#and he gets bruises because he needed color contrast lol

[aliettali]

skilltober 14: pain threshold

[hpimaginesandblurbs]

may you make hermione x fem reader x harry smut where the girls are both hard dom and punishing harry. like, reader eating out hermione in front of harry? degrade him, spank him with a paddle, making him ride hermione's thigh while tying his hands? literally they both rail harry and play with each other in every way 😻

pairing(s): harry potter x hermione granger x reader

warning(s): 18+, threesome, dom/sub roles, dom!reader, dom!hermione, sub!harry, mentions of spanking/paddling, bondage, oral (female receiving), thigh riding, slight anal play, voyeurism(?)

word count: 1.3k

a/n: this is my first time writing anything with two girls so i hope you enjoy! if you want to request anything else with the girls, please feel free! i'm bi so it really is no hardship lol. happy pride month btw to all my lovely lbgtqia+ followers and readers!

“Look at him whining, so pathetic,” Hermione mused from where she laid naked on the bed, waiting for you to join her.

You looked down at Harry, who you had just tied to a chair. His hands were bound behind his back, his legs tied down to the legs, and his chest strapped to the back. He had no relief for his aching cock that hung heavy between his thighs. Or his aching ass that you and Hermione had just had the pleasure in turning red.

You rounded the chair until you were in front of him before you grabbed a handful of his unruly black hair and tugged so he had no choice but to look at you.

“What are you whining about, hm? Is it that sore arse of yours? Because you know you deserved that. Or do you just want to get off that badly like some desperate little whore?” You asked, a smirk coming to your face as he blushed just as scarlet as his house colors.

“Both, Miss,” he forced himself to respond, knowing he would only make it worse for himself if he didn’t answer.

Not that your little masochist wouldn’t love a little more torture. You and Hermione always made it worth it in the end.

“That’s what I thought,” you said, releasing his hair in an aggressive push, knocking him back against the hard chair. He whined at the contact, and you knew the movement put unwanted pressure on his ass. “You’re lucky you’ve been good so far. You should be grateful I’m even letting you stay in the room. All you have to do now is be a good boy and watch me take care of ‘Mione and maybe I’ll let you get off. Try not to make too much noise,” you taunted before turning on your heel and making your way to the bed, sure to swing your hips just enough to torture him.

It was short work getting Hermione in the position you needed her in, exposed to Harry while in the perfect position for you to pleasure her.

You let him look at her exposed cunt for a moment before your fingers were on her and in her, a gasp of pleasure falling from her lips.

“This could be you right now, touching her and making her cum. But you just had to be a naughty little boy who couldn’t keep it in his pants,” you spoke directly to Harry, not missing a beat with your fingers. What you said was in reference to the rule he broke, no touching himself without your or Hermione’s permission. It was the whole reason he was being punished in the first place.

“Please,” he begged in a breathless whine, his eyes clouded with arousal and his chest heaving as he tried to keep himself calm.

You didn’t answer him, just simply turned your full attention now to Hermione who was basking in the pleasure your fingers were giving her. You watched her for a moment, in awe of how lucky you were to have two of the most beautiful people you knew under your command. It was intoxicating and arousing all at once.

Slowly, you kissed your way down her soft thighs, relishing in the way she shuddered in anticipation. When your tongue connected with her clit, you heard twin moans come from the pair of Gryffindors and you were sure you were dripping onto the bed by now.

You worked her effortlessly. With practice came perfection and you knew this way Hermione’s favorite way to get off, so both you and Harry had had plenty of practice. You felt her warm walls grip your fingers as you worked her closer and closer to her release until she let out a cry of your name and spasmed against your face, the wetness of her climax evident on your lips and chin when you pulled away.

You moved your body to kiss her, letting her taste herself off of you in a heated kiss. Her hands trailed your body, already desperate to return the favor but you pulled yourself away before he could get too far.

“I feel like we’ve been awfully neglectful of someone,” you said quietly, but just loud enough for Harry to hear.

“He’s been quiet,” she commented casually, speaking as if he wasn’t even there.

You made a noise of agreement before you continued the little charade. “Maybe he’s finally learning his lesson.”

“Doubt such a pathetic whore could ever learn his lesson,” she teased with a smirk.

It was then he finally made a noise, a high pitched whine as he listened to the two of you speak so openly about him. Both of your heads snapped towards him, and he was watching the both of you with a feral, lustful gaze that made your head spin.

When you took stock of his body, you couldn’t help but grind yourself down on Hermione’s thigh just to ease the pressure you felt between your legs. His face and chest were flushed a pretty shade of pink, a stark contrast to his angry, red cock that was jutting up between his legs. He was leaking an absurd amount of precum, probably of the edge of cumming untouched if you had to guess.

He was beautiful when he submitted like this.

“Have you learned your lesson yet?” You asked, staring at him intently.

“Yes, yes, please, Miss. I learned my lesson. Please. Just want to touch you. Anything. Please,” he begged aimlessly now that he had the chance to speak, his hips thrusting against the air pointlessly in search of any friction. A harsh breeze would probably send him over the edge right now.

“Shh,” you cooed as you made your way over to him, careful only to touch his face when you approached. “You’ve been good. I’m going to untie you now and you’re going to go sit on ‘Mione’s thigh and hump your little mind away. Does that sound fair?” You asked, slowly releasing him from his bonds as you spoke.

“I won’t last,” he whined quietly, sounding beautifully pitiful.

You couldn’t help the smile that came to your face. “It’s cute that you really think we’ll be done with you that easy,” you told him as you coaxed him up from his chair and watched him make his way over to Hermione, his hands still tied behind his back.

You did what you could to help him onto the bed, but even your touch seemed to affect him too much.

When his cock touched the smooth skin on Hermione’s leg, he let out a beautiful moan that had you and Hermione smiling at each other over his shoulder.

“Show us how bad you want it. Show me how bad a little slut like you wants to cum,” Hermione instructed, knowing full well he wouldn’t last long against her body.

With his head buried in Hermione’s curls, he began to rut against her slowly, doing everything in his power to keep his climax at bay for as long as possible. Her hands stayed gentle on his hips, not guiding him but just a reminder that she was there.

From behind, his entire ass was exposed to you and you knew you had to take advantage of it.

Slowly, your hand smoothed circles over his now bruising skin until your fingers were in the perfect position to swirl around his tight hole. He shuddered and groaned at the feeling, but continued in his valiant effort.

When one of your fingers slipped in, he was now rocking back onto your fingers and forward against Hermione’s skin. He rocked one, two, three more times until he was cumming with a cry and a full body spasm, his walls tight around your finger.

You both let him breathe through it for a moment before two sets of hands were on him again.

With your chest pressed against his back, you leaned down closely to whisper in his ear.

“How about you lay down and take care of me now? Show me what that pretty mouth is good for.”

And you relished in the way his body eagerly shivered against yours.

[lavenderfluorite14]

Such Sweet Delirium

Reiji Sakamaki x Fem!Reader

Summary: Laito Intrudes on an experiment gone wrong. Reiji loses his cool.

Explicit, 18+ |TW: Dubious Consent/Non-Con, Drugged Sex, Verbal Humiliation, Slut Shaming, Blood Sucking, Ownership Kink, Female Reader, Breast Worship, Hickeys, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Begging, Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Possessive Reiji, Light Edging, Canon Typical Reiji Cruelty, I couldn’t just write porn I had to write a character study too lol, Slight Laito x Reader, Tagging non-con for the consent issues surrounding drugged sex, Reader is conscious and responsive but very high

Word Count: 2331

A/N: Please be mindful of the tags! This is the most explicit thing that I have ever written lmaoooo 🥂

Read it on AO3!

Reiji’s lab spun in a nauseating carousel of color. The last thing you remembered was drinking a beautiful, shimmering liquid that Reiji said he had brewed himself. It fizzed all the way down your throat, an insistent warmth quickly spreading throughout your body. Now sprawled across his sofa, you surrendered to dizzying oblivion. Somewhere above you, Reiji scribbled furiously in a black notebook, tutting irritably.

“Tell me what you are feeling. Be specific.” You swallowed thickly at the order, begging your tongue to move.

“The…...the room…..the room is-”

“Spit it out, I don’t have all day.”

“S-spinning. The room….is spinning” you slurred.

“How fast?”

“Fast.”

“I said how fast?”

“I….I can’t….”

Reiji tsked angrily, snapping his notebook shut. Flinching, you tried to turn away from his sharp gaze but a cold hand pinned you flat against the couch. Your delayed reaction time was no match for his vampiric strength.

“I can feel your heart racing from here,” he said, curling over you, pinning your wrists above your head. “Had I known you were such weak prey I would have given you a smaller dose. It isn’t as fun when you can’t fight back.” You wriggled underneath him, jerking weakly against his cruel grip. Reiji laughed, amused at your feeble attempts to escape.

