#almost as much as he loves watching his wife reject fools left and right

[softquietsteadylove]

While attending something important Thena gets suddenly and very boldly proposed from a man with high position. And Gil is there, watching, slightly amused and curious!

Would be funny if you would write it!

"Sankta Olga," her people bowed to her as they greeted the regent after their recent triumph in battle.

Thena overlooked the masses, looming over Olga's shoulder as her most trusted war advisor. Not that Olga had needed 'inspiration' for her ideas--equal parts ingenious and cruel. Thena had no qualms with what the human queen wished to inflict upon her enemies, no matter Ajak's claims of inhumanity and needless violence.

Let the humans know they were true beings of power, Thena thought. No matter their mortality, humans were fierce when it came to their loved ones. Whether protecting them or avenging them, it seemed.

"I owe this greatly to you."

"I contributed nothing," Thena argued with Olga's soft, gentle words (for a woman with a continually rising death count on her hands). What Thena meant was that Olga had fashioned the idea to attack during the Drevlian revelry herself. Thena had never - and still would never - pick up a blade against a human.

"Your support is more than you think," Olga smiled at Thena over her shoulder during the brief reprieve between subjects and nobles gathered in the palace. "For I could never have...after they..."

Thena offered Olga a slight bow - more respect than the Warrior Eternal tended to show to human leaders - before moving away. She had been by Olga's side when news of the Queen's husband arrived. She had done what she could, but she had to admit that she did not have the stomach for thinking about the death of one's husband.

"Hey."

Thena inhaled as Gilgamesh received her at his side, his hand settling at the small of her back, over her fine velvet dress but under the heavily fur lined cloak she wore as a member of court. "Hey."

Gil hadn't been there to witness the massacre. He, like Sersi, didn't really have the stomach for the violence of it. Thena had only gone alongside Olga to lend her support (and to keep her from going too far, if need be). "How is she?"

Thena looked back up to the throne, where Olga was continuing to receive grateful subjects now free of Drevlian invasion. The woman still had the glow of victory to her, but Thena could see the fatigue of grief still heavy over the woman. "I think she is nearing the end of her vengeance."

"Nearing?" Gil asked and looked at Olga just for a second. He ducked his head down and whispered, "she's not done?"

"I believe she had one more act to see through," Thena said just as quietly. She looked at Gil, knowing how he felt about Olga's actions. "If it were you, I would still be laying waste to the entire continent."

He smiled, pushing some hair away from her cheek and over her shoulder, "you don't have to worry about that."

"Hm," Thena sufficed as a response, nonetheless leaning into his touch.

"I'll get you something," he said gently, referring to either food or drink or both. She didn't need either, but he liked to think they could help her relax--feel a little more in the human spirit. He brushed his lips over her temple, "wait here, Solnyshkuh."

Thena watched him go, excusing himself as he attempted to navigate among the fragile little humans.

"Sankta Athena."

Thena frowned; both of those names were wrong. The man standing before her was a member of nobility, although she wouldn't be able to recall his rank if given a thousand years to do so. She tilted her head, "you cannot mean me."

"But I can," the nobleman bowed to her in greeting first before straightening up again. He was tall for a human, with reasonably agreeable features. "You are the Queen's most trusted War Advisor, are you not?"

"I am her only War Advisor." Because as soon as Thena had proved her worthiness of such a title, Olga had dismissed the entire panel of others.

"Then your reputation precedes you all the more."

"Do you have a point?" she asked in a painfully direct manner. This was the kind of manner that usually kept humans on her outskirts. But she supposed every once in a while, one or two - and they were always males, usually of high status - would walk right up to her, brazen as daylight.

"I would like to ask you something, oh great War Advisor," he continued to schmooze and flatter her. He had an insipid grin under his moustache.

"Is it related to battle?" Thena droned. She couldn't much refuse if it was, as much as she might come to want to.

"The greatest battle," he chuckled before lowering himself to his knee before the whole throne room to observe. But he ignored the looks and whispers, staring up at Thena. "The battle of marriage, my Lady. Indeed, I would like to ask you to become my wife."

Silence stretched over massive and echous room. The flames lining the walls in sconces and torches flickered, and no one dared take a breath.

"This is Arthur all over again."

The human blinked, "my Lady?"

"The answer is no," she offered just as directly as before, staring down at him with disdain. She glanced at Olga, who was watching with shameless curiosity. Thena sighed, "you dishonour yourself just by asking."

"This is just the battle to which I was referring."

Did he think she was being coy in her refusal? Thena looked down at him again, making her distaste for his actions even more plain to see, if at all possible. "There is no battle to be won, sir. I have no interest in your nor any proposals."

"I do relish a challenge, my Lady," he grinned still, even moving closer to her in his crouched position. "I am no stranger to the harsh ways of the world. And I believe that you could find no better a match-"

"You are glaringly wrong," Thena drawled, more and more bored with the conversation, if it could be called that. "Everything from my name to your intentions are misdirected."

The man was at least starting to feel jilted. "That's-"

"I do not know why you thought I would say yes."

He laughed, finally rising to his feet again, although it allowed him to move even closer to her. "Because I believe you are a woman of intellect. And it would be most unwise-"

"To reject a stranger's proposal?" Thena finished the truest form of that statement. His humiliation was starting to show the more she frustrated him. She took a step back, "do not speak to me of wisdom."

He reached out, nearly grasping her arm over her cloak.

"I wouldn't, buddy."

Thena smiled as he made his way back, two goblets in one hand and a grin on his face. He was clearly watching the proceedings. "You could have come and dissuaded him."

Gil laughed, sloshing some of his mead onto the deep brown bear fur of his own cloak. "And miss the show? You know I love to see these idiots throw themselves at you."

The human man flushed at being insulted, not even directly. "I never-!"

Thena looked at him, reminded that he was indeed still there. "Leave."

"Wh-!" he was fuming mad, now, gripping the hilt of the sword on his hip. He glared at Gilgamesh, "and who are you to speak to me in such a way?"

Thena laughed faintly this time. "He has seen me reject more suitors than you can count, I'm sure."

That finally made the human flinch, if just a little. He looked at Gil, "is he a royal concubine, then?"

"Ooh," Gil practically giggled, "I've never been called a concubine before."

"Hm," Thena looked back at him, drawn in by the music of his laughter. She tilted her head at him, "it doesn't do you justice."

The human bristled, forced to witness the salacious behaviour of Gil moving Thena's hair away from her cheek and her leaning into his touch again. The indecency! "Oh, I see."

"Look, pal," Gil finally snorted outright. He made eye contact with the nobleman as he pulled Thena closer to him with his arm around her waist. "She said no. If you ask again, she's gonna use that sword to make a kebab outta you."

"Hm," Thena purred as Gil's chest moved, pressing the soft fur he wore against her cheek. "You make wonderful kebab."

At some point, the nobleman decided he had had enough. He would perhaps complain about it later, but it wasn't as if he would have the Queen on his side for it.

"I swear, there's always at least one idiot who thinks it's a good idea to propose to you," Gil shook his head, still shamelessly moving his hand over her back, although her heavy cloak disguised such lascivious behaviour. "After - what? - two words to you?"

"I do not believe even that much," Thena sighed, enjoying pressing her cheek to his chest far too much. "No matter."

"That's true," he chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head (avoiding the golden circlet sitting on top of it). "You're all mine."

And she had been since long before this kingdom came to be, and would be long, long after.

[darkmulti]

-> 𝐅𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐢𝐧 𝐝𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞

-> 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭, 𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐟𝐢𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐢𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝.

-> 𝐒𝐮𝐠𝐚𝐫 𝐃𝐚𝐝𝐝𝐲 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

-> releasing this a bit early because we reached 4K+!! Thank you guys so much! I love you all<3

-> THIS PROFILE CONTAINS DUB-CON AND NON-CON THEMES! PLEASE READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!

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It was a Saturday night — the busiest day of the week. You worked at the strip club, not as an exotic dancer but as a waiter. The money you were making was just enough for you to survive on your own.

Tonight, you wanted to ask your boss if you could start working as a dancer. You packed your new dancewear and everything you might need in case the boss says yes. It was around 4 pm when you arrived. You walked to your boss’s office and gently knocked on the door.

“Come in”

You grab the door handle and push the door open, revealing your boss Taehyung with a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Hello, little one. What can I help you with?”

You thought the nickname was creepy at first, and when you politely asked him to stop calling you that, he said that he had a nickname for every employee. Over time, you’ve grown used to it. And you’d be lying if you said that it didn’t give you butterflies in your stomach.

“I know this is sudden, but can I start dancing?”

Taehyung squeezed the glass cup tightly, almost shattering it with his bare hand.

“But why? You’re just a little angel. Angels don’t sin, little one.”

“Sir, I really need money. I want to go back to school and get a degree so I can have a permanent job.”

There was a pause of silence before you spoke up again.

“I-I can show you my skills. I’ve been practicing. I even brought my dancewear.”

Taehyung shoots you a glare. It was intense and almost threatening. He sighs as he puts the glass of whiskey on his desk and walks to the couch, where he sat down with his muscular thighs spread apart.

“Go wear your little outfit and come back here.”

You innerly smile and leave to the dressing room to change. Once the door closed, Taehyung let out a chuckle. He’s never going to allow you to be a dancer, he just wants to watch you for his pleasure.

After adjusting your straps and fixing up your hair, you sprayed some perfume around your neck and walk back to his office.

“Sir, I’m ready.”

“Good, now come in and lock the door.”

You did as told then remove your robe. It didn’t take long for Taehyung’s member to harden after seeing your body on full display. Taehyung turned some music on then said “the stage is all yours, little one.”

You’ve been practicing for months, just for this moment. Bending over and whipping your hair back, showing off your beautiful body to him. Taehyung motioned you to come to him, so you can give him a lap dance.

He placed his hands on your hips and made you grind on his bulge. Your face warmed up after feeling his boner that you caused. Taehyung started moving his hips with yours, making you whimper.

His hands moved to your breast and gave it a light squeeze. “Sir, I thought touching is not allowed.”

“I’m the boss. I make the rules. Right now, touching is allowed.” You were too naive to understand that he was manipulating you.

30 minutes pass and you finally stop and take a step back.

“So... what did you think?”

You were expecting a positive response and even a praise but you got the complete opposite.

“I’m sorry, little one. You’re not good enough. I can give you a raise but I’m not letting you become a dancer.”

“But what if I practice more? Could you reconsider?!”

“No is my final answer, little one. I’m a very busy man and I don’t have time to watch you dance just for you to fail.”

Embarrassed. You felt so embarrassed. You genuinely thought Taehyung was enjoying your show. Well, it sure as hell looked like it. A gloomy look took over your face and you walked towards the door to leave.

“Don’t give me that pouty face, little one.”

Taehyung abruptly pulled you on his lap and attached his lips to yours. You didn’t respond until Taehyung’s hand spanked your butt, causing you to moan.

“Grind on me, baby. I know you want it just as much as I do.”

You rubbed your clit harder against his bulge until you released. “Keep moving, little one. Help daddy cum too.” He growled, before grabbing your face and kissing you again. Deep moans left his mouth turning you on even more. His hands all over your body — it felt euphoric.

Taehyung let out one last groan before cumming in his pants. “Fuck! You’re so fucking good.” he kissed your jawline and moved down to your neck.

“How about this, little one. You become my personal dancer and I pay you money. You can stay with me, I’ll buy you everything you need as long as you accompany me and satisfy my sexual needs.”

“Like a sugar daddy?”

“Exactly”

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Rules:

No dating

No lying

No revealing clothes

If something is wrong, tell him

No swearing

Don’t be bratty

Obey him

Never reject his kisses

Don’t leave without his permission

Answer his calls and texts immediately

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How he’s like:

Taehyung’s a charming, gentleman

He treats you like a queen

He never ignores you

You’re his first priority

This man spoils the shit out of you

He buys you luxurious clothes and accessories

For your birthday, he bought you a brand new Porsche convertible

Taehyung’s very possessive, but you honestly don’t mind

You love spending time with him anyways

Anytime another male is too close to you, he wraps his arm around your waist and pulls you closer to him

If you hug him, his hands will immediately go down to your ass and grab it

He’s very affectionate

Even at important events, Taehyung will always hug you, kiss your lips, cheeks and forehead in front of anyone

Sometimes you forget that you’re his sugar baby because he treats you like his wife

Your opinion matters to him

Whether it’s a big or small decision, he always wants to hear what you think

In the morning, he makes you breakfast

Especially if you had a long night with him (if ykyk)

When he’s doing work, he makes you sit on his lap and do some cock warming

Taehyung loves travelling with you

He’d rent out expensive villas or hotel room

Taehyung loves swimming with you

The man enjoys your company

You’re so lovable, sweet and innocent

It was almost like you were made for him

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Yandere Taehyung:

Taehyung was secretly obsessed with you

After he hired you as a waiter, he wanted to know everything about you

Since the job application required your address, Taehyung knew where you lived

He broke into your apartment and hid tiny cameras in places you’d never see

There were cameras in your kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom

He did this to keep an eye on you and make sure that you’re not seeing another man

When you’re at work, Taehyung stops by your apartment and takes some of your underwear to get off

He hacked into all your social media accounts, unfollowed guys he didn’t like and checked your dm’s regularly to make sure nobody was trying to get with you

If you made plans with your friends, Taehyung would show up (in disguise) and watch you from afar

Whenever you had plans or even a date, Taehyung would call you and say that more waiters are needed and he will pay extra because it’s an emergency

So you end up cancelling on your friends/date which angers them

Soon, your friends stopped inviting you to hang out because you always cancel last minute because of work

Taehyung’s plan was too isolated you from your friends which gives him the perfect opportunity to swoop in and be your one and only companion

And what do you know, his plan worked

Not only that but since you have no friends anymore, you’re always with him

So he never has to worry about you fooling around behind his back

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Sex Life:

Taehyung was incredible in bed

He never failed to satisfy your sexual needs

You’ve both tried so many kinky things in bed and it was honestly fun

He was addicted to eating you out

Hickeys all over your body. Between your thighs, on your stomach and chest. All over your neck, collar bone and jawline.

Taehyung loves marking what’s his

Traditional rough sex + doggy

But hey, it gets the job done

Three round minimum, 7 rounds maximum

Taehyung will always cum inside of you

He loves watching himself cum into your little hole

He gets more turned on when watches cum his leaking out of your hole and running down your thigh

Dry humping is something he’s into

The idea of both of your coming without having actual sex drives him crazy

Blowjobs for days

He loves watching you suck him off

Make eye contact with him while you suck and he’ll have an orgasm

You must swallow all of his cum

Don’t spit it out

Before Taehyung got you, he used to use your underwear to masturbate

You eventually started to notice that a bunch of your panties disappeared

Therefore, Taehyung returned most of them (except for his favourites), some washed, some not

Taehyung could literally cum to the thought of you wearing panties covered in his dried-up cum

It made him hard just thinking about it

Over time, you notice Taehyung becoming more aggressive in bed

It would get so bad that you’d have to use the safe word to get him to stop

You noticed he started doing things he’s never discussed with you before

Sometimes, you cry under him because he scares you

He’d pin your hands above your head and fuck as hard as he could

You were not used to it nor were you a big fan of it

He was taking everything out on you

Taehyung would start at 21:30 and finish at 04:00

Unknowingly, Taehyung’s yandere side took over him

Some may know him as V

His cruel and sadistic side who felt no remorse whatsoever

V’s kinks are dark and heavy

He choked you until you couldn’t breathe, tied you up so you couldn’t move, and slapped you when you asked him to stop

V enjoyed watching you cry too

Overstimulation was the worst part

Your core was crying for a break but V couldn’t care less

The man fucked you until you passed out

Minimum 7 rounds, maximum... there’s no maximum

In the morning, he’d still be deep in you and depending on his mood, he may or may not fuck you again

At this point, you didn’t care if it was Taehyung or V, you needed to leave him

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Trying to break off the (3 years) contract:

This is when Taehyung goes fucking insane.

After nights of relentless sex, you finally decide to break the contract. You couldn’t handle the abuse anymore. Sex every night to “remind you of your place” was complete bullshit. You stayed with him for two more months, hoping that the old, sweet Taehyung would come back and save you.

Unfortunately, he never did. After you lost all hope, you wanted to get away from Taehyung as soon as possible. He can keep all the gifts and money he’s given you if that means freedom.

You woke up only to see Taehyung missing from the bed. He must’ve gone to work, you thought. You get ready and pack all of the clothes you brought to his mansion. You write a small message on a notepad, saying that it’s over. You didn’t dare to tell him face to face because you knew exactly where it would’ve lead to.

You left his mansion and took the bus back to your apartment. An hour later, Taehyung was blowing up your phone, spamming you with messages.

“Where the fuck are you?!”

“Answer my calls!”

“Explain the message on the notepad!”

“What do you mean that we’re “done” ?”

“The contract’s not over yet! I still fucking own you.”

“Get your ass over here!”

“You’re making your punishment worse for yourself.”

“How can you say goodbye to me like this?! Do I mean nothing to you?!”

“You’re going to regret this!”

“Come back here, now!”

“Stay where you are, I’m on my way!”

You started to tear up because you were petrified. You drop your phone in fear and ran into your closet. You hid in a basket full of your clothes so no one could see you. Not even a minute passed and Taehyung was banging on your apartment door.

“OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR, Y/N.”

You covered your mouth, stopping the sobs from coming out. You needed to find a weapon. You looked around your closet and that’s when you spotted something.

A camera.

A tiny camera is hidden in plain sight. Your heart dropped to your stomach. How long has that been there? Who placed it there? Your mind immediately went to Taehyung. You were trying to connect the dots but how could he have possibly gotten into your apartment?

You stopped questioning when you heard Taehyung break down the door. He came right to your bedroom and opened the closet door. He pulled out the basket you were hiding. “Get up.”

That’s when you knew the camera belonged to him. He knew your exact location. You couldn’t help but wonder how long he’s been watching you.

You take a deep breath in and stand up. Taehyung’s fierce eyes encountered your terrified ones. He grabbed your jaw and pulled your face close to his.

“What the fuck were you thinking?! You nearly gave me a heart attack! I thought one of my enemies kidnapped you but no! You just left me with a shitty ass note.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?!” Taehyung pinched the bridge of his nose. “SORRY?! THAT’S ALL YOU FUCKING GOT?!”

He picked up your glass jewelry box and threw it on the floor. The whole thing shattered, causing you to burst out in tears. “T- Taehyung! Stop! Stop it! You’re scaring me!”

“Good bitch. Seems like I haven’t scared you enough because you still have the nerve to fucking leave me.”

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Omg, I finally wrote something after months of being an unproductive piece of shit.

This is bad, but I still hope you enjoyed 😊

Oh and I apologize for any mistakes. Like always, I’m half asleep:)

xoxo,

naina❣️

[itsclydebitches]

Hey Clyde, did you check out Wonder Egg Priority at all? The first ep is super promising, but the series as a whole is one of those real fascinating disasters from a story and a production standpoint that might be up your alley as a thing to pick apart haha.

I’d warn that it’s also reeeeal offensive and this generally gets worse as it goes though.

Hi, Phoenix! How are you and Cube doing?

Okay, I hadn't watched Wonder Egg Priority when I received your ask this morning. Now I have. In a fit of intense curiosity I settled down for a rare binge session and tore through all twelve episodes + OVA in a single sitting. It is now nearly 3:00am as I write this because I, oh so clearly, make fantastic life choices.

A question for you: what did I just watch?

The rest is going under a read more partly for spoilers, but more-so because WEP—and the summary I'm about to give, because I feel like I need to try and explain this to tumblr's faceless void for my own, dwindling sanity—comes with about every trigger warning under the sun. Seriously, if you are triggered by anything that we might think of as a "standard" trigger (meaning, not unique to you and your own experiences), best to proceed with caution.

Right! What the ever loving fuck happened in this show? Well, let's work through this chronologically. Two genius, frat boy brothers (I get their names mixed up so I'm not even gonna bother) are locked in their apartment and closely monitored because of Super Secret Science Research. Even though, I think, they're the ones who created this company. Not important! What is important is that they're bored enough to create an AI for funsies, thinking of her as their daughter and letting her name herself Frill. Frill is the perfect, cutesy, also genius child who has a habit of popping her lips — which the camera focuses on in an incredibly creepy fashion. One day Brother #1 (the hot one) falls in love with a random woman we know nothing about and Frill gets jealous.

"Jealous in a general sense?" you ask, thinking this show is in any way normal. "Like, just of her Dad giving attention to someone else?"

"No," I respond, patting your hand. "Jealous because she's in love with him." Which, beyond the subject matter itself, comes completely out of nowhere. Frill has a line about what you'd do if some woman stole your husband away. I, fool that I was, briefly considered that these two guys were lovers, not brothers. Oh no. They're brothers. Frill just considers Dad #1 to be her "husband."

So, in true evil AI fashion, she murders the wife, leaving only her newly born child behind. Who is a daughter.

Uh oh.

Dad #1 locks Frill in a coffin-esque hole in the basement and goes on with his life. Things are great! Until years later when the daughter reveals that she has fallen in love with her uncle (Dad #2 to Frill). She knows (somehow??) that both her dad and her uncle loved her mom, so if the loser uncle will just wait a few years he can marry her instead! He brushes her off, but the next day she’s found dead of an apparent suicide.

Realizing that this was somehow Frill’s doing, he marches down to the basement and confronts the murderous child they’ve had locked up for years. She’s now surrounded by screens in, again, true creep AI fashion. How did she get all this while she was locked up? Oh, just the three bug girls she created as friends prior to killing the wife. They’re devoted slaves, I guess. So the uncle says enough of this insanity and seemingly sets Frill on fire.

OH and Frill’s subtitled dialogue also puts “uncle” in quotation marks, implying that the daughter was always Dad #2’s??

Anyway, both brothers are now super obsessed with death and claim that they think Frill has had a hand in lots of girls’ suicides, even now after her own death. This is brought into question later when it’s revealed that they might have just concocted this scheme to try and bring back their daughter. I’m really not sure. Regardless, they use hand-wavey science to create eggs that I guess contain the souls of young girls who have committed suicide, then they sucker in other young girls who have lost people to suicide to try and rescue their loved ones in a dream world, saving others along the way. A tomboyish girl, Momoe, lost a classmate who admitted to loving her, but who Momoe rejected. Rika, a former junior idol, used and rejected an overweight fan only to learn later that she’d starved herself to death. Neiru, the 14yo president of some science company (yup) was attacked by her sister before she jumped off a bridge. Finally Ai, our protagonist, is a victim of bullying who managed to make friends with a single girl, Koito, who then jumped from their school building for unknown reasons. They’re all given the chance to bring these individuals back to life, provided they protect other victims of suicide by defeating the monstrous traumas that drove them to that act in the first place.

And you know what? That concept was great. However, the execution ranges from “Okay, that was pretty good for an anime. Kudos there” to “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve seen in my life.” Needless to say, unpacking all the battles they fight would take a lot more than this already absurd summary. Basically, if you can think of something horrible to happen to young girls (and one trans guy whose existence in that egg undermines the whole message of the episode), there’s an attempt to tackle it here.

During all this the four girls become friends and Ai works through her suspicions about Mr. Sawaki, a teacher at her school. What’s going on with Mr. Sawaki? Uh… everything! He’s somehow connected to Koito’s death, he’s dating Ai’s mom, and Ai apparently loves him too because her friends say so, even though this is never actually addressed and she barely interacts with him. It’s all quite the complication.

In time though the girls complete their “mission” of bringing their loved ones back to life. Rika and Momoe manage it first, only to find that Frill’s bug-girl lackeys have arrived to kill them. Why? Because that’s what Frill does, I guess. Momoe’s crocodile familiar (cute animals the girls were gifted to help them fight) takes a killing blow for her and the bug-lady then proceeds to carve up his corpse and force feed it to Momoe. Fantastic!! Building off of that, the next bug-lady who Rika encounters kills her turtle too, following in the footsteps of her bug-sister by, presumably, forcing her to eat parts of its head. Ai refuses to sacrifice her familiar to stay alive, but luckily the suicide she was protecting turns out to be herself from a parallel universe (that's a thing now!) and she takes the killing blow herself, which is done by pulling out the eye she’s sensitive about (she has heterochromia.) So parallel Ai passes on (again?) and the three girls don’t work through this trauma at all, instead becoming more traumatized through the realization that the loved ones they brought back no longer remember them. They’re alive, but the relationship they all had with them is dead.

It’s about this point that the main storyline wraps up and I’m relieved that there’s an OVA to finish things off. Surely they can somehow bring this all together in 45 minutes.

…25 minutes of that OVA is recap.

So with only about 20 minutes left, we learn that Neiru, the only one to not complete her mission yet, has mysteriously gone missing. It turns out she was an AI/clone/something all along, made to replace her sister and, presumably, that’s what caused the whole stabbing-suicide incident. She successfully brings her sister back, but stays behind in the dream world because Frill promises her she can become human. How is Frill here when she’s dead? How will Neiru become human? Isn’t Frill the “temptation of death” or whatever? There are no answers. A flashback finally reveals that Koito was having a relationship with a teacher at another school, he committed suicide, she transferred, she tried the same thing with Mr. Sawaki, he kept refusing her advances, and finally while threatening suicide to get his attention, she accidentally fell.

(So why was she in the suicide egg if it was an accident??)

Except, all this information comes through Mr. Sawaki himself, there’s a whole subplot about whether he’s really a villain, or if Ai is just making him into one, and this show might as well be titled How Much Pedophilia Can We Put into One Anime? So make of that what you will.

A dead character randomly shows up, but it's fine because she's actually just a version from a parallel world. How did she get here? Why is she here? Lol, it's cute that you think these are answered.

Rika, the character who cuts and almost committed suicide halfway through the show, breaks down saying how much she misses her dead loved ones, right after her friends refused to let her go on another mission that would surely end in her death and… that’s it. That’s all we get about her.

Momoe too, though she’s hopefully just vibing somewhere with that longed-for boyfriend.

Ai transfers schools and then one day randomly remembers that she loves Neiru and rushes back to start cracking eggs again because that will? Somehow?? Let her see Neiru???

When I say there are too many unanswered questions to possibly list here I really, really mean it.

Finally, in a personal attack on me, the protagonist with a name that is literally AI is not in any way an artificial intelligence.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you now “understand” WEP. And see, the funny thing is that the off-the-rails, bat-shit crazy aspects kind of catch you off guard? Yeah, the first episode is fantastic. In fact, I think I got through about six episodes thinking that this was a solid, if at times really messed up anime, but I was willing to shrug off a lot of stuff due solely to the amount of sensitive material they were attempting to cover (which is always quite difficult to do). Probably the only reason I was able to binge so fast was because the first half of the series was so engaging. The characters are charming. The animation is GORGEOUS. There's actually a ton of good here that is also worth yelling about. But then the plot comes in like a freight train and I was left staring dumbfounded at my screen as more and more insanity kept happening. Having watched the "explanations" I am now more confused about the show I just saw.

Phoenix, if you’ve bothered to read this rambling, 3:00am rant: thank you. I think? Idk if I should actually be thanking you or cursing you for tuning me into this, but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure lol.

I'm off to bed now RIP the chance of having normal dreams ✌️

[sapphirelycoris]

𝑨 𝑩𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑩𝒆𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝑨𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆 & 𝑨𝒇𝒇𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒕: 𝑰

Rating: Teen

Warnings: Suggestive lines, pining (like a lot because Enji's a simp), enemies to lovers style writing, weird 19th century type dialogue but I think it's still readable. Please tell me if I missed any.

Ship: Enji Todoroki x female reader (she/her)

Word count:  2,707

Music: Pride & Prejudice Music & Ambiance

Author's note: I know some of the character's relationships with others are kind of weird but I casted them according to personality. For example, Ryuko reminds me of Charlotte Lucas and Nejire reminds me of her little sister, Maria. I just kind of threw names around haha... A NSFW and continuation soon to come. God, it's been a while since I posted anything on this blog.

Written/created for: @pleasantanathema's Through Ink and Quill | A Classics Collab

Summary: A Pride and Prejudice inspired piece, featuring Enji Todoroki as the male love interest. Loosely following the plot of the actual novel with a few twists on the actual story's dialogue, characters, & events. When you meet Mr. Enji Todoroki, he was the last man in the world you'd ever want to be around. However, as your paths cross more and more, you see that your first impression of him was inaccurate.

"The world works in mysterious ways. He doesn’t know what happened and when it began. Suddenly, Enji cannot stop longing to be in the same room with you. To go one more moment without you seemed like a sin or some unbearable divine punishment for his greatest flaw: pride."

𝑉𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝘩𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠, 𝑡𝘩𝑜𝑢𝑔𝘩 𝑡𝘩𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑦𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑦𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦. 𝐴 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑏𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑑 𝑤𝑖𝑡𝘩𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑣𝑎𝑖𝑛. 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠; 𝑣𝑎𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑡𝑜 𝑤𝘩𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝘩𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑜𝑡𝘩𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑡𝘩𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑢𝑠. -𝐽𝑎𝑛𝑒 𝐴𝑢𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑛

The world works in mysterious ways. He doesn’t know what happened and when it began. Suddenly, Enji cannot stop longing to be in the same room with you. He dreamed about the sight of your eyes, glancing at him with mild contempt. You occupied his thoughts, both innocent and indecent… He was going to go mad if you didn’t share the same affections that he did. He didn’t want you. Not at all. He needed you by his side. To go one more moment without you seemed like a sin or some unbearable divine punishment for his greatest flaw: pride.

