#I’ve gotten through act one which is a good place to stop but Suffering would be so fun to do

[app1es0uce]

This episode on: I must go to bed, but I also could reenact the entirety of EPIC while waking in circles around my coffee table by myself in my living room

[bitsandbobsofwriting]

Leon brings Merlin and Lancelot in on his underground enterprise;

Turns out, Leon is the biggest Magic Ally out there. Confusion, bonding, and sneaky hijinks ensue.

I imagine it starts fairly normally.

The Gang (King Arthur, Merlin, and the five knights) have literally just arrived back at the castle after a fairly uneventful hunt (I mean... nowadays, getting attacked by bandits only once in three days counts as uneventful).

Merlin is left behind to help the stablehands untack the horses, like usual, except he leaves the stables half a candle mark later to find Leon awkwardly loitering around outside, the evening dimming around him.

He thinks maybe the First Knight had gotten injured, and was too embarrassed to ask for help in front of everyone (something that is common in all of the knights. Merlin thinks it’s very stupid, and has told all of them this at least once), so doesn’t question it when Leon asks Merlin for a quick word, and leads him back to his quarters.

Leon locks the door behind him. Not unusual, the man was very private. It’s when he puts a chair in front of the door and draws the curtains, that Merlin starts to get a little nervous. He’d cast a small enchantment on one of the bandits, to make him confused enough to trip over his own feet (as opposed to skewering Elyan, which is what he’d been about to do) but Merlin was certain that no one had seen him. He was certain.

And... Leon was a knight. He’d been a knight for longer than Arthur had been King, longer than he’d even known Merlin. Surely if he saw... he would've said something, accused him or just killed him.

(He has to remind himself to have a little faith in his friends. But also: “This might be completely unrelated, so just act natural.”)

Leon turns around to look at Merlin, and instantly recognises how nervous the younger man is, despite his poor attempt to hide it. The knight keeps his distance, and gives him a slow nod:

“I just wanted to let you know, Merlin, if you ever need... ah, a way out of the city, unseen, at short notice, then I can sort something for you.”

At that, all of Merlin’s racing, terrifying thoughts, stutter to a stop, and he looks at Leon with nothing but confusion on his face. He tilts his head slightly, asking, ever so eloquently:

“...What?”

Leon sends a soft smile and a knowing wink his way:

“Or, you know, the back up of a noble in court, or an alibi, I can do that to. I have a feeling that, considering you haven’t done a runner yet, you’re planning on sticking around.”

Merlin just furrows his eyebrows, shaking his head slightly in bewilderment:

“I... Leon I have no idea what you’re talking about. What do you mean, done a runner? Why would I need your help in court or... or an alibi??”

Leon just raises an eyebrow, and tilts his head.

Merlin copies him.

A look of realisation crosses the blonde’s face, and he lifts his hands in surrender:

“Ah. Ok, before I say anything else, I promise Merlin, you are entirely safe. I would protect you with my life if I had to-”

Merlin slowly nods, still confused:

“-I know about your magic.”

Merlin gasps and steps back, but Leon just smiles at him again, nodding his head slightly; it does nothing to relax the servant, and his breathing continues to get deeper as he backs himself against the wall, tears filling his eyes.

Leon frowns, his heart cracking slightly, but resists the protective urge to walk towards Merlin to comfort him. Instead he takes a step back, not lowering his hands. Before he can open his mouth to utter more reassurances, a tirade of broken, cracking apologies fall from Merlin’s lips:

“I... Leon I swear I’m not evil, I... I don’t hurt people, I promise. Please, you... please believe me, I would NEVER-”

Leon interrupts him, shaking his head rapidly, and forcing a reassuring smile on his face:

“I know. Merlin, I know that. I know you’re not evil, I know that you use it to protect us, I know. It’s ok, I won’t tell anyone, you’re not in danger, I would NEVER hurt you, or tell anyone, ok? I swear it. You’re safe with me.”

Merlin gulps, but relaxes (only slightly, but it’s a start. Leon doesn’t know why he’s so surprised at Merlin’s reaction, I suppose he thought he had been clear in his brotherly affection and protectiveness towards the younger man. Apparently not; he would have to fix that). He gives Leon an assessing once over, and it strikes the knight how efficient he is. He wonders how many times Merlin’s eyes have flicked over someone: checking their face for any sign of deception, checking how close their hands are to a weapon, checking their stance to see if they’re preparing for a fight.

Leon stays in place, forcing himself to untense, and giving Merlin a weak smile, hoping that the servant doesn’t mistake his slight heartbreak for fear or anger.

After a few moments, Merlin relaxes even further (though is still understandably ready to bolt at a moment’s notice), and steps away from the wall, Leon’s smile widens, and he nods once again, patiently waiting for Merlin to say something:

“You... you offered to smuggle me out of the city?”

Leon nods, glancing to the door behind him before gesturing Merlin to keep his voice down as he replies cryptically:

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

The servant gulps, giving the knight an assessing gaze, magic buzzing under his skin, alert and frightened at the idea of a Red Knight other than Lancelot knowing the truth:

“You’ve smuggled others out?”

Leon nods and moves ever so slowly to sit on the edge of his bed, still holding his hands up placatingly. He doesn’t gesture for Merlin to join him, understanding the other man’s remaining jumpiness, but leaves space next to him, just in case.

Merlin hesitates for only a second before settling on the bed next to him, forcing himself to relax. The knight wasn’t currently armed, and anyway, if Leon had been planning on accusing him or attacking him, then he wouldn’t be doing this. None of what he said could, in any way, make sense as some sort of trick.

Once Merlin settles, still a little uneasy, Leon begins his explanation in a quiet voice, obviously still worried about startling Merlin (and obviously not wanting to risk someone overhearing him):

“It started when I was fifteen. One of the serving girls in my father’s household was born with magic, though it didn’t manifest until years after the purge started. She was my age, sweet, kind, I couldn’t possibly believe her to be evil or corrupt, but under The King’s law, she would’ve been burned. Poor girl was terrified of being found out, but Uther was so paranoid, they were basically interrogating anyone who entered or exited the city; she had nowhere to go. I had already started my training at this point, so I used my knowledge of guard rotations and shift changes to sneak her out. I left her with some family in a village nearer the border, snuck back in a few days later. From then on it just... kept happening. I suppose I got good at recognising the specific brand of fear that magic-users in Camelot suffer from, and I’ve got a good eye; I know magic when I see it-”

He gives Merlin a knowing look, but the servant just turns indignant and says:

“Well, I was also born with magic, and it took you ten years to figure it out, so-”

He sticks his tongue out at the knight, and Leon raises his eyebrow at him, before laughing and nodding, thankful for Merlin’s lessening fear:

“-yeah, I suppose. But still. It started off with just the occasional person; one or two a month. And then it was whole families or groups of people who either had magic, or were scared of being accused and wanted out. It became a bit of a side-career, though I always refused any payment they offered.”

Merlin stares at him, thoughtful and in awe, before yet another look of realisation crosses his face:

“Is this why the Druids are so fond of you?”

Finally, it’s Leon’s turn to look confused, and Merlin continues:

“Whenever we come across them, they always seem less wary of you than the other knights, like they know what you’ve done.”

Leon takes in slow breath, quirking his eyebrows slightly and shrugging:

“I’ve never really noticed, maybe. I’ve never been into a camp, but when someone I was sneaking out had nowhere to go, I’d take them as close to a Druid settlement as I dared, and pointed them in the right direction; I suppose word might’ve spread.”

Merlin nods, looking to his lap, thinking. Leon stays silent, understanding that this is probably a lot to take in, and not wanting to interrupt Merlin’s processing time. 

After a few moments, Merlin, still staring into his lap, reaches across to Leon and takes the knight’s hand in a shaking one of his own. It’s then that Leon notices the slow tears on the other man’s face, but before he can say anything, Merlin looks up at him, his voice shaking as he whispers a rough:

“Thank you.”

Leon smiles, squeezing his hand and bumping their shoulders together:

“Anytime. Like I said Merlin, I would protect you with my life. If you ever need anything...”

Merlin takes a deep breath, standing and wiping the tears from his face quickly before dragging Leon to the door:

“There is one thing. Come on.”

Leon allows himself to be dragged, and Merlin moves the chair to the side before stepping out of the way, allowing Leon to unlock the door with the key hanging around his neck. He doesn’t question where they’re going, though he is slightly confused when he notices that they’re heading deeper into the castle, as opposed to outside or to Merlin’s chambers like he was expecting.

They finally come to a stop outside Lancelot’s door, and Leon nods to himself in realisation. He had suspected that the other knight had known the truth, but hadn’t wanted to ask or push it in case he was wrong.

Merlin knocks rapidly after checking the corridor for other people, and the door had barely been opened before he’s pushing his way through, still dragging Leon behind him. The two men move to stand by the opposite wall, Lancelot still by the door looking increasingly confused:

“Merlin, Leon, is... is everything alright?”

Merlin waves his hand casually, not even needing an incantation as his eyes flash briefly gold and the door shuts of it’s own accord (... or Merlin’s accord).

Lancelot immediately gasps and makes a jump for the sword sat on the table, but Leon holds his hands up in surrender as Merlin rushes to speak:

“Lance it’s fine!! Leon knows about my magic, and he’s been smuggling people out of Camelot for decades, he’s safe.”

Lancelot looks to Leon with a mix of suspicion and relief, still picking the sword up and holding it loosely in one hand, but the older knight is too distracted staring at Merlin in mild outrage:

“Dec- How old do you think I am, Merlin?!”

Merlin looks up at him guiltily, and Lancelot lets go of his suspicion, instead clamping his free hand over his mouth to stop himself from laughing at Merlin’s squeaked reply:

“Uh... there’s no safe way to answer that, is there? You said you were fifteen when you started, and I know you’re older than Arthur, so...”

Leon scoffs, rolling his eyes as Lancelot snorts:

“I’m only five years older than him, Merlin. I’m thirty-one, you can say “decades” plural when I hit thirty-five, and not a day sooner.”

Merlin holds in a smirk, and nods. Lancelot clears his throat, dropping the sword back on the table and asking the obvious question:

“So... how much does he know?”

Merlin spends the rest of the night explaining everything, from Kilgharrah calling to him when he first arrived, (”You mean that thing was under the castle the whole time?!”) to just last week, when he had to sneak out of the city to deal with a particularly insatiable Succubus that was causing problems with the border patrols (”Huh. I wondered why the men had just... stopped disappearing. I’m not complaining though, thank you.”).

He included all the information about the prophecies and being Emrys and how Arthur was the Once and Future King and the coming (potential) Golden Age. Leon was especially curious about that, and interrupted often to ask questions.

Lancelot also interrupted rather often, but only to correct Merlin when he underappreciated his own genius or power or selflessness, much to Merlin’s embarrassment and annoyance.

Merlin also tried to miss out as much of his own suffering as he could, but Lancelot wasn’t having it, and Leon was horrified to learn of the Serket sting, the countless, almost fatal fights he’d had with various people (Nimueh, The Cailleach (”I did also wonder how the veil just... repaired itself. Nice one.”), Morgause, Agravaine, etc (Morgana is good in this, though her magic is still hidden)), and all the other terrible things that had happened.

When he finally finishes, Leon is speechless.

The knight had just thought that Merlin had learned a few tricks to keep himself and Arthur safe when they went out and about, but he was actually, apparently, the most powerful Warlock ever, and had a whole series of prophecies and battle scars to back it up. Lancelot’s face was an odd mix of prideful and mournful, and that only drove home to Leon how much Merlin had suffered over the years.

After a few minutes of silence, Merlin awkwardly waiting, as if for judgement, Lancelot pipes up, his voice oddly cheery:

“So, Sir Leon, fancy two extra sets of hands in the little smuggling ring you’ve got going?”

~

And that is essentially... exactly what happens. 

It’s usually Leon who discovers the sorcerers, being the most observant of the three, but it’s Merlin they send on the first approach more often than not. Leon had always been painfully aware of how scary a Camelot Knight going “I know you have magic” must be, so the trio takes advantage of Merlin’s non-threatening look. That, paired with the fact that he’s well known and well loved around the town, makes starting things off a lot easier.

A lot of the time, the people they approach don’t want to leave. They’ve kept themselves hidden for over twenty years, and they plan to continue to do so, but it’s a weight off their back to know that the option is there if they need it.

Merlin introduces Leon to the tunnels under the city, hidden and warded with his magic. The older knight is very much relieved at that; taking advantage of gaps in guard rotations wasn’t the most reliable plan, and he’d been paranoid for years that something would go wrong one day and he’d get caught.

They worked well together, though all three of their lives got a lot more complicated. Lancelot and Merlin were pulled into Leon’s secret smuggling life (despite him insisting that they could sit it out, considering they were already so busy trying to keep Arthur alive, which is apparently a lot harder than Leon had first assumed), and Leon was pulled into Merlin and Lancelot’s secret “bring about the Golden Age” life (despite the two of them insisting that Leon didn’t need to help, considering he was already so busy running a smuggling ring right under the nose of the King).

To be honest, the two lives sort of swirled together. Anyone that they sent to the Druid camps was told to spread the word of the Once and Future King, and when Leon was sent to distract Arthur when Lancelot and Merlin needed to do something Magicky, Lancelot was sent to distract Arthur when Leon and Merlin needed to do something smuggly.

Eventually Gaius finds out. Because of course he does. Because he’s not stupid. And whilst the three of them are unwilling to put him in anymore danger than he’s already in (harbouring a Warlock is... pretty dangerous. Though Arthur would probably forgive the older man anything.), they never turn away the small, portable medkits he passes along to them, and don’t complain when he offers to talk to Arthur about a promising new treatment for the flu for a few hours.

But overall, they have a proper little (unpaid) enterprise going, and no one suspects a thing. 

~

Mistakes are made of course, some a little bigger that others. But most of them get a laugh from the trio when they think back on them later.

Ironically enough, this mistake came when the trio mistook a “need to save Arthur” problem, for a “need to save this poor scared sorcerer” problem.

They’d been getting complacent. No one had tried to kill Arthur directly in a while, so when a visiting Lord brought with him a very nervous, very secretive stablehand, they didn’t even consider that it would be the young servant who wanted to kill Arthur as opposed to the visiting noble (who was an arsehole, and therefor automatically under suspicion).

Merlin, being the most powerful of the three of them, was keeping an eye on the noble; trying to keep him away from Arthur as well as trying to figure out if he knew that his stablehand was a magic-user. Leon was distracting Arthur, with the help of a report Gaius had written, by talking endlessly about certain weaknesses in the knight’s armour and the injuries that Gaius treats most often and the link between the two.

That left Lancelot to trail the stablehand, whose name they had discovered was Alban. He wasn’t wearing any armour and didn’t have a sword, only a small dagger up his sleeve, so as not to frighten the boy.

Which of course was a huge mistake.

Considering how innocent Merlin looks, but how dangerous he actually is, they really shouldn’t have underestimated the boy, but alas, with how well both of the secret lives had been going, their egos had grown, and they weren’t as careful as they should’ve been.

It was only after the Lord had retired to his chambers (and Merlin had come to the annoying conclusion that he was an arsehole, but certainly not smart enough to be dangerous), and Leon had exhausted every possible line of enquiry about armour and injuries, that the two of them thought something might be wrong.

It had been hours since they had heard from Lancelot, and by the sounds of it, no one had seen him in that time either.

The stablehand also couldn’t be found.

They tried not to assume the worst; all of them (Merlin, most often) had disappeared for longer before, so before they panicked, the two of them went about methodically searching for the other knight.

The wards down in the tunnels hadn’t been disturbed, Lancelot’s room was untouched (the sight of his armour and sword laid out on his bed did nothing to quell their growing anxiety), and no one had seen him leave the city. The Camelot stablehands had no idea where the visiting servant was, and had apparently barely seen him in the stables since he’d arrived anyway.

Now it was time to panic.

The two men rushed back to Lancelot’s room, shutting the door behind them, Merlin hurriedly asking:

“What’s the last thing he touched, do you reckon?”

Leon raked his hands through his hair for the dozenth time, looking around with wide eyes:

“Uh... we had training this morning, and he took his armour off after that, and immediately went to follow Alban, so his armour? His sword?”

Merlin picks the sword up in careful but hurried hands. He closes his eyes, concentrating, as he mutters a quick spell. The sword shimmers for a moment before Merlin throws it back down on the bed with a huff:

“Nope, the trail is there but it’s weak, I need something more recent.”

Leon curses quietly to himself:

“Try his water goblet? Or the wash bowl? God knows that man doesn’t like to be grimy.”

Merlin hums, walking to the wash bowl before halting in his tracks:

“Wait... no, you’re right. He doesn’t like being dirty,-”

With that, Merlin changes direction, heading to the small desk in the corner and opening the draws at random, rifling through them. Leon walks up behind him:

“Merlin? What are you-”

He’s interrupted by Merlin exclaiming in victory, and straightening up. He turns around with a grin on his face, holding out a small comb:

“-he will have run a comb through his hair after washing,-”

He pulls a short, brunette hair from between the wooden teeth:

“-and an actual piece of him is WAY better to track him with than something he’s just touched.”

He repeats the spell from earlier, the smile returning to his face when he begins to feel the pull in his heart, leading him to the lost knight.

The two of them leave the room hurriedly, Leon trailing after Merlin, both of them trying to look an inconspicuous as possible.

They walk briskly down the corridor, hope and excitement blooming in their chests at the idea of finding the friend they’d been so worried about. Leon puts a hand on Merlin’s shoulder, but neither of them stop moving as he speaks lowly:

“Can you tell how far away he is?”

Merlin hums, before replying equally quietly:

“Yeah, I think he’s about... actually... no, no I can’t- what?”

With that, he stops dead in his tracks, stumbling when Leon runs into his back with a gentle “oof”. The knight looks down at him, his face back to looking panicked. They’d stopped at a crossroads in the corridor, and Merlin’s head twitches from side to side, like he can’t decide which way to go.

Leon shakes his shoulder slightly:

“Merlin, he’s been gone for hours, we need to hurry. Close your eyes, breathe, which way is Lancelot?”

Merlin does what Leon says, shuffling on his feet slightly before closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, and relaxing his shoulders:

“Where are you, Lance?”

He mutters it quietly to himself, and Leon barely dares to breathe, not wanting to distract him. After a few moments, Merlin’s head twitches to the right, the corridor that leads to the servant quarters. The servant opens his eyes, nodding briefly at Leon, before turning and walking down the corridor. 

He passes the first few doors without hesitation, thankful for the late hour; all the servants are either eating their own dinner, or serving dinner to their masters. Which is probably where Merlin should be right now, but he had more pressing matters, he could deal with Arthur later.

He slows as he reaches the end of the corridor, frowning in confusion. There are no more doors, they’ve reached a dead end, and Merlin tilts his head whilst Leon stares at him expectantly, periodically checking the corridor behind them. Merlin begins muttering to himself again, flexing his hands as if he were in pain:

“This is... wrong. I don’t come down here very often but... there’s... this is wrong. I can feel it and I can... see it, like there’s something out the corner of my eye that shouldn’t be there-”

He gasps, turning and looking at a specific part of the wall, hovering his hand over the stonework:

“-or something that should be there!”

Leon’s gaze flicks between the wall and Merlin as he quietly asks:

“A hidden door? Can you... unhide it?”

Merlin takes a second to snort and roll his eyes, before pressing his hand against the wall, muttering spells to himself. Leon turns around, hand on the hilt of his sword at his hip as he stands guard. After a few minutes of Merlin getting more and more frustrated when the wall stays... well... a wall, he finally lets out a whispered exclamation; Leon glances behind him to see the stone rippling, and finally fading to reveal the door. 

With one last check down the corridor, they enter the room slowly, shutting the door behind him. Leon whispers Lance’s name into the darkness tentatively, but Merlin just shakes his head, summoning a light.

It’s just a normal storage room filled with dusty shelves and empty crates, but Merlin moves through the debris to the back, cursing under his breath when he finds what he’s looking for. Leon moves up behind him, staring over the younger man’s shoulder to the precise symbol drawn onto the floor:

“Merls?”

Merlin huffs speaking lowly, not looking away from the symbol:

“It’s a teleportation spell, it’s why I was being pulled in two directions. Lance went through this portal, but it probably took him somewhere outside the city limits.”

Leon gulps, before taking a deep breath and gripping Merlin’s shoulder again:

“Can you activate it? Do we follow through the portal, or track him out of the city??”

Merlin shakes his head roughly:

“No, that would take far too long, we don’t actually know how long he’s been gone, it could have been all afternoon, remember? Look around, there should be a crystal or an orb or something, like a switch I have to push magic into to activate the spell.”

It only takes a few minutes of rummaging for Leon to uncover a rough looking crystal, and Merlin smiles weakly at the comically fearful look on the knight’s face as he holds it as far away from himself as he can; he may trust Merlin’s magic, but he is still logically... unnerved by things he doesn’t understand.

Merlin takes it from him, eyes turning briefly gold as he mutters an incantation and his hand is engulfed in a blue flame. The flame dies down after a few seconds at Merlin’s command, and he hides the now glowing crystal back where Leon had found it, before looking back to the symbol on the floor.

It takes only a few moments for the lines to start softly glowing, and when nothing else changes, Merlin takes a deep breath, reaching behind him blindly for Leon’s hand, and muttering:

“Well, here goes nothing.”

He feels the knight take his hand and step up next to him. With one last nervous glance to each other, they nod, and step into the circle.

~

MEANWHILE

Thankfully, whilst Lancelot hadn’t been seen in a while (on account of being camped out in the hidden storage room, waiting for his stalkee to reappear out of the weird glowy circle thing), he had only actually been kidnapped by Evil Alban the Not-Stablehand for about half a candle mark.

And he was currently very bored. The younger man finally reappeared, only to fly into a rage at the sight of another man, crouched like a gremlin, almost asleep in the corner of the entrance to his secret lair.

His eyes had flashed sickly yellow, and Lancelot found himself falling over the edge into sleep, and waking up an undetermined amount of time (like five minutes, but it was so fucking dark where he was, he had no way to guess what time of day it was) later, tied to a chair (not gagged, thankfully).

He had realised the trio’s mistake fairly early on in Evil Alban the Not-Stablehand’s monologue; something about vengeance and sins of the father and yadda yadda yadda. Honestly? He tuned it out pretty quickly, he’d heard it all before... multiple times, and he wasn’t too worried; he had faith that Merlin and Leon would arrive to rescue him soon (though he wasn’t looking forward to all the comments along the lines of “who’s the real princess?”).

It was when he almost nodded off that Alban stuttered slightly:

“...after all, surely someone who is strong enough to take the crown should... should deserve... it... are you falling asleep?!”

Lancelot’s head whips up with a quiet snort as he blinks the sleep from his eyes, and looks at the outraged criminal with guilt in his eyes:

“Uh... no? You’re doing wonderfully, Alban, very riveting, keep going.”

The knight’s words do nothing to calm the other man down, and he exclaims slightly as he stamps his foot petulantly. Lancelot bites his lip to stop himself laughing, but before he can get himself under control and say something else, Alban puffs his chest out and grins triumphantly:

“Your mind games shan’t work on me, Sir Knight. I will not be distracted by your mocking or... or distractions.”

Lancelot raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t say anything. Alban huffs, shaking his head roughly before looking back at Lancelot with wide, expectant eyes:

“Well? What do you think of my plan, noble Sir? Ineffable, no?”

Lancelot purses his lips, once again looking guilty as he chooses not to point out the younger’s misuse of the word ineffable (definitely NOT ineffable, considering he’d banged on and on for half a candle-mark):

“I don’t suppose you could... sum up the last twenty minutes or so worth of... plan? Then I could.... let you know my thoughts?”

Alban let out an inhuman screech, stamping his foot again, much to Lancelot’s hidden amusement. The Great Villain stalked off into the darkness, huffing and grumbling to himself, and Lancelot just rolled his eyes, murmuring under his breath:

“For fucks sake. Better not leave me here. Where the fuck are you guys?”

As if the Gods themselves answered the knight’s question, he hears another inhuman screech come from the darkness; though this one was a lot more high pitched, and was immediately followed by Leon’s unmistakable voice growling out:

“Where is he you pre-pubescent piece of shit?!”

Lancelot allows himself to snort at the likely look of terror on the Not-Stablehand’s face before yelling:

“Don’t make the kid shit himself Leon, if he does, you’ll be the one carrying his unconscious body back.”

He hears Merlin’s laugh and the distinct sound of a skull making contact with the hilt of a sword, before the two of them appear like ghosts, lit only by the glow of Merlin’s golden eyes, and the magical light floating between their heads.

Lancelot gives them a grin, shuffling in his binds slightly as he says:

“Took you long enough, he’s been banging on about how clever he is for fucking ages. Cut me loose, would you?”

Merlin clicks his fingers, the ropes falling the the floor as Leon checks him over for injury, and affectionately ruffling his hair, much to the other knight’s chagrin.

The three of them move to crowd around Alban’s crumpled form, hands on their hips as they stare at him, unimpressed. Lancelot sighs:

“You really didn’t have to hit him that hard, I don’t think he was that much of a threat.”

Merlin huffs and stalks off to reactivate the teleportation spell, leaving the chastising for Leon to deal with:

“Not much of a threat?! Lance no one had seen you in hours, we thought you were dead!”

Lancelot frowns and shuffles, suddenly looking apologetic:

“Ah, sorry. He took me less than a candle-mark ago, though I guess I lost track of how long I’d been sat waiting for him before that. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

Leon huffs, but drops the subject as Merlin calls back to them. The curly-hired knight picks Alban up, laying him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before following Lancelot in Merlin’s direction. They stand around the glowing symbol, and Lancelot rolls his eyes at Merlin’s glower:

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Mister I regularly show up after three days covered in bruises and blood with “The Tavern” as my only excuse.”