“Although, I don’t hate this delirious expression,” he murmured, lowering his face towards yours. You squeezed your eyes shut, overwhelmed by his hungry stare. “I suppose this isn’t bad every once and a while.” His rich baritone rumbled in your ear, his proximity making you tremble.

“I didn’t think I’d interrupt this so soon,” interrupted a dark chuckle. Laito lounged against the doorframe of the lab, eyeing your entwined forms. “You must really like this one, Reiji,” he teased. Reiji’s iron grip tightened around your wrists and you whimpered pitifully. “It’s rude to enter someone’s room without knocking,” Reiji spat imperiously. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer!” Laito insisted, his eyes glinting with mirth. “But now I can see you were a bit distracted.” You lolled your head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of the intruder. Laito’s smirk widened.

“Christ, what did you do to her?”

“Such language is atrocious. You shouldn’t speak that way.”

“You fucked up the dosage, didn’t you?” Reiji shot up quickly at the accusation, swiping his notebook from the couch as he crossed briskly back towards his desk. Laito’s smirk cracked into a grin.

“Do you need something, Laito?” Reiji asked coolly. As Reiji began tidying his work space, Laito sauntered over to the couch, his green gaze boring into you. Crouching down, he gently brushed his fingers across your cheek. You shivered under his cold touch. “I came for the aphrodisiac you promised me,” Laito said, trailing his fingers down your neck. He stopped to trace the hollow of your throat, caressing it with his thumb. “But if you don’t have it, I’m sure there are other ways we can pass the time inst-”

“Of course I have it,” Reiji scoffed. Plucking a vial of blue liquid from his stores, he crossed the room and offered it to Laito. “Now please take it and leave.” Reiji’s words hung in the air like frost. Laito rose languidly, like a cobra rearing back to strike, then swiped the vial from Reiji’s gloved hand.

“Maybe next time, Bitch-Chan,” Laito said, winking at you. “And Reiji,” Laito called, pivoting in the doorframe for one last jab. “I know it can be hard to control yourself, especially this close to a full moon, but try not to tear this one up like the last one, ok? You should save some for the rest of us.”

“Get out!” Reiji snarled, storming across the room. Laito darted off, disappearing as quickly as he had come. Reiji slammed the door behind him.

The ceiling swam before you in lethargic swirls of periwinkle. You had no idea what Laito meant, but you could feel Reiji fuming in the doorway. What was he talking about? Reiji never lost his cool. You couldn’t imagine him doing something like that. “You let him touch you,” Reiji seethed.

“Reiji, I...I didn’t….I didn't want-”

“Please be silent.Your behavior today has been dreadful.” Reiji prowled towards the couch, his long shadow casting a dark pall across your face. You closed your eyes, terrified to meet his furious eyes. “You couldn't do a thing?” He queried, towering above you. “You couldn’t cry out? Or swat him away?” His voice was ice.

“I…..I froze….”

“I suppose that’s to be expected from a woman like you,”

“I’m so-sorry,”

“How should I punish my little harlot?” Finally bending down towards you, Reiji cupped your face firmly with his gloved hand. “Your pupils are still so dilated. I doubt you’d feel my whip at all.” The thought made you shiver, and not completely out of fear. Reiji thumbed your lip idly as he thought.

“Suck….my blood?” He tsked at your suggestion.

“You ask for it so brazenly, sometimes I think you enjoy it. Hands up.” You heaved your arms up over your head as Reiji smoothly rolled your top up your body, tossing it aside once it was completely off.

“I suppose it’s my fault. I’ve been too lax with you,” he mused, settling firmly on top of you. You were particularly aware of his pelvis, pressing insistently against the cradle of your thighs. He cupped your face, drawing you close. “I need to teach you exactly who you belong to,” he said, his gaze drifting down hungrily to the column of your neck. “I’ll remind you so thoroughly of your place that even a dumb whore like you will be able to remember who owns her,” he promised, sinking his teeth viciously into your throat.

Reiji’s first bite was hard and precise, the sharp pain briefly thrusting you into lucid panic. But soon you were left with the warm afterglow of pleasure in the wake of its pain. It never stopped hurting, not entirely, but his bites always left you with a fluttering warmth. Reiji’s mouth was on you. You couldn’t help but enjoy it.

Reiji began a fast, desperate rhythm that pulled blood from you quickly, sending you reeling. You whimpered as your world whirled impossibly faster. When darkness began to flicker at the edges of your vision Reiji pulled away, burying his face into your neck. “You bring out the worst in me,” he sighed. Mouthing along your throat, he continued downward towards your collarbone. You braced yourself for another bite, but recoiled sharply when Reiji placed a delicate kiss upon your chest.

“Look at me, jealous of that pervert.” He kissed your chest again, skimming his fingers across the delicate skin of your décolletage. “Arch your back.” Curving your spine upwards, your body brushed against Reiji’s lean frame. You trembled as his hands ghosted along your back, making their way towards the clasp of your bra. Reiji unhooked it with quick ease then tossed the lacy fabric away, greedily cupping your naked breasts. A thin, breathy gasp escaped from you as Reiji dipped between them, kissing your soft curves. You tangled your hands in his hair, humming your approval. In response he tweaked your nipple harshly, sending a jolt of pain through your cloud of pleasure. You yelped at the enticing contrast.

“Let me remind you of your place. You are nothing more than food to me,” he said, pinching your nipple again with a renewed vengeance. You drunkenly brought your hands back to push him away, but he easily pinned them back above your head. “You are meat. Your blood is the only worthwhile thing about you.” Reiji sunk his teeth into the swell of your breast, drawing deep from you. Crying out, you tried to ignore the pleasure his bite ignited in you, trying to focus only on the pain.

“I can taste your arousal,” he groaned between mouthfuls. “Does your masochism know no bounds?” Reiji’s insults didn’t last as he dove back down again to litter your chest with angry bites. He’d kiss you, so tenderly it was almost painful, then pierce your sensitive skin with his sharp, pointed fangs. Once satisfied, he’d lick, suck and kiss the abused spot until an angry mark began to form. He left bruises everywhere in his wake, a garden of purple hickeys blossoming across your breasts.

The drug made it nearly impossible to meaningfully fight back but you didn’t really want to. Reiji’s words stung, but you so rarely had his attention like this. Was it because the full moon was close? You knew vampires had trouble controlling their urges when the moon was full. And Reiji so desperately wanted control: of his brothers, of you, of himself. Was this frenzied beast the real Reiji, or was his protesting, rigid persona the real him? Impossibly, you knew he had to be both. Both enraptured and repulsed by his own desires and completely unable to hide it. That was really why he was mad. Reiji’s wet tongue interrupted your musings as he lapped against your sore nipple, sending a shudder through your entire body. Unable to remove your wrists from his grasp, you retaliated by wrapping your legs around his hips, trapping him against you. Now it was Reiji’s turn to shudder, rutting himself against your core. He was hard.

“My, you really are out of it,” he murmured, grinding himself against you openly. “It’s the only explanation.”

“Explanation for what?” You panted, trying to match his thrusts. Reiji released your wrists, propping himself up on his left arm. Delicately biting the fabric across the tip of his pointer finger, he slid his glove from his hand. Ripping it away, Reiji’s bare hand skimmed down your body and over your curves. Flipping up your skirt, his fingers slid between your thighs.

“For this,” he says, tracing your wetness through your panties. Your eyes fluttered shut. “Reiji,” you breathed, arching towards his fingers.

“Say my name,” Reiji ordered softly, dipping underneath the fabric and rewarding you with long, firm strokes. You called his name again and he moved up towards your clit, circling it once before quickly pulling away. You whined at the loss.

Reiji begins a vicious rhythm, rubbing your clit with firm circles, then backing off when your pleasure mounts. He only returns to your clit when you beg him to, crying out for him. Fisting your hands in his shirt, you whine in frustration as a needy ache builds inside you. Reiji just smirks down at you, enjoying your torment. When tears start building in your eyes, he finally slides a slender finger into your heat. Beckoning upward along your inner wall, he firmly massages your g spot. Mindlessly, you grind down on his fingers, chasing your pleasure.

“Who makes you feel this good?” he asks, his ruby eyes alight with lust.

“You do,” you gasp.

“I asked you who,” he demanded, cruelly massaging your inner wall. You jerk at the pressure, almost cresting over the plateau.

“Reiji! Reiji Sakamaki!” you cry, desperate for release.

“Good girl,” he smirks, thumbing your clit. You gasp in delight, the rough, consistent circles of his fingers finally hurtling you towards your peak. “You don’t deserve this,” he growls in your ear, his deep velvety voice bewitching you. “But when I see you like this, I can’t stop myself. You’re mine.” Your orgasm hits you hard, squeezing Reiji’s fingers in hot contractions. Pleasure washes over you in a wave, your entire being gently pulsing. Reiji smugly guides you through your orgasm, only stopping his ministrations once your twitching has ceased. You sigh, melting back into the cushions of the couch. Above you, a belt buckle clinks.

