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azullumi · 1 month ago

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WHERE WE LIE ON THE EDGE OF SUMMER !!

premise— you didn’t think that being neighbors and childhood friends with scaramouche would come with many things. for one, you have a sassy loser pathetically in love with you. content tags & warning — pairing: scaramouche (w/ gender-neutral reader) | modern!au, childhood friends, puppy love, scaramouche can’t skip stones, secret pining (for scaramouche), scaramouche words of reassurance and act of service advocate, fluff, word vomit, unspoken confessions | wc: 4.8k ; one-shot

notes from a jellyfish — (repost) first fic for the eat your heart out event!! nearly lost my mind writing this, but enjoy!!

SCARAMOUCHE is a liar.

No truths spill from his mouth, that much is certain.

He could never understand how poets write the beauty of a single sway of grass in the wind nor see how artists condense a single moment into a small stroke of a brush and find it breathtaking when it will all be bound to rot, but he tells others that he does anyway because he is a liar.

His words would bloom withered in his mouth, a shameful garden of ache, and the petals would never feel the lingering warmth in his lips.

But he never liked the heat, the suffocating warmth, always preferring the winter cold. But it was summer when he first met you and he remembers your laughter as you threw pebbles across the water, your smile gently shaped by the warm sun.

i. standing in between here and there

“Are you okay?”

There was only a grimace of annoyance on his face when you turned to briefly look at him.

It was summer once more and Scaramouche dreaded summer more than anyone could, much more so now that he’s spending this hot day with a stranger—a child of his aunt’s friend, who is also their neighbor. The combination of sitting under all this heat and being forced to get along with someone he doesn't know is deadly. He can't even remember what their name was. Perhaps they had uttered it once only for it to be lost among the pebbled path or to be drowned in the river.

He raises his eyebrow at you, “Is it not obvious enough?”

“What’s with this sassy lost child? Jeez.” You mumble more words underneath your breath, something along the lines of him being grumpy. The summer breeze brushes across your skin as you stare at the river, contemplating. Perhaps you were debating if this stone will reach farther than the frog who jumped across just now, or maybe you’re just thinking of the boy—who your mother had asked you to get along with—sitting silently on the grass behind you since earlier.

You throw one stone over the water. It bounces once and twice, the surface responding with small ripples, sliding across before eventually sinking. You do this many times and he watches you every single time, eyes seemingly unable to look away. But curiosity is a hungry monster that consumed him, so he speaks to rid of the itch that claws at his throat:

“What are you doing?”

“Stone skipping,” you paused, witnessing the stone jump only once before reuniting with its old friends at the bottom of the river, “wanna try?” You blink at him, waiting for his answer. There was silence then came a grumble. He stood up from his seat with an expression that makes it seem like you forced him to do so.

You handed the boy a pebble, but he had to stare at it for a few seconds before he took it from your hand. You waited with an expectant gaze, your mind somehow anticipating that he’ll do better than you—Scaramouche looks like he’s good at everything that he does.

Oh, but how your expectations came crumbling down the way your breakfast cookie fell into your glass of milk.

“Go on, throw it.” You had told him and you didn’t know that he was that much of an obedient child because he really did throw it. Just not aimed at the water. He threw it like how one would pass a ball to a friend; his stone didn’t even graze nor come near the surface of the water.

But Scaramouche had the same perseverance of a rock against the wind. He picked up a pebble and threw it once more; this time, it is now aimed at the water but it only went straight ahead, sinking slowly to the bottom.

You don’t think you’re in the right time to say anything, so you just stood still and watched the struggle of a young boy who had a small stone in his hand, with the occasional rustling of leaves as the breeze passes and with the sound of a splash prodding at the silence that envelops you like a familiar companion. You wanted to go and teach him how he’s supposed to do it, that there is a certain angle that he has to reach and he’s not supposed to throw it just as it is, but your mind seems to tell you not to so you didn’t. It’s all quite a spectacular watch, after all, it was as if you were watching your favorite show at 7 PM after waiting hours for it to go on air.

No matter how many times Scaramouche tries to throw and make the pebble bounce across the river, it always just sinks the first time it comes into contact with the surface. He’s silent, but the frustration is evident in the scrunch of his eyebrows and the increasing aggression in his movements.

“Oh, wow, you’re terrible at this.” You were the first to break the silence—your words seem to have stabbed his unyielding spirit as he groaned and just went back to where he was sitting. An act of surrender after struggling for so long.

”You don’t want to try again?”

“Why should I?” The pebble will only sink anyway. What’s the point of doing something when you know you’ll fail in the end?

“Come on, just try it once more.” But you were a stubborn one and Scaramouche doesn’t have much of a choice, not when you’re already right in front of him, taking his hands into yours and pulling for him to stand up. You drag him back to where he was earlier, still holding one of his hands even as you pick up a pebble right at your feet.

“Here, do it like this.” Your hand is warm against his, gentle, in contrast to the crumpled look on his face. You guide him, saying words that he can’t process that much as he’s way too focused trying to fan the flames that danced across his cheeks.

He throws, in the same angle and form that you have guided him into before you had stepped back to watch, holding hope that he’ll succeed this time in the same hand you held him. The stone doesn’t immediately celebrate with his other failed attempts at the bottom as it bounces against the surface.

You cheered, the sound of laughter slipping out of your lips as it seemed to tickle the insides of your mouth the more you held it in. There’s a certain feeling of warmth that washed over him when the melody rings inside his head. The roughness of the feeling, sharp in its unfamiliar edges, is akin to a huge wave that crashed into his form, but the comfort of it as it submerges him reminds him of the afternoon light shining on the floors of his home.

“It only bounced once.” He says, trying to downplay it all to get rid of the feeling that consumes him.

“But it did. That’s what matters, doesn’t it?” The feeling only seemed to grow stronger as if it’s feeding on your every word, being fuelled by your gaze, by your smile, by the sound of your voice. He tries to drown it all by thinking of other thoughts, diving into a different topic instead, and all the while, copying you as you resume your stone-skipping activities.

“Do you not get bored doing this?”

You hum, contemplating for a few seconds before you answer: “I think everything is a little more fun when you do it during summer,” you beam at him, then return your gaze back to the river before you throw, “Like this, especially when you’re doing it with someone.”

To be honest, he doesn’t even understand what you’re saying. This childlike mindset—although, for one, you and him are just a pair of children, playing beside the river, feeling the heat prickling against your skin. The bugs only grow louder in each second that passes as the afternoon slowly comes to the pass, replaced with the onset of the evening. The sky is painted with various colors mixed together but all in harmony, oranges and reds mixed with something golden, tainted with purples.

And yet, he would always ask himself, what is even nice about summer?

“I don’t know why but maybe I’m just saying that because I like summer,” you say as if you had read his mind, as if you had noticed the lingering question on his face that asks you why. “Do you like summer?”

It takes him a moment to answer, letting the orchestra of the wind against leaves, of the stone splashing against water, of the cicada’s song last longer than his silence. He could have said no, he could have disagreed with you and argued with your answer. He could have said that he despised summer for its heat and bugs. But he didn’t and that was the problem.

“I… like summer.” There are razors in his tongue as he speaks, the utterance of the sentence making him bleed internally as he bites on his words. Perhaps the hesitation in his tone betrays his words or perhaps it was the twitch of his lips paired with the contort of his forehead that made it appear as untruthful as it actually was.

Even so, you were convinced. You gleam at him, eyes bright with excitement: “Really? You don’t seem to be one to like summer.”

“I do, why would you say that?”

You shrug, “You just seem like a winter person to me.”

That wasn’t exactly a lie. In fact, that was the whole truth and the actual lie was him saying that he likes summer. He still doesn’t understand himself for saying such words—maybe it’s the heat getting into his head or maybe it's the sound of your laughter that plays over and over inside his mind.

It feels like having a crush—He slaps himself mentally at the notion.

“We should always spend summer together then.” You’ll say, watching a pebble bounce across until it reaches the other side. A feat you have only achieved twice—the second time being this moment. You silently rejoiced for your success, clenching your hand into a fist.

He responds, “So we could just watch stones bounce on water the whole time?” and this made you chuckle before you refute: “Unless you want to, but there are tons of other things to do during summer.”

This went on and on: you, just listing out whatever activities you could do and saying whatever, and him, who listens to every word you say and would give you short responses. It is not until dusk had ended and the evening came, and now, you’re standing by the doorway, saying your goodbyes to the boy who’s terrible at stone-skipping.

“You don’t even know my name, do you?”

“I do.”

You laugh, “Liar.”

ii. take a step closer, won’t you?

Summer came to visit like an old friend you had known for years.

It’s a fleeting companion, a familiar stranger bound to disappear, gone as the wind carries your scent. The sun kisses your skin very delicately, the grass will hold your being as if you were its own child, and you will miss its embrace the moment it slips out of your hands quietly. But there’s a strange comfort welling up in your heart knowing that you will feel it once more in time and you won’t have to spend a lifetime missing it—or him.

“What are you being so slow for?” The dark-haired man stops from his track and turns to look at you, his eyebrows furrowed and his lips formed into a frown. “The sun will set before we even reach the river.” It’s the mayor of complaintown, throwing his usual complaints at you. You could only roll your eyes before you run to him, catching up to his pace before the two of you resume walking.

Scaramouche, somehow, kept his promise. Although it’s not exactly a promise because the two of you didn’t make any, he did keep his word of spending every summer with you. And right now, you’re in the middle of walking through the forest near your home—an adventure, you may say, despite the fact that you have taken this path multiple times already and you’re just returning to the place where the two of you usually spend your moments under the summer sun.

The gentle murmurs of the rushing water reach your ears, eventually getting louder as the two of you draw close to your destination. Not sooner than later, a familiar scene comes into view: the small river—a stream, to be exact—in all its glory displayed before you, a path of water stretching from here to there across your line of vision, carrying memories of when the two of you played around it.

There’s a small smile embedded on your lips. It’s the thought that it's only the two of you that knows of this place that makes you warm—it’s like a secret place for you and him.

You come close to the body of water, crouching down, staring at your rather unclear image by the water, and making out the contours and edges of your face. You try to reach out to your reflection, disturbing the surface with the tip of your fingertips, and you watch as it ripples underneath your hand. Although you’re way too focused on whatever you are doing that you forgot the existence of the boy who came here with you.

“Are you just planning on staring at the water all day long?” Scaramouche says as he crouches down beside you. He speaks as if he didn’t spend his time staring at you, admiring the way the sun holds you in its embrace, while thinking that he could just look at you for hours without getting bored.

You hum, “I really don’t know what else to do now,” you draw something on the water, the surface coming in creases.

“I thought you said there are a lot of things to do in the summer.”

“Yeah, but we already did nearly all of them.” You grumble, turning to look at him with a troubled expression. Indigo orbs meet yours in a gentle gaze; Scaramouche’s gaze, tender and soft, doesn’t often match the harsh bite of his words. It leaves you wondering, confused, if this is just his way of showing that he cares or if there’s something more. But you don’t like thinking about it—fools base their thoughts on foolish assumptions, and you are no fool.

If only you know what festers underneath his skin. Looking at you like this, honey light against your skin, he thinks you’re beautiful—the word isn’t even enough to capture the essence of your being. The world seemingly held its breath for this moment as everything came to a still except for the wind that brushes against your face. He is foolishly and utterly starstruck by the existence of you, as if you were meant to be in this place, to experience this small, fleeting moments with him, to be bathed under sunlight, to breath in the air of your surrounding, the feel the coldness of water against your feet—to live.

There's you and his mere image being reflected by your eyes, and he tries to see into the waters of your gaze for something that is akin to the just adoration he holds for you, hoping that you hold him under the same light too. He may speak of words that hold no meaning, no truth, but his feelings for you are intense and unwavering that it consumes him. Won’t you pull him a little closer?

You break the stillness, your surroundings seemingly coming back to life with the sound of your voice: “What are you thinking now?”

“Just how stupid you look.” The boy answers. Liar.

You acted as if you were offended by his statement, letting out a gasp and even placing your hand over your chest to show that you were quote on quote, hurt. He only rolls his eyes at your performance.

You jest, “Why are you so grumpy? Do you just hate being with me?”

“Stop assuming things, I didn’t say anything like that.” His attention is now to the river, watching as the stream flows and as the rocks remain unmoving.

You grab this moment to take advantage of his vulnerability and inattention. Snickering, you scoop a handful of water before splashing it to him, drenching him in the process. At the sight, laughter bubbles from your throat—he reminded you of a wet chick.

“So we're playing this game?”

“You started it.” You grin, splashing him once more but this time, he was able to shield himself from your attack.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Cold!” You exclaim as he repays you the favor.

It became a battle between you two. You’ll splash him with a handful and he’ll only retaliate after like two or three of your attacks, and even so, he’ll only fight back with only so little. Nevertheless, water drips from your head, down to your face and he, too, is left there on the side of the river with you, completely drenched and with his clothes sticking to his skin. His gaze is on you and yours are on him, and the two of you break into laughter—you think you’ll remember the sound of yours and his tangled together forever.

For a moment, it felt like the two of you were children once more.

“Ah, now we’re both wet.”

Scaramouche flicks your forehead, earning a groan from you. “And whose fault is that?”

“Yours, duh.” You sneeze as soon as you finish your sentence. Scaramouche doesn’t fail to notice you tremble, hugging your knees close to your chest as if to quell the growing chill.

He abruptly stands up, and you watch him as heads over to where his bag is. He’s been carrying that since earlier and you’ve been curious as to what it contains—you didn’t get the chance to ask him earlier but now, your question is going to be answered.

You follow after, standing and peering behind him to see the contents. Your eyes are able to make out a water bottle and some snacks—were those your favorite?—among the pile of things. Albeit you didn’t get to see anymore of it as he turned around and placed something on top of your head, obscuring your vision.

You realized it was a towel when he started to gently rub your hair and the side of your face with it, drying you with the soft fabric.

“I didn’t know you had that much prepared.” You comment, letting him seemingly take care of you. Sometimes, it feels like you’re indebted to him with how much he looks after and cares for you. It feels unfair; you take so much from him and he never takes anything from you. He never lets himself indulge, settling on here and there, but never by you. You wish he would come close, he wishes you’ll hold him closer.

“I think we’re going to get sick after this.” You ask with worry lacing your tone; the water was cold and none of you brought any spare clothes, save for the towel he had prepared. And while he’s the one who got drenched the most, he’s here, focusing on you instead.

(You’ll always find yourself being bathed underneath all of his attention, whether you notice his gaze or not.)

“You’re the only one getting sick between the both of us.” He answers, draping the towel all over your shoulders before he goes and takes out a smaller towel to dry himself. There’s a small pout on your face when you hear his words—you can’t say anything in retort.

“Are we going home now?”

“If you want to, that is.”

The sun is already setting and darkness is slowly creeping into the day as time passes. Your surroundings are dyed with a warm golden, fading into blue. The animals that dwell in the night are revealing themselves as the ones who thrive during the day are returning to rest. Eventually, you also have to go home too. Exhaustion has seeped into you, settling into your weary bones.

“Can you carry me?”

“What? Can’t you walk on your own?”

“Oh, please, almighty Scaramouche. My legs are hurting and I’m tired.” Your hands are clasped together as you speak, batting your eyelashes at him.

Scaramouche could have complained a little more, dismissed your request, and walked back on his own, but he didn’t. And it’s not like he did not want to, but he just could not. How could he ever deny you? You were all that he could ask for, you were only asking him for one thing. Rejecting you at this moment was just like turning away from you—even though he knows that you’re most likely bluffing and are capable of your own.

(But, oh, he’s simply nothing without you. After all, you make up half of his soul even if he’s not even a fragment of yours.)

“You’re so troublesome.” You’re his favorite problem anyway.

Dusk is settling in the corners of the forest, and in the midst of the trees and along with the harmony of cicadas, is you and Scaramouche. The dark-haired man carries you on his back while you keep him occupied with your chatter of whatever that comes to your mind.

And just as he notices every small thing about you, you can’t ignore the dark hue his skin is painted in:

“Your ears are red.”

He takes a few seconds, mumbling, “It’s too hot.”

(Maybe it’s summer that is warm, or maybe it’s you.)

The next day, however, Scaramouche got sick and you had to nurse him back to his health—out of worry and guilt. Although you held that fact over your head, treating it as some sort of trophy.

iii. aren’t we already close enough?

Something knocks at Scaramouche’s window.

That’s how most horror movies start, but this is no horror movie, and it doesn’t take much for him to know that it was just his neighbor trying to grab his attention.

Another knock came. He heads towards the noise, pushing the curtains aside, and immediately seeing you across in your own room, standing by your open window. Upon seeing the man, you enthusiastically wave at him.

You mouthed, even doing some hand gestures to throw your message across to him: “Do you wanna watch the stars with me?”

It seems like he didn’t understand what you were trying to say as he only stares at you with a confused expression. You sighed and gestured for him to wait, disappearing from his line of sight for a moment before returning with a pen and paper in your hand; you scribble something on it and he watches you with a curious gaze.

With your words written by ink, a few of it crossed out, it reads: Let’s go stargazing.

He mouths, “Right now?” In which you responded with a nod and a smile. Then you return to your pad in hand, turning to new page before writing:

There’s going to be a meteor shower tonight. Let’s watch it together.

Scaramouche puts down his reply on his paper that he has gotten as you were writing.

Where?

The forest has a small clearing, it’s perfect for stargazing.

Right, and why are we talking like this?

It’s more fun this way and I don’t want to wake people up.

So, do you wanna go???

Okay. Yeah.

YAY !!! I’ll meet you outside.

But just as you were about to leave, he threw his pen at your window, an attempt to grab your attention although he did end up startling you.

It’s cold.

Wear something warm.

You beam at his display of his concern and give him an ‘Okay’ sign.

A few minutes flies by and you come out, jacket in hand. A certain man, with hair as dark as midnight, greets you. He’s clad in sweatpants and an oversized shirt, layered with a jacket on top—he was dressed comfily, as if he were planning on sleeping prior to this.

“Were you planning on going to sleep?”

“I was, until you called.”

“You could have just turned me down. I don’t mind watching the meteor shower alone.” You feel guilt rising in your chest, looking down at the ground you were rooted on. Thoughts whirl like a hurricane, creating a vortex of doubt that wreaks havoc inside your head. You don’t know what’s wrong with you, feeling all of these all at once over a simple and small thing. You were the one to insist, always the first one to come barging into his door.

But somewhere between your thoughts and his own, between loving you and adoring you, he knows you in ways that no one could. You’re the only one he ever knows.

“You’re not bothering me,” Scaramouche ruffles your head, messing up your hair. He speaks in the same note of his touch, soft and gentle, and it feels foreign and familiar at the same time; you want this, you could get used to this—the small thought that remains inside your mind echoes as he dispels all of your worries with just a few of his words. “Besides, I also wanted to watch the meteor shower.” With you.

“Really?”

“Where’s the stubborn and strong person who’ll drag me out of my room every summer that I know?” He flicks your forehead, making you wince and rub the spot to ease the pain. He adds, a small smile etching into the curves of his lips, “You were the one to say that everything is better when you do it with someone.”

“Well—”

“There’s no need to worry over such useless things,” He heaves out a sigh, “If I hated you, you would have known.”

He doesn’t know what took over him to have his hand seek out your face, caressing your face so tenderly like a lover would. The dance of his fingers left a trail of warmth across your skin, blooming and spreading like fire, and maybe it was your fault or maybe it was his that your face leans closer to his touch as if desiring for more of his softness. He doesn’t fail to notice the look on your face, the fire that festers within you spreading to him.

Scaramouche is mesmerized by the miracle that is you.

He clears his throat, looking away, afraid that he’s going to be consumed by your light the more he keeps his gaze on you:

“Let’s go before we end up missing it.” His tone falters into something sweet, and his hand, too, falls into something kind—his fingers slipping into your own. You could only nod your head in response, afraid that your words would break in your tongue before you could even speak.

It doesn’t take long to reach the spot you were talking about. But it did feel like time moved slowly with the silence as neither of you let go of each other’s hand; you battled with your reasoning, thinking that it will help you walk better in the dark and not trip over anything even when you’re already familiar with the path. Or maybe it was just too cold, you don’t know; it’s not like you want to let go either.

(And in the same cadence of your thoughts, his soul whispers to you: “I don’t think I want to stop holding your hand.”)

Tonight, the stars are a witness to the wake of something foolishly beautiful. As the streaks of light fill the sky like a stroke of a painter’s brush on an empty canvas, lush grass forms into nothing as it sinks beneath your being, intertwined with his as he clutches your hand tight—the sky holds the stars as the earth bears your weight all the same. When the warm breeze leaves and when life all becomes nothing in the absence of indigo merging into golden, can you stand with him a little closer underneath the fading warm?

