#OK. last post for the night i swear i'm going to get ready for bed RIGHT NOW.

[ghostzzy]

felix/sylvain is hitting tonight.... watch this (5:20 to 8:30 for the best parts) and join me in the anime boy realm....

[avastrasposts]

The Pilot and his Girl - ch. 14

I'm sorry. Please feel free to yell at me.

Warnings Contain spoilers

Word count: 5.7k Chapter 15

You start pulling on your clothes as you come back from the bathroom, Frankie is already wrapped up in the bed sheets, half asleep as he pries open an eye to look at you. 

“I was thinking we should maybe not both sleep at the same time,” you say, reaching down for your boots. Frankie loses his sleepy look almost immediately and shoots up in bed, but you’re already holding your palm up to him.

“I’m taking the first watch, Frankie, no arguments. You didn’t sleep last night, I did, albeit behind the couch, but still. You need to sleep because to be frank, we’re gonna need you alert tomorrow more than me.”

“Cariño…” he starts to protest but you physically push him down onto the bed with your hands on his shoulders, and he lets you topple him over.

“Sleep, Frankie, I’m going to be outside the door, you’ll hear me shout if anything happens.” 

He looks up at you, trying to find an argument for taking the whole watch himself, but his brain is scrambled by adrenaline and sleep deprivation. The post-orgasm hormones don’t help either. 

“Leave the door open, wake me at three,” is all he manages before you kiss his lips and stroke his cheek, you swear he’s already asleep by the time you leave the room. 

Staying awake was harder than you thought, sitting on one of the bar stools by the kitchen counter stops you from dozing off, but you still feel like your jaw is going to pop as you yawn widely. Your gun is on the counter in front of you as you study the ring Frankie slipped onto your finger. The delicate gold band is thin, three simple diamonds set in a row, with room, you notice, for more diamonds along the band. You know Frankie isn’t the kind of guy to spend three months pay on a ring just so that it’s as big as possible, he would pick the ring that meant something to him and make it mean something to you too. You run your fingers over the diamonds, three in a row, you’ll have to ask him tomorrow. 

At three am you gently walk into the bedroom to wake Frankie, but he sleeps too lightly, your footsteps wake him up and he shoots up in bed. 

“It’s ok, Frankie,” you say in a low voice, “It’s three am.” 

“Ok,” he rumbles, his voice rough with sleep as he rubs the heel of his hand into his eyes. You pull off your boots and crawl into bed with your clothes on next to Frankie. He catches your chin between his thumb and fingers, giving you a slow kiss, before letting go. 

When you wake up a few hours later daylight is starting to slip through the shutters of the window. Frankie’s hand is on your shoulder, gently shaking you. 

“Hermosa, time to wake up,” he murmurs as he bends and presses his lips to your temple. “The night was quiet and I made coffee.”

“Thank you,” you mumble and push the covers back, sitting up as Frankie hands you a mug. 

You drink it while you get ready, which only means you put your boots back on and stick the gun into the back of your trousers. Frankie’s heated up another can of stew from Denny’s supplies and you both eat it in silence. You’re apprehensive about leaving the safety and quiet of the cabin and move back into populated areas, but you can see Frankie’s nerves too. His jaw is clenched as he goes through both your packs, swapping out some of the food for Denny’s supplies. As soon as you put down your spoon into the empty bowl he grabs it from you and starts readying up to leave. 

“We should leave a note for Pope or anyone else who comes here,” you say and Frankie nods.

“Yeah, I did already,” he points to a folded piece of paper on the dining room table, “Read it and tell me if it makes sense.” 

You pick it up and flip it open, reading Frankie’s neat handwriting; 

September 29th 

To anyone of the guys

My girl and I are safe up here for now. We’re heading to L’s place today. Pope was here on the 27th, also went for L but hasn’t returned yet. 

We’ll return here when we have L, hope to see you all safe. 

Catfish

You fold it up and put it back on the table, “Looks good to me, I really hope they’re all here when we get back,” you say, looking over at Frankie who’s picked up your backpack and walked over to you with it.  

“Yeah, I really hope so too,” he replies as he helps you on with the pack, turning you around and adjusting the straps before he pulls your gun from behind your back. 

“I made you this while I was keeping watch,” he holds up a makeshift leg holster. “You can’t wear a regular holster with a backpack on and you won’t be able to get the gun from behind the pack, and I don’t want you walking around with the gun in your hand.” 

He kneels down and straps it to your thigh, using a snap-link to attach it to your belt. “Denny had a couple of old holsters for his hunting gear so I repurposed them.” He’s got a similar holster on his leg, his gun already in it and now he slides your gun into yours. 

“Feel good?” he asks, looking up at you from the floor, tugging on the holster, making sure it’s not too tight. 

“Yeah, but I’m not sure how much use I’ll be, Frankie, I’ve never even fired a gun.” 

“Hopefully you won’t have to but I can’t show you, I don’t know when we’ll get more bullets,” he gets up and gives your backpack a final look over, “Denny didn’t keep any guns or ammo up here so we’ll have to grab any that we find.” 

Once outside the cabin, Frankie locks up and puts the key back into the lock box before turning towards the lake. 

“There are a couple of canoes down by the small boat house,” he says, “we can use one of them to get across the lake, saves us walking around it, we’re heading in that direction.” 

You nod and follow him down the gentle slope to the lake, the morning is calm and quiet, and again you’re struck by how normal everything feels. If it wasn’t for the slightly heavy feeling in your stomach, a small hot ball of anxiety, you’d think it was just Frankie and you heading out for a couple of days camping. 

The trip over the lake is smooth and when you get to the other side, about a mile from the cabin, you get the packs out before Frankie paddles the canoe into some thick, tall reeds to camouflage it as much as possible. Luckily it’s an old wood canoe and it all but disappears into the reeds. 

Frankie glances down at his compass, attached to his belt, and motion for you to follow him. You’ve agreed to speak as little as possible and move quietly. There probably won’t be any infected out here but Frankie doesn’t want to take any chances. So in silence you walk behind him for three hours, stopping when he holds up his hand, checking his direction or listening intently. At one point he signals for you to stop and crouch and as you sink down behind a bush, you hear rustling in the shrubs ahead. Your skin goes cold as you mimic Frankie’s movement and pull out your gun, moving it slowly out of your leg holster. The rustling continues, coming closer until, finally, you see the source of the sound, a white tail deer, slowly ambling through the forest, nibbling at leaves here and there as it goes. You let your breath out slowly, as Frankie stands up, startling the deer enough to make it prance away into the underbrush. 

At the three hour mark Frankie finds a good spot for a break, a small stream that lets you refill your water bottles. Stretching out your legs on the ground, your back against a large boulder, you try to savor your lunch sandwich. Frankie sinks down next to you and gives you a little nudge with his shoulder. 

“How you holding up, cariño?” he asks in a low voice. 

“I’m alright, just jumpy,” you reply, leaning your head on his solid shoulder for a little bit. He caresses your cheek with his warm palm and you feel his lips press into the top of your head before he begins to unwrap his sandwich. 

After lunch you get even jumpier, you’re still following hiking trails through the forest but every now and then you have to cross main roads, you start seeing houses, you even skirt around a small town. In the distance you see a group of people, you can’t tell if they’re infected or not, but as Frankie leads the two of you in a wide circle around the group, you keep watching them. They don’t move and you think they’re too unnaturally still for humans. 

Just as you’ve managed to clear a small ridge and put some distance between yourself and them, a loud collective shriek goes up from the group of people. Frankie immediately grabs you and pulls you down into the tall grass next to the trail. It feels like your heart is going to claw itself out of your chest as you feel Frankie’s weight on top of you, he’s half covered you with his body. You glance up at his face and you see him carefully lift his head out of the tall grass. 

“It’s ok, they’re running, but in the other direction,” he whispers and pulls you up. In a crouch Frankie starts to jog down the other side of the ridge, holding on to your hand as you run to keep up with him. You continue running until your lungs are about to give up and Frankie slows down but starts walking next to you, keeping a brutal pace, still holding onto your hand. 

“We need to get away from them as fast as possible, we can’t fight that many on foot,” he pants, giving your hand another squeeze. 

Not until you’ve covered about three miles does he slow down to a regular pace, you’re drenched in sweat and breathing hard, your legs aching. He pulls you off the side of the trail you’ve been following, into the forest and behind a thick shrub. 

“Sit down,” he motions, pointing to the ground, “catch your breath and drink some water.” 

You gratefully sink down and pull out your water bottle while Frankie remains standing. 

“We’re about half a mile from the bridge and the river crossing,” he says, looking at the map. “We need to be extra careful as we approach, if people in this area were trying to get away from any towns they’d probably have to cross there which means a potential traffic jam and potentially infected.” 

You nod and sip the water, offering Frankie your bottle when you’re done. He gratefully takes a long swig while you get back to your feet. You’re still exhausted after the sprint but you want to keep moving. The countryside around you makes you nervous, there are small farms dotted across it, three days ago you would’ve thought it looked quaint and rural, now the sight of every farm house makes you edgy. 

Putting away your water bottle, you follow Frankie back to the trail and after a short time it emerges from the forest onto a large country road, up ahead you can see the bridge. As Frankie had feared, it’s jammed with cars. You can walk between them, but the thought of what might be hiding among them makes panic claw its way up your throat and you take a tight hold of Frankie’s hand. He looks back and sees the fear in your eyes. Pulling you back into the trees he wraps his arms around you. Holding you tight to his chest for a minute, he pulls back and cups your cheeks, his large hands are warm and dry on your skin, as he kisses you deeply before he looks down at you and traces his fingers over your lips. 

“I’m sorry, cariño, it’s the only way forward.” His eyes rake over your face as if he’s committing it to memory and you suddenly realize what he’s doing. 

“Don’t say goodbye, Frankie,” you croak, your voice catching in your throat. 

“Just in case, mi amor,” he says in a low voice, pressing his lips to yours again. When he pulls back he turns and takes your hand, leading you back to the road where he lets go of it. 

“Stay six feet behind me, gun out, safety off, but keep it pointed to the ground. If you have to fire, squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.” He gives you a final look, a small smile, before turning back to the road. 

It’s slow going, following Frankie’s lead you move carefully in his footsteps, trying to make as little noise as possible. Frankie stops and surveys the cars in front of you regularly but nothing seems out of the ordinary, you see no humans, only open car doors, luggage that’s been left behind. 

As you’ve crossed about two thirds of the bridge a dog suddenly launches itself at the cage door keeping it shut in, barking loudly from inside a large SUV. Frankie and you both drop into a crouch, trying to see if the loud noise will draw in any infected, but the dog quietens down and the landscape around the bridge remains silent. You breathe a sigh of relief as Frankie carefully stands up again and motions for you to follow him. He carefully approaches the dog in the cage, a golden retriever you think, mumbling soft words to it, calming it down. Soon the dog is licking his fingers through the bars of the cage and Frankie slides back the lock, opening the door. The dog jumps down, its tail happily wagging as you scratch its ears. 

“Good boy,” you mumble, patting its flank as Frankie starts moving forward again. You give the dog a final scratch before you follow him towards the end of the bridge. The dog trails behind you for a while before it falls behind, going back to the SUV. 

As you get to the end of the bridge Frankie holds his hand up, signaling for you to stop. He points to the last pillar of the bridge, written on it, in what looks like black magic marker, are the letters SOF, underneath is a rectangle with a single line through the middle and the number 1 just outside the box. 

“Special Operations Force,” Frankie says, “Pope’s been through here but he’s alone. The rectangle means he’s motorized.” He walks over to the pillar, pulling a marker from his side pocket and crouching down he writes SOF underneath Pope’s message, but he adds an odd looking cross underneath, two sides are flat and two are rounded. Then he writes ‘2’ next to it. 

“Special Operations Aviation,” he explains while he stands up and puts the marker away. “I don’t think any of the other guys will come past here but if Pope comes back the same way he’ll see that we’ve been here.” 

You continue down the road, it’s still about an hour's walk to Lucía’s house and you’re forced to stay on the road, there are no hiking trails leading in the right direction. Frankie’s head is on a swivel, his gun drawn as you both walk off to the side of the road, creating some distance between  yourselves and the cars. There are less of them now, and up ahead you can see an almost clear road. You crest a hill in the road, carefully trying to see over to the other side before you’re too exposed, when a pickup truck just ahead rumbles to life and barrels towards you with a screech of tires. Frankie grabs your hand and pulls you behind one of the few cars on the road, his gun aimed at the truck. “They’ve got to be ok, right Frankie?” you say, his hand still holding you down behind the car. “Infected can’t drive!”

“Stay down, cariño,” he snaps, his eyes focused on the truck. You hear it come to a stop and the engine goes silent as the doors are opened. Frankie lets go of you and grabs his gun with both hands. You turn and peek over the bonnet of the car and see two men get out, staying behind the doors of the truck, as another two jump down from the flatbed. 

“You know how to use that gun, sonny?” the oldest man calls from behind the driver’s door. He’s big and burly looking, a cowboy hat squashed down on a very round head. 

“Sure,” Frankie calls back, shifting his stance. 

“Why don’t you lower it and toss it over here. And any gun your cute girl might be carrying.” The man’s voice is saccharine and makes your neck hairs stand on end, you glance up at Frankie and see the muscle in his jaw working. 

“We’re just passing through, trying to get to some friends, we don’t want any trouble.” 

“Then why you pointing a gun at me, son?” The older man looks over his shoulder and nods at the two men who got off the truck and they slowly move to the sides, circling the two of you. 

“Cariño, get your gun up and stand behind me, aim at the man on the left,” Frankie says in a low voice, his eyes never leaving the older man. You do as he says, trying to have a steady grip on the gun to keep your hands from shaking. Copying Frankie’s stance, you hold your gun in both hands, your feet apart and steady, aiming at the man on the left. With a thumb you flick the safety off and draw a deep breath. 

“Steady there, girlie,” the old man drawls, as he sees you move, holding up a hand to stop the two men. “Son, you don’t want to do anything stupid and get your girl in trouble here.” He moves out from behind the car door, and from the corner of your eye you see the rifle he’s holding low in his hands. “We’re just out here making sure no one’s looting these cars, especially of any guns they might find.” 

“These guns are mine, like I said, we’re just passing through.” Frankie calls back through gritted teeth. You can hear the sharp tone in his voice as his eyes flick from the man in the cowboy hat and the man still standing behind the passenger side door. 

“You’re outnumbered, pal,” the man on the right calls out with a chuckle, “just hand over the guns and any supplies, and we’ll let you pass.” 

“Might keep your girl though,” the man on your left drawls, the man you’ve got your gun aimed at, he’s eyeing you with a smirk on his face that makes your skin crawl. “She’s shaking like a leaf but I bet she’d put up a nice little fight.” 

Frankie glances over at the man on the left, before he looks back at the man in the cowboy hat, he’s got a crooked smile on his lips as he shoulders the rifle. 

“C’mon, sonny, the guns and the girl, and then you can walk away.” 

Frankie’s gun is loud on the silent road, and the man in the cowboy hat crumples over, his shot going wide as the rifle hits the ground. The man on the left throws himself forward and you feel the recoil in your arms as you fire, you don’t even know if your bullets hit, you can hear several shots from Frankie’s gun and your own, and Frankie’s hand on your shoulder as he pushes you to the ground. Two more shots ring out and Frankie ducks behind the car, his gun raised, listening. When nothing stirs he quickly glances over the bonnet before he stands up. Three of the men are dead on the ground, the fourth one, the one behind the passenger door, is scrabbling for something and with a few long steps, Frankie is on him, kicking the gun out of his reach. 

He’s on the ground, you can see him beneath the door, Frankie towering above him, his gun aimed at the man. As you watch, the man lifts his palms up, pleading, but the shot rings out and the man slumps back. Frankie bends down and picks up the man’s gun, quickly patting him down and fishing an ammo box from his pants. When he straightens up and walks back towards you his face is impassive, blank and you remember when you last saw that look; the bar that night you thought Frankie was a violent man. Now you know, he is violent, but only when he needs to and for now, you’re very grateful for his skills.  

You put your hands out to push yourself off the ground and a burning pain shoots through your shoulder, wincing you get to your feet and look at your torn shirt. Blood is seeping through and you suddenly feel faint. Frankie is on you in two fast steps, grabbing your arm and pulling back your shirt. 

“You’re hit,” his voice suddenly sharp with worry, as his gentle fingers push at the fabric, making you wince again. He unbuttons your shirt and pulls it over your shoulder. “Thank god,” he breathes out as he sees the shallow gash, “you’ve been grazed, it didn’t go in.” He pulls up his arm as if he’s about to pull his backpack off but changes his mind. 

“Come here, get in the truck,” he guides you over to the passenger side, “close your eyes, don’t look,” he mumbles as you have to step over the corpse.  You breathe in deeply and keep your eyes closed until Frankie closes the door. He bends down to pick up the other man’s rifle, putting it behind the bench seat, before he gets in and starts up the engine. It rumbles to life and Frankie turns it around, heading back down the almost empty road, and as soon as he sees a secluded spot he pulls over and kills the engine. 

“I’ve got to clean your arm, cariño,” says, opening up his backpack for the first aid kit. “Does it hurt?” He looks over at you, his eyes are worried and you shake your head to calm him. 

“Only a little, it stings more than anything.” 

“Ok, just keep breathing in and out while I do this.” 

The iodine solution makes you whimper but Frankie is fast and efficient, when the compress is on your shoulder the pain is already subsiding. He pulls your shirt back on, gives you a soft kiss, cradling the back of your head with his large hand. 

“You ok?” he asks in a low voice, “not just the injury, with what just happened too?” 

You let out a shuddering breath as you allow yourself to think about the situation, “I’m very glad you used to be a soldier, Frankie,” you say, leaning your forehead against his, “I think that’s the fourth time you’ve saved my life in twenty four hours.” 

“Me too,” he breathes, his thumb is caressing your cheek as he looks at you. His deep brown eyes are strained, but calm, “Things are going to get worse before they get better, cariño. I’ve seen it before, when society crumbles, it brings out the worst in people and they become very dangerous. I need you and Lucía safe at the cabin until we know things are getting back to normal, whenever that might be.” 

You nod and he turns back to the wheel and starts up the truck, “At least we got a truck out of it, this will make things easier as long as we have gas.” 

The truck rumbles through the landscape, in the distance you see a group of infected running towards something but the road curves and you move away from them. Frankie has driven this road hundreds of times, every time he came to pick up or drop off Lucía, and now he wonders at how eerily still it is. There are no people as the truck drives past the first few houses of the small town, cars line the main street but they’ve been pushed to the side. The dents and scrapes on them indicate that something big came through and shoved them out of the way. 

Frankie turns down a smaller side street, and then another small street, coming to the end of town. There are a few cars still parked outside the houses but most are gone. You glance over at him, his fingers are drumming on the steering wheel as his restless eyes bounce around the street, looking for infected, people, anything. He’s grinding his teeth, the muscle in his jaw flexing and when he pulls up outside a small bungalow you hear his white knuckles make the steering wheel creak. 

“This is their place,” he says in a low voice, “the car is still here.” He opens the truck door and steps down, listening for any movement as you follow him out. Pulling his gun he moves carefully up the porch and tests the handle on the door, it’s locked. 

“Stay by the truck,” he says to you, “if anything happens, if anyone comes, fire once in the air, ok?” 

You nod and do as he says. Frankie carefully walks down the side of the house, easily scaling the wooden fence that closes off the backyard. He disappears from view and you nervously wait, looking around the quiet neighborhood. When he opens the door to the house from the inside you jump but he holds up his hand in a placating sign, signaling for you to stay where you are. He disappears into the house again, you guess this means Lucía isn’t here, and neither is anyone else. 

You hear him walking through the house and before long he comes back out, a note in his hand. 

“They’ve been evacuated,” he says, showing you the note from Lucía’s mom. It’s dated the day before yesterday, Saturday, the note says the soldiers came at night and gave them fifteen minutes to pack up essentials. 

“She says they told her they’re going to a quarantine zone in Franklin. I’ve got to see if I can get them out of there.” He breathes a sigh of relief, “At least they’re safe for now.” he says, getting back into the truck and starting it up. 

As the truck rumbles through town you start seeing more infected, they stumble out of a few of the shops, attracted to the sound of the truck. At one intersection you see a large number of them fallen into a pile, bullet wounds to their heads, and you quickly look away. Their pallid skin, starting to show strange looking lesions, no longer looks human, but their clothes are still bright and colorful, reminds you terribly of the people who would’ve put them on, maybe on Friday morning, expecting just another day. 

Frankie speeds up, leaving town, and the shrieking infected behind, heading for Franklin. It’s less than an hour away, the nearest big city, and like before you see the cars pushed to the side of the road. Frankie’s fingers are drumming on the steering wheel again, his grip tight, his jaw clenched. He’s getting closer to Lucía, now he knows she’s safe, he just needs to get to her. 

“When we get to the quarantine zone, do you think we should stay there?” you ask him. “It doesn’t sound like a ‘quarantine zone’ is somewhere they’ll let you in and out of. Maybe it’ll be safer for us there too?” 

“I don’t know,” Frankie says, glancing over at you, “I need to see it first, how are they quarantining people? Keeping them separate enough so that if someone is already infected, they can’t attack and infect more people?” His fingers drum faster against the wheel, “I just need to see her, see her safe.” 

You put your hand on his leg and give it a squeeze and he drops his hand, curling his fingers around yours. 

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Still stings a bit, but it’s dulled, hurts when I move it.” You test moving your arm up and down, feeling the pull of the compress.

“It’ll give you gnarly looking scar,” he grins, “match some of mine.” He pulls your hand up to his lips and gives it a kiss, his eyes leaving the road for a second. When he looks back again he sees birds circling up ahead. 

“Buzzards,” he points them out to you. “Looks like they’re circling just over the road.” He slows down the truck as you come around a bend, clearing a small group of trees. The rumble of the truck startles the birds and you see more of them rise into the sky from the field bordering the road. Frankie stops the truck, leaving it in neutral, watching the birds circle, waiting to see if something moves. When nothing stirs he opens the door, signaling for you to stay put, and he steps on to the instep of the truck, hoisting himself up so that he can look over the door of the truck. 

“Oh fuck…” you hear him breathe out. 

“What, Frankie, what is it?” you ask but he doesn’t answer so you open your own door and swing yourself up on the instep. Frankie glances back at you and motions for you to get back inside. 

“Cariño, don’t, you don’t wanna- “

It’s too late, you look over the field, it looks like almost a hundred people are lying in it, none of them moving. The buzzards are settling back down, walking across the still bodies. 

“Oh my god…” you gasp, your hand going over your mouth as your eyes widen in horror. “What killed them?” you whisper, “are they infected?” 

“Get into the driver’s seat,” he says, “I’m going closer but I need you to be ready to drive if they are infected.”

“I’m not leaving without you, Frankie!” you say in a hard voice, as you slide over the bench seat and get behind the wheel.

“I’m counting on it, cariño,” he grips your hand before jumping down onto the ground. Grabbing the rifle from the back he loads it before he starts moving slowly towards the field. 

You step up onto the instep on the driver’s side, watching Frankie’s back as he makes his way across the road and into the field. As he reaches the first body he crouches down and seems to inspect them. Nothing moves, none of the bodies are jerking, they’re just dead. He stands up again and walks around the outskirts of where they’ve fallen. Suddenly he stops, slinging the rifle onto his back, before he steps into the mass of bodies, he must be stepping on them as he bends down and pulls at one of them, turning it over to face him. He stumbles back, losing his footing and falls onto his back among the bodies. 

Without thinking you jump down from the truck and run to him, grabbing hold of his arm as he scrambles to stand up, getting away from the bodies. 

“It’s Helena, she’s the mom of Lucía’s best friend,” he pants, standing up. You look over at the blonde woman, her open eyes looking sightless to the sky. Her torso has at least three bullet holes in the pale blue shirt she’s wearing, blood staining the light fabric dark. 

“They lived across the street from Lucía,” Frankie croaks and you suddenly realize what he’s saying, gripping his arm hard. 

He tears himself away from you as he starts circling around the bodies, crouching down, looking under those who have fallen on top of others, his eyes desperately scanning every face, every piece of visible clothing, looking for something he recognizes, praying he doesn’t. His heart is racing, his vision narrows into one long tunnel, focused on the bodies, praying, cursing, he can’t hear you call after him. 

And then he sees it. 

The hem of a dress he’d know anywhere because her abuela made it for her. 

With a shout he steps into the mass of bodies. You rush up behind him, tears are welling up into  your eyes, as you watch him scramble over to the small body. Skinny little legs in sneakers you bought for her birthday, you bite down hard on your lip to stop yourself from wailing. 

The dress is sticking out from underneath a woman, and as he gets closer he realizes it’s his ex-girlfriend, her arms hugging her daughter tight, even in death. The back of her tan coat is dark with coagulated blood that sticks to his hands as he bends back her arms to release her grip. As he shoves her aside a strangled cry goes up from the small body underneath, Lucia’s head moves as a rattled breath escapes her lungs and Frankie cries out in relief, grabbing hold of her waist to gently turn her over, scanning her body for injuries, he sees no blood on her. 

“Mija, I’m here, I’m here,” he gasps, “daddy’s here, Lucía, I’m here.” 

He’s holding out his arms to lift her up when he sees it. 

Trailing under the skin of her small throat. 

Up under the pallid skin of her cheeks, spreading out in a fine net. 

Tendrils reaching out from her small mouth. 

“Frankie!” you cry as the small body shrieks and reaches for him. He almost takes her hand, almost takes the small hand that’s grasping after his. You can see it, even from behind him, you can see the empty eyes, the twitching movement. 

Infected. 

His hand is still in the air, halfway to reaching out for her, his Lucía, her hand outstretched to him. As she screams, his hand drops to his gun. 

You turn your head when the gunshot rings out.

Chapter 15

Taglist: @pimosworld @i-own-loki @casa-boiardi @littlenosoul @stormseyer @mxtokko  @javicstories

[appynonna]

Our Universe Chapter 4: New friends? Pairing: Poly!OT8xoriginal chararters Rating: 18+ Word Count: 1,736 Words Warning: Nothing bad, Past sexual relationships, pet names, Hinting at GxG relationship, Little bit of cussing.

Previous Chapter --> Thunder

Arthur notes: Hello, deary The chapters are just getting longer and longer now it seems, I don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing! I am planning to try to keep posting two chapters a week for the time being, Aiming for Wednesdays and Saturdays. The last few days have been crazy, between my own relationships, friends, and work, it's just a lot. But it's ok because I start Thepary this coming week, That's good, right? well without any further nonsense, the next chapter!

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When I woke up I was alone. Not even Siren was still in the bed with me, The door was cracked open. Getting out of bed I headed back to my Bedroom to get dressed for the day.

Once dressed I grabbed a butterfly claw clip and my blushed colored Kitten Heels and headed down the stairs. The voices got louder the closer I got down the stairs. With the claw clip between my teeth, I twisted my ponytail and clipped it in, My messy curls barely tickling the top of my shoulders.

"But mommy" I could hear Wooyoung whine "I don't want scrambled eggs, I wanted a friend egg" He whined as I rounded the island heading into the kitchen. Heading to the pantry, I grabbed the box within it to make an iced coffee with Boba. "Here let me," Yunho's sweet voice said behind me, Grabbing the box from the second shelf

"Jongho said something about you might be going to see Yechan?" He asked grabbing two reusable boba cups that we kept out. Both were clear, but one was black with little red strawberries, and the other a clear pink

"I am," I told him, walking out behind him. I sat my shoes down next to the bench that went out to the garage. "I can take her's if you want me to," I told him looking back off to the right where her door was closed "Is she not here? I asked turning back to the chaos that was in the kitchen this morning. "No" Yunho started " The storm came out of nowhere last night so she was in town at the apartment when it hit" He was going toward the freezer to get the ice. "Mingi slept in her room though, I'm surprised he has not woke up yet" Yunho looked over his shoulder at the door where Mingi slept behind

Wooyoung was still pulling on Seonghwa's ripped black sweater, I sat on one of the high chairs at the bar "Jung Wooyoung, I swear to the gods above" Seonghwa raised his hand that held the little bowl of eggs in it, ready to throw it at the other man.

