#and I’m feeling the crush of being useless yet again!

[skyward-floored]

Living with ten people is normally fine except for when everyone’s bad moods happen to coincide with each other then it’s basically just duck and cover

[stairain]

Friendly Competition.

Spencer gets a little too cocky and thinks he can please you better than a toy, so you take it upon yourself to crush his ego. 

Warnings: Sub Spencer, Dom Reader, Mommy kink, vaginal sex, degradation, begging, fake disinterest, self-doubt, crying, creampie, mating press, sex toy, all consensual.

WC: 1.4K

“You know I can do so much better than this Mommy, please..” 

Spencer pleaded, nimble fingers trembling as the vibrating bullet in his hand was practically driving him crazy. You were sitting in front of him as he knelt before you, and he was just barely holding it against your dripping folds at this point, desperate to prove to you that you surely didn’t need this stupid toy to please you. 

“Because I don’t need you right now, Spencer. You’re lucky I’m even letting you do this for me.” 

Truth be told, you knew he could do a better job than the toy shakily pressing against your clit, but shattering his ego and rendering him useless was always worth it anyways. 

The man let out a pitiful whine, jutting out his bottom lip in a defeated pout as he continued to circle the toy against the taunting bundle of nerves he so desperately wanted to taste for himself. 

He felt his chest growing heavier and his mouth practically watering at the sight of the slickened silicone that pushed the wet folds of your cunt around in his face. It was almost torture at this point. 

And not even a minute had passed before he was whimpering out again and begging you to just give him a chance. 

“M-Mommy please.. Let me do it..” 

Clicking your teeth and sighing deeply, you roll your eyes and give into the need that was pumping through the veins of his cock and brain alike. There wasn’t a hint of amusement or content in your voice at all, but it was more than a relief to hear the word, “Fine”, slip out of your mouth. 

Within seconds, Spencer had discarded the vibrator and was leaning over you on shaking elbows, mouth agape as he let out hot puffs of air between the two of you. One hand was holding up his entire body while the other was shakily grabbing himself at the base of his throbbing cock, messily running it up and down your pussy. 

The entire time he was psyching himself up, you had a look of disinterest plastered all over your face. Eyebrow cocked, lips downturned, it looked almost as if you had better things to do than be filled to the brim by the quivering man above you. 

Sure, you were far more aroused with just his tip rubbing up against you as compared to the harsh vibrations of the toy, but you weren’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. It’d inflate his ego and get to his head, and no one likes a cocky boy. 

The brunet was almost in shambles by the time he finally mustered up the courage to sink into you, and it felt almost heaven sent, the way you sucked him in and molded around his shape. There was a crude squelching sound when he bottomed out, both of you being far too wet, and he almost choked on the lump in his throat at the sound alone. 

“F-Fuck.. Mm–” 

He whimpered softly, his thighs were shaking and his balls felt so full it almost hurt. It took almost everything in him to not finish right there, if he did he’d feel foolish for wasting such an opportunity. 

Lifting his head to look at you, his heart dropped and his eyes widened in surprise when he found you didn’t look like you were enjoying this nearly enough as he was, if at all. You had an expression plastered on your face that just screamed, ‘Are you done yet?’, and it made his confidence crumble in his chest. 

Maybe he wasn’t doing good enough? Not going as fast or hard as you needed, maybe that’s all it was. He didn’t want to even think about the possibility of not pleasing you like you deserved, especially when you were reacting so much more to that stupid toy he hated using so much. 

His hips began to thrust faster than before, slipping in and out of you with ease that made his head spin. And he could feel himself reaching the spot inside of you that you usually love, but right now it seemed like you weren’t even paying attention to him. 

Now he was going harder, if faster wasn’t working, surely this would. His thin hips crashed into the insides of your thighs, balls slapping crudely against the plush fat of your ass, it was too much for him but seemingly nothing for you. 

He’d had cum by now if not for the shame that was building up inside of him, he was far too distracted by the way you just weren’t responding to his rough thrusts to let himself finish. 

His cheeks burned with embarrassment and his lips quivered as his words were dying in his throat. Swallowing and looking at you with teary eyes, his voice is no louder than a shrill whisper as he pathetically begs you to, “P-Please do something”, and you just laugh in his poor little dejected face.

“You said you could do better, I’m waiting, Spence.. If you’re done, I’d like to use the toy again.”

And he just about cried in that moment, never had he felt so degraded in his life by you, and desire the feeling of his ego and confidence being crumbled before him, it only made him want to do better for you. He absolutely needed to prove to you that he’s better than any toy you could ever buy. 

Abruptly grabbing your ankles, he hiked them up to rest on his bony shoulders and practically folded you in half. Leaning over your body and pushing his cock deeper inside of your warm walls, he pressed your knees against your chest and huffed against your neck.

“Please, Mommy.. Just wanna do good for you..” 

He whispers huskily against the sweaty skin of your throat, wet tongue poking out of pink tinted lips and licking up the side of your neck to the curve of your jaw. His hips pistoned his dick impossibly faster into you, jackhammering his length as deep as your cervix would allow him to. 

You bit your lip in an attempt to stop yourself from letting it slip just how close you were, because despite the fact you were in charge and always were, he was positively ruining you right now. The leaking tip of his cock was stamping brutally against your sweet spot, and it no longer became possible to hide the tremble in your thighs that gave away the way you were about to burst. 

Smiling evilly against your jaw, sharp canines bare and sink into your flesh, making you break your composure and moan out involuntarily. Spencer’s body goes into overdrive at the sound, and he snags the skin of your ear, only to desperately whimper into it. 

“Tell me how good I’m doing Mommy, pl–oh fuck–please..” 

His hand reaches down to rub against your sensitive clit and you almost lose it, throwing your head back and sighing loudly. Your thighs close instinctively, but with how fast his hips were bucking up against you, they were spread wide open in an instant. 

“F-Fuck.. My god–You’re doing so good, baby..” 

You groan out and squeeze your eyes shut as you can feel your orgasm not so subtly creeping up on you. Spencer whines out when he feels your cunt clench around him even tighter, feeling as though he was being forced out of your walls with how fixed around him you were. 

“Look at me, Mommy.. Please look at me..” 

He begs you desperately, not being able to bring himself to finish inside of you before you gush around him like he needed you to. And as soon as your blissed out eyes met his that were dripping with tears, your jaw dropped open in a choked out cry as you came around his cock. 

Sticky fluids of your release leaked from around his length and left a creamy ring around the base that almost had him fainting. His thrusts turned frantic and sloppy, and wanton sobs forced themselves out of his throat as he pushed himself as deep as possible and flooded your cunt with ribbons of thick, warm cum. 

Your eyes crossed and rolled into the back of your head at the feeling of him spilling his cum and fucking it into you. He did his best to gracefully collapse against your sweat slicked body. The both of you panted in unison as you laid in silence for several minutes, which were absolutely necessary after absolutely defiling each other. 

Spencer raised his head from your chest, and with brown curls sticking adorably to his forehead, he almost too bashfully asks you, “D-Did I do good?”.  

Scoffing in amusement and rolling your eyes, you pull his head back down against you, running your fingers through his sweaty hair and sarcastically muttering, “I think I’ll keep you around.” 

[annwrites]

⸻ tell me i'm your national anthem. part three. ⸻

· pairing: homelander x collegestudent!reader · type: part of a series · summary: you tell john about your childhood & the things you still want despite it, & he tells you about his, knowing once & for all that you’re meant to belong to him & him alone. · word count: 2,409

You’re just beginning to drift off when you hear a soft knock against the glass.

You groan into your pillow and could swear you hear a deep chuckle from the other side of the door in response.

You slowly rise—head spinning from exhaustion—and pad over to the door, silently flipping the lock before throwing yourself back down face-first into the mattress, pulling a thin blanket over your bare legs.

John enters the room, staring down at you, arms folded behind his back. “What? No dinner for your man tonight?”

You mentally roll your eyes at him calling himself that yet again, but don’t reply to that particular comment. “I already ate. I’m going to sleep.”

He huffs, glancing around your small apartment, then back to you. “Guess I’ll just climb in there with y—”

“Not with your suit still on you aren’t,” you mumble into your pillow.

He raises a brow in interest, smirking, surprised you’re not trying to argue otherwise. Maybe that’s the key to getting his way, then, until you start caving all on your own: take advantage when you have no energy to fight back. When you’re soft and tired and at his will to do with as he pleases.

“See you’re finally starting to see things my way,” he states smugly.

You roll over then, looking at him. “You’re not wearing your outside clothes in my bed. It’s not a come-on.”

He toes off his boots, then settles his hands on his hips, as if he’s debating something internally.

It doesn’t take much effort for you to understand what.

His suit is his metaphorical armor. You still have yet to understand why he’s so insecure, though—why his ego is so fragile. That’s the one thing about him that should be ‘untouchable’, so to speak. Then again, being physically bulletproof doesn’t have any bearing on what’s inside.

And what’s inside seems, still, like a little boy living in a man’s body, to you.

He needs to feel wanted. He’d seemed pleased last night when you’d talked about seeing him again—like you were finally giving him what he’s been desiring since that day he first set eyes upon you in your university’s auditorium: your willing attention.

Your eyes flutter closed, throwing a bone his way. “I’m cold.”

And that’s all it takes for him to remove his suit—leaving him clad only in a pair of dark-blue briefs. And it makes him want to crawl out of his fucking skin.

But you’re all but finally asking for him. You want him. You’ve finally come around.

He knew you would. No woman can resist. Not even you. Young and pretty you may be, but you’re still not educated enough to know what’s in your best interest, clearly. Best interest being him. That’s the problem with all these liberal ‘schools’. They don’t teach what they used to: love of ones country. Instead, they’d tried to turn you against him.

But he can still pull you back. It seems like he already has as you lie there, waiting for him.

So, he climbs into bed next to you, pulling the covers over himself, and then he pulls you into his arms, holding you against his chest.

He smiles softly when you gently press your palms to his pecks.

“I like you better like this,” you say, cuddling closer, wondering how he’ll react to it.

He tightens his arms around you then and you squeak.

“John, you’re crushing me.”

He loosens his hold, feeling the least bit pathetic.

He’s done this before—held a woman so tightly that it resulted in her life being cut short he was that fucking desperate for affection.

He lets you go entirely then, rolling onto his back, hating himself.

He doesn’t need anyone. Why can’t he get that through his goddamn head? Why the fuck should he care what a weak, useless, lonely little human like you thinks about him—a god? He should just kill you instead. He does that, and you’re no longer all he’s able to fucking think about all day—to a disturbingly obsessive degree. It’d be as simple as—

You scoot closer, sliding a warm, dainty hand up his chest until it’s resting gently against his cheek and his mind immediately goes blank—his face twitching as he fights back tears.

Maybe your superpower is just…comforting maternal gestures, then.

At least with you he won’t have to compete with another to receive them. Unlike Madelyn…and Teddy. The little shit. Taking what should’ve been—had been—his.

But you? There is no competition. He assumes, at least.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” He asks quietly.

You pop an eye open, staring at him as he stares up at the ceiling, his face entirely void of emotion.

Lying would be useless, you’re sure. He works for Vought—or with—you’re sure they could have a comprehensive background check done on you in a handful of minutes…if he hasn’t already done as much. You have half-a-mind to ask, but you’re not sure you want the answer to such a question.

“No.”

His lip twitches, turning upwards into a smile, which leaves you feeling uneasy.

“So you’re all mine, then.”

You open both eyes, blinking at him, heartrate beginning to climb. “I—”

He shakes his head slightly. “No. Wasn’t a question.”

He turns back onto his side then, sliding a heavy hand over your hip, holding you possessively in his grip. “You said you’d tell me about ‘her’ tonight.”

You brush your thumb against his cheek, eyes drifting down to his chest, not wishing to meet his own now.

You want to go back to his comment—one he’s made more than once now, just in varying ways—about…ownership. He surely doesn’t mean it.

But every time you’ve tried to assure yourself of anything concerning him: that he won’t come back, that he won’t really hurt you—you’ve been wrong.

Maybe you’re not as good at reading people as you like to think you are. Most of all him.

You just still don’t understand why you’re a subject of fascination for him yet. Like you’d told yourself the other day…what’re you compared to any of the other women in his life? But maybe that’s it, then. Just like him, they’re forced to put on a mask, not letting anyone in deeper than surface-level, lest the plastic cracks.

It seems like he just…wants to connect.

No wonder you’ve been so tired the last couple of days—constantly wracking your mind, trying to understand him. As if it’s even possible. He’s been an actor all his life.

You sigh.

“I’m sure you won’t…be able to relate. I’m envious of you in that: your perfect childhood, and life. I wish I’d had that…”

You trail off for a moment.

“My mother,” you say quietly. “I haven’t seen her since I was eighteen and left for college. Half the reason I even went was to get away from her. I didn’t care about student loans and living in debt if it got me out of that house. For the first couple of years I lived in a dorm room…and it was the first time I’d ever known peace. No more walking on eggshells, no more fighting, or being called horrible names, or having to cautiously measure what mood I think she’s in each day—or hour—lest I provoke her.”

You slide your hand down to his neck, softly curling your fingertips inward. “I can’t…”

You pause, tears stinging your eyes.

He pulls you closer to him, silently encouraging you to continue.

“Yet I still feel like I can’t get away from her. Not even here. Not even hundreds of miles from home—if you can even call it that. Because she’s always with me. In my head. Beating me down, making me feel worthless—like…all my self-worth still needs to hinge upon her and how she feels. If she’s happy. When did it become my job to look after her, and not the other way around? And even when I did…she still abused me for it. Nothing I ever did was right.”

You bite your lip trying to fight back tears.

“When I was young, I wanted what we’re all supposed to once we grow up: a husband, a home, babies. And then I got older, and because of her I tried to convince myself otherwise. Tried to pound into my head that I didn’t want kids. That what I really wanted was a hysterectomy. That way, I’d never have to risk turning into her: becoming the monster of a mother that she was.”

You ignore the tears running down your cheeks now. “But it’s how I’m different from her that matters most. She’s taken enough away from me. Stolen enough of my life. I want children. I deserve to be a mother. To have a family. To make my own. She doesn’t get to have that, too. She doesn’t.”

Your chin wobbles and you let out a small sob. “I’m sorry.”

He only holds you closer, unsure what to even say. He’s never known how to comfort others. He’s always expected it to be provided to him instead. But only from women. And only in secret. Because he can’t be seen as some fucking weakling.

Because he’s not. He’s not.

He is the strongest man in all the world. The most superior. The master of his race.

You continue to softly cry, and it’s then that he makes a decision, knowing that if it ends terribly—with you emasculating him, or betraying his trust—well, it will take no effort from him to rectify the situation. But he’s sure that you won’t, because, little-by-little, you’ve shown your true colors: how maternal you truly are.

You just said it yourself. And it’d sounded like the most beautiful fucking music to his ears to hear: how desperate you are for a child.

You want someone to look after? Well, here he is. He needs your love. He can admit it now. To himself, at least. Even if it tastes like rancid vinegar to do so.

“I didn’t have it: a perfect childhood. It’s all fucking bullshit. You want to know how I was really raised?”

You grow quiet then, only occasionally sniffling as you slip your fingers into his hair, gently stroking his soft, blond strands.

“I grew up in a lab like a rat. These…doctors kept me locked in a sterile white room with nothing but a blanket for comfort. Not even a bed. Not a pillow. No toys. No TV. Nothing. All while they performed test after fucking test after—”

He clenches his teeth. “Watching me every second of every day. No privacy. Treating me like some…sideshow attraction. Burning me and laughing at me and just—watching.”

Your chin wobbles.

“I never knew my parents because I was designed in a test tube. I was created to be this. The greatest superhero the world has ever known. They tried to make me perfect. And I am,” he tacks on.

He’s unsure whether he’s trying to convince himself of that, or you.

“But I’m just—”

“Lonely,” you say, interrupting him with tears slipping down your cheeks—your heart shattering, for him.

You wrap your arms around his neck then, finally understanding him. Finally seeing a shred of humanity behind his ‘tough-man’ facade.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” you say between sobs. “I am so sorry for what they did to you.”

All you can picture in your mind’s eye is a sweet, blond little boy sitting in a room all alone, waiting for someone to come for him. To care. To hold, or love him. For them to stop hurting him, all while he was left to wonder what he did wrong to deserve such horrible treatment.

How…how could anyone do that? To a baby? To a little boy?

You shouldn’t care. Not after what he did to you just two nights ago, but you can’t help it. Because in this moment you just see a broken man that has nowhere else to turn.

He slides impossibly closer, burying his face between your breasts, quietly crying.

You shoosh him, running your fingers through his soft hair.

Here lies the most powerful—invincible—man in all the world in your arms—a man who has always seemed a larger than life titan…somehow he feels so small now. You’d been right to see him as just a scared little boy looking for someone to comfort him. And it serves only to break your heart all the more.

 “I’m so sorry, baby,” you say.

And it reminds him of a loving mother consoling her child. Something he’s never had the gift of having.

He mouths it against your breast then, just…wanting to try it—to know how it feels: ‘mommy’.

And it comes to him naturally. Like…this is meant to be.

And he knows in that moment with absolute certainty that you’re the one. You’re supposed to be his. Meant to belong to him alone. You were born to.

He’ll kill anyone who even attempts at coming between the two of you. He’ll rip him in fucking half with his bare hands just to keep you. Just to show you this newfound devotion.

And he’s sure you’d be thankful for it.

Your mother expected you to do everything for her? He can show you the opposite: so long as you love him, he can give you the same.

He’ll take care of you. He’ll make sure you don’t go without anymore. He has more than enough money for the two of you. Is willing to expend the effort to keep you as his sole property.

It’s all he’s ever wanted: to be loved. And now here you are in his arms with an open, maternal heart meant to love him.

Besides…how could you ever dream of doing better than the most singular and superior man in all the world? No other pathetic human specimen could ever compete.

You’ll be thanking him one day for having come into your life. For saving you. But that’s what he does: he saves people. And it seems you—his new purpose—need him most of all.

Before long, you’ll see just how much.

Before long…you won’t have any idea how to live without him. Already he feels the reverse: no idea how to live without you.

Not that he’ll have to, because you’re not going anywhere.

If you tried, he’d simply follow, because there’s nowhere you could hide that he wouldn’t find you.

You’re his.

All his.

His girl.

His woman.

Mommy.

[la2yn0va]

Friends…?

Characters: Jiaoqiu, Feixiao, Male Reader (Moze is mentioned)

(Can be taken as platonic or romantic. If romantic it’s a one-sided crush from the characters)

————

-Childhood-

“Hey! Get a load of this loser!” A boy said as he pushed another against the wall. A pink-haired foxian—Jiaoqiu. Jiaoqiu’s ears stayed down as he shuddered fearfully.