When he blatantly insulted you at the first gathering he attended and saw you laugh about it with Ryuko, for once, he felt uneasy. The same woman he had slighted was now the one who controlled him. He noticed the way you looked embarrassed at your family’s antics. It disgusted him that he was obsessing over someone with that kind of background.

It certainly shocked Enji when you stood him up at Sir Yorio’s gathering. How dare you! For him to stoop down and offer to dance with you, only for you to reject him, was truly offensive. A woman far below his social status, refusing to stand up with him. The nerve. 

Every single snarky quip that left your lips swam around in his mind. Your sharp tongue was attractive. The moment he saw you with mud on your dress, walking from your home to Toshinori’s country estate, he was taken aback. For some reason, he couldn’t get rid of that image. The sun hit your face perfectly, creating an enchanting glow that accompanied your delightful countenance. 

“Ms. (L/N).” Your name rolled off his lips so naturally. 

The regrettable moment you had to leave Toshinori’s estate, he helped you into the carriage which would take you home. Something transpired, far beyond his comprehension. Your hand fit so perfectly in his, he couldn’t help but want it to stay there forever. The missing piece to a puzzling man such as himself finally found its way to its rightful spot. It seemed you wished for the same thing. His grip was secure, he felt safe, and you were trapped, staring into the most beautiful cerulean eyes. At the same time, Enji could drown in your eyes forever. The confused look you gave him was endearing when he refused to let go. 

His actions also startled him. Why was he so stuck on you? He flexed his hand, imagining that yours never left as he watched the carriage shrink, moving further from the manor and into the distance. When was the next time he would be allowed to see you? What was it going to take to cure this infatuation?

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

The next time he saw you, was under more unfortunate circumstances. He was riding downtown with Toshinori when he spotted your little party. Unlike his friend, Enji looked unhappy when he saw who you were talking with. You briefly exchanged eye contact with him before he had a clear look of disdain displayed on his face. 

Keigo’s eyes followed yours. He tipped his hat, but Enji made no attempt to return the friendly gesture. He hurried away on his horse without saying a word. The encounter was certainly unusual. Keigo looked discomforted by the interaction. You wondered what could have transpired between the two men that caused such tension. 

That night, at your aunt’s home, you sat down and heard what Keigo had to say about his reunion with Enji. He told his side of the story. He painted Enji as the villain in his narrative. Seeing as how you already found the man so disagreeable, you couldn’t help but believe Keigo’s words. He was much more forthcoming than his old friend; he didn’t seem capable of telling a lie. This new story caused you to see Enji in a new light, only deepening your dislike for the man. 

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Toshinori was a man of his word and held the ball that he promised your sisters. Enji was less unenthusiastic than he usually was. Knowing that he’d get to see you there was the night’s one redeeming feature. He was excited at the thought of getting to lay his eyes on you once more, and it sickened him.

Many of the officers were attending the ball. While linking arms with Toshinori and walking around the ballroom, you searched for Keigo among the redcoats the officers wore. Instead of finding him, you found a pair of familiar blue eyes that looked at you with well-hidden passion and yearning. Enji wanted to tear you away from Toshinori’s arms and have you all to himself. He had many selfish desires, and he usually got what he wanted, but you were the exception. 

Women fawned over him, trying to get a taste of his money. Even Rei tried being overly friendly with him. He cared little for them; he wasn’t looking to fall in love. He was not in search of a wife. Enji was quite content with the life he had. Everything he wanted was in his grasp. But you? You were so close yet so far. There was an uncomfortable amount of emotional space between you and he wanted to close it. Being in the same room wasn’t enough anymore. He wanted to touch you, feel your skin, claim those alluring lips for himself. He wanted to see your whole being without any pesky fabric in the way. If only he could rip that dress off of your body after forcefully pulling you into a vacant bedroom. 

He made his way over to you, but an officer blocked his view. He informed you that Keigo would not be in attendance. Part of it was because of an assignment he had to do, but he also wanted to avoid a certain man… Your younger sisters drug the officer away, leaving you alone in the middle of a crowded room. 

Fortunately, you spotted Ryuko, who was standing alone in the corner. You went to inform her of everything that had happened lately. An unwelcome guest interrupted you. 

“Ryuko, may I introduce you to my cousin, Mr. Tobita?” While remaining civil, you introduced them to each other. He took your hand and led you to dance. As it turns out, the man can’t dance. He went the wrong way, bumping into another lady. It was embarrassing, to say the least. 

Enji watched in amusement as he saw you struggle to keep a smile. You made eye contact with him again, almost sending him a look of desperation. Dancing with him would be better than your current situation. He simply smirked and waltzed around the room, observing everyone. 

While you were busy venting to Ryuko, the very man you were talking about came up to you. The two of you exchanged glances and bowed. “If you are not otherwise engaged, would you do me the honor of dancing the next with me?” Enji’s odd invitation made your eyes widen slightly.

There was no way out of it. You tried coming up with an excuse, but nothing came to mind. He smiled slyly as you fumbled over your words. “I- well I hadn’t... yes. Thank you…” With no escape, you were trapped. He walked off, and you lingered behind for a minute.

“You’d be a fool if you didn’t take him up on his offer. It’s a great compliment that he singled you out.” Ryuko commented. 

“The last time he singled me out was to slander me. Hateful man…” you hissed before going to follow him. 

As the music started to play, you studied Enji’s face. It was the first time you’d ever really taken the time to analyze all of his features. You hated to admit it, but he was handsome. Unusually handsome. 

Finally, your hand had made its way back into his. Even if it was only for a brief moment, that feeling would stick with him until the end of the night. The two of you danced around with your words, conversing back and forth when the time was appropriate. You simply couldn’t bear the silence. 

Couples pranced around the dance floor elegantly, stepping where they needed to. You two moved in sync, never letting your eyes wander. There was a burning passion for the man that you couldn’t get rid of. Whether it was burning hatred, lust, or love, you couldn’t tell. Hostility and tension seemed to be all that came out of your encounters with him. The sexual tension was the one thing that kept you from completely despising Enji and you hated it. 

In an attempt to rile him up, you remarked on Keigo and the last time Enji saw you. “The last time I was in town, I was forming a new acquaintance.” A sly grin spread across your face as the words came out. 

“Mr. Takami’s friendly personality is what allows him to make friends so easily. Though his ability to keep them is debatable.” 

“How unfortunate he must be, to lose your friendship, a loss I am sure he will regret for the rest of his life.” You mocked in an airy and hushed tone. Before Enji could snap back, Mr. Toyomitsu came over to hint at a marriage between your sister and Toshinori. The two of you glanced at the smiling pair before dancing again. “Didn’t you say that you rarely ever forgave? That your hatred, once set in stone, was set indefinitely? Surely a man such as yourself is careful when breeding such hatred.” 

“Of course I am.” Enji scoffed. 

“And I presume you do not let prejudice blind you?” 

“No. What is the purpose of these questions, if I may ask?” He grumbled, disliking your inquiries. 

“Simply a means to figure out your constitution.” You laughed, “Trying to get a good idea of your character.”

“And your findings?” 

“None. I have heard of you on different accounts by different people with different views of you. You shall remain a mystery until I comprehend you.” 

With the dance ending, Enji remained silent. Once the music faded, he supported your hand as you lightly held it over his. “I request that you do not attempt to perceive my character right now. It would do us no favors if you judged wrong.” He claimed as you left the dance floor.

“I may not get another opportunity, so I might as well try while I have the chance.” 

Enji placed himself right next to you and leaned to whisper in your ear. He lowered his voice, making sure only you could hear. “I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours.” His finger brushed against your arm as he walked away. All the heat in your body rushed to that spot. You wanted his warmth against your skin, you didn’t want him to go. 

And yet, you were standing alone in the corner of a crowded room, fixated on the man who you swore to never like. 

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

Much had happened over a short amount of time. You had rejected Mr. Tobita’s marriage proposal and got an earful from your mother. Keigo got engaged to a rich young lady, and Ryuko had gotten engaged to Mr. Tobita. Enji and Toshinori’s party had left his estate, and your sister was disheartened. Everyone had such high expectations for her and Toshinori, only for him to up and leave. 

Now, you were on your own adventure. You, Sir Yorio, and Nejire were going to visit her and Mr. Tobita. They lived in a small house on Lady Chiyo’s property. Greenery grew on the stone, adding to the natural feel of the house. It was a quaint little grey structure with a clear blue sky in the background.

As soon as the carriage stopped, Ryuko and her husband rushed out the door to greet you. They showed you to your rooms while Mr. Tobita kept on about Lady Chiyo’s house and how grand it was. It seemed he was more in love with Chiyo than his own wife.

“Are you happy here?” You asked Ryuko as you watched the other three walk around the garden.

“I am quite content with my situation. I barely see him during the day. He sits in his book room, walks to Lady Chiyo’s every day, and-”

“And you prefer to sit in your own wing of the house.” You finished. Whether it was what she was going to say or not, you stated your mind. Ryuko smiled wistfully, “Yes.” 

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

While you and Ryuko were walking through the woods, along with Nejire, Mr. Tobita came running after you. He was clearly out of breath but told you his news, anyway. Enji and his cousin, Kugo, had arrived. He urged you to make your way back to the house, since they wanted to visit with them.

“Pleasure to finally meet you Ms. (L/N).” Kugo smiled.

“Oh? ‘Finally’, sir?” 

“My cousin speaks of you often.” He informed.

“Ah…” You sighed, looking over at Enji who met your gaze, only hungrier. 

Enji’s eyes never left you, though. There was a protective aura emitting from him. Just in case Kugo spoke or acted out of line, he was ready to come to your aid at any moment. He rested his knuckles against his mouth. Instead of addressing anyone else in the room, he was intently watching and listening to your conversation. 

“Pray tell, why is Mr. Todoroki staring at me?” You asked Kugo, having enough of being watched over like you were some kind of prey, “Have I done or said something he finds offensive?” 

The man stood up from the sofa and meandered over to the table you were seated at. He had no control of his own actions. It was quite an impulsive move, and now he didn’t know what to say. “How is your family?” He choked out. 

“Well.” You replied, “My sister has been in town for quite some time. Have you happened to see her?” 

“No.” Enji lied, “Unfortunately not.” 

“As you can tell, Mr. Todoroki and I are not very close.” 

“Really? I find that hard to believe.” Kugo exclaimed.

“Truly? I believe in first impressions, however, Mr. Todoroki’s good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.” Your words caused him to turn around, and he saw your smiling face, making a joke of him. 

≿━━━━༺❀༻━━━━≾

The grounds of Lady Chiyo’s property were breathtaking. When the weather allowed, you took advantage of the sprawling greenery and went out for as many walks as you could. Without a cloud in the sky, an endless sea of blue, and shining sun, you wasted no time in getting outside. It was much more productive and enjoyable than sitting in the house.

A beautiful little trail, hidden by the estate’s magnificent trees, was the path you found yourself walking along. You looked up to admire how tall the trees had grown. They stood proud and provided you with shade. The birds sang a lovely little tune, supplying you with a unique sound that rivaled that of the best musicians. 

Enji came trotting through the path from the side. He halted his horse once he saw you. No painting could do you justice, even one made by the best painter in the world could compare to your beauty in person. The sight of you admiring the picture in front of you made his heart pound. Though you said nothing, he believed that you, taking the time to simply look at him, was the greatest compliment he would ever receive. 

And for those few precious minutes, he drank in your appearance. He was hopelessly in love with you. Being in your presence was the best part of his day. He found himself looking forward to seeing you. He always prayed for you to cross paths with him. Even if he simply caught a glimpse of you, suddenly it brightened his entire day. 

Unfortunately, he had other things to do. Enji spurred his horse forward and trotted away. Your presence in his life was much bigger than he expected when he first met you. And somehow… he didn’t mind it. He hated yet loved the feeling of being in love.

[heyitmelexie]

Hot Drinks

Marcus Moreno x GN!Reader

Word count: 2020 Warnings: mention of masturbation Rating: 18+

A/N: Day 16 for @honeymandos​ December Writing Challenge!

The work itself doesn’t have a lot to do with hot drinks, I got a little carried away with the story but hot drinks are definitely a part of it!

Hope you enjoy!

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

“I’ll go!” you hear Missy call after knocking on their front door.

Just a second later the door opens, revealing her in a festive sweater and pyjama pants. She beams up at you before wrapping her arms around your middle to hug you tightly.

You giggle and press a kiss to the crown of her head, then wrap your arms around her as well, returning the hug.

“I’m happy to see you too, little Miss Moreno” you say, making her giggle. She then lets go of you and you both go inside the house.

Marcus stands in the kitchen and the smell of hot chocolate reaches your nose. It smells amazing, rich chocolate combined with caramel and cinammon.

“Hmm, that smells wonderful, Marcus” you say as you make your way over to where he stands and wrap your arms around him from behind. He looks over his shoulder and smiles at you.

“Yeah? I hope it tastes as good as it smells, then.” You press a kiss to his shoulder and watch him for a bit.

Marcus and you had met just after his wife died. He needed a nanny to watch over Missy when he was at work and you fit all of his requirements.

Missy and him were a little hesitant at first, the loss still fresh, they were trying to process everything. But after a while they got used to your presence and Missy started to love you as if you’ve always been a part of her life. Marcus was grateful for everything you’ve helped him with.

Over time you started to see Marcus as more than your employer and it had worried you. You were scared to ruin the relationship you had with him and Missy, there was no way you could ever replace her and you certainly didn’t want them to feel like you tried to do that.

But Missy noticed the way you looked at her father, the lingering glances and longing stares. So one day she had decided to confront you.

“You like him, don’t you?” You looked at her in slight confusion.

“Of course I do, you know that. Just like I like you” you had said, making her roll her eyes but a soft smile appeared on her face.

“No. I mean that you love him. I notice how you stare at him all the time and watch him when he isn’t looking. I might be a kid but I’m not dumb.” She giggled and you had felt your face heat up, lowering your gaze.

“Well, maybe…”

“If there is anyone I would want my dad to be with, it’s you” she had said, making you look at her with wide eyes.

“Are you sure? But I don’t want you to think-“

“We all know that no one can replace my mom. And I know that’s not what you want. But I wouldn’t mind you as a parent. You basically already are.” She came around the dining table and hugged you tightly. Tears sprung to your eyes and you hugged her back, relieved that the relationship with her wouldn’t be ruined if you dated her father.

Her approval was all you needed but you still had to figure out if Marcus felt the same about you.

And oh boy, how you found out.

Just a few days later you came back late in the evening because you had forgotten something, it was around 9pm. Missy was already asleep and you heard the shower run. You had gone upstairs to Marcus’ office. He allowed you to use it for when you needed to do some Uni work and that evening you had forgotten your laptop on his desk.

You grabbed it and went back into the hallway. Upon passing the bathroom door you heard a strange sound and at first you thought he was hurt. But as you heard the sound again you noticed he wasn’t in pain. In fact, he sounded like he felt pleasure.

Marcus moaned and grunted, you heard the sloshing of the water and the slapping of his fist against his pelvic bone in a steady rhythm. He was pleasuring himself and there you stood, eavesdropping. Your whole body was in flames and you went to leave but another sound caused you to freeze in shock.

He moaned your name. Not just once, you heard how his hand quickened and his grunts got lower. Your name tumbled from his lips like a prayer and suddenly the slapping sound stopped. A dark groan left his lips as he came all over the shower wall and he moaned your name a last time, a satisfied sound.

You were trembling. The sounds he made had turned you on more than anything ever had before but it left you aching for him. This had just made you want him even more.

When you heard the shower turn off you quickly went downstairs and then left the house. You didn’t want to confront him like this, even though your mind had screamed at you to burst into this bathroom to give him what he so desperately seemed to want. But you needed to tell him how you felt in a more… modest situation.

The day after was his weekly day off. If he was needed on that day he would have to leave but other than that he used it to spend time with Missy. And since you knew how relaxed he was on these days you thought this was the best opportunity to tell him.

He was surprised to see you as he opened the door but didn’t mind having you over. Actually, he was happy to see you.

Missy was still sleeping, it was only 9am when you arrived and you knew it was now or never.

“Marcus, I need to talk to you” you had said before sitting down on the sofa next to him. He had looked at you in confusion.

“Did I do anything?” You shook your hand no at him and took his hand in yours.

“There is something I need you to know as it influences our daily interactions and distracts me in a way.” He furrowed his brow and you gave him a small smile.

You gave his hand a gentle squeeze and took a deep breath.

“I’ve fallen in love with you, Marcus and I don’t want to hide it any longer.”

His mouth fell open and he just stared at you, not a single sound coming from him. This had made you nervous, scared he would reject you and never want to see you again.

“I don’t want this to be awkward between us, but it feels good that this is finally off my chest. Missy is like a daughter to me and she knows how I feel about you. She’s fine with it. I just… wanted to tell you and see how you feel. Obviously, if you don’t feel the same then that’s totally fine, but I don’t want to ruin what we have, you two mean so much to me…”

He put a hand to your cheek and turned your head so you would look at him.

“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to finally tell you this but I was such a coward. I was afraid. Afraid you would reject me because I’m your employer and I’m so much older-“

“Marcus, the age gap doesn’t bother me at all. I’ve fallen in love with you, not your age” you had said, a gentle smile on your lips. That seemed to relax him a little and he nodded.

“I’ve fallen in love with you too. The way you take care of me and Missy, how much Missy loves you. You’re so caring and gentle and so… so good. With you I finally feel right again. I know she would want me to move on, to have someone who loves me and who is good with Missy. And you are this person. You made me feel again. You made me remember how it feels to love someone so deeply it makes my heart clench every time I look at them. Every time I look at you.”

You had felt your eyes water and butterflies erupt in your stomach with such force you thought you’d start vibrating.

He loved you too. He actually loved you too.

The smile you had smiled hurt your cheeks,  but you didn’t care because the man you loved felt the same about you.

You took his face into your hands and gently kissed him, surprising him but he quickly recovered and wrapped his arms around you. The kiss you two shared warmed your whole body like a bonfire on a cold night, it made your toes tingle and your mind fuzzy with love.

However, this moment didn’t last long as it was interrupted by a loud cough. As you broke apart and turned your heads into the direction of that sound you saw Missy standing at the bottom of the stairs. She looked at you with a huge grin on her face, basically beaming.

“About damn time, you lovesick fools!” she had said, making the both of you laugh before she ran and jumped onto you.

That was just a few months ago and nothing much has changed except for the fact that you’re almost living with them. You spend many nights at their house, in his bed, in his arms. You kiss and make love, it feels as if it had always been like that. It feels right.

“Missy can you please choose a movie? The hot chocolate is almost done” Marcus says, turning a little to look at his daughter. She nods and runs into the living room to decide what she wants to watch tonight.

Marcus then fully turns in your arms and leans down to gently kiss you. You hum against his lips and put your hands on his chest. When he breaks away he leans his forehead against yours and looks into your eyes, smiling.

“Hello beautiful” he rasps, making you shudder.

“Hi there handsome” you giggle and gently pat his chest.

“I hope your exam went well today?” he asks before turning around to finish the hot drinks.

“Yeah it was good, not as bad as I feared it would be. I’m so glad this semester is finally over for me though and I can relax for some weeks” you hum, gently running your hands up and down his back.

“I can imagine.” You smile and take your mug from him as well as the bowl of popcorn. The two of you walk into the living room where Missy already sits in her bean bag and waits for the two of you.

Marcus hands her the mug and then puts his on the table, you do the same and then you sit on the sofa, snuggling into his side. He puts his arm around you and then starts the movie.

Halfway through the movie he looks down at you, a gentle smile on his face as he sees the remains of the whipped cream on the corner of your mouth. He wipes it away with his thumb, making you look at him. You flash him a soft smile and press a kiss to his lips.

“Move in with us, love” he suddenly says and you blink at him, unsure if you just heard him right.

“Move… in with you? Like, for real?” He nods and gently caresses your cheek.

For a moment you don’t know how to respond to that. The question was so out of nowhere.

“I… I mean I basically already live here so… of course. I would love that, Marcus” you finally respond and he flashes you the biggest and softest smile you have ever seen.

He gently kisses your lips, then your nose and lastly your forehead. You close your eyes and hum quietly.

“I love you so much, Marcus” you whisper against his lips.

You feel him smile against yours and open your eyes to look at him again.

“I love you too, mi amor.”

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

@absurdthirst​ @tangledlove27​ @kandomeresbitch @mrschiltoncat​

[brahkest-fr]

Fuckin uhhh Taro musings and Janus is there

Taro flicked his tail, brushing gently against Janus’ leg who was at the moment spacing out over a stack of dishes messily smeared with this night’s takeout dinner.

“Here I’ll wash those,” he grabbed the stack and moved over to the sink.

His ivory hair was down and ruffled as was its usual state after a night of drinking and going out on the town in drag. He grabbed it up in a clean, tight bun and tied it back, a few strands hanging down the sides of his face. He adjusted his tube dress that was probably a little too short and not so comfortable for chores. He let the sink run and fill up, soapy water engulfing his wrists. He looked back at Janus who simply stood staring with his usual sparkling eyes that were now just a bit hazy with weariness.

Taro uttered a low laugh, “Hah, still buzzed, Janus? I told you, you couldn’t handle it.”

“Whatever grandpa,” he snapped up, “I’m not the one who almost fell down the stairs tonight sober,” he sneered, taking the clip on earrings out of his ear.

Taro’s lipstick stained mouth turned down as he narrowed his eyes, “Hmph, they're new heels and was breaking them in.”

“By breaking your ass?” Janus bent over and held his back in mock pain.

Taro whipped his arm and splashed Janus who scurried away beyond the kitchen into the adjacent living room. He toppled on the couch and groaned after a few snickers at Taro’s direction. The couch was cozy and he was a little groggy from their night out so he lounged, heavy and eyes fluttering, but the itch from his fishnets was nagging. He sluggishly sat up, reaching up his dress to unhook the garters holding up the stockings. He slipped them off and threw them on the coffee table, feeling relieved. After some minutes, Taro strode over with his purse, plopping down on a leather recliner. He undid his hair, letting it fall to his shoulders again and took out a packet of makeup wipes. He snagged a few then threw it to Janus who caught it with some difficulty.

Taro wiped his face, blush and dark eyeliner staining the cloth. He looked to Janus, “You going home or staying here?”

“Do you want me to stay?”

Taro was midway undoing an earring before pausing, “Why do you always answer like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like that! With questions.”

Janus smiled, “I like putting you on the spot.”

“Tch.” Taro gingerly placed his earrings on the table and combed his hair with finely manicured claws dotted with tiny pink petals.

Janus leaned in, half an eye smeared with mascara, smug as ever, “You didn’t answer me.”

Taro squinted, brow raised. Anyone else would have immediately received a sharp hook to the jaw for such brashness but it was never like that with Janus. Maybe a long time ago when they first met and Taro’s opinion of the fae was pond scum adjacent. Even then he couldn’t help but avoid punishing Janus for his impetuosity. He was simply too useful and good at his job.

-

That’s what he would tell himself anyway, as he sat irate in meetings with his officers who would complain about the brash young fae that threw his weight around as if he were a breed larger. Each request to restrain Janus was met with excuses from Taro, many of which were legitimate but others being deeply rooted attempts to disguise his favoritism. It didn’t fool anyone though and no one was surprised a sentimental Taro attached himself to someone else after his wife had left so suddenly. He was never really sure if Janus acted as some substitute for Mellow who was in many ways like him: loud and opinionated and a thorn in his side. The difference was Janus was here. And she was not.

He often tried to suppress those thoughts which he felt were more selfish than genuine. A piece of his life’s puzzle had long since been missing and for some time, Janus felt too lopsided and out of place to fit. He wracked with the idea that Janus could be anything more than a particularly talented goon but that was quickly drowned out by the many imaginings of how they could be something together. As years passed, Taro and Janus saw each other less as boss and goon and more as close friends. Taro persistently kept up appearances but his favoritism would often slip which, in the beginning, surprised Janus who wasn’t very well versed in reading Taro’s stone faced demeanor. Nowadays, he could read him like a book. It gave Taro a sense of weakness, being figured out so easily, but also a sense of comfort. He wanted someone to know him again. It was lonely, being at the top of the world.

Things became harder when Rose hatched. Taro was so desperate to keep what little shred of solace he had with Janus that used Rose to do it. He regretted it deeply but the damage was done. Taro made it his mission to make himself integral to their lives, in some part to atone for his actions and another to gain the sense of family that he longed for. He knew it was selfish and so did Janus but the fae never pushed him away or rejected the help. Taro felt good knowing Janus needed him but the guilt if it all reminded him that it was his fault in the first place. It was wrong of him to throw himself into their lives like a train without brakes but he always gave Janus the opportunity to refuse. He hoped at least, Janus knew that. It was never something the two talked about, always concerning themselves with Rose this and Rose that. Maybe they just avoided conflicting for her sake.

Taro focused much of his attention on Rose to compensate for the emotions running wild in his gut. It was easy to lose himself in the care of a hatchling. He was familiar with the motions, having taken the late night responsibilities of caring for his own kids when Mellow went to sleep. Rose was much like them in the way that the Icewarden was like the Flamecaller. She screamed a lot, bit anything within reach, and persistently tried to rip his whiskers off. He simply could not be anymore proud of the little girl with murder in her eyes laced with a softness reserved for only those closest. He felt himself go back in time with her, back to a period where he was a father and was allowed to be kind and open and vulnerable. But at the same time, she was like sandpaper: chaffing his conscience in painful ways that made him regret being a part of anything at all and yet... smoothed out all the hard edges he built up to protect himself.

He wasn’t keen on admitting it but Rose was everything he wanted in a child. Unlike his own, she was raised in the mob life, trained to defend herself and strike back with a ferocity not unlike his own. She grew up to be crude and calculated despite the cutesy exterior. Taro’s idea of family was twisted and warped by his chosen life path but he felt good - enabled by Rose and Janus, both of whom were very familiar with this unconventional lifestyle. They were the things Mellow and his children weren’t: warm and loving but violent and realistic, tempered by the brutal streets of Hewn City. Mellow... she dreamed of this life but when it came down to it, she couldn’t stay. The stars in her eyes faded once she finally reached the peak of the city’s high rises and looked down on everything she had to crush to get there. So, one day, she left with the children to reevaluate her life and Taro, miserable but understanding, let her. Rose and Janus however? They wouldn’t leave him. That particular thought always hit him like a kick to the gut.

Selfish.

He wasn't supposed to have this slice of happiness but he carved it out all the same with a confidence that disguised pained hesitation.

The first time Taro “mentioned” his feelings to Janus was a cold night on the balcony of his apartment. It was snowing that night and Janus busied himself to catching snowflakes on his tongue that he remarked tasted different than the ones back in Ice. Taro couldn’t be bothered to decipher the intricacies of frozen water and Janus noticed. He leaned on the railing beside Taro and bumped an elbow to his side.

“You alright man? Been kinda spacey today.”

Taro stared out into the heart of Hewn City, mindlessly following cars as they zipped around the grid of streets below. His whiskers drooped ever so slightly, a motion unnoticeable to anyone else but present company, as he mouthed a few nothings then spoke, “Of course I am.”

Janus pursed his lips, “Uh huh. Come on, Taro, you should know by now I’m not stupid.”

Like a book, Taro thought.

“Seriously, Taro. What’s up?”

Taro shifted on the railing, turning around to lean back against it, face to the sky. Snow fluttered down softly, landing on his face where they melted instantly from the flush of heat rising to his cheeks. Janus watched curiously as Taro tilted his head in his direction but just enough to keep his eyes out of full view.

He mumbled, “Been thinking about us.”

Janus perked his ears, “Us? What about us?”

Taro gingerly inched his tufted tail towards Janus’ and it lingered there, longer than it usually did. Janus was all too familiar with Taro’s little mannerisms, slight touches and quirks that he came to learn were the ways he preferred to communicate. It was easier than words for him despite how articulate the imp was normally. In many ways, Taro was as poor at talking about his feelings as Janus was at understanding them but in that moment on the balcony he understood. Taro didn’t look his way but continued hanging his head back, snow catching on the loose strands of hair sticking out of his ponytail. It was a pleasant moment the two cherished in silence, the feeling of mutual understanding as a warm embrace against the chill. Janus didn’t move a muscle in fear of Taro retracting and looked towards the sliding door of the apartment. Rose was inside on the couch, sharpening one of her many knives and oblivious to the two outside.

Janus halfheartedly smiled, not quite sure if he was doing it right, “I getcha.”

“Does it bother you?” Taro’s deep voice was barely audible.

“No, it’s just,” Janus scrunched his face, “I guess I don’t know how to feel about it yet. Sorry if I look weird, I’m just trying to figure it out. You know how it is.”

Taro inched closer, “I know. I just figured I should say something.” He gestured vaguely, “In some...way, before, you know, I die or something.”

“Pff, you’re not that old.”

“I could get assassinated you know. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

Janus paused for a serious moment then quipped, “Rose does really like your apartment...”