Leon snorts and Merlin rolls his eyes but smirks, and with that, the trio step into the circle, reappearing back in the storage cupboard with no one else in Camelot even vaguely aware of the mini adventure they’d had.

~

This happens for a while. Saving people (mostly Arthur) from the batshit insane things that happen in Camelot that no one but them seems to be aware of.

Of course, rumours fly about the oddly close connection the three men have. Lancelot is head over heals in love with Guinevere (which he ardently denies, despite Merlin and Leon’s repeated dramatic attempts to get them together) and everyone knows it, but even Arthur starts to (jealously) suspect something is going on between Leon and Merlin, especially when Merlin’s lack of talent when it comes to making up excuses is displayed yet again.

Leon and Merlin had been sneaking out of the castle, on their way to meet the teenage son of a noble who desperately needed to escape. Lancelot, who had a late patrol, was to meet them by one of the tunnel entrances outside the city limits, and assure that no other guards were nearby.

Unfortunately, the pair came across a sleepy King, on his way to the kitchens for a midnight snack.

The King stared at them with wide, shocked eyes, and the pair stared back. Leon grimaced slightly, and after a few moments of awkward silence, Arthur slowly asks:

“What are you two... doing?”

Leon takes a deep breath desperately trying to come up with something to say, but before he can find an excuse, Merlin pipes up:

“I was teaching him poetry.”

Leon lets out his breath before slowly covering his face with his hands as he shakes his head slightly. Merlin immediately realises his mistake and bites his lip, furrowing his eyebrows as he says:

“What I mean, is that-”

He’s cut off by Arthur holding a hand up, his face looking mildly put-off as he shakes his head:

“I don’t want to know. Yeah, I changed my mind, I really... don’t want to know.” Before turning around and heading back in the same direction he’d come from, hunger forgotten.

Merlin holds his breath until Arthur turns the corner, before letting it all out in one go and staring at the floor wide-eyed. Leon keeps his head in his hands as he mutters:

“You fucking idiot.-” before looking up at the man besides him incredulously:

“-Why??”

Merlin looks at him indignantly, and loudly whispers:

“I don’t know!! It was just the three of us in a dark corridor like last time and it just popped into my head and I said it! At least he didn’t push, I suppose.”

Leon shakes his head again, before a look of realisation crosses his face and he looks at Merlin with dread in his eyes:

“Yeah... except when you used that excuse on me- shut up, of course I knew you were lying, I’m not an idiot- I thought you and Arthur were uh... well, I thought you were sleeping together...”

Merlin’s eyes go wide and he sputters for a response before he lets out a quiet, deranged laugh, and shakes his blushing head:

“First off, no. Second off... at least he didn’t push.” he repeats. Leon squints at his friend, before he gasps and grins:

“Oh my God, you like him!-”

Merlin scowls at him, and Leon laughs gleefully (though still quietly) before whispering:

“-all this time we’ve been ribbing Lancelot about Guinevere, and we should’ve been ribbing you! Oh my God, wait ‘til Lance hears this.”

Merlin turns on him, face bright red as he angrily (or as angrily as he can, when he’s the colour of Leon’s cape, and the knight is trying not to wake the castle up with his laughter):

“I swear to God, Leon, I will turn you into a fucking toad if you breath a word to anyone! I’ll do it, I swear I’ll do it!”

Leon forces himself to breath and coughs slightly as he catches his breath, putting a hand on Merlin’s shoulder:

“Fine, fine. I won’t say anything, but only if you help me hang mistletoe up in Lance’s doorway next week.”

Merlin rolls his eyes, but nods his head with a grin, and with that, they resume their sneaking around.

~

This happens for what feels like years and years, but really, Merlin only gets one day into looking at Leon with a shit-eating grin and saying that the old man has been doing this for “decades”, when suddenly... they don’t have to do it anymore.

Arthur repeals the ban on magic. 

And to be honest, it was a complete surprise to everyone. Of course, the whole Kingdom knew that he was more tolerant than his father had ever been; he hadn’t executed anyone in years, and unless accusations were serious or life-threatening, he rarely ordered investigations.

As it turns out, he’d been working on it in secret for months, with only  Morgana’s help (not that he knew about her magic, she was just the only person in his life who’d always been vocally against the ban). All the work they’d put in meant that when it came time to present it to the council, all Arthur had to do was hold his head high and say something along the lines of “I am your King, you do this, or you lose your seat.”.

The drafts were so well-worked, so perfect, the council had nothing to argue against, no excuses worth more than a roll of the eyes and a dismissive wave of the hand.

The repeal went through seamlessly, and Arthur was announcing Merlin and Morgana as his Court Sorcerers within a week (after of course a few hours of raging at the lies and deception, in which they defended themselves and each each other with sharp tongues and entirely valid descriptions of their terror, and with Leon and Lancelot stood behind them the whole time ready to pull their swords at a moments notice).

Leon, Lancelot, and Merlin told the King about all their adventures saving his arse, which he floundered at before abashedly thanking them, but they never mentioned the now obsolete smuggling ring they had going.

Of course, there were moments when they missed the excitement of sneaking out at night, the victory of seeing a family off to the Druid’s, or to a safe village, but ultimately they were ecstatic that they weren’t needed in that capacity anymore. It was undeniably a good thing.

Their plan to keep their heroics to themselves failed miserably however, when a crowd of around two-hundred gathered in the courtyard, led by a woman in her mid-thirties who looked mighty familiar to Sir Leon.

The gang met them down there, armed and worried at first, but quickly relaxing when they realised this was the furthest to an attack a group this large could get.

The King led the party, Morgana, Elyan, Gwaine, and Percival to his left, and Merlin, Leon, and Lancelot to his right, Guinevere and Gaius waiting by the castle entrance. It was only when Lancelot gasped, and grabbed Merlin and Leon’s sleeves to point at a specific family near the front of the crowd that they understood. All these people, all these happy, joyful, alive people... were people they’d saved over the years.

The three of them gulped, suddenly teary as more and more of the crowd pointed their way, wide smiles on their faces. They knew that this wasn’t even half the people they had saved (if you include Leon’s sixteen years doing it alone), but still, it was astounding to visually see it.

The familiar woman stepped forward at Arthur’s gesture, and the trio suddenly realise what’s about to happen. “Oh shit.” and variants of the above are muttered by all three as they wait with baited breath. There’s not really anything they can do to stop this:

“Your Highness, firstly I would like to thank you, for accepting my people back into your Kingdom-”

Her voice quietens slightly as she glances to the floor, her eyes filling with tears before she looks up again:

“-many of us haven’t been home in... in a long time, and it’s good to be back.-”

Arthur nods, giving her a smile despite his still growing confusion at the crowd behind her. The woman looks quickly to Leon, giving him a brief smile as he gasps, recognising her. She looks back to the King, raising her voice and her head as she continues:

“-Secondly, I would like to extend an even greater thank-you to Sir Leon, and his two companions, without whom many of us would have died. They risked their lives sneaking us out of the city when your father hunted us, and after, when we were still at risk of execution, but they never stopped, and never gave up. We are but a fraction of the hundreds of people they saved, and we have nothing to offer them but our unending gratitude, and a humble demand that they are rewarded for their service to Camelot’s people. They are heroes to us all, and always will be”

Arthur looks slowly over to a very teary Leon, who doesn’t even glance his way as he stares at the former servant-girl, a weak smile on his face. Merlin and Lancelot meet The King’s gaze in his stead, smiling sheepishly and shrugging as they nod, confirming the woman’s story.

Arthur shakes his head minutely, half proud of his friends, and half annoyed at being caught off guard, before turning back to the woman, the smile back on his face:

“I’m glad to welcome you home, all of you, and I apologise that it took so long for me to right the wrongs committed by this Kingdom. Sir Leon and his companions will indeed be rewarded for their service,-”

At this, Arthur turns to look at the trio, a soft, meaningful smile on his face as he nods at them:

“-and I extend my thanks to them also, for being brave enough to protect my people, when I was not.”

Leon finally meets The King’s gaze, and returns his nod. Merlin and Lancelot each clap him on the back, before the three of them descend into the crowd. A loud cheer goes up around the courtyard, the rest of the knights, Morgana, and Guinevere looking on in shock as the trio greets person after person, accepting thanks and hugs and laughing joyously at the reminder of the good they’d done, despite their fear.

~

THE END!!

I really loved writing this one😄! Honestly this idea started out as crack, but I’m glad that it ended so wholesomely :)

Same as usual lads, someone wants to write it up properly or extend it, go for it, credit and tag me ✌️

[crack-whore-who-fuckedup-already]

The Man Needs His Cat

Bucky x fem!reader

Word count: 1,960

Warnings: mentions of animal death, fluff, Tony/Bucky interaction

Summary: Bucky and Reader stumble across a kitten in the woods and Reader is tasked with asking Tony for a huge favor. 

A/N: y'all- I'm head over heels in love with catperson!Bucky

The situation had to be dealt with carefully, (Y/n) knew. She didn't want to come on too strong or he'd be quick to turn her down. Maybe a hypothetical would be the best course of action... She took a breath and pulled her shoulders back. Then, with only a second of hesitation, she entered Tony's lab. 

He greeted her from his hunched over position at one of the many cluttered tables, barely sparing her a glance. In the heat of engineering, he worked on some odd piece of tech he had yet to fully present to the team. She echoed a small 'hello' back and rocked awkwardly back and forth on her feet. 

Still not looking up, Tony indulged the girl with idle conversation. They spoke of their day, of current world news, of the weather. That's how he knew she wanted something. The girl would always engage him in casual conversation just before asking a favor. Tony didn't mind much, of course. If anything, he found it entertaining how intently she tried buttering him up. But today he had quite a bit of work to get done so he wanted to get this show on the road. 

Putting his tools down, he looked at her pointedly with a knowing grin. "Alright kid, what's up?" He asked.

(Y/s)'s eyebrows raised in question, playing dumb. "What do you-" 

"Drop the act, (Y/n)," he chuckled, and grabbed an already greasy rag off the desk next to him to wipe his hands. He stood and made his way to her, tossing the rag back on one of the several tables in the lab. "I know when you want something, so just go on. Ask." He said, his face light with a smirk.

(Y/n) flushed with warmth, embarrassed by his boldness. But she continued anyway, determined to fulfill her promise to Bucky. 

The night before, she and Bucky were on their way home from the movies. It was a beautiful night out and in their comfortable silence, they found themselves on a slight detour through the woods. At some point, Bucky had pulled over off the side of the road and onto a look out.

Bucky, ever the silent communicator, simply stared at (Y/s) confused face with the softest smile on his own, before stepping out of the car. While (Y/n) scrambled to open her door, Bucky walked the couple of feet towards a barrier fence overlooking the river beneath him. His eyes followed the shine of the water as it drowned the boulders lining the river bed. He thought for a second how exciting the challenge of rock hopping sounded, never really having gotten the chance to as a child.

The call of an owl pulled his attention to the tree line which he observed with such intensity that (Y/n) nudging his arm made him tense. She flashed him a smile to calm the surprise on his face and in an instant, his arm was around her, pulling her close. They both looked out at the shadowed woods and (Y/n) was even sure to point out the moon and stars themselves. 

In the silent moments that passed, they both had turned to embrace each other wholly. They stayed like that for a moment and then Bucky pressed a kiss to her forehead. Pulling back to look at his warm, loving face, she found acute concern instead. He was glancing just past her head, off into the bush leading down to the river bank. 

"What's the mat-" she asked quietly, shrinking away. 

Bucky pressed his fingers to his lips and hushed her quickly and gently and then slowly gestured to his ear. Listen, he was telling her. 

She didn't hear anything at first. Nothing but the rush of the river below them and the gentle night breeze above them.

But then, just as she was about to ask again, she heard it. The faintest of mewling. Barely audible but definitely there. 

Bucky grasped her shoulders and looked her in the eyes once more before he squeezed them tightly and moved past her. He approached the thicket and hesitated for only a second before pressing forward. The branches hurt his skin but he'd suffered worse.

(Y/n) tentatively called his name to which he responded "I've almost got it." His voice sounded distant and strained and it worried (Y/n) that she could no longer see him through the darkness, being so close to the river and all. But as long as she could hear his grunts of discomfort from the branches whacking him in the face, she remained calm enough. 

Eventually, he emerged. Even in the dark, (Y/n) could see the pure white fluff sticking out between Bucky's fingers. As he approached, the fuzz ball revealed its face from its careful hiding spot in the crook of Bucky's arm and glanced around. Two dark eyes and the palest little nose swung in her direction, its whiskers twitching with cautious curiosity.

A kitten.

The poor thing was trembling but so was Bucky. Placing a hand on his forearm, she beckoned his attention and spoke low.

"What was it?"

To bide his time, he shifted the kit closer to his chest and took a deep breath. He didn't meet her eyes but he mumbled just loud enough to hear.

"A whole box of them but…." He didn't dare finish the sentence and instead held the kitten in front of his face, ignoring the unwarranted feeling of loss he felt for its siblings. Swallowing hard, he finally met the girls soft, understanding eyes and smiled sadly. 

Before she could say anything, the small creature let out another indignant mewl that seemed to reassure Bucky just a bit. With that, (Y/n) moved to his side and slung her arm around his waist.

"Alpine," he mumbled.

"What's that?"

"I think I'll call him Alpine." Bucky said fondly. His eyes never left the baby and the girl knew he was in deep.

"Oooh, I know that look." She tittered. Bucky only stared, his eyebrow creased, questioning. "That's the way you look at someone you love. That's the way you look at me." She said with a blush, nudging him lightly.

His face melted into that soft loving one she cared for so dearly. The kitten settled into the warmth that embraced him as the couple kissed.

"Let's get a move on. It's getting colder and colder by the second and I'm sure this little guy agrees." The kitten mewled one last time.

With a light chuckle, they spared one last glance over the look out before returning to the car where Alpine slept peacefully in Bucky’s lap the whole way home.

The two couldn't help but discuss what they were going to do with little Alpine. Bucky was set on keeping it and had even decided to clear his schedule the next day to make a vet visit. The only issue was their living space. They weren't too sure how Tony would react to them bringing a cat in off the street. But the girl could see how much the kitten meant to Bucky already so she promised to talk to Tony in the morning. 

Well, morning came and now here she was.

Tony crossed his arms impatiently. "Well?" He pressed, tilting his head up.

(Y/n) anxiously grasped her hands in front of her and leaned forward a bit. "What would you say to the idea of us getting a pet?" She stared openly at his face as he stared back at hers. The question bounced around in Tony's head, leaving his eyebrow slightly creased and the room painfully quiet. (Y/s)' nervously raised eyebrow gave him a clue into the situation.

"Right….and who exactly is this 'us' you're referring to? Cause something tells me I'm actually being iced out of this decision." Before she could even get a full breath in, he continued on. "All right, what are we working with, huh? A rabbit? A goldfish? If it's a parakeet, it won't even get past the front door, so help me god." 

The girl shook her head as she let out a laugh. She could tell he wasn't overly fond of the idea. It was clear by the way his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. But judging by the way his voice didn't fall completely flat, he wasn't opposed to it either….not entirely, anyway.

"No, no. Not quite. It's a cat. A kitten, actually, so there's still time to train it and all," She reassured him. "And Bucky should be getting home any minute from the vet with him if you'd like to say hello."

Tony caught himself before he let his expression drop at the name of the elusive ex soldier. He'd gotten better at watching himself since the two of them moved in. Bucky and (Y/n) weren't together when they did, but being only a few steps down the hallway certainly allowed them a closer relationship.

Tony nodded his head reluctantly and dropped his arms to his sides. 

He followed the girl down the various halls as she recounted how they found the poor kit, and found themselves approaching the common room. Or the family room, as (Y/n) preferred to call it, while simultaneously prattling on about how much time and energy the team wastes pretending to hate each other. Huh.

They could hear the tinkling of a bell being wacked around from down the hallway. As they entered the room, they stopped in the archway and took in the sight before them. 

Bucky sat crisscrossed with his back to them. In his hand was a feather wand, standing out bright purple, blue, and white against the dark brown floor. In front of him, white fluff darted back and forth. There was the smallest sound of tearing as its tiny claws ripped against the carpet, no doubt leaving it frayed.

Tony tried his very best to suppress his dissatisfied grumble...

They watched for a bit as Bucky went back and forth with the kitten. Tony didn't have to look hard at all to see how much the ex soldier cared for the tiny thing. No only because of his undivided attention towards the cat but also because of the many beige bags labeled "PetsPlus+"  full of toys, treats and towers scattered around the sofas. 

He thought it might be good for Bucky to have another companion around. Maybe it would help him relax. Maybe even lighten up a bit.

Tony stepped forward.

"So, uh, I'm not a big fan of funky smells so that's got to be top priority as far as pest control goes with this thing, alright?"

Bucky jumped to his feet and Alpine followed suit, hackles raised. Bucky quickly scooped him up and held him close. "Of course." (Y/n) made her way over to them. "Our rooms are big enough to keep him there most of the time and we have already worked out all the responsibilities between us. We've got it covered."

Tony stepped back a bit looking them up and down, humming. "I expect weekly visits in the family room," he said pointedly, then waved his hand. "Keep it tidy, folks." And with that he left the couple to their new fascination.

Tony lingered at the doorway on the way out. While the couple was distracted, he found himself watching that wretched arm. The dark, intimidating metal turned soft and gentle as it reached out fearlessly to antagonize the tiniest, weakest thing in the room. No hesitation, no fear. Not in Bucky or the kitten. Tony knew then that it stayed, no question.

The man needed his cat. And damn it, he'll get it.

[i-growl-growl-growl]

can u do a yandere nct 127 reaction to their s/o slapping them? also can i be anon 👠 if it’s not taken

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

Sure! That one’s open! Welcome 👠 anon.

Warning! The following contains yandere themes, including violence and abuse. Read at your own risk.

~Ahreum Rhea

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

Taeil: He pauses for a second processing all of the mixed emotions he’s suddenly got a rush of- rage, hurt, confusion, shock, and betrayal- before slowly turning his head to you with evil lurking deep in his eyes. He clenches his fist and, instead of punching your lights out, shoves you against the wall, watching your form fall to the floor with a thud. He holds back from stomping your ribcage in and instead drags you over to the basement, opens the door, and throws you down like garbage. All the while not saying a word. You’ve only been in the basement once, when you tried to escape, and he’s left you there for two weeks. You can only wonder how long you’ll stay there now.

Johnny: As if as a reflex, he slaps you hard enough to send you crashing to the floor and bleeding from your mouth. This act of violence from you triggered his sadistic instincts. “You’ll get a serious punishment for this, y/n. Thinking you can test me- lay a hand on me, even! Get your ass over here.” He grabs you by the ankle and throws you against the wall before dragging you to the bedroom where he deals a few more blows to you. He takes out a pocket knife and a lighter “15 cuts..I want you to count or I’ll start over!”

Taeyong: You’ll get socked right in the face faster than you can think of how sorry you are. He’ll lose it. He won’t hold back on you, just deal blow after blow after blow, all while yelling the whole time. He’ll also make sure you learn your lesson by breaking your arm. You’re bloody and barely conscious afterward. He then drags you over to a cage and kicks you in- locking it. You’ll only receive medical help if he knows he can’t completely help you himself, but you’ll stay like that for a long time and watch him have ‘fun’ with one of your friends and other women. 

“You dare to raise a hand against me you fucking bitch!? I don’t do all this shit for you to then think you wear the pants in this relationship! Clearly I’ve been far too lenient with you!! I’m gonna break that arm of yours and, when I’m done, you’re going in the cage, since you wanna act so wild!”

Yuta: Same as Taeyong, you’ll end up on the floor and then up against the wall as he holds you by the throat, strangling you. The sounds he makes are animalistic and enraged. He’ll see red and will only be able to focus on harming you just as much as you harmed him. Though, your wounds would be very visible once he’s through. Not wanting to kill you, he lets you go, allowing you to drop to the floor. Then he grabs the arm that you slapped him with. 

“Y/n, you ungrateful bitch! You don’t deserve to use this arm after what you’ve done!” He snaps your arm at the wrist and forearm, savoring your agonized screams. “This is only the beginning, y/n. For this..I’ll strangle one of your friends while you watch, and don’t bother begging either! It’s too late for mercy!”

Doyoung:  He’ll be shocked but angry and he’ll swiftly back hand you. “I don’t know what the fuck has gotten into you to make you think you hold any power to raise a hand to me, but I won’t allow it, y/n! Say goodbye to all your privileges for a month” he says as he drags you away by your hair to a room with no windows and no furniture, except for bed, which he then chains you down to. “I’ll feed you when I feel like it. You don’t deserve any special treatment.” With that, he leaves you and ignores any cries you let out.

Jaehyun: He rubs his cheek before slapping you right back, causing your lip to bleed from the impact. “Bitch. Surely, you’re not so stupid as to think that would end well? I guess so, huh?! I guess you’ve still got a lot to learn about me. Come here!” He pulls you over to a couch where he lays you across his lap and exposes your butt. “Count to 50. If you mess up, I’ll start over. Crying and begging won’t do a damn thing for you, now start! I’m losing my patience!”

Winwin: He’ll be mad but more so shocked and hurt that you’d hurt him. All he’s done for you, all the love and protection he’s given you, and all the luxury he’s given you wasn’t enough? He’ll stare into your eyes with an angry and betrayed look in his eyes. A part of you feels hurt after seeing his pain but that will quickly be replaced by pain as he strikes you right back and grabs you by your wrist with an iron grip- nearly snapping it. Now you’re the one who’s stunned (especially if he’s never struck you before).

“Y/n, you continue to test my patience and I’m getting sick of it. This just proves that I’ve been way too lenient and going far too easy on you. I’ll let you get away with a light smack but, next time, I won’t be wearing ‘kitten gloves’ anymore- but I intend to make sure this never happens again. You’ll spend the next 3 days in the basement with no food or water, and don’t bother begging. You’re getting it easy compared to other s/o’s..”

Jungwoo: He’ll be hurt, and he wouldn’t be able to hide it either. His eyes will tear up, slightly, and he’ll give you the saddest puppy eyes you’ve ever seen from him. He’ll looked confused and will be speechless for a moment as he gathers the courage to speak again but he’ll sound sad af- he could only feel a little angry but not enough. You couldn’t help but feel regretful for what you’ve done.

“Y-y/n? W-why did you do that? Have I not made you happy? I’ve only wanted to please you and take good care of you. I know that this situation isn’t pleasing at first but, if you give me a chance and stop fighting me, then I’ll show you just how happy you can be- how happy WE could be. Together. I understand why you’re angry, so I’ll let it go just this once. Do this again and I won’t hessite to punish you accordingly, so, be good, alright y/n?”

Mark: Ohhhh boy. Mark is usually chill but, this time, you’ll see him become so enraged that he’ll pounce on you and do a number on you. That would only be the start of it. Depending on the situation, he may call over some of the more severe yandere’s to help dish out your punishment or he’ll lock you in the cold and dark basement alone to suffer- no in-between.

“You don’t know just how good you have it, y/n. Since you’re being so got-damn ungrateful, I invited some friends over to teach you not to bite the hand that literally feeds you. I could easily dispose of you and replace your ass. Raise your hand to me again and I’ll let all my friends have their way and then dump you somewhere. Don’t fucking test me..”

Haechan: Another yandere that you’d definitely not want to piss off. He’s similar to Mark in the sense that he’ll punish you severely for your insolence. His first reaction would be the same as well; he’ll just start wailing on you like a wild animal, then, if you’re somehow still standing, he’ll grab you by the neck and slam you to the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of you. After the beating, he’ll lock you away for a nearly a week- it would have been longer, but he’s too impatient to wait that long.

“You fucking bitch! I love you and treat you so well, and this is the thanks I get?! I guess I haven’t taught you well enough not to disrespect me, huhI?! I’ll beat the fuck out of you until you learn learn your place and obey me! You make it so damn difficult when it doesn’t have to be! You’ll stay in here alone and you’re only allowed to have water until you learn your lesson! Learn your fucking place!”

[cheegu3]

~ Yandere Hyunjin - X31 [CULT SPECIAL 2/2 PTS]

tw / trigger warning: yandere themes, cult themes (brainwashing etc), violence, blood/gore, murder, disturbing themes, swearing

wc: 3k

a/n: so I’m a bit tipsy and wrote this just like really quickly idek what’s going on or if this is shit lmao sorry, I will proofread this tomorrow mwah love u

summary: the gang from your hometown that you knew as criminals had now kidnapped you and as they take you to their destination you soon find out they’re actually a cult, will you be able to escape or will you become their pet forever?

‘‘ You’re..them ‘‘ you muttered at last somehow sounding disbelieved.

‘‘ You must’ve known right? At least a part of you knew all along ‘‘ he answered with a smirk.

‘‘ You must’ve known right? At least a part of you knew all along ‘‘ he answered with a smirk.

You huffed.

‘‘ If I knew, don’t you think I would’ve fought back harder than I did? ‘‘ you looked at him coldly.

‘‘ Well actually- ‘‘ he leaned in closer to you, so close that you could see your own reflection in his crazy, empty brown eyes.

‘‘ I think you wanted this ‘‘ he adds.

‘‘ W-what are you fucking crazy? ‘‘ you exclaimed hysterically, the panic was overtaking your body every second that passed.

He nodded and the smirk was back again as if he enjoyed seeing you like this. You bet he had seen way worse captures of his, who suffered a lot more.

‘‘ You want to know why? ‘‘ he asked tauntingly.

He didn’t even give you a chance to answer before he went on.

