#and finding out she was one made me so happy and so seen
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Finding comfort | Katie McCabe x Teen!Reader
Where you're always very timid, but open up to Katie
Woso masterlist | Words: 1k
-----
You had never been great at new environments. It always takes a long time before you are able to warm up to people you don’t know. So, being called up to Arsenal’s senior team and being surrounded by a whole new team definitely wasn’t an easy task.
The first few weeks had flown by, but you hadn’t really spoken to any of your teammates, besides giving short answers to their questions.No one seemed to mind that you were so timid, never pushing you.
Behind your back they had spoken about it, not in a bad way, more so that they were worried that you weren’t comfortable here. They tried in different ways to make you feel more included, hoping you would start opening up more, but despite their best efforts not much changed. However, your teammates were patient with you, and you were grateful that they weren’t pushing.
“Good morning, are you ready for training?” Kim said as she sat down besides you in the locker room. You smiled timidly and nodded. Your team captain smiled and quietly got ready besides you. Around you the room was buzzing with the chatter of the rest of your teammates.
Training today was a gym session. You enjoyed gym days because for the biggest part of it, you were working individually. While yes football was a team sport, so that part was very important, the individual work made you feel more comfortable with the new environment.
You started with biking, as that was usually the equipment that everyone liked the least, so you would have the space to yourself. After a few minutes of cycling, Katie walked up. “Hey Kid, mind if I join you?” In response you nod. She sits down on the bike beside you and starts cycling with you.
After a few minutes of silence, Katie turns her head your way with a serious expression. “I’ve got an important question for you.” You turn to her, worried about what she might ask. Katie McCabe wasn’t known for being serious, so this must be something big or important.
“Do you think cereal is a soup?” You look at her in disbelief, definitely not having expected that question at all. “That’s your important question?” Your lips curl up slightly. “Yes, I need to know where you stand on the matter.” She says just as seriously as she started.
This time your smile breaks out and you start laughing. Katie smiles proudly before she joins in on your laughter. “So,” She says when the laughter dies down. “Is it soup?” You shake your head. “Definitely not and you can’t convince me otherwise.”
Katie gasped, her face filled with shock. “Not soup? Unbelievable. I thought you had better judgement, Kid.” You felt the walls you had up crumble bit by bit every time she joked around.
The sound of your laughter caught the attention of a few of your teammates in the gym. They looked at the intersection between you and Katie with smiles on their faces. Who would have thought that Katie would’ve been the one to get you to open up more?
“I will let you off the hook this time. Everyone is allowed one wrong opinion, and you have just used yours.” You shake your head with a chuckle. “Good to know.”
The two of you continued chatting throughout your bike session. The team occasionally looks over, happy to see that you are feeling more at home. Wondering what kind of magic Katie used to get through to you.
“Do you maybe want to join me and toss the ball around?” Katie is quick to say yes, happy that you want to continue opening up to her. “Right behind you.” She says as she gets stopped by Leah on the way.
“I’ve never seen her like this. How did you get her to open up?” The blonde asks full of wonder. Katie shrugs, “I told you that I am funnier than the rest of you.” She walks off proudly, leaving Leah standing there dumbfounded.
You had picked out the weight that you wanted to use right as Katie walked up. “Alright, show me what you got, Kid.” She stood a few steps in front of you and got ready to catch the ball. You held it at chest height as you squatted down and in your movement up, you threw the ball her way. She did the same movement before tossing the ball your way again.
Just like on bikes, the two of you were chatting. It seemed like you were getting really comfortable with Katie, and there was just one thought on the older players' mind. “Why me?” She asked out loud before thinking.
“I eh, I mean you’re opening up to me and I was wondering what made you do so with me?” She threw the ball back your way. You catch it with ease and as you squat down you answer her question.
“You just made me feel safe.” You toss the ball back but Katie is so caught by surprise with your answer that it just falls to the ground in front of her. “I win.” You say with a proud smirk.
“Yeah yeah, well done, Kid.” Katie tries to shrug off the loss, but ultimately she’s feeling very good, because she had created a safe space for you without even realising it. Growing up with younger siblings had unintentionally prepared her for youngsters joining the team.
“I want a revance on this next training.” You shake her reached out hand. “Deal, but don’t be upset if I beat you again.” Laughter erupts in the room. Your cheeks turn a bright red when you realise everyone was looking at you.
Katie notices and puts her arm around your shoulder. “Get used to it Kid, that humour will get you far with these girls.”
-----
💗 If you enjoyed this fic, please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging! You can also supporting me by leaving a tip 💗
#katie mccabe#katie mccabe x reader#katie mccabe imagine#arsenal wfc#arsenal women#awfc#arsenal wfc x reader#arsenal wfc imagine#woso#woso x reader#woso imagine
297 notes
·
View notes
Text
mother who stepped up
stepmom!lena oberdorf x mom!reader
summary: lena accepts you, and the mini-you
warnings: one mention of death, nothing too impactful to the story though. very long fic
you’ve never been one for surprises. your life, at least recently, has been built on carefully crafted routines, ensuring that your two-year-old daughter, macy, is comfortable and happy.
dating? it was something you thought would come much later—if at all. after coming to terms with your sexuality, you didn’t want to date unti you were reassured that you’d be with the right woman for your daughter.
here you are, sitting across from lena oberdorf, a suggestion from your well-meaning friends, and even though you like her, there’s something you or your mutual friends haven’t told her yet.
everything had been going smoothly with lena from the start. she was charming, funny, flirtatious, and made you feel seen in ways you hadn’t felt in a long time.
you didn’t think you could get used to someone so effortlessly, but somehow, lena just fit into your life—except for that one secret you hadn’t yet shared.
you’re sitting across from lena at a cozy café, sipping your coffee and listening to her talk about her game against wolfsburg– a club she played many years ago.
it’s easy to get lost in the sound of lena’s voice, the way her eyes light up when she talks about football. you nod along, smiling as she recounts a funny moment from practice.
for a while, everything feels perfect—simple, like your lives are in sync. in the back of your mind, you know you will have to tell her about macy. the little mini-you that is currently coloring in her daycare class across munich.
the conversation shifts to lighter topics, and you pull out your phone to check a notification.
you sit your phone flat on the table and as you’re about to lock the screen, lena leans in, catching a glimpse of the photo that displays on both your home and lock screen.
your heart skips a beat when you realize what she’s seeing—macy, her chubby little cheeks, dimples, and wild curls staring back at you from the lock screen.
lena’s brow furrows slightly, curiosity flickering across her face.
“aweee who’s that?” she asks, her tone casual but with a hint of intrigue.
you freeze for a second, unsure how to respond.
here we go, you think, heart pounding. swallowing hard, you try to brush it off with a light chuckle.
“oh, that’s little macy.”
lena tilts her head, staring at the screen for a moment longer before locking eyes with you.
“macy?” she echoes. “is she… your niece or something? she looks just like you.” she smiles, clearly finding the resemblance cute.
you force a small smile, feeling your throat tighten. this is it—the moment you’ve been dreading.
“uh, no… she’s not my niece.”
“oh,” lena says, looking at you, then back at the picture.
“then, what, a cousin? a friend’s kid?”
you can see her mind working, trying to make sense of it. your fingers tighten around the edge of your phone, and you finally decide to rip the band-aid off.
“she’s my daughter….”
lena’s eyes widen, her gaze darting back to the screen, then to you. her lips part in surprise, but she doesn’t say anything right away. she stares at the lock screen as if seeing it for the first time, really seeing it.
“your daughter?” she repeats softly, almost like she’s processing the words.
you nod, feeling the anxiety rising in your chest.
“yeah. she’s turning two in a few months. macy’s my little girl.”
for a long moment, lena just looks at the photo, her expression unreadable. you watch as her gaze flickers between the image of macy and you, comparing the two of you.
“she… she looks just like you,” lena murmurs, her voice almost in awe.
“i thought she was you for a second, like, as a baby.”
you let out a small, nervous laugh, trying to keep the mood light despite the tension knotting in your stomach.
“yeah, she’s basically my mini-me. she’s got my nose and everything.”
lena doesn’t seem to hear your attempt at humor. instead, her brow furrows deeper as she studies the photo.
“wait, she’s… really your daughter? like, you have a kid?”
you bite your lip, feeling the weight of the moment settle over you.
“yeah, she’s mine. i know i should’ve told you sooner, but…” you trail off, not knowing how to explain the complexity of it all.
“but why didn’t you?” lena asks, her tone still soft, but there’s something raw in her voice—an undercurrent of emotion that you can’t quite place.
you glance down at your coffee, swirling it absentmindedly. “i didn’t know how,” you admit.
“i didn’t want to scare you off. most people aren’t exactly thrilled about dating someone with a kid.”
lena leans back in her chair, processing what you’ve said. “you thought i’d be scared off because you’re a mom?”
you shrug, feeling a little defensive but mostly scared. “it’s happened before,” you say quietly.
“people hear ‘single mom,’ and they run for the hills. i just… didn’t want that to happen again.”
lena is quiet for a moment, her eyes still on the picture of macy. she seems to be absorbing everything, and you can’t help but hold your breath, waiting for her to say something—anything.
“is the father around?” lena says her thoughts out loud.
“oh no no no. um– he didn’t want anything to do with macy. he also passed away shortly after mae turned one. her father and i were never together or even had feelings for eachother– it was just um..” you trail.
“i’m very sorry about that.” lena says, looking up at you before looking back to the photo of your little daughter.
“oh no don’t apologize.” you say.
there's a pause for a few minutes. its clear that you wanted to switch the topic away from macy’s biological father, who wanted nothing to do with her before his passing anyways.
lena looks up at you, giving your phone back with her expression softening.
“you’d thought i’d run?” lena asks, a small, incredulous smile playing on her lips.
“because of this? because of her?”
you shrug again, not trusting yourself to speak. all your worst fears are bubbling to the surface, and you can’t shake the feeling that this might be the moment it all falls apart.
lena reaches across the table, taking your hand gently in hers.
“y/n, she’s beautiful,” she says, her voice sincere. “i mean, she really is a little version of you.”
you blink, the words not sinking in right away. “you… you’re not mad?” you ask, your voice trembling just slightly.
lena shakes her head, squeezing your hand. “no, i’m not mad. i just… wish you’d told me sooner. i know we’ve only been official for a week but–” she pauses, her thumb brushing over your knuckles.
“i get why you didn’t, but… i’m not going anywhere. i like you. and now that i know about macy… i like her too. even if we haven’t met yet.”
the relief that washes over you is almost overwhelming, and you feel your eyes welling up. you’ve been bracing yourself for rejection, for lena to tell you this was too much for her.
though here she is, sitting across from you, holding your hand, and telling you that she’s not going anywhere.
“you’re really okay with this?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper.
“more than okay,” lena says, her voice firm but kind.
“you’re a mom. that’s a part of who you are, and that’s okay with me.”
you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, your heart finally starting to settle.
“thank you,” you whisper, blinking back the tears. “you don’t know how much that means to me coming from you.”
lena smiles, giving your hand one last squeeze before letting go. “so, when do i get to meet this little mini-you?” she asks with a teasing grin.
you chuckle softly, wiping at the corner of your eye. “soon. i just… didn’t want to spring her on you right away.”
“well, now that i know about her,” lena says, leaning back with a playful smirk, “i feel like i’m the one being kept a secret from macy.”
you laugh, the tension between you finally breaking. “i guess we’ll have to fix that soon.”
lena grins, taking another sip of her coffee. “i’m looking forward to it.”
the next day– lena doesn’t text much. you know that she is busy training at bayern but anxiety consumes you.
your thoughts spiral. maybe she changed her mind and realized that it was too much for her. maybe she’s having second thoughts.
by mid-afternoon, you’re glued to your phone while macy is with her aunt (your sister), checking for any sign from her.
nothing comes, and your heart sinks.
as you’re picking macy up from your sisters, your phone finally buzzes. lena’s name flashes across the screen, and you almost drop your keys in your hurry to check it.
lena: hey, can we talk later? i’ve been thinking a lot.
you stare at the message, panic clawing at your chest. thinking doesn’t sound good. you force yourself to respond.
you: sure. what time?
the reply is almost instant.
lena: i can come over tonight?
you hesitate. having her over… that means she’ll meet macy, and you’re not sure if you’re ready for that yet. you also know you can’t keep her at arm’s length forever. you type back quickly.
you: yes, come at 7.
you spend the rest of the afternoon trying not to overthink it.
as soon as macy is fed and bathed, your nerves start creeping back. you’re pacing the living room, glancing at the clock, when the doorbell rings.
macy, sitting on the couch with her stuffed miffy bunny and fluffy blanket, perks up.
“mama, door!”
you smile, ruffling her hair.
“stay here, baby,” you say softly, walking to the door.
you open it, and there she is—lena, standing on your doorstep wearing a black outfit along with a grey beanie, looking as unsure as you feel.
“hey,” she says, giving you a small smile.
“hey,” you reply, stepping aside to let her in. you’re about to close the door when macy toddles over, clutching her miffy bunny in her small hands. lena’s eyes immediately land on her, and she smiles.
“this must be macy,” lena says, her tone soft and warm.
you nod, watching as macy stares up at lena with her wide (reader’s color) eyes.
“yeah, this is her.”
lena crouches down to macy’s level, holding out her hand. “hey, macy. i’m lena.”
macy looks at you for reassurance before shyly reaching out to shake lena’s hand.
“miffy bunny,” she says, showing off her stuffed toy.
lena chuckles softly. “that’s a cool bunny.”
you watch the exchange, your heart swelling with something you hadn’t expected. lena looks so natural with macy, and it’s a sight you weren’t prepared for.
you clear your throat, trying to shake off the wave of emotion.
“so, um, you said you wanted to talk?” you ask, motioning for lena to follow you to the couch.
she nods, standing up and giving macy one last smile before sitting beside you. macy toddles back to the couch, climbing up and sitting between your legs, still clutching her bunny as her small arms hug your waist.
“yeah,” lena says, glancing between you and macy. “i’ve been thinking a lot since last night.”
you nod slowly, waiting for the bomb to drop.
“i know this is a lot,” she continues, her voice gentle but steady.
“and i understand if you’re worried about how i’ll fit into your life, into macy’s life, but… i want to try.”
you blink, taken aback. “you do?”
lena nods, reaching out to gently take your hand.
“yeah. i mean, i didn’t expect this either, but i really like you, y/n. and if macy’s a part of your life, then i want to be a part of that too.”
you sit back, still reeling from the way the conversation unfolded. the tension that had knotted up your stomach starts to loosen, but you can’t help feeling the need to set some boundaries—just to be sure lena knows what this really means.
it’s too early in the relationship to assume anything, and you don’t want to put any pressure on her, especially when it comes to macy.
taking a deep breath, you meet lena’s eyes.
“i just want to be clear about something,” you say softly.
“i don’t expect anything from you when it comes to macy. you’re not obligated to her, and i’d never force any duties on you. it’s still really early in our relationship, and i don’t want you to feel like you have to step into a role you’re not ready for. if you just want to date me, that’s okay. i mean it. however i just want you to understand that in a case between you vs. macy– i’ll always choose macy.”
lena watches you closely, her brow furrowing slightly as she listens. she leans forward, resting her arms on the table, and shakes her head gently.
“y/n, you don’t have to put up walls.”
you bite your lip, feeling the weight of her gaze. “i’m not putting up walls,” you explain quietly.
“i just… i want to be fair. macy’s is the biggest part of my life, but she’s my responsibility, not yours. i don’t want you to feel like you have to take on so much at once. i don’t want you to feel trapped.”
lena sits back in her chair, exhaling slowly. her eyes soften as she takes in your words.
“first of all, macy isn’t a trap,” she says firmly, her tone leaving no room for doubt.
“she’s your daughter. i don’t see that as something to run from.”
your heart stumbles at her words, but you try to stay grounded. “but it’s still a lot for you,” you press gently.
“being with me means being with macy too, and that’s a lot to ask of anyone. especially this soon.”
lena reaches across the table again, her hand finding yours, warm and steady. “i get what you’re saying,” she begins, her voice calm but sincere.
“and i appreciate that you don’t want to rush things or put pressure on me. but, y/n, macy is a part of you. she’s part of your life, and if i want to be with you, that means i’m choosing to include her too.”
she squeezes your hand, her eyes locked on yours. “i’m not saying i’m trying to be her mom right away, or that i know how all of this is supposed to work. but i want to figure it out. because macy is important to you, and that makes her important to me.”
your heart swells, and you can feel the tears prickling at the corners of your eyes again. you hadn’t expected this, not so soon, and certainly not with such certainty in her voice.
it’s like lena had already made the decision in her heart before you even started this conversation.
you blink back the tears, swallowing hard as you nod. “i… i didn’t know if you’d feel that way.”
“of course i do,” lena says softly, her thumb gently brushing the back of your hand.
“i’m not scared off by you being a mom, y/n. it doesn’t make me want this any less.”
you take a shaky breath, overwhelmed by the depth of her words. “i’ve never had anyone say that to me before,” you admit, your voice barely a whisper.
“it’s always been the reason people walk away.”
lena’s eyes soften even more, and she moves her chair closer to you, her hand never leaving yours. “well, i’m not them,” she says simply, her voice steady and sure. “i’m here. and i’m not going anywhere.”
the emotions well up in you, and for a moment, you’re speechless. you look down at your joined hands, feeling the weight of the moment settle over you. she’s serious. she’s really serious.
“thank you,” you finally whisper, your voice thick with emotion. “thank you for… for staying.”
lena smiles, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to your temple.
macy, oblivious to the weight of the conversation, leans against your arm, yawning as she starts to doze off.
you glance down at her, then back at lena, your heart full in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.
from that moment on, things between you and lena shift. she starts coming over more, spending time not just with you but with macy too.
at first, macy is a little shy around her, but lena is patient, never pushing too hard, just gently easing her way into your daughter’s life. it doesn’t take long before macy is running to the door to greet lena with a grin, her little arms reaching up for a hug.
the first time macy calls her "obi”, your heart skips a beat. it's a simple moment—you're all sitting on the floor of your living room, surrounded by toys, when macy tugs on lena's sleeve, her big eyes looking up at her expectantly.
"obi, play?" she asks, holding out a mermaid barbie.
lena grins, taking the truck from macy. "of course liebe."
watching them together, you can't help but smile. it’s becoming clearer each day—lena’s not just here for you.
she’s here for macy too. sometimes you joke that she is only here for macy.
as the years goes by, lena becomes more and more involved in your life. she starts joining you for bedtime routines, helping with bath time, reading macy her favorite stories as she grows older.
after lena, macy, and you move into an apartment together— lena is for the tantrums, the messy dinners, the sleepless nights. sometimes, she will take the initiative so you can rest. the more time she spends with macy, the more it feels like she belongs in your little family.
three years after the important conversation, your life with lena feels like a dream.
macy is five now, full of energy and curiosity, and lena has been there for all of it—every scraped knee, every preschool recital, every bedtime story. your home is filled with laughter and warmth, the life you never imagined you’d have when you were raising macy on your own.
now, as you sit together on the couch, macy fast asleep in her room, lena leans into you, her fingers tracing patterns on your hand. she’s quiet, more thoughtful than usual, and you can sense something’s on her mind. she glances at the engagement ring on your finger, the same ring you’ve been admiring for months now, and then turns to you with a serious expression.
“i was thinking,” lena says quietly, her voice soft in the dim light.
“about what?” you ask, turning to look at her.
she hesitates for a moment, her hand pausing on your arm. “about macy. and… about us.”
your heart skips a beat, but you keep your voice steady. “what about us?”
“i know it’s still early but…” she says, her voice careful,
you blink, processing her words. “but…?”
she takes a deep breath. “once we get married i’ll be macy’s stepmom. something i’ve been thinking about for a while. however i don’t want to wait until then. i want to be a mom to macy. if you’ll let me.”
the weight of her words settles over you, and for a moment, you’re speechless. you’d always hoped, deep down, that lena would want to be a part of macy’s life, but hearing her say it out loud—it feels overwhelming in the best possible way.
“i know i’m not her biological mom, and i’ll never try to replace that, but… i love her, y/n. i love both of you. and if you’re ready for that, i’d like to be her mom too.”
the tears you’ve been holding back finally spill over, and you reach up to cup her face, your thumb brushing against her cheek. “we’d love that, obi.” you whisper. “we’d love that.” you repeat in awe.
when macy starts calling her “mama lena,” after she turns six– your heart nearly bursts with love.
macy is seven now, and the bond between her and lena has only grown stronger over the years. she clings to lena in a way that sometimes surprises you—like she’s always seeking her approval or comfort.
it’s been that way ever since lena officially adopted her after turning thirty-one, and you and lena got married.
you remember that day so vividly, the moment the judge declared that lena was now macy’s legal mother. the joy on lena’s face, the way macy had leaped into her arms, calling her “mama” with such pure excitement, filled your heart with pride and love.
it wasn’t long after when lena got the call—an offer from chelsea. it was a huge opportunity, one that meant she’d be competing in the women’s super league. after a lot of late-night talks and some serious decision-making, lena accepted the offer, which meant the three of you were moving to london.
the change was exciting, something fresh and new for all of you. macy was thrilled at the idea of living in a new city, and as for you, the thought of starting a new chapter together made you incredibly happy.
in london, lena is the person macy runs to for almost everything. scraped knees, homework help, even just to ask if she can have a snack—lena is her go-to. most days, it fills you with happiness to see them so close, to know that macy has someone who loves her so much.
sometimes, like today, you can’t help but feel a little sting.
you’d been in the middle of getting macy ready for school. she was in a hurry as usual, fidgeting in her seat while you knelt to help her tie her shoes.
before you could finish, she pulled her foot away, laughing. “no, no, mama lena does it better!” she giggled, her bright smile lighting up her face.
you laughed too, even though the words pricked at your heart. “oh, really?” you teased, raising an eyebrow.
“guess i’ll need to practice, huh?”
macy just grinned, her curls bouncing as she wiggled her toes. “yeah, you should! don’t worry, you’re still good at other stuff!”
you smiled, ruffling her hair. “well, i’m glad i’m still useful for something.”
she giggled again, completely unaware of how her innocent words had stirred something in you.
you shoved the feeling aside quickly, focusing instead on making her laugh as you pretended to dramatically fumble with her shoes. her laughter filled the room, her curls tumbling down her back as she leaned forward in her chair, watching you with bright eyes.
it wasn’t until you were dropping her off at school that the feeling crept back in, like a quiet ache in the pit of your stomach.
it wasn’t that you were jealous—at least, you didn’t think you were. you loved that macy and lena were so close. you’d always hoped that one day macy would have a strong bond with lena, and seeing it unfold so naturally had been like a dream come true.
still, moments like this made you wonder if you were slowly being edged out, if macy was starting to see lena as the “cool” mom while you were just… the other one that happened to look like her.
you tried not to dwell on it too much. lena had been nothing but supportive, always making sure you knew how important you were to both of them. and really, you were happy.
lena had embraced being a mother to macy in every way—going to parent-teacher conferences, staying up late to help with school projects, even helping macy with her football in-between training at chelsea.
that was another thing: football.
macy had recently started showing a serious interest in the sport, much to lena’s delight. she idolized her mama, always asking about drills and tactics, begging to go to practice with her.
one afternoon, after watching one of lena’s games, macy had turned to you both, her eyes wide with excitement.
“i want to play football too!” she’d said, bouncing on her toes.
lena’s face had lit up with pride. “you do, huh? well, we can definitely make that happen.”
since then, lena had been working on getting macy into training, talking to coaches and setting up practice sessions in your backyard. you’d watch them sometimes, lena patiently teaching macy how to pass the ball, how to position herself.
the way macy looked up at lena, so full of admiration, always made you smile. you were thrilled that your daughter had someone like lena to look up to, someone who could teach her the things you never could.
and yet, in the quieter moments, when macy would run to lena after a long day, her arms wrapping tightly around her waist, you couldn’t help but feel a tiny pang of sadness. it wasn’t that macy didn’t love you—she did, of course.
there was something different about the way she clung to lena, like lena was her whole world. you couldn’t blame her. lena was a natural with her, always knowing just the right thing to say or do to make macy feel safe and loved.
you’d catch yourself watching them sometimes, a soft smile on your face as you listened to their conversations, the easy way they communicated without needing to say much. you’d hide your feelings behind a joke, like the time macy had joked about lena being better at making breakfast, and you’d playfully said, “well, guess i’ll just stick to making the coffee then.” macy had laughed, and you’d felt the sting lessen, pushing it to the back of your mind.
around this time, you and lena had started talking more seriously about having another child.
this time, you would carry, using lena’s egg along with a donor. you’d been through a few consultations, and after what felt like a whirlwind of planning and waiting, the IVF procedure was finally successful.
you were pregnant with another little girl.
the joy that filled your heart was indescribable. the idea of adding to your family, of giving macy a sibling, was something you’d dreamed about for so long. and now, with the news confirmed, it was time to tell macy.
you weren’t sure how she’d react—she’d always been so used to being the only one, the center of attention. but you were hopeful that she’d be excited.
one evening, you and lena sat macy down, her favorite blanket draped over her lap as she snuggled on the couch between you. lena’s arm was around your shoulders, her hand resting gently on your belly, already slightly swollen with the new life growing inside.
