#also me 3 seconds later: he wheeled away from the impact

[origamiyoda]

I miss writing fight scenes

[its-avalon-08]

lando norris x reader part6

part 6 guys <3 themes enemies to lovers flirty interactions female Formula1 driver

Red Lights, Racing Hearts: Chapter 6 - Collision Course

The once playful camaraderie at the arcade felt like a distant memory as Y/N navigated the unforgiving corners of the practice track. She pushed the car to its limits, adrenaline coursing through her veins, the taste of asphalt and competition thick on her tongue.

Then, in a heartbeat, everything went wrong. A miscalculation, a split-second lapse in judgement, and Lando Norris was bearing down on her, his car a runaway missile heading straight for hers.

The impact was brutal, a sickening crunch of metal and fiberglass. The world spun, her car swerving across the track before coming to a halt in a shower of sparks and smoke.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, panic clawing at her throat. She unbuckled herself, fear and anger a potent cocktail in her veins. As she emerged from the mangled wreckage, adrenaline masking the throbbing pain, she saw Lando standing beside his own battered car, face pale and expression unreadable.

"WHAT THE FUCK NORRIS?!?!" Y/N roared, her voice echoing in the stunned silence of the pit lane. "Are you fucking blind?!"

Lando's mouth tightened. "It was an accident, L/N. Don't make it sound like I tried to take you out."

"An accident?" Y/N spat, a hand instinctively flying to her forehead. A metallic tang hit her tongue, and she pulled her hand away, seeing a smear of red blossoming across her palm. Panic spiked, fear forgotten, replaced by a surge of primal terror.

Lando saw the blood, his initial defensiveness dissolving into concern. He reached out, fingers hovering hesitantly near her face.

Y/N flinched, swatting his hand away with a hiss. "Don't you dare touch me!" she screamed, her voice thick with fear and fury.

Lando recoiled, hurt flickering in his eyes. "I was just trying to see if you're okay," he protested, his voice tight.

"Yeah, right," Y/N scoffed, tears stinging her eyes. "Like you actually care."

Lando's anger flared. "Don't act so fucking high and mighty, L/N," he snapped, grabbing her shoulders, his grip surprisingly firm. He brushed aside her hair, his thumb gently wiping away the blood trickling down her forehead. "You put yourself in danger every time you get behind the wheel. Don't expect an ounce of sympathy if you can't handle the heat."

Y/N stared at him, his touch sending a jolt through her. His words were harsh, laced with anger, but his eyes held a concern she couldn't ignore. "Don't pretend to care, Norris," she whispered, her voice trembling. "You wouldn't know what caring looks like if it hit you over your head"

Before Lando could retort, Max and Daniel materialized beside them, their faces grim. They saw the raw emotions playing out, the anger, the fear, the flicker of something deeper that danced beneath the surface.

"Alright, that's enough," Max said, his voice a low rumble, pulling Lando away from Y/N. "Both of you, take a breather. We'll talk about this later."

As the tension slowly dissipated, replaced by a wary silence, Y/N looked at Lando, his face unreadable. Was there genuine concern in his eyes, or was it just another mask in his repertoire? She didn't know, and the uncertainty gnawed at her.

The accident had been a jolt, a stark reminder of the dangers they faced every time they strapped themselves into those high-powered machines. But it had also unveiled something else, something hidden beneath the layers of competition and rivalry. A spark of connection, a flicker of humanity, that threatened to disrupt the carefully constructed walls they had built around their hearts.

----------------<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3------------------------

The antiseptic sting of the disinfectant brought Y/N back to the present. Max, crouched before her with a cotton ball, focused on cleaning the graze on her arm, his expression unreadable. The heat radiating from his proximity made her cheeks warm, a stark contrast to the chill gripping her heart.

"There," Max mumbled, tossing the used cotton ball into the bin. "You'll live."

Y/N huffed, a weak attempt at humor. "Thanks, Pretty Boy. For saving me from myself, that is."

Max paused, his hand lingering on her elbow for a beat longer than necessary. "Or saving you from Norris?" he said, his voice low and neutral.

Y/N's jaw tightened. "It was an accident," she snapped, more to convince herself than him.

"Accidents happen," Max agreed, "but sometimes, they tell a story."

Y/N met his gaze, a flicker of apprehension flashing in her eyes. "What story?" she whispered, dreading the answer.

Max chuckled, the sound surprisingly warm and gentle. "The story of a girl who can't stop talking about the boy who almost ran her over," he teased, a knowing glint in his eyes.

Y/N's face flushed crimson. "I do not!" she protested, her voice cracking under the pressure of his gaze.

Max raised an eyebrow, a playful smirk tugging at the corners of his lips. "Really? Because all I heard was 'Don't pretend to care, Norris,' not 'Don't come near me, you reckless maniac.'"

Y/N opened her mouth to retort, but the words died on her tongue. Max was right. Her anger towards Lando had stemmed from something deeper, something she hadn't even admitted to herself.

Silence stretched between them, charged with unspoken words and blooming emotions. Max's hand reached up, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His touch was comforting and calm in contrast to the turmoil she was facing internally.

"Look," Max said, his voice turning serious, "Lando might be...well, Lando. But I don't think he meant to hurt you."

Y/N sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. "I know," she admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "It's just...there's something about him. This anger, this darkness. It scares me but it is so fucking inviting."

Max nodded, his expression softening. "It scares me too. But maybe, just maybe, there's more to him than meets the eye."

Y/N considered his words, a flicker of hope battling the fear in her heart. "Maybe," she breathed, her gaze flitting towards the window where the setting sun painted the sky in fiery hues.

But even as she allowed herself a sliver of hope, a voice whispered a stark warning in her head. Lando Norris was a storm, a tempestuous force that could consume her whole. Was she strong enough to weather it, or would she be swept away in its fury?

Only time would tell. And as the shadows lengthened and the silence deepened, Y/N knew that the real race had just begun - not just on the track, but within the tangled labyrinth of her own heart.

[rainysflowers]

Rainy answers this because it doesn't have enough people who would actually send in asks for an ask game so it'll just do it on it's own!!

1. What was the first anime you watched?

The first anime I ever watched was Pokemon Black and White when it aired on Disney XD. Ofc, at the time I didn't consider it an anime for whatever reason, and that has stuck with me forever, so when asked this question, I always answer with the one I consider to be really the first anime I watched. Ouran High School Host Club. Summer camp, awards ceremony, final day. My friend comes up to me and says, "Hey, have you heard about this show??" I said no, and went and watched it on Netflix. Instantly hooked. Kyoya was my favorite host, btw.

2. What was the first fandom you were involved in?

Pokemon and Warrior Cats. I 'wrote' fanfiction for Pokemon in my head since the age of zero, and made so many Warrior Cat OCs as a baby. Had a HUGE playlist of M.A.P.s too. Both of them had a long impact on my life going forwards, and I'm not entirely certain which came first.

3. What fandoms are you involved in right now?

Gosh, atm? Nothing specific. I've been in a depressive mood for a while so I haven't watched anything at all in a LOOONNNGGGGGGG time. It's sad, to be honest.

4. Who is your favorite character from Lost Universe and why?

DAMN, putting me on the spot right away, god. Okay, so LU is a spin-off of Slayers and I have to be honest, I don't have a favorite character from it, mostly because it's not all that much of a favorite anime to me in general, BUT for the sake of this question, I think Rayl would probably be the one I like the most. Tho, that's cuz he's kinda aimed to be the Xellos of the anime...

5. Who is your least favorite character from GetBackers and why?

Easy. Drunk Vash. I, uh, don't know his name, but if you've seen the anime he's the other blond older man with light powers who shows up in the second half. To be fair, I hate the second half period, as it feels like a retread of all the cool stuff they did with Maku-chan and the Fortress in the first half, but I also think that Drunk Vash is just boring. The random assholes he brings along are boing (Not Toshiki, I respect his manga characterization), his motives are boring, and his ending is boring. And that's coming from someone who hate the manga's ending!!

6. How do you feel about Boa Hanncock from One Piece and why?

Of course the wheel chooses the long asf anime, smh. I'll have you know I put a decent amount of people on the other wheel. I hate her. I cannot stand her. I want her to go away. Great, very sad story though!! Okay, seriously, I HATE Boa, I hate her probably more than I hate any of the other characters that I hate. She kicks small animals, she's a dick, she's vain, and I hate her. She has a beautifully tragic and traumatic backstory I love. I love the symbolism of it that she has to carry, and how that has affected her into her later life. I cannot stand her. That should summaries how I feel about her.

7. What color do you associate with Zelgadis from Slayers?

Hmm, I'd have to say lighter blue. Not light blue, just a lighter blue. A grossly dusty and depressingly grey lighter blue. It is his skin color, so that's little surprise. But other than that, maybe a little bit of yellow. The sickly bright eyes of a creature watching you from the woods, stalking your every move. Will it attack you with its monstrous teeth and blood-stained claws, or is it making sure that you can't hurt it like everyone else whose come to this forest?

8. Have you read the manga for Ghost Slayers Ayashi?

Actually, I have not. I do own it, it's a two volume series, and I have an extra volume one that came with the collector's box set for the anime, but I haven't read it yet. I should, GSA is pitifully under stocked with content.

9. What is your favorite anime op?

I don't really think about this all that often, but if I had to choose, I'd probably say Death Note OP 2, What's Up People. Its fun. Other than that, We Are from One Piece.

10. What is your favorite anime ed?

Have a Nice Music!! from Show by Rock!!, or Revolution from Slayers Evolution-R. Mostly the latter.

11. Who is your favorite character to write for?

I think it'll have to be Xellos. That's hard to say, but I do really enjoy writing about them interacting with other characters, and they're one of my ONLY antagonistic characters I write for. Writing their world view as the Slayers equivalent of a higher demon is fun, and I just love using their character voice in the things I make.

12. What is your favorite headcanon for Crow from Show by Rock!!?

Oh boy. I'm not super fond of Crow, personally, I don't think about him too often, but if I had to choose something, it'd probably be that he actually does care about Aion, but just teases him cuz he feels like it. Basic, I know, but this headcanon applies more towards various fics and AUs I like to write. Most of them deathfics. A large through point is Aion breaking down to any degree and isolating or removing himself from the group, which causes the tri to go and find him. I usually like to have Crow most affected by this when I am writing him because it's a good contrast.

13. What is your favorite character to read fics about?

I don't have an all time favorite character to read for, but I do have characters who I like to see focused on in the fic, if that makes sense. There's not one that's more than the others, tho, cuz I usually read fics fandom by fandom. Character's I prefer to have a focus on (NOT THEIR POV THO) are: - Xellos (Slayers) - Ban (GetBackers) - Jack (L/R) - Sanji (One Piece) - Yoji (Weiss Kreuz) - ECT... Basically look at a list of my favs and you get the point. Funny enough they're also all my favs to read about dying er uh who said that!!

14. What is your favorite ship from Death Note?

Oh no. Why would it land on this. Oh well. If I have to admit it, I do really like Light/L, but not in a super sexual or even romantic way. I like them more as a fucked up, evil dynamic that can't be quantified, like 'love and hate are both the same' type sentiments. I particularly like them ship-wise when in a No Kira!Cops! AU I have, because it allows me to mess with them not liking one another BEYOND the scope of being a serial killer and a cop. Other than that, and a worthy mention, I also like Misa/L, both in canon and in that AU I mentioned. I just think it could be cute :3 No Light/Misa tho, not in canon most certainly, it skeeves me out

15. What is your least favorite ship from L/R: Licensed by Royalty?

Time to sound awful. Uh... I don't really like Claire/Rowe... I don't want you to get the wrong idea, they're fine, I'm just not into their chemistry. It's not something that I would enjoy writing about or consuming solely. That's mostly because I ship the boys, Jack/Rowe, the non-canon gay ship, but I really don't mind seeing Claire/Rowe in general. I'm just not into it. I don't really have strong feelings on characters outside of the main three (Jack, Rowe, Noelle) in this anime so the two being in a relationship means I'm not interested in half of it and it's hard for me to engage with it. Sorry two other L/R fans on Earth :P

16. What ship will you go down with?

... Okay, uh... this is weird, but my fav fav fav ship is Shuu★Zo/Aion from Show by Rock!! It's an enemies-to-lovers ship with two character who I don't believe have ever spoken before once... BUT I have this AU. So in the show, Aion ends up possessed by a negativity demon, and wanders to the roof of a very tall building (He seeks out high places when distressed, he's very mentally ill). Shuu notices and tells Aion's band where to find him. In the AU, it's Shuu who goes and saves Aion instead of the band, and they grow closer after this, which is hindered by the fact they are in dueling, opposite genre bands (Aion is vkei, Shuu is jpop). I love them so much.

17. Who is currently your main comfort/emotional support character?

I have like five million but a sold fall back is Xellos from Slayers. I don't know why, but something made me gravitate towards them and it was never the same after that. Other notable ones are, like, Ban from GetBackers or maybe L from Death Note, but Xel is def the all time fav.

18. What is a comfort character you have that makes other people go ??? "Really?" 

I honestly can't think of anyone that would fit that description, but I like Kiriko from Black Jack and I think that he might be one of the weirder ones?? He's an old man twink who does euthanasia, but he's got a good story and I like that he just shows up sometimes lol.

19. Have you used a quote from an anime/manga in a relevant situation?

Nope. I have referenced the plots of anime/manga in situations before, however, like when I let made my friend explain the semantics of Minecraft Parkour Civilization just to say "OMG that's like GetBackers :3"

20. What anime food would you like to try?

L's strawberry shortcake from Death Note. It's a weird choice, right, but it just looks sooooo good. Perfect strawberry, good looking cake, and it's L's!! What's more to ask for?? Or I'd like Sanji from One Piece to make me something. Anything at all, I just wanna see what he'd give me.

21. What anime place would you like to visit?

Not an anime place, but omfg take me to Sapporo or Okinawa. They are soooooo pretty in Yakuza 3 & Yakuza 5 respectively, I wanna go NOW!!!!!!! But if I'm allowed to choose a fictional anime place then probably... I think I'd like to go to Shinjuku cuz Count D from Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo is there and the GetBackers boys are there too. I'd like to meet with them.

22. What anime animal would you like as your pet?

I feel like I'd rather BE an anime animal more than having any that I WANT, but if I had to choose, then... The person I reblogged this from makes a good point with an eevee from Pokemon. I kinda want a persacom from Chobits but thats not really an animal...

23. What anime movie is your favorite?

I don't watch many anime movies, but I guess if I had to choose one it would probably be either the Castle of Cagliostro or The First, both from Lupin the Third. Great films really, each extremely well animated and easy to get into... well... Cagliostro is, not so sure about The First... BUT you should still watch them, they're wonderful!!

24. What is the saddest anime you have watched?

Trigun 98. By far. Saddest shit you will EVER see, I highly recommend it. It starts off really fun and goofy, but as you get into it, the anime slowly creeps in its depressing things until you get halfway in and its game over from then on. You will watch Vash cry at least once per episode, and you will watch as he is broken down mentally and physically till he's nearly nothing. Great show, tbh.

My overly sepcific ask game with questions no one wants an answer to

Alternative title: things I want people to ask me but no one does

What was the first anime you watched?

What was the first fandom you were involved in?

What fandoms are you involved in right now?

Who is your favorite character from (anime) and why?

Who is your least favorite character from (anime) and why?

How do you feel about (character) and why?

What color do you associate with (character)?

Have you read the manga for (anime)?

What is your favorite anime op?

What is your favorite anime ed?

Who is your favorite character to write for?

What is your favorite headcanon for (character)?

What is your favorite character to read fics about?

What is your favorite ship (from a specific anime or in general)

What is your least favorite ship (from a specific anime or in general)

What ship will you go down with?

Who is currently your main comfort/emotional support character?

What is a comfort character you have that makes other people go ??? "Really?" 

Have you used a quote from an anime/manga in a relevant situation?

What anime food would you like to try?

What anime place would you like to visit?

What anime animal would you like as your pet?

What anime movie is your favorite?

What is the saddest anime you have watched?

This took me forever to make please don't let this flop

[girl-of-many-fandoms]

Stitches // 17

Pairing: Frank Castle x Reader

Summary: Frank fears he'll become the person he used to be at the end of it all.

Warnings: angst, cursing, mention of blood and broken bones, knife violence

Raise your hand if you're worried about how this is all going to play out 😬🙋🏽‍♀️

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 BONUS

MASTERLIST

—

Y/N’s POV

This can’t be happening

“Is she going to be alright?” Frank squeezed my shoulder as we looked at her through the glass door of the ICU room she’s in. My sweet Amy is hooked up to so many machines, I could barely recognize her.

“She suffered a lot of trauma to her chest cavity and skull. She has two broken ribs and there is minor swelling in her brain from the impact, we’re monitoring that closely for any changes at all. The trauma she experienced to her head has her in a coma and even though we are hopeful that she’d wake up, there is the possibility that she might not.” hot tears flowed from my eyes as I broke down in Frank’s arms; this wasn’t supposed to happen. How could this happen?

“Are we allowed to go in at least?”

“You can.”

“Thank you doc.” Frank tried his best to comfort me, rubbing his hand up and down the length of my back. I could barely breathe from the intensity of my sobs into his chest.

“Sweetheart, it’s going to be alright shhhh, forget what he said, Amy’s strong she’s going to wake up sooner or later.” he kissed my forehead, holding onto me tighter in the process. I heard the familiar sound of Matt’s cane tapping the ground and turned my head in the direction it’s coming from; Matt, Foggy and Karen followed Brett over to us.

“Y/N- Oh God.” Karen gasped and looked away from the room.

“Where is that son of a bitch, Mahoney?” we know Amy was with Jacob and they found her in his car, we have yet to get any word about how he’s doing or if he survived at all. I could feel Frank’s anger radiating off of him, we both need answers as to what went down tonight and he has them.

“We should talk in the room.” pulling away I sucked in a deep breath and waddled into the room with Brett and Frank trailing behind. I pulled the chair closer to her and sat down, gently taking her hand in mine.

“The department got a call from one of the residents in the nearby complex about the car crash and by the time the first responders arrived on the scene they only found Amy pinned in the front seat, the driver was long gone.”

—

Frank’s POV

“You’re telling me that bastard left her there and didn’t bother to call for help.”

I am livid, Jacob better hope that I don’t find him because he’ll wish that he had died behind that wheel when I get my hands on him. She could have died out there tonight and he walks away, fuck that.

“We don’t even know who the driver is-”

“Jacob Whitman, nineteen, about six foot tall, grey eyes, lean built. That’s the asshole that did this to her.” my hands gripped onto the foot of the bed in a death grip, my knuckles turning white as the image of the guy flashed before my eyes.

“Well damn, you wouldn’t happen to know his address also?” reaching forward I held onto her ankle and gently rubbed it; stay strong for me kid.

“No.”

Lie, I knew all there is to know about that prick, his birthday, favourite place to eat, places he frequents, his ailing mother warded at Metro Gen, all of it. Mahoney doesn’t need to know that though at least not until after I have a little chat with him.

“Okay, well at least I have something to start with.” he turned to leave but paused in his tracks.

“I’m sorry this happened, you guys have been through a lot already and I know how much the kid means to you both, especially you Frank. She’ll pull through this.” I nodded silently thanking him and he left. Not two seconds later the trio came in and I straightened up.

“Can you guys stay with Y/N while I go look for this asshole?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Frank..” Y/N called out to me, I know that tone very well. She’s warning me not to go kill the bastard but I'm really not up for taking orders from anyone. Amy’s in a hospital bed with a tube down her throat while that bastard is roaming freely.

“Don’t, sweetheart. You told me to ignore my suspicions and I did, maybe if I had told her not to go with him we wouldn’t be here. You told me to trust her judgement and this is what happened, she’s hooked up to so many damn wires with a machine keeping her alive.” I don’t have it in me to get into an argument with Y/N over this, it’s not her fault that any of this happened.

“You’re blaming me for this?”

“I’m not blaming you, I’m blaming myself.” without another word I stepped out into the hallway with Red hot on my trail.

“Now’s not the time, Red.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“The hell you are.”

“Look, I know you and I have our differences but I know how much Amy means to you both so if I can help, I’ll help.” I gave him a once over and patted him on his shoulder in the process.

“You can help me by staying here with Y/N and the kid.”

—

People really shouldn’t leave their windows unlocked, especially the ones that lead to their fire escapes, you never know who or what can get in.

The sound of running water from the bathroom is the only sound filling this crappy ass apartment that Jacob is holed up in. I quietly manoeuvred further into his place, careful not to knock anything over in doing so.

I could handle this two ways, I can make myself comfortable and wait for him to finish his shower or I can bust in there and beat the shit out of him. Fuck that.

Option two it is.

I kicked the door in and crossed the room to the shower, his eyes looked like they were going to fall out his head, hell I just might knock them out myself.

“No-” my clenched fist connected with his temple, successfully knocking him out with one blow. Before he could drop to the floor I grabbed and dragged him out to his living room, dropping him down onto one of his chairs.

Taking the zip ties I brought with me out of my pocket I secured him to the chair, fighting the urge to gut him right here. I can’t kill him yet, I need to know what really went down in that car tonight; he has the answers and I am more than willing to beat them out of him if I have to.

There’s a gash on his leg, cuts and bruises scattered on his face and chest as well. He’s banged up pretty good, it should’ve been him in the hospital fighting to stay alive instead of her. Soon enough he’s going to wake up and wish that he hadn’t taken her out on that date.

—

Y/N’s POV

“We were doing so good, neither one of us getting into any kind of trouble as we moved forward with being a family. Christ, we’re about to have a little boy of our own and now Amy’s…she’s, God, why?”

I want to scream all my frustrations out and don’t stop until my lungs give out. I brushed my thumb on the back of her hand, forced to listen as the machine breathed for her. Although he said that he blamed himself for her being in this position, I know that there’s also a part of him that blamed me as well. I blame myself for completely letting my guard down, believing that Jacob was nothing more than just a regular guy that liked Amy.

“I’m the one at fault here, I should’ve listened to him in the beginning. If I had-”

“Aye, don’t do that. You couldn’t have known, this is not your fault at all.”

“It sure feels like it.”

—

Frank’s POV

Jacob groaned in pain, slowly waking up from the blow to the head. Dropping the magazine next to the knife on the table I kept my eyes trained on him as he took in his surroundings before landing his gaze on me.

“Morning sunshine, we need to talk.”

“How di-”

“What happened in that car, Jacob?” the muscles in my jaw ticked the longer I looked at the naked son of a bitch who chose to stay quiet. Lightly nodding I picked up the knife and stabbed the tip into the wooden table, twisting it, creating a dent in the tabletop.

“Don’t make me ask the same question twice, it won't end well for you.” he gulped as he looked at the weapon in my grasp.

“None of that was supposed to happen, I swear.” his lips quivered in fear as I rose to my feet.

“I was taking her to the waterfront to see the city lights, Amy was the one that swerved the car.” that made absolutely no sense to me, why would she crash the car if he was innocently taking her there? There’s more to that story.

“Amy wouldn’t have crashed the car unless she had a pretty damned good reason. Why’d she do it?” again, silence.

“Ahhhh!” Jacob’s screams filled the space as I pushed the blade deep into his thigh until it reached the handle, definitely doing some damage to his nerve, I couldn’t care less.