Before the bowl could leave his hand, A very grumpy Hongjoong grabbed his arm. Raising the bowl out of Seonghwa's hand, and placing it on the counter. "Too loud" Hongjoong Mumbled as he poured a cup of black Hazelnut coffee with no sugar and walked out of the kitchen towards his office, Closing the door behind him.

"He fine, Mingi walked up to me out of the blue, He placed his hand on my upper back above my bra line and placed a kiss on top of my head.

"Coffee Ice cubes or Normal ones" Yunho called over his shoulder "Coffee ones," Mingi's deep voice said before I could, I giggled as he leaned down and kissed my nose.

"Mingi, why are you so careful with her?" Wooyoung asked with a mouth full of food, He was leaning on the counter next to the stove "Shut it, Woo" Mingi snapped at him, His boba eyes turning cold as he stared at Wooyoung. If looks could kill, Wooyoung would be dead. I turned to look at Woo, He just had his cocky 'I saw you naked last week' smirk "You do know she doesn't like the gentleness, right?" Woo stated with a fake innocent smile "Wooyoung" several of the guys called out at once, My face immediately going beet red. Mingi moved away from me heading toward Wooyoung "Ok, and with that it's time for you to head out," Yunho said sitting the two drinks on the bar and turning to grab my heel from next to the bench, on the floor.

I took my shoes from him and slipped them on. Turning back towards the kitchen both Seonghwa and Mingi had Wooyoung pushed back into the corner of the counter. "What are they going to do to him," I asked Yunho "Don't worry about that," he said with a simple smile, placing my pink and white pearl keychain in my hand. "Now head to Yechan's office and have a good day" He kissed my forehead, then walked away back towards the stairs that went down to the garage.

the house had two garages attached to it that went underground housing the family's cars. With 8-10 people in the house at a given time it accounted for a lot of cars. Everyone that their rides. Hongjoong and Yechan are the only ones that have two vehicles.

At any given time you could find an array of vehicles in either of the garages. Cars, a few small SUVs, motorcycles, and two trucks. almost every vehicle was either a Dark or neutral color Which made my car stand out even more. The light pink Lamborghini had been a gift from Hongjoong shortly after I moved into the house with them. I told him that I didn't need anything so extravagant and that my old Honda Civic would do just fine. He did not take my 'no' for an answer.

The drive to the Ninth St. office was quick 20 minutes at most, having good music helped it go by quicker, so I turned the square where the office sat on the next street over. Rhea's salon sat across the way in the square. Right down from the hair salon was a new little clothing store that had just opened, A white dress in the window caught my eye. "Cute," I said to myself as I pulled around the corner to the from of the office, Parking next to the black Corvette, No other cars were in the small parking lot.

I grabbed the drinks, Looking back at the clothing store. In the front glass door flipping the open sign around stood a tall man with long dark hair, Brown or maybe black. From this distance, I couldn't make much out as to what he looked liked 'I wonder if I could talk Yechan into going over to it with me today' I thought to myself as I headed up the stairs into the building.

The front entrance leads to a slightly larger rectangular room. A set of sofas with two plush chairs and a coffee table between them sat on either end of the room. the right side wall had a large window letting in a lot of natural light whereas where the left wall had a gas-burning fireplace with a large TV above it. Along the back wall was a set of double doors on either of a metal and glass desk. The desk's owner was nowhere in site.

In front of the desk was a very fluffy curly-haired German Shepherd, Dune. He lifted his head as the door shut behind me "Good morning, Dune." I greeted the insanely smart dog. "Where is your mummy?" I asked with a fake British accent, I laughed at myself just a little. If the dog could roll his eyes, I'm certain he would have. Nonetheless, he got up and walked through the 'enter' door.

Moving through the small office space and the few rows of square desks, we made it to Yechan's office. Dune trotting in before me

"Knock knock," I said lightly knocking on the open door, Yechan looked up. "Ari, Yunho said that you would be dropping by," She said reaching for her black phone, which was sitting on her desk. Typing quickly she sat it back down for it to go off not thirty seconds later. She took a glance at the phone and her attention back to me.

"What are you up to?" I asked her, walking over to her large desk. It was mostly made of wood, and the 'top' that her laptop along with two monitors set on was elevated on a floating stand that ran the length of the table, Lights lined the underside of it giving the desk a nice glow effect. The were several chairs in the room, either white or brown leather, with a sofa on the back wall with a small glass coffee table, two of the three walls were glass and the other wall that the door wasn't on was a built-in book self with the same soft glow lights. "I was just checking to make sure the checks that were used to pay to rent the Venue and to pay the Band, food vendor, and florist have came out," she said looking back down at her laptop. The balance shown at the top of the screen was a number that I wasn't sure how to pronounce.

"And they did" She smiled, clicked the mouse a few times, and then leaned back in the brown leather chair, she checked her phone again "Now I have about 30-ish minutes to kill until it's time for my appointment with Rhea" I smiled as she talked about her Co-tenant pulling a strand of her fade green curl "I think, I'm just going to go back to black and try to let it grow some" she added as Dune laid his head on her thighs.

Yechan was found normally wearing anything from a-line short skirts, leather pants, and jackets today she had on black leggings with a white strip going down both legs and an oversized white shirt that had a twitty bird on the front of it. Only her Lip ring is visible.

"You look different today," I said nervously eyeballing her. Yechan chuckled and pulled her top off her chest a little bit, making the black sports bra visible for just a second "I don't care if this shirt gets messed up" She shrugged then looked at me, reaching out she grab my hands.

Until that moment I didn't realize I was picking at my nails. "I make you nervous, don't I? SHe asked throwing me a small smile, I nodded looking at her hands holding into mine. "you have so much history with them and we are still so new" I looked at her for a second, Her dark green eyes meeting mine, I looked back down unable to hold her gaze "Yes, me and Seonghwa have been together for almost a year now but the rest is still so new," I said as I played with the ring on her right ring finger.

She smiled at me " Yunho had told me that you seem to be struggling with it a little bit." She let go of my hand and stood up, Walking over towards the leather sofa that sat on the far wall. The coffee Yunho made in her hand "Come sit" She patted the seat next to her.

I sat down where she told me to "They treat you so differently from everyone else, They are so protective of you it's almost to the point of obsession," she said playing with the straw on her cup. I gave her a funny look, and Yechan smiled "How much do you know, like in full?"She asked me.

"I know that they are all together, but also paired off" I started "Hongjoong and Seonghwa, Yunho and Mingi, San and Wooyoung, and Yeosang is with Jongho but they are not as public about it as the rest." I stopped to take a sip of my coffee "They are all together, like a big bowl of soup " Yechan laughed a little bit at that "I'm sure you noticed that they don't have me living full-time in the house, even though I do have a bedroom there" I nodded, now that I think about it her room is the only one downstairs too. The rest is upstairs with a small guest house out by the pool. "You had been with Seonghwa for around 6 months or so when they moved you in, right?" I nodded again not surprised that she knew that"

"What do you know about my relationship with Yunho," She asked me, reaching down she placed her coffee on the table. She picked up what looked to be an older photo, the edges slightly faded. The photo was a picture of Yunho, in a white school uniform with a brown backpack. A yellow and green school behind him.

I smiled at how young he looked, still having the same sweet smile. "I know you have been together for a while, and that it's off you both have the same unique last name." She chuckled at that. "We have the same last name because we are technically married" She looked down at her hand the sliver ring sat on the ring finger of her right hand, on the top side it had to be what looked like a heart with a heartbeat under it.

I saw a very similar-looking ring worn by Mingi "It's a matching set" she said playing with it " with Mingi" Yechan turned to look at me

"I do stay in the house at times, But you live in the house, and Hongjoong moved you into the house" Yechan poked my arm with her long nail each time she said 'You'

"most of the time Hongjoong acts like he is irritated that I'm there, I feel like I'm walking on eggshells with him," I told her, Tears pricked the back of my eyes. I looked down at my lap. Yechan turned towards me pulling my face to look towards hers " Hongjoong and I don't have sex anymore. We used to, but he stopped when you moved in" SHe said wiping the tear that threatened to fall away "He treats you differently than anyone else I had ever seen, He's soft with you." She smiled

I want to ask you a question, If you don't want to answer it you don't have to" She looked at me with a stren look in her eyes, and I nodded my head. "Bunny" She started, I could feel my face getting hotter by the second. The eye contact was not helping, Her thumb tracing over my lower lip " I need a verbal response that you understand me" her thumb pulled my lower lip down slightly "I do" I told her, I took almost everything in me to say that

Yechan smiled "Good girl" She started "ok, So" she took a breath "asking bluntly, You have been with some of the other guys, right?" She asked. I'm sure just from the question, my face was as red as a cherry tomato, I nodded "I have with a few of them" Yechan nodded "And you have been with Mingi?" she asked

I let out a sigh and looked down at my hands " I have" I said feeling bad about the whole thing. "Mingi showed up at my house that night 3 weeks ago," She said " Yunho and I had a late dinner and We were back at my apartment, Mingi showed up out of the blue panicking. He just kept saying that he had hurt you and muttering about blood" Yechan said I looked back at her " He went to your house?" I asked her, She nodded "He did, He needed Yunho more than I did at that moment. I understand most of what happened, BUt if you don't mind can you tell me what happened?" She asked carefully "It's completely up to you," she said, Placing her arm along the back of the sofa. her hand falling on my shoulder.

I turned to Yechan "you are in relations with them as well, right? I asked her, She nodded "I am, and by extension, I could be with you too, or I could just be your friend. If you don't want to be with one of us just say so." She smiled at me. It was a soft warm smile with no teeth showing.

I could tell that she was being careful with what she said and how she said it trying to not make me panic and run, but I also think if she didn't need to know then she wouldn't be asking. " Ok, I'll tell you"

Yechan by all means was still very intimidating but I could tell that she only wanted the best outcome for our group's relationship. "OK, I don't mind talking about it about it, As long as it stays between us, and anyone who was there knows what happened. " I told her " Mingi had ripped me, It was only slightly not bad enough for Yeosang to think I wouldn't need stitches but still bad enough that will all the fluid and everything going on it looked like a lot of blood. " I said mindlessly playing with Seonghwa's right on my right ring finger.

"I honestly didn't even realize what had happened until he was off me running out of the room, A few moments later Hongjoong and Seonghwa were in the room with me. Mingi wouldn't come back in, He then left" I told Yechan

"That must be when he showed up at my apartment" Yechan nodded "Ya, I would assume so. He stayed gone, away from the house for about a week. Once he came back he was different, He had changed" I told her feeling my brows knit "He was so carefree before, But now it's like he's scared that if he touches me I'll break" I looked back to Yechan

"I noticed that too, He doesn't move as fast as he used to. Alright I know where to start to try talking to him" She looked at me with a smile so bright it was scary. "Thank you, Ari" she then stood up. "It's time for me to start to head over to Rhea's Salon if you want to go with me" She added holding out a hand. I took it pulling myself to stand, I told her ok.

[jester089]

A little patch up

I swear every f&%$@#* time I try and go to bed I get swarmed with ideas. It sucks but also I appreciate it. And until I'm getting at least kind of consistent requests/asks then I'm just gonna do my own thing. Hurt Ragatha x Reader. For the sake of this I'm going to say you can all get hurt, besides glitching that is. During either an adventure or one of Jax's pranks Ragatha gets hurt. And you being the loving person/partner you are you help her out.

You were in Ragatha's room setting up a surprise for her when she walks in. You quickly turn around ready to happily greet her before realizing she was limping. You sprint over and give her some support so she can get to her bed easier. Once she is sat down you take a look at her leg only to recoil when you realize it isn't there?! She lets out a tired and pained chuckle then takes her torn off leg out of one of her dresses pockets. You sit there stunned for a while before collecting yourself and springing out of the room, stopping when Ragatha calls for you asking you not to leave her. You walk over to her and gently kiss her forehead asking her to trust you before running out again. You return a few minutes later with a big expensive sowing kit. You set it down and carefully take the severed leg. You start carefully and gently stitching her up making sure the seam isn't noticeable. Every time she winces of jolts you feel a pang of regret and the want to stop. But you continue despite that. Once you finish up you ask her to try it out. She carefully stands up and wobbles a bit before orienting herself and walking over to her mirror to check your work. You can't even tell that it's been stitched up. She spins around asks you how you were that good with a needle and thread. You visibly contemplate something before asking her to sit on the bed and give you a second. She sits and waits for you curious over what has you all worked up. You come back in less then a minute later a blush on your face and something hidden behind your back. You make her swear she wont laugh of judge before revealing the items. It's two ragdolls, one looking like you, the other like Ragatha. You sheepishly hand her little ragdoll you and say that you've been working on this for a while. For if you two get separated one way or another. She smiles gently sets little you down on the bed before giving you a big ol hug saying she loves them. You of course hug back. Once she tries to break it you pepper her face with kisses each one having a "I love you so much" or "I don't deserve you" added. (Ok I'm going to try and sleep now. Based on if this is or isn't the last post of the night you'll know how that went. As always hope you enjoyed.)

xoxo, Jester

[enbysourdiesel]

hey, hello! i'm ben. it's been a while since the last time i was here on tumblr. i was sixteen, i guess? lol for now i'll post some snzfics, i love to write about zayn malik and liam payne as a couple. sneezing, of course. so, here we go. hope you enjoy it :)

words count: 1,5K

☞ his hayfever woke him up

As if his recurrent headache wasn't enough, Zayn woke up that Sunday with his sinuses completely messed up. His alarm clock was his own sneezes, that consequently woke up his sister Waliyha. Lucky for her that he didn't spend too much time before leaving the room.

"Good morning, sunshine. This early?" Trisha greets her son.

"My hayfever is kicking my ass." He answers, rubbing his stuffy nose while laying on the sofa. "Good morning, girls."

"Good morning, Zee. Oh, you look like crap." Says Doniya, who is having breakfast.

"ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! HAERRSHHOOO!" He sneezes on his elbow.

"God Bless You!" The mom wishes. "There's no allergy medicines, we have to go buy some."

"Amen." He is sniffly. "Gonna ask Liam to pick it up for me."

"Good idea. What time will he come?" The sister wants to know.

"Right after he wakes up." Z unlocks his cellphone screen, pinching the bridge of his nose with the free hand. "That will be now."

"It's 8 on a Sunday, sun! Let your boyfriend sleep at peace."

"HAERSHEEW! HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! ESHEEW!" Zayn disks Liam's number. "I'm also missing him, he can sleep when comes here."

"If John wakes me up this time because he's missing me I'll probably send him to fuck off."

"What a thing! This is not about you- HAEESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! HAERSHHH! Hello? HAERSHEEW! HAERSHEEW! Excuse me!”

"Bless you, dear. Are you OK?"

"I just hung on at the wrong time." Zayn closes his eyes, fanning the face. He's about to sneeze again.

"No, in fact I'm already up. My sister-" Liam starts saying, but gets abruptly interrupt.

"HAERSHEEW! HAERSHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHEEW! ESHHH! HANXXXGSHH! Damn. Excuse me. HANXXXGHHH! Ahh."

"Wow. Bless you! Is this your allergies?"

"Totally." Zayn stands up, following to the bathroom. "Hold on a minute.”

Malik turns the mute on so he feels comfortable to blow his nose on the sink, feeling his head throbbing more than usual.

"What were you talking about?" Zayn returns to the call, speaking slowly. He has a hand on his forehead.

"Ruby slept with me last night, and today woke me up early. I mean, about a few minutes ago. I still in bed."

"I wish I could be sleeping." Malik spreads out on the sofa once again. "If you want to come here we can do it together."

"Why are you up?"

"Hayfever. I started sneezing nonstop and left my bedroom to not bother… Hahh… Waliyha- Hahh… Gonna sneeze again... HAEESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHEEW!"

"Oh, boy. It's been a long time since you've been up?"

"Not even ten minutes. My mom didn't want me to call you this early, but he was already up, OK girls?"

"Sounds better to me." Trisha comments. "Wanna have breakfast now, Zee?"

"HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! No, I won't." He sniffles. "Babe, can I ask you a favor? ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH!"

"Blessings. Whatever you need."

"Can you please buy me an allergy medicine? There's none here, I'll give you the money."

"For sure. Send me the name of the medicine. You sound awful, darling."

"Uhm, yeah." Z stills sniffling. "Please hurry. I'll wait for you to have breakfast."

"Just gonna change my clothes and I'll be ready. Around twenty minutes I'll be there."

"ESHHH! ESHHH! HAESHHH! HAESHHH! HAERSHEEW!"

"Bless you, lovie. Ruby is also blessing you."

"HAERSHEEW! Thanks. Love you both."

"We love you." Liam does some kisses before hanging out.

"Oh shit." Zayn swears, coughing while rubbing his nose with his knuckles. "UGH! My nose!"

"Stop! You're going to hurt yourself, Zayn!" His mom adverts, but it's late.

"HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! … HAERSHEEW! HAERSHEEW! HAERSHEEW!" He stands up again to get back to the bathroom while sneezing in his hand. "ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! HAEESHEEEW!"

The man blows his nose once again, taking the chance to splash water on the face. Zayn feels his eyes heavy, swollen, and when he checked on the mirror he figured out that not only the eyes, but his full face is getting swollen.

"MOM?!?" The black haired man calls out, being answered right after. "Come here!"

"What are you feeling, sun?" The woman touches his son's neck and forehead. "Doniya, bring me the thermometer please."

"HAERSHEEW! ESHEEW!" Zayn ends up in a coughing fit. "My throat hurts, my nose itches, so my tongue, my neck, my fucking SOUL."

"Goddess! What could trigger you like this?! Whatever it is, it's in your bedroom. Thank you, Donny." Trisha approaches the thermometer from his son's forehead.

"I have no idea. Can't remember about doing anything different or stupid." Zayn dries his eyes on the towel.

"Do you think it could affect your asthma?"

"It already is, I guess." He is sniffly, needing so much to blow his nose on the sink.

"You're 39°C, you have to take an antipyretic. God bless you." Trisha says to Zayn's pre-sneeze face.

"Hahh… ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! HAERRSHHH! HAEEESHHH! I need to lay back down." He asks kinda panting. "I'm already short of breath."

"C’mon." Says the mom, guiding her son back to the living room. “Where's your inhaler?"

"In my room." He sits down on the sofa trying to keep things under control.

"Water?" Doniya asks before catching a glass for her brother. "Keep breathing calmly, OK? No hurry. You're gonna be fine."

"Thanks, Don." Zayn drinks his water slowly.

"Did Liam tell you how long he will be here?"

"Around twenty minutes. Oh, I didn't text him, do you remember how many milligrams?"

"Send him your medicine prescription."

"HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! HAERSHEEW! OK." These sneezes come uncovered.

ZAYN: *2 docs*

LEEYUM: I was about to ask, I'm on the way

ZAYN: hurry please

"I took a while because you hid it." Trisha says returning to the living room. "I found out what caused you this shit."

"What is this?" He grabs the medicine, breathless, but doesn't use it immediately.

"That blanket you chose is exactly the one that is moldy, I don't know how you didn't feel bad in the middle of the night."

"I did. That's why my inhaler was under my pillow." Zayn coughs a bit more on his elbow, then tries to drink more water. He's able to hear his chest wheezing.

"Why didn't you wake Waliyha up, you maniac?" Doniya sits down by her brother's side.

"It wasn't too much." Zayn shrugs. "I just want my medicine to come."

"Still short of breath?" Trisha picks the empty cup from the boy's hand.

"Yeah, trying to keep it under control." He yawns.

"Want more water?"

Zayn is about to answer, but he starts to feel his nose tingling insistently. He almost has no time to prepare himself for the explosion about to happen:

"HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! HAERSHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHEEW! ESHEEW! ESHEEW! HAERSHEEW!" Malik amends in a barking coughing fit.

At every sneezing fit that hitted him while Liam wasn't there, harder it got to breathe and keep things under control. Even if Zayn didn't want to use his inhaler again, it was going to be unavoidable. Especially when he stopped to feel the air coming in. He took two puffs.

"Any better, Sun?" Trisha asks, handing his son another glass of water.

"Not too much." He is trying to take deep breaths, stills wheezing.

"Fresh air." Doniya opens the balcony door so the air can circulate. "Gonna bring you a blanket."

Zayn is feeling miserable. His chest feels heavy as hell, even after a corticosteroid dose, but all he can do for now is… wait. That's why he rests his head on the sofa, thanking his sister for bringing him his pillow and a clean blanket.

Just to blink his eyes it's too much effort 'cause of his exhaustion. Malik just wants these symptoms to get away, to leave him alone!

Then someone blessedly knocks the door.

"Great news." Doniya says before opening the door to greet her brother-in-law. "Hey, come in."

"Hey- whoa." Payne looks shocked with his boyfriend's situation. "I bring your remedy, pookie."

"Thank you, Liam." Trisha thanks the boy with a side hug, quickly opening the package to medicate her son. "Go ahead, sunshine. You'll get better soon."

Zayn just swallows a pill then a dose of syrup before getting back at the same position he was, not even able to greet his boyfriend properly. The brown haired guy, even if he is in doubt, takes a seat right next to him to interlace their fingers.

"What 's going on?" Payne needs to know, asking no one in particular.

"His asthma is bad, he must be trying not to use the inhaler again." Says Doniya

Liam nods, feeling his heart breaking in pieces. Searching for some comfort, he embraces Malik’s shoulders with an arm.

"Hey, angel." Zayn says to his boyfriend, asking for a kiss on his right temple. "Thank you SO much."

"Feeling a little better for now?"

"Yeah. Just, you know, waiting for the medicine to kill this mess." Sniffles. "Until then, I’ll keep sneezing from time to time. I can't stifle today, so… be prepared-” His breath starts to hitch again.

“Your sneezes don't bother me, it doesn't matter how big they sound. That's OK, and bless you.” Liam says in anticipation, softly playing with Zayn's hair.

"I have to sneeze- Hahhh… Hahhh- HAERRSHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH! ESHHH!... HAERRSHHEEW!" All of them are muffled inside the blanket.

"Lord have mercy!" Says Trisha from the kitchen.

"Thank you, guys." Zayn blows his nose harshly.

〈⁠(⁠•⁠ˇ⁠‿⁠ˇ⁠•⁠)⁠-⁠→

let me know what you're thinking, i'm curious! and thank you for reading :)

[kira-anon-uwu]

Blossom in ribcage, until their backs break [ 1 ]

Coming out Swinging

Spiderinnit fic

Main post

~-~

          "Tommy, get up! We're going to be late!"

He sat up with a tired groan, throwing his pillow at his brother. "You mean you're going to be late; I don't have to be there this early."

"You do if you don't want to take the bus."

"Well who fucking said that you had to be in this early?"

"The principal, and if you want to keep living here you'll make sure I'm on time."

"You're a grown man, it isn't my job to help you make it to work on time."

"You have fifteen minutes, or I'm leaving you here and personally handing you your late slip when you finally get there."

"I'll just stay home."

"I'll tell Sam to bar you from that fieldtrip you have coming up if you do that."

That got Tommy out of bed, and he scowled at Wilbur the entire time. "Fuck off, don't you dare."

"Then you better not skip school."

"I've been looking forward to that trip for ages, I saved up my own fucking money for-"

"Holy shit, calm down. I wouldn't actually do that to you, you know that."

"I'm- Yeah, yeah sorry. Still not fully used to living with you over-"

"I know, it's alright. Get ready quickly, and we should still have some time for me to run through a drive-thru to grab us some breakfast on the way to the school, ok?"

"Damn, you'll run through it? Are everyone's grades that bad?"

"You know what I meant,", Wilbur said with an amused exhale from his nose, "Ten minutes, alright? I'm going to go warm up the car."

"No, leave it cold; wakes a man up better than coffee."

"If I don't let it warm up, it won't be running. Don't forget to put the shit you were working on last night in your bag, I can't get you any more of an extension on that now that we're done unpacking."

"Yeah, yeah,", Tommy rolled his eyes, searching his floor for some jeans that were clean enough he could get away with wearing them again.

Realistically, he'd still be getting up around this time if he didn't go in when Wilbur did, since the L'Manberg busses ran like shit on a good day, but he refused to acknowledge that since he hated to admit that his brother was right about anything. Except having him move out to live with him, that was a good idea; the only one the man ever had, really.

How he was affording a two bedroom flat on a teacher's salary was beyond him, but Tommy didn't really question that when it meant he could move out from Phil's house.

          Tommy remembered to stick his overdue school work into his bag before heading out, it was the backpack he ended up forgetting. It was easy enough to run back up four flights of stairs to grab it, at least, and he tried his best to hide how hard he was panting as he got to the car.

"Don't fucking pass out, jesus christ."

"Sorry, nearly forgot something,", Tommy breathed out, leaning the passenger side seat back as far as possible so he could lay down.

"You remembered to lock the door, right?"

"Probably."

"Tommy."

"Yes, I locked it. My shit's in there too, I'm not about to leave it open for someone to come in and take things."

"Just wanted to be sure,", Wilbur sighed, waiting for a break in the morning traffic to pull out of the parking spot, "Buckle your seatbelt, I don't feel like getting a ticket today."

Tommy muttered out a string of swears as he sat up to follow the demand. "Y'know, you were a lot more fun before you went off to university to become a narc."

"I'm not a fucking narc, how dare you."

"You are in fact a narc, snitch, and square now that you are a teacher."

"I will fail you."

"That's the only reason you wanted me in your class, so you can threaten me with my grades."

"I have done no such thing,", Wilbur chuckled, "Figure out what you want from Dunkin."

"Same shit as always."

"Wanted to make sure you weren't changing it up any."

Tommy set his arms behind his head with a sigh. "It's nice to have some things stay the same. The decent aspects of shit, at least."

"Listen, Tommy, I know alot of this has been hard-"

"We're not having this talk before school, I'm not in the fucking mood for it."

"No, I know, I'm just- I'm here for you when you are ready to talk, I want to make sure you know that."

"... Yeah, I know."

Wilbur gave him a reassuring smile through the rearview mirror, reaching over to ruffle his hair without taking his eyes off of the road.

"Hey- Fucking stop that! I brushed it this morning!"

"Oh, good, then I should still be able to find the brush stuck in there."

"It's about to be stuck up your ass."

"Why would you waste a perfectly good weapon like that?"

          A failed attempt to crash the car and trip through the Dunkin Donuts drive-thru later, and they arrived at the school. Tommy took his tea and lukewarm bagel sandwich to the cafeteria to wait for his friends, sitting in the corner of the nearly empty room and watching as other students started showing up.

People left him alone for the most part by this point, realizing that he wasn't very fun to bully and kissing his ass wasn't worth it since he couldn't get Wilbur to change anyone's grades, so he was alone at his table until Tubbo eventually got there.

The short boy came in completely bundled up in a stupid looking coat and scarf, removing them as he sat down. "Holy shit, it's awful out there."

"It isn't that bad,", Tommy rolled his eyes, taking a sip of his tea.

He let out an offended squawk when Tubbo took it from him, laughing when the short boy immediately spit it back out.

"What the fuck is that?! Did you stick some dirt in hot water?"