“L-leave me alone!” He pleaded shakily, which fell on deaf ears. “Hah~? But I haven’t even started yet you pathetic fox” the bully harshly tugged on his ears as three others laughed behind him and Jiaoqiu yelped in pain, tears forming as they usually do. “S-STOP!! PLEASE IT HURTS!!”

Once again, no one heard his pleas. He was left alone to cry as his four tormentors laughed at him. “Come on! Do something about it you useless loser~! I thought foxian’s were meant to be smart! But you’re just a pathetic freak!”

Then, a boy seemingly appearing out of nowhere, jumped up and slammed his feet against the back of two laughing bullies. “H-HUH!!? WHAT THE—!!” Before the other one could finish, he was met with a chop to the jugular.

The boy then faced the leader, who had let go of jiaoqiu’s ear and stared fearfully at the boy who had just knocked out his three friends “Who—” a punch to his gut quickly shut him up before slamming his bicep against the leaders neck and bashing him against a wall, successfully knocking him out.

Jiaoqiu stared in awe and slight fear. He had never seen someone around his age so fast and easily knock out four boys under a minute! “You okay foxy?” The boy asked making jiaoqiu jump slightly before nodding. He walked up to him and jiaoqiu tried to back away unsuccessfully, still abit fearful of being hit, however, he was…being patted on the head?

“Huh…?” “So fluffy and soft. I’m jealous of you” The boy said with a small smile, easing the nerves of the bullied foxian. “I’m M/n. What’s your name foxy?” “I-I..I’m Jiaoqiu” “well jiaoqiu. I like you. And you’re my friend now”

From that day on, m/n was always seen by jiaoqiu’s side. Weather it was in the library reading on medicine, or in a back alley, beating down on some bullies or even thieves. “Hey jiaoqiu. If a woman can only produce one gender, does that make their womb weak or special?” “Please m/n.. I’m a chief...stop asking me those questions…”

Jiaoqiu dreamed of being a chief yet also a healer to help the military combat the abominations of the abundance. He tried to convince m/n to join the military as m/n was easily the strongest person he knew… well… besides someone else.

“Hey. Why do you want to join the cloud knights? You’re basically giving up your life to some people you don’t have any connection with.. I think it’s pretty dumb.”

“That’s… not how I see it… I want to get rid of the abundance monsters because.. well.. they killed my mom and dad. Not to mention the borisin who ensalved my kind are apparently working with those monsters… I feel like it’s my duty to be on the war and make sure no one dies”

“Huh… I guess I never thought of it like that… At least your not giving up your life for a bunch of nobodies” M/n said, patting jiaoqiu as he usually did making his friend blush a bit. “Sure.. look if you join the cloud knights-” “I already said no” “You will find a person that can beat you!”

That seemed to catch m/n’s interest “Huh? What’re you talking about? I’ve never lost a fight, even with trained cloud knights” “Well… these this girl in the cloud knights. One who I.. owe a debt to. Her name is feixiao and she’s easily the strongest person I know.. maybe even stronger than you” he said teasingly.

M/n stayed silent. He isn’t actually gonna join for a dumb reason like that.. is he? No. No. He doesn’t care about the people of yaoqing, he doesn’t have any connection with them… but then again… being on the battlefield and fighting… meeting this feixiao…releasing his own anger on the enemies of the xianzhou… maybe it is where he’s meant to go… “Fine. I’ll bite”

“M/n… where are your parents..?” “I don’t have any” “Huh?” “Yep. I’ve been a street kid for as long as I remember.” Jiaoqiu felt his tail fall and his ears flop “o-oh.. I-I’m sorry” “why? Did you take them away from me” “I-What!? No I just—” “Ha. Calm down, I’m joking around… plus… I don’t care… I don’t care… I just really don’t care”

—Young Adult Years—

M/n was thriving in the cloud knights. He was easily the best of the upcoming graduates. Hell probably even the best of those who ALREADY graduated! His instructors showed special attention to him, wishing the hone and sharpen his skills even further to battle the enemies of the hunt.

His fellow trainee’s looked up to him. Even calling him ‘Big Brother M/n’. He fought with multiple weapons instead of a sword or a spear, as he wished to be adaptable and unpredictable in the battlefield. Something his instructors agreed on, yet also reminded him to use his great mind for intellectual plays as well. Something m/n was obviously and already planning on doing.

Then one day, the instructors decided to hold a special little event. They would bring a cloud knight here to fight m/n. Just to put on a little show and give m/n the fun he looked for. That cloud knight happened to be Feixiao.

“At ease soldiers!” The instructor commanded, as all the soilders relaxed and faced their commander. “Now. As I’m sure you’re all aware, we’ve decided to hold a special event. Everyone! Greet your senior. Could Knight: Feixiao” “MORNING CLOUD KNIGHT FEIXIAO!!” “Ah…! Feixiao…! That’s the woman…” m/n remembered jiaoqiu mentioning her being stronger than him.

“Trainee M/n! Step forward, Solider!!” M/n walked forward as he met feixiao, who looked outwardly enthusiastic yet her eyes held a type of boredom and interest. “Feixiao. I’m sure you’ve been informed why you’ve been summoned here” The White Haired-Foxian nodded with a charming smile “Yeah. I’m meant to fight your best trainee. This Him? I’ve heard quite the story about you Soilder”

“All good I hope” “Mhm. Shall we get started?” “Straight to the point. I like you already” The trainees formed a circle around the two as they were handed wooden swords. “I’ve heard a lot about you from jiaoqiu” “Ohh! No wonder your name sounded familiar. Jiaoqiu also told me a lot about you” “yeah. Thanks for being with him in the cloud knights” “Thanks for being with him during his childhood” They nodded before getting ready to battle. They stared intensely at each other before the whistle blew and they ran at each other.

They clashed the wooden swords together, leaning in the glare at the other with determination. They then jumped away and swung their swords at each other while trying to kick the other. Feixiao was surprised, usually no one would’ve lasted this long against her, jiaoqiu really wasn’t kidding when he said m/n was impressive.

M/n swung his sword and hit her sword before ducking and throwing a sweep kick, which feixiao jumped over and m/n quickly spun around, planting his hand on the ground and pushing himself up to send a kick to feixiao who once again blocked it with her own kick.

The two stood stun locked as they stared at the other in awe. However, they quickly shoved each other away and m/n threw his sword towards her, which she dodged as his sword was stabbed onto the ground and m/n ran towards her, his arm out to close line her. She dodged and she swung her sword which he slide under, moved up and jumped at his sword. One foot kicked the sword and he used it and his momentum to swing around and send a kick to feixiao, while grabbing his sword.

Feixiao looked suprised at this but quickly blocked his kick and ducked his sword swing before slamming him onto the ground and planting her foot on his stomach, making her the victor. M/n stared in surprise.. he actually lost? While feixiao stared in excitement. A rival. She had actually found a rival. “Hahaha~! Not bad! You’re definitely cloud knight material! I’m surprised you didn’t join or graduate earlier!!” She said, helping him up. And, a smiling m/n held onto her hand as excitement shined in his eyes “Holy shit!! You’re Fucking amazing!! No ones ever been able to beat me before!!” M/n quickly hugged her from excitement, making the cloud knight laugh in embarrassment and amusement.

The instructor watched nervously.. maybe getting two battle hungry solider to fight against each other who also haven’t lost a battle wasn’t a good idea. The other trainee’s stared in awe at the battle in front of them, feeling excitement of their own rise up as they yelled and chanted their names.

A couple months later, the trainee’s were graduating and they were choosing which division they wanted to join. Y/n had gotten a recommendation from every division, But he only had his eyes sent on one division. Feixiao’s who had recently became the lieutenant colonel of said division. Hell the recommendation was from her. So, without a second thought. He already made his decision.

The next day, he was personally greeted by feixiao. M/n quickly jumped up to hug her, excited to fight alongside her AND possible fight her. Luckily for him, feixiao didn’t push him away but gladly embraced him with a giggle of her own, the favoritism for m/n from lieutenant colonel Feixiao was painfully obvious.

The next few weeks, the new recruits were being tested to see which battalion they’d thrive in. The aviation, Medicare, Army Corps, Special Forces, etc. M/n was personally chosen by feixiao to join her own battalion in the special forces, his potential and skill easily exceeded everyone else. That and favoritism. M/n joined feixiao, jiaoqiu and a man named moze who was apparently a prison breaker/assassin… something told him he’d get along with him the most. Those were the only ones who m/n bothered to remember, everyone else were just another number to him.

“And you’ll be sleeping here” Feixiao said as m/n flopped on the bed gleefully. “Ahh~ joining the cloud knights was definitely the right choice” “I’m glad you decided to join. I’ve been much more excited since our battle back at the academy” “Speaking of which. I want a rematch! Me and you! Wooden swords again! Once I beat you with that— THEN we can use our real weapons!” He said excitedly which made feixiao laugh, patting his head “Hahahaha~ Sure m/n. But not now, I have something’s I need to take care of” “Booo” he pouted which made feixiao snicker “cute” she thought, bopping his nose and walking out “see you tomorrow Solider”

She waved and exited his room as another entered—Jiaoqiu “Hey there foxy” “Hello m/n. How’s your first day” “Amazing! Meeting feixiao just made my life even better!! You weren’t being a sly cunning manipulative piece of shit when you said she was strong!” “Ahaha.. indeed”

—Adult Years—

Years had passed since m/n joined feixiao. He was now a fully fledged vice lieutenant along side Feixiao. Battle the borisin and abominations of the abundance, freeing enslaved foxians. Meeting people from different ships of the xianzhou. However, m/n has been off as of late.

No one knows why and when they try to question him about it he just acts like nothing’s wrong. This was especially worrying for feixiao, jiaoqiu and moze. They hadn’t seen m/n like this ever. He was always excited for a battle yet stoic when hanging out, but now he was just stoic. That child like yet charming excitement had seemingly disappeared.

Jiaoqiu tried to up lift his spirits by asking him some of the strange questions he once asked him as a kid. Feixiao tried to battle him daily yet that seemed to fail again. Moze tried to help by teaching him some criminal actions like how to escape from the shackling prison and things along that line, it seemed to work slightly but still no significant changes.

Moze felt uneasy, feixiao felt her heart ache, and jiaoqiu felt useless and pathetic—m/n was his one and only childhood friend yet he couldn’t for the life of him find out why or what was making m/n feeling down. M/n didn’t even come out of his room unless it was for battling. This would not stand any longer. So, feixiao took initiative.

“M/n. It’s feixiao, I’m coming in” She said, walking in to see m/n blankly staring at the celling. Feixiao called out his name a bit louder which managed to get his attention “Oh.. Feixiao… another battlefield to go to?” He said blankly, which irked the lieutenant even more, she hated that tone, that blank, emotionless, robotic tone didn’t suit m/n. “No. I’m here for you” “Huh?” Feixiao sat down next to her friend, facing him with a determined look. “What’s wrong with you?” “Hmm?” “Your demeanor! You’ve been all robotic for the last few months now! Do you know how worried I’ve been…!? How worried Jiaoqiu and Moze are!!?”

“It’s…I didn’t know—” “That too! Since when are you blind to our emotions!? You’re the first that knows when someone’s acting off!” M/n stayed silent, just staring at his worried lieutenant “Come on m/n. Please tell me what’s been eating away at you. I can’t handle it to see you being like this a second longer!”

“….a few months ago. You sent me on a mission to eradicate a Disciple of Sanctus Medicus commander. He was hiding in a remote town in the countryside. But when I was there… I found a family… I found my mom. She looked.. happy. When I approached her she didn’t even recognize me. Not just that but I’ve been.. I-I was starting to care for the people of yaoqing… I ignored my mission and tried to get to know the mom I never had, along with my half sister. But it seemed like my mom felt uncomfortable by me. Because I ignored my mission, everyone in that town were murdered, but my mom… she was turned into one of the monsters. Then.. her dying words were ‘why did you come back! How are you alive!!? I left you for the borisin to get mauled!! You got my husband murdered now you come back and get me and my perfect life without you destroyed!! You were always a demon brat!! You can’t even die properly!! I never loved you, so why the fuck would you think I wanted to bond with you after all these years!!!’ Her last words, before you guys came and saved me… she didn’t even want me to be born. She left me to the borisin to get fucking mutilated. But since I’ve started to care about the people of yaoqing.. this FUCKING itch has been in my mind that I can’t scratch!! I-I feel like because I started to care IM the reason why those people died a meaningless death!! It’s because I’ve been more emotional that I ignored my mission and tried to get to know my—my….My ‘birther’. I just�� I don’t know how to feel. I don’t—”

Before he could continue, feixiao quickly brought him into her embrace, comforting the confused and depressed man as he cried into her shoulder “It’s okay… I got you.. I’m here for you… WERE here for you. Someone like you didn’t deserve such a bitch for a mom” she comforted him as he silently cried, slowly he fell asleep from fatigue and feixiao held him in her arms, picking him up to lock the door before laying herself and him on his bed, sleeping while holding him closely.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Weeks later, m/n seemed to return to his usual self but much less upbeat. He felt much closer to feixiao now and she was definitely keeping an eye on him much more, much to jiaoqiu’s confusion and sliiiiiiight jealousy. Moze just seemed glad that everything returned to normal. Later they’re was a red alert, the enemies of the hunt had teamed up with the borisin to attack a city.

All divisions quickly ran to the battlefield that was the city, massive clash can be heard from miles and miles away. Slowly, the city was being destroyed and both sides were begging to fall. This battle lasted for 3 whole months before the cloud knights came out victorious. Many soldiers fell yet one person was no where to be found. They searched everywhere, every sinkhole made, under every fallen building, and even a 50 mile radius to find him. But m/n was nowhere to be found.

Feixiao, Jiaoqiu, and Moze were hit the hardest by this. M/n had just started to return to normal, and now he was missing. No body, no scrap of dna, no armor or clothing. He just vanished. Feixiao refused to make a burial for m/n. She refused to accept that he was dead, she wouldn’t even humor it, the same for Jiaoqiu, who became even more attached to feixiao and despite to repay his debt to her, Moze became much more reclusive.

Years later, m/n was found. When feixiao and jiaoqiu heard this news, their face lit up like never before. They begged Moze to take them to him. But instead they were handed a paper. A wanted paper for Stellaron Hunter M/n. Bounty— 10,799,000,000

———

[jenscx]

[02] tumblr girls — hopeless

it was cliché; being in love with danielle marsh, the straightest girl on earth. you thought your feelings were hopeless, until you discover her tumblr blog.

you toss and turn on your bed, messing up your duvet cover with your indecisiveness. danielle had said she would text you, but should you text her first since she hasn’t? or was it a little weird? would danielle find you desperate or weird? you let out a pathetic groan, throwing your phone away onto the other corner of your bed.

minji and hanni had offered no help and were entirely useless when you told them of your dilemma. after all, keeping your crush a secret from them was increasingly harder each day. might as well just tell them and maybe you would get some help. you were wrong.

“you’re asking us? we’ve spoken to like, 5 people our whole life, including each other,” hanni had said. minji, naturally, nods her head, agreeing.

your phone suddenly dings. eyes widened. hands instantly reach for the phone, fingers hastily scrolling to find danielle’s contact.

no new messages. you flop back onto your bed, feeling pitiful at your own self. if anyone saw you like this, desperate for a girl’s message, what would they say? your friends would definitely make fun of you.

staring at the ceiling, your eyes wander around your bedroom walls, filled with photographs of memories in school with your family and friends. the photograph pinned in the centre of it all, a class photo from last year. you had cut the photo out from the yearbook. you were near the side, smiling with arms tossed over minji and hanni’s shoulders. yet, right in the middle, danielle’s grin is even wider and is it strange if the sight of her immediately brings a smile onto your face?

your phone dings again, then it starts to spasm with notifications. you don’t even bother checking it, knowing it was probably hanni blowing up your phone about how minji was playing with her feelings again. god, maybe you should focus your energy on helping your best friends get together instead of being a sad, pitiful girl yearning for someone out of her league.

hanni, apparently, doesn’t get the hint that you’re ignoring her messages on purpose, and decides to call you. you let the phone ring for a bit before reluctantly picking up.

“y/n, i swear, can you please knock some sense into minji? i don’t care how you do it, like you could even punch her or slap her—”

“shut the hell up,” you groan, “she’s your best friend, you do something.”

“she’s yours too!” hanni retorts.

“okay but i’m not hopelessly in love with her!”

hanni scoffs. annoyance starts to seep in.

“what do you want, pham? what did minji do this time?” you ask. hanni wails loudly, “when you left to go find the love of your life, you know jake from chemistry? yeah, he came up to me and started asking for the homework. obviously, i told him and then minji started being all sulky!”

“sounds like she was jealous.”

“that’s what i’m saying! but maybe it’s the demons in my head and you’re just deluding me. anyway, i just let her sulk until when i get home, she texts me and asks if i’m dating jake? like girl, do i need to bash your head with a rock?” you wince at the increasingly loud tone of hanni. she seemed incredibly agitated.

you bring your phone’s speaker further away from your ear. “i wouldn’t go that far, but what did you say to her?”

“told her that i am not dating jake, we’re just friends because we’re lab partners. and then she was like, asking me if i was dating someone, i would tell her, right? but she’ll do all that, get jealous and shit, and then not look me in the eye the next day?” hanni whines. you feel a semblance of pity for your best friend. maybe minji was just struggling with coming to terms with her feelings.

“god, she’s so annoying. i hate her so much! she thinks she can tell me to trust her when i would literally murder someone for her.”

your best friends were stupid. maybe that’s why you were so drawn to becoming friends with them.

“hanni, you would murder someone for fun,” you frown.

“if you can’t tell, i’m rolling my eyes right now. and yes, i won’t deny that but—” a notification pops up.

danielle [9.47pm]:

hi yn! :))

“hanni, i’m hanging up now.”