“I’m not done with you yet,” Reiji says, gripping your thighs and yanking you forcefully back towards him. As he settles above you, he presses the tip of his member against your eager entrance. Pushing forward, Reiji sinks into you with ease. “My little harlot is so wet for me,” he teases, before setting a ruthless pace.

Reiji fucks you selfishly, chasing his own pleasure now that he’s satisfied yours. You lay back, still enjoying the lingering effects of his drug. His thrusts pull soft, pleasured moans from you as he plunges desperately into you. Closing your eyes, you revel in the sensations, happy to let him use you. Occasionally he’ll sheathe himself all the way inside of you and grind desperately against your cervix, trying to get as deep as he can.

“I can’t believe you like this. That you like me,” he pants softly, definitely to himself. Reiji lets you pull him down so that he is completely flush against your body. “I do. I like you, Reiji.” A groan rips from him and he stills, spilling himself inside of you.

You stay that way for a moment, holding each other tenderly in the afterglow of your love-making. You wish you could stay like this, enjoying the feeling of his body as it presses you into the cushions, gently stroking his back as both of your breathing returns to normal. But Reiji recovers faster than you do. “I’ll clean you up,” he offers, his tone clipped.

Reiji cleans you thoroughly with a warm wet towel, which feels strange but is not unenjoyable in your impaired state. It’s deeply intimate in a way that is definitely uncomfortable, but you think it’s his way of taking care of you. You close your eyes, pliant. His large hands drift over your body, tugging your top back over you and righting your skirt. Once he is finished you curl on your side, completely spent and ready to sleep. As you begin to drift off, you feel something warm and soft envelop you. A blanket? Maybe. Where did he get a blanket?

Reiji watches as you snuggle into the blanket he has recently taken to keeping in his desk, a genuine smile flickering across his stern features.

[fanfic-me-up]

Hiiiiiii can I request Bakugou x fem!reader?? (*≧∀≦*) Maybe he has a crush on you who has a healing quirk and helps recovery girl when it comes to helping the injured, like when class 1-A finishes up training and recovery girl normally sends her to deal with it all the time? She can heal people but it drains her energy so when she finished with it she takes naps on the recovery beds? Idk but thanks!much love❤️❤️❤️

This is a really cute idea! Thank you for requesting 💖 

“Shut up and Heal me”

Pairing: Bakugou Katsuki x fem!reader

Word Count: 1.5k+

Warnings: Language (what do you expect, it’s Bakugou lol)

Synopsis: You’re a student at U.A. and Recovery Girl’s apprentice healer. When you push pass your limit to heal Bakugou Katsuki, who knew he cared enough to make sure you heal too.

“Wake up, dumbass.”

Your shoulder is shaken, abruptly waking you from your nap. A muscular silhouette takes shape as you pry your eyes open.

“Bakugou? Is that you?” Your voice laced with sleep. 

“Nah, it’s Batman.” 

You squint your eyes, still half asleep. Is this a dream? Bakugou rolls his eyes at your inability to detect blatant sarcasm.

“‘Course it’s me, dipshit. Get up.”

You check your phone and groan when you find you only got five minutes worth of valuable shut eye.

“You’re here early.” 

“Aizawa-sensei let us out early!” Midoriya pipes up. He’s chipper for someone who looks one step away from passing out. Any trace of sleep vanishes when you assess his injuries, asking him a series of questions to confirm where he needs medical attention and if it’s life-threatening. You usher him to Recovery Girl’s office so he can get treated immediately. Typical Midoriya - always going plus ultra even for training exercises. 

Bakugou’s no better as you take in the numerous scrapes and bruises raking his body. Despite his beaten-up state, the only open wound is on the right side of his stomach - a small pool of blood seeping through his muscle shirt. He’s been pushing himself much harder in training these past couple weeks and you know it’s the life of a hero, but you’re concerned for him as a healer and as a friend. 

“You gonna stare all day or heal me?”

“Sorry, right, uh.. Take off your shirt and get on the bed.” 

The words escape before you realize the implication. Bakugou raises an eyebrow before snorting.

“Tch. Weirdo.”

You flush as he takes off his shirt, laying down on the bed. The wound running down his abdomen is not deep, but it is long. It’ll be difficult to heal, but you’re always up for a challenge. You wash your hands before activating your quirk. A glowing aura surrounds your hands, transparent in color, but before you can focus on changing the color to heal Bakugou - a spaced out Kaminari stands before you with his signature thumbs up. Snot is running down his nose and his eyes have this blank look like no one’s home. 

“hewwoo?” 

“Oi! Dunceface! To your right!” 

“wa-whee-whaa?” 

That’s Kaminari gibberish for “Where?” Being Recovery Girl’s intern and constantly healing Class 1-A along with other students in the hero course has made you quite familiar with the unusual side effects of overusing one’s quirk. You created a book with translations for Kaminari’s most used gibberish phrases so you can treat him more efficiently. Today, you tried placing his juice box and cookies on the table to the right to see if he can find it himself. But he’s having problems finding what direction is right.

“Your other right, dumbass.” Bakugou growls as Kaminari bends down to look for his juice box under a chair. You giggle as you help him locate his snack before ushering him to one of the recovery beds to take a nap. He knocks out in no time, snoring softly. Bakugou grunts, his hand pressing against the wound on his side. 

“Don’t touch, it could get infected.” 

“Tch. I know, but look.” He releases his hold to show you the blood dripping down his abdomen. You curse for not healing him sooner when he was clearly a higher priority than Kaminari. How could you forget the number one rule as a healer? There’s no time to beat yourself up for it so you grab a cleaning cloth to wipe away the blood before activating your quirk once again. You close your eyes, focusing your energy into what you’re about to do which is close up a wound. Red swirls behind your eyelids and you focus the color down your body to your hands. You open your eyes to find them glowing a bright, luminescent red - a stark contrast to the dim lighting in the room. Bakugou hisses at the touch; your hands trailing along his abdomen. You look up to apologize when you notice Bakugou’s flushed cheeks, as red as your glowing hands.

“Are you okay? You’re a bit flushed.” You deactivate your quirk in your left hand to touch his forehead. It’s cause for concern if he has a fever due to an open wound, but you’re taken aback when Bakugou swats your hand away.

“I’m fine! Shut up and heal me.” He looks away, but you catch the persistent redness now making its way down his neck. You return to healing the wound. It’s almost closed, but you can feel your energy draining quicker than usual since you didn’t have enough time to recover earlier. 

“Hey, you good?” 

“Mhm. Al-most… done…” You bite your lip and clench your eyes shut to concentrate the last of your energy into closing the rest of the wound.

“Don’t push it, dumbass.”  Bakugou grunts and despite the harsh tone, there’s a tinge of concern underneath. 

“Heh.. could say… the same… for..” 

You trail off and your hands glow brighter by the second that you can see red behind your eyelids. You feel the wound seal shut and when you open your eyes you see there’s not a scar in sight. This is the first time you were able to completely heal a wound on your own. You smile at your accomplishment. 

“You can take your hands off.” 

You flush before ripping your hands away. The quick movement gives you a head rush, the room spinning in circles.

“Whoa.” Bakugou grabs you by the shoulders and reverses your position so you’re laying down now. 

“My head hurts…”

“No shit,” Bakugou snorts, “What’d I say about pushing?”

“Go beyond... plus… ultra…”

The last thing you hear is Bakugou laughing, a soft smile curling his lips, before your vision goes black.

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

You wake up to the smell of roasted coffee and cinnabons. Faint voices go back and forth, but you can’t make out what they’re saying. The light streaming in is gone; the room now darker than before. Jeez how long were you out?

“Took you long enough.”

You whip your head to see Bakugou sitting on a chair and nursing a cup of coffee. The bed next to yours is empty. Kaminari must’ve recovered meaning you’ve slept for more than an hour.

“You stayed.”

“Yeah, and? Wanted to make sure you didn’t die ‘cause of me.” 

City lights shine bright, and the hustle and bustle outside suggests the city isn’t going to sleep anytime soon. Live music roars from nightclubs and people laughing on the street would entice anyone to join the party. It’s pretty hard to believe Bakugou would stay behind on a Friday night when it’s common knowledge that you need to sleep after overusing your quirk. But here he is, that same strip of red running along his cheeks and nose like he just got a cute little sunburn. 

“You like laser tag?” Bakugou asks.

You raise an eyebrow at the random question, shrugging when you answer.

“Never played.”

Bakugou balks, shock written all over his face.

“You never - what kind of person - nevermind. If we hurry, we can make the last round.”

Maybe this time you really were dreaming. You subtly pinch yourself to make sure and nope, this is real life and Bakugou is inviting you to hang out.