Taro slapped his tail against Janus’ leg and he jumped away laughing. Times like this would occur over and over again as Taro became more comfortable with his little visions of domestic life with Janus and Rose. He gave away little signs and signals of his affection even if Janus did not always reciprocate, which was fine with him. He was simply happy being allowed to indulge in such gestures, only saddened when he was too embarrassed to be himself in front of Rose who had a rather big mouth and made it obvious that the two were being mushy gushy old men. It was funny how Taro could beat a dragon near to death in his office and order Rose to giddily mop up the blood but shirked at the idea of being too intimate with Janus. Part of him didn’t want to push the fae and another wanted to keep up appearances even though he could hardly care at this point and violently made sure no one else did either. He could be patient though. Janus was perpetually trying to figure himself out and Taro was happy to let him. He had an entire lifetime of coming to terms with his own feelings and wanted to afford Janus the same luxury.

-

Taro twirled a hair around a finger as he crossed his legs and lounged back. He cocked his head in mock thought, eyeing nothing in particular about the living room. Janus' shiny dress creaked and crinkled as he leaned in closer, elbows on the cusp in his knees.

"Come on man, I'm running out of leg here."

Taro smiled warmly, "Stay. Please."

“FINALLY,” he flopped back and slouched, “I’m going to bed. All my shit’s back at my place so gimme one of your shirts because there’s no way I’m sleeping in this.”

“I’ll give you that ‘Foxy Grandpa’ one Rose gave me for my birthday.”

“On second thought, maybe I'll stay in the dress.”

[themusicplayedherlife]

to love is the greatest gift

2. the dinner

pairing: obi wan kenobi x f!reader (past!din djarin x reader | past!obi wan kenobi x satine kryze) characters: f!reader, anakin amidala-skywalker, padmé amidala-skywalker, mentiones of din djarin, obi wan kenobi, others word count: 3.6k+ warnings: angst, fluff, death, longing, some arguing, slow burn summary: au! It has never been the right timing for you and Obi Wan, but maybe this time will be different. a/n: thank you so much for all the love in the previous chapter! i was so overwhelmed that i was a little nervous posting this part ;w; i really hope you guys enjoy this story! and do let me know what you think of the current formatting. is the switch from past to present jarring? or is it okay?

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Then.

The heat that Summer brought to Coruscant was different than Tatooine’s, less harsh and dry, and more of a kiss of warmth on your skin. Mother did say that Tatooine was always more temperamental, quick to heat up; while Coruscant could be a little tepid sometimes, but always a lot of fun. 

That was probably the only nice thing about Coruscant. Everything else about the city—like their streets—were too confusing.

Following the directions on your phone, you pulled the straps of your backpack tighter with your unoccupied hand, eyebrows furrowed as you tried to read the map on your phone. Was this truly the place you were meant to meet your guide? 

You looked up at the quaint house in front of you, quite a ways away from downtown and more in the suburbs. It looked like a cottage, like the ones in home magazines your mother liked collecting or the ones in Naboo or Stewjon. Could a high schooler, even one able to attend a prestigious private school, be able to afford such a home?

Did the headmistress confuse the address? Seemed possible. The woman seemed to be much more interested in the absolutes of rules and manners than actually helping you find your guide. Maybe you should have accepted your mother’s offer to accompany you. Or maybe convinced your parents to let you come with Anakin, you were sure Shmi wouldn't have minded.

You stood on your tiptoes, trying to take a peak over the white fence covered in a fuchsia flower—bougainvillea, if you remembered correctly. When that didn’t work, you stuffed your phone into your pocket and with hands holding onto your backpack straps to not jostle your belongings around too much, you began to jump.

There was a sound, like the sound of metal clinking and wood screeching, and the gate opened to a boy? man? (too young to own a house and maybe a few years older than you). He stepped out, blue eyes stopping on your curious form and greeting you with an amused, “Hello, there.”

You knew he had seen you jumping, there was no way he wouldn’t be looking at you the way he was if he hadn’t—embarrassing.

“Hello,” you greeted him back, timid and quickly setting your feet flat on the ground.

“May I help you?” he asked you, his Coruscanti accent thicker than the ones that greeted you at the terminal, much more charming too. It reminds you of all the actors you’ve seen on screen, speaking clearly and with nuance—never faltering. “You seem to be quite lost.”

“Oh, yes, I’m looking for someone,” you found yourself saying, tone turning formal and stiff. He removed his flat cap to push wisps of auburn hair away from his eyes, nodding for you to continue when you paused. “Padmé Amidala, is her name. She’s supposed to be my guide?”

At the mention of Padmé, the kind stranger sighed, hands falling to his hip. “Ah, now I understand why she came over. Did father know?” he murmured under his breath, looking back at the house with a raised brow. “Give me a moment and I’ll fetch her for you.”

You nodded quietly, watching him turn back inside, but not even two steps in, he stopped and turned back around, flashing you an almost sheepish, but albeit charming smile. 

“Pardon, that was a bit rude of me. Would you like to come in and wait for her in the garden?”

You mulled it over—following a stranger into their home was always something you had been advised against since you were a child. It would be completely unwise, wouldn’t it? But he seemed too kind, eyes too innocent and earnest to hurt you. And so, against your usual better judgement, you nodded. “If it’s no trouble?”

“None at all,” he assured you, opening the gate wider, “please come in. I’m Obi Wan, an old friend of Padme’s.”

You gave him your name and he smiled at you, wide and completely beautiful. “A pleasure to meet you.”

Now.

You were only a girl back when you first met, immature and blossoming and he was a young man, all roses and maturity—too much like his father (and yet nothing like him)—it was never going to be the right time for you.

Even now, standing before you—him with his tidy, combed auburn hair, white, stupid shirt that is freshly pressed, and brown slacks and dress shoes that are anything but casual—you feel like that girl all over again. 

“It has been a long time, Obi Wan.” Obi Wan. Obi. Obi. It’s been so long since you’ve said his name aloud that it feels so foreign on your tongue now. “I—I didn’t know you were visiting.”

His eyebrows furrow, deep, cerulean pools gliding away to the white door only a few steps away. His nostrils flare with a breath and turns his gaze back to you, opening his mouth to say something—he doesn’t get the chance. 

“There you are! You said—oh,” It’s Padmé. Beautiful, sweet Padmé looking as lost and confused to see Obi Wan just at the entrance of her driveway, with you. “Obi Wan?”

“Hello, old friend.” His head is slanted towards her now, a soft smile on his face. “It has been some time.” 

Friend. There’s always been that distinction between you and her in his words and actions. She was and is friend or little sister, and you were and have not always been darling—that always something, but never just nothing. 

“Yes, it has,” she says, unable to change her expression, and you don’t blame her. You still can’t believe it either.

Did Anakin know?

“Honey, where is—“

Of course Anakin knows, how could he not know? Look at his stupid face peeking over Padmé’s shoulder like the kriffing embecile he is! Those wide blue eyes don’t fool you, not one bit!

Dinner is quiet for the most part. 

The twins are unsure of the newcomer, even though Padmé and Anakin keep reassuring them that he’s a friend, their godfather (something they are aware of thanks to the pictures of the six of you sitting on the mantle of their fireplace). The twins were only a year old when he returned the first time and around three years old when he left the second time. They have no attachment to the man sitting at the head of the table. 

They absolutely refuse to sit next to him—Obi Wan smiles, but there’s a flash of pain in his eyes at hearing their quiet reluctance and rejection to get to know him—and so, you and Anakin take the seat closest to him and across from one another. Leia by his side and Luke by yours. Padmé takes the other head, smiling placidly, but her brown eyes waver when they meet yours every time.

Utensils scrape against ceramic, Obi Wan occasionally asking questions—how have you been? how’s work? how’s school? did Mr. Ford finally move? Quinlan still touring? Mr. Windu still teaching at the school?

It’s Anakin that mostly answers for all of you, trying to keep dinner as lively as it usually is, but with the kids eating silently by your side and not falling for their dad’s bait, it falls flat.

This dinner was supposed to be full of discussion—who will be joining us? will I need to buy more bread? did the know Qui Gon? does it matter? coffee for how many people, again? But you can’t bring any of them up in fear of how Obi Wan would react, and quite honestly, you think it might be because you don’t know how to react to his presence, yet.

Your heart squeezes in your chest every time you glance at him and find him looking back at you, a longing to reach out and take him into your arms edging ever so slightly forward every time. But there’s also a part of you that wants to keep him at a distance, to not give him the ability to hurt you when he inevitably leaves again. And that latter part of you is probably the reason why you blurt a question you should’ve kept to yourself.

“Why are you back?” Anakin trails off, his voice lowering when yours suddenly cuts through his. Obi Wan’s eyes widen and his mouth hangs open slightly and you realize your question comes off more accusatory than you meant it to sound. “I—I mean, it’s just so sudden and—“

“I know,” Obi Wan interrupts, soft; understanding. “I wasn’t sure I should come back,” he admits, remorse floating around his words (whether for having felt that way or because he knows it’ll hurt you, you don’t know) and you quickly face forward, meeting Anakin’s hurt eyes that most likely mirror yours, “but the firm has offered me a promotion and Anakin managed to convince me to test it out.”

You release a shuddering sigh, you had a feeling he knew.

Now it’s Anakin’s turn to quickly look away from you (you can’t help but wonder if he saw the hint of betrayal beginning to bubble in the pit of your stomach), only to be trapped by his lovely wife’s. Once more, he breaks contact and stares down at the plate in front of him instead.

“I’m sorry,” Obi Wan starts after a brief tense silence, “if I had known you weren’t aware I wouldn’t have—“

“We’re glad you’re back, Obi Wan,” Padmé interjects, a soft, lovely smile on her face—always so good with people, “for however long you wish to stay.” Although you know she means it, there’s still some hesitation in her words as her gaze flickers between you and him.

“Yes,” you find yourself saying, somehow managing to keep your voice leveled through it, “we’re glad you’re back.” And just like Padme, you know you mean it too, even if there’s a hint of hesitation in the way your eyes won’t meet Obi Wan’s gaze as you say it, focusing instead on the bridge of his nose.

You think he knows it too with the way his hands resting on the table roll inward, an uncomfortable veil beginning to fester as he keeps quiet, eyes drooping and the corner of his lips pulling down.

“Auntie,” Leia whispers, breaking the tension, from across the table and you hum, turning to face her with a wavering smile, “may I please have your piece of roast if you’re not going to eat it? It’s getting cold.”

You blink, and you’re sure everyone else is just as surprised as you are by her words—it’s such a little Leia thing to say, but at this moment? None of you were expecting it, and so, when you erupt into laughter, the room does too, the shock wearing off.

Leia looks around at the adults and she and Luke share a look before shrugging. She murmurs about roasts and perfectly good meat, and you shake your head as your laughter begins to die down.

“You can have it, honey.”

“Sweet!” Her eyes brighten and she grins, immediately digging into the piece of roast you’ve set on her plate.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Anakin whispers into the quiet space between you; the two of you staring out into the living room from the kitchen, leaning back onto the island.

It doesn’t surprise you that Obi Wan somehow manages to get the twins to warm up to him—Leia on his right and Luke on his left, the scrapbook you gifted them last year filled with Polaroid pictures of constellations opened on Obi Wan’s lap. He’s always been particularly good with kids, a trait he must’ve inherited from Gui Gon, who had an immense patience for teaching little ones how to play the piano and guitar.

Padmé sits with them too, keeping their attention away from you and Anakin and the inevitable arguing that might occur.

“This is Cetus!” you hear Luke point out.

“It’s our favorite ‘cause it’s a sea monster!” Leia informs him giddily, leaning forward to trace the stars to form the shape. “And this is And—Andromeda! It’s our Auntie’s favorite.”

“Is that right? It happens to be my favorite too.” Obi Wan glances over his shoulder, his eyes meeting yours for a split second—and you refuse to unravel the mess of emotions swirling in your stomach from that simple glance—before returning his attention back to the eager children, voice lilting. “Which one is this one?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.” You cup your cheek, the other holding your elbow to keep it perched—but it does matter. It very much matters that Anakin knew and kept it from you, blindsiding you completely. If you had known—if you had known you wouldn’t have come. You could’ve mentally prepared yourself for his reappearance in your lives. But instead you got punched in the gut. “He’s here now.” 

“I wanted to tell you,” he rushes to admit. “But I—when he told me he would visit—try out that new job, I didn’t think he actually would.” Anakin crosses his arms over his chest, eyes downcast and focused on his crossed ankles. “He’s done this before, you know?”

Your head snaps in his direction—this is the first you’ve ever heard about it.

“Once after your 21st birthday and another after Din and you broke up.” Anakin lets out a frustrated sigh and the hand that had been cupping your cheeks curls into a tight fist. “I wanted to surprise you, so I didn’t tell you. But he always called the night before to say he couldn’t make it. Some surprise, huh?”

“Anakin…” 

“I thought—I don’t know what I thought, to be honest.” He laughed self-deprecatingly and you squeeze his forearm. “I just hoped he would. I’m sorry”

“I’ll get over it, Ani,” you promise him, soft, the hurt and betrayal you felt dissipating like wisps of smoke. “I understand why you didn’t tell me.” He tries to smile at you, but fails. “I’m glad he’s back, really, I meant it when I said it… but—“

“It hurts,” he finishes for you, sympathy and understanding laced in those two words.

“Always.”

“Do you know which one is this one Uncl’Obi?” Leia asks.

“Mama, knows it,” Luke follows.

“Does she? Care to give me a hint?”

“That'd be cheating.” Padmé laughs.

“No cheaters here,” Leia agrees, nodding her head with each word.

“Oh, fine. Let’s see…” Obi Wan chuckles, his hand coming up to his chin to rub the growing stubble, exaggerating his thinking. “Is it… a Bantha?” The kids giggle and shake their heads. “No? Hm. Then… is it… ah! I know—Pegasus?”

“Yes!”

You fight back a smile, pressing your lips together as the twins begin to tell him the story of Pegasus, not telling it correctly, but Obi Wan is enraptured by their animated story telling nonetheless. 

“We have to tell him,” Anakin whispers, breaking the silence, and while he doesn’t reference who has to know and what they have to know, you know exactly what he’s insinuating and you don’t agree.

“No.”

He exasperates your name, hands falling to his side as he fully turns to you. “He deserves—“

“I said no, Anakin,” you spit, breath coming out harshly. His blue eyes widen and they flash with hurt. You close your eyes, steadying your breath and calming your racing heart—cursing yourself. “He doesn’t need to know,” you repeat, softer this time. “He’s not going to stay long enough for it and even if he were, he’ll want nothing to do with it.”

“You do know best.” Anakin’s eyes have always been much more expressive than yours or Padmé’s or even Obi Wan’s—always giving away how he truly feels even though his mouth and the words that come out of it say otherwise.

“That’s—Anakin. That’s not fair. Remember last time we tried telling him when—“

“Satine had just passed away,” Anakin iterates, eyes softening when your eyes begin to well up—you swallow harshly. “It was still so fresh in his mind that he couldn’t think of honoring—“ He sighs, stopping himself from saying Qui Gon’s name. “Maybe now will be different.”

His eyes, as soft as they are, challenge you, refusing to crumble under your glare, they’re asking you to give in, to please, tell him. You shouldn’t give in, for your sake and Obi Wan’s, but the longer he looks at you with those eyes of his, you let out a reluctant sigh. “Okay.” You move away from the kitchen’s island and head towards the archway leading to the living room. “But you tell him. I have to get going.”

“I can do that.” You look back at him and find him smiling at you, thankful and relieved. You return it, albeit weakly, but he appreciates the effort. “We’ll talk about preparations another day, okay?”

You’ll probably have to talk about more than preparations later, but you don’t tell him that; instead, you nod and exit the kitchen.

Padmé, noticing your return, turns to you and studies you carefully. “Everything okay?”

Obi Wan also turns to look at you—the children’s current story falling on deaf ears—but you keep your gaze on Padmé.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” you assure her, “but I have to head out.”

The twins hear that and immediately a chorus of “aww” and “why, Auntie?”, “can’t you stay?”, “sleepover!” begin to take over—their words wrestling over one another to be heard and you laugh, crouching down and opening your arms wide for them to run into. They do without hesitation, practically climbing over Obi Wan and Padmé to do so.

“I’m sorry, my little stars, I have to get up early for work tomorrow.” Pulling away from their little arms, you hold your pinkies out for them. “Next time I come over, we’ll have a movie night. Deal?”

“Deal!” They readily agree, hooking their pinkies with yours.

“And you’ll bring Uncle Din and Baby?” Luke whispers, low enough for only you and Leia to hear.

“Promise,” you whisper back.

Shaking their pinkies one last time, you stand up and begin your goodbyes, hugging Padmé tightly.

“Call me when you get home safely, okay?” she says, warmth in her words. 

“I will.” You linger in her arms longer than necessary, your heart beating in your chest harshly and rapidly, hesitant and afraid of saying goodbye to Obi Wan. But you finally pull away, you can’t be rude and leave him hanging. 

“May I… walk you to your car?” Obi Wan asks you, blue eyes wavering ever so slight my when you meet his gaze head on. 

A part of you wants to say no, but an even bigger part of you—the part that completely and utterly missed him—convinces you to agree. “I’d appreciate it.”

Anakin’s eyebrows furrow as he hands you your jacket and purse, and you smile at him, telling him it’s all right. It’s really not, you’d rather be able to breath for a moment and then think about Obi Wan later, but it’s too late now.

Obi Wan says something to the family of four as you slip on your jacket—“I’ll be back,” you assume. He grabs his own jacket from the coat rack and zips himself up, following after you as you walk out into the evening’s cold air.

“Did you park very far?” he asks you and you shake your head, walking down the stone path Anakin and Padmé installed earlier this year.

“Just down there.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

It’s a quiet walk, not an uncomfortable one, but you can’t say it’s comfortable either—it just is? Like many things just are. Will it always be like this now?

You hope not, because this quietness is not you and Obi Wan.

“This is it.” You step to the side of the driver, pressing the unlock button once and open the door. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, my dear.” Obi Wan moves to close the door for you, but you don’t move to sit and he just stands there in front of you, holding your door. “I wish you a Goodnight and—and I’m glad I got to see you.”

Goodbye, Obi Wan. The words catch in your throat, your mouth parted, waiting for the words to escape, but you can’t bring yourself to say goodbye—what if this is the last time I see you, again?

“Darling?”

Your eyes find his even in the low lighting of the street—blue eyes shining brighter than the celestial sea. There are permanent lines around his eyes now—little crow feet that weren’t there last time he stood in front of you—and you reach for them with shaky hands and he closes his eyes when your thumb runs over them—gentle and tender, caressing.

He delicately hold your wrists, his thumbs running over your pulse, soothing and all too caring—thump. thUMP. THUmp. steady. familiar. alive.

It’s too much. It’s too much that you can’t help the welling of tears or the way your throat croaks when you call his name. 

Blue eyes re-emerge, red rimmed and devastating and it takes you only a second—a second of bright stars and flashing satellites, and airplanes landing—for you to collide against each other—faces hiding in hair and shoulder—wet words murmured over each other and tangling in vines so deep like the flowers that once grew on a beautiful white fence—hands wrapped tightly around each other.

“I’m so sorry, darling. I’m so sorry.” “I’ve missed you, I’ve missed you so much.” “Please don’t let go.” “I will never let you go. Never again.”

You stare up at the house, well kept and pristine. The roses, however, are dying, their season soon to be over. But even in their last moments, they cling to their own beauty just for a little while longer.

“Resilient little things,” Qui Gon used to say. “Just like the heart. We tend to forget it’s a delicate thing, prone to hurting and breaking—even wilting, but much stronger than we give it credit.”

With the lingering warmth of Obi Wan’s arms and words encasing you, you turn back around and get in your car, driving away from the place that has been your home for the last few years.

Hopefully, Din will take you in for the night.

next

[carrotmakar]

Bad Reputation

Pairing: Frat!Tom Holland x Reader

Word Count: 11,573

Summary: You meet Tom at the coffee shop that you work at, and you never think you’ll see him again, but the world seems to be on your side.

Warning(s): mentions of sex, I think the word hell is used (i don’t think there are any other bad words), some self doubt by the reader, frat!tom (yes, that’s a warning hehe), mentions of tom being a boxer oops, it wasn’t edited (my wife was gonna help me edit it bUT i started overthinking and decided to just post it :))

A/N: This is officially the longest one shot I have ever written. This is for @t-holland2080 ‘s summer writing challenge. I never thought I was going to get it done, there was a lot of writing and deleting and questioning, but here we are! I hope everyone enjoys, and as always, feedback is highly appreciated!!

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*

You were stressed, to say the least. Today had been a busy day and it was only getting worse. Working at the coffee shop on campus had its perks, sure. Like having some extra cash and getting free coffee. But it also had its downsides. It was always busy. Some days, like today, even more so. A lot of the students were absolute jerks and couldn’t bother to wait more than thirty seconds to get their drink when it obviously took longer than that to make, and every one of them always had something snarky to say or a loot to throw you to let you know just how ridiculous it was that you couldn’t snap your fingers and the drink be done.

To say you were having a bad day was an understatement. You had opened the store, today being one of the only days when you had no classes, so you could work for longer, which meant that you had gotten up at five this morning so that you could get ready and be at the shop by six. Every person that you had greeted seemed to be in a hurry, hurtling snide comments at you over and over. It seemed to be the busiest day of the week, even though it was nowhere close to the weekend.

And to top it off, another customer just walked in. Thankfully, he took his time walking up to the register, spent a little while gazing at the sweets arranged in cases around the room. When he finally did make his way to you, he flashed you a bright smile. 

“What can I get you today?” You ask, going through the motions.

“Hmm, can I just get a regular coffee, love?” He’s still got that heart stopping smile on his face, and you can’t help but give him a real smile back.

“Sure, will that be all for today?” You ask, wanting to put the order through so that it will get done faster, just in case he is in a rush. It’s just a black coffee, so all you have to do is pour it into a cup, but you’ve had multiple impatient people get upset over it taking you “too long” to pour it.

He wants to say no, wants to say that he wants your number too. He thinks you’re beautiful, and he secretly really wants to tell you that. He wants to let you know that he saw you through the shop window and that he only came in here because of you. He wants to tell you that he secretly hates black coffee but it’s the cheapest option and he had to buy something to talk to you. 

But he says none of those things, doesn’t want to come off strong. He’s never seen you before, after all. He doesn’t know who you are, if you’re the kind of girl that would want to even give him the time of the day. If you’re the kind of girl that gave any boy the time of day.

So he settles for saying, “Yeah, that’ll be all,” he looks at your name tag, “y/n.”

You tell him the price and go to pour his coffee as he swipes his card. Once you’re done, you struggle to put a lid on it; trying, and failing, to not get coffee onto your hands.

You quickly wipe the slight spill off of the cup, not wanting him to get anything on his hands, and then hand him the cup, thanking him and wishing him a nice day.

Once he leaves the store, you let out a breath you didn’t even know you were holding. He was cute, really cute actually. And he looked like a nice enough guy. You don’t know how you’d never seen him around before, knowing that there’s no way you had, you’d remember a face like that.

*

Apparently, you wouldn’t remember a face like that. Not until he ordered coffee from you, anyway.

You went to your English class the next day, hoping that the lecture wouldn’t make you want to rip your hair out. When you sit down in your normal seat, a place near the middle, but a little closer to the back, you see him.

You can’t believe you had never noticed him. You had noticed every other person that he was sitting with. They were all the guys that came into class late every Friday morning because they were too hungover to get to class on time. They were the frat boys.

Did that mean…? No, it couldn’t. He didn’t look like the rest of the frat boys.

But he fit right in, really. He was perfectly in place in their group. Honestly, it looked like they all watched what he was doing, following whatever he did, almost as soon as he did it. It was like they were waiting for his instruction. You had heard the rumors, they only did that with the head of the fraternity, Tom Holland.

But no, that would mean that he was Tom Holland. 

Even though you heard continuous rumors about the way that he partied, got blackout drunk, slept with random girls, and then never called them again, you had never once seen the infamous face of Tom Holland.

And nobody questioned it when you told them. You weren’t the kind of girl that would know who he is. You’re not the kind of girl that goes to parties every chance they get and hooks up with the first guy that you can get your hands on.

If your assumptions were correct, however, he had been right under your nose this whole time, you had just never paid attention to him.

*

He had been looking for you, had been trying to find your face in the sea of others the entire day. He had absolutely no luck doing so, though, seeing as apparently, you were nowhere to be found.

He even tried to ask about you, but according to everyone that he knows, you don’t exist. And if you do, you don’t go to school with him. But he’s determined. He will see your stunning face again, experience your heart warming smile one more time, at least.

For the time being, however, he’s trying to push the thought out of his mind, knowing full well that he has to focus on whatever his English professor is going to drone on and on about today. 

Once he had turned in slightly in his seat to see where Harrison was, though, there was absolutely no chance that he would be paying attention to anything but you.

You were right there, you had been right under his nose this whole time and he had spent so much time trying to actively ignore everything to do with English that he completely overlooked you, the prettiest girl that he had ever seen. 

Your eyes were downcast, looking at the notebook that you had brought to class. Yeah, you seemed like the type of girl that would rather hand write notes than type them. 

Your cheeks and your ears were tinged pink and he couldn’t help but wonder what made you blush, but then you looked up and met his gaze, and every thought left his mind. He could do nothing but stare back at you like a fool until Harrison finally walked in, sitting down beside him and nudging him with his elbow.

“Who’re you looking at, mate?” The blonde asked.

“Nobody.” Tom quickly replied, not wanting to have to listen to his best friend nag him about being enamored about a girl that he had only talked to once. And it wasn’t even a real conversation, he just ordered coffee from you, there was no flirting, there was no getting to know each other. The only things that either of you had learned was that he ordered just black coffee when he drank it and that you worked at the campus coffee shop.

You tried to sit through the rest of class as if you hadn’t just, maybe, held full eye contact for like a whole minute with the head of the biggest frat on campus. But really, he’s all you could think about. You were usually pretty good at not getting distracted during class, at not having to worry about whether or not you missed something because you were lost in your own head. But today, you probably zoned out and missed over half the lesson.

This was crazy, right? No person should be this intrigued by a person that they’ve only talked to once and seen only twice, should they? 

If it was crazy, though, you were completely embracing it. There was something about this boy, something about Tom, that was messing with your mind. You weren’t the kind of person to believe in soulmates, but you did believe that the universe brought people together. You believed that there was a reason for everything. Which means that there had to be a reason for Tom to have walked into the coffee shop that you worked in, on the day that you needed a little brightness the most. There had to be a reason that he was in your class, that your paths had crossed yet again.

*

He never paid attention to the things happening around him while he was in class. He had never before paid the slightest bit of attention to the people that would filter in through the doors. But ever since he saw you in his English course, he started paying attention. And he realized that he had two other classes with you, his history course and his biology course.

He saw you every time that you had class with him, but he never had the guts to walk up and just talk to you. He had never had that problem before, usually going up to any girl he thought was attractive and sweet talking her into the palm of his hand in a matter of minutes.

Something about you was different, though. There was something about you that made him almost scared to just walk up to you. The fear of rejection when thinking about you was high, and that wasn’t something that he had felt in a long time. 

It was almost like he felt that you were too good for him. He felt like you were too innocent, too pure to be bothered by him. 

He was the resident fuckboy on campus, and there was no way that someone like you, someone that he had never seen at a party, or at any other social event, would want to be around him. 

There’s no way that he’s anywhere near good enough for you. He thought that if he walked up to you and asked you anything, you’d scoff in his face and then walk away. 

So, he doesn’t go up to you. He doesn’t talk to you. Doesn’t ask about your day, about your favorite subjects, about what your dreams are. And he sure as hell doesn’t ask you what he really wants to, for you to go on a date with him.

*

It had been a few weeks since you had seen him last, always making sure to get to class super early so you could sit closer to the front, not wanting to be too distracted in the classes that you had with him.

You have to admit, though, that you had spent many hours in your dorm room, debating on whether or not you should go out to one of the frat parties that you knew Tom would be at. Ultimately, you decided against it, knowing that you’d just make a fool out of yourself, showing up to a party in which you weren’t invited to see a boy that probably hasn’t thought about you since you gave him his receipt.

You had all but given up on him, realizing that the chances of ever even talking to him again was slim to none, and hoping for anything more than that was absolutely ludicrous.

So, pushing him to the back of your mind, you walked from your dorm to the library. For the first time in what felt like years, you didn’t search the faces that you passed by, you didn’t hope that one of them would be him, and you didn’t feel disappointed to not run into him.

You made it to the library just in time to say goodbye to your favorite librarian, Joan, before she left for the day. She wished you a good evening and then went on her way, shooting you a warm smile as you entered the rows of books that could all be used for reference on the essay that your English professor had assigned.

He hates essays. He really, truly does. He would rather do literally any other type of assignment than an essay. But here he was, walking into the library to search through numerous research articles just to find a sentence or two that he could use for his 5 page, minimum, essay that was due in less than a week.

He trudges over to the shelves, knowing which books that he needs to grab, but not really looking forward to doing so.

Right before he gets to the aisle he's about to wander down, he sees you. The girl that he’s been paying more than enough attention to since the day he walked into the coffee shop that he had never been to before. The girl he had been too scared to go up to and just simply talk to.

Until now. 

He finally had a reason to go up and talk to you. He hated essays. He was complete trash at them. He always failed them no matter how hard he tried.

But you didn’t. You always did great on your essays. He knew you did, not because he was paying a weird amount of attention to you, it’s just that after he realized who you were, he started remembering some of the times that you had been there, but he just didn’t notice you. Some of these times were when every single time the professor would pass back essays, he would ask for yours back for ‘example pieces.’