‘‘ You’re a lonely pathetic woman in her 20s. You have no job, no money, no boyfriend or husband and no family ‘‘ he said this in such a mocking manner that it took you aback. You felt like your whole body went cold, like you were an insect under his magnifying glass and after he had inspected you he crushed you.

This was all too much for you. You tried the best that you could to turn away from him, sort of looking out the window - only, all the windows were covered up and you assumed it was to make you feel disoriented and not see where you were. It was smart, you’d admit that. On top of that the leader had kept you occupied so you didn’t even get the chance to feel what ways the car was turning to somehow name your location.

He didn’t say anything more for the rest of the ride except for a low,

‘‘ I’m Hyunjin. The leader ‘‘

Then he left you alone, you weren’t sure if he was watching you but it sure felt like his eyes never left you, even when you were turned so that you couldn’t see him in the corner of your eye, the feeling of his gaze lingered.

Not long after, the van came to an abrupt stop throwing you forwards slightly. The doors were slid open revealing the familiar guys from before. Only three of them were in the doorway now though, one shorter one with freckles, the other shorter one with a mean and stern looking face and one that looked like a golden retriever. As you looked at them you wondered how they had ended up here in this gang. They were once normal people just like yourself, what happened to them? Perhaps...they were kidnapped like yourself and they would try to make you one of them?

‘‘ Get out ‘‘ the mean looking one barked at you and then said to Hyunjin ‘‘ We’re here master. Everything is ready ‘‘

The leader reached over again to unbuckle your seatbelt but he wasn’t really looking at you this time, he seemed to be in a hurry. In fact he seemed to be so stressed when you had stepped out that he swept you off your feet. You yelped in surprise but he wasted no time, walking straight away towards the buildings doors. 

It looked like it was some kind of abandoned church. It was worn down and dark, covered in graffiti and had several white sheets covering up the window. You shivered at the creepy vibe it gave off, it looked like the perfect place for a gang.

As your group approached the entry doors, two of the guys from before hurried up in front to hold the doors open for Hyunjin and you. You felt him walk again and you tried to turn from your place in his arms to look around. You gasped.

People in masks and dark cloaks stood in a circle around some kind of table. The walls were dirty and worn out just like the outside and the familiar church seats didn’t look very familiar anymore, they were filled with clutter like books and candles. More candles decorated the walls and it had weird drawn symbols in white and red, which looked too much like blood.

You desperately tried to crawl out but his arms clinging onto you only got harder, tightening the grip. You were coming closer and closer to the group who had now turned when they noticed your presence. The group split in the middle, making way for you to pass through. You heart dropped when you had passed by the people.

Right there was an altar. It had old dry blood ingrained in it all over. By how the dried blood looked like it had run down the sides, you thought about how much blood there had to have been there, they probably killed someone and the thought of it makes you sick.

He sat you down unexpectedly gentle and stepped back slightly while looking at you. You felt like there wasn’t a chance in hell to escape with the mob getting ever so closer as the seconds passed, soon they’d be suffocating you although it felt like their mere presence was already doing that.

‘‘ W-what, where am I...Hyunjin ‘‘ you said his name slowly as if trying it out.

His expressions didn’t change, he looked cold like he had done that same night you met him.

‘‘ Y/n, I’ve had my eyes on you for a long time. Planning, waiting for the perfect moment to take you away ‘‘ he explained calmly. 

You didn’t say anything but when he said he’d been watching you for a long time you felt chills down your spine again. You didn’t feel safe here and you didn’t know what they wanted.

‘‘ Master decided to save you ‘‘ one of the mob whispered in an almost hysteric voice. 

They looked really riled up or quite frankly, crazy - from the way they got closer and closer and how they looked at their leader with so much admiration, like he was some sort of God.

‘‘ Save me? ‘‘ you asked looking straight at Hyunjin to try to read his face.

You thought that maybe they were just joking but he still didn’t move a muscle. He took a deep breath before speaking again.

‘‘ You see, all the people out there they’re really bad people. They have turned to the false God and I’m the only one who can save you ‘‘ he answered fairly casually studying your face and reaction to what he had said.

‘‘ Uh, false God? ‘‘

‘‘ Jesus and his father ‘‘

You huffed. It still felt like a joke but the people surrounding you made you doubt it. Either they were really good actors or this crazy man had taken advantage of vulnerable people and brainwashed them into worshipping him.

‘‘ He’s evil and tries to mask his evil words with acts of ‘‘ kindness ‘‘ ‘’ he air-quoted the word kindness and looked truly annoyed as he explained this to you.

You weren’t really sure how to respond.

‘‘ I...Appreciate that and what you do but I would like to go home now, is that okay? ‘‘ you tried.

‘‘ No ‘‘

Silence followed. You felt like the mob were silently judging you and maybe even hated you because you got all this attention from their precious leader.

‘‘ U-um well I do have to go, I’m not interested sorry ‘‘ you swung your legs over the stone seat and put your feet on the ground below.

He didn’t move from his spot which made you hopeful, but then when you approached the mob expecting them to step aside for you to pass - they didn’t. They stood just as still, just like him. You saw him turn to you and then felt a hard grip around your forearm.

He was angry but you also saw some hint of disgust in his eyes.

‘‘ See everyone how grateful you are that I saved you, see what could’ve become of you. We’ve got a lot of work to do with this one ‘‘ he said to the mob while staring into your eyes. He smirked for a moment and that’s when you realised, this was a cult.

He was fully aware of the truth vs made up things and how he affected all these people but you supposed he liked the power. It made you sick yet again to think about how many lives he had ruined by spewing such nonsense.

His loyal followers all shouted in union,

‘‘ Yes master! ‘‘ 

Before Hyunjin started to drag you to a doorway at the opposite side of the room. It felt like his grip was getting tighter and tighter and you groaned quietly at the pain, it was sure to leave bruises but you knew he didn’t care - he had probably left a fair amount of bruises on his followers before. 

He took you through the doorway and turned to the right. You reached a long stone corridor that felt very creepy. He kept dragging you until he had gotten to the room at the end of the corridor. There, he still kept his iron grip on you while fumbling in his pockets to take out a silver key.

‘‘ This is where you will be staying ‘‘

Anger bubbled up inside you. Who is he to decide that he was gonna ‘’ save you ‘’ to kidnap you and to order you around without you having a choice? It made you feel so belittled, and because of it you hated him already and what made it worse is the fact that you were pretty sure he enjoyed it.

He shoved you in and closed the door behind him swiftly without turning his back to you, smart, he didn’t even give you one opportunity to escape him.

‘‘ Tomorrow will be your first ritual, you should be excited ‘‘ he gave you a small smile. 

You wanted to punch him so bad, to kick and scream and to run for your life. The room he had pushed you into was as cold-stoned as the corridor had been, literally. It looked like an old-school prison cell in those castles with stone floor, walls and ceiling. The windows were barred shut and was way too high up for you to reach anyway. 

The only thing that made it look anything other than a prison cell was the double bed in the middle of the furthest wall. It had scarlet velvet looking covers and looked quite comfortable. In that moment you wanted nothing more than for him to leave so you could let your growing exhaustion take over you and figure out a plan to escape later after resting.

And so he actually did - to your surprise. You suppose it was because of the look of burning hate you had given him this whole time or that you had refused to answer him but whatever the reason, you felt relieved.

He sighed and left, closing the door rather harshly after him but you didn’t even look at him, he didn’t deserve that.

Your head found the pillow automatically and you let your body relax, falling asleep not that long after.

-

‘‘ Hello? Y/n get the fuck up ‘‘ the distant voice who had been mumbling, or least that’s what it sounded like to you - suddenly started to get louder and clearer.

You body jerked awake when you realised it wasn’t a dream and the first thing you saw when you opened your eyes was those brown eyes of the leader himself. He looked annoyed, like you were just a burden to him and the fact that you’d woken up so late was just another inconvenience.

He rolled his eyes.

‘‘ Finally. We haven’t got all day Ms princess ‘‘ 

You yawned at looked at him still half-asleep. You got up without protesting though because you didn’t want to anger him any more. 

You wasted no time and even got dressed in front of him, ignoring his presence while continuing to be in a dazed and tired state. 

He seemed to wait as patiently as he could but that didn’t stop him from sending you glares every now and then. 

At last you were ready, dressed in a white plain summery dress that had been put out for you to wear. You noticed while walking up to him that he was now wearing very light coloured clothes as well - a strong contrast to the day before. He didn’t have his piercings on, his tattoos were covered and he wore long white linen clothes. You gagged at the thought of him picking out clothes just so you would match.

‘‘ Come on ‘‘ he mumbled. His patience seemed to be running out.

He opened the door and basically pushed you out in front of him, then he closed the door once again and followed quickly. It felt like he was breathing down your neck, not giving you any space to - you assumed - not make you get away. You ignored him being that close and focused on his directions instead. He told you to go back the same way you had come from and out of the church, into a garden where the ‘’ ceremony ‘’ as he called it would happen.

You stayed silent and walked to where he wanted you to. The church was empty, which was a bit odd but you kept going until you laid your hands on the  big doors again and pushed it open.

You recognised the place you had been at yesterday, even the car was still there. But you couldn’t do anything, not even get close to the car before Hyunjin barked his orders,

‘‘ Right. Then walk straight to the garden. No stopping ‘‘ and you reacted like a robot, casting one last sorrowful look at a possible escape route. 

You followed his directions and walked into a clearing in the forest the church had been hiding behind itself. The mob was there again.

Of course

You thought yourself and couldn’t stop your hand from forming a fist. More people, less chance of escaping. But where else would they be if not by the side of their precious leader?

They gave you very genuinely happy smiles which freaked you out and you smiled back awkwardly to not feel like you were being rude. As you approached the group Hyunjin put his fingertips to your upper back guiding you forwards, or rather to the middle of the circle again who parted once you got close, allowing you to pass through.

Then you spotted it, another altar. 

But this time you weren’t really scared, until Hyunjin told you lay down on it and his words from before rang in your head over and over again,

‘‘ Tomorrow will be your first ritual, you should be excited ‘‘

Fuck

What was going to happen to you now?

‘‘ Welcome everyone ‘’ he started off his speech, turning to the gathered crowd.

‘’ We’ve gathered here today to make a union, to forever bond the master, the greatest, to y/n, the princess ‘‘

Your head was spinning. It felt like the coldness of the stone you were laying on had transferred to your blood, making it ice cold. You weren’t even sure if you were alive anymore or if this was possibly just a dream.

‘‘ Y/n? ‘‘ he suddenly called out which caught your attention.

You turned your head to him, tears threatening to fall any second now.

‘‘ I have to do this, for us to be together forever ‘‘ he said this in an almost pitiful way and your gut knew what was coming but you didn’t want to believe it.

You were going to fight and be optimistic until the last second.

‘‘ You first, then me okay? If you keep still this will be quicker ‘‘ the fact that he looked truly sorry made you forget for a moment what kind of person he was.

He walked up to you and you got so enhanced in his eyes, it was easy to see how all the other people had believed his lies. You were even ready to accept your faith, and so you did the only thing you could - you closed your eyes and waited.

You weren’t sure but you think you heard him say ‘’ good girl ‘’ under his breath. You also heard some distant hushed talking and some items being scraped together but you held you breath and kept your eyes closed, it was for the best.

No closed eyes or deep breaths could’ve prepared you for what came next though,

the pain was unbearable. A cold metal that was sharp penetrated your chest causing you to scream out.

‘‘ Stop! Stop! Stop! ‘‘

Hyunjin hushed you comfortingly and stroke your hair slowly, placing small kisses to your forehead but you barely felt them - the pain was so overpowering it felt like it was the only thing you felt.

Eventually when your breaths started becoming more heavy and your vision started to get blurrier, you opened your eyes one last time. You saw the man you had started to hate in such a short time, now...he was your killer. 

Then you closed your eyes again and waited and waited while it felt like the liquid had decorated your entire body, hell maybe even the whole forest. 

At last, after much suffering

the world did become black and you were finally at peace.

[djino04]

Touchstarved-OmegaVerse serie

For the first day of FEBUWHUMP 2023 (@febuwhump ) . The theme is touchstarved

POV Saul

For some reason, Rosalind decided to send Andreas on a diplomatic mission to Eraklyon for two weeks. That's a long time two weeks, it's even longer when you're an omega and the alpha who usually helps you is gone. I think the headmistress did this to punish us/me for the failure last time, I can't see any other explanation. Because any sane person doesn't put the word "diplomatic" and Andreas in the same sentence. But you may say, Rosalind is far from being sane.

So I act as if nothing had happened, while the pain invades my body day after day. This doesn't stop me from giving my classes to the specialists, nor from fighting against Dane to supposedly do a demonstration, but I also take the opportunity to put him in his place. This kid really needs to come down a bit. He's gotten a little too big of a head since Rosalind decided he'd be useful to her. So sure, he's good, but he'd be even better if he practiced instead of strutting his stuff. I feel like I'm seeing Andreas again at times. Except that Andreas trained at night and had private lessons since he was a child, which is not the case for Dane. He needs to understand that he still needs to improve. I'd like to avoid him learning that lesson by getting killed. 

Anyway, all that to say, I'm carrying on as usual, or at least trying to. The first week was pretty easy, but then the first symptoms came. First, a headache came on and it refuses to let go no matter what medication I take. Then my stomach decided that it would refuse some of the food I would try to swallow. And now my bones are starting to hurt. I know the next step will be shaking and dizziness before I am unable to stand up. At first, I was hopeful that the more serious symptoms would not present themselves until Andreas returned, but that illusion did not last long.

I hate being an omega... And I hate Andreas for making me promise not to take omitrix. If I could have swallowed the drug, everything would be fine, I would be sound asleep in my bed, instead of being kept awake by increasingly unmanageable pain. I have rarely had to suffer from the lack of alpha thanks to Farah and I wonder if this is a bad thing after all. Maybe it would be easier if I were used to the pain or maybe the symptoms would take longer to come on. It's hard to say and I wonder if there are any studies or anything about it. I realize how little I know about omegas. I refused to learn too much because I didn't want to be an omega. I still don't want to be one, either. It's so much easier to be an alpha... 

A sharp pain stabs my stomach and I can't hold back a groan. I try to breathe through it and curl up on my side, waiting for it to pass. If I listened to my instincts, I would spend the remaining four days before Andreas returns, in this position in my bed. But I refuse to give Rosalind that pleasure so tomorrow morning I'll get up and go to class as usual, no matter how much it hurts.

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

When my alarm goes off, I wince as the noise makes my headache worse. I have no desire to move because I know that any movement will only increase the pain I feel. I feel like all the fairies in the school have decided to use their power on me tonight and will do it again the second I get out of bed. 

Yet, I have no choice, I have to do it. So I gather my courage and lean on my arms to straighten up. This simple movement makes me dizzy and I fight to keep the contents of my stomach in its place. But I refuse to simply let myself fall back into the pillows. The first class starts in an hour, I know it's going to take me a long time to get ready so I have to get up now.

After almost 45 minutes of struggle, I am ready. I see my reflection in front of the mirror and I can hardly recognize my face. It's pale, with huge dark circles under my bloodshot eyes. I feel like I've aged 10 years in one night.  No student is going to be able to miss the fact that I am sick. As long as they don't understand the source of my illness, I'm fine with that. The fact that I'm an omega is becoming less and less of a secret, but I hope I can keep it that way for a while longer. I don't know what's in store for me when the truth comes out, but it won't be good for me, that much I know.

I look at the time. I have 15 minutes left to make the trip to the training ground. I glance out the window and almost groan when I see how far it is to the castle. This daily commute seems so long today. I am so tired and it would be so easy to finally decide not to go. I'm not going to be much use during training but that would mean letting Rosalind win again. She has far too many wins under her belt for me to let her have this one willingly. I'll go to class until I can't get out of bed. That's why I finish getting ready by putting on my shoes. I start to grab my sword when there is a knock on my door. I'm having a little trouble guessing who it might be by the time, but I guess I'll find out soon enough: 

"Come in."

To my amazement, it's Sky who walks through the door. He frowns as he closes it behind him. I guess it doesn't take a genius to know something is wrong with me. But his presence here before class is quite disturbing, which is why I ask him: 

"Sky, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?"

He doesn't answer me verbally, but he walks towards me with a purposeful step and I quickly find myself with his arms around me for a hug. Relief immediately washes over me as the pain immediately begins to recede. This does not prevent me from worrying about the reason of this impromptu hug. That's why I ask Sky: 

"To what do I owe the honor of this hug?"

I hear Sky's response, even though her face is buried in my shoulder: 

"Andreas texted me to tell me to give you a hug since you are apparently incapable of asking for help. Those are his words, not mine, but I pretty much agree with him."

I blow my nose, amused. I in turn hug him to me. We shared hugs throughout Sky's childhood, but he's grown up and those moments are rare now. I will cherish this moment even if it didn't act like medicine for me. Especially since I thought I would never be able to do it again after I was sent to prison and even afterwards because of the anger my son felt towards me. But things have changed now and this hug shows it. I also have another feeling that comes over me that I can't describe, the thought that Andreas is watching over me, even though he is far away. I can't even get mad at him for stepping in without asking me. On the other hand, I know I owe Sky an explanation, so I give it to him: 

"I didn't come to see you because it's not your place to deal with this kind of thing."

I feel him shake his head before he replies: 

"Yes it is, that's what pack members do, they help each other and they are there for each other. We are part of the same pack, Saul, and I can help you. I should have known what was wrong even without Andreas' message. I noticed this weekend that you weren't 100% but I didn't want to bother you with questions. There is so much going on with Rosalind right now, I didn't even think about what Andreas' absence meant for you.  You've been suffering when I could have helped you a few days ago, if only I had understood."

I tighten my grip on the back of his neck before replying: 

"Hey, hey. Stop that, right now, okay? You didn't do anything wrong, I kept it from you. But I thank you for coming to me when Andreas told you about it. Despite what you say, you didn't have to help me." 

I know that he is surely not convinced and besides he confirms it by asking me gently: 

"Promise me to ask me to help him next time."

I need to stop making promises to Andreas and Sky.  But I know my son won't let me out of this room until I do, so I comply: 

"I promise you. I will come to you if the same situation happens again."

That seems to be enough for him because he doesn't add anything else. And for once, my promise gives me some leeway. There's no way I'm going to intrude on Sky's life because of my omega status. I'll have to find some other solution than omitrix to make myself independent from him or Andreas. I don't know where I stand with the latter. Does he help me only because he has to? Or is he doing it because he wants to? When in doubt, I have to look for something else that gives him the freedom to leave whenever he wants. I hope he doesn't because I appreciate having him back in my life, but neither he nor Sky deserve to have an omega as a burden. There has to be another way, I just have to find it. 

But that's a thought for later. For now, I'm enjoying the moment. The pain is slowly diminishing and in a few hours it will be a distant memory. There are 12 minutes left before the start of class, I have plenty of time to enjoy having my son against me for the first time in many months, before I have to head to the training field. 

[bonjour-rainycity]

Making Amends

Summary: Five years, you thought he was gone for good. After the War, he disappeared. Now, after months of zero contact, he shows up at your bridal salon. A somewhat bitter Reader and a post-FATWS Bucky

Pairing: Bucky x F!Reader

Word count: 2381

Warnings: Mentions of past violence and killings, adult language

I sigh, securing the train of the dress so it doesn’t drag against the floor. The dress is stunning, as they all are. This one—pouffy, ivory, grand—has a bateau neckline and falls to the floor in a long, glittering train.

The glitter gets everywhere.

I bend down, trying to wipe some of it off my pants leg, then work on my blazer. Every day, only black clothes. It’s tradition, but a stupid one — the glitter stands out on my clothes more than it does on the white dresses.

“Miss, someone’s here to see you.”

I grit my teeth, digging my hands into the fabric of the dress. The receptionist is young — barely out of her teens, really — and still quite new at her job. She, like others, disappeared on that awful day five and a half years ago.

The day I lost everything.

And she’s here today because of my friends’ sacrifices.

I try to remind myself to be patient. “We’re appointment only, Lydia. Tell her to call, make an appointment, and come back then.”

“R-right,” she stammers, and I can hear the bottoms of her heels scraping against the floor as she shifts her weight. “It’s just—well, he said it’s really important, and wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

That gives me pause. He?

As a product manager at a bridal salon, my day is mostly spent in the company of women. Brides, their mothers, bridal parties, wedding planners, etc. There’s the occasional fiancé, father, brother, friend come to support, or a groom shopping for a dress, but overall, men tend to stand out.

“Fine, send him in,” I allow. It’s obvious he’s not listening to Lydia, but I know I’m more intimidating than she is. I’ll tell him to schedule an appointment. “And then do me a favor — there’s a list of designers on my desk upstairs. Can you give their offices a call and update the contact info for each brand representative?”

She sounds relieved. “Sure, no problem.”

As the sound of her heels meeting the ground fade away, I breathe in the sweet, floral-scented air. We’re under-booked today. There are only a few brides occupying our east fitting rooms, so I’ve decided to spend my afternoon in the west, making everything look perfect for the weekend ahead. Having this section alone — just me, the soft piano music playing over the speakers, and the dresses — is almost peaceful.

It would be peaceful if I were anyone else.

I continue to straighten the dresses. Everything needs to be perfectly spaced, meticulously tucked and folded to make each dress impressive in its own way. There’s no room for imperfection, here.

The sound of heavy boots clicking on the floor rings through the empty room. “Hey, Doll.”

My body runs cold.

That voice. I know it well.

My mind flashes to late nights, stealing smiles and kisses, tight hugs, adoring eyes.

And then falling to the ground in grief. Changing outfits to attend my second funeral of the day. His. And, after years of grieving, healing, and suffering through, one chance to fix it all. The joy of having him back. Locking eyes on the battlefield.

And then nothing.

Nothing.

All my air leaves me in one, quick, sigh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I turn, both dreading the sight and longing for it.

And just like that, standing between two rows of eggshell and pearl and ivory, he’s here.

Dark denim jeans, a deep blue shirt—long sleeve, knowing him—a grey button-up open on his chest, and two thick gloves, despite the summer heat.

I cross my arms.

He purses his lips together and raises his eyebrows, crossing one foot over the other casually. “So, bridal, huh?”

I feel my jaw clench. “I’ve got to make a living, don’t I? Evidently you do, too.” I can’t stop the bitterness from seeping into my voice.

He sighs that long-suffering sigh, one that tells me he’s more resigned than upset. “I wanted to come back.”

I turn my attention back to the dresses, walking down the row of gleaming white. “No one was stopping you.”

He turns to face me as I continue my inspection of each and every gown. “It’s not that simple. I—I was working hard. I had to get freed from him.”

I grit my teeth, fighting the urge to feel something. But of course, I do. Ever since I’ve known Bucky, he’s been wrecked by the things he’s done and terrified he’ll be called to do them again.

Terrified that he’ll lose his mind once again to the assassin.

When I saw him on TV, in a random news report from months ago, I’d broken down into sobs. I’d fallen to my knees and said prayer after prayer of thanks. Because the clouds had faded from his eyes. The fear, the ever-present dread, was gone. He stood taller, more assured —

Happier.

I knew then, that somehow, he’d gotten the Winter Soldier out.

I bend down, fluffing layers of crinoline in a ballgown. “You’ve been in the news.”

He hears the accusation in my voice. You’ve been back for months.

He approaches me slowly, coming to stand in front of me as I straighten. “I had a job to do.”

“What, the new Captain America doesn’t allow cell phones?”

He ignores the jab. “Doll, I had to wait to make sure, to be sure, but I’m safe, now. I’m not him anymore.”

“Bucky, I always felt safe with you,” I whisper, the emotion nearly winning. “I loved you more than anything. And despite what you said — that you loved me, too — you just left. Five years I waited for you. I didn’t think there was any way I would ever see you again, and then by some miracle, after so much loss, you came back! We fought in a war together. We killed. And we won. And then you disappeared. It’s been six months! I-I mean, I hate to think the worst, Bucky, but I really thought—” I cut off my words then, unable to continue without dissolving into tears.

His jaw tightens in that heartbreaking way it does when he’s sad, and he reaches forward. When I don’t protest to his gloved hand on mine, he pulls me into a hug. I want to melt into him. I want to collapse under nearly six years of unresolved grief, stress, worry, and let him hold me up, let him bear this burden for just a few minutes.

But that’s not the way I’m made.

I’ve entrusted my heart to him too many times.

And every time, I’m left alone and broken.

I push myself out of his arms, wiping my tears away quickly. Once again, the dresses act as my anchor, my distraction. I gather one in my arms, crossing the aisle to re-hang it in its proper place.

Bucky watches from a distance.

His hands are tucked into his pockets, and he looks at me sadly for a while before his eyes turn to the ground.

Silence falls between us. The only noises are the coos of elated brides and their adoring guests coming from the east side of the building.

After a while, Bucky raises his head towards me. “Does working here make you want it?”

I sigh. He can’t do that. Can’t come in here after so much time away with zero contact and then casually ask me stupid questions. “Want what?”

“You know,” he shrugs, leaning against the receptionist’s desk. “It. A wedding, a marriage, a…life.”

I purse my lips, shaking my head. I reach to adjust a hanger slightly out of my arm span, trying my hardest not to sound sad. “I’m not the kind of girl you marry, Buck. Not anymore.”

He scoffs, making a face. “What does that even mean?”

I turn on him, more than done with this conversation. “Exactly that! I see it every day — brides come in here, all starry-eyed, happy, innocent. They’ve got love, or at least the excitement of planning their ‘big day,’ and they just glow with all the life in them. I don’t have that, not anymore. I—” I lower my voice, gritting my teeth against the emotion that attempts to fight through. “I’ve killed people, Bucky. For a long period of time, that’s all I did. And, look, I’m really, really happy for you being able to heal and move on and be freed, but I can’t do that. I can’t come back from who I turned out to be.”