“Sounds... fun? But I… um…I’m not really part of your squad…”

You didn’t want to overstep. It seemed like they were a pretty tight-knit group and you’ve never hung out with them outside of school. The fear of ruining their night because you didn’t vibe with them twisted your gut. 

“Gimme your phone,” Bakugou says.

Still in a daze, you give him your phone without question. He takes his phone out and not a second later you hear a “ping” from yours, He presses a couple buttons before handing it back to you. 

“Congrats, you’re part of the squad.”

You see that you’ve been added to a group chat called “keeping up with the crackheads”. You don’t have time to contemplate exactly what you got thrusted into as Bakugou is grabbing both of your jackets hanging on the coat rack, handing yours and pushing you towards the door. 

“I- um.. Thanks… I guess...? Bakugou, what’s going on?”

You’re already halfway down the hallway, everything happening too fast without a clear explanation. Bakugou groans, clearly frustrated that you’re not a mind reader and he has to actually communicate what he’s thinking. He grabs your shoulders, gently shoving your back against the lockers, and planting his hands on either side of you. Being this close to Bakugou makes you feel a familiar flurry of butterflies as you’re caged in and forced to look into those crimson eyes. 

“I. Like. You.” He smirks, getting a kick at your flustered state, before leaning away with his hands in his pockets, “And I know you like me too.”

You don’t know what to freak out over first. The fact that Bakugou knows about your crush or that he likes you back. Also, how does he know you like him? You haven’t told anyone about your crush, preferring to keep your cards close to your chest.

“Don’t talk in your sleep if you don’t want me to know how much you wanna run your hands down my ‘chiseled abs’.”

You squeak and cover your face with your hands, too embarrassed at what else you might’ve said in your sleep.

“Chill, dumbass, it’s cute.”

Bakugou rolls his eyes, throwing an arm over your shoulder, leading you to a night full of riveting laser tag, making new friends, and first kisses. 💖

[chaescupofdepresso]

✧ 9th of september

                                                                                  (banri settsu x reader)

𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘳𝘪 𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘢𝘪 𝘨𝘶𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥. 𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘪𝘵.

𝖿𝗅𝗎𝖿𝖿, 𝗃𝖾𝖺𝗅𝗈𝗎𝗌𝗒, 𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩: 2,175 words 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚: happy (late) birthday to my mushroom head, banri! — [♡] I know his birthday is on a weekday but let’s just pretend it’s during a weekend. I was already in too deep into writing this when I realized September 9 falls on wednesday. — [♡] it’s late because i struggled in finishing this and i don’t like how it turns out and i almost made this into an angst lol.

“This is annoying.” He scoffs, eyes rolling out of irritation as the young man skids to a stop in front of Omi and Taichi’s room, a burning sensation creeping up from the pit of his stomach and consuming every inch of his body as his ears pricked up at the sound of her hearty laugh through the door, followed by Taichi and Kazunari’s muffled voices. Banri gritted his teeth, hand clenching on his side while he glowers at the wooden barrier separating him and his best friend, who had come over early on a weekend to the mankai dorm to hang out with him since he could only be with her during lunch time on weekdays as he needed to get home in time for their practice for a new play. Though he would not openly admit it, he had been looking forward to spending his weekend with her especially on his birthday that following day.

He woke up early on a Saturday but has been asked to accompany their director to a morning grocery run. Of course, he can’t say no to Izumi—sakyo would kill him, and he could not possibly let the brunette carry bags and bags of grocery all the way home.

When they came back, Izumi had to call out to him to slow down but he was already sprinting to the lounge, with a few eco bags hanging on each arm, expecting to see her waiting for him only to find out from Omi that the puppy pair had stolen his raven-haired girl, much to his dismay. He didn’t like that information, one bit. The old Banri would have kicked the door down and thrown the duo out of the window but this Banri—the leader of autumn troupe, a proud actor of Mankai, won’t do anything to hurt his fellow troupe members even when standing outside of the door, glaring at it as he listens to Kazunari crack up his lame jokes that had her bursting into fits of laughter, made him feel helpless.

Prior to him becoming an actor, it was just her and Banri. Not that he didn’t have friends before meeting her but they were not as steadfast and deep as it is with her.

His birthday has been the one thing he only genuinely enjoy celebrating with his family, he couldn’t care less for the gifts from the girls who admired him or of the ‘happy birthdays’ from his schoolmates, whether they were sincere or not he simply can’t be bothered. He’d just scroll through them anyway—clicking each messages and closing it just as fast he had opened them without so much of a glance. He would rather be out of the godforsaken place, taunting some other student from another school to a fight, he knew damn well he would win.

On his 16th birthday, however, the dull day took an unexpected turn—far different from what he had plan.

Autumn has started to come around. Wind is blowing a little colder in contrast to the warm hues of red, orange, and yellow that line the trees. The leaves that had parted from their branches and laid rest on the ground, breaks into hundred fragments under his expensive pair of shoes with a soft, satisfying crunch.

Hauling the hood of his grey jacket over his head, Banri languidly stride through the crowd of students pouring out of the building and dispersing into different directions—some made their way to the cafeteria while others excitedly ran to the field. The boy with light brown hair, however, is headed to a different route. At the far back of Hanasaki high.

Only known to a handful of delinquent, like himself, who skips classes almost on a daily basis. Lunch period is the perfect time to escape since students are scattered about the school grounds and he has about a few minutes’ window to flee before the next set of guards make their rounds.

“What the-” he muttered under his breath, halting in his tracks to observe the girl standing a few steps away from him. Her small hands tightly gripping the straps of her brown leather backpack with her head tilted towards the brick wall towering over her, she’s staring ahead most likely mulling over her plan.

Banri has heard about her quite a few times since the beginning of the term—the new student who transferred to Hanasaki from a foreign country but she is the least of his concerns for today. There has been talks of a tough guy from Ouka High with purple hair of some sorts and he wanted to see if he is as strong as they had made him to be.

Who am I fighting? Barney?  

“The guards will be here any minute. If you don’t do it now, you’ll get caught.” He lets out a bored sigh, making his presence known by standing beside her, his hands casually tucked inside the pockets of his blazer.

“I don’t know how to.” she replied, truthfully, in a quiet voice. He peered at the girl, blue eyes scanning her features—short ebony hair falls about her face, creating a soft shadow against her cheekbones, the contrast of her dark locks against pale skin made her undoubtedly spectral. When she turns to look, her eyes are golden as the colors of the leaves that pirouetted in the air. It was bewitching and he couldn’t look away, not when her lips quivered and she is staring back at him with a silent plea.

His eyes shut closed, taking a deep intake of breath before glancing over at her again and groaning in response, “you owe me.”

The corner of his mouth turned up into an amused smirk as he watches her bounce on the balls of her feet, a small grateful smile gracing her features while she places a hand on his shoulder and a foot over his clasped hands, allowing him to hoist the shorter female over the wall. He had to avert his gaze when she raises both legs, ultimately hiking up her skirt as she turns around, letting them dangle on the other side.

“Do you need help?” she offered, a hand stretched in his direction but he shook his head in response while taking a few steps back, just enough to give him a boost to climb up the wall.

Having done it countless of times, it took him less than five seconds to get to the other side of the barricade, a smug grin etched on his face as he steals a glance at her; his fingers slipping through the gaps between hers and holding them in his before pulling her along as he started to run—heart pumping, feet slapping against the concrete floor as the two of them sprint along the alleyway.

Her calves were burning and she didn’t even know the guy yet she allowed him to lead her to wherever because it turns out, her escape plan wasn’t so much of a plan after all and he, somehow, ended up ditching his to show her around town. Leaving her to explore the foreign place, alone, wasn’t an ideal choice and there are a bunch of creepy men targeting naïve highschool students out there, she could end up dead in a ditch somewhere.

Banri has always been indifferent to people for as long as he can remember. Befriending them? Sure. but having a meaningful, genuine connection? No, at least not until her.

On the 9th of September, instead of chasing after trouble or wasting away his day at the arcade, he is sitting down in a stall at the market with a tower of takoyaki and a single blue candle adorning the top as his “cake” yet it still happened to be the perfect birthday, in every sense.

She is tranquil and soft spoken—the loudest her voice got was almost in par with Banri’s normal tone, she is someone who he’d pass by the halls of school giving not even a second of his attention and their friendship might seem like a string of unrelated events to other people but what they have is unbounded. And he wouldn’t trade it for the world.

She never tried to change him—she said, change is something he should do for himself not because she told him.

and though he is a blasé teenager, she still quietly adored him.

Whenever he is bored and feeling a little impulsive, she would stir him away from trouble but on days she is unable to stop him she would be anxiously waiting for him to knock on her bedroom window. Unable to calm until she’s seen him and tend his wounds and bruises all the while nagging at him and struggling not to cry at the same time.

“Oi,settsu. Quit staring at the door.” He whipped at the sound his Juza’s deep voice and sneered.