“munchkin,” lena said softly, looking at macy with a warm smile. “we have some big news for you.”
macy looked up, her curiosity piqued.
“what is it?”
you took a deep breath, smiling as you leaned forward a little. “you’re going to be a big sister, sweetheart.”
macy’s eyes widened, and for a moment, she just stared at you, her mind clearly racing to process what you’d said.
“a big sister?” she repeated, her voice uncertain.
“that’s right,” lena added, squeezing your shoulder gently. “there’s a baby in here.” she gestured to your belly. “a little sister for you.”
macy’s face scrunched up, her expression a mix of confusion and hesitation. “but… i like being the only one,” she admitted, her voice small.
you shared a glance with lena, both of you understanding her hesitation. “we know, sweetheart,” you said gently.
“and you’ll always be our first, our special girl. but having a sister means you’ll have someone to play with, someone who’ll look up to you, someone who’ll need your help.”
macy was quiet for a moment, clearly thinking about what you’d said. her little fingers twisted in the edge of her blanket, her brow furrowed as she processed the news. you could tell she wasn’t sure how to feel.
“and you’ll still get to do everything you love,” lena added. “football, school, everything. this just means there will be more love in the house. and maybe, when she’s old enough, you can teach her some football moves.”
macy’s eyes brightened a little at that, the idea of teaching someone something she loved appealing to her. “i get to teach her football?”
you smiled, nodding. “absolutely. you’re going to be the best big sister ever.”
slowly, macy’s frown faded, replaced by a tentative smile. “okay,” she said, her voice soft but a little more certain.
“i’ll be the best big sister ever. but only if i get to teach her football.”
lena laughed, pulling macy into a tight hug. “deal.”
and just like that, your family took another step forward, your heart full of love as you prepared for the next chapter in your lives—together.
masterlist
#lena oberdorf#lena oberdorf x reader#woso fanfics#woso community#woso x reader#gerwnt#bayern frauen
306 notes
·
View notes
Text
previous
soulmate hanta who is completely oblivious that it's almost shocking. the way you skirt around the subject of soulmates whenever someone brings it up, while nervous and looking everywhere that isn't in his direction.
you think you've been careful, you think you've tried to not put hanta in a difficult position and people do let the topic go when you try to avoid it. they don't think your soulmate is hanta but they know something is up.
hanta doesn't. for someone who spends all his time with you, thinks about you all the time, and always pays attention to the little things you do he doesn't notice something is up about the topic of soulmates. you act like he acts around the subject so it doesn't weigh on his mind at all.
soulmate hanta used to get asked a lot about his soulmate. denki whining about how he hasn't found his soulmate yet. "i know they're out there somewhere! it just sucks that i haven't found them yet! aren't you in the same boat? loads of people have already found their soulmates or are uploading pictures online trying to find them! there's a whole reddit page dedicated to it, it's so frustrating."
"i don't care about my soulmate," he responded flatly and kaminari looks at him like he's grown two heads.
one day in your second year of ua iida and hatsume walk around campus stuck together, glued to the hip. it seemed super out of character for him. he didn't even tell anyone he found his soulmate, not until the following week where asai asked about why he was spending so much time together with her. hanta regrets being in the room when that happens. "she's my soulmate."
"what?" midoriya looks so excited for him. "so many people have found their soulmate now! there's not many people that haven't, i'm so happy for you iida. speaking of soulmates how are you and uraraka tsu? you found each other before i found todoroki and before most people found there soulmate."
he drowns out her answer but when hearing his name he's back to paying attention, that is, before hearing the full question and wishing he was anywhere else. "sero you still haven't found your soulmate right? i'm sure you will soon."
"thanks midoriya but i'm not interested in meeting my soulmate." his phone is face up on the table, it beeps and he sees a text from you, his whole face lights up. they all see your name flash on his phone, a photo of you and him on his background, they never bring up his soulmate again.
in your third year of ua mina comes bounding into the dorm shouting about how she's found her soulmate. "i've never even really spoken to yui before but i've always thought she was pretty and her quirk is so cool! sero have you posted a photo of your mark online? you never know if someone will come across it and it'll be you introducing yourself or they'll recognise their handwriting."
"even if i did find my soulmate it wouldn't matter." she's about to ask what you mean but you walk into the room, his eyes trail yours with fondness she's never seen in his before and drops the subject.
people don't ask him questions anymore. he doesn't care about his soulmate because he has you.
soulmate hanta who, even though he doesn't get asked about by his friends anymore, still has to see online articles and speculation from fans all over social media. 'have the famous ua alumni war heroes found their soulmates?' 'i'm still holding out hope that me and cellaphane are soulmates !!!!' 'cellaphane and froppy spotted together out of their hero suits.'
after reading the headline, 'PROOF that reveals pro hero cellaphane's soulmate,' he made sure to never enter that restaurant in the thumbnail with you again. the whole article is full of photos taken by fans and paparazzi of the two of you. there's a lot of them but it makes sense to him with how much time you spend together. there's more regular photos like you two on patrol or walking down carpets together on your way into the entrances to a gala and some not so regular ones that fans have taken without either of your knowledge or consent but that's one of the cons about being a hero.
there's a photo taken at the cinema when you went to see the new studio ghibli film the boy and and the heron. you can tell it's the two of you even though it's dark, his elbows and your hair gives it away. you're leaning against him and sharing popcorn, his arm resting on the armrest.
there's a photo of his tape wrapped around your hand, while you're both grinning, it was christmastime and you were shopping, you couldn't find any tape so he said he'd give you some of his.
there's a blurry photo taken of the two of you in a small cafe, it looks like it was taken in a hurry. you and hanta are sitting across from each other at a table and you've got your mouth open, hanta's leaning forward with a fork, going to feed you some of his food.
there's dozens of photos and it just makes him want to be more careful when going out in public with disguises.
'PROOF that reveals pro hero cellaphane's soulmate.' hanta wishes that was true.
he looked at the first comment but clicked off when it was someone talking about how you're 'couple goals,' the amount of likes on that comment was astonishingly high for two words.
soulmate hanta doesn't care if people see his soulmate mark, he doesn't even think about so when he lifts up his jumper and his shirt lifts up as well during games night bakugou scowls.
he doesn't remember random words and sentences his friends said to each other nearly a decade ago now. but this. he knows this. on hanta's hip, in your handwriting, is his soulmate mark.
bakugou knows your writing well, he made you study. he'd put a timer on his phone and you'd sit together studying until the timer ran out, he'd talk you through anything you didn't know and understand. he'd snatch your paper out of your hand after it got graded and read everything you wrote. bakugou is one of the reasons you passed your classes, he's probably the only reason you passed your classes. that's why he knows that's your handwriting and seeing that it's your handwriting just pisses him off.
'why the hell is soy sauce face always looking at her like that if she's his soulmate and they're destined together.'
someone else could think that they're together but just haven't announced it to the public but bakugou knows that isn't true. he knows you're single, he's a hundred percent sure you are. it's true that something is definitely up about your soulmate situation and now he's got a clue of what that might be but whenever he makes a comment about how being single is good for his career because he can focus more on being number one you agree with the same sentiment.
'does that mean she rejected him? i don't know about that. would someone spend that much time with someone they rejected? what if they never realised. no that doesn't seem possible.'
"yo bakugou, you good? you're just kind of staring at sero with daggers in your eyes." kirishima asks noticing that bakugou hasn't taken his off of sero for awhile.
bakugou is straightforward, he's honest, he speaks his mind, he cares about his friend even if the public doesn't understand that. he gives his friends nicknames that people don't understand, even though he's the number one hero he still get's backlash for that. even with the backlash the nicknames stay the same, his first two friends at ua still get called 'shitty hair' and 'shitty women', he still calls denki 'dunce face', jirou 'ears' but he cares about them all.
all that caring is amplified when it's comes to you and you're involved, he's protective of you- emotionally. ever since he's met you you've been competing on who's better, you're the number ten hero always saying that you'll take his place soon, he knows you can handle yourself but when it comes to emotion- he worries. without him would you be friends with all the people you are now? you were worse at making connections with people than bakugou was and that's saying something, all because you were so quiet and worried about your soulmate situation.
he knows there's speculation that you're his soulmate but you both ignore it, he doesn't love you, at least romantically. it's definitely an emotion he can't put his finger on though, he guesses it's likely brotherly love but he's an only child so he can't be sure about that.
"why the hell do you act all lovesick all the time when your soulmate is spending everyday with you?"
hanta's mind goes blank. what the hell is he talking about? "huh, i- what?"
bakugou tuts, 'why is he acting like he doesn't know?' "i'm not a fucking idiot. shitty women's handwriting is on your hip."
hanta's eyebrows furrow, "i think i'd know if one of my best friends was my soulmate bakugou. this isn't her writing."
"holy fuck, you are an idiot. i've spent enough time studying with her to know."
"you obviously didn't if you think that." hanta retorts. 'there's just no way that's her writing.' he hasn't actually seen your handwriting that much and certainly not in recent years. it's one of the things he hasn't committed to memory about you but he knows for a fact that's not your handwriting. 'wait was does my soulmate mark even say?' he doesn't remember, he hasn't properly looked at it for so long now.
hanta lifts up his top again to read what it says, tilting his head trying to read it upside down. bakugou answers his silent request knowing that he wouldn't have asked and tells him what is says.
"i don't remember hearing 'thanks sero, you were great too,' but... wait, that... that does look a bit like her handwriting." he stares at the mark, trying to think back.
"yeah, plain face that's because it is." bakugou crosses his arms and looks at him annoyed.
soulmate hanta thinks everything bakugou just said to him through. "hold up," hanta lets go of his top again letting it drop down and moves around the all the furniture to go into a back room. he's so glad this game night is taking place at his. he leaves without anymore explanation and starts rummaging around in his spare room where he keeps things from the past, from ua and before that.
in one of the cardboard boxes at the back is notes from you that he's kept. they weren't meaningful or particularly very sentimental but they were notes you passed him in class. you sat far away from each other and would do mad libs and hangman. he didn't focus on the way you wrote each singular letter at the time.
you'd give him notes that said things like '6 letters. clue: current annoyance' he was able to win that fairly easy. after winning, writing back 'is mineta a current annoyance if you're always annoyed at him?'
you'd pass back a note for him that read, 'write me back: celebrity name, colour, adjective, object, colour, emotion, animal! after class - if you can read the completed filled in sentence without laughing or smiling you get to choose the film for tonight' it was always hard for him not to laugh or smile, especially when he had to say things like "hawks always wanted an orange handsome dildo-" he couldn't keep it in and grinned after that, you ended up choosing the film.
hanta can't pinpoint the exact moment he started to crumple up the paper, holding it tightly in his hand. he's figured it out, that's your handwriting! he clutches onto his shirt and takes deep breathes. he has to tell you! you have to know! you're meant to be together the proof is right in front of him, the proof is forever marked into his skin. it'll be a shock to you and he knows it's probably not the best to spring it on you but you have to know.
leaving all the notes scattered across the floor he quickly gets up to talk to everyone. "bakugou's right!" bakugou rolls his eyes at that. "i-i can't believe she's actually my soulmate. i have to go."
"wait what, go where?" kirishima questions. kaminari overlaps him, at the same time congratulating him.
"she's not on duty tonight, i have to tell her!" no one really has a proper chance to respond before he's already left.
"should we leave?" kirishima looks around the room.
"nah, we've already opened our drinks and booted up the tv. we'll go later." kaminari picks up his beer.
soulmate hanta who rushes over to where you live, banging on the front door loudly. you wonder who's knocking at such an hour and so noisily at that. it's not abnormal for hanta to come by but he's with the guys tonight and he doesn't knock like this, he usually knocks the same pattern which he refers to as his own chime of a doorbell. you open the door and you're surprised to see hanta, looking at you... strangely? "oh, hanta! i wasn't expecting you. weren't you supposed to be hosting games night tonight? is everything okay?"
hanta doesn't answer the question and instead asks, "can i come in?" he says in a low voice and licks his lips, wetting them. your eyes quickly glance at the movement before looking back up at his almond eyes. you move to the side for him to come in and shut the door behind him. you don't think something's wrong, at least it doesn't look like something's wrong by the way he's looking at you and his posture. he's looking at you for a second before pacing around the room, you don't press him on anything you just stand where you are and wait for whatever he needs. he stops his pacing and turns back to you, the intense look in his eye almost makes you want to squirm out of embarrassment for being seen that much. "i need to tell you something."
"okay," you respond, prolonging the end of the word. you're confused.
"we're soulmate!" hanta almost shouts at you. with knitted eyebrows and a bewildered expression you repeat okay. "w-w-what do you mean okay?" didn't you just hear me?" hanta's in disbelief and he scans your face.
"i mean... i heard you but i don't know why you're telling me something we both know." you don't even have time to feel anything other than puzzled. this situation should be making you feel heavyhearted or heartbroken but instead it's just filled with questions of 'why is he bringing this up? we already know this.'
hanta splutters, "why are you acting like you already know this?"
your mind goes blank.
"what?" you whisper, your mouth is dry and your limbs feel heavy. ''why is he acting like this? he doesn't seem drunk or high. is he being controlled by someone? there's no way he'd be this cruel.' you open your mouth breathing softly and you're finding it hard to keep your breathing steady. "why are you being like this hanta? it's cruel." your voice is even quieter than it was.
hanta's eyes soften as he sees you and goes to reach out to you before stopping himself. "i'm not trying to be cruel, i'm just trying to understand what you're saying. i've just found out you're my soulmate and i needed you to know... but... but you're acting... you're saying that you already know. i don't understand why you've kept it a secret."
you blink slowly, trying to process everything hanta's just told you. "what do you mean that you just found out? i haven't kept anything a secret. i knew from the very beginning we met. you tripped over my bag and praised me after a practical lesson. did you really forget?"
soulmate hanta's eyes widen. "forget?! i didn't even know. you really think i'd forget the woman i've been in love with since i saw her is my soulmate."
you have questions but all you can focus on is, "you love me?" you ask- softly. shyly.
hanta goes bright red. "w-well yeah, of course i do." you giggle and he smiles affectionately at you, he loves hearing you laugh especially when he's the one getting you to do it.
"i love you too," you let him know sweetly.
hanta grins, "really?"
you hum and nod your head. "did you really not know?" hanta shakes his head. "how did you find out in the end though?"
hanta rubs the back of his neck and appears guilty as he responds, "oh, that... well, it was bakugou. he saw my mark and knew it was your writing."
you pout at him, "god, you didn't even realise yourself." hanta chuckles nervously. "what am i going to do with you hey? my oblivious soulmate." you wrap your arms around him and hug him, your face on his chest, gazing up to make eye contact.
soulmate hanta grins when he hears you call him your soulmate and reciprocates the hug, holding onto you and squeezing lightly for a second. "i can't imagine what it must of felt like for you, i'm sorry. all those wasted years we could of had together if only i connected the dots better. i promise i'll make it up to you."
there's plenty of time to talk about your feelings, to express to him how you felt rejected. there's your whole life for that but right now there's something better. "oh, how are you going to make it up to me?" you say teasingly and smirk.
hanta chuckles loudly and grins, "what do you have in mind?" one of his hands that was holding you sneaks in under your top. neither of you have ever done this before but soulmates are made for each other, you'll know each other's body better than you know your own because, at the end of the day, you're meant to be.
#bnha x reader#hanta sero x reader#hanta sero#sero hanta x reader#mha x reader#sero hanta#bnha sero#sero x reader#i wasn't planning to write more about soulmate hanta originally but everyone seemed to love him !!! so here it is <33#this is how they FINALLY get together!! <33#hanta x reader#♡ mine / writing#♡ hanta#sero soulmate#bnha soulmate au#soulmate au#bnha#mha#bnha x you#mha x you#sero x reader suggestive#hanta sero x reader suggestive
146 notes
·
View notes
Note
NIVI!! Give us your postgame thoughts on Ole Miss!!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING MY LOVIES! I am thankful for that fact that I found a stream that worked last night and got to watch this game even though that 3rd quarter took years off of my life.
AZZI. FUDD. I don't think I can even begin to explain in words just how proud I am of her. Everyone has been saying that it's only a matter of time before Azzi starts to contribute (not that she didn't contribute in the Oregon State game) but Azzi didn't just contribute last night; was definitely the biggest (not the only of course) reason we won. It was a one-possession game and momentum was without a doubt on Ole Miss's side and Azzi said fuck all of that and gave UConn an 8-pt cushion all by herself. And what won't reflect on the box-score is that her scoring those points did two things: it deflated Ole Miss and it energized UConn. She was just so good offensively and defensively; just an all-around performance and I'm just so incredibly proud. And you know what the best part is? Those 3s ain't even falling yet.
Casual 29 points for the NPOY, no biggie just Paige doing Paige things except you know MY Paige doesn't normally get 5 turnovers...jk jk because honestly she only should have had 3 (still "high" for her standard but also that's what Ole Miss hangs their hat on). That 1st half and that 4th quarter were just things of beauty. That's what you need your leader to do, set the tone and then finish things off. AND SHE FINALLY GOT SOME FTS!!
Sarah looked really good in the first half and then when Ole Miss got going, she looked a little shaken in the second half, emphasis on the little shaken because it was only really in terms of scoring, she was still doing all the little things. I've seen some discourse and I personally don't want Sarah to stop taking 3s because it's not like she takes bad ones and I think they're gonna fall and we need them to fall and they're not gonna fall if she stops taking them.
JANA!! She had some clutch has hell rebounds and some much-needed shots. I thought she had a really good game and a near double-double. She just looked really energized out there and I think she's only going to get better.
Ice had a up and down game. She definitely did a couple of things that frustrated me but also made some solid plays. I would have definitely liked a couple more points and a couple more rebounds but I think the hustle, that's been prevalent the last few games, is still there.
Ash needed more shots which is partially on her but also I feel like she was getting plays ran for AND her teammates weren't doing the best job of finding her. It feels like the aggression, particularly on offense, of the first two games had dwindled a little bit and she's in a bit of a slump. Also two of Paige's 5 turnovers, probably belong to her because girl what was you doing?
We definitely need more point production from KC but I thought she had a very stabilizing presence last night and did a pretty good job running the offense in the 4th.
KK hadn't made me want to scream at her for driving into traffic and getting blocked like clockwork in a couple of games and so of course OF COURSE she had to do it last night. But I do think she matched Ole Miss's energy well and I liked that one drive she had. She needs to look to score like that more.
Which brings me back to that KC-KK discourse, I still think the KK-Paige-Azzi-Sarah-Jana/Ice lineup is our strongest but I also did really like the KC-Paige-Azzi-Sarah-Jana that we used to end the game and was I believe the prominent lineup throughout the 2nd half. So I think my general opinion is that it doesn't matter who starts because ultimately it's gonna be a opponent-driven decision and it's good to have that option.
I love Paige and Azzi and I love that they had good games but I'm ngl, looking at that box score and seeing so many people with only 2 pts did not please me at all.
Blowing leads is becoming a recurring thing and as much as I think it's good character building for this team right now because as Geno says you learn more from overcoming the Ole Miss run than if you had stretched it 30, it is a little concerning that it's a bit of a pattern. And again this is only their 5th game and it was their first true test and also ofc only their 3rd having Azzi so I'm not necessarily super worried, but it is something I'mma keep my eye on.
But overall I'm just really proud of this team. They got punched in the 3rd and they punched back and I'm hoping to see a lot more punching in the upcoming games.
#ask#wcbb#uconn wbb#uconn women’s basketball#uconn huskies#paige bueckers#azzi fudd#ashlynn shade#ice brady#jana el alfy#sarah strong#kk arnold#kaitlyn chen#so glad to be a uconn WBB fan (emphasis on the W because the M are doing something...)
64 notes
·
View notes
Text
Love's Second Chance: A Holiday Reunion - Chapter 8
Summary: After an unplanned day at work, Y/N comes home to find a surprise waiting for her.
Characters: Joel Miller, the reader (OC), Negan Smith, etc.
AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60501985/chapters/155580502
Warnings: 18+, Swearing, severe angst, smut, public sex, unprotected p in v, depression, emotional characters, etc.
Notes: This is up later than normal. I was busy tonight. Happy Thanksgiving to those that celebrate! There is a nod to the TLOU games in this chapter.
What was supposed to be a vacation from work for a few weeks didn’t last very long. Today when Y/N’s boss called her asking her to come in and help with something, she was eager to go in for Carol. It wasn’t like Y/N was incredibly busy and money was money. It also gave her an extra day off somewhere in the future. It was unfortunately a long day and Y/N was just eager to come home at the end of the day. Both the children and Negan knew that she would be working, but tomorrow she would be spending it with them. Just so she could get some rest.
Even though it was something she had grown accustomed to over the last few years, coming home to a silence felt strange. Especially since she really hadn’t been alone in the last few weeks. Truthfully? She didn’t like it. Even though people always say they enjoy that alone time, for her she just liked being with someone. After four years of being lonely, the noise was just something she looked forward to.
Heading upstairs, she knew that she should have eaten something, but sleep just sounded so much better. Pushing the door open to her bedroom, a surprised sound fell from her throat when she saw that something was laid out over the top of her bed. Stepping forward, a lump grew in her throat at the brand-new dress that was before her. Involuntarily smiling, she dragged her fingers across the material. Next to it was a typed out note and a peony. Picking up the note, she started to read it with a warmth flooding into her face.
Put the dress on. A car will pick you up at eight. Don’t ask where you’re going. Just trust me.
With a smirk, she grabbed the peony and brought it up to smell the flower. This had to be another one of Negan’s elaborate date night ideas. It was completely unexpected, but charming considering everything. Even though they both agreed that they would wait until tomorrow to get together, Negan was always spontaneous like this.
Setting aside the note and the flower, she lifted up the dress to take a look at it. It was a flowing red gown that took her breath away. A long time ago she had seen a dress like this that she had wanted, but decided not to buy it because it was on the more expensive side. Also, she really didn’t have something nice to wear it to. Bringing it close to her chest, Y/N looked to the time to see that eight wasn’t too far away. If she wanted to look nice, she would have to start getting ready now.
Taking a quick shower, she dried her hair and did as she was told putting on the dress, her makeup and some of her nicest jewelry. After getting ready, she waited downstairs wondering if she should call Negan, but instead waited. By eight there was a car waiting for her just like the note said. Getting into the car felt uncomfortable since it was a stranger that was driving her around. Silence filled the car and even though she trusted Negan, it was hard not to speak.
Should she ask the driver where they were going? She wasn’t used to things like this. But she kept quiet and just trusted the process. When they reached the local high school it confused her. The driver stopped in front of the school and it made her let out an uncomfortable sound.
“You’re supposed to go into the school,” the driver instructed looking back at her over his shoulder and it had her swallowing down hard. Sliding across the backseat, she worked opened the door. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” she gave the driver a thanking nod, closing the door once she got out. Moving up the long walkway to her old high school made her curious as to where this was headed. Entering the school brought back old memories for her. Even though she now was coming to the school as a parent for Elizabeth, this was still the school she grew up at. Usually the school would be locked up right now considering they were on holiday, but here it was lit up and welcoming for her to walk through it.
Stopping at the display cases, she looked over the trophies that were there. Gazing over the old photos of when she attended the school made her smile. The young photos of both Joel and Negan on their perspective teams drew her attention. After taking a few minutes, she wondered where she was meant to go until her eyes fell to a piece of paper that was taped to the wall. In a bold font the words ‘this way’ were written on it with an arrow pointing down the hallway.
Following the route, Y/N was amused that it led her through the hallways of the school with each sign directing her where she was meant to go. By the time she made it to the school’s planetarium, it made her head tip to the side. Opening the doors, she stepped inside to see that it was empty except for something that was on the desk at the front. There was a bouquet of flowers along with another typed out note.