"No, it's tea,", he snatched the cup back, "Not my fault you've got weak taste buds."

"I think I preferred it when you were in here with black coffee, at least that just tasted like bean water."

"Coffee is bean water."

"You're supposed to add sugar and shit to it."

"Tubbo, I haven't got enough money for the coffee that comes from shit, and I'm certainly not going to be adding my own."

"You will be boiled."

"No, that's what you do with the water, man."

"I will become the modern day Emperor Nero. Including rising to power at age sixteen."

"Well you're off to a great start, because you might as well be speaking to me in Roman when you say shit like that."

"The Romans used Latin. Or Greek, sometimes."

"Tubbo,", Tommy let out an annoyed whine, "It's too early for you to be teaching me shit. It's bad enough I've got to listen to Wil practicing his lesson plan at home, give my brain a fucking break."

"Saying that implies it ever gets any use."

"I beg your fucking pardon?"

"Then beg."

"Yo, who's begging?", Ranboo asked as they finally got to the table, a muffin that'd been acquired in the breakfast line in their hand.

"Me, for some fucking peace and quiet,", Tommy sighed, putting his head down on the table. Tubbo started poking him repeatedly in the arm, followed by Ranboo who took the other side.

          The day was very thankfully mundane after that, the only thing of note being his math teacher refusing to take his late work despite him having a note from the principal saying he had a pass on it. The asshole told him that 'moving house isn't a real reason, it's an excuse for him to be lazy'.

Tommy made a mental note to figure out which car belonged to that dickhead in the teacher's lot, leaving his, thankfully, last class of the day to check in with Wilbur before he headed off with his friends. "I'm going to Tubbo's for a while."

"Be careful, and don't take the Sixty-Two bus; route's fucked from some of the Ramulus shit."

"Right, we'll be taking the subway."

"Do you need fare?"

"Paying for the fare, that's funny."

"Tommy,", Wilbur sighed, looking up from his desk, "Don't admit to committing crimes like that in school."

"I've seen at least three teachers do the same shit, only tourists and dumbasses pay for the subway; the rest of us hop over it."

"I always pay when I use the subway, that's how the city makes the money to keep up with them."

They made silent eye contact for a long moment before Tommy turned on his heel and started walking away. "... Well, great talk. I should be home by supper, but I'll let you know if we get food anywhere."

"Bye, if you do anything illegal, don't get caught at least,", Wilbur sighed again, raising his hand to wave.  

And the rest of the week after that blended together for the most part; every day basically the same leading up to his fieldtrip on Friday.

His favorite teacher, Sam, had somehow managed to get a fieldtrip set up to go to Ewe Labs, and was bringing thirty students to get a tour of the place. Tommy might not have particularly enjoyed going to school, but his Zoology class was the one he looked forward to the most. He had no idea how Sam had managed to get the tour set up, since Ewe Labs were notoriously hard to get into, but he was excited as all hell for it and had been since it'd been brought up in the first place.

The only way the school was going to let it happen was if the selected students paid for it, but that hadn't been an issue since Tommy was able to 'borrow' some money from various sources in the city.

Which was completely moral in his opinion, since he was stealing from the people running mascot suit scams downtown. They made bank by forcing people to pay them for pictures they didn't even want to take, he got money by stealing their wallets and throwing away their IDs and photos of their children; nature is healing, or something. 

          Wilbur dropped him off earlier than usual so he could get into the group, giving him a pat on the back and a thumbs up before going to his own classroom to get his lesson materials ready for the day. He was getting ready to start his unit on Hamlet, and Tommy was more than alright with missing as much of that as he physically could.

Ignoring how much of it he'd have to hear at home, anyways, that part was inescapable.

Sam took attendance as seven-thirty rolled around, getting everyone onto the bus that'd been rented for the day.

"Ok, so here's what we're doing,", Sam said as he stood at the front, "When we get there, their head of security is going to give you guys all of the rules, and you're gonna listen to him. They're being incredibly generous letting us go in for a tour, so we need to be polite and follow those rules so we can do more stuff like this. Does everyone understand that?"

Almost everyone gave a positive response, and Sam cleared his throat.

"Tommy, do you understand what we're gonna be doing?"

"Why the fuck are you calling me out-", Tommy started complaining, with Tubbo smacking him in the arm, "Ow- Yeah, I've got it; we're going to be told not to touch anything, and then they'll show us the cool shit."

"Right, thank you. And watch the language."

"'Watch the'-"

"We're still at the school."

"Sorry, please allow me to stay on the trip."

"You get three swears while we're there, any more and you get to wait on the bus."

He folded his arms as the rest of the bus laughed at him, sinking in his seat. "Fu- Fine, whatever. I'll just have to make them count, then."

Sam told the driver they were ready to go and sat, with the trip to Ewe being taken up mostly by the teacher and driver telling people to stay in their seats and stop throwing stuff.

They were let out right in front of the main building for Ewe Labs, a tall white monolith of a skyscraper that was a staple of the L'Manberg skyline. The front proudly displayed the name, along with it's tagline; Experiment With Everything.

There were all sorts of people filing in and out of the place, all of them ranging from businessmen to what were clearly interns being sent on coffee runs that probably weren't getting paid.

There was also some short man that was walking directly toward their group with his hands full of visitor passes. "Eyy, if it isn't doctor Dude,", the guy greeted Sam, his eyes just barely running over their whole group before going back to the teacher, "Good to see you. This all the kids you brought with you?"

"Yeah, it is. Everyone, this is Quackity; the head of security I mentioned before." 

          "I'd introduce myself to everyone individually, but I really don't give enough of a shit about a bunch of highschoolers to do that. I'm passing these out to everyone, so make sure you get one if you don't wanna get thrown out and sent to prison for trespassing,", Quackity said as he handed out the passes he was holding.

Tubbo snorted out a quiet laugh. "Trespassing is a misdemeanor at most."

"Oh, we got a junior cop over here,", Quackity mocked as he passed them, sending more badges that direction, "This counts as a government building on the tax forms, so it'd be felony. That leads into the long, boring talk with everyone about what you're not doing in here. Sam, I don't need to pull up some Subway Surfers footage to get them to listen to me, do I?"

"No, they're all pretty good on paying attention. For the most part."

Tommy knew the second part was directed at almost exclusively him, and made sure he was listening the whole time out of spite.

"Fantastic. I'm only here to tell you guys what to do once you're in there, past the door you'll be following around one of our scientists into the places you're allowed to see. You need to stay in your group the whole time, no wandering. No touching anything, don't disturb anyone that isn't specifically interacting with you; people are trying to work. No food or water, if you've got a snack or some shit in your pocket keep it there. Any water bottles are gonna get dumped in the lobby like you're going into the airport. I'll give someone like twenty dollars to drink the Ewe Labs jungle juice-"

"No,", Sam cut in, like a killjoy, "Don't say that, because there's at least five of them that'd do that for free."

"Boo, Sam hates freedom!", Tommy had a hand to the side of his mouth to amplify his voice, Tubbo, Ranboo, and a few other people joining in on the 'boo'ing.

"Those are the people that'd drink it."

"Oh shit, give me a list of names. Could always use some human test subjects,", Quackity chuckled, raising his hands in front of himself as Sam glared at him, "Joking, I'm joking."

"Finish with the rules."

"You aren't any fun, man. Think the last thing to go over is no photos or video. That's a serious one, anyone caught with a phone out is getting it taken and destroyed. That should have been everything. I just want to be perfectly clear that breaking any of these rules invalidates your visitor pass, which means you're tresspassing and are gonna get arrested."

"Did everyone get that?"

The whole group gave some form of confirmation, and Quackity gave them a thumbs up as he turned back toward the direction he'd come from. "Great, I'll leave you to it then! I'll probably check in later to make sure everything's going ok, and remember that there's security everywhere so don't try anything!" 

          The tour really got going after that, with someone in a generic lab coat meeting them at the door to show them around.

Tommy did, in fact, try to partake in the Ewe Labs jungle juice, but Sam asked Tubbo and Ranboo to help drag him away before he was able to have a sip of the forbidden soup. He behaved himself past that point, outside of making jokes about drinking chemicals and eating rats, gradually getting more invested in what he was being shown over trying to be funny.

Ewe focused on animal genetics and testing, which had some aspects that were incredibly unethical, but for the most part just consisted of learning more about the genes and DNA of different species beyond what was already out there.

As they were being shown around the insect segment of the labs, his eye was caught by a dark room with 'Arachnids' on the door as they passed it. It also happened to be ajar, giving a very small peek inside.

Something about it was calling to him, and he really wanted to see what was going on in there. He wasn't exactly the biggest fan of spiders, but he figured there had to be some neat shit if the rest of the tour was anything to go by.

Tommy's chance came when it was time for their tour guide to switch, since they had to wait a little while for the new one to show up.

"Sam,", he grabbed his teacher's sleeve.

"Tommy, teacher mode."

He sighed, rolling his eyes as he addressed the man again. "Mr.Dude."

"What's up?"

"Man needs to piss, is there any chance I can run off to do that while we're just fucking standing here?"

Sam looked incredibly conflicted, eventually sighing and pointing toward a hallway they'd passed earlier. "Bathroom is down there to the left. Try to be quick, ok?"

"Of course, won't even know I'm gone."

He went down that way until he was out of sight, flipping his badge over so it was harder to tell what kind it was as he carefully found his way back to the arachnid room. The hallway was somehow empty, giving him an easy entry into the mysterious and dark lab.

          Tommy felt like turning on the light was a bad idea, opting for is phone's flashlight so he could be more inconspicuous with his snooping. He didn't even really know what he was looking for, just looking around for the sake of it.

From the way it seemed right off the bat, it was a testing lab or something absolutely stacked with empty bug terrariums.

Some of them had been knocked over at some point, and Tommy had to be careful stepping over them so he didn't kick any and make noise. Although that was kinda negated by him setting his hand on a table and very promptly feeling something incredibly sharp on his wrist.

He let out a pained and loud 'Fuck' as he moved back, knocking down the rest of the cages. He caught a glimpse of a spider of some kind on the table before turning off his flashlight and hiding behind it; just barely managing to get out of view before there were people entering the room and switching the lights on.

"Who's in here?"

No way in hell was he going to answer them, that was a very easy way to get arrested for trespassing like Quackity had repeatedly warned.

Tommy zipped his hoodie up, using the hood to hide his face and carefully making his way closer to the door. The security guards that'd come to check the room had moved farther in as they were looking for him, which gave him an opening to leg it out of there.

They were chasing him, and shouting at him to stop, but he somehow managed to lose them through taking random hallways and throwing a few potted plants in the way.

He stood as close to the wall as he could manage in an empty hall, catching his breath as he quickly took the hoodie off and tied it around his waist with the black liner facing out so it'd be harder to identify if the guards saw him again.

He actually went to the bathroom after that, splashing some cold water onto his face and freezing when he saw the dark red, nearly black mark on his wrist where he'd felt the pain in that lab.

"Oh, fuck, that isn't good,", Tommy chuckled nervously, trying to decide if it was worse that he'd been bitten by a mystery bug or that this could lead to him getting caught and, once again, arrested for trespassing. 

          Running cold water over it made if hurt slightly less, but really didn't do much to help with the flush that'd settled over him as he stood there.

Running and getting his blood flowing was probably a terrible thing when there was venom of some kind in his body; horrible, even. He was a big man, though, he could handle it!

Tommy swapped a wristband from his left hand to his right, using it to cover the bite as he very carefully started stumbling his way back out of the bathroom. He thankfully ran into Tubbo, the short boy immediately moving to help him stand.

"Holy shit, are you alright?!"

"Y-Yeah,", that was a lie, "I think I got food poisoning or something from that fucking food truck shit Wil bought me this morning. Spent that whole time fucking puking."

"Yeah, you look like shit. Mr.Dude sent me to get you, we're being made to leave because they've had a security breach or something."

"Oh shit, is Freddy here?"

"Shut the fuck up,", Tubbo sighed, helping him walk.

"You can't- You can't say there's been a 'security breach' and expect me to not make the joke. You're just jealous you didn't do it first."

"No, I'm jealous that Ranboo wasn't the one that had to come get your ass, because he'd be having an easier time with this. Are you sure this is just food poisoning and not the flu or something?"

Tommy immediately jumped on that excuse, acting guilty and looking to the side. "I mean, I did feel like shit this morning-"

"Tommy."

"It isn't my fault that I decided to ignore my stomach being fucked to go on a field trip."

"It absolutely is."

"Fuck you."

"You've used the three swears Mr.Dude allotted to you, now you need to stop talking."

"Fuck you."

"What happened?", Sam asked as they got back to the group.

"So, I may have lied about why I needed the restroom,", Tommy chuckled, avoiding eye contact, "Threw the fuck up."

"That's not good. The security issue doesn't have anything to do with you, does it?"

"Unless my head going in the fucking toilet counts as one, no."

"It's a good thing we have to leave, then. Come on, everyone; same way we came. Tommy, are you good to walk on your own? You really don't look good,", Sam asked as he started herding everyone else away, concerned expression on his face.

"Should be alright, can always drag Tubbo down to the floor with me if I start falling."

Tubbo immediately walked ahead with the rest of the group. "I'm leaving him to get stepped on and die."

"Wait, no-"

          Looking like a light breeze could literally kill him made his 'food poisoning / flu' excuse believable enough that security didn't interrogate him very much as they got back to the bus, and Tommy had Tubbo help him get his phone out to call his brother once the vehicle was moving.

Wilbur answered after it rang a few times with a sigh. "I'm teaching."

"And I feel like I'm about to fucking die. The trip is ending early because someone fucking broke in or something, but I'm sick and I need to go home."

"Are you being serious?"

"I can throw up on your desk when we get back if you don't believe me."

"I'll-", Wilbur interrupted himself with another sigh, "Let me know when you're almost back, alright? Text me when you're nearly here, don't call again. I'll find someone who can cover for me after this period, ok?"

"Right, thank you."

"Of course. If you aren't really sick I'm locking you in a closet."

He could hear whatever class the man was currently teaching laugh at that, scoffing. "Fuck you."

"See you in a little while."

"Bye."

Any annoyance was gone once they were back and Wilbur actually saw him. "Holy shit, what happened?"

Tommy shrugged at him, leaving it to Sam to explain the situation as he understood it. "He said he was throwing up, and he's been sweating bullets the whole way back."

"Right... Suppose we need to stop in at the nurse's office first before I can take him home. Might take him to the hospital, he looks awful."

"Fuck you, you look awful,", Tommy muttered, feeling considerably worse than he did before.

"He told me he felt like shit when he woke up this morning,", Tubbo chimed in, "But he was pretending he was fine so he could go on the trip."

"That tracks, he's an absolute plague rat,", Wilbur sighed, helping Tommy stand so they could go.

Sneeg, the nurse, didn't even take his temperature, writing a leave slip and giving it to him with a very encouraging 'don't die' as Wilbur dragged him to the office and then out to the car.

He managed to convince his brother to just take him home instead of the emergency room, since he really didn't want to have to explain what happened to medical professionals.

It was probably because of the fever, but he would have legitimately preferred dying over admitting that he'd made a mistake wandering unsupervised in an animal testing facility.

It's a shame it didn't happen while he was following the rules; seemed like something they could sue over if the circumstances were different. 

          But no, instead he got to suffer on the sofa like an idiot without any way to get compensated for his misery.

At least he was able to sleep through the worst of it, barely remembering the next couple days outside of waking up to eat or drink something and listen to his brother stress over him.

Wilbur made sure he was able to get up and do basic things on his own again before even considering going back to work, being incredibly clingy when he had to leave on the fifth morning after the incident.

"And you're sure you'll be alright? I've still got some days I can-"

"Holy shit, you always make a big fucking deal out of being late, stop worrying about me and fucking leave."

"I've spent the better part of a week watching you writhe in a pool of sweat and misery, I'm going to be anxious about leaving you alone after that."

"I'm pretty sure the worst of it is over, I'll send you a fucking text or something if I start feeling like shit again,", Tommy made a shooing motion with his hand, "Now get out so I can fuck up your save in Skyrim."

"I might stay home just to make sure you keep your hands off of that."

"Then I'll fuck up your save if you don't get the fuck out. I'll probably be sleeping for the most part anyways."

Wilbur looked like leaving was the absolute last thing he wanted to do, but eventually sighed and gathered up the stuff he was going to need for the day. "Any issue you have, call me immediately. If you start feeling worse, if you even think you might throw up or something, let me know the second the nausea starts up."

"Alright, drama queen."

"I'm being incredibly fucking serious. I don't mind coming back to help, alright? My top priority is you at the moment."

"Work should probably be a close fucking second; we need money to live."

"I've got plenty of money saved up, missing a few days isn't going to do any harm."

"Go, I'll still fucking be here when you're done boring the fuck out of seven periods worth of students."

"You'd better be,", he ruffled Tommy's hair, "There's still some of that soup in the fridge, and if you think you can handle solid food, there's some pizza as well-"

"Go."

Wilbur completely ignored him, continuing like he hadn't been interrupted. "Remember to drink water, I've got some electrolytes in the cupboard; those should help you replenish some of the water you lost through sweat. Try to take a shower if you feel well enough, you stink and I'm sure that would help you fell better." 

          "Fuck you, I smell perfectly fine. If anything, you're the one that stinks. I can fucking smell you from here,", he wrinkled his nose as he said it, only partially joking.

It probably had something to do with him not really being able to smell much while he was practically comatose, but everything seemed to smell far stronger than it had before.

The worst of it was his room, he could see what Wilbur was always complaining about whenever he had to go to the bathroom and walked past it. His door wasn't even open, and it was like he could smell every pair of unwashed underwear he'd left on his floor to handle later.

That was enough to make him start feeling sick again, since on it's own whatever he'd caught had calmed down to him feeling like he'd run the cross-fit version of a marathon or something. His fever had gone down to a manageable level, he was holding down food; really he was just weak from putting up with whatever fucked up version of the flu he caught.

But he'd made it through, proving once again that Tommy Innes Soot was the strongest man alive. Ever.

Wilbur gasped in mock offense at Tommy's insult, sniffing under his arm and scowling when Tommy started laughing at him. "That's enough to quell my concerns. If you're well enough to be insulting me, you're well enough to be left alone."

"I'll insult you further if you don't go."

"Don't taunt me a second time, you aren't the French."

"What the fuck does that even mean?"

"Don't worry about it,", Wilbur grabbed his car keys, "Don't make too much of a mess, but I'm also not expecting you to clean up and messes you do end up making."

"Trash the place, got it."

"If you can muster up enough energy to do so, have fun. Don't overexert yourself, alright?"

"I won't, bye."

"Goodbye, I'll text to check in when I'm on lunch."

And like that, he was alone. The first thing he did was go back to sleep, because six in the morning was way too early to be awake when he wasn't going to school.

He woke up again some time around eleven, needing a second for his eyes to adjust to the light coming in through the window before being able to see his phone well enough to send a thumbs up in response to a text Wilbur had sent asking how he was doing. 

          After that, he got up to make something to eat. The soup his brother had mentioned was just some canned stuff that he'd stuck into a container so it was easier to heat up, and, in Tommy's ever correct opinion, it tasted like it'd been in a tin.

He knew what it should taste like, because it was the one that Wilbur always got for him when he was sick, but this time it had a seriously strong metallic taste along with the normal cheap chicken noodle flavor.

That was also probably because of him being as sick as he was, because even the salt wasn't overpowering it; and that made up, like, ninety-percent of what the soup even was.

He tried adding more after microwaving it for a few minutes, but stopped when he realized it wasn't doing anything except lining him up for sodium poisoning on top of the mystery plague. Adding random stuff from the cupboard didn't really do much to improve it either, and he was just going to settle for sad, metal soup before having another idea.

He remembered seeing something ages ago about sugar cancelling out salt or something, maybe that'd work for the tin aftertaste as well?

Most things on the internet are usually true, and he'd managed to survive fifteen years without problems so far, so he decided to test it.

He didn't want to add too much, since he didn't like sweet things very much, but wasn't really able to stop himself from adding a few tablespoons after tasting how much better it'd been after only one.

That was something he was probably going to have to figure out later, because he didn't have nearly enough energy to try understanding it then. Getting some food in his system made him feel better, and the longer he sat there the more he had to accept that Wilbur had had a point earlier.

He didn't smell the best.

He was, in fact, quite smelly.

To a point that he wasn't going to be able to ignore it, even out of spite. The sofa also stank, probably from him sweating on it for like three days, so he opened the window despite it being the middle of February and went to deal with the stink problem. He also closed the curtains, because holy hell was it bright outside.

          His room was so much worse when the door was opened, and he decided he was just going to steal some clothes from Wilbur after giving up on trying to venture inside without holding his breath.

The shower he took was normal, only real thing of note being how much harder it felt like the water was coming out. It was also louder, maybe the flat building did something to the water pressure while he was sick?

Either way, it was nice after going four days without washing anything beyond his hands. Standing in the shower got rid of what little energy he'd been able to muster in the movement department, so he retreated back to the livingroom to relax again.

It was cold as all hell in there, especially with his hair wet, but having the window open got rid of the horrible smell of must that'd been filling the space before. The sofa was still foul, though, so he ran to steal the blankets off of Wilbur's bed to set up something comfortable on the carpet.

Could he have probably just laid down in his brother's room? Probably.

Did he want to? Not really, that would mean more movement if he decided he wanted a snack or something. Or some water, which was a thought that made him realize that he was pretty thirsty.

He figured that was something he should get before settling on the floor; water is technically important.

Tommy shuffled his way back over to the kitchen, lifting his arm to grab a cup out of the cabinet and almost immediately dropping it.

"Shit-", he reached his hand out toward it as it fell to the floor, feeling something tingle in his wrist as the shatter he was waiting for didn't come. Not even a clatter, the cup didn't hit the floor.

It took him a moment to realize that the cup was currently attached to his arm by something... white.

His immediate first thought was to make a cum joke, before the it really clicked with him that something was incredibly wrong here.

He panicked, trying to detach whatever the string of white shit was from him and breaking the cup anyways from flailing. He managed to get the string off after that, poking at it and finding it to be incredibly sticky.

"Fuck- Damn, this really looks like- Don't say it, this is serious,", he was muttering to himself, mind racing as he tried to piece together exactly what'd happened. 

          He was minding his own business, getting some water, dropped the cup, and reached his hand out to catch it. Tommy slowly moved his hand the same way he had before, trying to think of what exactly he'd done to cause that. He was trying to grab the cup as it fell, but he couldn't quite reach it...

Another string of the white stuff came out of his wrist, this time hitting the ceiling as he fell backwards in surprise.

He thankfully missed landing on the cup he'd broken, catching his breath before immediately hyperventilating because what the fuck.

Surely he'd seen that wrong, surely he'd felt it wrong. Maybe he was having some kind of fucked up fever hallucination; that was something that happened, right?

He scrambled to his feet, going over to the table to grab the thermometer so he could see if he was about to die or something.

His temperature was perfectly normal, lower than it'd been earlier, even. So then maybe his brain had been messed up somehow from the fever he'd had before? But nothing strange had happened before that.

Except for his sense of smell being kind of fucked. Or his taste buds being kind of fucked. Or his eyes being-

Ok, so maybe there'd been some other signs that something was wrong, but those were explainable to some extent. But this? This was some freak of nature type shit that he had no idea where to even begin breaking down.

He nearly called Wilbur to tell him to get home and take him to the emergency room, stopping right before hitting the button as he realized something.

He'd shot some white, sticky stuff out of his wrist. It clung to the cup strong enough to catch it. The second shot was still stuck in the corner of the kitchen ceiling.

Almost like a spider web...

"No fucking shot,", Tommy shakily scrambled to his feet again, going into the kitchen and using the broom to get down the mystery substance so he could have a better look at it.

Now, he wasn't really a spider expert, but it really looked like the webs he used to find in the back garden of the house he'd grown up in. Tommy dropped the broom, taking a step back and looking down at his hands.

He used the other one this time, holding it out toward the wall and trying again. 

          And, again, the web came out in a messy blob that stuck to the edge of the window.

Normally, he'd be very loudly freaking out about something like this, but he was very much in shock about the situation as a whole.

He decided the best course of action was to clean up any sign of the webs, because he didn't want to explain any of this to Wilbur. Not yet, anyways; he needed to figure out a way to make it seem like this wasn't his fault.

Because there was no doubt in his mind that this was because of the spider bite. The bite that'd calmed down to two little black spots on his wrist. If he didn't know any better, he'd assume they were freckles.

Tommy finally got some water after he was done hiding evidence, leaving the remains of the first cup on the floor for Wilbur to deal with as he very skillfully went back to the blanket pile he'd made earlier and promptly passed out. He'd already been tired, and the adrenaline from the web situation running out left him on empty.

He was dragged back into consciousness later when he heard the door open, not moving very much as he hoped he'd be able to go back to sleep.

"Holy shit, it's absolutely frigid in here,", the door closed, and there was a pause, "Tommy?"

"Floor,", Tommy tiredly called back, moving the blanket off of his head.

"And why are you on the floor?"

"'Cause the sofa stinks."

"And you chose the floor over your bed because?"

"'Cause my room stinks."

"I see,", Wilbur came over, squatting down and sticking the back of his hand to Tommy's forehead, "It feels like your fever's gone down more, how are you feeling?"

"Tired."

"Sorry for waking you, then."

"'s ok. I broke a cup earlier."

"You didn't cut yourself on it, did you?"

"No, I left it alone."

Wilbur let out  tired sigh, ruffling Tommy's hair and standing again. "I'll take care of it, go ahead and go back to sleep. I'll see if I can do something about the sofa, as well; so you can get off of the floor."

He gave a tired 'mhm' in response, rolling over and almost immediately passing out again.

The solution to the couch's stench problem was just a few blankets being thrown over it until Wilbur had the time to rent a steam cleaner, but that was better than nothing so Tommy made sure he didn't stick his face too close to it and he was fine for the most part.

          He was able to get away with laying around the house and avoiding school for another couple days before Wilbur deemed him well enough to go again.

And, normally, he would have been dreading it. Going back to school after spending a week doing nothing but watching TV and scrolling through random stuff on his phone sounded like the worst thing imaginable.

But, it also gave him a chance to be alone and figure out what the fuck was going on with the webs he was making.

There was only so much he could do inside of the apartment while he was trying to hide it, and he needed to actually go outside and experiment with it if he wanted to know anything.

The only things he knew for sure is that whatever it was was sticky, it was strong, and it started to decay after a few hours.

That one he learned when he decided to use it to dangle his phone from the ceiling so he didn't have to hold it; leaving him with a very lovely red mark on his face after it fell right on his nose.

Tommy spent his last day off before being made to go back cleaning up the apartment some, since it still fucking reeked, and coming home to see laundry being done was almost enough to convince Wilbur that he was still sick and needed longer. He wasn't that lucky, though, and was being forced to get up at the normal time on an incredibly cold Friday morning.

After that it was same routine, different day. Outside of his brother keeping a closer eye on him than usual, anyways.

Get up, complain, go get breakfast at some random place on the way to the school. Tommy was glad to have a hot drink, taking a sip of the tea Wilbur had bought him-

And immediately spitting it out on the dashboard of the car.

"What the fuck, man?", Wilbur asked, sounding incredibly annoyed.

"This tastes like shit."

"It's exactly the same as it always is."

"They must have fucked it up or something, this is nasty."

"Here, let me see it,", Wilbur grabbed the cup from him, taking a sip, "Plain black tea, tastes as horrible as always. Your tastebuds might be fucked from being sick, still."

Tommy folded his arms with a sigh. "That's fucking stupid."