“What are you doing here, dumbass?” when her name left the latter’s lips, Banri’s nostrils flare as though smoke is going to come out of it. “Why is everyone suddenly best friends with my best friend!”

Banri is aware of how good he is at everything he does, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when he passed the audition for autumn troupe albeit the lack of passion for it. She teased him for being juza’s stalker but if it wasn’t for her friend following the purple haired student into mankai, he wouldn’t discover that there are stuffs he could be passionate about—pour his heart into, eventually keeping him away from starting brawls. She stood by his side, almost every morning she would be at the dormitory to have him up in time for rehearsals and when she can’t come, she’ll call him a hundred times until he answers. Even with the absence of drive in the beginning and only ever interested in beating his roommate, she supported him.

He could have the craziest, utterly questionable dream and she will be there, sitting at the front row.

He recalled standing backstage after their first show, when he started getting serious and acting like a true leader of autumn troupe he had requested for her to watch him at the show instead. It was the first time in weeks since he’s seen her and he hoped their performance had blown her mind.

Holding a bouquet of dahlia in the lightest shades of pink, a wide contempt smile adorned her features and her amber eyes glistens at the sight of him.

“Why are you crying?” he asked, leaning forward, large hands framed her small face while his thumb wiped the tear that had unknowingly rolled down her cheek.

He held her with a gentle, affectionate gaze, heart swelling as she told him how proud she was of him.

“Dahlia has a lot of meaning.” Tsumugi answers while the two of them work in the garden that is slowly coming to life thanks to the older guy’s skill. Recognizing the small flower that has started to bloom he couldn’t help ask if it hold any significance.

“Standing out from the crowd because of their undeniable beauty is one.” definitely Settsu Banri.

“Offering a support, good luck, or a congratulation.” For falling in love with acting.

“Commitment and honesty.” Two words that best describes their friendship.

The last sentence definitely quirked his attention. “Proud love without compromise.” Hmm, interesting.

He certainly was not hoping the last one was one of the reasons why dahlias are her favorite. Sort of.

“Sounds like you’re jealous.” Juza shrugged his shoulders, unaffected by banri’s tantrum, and popped a lollipop into his mouth as he walks past the latter to enter room.

“Banny! Juza!”

“Hyodles and Settzer are here.” Banri briskly walked to the couch she is sitting on and plops over the empty space beside her. while listening to kazunari’s story, she bumped her shoulder against his quietly giggling making him break out into a smile, the crease between his brows soften as the familiar warmth rush through him at the sig her beaming at his direction.

He isn’t one to get easily jealous not even in his past relationships but why does the green-eyed demon visits every now and then, clawing at the seams of his heart every time she gets close to the other guys at mankai or when they steal her attention from him.

He has yet to unearth the reason though he has his suspicions and he can only pray that it does not ruin what he has with her or that she does not hear the thumping against his chest as she lie her head over it. For now, he basks in the light that is her.

“is there anywhere you want to go, tomorrow, before your party?” she inquires in a whisper, scooting closer to his side as he wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“Anywhere with you.” To the ends of the earth or the depths of hell, she only has to say the word.

[obxlife]

Parent’s Pressures (Rafe x Reader)

A/N: Another Rafe fic!! I swear Rafe suddenly became everyone's favorite in the span of like a week, and I guess it goes to show how much people just love boys who have serious problems lol. 

Pairing: Rafe x Reader

Word count: 3,316

Request: I love a good Midsummers fic!! Rafe and Y/N both show up to Midsummers without dates and eventually find their way to each other and end up hanging out for the rest of the night 🥺

Summary: Tired of your parents pressuring you, you decide to completely disregard them at Midsummers. You show up without your date (which they had chosen), with a dress that was definitely not what they had wanted (because the dress your mother gave you just made you seem like a fat plum), and without the hairstyle they had planned (and spent a lot of money for the hairstylist to do). Mad at your parents, you take the opportunity which is handed o you on a silver platter. Rafe Cameron. Why? Oh, because the Camerons were the business enemies of your parents. 

Warnings: Underage drinking, swearing, mentions of drugs.

PARENT’S PRESSURES

“Mom!” you screeched out once the hairstylist (was her name Pauline?) turned you towards the mirror. 

Your mother barged into your room, smiling at the work the stylist had done. Trying to be polite, you forced a smile until your mother was done speaking with her, and she had left the room. In her hands were three one-hundred-dollar bills. 

Your mother turned to look at you through the mirror. Your smile had dropped. Now, a scowl (that your mother was sure you had practiced for years) was adorning your face. 

“Don’t you look lovely?” she beamed, trying to predict what you were about to say. 

“No,” you deadpanned. “My hair looks like a tower.”

And it was true. Somehow, the hairstylist had managed to make your hair stand up upon your head, adding at least half a foot to your height. Swiveling around to stare at your mother accusingly, you noticed how stiff and tight your hair felt.

“Are you trying to ruin my life?” you asked her, completely serious. You were almost sure she was. “I’m going to be the laughing stock of the party!”

Your mother was already angry at your attitude. “No, I am not trying to ruin your life. I’m just trying to make you live up to your reputation. You are a Y/L/N after all.”

You scoffed, crossing your arms across your chest, and looking towards the mirror. Trying to rile her up, you said, “Well, sometimes I wish I was a Maybank than a Y/L/N.”

Your mother gasped. “How dare you compare yourself to that boy that cleans out our boat?”

You laughed at her reaction. You didn’t really know him, but you only pressed further with the subject. “Who? JJ?”

Your mother’s offended mask was not slipping off as she turned to leave your room. However, stopping at the door she said, “Put on your dress. You’re already late.”

You imitated her under your breath. She turned to leave before entering your room once more, this time, however, she only popped her head in. “Your father and I will be leaving right now. Take your car to the country club, sweetie. Oh, and please pick up your date. He is a ravishing young man! And don’t you dare to anything tonight that will embarrass us. After all, you are the future face of the company.”

And, finally, with that, she left, throwing kisses over her shoulder. As if I actually wanted her kisses, you thought.

You rose from your chair and turned to the hanger that was placed at the far end of your room. There was a fabric hanging there, and the color almost made you want to vomit. 

It wasn’t an ugly color per se, but it was the fact that your mother had picked it out to match her dress that bothered you. Why couldn’t you go wearing a color that actually suited you? Why did everything have to be about her and the company? 

Sighing you tried the dress on and looked into your vanity mirror. 

You looked hideous. The color was an ugly shade of purple that reminded you of a plum, and the mesh of the dress made it flare out around your legs, making you looked large. The neckline was up to your throat and you were sure if you tried to breathe in a little more air the dress would constrict you. Also, it was very itchy.

From downstairs you heard your parents close the door, assuming they had left. Almost at once, you tore your dress off your body and took all of the bobby pins from out your hair. 

You speeded into your bathroom and turned on the shower, hopping in and getting rid of all of the makeup and hair products that had been splattered on you.

In a record time of five minutes and thirty-eight seconds, you hopped out. Turning towards your vanity you thought, Oh, mom, haven’t you learned? I always do everything to embarrass you.

You were finally cracking under your parent’s pressures, and you were going to ruin their night. 

Grabbing some eye shadow, mascara, and eyeliner, you quickly completed the most simple look possible. Your mother had paid for her makeup artist to give you a smokey eye (which you thought looked hideous as it was colored purple just like your dress and looked like bruises). Now you looked a lot better. 

Then, you grabbed onto your hairdryer and began to work on your hair. You decided to leave it in its natural state no curling, no straightening. You knew this would piss off your mother because of her many comments about how ugly your hair was and how unfortunate it was that you hadn’t gotten hers.

When it was dry enough, you turned towards your closet, stepping over the plum dress on the floor. You looked around, deciding that the perfect way to ruin your mother’s night even further was to show up in dress pants. Selecting a navy blue one from your hanger, you moved towards your tops. You knew exactly which one you wanted. 

Last year, you had bought an elegant party top that your mother had hated and had forced you to take off. It was perfect for tonight. 

The white top showed off a little of your midriff, and you loved it. This was for sure going to make your mom even madder.

Staring at yourself in the vanity mirror, you couldn’t help but admire your work. The top contrasted against your skin beautifully, and the pants made your butt look incredible. Your hair was messy, but not in a way that seemed undone. Your face looked clear and natural, exactly what your mother would never want.

Tonight was about you, you had decided. You were tired of always fitting into the mold your parents had planned out for you, tired of always trying to be the perfect child. 

Grabbing your phone, you noticed your mother had sent you some texts, which you read while grabbing a few other things you would need for the party. 

Mom: You have to pick up your date! It’s Mark Sullivan’s son!

Mom: Here’s his address and contact!

Below her text was, in fact, Brody Sullivan’s number and address. You groaned out loud. 

You hated Brody. He was an absolute creep that had been trying to get with you for the past three years. He thought that making sexual jokes around you was considered flirting, and he had, more than once, insulted you in a joking matter (which you did not take as a joke). He was annoying, and you remembered countless parties where he had followed you around all night, placing a hand around your waist and trying to inconspicuously touch your butt. 