“wait, what—”

you instantly press the hang up button, fingers rapidly scrolling to danielle’s chat. meanwhile, hanni blows up your phone, demanding you to answer. hesitating for a moment, you don’t click into her message. you didn’t want to seem too desperate or like you were waiting for her to text you (you were, obviously).

danielle [9.48pm]:

sry 4 the late text :(

just wanted to check

are u free tmrw?

for the project !!

before you could even stop yourself, your fingers start to type a response.

jeon yn [9.48pm]:

i’m free!

what time?

danielle [9.49pm]:

9 in the morning?

i heard our brains work

btr early in the morning :D

meet @ the library near sch!

you internally groan, hoping to sleep in during the weekend but anything for danielle, right?

jeon yn [9.50pm]:

yeah sure!!

see u then

danielle [9.51pm]:

goodnight!!

see u xx

see you. with kisses. your phone nearly drops onto your face. does danielle say that to anyone? or just you?

xx means kisses right? you weren’t going crazy? maybe you were. terribly deluded and indulged in danielle’s kindness, mistaking it for affection. god, you were a mess. why couldn’t you be some suave casanova who could actually talk to your crush without stuttering? seriously, was it just a danielle thing? you could easily converse with others on the daily (not that you did), but still!

the more you think about your situation, the more pitiful you feel. it’s only because of the project that danielle is even talking to you. maybe you should take the chance to show her your charming aspects, and not freeze up every time you see her. yes. that is exactly what you’ll do!

confident and determined, you start to search the common attractive features of someone’s personality. surely a girl like danielle would want an independent yet caring partner. she would need someone to take care of and take care of her. someone that she could rely on but still be emotionally open to talk. your determination starts to disappear when most attributes consist of masculine, strong and manly. right. she would want a man.

you go to sleep with a heavy heart, not bothering to close the tab. maybe it could be a constant reminder that the girl of your dreams is straight.

was this all hopeless?

your dreams, or nightmares, had been haunted by a blurry figure of a man standing next to danielle at the altar. a stretch for sure, since you were both still in high school, but just seeing the truth laid out in front of you was heartbreaking. clearly the contents of last night stirred you greatly. no way danielle was into girls, and if she was, she wouldn’t be into you. she’s a cheerleader, for god's sake, why would she entertain someone like you?

groaning, you quickly get out of bed. of course danielle was a morning person. she was sunshine itself. maybe that’s why she has so much energy and her skin is so luminous… you slap yourself gently, if you wanted to stop this deluded narrative of danielle liking you back, you had to prevent yourself from worshipping danielle like a deity.

taking one glance at your closet, you groan. why was it that on the day you were meeting danielle, all your clothes seemed horrendous? whatever, not like you had to impress her anyway. you throw on a white cropped button up with jeans. at least it was comfortable and breathable. not like you were gonna breathe anyway since you’ll be staring at danielle—

you curse your mind.

staring at the time, you finally decide to head out. even if you arrived early, you wouldn’t mind waiting. it was better to be early than late, you wouldn’t want to make a bad impression. and it was common decency! not like you wanted to portray yourself in a better light or anything…

ugh. you were pathetic. letting yourself be distracted by anything other than danielle, you start to make your way to the library. you hated it there; the librarian, mrs kwon, was not very fond of you after you had caused a domino effect with a bunch of books stacked up. honestly, it really wasn’t your fault. hanni and minji were just so annoying that you became fed up with them. a small cat fight had broken out, if you could really call it that, but hanni had shoved you into the towers of books. needless to say, you spent the rest of the afternoon helping mrs kwon.

you were kind of glad that living so closely to school meant you only had to ride a ten minute bus ride to the library. it was rather convenient. not convenient when your best friends came to your house unprompted and disturbed your peace and tranquillity.

maybe since you were already on the way, you could slip in some alone time and admire the seasonal changes. spring was beautiful. more butterflies and insects flying about. more flowers blooming. could anything be more perfect than spring? (danielle).

you put on your earphones, sighing comfortably as you watched the everchanging view. mere minutes later, you had arrived already. with fifteen minutes to spare, you quickly found a place to sit in the library. since exams haven’t begun yet, there was not a student in sight, only some little kids attending a book reading contest. you smile at the cute children who struggled to pronounce hard words.

a tug of your earbuds pull you out of your reverie. at first, you think that mrs kwon was going to scold you for coming back after the mess you had caused, but the small giggle let out made you realise it was danielle.

“what are you listening to?”

watching danielle with wide eyes, you struggle to formulate a response as she puts your left earbud in her own ear. her lips twitch with delight at the melody that fills her ears.

“clairo? i like her too,” danielle whispers. you swallow your saliva, “you do?”

“yeah,” danielle sends an award-winning smile, “i like sofia the most. do you like sofia?”

if you weren’t so caught up in your own delusions that danielle was the straightest girl alive, you might have eaten up the piece of meat she had left, deeming that girls that liked clario were devastatingly gay.

“uh, yeah.”

“i’ve never met someone else who likes clairo,” danielle confesses, “most of my friends are into rap.”

“rap’s cool too i guess… uh, what do you normally listen to?” you build up the courage to ask. danielle’s face lights up drastically.

“ariana grande, the beach boys, oh! bruno mars too.”

you raise an eyebrow, “a pop lover?”

“yeah! pop just makes me feel happy,” your heart clenches at the sight of her smile. was god drunk when he made danielle? this wasn’t good for your heart.

danielle continues rambling about music, which is the cutest thing ever, not that you would say that out loud. you just wear a smile on your face, genuinely happy to listen to her voice. it was so soothing and relaxing. if danielle told you to jump off a bridge, you would do it instantly.

“oh— sorry, did i say too much?” she asks nervously. you’re immediate to reassure her, “no, of course not. i was just mesmerised.”

danielle stares at you, confused.

“by what?”

“huh?”

“mesmerised by what?” she repeats. your mouth turns dry. mesmerised by the way her curly hair falls against her face. mesmerised by the way her eyes light up with happiness and glee. mesmerised by the way she actually sparkles under the sun.

“you have good music taste,” you say instead. danielle’s smile doesn’t falter.

“really?! i think you have better taste than i do though,” you don’t disagree. liking danielle is the pinnacle of good taste.

she turns to you, beaming, “could you recommend some songs to me?”

caught off guard, you hesitate to reject her. “uh, sure. i can make a playlist.”

“thanks! just send me the link and i’ll listen to it immediately!”

you nod, tempted to run out of the library to hide from the intensity of her stare. danielle, unknowing of your inner dilemma, only pulls out her laptop and stacks of notes.

“so! we have a project to do about human attraction!”

may god bless your soul.

jeon y/n [5.17pm]:

did u get home safe?

danielle [5.18pm]:

yupp!

thanks for buying me coffee too!

i’ll repay u next time :)

jeon y/n [5.18pm]:

next time?

danielle [5.18pm]:

next time we meet up!

we still have more to do

jeon y/n [5.19pm]:

ah… right

by the way

i added u on the playlist

danielle [5.20pm]:

oh my gosh

WAIT i have to listen now

you wait patiently for danielle’s reaction. the playlist was handcrafted with your own music taste and danielle’s revealed preference. coincidentally, there were a lot of love songs, not that you intended there to be. it seemed rather intimate to share your love of music to someone else, but danielle was the kind who would appreciate it.

it had almost been more than an hour until danielle finally texted back.

danielle [6.42pm]:

i love it omg

superior music taste.

jeon y/n [6.43pm]:

haha really?

i just put in songs i thought u would like

danielle [6.43pm]:

spot on.

amazing.

please add more :D

jeon y/n [6.43pm]:

of course!

rest well

danielle [6.44pm]:

u too!!! <3

you too. with a heart. like a lovesick fool, you fall asleep with a smile on your face, unwilling to be rid of.

masterlist | next

[muniimyg]

ALONE TOGETHER // MYG

you’ll always be his first choice

+

yoongi spends too much time convincing you to not be anyone’s second choice all the while he remains yours

pairing: (protective) best friend yoongi + oc 

au/genre:

best friends to ???

crush au

fluff, slight, one-sided pining

warnings:

mentions of cheating

explicit language

feelings of being second choice

note: originally posted on @/meowachi ,, revised !!

🏷️ permanent taglist: @joonsjuice @taetaecatboy @pb-n-juju @miss-rainy-days @firesighgirl @whoa-jo @vantxx95 @pamzn @kakixaku @casspirit0705 @tae165 @prdshobi @sopebubbles @leefics @ggukkieland @bebebutbetter @yoongimentita7 @vampcharxter @miss-jupiter @floweryjeons @taegijns

There’s an unfamiliar tension that invades the space between you and him. 

You’re fidgeting with your hands, trying your best to avoid eye contact. He’s here. Of course, he is. It’d be much more unlike him to not be. Yet, he stays silent, unable to pick a thought to express first. 

You’re sitting on the edge of your bed as he stands, leaning against your door frame. You can’t really make out what his facial expression is, but there is a weight of disappointment that presses your heart. It all feels too heavy—all too real. It didn’t need to be like this but the days of your avoidance fell in vain as the recently confirmed rumours exposed every bit of privacy you’ve been trying to keep.

“Yoongi—“

“Don’t.”

He exhales heavily and takes a step forward. “I.. I should’ve known better. I should’ve been here earlier.. I could have been. If you let me, you know?” Yoongi gives you a puzzled look. It was as if he was offended at your lack of needing him. “... And that’s the part where I’m confused.. Why didn’t you call me?”

He makes the move first. 

He sits next to you and places his hand on top of yours causing your fidgeting to stop. You look up and him and he feels like he was just punched in the stomach. Perhaps it was your tired expression and your dull eyes—whatever it was; it hurt to see you look the way you do now.

 You move your hand away and shrug. “Does it matter? You’re here now.” You say in an attempt to lighten the mood. He glares at you, refusing to give in to your words. A moment of silence falls upon you two again. 

“So.. How is he?” you ask Yoongi. Instantly, he groans in frustration. 

Are you serious? Were you always this annoying?

“Jimin dumps you for the girl he told you not to worry about… And you’re asking if he’s okay?” Yoongi’s words feel like salt being rubbed into your open wounds. “Not to mention that he practically cheated on you.”

You look at him with a soft smile but no words come out of your mouth. What was there to say? It already happened. Were you supposed to beg Jimin to stay with you? How could you live with yourself, fully knowing you’re the second choice? How could you continue to love him truly if his wandering eyes never glance your way?

Jimin’s mistreatment towards you almost feels like a joke. Everyone had warned him not to fuck up. Everyone warned you to keep your guard up. It was just the nature of him and the fate for you. Now, here is your best friend in the entire world; incredibly angry for you. He barged into your apartment to be some sort of damage control. 

The thing is; no part of you wants to admit how bad it really burns inside. You struggle to swallow your pride. But it is hard. It’s so fucking hard when you feel pathetic and useless. There’s no way you’d want to mix desperate in there. 

It was your pride that stopped you from calling Yoongi. He was right and it was too embarrassing to cry over someone he had told you not to give the time of day. On the contrary, you still believe Jimin was a good boyfriend—a great one even! However, he had a life and impulsive decisions that contradicted his promises to you. You didn’t expect commitment or an incredibly long relationship with him, but you did expect honesty.. 

And perhaps, honesty is what he gave when he dumped you. 

“He’s fucking amazing. He’s Jimin. Nothing really brings him down even if it’s his own bullshit,” Yoongi pauses and wonders if he should stop here. Should say the next part? He’s afraid they could possibly change your feelings. Could it? If it does.. Would it be for the better or worse?

“He asked about you, though.” Yoongi pauses, almost instantly regretting to speak up about this. maybe he should brush it off and leave it be.. This was his chance to protect you in a way.. Then, your eyes light up. Your eyes always light up this way whenever you have feelings for someone. It’s an observation Yoongi took the time to note. 

Putting his feelings aside, he dismisses his hesitation and fixates on your happiness. 

He should tell you. He has to tell you. 

“He asked about you.. First. That’s how I found out.. He told me.” Yoongi confesses.

Now he feels sick. 

He feels like he’s giving you false hope and making Jimin look humane when he’s such a villain.

Fucking shit does Yoongi really want you to hate Jimin. 

Even if it was for a split second, he wants you to take a moment and feel a fraction of the rage he feels towards Jimin. His frustration, anger, and resentment should be yours. Yet, you’re you. You aren’t the type to get angry and regretful. You love what comes along and wish for the best when it’s time to let go. Rarely do you fall apart and therefore rarely do you need Yoongi.

He hates that.  

“Did you hit him?” you ask softly, trying your best to mask your concern. You wish for a no. You wish for an answer that won’t make you feel like you’d have to choose between the two. “... You shouldn’t hit your friends.”

The corner of Yoongi’s mouth twitches. 

“No,” he chuckles as you let out a relieved breath. “I didn’t hit him. Was about to… But I thought about it. Mid-swing, I realize you’d probably be madder at me than him.” 

See, Yoongi has always been the nonchalant type. No one doubts how far his anger could drive him. Fortunately for everyone, he is a patient man. Nevertheless, his patience has a bad habit of fracturing whenever it comes to you. He always been protective of you. As for you; you expect better from him. You know he’s better than hateful actions. 

“Jimin told me you said you wanted space… He thought you told me.. That’s why he brought it up. Then, when he realized I didn’t know—he went full defense mode.”

You sigh. “Keep me updated, yeah? Jimin is still a good guy. He is still your friend.”

“Not a very good one if he’s fucking my best friend over.” Yoongi snaps. “You need to stop letting yourself be treated so poorly.”

You laugh. “Noted.”

For a moment, you two are okay. For a moment, Yoongi isn’t pissed and you aren’t hurt. You sink into the cozy feeling and decide to carry the conversation into a different direction. “Anyways, how are you?”

“No,” Yoongi says sternly. “___, we’re not doing that. I’m here for you. You’ve been avoiding me. You’ve been cheated on and—“

“Yoongi, I know what happened to me. It’s clear that you do too. We’ve established it so you don’t need to repeat it,” you snap. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

He groans at you. 

In response, you throw your hands in the air and roll your eyes at him. “See? this is why I didn’t call you. God, I knew you’d do this.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes, shakes his head, and almost laughs at you. “Do what? Worry about you? That’s kind of what a friend is for. This is called a friendship. Me communicating and trying to protect you—this is shit men do. Something Jimin—“

“Stop it. He did communicate. I just wasn’t his choice. End of story.”

“And that’s the dumbest bullshit he could ever pull. I mean, how could anyone not choose you?”

“To each their own.”

“Fuck that and fuck him,” Yoongi scoffs. “I choose you.”

Your eyes widen and so does his when he realizes the words that fell out of his mouth. What happens now? It’s such an odd thing to say, no? Yoongi has never said anything like this to you before. When you look at him, you see his gaze had softened and even if there was a slightly panicked look on his face… There was also an underlying sense of relief.

It’s as if he had confessed a secret. 

You brush it off. Clearing your throat, you ask him; “A-are you done? Because I’m, uh, n-not in the mood for this. I don’t need you to—“

“To what? I didn’t come here to say ‘I told you so,’ ___. Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Then why are you here?” you huff, beginning to feel more and more defeated.  “Just go, Yoongi. I want to be alone.”

“We can be alone together.” 

It’s then when you look up at him, eyes watering and feelings on the edge of a cliff. You take a deep breath. Holy shit, you’re so tired of this. You stand up but he catches your hand and pulls your body into his embrace. Before you can protest, he holds you tighter. 

“It’s me, ___. It’s us.” he comforts you. “Fall apart or go numb, whatever. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Unsure of what stirs in you—perhaps it’s the days worth of holding everything in—but tears begin to fall from your eyes. Your inhale is cut short and disrupted by a hitch and the ache in your chest. It takes over. It practically consumes you the moment you let it. 

“I hate how you can j-just—how y-you can get me like this,” you cry, poking his chest passive-aggressively. Soon, your hands form a fist and you’re beginning to hit his chest as light cries escape your lips. As predicted, the louder you begin to break, the slower and lighter you hit him. When you come to a stop, he places his hands on top of yours. “I hate you,” you mumble.

He hushes you and holds you as you begin to tremble.

Yoongi moves the two of you into your bed. He wraps his arms around you as you cuddle up to him while you continue to cry. His sweet nothings calm your cries. He holds you tighter to calm you. His hands are placed patting the top of your head or rubbing your back. While he does all this, Yoongi wonders what it would be like to hold you in a totally opposite situation. 

One where you’re happy and hung up on him. One where you don’t feel like shit and he’s just trying his best not to cross any lines. 

After a while, you finally calm down. His arms and wrist felt a little numb, but it was worth it. He tucks his chin to take a peek at your state. Your eyes are puffy and your nose is a little red from the crying… But you look relieved. You look like you could rest tonight and if he’s not mistaken, you also look a little sleepy. The truth is; you just feel safe. 

He does this so well. He holds you better than Jimin.

“I wanted to face it alone and deal with it.. Pretend like it didn’t matter and that I could handle it..” you say, eyes slowly fluttering closed. Your voice gets softer and sleepier. He hushes you, promising that you don’t need to explain yourself. “No, because… It’s like whatever I do.. I just feel so alone. I figured there was no point in calling you because honestly… I still feel empty with you here, Yoon. What do we do about that?” 

He wishes he had an answer. Yoongi wishes he could find the perfect words for you and form some sort of metaphor that could change your perspective on everything. He should’ve majored in English Lit or something. 

Although, he can’t say he’s not surprised or offended by how blunt you are. He knows you’re all about transparency. It’s probably why you’re still a little hung up on Jimin: he came clean. He had an honest conversation with you, which only complicated your feelings for him even more. Now, the issue wouldn’t just be on how you’d have to learn to unlove Jimin, rather it would have to do with your new perspective on honesty and trust. 

Is honesty really worth it? Is it really that good? From the looks of it; maybe some things are better left in the dark.

Yoongi knows it’ll take time for you to adjust to the pain, but a big part of him wishes you could let him in more. After all, you can’t heal what you won’t touch, right?

So he lies there, wondering to himself when could he ever be enough for you. It confused him how you still felt alone when he was giving his all to be here with you. How much closer did he have to be to get to your heart? 

Your face is buried into the crook of his neck. Your makeup was smudging over his shirt and his arms had already given out from holding you for so long still, he stays. He doesn’t dare move or feel the need to complain. This is what he gets—pieces of you that others leave behind.

No part of him gets it.

Yoongi will forever wonder why he’s the one who’s left to help you clean up when you could be with him and never need to feel like this. Don’t you know that you don’t need to be in a position of loving someone who gives you up like you’re a choice? Like you’re an option?

To Yoongi, there’s no choice when it comes to you. 

That’s what he has learned from being friends with you all these years. The irony is that he'll spend hours unending trying to convince you that being a second choice isn't worth it.

Yet, that's what he is to you.

The worst part is that even if he had a choice, he’d still choose to be in love with you. 

What do we do about that?

[i-am-beckyu]

In the Hands of my Tormentor

Yelloooooo! Been a lil bit since I've posted any writing! Been a bit hard getting much written with life and work at the moment but I had this random g/t thought and ran with it to get this lil fic. So enjoy another random oc created for the purpose of this fic lol.