“Kuni.” What does his name taste like in your mouth?

“Hm?”

Scaramouche isn’t stupid, but you make him feel stupid, and he loves you stupid, like a loser stumbling over the stars in your eyes. He understands why poets write the mundane and how artists portray a fleeting moment bound to rot by time. It doesn’t take much but he spent a long time seeking comfort in the warmth to know the answer—he knew what it was when he wished you were with him to enjoy the sun.

You reside in the deeper parts of his soul, tangled in the loose threads of his being. Scaramouche prays—even when he doesn’t necessarily believe, but what is a god’s gaze for your love?—to whoever is listening that you’ll stay there forever. Can a human ever stop their heart from wanting?

“Don’t you want to go home now?” You had asked him; the meteor shower has finished and the clouds are already hiding the vast blanket of stars above you. There’s not much left in this night, just silence and a pair of people who had nothing and everything at the same time, lying on the grass as if they’re the only ones who matter in the world. He has always existed right there beside you and he has belonged to you in ways that you may never know.

“I’m still not sleepy yet.” But his mouth gapes into a yawn and you laugh.

“Liar.”

Call him whatever you want, he just wants to stay with you a little longer.

Scaramouche may be a liar.

But he likes you, that much is certain.

taglist: @felibrary, @yunicide, @bittersweetmiko

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vaokses · 3 months ago

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How long this love can hold its breath

Series Masterlist / General Masterlist

Pairing: Aegon x Rhaenyra's Daughter!Reader

Summary: It has been years since your mother took you from King's Landing to join her in Dragonstone. Years since you and Aegon have seen one another. Years in which he has refused, time and time again, to marry, even as you tour Westeros meeting suitors in search of a husband of your choosing. That refusal can easily be undone with a few words: it was you she chose, Aegon.

Word Count: 3.1k

Warnings: Alicent's abuse of Aegon. Alcohol/drunkenness. Mentions of sex/prostitution. Usual Targaryen incest stuff. Arranged marriage stuff. Angst. Hurt and kind of no comfort for now.

Some AU/Setting stuff: Reader is a bastard of Daemyra (claimed by Laenor of course), firstborn child of Rhaenyra and heir to her mother's claim. She rides Vermithor. As you'll figure out thorugh this one shot, she and Aegon had a thing when she was still in King's Landing. How relevant or impactful that 'thing' was depends on who of the two you ask. I've stretched the timeline a bit. Rhaenyra spent a few years more in King's Landing (making Aegon around 16/7 when she leaves, and the Reader, the eldest of the Velaryons, around 14/5). Instead of six years in Dragonstone, the Blacks have spent around three there in this story. Viserys still lives (and is rotting slightly slower), Aegon and Helaena did not marry.

A/N: My first work in this fandom, so i'm a bit nervous. This is a bit of a prologue/alternate PoV for a series I have in the works, but I wanted to share it as a one shot since I think it also works as one. I hope you like this!

Title is from the quote "I've hoarded your name in my mouth for months. My throat is a beehive pitched in the river. Look! Look how long this love can hold its breath." - Sierra DeMulder

It feels as if he has just rested his head on his pillow when he hears the heavy doors being pushed open, and the familiar hurried steps of his mother as she enters his apartments.

He isn’t sure why he bothers by now in telling the guards not to let her in, since she insists on overruling his orders whenever she wishes.

Still half-asleep, Aegon reaches for the bedsheet covering his body, wary of any attempt she might make in her anger to pull it off him. Surprisingly, his mother stops a few steps away from the foot of the bed.

Aegon feels her piercing gaze on him, and aware the choice is between caving and chasing after her, asking her what it is she wants; or waiting for the anger at his unwillingness to follow the unspoken command -and the thrown object, or the stinging hit, that comes after said anger-; he drags his hands over his face in an effort to wake himself further and asks,

“What is it, mother?”

“Where in the Father’s name were you? Three days, Aegon,” He winces at the reprimand. In his defense, he truly didn’t think they’d notice. Helaena would, perhaps, but she wouldn’t seek him out either way. “You were gone for three days.”

“I wasn’t…far. I didn’t even leave King’s Landing.”

She starts letting out a sigh, laced with disappointment and annoyance, but stops herself short, instead turning her back to him and pacing a few steps away.

“I know where it is you go to…to satiate your vices, caring not for the shame it brings to your name and mine, behaving most unlike your station.”

“Then why did you ask?”

His mother won’t turn to look at him, her back turned to him and her hands joined in front of her.

“Your sister was here.”

His brow furrows in confusion.

“My sister is always here.”

“Rhaenyra was here, Aegon.”

“Oh. What for?”

Alicent turns on her side, considers him with eyes widened in afront and mouth curled in disgust. The question leaves her lips slowly, a threat and a dare all at once.

“Are you still drunk?”

He mulls over the question for a few moments, and realizes his thoughts are entirely too calm for him to be already sober. The numb haziness of the night before remains, a comfort.

“I think I might be,” He admits, eyes darting to the side and lingering on the pitcher of wine on a nearby table. He wonders if it is empty. “Slightly.”

When it seems his mother is intent on merely staring at him in disappointment, he motions for her to turn away and gets dressed.

He can’t help but feel unseemly, standing before his mother in rumpled clothes and disheveled hair, while she stands tall with not a strand of hair out of order, not a speck of dust on her dress. Then again, even at his best he hasn’t managed not to feel small, unsuited, by comparison.

Instead of letting those thoughts linger, aided by the comfortable haze the wine from the previous night -or nights, rather- provides him with, Aegon moves to sit on a table in one of the darker parts of the room.

Alicent follows quietly, but she doesn’t sit.

“I come here with news. You are to be married, n-…”

He shakes his head with a mocking laugh, the defiance as easy as breathing, after four years of holding the same stance. He might not have a say in much, but he does in this.

“No, I’m not.”

“Your father has approved of this union. As have I.”

He shrugs his shoulders.

“Then you are welcome to marry her yourselves. I shall hope for a long and happy marriage for you three.”

Sometimes, perhaps in foolish hope, in some hollow fantasy, he thinks his impertinence amuses his mother. He might imagine it, he’s quite certain he does, but sometimes he swears she furrows her lips to hide the faintest of smiles.

But of course, she shows no give, betrays not a flicker of amusement, of softness, of anything. Try as he might to earn any of them.

“I did not come here to entertain insolence.”

“Why did you come here, mother?” He asks, not able to reign in the restless movements of his hands, fingers tapping an irregular rhythm on the table. “My stance hasn’t changed. And it won’t.”

The restlessness building within her is betrayed in the small movements of her hands that increase in intensity the longer she looks at him. With a sudden movement, she slams a hand on the table between them and leans closer.

“You cannot go on like this, Aegon, shrinking your duty because of the denial of a caprice of your youth.”

“It was the one thing I asked for. I haven’t asked for anything since, nor did I ask for anything before.”

His mother scoffs in response, looking away.

“And that is reason enough for your wish to be granted?” She asks, derisive, almost jeering. Alicent leans back, straightens her stance again. Not too unlike Aemond adjusting his posture to strike with his sword during training, he supposes. “You have gone through your entire life doing as you please, not considering the cost to your family, to your House, to me, and you expected to be rewarded?”

But he has considered the cost, has had no choice but to consider it, when every choice, every action, it seems almost every thought, is heavy with the impact it might have on his name, on his family. He has considered the cost, but try as he might no choice, no action, has been enough.

“It would have…It would have changed things. If you had said yes,” He argues, an argument repeated, in his head if not aloud, a thousand times over in these passing years. And yet restlessness builds within him regardless, and he finds himself grasping at the table to keep his hands from fidgeting. “It was the smart choice. You know father would have been for it. You could have kept Vermithor on our side, and given them no choice but to play by our rules with their daughter here. We might have won this war you want so b-…”

“All I have wanted is to make sure your lives are not forfeit when your father dies. It is not war I want.”

“Then why did you say no?”

She shakes her head as she looks away again.

“The matter is settled. Long settled.”

“Yet you never told me why.”

He wants to hear it. More than an apology for denying him a chance at happiness, more than an admission that beyond the feelings of any involved it was the smartest choice, more than anything, he wants to hear her tell him why.

She didn’t even hear his reasons, she didn’t even consider proposing the union to your mother, or Viserys. She dismissed him, and denied him, without even a second thought.

He wants to know the reason why. If it was because she knew of you something he didn’t, and was certain you would have rejected him even at the cost of your home and life as you knew it, he wants to know. If it was because she believes him so monstrous that she wished to protect even the daughter of her lifelong adversary from him, he wants to know.

If it was because in his weakness and his failings he has made himself into something even his own mother wishes to see punished, or because there was something he did -because it had to be something he did, there cannot be so many that were supposed to love him and refuse to for it not to be something he is doing wrong, something about him that is wrong- that not only managed to make his mother’s love for him vanish, but also earned him her scorn, he wants to know. He thinks knowing that to be the truth would splinter him in a way he isn’t sure he’d be able to recover from, but he is tired, and alone, and he wants to know why.

He searches his mother’s gaze, desperate for an answer, any answer. She looks back, and yet all that is reflected back at him is contempt, disappointment, and what he fears is disgust.

“It has been years, Aegon. You are being senselessly stubborn, holding onto this…this grudge against me.”

He makes a face at her words, and grabs the pitcher in the table before him only to find it empty, the only wine remaining being that still in the half-filled cup.

“It is not a grudge, I-..”

“Weakness, then,” She sentences, and he doesn’t bother hiding the flinch at her words. His gaze lowers to the table before him. “You’re being a fool, if you think after all this t-…”

His eyes are set on the half-full cup of wine before him, and he doesn’t dare move his gaze as he interrupts, “I am not marrying, mother.”

She considers him in silence, and though for a moment he thinks a hit is to come -he doesn’t usually get away with interrupting her-, followed by her footsteps leaving the room, his mother takes a deep breath and insists,

“It is not me or your father who request this of you. It is your King who commands it.”

“The King, or his Hand?” He retorts. He grabs at the cup and downs the remaining liquid, making a face at the taste of stale wine, and presses on, “I’m guessing a Baratheon, to earn Borros’ support? Or a Tully, to secure the Riverlands?”

For the briefest of moments, when his mother’s lips press into a thin line, hands fidgeting where they rest joined before her, he thinks he finally got the upper hand. That he proved he isn’t as blind to their plots and their increasing panic at Rhaenyra’s influence as he may appear. That he proved her wrong, that he showed he isn’t as incompetent as they’d like to think, that he…

“A Velaryon,” Alicent admits, and any pride, any satisfaction, die out like flames in a room without air. His lips part, he knows not for what since all that leaves them is a choked breath, the beginning of a question, of a name. Aegon searches his mother’s gaze, attempts to find any truth, any certainty, but Alicent looks away. Her next words sound as if heard from underwater. “To keep you from certain execution when your sister ascends the Iron Throne.”

“Do not toy with me, mother,” He means for it to sound like an accusation, like a demand, like anything but a plea, and yet that is what leaves his lips. Betrayed by the waver in his voice, by the iron grip on the glass, he goes on, “She’s touring the whole of fucking Westeros in search of a husband as we speak.”

“She has made her choice, Aegon. It was you she chose,” She promises, and her voice is low and warm and almost comforting, so why does it feel wrong? Why does it make him want to crawl out of his own skin? “As for the tour, it will continue as scheduled. Rhaenyra deserted her own tour before time was due, she knows better than to repeat her mother’s mistake.”

Breathable air is lacking by this chair, in this room, and he stands up, wincing at the too-loud sound of the chair scraping against the ground.

He eyes a pitcher of wine in another table, and crosses the distance with quick strides, refilling his cup and draining half of it before turning to his mother again.

“Why tell me now? I-If the tour is to continue,” If she can still change her mind, “Why tell me now?”

“Your grandsire and I believed you might take this opportunity to amend your behaviors,” Alicent tells him, “So you might save your future wife the embarrassment, so you might protect her honor, seeing as you do not care for ours or your own.”

She hasn’t said your name yet, he notices.

Neither has he, but he has forgotten when it was the last time that he said it aloud. Intentionally, that is, he doesn’t count any time he let it slip past his lips when deep in his cups or buried inside some whore with the wrong shade of silver in her hair -and the wrong eyes, and the wrong voice, and the wrong smile, and the wrong touch-.

Aegon can’t even remember when it was that he decided he wouldn’t utter your name again, all he knows is that through the years what started out of spite, as a way to deny the wound and the absence; has become something else. It has become to him something like a secret, something to be hoarded, to be kept his alone.

Because there’s pride, and satisfaction, and something rotten but his, in having known you in ways no other did. In remembering you how he is certain -he has to be, it is of the few things he has left- no one has known you.

And so he doesn’t speak your name. Lest in sharing any of the warmth of a bond long gone he loses it, dying embers to a strong wind; lest in admitting old truths he is left behind also by the part of you that he keeps safe, a secret only his.

But now in his head resonate so loudly that they drown anything else -like thunder, like the beat of Vermithor’s wings taking you far up into the sky- his mother’s words.

It was you she chose.

Thinking of you has always meant the resurgence of the memory of the goodbye you refused to grant him, of waking to the reverberating cry of Vermithor as he took to the skies with you on his back and flew you away to Dragonstone; or the memory of your disappointment and your sorrow as he avoided your gaze and your words when you met again in Driftmark.

Yet now the memory that comes forth in his mind is another.

You smiled at him, daring and entirely too proud. But how could you not be, when you both knew he would oblige? How could you not be, when he hadn’t been able to tear his gaze from your lips since you had asked him for something as simple as a kiss? And your voice was softer than he’d expected -or perhaps he remembers it softer than it was, perhaps he sees something else when desire was all there was-, warmer than it had ever been, when you whispered, I want it to be you.

And what harm can your name do that his own mind hasn’t inflicted upon him already? What ruin can the uttering of such a familiar word bring that the memories haven’t wrought already?

So he says your name. Willingly, rationally, for the first time in years.

He thought the foolish refusal to utter your name aloud kept you distant, kept the memory of you, the idea of you, as something far from him, gone from him. But he realizes now, with the shape of your name parting his lips and the taste of memories staining his tongue like ash; that you have been a distant memory, a distant dream, for a very long time.

And the knowledge that you chose him, the helpless hope that blooms somewhere in his chest, they cannot do a thing against the horrifying certainty that the future he wanted, the future he mourned, is lost to him regardless of your choices now.

What can he give you now, that that Tyrell knight the rumors say you were so enamored with cannot? How can he not fail whatever expectations you have of him, as he has failed all others? How could you want him now, as what he has made out of himself in these years you’ve spent apart?

It was a comfort, he realizes now, thinking you lost. The comfort of knowing he couldn’t fail you, couldn’t earn your scorn when he had merely your indifference.

A bitter, wretched little laugh leaves his lips then, and he turns his head -to hide, perhaps, the tears brimming in his eyes, the weakness his mother so loathes to see from him- and looks out the window towards the distant skies.

Alicent doesn’t move, merely stands taller, prouder, and presses,

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

Of course, this is what he fucking wanted, but nearly four years have gone by since he asked to be allowed to marry you and was refused. Even if some part of him wants it, wants you, still, it matters not.

It is what he wanted, before. Before everything got worse, before everything got louder, harder. Before he got worse. Before you forgot about him.

His mother approaches him then, and though he jumps when he sees her reach for him out of the corner of his eye, she grabs onto his forearm and speaks again, forceful, determined,

“Listen to me, Aegon. Your sister has secured her hold on the Seven Kingdoms, both through the strength of her dragons and through her eldest children’s diplomacy with the noble Houses,” His mother tells him, but he cannot hear her, not over the warring thoughts of finally, finally, finally, and too late, too late, too late. “Rhaenyra has allowed for this to happen because she wishes to extend an offer of peace, and you cannot squander this opportunity.”

He turns to her and asks, quietly, forlorning, “Why now?”

“What?”

“Why now?”

Why now, that everything is worse? Why now, that he has become this?

For a moment, a flickering moment gone in the blink of an eye, he thinks he sees sadness, sympathy, in his mother’s warm gaze. For a moment, he believes she will offer words or touch in the way she hasn’t before, in comfort or in reassurance.

But her gaze falls from his, and her grip on his arm -too tight, almost bruising, yet wanted, needed, if it is all he can get- loosens as she lets go of him.

“The betrothal will be announced when the tour is over. The wedding in a week’s time from then.” She tells him, detached, not unlike a messenger delivering a missive.

And with that she leaves his apartments. The door closing echoes in his mind, and he is left behind with a loneliness he doesn’t know where to put, and a hope he doesn’t know how not to fear.

Thank you for reading! I hope you liked it, and I would love to hear your thoughts!

I am endlessly fascinated by the greens and their deeply weird dynamics, and I hope I did them a modicum of justice, even when changed in this AU and despite the influence of fanon in my interpretations of them.

#aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii x reader #aegon x reader #aegon x you #aegon targaryen x targaryen!reader #aegon ii fanfic #fics by me

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sukunasweetheart · 4 months ago

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kimi ni todoke inspired, but with a twist?? except sukuna is suuuuper into your whole scary/creepy vibes (strange fetish) this is more just rambling, not a proper fic sorry, its a little smutty, scratching and knifeplay involved (he's quite submissive), sukuna's a whole FRREAK

sukuna in college au, where he has a strange infatuation with the horror genre-- has a deep appreciation for scary films, and is a huge nerd in this area, and many of his favourite celebrities are actors and actresses that starred in one of his favourite films. his brother yuuji is also a huge cinema nerd but he's not as obsessed with horror as sukuna is. and frankly, yuuji thinks he's a slight weirdo for being able to analyse them in a very detailed manner, whether it's the jumpscares or how realistic a gore scene looks.

and now this horror nerd discovers someone very noteworthy in his area. there's this semi-famous haunted house that operates year-round nearby his university, which he decides to visit alone, out of boredom.

...the atmosphere is alright. the decoration could use some work. the bloody sheets don't look convincing enough. it's too pink and tacky. the "ghosts" give an effort to try and scare him, but he gives them a deadpan look.

"can you try any harder?" sukuna keeps walking.

next, a man dressed like a typical serial killer walks in holding a real chainsaw. oh, boy. the "killer" walks up real close to him, to his annoyance. he takes the chance to inspect the mask on his face. he flicks it lightly with a finger.

"shit's made out of plastic. do better."

the man revs up his chainsaw.

"ha - that's the spirit." he continues walking.

there's suddenly eerie silence, now that he's almost at the exit of the haunted house. what, did they run out of ideas?

he thinks he catches a glimpse of someone in the corner of his eye. sukuna stops and turns back, but there's no one in sight. that gets the hairs on the back of his neck rising, ever so slightly. he likes that.

he feigns ignorance and keeps heading to the exit, wanting something to jump out at him. he hears little footsteps behind him, this time. he whips around again, but there's nobody.

"you're edging me, are you?" he says sarcastically with a chuckle.

you're hiding in a little pocket area out of view, when you hear the man mention something about edging. great. another fucking weirdo. sometimes, you feel like you should just get a new job.

the third time, you actually reveal yourself and stand still in view when he turns around. the weirdo just stands there and grins at you. the fuck??

oh, sukuna loves this one. you look terrifying. like you came directly from a horror film set. you give him the creeps.

"look at you... a diamond in the rough."

the fuck is this man talking about? you want to tell him to just leave already. but he just continues observing you silently, like someone analysing an artifact. you move stiffly towards him, even while knowing that it probably wouldn't be enough to scare him off.

"your makeup looks too real... do you do that yourself?"

you glare at him. it's part of the script anyway. sukuna chuckles, because something tells him that the disdain in your eyes are real.

"i know, i know. i'll get going. any chance i could get your number before i go?" he asks boldly, hands in his pockets. it's a half-hearted attempt, but he felt the need to really try at least once.

he must be joking. what kind of perverted man sees a woman looking like this and asks for her number? well, he probably isn't being serious anyway. silence permeates the area as you backtrack away from him, deciding you've done enough for your pay's worth.

"running away? a shame..."

you feel odd. many men have seen you and ended up running out screaming. none has ever tried flirting with you while you were in this getup. what a weirdo.

sukuna walks out feeling better than expected. that last section really saved it. not a totally worthless experience. maybe he'll swing by again, just to see you.

except, he doesn't really need to. because the next day you bump into him at uni - and he recognises you instantly, like the freak he is. you try to brush him off casually, but he can't be shaken off so easily. and then sukuna pestering you wherever you hid around on campus became part of your schedule.

"what's your deal? why do you keep following me around?" you eye him suspiciously, when he sits down next to you on the bench, unprompted.

"well, i'm interested in you, for one," he says casually, shrugging.

"listen... if this is because you have some weird horror fetish, then i'm not interested..." you tell him truthfully, shuffling yourself away.

sukuna laughs out loudly in response, which makes you jump.