“That’s bullshit. You did what you had to do.” He pushes himself off the receptionist’s desk, adamant. “Every life you took was to stop the slaughter of others. You can’t blame yourself for that.”

“I can.”

We stare each other down.

He’s always had a good stare.

Steady, intimidating, unwavering. It’s like he can see into the depths of your soul and know he can outlast you.

But I work with furious mothers of the brides.

I raise an eyebrow, showing him I will not back down from this challenge.

He blinks and moves his gaze past my right shoulder. Something shifts in his eyes. “You’ve got a client.”

I force my expression to soften, maneuvering around Bucky to grab the clipboard from the receptionist’s desk. I give him a look that clearly says do not move, and hurry to the front door to welcome the bride and her guests in. Amidst the flurry of excited chatters, gushing about wedding plans, and a clear description of what she does not want, I check them in on the clipboard and take them to the east wing to meet a consultant. When I return, Bucky is exactly where I left him.

He smirks at me. “What the hell was that? Your voice rose like three octaves.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s called customer service.”

He shrugs, leaning against the desk in a way I should not find ridiculously attractive. “Well, why don’t I get any of that?”

I grit my teeth. “Because they are going to buy a dress, which will pay my salary, which will make me happy. You on the other hand, have caused me nothing but anger, sadness, and worry.” I blink, absently shocked that all that truth escaped despite my best efforts.

Something flashes in Bucky’s eyes—regret, maybe—but he covers it well, tilting his head to the side and keeping his playful tone. “Really? Nothing but that? Gosh, I must have been a terrible boyfriend.”

I dig my teeth into my lower lip, staring down at my clipboard. It’s been six months. You may as well continue with the honesty. You don’t know the next time you’ll have a change to talk to him like this. “Buck…” I approach him slowly, buying myself time. Too soon, I come to stand in front of him. “You were a great boyfriend. I…” I sigh, shaking my head. “I thought you were it. I didn’t want anyone else. And we were happy, overall. You know—up until you disappeared without so much as a text and ignored me for six months.”

A muscle twitches in his cheek. He leans forward, locking his eyes with mine. “We were good together. I loved you, more than anything, I—well Doll, I still love you. And look, I know I’ve messed up. In more ways than seems is humanly possible, but I,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I’m as clean as I’m ever gonna get. I shouldn’t have disappeared without warning. I should’ve called when I left Wakanda. I should’ve let you hear from me rather than seeing me on the news. I should’ve come back and done the work to rebuild what I broke. I’m sorry. I really am.”

I feel the clipboard digging into my stomach. I don’t move. I stare at him, terrified of the way his words, the honesty in his eyes, makes me react. Too easily, my walls are coming down. “What did you come here for?”

“I—just,” he digs his hands into his pockets, sighing lowly. “I’m back in town. And I’m here to stay for a while. If you’d allow it, I’d like to try to make amends.”

Don’t do it, I beg myself. Don’t set yourself up for more pain.

In the face of my silence, he nods slowly, taking on a look of sad understanding.

“I work till seven.” The words rush from my mouth before I can stop them, before I can think of the consequences. I grip the clipboard even tighter.

Bucky raises an eyebrow, the start of a smile tugging at the edge of his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” I nod, my heart racing at the prospect of being with him again, of maybe fixing things. “I live in the same apartment.”

He grins fully now, but at my stern look, attempts to wipe it off his face. I’m still mad at him, he shouldn’t get too comfortable yet.

But the light doesn’t leave his eyes and, despite my fear that this will all turn out terribly for me, I feel my own lips threatening to turn up.

He pushes himself off the desk, standing closer to me than I think either of us intended. “Can I take you out?”

I release a long breath, not moving from my spot despite our proximity. “Yes.”

He nods slowly, not pulling his gaze from mine. “It’s a date.”

“It’s a trial period,” I correct, unable to keep myself from teasing him a little.

He tilts his head to the side, laughing indulgently. “Alright, I deserve that. Then, sure, I’ll pick you up at eight for our trial period.”

He smirks cockily at me, winking in that way he knows makes my knees weak, before turning and swaggering to the door.

Despite our play, he’s not getting off this easy. There’s a lot we have to work through, and we might not even be compatible anymore — he knows that, too.

But for just this moment, I allow myself to enjoy feeling comfortable with him, joking like we used to. When his gloved hand reaches for the doorknob, I call after him, keeping my tone light. “You’re on thin fucking ice, Barnes.”

He turns his head to mine, nodding solemnly in a way I didn’t expect. “I know, Doll.”

A/n Whoops, couldn’t get this one out of my head after seeing Bucky in FATWS, so here’s some angst, bitterness, and hopefully a little hope! 

|masterlist|

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Is it wrong to lie to children?

A personal essay on reconciling with a shitty childhood and the question: is it wrong to lie to children?

It’s perplexing to have a shitty “unorthodox” childhood because initially I tried to throw out everything about It. Toss out the plumping and the rafters and the roofing, dispense of every single part of my upbringing I could get my hands on and not look back. Naturally, this approach didn’t work. It wasn’t even a real possibility. You’re still haunted by it, a ghost in the bones of a house, a foundation that remains long after the builders have left. That’s part of recovery too, to look at that ghost, to look at those bones, and keep saying: I see you, I see. I let you in. You sit with it and accept, accept, accept.

The really terrible part of this, the part where I don’t throw away the baby with the bathwater, is that you then have to raise the thing, deal with it. You have to do the hard work of parsing through the endless bits of self and placing them in “keep” piles and “discard” piles. I want to keep my mother’s kindness. I want to keep my father’s sense of humor. I want to discard the isolation. I want to discard the delusions.

But then there are these weird . . . “I don’t know” things. The things I am unsure if they helped me or hurt me. As I’ve gotten older I’ve gotten more and more of those “I don’t know” categories piling up. I’ve worked my way through most of the more obvious ones and now it’s all grey and mushy and as cloudy as a London winter. Recently, more than anything, I’ve been grappling with the fact my mother believed it was wrong to lie to children. She believed, in her flower-child way, that it was unethical in all forms.

I never believed in Santa Claus. I’m sorry to say I was a pretty obnoxious kid too because I would preach on the playground about how there was no Santa and there had never been any Santa. Which was a bit harsh, but in my defense I was under the impression these people were suffering from some sort of collective mass delusion. They were being lied to. And lying was wrong.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

I’ve known about sex since I was around 5 years old. I don’t remember why I asked, but it was something about where babies come from and so on. Most parents talk about a stork or love or some other abstract side-step. My mother described the anatomy to me and showed me a scientific diagram of the process. She told me that a sperm meets an egg and fertilizes it so the baby can grow. I learned most of this in scientific terms and was surprised when none of my middle school friends knew how a penis worked.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

When I was 9 or so our cat was eaten by a coyote. I asked my mom where he went and she said that he accidently got out the night before. She said they looked for him all morning, but it was too late. She didn’t use the word “gone” or “passed on” or “he’s in a better place now.”

She said he was dead. I said oh. She asked if I wanted to see him. I said yes. For the record, I am not actually sure if 9 year-olds should see corpses. That is neither here nor there. It was something that stuck with me though, the body of my cat with his tummy ripped out. I had never seen intestines before. His eyes were open.

But there was something cathartic about digging the grave. About helping pick up his little stiff body by the feet and placing him inside. There was something about piling on the red dirt as the sun set and letting the tears fall.

People on sitcoms hate talking about death. It’s understandable, it’s not funny, it makes for good dramatic irony when the kid asks “Where’s Socks?” and the parents go “Uuuuuh. He ran away.” I’ve never felt more alienated at those points. My cat died. He was eaten. I saw his body, and I buried it. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t want to be told he ran away-- that he had a choice in whether or not he left me.

Is it wrong to lie to children?

For a long time I thought the entirety of my childhood was wrong and bad, because I was miserable and broken at the end of it. I will assure you, my parents fucked up time and time again. But sometimes I have to stop and keep asking: Was this the wrong part? Was this the part where they fucked up? Was any part of this valuable? It’s a hard process to comb through an entire life and decide which bits are worth keeping, and if there are any silver linings.

So here is one: I am an honest person. I am a crooked person too, unsure of where to place my feet in social situations, picking my way through others normalcy. I do not readily share information, I am not forthcoming, and it’s a slow burn for me to open up about anything.

However, I notice time and time again that strangers will share personal things with me. I don’t mean for it to happen, but there’s just this pattern in my life. I once went on a car ride with a girl I barely know from my debate team. She described how she wanted to lose her virginity, she wanted it, but was scared God would be angry. That she’d be dirty afterwards. I told her that that was impossible, sex was just an act, it had no eyes, it had no priestly robes, or bearing on her soul. She cried. She said she hadn’t told me anyone this before.

I had a friend in high school who was struggling with an eating disorder, people had tried to get her to talk about it before, but I was the first person she admitted it to. In the hallway, sitting, just discussing nothing, and out it comes: I’m scared to eat sometimes. I was on a city bus and an old woman struck up a conversation with me. Over an hour or so, and she ended up telling me her fears for her own daughter going away to college. Her fear of growing old and passing on. Her problems with sleeping as she lay awake and dreaded it.

People have told me about their problems with substance abuse, their struggles with sexuality, and childhood trauma. People spill to me and I sit there thinking: Why? Sometimes I think it’s my gender or just how people are, but it always feels like I’m missing some part of the picture. Why do people open up to me, unprompted, all at once? Why me?

Is it wrong to lie to children?

Recently, I was reading a memoir set in 2001 where two young kids ask the narrator, their mother, about 9/11. They asked what happened to the people on television who were jumping off the building. Where did they go? The mother says this: They were caught. There are people-catchers that flew and saved them. Everyone is okay.

This story was meant to be heartfelt and lyrical, relatable. It ended like this: It is the job of mothers to offer gentle lies.

I had to stop reading because I was suddenly lost in a white-hot rage, unexpected, knee-jerk. How could she do that? I found myself frothing. They trusted her with answers and she lied. How could she? I knew it was irrational. It was silly even. This was a sweet story. It was meant to be heart-warming and framed in a way that suggested this is what all mothers do. This was what they needed to do. 

I felt my own mother, pumping through my veins, furious that these elementary school students were being betrayed. I stopped myself of course, I knew it wasn’t reasonable. I wasn’t raised “correctly.” I had no legs to stand on.

But still, is it alright to lie to children?

I am once again faced with that unending dilemma: how to throw-out those parts of myself that don’t work and keep the ones that do. It’s difficult to say, because in some ways I agree with my mom. How can I not? But death is cruel. Sex is weird. Santa Claus is a beautiful lie.

And what’s wrong with lying? I still don’t know. What’s wrong with letting them never hurt? Never knowing the pain or gross parts of the world? What’s the harm in letting them make-believe?

But sometimes I think about all those people who have cried to me. All these unprompted confessions come with an unspoken plea: I hurt. I am afraid. I am so scared. It’s all so heavy, these painful truths.

And some part of me stands there, the part my mother raised and says: there is nothing in this life that is too shameful. There is nothing in this world that is unnatural. There is nothing in this life to lie about, even to children.

Is death too painful? Is sex too gross? Would you tell an adult that a man lives in the North Pole and watches them?

I asked my mom, years later, when I was less furious and able to talk with her again without screaming, about why she believed all this. She had told me about it since I was very young, but I never asked why. She shrugged. She said: children are people, aren’t they?

I still don’t know what to do with this.

Children are people, but they are not adults. They shouldn’t be exposed to “adult” things, right? But is that line so concrete? Is the word “adult” just a mask for the greater word, the one we really mean? We all agree: honesty is good. Lying hurts. But it’s alright to lie to kids, because in many ways they aren’t people yet, they aren’t people yet, they don’t count.

I am admittedly an argumentative person. I was on the debate team, mock trial, United Nations, I studied political science in college and fought with every single one of my professors I thought was wrong. And I stood in that playground, age 6, and told every single one of my classmates Santa wasn’t real and I wouldn’t stop. The truth was important. And my mother, no matter what, thought I disserved it.

I often felt tiny and powerless as a kid. Terrified and holding myself together by shoestrings. I often felt there would be nothing better in the world than to be grown up. Not for the money or the dating or the job, I just wanted to feel like the hurricane would end. That one day I could stand on solid ground again. My friend often says: I wish I could be a kid again, ya know? No responsibilities. Just bliss. I want to be a kid again.

I can’t relate. I never have. I’ve been busy weeding through the pipes and lighting and the carpentry of my upbringing and asking myself: is any of this worth keeping? Is any part of me built correctly? There are no right answers.

But still, I am haunted. I sit and ask myself in circles: is it alright to lie to children?

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

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[masterthespianduchovny]

I’m going to be honest before I get to the Sam/Rebecca subplot: if they drop plots threads indicating that this continue into the next season and uplift this pairing, I’m out.

This storyline is gross and I can see why some people quit the show when the revealed happened.

When I say I’m repulsed by age gap relationships of this nature, this isn’t a shipping thing or a race thing. This is a moral and ethical thing. Because it’s not just an age gap, it’s also that Rebecca is Sam’s boss. I legitimately don’t see how people can overlook this and ship how “cute” this is. I’m not judging anyone, it just genuinely doesn’t make sense to me.

And for people who think I’m a hypocrite, Ted/Rebecca is not the same. Sam and Rebecca is like a principal dating a student. If you want to age Sam up, because people love to accuse others of infantilizing Sam, it’s like the president of a college dating a student. In both cases, there would be backlash, and have been, to these types of relationships.

Which would make Ted’s position that of a teacher/professor or someone higher. In most cases, there aren’t objections, however, both parties have to be transparent about their relationship and careful about how and if that influences their professional relationship with each other and others.

Last week, I mentioned a friend of mine who was 18 and dated someone who was 28. Both are white for reference. When I found out their ages and respective positions, I became concerned and doubly concerned.

Oh, they had chemistry and he made her so happy, but he was also controlling as fuck and emotionally abusive. During the duration of their relationship, he became her boss and would monitor her interactions via cameras in the back office. She was stressed out as fuck and would go to the bathroom to cry. You know, where cameras weren’t and where he couldn’t enter.

And it was a secret relationship because he could get in trouble. I didn’t say anything because she was with her boyfriend before she knew me. Me telling someone could’ve gotten him in trouble or fired, but that wouldn’t have ended the relationship. It would’ve made her end our friendship and cling closer to him. Instead, after I quit for other reasons, I sporadically checked on her to see how she was doing and give her advice and resources.

As far as the actual episode itself goes, I struggled to enjoy it due to the Sam/Rebecca situation. It should’ve ended at dinner at most.

The only emotional beat that landed, imo, was Jamie and Roy’s hug. I do think Ted’s confession was strong, but the flow was kinda weird for me. By itself it works.

Two things working for me that wasn’t at the forefront of the episode was 1. How Ted’s problem is fucking over the team. 2. That Nate is in over his head.

Even if AFC Richmond had lost with Ted being in his A game, it wouldn’t have been that made and the team would’ve been more competitive. They were sloppy and making baffling errors. Their head was not in the game and it showed. Man City wasn’t that good, Richmond was just that ill prepared.

And who led training?

Nate.

Nate has great instincts, but he isn’t ready to lead a team and he still has a lot of work to do before growing into coaching a team as head coach.

But let me stress, this falls completely on Ted and even Beard to an extent. Yes, Ted is having emotional issues, however, many people rely on him and he wasn’t there. I don’t mean literally because teams should be able to function without their head coach for stretches of time. He hasn’t been there mentally and emotionally for most of the season. Because AFC Richmond’s competition isn’t as premier as Man City, it’s easier to appear more dominant that you are, esp if you’re coach isn’t on his A game. However, when you’re up against actual Goliath’s in the league, you’ll get your ass handed to you like Richmond did.

As I mentioned earlier, if they do go through with supporting and uplifting Sam/Rebecca, my time with this fandom ends with the season 2 finale.

But if we take Ted’s dark forest into consideration, there is another way this could play out. Actually many.

The one I can see happening that can get her somewhat redeemed, because some will never get over this happening in the first place, is her hitting rock bottom via her relationship with Sam. Something will happen or make her have unflattering thoughts about herself and her actions that will drive her into a tailspin.

And I’m unsure if it’ll be just a personal crisis or if it’ll also be a professional crisis.

Some may disagree with me, but I do want this affair to come to light. Because if it doesn’t, it sets up this fucked up precedent that Rebecca can do fucked up shit and get away with it in private.

Rebecca fucked over her club, uprooted a man’s life in bad faith, and almost ruined several people’s careers due to her bullshit in the first season. The fact that she didn’t have to answer for any of this is a God damn mercy on Ted’s part even though she didn’t ask for it.

Now for her to date/fuck a player because “she just has to know.” Because she doesn’t want to let something pass her by?

Yeah…no.

Rebecca’s fear of loneliness is leading her to make very bad decisions and I fear what this means for Sam’s career and relationships if this breaks. There were people who allegedly care for Sam, yet cheered for this relationship to happen. What do you think happens with his locker room relationships? I’ve already explained in another post that either this sours those relationships OR they want favors from him because he’s dating/fucking the boss.

He’ll get crucified in the media. He may even have trouble getting employed. Why? Because that’s how racism works.

“But, masterthespianduchovny, if Sam may receive hate and racist acts committed against him, why do you want the affair exposed?”

Because this shit show of a relationship isn’t about just Sam. It’s about Rebecca’s fear of loneliness leading her to make bad decisions that effects everyone not just her and Sam. It’s the fact that a white woman isn’t thinking about how her actions could have major consequences for a young black man.

Rebecca is so obsessed with not being lonely and being loved that 1. She never sought help or productive ways to deal with the fall out and humiliation of her marriage. 2. She dated a man because he was “fine” and not because she was actually invested in him and the relationship 3. She’s getting involved with a player on her team without thinking of any of the consequences. 4. She’s not considering the other players, the coaches, or anyone else she’s responsible for.

Oh, and considering we got that call from Sam’s dad…his relationship with his father will most likely suffer as a result. AND now that Dubai Air thing looks suspect, esp because she was talking to him around that time unknowingly.

Oop! And isn’t she getting her relationship with Nora back on track? Even though Nora and Sam can’t legally date and I’m not saying every decision should be swayed by a teenage girl, however, Rebecca is literally sabotaging every relationship just because she’s afraid of being alone (I agree with another poster who said we really didn’t need to explore this storyline, but alas…)

Although Ted forgave Rebecca for her scheming in season one, I honestly don’t think he’d be so forgiving for this. It’s his job to protect players and look out for their well being and how can he one his boss is involved with one of his players, which again, affects others players. This relationship has major consequences for other people who are not in it.

Also, Sam…for someone who people love to say is mature enough to date an older woman, not once did even be consider the ramifications of getting involved with the boss.

Not once.

And that looks bad because a mature person his age would be mindful of such a thing. This isn’t considered or, at least, isn’t said onscreen. Sam os either thinking with his dick, his heart, or both, but he isn’t thinking with his head. Because there is no way you’re thinking with your head and don’t stop to say, “hey, this thing could jeopardize my relationship with my teammates and the other people I work with. Maybe I should think some more of this before pursuing a relationship with my boss.” Sam was all in from the moment he decided he wanted to have dinner with Rebecca. There was no thinking on his end.

But Sam’s super mature, right?

Another poster mentioned that there might be a screaming match between Rebecca and ted and I’m so here for that. No, I don’t think this argument will be romantic. They’ll have legitimate gripes with each other, but yeah…this is an argument that needs to happen. Which will most likely be before Rebecca gets help.

That’s all assuming this happens. Like I said, they could have Sam and Rebecca being a power couple (🤮), or handle this some other way. But if this is going to be framed as a good thing, others can enjoy it, but the show will have one less viewer from me.

[dialovers-translations]

DIABOLIK LOVERS MORE,BLOOD Vol.01 Sakamaki Ayato [TRACK 5+6]

Original title: 首輪 & 嫉妬

Source: Diabolik Lovers More, Blood Vol. 1: Sakamaki Ayato [CD not owned by me]

Audio: Here

Seiyuu: Midorikawa Hikaru

Translator’s note:

Track 1+2 ll Track 3+4 ll Track 5+6 ll Track 7+8 ll Track 9+10

→  LIKE MY TRANSLATIONS? SUPPORT ME ON KO-FI!

TRACK 5: COLLAR

*Cling*

*Rustle rustle*

“Ugh...Haha...It’s stranglin’ you, isn’t it? This is your penalty for disobeyin’ me...By tightenin’ the chains almost to the point of suffocation, it makes the blood gush out more vigorously as well...When that happens, I’ll be so nice as to drink it. I bet you don’t dislike this either, do you?”

*Rustle rustle*

[00:35] “Is it hard to breathe…? Haha...Suffer more then! ...More and more…! ...Regret the fact that you betrayed me!”

You protest.

“...You didn’t betray me, you say? Then how do you explain their scent all over your body? Aah!?”

*Cling cling*

[01:04] “Ahaha...Did they mark you like some dog would, perhaps? Puttin’ their scent all over you to show that you are theirs. Hahaha…! That would be kinda funny.”

*Rustle*

“Come on, if you don’t answer me, I’m only gonna strangle you more. You already seem to be strugglin’ to breathe quite a bit?”

*Rustle rustle*

[01:32] “You look pathetic, like a goldfish out of water gasping for air, hahaha…Well, I don’t care if you die or whatever. ーー I’ll at least savor your delicious blood to my heart’s content. Hahaha. Guess I’ll go for this place next.”

*Cling*

“Chichinashi. I’m gonna suck from your shoulder now. I’d say this is a pretty convenient choice while I’m stranglin’ you. Fortunately, there’s none of their marks left behind here either. 

You writhe around.

[02:15] “What are you squirmin’ for? Do you want me to hurry up? Hahaha. Sure thing.”

*Sluuuurp*

“Hah...I’m starvin’ today. I’m hungry.”

He bites you.

“Mm...Nn…”

*Gulp*

“Deeper...Mmh…”

*Sluuuurp*

“Hah...Mmh...Nn…Hah! Haah…”

*Sluuuurp*

[03:06] “Hah...Delicious...I’ll plunge my fangs down to the core...I’ll taint even the places they could only dream of reachin’...Mmh…”

*Sluuuurp*

“Nn…Mm...Hah...Mmh…”

*Sluuuurp*

“It’s hot...Scorchin’...”

*Cling cling*

[03:45] “Hahaha...Ahaha! You finally stopped cryin’ thanks to these chains, huh? Chichinashi, you like this new collar I got you, don’t you?”

*Cling cling*

“If I knew this would happen, I would’ve kept a chain ‘round your neck the whole time…Hahn…”

*Sluuuurp*

“Mm...Nn...Hah…”

You start to grow dizzy.

[04:26] “...Oi! Get a grip! You can still keep goin’, right? Haah...I’ve gotten pretty heated as well…”

You beg for mercy.

“Hahaha…’Forgive me’? For what? I thought you said you didn’t betray me earlier?”

You explain.

“Hah? It hurts? Of course it does.”

*Rustle*

[05:02] “I’m makin’ it hurt after all.”

*Cling cling*

“You love how I push you to the very edge, don’t you? Hahaha...I’ll make them even tighter…”

*Cling cling*

“Hahaha...How pathetic. Close your mouth at least. You’re makin’ a dumb expression. Ah. But I guess you can’t breathe if you do.”

*Sluuuurp*

[05:39] “I love that look on your face. Look at you droolin’ from pure bliss...Guess you’re really no different from a dog now. You bitch! (1) However, I can’t get enough of your blood when you’re like this. Mmh…”

*Sluuuurp*

“Nn...Mmh…”

*Gulp*

[06:10] “Haah...This is bad...The taste of your blood has gotten richer again...Stop reactin’ in this way...This taste...Ahー”

*Sluuuurp*

“Hahn...Mm…”

*Sluuuurp*

[06:36] “Hah...It’s hella sweet...Seems like you’re enjoyin’ it more than usual today...I can easily tell how you feel, just by suckin’ your blood. Didn’t I tell you earlier? I really don’t need to ask for your innermost thoughts. Hahn…”

*Sluuuurp*

[07:06] “Mm...Nn…Hahn...Mmh...Hahー! Haah...Hahaha...Your shoulder’s covered in holes. Now if I brand you with my mark here, I might just feel satisfied.”

TRACK 6: JEALOUSY

*Rustle rustle*

“Fufufu…”

*Cling*

“There. I loosened the chains.”

You gasp for air.

“Seems like you’re completely worn out. What a turn off. ...Well, not that I was expectin’ any kind of appeal from a Chichinashi.”

You protest.

“...Aah!? Excuse me? Try sayin’ that again…”

You repeat yourself.

[00:39] “Me? Jealous? Pfftー Ahaha...Hahahaha! Are you dumb!? Guess you’ve finally lost it ‘cause of them, huh? ーー CUT THE CRAP! How many times do I have to tell you that I won’t let myself get pushed ‘round by some kiddie feelings!?”

You flinch.

“I’m pissed off…’cause they had the nerve to take my prey. That’s all!”

*Cling*

[01:17] “Chichinashi. Seems like you haven’t experienced enough pain just yet, seein’ as you still have the time to make those kind of cheeky remarks. In other wordsーー You’re just trying to catch my attention, aren’t you? Hahaha...Sure. I’ll play along. I won’t show any mercy today…”

*Rustle*

“Not until you admit that you’re my prey.”

*Cling cling*

[01:49] “Hmph. You look hopeful. I get it. You seem to believe that you’ve fallen head over heels for me, but that’s a misunderstandin’ on your part. Haha…”

*Rustle*

“Shall I teach you? Who you love isn’t me. ...It’s these bad boys.”

Ayato bites you.

