, trying to suss out if he knows anything about what it contains. His brother shrugs and shakes his head.

So he turns his attention back to Jack, hesitating for a moment before reaching out to take the envelope. "Good find, Jack," he murmurs quietly as he pushes himself from his seat, giving them all a weak smile as he excuses himself from the room.

When he's in his room, the door closed to separate him from his family, Dean tears the envelope open. He pulls out a few delicately folded pieces of lined paper, the careful handwriting a perfect match to his name scrawled across the front.

Dear Dean, 

Just reading the greeting makes him dizzy and he has to sit down, perching himself on the end of his bed and bracing himself for whatever may come next.

Dear Dean,

It's a Sunday night and as I'm writing this, you have just said good night and gone to bed. But before you left the room, you looked at Jack and then you looked at me and you said, "Today was a really good day."

It was a good day. It was the best day.

And for some reason, I just thought I needed to write it down. I don't think you get to live in the good days enough. I don't think you memorialize the times where you get to just enjoy your life. So I thought maybe if I wrote it down, you could look back fondly and remember this good day. Some day. 

Dean's vision is already blurring at the edges but he continues reading.

It was a slow day – or as you called it a "do nothing day". We don't have any cases at the moment and all of the longterm problems seem to be just distant enough that we've collectively decided on a day off.

Over breakfast, Sam informed us that he and Eileen had made plans for the day, though he wouldn't elaborate, no matter how much you prodded him. When you gave up trying to get him to reveal his plan, you turned your attention to Jack and I instead, asking us what we wanted to do.

Of course I defaulted to Jack and, of course, he defaulted to me, but when we finally got him to choose what he wanted, he said simply that he wanted to drive until we saw something new, something he'd never seen before. He's wonderful that way.

I expected you to put up a front or maybe tease him a little the way you do, to prompt him to give a more solid suggestion, but you didn't. You just smiled at him and said that sounded as good as any other plan.

Then Jack looked at me, thrilled, and said "Shotgun?" – the end tilted up like a question, as if he was asking permission to call it.

You laughed and put a hand on my shoulder, saying "he's learning" with something like pride in your voice and I wished there was something I could say. But there wasn't, so I just smiled.

I couldn't tell you both that I didn't mind sitting in the backseat of your car when he's riding in the passenger seat. I couldn't say that when I watch the back of your heads turned toward each other as the two of you speak over the radio, it helps me remember that there was a time you two existed together without me before. Reminds me that you two will be together without me when I go.

We drove down a long highway with no particular destination in sight, enjoying each other's company and the pleasant weather. I still don't know if you had a plan of where you were taking us or if you were really just waiting until something caught Jack's eye.

After a couple hours or so, something did, though I think you were starting to pull over before he even saw it.

"'Pick Ur Own Strawberries'," he read the words off the hand-painted sign, looking to you then back over the seat at me, "We should do that!"

I agreed that it sounded fun and your answer was slowing to a stop just in front of the roadside stand, a small smile on your face even as you made some grumbling comment about Sam and his penchant for fresh fruit.

We spoke to the woman at the stand and she gave us each small baskets, though you handed yours off to Jack so that he had two. Then Jack led us through the strawberry patch, stopping every couple of feet to bend down and pick the strawberries that he liked. I would follow just behind, pointing out ones he missed or filling my own small basket with the berries he purposely left on the vine for me.

You acted with your usual bravado, too cool or too masculine to do something you deemed childish or soft, but at one point I could see that you realized you were missing out on some part of the experience, so I handed you my basket and we switched places without saying a word.

It was so easy, so nice to be together like that. No threat of horror hanging over head, just you and me and Jack.

At one point I looked over and you two were studying a perfectly formed strawberry. You had it held between your thumb and your forefinger, the sun casting light over your heads so that you both looked golden. You said something that made Jack laugh and then you looked up at me in all your glorious triumph, your smile brilliant, and I wanted to say, "This is what I want. I want you and I want this for us, forever."

But I didn't. I couldn't, for fear of what might happen. If the Empty came to take me – not in front of Jack.

I hope that if it happens – when it happens – Jack isn't there to see it.