“You’re crazy!”

“Trust me, you don’t want to see how crazy I can be.” winding my hand in the mass of hair that sat on his head I yanked him backwards, forcing him to look up at me.

“You listen to me very carefully, you put my kid in the hospital and I’m ready to send you to the morgue for that but I need to know what happened tonight before I do.” he screamed again as I twisted the knife further.

“A man! That’s what I was taking her there for!”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

“I don’t know who he is or his name, he’s somewhat of a regular at the diner, he always requested that Amy serve him every time he came in. I never questioned why because he tipped her good and we could use all the tips we could get.”

“Description.”

“Caucasion, my height, brown hair, he always wears a suit, mid to late forties.”

Fisk probably has this man on his payroll, wouldn't put it past the bastard to send his men after her.

“During my third week working there he asked me if I wanted to make some extra money on the side and I blindly said yes without knowing what I was getting myself into.” The more he spoke the less I wanted to choke the life out of him. He’s just a kid that got caught up with the wrong people. Releasing him, I sat down in my seat again.

“What’d he offer you?”

“He said he’d pay me to get closer to her and get to know her better and report to him whatever information I got. That was our initial deal, then he called three days ago and said he’d pay me a large sum of money if I brought her to the waterfront this morning at one.”

“How much was my little girl worth asshole?”

“One million and before you say anything know that I couldn’t pass that kind of cash up. I have to take care of my mom and pay for college at the same time.”

Don't kill him Frank, there's a different way to deal with this.

“She told me to take her home and I refused, that’s when she grabbed the wheel and we crashed into a building.”

“And you left her there to die, you didn’t bother to try to get her out of there.”

“She was out cold and trapped. I’m such an idiot, I shouldn’t have gotten into this. I should’ve told him no-” his cries got drowned out by the blaring of his phone ringing on the table, unknown caller ID.

“You’re going to talk and forget that I’m even here. You say anything out of the ordinary I will not hesitate to snap your neck.”

“Okay..” I swiped to answer it and put it on speaker, Jacob swallowed before speaking.

“Hello.”

“What happened, Jacob?” a gruff voice came through the phone, I have never met this person before, his voice is foreign to me.

“There was an accident, she knew something was off.”

“Why didn’t you sedate her like I instructed?”

“I couldn’t.”

“Well now she’s in the hospital fighting to stay alive because of your stupid mistake. You better pray she survives or else I’ll pay dear old mom a visit before I kill you myself.” The call ended and I tossed the phone back on the table, Jacob hyperventilating at the mystery man’s threat.

Threatening the kid is one thing but bringing his sick mother into this only increases my desire to find this asshole.

“Listen kid, that bastard is not going to do anything to your mother alright.”

“You don’t know that Mr. Castiglione.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, kid. I’ll help you out of this mess but you have to promise me something.” he nodded frantically with his bloodshot eyes glued to my every move.

“I let you live and you walk away from this, all of it. I’ll get to the bottom of this mess and after that I don’t want to see you around, you’re going to leave Amy behind, forget about her completely. I don’t suppose I have to make that any more clearer to you.”

“N-no sir.”

“Good and another thing-” I balled my fist and punched him square in the face, I’m obviously still pissed off at the asshole.

“The next time a lady tells you to take her home, you take her home.” he groaned in pain and I left him there, using his front door this time.

Fucking asshole.

—

By the time I made it back to the hospital, the sun began to make its way into the sky, waking the city in its rise. Y/N fell asleep with her head on Amy’s hospital bed, still holding on to the kid’s hand.

How am I going to tell her someone’s after the kid?

We finally got to a good place, our son could be here any day now and with this, I fear I might slip back into old habits. I can’t do that to my family, I can’t afford to be that person again but I also can’t sit back and wait until Mahoney solves this.

I worked so hard on being a better man for my family and now this shit happens. No matter how many times I try to escape this part of me it always finds a way to rare its ugly head and I fear that it'll end up consuming me in the end.

Christ.

I wanted to kill Jacob, I wanted to watch the life drain out of his eyes as I drove the knife repeatedly into his body but in that moment all I heard was Amy's voice telling me not too. That piece of scum better take my advice and leave or else I'll really kill him for playing with her heart.

“Hey sweetheart.” my lips ghosted her cheek as I gently woke her up, she needs to lie down on a proper bed to sleep otherwise she’s going to have severe back pain later on.

“Frank?” rubbing her eyes, she sat up and released a heavy sigh.

“I should take you home to get some rest, we can come back later to check up on her.” she shook her head no and leaned back into her seat.

“Sweetheart.”

“Did you find him?” her hands rested on her bump as she spoke, averting her eyes from Amy’s unconscious body.

I can either lie and spare her the extra stress or tell the truth and have to restrain her from going out there to find this man herself. Come on Castle, make a decision.

“Frank?”

“No, he was long gone by the time I got to his place."

I feel bad for lying to her but it's for her own good, at least that's what I'm telling myself.

----

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[yongtxt]

turn back time [taeyong]

word count: 6.2k words

characters: amnesiac!taeyong x girlfriend!reader ft. doyoung

genre: angst [meant to be just melancholic so no crying !]

warnings: few mentions of a car crash and some wounds. taeyong suffers from amnesia.  it’s a couple trying to learn how to love again.

author’s note: yesterday was my first year anniversary here on tumblr and i give you a short angst fic of the first nct member i wrote for as a present. anyway. i need a break from angst after this also i need to stop writing people getting hurt/wounded???? [stream turn back time by wayv later <3] / unedited

Taeyong awoke to harsh fluorescent lighting filling his vision, a throat so dry it could compare to a desert, and the muffled cries of his lover.

His arms ached, muscles extremely sore that it hurt him to even lift his limb. He wanted to reach out to you, to run his fingers through your hair, and to tell you that everything was gonna be okay—he would work it out with you, together.

You had Taeyong’s hospital gown clutched in your hands, soaking the fabric with your weeping. WIth your face buried into his blanket, it took you a second to realize that your boyfriend had already woken up from his deep slumber. Your cheeks flushed at his intense gaze, dropping your hold on him almost immediately as if it was hot to touch.

“You’re awake!” You exclaimed, voice cracking. Fumbling to wipe your tears, you scrambled to your feet. “Let me grab some food, okay? You must be hungry.”

Taeyong did his best to shake his head, “No, you don’t have to. Please just stay beside me.”

A beat passed and you could only stare at him. The hesitance you exuded didn’t pass unnoticed, you sat back on the stool beside him and stayed tight-lipped. Taeyong sighed through his nose, a bubble of nervousness growing in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t even look you in the eye, his attention darting everywhere but to you.

“How are you feeling? Do you think you can move better now?” You asked, soft and wary—afraid of what his response would be and he didn’t like the sound of it not one bit, but he didn’t let it show.

“I can move my head better than yesterday.” Taeyong pointed out, craning his neck enough to prove it to you. You couldn’t help the smile on your face and his chest floods with an unfamiliar warmth. He added, “My joints just hurt since I’m kept on bed rest all day.”

“Well, you’re getting released tomorrow.” You said, subconsciously outstretching your hand to brush off the fallen lock of his hair from his forehead. He blushed at the contact of your fingertips and you immediately retracted it back. “Uh, your doctor wanted me to tell you that you should start walking around again if you can to avoid using crutches.”

“I’ll try to go for a walk tonight.” He nodded his head, staring at his lap as if it was the most fascinating thing in the room. “Can you help me drink some water?”

“I’m sorry, of course.” Your cheeks reddened the same way his were, fumbling to punch in a straw inside a bottle of water as you propped it up for him to sip on. Of course he was thirsty, he had been asleep for almost half the day.

Your fingers were trembling, he noticed. Before he could point it out, the door slammed open and you were forced to draw away his drink. You haven’t been told of anyone visiting so it came as a surprise to see your boyfriend’s childhood best friend panting in the doorway, holding himself up on the frame while he gawked at Taeyong’s wounded form.

Bruises of varying sizes littered across Taeyong’s pale skin and a bandage was wrapped around his forehead, his bleached hair peeking out from the bloodied cloth. A large gash can be seen trailing along his jawline and although it had been healing nicely, a mark remained. He had dark circles under his eyes and his cheeks were sunken from fatigue and a lack of nutritional intake, much like you.

He didn’t look well, Doyoung thought with a pitiful gaze Taeyong was already too familiar with.

“Aren’t you gonna come in?” Taeyong chuckled, grinning at Doyoung who frowned at him. He rushed to his side and mindlessly took him into an embrace, cradling his bandaged head into his shoulder. You felt hot tears pool into the corners of your eyes but you blinked them away before they could see.

He berated him, the way he always would when Taeyong got himself into trouble that could’ve been easily avoided if he would just think straight. The blizzard, Doyoung kept bringing it up, he shouldn’t have driven when the weather was too dangerous.

“I’ll try to remember that next time.” Taeyong said, reassuring him before Doyoung could burst into tears. He wouldn’t know how to handle him if he got too emotional, he doubted you’d be able to.

“Why were you driving, anyway? What was so important that you had to risk your life to travel?” Doyoung huffed and you rose from your seat from instinct, about to insert yourself into their conversation when Taeyong grasped your fingers.

You stared at him and you were suddenly reminded that he must’ve put himself in pain to stop you. You sat back down and he smiled, he wanted to say it himself and you could only respect his wishes. You hadn’t been able to inform Taeyong’s friends about his car crash as it had been only a week since it happened, all of your time was spent tirelessly tending him back to health. You didn’t have the time to share the unfortunate news.

“Apparently, I was on my way back to Seoul from visiting my family.” Taeyong said, gently grazing your skin away from his best friend’s sight. At Doyoung's confused knot on his forehead, he continued, “My mom told me that they couldn’t make me stay because it was the night of my anniversary with my girlfriend.”

“Taeyong, why are you talking like that—”

“The doctor said I hit my head on the steering wheel pretty badly.” Taeyong laughed mirthlessly, and you subconsciously squeezed his hand. “Bad enough that my memory got a bit fuzzy. Retrograde amnesia, I think that’s what they called it.”

Doyoung blinked, lips gaped at Taeyong who only smiled at him. He looked up at you, a sudden onslaught of anxiety coursing through him that you could just see him almost shake in worry. He whispered to you, “Amnesia? How far back can he remember?”

You bit your lip, turning away and loosening the grip you had on Taeyong’s hand, but he held it tighter with a strength you were sure he was only forcing. You said, “The beginning of third year in college.”

“What?!” Doyoung choked on his spit, leaping from his seat in shock. You offered him an unopened bottle of water but he shook his head. “You’re already a working man, Taeyong! We graduated two years ago, man!”

You did your best to calm Doyoung down, much to Taeyong’s appreciation. You knew where his emotions were coming from so you had to explain why it happened in a manner he would understand. You said that the blizzard was so strong that the roads had iced up and due to the speed he was driving, the car had slipped and crashed into a tree. He hit his head and the sheer impact caused trauma to his brain and made him lose his memories.

The doctors diagnosed him with retrograde amnesia, a form of memory loss that occurs from a traumatic brain injury. It prevented Taeyong from remembering what happened prior to his accident. His recovery was supposed to be gradual, it will take time for him to regain the memories he had lost but it wasn’t assured.

Taeyong doesn’t like telling what happened because people’s first reaction to his amnesia was to resort to aggression. As if their anger and frustration could magically make him remember what he had lost. You didn’t think of it that way, on one quiet night you told him that maybe it was just their desperation to bring him back to the person he was.

He thought it was selfish of them, but you kept your lips shut and refused to tell him that losing two years was a big deal to some people. Although he was still himself, quirks and habits are the same as you’ve first witnessed them, little aspects of him were different; some just different enough that others would do a doubletake to make sure it was really him. The person he is now just wasn’t exactly the person he used to be.

A slightly-off Taeyong, he grimly made a joke about.

You wanted to reassure him, comfort him that he didn’t need to try so hard to be who he used to be. You know despite all of his nonchalance and soft smiles, he was hurting. He instilled it in himself that he disappointed his loved ones by being a person they weren’t accustomed to. But you couldn’t, you weren’t in the place to when his last memories of you were when you have only first met during the anthropology class in your third year of college.

“God, that means you can’t even remember your own girlfriend.” Doyoung mumbled, mostly to himself but you heard it clearly enough as if he personally made it a point to stomp on your heart. Taeyong frowned.

“Shut it, Doyoung.” You grumbled, tears threatening to spill again. You and Taeyong have been so emotionally exhausted that having another person in the hospital room usually would lift both of your spirits, but Doyoung proved himself to be a disturbance instead.

Hours were spent lounging around with Doyoung talking Taeyong’s ears off with stories that he had missed in the past two years, how he was the one who had forced him into the class he shared with you and how coerced him into asking you out before he graduated; a bunch of stories that it almost made Taeyong wish that everything could just go back to the way it was.

He wasn’t the Taeyong they speak so fondly off, he was merely just the shell of him. Still, Doyoung had brought out a smile that you had been unable to make and for that, Taeyong gave him his thanks. You glanced at him from the corner of your eye and sniffled.

Doyoung left not too long after, but he promised to visit soon. He knew you needed the support. You were left alone with your boyfriend again and the silence envelops you whole. When you excused yourself to grab a much-needed coffee, Taeyong sank to the hospital bed and succumbed to his tears.

This was his last night in the hospital and it had felt like the longest. He was out like a light but you stilled in your chair beside his bed, fumbling with the ends of his blanket in worry of tomorrow. Not much had progressed in your relationship with him. He was still embarrassed, timid in how he acted around you. You asked if he wanted to go home with you and he reassured you that he would be fine with it, but the panic you felt was still prominent.

Morning came and after what seemed like hours of finishing what was left of Taeyong’s documents in the hospital, it was time to finally leave. You hailed a taxi and you couldn’t help but notice your boyfriend’s sudden rigidness inside the vehicle. Swallowing your reluctance, you took his hand and forced his attention on you throughout the entire drive. He was thankful that you were able to distract him.

The apartment you shared with Taeyong was small but humble, the third unit in an old building that you swore was built in an era before the current. Thin walls and a poorly constructed floor, it was all both of you could afford when you’ve decided to move in together fresh out of college. Despite its imperfections, it was home as long as you had him with you.

With the creaky sounds your front door made, you heard the familiar sound of soft thudding of feet run across the wooden floors to welcome your arrival. Your heart leaped at the sight of Lala, the three-year-old Labrador you adopted with Taeyong, bolting towards your direction with her tongue sticking out.

Taeyong trailed behind you, drinking the place in. His gaze kept on darting from one place to another, his lips parted in amazement at the thought that he really had the courage to move out of his parents’ house to live with his girlfriend. It looked lived in, bits of his and your personalities showing in the way it was decorated and cluttered. The clashing of color schemes and wood tones almost made him want to laugh over how it was clearly furnished purely on indecision and compromise.

He was too busy familiarizing himself to notice that Lala had jumped on him. Your heart squeezed at the sight.

You crouched down to your knees, reaching over to scratch the back of Lala’s ear. You chuckled at Taeyong’s confusion on how to approach the hyperactive puppy, “Her name is Lala, she’s three years old. We adopted her on your birthday last year.”

Taeyong nodded with widened eyes, getting down to your level to attempt to pet her. He commented offhandedly, “Good girl, Lala.”

“She definitely prefers you over me, too.” You mumbled, watching Lala cave into Taeyong’s touch. She hadn’t seen him in a while so you wondered if her attachment to him would waver but it seemed to only grow stronger, the same way you were with your boyfriend. “I had my friend take care of her while we were gone.”

Taeyong kept his quiet and you swallowed the lump in your throat. His doctor told you to treat him especially kindly since he was in a vulnerable state, but you should instill a sense of normalcy. You were instructed to treat him as you normally would, he needed to be reminded of the lifestyle he used to have little by little.

The idea of having to consume copious amounts of medicines every day was already exhausting and gruesome, he even had the bandage around his head to deal with. He had a lot on his plate, you wouldn’t dare add to it by pressuring him to become the adult he doesn’t remember that he was. In his mind, he was still twenty years old and was living in a rickety dorm with Doyoung; it will surely take time for him to grow out of it.

You told Taeyong to go sit down on the stool across the island, to make himself comfortable while you prepared dinner—attempt to prepare dinner. Racking all the recipes his mother had taught you over the years, you wanted to cook a meal he would enjoy and reminisce over.

“Doyoung told me you didn’t like cooking very much.” You heard Taeyong’s voice said, a voice free of malice and full of genuine interest. He said, “It makes sense that I should be the one making food for us right now. You know, for all the trouble I’ve caused you the past week.”

You shook your head firmly, turning around so your back faced him. You didn’t want to let him see your ever-growing frown. You sighed, “Don’t worry, I can handle this. Do you want some coffee?”

“Yeah, sure.” He mumbled, pressing his cheek against the palm of his hand. He wished he could do more for you, but you weren’t letting him; you had your wall up as high as he had his.

Shuffling to where your coffee maker was, you quickly fixed a cup of coffee for him as if you moved purely on instinct. Taeyong watched you in amusement as you slid a blue mug to his way. The paint of its design was chipping off the edges and it had a small crack on the handle, it definitely had seen better days but he felt oddly drawn to it.

You saw him eyeing it out and you chuckled, “We went out on a pottery class for a date once and I made that mug for you. You refused to drink coffee without it, but I think it’s time for us to throw it out and buy you a better one.”

“No!” Taeyong interjected almost immediately, waving his hands to dismiss your idea. “I like it. We’re keeping it.”

Your chest ached, but you were unable to pinpoint the feeling that made it so, “If you say so.”

Taeyong was a picky man when it came to his coffee. He wasn’t an avid drinker of dark and rich brews, often preferred the sweeter and creamier side of the spectrum. The drink you made for him tasted just right, the perfect balance, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude. It made him laugh, how his taste in college didn’t seem to change in his twenty-three-year-old body.

“You can go look around while I cook.” You remarked, jutting your chin towards the rest of the apartment that he has yet to see as you run your hands under the running water. He followed your gaze and shook his head. You quirk an eyebrow, “You sure? It’ll take a bit before these noodles cook.”

Lala encircled his feet before cozying herself on top of his shoes, refusing to leave his sight. He laughed, bending down to pick her up and place her onto his lap. With his hands deep into the puppy’s golden fur, he asked, “Is Lala supposed to be a reference to the Teletubbies?”

You turned the stove on and plopped in the boxed pasta you retrieved from the pantry, “Your nephew loved the Teletubbies at some point so we made him name her.”

A visible twinkle appeared in Taeyong’s eye at the mention of his nephew. He’d only seen photos of him recently, the last he remembered of him was that he was only an infant cradled in his sister’s arms. And as if a barrier was put down, he asked if you could tell him more about what he had missed in his personal life. If Taeyong from the past trusted you enough to move in and adopt a dog together⁠—which he couldn’t believe he was able to do in college, he had to trust you, too.

You gladly entertained his curiosities while you prepared a mediocre version of his mother’s Jajangmyeon. As obscure some of his questions were, you were as honest as you could be. From how he managed to pass his senior year to how he got the job at his company, he asked it all while stuffing his face with dark noodles.

In your eyes, he looked like a kid who wanted to know what his older brother did, to follow in his footsteps and be just like him. He wanted to absorb so much information, it almost pained you to look at him listening to you with an expression so clearly resembling envy.

He cut you off and called out to you with a voice lower than before, sadder but still hesitant. You glanced at him in worry that you were rambling too much. He averted his attention away from you, “You’re crying.”

Raising a hand to your cheek, it was wet. You coughed in embarrassment, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He mumbled, meekly offering his half-empty drink to you.

You hopped out of your seat beside him, carrying your empty bowl to the sink. You stayed a bit longer away from his line of view, wanting to keep your emotions in check for Taeyong’s first night back in the apartment. You didn’t want to scare him away, he was getting more comfortable and you succumbing to your feelings would ruin everything you’ve worked so hard for.

You turned the tap on and cracked your neck, “I’ll clean up here while you can go take a bath. The bathroom is next to the bedroom.”

He let out a breath and nodded, lingering for a moment before ultimately deciding that it would be best to leave you be. He didn’t know how he could comfort you when he was the reason for your distress, it would only hurt you more if he tried to console you of things he didn’t know of.

He spotted a box on the coffee table on his way to the bathroom, a bright red box with doodles scribbled onto its sides. Glancing at you, he was about to ask what it was inside when he clamped his mouth shut. He sat down on the couch and let his curiosity get the best of him, reaching to fiddle with the latch that sealed it closed.

Inside were piles of polaroid films, photos were not only of you and him but also of his friends from college and people he had yet to remember. An assortment of knickknacks filled it to its brim, variations of trinkets that included movie tickets and receipts. It was a box made to help Taeyong remember the memories he had lost, the connections he had with people that he had forgotten.

Taeyong bit the inside of his cheek, it must’ve been your doing. You probably asked around for others to help assemble the box, his heart swelled at the thought. You were working hard to make himself and his environment feel normal after losing a good chunk of his memories, he had to work hard as well.

His fists were shaking, his knuckles turning a shade paler than it already was. Lala snaked into the crook of his arm and whimpered at her owner’s change of composure. He laughed humorlessly, scratching her belly in appreciation.

Shutting the box closed, he sighed. He made his way towards the unfamiliar bathroom and filled the tub. Doyoung always told him that a bath could melt all of his troubles away, and how he wished it was that easy.

Taeyong came out of his long bath with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, blushing as he hastily pulled on the clothes you had prepared for him in the bedroom. You remained unfazed as you waited for him in a change of sleepwear, he realized that you might’ve already seen him naked before and the thought of it only worsened the state of his cheeks. He perched on the edge of the bed once he was finished.

You grabbed his ointment and attended to the injury on the side of his head, a gash that the doctors had sewn back together. You had a light hand, he noted, but the ache persisted. It burned when the tip of its applicator grazed along the stitches. He reached out to toy with the hem of your shirt, to divert his attention from the pain. You wrapped a bandage around his head as quickly as you could.

You mumbled, “It’s all done.”

“Thank you.” He smiled up at you and you returned it halfheartedly. “Let’s go to sleep, yeah? I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“No, don’t! This bed is yours, too.” You said, holding onto his wrists before he could make a home on your busted couch that functioned as Lala’s chew toy half the time. “I know how much your back hurts because of the hospital bed so please, sleep here.”

Taeyong looked at you with a conflicted expression on his face but after seconds of contemplation and mental debate, he relented only if you’d use the bed as well. You sighed and caved in.

He crawled to his side of the bed, making you wonder if there was an inkling of a chance that he remembered how much he preferred his half that faced the windows. You shuffled to your side, mindful to not cross any boundaries. This would be his first time sleeping next to you and you didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable by being too close for comfort.

You switched to your side, away from his sight. The awkwardness was suffocating you, it seemed like you were the only one affected by it because soon you felt his side dip as he made himself more comfortable while you were frozen like a statue. You were nearing the edge of the bed, so far the end that one wrong move would make you fall out of it.

“Taeyong, are you asleep?” After an hour of silence, you spoke up but in hopes that he was already sleeping.