Premise: You've been transported to another world where giants see humans as lesser and have ended up the pet of a Count.

cw: Fear, fear of death, fatal scenes mentioned, panic, mentions of being eaten alive, death mentions (no one dies tho), anxiety, torture, manipulation. Just the opposite of what I usually post lol. wc: 2318

Terror. 

That’s all I could feel as I watched in horror as the giant noble scarfed down their meal. Giant fangs tearing through meat 100x my size, as if it was sliced bread. I forced myself to not react as I heard them swallow, knowing full well should they tire of me- their pet, I may very well be the next one sliding down that wretch’s throat. 

In this world, Giants didn’t see anything smaller than them as intelligent. If you were found, the lucky ones either died or were crushed between teeth as big as boulders like food. And if you think ‘How’s that lucky?! That’s horrid!’ Be glad you’re not the one being digested alive.

But even that was a mercy compared to my fate. 

Every day I tread the thin line of a tightrope; a timer hanging over my head. Forced to live life as a performance, every step perfect in order to please my Master.

“TWIRL!” He’d demand.

“JUMP!” He’d spit.

“SING!” He’d sneer- and I’d do it without hesitation or face death itself.

For as humiliating as it was, being ‘keep’ worthy; even for a derogatory laugh, it was better than being deemed useless and ready for brutal discarding. And with how little manic glee he’d been having with me lately, that may be sooner than not. For if I have no worth, what’s stopping them from doing away with me?

Tonight I was on display at another one of their dinner parties. Parties they threw more to show their class standing and possessions than for company. Sometimes I’d be in a cage forced to sing like a songbird, other times I’d be kept on the table with a ribbon clamped around my ankle to perform tricks or be petted by gloved fingers.

The guests would often have varying responses at my presence.

“Such a rare delicacy humans are and you're wasting it as a pet?”

“What a wretched little thing it is. Why not just eat it and be done?”

“As amusing as it is, why keep it around when it’s a better snack?”

After a while, you learn to tune out the loud voices. It’s just a reminder I’m only seen as food, insignificant, a pest. I only listen to the Master's voice. He’s the only one that matters. I sit just to his right today. The ribbon on my ankle is too tight, and I can feel the way my foot has started to go numb from the lack of blood flow. I look at it absentmindedly, the phantom pain of a blade forced against an angry scar, throbs against the ribbon. Strange I can’t feel my foot and yet still feel the pain of past escapes. I stopped trying a long time ago. Better to submit then endure his sick pleasures again.

I try not to think about the will I’ve given up; the life I’ve submitted to and try to listen to the giants conversing overhead.

Had it not been for the size difference and ignorance to the obvious, the giants were just like us. Take away all the power-hungry madness and torture of the little guy and the giants were just like humans if they were living in a medieval fantasy. Perhaps in another world, I would have been one of the guests…

“Dance, Human.” Master demands, and I stand and let my body move the way I know it pleases the giant. I don’t even think about the steps anymore, I just let myself move as if I were a robot programmed with the steps.

The giants above me laugh, clap and snicker. I know I’ve done my dance right. They’re all talking around the table, some whispering to each other with cruel gazes locked on my form. Others are spitting profanities at me and joking to my Master about making me do more tricks. 

There was only one giant that didn’t seem interested in my suffering. They sat at the opposite end of the table silently, and hadn’t moved much beyond drinking from their cup. I didn’t pay them much mind. One less giant drooling over me was a blessing. 

I let their voices blend together as I continued to move, the only voice I was listening for was my Masters, and I knew he was grinning ear to ear with all the attention on his greatest possession. 

His rare and desirable human.

“Now sing.” He says sickeningly sweet and my mouth obeys as I sing old scales used to warm up my voice whilst I continue to dance.

He never said I could stop.

I don’t know how long this continued for, the time always blurred together with every order and step at these events. All I know is the giants are enjoying it for the time being and all hungry eyes are on me. I will do as they want till I’m so desirable, that Master snatches me away- just teasing the lessers with what they can’t have. I can see the manic glee in their eyes at being so close to myself. I know what they want, and I scold my expression to not let the fear show on my face. 

My legs ached, but I pushed on; my voice wasting away from overuse. Everything was starting to burn from the effort it took to do both. I sang a long high note and began to spin, a bad combo but my brain was on autopilot. How much longer till I collapse?

“Stop.” Master demanded; my saving grace but not by much. I stopped immediately, finishing the pirouette and ceasing my song. I didn’t dare move despite my labored breathing, fully aware that the command wasn’t just for me, for in the corner of my eye I saw it. 

An outstretched white, gloved hand reached for me- and it was not my Masters.

That was all that was said before the ribbon around my ankle yanked me back, sending me tumbling forward as I was reeled in. I kept my head down, biting my tongue to stop myself from screaming as I felt the glazed wooden table burn against my hands and knees as I was dragged. My performance was done. And so was the fool of a giant that had tried to take me. 

Or so I thought.

Giants had tried to take me from Master before that was a given, but I was his snack (as he liked to remind me) and those that had tried to take what was his, had been dragged out shrieking. But this one had the room silent. Someone with a demanding presence other than my Master had the room freeze.

“So Ed,” 

“That’s Count Edwin, to you.” Master spat at the other Giant.

“May I remind you who the Duke is here, Count Edwin.” the Duke replied nonchalantly, taking a sip of his drink. I saw the way the Master's hand tensed at the notion. 

He was irritated. 

Very few had the nerve to undermine him and make it out unscathed. So far nothing had happened to this Duke, which made him a threat.

“I understand you invited me here tonight to make a deal.” The Duke asked.

“Yes, that’s correct.” The grit in the Master's voice confirmed my suspicions. He’d interrupted his showing off. They were treading on thin ice. 

“I wish to put a natural water irrigation system to my crops from the south river. The river in question however, borders the edge of your land and in order for me to utilize it, would require access to your land.”

“And you want me to allow your filthy hands access to my river.” The Duke remarked.

Master's hand tightened on his utensils. Whoever this man was really had the Giant getting into a tizzy, which was never good for me. For all the time that I’d been here, it was very rare that anyone dared to go up against Master, let alone insult him. I felt a slight sense of justice from the thought. Even if it would never be me to do it, at least someone would knock them off their high horse.

I couldn’t help but glance up to see what such a person looked like and was surprised by what I saw. It was the uninterested giant from before.

Just like their attitude, the Giants' features matched their blunt, cold attitude. Jet black, side swept hair and dressed in a navy blue velvet coat, adorned with gold trims and fine sapphires bigger than my head, the Duke- the most regal man I’d ever seen in all my life, was listening to my Master with an icy cold stone stare. 

The man seemed bored of this tedious exchange and I could tell their patience was beginning to run thin as my Master blabbered on and on about the Giants river.

I wondered how long the fire would build behind the Duke’s eyes before their tolerance met its peak, and would put my Master in their place. For once I was glad they paid me no mind.

“I have much gold to offer in return for the river and with the greater yields we would produce, I’m happy to offer 5% of the total harvest.” Master’s smile curled into a grin as they folded their hands. They did that whenever something they wanted was about to go their way.

I averted my gaze back to my feet at this. They always got mad when they caught me staring. How sad I knew what his tells were.

“While your offer is good Edwin, as a Duke with the amount of land I have, your offer is insignificant to me. Why give you access to my river when I produce five times the amount you yield in a year?”

Master lost his composure at that, clearly not expecting such a response. Unsurprising when he acts like a toddler who has never been told no. “Well yes but-” 

“If you expect me to share such a precious resource, I expect a greater sum.” The Duke cut him off. “Or an offer with something of rarity to actually compensate for the price. Something like…” 

No. No, he can’t mean…

The duke took a sip from his cup as if contemplating, but only a fool didn’t know he’d already made up his mind the second he set eyes on me.

“That human.”

The Duke slammed the cup down, hitting the table with a clink as my head shot up and snapped straight to the Duke, my worst fears confirmed reality. The Duke’s ice blue eyes bore into my small figure. If I thought my grubby Master was scary then the Duke was sheer terror. 

His eyes pierced my very soul pinning me in place, and I stared straight back, unable to hide the terror on my face despite the consequences. Though it could have just been adrenaline, I swear I saw their eyes soften when they noticed my expression change, though it did little to put me at ease. His presence was terrifying and it hit me then why the room was so quiet. Why Master was so mad he had no control over this Giant.

This was a man with power.

I knew if I was what it wanted, then no one would be stupid enough to say no twice. Everyone in the room knew what his eyes were locked on. 

“You want me to trade my human, for access to the river?” The Count replied as he dragged me closer, pulling me away from my terror. “That hardly seems fair seeing how incredibly rare and delightful they are. It’s just about bored me enough that I'm peckish. I love to break their spirits just enough that they’re kicking and screaming to the end.” 

At this, I was flung into the air with a yelp before the Count caught me in a harsh grip. I cried out in pain as he squeezed my ribs tight to the point I was sure they’d break.

“It would be a waste to let all this time go to not enjoy them myself.”

“It’s the human or nothing.” The Duke insisted. “You have nothing more that I want.”

I risked looking up at the Duke again, the fire in his eyes seemed to have tripled. “It’s as you said, humans are incredibly rare. Are they truly worth a yearly supply of better income?”

My Masters hand began to squeeze tighter around me and I’m only lucky that the air had been forced out of my lungs enough before I could scream. His anger being directed on the only thing he could control in the moment, only for the pressure to leave as quickly as it came and I found myself falling.

“Deal.” 

And that was the only warning I had before everything flashed a violent white. My whole body was in complete and utter agony and yet I couldn’t even scream. I could feel silent tears dripping down my face as my vision began to dance with black blurry spots. This is where I died.

Everything felt cold, until it wasn’t. 

I felt myself engulfed in pure warmth as careful hands moved and cradled my broken body. I could hear muffled voices shouting and moving before the slamming of a door ceased all else. Dark blobs broke in between the black and I knew deep down I was in the Duke’s hands, but the soft warmth they provided blurred all other judgment. I hadn’t been warm- truly warm since I’d been brought here, and yet somehow I was now at ease. 

Perhaps it was just my mind twisting the truth as a last mercy to let me die peacefully.

“Rest now,” A voice whispered over head as the world faded to black. “I’ve got you now.” 

Funny how my mind could create such a promise after so much pain…

✩₊˚.⋆⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ✩₊˚.⋆⋆⁺₊✧

Don't worry, the Duke's actually the good guy in this lol. I have it head cannoned that he fixes them all up and helps them get home.

I may write onto this, I might not who knows! The fact I've written in a different pov to me is wild though! Thank you to squishy, xyz and especially munchkin for beta reading this. (Seriously savior on my grammar qwp) Thank you if you read this far and I hope you enjoyed!!!!

Tag List Link here: @local-squishmallow @brick-a-doodle-do @justarandomsloth @veryfunkycheesecake @munchkin1156 @kayla-crazy-stuffs @da3dm @eiscreme135 @orchid-harmony @the-tiny-lurker @colossal-red @nobodywritingao3 @nata2343 @bad-author777 @crazyfoxgirl10 @guppybubbles

(also side note: other wips are still being written. I am aware JORNOS has not updated in months but it's not been forgotten <3)

[ylangelegy]

some version of you ꩜ changmin x reader.

── .✦ 💌 reader uses she/her pronouns. includes: idol!changmin, reincarnation, soulmates, high school sweethearts, past lives, inspired by Goblin (TV), tbz ensemble. tw: mentions of death.

── .✦ 🚏 title is a reference to noah kahan's stick season. self-indulgent and inspired by a specific quote from Goblin: The Lonely and Great God! cross-posted from ao3.

── .✦ 📟 wc: 1,700+

When her friends take her to a The Boyz concert, she feels so inexplicably unwell the moment they step on stage. The nausea hits her with full force when her eyes land on the main dancer.

Before, when she was getting into the group, her heart would seize up at the sight of him. She never figured out why. But it was much more overwhelming now, unbearably so. 

She figures she just has to go to the bathroom. She’s breaking away from her friends, fighting through the crowd, when she looks over her shoulder and takes one more look towards the stage. The audience had broken into applause; the number was done and the boys were taking conservative sips of water. 

Their eyes meet.

She misses the look of recognition that passes his face, because her knees buckle and it all goes black. 

The concert screeches to a temporary halt as the medics usher out the poor girl that passed out. Later on, the boys talk about it backstage, mumbling things about crowd crush and dehydration. Changmin slips away to the bathroom where he splashes his face with water. 

He looks up in the mirror and sees himself in the school uniform of his past life. He blinks, and suddenly he’s back in the leather jacket of his present life. 

He never thought he’d find her. He had tried so hard to look for her, too, and all of it was useless. He had hoped and prayed that being part of a K-Pop group would make it easier for her to find her way to him. But not like this. Never like this.

He gets asked if he’s okay when he returns to everyone else. “I’m worried about the girl who fainted,” he answers. It’s a half-truth. He turns to their manager. “Can we find out who she is?” 

They tell him they’ll update him. “Please do,” he says, heart in his throat. The wait is the hardest part. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait much longer. 

Changmin insists that he can be the one to go to wherever she is, to make it easier for her. So they meet in some obscure cafe in her province, in Anseong. She can’t fathom why he’d go out of his way. She doesn’t know he’s traveled much farther in search of her. 

When she sees him, she feels the palpitations again. This can’t be normal, she thinks, but then he looks up from his coffee and the world goes quiet. 

It’s her, Changmin thinks. It’s really her. 

He always wondered what his first words would be to her after all the time and space. It turns out to be, “Please don’t faint this time.” 

She laughs, sits across from him. “I’ll try,” she says, and all Changmin can think is he’s home. He’s finally, finally home. 

There are archived newspaper articles and television reports about the incident that took their lives. The lives where they met, that is.

The one where he was Ji Changmin, class clown, no plans yet for college. She was the student council president with several scholarships to her name. 

Somehow, they made it work. Their relationship amused their peers, but Changmin was better because of it, Changmin was better for it. He was young, but he knew in his heart of hearts that he would marry this girl someday. And, by the looks of it, she thought the same. 

They had just decided to both aim for Yonsei University when the annual field trip happened, and the bus carrying their entire class careened off a cliff, and not a single soul aboard survived. 32 dead in Gyeongsang. 

Changmin and her were found side-by-side, their fingers intertwined. They had been sharing a pair of earphones just before the crash. She was half-asleep on his shoulder. It happened too suddenly, too fast for him to do anything but hold her hand. 

At the threshold of reincarnation, the two share a cup of tea with each other. 

They’re told that humans have four lives: A life of planting seeds, a life of watering the seeds, a life of harvesting, and a life of cherishing the harvests.

She has three more lives ahead of her. He has one left.

“Find me,” he begs. He doesn’t say, You are what I cherish. You are all I want. 

Her eyes sparkle with tears. She promises him, “I’ll find you.” 

When she goes ahead, he waits until his drink has gone cold. The Grim Reaper, taking pity on this forlorn boy, sneaks him the gift of memory. 

Ji Changmin is reborn in Cheongju-si. He knows the Grim Reaper meant well, but memory turns out to be more of a curse.

He spends half of his life avoiding buses and wondering where he’ll find her. 

It’s common knowledge that Changmin doesn’t need glasses. Fans find it endearing that his specs have no medical grade; sometimes even no lenses, just frames. 

Changmin the idol doesn’t need glasses, but the Changmin of Changnyeong Daeseong High School did. 

And so Changmin wore them on stage and in photos, in hopes that it would make him more familiar to her. If she ever saw a picture of him. If she ever looked him up.

Even when they reconnect, he cheats a bit by keeping them on around her, hoping it will jog her memory, if he looked exactly like the boy she once fell in love with. 

It gives her headaches and takes the wind out of her. Something inside of her screams every time they’re together, and she can never quite place why she’s so affected by him. 

On their fourth or so ‘date,’ she finally asks, “What are you doing here?” 

He’s booked and busy. He’s performing stages on music program broadcasts, preparing for a world tour. And yet. And yet here he is, sitting across from her in middle-of-nowhere Anseong, over 70 kilometers away from where he’s expected to be. 

Changmin shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “What do you mean?” 

“If you’re just here to check in on me because I passed out at that show—” 

“This—” He clears his throat and lowers his voice. “This has never been about that.” 

“Then what is this about, Q? What are you doing here?” 

He gives her a look, then, one that is inexplicably expectant and sad all at once. He looks like he wants to say something. He seems to decide against it at the last minute.

(In fact, all he wanted to say was that she should call him Changmin. Not Q. He didn't want to be Q, not to her.)

He settles on, “I like you. Isn’t that enough of a reason?”

It’s not.

She leaves first, then, refusing his offers to walk her home. The throbbing in her head subsides with each step away that she takes. Maybe this is for the best, she thinks to herself. Someone like Ji Changmin is bound to find someone else, someone better. 

Except he knows he won’t. Changmin gets himself so messed up that Sangyeon and Juyeon have to pry the bottles of soju out of his hands. They’re worried, they tell him. But they can’t help if they don’t know what’s going on. 

Changmin drunkenly blabbers on about reincarnation and the Grim Reaper, sufficiently spooking Chanhee and Sunwoo. They all eventually pick out the core of his issue: There’s a girl. There’s a girl who doesn’t like him back and he’s taking it hard. 

When they go on tour, they all try different approaches at helping Changmin heal. Sunwoo points out attractive fans. Sangyeon sits with Changmin and listens. None of it helps.

After the months-long trip overseas, Changmin gets over his fear of buses and shuttles straight to her. He had walked her home once or twice, so he knows which neighborhood to head for. He stands outside her gate for a couple of minutes before ringing the doorbell.

And when she emerges, wide-eyed with surprise, looking every bit as the girl he didn’t get enough time with, Changmin knows there is no someone else. There is no someone better. 

All he manages to say is, “Please.” What goes unsaid: I lost you once. I can’t bear to lose you again.

She’s staring at him like he’s insane. But then she sighs, steps aside, opens her door a little wider.

“Come in,” she says. “It’s cold outside.” 

It takes four months for her to be comfortable with him, and another six months for her to concede that she cares for him romantically. When she eventually tells him, he smiles so brightly that it almost hurts to look at him. 

The headaches never really go away. She brought them up to him, once, and he fell into contemplative silence before asking, “Do you want me to leave?” 

She thought about it for a moment. “No,” she decided. “I want you to stay.” 

Stay, he did. They go back and forth from Seoul and Anseong, though Changmin is keen on shouldering her expensive cab rides to his dorm instead of having her take the bus.

He likes sharing music with her and going on dates that are reminiscent of high school— afternoons in arcades, evenings along Han River. She finds it endearing; she indulges his every whim.

One day, she falls sick and he rearranges his plans to tend to her. He’s dabbing a damp handkerchief on her forehead when she reaches up and holds his wrist, her fingers pressing into his skin.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, panicked and worried. 