"i won't deny having unusual tastes, but my interest isn't that shallow. if it were the case, i could probably seduce any other girl and dress her up instead of chasing after you."

well, you guess he's correct about that. you've received a couple of stink eyes from a number of girls after being seen with sukuna so often.

he's an annoying guy - when you ask other peers about him, they tell you he's stoic, mean, and rude as fuck. well, you understand the last two a little bit, but stoic? every time he sees you, he seems like the opposite. he's rather loud and overbearing.

"i'm telling you - you have a talent. why not make use of it?"

he's referring to your future acting career, apparently.

"and i'm telling you - stop with the nonsense! i can't be fooling around with a silly idea like becoming an actor. seriously."

you only started working at the haunted house for some cash. you're not even that into the genre itself. what's with this guy?

"why would it be fooling around? at least give it a try before dismissing it."

this back and forth continues, for quite a while. he even forces you to watch his favourite horror films, "for future reference".

and then he proposes a deal to you. that you try and audition for a small role as a ghost in a film. he guarantees you'll get picked, even though you doubt it. and if you don't he promises he'll never bring the idea up to you again. you decide to go with it, just to shut him up.

but guess what? you're selected for the role.

sukuna shrugs at you with a smug smile on his face.

"see? i'm always right."

he pisses you off.

and he somehow pushes his way into becoming your personal "trainer". sukuna revises your script with you, and gives you feedback on your acting. he sits you down and watches classic horror flicks with you, analysing every scene down to every frame. many things happen the more you spend time with him..... you find yourself getting more and more attracted to this weirdo. this horror nerd.

"are you paying attention? this part is important."

the film gets paused, and you very swiftly, dart your eyes away from admiring his jawline.

"i'm trying... i just can't concentrate. i'm hungry," you lie fervently.

"hungry for what? me?" sukuna grabs your face and makes you turn your head towards him.

"...no? whatever gave you that idea?" you ask, heart hammering in your chest.

"how is it that an aspiring actor can't even lie properly? maybe we need to go back and revise some of your acting lessons."

you know that he's studying to become a film director, and honestly you feel sorry for the future actors that'll be working with him.

"whatever. let go of my face, you ass." you swat his hand away.

sukuna chuckles deeply at you, eyes softening.

"you're lucky that you're cute. how about i give you a kiss? will you concentrate better then?"

"yeah... wait, what-?"

too late though, he's already on your lips. and damn, he's a good kisser. anyways, that embarks the start of your relationship with him. shortly after, the filming process for the short film begins, and it becomes a decent success. you're a little ecstatic. maybe more than a little. you get the feeling that a whole new life is awaiting you.

and your boyfriend is so endlessly cocky about it. "all thanks to me," he says, which is technically correct, but you don't want to openly admit it in front of him sometimes.

and...

occasionally...you do dress up scarily before sex as well. at first, you were quite reluctant and awkward with roleplaying in bed, but after you got used to it, you found that it's hot as hell to see sukuna beneath you, squirming as you press a knife close to his throat, grinding your clothed cunt against his boner, dressed as a terrifying ghoul.

a safe word was established beforehand, of course, just in case either of you suddenly feel like backing out.

you want to keep yourself immersed into the role as much as possible, but it's difficult when sukuna's cock is so big, hitting all the right spots. this time, you're choking him with one hand as you ride him like he's a toy.

sukuna's hands are guiding your hips, fingertips digging into your flesh, his dick aching from the soft pressure you apply to his throat. you look so utterly scary, it turns him on. he'd let you kill him, if you wanted. he fucks into your cervix, looking up into your eyes with a blush on his face, groaning openly at the insane look in your eyes.

choke me harder. scratch me. bite me. he provokes you through his gaze.

you do grip his throat harder. and then you dig your fingernails into his chest, and scrape them down slowly, leaving a trail of red marks down him. sukuna shudders under you and curses under his breath.

"just like that... fuck, baby," he moans, cock throbbing inside of you. your walls squeeze him so good.

he cums the hardest he's ever cum in his life that night - thighs trembling and sweat rolling down his temples, and it doesn't help that you lean down to sink your teeth into the side of his neck while he orgasms.

aftercare consists of him cleaning you up and helping you de-costume. when he's wiping all that dark makeup off your face, he tells you that you're pretty with his soft voice, flustering you.

and of course, vanilla sex also occurs regularly, to get away from that freaky stuff sometimes, with the gentle kisses and tender hand holding, in a missionary position, exchanging sweet, sweet gazes with each other. giving you the princess treatment you deserve for being so good to him.

in the future, you run around and play bigger roles until one of your films become a huge hit, and sukuna finishes his degree to become a famous film director... no surprises there! the best horror actress + the best horror film director goes hard... the two of you are already married at this point.

when the both of you finally get together to make the ultimate film, the internet explodes... sukuna is surprisingly bad at being professional. he's seen often taking care of you rather affectionately around the filming area, personally making sure your makeup is done perfectly, and bringing you food and water as if he's bragging to everyone else about his marriage. and it shows in the way he sugar coats his critique for you, when he has never done that for any other actor/actress he's worked with previously.

if there are some snooty coworkers that try to speak with him about the gap in treatment, he would simply scoff at them and say 'and? she's my damn wife.'

when he's working with you, it's all like:

"cut! honey, that was great, but i think this part can be done a bit better."

but when it comes to other actors:

"cut! what the fuck was that? sounded like you were reading off the damn script. get your shit together."

he's notorious for being relentless, but nobody has anything to say because all of his films climbed to the top of the industry. everyone is dying to score a line or two in his films.

and i'd like to think that sukuna himself dabbles into acting a little as well. there's probably one film where he stars as the killer, and it becomes a classic :) but the one featuring you and him probably becomes both of your biggest hits ✨

oh, and on days where you two finish filming together, he takes you home with his own car, but before that, some freaky car sex probably occurs around some corner with his windows tinted... (he's been hot and bothered the whole time filming, watching you act)

the end <3

Masterlist

#sukuna x reader #jjk x reader #ryomen sukuna x reader #sukuna smut #sukuna x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x reader #sukuna x you #ryomen sukuna #sukuna #nervous about posting after a HOT while

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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 18 days ago

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Chapter 13: Taking Out The Trash

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Blood, GRAPHIC DEPICTION OF DEATH, DEATH, BLOOD, GUTS, Threatening, Denial, Attempted Manipulation, References to attempted SA in the past, Depressing Thoughts, INSANE REVELATIONS, CONFESSIONS, Talks about weed, Super Manipulative Creepy Trash Man, Sexist comments, Homophobic Comments? Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

A/N: I'm not going to lie, at the beginning of this chapter it's cute, but the rest of it gets... UNHINGED. I mean its dark because some things are revealed that I don't know why my mind went there immediately but... Also, apparently foreshadowing with dreams is my thing now 🤷🏻‍♀️?

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

"Are you sure that you're okay to start work today?" Jake asked you for the millionth time from across the large cherry wood table that proudly stood in the front window of the shop. "Because there's no shame in staying home and resting for a few more days."

He was holding a large box filled with golden barrel cactus that were about to be placed in the new window display that Jake and you were constructing. His dirty blonde hair was scruffier today, hanging into his face just over the top of his tortoise shell glasses. The red and navy flannel he wore stretched over his arms with the flexing of his muscles beneath as he watched you with interest, worry seeping into the clear blue of his eyes.

The store was as you remembered, almost blindingly green, with trailing vines that kissed your arms when you walked through the front door as if welcoming you home and the healing energy from the plants within fusing your body with newfound strength. You could feel the subtle push of roots in the earth, the unfurling of bright leaves, the swell of fruit on outstretched branches, and the gentle bend of each petal on the vegetation inside the shop speaking to you and reassuring you. It was welcome after being trapped in a freezer for four days.

Jake didn't know about any of that.

Annie had come up with a lie that you'd been in a car accident when Butcher loaned you his car for a job. It hurt you to lie to Jake, especially when he had brought all the plants to your hospital room because he knew it would make you feel better, but you were still trying to keep that part of your life separate from him. Honestly, you worried that if Jake found out how fucked up the other half of your life was he'd fire you, so you didn't bring it hurtling in through the front of his shop like a freight train. And you really loved working here.

It felt natural for you, tending to the plants, helping teach other people how to for anything that grew while gently showing the love of gardening and tending the earth.

Jake had been pondering the idea of having workshops on the weekend at the shop after hours and he'd finally said yes.

Hopefully, I'd be able to use both of my arms by then.

You were beyond discouraged that hadn't been able to do any of your crochet projects and you felt like a disappointment when you couldn't go to your bi-monthly crochet circle/class that you lead at the Assisted Living Facility a few blocks over. The woman on the phone from the facility had sounded so disappointed when you told her that you couldn't come and it only made you feel worse.

But it was nice to be back in the swing of things at the shop and wonderful to be back in a place that you felt at ease, but there was something tugging in your chest. It was an odd feeling, not as if you'd forgotten something, but almost as if you missed something. As if there was something that wasn't here that should be and you couldn’t put your finger on it.

A week had passed since you'd been released from the hospital and you were eager to get out from under Ben's house arrest to start working again even with your arm in a large and almost impossible cast to maneuver. You were calling it “house arrest”, because after your grandmother left, Ben refused to let you leave the apartment, stating that you needed to rest. And when you argued with him that you'd had enough rest, he'd planted himself in front of the door and refused to budge.

You were going stir crazy with nothing to do and you probably could have moved him if you really tried, but you didn't want to fight with Ben. Not when he was the person who'd brought you back from the warehouse and not when he was acting different.

Your lips press into a firm line when you think about the past week that you'd spent at home with him. Ben was going out of his way to do everything for you that he could, but that didn't mean you weren't annoyed. You'd had to practically swat him away with one of the wooden spoons in the kitchen when you were heating up a lasagna your grandmother left after he'd loudly complained that you shouldn't be standing for too long and tried to carry you back to the couch. Ben was acting like you couldn’t take care of yourself and hadn't been taking care of yourself since you moved away from home. It was odd.

And he kept doing little things around the apartment, like picking up his clothes and making sure to remember to put things in the dishwasher. Things that he hadn’t cared about before you got hurt and things that you’d yelled at him to do before everything happened. And he always made sure that the couch was clear incase you wanted to watch a movie or just read for a little while. Two things that you had been doing more often since you got out of the hospital.

But weirder still was that Ben hadn't been on one "date," since you got back. The only time he'd left the apartment was in the morning to get the paper and he always brought you back coffee or the pineapple iced tea you loved.

Yesterday he had finally allowed you to leave the apartment to go to the grocery store, because when you tried to give him a shopping list he'd said "I don’t need a fucking list I’m a man!" but then you’d asked him to repeat everything you'd told him to buy and he couldn’t.

The whole time out of the apartment you’d made plenty of jokes about the healing power of fresh air, while Ben countered by making a joke about the healing power of sex and that he'd be happy to make you feel better.

The trip to the grocery store hadn’t ended in bloodshed, even when you had to keep reminding Ben not to buy the name brand things and he'd ignored you or when Ben complained the whole time about how expensive everything was and how long it was taking you to find everything.

But the weirdest thing that happened was when the two of you were looking a produce there was a woman who kept trying to come on to Ben when you were testing the grapes and he completely ignored her. Surprising you because she looked like his type, and when she'd walked away Ben had dropped to his knees to tie your shoe because he noticed that it was loose.

When you'd teased him about it, he said that he "didn't want you to break your other arm when you tripped and ate shit on the concrete." You'd had no problem flipping him off with your unbroken hand.

But despite your insistences for Ben to try and find cheaper brands none of it mattered, because when you got to the register Ben paid for the groceries even when you’d explicitly discussed splitting the bill. The cashier had noted what a gentleman Ben was and you’d grumbled something impolite under your breath so low that only Ben could hear.

But Ben couldn't help you with everything, well, you didn't trust him to close his eyes when you needed help getting dressed or needed help washing your hair.

For those little things, Annie would come over, but she hadn't been sympathetic to your pleas to make Ben let you out of the apartment. In fact, when you hoped Ben wasn't listening she'd made a comment about exactly what you should be doing with a hot older man while being trapped in an apartment with only one bed. The raspberry vines that cling to the refrigerator had started spitting raspberries at her when she said it. And then Ben had looked over the back of the couch at the two of you and said "that's what I keep telling her."

At least when my grandmother was here she didn’t pry about Ben and me.

Your grandmother had stayed for three days following your return from the hospital, sleeping next to you on your queen sized bed before she went back to Illinois and everyday you were more surprised how much she and Ben knew each other. The easy way they spoke to one another, the jokes, the teasing, and the poker games that always ended in your grandmother winning an almost obscene amount of money from Ben all made your head spin. Especially, because whenever she won Ben would accuse her of "cheating," and she'd only roll her eyes and state that someone as old as Ben should be better at poker. But the way he'd said she was cheating was different, not as if she had cards up her sleeve, but if there was some other reason why she could cheat. It was confusing and a little frustrating, because you were terrible at poker.

You didn't understand how you could be that bad, but then Ben had poked the skin between your eyebrows that scrunched under his scrutiny and stated that you were "too easy to read" while your grandmother laughed at you.

She still wouldn’t answer your questions about how she knew Ben, but to you it appeared to be more than them running into each other a few times, it almost seemed like a friendship. You believed her when she said that they didn’t sleep together, but you didn't understand how they could have been friends. She'd never spoken about that part of her life with you before, just her childhood and when she met your grandfather. Needless to say it was like you were seeing a different person when she was around Ben.

Deep down you wondered if she was a supe, but she'd never said that before and you didn’t know why she would keep something like that from you, not when you were one too.

But when Ben noticed how discouraged you got playing poker, he let you look over his shoulder at his hand and watch him play. He was very much in his element and every few hands he would make a joke about playing strip poker to which your grandmother would reply "If you want to be naked that bad Ben, you might as well just go down to the corner and put it to good use."

When she left you were sad to see her go and even Ben seemed a little more moody than usual, almost as if he missed having her around. You missed her too. While she stayed with you, you hadn't had the nightmare, but the night she left you did. You'd woken up gasping for air, the unnatural flash of whitish blue light that raced towards the windshield from the dream vibrating against your skin. Ben had come in to check on you, without breaking down the door, and he'd sat with you until you calmed down enough to fall asleep.

But it was still unusual that Ben acted like he missed your grandmother. You'd never met any other friends that Ben had besides Legend and you wondered if Ben really was as lonely as you thought he was. In the past you'd ascribed that to the reason why he went out with so many women, but this time it only confused you because Ben hadn't been out with a single person all week. You couldn’t think of a reason why that was or what could have changed for Ben to avoid using Tinder. If anything you'd thought he would be bored sitting around the apartment with you, but he wasn't. He'd sit with you on the couch watching a movie or read the paper when you read your book, not talking about anything in particular.

There was only one subject you wanted to discuss.

The two of you hadn't talked about what almost happened on the couch when you slept together when Darren was visiting or the way Ben gently touched you in the hospital. You'd mentally compartmentalized it to being a fluke and were happy that things were going back to normal or at least normal-ish.

But sometimes your mind would wander to how Ben acted when you were in the hospital, how he'd cupped and held your face, how he'd touched you so reverently, what he'd said about not wanting to leave you with Elijah, and how angry he looked when he found out exactly what Elijah had tried to do.

But whenever you thought about talking to him about that, you’d only shake off the urge and ascribe it to Ben wanting to try and be friends. The exact thing that you'd suggested to him the night of the party.

He's respecting me. If he wants to be friends I can be friends with him. Even if he is acting weird.

In fact, this morning, he'd walked with you to the shop this morning as if it was a normal day.

*2 Hours Ago*

Ben frowns at you. "Maybe you should rest one more day-"

He'd been saying that the entire walk to the shop, but you weren't going to give him the satisfaction of letting him trap you in the apartment for another day.

“Ben it'll be fine. I've rested enough-" You rolled your eyes at him, confused that he was making such a big deal about this. It was both annoying and frustrating you how overprotective he was acting and it was making you mad.

“What about your arm? You can’t lift anything-“ He presses.

“Jake is here for that.” You gestured with your head to where Jake was hovering behind the two of you at the register counting the till while pretending not to listen.

"That makes me feel a hell of a lot better. You think that fucking twink can lift more than me?" Ben scoffs. “Maybe I should stay.”

"Why?"

"So I can lift things!"

“Stop babying me Gramps!"

“I'm not babying you!" He rolls his eyes at the nickname.

“Yes you are! Why are you acting like a helicopter parent? I'm fine. It's been a week and I am completely and utterly-"

Ben's hand comes up and pushes back a strand of hair behind your ear, his thumb lingering for just a second too long against your cheek. The motion makes you freeze, the warmth of his skin like a siren call. "I don't think you need to come back to work so soon." He says quietly, eyes flicking up to where Jake is before he lowers his voice even more. “You were kidnapped and you got hurt. Not to mention that asshole tried to-" Ben's gaze loses any of the softness it held as he remembers what you told him about what Elijah did.

"Ben." You whisper raising your hand to gently touch his wrist. "I promise I'm okay. I'm not doing this to prove anything. I want to be here. I like being here."

"And you don't like being at home with me." Ben whispers it so low that you almost miss it. He withdrawals his hand from your cheek looking angry.

The memory of the day you walked in on Ben talking to Bean hovers over you:

"Why does she hate me so much?"

When you’d heard Ben ask Bean that it hurt you. You didn't want Ben to think that you hated him. He frustrated you and annoyed you, but you didn’t hate him.

Well, he hasn't been annoying me as much lately.

And if anything you were trying not to think about how much you liked being at home with Ben, how much you liked spending time with him. It was easier to try not to focus on that, not when Ben was acting like someone you could love.

Ben doesn't believe in love, not after everything that got fucked up with Countess. I don't think I could ever fall in love with someone like him either. Sure he's attractive, but he's so damn annoying.

"Look at me." You lay your hand on his arm to draw his gaze back to you. Ben almost looks a little embarrassed that you heard him say it and you watch his eyes flick over your head to where Jake is. You pull him through the plants to give the two of you some privacy. "I don't hate you. And I'm not doing this because I don't want to be at home with you." Your cheeks flush with the word 'home.'

Ben kept using it so casually, but to you it always meant something else. Home was the place where you went where no one judged you, where you went to be with the people who loved you unconditionally, and where you felt that you could be yourself with no judgement. Not to mention you believed that eventually your "home" would become a person. Or at least that was what you wanted to happen. Those prospects were looking pretty slim as of late and you were still on the fence about online dating.

Hughie and Annie met the old fashioned way so why should I have to go on an online site only to be rejected based on looks only?

You refocus on the conversation that you're having with Ben.

"I want things to go back to normal, before everything that happened with Darren and Elijah. And this is the only way that I know how." The mention of Elijah's name brings the memory of him on top of you to simmer beneath the surface. You were trying to forget, but every once in a while the memory would come creeping back in bringing the chill of the first frost in its wake to brush against your skin.

Ben's expression softens. "That quack at the hospital said you should rest."

"You mean the man who went to school for over four years to get a degree told me to rest?"

"Then he knows what the fuck he's talking about!"

"Ben-"

"Petals." He sighs the nickname in the soft way that makes a tingle travel down your spine. Ben had been saying it like that more often confusing you further. "You went through a lot and I'm trying to make sure that you’re okay.”

Why does he care about that?

“I am okay.” You whisper. “I’m sick of being on house arrest in the apartment. I can only watch so many of your old films before I go completely insane.”

“They’re not that bad.”

"Debatable."

Ben sighs again, but he seems to realize that you're not going to budge. You were just as stubborn as he was and you knew that he hated that about you. "Fine. I've got to do something today anyway."

"You got a date?"

You meant it as a joke, but for some reason you feel a twinge deep down that you weren't expecting.

"No." For a moment you think Ben almost looks offended by the suggestion. "Butcher's helping me with something."

"With what? You hate Butcher. And why would he want to do you a favor?"

"Because he wants to find the sick son of a bitch as much as I do!" Ben growls, the soft look in Ben's eyes goes dark as you realize who he's talking about.

You hadn't heard from Darren since everything with Elijah. Not that you expected to. Darren's things had vanished from your apartment and he was gone without a trace. Butcher had tried to track the phone Darren had, but it was out of service. You didn’t want to see him and you didn’t want to think about him, not after everything he'd put you through. It was like Darren to suddenly show up with an apology and say everything that you wanted him to. In the past you'd thought it was because he cared about you and didn't want to lose you, but it was becoming more and more apparent that Darren knew exactly what to say to get you to forgive him. He played you so easily that it broke your heart.

It was hard for you to acknowledge that and hard for you to believe that after all these years the relationship you had with your brother had been a lie, a well rehearsed play that Darren performed whenever he was in town.

And this time you weren't going to forgive him. Not when he'd given you to Elijah like a form of payment. Darren was done using you and you were ready to cut him out of your life.