“Hahn...Mmh...Nn…”

*Gulp*

“Haah...Mmh…Nn…Hah…”

*Rustle*

[02:45] “Well would you look at that? You’ve got that dreamy look in your eyes again. You just love these fangs to bits, don’t you, hm? Hahn…”

*Sluuuurp*

“Mmh...Nn…”

*Gulp*

“Hah...Nn…Mmh...Hahー!”

*Rustle rustle*

[03:16] “I figured that one out long ago. So you really are a traitor after all, Chichinashi.”

*Rustle*

“Hahn...Mm…”

*Gulp*

“Fuck…! The blood turned foul all of a sudden! ...What’s wrong, Chichinashi? Doesn’t it feel good, huh!?”

*Rustle rustle*

[03:49] “Your blood doesn’t taste good unless you enjoy it.”

You frown.

“Are you actually hurt by my words? Hahaha…”

*Cling cling*

“Oh well, whatever. As soon as I plunge in these fangs you love so much, you’ll start feelin’ it in no time.”

You protest.

[04:18] “Human ‘sentiments’ are only worth that much after all. You give in to momentary pleasure so easily.” 

*Rustle*

“It’s startin’ to get to me as well...My head’s spinnin’...Hahaha...But you know. I still want more of your blood. No matter how much I suck, there’s always room for more. Is this their trap? Are they tryin’ to numb my senses and have me kill you? Hahaha…”

*Rustle rustle*

[05:08] “Guess they’re hopin’ I’ll violate your body all over with these fangs of mine...Hahaha...That sounds like the kind of plan a bunch of shitbags would come up with. ーー I don’t like it. However, even though I know their intentions, I just don’t quite feel like myself...My desires are overflowin’...They must have drugged me in some way as well! ...Haah, haah...I can’t stop myself!”

He latches onto you once more.

“Hahn...Mmh...Nn…”

*Gulp*

*Sluuuurp*

“Hahー! ...Mmh...Nn…”

*Sluuuurp*

[06:15] “Haah, haah…It’s like I’m bein’ controlled by them...Fuck! Why are they doin’ this, for real…!? Hahn…”

*Gulp*

“Mm...Hah...Haah, haah...Oi, Chichinashi. Open your eyes.”

*Smack*

“Come on. Look at me.”

You slowly open your eyes.

[06:53] “Look at that ecstatic look in your eyes. You can act as vulnerable as you want, I can see right through it. How many times do I have to tell you? ーー The way you taste speaks louder than a thousand words. Hahaha…”

*Sluuuurp*

“It’s oozin’ out of the wounds...Aah...This won’t do...It’s not nearly enough!”

*Rustle*

[07:30] “Oi, Chichinashi. Have you lost the energy to respond? Makes sense, I guess. Those guys already got a taste of you before me after all. How many of them were there? About four of them, right? Hahaha...That’s pretty amazin’ Chichinashi…”

*Rustle*

“Did you think I wouldn’t notice? But I can. You’re covered in marks which aren’t mine after all. Hahaha...Aahー I’m so pissed off, it’s makin’ me laugh. Hahaha!”

*Cling cling*

[08:21] “I can’t believe I still crave your blood, even though I’m this mad...Fuck! I know that I’m playin’ straight into their hand, yet Iーー Kuh!”

*Rustle*

“Haah...I still want more…”

ーー TO BE CONTINUED ーー

Translation notes

(1) He just says ‘you dog!’ (inu) in Japanese. However, since I just used ‘dog’ in the previous sentence and a female dog is called a ‘bitch’ in English, I decided to switch it up. It definitely sounds more degrading this way as well.

[bastillewolf]

Kinda Sketchy (II)

Pairing: Corpse Husband / Reader

Request: “Can you do a part two of kinda sketchy where they slowly fall in love?”

Notes: Sorry this took me so long, but I had zero inspiration as the request left a lot of questions hahaha. Still fun to write, I hope you like it!

Tag list closed.

Chapter II

You’d fallen into a routine for a while. You’d do groceries, he’d do the dishes. You switched cooking, though it was also fine if neither of you felt like it, which is when you’d just order takeout or eat leftovers. But what seemed like the normal thing for two roommates to do on a spoken terms of agreement, it actually appeared you did those things for each other because you wanted to. You’d find some left over dishes in his room which you’d clean, and the next morning you’d find the forgotten tea on your nightstand already back in the cupboard. If you fell asleep working, reading, or watching something on TV, you’d somehow always end up in your bed even though you couldn’t remember getting up to get there yourself.

It had grown into this wonderful friendship between two people who had found it convenient to live together. You knew he could just as well live on his own now, knowing how big his YouTube channel had gotten within the time you’d first seen it up until now- in only a few months, at that. You’d asked him about it, but he’d simply brushed it off, saying it was easier for him this way. He wasn’t sure if he would ever do a face reveal, and having you go outside so he didn’t have to was a great bonus to the shared rent and company. It had hurt you slightly to hear him talk about it so plainly when you had already realized you were starting to feel more for him than you were supposed to.

It had started gradually, to be honest. You hadn’t noticed it at first. You simply took for granted all the times he jokingly bumped his shoulder into yours, or when he hugged you tight when he saw you needed it, or when he even kissed you on the cheek while having a debate with you on what a ‘chef’s kiss’ meant when you’d cooked a – if you may say so yourself – sublime meal.

But now, you had to miss all of those things. It seemed, when you agreed to his basic explanation of how easy it was for him with you living here in order to hide your disappointment, he’d seen it as a sign to stop doing all of those things for granted.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, please. But it’s just easier. I’ve gotten recognized before in a drive-through and I don’t want to go through that ever again,” he said.

You shook your head, even though your heart was plummeting down a set of stairs. “No, I completely get it. We’re roommates and it’s what we agreed upon. That’s it.”

“That’s it,” he repeated.

And that was it. The cups of leftover tea on your nightstand had started to form a fort, and you suddenly found yourself waking up on the couch in the middle of the night, feeling cold and grouchy as you realized you had to walk back to your bed. If you did sleep there until morning, you’d wake up from the sound of the coffee machine with a mumbled ‘sorry’ from your roommate, but other than that, he never said anything about it.

You’d wondered if he was angry with you. You’d even made a peace offering by cleaning up the mess in his room. Even that he didn’t mention.

So, one night while you were waiting on him at the table to show up for dinner, he didn’t come. He wasn’t in the apartment, he hadn’t texted you, he hadn’t left a note. He was nowhere to be found. Of course, you’d think something happened to him. You called Sykkuno first, and luckily you’d chosen exactly the right person.

“Oh, yeah! We’re playing Mario Kart, and he’s staying over. I thought he’d told you?” he said.

“Eh, no, he didn’t,” you replied, rubbing your eyes. “It’s fine. You guys have fun.”

“Thanks! You should come next time too, if you’re not too busy. Corpse told me how much work keeps you up.”

“He did?” you ask, sounding as monotone as could be.

“Yeah, but I think it’s just because he doesn’t want you to meet us yet. We kinda make a crazy first impression on everyone, and I’m pretty sure he wants us to be on our best behaviour when you come over… He- He does talk about you, a lot.”

“He… what?”

“Rae started teasing him about it, but then he brushed it off saying he’d never cheat on me, which is kind of weird considering we aren’t-“

“What did he say about me?” For a moment you felt guilty cutting him off, but your curiosity and heart got the better of you and Thomas didn’t really seem to mind.

“Oh, you know, how you’ve been taking care of him more than he’s ever taken care of himself. I thought it was kind of sad, but he talked about it pretty fondly. Rae caught a hint of that and started asking very personal questions, like what’s going on between the two of you, and then he stopped. I think he just doesn’t want to throw things out there, you know? I think he- Oh, here he is now! Do you want to me to hand you over?”

“No. Thanks, Thomas.” You’d quickly ended the call, but it seemed to late when you’d still heard him ask with that raspy voice of his, “Who are you talking to?”.

So, you ended up eating your dinner alone. He didn’t come home until after midnight, when you were still sitting at the same table, this time with your laptop in front of you doing some last bits of work so you wouldn’t end up falling asleep on the couch again.

You didn’t even turn around when you heard him walk in. He seemed to even hesitate for a moment, judging by his footsteps, before he said ‘hey’. You muttered it back, pretending to be engrossed in your work.

He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, before leaning back against the counter, his face turned to you. “You know, maybe you should just work in bed. I highly doubt falling asleep with your face smashed against the keyboard is very comfortable.”

You suddenly stopped typing, leaned your elbows against the table and linked your fingers together, looking him dead in the eye. “Maybe I want to feel the pain in my back as a punishment knowing I fell asleep like this again.”

“Fair enough,” he sighed.

You let a silence linger just a bit longer, before you continued typing and said, “You could’ve told me where you were.”

He was probably staring at you, but you still pointedly ignored him. “I didn’t know that was in our arrangement.”

“Well, I didn’t know our arrangement was that unpersonal to you. Seems like all I am is someone who just gets your groceries for you.” It was a low blow. But you just needed to make him feel the stabbing, the way he stabbed you.

“Jesus, I told you not to take that personally. That’s not what I meant at all,” he said.

“I didn’t take it personally until you thought that conversation was enough to start ignoring me,” you lied.

“I think you know just as well as I do why I’m keeping my distance.”

You met his eyes. Nothing you could see in there, besides the frustration, gave you any answers. You couldn’t help it, you were glaring back at him just as hard even though all you could feel right now was confusion. He shook his head and sighed.

“Maybe it’s time this agreement ends.”

The thought had crossed both your minds, but he was the one who had said it out loud. And probably stung harder for you than it would have for him if you’d cut the cord. He left you sitting there, with tears now blurring your vision, slamming the door behind him for good measure.

***

He wasn’t home again. It gave you the perfect opportunity to quickly pack the rest of your shit up and leave, quietly. A cowardly move, perhaps, but you knew you didn’t have it in you to face him for this. You still hadn’t found a new place yet, since everything in Cali was way too fucking expensive and most ads looking for a roommate even sketchier than the one from Corpse you’d replied to. One of your friends had come to your aid, however, so you had at least a temporary place to say without having to suffer in this tension any longer.

You were just shoving the last of your books in a cardboard box when your phone rang. It was Thomas.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“Uh… well, I was wondering if you could tell us that…” Sykkuno hesitantly asked.

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh- give me the phone-“ “Hey!” there was an evident struggle, before Rae was suddenly talking to you, clearly having ripped the device from Thomas’ hands.

“Corpse is acting all weird! We know something happened between the two of you, but he doesn’t wanna talk about it! It’s like he’s gone back to his brooding old self and I’m worried! So you better start talking!”

“Unless it wasn’t your fault-“ you heard Thomas call out. He was quickly shushed by Rae.

“There’s nothing to say. He made it very clear that our living arrangement was just that; an arrangement, and he stopped talking to me. I confronted him about it, he started saying vague shit and asked me to move out.”

“Wait, what did he say?! I need specifics!” “Rae talks Corpse language, apparently,” you heard Toast mumble in the background.

“He said ‘I think you know just as well as I do why I’m keeping my distance’,” you imitated, your voice not nearly going as low as his.

“Wait, what?”

“I think he just figured out I have feelings for him. I understand how he wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.”

“Oh my god, you’re both such idio-!“

The call ended before you could hear the rest of Rae’s frustration. You shrugged it off, understanding why she would be mad at you by upsetting Corpse. He was her friend first and foremost, after all.

You stuffed your clothes in garbage bags, tied them up and pushed all of it into the living room. You’d dusted, vacuumed, and taken the bedsheets off. While balling all of the laundry up in your arms, you heard the door open. You immediately froze.

Footsteps were coming closer. Maybe if you didn’t move he would think you weren’t here. You didn’t want to do this. You didn’t want to see that he didn’t care. Your heart was pounding in your chest and your hands were wringing the fabric of the bedsheets. God, you should’ve packed quicker. You shouldn’t have been so organized, you should’ve just shoved everything in a few boxes altogether and made a break for it. You should’ve.

He was at your door opening. The footsteps had stopped. You still had your back turned to him.

Just keep walking. Please, just keep walking, you pleaded, closing your eyes. Waiting for the final blow.

However, it didn’t seem to land. Not anywhere near you, at least.

You simply heard his breathing, which seemed more erratic than usual, but perhaps you were just imagining things. Please, just keep walking. Please, I can’t-

“Please don’t go,” he rasped.

Your brows furrowed. If anything, your eyes squeezed shut even tighter. He had to be joking with you.

But then he said your name, pleadingly. He stepped behind you, and you could feel his warm breath against your neck. “Please don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”

“I think you do,” you tried to convince him, as well as yourself.

His hands found his way around your waist and across your stomach until his chest was flush against your back. “No, I don’t.”

Your hands felt numb, so numb you barely noticed them dropping the bedsheets. He turned you around slowly, and you opened your eyes.

“I… heard what you said to Rae.”

“Oh.”

You watched as he leaned in, the tip of his nose brushing against yours. You didn’t stop him- of course you didn’t want him to. His lips pressed against yours gently, in a question, which you responded to. It was still laced with a certain hesitance, but not one strong enough to make either of you want to pull back. It was tingly, warm, and comfortable as the stress of the past few days came washing over you.

He smiled shyly as he pulled back. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew about how I felt.”

“I’m sorry too. I think we need to set up some things in our agreement about communication.”

“Please, no more fucking agreements. I think Rae would definitely kill us.” You both laughed.

TAG LIST CLOSED!

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[robininthelabyrinth]

Same River Twice (aka Time Travel Nie Bros) - part 4 - see ao3 or tumblr part 1, part 2, part 3

-

“You know what,” Nie Mingjue said, several shichen into the most awkward conversation he’d ever been forced to overhear in his life, “I think Wei Wuxian needs more friends.”

His father stopped contemplating the window with an expression that suggested he was considering throwing himself out of it and looked at him. “So you’ve mentioned before.”

“Yes, I know,” Nie Mingjue said, because he had in fact brought it up after Nie Huaisang’s no doubt unintentionally apt suggestion. “But on second thought, he needs them urgently. As does Huaisang. You don’t want them growing up barbaric and unsocialized, do you?”

His father mouthed the words ‘barbaric and unsocialized’ to himself, looking delighted. “By which you mean that you’d like to take them to visit the Lan sect, I assume?” he asked, not bothering to hide his amusement. “To learn good habits from them there?”

“To avoid learning bad habits here,” Nie Mingjue said. “Alternatively, you could always kick all of them out so that all of us can stop getting the loud and dramatic rendition of all the different types of bad decisions adults can make, courtesy of our friends in the Jiang sect and our new guest disciples.”

“…take Zonghui with you,” his father said. “Have a nice trip. Enjoy the quiet.”

There was a better than decent chance that he was being sarcastic, but Nie Mingjue wasn’t going to wait around long enough to find out – he saluted and turned to run away at once.

“Don’t get into too much trouble!” his father shouted after him.

That was ridiculous. What sort of trouble could Nie Mingjue get into in Gusu, of all places?

-

“Nie-gongzi, has anyone ever told you that you have really weird taste in rewards?” Nie Zonghui said, looking long-suffering as always.

Wei Wuxian, who was riding on his shoulders, craned his head down to look at him. “Rewards? What is Nie-da-ge getting rewarded for?”

“He performed especially well on his first ever night hunt,” Nie Zonghui told him, while Nie Mingjue flushed red and Nie Huaisang, who was riding on his shoulders, giggled. “His father wanted to reward him, and determined to do so by granting the first request he made.”

“He didn’t tell me he was planning on doing that,” Nie Mingjue hissed. If he had, he might’ve asked to visit Yunping City to collect Meng Yao – finding a reason to go there was much harder to achieve than arranging a simple visit to the Lan sect, which would’ve happened sooner or later anyway.

His thoughts hadn’t been focused on reward at all. He’d only really, truly desperately wanted to get away from any further discussion of Sect Leader Jiang’s sex life.

(Cangse Sanren was blunt and straightforward in her speech, something Nie Mingjue greatly appreciated right up until she was shouting things about size and shape and performance and also her husband…it was absolutely mortifying, even just as a spectator, except possibly Jiang Fengmian was into things like that because he just kept on arguing. In his past-future life, Nie Mingjue had had to sit across the table from Jiang Fengmian for years, and might yet have to do so again if he was not successful in adverting his father’s death, which was something he wouldn’t be able to if he kept hearing things like this! He didn’t want to know things like this!)

No, Nie Mingjue hadn’t thought about rewards at all – had already put away all thoughts of that particular night-hunt in favor of showing of his improvement with Baxia, who practically purred in his hands when he wielded her, so that he could win his independence sooner rather than later.

Even picking Gusu as their destination had been primarily motivated by seizing on the last place anyone had mentioned to him as a plausible destination that could be sold to his father.

Nie Huaisang had asked him, all big and wide-eyed and adorable, why they were going to somewhere as far away from the Unclean Realm as the Cloud Recesses, and Nie Mingjue had blamed Nie Huaisang’s suggestion of introducing Wei Wuxian to the Lan sect.

Nie Huaisang had also asked why they were going now and Nie Mingjue had explained in a rush of tangled words that sometimes grown-ups liked to talk about private things very loudly and maybe it would be better to leave them to it.

Nie Huaisang had found that dreadfully funny for some reason, giggling until both he and Wei Wuxian were rolling around on the ground laughing their heads off at the idea of going to Gusu –

Nie Mingjue didn’t care. As long as they went, and with them his excuse to go as well!

(Besides, it would be nice to see Lan Xichen.)

“Of course he didn’t tell you about it, Nie-gongzi,” Nie Zonghui said patiently. “It was meant to be a surprise. Wouldn’t have been much of a surprise if you knew about it, would it?”

Nie Mingjue sighed. Nie Zonghui was a half-generation above him – older than him by over a decade, entitling him (if only technically) to be called uncle rather than cousin, but young enough that he sometimes felt more like a peer. Certainly once Nie Mingjue himself had become sect leader, having someone like him to help figure out how to communicate with the elders had been priceless.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to punch the man in the face on a regular basis.

Stupid sense of humor.

“Wouldn’t da-ge be happier if he could pick what he got?” Nie Huaisang asked. “What if he’d asked for something stupid, like a map?”

Nie Mingjue reached up to one of the legs currently dangling next to his ear and pinched him lightly, making his little brother squeak and then giggle again. He wasn’t sure why Nie Huaisang was still so worried about his offer to buy him a map – he hadn’t even known that the under-five age group could have a sense of financial economy, much less guilt over it, but then again he didn’t know much about kids that age anyway – but no matter what he wasn’t having any of it.

In this life, his brother would be happy for as long as Nie Mingjue could give him.

-

Of course, making Nie Huaisang happy would be easier if he wasn’t so picky.

“Didi, didi, it’s all right,” he said, trying to be soothing and not really remembering how. “You don’t need to be afraid - Lan Xichen is a friend…I’m sorry, Xichen, I really don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

“It’s no problem,” Lan Xichen said, looking exactly as one would expect a nine-year-old being addressed as a peer by a twelve-year-old that his guardian routinely praised as a role model would be – which was to say, a little pleased, a little uncertain, and mostly confused. The shrieking four-year-old wasn’t helping matters, either. “I don’t think I’ve done anything to offend him...?”

“You’re blind,” Nie Huaisang hissed at him, tears still streaming down his face. “Blind, blind, blind!”

“No, Huaisang,” Nie Mingjue said helplessly. He had no idea where Nie Huaisang got these ideas into his head, was it a feature of early childhood or something? “He’s not – look, the bandage is around his forehead, right? Not his eyes. And since when do you have something against blind people anyway?”

Nie Huaisang buried his face into his side. “Stupid da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue patted him on the back. “Sorry,” he said to Lan Xichen again. “This isn’t exactly the first impression I was hoping for.”

Lan Xichen abruptly grinned, looking for a moment like a regular child rather than the polite and reserved young man Nie Mingjue had known for so many years – it reminded him a little of the boy from the future timeline that he’d only seen brief glimpses of through the pieces of his soul that were attached to the pieces of his body, the loud and irreverent one called Lan Jingyi.

Back then he'd wondered abstractly how exactly such a boy could be related to the Lan clan, stately and elegant even when they acted radically, and now all of a sudden he saw that boy staring out of him from Lan Xichen’s immature face.

“Bet you thought you’d look a lot more dashing, didn’t you?” Lan Xichen asked merrily. “Flying in on your swords, jumping down for a perfect landing, and then – waaaaaaah!”

Nie Mingjue laughed, because it really had happened a bit like that.

“Don’t forget the domino effect,” he said wryly, glancing over at where Wei Wuxian was being plied with treats from a bag pulled from Nie Zonghui’s sleeve – he’d started sympathy crying when Nie Huaisang had inexplicably started wailing, and was having trouble stopping even though he admitted that nothing was actually wrong with him other than having feelings. “They’re probably just over-tired from the trip.”

“Did you really fly all the way from Qinghe?” Lan Xichen asked eagerly. “All by yourself?”

“We made a lot of stops –”

“But you were on your own sword, right? Just you?”

“It’s a saber and I was carrying Huaisang, but yes, in terms of who was in charge of propulsion, it was just me.”

Lan Xichen heaved a sigh full of obvious envy, and Nie Mingjue smiled. “If you want, I can petition your uncle that you act as my guide to the surrounding environs as well as the Cloud Recesses itself? He’d have to let you fly by yourself if that was the case.”

“Oh, would you?” Lan Xichen enthused. “That would be great! I’m not that good yet, but I’m not going to get good if I don’t have a chance to practice, except Uncle is always saying that – oh, wait, I’m not supposed to say –”

“Speaking of others behind their back is prohibited,” Nie Mingjue said solemnly, then cracked up at the dumbfounded expression on Lan Xichen’s face. “No, I’m sorry, I won’t quote your sect rules at you, I promise, it was just a joke…”

“You’d better!”

He rather liked this enthusiastic version of Lan Xichen, Nie Mingjue thought.

Even Nie Huaisang seemed to have gotten over his initial fright to start begrudgingly enjoying all of Lan Xichen’s chattering and bustling around – Nie Mingjue thought he might, given that Lan Xichen currently reminded him immensely of an extremely chatty blue-breasted quail and Nie Huaisang had always liked those. There was so much life in Lan Xichen, good humor and cheer filling him up until he was practically bursting with it; he hadn’t yet had to learn how to hold back his feelings and hide them, hadn’t yet learned that the only acceptable way to interact with others was through a carefully practiced smile.

Perhaps what was why Lan Xichen had been so drawn to Meng Yao, Nie Mingjue reflected – Meng Yao had hidden himself underneath a smile, too. Where he himself had admired Meng Yao for what he had thought was his strength of character, his ability to ignore the jibes and the slights he faced in favor of carrying on and doing what must be done, just as Nie Mingjue longed to be able to do, perhaps Lan Xichen had from the very first moment seen Meng Yao as someone in need of sympathy and affection. Perhaps it had been his own suffering projected onto Meng Yao’s open, facile face that had so tugged on his heartstrings.

It was a little odd, though.

It was a long time ago, but Nie Mingjue recalled meeting Lan Xichen when they were both quite young, and if he put his mind to thinking about it, he was pretty sure they would have met in about two years’ time – his fourteen to Lan Xichen’s eleven, with Nie Huaisang nearly six and Lan Wangji nearly seven. And yet the Lan Xichen he had met had been so very different from this, far more serious and reserved, quiet more often than not, that practiced smile already on his face and only with great reluctance melting into something real…

He wondered why there had been such a great change.

In the meantime, Nie Mingjue relieved Nie Zonghui of his duties on account of their safety – the older man had been to Gusu before for discussion conferences, and looked extremely bored – and took Nie Huaisang’s hand in one hand and Wei Wuxian’s in the other, and the three of them followed Lan Xichen around as he pointed out all the things he liked best.

Wei Wuxian broke away at one point and sped into the brush, shrieking something about a rabbit, and when they gave chase and found him again, he’d somehow bumped into Lan Wangji, who with his white clothing and solemn expression resembled nothing so much a bunny himself.

“Nie-da-ge, this is my friend!” Wei Wuxian hollered, even though they couldn’t have been talking for more than a few minutes before the rest of them caught up. “His name’s Lan Zhan! I’m keeping him forever!”

Nie Huaisang sniggered, and Nie Mingjue poked him – it was rude to laugh at other people’s earnestness.

“That’s nice, Wuxian,” he said, and formally saluted Lan Wangji, knowing how much the other boy liked rules and things being done right. “I’m pleased to meet you, Wangji. I hope we can be friends as well.”

Lan Wangji stared at him mutely for a long moment, and then his entire face slowly turned bright red as if he were boiling.

Nie Mingjue blinked, unsure about the reason for such an extreme reaction, but standing beside him Lan Xichen cackled. “Oh, oh, this is great,” he crowed. “Wait till I tell Mom!”

Lan Wangji attempted to bite him, which naturally made Wei Wuxian leap to his friend’s assistance, and somehow Nie Huaisang ended up wading into the fray with a stick that he waved around like a war-fan, seeking inexplicably to defend Lan Xichen despite having previously displayed no fondness for him at all.

Nie Mingjue waded in as well, of course, trying to separate them and somehow ending up as everyone’s target when they realized that he was strong enough to pick them all up and toss them (lightly) into the piles of soft grass that covered the meadow, even Lan Xichen, and at that point they all threw themselves at him eagerly in order to be throw back.

Nie Mingjue wasn’t really thinking about that, though. He was thinking about what Lan Xichen had said.

He was thinking about – Mom.

Not Nie Mingjue’s own, naturally. She’d been gone since he was younger than Nie Huaisang was now. Perhaps it was because Nie Mingjue had his father and his aunts and his uncles, but he had never really felt the lack of her all that much, except maybe when he needed to learn some etiquette he didn’t know or when his peers spoke fondly of their own mothers. Nor was he thinking of Nie Huaisang’s mother, who had been very nice and whose untimely death had upset him immensely; he honestly hadn’t thought of either of them in years and years by the time he’d died.