“Changmin,” she says in a voice that’s barely a gasp. 

“Yeah?” 

“Changmin.” 

He sees it, then. The recognition. The ghost of a memory. It might have been the delirium speaking, the illness taking over, but Changmin’s throat closes and he strokes her hair as he holds back tears. He’s not even sure if she’ll remember this in the morning, once the fever has passed, but it doesn't matter.

“Right. Hi. It’s me,” he stutters. His words fail him spectacularly.

She’s openly crying now. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“It’s okay. I didn’t think you ever would.” 

“You waited… For so long.” 

“And I’d do it again,” he says fiercely. “Hey, listen. I’d do it again. You found me. That’s what matters.” 

“I found you.” 

“You found me,” Changmin repeats.

In the distance, the radio is playing the song of some Western folk artist. And I'll dream each night of some version of you that I might not have, but I did not lose, the singer croons. 

Changmin is done dreaming. Changmin is done losing. 

“You found me,” he says, again. He presses a light kiss on her lips. Their first one in this lifetime.

She never has another headache again after that. 

[maximwtf]

“You’re stronger than that.”

                                    Jasper x gem reader

words: 1100

google docs pages: 2

Warnings: claustrophobia(ish), some bruises, Jasper is kinda mean, but we love her. 

opening: The ship is going down, and it takes Jasper for a while to figure out where you are after finding her way out from under the burning ship pieces. She tries to ‘help’ you in her own way. 

AN// It’s been 6 years and I’m still so down bad for her, someone help :”D Anyway, I’ll get this out and then probably post the second part for the Peridot fanfic !^^ (Sorry this is all taking me so long ahah!)

              “You’re stronger than that.”

The ship had been going down at full speed, and after surpassing the earth’s atmosphere it had set on fire. Peridot had escaped on her own, but you hadn’t had time to do that. It was your duty to stay by Jasper’s side and help her if she needed any help, but she was gone as far as you knew. Though, something had definitely hit the heart of the ship and caused it to start going down, and you had a bad feeling about what it had been. A quick look out of a window showed the flames surrounding the ship and the clouds that were going by fast. While gritting your teeth together, you closed your eyes and held onto a pole. There was no time to get out of here anymore either. The ship crashed down, causing you to fly against the nearest wall. There was only time to groan, before the hit caused the entire ship to blow up on the beach. No memories of what happened after were left, only darkness, and then the memory of laying against wet sand in a dark place.

There were pieces of the ship flying here and there, some of them falling into the ocean and some on the beach. The green fire lit up the evening on the beach, illuminating its light against the sand. There was something heavy on top of you, crushing you down. It was so dark under all the heavy trash, you couldn't even see a grain of sand. All the attempts of trying to lift yourself back up had failed, there were simply too many heavy pieces on you. Another piece fell on the pile, pushing your body back and further against the sand. You could feel waves from the ocean hit your arm that was stretched out and stuck under something. There must have been an opening. It took everything in your power to keep your form together while splashing the water with one arm. Somewhere in the distance a familiar voice echoed, the voice was talking about fusions…Jasper. Her voice cut off after you yelled out for her. It was dead silent for what felt like ages, but must have only been minutes. The quartz had spotted your hand peeking from under one of the piles. “Can you not lift yourself up?” She laughed at you, but from the small hole you had to peek out of, you could see she was stumbling herself as she walked. Talking was hard since you couldn’t get much air for being pressed down. A growl echoed from under the pile as you used all your power to try and lift yourself up, but it was no use. Only the very top pieces rolled off to the sides, making Jasper chuckle once again. She crouched down, not that you could see much of her anyway. “Are you that weak? Come on..” She sighed, shaking her head. You tried to move again, pressing your eyes shut. It was almost like you could hear her call you useless under her breath. “Jasper, as much as I’d like to..I clearly cannot..” You mumble against the sand, gritting your teeth to keep your form. The pile of trash quakes as Jasper hits it with her boot, some of the pieces fall off yet again. “Stop..” You grunt, eyes closed. “You’re stronger than that…” Jasper’s hoarse voice replied, kicking the pile again. It feels like the pieces push you down even further. “Jasper…” A whine comes out, your form shaking. “What a sad excuse of a gem.” Jasper states, standing up with a grin on her face. You felt like crying, but no tears came out. Instead, a burst of anger caused you to take in some air and rip your arm out from under the piece that had fallen on it. Jasper’s brows lowered as she watched this go down. You crawled up, using everything in you to push your hand through the ship materia, then pushing your body up to get out. The pieces that had been pushing you down fell off, revealing your bruised form. “There you go-” Jasper hummed, grinning. “I told you to stop..” You mumble. Stepping out of the pile causes you to stumble forward into the water. Before you’re able to hit the water though, Jasper grabs your wrist, swinging you back. She held you up a little to make sure you didn’t fall. You stared at her for a moment, hair covered in sand and form bruised. By some miracle your gem was okay though. 

“Are you okay?” You asked when she dropped you back to your feet. “Of course. She only beat me because she’s a fusion..” Jasper looked away. She was so serious about winning every single battle she was in, that it wasn’t even hard to guess she’d be upset over this. It was like she had to prove to everyone that she was better, no matter what it took and who she was up against. “If only I had someone to fuse with…” She mumbled, looking over at the Crystal Gems. Her gaze then landed on you, causing you to take a step back. “You. Fuse with me.” Jasper got closer, something new in her voice. “Be stronger that way, with me.” She had almost a crazy grin on her face, but then again..when did she not. Your body shook a little. This was against every rule you’ve ever been taught. But truthfully, you had no energy left to fight the gems on your own, so if this was the only way to win.. You turned to look at Jasper, offering a hand to her. The grin on her face only grew as she took a hold of you once more. With eyes closed, you felt Jasper spin you around. Both of your gems started to glow faintly in the darkening evening as she dropped you onto her other arm. Her hair was messy, some strands coming to her face. She looked so beaten up. Jasper’s gem illuminated an orange light to your chest and to her face. That was the last look at her you got before you fused. 

AN// This is really short, but I’m too tired to write anything longer, haha. I’ll try a little more next time!^^

[cosmicalily]

things my family (and friends) have said irl as things skz would say

tagging @hannahhbahng since harper was a lil excited about the last one !!!

chris:

"i'm unpredictable. i'm dangerous. i just put on my indicators and went straight."

"aw, thank you, you saved me a spot while i was busy rolling my ankle!"

"and while you finish that off im gonna draw some faces on eggs. because i’m an adult and i can."

"break your mate's hand...assert dominance...actually make sure they have medical insurance first."

*standing in the doorway* "i AM outside. i can feel the wind in my...beanie."

minho:

"if someone hits you, kill their mother."

"yeah, yeah, you don't wear sunscreen bc it makes you feel gross, y what'll feel grosser? chEMOTHERAPY, DUMB BITCH!"

"no offence? there is a fence! i have so many fences, i have a whole ass yard."

"c'mon now you've been through sexual education, you know how these things happen."

"you're not putting on your jumper right. you're meant to like, suffocate three times during the process, it's just sliding on nicely."

"i am jamie oliver reincarnated- oh wait he's not dead yet."

changbin:

"the rabbits eat the carrots and then the carrots eat the...oh wait that doesn't work."

"i'm sorry about my language but...it's fricking lit."

"do you mind if i eat my peanuts?"

"my goodness your hydrangeas are looking SMASHING!"

"is 'flamboyant' a good word to use?"

"those are the beaniest beans i've ever beaned."

hyunjin:

"i said bless you twice. i'm not saying it again."

"they're RECYCLED pants. they're made from crushing OLD PANTS, and turning them into NEW PANTS."

"i'm going to grammar my essay. full stop, full stop...talky marks, another full stop."

"no, because i am an inconsistent queen."

"well it is study skills, you're skilling your studies, studying your skills."

"pft, well, someone owns the moon!"

jisung:

"i sat in the freezer once for like 10 minutes and it was SO COLD."

"and maybe that's just my excessive people pleasing wait does your ear cuff go all the way around okay good."

"and so i tried talking to...i'm about to fall asleep."

"woah...trauma jokes are DEEP."

“eueOEHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! cancelcancelcancelcancelcancel.”

"living that pre-christian lifestyle!"

"you give a fish a man a day, that day, a man a live."

felix:

"you look very nice and golden. like a nice toasted waffle."

"no don't swear! the frog i'm playing in crossy road might be very young."

"I TOLD YOU EVERYTHING WAS FINE STUPID DUOLINGO MAN!"

"no we have to do it prehistorically."

"maybe i identify as a salamander."

"i don't think that's possible, i'm a morning person."

seungmin:

"it's not cheating, it's psychological consultation."

"in the nicest possible way, you look like a white rapper."

"no, i'm not writing CHAPTER THE THIRD, dumbass."

"thanks for the gift but my birthday was like four months ago and this is a library book."

"that never would've happened if you had SAFER CHAIR ETIQUETTE."

"that's like saying oh you have 5mins to answer this questioHA NEVERMIND!"

"MWAHAHAAHA my rat is coming along!"

jeongin:

"they're being PRODUCTED!"

"pretty sure he practices snoring."

"yeah, you love me. but not like that. no homo."

“HOW CAN YOU COMPARE SOMEONE TO A USELESS ORGAN THAT NOBODY LIKES BECAUSE IT EXPLODES?”

"if i just use really descriptive words...anne. frank. died. badly. anne frank died badly by death which is sad because she died by death."

[saeskiss]

𝐊𝐀𝐙𝐔𝐇𝐀, 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐎𝐃𝐃𝐀𝐌𝐍 𝐇𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐂.

kazuha x fem!reader. 1.5k wc. 5/6/23. part 2! part 3!

kazuha has had feelings for you for as long as you can remember, so why do you constantly play dumb?

✧ childhood friends to lovers, mutual pining, kazuha being a hopeless romantic (it’s in the title), mentions of the word hard (multiple times) (non-suggestive, i swear). 

“what are you sighing for?” you turn to the white-haired male, pen in hand, staring off into space, thinking hard—you observe this about him. 

he’s almost always thinking hard about many things and you find this admirable about him. its the way he’s able to have so much room in his brain to store the thoughts he holds. but this also grows bad habits of his where he tends to bottle his emotions up too much, leaving no room for people like you to enter.

you wish hard (theres the word again), that he would just open up about the thoughts that go on in his brain because you want to be able to think with him, and tell him that he’s not alone in whatever he’s thinking. 

“tons of things.” kazuha finally replies back after moments of silence, tapping his pencil onto his journal on the table with a stanza format written on it. 

kazuha knows that even if he tries to explain what was going in his head, it wouldn’t make any sense. so he wasn’t going to bother you with his useless endless rants that could go on forever if he really wanted to.

“i bet you’re thinking about me.” you rest your elbows onto the table, your head lying in both of your hands, giving kazuha a smug smile.

you could see the tip of his ears going red at the sudden words coming out of your mouth, surprising him but nonetheless keeping his composure.

“i bet i’m not.” he gives you a boop on the nose, and this time it’s your turn to get flustered by the tiniest of his touch that had made you yearn for more. 

kazuha chuckles, leaning back into his chair, thinking—once again. 

he’s aware that you want to know about the thoughts that go in his head, but he doesn’t allow you to see through him. it would be him indirectly admitting that he had a soft spot for you. and he couldn’t allow that.

he had built this wall in front of everyone—this facade that he allowed everyone else to see. and he had already let you see the vulnerable him and he couldn’t allow you to get to see more of him but this time with the thing he does best, speak his mind. 

kazuha then realizes that he could admit to a lot of things—like the time in primary school when he had asked your mom what type of chocolates you had liked and once he had decided on your many favorites, he went to your house to give you flowers and your favorite chocolates (including an additional stuffed animal) for valentines day and was all dressed up at your door but as soon as he was about to call you, he had received a notification on his phone that you had posted something and yet again another picture of you and your new boyfriend that he had been unaware about. and to thus, he failed miserably for one of the first several attempts he had tried to hint at you that he had this big fat schoolgirl crush. and he had declared it as a mission that he had to succeed. 

not like you were a mission or anything, he just wanted you to be aware of his feelings for you so you could think about them and reconsider your life choices. (and the last couple of years you’ve spent dating around; and when i mean dating around i mean dating someone new every month. hm, i wonder why there’s no spark between you and these people...)

he also remembers the time in primary school when he tried leaving notes and little love poems in your locker signed by a “secret admirer” that you tried to uncover for weeks but eventually gave up because the person (kazuha) had stopped writing to you. (he gave up because there was no point anymore) you were guessing everyone but him, could you believe that? he was astonished to say the least. he’s written and dedicated many, and i mean many poems to you, and he even showed some of them off at the art show at the attempt that someone would ask you if you guys were a thing, to even put the thought to linger in your brain for a bit, but you stopped them and reassured them it was just the amazing friendship bond you guys had. 

and not only that, but when he asked you to be his date to his dad’s wedding because he had told you that he had “no one” knowing he could’ve asked beidou, or someone else—anyone in fact, he was quite popular when it came to the looks aspect. you gladly obliged because he was asking a simple and short favor which you had thought nothing of at the time. 

again, kazuha will admit to many of his embarrassing attempts at asking you out when you guys were in primary school because, let’s face it; it was in the past and you wouldn’t and shouldn’t think anything of it because who would remember those as a thing that would taint you except for kazuha himself?

he can admit to many attempts at trying to woo you because, but he will never open his mouth and blatantly tell you that all he still has an embarrassing schoolgirl crush on you. it wasn’t even like he had any pride to begin with. he was a humble man, but he couldn’t risk everything—the years of work he’s—you guys had put into this friendship. 

he values your guys’ friendship above everything else in this entire world—maybe even more than he values his own ability to write. to just throw away your guys’ friendship like it was nothing would make his whole world come crashing down into pieces. 

your frown deepens, inches away from kazuha, expecting nothing else from him. he was going to give you the same vague answer every time, so why did you even bother?

this time, you sigh. this makes kazuha’s body shiver, at the feeling of your breath coming so close to his neck, his brain going hazy at all the endless outcomes this conversation could give him.

“now, why are you sighing?” he turns his body to face you making eye contact with you.

because i want to know what goes on in that pretty little brain of yours. the words that you couldn’t bring yourself to say so you bite your lip, nervous that the words would just come spewing out of your mouth. 

“nothing.” you give kazuha a smug smile, leaving him speechless at the fact that you had used one of things he had said earlier against him. 

you see the way that his lips do a slight upturn, impressed with the answer you had given him. “i’m impressed.” you flash a grin and by now, you’re sure he’s is smiling at you so hard that his cheeks are starting to grow numb. 

“i learn from the best.” you lightly tap his nose and just from that you see a light shade of pink tinting his cheeks.

“i know.” he smiles as he places his pen down on the table and faces you properly. he resists—he swears he resists, but the words come out of his mouth like a sudden word vomit, nothing that he could put back into his mouth now that they were out.

a moment of silence passes before kazuha opens his mouth, choosing his choice of words carefully. 

“i’m in love with you.” your eyes widened at the sudden confession coming out of kazuha’s mouth. you knew that he had lingering feelings for you in the past, but you never knew that what he felt for you was love. and the fact that he still had it. you knew his sudden attempts at wooing you in primary school was him showing his love for you, automatically assuming that love was platonic, but you seriously never thought his love was the same as your love for him.

oh god. 

“what?” the first word you say back to kazuha is what. wow. great job. don’t screw this up. you silently tell yourself, crossing your fingers under the table.

kazuha takes a moment to think to himself of what he should say next, and he decides that the best thing he could possibly do is move on because your reaction does not seem satisfactory in his eyes. (he’s calling you the oblivious one). 

“never mind. want to read this poem i wrote?” he gets up from his position where he was facing you. you nod in response dumbstruck by the change of kazuha’s words.

oh fuck me. 

“also do you want to go to my mom’s second wedding as my plus one? she said for me to bring someone.” he looks up from his journal where your eyes meet and suddenly you find yourself immersed into kazuha’s trance. 

“of course i can, should i get her a gift?” and for the rest of the night, the topic was long forgotten and the words that you had want to reciprocate back to kazuha had been shoved down to the bottom of your throat and saved in a small bag for next time. 

©saeskiss 2023

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - September 10th

 Hey, friends!! Short and dirty this week, I’m on a whirlwind trip to help my bestie paint her house so--enjoy and be sure to leave comments/kudos! 

~*~ 

Ain't It A Shame, Too Bad? by Carsonian

On his twenty-fourth birthday, Tony was saved from drowning by a man he has yet to find. In other news, Tony's fallen hard for the mute, scrawny blond that washed up on his kingdom's shoreline two-and-a-half days ago. These two things can't possibly be related, can they?

A Gentle Lullaby by navaan

They, all of them, are mortal and sometimes their brushes with death bring them closer to it than other people ever get. Fighting is what they do. But fighting for other people's survival without a thought to your own safety is easy when you're not leaving someone behind. Good then, that they don't have any families left... Until Hydra drops a new bundle of responsibility right in their laps. But that might not even be their biggest problem.

Crash Love by S_Hylor

It’s just sex. Just sex between two consenting adults who don’t have feelings for each other beyond the camaraderie that comes from being on the same team.

It’s just sex. Until it isn’t. It’s not love. Until it is.

To Liars and Saving the World by magicasen 

When Tony's life is in danger, Steve does the only thing he can do to save his teammate: he makes an honest man out of him. Steve and Tony's sham marriage is only supposed to be a blip in their history that no one has to know about. But when they're outed to the press, and with ghosts from his past coming to haunt him, Steve must come to terms with the idea that his own feelings for Tony might not be a lie.

Wrapped Up in Your Love by iam93percentstardust 

Tony has a bad day, so Steve takes care of him.

america's pastime by JenTheSweetie

The thing about the Annual Intra-Avengers Baseball Game was that it was always a little... contentious.

nothing left but scars by SailorChibi

Steve wakes up to the fact that no one ever compliments or even says thank you to Tony, and that he has fallen into the same trap of painting Tony with a specific paintbrush.

This is how he showers a very confused Tony with praise to make up for it.

a slow ticking wildness by starvels (dinosaur) 

Three weeks ago, Tony burned his hands in his forge. Since then, he's been unable to use them, useless and listless.

Relying on the kindness of strangers ain't exactly his expertise. Luckily, Sheriff Steve Rogers has good hands and a heart hale enough to keep offering bits of help and hope to Tony, no matter that he ain't all that good at accepting them.

when it feels right by complicationstoo 

“You’re actually hiring me after that?” Tony asks, the disbelief clear in his watery brown eyes.