"Mope about it while you clean the spit off of my fucking car,", Wilbur handed him a napkin, not taking his eyes off of the road.

"That's so rude and inconsiderate, I'm mourning here."

"The fuck are you mourning?"

"A perfectly good drink."

"You can still drink it."

"No, it tastes like dirt."

"Then don't complain. Wipe up the mess you made before it dries, because then I'm going to make you clean the whole thing."

Tommy took the napkin from him, muttering out a mix of swears and complaints as he did the bare minimum of cleaning up the tea he'd spat.

          And things were back on track after that. He dumped the tea in the parking lot, filled the cup with some water from a drinking fountain inside the school, and took his drink and lukewarm bagel to his usual table to wait for his friends.

A few different people asked if he was alright as they came in, and that's how he found out that his brother had been very poorly hiding his concern for him once he'd gone back to work; meaning Tommy now had some very prime bullying material.

He thought up different ways to make fun of his brother for that as he went to take a bite of his food, having to stop himself from spitting it out like he had the tea.

It didn't taste nearly as bad, but it sure as hell didn't taste like it should have. It was overly salty, and there was some chemical taste that he couldn't quite place in the sad puck of egg in the middle of it.

He managed to get down the first bite, needing to drink nearly half of the water he had to get the taste to go away.

Tommy opened the notes app on his phone, finally breaking and admitting to himself that his sense of taste being completely fucked was probably related to whatever was going on with the webs. He'd almost exclusively been eating the rest of the canned soup while he was home, so he'd been figuring it was something wrong with that before. But the fact that it was also an issue with the tea, and now the bagel...

Tommy was startled by someone sitting directly next to him, quickly turning off his phone screen before whoever it was could see.

"So, how was being on death's door for a week?"

He rolled his eyes, playing it off and giving Tubbo a shove out of his personal space. "I was not 'on death's door'; I spent a couple days sleeping, and then I got to play animal crossing."

"Any idea what was wrong with you?"

The temptation to tell the short boy what happened was there, but Tommy decided that it would be a terrible idea to explain it; especially at school. "No clue, just know that it felt fucking awful and I would rather actually die than go through that again."

"I can arrange that."

"Arrange yourself a fucking therapy session."

"You first."

"Excuse you, I am free of sin."

"That's bullshit."

"Now Tubbo, there's no need to lash out at me for being the perfect example of what a man should strive for. Really, you should be thanking me for my input."

"You're incredibly lucky you were sick recently, or I'd be striking you down with the might of god."

"You're built like a toddler, what fucking might are you talking about?" 

          Ranboo broke them up when he eventually got there, and Tommy decided to thank him for this by stealing his muffin.

"Wow, really?"

"You can have my sandwich, if you want."

"You're really gonna take the muffin that I paid for with my money, and offer me a cold bagel you already took a bite out of in exchange?"

"Yes. Do you want it or not?"

"Sure,", they shrugged, taking it without much hesitation.

Tubbo wrinkled his nose as he watched Tommy take a large bite out of the cafeteria muffin. "I thought you didn't like the school's breakfast shit?"

"I don't,", Tommy skillfully ignored how he was legitimately enjoying the usually far too sweet muffin, "Shit's been tasting weird lately, Wil said he thinks it's from me being sick."

"Maybe it fixed you."

"Fuck you, I wasn't broken. And even if I was, the only thing that'd 'fix' me is a two liter of diet coke and the school getting burnt down."

"I won't lie, my first thought when he said 'fixed' was in a dog sense; like, neutered,", Ranboo snickered, cackling when Tommy tried to shove him off the bench onto the floor.

The school day practically flew past after that, with Tommy anxiously waiting for it to be over so he could go experiment with his wrist goop. Wilbur had to stay at the school to catch up on stuff he'd missed while he was taking care of Tommy, meaning that Tommy just had to say he was going home and his brother wouldn't follow up on that.

And, being fair, he was going home first. He had to drop his bag off and change into a hoodie or something so he could hide his face in case someone came across him shooting sus white stuff out of his arms. After that it was a matter of finding somewhere to shoot the sus white stuff, because doing something like that out in the open in the middle of the city seemed like a bad idea.

That led to him Googling abandoned buildings in his area and settling on some factory that hadn't been in use for a good ten to fifteen years; deciding that science was far more important than tetanus. He was probably up to date on his shots.

Probably.

~-~-~

Next Chapter

~-~-~

Spiderinnit time! pog!

[miss-smutty]

Forbidden

Chapter 1

A/N- I've teased y'all for so long I hope this series is going to live up to expectations, I'm confident it will though because I'm addicted and it's been super easy for me to write - I'm up to chapter 3 so far so updates can be on time! There's a slight age gap between my professor Hemsy and OC Jess but she's twenty and completely legal. You know this is gunna be a giant tease fest for the first couple of chapters cos that sexual tension is fucking gold 🥵

Summary- Jess meets the man of her dreams and then stupidly leaves without getting his number. Will fate bring them together again?

Word count- 1.5 K

Pairing- Professor!Chris Hemsworth x OC

Warnings- Swearing, age gap

18+ only!

Disclaimer: This is an entire work of fiction/AU and has no affiliation to real life what so ever! This is a fictional story about fictional characters who happen to share names and faces with some real people.

Posted: 5th August 2021

Taglist:- @innerpaperexpertcloud @pandaxnienke @chickensarentcheap @jjpogueprincess @longlostinanotherworld @mostly-marvel-musings @darklydeliciousdesires @monet-belle

@skyfullofsong123 @swaggysposts

Chapter 2

I pulled out a chair at the last available table in the unusually busy coffee shop, I thought I might've caught a break choosing the one outside of campus but alas I was wrong.

I was about to sit down when the chair opposite me slid out from under the table, my eyes lifted to meet with the most sparkly blue eyes i'd ever seen. The sight of him took my breath away. Literally.

I stood staring, frozen on the spot, my mouth slightly ajar as I looked him up and down. He was tall, so tall, definitely over 6ft and built like a dream. Thick thighs straining against his fitted trousers, wide muscular shoulders and I just knew there was a six-pack hiding behind that tight t-shirt. 

"Sorry. You were here first, I'll just grab a take-out." He smirked a side smile, amused at how I was so obviously checking him out but his sexy Australian accent distracted you from anything else.

"It's fine, I'm on my own. I don't mind if you want to sit there too." I mentally face palmed myself, drawing attention to the fact I was alone wasn't the best idea but then again he was alone too. "I don't bite." I added trying my best to flirt.

It seemed to work, he smiled at me as he sat down and I took the time to admire his handsome face. He was quite clearly a lot older than me, the laughter lines around his eyes a tell tale sign but he was still quite possibly the best looking man I'd ever laid eyes on. His hair was fair and the short beard framed his face perfectly but the one thing that stood out the most were those piercing ocean-blue eyes.

"So do you come here often?" I cocked my eyebrow at him over my coffee cup making him laugh at my reaction. "Sorry, it's been a while." He said nervously, running his hand through his hair.

"It's been a while since you spoke to a stranger or…?" I questioned casually.

"It's been a while since I spoke to an attractive woman." He finished, his eyes sparkling as he watched me almost choke on my drink.

"Oh, I err…. I don't think you're doing too badly." I absentmindedly circled my finger around the rim of my cup, crossing my leg over my other and accidently rubbing my foot up his leg. My cheeks felt hot and flushed as I looked up into his eyes and saw him smiling slyly.

"Evidently. We're already playing footsie under the table." He smiled widely, a genuine smile that stretched the corners of his mouth. I smiled back at him shyly, thinking of something to say to change the subject before I ended up looking like a tomato.

"What part of Australia are you from?"

"I'm originally from Melbourne but I lived in Byron Bay before I came to America." 

"Awesome. I've always wanted to go to Australia, the Spiders put me off though." 

"Yeah I think they put most people off but in heavily populated areas they stay pretty much hidden, I think it's the size that scare people." How have I made this conversation go from flirting to talking about spiders? And how do I get back to flirting?

"Are we still talking about spiders?" I raised my eyebrows questioningly and laughed at the innuendo, flicking my hair over my shoulder. I noticed something in his eyes when I did so, a hunger, just a little flash and then it was gone again. I'm sure I didn't imagine it though because his eyes lingered on my exposed shoulders.

I checked my watch subtly, not wanting him to think he was boring me but I had to get to class and couldn't be late again, not when this semester had only just started.

"I'm really sorry, I'm gonna have to run, I'm going to be late. It was really nice meeting you." I gathered up my bags, ready to leave.

"Already? You've only just got here." He looked disappointed, his smile fading. His mouth opened as if he was going to say something else and then closed again when he saw I was ready to leave. "It was really nice to meet you too, hopefully I'll see you again." His eyes sparkled as he looked into mine, standing from his chair to get the door for me. I felt fireworks when his hand brushed against the small of my back and his face lingered close to mine. The tension was unreal, like we were the only people in the room as his eyes hungrily stared into my soul, undressing me with his eyes. My heart stopped beating when his face moved closer to mine so I could feel his breath on my lips, the smell of coffee and his aftershave filling my nostrils. I paused, my feet routed to the spot, I wanted him to kiss me so badly but I moved away at the last minute. Surely he wasn't actually going to kiss me, we'd only just met, that would be ridiculous. Wouldn't it?

********

I spent most of class daydreaming about my tall handsome stranger and the way he looked at me but most of all how I didn't even get his name. Or his number.

Now I was feeling sorry for myself because it would just be my luck to meet the man of my dreams and then never see him again. So I'd moped about all day and avoided the invitations for drinks after class. Instead I'd

gotten home early, changed into some sweats and settled myself in front of the TV for the night.

"What's up with your face?" My roommate, Ellie said as she walked into our room, throwing her bags onto her bed.

"What're you talking about?" 

"Your face. Looks like you're chewing on a wasp."

"Feeling sorry for myself." I pout pathetically.

"Why, what've you done now?" She rolled her eyes, kicking off her shoes and throwing her legs up onto the bed. I felt so lucky to have a roommate like Ellie, during our freshman year she'd become my best friend practically straight away and now after two years together we were practically sisters.

I sat up in bed cross legged and faced Ellie, getting myself ready to spill my misfortunes of the day with her.

"Well, I went to Impresso's this morning to get my morning coffee before class." She nodded, showing her enthusiasm by also sitting cross legged on her own bed, facing me. "And it was packed full of students, there was only one table left. So I went to grab it as soon as I could." She raised her eyebrow at me, wondering where I was going with the story. "And I kid you not, the most attractive man I have ever seen, pulls out the chair opposite me." 

"Oh my god! No way. Did you talk? Oh my god, this is like the perfect chick flick. Carry on." I smiled at her excitement.

"I told him I didn't mind if he sat there, I mean of course I didn't mind, you should've seen him El. Oh, oh, oh I almost forgot" I flapped my hands, bouncing on the spot. "He was fucking Australian."

"Fuck off, you're lying. Drop dead gorgeous with the sexiest accent ever. How is this even real? Now remind me why you're sat there with a face like a slapped arse?" 

"I panicked when I had to leave, didn't want to be late for class and I didn't get his number, didn't even give him chance to ask for mine." 

"Wow! Ok, now I understand. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking, I was panicking and you know what I'm like when I panic." You sulk.

"It's ok, maybe you'll bump into him again."

"Yeah, right. I should be so lucky."

"Cheer up." she says throwing a cushion at me. "There's a party at Alpha Kappa this weekend, I'm sure we can find you someone to help get over your mystery man. Or under should I say?" She raised her eyebrow at me, smiling slyly and making me laugh. She always did know how to cheer me up and maybe a party is what I needed.

There must be some good looking boys around campus that could make me forget about my Australian hunk. Surely? I thought about the guys I'd seen around campus, the guys I'd seen at frat parties and that's definitely not what I wanted. How could a twenty year old boy match to the masculine, experienced man I met this morning. My mind was set, I'd dipped my feet ever slightly into the mature pool and that's what I wanted more than anything. There was always something missing with previous boyfriends and I was tired of all the game playing. I wanted someone who knew what they wanted and wasn't afraid to get it.

The only thing was, he didn't know I was only twenty and I had no way of finding him again. If fate did bring us back together, would he mind that I was still a student? That I couldn't even drink when we went on dates? 

Who am I kidding? Of course he would mind, he could get any woman he wanted, why would he want me?

[accio-jungkookie]

shine on anyway - spider-man x reader (ch. 4)

a/n: hello and welcome to chapter four! i think i'm going to keep posting roughly every Saturday? if i get impatient i might post Friday, or if i'm busy that weekend it might be sunday, so i apologize that it won't consistently be every single Saturday! anyway, i hope you like this weeks chapter!! please like, comment, reblog, etc etc! <3

summary: A kid from Milwaukee has to grow up far more quickly than she should while facing threats that men half her age would never dare go near. So, when she has to uproot after losing everything, does she lose herself too?

word count: 3.8

warnings: Mentions of anxiety and depression, swearing, minor character death, blood and injuries, fighting, mentions of bullying, let me know if you think I missed any! :)

last - four - next

You woke up, already regretting opening your eyes. Usually, most people were happy when they woke up on their birthday; but not you. Not when it was the anniversary of your dad’s death – 9/11. You never knew him, but your mom used to tell you stories about him when you were younger. How he was kind, funny, brave. How she saw so much of him in you. How he ran into the Twin Towers without a second thought, with the intention of helping save others. How your mom moved to Milwaukee when you were two to be with your grandparents, and so she wouldn’t be reminded of her loss daily.

You groaned as you rolled out of bed, checking your side in the mirror by your desk. Thankfully, the bruising from last night had visibly gone down, though you could still feel the ache. And yet the world kept turning, so it was time to get ready. You moved as quickly as your aching body would allow you, being careful to cover your scratched arms. As quickly as your body could heal itself, you noticed it tended to take longer the more injuries you had, and it made you feel more tired. You made a note to yourself that you would need to find a better material to make a new suit out of, because you couldn’t keep buying – and subsequently ruining – black sweaters constantly with your uncanny habit of breaking windows with your arms.

You gently grabbed your backpack and shrugged it on before you hit the kitchen, not wanting your grandparents to catch onto how sore you were today. They still managed to bring a smile to your face with how they moved around each other effortlessly in a choreographed dance that took them decades to master.

“Morning.” You greeted them quietly, giving them a small smile as you grabbed an apple for your breakfast on your way to school. You peeked into the pan your grandma was tending to on the stove, seeing eggs and bacon as you scrunched your nose.

“Morning, Bug. Hope you slept well?” Your grandma asked as she plated the food for herself and your grandpa. You smiled with a nod as she looked over at you again. “You didn’t stay up too late now, did you?” She joked, her eyes narrowing at you as you laughed a bit at her intensity. She knew you too well.

“Just a little bit, Nana, but I had math homework and I couldn’t sleep until it was done, you know?” You said with a smile, moving to give her a big hug, and then your grandpa.

“Make sure you get to school safely, Bug. Cops were down the street last night, guess there was a gun fight or something. Keep your pepper spray out and run if you need to, okay?” Your grandpa said to you, and you nodded with a smile as you hugged him back. He didn’t need to know that you knew already, or that you had been the one to stop the bullets from flying. Or that he was hugging just a bit too tightly and you could feel every bruise he was pressing into.

“Of course, Papa. Love you.” You said with a smile as he kissed the top of your head.

“Love you, too, Bug. Now go, or you’ll be late. And happy birthday. We’ll take you out to dinner tonight, ok?” He offered, and you looked to your grandma for confirmation before you smiled.

“Sounds like a plan to me. I’ll see you guys after school! Love you guys!” You called as your grandma shooed you to the door, not wanting to cause you to be late. As much as today was melancholy because of your dad’s death anniversary, your grandparents had always tried to keep some kind of celebration for you, just you, without the overtone of death. You guys would always talk about your dad, and eventually your mom, so sometimes it was nice to be reminded that this day was also a celebration of your life. So, as you walked to school, you couldn’t help but smile at the plans you had for the night.

“Morning, (y/n). How’re you holding up?” Ky asked you with a hug as you met at the doors of your school, rubbing a hand down your back comfortingly. You hugged her back tightly, basking in the comfort. As much as your grandparents enabled you to feel happiness on your birthday, Ky always let you mourn with her. She knew it was hard for you on your birthday, and she helped you however you would let her.

“Good, I guess. It gets better every year.” You said with a sad smile and a shrug. You eyed Ky as her eyes widened and she suddenly dropped to the floor. She sat down her bag and dug through it as you stared at her. Your eyebrows furrowed as you looked her over, making sure she was okay, just dramatic.

“Uh, Ky? You good?” You asked, a hint of a laugh in your voice as you kneeled down in front of her. She nodded frantically and kept digging through her bag a bit more before pulling out a wrapped present. You were about to protest her gift before she gave you the look, and you shut your mouth instantly, not wanting to face her wrath.

“Listen to me or I pull out your tongue and force you to.” She deadpanned, and you laughed at how serious she sounded before she, too, giggled and continued. “So, happy 15th birthday, and I know you don’t like gifts or anything and that you would rather today not exist, but I was saving up my money and I got you this so please take it and enjoy it. Or else I’ll cry and make you feel bad or something, I don’t know.” Ky rambled a little bit, smiling as she stood up. You followed suit, taking the gift from her with both hand out of respect. You smiled at her, quiet as you opened the gift. It was tiny and rectangular, so you were slightly puzzled until you took off the wrapping and opened the box. You gasped in shock, your touch turning gentler as you held the gift in your hand.

“Ky, this is… beautiful, wow. Thank you.” You mumbled, pulling the bracelet out of the box so you could admire it more. You turned it over in your hands, looking at the two charms already connected onto the chain. The first one was a heart, and the second one was a star. You looked at her for an explanation as you put the bracelet on gently, stashing the box in your backpack as she shrugged.

“The heart is for us, because we’re best friends and I love you no matter what.” Ky explained as she pointed to the first charm on your wrist, then pointed to the second. “And that’s a star. You can’t see them well in town, but the North Star has been guiding travelers for years. So, whenever you’re lost or alone, just follow the stars home.” Ky explained, and you felt yourself get a little teary at the sentiment.

“Thank you, Ky. You’re the best friend I could ever ever ever ask for. Seriously.” You hugged Ky tightly, sniffing a bit when you heard her sniff, too. You both pulled away and laughed at each other for crying in the hallway before you went to class to start your day.

AP Chemistry was shaping up to be a pretty boring class today, you thought as you mindlessly took notes. You were hungry, distracted by anything and everything except for the class material, and you couldn’t stop daydreaming about where you would be going for dinner tonight, when someone knocked on the door of your classroom. Being the nosy students your class was, everyone turned to the door as the girl who sat closest to it got up and opened it. You heard her quiet gasp, and you sat up a bit straighter in anticipation before she stuttered a bit and backed into the classroom. She gave your teacher a bewildered look, looked back to the guest, then turned to rush back to her seat. Judging her reaction, you were guessing the principal, police maybe. Something to stun a student silent. What you didn’t expect was Tony fucking Stark crashing your chemistry lecture. Everyone burst into intense whispers, but all you could do was stare with your jaw hitting your desk. As much as Tony Stark irritated you to your wits end with his endless interviews and uppity attitude, you were still logical enough to acknowledge that this was not an everyday occurrence. When he made direct eye contact with you, though, you nearly fainted. You felt like a deer caught in headlights, stuck in a staring contest with Tony Stark.

“I apologize for interrupting your lesson on- “Mr. Stark took a moment to glance at the white board before continuing. “On molecular bonding, but I need to take (y/n). So, if she could come with me, I’ll let you get back to it.” Tony smiled at the class, clasping his hands together as he waited for you to move. You looked to your teacher, seeing her nod in approval before you grabbed your things in shaky, anxious hands.

‘Did I do something wrong? If I did, what did I do? He can’t know who I am, right? I wear a mask, I’m careful, I take the long way home always. So, if it’s not that, what else could I have done?’ You mentally panicked as you stood from your seat, turning to leave before someone behind you spoke quietly.

“Good riddance. Hopefully she doesn’t come back.” You heard someone whisper, before catching another kid saying something else.

“Why does Tony Stark want to talk to her? She’s like, nothing.” You heard from a different part of the room, and you could practically feel the color drain from your face. You hurried your steps along and into the hall, slamming the door behind you to block out everything else. You knew you weren’t the most liked student in school, but were you really hated that much?

You followed behind Mr. Stark, trying to keep the worry out of your face as you followed behind him, watching the backs of his shoes. You were still panicking as you tried to figure out what he could possibly want from you when you ran into him, not having realized he had stopped in front of you.

“I-I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to- “you started to anxiously mumble, your face going bright pink as you stared at the floor still, incredibly intimidated. He was the most well-known person probably on the planet, and you had just made an absolute fool of yourself. How lovely.

“It’s okay, kid.” He said, undoing his jacket and relaxing a bit now that there weren’t over 30 sets of eyes staring directly at him. You looked up a bit and watched him closely, eyes following as he sat down in a chair, gesturing to the one across from him for you to sit in. You looked around a bit, recognizing that you were now in the teachers’ lounge before you nodded and sat across from him. You wanted to put on a brave front, so you spoke before he had the chance to.

“So, uh, Tony- Mr. Stark, sir. I was, uh, I was wondering why-“ you began to ask in a shaky voice before he interrupted you with a small laugh and a shake of his head, causing your eyebrows to furrow. You tilted your head a bit, watching him wave the laugh off a bit before he spoke.

“Sorry, you just remind me of someone.” He explained briefly. You nodded, a bit confused if anything, before you went to speak again. However, Mr. Stark spoke up before you were able to ask him anything. “Anyway, I have a question for you. You know who this is, right? Seen a few videos maybe?” He asked you, setting his phone on the table next to you before tapping his screen and causing a hologram to pop up. You felt the blood in your veins run cold as the video played on a loop. You shifted uncomfortably, praying to whatever god was listening that Tony Stark didn’t know who you were.

“Yeah, um, they’re on the- the news. A lot. Called Night Crawler, or something.” You mumbled, breaking eye contact to look at your fingers in your lap. You were probably the worst liar known to man, mostly because you didn’t need to know how to lie until around six months ago, but you really hoped it you be enough. But it wasn’t, and you would be lying to yourself if you thought he would believe you.

“Sure. But you know who this really is, right? Under the mask? I mean, they’re incredible. Those spider webs are so incredibly similar to Spider-Man, and so are most of the abilities, if I’m honest. And I have a running theory, you see. I think that you’re-“ Mr. Stark stopped abruptly as your phone began to ring, and evne though you knew he was irritated by the rolling of his eyes, you have never felt so much relief to have your phone ring. You knew this conversation was going in a way you didn’t like. You knew that Mr. Stark knew who you were, and the idea terrified you because you thought you were cautious, but obviously not enough, which means there was no telling how many people had figured out who you were. You were also scared that you would be in trouble with him for some reason, so you smiled nervously at Mr. Stark before you held up your phone.

“Sorry, gotta take this.” You grinned sheepishly before you turned slightly, looking down at the screen. You glanced at the caller ID, confused that it was restricted, before you answered the phone with a timid ‘hello.’

“Is this (y/f/n) (y/l/n)?” the man on the line asked in a serious tone, and your stomach dropped immediately. You felt like you had swallowed lead, your 6th sense immediately alerting you that something was wrong, something was happening. And when the man kept talking, your anxieties were just confirmed. You went numb, answering questions briefly before you hung up, promising you would be there soon. You stood up and grabbed your bag, ignoring Mr. Stark in his chair as you turned away to leave.

“What’s wrong, kid?” He asked as you went to walk past him. He stood up, blocking your path as he looked down at you impatiently. “You can’t just leave. I know you’re the Night Crawler, and I have a lot of questions for you.” He demanded, obviously using his Big Man with Money voice to try to get you to listen, but you couldn’t. Wouldn’t. You made that obvious when you looked up at him with dead eyes and spoke with no emotion.

“Move or be moved.” You said simply. Mr. Stark didn’t need to see how you were about to react, but you couldn’t help yourself. How were you going to act? How were you supposed to act? You weren’t sure what was going to happen next, and you were worried and anxious and grieving.

I mean, how are you supposed to react when you’re told over the phone that your grandparents are dead?

What a birthday.

“Excuse you, Miss (y/l/n), but I don’t think you understand who you’re talking to.” Mr. Stark spoke sternly, watching you closely as you started to dig through your bag. You found your web shooters at the bottom and slipped them over your wrists before zipping your bag up, slinging it onto your back before you looked up at the man in front of you. You weren’t worried about him questioning your web shooters now that he confirmed that he knew who you were.

“I know exactly who I am speaking to, Mr. Stark. However, I now need to go to the police station and ID my grandparents’ dead bodies, so excuse me.” You stated in a flat voice, sending chills down his spine at the lack of emotion you were showing, especially compared to the anxious mess you had been just moments before. When he took too long to move out of the way, you sighed and quickly webbed his foot to the floor before you went to step around him. You didn’t see him sigh and reach for the scissors on the table, but you heard it, and you felt his presence behind you before he even got within arms range again. You were slowly becoming more angry, more frustrated, more anxious, and so desperate to leave that, when he went to grab for your arm, you were glad you were still alone in the lounge.

“I don’t know about you, Mr. Stark, but usually, when someone walks away from another person, it generally means they don’t want to talk. So, either take the hint and leave me be, or you can talk to me after I have to stare at my grandparents on a metal table, ok?” You yelled at him, your voice cracking halfway through. You were crying by the time you were done scolding him, wiping angrily at your face. Your emotions were absolutely everywhere as you walked out of the lounge and down the hall, on the hunt for Ky’s classroom. You knew Mr. Stark was following behind you, but you didn’t care. Right now, you needed to find your best friend and figure out a way to the police station. You were almost at your friends’ class when Mr. Stark spoke again.

“Hey, kid, look, I’m sorry. I’ll drive you there, okay?” He offered, following a step behind you. For a moment he thought you were ignoring him again, but then your knees hit the ground as you collapsed into your emotions, sobs ripping from your throat as you finally processed what had happened: the only family you had left was just taken from you. You were alone, an orphan, with no one left that you could go home to. It was devastating. You could only barely process that Mr. Stark was behind you, one of his gauntlets covering his hand as he pressed it into your back to check your vitals.

“FRIDAY, what’s happening?” You heard him mumble, and you might have been truly going crazy, because you swore his sunglasses replied to him. You tried to shake Mr. Stark away from you, curling into a ball against the wall.

“Panic attack, high severity. Hyperventilation is not allowing for proper oxygenation.” You heard the glasses say back. Lack of oxygen leads to talking sunglasses, you thought in your fuzziness. You heard a few doors open, and some students whispering at the sight. A random girl sobbing on the floor with a worried Tony Stark trying to calm her down. What a sight to see.

“Mooove move move move, I said MOVE-!” You heard someone yell, and you could tell it was Ky just by her tone. You sobbed harder, reaching out for her voice as she approached you. Tony backed up, looking around and telling the kids to return to class. When he turned back around, he saw you curled up in your friends’ arms, crying but starting to breathe a bit easier.

“Hey, hey, hey, it’s okay. Whatever it is, Bug, it’s okay, we’ll get through it together.” She murmured into your ear, rocking you both back and forth. The nickname caused you to just cry harder, thinking of your grandparents and how you would never hear them call you that again. How you would never have your Nana’s pancakes, or how Papa would never be able to talk to you about your mother again. It shocked Ky, who wasn’t sure what had happened, but to her, the only new variable was Tony Stark, and with how your mother passed, well… If looks could kill, Ky would be going to jail for the death of one Tony Stark.