So he cautiously made his way to you, walking slow to see if anyone was with you that would pop up. Thankfully, nobody did, so he walked the last couple steps to the table you had chosen as your study area and put his hands on the back of the chair opposite of you.

You look up and a wrinkle automatically comes between your brows, one that he can’t help but want to smooth with his fingertips. 

“Can I help you?” You ask after he doesn’t say anything for a moment, just standing there.

“Um, yeah. I- you have Professor Stephens for English, right?” He tries to keep his eyes locked on you, but he can’t, can’t help but let his eyes wander over your features. The way that your eyebrows are furrowed and your forehead continues to be pinched, still confused as to why he’s here. The way that your cheeks seem to be a natural rosy pink. The way that your lips look so effortlessly full. 

“Yeah, why?” He’s beginning to think that this was a bad idea. He had been right when he first thought it, there’s no way that someone like you could even want to be around someone like him. But it was too late to back out now, so he continued the plan that he had conjured up with the two brain cells that he had left.

“So, um, feel free to say no, of course. No pressure or anything.” He chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand. “Just, you see, the thing is, I’m awful at essays. I try my best and still fail, and every time we do one, the Professor always keeps yours for examples when he does them next year. So, basically, I was wondering if you’d maybe wanna help me write mine?” 

You look taken aback for a moment before agreeing, nodding your head and telling him which dorm was yours.

“Um, do you maybe want me to give you my number so that you can text when you’re available?” You ask him, and he tries his best to not let his face light up too much, but he definitely feels his stomach flip at the thought, even though you’re not even doing anything but trying to make study plans with him.

He says a quick thank you and a goodbye before promising to text you the next day as soon as he was done with his frat duties.

Why you had agreed at all, let alone so easily, was a mystery to you. What could he possibly want out of this? Yeah, he seemed like he worked a lot harder and paid a lot more attention than the majority of the other frat boys, but he was still one nonetheless, which means that he had to be up to no good.

Did he want you to just write your paper for him? Was that why he was asking?

A small part of you wants to believe that maybe he asked you because he had been feeling the same way that you have been. But that’s crazy. He’s the most wanted frat boy on campus, there’s no way that he’d want anything to do with you.

He was just trying to get his paper done. Whether he was trying to get you to do it or if he just wanted help like he said, you weren’t completely sure yet. But you knew one thing, you had to clean your dorm before he came over.

You rushed back to your place, throwing things where they belonged and hanging up the clothes that you had neglected for days. 

You’re not entirely sure why you’re freaking out so much, trying to get your dorm as close to spotless as possible. It wasn’t like you needed to impress him. You were a uni student. You weren’t expected to be perfect, to be spotless. Yet, you still felt the need to make sure everything was perfect for him.

And that’s when you remember the cute little cafe that you had been dying to go to. Every review said that it was perfect for studying, and that the food there was amazing. 

So, when Tom texted you that evening to make sure that you had his number, you responded telling him that when he was finished the next day to shoot you a text and then meet you at the cafe.

You’re relieved when he agrees, that place being a lot less personal, a lot less intimate than your dorm room, making you feel much more comfortable.

*

The next day, he texts you around noon, telling you that he’ll be able to meet at two at the cafe that you had suggested. 

He’s more excited than he should be, especially since this is just a meeting for you to help him with the most atrocious thing that English professors can assign. But he can’t help it, it’s you. He gets excited every single time that you glance in his direction.

He rushed back to the frat house, taking a thorough shower and picking out a nice button down and a pair of dark jeans. The outfit was nice, he dressed to impress, but not like he was going to a formal dinner or anything.

This was just a study session. Nothing more.

The thought wasn’t getting his emotions in check like it should. Hell, he shouldn’t even have any emotions going into it. He had talked to you a grand total of two times. He shouldn’t feel like he had been pining over you for an absurd amount of time when he had known of your existence for approximately a month.

He shouldn’t feel like he had been pining over you at all. He was Tom Holland, for goodness sake. He wasn’t the guy that caught feelings. Everyone knew that. 

But there was something about you, something about the way that you smiled at him, that made him want to be better. Something that made him want to throw away his reputation and start fresh, to not be seen as the boy with a new conquest every day, to be seen as the boy that’s looking for a girl to fall in love with.

Could that girl be you? He has no clue, but there’s something about you that’s begging him to find out.

So, he makes his way to the cafe, taking enough time to not seem too eager but still getting there almost fifteen minutes early.

You were already there as well, though. You had been just as anxious, if not a little more. You had spent hours getting ready, making sure that you were perfectly put together, not a hair out of place. You also spent at least an hour getting your supplies together and then checking, and rechecking everything to make sure that you wouldn’t forget a single thing.

You had arrived at the cafe half an hour early, wanting to make sure that you were there and everything was in order before he arrived. You had half expected him to be late, leaving you more time to calm your nerves. Your expectations were proven wrong, however, when he walked up to the booth you were sat at nearly a quarter to the hour.

“Hey.” He greets, sitting down a notebook, a few writing utensils, and his laptop. “Thanks again for agreeing to help me.”

“Hey! It’s no problem.” You assure, not wanting him to think that this is a burden for you when you’d rather sit around with him and work on an essay than sit at your dorm all alone, especially since you had been so caught up in him as of late.

“So, um, where do you want to start?” And so began the study session that the two of you had been looking forward to. You got so lost in the material, explaining to him what certain aspects of the essay should pertain, letting him write a paragraph or two and then tweaking them slightly, allowing him to do the same, that you didn’t even realize that the diner was about to close until the waitress came to inform the two of you.

He looked just as surprised as you felt to see that the two of you had been there for almost eight hours. 

You both said a quick goodbye and set a time to meet again to continue with the studying, the time conveniently being in a few days, giving you enough time to get most of your essay done so that you could focus on him more.

After he said his final farewell, he made his way down the street, heading back towards the frat house. He couldn’t stop thinking about the way that your smile has been permanently etched into his brain. How your laugh is the most precious thing that he’s ever heard, and he’ll continue to do everything in his power to keep you laughing as often as possible. 

You’re not in a much better headspace, thinking constantly about the way that his smirk is overly annoying, but also so hot that you want to kiss it off of his face. How his nose is slightly crooked, but in a way that accentuates his features in the best way. 

You had asked if he had broken it before, not being able to help your curiosity. This had left to him laughing, throwing his head back, and telling you that he’s had more broken noses than he could count. He’d been boxing for most of his life, and that’s just the kind of thing that happens, knuckles get bruised, noses get broken.

Something about that had made you swoon even more. The thought of him boxing got your heart racing. You had no clue why, you’d never been a fan of any form of violence, but something about picturing him in a boxing ring had your stomach tying in knots and your face heating up.

You fell into bed that night with a smile on your face, feeling more excited than you should have to see him again.

He laid awake in his bed, across campus from you, thinking of the same things. When he’d see you again, if your conversation would venture more towards each others’ personal lives instead of strictly on the material. 

It’s safe to say that neither one of you got that much sleep that night.

*

The two of you decided to meet at your dorm room this time, seeing as how you had spent hours studying the time before and weren’t even done when the diner closed. This way, he could stay and study as long as necessary. 

He was pacing around his room, three hours before he even had to leave for your dorm, trying to find out what in the world he should wear. He thought about asking one of his frat brothers, seeing as the majority of them had a pretty good taste in clothes, but he knew that they’d all take a dig at him if he had to explain why he was so worried about his outfit choice. 

He wasn’t embarrassed of you, not in the slightest, he just didn’t want to make a big deal out of something that wasn’t even a thing yet. If you ever did agree to actually go out with him, though, he would take all the jokes and the comments from his frat brothers that he had to. He’d be too happy to care what they had to say, even if you only agreed to one date and then never wanted to see him again.

He ended up settling for a pair of black jeans and a hoodie, wanting to be comfortable for the long study session, but not wanting to look like a bum. You had also mentioned to him that your building tended to be a lot more chilly than others around campus, and advised him to either wear a sweatshirt over or to bring one with him.

Although he’d never admit it to you, there was a part of him that was already trying to figure out a way to get you to come to the frat house for the next study session. It was abnormally cool in the house as well, but he wasn’t planning on telling you that. If you didn’t bring one on your own sweatshirt, he would give you his. 

Because, no matter what all the boys thought of him, or what he let his reputation get to, he was the kind of guy that yearned for the domestic things in life. For waking up next to the girl he wants to spend the rest of his life with. For waking her up with kisses and then making her breakfast. For her to be wearing his clothes and for him to be able to come up to her and randomly love on her.

He had never had the chance to be like that with someone. He had come to college, joined a frat, and thought that he had to be the guy that had a new conquest every night. And he had been completely fine with it, content even. Until he met you. And something about the way that you made him feel in the brief time that he was around you in the coffee shop made him realize everything that he was missing.

He was missing you. 

And you were all he could think about anymore, because he wanted his life to be complete, and he knew that with you, it would be.

How you could be this intrigued by someone after literally interacting three times is unknown to you, but you had to admit to yourself that you are. You’re so intrigued by him that you find yourself thinking about how it would feel to fall asleep next to him, or how it would be to walk into the kitchen in the morning to find him fixing something and just wrap your arms around him without a care in the world.

You shake the thought from your head, realizing that there’s no way it could ever be a reality, so why fantasize about it?

What you focus on instead is the study session the two of you have in just a few hours. You had cleaned your room before the first session the other day, but you had been deep cleaning since last night, trying to make sure that everything looked decent and presentable. You didn’t want him to think that you were a slob.

You were glad that you had remembered to remind him to wear or bring something warm, seeing as today was one of the cooler ones in the building. The thermostat that you kept in your room reading a chilly 64 degrees (17 degrees Celsius). Why it was so cold in your building, leading you to dress warmly, only to go to a lecture where the room felt like you were sitting on the sun, you would never know, but you never complained or requested a dorm change because you genuinely loved the one that you were in, regardless of the temperature.

With a quick glance at the clock on your bedside table, you decide to get dressed. You put on a hoodie and a pair of leggings. You decided to just put your hair up in a bun. It was just Tom, after all. This was just a study session. Nothing more. There was no need to get all dressed up. It’s not like this was a date. You were just helping him with his English essay. Within the next week, this whole thing would be over and you’d probably never see him again besides in class, much less have an actual conversation with him.

*

“Hey,” you mumble as you open the door for him. You’re still slightly nervous about what he could be thinking. 

Will he think your room is a mess? You had cleaned the entire place, going over everything at least three times, but the thought still crosses your mind.

Will he think that the amount of books you have in the oak bookshelf to the left of your bed is weird? Would he think you were too nerdy? Who were you kidding, he probably already thought you were a nerd, he had noticed how the professor asked to keep your papers. At best, he had to think you were the teacher’s pet or something. That’s probably why he even asked you to help him. He probably figured that you would put in a good word for him, that you would let Professor Stephens know that you had helped.

“Hey.” He replies, sounding almost as nervous as you felt. Could he possibly be? Why would he even be nervous? The only thing that you could think of that he could even be slightly nervous about is the impression that he makes on you, if you were impressed or not. He had no need to feel like that, though.

You wanted to tell him that, but you couldn’t. There was no way in the world that you could possibly just come out and say it, let him know that he looked great.

“So, where are we starting today?” You ask, trying to steer your mind back on the right path.

“Um, I was actually maybe thinking that we could just read over what we had worked on since last time, if that’s okay? And then give each other notes that we have if there are any?” You look over at him and see that his hands are slightly tucked into the sleeves of his hoodie, giving him cute little sweater paws.

“Yeah, that’s fine.” You pull your eyes from his hands, walking over and plopping down on your bed, looking over at him expectantly.

He seems a lot more nervous than you had initially anticipated. He seems almost as if he’s scared to come sit next to you. There’s something about that thought that makes him seem even more endearing than he already was.

“You can come sit, you know?” You say, smiling at him to let him know that it was alright.

He gives a nervous chuckle that sounds more like a cough and you can’t help but to laugh along. There’s something about hearing his laugh that makes your chest feel a sudden rush of warmth.

He slowly makes his way closer to the bed, still approaching with caution and you can’t help the smile that’s glued to your face.

“So, what’s your story, Holland?” You blurt, not thinking about what in the world you were doing. You didn’t even stop to ponder the possibility that he wouldn’t want to talk to you about his life. There was still the completely possible idea that he actually only wanted to be around you to study. Although, you can’t help but have an itch in the back of your mind that keeps telling you that isn’t the only reason that he’s here.

“What do you wanna know?” He takes you by surprise with that, with the fact that he seems to be willing to tell you any and everything.

“Anything.” you breathe, watching him settle into your bed. You had situated yourself to where you were sitting against the headboard, and he shuffles to lay on his stomach, opening his laptop beside you.

“Well, um, where do I start, I guess is the question.” He looks over at you and you just give a shrug, so he continues. “I could just start at the beginning. I’m Tom, as you know.” He chuckles, running a hand through his chocolate locks, and you can’t help but follow the path that his hand takes through the tendrils of hair, over his neck, and back to the bed. “I have three brothers, all younger. Sam and Harry are twins. Sam’s really into the whole culinary thing, and Harry’s a photographer. They’re really good at what they do.” You can tell by the way that he talks about them that he's really proud of them. “Paddy’s the youngest, still can’t believe how big he is every time I see him. It seems like only yesterday he was a little baby that I could carry around everywhere.” The look on his face seems as if he’s guilty for leaving his brothers when he went to college, and you immediately want to assure him that it’s okay, but you don’t feel like it’s the right time.

“I’ve got a dog named Tessa, she seems to miss me a lot, gets really lovey and excited whenever I go back home for the holidays.” The smile that breaks out on his face makes your heart swell. “Mum and dad are still together, raised me right, taught me how to treat people and how to make the right choices. If we’re honest, I don’t think that they’d be too proud of who I’ve become.” he meets your eyes and gives you a sad smile, and you want to lean over him and envelop him in a warm embrace, but you don’t think that would be the best move.

“What do you mean, why wouldn’t they? You seem like a pretty good guy, Tom.” You’re not lying, you think he’s a great person. You see no reason why they wouldn’t be proud of him.

He chuckles, looking up at you and wondering if what he’s about to say next is the best thing to do, but he decides that he might as well. “I am a pretty good guy, when I’m around you. But when I came here and joined the frat that I did, I thought that I had to be a certain person.” He looks away from you, not wanting to have to see the way you’re going to react to how he really is. “And, for a while, I really liked who I was, you know? I thought that was who I was supposed to be, and it kind of felt right. The whole partying every weekend and taking a different girl home each time I went out thing was fun for a while. And then something changed. Something in my life shifted and I figured out that it wasn’t really that fun. That there were other things that I could do. I don’t want the reputation that I have.” He sighs, running his hand through his hair again, still refusing to meet your eyes. “I’m surprised that you haven’t heard about it. You’d probably run for the hills if you did.”

You chuckle, and his eyes immediately shoot to meet yours. “I know about your reputation Tom. I have since before I even agreed to help you.”

“Then why would you agree? You had to have known the kind of person that I was. There had to have been at least one person that warned you away from me.” He genuinely can’t believe that you knew about his reputation, about all the things that everyone said about him, both true and false, and still decided to be around him.

“Yeah, there were quite a few that warned me about you, but I don’t listen to what people tell me to do. And I definitely don’t listen to what people have to say about others. I like to find out for myself, which is exactly what I did, and I’m glad that I chose to do what I did. If I had listened to them, I wouldn’t have found out how great of a person that you are.”  Without putting any thought into it, you reach down and run your fingers over his palm, letting him know that you’re there, that you know who he really is and that you don’t think what everyone else does.

He looks up at you, looking a bit startled, and confused, but he makes no move to pull away, just relaxes even further into the bed as you continue to trace random patterns into his hand.

“Hey, this may sound weird, but I haven’t been sleeping well lately, too nervous for my brain to shut down, so do you mind if we maybe, um, take a nap? Or maybe just me? I don’t know, I could lay on the floor or something, I just feel really calm right now.” A blush rises to his cheeks and you can’t help but agree, grabbing your stuff and placing it on the floor beside your bed.

“You can stay up here, Tom.” You murmur, not wanting him to be too far.

He nods an agreement, helping you shuffle under the covers before doing the same. You hear him sigh in content behind you and the smile that spreads across your face stays there as you drift off into the most peaceful sleep that you’ve had since Tom walked into the coffee shop.

*

Weeks passed, and you were still keeping up with the study session, you finding it a lot easier to get things done when Tom was around, and him still needing the occasional push in the right direction on certain assignments. You had both found that it was just simpler to stay study buddies than try to get through it on your own.

You had become a lot closer with Tom, the weeks spent together really letting you get to know one another quite thoroughly.

And, if you’re being honest with yourself, which you hadn’t loved doing lately, you had developed quite the crush on Tom. You suddenly saw what everyone would ramble about when talking about him.

He was sweet, caring, funny, and a lot smarter than he gave himself credit for. When you had told your select few friends about him, they had immediately warned you away from him, told you that he didn’t really need a study partner, he just wanted to get in your pants.

All those speculations had gone away, however, after you explained to them that you had gone the initial week without him trying to make a move whatsoever. At first, they had been surprised, but then you just ended up getting the occasional offhand comment about how it wasn’t all that hard to believe. “I mean, look at him and then look at you.” was one that was used quite a bit. And you hated to admit it, but it really got to you. So much so that you had decided not to make the first move yourself. 

You had grown up being told that women could do anything that men could do, that it was okay to make the first move no matter what the situation was. But there was something about your so-called friends that made you question that in an instant.

Maybe they were right. They did seem to have all the ‘evidence’ that they needed. How could he possibly have the reputation that he had and not have made a move yet? The only plausible explanation was that he simply found you unattractive.

But then your brain would drift back to the conversation that you had shared a few weeks prior. He didn’t want to have that reputation anymore, didn’t want to be that guy. He wanted to be the guy that he was before starting college, before joining the fraternity that made him into a completely different person. He didn’t want to be the womanizer with a brand new girl in his bed every night.

Those thoughts set the peace back in your mind. Maybe he really was different. He certainly was around you, he had been since the very beginning.

You had made him want to be different, want to change and be known as the guy that wants to fall in love, not as the guy who wants to sleep with as many girls as possible. You changed it all for him and he couldn’t help but realize that he may be falling for you. 

He had been completely enamored by everything about you since the moment that he had first laid eyes on you, and in the short time that the two of you had been hanging out, he had come to grow extremely fond of your personality. Of the way that you saw the good in everything and made him feel as if he wasn’t the crappy person that everyone assumed he still was. Of the way that you made every room brighter, no matter what.

He hadn’t felt as strongly as he did for you in as long as he could remember, and usually feelings would scare him, but there was a certain aspect of the way that you made him feel that took all the fear away, made him feel completely secure in admitting that he had feelings for you.

Not that he could ever admit them to you. No, he was nowhere near fearless enough to come out and let you know how he felt. There was no way that you could possibly like him back. There’s no way that you could have just ignored every bad thing that he had opened up and told you about. There was no way that anyone could love him despite all of that, let alone you.

You were sitting in his room at the frat house, typing away at a project that had been assigned for English, when he looks up at you. He studies your features for a moment, how perfect they all look. How the crease you get between your brows when you’re trying to concentrate makes you somehow even more beautiful than you already are. How the way your tongue sticks out and runs over your full lips makes you look almost angelic, how your hair frames your face perfectly, making him want to run his hands through it.

“We’re having a party here tonight.” He blurts, making you look up from the screen of your computer and give him your undivided attention.

“Oh, that’s fun, do you need me to be gone by a certain time or something?” You ask, slightly bummed that you may have to leave earlier than usual tonight. You’ve gotten used to spending most of the day with him and then going your separate ways at almost midnight every time that you studied together.

“No, no. not at all!” He spits, wanting to smack himself for being so bad with words. Of course he didn’t want you to leave. He wanted you to be around him as much as you were comfortable with. He could spend every day and night in your presence and never get bored. “I was actually wondering if, um, maybe you’d want to go?” 

You almost chuckle, thinking how ridiculous the offer is. He knows you, knows that you’re not the girl that goes to parties, much less parties at the biggest frat on campus. You don’t laugh, however, because you see the hopeful look in his eyes. “I mean, I don’t know, Tom. I’m not exactly the party type, you know?” 

He scoffs, “What makes you say that? Everyone’s the party type.” 

You give a slight eye roll at that, “That’s not true. I’m nowhere near what would be considered the party type. I’m the girl that stays in her dorm or at the library studying, not the girl that goes to parties on the weekends and gets wasted.” You look down at your hands, realizing yet another reason why he wouldn’t like you. Why would he want to be with someone who’s never experienced that aspect of his life? “I mean, props to those girls that do that, it just isn’t me.”

He leans over towards you and hooks a finger under your chin, lifting until your eyes meet his again. “Please? I promise you’ll have a good time. I’ll make sure of it.” Your cheeks heat up at this, your mind immediately going to the gutter. You shake the thought from your mind, surprised that you would even think such things.

 It’s not like you and Tom would ever do something like that anyway. He had explained to you multiple times that he didn’t want to sleep with people that he didn’t have feelings for anymore. He didn’t want the meaningless sex anymore. He wanted something that actually meant something. And even though it would mean something to you if something were to happen, it would be meaningless for him, so the chances of anything occurring if you agreed to go to the party was zilch. 

So, you find yourself nodding, agreeing to go. He looks extremely shocked, like he had every doubt in his mind that you would ever say yes. 

If only he knew how you felt, then he would have been aware of the fact that there’s no way that you could ever say no to that face, to the puppy dog eyes that he gives you when he asks for something that he really wants. And he hadn’t stopped giving them since the initial question had rolled off of his tongue, so he must really want you at that party, so of course there was no way that you were going to miss it.

*

Frat parties are weird. They’re kind of gross too, people spilling drinks everywhere, dropping cup after cup into other people and on the floor. You were glad that you had decided to not get dressed up, the room felt like it was a thousand degrees. You had settled on a pair of black denim shorts and a slightly cropped top that came down to just above your belly button, wanting to fit into the atmosphere without looking like you were trying too hard.

You had gone home around thirty minutes ago, getting ready before heading back. By the time you had returned, Tom was nowhere to be found, and you weren’t planning on actively searching for him. You’d let him do his own thing, and maybe catch up with him later.

Another thing you noticed, after pouring yourself a drink and settling against a wall near the corner of the room, was that frat parties are loud. Not just the music, that’s continuously playing, no breaks that would make people want to leave to do something else. There was something about the way that every song made the occupants of the party roudier and roudier. After a few songs had played, almost every person in the house was screaming along at the top of their lungs. So yeah, frat parties were loud.

As you scan the room, you realize that this could maybe be thrilling. If you had someone that you could have asked to come with you, if you had someone to dance with. You had a few friends, sure, but none of them would ever be caught dead at a party like this one. They were all like you, they’d rather stay home and get some peace on a Friday night than go out to a party. 

Were you really like that though? The girl that you had thought you were before, even just three hours prior, would’ve never agreed to this much less be enjoying it.

The last thing you notice before joining the crowd, a girl grabbing your hand and leading you to dance with her, is that, just maybe, frat parties are fun.

He had been pulled into a game of pong by his brothers. He hadn’t even noticed that you were here yet, but the second he sees you dancing with a few girls that he’s never even seen before, all the air is knocked from his body. You look ethereal. The light sheen of sweat making the dim lights reflect off of your body, casting a light around you. The way that the strands of hair that have come loose from your updo stick to your forehead and neck make him want to fix it for you, run his hands through your hair, no matter how sweaty it would be, and redo the ponytail that you had been sporting.

There’s a churning in his gut, and at first he doesn’t realize why. But then it hits him, hits him like a freight train. He wants to be the one dancing with you. He wants to make you smile like you’re smiling at those girls. He wants to be the one that riles you up and makes you dance and have the time of your life.

So, without finishing the game, he makes his way to you, ignoring the questions and shouts to come back from the boys. He walks up to you without a care in the world and wraps his hands around your waist, burying his face into the crook of your neck.

You tense up for a split second and he feels like an absolute idiot for just coming up behind you like he did, but then you lean back into him, turning your head slightly to the side to murmur a “Hey, Tommy.” into his ear, and his entire head goes blank.

Tommy? He could get used to that.

“Hey, love. You look like you’re having fun.” He fights every urge in him to not kiss into your neck, to not leave the marks that he’s been dying to for weeks on end. 

“I am. I really never thought this would be my scene, but it’s a rush.” You giggle, still dancing to the music, his swaying along behind you, still holding onto your waist.

“Told you that you’d like it.” He breathes, still resting his face in your neck. You can feel his warm breath fan over the expanse of your skin and it sends shivers down your spine, which doesn’t go unnoticed by him, the smirk that you can feel appear on his face lets you know for a fact that he felt it. “Hey, do you maybe want to go upstairs? Take a breather?” 

At this, you turn to face him, “Tom…” you say pointedly, knowing what people will think if you head upstairs together. You can already hear the things that people will say. “Is that the best idea? You know what people are going to say.” 

He flashes the puppy dog eyes, and he immediately has you, but you can’t let him know that, so you continue to put up a fight. “Tom, the rumors aren’t going to be pretty.”

“I won’t let anyone say anything bad about you, darling. I don’t wanna do anything, just wanna take a beat, cool down, spend some time with you.” You smile, wanting to just give in to him, to let him lead you to his room that you’ve been in way too many times before, but you’re still a little worried.

“People are going to say things regardless of what you do. And it isn’t just me they’ll say things about.” He leans down, pressing his face back into your neck.

“Please? I really want to just be with you, I’ll fight anyone who says anything bad if I have to.” He promises, making your smile grow.

“There’s no need for violence, come on, let’s go to your room.” You finally agree, letting him take you by the hand and push through the crowd.

You slowly make the trek up the stairs to his room at the very end of the hallway, stepping inside and letting him close the door behind the two of you.

You flop down on his bed, laying on your stomach and looking around the room that you’d already scanned countless times before. The books on the shelf are calling out to you, but it’s not the time. This is a party, not a study session. You let your eyes roam again, landing on the family photo that you’ve admired more times than you would care to admit. He looks so happy, posing on a golf course with his brothers and dad, Tessa sitting at his feet.

“You’re gorgeous.” He blurts, not thinking of the consequences that could come from his words.

You can feel your cheeks heat up from the compliment, your ears beginning to burn. “Thanks, you’re pretty gorgeous yourself.”

“Thanks, love.” He chuckles, and then the room falls silent for a few moments, your head resting on the bed, eyes closed and trying to get your heartbeat to slow down. He’s still standing by the door, leaning on his desk and playing with his fingers.

You continue observing the room, noticing for the first time that there was a little hole by the bathroom door. You wonder how it got there. Your brain is shuffling through a few options of how it could have appeared when Tom clears his throat and catches your attention.

You turn your head, locking eyes with him again and quirking your eyebrow, sending him the message to continue, to just spit out whatever he has to say.

“I walked into that coffee shop that day and ordered a coffee. I was in a hurry and I needed to make it to an important meeting at the house, but I saw you through the window. You looked so stressed, I didn’t just want to bombard you with yet another order, so I took my time by looking through the pastry cases, letting you have a second to breathe.” He pulls out the chair by his desk and plops down in it, looking too nervous to continue standing. “I strolled on over to the counter, ordered the simplest thing I could, and patiently waited for you to get it. I saw that you spilled some on yourself and wanted so badly to take your hand in mine and kiss it better. I don’t know why, it was just an urge I had.” He chuckles slightly, as if realizing how utterly ridiculous the action would have been if it had actually been carried out. “After that day, I couldn’t get your smile out of my head, couldn’t get the way that your eyes lit up to stop replaying in my thoughts.” He runs his hand through his hair, looking around the room before landing his eyes back on yours. “I looked for you for a while, asked about you, but to no avail.”

You chuckle this time, you’re not surprised that he couldn’t find you by asking around, you didn’t associate yourself with many people. 

He flashes you a smile and then continues, “Everything about you makes me smile, I don’t know what it is about you, but you’re the best person I’ve ever met. I can’t keep you out of my head no matter how I try. You drive me crazy in the best way possible. I caught feelings for you. I feel so hard and that scares me to death at first.” He sighs, looking away from you again. “I don’t usually do the whole commitment thing, as my reputation suggests, but thinking about the things that I could have with you makes me want the commitment, makes me want to be domestic and lovey with you.Don’t get me wrong, it’s still terrifying.” He locks eyes with you again. “You just have this way of making me feel like everything’s going to be alright.” He cracks a smile before continuing with, “I think that the world could be ending and you’d make me feel like it was fine.”

You’re smiling so hard that your cheeks hurt. Tom Holland, arguably the hottest, most popular boy on the entirety of campus is into you. And not only is he into you in the way that everyone had thought he would be, he actually wanted something real with you. He didn’t just want to have you in his bed for one night. The way that he was explaining it, he wanted you in his bed every night for as long as he could have you.

You have to take a second to catch your breath, his confession leaving you feeling as if you had just run a marathon at a full sprint.

Once you calm yourself back down, you let everything you had been dying to say fall out of your mouth. “That day at the coffee shop, all I needed was one thing to make me smile. I just needed that one thing to let me know that it was going to be okay. And then you walked in, and you didn’t just make me smile for a minute, you made me smile for the rest of the day. I looked for you too, searched every group of people I walked past. I didn’t ask anyone because I doubted anyone that I know would know someone that looks like you.” You chuckle awkwardly, trying not to put too much thought into what’s coming out of your mouth. If you did you would immediately psych yourself out and that’s definitely what you needed.