I am not picking that prick up, you decided once you headed towards your car. 

When you arrived at the country club, you abandoned your car and passed the keys onto the valet, who took your place behind the wheel and drove off.

You walked up the steps of the country club’s big house and squinted at the sun that was setting, its rays landing right onto your eyes.

Opening the door, you stepped in, hearing gasps from many people around you. You could only smirk. 

“Y/N Y/L/N? Wearing pants? Oh, her mother will have a fit!”

“And did you see how bare her face seemed to be? That will most definitely bring her mother to her end!”

Giggling under your breath, you headed directly towards the garden, where you were sure your mother was. All you wanted to do was see her sour face. 

You passed by the bar first, picking up a glass of whatever alcohol you deemed strong enough (vodka, for now), and stepped into the fairy-light lit garden. 

Your mother stood at its end, her hand wrapped around your father, as she spoke on the phone with someone. You were almost positive it was Mark Sullivan stating that Brody was yet to be picked up. 

Your mother’s eyes were frantically shooting left and right as she was, most probably, trying to come up with an explanation that would please Mark. When she finally turned off her phone, huffing, she turned towards you. 

You smirked once again, tipping the glass towards her in a form of salute, as her eyes raked down your body. Fume was coming out of her nostrils and ears as she stalked up towards you and tugged you to a place where no one would be able to hear her scold you. God knew she wanted to keep up the image of a perfect family.

“What did you do?” she asked you, desperation in her tone. “You’re ruining everything!”

“What exactly am I ruining, mom?” you wondered. “The perfect princess image you made me wear?”

She sighed, pressing a hand onto her forehead and looking up at the sky. “Your reputation.”

You scoffed, glaring at her. “It’s a good thing I don’t really care about it, then.”

Your mother wanted to kill you. Or at least that was what it seemed she wanted to do by the look on her face. “Well, you are ruining it for your father and I. We were about to close a business deal with someone important before you stumbled in here dressed like this and drinking whatever alcohol that is!”

“And?” you questioned. “It’s not like they won’t sign the deal because of me.”

“Don’t you get it?” she asked you, rushed and desperate once again. “The company is your future! If we signed this deal, it was going to be yours to take over! And we were finally going to be better than the Camerons!”

Now you were mad. “I don’t care about the Camerons!” you nearly screamed out. “And can’t you see that the company is clearly not what I want for my future?”

“What?” she questioned. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it’s what you want!”

You shook your head. “No, mom, it’s not. Why can’t you see that?”

Your mother’s face turned hard again (you had lost count how many times she had frowned in the past argument).

“Well, even if it isn’t what you want, it’ll be what you get.”

You scoffed and tried to turn away. 

“And you better go home and put the dress I bought you on!”

You gave her a blank look before saying, “No.”

Your mother sighed. “Well then, at least mingle with some of the people your father wants you to meet. They’re all very powerful people and we will finally be able to beat the Camerons!”

You groaned before shouting over your shoulder, “Not happening. And stop talking about the Camerons!”

With that, you left your mother standing alone on the porch. 

You turned the corner and almost bumped into a large body. He was tall and buff, a lot bigger than you even with your heels. He grabbed onto your arms to keep you from falling and spilling your drink. Looking up you stared into the most entrancing pair of green eyes you had ever seen, and looked down to the softest smile that could ever be produced. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just heading towards the door to get inside.”

You smirked, recognizing the person in front of you. You still had one more way to ruin your mother’s night. And he was standing right in front of you. Rafe. Rafe Cameron. 

“Oh, it’s okay,” you said, a smile taking over your lips. “I was heading inside as well.”

“Great!” he replied. “Let’s go in, then.”

With that, he took your hand and led you to the bar where he ordered a glass of whiskey. Turning towards you he said, “Aren’t you Y/N Y/L/N?”

You smiled a little and looked down. “Yeah, that’s me.”

He stretched his hand out. “Well, I’m Rafe. And from what I understand, our parents don’t get along at all.”

You laughed at this. “Yeah, well, I’m not much like my parents,” you stated. You hated being compared to them. 

“Then it’s good I’m not much like my parents either.”

Now you actually, truly, laughed, and Rafe joined you. After sobering up, he asked you, “Didn’t you stand up Brody Sullivan tonight?”

You nodded softly, looking down at the glass in your hands. “Yeah, yeah,” you confirmed. 

He smirked, “Well, that’s kind of badass. That dude’s a creep.”

You looked up at Rafe’s face again, noticing how his eyes were completely trained on you. You smiled.

“Does this mean you don’t have a date?”

You nodded, biting your lower lip between your teeth. 

“Well, if that’s the case, would you like to dance?”

You placed your cup on the bar and put your hand through his. He drifted towards the dance floor outside, not letting go of your hand until you were face to face with each other. 

Dancing with him was fun. More fun than anything you had done in years. He was thinking the same thing. 

He thought you were pretty ever since he knew about your existence. The day his father had mentioned to Rafe that the Y/L/N were the Camerons enemies and that you were not to be talked to, he had noticed you. 

Of course, you all went to the same school. You were a year younger than him, but everyone in the Kook community knew everyone, which meant it was easy to determine that you were Y/N Y/L/N. 

The day he saw you on the playground he thought you were cute. However, he had never approached you under his father’s orders. 

As the years went on, he had a strange longing to meet you, but was unsure of how to do so. How to present himself, how to approach you. 

And then, like a blessing, you had bumped into him tonight. And as he held onto your arms, about to yell at you about watching where you were going, he noticed it was you. And his heart had softened. 

Rafe had already assessed your outfit the minute you had walked into the country club, but seeing you up close was different. He hadn’t noticed that your navy pants had a small design in them, or that your beautiful top showed a little bit of skin. He hadn’t noticed that you were, in fact, wearing a bit of makeup, or that your hair looked more natural and free than ever. 

He did notice it all now, dancing around with you. Joking around with you. 

Both you and Rafe could feel your parent’s stares on your backs, but you enjoyed it gladly. You were having so much fun with him that now you only wanted to hang out with him, not necessarily to piss your mother off, but more as a way to just be with him. 

Drink after drink after drink you downed together, the night only continued to stretch on and the smiles on your faces never seemed to fade. Not even when a boy that was your age had approached Rafe and whispered in his ear, “You got any coke?”

Rafe was so entranced with you he had no intention of leaving you to do drugs. So he shook his head and continued to move around the party with you. And anyway, you gave him the same feelings cocaine did. No, scratch that, the feeling you gave him was better. 

When you both grew tired of moving around so much you took a seat at an empty table. 

“I’ve had a lot of fun tonight,” you confessed to him. He smiled at that. He felt the same way. 

“Me too. We should go out together after this,” he suggested nervously, not knowing how you would reply. 

You blushed lightly and smiled at the words that had brushed past his lips. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

Rafe smiled back and took your hand in his before tugging it slightly. You looked up at him, noticing that he was cocking his head towards the beach. “Let’s take a walk.”

You nodded, taking your heels off and discarding them under the table. You grabbed onto his hand and followed his strong steps. Once you were near the water you began to walk up and down the beach, conversation flowing through Rafe and you. 

All of a sudden a large wave crashed onto the shore and enveloped your feet beneath its waters. It was cold, but your body was hot and the difference in temperature relaxed you. 

Shocked at the contact you had shrieked, but then you embraced the water and stayed there. Rafe had managed to back away from the ocean. 

“Hey,” he called out. “Get back here! It must be so cold!”

You only laughed. “No, it feels great!”

Watching you jump around the water and dancing to the music that could be heard from the party, Rafe had the urge to join you. He struggled to take his shoes and socks off and then ran to join you. He surprised you by throwing you over his strong shoulder causing you to let out a small shout and a boisterous laugh. Giggling together, you spent some while messing around in the water, splashing each other and laughing at the other’s antics. 

Growing tired you headed back onto the beach, sitting down on the sand. You lay back, feeling the sand on your back and through your fingers as you stared at the sky. 

“Did you know,” you spoke out breaking the silence, “that everything spins around the North Star?”

He laughed before laying next to you and putting an arm around your shoulder. He pressed you into him, and you gladly accepted his warmth. 

“That sounds like something Sarah would know,” he replied, mentioning hi younger sister. 

“Then she’s a smart girl.”

Rafe nodded before pointing towards the stars himself. “Do you see that star? The one that is sort of flashing?”

You nodded. “The one that has a bit of a red tint to it?”

Rafe nodded this time. “That’s Mars. When I was younger I imagined myself being the first astronaut to reach there.”

You laughed, imagining a small, blond, green-eyed boy, with a helmet on his head and looking up at the stars. 

“That’s cute,” you mentioned. Both of the smiles that had been etched on your faces disappeared as you both turned towards each other. Staring into the depths of Rafe’s eyes made you dizzy, and butterflies - no, birds - erupted in your stomach. 