Unhurriedly moving across the room, she reached for the note and grew curious with the instructions.
Sit in the front row, middle seat. Don’t move. Watch the show.
Putting the note back on the desk, she looked around the empty room again. There was no sign of Negan. No sign of anyone really. Exhaling loudly, she did as she was told and sat down in the middle seat of the front row. Suddenly the regular lights went out and it was completely pitch black. It had been so long since she had been in this room. It was always something that she liked doing when they went here for school when they were younger. Leaning back in the seat, she lifted her head up waiting. It took a moment for the lights of the planetarium to be projected up onto the ceiling, but when they did it drew an awe from her.
They had definitely updated it since she had been here. All of the lights were bright and in a much higher quality which was no surprise. It had been a long time since she was last in this room. There was a chill in the room making her realize that she was genuinely not used to wearing dresses like this.
At this point, she half expected Negan to come into the room and join her, but she was alone for quite some time.
“I thought I’d tell you a story,” a voice spoke up causing a chill to flood her body. Looking back, she let out a shocked breath to see that two rows back Joel was sitting at the end of it. With the dimly lit room she could tell that his hair was slicked back and he was wearing a red dress shirt and a black suit jacket. “Don’t look at me, keep watching.”
“Joel?” she spoke his name with goosebumps developing over her arms. This wasn’t at all what she thought was happening. Yet it now suddenly made sense why the notes were typed and not written. “What is this?”
“Listen to me. Please,” Joel begged of her, his southern drawl growing deeper. There was something in the way that his dark eyes stared out at her that made her heart sink. “Hear my story and then if you want to ask questions, you’re free to do so.”
“Joel,” she said his name again with a frown flooding his features. Sighing loudly, she turned back around in her seat and leaned back to stare up at the ceiling of the planetarium again. Even though she didn’t know where this was headed, she listened to Joel.
“Thank you,” Joel’s voice was deep with him trying to speak loud enough and clear enough for her to still hear him. “I want to tell you the story about the first time I fell in love.”
Closing her eyes, she so badly wanted to stop him, but instead she did as he asked and kept quiet, “This story starts with me moving to this town. You know that I grew up in Texas. I never wanted to leave. Tommy and I were so mad when we had to. We didn’t want to move. We liked where we lived, but our daddy insisted that it was what was best for business. When we moved, I was pissed. I had friends that I was leaving. A place where I felt like I belonged. The first day we moved to this town, this woman came with her daughter to introduce themselves. When my mother brought me to the door to meet them, the woman’s daughter immediately blushed when she saw me. I was grumpy of course. I didn’t want to be there, so I wasn’t in the mood to be civil with strangers.”
“I know this story,” she pointed out having Joel scoff when she interrupted him. She lived this story and she knew what the outcome was. Clutching tightly to the arms of the seat, she curled her fingers around them and didn’t know why this was drawing chills down her spine.
“Not the whole story,” Joel corrected her with a grunt. “You’re supposed to stay quiet and watch the show. Listen.”
“Yes sir,” she huffed, leaning more comfortably back in her seat wondering if she would be able to get through this whole thing. This was already more than Joel spoke for the most part which was certainly different for him.
“Anyways, this girl had a crush on me from the start. I knew it. I always knew it. Every time I’d go outside to throw around a ball I could see her down the street trying to do things to impress me. And she’d show up asking me if I wanted to hang out with her and her friend. Of course, she was younger than me, so I thought I’d look stupid hanging out with a younger girl. So I’d deny her every time,” Joel recalled of his youth when he first met Y/N when they were children. Every day she would show up trying to get him to hang out, but he’d always say no. “But that girl? She never gave up. Every day she was outside, she’d try to get me to play with her and the other children. But I didn’t want to get close to the people here. I was so goddamn convinced that if I was brooding enough that my parents would take me back to where we lived before. But that girl? Even though my little brother was three years younger than her, she had no problem allowing him to hang out with her and her friends. See, back then? She was the most popular girl on the block because she was the most badass, coolest girl around. All the boys wanted to be friends with her. She played sports, knew them just as much as the boys did.”
Biting down on her bottom lip, Y/N tried to keep herself quiet while Joel told their story from his point of view, “And when my little brother started getting bullied by the dickhead living in our block, I didn’t know it at first. When I finally saw that shit stain knocking my brother off his bike, I was fully prepared to kick his ass, but that girl? She was outside playing hockey with her friends and saw it too. Beat me to it when it came to kicking that bully’s ass with her hockey stick. I was impressed. Scared. But impressed.”
“You didn’t fall in love with me then,” she noted remembering distinctly of their relationship through the years.
“You’re not a very good listener,” Joel’s Texan accent grew thicker making her laugh with him hushing her. “Anyways! That day I’m pretty sure that girl fell in love with me because I agreed to finally start hanging out with her and her friends. If she was willing to kick someone’s ass for Tommy? She was good enough to hang out with. So I became a trio with her and her best friend. For years I knew she had the biggest crush on me. It’s not that she told me she had a crush on me, but it was the way she looked at me. I never acted on it because I truthfully was scared of her. What if I pissed her off and I became her next target?”
“Joel,” she grumbled under her breath hearing his thick laugh in return.
“I’m serious! You scared the hell outta me. It was better to have you as a friend than as an enemy,” Joel declared rocking slightly in his seat watching her from afar with her still staring up at the showing of the stars above them. “But now? I’m gonna jump ahead and tell you about the time I fell in love for the first time. You see, I wasn’t the smartest student around. I was actually…kinda lazy. Instead of focusing on my education, I focused on my athletic and musical talent to get me ahead in life. For the most part? It worked. That friend of mine was in the same class as me. Even though we were best friends out of school? Sometimes I was kind of a dick since she was younger than me. So I’d sit by my friends when I reckon I should have always been spending my time with her. But one day in class, they turned off the lights and that girl? She was sitting in the front row, right in the middle. There was a light that was reflecting from the lights above that drew my attention to her. And for the first time when I looked at her, I felt my heart stop. She was smiling and it took my breath away seeing her like that. I was in the third row, on the end and I couldn’t take my eyes off her. All I wanted to look at was her.”
A loud exhale fell from her lips with her lowering her head down with Joel sweeping his thumb in over his bottom lip, “I thought it was a fluke. Something that wasn’t gonna happen again because I had never felt that way about her in all the time we had been friends. But after that moment in this very classroom, every time I saw her she took my breath away. My heart would race. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I didn’t understand why it took me that long to finally see that she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever laid my eyes on.”
Her breathing grew louder when Joel confessed to her something she had never heard before from him with this story, “I thought I lost my chance with her because I thought she had feelings for another boy, but when I approached her at a party and I kissed her…I felt fireworks. I had kissed other girls before, but when I kissed her? I wish I could describe it. It felt like my heart stopped and at the same time like it was pounding outta my chest.”
Leaning forward in his seat, Joel rest his arms against the chair that was in front of him while he watched her listening to him, “After that moment? I knew that I needed to have her in my life always. And then when we slept together the first time? I should have made it more romantic, but I could tell by the way she looked at me that she was everything right in the world. There was always a piece of me missing, but with her? She made me whole. And after that moment? I couldn’t stand to be separated from her. Every moment I spent without her, I was in agony. That’s how I knew I met the love of my life because every minute I spent away from her I was counting the seconds until she was in my arms again. She was everything that was perfect, pure and right in the world. And me? I was a fucking mess. Which is why I always thanked the world for bringing her to me because I wasn’t used to things going right for me. When the world fell apart for me with my parents dying, she was my rock. She was my strength and she made me realize what true love really was. We didn’t mean to get pregnant, but it happened. It was scary. It was sudden. But we took it on together.”
Getting up from his seat, Joel moved to the front row with her and sat beside her, “When Ellie was born, I was blown away that I could make something so perfect. But then again? She was part of you.”
Outstretching his fingers, he stroked them over the top of her hand seeing that tears were burning at her eyes, “And when we got married, no matter how scary the world seemed at that young I knew I’d be okay because I had you by my side. Every night after Ellie was born, I’d always wake up worried about the both of you. Everything else that was good in my life left me. So I’d check on you and her because I loved you both so much.”
Against his fingertips Joel could tell that Y/N was tremoring trying to avoid getting emotional, but she still was, “And then we had a beautiful boy. We were in love with two amazing miracles that came from our love. I don’t know what happened, but I let my past cloud my judgement. I had everything any man could wish for. And I messed up. I screwed up real bad.”
By now she was crying again, but he hooked his fingers with hers tightly in a supportive squeeze, “I let you down and I’m sorry. I thought at the time I was making the right choice, but I miss you. I miss us. I miss our family. Without you? I don’t feel whole. When I had my family, I was proud. I was a man that had everything. The perfect wife. Beautiful children.”
Joel’s words lingered when he turned in the seat, reaching out with his other hand to press his fingertips in over the side of her face, “I love you Y/N. I love you so much. And I miss everything about my life before. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I made a horrible mistake. I want us to be together. I want us to fix things. And I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. When I lost everything with my parents, you pulled me out when I was drowning. You saved me. And you were the only person that ever felt like home to me.”
What really got her was not only was she crying at this point, but so was he, “The children want us to get back together. And I know you still love me.”
Closing the distance between them, Joel’s lips covered hers and he could taste the saltiness of her tears against his lips. Brushing his lips against hers again and again, Joel attempted to show her with everything that he had how much he loved her.
Unhurriedly, he pulled his lips away from hers and motioned her to wait for a moment. Standing to his feet, he watched her eyes follow his movements. Bending over, he picked up the guitar that she had bought him all those years ago for their anniversary. Spotting what he was holding had her breathing growing uneven and she lowered her head.
“What are you doing?” she stammered trying to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hand. Motioning her to wait, Joel dragged the chair that was in front of the desk out. Carefully lowering down into the seat, Joel strummed at his guitar a little and cleared his throat.
“It’s been a while since I’ve done this. Y’know. Play in front of someone,” Joel explained tapping his fingers against the guitar slightly. “Just alone to myself.”
Keeping her eyes locked on Joel, she heard the cords that he started playing having it take her breath away. It had been so long since she had last heard Joel play the guitar. After things it seemed like he wrote it off completely, but it was always one of the things that drew her to Joel.
“If I ever were to lose you, I’d surely lose myself. Everything I have found dear, I’ve not found by myself,” Joel seemed to stumble a bit over his words while he tried to gather himself and sing for her the song that he was drawn to when he thought of her. “Try and sometimes you’ll succeed to make this man of me. All my stolen missing parts, I’ve no need for anymore.”
Swallowing down hard, it felt like the room was spinning around her while he continued to sing in his deep rumble of a southern drawl, “I believe and I believe ‘cause I can see our future days. Days of you and me.”
Bracing her hands over the sides of the chair she was in, she felt her heart racing and her lips parting, “Back when I was feeling broken, I focused on a prayer. You came deep as any ocean. Did something out there hear? All the complexities and games, no one wins but still they’re played. All the missing crooked hearts, they may die but in us they live on.”
Sitting forward, she felt like the breath was leaving her lungs when Joel started singing the chorus again. There was a whole lot of crying with her body shaking, “When hurricanes and cyclones raged, when wind turned to dirt to dust, when floods they came or tides they raised, even closer became us. All the promises at sundown, I’ve meant them like the rest. All the demons used to come ‘round, I’m grateful that they left.”
Tightening her grip around the arms of the chair, Y/N felt lost in herself with her body tremoring, “So persistent in my ways, hey angel, I am here to stay. No resistance, no alarms. Please, this is just too good to be gone.”
As Joel came to the final chorus, Y/N pushed up from the chair and started to make her way through the planetarium toward the door with Joel fumbling through the chords, “Hey!”
“What Joel?” she turned on her heel, throwing her hands up in the air with Joel setting the guitar against the desk. Sobbing made her feel pathetic, but that’s what she was doing right now. “What is this Joel?”
“I was just trying to show you how much I loved you,” Joel reasoned with her stepping through the room, holding his hands out to plead with her not to run off. “I love you. So fucking much.”
“You are fucking with my emotions so bad,” she explained to him, her words broken with her shaking her head. “Do you know how long I waited for you to do something like this? How I prayed that you would realize that you didn’t want that divorce? Do you know how much it broke my heart that I made you miserable?”
“I made a horrible, awful mistake,” Joel stressed, still crying himself stepping before her with a frown. Joel wasn’t much of a crier, so the fact that he was crying? That took her breath away and surprised her. “I was wrong. I know what I did and I understand why you are feeling the way you are, but we’re soulmates you and I. Destined to be together.”
“I loved you so much. I tried so hard to make you happy because I knew what life stole from you,” she whimpered with Joel taking slow steps toward her. Shakily reaching out to grab his hands with hers, Joel’s thumbs stroked over the backs of her hands with him nodding. “Life was hard for me too Joel. I didn’t want this life when I was younger, but I grew to love this life because I love you so much. And if I had you, I knew I’d be okay because you were everything to me. I gave everything to make you happy.”
“I know you did,” Joel acknowledged with a firm nod of his head. “I was blind to things then, but now I see everything you did for me. No one supported me and did for me what you have. We were the perfect couple. Even this town saw it. I’ve never been good with my emotions, but with you I had them. I just closed myself off again like I did growing up. I never got to mourn the loss of my parents or the loss of my future. I had to step into the role of dad with Tommy when I was eighteen. I had to be the strong one, the cold one. Cus’ Tommy was the one that was the younger one. He’d be the one growing up without his parents. Cheated from a life that I did get. Then I became a dad not long after. I lost myself and I hurt you.”
“I’m sorry Joel,” she shook her head, attempting to leave only to have Joel reach out to pull her to him. Having her fall in against his chest, Joel palmed in over the side of her face drawing her lips to his again. Passionately he kissed her, his fingers curling around the back of her neck with each caress growing hungrier between them.
“Please, I love you so much,” Joel stammered against her lips, walking forward to lead her toward the wall. Pressing her back against it, Joel was eager to kiss her as intimately as possible. With her melting in against him, he could tell that she was falling for it further.
Allowing his kisses to tamper off over her jawline had her palming down over the center of his chest. Sliding his hand down over the side of her body, Joel took his time calming her knowing that she was emotional. Pressing his body in closer to hers, Joel swept his fingers down over the exposed part of her shoulder and pulled back slightly. Hovering his lips over hers, he knew that she was still emotional with him drawing his thumb across her bottom lip. Kissing at the pad of his thumb, her eyes came to a tight close having Joel’s pulse leaping in his throat.
Tugging at the material of the bottom of her dress, Joel got it hiked up enough to reach for her panties beneath pushing them down her legs. His Adam’s apple bounced in his throat when they dropped to her ankles. Curling his arm under her thigh, he lifted her leg and slid his fingers underneath her knee. Adjusting her other leg allowed her to step out of the material and he licked his lips.
“Just give me another chance,” Joel whispered, his forehead pressing against hers. Lowering her leg back, Joel reached for her hands and hooked his fingers with hers. Leading them to his belt had her letting out a tremoring breath. “I know you still love me and I still love you. The two of us are meant to be together.”
Dragging his thumb across her bottom lip, Joel teased her with the idea of kissing her. At first her fingers dragged across his belt and he could see the contemplation in her eyes, “It’s okay.”
Shakily pulling apart his belt, she tugged at the material and then undid the button in his pants. Pulling down the zipper was all he needed to know that this was okay. Bringing their lips together again, Joel kissed her and pressed his body in closer to hers.
“There is no one that makes me feel the way you do,” Joel slurred against her bottom lip, peppering it with wet kisses. In his arms, her body was tremoring and there were no doubts about the way that she felt toward him. “Nothing hurt more than seeing you crying the other day knowing it was because of me. Because I love you. I love you so much and I hate that I did what I did. I regret it every day.”
“How do I know that this isn’t like the other times?” she whimpered, her head tipping back with Joel starting to kiss down over her jawline. Closing her eyes, she purred out at the sensation of his lips caressing at her flesh. After so long together, Joel knew exactly what to do to get her to turn to mush in the palm of his hand.
“Does this feel like the other times?” Joel inquired, cupping her face in the warmth of his hands. Sweeping his thumbs against her face, Joel leaned into nuzzle his nose in against hers. “I mean what I say Y/N. I’m lost without you. You’re all I can think about. I go to sleep thinking about you. I wake up thinking about you…”
Crying out, she bit down on her bottom lip when Joel’s hand palmed in between her thighs. Swallowing down hard, Joel was quick to push his pants down to the bottom of his waist. Bracing his weight, Joel picked her up in his arms and pressed her firmly back against the wall. Getting her to wrap her legs around his waist, Joel’s eyelids grew heavy with her right arm wrapped around his shoulders and her left hand brushing through his hair.
“All I see is you…” Joel whispered, capturing her lips with his again. Each kiss grew stronger with his hips faintly bucking up against her. Breaking away for a moment, Joel lowered his head releasing a grunt when he lined his body up with her entrance. Sinking unhurriedly into the warmth of her body had his lips parting, a small whine escaping her throat with him entering her again. It was so hard for Joel not to fall apart right then and there. Maybe it was from all the emotions, but just having the warmth of her surrounding him again had his heart racing. There was a sense of euphoria that flooded into her features with her head tipping back. Starting to roll his hips from under her, Joel had her body bouncing upward with every thrust that he made. Hovering his lips over hers, the warmth of his breath had chills running down her spine. A rumble of a growl escaped his throat with her fingertips tugging at his dark hair. “We were made for one another. No matter what the world throws at us, it’s always gonna lead me back to you and you back to me.”
Unsteadily breathing, Joel nuzzled his nose in against the side of her neck with her wrapping her arms around his shoulders to brace herself. Wincing, Joel’s thrusts were slow and steady. Unlike the last time where he completely had his way with her. More than anything he wanted this to mean something. To be special in a way that the last few times hadn’t been between them. He wanted to show her that he loved her. That she was special to him.
“I love you,” Joel slurred against the side of her neck, grunting with his thrusts growing harder. Faint gasps escaped her lips with her caressing her fingers against his scalp. More than anything, he wanted to hear her say it back in the moment. Tipping his head back just enough, Joel’s dark eyes linked with hers. Pressing his forehead against hers. “Tell me you love me.”
“Joel,” she panted, her eyes closing shut tightly with his thrusts becoming more prominent. Clinging tightly to him, she whined out his name.
“Please,” he begged, nibbling at her bottom lip with their bodies moving together in unison.
“I love you,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering to an open with his movements coming to a halt. Joel’s beautiful eyes gazed over her lips and she knew by his expression that it was everything that he wanted to hear.
Carefully lowering one of her legs down to the ground, he hooked his arm underneath it while keeping the other leg wrapped firmly around his hips. Pressing closer to her, this helped Joel’s movements become steadier, more fluid. After hearing her say the words that he asked of her, Joel couldn’t stop kissing her. Flooding her with all the passion that he had inside of him.
“You are so beautiful,” Joel whispered against her earlobe after he broke away from their kisses allowing them to now trail over her jawline. “You’ve always been so beautiful.”
Drawing her back to him with his kisses, Joel’s thrusts grew unsteady with her breaths growing sharp against his, “I want to be the reason you smile again. I want to be the reason you’re happy, not the reason that you’re miserable.”
Settling his free hand in over the small of her back, Joel’s winces grew louder with every thrust. Whimpering, her head dropped back against the wall allowing him to kiss down over the side of her neck. Nipping at her chin, Joel growled out and felt his body tensing up.
“I miss you so much,” Joel captured her lips in a lingering kiss, plunging his manhood into her with uneven movements. His thrusts became more desperate. His body tensing up beneath her while she rocked her hips against his movements.
Dropping his left hand, he cupped her bottom in his grasp. Her cries grew louder, vibrating against his lips as he stole kiss after kiss from her. Soon his thrusts slowed down but were extremely prominent with the warmth of his release starting to fill her. Groaning out, Joel bit faintly at her bottom lip as he continued to buck up against her until his movements came to a complete halt.
Falling in against her, Joel’s breathing was loud and uneven. Usually she wasn’t this quiet during or after things, but it seemed like she was trying to catch her breath with their bodies still pressed together. Lowering her leg, Joel grunted when he felt her pressing into his stomach. By the pressure she was able to get him to step back. With his body pulling from hers, it had her eyes coming to a tight close. Trying to gather herself, she started pushing at the material of her dress doing her best to get it back into place. Once she did, she fell back against the wall, sliding down it until she was sitting completely on the floor.
“Y/N?” Joel breathed out her name, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. Noticing the expression over her face, Joel realized it wasn’t all that happy and he started to work his pants back up over his body. Pushing his softening length back into his pants, Joel adjusted himself before zipping the material together. Buttoning his pants, Joel left the belt unhooked when he lowered down in beside her. Both of their breathing was labored and he didn’t know what to say. Truthfully? The silence was eating away at him.
“There are no cameras in here, right?” she wondered, looking around the classroom to see if there were cameras that were there. In the past, she knew that there wasn’t, but it had been a very long time since they went to school here.
“No,” Joel shook his head, shakily brushing his fingers through his hair surprised that it was the first question she asked him.
“And no one was here to see that?” she seemed worried that they would have been caught having sex in the middle of the school.
“It’s just us in here right now. The guy that runs this program owed me a favor. Taught me how to use it and then the janitor let me into the building. I got permission to do this whole thing,” Joel explained to her the process of what he had to do in order to have this moment with them. Waving his hand about in the air, Joel felt his chest tightening when it looked like she was still upset with him. “I have keys to lock up afterwards.”
“We shouldn’t have done that here,” she stammered, her eyes staring out toward the seats in the distance.
“It’s not the first time we had sex in this building. The two of us would sneak off all the time when we were younger,” Joel reminded her with a weak smile, nudging her slightly with his arm, but it didn’t have the kind of reaction that he was hoping from her. “Y/N? What’s wrong?”
“This isn’t fair Joel,” she responded, staring out into the room refusing to look at him in that moment. Shakily, her fingers brushed back her hair. Right now? She seemed to be more upset than she was before all of this. “I waited four years for you to decide that you made a mistake. So many nights I laid awake thinking that you would show up on the doorstep apologizing about the mistake that you made. And when you’d show up to sleep with me, I’d think that was it, but it never was. You know that I love you and you know how to play me like a fiddle. Hell, like you said I’ve been in love with you since I was a child.”
“I didn’t…” Joel started to defend himself, but she held her hand up in the air to stop him from talking any further. By what she was saying, it felt like she thought he was doing the same kind of thing with her right now and that wasn’t the case at all.
“I am so fucking broken because I love you,” she declared with a whimper, reaching up to wipe at her eyes knowing that he was confused with her response. “Whether you like him or not, Negan is the perfect guy. Wants me to be happy. Goes out of his way to make me feel good. And I just had sex with you because the girl in me that is head over heels in love with you has been waiting to hear everything you just said for so long.”
Her hands were trembling as she spoke, the look in her eyes miserable when she turned to look at Joel with a newfound sadness that caused that ache at the center of his chest to grow further, “I can’t help, but think that you only did this because now there is someone else that genuinely cares about me. For so long it was only you, but now that there is Negan…”
“That’s not true,” Joel refuted with a frown outstretching his hand to curl his fingers in underneath her jaw to get her to look at him. “It’s not true because we started this back at the village and I didn’t even know Negan was there.”
“Joel, that day at the village was just like all the other times we’ve slept together since we’ve been separated. You’d come to me when you were horny and you wanted to get laid. You’d say exactly what I needed to hear or wanted to hear and I’d fall for it every time,” she reminded him hearing Joel huffing out and out of the corner of her eyes she noticed the way that his face scrunched up. “Why wait to do this until after Negan? If you missed me, if you loved me, why wait until now?”
“I don’t know, but it’s not because of Negan,” Joel declared placing his hand in over the center of his chest to stress his sincerity. “And I didn’t only come to you to sleep with you because I was horny and I wanted to get laid.”
“You always left before the children came home or woke up Joel when we’d sleep together in the past,” she hissed, her eyes full of tears again when she turned her head to stare out at him. Seeing her hurt again was tearing his heart out because he thought what he had just done was everything she needed to hear. Shaking her head, she tried to gather her emotions but she was having a hard time doing that. Misery was flooding throughout Joel’s whole body with no idea how to fix all of this. “I think right now you truly believe that you love me. That I’m the one for you. But I think it’s because before now, I was always an option. Someone that was here waiting for you to realize your mistake. Now that I have Negan in my life? I think you’re panicking. So you’re feeling these emotions so strongly.”