“I caught feelings too. I really tried not to, if we’re being completely honest with each other. I never thought that this would be me.” You look down at your hands, playing with the silver band that you keep around your finger. “I didn’t think that I would be that girl, you know? The girl that falls for the cute frat boy, even though they were repeatedly told to avoid him.” You smile despite yourself, still twisting the ring mindlessly. “I fit the cliche perfectly, don’t you think? The nerdy girl with barely any friends that meets the boy that needs a little help studying and then falls for him.” You scoff at how predictable the whole thing was, it was almost laughable. Honestly, it was, and you’d be laughing along if it wasn’t your life. 

“But the thing about it is, I was fine with being that cliche. I was fine with falling for the boy I’m not supposed to because it wasn’t just any boy, it was you. And I haven’t been able to get your stupidly perfect face out of my head since the minute you wandered into the shop. I can’t stop thinking about holding your hand when I see you tracing seemingly random things with your fingertips. Can’t stop myself from wanting to lean over and kiss you every time that I’m helping you study and get a little pouty because you want a break but we’ve only been working for like five minutes so I say no. Can’t stop myself from thinking about how sometimes we nap together and wake up tangled in each other's arms, and how we could do that every day.” Your cheeks begin to burn at the things that you just let slip out of your mouth, but you’re quickly distracted by the embarrassment as you feel the bed shift under Tom’s weight.

He settles in beside you, taking your hand in his and running his thumb over your knuckles. You look up at him, wanting to see his reaction to what you had just said, and as soon as you see his face, you’re floored.

He has the biggest smile splayed across his face, and you can’t help but mimic his expression, glad to see that he wasn’t repulsed by what you had to say. Which, honestly, it wouldn’t make that sense if he was, but there’s always a possibility.

“Y/N, I know we haven’t known each other for that long, and yeah, we’re definitely the cliche, but would you maybe wanna be my girlfriend?” Tom asks, a hopeful look in his eyes.

You want to say yes. You really do, more than anything in the world, but your voice of reason is asking you why someone in him would really want to be with you. Sure, he said that he didn’t want to be that guy anymore, but that’s literally who he is. Why would he really just throw all that away all of a sudden? 

“No offense Tommy, but you’re not exactly serious boyfriend material, and I’m the girl that wants to have a serious boyfriend, to have a relationship that’ll last. I want to be able to take my boyfriend home to my mom and dad. I don’t just date for the hell of it, Tom. I date for real.” You say, fighting an internal struggle with yourself. So much of you wants to just say yes, but he has to know what you want in a relationship. “And don’t freak out when I say this, because a lot of guys do. But, really, if you’re not dating someone to see if they’re the person that you’ll spend the rest of your life with, why are you even dating them? That’s how I view relationships.”

“I get that, it doesn't freak me out. I used to be like that, used to want a serious relationship.” You give him a look, the way he’s wording his sentences not helping his case. He gets the hint and rushes to continue what he was saying. “I just lost myself here, but being around you made me realize that the part of me that wants to be in a serious relationship, that wants to be domestic was still in there.” He’s getting more nervous by the second, you can tell by the way his fingertips are tracing patterns into your hand. You give his a quick squeeze in reassurance. “I don’t expect you to believe me right now. Honestly, I wouldn’t believe me either if I were you, but I’ll prove it to you. I’ll show you that I can be the guy that you want. Screw my reputation, forget what everyone thinks about me. I just need you by my side, I don’t care what anyone else has to say.”

You smile, feeling your chest swell with his words. There’s not a single part of you that doesn’t think he could prove it to you, so you don’t hesitate to agree.

“Fine. prove it to me Holland, and then I’ll think about being your girlfriend.”

*

Ever since that night, he’s been even more perfect than he already was. He really meant it when he said that he’d prove it. Not a day goes by that he doesn’t show you that he could be everything that you need and more.

He walks you to class from wherever you had spent the night before. If you had slept over at the frat house, he would let you shower there and wear some of his clothes if you hadn’t brought any of your own with you - or if you just wanted to wear his clothes - and then he would walk you back to your dorm so you could finish getting ready. If the two of you had slept in your room, he would always make sure that he woke you up by nuzzling into your neck, then letting you get ready while he checked to make sure you had everything you needed for the day. 

Once you were ready to head out the door, he’d grab your stuff for you, slinging your bag over his shoulder and either grab your hand or throw his arm over your shoulders. He’d walk you all the way to class and then leave you with a kiss on your cheek.

During those that you have together, though, he walks in and you sit near the back. You moved where you normally sit so that he can whisper in your ear during the lectures without bothering anyone else. You had ended up needing to invest in a voice recorder so you could catch the content and listen to it later.

The classes that you shared that took place in the early mornings were by far the worst, for you anyways. He seemed to not have a problem with getting up at the crack of dawn to get ready. But no matter how tired you were, he was always there to make sure that you were well put together. And, after he ensured that the voice recorder was on and running, he would let you lay your head on his shoulder and get a little more sleep.

On the nights that you’re not too worn down from classes, he’ll take you out to dinner. He always lets you pick the restaurant and then takes you to a new scenic destination to watch the sunset. 

You still spend a lot of your time at the library, still having to study even though you’re spending a steadily increasing amount of time with Tom. Any time that you need to sit at the library to study, he’ll tag along if you want him to, even if he doesn’t need to study. He’ll sit across from you, knowing how you like to have an ample amount of space to spread out your materials, and read a book.

Even when you didn’t go out anywhere, just stayed in and spent time with each other, everything was perfect. Everything was completely perfect.

And what really took you by surprise was the fact that he didn’t even seem like he was trying very hard. It seemed like acting like this with someone that he cared about was just second nature. It was really pleasant, knowing that if you did say yes, it would be like this all the time.

One of your biggest fears going into this was that he would be perfect until you said yes and then completely change, do a full one eighty and make you regret your entire decision. But the way that he acts comes naturally to him that you don’t have a doubt in your mind that it will stay the same if you agree to date him.

*

A few weeks later, you’re sitting on his bed, scrolling aimlessly through your phone as he sits at his desk, working on another essay. You had finished yours a few hours prior, so you were waiting for him to complete the rough draft so you could read over it.

“Yes.” You blurt, not thinking to elaborate.

“Hmm?” He wonders, not even looking up from his laptop, fingers still clicking away at the keys.

“Yes.” You say, a little louder this time. His fingers stop moving, coming to a rest on his keyboard.

“What do you mean , love?” He asks, not wanting to get his hopes up as to what you could be talking about.

“I’ll be your girlfriend.” He jumps up from his chair, a smile breaking across his face. He bounds over to the bed and picks you up, spinning you around and planting kisses all around your face.

You giggle, trying to wiggle your way out of his grip to no avail. After a few moments, he lets you down. He clambers onto the bed beside you and puts a hand on each side of your face, smooshing your cheeks.

“I love you, in case it wasn’t obvious.” He says, looking at you like you’re the reason that his world spins.

“I love you too, Holland. Couldn’t imagine life without you.” And it’s true, although you’d only known him for a span of a few months, he had completely changed your life.

And suddenly, you’re really thankful for a busy day at the coffee shop.

*

Permanent Taglist - @spideygirl2003, @jackiehollanderr, @scarletsoldierrr, @thewayilookatbacon, @parker-barnes-af, @lost-in-the-stars03, @kisses-holland, @josiemara, @god-knows-what-am-i-doing, @fanficscuziranout, @akila-stilinski @babebenhardy @write-from-the-heart, @slytherinambitious, @miraclesoflove @tomshufflepuff, @quaksonhehe, @a-different-brand-of-beans, @dummiesshort, 

Tom Holland Taglist - @cyrusandhiscollaredahirts, @thorsangel, @perspectiveparker, @sucker-09, @tom1year, @averyfosterthoughts, @the-crazy-fanfictionist

People who wanted to be tagged in this piece - @sleepybesson, @xoxohollands

[buffyversefanfiction]

Slayer of Slayers

Warnings:I do not own, nor do I claim to own any of the copyright or characters within the Buffyverse which includes but not limited to the television shows Buffy and Angel, as well as the Darkhorse comics series’ continuation.

15+ Strong to moderate violence, Graphic to mild descriptions of gore, and torture, sexually charged scenes, sexual innuendos, mild to strong language, and practices of witchcraft.

M/M, F/F, M/F, GEN, OTHER +

PART SIX LINK HERE

Part Seven - Rogues

1928

Spike found himself running through woods in the middle of the night in search of his beloved Drusilla only to find his sire dancing on a field, which had been scorched by fire, as the raven-haired vampire continued swaying from side to side, laughing away at herself in the process making Spike curious to what she was up to now. “Dru, what are you doing out here?” Spike asked the woman he loved as he walked towards her, pulled her body into his arms, and began dancing with Drusilla. “Here on these very grounds lies a future of torment, torture, and agonizing pain…it’s so delicious it makes me giddy!” Drusilla replied as she continued to slow dance with her immortal lover. “One day I’m going to raise a family right here, and will almost be worth all that I’ll have to lose before then…” “I was worried you got yourself killed babe; you know you’re not at your full strength,” Spike confessed admitting his fears for her. “Oh, my dear William, I will be the only one who will not die, not once, even at times when I’m so lonely I wish I would die…��� Drusilla sighed with a profound sense of sadness, wanting to stay in that moment but knowing the future was coming. “You’ll always have me!” Spike protested, meaning what he said with all his heart but not knowing what the future would hold for him and the woman he loved more than he could ever imagine loving someone…at the time.

1977

Following Angelus leaving her after regaining his soul and Darla returning to The Master, Drusilla knew her time with Spike was nearing an end, that the quest for her to become strong again would be the beginning of the end for them both and despite how much sadness the thought of losing her beloved Spike one day, she knew her and Spike’s trip to New York would bring some happiness to them both as Spike set out to kill his second vampire slayer, Nikki Wood, while Drusilla set her sights on siring a new vampire, the first child of her new family. Drusilla had spent most of the night watching Tobias from a distance, she followed him as he walked home from his work at a diner nearby to his rundown studio apartment, watched him as he got strung up on drugs, and noticed that this man was far from the one she had seen in her visions. At first glance, this man was no more than a depressed junkie who without her input would die a nobody within a matter of years, but as she watched him further, she began to see the potential hidden deep within him and decided to make her move. “How sad a life you must live to need to block it out with every toxin available to you.” Drusilla greeted Tobias after he opened his apartment door to her, the vampire waiting in the hallway, ready to claim him as her own. “I can feel your pain as if it was my own and I know you are so lost you think you cannot find a way out of your despair, but mummy can make everything all better.” “Did Mick send you? He always did like his girls crazy as hell, just hand me the drugs already and tell Mick I’ll pay him when I get my wages from the diner.” Tobias replied to her, having no clue who she really was nor what she had planned for him. “I do not know this Mick, but I do know you, Tobias, I know who you are now, but I also know who you can be. I can give you meaning in this world, a purpose, and a love that will consume you…you will never be alone!” Drusilla said in a rather convincing tone, acting if she was the answer to his many troubles. “Whatever you are on lady…I want some.” Tobias responded in a mocking tone, confused by who this woman was and what she wanted from him. “I can you make you stronger than you ever imagined, give to you a family you have always longed for, make you part of something truly incredible and even lead you to the love of your life…once I make you worthy of him of course,” Drusilla promised the young man, knowing this time that her words were somewhat resonating with him, tempting him to give her a chance to prove she was telling him the truth, a chance which she would use to turn him into a vampire-like her…

The 2000s

Drusilla stood in the same field she had once stood in the late 20s, but what was now standing there was the abandoned building of an insane asylum, a building which had been built, used, and abandoned within the years since she had last visited this field. and the vampire could not prepare her eyes, for the place was even more beautiful, to her at least, than she found it in her many visions, and now that she had lost her beloved Spike, she could at least find some salvage in claiming the home she had dreamed off for many decades now. “It’s been a long time my darling boy, mummy would be so mad at you if you were not the only family, I had left…for now,” Drusilla told Tobias as he began walking up towards his sire until he was stood next to her. “I really did love that man just like I loved Angelus and grandmother, but they are all gone now…” “I still do not understand why you wasted so much time on that peroxide prick but then I’ve never been in love, if it were not for you, I’d have found it impossible for any vampire,” Tobias replied to the vampire who had created him. “You’ve certainly had your fair share of conquests though; you’ve been a very naughty boy but the time for you to settle down with your forever love is coming soon and mummy could not be more excited,” Drusilla revealed to him, knowing she was going closer to forming a new family, one she believed would be even better than the ones that came before.

Modern Day…

Buffy and Spike’s on/off relationship had reached its inevitable end almost two years ago, when their last split led to Buffy’s one night stand with Angel resulting in a baby which led to Buffy going M.I.A. after losing that baby, and in her absence, Spike had taken over the duties of protecting the city of San Francisco, a city which included Buffy’s sister Dawn Summers, Dawn’s daughter Joyce Harris, and Spike’s on/off roommate Xander Harris in its population. And it was during his patrolling duties within a local cemetery in the city of San Francisco that he was reunited with an old friend, one who would lead him into joining a mission to kill the first woman he ever loved… “Sneaking up on a vampire is a rather foolish move considering the heightened bloody hearing and everything,” Spike shouted into the dark night as he turned around looking for a face to come out of the shadows. “Calm down Spike I was merely trying to surprise an old friend.” Ruby Moon stated as she appeared from out of the shadows. “Someone who I owe my life to and yet have the audacity to ask another favor of.” “Well, if it isn’t the little witch, I helped break free from my ex-Dru’s crazy cult,” Spike said with a smile on his face, happy to see the witch in question. “I heard you were all suburban wife again living the normal life or as close to it as one can get married to one of Riley Finn’s G.I. blows.” “It’s good to see you again too!” Ruby responded with a chuckle as she walked towards the vampire, whom she considered being a good friend, one who she knew she could rely on. “So, go on and tell me what you need saving from this time? Please do not tell me your back being the ex’s magical minion again because you only get one save from that, the second time is on you!” Spike told her with a level of sarcasm, knowing he was about to help her again no matter what situation she had now found herself in. “Remember the friend we left behind? The one crazy enough to consider Drusilla as family. Well, he’s forming a team to kill that ex of yours, and something tells me you will want to be part of that team.” Ruby revealed to the vampire. “I’ve put Dru in my past and if you are smart you would too, let this friend of yours go it alone if he’s so determined serves him right for not getting out when you gave him the option anyway.” Spike rejected her offer, not loving Drusilla anymore but not wanting to be part of her death either. “This friend of mine is Theo Frey, and it just so turns out his mother happens to be your latest ex Buffy Summers’ son, I figured telling you that would help change your mind and everything considering you do not want to be the one telling the slayer that you had a chance to save her son and said no.” Ruby continued with her revelations, shocking Spike by the latest, knowing with certainty he would not reject her offer a second time.

Elsewhere, back in the city of Los Angeles, Theo Frey was once again stood behind his now run-down dive bar, the one he shared with his now-dead again lover Tobias, frozen in thought, with tears in his eyes, as he began to wonder whether Tobias was as guilty as Drusilla for killing his parents, wondering if his entire relationship with Tobias was just a lie and he had been nothing more than a fool to both him and his sire Drusilla. Suddenly, the very place he returned to for comfort, the place he lived with Tobias, and the place they have both called home, had become nothing more than a place of ruins holding memories of a past that the vampire/slayer hybrid could no longer believe to be true after Ruby’s recent revelations. “I did not think I would be seeing you again especially in the place you almost burned to the ground.” Theo declared after drying his eyes, as Faith Lehane, the vampire slayer determined on pestering him forever, walked into what remained of his demonic little dive bar. “Well, it’s not like you can be picky with your customers considering you only have half a bar these days.” Faith joked with the vampire as she walked over to the counter cautiously. “Your little friend Ruby left me this really sketchy video about you and her going to take out Drusilla and now Spike seems to be in on this little mission so I threw my hat in the ring considering you could do with another super strength in the ring, and something tells me you’re not exactly going to be hitting up B or Angel anytime soon…” “Ruby said something of getting some vamp help, but she never said anything about Spike and as for you no thanks, the last time I played with you, you turned my lover into ashes, well your blue-haired pet did anyway.” Theo snapped at the slayer, refusing to team up with her after their complicated history. “I get that you do not trust me, and I do not trust you but here’s the thing Dru’s a big player and she’s made an enemy of everyone not just you so, swallow your pride dude, and take the help I mean it’s better taking too much firepower to the vengeance party than winding up losing her…she’s survived this long for a reason kiddo.” Faith advised the slayer of slayers, trying to convince him to accept her help. “If B hears I’m not going you know she’s going to get herself involved, I mean it was hard enough telling her to sit this one out like it and I will not even get you started on Angel…” “Killing Drusilla…it does not mean I’m suddenly team slayer or anything, it just means, for now, she’s number one on my hitlist…” Theo explained to her. “I will not protect you; I will not save you, and I most certainly will not thank you.” “Well, that sure as hell seems like a yes to me.” Faith smirked, knowing Theo would rather chance to trust her, than giving Drusilla too much of an opportunity to escape his vengeance. Once Theo reluctantly agreed to work alongside Faith, and Ruby returned to Los Angeles with Spike in tow, the team consisting of a vampire slayer turned vampire, a rogue slayer turned good, a vampire with a soul, and a powerful witch began planning to strike Drusilla where she’s least expected to be attacked, at the one place she called home…

Faith, Theo, Ruby, and Spike found themselves deep within the woods, the same woods that Spike had once visited many years ago, and the same woods Theo and Ruby knew all too well thanks to their time with Drusilla, and before long the group of rogues had found themselves standing outside of the abandoned insane asylum, boarded up with planks of wood that themselves had been broken, with smashed windows, and a general sense of abandonment, abandoned in the middle of nowhere, the road to it long gone, hidden in shame of its own secrets A truly horrifying, and haunted place filled with misery from its past, and the perfect home for an insane vampire-like Drusilla. “I get you’re on mission vengeance and everything here Theo but what are the chances you are going to turn us all and lead us into some kind of slaughter?” Faith asked Theo, as the four remained hidden within the trees, beginning to question Theo’s loyalty towards this team of rogues. “The only person I hate more than you and the blue haired bitch is Drusilla so as long as she is alive you are safe but the minute, she’s dead we’re back to being enemies,” Theo answered honestly, making it clear he had no intention of seeking redemption. “He looks like Angel speaks like Angelus and smells like Buffy,” Spike stated, referring to Theo’s similarities with his biological parents. “Got to say it’s as hot as it is annoying!” “Listen up do not let your past get in the way of dusting Drusilla once and for all or else you’ll be joining your ex in the afterlife!” Theo quickly threatened Spike, proving he distrusted them as much as they distrusted him. “You were her minion just days ago I was her equal, if we have to worry about anyone getting second thoughts then it's you, not me!” Spike responded, making it clear he was down to do what needed to be done. “She killed my parents, there’s no going back for me even if it kills me, you better know it's going to kill her too!” Theo declared defiantly as he prepared for the fight of his undead life.

Instead of just charging into the abandoned asylum, Theo decided to get his poker face on, going in first and playing nice with his former mentor Drusilla, as he got a layout of where her minions had placed themselves, knowing the vampire was always ready for an attack, ready to strike before anyone else, as her asylum had become her armed kingdom. Despite the disgust over having to pretend not to entirely loathe the woman that had killed the parents who had raised him since birth, Theo knew it would be worth the cost once he ended the night plunging a wooden stake into Drusilla’s chest if he could convince her that he was still an ally of hers, the problem, of course, being Drusilla was always one step ahead. “My first family was taken by Angelus before he decided to take me too…” Drusilla told Theo as they walked down one of the many hallways found within the abandoned asylum that Drusilla used as her headquarters. “But then I found a new one with him and Darla, then my Spike but your mother took that all from me which is why I found it so fitting that I was the one to take you from her…but you were never really mine were you?” “What are you talking about? I believed your every word, did every demand and loved you like a son, I have been loyal to you since the first time I met you and I continue to be.” Theo argued with her, fearing she already knew of his intentions to kill her. “I took you into my home and loved you like a son, I even loved you when you took Tobias from me because I knew that was the way things had to be but now you’re too far gone for me to save…” Drusilla said with a great sense of sadness as the two stopped walking, and Theo noticed vampires appearing from both ends of the hallway, as he realized she was the one ambushing him. “The only thing I can do for you now is killing you and hope you are reunited with Tobias in whatever hellish dimension you are sent to.” “You really do see everything coming, don’t you?” Theo asked as he pulled out a wooden stake from his jacket pocket. “You killed my parents, pretended to save me, and had me fooled to think you as my savior all this time! I trusted you…I fought for you…I loved you!” “Everything I did I did to make you who you are today, the slayer of slayers, the world’s first self-sired vampire and you repay me with siding with the very same people who abandoned you without a second thought,” Drusilla replied, as she pulled out a wooden stake of her own from out of the side of her dress, as her minions cautiously walked closer to them both, ready to help their master if Theo got the upper hand. “I don’t give a shit about them! I gave a shit about my parents, the ones who raised me, who loved me, and you took them from me!” Theo shouted at her furiously. “My whole life has been one big lie and you’re the one telling the twisted tale.�� “I loved you as much as someone like me could ever love anybody…you were more my son than perhaps even Tobias, I had such high hopes for you and now you’re letting something as mortal as dead humans affect your emotions making you dumb, dumb, dumb,” Drusilla responded before going on to reveal. “My vision had two endings you know…one where you were her ending and another where she was yours, I guess we both know now what ending you have chosen.” Suddenly, the two vampires who had once considered themselves to be like mother and son were now ready to fight to the death against each other, both feeling equal as betrayed as the other, Theo having perfectly reasonable reasons to feel betrayed by her, and Drusilla in her mind only having reasons of her own.

Meanwhile, just outside of the abandoned insane asylum, where Drusilla and Theo were beginning to battle each other, Faith, Spike, and Ruby remained to hide behind the same trees where Theo had left the three of them as they awaited a signal from the vampire slayer/vampire hybrid to know when to come into the fight, not realizing that Drusilla already had the upper hand on them all. “I know he’s Buffy’s kid, Angel’s too, but at what point do we just bail on this and let the two vamps fight it out between themselves?” Spike asked the vampire slayer, and witch, who he was stood next to. “I mean this guy is just as evil as everything else we tend to kill so why don’t we leave it to Drusilla to kill him instead of one of us killing the kid?” “I am not going anywhere!” Ruby said defiantly, refusing to give up on her former best friend. “I have known Theo my whole life, you two only know the evil side to him but I’ve seen the best and worst of him and I was there when he lost everything…despite that there’s still good in him.” “Well, I do not bloody see it,” Spike replied to the brown-haired witch. “But I am not leaving you to die out here!” “I saw it…in the way he loved that vamp Toby or whatever, they loved each other as I’ve never seen anyone love each other, except maybe Buffy and Angel.” Faith confessed, once again standing up for the slayer of slayers, feeling now more than ever before that his redemption was drawing nearer. Suddenly, the sound of a window-smashing grabbed their attention, as they turned to see a vampire falling from the top floor window before hitting the ground with force, before getting back onto his feet and running back into the asylum via a side door, and although this was not the signal they agreed on, it was clear to Faith, Spike, and Ruby that Theo was in trouble and now was the time to act.

Theo’s fight against Drusilla was unfair in every way as each time he gained the upper hand against his former undead mentor, her vampire army would attack him, and before long he was down on the floor, bloody, bruised, and beaten, while being pinned down by several vampires as Drusilla stood above him, ready to plunge the wooden stake she held into his chest and end him once and for all. “You have been such a naughty boy Theodore,” Drusilla stated with a look of struggle in her eyes as she kneeled over Theo’s body, clearly finding great difficulty with the fact she was about to kill someone she once loved like a son. “All I ever wanted was to be your mother…but she gets her claws into everyone I love.” “Get it over with already!” Theo shouted at her, ready to admit his defeat, accept his fate, and let his miserable life come to an end. And Drusilla did just what she was told, as tears formed in her eyes, she plunged the stake into Theo’s death while letting out a frantic scream at the same time, before falling backward and beginning to sob manically for a moment, only to be left just as stunned as Theo himself as he did not turn to dust, but instead, pulled the stake out of his chest, and rose back onto his feet. Before Theo or Drusilla could even usher a single word to display their joined shock at the fact that Theo was somehow still alive, the surrounding vampires, very recently loyal to Drusilla, began to kneel for Theo, displaying the change in loyalty, now towards the slayer of slayers, as Drusilla quickly rose to her feet and made her way out of the exit located nearest to her, as a shocked Theo continued to look at the vampires kneeling before him, still in shock, as the stake he was holding, which was just plunged into his chest, fell to the ground. “You are our new master now!” One of the vampires declared as Theo continued to just stand there in shock. “A vampire that cannot die, the true immortal, the true heir to the undead kingdom!” Another declared, followed by cheers from fellow vampires, just as Faith, Spike, and Ruby rushed into the hallway from the exit farthest away from them all, only to stop in their tracks by the shocking sight in front of them. “Theo…” Ruby shouted towards her former friend, having no idea what all this meant, or what would follow, as the slayer of slayers was declared king among the vampires…

[chubbyreaderwriter]

Bite Me Pt2

Elizabeth/The Countess x Plus Size/Chubby Reader x James March

Imagine: Elizabeth and James are both attracted to you and each of them want to have you for themselves. 

Word Count: 1.45k 

Warnings: some swearing

Part 1

Masterlist

Despite telling yourself that you were never going to come back to the hotel, you found yourself visiting quite often. The reason being was because of Will and Liz. Will was a close friend and you missed having him around and since he was dead, you had to go to the Cortez to see him. Liz was quickly becoming your favourite female friend ever and you treasured your conversations you had. Liz had caught you up on all of the ‘gossip’ in the hotel. She told you all about Elizabeth, or rather the Countess, and James and how they are married. 

It had surprised you but it wasn’t as surprising as finding out ghosts actually existed and your friend was one of them. During your visits, you always seemed to coincidentally bump into James or Elizabeth. Your meetings were always brief though, with both of them having higher priorities at times. James often stayed clear of you when John was around and Elizabeth had many matters in and out of the hotel to attend to. 

They often flirted with you but you refused to let them have an effect on you. You weren't sure if they were being serious or if it was all one big game they were playing. Liz had told you of Elizabeth’s reputation of moving from one person to the next, often getting bored of her ‘toys’ quickly. James, however, had been obsessed with only his wife until you turned up. That made you feel like their interest wasn’t real so you pushed them away, trying to give them the cold shoulder without realising that it was encouraging them more to try harder to get your attention.

“(Y/N) darling, it’s been a while since I last saw you.” You froze at the sound of Elizabeth’s voice behind you. Liz, who was standing in front of you, smiled then walked away to leave you alone with the Countess. Bitch. You turned to face Elizabeth and gave her a fake smile, “Well, I’ve been busy.” Elizabeth was not easy to fool and knew something was up but knew better than to ask you flat out what was wrong. 

The blonde woman took a drink from her glass, “I was hoping you would stay the night with me, I can show you a good time, love.” Finally having enough with her words, you let out a heavy sigh, “Can you stop pretending that you’re interested in me for a silly bet? I know you’re only doing this because you want to prove a point to James that you can get whoever you wanted, even the fat girl everybody takes pity on.” You started to regret saying that when Elizabeth’s face hardened and she took a step closer to you. You were about the same height but she looked menacing and intimidating nonetheless. 

Her voice was deeper with contained anger, “I will tell you this once and only once. Call yourself fat or make any unnecessary comments about your weight and I will become very cross with you. I don't want to punish you but I will, darling.” You nodded out of fear, unsure why her words effected you so much, in this moment, you felt completely powerless against her and she wasn’t even doing anything to you. 

“As for your belief that I’m pretending my interest in you, if you were to take me up on my offer to show you a night of pleasure, you would be very certain that I am quite attracted to you, my girl.” You were sure that your face was bright red and your mouth felt a little dry. “O-Okay.” Your voice was quiet and a little squeaky as you watched Elizabeth’s mouth curve into a smirk. 

Her elegant hand held yours and she walked you towards the elevator, heading up to her private room. In the elevator, Elizabeth turned you towards her and put her hands on your waist to pull your body against hers, capturing your lips in a passionate kiss. A soft gasp left your mouth, parting your lips which allowed Elizabeth to enter her tongue into your mouth to deepen the kiss. 

After a few moments, she pulled away to let you catch your breath, her soft hand gently stroking the side of your face, “So beautiful, you are unable to understand how badly I want you right now, darling. It was torture every time you rejected my advances, but all is forgiven,” The way she spoke was so enticing that you hung onto her every word, taking it all in. A small whimper escaped from the back of your throat as the elevator doors opened and she led you down into her bedroom, her hands not moving from you as she did. 

Elizabeth sat you down on her bed, her hands pulling your jacket from your shoulders for you. She sat to the left of you, her hands on your shoulders and her mouth against your ear, whispering, “A body like yours is a priceless artwork, beauty that most cannot comprehend. It needs to be appreciated and treated with delicate touches.” Her hands slowly ran down the front of your shirt, to slide underneath the fabric of the offending item that concealed your body from her. Your eyes had been closed and your head tilted back but when you opened your eyes again, you saw James stood in front of the two of you. 