Steve shrugs, “Gotta start somewhere, right? And if you’re terrible, it’s not like I can’t fire you.”

  Or, the one where Steve owns a bakery and Tony needs a job.

Diamonds Or Twine by complicationstoo 

A hand on his shoulder grabs his attention, and Steve realizes he’s been staring off into space as Bucky says, “Hey, man. You good?”

“I’m going to propose to Tony.”

So Little Left to Give by Sineala 

Steve's alive again... but Tony isn't anywhere to be found. Steve knows what to do about that. His quest to find Tony takes him to the frozen depths of Russia, to rescue Tony from one of his greatest foes. But that's not all he has to contend with. Tony's in the process of deleting his own brain, and Steve doesn't know if the man he finds will still remember him.

the hedgehog (and one million blue whales) by soliloquent 

“Hm. But, how hard?” Tony challenges.

Steve ponders for a second. “As hard as one million blue whales sitting on you.”

“One million?” Tony looks genuinely in awe. “I reckon that would crush one tiny hedgehog, don’t you think?”

“Nah. You're all spiky. Small, but feisty. The whales wouldn't stand a chance.”

—⎊—

or: Steve and Tony's love story unfolding through a series of everyday moments in the span of two years, pieced together to paint the canvas of their intertwined lives — a precious portrait woven with quirky whale-themed endearments, meaningful acts of service, soothing showers, cherished gifts, and one adorable hedgehog. 🦔

Hold Me Down by tinystark616

Steve asks Tony to wear one of his iron man suits and hold his wrists down during sex.

Tony gives Steve what he wants, and more.

Teacher, Teacher, Can You Reach Me? by Politzania

After spotting a flyer at a new coffee shop, Rhodey dares Tony to attend a Sip and Sketch class; turns out the twinky blond barista is also the class instructor.

Stony AUniverse Bingo - AU: Teacher -- Tony Stark Bingo - Dares/Bets -- Tony Stark This or That - Best Friend -- July Break Bingo - Location: Art Studio

To Make Flowers Grow (In This Barren Heart) by KakushiMiko, SoldiersShield

“You hide yourself away in your technology, but you are just as human as the rest of them. Your heart betrays your desire to possess.” Her gaze falls to the arc reactor, and Tony's blood runs cold in his veins.

“The Earth will reclaim what we have lost,” she says, dragging a hand over the chestplate of the armor. “It is you, and your kind-- your greed that pulls life from the soil as if it were nothing. You will reap what you have sown, Stark. The avarice in your heart will strangle the very life out of you.” Arna meets his eyes once more, a serene smile on her face as she leans forward.

“I hope he is worth dying for,” she murmurs, before digging her hand into his ribcage.

 (Tony Stark falls in love with Steve Rogers. A rogue enchantress ensures he pays for it.)

A Guiding Hand by KandiSheek

Tony is perpetually stressed. His job, his divorce and his insomnia are making his life a living hell. He just can't seem to catch a break.

That is until his boss Steve inadvertently gives him exactly what Tony needs - a firm hand. Tony hasn't played with his submissive tendencies in years, but he knows an opportunity when he sees one. And as it turns out, Steve is more than happy to give him the guidance he craves.

Made of Stars by KagekaNecavi

Deep in the heart of World War II, Steve, Bucky, the Invaders, and the Howling Commandos are getting close to finding the portion of Hydra controlled by the Red Skull and defeating him. As they close in, they receive intelligence that he has am unusual escape method - a machine powered by a mysterious gem that might give Skull the ability to move through time. This seems like a red herring to them, but when Steve and Bucky corner Skull, he uses it.

Steve and Bucky follow Skull and the next thing Steve knows, he’s waking up on a spaceship called the Avenger and the Red Skull - who went back in time, not forward - has ruled the known galaxy for the last several hundred years. Now he’s working with the rebels to usurp the Red Skull and trying to navigate this strange, amazing new world with his new friends and companions at his side.

[gingerylangylang1979]

When a man knows, he knows

Disclaimer: I’m making this analysis solely based on my memories of Season 2 and all the Tumblr meta. I just don’t have the stomach to go back and rewatch quite yet because I do need to rewatch the Carmy and Claire scenes for more clarity. I’m still in recovery. 

So I keep trying to figure out the Carmy and Claire thing. There are so many angles and it’s a bit confusing. I get him trying to capitalize on the opportunity to explore the childhood crush and his youth, I get her ties to the Berzattos, I get that she was an escape and provided comfort and reassurance, I get that he couldn’t balance opening The Bear and starting a new relationship in the honeymoon phase, I get that he never showed his real self to her and she coddled him. 

My question, and I’m almost afraid to ask, but it must be done, is do they stand any kind of a chance if he did find balance, healed a bit, and felt worthy of love. Why am I asking this? Because I’m trying to imagine a scenario where he is doing better and what would make him try again with her. 

Maybe I have my Carmy and Sydney shipper goggles on but I keep coming back to choice. When a man knows, he knows. Of all the men in my life who were serious about me, they just knew. That doesn’t mean they weren’t nervous at times or may have asked those close to them for advice. But they just knew they were all in. And they were all in because of me, not to escape something else. A partner can be a solace in the storm, true. But there is a difference between recharging in the warmth and care of a partner after facing a battle. But that isn’t what Carmy did. He literally was running from obligations and using his very much undefined relationship as a hideout. 

So I never felt like he chose Claire. He had to be told to label it, he said he loved her a lot, and on some level perhaps he did/does (which later he switches back to like?), but it’s not the kind of in love that means a choice was made. And for as bad as it got in the finale, I’m not sure a new relationship is worth trying to rekindle when all of that hurt happened between two people and one is head over heels and the other one is having a panic attack at the thought of it. 

I mean what would be a proper next step? If they continue this into next season, my goodness. How would Claire have any dignity and what would be Carmy’s motivation? The only way I could see it is if because of him not being present for opening he slacks off with her again because he feels useless. But I don’t know if I see that, it would be a repeat of him using her as a distraction and would be boring for the audience. 

He’s also becoming aware of his feelings for Sydney and I think that will show more next season while they also have conflict about his commitment. Do we need Claire in the middle of that? The only way I would be okay with that is if the tables turn and Carmy goes hard for The Bear and Claire is the one asking for more while he is committed to Sydney (the storyline I wanted for this season). 

Anyways, rambles, rambles. 

[sadwizardlover]

The Memories We Share

Summary: Rolan and Tav go watch some fireworks together; a lot of reminiscing occurs Tags: Gnome Tav, (slight) angst, hurt/comfort, fluff Author's note: inspired by a tadpole @rolanpilled stuck in my brain

Link on AO3 (For background context, my Tav is a gnome bard who was adopted and raised by humans)

It had been a ridiculous idea from the beginning, going to see the fireworks at Gray Harbor. Rolan had tried telling Tav–they had their own tower, in the Upper City, with a balcony from which they’d most certainly have a better view of the fireworks than from on the ground. But Tav had insisted–in that irritating, infuriating, but somehow irresistible way of hers–that it wouldn’t be the same. She was a Baldurian through and through, and firmly believed the best (and only) way to experience life in Baldur’s Gate was to spend time where Baldurians actually went. Even if that meant being stuck in a crowd crush by the docks, with the air scented by rotting fish and the unwashed masses.

“And besides,” Tav had said, “my parents used to take me to see the Harbor fireworks all the time when I was small. I want to share that with you, too.”

Well. Who was he to argue with that?

Which was how they found themselves in their current predicament: trapped in the middle of a noisy throng of people near the Water Queen’s House, minutes before the fireworks were due to start, with Tav anxiously rummaging through her comically disorganized pack for a scroll. If Rolan hadn’t been so grumpy about having been induced into going to the Harbor in the first place, he would have smugly said I knew this would happen. Because the one argument he hadn’t made in trying to talk her out of her silly idea–out of sensitivity for her feelings–was that she was a gnome, and was hardly going to be able to see anything surrounded by people double her size.

“I know I have a Scroll of Enlarge in here somewhere,” Tav was saying, as she pulled yet another useless ring out of her pack (why did she have so many things in there to begin with? He’d told her time and time again that she didn’t need to pick up every shiny object that caught her eye like some sort of demented crow…) “I’m sorry Rolan, I should’ve thought about this before…”

“It’s….fine,” he said huffily, avoiding looking at her as she started frantically shaking her bag. “How did you watch the fireworks with your parents?”

“What?”

“I said, how did you watch the fireworks with your parents when you were…little…smaller than you are now?”

“Oh! My mom Hanna would pull me up,” Tav said. “She wanted me to be able to see everything so she’d just sort of lift me up on her shoulders and I’d sit there during the show. It was quite nice…” At this last bit her voice softened. Rolan glanced over and saw she was looking off in the distance, her eyes shining slightly with moisture. Zurgan, had he made her cry? He knew he could be insensitive, but he hadn’t thought he’d said anything particularly—

Oh. Her mother. Rolan recalled Tav telling him about Hanna, one of the two human women who’d raised her, over dinner at the Blushing Mermaid a few months before. “This was Hanna’s favorite tavern too,” she’d said, laughing as they’d watched the barkeep chuck a drunken sailor out onto the porch. 

“Before she met my mom Esme, she used to work for the Guild as a–well as a con artist I guess, I can’t really sugar coat what she did–and she’d come here to find marks. The pickings here were almost always good, she used to tell me, and even on days when they weren’t, nothing beat kicking back with a strong pint of ale and someone easy on the eyes for company.” She’d looked up at him with a slight flush in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eyes that made his heart stutter; he’d coughed and tried to change the subject.

“Are your parents still in Baldur’s Gate? They must be worried sick all the time, what with you constantly having to play the hero.” He’d meant it as a joke, a bit of lighthearted banter so she’d stop looking at him so coquettishly with those big bright eyes, but the way her expression changed to one of shock made him instantly wish he could take it back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean–”

“No no, it’s fine! It’s fine.” The brightness in her voice was hollower than her usual upbeat tone, like she was forcing herself to stay cheery. “They’re not around anymore, no. They’ve been gone for, oh, about a decade now? Yeah, I think it’s been a decade…Hanna went…Hanna died…Hanna…” Tav had taken a deep breath and then shot out a rapid spew of words, as if trying to force them out before she burst. “Hanna was killed a few streets over from here, there were some halflings, mom always looked out for little folk like me and they were getting mugged or something like that and mom just couldn’t walk away, not my Hanna, and, well, one of the muggers had a knife and it had been years since mom was with the Guild so she wasn’t as sharp on her feet…and then someone found her in the alley and they tried to get her to a healer but you know, there was only so much time. And then they came to our shop to tell us.”

Rolan had been baffled on how to react to this. That she’d felt compelled to tell him such a painful memory because of something he’d said–that she even had such painful memories, when he’d always just assumed she’d blazed through her entire life with the same relentless cheerfulness with which she’d blazed into his—struck him with such guilt that he wanted to slap himself. He’d known she was adopted; he’d even, for a time, resented her for it: because her parents had chosen to love her despite her not being of their blood or their kind, while his parents, his flesh and blood, had rejected him outright. But she’d said she’d grown up happy. Rolan had thought she’d always been happy.

Gods, what an ass he was, as usual; couldn’t even make a joke properly without hurting someone he cared about, what a complete and total ass–

“Rolan.” Tav’s voice had snapped him out of his self-hating spiral, and he’d looked up to see that she had reached across the table and was gently touching his sleeve. “It’s okay. Really, it’s okay. It does hurt to think about, sometimes, and I haven’t talked about it with anyone in…well, I’ve never really talked about it to begin with. But I wanted to tell you. I chose to tell you, because my parents were important to me, and you’re important to me too, and I want to share those memories with you, even if they hurt.” The way she’d looked at him as she’d said this, with such gentleness and kindness and something else that he didn’t dare name–because he wasn’t sure he deserved that from her–nearly short circuited his brain. 

“So! Don’t be too hard on yourself, grumpy goblin,” Tav said, before she’d sat back in her chair and beamed at him with her normal sparkle–but with a hint of tenderness still left in her eyes. They’d continued their dinner as normal after that: talking about what her companions and Cal and Lia had been getting up to recently, arguing over silly things (she’d accidentally flooded the floor in the Tower earlier that week by having Shadowheart cast a rain spell; Tav insisted she’d done it so she wouldn’t drip doppleganger blood all over the carpet, Rolan couldn’t believe she was really that dense and hadn’t she heard of just taking a bath?). 

But he couldn’t help but feel like they’d crossed some sort of invisible threshold he’d not been aware of before, and while the thought made him apprehensive, it also made him more than a little pleased–as if he’d passed a test he hadn’t studied for with flying colors.

Now though–with the first of the fireworks lighting the sky overhead and Tav hastily swiping her fingers across her eyes as though that could disguise the fact that she was very definitely starting to cry–Rolan desperately wished he was actually as gifted with words as he pretended to be. There had to be something, anything, he could say to make her feel better; she’d been looking forward to this night for weeks and with one stupidly careless question he’d ruined it for her. But what was he supposed to say? Apologies for bringing up your dead mother (again), I only asked because I wondered how you could possibly see anything here, being so short? Lia would kick him in the shin for even considering it. 

Fine, then. If words failed him then action would have to do. Rolan’s mind rapidly shuffled through a small pool of possibilities, ranging from patting her on the head (too patronizing) to grabbing her by the shoulders and kissing her (WHY was he even imagining that). Finally, in what seemed like a fit of divine insight, he seized on the perfect plan of attack.

“Tav,” Rolan said, with more force than he’d intended. “Get behind me.” Tav looked up at him like he’d suddenly grown an extra head.

“Rolan, are you alright?” she asked, with a look of such concern it made him want to scream. “If you want to go home now we can…”

“That’s not what I said,” he snapped.

“Then what–”

“Oh for the love of all the gods–come here.” Rolan moved closer to Tav and then bent down in front of her, hoping she’d take the hint. Unfortunately she seemed to be particularly insistent on being obtuse tonight. “Get on my back, you idiot, I look ridiculous squatting like this.”

“Oh! Oh. Are you sure?”

“Why wouldn’t I be sure? I’m crouching in front of you, surrounded by all these people who will probably be gossiping for days about how they saw the Archmage of Ramazith’s Tower bending down in front of a gnome, because I want you to be able to see the fireworks at the fireworks show that you insisted we go to even though I have a perfectly good tower that we–ow!!” He grimaced as Tav wrapped her arms around his neck and then playfully choked him. “What was that for?!”

“You talk too much sometimes,” she said with a laugh. “You can lift me up now.”

“Do you think I’m your mule or something and you can just boss me around? You’re worse than Cal and Lia,” Rolan grumbled, but he did what she’d told him to anyway, making sure to support her so she didn’t lose her balance. Funny–until just that moment, he’d forgotten that the last time he’d carried someone like this had been when his siblings were younger, demanding all of his attention and endless piggyback rides. Lia would pretend that she was a Hellrider, charging into battle to defend Elturel on a mighty warhorse; Cal would ask Rolan to act like a bear (complete with bear noises) and dance around with him on his back. It had been such a small and easy thing for him to do, but the way they’d laughed and screeched and tugged at his sleeves to beg for just one more ride, pretty please, had made Rolan feel like the most important person in the universe. After years of fending for himself and having life spit in his face, he’d coveted and craved that feeling more than anything. 

A series of multicolored fireworks like enormous flowers burst into the air above them and Tav gasped in delight. She was so easily delighted–he was fairly sure he could replicate the same sort of pyrotechnics from the Tower, only his fireworks would be three times as large and have even more colors–but even so, hearing how happy she sounded made Rolan’s earlier surliness vanish. He wondered if this was how she’d been when her parents had taken her to see the fireworks: oohing and aahing at every little explosion, legs swinging back and forth, her face resting against her mother’s head. He smiled imagining it, and also at the thought that in this moment, he was partially the cause of her happiness.

“Oooh Rolan, Rolan look!” Tav was tapping on his horn to get his attention. He glanced over at where she was pointing. A bit further down from them, a group of kids was casting prestidigitation spells into the air, little bursts of color and light lingering for only a moment before flickering away. They weren’t very good at it; had Rolan been their tutor, he would’ve pointed out at least three critical flaws in their execution and taken marks off for sloppy spellwork. But Tav clapped loudly and shouted “bravo!” when they were finished, causing the amateur casters to giggle bashfully and take a bow.

“You really are far too easy to please,” Rolan said with a smirk. “If I cast Colour Spray you’d be so overwhelmed with awe you’d probably faint.”

“Don’t be jealous, Rolan. I clapped for you too, remember?" Tav said this not in her usual cheery tone but softer, lower, and right next to his ear. Was she flirting with him? He couldn't be sure, but his tail twitched with pleasure anyway.

And he did remember, actually, even though it felt like years has passed since then. Back at her camp outside the druid’s grove, when they’d all been celebrating the goblin’s defeat, when they’d all been buoyed by the expectation that in a few days they’d be safe in Baldur’s Gate. Before the Shadow-Cursed Lands had cut off that hope for so many of them. Before Cal and Lia…no, he wouldn’t think of that. Right now they were safe and happy and living a life the three of them could never have imagined; that was all that mattered.

They owed that life to Tav. When she’d clapped for his silly little show at her camp, he’d hardly known or cared to know her; she was just a gnome who (in his view) had killed the goblin leaders through sheer dumb luck. He did appreciate that she’d given his siblings something to feel good about, because by the gods they needed it, but his main focus was on getting to his apprenticeship with Lorroakan. His whole future hinged on that one opportunity, leaving him no time or consideration for anything else, and even though Rolan had told her party he hoped to meet them again in Baldur’s Gate he hadn’t seriously meant it. He was certain they’d never see each other again.

And yet. Time and time again, Tav had come barging into his life–always when he was at his lowest, when he felt like the gods had singled him out for a lifetime of nothing but heartbreak and abuse–like a one-gnome force of nature dead set on making him see value in himself and taking down anyone who stood in his way. Even though she had so many other things to worry about and the fate of a city and the entire Sword Coast was in her hands, Tav always put him first in everything. Rolan was unused to being put first in anyone’s thoughts; hells, he wasn’t used to being thought of at all by anyone apart from his family. He’d never understand why she cared so much about him, but Zurgan he was so grateful she did that the force of his gratitude could’ve torn him apart.

Of course Rolan couldn’t tell her any of this. He’d never find the right words, and even if he did, the bit of stubborn pride he still possessed would never let him. So instead he fell back on his old strategy for dealing with the feelings he couldn’t express or didn’t want to dwell on, and deflected grumpily. 

“Jealous? Of children? I would’ve thought you knew me better by now but it seems I was sorely mistaken, if you think that your clapping for children who can barely cast and are even shorter than you is enough to make me jealmmMPH–!" 