Unfortunately for you, he hummed in response. You could feel the blankets shift, making it known that he was facing your direction now that you’ve called him. At your lack of reply, he must’ve thought you didn’t hear him so he cleared his throat, “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, look. I just want to say that if you want to break up with me, I’ll understand.”

“What?” He slowly sat up in confusion, hefting himself up with his elbows. You refused to look at him, gnawing on your lips and your eyes squeezed shut as if you were a kid caught by your parents awake past your bedtime.

“This situation we’re in, you don’t have to force yourself to be with me if you don’t want to.” You managed to choke out, choosing your words carefully. “I want you to continue living who you are now, I’ll just hinder you from moving on if I only remind you of the memories you lost.”

He called out your name, much sterner and different from the gentle tone he always used on you. You were suffering worse than he was, that he knew, but he didn’t know just how much until you’ve finally cracked—the insecurities and worries you’ve hidden from him, pouring out all at once and he didn’t know what to do with it.

You were sobbing into the sheets and he could only rub circles onto your back as a failed attempt at comfort. He wanted to tell you so many things, to reassure you that he wasn’t thinking the way you assumed he would be.

Taeyong thought of you so highly. You were someone who carried all of his burdens and stories that made him the person that he was, someone who had so much love for him despite not having it reciprocated back, someone who just wanted him to forgive himself for not being who he was and to start living again. You weren’t just some stranger to him, but the world had robbed him of you.

He ignored his hesitance and whispered under the blanket of the night, “You might’ve lost the Taeyong that you love but I promise I will spend the rest of my days proving to you that I’m worthy of the same love you’ve once given to me.”

“Taeyong—”

“It’ll take some time and I can’t assure you that things will be the same as it was but I swear, I will never forget you again and we’ll be happy.”

There were a lot of things to do, but none of those things were as important to him as lying here next to you, to pick up what remained of you from his ruins. He knew full well that he wasn’t the only victim. He was aware that you were also trying your best for him, to hold onto what’s left of the pieces you used to love about him.

“I really want this to work out.” You admitted amid your hiccups and sniffles, his heart broke at the sound of it. “I know I haven’t lost you yet.”

“Thank you for not giving up on me.” He mumbled, running his nimble fingers through the locks of your hair as a serene silence filled the room as you didn’t say anything back. After a week of being in the hospital, your heavy breathing was enough to lull him into his sleep.

You glanced at him for the first time since you had laid down, observing his furrowed eyebrows and pursed lips. A small smile appeared on your face, he looked tired even though he was already deep in his sleep. You whispered in the dark, “Sleep tight, Taeyong.”

The cold of the night renders you restless once again, your eyes brimming with a bright red hue and utter exhaustion. You swung your legs to the side of the bed, careful enough to not wake your boyfriend who was already asleep. His gentle snores filled the room and you made your way towards the balcony connected to the bedroom with your phone in hand and a blanket draped around your shoulders.

It was another starless sky, you looked up and the absence of the twinkling lights comforted you. You pulled on the blanket closer as you fiddled on your phone, tapping on an option that directed you to a phone call.

“Don’t you know that it’s two in the fucking morning? What do you want?” Doyoung’s voice replaced the monotonous ringing, sounding raspy from what you assumed was his sleep.

“I wanted someone to talk to.” It was your honest answer and you knew he wouldn’t judge you for it.

He yawned, and for a moment you felt a twinge of guilt but it dissipated the second after, “How is Taeyong doing? You brought him back home earlier, right?”

“He’s okay. He’s passed out on the bed right now.” You said, stealing a glance at where Taeyong was sprawled across the bed. A weak smile tugged at the corner of your lips, you haven't seen him more at peace. “It kinda sucks, you know? I want to be strong for him but I don’t know how long I will last.”

“You love him, right?”

“I do. So much.”

“Then just be patient, please. You’re the only person he can truly rely on right now.” Doyoung sounded like he was almost pleading with you, entrusting his best friend to you for a second time with the first was when you agreed to be Taeyong’s girlfriend. He said, “The love you shared is very strong, it conquered many hurdles and it will overcome this.”

You nodded your head, but you remembered Doyoung couldn’t see you. You whispered, “I’m scared, Doyoung.”

“Of?” He asked as quietly as you were being as if you wanted the conversation to only be a secret between each other.

“What if he never loves me again?” Your nail was shoved in between your teeth, your leg anxiously bouncing against the floor. It was a thought that had flitted about your mind but you have shoved it so far back in an attempt to ignore it but it demanded your attention, to face its possibility.

He scoffed at the other end of the line, “It’s Taeyong we’re talking about here. If he could fall in love at his first sight of you in college, he could easily do it again.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Thanks, Doyoung. I needed that.”

“Alright, good night. Take care of yourself.” He said, dropping the call when you didn’t return his farewell.

You bent over the railing, tilting your chin up to face the night sky once more. You scoured the endless dark for even just a glimpse of a shooting star, for a chance to wish upon the universe to end this nightmare of yours. Your boyfriend was right there with you, but you have never felt more lonely.

Shutting your eyes closed, you let out another sigh. You were so tired of crying but it felt like the only thing you could do. You wondered just how much an average person could cry, maybe you’ve exceeded their record.

You left the balcony not too long after, padding back to the bed with a heavier heart. You sat on your side and twisted your body to face Taeyong. His mouth was parted and his cheek was pressed onto the pillow he held onto, a chuckle rolled off your tongue. Before you could even think of stopping yourself, you leaned onto him and placed a kiss onto his forehead.

A familiar heat rises to your neck at what you have done, you jumped from where you sat and raised a hand to your lips as if you’ve been burnt. You hadn’t been this intimate to him since the accident happened.

You grabbed your blanket and bolted to the living room, making do with the couch for the rest of the night as you forced yourself to sleep. Lala sleepily watched you in confusion.

Days passed and things have gone relatively the same as the first time Taeyong returned from the hospital, but you noticed the tension has lifted ever-so-slightly. You finally stopped crying yourself to sleep and eventually he has grown enough courage enough to express his affection—discreetly holding your hand and tugging you into his arms late at night to cuddle.

He was forced to stay at home for the remainder of the month while he recuperated, family and friends have visited from time to time to keep him company while you returned to your job. All the stories he’d heard about the two years he’d forgotten about, all of them were linked to you one way or another and it sparked a familiar surge of jealousy he had over his own self; that his past self made so many good memories with you that he could not never experience again.

His feelings for you were growing steadily, dare he said that he may have grown a crush on you. He could never admit it aloud for how pathetic it was, to have a crush on your own girlfriend. But it was your soft hair, your gentle hands, and your never-ending love and patience for him—these were some of the things he could not believe he had forgotten the existence of, how loved it made him feel, and he was ready to drown himself in it again.

Taeyong received a package when you were still at work one day, the label of his hometown address stamped at the right-hand corner indicated that it was from his parents. He ripped off the packaging tape with Lala nuzzling into his side.

He looked inside and saw his luggage. When he was rushed in an ambulance after his crash, his parents were the firsts to arrive at the hospital so the nurses had entrusted to them his belongings that were found in the wreckage. They failed to return it to him once he regained his consciousness as they hurried home soon after you had arrived, unable to stay much longer for personal matters.

He supposed that he only had clothes in it for he was told that he came from his hometown for a week-long visit. Rummaging through his clothes, he was surprised to see a velvet box hidden underneath the pile.

He took it out and gaped at it with owl-like eyes, he fumbled to flip it open. A shiny sparkle of a diamond reflected a faint rainbow from the sunlight that poured from the nearby window, he stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. Chuckling softly, he held the engagement ring close to his chest with a newfound source of encouragement.

You returned home that day to a romantic dinner. Candles of different scents were lit up and a torn picnic blanket covered the dining table, you took off your shoes and followed the scent of your boyfriend’s familiar cooking and spotted him in the kitchen. He donned a suit but he had on an apron to protect his front, busy with whatever meal he was preparing to see you peeking in from the doorframe.

“What are you doing?” You asked, and Taeyong swore you had on the brightest smile that he had seen in a while.

He turned off the stove and threw aside his apron, he strode his way to you and wrapped his arms around your waist. He placed his chin on top of your head and said, “I want to get to know you better.”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“But I want to take you out on a first date—well, not out out, but you get what I mean.”

You giggled, pressing your cheek against his chest but you suddenly drew back, the worried expression you had taking him by surprise. Raising a hand to his forehead, you asked, “Your heart is beating really fast. Are you okay? Do you want to sit down?”

He stared at you incredulously before bellowing a laugh, a hearty laugh you’ve never heard before. Shaking his head, a small hint of a smile appeared on his lips. He gently pried off your hand from his face and placed a kiss onto the back of your hand. He said, “I’m okay now.”

You were unconvinced that he was, but his sudden affection made it easy for you to ignore it. He leaned down and stole a chaste peck onto your reddened cheek. He put his hand inside the pocket of his suit and nervously fiddled with the velvet box.

Taeyong lost so much of his memories, but he was ready to make new ones as long as he was with you. He will learn to love you again as much as he did before, if not more as long as the universe allowed his heart to.

[achliegh]

Golden

Prologue

Yeehaw Leo… it's all because this song came on one day (I don’t even really listen to country anymore so it really is fate). Leo is based off that song, each chapter is going to be based off a yeehaw song too.

Characters belong to @lumosinlove

TW/CW: Smut, terrible yeehaw sayings and jokes, injuries, mentions of past death, minor character death, underage drinking, mentions of past arrests, cringe

Chapter 1:

Picking Wildflowers

“Ohhhh Leo! Oh Leo! Leo! More More!”

“Please Leo I’m soooo cloosse! Ah! AH! AHHHH!”

Laughing both Finn and Logan were clapped on their shoulders as Thomas and James came up behind them. Red faced Logan and Finn laughed a long, a little more awkwardly and stiff, but much more relaxed than they were at the beginning of the trip.

They kept poking fun and walking beside each other to bump shoulders. Finn, who had a mild limp, and Logan , who still has a bite mark on his ass cheek, walked into the locker room. Everyone had heard the two of them moaning last night with their angelic cowboy so the chirping wasn’t a surprise. Then again, when everyone noticed Finn limping instead of Logan they couldn’t help but stare in wild amusement.

No one on the rest of the team got to meet Leo so they all thought he was some scrappy hick who is into threesomes. Which he is, but he also is one of the sweetest people Logan and Finn had ever met! He gave them a goodmorning/goodbye kiss. What an angel, but they don’t know that, or that he snuggled with them all night even when Logan thought he was a comforter in his sleep and tried to kick him off the bed. He held them just as close as they have held each other for years.

It brought a lot of feelings to the surface that Logan didn’t want to acknowledge yet. Finn knew he was got to daydreaming about Leo’s sweet words he whispered before they even got him into bed, all day.

“Is this all we are going to hear about today?” Logan sets his bag down in his stall and starts undressing. Huffing annoyed as he looked in his bag for his practice jersey.

“You think we would talk about anything else when your moaning of a hillbilly’s name is still fresh in our brain?” Sirius walks past them and bumps Logan playfully with his hip so he jolts forwards a little having to catch himself with his hands in front of his face so he doesn’t faceplant into the locker behind him. The shorter guy glares a little and sticks out his tongue in a show of true maturity. Taking off his pants and changing before anyone sees the bite, he turns around to sit and put his socks and tape.

He feels a tap on his thigh and looks at Finn who is holding his phone so only they can see it, and there is a text from Leo. They had both sent him good morning texts and added him to a group chat because they honestly really liked him, they literally talked about Leo as they got dressed that morning, but they weren’t for sure he would actually answer them.

Text From: Cowboy Sweet Ass

8:15 am

Y’all want to come help me with something later <3

I want to see you again before you leave :)

They share a look of equal excitement and slight arousal from what this implies, Finn texts Leo back, both having this dazed almost soppy look on their face, especially when they looked at each other. Leo was having an effect on the guy and everyone on the team could feel it. Chirping aside, they were happy for them. Maybe this would get them to finally talk to each other.

They could hope.

Leo was dressed for success, overalls without a shirt that were pretty baggy on him and his square-toed work boots, he was sweating in the summer heat as he pushed his hair back under his ball cap to keep the sun out of his eyes as the ranch hands worked with the horses and he worked on fixing the baler. It was nine am and over 80 degrees, sometimes he doesn’t enjoy Louisiana as much as he thinks. But nothing could ruin his mood, humming cheesy love songs to the radio, tapping the rhythm on the machine. Smiling, he takes a step back from the bailer and wipes the sweat off his forehead with the rag from his pocket.

He sees a light blue 1967 Chevy C/K10 pulls up the dusty driveway and parks in its usual spot next to the main house. Who else but Clayton, the man of the hour, hop out of the truck wearing one of his stupid short ass crop tops that stop just below his nipple, making it easy for Leo to tweak them when he annoys him, with his jeans, belt, and boots that are falling apart. Strutting over to Leo he smiles bright and meets him by the bailer.

Leo smiles and they dap, tapping their foreheads together.

“Sooo, how was last night? I saw you leave with those two buffies and I knew you were getting double.” Clayton smiles and hands Leo the wrench he needs when Leo holds out his hand and laughs a little. Leaning on the machine and tipping his head back to soak in the sun.

Leo and Clayton have been friends since kindergarten, having never been apart for more than two days, they told each other everything. They were so close that their parents think they are going to end up together someday. They feel different about it. But they tell each other everything, everything, maybe even too much sometimes.

Traveling together for rodeo has gotten them so close that people just assume they are related somehow. It gets weird when they drunkenly kiss sometimes though. Clayton roping calves and Leo riding bulls has made them a hot commodity with the ladies but they make it clear that they aren’t interested… or that Leo isn’t interested. Clayton would still tap that.

“Dude, they were amazing! Fuckin Montgomery Gentry got me laid.” Leo waits a second for Clayton to catch on, then when it clicks that he is talking about Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy, when he stands back up from where he was squatting next to the baler to fix the belts and gets a slap on the back as Clayton whoops. Jumping around he shakes Leo’s shoulders.

“That's fucking hilarious! They took that song literally! Damn, you gotta try and keep ‘em, are you seeing them again? Or was this one of your hook ups that could work but you don’t want it.” Leo narrows his eyes at Clayton and grabs him into a headlock, struggling to get away from the 3” taller man. Clayton falls to the ground when Leo lets him go.

“I don’t do that! Plus, I want them to go out to secret with me tonight.” Leo looks at him while wiping the grease off his hands and squinting a little as the sun gleams off the metal right into his eyes. The red creeping down his neck doesn’t go unnoticed by the dusty friend and he smirks at him.

“Playboy Leo going on a real date… damn they must have really had an impact on you.”

“Well they rode me at the same time, so that left an impression. It’s funny how I feel more comfortable with two people rather than one.” They start walking towards the house to grab some water and tell Eloise that Clayton is here, so when Judy calls they can tell her that her son is indeed still here.

“One on the dick and one on the face or something weird?” Leo smiles and shakes his head as he gulps down a glass of water.

“How do you just always know?”

Text From: Cowboy Sweet Ass

6:01 pm

I’m outside Sweethearts

ShortCake

6:01 pm

Comming out

CarrotStix

6:01 pm

I’m gey

Leo laughs a little as he reads the texts, he hasn’t stopped smiling all day after he gushed about the boys to his mom and sudo-brother. Texting them when he could he didn’t have time to change before he came to pick them up, but knowing how they react to him… it will be just fine.

Logan gets into the truck first, sliding into the middle and planting a kiss on Leo’s cheek making them both smile brightly and dopey. Finn gets in and leans over Logan to plant a steamy kiss on Leo’s slightly dry lips, taking him by surprise but he melts into it, pulling away until they are still close enough to bump noses.

“Hi” Leo can’t help but laugh as Finn smiles a blushes before sitting back and buckling up, Logan grabs his face looking a little excited and gives him a kiss as well, a bit more possessive and sharp but when they pull away Logan gets buckled while Leo is still blinking in shock.

“Nice to see you too.” He smiles stupidly and relaxes into the seat before switching gear and starting to drive, the rink is close to the outskirts of town. “Alright, tomorrow is mama’s birthday! So.. that means I need to get her some of her favorite things, like wildflower, smooth rocks, and some honeysuckle. I’m taking y’all to a place only Clayton and I ever go, and it has all of those things… and we can go skinny dipping because I like seeing y’all naked.” Leo smiles innocently at them for a moment as he pulls onto a gravel road and starts driving.

“You don’t plan to kill us right? I mean we could probably take you but… I’d rather you take me” Logan bites his lip and leans into Leo’s side, Leo takes his hand off the steering wheel to wrap it around Logan’s shoulders and takes one of Finn’s hands.

“Ditto.” Finn smiles and is looking out the window in awe, as someone who has grown up in the city and really hasn’t been outdoors much he isn’t used to seeing all of the thick trees and wild plants. He squeezes Leo’s hand in excitement.

After a half hour of driving and listening to some oldies music on the radio, they pull over to the side of the road and Leo turns off the truck. “Okay, one more kiss” He leans over and kisses Logan with hand on the back of his neck, humming in contentment before smoothly pulling away and kissing Finn in one smooth motion. He pulls away and sighs happily leaning his head back on the seat, when he opens his eyes he sees Logan and Finn kissing and his heart skips a beat watching them. “Okay, we have a job to get done before we get into some sexy stuff!” Leo is more so reminding himself than the other two who pulled away and are looking at him the same way they did last night.

Getting out of the truck Leo walks toward the woods he pulled up next to and notices the boys aren't behind him, turning around he sees Finn looking at him with the biggest puppy dog eyes through the window. Oh yeah, the door is sticky.

He can’t get the door open.

Laughing Leo walks over to the door and opens the jammed door with ease, bowing slightly. “Your majesty” Finn snorts and gets out of the truck before patting Leo’s head and moving out of the way for Logan to hop out.

Logan takes Leo off guard by leaning his full body weight into him after he closes the door, Leo being the sweetheart he is, just scoops Logan up like he weighs nothing and smiles when he lets out the most manly squeak. Finn sneaks a picture smiling as he moves to their side.

Leo leads them through the thick woods and only sets Logan down when they reach a Grove with a crystal clear small lake and flowers everywhere. It was beautiful.

“This is what we call Secret, because we don’t think anyone really knows about it but” He shrugs “Maybe someone does.” He walks forward and sits on a stump, around the stump is a bunch of small white flowers that are two lipped and smell very strong.

Finn walks towards the water and sees a bunch of minnows socializing in the shallows, crouching down he feels the water, taking note of how warm it is. Logan was mesmerized by all the flowers growing, all different colors of shapes. Bee’s buzzed around the surprisingly silent grove and Logan watched them before picking a couple handfuls of flowers.

Leo looks up at Finn first and smiles as he sees him picking out rock he finds because Leo mentioned they needed some, and then his eyes move to Logan who is holding armfuls of beautiful flowers and even has a couple of leaves and petals in his extra curly hair from it drying in the humid heat. Leo felt so at peace with the whole situation. It felt natural.

Logan hears someone walking toward him and looks up with his arms just overflowing with flowers, Finn is carrying handfuls of wet rocks that keep falling out of his hands and he keeps bending to pick up to just… drop more. It was funny and Leo seemed to agree as he was taking a video of Finn dropping and picking up stones.

“Here” Leo holds out a cloth bag and catches the rock that just fell out of Finn’s hand to finally stop the cycle. They put everything in separate appropriate bags before setting them on the stump Leo was sitting on before.

Turning to the boys and smiling, Leo unbuckles his overalls and drops them after he kicks off his boots, so he is just standing there in his tight teal boxer briefs that have dumplings on them. His smiles turns into a teasing smirk as he turns to face the lake having his back to his boys and takes his underwear off before looking over his shoulder at them and then running into the lakes and driving in. Fin and Logan strip so fast, tossing their clothes wherever and following this Casanova into the water.

Two hours of dunking, kissing, splashing and holding each other close. They decide to lay in the short grass of the grove where the flowers don’t reach, sprawling out in a circle, the top of their heads facing each other. They pass around a spliff that Leo brought in the pocket of his overalls. Relaxing in the setting sun as they air dry.

“What day do you guys leave?” Leo has his eyes closed as he is relaxing holding his hand out for the spliff as Finn shotguns Logan, handing it to Leo as they end up sloppily kissing each other before pulling away to answer.

“A week, so you can call us up anytime.” Finn smiles and rolls onto his stomach propping his head up on his hands as he watches the smoke fall from Leo’s lips. His eyelids feel a little heavy as the exhaustion from practice and the cbd from the weed soak into his nerves.

“Are we going to have sex tonight?” Logan also rolls onto his stomach bumping into Finn’s shoulder as he clumsily does so. Leo opens his bright eyes and tips his head back to look at them. “I am really tired but… I also kinda want to suck you dick.” Leo huffs out a laugh and flicks the roach into the lake where a fish slurps it up later.

“I would not say no to that, sweetheart.” Leo bites his lips a little as Logan flushes pink and crawls over to him sliding between his legs leaving light kisses and nips on the tops and inner of his thighs and watching him get hard. Then Logan notices it.

“Do- do you have a worm tattoo with a lasso on your inner knee?” Logan can’t help but laugh as Leo nods smiling. Finn, who has been in heaven watching, joins Logan between Leo’s legs and notices the small tattoo as well and kisses it.

“I have a bunch of little ones. Can you blow me now?” Leo props himself up on his elbows, an adorable blush spread across his cheeks and nose make him look so delicious. Finn and Logan share a look before smiling and licking up Leo’s shaft on opposite sides causing Leo’s head to fall back and his knees to spread more. “Fuck.”

Logan and Finn continue to mirror each other as Logan massages Leo’s taint and balls while Finn sucks on his head, Logan on the base.

Leo is a mess.

His back arching, his jaw tense from making himself hold off from fucking up into their mouths or grinding back onto Logan’s hand. He is gripping the grass so his hands will be stained tomorrow, sweat beading on his hairline and chest. Moaning every once in a while when he can find his voice.

Finn takes him down as much as he can as Logan squeezes just right causing Leo to cum hard, throwing his hands in his hair and tugging it. Once he finishes riding out his orgasm he just flops down all boneless.

“Give me a minute and I’ll get you off.” Leo exhales slowly and props himself up to look at them and a flush of want rushes through him. Finn had gotten himself off on Leo’s leg, how he didn’t notice he didn’t know, Logan looks like he hasn’t moved but his face was blissed out, he came untouched and if that wasn’t the sexiest fucking thing Leo has ever seen. He didn’t know what was.

Cleaning themselves up with some lake water and getting dressed they carry their treasures back to the truck. They all slide in and make their way back to town. Leo sings some shitty old songs with his hand on Logan's upper thigh as Finn has his head on his shoulder drifting in and out of sleep, by the time Leo makes it to the hotel they are staying at, both of them are asleep. Kissing their foreheads he slowly shakes them awake.

“We’re here, come on darlings, let's get you to bed.” He gets them up and smiles as Finn stretches like a cat and snuggles into his side as he supports them on either side. Walking them to their room he waits for one of them to unlock the door and hears a couple of guys yelling around a ‘cheater in go-fish!’ and Leo can’t help but wonder what it's like to travel with a team like Logan and Finn’s.

After a few tires Leo just takes the key from Logan and swipes it to unlock the door. Leo stumbles a little as they both lean forward. He sits them on the bed and get them undressed.