“I understand why you would think that,” Joel threw his hands out in a pleading motion, “but I started feeling this way long before Negan showed up. The day we did our gingerbread family I…” Joel swallowed down hard knowing that this was going to sound creepy. “When I went upstairs, I saw that the door to our bedroom was open. I went in there and I crawled into our bed. Laid in my spot because I missed it Y/N. I missed you then.”
“Then why didn’t you do all of this then?” she whimpered, her voice breaking after she asked him that question. So many thoughts were flooding through his mind, but he couldn’t focus on the right one that he knew would get her to believe him. “I don’t think you’re evil or purposely out to hurt me Joel. I don’t even think you did this purposely. I think it was your fear that I might not be here as a backup that has you acting out like this. You’re a good man Joel Miller, and I’ve always known that. But? You’re just not good for me.”
“Tess and I broke up because I was still in love with you,” Joel confessed to her, his eyebrows furrowing when he tried to appeal to her. “She wanted more from me, but I couldn’t give it to her because my heart…it still belonged to you. I was just pretending with everyone else because I thought I had to experience what I didn’t when I was a kid, but I realized it was you that I wanted to be with.”
“Joel, we slept together when you were with Tess. You could have left her at any time and I would have welcomed you back with open arms,” she defended her actions right now with being so upset. “It’s so hard to believe what you are saying right now.”
“Because I hurt you in the past, that’s what you’re focusing on, but it’s not true,” Joel promised, his voice broken when he desperately shook his head from side to side. “You’re it for me. I know you are. And I’ve felt this way for a while. Before Negan even showed up because at the village…”
“You fucked me so hard that I felt it all night and into the morning,” she interrupted him having him go silent with his defense. “There was no romance there. You wanted to have raunchy dirty sex and I don’t think you cared who I was in that moment. You fucked me so hard Joel and it wasn’t sex from a man that loved me. It was a man that wanted to use my body to get a release. One that he likely hadn’t had in a while.”
Groaning out, Joel buried his head into his hand and felt his body shaking, “I’m lonely and I miss you Y/N.”
“I believe that you’re lonely,” she agreed with him having his saddened chocolate brown eyes meeting hers when he turned his head to gaze out at her. “You know, the day you told me you wanted a divorce is the day that you left. I remember thinking back then you were just stressed out and overwhelmed. I just thought you were saying it to say it. To scare me into thinking I was actually going to lose you. I thought you just needed some time to calm down. So I let you go with Tommy. I never cried harder than I did that night. And when you came to get your things, I begged you to reconsider. I didn’t understand the mistake I had made. What I did wrong. I gave up my life just like you did. The second we got divorced, Tess suddenly showed up…”
“I didn’t cheat,” Joel started to fight watching her nod her head. “I didn’t!”
“I believe you, but it didn’t stop you from finding someone as soon as we got divorced,” she recalled the pain that she felt when he was with Tess. How quickly he had found someone else always broke her heart. “You threw Tess in my face every chance you could. Maybe you didn’t even mean it. Maybe you loved her so much that…”
“I never told Tess that I loved her,” Joel interrupted her shaking his head when she rambled about his ex that he had broken up with months ago. “I never did.”
“Does that even matter? You still chose to be with her over me. It killed me to see you with her, but I didn’t try to break the two of you up. When you came to me, I thought you were picking me and you would come back to me. I was a bad person when I slept with you when you were with her,” she condemned herself thinking about some of the worst moments of her life. Back then she was so desperate to have Joel back that she would have done anything to make him happy. “Right now, I believe you firmly think that you love me and you want to be with me again, but I know how you were when you were with me and I’m not your happiness.”
“I’m nothing without you,” Joel pled as she pulled herself up into a standing position. Looking up at her with misery in his eyes, Joel threw his hands up in the air. “My heart breaks every day I wake up and you’re not in my arms. I miss when it was the four of us. Waking up, having breakfast with the four of us…my heart yearns for that. I want to be with you with everything that I am. My chest fucking hurts when I think about you because I love you and I’m heartbroken.”
“You don’t know what heartbroken is,” she scoffed, lowering her head when Joel started to sob where he was seated. “You know what? That was mean. I’m sure you do. But not when it comes to me,” she went to leave with Joel reaching for her hand again, but she forcefully pulled it away from him. “Don’t!”
“Please,” Joel got to his knees, holding his hands up in a begging motion. “Please give me another chance. I can prove it to you. Don’t do this to me. Please?”
“Do you think I like seeing you like this? I love you Joel and I have loved you all along. I will always love you Joel, but you shattered my heart. You broke it so bad that I don’t even know if I can ever piece it back together,” she whimpered, her sobs drawing her words to slur together. “Do you remember how you got me to sign the divorce papers?”
Dropping his head, Joel bit down on his bottom lip and his hands fell at his sides into fists, “You told me that you were suffering. That every day you were with me you woke up wanting to kill yourself because you hated your life so much. You told me that the only chance you had at being happy was trying to do something new with your life. What happens if we get back together and I wake up one day to find that you aren’t here because of me? Because I make you that miserable.”
“You’re the only thing that holds me together,” Joel stated with something that resembled a whine. Right now Joel looked defeated on his knees before her. “Nothing I say is going to make you take me back. Is it? I’ll never be good enough for you.”
“You were always good enough for me,” her bottom lip trembled, lowering down before Joel to trace her fingers over the hard lines of Joel’s face. “Joel Miller, I’m going to love you until the day I die. Nothing will change that because I love you so much. But I will never forget the things you told me. And I think the healthiest thing for the both of us is to stay apart. We’re toxic together Joel. I don’t make you happy. And I love you enough to know that. But you’ll never lose me. I’ll always be in your life. With our children? We’ll never be out of each other’s lives.”
Bracing her hands against his shoulders, she caressed over them and leaned forward to bring their lips together in a tender sweep. When she pulled away, Joel’s palm caressed down over the side of her face, “It’s not a question of if I love you Joel. We both know that I do. It’s just knowing what’s best for the both of us.”
Nuzzling her nose in against his, she stroked her fingers over the side of his face taking a moment to comfort him with him so upset. Shakily standing to her feet had his dark eyes lifting to watch her back step toward the door.
“Let me take you home,” Joel reasoned with her, going to get up but she was quick to shake her head. Guilt was eating away at him, his whole body aching after the way this turned out. “No one is here to drive you home. You’re only wearing that dress. You’re gonna get sick.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she shrugged her shoulders letting out a long sigh knowing right now she felt like she needed an incredible amount of punishment for everything she did tonight not only to Joel, but also what she did to Negan. “I’ll call Tommy and let him know what happened so he can expect you home soon.”
“Something tells me even if I asked you not to, you still would,” Joel commented, lowering back down to his ass letting out a long huff when he wiped at his tear-stained face. “So do whatever you have to do I ‘spose.”
Standing at the doorway, Y/N felt her chest aching seeing how devastated Joel looked, but at the end of the day she knew this was the best for the both of them.
----
At first it sounded like a faint knocking sound that awakened Negan from his slumber. It was late into the middle of the night and he was barely awake. Turning his head, Negan groaned out and buried his head into his pillow further. Hoping to drown out the sounds. Right now he was at the home he had rented to stay in town for the holidays. Truthfully? The house was incredibly noisy and he figured it was because it was an older home. Over the last couple of weeks, Negan had gone back and forth between this rental and his mother’s home so he wasn’t completely used to this place yet. That sound? He just thought it was old pipes.
Gradually the sounds started to get louder which had Negan pushing his hands into the bed to sit up slowly. Rubbing his hand down over his face, it took a minute for him to realize that it was someone knocking. Gazing over at the time, he let out a stressed breath seeing that it was way too late for someone to be at his home. Then again, when he was at his other places he never put it past a fan to try to show up at his home unannounced.
Getting up slowly, he stumbled through the darkness of the bedroom. Flicking the light on helped just enough but hurt his tired eyes. Rubbing at them, he yawned and made his way down the hallway toward the front door. Stepping in front of the door, he looked out the window after struggling to push away the curtain covering the door.
Suddenly, his heart kickstarted in his chest when he realized who was standing outside his door. Pulling it open, Negan clung tightly to the door and felt his heart racing, “Y/N, what the hell are you doing?”
Instead of saying anything, she just stood before him silent. Visibly freezing and standing before him in nothing but a red gown. Reaching out, his warm hands grabbed a hold of her wrists that were dropped down at her sides. Urging her into his rental home, Negan closed the door behind them. Palming up over her arms toward her shoulders, Negan realized that her flesh was freezing beneath his touch.
“You’re freezing. What’s going on?” Negan questioned, motioning her to wait a moment. Moving over toward the couch, he swiftly grabbed the blanket that he had left there earlier. Rushing back to her, he wrapped the blanket around her shivering body. Caressing it over her shoulders, he tried to get her to warm up. “Did you walk all the way here wearing just that?”
“Yeah,” she was honest causing an immediate worry to fill Negan’s eyes. Stumbling over to the fireplace, Negan worked quickly to get the fireplace started. Guilt ate away at her knowing that Negan was doing everything in his power to get the fire started for her as fast as he could. “You don’t have to worry about this Negan. I need to talk to you.”
“And we’ll talk once we get this fire started, get you some new clothes and something hot to drink,” Negan grunted after he finally got the fire lit. Moving around her, Negan dragged one of the chairs in the living room close to the fireplace. Grabbing her hands in his, Negan led her toward the chair and got her to sit down. Right now she was uncontrollably shivering, but she didn’t care about herself. Attempting to stand up had Negan shaking his head and forcing her back down. “Stay!”
Instead of fighting, she obeyed and heard him rushing down the hallway. Shuffling sounds were heard and it didn’t take long for him to be running back into the living room. Holding some clothes out to her, Negan saw her eyeing them over. For some reason she wasn’t taking them evoking a grunt from his lips. Lowering down, Negan pulled the blanket carefully from her body after he set the clothes aside. Hooking his arms underneath her armpits, Negan was gentle in the way that he pulled her up to her feet. Using his strength, Negan made sure that she was comfortably on her feet before he started to work the dress from her body.
Nothing about this was sexual. If anything? He was incredibly caring and sweet in the way that he was helping her. Getting the damp material from her body seemed to be his number one priority. And once he did? The material dropped to the ground with a wet thud. Even though she was naked, Negan didn’t take advantage of it. Instead he motioned her to lift her arms up for him. When she did, he helped pull one of his heavier sweatshirts down over her upper half. Grabbing his boxer shorts that he snagged from his dresser, Negan helped get each leg through before pulling them up her body. Once he was done, he did the same thing with a pair of his sweatpants and was unhurried in the way that he tied the knot in them.
“Come here,” Negan wrapped her up in his arms as soon as he was done. Holding her tightly to him, Negan was doing his best to warm her up. She was still shivering and he was worried about her.
“Did something happen?” Negan asked and by the tone of his voice she knew that he thought something horrible had happened to her. “Do I need to call someone? Do we need to go to the hospital?”
“No,” she muttered, burying her head against his shoulder. Even though it was warm, her body was still having a hard time warming up. It was an involuntary action of her body that was craving the warmth of his body against hers as she cuddled in closer to him. “I did this to myself Negan. I walked here from the high school. It was my own choice.”
“The high school?” Negan repeated, tipping back enough to stare down at her with a strained expression. “Why were you at the high school. No, fucking scratch that. Why did you walk all the way from the high school through the freezing weather in the snow to this fucking house? You should have called me. I would have picked you up.”
“I was punishing myself,” she spoke quietly having his head tip to the side. His eyebrows furrowed with his lips parting. It looked like he wanted to say something, but when he went to he stopped himself because he didn’t understand. “I’m a horrible person Negan. For so many reasons.”
“No you’re not,” Negan denied that statement immediately, shaking his head with him cupping her face in the warmth of his palms.
“I am,” she insisted having Negan scoff at her stubbornness. They probably could have gone back and forth like children at this point. It was late. She was freezing. They were both tired, but the worst of it was that she was emotional in all of this.
“You’re not a terrible person. And whatever you think you’ve done wrong, it’s not worth getting sick and dying when you have two children that need you,” Negan reminded her of Elizabeth and Peter who were likely at Joel and Tommy’s home. In her mind, all Y/N could picture was Joel coming home miserable to the children. If they knew how devastated she made their father, she was certain that they would hate her for tonight. Their father was everything to them. And she broke Joel’s heart. Instead of responding, a cry fell from her lips. Worried about her, Negan shook his head and motioned her to sit back down. “Stay here.”
“Negan,” she tried to call out to him after he had helped her back into the seat. There was some clanking coming from the kitchen. With him gone, she could focus on the warmth of the fire surrounding her. It was something her body needed as she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, pulling it close. Cuddling it closer to her body, she closed her eyes and tried to focus on anything other than how Joel sobbed because of her tonight. The sound of footsteps dragging across the floor was heard drawing her eyes to open. In her face was a mug that Negan was holding out to her. With an expecting glance, Negan nodded down toward it and cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Negan responded after she took the mug from him. Not drinking the warm liquid inside, she allowed the glass to warm her hands. That felt better than anything in the moment. Finally looking Negan over, she noticed that he was shirtless and he was in a pair of gray boxer briefs. His right knee had a compression sleeve over it that made her throat go dry. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
“You’re limping and you’re wearing your brace,” she avoided his question, her eyes gazing him over with him glaring down at her. Folding his arms in front of his chest, Negan’s stare made her remember all over again what it was like when he would get upset with her when they were younger. Right now? She was more worried about him. “Does your knee hurt?”
“Yeah, after tearing my ACL it doesn’t feel all that good in the cold weather,” Negan responded lowering his head to stare down at the brace that his doctor gave him to wear to help him heal with his injury. “Now how about you start talking to me about what’s going on? Why did you almost kill yourself walking here like you did?”
“Because I deserve worse?” she was getting emotional with Negan’s features softening. That was the last thing she wanted from Negan right now. Empathy was not something she deserved after what she did tonight. “I did something really bad.”
“Listen,” Negan groaned out as he lowered down to his knees to kneel before her in the chair she was seated in. Even though he was trying to hide it, Negan winced when he got down onto his knees. Trying to hide the pain from her. “Whatever you did? It’s not worth you freezing to death.”
There were tears burning in her eyes when she lowered her head forcing herself not to look at him. He was so tender and caring with her that she knew it would be hard to even tell him what had happened. Lacking bravery, she swallowed down hard and felt her body trembling.
“Did you kill someone?” Negan inquired with a simple shrug of his shoulders. With how shaken up she was, Negan felt like he was going to have to guess what had happened. “The rental has a shovel. Fuck, if you tell me where the body is I can help you bury it.”
“Knock it off,” she snorted hating that she laughed at his suggestion. Staring down at the hot chocolate that he had made for her, she felt an overwhelming sense of guilt eating away at her.
“Did someone hurt you?” Negan was quiet in the way that he asked her. By the tone of his voice, she knew that he was asking if someone assaulted her and she shook her head. If anything? She was the bad one for what she had done to Joel. “If someone hurt you, I’ll fucking kill them.”
“Negan,” she carefully set her mug aside, making sure that it wouldn’t spill before turning her attention back to Negan. Sliding forward in the chair, she shakily reached up to cup Negan’s face in her hands. Even though his face was warm, he didn’t turn away from her cold touch because he was too concerned for her. “You have always been perfect. And I haven’t.”
“I’m the furthest thing from perfect,” Negan breathed out, his long eyelashes fluttering to a close with her touching him. Turning his head into her palm, Negan deposited a kiss over the inside of her wrist which had her shuddering. “If you knew half of the bad shit about me, you probably wouldn’t be here right now. I’m not a good man.”
“I wouldn’t care what you’ve done,” she alerted him having his eyes lazily open with him staring out at her longingly. “You’ve always been my hero. The best part of me and I’ve let you down every time. I’ve hurt you so many times…”
“Hey…” Negan lifted up further with her crying harder, clear tension in his features from the pain that he was feeling in his knee but he was risking it to check on her. “What happened?”
“You’re not going to want to be around me after I tell you,” she insisted with a whimper knowing that what she had done tonight was a sure way to lose everything that she had just gained with Negan. It broke her heart to know, but what happened tonight happened. There was no avoiding it. He needed to know what she had done with Joel. Even though she considered what happened with Joel tonight a ‘goodbye’, it still happened when she was having the relationship that she had started with Negan. What hurt the most about this whole thing is that she slept with Joel knowing that she had a good thing going with Negan.
“Let me be the judge of that,” he suggested, tipping his head from side to side. Lifting up, he grabbed her hands and squeezed them tightly. “I want us to be as honest as possible with each other. So just say whatever you need to say.”
“I came home from work tonight to see a peony, a dress and a note at the center of my bed,” she began, forcing herself to keep her eyes locked on Negan. Hearing that had the lines in Negan’s forehead becoming more visible. “The note told me to be ready by a certain time. That a car would pick me up…I thought it was you. It was just like something you would have done.”
“Okay,” Negan waited for more information, still stroking his fingers over the back of her hands.
“The car drove me to the high school and there were these signs that led to the planetarium. Another note told me to sit in the front row and the lights started up,” she recalled everything that happened knowing that she should have just blurted out what she did, but she was going into far more details than need be. “It was beautiful. I waited for you to come out, but then I realized it was Joel that did it.”
“Oh, I see where this is going,” Negan nodded his head about, biting down on his bottom lip. “It’s okay.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say,” she countered having Negan’s Adam’s apple bounce in his throat. With a simple shake of his head, Negan exhaled loudly and she found herself surprised by his immediate response. “He did this really romantic speech about the first time he fell in love with me. And then he sang me this song…”
There were more tears growing from her eliciting a hushing sound from Negan who outstretched his hand to caress over the side of her face to sweep away the tears, “It’s okay. I understand. Joel is your ex-husband and I know you still love him. If you are back with him, I’ll just deal with it. I got to have you for a very short amount of time, but it was better than never having you.”
“Negan,” she frowned hating that he was being so polite about things. “We had something going and I slept with Joel…”
“What do you want me to say?” Negan’s face was scrunched up, his voice raspier than normal. “Do you want me to yell at you? Because we weren’t putting a label on whatever this was. I knew how you felt about Joel and…”
“I’m a bitch,” she snapped at Negan who snickered. Frustration flooded her veins with him drawing his tongue out across his bottom lip.
“And I’m an asshole,” Negan declared, slowly releasing her hands and throwing his arms up in the air. “So what? I can’t be mad at you for being in love with Joel. You were married to him for a long time and you’ve been in love with him for so much fucking longer. You don’t have to cry over the fact you’re back together with Joel. I’m gonna care about you regardless.”
“I’m not back together with Joel,” she sighed loudly, lifting her hands to wipe at her face again. There was no doubt that she looked terrible right now, but she didn’t care. “I broke his heart too. I think by allowing us to sleep together he thought I would give us another chance. I didn’t. We’re toxic together and I know that. I told him that. I told him that I only wanted to be friends with him.”
Arching his eyebrow in curiosity, Negan’s jaw clenched hearing her starting to cry harder, “I did to you what I did when we were younger. I fell for Joel’s lure he has on me again and I slept with him. I cheated on you.”
“You didn’t cheat on me when we weren’t officially dating,” Negan hinted shaking his head and dragging his fingers through his short beard. “I mean…if that’s the case, I cheated on you too.”
“You slept with someone else?” she was surprised to hear that having Negan’s head movements being incredibly dramatic. “Who?”
“I didn’t technically sleep with anyone. But I jerked off this morning thinking about Lucille,” Negan answered eliciting a groan and an eye roll from her. “I was in the shower, it was morning, my dick was hard. I jerked off thinking about her, so technically I cheated on you too if you’re counting sleeping with Joel as cheating.”
“You’re such a fucking liar,” she grumbled under her breath having Negan crack a big cheesy smile. She didn’t know what she was expecting from Negan, but it certainly wasn’t this. What she thought she deserved was to be treated like shit. Thrown out of the house and to never be contacted again. But instead? He was doing his best to make her smile. “It’s not at all the same thing.”
“I was imagining my fist was a pussy, so I mean…” Negan reasoned with her having her drop her head back against the chair in frustration. “A nice, tight, wet pussy.”
“You’re not helping this. You should be furious with me,” she snorted noticing that he was doing the motion of jerking off with his hand. With how big the gesture was it had her laughing out again. “Stop! You’re making me laugh.”
“I mean, it shouldn’t make you laugh. It’s that big,” Negan pointed to his hand smiling himself when she pushed his hand aside. “Come on. I don’t give a shit that you slept with Joel. I mean, I care. But I’ve been losing out to Joel my whole life. I’ve come to expect it. And we really didn’t make it official between the two of us,” Negan listed off the many reasons that he decided he couldn’t be mad at her. “If Lucille walked through that door and jumped me, I would crumble at the knee and have sex with her,” Negan considered what he said and he cleared his throat. “Then I’d have to consider the fact that I likely just had sex with a zombie, but I’d still hit it.”
“Jesus Negan,” she shoved into his shoulder having him snorting. Dropping back onto his ass, he stretched out his legs and braced his weight on his palms behind him on the floor. “You are everything I want. You’re everything I’ve longed for from Joel for years. You make me happy. You make me so fucking happy…”
“Then what’s the problem?” Negan stammered, his hazel eyes trying to figure out what was going on right now. There was so much going on inside of her head and Negan knew that she was torturing herself with her thoughts. “What is it you want Y/N?”
“You need to yell at me,” she demanded having Negan sigh loudly. “Yell at me. Get furious.”
“Why?” Negan wasn’t sure why that would help her in the position that she was in. “Is it going to help you to have me scream at you?”
“No, but it’s what I deserve. Because you are so fucking perfect,” she stressed, her words lingering a little long because of the way she was crying. “So please, just scream at me. Yell at me. Do something other than try to make me feel better.”
“How fucking dare you,” Negan spoke in a fake, condescending tone. “Your ex-husband that you are still very much in love with did something romantic and you ended up sleeping with him because of it. I’m fucking furious with you.”
“Negan!” she hissed at him having Negan roll his eyes dramatically. Instead of being angry with her, he was giving her an excuse for what she did. That’s not what she wanted at all because she felt like a terrible person for all of this.
“I am so fucking mad at you!” Negan raised his voice, his face scrunching up. Once his features softened, he threw his right hand up and waited for her response. “Was that better? Did you like me yelling at you?”
“Not really,” she was honest hearing him laugh. Biting down on his bottom lip, Negan sighed and took a long pause to think about what he was going to say.
“If you wanted me to scream at you endlessly and have a fucking shit fit, I’m not gonna,” Negan declared pressing his right hand in over his chest. “I understand. I get being in love with someone. I am kinda fucking pissed at Joel for letting you leave looking like that though.”
“I broke his heart,” she replied back blowing off the idea that Joel did anything wrong. “He offered to drive me home, but I just shattered his soul by telling him that I don’t think we should be together and that we were only meant to be friends.”
Considering everything that had been laid out before him, Negan pulled his legs up and wrapped his arms around his knees, “So now what?”
“What do you mean?” she watched him uncomfortably expecting something so much different to be happening right now.
“I mean what now?” Negan repeated himself, but he could tell that she had a hard time understanding things. “Do you want to get back with Joel?”
“I can’t,” she answered with a loud swallow reaching for her hot chocolate since her hands started to get cold again. “Joel may think he wants to get back with me, but he doesn’t remember how sad and broken he was when we were together. I made him miserable. And he broke my heart. We’re not good together. We made two beautiful babies, we made a life with each other, but he broke it off four years ago. He had four years to show me that he felt this way, but he never did.”
“Do you want to stop having something with me?” Negan brought his finger to the middle of his chest pointing at himself.
“You shouldn’t want to still have something with me,” she reminded him getting his nose to wrinkle up in irritation.
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Negan stressed, patting his chest with his whole hand. “Do you still want to be with me?”
“I hurt you,” she reiterated what she had done having Negan mutter something under his breath. “What?”
“Do you like spending time with me?” Negan inquired noting the way her features softened. Nodding her head, she bit down on her bottom lip and looked away from him. There was that guilt again. “Do you like having sex with me?”
“Negan,” she frowned letting out a small laugh. Why did he have to make a serious situation so lighthearted by the way he acted and said things?
“Answer the questions,” Negan demanded, his voice stronger than he had been most of the night.
“Yes,” she didn’t know where this would get them. Thinking about her answer, Negan licked his lips and cleared his throat.