But rather, he thought about Lan Xichen’s mother – Lan Wangji’s mother –

Nie Mingjue hadn’t learned the story of her fate until much, much later in life, when he was very nearly an adult. The Lan sect had always kept their secrets very well, and he might never have learned the details if it hadn’t been for Lan Xichen willingly divulging them. He’d told him the whole awful story of how his mother had not loved his father even though he loved her, how she had killed someone dear to him, how he had married her to save her and gone into seclusion to punish himself, how the Lan sect, ever concerned with its face, had covered it all up by forcing her into permanent seclusion…

The story had never really sat right with him. A punishment was one thing, entirely justifiable; murder was murder, and life imprisonment was a valid sentence, a valid commutation of the death sentence that she probably ought to have received. It was not Nie Mingjue’s place to question how the Lan sect selected and imposed punishments…

And yet, something about it had always felt rotten.

Maybe it was only that the Nie sect didn’t believe in solitary imprisonment. Or, well, really solitary anything, with even seclusion being done in a relatively well-traveled area so that those inside could, if they wished, open a one-sided window to hear the noise and know that their family was around them. Even their tombs, their saber halls, were joined together into what was practically a necropolis – even in death, the Nie sect would rather be together than apart.

If he recalled correctly, Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji’s mother would soon be taken away from them for good. She’d died when Lan Xichen was – ten? Ten to Lan Wangji’s six, yes, that sounded right.

A year from now, then. Less, maybe.

“– xiongzhang is da-ge, not er-ge!”

“No, you don’t understand, my da-ge is older – and bigger – so he’s da-ge, and your xiongzhang is er-ge, and that means you’d be san-ge, and Wei-gege is – wait, which one of you is older?”

“Huaisang, it doesn’t work that way, we’re not the same family –”

“What are you even talking about?” Nie Mingjue asked, abruptly coming out of his thoughts. They’d continued playing while he daydreamed, and now Lan Xichen was perched on his back like a monkey, with Nie Huaisang on one of Nie Mingjue’s shoulder while Wei Wuxian hung off the other arm’s bicep and Lan Wangi clung to his neck in front like a sloth on a branch, as Nie Mingjue demonstrated that he could, in fact, keep walking with all of them attached. Every single one of them seemed to think this was the absolute height of entertainment. “Who’s related to what now? Huaisang, can’t you just call Xichen Xichen-ge or something?”

“Oh, fine. Xichen-gege! Xichen-gege!”

“Nie-didi! Nie-didi!”

“Too loud,” Lan Wangji sniffed.

“Didn’t you hear Lan Zhan?!” Wei Wuxian promptly hollered at the top of his lungs. “You’re all being too loud!”

“I’m going to throw each and every one of you into a pond,” Nie Mingjue said. “One by one, if I have to.”

“Do you promise?” Lan Xichen giggled in his ear. “That sounds like fun!”

“Actually,” Nie Mingjue said, “I had a different thought. How about we play hide-and-seek?”

-

The advantage of future knowledge, Nie Mingjue thought, was that he knew exactly where Madame Lan’s home was and how to get there within the time period he’d suggested for the initial hiding.

The disadvantage was that he was so focused on achieving his goal that he forgot that what implications might be taken from a twelve-year-old boy breaking into a woman’s home, especially at a time when she wasn’t expecting visitors.

“I’m so sorry!” he all but shrieked, covering his eyes even though he had already turned his back. “Please put on clothing!”

“Oh, your face –” Madame Lan was guffawing. “You’re so red – boy, you don’t have to throw yourself out the window in penance or anything. I’m still wearing my inner robe, you can’t even see anything.”

“It’s still inappropriate!”

“Could be worse. I could’ve been –”

“Please don’t finish that sentence,” he begged. “I swear I’m not actually doing this because I have a crush on you, so please, please, please don’t give me any details about what you do in the privacy of your own home, okay? And stop offering me your under-things! I don’t want them!”

“I was only doing laundry,” she said, almost crying with laughter. “I didn’t mean to throw my underwear at your face, it was really just the closest thing to hand…who are you, anyway? Shouldn’t you be introducing yourself to me?”

“I’ll introduce myself when you’re dressed and not a moment earlier.”

“Oh, all right, have it your way. Give me a moment.” There was some rustling. “All right, turn around.”

He peeked and sighed with relief: Madame Lan was, in fact, appropriately dressed in a lovely white silk dress, adorned with the typical Lan sect cloud embroidery and everything. The style was a little freer and less conservative than he might have expected to see the mistress of a Great Sect wearing, but then again he supposed she’d never actually had to do the work associated with it. It was hard to host a society party from seclusion…

“Qinghe Nie’s Nie Mingjue greets He Kexin, Madame Lan,” he said, saluting properly. “I’m a visitor to your sect.”

“I hadn’t realized that we were anticipating visitors from another Great Sect,” she remarked. “Normally there’s a great deal more hustle and bustle involved with preparing to receive a visit.”

“It’s an informal one,” Nie Mingjue explained. “Somewhat, uh, abrupt. We didn’t send word in advance. You see, we recently accepted Cangse Sanren and her husband as guest disciples, and shortly thereafter the Jiang sect paid us an unexpected visit…”

Madame Lan had clearly heard about that disaster, if the way she put her hand over her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle her chortling was any indication.

“I think I see the issue, being as I happen to remember Cangse Sanren very well,” she said, her eyes dancing. “What a troublemaker. She even shaved off Qiren-xiaoshuzi’s beard one time! I’m guessing based on the way you turned into a boiled crayfish that she scared you out of your own home?”

Nie Mingjue opened his mouth to protest, except, well, that wasn’t entirely inaccurate…

“What a charming little egg you are! You’re such a rotten liar that you can’t even do it to save face.”

“Being dishonest isn’t saving face,” Nie Mingjue said, even though his face felt like it was burning and he was probably just as red as she said he was. “The truth is what the truth is, that’s all. You’re not wrong, that’s more or less what happened – I brought Huaisang and Wuxian here so that we could get away from all the yelling.”

“You picked a good place for that,” Madame Lan said, and there was a dull look in her eye all of a sudden. Nothing like the liveliness from a few moments before. “There’s nowhere like the Cloud Recesses for quiet.”

Nie Mingjue bit his lip, not quite sure how to say what he wanted to say. Right up until that moment, she hadn’t seemed at all sick, the way he’d thought she’d be – less than a year before she died, from what he remembered of Lan Xichen’s stories. He’d assumed she’d already be ill with the early stages whatever it was that had eventually taken her from her sons.

But now, he didn’t think she was sick, not really, only…bored.

Dreadfully, horribly bored. The sort of bored that drained your life away bit by bit.

Formal training in swordsmanship and scholarship began at six at the Cloud Recesses, Nie Mingjue abruptly remembered. There were plenty of lessons prior to that, of course, but at age six they would become formalized, the children shifting over from the realm of babies to proper young-adults-to-be. Once Lan Wangji turned six, Madame Lan would have had nothing to look forward to in life.

Nothing, except for her children starting to drift further and further away from her: nothing to do, no purpose, no friends…

Just boredom.

“The Unclean Realm has a communal prison,” he blurted out, and then smacked his hands into his face to hide his shame for being such an inconsiderate ass. Why had he thought he could do this by himself?

He wasn’t even sure what he’d originally come here to accomplish, other than to let Madame Lan know that she ought to see a doctor sooner rather than later in the hopes that they would be able to catch and stymie whatever disease it had been that had killed her, except now of course Nie Mingjue understood that it was no disease at all.

“…what?” she said blankly.

It was too late to retreat, so Nie Mingjue gathered up every bit of courage he’d ever had and barreled onwards.

“I just mean,” he said, tripping over his words, “if you’d like to be – a bit less quiet. Even if your sentence is life imprisonment, surely you don’t have to necessarily serve it here, right?”

Madame Lan stared at him. His shoulders started creeping up to his ears.

“Actually,” she said abruptly, “I was never sentenced.”

He gaped at her. “You – what?”

“Qiren-xiaoshuzi pushed for it, said it was only fair that I knew the exact contours of my punishment, but the sect elders refused,” she explained. “They didn’t want to lose face by having a trial at all, not even privately.”

“But – but if you haven’t been sentenced, you can’t be imprisoned!”

“Is that so?” she asked, looking amused.

“You can’t,” Nie Mingjue insisted, horrified. “The laws of war say that someone can be executed on the spot for committing a crime, but in peacetime they have to be sentenced first even if you catch them red-handed. What if your accuser recants his accusation, whether because he was wrong or because he decided not to press charges? If they recant, you can’t be tried; if you can’t be tried, even if everyone knows you’ve done wrong, you still must be released. No trial, no sentence, no imprisonment!”

“Tell that to the Lan sect,” she said dryly. “Not even my husband could do more than he did to forestall my punishment, and he’s sect leader. Nominally, anyway.”

This did seem to be a problem of the Lan sect. Of all sects, really – he had his own share of old men causing issues and sticking their noses into things – but he’d never had anywhere near the problem with the sect elders as Lan Xichen had had with his Lan sect.

“Why should I?” Nie Mingjue asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t see why we have to tell them anything at all.”

-

“Why are we doing this?” Nie Huaisang asked, tugging on Nie Mingjue’s sleeve.

“I already explained,” Nie Mingjue said, which he had. He’d also explained that he’d run in there by accident while looking for a place to hide, and he’d tried to look as much like a stupid twelve-year-old as possible when he said it. “About the lack of a trial –”

Nie Huaisang tugged again. “Not that. Why are we rescuing her?”

“Because she might die if we don’t,” Nie Mingjue said. “She’s very bored in there all by herself.”

“So?”

“What do you mean, so? It’d make Xichen and Wangji sad if she died.”

“So?”

“So they shouldn’t be sad if they don’t have to be! I don’t want them to be sad because they lost a parent…don’t you remember being sad about your mom having died, Huaisang?”

“No,” Nie Huaisang said. “I had da-ge.”

Nie Mingjue sighed. He’d keep this conversation in mind for later when Nie Huaisang was old enough to actually understand the concept of death, and then he’d use it to torment him forever.

“Wouldn’t you be sad if da-ge died, then?” he asked, and felt Nie Huaisang’s hands abruptly clutch tight on his arms. “There you go. That’s why we’re doing this.”

Nie Huaisang nodded, but he was still scowling a little in his adorable childhood way, and Nie Mingjue thought for a second that he heard him murmuring something about inviting unnecessary trouble under his voice, but…whatever, it wasn’t important.

What was more important was that Lan Xichen had arrived with what Nie Mingjue had asked him to fetch for him, his cheeks bright pink with excitement. “Nie-da-ge,” he hissed even though there wasn’t anyone in the area, thrusting the package into Nie Mingjue’s arms. “I got it!”

“Good,” Nie Mingjue said, then paused. “Er, you don’t mind, do you?”

“Mind? Mind what?”

“That I’m kind of, uh, well – I mean, I’m kidnapping your mother. You won’t be able to see her as often as you do now if this works…”

“She’ll be free,” Lan Wangji, trailing behind Lan Xichen as always, said solemnly. Then he stuck his thumb in his mouth, which somewhat ruined the effect.

Wei Wuxian, who’d rushed over to stand next to him as soon as he’d seen him, hugged him tightly. “You’ll come over all the time,” he assured him. “My mom will like your mom, and we’ll all go outside and play all the time. We’ll be really happy!”

Lan Wangji sniffed and buried his face into Wei Wuxian’s shoulder.

“It’s like Wangji said,” Lan Xichen said. His eyes were intense. “She’s not happy here, she’s not free here, and we only see her once a month anyway – less, in the future, once we’re both busy with lessons all the time. If she can be free somewhere else…you will let us come visit, right?”

“As often as you’re allowed,” Nie Mingjue promised, as it was about all he could do. “I’ll talk to my father about it…”

His father would probably have a fit.

Still, this was an injustice. Even if his father disagreed, it was something he had to do. He’d justify it with reference to their sect principles, and take any punishment duty his father chose to impose.

“It doesn’t matter, he’ll agree,” he said firmly. “You’ll definitely be able to visit.”

“Can I raise an objection?” Nie Zonghui said mournfully from where he was hovering by the side of the clearing. “Possibly two – no, three objections.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him and tilted his head to the side in silent question.

“One, your father said not to get into trouble, if you’ll trouble yourself to remember back that far,” he said, raising a finger. “Two, how exactly do you plan to break the array keeping Madame Lan imprisoned? And three, even if you do break it, how do you plan to get her out?”

The first was irrelevant. The other two…

“We’re going to walk out the front gate,” Nie Mingjue said, and opened up the package Lan Xichen had gotten him – as he’d suspected, there had been spare robes for Qinghe Nie disciples left behind from the previous discussion conference, and sure enough the Lan sect had kept hold of them as a courtesy to the owners. “The Lan sect has never affirmatively stated that Madame Lan wasn’t allowed to leave; they just said she was too sickly to do so. Therefore, if we leave with a Nie sect disciple who is clearly capable of walking out, there’s nothing they can do to stop us without admitting that it’s her and that she’s a prisoner – which they won’t do, because then they’d lose face.”

“That barely counts as a plan,” Nie Zonghui said, and for some reason Nie Huaisang nodded in agreement. “But sadly I think it might actually work.”

Nie Huaisang looked betrayed.

“It will work,” Lan Xichen said. “Especially if you insist that she’s one of yours. They won’t be able to call you out without calling you a liar, and they wouldn’t want to do that. Not publicly, not about this.”

“Won’t there be a problem that she’s a girl wearing boy’s clothing?” Wei Wuxian asked, patting Lan Wangji’s head.

“No, that’s not a problem in Qinghe,” Nie Huaisang told him. “You’re new, so you’re not used to it, but it really isn’t. I mean, she could be misaligned or something, it’s not our business.”

“And we won’t be lying about her being one of ours,” Nie Mingjue said. “Since I’ve offered her sanctuary in our sect, it’s even technically true.”

Nie Zonghui sighed. “And if they ask Lan-gongzi and Lan-er-gongzi if she’s their mother?”

“Wangji won’t say anything,” Lan Xichen said at once. “And I’ll – I’ll lie if I have to.”

He was truly unbearably cute at this age.

Nie Zonghui appeared to be suffering from a similar problem, reaching over and patting him lightly on the head in helpless amusement. “Okay, okay. Let’s hope they don’t ask,” he said. “But – Nie-gongzi, we still have the second problem. How do you intend to get Madame Lan out of the imprisonment array?”

Nie Mingjue patted his cousin – who he knew from his future experience was one of the finest array breakers in their sect, a charming side-effect courtesy of his dual-wielded saber cultivation style – on the shoulder. “I intend to delegate.”

Nie Zonghui blinked, then glared. “I walked myself into that one, didn’t I?”

“You did,” Nie Mingjue said peaceably. “Can you break it? I can use Baxia, if it’ll help.”

“Hmph. Yes, it would help a great deal, but will she agree to consume an array for you? That’s fairly high-grade work, and talent or no talent, you’re still fairly new to mastering the saber.”

Nie Mingjue put his hand on Baxia’s blade, which felt warm and pleased. Practically purring. At some point he would need to investigate why she was so happy all the time – she’d never been this compliant in his first life, and he’d expected her to be more vicious, not less. “Yes, she’ll be happy to help.”

“Fine. Let’s go.” Nie Zonghui paused briefly. “Also, if your father asks, you held Baxia to my throat and made me do it. It was definitely not me being curious about whether or not I could break such a complicated array.”

“Of course it wasn’t,” Nie Mingjue said understandingly, and drew Baxia. “All right. Let’s go get ourselves banned from the Cloud Recesses.”

[angelkurenai]

Better to speak or to die? - Sebastian Stan x Reader

Title: Better to speak or to die?

Pairing: Seastian Stan x Reader

Warnings: None

Summary: Loving Sebastian gave you the chance to understand what it is like to meet your soulmate while he realised what it is like to know he could never love another woman because his heart would always belong to you. If only he could give you more than that though, instead of have to congratulate you on the night of your engagement to another man. A business deal made between your father and his ties you to a loveless marriage with someone else, something which you are willing to accept only for Sebastian’s safety to be ensured. Not that he is willing to accept it too.

“So, does he speak?”

The voice was soft and low, light as much as it could be given he hour and the event itself but laced with such pain and such grief that one would begin to wonder what kind of great loss the man had suffered. You only wished you could wonder, though, because knowing was only a curse able enough to compete with your guilt for being the reason behind that grief.

People inside were still laughing, and smiling and talking, some were dancing to the music that still seemed to carry through the night to you, much as you had tried to isolate yourself from all of it. Staring into the stillness and darkness of the night you had almost managed it, almost been successful. Key word: Almost. There was no succeeding in that, there was no winning the fight against your thoughts - the war against your feelings about the man. And just like the music, his presence that was carried towards you even in the silence of the night, reminded you of the bitterly happy scene unfolding inside. Everyone was almost intoxicatingly happy and cheerful and yet nothing and nobody could get you drunk in it, could wash away the bitterness in your mouth or could take away the stinging in your eyes from the unshed tears.

“Pardon?” you asked, feeling like it took you a good couple seconds to reply. If he noticed he didn't comment. And if he noticed the attempt to take in a steady breath and failing miserably he didn't let his feelings for it show either. You were grateful.

“The uh knight.” he took another step closer when he noticed that you hadn't moved from your place, either your muscles refused to obey you or your body and mind had a better sense of self-preservation than you thought, you didn't know. Who knew how you'd react to seeing that pain on his face from up close? Who knew how you'd react to the close proximity in the first place?

He must have had that in mind because just when he was about to get even closer, he stopped himself. But it still was close, it still was so close you could just reach out and touch him if you wanted to and oh did you want to. Every cell in your body wanted it. Deep down you almost believed – you wanted to believe, no matter how wrong that was – that he knew that and stood at arms distance in hoped of you reaching out.

“I'm-” you blinked several times “I'm sorry. I don't understand what you're talking about. I- I feel like my head is... a bit in the clouds these days. Not with happiness though I can't seem to be able to focus.”

He hummed, nodding his head “It's alright. I was just-” he looked ahead of him at the vast green garden splayed in front of you “I suppose I got too carried away by my own thoughts.”

“How so?” you couldn't help but asked, encouraged by the small smile that lifted at the corner of his lips.

“That story you read to me, about the knight and the princess. The one where he doesn't know if he should confess his love to her or not.” and then it fell and you hated yourself more, if possible “We were in a place very similar to this, we were very much like this, when you first mentioned it to me. I couldn't help but... remember it. I suppose, it's all a losing battle. Against my thoughts, against my memories, against-”

My feelings for you. My heart. My own self. My pain.

There were so many words that could fill in that sentence and each one of them hurt more than the other one. You didn't want him to continue, that much you knew.

“Yes” you nodded your head as well, eyes focusing for a couple on the glass of champagne in your hands “How could I possibly ever forget? I remember everything about you, aout us.”

You hadn't meant for that to come out loud but it seemed that he appreciated it because it put a smile on his lips, albeit sad, as his blue eyes found you again. If only he didn't look so dashing in that suit, if only he didn't look like he could easily not be just another guest to the part but rather the host- And then you remembered that he was not and could never be, not when it was another man's place to.

He nodded his head, holding your gaze for a couple more second before whispering “Is it better to speak or to die?” he quoted the line and yet you felt like he wasn't speaking about the book “So... does he speak?”

“I don't know... Does he?” you asked in return, your eyes filling with tears that you had been so carefully trying to fight ever since you saw him during the beginning of the party.

He held your gaze, longer each time he would and certainly far longer than appropriate, before he gave you again a half sad smile and tore his eyes from you “I was hoping you'd know.” he said before his eyes cast down, a frown set on his face “Should he?”

The whisper and the way his voice cracked felt so much worse than all the pained looks you'd seen in his eyes during all of this. It hurt worse, in a way that no words could describe. It was almost as if he was pleading for you to tell him how to act, how to speak and behave, how to... end his pain, how to put an end to his torment when it was obvious you weren't going to end it for him. It wasn't that you didn't want to, if only, you actually couldn't.

“Should she?” your voice was barely above a whisper, you wouldn't blame him if he didn't hear you and truth be told you didn't know if you wanted him to have heard you.

Should you really do something to put an end to his pain? There was only one way, one you could think of, but that was not possible. Not after tonight for sure.

“Time will tell then? We'll see.” he sighed in the end, after a couple seconds of silence. He took a sip of his drink, his eyes focusing on the glass before he smiled but you couldn't face the hollow and pained smile again, not after all these times so you looked away, until he spoke again.

“I suppose congratulations are in order, right?”

Your head snapped in his direction and any attempt, no matter how poor, at seeming calm and at peace, happy even, faded right away. Your eyes locked with his as you held your breath.

“Sebastian-” you started, but the lump in your throat prevented you from speaking.

“I mean-” a bitter laugh “I haven't gotten to tell you so yet, have I? It's-” he cleared his throat “Congratulations, on the engagement. He's- he's a good man, honest and trustworthy. Kind and very loving to his family, he'd do anything for them and also you now. You don't have to worry about a single thing, he'll make you happy. You're lucky. With a husband like him you'll-”

A scoff of a laugh that broke free from your lips cut him off, your watery eyes managing to wipe even the small fake smile he had on “You're kidding me, right?”

“I-” he started but you shook your head furiously with pursed lips and glossy eyes.

“What are you doing, Sebastian? Why are you doing this?” you asked again, your voice cracking “You know very well that this is not a marriage I wanted. None of this is what I wanted, not with him. Yes, he is a good man. Yes, he is honest, the most honest of all of my father's business partner's sons I've ever met. He is the only one that will do something good out of this arrangement, out of this business deal. He won't take my family's money to spend it in deals about trafficking or weapons or who knows what else. And that is the only reason why I've accepted this. Yes-” you hissed “Yes, he is a good man that could make me happy, if only I had it in me to feel that. If only I had it in me to love him, because I know how much I've tried already and failed every time. I know I can't. He was a better choice, but that doesn't mean he's my choice. None of this is my choice, Sebastian. There is nothing normal about this and nothing that is worth of congratulating. If you want to say something, then wish me good luck surviving the rest of my life. Because I've long ago stopped living since this deal was made and there is no happiness for me in the horizon.”

You let out a shaky breath, choking luckily only when you were done rambling. You closed your eyes, praying that your tears would stay away as they were supposed to. Closing your hand into a fist, you also prayed that the shaking would stop before he noticed.

“You-” you opened your eyes, sniffling despite the smile on your lips; it was sad and it hurt “You've ruined every man for me from now on. Who would have thought?”

“If it's of any importance to you... you've done the same so... we're on the same situation.”

Despite your better judgment, you couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh. Looking up at the moon, you let out a sigh “What has my life come to? What is this fucking mess...?”

“A mess? Is that what it is to you?” Sebastian raised an eyebrow, and you noticed the pain in his voice.

“Sebastian, it's my own engagement party and I'm- here and I'm- Look at me. I'm-” you looked away for a second as you spoke in a weak whisper of a confession “Barely able to hold myself back from falling into your arms. You- all you have to do is ask it and I'd be yours and I-” you paused, looking back at him “That can't happen. That's why this is a mess. Not you, not us, but me.”

He spent a couple seconds breathing in and out, as if trying to calm himself, to get his heart rate under control “You know-” he spoke up softly “Maybe I should have told you earlier, as in earlier when we were still-” he cleared his throat, stopping abruptly “Yeah. Maybe. I mean, I always was at a loss for words with you but- You look great in white and you are stunning tonight. I can only imagine... You'll make a wonderful bride, I know that. Especially if you are truly happy.”

“Come on-” you laughed bitterly again “We both know I won't be able to do any of that, Seb.”

“I didn't mean-” you took a sharp breath in when you felt his fingers on your cheek, not having realized as you kept your eyes away that he had gotten so close “During your wedding with... him. I meant during a wedding you'd ave chosen with a man you love and a man who can make you truly happy.”

“And you're saying you would?” you whispered, not having the strength to beat around the bush anymore. It would only cause more pain, there was no use when it was just the two of you.

“I could try. I would want... I want nothing more than to be able to try.”

“I know.” you choked out, nuzzling your face in his palm “Gosh, I know so well, Sebastian. And I wish, if only, there was a way, another world even another lifetime where we could-” the lump in your throat stopped you from speaking.

“There is only one world, this one, but we all create worlds of our own based on the choices we make. If we chose to be... like this, together, if we want to then we can fight for it and-” he paused when he noticed the way you were frowning. It wasn't only guilt to have to let down the other man inside now, him having been too good to you already, it was also fear and doubt that it could ever happen “We could run away. Together. Have us a life together, away from all this.”

“Don't.” you choked out,taking a painful step back “Don't do this to me.”

“You know I want you.” he continued anyway “You know I never stopped wanting you. Never stopped loving you. If you just- Please just give me a chance.” and then he asked it, he really did, and you tried to will all of your strength to keep yourself from crumbling down. Or worse, from giving in.

You willed yourself to believe he was not really asking.

“This is not fair, Sebastian, you know this is not.” you forced out.

“Why not? It's not fair for me to watch you marry another man you don't love, either. It's not just for you. You know you don't and won't even try to deny it, for the sake of a business deal made between your fathers. For the sake of-”

“Your safety? Yes I would.” you said more determined “Sebastian, I'd give my life for you, sacrificing my freedom and happiness for your life is the least I can do now. You know what my father would do to you if he found out? Do you have any idea?”

“It doesn't all have to be so grim. It doesn't have to-”

“It has to.” you cut him off firmly yet softly “We both know it. We have to... let go, of the past of what was and what could have been. It was- I will always cherish the memories but please, just please, don't do this to me. If you still somehow, if there is some part of you, that still loves me the you won't keep going. You'll let me do this. It really is not fair otherwise.”