His grumbling was cut off abruptly by Tav tilting his face up and tenderly pressing her lips against his own. Rolan immediately forgot what he’d been complaining about just a second before; every thought flew straight out of his head, except for the one that was screaming at him to kiss her back before she realized she’d made a terrible mistake and ran horrified out of his life forever. And so he did, trying his best to put all his feelings for her that he couldn’t put into words–his awe, his gratitude, his love–into this one kiss. The awkward angle made his neck ache and he just knew someone in the crowd around them was going to leak to the Gazette about how Archmage Rolan went around kissing gnomes in public, but none of that mattered right now. The only thing that mattered was Tav.

When she finally pulled her mouth away from his, Rolan didn't want to open his eyes, terrified that she'd be looking at him with disgust or hatred. Instead his eyes fluttered open and Tav was….smirking at him?

"That was nice, huh?" she said, in a tone that both made him want to kiss her again and made him want to drop her on her head. "Aren't you glad you agreed to come here with me?"

"You—you are—you're–" Words were failing him completely. "Ugh, you're an idiot!" 

Tav laughed. "I am, but I'm your idiot. And," She gently cupped his cheek in her hand and planted a soft kiss on his forehead, "this idiot is happy you could share this memory with her. Truly, Rolan. There's nowhere I'd ever rather be than with you."

Her words made him so happy he might actually combust, but not knowing how to reply in a way that wouldn't make him sound like a lovesick schoolboy, he just looked away instead. “Are you actually going to watch the fireworks you made such a fuss over, or should we just go home?” Rolan snapped, hoping she’d pick up on the lightheartedness in his tone. Tav chuckled softly in response and lay her head back against his. As the last of the fireworks tumbled across the night sky, he suddenly realized he’d never felt more content than he did just then. After everything they’d been through–both together and apart–the fact that he could simply share an ordinary moment with her like this was the sweetest reward he could ever have hoped for.

Hm, he thought to himself, maybe coming here wasn’t such a ridiculous idea after all.

[marc--chilton]

okay Yes big big fan of house nesting when he’s sad/lonely but also finding it demeaning. like he just HAS to make himself miserable it’s his fav hobby.

what iffff during a particularly bad time (bad pain day, case gone awry, etc etc.) house shuts himself up in his apartment & nests, because all he wants is to be curled up with wilson but he figures this is as good as he’ll get. but then wilson (sensing that something is off) comes to check on House and finds him curled up in his nest,,,,, like would he comfort house & try to look after him?? if so would house let him?? or would he just pretend he never saw it (even though he reallyyyy wanted to intervene) so that it didn’t cross any boundaries?? what if house heard him come into the room & then leave?? what if house whined & asked him to stay in the smallest saddest voice?? what if house tried to push wilson away and wilson refused and said he’s not going anywhere????? !! ??

i’m in desperate need for some hurt comfort hilson omegaverse angst 😔🤙🏻

KILLING ME SOFTLY WITH THIS ONE BESTIE

____________

In the burrow of dirty laundry and throw blankets, the sound of gentle knocks hardly came through. Faintly, he heard his own name being called from the hall. House didn't move to answer but the whine that left his dry throat came out unbidden anyway.

Go away, he wanted to growl. Isn't someone's home supposed to be their sanctuary?

Even if that were true, Wilson always had a spare set of keys.

The traitorous lock giving way still managed to be deafening even when House went the extra mile to crush his head under the pillows he'd stowed away in this shitty little stress-nest. He pressed it harder against his ear the closer those Oxfords came, biting back another whine when Wilson beckoned again. The bedroom door opened wider, silent except for the one spot in the hinge where it creaked softly.

"I saw your bike, I know you're h-- oh."

As if it couldn't get any more mortifying. House couldn't see him, buried as he was, but he could practically feel the mild concern, already picturing the little furrow on thick brows. He didn't dignify him with an explanation, even a fake one. It had been a long day.

Footsteps came even closer and House curled up tighter, warm with shame.

"This is.... a bit much, don't you think?" An opening, the words light enough to allow for an out.

House, dehydrated and voice unused -- if one doesn't count involuntary whines, whimpers, and growling -- since he left the hospital who knows how many hours ago, could only croak back, "Get out, Wilson."

It was met with a sigh so heavy he nearly flinched. "There wasn't anything you could have done for that boy, House."

His eyes wrenched shut. That boy, his last patient. He hadn't even been old enough to drink yet. Brought in after collapsing at the park while watching, not even participating, with a basketball game among friends. Innocuous symptoms turned acute, false leads meant useless test, meant wasted time. What was initially brushed off as low blood sugar and heatstroke turned out to be an incomplete fetal rejection; a mark from the alpha girlfriend he cheated on combating the pregnancy from the affair itself leading to a malformed embryo literally killing him from inside out. If only he figured it out sooner that kid could have been getting dumped instead of chilling in the morgue.

So deep in his head he hadn't noticed Wilson leaving and coming back in until a cold water bottle was slipped in through the slit in the weave he had been using to breathe through. "Sit up so you don't drown." A bitchy suggestion from a friend, not a command from an alpha. Commendable when sometimes the voice was the only thing that could push through House's contrarian attitude.

"Why are you here? I'm not gonna kill myself because one patient died." Water after days of hospital coffee might as well have been ambrosia. "You've done your good deed, you're free to go now."

The bed dipped under Wilson's weight as he settled in close by without invading the nest itself. He spoke easily over House's warning growls. "No."

"No?"

"No. Glad to know you're not gonna off yourself, but I think you forget you're in a nest right now. You're not in heat," damn him for catching the excuse House had locked and loaded, "and you're sure as hell not pregnant, which can only mean you just feel shitty for your patient dying anyway. It's almost sweet how hard you take it sometimes."

House's growling took on a dangerous tone.

"My point is," the stupid, beautiful, sickeningly perfect alpha continued with placating gestures House could not see, "if you feel bad enough that you need to do all this, then I don't feel comfortable leaving you alone."

"Go away, Wilson." They were equally stubborn at times so House knew he was probably wasting his breath, but whatever.

He was met with the sounds of shoes slipping off socked feet and the rustle of an ugly tie being loosened. "Okay, well, what if I told you I'm staying to make myself feel better? To... satiate my savior complex or whatever."

Growls tapering into a sigh, the fight in him gave way. When life gives you lemons.... House snaked a hand out of the nest, palm up, whining in such a way he could only manage without the added stress of eyes on him. Begging.

With a snort, amused and surprised, Wilson folded his tie into House's hand. Nice, very nice, he'll be taking that, thank you very much, but not quite what he was asking for. Pianist fingers wrapped tightly around Wilson's wrist, tugging in demand. Wilson hesitated for barely a second before he cautiously let his arm be tugged into the ramshackle nest. The tie was extricated carefully from between them to be tucked under House's cheek, to be nuzzled into, a token of comfort for an omega soaked in the scent of an alpha.

Then, gently, with a touch so light it tickled, delicate fingers traced along Wilson's hand, from fingerprints to forearm where his sleeve was rolled up. He shivered when a thumb pressed softly into the gland on his wrist, then again at the sound of House's deep inhale and sigh. Bravely, Wilson started to purr, a wordless reassurance that what was happening was okay.

To his immense delight, House purred back. It was going to be okay.

[the-cult-of-riley]

Sleeping With Ghosts (Act One: Chapter Nineteen)

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Female OC

[[Masterlist]]

A/N: Some good ol’ Christmas drama and also some very protective Simon.

Nine Inch Nails - In This Twilight

Watch the sun

As it crawls across a final time

And it feels like

Like it was a friend

If it's watching us

And the world we set on fire

Do you wonder

If it feels the same?

And the sky is filled with light

Can you see it?

All the black is really white

If you believe it

As your time is running out

Let me take away your doubt

You can find a better place

In this twilight

Dust to dust

Ashes in your hair remind me

What it feels like

And I won't feel again

Night descends

Could I have been a better person

If I could only

Do it all again

But the sky is filled with light

Can you see it?

All the black is really white

If you believe it

And the longing that you feel

You know none of this is real

We will find a better place

In this twilight

Simon had sworn he’d never hit a woman, not after watching his father take his hand to his mother far too many times, yet right now, his resolve was getting weaker and weaker.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” he asked harshly, dark eyes burning like coal as he glared at the woman at his door. The woman's eyes narrowed dangerously and she put one of her hands on her hip.

“I don't know who you think you are, I’m not here for you!” she snapped and Simon’s sanity was hanging onto dear life with a fragile piece of thread. 

“And I don't know who the fuck you think you are! Turnin’ up here like you have the fuckin’ right!” he hissed back and his hands gripped the door handle so tightly that the metal groaned under his touch. 

“I’m her mother,” she growled.

“You’re nothin’ but a fuckin’ surrogate!” he bellowed, his composure well and truly gone. “Bein’ a mother is more than pushin’ her out your dirty fuckin’ minge, you daft cunt! You’ve got no right to come here on Christmas fuckin’ Eve to ruin her day. It’ll be a cold day in hell when I let you near her,” he seethed and he was sure his face said it all because she had the sense to take a step back. 

As if Charlotte’s fucking mother turned up at his doorstep like this. He was glad his girl was at work because god only knows what this would have done to her and he had no fucking clue how the bitch found out where she was. The woman pursed her lips before pulling an envelope out of her coat pocket.

“Will you at least give her this?” she asked him and he snatched it off her, seeing Charlotte’s name scribbled on the front of it. He wanted to tell her no, wanted to set the fucking thing on fire so she never had to see whatever lay inside of it but he knew he couldn't do that. This wasn't his place, wasn't his right to take away from her, so he just nodded with a clenched jaw.

“Fine, now fuck off and don’t come back,” he spat harshly. 

He wished he felt better when the twat was gone but he didn't feel any more relaxed at all. He sat heavily on the couch, glaring at the envelope on the coffee table. He wanted to tear it open and read it, to see if he should allow her to read it or not. What if she was grovelling for another chance? Lottie and her soft, bleeding heart would do it, he fucking knew she would and she didn't deserve to get hurt again and he knew that's exactly what would happen. It's what always happened with useless parents like them. 

What if she wasn't begging for forgiveness she’d never earn though? What if she was being horrible? What if whatever was in that envelope would crush his girl's sweet soul? The very thought made his chest burn and he snatched the letter off the coffee table, leg bouncing as he tried to shake himself out of the anger he found himself stewing in. He really didn't want to invade her privacy, didn't want to take the choice away from her to know what was in it, but he loathed that he had no idea just what the letter said or what it would do to her. 

He was broken out of his thoughts by the girl in question coming through the front door. Despite it being Christmas Eve, she’d volunteered to work so some of her colleagues with kids could have the day off, always the softie she was. She’d told him not to walk her back because he wasn't at base and she didn't want him turning up in the cold for her. He had been planning to anyway and then the woman from hell had turned up and ruined it all. 

“Hey,” she grinned at him, shaking her hair and letting some of the snow shake out of it before she took her coat off and hung it up. When he didn't answer her or greet her in a way he typically would, her face turned into a frown as she slowly started to walk over.

“What's up?” she asked warily and he swallowed thickly, rubbing his free hand over his face.

“Sit with me, love,” he murmured, trying his hardest to make himself sound softer than he felt on the inside. Wasn't her fault he was this pissed off. She walked over carefully, perching on the couch next to him as she eyed him suspiciously. He couldn't look at her and he cleared his throat, handing out the envelope. She took it with tentative hands, brows furrowed as she read her name.

“Your… your mum turned up,” he bit out and her head snapped to him, eyes wide and confused. 

“What… how…?” She looked absolutely bewildered and he still had no idea either other than perusing the electoral roll to find out where she was living. 

“Dunno but… she left that,” he gestured with his head to the letter now in her hands and her eyes dragged back to it, watching it now as if it was a venomous snake. 

“Do you… do you know what's in it? Did you open it?” she asked him and he couldn't get a read on her tone. 

“No… Wanted to, won’t lie to you but… it's not my place,” he muttered, wanting to be truthful with her. She nodded and blew out a shaky breath. She looked like she didn't know what to do with herself.

“Will you read it to me?” she asked after a long moment and his heart dropped at the notion. 

“What if it's… I can’t read some bullshit to you, love. I won’t be nasty to you,” he frowned with a vehement shake of his head.

“It won't be you, Simon. It's her. I just…  don't think I can read it myself but I know I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don't know what it is,” she pleaded and he hated how he could never deny her anything. He took the letter, opening it with a heavy feeling of dread weighing down his stomach. His eyes scanned the page rapidly to see what he was getting into and the feeling of dread intensified as he squeezed his eyes shut with another shake of his head.

“Love… don't make me read this to you, please. Let's just bin it,” he begged, full blown pleading with her because he couldn't do this to her, he really couldn't. He wanted to fucking find that bitch of a woman and cave her face in, woman be damned. He didn't care, not when she dared to write such a vile note to his girl. Her face paled at his words and his heart squeezed when she shook her head.

“Please… I need to know, I’ll be okay,” she reached out and put her hand on his leg, looking at him with those sad and wide eyes. The ache in his chest was so intense he started to worry he might be on the verge of a medical emergency. But he did as she asked because she’d asked and he could never say no. He took a deep inhale, steeling himself as he started to read the letter.

“Charlotte… your dad’s dead,” he started, unable to look at her face but he heard her breathing falter, felt her hand grip his leg tighter. He really didn't want to continue but he knew she wanted to hear it, maybe on some level she needed to. Maybe this horrible letter was exactly what she needed to move on fully from her awful family. 

“I hope you know it’s your fault. You took off years of his life when you were born… wretched little thing you were. Probably still are. My biggest regret in life was not gettin’ an abortion as soon as I found out I was pregnant,” he continued, his hand shaking slightly as he held the letter. He peered at her, brows furrowing at her glazed over expression as she stared off at nothing. When he didn't continue after a few minutes, she dragged her unseeing eyes over to him.

“Just get it over with, please,” she whispered and her broken tone absolutely ruined him. 

“Your dad left because of you but I always thought he’d come back to me someday, and now because of you he's gone. You killed him. When I looked you up I found out you were livin’ with someone and I don't know who this Simon Riley is but I feel sorry for him… You don't deserve him, you don't deserve to be happy… You're nothin’ but a disease who poisons everythin’ you touch and you deserve nothin’ but loneliness- I can’t, I’m not readin’ the rest. We should fuckin’ burn it,” he bit out, the lump in his throat getting bigger by the second. 

He felt like he’d betrayed her somehow by reading those words to her, like he was the one saying that. Feeding into her own insecurities like that was a dirty move from her mother and he didn't think he’d ever wanted to hurt another human so badly in his life. Said a lot that since his dad had evoked plenty of feelings in him. Charlotte jumped up suddenly, so suddenly it made him jump and he watched with wide eyes and she hurried off to the bathroom tearfully. 

“Lottie, wait!” He called out but it was too late. The door slammed shut and he followed after her, lingering outside the door. The sobs she was letting out gutted him and he squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenched tightly.

“Charlotte… love… don't hide away from me. Let me in,” he begged. He didn't want her alone and hurting like this, he wanted to hold her, to try and take away all the horrible pain she was feeling. 

“No, I’ll… I’ll be fine,” she cried and he rested his forehead against the cold, wooden door.

“Love-” he started but got cut off by her frantic and upset voice.

“It’s fine, I know… I know it's stupid to be upset, I knew she was a twat. But I…” she didn't need to finish her heartbroken words because he knew it well enough himself. She thought maybe this time was different. Maybe this time her mum had come to her senses and things would change. Been there, done that and wore the fucking t-shirt with his dad. His heart ached for the poor girl who still yearned for a mother's love, even after all this time. 

“It’s not stupid, sweetheart. It's normal to be upset. Let me in, yeah? Please, love,” he pleaded and he felt relief sweep through him when the door unlocked. 

He moved off the door as it opened and she stood there still in her work uniform with tears streaking down her face. His face fell even more looking at her and he wasted no time in scooping her into his arms, holding her tightly. She wrapped her arms around his middle, hands bunched into fists in the back of his top. Her face was pressed into his chest as she tried to use him to stifle her sobs but it didn't work very well.

“You're alright, love, I’ve got you,” he murmured as he stroked her hair. He held her for a good long while as she cried it out. Eventually, she pulled away with a red and puffy face looking a little out of it. 

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked tentatively. She shook her head, wiping at her eyes quickly.

“Nothing to talk about. It just reinforced what I already knew,” she shrugged. It hurt him seeing her like this and he pressed a kiss to her forehead before moving around her. He put the plug in the bath, turning the hot tap on.

“What are you doing?” her question was a bit of an obvious one and he knew it wasn't so much what he was doing, clearly running a bath, but more so why.

“We’re gonna get a nice hot bubble bath and enjoy Christmas Eve. I won't let her ruin it for you,” he insisted and he meant it too. 

This was their first Christmas together and from what he’d put together from things she’d said, she didn't really do Christmas before. Not as a kid when her mother didn't care enough to pretend Santa was a thing and then never really bothered as an adult. He wanted to change that for her. His childhood had been rough and some Christmases were like any other day. Sometimes though, his mother had tried her hardest to at least get a tree or to get him and Tommy something if his dad would allow it. Fucker would always still ruin it though with his yelling and drinking and he hated Christmas ‘cause it used to end with his mum being beaten black and blue. It was different now and he always went to his mum’s for Christmas with Tommy. Lottie would be coming this year and with the new addition of little baby Joseph, it was supposed to be a special one. He wouldn't let that fucking slag ruin it all. 

Charlotte gave him a watery smile and all he wanted to do was wrap her up and cuddle her. He put a lot of the lavender bubble bath in that she liked, making sure the water was hot like she liked it, even if it made his balls ache at first. He turned the tap off once it was all done, stripping off and Charlotte did the same. He helped her into the bath and she let out a relaxed sigh when she sunk into the hot water. 

After she’d scooched forward, he climbed in behind her. Was tight fit but she shifted so he was able to put his legs either side of her. His chest was pressed against her back and he smoothed his hands down her arms before grasping her hands and linking his fingers with hers. She relaxed into him and he rested his head on her shoulder.

“I love you,” he murmured and she smiled softly, a little brighter than before.

“I love you too,” she replied, turning slightly to show him just how pretty that sweet smile was. He kissed her cheek, making her smile widen and he couldn't get over how much he fucking loved her. 

It was quiet between them as he washed her, his touch light and gentle as if she was made of glass and he was scared she might shatter. They wound up staying in the bath until the water got cold and then he helped dry her and get her in her pyjamas. Didn't take long before he bundled her up in a blanket on the couch, hot chocolate on the coffee table as it cooled down for her. 