“Do you want to be my girlfriend? Officially?” Negan wondered having her lips part, surprised to hear that come from his mouth. “Because if you want to be my girlfriend, then that makes it official. Which means neither you nor I can fuck around on each other. It’s putting a label on it now so I can’t feel bad for the things before.”
“Why would you still want to be with me?” she blurt out, flustered that he would even be suggesting that idea.
“Because if you didn’t care about me, if you didn’t love me…you wouldn’t be here right now crying. You walked in the freezing cold through snow to punish yourself because you thought you hurt me,” Negan pointed in the direction of the front door where he found her when she showed up. “You’re here and you’re telling me the truth. And the fact that you did it has you devastated. Because you love me. Part of you still loves Joel and I understand that, but I fucking love you. I’ve always fucking loved you. Knowing that you’re honest with me? Fuck, that’s a big deal. Now if we agree to be official here and Joel pulls something, I can’t promise that I won’t punch him, but since we weren’t official before, I can’t make a big deal out of it.”
“You love me?” she focused on the words he had said having him smile. Groaning in pain, Negan adjusted his body and crawled back toward her to lay his head in her lap after she set the mug down again. Rubbing his head against her thigh had her exhaling loudly, her fingers shakily moving down to brush her fingers through his dark hair.
“It’s not obvious?” Negan stammered, his head lifting up with his eyes staring longingly into hers. “I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember. That kinda love just doesn’t go away.”
Caressing down over the side of his face, she knew that she was getting even more emotional hearing him talking about loving her, “You told me that I make you happy. Well you? You make me so fucking happy. And I love spending time with you and the children. I understand that Joel is always gonna be in our lives. And I accept that.”
“I carry so much baggage,” she reminded him and he laughed.
“I carry crazy fans. Mental trauma. A bum fucking knee and a bad back. Occasionally some paparazzi and reporters,” Negan rambled off all the problems that he knew that came with being with him. “Being with me means that you have to share me with fans. I’ve had serious anger issues in the past. I swear like you can’t believe. I have the humor of a teenage boy. I make crazy amounts of dick jokes all the time. Like, I can’t help it. It’s dick and balls in this immature brain all the fucking time. I have a crazy sex drive where I’ll probably wanna have sex, a lot. I’ve been really romantic with you and I love making things romantic, but some days I’m the break your bed type of wild. I know I’ll get depressed when my career is finally over, but I’ll never take it out on you. I’ll just be…sad. Just like I’m sad about Lucille. I hide my emotions behind a fake smile all the time. So we’re the same. You and me? We’ve gone through so much shit. But I accept you. I want all of you. Broken heart and all. Cus’ you told me that I bring you joy. If I can do that for you from here on out. Then I consider that to be a success.”
“I don’t understand you,” she whimpered with Negan pressing his hands up over the arms of the chair to hover his lips in over hers.
“I don’t understand me either,” Negan agreed with her, a smile tugging at his handsome features drawing attention to his prominent dimples. “So what do you say? Do you wanna officially date me or not? Because either way I can accept your answer. Because either way I wanna still be in your life.”
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she claimed, her eyes full of awe for him.
“Then don’t,” Negan breathed out, slowly standing up with a pained sound. Motioning her to stand up, Negan sat down in the chair and then led her to sit in his lap. Wrapping her up in his arms, he got her comfortable enough so she was staring into his eyes. Palming over the side of her face, Negan shrugged his shoulders. “Just tell me if it’s not me that you want to be with. I’m a big boy. I’ll be able to handle it. I’d just like to give us…give this a real chance.”
After considering his offer, she nodded her head and let out a tremoring breath, “Yes.”
“Yes?” Negan was dramatic with the way he bobbed his head about.
“Yes, I want to give this a try,” she responded knowing that it made her a terrible person. Negan deserved better than her. And she knew that. Joel did too, but she knew what her heart longed for. Joel was someone she loved very much, but the way that Negan was? The way he made her feel? That was something she wanted from Joel for years. Yet it was Negan that it came naturally with. “If you’ll take me.”
“Of course I’ll take you,” Negan leaned forward to nuzzle his nose in against hers. “Is this where you expect me to pick you up and throw you in the fire for what you did?”
“That’s not even funny,” she snorted having his wicked laugh follow. “Negan.”
“If it wasn’t funny, why did you laugh?” Negan joked with her, tapping the tip of her nose with his pointer finger. “It was pretty funny.”
There seemed to be something that lingered in Y/N’s eyes when Negan tipped his head back, “What is it?”
“It’ll break Joel’s heart knowing that I still wanted to be with you after everything that he did today,” she thought aloud having Negan pull her in closer to him so she could get more comfortable. “I think it makes me a bad person for letting his hopes get up.”
“We’ll deal with it,” Negan frowned, wrapping his arm around her waist to make sure that she was safely in his lap as he adjusted his legs underneath her. “I’m not gonna fuck with Joel or rub his nose in it. Because that’s not right. But whatever comes our way? We’ll handle it in the best way we can.”
----
Tags: @chainsawsangel @fancypeacepersona @violent-darkness @negansbestie @elegantfanficluv
@sanctuaryforthelost @dead-of-niight @dilfsandmartinis @jennydehavilland
#Negan#Joel Miller#Joel Miller fanfiction#Pedro Pascal#Jeffrey Dean Morgan#Negan fanfiction#Negan x reader#Joel Miller x reader#Negan x you#Joel Miller x you#Joel Miller smut#The Walking Dead#The Last of Us#tlou fanfiction#The Walking Dead fanfiction#twd fanfiction#The Last of Us fanfiction#Negan Smith
65 notes
·
View notes
Text
Jason Todd x Jinx! reader Chapter 5
Your Robin
"Batman and Jinx."
"Jinx and Batman."
"We'll work on it."
That was the last time you'd seen Robin. It's been roughly two years since then. It was a mystery amongst vigilantes and villains alike. One day Batman has his sidekick, the next they both go missing for months. When the Bat did resurface it was alone. Until now.
Your heart soared seeing the familiar color palette of the Bird. Only for it to sink when you came face to face with a stranger. Mask or no it didn't take a genius to notice the obvious differences in boys. This one was much smaller. Shorter, thinner, and relied more on redirecting than raw strength. Your Robin was tall, built, and liked to punch his problems.
Though props to the Bat, they appeared to be roughly the same age. Or rather what age your Robin should be, assuming he isn't dead. You frowned at the thought. No. He wasn't allowed to die. He has to become the new Batman like you planned.
This Robin wasn't as fun to banter with either. He lacked the dry sarcasm you were accustomed to. This one was too bright eyed.
You sat next to a gargoyle, overlooking the city. You sighed. "Where are you, Boy Wonder?"
"Aw, you missed me?"
"Not you, replacement." You didn't have to turn around to know he felt insulted by the term.
You weren't sure of the particulars when it came to Batman and his sidekicks but you were nothing if not loyal.
"You gonna come quietly or do we have to do this the hard way?"
From the corner of your eye you saw the boy brandish a bo staff. Another reason to dislike him. This one didn't even get his hands dirty.
"Please. As if you could catch me."
You'd taken Robin's - your Robin - words to heart. You'd been practicing your hand to hand combat these past few years. More importantly, you've been honing your skills.
You clicked the button of your remote trigger. Several colorful smoke bombs bursted to life around you. By the time Robin cleared the smoke from his vision you were gone. You had no reason to linger here. He's no fun.
You sat, tinkering away, at your workbench. Bomb after bomb, always decorated in colorful scribbles. This one resembles a bird. Didn't take a psychologist to figure out you'd grown attached to the masked boy. Didn't stop her from pointing it out though.
"You still mopin' around in here?"
Harley skipped into your room, bells jingling. She came to a quiet stop at your desk. You looked up with a sullen face.
"Come on, little J. Don't gimme those puppy dog eyes." She sat down next to you. "I know you miss your playmate but you'll find someone new to explode in no time!"
"But he's my rival. The Batman to my Joker."
"I hate seein' you so down... Tell ya what, why don't we have a girls night? Just you and me." Her grin grew wider. "We can hit the town! Try out those new glitter bombs you been workin' on?"
You gave a melancholic smile.
"That's the spirit!"
You spent that night covered in stolen jewelry and sparkles. One of your most fond memories. Harley had a more understanding side to her than Joker. A gentler one. You admired her for that.
You eventually did move on from your Robin blues. Of course you still miss him, but you knew it was out of your control. You still didn't take to the new Boy Wonder. Batman himself grew on you however. You talked, he pretended to ignore you, but given he always answered your questions of lesser importance you knew he was listening.
You'd also become better acquainted with your fellow villains. You especially like Selina - Catwoman - she always gave the shiniest gifts. Bane was cool too. For someone so roided up he made for a decent conversationalist.
Riddler could drop dead.
Man thinks he's funny. He's not.
You'd also made a name for yourself. People knew that with the name Jinx came explosions and spray paint. Legally you were labeled a terrorist. You blow up one banking building and accidentally erase thousands of credit card debts and SUDDENLY you're an activist. Not your goal but a happy coincidence nevertheless.
Joker was certainly pleased. You were a harbinger of destruction and chaos after all. You and your dysfunctional, mad family were on top of the world.
But even still, between everything at home being good (or at least what you're used to) and being one of the most notorious figures in Gotham you still felt something was missing. You knew what it was. Who it was. The only friend you'd ever had. You missed Robin. Your Robin.
Little did you know far from where you sat in Gotham, half way across the world, a certain boy laid in a vat of green waters. Ready to be reborn.
#dc comics#bat family#jason todd#harley quinn#jason todd x reader#villain reader#jinx reader#jinx jumbles
31 notes
·
View notes
Text
simple thing, where have you gone?
alex blake x gn!reader
summary: for @storiesofsvu's holiday bingo "first snowfall" square + also inspired by this ask i recieved. alex knows you aren't sleeping and is determind to find out what's bothering you, and she's bringing out the big guns - hot cocoa.
word count: 3.2k
warnings: nightmare descriptions: feeling claustrophic, being trapped. alex touches r's hair (long enough that she moves a strand from r's eye - no description of hair type/colour). kissing. no use of y/n or pronouns. hurt/comfort with a happy ending.
a/n: this was so fun to write. i think it may be my fav thing i've written. i'm changing up the photos i post because i've seen a lot of people do this format (e.g. @emilys-bangs & @catssluvr - check them out <3) and i think it looks a lot prettier and cleaner than a gif so i'm jumping on the bandwagon.
Alex balances the two trays of steaming cocoas in her hands. The aroma tickles her senses, the creamy chocolate temporarily transporting her back to her childhood, to winter evenings in front of a fireplace with her family. It’s a welcome comfort after five days in chilly Bismarck, ND. She pushes her way into the conference room the team are currently taking up residence in; multiple heads lift up, sighs leaving lips, as shoulders relax at the indulgent scent, and Alex knows she has made the correct choice in grabbing the sweet treat for everyone.
“Is that what I think it is?” JJ sighs, hopeful and exhausted.
“I thought we could all use a little pick-me-up, especially in this weather.” She responds as she places the heavy trays on the table. Her eyes dart around the room as eager hands begin reaching for the hot beverages. Your absence is notable, and makes her teeth dig into her lip. A common theme this week.
“Thanks, Blake.” Morgan nods gratefully. He sips the cocoa, savouring the taste, thrown back to his own happy memories. It’s beautiful how a simple drink can have a room full of agents silently reminiscing. She catches Hotch, tenderly holding the cup, a warmth making its way up his cheeks as he takes a sip, so unlike the stoic figure he tries to hold whilst at work.
Alex grabs the last two cups from the tray. “Where’s-”
“Out back.” Reid interrupts, worry obvious. She wasn’t the only one that had noticed your declining state.
She retreats from the room with a smile as the team all voice their thank you’s. The cold night air is less forgiving when she steps outside a second time, biting at her skin, and causing her face to flush pink even as the hot cocoa continues to provide warmth to her hands and she buries her face in her scarf. She finds you leaning against the precinct wall, the glow of a nearby security light breaking up the night sky, highlighting you enough that she can make out your arms wrapped tightly around your body and your stare stuck on a point in the distance as she approaches.
You look around, the bags under your eyes more obvious in the unflattering yellow light. You haven’t been sleeping, Alex knows. Has been able to hear you restlessly moving around your room late at night due to the thin hotel walls. And despite that, you are always pouring over casefiles when everyone arrives in the precinct in the morning, looking like you’ve been glued to the chair for hours, even though the clock only reads eight am.
It’s not healthy, you’re working yourself to the bone and she can’t figure out what it is about this case that has you on such high-alert. It was brutal, three victims so far tortured and mutilated, but she’s watched you not flinch at worse.
She’s worried about you.
“Hot cocoa.” Alex says in lieu of a greeting, a small smile gracing her lips as she pushes the drink in your direction.
Your eyes widen, mouth opening in surprise, “Oh.” You take the cup from her hands, eyes tracking her face for a moment before you fully accept the gift, always looking for an ulterior motive.
You lift the drink to your nose, eyes closed as you inhale the chocolatey aroma through the mouthpiece of the lid. A hum leaves your lips, your shoulders relaxing further into the wall. A sense of peace finally settling over you for the first time this week.
Alex finally rewards herself with a sip of her own cocoa. The hot liquid fighting off the cold air and encompassing the ball of warmth in her chest that is directly related to you. She did good. Anything that eased the now permanent furrow of your brows was a win in her books.
“Thank you.” You sigh, eyes fluttering open. Your body rolls against the wall, leaning more towards her and creating a little pocket of space where the harsh biting air seems to dull. Her eyes move across your face, caressing every detail, wanting to hold this time while she can.
“How are you doing?” She asks, trying to keep her voice light so you don’t get defensive, and unintentionally making it soft and intimate in the small space.
You take another sip of your drink, nodding. “I’m okay.”
She arches her brow, she can’t help it. Her lips tilting upwards as her fingers reach out to ghost your arm. You follow the action, breath catching, and she forces her hand away, scolding herself for wanting more, always having to resist the urge to pull you closer.
She tucks her free hand into her trouser pocket, “How are you doing?”
You blow out a breath, visible in the air. She wonders if it might snow, the air feels frosty enough. “I just wanted a breather. I was about to head back inside.”
“A breather from what exactly?”
You huff, eyes moving away from her and focusing on something across the street. “I mean isn’t it normal to want a little space after five days of being in each other's pockets? I love the team but it’s not like any of us have had five proper minutes alone since we got here.”
She nods. She would agree with you if you weren’t beginning to get defensive, eyes avoiding hers and feet shifting beneath you. She tilts her head, aiming for casual, but knowing the words will hit anyway, “And this has nothing to do with the fact you’re not sleeping?”
Your eyes snap to hers, panic obvious, before they flicker away and you bury your head back in your cup. “I don’t know what you mean,” You murmur, words threatening to be lost to the cup as you take another sip of your drink.
She aches to reach out and stroke the hair away from your face that you are using as a shield. Instead, her fingers flex on her cup, her teeth digging into her lip. “You can talk to me.” She whispers, voice coming out like a promise, a vow. “I want to help, however I can.”
“Why?” You ask, disbelief coating your features, looking at her like she’s a puzzle you can’t solve, no matter how hard you try.
“Because you’re hurting.” She responds honestly and swallows down the lump in her throat that tries to make itself known.
Tears build in your eyes as you shake your head. Your eyes flicker over her face and then away again, a soft laugh escaping your mouth as your fingers tap a pattern against your cup. “Just like that?” You whisper throatily, gaze still trapped in the distance.
“Of course,”
You swallow roughly, eyes finding their way back to hers, lost and scared. An expression she never wants to see on your face again. She doesn’t have it in her to resist again.
She sighs, stepping closer and gently brushes the hair from your eyes. They fall close, a soft breath leaving your lips as you lean into the gesture. She memorises each detail of you, committing the length of your eyelashes to memory, the lines around your mouth, the feeling of your skin beneath her touch. Her hand trails down to your arm and settles there, safe.
Your eyes flutter open, holding her gaze as you nod gently. ”I haven’t been sleeping well.” You confess.
She waits patiently for you to continue as she notices a few white snowflakes land in your hair.
Snow.
“I’ve been having this recurring dream where I'm trapped in this box, and I can barely breathe. It’s—awful.” You rapidly blink away the tears in your eyes. “I’m screaming but no one comes. I’m all alone. And then I wake up and I feel claustrophobic in my own body, all these emotions bubbling up that I can’t release.” Your tears spill over and you reach up to hastily wipe away the mess with a shaking hand. “It’s stupid and selfish. There’s three dead women and I’m crying over nothing.”
“Sweetie, no.” She urges, hand tightening on your arm. “You are none of those things. Those dreams sound atrocious. No wonder you haven’t been sleeping.”
“I’m so scared to close my eyes.” You whisper, hauntedly.
“Then let me watch over you, and when the dream hits we can break the pattern. I’ll be there.”
You shake your head, laughing, “What? You’re gonna watch over me while I sleep—”
“Yes.” She interrupts, voice serious and weighted. She won’t let you joke this away, not when you look seconds away from collapsing. Alex would sit there the entire night if she needed to. She would watch over you and keep you safe.
You swallow roughly, unable to hold her intense gaze, the probing eyes that not only saw you, but took action to help. Snowflakes continue to slowly fall, landing on your hair and face, and making her heart erupt with emotions. The urge to touch is amplified tenfold, the combined beauty of the snow and you almost too much to bare. She forces her hand to fall away.
“Alex, I will be okay. You don’t need to do any of this.”
She nods, knows that, but it will not stop her. “You need to sleep. You are destroying yourself pretending you don’t. Why wouldn’t I help when I can?”
You sigh, frosted breath erupting into the space between you. Annoyed, frustrated, at the thought of needing anyone. “Only because I need to be able to focus on this case.”
She smirks, eyes brightening. “For the good of the case.” She hums, catching your eye and enjoying the almost bashful expression that coats your features as you huff out a laugh and your gaze skates away again.
You take another sip of your drink and she mirrors you. It’s beginning to lose its heat, but you don’t complain. Snowflakes continue to fall, and Alex turns towards them, lifting her head into the snowfall. The delicate flakes land on her face, cold and wet, and a smile tugs at her lips. This was the first snowfall of the year, and she could not think of a better moment for it to arrive than when you were standing next to her.
The chattering of your teeth breaks through her basking, and she turns back around, a disapproving tut escaping her mouth when she finds you shivering on the spot in silence. “Let’s go inside before you get hypothermia.”
“No,” You protest, hand landing on her arm to stop her moving away. “No, you love the snow. Let’s enjoy it a moment longer.”
“Honey, you’re shivering–”
“I’m fine.” You rebut, shoulders squaring in stubbornness. And then, softer, from below your lashes, “I want to finally enjoy the snow with you.”
She melts, putty in your hands. She can’t argue with you, your eyes should be considered a weapon the way she crumbles for them. She nods, and outstretches her hand, “Here, give me your cocoa.”
You pass it over without objection, and Alex walks a few steps away to dispose of both cups in the bin. Long since cold and of no use to anyone now. She begins pulling off her scarf as she approaches you again, and your eyes widen.
“Alex–”
She wraps the burgundy cashmere around your neck, bating the hands away that try to interrupt her task. Your shoulders slump, your nose burrowing into the material as a sigh leaves your lips. She smiles and ignores the biting cold now hitting her body as she fiddles with the end of the scarf, making it lay flat against your coat.
“There,” She whispers.
You sigh, holding her gaze with a furrowed brow. She can see thoughts winding their way through your head, but you don’t voice them. Instead, you stumble forward, your arms pulling her in and wrapping tightly around her waist, eliciting a surprised “oh” from her throat as her own arms hold you close, after a second to compute. Her nose finds its way to your hair, the smell of your shampoo evading her senses and making her hold you tighter.
“Thank you.” You whisper. “For everything.”
“You do not need to thank me.” She responds, hand stroking your hair before she pulls back to see your face, missing the sight. Your hands remain fixed to her waist, your teeth digging into your bottom lip as you look at her. She tracks the movement, heart thumping in her chest.
“I don’t want you to think your actions go unappreciated.”
She finds a strand of your hair, one not even in your eye, and stokes it out the way, a choked tut escaping her throat. It’s getting increasingly more difficult to remember herself, to draw back, especially when you look at her with soft, unguarded eyes. The snowfall is getting more intense, covering you in white snowflakes, landing on your eyelashes and melting as you blink.
“I could never feel unappreciated by you.” She responds, voice barely louder than the wind. Too honest, too much of her heart on show, and you must see it, the way your breath catches, your hand tightening in her jacket. “I just want to do what I can to keep you safe.”
You arch a brow, “You know that’s not always gonna be possible, right?”
She nods, hand moving to cup your cheek and caress the cold skin. You lean into the gesture, your eyes falling close. She isn’t silly, she understands the risks of this job; she knows it isn’t always going to be possible. However, why does that mean she should stop trying? “I know, but sometimes it’s nice to know someone has your back.”
Your eyes open again, blinking slowly, snowflakes interrupting your sight. “And that's all this is? Just you having my back?” You run your lip between your teeth, your tongue swiping out to moisten the chapped mess you leave behind.
Alex tracks the movement under heavy eyes, “No,” She breathes, honestly.
Your mouth parts, your chest rising and falling, eyes focused on her own mouth. Her thumb trails down your cheek, pausing by the corner of your mouth as her gaze finds yours again. You watch her, pupils blown, and Alex slowly pulls her thumb across your bottom lip, feeling the soft flesh, and nearly crumbling at your heaving breath.
“Alex–” You sigh, eyes pleading for more. Her heart thumps, head hazy with desire, as she finally brings her mouth closer to yours. Your hot breath hit her lips, breaking up the cold, and melting the snowflakes that have landed near her lips. She doesn’t mean to tease you, she just can’t believe she’s here, and is set on memorising every moment of this interaction.
You have other ideas, a frustrated whine leaving your lips, as you thrust forward and close the remaining distance. Her body hums at the first brush of your lips, needy and impatient, her stomach tingling as you pull her flush against her. She can’t think, can’t breathe, as your lips move together, the sensations perfectly overwhelming. The kisses melt into something gentle and slow, but the neediness never leaves, simmering under the surface. You both balance on the edge of something more; blood rushing through her veins, but she’s not able to forget her location.
She pulls back, short of breath, the cold air rushing to fill in the space and making her shiver. Your lips are swollen, so kissed. The most irresistible you’ve ever been. She caresses your cheek, “You, my dear, are the person I’m falling in love with.”
You rapidly blink away tears, “Really?”
“Of course,” She nods, smiling. “It’s you.”
You shake your head slightly in disbelief, “You make everything sound so simple.”
“I think with you it could be.”
“God–” Your voice cracks, and you tug her back your lips finding hers again, frantic, hot and needy. You devour her with bruising kisses, communicating what you fear to say aloud, and Alex catches it all. I feel it too. I want you. I’m scared. Please stay.
She pulls away, earlier than she wants to. “Honey–” She meets you in another kiss, but drags herself back again, forcibly taking a step back so she can’t fall into you again so easily.
“Sorry, sorry–” You say between laboured breaths, shaking your head.
“It’s not because I do not want to.” She explains, a blush rising in her cheeks, that mingles with the permanent one on her face because of the frosty air.
“I know,” You nod, smiling bashfully. “But we should get back to the team.”
She sighs and nods. “Yes.”
“And out of this snow before we catch a cold.”
She looks out at the white flakes, beginning to settle on the ground. Hopefully in a few hours she’ll be able to feel the crunch of snow under her feet. Your hand rubs up and down her jacketed arm, “When this case is over, I’ll find a place where you can properly enjoy the snow.” You promise.
Her heart warms, gaze softening as she looks at your earnest expression. “Come on, you’re right, let’s get inside.” She places her hand on your back and pushes you back in the direction of the precinct.
You oblige, shoulders bumping together as you walk. Alex catches your eyes just before she opens the door to the building, eyes soft and her smile just for you. Her hand falls from your back, forcing her touch away, as she pulls open the door. You step inside, subtly squeezing her hand as you pass, making her heart thump.
She follows, watching as you attempt to shake off the snowflakes that cling to your body. It's useless, they’re already melting, soaking into your hair and clothes, but she enjoys watching you try.
“There you guys are.” Morgan interrupts, making her break her gaze away from you and to the man watching you in mild amusement. Alex’s not ready to give away just how much she’s feeling for you to outsiders just yet. She wants to keep it between the two of you for now. “Hotch wants us to go over victimology. Thinks something isn’t right.”