When we'd all finished, we brought our baskets up to the stand and paid for our gatherings, the woman handing over a scratch-and-sniff sticker to Jack who enthusiastically displayed it on his sleeve.

He walked in front of us on the way back to the car, his bag of strawberries swaying gently at his side.

You put your hand on my shoulder and looked over at me with this warm, satisfied look on your face and I just thought 'He must know. He has to know that I love him more than I ever thought possible, that every day I love him more than the day before.'

And when the thought crossed my mind that maybe you didn't know, I almost told you. Almost.

I hate the deal I made. I hate the way it looms over me because I see these glimpses of happiness with you and all I want is to say it – even if you told me you didn't feel the same, even if you told me you could never feel the same.

We drove home the way we came, though this time the Impala was filled with the fragrant scent of fruit as we took turns picking berries from the bag and eating them joyfully. You said you'd never knew fruit could taste so good.

When we arrived back at the bunker, we set some aside in the fridge for Sam, then continued gorging ourselves on strawberries as we watched a movie (Jack's turn to pick – he chose Shrek).

What if every day could be like this?  What if there's a life for us outside of cosmic wars and supernatural crusades?

Maybe you'll find this letter before I ever tell you about the deal and we'll find some loophole to fight our way out of it. Maybe you'll never find it at all and this overly long letter will be lost forever.

But if you do find it, whether I've worked up the nerve to tell you in person or not, I think you deserve to know how much I love you, Dean. If I could document every day that made you feel good, every moment that made you happy, just so you could remember that you deserve to feel good and you deserve to feel happy, I would. I'd dedicate my life to making you understand how worthy of love you are.

Maybe I already have.

So I love you, Dean Winchester. For as long as I've known you and until the end of time, I love you.

Yours always,

Cas

The sheets of paper shake in Dean's hand as he reads and rereads the last few lines, only stopping when he realizes he's crying – because if the stupid tears fall on the page, they'll ruin the words Cas has inked there.

He won't ruin another thing of Cas's.

He remembers the day that Cas described, remembers the sun on his face and his fingers in the dirt as he knelt down next to Jack. He remembers the way Cas's blue eyes looked in the rearview mirror, scrunched up from smiling so much.

He remembers how extraordinarily, stupidly happy he was that day. How happy he was with Cas.

And he lets it all out in racking sobs, the letter dropped to the bedspread. He puts his head in his hands and cries the same way he did six months ago, letting the grief and defeat consume him for a long moment.

A few minutes later, when the worst of it has passed, he wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands and his face with his jacket sleeve. When he's sure his hands are dry, he folds the papers back the way he found them, placing them back in the envelope with care. He places the envelope in the drawer of his nightstand, taking one last look at his name so lovingly written across the front before sliding it shut.

As he exits his room, rubbing at his face again to try and clear the evidence of what he's gone through, he expects to return to a room full of pitiful faces, their sympathy oozing out of them. It's almost too much to bear.

Instead, when he crosses the threshold he sees a flurry of activity, Sam scribbling something with one hand and sloppily signing with the other as Eileen nods, pointing to a different piece of the paper excitedly. Jack is hovering over the tome from before, reading off some passage that sounds ancient.

When he hears Dean come in, Jack whirls around to face him, a euphoric joy spilled out over his face. "Dean!" He throws himself against Dean hard, his arms pulling tight against Dean's body. When he pulls away, he nods, "I think we found it."

"What?" Dean's throat is tight with disbelief, his eyes still burnt out from crying.

Jack is practically bouncing on his toes, looking from Dean to Sam and Eileen to the book again. "Where the envelope was, in the book, a new translation of that last spell combined with different sigils," he says excitedly, the most energized he's been in months, "I think we found a way to get Cas back!"

His name spoken aloud for the first time in days, maybe weeks, is enough to jolt Dean into belief. If they weren't sure, if Sam and Eileen weren't absolutely sure, they wouldn't be scrambling the way they are now.

And if Cas had left the envelope in that specific place on purpose, then he must have believed it could have been a solution too.

"Alright," Dean says, clearing his throat and moving back to his spot at the table. "What do we do?"