“Let’s move it out of here.” Mr. Stark said, trying not to let on how worried he was. He knew how much anxiety attacks could hurt, but seeing a child as young as you having a panic attack that severe? It hurt him to hear the pain in your cries, ones he recognized from himself. The loss of a parent, or a parental figure, was absolutely brutal.

After you had calmed down, Mr. Stark led you and Ky to his car outside. You assured Ky that, no, Mr. Stark hadn’t caused your panic attack, and yes you were better now. Maybe not better, but you weren’t crying anymore. You hiccupped occasionally, but it was a lot better now. It wasn’t until you were almost at the police station that you told Ky what had happened, and you both cried together. As much as you were a part of Ky’s family, she was also a part of yours. She was there with you when your mother passed, and she was with you every second after that. She had grown to love your grandparents too, and while you hated to see her cry, it helped you understand that your grandparents had lived a life well loved.

You held her hand as you both walked into the police station. You held her hand as you went to ID your grandparents. You held her hand when they explained in more detail than necessary how your grandparents had died. You held her hand as you walked out again, a bag of their belongings in your opposite hand.

While you were in the police station, Happy and Tony had a conversation in the car.

“How old is she?” Happy asked as Tony went through your personal records with a frown.

“Fifteen today.” He mumbled with a wince, not even being able to imagine what it was like to lose your grandparents on your own birthday.

“Wow, she’s young. Too young for this.” Happy sighed, and Tony nodded as he continued to read. The more he read, the more he understood.

“It’s the fifteenth anniversary of her dad’s death. He died in 9/11, first responder, in the North Tower. Her mom died-“ And at that, Tony paused. He read the line again, and immediately felt a million times worse for you than he already had.

“Mom and dad dead? Wow, she really has a bad deal.” Happy sighed. He was usually so hardened emotionally, but he knew the severity of this. When Happy realized that Tony had gone silent, he looked over at him.

“Tony?” He asked as the man in question looked up at him.

“Her mom died in the Attack on New York. Killed in the crossfire, unknown source, but suspected weapon was human made, not of foreign origin.” Tony read off, looking out the window at the police station. This was exactly why he signed the Sokovian Accords. So that people didn’t die at their hands without repercussion. So that kids don’t end up orphans, or parents without their child.

Tony and Happy went silent when they saw you exit the police station, a sniffing Ky behind you. There were a few tense moments of silence, no one wanting to break it, before you spoke up.

“Can we take Ky home please? Then me?” You asked quietly, getting a nod from Mr. Stark.

“Of course, kid.”

[puckngrind]

Leave Her Wild: chapter 3 - N. MacKinnon

Summary: MacKenzie heads to Washington and cashes in her bet with Nathan.

Warnings: swearing, fluff and stuff

Word count: 2,565 (swear they will get longer)

Series masterlist / Puck ‘n Grind’s masterlist

Washington.

The two texted back and forth over the week. Mostly randomness with a splash of real life. A friendship was blooming with the text conversation but what else could come of it? Neither one seemed to want to touch the subject. Kenzie wasn't even sure what to make of the attention from Nate. She threw herself into work as she normally would.

MacKenzie spent a few days in Colorado Springs for work but took advantage of her time off by hiking the Garden of the Gods. She was was halfway through Palmers trail when she feels her phone and decides to stop for water and take in the view plus check her phone thinking it was work. She laughs to herself realizing it was in fact not work.

Nate: how’s Colorado Springs?

She snaps a picture of her view and sends it.

Kenzie: gorgeous as always

Nate: holy shit are you hiking alone?

Kenzie snaps a selfie where you can see she’s alone and sends it.

Kenzie: don’t worry not anything too dangerous today. Lol

Nate: ok… not worried. Anyways, thought maybe dinner could be in DC since we will both be there next week.

Kenzie thinks about it and starts walking again. She realizes dinner out of town may in fact make things less awkward.

Kenzie: depends on my schedule but that should work

Nate: good. Enjoy the rest of your hike.

MacKenzie did just that. One thing most people knew about her was she loved adventures and trying new things. She rarely goes to the same vacation spot twice. Always wanting to try new restaurants and really only frequents Gus’s place in Denver. She liked to be free which drove her mother insanely crazy but MacKenzie didn’t seem to care. Her dad was her biggest supporter. Constantly sending her wanderlust Instagram posts after she taught him how. At least her mom had home in Kenzie’s brother, Cameron. Cam was doing everything he was expected to do including recently proposing to his high school sweetheart which Kenzie thought was dumb as seniors in college. His life was his life that was for sure, well and maybe their mother's life too. She couldn't control Kenzie which meant Cam got all of her energy.

The flight to D.C. was a breeze but busy would be an understatement as MacKenzie met her client at the end of the week. The demands were insane in the time frame. She spent almost all weekend in her hotel room working and talking with her team back in Colorado.

Nate: would you want to come to the game? I have tickets.

Kenzie: I would love to but I don’t even know if I can do dinner I’m so swamped

Nate: you need to eat right?

Kenzie: I mean, yeah. I’ll order in

Nate: how about you come to my hotel, we have an amazing restaurant here. You can work and eat

MacKenzie thought it over as she looked out her window. Walking the block and a half to Nathan’s hotel tomorrow night seemed doable. He had a point that she needed to eat and could work while they ate. It would complete their wager from the card game in the same instance. Wondered if Gabe or one of the other players would be around to ensure the dinner happened. MacKenzie thought she wouldn’t have the awkwardness of it feeling like a date this way. Plus, she wanted to try the restaurant out since last time she was in town and another client mentioned it. Mosi was all for the dinner when she called ensuring Kenzie her condo's mail was indeed checked. She thought this was the perfect arrangement and MacKenzie couldn’t find a reason to say no. Thinking Nate would already be at the arena for the game she sent a text.

Kenzie: Yes, to dinner at your hotel if you are still up to it after the game

She starts typing away again and laughs when the ping is almost immediate.

Nate: Perfect. I'll text you when we are back on the bus.

MacKenzie decided to turn the game on while she worked. She normally would have something on as background noise while she worked. She knows she can get lost in work and wanted to make sure she knew to pack up her laptop and such waiting for Nathan's call. She hears his name and looks up to see him score with less than a minute left. The Avalanche was already been leading but that goal ensured their win. She decided to change then couldn’t decide if she should pack up her work yet. “How sure how much time would he take between the game and the bus?” Kenzie asked her reflection. She texted him nice game to see if he would respond. He did a few moments later so she packed up slowly. Kenzie walks down to the street turning to head over to his hotel, humming to herself trying to not over think this very simple dinner. She slows down as she sees the charter bus in front of the hotel. Fuck.

"MAAAAC! Good to see you!" Gabe's voice comes booming out of the bus with some others chiming in as the stepped off the bus. MacKenzie awkwardly smiles at the team and then catches Nathan out the side of her eye. He’s staring at her as he walks down the step.

"Did you walk?" Nathan looks down at MacKenzie puzzled.

"Well, hello. Nice game. And yes. Just two blocks." MacKenzie pulls at her loose curl and then slides her finger down her messenger bag.

"Ready for dinner? I see you brought your work." Nathan taps her bag with his knuckle. MacKenzie nods and follows Nathan into the hotel. She awkwardly stops and he realizes it. “Whatcha doin’ there?” Nate walked back so he was standing in front of Kenzie.

“Isn’t the restaurant that way?” She points in the direction of the sign she stopped next to.

“Yes but they deliver to the room and I’d rather change into sweats and let you work in comfort.” He pulls at his tie. “Less eyes too. Come on.” Nathan placed his hand briefly on MacKenzie’s lower back to lead her to the elevator.

“I normally take the stairs.” MacKenzie looks around Nate for the steps.

“My room is on floor 12 and I just had over 20 minutes of ice time. Can we please take the elevator?” Nathan looked into MacKenzie’s questioning eyes.

“Fine. You have a point.” She smiles but gets lost calculating if that time is high or low for him.

They make their way to Nathan’s room. MacKenzie is surprised how nice it is. She’s not sure what she expected but it wasn’t this. Nathan’s suits neatly hanging up. Sweats sitting in his open luggage next to the closet. She realizes he hasn’t moved from behind her.

“Everything okay?” He moves to grab a pair of shorts and shirt.

“Yeah. Just not what I was expecting. You literally live out of suitcase don’t ya?” She watches him take off his suit coat and gulps at how his shirt is sticking to him.

“Some trips it feels like that. This one we won’t be home until the 26th… then a home stand with a few games on the road… and I’m boring you. Set up wherever you want and I’m gonna go change then will be right back.” He heads to the bathroom shut the door softly.

MacKenzie stares at the uncomfortable looking desk chair in a moment of indecision wanting to be set up so she’s working when Nate returns, she decides the bed was a better option for her to sit. Getting out her laptop Kenzie starts typing as soon as she hears Nate opening the door. He smirks when he sees Kenzie on the bed and moves to the desk to find the menu. She cannot help watching him. His muscles easily seen in the shirt and shorts he picked. He hikes up his pant leg exposing his thigh. Kenzie coughs focusing back on her work again.

"Here it is." Nathan turns around and walks towards MacKenzie handing her the menu. She stares at the menu then her finger lands on a cheeseburger and fries. Nathan moves to the other side of the bed, sitting to call in the order. He hangs up and starts to move.

"You can stay here. That chair is horrible looking." MacKenzie looks over at Nathan and he stops moving then looks down at his feet before swinging them up and adjusting to sit on the bed.

"Thanks." He looks over at her screen. "So what exactly do you do?"

"Simple description... I am a social media consultant." MacKenzie giggles. "Speaking of... your social media..." "Is non-existent." Nathan finishes her statement.

"Yeah, only two posts. That’s shocking for someone your age. Nate, do you know how you could amplify your earnings post career?" MacKenzie moves her computer and shift so look at him. He rubs the back of his neck and rotates on his hip to look at her better.

"Yeah. No, yeah. I get it. Just not my thing but you looked at my socials?" He bites his lip.

"I did after we ran into you at the bar post-game. Would've felt funny giving you my number if you had a girlfriend." MacKenzie admits.

"No girlfriend. So did you say you watched the game?" Nate changes the subject which Kenzie made a mental note of.

"Background noise while working. You can turn the tv on now or just talk to me. You scored." Kenzie looks over at Nathan.

"Empty netter but yeah. Nice win." Nathan says softly. The knock on the door stops their conversation. "Oh, dinner!" Nathan pops up and answers the door.

Dinner was delicious. The two shared backgrounds such as where they were from, college for MacKenzie, boarding school and early days of hockey for Nathan. They were laughing at each other's stories which lead to both laying on their stomachs watching a video for MacKenzie's work on her laptop.

"Kenz... Kenzie. Wake up!" Nathan whispers and MacKenzie's groggy self pops up and lands on Nathan's naked torso.

"Holy fuck!" She yells out. Nathan's hands steady her.

"Hey." Nathan backs up and bends to look her in face. Panic written all over her face. "You okay? We fell asleep talking." He looks at her.

"Why didn't you wake me? What time is it? Fuck. Sorry. I'm on a schedule." MacKenzie pulls away and looks for her bag realizing Nathan plugged her computer in at some point.

"It's 6:30. We just slept. I sleep shirtless and, uh, must've taken it off in my sleep. Sorry, should've put in on before I woke you. Hold on." Nathan moves to the other side of the bed and throws his shirt back on. "Let me call you an uber." He grabs his phone.

"I can walk. I don't have a meeting until noon so I'm fine. Thank you." MacKenzie points to the bathroom and Nathan nods.

She stands in front of the mirror for way too long just looking at herself. Pinches her cheeks and starts ranking her fingers through their loose blonde curls making them manageable enough to put up in a high ponytail. She grabs Nathan’s toothpaste and brushes her teeth with her finger.

“Well, Mac. This will have to do.” She bobs on the balls of her feet to psych herself up. Returning to the room she notices that Nathan had changed and slipped on some shoes. “Whatcha doin’ Nate?”

“I’ll walk with you. I wanted to grab coffee from down the street before we leave for the airport.” He grabs his wallet.

“You don’t have to.” Kenzie whispers as she heads to her bag.

“I don’t, but I wanna.” Nate smiles at her. She notices those soft eyes again. Almost gray but then again blue.

They head out of room to the steps. MacKenzie took a deep breath not realizing she was holding it until they got to the door.

“Why good morning you two!” Gabe’s voice comes from around the corner with a bag and coffee in hand.

“Mornin’” Nate answers and pushes the cross walk button.

“Glad to see you Kenzie.” Gabe nods and starts whistling while heading back to the hotel.

“Don’t mind him.” Nate breaks the silence after crossing the street.

“I’m assuming he’s thinking you got lucky last night.” MacKenzie tries to control her racing heart.

“I’ll talk to him.” Nathan assures her. She stops and looks up at him.

“Did you want to?” She puts her hand on her head not sure she really said it out loud.

“What?” Nathan stops and looks at her confused.

“Did you want to sleep with me?” She looks to see if anyone could hear her.

“No. Well… damnit. Hi. Let me start over.” Nathan looks deep in her eyes and cups her face.

“Go ahead.” She’s not sure if the words actually could be heard or not.

“I like you. You are easy to talk to. In the short time I’ve known you I’m constantly wanting to know more. I’m just bad at dating.”

“Why do you say that?” She moves closer to him without thinking.

“I’m not romantic. Plus my job isn’t the easiest for most of the year to maintain a healthy relationship. Plus, there is those who just want me for what I could give them.” He drops his hand to her hip. She sees his chest rise and fall.

“Who says you aren’t romantic?” MacKenzie questions.

“Every girl I’ve dated.” Nathan grumbles. This makes Kenzie laugh. “Well, they have.”

“I like you too, Nate. You intrigue me.” She feels the heat in her cheeks.

“So to answer your original question, yes. I would very much like to be physical with you but I also want to date you. Like not to fuck it up by…” She stops him by pushing herself to her tip toes to softly kiss his cheek.

“Well, saying all that is a start in how not to fuck it up.” She smiles at him. “Let’s get me back to my hotel then we can visit this whole dating thing when you return to Denver.” She starts walking and he quickly grabs her hand to walk with her.

“Here we are.” He stops at the doors of her hotel. “So, I’ll see you in two weeks, Kenzie.” Nathan drags out the two while contorting his face.

“It’s not that long plus you will be busy and I have this plus another project to finish before then.” She rubs the back of his hand with her thumb realizing how large his hand was in comparison which could crush her hand if he wanted. “Thanks for dinner Nate.”

“Can I?” He starts and gulps. MacKenzie watches his Adam’s apple bob. “Can I kiss you?” He asks with a quiver in his voice. She nods her head yes. Nate brings his hands up to her jaw holding her face up while he leans in pressing his lips to hers. Kenzie kisses him back and cannot remember a first kiss quiet like that. He releases while sucking in a deep breath.

“I…” Kenzie touches her lips.

“Well, see you soon Kenzie.” He kisses her forehead then turns quickly to head back down the street leaving Kenzie wanting more.

[imagines-by-a-typical-fangirl]

Stay With Me (Pt. 01 of 09)

Pairing: Daryl Dixon X Reader

Word count: 2.9 K

Summary: Daryl found you surrounded by the dead, stuck in the backseat of a car. You were wishing for death to take you away for quite a while now, but, as you slid back and forth into consciousness, there was only one thing keeping you alive. Him, the man with blue, worried eyes and kind voice. Your beaten up body was ready to give up, too wounded and broken to keep going. But this man, who went out of his way to save your life is the only thing in the world holding you up. And, because of him, you feel something you haven't felt in a very long time: hope. Wherever he's taking you, you want to get there, and not only to be buried. For what it feels like the very first time, you want to live. He takes you back to Alexandria, but even there, the nightmares and the terror from all the torture and pain you've been through keeps creeping closer, and Daryl, your hero, is the only one who can keep that all away.

Warnings: Mentions and description (not graphic) of past abuse; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); some violence at the end of the story (a little bit graphic, but not so much); blood.

Next part (02) ->

{The Walking Dead Masterlist}

A/N: I want to thank my awesome friend @jodiereedus22 , who helped me (and still does) a lot to get this story done. She's also a writer and she's amazing so please go check her work!!

×

Blue Eyes and Angel Wings

“Stay with me.”

The sentence is the only thing keeping you alive. The only thing keeping you from surrendering into darkness permanently. The lips from where they flow belong to the human blur that's constantly in your sight. The man with worried, blue eyes, the eyes that gave you something you didn't have for a very long time.

Hope.

You have been in the backseat of the useless car you stole, out of gas, surrounded by a sea of death. Their hands pushing the glass, blocking the daylight from coming in as you lied down, trying not to move, not to breathe, waiting for them to move along. But they didn't. Your sore, beat up body struggled, as the blood dried, as the wounds ached, as the pain became greater and greater until it stopped. Until your body went numb.

The glass wouldn't resist for too long. You only wished you'd die before they reached you.

The notion of time left your mind after a while. You only noticed as the day became night when the darkness overcame you completely. It happened twice. And yet, there you were still, more dead than alive, eyes locked on the back of the driver seat before you.

You don't understand why you didn't just die. Why your body was still trying to live. It was useless. A waste of time. In death, maybe, you'd find peace.

But at some point in your agony, a gap among the dead allowed the light to come in. But it only lasted a second before it was gone. Then it happened again. Your tired eyes followed the source of the light as they kept coming, over and over. Until you saw it. One of the dead falling, colliding against the window with an arrow on its head.

Someone had to fire that arrow, you thought. More gaps kept coming, and some of them remained for a little while. You didn't think you'd love the daylight so much, that you could miss the sun so much. Holding your breath, closing your eyes tightly shut, you used all the strength left in you to push yourself up, until you were seated, back colliding against the leather of the backseat. When another arrow came, your head moved to look for the source. That's when you saw him.

Blue eyes. Living eyes. They found you, going wide at the sight.

The dead kept dying. For another day and a half, until they were gone.

“Stay with me.” He says again, as your eyes open just enough to see the bottle he's holding before you. “Hold on. Jus’ a lil’ longer.” You feel the bottle touching your lips, and water fills your mouth, but most of it just rolls down, soaking your neck, chest, and clothes.

“Alright. Let's get goin’.” When he turns around, doing something out of your sight, your eyes fall on the angel wings on his vest. That's the image that burns in your head as you slip into your half-conscious state, being lifted up once again, moving, floating, hurting.

Sometimes you wonder if he only found you to carry you into death. Because that's where you feel like your heading. Right into death.

• • •

Breathing comes easily. A lot easier then it has for the last... You don't know. Time is lost to you, minutes, hours, days or weeks, it's all mixed up.

But you shouldn't be breathing if you're dead, then maybe you're not. Pushing the air in, a groan leaves your lips when a sharp pain on your side pushes the air out again. The pain is back. Death doesn't hurt, so this gotta be life.

So with that thought in your mind, you force your eyes to open, taking in a bright white ceiling. There's something in your face, covering the nose and mouth, and you're quick to remove it, suddenly realizing that thing was helping with the breathing. Your eyes scan through the place, seeing shelves and things on top of them. Beeps on your right, windows, and equipments you don't know.

Hospital. It looks like a hospital. But how can you be at a hospital?

“She wasn't just hurt, she was–”

The voice makes your heart start pounding, and you sit up, breathing heavily. You wonder where's the man with blue eyes. Did he leave you here?

The door is opened and two women come in. Pure terror clouds your senses and your blood runs cold, like ice. It can't happen again. It can't be happening again. You couldn't be given such a tiny bit of hope jut to fall into the same nightmare.

The younger woman moves, just a little, but it's enough to make you jump, pushing yourself further away, your body leaving the bed and hitting the ground hard. Trying to get up is useless. You know your body won't respond, so you pull the hospital bed down, and it collapses loudly on the floor. The tears already cover your face as you crawl backward until you find a wall. There's no place to go now. No way to run, or fight. You're trapped.

They'll hurt you again and there's nothing you can do.

Covering your head with both your hands, you pull your legs into your chest, despite the pain it shoots through your body, curling into a ball. As if it would protect you from anything.

“Honey?” Someone says in a low, feminine voice. “We won't hurt you.”

You've heard that before. It's always a lie.

“Hello?”

“Denise. Go get Daryl. Now.”

You feel them coming closer, and you hear as the hospital bed is lifted. This is it. It'll start. All over again.

“Hi, there.” A voice says, the same voice you've been listening for a while. Telling you to stay awake, to stay alive. Carrying you, holding you.

He's here. He didn't leave you.

Soaking in a sharp breath, you raise your head, your eyes finding him by the door. Your whole body relaxes, almost involuntary. The man hesitates, looking at the woman before making his way over you. The blue eyes capture you as he crouches next to you.

The words try to make they way out, but your throat is dry, sore.

“I'm Daryl.” He says, looking down before looking at you once again. “Yer hurt. Ya need to be taken care of.” He moves to the side a little, gesturing at the two women. “They'll take care of ya. Ok?”

Nodding weakly, you try to move, to stand up, but you don't know how to. When you look at your leg, you finally notice the blood that soaked the fabric of your jeans, ripped in the middle of your tight, giving you a sight of what's underneath. Your skin was sliced open, and you remember why. And who did it. The smile on his face as he drew the knife through your skin, inflicting the last wound he could before the dead came. Before you fled that hell on Earth.

Through the corner of your eye, you see Daryl's hand.

“I've been hurt too. I know how yer feelin’. But these people only want to help, alright?”

Lifting your eyes from his hands to his face, you remember it clearly now, with no share of doubt, how this man took care of you. For how long he carried you after almost two days killing off the dead for you. Slowly, you lay your shaking hand on top of his.

Slowly, moving your legs and holding your breath, you gather the courage to stand up again.

“I can put ya in the bed.” Daryl offers, and you lock eyes with him again. “I'm gonna pick ya up, is that alright?”

Nodding again, you watch as he slowly moves, an arm on your back and the other under your legs, slowly, carefully pulling you up. Soon enough you feel the soft mattress against your back as Daryl puts you down. Breathing out in relief, you see a woman approaching, the younger one, and Daryl steps back.

In a jolt of adrenaline, as fear starts building up again, you reach out, the sudden, fast movement making you groan a little when pain spreads through your arm. But you keep moving, grabbing Daryl's hand before he's out of reach. His skin is warm against yours, or maybe you're just too cold. You try to speak again, ask him to stay, beg if needed, but it just doesn't come out. Then you just look into his eyes, hoping it will be enough, squeezing his hand just a little bit.

“Daryl, I think she needs you to stay.” The other woman says, the one with gray hair. “Is that what you want, honey?”

Without looking away from Daryl, you nod, relieved when he steps closer.

“I'll start, ok? I need to see where exactly you're hurt and how serious the injuries are.”

“That's Denise,” Daryl explains, and you look at the girl as she hesitates before taking a scissor from somewhere, cutting your jeans just above the wound you saw. “And that's Carol. Ya can trust them, alright?”

Can you?

Holding Daryl's hand, you moan and wince, as many tears roll down. Every shot of pain makes you go back to imprisonment. The dark basement, the cold concrete, the men and women who came to hurt you, beat you, trying to force you to agree on complying with their filthy desires. And every time you said no, it got worse.

If it wasn't for Daryl's hand, you'd swear you were back there, being tortured again. But he keeps you anchored here, and you try to keep in mind that these people are trying to help. He said they would, so they might be.

“I will need her cleaned up before continuing. There's a lot of mud, dirt, and dried blood. I need her body to be clean to avoid any infections.” The woman Denise says.

“I can help her,” Carol speaks up.

“Good. Let's put her on the bathtub we have here.” Denise speaks fast, and you can't do anything but follow her with your eyes, motionless. “Daryl, get her some clothes. But pay attention. Nothing tight. And get those cotton shorts, you know? They look like leggings but are really short, I don't want nothing squeezing her leg, this wound is worrying me, and I–”

“Denise, why don't you go get those. I'll clean her up and...” Carol gives you a glance. “...I don't think she'll let go of Daryl.”

“Alright.” She nods, getting a piece of fabric to clean her hands. Clean them from your blood.

“Ok, honey. Let's do this.” When Denise leaves, Carol comes closer. “Daryl will take you to the bathroom and I'll help you, is that ok?”

Squeezing Daryl's hand, you look at him. Even though he's a man, you know you'd feel better if he helped you instead of this Carol.

“Daryl can stay there. Looking away. Would that make you feel better?”

Breathing out in relief, you nod. “I'll pick ya up then. Ready?” Daryl asks, carefully moving to hold you in his arms once again.

You close your eyes shut as the small trip to the bathroom makes your body complain. Your state of numbness is fading, so the pain gets more and more real now. It's hard to tell exactly where it comes from. You're aware of the cut on your leg, and sharp pain on your side, but all the rest is just mixed up.

Daryl puts you down in the tub, slowly. Carol comes in soon after, kneeling and turning on the water. Your eyes follow Daryl as he moves to the door, standing there, his back at you, giving you the sight of the angel wings on his back. Seeing it makes you relax, and you close your eyes to feel the warm water filling the tub.

Carol is patient. Very patient. The last thing you want is to take off your clothes, so she asks and waits until you let her help you remove them. The wounds burn in contact with the water, and the fact that you must rub the soap on them, to avoid any infections, only makes it worse. You can't help the tears rolling down, and the groans that leave your mouth. It feels good to take a bath, to remove all the mud and dirt, but you wish it didn't hurt this much. Your eyes always fall on Daryl, just to make sure he's still there. Carol also washes your hair, and you're thankful for that because you'd never be able to do that yourself.

After some time, you don't really know how much, you're done, and you have no choice but to sit on the edge of the tub as Carol helps you get dressed. The doctor, Denise, got you black underwear, a light gray tank top, and these soft shorts, that end up right above the cut on your leg. “I'm sorry, I know it's cold, but I don't want anything compressing your body right now. You're very...” Her voice fades and you look at the floor in between your feet. “Here. Take this.” You shake a little when you feel a weight on your shoulders, only to realize it's just a blanket. “Sorry.”

“Daryl. Can you take her back to the bed?”

“Yeah.” He finally turns around, those blue eyes finding yours almost immediately. “Hey. I can see yer face now.” He mumbles, picking you up again.

Once you're back in at the hospital bed, Denise finishes her job, covering all the major wounds. You just found out why your side hurts. Apparently, there are a few cuts on your ribs, right below your breast. As Denise stitches them up, the memory comes back, as vivid as if you were there again. That man, with dark brown eyes and a devilish smile, hovers over you, the needlepoint knife pressed against your skin as he said you'd soon give in, enjoy the pain, and ask him to that over and over again, in the most fun parts of your body.

The memory makes you flinch away when Denise's finger brush on your skin, and you desperately look around, looking for him.

“Hey. S’ alright.” Daryl's voice comes from behind you, and shyly, you reach out your hand, which he takes in a loose grip.

You're not sure how long you stay there, cold and whining, but eventually, the doctor is over. Carol wraps the blanket around you as Denise talks about the pills you'll need to take and how to keep the wounds clean. You don't really pay attention, wondering what happens now. Where you are, and if this new world revolves around this room alone.

“Honey.” Carol stands beside the bed, getting your attention. “We'll take you home now. Daryl and I share the house so you'll be with us, ok?”

Knowing you'll be around Daryl is what makes you nod, agreeing with her. Carol gestures at him, and he's quick to hold you up one more time.

In the last days, you've spent more time in Daryl's arms than anywhere else. It hurts, way too much, with every step he takes, even though you feel that he tries to keep you as still as possible. Ever since the man showed up, you've been feeling safe. You didn't think you'd ever feel safe around someone again. Everyone you met after you were forcefully separated from your first group tried to hurt you. But this man, a complete stranger, stopped whatever he's doing to rescue you. To bring you here, wherever this is, to help you survive.