“What do you like to sleep in?” Leo asks as he located their bag in the corner of the room. Logan mumbles something about Finn’s shirt and Finn just mentions boxers. Leo gets them situated, having Logan lift his arms so he can put Finn’s shirt on him. It's baggy and makes Logan look so sweet that Leo can’t help but lean down and give him a sweet kiss.

Tucking a smiling Logan into bed he moves to get Finn under the covers and see him pouting.

“Wa kith” Leo tries not to groan at how these two beefy boys can be so sweet and cute that it hurts his chest. He gives Finn a kiss and pulls away, watching the two snuggle into each other.

Leo realizes he wants this, every night.

Swallowing down the sudden fear that crashed over him he turns to leave, forgetting to put the hotel key on the night stand he doesn’t realize he still has it until he is getting ready for bed himself in his room that's too large for one person.

Now he has an excuse to see them again.

[rosesgonerogue]

How to be a Dad 101

Chapter 2 - Villain Attack

Jasonette July Day 3

Masterlist

Marinette had thought that her years of being Rena Rogue would have improved Alya’s need for documenting dangerous situations, or at the very least her impulse control. As much as she loved her best friend, she was beginning to sincerely regret being cajoled into going to Gotham, of all places. A part of her couldn’t help but speculate whether of not Alya had been hoping that they’d end up in Crime Alley.

Jason was an unexpected bonus to their trip, though. None of them were quite sure what to think of the native Gothamite, but he did make an excellent tour guide. He was attentive, and surprisingly knowledgeable about the city’s history. Although he initially came off as angry and intimidating, he was also witty and attentive, especially to Marinette.

Okay, he was also hot. Like, absurdly hot. While Adrien was attractive, Jason was… Marinette didn’t know what words she could possibly use to describe just how broad his shoulders were, or how defined those muscles seemed. At one point he hugged her into his (very firm) chest so an inattentive biker didn’t hit her while they were crossing the street. She was grateful that he took the time to cuss them out, or he would have seen her face as red as her Ladybug suit. At another point when he took off his jacket and she saw his arms, she nearly choked on her spit.

She was dangerously close to relapsing into the Marinette of her teenage years, and that was the singularly worst outcome she could picture. Something about Jason made her feel… safe, protected.

The first day of their acquaintance with Jason was blessedly uneventful. Marinette was a little sad to bid him goodbye for good, but when he dropped them off at their hotel, he asked, “So what time should I be here tomorrow?”

A blush crept up Marinette’s face. “You don’t have to do that, really. We don’t want to bore you–“

He met her eyes, his own piercing. He was evaluating her, and based on his smirk, he liked what he saw. “I’ll be here at ten.” Jason raised a massive, strong hand to brush an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “Gotham would eat you up, and we can’t have that.”

When he stepped away, Marinette almost collapsed on the spot. She knew her face was flaming red, but she managed to stammer, “W-Well, we’re going to have breakfast at the bakery just down the block at seven, but we’ll definitely be back by ten.”

“I guess that’s safe enough,” Jason said with that same smirk. “But no more wandering around Gotham, you got it?”

“S-Sure.”

Even though he had just vacated her personal space just a second ago, he leaned in close enough that his breath tickled her ear. “Sleep well, sweetcheeks.”

He left them standing in the hotel lobby, Marinette completely frozen. Before the boys could do or say anything, Alya grabbed her hand in an iron grip and hauled her up two flights of stairs to the room the two of them were sharing.

“What was that?” Alya demanded, closing the door with a bang.

Still dazed, Marinette collapsed onto the bed. “What was that?”

“Do you suddenly have a thing for bad boys now? I just… and how did we bump into him? He’s like the buffest man on the planet.”

“He called me sweetcheeks. Is that a good thing?” Marinette mumbled.

“Marinette, focus,” Alya said, shaking her best friend. “I’m worried.”

Finally Marinette made eye contact. “But he’s safe. He protected us.”

Emerging from her purse, Tikki settled on Alya’s head. “Marinette, I don’t think that’s what Alya is talking about.”

Sitting up, infinitely more level-headed than moments earlier, Marinette smiled softly, eyes holding a depth of sadness that should have been unfair for a twenty-year-old. “I know that nothing will happen between the two of us, we fly back to Paris in five days. But I just… I just want to be a normal girl for a week. I was fine with coming to Gotham because it meant I had a week to just be Marinette, not Ladybug, not MDC. For once I just want to let myself get caught up in my emotions – and if I end up hurt, that’s fine, because it means I’m allowed to feel again.”

Tikki and Alya shared glances with each other before Tikki spoke. “I guess I can understand that. But are you sure you can handle whatever happens, Marinette?”

“I’m a big girl, Tikki.”

“Besides, did you see those biceps? That alone almost makes up for anything he might do,” Alya said, fanning herself.

********

When morning rolled around, Marinette was the only one awake. Even Tikki was worn out from staying up entirely too late giggling about Jason and embarrassing Marinette with Alya’s help. Used to helping in the bakery every morning since she’d graduated, the lack of sleep was nothing to Marinette when she rolled out of bed and tied her hair up as per usual.

She was a little nervous about walking around Gotham alone, but Jason had dubbed this a safe part of town, and it was just at the end of the block. Her phone and her wallet were safely secured to her person, so she couldn’t be pick-pocketed either. Besides, even if something did happen, she had been Ladybug for years. Even without being transformed, Marinette had developed a number of self-defense skills on her own. It would be fine.

Getting to the bakery was no problem because, as previously stated, it was only a block away. The streets were fairly empty, and the weather was pleasant. She’d heard that Gotham was almost always storming, but she had yet to see any of that.

The bread was still warm in the bakery. Marinette was mostly curious about the differences between French and American bakeries, and she knew her parents were expecting a full report of any special items.

It didn’t seem like there was anything too different about the bakery except the various vigilante inspired pastries, and Marinette refused to bring that up – she didn’t need to see Ladybug bread everywhere she went. They actually had a far smaller selection than she was used to, but she’d heard that that was to be expected in America.

She ordered a bit of everything, and after deliberating a bit, she ordered a few extra Red Hood donuts. They were vaguely gun-shaped and filled with raspberry jelly. It seemed like the sort of thing that Jason would find amusing, and if not, there were plenty of other things for him to choose from and Adrien and Nino wouldn’t complain.

Piled high with pastries and breads, Marinette left the bakery humming to herself. Bags swung f rom her arms as she skipped a few feet until she froze, an ominous feeling creeping up her spine.

Crouching in a nearby alley, Marinette looked out at the street for a sign of what had her on edge like this. Sure enough, only seconds later a roar shook the streets, and a villain she recognized as Killer Croc barrelled his way through, jaws snapping.

Marinette’s eyes widened when she noticed he was clearly heading straight for the alley she’d ducked into. Too late she noticed the open manhole cover just a few feet behind her. The telltale sound of vigilantes pursuing the mutant were enough to spur her into action.

Unwilling to put down the food, Marinette kicked the manhole cover back in place – it would slow Croc down for a few seconds. He was still about fifty meters away, causing mass panic on the street. Desperately hoping that the wheels were unlocked – and surprisingly gratified, Marinette body checked the nearby dumpster, shoving it right on top of the manhole. Without her Ladybug suit, this was the most she could safely do. Bolting to the nearest building’s fire escape, Marinette hauled herself up the ladder as quickly as she could without smashing the bags of food.

Killer Croc wasn’t far behind her, and when he saw the covered manhole, he bellowed. Marinette started moving more haphazardly as she clambered up, desperate to reach safety. It was only a metal ladder within a foot of most windows, and it was only anchored by a handful of bolts every few feet of the ladder.

Her hand slipped when Killer Croc roared beneath her, catching sight of her handiwork. A neatly wrapped pastry fell out of one of the violently swinging bags, bopping the reptile on the head.

“This was you!” he growled. “If the Bats are going to catch me then I may as well take you with me.”

Scaled hands grasped one of the bottom rungs. Marinette did all she could to haul herself up the ladder faster, but it was a thirteen-story building – making it to the top was sounding less likely by the minute. She would have leapt into one of the nearby windows if she weren’t convinced that it would end in a paranoid Gothamite taking her out before Killer Croc could do the job.

Metal groaned as the reptilian man wrenched the bolts out of the very brick they’d been anchored in. The ladder shook, and Marinette screamed as the section she clung to was ripped from the wall, leaving her stuck between a structurally questionable ladder, and a very pissed off crocodile.

“Going so soon? Our playdate was just getting fun.”

Marinette could have sobbed when she saw Nightwing enter the alleyway, flanked by Red Robin and Red Hood. In a deep voice, Red Hood said, “You two take down Croc, I’ve got the girl.”

The other two looked surprised, but conceded easily enough. While Killer Croc was distracted by the vigilantes, Marinette moved even faster up the ladder – she only had three flights to go before she was at the roof, but the ladder was shaking like it would fall at any second, and she really didn’t want to find out what that would do to her and the pastries.

She vaguely registered that Red Hood was demanding someone’s something hook, but Marinette’s sheer panic was lessening her grasp on the English language by the second. With his loudest growl yet, Killer Croc wrenched the ladder free of the building. Marinette screamed, her stomach clenching with dread as she released the ladder, trying to curl her body in a way that she hopefully wouldn’t break anything upon impact.

Something whistled through the air, and before Marinette could hit the ground she collided with something – a man, who wrapped an arm around her. She hadn’t realized she’d closed her eyes, but Marinette opened them to find herself face-to-face with the abomination that was Red Hood’s mask, but for the moment she could forgive the fashion crime.

He kicked off of the brick wall, giving them some distance from the ladder before it fell with a glorious clang. Marinette’s heart finally started beating, hammering in her chest as the vigilante slowly lowered them down to the ground.

When she finally forced herself to look, the other two had Killer Croc pinned and trussed up like a pig. Nightwing waved, smiling brighter than Marinette thought was allowed from someone who lived in Gotham. “The manhole cover and the dumpster? Brilliant move, we never would have caught him if he’d been able to get into the sewers. You made some risky moves, but I can tell they were calculated. Nicely done!”

Safely on the ground, Red Hood was examining her for any injuries. Clearly irked, he growled, “Since when are we encouraging civilians to jump into the middle of this sh-“

“Hood, she would have been involved one way or another just because of where she was standing,” Nightwing interrupted. “She saw us coming, and she just did a few things to slow him down while doing her best to keep herself safe. What’s up with you? Normally you’d be high-fiving a civilian for something like that.”

“Whatever,” Red Hood mumbled. “I’m escorting her to make sure she gets to wherever she’s going safely. Make sure the lizard doesn’t get away.”

Taglist:

@jasonette-july-2k20 @ira-sairain @myazael @pawsitivelymiraculous @nik-nak-3

Note:

I got a couple questions about this being a Mominette fic - it is, just not yet. This one is going to be a lot different from I didn’t so much fall in love - It kicked me in the face and I am stoked to see how you guys like it! If you want to be tagged in future chapters, just leave a comment, and once again, blow up Jasonette July! I’m super excited to see what everyone else has to say and write! 

[onelastbreath-writes]

I’ll Meet You There (Part 3)

Pairing: Marcus Moreno/ Wife!Reader (AFAB, no y/n) 

Word Count: 2.6K

Warnings: Talks about loss of spouse, loss of child, medical conditions/inaccuracies, grief/mourning, manipulation/brainwashing (subtext/implied, but we’ll get into it later *winkwink*)

Tags: Hurt/No comfort (for now), ANGST, eventual happy ending, one really sad man for whom I just keep making things worse, #sorrynotsorry, and now I’m just making stuff up as I go along

Summary(lite): You are Marcus’s wife, and you’re definitely not dead. No one is having a great time right now, but like hell if there's a force on this earth that’ll keep you apart forever. This is not a goodbye, its just a see you later. And the interim is going to be everyone else’s problem, you’ll make sure of it.

A/N: Hello dears, welcome back to my twisted mind story,,, guess who showed up like 2 weeks late with a smoothie! So things about this new chapter: I am a criminal with italics and someone needs to stop me, hello switching scenes and perspectives because I just want to fast forward to the good stuff but y’all don’t live in my head and don’t know all the stuff that happens to get us there so here we are taking the slow lane, and I keep brainstorming new and horrible things for my characters because I am A Lot, All The Time, and will not be stopped. Also hey, Marcus the Simp is here for you, so much. I hope this is acceptable to be a reader fic still, because I am giving you some serious personality traits... ehh, it is what it is. Tell me if you spot any of my various references, there’s a lot of ‘em. Thanks to everyone who has liked/reblogged/commented, y’all are gorgeous and I’m so grateful for the love <3 Drop me a message/ask if you want a secret about one of the characters (specify which one), I need an outlet for my endless b.t.s. plotting >;) Please enjoy p3!

AO3|Masterlist

[Previous Part]

---

There were more casseroles in his fridge that Marcus knew what to do with, and more sympathy and “thinking of you” cards stacked in piles around the house than he could count. He appreciated everyone’s gestures, but he could recognize the difference between people who were kind in the interest of helping others, and those who were kind only to help themselves. It was quite obvious which type were flooding his mailbox.

Hell, most of the people sending him cards, his fans, didn’t even know his wife, never spoke to her, didn’t feel the empty Her-shaped-space in their very souls. They just wanted the clout, the prestige, of being ‘involved’ and sympathetic to a grieving superhero. It was exhausting, but no one seemed to empathize with him on that.

The Heroics upper management, and the director specifically after his press conference and the publicity the attack had brought the organization, had insisted on Marcus taking an undetermined amount of leave from the team so he could “process and mourn his loss in the comfort of his own home.” Like he didn’t look around and see every piece of himself and his wife over the years; the Home they built for their family, filled with all the hopes and dreams of two starry eyed lovers ready to take on the world together. Like her absence wasn’t slowly killing him. 

And it wasn’t like she was gone gone.  

Dead.  

She wasn’t dead.

No way in Hell.  

Whether it was because she worked with superpowered people, her experience as a medical professional, or if she was just more paranoid than most, his wife was a planner, and she was prepared for this. “In the event of my death...," like she just knew it would be necessary.

Truthfully, she had schemes and contingencies and all manner of reactionary plans prepared for if (and when) the worst happened; terrified to be blindsided or caught unaware, unable to help those she would have been able to, if only if she had the time to think. Unpreparedness costs lives in both of their careers, and she refused to leave anything up to chance if possible. And so, she’d plan, and he’d listen.  

All throughout their relationship, from before they’d even gotten serious enough to discuss marriage, to when they heard their unborn child’s heartbeat for the first time, and just on random weekday afternoons when they would take Missy for walks around the neighbourhood to show her the beauty in their lives, his wife would paint her theories and ideas like artwork. She’d tell him a story, full of action and mystery, humour and theatrics, tragic romance and harrowing adventure; she could spin a tale like she had a silver tongue, but she never lost herself in her own narratives. In the end, they were messages, lessons, for him to remember when everything was going wrong.    

“It’s all about momentum, babe. Bleeding off energy and taking a bad hit instead of a fatal hit. You can’t just full stop; you’d absorb all the kinetic energy, and the resulting trauma will turn all your squishy internals into, like, body soup, which is just super unpleasant. And of course, head is always number one priority. Bracing for impact works better at giving you fewer serious injuries, especially for your neck and head. Muscles should absorb as much of the energy as possible, instead of letting it fall to your ligaments, discs, and nerves to take the force. So, tense up and roll in the case of a low air evacuation.”

Low air evac... she was concerned he was going to have to jump from an aircraft without a parachute at some point in his life. Which was probably accurate he’d admit, but still, he wasn’t hoping to actually need that plan.

Thankfully, it wasn’t always fire and brimstone with her, and she had many strange and terrible schemes to keep the common, everyday superhero family on their toes. Always carry at least two lip balms... never tell someone you don’t have plans for the evening... don’t smile in your mugshot... no clowns. Ever.

She was so weird, a total nerd, and so completely the girl of his dreams.  

He loved teasing her about her unending train of thought, the brain that never sleeps, how she’d go on tangents while on tangents but always circle back around; even nicknamed her (quite cheekily, and because it made them both laugh) Doctor Batman, which was usually saved for when she was being particularly dramatic and gloomy. Turn the supercomputer off for a second, Bats, come see what Missy’s doing!  

He was her anchor, always ready to pull her back to earth when she started drifting off too far from them, but he never asked and never wanted her to change. He adored her, silly or serious, or when she woke him up in the middle of the night to make him promise that he’d never get their kid(s) a pet owl (because they’re “scary”, and “our kids would be too powerful, Marcus. Promise me!”), or that in the event of them inviting a third to their bed, it would “absolutely never, ever, ever be Miracle. No way!”  

He thought it was quite entertaining most of the time, listening to her plan for zombies and old gods and what to do if everyone just started hating cheese one day, but if it was all so important to her: having him remember this or agree to that, he’d accede to her requests in a heartbeat. Most of it was cute, harmless stuff he didn’t think would even happen, but sometimes she would hit him with serious stuff. Entirely out of left field, she’d go for his heart, and ask him for things that would hurt him, destroy him inside, if he ever had to follow through with it.

“Marcus, if it’s a choice between my safety- my life, and Missy’s? I’m always going to choose her. Kids come first, okay?”  

She wasn’t superpowered, didn’t have a shred of anything other than pure, normal human in her, but she was easily the strongest person he knew. Fearless and brave, kinder than this world deserved, she’d do anything for the people she cared about. And she’d promised him, maybe as a way to repay him for all the things he’d agreed to over the years, that she’d move heavens and the earth to return to their family. That nothing in this world, or beyond, could keep her away. “Eventually,” she’d stared into his eyes, glossy with tears from how forcefully she believed, “I will find my way back to you. I swear it, so keep a weather eye on the horizon.” See? A whole-ass nerd, and he couldn’t have loved her more.

So, she wasn’t dead. Pure and simple. She was somewhere, somehow, and he was going to find her again.  

---

“Marcus, the grieving process is different for everyone, but it is always unpredictable and painful. You will have days where you will feel like you haven’t made any progress, or even lost the progress you’ve previously made, but please know that this is natural; it's something everyone experiences, and that it doesn’t mean you’ve failed in your objective. Healing takes time, and a major part of recovery is learning to forgive yourself when you slip up. No one expects you to be back to normal tomorrow, or next week, or next month. Healing from grief is not a race, so we will go at your own pace, and we will work together to accomplish your recovery goals. You aren’t alone in this journey, and you don’t need to handle everything by yourself.”

The grief specialist he was seeing was someone he would describe as an “old soul”. She exuded the patience and peace of someone who had watched empires rise and fall, seen the turning of the wheel of time and drifted along with the current. Her voice was deep, rich in emotion and empathy for those who needed guidance, calming and intriguing with a soft lilt on her vowels. Timeless and ancient all in one, and even if he wasn’t actually mourning the death of his wife, he did find himself deeply grieving being without her. They were two halves of a whole, and though his soul was at a loss without its partner here, he still had their greatest creation, their pride and joy, their baby girl to raise.  

He would do whatever he had to do to be the best parent he could for Missy. And so, if meeting with a physiatrist every week was something that would help, then he would be here, every week. He'd learn to live with his grief, his sadness and loneliness, with just the memory of his Everything, and he’d help their kid with all hers too.  

It’s what he promised to do, after all.

“If anything ever happens to me, you’ll just have to love her enough for the both of us.”  

---

There was nothing they could recover of the people closest to centre of the explosion. No remains, no blood, nothing. Like they hadn’t been there at all.  

Suspicious.

Upper Management had brought in a team of private investigators to handle the case, people who would keep the details quiet and the public appeased with what little information they’d choose to release.  

Marcus was a superhero, and sure, his job was to hit things until they weren’t a problem anymore, but he couldn’t understand why all the highly trained professionals didn’t question the sheer amount of evidence that just wasn’t adding up.  

He tried to bring up the inconsistencies once with the lead investigator, but they had just given the distraught, widowed husband, so lost in his own denial and grasping at straws, a sad smile and told him they would do everything they could to find the truth for him and the rest of the victims’ families.

Typical.

After being brushed off without a second thought, he decided to keep his ideas quiet, and since they’d proven their unwillingness to listen, he’d just have to solve the mass disappearance himself.  

“Have you ever thought about how to commit the perfect murder, mi amor? I have. First: If there’s no body, they can’t prove the person is dead. No evidence of death? No murder. Simple. But of course, completely vanishing a full human would be a challenge. Short of having the superpowers necessary to, like, erase someone from reality in their entirety, there would be a lot of chances to leave evidence. Ordering suspicious chemicals leaves a trail, driving out to a pig farm in the middle of the night is shady as hell and all neighbors are professional narcs, and fires? Hah! Do you have any idea how hot the fire needs to be to cremate human remains, and how long they would need to grill for? Huh, maybe the perfect murder isn’t a murder at all...  

Hey babe...  

Always doubt a body, but always doubt no body, more.”

---

You tended to lose time when there was no one else in your room. It was hard to tell when your eyes were open because you started dreaming about the only things you could see since you first woke up: drop-ceiling tiles, white walls, and pale blue curtain dividers. And it was easier that way, in the end. Your heart didn’t hurt when you only dreamt of the room. You couldn’t mourn the things and people only your soul could remember if you thought of the room. Drifting in and out of consciousness was how you were coping.  

---

You had been here, left in this room alone, for ages. You had agreed to help the man who had saved you from the explosion that killed your family, but apparently you couldn’t help him until you had recovered enough. You’d read your charts, grilled your nurses and doctors more and more the longer you were kept here. What were they all waiting for? There was nothing wrong with you except the mild post traumatic amnesia, and the whole not-remembering-much-(or anything, really)-about-your-personal-life-and-family-of-the-recent-few-years thing you had going on. It was nothing compared to when you first awoke and could remember nothing. It killed you to be without the memories of your husband and child, to know only of them instead of actually knowing them, but there was nothing you or the doctors here could do. The brain was a tricky thing, and you had to accept that your memory loss might be permanent.  

That just meant that you had to put all that you could remember to good use. You could help people here, and work towards getting justice for your family. Years and years of school, practical experience and training, you had gained it all back; re-read textbooks and studies, wrote papers on your re-emerging knowledge and jogged your memory about long nights and early mornings, surgeries and follow ups... it was all still in your head. It had returned to you easily, like diving into a cool pool on a hot summer day. It was like coming home and taking off your shoes; it felt good, freeing, as-it-should-be.  

But still they weren’t letting you leave. So: what were they waiting for?  

“Ah, Doctor, it’s lovely to see you, as always. How are we feeling today?” Okay, so the guy who “saved” you (read: paid the people who actually saved your life)  gave you the heebie-jeebies. He looked like a classic pompous asshole bigwig, like, oil tycoon or something. And he definitely had some sort of thing for you. Gross.

“I’m doing as well as can be expected, trapped in a room with nothing to do, you know, brain rotting, et cetera. Thanks for asking.” The sass was a choice, probably not a great choice, but your choice none-the-less. You really hadn’t had many opportunities to choose anything for yourself in a while.  

Well...

You were bored, and that was going to be everyone else’s problem.  

“Ah, well, good news then! You have been cleared from observation and you’ll be able to be discharged soon. Isn’t that just delightful!” Mister Craig (“Please, just Greg is fine”), was some sort of horrible group hallucination, you were convinced. No one was that cheery, that animated, unless they were on something, or you were on something. “I’ll have someone bring you your personal effects shortly, and then I can show you to your new apartment. The complex isn’t in the best neighbourhood unfortunately, but it's got some real charm, very vintage! You’ll love it!”