Your scream alerted Elizabeth and you pulled yourself away from the two, grabbing your jacket back and putting in on to cover yourself. Elizabeth wished that James wasn't dead so that she could slit his throat herself. The countess moved on the bed to pull you close to her, “Can’t you see you’re interrupting us? She was enjoying my company, not yours.” 

James finally took his eyes off you to look at his wife, “I could see that, but surely she would enjoy twice the pleasure. It would be divine.” You swallowed hard as you looked between Elizabeth and James, you had only barely been comfortable with Elizabeth bringing you up to her room, nevermind James inviting himself into whatever this was as well. 

Elizabeth could feel how stiff you had gone in her arms and turned her head to press soft kisses against your neck, as if James wasn't even there. You turned to look at Elizabeth and she took the opportunity to cup your cheek with one hand and kiss you deeply on the lips. It was quite possibly one of the most intimate kisses you’ve ever had but you weren't going to be so ready to admit that to her. A soft, almost inaudible, moan left your throat and it was just your luck that the both of them heard you. James had moved at some point to be right behind you and he placed his hands on your hips, “Mm, that sound was exhilarating, do it again.” 

Just as both Elizabeth’s and James’ hands started to roam towards more private places on your body, your phone broke the deafening silence by ringing. Elizabeth was reaching for your pocket, her intentions to turn the device off and throw it away but you used it as an excuse to remove yourself from the situation. You looked at the home screen and saw that Will was calling you. You had never been more relieved and you awkwardly pushed yourself out from between the two and ran away out of the bedroom, answering the phone call, mumbling a “I have to take this,” behind you. 

When you made it out of the bedroom, you walked some way down the corridor before leaning against the wall. Your phone was still ringing and so you declined the call before letting out a deep breath, that was a close call. You weren't supposed to let them effect you like that. If the phone call hadn't brought you out of it, you probably would’ve let them do whatever they wanted and you weren't entirely sure if you wanted to be trapped into their lives right now. God knows that this was only the beginning. 

Elizabeth glared at James after she watched you run out of the room, “That was all your fault, you couldn’t have just stayed away for a few more hours?” James scoffed, “You’ve had your fair share of having all the fun, this time, my dear, I want in. The others weren’t nearly as endearing as this woman and I’m afraid I will not be backing down.” Elizabeth got up from her position on the bed and promptly left the room, she needed to take out her frustrations somehow. A fresh kill would help with that. 

Tag List: 

@naniky​ 

[theelvenhaven]

‘I love you’

Elrond x Reader

I changed things up to more noncanon where instead of sailing Celebrian passed away.

1.8k words

* * *

You paced quietly in Elrond’s office, chewing gently on your finger, your shoes barely making a sound despite walking on hardwood floors. An arm wrapped around yourself for comfort, while the other rested comfortably so you could continue gnawing at your soft skin.

Today was the day that you were going to tell Elrond how it was you felt, you knew it was a silly thing to do. He had married once before to the illustrious Celebrian and you knew that you could not compare to the original Lady of Imladris. Yet your heart couldn’t take holding onto such an intimate secret any longer. Especially while under the guise that you were his friend and nothing more.

Each day you spent with Elrond your love for him had only continued to grow, sending fluttering butterflies through your belly, leaving warmth to blossom on your cheeks softly, and your heart thudding with excitement to see him. You were head over heels for him! It was so foolish, but you supposed at this point you were indeed a fool.

Just thinking about that soft smile he gave you sent another fluttering through your stomach and you closed your eyes as if to try and block out the thought unable to control how it made you feel. You had gone over a hundred times how it was you wanted to tell him. Preferably alone of course, as you couldn’t bear the thought of someone overhearing your confession and it not being reciprocated. 

Eru that would be a nightmare…

The sound of his voice drew you from your worrying thoughts as you heard him perhaps speaking with either Lindir or the Lord Glorfindel. Papers were being shuffled and footsteps were hurried, approaching the door quicker than you were ready for making you sigh out. You only sped up in your pacing taking a few deep breaths before you heard the door handle jiggle and you stopped. 

Facing the door, holding your breath as Elrond dismissed whomever it was he had been speaking with. As he entered, a look of expectation was on his face though a faint smile was pulling at his lips as his silver eyes locked with yours. You couldn’t stop the smile that began to spread despite your nervousness taking a moment to look over the Master of Imladris. 

“Y/N, it is not often that you grace me with your presence during a work day, is there something that I can help you with?” Elrond began in his warm and gentle voice before he began to walk towards the desk to set down his paperwork. Taking a shaky breath you began to nod, tucking some of your long hair behind your ears,

“Yes, there is. If you have a moment… I would like to discuss something with you, Elrond.” You began turning to face Elrond who only gave another faint smile to you and was nodding at your words. In a gentle sweeping motion, he pointed to the settee that sat just before his desk, quietly you took your place on one side as you looked around the room.

His heavy oaken desk just before you, with a hearth to your right empty of fire as it was mid spring and the need for extra warmth was not needed. Behind his desk was a door frame, white curtains hanging on either side and beyond that a terrace that overlooked your home. 

Golden rays of the morning sun were trickling in, giving the ellon you loved a beautiful golden halo. Making him more ethereal than you already thought he was. 

“What seems to be troubling you?” Elrond inquired softly, you took a moment to think, your eyes on him looking over the dark yellow robes he wore. His hair draped down the front of his robes and a simple silver circlet sitting upon his dark brown hair. 

“It is… A matter of the heart, I’m afraid.” You began catching his attention as he moved gracefully across the floor to sit on the other side of the cream settee. Elrond faced you as he began to raise his brows at your words, 

“I am sure I can find some way to assist even for such a sensitive matter.” He assured you warmly hands clasping together as they rested in his lap, eyes trained on you as you nodded at his words. Once again you let out a sigh, giving him a nervous smile pausing for a long moment to gather your thoughts. It was now or never, and you have committed to it this far, then you could confess what you were feeling to him finally. 

“I have thought long and hard on how it was that I was going to confess on how I feel. I have debated even longer on whether or not this was something I should even get off of my chest for risk of losing my friendship.” You began to explain to him, Elrond listening intently to your words with great patience keeping his expression neutral as he always did. Keeping you completely at ease, despite how nerve destroying this moment was with him. 

“If it is something so delicate, I doubt that it would ruin a friendship. Perhaps change the dynamic only momentarily, Y/N.” Elrond assured you gently and with encouragement, you admittedly felt some comfort at this. You hoped that, that would indeed be the case when you told Elrond and the feelings weren’t reciprocated.

“I know that my feelings will never be reciprocated, but I cannot keep this a secret for any longer.” You stated matter of factly, still Elrond waiting patiently for you to continue. Even as you looked down at your fingers that you began to entwine together and squeeze snuggly for a moment. Shifting in your seat, mustering and calling upon all of your courage before you exhaled deeply looking back up at him. 

“Elrond… I love you.” You confessed with conviction, warmth searing across your face and even up to your ears as they turned crimson with embarrassment. There was a long pause between the both of you, Elrond’s expression having never wavered until he finally looked away from you. Which felt incredibly unusual within itself, and you knew that the rejection was coming. 

“You are aware that I have wed once before and that I have children.” Elrond pointed out in a gentle voice, there was not a hint of malice or disgust yet you couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable and embarrassed. The heat becoming unbearable and the discomfort knotted in your stomach, 

“I am aware.” You stated simply, his silence came to be torturous. Then again you supposed for once you had completely caught him off guard and he was trying to find the best way to let you down. For one it was completely possible that Celebrian would be reborn and could be waiting for Elrond and her children as you both spoke right now. This could be completely overstepping bounds in a way that could never be fixed. Unable to help yourself you opened your mouth to speak again. 

“It was probably best that I didn’t say anything at all, I am aware of that much.” You paused clutching the fabric of your robes tightly, keeping your eyes averted away from him. 

“But I could not in good conscience leave you unaware of my feelings.” It felt wrong to continue being his friend harboring such deep feelings, yet it almost felt just as wrong to have confessed to an ellon who had lost his wife. Panic began to set in as you realized the pressure this might have put on him, and you closed your eyes with a heavy regretful sigh. 

 Elrond watched you in silence, a look of sympathy crossing his features as he knew you were certainly beating yourself up over giving out such delicate information. Slowly a soft smile pulled again at his lips, while gently he began to shift a little closer, reaching over to place his hand over one of yours. Fingers curling around the back of your hand to hold before carefully he began to pull your hand towards himself. 

Leaving it to rest just on his knee as he looked over your soft hand, confusion filled you as Elrond had never done something so intimate before you. But you said nothing, giving him the opportunity this time to express himself. 

“I must confess that I had suspected for some time that you felt such a way for me.” Elrond said to you honestly as both of his hands held your one, resting on his knee before he looked back to your surprised face. It made the faint smile show itself once more,

“I felt as though I had no place to be confessing my own feelings, considering my prior engagements and did not want to be incorrect in my assessment or it was only an infatuation and nothing more.” His words left you breathless, you were stunned! Never had you dreamed that this moment would bear more fruit than just a gentle let down. 

Yet here Master Elrond was, confessing that your feelings were in fact reciprocated. It was more than you could have ever hoped for. Excitement began to well in your stomach and you couldn’t help the bright smile that pulled widely and warmly at your lips. Gently you began to squeeze his hand, and Elrond tenderly returned the gesture to you. 

“I respect that you have been married already, and that you already have a family. It doesn’t bother me and it doesn’t change how I feel about you Elrond. I love you regardless.” You said warmly unable to help but scoot closer to him, your shoulders brushing against one another and a warmer smile found Elrond’s lips. 

“I am overjoyed to hear it, Y/N.” He said with warmth you had not ever heard him use before, it was softer than his usual cool demeanor and far more tender. It made your heart quicken with excitement. 

“I love you, Y/N. I would love nothing more than to discuss this further with you later tonight over dinner, if you’d have me.” Always was Elrond considerate of never pressuring or pressing you into things that may feel uncomfortable. Quickly you began to nod, beaming as you looked up at him in adoration,

“Yes, I would love that Elrond… Perhaps a stroll as well if you have the time.” Elrond let out a soft hum at your words, 

“I wouldn’t plan for anything less, my dear.” He began gently bringing your hand up to his lips to press a tender kiss too, heat immediately flushed to your face at the gesture. Your stomach knotting and flipping, coyly looking away and down in your lap.

“Then I shall see you tonight.” You whispered gently to him, Elrond let out another hum nodding his head at your words.

“Until tonight my dear.” With that you gently pulled your hand away and stood from the couch. Giving Elrond one last warm and bright smile before you left his office, today had turned out far better than you could have ever dreamed. 

Finally you were going to be with your one. 

* * * 

tags:

@saviorsong​ @oathandichor​ @fandom-hoe101​ @lilmelily​ Hope this is what you were looking for anon <3

[jawritter]

The Arrangement

Part 12

Summery: You are a young girl that was raised in a small church in Dallas, TX. One of the only churches left in the state that still practices arranged marriages. When your betrothed ran off to California you thought you'd escape the fate you were trained for ever since a small child. Now upon the death your parents your fate seemed to be inescapable as he's returned, and is ready to take you as his bride.

Book Warnings: Arranged marriage, loss of virginity, smut, unprotected sex, angst, language, suicide attempt, battles with anxiety, struggles with mental illness, age gap (about 11 years), I think that’s it, chapters will have warnings of their own!

Chapter Warnings: Heavy trigger warning!!! Suicide attempt!! Angst, caught in your own head, feelings of abandoment, depression, grief, this one is rough guys.

Word Count: 2377

A/N: This book is a book about Christian and church based arranged marriages, I would like to take this moment to say that I DO NOT have ANYTHING against the Chirstian faith, and mean absolutely no harm to anyone! Especially Jensen’s family! This is a complete work of fiction, and should be treated as such!

Beta’d by the amazing @deanwanddamons who was awesome enough to do all this for me! It was a lot of work, and she deserves all the praise for it!!

Pairing: Jensen Ackles x Reader

Want More? Check Out My Masterlist!!

***MASTERLIST***

***SERIES MASTERLIST***

It had been three days since your fight with Jensen. 

When he slammed the bedroom door after you had slapped him, he got his keys, walked out the door, and did not come back. 

You didn't know where he'd gone.You didn't try to contact him . If the truth were told, you hadn't really moved from your spot in your now cold, and very lonely bed, unless absolutely necessary. 

The air around you hung in a deafening silence . Who the hell knew silence could be so loud?

You didn't bother turning on theTV.You hadn't bothered to eat, and only drank a little bit of water. You’dsurvive, it just wasn’t there anymore. 

You were too big of a coward to take your own life, though the thought had crossed your mind. 

If you were dead, Jensen wouldn't have to be burdened with you anymore. He could go back to what he wanted to do. Not like there would be anyone around to miss you anyway. 

Still, you were too big of a coward to 'pull the trigger'. So you just laid there, and prayed for death to find you on it's own. Prayed that you'd drift off to sleep, and never wake up again.

It didn't happen. 

Every morning you woke up to a fresh, and even deeper pain; and the realization that Jensen probably wasn't coming home.

Sitting up on the side of the bed, you stared around the room. It was so cold, but you didn't care. It matched how you felt on the inside. You had cried until you didn't have any tears left to cry. Until everything in and around you felt numb.

In most homes, you would walk through the house and see pictures of your wedding day, family, friends; even your parents' home had all those things. 

This place had none of that for you and Jensen. 

You would see kids toys scattered around in some homes. You and Jensen had no children together, and Danneel had  three of his. 

This house felt 'lived in'. All your things were there, along with his, but even though it was lived in, it wasn't a home.

It didn't hold the feeling of home the way your parents house had. There were no memories of times with friends, no family dinners, or holidays, nothing.

You had fooled yourself into thinking this marriage with Jensen was a real marriage. Was even  stupid enough to let yourself fall in love with him. 

Now you were staring reality straight in the face. You had nothing together. You just shared a bed and had sex on occasion. 

Getting out of bed, you dragged your way to the bathroom. Standing in front of the sink, you stared at the mirror. You didn't  recognize the woman that stood there, staring back at you. 

Her eyes almost looked sunk into her skull. She was pale, almost a chalk white color. Her eyes were red and swollen around the eyelids. Her lips were cracked and had been bleeding, probably from lack of food or water. Her hair was an absolute mess. 

She looked like a dead person that was to stupid to know they had died. So they were still standing there.

That's what you felt like. You felt like you had died, you weren't really there. You were living, but you weren't alive.

You died the moment he walked out of the door.

Every time you closed your eyes you saw the look on Jensen's face after you had slapped him. Before the guilt could really grip you, the picture of Danneel and him locked at the mouth would flash before your mind, and shot down the guilt.

For a moment anyway.

The eternal war continued to rage on inside of you as you made your way back to the bed, pulling the cold sheets back and crawling in. You closed your eyes and begged whatever God was listening, cause at this point you weren't even sure there was one, to just let you die this time. You couldn't handle another day like this. Another day of crippling heartache, and a loneliness on a scale you could have never imagined existed.

Jensen's POV:

Jensen sat on the back porch of Jared and Gen's house, more than a little drunk. At first when he left the house the day of their fight Jensen had been angrier than he'd ever been in his life. He told her he loved her and she literally slapped him in the face. 

That anger quickly turned to hurt. 

Rejection wasn't something he was used to. Most women threw themselves at him willingly. That wasn't really it either. What was the real slap in the face was that Y/N didn't trust him, and didn't believe him, not only when he told her he did nothing wrong, but also when he told her that he loved her. That’s the part that hurt the most.

No matter how angry he got, he couldn't deny the feelings he'd come to accept regarding his wife. 

He'd picked up the phone, looking down at it, almost willing it to ring. Nothing. So for the hundredth time he called. It rang and rang. Nothing, only voicemail.

Slamming the phone down on the table, pulled at his hair harshly before he downed the rest of the scotch in his hand. He was well on the way to drinking himself into passing out for the third night in a row. It was the only way he could sleep without seeing the hurt look on Y/N’s face when she looked up at him from the kitchen table that day.

Jensen heard Jared pull the chair away from the table  he was sitting at, and sit down next to him. He didn't bother looking at him, just continued to stare at the empty dark pool in front of him.

Jared didn't really care for Y/N. He always thought she was just using his friend for his money, but right now, looking at his best friend and watching him literally try to drink himself to death, he wished more than anything she'd call and ask him to come home. 

He may not like her, but Jensen obviously loved her, and he didn't like to see him this way. 

"Jensen, what if I send Gen over there, check on her, get a feel for things? You can't keep hiding out here drinking man. You gotta fix this."

"I don't want Gen going over there, and making this shit worse. She doesn't know you guys, and the last time she was here you didn't exactly go out of your way to make her feel welcomed." Jensen mumbled, alcohol loosening his tongue to the point he wasn't worried about sparing feelings.

"You’re right, I didn't, and I'm sorry for that. I was just looking out for you, but Jay, man, if you love her that much you're not going to be able to sit here, and drink this mess Danneel has created away. You filed a restraining order, and you have the paperwork to prove it. Go show it to Y/N. Prove to her that it wasn't what it looked like."

Taking a deep breath, Jensen nodded his head. "Okay, yeah I got paperwork now. Maybe she will see I really don't want anything to do with that bitch."

Jensen blinked hard, trying to hold back tears that threatened at the edges of his eyes. 

"I can't lose her Jar. I just can't."

Before he could finish the sentence, Jared had reached up and grabbed his friend, pulling him into a bone crushing hug. 

"Let's get you some coffee, and something to eat so you can sober up.Then you need to go home and make this shit right Jay, for her, but also for yourself."

Your POV:

Day four of Jensen being gone dawned early for you. 

You had woken up once again, much to your dismay. Trudging your way to the bathroom you felt utterly numb, everything in you felt numb, from your insides, working it's way out. You had hit your breaking point. Your body craved Jensen's contact like a dying person craved oxygen, and to be honest you were tired of feeling the way you were feeling.

Thoughts rolled through your mind without your consent. 

Was he with Danneel? Was he sleeping with her now? Did he just abandon you because he didn’t care about you anymore? Why didn’t he come home? Why is this all happening to you? Why couldn't’ you have just been more like her? Maybe then he would still be here. Maybe then he could have loved you, the way you loved him.

Ever since your parents passed away, there was nothing in this world left for you that loved you. The church had abandoned you, you had no friends, now you didn't even have Jensen. Walking to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom you searched through whatever you could find to numb the pain. There was nothing. Not even a fucking Advil.

How was it possible to hurt so much, yet be so damn numb? It didn’t even make sense.

Staggering back to the bedroom, you began to search through drawers and night stands. Maybe there was something left that would kill this headache stashed somewhere.

Finally you found your prize. A full bottle of adult Motrin. 100 tablets in all, seal not even broken. Looking at the bottle you turn it over in your hands, taking four of them at once.... Then the thought hit you.

'You’re  not good enough for Jensen. Do him a favor, down this whole bottle and go back to bed. Then you will be out of his way. No longer a burden, and out of your own miserable existence.' 

Standing there just turning the bottle over in your hands, you weighed up your opinions. 

Yeah you were way too chicken to literally shoot yourself. This though, this was easy. Just take the pills, go to sleep. 

Your heart ached in your chest. You could still hear the sound of your hand connecting with his face, the sound of the door slamming to the bedroom, then the front door. Everything you've been through, this was it. This was your limit. You wanted out. This was the only way.

Grabbing a bottle of water you start taking fistfuls of pills. You don't know how many you finally successfully swallowed, but you finally got it down to only a small amount of pills left in the bottle when you just couldn’t take anymore.

Grabbing his notebook from the bedside table, and a pen you wrote quickly. 

‘I'm so sorry I was a burden to you. You can go be free now. I did love you. I'm sorry you couldn't feel the same.’

Sitting it down next to the bed, you crawled back under the covers, and waited for sleep, or death to take you. There was no turning back now, not even if you wanted to. Grabbing your phone you quickly googled a picture of him. He was smiling, happy. It was before he met you. You were doing this for him. He deserved to be free of you. Free to be happy. The last thing you saw before your eyes closed was his beautiful face. That's the way you wanted it....

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

Jensen's POV:

Jensen wanted to come home last night.Only problem was, he couldn't sober up enough, and he knew coming home to try and make things right between the two of you while drunk wasn't the best idea; so he slept it off and took off for the house as soon as the sun came up. Even though he had a pounding headache, and his stomach was in knots he didn’t care, hangover be damned, he had to make this right between the two of you. He couldn’t take the distance anymore. 

His heart hammered in his chest the whole way  home.Something deep down inside of him screamed something was very wrong, but he shoved it off, doing all he could to convince himself everything was going to be okay. 

Pulling up into the driveway, he saw no lights on inside the house. 'She must still be sleeping.' he thought to himself. 

Slowly, he made his way out of the door of the car and up the driveway. No sound was coming from inside the house, no TV, nothing. Which was normal while people slept, but something just didn't sit right in him. Something was wrong. 

Slipping his key into the doorknob, he unlocked the door and took a step inside the house, closing the door quietly behind him.

The only light in the house was the light coming through the windows. Still,he could see everything was the same as he left it when he walked out of the front door four days ago. His heart started to hammer in his chest loud enough to pulse through his ears.

Walking through the kitchen, he could still see pots on the stove she had taken out that day to start dinner, empty, and untouched. Walking through the bottom floor she was nowhere to be found. 

"God please let her still be here." he said to himself as he started to climb the stairs towards the bedroom.

The silence in the house seemed so thick he could cut it with a knife. Something was wrong. Every fiber of his being was screaming it. His breath was coming in short, quick bursts. Fear gripped him in a way nothing ever had before. Reaching the landing, he opened the door to the master bedroom slowly.

The lights were off in the bedroom, but he could clearly see her figure outlined underneath the covers. For just a moment he took a deep sigh of relief. She was just asleep. 

Closing the door quietly, he walked over to the side of the bed. Her back was to him, the covers pulled up over to neck.  Standing there looking at her he internally kicked himself for not coming home to her sooner. 

Reaching his hand out he brushed the hair away from her face. "Y/N?"

Nothing. She must be really asleep. Putting his hand on her shoulder. He shook her in earnest how. "Y/N... Baby wake up.. We need to talk..." 

Nothing... 

Something wasn't right.

His heart started to hammer in his chest again. He felt like he was taking his breath through a straw. Shaking hard, he reached over and turned the lamp light on by the bed. 

The first thing he saw as the light flooded the room was his notepad open, and her handwriting that was on it. 

‘I'm so sorry I was a burden to you. You can go be free now. I did love you. I'm sorry you couldn't feel the same.’

At first his mind couldn't compute... Then it started to sink in. Panic grabbing him tight in his chest as he ripped the covers off her, shaking her hard. 

"Y/N! Wake up!! Come on baby, please!!"

Putting his head down by her face he could feel no breath coming from her body.

His heart seized up in his chest, shaking her lifeless body in his arms, screaming inaudibly. 

He couldn't take the thought that she was gone. It was all his fault, he left her here, he abandoned her, he was all she had, and she took her own life because of him. 

Grabbing his phone from his pocket,his eyes blurred as uncensored tears poured down his face. Every breath seemed to come out as a scream.

"911, what is your emergency?"

Jensen tried to make his voice work, but all that would come out was strangled noises and screams. He held her close to him, desperately trying to wake her up.

"Sir, please calm down.. What is your emergency? I can't help you if you won't calm down.."

Taking a deep breath he was finally  able to make his voice work in a noise that wasn't a scream.

"My wife.. Please send help. I can't wake her up. I think she's..." 

He couldn't finish the sentence. Throwing the phone down on the ground without hanging up, he pressed her body as close to his as he could, burying his face in her hair, begging her, God, and whoever would listen that she would wake up for him.

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Tag List: @deanwanddamons​ @imabitch4jensen​ @rvgrsbrns​ @bi-danvers0​ @onethirstyunicorn​ @i-love-superhero​ @akshi8278​ @lyss-dw79​ @magssteenkamp​ @lemondropirwin​ @squirrelnotsam​ @hobby27​ @spnbaby-67​ @mrsjenniferwinchester​ @defenderrosetyler​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @thecreatiivecorner​  @aflamboyanceofgays @vicmc624​ @busy-bee-angel-misska​ @justanotherwinchester​ @brilovesdeanwinchester​ @idksupernatural​ @lyarr24​ @amandamdiehl​

[horansqueen]

You & Me : chapter 47

A Niall Horan fanfiction ; rated MA

Sequel to AM CONVERSATIONS

CHAPTER 1 || CHAPTER 2 || CHAPTER 3 || CHAPTER 4 || CHAPTER 5 || CHAPTER 6 || CHAPTER 7 || CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 9 || CHAPTER 10 || CHAPTER 11 || CHAPTER 12 || CHAPTER 13 || CHAPTER 14 || CHAPTER 15 || CHAPTER 16 || CHAPTER 17 || CHAPTER 18 || CHAPTER 19 || CHAPTER 20 || CHAPTER 21 || CHAPTER 22 || CHAPTER 23 || CHAPTER 24 || CHAPTER 25 || CHAPTER 26 || CHAPTER 27 || CHAPTER 28 || CHAPTER 29 || CHAPTER 30 || CHAPTER 31 || CHAPTER 32 || CHAPTER 33 || CHAPTER 34 || CHAPTER 35 || CHAPTER 36 || CHAPTER 37 || CHAPTER 38 || CHAPTER 39 || CHAPTER 40 || CHAPTER 41 || CHAPTER 42 || CHAPTER 43 || CHAPTER 44 || CHAPTER 45 || CHAPTER 46

NOTES:

-one chapter is her pov, the next is his -4k -im sorry, i never proofread, i hate it. -there WILL be smut. but not only smut. -this is a romance, comedy, smut story. -for the summary, check my MASTERLIST.

READ AM CONVERSATIONS AGAIN ON WATTPAD HERE

- notes: last filler chapter. the next 3 chapters are all planned. this is the end omg im so sad! i love you guys so much for sticking to this story! thank you so so much! the others chapters will be separated in two so i can write each POVs :)

if you want to be on the list of blogs i notify when this is updated, just message me :)

requests! : this is, i believe, the last request i’ll add to this story. thank you times a million to all of you who sent some! I received over 200 requests just for YOU&ME! you guys are incredible and i hope youll want to participate to my next story as much as you did for this one! 

TAKE A LOOK AT THE CHARACTERS HERE

Chapter 47 : His chapter

NIALL

October 2018

Tour was finally over and we were back home. We had decided to get back to California for a while, if only to spend some time with friends and relax. I knew Olivia wanted to be around Louis and I just enjoyed being in LA for obvious reasons. Things had never been better between us but at least once a day, I could feel the ring I bought burning in my pocket or whispering to me from my underwear drawer. It always felt like the right time to get on one knee and ask her and at the same time, it also never felt like it was the perfect moment. I knew it was ridiculous because I was pretty sure she wanted to spend her life with me, but I was scared of being rejected, I was scared of what a 'no' would do to us and to our relationship. So many times, I had looked in her eyes and almost dropped down on one knee to ask her to be my wife, but I never did. I liked to believe I hadn't asked her yet because I knew she deserved something bigger than just me giving her a ring in a hotel room while we're waiting for our ride to the airport, but it was definitely not the biggest problem. I was just fucking scared and every time the words were about to come out of my mouth, I'd swallow them. I had no idea who I was trying to fool : Olivia was never the type to enjoy attention or extravagant things. She was reserved and private, pretty much like me, and I knew my proposal didn't have to be anything wild. It could be simple, and cheesy, and as long as I could find the right words, it would be perfect.

I heard the key in the lock and it took me out of my thoughts, pushing away my inner confusion. I waited until the door opened and she appeared, making my lips curl. She made a quick head movement but everything seemed to go on slow motion, like in a movie, and i watched her hair fly behind her shoulder. I was in it so deep I almost groaned and grimaced at how cheesy I was.

"Hey babe, what are you doing?"

I breathed in deeply, realizing I had completely stopped, and sent her a smile, licking my lips.

"Waiting for you like the loser I am." I half-joked before chuckling. "You were with Louis? How's he?"

She smiled at me and took a step closer, tilting her head. "First off, you're not a loser. You're cute. You're sweet. You're super endearing." she just said, staring at me fondly. Her expression changed and she glanced down, sucking on her bottom lip before putting her purse next to the couch. "I was not with... I didn't spend the night with Louis."

I frowned, waiting for her to continue and when her eyes met mine, I knew it was bad.

"I went to dinner with Dylan."

My lips parted and my heart jumped in my chest. I was never the jealous type and I was not about to start now, right? Then why did something seemed to stir in my stomach? Why was there a lump in my throat that had seemed to appear suddenly?

"No way, tell me you're kiddin'."

"Niall, please-"

"No, don't act like this is normal and that I'm stupid to be angry." i cut her, shaking my head. "I can't believe you spent all this time alone with Dylan."

She sighed again and sat on the couch, rubbing her hands on her eyes. I walked closer and dived my hands in my pockets, trying to remain calm but the truth was, I was hurt and I was not sure what all of this meant. All I knew was that I felt betrayed and I could barely believe we'd have to go through something like this again. This time, the roles seemed to be reversed but I didn't want this to break us.

"Obviously, you knew it was wrong since you purposely omitted to tell me." I continued, pressing my lips together to be sure I wouldn't let out a mean remark. "Why did you do that to me, Liv?"

It took her a few seconds but she finally got up very slowly, right in front of me. Her body was close, so close I could feel the warmth of it on my skin, but I just stared in her eyes, feeling my heart soften at the way she was looking at me.