At least, that was what you told yourself anyway. Sometimes when it was dark and you were all alone in your room you thought that maybe you should forgive him because he was your brother and you didn’t want to abandon him. You'd never admit that out loud, and certainly not in front of Ben, but you weren't sure if you were strong enough to turn Darren down if he reappeared.

"Oh." You look down at your shoes for a second while chewing on the inside of your cheek.

There's an awkward silence that passes through the two of you, charged with the same energy that hovered between you when you were back at the hospital. And you can’t help but think that Ben looks disappointed that he has to leave. You again wonder why he was being so overprotective, especially when he said that he didn't care about you.

That was another thing that you were starting to believe was a lie, Ben cared about you even if he didn't want to admit it, because someone who cared wouldn't do everything he had done for you over the past week.

"Petals?"

"Yes Gramps?" You look up at him mentally preparing for him to ask you again if you're okay, but he doesn't.

"Don’t get into any strange cars." Ben's lips tilt up into a smirk.

"Even if they say they have candy?"

Ben only shakes his head, but then he lingers for a second too long, as if he's waiting for something. "And try not to break anything else." He mutters and then he's gone.

Why is he acting so weird?

*Present Time*

"Because Ben said-" Jake says, snapping you out of the memory of Ben saying goodbye.

"When did you guys talk?" You look up at him from the table in shock.

"Well, I tried to come see you three days ago and he didn't let me in. He said you needed rest and that I should come back later." He explains, emptying another box of cacti.

"You came by?" You ask him confused. The cacti are in multicolored pots and you try your best to avoid the spines as you shift them over the table into position.

"Yeah. Ben said he'd tell you that I did."

"Huh."

Ben hadn't told you that Jake came by, hadn't mentioned it once and he'd had plenty of opportunities to tell you. The two of you were practically both living on the couch, because Ben was making you watch all of his old movies. You think that he was trying to impress you with his acting skills, but all it did was make you mock him endlessly for the cheesy lines and the ridiculous helmet they made him wear as a part of his supe suit. You had taken to repeating the lines from the movies at the most inopportune times to tease him and Ben had started teasing you with quotes from the romance novels that you liked.

Your cheeks flushed at the memory.

It had been embarrassing. You were reading on the couch quietly to yourself and were so absorbed in the scene that Ben had snuck up behind you to read over your shoulder. It hadn't helped that you were at a particular steamy part. He'd made a joke of wanting to re-enact whatever you wanted from the chapter and you'd stomped away to take a shower. It was getting harder to deny his requests to sleep with you, especially when Ben was acting different than he usually did and had been acting like a new person since you got back from the hospital.

"He didn't tell you?" Jake looks disappointed.

"Gramps is forgetful sometimes." You frown at the display between the two of you.

Why didn’t he tell me that Jake came by? Jake has been so sweet. He brought me all those plants and he was worried about me. Or at least… You bite the inside of your cheek remembering what Ben said about when Jake came to the hospital:

"He was fawning all over you like a fucking pussy, thought he was going to cry."

You hadn't thought about Jake at all, other than the occasional wave of guilt for leaving him without any help for a whole week. But it was weird that Ben hadn't told you that Jake stopped by, because when Mike brought you a bouquet of yellow roses Ben had let him in and stood with a cup of coffee in the kitchen smirking at you as Mike talked with you for thirty minutes about how nice the weather was outside. It made you want to strangle Ben, but as retaliation when Mike's mother came by later with a basket of wheat grass muffins and something that looked like green sludge you'd invited her in to talk with Ben. She'd sat on the couch in a bright pink mumu, rubbing his upper thigh and talking about her ex-husband while Ben glared at you every chance he got and you sipped a cup of blueberry tea and laughed quietly to yourself.

"Why do you call him that?" Jake asks while putting down a golden barrel and grabbing a fishhook cactus carefully to avoid the spikes.

"Because he acts like a grumpy old man." You snort to yourself thinking of how cute you thought it was when Ben acted all crochety and frustrated by modern day technology.

"He does." Jake laughs. "So…"

"So?"

"Are you guys together?"

"What?" You sputter looking up from the plants to Jake with wide eyes. "Why do you think that?"

"Well he's always around." Jake picks up the empty box and stacks it on top of another one. "And he always acts kind of…" Jake shrugs.

"Kind of what?"

"Jealous. He's always mad at me for some reason."

"That's just how he is. You gotta peel back the layers like an onion when it comes to him." The words are easy, but you can't help but be a little bit surprised. You were defending Ben. You’d never defended him before, made fun of him, apologized for him, but never defended him. "I mean he's-" You prick your thumb on one of the spikes. "Ow."

"Did it get'cha?" Jake snorts.

"Yeah must be losing my touch. Went soft on all my days off."

"You deserved those days off. You needed to rest-"

You roll your eyes. "Please don't say the r word again. Ben's been saying it for the past week."

"I'm serious." Jake picks up another golden barrel and arranges it on a higher platform on the display. "There's something going on between the two of you."

"You mean Ben driving me to the point of insanity?"

"No. I mean the guy is always watching you-"

"He likes to stare at my ass." You roll your eyes at Jake. "What else is new?"

His cheeks flush with your mention of Ben's interest in your body. "I don’t mean like that. He always looks at you when you're working."

Your straighten up from the floor with a fresh box of Christmas Cactus, arranging the long tendrils so that they are hanging down over the edge of the table. "What do you mean?"

"Sometimes I see him walk by later in the day when you're reading at the register."

What? When has Ben been walking by and why? Is he spying on me?

"What? When?"

Jake shrugs. "I don't know just sometimes. He never comes in. One time he walked by with two cups of coffee, but he just kept walking."

Probably for one of his dates.

"Ben isn't interested in me like that. We're just friends and roommates." When you say that your chest gets a little bit tighter. "Ben doesn't have relationships, he has flings. The guy is basically a walking Trojan ad."

Jake runs a hand through his shaggy dirty-blond hair, to push it out of his face and away from his glasses. "I don't know, you didn't see him when you were asleep in the hospital. The guy was practically daring anyone to get close, like he was trying to protect you from something."

His words make you chew the inside of your cheek remembering what your grandmother said about Ben yelling at the doctors and the nurses and make you think about how overprotective Ben seemed to be acting over the past few days.

Ben is just trying to be a better friend. He knows that I went through a lot.

Annie had also been acting overprotective as well. She kept bringing things by the apartment to make your life easier with the cast and she kept bringing by food. She'd also brought by a big bag of thrifted romance books that she had found at your favorite used bookstore Inky's Inspirations and the two of you had spent the better part of a day devouring them. She was making more time for you because you knew that she felt bad about you getting hurt, and Hughie came by too. Ben didn't share the same enthusiasm that Hughie had for conversation, but whenever Ben was mean you would glare at him and Ben would huff out something under his breath and try to contribute more to the conversation.

"That's just how he is. Ben is kinda," You wave a hand. "Protective of his friends."

"I noticed." Jake frowns. "But I guess I'll take your word for it."

An awkward silence follows and the two of you finish the display, but you can't stop thinking about Ben walking past the shop.

How many times did he do that? And why? He always seems to hate walking and makes a big deal about me walking by myself. Why would he want to walk here all the way from Butcher's?

"Why don't you go check out the display of herbs by the register? I'm not sure how to arrange the Rosemary and the Oregano."

"Sure." You shrug heading back through the aisles that spill vines onto the concrete floor, your hand sliding through the leaves as you walk, feeling the plants begin to perk up with your gentle touch. The browning leaves vanished, the drooping stems straightened, and the plants turned up to you as if you were the sun.

Being here again and having a normal day was making you feel better. At home your plants had needed some TLC after you were gone for so many days and as hard as Jake tried to maintain every single plant in the store, you knew that it was too much for him to contain. Things like that were easy for you.

The day passes by slowly. Ben had told you that he'd be there to pick you up at closing and you found yourself checking the clock. You'd never done that before. When you were working in the past you never wished for the day to be over, but for some reason the idea that Ben was going to pick you up made you almost happy.

The shiny metal bell above the door jingled as the last customer of the day entered the shop, but you don't look up from the bouquet of flowers you were arranging for a last minute birthday order that someone called in for tomorrow morning. You didn't often do them, but Jake was busy breaking down the display of flowering plants in the other window and you were more than happy to help out.

Even if it was difficult with one hand.

You could hear whoever it was coming closer to the register, the sound of their shoes clunking against the weathered gray concrete floors with every step.

"Welcome in. Can I help you with something?" You don't look away from the sunflowers in the vase in front of you, using one hand to place some holly ferns to give it a bit more green before you reach for the baby's breath that sits in a bundle on the vintage wooden bar that served as a desk for the register.

"Well I'm not sure. Do you have anything that says 'I'm sorry my friend kidnapped you?'" A familiar voice asks.

Your head jerks upwards at the sound of the voice, but you already know who it is.

Darren stands there in his traditional black army jacket. His blonde buzzed hair is blindingly white in the sunlight that comes through the wide glass windows at the front of the shop, catching the glint of the gunmetal colored hoops in his right eyebrow. His smile is sheepish, apologetic, and if you hadn’t been through what you did, you might have believed that it was genuine.

"Darren?" Your voice is no more than a whisper, surprise leaking into it as you utter your brother's name.

You didn’t actually think that he would come to see you, not when he knew who Ben really was, and not when he knew that you knew he sacrificed you to save his own skin.

"Hey sissy. Did you miss me?"

The nickname strikes a nerve deep down.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Jake glances over from the front window his eyes widening at your sudden outburst. He'd never met your brother before and he knew that something must be wrong if you were angry. Jake knew you well enough to know how composed you were most of the time and knew that for you to be angry something must really be wrong.

"I wanted to see you. Can I give you a hug?" Darren holds out his arms towards you.

"What do you think?"

"But you love hugs." He makes a step towards the end of the register.

"If you take another step I'm going to scream. What are you doing here?" You say again.

"I told you. I wanted to see you. I haven't been able to see you since-"

“Since you handed me over to Elijah to pay off your fucking gambling debt?” The baby's breath in your hand crumbles into a ball, but you barely feel it.

“See." Darren rolls his eyes and holds up a finger. "I knew you’d overreact. You’re way too sensitive.”

“Overreact? OVERREACT? He locked me in a fucking freezer!” You spit. “He tried to-“ A cold feeling rises and prickles against your skin when you remember the weight of Elijah’s body on yours and the way his hand squeezed your throat. The purplish-black marks were still there, but hidden under a burgundy ribbed turtle neck sweater that you'd put on this morning. You figured it would be hard to explain those marks to Jake, especially when Annie had told him you were in a car accident.

“Hey, is everything okay over here?” Jake interrupts. He wipes this dirt covered hands on his jeans as he gets closer to where Darren is leaning against the front of the register.

"Yeah." You clear your throat. "Darren was just leaving."

"No, I'm not." Darren hasn't looked away from you and hasn't acknowledged Jake's presence. "I want to talk to you."

"Too bad. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say." You breathe, but you could feel a twinge in your heart. The love you had for your brother was ebbing just on the edge of the rage and heartbreak that you felt every time you think about what he did to you. It was difficult to treat him this way, not when you'd given in to whatever he wanted for so long. You hated that about yourself, hated the piece of you that wanted to forgive him.

But Darren does not move, in fact you can see the way his eyes flick over you as if he can sense that you're unsure.

"I want to talk this out." He says a little more forcefully.

"If she says that she doesn’t want to talk to you, I’m going to have to ask you to leave." Jake replies continuing to frown at your brother. They were both about the same height, but where Darren was rail-thin, Jake had a little bit more muscle to him. Not as much as Ben, but enough that he was bigger that your brother.

But you knew that it would do little good. Darren was even more stubborn that you were, and you could see the dangerous glint in his eyes that got him into trouble more times than you could count when the two of you were growing up.

“Try it four eyes." Darren's lips pull back in a challenge.

The lights overhead flicker for just a second, almost imperceivable to the eye. Jake crosses his arms over his chest in a way that you think he must believe is intimidating. “I’m going to ask you to leave one more time before I call the police.”

"And I said that I'm not going to fucking leave without talking to my sister."

"Sister?" Jake falters looking at you, his blue eyes wide in surprise behind his glasses.

You stand there for a moment trying to think of a way out of this. There's a little voice buzzing in your ear telling you that something is wrong, but you can't put your finger on it. And an even smaller voice whispering that you should call Ben.

I don't need him to handle this. Darren and I have to talk eventually and might as well do it now.

"Fine, but let's take this outside." You walk around from behind the register. "Jake has to lock up in fifteen minutes."

"Perfect! I just need five." Darren smiles at you the same way that he always has, the smile that you'd laughed with and allowed to reassure you, but this time all it does is make all of this worse.

When the two of you get outside, the sun is just starting to sink behind the buildings, bathing everything in a golden glow. Despite the situation it is a beautiful day. The smell of the bakery next door sent the soothing aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar each time it's door opened, the warmth of the sun was on your back and shoulders, the wind had picked up just enough to rustle your hair where it was pulled back from your face in a ponytail, and you could hear the children playing in the park just around the corner where the trees sent their long shadows over the playground.

Darren shifts from foot to foot and you can see the way he's trying to think of something to say, as if he's pretending that he didn't rehearse this in his head. You wonder if he's always done that, if he'd rehearsed everything he ever said to you because he knew exactly what to say to get you to agree for so long.

"Look Darren, I don't want to talk about this. Nothing that you're going to say is going to make any of this okay. Nothing that happened was okay! You left me there with him, you brought me to him, and then you lied about why I was really there."

"I'm sorry about that." Darren's gaze softens, eyebrows furrowing in mock sincerity. "Believe me, I wouldn't have taken you there if I knew that Elijah was going to do any of those things to you honey."

"Oh that is such-"

"I will admit that I did lie about why you were there. But I knew that you wouldn't come if I told you that it was for weed and Elijah really said he just wanted you to look at the plants for a few minutes. He didn't say anything about a freezer." Darren holds up his hands as if surrendering.

"And there it is! You admit that you lied to me, that you manipulated me to get me to go with you. And then you had the audacity to say that if I was uncomfortable we could go home!" You shout at him, narrowing your eyes. "Well Darren, I gotta tell you I was fucking uncomfortable in that damn freezer and in his damn office, and where were you? Oh right…" You tap your lips with the tip of your finger. "You left me there with that fucking psychopath!"

"I didn't leave you there! I called Richie and when I came back into the office, you were gone. Elijah told me that you left! I went back to your apartment and-" Darren frowns at you. He didn't like that you weren't listening to what he had to say.

"Do you expect me to believe any of that bullshit?" You plant your hands on your hips as you interrupt him, feeling a surge of anger swelling in your chest.

Even though the two of you are technically standing outside of the shop, you can still feel the energy from the plants inside, intertwining with you, strengthening you, and waiting for your command.

Truthfully ever since you'd killed Elijah you hadn't been able to forget it. You'd never used your powers like that before, never knew that you could, and never had fanaticized about that. But now, standing outside of the shop with your brother you could feel the plants calling out to you, asking you to command them, begging you to free them. You could feel them clawing in the dirt, the roots beneath writhing and unsettled, the flowers turning to watch Darren and you. Even the trees down the street that stood as stoic protectors over the children playing beneath their feet began to bend towards the two of you.

Sure in the past you'd been connected to the world around you, but ever since everything that happened with Elijah, your powers felt different, as if there was something else brewing and prickling beneath your skin that begged to be unleashed.

"I'm trying to apologize and you won't even listen to me!" Your brother shouts. Darren was leaning down over you, not as tall as Ben, but tall enough to be bigger than you.

You'd never feared him in the past, but you saw something flicker behind his eyes, something predatory, something that you'd never seen before in all the years that you'd spent with your brother.

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say Darren. I want you to leave-" You reply, hands still planted on your hips.

"No."

"No?"

"No. I can't stop by your damn apartment because you have that asshole hovering around. He would tear me to pieces before I got a chance to talk to you. And I want to explain what happened." Darren snaps back, eyes dark.

"I know what happened! Elijah told me exactly-"

"You're going to believe him over me? I'm your brother! I'm your blood, do you really think that I would have let Elijah do any of those things to you if I knew he would?"

"I don't know anymore."

It broke your heart to admit that aloud, but it was true. You didn't know if Darren cared about you at all and if he loved you the way that you loved him, if he ever had.

"What do you mean you don't know?" He looks hurt, shoulders slumping downward. "Sissy-"

"I-" You falter.

For just a fleeting moment the anger and heartbreak you feel towards your brother recedes just enough for the love you have for him begin to trickle back in. You wanted to believe that he cared about you. Frustrated tears burn in your eyes, because a part of you wants to push him away but there's another part that clings on with bloody fingertips and asks you to listen to him.

Because Darren was your family and all you could think of was if your parents were here what would they do? All those years that you supported your brother you'd thought that you were honoring their memory by refusing to turn your back on him. You wanted to love your brother, wanted to believe that everything he was saying was genuine, and all the years that you gave in to whatever Darren asked you were bearing down on you.

"Come on sissy. I love you. You're the only family that I have left." Darren soothes taking a step closer to you when he senses how hesitant you are to push him away.

"Well-"

"Please listen to-" Darren begins to say, but his entire body is yanked backward by something.

"She doesn't need to hear another fucking word you have to say." Ben snarls, holding Darren tightly by the throat above the sidewalk.

You hadn't seen him walk up. Ben could move silently when he wanted to and right now he looks murderous. There's a fire blazing behind his eyes turning them into heated furnaces of pure emerald, practically glowing in the last slips of the sunlight that peeks behind the buildings and stretches the shadows long over the almost empty street. His mouth is pulled back in a snarl as he stares at your brother, the grip he has on his throat tightening.

The couple across the street gasp when they watch Darren struggle in Ben's unbreakable grip, but Ben doesn't acknowledge them.

"I made you a promise." Ben's voice is a low growl as he holds Darren up so high off the ground that Darren's feet kick helplessly in the air. "You should have stayed gone you insignificant piece of shit."

Darren's eyes flash to yours. "Are you really going to let him treat me this way? I'm your brother!"

Ben's grip tightens on his throat and Darren grabs on to Ben's wrist.

You stand there frozen in horror unable to speak. A part of you is screaming for Ben to let him go and another part of you is begging for Ben to do what you don't think you can. You felt so weak in that moment, unable to turn your back on your brother, on the abuser, the manipulator, and the man who used you for years.

Ben's eyes flick to yours for a moment, something passing through his gaze that you can't understand, but it gives you strength.

"Sissy?" Darren's voice sounds so broken.

"Ben. Put him down." You say.

"What?" Ben snaps, eyes flashing.

"Please. Put him down." You breathe, your eyes catching Ben's for a moment.

Ben's jaw is tight, the muscles in his torso tense, but he does what you say with a grunt. Darren's body falls onto the sidewalk and he gasps for air, touching his throat as he gets to his feet.

Darren smiles at you through the deep breaths. "I knew you wouldn't let him-"

"Leave" You say as calmly as you can, but there's a slight tremor on the edge of your voice.

Ben takes a step closer to you when he hears it, but he doesn't touch you. He's still staring down Darren, eyebrows pulled tight together, and his mouth turned down into a frown with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. You know that he's probably a little pissed at you that you told him to put Darren down, but you also couldn't believe that he listened to you.

"What?" Darren stutters.

"Leave." You repeat. "I never want you to come back here ever."

"But I'm your-"

"If you say that you're her fucking brother one more time, I'm going to rip you in half." Ben's hands clench at his sides and you know that he's holding himself back from grabbing Darren again.

“You’re my family. I love you.” Darren says, the edge of his voice cracking just a little bit, but there's something behind his gaze that makes you pause. You're not sure if it's because he's trying to hide how mad he is at Ben or what, but there is something unsettling about the way he's looking at you.

“I don’t think you do.” It broke you to say it, to admit it out loud. “I’ve let you use me all these years, sacrificing my own happiness, my own success for you, because I loved you, but I don’t think you’ve ever once loved me. All you’ve done is look out for yourself.”

“That’s ridiculous-“

“When’s my birthday Darren?” You ask him, throat tight.

He freezes. “You're kidding right? You really think I don't know when your birthday is?"

"What have I been dreaming of doing since I was ten years old?"

"Sissy-"

"Your birthday is June 12th." You reply without stuttering. "Since you were thirteen years old your dream has been to own a blue 1970 Chevelle with black racing stripes. But you can never seem to scrape together enough money to get one."

Darren visibly pauses with your answer.

"I pay attention to everything you tell me Darren. I remember everything because I love you. And if you loved me, you would know those things about me. You would actually care enough to remember that I hate surprises, that I hate that insipid nickname, and since I was eight years old the only thing that I've been dreaming about is to open up my own farmer's market."

"You're kidding right?" Darren snorts. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"And that's exactly why I don't believe that you love me. Because if you did you would support me the way that I've supported you for years."