“I’ll look forward to seeing it then; sounds like it’ll be a real interesting place to stay. You can also explain what it is I’m going to be doing with your organization. Because you haven’t specified yet. And I expect a proper contract and wage agreement. Legally binding preferably, for your sake, of course, Mr. Craig.” Even if you weren’t the most physically intimidating person around, you knew how, and more so, when, to assert your dominance in a conversation. Especially with men like him. He was the type of guy who would pinch a nurse’s ass and then accuse them of not being able to take a joke.  

“You wound me, Doctor, I am a man of integrity! I promised you an opportunity to make a difference! To get justice for the loved ones so cruelly torn from you! You have nothing to worry about!”  

Sounds legit. Totally above board. Can’t wait.

---

Taglist (omg!! thanks love): @killtherandomness​

Drop me a line if you want to be added <3

[one-leaf-grimoire]

knight au chapter 8

Um there's some violence in this but no other warnings. I'll tag and add links later

Bump

“Ouch!”

Julius winced as the worn-down wagon rolled over yet another rocky spot, jolting everyone around before it steadied again. These forest paths hadn’t been used since the last war, more than 3 years ago. No one ever came this close to the border with the Diamond Kingdom, which was approaching at a worryingly fast pace.

What’s going to happen to me once Patri hands me off? Julius thought to himself, his heart pounding as he attempted to stay calm, glancing around at the two guards and the driver. His eyes fell on Patri next, who rode on his horse up ahead. He had two friends with him; a sleepy looking man with bicolor hair, and a huge beast of a man, armor strapped to his shoulders.

Of course, Julius had a feeling he could imagine the answer to his own question already. In fact, he could visualize it quite vividly. Squirming again in his bindings, Julius lowered his gaze to the floor of the wagon to avoid feeling too queasy. No doubt I’ll be feeling the same pain that Patri felt for years… but perhaps they’ll put me out of my misery quickly.

The forest was so quiet. The only sound was that of the wagon’s creaky wheels and the occasional whinny of a horse.

… is anyone going to come save me?

It was improbable. Patri probably covered his tracks pretty well, and at this point, a rescue party was probably days behind.

Julius looked up again, this time staring at the winding path they were leaving behind; towards the home he would probably never see again. And towards…

There was an unfamiliar pain in his chest. A restlessness that Julius could never quench, something that was driving him mad. He wanted to struggle and fight, to battle his way out of this situation like he had done so many times before.

Lisa… I’m sorry.

He strained at his bindings, unable to loosen them a millimeter.

If only I had a weapon… or could move… or anything-

“Alright. This is where we say goodbye, Julius.”

Julius looked up, realizing that they had stopped. Patri rode up next to the wagon, a little smile on his face. “The Diamond Kingdom knights will be here soon… sadly, you’ll have to face them without me. I have business to attend to.”

Julius’s eyes widened. “Business? More important than seeing your promise until the end?”

Patri shrugged. “That’s not for you to decide, Captain. I wish I could be here to see you get dragged to your doom, but alas.” He raised his hand in a weak wave before turning away. “Rhya. Vetto. Let’s go.”

Without another word, Patri and his two companions split off, heading off and out of sight.

The remaining three guards pulled Julius out of the wagon. Julius straightened up with a little difficulty due to the bindings still on his ankles. This is humiliating… but I can’t do anything now. He glanced at the guards, who all had their swords drawn and pointing at him. I’m useless like this… especially without a sword. My best hope at this point is to wait to escape once I get to the Diamond Kingdom… if I have time to do that-

Something rustled in the bushes.

The three guards immediately were on alert. “Who’s there?!” one of them barked. “Show yourself!”

Silence.

Julius’s heart was pounding hard.

Was that just an animal?

“I said, show yourself!” the other guard repeated. “Or we’ll drag you out of the bushes ourselves!”

Still, no answer.

With a gulp, the third guard took a step forward, holding his sword before him.

“That’s it! I’m coming-”

TWICK

A small, deadly sharp dagger shot out of the bushes, and the next thing anyone knew, it was lodged perfectly between the guard’s helmet and his chestplate; right in his neck.

With a pained splutter, the guard stumbled back, coughing up a spurt of blood before collapsing with a crash. Julius’s eyes widened, his mouth opening in shock at the sight. What?! Who’s in the bushes-

The other guards tore their eyes away from their quickly-bleeding out comrade and back to the bushes. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” one of them yelled, his voice laden with panic. “OR-OR-”

The attackers clearly did not heed his warning. The bushes rustled once again before two figures sprung out of it, charging straight for them. Julius’s eyes widened when he realized who they were.

Seiros? And-

With an angry yell, Lisa brandished rapier in her right hand as she sprinted at the guard on Julius’s left. Julius’s heart jolted in his chest at the sight of her, immediately worried. Lisa!! You can’t fight with that cast! And no armor as well-

Without thinking, Julius lurched forward, forgetting that his ankles were still bound. “LIS- AHH!” he shrieked as he suddenly fell face first into the dirt, twisting his ankle in the process.

Lisa, of course, did not respond, although her own heart leapt when she saw Julius standing there, looking unharmed and very much alive. Hold on, Julius! We’ll save you!

However, it was the slightly-faster (and healthier) Sei who reached his opponent first. With a blue flash, his miaodao was swinging down, the air whistling around its cold blade. The guard sucked in a breath, all his hair standing on end, but managed to bring his own sword up in time to block the strike. Sparks flew, and the guard jumped back.

“Tch. Don’t run away!” Sei didn’t hesitate, lunging forward again to attempt another blow.

The second guard brandished his heavy sword, eyeing the woman who was about to reach him. Despite just seeing his comrade get killed by the dagger, he let out a guffaw of a laugh. “What a pathetic brigade! A broken arm- AND a toothpick for a sword?” Confident, he stepped forward, swinging his sword down towards Lisa. “I’ll put you out of your misery!”

“Eek!” Lisa stalled for a moment, not sure what to do against an opponent so strong. Instinctively, she raised her rapier to parry, but ended up getting completely overpowered and knocked back. She stumbled, almost falling over, but managed to retain her stance not a moment too soon. The enemy’s sword came back down almost impossibly quick. Lisa stiffened her arm, catching the blade again and managing to thrust it out away from her body.

Julius looked up at last as the sound of swords appeared all around him. He had dirt in his eyes, but his arms were still trapped under his body. What’s going on?? Lisa- He blinked desperately, trying to clear his vision.

Lisa cried out in pain as her hand was once again shoved back by her opponent’s strength. His blade hit her guard with a loud clang, and she grit her teeth as the impact rattled her very bones. Shit! Her mind was reeling. I’m not strong enough, not in my right arm! Damn this broken arm- but- She pushed back, watching as her opponent laughed loudly at her struggle. No matter how she twisted her blade, he was holding his arm out far enough that she couldn’t reach it. If i try to win with strength, I’ll lose… so-

Sucking in a breath and focusing her mind, Lisa let up on her pushing for just a moment. Just like before, her arm and sword were immediately pushed away from the enemy’s body, leaving her wide open-

But also… he’s wide open, too!

Without even a moment to think about it, Lisa’s rapier swept back up. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sink the blade into his flesh- not yet- but she didn’t need to. With that one, swift movement, just the very tip of her blade grazed over skin. Lisa jumped back out of range as her opponent blinked, unsure of where the stinging pain in his face was coming from. But he shook his head, his grin immediately plastered back on his thin, dry, chap-stick-needing lips. “Get back here! I’m not done with you-” He took a step forward, still talking. “I’m going to slice you up nice and-”

He didn’t get to finish the sentence. A moment later, the skin of his eyelids split, cut just seconds before. Hot, stinging blood burst out like feathers from a ripped pillow, and blinded him.

“AHH!”

His sword fell into the dirt at his feet, his hands coming up to clutch his face.

“You- you-” he shrieked, angry, pained, scared, before whirling around. He was seeing red, both figuratively and literally, and now Lisa was nowhere to be seen. “I’LL KILL YOU-”

The guard’s cry of vengeance was cut off as a blade pierced his heart.

Lisa stepped back, letting go of the handle of her blade. The man’s body flopped over, crumpled on the group. Parting her lips to let out a held breath, Lisa couldn’t help but grin to herself.

“Yikes. You killed him?”

Lisa looked up to see Sei standing over another felled body. She could see its back heaving, as if it were in pain, but obviously not fatally wounded. Her eyes rose back to Sei’s face as the man cocked a brow. “Oh....” she gulped nervously. “Well- he was going to kill me! It’s only fair!”

“You misunderstand. Good job.” Sei’s lips formed a smile for a moment, but he was obviously still very much on guard. “I just wanted to keep at least one of them alive for questioning later.”

“Oh… OH!” Lisa suddenly remembered why they were there in the first place. The fight had clouded her mind with adrenaline, but now that it was clear-

“Julius! Thank goodness!”

Julius had just managed to sit up when Lisa leapt onto him. “Lisa!” he exclaimed, a grin growing on his face. He couldn’t hug her with his arms still bound, but Lisa’s arms were wrapped around his neck, her face buried into his shoulder. For a moment, the world melted away- nothing existed but her tight, warm embrace, a welcome feeling after more than a day of cold and pain. Julius let his eyes close for a moment, turning his head slightly to take in her wonderful scent, to relish the softness of her skin and her hair-

Suddenly, Julius’s eyes popped back open as he felt a murderous presence manifest. He looked up, his blood freezing as he made eye contact with Sei, who was glaring at the King as if he were about to pounce and kill him. Julius opened his mouth awkwardly, before clearing his throat. “Er- Lisa-” he said to the woman who was still hugging him tightly. “Sei- Sei is right there- looking at us-”

“Oh!” Lisa pulled away, grinning with a few stray tears in her eyes. “Sei knows about us, it’s alright!”

He knows?! Julius’s eyes widened as he glanced at Sei again. Oh, that’s why he’s so pissed...

“Lisa! Go get my dagger.”

“Right!”

Lisa quickly sprung to her feet, running to extract the dagger from the neck of one of the guards. Sei waked over and squatted next to Julius, the displeasure fading from his face. Julius momentarily wondered if the dagger was meant for him. “Was it just those three?”

Julius nodded. “There were six, but three of them left a while ago. I don’t think they’re coming back.”

“Hmm. Ok, that’s good.” Lisa returned with the knife, handing it to Sei. Sei immediately got to work, cutting through the rope around Julius’s ankles. Julius winced; Sei was rough, and it hurt his twisted ankle. “Good work with your right arm, though.”

Lisa beamed, straightening up and flexing her right arm. “Thank you! All that training paid off.”

“Training? Wow!” Julius’s eyes sparkled. “So, you’re basically ambidextrous now?”

“Almost! With sword fighting, at least. My handwriting still isn’t what it used to be.” Julius nodded along, holding up his wrists so Sei could free those as well. Lisa’s smile was more radiant than the sun, and Julius wanted nothing more than to free his arms so he could hug her back at long last. “But I’m glad we got here in time…” Lisa’s eyes turned sad again. “I was so worried.”

Julius gave her a comforting smile. “It’s alright now, though… I didn’t want you to be put in danger’s way, but I’m glad you were the one to save me.”

And what am I? Chopped liver? Sei thought to himself, trying to find a good spot in the rope to cut.

Lisa’s smile returned, a blush blossoming on her cheeks. “Thank you… Julius-”

Her words caught in her throat.

Julius blinked, still smiling up at her. “...yes?”

Nothing.

Lisa stood there, perfectly still, her mouth still open and a smile still on her lips.

… why… why did she stop talking?

Sei’s eyes widened as he sensed something. Something that was surrounding them quickly.

“Lisa? Lisa?!”

A gust of wind blew through the forest. Lisa’s body wobbled, like a leaf hanging onto its twig with just one fiber of strength. But that fiber snapped; Lisa fluttered to the ground, crumpling upon impact. Julius was still smiling when he saw the arrow pierced deep into her back.

“Julius! Get down!!”

Julius didn’t even have time to react before Sei grabbed him and threw both of them prone to the ground. Not a moment too soon, because a flurry of arrows shot out, bombarding the whole area. The pounding in Julius’s ears crescendoed as the moments prior finally came to realization. But the sound of arrows was still everywhere-

“AH-” Sei suddenly cried out as an arrow hit his shoulder. He tensed up, his own mind reeling as the pain flooded his body. Finally, the volley was over, and his grip on Julius weakened.

“LISA!!”

Julius lurched out of Sei’s grip, not even bothering to get to his feet. He crawled through the dirt, panic and shock filling his body. Lisa was still lying where she fell, but she had not been spared; four more arrows joined the one already in her back, one lodged in the hard cast on her arm, and two in her back; but the last arrow was sunk deep into her neck.

“LISA!!!!!”

His voice cracked. As Julius reached her, he stopped short before he grabbed her. His hands shook, his vision blurry.

No… no-

There was so much blood already. Julius felt dizzy, as if he was the one bleeding out.

Blood…

It was too much. That couldn’t all be her’s... could it?

No… she’s too small… this much blood would never fit in her body...

There were laughs all around. Slowly, Julius looked up, seeing their attackers finally emerge from the trees. There were 12- no, 15 of them. All dressed in armor, drawing their swords and spears. A diamond crest adorned all their outfits.

This… this is the group Patri was going to hand me over to…

“That’s too bad for Patri’s goons,” one of them said, raising his hand to stop the others. They were in a circle around Julius, Sei, and Lisa now. Sei grunted, his breathing labored as he tried to stay conscious, his hand grasping the shaft of the arrow in his shoulder. Luckily, it had missed any vitals, but he still felt like he was about to pass out from the shock of being shot. “But we still got here in time to get our prize.” The diamond knight sneered. “Come on, Mighty Stag… come without a struggle, and we’ll spare at least the man behind you.”

… spare… struggle…

The words were barely registering in Julius’s mind. Everything was still blurry, still reeling. Nothing made sense, but there was something cold and hard lodged in his chest.

Slowly, Julius rose to his feet.

The enemy knights jeered. “That’s a good boy. Come on- you’ll atone for the years of Diamond blood you shed!”

Blood…

Yes, Julius had blood on his hands. Year of blood. Blood of his enemies, but also blood of his comrades. Patri, the others he had led into battle, and to their deaths…

And now… Lisa. The one person he thought could cleanse his soul of the sins he had committed.

Her blood was everywhere.

Julius walked a few steps forward, but paused by the body of the guard Lisa had killed. Her rapier was still lodged in his chest, the handle pointed upwards like the fabled sword in the stone. Without thinking, Julius grabbed it, and pulled it free.

The atmosphere immediately changed. The diamond knights’s triumph faltered. The air chilled, the sky darkened.

They remembered that they were in the presence of the Mighty Stag. Of the King.

The rapier’s grip was too small for Julius’s hand. But he gripped it anyway, and swiped it once through the air. Then again. Then again. Each time stronger and faster than the last.

The movement was familiar. Julius was used to wielding a sword that was taller than Lisa was, but the little rapier would do for now. Taking a deep, wavering breath, his mind cleared, focus drowning out all other emotions as he took his first step forward.

A little more blood… a little more…

“I… I’m going to kill all of you.”

And he did.

[welcometophu]

Not Your Guardian Angel: Chapter 22

Marked Book 3: Not Your Guardian Angel

Chapter 22

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Pels blinks several times as she wakes. She’s lying on her side, her free arm curled under her pillow, the other hand lying against her hip. She aches from head to toe in ways that definitely remind her that she’s alive, but the floating sensation seems to be gone.

The room is still somewhat dark, the overhead light off, but there’s more noise and light from outside the curtains.

Dad sits in a chair facing her, but as soon as he meets her eyes, he stands and walks out. The curtain lifts and falls in his wake, and there’s a scrape of a chair behind her.

“I am never going to get used to that,” Jess mutters. Shuffling sounds, and Pels rolls onto her back to find Jess’s hand over her shoulder. Jess pulls back quickly. “You’re awake.”

“I’m awake.” Pels is completely aware of the way Jess hovers as if she wants to lean in and knows she needs to lean back. Pels licks her lips—she feels like she’s been dried out to a husk. “I think Dad left us alone. It’s a surprising offer of privacy.”

“What does he think we’re going to do?” Jess huffs softly. “Shane’s picking up some breakfast. I think your mom and sister will be back a little later. We told them to take their time since you were sleeping.”

Pels nods. She tries to push herself to sitting, and Jess quickly moves to raise the back of the bed for her. “I hurt more,” Pels says. “But I feel less like I’m underwater.”

“I think that’s a good thing.” Jess sits back in the chair, her hands tightly clasped together. “They said they were going to back off on your pain meds. The Healers stopped by and said that in order to be able to start actually healing, your body needs to not be sedated. So. They recommend against prescription painkillers.”

“Mm.” Pels looks at the trash, still full from last night, and the small rolling table she hadn’t noticed that sits off to one side. “I don’t suppose anyone brought me breakfast, did they?”

“I can go ask.” Jess pushes to her feet, but she hesitates. There’s something going on, but Pels can’t read her expression other than that it looks tight and drawn as Jess bites her lip.

“What?” Pels asks.

“I was so scared,” Jess whispers. “I was just so scared, and I’m still kind of scared because I know you’re real and okay and you’re here and Shane told me you’re solid and not some kind of ghost like your dad, but I still just want—” She hesitates. “I wish I could hug you.”

Oh.

Pels touches her wrist, fingers drifting over the mountain’s craggy lines. “I—”

“I get it,” Jess says quickly. “I don’t want you to do anything you—”

“Okay.” Pels interrupts her, needing to get the word out before she changes her mind.

Jess stops. “Wait. Really?”

“Please don’t keep asking or I might say different,” Pels tells her. She opens her arms as best she can with the IV line dragging against her. “Just—let’s do this.”

Jess’s expression lights up, the corners of her eyes crinkling as she leans in. She moves slowly, and Pels thinks she could say no even now, but she doesn’t.

The second Jess’s hand touches her shoulder, Pels feels the zing straight through, like an electrical shock running all the way to her other arm. Then searing warmth as Jess carefully gathers her in, enveloping her in a rolling heat that pushes in through her skin, then wells up inside of her.

“Oh,” Pels whispers. She closes her eyes, her head tilted against Jess’s shoulder as Jess cradles her carefully. Tightly. Pels catches at Jess’s shirt with her good hand, fingers holding on to the fabric against her back.

Under her hand, Jess’s muscles slowly relax. Breath is soft and warm against Pels’s cheek when Jess exhales. “God,” Jess replies. “Just… I was so fucking scared. You flew, Pels. I thought—I thought you were going to be dead. And I didn’t know what I’d do.”

“I’m okay.” It should be obvious, now that they’re like this, but maybe she needs to hear it. Maybe Pels needs to say it. She’s okay. Not just after the accident, but also after touching Jess. She felt it ripple through her body; she knows her mark must have changed. And right now she is absolutely and completely aware of the way lava bubbles through her, as if she could burn up from the inside.

But she’s okay.

Jess pulls back, brushing her lips against Pels’s forehead. She frames her face with her hands and stays there, staring into her eyes. “You are seriously okay?”

“I am maybe a little shaky right this very second, but that has nothing to do with being thrown out of a car,” Pels says with a small smile. She loves the way Jess laughs at that, her eyes crinkling in the corners.

“Can I—” Jess stops herself, making a face. “Too soon.”

“What?”

“You kissed Shane.”

There are semantics to this. Shane kissed her. She kissed Shane. Shane apparently transferred a kiss from Pels to Jess.

But yes, that’s mostly it.

They’ve already touched. It’s not like kissing makes the magic worse.

“If you really want our first kiss to be in a hospital while I’m—” Pels cuts off as Jess leans in, mouth slotting over hers, because oh, she has no breath left to speak. Her heart pounds and there aren’t any bees, just that lava boiling up from her belly, magma ready to spill over and consume her in flames.

A machine in the background gives a startled high-pitched beep and whine.

Jess pulls back, her pale skin flushed a dusky rose. “Maybe making out while you’re hooked up to a heart monitor isn’t the best idea, but I have to admit, the feedback is good for my ego.”

Pels is not going to look at the machinery. She knows her heart is racing, and her skin is heated and warm. She tries for nonchalant. “It was okay.”

Jess laughs; the sound is as rich and warm as the lava flowing through Pels’s veins.

The curtain pulls back with a rattle. “You two look cozy,” Shane says.

Jess steps away, her hands falling from Pels’s face. Pels tries to look innocent, but she feels as if her skin must be blazing red, and the monitor still raises the alarm from her elevated heart rate.

A nurse comes in behind Shane, bearing a tray that she sets on the table. “Breakfast,” she says, taking the lid off and setting it aside. The scents of eggs and warm maple syrup fill the air. Pels’s stomach growls, and she reaches her hands out, grinning when the nurse wheels the table next to her, so it goes in front of where she sits up. She reaches for the mug, but it’s empty; Pels makes a small whining sound.

“I wasn’t sure if you’d want coffee or tea,” the nurse says.

Pels looks up, another small, hopeful noise slipping free. “Coffee. As much as I’m allowed to have.”

The pot that’s delivered shortly thereafter seems far too small, but at least she has something.

Shane hands a wrapped egg sandwich to Jess, and they all eat in silence for a little while. Breakfast is far better than last night’s post-midnight snack, and Pels devours it quickly. She’s still hungry when it’s gone, and she wonders if that’s a side-effect of the Healing that’s been done and her body’s attempts to catch up to normal.

Jess refills her glass of water when Pels asks, and she sips at it, trying to get the cotton feeling out of her mouth.

“So,” Shane says, lifting his hand in the air. “I almost dropped everything when you two started making out.”

His mark looks exactly the same. Maybe larger, but Pels can’t really tell and it’s not like she measured the cloud when this whole mess started. “Nothing happened,” she says, frowning at his mark.

“I’m pretty sure something happened.” Shane’s dry tone has a hint of humor, and a moment after he says it, he’s grinning.

Jess reaches out, sliding her fingers over Pels’s hand, curling around hers. “I hugged her. Then she said I could kiss her, and I wasn’t giving up that chance.”

“Bees and lava,” Pels says. They both give her a strange look, and she flushes but doesn’t try to explain. She’s sure she’d sound like a fool if she did.

“So.” Shane gestures to the two of them as he says it again. “I’m not asking for details on the kissing—the monitors made it clear that was a good thing.” He smirks a little, and Pels tries to sink back into the pillows. “Your wrists?”

Oh. Right. That.

Jess holds hers up first, and instead of a mark that indicates either Pels or Shane, she has a clouded inky spot that shifts and moves as she does, just as indistinct as Shane’s.

Pels knows her mark must have changed. She felt the impact of Jess’s touch, felt that singing electrical spark through her blood, down into her arm. But she’s half afraid that if she looks, it’ll still be somehow inconclusive.

Jess reaches for her at the same time as Shane does. They both stop just shy of touching her, and she meets their gazes as she turns her hand over to show the inside of her wrist.

The mountain is still there, but the scene has expanded with a cloud above, and a pool of water below. Both are patterned, filled in with a jumbled chaos of lines that make Pels think of being able to see the air and water in movement on her skin.