She nods, ready to focus back on the case. “Of course, let’s go.” She heads in the direction of the conference room, mindful of the way Morgan hangs back to speak to you.
“Is that Blake’s scarf?” She hears him ask, amusement thick in his voice.
She doesn’t dare turn back around.
“Yes, I was cold.” You respond, defensive, and likely with an eye-roll.
He whistles, “I see you, casanova.”
“Morgan–” You protest, voice dripping with annoyance. Alex winces and pushes her way into the conference room, hearing his loud chuckle sounding from behind her.
The rest of the team is already spilling over folders, and she takes her seat, pausing first to slip out of her wet coat and discard it on an unused chair. You make your way into the room and she can’t resist looking at you from the corner of her eye as you take the seat opposite her, a smile on your face that conveys you can feel her stare.
She looks away, forcing you out of her mind, and instead focusing on Hotch as he starts to voice the holes in victimology.
She’d check on you again this evening. There was an unsub to catch.
taglist: @aburman03
#alex blake x reader#alex blake#criminal minds#kattsholidaybingo2024#reader insert#gn!reader#cm fic#fanfiction#kt writes#hurt/comfort#happy ending#where have you gone?
32 notes
·
View notes
Text
faithful | lee seokmin
pairing: lee seokmin x reader
warnings: non-idol au, fluffy (at the beginning & end), jealous seokmin, cursing, seokmin uses petnames (baby), reader uses nicknames, kissing, reader has an ex, reader thinks jealous seokmin is kind of attractive, seokmin apologizes to reader, lyr has too much fun describing seokmin pt. 92809423, happy/wholesome ending
now playing: faithful, wild east radio word count: 2069 (holy....) (for @kstrucknet)
lyr's notez: thank you @heechwe we all say in unison (she came up w this) 🤍 also....the 2nd/right picture has me feeling some type of way because holy....oh lord
As you and your boyfriend spent your Saturday afternoon parading the aisles of your local grocery store, the two of you couldn't help but be all over each other, nearly running into shelves left and right because you two couldn't keep your eyes off each other.
Seokmin was in an outfit you had never seen him in before, and it made you feel something─it was simple: a black turtleneck and a dark pair of jeans laced with a sleek, silver buckled belt.
His sleeves were rolled up to his forearms, revealing his sculpted forearms and tanned skin underneath. Your head was cloudy enough just looking at his outfit, but it got even worse when you looked at his face.
He was wearing those stupid black frames again─the ones you had bought him a few months ago for a surprise─and they perfectly sat on his nose. His smile was a bright, butterfly-inducing white as he scrolled on his phone, reading the grocery list. You almost kissed him in the middle of the frozen food section when he helped a lady's kid reach something on the higher shelf, paternal instincts kicking in without his knowledge.
"Did we get the salt?" Seokmin's voice awakens you from your reverie, and you nod, obviously flustered that he caught you in that state. He looks at you and smiles, knowing what's going through your head as his hand brushes yours. "Stay focused, baby."
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one having to hold themselves back from flinging themselves on their boyfriend because he looks so attractive in the outfit he's wearing." You say while locking eyes with him. Seokmin gets a kick out of this, a smile coming on his face as he kisses your forehead.
"Who told you I wasn't also trying to hold myself back? You don't know─I may want to kiss you really badly right now," Seokmin's voice is playful as he gives you a sweet side glance, and you can't help but laugh, propelling the cart forward as the two of you laugh at each other's antics.
As you and Seokmin browse the produce section (Seokmin really doing all the hard work while you just hang back and admire the sushi a few steps away), Seokmin's hands find their place on your waist, shocking you as he presses you against the cart.
His lips hover just above your ear, and he leans in, tricking you into thinking he's going to kiss you just to reach around you to get his phone.
"Min, what was that all about?" You ask confused, body warm from his touch. You were already flustered─he was just making it worse.
"That guy keeps looking at you," Seokmin's voice is suspicious as he continues to push the cart, and you glanced over at who he was talking about, eyes widening as you met eyes with him.
It was your toxic ex-boyfriend who had left you for another girl two years ago, and he was back in town─without a girlfriend, might you add.
"Do you know him, baby?" Seokmin's voice is louder now that you two have turned the corner. He's curious: the man stared at you like he was familiar with you, and it made Seokmin sick to his stomach. The way his eyes sparkled when he watched you...Seokmin fumed quietly, knowing that he alone was supposed to watch you like that.
"That's my ex. He's...." You trail off, and Seokmin finishes it for you, eyebrows falling into a serious look. "I remember. You told me about him." Seokmin's voice had a darker edge to it, one you had never heard before.
Seokmin was always mild-mannered and polite, even when he had a strong opinion or dislike of something. This─the side of Seokmin you were seeing now─was very new to you.
You couldn't lie and say you didn't think it was really attractive.
“Hey!” A familiar voice from behind you interrupts your thoughts about your boyfriend, and you turn around and lock eyes with your ex. There’s a surprising kindness in his gaze that catches you off guard, leaving you frozen and unsure of how to respond.
“Oh─hi!” You try to be polite, hoping your smile doesn’t come off as a grimace. Seokmin smiles beside you, trying to be polite: he remembers everything you told him, and he tries to push the thoughts of rising anger away, wanting to be cordial and polite in the situation.
“How are you? It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?” Your ex comes in for a hug, but you refuse, stepping back as you just nod. Your ex notices this, face dropping slightly as his grin turns to a straight-lipped smile. “It has. I’ve been good, though.”
“Well, that’s good to hear. Who’s this? I don’t think we’ve met before.” His question is directed at you, but his eyes are on Seokmin’s imposing frame as he speaks. Seokmin doesn’t back down, not affected by your ex’s judgemental stare.
“This is Seokmin, my boyfriend.” You gesture to Seokmin, and he nods, reaching out to shake hands with your ex as his voice is warm. “It’s nice to meet you.”
"It’s nice to meet you too.” Your ex’s voice is filled with sarcastic politeness as he takes Seokmin’s hand, retracting it as his eyes glare Seokmin’s way. You both could tell that he was disgusted by Seokmin: it wasn’t hard to notice, seeing how his lips turned into a slight sneer when Seokmin entered the conversations started by your ex.
Seokmin was threatened by the way he looked at you─he could tell your ex was making you uncomfortable, and it bothered him even more that he was subtly yet surely trying to flirt with you. It was something in the way your ex had given you backhanded compliments it with a little laugh in his voice as if mocking who you were and the man Seokmin was.
Slight dislike grew into disgust, and before he knew it, Seokmin’s rational thinking had flown out of the window. He was seeing stars from how angry he was getting.
“So how has Seokmin been? Treating you and caring for you, I mean.” Your ex’s question sounded so sarcastic you almost visibly winced, but you bit back the urge, smiling up at your boyfriend whose expression had already darkened three shades.
“Seokmin has done so much for me, and I’m really glad I met him. He's been a breath of fresh air after our disagreement.” You try to stay polite, but it becomes increasingly uncomfortable to listen to your ex speak about your boyfriend. In reality, Seokmin is the best thing that has ever happened to you.
“You look happy, don’t get me wrong. I just─I would have thought that you would have chosen better. You were never good at thinking or using your brain for anything other than being cute and reading too much into things.” Your ex scoffed unamusedly, and your eyes got watery as you stared down at the grown, face warming up at his words.
His words dripped with sarcasm that pierced through you, leaving you feeling small and uncertain about your nature. Each comment was like the stab of a sharp knife, cutting and slicing all the positive things Seokmin told you every day. Even though you said you had gotten over your ex, and you had, those words still hurt. No matter who said them, words still hurt.
“Okay, woah. Don’t you dare say that about her. That’s so far from the truth.” Seokmin’s voice grew harder by the second as he stepped towards your boyfriend, anger radiating off him in thick waves.
His eyes were five shades darker, sharp and fierce as he looked at your ex with a burning hatred. Seokmin’s hand tightened around yours as he stared, unmoved by the stares he was garnering from other shoppers.
“What? I was just telling the truth. She has this habit of making decisions about her love life and then crying when it all goes wrong.” Your ex’s voice had a bite to it, and Seokmin didn’t falter, lips curving up into a sneer as he let go of your hand. His whole body is tense, on fire, and he wants nothing more than to punch your ex straight in his jaw and send him crying to his girlfriend (or lack thereof).
“You have some fucking nerve saying that about my girlfriend in front of me. I was trying to be polite and cordial throughout all of this, but as soon as you started talking from your ass, I forgot. Fuck off.” The cursing from Seokmin sounds so foreign to you─you knew he was capable of it, but you never heard him do it around you. The venom behind his words was tangible, and if you were your ex, you would back off in fear of him.
Seokmin’s voice is so low and angry that it even shocks him in the back of his mind, but his face doesn’t register the thought. Your ex backs off, obviously shocked at the sharpness of his tone as well. He doesn’t say anything more, giving the two of you one last glance before he strolls away.
Seokmin’s chest rises and falls quickly, adrenaline coursing through his veins as he pushes the cart to the checkout area. The whole time he’s eerily quiet, on edge as he pays for the groceries and loads them out into the back of his car.
You get in on the other side, still in shock at the Seokmin you saw in the aisle just a few minutes earlier. He was harsh─harsher than you had ever seen him be before.
It was an eye-opener for you, and you found yourself being attracted to your boyfriend even more.
When Seokmin got into the car and buckled his seat belt up, his head hit the headrest with a hard bump, causing you to look over at him.
He was quiet as he stared up at the car’s ceiling, and you reached out to touch his forearm, smiling at him as he looked over at you.
“I’m really, really, really sorry, baby. I overreacted in there and what you saw wasn’t necessary and was uncalled for, and for that, I’m─” Seokmin was cut off by you leaning over the stick shift and kissing him, feeling the stress disappear from his shoulders. He went slack under your touch, lips feeling yours as he let you take over.
When you pulled away, Seokmin fell quiet, confused as you smiled to yourself. “Did I say something funny?” He asked, and you shook your head, looking out of the window as you buckled yourself up.
“No, Min. You were just─I was really shocked when I saw you get angry at him like that,” You said, and Seokmin looked down at his hands, sighing.
“I’m sorry. When he started talking to you I was already starting to get suspicious of him, but when he started saying those things to you…god, it fucking drove me insane.” Seokmin started to get riled up again, but you placed your hands on his forearm, and he slowly dwindled back down after a few breaths.
“Did I scare you or anything?” Seokmin asks sweetly, eyes looking at you worriedly as you shake your head. Pushing his bangs back from his face, you caress his cheek, watching him with love in your eyes as you shake your head again, slowly.
“No, Seok. I thought it was really attractive of you.” You say softly, a heat rushing to your cheeks as Seokmin smiles deviously. “Really?”
“Yeah. It made me want to kiss you really badly.” Seokmin leans over to touch his lips to yours softly, making you gasp at the way he slowly tickles your cheek with his slender, graceful fingers.
Seokmin leans closer, his breath warm against your skin as he whispers, “You should do that.” A playful giggle escapes your lips, and you can’t help but smile at the mischief in his eyes. With a teasing flutter of your heart, you weave your fingers through his soft, tousled curls, feeling the gentle silkiness beneath your touch. You pull him in just a little closer, your lips brushing softly against his, slightly swollen from previous kisses.
Savoring the moment, you whisper, “Don’t mind if I do, Minnie,” before closing the distance between you, tasting the sweetness of the connection you both share.
#kpop seventeen#seventeen#svt#svt dk#lee seokmin#seventeen dk#seokmin fic#dk fic#seventeen seokmin#dk x reader#kstrucknet#lyrwrites#userhyperdramas#writing#ohhhhhh#let me say something#let me speak#dokyeom in those pictures#........#god he's so#so fine#especially the 2nd one#bro#the 2nd one has me tweaking#HELP#DOUBLE UPLOAD???#happy thanksgiving 😛#STOP HELP.#anw#jealous seokmin?????
24 notes
·
View notes
Text
Tangle wasn't sure Silver had any options, and she never considered that time travel was dangerous. But did he have a choice? He told her all about his future, and how everyone was gone. The many times he'd changed the future only to return to a wasteland. Always changing yet, each time he returned to the same truth--- there world was doomed. Maybe it was his punishment for trying to defy the natural order. but if it had been her, she'd have done the same thing.
" I don't think he has a choice though, everyone in his timeline ... they are all gone, or hiding away... no food, barely any water, guess in a way it means our world is doomed... but, i've never seen anyone with as much hope as Silver. He's a good guy, i hope one day he finds a happy future to live in "
Hearing how strong the webbing was made Tangle want to try and break free of it now! A real TEST of strength! how did she measure up? Could she really get free? or would it bind her? maybe she'd test that theory some day! or maybe ask Lilly if she could test her webbing it was probably as strong right? Either way it was a fun thought in her head! but then thinking about how its like glue! she realized it'd never come out of her fur! she threw that idea out!
Tangle jumped to her feet and smiled over at the two and gave them a friendly thumbs up.
" Alright! i'll give Lani your thing-a-ma-bob! and hope to see you at the training tomorrow! if ya need anything just come find me! i'm sure you got that nose like Whisper so shouldn't be hard right? It was nice meeting you Rhys! and you to Kalak! hope you enjoy your time in Mobius! and thanks for all the help to! "
She gabe the two a wave before jogging off back to base! She liked Kalak! she seemed friendly, but it made her want to go see Vix again! Maybe she could get Kalak to take a letter back to Vix for her, least till Miles let her use the rings again! Did she really have a shot with Vix? Well only time would tell!
Kalak seemed to raise a brow hearing about Silver. "Well, I'd say he shouldn't be doing such a thing, though I can only hope he had the permission of a God or even have been told to change the past. Maybe it's because I'm from Flora, and we still attempt to follow the guidelines of the Gods. One they all spoke about is never attempt to alter the timeline without being sent back and told to do so." That was one of the few constants all agreed on that the Gods spoke.
"I guess that's one way to put it. We're normally just sent in to do heavy damage and go on our way, though I suppose now I'll have to see just what the D'vas want me to do in Flora." Kalak had gone back to working for Wolf Country after the D'vas disbanded the first time. Then all the restrictions happened after her social conditioning and therapy. She only left to do missions and get food, that was all they allowed.
"Strong enough that even people who make clothes refuse to try and turn it into silk. Even a mutated bear-boar can't break out of an average sized web." Kalak knew any high skilled mage could get out, though never without breaking it. Only herself and a few others have enough magic power to burn the webbing of a spider. She was one of the few wolves who can more safely travel the wastelands.
"I don't think I'll go too far. I wouldn't be surprised if Eggman is on the watch for Florians since the stunt King Renard pulled. Last thing I'd want is to end up torching a bunch of the land fending off whatever robots he sends at me. Not to mention I heard he has some sort of space cannon. I can't stop something like that." Kalak was strong, though not like King Renard. He was a monster in every sense of the word.
Rhys would click his fangs again at the scratches. The spider finding Tangle interesting, though trustworthy. It helped the lemur was nice to Kalak.
77 notes
·
View notes
Text
Closing the Distance (Wanda x Reader)
A/N: Hey everyone, sorry there’s been a gap between fics, life has slammed me with a few things so my motivation for write has been non existent.
I know a few people on here are going through things, so this fic goes out to you guys. You’ll get through this, I believe in you ❤️
Word count: 1265
Warnings: None
You noticed Wanda watching TV in the living room of your shared house, the two of you had decided to get a place together since the two of you were close and wanted to have a place where there were fewer people around, thus less pressure to be as social.
These last two weeks had been a challenge, you felt like life had slammed you with problem after problem and you were at a point where you didn’t know how much more you could take.
You knew you couldn’t hide your feelings from Wanda, both due to her powers and the fact that she could read you like a book, and she probably knew something was wrong as you had kept your distance from her quite a bit these past few days.
One thing she didn’t know, however, was that there was a way of cheering you up which rarely failed. You were currently trying to pluck up the courage to ask her if she was willing to give you a little something which was guaranteed to make you smile… and laugh.
You weren’t sure why, but tickling had always been a thing that made you happy, the freedom of just letting go and feeling free to laugh, it was a sensation that you missed dearly.
The last time you got tickled was by Yelena, who needed a way to get you to let go of a bottle of hot sauce she wanted for her food, you had a feeling she would tickle you since you’d seen her tickle Kate whenever she’d pull pranks so you hoped she would do the same, you were ecstatic when it worked.
You weren’t sure if Wanda would be willing to tickle you, but you knew that you wouldn’t know if you didn’t ask, and you really needed something to cheer you up as your mood was so bad, so you decided to go for it.
You sat next to Wanda who was still watching TV, you immediately started playing with your fingers and bit your lip.
“Hey! Nice of you to join me, are you okay?” The witch asked immediately, her attention turned towards you. She had been increasingly worried about you and the way you had been distancing yourself, so she wanted to help in whatever way she could.
“Yeah, yeah. Just a lot of things going on, sorry I haven’t been around much.” You told her quietly, not yet meeting her gaze as you kept fidgeting.
“Is there anything I can do? I want to try and help however I can.” Wanda offered, noticing you suddenly appeared nervous as you knew it was time to ask her.
“There is, actually… but it’s okay if you don’t want to.” You started, murmuring quietly as you tried to figure out how to ask her. You looked up to see Wanda listening attentively.
“I want to help, what can I do?”
“Well uh… this may seem weird but… could you… please tickle me? I-I like the feeling of being free to laugh and I don’t hate the sensation and-“
You were interrupted by wiggling fingers on your knee, causing you to squeal in surprise and kick out. The witch then pulled you into a hug, wrapping her arms around you and scribbling her fingers into your sides.
“Aw! Y/N of course I can! This is adorable!” Wanda teased, pulling you closer and smiling fondly as you giggled hysterically. You wiggled around in her arms but showed no signs of trying to escape her hold.
What you didn’t expect, however, is the feeling of flutters under your arms on your neck, realising that she was now adding her magic to the playful torture.
“You really are a ticklish one, Y/N! Yes you are! So cute!” Wanda teased in your ear, now shaking her fingers into your ribs which made you squeal with adorable laughter. The witch looked at you with a soft smile, finding this ordeal absolutely wholesome.
You flushed red at her teasing as you wiggled around in her arms, so much so that you were almost lying across her lap, which allowed her to pin your arms over your head and move you so you were on your back across her lap, she looked down you with a smirk.
“What happened here, hm?” She asked, suddenly using her magic to pin your arms over your head, pausing for a moment. “Is this okay?”
You nodded in response, biting back your smile as Wanda teasingly wiggled her fingers over you.
“Good, because I’m going to make sure you’re all cheered up!” She told you with a grin before her fingers danced all over your tummy, making you squeal with giggles once again whilst thrashing around in her lap.
“EHEHEHEHE WAHAHAHANDA!” You squeaked out, arching your back as you felt her magic flutter along the soles of your feet. Your legs flailed about helplessly but you weren’t hating it at all.
“You’re so ticklish, Y/N! It’s so nice to hear your cute little giggles, I’ve missed them so much.” Wanda told you, now briefly lifting your top up to blow a raspberry onto your tummy, causing you to screech with laughter and attempt to twist to the side.
“NOHOHOHO SHUHUHUSH!” You laughed out, feeling her fingers wiggle under your arms at the same time.
“Okay, I’ll stop talking and raspberry you instead.” The witch shrugged and blew another one, causing you to scream with laughter once again.
Wanda paused her magic and her raspberries to give you a quick break, she looked at you with a fond smile as you took in deep breaths, with the occasional few giggles coming out as her fingers were fluttering u see your arms still.
“Having fun?” Wanda checked in, chuckling as you immediately nodded.
“Good, so am I, I’ve missed that smile. I’ll carry on for a bit longer as I don’t want you to pass out.” She told you, and with that, she blew raspberries along your tummy and sides as her fingers moved to your ribs, shaking in mercilessly as her magic fluttered around your toes.
You screamed with laughter, trying everything you could in your weakened down power to escape her, but you weren’t complaining too much despite being exhausted from laughing so hard.
“OKAHAHAHAY PLEHEHEHEASE STOHOHOP!” You yelled out, taking in deep breaths the second she released you from both her fingers and her magic. You shoved your shirt down and sat up, a permanent grin on your face.
“You ok?” Wanda asked gently as she rubbed your back to help calm you down. You nodded in response, smiling shyly.
“Yeah, thank you so much, it really helped.” You told her gratefully, resting your head on her shoulder as she wrapped you in a side hug.
“You’re welcome, Y/N. I’ll happily do it again if you want me to.” Wanda offered, nudging you with a fond giggle as you couldn’t help but blush.
“Thank you… but for now, can we watch a movie?” You asked, still knowing that distractions are the best way to stop your thoughts from spiralling.
The witch smiled and grabbed the remote, handing it to you.
“Sure, just no cheesy rom-coms tonight. You’ve made me watch too many that I couldn’t with a break.” Wanda grinned, watching as you chose an action movie for a change.
The two of you got settled for a movie night, and for the first time in a while, you felt a little more at ease, especially now you knew that you could rely on Wanda for some cheer-up tickles.
#avengers tickle#avengers tickle fic#marvel tickle#marvel tickle fic#ticklish!reader#mcu tickle#mcu tickle fic#ler!wanda
25 notes
·
View notes
Text
Love Letters
characters: Zack Fair, Cloud Strife, Reno, Sephiroth, Vincent Valentine, and Rufus Shinra.
Scenario: Giving the Final Fantasy 7 men love letters.
Part one
(Y/n) crept into the male locker room, her heart pounding in her chest. She clutched the carefully folded love letter to her chest, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves.
Glancing around furtively, (Y/n) made her way over to Zack's locker, her palms sweating. Just as she was about to slip the letter inside, she heard the sound of the showers turning off.
(Y/n) froze, her blood running cold. Oh no, Zack was still here! She had thought everyone would be gone by now.
Quickly, (Y/n) ducked down behind a bench, hoping to avoid being seen. She held her breath, listening to the sound of footsteps approaching.
Suddenly, a figure emerged from the shower area, and (Y/n)'s heart nearly stopped. It was Zack, wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. Water droplets glistened on his toned chest and abs.
Zack blinked in surprise, spotting (Y/n) crouching behind the bench. "Hey! What are you doing here?" he asked, his eyebrows raising in confusion.
(Y/n) scrambled to her feet, her face flaming red. "I...I just...um..." she stammered, unable to form a coherent sentence.(Y/n) couldn't help but let her gaze wander over Zack's exposed body, her heart racing..
Zack glanced down at himself, realizing his state of undress. "Oh, um..." he chuckled awkwardly. "Maybe you should let me get dressed. Then we can talk."
(Y/n) tried to avert her gaze, but found her eyes drawn back to Zack's muscular physique. She swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. "Yeah.. definitely." She nodded, as she made her way out of the locker room. That was so embarrassing!
Zack rushed to his locker, grabbing his clothes and quickly getting dressed. He couldn't help but smile to himself, wondering what (Y/n) was doing sneaking around the men's locker room.
Once dressed, Zack made his way out to find (Y/n) waiting nervously by the exit. He approached her with a playful smirk. "So, what was that all about, (Y/n)?"
(Y/n) fidgeted nervously, her face still bright red. "I... I have something for you," she mumbled, holding out the letter.
Zack took the envelope, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What is this?"
"Just... just read it, okay?" (Y/n) whispered, averting her gaze.
Curious, Zack opened the letter and began to read. As he did, his eyes widened in surprise. His heart began to race as he realized what the letter said.(Y/n) was confessing her feelings for him.
Zack looked up at (Y/n), his expression softening. "(Y/n), I... wow. I had no idea you felt this way."
(Y/n) peeked up at him shyly. "Do you... do you feel the same?"
Zack stepped closer, gently taking (Y/n)'s hands in his. "I've liked you for a long time now. I just never thought you'd return my feelings."
(Y/n)'s face lit up with happiness, tears of joy welling in her eyes. "Really? You mean it?"
"I really do," Zack confirmed, pulling (Y/n) into a tight hug. "I'm so glad you told me how you felt. I don't want to hide it anymore either."
(Y/n) hugged him back fiercely, hardly believing this was real. "I'm so happy," she whispered.
Zack pulled back slightly, cupping (Y/n)'s face in his hands. "Me too. More than you know."
As Cloud approached his apartment, he noticed a figure crouching by his door. (Y/n) was carefully slipping something under his door. Cloud paused, a curious wrinkle creasing his brow as he observed her. This wasn't the most usual thing he's caught (Y/n) doing, but he was still curious. He cleared his throat, announcing his presence. "What are you doing, (Y/n)?"