When he steps out the hospital-like room you were in, you can't help but hide your face on his neck, protecting your eyes from the daylight. And protecting yourself from the small group of people you spot downstreet. Despite being curious to know where you are, you don't wanna look. You don't want people to see you, to know you exist, to think about you. If they don't know you're here, they won't want to hurt you.

“Welcome to your new house.” You hear Carol saying, and the noise of a door being open. Finally, you open your eyes to take in the... Normal house. If you tried really hard, you could even pretend this was a normal house from before... When the dead remained dead. “Daryl, upstairs. The guest room.”

He only murmurs a response you can't understand, and a minute later you're on a bed again, much more comfortable than the first. Your head rests on a fluffy pillow and a long breathe leaves from your lips.

Daryl steps back, turning to talk to Carol, both standing by the door, talking low. You don't try to understand, you just keep your eyes on the wings... Until they leave, disappearing in the hall.

“Sweety, Daryl will take a shower, ok? And I will make you something to eat, to sustain you until dinner. I'll be downstairs so if you need me, you just have to call.”

She waits a while before leaving too.

Being alone isn't the problem. The memories are. You wish your brain would stop working, stop trying to take you back to the cold, hard floor of the basement where you had a taste of what hell must be like. You try closing your eyes, but the darkness brings their faces back. Smiles, laughter, yells. All those people having fun with your suffering, placing bets on how long you'd resist before surrendering.

A couple of minutes later Carol comes back with a glass of water and scrambled eggs, helping you get into a sitting position and urging you to eat before leaving you alone again.

Frozen, you look at the eggs. They smell amazing, and slowly, you take some with your fork, raising it up to your mouth. The taste is so good it makes you ignore the pain spreading through your arm. Your stomach starts complaining violently, urging you to eat more. It's been quite a while, but still, you can't seem to push your body to work any faster. So you just keep looking at your food, trying to figure out which pain you can endure. On your arm or on your stomach.

A knock makes you look up, finding Daryl by the open door, damp hair, and a clean face. The very image of him calms your heart, setting it at ease. “Won't ya eat?” He asks, stepping inside and gesturing at the plate in your lap.

Weakly, you nod, taking some more and raising the fork to your mouth again, trying not to let him notice how your hand shakes, and you almost drop everything before successfully reaching your mouth.

“Do ya... Do ya need help?”

Blushing and embarrassed, you shake your head no, giving up eating. Focusing on not making a mess, you put the plate, still half full, on the nightstand, taking the glass of water. The weight seems to be too much, and your muscles give up trying to lift it, letting it slip and fall back on the nightstand.

“Lemme–” He mumbles, coming fast and taking the glass from your hand. You don't understand why he hesitates there for a moment, before kneeling beside the bed. “Here, drink.” Carefully, he brings the glass close to your mouth, and you lay your hand on top of his, taking fews sips, only then noticing the water is cold. How is the water cold?

That's when you finally take in the lamp on the ceiling, above the bed, the light on. They have electricity. What the hell is this place?

Pushing the glass away, you clear your throat, taking a deep breath.

“I'll leave ya to–”

“Stay.” It comes out suddenly, your voice so weak, so terribly low you barely recognize it. You didn't know you would actually say it, that this feeling, this need would build up and crawl its way out of your heart like that.

It makes Daryl stop in his tracks, already up and ready to walk away. The way he looks down at you, it's clear he's also wondering if he did hear you. You haven't spoken yet, you realize.

“Stay with me.” You force the words out again, repeating the same thing he said to you while he had to carry you through the woods. The words that kept you trying, fighting, struggling to have another chance to live.

“Alright.” He makes a small pause, eyes on the ground before taking a deep breath and sitting on the bed, near your knees. “We were worried. Thinkin’ ya couldn't speak.”

Shrugging your shoulders, you pull the blanket up when you shiver, holding it above your shoulders.

“Will ya tell me yer name?”

His blue eyes are locked on yours, and you feel yourself relaxing, calming down, more comfortable. “(Y/N).” You say, your throat burning a little.

A small, quick smile flashes on Daryl's lips, soon disappearing. But it was there, you know it. Slowly, he reaches out his hand, and you take it without hesitating, watching as he lightly shakes it.

“I'm Daryl. Nice to meet ya, (Y/N).”

×

@funeral-7 @heyyy-hey-babyyy

[icarusthefoolish]

Fundy x reader

(An: It's been a bit since my last oneshot hasn't it? Im sorry for the long wait i dont even know why i didn't post anything, but i so hope you enjoy this!)

Sleepless

You were sitting at your desk studying and trying your best to cram the material needed for the upcoming test in to your brain, you were quickly growing frustrated though because every time you finally understood something there was even more to learn and you knew that you wouldn't get any sleep tonight though you didn't expect anything else since you haven't had a good night's sleep in ages due to your Insomnia acting up again.

You had been suffering from Insomnia ever since your early teens and you had come to terms with the little sleep you got, yes you had medication to help you fall asleep but said medication was empty and you hadn't been able to get a new prescription for it, since you had been cooped up in your apartment for pretty much the entire week. 

(A/N: Im going of the german system here i don't know if you need a prescription to get sleeping medication in America or anywhere else.) 

It didn't help much that you were stressed because a lot of deadlines were coming up for projects you hadn't even started with. You were so immersed in your studying that you didn't even hear the door to your small office open but that could also be because you had music blasting in your ears out of the headphones that you were wearing.

You looked up startled as a hand was placed on your shoulder, you plucked the headphones from your ears and looked to your boyfriend Floris better known as Fundy. "Hmm? What is is Floris...?" You sounded as tired as you looked and he looked at you with worry "you really should go to bed, studying in the middle of the night wont help you with anything" You raised one eyebrow at him before your eyes went to the clock on your desk, the red numbers clearly displaying 2 am. You were a little shocked at the time you didn't think you had stayed up this long so you looked at Fundy with an apologetic smile. "Im Sorry Floris... I didn't mean to stay up this long but my insomnia is acting up again and i really have to ace this test. I swear I'm going to bed soon let me just finish this page then i'll be straight to bed." He sighed and nodded he knew better then to try and reason with you so he let you be. "Ok but if you aren't in bed in the next hour i'll come here and force you." He smiled and ruffled your hair before giving you a kiss on the forehead and leaving for the bedroom.

You smiled and blushed before sighing and putting your headphones on again, you turned to your material again determined to get done in an hour. And that is what you did, you continued studying, answering a few of the questions before jotting down notes to help you study the next day. When you were finally done for the night the clock had struck 3 am and you yawned loudly before standing up from your desk and stretching, you shut of the lights in the room and put your phone in the pocket of your hoodie which in reality was just one of Fundy's hoodies that you stole. You made your way to the bedroom quietly and peaked inside to see Fundy laying in bed on his phone, you were ready to scold him for staying up before you remembered why he stayed up.

You immediately felt bad and slowly walked into the room, his eyes lifted from the phone screen and he smiled at you before putting his phone on the bedside table and standing up engulfing you in a warm hug, you had no idea how but Fundy was pretty much always warm which is why you started jokingly calling him "my heater" you smiled and cuddled into him before speaking quietly. "I'm sorry for keeping you up, I didn't mean for it to get even later but i really wanted to finish the page." Fundy only shook his head and tugged you to the bed. "It's fine, I know how important that grade is for you so im not mad, im just Happy that your here now." You let out a quiet giggle and climbed into the bed on your side, immediately snuggling back into Fundy after you settled. You looked into his eyes before speaking again, "i really don't mean for my study sessions to go this long but i lose track of time easily and my insomnia is also getting worse."

Fundy frowned and started rubbing your back "but you have medication right?" You nodded quickly stifling a yawn before answering. "I do but they are empty and since i haven't been out of the house at all recently I couldn't get a new prescription for the pills which means i don't have them." Fundy nodded before shaking his head. "it doesn't matter we can get a new prescription tomorrow for now let's try sleeping how does that sound?" He looked to you for confirmation to find that you had already fallen asleep to his voice and he let out a quiet chuckle before closing his eyes and drifting of himself.

[lost-in-the-80s]

You Don’t Want My Love - Chapter 3

Pairing: Duff McKagan x reader

Words: 3,786k

Summary: Guns n Roses hires a new tour assistant, but nobody thought that Duff would fall for her.

In this chapter: Erin’s arrival on the tour turns the band upside down. Y/N hadn’t realized how much she needed a friend until she had her to talk to. Y/N and Slash go to an arcade.

A/N: 1- I was struggling with this chapter, so sorry if it’s shitty. 

       2- I was thinking about making a playlist inspired by this fic, do you guys want it? If so, let me know! 

       3- Also, reminding you that I’m posting a new chapter every Tuesday.  

Tag list: @roger-taylors-car @ladieswttda @teasid @metalheartofgold @slashscowboyboots​ @ginny-rose-sixx​ @rumoured-whispers​ @vinylvintage​ add yourself to my tag list :)

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After Tom’s departure Y/N couldn’t avoid feeling a little lost, she’d grown used to him instructing her and she missed his participation at the silent book club. It wasn’t a club though, just the two of them, sitting backstage reading without saying anything.  

The only good part about Tom leaving was that she finally got his bunk. It felt weird during the first night,  to sleep somewhere that wasn’t the couch, but as soon as she fell asleep her body got used to it. 

Duff was on the bunk on top of hers, as she was a light sleeper she would hear him mumbling some things while he was sleeping. He moved a lot also, which would usually wake her up, but she didn’t really mind.

It had been a week since Tom left and the things with the boys were starting to get back to normal. Duff helped her get more along with them, inviting her to play cards with the boys one night and asking about her opinion in random conversations, just so she could participate.

The two of them had grown quite close during this week, he was a nice guy, she could tell that. He always asked her to join them wherever they were going and even helped her with some of her duties when he had some free time.

And that was quite the problem. She liked his company, he was easy to talk to, and when there wasn’t a subject he would ask for her opinion on the books she was reading. He was a sweet boy. Too sweet to say the truth, and she was starting to want to be around him. But she shouldn’t.

Duff was from a completely different world, the two of them were complete opposites and the only reason why he was spending time with her was because he had no one else to. She knew that as soon as the tour ended she wouldn’t ever see him again, so she didn’t want to become too close to him.

She and Steven were back to normal, he never acted like that again and Izzy, well, Izzy was a hard person to read, he had never been rude to her, but they didn’t really talk. She didn’t take that personally though, he didn’t really talk to anyone.

Things with Axl remained the same, he hadn’t talked to her for eight days and counting, sometimes, she would laugh at one of Duff’s jokes and he would give her a death glare, but she tried to ignore.

Slash was another story. She talked to him, but just the necessary, she was still upset about what had happened during the party and expected him to apologize, but as the days passed, the less probable it got for him to do so. 

In that morning, she woke up before the boys, and after doing her routine and checking up her agenda she realized that they would reach the next city around ten in the morning. 

Talking to the bus driver, he informed her that they would stop for breakfast in thirty minutes, which allowed her to do her favorite part of the job.

Getting inside the bedroom area she turned on the lights while saying loud enough for all of them to hear. 

“Good morning, princesses! It’s 7 in the morning and we’ll make a stop for breakfast in thirty, so move your asses out of the bed and get ready!” 

Leaning against the wall opening, she saw Axl exiting his bunk, his hair was a mess as he slowly walked towards the bathroom while rubbing his eyes.

The second to wake up was Steven, just like her, he was a morning person. He got up quickly, putting a white tank top on before giving her a huge smile. “Good morning, Y/N!”

“Good morning, Steve!” She smiled back.

As soon as Axl left the bathroom and Steven got in, Izzy plopped on the ground beside her, he was dressed in just his underwear, which made her look in the opposite direction. However, she did notice the dark circles underneath his eyes and the remains of the hickeys Cheryl had left on his chest.

Cheryl had decided to accompany another band last Saturday, hugging Y/N tightly and telling her to call when she opened her boutique before leaving. 

As per usual, Slash and Duff didn’t get up. 

Getting close to Slash’s bunk she touched his shoulder slightly. “Slash! wake up!”

He mumbled in response and so she moved to Duff’s.

“Duff, time to get up!” Her head was at his bunk’s level. 

He moved slightly before opening his eyes, focusing directly on hers. A small smile appeared on his face. 

“Good morning, Y/N.” His voice was husky due to his sleepiness and for an odd reason, her heart started beating twice as fast.

“Good morning, Duff.” She smiled sweetly before walking out of the room.

Sitting on the couch, she grabbed a Vogue magazine and waited until the boys got ready. As the minutes passed by, all of them joined her in the living room, except for Axl, who was, as always, late. 

When the bus came to a stop and they got up to exit Axl finally showed up, she, Axl and Duff were the only remaining people on the bus and she stopped to let him go first, he was already hating her, she didn’t want to give him one more reason to.

“You can go first!” He gestured with his hand for her to pass. 

She looked at him waiting to see if he was being sarcastic, but the smile on his face told her that he was in a good mood. Strange, she thought while she exited the bus. 

The bright morning sun hit her skin and she stopped for a while, allowing the warm feeling to take a hold of her. Starting to feel as if someone was watching her, she turned around, finding Duff walking slowly towards the snack bar.

“He spends eight days without talking to me and then he suddenly decides he’s ok with my presence!” She scoffed while joining Duff.

“Erin is coming, so he’s in a good mood.” He looked down at her.

“Who’s Erin?”

“His girlfriend.” He opened the door for her to get in first.

“But he was hitting on me when I arrived.” She frowned.

“Oh, that! He was only joking that night.” Duff smiled at her, letting a small chuckle escape.

She and Duff sat beside Steven, in front of Axl and Izzy, Slash being to her right.

When the waitress arrived, she started making the orders, a month with them had been enough time for her to know that they had certain habits.

Izzy would always ask for a black coffee and a pack of cigarettes in the morning, while Steven would ask for pancakes. Slash and Axl liked scrambled eggs with coffee and Duff would usually eat pancakes with Steven.

After asking for the food, she took a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, giving it to Izzy. 

“Thank you!” He smiled at her. “You know, I didn’t expect much from you Y/N, but your efficiency is something to be recognized!” 

The compliment made her smile. “Thanks.”

As soon as the food arrived they started eating while making small talk.

“These scrambled eggs remind me of my grandma ones!” Sash smiled, “You guys wanna try it?” He extended the plate for the rest of them.

Steven got some for himself, while Izzy simply shook his head. 

“Want some, Y/N?”

“No, Thank you.” She replied while looking at her plate. 

She didn’t see Slash frowning when he looked at Izzy as if asking if he had done something wrong, to which he shrugged.

---

Back at the bus, she focused on her reading while Steven put some cartoons on the TV.

Sitting in front of her, Slash spoke up.

"Did I do something you didn't like, Y/N?"

She stared at him for a couple of seconds. How could he not remember? She thought.

Taking a deep breath, she closed the magazine. "Actually, you did."

He stopped for a second as if he was trying to remember. "What was it?"

"You seriously don't remember?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "...No?"

They all started to stare at the two of them. Even Axl, who was expecting to see a fight. He had seen what had happened that night, but he thought Slash remembered.

"You tried to kiss me that night at the party." 

"Wha-... Whe-... Oh shit, was that you?"

She nodded as a response.

Axl and Steven started laughing, Slash's face was full of confusion and embarrassment.

"Wait! She's the hot chick who you were complaining about?" Duff interjected, making fake quotation marks with his fingers.

Slash's face got hot and he thanked that his hair covered most of it.

The boys started laughing harder, even Izzy joined them.

"Oh shit! I'm so sorry, Y/N! I swear I didn't recognize you, I wouldn't ever have done that to you!" He rubbed his forehead and his embarrassment was enough to make Y/N realize that he was telling the truth.

"I'm so so sorry!" 

"It's ok, just don't make it happen again!" She pointed a finger at him.

"Sure, sure! You have my word!" 

---

After two more hours on the bus, they finally arrived at the hotel. They were in New York, and their hotel was huge, the lobby itself making Y/N's last apartment look like a shoebox.

She walked towards the receptionist and stopped in her tracks when she heard a high pitched scream. Turning around she saw a girl with reddish-brown hair running towards Axl, who embraced her tightly.

She was wearing white denim pants and a black tank top and seemed to be taller than Y/N. Brushing it off she went back to work, making the boys’ check-in. But she couldn't deny that she found the scene cute.

When she was giving the boys their keys, Axl stopped her to make presentations.

"Erin, this is Y/N, our assistant. Y/N, this is my beautiful girlfriend Erin." He was smiling again.

She looked at the girl, finding her smiling while extending her hand towards Y/N, who shook it, smiling a little.

"Nice to meet you!"

"I'm glad I'll have some female company around here!" Erin said, smiling harder.

If she smiles more, her cheeks will start aching. Y/N thought to herself.

"What do we have for today, Y/N?" Axl asked.

"Soundcheck at 2, interview at the arena at 4:30 and the Gig at 7."

"Sorry, doll, I won't be able to go with you." He turned towards Erin.

"But you promised me we would go shopping in New York!" 

"I can't, babe, I’m sorry."

She looked around and a smile appeared on her lips.

"Can I take Y/N with me then?"

Y/N looked up from her agenda. "Me?" Her eyes slightly widened.

"What if we need her?" Axl said.

"Let the girl go, we can survive without her for a day!" Izzy said, patting Y/N's shoulder before heading to the elevator.

"Do you wanna go, Y/N?" Axl asked.

"I could use some shopping." She smiled.

Erin made a happy sound before hugging her. "We're gonna be best friends!!" 

The action made Y/N laugh while hugging her back.

She was going shopping? In New York? She couldn’t believe it!

Once in her room, she took her time making a quick happy dance before quickly changing her clothes for a pink dress and some white high-heels, finalizing her outfit with some sunglasses. 

Getting at the lobby, Erin intertwined her arm with hers and so the two of them got in a taxi and drove towards downtown. 

The girls entered a store, starting to try clothes.

“What do you think?” Y/N asked, showing Erin a short black skirt. 

“Wow! You look fierce!” 

Y/N smiled, turning around to look at herself in the mirror again.

“But it’s a little bit short on you, sweetie, if you want I can get you a bigger size.” The saleswoman said while looking Y/N up and down. 

Y/N checked the skirt in the mirror again, it was definitely short, but she liked it. 

“Who cares if it’s short?” She asked, shrugging.

“If I was into girls, I’d definitely bang you!” Erin said laughing.

The woman’s eyes widened while she turned around leaving the two alone. 

“I hate it when they keep giving opinions.” 

“Uhh, me too!” Erin rolled her eyes. “Are you hungry? ‘cause I feel like my stomach is going to eat me!”

Y/N laughed. “I am!”

“Let’s go eat something then! it’s already 4 pm.”

“Really? Wow, time flew!” 

Getting near the store cashier Y/N started to get worried, she had picked lots of clothes by impulse and now she was worried that she wouldn’t be able to pay for all of this.

“Should I charge everything together or separately?” The woman asked when they put the clothes on the counter.

“Se-” Before she could finish, Erin interrupted.

“All together!” She handed her the credit card.

Erin looked at Y/N and saw the confused expression on her face.

“Axl gave me the band’s card, he said I should pay for your clothes since you keep up with him every day.” She giggled slightly.

“So turns out he’s not that much of an asshole!” Y/N smirked.

Erin nudged her. “He’s not an asshole, he’s just…. just…”

“Temperamental?” Y/N laughed.

“Sensitive!” Erin replied, but laughed along.

After getting their bags, the girls walked side to side towards a beautiful café, where they ordered cake and tea, sitting at a table on the sidewalk.

“So, where are you from, Y/N?” Erin asked when they finished eating.

“North Dakota”

“Wow, and how did you end in LA?”

“I got a scholarship at UCLA.” 

“Really? That’s awesome! And what course did you take?”

“Fashion. I wanted to be a fashion designer.”

“Oh, that explains a lot.” She mumbled before taking a sip of her tea.

“What do you mean?” Y/N leaned against her chair.

“Nothing, it’s just that, the boys get the feeling that you don’t like working here.”

Y/N frowned, but Erin kept talking before she could say anything.

“It’s like, you’re efficient, and you do the job perfectly, but you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself, it’s almost as if it was an obligation for you.”

Y/N stopped to think. “It’s just that, I had so many dreams, and none of them happened, and I’m feeling frustrated you know? I wanted to accomplish many things, but life hit me with a bus.” She looked to her plate, sadness overtaking her.

“Hey, I get that! Sometimes things don’t go as planned.” Erin touched her hand, offering her a warm smile. “But try to see this by the bright side. Like, what are your biggest dreams?”

Taking a deep breath, she drank the remaining of her tea before answering. “I wanted to open my own boutique and I wanted to travel the world”

“Why are you saying I wanted? You can still do these things!” Getting closer to Y/N she moved the flowers in the center of the table away, trying to see her better. “You want a boutique right? If you use the money you get with the tour to invest, in three years you’ll have enough money to open it. My dad works with the stock exchange, I can ask him to give you some tips!”

“Really? Would you do that?”

“Sure!! And you said you wanted to travel the world, girl, what are you doing right now? Look around, you’re in New York, in a few months the boys will go to Europe, you are traveling the world.”

Wow. Y/N had never realized it. She was indeed living one of her dreams. 

“I know that this wasn’t your dream job and that it must be really annoying to deal with the boys and stay for so long in that bus, but at least you’re not dealing with paperwork behind a desk.”

A smile started to form on Y/N’s lips. Erin was right, this was way better than paperwork. She could go to parties, dress whatever she wanted, stay at the best hotels and to be honest, she kind of liked being around the boys.

“Yeah! You’re right, Erin! This is not so bad!” 

Erin nodded excitedly while drinking the rest of her tea. 

“I think we should go back.” Y/N informed while checking the time on her wristwatch.

“Really? Can’t we stay for more? I wanted to go to more stores.” She pouted.

“I’m afraid not. Your boyfriend will freak out if nobody gets him his damn towels.” Y/N rolled her eyes, but giggled a little. “Speaking of it. What does he do with so many?”

Erin raised her hands in defense. “I have no idea.” She whispered while shaking her head.

---

The rest of the day went on by fine, Y/N helped the boys before and after the gig and collapsed on her bed when they got back to the hotel. So many hours walking in heels granted her a long and deep night of sleep.

She couldn’t avoid letting a small satisfied moan to escape from her lips when she got comfortable in bed. It’s so good to lay in a bed that doesn’t shake with the road. She thought, before falling asleep.

The next morning, Y/N woke up with her bedroom’s phone ringing. 

“Yes?” Her voice was grog and she barely could open her eyes.

“Y/N, I want to ask for breakfast, but I don’t know how to use the hotel’s phone.” Steven’s voice filled her ears, he seemed to be hopeless.

She frowned while rubbing her eyes. “But, how did you call me then?”

He paused for a minute. “With the… phone…”

She laughed. “Hang the phone and then press 0, the receptionist will answer you.”

“Oh, ok. Thanks, Y/N!” 

“It’s no problem, Steve.” She hanged the phone, laughing again.

Stretching up she saw it was 11 in the morning already. “Looks like I’ll have brunch!” She smiled, she loved brunch. 

After taking a shower and putting on a pair of jeans with a red blouse, she left her room, asking for the receptionist where she could find a good restaurant nearby. 

---

It was 6 o’clock now. She was in her room reading, her legs rested on the bed’s headboard while she laid upside down. A knock on her door took her away from the romance she was currently addicted to. 

Opening the door she found Slash leaning against her door frame. 

“What are you up to?” He asked casually.

“Just reading.” She pointed towards the book with her thumb.

“Put a jacket, let’s go out!” 

“What? To where?” 

“There’s an arcade nearby.” He put his hands in his pant’s front pockets. 

“Hmm, I don’t know…”

“Come on, everybody is out for dinner, we’re the only ones who stayed.”

Her lips turned into a thin line as she tried to think. 

“Come on, it’s gonna be fun! You can read some other time!”

“Fine! Give me 5 minutes!” She closed the door on his face, before rushing to find her new denim jacket she had bought the day before.

Applying some mascara and a nude lipstick she got her purse and exited the room.

When they got on the street, Slash spoke up.

“Once again, I’m sorry about the party! It won’t happen again!”

“It’s ok!” She assured him with a small smile.

Entering the arcade a red light covered their skins, Tears for Fears played in the background and she smiled, she loved them. 

“What do you wanna do first?” Slash asked after they got the tickets.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, it’s my first time!”

“Oh, so you’re having your first time with me?” He tried to smirk, but ended laughing.

She playfully slapped his arm while laughing. “Idiot!”

“Ok, pinball it is!” He yelled.

Slash taught her how to play and started complaining when her punctuation became bigger than his. “This is not possible! You’ve played it before!”

“I haven't, I swear!” She put her hand at her heart. 

They went on with the night, playing many different games. When they passed by Dance Dance Revolution she stopped in her tracks.

“Oh my gosh! Let’s do this one! Please!”

“What? No way!” He started walking towards another game.

“Come on, you’re owing me after the party!” 

“I’m disappointed you’re this type of person, Y/N.” He touched his chest, pretending that she had hurt him.

“Please!” She laughed at his drama.

“Ok, but I’m just watching, no way I’ll play this.”

She shrugged. “As long as you hold my purse!”

Choosing Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves she started dancing, stepping on the lights with mastery.

Her heart filled with happiness, she loved to dance, and she missed doing it more often.

“Wow! Great score!” Slash congratulated her when stepped out of the game.

“Thanks.”

He was leaning against another game table, looking into her purse, her small mirror was in one of his hands. “How do you manage to put so many things here?”

She got the mirror from his hand along with her purse, while shaking her head at him.

“You lied.”

“Me!?” She scoffed.

“You said you had never been to an arcade, but you destroyed that game!”

“It’s the truth. I had never played that.” They started walking towards the exit.

“How did you do so good then?”

“I was a cheerleader, I know how to dance.” They stopped, getting their jackets.

“A cheerleader huh?” They entered the empty streets and Slash lit up a cigarette.

She shrugged while making a bun with her hair.

They entered the hotel and got in the elevator.

“You know, for someone who listens to ABBA, you’re nice.” He teased her while smiling.

She rolled her eyes. “For someone who wears a shirt saying ‘I’m a slut’, you’re nice.” 

They laughed. The doors opened and they started walking through the corridors.

“This is my room.” She pointed stopping.

“Yeah, I know. It was nice hanging out with you!” He stopped on the other side of the corridor, in front of his door.

She nodded. “I can say the same.”

“Good night, cheerleader!” He said smiling, before entering his room and closing his door.

She rolled her eyes and entered her room. Something inside her head told her that they’d be good friends.

[sunarintoes]

Dear Whovever: [Kenma]

Synopsis: You and Kenma are both best friends and youtube gamers however you want to be more than just best friends so you decide to ‘man up’ one day and write a heart felt confession in a minecraft notebook before then putting it in Kenma’s personal chest.

WC: 3K

TW: slight swearing :)

[Episode one]

[recording in 3… 2… 1… start!] 

“Hey gamers, Kodzuken here with Tulip-but-make-it-yellow! I've done a few Minecraft videos with Tulip before, but thought I'll start a new series that will be posted every Monday.”

“It's called Minedays with Tulip and Kodzu”

“I- no, Tulip. I'm not sure what we’re gonna call it. But you guys will know- obviously since it's the title of this video.”

You whine and pout into the monitor, “Kodzu I think Minedays is a cute name.” 

Instead of replying Kenma rolls his eyes and hits you ingame. “Should we introduce the challenge and get it started?”

“Yeah that's a good idea!” 

“Well, it's about eleven am right now, we have until eleven pm to build a Minecraft house from a random topic,” he pauses and moves to the side to point to a sectioned spinwheel, “on this bad boy,” whacks the spinner, “we have eight different themes, in a sec I’ll spin it and whatever it lands on will be what we have to build.”