Your faces were only separated by an inch, and you decided that you couldn’t deal with this tension. You closed the space between your lips. 

Fireworks erupted. Not only inside of your stomach but in the sky above you as well. Pulling away from Rafe you looked up into the sky. The country club had really gone all out this year. Green and golden and red and blue lit up the sky in a way that was supposed to be captivating. However, you and Rafe were more captivated by each other. Smiling at him, you pressed your lips to his once again.

They were soft and gentle, and you couldn’t remember when was the last time someone had kissed you this way. Or if someone had ever kissed you that way.

His hands moved to your waist and squeezed lightly, and yours remained latched around his neck and playing with his hair. Your exposed skin was covered with goosebumps as he continued to kiss you. 

Pulling out for air, you pressed your foreheads together. Your gleaming faces were almost as bright as the fireworks above you. 

“Hey,” you said to him. 

“Hey,” he answered back. Then he pulled you to him again and kissed you. 

You stayed at the beach, attached by your lips, long after the firework show in the sky had ended. But it didn’t matter. You had your own firework show going on inside you.

[leapyearkisses]

For the director’s cut: Orbs Are Bad News, please? Part 2 (or both, if you’re willing!) It’s one of my favorites 💗

One of my favorites, too! Thanks for the ask! :D I'll do both parts, with Part 2 to follow this a bit later.

Director's cut comments in bold below the cut! MESS, m/m, holding a handkerchief, etc.

This story came from a prompt on a writing meme about a character losing the use of their hands while having to deal with snz. I can't remember at the moment if the prompt was D&D-flavored or if I just picked that setting myself because I was really into playing the game at the time (still am!). Also I'm incredibly sleep-deprived, so I hope these comments don't ramble overmuch.

"Okay, we don't know what we're dealing with here, so let's be careful." Gerrit pushed open the heavy wooden door and lifted his torch to illuminate the room inside. The firelight played over several tables covered in intriguing objects and glinted teasingly off of more than one hint of gold. Gerrit himself spotted a stolid wooden chest in the corner and his heart rate quickened.

When I was a kid, my mom gave me the Dragonlance books and I fell in love with them, although it was a long time before I was able to play D&D myself. I attribute my love of the very traditional fantasy realm to these books and my enduring love of sickly mages to Raistlin (Soulforge was like an EXPERIENCE for me). Gerrit has his origins in Tanis Half-Elven - he's a good guy, kind of a normal/default fighter build. "Jackpot," breathed Remembrance, the party's resident ne'er-do-well. She rubbed her hands together, sharp nails clicking. Gerrit was sure she was assigning price tags to the lot of it, except for whatever she hid in her bags for herself, of course. "I know a guy in the capitol who'll pay through the nose for that pervy little statue there." "That is a religious object," chastised Cordes with a haughty tsk. "It's used in rituals of worship for the goddess Fortuna." "Oh, I'm sure he'll be worshipping," cackled Remembrance, and she slipped past Gerrit into the vault. "Few hundred gold and he'll be rubbing out a grand ol' prayer." Her pointed tail waved with greedy delight. "Hey! The proper course of action would be to bring it back to a temple!" Cordes went after her, pushing Gerrit aside.

Remembrance and Cordes are here to be the beta couple and provide background color. Their development was based on a few factors: A) a D&D party should have ~4 people with different abilities (fighter, sorcerer, cleric, rogue), B) a priest and a devil is never not a fun/ny dynamic, C) I'm not into F snz but I feel bad that most of my OCs are not women, and D) given that Gerrit is a "default" archetype, there needed to be differing characters to contrast his personality with (or he would seem to have none). Also I like dirty jokes, so Remembrance can be my humorous id for this purpose lol The half-elf grumbled but wasn't surprised. "At least TRY not to touch anything cursed," he called. He'd been the one to organize this little band, but although he was the one who reported to their patron, he had precious little influence over what they did. They were happy to point to him when some upstart had a problem with the party, though. Ingrates. He turned to the last member of the group. "What about you, Llewellyn? I thought I saw some books on the far table." "Lead the way," replied the sorcerer, and his usually mellifluous voice sounded strained. Purple shadowed the hollows under his faintly luminous silver eyes, and he had his nose tucked into his handkerchief again. Gerrit hadn't spent much time around full elves, but he'd always believed they couldn't get sick, at least not like a human or dwarf. Llewellyn had been dragging since Saints' Day, though, and seemed to have come down with a flu. His skin, where visible under his fitted robes, was wan.

Fuck up that slender, haughty elf man is an endlessly running subroutine in my head. "Sure," said Gerrit, and he stepped into the room, holding the door out so that Llewellyn could join him. "You, uh, you don't look like you're feeling any better." "Oh," said the sorcerer, "I'm not. I ran out of tonics." He entered the vault and walked over to one of the tables, investigating a strangely shaped glass bowl. "But as we were already down here, I'm not sure what you want me to say. There's no inn at which I might rest my weary bones." "Cordes could make you an herbal remedy," Gerrit grumped. He went over to the chest he'd seen earlier and smashed the lock off with the pommel of his dagger. He didn't need any fancy lockpicking tools like Remembrance's. And hitting something felt good when his companions were all intent to be annoying, acerbic, or both. "I suppose," Llewellyn replied, sounding uncertain as his voice wavered. Gerrit tried to ignore the way his ears heated at that. That was the tone that overtook the elf when he was preparing to sneeze. It wasn't any of Gerrit's concern. His occasional roll in the hay (literal and figurative) with Llewellyn did not make it easier or more appropriate to acknowledge his odd attractions, especially since they were currently ransacking a dungeon with a priest and a psychopath. He focused his attention on searching the chest, and he was rewarded with a heavy coin purse, a stack of calfskin-bound journals, and a ruby the size of a robin's egg. He whistled.

Gerrit and Llewellyn are the dynamic opposite of Eliseo and Padgett. Gerrit is the less-privileged, more personable, "low class" character and Llewellyn is the high-born, fussier, sarcastic noble; however, in this story Gerrit is the voyeur character with the fetish and the POV window while Llewellyn is tortured for everyone's amusement. Narratively it's more fun and easier for me to describe the non-fetish-having character because I also like the power of the narrator to be that voyeuristic eye. Llewellyn gasped. "Hah- hahttsch-ow!"

I made myself laugh while writing this hahah "'Ow'?" Cordes appeared from behind a bookshelf, one arm wrapped tightly around a thick rug, the other reaching for his pack of salves. "What is it? Cut? Burn?" When Gerrit looked, their sorcerer was rubbing his nose with his left hand. "Bruise," Llewellyn said. He lifted his right hand, in which he held a blue crystal orb that was knotted inside a thin lattice of gold chain. "I got my hand caught." He'd apparently run the thing into his nose when trying to cover his sneeze. Llewellyn's thin face was already dusted pink from the embarrassment. Gerrit couldn't help but laugh. "Very graceful," he chuckled. "I will thank you for keeping it to yourself," Llewellyn replied, and that was elvish dialect for "fuck you." Gerrit laughed again.

Embarrassment is a huge part of my enjoyment of this kink because of the ensuing power dynamics. The victim is thrown into disequilibrium by something (snz) that is inherently seen as socially inappropriate, disgusting, or at least uncomfortable. Almost always their reaction is outsized to what it would probably be outside of a fet context (most people can sneeze in public without feeling shame - which is the typical mode, lol. It's a normal bodily function). However, then the other character, motivated by their BF's anxiety and potential humiliation is prompted to caretake and comfort them, "approve" of the "shameful" act, and deepen the intimacy of the couple. They can also enjoy the embarrassment and the act voyeuristically while feeling their own discomfort about watching, then deal with either having to divulge the kink or be found out by their partner later (because consent is the sexiest thing, really). But I love my characters and I'm not into hardcore stuff so much, so there are almost never any consequences of the "humiliation" - the characters do not get caught out, they do not get shamed by society, they do not actually lose face or have to explain their sexual preferences to anyone who should not know them.

Now you know way too much about my psychology but also the basic formula for any kink story I have written or will write in my entire life. Yay! Cordes had leaned over to see the orb better in the firelight. He was the only one among them whose vision was hindered by the dim light. "What kind of artifact is this?" he asked. "It doesn't resemble anything I've studied."

Lol humans don't have darkvision. "I'm not sure." Llewellyn held it up to the torch. The orb lit up like a lamp, but otherwise nothing happened. "Whatever this chain is, though, it's very prone to tangling." He tried to shake it off his wrist and failed. This was a task for both hands, and he set to freeing himself. And kept trying. And trying. Gerrit frowned. "What are you doing? Cordes, would you get that off of him?" "Sure." The priest reached out to help, but Llewellyn suddenly backed away out of reach. "Uh... I'm not trying to steal it, elf." "Oh, I would let you take it," Llewellyn said, scowling. "But I have a feeling we would be in for some trouble if you touch it now." He held up both hands. His palms were wrapped around the crystal and bound with the ball in that thin gold chain. "I am... I'm stuck."