(Y/n) snapped to attention, her surprise mirroring in her eyes. As she recognized Cloud, her cheeks felt warm. "Cloud," she replied hurriedly, her attempt at nonchalance betrayed by her racing heart, "uh... nothing important." She tried to cover the discarded paper on the floor with her foot.
Cloud eyed the crumpled note peeking from under (Y/n)'s foot with a mixture of curiousity and amusement. He leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed as he regarded her. "Right," he commented dryly, "Because it's completely normal to drop things by people's doors late at night. Try again."
Her cheeks felt hot.. really hot. She hadn't anticipated Cloud catching her. Dropping the pretext of nonchalance, she huffed a bit. “Alright, fine,” she relented, her gaze dropping. “I just... I was leaving you a note," she admitted, the words spilling out reluctantly.
Cloud's mouth twitched with a hint of a smile. "A note, huh?" he said, a subtle lilt in his tone. He stepped closer, his eyes fixed on hers, not letting her off the hook that easily. "And why exactly would you be leaving me a note under my door?"
His close proximity brought a new wave of heat to (Y/n)'s face. She forced herself to maintain eye contact, despite the fluttering in her chest. "It's... personal," she murmured, the words escaping in a soft breath. "I just... there's something I want to say, and it's easier in written form."
Cloud raised an eyebrow. "Personal, huh?" he echoed, a hint of intrigue in his voice. He glanced at the note on the floor, then back at her. "Alright, let's see it." He held his hand out.
(Y/n) hesitated, the idea of him reading her confession while she was present making her heart pound in her chest. But she knew he wouldn't relent without it, so with a resigned sigh, she bent down and picked up the small note from the floor. She extended the note to Cloud, her hand trembling slightly.
Cloud took the note, his fingers gently brushing against hers. The touch sent a jolt through him, but he kept his expression composed. He unfolded the paper, revealing the handwritten message. His eyes scanned the words, his heart quickening with each syllable. The realization of what the note contained slowly dawned on him.
It was a love confession...
Cloud felt a flutter in his chest as he read the heartfelt words. His stoic facade wavered momentarily, his breath hitching in his throat. He looked at (Y/n)'s, his eyes wide and a deep blush on his face.
"Is this... Is this what I think it is?" he asked quietly, his voice laced with a mix of surprise and disbelief. His hands, clutching the note, trembled slightly. They were good friends, yes, but he had never allowed himself to believe she harbored feelings for him.
"Yes..." (Y/n) managed, her voice barely above a whisper. "That's exactly what it is."
Cloud's mind reeled. The reality of her confession hit him like a ton of bricks. He couldn't deny the rapid thump of his heart against his ribcage, nor the way his stomach somersaulted. A strange mixture of emotions swirled within him. Surprise, flattery, but also a hint of panic.
(Y/n) anxiously waited for Cloud to say something, anything that could ease the tension. The silence felt thick and heavy, each second lingering for an eternity. She fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, her eyes tracing the pattern nervously. As the silence continued, her fear that he didn't feel the same began to grow. She couldn't bear the thought of his rejection.
Cloud, seeing the anxiety etched on (Y/n)'s face, quickly snapped out of his brief daze. He realized he hadn't given any reaction yet. His words stumbled forward in a mix of surprise and genuine warmth. "I..." he started, the note still clutched in his hands. "(Y/n), I had no idea. I..." He ran a hand through his spiky hair, struggling to find the right words.
"Go on.." She said, her voice trembled with a mix of nervousness and hope. "Please, just... Say something, anything."
Cloud took a deep breath, his eyes meeting hers, full of sincerity. "I...I never thought I'd hear something like this, from you." His smile was tentative, tinged with a hint of vulnerability that softened his typically reserved demeanor. "Truth is, (Y/n)... I like you too.. a lot."
The world seemed to stop for a moment. Hope blossomed in (Y/n)'s eyes, and a joyful gasp escaped her lips. A rush of emotions surged through her, making her heart flutter wildly in her chest. "You.. You do?"
A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, the relief was evident on her face. Her eyes were filled with an intense earnestness. She took a step closer to Cloud. "Really? You really do?"
Cloud chuckled, his usual aloof demeanor giving way to a more tender expression. "Yeah, I do," he said, his voice soft. He took a step towards her, closing the gap between them. "I really do."
Reno whistled cheerfully to himself as he strolled up to his apartment complex, the warm summer sun shining down on him. It had been a long day at work, but he was in a good mood, looking forward to relaxing at home.
As he approached his mailbox, Reno noticed an unusual envelope peeking out from among the usual bills and flyers. His brow furrowed slightly as he pulled it out.
"What's this now?" Reno muttered to himself with a smirk, tucking the letter into his jacket pocket. He headed up to his apartment, his curiosity piqued.
Once inside, Reno kicked off his shoes and flopped down on the couch, fishing out the letter. He examined it for a moment before carefully opening it, his eyes scanning over the words.
As he read, Reno's grin slowly faded, replaced by a look of shock. He read the letter through twice, just to be sure he hadn't misunderstood.
(Y/n) liked him. Romantically. And not just a casual crush - she was confessing her deep, sincere feelings for him.
Reno set the letter down, running a hand through his red hair as he tried to process this unexpected development. He had always thought (Y/n) as a friend, a cute and quirky coworker. Of course they had flirted before... a lot actually, but he never imagined she would actually like him the way he liked her.
Reno leaned back on the couch, letting out a long breath. He knew he needed to respond to (Y/n), to let her know how he felt. But he had no idea what to say.
Should he tell her he returned her feelings? Or pretend he didn't see the letter? If they started dating, how would it affect their work?
In the end, he decided the only thing to do was talk to (Y/n) face-to-face. He couldn't avoid this situation or put it off any longer.
Reno stood up, determination in his eyes as he pulled out his phone.
Reno quickly typed out a message to (Y/n). "Hey, got a minute? There's something we need to talk about."
He hit send before he could second guess himself. Now all he could do was wait for her response, trying not to let his nerves get the better of him.
Not long after, Reno heard a knock at his door. He took a deep breath, steeling himself before opening it.
(Y/n) stood there, looking adorably nervous. Reno's heart skipped a beat at the sight of her.
"Come on in," he said, stepping aside to let her enter.
(Y/n) walked in, her hands clasped tightly in front of her. She glanced around Reno's apartment before finally meeting his gaze.
"So, um, what did you want to talk about?" she asked, her voice shaking slightly.
Reno ran a hand through his hair, trying to find the words. "Look, about that letter you left me..."
(Y/n) kinda figured. "It's cheesy, isn't it?" She asked.
"Maybe a little," Reno confirmed with a nod. "But I just...I need to know. Do you really mean what you wrote? About having feelings for me?"
(Y/n) bit her lip, looking like she wanted to bolt. But after a moment, she took a deep breath and met Reno's eyes. "I do. I really do have feelings for you, Reno. I have for a while now."
Reno's heart soared at her words. He took a step closer, reaching out to gently take her hand. "I...I feel the same way, (Y/n). I don't want to pretend otherwise anymore."
(Y/n)'s eyes shone with happiness. "Really? You mean it?"
Reno smiled, bringing her hand up to his lips to press a tender kiss to her knuckles. "I really do. You're amazing, (Y/n). I'd be lucky to have you as my girlfriend."
(Y/n) let out a squeal of joy, throwing her arms around Reno's neck. "Yes!"
Sephiroth was surprised when (Y/n) came up to him, her cheeks flushed pink as she awkwardly extended a small envelope towards him. Before he could even respond, she darted away, disappearing around a corner.Puzzled, Sephiroth looked down at the envelope in his hand. It was obvious that it held a letter of some sort, and judging by (Y/n)'s behavior, it was likely something important.Curious, Sephiroth carefully tore open the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. The page was written in elegant and tidy handwriting, with each word carefully chosen and arranged.As Sephiroth read the letter, his eyes widened slightly in surprise, and his cheeks flushed a rosy color. It was.. a love confession.It made him feel giddy.Sephiroth found himself reading the letter again and again, unable to believe what he was seeing. A love letter.. from the quiet, composed (Y/n)? He couldn't help but feel a flutter of excitement in his chest. Sephiroth had always quietly harbored feelings for (Y/n), but had never expected her to feel the same way.He suddenly found himself wondering how to respond. Should he go find (Y/n) and talk to her? But what would he say? He wasn't good with expressing his own feelings, not to mention he didn't know how to respond to such a love confession.
Sephiroth bit his lip, trying to think of a plan.
As he thought, Sephiroth suddenly realized something. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips as he had an idea. He quickly took out a piece of paper and pen, and carefully started writing down his response.
Sephiroth found himself strolling through the halls, the envelope clutched tightly in his hand. He was looking, casually glancing around for (Y/n). He had to find her.
Sephiroth's eyes widened slightly as he saw (Y/n) walking through the halls alone. He had been searching for her all over the building, and hadn't expected to stumble upon her so easily, but there she was, just walking down the corridor, seemingly all alone. As though sensing his eyes on her, her gaze flicked up, and their eyes met.
(Y/n)'s heart rate increased, feeling as if it would beat right out of her chest. Her palms felt sweaty and her stomach was twisted up in knots. As she met Sephiroth's gaze, her cheeks felt warm.
Sephiroth's breath hitched in his throat as he stared at (Y/n). He found himself completely mesmerized as he watched her, and found it hard to think clearly. He took a few strides towards her, coming to a stop when he was just a few feet away from her, holding out the letter he wrote for her.
(Y/n)'s gaze flickered down to the letter held out in front of her, her confusion briefly overriding the nervousness and embarrassment she felt. She gingerly took the envelope from Sephiroth’s hand, her touch brushing against his skin.
"W-what's this?" (Y/n) stuttered as she stared down at the letter, her heart racing.
Sephiroth's heart leapt as he felt (Y/n)'s skin brush against his, sending a shiver up his spine. He watched her for a moment, his cheeks turning a deeper red. "Open it." Sephiroth's voice came out as a quiet murmur, but was still deep and smooth.
(Y/n)'s fingers trembled as she slowly pulled back the flap of the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. She unfolded it and began to read, her heart racing with anticipation.
As (Y/n) read through the letter, Sephiroth watched her closely, his heart pounding painfully in his chest, hoping desperately that she would like his response. He became more anxious, fidgeting with his fingers anxiously.
After several long moments, (Y/n) finally finished reading the letter, her mind reeling and her heart racing. She slowly looked up from the page, her face flushed a deep red.Finally, she managed to find her voice again. "Y-you like me too?"
Sephiroth gave a slight nod, his usually composed demeanor replaced with a nervous, flustered look. “I… yes, I do. Very much.” He murmured, his voice trembling slightly.
(Y/n) crept silently into the room where Vincent Valentine's coffin was kept. She had a letter clutched tightly in her hand, one she had spent hours agonizing over and perfecting. Her heart raced as she approached the coffin, knowing that Vincent was likely asleep inside.
With a deep breath, (Y/n) carefully opened the lid of the coffin, just enough to slide the letter inside. She was about to close it again when suddenly, Vincent's hand shot out, grabbing her wrist in an iron grip.
(Y/n) let out a startled yelp as Vincent yanked her forward, pulling her into the coffin with him. She landed on top of him with a soft "oof", the letter falling forgotten beside them.
"What are you doing?" Vincent asked, his voice low and gravelly. His eyes glowed an eerie silver in the darkness of the coffin.
"I...I..." (Y/n) stammered, her face flushing bright red. She couldn't believe Vincent had caught her in the act of trying to sneak him a love letter. How embarrassing!
Vincent's gaze softened slightly as he looked up at the flustered girl perched on top of him. He held up the letter. "Is this what you wanted to give me?"
(Y/n) nodded, her face burning with embarrassment. "Y-yes," she admitted in a tiny voice.
"I'll read it then." Vincent Vincent unfolded the letter and began to read, his brow furrowing slightly as he took in (Y/n)'s heartfelt words. (Y/n) watched him anxiously, her heart pounding in her chest as she waited for his reaction.
After a long moment, Vincent set the letter aside and looked up at (Y/n) with an intensity that made her shiver. "You have feelings for me," he stated, his voice low and rough.
(Y/n) nodded shyly, unable to meet his piercing gaze. "I...I do. I've had them for a while now," she admitted softly.
Vincent reached up and cupped (Y/n)'s cheek, his thumb gently brushing over her skin. "And what do you want from me?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
(Y/n) swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry. "I...I want to be with you. To make you happy."
Vincent's eyes searched hers for a long moment before he pulled her down into a searing kiss. (Y/n) gasped against his lips, her body melting into his as she returned the kiss with equal passion.
When they finally broke apart, both were breathing heavily. Vincent's eyes were filled with a tenderness (Y/n) had never seen before.
"Then be mine," he whispered, pulling her into a kiss once more.
Rufus Shinra sat behind his desk, his eyes scanning over the documents laid out before him. He was in the middle of an important paperwork when his secretary walked into the office.
"Mr. Shinra, sir," she said, holding a large bouquet of red roses and a card. "These just arrived for you via courier."
Rufus raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued. He took the flowers and card, dismissing his secretary with a nod. He set the roses aside for the moment, his attention focused on the card.
The letter was addressed to him personally, with a short, handwritten note on the front that simply said, "For my beloved Rufus."
Curiosity getting the better of him, Rufus carefully opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside. He unfolded it and began to read, his eyes widening with each passing sentence.
Rufus felt his cheeks grow warm as he read the love confession, a fluttering sensation stirring in his chest. He had to admit, he was taken aback. Did (Y/n) really like him in that way?
Rufus continued to read, he was flattered that someone as wonderful as (Y/n) could have feelings for him. He set the letter down, leaning back in his chair as he tried to process his thoughts.
Rufus felt a smile tug at the corners of his mouth as he considered an idea. Yes, he would write (Y/n) back. And not just any letter, but a heartfelt response that would make it clear just how much her feelings meant to him.
He pulled out a sheet of expensive, high-quality paper and a fancy fountain pen. For several minutes, Rufus poured his heart onto the page, writing about how touched he was by (Y/n)'s confession, and how he had secretly harbored feelings for her as well.
When the letter was complete, Rufus folded it carefully and placed it into an envelope. He then selected a few thoughtful gifts to accompany it - a bottle of perfume, a pair of diamond earrings, and a box of expensive chocolates.
"Please make sure this reaches Miss (Y/n) right away," Rufus instructed his secretary as he handed over the package.
His secretary nodded, taking the items with a knowing smile. "Of course, Mr. Shinra. I'm sure Miss (Y/n) will be overjoyed."
Rufus couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement as he watched her leave. He hoped (Y/n) would be happy with his response, and that this would be the start of something beautiful between them.
.....
(Y/n) was surprised to find someone knocking on her door. She opened it to find a delivery man holding a large box, along with an envelope addressed to her.
"Delivery for Miss (Y/n)," the man said, handing over the items.
(Y/n) thanked him, closing the door once she had the package in hand. She quickly set the box down and opened the envelope, pulling out the letter inside.
Her eyes widened as she read, her heart racing with each passing sentence. It was from Rufus, and it was a response to her love letter.
(Y/n) sank down onto the couch, hardly able to believe what she was reading. Rufus returned her feelings. He wanted to be with her.
She set the letter aside and eagerly opened the box, gasping in delight at the contents. The perfume, earrings, and chocolates were all items she would never dare to buy for herself, they were so expensive.
(Y/n) felt tears of joy prickling at the corners of her eyes. She couldn't believe this was really happening. Rufus Shinra, the man she had been secretly in love with for so long, actually liked her back.
She grabbed her phone and quickly typed out a message to Rufus. "Thank you for the gifts and the lovely letter. I'm so happy you feel the same way about me. Let's meet up soon to discuss our future together."
#ff7#ff7 x reader#final fantasy 7#final fantasy x reader#sephiroth x reader#sephiroth#zack fair#zack fair ff7#zack fair x reader#zack fair ffvii#cloud strife ffvii#cloud strife x reader#cloud strife#reno x reader#reno ff7#reno of the turks#rufus shinra#Rufus Shinra x reader
42 notes
·
View notes
Text
I hope you like our little moodboards we are planning to do one for each chapter! I'm not the creative so you can tell when it's my shitty handiwork LMAO Sol come save me. She is the artist so... IDK why I was allowed to do moodboards. Anyway enough of my rambling, here is chapter five!!
taglist: @malarkgirlypop, @mellow-human, @next-autopsy
Chapter Five: Muddied hands
Sam laid on her belly, the map spread out before her as she used a pencil to trace her path. She needed to get from her position in Amherst to Pittsfield, which was the next closest city.
The blonde had enough supplies to last her for the three day journey, she could do it in two if she wanted but she didn’t want to risk moving in the dark again. Her plan was simple: move during the day and before the sun set she would have her camp set up.
She set out the next morning bright and early, she wanted to try and get all the way to Idaho as quickly as she could without dying along the way. But it was a massive journey, one that needed to be taken city by city.
She knew if she set out the exact route all the way to the safe haven it might not go her way. There were a million factors that could change the route drastically, so she didn’t want to plan that far ahead. Sam knew she would have to be smart about this, travelling too far away from cities could mean she wound up with no supplies.
Not that she really wanted too but she would have to hop from city to city to make it through alive.
The girl made it out of the area, the only people she had seen in her travels had been the family she met yesterday. Other than that the town appeared quiet, she didn’t want to find out why, so she left quickly.
The days were long, walking the path by herself. Sam was able to avoid most of the hoards, she could sneak past without them noticing. If she couldn’t, she found that they were very reactive to sound. Sam could throw an object in the opposite direction to her and it would trigger all of them.
Once one moved, the others followed.
Sometimes the rabid’s would be by themselves, they looked lost without the rest of the swarm, they would stagger around with no destination in sight. The stragglers would often look worse than the swarms, seemingly more decomposed and skinny. The rabid’s that stuck together looked well fed and plump, decomposing more slowly than the isolated ones.
Sam sat criss-cross striking the steel across the flint to create a spark that would light the tinder in the campfire she had set up. It was unlikely anyone would find her in the dense bush, so she felt more confident in lighting it. Sam hadn’t been using fires when she was closer to towns, she was unsure who or what it would attract. She didn’t need unwanted company, the blonde was a good fighter but she didn’t think she would stand much of a chance if a hoard or group stumbled upon her.
“Ah ha!” She grinned seeing the spark alight the dry wood shavings she had tirelessly carved earlier in the afternoon. Sam blew on the fire to keep it going, cupping it in her hands to stop the wind from putting out her hard work.
Once the flame took off she placed it in the middle of her log pile, watching the orange tongue lick at the new fuel she had given it. Sam sat close just watching the fire, enjoying the warmth it gave off, it was somewhat comforting to watch. Listening to the crackling and popping of the wood as the flame consumed it slowly.
Sam had always wanted to go camping, sit around a campfire and roast marshmallows and sing silly little songs with her family.
Not that that would even happen, her younger self was much more optimistic than the bitter girl she had become. The young girl had hope, foolishly so, but it was still hope. Still a sliver of happiness that she could imagine but never grasp.
Sam’s love of the fire soon grew to disdain, something she always dreamed of, only now she was alone and it wasn’t for fun; to roast marshmallows or sing songs around, it was for survival. Sam sighed moving further back into her tent, bringing her knees into her chest as the fire danced, almost taunting her in a way.
The blonde focussed her attention on her pack, rustling around in the bag to find what she was looking for. Sam’s hand wrapped around the cold can, pulling it to the surface so she could examine it closer. It was a can of fruit, she had wanted to try and catch something for her dinner but exhaustion pulled at her heavy eyelids. All she wanted was to fill her stomach and try to sleep.
Sam had never been a great sleeper, any small noise could easily pull her from her slumber. Samantha blamed her father for this trait, he never slept, she had never seen him rest.
When he was home he marched around the house on the phone, or sorted paperwork. He was up at all times during the night. Sam liked to watch him, sneaking downstairs after hearing the front door unlock and open, she knew it was him, he always came home late after everyone else had left or had gone to bed.
But Sam’s ears perked at that familiar sound of his heavy boots falling on the tile floor. She would sneak down and hide in the shadows, he would never notice her, hell he often forgot she existed.
Sam remembered one time he was home during the day and had run into her in the halls, he looked at her questioning her presence in his home, and then she saw it, he remembered who she was.
She would never forget the feeling in her chest, as his eyes grew hard and stance became taller, more assertive. Her father’s body reacted to her as if she was a stray dog on the street, he stuck up his nose and pretended he didn’t see her, moving on with his day.
But that young girl still held hope, still held onto the ‘maybe’s’ and ‘what if’s’. She didn’t hate her father, even after he stepped around her without an exchange of words or even the courtesy to look at her. But the Sam now, the older, more resentful, this one hated him with every fibre of her being.
Samantha curled into her sleeping bag, her trusty knife clutched to her chest, she let sleep tug her down into darkness, maybe, just maybe, she would be able to sleep peacefully tonight, but she didn’t hold hope.
To no one's surprise the blonde didn’t sleep well, noises and rustling nearby didn’t let her relax all night. She would drift off to then wake in a jolt to a noise in the distance. Sam’s mind always raced, thinking of all the things it could potentially be, she was rational, but now with the rabid’s on the loose what was rational?
Sam packed her gear, heading out on the road again. She stomped out the embers that still smoked under the early morning sun. She made her way through the trees, which was easier said than done.
These parts of the woods had never been trailed before, there was no clear path she was following, just the one of least resistance.
Sam swung her axe bringing down the dead branches and debris that blocked her way, she hummed a tune as she worked, there was nothing else to do to keep her entertained. She always had to be on lookout which drained her, every sense she had was running on overdrive.
A noise caught her attention, groaning in the distance. Sam crouched down low, positioning herself behind the trees so that she couldn’t be seen. Her ears perked like a dog, listening closely for any sign of movement. It was odd that most of the time she heard things like this she hoped it was a rabid.
Something about the people that lurked around didn’t seem too inviting.
Sam found it easier to kill the lonesome rabid’s, but the thought of finding another human that had cruel intentions sent shivers up her spine. It wasn’t the thought of killing her fellow peer that made her so uncomfortable, that part she was capable and ready to do, it was the interaction.
Trying to figure out the intentions of the person before deciding whether or not they should live or die.
Sam wasn’t surprised at what the family had told her when she had been held up in the rampaged supermarket. Sam had been in war, she had seen how people followed rules so eagerly until all hell broke loose.
People’s morals seem to all but disappear when their world turns to chaos.
Things that would seem horrific and vile when there was regulation and control; go out the window when it goes. Humans need rules and guidelines to follow, they need order to be set or it all goes to waste.
But in this new era of mankind, one where fellow humans are now nothing but mindless animals, order seems to be far from the world they used to know.
Sam stayed out of sight watching the woods closely, her eyes forever scanning the tree line.
She watched as a small hoard stumbled into view, they groaned together following the leader. They were intriguing to watch despite their gruesome and violent nature. Sam often thought it was so strange that they used to be people, like her. They had lives, jobs, and families.
But now they wandered aimlessly, their only goal was to fill their bellies.
It was sad to imagine how many people now were these awful creatures, everything they ever lived for so easily ripped away from them.
Sam was snapped out of her deep thinking by the sound of feet hitting the ground in clumsy fashion. She refocused her attention to the small group only to find they were coming straight for her.
“Ah, shit.” Sam cursed under her breath. She hadn’t needed to fight any of the rabid’s since her first meeting with the driver. But even then she never fought him, just escaped.
However that situation was different, at that time she had no idea what she was dealing with or what was happening.
Sam sprung from her hiding spot, axe ready in her hand.
“Come get me you motherfuckers!” She yelled loudly so they could find her easily.
The group barreled towards her, their noises mixing in with each other as they rushed for the blonde.
Sam swung her axe over her head bringing it down with such force that the first rabid’s skull split in half, but in its momentum the body kept moving towards her. She smashed the butt of her axe into its side, flinging it over and out of the way.
The next one chomped for her, his gnashing teeth lashing out at her flesh. Using the handle of her weapon she shoved him away, sending him backwards into the rest of the pack. They tumbled to the ground like pins, but that didn’t mean the fight was over.
The gnawing man leapt to his feet again in no time, making another attempt to get his fill from the angry woman.
Little did he know she was begging for a fight, Sam was ready to cave some heads in.
And that she did.
Sam sliced through the air with speed, the rabid stopping in its place before crumpling to the ground. The woman swung so hard she had cleanly decapitated the biter.