You let out a high pitched ‘hmm,’ “I feel bad for Kuroo and Hinata, they’re both going to have to edit twelve hours of footage down to 10 minutes!”

Kenma chuckles, “fifteen minutes actually.”

This time you roll your eyes. “Hurry up and spin it you fool! I want to get buildinggg” 

Smiling, Kenma moves back a bit and spins the wheel, after thirty seconds full of anticipation the wheel finally stops and its small arrow is pointing at- “Yes! Cottage core theme!” you yell out while Kenma groans. 

“Really? That's lame why couldn't we have ‘Lucifer’s Bedroom’?” 

You poke your tongue out to the monitor - which Kenma could see, after all, you are in a Discord call with him. “Don't be sad just because you're prancing in my turf…. Looooooser!”

Kenma playfully glares towards you, “You’re on! See you in twelve hours!”

Unfortunately, the difficulty of building a cottage core house in the woods - in survival mode, proved more difficult than planned. 

“We spawned in a desolate area huh? Barely any flowers!” you hear Kenma make a sound of agreement as you sink into your comfortable ‘gamer’ styled chair. 

“Don't tell me you've given up? Just because you can't find any flowers?” 

You scowl at his cocky tone however your mood does a one-eighty when you suddenly get a good idea. “Ok everyone! I know what I have to do! I'm going to restart in another place because this isn’t working!”

Kenma makes a sound of surprise, “you're restarting? It's been an hour already-”

“Yeah and we have, like... eleven more.” Kenma sighs in response, “better get a move on.”

For the most part, the two of you kept quiet - not wanting to let the other know how well you were doing. However one look at your phone only to see that your twitter has blown up, you decide to take a short break, after all it has been four hours of you sitting on your ass playing Minecraft. Once you open Twitter you're met with a barrage of tags and mentions - all of which screaming ‘KenYn’ and ‘Kodzutulip.’ You felt heat rise to your face, you - yes you, Ln Yn with the online alias Tulip-but-make-it-yellow, has a big, fat, humongous crush on your best friend and fellow youtuber - Kenma, aka Kodzuken aka the cutest guy in the world. To make it worse - or better, you couldn't really tell, was that many of your viewers shipped you with him - as did his viewers. 

You are of course, happy with this but you can’t help but wonder if Kenma feels the same way, does he feel weirded out by all this shipping content? Does he find it uncomfortable? Does he find it unsettling to be shipped with his in-real-life best friend?

“Hey Yn?” Kenma calls softly, “you've been looking at your phone for the past ten minutes and your face looks sad.”

You instantly look up to meet Kenma’s face and try to find the right words to say, “I… I’m just kinda tired and eventually got distracted!! Sorry Kenken!”

Kenma visibly cringes at the old nickname - the one you gave him in primary school, “if you say so… better get your head in the game though - my mansion looks epic.”

Your eyes narrow, “mansion? The theme is cottage core!” Kenma quietly chuckles in response, “a mansion can still have a fairy aesthetic, you should know that”

You huff in faux annoyance as you place your phone away and ‘get your head in the game’ just as he requested. “Be prepared to be crushed! I am the cottage core guardian!”

There are ten minutes left to your’s and Kenma’s excruciatingly long Minecraft challenge, your ass hurts from sitting on it for almost twelve straight hours - including bathroom breaks. When the buzzer rings the two of you step back from your respective buildings and make your way to the starting point - which had been marked by a stack of 20 or so dirt blocks. 

“Well that was twelve hours of eye straining torture,” you say as you stretch your arms. 

“You're tired already?”

“Kinda… I can't wait to go to sleep after this.”

“Weak, I’m playing Battlefield as soon as this is over.”

You roll your eyes and scoff, “this is why you look like a living corpse in the morning…”

Kenma looks you dead in the eyes and with a completely serious face he says, “yeah but you love it.”

You choke on your spit at his boldness, “y-yeah I guess.” 

If you were being honest, you were not the best at reading people and it was dark in Kenma’s gaming room, the only light coming from his three screen/monitor computer setup, but you think you see a light blush creep up to his cheeks. And you hate it, you hate when he says things that make your heart flutter, you hate it when he just sits there and the digital glow accentuates all of his delicate features, but what you hate most is yourself. You hate yourself because you have fallen in love with your best friend, you hate yourself because you know he doesn't like you back and you hate that you continuously give yourself a sense of false hope. 

“Yn… you want to stay up and game with me don’t you? ”

You sheepishly look to the side, ‘mayhaps.’

Kenma sighs looking at you with a soft face as he whispers “then I won’t play Battlefield and I’ll go to bed and so will you, ‘kay?”

You smile tiredly at him, “sounds like a deal.”

“We'll get back on at the same time tomorrow and we’ll do the final part of this video - the reveal. Until then.”

You smile and wave at the camera “cya soon~”

[recording over]

After your call with Kenma ended you got ready for bed but for some reason, no matter how tired you were, you just couldn't fall asleep - your mind was screaming obscene ideas that you couldn't help but contemplate. At first it was just wishful thinking but then came a thought that refused to leave, ‘confess.’ 

It was a tempting thought, but how? Surely you couldn't just say ‘hey Kenma I've liked you since high school lets date!’ yeah no, that was a horrible idea. Maybe if you confessed with some originality he would be more likely to accept but for now, you were going to do your best to go to sleep.

[Episode two]

[recording in 3… 2… 1… start!] 

In the morning you woke up feeling refreshed and excited for the day to come, Kenma had texted you and asked if you were feeling up to recording the reveal from last night and episode two today and of course you said yes. 

The video goes on without any troubles and soon you find yourself staring at the computer screen at eleven once again. 

“Remember to like, subscribe and comment below on who you think won this round.” Kenma’s voice is soothing - if you had to describe it you would say that it is silky like honey and smooth like dark chocolate; or maybe you would just say his voice is perfect. Kenma waves to the screen monitor, “hello? Earth to Yn! Are you dead or something? You look like a zombie.”

It takes a while to register, you weren’t really paying attention to the words he said as you were more interested in the way he sounded. You sit up and smile into the camera, “I'm awake… thanks for caring!”

He scoffs and swivels in his chair a bit, “I don't care about you, you're just my idiot best friend and flatmate.”

You playfully narrow your eyes, “well this idiot flatmate of yours helped you bake apple pie so you wouldn’t starve to death!”

“Hmmm, I guess. Well I'm going to head off. I'll see you later.”

You smile softly, “yeah I'll see you later, i'm just gonna stay on for a while.”

Kenma looks at you with an intrigued expression, “you're going to stay up longer? Better not be in this world, that's cheating. Want me to stay up with you?”

You roll your eyes and giggle, “it's all good I want to fix my house up in the other world. I'll see you tomorrow.”

He sighs, “if you say so.”

[recording over]

Your chair rolls back as you stretch, “maybe I should confess to him through a Minecraft journal…” you jump up. “Thats it! Thats a great way to confess! Its original and Kenma would appreciate it…. If he accepts my feelings that is…” 

You groan and slump back down into the chair, “maybe it’s best if I don't confess at all. No! I've wanted to do this for years! If he doesn't like me back it's all good! Maybe I just won't do this on a stream!”

You reach over to the bench and pull up your phone, “who to call, mmm ok let’s call Alisa I’m going to need some emotional support!”

“Hey gamers, Kodzu here in another Minecraft live stream, today we’re just in mine and Yn’s regular world and i'm going to build a house - a cottage to be specific,” he pauses and looks at the comment section; ‘no Yn isn't here right now, no Yn won't be joining this video, no I didnt know shes streaming at the moment, yes my favourite food is apple pie, yes I have a calico cat, no Yn is not my significant other, yes we are just friends.’ Kenma moves back and takes a breath, “wow you guys sure are interested in Yn huh? Maybe I should get them in more videos, might get more views that way,” he laughs a bit.

“Let's start off by heading to my base, I have the materials I’ll need there- oh uh what's this?” Kenma pauses as he stares at the foreign object, “I don't remember having a written book in my chest… maybe Yn went in here and put it in?”

Kenma stares at the book for a while before he opens it, only to be shocked. The comment section notices the blush on his face and continue to spam him with questions:

[kodzusbabe]: what's in that diary!!

[Kenmastan]: hahAAAHHA LOOK HE’S SO RED IN THE FACE

[piefacecutie]: ^^ omg you're so right @/Kenmastan hes so cute 💓

[Kenmaxyn]: I hope it's a confession!

[ynhater]: @/Kenmaxyn from who? Cause I didn't do it and I'd be the only one for Kenma oppAr

[kennismaken]: I hope it’s Yn! They’d be such a cute couple

[applepudding]: umm? Kodzu! Why did he get up and leave??

[ynhater]: babe come back!

[Kenmaxyn]: OMG MAYBE IT WAS YN !!!!

After your late night call with Alisa, you decided it would be best to just do it and then ignore Kenma for the day - well, not ignore him per se, just simply decline all his Discord calls and Facetime calls so you could put off being rejected a little while longer. You woke up with a throbbing headache that you could only blame yourself for, after all you are the dumbass who stayed up until God knows when just to write a heartfelt confession. Eventually the angst of waiting for a message from Kenma overwhelmed you and here you are now; streaming Overwatch to get your mind off of a certain someone.

“Ah no! Cant believe that stupid Hanzo got me! What a pain!” you frown at the screen and let out a sigh, “the round is over… bummer. Well while we wait an eternity for the next round I guess I should answer some of your questions… oh? I didn't know Kenma was streaming, no I’m not dating him… “ you feel your heart sink as you read the next comment; “what do you mean Kenma ran away after reading a book? Was he unhappy?”

The next moments felt like a blur, your heart was heavy and you felt tears well up in your eyes and somehow you missed the sound of someone breaking into your apartment and then your bedroom. Within a second you feel someone wrap their arms around you from behind, your body tenses up but immediately relaxes when you recognise the perpetrators scent; sweet yet salty, like caramel toffee.

“Kenma! W-what are you doing?”

“I like you too… I have for so long.”

Your eyes widen and it doesn't take too long for a smile to appear on your face, “I'm so glad to hear that.”

You feel him smile into your neck as his embrace tightens, “finish up your livestream so we can talk please.” 

“You don't need to tell me twice!”

It is eleven at night once again, but this time you’re not sitting alone in your gaming chair, instead you're sitting on Kenma’s lap - in his gaming chair as he slowly runs his hands through your hair and softly kisses your neck.

“So everyone’s pretty much freaking out over us huh?” you hum in response, “we’ve been officially together for what? Five hours?”

“Correct you are.”

You smile and hold up your phone while you continue to cuddle into him, “smile baby, I want the whole world to know that you're my player two.”

[Bonus - the love letter]

Dear Kenma,

This must be so strange - finding a journal in your chest. 

I have wanted to tell you this for quite a while and I guess I have never found the write words to say; or the right way to for that matter,

But I love you

I have loved you since our first year at Nekoma

It's been a while hasn’t it?

I'm sorry if this inconveniences you, makes you uncomfortable or makes you never want to see me again; 

Just let me continue for a little while longer because I need to get this off of my mind.

I love your smile - especially the rare one where you really smile, where your eyes crinkle and your cheeks begin to hurt 

I love your voice - it’s smooth and silky, like honey being spread across bread

I love your scent - it reminds me of salted caramel,  I can never get enough 

I love your mind - the way it works to make me laugh, make me calm and all else

I love your lips - not necessarily in a sexual way, but more so in the way you talk and speak, they move softly and slowly in a way only your lips could move in.

I love your body - how although you're hunched most of the time you still possess a fine elegance in the way you move. How at times it reminds me of a graceful swan floating down a lake. 

I love your hands - they are so pretty and dainty and soft, I want to hold them all day and all night

And most of all;

I love you

I love you in your entire

I could go ahead and pick the parts I love most and least but then you would no longer be you

I love you in your entire

Flaws and all

I know this may not be the most romantic, especially considering you’re reading this through Minecraft and I've never done this before but I had to let you know

Love 

Yn

Taglist: [open] @ladyrenart

note: sooo this is another style that i tried and i have mixed feelings about it :) also if you can’t tell,,, i’ve never written a love letter before :’)

[stardustintheabyss]

“I’ve seen you before”

Oikawa x fem!reader

Sum: Taking a deep breath, letting down your guard, getting out of your comfort zone. Opening the wall you built around your heart a long time ago.

You let Oikawa Tooru in.

But was it a mistake?

Warnings: swearing because I have no r e s t r a i n t. Insecurity, bullying. Oikawa being a dumbass. Angst and fluff. Small spoiler at the end.

Word count: A lot, it’s....it’s long. My stupid tablet doesn't have word count capabilities

A/n: this is based on a dream I had. How dare the dream gods give me oikawa and not my husbando(s) tendou(kirishima) 😩 and I write to get scenarios out of my head before they drive me insane

Well at least he's pretty

ok I 💫may💫 have fallen a little while writing this

It had been a long weekend of practice and homework for Oikawa. So what better way to zoneout and relax before bed on Sunday night then scroll through his instagram feed.

He'd been scrolling through random sunset photos when he suddenly saw your face in the 'suggested for you' section. Your picture was of you with what he assumed was your cat perched on your shoulder. It was cute. You were cute.

And you did look familiar. Yes, he has seen you before. He's seen you at school. You're always by yourself, reading a book or on your phone sitting on a bench by the front gates.

He tapped on your photo. He started looking through your posts. Landscapes, food, your cute cat, flowers, sunsets, your family. Is what you mostly posted.

Then he came across the rare selfie.

He was wrong. You weren't just cute.

You were breathtakingly beautiful.

How had he not seen that at school?

You were looking off to the side, a small shy smile on your lips. Sunlight and cherry blossom petals in your wild wind blown hair.

He saw that you were online.

He wanted to talk to you and he didn't have the patience to wait until tomorrow at school.

Hey I've seen you before. You go to Aoba Johsai right?

A message popped up on your phone. One from Aoba Johsai's resident pretty boy and captain of the volleyball club. Oikawa Tooru. What the fuck? You weren't one of his pathetic fan girls that fawned all over him. You never cared for the drama that followed the popular crowd. And in all honestly he kind of repulsed you because of the way he let his ego be stroked. You saw him as a pompous ass. You've never shown any kind of interest in the setter. So why was he messaging you of all people? But curiosity got the better of you and you wrote back. Not like he's gonna talk to you at school anyway. He's popular and you're a loner. Two different worlds.

You know that sounds creepy right? But yes.

I'm just trying to be friendly 😔

I've seen that you sit mostly by yourself and thought you could use a friend 😁

You snorted. Maybe he wasn't as bad as you thought. Still, you didn't want to be too friendly towards him.

I don't care for hs drama but thanks for your chivalry ig 🙄

At this moment your college aged sister begged you to help with one of her cosmetology classes that's due tomorrow. Eyelash extensions. You don't wear makeup but she's your sister and she's giving you puppy dog eyes. You sighed, "Fine." Forgetting to exit out of your messages, you set your phone down, ready to be put through hell.

"Thanks sis! Okay I just need you to lay down and relax." While she got to work the messages on your phone went unnoticed by you.

I'm sorry I didn't mean it like that, promise 😅

Y/l/n?

You there?

I'm REALLY sorry!

It's rude to leave people on read yk

Please ?

Y/l/n-chan?

Oikawa was panicking. He didn't mean to piss you off...and now he might have lost his chance to be your friend...or more maybe?

Trying to face time couldn't hurt right?

It just rang. And rang. And rang.

You didn't pick up.

Please. Y/n I'm truly sorry. Sometimes my mouth gets the better of me and I don't think about what I say. I just meant I'd like to be your friend. If you'd let me?

"All finished, babe." Your sister said. "You're looking gorgeous! If I do say so myself." She took a quick after picture for her class.

You grimaced. You never thought of yourself as pretty let alone gorgeous. "Thanks, I guess. Not one to toot your own horn, huh?"

She just rolled her eyes. " Your phone has been pinging like crazy by the way." Wiggling her eyebrows, "Talking to a boy? My baby sis, all grown up."

"W-what?" You stuttered, picking up your phone. 8 messages and 1 face time call. All from the setter captain. It must be your imagination because in the last message he sounded...flustered? You didn't notice the soft smile that graced your lips. But your annoying sister did.

"Oikawa. Isn't he some volleyball big shot at your school? Y/n, is that a smile I see?" She grinned from over your shoulder, seeing the messages.

"I-. Yes. He is." Furrowing your brows. Denying the truth, "And no, I am not smiling."

"Mmhm. Sooo you going to have a new 'friend' or what."

Your self consciencesness got the better of you. "Why would he want to be my friend? He's him and I'm...me." You bit your lip.

"You idiot. You really don't give yourself enough credit. Your smart, have a kind heart and you are beautiful. You just don't let yourself see it. Let someone in." She whispered in your ear giving you a hug.

You sighed. You believed that your sister believed in what she was saying...but years of middle school bullying ingrained into your heart and mind don't disappear overnight. "I'm tired. I'm gonna go to bed. 'Night sis."

"Good night y/n."

Getting ready for bed you looked in the mirror. You had a tiny smile, your sister was right, the lashes did look great.

It was late but right before you drifted off to sleep you sent Oikawa a message.

Sorry. I'm not mad, I was helping my sister with something...

Taking a deep breath, letting down your guard, getting out of your comfort zone.

Opening the wall you built around your heart a long time ago.

You let Oikawa Tooru in.

...I wouldn't mind having a friend

The next day

He woke up to two new messages from you. He had tried staying up, waiting for a reply back but he must have fallen asleep. His phone still in his hand.

Sorry. I'm not mad, I was helping my sister with something...

...I wouldn't mind having a friend.

A wide sleepy smile came across his face. Just about the time he was going to dm you his phone died. Where's my damn charger? He started rifling through everything, turning his room upside down. The last place he had it was...the locker room.

"Dammit!" He would just have to see you at school. He quickly got ready to go meet Iwa-chan and walk to school.

You weren't necessarily disappointed that Oikawa hadn't replied yet. Even though you had lowered your walls, you set the bar pretty low on expectations. Especially on a friendship with him. But that didn't stop you from being a little excited to see him. You were sitting in your favorite spot at school, reading. Same thing you did every day. It was on a small stone bench in the shade of a cherry tree near the entrance. Abruptly you heard a chorus of squealing. You've learned throughout high school this meant Oikawa had stepped on campus, Iwaizumi reluctantly in tow.

You smiled and waved.

He didn't see. But you didn't know that. 

You thought he was ignoring you. Your smile faded. Last night must have been some prank. It wouldn't have been the first time someone decided it would be funny to play with you like a toy. You never should have listened to your sister and let your guard down.

Tears started to prick your eyes. You shut them tightly, willing them to not fall.

You were not going to cry over Oikawa fucking Tooru.

You grabbed you bag and headed to your classroom.

He had seen you get off the bench and walk towards the building. He tried making his way to you but there was just too many girls blocking him. Letting out a frustrated breath he waved his hand and yelled, "Y/l/n-chan!"

You didn't hear him.

Upset he couldn't get to you he said the only thing he could think of to get all these girls to back off for once. "I have a girlfriend, so could you please respect that." He didn't see the crazy girls make a connection between what he said about having a girlfriend and yelling your name.

He didn't realize he just put a target on your back.

At lunch

You were spinning the dial to your locker getting your lunch when you were shoved against it. You turned around and was met with several angry looking girls. Eyes darting between them. Your fight or flight instincts kicking in.

But nobody ever mentions the third option, which is what happened.

You froze.

"This is her?" Some girl sneered.

What were they talking about? You'd never done anything to these girls. You'd always kept to yourself, ensuring a situation like this wouldn't happen.

"She's not even pretty." Said another taking a sip from her juice carton.

"I bet it's just some joke. He wouldn't be with some fat worthless nobody." The girl who seemed to be the leader said as she pushed you to the ground.

Ignoring the tears starting to run down your cheeks and swallowing the lump forming in your throat, "What are you talking about?"

"Wow, Oikawa has himself a stupid girlfriend." said the leader.

"G-girlfriend?" Ok. Now you really had no clue what the fuck they were talking about.

"Stay the hell away from him. He's mine." With that she dumped the remains of the other girls juice carton on you and they walked away laughing.

Holditin.Holditin.Holditin. You chanted inside your head until you made it to the bathroom where you could cry without being bothered. You had stayed off the radar for years and now you were in the middle of it. You let out a sob, sliding to the floor. You felt like you were right back in middle school. Useless. Fat. Ugly. You brought your knees to your chest. Unloveable. Unwanted. Not worth anybody’s time. That’s why you shut everyone out when you became a first year at Seijoh. You didn’t want a repeat of middle school. 

But it ended up happening anyway. 

So you cried. You cried until you had no more tears. You let it all out until you didn’t care anymore. You had no problem in obeying the threat staying away from the bastard. She could have him. You stood and splashed water on your face trying to ease the puffiness around your eyes. Sighing you realized you'd probably have to stay after school until you looked like you hadn't spent your entire lunch break crying or your sister would ask questions. The now pink stained shirt you could explain away easily. The red and puffy eyes you could not. And you didn't want to deal with that on top of everything else. 

Oikawa had looked for you at lunch but he couldn't find you. He did however hear some girls laughing and chatting about messing with ‘Oikawa’s girlfriend’. How could they mess with someone he made up? He turned to his best friend to ask. “Iwa-chan do you know what those girls were talking about?” he whispered so no one would hear, “How could they have messed with my ‘girlfriend’ when I made her up?”

“Idiot. Remember this morning when you called Y/l/n’s name and then immediately after said you had a girlfriend? And don't call me Iwa-chan, Shittykawa.” He rolled his eyes.

He blanched. He hadn’t realized what he'd done. Or apparently how psycho those girls are. He was so focused on you he didn't even whine about Iwaizumi’s regular insults. He wanted to find you and see if you were okay. To apologize for putting you in that situation. Standing abruptly making his chair screech, “I got to go find her--” The bell signaled lunch was over. Fuck. Maybe she’ll be on that bench after school. I’ve seen her there after practice sometimes.

After school

And by some miracle you were there, reading your book. Oikawa took a minute to look at you before he approached. As in your picture your hair was wild but not unkept, it was hiding your eyes. Your lips were slightly pursed while you were reading and your leg was bouncing contentedly.  

You were beautiful.

You looked okay.

Until he got closer and finally saw your eyes. You had obviously been crying. By the looks of it a lot. He also saw you had a huge pink stain on your shirt. What had happened?

You had heard someone approach but decided it was best to ignore them.

“Are you okay Y/l/n-chan?” Oikawa spoke softly.

You were so not in the mood for this. For him. Your hands tightened around your book, flicking your eyes up at him and then back down, “Don’t.” 

It was only a second but he saw the hurt in your eyes and it was his fault it was there, “I wanted to-” He tried to say but you didn’t let him finish.

Your voice was raw with emotions you didn’t want to feel for him. “WHAT?! You what? Wanted to play with my feelings some more? I bet you had a good laugh last night saying all that shit. And then completely ignoring me this morning when I waved. Making me feel like I could actually have a friend for once?” Your voice got louder and he flinched at your next words. “That someone would even want to be my friend? I fucking knew I shouldn't have but I let you in anyway.” You let out a dark broken laugh and said much quieter, “Even after what happened last time.” Coldly, “Don’t you have a harem to get back to? Just...just leave me alone Oikawa.”

His mouth dropped in shock. He hadn’t seen you wave. What did you mean by last time? He was heartbroken that someone had made you feel this horrible about yourself and he had reminded you of it. He didn’t want to leave you alone, he had to make you understand you were special. He laid his hand on your book trying to make you pay attention. He said the only thing he thought would make you listen. “Tooru.”

You stiffened, nobody calls him by his first name. You've never even heard his best friend call him Tooru. Your voice barely above a whisper, heart stuttering, “What did you say?”

“Tooru. You can call me Tooru. I-I was happy this morning when I woke up when I saw your messages. But my phone died before I could say anything.” He cleared his throat, “ I fell asleep waiting. I was going to talk to you but then that stupid crowd of girls came. Y/l/n I swear I didn’t see you wave! I tried calling for you but you must not have heard me," he frowned, "and I was frustrated so to get them to back off I said I had a girlfriend. I tried looking for you during lunch period but I couldn't find you. Then I heard what those girls did. I’m sorry I put that target on you. I was going to try looking for you again but then the bell rang. This spot after school was my last hope. Well for now anyway, until I got my phone charged.” He rushed out, praying you would forgive him. 

“That’s what they were talking about...” 

“What were they saying? If you don’t mind talking about it.” Gingerly he laid his hand on yours, holding it.

During his speech you had unconsciously torn your walls down yet again. You heard the sincerity in his voice and saw the concern in his eyes. This was real. He did care. Fuck. Somewhere between last night and this morning you had developed feelings, you just hadn't wanted to believe you weren't immune to his charms. Why did it have to be him. You swallowed, “They basically said I was worthless and wasn’t pretty enough for you. They also shoved me against my locker and onto the floor.” Taking a deep breath you revealed the most humiliating part of the whole thing, “Their leader dumped juice on me.” You looked away not wanting him to see the tears starting to run down your cheeks and you didn't want to see the pity you were sure to receive in his eyes. 

“Hey.” He gently turned your face with a palm on each cheek. Wiping your tears away with his thumbs. “You are not worthless. And those girls are just jealous because your the most beautiful girl at Seijoh. I’m sorry they said and did those things to you. It was my fault and I want to make it up to you if you’ll let me.”

You searched his face, surely he was lying to make you feel better? But you only found the truth in his warm brown eyes. Oikawa may be an ass but he does not lie. “Okay...Tooru.” 

His heart fluttered when you spoke his name. Little did he know that yours did too when he asked you to call him that.

“Come on, lets go.” He smiled pulling you up. “I got something you can change into so you don’t have to wear that home.” He pointed to your ruined shirt.

You and him walked over to the gym. He had never let your hand go from pulling you up and you didn’t mind. You halted at the entry way dropping his hand. He was going to lead you in but, “Tooru, I can't. Only players and managers can go in the gym during practice time.”

He snorted, “Iwa-chan made that rule so the uh” he coughed, “students wouldn't bother us.” Taking your hand he pulled you in after him. 

Your face was blushing like mad from the looks you were getting from his teammates. Nobody questioned their captain though. 

“Please wait here while I change and grab you something.” He left you at the bleachers. 

Iwaizumi walked over to where you were sitting. Before he could say anything you spoke. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not allowed in here but he drug me in and said he was going to get me something to change into." You plucked at your still sticky shirt. "I-I'll leave when Tooru comes back.” You found it easy for Tooru's name to roll of your tongue. 

The usually intimidating looking ace smirked and raised an eyebrow, “Tooru, huh? We don't let students in during practice because they follow Oikawa in. He brought you in here. So you can stay if you want.”

You let out a surprised, “Oh.” 

“You know he couldn't stop talking about you on the way to school this morning? About how he saw this and I quote ‘breathtakingly beautiful’ photo of you on instagram. He kept talking about your hair with cherry blossom petals in it and your shy smile.” 

Your face was on fire. You knew the exact photo he was talking about. How far back did he scroll, it was buried under a ton of pictures.

“He was also worried about you the rest of the day after lunch. He was pretty upset, he even threatened to cancel practice if he didn’t find you on your bench.”

“Iwa-channnn!” Oikawa whined. “Friends keep secrets.” He didn’t look mad but his face was a light shade of pink. Was he...embarrassed?

“Ew. I’m not your friend Shittykawa.” Iwaizumi replied walking away. You laughed quietly, his tone said otherwise.

Except it wasn't just any shirt, it was his jersey. “I can’t wear this! Only couples do that!”