"I don't love him, you know it." she expressed in a soft tone. "I don't love anyone but you. He's still my friend, and also my co-worker. I probably shouldn't have gone with him, especially not without telling you, but... I don't know, Niall."

I stared at her for what felt like an hour as I tried to calm the beatings of my heart and finally passed one of my hands in my hair and sat down on the couch. She turned around to face me but remained up as I shook my head.

"I'm not going to tell you who you can and can't be friends with, and I do trust you." I let out carefully. "But Olivia, how would you feel if i came back here one night and told you I spent the evening with Heidi?"

I could feel her body tense near mine but I didn't look up at her. I waited and eventually, she sat next to me and reached for my hand on my thigh, squeezing my fingers with both her hands.

"I'd feel betrayed, and sad, and... and hurt." she admitted. "I'm sorry Niall, it was wrong of me."

I brought my other hand and placed it over hers, squeezing her hand and brushing my thumb on the top of it.

"If it can reassure you though, Dylan is seeing someone." she added, making me look up in her eyes. "A pretty blonde. Actress too. Not your type, obviously, but I think they really fit."

"Not my type?" I repeated in an amused tone, raising my eyebrows. "Says who?"

"Your dating history." she explained with a chuckle. "She's a small cute blonde and you like tall and sexy brunettes."

I pressed my lips together again and shook my head. "Naa, that's not true anymore." I just shrugged, making her frown. "I just like one sexy brunette."

She laughed and tilted her head. "You're crazy, I'm not sex-"

I cut her by pressing my palm against her mouth and raising my eyebrows, moving slightly closer. My eyes roamed on her again as something jumped in my stomach. I wanted to ask her to marry me at this exact moment. I wanted to tell her she was everything I needed in this life and that my heart was aching for her to become my wife. Instead, I breathed in and finally swallowed.

"Don't argue with me. You're sexy." I whispered before moving my hand away very slowly. "And I love you."

She licked her lips and the left corner of her lips raised up. "Your love is blinding you." she whispered, moving closer to brush her lips against mine. "But I appreciate it. I love you too."

She kissed me so gently that if I had closed my eyes, it would have felt unreal, and when she pulled away, I saw her facial expression change.

"I'm sorry, Niall. That won't ever happen again." she apologized gently in a soft tone.

"I know." I whispered before suddenly realizing something. "Hey, does that mean he broke up with Heidi?"

Her lips curled and she shrugged. "Yea, that's what he told me tonight. I feel a bit sorry for her, she's been through a lot in the past few weeks."

I stared at her for a few seconds, surprised by her words but at the same time a bit impressed. The fact that she could be empathetic even to people who were mean to her was something I appreciated. Of course, we hadn't been too kind to Heidi either and Liv was not wrong, she had been through a lot, even if it was not all on us and that she had put us through a lot too. Still, I felt my lips curl and she tilted her head before sighing as she turned her upper body my way.

"It's horrible what we all did to each other, don't you think?"

My traits softened and I nodded. "It is." I admitted in a low tone. "Let's just use this so we never do that again."

Her lips curled a bit and she licked them slowly as I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her closer to me. Her arms slithered around my neck and I sent her an amused smile.

"It won't ever happen again." she confessed, tilting her chin up. "I plan to spend the rest of my life with you, and only you."

Her words made me chuckle and I raised my eyebrows, still looking at her, "Oh what a coincidence, I plan the same with you."

I brought one of my hands to her cheek before pressing my forehead against hers. She breathed in deeply and closed her eyes. It made me smile and gently, I rubbed my nose against hers, making her chuckle low.

"Shower?" I proposed in a low tone.

"Mm no, a bath. Together."

I laughed a bit but we ended up in the bathroom together as she filled the tub with warm water. I let my eyes roam on her as she got undressed, leaving her clothes on the cold tiles, and when her eyes met mine, she raised her eyebrows. The left corner of my lips raised up into a cheeky smile and she just shook her head but I took a step closer, placing my hands on her waist and making her smile too.

"Fifteen minutes without thinking about sex. Please." she asked, tilting her head and making me laugh.

"But you're just standing naked in front of me I mean..."

"Niall James Horan, you're not sixteen anymore, you can be around a naked girl without feeling the need to shag her, i'm sure!"

"Around any other girl, yea, but when it's you..." I let out, half-joking and making her roll her eyes.

"Come on, get naked too." she let out as she started working on my pants. I helped her take them off and before she could do it, I grabbed the bottom of my shirt and pulled it over my head, letting fall on the pile of her clothing on the floor. "Alright, seeing you in your usual white boxers does something to me." she admitted, bringing her hand to my cock over my boxers and biting her bottom lip.

"Look who's all horny now." I laughed as she got on her tiptoes to kiss my lips, letting go of me and smiling against my mouth. "Come on, get in the tub."

After a few minutes, I was sitting in the tub, legs spread, and she was sitting between them, her back leaned against my chest. I didn't remember us ever doing that before but I enjoyed it a lot more that I thought I would. We started talking and laughing together and it was exactly like when we were younger and we'd spend all night talking together. Well, almost : the younger versions of us were definitely not naked.

"I can't believe we're dating again." she let out after a while as her thumb brushed gently on my arm. "If someone had told me that a few months ago, I wouldn't have believed it. Who would have thought?"

"Me." I replied before she moved slightly to look at me. "I mean, I wrote 'you and me' about that. I knew we were meant to be, and I've always known I wanted to spend my life with you."

I knew this discussion could go wrong but I had to be honest about all of this.

"I could have refused, you know. I could have been over you by then." she argued calmly. "I thought I was. But then you appeared with that stupid gorgeous mug of yours, that fucking insane smile and those ridiculously incredible eyes..." She shook her head. "I had no chance to win that fight."

I let out a loud laugh and she tilted her head to reach my chin with her lips, leaving a small kiss on my skin.

"When I found out you were getting married... I started doubting everything." I admitted, looking down at my hand moving slowly to bring warm water on her skin after seeing her shiver. "I thought maybe it was too late. But I couldn't seem to give up."

We remained silent for a while until she grabbed my hand and squeezed my fingers tight. "I'm glad you didn't."

"Me too." I whispered. "And I feel so lucky that you gave me an other chance."

Once again, she turned around slightly but this time, I moved my chin down to kiss her lips.

"We don't even have an anniversary date." she pointed out, raising her eyebrows at me.

"Of course we do! It's April 16th of this year."

I felt my heart jump at my words and held my breath. April 16th was the day I bought that promise ring for her in Paris. It was when I decided that I wanted to marry her and that I would ask her to be my wife. Since that day, I had almost asked her so many times I couldn't count anymore. I hadn't dropped on one knee yet but I knew that I would at some point, and April 16th was the day I realized that. Some days I would bring the ring with me in my pocket, some other days it would stay in one of the drawers in our room, but it was always in the back of my mind. I obviously couldn't tell her that and when she turned around an other time to frown at me, I suddenly remembered something she had said.

"Y-Yea, I mean you don't remember?" I stammered. "There was an article about that earring you gave me and you said that you didn't care that people knew we were together."

We had also mentioned not being official the day after, I remembered that too. but I decided not to mention it. I was pretty sure she had mentioned that we were together but I was also aware it was probably just a bad choice of words. She was right, we didn't have an anniversary date, but I hoped that it would become that date if only because it was a big day for me and I hoped it would become a big day for her, too.

"I don't remember, but I trust you." she just shrugged before her lips curled. "Alright, April 16th, then."

I felt my heart jump in my chest and I kissed her gently but firmly again, making her chuckle against my mouth. I could have spent the whole night with her body pressed on me as we chilled in hot water but after a while, we got out, dried ourselves and got back to our room to put on pajamas.

"I'll make us some tea." she proposed as we walked back to the living room and she finally disappeared in the kitchen.

I sat on the couch and started looking for the remote on the coffee table. I was about to give up when something caught my eyes and I grabbed her notebook. It was similar to mine but of a different color and I knew she wrote ideas for her tv show or her future book in it. I was about to ignore it when I realized it was open and I could have sworn I had seen my surname. Without thinking, I grabbed it and a smile appeared quickly on my face when I saw 'Olivia Horan' scribbled everywhere on a page, surrounded by hearts and stars. It seemed like she had tried to create a signature with her future name and it made me think about the ring in my drawer. If I was scared she wouldn't accept, that notebook was a good clue that her answer would probably be positive. I put it away when I heard noise and leaned against the couch as I watched her walk slowly up to me to make sure she wouldn't spill our hot beverages and I thanked her as I grabbed a mug. She sat next to me and our eyes met before our lips curled. I couldn't believe how happy I was.

"I love you, Niall. I'm... I'm glad we're dating now." she admitted before taking a sip.

"Me too, petal. I'm happy you accepted to be my girlfriend again."

                                                     ---

December 2018

When Liv told me she was spending the day with Julia, I was a bit surprised, but the truth was, I enjoyed the fact that these two got along so well. She said she wouldn't be home late but I knew how she could get and when Louis proposed that we grabbed a bite (and a few pints, of course)  together, I jumped on the occasion.

I knew Louis had become Olivia's best friend and even if we used to be very close, I was fine with that. Somehow, they had been through a lot together, and I knew it was partially my fault : they probably wouldn't be that close if I hadn't broken up with Liv. Of course, they'd still be friends, since they were before we broke up, but I knew their pain brought them closer and it was obvious that nothing could tear them apart now.

I was also slowly but surely getting over the fact that Louis and her had sex a few times. I was not sure how often but I was sure I didn't want to know and anyway, i couldn't blame her or him. It had happened and I had to live with that fact. Besides, I knew there was nothing between them anymore.

I smiled when I saw Louis walk in the restaurant and got up to hug him before we both sat back down. We ordered beer and when we got them, we clinked our glasses together and drank half of it. It was weird to think I was with Olivia's best friend and she was actually hanging out with mine, but the fact that we appreciated each other's entourage was perfect.

"So, Neil, how are things for you?" he asked, playing with his beer and turning it around in his hands. "Where's my queen tonight?"

I chuckled and rolled my eyes, amused. "Your queen is with Julia, but she's not supposed to come back home too late. She'll text me. Where's El?"

"Gone for a few days."

"Ah. That's why you called me." I pointed out before laughing when I saw his face. "It's ok Tommo, I get it."

"I'm thinking you're ding quite well these days." he pointed out, ignoring my last comment. "When are you gonna pop the question?"

I almost choked on my beer and wiped my mouth on my shoulder before swallowing hard and making Louis laugh.

"We've just been taking bets on that." he continued, shrugging a shoulder.

"We?" I raised my eyebrows.

"Liam and I. Trying to bring Harry in it but he says it's none of our business."

"I've always thought Harry was the smartest of my bandmates." I joked, making Louis laugh again.

"Oh yea, you definitely thought that when he was balls deep in your best friend's fanny right?"

"Shut up, Tommo!" I frowned as he laughed again. "He probably shagged her less times than you did."

Louis took an other big sip of his drink. "Touché." he shrugged again before chuckling. "Not sure what it says about the relationship they had, though."

I raised my nose up in a grimace and drank what was left of my beer. I didn't really want to have this discussion and I decided to change the subject.

"Well, I don't know which bet you took, but I hope you lose." I admitted as I looked through my pocket, taking out the ring and placing it right in the middle of the table.

Louis' eyes got bigger and he moved closer, bending down to look it it without daring to touch it. I stopped the waitress to order us two other beers and a few shots and when I turned back to my friend. he was still staring at the ring like he didn't know what it was. I snatched it quickly, taking him out of his thoughts, and put it in my little finger to stare at it.

"I've thought about asking her so many times." I confessed, my eyes still on the ring. "But it never feels like the right time."

"I know you're a romantic man, Niall but... will there ever be a right time?" Louis said gently, making me sigh. "Aren't you just a bit scared that she'll say no and leave?"

I groaned and closed my eyes before raising my nose up in a grimace again. "Maybe."

He was right, I knew it, but at the same time, i wanted to make it special for her. I wanted it to be something that she'd remember forever, something she couldn't forget even if she tried. I wanted to express my feelings to her and tell her everything she wanted and needed to hear, just to make her happy. I had tried to write down the right words but everything seemed cliché and cheesy.

"Do it. She's your soulmate. I can't make up a scenario in my head where she'd actually say 'no'." he continued. "I think deep down, you know I'm right."

I looked up and sighed again, putting the ring back in my pocket.

"I don't know anymore, I just don't want to take her for granted, you know?" I shrugged. "I've done that before and it messed up everything. Never again."

"That doesn't mean you can't be confident and believe in the love she has for you."

I frowned a bit as I stared at him. "Are you trying to win your bet against Liam by making me ask Olivia to marry me?"

"No." Louis chuckled, leaning against his chair. "I just think you've been hesitant for too long. When exactly did you buy this ring?"

"Mm, well, about, 8 months ago?"

Just saying it out loud sounded ridiculous. Had I been waiting that long? It was almost pathetic. How scared of rejection could a guy be? Seriously. I had never reacted like that in anything I did before, and I was always the confident type, but asking Olivia to marry me was something that made me so nervous I could feel my hands sweat and I passed one of them in my hair.

"8 months? Are you fucking insane? How did you manage to keep that secret?"

"I don't even know." I mumbled in a low tone, staring at my glass, not daring to check Louis' amused expression.

"Niall, we're talking about Olivia. The girl you've known all your life, the girl who's been in love with you since the very first day she found out what love was. Put your big boy pants on and pop the fucking question before that fucking ring starts to get rusty!"

"It's made of gold...."

He rolled his eyes and kicked me under the table, making me groan again as I moved my leg away. Damn, that kid could kick.

"Don't be a fookin' idiot, mate, and just ask her."

I finally looked up in his eyes and he raised his eyebrows at me. He was right but at the same time, I didn't know when I should do it. I wanted to do something special, or at least slightly romantic, but all I could think about were ugly clichés from movies. Nothing original came to mind and it was driving me insane.

"Alright. Soon." I gave in. "I'll do it soon."

[minmotl]

Chapter 43: Sui Zhou Takes Care of a Sick Tang Fan

Context: A partial continuation of Chapter 42. Tang Fan is still trying to recover from his cold, and his new acquaintance Wang Zhi turns up at the house to visit him. Sui Zhou leaves them both alone in the room to talk, and Wang Zhi ends up in a compromising position with Tang Fan, much to Sui Zhou’s displeasure. His cousin turns up again and this time, he rejects her firmly.

Introduction Post | Masterpost

—

Highlights under the cut

Wang Zhi approaches him without him realizing it and with one hand, he lifts Tang Fan’s jaw up, looking from left to right.

“Speaking of which, you are rather good-looking in certain aspects. If you can’t be an official anymore in the future, just head to the streets and sell your books and I suppose with many women, old and young, visiting your stall, your business will surely be good!”

Tang-daren can no longer resists and rolls his eyes in a way that is anything but elegant, “If that day comes, I will definitely head to the doors of the Western Depot and sell my books there!”

Just as he finishes saying his piece, they hear the doors creak open.

Sui Zhou is holding onto medicine when he walks in and coincidentally sees Wang Zhi positioned slightly over Tang Fan, one of his hands pinching at Tang Fan’s jaw. This forces Tang Fan to have to raise his head a little, but he is still in a sitting position in bed wrapped in blankets — two rosy circles are visible on Tang Fan’s pale complexion because of his cough, his hair a mess and his clothes not properly worn. Both men are in close proximity to each other as well and just looking at this sight, it is easy for people’s thoughts to take a strange turn.

What’s more important is that Ming dynasty officials are not as unmanly as most people think. Among them there is no lack of manly and aggressive types with large builds, and if not for their lack of facial hair, no one would even notice.

Although Eunuch Wang doesn’t look aggressive and is more on the side of dark and gentle, but one would not use the terms gentle, weak and skinny to describe his body. To think of it, for someone who has learnt martial arts since young just like Sui Zhou, how skinny and weak can he be?

In comparison, because Tang Fan is a civil official and coupled with him being unwell, who is strong and weak is immediately clear at a single glance.

No matter who comes over and takes a look, all they will see is Eunuch Wang being overtaken by lust as he teases Tang-daren.

Under Sui Zhou’s icy, wordless glance, Wang Zhi naturally releases Tang Fan and then lightly pats at his cheek. In an overly intimate tone, he says, “I’ll come and visit you another day, rest well.”

“…”

Why does Tang Fan feel that there’s something really amiss by Wang Zhi’s tone, which could be very easily misperceived by others?

Facing Sui Zhou’s cold and powerful aura, Wang Zhi continues as if he’s not seeing any of it, “Sui-baihu is so virtuous, serving medicine and taking care of him. If this goes on, I believe Tang-daren won’t have to marry a wife in the future?”

Without waiting for Tang Fan to react, Wang Zhi laughs loudly and leaves the room in large strides.

Saying this, Wang Zhi exercised no tact and was extreme loud and arrogant. If it was anyone else today who ended up being flirted with as if he was a woman, comparing a grown man to a wife, he would have quickly developed a grudge for Wang Zhi. Thankfully Tang Fan hasn’t taken any of his comments to heart and Sui Zhou cannot be bothered to confront Wang Zhi about this, and so they allow the Western Depot’s Admiral to leave as he pleases.

The one who’s down on his luck is Tang-daren.

The moment Wang Zhi leaves, he’s lectured at. Sui Zhou says with a cold look, “Wang Zhi is temperamental and morally ambivalent. It’s not worth it to be in a close relationship with him.”

Although Tang Fan agrees with his appraisal of Wang Zhi, he still says, “He is an extremely favoured eunuch to the Emperor at present and this will not change any time soon. Stern, considerate and firm officials like Huai En are lesser in numbers and the type that the Emperor likes is still those like Liang Fang, Wang Zhi and Shang Ming, those who can welcome and cater to his views. So even if it’s not Wang Zhi, it will also be Li Zhi, Zhang Zhi… As long as we are able to subtly guide him onto the right path and drive him to act in the interests of the country and its people, this is considered a good thing.”

Seeing that Tang Fan’s thoughts are clear on this, Sui Zhou does not add on. He shifts the medicine in front of Tang Fan.

Forcing a smile, he says, “You see, can we negotiate a deal on this? I’m almost recovered, can we just skip this round?”

That’s what he says, but in reality, he’s still sniffling.

Sui Zhou is straightforward and simply returns, “Are you going to drink this yourself, or do you want me to feed you?”

Without another word of protests, Tang Fan takes the bowl from him and swallows the medicine while pinching at his nose. His brows and eyes are scrunched up tightly together and even when Sui Zhou passes him an osmanthus sweet, he blearily waves his hand, not interested at all.

Gluttons may love to eat, but this does not include medicine.

Sui Zhou’s three-sectioned house is actually not small at all, but aside from himself, Tang Fan and Ah Dong, there are no frequent visitors. The help that cleans the house are temporary workers and they typically have their own lodgings within the city. After they’re done with cleaning they head home without imposing any further on their employer, so much so that Sui Zhou does not even have a steward to watch the house or their doors. The master of the house has to personally open the doors, but this way, they have more freedom. For people like Sui Zhou and Tang Fan who do not like restrictions or burdens, they do naturally prefer not to see outsiders move around every day in the house under their eyes.

After Sui Zhou leaves, he does not come in again. Tang Fan finds this a little strange, but then he sees Ah Dong sneak in suspiciously.

Tang Fan laughs, “Would I ban you from my room? Why are you acting like this?”

Ah Dong giggles, “Sui-dage’s cousin from the Zhou family is here at our doors again.”

Tang-daren is a fully grown man and is both easy-going and direct. He does not have any grudges with Young Lady Zhou and of course, will not simply be irritated at her visit. He was a little bad-tempered that day, but that was because he had just experienced the East Palace case. Having seen so many people’s demise, people who should not have died, and then coming home to see Ah Dong and Sui Zhou chattering so happily with Sui Zhou’s cousin (it actually wasn’t all that happy, this is purely Tang-daren subjective point of view), and so he couldn’t help but feel the loneliness of a person without any friends or family inside.

That was a long time ago and Tang Fan cannot really be jealous and throw a tantrum just like a little child, even going as far as to stop his good friend from becoming close with the young lady. Listening to Ah Dong’s words, Tang Fan chuckles lazily, “Ah Dong ah, are you jealous that someone is getting close to your Sui-dage? But you’re still young, it’s not that Da-ge doesn’t want to help you, but if you like Sui Zhou, then after a few years have passed and you’ve grown, I can suggest this to your Sui-dage and see if he’s willing to take you in as a concubine. You’re only as big as beansprout right now, even if you complain to me, there’s nothing I can do!”

While Ah Dong is usually quite bubbly and cheery, but she is after all a servant who was born in a big house and family so it’s impossible for her not to have any knowledge about internal family affairs. Hearing Tang Fan’s reply, she launches herself at him and sulks, “Da-ge, what are you saying? I’m not jealous of Zhou jiejie, I’m worried about you!”

“What do I have to be worried about?” Tang Fan asks, bewildered.

“Think about it, if Sui-dage truly gets married to Zhou jiejie, what will you do?”

Tang Fan is usually a smart and intelligent person, but listening to this right now he’s entirely confused, “What do you mean what I will do? The things you’re saying are getting more and more incoherent!”

Rolling her eyes, she continues, “Da-ge, how did you become stupid after getting sick! If Sui-dage and Zhou jiejie get married, then she’ll definitely have to  move in correct? When that time comes, it wouldn’t be good for us to still live here, so won’t we have to move out? That’s why I’m concerned! Da-ge, it’s not you can earn a lot of money and of course I hope that we can stay here for as long as possible, and then you can save some money too!”

Don’t be fooled by Ah Dong’s young age, because she really has a knack for accounts and is making a lot of sense right now.

Tang Fan’s voice lowers, “In your eyes, your da-ge is so useless? If we move out, we have to be subject to the winds and storms?”

Ah Dong sadly answers, “Are you not? Da-ge your salary is so low and you love to eat. You eat so much everyday and can eat someone poor, so what will do in the future? The silvers for rice and noodles that you gave me, I’ve been counting our finances meticulously. Now we can still grow some fruits and vegetables in our backyard, and then buying some meat from outside, we can still save some money every month and put it away for when you marry someone. if we move out, we will surely be unable to save and then what will we do?”

Listening to this, Tang Fan wants to roll his eyes out of anger, but he is a little touched too. At the end of the day, this is the reason why she’s so concerned over whether Sui Zhou and his cousin will get married?

Tang Fan caresses at her head and firmly states, “Put your heart back in your stomach, we will not end up on the streets. Besides, even if I end up on the streets, you’ll disown your da-ge?”

Ah Dong shakes her head fervently.

“Then isn’t that settled? As long as I eat, you eat. Besides, don’t belittle the old Tang family. When my parents were still alive, the Tang family was still considered to be of elite ranks. Although we’ve fallen from the ranks a little since then, we still have a lot of good things and assets stored away as our last resort. And if that doesn’t work out, my sister lives in Xiang He Prefecture, and when the time comes we can run to her.”

He’s only saying this to reassure Ah Dong. Once his sister married someone else, she is technically part of her husband’s family and Tang Fan is an official in Jing city, so it’s not very likely that he will go to his sister’s to stay.

However, the young girl is all smiles at the news.

“Alright then, Da-ge, I won’t complain about you eating too much again. It’s still much better if you eat more. After this bout of illness, the meat on your face is almost gone, and people who don’t know might even think that you fled here as a refugee!”

Tang Fan pinches at her face, “If you continue to spout nonsense, then we don’t even have to wait for you Sui-dage to marry, I’ll be the first one to chase you out!”

As the both of them play and banter, they hear a cold voice sound from the door, “Who’s getting married?”

The both of them turn around, only to see that Sui Zhou has come to the door and conveniently heard the last part of what Tang Fan said. Behind him stands the young lady Zhou and her servant.

Sui Zhou says, “My cousin heard that you were ill and thought about talking back to you that day. She asked me to bring her here to see you and apologize as well.”

In recent years, even though there are some lines delineated clearly between men and women, it’s not as if the customs rigid to the point of no flexibility. Take Tang Fan as an example - he is Sui Zhou’s good friend and has already shown his face to Sui Zhou’s family, and Sui Zhou is also physically present in this case, so seeing young lady Zhou is not a problem. In comparison, if they were in the south, the customs and etiquette there are much stricter, while the North is a little more lenient.

Lady Zhou also doesn’t seem as prickly as that day and in front of her cousin she is the very picture of shy and demure. Anyone can see the feelings she has for her cousin, but only the cousin in question still has a stoic face on, and who knows how much he actually knows?

Tang Fan smiles, “You’re too courteous, Zhou-guniang. We didn’t know each other’s identities and that’s why we had a misunderstanding, and now that it has been resolved, everything is naturally alright. However, as I still have a cold and the air here is unclean, so I have to ask Zhou-guniang not to remain for long.”

Zhou Xiu Yue nods and then exchange a few more pleasantries with him. She is clearly not used to the medicinal smell within the house and does not even move to sit inside. Standing at the door, she says hello to Ah Dong, and then moves to leave.

As the master of the house, Sui Zhou naturally has to walk their guest out.

As they approach the main door, Zhou Xiu Yue speaks delicately, “Biao-ge, it seems that winter is soon to be upon us. Shall we find a day with good weather, and you accompany me to Yun Ju Temple to pray, how about that?”

Sui Zhou may be cold and emotionless in personality, but he is strong and heroic, exceedingly competent, humble and outstanding, and has a promising future ahead of him. The Sui family naturally sees plenty of matchmakers coming to their doors, but Sui Zhou’s parents have never been able to control their younger son’s decisions. More than that, the Sui family and Zhou family made a verbal agreement on a possible betrothal, and thus, they’ve managed to ignore the issue of his marriage temporarily.

Now, the Zhou family’s uncle has brought his family back to the city on one hand to take care of his aging mother, and on the other hand, to decide on his daughter’s marriage.

In actual fact, Zhou Xiu Yue’s father has another match in mind and the potential suitor’s father also works at Han Lin Yuan and he himself is currently studying at Guo Zi Jian. This is a born and bred academic-focused family and is wholly different from Sui Zhou, who is an Embroidered Uniform Guard.

Since the Zhou family managed to have Empress Dowager Zhou, its members began to dream of walking the civil official route, forming connections across several other influential families and move to greater heights. It is only natural that his uncle will choose this.

Of course, personally, it’s not as if Sui Zhou has to marry his cousin and no one else.

The relationship between them was formed when they were younger but stopped there. After so many years, there is no dramatic plot where he will marry no one else but her no matter what obstacles they face. The only thing is, it seem that Zhou Xiu Yue still has some unexplainable feelings for Sui Zhou and this is the reason for her repeated visits as she tried to find out what he thinks about her.

It cannot be helped that they do not think the same.

It is not easy for the woman to take the initiative and invite him, but Sui Zhou shakes his head, “I’ll pass. Tang Fan has been ill for a while and Ah Dong cannot cope, so I have to be at home to take care of things.”

Zhou Xiu Yue bites at her bottom lip, “Then I can send a servant from home to come here and take care of him?”

He refuses, his tone bland, “Forget it, you don’t have to go to the trouble. You should just go with uncle, and I hear that uncle is intent on confirming a match for you. I believe the man’s character is good. While the both of us are cousins but some lines have to be drawn still between men and women, so it is best if you visit less, lest people gossip.”

Zhou Xiu Yue’s face sours at that and she glares at Sui Zhou, before spitting, “You are truly despicable!”

She then turns and angrily walks out. The Zhou family’s servant was following behind them both and after seeing that they were speaking in hushed tones, she put some distance between herself and the cousins. All she sees right now is her mistress getting angry for no apparent reason with her sleeves rolled up, and she frantically chases after her.

Sui Zhou watches as they leave without a change in his expression, and then returns to Tang Fan’s house.

The medicine he just took has taken effect and Tang Fan is already asleep.

Ah Dong says softly, “Da-ge just fell asleep not long ago, Sui da-ge, what would you like to have for dinner? I’ll go prepare.”

Sui Zhou nods, “Anything is fine. You can just heat up the leftover porridge from earlier.”

They’ve both been busy taking care of the patient these couple of days and Tang Fan cannot have too fancy dishes, and so Ah Dong cannot be bothered to go to too much trouble either. She makes a noise of assent and heads out.

Once she leaves, all that’s left is Tang Fan and Sui Zhou in the house. One is awake and on his feet, the other is asleep in bed. It is easy to fall sick, but incredibly difficult to fully recover.

It is very quiet in the house, interrupted only by Tang Fan’s deep and long inhales and exhales.

Sui Zhou helps him to adjust the covers, then stands quietly there for a long while. Only when Ah Dong knocks on the door and calls for him to have dinner does he leave.

===

Notes:

*提督 ti du

Formally, the equivalent of this would be a admiral, but I believe in this novel it can be interchangeable with “head” or “chief” as well. A ti du is one of the highest ranks an official can have and along with the chief army commander, the admiral can possess military power.

*风吹雨打 feng chui yu da

Literally translated means wind blowing and drops of rain hitting at you - in this case, Tang Fan uses this phrase to mean being homeless, without shelter (and thus they are subject to the mights of the weather) and possibly being out on the streets.

*把心放回肚子里 ba xing fang hui du zi li

Literally translated means to put your heart back into your stomach, of which meaning is to keep your concerns and worries.