The last two came together at her as a pair, but they were nothing more than mindless animals, they both aimed for her face. Their gangly decomposing limbs reached for her, clawing and grabbing at the air. The pair together were strong, with both of their weight pushing Sam backwards.
She used the length of her axe to hold them back, wielding it as a barrier between them. The rabids lunged forward knocking Sam off her feet. She yelped in surprise as the pair toppled onto her. Sam held fast keeping them at arm's length, she grunted, straining to keep them at bay.
But she thought fast, tucking her knees up against her chest; she kicked out, rocking her hips upwards. Sam used the force to push the rabids over her head, they toppled to the ground behind her as she rolled backwards.
It was a quick movement so fast she was already on her knees before the rabids could even sit up. She swivelled to face them as they sprung up arms outstretched for her, her hands found the two knives that were sheathed at her belt.
Sam gripped the hilt of the daggers in a fast motion she drove the weapons upwards into the underside of their chins.
There was little resistance to the sharp daggers as they plunged into the soft decomposing flesh of the biters, their jaws turned slack as the blade of the knives pierced into their skulls. Sam withdrew the weapons from the two rabids, they slumped back lifeless.
Sam nudged the two rabids with her foot, but they didn’t move. Sam had seen enough zombie media to know that if you wanted to kill them for good, it needed to be through the head.
She cleaned her knives from the black blood that covered the blades on the back of the fallen biter. Before she picked up her pack, that had slipped from her shoulders during the attack, and swung it back on her shoulders.
************
Finally Sam had made it to Pittsfeild. The town now empty and desolate, had an eerie sense to it. She made her way into the heart of the town, making sure she kept low and out of sight at all times.
The blonde scavenged in and out of the abandoned stores. As she had made her journey she noted the supplies were now few and far between. Unlike with the first store she had gone into that still had resources in it, now the shops had been picked bare.
Sighing, she threw what she could into her backpack. It was early afternoon and thought it best to make her way as far as she could away from the town and toward Albany.
Swinging her bag back onto her back after securing the buckles, she made her way out of the store.
Sam had only made it a couple blocks before a squeak came from under her boot. She lifted her foot, revealing a dirty teddy-bear lying on the ground. Sam tilted her head, it looked familiar, but she didn’t know from where.
Her brows drew together as she studied the small stuffed bear that looked back up at her. Sam couldn’t put her finger on why the bear looked so sad, the smile that was stitched into the mouth wasn't bright and cheerful it looked so melancholy; like it was forced.
Sam placed her foot on the ground as she bent down to pick the bear up. It was only small, easily fitting into her hand.
The bear was dirty covered in muck from the ground, blood stains on his feet and tummy, but under all the grime it seemed well loved. The nose had been worn down, like the owner often touched it.
The ears were the same.
The fur on the bear looked shorter there than on other places on the bear. The teddy's hands also had the same pattern as the ears, the owner must’ve held his hands a lot.
Then Sam’s heart dropped, the memory coming back to her in a rush.
The picture of the young girl holding up her little bear to wave goodbye before she was ushered out of the supermarket by her mother.
Sam lifted her head, eyes scanning the area. The small voice in her head begging for the girl to have just dropped it by accident, it fell out of her bag without her noticing.
The voice didn’t last very long, as Sam bit her lip. Her eyes found a group of people lying on the floor, two big, one small. She approached slowly, hoping and praying it wasn’t who she thought it was.
But she was right, she stood over the small girl, hand still interlocked with her father’s. The girl’s mother was frozen in time, reaching out for her daughter. Fingers still spread wide so close but so far from her little girl that only lay inches away face down in the dirt. Sam closed her eyes, willing the searing vision of the family to leave her brain, it wasn’t something she wished to carry.
The blonde bent down tucking the small bear under the child’s arm, she didn’t think it was right to rip him away from his family as well. But even then it didn’t feel right, leaving the family face down in the street.
She cursed under her breath, she needed to leave but her conscious wouldn’t let her move until she had laid them all to rest. It was only right, the family seemed to have been taken from the world in such violence, they needed to be in peace.
Sam moved the mother first, dragging her body off the street and into the edge of the woods that they were so close too.
The woman wondered if that’s where they were going for safety, they were almost there, another couple of steps and then could’ve been in the forest. Sam laid her down, facing her up to the sky, she noted the bullet wound in her chest and the crimson that stained her grey sweatshirt.
Next she moved the little girl, she was easier. Being only so young Sam could easily pick her up and move her. So she did, Sam cradled the young child in her arms and walked her to her mother who waited for her. She walked slower than normal, letting the young girl admire the sky one last time, the way the blue contrasted against the green of the trees that stood so tall.
Her teddy bear still tucked under her arm she lay next to her mother, Sam placed their hands so they were touching. Sam then moved the father, laying him on the other side of his daughter, she moved their hands so that they were laying together as well.
Sam dug quickly. She felt bad but she didn’t have time to dig them a proper grave, but it didn’t feel right leaving them exposed to the elements. They need their privacy, so that they could truly rest.
The blonde moved them into the grave she had dug, keeping the same position she had them in as when they were laid on the grass. Sam took a moment of silence before covering the bodies in the earth. She patted the ground, smoothing it over. But still it felt empty.
Sam knew she was wasting time, but she couldn’t leave them here in an unmarked grave, nothing to show who they were.
She turned in a circle, eyes trailing her surroundings. Her eyes landed on wild daisies that sprung from the ground. Sam grabbed a handful to bring it back over the earth that held the family. Sam had never had an eye for decorating, her room often laid bare, but she placed the flowers around the edges of the grave. The rest of the flowers she had scattered in the middle.
It wasn’t beautiful but at least now it wasn’t empty.
Sam never cried much, as a child she was scolded for such things, so she learnt to hold it back. But in that moment she couldn’t help the tears that dripped down her cheeks.
The family shared so much love, their little girl had so much potential.
But now they’re gone. Buried in the earth.
Sam didn’t know their names, ages, or their life.
This life was cruel, cruller than most.
Then the thoughts trickled in, Sam cursed her mind for falling into the ‘what if’s’ again. It was a trait she trained so tirelessly to remove from her brain, but it always found a way to sneak back in.
What if she had agreed to come along with them, would she have been able to save them? Or would she have met the same fate.
It felt cruel to leave but she was wasting daylight, she huffed as she looked at the fresh grave before she headed into the forest herself.
They almost made it. The vile voice in her brain taunted. Could’ve been saved if you weren’t so heartless.
Sam groaned, shaking her head to rid the thoughts that plagued her mind. It was in the past, she had made her bed and now she would have to lie in it.
Unfortunately the family haunted her with every step she went deeper into the forest. The tightness in her chest suffocated the poor girl as she fought with her own emotions. Like she had said before, this world was cruel, the only way to survive was to be even more ruthless and spiteful than the evil creatures that lurked in the shadows.
However it wasn’t those creatures that had ended that family’s life, it was other people. People like Sam, merciless and uncaring.
A/N:
Ok so our Sam has a heart but don't tell her that or she'll beat you up. I'm so excited to be posting these I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far! I hope you all are loving Sam like I do, she may be a tough cookie but I still want to give her a big hug, but she would most likely punch me in the face LMAO.
Esra ✨
#band of brothers#hbo war#easy company#hbowar#joe liebgott#lewis nixon#david webster#joseph liebgott#band of brothers#eugene roe#Samantha Jackson#Sam Jackson#Sol and Esra AU#Zombie AU#BOB AU#also isn't she so badass with her axe!#like ok queen beat me up why don't you#I wanna be as cool as Sam#I wanna her when I grow up#also shhh don't tell Sol but one more chapter and then something exciting is going to happen#but no spoilers#shhhhhhhh#Love you!#Esra
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
Season 5 theories
What I would love to see, what I would like to see and what I think might actually happen. Kudos to this show for still occupying my brain three weeks later. Should I be working right now? Maybe…
Scenario 1 - would love this
This one only really works, if the season 4 ended a little differently. The Pogues don’t actually see JJ dying and they only assume he’s dead. I did a post about it earlier, here’s the plot:
I think it could be really powerful and fans would love this.
Imagine the tension in a hospital scene where JJ is being treated and the Pogues almost find him, but at the last second they don’t. JJ maybe even sees them through a hospital window while he’s in bed and tries to get their attention but he’s too weak to do. JJ freaking out and trying to scream Kiara’s name would be so good and give us all the angst.
Once they finally reunite, again that could be really powerful. reuniting with someone you thought was dead? Peak cinema if you ask me. You still have the villains from the season 4, the crown hunting, the revenge plot and happy ending to top it off.
This will not happen unless they ignore some of the things done and said in the finale + Rudy would have to want to do one more season
Scenario 2 - would like this
I will be honest, I don’t like supernatural stuff, it’s just not my jam. And even though this show hinted at it at times, I am not convinced that’s the direction the show runners want to go. But reading some fan fictions about JJ being resurrected actually made me change my mind. Again, could be really powerful. Them not believing he’s actually alive, Kiara worried it’s only a dream she could wake up from any minute, Pope trying to find a logical explanation and JJ giving them shit for burying him in Morocco and leaving him behind. All good stuff.
This could only happen if they decide to go fully supernatural AND Rudy is willing to do one more season.
Scenario 3 - might actually happen
They get their revenge and the crown, and they wish for JJ to return. Either it ends with them wishing for it, leaving an open ending and for fans to interpret it how they want to, not showing us if the crown is actually magic and can grant wishes or not. Or there could be a scene where they wish for it, nothing happens but then they are back home, sitting around a fire and we see a blond man approaching them. Or they wish for it over his grave and we see a hand sticking out of the sand. You don’t need Rudy for that, a stunt double could do it. A happy ending montage could be then made with the stuff they cut from the previous seasons so that JJ is actually seen alive.
Or they can leave JJ’s character out of season 5 completely and let fans be even more disappointed
Thoughts? Opinion? Your ideas? Would love to discuss
21 notes
·
View notes
Text
Extra Reading, Ch.3
the amount of effort it takes me to not let stuff that's supposed to be fluffy and happy slip into angst and sadness is crazy
i would not say i was totally successful this time
Her eyes burned from strain, a pounding headache resonated inside her skull, and her body had a heavy weight of exhaustion pressing down on it. While it was impossible to tell the time of day from her windowless room in the Lighthouse, she could tell from her physical state that she had gone a night without sleep, but it was worth it. She had done it.
She read a book.
An achievement that long seemed impossible, reserved for those with better upbringings and more intelligence than her. But thanks to the professor, she did it. And she knew the first person to tell the news to.
Bolting up from her bed, she ran to Emmrich’s door, lights already peering out from his door. Walking up to it, she lightly knocked against it. As time passed without her question being answered, doubt started to creep into her mind, a sensation that had been forgotten to her until a few weeks ago. Would he be annoyed by her bothering him this early? It was hard to imagine him irritated at somebody, but maybe this would be what did it. Maybe he slept with his lights on and she was waking him up. What if-
Light filled the hallway, banishing the gloom that lingered in the hallways of the lighthouse. Emmrich stood in the open doorway with a drowsy smile on his face. “Good morning, Rook. I must admit my surprise at your presence- I don’t think I’ve ever seen you awake at this hour.”
“I sort of forgot to sleep last night… but I finished it! I finished the book!” she exclaimed, smiling so wide her cheeks started to ache. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt like this. Normally, her happiness felt like a shallow puddle, based on nothing but an indifference to the troubles surrounding her. This time, it was an endless ocean, rooted in a sense of accomplishment she hadn't felt since her first battle as a Warden.
“Rook, that’s wonderful!” he congratulated her, stepping aside and motioning her into the room. Crossing the threshold, the familiar sights of the room greeted her. The comforting glow and crackle of the fireplace, the subtle whispers of incense that hung in the air after his rituals, and the chair she had claimed as her own, draped in a blanket Emmrich had found for her when she had appeared cold. In the past week, she spent more of her waking hours here with Emmrich than in her own room. “Would you like to discuss it?”
“Yes! I have a lot of thoughts, professor. I love that I get to say that.” she responded, sitting down in her chair, wrapping herself in the plush blanket. Emmrich sat at his desk, and gave her a look of pride that made her heart skip a beat. “Given the Warden’s love of secrecy, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised about how much of this I didn’t know but… the whole thing with the Commander of Soldier’s Peak going crazy and needing to be forced to go on his Calling made me think a lot about how long the First Warden has been doing his job. And if what happened then might be happening now.”
“And that is precisely why we must study history!” Emmrich exclaimed, beaming at her with satisfaction, jewelry singing as he gesticulated with his hands. “To understand the past is to understand the present. I can’t tell you the joy it brings me to see you find those connections. If you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been a Warden?”
“Seven years.”
“I suppose that would explain your skill on the battlefield.”
Rook tried to fight away the blush rising on her face, giving a small shrug, unsure of how to respond to so much praise. “One thing I wondered about- the only names he mentions are commanders. It makes it sound like they did everything. Obviously, they do a lot, but in my experience, they wouldn’t be able to get anything done if they didn’t have soldiers underneath them helping. Just makes me think of how many things are being credited to the commander’s whose names actually got written down somewhere when it may have been their subordinate actually getting the work done.”
“I… you’re absolutely correct.” Emmrich responded, a faraway look in his eyes. “I think you may have just changed how I interpret historical texts. This is one of the things I was hoping to gain from leaving the Necropolis- different perspectives. We tend to be such an insular community, we forget about the diversity of experiences in the world above us.” Emmrich spoke like he was conducting an orchestra, hands moving alongside his voice to help punctuate his sentences. It was difficult not to get distracted by all the golden jewelry adorning his arms when he gestured like that. Her fascination with everything that seemed expensive was the origin of her nickname after joining the Wardens- after growing up in the squalor of the alienage, seeing the ostentatious livery some of the senior Wardens wore distracted her with thoughts of envy and awe. Once it had happened enough times, the other recruits started calling her Rook- like she would try and steal the shining ornaments of her superiors to bring back to her nest. Despite the implications of the name, she had been welcoming of a new identity, hoping her old name would simply wash away with time. “Rook?”
“Sorry, what?” she apologized, snapping out of her thoughts. Emmrich stared at her, clearly expecting a response to a question she hadn’t heard.
“You seemed to be distracted.”
“Sorry again, it’s just… the jewelry on your arms. It’s really pretty.” she explained, somewhat embarrassed to have to admit how easy it was to draw her mind away from the topic at hand.
“You think so?” Emmrich questioned, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
“Is that surprising?”
“I’ve just never seen you wear anything like it.”
“There’s no way I could afford something like that!” she laughed, imagining the absurdity in stretching the pittance she got as a Warden enough to afford golden jewelry. Emmrich’s eyes fell from her face in embarrassment at her retort, and the easy cadence of their conversation ground to a halt.
“My apologies for bringing up the matter.”
“It’s really not an problem.” she reassured him, the absence of his standard calm affability making her feel uneasy. She wanted to get him back as fast as she could. “What’s your next assignment for me?”
“I found a history of the Wardens in the Free Marches, like you asked.” he prefaced, clearly thankful Rook moved them though their conversational hiccup so quickly. “But the language is a bit… verbose. I apologize if this appears condescending, but I fear you may have trouble reading it without assistance.”
“That’s fine. It’ll be a good excuse to spend more time around you.” she smiled at him. For the first time since meeting him, Emmrich looked flustered. His eyes went wide, slight color appeared in his cheeks, and his mouth opened slightly in surprise. Satisfaction rose in her chest at her ability to make someone as dignified as him blush. As much as she hated to admit it, she had been hoping to break his composure like this since they first met at the Necropolis. She wasn’t sure where her innate desire to ruin beautiful things came from, but it certainly extended to Emmrich. After a few moments, he regained his typical poise before giving her a slight smile.
“You never have to find excuses, Rook. I’ll always welcome your company.”
—
This was a poor decision.
Emmrich paced his room, turning a small jewelry box over in his hands. It contained a small silver bracelet with a single blue gemstone inlaid between the delicate metal chainlinks. He had picked it up in Nevarra City earlier in the day, his conversation with Rook from the previous morning lingering in his mind long after she left him. He had been telling himself it had no deeper meaning than a kind gift to a colleague. After all, he had been in her position once- unable to afford all the luxuries he saw others indulging in. It didn’t have to have a deeper meaning than simple empathy.
But he knew he was lying to himself. On some level, he wanted to impress the beautiful woman who had been spending her evenings with him. He knew his desire for her companionship was improper- she couldn’t have been older than her late twenties. However, knowing something illicit rarely did anything to calm one’s heart.
Or other body parts.
So he walked circles in his room, trying to make the decision before she came by later for their standing appointment. Would she appreciate the gift as a simple, thoughtful gesture? Would she read into his implicit intentions? Would she be repulsed by them, or would she-
“Hi Emmrich!” Rook cheerily greeted him as the door opened without warning, Manfred holding it open for her. “I ran into Manfred on the way over. What’s that?” She questioned as she walked to meet him in the center of the room. Emmrich cursed his anxiety, the decision having been taken out of his hands.
“I was thinking of our conversation yesterday, and I thought you might appreciate this.” Emmrich explained, trying to mimic Rook’s matter-of-fact manner of speaking to prevent any potential miscommunication. He handed the box to her, and she took it curiously, examining the fine velvet exterior. He held his breath as she slowly opened it, and her smile fell.
“Emmrich, this…” she whispered, shock and confusion intermingling on her face. She stared at it silently for what felt like an eternity, her face frozen in the inscrutable expression. The anxiety that had been nipping at his heels before her entrance overwhelmed him, tearing open his chest with its vicious claws.
“Rook…” he began, unsure how to correct his error. What had he done? He had let his romantic imagination get away from him, a relic from a time long past. And now he risked not only a professional relationship, but a friendship he had come to cherish.
“Why are you so kind to me?” She interrupted him before he could further embarrass himself. She turned her gaze to him, tears starting to well in her eyes. The anxiety that had been mauling him since the exchange started disappeared, replaced by a yawning void of sorrow. She didn’t understand why she would be given a gift like this. This woman, a shining beacon of joy who fought against the tide of Blight that threatened to swallow the world, couldn’t comprehend why someone cared for her.
“It’s nothing less than what you deserve.” he assured her, tucking a strand of red hair that had fallen into her face behind her ear. She wiped away the tears that had begun to spill from her eyes, blinking away any more that threatened to appear. Lifting the bracelet from its resting place, she delicately placed it on her wrist, taking a deep breath and studying it for a few moments once it was where it belonged. Raising her gaze back up to him, her typical smile had reappeared, any vulnerability she had let escape tightly leashed back. “Are you ready to start the next book?”
She nodded, clearly relieved to be able to move past her emotional display. Taking her seat, she grabbed the book from his desk, and opened it to the first page. The rest of their evening proceeded like the rest, a constant rhythm of silence and questions, all pertaining to the text, save for one.
“Emmrich?”
“Yes?”
“Is the blue stone to match my eyes?”
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
Who is your farmer? How did they end up in Mistria (were they with the Adventuring Guild?)?
Iris Laevigata, a well known florist from the capital. Looking to free herself of the bustling life out in the more populated region, she finds herself becoming a part of the Saturday night market in Mistria. A form of escape, she finds comfort in the small town. Her weekend visits become more abundant, staying for nights at Mistrias Inn during the weekdays.
After becoming an acquaintance of most the people who reside within Mistria, she overhears their need for a farmer. Somebody to care for the land long abandoned since the earthquake. Offering herself up as tribute, in love with the idea of a new life. One where she can still enjoy her passion on tending flowers, and crops alike.
Who do you, the player, like as a character the most? Does this differ from your character’s favourite villager?
I absolutely adore March, and while he does eventually become a love interest of Iris. She's significantly closer to Balor, long before she steps into Marchs life. He's the one who first introduced her to Mistria, not only being her most trusted business partner, but a worthy companion in the long run.
Did your character have any prior farming or ranching knowledge before coming to Mistria? Or adventuring?
Iris was somewhat experienced, due to understanding the seasons conditions and how to operate with her flowers. That being said, crops are harvested differently. As for ranching, she's a lost duck. It takes her some time, and well needed training from Hayden to truly understand how to tend to all the animals needs. For adventuring, she's quite experienced, because she herself sought out all her merchandise at the beginning. She's well versed in archery, and survival, despite her princess-like appearance.
What is your character’s favourite way to spend the day? On the other hand, what is your favourite way to spend the day in the game playing?
Iris no doubt talks to her plants throughout her day, tending to all their needs. Waving goodbye and heading into town, she finds herself seeking out the children of Mistria. Acting as a member of their little "secret" organization. Organizing little hunts for flowers, not only does it help her find new species of plants, but it's a fun activity for the children. So their parents don't have to concern themselves with keeping an eye on them during work hours. She had few friends growing up, so that childlike wonder returns when surrounded by those younger than her. Titled as the fun older sister.
As for myself, I visit March to lend him my daily gifts! Only to then disappear in the mines, cutting it way too close to the deadlines on when I desperately need rest. The amount of times I lose track of time and pass out there is impressive, but girls got bag. I make weapons, then sell em'. Most enjoyable way to earn money in my books. Plus, gives me an excuse to be with March. Gotta get myself involved in his interests, haha!
Does your character have any animals on the farm? Who are their favourites?
She'd likely leave the ranching to Hayden, though, she is happy to help tend to his own ranch when requested. Her farm is made up of a vast variety of flowers, and crops. Rather than animals. Just because she's not confident enough to own any quite yet.
A few years in, she'd adopt a rabbit and name him Bandit. He's a white rabbit with a black spot across his face like a mask, which ultimately became the reason behind his name.
What is your character’s take on the magic slowly seeping back into the land of Mistria? Were they familiar with magic prior to this?
Iris is excited, but quite unsure how to utilize it. She's never had the ability to use magic, or, that she is aware of. She's known of it's existence, she's seen it firsthand on several occasions, envious of those who were able to embrace and use it for their own good. It seems so convenient!
When pets come: what sort of pets are you hoping for?
I grew up in a home surrounded by birds. So I'd adore a pet birdie of some kind, whether it be Parakeet, Parrot, etc.
What does your character look like in the game?
Unfortunately due to limitations, she's not exactly how I desire her to look. In her original design she styles her hair in a flower-like bun on the right side of her head, as well as a blue hat she adores. So, for the time being, her hair is out of the bun, and her signature hat has been removed.
What does their farmhouse look like so far?
It's filled to the brim with flowers and other plants alike, her room is clean but somewhat cluttered from all the pots and plants scattered around the house. I'd show an in game image if I had progressed far enough, but so far... I procrastinate too much.
What does their exterior farmland look like at the moment? Have you set up any special sort of shrine around Caldarus’s statue?
She has the majority of her beloved flowers grown close to Caldasrus. Insisting he keeps watch of them when she's away. Believing the flowers may keep him company as well in her absence.
Final question: what are you most excited for with future patches?
More heart events, and story! I'm so invested in the characters it's not even funny, I want to know more behind March's behavior. Why he believed the farmer will leave, without a doubt in his mind.
Fields of Mistria Questions
Who is your farmer? How did they end up in Mistria (were they with the Adventuring Guild?)?
Who do you, the player, like as a character the most? Does this differ from your character’s favourite villager?
Did your character have any prior farming or ranching knowledge before coming to Mistria? Or adventuring?
What is your character’s favourite way to spend the day? On the other hand, what is your favourite way to spend the day in the game playing?
Does your character have any animals on the farm? Who are their favourites?
What is your character’s take on the magic slowly seeping back into the land of Mistria? Were they familiar with magic prior to this?
When pets come: what sort of pets are you hoping for?
What does your character look like in the game?
What does their farmhouse look like so far?
What does their exterior farmland look like at the moment? Have you set up any special sort of shrine around Caldarus’s statue?
Final question: what are you most excited for with future patches?
68 notes
·
View notes
Text
i miss juanaflippa in the way that i've been so out of the hispanic sphere of content creation and seeing a colombian be part of something as big as the qsmp made me so happy
#txt post#not sure if i'll put this in the tag#for context flippa is colombian out of all the mexican eggs. and that means a lot to me#in the years i've been in the internet i barely see any colombians be like big or influential in the hispanic sphere#and finding out she was one made me so happy and so seen#idk LOL . talking to ari reminded me of this and just made me rlly happy just being colombian yk?#qsmp juanaflippa#<- fuck it putting it in the tag#you miss juanaflippa cuz of missclick duo. i miss her cuz it was the only colombian rep i've seen in years. we're not the same
74 notes
·
View notes