“Why?” he finally asked, lips pursing as his fight against tears was becoming harder with each passing second.

“Because you're the only one that could end it all, right here and now. With just one word, you could have me if you only asked. Really asked. I'd leave it all behind for you and...” you took in a shaky breath when he took a step closer to you “That's the most selfish thing I could do. Please, don't make me act so selfishly. Please.” you nearly begged.

You nearly begged because the look in his eyes told you a different story. Those eyes of a man madly in love with you for the first time didn't calm you down, they scared you. And the fear you felt about his own safety only seemed to increase when you realized there was no concern for himself there.

“Tell me goodbye.” you spoke up, fast before he could say anything you'd regret “Tell me goodbye, leave tonight and- and never come to see me again, Seb. Let me never face you again. Make this easy, please. Even a little bit, I need that from you.”

“You know I'd give you the world if I could. I always wanted to, I still do.” he whispered and yet his words, as much as they could be considered comforting, put a feeling of dread within you “But this time I won't.”

He pulled away, taking several steps back “I'd better leave you alone to enjoy your drink. I'll see you around, (Y/n), I promise this is not the last of it... of us.” and you hated yourself because this meant the torture would keep going for the both of you but you wanted it to with every fiber in your body; you selfishly wanted him to keep fighting in case one day you could win together “Give my congratulations to your fiance too.”

[fourfucksake]

after Jacob

request: can you write something about Andy Barber after all events from defenfing jacob? something like a continuation of his life after the last ep if you watched the show ofc , it can be sad or happy you choose ! thank yyou

pairing: andy barber x black!fem!reader

warnings: mention of mental illnesses 

word count: 1.1k

p.s please, don’t read this if you feel very emotionally vulnerable!

Being with Andy was a challenge, a hard task to handle. A brilliant, but difficult man whom offered so much joy and pain at once. No surprise, his life served him with pain and suffering, giving his cheek a solid slap on multiple occasions. 

You fell for him still. You could not help it. You could not stop it.

Loving him was a dream and a nightmare combined. Life with him formed a sweet and a bitter mix that rewarded with love and punished with agony.

Observing his posture sat on the floor with a bottle of his favourite alcohol placed in the right hand was not a pleasurable image. He was off his head, drowning inside that bottle.

A hacking cough came out of him, a hiccup followed. The distinct smell of alcohol hit your nostrils, your face expressed displeasure at the newly accumulated smell.

„Andy, please,” You begged, looking at his drunken face. “This again?” A disappointment sight left your mouth. He needed help, you was now sure of it. The repetition of this behaviour started get out of control.

“If you want to whine then go away. I don’t wanna fucking hear it,” He spat, rolling his eyes at you. Another sip was taken straight from the bottle before he placed it next to himself. The alcohol was now gone, every drop of it now placed in his body.

My eyes were deeply fixed on himself. The anger and rage on his face slowly turned to despair and pain. Tears were present in his eyes, but they didn't trickle down his cheeks. The need to say something hit me rather deeply, but incomprehensible blockage within me entirely prevented it from happening.

flashback 

“I appreciate that you never ask me about my wife,” His words reached my ears as I turned to view his face in confusion. We were sat on the couch, watching a random episode of Big Bang Theory that was streaming on Comedy Central. Possibly not the best time to discuss the past.

“Why?” He persisted to my surprise, carefully investigating my face for cues. I couldn’t quite put a pin on why he’s asking me this right now. Sure, he had a right to ask if he was curious but why now. I examined the events from the past couple of hours to inspect possible clues. None were detected as of now.

“Huh, I don’t know. I guess I just assumed that’s something you don’t want to talk about,” Shrugging my arms, I took a sip of red wine placed in the glass I was holding. I felt awkward to say the least. His stare pierced through my body so penetratingly I felt interrogated.

“I don’t, you’re right,” He shrugged his arms. “It never stopped anybody though. People always ask about her. About my son. I’ve gotten used to it by now.” He explained further which was met with my small nod.

“Do you want me to ask you about it?” I asked unsurely, feeling as I am entering a dangerous zone. I couldn’t help but to feel nervous. It felt like inserting myself into a new level of intimacy that I was not quite ready for just yet.  

Truth be told, I often contemplated whether to shower him with questions or stay silent. He was such an interesting person, such a complex persona.

He didn’t answer. I didn’t want to be noisy, so I didn’t say anything either. I had a feeling, deep down, that it will come back and bite me. He started a topic that I could easily finish. In a way, he gave me a clearance to be noisy, but I did nothing.

end of flashback 

“Andy,” My hand reached out to touch his skin. He glanced up to investigate my face for a brief moment before returning his stare at the both of his hands.

“I can’t do this anymore, Y/N. I feel like I am drowning in my own thoughts.” He confessed with a shaky breath leaving his insides. “My son…my son is gone. I will never see him again. I will never talk to him. I will never hear his laugh. I will never look him in the eyes and tell him how much I love him. And she’s the reason why.”

I didn’t know what to say, how to react to his painful confession. I sat myself next to him and wrapped my arm around his head. I kissed his cheek, caressing the top of his head with my fingers. His forehead was burning up. I didn’t understand how alcohol could cause all of this. 

“Should we try therapy, baby?” I proposed, scanning his body with my eyes with focus. I saw no other option. He was the most collected person I knew and now he was far from sanity.

He shrugged, clearly not happy with my suggestion. In a way, I understood why. I went to therapy and it wasn’t what I expected at all. Did it help? I would argue Xanax helped with sleepless nights I had due to my daily talks about my own nightmare with the therapist. “They would make me stop this shit. I don’t want that. I need to drink, however awful that sounds.” Andy mumbled under his breath. He looked like he was seconds from falling asleep.

“Come, let’s clean you up, huh?” I got up, helping him to do the same. God, he was in such state. Out of all the people that I knew he was the one I would never suspect of acting in this way.

“You are so good to me, baby. I don’t deserve you.” A drunk smile appeared on his face as he tried to lean down in order to give me a kiss. I held him tight, afraid that he might fall and hurt himself.

“Let’s go, loverboy.” I sent him a dreadful look, exhausted with his current state. It was possibly very selfish of me to think about myself after he indirectly admitted to his dark thoughts. However, carrying a man taller and heavier to oneself to the bathroom to give him a wash was enough of a redemption to the egotistical feelings.

I had no idea regarding what I should do next. Now, more than ever, I regretted not knowing as much as I probably should about him, his past life, or his previous surrounding. I knew his dad was still out there, still alive. Contacting him would probably be the worst possible scenario but if there was somebody who could know anything about his childhood or his other time it was him.

-

(should I do a part 2 or is this too depressing?)

[juniorgman187]

Malchance (Reid Fic) - Part 2

Summary: The only thing reader can count on is her bad luck and what it’ll get her into. In this case, it’s the lioness’ den - the lioness being Cat Adams.

Category: Angst, Fluffy Ending Pairing: Fem!Reader x Spencer Reid Content Warning: Canon-consistent trauma, brief mention of daddy issues, blood, manipulation, yelling, deceit (Let me know if I missed anything) Playlist: Call Out My Name by The Weeknd Word Count: 5k

READ PART 1 HERE!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　

“There’s going to be a key to cracking Cat,” Ms. Prentiss explained to me. 

“A key?” 

“You’ll know it when you find it.” 

That was probably the most ambiguous advice I could’ve gotten, but it’s the one she sent me into the field with and the one that loomed in the back of my head as everything unfolded.

The plan the team and I agreed upon, which ironically Dr. Reid knew no part of, was that after Cat and him went to the rink, they’d come back to his apartment, where I would be waiting. Posing as his concerned girlfriend, the unexpected presence of competition would enrage Cat. With the wrath of a woman scorned, she’ll be furious enough to slip up and make a mistake. 

I’ve heard that she’s done her best, or arguably her worst, when she’s prepared, so this curveball might just put an end to the reign of Queen Cat. 

As far as the outlined plan of events went, sure, it was simple. As for me? 

No shot in hell that I’d be able to pull this off.

There was seemingly no feasible reality where I could outsmart her until she made a mistake or keep on the facade long enough to deceive her. The entire success of the plan hinged on my abilities or her lack of propriety. Not exactly betting odds, if you ask me. 

And yet, against everything, I was still walking into the lion’s den on my own volition, making myself right at home, acting like this was exactly where I belonged. When in reality, this was the last place I should’ve been.

“You got this, okay?” Someone in my earpiece chirped. Just out of paranoia, I pressed the device further in, un-tucking the strands of hair behind my ear to better conceal it. Even that wasn’t enough to lower the specter of my doubt. I prayed that she was lax in her vetting tonight.

“Spencie!” A giggly shriek from outside the door sent one large shock wave through my entire body. It was so sharp like they were right there. The sound of heavy footsteps followed, and my stomach churned in anticipation. I already hated this.

How did I even get here? 

Oh, right - malchance. 

I contemplated cracking my knuckles to self-soothe, but then I remembered what Ms. Prentiss told me about ‘tells.’

“Bodily tells are how people can read the emotions you’re not directly expressing. A majority of what profilers use to study behavior is your body language. Unfortunately, some of the best profilers are the unsubs themselves. She’ll know what you’re feeling if you show her. So stay strong.”

Stay strong. 

Try as I might, I couldn’t keep the fear from washing over me when the pair of muffled voices outside became clearer as they entered the apartment. 

I must’ve caught them in the middle of something, but I couldn’t exactly deduce what, seeing as they stopped when they saw me, which was before I turned around.

Dr. Reid was floored by my being there, but at least, he had a look of recognition. It wasn’t enough that he merely distinguished me to settle the worry I had about the fact that the BAU hadn’t told him I would be here. If I could, I would have, but they each advised against it. They needed his raw reaction just as much as they needed her’s. 

One ghastly look up and down and I could tell she came to the exact conclusion the team anticipated she would - that I’m her new competition. 

“Spencie - who is this?” 

Her dehumanization of me made Dr. Reid viscerally guilty for having extended an opportunity to let yet another person suffer the corollaries of her cruelty. He shook his head softly at me as though to say, ‘I’m sorry.’ An interesting choice - that that was what he chose to nonverbally say to me first. He didn’t even ask me with his eyes why I was here or what I was doing - he just apologized. 

What has this poor man been through?

“I’m his girlfriend,” I answered for him before the silence could get suspiciously long. By inserting myself in the conversation, I was following what the BAU suggested I should do earlier. Stand your ground. You can’t be afraid to speak up to her. “I’m (y/n). You are?”

I held out my hand for a handshake that was never returned. Instead, all I got back was an ice cold stare. 

She’s reading your body language, an inner voice I didn’t even recognize called from within me. Soon after I realized it wasn’t my conscience speaking - it was Ms. Prentiss. I’d forgotten I had an earpiece, much less that there were micro cameras littered all over the apartment so they could have a firsthand view of this train wreck. How could anyone voluntarily watch this mess unravel? 

“And when did this happen?” Her voice went up an octave as she tilted her head with morbid curiosity, then let it roll back in Dr. Reid’s direction. “Spencer?”

“Five months ago,” he replied without missing a beat, keeping his eyes steady on mine. If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve believed him, but that stare he was giving me said something more. What’s going on? He wondered.

Oh, Dr. Reid, if only I could tell you.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?” She asked through gritted teeth and a clenched jaw. Suddenly, the surface of her expressions liquified then melted away until I could see well beneath the anger, revealing the bodily tells of humiliation. 

I was profiling her, and I didn’t even know that I could. 

“You made me promise not to talk about anyone else except you tonight, remember?” He remarked with an uncharacteristic amount of edge behind his words. 

His outer mask was liquefying and transforming in its own right, too. As Cat became easier to read, the Doctor was slowly morphing into the man I first met - the man who was furious enough to throw an entire set of books off a table. The man who’s darkness made him impossible to read - made it impossible to think he’d ever been seen or touched by the light. 

She huffed and spun her head around so fast, it made her hair whip up and over her shoulder. The stern look upon her face fell for the briefest moment, and if it hadn’t been for everything I knew about her, I would’ve thought she looked pretty. She was pretty. But her soul, her sensibilities, they just ruined her. It was a shame really. 

She was tainted by wickedness in a way that I never would be, and for that, she had already come to the decisive determination that she hated me. 

“So how old are you, (y/n)?” Like a hawk hovering over its prey, she began to walk around me in a tight circle so she could scrutinize my every angle, discover every flaw, and poke at every button she could find. Precisely why she asked that question, too. She wanted to know where the similarities started and ended between us. She wanted to compare herself to me. Size me up, tear me down - lioness v. lioness. If she was gonna play dirty, then so be it. Two can play that game. 

“I’m 28.” A flat out lie. I’m 26. 

“Wow, I didn’t realize you had a type, Spencer,” She ruefully chuckled.

“And what’s that, Cat?” I couldn’t see him, but he sounded so unamused. 

“Jailbait.” 

There wasn’t much I could do besides move on from the subject. “Cat? Is it?” Considering she hadn’t told me her name before, I think Dr. Reid purposefully included it in his response so that I’d have a reason to know what it was. 

Smart move, Doctor. 

I wanted to smile from the way he was helping me out and working together with me, but my poker face stayed on.

“Catherine Adams,” She drew out the name to assert herself. I didn’t get to call her Cat like Dr. Reid did. That was his name for her and his name only. She made that point crystal clear. When I finally shrugged, she pounced once more.

“You really have no idea who I am? I’m hurt.” She fake pouted and put a hand to her heart to feign offense. “Spencer’s never mentioned me? Not once in your five months of dating?” Her emphasis on the timing of our ‘relationship’ showed her knowledge of the deceit, but she needed to do more than just put stress on one word. I wouldn’t back down that easily. 

“Why would he? You mean nothing to us.” Nastier words have never left my lips, and yet, I still made sure they were coated in the harshest tone I could muster up the courage to use. 

She scoffed and stopped walking around me to pull on Dr. Reid’s arm and force her mouth to make contact with his ear. Despite the closeness, he still refused to meet her eyes. He kept them locked on mine. 

“I mean nothing to you? Is that so?” Her breath was a jarring enough sensation on his neck to make his eyes shut. He was beyond uncomfortable. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell her what you told me at the rink?”

“What did you tell her, Spencer?” I was forcing him to speak, not because of the case, but because I wanted to know. Was that wrong?

“I …” The words got caught in his throat. “I told her that there’s some part of my brain, some part that she somehow inhabits.” 

A pang in my chest told me there was still more. That pang would be correct.

“No, go ahead, Spencie. Tell her the rest. Don’t be shy now.” 

He forced himself to look away from me as he said, “And no woman, no matter how good, no matter how kind, no matter how …”

“Say it,” She demanded, firmly tugging on his arm harder. 

“No matter how sexy she is, can ever get her out.” He looked repulsed by his own admission, and if I was being honest, so was I. 

“Are you in love with her?” Although I was venturing far off script, it felt like an appropriate response as his ‘girlfriend.’ It was my response. 

“No. I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved you.” 

He’s such a pretty liar. 

Cat must’ve been annoyed by her lack of involvement in the conversation as she felt compelled to step in. “Prove it. Kiss her like you kissed me out there and I might believe you.”

Pretending to be hurt wasn’t hard. Not when I didn’t have to pretend. 

“You kissed her, too?” I had to ask.

Imagine if I were actually this poor guy’s girlfriend. Forget me - God help that girl. Even if this was all for the sake of the job, that wouldn’t have made it any better hearing what he’d confessed to her or what they did. 

Dr. Reid looked incredibly apologetic for someone that had nothing to apologize for. Sure, I was playing his girlfriend, but I wasn’t actually anyone of value in his life. So why did he look like he felt so goddamn guilty? 

“Ugh hurry up and kiss already!” Cat stomped her foot impatiently. 

As she released Dr. Reid, she gave him a strong shove in my direction, causing him to stumble right into me. He’d caught himself by grabbing onto my hips, while I stabilized him by clutching onto his forearms. 

His eyes were piercing through mine. I won’t kiss you unless I have your permission. His eyes read. 

Fighting against every reflex in my body that was resisting, I leaned closer. Then, right as I closed my eyes, I felt it. 

Not his lips. 

Blood.

My blood.

The coin-like taste shocked my eyes wide open so fast you would think I never even closed them in the first place. Abandoning my grip on his arm, I used my hand to block the sight of my bloody nose. 

(Y/n), what’s going on? Ms. Prentiss asked in my earpiece. 

“My nose is bleeding,” was my answer for everyone listening - Dr. Reid, Cat, and the BAU alike. 

“Are you alright?” He unhesitatingly shifted out of the role he seemed to be playing. His guard fell down to the point where it felt like nothing else mattered but to know that I was okay. It wasn’t Spencer and his fake girlfriend talking anymore, it was Dr. Reid and me again. 

“HELLO?! What’s going on?” The minute Cat’s shrilly voice hit the air, Dr. Reid shut it down with a steadfast hand. 

“Not now, Cat! Time out.” He motioned a T before he let an invisible magnetic force freely connect his hands onto my hips again. It seemed like he didn’t even touch me on his own accord but instead, it was the mere gravitational pull that brought his body back to mine. “This isn’t a game anymore.” His tone was unwavering as he walked me away from Cat and into the bathroom. 

“Are you sure you’re okay?” He whispered in a familiar tone after shutting the bathroom door behind himself. “You can leave now. You don’t have to keep doing this.” As though I were his grandmother’s delicate china, he hoisted me in the air momentarily to help me onto the sink with an almost unnecessarily large amount of caution. 

“I’m fine.” While I attempted to wave off his concern nonchalantly, traitorous butterflies swarmed my stomach at the feeling of his touch. 

“Don’t tell me you’re fine!” He scolded through an outpouring of laughter. “I can see the blood!” He underlined his words by pressing the toilet paper he retrieved on the spot under my nose where the blood was centralized. 

“Then don’t ask!” I just as playfully responded. 

“Alright, fine, fine,” He jokingly put his hands up in surrender. “What should I ask you then?”

I wish I was more uncomfortable than I truly was. Maybe then it would’ve been easier to lie to him. But there was something about how close he was to me or how unrelenting his stare was that made sincerity spill out from my every seam. 

“‘Why are you even here if you’re just ruining things?’” 

He looked so hurt despite the fact that the depreciation was directed at me. “Why would I ask you that?” 

“Because it’s true, isn’t it?” My eyes flashed to the door to ensure it was closed, but without the ability to guarantee that Cat wasn’t right outside listening in, I lowered my voice. “I’m way in over my head here. I have no idea what I’m doing and I feel like I’m just making things worse.” 

“None of that is true,” It sounded like a reprimand, the way he was defending me to me. “The team wouldn’t have asked you to be here if they didn’t think you could do it … and anyway, it’s kind of nice having a partner in crime.” 

He needed to watch his step before he began charting dangerous waters from which he could never escape. I was already playing with fire by allowing any real genuine emotion seep out around Cat. Except now that he’d thrown me a lifeline with his insinuation of liking my company, I knew, at least to some degree, that the feeling was mutual. I briefly calculated the risk until I ultimately decided to let my boldness rear its ugly head.

With the speed of light, I clicked off my earpiece with one hand and turned off Spencer’s with the other. He caught my wrist only after I’d successfully disabled the devices from allowing the team to hear us and us to hear them. 

“What are you doing?” “Why didn’t you kiss me?” 

Our questions came at the exact same time, and yet I didn’t repeat myself. 

I knew he heard me.

It was out of turn for me, given that I’d only briefly calculated the risk of asking this before doing it. It came out suddenly and then I couldn’t take it back. But I blame his gaze for my oversharing. It brought me so much comfort that I failed to recognize the discomfort my question had posed. 

He sort of laughed, saying, “Your nose was bleeding.” 

Under any other circumstance, I would have believed him. Unfortunately, he was exceptionally unconvincing, precisely because he didn’t look very sure of that explanation himself. 

While I’m sure my nose bleeding was a reason not to kiss me, it was most definitely not the reason. My honesty itself felt something like a nose bleed. For one thing, it annoyed me and was beyond my control. But for another, I wished I could find the source and pinch it off to make it stop. Stop it before I spilled out the words, “Oh, I get it ... you just didn’t want to kiss me.” 

“That was definitely not the problem,” He said a little too quickly and a little too adamantly that it made my head spin. In that response - he sounded very sure of himself, a complete contrast to his previous demeanor. 

“So why didn’t you?” I wish I could tell you why I was pressing the subject so hard. I’d like to think that if you were in my position, you’d want to know the answer as badly as I do now, which is the best rationale I could possibly come up with to justify what I said next.

“If you weren’t scared and if you didn’t not want to, then why didn’t you?” 

“(Y/n),” He averted my eyes by turning his head to the side, revealing a side smirk of contempt. I should’ve been mad that he was visibly frustrated because if anything - he was the one being frustrating. Instead, all I could think about was how I wanted to kiss that smirky mouth. Maybe to make the smirky-ness disappear. Or to control it.

Make it mine. 

“You’re running out of excuses, Dr. Reid. You’re going to have to kiss me eventually, so let’s just get this over with already.” Did I really just say that? 

“I’m not gonna do that.” 

“Kiss me!” Yes, I really did. 

“I’m not going to kiss you.” 

“Just kiss me!” 

“(Y/n), stop.” 

“God, Spencer, just kiss me already!”

“No!” His eyes found me again; This time they were wider. “Not like this!” 

Silence. 

Then he cleared his throat as if they’d somehow cover the confession that had already been said. 

“Not - I didn't mean - I just. We can't like that because that's not … do you know? Like it's very ... that's not what-" He continued to stammer until he mouthed one last “What?” to himself in complete disbelief of the words that had left his lips and the words that were still struggling to. 

Our brains must’ve been working at the exact same speed because while he couldn’t find the right words to say, I was still trying to process everything he already had. 

Without waiting for my response, he fled from the bathroom. When the door slammed shut, I whipped my body around to face the mirror, my fist tingling with the urge to punch the stupid girl staring back at me in the reflection. 

I knew I couldn’t take refuge in here for much longer unless I really wanted to piss Cat off. Which I totally did, but not if I couldn’t guarantee that Spencer wouldn’t be caught in the crossfire. As confused and pissed off as he made me, I never wanted to hurt him.  

Once this realization dawned on me, another one had followed.

This was the key to cracking Cat. I’d found it. 

Like an overexcited bull bursting through the gates, I pushed my way out of the bathroom door seeing red. I saw Spencer first, standing in the corner of the room to monitor Cat from a distance. The aforementioned lioness herself was perched in an armchair, slouching in it comfortably as though she’d sat in that very seat a hundred times before. Not a single display of care in her conduct for the people whose lives she was actively trying to ruin. 

“So you finally ready to kiss your boyfriend yet?” If sarcasm were a liquid, it’d be dripping from her lips. She was so casually destructive when she spoke, like a loose-lipped bomb capable of going off at any minute but deliberately delaying the blow until it was guaranteed to wreak the most havoc on the most number of people. Seeing her in that light only made things easier.

“Forget the kiss, Cat. In fact, forget Spencer all together,” I waved my hand in his general direction behind me. Like him, I was standing, giving me all the power I needed to assert myself effectively. “It’s just you and me now. Exactly what you’ve wanted since the minute you stepped in here.”

She laughed ruefully, if only to make me insecure. “What are you talking about?” 

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you scoped me out. You were doing that to figure out how alike we are, right?” 

She straightened a little more to sit up in her chair. She was hooked. “Why would I want to do that?” 

With my right foot, I swiped the foot rest out from underneath her legs, making her feet fall flat against the floor. Caught off guard by my swift movement, her upper body hurled forward while I took my seat on the foot rest, placing me directly across from her.

It wasn’t for a lack of dominance that I sat down. No, it was that I knew I had power over her, and I didn’t need to stand up anymore to prove it. 

“Feel free to stop me when I’m wrong,” I told her emphatically, knowing that would never happen. 

“You have always wanted Spencer. That’s just a fact. But deep down, you know he’s never truly wanted you. Sure, maybe he likes, even loves, the allure of your forbidden connection, but he doesn’t like or love you. And now that I’m here, the person he claims he loves in a way he’s never loved anyone before, you want to know just how similar we are. Because the more similarities you find between us, the more it kills you inside to wonder why he would love me over you if we’re practically the same. But you’ve only judged me from the outside, and we both know looks only go so far. So I’ll make it easier for you, Cat. I’ll tell you anything you want to know that way you can come up with an answer to the question you’ve been asking yourself the entire night: ‘Why her and not me?’”

She couldn’t pretend to be unfazed anymore. I had moved her beyond that. She was finally starting to react. 

“You would only be this confident if you already knew the answer to that question.” She concluded through gritted teeth. Her body was shaking all over, like the rage inside of her was boiling and her body was the feverish, bubbling water. “Do you know the answer?” 

I had nothing to hide. “Yes, I do.” 

“Tell me!” She threw down an iron fist against the top of her thigh. “Tell me what the answer is.” 

“You have more confidence in my answer than you’re ability to figure it out yourself? Come on, Cat. You couldn’t have gotten this far without your intelligence.”

“I don’t want to figure it out. I want you to tell me.” Her fist clamped around itself harder. 

“You don’t trust yourself to ask the right questions?”

“Just. Tell. Me.” Jaw clench.

“Alright, I’ll give you one similarity to start. We both have daddy issues-”

“I don’t care! Just give me the answer.” Foot tapping. 

“My grandma used to call my dad a ‘Bastard’ in French actually -” 

“Tell me!” Bodily tell after bodily tell, and I knew, I had done it. 

I beat the betting odds. 

“Fine, Cat. I’ll tell you what it is,” I had her undivided attention, and if I had eyes at the back of my head, I’d see I had Spencer’s, too. 