"I-"

"No. I have sacrificed so much for you and you have never once done anything for me! So I'm asking you to leave, because as much as I love you, I can't do this anymore." The tears were blurring your vision, but you were holding it together the best you could. Ben was now standing so close to you that his arm was almost touching yours and you feel his fingertips brush the back of your hand just for a second, as if he wants to hold your hand but he doesn't.

"But-" Darren gapes, mouth wide open.

"She told you to fucking scram Dipshit." Ben snarls his eyes narrowing at your brother.

You could tell that it was taking a lot of effort on Ben's part not to turn Darren into mush and it made you grateful that he was here. Because Ben was letting you handle it, but he was there for you if you needed him to be. It was the first time that you realized how much you needed him with you.

Darren stands there for a minute eyeing Ben and you, emotions running together across his face merging with one another, his eyes darkening. And then he does something you didn't expect.

Darren begins to laugh.

Not just a little giggle or a snort, a deep throated rumble that shakes his body as he doubles over laughing so hard that he begins to wheeze.

"Oh sissy. I've been waiting for this for years. You have no idea." Darren continues to laugh, gasping for air and putting his hands on his thighs to hold himself steady.

What the hell is happening?

"What?" You ask tentatively. Even Ben is looking at him in surprise.

"Man. I've been wondering for years how long it would take you to finally grow a fucking backbone, but wow. I never thought it would be now." He starts to slow clap. "I'm impressed."

"What are you talking about?"

The glint in his eyes was back and Darren was smiling wide, so wide that you could see all his teeth. It reminded you of when Annie and you used to watch Crocodile Hunter on tv when you were kids and would huddle together watching Steve Irwin fearlessly handle them.

Darren's smile turns more into a smirk. "Kinda a good thing too, because I don't need you anymore, not with the way business is going. Honestly, I should thank your boyfriend. He solved a major problem for me."

"What problem?" Ben snarls.

"Elijah." Darren laughs out the name. "When I found out that you were Soldier Boy and saw how friendly you were with my sister at that ridiculous fundraiser. I knew that you'd come save her and kill Elijah. Poisoning his plants and letting it slip at that my sister just happened to be a plant supe at a poker game was the only way that I could get her involved and Elijah jumped at the chance.

He was at the fundraiser? When was he at the fundraiser?

"Why would you do that?" You ask in surprise.

What in the actual fuck is going on? He planned for Elijah to take me? He purposely poisoned the plants?

You were seeing a different side of Darren. Growing up he'd always had a temper, but Darren was never conniving or cunning. He never planned ahead more than an hour. It was always you that had to remind him to do things and you that begged him to at least think ahead for the entire week.

He's not some criminal mastermind. The guy doesn't believe that pickles used to be cucumbers for fucks sake.

"He was bad for business, he was already encroaching on my territory with the weed and then he said he was going to expand into cars and I couldn't have that. So." Your brother shrugs.

"But I don't understand why?"

Ben looks just as confused as you do, but the anger has not vanished from his eyes. You realize that Ben is waiting for you to say the word for him to start in on Darren. And it made you feel grateful again that he was here with you.

"Oh sissy you're still so innocent. I almost feel bad for you, not really. But" Darren flashes another brilliant smile that doesn't seem to fit the conversation the three of you are having. "I guess I should thank you. I would have never been able to build an empire without you."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Ben spits.

He was getting tired of Darren's monologuing and frankly so were you. An odd feeling prickled against your skin, splattering and splashing like oil in a skillet and the plants in the shop behind you pressed themselves against the windows as if trying to warn you. There was something wrong about this whole situation, something that you knew that you were missing, but you couldn’t put your finger on it.

"And to think I was so upset when you survived that night." Darren looks disappointed, but he chuckles. "Of course my aim now is a little bit better than it was then." His eyes pulse a dangerous electric blue and an unnatural hum fills the air. "I've had the practice."

He's a supe? How long has he been a-

The thought stutters to a halt when you realize what he said.

"Your aim? What do you-"

The words are barely out of your mouth, when the cold shock of what he's talking about hits you like you'd been dunked into a bucket of cold water. The memory of the night your parents died comes crashing over you in a wave and you're transported into the backseat of the car. The supple leather beneath your fingertips, the chill of the air conditioning, the melding of your parent's voices to "Nights In White Satin," the patter of rain against the metal roof that streaked across the glass windows, and the sticky remnants of chocolate ice cream on your cheeks. The unnatural flash of white light illuminates the interior of the car, the light that seemed to crackle and pulse across the space in front of the vehicle and seemed to come from in front of the car and not above the way the cops said it had.

The same flash of light that everyone said was lightning, but now you knew better.

You remembered it all, the hum of electricity in the air as the bolt hit the car and your dad jerking the wheel and sending the car over the bridge, and the sound of your mother's scream ringing in your ears just before the jolt of the car hitting the water and everything went black.

"No." You whisper taking a step back from your brother. "It was you?"

Horror and shock clamps down around your throat making it difficult to breathe.

Why would he do something like that? They were our parents. Why would he want to kill the two people who loved him as unconditionally as they loved me?

You didn't have one unhappy memory from the childhood you spent with your parents. The house was always warm, filled with the smell of baked goods, and the love your parents had for one another and for Darren and you. Every day was fused with wonder and excitement, and the weekends were filled with surprise trips to places that you’d never been before. They cared so much for the two of you, sacrificing the big things in their lives so they could be around Darren and you.

Darren wasn't with us in the car, he said he had homework and that he couldn't come with us to my recital.

Darren smiles wider, proud that you figured it out. "I was worried that you saw me standing on the road that night in the rain. That's why I left for a few days after the accident, but when I showed up again and you were so happy to see me, I saw my chance. You didn't know that it was me and there wasn't a need for me to stay gone."

"But why? Why would you do that?"

Darren's expression turns murderous. "Do you have any idea what it was like being second best to you my whole life?" Electricity jumps from his fingertips, flashing a dangerous blue and crackling in the air. "What it was like to be your brother?"

Holy fuck he's the electric supe. And the empire that Elijah was encroaching on was his chop shop.

The thought blazes through you and you remember what Elijah said about "expanding into automotives."

Of course Darren needed us to take Elijah out. Elijah had money and had the means to destroy Darren, but without the competition then…

You blink to bring your thoughts back together, realizing what your brother just said to you. “What are you talking about? You were never second best-"

"Yes I was!" He seethes. "You’ve always been the special one. The supe, the favorite, the golden child. I could never touch you! You're the one that mom and dad were so proud of.”

Darren takes a step forward and Ben mirrors the move, shifting his body in front of you to protect you from Darren, but Darren doesn't take his eyes off you. His face is contorted in hate, anger flaring white hot in his eyes that still glow an unnatural and dangerous bright blue. The air is full of the energy, popping and crackling along Darren's skin with every pulse of electricity.

"Darren-" You begin to say, but he interrupts.

"No." He snarls. "I'm talking now. You can't shut me up. Do you have any idea how long I've waited for this? They put you on a fucking pedestal for years. You were the one with all the toys all the talent. You're the one that they gave the Compound V to. I had to scavenge and scrape together enough money to bribe a friend of mine to swipe some from his mother's hospital."

So that's how he got it.

Anger, rage, heart break, and shock were fighting in your chest for dominance. You could feel the burn of tears in your eyes understanding that the brother you thought that you'd loved for all these years was also the man who murdered your parents in cold blood.

He tried to kill you too.

The thought was everywhere, ricocheting around in your head, the truth that Darren hid for years finally coming out.

"I was made for more. You. You're nothing." Darren spits. "You're a disappointment. Mom and dad gave you the powers and all you do is sit in a fucking plant shop all day long. What about me? I can fucking fly! I can fry someone from thirty fucking feet away! I amounted to something. All you do is make the fucking flowers bloom."

You'd heard the insult before on the lips of the men Elijah employed, the men who underestimated you. You'd heard it before in the tone of voice your brother had when he spoke to you the other night when he came to crash in your apartment and took your bed.

The energy in the air was reaching a dangerous peak and you could still feel it scraping against your skin. The plants in the shop behind you are pressed tight against the window and you have no idea where Jake is, only that you hope he's far away from whatever is about to happen.

Anger pulses hard and fast in your chest, sending a bitter taste into your mouth. "Oh you amounted to something? You didn't amount to anything! You’re still just a sack of shit that’s I’ve been dragging around. And I can't believe that I let you do it to me for years! You don’t care about me you don’t love me-"

"Of course I fucking don’t! I never have!"

"And then you killed the two people who loved you unconditionally-"

"They didn't fucking love me!" Darren snarls. "The only thing they loved was you. A pathetic little bitch who should have just keeled over and died like a good girl."

Ben's hand comes out and grabs Darren by the front of his jacket hauling him up into the air. "Don't you fucking speak to her that way." His voice is no more than a growl, rumbling low in his chest, his own eyes flashing a deep green, darker than you'd ever seen before. His skin has taken on a golden glow, coming through the dark t-shirt and pair of jeans he was wearing and the smell of ozone fills the air around the three of you.

"What are you going to do Benny?" Darren's body is glowing a blue beneath his outfit. "Show me that famous Soldier Boy temper? Fuck, you're just as pathetic as she is, nothing more than a washed up-"

Ben isn't holding on to Darren anymore, Darren's body is flying back into the street with the force of Ben's throw, but it doesn't strike ground, it gets hit mid-air by a passing bright red minivan. Darren's body flips backwards over the top of the car and lands in the street in a broken heap.

You're still frozen on the sidewalk as Ben sails in to beat down Darren's body where it lies, but there's an awful flash of bright blue light and an SUV that was parked on the street goes flying into Ben, propelling both of them into the bakery next door to the plant shop. The loud crashing of glass and brick with the force of the hit rings in your ears.

"Ben!" You shout, but he's no where in sight.

Darren stands from the ground, one of his arms hanging limply at his side and there's a bloody gash on his forehead that drips blood down into his eye, but and when Darren smiles, blood smears the inside of his usually white teeth.

"Goodbye sissy."

You don't have time to react. The bolt of lightning catches you in the center of the chest and throws you backwards into the plant shop. There's a terrible feeling of weightlessness, before your body hits the glass windows and slams into the flowering plant display that Jake had been working on when Darren showed up.

You land on your back hard, head hitting the concrete with a sickening crack that you feel vibrate through your entire body. Pain is everywhere. There's glass imbedded in your back, the cast on your arm is cracked open, your leg is burning and you're afraid to look down to see what you'll find. You can taste blood in your mouth and feel something sticky underneath your head that you're sure is the same.

You stare up at the florescent lights of the shop for a moment, the revelation of everything your brother had done beginning to finally sink in.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me.

Tears burn and fall down your cheeks with the thought. Emotions swirling in your chest too fast to name.

I spent years taking care of him, letting him berate me, manipulate me, use me for whatever he needed and not once did he love me. I was so stupid. How could I have been so stupid?

The plants were circling around you, calling out to you, brushing against your broken body as you continued to lay there staring up at the ceiling. Black was starting to close in on the edge of your vision, making everything go a little bit fuzzy, but your mind was awake.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me.

You think again, but you still can't move. You feel the trailing vines of the plants touching your legs, wrapping over them, laying down over your chest, and creeping up towards your broken arm and your face. They were whispering to you, asking your permission, begging you to let them free.

He killed our parents, he tried to kill me, and he tried to kill Ben.

And with that thought, you feel the rage begin to take over, burning hot and beating against your rib cage like a drum.

The plants around you begin to glow a vivid green, binding around your limbs, their strength flooding into your body as you call them forth to help you. The healing energy wrapping you in a cocoon of energy and life, taking away your pain. Pieces of glass fall from your skin, your bones knit back together, your skin closes and the scars left behind disappear as if they never happened.

You rise from the ground, the plants that wrapped around you no more than blackened tendrils of what they used to be, crunching underfoot as you make your way towards the front of the shop. You could feel the energy thrumming through your veins, the wounds you had were gone, the exhaustion and fatigue washed away by the plants that gave what life they had to make you whole.

You'd only ever given life to things that needed you, you'd never once considered that you could take it away.

Darren is still standing in the street, looking proud of himself, but when he sees you reappear in the broken window his smile falters.

"Guess you can take a hit." Darren shrugs. "I'm a little impressed-"

"Our entire lives you’ve never appreciated me. All I did all was listen to you, do everything I could to love and support you. I did whatever you asked without question. I spent so much of my own money, sacrificing little things in my life, doing ridiculous jobs to make a little bit extra, because I thought I was helping you.”

“You did.” Darren sneers. “I never had to work-“

“I’m not finished.” You snap. “I have given so much of myself to you and all it did was enable you. Annie was right and our grandmother was right. You are a leech. All you do is take and take until there's nothing left, and you don't care who you hurt."

"Look who's finally seeing the bigger picture!"

"I am." Your heart was running a mile a minute and you could still feel the remnants of power from the plants thrumming in your veins. "You're a parasite and Ben was right, I was too stupid to see it, too conditioned to believe that you cared about me. But you don't, the only person you care about is yourself." Your voice trembles just a little bit as you say those words, but you knew it was true. "I'm sorry that you spent your entire life believing that our parents didn't love you, I'm sorry that I wasted so much of my own money and time taking care of you, and I'm sorry that after all this time there's still apart of me that wants to forgive you even though you don't deserve it."

"Oh no sissy did I hurt your feelings?" Darren puffs out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "What are you gonna do? Throw a spinach puff at me?" He cackles. "You're so pathetic. You really think that Mr. American Dream and you can beat me? Please." Bluish white arcs of energy illuminate the air around him, catching in the long shadows, emanating out from his body. His skin has gone an even paler shade of white, his veins a dark blue beneath. "In Greek mythology Zeus is the king of the gods. And all the others bow to him." He raises a hand and the electricity dances across his palm. "Have you come to bow?"

“No, because you were wrong about one thing.” You feel your eyes shift to bright green with your words, the plants in the store behind you screaming for blood, writhing together in a tangled mass in the depths of the shop.

"And what’s that sissy?” Darren snorts.

“Ben didn’t kill Elijah. I did.”

The building that housed "Please Don't Die" explodes behind you raining brick, mortar, and rubble on the street around where you stand. The creature that crawls forward on broken limbs and tangled roots from the remnants of the store is the size of a city bus. It looks like a large lizard, the claws easily the size of your forearm, it's head the size of a washing machine, and the body rippling with muscle woven from stems, leaves, and vines to claw it's way from the rubble on four legs.

Darren stares up at it in shock, confused at it's sudden appearance.

It opens it's mouth, revealing a mouth full of broken sticks fashioned into points, and lets loose a roar that shakes the parked cars that line the street. You could feel your body intertwined with it, the creature an extension of yourself, the rage, anger, and frustration you felt pouring through the veins of the behemoth that towered over the empty street.

This has never happened before, but it felt right. As if everything inside of you had been building from this, since the moment you used your power to kill Elijah your powers had felt different, amplified. And now standing in the street with the creature at your command it feels cosmically correct. There's a switch inside that flipped the right way and for the first time in your life, you feel powerful.

Darren tries to blast you backward again, but the lizard is faster than he expected it to be absorbing the bolt of electricity. It plows head first into Darren, knocking him back into the pavement. He lets out a yell of surprise, the sound of his head hitting the pavement echoing down the street.

You could feel your body thrumming with power, electrifying your veins, exploding from every nerve ending, and charging through skin and sinew to recreate you into something that you never knew existed and never knew you could be.

The creature's clawed hand is on Darren's chest, flattening him down into the street, and he struggles beneath it electricity crackling in the air. The lizard stares down at him with unblinking eyes, not reacting to the arcs of bluish-white light that pulse from Darren's hands.

It looks over it's massive shoulder at you, the plants that formed it’s body asking your permission, bending to your will, opening it's mouth to click in a broken language that only you understand. You can hear the little whispers of the leaves against your ears and feel the roots and vines that knotted together to form the behemoth that takes up most of the street.

"Sissy-" Darren begins to say, his eyes wide. You could see him mentally calculating his mistake, his misinterpretation of what you were capable of, and see him trying to switch tactics to save his own skin.

But you don’t want to hear any of it anymore. You didn't want to waste another second of your life listening to anything he said.

"I'm your brother." He wheezes the clawed hand heavy on his chest, pushing him down into the pavement.

"I don’t have a brother." Your voice is cold and emotionless. "All you are is the asshole who killed my parents and used me in every way he could. And you're never going to use ever again. Goodbye Darren."

"Wait-"

The creature's jaws fasten onto Darren's head and his last words are cut off in the rip of teeth and crunch of bone.

You stand there watching the lizard tear at his body, gazing at the bloody mangled mass that was your brother and your creation that crouches above him. Blood drips from it's bloody maw onto the pavement, staining the street red and it looks at you as if waiting for your next command, but you can't move.

"Petals?" You hear Ben say from somewhere to your left, but you don't acknowledge him. "Are you okay?"

The rush you felt from the plants is gone, the green fading from your eyes, and the sound of Darren's final gasp still vibrating against your ears. The energy is slowly ebbing from your body and you're scared by what's left behind, because that meant that everything was about to come crashing back down on you.

The creature turns and moves closer to you, pressing it's giant head against your torso as if trying to comfort you. And you raise a hand to rub the top of it’s head you can't stop staring at the body, not quite comprehending everything that has happened in the past fifteen minutes.

Darren killed my parents, he deserved this, he tried to kill me, he tried to-

There were tears in your eyes, bubbling over, as you exhale a gasp and a bone shaking sob. Everything was crashing down over you quickly and you sink to your knees.

The creature seems to follow you down, growing smaller and smaller until it's no more than the size of your hand, and clings to your jean's pocket.

Darren's body is unrecognizable, lying in pieces, and scattered over the street. People were running and screaming in terror, but you couldn't hear them. You knew that the police would be coming quickly and you didn’t know how the fuck you were going to explain any of this. Not the giant lizard, not the destruction of the building behind you, and especially not explain any of this to Jake who you hoped wasn't hurt or worse.

You feel Ben's hand come down on your shoulder. "Petals look at me, come on."

"He killed them." You murmur, the memories of your parents flashing through your mind, all of them happy and in love. "He killed them because he thought they loved me more. It's all my fault." The memory of the nightmare grates across your skin sending a shudder through your body.

"Petals." Ben turns your face to look at him. His eyes are still filled with the force of his rage, but they are softer now, looking at you with an unreadable emotion that you'd only seen in the hospital when you woke up and Ben sat with you. His hand gently traces the curve of your cheek. "That was not your fault. Everything he did wasn't your fault. He was fucked in the head. He-"

"I can't do this." You swallow, pulling yourself from Ben and standing up on shaky legs.

"What?"

"I've got to get out of here." Your feet stumble slightly on the cracked pavement, and Ben catches your now unbroken arm to stabilize you, but also to stop you from leaving

"Let me make sure that you're okay first-"

"I'm not!" Your voice breaks. "None of what happened is okay. I'm not okay Ben I-" The sobs were coming closer together now, everything coming down hard and making it difficult to breathe. "I can't breathe. I-"

"Hey. Shhh-" Ben tries to step closer to you.

"No Ben." You shake your head, tugging your arm to tell him to let you go, but he doesn't. The tears fall faster, soaking through your bloody shirt.

Emotions were pummeling you, overwhelming you, and were making it difficult to speak and to think. The only thought you had was that you had to get the hell out of here, that you couldn't look at what used to be Darren anymore, and that you couldn't look at what used to be the shop you loved so much.

"Just wait a damn minute-" He says more forcefully, tightening his grip.

"No. Let me go."

"Petals-" He's saying it in the soft concerned way that he did whenever it was the two of you, but you couldn’t listen to it. All you could feel was the jumble of emotions in your head and the events of today beginning to press down over you. Darren's confessions and his death were crushing you into oblivion.

"Let me go Ben." You shout again, through a sob.

"I don't want to. Let me help damnit!"

"No, please." You shout, tears streaking down your face as he finally lets you go. "I need to be alone. I need to-" You gasp. "I need to go home."

The darkness was closing in quickly and you didn't know what to do. The tide was overwhelming, pulling you under with every passing second.

"Then let me take you home."

"No." You shake your head. "I have to go home." You say it again for him to understand what you mean. "I can't be here right now with this. With any of this I-"

"Please-" Ben's voice is thick and it's the first time you've ever heard him sound that way.

"No, I have to go."

And you run, leaving the body of your brother and everything you know behind, while Ben watches you go with a twinge in his own chest that he can't understand.

A/N: Lots happened in this chapter. I know the revelations and the twists were WILD. But it finally happened, Darren got what he deserved. I know we don't see too much of Ben and the reader, but in the next chapter things between them are about to become less blurry. And we get a re-appearance of Granny Di in the next chapter!