*病来如山倒, 病去如抽丝 bing lai ru shan dao, bing qu ru chou si

An idiom to describe the ease of falling sick and pains of recovery - Falling sick is akin to a mountain collapsing, but recovering from illness is as difficult and challenging as getting silk from a silkworm.

[allyvampirelass29]

Taste the Blade

A NOS4A2 Fanfiction By: Allyssa J. Watkins 

"Time to introduce a gun of sorts to our little KNIFE fight!!!!!!!"

Charlie's voice rasped, lethal with his fury, his entire body seething, simmering, boiling over with his hatred, the kind of dark emotion that could kill by pure force of will.

"Reject ME, will you!? You dare REJECT ME, you scheming, ruined WRETCH!?"

Charlie screamed out the open barn door, wishing he could see that haughty little harlot shudder. I'm going to make you squirm, Victoria, just not in the way either of us would like....... His breathing was heavy, his lip snarled as he took that accursed bike in his hands, his long nails biting into the rubber handlebars, the same way they'd bitten into her cheek. That's right, I know you can feel it, Girl, let your eye bleed, and know it's ME, me REFUSING you, taking your own knife, and raising its blade against YOU!!!!

He roughly hauled it out onto the open floor, hurting it like it was a living thing that Vic loved, and he thrust the heel of his palm in vicious assault, smashing the headlight.

As if in counter, as if she could physically sense the abuse, impossibly hear his furious slurs, Charlie's knee shattered on contact, Vic's wielded fire poker connecting with it, as it smashed into the right front fender of The Wraith. He howled as it gave out beneath him, forced to kneel, his mouth open and screaming.

"YOU HATEFUL BITCH!!!!!!"

Charlie tried to stand, and then gritted his teeth, jerking his head to the side in anguish, as his eardrum popped open, shooting blood, while simultaneously, Vic lopped off one of The Wraith's side mirrors.

"DAMN IT, RUN HER DOWN, DRIVE, DO NOT LET HER GET AWAY!!!!!"

He yelled even louder, barely able to make out his own screams, the hearing in his left ear nearly gone. He struggled to stand, reaching for that infernal bike to steady himself, when he cringed with the scraping, first across the shiny top of The Wraith, and then across his own scalp, and he cursed through his teeth, snarling, finally able to get a firm grip on the damned thing, right as he felt the sharp tip of the poker slam into the back of his head. Vic pounded the top of The Wraith with one final blow, knocking him out, and Charlie dropped, hitting the side of his head with almost as much force, as it met with the concrete of the barn floor.

"CHARLIE!?!? CHARLIE, OH MY GOD!!!!! CHARLIE, PLEASE WAKE UP, OH GOD!!!!!!"

His vision was still dark around the edges, slowly opening his black eyes, drawn from the oblivion by a voice. Her voice. Ally's tearful screams echoed dreamily through his mind, muffled, the sound fuzzy like an old am radio. The breath he drew was sharp, more puncture to his lungs than aid, his temple throbbing, everything a haze of onslaught pain, pretty pinned up curls, and morose green eyes. His name on her lips, and he watched her mouth it, watched it take shape, thankful she had come now, and not however many minutes previous........ He groaned, trying to lift his head, feeling for his injured ear, blood staining his fingertips. She could never know.......

She wouldn't have understood. She would have hated him, blamed him for the kiss, when the fault was entirely Victoria's. She tempts me. Oh how she tempts me, tempts my anger, my hatred. I didn't have a choice, oh that infuriating female! She had to be dealt with....... one method at a time.

Charlie cried out as Ally delicately laid him in the lap of her full skirts, accidently moving his shattered knee, and she sobbed, cradling his head in her palms, her fingers trembling, smoothing her thumb over his good cheek, before reaching for something behind her.

Charlie gasped, his breath escaping with his relief, and there was a loud hiss as the ball of snow pressed into his singed cheek, the badly burnt flesh meeting with the frozen cold.

She held it there, stroking his forehead to soothe him, his lip trembled, and he watched, mystified as she fretted and fussed over him. Well, well, well, look who loves her monstrous husband after all........ That's what she'd called him, that's what they'd all called him. Jo, Vic, not to mention his shrew of a first wife, and yet when Ally had said it, it'd had a much different effect than any of the others. It...... excited him. Because he knew...... that even though his true nature had been revealed, and she knew what he was, what he had done, he could feel it. Her still wanting him. Willing to survive the monster if it gifted her the man.

"Charlie........ Charlie, I'm so sorry, W-What happened!?"

"What do you think happened, My Dear? Vic! Damn it! Vic McQueen happened!"

Charlie growled, nostrils flaring, but something inside him softened as he felt her delicate hand stroking his mussed coif, the other settling against his chest. She went to work unbuttoning the collar of his fine dress shirt, and he watched how nimbly her fingers moved before they froze on one of his pearl buttons, uncovering the diagonal bruise, a pained murmur escaping her lips. He'd never had this before....... This fuss and female concern, this womanly need to care for him, ease his suffering. His own mother could not have been more apathetic to his boyhood scraped knees, when he'd come to her crying, and she'd always cursed his softness, demanding he get tougher. I did just that, now, didn't I, Mummy? Charles scoffed calling that callous, self-obsessed strumpet the ridiculous moniker she could never deserve. But as this beautiful girl held his face, sobbing, lamenting his afflictions, he didn't feel tough at all. He felt weak to her touch, very much the same frightened little boy who'd lived for centuries, starved of the affection that he was so afraid to want.

"Vic....... VIC did THIS to YOU!? I don't understand! The truce! You granted her clemency, spared her from the flame at my behest!"

"Yes, I allowed you to move me to mercy, when I knew the truce was laughable at best. I tried so hard to tell you, to warn you of her scheming treachery. Vic McQueen is NOT your friend. However, you're very persuasive....... especially in that dress."

He watched the colour flit across her pale face, and he admired her royal blue taffeta sleeves, and blue silk bodice, her corset making her figure all the more slender and elegant, a long flowing crimson cloak tied around her snow white neck. Her Coronation Gown. He'd matched the colours to his own attire, crafted every stitch, making sure it was the perfect complement, and still had to practically force her into it come Coronation Day. The day Christmasland was motherless no more. Look at you now, Mrs. Manx......... Wearing it freely, of your own volition, looking every bit like the queen I always knew you'd be........

"How could she break the truce in this most heinous fashion, attack you in stealth, unprovoked, mar My Charlie's beautiful face!?"

Ally sobbed again, desolate, and his long fingernails grazed an escaped curl, as he reached up to brush her tears from her face. Such sadness, such...... tender care, and yet there were the slightest hissing undertones of anger that were utterly delectable. He wanted to stoke them, start a fire. Time to show Vic McQueen just how unshakable our love REALLY is, Ally. You're going to punish her, because you love me........

"Am I then, still........ Your Charlie?"

More silent tears streamed down her heartbroken face, and she held his good cheek in her palm, leaving the slightest whisper of a kiss on his burnt one, taking pains not to hurt him.

"Of course........ Oh Charles, how can you doubt me?"

"How can I not? When you refuse to see Vic McQueen for the wickedness, the vulgarity, the menace that she is? That curse of a girl threatens our home, our perfect world, and still you would seek to save HER from me!? And yet, am I not the one that lays bleeding?"

Ally cried harder, covering her mouth and hanging her lovely head, ashamed. "It is true, Charles, I found your hatred, your ire for this teenage girl unnatural, and was most disturbed by it, by how you forced my hand to bring forth her near demise....... But now the veil has been lifted, and I see through her, appalled by these horrors she has inflicted upon you! Dear Sir, you were just in your fervor, your tirade against her. I am a fool, for this, your brutalized state, is my own folly."

Charles felt her hug him to her chest, and he relaxed his cheek against her corseted breast, his heart trembling, feeling the peek of delicate skin, the warm, womanly softness beneath her bodice. He hugged her body back, nestling into the curve, the pain incredulously dulled.

"Heavens no, Sweet, Sweet, Wife......" His nostrils flared as he breathed in the teasing scent of her skin, closing his eyes. "All is good and lovely in your eyes, so quick to believe the best in all of us, even when you've seen the worst. I can see now how nefarious and under-handed my zeal must have seemed to you."

"Please....... Please forgive me, Charles?"

"T'was not your hand that wrote this evil....... but perhaps, it might just be the deliverer from it......."

He pressed his lips into the swell of her sensitive skin and whether it was from his words or his amourous attentions, she shivered. He gazed up at her, his eyes piercing.

"Of course, Charles, you need only ask! I want only to soothe you, act as balm, say the word, and it is yours, any comfort that my hands may bring."

Charlie smiled, but his dark eyes were all mischief. Just your hands, My Sweet? How could you deny me all the other comforts and fleshly pleasures your body so obviously possesses? Ohhhhhh I would give up Christmas itself, and all of its ornamented wonders, if I could lay forever pillowed upon the curve of such a blossoming breast....... Alas, My Bride, it is not comfort I seek from these artful hands, but rather your most crushing destruction and revenge. He brushed his cheek against her body, as she cradled him in her arms, her legs tucked under her, so very ladylike, so desperate to do penance for her imagined crimes, aching so to please him, begging now, for what she had fought so hard against.

"I must confess......... My Lady, there is something, a gesture, that would prove your love, and inspire my generous forgiveness."

Ally beamed at him, her tears quieted, leaning down over him, wanting his lips, and he took hers graciously.

"Anything. Charles........ Anything." She whispered, and, as much as he lamented pulling away from this most pleasing position, he struggled to sit upright, the malignant request tasting delectable on his tongue.

"I would feel much assuaged........ if you might write me a little something......."

Ally shrank back with a gasp, terrified, shaking her head as he procured one long, slender, iron tipped black pen, emblazoned with a black rose and thorns, from the silk lining of his chauffer's coat.

"You would CARRY that instrument of evil on your person!? Charles, NO....... Please.....

"Take it." He said forcefully, his eyes flashing with obsidian fire.

"No, I can't- I beg you, My Darling, Anything else!"

"Do you love me, Allyssa?" He said softer, reaching to touch her perfectly pinned curls, fingering them with fondness, his eyes focusing on her unflinchingly.

"Yes- With all my heart." She whispered tremulous, and he held it out closer to her, watching her eye it with all the fear and reverence it deserved.

"Good girl. If you love me, you'll take the pen, raise your knife against your husband's attacker, and let the words BURN."

Ally bit her lip, and he moved closer, grazing the pen up and down her cheek, before using it's handle to turn her head to the side, feeling her recoil as it touched her skin, and he leaned in so that his lips just barely grazed her cheek as he spoke.

"Why do you hesitate to avenge me?"

"Oh Charles....... I assure you, my hesitation is not for her sake. I curse Victoria for what she's done to you, how she's hurt you......"

"It pains me not to be as pretty for you......." He whispered softly, easing up on the pressure of the pen, brushing his nose against the side of her head, smelling her hair deeply.

"You're still pretty........ So pretty, Charles." She whispered, closing her eyes with a breathy murmur, so affected, and Charles could feel it happening, her surrendering her defenses.

"How do you feel....... When you see me like this, the man you love, attacked, abused, used so spitefully? He breathed each word, feeling his own enthrallment rise. It was one thing to force her hand, as she'd so eloquently put it, but for her to raise it willingly for him, want to author Victoria's pain, ohhhhh that was an arousal he could scarce wait for. Let's play with fire, Mrs. Manx.

Ally paused, and he could taste something in her hesitation, something she didn't want to admit, even to herself.

"I feel........ Furious. I feel........something I've never felt before, Charles. Rage?"

"Good, ohhhh yes. Let the anger rise with the fire of your words, and take up the pen!!! Pour your revenge into the rhyme until it consumes you."

Ally cried, angry tears this time, frustrated, torn between her paralyzing fear of her duplicitous gift, and this strange new desperation to repay Vic's cruelty in full, the heat burning though her, warping her mind. Hate bourne of Love. The most dangerous kind.

"Curse you, Vic McQueen." She shuddered with the words, how vile they sounded, come from her own mouth, which before today, had only reaped kindness.

"Say it again. Louder." He instructed, slowly helping her to her feet, the cartilage reforming in his knee, rapidly healing. It's about damn time, Bing.

"Curse you, Vic McQueen!!!!" Ally hissed, her eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched, the sound biting, Charles' poor face stoking that tamped down fire.

"Scream it." Charlie demanded, his face manic, eyes intense, pupils dilated, everything returned to full volume, a new ear drum growing, as Bing Partridge reaffixed the side mirror.

"I want to hear you scream......."

Ally felt her hands shake, her rage once kindled, becoming a wildfire, escaping through the door that Charlie had somehow opened, feeding on the rush of oxygen, and in that moment all she could think about was making Vic McQueen scream.

"CURSE YOU, VIC MCQUEEN!!!!!! You DARE to lay a hand on MY husband, I will SHATTER you!!!!!" Ally didn't recognize her own voice, feeling outside of her body, and Charlie Manx reveled in it, his nerves trembling with the shrill danger of the sound.

"Take the pen, and DO it........ AVENGE Me. He rasped, and he fell even more in love with her, as she furiously snatched it out of his hand. Being led by something else now, not Charlie, not her own sound mind, but something he'd created in her, something he'd hidden within, unbeknownst to her, her love for him, twisting into something dark.

She surprised herself, having sworn she would NEVER do it again, never raise those HELLISH words against anyone else, but she HATED that horrid girl for hurting him, and she knew Charlie was right........ Vic McQueen had to be punished.

"Tell me....... Tell me what to do......." She shuddered again, more angry than scared, but this time it was not just fear of her knife, or Charlie's malevolent influence, it was fear purely of herself.

Charlie, his eyes screaming murder, strode over to the blazing red motorcycle that Vic McQueen loved more than anything in this world, the motorcycle that meant her freedom. He picked it up, as if it weighed nothing, and roughly set it down before Ally, his voice as cold as ice.

"Oh Mrs. Manx........ I think you know exactly what to do. Get...... Creative."

She shivered as he circled behind her, her pen poised in her quivering fingers, the sharp tip of her knife pointed at the motorcycle that had caused all this trouble, this needless suffering.

Charlie placed his hands on either of her sides, taking her into his arms, turning his nose into her cheek, his voice proud and coaxing.

"Write. Write with your fire....... and my ice."

She shook even more as he let her go, the fury of words bursting from her lips, as if she couldn't control them, scribbling frantically, possessed by her revenge, the air itself igniting as she wrote, but Charlie's thrill came in knowing that she was very much in control, his pretty puppet cut loose of her strings, and it was even more crazed physical passion than he'd ever dreamed, hanging onto her every smouldering word, having never loved her more than this moment, when she embraced and became what she had denied herself to be for so long. Powerful.

"VICTORIA MCQUEEN HEAR MY SCREAM YOU, VENOM! POISON TO MY CHARLIE VENGEANCE IS MY DESTINY YOU HATE THAT I LOVE HURT WHAT I ACHE FOR NOW IT'S MY TURN TO TAKE BLADE TO THIS THAT YOU ADORE RED CHARIOT THAT BROUGHT YOU HERE DELIVERED YOU TO THIS ACT MY GREATEST FEAR OH THIS MENACE ON TWO WHEELS FREEZE NOW BLOOD RED METAL TASTE THE BLADE TASTE THE ICE CRACK AND BREAK LIKEWISE UNTIL BY FIRE YOU SUFFER TWICE

Charlie's laugh was rollicking and wicked, watching hungrily as Vic's bike froze over, crystallizing, cracking and breaking apart, as if introduced to a supernatural cold, the handlebars and axles brittle, snapping off, the tires melting, the red paint peeling like blood, as the fire met the ice, and the two finished Big Red off in their drastic extremes.

Ally collapsed with the intensity of the creative force ripping through her, the barn filled with her scorching words, and Charles rushed to catch her, the pen falling from her ink stained fingers.

He plucked both it and her up, carrying her inanimate form, cradled in his arms to the open door, and he felt a slight sting as his face began to heal itself, his former handsomeness returned in the fiercest fashion. Burning words became white smoke, and he looked back over his shoulder at his wife's good work with a devilish smirk.

"Bang. Bang."

[whitecrossgirl]

Out of Hand

AN: So this is an AU that I had previously written on my ff.net page under the same username but I thought I would edit and rewrite parts of it as my writing I feel has improved. I hope you enjoy it.

Fake Dating AU

“I’ve already promised myself to someone.”

Jaime had blurted out the lie before he could stop himself. The effect it had on his family was instantaneous. Tywin had flickered an eyebrow in surprise (the equivalent of any other person having their jaw on the floor), Cersei looked stunned by his announcement and Tyrion looked simply bemused, eager to watch the scene unfold. Tywin had originally summoned the three of them to discuss marriages which had meant scolding Tyrion for not yet consummating his marriage to Sansa Stark, scolding Cersei for her attitude towards her betrothal to Loras Tyrell and informing Jaime that he was sourcing a bride for him. The ideal would be one of Walder Frey’s numerous daughters and granddaughters or some daughter from one of their vassal houses.

It was the entirety of all of the changes that he would be facing since his return to the capital; being stripped from the Kingsguard, forced into a marriage with someone he didn’t know or care for, the useless lump of gold attached to his right wrist; that had caused Jaime’s mouth to act without informing his brain and blurted out the lie about already being engaged.

“Really?” Tywin asked finally. “Who is she?”

Jaime cursed his own stupidity as his mind began to race. Marriage. A wife. Children. The life he had always wanted but simultaneously never wanted was in front of him. He knew what Tywin’s unspoken questions were; what family was she from, what could they (Tywin) claim from the match, how suitable a bride was she and of course, how dare Jaime do something so independent without consulting him. As he tried to think of an answer, a believable answer, only one person came to mind. She would kill him for this but he had no other option. He couldn’t tell the truth now.

“Her name is Brienne. Brienne of Tarth,” Jaime answered, sealing both of their fates.

“That beast you dragged back here with you?” Cersei asked with a scoff. “You can’t be serious.”

“That’s enough,” Tywin said and Cersei fell silent at one, glaring at Jaime suspiciously instead. “She is Selwyn Tarth’s daughter.”

It wasn’t a question and Jaime wasn’t stupid enough to think it was. “She is, she stands to inherit the Sapphire Isles.”

“The Evenstar is also a possible rallying point for the Stormlands when Stannis Baratheon dies. Tarth have declared neutrality in this war, despite her own actions. It also has good trade routes, a strong fleet of ships and a strong control in the Narrow Sea. Not the most attractive of wives, but there are compensations.” Tywin stated, pragmatic to a fault. Jaime wasn’t surprised that Tywin had already found out so much information about Brienne and her homeland. Of course, control in the Stormlands was a higher benefit to Tywin than what some nameless Frey girl could give.

Every single Lannister match had been planned to ensure they controlled it all. Cersei’s first marriage got them the throne and the crownlands. Joffrey and Cersei would keep the Tyrells and Highgarden in the fold. Tyrion’s marriage to Sansa would get them the North and help secure the Eyrie through her blood relation to Lysa and Robin Arryn. Riverrun and the Twins was theirs after the Red Wedding. Myrcella’s marriage would secure them Dorne and when Tommen was old enough, they would find a suitable match for him too. With Jaime’s supposed marriage to Brienne, it would gain Tywin the Stormlands (possibly) as well as a higher control over the Narrow Sea. All that would remain would be the Iron Islands. Tywin Lannister would win the Game of Thrones; regardless of who actually sat on the Iron Throne.

“I don’t care about any of that,” Jaime admitted truthfully, now that there was no turning back, it was as if all the thoughts he had been suppressing about Brienne had burst forward. “She protected me, she helped me when I lost my hand. She kept me alive when I was at my lowest point. Brienne is honourable and true and I know it sounds absurd but her heart is where her true beauty lies.”

‘Gods save us, he does actually love her,’ Tyrion mused before he smiled at Jaime. “If that’s the case, then I wish you both every happiness Jaime. It’ll be good to have some honour in this family for once.”

“That’s enough Tyrion,” Tywin warned without looking at him. “If you have promised yourself to the Tarth woman and as she is a suitable match, we will hold the wedding in three weeks; before the Royal wedding.”

Wedding! Oh gods he was an idiot. He had not thought this through. He had expected Tywin to dismiss his supposed promise to Brienne or be sceptical of his feelings. He should have put the pieces together when Tywin had actually seemed approving of Brienne, or rather what he could benefit by having Jaime marry her. This was bad, this was really, really bad.

Brienne was going to kill him.

“Thank you Father, I’m pleased we have your blessing.” Jaime lied, managing to fake a sincere enough smile.

“She will join us for dinner tonight, I want to meet her properly.” Tywin stated, looking almost… pleased that Jaime was not arguing the marriage.

“Of course,” Jaime replied, feeling the panic inside him build even more. As Tywin dismissed them, Cersei had stormed off immediately, poison in her eyes at the idea of the beast from Tarth managing to steal Jaime, her Jaime from her. Jaime and Tyrion however rounded the corner, walked down the passageway and once Jaime was confident that they were out of earshot, calmly hit his head off of a locked door.

“Stupid! That was so stupid! We are so fucked!” Jaime muttered as the penny dropped for Tyrion.

“You haven’t proposed to her, have you, you stupid bastard?” Tyrion asked and Jaime rounded on him.

“I didn’t mean to say that. I panicked and I didn’t think he would take it seriously. I do care for her and she is a close friend but no, I didn’t ask her to marry me. We don’t feel that way about each other.” Jaime replied, ignoring the almost hurt feeling at the reminder that Brienne didn’t actually love him.

“Well you did say it.” Tyrion said heavily. It had been said. It could not be unsaid. Tywin expected Jaime and Brienne to marry and soon the word would be travelling around the Red Keep that the Kingslayer was so in love with Brienne the Beauty that he had asked her to marry him; Kingsguard and tradition be damned. Once the court knew, all of Westeros would know and they would have to get married. Tywin expected it and no one defied Tywin Lannister or made him look a fool and lived to tell the tale.

Brienne was definitely going to kill him.

“Come on, we need to speak to Brienne and Sansa before Cersei or anyone else does.” Tyrion warned and they headed for the water gardens where they had left Brienne and Sansa when they had been summoned to Tywin’s office. Since Jaime and Brienne’s arrival in Kings Landing, the four of them had banded together into a group. A band of rejects and misfits, Tyrion had dubbed it. The Kingslayer, the demon monkey, Brienne the Beauty and the disgraced daughter of a traitor. What a group they made. Still it meant that they could be honest between the four of themselves and each had three others that they could trust without question. Something that would be needed now.

Sure enough, Brienne and Sansa had been sitting by one of the fountains in the water gardens and it was Sansa who noticed the grim expressions on their faces as they approached and felt a familiar sense of dread in her stomach. Something terrible had happened again. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“Not here,” Tyrion warned as he led them to the secluded waterside where Jaime, Brienne and Bronn practiced their sparring away from prying eyes. The sound of the waves crashing against the stones would ensure anything they said would be drowned out and not even one of Varys’ many little birds would overhear them.

“What’s happened?” Sansa asked again fearfully. If it was something that couldn’t be overheard then it was something terrible.

“Our father was speaking to the three of us about marriages. Ours, Cersei and Loras and he was discussing planning a match for Jaime when Jaime decided to inform our father that he had promised himself to someone else. A love match apparently.” Tyrion explained to Sansa and Brienne.

“I don’t understand,” Sansa said, puzzled as Brienne hit a realistation and her shoulders slumped.

“Jaime, you didn’t.” Brienne said as Jaime looked at her and turned scarlet. “Jaime what were you thinking?!”

“I didn’t mean to!” Jaime protested. “He was talking about removing me from the Kingsguard and about marriages and a suitable bride and I just thought of you and I panicked and it just came out.”

“You told your father that we were promised to wed. Is this some sort of sick joke?” Brienne asked; that had to be it. Another cruel joke against her because of course handsome, rich Jaime Lannister would want to marry her.

“It’s not a joke! He was talking about marriage and you were the only person I could think of who I would want to be married to. You’re kind and brave and strong and you think you’re hideous but your eyes are beautiful and your smile lights up your face and I know this sounds forced but it’s not. I know it’s a bad situation but I know how I feel about you. It’s not a joke. It’s never been a joke for me.” Jaime confessed, finally letting some of the thoughts and feelings that he thought he had hidden away through.

“Jaime, we need to be rational.” Brienne said after a tense moment of silence. “Your father expects us to wed, everyone will. How are we supposed to do this?”

“We will work it out,” Jaime reassured. “We will have to make it look believable.”

“But it’s unbelievable.” Brienne argued. This whole situation was unbelievable. Damn Jaime for his stupid lie, forcing them into this mess and damn his stupid confession as it was causing her to question the stupid thoughts and feelings that she had forced away since Harrenhall.

“You’re going to have to make it believable. Jaime, you saw how Cersei was; she doesn’t believe this for a moment and Father won’t believe it until the two of you are in the Sept and married. If he even suspects that any of this was pretend or false; then it will be unthinkable.” Tyrion warned them both as Sansa nervously spoke up.

“If anyone had heard what Jaime had said a few minutes ago, they would believe he was in love with Brienne. You could have had to hide how you felt when you were travelling, in order to keep each other safe. It could have been a habit that you’ve just found difficult to break until your father knew of the engagement and it became official.” Sansa suggested; everyone was hiding something here. This was where all the liars were, even the terrible ones like her.

“Exactly, you already are good friends and everyone has seen how the two of you talk and laugh with one another. It will be the more physically affectionate side that you will need to start showing; hand holding, linked arms, kisses, that sort of thing.” Tyrion suggested; if he was honest with himself, he had suspected since they had arrived in the capital that there was more than just friendship or companionship between Jaime and Brienne. Clearly both of them had repressed it just deep enough to hide it from one another but now it was time to force that into the open.

“That will be the difficult part,” Brienne stated and Tyrion dismissed it with a wave of his hand.

“It will take practice. If Sansa can act like she’s not repulsed by me, the two of you can fake affection for each other.” Tyrion quipped and Sansa smiled softly.

“I’m not repulsed by you.” Sansa protested and Tyrion smiled at her. Their marriage was a sham but they were just trying to make the most of a bad situation and survive as best they could.

The next few hours were spent coaching Jaime and Brienne on how to act. Part of the difficulty came from the fact that both of them felt like little children playacting. It all just seemed forced and wrong. The barrier of awkwardness between the two of them didn’t help matters. It was strange; they had shared a bath together and during their travels had seen the other wash, piss and shit without blinking an eye. But something as simple as walking with their arms linked seemed almost unbearably awkward. The sun was beginning to set by the time they felt comfortable enough to even try returning to the Red Keep for their evening meal. As they made their way back up the steps, Jaime took Brienne’s hand and squeezed it tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Jaime apologised sincerely. “I never meant for you to get caught up in this.”

“We just need to get through it,” Brienne said and smiled suddenly. “I just realised,”

“What?” Jaime asked.

“This is probably the longest you’ve gone without insulting me. Maybe we can make this work.”

“We will,” Jaime reassured, looking her in the eyes. “I do care deeply for you Brienne. I don’t know exactly what this is but I know how I feel is real. Even if this isn’t.”

“Thank you Jaime,” Brienne said as they wandered through the gardens and found a few people shooting them not to subtle looks. Time to make it seem real. Brienne lowered her head and kissed his cheek. “Kindness suits you.”

Jaime felt a wide, silly smile cross his face as he resisted the temptation to touch the spot where she had kissed him. As they walked through the gardens and into the Red Keep; it was clear that the news of their engagement had started to circle, as had different rumours about their travels; as courtiers and servants alike, shared looks and whispers as they passed.

“I heard she helped him escape Robb Stark singlehandedly.”

“Apparently he saved her from a wild bear.”

“She’s not the prettiest one but she’s definitely more than what the Kingslayer deserves.”

Jaime rubbed the back of her hand with his thumb as he considered that last remark. Brienne was definitely more than what he deserved. Jaime paused in his tracks and turned to face Brienne. In that instant, time seemed to stand still as he stroked her cheek before he leaned in to kiss her. He knew that she hadn’t kissed a man before but she didn’t hesitate in kissing him back. Believable. It had to be believable. They broke apart, smiled at one another before continuing towards their destination.

Just a kiss between two lovers. Nothing else.

As they entered the room, they found Tyrion and Sansa just taking their seats. It seemed Joffrey and Tommen had not been expected to attend this dinner. Tywin was stood beside the table, clearly waiting on their arrival. Cersei was already sat that the table, glaring daggers at both Jaime and Brienne who both tightened their grip on the other’s hand. Showtime.

“Father, may I introduce you to Lady Brienne of Tarth, my future bride.” Jaime said politely as Brienne smiled and bowed at Tywin.

“My lord, it’s an honour to meet you.” Brienne said politely as Tywin managed to hide any shock or surprise at Brienne bowing.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Tywin replied politely as they took their seats. As the meal was served, Jaime and Brienne managed to keep their hastily contrived story of how they apparently discovered how they felt and Jaime’s proposal. They managed to join in with Tyrion’s joking, deflect any sharp comments or criticism from Cersei and even Tywin seemed won over by Brienne. Although it was hard to tell, he also could have been constipated. As their second course was served, Jaime scowled at the portion of mutton on his plate and picked up his fork.

“Let me,” Brienne said quietly, taking his plate and cutting the meat up for him. As she did so, Jaime smiled softly at her, touched by the gesture. Brienne’s action and Jaime’s reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed by everyone else at the table who watched the tender action between the two with a growing realisation.

It may have started out as something pretend.

Only now, it seemed to have become very real.