“The fundamental difference between you and me is that no matter what - I would never, ever, do anything to hurt Spencer. I have no compulsion to hurt him as a way to assert power over him or to make him fall at my feet. I can do that without ever having to go to the lengths that you’ve gone to. The power you wield over him is borne from a long-standing vendetta, whereas the power I wield, I resist using against him for revenge because that is what a morally sane person does. While I use my influence to help Spencer believe that he is a good person worthy of good treatment, you are constantly trying to prove that he is a bad person deserving of bad treatment. That he is anything like you.”

Her eyes just barely starting to water marked the last semblance of emotion I’d seen from Cat before the team swarmed the apartment and whisked her away. Then, the proverbial veneer of her mask had glazed back over her face, never to come off again. 

As Luke escorted her out in handcuffs, she gave me one last look over her shoulder. 

“How did you know about my dad?” 

You might think I slipped up when I told Cat that we were similar because of our daddy issues, therefore accidentally revealing that I knew more about Cat’s backstory than I led on, but that was purely by design. I had done that with the specific intention of setting this exact moment in motion. 

This moment where she would recognize that she’d overlooked my ‘mistake’ because of her lack of propriety. This moment where she would have to face the fact that she’d been deceived and outsmarted by me. 

This moment that she would think about until the day that needle went into her arm - the moment she realized - she let me win. 

_ _ _ 

As twisted as it may seem, the end to the reign of Queen Cat called for celebration. Penelope - she told me to call her that and not Ms. Garcia - had prepared cocktails galore in the round table room, which I’d actually been invited to enter this time. 

“You exceeded any expectations we had. The best we could’ve hoped for was no casualties, so I’m thrilled with the way things turned out tonight, and we couldn’t have done it without you,” Ms. Prentiss pulled me aside to say. “If you want it, there’s a spot waiting for you here on the team, and I really think you should consider taking it.”

To her proposal, I said I’d have to think about it, given that I’d hate to bestow my bad luck upon the team, but after tonight, I was about ready to declare my malchance a thing of the past. 

At this rate, I couldn’t distinguish whether I was dizzy from the alcohol coursing through my bloodstream or the job promotion from Secretary to Supervisory Special Agent. In any event, I knew I needed air. I slipped out of the conference room, past the glass doors of the bullpen, and waited patiently for the elevator. 

I must’ve caught Spencer after coming back from his ride with Cat to the prison because when the elevator doors opened, he was standing just on the other side of them, looking lost in thought. 

“Oh, hi!” I chirped, realizing then that he and I hadn’t said a word to each other since the “Kiss Me Bathroom Incident.” 

“Hey,” he called back, his voice already sounding unfamiliar after its lack of use towards me.

“Long time no see,” I joked to first lighten the air that seemed heavy between us. “I was just going to go down to get some fresh air.” 

“I’ll join you.” 

Because I hadn’t expected him to say that, I fumbled awkwardly into the tiny space that seemingly got smaller by the second, especially now that he was filling the space with me. 

The silence was a little too suffocating for my taste, and I couldn’t afford to have my breath be any more restricted by that than it already was being in this slender cage next to Spencer. Just to occupy the absence, I started rambling. “You know I was thinking -” 

No sooner did I start speaking than my words were cut off by the sweet, sweet shut of my mouth because of Spencer’s. His lips wholly encompassed mine just as his hands did to my face. I was surrounded by him and for that my breath had truly been taken away this time, but in the absolute best ways possible. 

There was simply no air. 

His ivy-like enclosure around me somehow made the claustrophobic elevator expand. Or maybe it felt like it had fallen away entirely. Nothing else around. Just us. 

His hands moved wherever they pleased and I followed suit, letting my hands go where they wished, never staying stationary in one place for too long. 

I had to feel him everywhere. Filling everything. 

He’d pulled away first, biting my bottom lip with blunt teeth to take me with him, and then he forced my lip in its place by kissing it back, pushing his lips impossibly closer like he wasn’t close enough. He wasn’t just trying to restore my bottom lip, but rather fuse ours together forever.

He pulled away for real this time but not far. His face and mine were centimeters apart, our breathes mixing in the microscopic air betwixt us. 

Still breathless, he rasped, “I meant something like that.” 

Now, I can say with absolute certainty that my malchance was a thing of the past. 

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　

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[slashingdisneypasta]

Harper Alexader x Fem!Reader || Oneshot

Title: The Fake Love Of My Life

Notes:

I want this to only be part 1 in a series because a. Fake dating. b. Harper needs more content on this site, and c. I actually have some ideas.

Motivation is the problem, haha. But hopefully I'll figure it out.

Plot: I’ve! Always! Wanted! To Write! A Fake Dating Scenario!! So here we go. After 2 centuries of judgy looks from the older folk in town and getting questioned about why you’re not married, you and Harper have decided to pretend to be together to finally make people stop it.

Warnings: I think its fine? Discussion about sex, but not outright said and there are no ya know... intricate details haha XD

“Oh, Y/N I can’t tell you how pleased I was to hear about you and Harper Alexander! Gosh, we all thought you’d be alone forever!”

“You’re such a pretty couple.”

“It took you long enough to find a man!”

“And my, what I catch, girl. You’re one lucky gal!”

“You’ll have to bring him over Wednesday for dinner with Ted and I!”

All. Week; This is all I’ve heard. I mean, it was expected (In fact, it was the intention) for people to be relieved and get off my back about finding a damn man, but good grief. You’d think the whole thing would’ve cooled off, by now. I’m exhausted from acting pleased about this and their words.

I mean, god, since I hit 16 I’ve gotten this gip about finding a guy, and right from the get-go (Actually, since I was younger, I’ve felt this way) I’ve been against it. Even before I died and everything normal here, everything we knew, became obsolete- The idea that just because I was born with tits, I need to legally tie myself to a big strong penis in order to survive made me feel... incomplete, rather then enthusiastic.

Other girls, my friends, dreamt about their perfect men and the way that he would kiss them; How the world would shatter, in supposedly a good way, when he finally found them. And I did want to be right there, dreaming with them! I so did. Because they just looked so happy... And it was so easy for them to be so, as well. But... I just... couldnt. It seemed ridiculous to me, so I just supposed that I was made... wrong. I could never see the sense in it. I still can’t, and I can’t imagine a time I will. I’m me, whether I’m dragging along the dead weight of a husband, or not. Thats enough for me; Why cant it be enough for the people that love me? Why on earth do I need the extra unnecessary baggage weighing me down?

... But still, after a century and a half of it… admittedly, a girl breaks down a bit. A little bit.

I mean, not entirely, of course, seeing as Harper’s and my ‘relationship’ is nothing but a farce to benefit us both and not in fact a real effort. Effort enough to suffer through the town’s seemingly endless congratulations at least, yes. But effort enough to find a real relationship? No.

But god- the effort I am putting in, is a lot. The way they're talking to me; It makes me sick. They speak like I'm finally whole- like I wasnt so, before. Its archaic and obnoxious.

Its so bad, that sometimes - more and more often these days, - I have to break away. Escape. And, ironically enough… there’s only one place I can go to in order to get that, aside from spending all my time alone.

Sneaking up behind that place, or person, I lay a hand on his shoulder, feeling him jump slightly under my surprise touch, which makes me grin as I sit down beside him. “Hey,” I greet Harper, the only person I can go to for any kind of peace now, wierdly enough. He flashes me an annoyed eyeroll, not quite as much the charmer with me then as with modern folk that come traipsing into town and our eager clutches. He quickly returns to whatever he’s whittling; Quite focused. Taking a deep breath of fresh, non-stuffy air, I close my eyes for a moment. Ahhhh, the quiet…

Usually, I can find Harper here, on the outskirts of town. Or he finds me here, depending on which of us ran out of patience with the others, first. Today I survived longer, which is uncommen as Harper has an extraordinarily strong poker face, but either way; We’re finding ourselves alone together here more and more often these days. Which was weird at first, and actually still is a little bit strange still, but I'm sure it'll become more natural soon enough. I mean, we will be married after all, sooner rather then later.

Despite knowing Harper our whole lives, going to school together and ending up in similar circles, we were never really... good, friends, I guess you could say. He was never at the forefront of my mind, like he was a fair few of the other girls in our year- my girl friends included. We did get thrown together quite a bit as our groups tended to run together (Husband-Hunting… ), and then at various weddings and such, too, as my friends managed to share their chosen victims. This does mean that when we announced our 'engagement', no one was magnificently surprised even though we hadnt openly dated (Or dated at all), though, so there you go.

'Fate'.

But Harper and I never actually sought each other out, until now. Until he had the ‘fake marriage’ idea. Neither of us wanted to find someone, really, so it only seemed... sensible. This way, we can keep living the way we have been; Just, you know, in the same house. And occasionally we'll have to attend events together- which is not out of the ordinary, anyway!

Exhaling, fingers on either side of my lap digging gently into the decaying wood of the bench we're on, I open my eyes slowly again. I'm recharging already.

"So... " I turn to Harper, who doesn't look back this time. He just continues to focus on the wood and the knife in his hands, a look of indifference with a tone of annoyance, on that handsome face. But then again, what's new? When he's not seducing poor, bewitched women to eat he isnt actually all that sweet! After the Jubilee, he drops the act as soon as he can. In fact the act starts to fizzle away as soon as his job is done.

He wasnt always this way. I mean, he's always had bite but he genuinly was the golden boy when we were in school, and even through to our adult lives; But being stuck here after the earth discarded us, has taken its toll. Everyone grew darker, and continues to do so as we're stuck here longer. Miss Peaches, the Mayor, Granny, and I certainly wasnt except, either- so I dont blame him for the change. Its the only natural part of what happened.

A soft look on my face, I raise my brows in query. "How are you today?"

A disaffected sigh comes out of him, and he shrugs his shoulders in that derisive way that people do when they don't particularly want to talk about it. "Same as every day, I s'pose... Yourself?"

"Very similar."

Sniffing, he forces his blade down the block of wood- sending a particularly thick shaving to snap off the end. "Figures."

"Yeah... " Figuring myself that Harper is really not in the mood to talk right now, I take the hint and look away from him; Close my mouth, and my eyes. If he doesnt want to talk, then I can really relax. Here, I'm safe from the way people look at me - now us, -, and I can just stew. Be me. Think about me things. Like the books I've been reading, and the food I'm interested in learning how to cook, and the garden! That's just fine with me.

A few minutes later though, when I'm totally lost somewhere in my own head between fantasy lane and sounds-of-the-forest avenue, Harper decides to speak up again- and it shocks me out of my own head so hard I nearly damn well fall forward off of the bench.

"So Y/N- "

"Christ- "

Luckily, the grip I had on the bench saves me from what I think its safe to say would have been a humiliating, and painful, fall. Unfortunately though, it doesn't save me from the 'Why are you so ridiculous' look from Mr Darcy, here. Nevertheless, with the effort of an awkward smile on my part, he looks back to his widdling and continues.

"I've been thinking, about our impending marriage." Right, right. "And I'm wonderin'- What's gonna happen on the weddin' night?"

"... " My eyes flicker over Harper like he just grew a third arm. What- where did this come fro- Harper- Why!? "What!?"

"Well, my mother used to say that people could tell when a couple hadn't consummated the marriage." He shrugs, still under my disbelieving, bug-eyed gaze and entirely oblivious of it. Or at least seeming to be. Perhaps he's ignoring me. "She said it took Granny and the Mayor weeks, and everyone could tell."

"Yeah," I scoff, sarcasm dripping off the tip of my tongue as I continue to look at him deeply incredulously. I never planned to sleep in the same bed as him, much less perform that particular marital 'duty'! "And do you also still believe in Santa Claus? They absolutely cannot tell that kind of thing! Its a fairytale!" ... right?

Harper actually sets his work down now, and looks at me, and it is the most shocking experience... "You sound mighty sure of that, Y/N. But I'm not, and I don't want to risk the, uh, 'integrity' of our scheme. This is just as much servin' me as it is you and I'll be damned if it's put in peril- for any, reason."

"Integrity!?" I mimic, dubious and horrified.

"Yes, integrity. Look, I'm not too delighted about the idea, neither." WELL- insulting, much? He catches the insulted look on my face and smirks at me, and all I can think about for a flash is what a smug prick I'm marrying. "But I also don't want our cover blown. So I'm just thinkin' we give it a thought. We might have to."

"I've never even seen a man, uh, in any state of undress!" My cheeks are heating up hotter and hotter by the second. Its such an embarrassing thing to admit!- And definetly not what I expected by coming out here. I'm Pleasant Valley's resident sacrifice-safe virgin, and I've never even thought, seriously, about doing... anything... like that. I never thought, really, that I would need to! With sex comes a relationship, and with a relationship comes people looking at you all happy- oblivious and ignorant to the fact that I eas perfectly content before.

"That's your problem? That it'll be your first time and not... that it'd be with me, of all people?" Harper asks, putting words in my mouth and laughing about it. Ugh. Rolling my eyes, I just avert my eyes in annoyance. Because to be quite honest - to myself. Not him, - , due to our shared history and out of all the possibilities, it doesn't feel totally out of left field at all for it to be him. For him to be the one, that I...

But I cant say that, because that would ruin our entire plan because then he will think, misguidedly, I have feelings for the bastard, and that certainly isn't true. "Hey, if it makes you feel any better, I ain't never gone all the way with a lady neither."

Sighing, I refuse to look at him still. Despite the slightly less obnoxious way that he said that. "You still have more experience then me. And that's not fair." And god, now I sound like petulant child. That's just great. I need only pout to complete the look.

"Hold on there, Y/N. Before I lose you to your lil tantrum- " His hand falls on mine, on the bench, but I don't really notice because I'm tuning around to snap at him.

"I'm not being dramatic- "

"'Course not." See, he says that, but the eyeroll that follows sure doesn't emote faith. Quickly though he continues on. Well, quickly enough- "Maybe we should put in some practise? I mean, we'll have to kiss in front of people at least at the wedding." My mouth falls open in shock, as he ignores it and scrunches up his face in scepticism. "Have you even kissed anyone, before?"

"Harper, you're being ridiculous." I feel like crossing my arms, but realise his hand is holding mine down on the bench between us and decide not to move. "And of course I've been kissed." But as I think back on it, a flicker of awkwardness flickers over my face, a frown spreading across my mouth. "Once... "

To my future husbands credit -because I must credit his name with nice things. Otherwise he's just as an ass and I really cant bare the thought of marrying an ass if I'm going to do it at all, -, he does try to steal himself from sniggering this time, at least, but I can still tell what he's thinking when he rolls his eyes, and says so sarcastically; "Well consider me proven wrong." Scowling at him may give me frown lines, but it also makes him continue, which is a mercy I consider worth it. "Here I was thinkin' you were some spring chicken here- " Nevermind.

"Fine!" Swivelling in my seat, I turn to face him with a determined look on my face because of which the laughter in his eyes disappears, and I raise a brow at him, quite expectantly. Like well?? "You want to kiss me, Harper? Go ahead. I'm not kidding, lets do this. If what you say is true, then its a small price to pay for romantic security." I shrug. "And you're right- we will have to do it in front of people at the ceremony, at least, so we might as well get the awkwardness over with now. I don't know about them being able to tell whether we've consummated, but I do give that people could tell if we hadn't kissed, before."

For a few moments, Harper just stares at me. Like he doesn't quite know what to make of me right now, or... I don't know. I really don't know what he's thinking. His face is just blank, so I roll my eyes and sigh. "Are we doing this, or not, Harp- "

Suddenly he has moved forward, killing the distance between the two of us on the bench and cupping one side of my face in his hand with which he was so oddly holding onto mine, before. And the look on his face is so intense now that something in me that doesnt understand the principal of the thing, wants me to back down- but instead I force that little voice to pipe down and look stonily back at him, slightly craning my neck in order to do so. "Fine, Y/N." He says, slowly. At a normal volume but darkly. Deeply. "If you want to."

"It was your idea, Harper." I remind him carefully, seeing as he seems to have forgotten that fact. It was his idea, to practise. This wasn't for me. I dont... I dont want this! My voice comes out steady, but the erratic beating of my heart right now is anything but. And voice is also quiet, unlike his. Because he's so close, of course!- Thats why I needn't raise my voice. Thats the reason. He hasnt affected me, at all.

Harper's handsome but I've known him too long for him to be able to render me dumb like any of those travellers. Surely.

He nods to me, an almost scary look in his face. I'm suddenly reminded, for some reason, of the terrible things this pretty boy is capable of. "Okay."

"Okay." I say as well, because I've done some terrible things, too.

And then he leans down- and we're kissing. No further warning, just his lips against mine and a lovely glittery feeling in my tummy. My eyes flutter shut because this far better then that uncomfortable kiss I had with Harvey McGreevy when we were 14; In fact I almost forget to focus on this. Because this practise- like when you recite a poem a million and 1 times in order to be able to recite it easily thr next day in class. But I remember just in time before I accidentally lose myself, and tilt my head so our noses can be more comfortable, and apply a little bit of pressure into it like I've been told you're supposed to. Am I doing it right????!

Harper, of course, has no trouble with it. His pressure is perfect and he rubs his nose against mine, which is weird but nice at the same time. Its sort of affectionate, which is the weird part because we aren't a real couple and this is only purely for logical reasons... a fact that I myself have trouble remembering in the moment. Especially when he flicks his tongue against my bottom lip, a far cry from the way Harvey had smooshed his slimy wet tongue against the crease between my lips, asking for access that I don't even consider before allowing him. One of his hands, the one that isn't tucking wild hair back behind my ear, finds my waist and holds me there, and the grip is comforting.

As I let my hands fall on his shoulders, gripping him as I just enjoy the kiss, I tilt my head a bit to the side -Which side? I dont know which side. Does it matter? I'm forgetting where I am... - in order to allow him better access and actually moan, mortifyingly, at the feeling of a mans tongue in my mouth, which really shouldn't be as wonderful as it is, but is. He starts to kiss me more fiercely as soon as that comes out of me, and I'm just thinking about running my hand up through perfect hair, when-

"Wo-ho! Lookie here! Two young lovebirds getting a little bit amorous in the safety of the woods, huh?" A yelp escapes me when the sound of the Mayors loud teasing enters my ears and I immediately snap away from Harper like he stung me. Gaze flashing to him as my cheeks heat up once again in embarrassment, I catch a scowly look of irritation cross his face before he manages to pull himself together for Mayor Buckman; Who's setting his hands on his hips like he's telling off a pair of wily teenagers. "Lucky I happened upon ya, huh? Wouldn't want either of you to jump the gun- not before the weddin', yes?"

My lips are pink, I'm sure, and they feel tingly from the intensity of that kiss. God, I had no idea that he'd... do it like that... I run a thumb over the bottom one, thinking to myself and wondering what the hell happened there, how it got out of hand so quickly like that, as Harper focuses on Buckman. That was... weird.

Lets... just go... with 'weird'. Yep. Thats all. Just... wierd. And surprising. Definetly, surprising.

A forced rone of relief slips into Harpers voice. "Um, 'course, Mayor. Yeah, thank you." Harper hops up quickly off the bench, and away from me, smiling brightly. My eyes snap up to him when he moves, to see what he's doing- like I'm not done with him, or something, which I definitely, most certainly, absolutely am!! Thats enough 'practise' for the day Y/N!! I have to tell myself and the fireplace built in an odd place, in the pit of my stomach. Harper glances back at me momentarily and I just get hotter. "Just cant keep my hands of a' her, sometimes, hah hah... "

My stomach flutters at his, fake, words for the first time since we started this. and I hop up off the bench myself, and promptly reach the Mayor in .2 seconds in order to get away from Harper. Chewing nervously on the inside of my cheek, I offer just an awkward look to the older man before redirecting my gaze to the ground. Yep, nothing to see here, sir... Despite my inflamed reaction to the words, I play my part well. Rolling my eyes and blushing. "Oh Harper- don't say things like that!"

"Oh that's fine, don't bicker on my part, I'm just headin' off again." The Mayor himself sounds a little awkward, as he clasps his hands together behind his back, rolling on the balls of his feet. A glance up at his face reveals that he's looking around and struggling not to laugh. "Far be it me to leave my two-cense where it don't belong, anyway!"

"Yes, uh, see you later at the bar, sir!" Harper salutes, a definite sense of discomfort to the gesture for once as the fact occurs to us both, that as soon as Buckman leaves us we'll be alone, together, again.

Promptly, I turn to the Mayor before he can make an escape.

"Actually I'll come with you, Mayor!" The words slip out of me far faster then necessary. I don't know why I'm acting like this but the feeling of Harper watching me now is too much, too suddenly, and out of nowhere, so I'm forcing myself to focus on the Mayor - who looks deeply amused at the whole situation, thinking its just two young lovers acting squirrelly around each other, - and paste a polite smile to my face. "Headin' back to town? I have to get back before too long anyway, as well. It'll be getting dark. soon. Accompany me, wont you?"

"Uh, a'course, but wouldn't you rather your beau here walk you back?- "

Out of the corner of my eye I catch Harper moving, as if about to play his own part and indeed walk me home but I just shake my head. "Nope! Uhhhhm, we're finished, anyway-" I close my mouth, stopping myself before I say anything else that will make it even harder for the Mayor not to burst out laughing. "Right, so... so lets go!" Then I'm grabbing the mayor by the arm, and dragging him off back to town.

My heart refuses to slow down its manic beating until I'm sure, that Harper isn't watching anymore.

~

Its a couple of hours later when I see Harper again. I'm just getting ready for bed, when the front door clicks unlocked and creaks open, and only one other person in town has the key to my house- so instead of grabbing a weapon, I just pull on another layer and head down stairs. Harper's waiting in the front door, the screen door closed behind him and that familiar half annoyed/half disinterested look about him; On his face.

I cross my arms after pulling the extra layer of cotton tighter around myself and my sleep gown, feeling awkward standing near Harper; Under his subjective gaze. "So... hi?"

"I thought we should talk about that kiss. I wanna make sure that everything's okay, between us, after that. I mean... wouldn't wanna hurt your delicate sensibilities."

Eyes flashing, I curl my fingers over my arms tighter, a glare flaring at him and his smart mouth, and the smirk on his lips. "Theirs nothing delicate about me, Harper."

"Really? You seemed pretty spooked, to me. Took off like a broodmare just after the whip comes out. And I don't think it had anything to do with the mayor." Harper continues on, and I scrunch up my nose as him in response.

"Maybe I was just sick of your face, twiggy."

For a moment the boy just continues to smirk at me, seeing something entirely too amusing in my standing up for myself for my taste and only making my frown crease deeper; Like I taste something bad. "... Well alright then," The silence finally breaks. "If you say so, then I guess its so. I mean, you did run off pretty quick though... "

"Yeah. Well." Slowly, a mischievous smirk of my own rises. "I was afraid maybe you enjoyed that kiss a little too much."

"Oh I wouldn't be afraid of that, sweetheart."

"No?" I perk a brow, knowing that that's bullshit. "I guess it shouldn't happen again, then, right?" Maybe its my imagination, but Harper looks a tiny bit unhappy about that, but he nods in agreement. Then for another few seconds we just look at eachother, silent as a new phase in our... weird, now... relationship, settles over us. Taking in a deep breath, I shake my head, looking down. "So, um. Anyway." Something may have changed between us under the skin level but we still have a job to do. That hasn't changed. "The, uh, dinner party later this week. You'll pick me up at 7?"

"Always do." Harper shrugs, finally letting me off the hook from his penetrative gaze and folding his hands into his pockets, settling carefully into the new tone I've set.

"Well... good. So that's all set." Running my bottom lip through my teeth, my eyes flicker from the floor to Harper. "See you tomorrow?"

"Probably." He agrees, nodding his head. But doesn't move to leave. I open my mouth to ask him what he's just standing around like a goon for instead of leaving my home so that I may sleep, but he beats me too it- suddenly walking over, closing the lovely distance between us and guiding me closer by the arm; And presses his lips gently to mine.

Immediately a surprised gasp escapes me but my eyes flutter closed anyway and I kiss back on an impulse before he pulls back again. I raise a brow. "And what was that for?... "

"Appearances. Y'know- anyone could be watchin' us. With the door open like that and all," My eyes flicker past his face and to the open front door, the screen not offering much privacy. But also- there is no one there??? Everyone's going to bed at this time. This is Pleasant Valley, not goddamn Washington. "I'm just conscious of our arrangement, is all." He shrugs. "Wouldn't want us gettin' called out for not actin' enough like a couple or nothing."

"No... " No, you wouldn't want that. "Okay, well, if this kissing thing is going to be a thing we do now- then you gotta give me some kinda warnin- "

Another kiss is pressed to my lips, warning-less. When he pulls back this time, I deadpan at him. A laughing smile slips across his face, a great change from his usual brooding self. A little closer to what he's like with the victim girls, and it shocks me for a moment.

Then Harper opens his mouth, and a cheeky grin slip across my lips. "Hey, I make no promis- "Before he can finish what he was saying this time, I give him a kiss of my own- feeling him realise what I've done to him this time and then return it.

I am really surprised, at how nice kissing him is.

When its over, though, I point wordlessly to the door over his shoulder and raise my eyebrows. He looks, turns back to me, and fakes a put-out expression. "What? Sick of me now? Gotta get rid a' me so your other fake fiancé can come visit?"

"I'm tired." I say pointedly, pulling out of his arms and closer to the stairs, even as theirs a little grin on my face. "So get out."

"Well damn," A grin full of superficial southern charm on his face, Harper goes back to the screen door, and opens it. I pull my shawl closer around myself once again, and cross my arms back over my chest. "And here I was just startin' to feel welcome." He steps out of my house, onto the porch, then turns back; His normal visage back. "So, I'll see you tomorrow sometime?"

"Probably!"