“It’s beautiful,” she says. “I don’t know why...?”

“Maybe we’re each soulmates with you, but not each other,” Jess says.

“That doesn’t make sense magically,” Shane disagrees. He sits back down in the chair further from Pels, leaving Jess to tangle her fingers with Pels as Shane continues to speak. “It’s my mark, and if I’d bonded with Pels originally, we would’ve had each others’ marks. Instead she got yours. And now she’s got mine, and you’ve got… something in waiting. It’s not done yet.” He puts up a hand before Jess can start speaking. “And yes, it makes more sense if it’s a V—I’ve been researching how triads work.”

“I get the idea, mathematically speaking,” Jess agrees.

“But you and her, plus me and her—that’d be stable, and it does make sense since we’ve known each other forever. And we already know that you and I touching each other doesn’t make a difference, because we’ve done that a hundred times since the Ritual.” Shane shrugs, slumping further back. “We’re still missing something.”

“One step at a time is fine with me.” Pels watches as Jess lightly traces the tiny lines that swirl inside the lake. “I’m adjusting. And I haven’t panicked—” She glares when Jess snorts. “Much,” Pels amends. “I haven’t panicked much. But we’ve touched, and I’ve kissed you both, and that’s all—it’s good. It’s very good. It’s different, too. I feel like I’m different now.”

She blinks, because Dad’s standing behind Shane, just suddenly there. “So much for privacy,” she huffs.

Shane and Jess look at each other. “Your dad is here?”

“He is now.”

“Go on, this was getting interesting,” Dad says. “You feel different how?”

Pels tugs her hand free from Jess, crossing her arms. “Like I want to talk about how kissing feels in front of you,” she mutters. “I just feel—connected. Like I’m aware of them. Bees and lava under my skin, pulling me towards them. You,” she says, pointing to both Jess and Shane. “I know how you feel and it’s different, but I’m aware of it all the time right now. I want to touch you. Be touched by you. Kiss you. And I don’t know if that’s me liking you or the mark saying that I need you.”

“The mark can’t force anything,” Shane reminds her. “It’s a suggestion, not an order.”

“I am perfectly okay if you want to tell me how attracted you are to me.” Jess grins, her thumb sliding over Pels’s skin. “If you want to get some more data, I’m all for more kissing, too.”

“Hey.” Shane protests, but he’s smiling and doesn’t look entirely upset by being left out.

Dad raises an eyebrow. “So. You’re all set then?”

“I think I’m okay without more kissing. For now. I think I just—I know you’ll figure out what’s going on eventually, or we will, but right now… I’m tired,” Pels admits.

Jess moves her hand to Pels’s forehead, smoothing her curls back from her face. She smiles gently as she touches her, fingers just drifting over her skin, like she can’t stop now that she’s allowed. Pels feels every glide and slip of that touch, leaving trails of warmth along her body. “The Healers said that would happen, and if you do rest, it’ll help a lot. The more sleep you get, the more your body gets to heal. They think you’ll be able to go home tomorrow, actually. Your mom and Cheyenne should come by later. They’re staying until you get settled back on campus.”

Pels wants to ask what happens next. Whether she just goes back to class and pretends she wasn’t thrown from a car. Whether she gets to relax in her room—if being in a room with Jennifer and Nikita could be considered relaxing at all. That life seems very separate from this one, lying in a hospital bed, trying to keep her eyes open.

“Maybe we should let you rest,” Jess murmurs.

Pels wonders how long it’s been since she said something, and when exactly she closed her eyes. “Mm,” she agrees. “I could sleep.” Which is kind of funny, since she literally just ate breakfast and drank her coffee, but it feels like no amount of caffeine would be enough.

There’s a brush of lips against her forehead, warm and rumbling. Then movement, and another light press that sets her skin buzzing. She smiles at that. “I can tell the difference between you,” she murmurs.

“We’ll come back tonight,” Shane assures her as he moves away. The curtain rattles and falls, then a chair scrapes.

Why Dad would bother to move a chair to sit closer to her Pels doesn’t know, but when she forces her eyes open, he’s done exactly that.

“Hey,” he says quietly, slipping his hand over hers. “I’ve got you. Go ahead and rest.”

“I’m so confused,” she whispers. “I think I like them. But emotions are hard, and then I can feel them getting under my skin, and the physical just makes it all harder to understand. It’s like my body doesn’t want to wait for my mind and heart to catch up.”

“You’ve just described love,” Dad says quietly. “Maybe you should be a writer, Pels. I think you understand more about people than you think you do.”

She feels like she should; she’s spent enough time trying to figure them out, after all.

She floats in a haze that feels like sleep, but she’s still aware of the machines beeping, and the feel of Dad’s hand on hers. When the curtain rattles again, she’s not sure how long has passed, but it’s easier to open her eyes again. She fully expects to see Mom and Cheyenne, or maybe Shane and Jess, or a nurse or a doctor or well… she doesn’t expect to see Pat standing there, the curtain held back, watching her wake.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “I didn’t expect—”

“I heard about your accident, so I took a bus over. Jackson says get better soon. TJ’s… doing something. I don’t know what.” As Pat moves into the room, Dad vacates the chair.

It’s really funny how sometimes he doesn’t mind people walking through him, and other times he seems to loathe the idea of sharing space.

Pat sits down and looks at her. “You look….”

“I haven’t seen a mirror,” Pels admits. “I’m probably bruised. Scraped. I suspect I broke some things—no one’s talking about exactly what happened, just that I spent some time with Healers.”

“Priya said they called her in. She’s a freshman, like us,” Pat explains when Pels gives him a confused look. “She’s from a Healer family, so they have her on call at the area hospitals. Just in case. She didn’t say anything that would break privacy, just that they needed extra support, and it wasn’t easy. But she thinks you’ll be fine, if you just take a break and get some rest now.”

“No one wants to say I almost died?” Pels quips. She’s half afraid she’s right, and doesn’t want to think about it too closely. “I don’t really want to talk about my accident. Tell me you’ve been kicking ass in that game of yours or something. Or new stuff that you and Sera are doing on your skateboards. Or well… anything. Take my mind off of all this.”

She sees Pat’s gaze drop to her arm, which lies wrist down against the bed. Pels doesn’t offer a view of the changed mark; she’s not ready to talk about that, either.

“I’m still pining,” Pat says lightly. “After TJ. I think he’s clueless, actually. He’s either head over heels for Sera, or well, he’s definitely in lust with her. And she’s one of my best friends, so I don’t begrudge her that if she wants him. But Jackson’s watching him, too, and I don’t know what’s harder—me wishing he were ours for me, or for Jackson. Does that make sense? I feel like I’m being greedy.”

“Because you’re dating one person and have a crush on another one?” Pels huffs a soft laugh. “Remember, I have two soulmates. If you can talk to anyone about this, it’s probably me. Apparently Shane’s been doing research on triads and how they work. Because this is a thing that people other than just us do? I didn’t even realize… on the other hand, I had enough trouble with the idea of one-on-one relationships before.”

“So did I, but this… it’s different with each of them,” Pat admits. He’s smiling when he leans forward, tapping at the side of Pels’s bed. “Jackson’s comfortable. He’s like finding that perfect t-shirt that you’ve had for ten years and didn’t realize still fit, and you get the feeling it’s just going to fit forever and will never wear out. It’s like I found another piece of myself I didn’t know I was missing. And TJ—he’s like light shining down on us, lifting us up. I can’t stop watching him, and Jackson can’t either. He’s the north star, and we’re trying to navigate. Y’know? I’m also not even sure if he’s bi or not.”

“You haven’t talked about it?”

“He likes Sera and he never talks about guys,” Pat says. “I think—he’s said some things about how his father felt about guys in dance. It complicates things.”

Pels is pretty sure there’s a part of the story she’s missing there, but she doesn’t actually know TJ all that well other than as an RA, or gaming in Pat’s room. “Oh,” she says.

“Maybe it’s just a daydream,” Pat says, leaning back, hands behind his head as he slouches down in the chair. “But it’s a nice one. It’s not like watching hurts, right?”

“As long as you and Jackson are both okay, then, sure?” Pels says uncertainly. “I mean, don’t lose what you have because you’re both pining for something else.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Pat agrees. “The thing with TJ, it’s just dreaming. It’s nice that my boyfriend has the same crush, and that we’re united on that front. But we’re still us, too, and nothing’s going to change that. I never thought I’d find someone like Jackson, honestly. I wake up every day kind of amazed about it.”

“I never thought I’d be where I am either,” Pels admits. Because relationships are confusing and hard, and here she is sitting squarely between two people who both are interested in her. And don’t hate each other over it. “The universe has a lot of surprises in it, doesn’t it?”

Pat laughs, a short surprised sound. “I guess you’re right. It’s pretty amazing that way, isn’t it? Magic isn’t just about creating things out of nothing, I guess. It’s about everything.”

That’s one way to put it. “Magic lives in the spaces between everything else,” Pels murmurs. “It binds us together, and pushes us apart, and it gives us the things we don’t even know we need, while protecting us from the things we don’t see coming.” Her gaze drifts to where her dad sits quietly in one of the other chairs. “Magic isn’t just about Talent,” she whispers. “Maybe it’s about life.”

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[kuratoki]

Changes 09

Changes is ALMOST done...I just finished writing the remaining parts so they’ll be posted throughout the week :)

Also once this series is completed what do you guys want to see next? The sequel or the new fic? Let me know~♥ 

Do you agree that things change in time? Well four years abroad would tell wouldn’t it?

Pairing: Reader x Jeno ft. NCT

Words: 3711

Warning: Swearing/Mentions of Death/Angst

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 6.5 - 7 - 8 - 9

Renjun had seen Jaemin’s car come into the parking lot from the window and went out to meet you, “We need to talk” he said quickly, pulling you away to somewhere private and away from everyone's questionable looks. 

“Did Jongin contact you?” you both asked at the same time once you were alone.

“Ah, good. So we are on the same page...what do you think?” he asked leaning against the brick wall, crossing his arms.

“I just want to know why they’re asking us instead of holding auditions.” you said biting your lip, “We’re technically considered alumni at this point despite only being juniors so isn’t that against the rules?” 

“It was a request from Anne-Marie,” Renjun emphasized, “She can technically do whatever she wants. We’d probably be missing school too meaning we won’t be in the Senior levels with everyone else the following year. You don’t think its because of...”

"Can’t be.” you said quickly shaking your head, “If I remember correctly, opening night rolls around spring break...It might be a semester abroad.” you commented, “What do you want to do?” 

“You know I won’t agree if you don’t.” Renjun stated with a shrug, “How about we see what Jongin has to say first? Then we’ll decide.” 

“Sounds good. I’m just wondering why though…” you said trying to figure out why you and Renjun would get called back after all these years. After the one performance, the two of you chose not to reaudition the next year but kept in close contact with a few members of the competition team members who were a lot older and advanced. There were only two known Juniors who had ever made it to the competition team and now only one remained while the other one was hired as their Creative Director. 

“We should get inside, I’m starving.” you said, stuffing your hands in your pockets but before you could take a step Renjun threw something at you and you almost didn’t catch it.

Looking at the box in your hands, you noticed it was your iron supplements.

“You left those in my bag. Judging by your face, your levels dropped right?” he asked with a smirk before wrapping his arm around your shoulder, “If we’re going to do this, we can’t have you falling off stage again.” 

“I’ll be fine.” you said rolling your eyes, “You and Jisung really need to stop babying me.” 

“We will when Jeno starts, how about that?” he suggested, giving you his sarcastic smile, leading you into the private room.

“Yo! What took you guys so long?! The food arrived ten minutes ago.” Yuta called when he noticed the two of you walking in.

“You didn’t save any food for me?” you asked Yuta with big eyes, “The one who makes you food almost every day? Whose lunch box did you eat today huh?” 

“Wow, still a master at being pitiful.” Renjun muttered, arm still around your shoulder and took you to where he saw two empty seats and you gulped. This was an awkward seating arrangement. 

You were sandwiched between Jeno, who had Yeeun on his other side, and Renjun, who had Donghyuk on his other side. Across from you were Jaemin, Hana, Chenle and Jisung. This was going to be interesting.

“Don’t worry Y/N, I saved you some food.” Doyoung said, handing you a plate of skewers, which was Yuta’s choice of restaurant tonight.

“Plus we ordered more squid tentacles cause Jeno said that they were your favorite.” Jaehyun called out with a smirk, making the two of you red in the face. 

“Thanks Doyoungie.” you said and picked up a skewer, holding it in front of Jeno who took a bite without hesitation before you finished the rest. Sharing food with each other was habitual.

“Careful you two, some would think that you were already dating.” Jaemin teased as the other boys all agreed around him and continued to poke fun at the two of you.

“Anyways, what took you two so long outside?” Mark asked, looking at you and Renjun curiously.

You looked at Renjun, silently asking if he wanted to tell everyone. Renjun shrugged his shoulders, people were bound to find out anyways and you nodded your head towards him, wanting him to say it. 

“We both got a phone call just now from our mentor and Creative Director of the Selects Dance Company. They’re starting to organize their yearly performance schedule and they’ve decided upon Swan Lake once more.” Renjun said, taking a sip of his tea.

“So they want you two to audition again?” Taeyong asked as the rest of the boys looked on curiously.

“But isn’t the Selects Dance Company Europe based? You’d have to be attending an academy there in order to participate.” Ten commented.

“The Head of the Board herself has requested that Renjun and I return to reprise our roles as the Prince and Odette. We aren’t sure about the logistics about it yet. The Creative Director said he’s on his way here from Europe so we’ll meet with him to get the details I guess.” you answered.

“Dude that’s so sick!!” Mark said, coming to congratulate the two of you as various others did the same, “You two must’ve made an impact to get invited back.” 

“Well Anne-Marie, who runs the whole operation, does say that once a Select, always a Select. A lot of the junior performance members get scouted into their respective competitive teams and Renjun and I do keep in contact with quite a few of the competition team members.” you explained, “Though it was unsurprising, it was completely unexpected.” 

“Are you guys going to do it?” Doyoung asked, leaning over curiously. He knew that if you accepted the role, there was a chance you’d be going back to Europe a lot sooner than anyone would have wanted but if he remembered correctly, the Selects Dance Company based out of London had a really unique way to accommodate their foreign teammates.

“We’ll decide once we meet with him in a few days.” Renjun confirmed, “Speaking of which Doyoung, I’m going to need to take a day off from the club this week. I’m not sure when but I’ll let you know as soon as I find out.” 

“Tell Y/N.” Taeyong said, “She’s the clubs new manager, remember?” 

Jeno, who wasn’t at club when Taeyoung and Ten made the announcement, turned to look at you, “Really? They actually convinced you?” 

“What? Do you not want me at club meetings?” you asked, looking at him from the corner of your eye, “And Renjun tell Hana, I’m going to be at that meeting too remember?” 

“Noted.” Hana said with a giggle as Jeno tried to defend himself.

“No no no!!” he said, shaking his hands quickly, causing everyone in the room to laugh. It was unusual to see Jeno flustered the way he was and some of the members cringed at the sight while others smiled knowing there was only one person who could do that to him, “It’s not that. You’ve been so busy lately, I just thought you wouldn’t have the time.”

“The dance that we presented today and the practices we had for projects took up the majority of that.” you explained and let out a relieved sigh, “Now I can finally have a social life. Do you know how hard it was to see only Jaehyun and Renjuns face every day, almost every hour, almost every waking moment…” 

“We get it!” Jaehyun and Renjun called out, rolling their eyes and Renjun shoved you slightly, making you shove him back.

“Wait, so you guys never explained it to me.” Sicheng said looking at the three of you, “Jae saw the video, figured out that it was Y/N. Asked Y/N to be his partner but why was Renjun with you?” The two were over practically everyday after school and Jaehyun just told him it was for their project but Renjun always looked like the third wheel in the scenario.

“Also, who was the guy that Y/N was dancing with?” Donghyuk asked, who was currently watching the video with several of the others behind him including yourselves and Yeeun, “the dance itself was so intimate, you must’ve been comfortable with him.”

You looked at Renjun, then back to Donghyuk, then turned to look at Renjun again, shrugging, “Well I guess you were a little uglier back then.” 

Everyone at the table froze,minus Renjun who was busy shaking the life out of you again for your comment and was currently cursing at you in Chinese and Chenle who was laughing his butt off at the curses coming out of his friends mouth.

“W-wait…” Ten said, interrupting Renjuns fit, “The two of you…I thought you guys did ballet.”

“Doesn’t mean we never explored other styles of dance.” Renjun said and started thinking, “Why did we choreo this again?” 

“Competition?” you suggested.

“No, look at your hair. We posted this second year when we were training with the Selects.” Renjun said pointing at something on the phone, “Extra credit project?” 

“We were training with the Selects, that already fulfilled our requirement for the year.” you said and your heads snapped to look at each other, “Ah.” 

“We were bored.” you both said at once and heard someone choke on their meat nearby.

“That’s right. We had a day off and watched the movie.” you said remembering the day clearly, “It was my favorite song.”

“Eight hours later, the dance was created.” Renjun said with a satisfied sigh, wrapping his arm around your shoulders, “Back in the day, when it was just you and me.”

“Bored out of our minds cause all we knew was dance. Anne-marie was impressed when we performed it for her the next day.” you said, leaning your head on his shoulder, “Heck, I was impressed.”

“Dude, I’m impressed.” Ten said with a big nod of approval, “It’s hard to make choreo like that to perfection in such a short period of time.”

“We know.” you and Renjun said at the same time.

‘Just because the dance came together in eight hours, doesn’t mean it was a peaceful discussion. This girl gets feisty when she’s persistent.” Renjun said with a smirk.

“I’m sorry...who bit who?” you asked looking up at him with a raised eyebrow, not realizing how it had come out.

“I recall it going both ways.” Renjun shot back suggestively and you pushed him away in disgust, going back to your seat.

Jeno’s eyes widened, Chenle sighed and Hana giggled. 

“Yea, then I kicked you in the shin for it and you couldn’t walk for ten minutes. Bruised badly too I recall.” you said and looked at Jeno, giving him an innocent grin, “He learned not to fuck with me after that.” 

“I just learned not to fuck with you.” he said, pulling you by the hood towards him, “Now eat. You skipped lunch and we ordered more skewers.” he pushed the plate in front of you and wrapped his arm around your waist as he talked to Jaemin and Hana while Taeyong got you into a conversation regarding the Clubs pre-competition retreat. 

It was the one of two events a year where the older members treated the junior members to a week or weekend away. Most of the members came from wealthy families and the SUEX fund which was established by the founding members years ago came in handy. It was an account with the school where alumni members of the club would donate a little bit of money every year to fund club expenses, such as competition fees and the retreat along with team jackets etc.

The members of the club had to hold a certain grade point average to maintain their position within the dance team. Most of the members were in their top of the class and Doyoung, Taeyong, Johnny and Jaehyun were all part of the student council. 

What didn’t go unnoticed by Yeeun was that despite being in a conversation with Jaemin, Jeno’s arm remained around your waist as if it was the most natural thing in the world. You were engaged in two different conversations, yet still completely aware of the others' presence and obviously listening in on the others as well. She had never seen two people who weren’t together so in tune with one another.

 “Where should we go this year?” Johnny asked, taking out his phone for potential destinations.

“Why don’t we try someplace new?” Jaehyun suggested.

“Hong Kong.” Yukhei called out.

“Been there.” you and Jeno said together.

“Japan?” Yuta suggested.

“Been there.” you chorused once again.

“Oh! Why don’t we go to Hawaii!” Mark suggested.

“Been there six times.” you said and Jeno nodded.

“How have you been to so many of the same places?” Jisung asked confused, “Can’t be pure coincidence.”

“Our parents work from home and travel for a living.” you answered for the two of you, “We grew up going on trips together all over the place. Hawaii...California…”

"Japan...Malaysia…the Carribean..” Jeno continued listing off his fingers, “We did a cruise once too.” 

“Ahh our days of running free on deck, high on endless soft serve.” you said leaning into him with a giggle, remembering the days where your parents let you did as you pleased while on the cruise, “What do you guys want to do for the retreat?” you asked, getting back on topic.

“Weekend trip this time around. I think we’ll save the weeklong one for warmer weather.” Taeyong said looking at his phone, “We could go to Busan.”

“Why don’t we go to Y/N’s vacation home in Jeju?” Jeno suggested, not even asking you first.

“Vacation home?” Yeeun asked with wide eyes, just how wealthy were you?

“We could.” you agreed, “You’d just have to pay for the plane tickets. But it’s in my name now and I have the keys. As long as you guys don’t trash the place, I can organize the whole thing.” 

“Your parents actually put the whole thing in your name?” Jeno asked skeptically, “There has to be a reason behind that.” 

“They figured we’d use it more than they would and if anything happens, I’m responsible, not them.” you answered, “And don’t act so surprised. I know for a fact that you have the penthouse in Gangnam under your name.” 

“Yea and? It’s not like I use it.” he said, “It’s just sitting there collecting dust.” 

‘It’s waiting for us.’  he thought to himself, subconsciously tightening his arm around you and felt you shift to make yourself more comfortable. When you were younger, the two of you made a pact to move to the city together and to this day, it was what the penthouse in Gangnam his parents promised him was for. He wanted to be your first official place together.

“The fact that the two of you already have property under your names astound me.” Doyoung said with a straight face, “You truly are a match made in heaven.” 

“Our parents have share homes in certain cities so they have a home wherever they go. They haven’t really been in Korea much these days.” you explained ignoring Doyoungs last comment, “and with Jeno’s parents gone, we kind of have to rely on each other. Plus I have WinWin who apparently adopted Yuta so I’m technically a mom of three.” you finished with a sigh.

“I’ll pay for you tonight Y/N.” Yuta called out sweetly, making you snort.

“When do you guys want to go to Jeju? Y/N and I can take care of it all. You just have to show.” Jeno said as eyes widened around the table.

“Did my ears deceive me or did Jeno actually just take charge of an event?” Johnny asked, looking at Doyoung and Taeyong. 

“He’s smart, taking the opportunity to spend more time with her.” Doyoung mused, “And Renjuns also doing a good job at playing  the jealousy pawn. He brings out a side of her that I don’t think Jeno’s ever seen and its obvious.” 

“Okay, fine.” Taeyong said grinning, “You and Y/N can take charge, outside of the plane tickets, we’ll give you a budget for food and drinks. Anything outside of that will come out of your pockets.” 

“Fine by me.” Jeno said looking down at you, “What do you think.” 

“I have to dance with you already and now I have to plan a retreat with you?” you asked, pretending to be reluctant, “Sure why not.” 

“Okay, now we’ve settled that. What are we doing for the rest of the night?”  Yuta asked, “It’s Friday night guys.” 

“You guys could always come over.” you said knowing it was what Yuta wanted, “And if it gets too much, I can just escape to Jeno’s or something.”

 “I need to get my cats from you first but that sounds like a plan.” Jeno agreed as others agreed around him.

“I’m starting to like our new manager already.” Jungwoo said grinning, “Best decision the club has ever made.” As those around him happily agreed, knowing that good things were going to come to the club.