He grabbed the small metal bin from next to the couch, emptying it before setting it down on the floor in front of her. She looked at him questioningly as he moved to disconnect the smoke detector and then he sat down, handing her that fucking letter and a lighter. She eyed them for a moment before looking at him, taking the items from his hand. 

“You need to burn it, get some closure,” he murmured. She took a deep breath and nodded, looking a little more relaxed after the love he'd tried to shower her with. She looked so serious as she looked at the letter, brows furrowed slightly and her lips pursed. She looked like she was having some internal conflict but then nodded to herself, coming to some sort of resolution. 

She flicked the lighter, sparking the flame before bringing it to the corner of the letter. Once it caught, she dropped it into the bin and both of them leaned over slightly to watch as it burned. He hoped it would be cathartic for her and he didn't speak until the letter was nothing but ash. He turned to her, causing her to angle her body closer to him in response and he cupped her cheek, thumb stroking her soft skin as he gazed at her pretty pink cheeks. 

“You deserve the world, Charlotte,” he breathed, a mere whisper in the room. She looked away, brows pinching a little and as her mouth opened to protest him, the hand on her face slid over her mouth and she blinked up at him with big, round eyes. 

“I don't care what that bitch said, it's bollocks. You're the sweetest, kindest person I've ever met. You deserve nothin' but good things. And I'm not sayin' I'm a good thing but… but I'm tryin’ to be… for you,” he admitted, watching her eyes soften right before him, those blue hues sparkling at him like the reflection of the sun in the ocean. His hand moved from her mouth to reveal a beautiful smile, a smile he wished was on her face all the time. It was so radiant and warm that it felt like the light seeped into every pore in his body, filling him up completely.

“You are a good thing… you're the best thing to happen to me,” she said simply, as if her words didn't mean the world to him, didn't make his chest feel like it expanded. He knew logically that it wasn't a hard task given how everything in her life had been shit, but still, hearing her say that touched him deeply. He leaned down, pressing his lips against hers in a chaste kiss before rubbing the tip of his nose against hers. It made her smile again and his stomach swarmed with butterflies.

“Let's get you to bed, ay? Got a lot goin’ on tomorrow, we should get a good night's sleep,” he murmured. She nodded, no doubt agreeing as they both knew it would take a lot out of them going to the Riley household and putting up with Tommy all day. 

She grabbed her hot chocolate that he’d completely forgotten about and before he could tell her they’d go to bed when she was done with it, she started chugging it like a student on freshers week. He watched on in amusement as she finished the whole thing off, some whipped cream around her mouth giving her a funny moustache when she moved the cup.

“Fuckin’ hell, what am I gonna do with you?” he snorted and he got a cheeky smile in return. He reached out and wiped the cream off her top lip, sucking it off his thumb as he shook his head at her and slapped her thigh through the blanket she was wrapped in.

“Up, bed,” he ordered. She rolled her eyes with a playful pout and a huff, standing and carefully setting the blanket back over the couch. 

He was exhausted by the time they were both tangled in bed yet he struggled to go to sleep, even as Charlotte snored softly wrapped around him like a koala. It was their first Christmas together and he was a little nervous about his gift for her. They’d both agreed to only one gift each. It was Lottie’s idea, telling him that she couldn't really afford to get him a lot of things on her wage and knowing he got paid more than her. She didn't feel comfortable with him showering her with stuff if she couldn't return it. Ruined his plans a bit since he had been intent on spoiling her, but he got where she was coming from and she’d been pretty worked up about it. 

He’d put a lot of thought into this one gift and while most of him thought she'd like it, there was a nagging voice in the back of his head that sounded suspiciously like his father, telling him she’d hate it. He tried his best to ignore it. Between his nerves, his excitement and Lottie’s cunt of a mother showing up and causing problems, his brain was a fried mess. He didn't end up getting to sleep until past midnight.

He woke up before her, pleased that his body clock was still working fine as he got up at 5 am. He’d planned on getting up first because he wanted to make a proper breakfast for them. First, he worked out with The Dillinger Escape Plan blasting through his headphones. Whenever he woke up before her, he tried to get the workout in. It had been every day, even weekends when she wasn't in his life and he didn't want to let himself go. He had to be more prepared now he was going for selection for the SAS and he really needed to pick his routine back up. 

After he worked out, he got her present from his hiding spot on top of the kitchen cupboards. He knew she couldn't reach there so it had been safe. It was wrapped in silver and green wrapping paper to the best of his abilities, which wasn't much, but he’d put a pretty green bow on it, hoping it would help it look better. He slipped it under the tree besides the other boxes there. One for his mum, one for Tommy, one for Beth and of course a few for little baby Joseph. Simon couldn't help spoil him even if he wouldn't have a fucking clue what was going on. 

Then there was one with his name sprawled in pretty writing on a tag. He’d caught sight of it a couple of times now but he knew to leave well enough alone. If Lottie caught him eyeing it she’d probably shiv him with a kitchen fork for trying to spoil his gift. It was a small and almost flat box, wrapped in shiny black paper. She’d wrapped it meticulously for someone who didn't really do Christmas, so meticulously that he’d convinced her to wrap the ones for the others too. 

When he was done, it was still only 7 am and while he wanted to get breakfast done before his angel woke up, he knew it was still early and he didn't want to wake her up too soon. He wound up sitting on the couch for a bit to read, deciding on starting food at 8. He was sprawled on the couch reading the ultimate collection of Edgar Allen Poe after Lottie recommended it, surprised himself by liking it. The one he was on currently was The Masque of the Red Death. When it reached 8 am, he put his book away and wandered into the kitchen, making a mental catalogue of all he needed to do. 

He went all out, a proper full English but switching the fried eggs for scrambled because he knew she liked them better. He tried to be all fancy about it, using a toast rack to put the toast in the middle of the dining table, made the tea in a little teapot that his mum had given him, had the milk in a matching jug and sugar in a little bowl. 

He’d been pondering on how to wake her, feeling a little bad about disturbing her sleep and knowing most people didn't feel like eating the second they jumped out of bed. He hadn't needed to worry though because just as he was putting the cutlery on the table, a sleepy Charlotte waltzed in, rubbing her eyes with a yawn. She stopped dead in her tracks, eyes going to the table set all nice and proper and then going to him.

“You made breakfast?” she asked with a curious smile and he couldn't help the grin that tugged at his lips.

“I did, Merry Christmas, love,” he moved over to her, ushering her to sit in the chair and scooching it in for her. She giggled, looking up at him as he moved around the table and sat in his own seat.

“Merry Christmas. You made a real fancy breakfast, I don't think I've seen a toast rack outside of work,” she smirked and he felt the tips of his ears burning as he looked down, grabbing his knife and fork to distract himself. 

“Wanted it to be special for you,” he admitted and when he chanced a glance at her, her chin was propped up on her hand as she gave him a look. It was dreamy and moon eyed and in that moment, there was no way he could deny she was in love with him. It made him feel far too many things all at once. 

“It’s special because I’m spending it with you,” she murmured and her words only furthered his intense emotions. Why he felt a lump in his throat was beyond him, he was happy so why did he feel like he was on the verge of tears? He didn't do tears. 

He cleared his throat, trying to aggressively rid himself of the lump. He wasn't sure what his face was saying to her but he knew she saw something because she reached out, laying her hand over his on the table. He looked back at her then and she gave him a warm smile.

“I love you,” she said softly. Was mad how three simple words could crack him in half completely. A choked noise left his lips that only left him more confused and his eyes widened in horror as he felt it coming. He snatched his hand away, his chair scraping horribly against the wooden floor of the dining area as he went to flee. A tiny hand clamped hard around his wrist though as he stood and he looked down to see Charlotte looking at him carefully.

“You asked me last night to not hide from you and I didn't. I let you in,” she pointed out.

Her words were gentle and soft but her eyes felt penetrating and he knew what she was asking him, pleading with him not to shut her out. He wanted to run off because he didn't want to be like this around her, it was fucking embarrassing, but he couldn't deny her anything when her eyes looked at him so pleadingly. How could he expect her to open up to him if he wouldn't do the same? He fell back into his seat with a thump and he was only glad no tears were leaking from his eyes.

“I uh… I don't know what's up with me,” he bit out and his voice sounded raw as he forced it around the growing lump in his throat. She gave him a sympathetic smile before she stood, moving over to where he sat. She moved to straddle him and he knew it mustn’t be comfortable doing that on a dining chair but she didn't seem to care. She settled against him nicely, her soft hands grabbing his face on either side and he was powerless to look away from her. 

“You feel overwhelmed?” she asked in a soft voice, like talking to a spooked animal. He nodded, not wanting to risk talking in fear of the dam fully breaking. Her thumbs swiped over his cheeks and his dark eyes swept over her face.

“I feel overwhelmed too. It's not a bad feeling, like I’m not… sad. But it's a lot, to finally have a Christmas with someone I love. Today's gonna be the first time I have a Christmas dinner,” she admitted shyly and his heart dropped a little at her words. He knew she hadn't done much but to not even have a Christmas dinner was bonkers to him. His hands smoothed her thighs before settling on her hips, squeezing them lightly. 

“I know I’m not sad but I… got emotional, I guess. Still don't know how I got so lucky to have you in my life,” he murmured, wanting to get it off his chest. She nodded, her hand moving to around his neck where one of them toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“I could list all the reasons if you want?” she asked cheekily and he rolled his eyes with a snort. It was all the ammunition she needed it seemed. 

“You're ridiculously handsome, like it's really unfair how you just look perfect even when you've just rolled out of bed,” she started and he ducked his head shyly as she watched him. “You’ve got a massive dick and know exactly how to use it,” she grinned impishly with her brows wiggling for emphasis. 

“Jesus Christ,” he huffed in amusement but she wasn't done.

“You're stupidly brave, I have no idea how you do any of the shit you do for work. I certainly don't have it in me,” she shook her head before moving an arm back to his front, laying her hand over his thumping heart. “You have a heart of gold, even if you don't see it. You literally glued your family back together after everything they went through because you love them so much. You're always thinking of other people and what you can do for them. You're way more selfless than you realise,” she breathed and he swallowed thickly, the grip on her hips tightening a little. 

He never thought himself a good man although he was trying his best. Always trying his best as the shadow of his father haunted him, always trying to be different. Her eyes softened as her hand travelled up his chest, neck and then his face, taking his jaw much like he had done to her many times. He could only imagine how comical it must look from her view with how small her hand was. She made him look at her, face serious as her blue hues danced across his features. 

“You take such good care of me and you do it without complaining. I know I have my issues and they probably won't ever fully go away but… you've helped me overcome so much. You've made me realise that… that I do deserve to be loved. That I’m not broken and what happened wasn't my fault. For the first time ever I feel loved and I'm learning to accept it,” she admitted tearfully and Simon grabbed the back of her head and pulled her down, face buried in his neck as he held her tightly. Wasn't so much for her although he was definitely trying to comfort her, but more so because those tears that had been threatening to fall had finally gone over the edge at those heartfelt words. Knowing he’d made her feel that way was more than overwhelming and if he died right now, he’d die happy that he’d at least allowed her to understand she was worthy of love. 

He used the hand not cradling her head to swipe at his eyes quickly, not wanting her to see him so emotional. He really hadn't expected Christmas to be so emotional for them. He hadn't known what to say in response and he was sure his tightened throat wouldn't allow him to anyway. She didn't seem to mind, didn't seem to need a response as they just held each other for a moment.

“We should eat before it all gets too cold,” she murmured into his neck, placing a sweet kiss to his skin before pulling away. Despite his effort for breakfast he wouldn't have minded it if it had all been spoiled after her words. He smiled at her, pulling her down for a sweet kiss before allowing her to get up and sit back down. He felt his manly ego inflate at every pleased noise she made as she scoffed his food like she’d never eaten in her life. It was such a primal feeling, to feed his woman, to satisfy her that way, to take care of her. When she was done and was sipping her tea, he stood and grabbed the dishes.

“Siiiimon,” she whined, giving him a dirty look.

“Nope, don’t care. It’s Christmas and I wanna do the dishes, so shush and drink your tea,” he huffed, earning a playful scoff from her before an obnoxiously loud slurping noise hit his ears. She kept it up the entire time he washed the dishes and pans and he felt like he deserved a medal for not paying it any mind or giving her a reaction. 

“Can I give you your present yet?” she asked eagerly the second he turned around. He wasn't shocked that she was more excited to give gifts than to receive them but he couldn't say he wasn't curious about what she got him. 

“Only ‘cause you're so cute when you're excited,” he snorted and she let out a little excited noise, jumping off the chair and bounding over to the tree. He was a little more casual with his stride as he went over, perching on the couch beside it and watching her as she sat on the floor. 

She snatched his gift before shoving it at him. He could see the excitement swirling behind her eyes but also nervousness and he knew exactly how that felt. He took it, feeling somewhat awkward at her watching him so intently. He’d always hated that, when people just stare at you when you open a gift. He'd make an exception for her though even if he did feel out of place. He carefully ripped the wrapping paper, feeling a little bad at ruining something that looked so pretty and then tossed it into the bin next to him. He’d already known it was a small flat box but he could see now it was black and velvet. He cracked it open slowly to reveal a simple silver round pendant. There was no chain with it, just the pendant and he recognised the engraving on it easily as coordinates. 

N 53° 29' 6.967"

W 2° 13' 56.4609"

He took the pendant out carefully, so delicate as if he was trying to disarm a bomb. His eyes drifted from it to Lottie who was watching him with eagle eyes. 

“It's uh… the coordinates… for the bus stop where we met,” she explained, looking slightly sheepish like she thought it was stupid as her cheeks flushed pink. He was speechless for a moment, eyes darting back to the engraving. 

The bus stop. Such a stupid place yet he’d met her there, laid his eyes on her and fell in love in an instant, bound to her forever. If he’d have sat at any other bus stop, and there were plenty in the area, he’d have missed her. It was an uncomfortable thought to him, to think of missing her by such little distance, ships passing in the night. She wouldn't be here with him right now, he wouldn't feel so complete and happy. He’d go back to being an empty shell and honestly, he couldn't even remember what that felt like which was even more terrifying. He didn't want to go back to that. Choosing that bus stop had changed the course of his life forever in the best way possible. His lips curled into a smile as he lay his soft eyes on her. It was such a sentimental gift and he knew he’d keep it safe always. Everytime he thought he couldn't love her more, she proved otherwise. 

“I love it, Lottie… thank you, love,” he murmured, reaching out and grabbing her hand from her seat in front of him on the floor. He leaned down, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand and a bright smile lit up her face.

“You really like it? It’s supposed to go on your dog tags, that's why there's no chain,” she explained, looking so happy that he liked the gift. He pulled the dog tags around his neck over his head, attaching the pendent with no hesitation. He’d started wearing them at home more at Lottie’s request and he was pretty sure it was only because she found them sexy. He thumbed his tags with the pendant, an overwhelming warmth blooming inside of him before he slipped them back on. It felt like a way to have her with him no matter what and considering he’d be gone for a while with no contact, it meant the world to him. 

“I don't even know what to say, sweetheart. I… I love it,” he said sincerely, feeling like he could never put into words his gratitude. As usual, she didn't need his words though, smiling so pretty at him, eyes shining with happiness. 

“I’m glad you like it,” she beamed. 

He gestured with his head to her gift under the tree since she was closest to it and she grinned, picking it up quickly. She looked shocked by the weight of it, turning her eyes at him suspiciously as she hefted it. She tore at the paper and as the front was revealed to her, her hand stopped mid rip, eyes widening like saucers as she stared at it. She looked like she’d malfunctioned for a moment, unmoving and unblinking before she turned those wide and watery eyes to him and he felt like he’d been punched in the throat again. 

“Simon…” her voice wavered and she blinked rapidly to stave off her tears.

“I know… I know it can’t ever replace the one you lost, but I… I know how much those stories meant to you and maybe this one can be a stand in. It’ll still remind you of the librarian and what she did for you,” he rambled nervously as she turned back to look at the leatherbound book of the Grimm’s fairy tales. She inhaled a shaky breath, tearing the rest of the paper off with more care before she cracked it open, eyeing the scribble he’d left for her inside the front page with damp eyes. He’d never have thought of defiling a book like that but she’d mentioned in the past about how romantic she found it when she’d come across an old book with a love note in the front. He hadn’t been sure what to say, not wanting to be too sappy, so he’d settled with something simple.

‘Grimm stories for my Grim girl. 

All my love,

Simon’

A distant echo of their first encounter at the bus stop all that time ago. He’d made sure to get a fucking fancy one, leatherbound and embossed, edges of the pages gold. She flicked through the pages with a sniffle, stopping at Little Red Riding Hood and he remembered how she read that one to him when he was deployed. She stared at the pages for a moment before closing the book with a gentle thud and he watched warily as she got up and went into the bedroom. 

He wondered where she was taking the book, if he’d find it on her nightstand just like her old one had been back at her old place. She came back out after a few minutes, wiping her eyes as she padded over to him. He stood up reflexively and she made a beeline for him, wrapping her arms around his middle. He sunk into her, one hand splayed on her back to hold her as close as possible as the other cradled her head.

“Thank you… that’s the most thoughtful gift I’ve ever gotten,” she admitted with a muffled voice against his chest. He didn't doubt it knowing her previous company and he gave her a squeeze.

“Wanted to get you somethin’ special, that meant somethin’,” he murmured as his fingers toyed with her hair. He’d sat there for ages trying to come up with ideas, none of which felt special enough until this idea popped into his head. She moved her head, arms still around him as she peered up at him. 

“I’m the luckiest girl in the world to call you mine, Simon Riley,” she smiled and he could have melted into a puddle. He’d hardly agree with her but he couldn't argue without being a hypocrite, so instead he leaned down and claimed her lips with his. She pressed closer to him, standing on her tiptoes a little as she kissed him back firmly, insistently. If they didn't have places to be he’d have taken her back to bed. After plundering her mouth thoroughly, he pulled away feeling breathless. 

“Shall we get ready to go to mum's then?” he asked hoarsely. Her lips curled into a self satisfied smile, knowing the effect she had on him.

“Okay,” she leaned up to give him one last kiss before she untangled from him. He watched her go into the bedroom and he stayed there for a moment, hands going to his tags through his top as he took a few deep breaths. 

She thought she was the lucky one but it was him that was lucky. She’d saved him, brought him back to life, giving him a reason to live and not just exist. She was everything to him and he’d never take that for granted. He wanted her and he wanted her forever, wanted her longer than that. He wanted to spend his life trying to be a good man for her, to keep showing her she should be loved and he could do that well. He had more than enough love for her and he knew no matter what, that would never change.