“You're right! You're my best friend!” Tooru called back.

He was met with a middle finger and a "Shut it, Tooru."

 “Anyways here. You can change in the girls locker room over there.” He handed you one of his shirts and pointed to the room.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well I did inadvertently call you my girlfriend. You wouldn't want to make me a liar now would you Y/l/n-chan?” He pouted.

“N-no, but I'm not your girlfriend?” You remembered the things Iwaizumi told you, your face deepening to a scarlet shade.

He took a step closer. You could smell his scent. He smelled like oranges, cloves and...clean sweat? Of course he could make sweat smell intoxicating. It was making your brain hazy. You almost missed what he said. “Do you? Want to be I mean.” The look he was giving you was so genuine and...sweet.

This was too much too fast, but your mouth and heart didn't care apparently what you thought. “I-.” You breathed. “Yes.”

His face lit up, taking one of your hands into his. “We’ll talk more after practice, yeah?” 

All you could do is nod. Squeezing your hand as he left to go start practice you went to go change your shirt. It was long on you. Almost falling to the same spot your uniform skirt stopped. You rolled it up a little and tucked it in. That was better.

After changing you returned to your spot on the bleachers. You'd been to games before. It was practically an unsaid rule that all students were required to go. But you really never paid attention, usually doing anything but watching to kill time.

This time you paid attention. Tooru was remarkable. You could see why he was captain and how he got the nickname 'the great king'. You were so entrapped by the teams flow you didn't notice the hours fly by.

Tooru came back over to you, asking somewhat nervously, "So what did you think?" He didn't know why it felt so important to get praise from you. He just knew he wanted you to be proud of him.

Your smile was open and you had stars in your eyes, "You were amazing!" Dipping your toe at being flirty, you winked, "l'll have to pay better attention at the next game."

His heart leapt. You said he was amazing. "Thank you, that means so much coming from you." The second part finally clicked, "Hey wait! What do you mean you'll have to pay better attention at the next game?" He teased.

Sheepishly, "I never uh...actively watched a game before."

"That hurts Y/l/n-chan. Just you wait until the next game." He smiled, "So can I walk you home? It's late and you shouldn't walk by yourself."

"Sure. I don't live far though." You returned his smile.

After he went and changed out of his practice clothes he outstretched his hand for you to take, interlacing your fingers with his. When you got to the gates he asked which way. You pulled him to the left. You curious about earlier.

"So about what Iwaizumi said..." You left the question hanging in the air.

"He was telling the truth." He said it so simply, like he just didn't turn your world upside-down.

"Oh." Was all you could manage with all the butterflies in your stomach. Before you knew it you were in front of your house. "This is me." You turned to face him.

"Really? Iwa-chan and I live one street over."

"You're joking." He had to be. 

"Nope, cross my heart." More seriously "Do you want to walk to school with us maybe?"

"I'd like that, Tooru." Shyly you peeked up at him through your lashes.

"Hey, I noticed before." He traced a thumb over your cheekbone, brushing against your fluttering eyelashes. "Your eyes look different some how?"

You let out a small chuckle, "Eye lash extensions. That's what I was helping my sister with last night. She's in a cosmetology class."

He leaned down, getting very close. "They suit you Y/l/n-chan."

Clearing your throat. "Um, thanks." A beat later, "Call me Y/n."

His eyes softened. "Can I kiss you, Y/n?"

Your breath caught. "Y-yes."

He closed the distance between the two of you. Your eyes shutting and heart thumping wildly with anticipation.

You did not expect the feather light touch of his lips ghosting over yours. You did not expect such a tender kiss from the popular setter captain.

At first your lips only brushed against each others. Testing. Until you couldn't stand it any longer. He had lit a fire inside. You leaned in closer, needing more. Pressing your lips against his and moving one hand onto the back of his neck and the other onto his shoulder pulling him closer. He took this queue to hold your waist. As you kissed time stood still. You couldn't tell if the fire inside was tearing you apart or if he was holding you together. There was just you and him, the world had long ago faded away.

He was surprised you took control of the kiss but was glad you did. He didn't want to push you after everything you'd been through. And honestly he could barely think straight. Could barely breathe. Your lips were so soft and they tasted like honey. He didn't want it to end, he would have happily drowned surrounded by air if it meant he could kiss you.

But you pulled away breathless and eyes bright. You leaned into the comfort of his arms.

 That was your first kiss.

"I'll be waiting here tomorrow Y/n." He pressed his lips to the crown of your head.

"Alright." You looked up at him. "Message me when you get home 'kay?"

"Will do, my queen." The name sent tingles down your spine. Once again putting his lips to yours. "Good night."

"'Night Tooru." You slipped out of his embrace and before you made your way inside, you gave him one last wave goodbye. Dazed you shut the door behind you with your back and brought your fingers to your smiling lips.

"'Friends' huh? Lot different in my day." Your sister said from the couch, her eyes catching on his jersey.

Still grinning like a fool, "Shut up." You headed upstairs to start on your homework. About ten minutes later you received a text. Smiling you opened it.

Made it home safe and sound. And now I'm going to sleep so I can dream of you 😘

Who knew 'the great king' was such a goofball.

Sweet dreams then, goofball

They will be because you'll be in them ❤

Rude, my queen, rude

Good night Tooru ❤

But that’s why you like me 

Rolling your eyes, you grinned.

The next morning he was right where he said he would be. Waiting for you. Iwaizumi with him of course. “Morning Iwaizumi.”

“Good morning Y/l/n.” Iwaizumi greeted.

 You said taking your boyfriends hand. “Morning Tooru.” You were feeling confident this morning so you tugged him down a little so you could reach his face, pecking him on the lips.

His eyes widened. He definitely didn't expect that, not that he was complaining. “G-good morning Y/n.” A rosy hue dusting his cheeks.

You giggled at his reaction. 

“I guess the right girl turns you into a flustered mess.” Iwaizumi joked.

"I make you a flustered mess huh? I wouldn’t mind taking advantage of that.” You nudged him playfully as you all started to make your way to school.

“No fair. I won’t allow you and Iwa ganging up on me!” He tilted his head towards your ear, whispering for only you to hear. “Besides, my queen, I give as good as I get.”

You choked. And he didn't miss the red on your face. Oh boy. If he kept up with that name you were going to become a puddle. Clearing your throat awkwardly, “Ah look, we’re here!”

Unfortunately you were met with his swarm of ‘fans’. At the head of it all were the bitches that made you feel like shit. Tooru felt you hesitate and gave your hand a reassuring squeeze and looked at you with such adoration in his eyes. That was all you needed. You were going to show these girls you weren’t afraid of them. You hoped he wouldn't mind your sudden boldness.

Turning towards him and standing on your tippy toes you grabbed the back of his neck and crashed your lips against his. This kiss was much deeper than the one you shared last night. You'd even go so far to say passionate. Last night was tentative, figuring each other out. This kiss you poured in all your feelings, all of your heart and soul. Pulling away slightly, resting your forehead against his and playing with the hair near where your hand rested on his neck, “Um, sorry if that was too much.”

You turned to face the mostly shocked crowd. The only angry one was the leader girl. Remembering what she said yesterday, “I’m his.” He wasn’t some possession to own. But you were free to give your heart to him, if he wanted it. Really you didn’t expect him to say anything during this exchange but he did. 

God, you were perfect he thought. With a stupid smile on his face, “N-no don’t be sorry. Not at all.” 

It made your heart catch in your throat.

“And I’m hers.” The girls mouth dropped open. “Come on. Let’s go, my queen.” he said pressing his lips to your knuckles, sending a shiver up your back.

“Tooru!” You squeaked. That damn pet name. You knew no matter how many times he said it, it would still make you weak in the knees and make your heart leap. And he fucking knew it. You walked hand in hand to your spot under the cherry tree. “Don’t call me that when a bunch of people are around...”

“Why not? It’s true. And you like it.” He gave you a cheeky look. “Besides that passionate kiss you gave me was pretty public.”

A blush creeping up your neck, “I-shut up.”

Chuckling he brought you into a hug, “Whatever you wish, my queen.”

Epilogue 

As the months passed you and Tooru grew closer together and his ‘fan club’ realized you weren't going anywhere. Sure some still tried to bring you down but over the months you had gained some confidence in yourself. You weren't as insecure but when you fell Tooru was there to help you pick yourself back up. You had also become good friends with the volleyball guys, especially Iwa. You had a special bond over teasing your boyfriend. Even though you both teased him relentlessly he was happy two of his favorite people got along so well. In fact he had asked if you had wanted to officially become a manager. You practically were now anyway he said so why not make it official. Of course you agreed. 

It was only your third game as a manager when they lost to Karasuno. You knew how bad he wanted to go to nationals. It was his dream and this was his last chance. He was sitting on the floor outside the gym, head hung low in devastation. You knew words were not what he wanted to hear right now. He just needed you to be there for him. You sat down next to him, waiting. He gently pulled you onto his lap, burying his head in the crook of your shoulder. Holding you closely. He was silent but you felt his warm tears fall on your skin. You held him and hummed a slow melody quietly in his ear. After awhile he kissed your temple.

“Thank you.” He whispered. He was ready talk.

“I’m here for you, always. You’re my king, win or lose. And I am so so proud of you.” A small smile lifted one side of his mouth.

 You were going to tell him something important today. No matter what happened. Maybe he needed to hear it especially because of what happened. You took a deep breath and kissed his forehead briefly. One hand on his cheek and looking into his still tear stained eyes. 

“I know the world has greater things than nationals waiting for you. You may not feel like it now but believe me when I say it. You are so much more than what you think you are and....and that’s why I love you, Tooru.”

He searched your face looking for pity or disappointment but all he found was love. For weeks those three words had been just under the surface, waiting to be spoken into existence, always on the tip of his tongue at the end of every conversation with you or even when he would see you do small simple things. Hearing the love in your voice and the feeling of you mend his shattered heart about nationals they finally broke free.

 “I love you too, Y/n.”

He might have been your first kiss but you were his first love and he wanted you to be his last.

He gently ran his thumb against your bottom lip.

And he kissed you with everything he had, like it would be his last.

But.

There was many more to come...

[sillyrabbit81]

Her Heavy Cross

Summary: Three years after tragedy hits, Lana she decides to start dating again. She meets Will through a dating app and they begin an online romance. After months of constant requests, Lana relents and agrees to meet and go on an irl date with Will. But is Will who he says he is? Lana is quickly pulled into an intense relationship forcing her to confront her tragic past. Will Lana face it or will she close her heart forever?

Pairing: OMC x OFC

Word Count: approx 2.5k

Warnings: Smut, swearing

Authors Note: The story started as a Henry Cavill fanfiction but I changed it to be an original character, but shades of Henry are still there. Hope you enjoy the story and thanks for reading.

Part 6 Part 8

Part 7

Liam's phone rang. He ignored it and let it go to voicemail. When it rang again, he made a noise of disgust and took his phone out of his pocket to look at it. "It's my publicist. I had better take this."

Liam answered the phone and went outside to talk. I turned the oven on and started to unpack the groceries. Then I got the roast, put it in a baking tray, poured olive oil over the top and seasoned it with salt and some pepper. I got out some onions and garlic and started to cut them up to place around the roast to give it some added flavour.

"That looks great," Liam said when he came back in.

"Thanks," I said, and I gave him a grin. I took the tray and put it in the oven. I got my phone and put an alarm on, giving myself time to cook the veggies before they finished. A thought came to me, and before I could bite my tongue, I said, "They do say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

"Really?" Liam licked his lips, looked down at his pants and said, "I'd say they were aiming too high."

It took me a minute to work out what the joke was. When I finally did, I couldn't help but laugh and hide my face in my hands.

"You've gone so red!" Liam appeared to be having fun with my inability to control my blushes.

"Oh, my God!" I said, still hiding my face and laughing. "Alright, that was funny."

It took me a while to stop laughing. When I did, Liam said sombrely, "Sweetheart, I have to tell you something."

"Uh, oh, it doesn't sound good."

"It's not bad. I don't know how you will feel about it." Liam then told me that his publicist had called to let him know there were pictures put on Instagram and Twitter of the two of us kissing at the pub last night. "Your name hasn't been mentioned, and the photos look to be shot from pretty far away on a mobile, so someone in the pub took the pictures. Sarah says they probably aren't going to tell who you are by the pictures unless someone who knows you well comes forward."

I think if my eyes bulged out of my head any further, they would have fallen out and rolled on the floor. "That quick?" It was all I could think to say.

"Yeah. It's hard to know what will come out and when. A lot of times I go out, and no one notices me, but other times I have paps or members of the public following me for hours."

"Who's Sarah?"

"My publicist." Liam reached across the bench and took my hand in his. "Are you ok?"

"You say they don't know who I am?" Liam nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn't happy but what was I going to do about it? I picked at my nails. I needed to paint them; the pale pink polish was starting to chip.

"You ok?" Liam asked again

I shrugged. "Your life is weird."

Liam chucked. "You keep telling me that."

"So, what happens now?"

"Well, usually Sarah would say to private all social media, but she had a look and said she could only find a Facebook profile for you which was already private. Do you have any others? Instagram? Twitter? Snapchat?"

"No. I have a YouTube account that I use to watch videos, but that isn't linked to my real name or email. Also, a Tumblr account, again not associated with my name. And no pictures of me."

"Tumblr?" He raised an eyebrow. His fucking lip twitched.

"I was a confused 22-year-old ok?" I said a bit defensively. "I haven't used it in years," I remembered then the dating site we met on. I quickly logged on and selected the options to hide the account.

"Ok, well, there's not much else right now. A few rags called Sarah for comment. She said the standard no comment and asked for my privacy to be respected. The rest is up to you."

"Up to me?" I asked, confused. "What's up to me?"

"When you want to confirm the relationship and release your name."

"Liam, I met you less than 24 hours ago and have known you only a few months. I'm not ready for that. I like you a lot, but maybe you pick your nose and eat it, and I'll have to dump your arse tomorrow and then it's been a big song and dance over nothing." I joked. The mood had gotten too heavy for me. I wanted to talk about something else.

"Sweetheart, I'd never do that." He smiled sweetly, "I'd make you eat it."

"Ewww!" I screamed.

"Get over here." He chased me around the bench, and after a few evasions and some more squeals, he caught me. Perrin came in through the doggy door and barked at Liam a few times. Our behaviour obviously scandalised him. "Perrin," I called. "Come here, boy."

"You think your dog can save you?"

"Of course, he's very protective of my honour."

"We will see about that." Liam bent over, and I thought he was going to tackle me. Instead of flying backwards, I was hoisted forward and found myself over his shoulder. I screamed as I heard a loud crack, my hands flying to my bum.

"Did you just smack my arse?" I must admit I was finding all the manhandling arousing. I wasn't going to let him know that, though.

"Yes, I did. Want another?" Liam was heading down the hallway, taking me to the bedroom.

I giggled. "No!"

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," Liam quoted. Shakespeare sounded good with his accent. I giggled some more, and I got another one. Yes, very arousing.

Liam hummed. "I quite like the view here." He rubbed my bottom and took me into my bedroom.

I was very close to his round bum. "This view is not so bad either," I said and smacked his arse. Unfortunately, it probably hurt me more than it hurt him. His butt was tight!

Liam dropped me onto the bed at that point, and the look on his face was hysterical. I couldn't stop laughing, and tears were rolling down my face. Then I did the most embarrassing thing: I snorted.

That was it. Both of us couldn't stop. Every time I calmed enough to think I could speak, one look at Liam's face, and I'd be off again.

Eventually, we stopped, and I was able to say, "Oh my God, your face! That was so bloody funny." I wiped my eyes.

"I think that may have been the first time someone's done that to me."

"Really? Didn't you go to an all-boys school?"

"Yes, but it wasn't the US." Liam tried suppressing a grin as he said, "we got ball taps."

I tried not to laugh. I really did. "Oh, my God!" I was off again.

We watched the original Mad Max before I had to go and finish dinner. I was horrified when Liam said he hadn't seen it before. I immediately made him watch it. He said it was ok, the concept was great, but he didn't love it. I told him he needed a brain scan.

When I went to make dinner, Liam offered to help, but I told him not to be silly.

Liam sat at the kitchen bench chatting to me while I chopped and blanched the vegetables. After a while, he said he had to call Sarah and his assistant Ryan to make sure he had organised the dog walker to take Cole for a walk and play.

"Any update from Sarah?" I asked Liam when he returned. I feigned disinterest while I finished slicing the roast.

"All the same right now. Some sites have posted the pictures, saying I was spotted drinking with an "unknown female companion." The pictures have circulated a bit on Twitter, but it's mostly just by fans. They haven't hit the mainstream yet. It's all fairly standard, and it will go away by tomorrow by the looks of it."

"Good," I said. A look I couldn't interpret passed over Liam's face. He masked it pretty quickly. I opened my mouth to ask if he was ok but shut it again. I said, instead, "dinner's ready." I passed Liam his plate.

"Thank you," Liam said, leaning over to kiss me before eating. I watched as he cut up some beef and started chewing. "Pretty good. Almost as good as Mum's," he teased with a wink.

I elbowed him, and God bless him; he pretended it hurt.

We ate in silence for a while. I gave a few pieces to Perrin. He was so old, and I couldn't help but spoil him occasionally. He won't be around forever.

After dinner, Liam insisted on helping me clean up, and we stacked the dishwasher. Watching him bend over, his jeans straining as he put the plates in, stirred some feelings. Erotic feelings.

"Want to watch another movie?" He asked.

"Not really," I said. "I'm in the mood for some dessert."

"Ice-cream? I can't have any, but you can."

"Not ice-cream," I said, shaking my head. I looked at him with my very best bedroom eyes.

"What do you want then? Want me to go to the shops?" He said, not catching on. I put my arms around his waist. "If you let me borrow your car, I'll go. I can just go on my own."

"No, you wombat." I met his hips with mine, his eyes widened. "What I want is right here." I wriggled against him. Liam grinned widely, his cheeks creasing in such a sexy way.

"I thought you were shy."

"I am getting used to you," I said. "The real me is coming out." The truth of my words took me by surprise. I looked away, second-guessing myself. Why did I do that?

"I like her," Liam said hoarsely. If he hadn't spoken then, I think I would have stopped. But when his hands went into my hair, and he pulled, stretching my throat, I knew I wasn't going to stop. He kissed me there, and his teeth grazed my skin. My fingers reached under his shirt, and they gripped his back. My nails dug into his skin.

"Bedroom?" I whispered.

"Bedroom," he agreed and walked me backwards to my room.

"You promised me something earlier today," Liam said in between kisses. We were close to my bed.

"What's that?"

He stopped kissing me and cupped my face with his hands. "You said I could undress you."

Liam took hold of my t-shirt and waited. I nodded. He slowly lifted my shirt up and over my head before dropping it to the ground. He tilted his head as if contemplating and gently turned me around.

I felt Liam gather my hair and put it over my shoulder. He caressed my back with his fingertips, making me shiver with pleasure. I heard him give a satisfied hum before undoing my bra. He turned me around again and took hold of my bra straps, pulling them down my arms.

When I dropped my bra beside my shirt, Liam took a step back. He looked me up and down, his eyes hungry. I wanted to cover myself under his intense gaze, my earlier courage wavering under his scrutiny.

My arms started to move, and he gave me a stern look. "You're not thinking of hiding now, are you?"

I shook my head and forced my arms back by my sides. "Good, because I want to look. You're quite the sight." As if to emphasise his point, he adjusted himself through his pants. I felt a thrill of excitement flow through me and felt the familiar throbbing between my legs.

Liam got down on his knees and kissed my belly. His rough stubble tickled. "Your skin is so soft," he said in a low voice. He undid my jeans and kissed a trail down as he unzipped me. His breath was warm, and I felt it through the cotton of my briefs, his last kiss placed just above my slit.

It was almost agony. I moaned at his teasing breath and lips. Then Liam pulled down my underwear and kissed my mound. I felt his tongue part my lips, and when he found what he was looking for, he flattened his tongue and moaned into me.

I didn't know what to do. For a moment, I wanted to stop Liam, but it felt too good. I could feel my resolve waning. I didn't want to wait. Why should we wait? What was I waiting for? I had to stop thinking and go with it, enjoy him, enjoy the experience. I put my fingers in his hair as he licked and sucked at me. He seemed to remember what I liked, and soon I was close to my peak.

One of his fingers played at my entrance. I silently begged for Liam to put it in. My core was desperate to be filled. His finger slowly entered me, and I was lost. I needed him. At that moment, all I wanted was to feel more of him inside me, have him fill me.

I felt like this was the moment. If I don't ask Liam now, I probably never would. If I didn't want him now, why am I even allowing this to happen? I wanted him. He excited me like no one had done since Andy. He had knocked down the defences I'd built to keep myself alone. Keep me in my grief and guilt. I didn't want to be alone anymore. I wanted to feel desired again.

"Fuck me?" I asked. The words just tumbled out. I knew at that moment I would beg if I had to. "Please, Liam, I want you to fuck me."

I wasn't sure if Liam heard me. He increased his attention, and I felt the pressure building. His hand gripped my arse, his fingers digging into my cheeks as he pulled me closer to him. The short rough hair on his cheeks and chin tickled against my thighs. My legs buckled. I couldn't stand up anymore. He held me there while I panted and moaned, seeking release.

I felt my climax arrive like a bolt of lightning. It was sudden and intense. My body contracted as waves of pleasure exploded over me. Short, wordless shouts came from my mouth until it was over. I collapsed onto the bed.

I laid there a while, eyes closed, trying to catch my breath. Liam was shuffling around and heard his belt come undone. I felt the bed dip, and I opened my eyes to find Liam naked, climbing up the bed until his face was above mine.

Liam supported some of his weight with one hand and laid on me, our whole bodies skin to skin. He was warm to touch, and he almost felt hot to my now cooled skin.

"Ask me again," Liam said.

Part 8

[miss-smutty]

Brothers - Chapter 9

Nightmares

Summary- Chris is about to see a side of you you were hoping to hide, will it make him think differently about you?

Word count- 1.2K

Pairing- Chris Hems x reader

Warnings- slightly smutty, swearing, slight angst

18+ Only!!

Posted: 3rd July 2021

Taglist:- @everything-is-awesomesauce @innerpaperexpertcloud @pandaxnienke @chickensarentcheap @mostly-marvel-musings @longlostinanotherworld

Brothers Masterlist <<<<<

"We'll find the right time, hopefully before I leave. I'm sorry Y/N, come here. Please, let's enjoy the time we have. A month will fly by, I promise."

You'd both fallen asleep on your bed, alcohol fuelled passion and late night revelations leaving you both exhausted. The feel of Chris' arms wrapped around you made you feel safe as your eyelids became heavy, holding on tightly to his arm and entwining your legs around his.

This was the safest you'd felt in a long time, the most secure and yet tomorrow it will be taken away from you again. Which is why it didn't suprise you when in the middle of the night, your body jerked upright from the bed, your eyes blinking in the darkness. Sweat covered your body as you tried desperately to work out your bearings, clutching at the bedsheets beside you. The sound of you fighting to catch your breath woke Chris, him sitting up against the headboard sleepily, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands.

Chris reaches his hand out to touch your shoulder gently but the contact on your clammy skin still makes you scream. You scurry to the bottom of the bed, pulling the sheet up to your face, blinking as your eyes finally adjust to the darkness. You see a figure sat in your bed but don't recognise that it's Chris which only adds to the fear. Your still half-asleep, dream like state conjuring up terrifying ideas.

"Babe it's ok, it's just me. You've had a nightmare, come here please." He soothes, holding out his arms for you. You blink a couple more times until the figure in the bed is no longer just a shadow and you finally realise where you are and who you're with. The feeling of relief is overwhelming, the tension easing as your whole body collapses in to Chris' arms wearily. The adrenaline still running through your veins as you try to catch your breath, resting your face against his chest.

"Shhh, you're ok. You're safe." He whispers, stroking his hand through your hair and holding you tightly against him. You're amazed how he knows exactly what to do and say to help you calm down. Usually the first instinct for men you have dated in the past, is to call you silly, roll over and go back to sleep. Not your Chris though, he holds you tightly against him until you're finally ready to talk, worry set on his face as he turns on the lamp beside him.

"I'm ok, thanks Chris." You look down at your hands, embarrassed, playing with your fingers in your lap. Not wanting to look up at him, too ashamed for him to see your scared face.

"Don't thank me, come lay with me I'll hold you until you fall back asleep." You rest your neck on Chris arm while he looks down at you, his other hand holding your hip. "Why do I get a feeling that wasn't a one off?" 

"They used to happen pretty regularly but not so much anymore." You bite your lip, knowing what's coming.

"Do you know what it is that's causing them?" He looks at you sympathetically, which is the reason you didn't want to tell him in the first place. You don't want him to look at you like that, you want him to look at you with lust not pity. When you have these nightmares it takes you back to being a child again and that's not the way you want Chris to see you.

"I don't really want to talk about it right now, babe." You sigh, burying your face into his armpit.

"It's ok, you go to sleep. I'm here when you need me." He continues stroking your hair, reaching his head down to kiss your forehead sweetly. In his arms you feel safe again and optimistic that maybe you just might be able to share all your dark secrets with a man for once.

**********

The early morning sunlight wakes you, streaking in from the gap between the curtains making the room have a hazy orange glow to it. You stretch your muscles, reaching out to the side of you to find emptiness. Chris no longer next to you in bed, you panic for a moment thinking he'd left without saying goodbye before realising he must've gone back to his own room before Liam awoke.

You pull your heavy legs over the side of your bed, sulking for a moment, longing to be able to fall asleep and wake up to Chris every morning. Wetness pooling in your eyes at the thought of him being away for so long. You pull yourself together, psyching yourself up before dressing in an oversized t-shirt and making your way out into the living room. The house is quiet, an empty mug still sat by the side of the sink - Liam's mug. You check the keys hanging by the wall and see Liam's missing.

Walking down the hallway bare footed, your feet falling silent as you step, you stop by Chris' door. The open door revealing Chris in only a low hung towel, drying his hair with a smaller towel. The definition of the muscles in his back take your breath away, a little gasp leaving your lips at the sight. Chris hears you, noticing your reflection in the mirror, a sly smile playing on his lips as he watches you staring at him, your teeth biting into your bottom lip.

"Are you feeling better?" He surprises you when he speaks, your cheeks flushing at being caught red handed.

"Much better." You think about the nightmares last night and the way Chris held you close and you do feel better. Happy that Chris saw you in your state of trauma and didn't run for the hills. 

"Well in that case..." He smiles slyly at you through the mirror. "I wanna see what those pretty little lips look like wrapped around my cock." He watches your mouth fall open in shock as he drops his towel in a heap on the floor, revealing himself in all his glory. His cock already springing up in response.

"Fuck." You whisper, unable to take your eyes away from it. Practically drooling at the thought of his cock tickling the back of your throat.

"Like what you see?" He raises an eyebrow questioningly and it turns you on even more.

You can't form any words, your lips twitching as you cross the room, wrapping your arms around him and gripping his toned cheeks. Pressing his cock against you as you stand on your tiptoes, his head bent to meet yours, his hands pulling you as close as possible. Your tongues mingling as his cock twitches against your stomach, you're lost in the moment as your fingers grip at the ends of his hair.

So lost in the moment you fail to hear Liam returning his keys to the hook, his footsteps creaking along the floorboards of the hallway. The sound of his feet drawing closer and closer as he innocently wonders where you both are. Still entwined around each other, Chris completely naked as your lust builds ferociously. Unaware and uncaring of anything else going on around you, Liam forgotten in the midst of your passion. 

"Are you fucking kidding me?"