When everything was settled, everyone slowly but surely made their way to your house. Yeeun and Yukhei even showed up and you were glad that there was no animosity between you and the truth was, Yeeun couldn’t feel any even if she tried. 

Through dinner she could see why Jeno liked you so much. You invited her to dinner and even back to your house, even though all she had been was mean to you. The way he looked at you was also another thing that got Yeeun. The only time she had ever seen that look was the way Jaemin would look at Hana, it was the look of adoration, contentment and love. She realized then that she couldn’t compete with someone like that. Not with how strongly Jeno wasn’t afraid to show his obvious love for you in front of everyone.

Jeno and Jaemin had gone back to his house to change once more and had yet to return, a few of the guys were in your yard while others were playing video games. You and Renjun were in the kitchen, reading the Selects group chat which was currently going crazy. 

“Something doesn’t seem right.” Chenle said, looking around the room, specifically at three different people.

“What are you talking about?” Jisung asked, focused on the game at hand.

Chenle looked at Yukhei who seemed to be a little too focussed on his phone and then looked at you and Renjun who seemed to be doing the same. Doing a quick scan of the room, Hana, Jeno and Jaemin were no where to be found. 

“Something is seriously not right.” he said again when he saw the grim looks on yours and Renjuns faces and Yukheis gaze darting towards the two of you across the room, his look almost identical. 

Getting up, he quickly made his way to the kitchen when he saw you say something to Renjun and he nodded his head, leaving out your back door his phone grasped tightly in his hand. It was the wrong move however because once Renjun was out of sight, Yukhei left Yeeun and made a beeline for the kitchen, luckily Chenle got there first.

“What’s going on?” he asked when he saw you resting your head in your hands.

At the same time, your phone rang and you held up your finger to Chenle, signalling for him to hold on.

“Please tell me you didn’t get on that plane and that you’re with them right now.” you said the moment you answered.

“I didn’t get on the plane and I’m with Anne-Marie and Mia right now.” Jongin said on the other side quietly, “Mia’s on the phone with Renjun and Anne-Marie is saying her goodbyes. How are you holding up?” 

“I’m still in shock...but I think it’ll be easier to let go when it sinks in. We all knew it was going to happen and Mia’s been keeping us updated.  He gave up his fight.” you said and sighed, closing your eyes, a lone tear escaped alarming Chenle.

“His body couldn’t take it anymore.” Jongin said, his voice heartbroken. He did just lose a brother after all, “Listen, I just wanted to let you know that I’m still going to be coming down but I’ll be there in two days. They were already prepared so they just have to decide the funeral date. I want to meet with the two of you but I have a huge favor to ask of you and Renjun.” 

“Anything.” you said, trying to hold in your tears and you felt Chenle wrap his arm around your shoulders in a comforting hug. 

“Anne-Marie insists that we proceed with the production regardless of the circumstances. I don’t want to ask too much of her right now but the show must go on. Can I ask the two of you to be a helping hand with the cast and production alongside Mia?” Jongin requested and you gasped.

He wanted you to be part of not only the cast but the production team as well, this was a big opportunity since it showed that he believed in your skills.

“We can talk more about it when I get there but it would be a big help to me and the rest of the company.” he continued.

“I’ll talk to Renjun after he gets back. We will for sure consider it. Go be with them, they need you the most now.” you said, “Just let me know where and when to meet.” 

“I’ll see you soon. Take care of yourself Y/N.” Jongin said before the line went dead.

“Y/N, what happened? What’s going on?” Chenle asked as you let more tears flow. 

“Y/N.” Yukhei said coming into the kitchen and standing on your other side so you were trapped.

“Xander  passed away.” you whispered, letting more tears flow and closed your eyes briefly, “His nurse found him this morning...they said it was peaceful. His body was exhausted and just couldn’t take it anymore.” 

[ccinagalaxyfaraway]

Oh my gosh I can't stop thinking about that chapter in "i take from you everything you allow" where Wolffe asks Plo if he's got a light for his cigarette and Plo just lights it with freaking force lightning. Could you do write a sequel to that or an extension of that scene? It's one of my favorite chapters in that fic

So that took a little longer than expected, but at last:

cigarettes and cilantro

from [ lit ]

1. 

Jedi die as easily as anyone else. 

The thought echoes in Wolffe’s mind. Jedi are not infallible. Shoot one, and he will fall over dead just like a trooper. There were so many bodies. He’d heard Generals Windu and Yoda speaking. One hundred eighty dead on the sands - and if they died like men, what else had he been taught that was a lie?

He throws his bucket onto his bunk. It rolls to a stop on top of his pillow, wobbling like a grave marker. He snarls and turns away from the macabre scene. 

His hands won’t stop shaking. They’re going to give him a Jedi. The vode have been called to action, and they’re going to give him a fragile, mortal Jedi who is not at all an invincible god, and he is going to watch his Jedi die on some battlefield because they die, that’s what they do, and Wolffe is only a man. He’s only a man, and his shaking mortal hands won’t stop shaking, damn the little gods.

He paces laps around the room. He wants to run, but outside the rest of his brothers are celebrating their first action in ten long waterlogged years, and he doesn’t want to spoil their mood, even if they are all deluded and he’s the only one who sees things as they really are. The restless energy crawls under his skin. He needs something, anything to make it stop. 

Bacara’s got that ARC vod who brings contraband in from off-world training exercises. The damn things smell like shit, but he swears they’re good for his nerves. It takes a few minutes to pick open Bacara’s footlocker and a few seconds to fish out the little paper box of cigarettes. The first breath burns, but he keeps at it and soon enough the tremors stop. 

It’s not quite enough to get rid of his sense of impending doom, but he thinks that nothing can do that anymore. They’re all living on borrowed time. There’s a blaster shot out there with his name on it, and it’s just a matter of when it finds him. 

2. 

There’s 576 troopers under his command, and 10 of them are still alive because their general is a reckless maniac. Plo Koon was supposed to be a nice, sensible High Councilor, not a walking mir’shupurla or’dinii like the 501st got, or a paklalatla diplomat like the 212th’s. 

Plo Koon is somehow even worse, because he goes about with his bad ideas and his silver tongue cheerfully. As if life is a game of cards in which he is the dealer rigging the results, and he won’t stop smiling about it. All that osik about Jedi serenity and wisdom was exactly that; Wolffe has yet to talk to a single vod whose jetti is as advertised. 

That alone would be enough to drive Wolffe to drink, except - 

Well, the whole jetti thing aside, he’s practically the picture of mandokar. He’s stubborn and an unholy terror on the battlefield, and so very pleased to be alive. If Jango could see him - well, he’d probably try to kill him, but if Jango heard his description, he’d approve wholeheartedly. And to say nothing of his loyalty; if any CC had allowed such a maneuver and risked their priority asset for troopers who really should have known better, there would be hell to pay. But the man took one look at the situation and went off to save his men simply because they were alive and needed the help.

The part of Wolffe that is predisposed to falling for people with mandokar is already bracing for impact. The part of him responsible for protecting his charge is getting ready to pickle his own liver. Since there’s not a drop of alcohol in sight, both parts are going to have to settle for chain-smoking. 

He’s got his own cigs now. Still crappy whatever’s-cheapest-and-available, but they get the job done. His standards, though low, do exist; he isn’t interested in cutting his already short lifespan materially shorter with death sticks. Bacara is a more understanding vod than, say, Fox, and didn’t kick up much of a fuss once his shit was replaced; now they swap complaints about their latest smokes. This one tastes even more like tar than usual and burns too quick.

He discards the remains of the cig and fishes out the next. A trooper - one of the lucky ones now singing the General’s praises - walks by.

“You okay, sir?” he asks.

“Just fine,” Wolffe grumbles, thumbing the wheel on his lighter for a spark. The shiny pauses.

“He’s really something, isn’t he?” he says. “The General. They said the Jedi were good, but I don’t think I really believed it. But he came back for us.”

“He did,” says Wolffe. “Don’t make him do it again,” he says, and takes a long drag. 

3. 

His General uses Force lightning, and he uses it to light cigarettes. If that isn’t a frivolous use of the Force, Wolffe doesn’t know what is. He should probably be more concerned than he is, but the calming effect of the tobacco has already settled in. 

He keeps going back to the moment Plo stepped in close, like a challenge, like an invitation, and the urge to get him up against the wall and make him show something other than his cool composure. There must be something under his facade of unshakable calm. He doesn’t have hair to pull, but his fussy, excessively draped robes would provide as good a handhold as anything. He’d resist, of course; the fight would be part of the fun, but they’ve already established that Wolffe is the better between them at hand-to-hand. Wolffe would win in the end.

They’d start with their usual exchange, short, sharp jabs to test one another’s guard, and then longer flurries as they warmed up. Wolffe would allow Plo to press forward, would draw him in slowly, gradually, until he was in throwing range. Plo would notice and fall back, and their dance would continue. And then Plo would tire, as he did without the Force, and he would slow, and maybe the first few times he lingered in range too long Wolffe would be lenient and allow him to escape, sliding just out of reach. But at the edge of his endurance, Wolffe would catch him and haul him down to the ground, hold him wrists to the dirt, pinned by Wolffe’s weight. And he’d lean in, their breaths mixing, and -

Ah, fuck. The cigarette has burned almost all the way down in the time that he’s been dreaming. He takes a last drag and shakes himself loose of the fantasy. It’s never going to happen anyway. 

4. 

He’s sitting outside watching the stars and the arm of the galaxy in the night sky. There’s nothing left to do for the night. Everything’s tucked in and the captains can take care of whatever petty issues might arise. He’s got himself an honest-to-gods night off, and he knows exactly what he’s going to do with it. 

Plo settles beside him, his robes brushing quietly against the grass, and obligingly provides a spark when Wolffe holds out a cig. The smoke curls unpleasantly in the air and Plo leans away, nose wrinkling behind his mask. It’s not especially poisonous to him; it just gets caught in the rebreather and takes forever to cycle out. Still he comes to join Wolffe when he has nothing to do except burn a pack. 

“The benefits outweigh the drawbacks,” he says when Wolffe asks. “I’d accept your company however it is offered.” He lies stretched out on the ground, head so close to Wolffe’s hip, one clawed hand resting at the hollow where his ribs end, the other absently spinning a flower that smells like cold. 

“You could ask me to stop,” says Wolffe. It’s just a pastime; he doesn’t get cravings. His hands don’t shake for lack of nicotine. But - why not indulge a little when tomorrow and its consequences may never come? Will likely never come, even, the way the war is going. 

Plo hums instead of giving an answer. “I think, when we return to the ship, I should like to plant a garden.”

“Oh?” There’s not very much room that hasn’t already been claimed. A corner in the bay area that used to be for shuttles. Maybe he could clear out a spot by the engines. Plants liked heat, right? 

Plo hums again. “I have not tasted kand in many years. It grows poorly away from Dorin.”

Wolffe resists the urge to comment. Dorin doesn’t share any of its creations well, present company included. In fact, Wolffe is convinced present company might have a few more working brain cells had he not convinced the Sages to convince General Windu to bring him to Coruscant. But Plo continues as though he can’t feel the sarcasm coming off Wolffe in waves. 

“It’s a shrub, you see. Maintaining the necessary environment through the first nonproductive seasons makes it an unattractive option for commercial off-world growers. Only a few attempts have been made, even by the Agri-Corp.”

“Seems like you might be better off trying something else,” says Wolffe. “Seems like a lot of work for something that you might never see.”

“Perhaps,” says Plo, and then he takes off on another tangent. 

5.

He’s thinking about tomorrow and all the days that come after, and he’s thinking about what being happy feels like, and mostly he’s thinking about Plo, because he can have Plo if he wants and he knows it, and he’ll take Plo even if he might lose him later, and the losing will hurt more than anything else ever could, but the not having is even worse. And each moment of having makes the possible Plo-less future even more terrifying, but also moves the future where he gets to keep Plo closer into reach, and that’s worth it, isn’t it? To have and to hold, and to keep reaching for the future that he wants. 

He’s thinking and Plo is coming to him, and he’s got a cigarette between his fingers, the last of the box. He bends it in half and bins it unlit. 

“Not to your taste?” Plo asks, falling into step behind him.

“Nah,” says Wolffe. “Think I’ve found something better.”

[acklest]

Why is your husband the most Iconic and sweetest person ever?! We(I'm confidently assuming that I'm not the only one) need to know more about him.

Oh, you may regret this. 

(If you’re squeamish about blood, you might wanna proceed with caution. I promise I’m not trying to be dramatic. There’s blood in this.)

He is iconic, at least to me. And he’s probably really only “sweet” to me. Also to the cat, but he denies this. To everyone else, he’s just a quiet sort of guy with a permanently “done” look on his face.

What he planned to do from childhood was join the US Navy, because his Dad had been in the Navy. He wanted to be a technician on a submarine.

As soon as he graduated high school, he went to talk to a recruiter, and got sent to take the ASVAB. His scores on that were great and he was willing to enlist for a long hitch. The recruiter was like “it’s not even my birthday.”

But he failed the hearing part of his physical, so his status was “disqualified recommending waiver.” He didn’t know that his hearing had degenerated from type 2 (moderate) to type 3 (severe). The eval was to see if he could hear all the comms with his headset cranked up to max without hearing aids (which he hated wearing anyway). When he missed some of the cues, he was fully disqualified. 

Then he had to figure out what his second choice for the rest of his life would be. Nothing really jumped out at him. He’d never really thought about it. But his family couldn’t pay for college, so he would need a job.

His best friend got him on as a cashier working the graveyard shift at a 24-hour gas station/mini-mart. During breaks, he looked over the course catalog from the local community college. He thought maybe he could do one of those non-degree cert programs, like becoming a welder or a mechanic.

A week before, a dude who had sued that chain of gas stations for damages from a personal injury found out that he wasn’t getting a settlement. He was across the street from the one where my husband worked. I guess lawsuit dude got enraged all over again, thought “I’ll show them”, and loaded the .22 he had in his jacket before heading over. 

My husband was behind the counter, where the liquor was, thinking he was dealing with just another drunk customer at 4-fucking-AM. When he turned to ask if he needed anything else, lawsuit dude shot him in the side of the face from about six feet away. The bullet wound its way through his jawbone and he instinctively reached up to his mouth because he felt loose bits of his teeth on his tongue. (Sort of a dark in-joke, when one of us asks the other about a day that had obviously not gone well. “Bad. Not gargling-my-own-teeth bad, but not great.”)

He would’ve spun around by then to take cover behind the counter, but the sound of the gunshot stunned him because he heard it perfectly. He was born deaf/hearing-impaired, so he’d always heard things a certain way, through a certain amount of… I don’t know, static, interference, fog? But this he heard perfectly and it stunned him. 

(“If their headsets went up that high, I could’ve joined the Navy.”) 

So he didn’t turn in time to miss the second bullet, which hit him in the chest from the same range. As he turned, the third one hit him in the side of his stomach. The fourth one hit him in the thigh, nicking his femoral artery. Then his best friend showed up to tag in for his shift, heard the loud noise, ran in to help like a moron. So the last thing my husband heard before he blacked out was his best friend screaming at the guy to stop, and then a few more gunshots after that. 

If a Jeep full of hard partiers hadn’t pulled up to get gas and ran next door to call 911, he’d be dead right now. Of course, lawsuit dude was hell and gone by then.

He woke up in the hospital ten days later, heavily drugged. He tried to talk but they had done something to stabilize his jaw so he couldn’t speak. He was in and out for a couple of days after that. 

A day or so later, the thoracic surgeon sat down and told him that he’d died a couple of times, and that they tried to get the bullet out of his chest, but it had ended up less than 4cm away from his heart, so it was too high risk. They would have to leave it in. He apologized for how wide the scar was from when they opened his chest, because they had to work so quickly.  When they brought him in, he was covered in blood, all over. His hair had matted together from lying in it until the EMT people got there. One of them told him later, “We saw the booze behind the counter and assumed a bullet had hit a couple of bottles of red wine.”

Not so much. 

His best friend had died in the ambulance on the way. 

There was two years of recovery, facial reconstruction for his jaw, lots of dental work, physical therapy, follow-up procedures, and so on. There was a court trial that dragged on and on. 

It hurt when he breathed in, it hurt if he laughed. It all hurt. He’s a big dude, 5'10, shaped kinda like Wolverine (comic Wolverine, not Huge Yakman Wolverine). His health had always been good. He said he felt like he was being punished for not appreciating it enough while he had it. Up til all that, he’d been a devout Catholic, but that burned away real quick. He says that the 18 year old working at the mini-mart was a different person than the one who got wheeled out of the hospital a couple of months later. He didn’t know that guy.

He spent the next ten years on what I call a Chuck Norris tasting tour, where he was likely suicidal but not aware of it. He survived two terrible motorcycle accidents, a spectacularly failed marriage, he was thrown off a horse and hit the ground with a thud about 30 feet below, and then a drunk driver plowed into the back end of his car at top speed and he ended up ass over tea kettle in a ditch.

A few months after that, he started having terrible chest pains. He thought it was just pain from the impact with the steering wheel, which broke a couple of ribs. But when it kept going even after his ribs had healed, he went back to the hospital. The impact had shook stuff around and now the bullet was moving closer to his heart. Moving very very slowly, but yeah. So they had to open him up again to get it out.

(“Would you like to keep it?”

“…What?”

“Some people like to keep the bullet.”

“Uh. No. Thank you. I think a decade’s enough.”)

Fast forward to ‘98. I was a year or so off of a devastating event/blue screen of death thing of my own. I had a baby that I had never planned to have because I wussed out of the adoption process (I’m not saying I regret that, I’m just saying). I was on a little death-seeking tour of my own, when some mutual friends pushed us together. I do not know why. Maybe because we were the same amount of “over it.”? Maybe to take us both out of the dating pool at the same time, thereby making it safer for everyone? “You know someone who’s a walking disaster? Me too!”

The wheels almost fell off the wagon a couple of times. He told me he loved me and I didn’t talk to him for a couple of months. He sent me an instant message that said, “I am not playing Peter Gabriel outside your goddamn window. Get the fuck over this.” The age gap (22 years) made him pull away a bit there for awhile, but we didn’t need any Peter Gabriel for that shit either.

Nothing really surprises him or catches him off guard. This sort of weird Midwestern Zen thing that I don’t really understand because I’m kind of the opposite. Our communication is weird because neither one of us talks about anything that’s really bugging us, but we kind of talk around it.

I asked him to marry me a few years after we’d moved in, and he said “I don’t know, the last one didn’t go too well.” (A charming understatement.) I was cool with that. I was like… 83% cool with that. Almost a year later, while we were watching a movie, he turned to me and said, “Yeah.“ 

A YEAR later. 

“Yeah?” Like I would fucking know what he was talking about.

“I’ll marry you." 

"About time. Would you say that you were trying to decide the entire year or was it more of an on-and-off thing?”

“Oh, fuck off." 

Anyway – courthouse, Vegas, etc.

What I need you to know about him, more than anything, are these three things: 

1) When one of my family members (an uncle I didn’t know well) showed up to threaten the two of us, he quietly took that man by the arm and walked him out to the parking lot. I was watching from our doorway. I thought I was about to see him rip the guy’s head off and go bowling.

I didn’t see him make an angry face. I didn’t hear him raise his voice. It was a quiet conversation, and then that man backed away, got in his car, and left. That was 15 years ago, and I haven’t seen him or heard from him since, though I got a letter from my biological mother the week after, asking what kind of psychopath I was living with.

Still no fucking clue what he said, though.

2) His idea of asking me to move in with him back in ‘98 was to start replacing the furniture in my apartment with new furniture, but leaving that new furniture at his apartment. "Got you a new desk." 

"I have a desk.”

“Your desk isn’t gonna go with the chair.”

“What chair?”

“The chair I bought you last week.”

“You bought me a chair last week?”

“Yeah, come over and look at it.”

As near as I can tell, his plan was to slowly replace all of my furniture but keep it at his apartment and to slowly move me in a box of things at a time until I was like “Wow, all my stuff’s over there.”

3) When little kids ask him about the inch-wide scar from his collarbone all the way to his navel, with a narrower scar on top of that one from the second surgery, he tells them that he was shaving with a straight razor and suddenly sneezed really hard.

[charliesshitposts]

Supernatural omens (part 7?)

  ***Authors note***

  This one wont have the usual beginning like all the others will have because I don’t remember how it goes. ^.^ I’ll remember next time. Also I’m not sure if it is part 7,but either way the missing part is here. :) Sorry it took forever. The actual final chapter will be uploaded later on in the week (if that changes i’ll be sure to let you all know.) Also if there are spelling errors i’ll correct them tomorrow. 

word count: IDK but it’s short.

warnings: None. (: Feel free to read this in front of your family and pets. 

_________________

Jack bolted down the dirt path of the forest like a gazelle running away from a lion. None of the five running after him could catch up. Except Sam. While the four stopped for a breath Sam took the lead. His long legs had given him the advantage.

  He chased Jack until the nephilim stopped at a clearing.Unlike Sam,Jack wasn’t out of breath. As if the running hadn't affected him.Meters away from him sat three children with wearing terrified expressions.There eyes widened when they saw Jack and Sam. But neither of them were looking at the children. They were entirely focused on the one child floating above them,Adam. When he meet Jack’s stare Adam slowly floated downwards.

  Sam rushed to aid the 3 children who were too petrified to move. Adam waked over towards Jack. When they were standing in front of one another Jack asked “Adam Young?”    Adam looked completely normal. Like the average boy you’d find on the street walking with his parents or at the park playing with his friends.”Who wants to know?

  “My name is Jack Kline. My friends and I were called to find you. To find you and stop you from starting the end of the world.”

  “Who called you?”

  Panting and the sound of feet shuffling suddenly filled the air. Crowley, Aziraphale, Dean and Castiel had finally caught up to them. They leaned against one another. Their legs were too wobbly to carry their weight. Gasping, Aziraphale answered Adam’s question for Jack.

  “We did.”He said.”Myself and the demon Crowley sent for them. I’m Aziraphale.”

  “You can’t go through with this Adam.”Chimed in Dean.Ask Jack,he’ll tell you. He knows more about this kind of dilemma better than anyone else.”

  “I’m not following you.”Adam admitted.”What are all of you guys talking about?”

  “You don’t know?” Crowley asked in surprise.

  “No.” Said Adam.”All I know is that the four horseman are coming to meet with me. Pollution,War,Death and Famine. For what, i’m not sure.”

  “They- they are here to get your permission. If you say yes to them they will unleash what they are all throughout the United Kingdom. Then Europe before finally making it spread across oceans and boarders. You can stop it all Adam. You just have to say no.” 

  “Guys!” Sam called out.”We need to get these kids to safety.”

  “They all live here in Tadfield.”Said Adam.”You may take them home. We will all wait here. Then when you’re back, we can go to the U.S. airbase. That’s where the four horseman are going to want to meet.”

  “Okay.Thanks. Um..Cas? Do you mind helping me out.”

  Castiel and Sam walked back towards the village with Adam’s friends. All three of them were too scared to walk home by themselves. They had quietly asked Sam to take them, which was why Sam had opened his mouth in the first place. As he walked he felt it a bit odd that he had asked for permission to a child. But seeing what Adam was capable of doing he was glad he had done so. And all he wondered while walking with these children was what else Adam was capable of.