As always, thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, Comments, and Likes are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know! :)

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kwanisms · 7 months ago

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» stray kids masterlist «

➮ bf!Chris × fem!Reader (× implied Minho) wc: 1.8k summary: Your boyfriend really doesn't like it when his friends pay a little more attention to you nor does he like it when you playfully flirt with them. genres/themes/au: smut; bar themes, established relationship; idol au, boyfriend!Chris warnings: adult dialogue, female reader, alcohol consumption, mc flirts with someone other than their partner (Chris), bar setting, sexual content (18+ mdni), see smut warnings under the cut! special tags: @yoonguurt @sanjoongie @millennial-fangirl MINORS WILL BE BLACKLISTED & BLOCKED. AGELESS BLOGS WILL ALSO BE BLOCKED.

a/n: i will be completely honest, I forgot I even wrote this. It's been in my docs for almost a year 💀 but here it is! Thank you for reading! If you like this, please reblog and leave feedback and as always, this is a work of fiction and all characters are not reflective of their respective irl counterparts. for entertainment purposes only.

smut warnings: semi-public sex, oral (f receiving), mild dirty talk, use of pet names, fingering (f receiving), mild degradation (f receiving), implied threesome. I think that's it lol

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[01:08] — isn't this what you wanted?

It was just a bit of harmless flirting. Something you’d done a few times before. It was just your nature to flirt when you drank and Chris knew that. He had never let it bother him before so why was it any different now.

Maybe it was the way he saw Minho’s eyes roam over your scantily clad body. Maybe it was the way you lightly laid your hand on his bicep when speaking to him. He didn’t like the way Minho teasingly flexed his arm, letting you feel the muscles he’d spent so much time working on in the gym.

He didn’t like how close the two of you were standing. He didn’t like the way his friend’s eyes lingered a little too long on your ass when you turned to speak to Han. Maybe that was the final straw. The push he needed to close the gap and grab you by the elbow, leading you away from his friends and into the empty bar bathroom, shutting and locking the door behind him.

“Chris,” you chastised him, trying to step around him and return to the bar. He wasn’t having any of it as he pushed you against the wall, arms caging you in as he placed his palms flat against the tile walls on either side of your head.

You’d only ever seen this side of him once before. The time you were over at the dorms for a movie night and as a joke, Seungmin grabbed you by the waist and pulled you down onto his lap as you bickered with Felix about making space for you on the couch. The guys hadn’t known back then that the two of you were a thing but Chris had made it abundantly clear later that night as he was pounding you into the mattress in his room, pinning your wrists above your head to keep you from muffling your moans.

Since then, no one had attempted to make a move or flirted with you. Until tonight anyway.

Chris thought of himself as not being the jealous type but the moment he had seen you perched on Seungmin’s lap, laughing along with the guys, the green monster reared its ugly head and he wanted the world to know you were his. He could handle random guys flirting with you because he knew they’d probably never see you again. But his own members? You saw them all the time.

“What’s wrong, babygirl?” He asked, his tone low and full of what you discerned was lust. Even though you didn’t like his being jealous, you had to admit it was probably the best rough sex you’d had with him. Normally he was so sweet and careful with you, only going hard when you asked.

That night, he was completely in control and had his way with you and there was no shame in admitting you liked the contrast between the two personas.

“I thought you liked the attention,” he continued, his voice dripping with a mixture of desire and sarcasm. You felt your knees become weak as he gazed at you, his eyes darker than before. You’d really done it now and you knew you were in for a long night.

“I-I…” you stammered but faltered when a crooked smile spread across your boyfriend’s lips.

“You what?” He asked, pressing his body closer to yours, heat from him radiating into you.

“You thought you’d flirt with one of my friends right in front of me, dressed like that?” He asked, nodding down at your choice of attire.

It was a black dress, one you’d worn before and picked with the sole purpose of dressing up for Chris. You only ever dressed like this for him because you only wanted his eyes on you.

“It wasn’t like—“ you murmured but stopped when Chris brought one of his hands up, pressing a finger to your lips. “Wasn’t like that, baby?” He asked. “You thought you’d dress up a little and not expect to be the center of attention? That wasn’t your intent at all?” He asked, moving his finger to caress your cheek, a huge contrast from the way he spoke to you.

You leaned into his touch, lips parting as you let out a sigh. You felt the pad of his thumb brush over your bottom lip before he slipped his thumb into your mouth, pressing it against your tongue. The sweet gesture turned lewd as he watched the way your lips wrapped around the digit.

His own lips parted as you sucked, tongue swirling around the tip of his thumb the way it did when he had his cock in your mouth. “You’re such a dirty little slut,” he groaned, hips rolling forward to press his erection against you. “Fuck, Chris,” you moaned, his thumb still in your mouth.

“You sound so pretty when you say my name like that,” he mumbled, pulling his hand from your face and reaching down to lift the hem of your tight skirt. “Chris,” you moaned as his fingers pressed into your panties, your arousal pooling in them. “We can’t do this here,” you whimpered as he pulled aside your panties, pressing his fingers past your folds, finding your clit easily.

“The door is locked, baby,” he said, leaning in to tease your neck with his teeth. “Besides,” he added, whispering in your ear. “Who are you expecting to come in here? Minho?” He growled. “N-no,” you whined as he worked the pads of his fingers against your clit in slow circles, dragging them down to your entrance only to pull away, teasing you.

“Chris,” you managed to whine but fell silent as he lowered himself to his knees, throwing one of your legs over his shoulder. Keeping your panties pushed to the side, he leaned in, tongue tasting you as he toyed with your clit. Your hands moved, tangling in his dark locks, tugging gently.

Oral with Chris was never quick or to the point. He loved to tease and take his time, coaxing you to your orgasm. This time was different, he’d never managed to have you squirming and moaning in mere minutes, tongue flicking against your clit, sucking on it. “Ah, shit,” you cursed, chest heaving as your boyfriend ate you out like a mad man.

He shifted, managing to throw your other thigh over his shoulder but keeping you propped up against the wall as he dove back in, tongue lapping at your entrance. You glanced down, moaning at the sight of your boyfriend’s face buried between your thighs. His eyes were shut, no doubt enjoying the sounds you made and the taste, hands gripping your ass tightly.

Your eyes rolled back as you felt your climax rapidly approaching. “Fuck,” you hissed. “I’m gonna cum,” you moaned. “Do it,” Chris answered. “Come all over my tongue, babygirl,” he added before continuing his assault on your core.

Your hands in his hair tightened, fingers gripping his tresses harder as your hips moved of their own accord, bucking in his face as your toes curled. You came with a whimper of his name and moaned as he licked up every bit of your release. You tried to shy away from his tongue but his grip on you held you in place. “Chris,” you pleaded, feeling the familiar knot in your stomach tighten. “I can’t please,” you whimpered, feeling tears form. “It’s too much.”

Chris chuckled, the vibrations against your soaked core causing you to tremble.

You looked down when you felt him move his mouth away and the sight had your walls clenching around nothing. The cocky grin partnered with his lips glistening with your slick. It was all you could do to not push him onto the floor and hop on his cock right then and there.

He let you down, holding you steady as your legs shook. You managed to stumble over to look into the mirror, turning on the water to wet your hot flushed face.

Chris had gotten to his feet and pulled his phone out but what he was doing you couldn’t tell.

You noticed him moved behind you in the mirror and gasped as he pulled your skirt up, exposing your ass. “Chris!” You hissed trying to turn but he forced you to face the mirror. “Don’t move,” he ordered, grabbing your panties and pulling them down your thighs, letting them fall to your feet as he brought his hand to his lips, wetting two of his fingers before it disappeared behind you and you let out a moan as you felt his fingers enter you from behind.

He’d just eaten you out in a public bathroom and now he wanted to finger you? This was crossing so many lines but why was it so hot?

“Chris,” you warned, head dropping as his fingers moved in and out of you at a steady pace. “You like that,” he asked, his free hand moving to wrap around your throat. “You like being touched in a public bathroom?” You moaned as he curled his fingers against your walls, your knees threatening to give out.

“This is so wrong,” you whined, head falling back as you felt Chris’ lips ghost over the exposed skin of your shoulders. “Would you rather Minho be in here making you feel this good?” He growled, fingers moving faster. “That’s not what I—“ you tried to explain but fell silent. “Have you ever thought about the others when I’m touching you?” He asked. ‘What the hell?’

“What?” You gasped. “No!” You felt him smirk against your skin. He was teasing you. Teasing and torturing you for drunkenly flirting with his friend. “Have you thought about them when touching yourself?” He whispered, curling his fingers again. You let out a deep moan, causing him to chuckle.

“Does that turn you on? Thinking about other men when you touch yourself?” He asked. You wanted to tell him it was ridiculous, that you only ever thought about him but that wasn’t entirely true. You had thought about Minho like that before. Of course, it was before you and Chris had even started seeing one another. You were single then and free to think about what you like.

“It does, doesn’t it?” He asked again. “No,” you answered weakly. “Don’t lie to me,” he growled.

“You’ve already told me your fantasies, baby girl,” he added. ‘Shit,’ you thought. He was right.

You had mistakenly admitted you liked the idea of double penetration. Chris found the confession intriguing. “Have you imagined yourself, full of two cocks?” He asked again,

When you were done you heard a tap on the locked door. “Shit,” you cursed, pulling your skirt down. “We gotta get out of here,” you hissed. Chris unlocked the door and smiled at you.

“We aren’t done yet, kitten,” he said, pulling open the door and your eyes widened as Minho stepped into the bathroom. “What are you doing?” You asked Chris as he shut the door again and locked it.

“What wrong, kitten?” Chris asked, turning to face you. "After all,"

“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

©️ kwanisms 2024 | all works on this blog are protected under copyright. Do not repost, continue, or translate my works. All graphics made by me. Content and support banners made by me using cafekitsune's template.

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limarieb · 9 months ago

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i come around (when you least expect me)

Pairing(s): emo!Wanda Maximoff x fem!reader

Summary: After a one-night stand during a party, you find yourself in an odd gray area with your best friend's sister. It just so happens that your best friend's sister is also the person that has been making your life a living hell for the last few years... all without your best friend knowing.

Warnings: enemies to lovers, cursing, mentions of drinking/parties, high school au, Wanda lowkey kinda mean but i SWEAR its lowkey, non-graphic scenes of kissing/making out (no smut... yet...?)

Word Count: 3.5k

Author's Note: sorry for my lack of posting, but i promised it would come soon(ish)! here's that 100 follower special i promised — oh, and thank youuuu all for the follows and support... i love you all <3 (title from 'heartbeat' by childish gambino) ... also, requests/asks are still open!

Main Masterlist | ao3 | Wattpad

...

Pain. Throbbing, aching pain. The discomfort from your current hangover surrounded every inch of your mind, physically and metaphorically. Well, almost every inch... because memories from last night were finally reaching the surface now that you have awoken, conscious and, unfortunately, sober.

The sweet lips on yours.

The feeling of skin, hot and sweaty, against your own.

The perfect dichotomy of soft hands on your body as they gripped at your skin roughly, almost primal in nature.

And they all belonged to your best friend's twin sister.

You started to get ready for the day — whoever talked you into attending a party the day before the school year began should be arrested and fined for such a disservice.

Thankfully, you planned enough ahead to bring clothes to the twins' house for today. The outfit you had chosen was relatively casual: the worn-down, navy blue sweater that had been your father's during his college years and the comfiest pair of jeans you could find.

Venturing downstairs to the kitchen, you finally felt the extent of how poorly your stomach felt due to the heavy drinking from the previous night. You opted for something easy, pulling the first box of cereal that your fingertips touched out of the cabinet. You never liked cereal too much, but anything went during difficult times like these.

As you poured yourself a bowl of the bland cereal, footsteps sounded throughout the house. They were coming closer and closer to your location. You assumed it had been Pietro.

You were... close — it was her.

When you looked up from the bowl to see who the person was, you were displeased to find the girl standing there, simply observing you with a smirk on her face. It reminded you of the villainous expressions from the television: conniving and mischievous.

"Stop staring at me like that," you sneered, trying to keep your volume low enough that Pietro would not hear you but loud enough that she would sense the harsh seriousness of your tone.

Wanda maintained her gaze, simply tilting her head as if to challenge you, "Like what?"

"Like you know what I taste like."

The faux innocence in her expression slightly faltered. Her eyebrows rose, the shock from your words evident on her face. As Wanda opened her mouth to form another witty remark, the sound of a door opening made the two of you go effectively silent. Wanda looked toward the direction of the sound, awaiting his entrance in a way that demonstrated her indifference toward last night's events. You, on the other hand, completely averted your gaze from both of the twins due to the shame that coursed through your veins.

The rational part of your brain begged for you to tell Pietro about what happened last night; it would resolve the guilt that clawed at you with each passing minute, lifting the weight off of your shoulders entirely. Yet, each time that you began to plan the exact words of your apology, any ideas you had conjured seemed to fall short. It was not as if you could search the internet for a script concerning "how to tell your best friend that you mistakenly (but not so mistakenly that you stopped it) hooked up with his emo, bitchy twin sister at a party."

Your eyes swiftly returned to Wanda, watching her inch closer to where you stood by the counter. She reached her arm behind you, leaning in close enough that your breath mingled with hers. If asked, you would completely and utterly deny that part of your mind was anticipating the vibrant feeling of her lips on yours again; however, the fleeting glance at her lips revealed otherwise.

Wanda noticed. Of course, you would fall into her trap, and she noticed. She smirked in response to your reaction before leaning away and taking a few steps back. A banana was in the hand that had been behind you. Scoffing at yourself, you cannot believe that you let her tease you again.

"See you at school, Y/N," she declared with narrowed eyes, looking you up and down once more before waltzing out of the front door.

You took a deep breath, attempting to recuperate your mind for the day ahead of you. As soon as Wanda had left, Pietro walked into the kitchen, ignorant of what had just occurred.

Standing still as if in a daze, you could only sense Pietro race around the kitchen, grabbing various items he needed for the day ahead. After a few minutes, he slowed to a stop after closing the door to the fridge. He must have sensed your unusual stillness, then he asked, “You okay? Looks like you’ve seen a ghost.”

You shakily nodded. “All good,” you forced yourself to stutter out. Not even you believed your words, but it seems as if Pietro was too busy in his own world to truly notice the lack of honesty in your reply. “I’m all good. Now come on, we’re gonna be late.”

The two of you scurried out the door in the hopes that you had not missed the bus. It was a bad habit that you both had been trying to break for years now but remained relatively unsuccessful.

As the two of you approached the classic, yellow school bus that sat on the corner of the street, Pietro raced ahead in order to save you the extra minute of running. He gracefully entered the bus, climbing its stairs with ease; meanwhile, you were audibly out of breath and tried to ignore the glances the bus driver gave to the two of you.

Pietro, like most mornings, found himself sitting with some of his friends from the cross country team, leaving you to fend for yourself. You quickly scanned the bus for an empty row so you could sit by yourself, but you quickly realized that was a luxury you could not afford after such a late arrival. While you could not find an empty row, you were about to find a single empty seat towards the back of the bus.

You shuffled your feet to the empty seat but stopped as soon as you noticed its other inhabitant: Wanda.

Bile suddenly formed in your throat at the thought of having to spend more time with her — more specifically, without her brother, your friend, and coincidentally the only person to keep her dangerous, spontaneous nature in check, present. You approached her, simply attempting to take the bus ride silently and one minute at a time. You swore to yourself internally that you would not respond to her, irrespective of whatever she may say or do.

The bus slowly pulled away from the stop and started its route toward the high school. For the first few minutes, everything seemed to be going unusually fine. Wanda sat silently beside you, wired earphones trailing from her phone to her ears. As her gaze remained fixed toward the window, you wonder if she had even noticed that a person had now occupied the seat next to her, let alone that person being you.

You naively took her initial lack of response as a victory. With a sigh of relief, you allowed your body to relax in the seat and closed your eyes for the remainder of the ride.

Then, you felt something.

The brush of something on your thigh.

You opened your eyes to scope the scene, making sure you had not imagined the sensation; however, it seemed to be just that: nothing. The only thing positioned in your lap was your backpack filled with your books for the upcoming year. You closed your eyes and began to drift away once again. Maybe you were going crazy, you pondered. (Maybe you could blame your irrational behavior last night on such insanity. Would the insanity defense work for things like that, too?)

Then, you felt it again.

Without much hesitation, your eyes shot open once more. Only this time, you were met with the sight of a hand, decorated with several rings and chipped, black nail polish, situated comfortably, almost possessively, on your upper thigh. You peered toward Wanda's face, which was still facing the opposite direction, attempting to gauge her reaction. Yet, you saw nothing; her expression was rather unchanged, leaving you more confused than anything.

Before you could think about what to do about the situation, the bus drove over a mountainous bump on the road. You internally cursed the local government officials for the obstacle, for whether it occur by accident or intention, Wanda's hand flew directly into the apex between your thighs. Eyes widened in shock, your lips drift open as you gasp from the sensation.

It finally gave you the courage, however, to shove her hand away, but not without seeing the signature smirk she acquired in the process. Anger began to boil inside you. You repeated to yourself that it was because the brunette's touches were unexpected — not that she had been victorious. In the end, you just silently thanked yourself that you had chosen jeans, or else that could have ended much differently knowing the Sokovian.

Days turned into weeks, each bringing the routine of snide comments and less-than-playful banter between you and Wanda. You still had not found a way to enlighten Pietro about your issues with his sister (both the endless torment and... that night), given that (1) she was his twin sister and (2) she always seemed to be around. The cynical part of your brain believed that her unusual proximity was purposeful — she probably just wanted to see the fallout.

While the two of you had not gone further than your typical banter again over the past few weeks, though, you still felt incredibly agitated. (You chalked it up to anger because it definitely could not be the possibility of pent-up sexual frustration between the two of you.)

However, one day differed from the rest.

You noticed early in the day that Wanda was being extraordinarily quiet. Part of you was thankful, praying that her silence would continue until the end of the school day.

It was a Thursday in late October. Like most days, you followed Pietro to his home after school, venting to him about how you were excited it was Friday tomorrow because you were simply over all of the midterms being assigned and just wanted time to relax.

(You continued to ignore the underlying guilt that sat in the pit of your stomach from remaining silent about everything that happened with his sister weeks before; you attempted to ignore it even more by rationalizing your silence, stating it was "only one time" and a "mistake that would never even happen again.")

As you entered the house, Pietro immediately drops his bag on the floor and runs up to his room. You rolled your eyes at this typical, teenage-boy messiness, and opted to place your bag on the hooks that Agatha designated for such items.

Feet padding across the wooden floors, you wandered into your happy place of the home: the kitchen. You opened the fridge, looking for a small snack that could satiate your hunger until dinner. Finding nothing of interest, you closed the door. Your body jumps, though, at the figure that had been hiding behind it: Wanda.

The patience you once had had officially worn invisibly thin.

“What the fuck, Wanda? What do you want from me?” you asked exasperatedly, the energy you once had for such shenanigans having become completely depleted after a difficult week of school. "Listen, I don't know what I ever did to you for you to treat me like this, but I'm over it."

“Are you…” She started but quickly cut herself off. Her head tilted, trying to figure out if you really did not know the answer. You noticed the way her mouth opened and shut out of pure bewilderment; while you normally would make a comment about it in an attempt to tease her in return, you figured now was not the time. When Wanda found no evidence of lies in your expression, she continued to speak, “You really don’t remember, do you?”

You threw your head back, a chuckle escaping from the back of your throat, primarily due to the exhaustion caused by this long-awaited conversation. “No, Wanda, I don’t remember! If I had, don’t you think I would have apologized by now! Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, I would have given you an “I’m sorry” so we could have avoided all of this? So that I would not have to deal with your bullshit for the past decade? So tell me, Wanda, what did I do to deserve this?”

“First day of school. Second grade. Recess," she spat out. Her words were so quiet but uttered with such venom.

Your brows furrowed in confusion at the seemingly random series of words, "What?"

She rolled her eyes, clearly frustrated with your lack of memories. While you could not remember what made her act this way, it had evidently stuck with her for years.

"It was my first day at this school," she began, her expression turning from red, hot anger into a stoic and collected nature. "Pietro and I had just moved to the States after losing our parents a few months before. Agatha was the only family member, albeit a distant family member, who was alive and willing to take us. So, we left everything behind and moved here."

You already knew the majority of this information, mostly after hearing it in brevity from Pietro. He had never truly talked about his time in Sokovia in depth, finding it distressing and uncomfortable to recall. You only discovered this one day when you both were 9, and you had followed him to his house after school for a play date. In a state of innocent curiosity, you asked him why he called (what you had assumed to be his mom) by her first name upon entering the house. He explained the basics, and that was the end of that. You understood and respected his quietness on the subject since then.