Suddenly Sam grew curious. He stopped the children at what he considered a safe distance. Cas looked at him oddly. The angels hands were pressed reassuringly against the upper back of Wensleydale,the one with glasses,and Brian,the one with stains on his shirt. Sam bent down to level his eyes with Pepper,the only girl of the group.

“Hi.” Sam said with a hint of a nervous chuckle.”Listen..I know this probably isn’t the best time to ask this but I need to know. What else can Adam do aside from float?”

Pepper was more talkative then he had given her credit for. “He can control anyone against their will. He can make them come forward,sit,stay. He can force one to stay quite.. The bottom line is he can pretty much do anything.”

“Anything?” Sam asked.

“Anything.” Cas echoed.

——————————————————-

Dean,Crowley,Aziraphale and Gabriel huddled to talk about their next move and to catch Gabe up on what has happened in the past hours. Meanwhile Jack talked to Adam as if they had known each other their whole life.

“So when did you realize you were the son of..?”

Adam shrugged.”This is all new. I came Into my full power a few hours ago. And-“ his voice lowered to a whisper.”between you and me..It’s getting harder every second to keep under control. Like right now I have the strong urge to lift my arm and-“ In that moment Adams mistake was to describe his urge whilst doing it. With a lift of his arm he sent Jack spinning through the air. The nephilims back collided with a tree. Jack let out a pain filled shriek.The impact snapped the tree in two.

Dean was quick to spring into action. He grabbed Adam fiercely by the collar to keep him from running. Crowley rushed to help Dean. They both held onto Adam,who growled while trying to get out of their grip. Gabe carried a fainted Jack to safety. Dean turned to glare at Adam. “This ends here.”

Crowley shook his head.”No. It end when we take the 4 horsemen down. The problem here is that Adam is being consumed by his new powers.

  Quite literally. Adam was indeed being consumed by his powers. They were taking over every bit of him. He was trying all his best to fight back but as it seemed . Adam’s eyes suddenly turned bloodshot red. They startled everyone, including Crowley. 

  Gabriel gently laid Jack down by the cracked tree and sprinted towards Dean and Crowley. Aziraphale disappeared, he had gone to find Sam and Castiel.

  “So what’s next?” Gabe asked.

  Adam growled.

  Crowley checked his watch.”We have a good hour and a half until we need to get to the airbase.So..I guess now all we have to do is hold him somewhere safe. Put Adam somewhere where he can’t get out.”

  Dean smiled widely. He knew exactly what to do.”Crowley, do you know where we can get out hands on holy oil?”

_______________________________

  It had taken them a while but they managed to get Adam into the trunk by tying his hands and feet together.He was biting too so they taped his mouth shut. Sam, with Crowley’s permission, spray painted an angel trap on the inside of the Bentleys trunk cap. It kept him still, not stuck, but still. They road towards the U.S. airbase. That was where they planned to use the holy oil. They figured if they had time to kill they might as well should wait where they needed to be. But getting into the airbase would be tricky. There was also one thing that none of the outsiders had taken into account. Angel traps only worked fully from where they were from. Although it kept Adam still,it didn't prevent him from using his powers. Which was why everyone began to panic when the inside of the car spontaneously began to catch fire.

  It started with the steering wheel. Crowley jumped at how hot it had suddenly gotten. It only got worse.Bits of the leather covering the wheel started to fall off.”What the hell?” he muttered.Then the whole thing caught fire.”OH CRAP! O CRAP GUYS!” They would have reacted to the steering wheels spontaneous combustion, but then the Dashboard caught fire. Aziraphale gasped. 

  He reached down to grab a water bottle and maybe try to put it out but it was as though he had doused the already lit fire with gasoline. The other occupants of the car began to panic Sam and Dean tried all they could to open the doors but they were locked into place.Dean leaned his back into Castiel and began to slam his feet down against the window to try and break it, but it was no use. Gabriel rubbed his hands together,he was thinking of a way to get them out of this. 

  “So what?!?”Aziraphale said. The fumes of the fire entered their lungs. Everyone except Gabriel and Jack,who was still unconscious,began to cough. Gabe was in a mediative state.

  The doors began to catch fire, then the windows. Cas began to choke. Aziraphale and Dean began to gasp for air. Crowley was unconscious behind the wheel. Sam had his flannel over his mouth. He looked over at Gabriel, silently imploring him to do something. Then it happened. Gabriel swiftly lifted an arm, snapped his finger, and suddenly-it began to rain inside the Bentley.

  Crowley’s head shot upright. He gripped the wet wheel, breathing in loudly to get oxygen into his lungs. The other occupants did the same thing. They all looked like fishes out of water. From the trunk,Adam growled. 

  Gabe cracked his finger.”Piece of cake. Is everyone alright?”

  Everyone mumbled answers. They were all still a little uneasy. It was visibly seen when Jack jolted upright. He had been passed out for half of the time, but the other half he had been seeing into what was to come. The battle that was about to go down between the four Horseman and them. But what he saw, he didn't know how to say. How could he know? It was now up to him to tell everyone that during battle, Cas would die. 

[cookieswriting]

So I’ve done it again...you can thank my dad for introducing me to Blue Bloods and my boy Jamie Reagan.  Naturally, I’ve gotta show him some love in the form of beating up on him a *little* bit.  I am only on Season 3, but I’ve seen enough on Tumblr to love me some Jamko already.  This is set before they get together, but after they acknowledge their feelings for one another.  Since I haven’t seen the later seasons yet, throw this somewhere in between there for me and call it good? Haven’t decided yet how long it’s gonna be, but at least a 2-parter.  

Also...for anyone waiting for the next part of Make This Right (SEAL Team), please please please don’t hurt me! I’m trying, I really am...I think the whole fear of not getting renewed and then the events of the latest episode have me somewhat shooketh, soo I’m trying. I promise.

Prompt: Take Me Instead Fandom: Blue Bloods Characters: Jamie Reagan, Eddie Janko, Danny Reagan, Frank Reagan

The call for an alarm at a jewelry store a block away from where Jamie and Eddie had taken their break set the partners into motion immediately.  Jamie slid behind the steering wheel while Eddie grabbed the radio.  “Central, show 12-David responding to the alarm at Taylor’s Jewelry.”

As soon as they arrived on scene, the pair could see figures inside looting the store.  Without a word, they slid out of the car and approached the shattered door, guns drawn.  “NYPD! Come out with your hands raised and we can all get out of this in one piece!”

Jamie’s command garnered no response, so he gestured for Eddie to follow him in carefully.  He registered four perps dressed in black, no visible weapons - until one was swung around in their direction, stalling in Eddie’s direction.  Without hesitation Jamie shouldered her back, and was not surprised by the sharp crack of a gunshot.  The impact of the bullet twisted him into Eddie’s stunned arms, but it still took a moment for the pain to hit.  She supported his weight as his knees buckled, softening his collapse while redirecting her eyes desperately around them.  

“Get back! Drop the gun or I will shoot!”  With her left hand Eddie fumbled with her pocket to pull out a pressure bandage, blindly feeling around her partner’s chest for the point of impact.  Jamie did his best to guide her hand towards the source of his blinding pain, glad that she was keeping her focus on the thieves.  Once he found the wound, he tapped once on her wrist, and sucked in a hiss when she pressed down firmly.  

“10-13 at...Taylor’s Jewelry...shots fired...at police,” Jamie reported into his radio breathlessly, dropping his head back against Eddie’s thigh.  His partner continued to shout orders, firing a warning shot when one of the unarmed thieves tried to dart past her.  He tried to lift his gun as well, but knew that his aim would be too shaky to be effective.

“Mind telling them to roll a bus while you’re at it, Boy Scout? I’d do it myself but between keeping the blood inside you and these idiots from taking any more shots, my hands are a little full,” Eddie bit out, desperation thinly veiled behind her anger.

Before he could, though, sirens echoed and the faint red and blue of police lights flickered in the distance, and the demeanor of the room changed.  The thief with the gun tensed, which had Jamie tensing as well.  “Son of a bitch! There’s no way we’re getting out the front now...and I’m sure they’ll try to cover the back too.”

“Let’s take them with us, some leverage to get us clear.”  Eddie turned her gun on him when he leaned their direction, and Jamie’s mind went into overdrive.

“You don’t need both of us,” the blonde man growled, forcing himself to sit up despite Eddie’s attempts to push him back down.  “Let her walk...just take me.  I’m all the leverage you need.”

He winced when she pressed harder against his now-bandaged wound.  “If you don’t shut up, Jamison, I will shoot you myself.”  

“And what makes you so special, cop?”

“Jamie!” Eddie hissed, panic clear as he held her gaze.  Tears filled her eyes despite what he knew was a colossal effort on her part.  He held her stare as he responded, silently asking for her forgiveness.

“I’m the youngest son...of the Police Commissioner of New York City. I’ll go quietly...if you let her go.”  He finally turned to look back at the perps expectantly.

The ringleader lowered his weapon and canted his head, seriously considering the offer.  Eddie pressed her forehead against the base of Jamie’s skull, and he could feel her trembling.  It killed him to put her in this position, but he’d rather her hate him for this than put her at even greater risk.  “Please don’t do this, Reagan…” she begged, voice finally breaking.

“When have you ever let me down, Janko? You and Danny will have this handled in no time,” he murmured quietly before returning his attention to the man now looming over the partners.  “Do we have a deal?”

“Go on, sweetheart, run off and tell your bossman that we have his kid and will be in touch.”  The man reached down and jerked Jamie to his feet, ignoring the uncontrollable yelp of pain.  Eddie scrambled up as well, gun aimed at the man holding her partner.  Warm steel pressed against Jamie’s temple, but he refused to flinch away.

“It’s okay, Janko...please, go,” Jamie insisted gently.  He could read the despair in her eyes, and knew how difficult it was for her to take each step backwards, away from the perps and towards the safety of the NYPD cars screeching to a halt by the front doors.  With any luck, his brother, also working the graveyard shift, would pick up on the situation and be one of the first responders.  Eddie would need family there to back her up.

Edit Janko could not remember a time that she’d felt so terrified and helpless as she backed away from her partner, barely upright in the arms of a damned jewelry thief, watching her with all of the confidence and trust and reassurance she’d ever seen in his eyes.  Part of her hated him for playing the hero...but then he wouldn’t be her favorite boyscout if he’d done any different.  “Officer coming out,” she called over her shoulder, eyes not leaving Jamie’s until the perp jerked Jamie around to the back door.

“Make sure they give us clearance, lady cop, or your partner is dead!”  

As she backed out through the doorway, a hand settled on her shoulder and startled her.  “Easy, Eddie, I’ve got you...where’s Jamie?” Danny’s voice was both soothing and nauseating; how could she tell him to call off the rescue of his injured baby brother? She turned to face the detective, and smothered a sob.

“T-they took him...we have to let them go or they’ll kill him.  H-he said he would ‘be in touch’ with your father…”  Danny, suddenly pale and tense, glanced over to Baez who immediately began calling for the rest of the responders to stand down before returning his attention to Eddie and gently tugging her gun from her shaking hands.  

That was when he apparently noticed the blood. “Eddie, are you hurt?”

Eddie finally looked down, and nearly threw up at the deep glistening red staining both hands.  “It’s...it’s not mine.  It’s not mine, Danny...he took a bullet for me, and then surrendered himself for leverage to protect me...Goddamn boy scout…” This time, she failed to hold back her sob.  Danny grasped both shoulders, and ducked his head until she met his gaze.

“Hey, hey, Eddie, look at me.  This is not on you, do you hear me?  This is who Jamie has always been...hero is ingrained in his brain.  Let’s get you back to the precinct, get your formal statement and get you cleaned up while we wait to hear from the PC.”  She heard his words, but could not help but to blame herself for her partner being taken hostage.  Baez guided her to their sedan, and eased her into the backseat, careful to steer clear of her hands.  

The ride to the precinct was a blur; memories of the pain lining Jamie’s face flashed across her mind repeatedly, along with other things she could’ve done to prevent...this.  It wasn’t until the door was opened for her that she realized they’d arrived, and Baez’s sympathetic face brought her from her thoughts. Get it together, Janko...his family must be going through so much worse right now.  Despite the attempts to shake herself from her thoughts, Eddie didn’t even notice when she was led to a chair.  

All she could see was the red, suddenly back in her line of vision as her hands draped between her knees.  A morbid sense of awe seemed to settle onto her shoulders as she lifted her hands, numbly observing how it had pooled into the lines of her palms.  Jamie’s blood...her best friend’s blood...and she’d just abandoned him to be taken by jewelry thieves willing to shoot their way through a couple of cops.  

“What did I say about blaming yourself, hm, Officer Janko?”

Tears burned at the backs of Eddie’s eyes when Danny knelt before her, a gentleness to his voice that she’d never heard before.  “How can you be so comforting to-to the person responsible for the abduction of your brother?”

“Jamie always says you’re too stubborn for your own good.  I haven’t been quite where you’re at, but I’ve been close...and I know how much that wrecked me.  I didn’t have to fight to keep my partner alive only to be forced to walk away from them anyway.”  He glanced down at her hands, and steely resolve tightened his features.  “I’ll have my time to freak out once we get him back.  Right now, I know that there are two things that Jamie would expect me to do: make sure you’re okay, and bring him home.  Since I can’t do the second part until those assholes make contact, I’ll take advantage of the time to focus on the first part.  He’ll kick my ass if I let anything happen to you.”

Eddie gave a wet laugh, and scrubbed at her cheek with the back of her hand, belatedly realizing that it would streak blood on her face, which seemed to be her tipping point, and a sob wrenched from her chest.  “God, Danny...I just walked away from him...I just left him bleeding, couldn’t do anything to stop the perp when he pulled Jamie out of my arms. I...what if we don’t get to him in time? What-”

“Come here, c’mere,” Danny insisted, shifting to his chair beside her and drawing her against his side.  “There is nothing that you can do to change Jamie’s mind once he’s made it up.  Why don’t you walk me through what happened?”

She sighed heavily, desperately trying to calm her breathing and process what was going on in her mind.  “We responded to an alarm at the store, Jamie ordered them to exit.  W-when they failed to comply, we approached.  One of the men turned a weapon on us, which is when Jamie knocked me back and took the bullet.  I trained my gun on the perps while also trying to apply pressure bandages to the wound, which Jamie was able to help me with.  When they saw the lights coming they panicked, and when one of them mentioned taking us, Jamie told them he’d go quietly if they let me go...because he’s the commissioner’s son.”

“That sounds like my youngest,” a deep voice intoned from behind them.  Eddie’s head snapped around to see the commissioner, and before she could even make the move Danny could feel her prepare for, Frank stepped forward and waved his oldest son away and smoothly took his place in the chair beside her.  

“Sir...I can’t say how sorry I am for letting this happen...Jamie-”  The blonde was stunned into silence when her partner’s father pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and took one hand gently, wiping his son’s blood clean the best that he could.  The tender gesture felt like forgiveness that she didn’t deserve, and brought on a whole new round of tears.

“Jamie made a judgement call in the middle of a dangerous situation to eliminate the threat to his partner.  You are not to blame for this...we will find the men responsible and bring my son home, and you will be right there beside Danny when we do.”  He cleaned her other hand with just as much care.

“Sir, we need you to take a look at this.”  Danny, Frank and Eddie all turned in unison as the Captain stepped into the room, gesturing towards his office.  Dread settled into the pit of Eddie’s stomach, and she rose alongside the Commissioner, steeling herself to see whatever was waiting for her boss; Jamie deserved that much at the very least.

[ageless-aislynn]

Title: “Switch” Author:  @ageless-aislynn​ Characters/fandom: Caitlin Snow/Harrison Wells|Eobard Thawne (ReverseSnow), The Flash Summary: Getting swapped into Harrison Wells’ body is an eye-opening experience for Caitlin. In more ways than one. For Snowells Week 2019, Day 3, prompt: Body-Swap Rating:  PG Length:   1,404 Spoilers/warnings: None Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! ;) A/N: Body-swapping is one of my favorite tropes, so I could probably have fun writing a full-length ReverseSnow novel on it, lol! But, in lieu of that, here's a shorter little bit set in season 1. ;) If you read, I hope you enjoy! :D ♥

"I'm not sure," Cisco mused speculatively as he and Caitlin entered the Cortex. "'Mixer-Switcher' just doesn't feel like my best effort when it comes to metahuman names. Sounds too much like I'm calling him a DJ. Or, I dunno, saying he's not sure if he's a top or bottom. It just doesn't have that spot-on-but-still-family-friendly feel I try for."

"I'm sure you'll think of something--" Caitlin was saying as Dr. Wells turned from his computer, eyes widening.

"Look out!" he called and she spun in time to see the man in the half-black, half-white outfit pop through the doorway behind them.

"Maybe I'm a DJ who's really into BDSM," he said snidely, his gauntlets glowing as he took aim. As he fired, Barry sped in and tackled him.

The glancing edge of the blast sent Caitlin flying backwards, crashing next to Dr. Wells' wheelchair.

"Cait, you okay?" Cisco's voice sounded momentarily like it was distorted underwater.

"Dr. Snow?"

Dr. Wells rolled forward enough to get a hand around her upper arm, helping her to her feet with surprising strength.

"I'm okay," she told them both, attempting a reassuring smile. A tremor in her knees made her almost collapse. Embarrassingly, she nearly sat in his lap before managing to change trajectories to fall heavily in her chair.

"You don't look okay," Dr. Wells chided, wheeling over and tilting her head towards the light before running his hand over her skull. "Did you hit your head? Lose consciousness, even for a second?"

His touch was gentle and professional but still she blushed, having to fight the urge to lean into him. "Um, yes. I mean, no. I'm fine, I didn't hit my head or black out."

Up close, his blue eyes seemed especially piercing behind his glasses and it felt like he could see right through her. To deflect, she went on, "So, do we even have a lock on the door? How do these guys keep just walking in?"

***

A couple hours later, with Mixer-Switcher -- Cisco was right, the name could definitely use some work --  firmly ensconced in the Pipeline, Caitlin sighed as she turned her bathtub's faucets. She stripped and hung up her clothes, returning to add her favorite bath bomb. While waiting for the tub to fill, she noticed a faint bruise on the top of her shoulder. Twisting and turning, she checked herself in the mirror for any other injuries from her erstwhile tangle with the meta. She suddenly thought of Dr. Wells running his hand through her hair and her expression went a bit dreamy.

No, she thought sternly, jabbing a finger at her reflection. Harrison Wells is your boss, he's your friend, and he's not going to be the subject of some schoolgirl crush! You get these thoughts out of your head right now or--

She crashed to the ground in a suddenly much dimmer environment, hearing a glass shatter. The sharp scent of whiskey hit her nose.

For a moment, she just blinked, trying to get her bearings. Her surroundings were sparse, elegant and unfamiliar. The way she'd sprawled forward was uncomfortable so she awkwardly rolled over, gawking at the long legs stretching out before her, wearing black, well-tailored pants which were currently twisted.

"Mixer-switcher," she groaned aloud, then startled.

Oh no, I know that voice, she thought in alarm. Automatically, she looked down, patting the surprisingly firm, sculpted chest beneath the white dress shirt he'd been wearing at work today. Then she felt the angles and plains of the face she'd covertly admired for so long up to the hair she'd longed to ruffle -- wait, where were his glasses? Had they gotten knocked off when he'd fallen? Where was his wheelchair, for that matter?

She squirmed as the uncomfortable sensation threatened to spike into pain in a region she didn't possess in her own body. Plucking at the pants, she tried to... adjust things back into proper alignment from the outside, only to hiss when it got worse.

Well, I can't risk, you know, doing damage, she thought, rationalizing as she fumbled with the button and fly of his pants and reached in to move things about.

She couldn't help it, she looked, needing to visually confirm what his hand was telling her. "Oh my God," she blurted out, his voice shocked.

Her mind idly noted he was a boxer-briefs man. Tardily, she also realized she could feel his hand on his-- Whoa, feeling it a little too much, she thought, yanking away. I thought he didn't have sensation below the waist? Maybe it's just movement that's paralyzed?

His knees bent easily and she was standing before she even articulated the thought.

Harrison Wells wasn't paralyzed.

While she was trying to process that bombshell, the phone jangled loudly. The next thing she knew, she'd crashed into the wall at the end of the long room hard enough to leave a small crater where his shoulder hit.

The impact also made her aware of something hard in his pocket. She pulled out a heavy gold ring with the Flash's symbol. No, it wasn't the Flash's.

The reverse, she thought numbly. She put it on, it fit his finger perfectly. Muscle memory took over, his arm extended, fingers folding into a fist and there was some sort of electric push and--

The yellow suit somehow ejected out of the ring, unfolding as it majestically arced through the air. Then it gave an undignified splat onto the polished floor, skidding to a stop in a puddle of thick fabric.

Through the few seconds of eternity that had completely tipped her world on its head, the phone had continued to ring. Looking down, the number on the Caller ID was quite familiar as she picked up.

"So it seems that Mixer-Switcher's powers can have a delay," her voice said dryly without preamble. "His other body exchanges wore off anywhere from a few hours to a day but I wouldn't think it should take that long in this case since it--"

"What. The. Hell?" His voice thundered quite satisfactorily.

Harrison paused, then took on the reasonable professor tone he'd used often in the past. "I take it you've discovered a few things?"

"Ya think?" she snapped.

"I can explain."

"Explain? You're going to explain this, huh?!?" Oh yeah, it felt good to yell in his voice.

"Caitlin, calm down. Let's talk. Stay there and I'll--"

She suddenly fell to the floor in her bedroom. "Ouch," she grumbled, using her bed to lever herself to her feet. She was now wearing a mismatched bra and panty set and the bra was apparently fastened wrong.

The distinctive buzz of a speedster phasing through a solid surface was all the warning she had before the man in the yellow suit appeared before her, eyes glowing red. Then he abruptly pulled his mask back and regarded her steadily.

"Why were my pants unzipped?"

"That-- I was... That was totally innocent," she spluttered.

He arched a brow.

"You touched my lingerie," she pointed out, crossing her arms.

"Would you rather I went ahead and bathed you? Or left you naked?"

She gestured defensively, scrambling to regain her righteous anger. "This is all beside the point, Reverse Flash."

"Hm, true," he mused, slowly stepping towards her until she automatically backed up, her legs hitting the bed. She abruptly wondered just how much danger she was in. Strangely, she didn't feel afraid.

"It seems to me we can help each other here," he said softly. "You keep my secrets, I'll keep yours."

"Secrets? I don't have any--"

He bent -- she'd forgotten how tall he was -- and murmured in her ear, "I saw what's in the drawer."

He straightened, eyes deliberately moving to the nightstand beside her bed. The top drawer was, indeed, open a crack.

She gasped, face going flaming hot, and reached over to slam it shut as if that would somehow make a difference. "You... I..."

He gave a surprisingly serene smile, waiting her out.

"Fine," she finally said through gritted teeth.

"Good," he said, nodding cordially. "We'll settle up the details later."

Details? she thought in alarm but before she could ask, he pulled on his mask once more.

"Though tell me," he said, eyes going red and voice distorting, "did you at least like what you saw?"

"Dr. Wells!" she exclaimed in a scandalized tone.

His laughter hung in the air long after he'd sped away.