"Pietro has always been the better twin — better at school, better at sports, better at making friends. And, I'm just... me. So, he has always been better at the whole 'socializing' thing, even as an immigrant child with little knowledge of the States. Everybody seemed to like him, I guess. I, on the other hand, refused to talk... well, for the most part, at least. Anyway, on the first day of the second grade, my first day of school here, I was sitting on the edge of the concrete, picking at the grass."

She paused her speech, shifting her gaze to meet yours. "Then, this girl approached me. I thought, 'Wow, maybe I will have friends, maybe I will have friends and will finally be like Pietro.'” Wanda shook her head, shutting her eyes as if to remember each minute, each second, of that fateful day. Her accent was unconsciously growing thicker by the minute. “So, I greeted them, introduced myself like our mama had taught, and asked if they would like to play with me. You want to know what she did, Y/N?"

She opened her eyes, locking them with yours in a harsh stare. "'You talk funny,'" she hissed. "That's what the girl had said before running back to her group of friends. Truthfully, it's not even that deep of an insult, but it somehow spread like wildfire how the 'new girl' was abnormal, how she couldn’t even talk normally, how she was dirty with her dirty shoes and probably had fleas from her even dirtier home country, how no one could touch her or else they would be 'infected' by her."

“Why are you telling me this?” you stuttered out. “What does this have to do with you being a complete and utter bitch to me for the past ten years?”

Wanda huffed, “That girl was you, Y/N.”

Every breath you had suddenly left your chest. Your eyes widened, unsure of how to respond, “What?”

“You say I made your life a living hell? Bullshit. You ruined mine. You have everything I have ever wanted: friends, good grades… parents,” she said, her tone becoming soft with insecurity toward the end. “You even got my brother, my fucking twin brother! For fuck's sake! And yet, you still had to ruin my life."

"Wanda, I'm..." you began, but all of the words you have acquired in your seventeen years of life were failing you. "I'm sorry. I- I don't..."

This time, Wanda laughed, but it was not the depressed, low chuckle like before. No, this was something else entirely, a burst of maniacal laughter that indicated an unfound level of absurdity. Your eyebrows furrowed.

"'You don't' what, Y/N?" the brunette taunted.

You decided to be honest with her, "I don't know what to say."

"Of course not. 'Little Miss Perfect' never knows what to say when she finds out she's not so perfect after all."

Your sympathy gradually faded to the original anger you had been feeling. Your eyebrow involuntarily quirked, "Hold on, now... I never claimed to be 'perfect.'"

“Oh, please,” she replied, belittling your attempts to argue her predetermined notion of you. She began to mock you, “My name’s Y/N. I have the best grades in the entire school, all my friends love me, and, at night, my parents tuck me into bed and call me their little princess…”

Slowly but surely, your vision turned red. You stepped closer to Wanda, hoping the proximity would deter her from making additional snide comments about you.

“We all have our shit, Wanda,” you sneered. “You better quit now before I give you a reason to.”

She scoffed, “Oh, really? What are you gonna do? Tell mommy and daddy I…”

Her words were cut short by the placement of your lips on hers.

Truthfully, you were unsure of why you decided that this was the best course of action; perhaps your brain was simply shut off by the rage coursing through your body. Yet, that confusion did not stop you from continuing. In fact, it did not hinder either of you from continuing.

The kiss was forceful, containing all of the emotions you both have felt since that fateful night. Her mouth pushed and pulled roughly against yours; you returned the energy just as much. There were no thoughts, no rationality, behind both of your actions — only pure lust and passion.

Your hands started at her jaw but slowly drifted upwards toward the roots of her brown, messy hair, gripping and tugging at the strands. Parting from your lips for the first time in what must have been minutes, she released a moan from the sensation and continued to drift southwards toward your neck. As her teeth scraped at your pulse point, you were finally brought back to the reality of the situation.

You used the hands that were still threaded within her hair to pull her away from your neck; although, neither of you immediately stepped away from the other. You took the opportunity of your closeness to note how swollen her lips had become, how hot she looked under the dimness of the kitchen lighting.

"What are we doing?" you mumbled into the open air, not exactly expecting a response from the Sokovian in front of you.

She remained quiet, eyes flickering between your eyes and your lips. Her tongue darted out briefly, licking over her own lips in (what you assume to be, at least) preparation for more.

So, you seized the opportunity of her quietness to continue, "I'm not... I'm not perfect, okay? My parents... it's complicated. Sure, they're alive and whatnot, but... they don't care. Honestly, half of the shit I do — the grades, even — I do it so that they might finally pay attention. So, like I said, we all have our own shit to deal with."

Her lips parted, eyes stilled and staring into yours.

"And, l am sorry that that comment fucked you up as a kid. If I had known, even as a kid, I would've not said anything like that. I know I can't reverse time but..."

This time, her lips effectively ended your speech; however, the kiss was much softer than earlier, showcasing a newfound appreciation and, perhaps, feelings.

"I know," she acknowledged in a whisper after pulling away. "I'm... I'm sorry, too, by the way. I shouldn't have acted like that — it was cruel. We can talk more about it, about our... issues, later, but um- I just want to start over. Just us."

You nodded in affirmation, a blush flooding your cheeks.

"Just us."

The two of you sealed the agreement with a soft peck.

The sound of a glass shattering on the floor captured the attention of both of you, ending the kiss with the redirection of your heads in order to discover the culprit.

In the doorway of the kitchen, Pietro stood surrounded by broken glass splattered across on the wooden floor.

With widened eyes, you said the first and only thing that came to mind: "Oh, shi—"

End.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x female reader #limarieb wanda maximoff #limarieb #marvel imagines #elizabeth olsen x reader #elizabeth olsen #wanda maximoff

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oh-no-its-bird · 3 days ago

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One of those "Tobirama finds Madara's chakra comforting" aus but its played straight, with an as close to canon, accurately awful man that he is Tobirama. And the entire fic is just him being really, really mad about it.

He's in his lab trying and failing to somehow replicate Madara's chakra signature, or bar that, just an Uchiha chakra signature

Madara falls asleep at his desk and wakes up to Tobirama glaring silently at him not even a foot away. When he jerks up and demands to know if he can help him, Tobirama just narrows his eyes further and let's out a very terse "no." Before spinning around and marching off

Tobirama refuses to admit he finds Madara, or any Uchiha's chakra comfortable under pain of death, to literally anyone (including his brother) so he's just kind of sulking around being a fucking freak, staring at Madara extra hard sometimes then turning away, angry at seemingly just looking at him (accurate but he's also just mad with himself)

Tobirama battling his own pride to put himself in increasingly convoluted situations to be in general proximity with Madara (who, to be clear, he still greatly dislikes)

He keeps swinging between "I'm going fucking insane, what is WRONG with me?? This is beneath me, this is ridiculous! If anyone finds out I will be forced to kill myself out of shame" and mapping out a 10 step plan to somehow "accidentally" lock himself and Madara in a closet together, prefferably in a way that makes it look like it's Madara's fault

Tobirama ends up somehow stealing a portion of Madara's chakra (don't ask how that works) and making a little chakra construct out of it to keep in his lab and use like a stress toy (but it can only last so long, especially when he keeps squeezing it till it explodes every time he's even mildly stressed or annoyed)

Meanwhile Madara is asking Hashirama what the actual fuck is wrong with his brother and Hashirama is going "oh no he's was born like that actually"

#mdtb #tbmd #birds fic talk #madatobi #tobimada #tobirama senju #senju tobirama #madara uchiha #uchiha madara

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risuola · 11 months ago

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ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU — F. READER x GETO SUGURU, who agreed to pretend to be your boyfriend for the Christmas party with your family

Every single year your family tries to peak into your privacy, showering you with judgmental stares and questions about your love life. Why are you still single? You were sick and tired of it, so when your best friend, Suguru, told you that he’ll be staying at dorms during the Christmas, you asked him a favor.

cw: college!au, smut, fluffy, best friends to lovers, idiots in love — 3,1k words

kissmas masterlist

You had enough. Every year during Holidays, all of your family, no matter if it was your mom or the aunt that you had no idea existed up until the official dinner, pried into your business, asking countless questions about your love life. Why are you still single? Isn’t that a shame that such a pretty girl doesn’t have a boyfriend? Aaah, you’re gonna be too old to find a man if you’ll be so picky! All of which, of course, with ‘good intentions’. Totally not because they enjoyed picking at your life.

It escalated to the point that when the celebrative season began, your anxiety reached its peak. You had problems with sleeping, you were distant, you couldn’t focus and it was only a matter of time since you crumble.

“What’s going on, sweets?” Suguru, your best friend, asked. It wasn’t hard for him to notice how your behaviors changed lately, you were sharing a dorm for college and he knew you more than anyone else. For a week he wasn’t bringing up the topic, hoping you’ll tell him yourself but it got to the point that you were completely out of his reach, even though you were sitting right next to him.

“Sugu…” you whined, pulling yourself from your bed and dragging your feet towards his. “I don’t want to go for holidays to my home. They’re gonna ask me those stupid questions why I’m still single and pseudo-politely assault me any given minute for aiming to die alone…”

“Ah, right, your family can be intense,” the boy chuckled softly, putting down the gaming pad and wrapping his arms around your deflated form. “I’ll be staying here this year, so if you sneak out of your dinner, you can always find me in dorms.”

“You’re staying here? All alone?”

“Yeah, it’s better than riding back and forth to the other half of Japan,” he shrugged, smoothing your arm gently as if he’s trying to soothe your nerves along with the delicate touch of his palm. And it worked, Suguru has the incredible ability to make your heart warm. It flutters in your chest every time he’s close to you, and part of it is that you love him secretly for years now but it’s way safer to hide it than to make your relationship with him awkward.

“Maybe you’ll go with me? You could pretend to be my boyfriend,” you muttered against his shoulder. It came out quicker than you could think about it.

“Hmm, you want me to deal with your family?” You could feel his body gently vibrating as he chuckled softly.

“I mean, I know you love the dumplings my grandma makes and also you won’t be alone in here? Please, I can pay you even. My family loves you more than they love me,” you looked up at him.

“You don’t have to pay me, sweets,” he said after a moment. “I can go with you if that’s gonna save you the prying. And also for the dumplings of course.”

“I love you, Sugu,” you hugged him tightly.

I love you. These words falling from your lips were a dream to Geto and as much as he would love you to mean it the way he means it, he knows that you are not exactly thinking of him that way. You’re friends, just that, he always reminds himself, and yet sometimes he hopes, because if everything you feel towards him is just friendship, why would you look so deeply into his eyes from time to time, as if you were trying to find something in his very soul? Why would your lips press so tenderly to his cheek? And now, as he’s stuck with you in your family home, pretending to be your boyfriend, why does it feel so natural to him? Why does it come with such ease, to caress your hands, to kiss your temple and hold you so close to his chest that he can swear his own heart matched the rhythm of yours?

And what Suguru could also swear, is that every food taste much better when you feed it to him. He doesn’t exactly know what was the reason, but it was just a fact in his book. He felt himself melting underneath your touch every time your thumb would swipe against the corner of his mouth because the piece you wanted to give him was just too big and made a mess.

“Aww, aren’t you two just so adorable?” One of your aunts fake-gasped, watching you intensively as if she was suspecting something. From the moment you and Suguru stepped into your family home, everyone was just too attentive. Especially your parents, they knew how close you are with Geto and maybe it wasn’t the best idea to bring him as your boyfriend but you wouldn’t change it for anything. There was no one else you’d want to share the holiday spirit with and you were just happy to have him as your partner, even if only for few days. He was so sweet to you and deep inside you felt your heart breaking from despair that it could never be real.

“I know, right?” You replied, keeping Suguru’s hand in yours, stealing its warmth and you were yet to notice the absentminded shapes you were brushing onto his skin for the time being. “I told you all these years that I’m waiting for the right man, and it paid off to wait so long.”

“I’m honestly surprised, for some time we were all worried about you for staying alone forever. Who would give you a glass of water when you’re old and all by yourself?” The very same words you hear every time there’s any family gathering rang in your head a little louder that evening. It was all pretended, it was all fake. Suguru was your friend, you were still single. You were still lonely.

“Luckily, she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore,” Suguru spoke before you were able to gather the courage to reply. He could easily sense the tension that stiffened your shoulders, he could tell by the way your jaw flexed just slightly that what you were experiencing was making you uneasy. Sometimes you felt like he was able to read your mind but that was impossible. If he could peak inside your thoughts, he would know how special he is to your heart. How you’d give everything to be allowed to love him openly, to call him yours.

“We’re all so happy for you two,” the aunt clapped, like a monkey would in the circus and sometimes you felt like that was exactly what you were surrounded with. Just monkeys that repeat the same sentences over and over again, that routinely copy the same patterns and though the idea left a sour taste in your mouth, you were determined to push though the performance. At that moment, you were far from thinking what to tell your family later, when the show is over. That you broke up? Or maybe you’ll keep them believing that you and your best friend are indeed in love with each other? From your perspective, it wouldn’t be hard, because you are. Oh, you’re so in love, it hurt you to remember that he’s not.

It took few hours of torture, as you called it, before you were officially permitted to leave the gathering and go to your room to rest and sleep before the madness continues in the morning. Relieved that the day is finally over, you took Suguru upstairs and when the doors closed behind you, you exhaled deeply. You felt as if the weight that was sitting heavy on your shoulders for the entire duration of the day was just now dropping.

“Tired?” He asked, taking his hands off your back where he was keeping it on the way up and immediately you felt incomplete without the support of his warm palm on your body. The empty spot now felt cold. “You look quite distressed.”

“Sorry, Sugu,” you mumbled, wiping the corner of your eye. You wanted to cry, to burst out in tears. “I hated that day. Even more than usually.”

“Hey, sweets, what’s going on?” Geto was quick to cup your pretty face and make you look up to him. “Is it my fault?”

“Yeah. It kinda is,” you wept, as his thumbs smoothed the dampened skin underneath your eyes. Suguru couldn’t help but admire the way they sparkled underneath the harsh light of the led lamps in your room, but at the same time, it broke his heart to know it was his fault you were shedding tears. “But you didn’t do nothing wrong.”

“Then what is the reason?”

“I just…” you stopped yourself. You couldn’t tell him, it would mess up the friendship you spent so many years to build. You couldn’t tell him. “It’s just—”

“You can tell me everything, you know that, right?”

He meant it. As Suguru was looking into your eyes, he tried to search for an answer, for any hint that could help him understand what made you so sad. He hated to see you cry, it was what made his throat clench and if it was only possible, he would reach up and give you a star from heavens above, just to see you smile, to see your eyes sparkle so beautifully with happiness that he oh so loved on you. If he could, he would kiss the tears away, take all of your burdens onto his own shoulders. Ah, how much he would love to just kiss you.

“I just… I just wish that it could be real. That we could be real,” you said finally, so quietly it could be a whisper and your lids fell shut, covering the eyes that were too afraid to witness his reaction. Suguru was too shocked to react at first, and it’s the subtlest touch of your fingertips on top of his hands that brought him back to reality. The lack of response, the fear and shame pushed your head lower. “I’m sorry, I—”

What cut your words short was Geto’s lips that landed on yours and made the world stop. The kiss started off slow and gentle, in a way your lips were gently touching it bore the innocence of being the first. You leaned into him, desperate to not let it end, wrapping your arms around his neck as the passion was taking hold. You began to make your ways deeper as the kiss escalated, the tongues danced and swirled together and the breaths grew heavier. Suguru pulled you closer, pushing up against you, savoring the oh so sweet release of emotions that accumulated over the years. It was consuming both of you, for that very moment you didn’t care about anything else in the world, lost in the moment together with lips locked and hearts beating.

“I love you too,” he murmured against your lips, resting his forehead against yours. He was out of breath, already flushed with the blissful euphoria. “I love you so fucking much.”

“Why you never told me?” Your question fell out quieter than you intended to, all the voice got caught in your throat. It was overwhelming, the kiss still lingered over your mouth, the feelings washing over your body like a tidal wave.

“I was scared. I thought you see me as a friend and nothing more,” Suguru confessed.

“I love you for so long already,” you chuckled, pecking his lips again and again. “God, we’re idiots.”

“At least we’re a perfect match.”

“Bet we are,” it made you happy. You could feel all the tension coming off your shoulders. “The holidays aren’t so bad with you around. And I still have a gift for you.”

“You are the only gift I’d love to unwrap,” he joked, lowering his lips to spread few nips along the curve of your neck. “All I want for Christmas is you.”

“You can unwrap me, though I’m not sure how secure is the lock in these doors,” you purred, your lids closing just barely at the feeling of his breath across your skin. You felt him chuckling softly as he swooped you up and carried onto the bed.

“Let’s check.”

The single sized mattress was nearly too small for the two of you, but it turned out there was a lot of convenience in Suguru being above you. In the privacy of your covers, he was quick to take off your holiday sweater and the cute skirt you wore and you got rid of his shirt and pants – all of which you kicked off the bed, too busy with exploring his skin to even consider getting up and folding it neatly. His kisses burned, the traces of his fingers were set alight with lust and desire, you felt like if you wait any longer, you’re gonna explode.

“I dreamt about it for so long,” he murmured against your collarbone, pushing the strap of your bra off your shoulder gently, as if he was silently asking for permission, still scared to rush you into intimacy. You, on the other hand, wished for nothing more than his touch on you, you wanted to be held, to be caressed and kissed, you wanted his body and mind and soul.

“I dreamt of you,” you whispered, arching your back and undoing the bra. “You are everything I want, Suguru.”

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whimpered, lowering his head to caress the delicate skin of your chest. His touch was gentle and yet lined with intensity and passion, the desire he felt for you was palpable and the more you felt him, the more undone you became.

And then, the rest of fabric got lost underneath the sheets as his body settled between your legs. You felt his length running up and down between your folds, the slick covering him to ease his way into you. His name slipped over your tongue once he was fully in and your arms reached around his shoulders to keep him as close as possible. Suguru felt lightheaded, completely drunk in the feeling of you as he dragged his hips back only to thrust them forward again. And again. More and more, and more.

The two of you were lost in the moment, completely and so entirely lost. You were in your own world, your own space and nothing around you mattered. There was only him and you, only this feeling and you wanted nothing else, just him. He made your heartbeat rush, your legs tremble and your breath catch up in your throat as you tried to suppress the sounds by kissing his lips, his shoulders and neck. Suguru was making everything inside you come alive, as if your entire world was made of him and only him. Oh, you were so in love with him.

The cheap lights you had hanging on the wall reflected its lights in Geto’s eyes and you swore you could get lost in the golden hues of it, the cold glow of leds somehow did nothing to the warmth you felt from the boy above you. You allowed your hand to cup his cheek, exploring the ups and downs of his beautiful face, your thumb smoothing over the flushed cheeks and swollen lips. His long, luscious hair were tickling the side of your neck whenever he dived down to kiss your skin.

It was so quiet, so hushed and though you wished to scream his name out loud, you opted for whispers that carried on top of your breath were only for his ears to hear. Each time he moved, the wet sound escaped the covers, along with muffled whimpers and gasped out love confessions and praises.

“I’m so close,” Suguru breathed out, the feeling of your velvety walls tightening around him made him lose his mind, it felt divine and yet he knew he should pull out.

“Me too,” you whimpered against his throat, kissing and nipping on his skin, not at all bothered about the marks you’re gonna leave on him. Your breaths became faster, shallow as you struggled to stay present in the moment. Your mind was long gone in the land of pleasure, the sway of Suguru’s hips rid you completely of any coherence, the intensity of him twitching and flexing inside of you, time after time abusing the sweetest of spots within you. It was all too much and yet too little, you wished for this to never end.

“Let go, sweets, don’t hold it,” he purred near your ear, biting on it just slightly before his lips pressed to the side of your temple and down your face. “Cum for me and I’m gonna pull ou—”

“No, no¸ please,” you pleaded. “I’m on the pill, don’t pull out.”

“You sure?”

The nod of your head was all he needed as he picked up the pace just sweetly enough. He brought you to the edge and pushed you over it in a matter of few breaths, you were becoming undone underneath him, holding tightly onto his muscled shoulders and digging your nails into the skin there. Suguru felt himself lost in the moment, he let the hot feelings wash over him as he continued to thrust into you with yet a little more strength. The soft squeaks of your bed joined the melody of love that you played he could tell the heat in the room rose almost unbearably but that only seemed to stoke the fire within him. A smile crept onto his lips to the sight of your body squirming with pleasure as his fingers roamed along it, exploring and discovering the sensitive spots. And then, his high kicked in.

Geto never felt anything like this, the act of fucking his own hand, hidden in the bathroom he shares with you in the dorms could never compare to what he was experiencing right now. With you. It was hot, it was so overwhelmingly hot he felt that inside his veins now there was lava rushing instead of blood. His breath was coming fast as his body was getting beyond its breaking point. His mind and flesh got consumed with the passion you just shared.

Your back arched, your chest pressed against his own as the second wave of pleasure washed over you. You threw your head back, crying out his name dangerously loud, making him cover your lips with his large palm. It felt so right, so warm, so blissful.

“I love you,” Suguru whispered, dragging his hips back and forth sloppily few more times, riding the highs out slowly and once he took the hand off your lips, you breathed out the same, wrapping yourself around him, savoring the intimacy.

I love you, are the words Geto wished for many years to mean the same thing to you that they mean to him. Now they were and finally, he felt like he can breathe freely.

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wynnyfryd · 1 year ago

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Trailer park Steve AU part 8

part 1 | part 7 | ao3

He finds himself on Cherry Drive by muscle memory alone. Quarter mile past Maple Street, take the third left, the second right; drive straight through the next stop sign and suddenly the Hagan house is coming into view around the bend, bathed in dim yellow light from a flickering street lamp. A 50s era ranch house, painted brick with a detached one-car garage, weeds sprouting through the crooked old stones of the front walkway and leaves scattered across the lawn in mushy browns and orange-reds.

It's not as nice as Steve's place is.

Was.

Whatever.

Steve blinks, shakes himself fully awake; feels a jolt of fear at the idea that he just drove here in some kind of fugue state because he doesn't know what he's doing here. Tommy left for college, and fuck Tommy, anyway.

He pulls up to the house. Slows the car to a crawl.

It's dark inside, all the lights turned off except for a single table lamp in the entryway window; shaped like a sea turtle, its belly full of blue-green light. Mrs. H. loves the sea.

He wonders if they're out of town or if they're just asleep.

The Hagans go to bed early, he remembers. He spent so many nights talking in a hush in Tommy's room; 8:45pm and they'd be lying side by side on the floor beside his bed, reading comic books or sports mags and whispering about nothing. Tommy'd always thank Steve for coming over because he knew his house was a little boring; he was the kid with old parents who went to bed early and kept the radio turned down and wouldn't let them have sugary snacks even on the weekends. Steve would always just knock their shoulders together and smile 'don't mention it' because he'd hang out with Tommy anywhere.

"Anywhere?" "Yeah, anywhere." "What about in a cave?" "Sure." "Under a bridge?" "Don't see why not." "In the belly of a whale?" "Now you're just being dumb." "Am not!" "Are, too." "Oh, yeah? Well- shut up!"

That was usually the part where they got in trouble for making noise, caught red-faced and laughing while they wrestled on the floor.

There's warmth in his chest at the memory, and that part, he expects.

But also...

Something about it makes heat flare in his gut, shameful and feverish as it flashes through his mind: the phantom press of Tommy above him as he pinned his shoulders down; the way the flush on his cheeks made Tommy's freckles pop; the breathless smile he gave, so close their noses almost brushed...

A light turns turns on in the Hagans' hall.

Steve hits the gas.

He drives for a long while, feeling like an asshole for burning through their precious gas money, but too— too something to fully care. He's alone on a highway with dark pastures blowing by, with the heat on and windows down, and he's circling back toward home when Bruce Springsteen starts to play, all croaky static over the spotty radio.

Born down in a dead man's town. The first kick I took was when I hit the ground.

Steve cranks it up and sings along. The song is cheesy, and he feels stupid, but he also feels free. Like there was a shackle around his throat and he didn't notice until it was gone. He shouts along to the chorus and then just shouts in general; long, guttural screams that feel like poison being purged. Tommy, his dad, the Russians, his mom. All of it, all of it spewing out of him into the cold night air.

He misses Carol suddenly. Her acidic attitude. The way it always ate through the worst of his sullen moods.

He can picture her now: perched on someone's lap in the crowded backseat, no seatbelt, manicured hand braced on the ceiling. She'd be smacking bubblegum and twirling a lock of her hair, and she'd roll her eyes at Steve's dramatics and ask whether he was done untwisting his panties yet. Steve would say something dumb and pervy in response, like, "Too busy dealing with girls' panties to focus on my own," and she'd roll her eyes harder and go, "God, you're fucking gross."

Carol's not here, though, so he just screams about her, too.

When he get back to Forest Hills his voice is hoarse. His body is tired; his soul is light. He's thinking, like: maybe he'll be okay. He'll channel his inner Claudia or Joyce and soldier on. Resilience, and all that shit.

He's almost smiling to himself when he turns into the park.

And then he sees the flashing lights.

There's an ambulance on his lot.

—

part 9

just gonna start tagging whoever commented the day before (if your settings will let me) bc i have the memory of a goldfish @a-little-unsteddie @slowandsteddie @pennyplainknits @thesuninyaface @hotluncheddie @messrs-weasley @pitrsattabhaadmeinjao @eddie-munsons-missing-nipple @blackpanzy @disrespectedgoatman @i-have-three-feelings @sirsnacksalot @estrellami-1 @manda-panda-monium

#trailer park steve au #steddie #steddie fic #steve harrington #eddie munson #tommy hagan #carol perkins #my writing #my fics #angst

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wangxianficfinder · 1 month ago

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Fic Finder

Oct 6th

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1. Hello. I’m hoping you can help me find a fic. In it Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are poisoned at Jinlintai and fake their deaths. Their bodies are brought back to the ancestral hall at cloud recesses and they escape and live away from the cultivation world for many years. Theres two parts and in the second part the sect leaders come to their mountain thinking immortals live there and asking for help dealing with problems they can’t solve. (Ie The Lan sect is dealing with resentful ghost). Thanks!! @vegdawn

FOUND? To live with no regrets Series by Lyna_Mei (E, 96k, WIP, WangXian, Fix-It of Sorts, Canon Divergence, Angst, Self-Esteem Issues, Golden Core Reveal, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Developing Relationship, non-consensual marriage, CQL-Verse, Case Fic, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Cultivation Sect Politics, Cultivation World Critical, Not JGY Friendly, Family Feels, Found Family, WWX Has a New Golden Core, Top/Bottom Versatile | Switch WangXian)

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2. hi this is for the fic finder! i’m looking for a fic i read which i’m pretty sure is completed. it should be wangxian, modern au, and i think wwx was living alone (maybe estranged from the jiangs?) and i think mo xuanyu and xue yang were kid brothers who lived in his building that came to hang out with him sometimes? and he was sorta like a big brother to them? this wasn’t a major plot point but it was definitely there. and a-yuan may or may not have been there, either living with wwx or the wens in the same building. does anyone know what this is?

FOUND? Visitations by Vir_Abelasan (M, 18k, WIP, WangXian, past XiYao, Modern AU, Corporate Espionage, Post-Divorce, Reconciliation, Father-Son Relationship, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Found Family, Custody Arrangements, Not a revenge fic, Past Abuse)

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3. Looking for a highly specific fic where WWX is forced to wear scantily clad armour that only covers his nipples and man-bits as a punishment by Madam Yu. Wangxian encounter each other in a night-hunt sort of thing, but its not set in the jianghu but an AU where its more fantasy magic with warlocks, that sort of thing? There is a specific scene where WWX has to go change the armor and it hurts alot and makes LWJ very sad and angry at madam yu?? GOSH HELP its been stuck in my head foreverr thank u

FOUND? 🔒 His Knight in Shining Armour by celerydragon (E, 23k, WangXian, dead dove do not eat, Curses, Sexual Abuse, Child Abuse, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Slut Shaming, Top LWJ/Bottom WWX, yu furen sucks, protective lwj, Hurt/Comfort, Anal Sex, Dirty Talk, mild dirty talk, Biting, Outdoor Sex)

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4. Hello, I am looking for an AO3 Fix it Fic where all the sects bring gifts to the Burial Mounds to compete showing who is the most generous. @hopefulbeardface-blog

FOUND? The Untamed: A Dinner to Remember by YenGirl (Not Rated, 33k, WangXian, XuanLi, post sunshot, Indulgent Fic, Feed WY & the Wen survivors, Some angst, Some humour, Dinner is about family and love, Some Fluff, Soft Boys, Manly Tears, JGS is still greedy, Possible OOC-ness, No hundred holes curse, Unreliable Narrator, accidental heroes, Some violence and gore in Chap 9, Redeemed JGY, Redeemed SS)

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5. HI!!!this is for a fic finder, it had madam yu as a super toxic parent idrm bt maybe she was also abusive, she sends wwx to this school owned by the lans and i think theres 2 divisions, 1 for the smart kids and one for the delinquents

the school is super weird and strict , lqr is especially mean to wwx and all the staff is aswell and they do horrible things to him and in the end i think lxc exposes his uncles school?? wwx and lzh get tg to.

Thankyou!! @jnxi839

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6. Hi! For FicFinder

The fic I'm looking for is canon divergence, I believe. I can't remember if it had time travel or not, but Wei Ying left the Jangs before the war. I think there was focus on his inventions. The only clear details I can remember are the Jins giving him multiple chests full of gold, and them sending him someone to his rooms in the night. The person gets caught in an array at the door. Also, there were two Lans assigned to help Wei Ying. Thanks in advance! @rens-shadow

FOUND? Just go forward like you mean it by tawaen (M, 101k, WangXian, WWX & WN &WQ, WWX & JYL, NHS & WWX, Canon Divergence, WWx does not attend the Wen indoctrination, WWX saves Lotus Pier, Inventor WWX, No Golden Core Transfer, Sect Leader JYL, JC Has No Golden Core, Bad Parents JFM & YZY, Not JC Friendly, but he gets a happier ending than canon so don’t look here for bashing)

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7. Fic finder please!🙏

A wlw wangxian where LWJ was self conscious about her body bc LQR wasn’t really helpful when she was going through puberty and bought her too small bras and stuff and then she meets wwx, much later on who encourages her to wear what she likes and love her body. There’s a scene with them on the couch cuddling and idk how it ends bc ao3 went down and I lost my tab!! 😭😭😭

FOUND? your lips, my lips, apocalypse by lily_winterwood (E, 12k, WangXian, Modern, Fashion & Models, College/University, Lingerie, Burlesque, Rule 63, partial genderswap, Not Everyone is Cisswapped, Nonbinary Character, Trans Male Character, Female LWJ, Female WWX, Trans LXC, References to conservative Chinese family values, Mild Transphobia, Body Dysphoria, Self-Esteem Issues, Brief reference to eating disorders, Sexism, Pining, Filial Piety, Masturbation, Cunnilingus, Gender Changes)

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8. fic finder help! there is a modern fic where lan zhan and Wei ying are best friends and the fic starts off with Wei ying asking lan zhan to call off work to play hooky for the day. eventually we find out Wei ying quit his job (he's working with the jiangs). it was part of a series I think. @the-marathon-continues-nip

FOUND! in good time by magicianprince (T, 11k, WangXian, Slice of Life, Fluff, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Modern AU, modern with cultivation (pretty background tho), lwj has a cat, and some unresolved feelings! oh boy, "in good time" by magicianprince [Podfic] by The_Grynne)

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9. Looking for a fic where lan xichen and possibly lan qiren? go into a meeting with the elders, who have been giving Wei wuxian a hard time, and they hand out lists of rules that the elders have each individually have broken @lonelyreverances-corner

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10. hi i have a request: i want to find fanfic which included older lan wangji (i think he was older by 7 years) who meets wei wuxian in yiling and it is their first meeting. he and lan xichen are twins and it is mostly focused on lwj visiting burial mounds and wy and lz have a sex not long after they meet first time. i think it counted from 20 to 30 (or 35) chapters and it also had 18+ fanarts

FOUND? Awaiting Your Return by Karmiya (E, 126k, WangXian, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, the opposite of slow burn, Found Family, Canon Divergence, Age Difference, discussions of wwx's canonical abusive childhood)

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11. Hi! I'm looking for a fic (I think it may be a series of fics) where Wei Wuxian was accused of spying on Lan Corp. I think this is one where Lan Wangji believes in him the entire time and leaves his family over the accusations. I don't remember if he served any time or not, but the truth comes out that he was innocent (thanks in part to NHS). WWX and LWJ live with Wens, started a company with them, and live in the same building with them.

FOUND?🔒 moonlight falls Series by RoseThorne (T, 19k, WangXian, Modern, Found Family, Corporate Espionage, Bunnies, Adoption, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, References to Depression, Anxiety, Blind Character, POV Third Person, POV WWX, Confrontations, Bad Parent LQR, Dissociation, Mental Health Issues, Anniversary, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Emotional Constipation, Communication Failure, JC is Bad at Feelings, JC is Trying, WWX Needs a Hug, Implied/Referenced Sex, Food Sex, Friendship, Reconciliation, Psychological Trauma)

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12. hi! i am looking for a fic that is a juniors time-travel fix it. i know they go back in time to right before jin zixuan gets killed and save him, the juniors reveal that wangxian are married in the future, and then also there is a scene where jin zixuan and jiang yanli tell older jin ling that he is their son, too, even though baby jin ling is there. thank you so much! @whenstarsignite

FOUND! ❤️ Tragedy is Not the End by Hobbsy3 (T, 358k, wangxian, Time Travel, Torture, Hurt/Comfort, Golden Core Reveal, Canon Divergence from Qiongqi Pass, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Yunmeng sibling bonding, good dad wwx, good dad lwj, JZX Lives, JYL Lives, Junior Quartet Dynamics)

NOT FOUND! Time, Time, Time by skeletonofaplant (G, 44k, wangxian, JYL/JZX, LSZ & WWX, JYL & JL & JZX, LJY & LSZ, Time Travel Fix-It, Burial Mounds Settlement Days, Identity Porn, Identity Reveal, Angst, Fluff, Junior Quartet Dynamics, Time Travelling Junior Ensemble, Junior Ensemble Shenanigans, Humor)

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13. Hi! I'm looking for two fics. I think I initially saw B on this page, but I can't find it anywhere

A) A meteor crashed near college student WWX’s house, where he finds a shape-shifting bunny/toddler alien A-Yuan. LWJ is also a different kind of alien.

B) I think it takes place in a camp after defeating the Wen. JGY spikes the Lan's tea with alcohol. LWJ and WWX spend the night together, but by morning the Jiang siblings think it was noncon. Eventually JGY confesses that it was JGS's idea to serve alcohol.

13A)

FOUND! Lost and Found by diamondbruise (E, 52k, WangXian, Modern AU, Aliens, Slow Burn, Alien LWJ, Crack Treated Seriously, Soulmates, Kid Fic…..kind of, i use that tag very loosely, Masturbation, Rough Sex, canon typical cnc elements, Happy Ending)

13B)

FOUND! The Teapot Plot by ToxicAngel13 (M, 52k, wangxian, LXC/NMJ, Misunderstandings, Plots, protective Jiang siblings, Golden Core Reveal, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, Idiots in Love, Damn Jins, Post-Sunshot Campaign, Pre-Burial Mounds, Potential for M-Preg, Fix-It, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Idiots Everywhere, LWJ ’s Biting Kink, WangXian Get a Happy Ending, Protective LWJ, Protective WQ, JGS is his own warning, Protective JYL)

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14. hiya! for the fic finder, i'm struggling to find a fic i read a few months ago - not sure if it's been deleted or not. i am fairly certain it was an a/b/o au where wwx was carrying lwj's kid by the time he ended up in the burial mounds and basically he kept control of the spirits by asking the female ghosts to help him protect him unborn baby. wen qing also refused to take his golden core because of the baby and jiang cheng ended up with wen ning's core instead going into the sunshot campaign. the wen siblings and the wen remnants live in this au and help wwx raise his daughter after she's born. somewhere along the way wwx tells his siblings and lwj about his daughter too.

second fic i've been looking for, but not as much of a priority to me as the first one, all i remember about this one was lwj found out about wwx giving up his core almost immediately after it happened and wwx lets lwj help him sooner. one scene i remember was wwx and jiang cheng were arguing and jiang cheng uses zidian on wwx and mortally wounds him and stops wwx heart (i think?)

thank you for your help in advance! <3

14A)

FOUND! 🧡 Don’t Wanna Fall by nekojita (M, 111k, WangXian, Mpreg, A/B/O, Fix-it, Lots of pining, Angst with a happy ending, Canon Divergence, Child thief WN)

14B)

FOUND! these colours fade for you only by doodlebutt (T, 36k, WangXian, Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Everybody Lives, Golden Core Transfer Fix-It, …eventually, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, bed sharing, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Sunshot Campaign)

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15. Hi! This is for fic finder. There are 2 fic that i want to read

A) It short fic. JYL and WWX likes to play the "xianxian is 3 years old". I dont remember how but NMJ knows and ask to join with NHS. JYL give them permission, thinking it was like a play between her and WWX. Then they (JYL and WWX) found out it was different. Between JYL and WWX is like a play pretend but between NMJ and NHS is different in a way that NHS transform into a 3 years old child

B) The story is between yunmeng trio and nie sibs. JGY wants to make the nies and jiangs enemy. He then found out that NHS didnt have a single blood of nie. In the discussion conference, he invite nhs blood aunt that thinking nhs deserve better than become the second young master of the nie and revealed that nhs is jfm child not the former nie's sect leader. I only remember that

Thanks

15A)

FOUND? Little by nirejseki (T, 3k, NHS & JC & WWX & NMJ, Age Regression/De-Aging, Non-Sexual Age Play, Misunderstandings)

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16. I'm hoping you guys can help me find a fic I vaguely remember. It was fox!wwx and I think he was in an arranged marriage to lwj, but before he left he cut off a tail and left it as a present for JC to find (I think) when he got back to Lotus Pier.

I think I've read #16, was the Jiangs doing a silk/cloth dyeing business and JYL was super sick, and Wei ying was conscripted to be part of the search for a mate for prince ? I'll try to find it if it is

FOUND! #16 reminds me of the deleted "Bleeding Bones, Aching Hearts " by scarletmoontears. Do you remember if Wei Ying was a war general of Yunmeng Jiang and was sent as a warprize to the Lans?

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17. Hi!! I'm looking for a fic. This is a Modern AU where WWX fakes his death (I think because of Madam Yu) and LWJ sends him voice and text messages during his grieving process. Everything changes when WWX accidentally answers one of those messages and LWJ finds out he's not dead. I don't recall more. Thank you so much for your help!! @fantasiacoral-blog

FOUND? Love Don’t Belong To Me by airinshaw (E, 28k, WangXian, Modern, Getting Together, Kissing, Intercrural Sex, Light Angst, Happy Ending, PTSD, Panic Attack, WWX’s canonical self-esteem issues, Canonical Child Abuse, not as dark as the tags imply, Past Relationships mention)

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18. Hello! This if for a fic finder

A) mo xuanyu is a ghost that stays with wwx i think he and wwx can both be concious in the body? Idrm much but it was wwx/mxy/lwj

B) this was a modern au lan jingyi came out to his parents or something like that and they gor abusive , jiangcheng ends up adopting jingyi or smth like that they tale him to a doctor too I remember jiangcheng and lan xichen were dating

18A)

FOUND? Serrated by InkSplatterM and MrMissMrsRandom (E, 194k, WangXianYu, Slow Burn, Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-Typical Gore, Past Abuse, Canon Divergence, MXY Lives, spirit possession, 2/3 men are virgin idiots, WWX is an emotional dunce, MXY is gay and tired, LWJ finds his heart is very large, Discussions of Suicide, Suicide Attempt, victim self-blame, Panic Attacks, mentions of past sexual abuse, PTSD, Past Rape/Non-con, Masturbation, Voyeurism, Outdoor Sex, Exhibitionism, light cum play, Praise Kink, gentle dirty talk, D/s elements, Under-negotiated Kink, Dom MXY, Sub LWJ)

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19. Hello! I'm looking for a modern au fic wherein i think lwj and wwx are roommates. wwx is writing a paper on the effect of spanking on children and asks lwj to spank him to experience it firsthand. i think there's a couple of instances where wwx forgets to clear out the sink and stuff and gets spanked for it and then gets aftercare??? i think there's some dialogue that goes like "my hand. no french. over the couch" idk?? I cannot seem to find it

FOUND! "The Efficacy of Spanking on Behavioural Change" by redscudery (E, 15k, WangXian, SL/WWX, Platonic BDSM, Oblivious WWX, Spanking, we all know this is not platonic, With One Exception, Bisexual Disaster WWX, Light Dom/sub, not a single brain cell was consulted, Boys Kissing, Boys In Love, Getting Together, First Time, Lube Shenanigans, mild alcohol and marijuana use, Non-graphic vomiting, big bisexual awakenings r us, Love Confessions, Modern, Canada)

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20. Hi I would like to ask if you know the title of the story in ao3 that I read back then. It’s like burial mound setting, they made a village inside the Burial Mounds but it’s hidden in the rock and no one can enter but then they invited Lan Xichen in their home. Thank you have a nice day ahead!

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#wangxian #mdzs #wangxian fic finder #wangxian fic search #the untamed #wangxianficfinder #long post

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