---

"STUCK," hooted Remembrance again. She was crouched at the entrance to the dungeon - a root-cellar-like set of doors they'd found in a small bandit settlement - and hauling out a heavy pack stuffed with loot. In the daylight, she looked menacing and out of place, her horns, dusky maroon skin tone, and black eyes setting her apart from this land's primarily human residents. "And you even said not to touch any curses!"

Jump cuts are funny! I love this kind of thing, honestly. It's some of my favorite humor - that and dramatic irony, which is also often depicted in visual media with a funny jump cut. "I recall you said so as well," said Cordes, who looked exactly like a run-of-the-mill human resident except for the star-like scar on his left temple. He reached down and grabbed Gerrit's hand, steadying the half-elf as he climbed out of the hole. Llewellyn was hanging uncomfortably on Gerrit's back, arms looped around the other man's neck. They'd tried to find a more dignified way to get him out of the dungeon, but he couldn't manage the ladder well enough without the use of his hands. "The artifact didn't react to my detection spell," sniffed Llewellyn disdainfully, and Gerrit was quick to set him down before that sniffing could become another sneeze. He didn't want to blush in front of the others.

Blushing is very appealing to me, so everyone blushes all of the time. "There must be someone in Veigh who can help you," Gerrit said. "We'll just swing by on our way to the capitol." The city was three days out of their way, but they couldn't have Llewellyn stuck this way for the two week trip back to their patron. With his hands bound, he couldn't cast any spells that required him to gesture, and that was almost all of them. He'd effectively rendered himself completely useless in combat. Veigh had a chapter of the Mages Guild in residence, though, and if no one there could help, they might at least be able to send Llewellyn on ahead via a transportation spell.

Let's go on a short tangent about names. Usually I name my characters using Babynames.com or similar sites and I pick based on the look, sound, and meaning of the names. For this little group, things were slightly more haphazard. Llewellyn is a Welsh name meaning "leader." I just happen to like this name already, but it also has a visual beauty and difficulty to pronounce on sight that lent it well to an elf character without me having to look up specifically elven names. When I make elf characters in D&D, I tend to give them a nickname or alias that is easy to remember and pronounce so that the name isn't a hindrance while playing the game.

Gerrit's name was picked based on sound. It is similar to the Welsh name Gareth ("spear ruler"), which is on purpose, but it was altered to make it a bit more fantastical/removed. It's appropriate for a fighter in meaning but also suits his more familiar/pedestrian half-elven experience vs. that of a noble elf.

Cordes was given a short name because he is a no-nonsense human, but I chose it to resemble that of conquistador Hernan Cortes because of the "holy invasion" and "treasure hunter" associations. Remembrance is named using the PHB's suggestion that tieflings often pick "ideal" names for themselves, and she has a complicated past (like most tieflings). "I will hope there is." Llewellyn looked pale and worn, though his fine features still exuded the otherworldly beauty of the high elves. His hair was a silky black, although mostly covered by his hood, and the contrast made his silver eyes look even more curious. He fumbled for a minute at his waist before scowling heavily. "I can't get into any of my bags, of course..." "What do you need?" asked Gerrit. Remembrance had started off through the trees, humming, her bulging pack swaying with her sinuous movements. Gerrit really didn't want to let her get too far ahead, not least because she was scary good at concealing herself in the foliage and might slip the party completely. However, Cordes was with her, and Llewellyn couldn't exactly fend for himself right now. "My handkerchief..." The elf's voice had gone wavery again, and Gerrit watched as his nostrils flared. Fuck.

Oho! Here is the plot and the kink conceit. Gerrit hurriedly patted his pockets until he produced his own handkerchief, or what he bothered with when necessary. It was a large square of flannel, rough around the edges. It wasn't embroidered or monogrammed like Llewellyn's, but he figured by now the flannel was a hell of a lot cleaner, and it was soft for an irritated nose. "Here, take mine."

Characters' belongings are also a good way to contrast their situations and personalities. I don't consider handkerchiefs particularly vital to my enjoyment of this kink, but they are a useful visual and I like to describe things. Small details like this are how you can worldbuild without having to do too much extra research. Llewellyn held out his hands plus the orb for it, breath hitching, but no matter how Gerrit tried to drape the cloth, it kept slipping off of the artifact. He supposed he could try to tie it around the-

This is just so funny to me XD Llewellyn made a desperate sound and tipped his head back, exposing the long line of his throat. His breath was coming in soft pants now. And he was raising the orb reflexively. Gerrit couldn't let him whack himself in the face again, so he did the only other thing he could think of. With one hand he reached out and took Llewellyn by the shoulder. With the other, he lifted the handkerchief and pressed it over the elf's nose. His fingers settled firmly on either side of Llewellyn's nostrils, and none too soon. After another half-hitch, Llewellyn ducked forward again with a quiet but insistent sneeze. "Happtsch!

One of the most pleasing sneeze sounds, tbh. Gerrit was sure he was beet red. “Bless you,” he mumbled. Through the cloth, Llewelyn’s nose felt hot, and any gentle pressure resulted in a bit of a squish. “Let me just…” "Whh- wait-" Llewellyn leaned into the handkerchief. "I'm nh- I'm not done hhH-" His eyes slipped shut and he gasped again. Gerrit swallowed and tried to ignore the tenting of his breeches. "R-roger that." He could feel Llewellyn's nostrils twitching against his fingers. "Hh...Haah- Hapttschuh! Snrk... Aptschiu!" His body rocked, and he took a half-step forward. Gerrit could hear the thick sound of congestion in the elf's nose as he tried to stave off another sneeze.

The desperation, talking through the sneezing, and congestion are all vital parts of this scenario. Unavoidable embarrassment + disgust factor + need for caretaking/mitigation. "Blow your nose," he said. "It will help." Llewellyn hesitated, but in the end, he had to comply. There was nowhere for the mucus to go except out. He started to blow with a gurgle.

I used to be really against mess, but the taboo/disgust part of the brain turns off psychologically a LOT during arousal and now I really do not find snz interesting without it. Snz without mess isn't embarrassing enough or visually exciting. Gerrit moved the hand from his shoulder to start rubbing Llewellyn's back. The handkerchief and his fingers were rapidly growing damp, but he really didn't mind. "There you go." He held the handkerchief to Llewellyn's nose until the elf moved back on his own. His nose was red and tender looking, and his cheeks were flushed rosy. He didn't seem to want to meet Gerrit's eyes. Gerrit didn't mention it. He didn't really want to look at Llewellyn either right now. It had been a while since the elf had looked so very fuckable.

Potentially due to my propensity to write fanfic about established ships, all of my OCs apparently have a history or mutual attraction out of the gate. On one hand, it's difficult just mechanically to write a scenario about a romantic or sexual encounter without there being chemistry and an excuse for them to already want to rub bits (obviously), especially in short stories, but I also cannot stand the thin veneer of situational causality that underlies porn (to borrow from Cards Against Humanity). If I can't care about my characters' lives outside of the one random fetish scenario, I can't care enough to write about them at all. He put the handkerchief in an easily-accessible outside pocket of his vest. "Ready to go?" Llewellyn coughed lightly. "Yes." "Excellent." Gerrit gestured for Llewellyn to precede him, and the two of them headed out through the trees, following the sounds of Cordes negotiating the underbrush and swearing about it. --- Travel proved easy enough once they made it to the road. They were fortunate not to meet anyone else along the way. The party could handle a group of bandits without their sorcerer, but they had their treasure to worry about, and Remembrance always drew stares, and sometimes aggression, even from normal travelers. Gerrit thought her skills more than made up for the extra negative attention they drew. And anyway, Remembrance was crazy but she wasn't evil. She did better out on the road than in town, but that was probably true of all of them. Llewellyn kept up with her pace, but it was clearly a struggle. He was usually fairly quiet, but he didn't speak at all as they walked, focusing on breathing and not devolving into coughing or more sneezing. There were a few times when Gerrit hastily reached into his pocket, at the ready, but Llewellyn fought back the itch with admirable determination. He kept his nose from running by sniffling heavily, which sounded somewhere between awful and revolting. Cordes commented on it multiple times with disgust, but nothing could be done. Llewellyn held his tongue, and Gerrit was reluctant in this case to offer the handkerchief without being asked.

Cordes is here providing the societal reaction and voice of reason lol, but there still aren't any consequences or shaming from them. I just imagine how fricking uncomfortable it would be if people acknowledged this porn scenario happening in-world and so that is never part of the story development. They found a place to camp about half an hour outside the small village of Tewks. Remembrance cleared out some brush to make a flat area for the bedrolls and then promptly decided she'd rather sleep in a tree with everything she owned. She found a good, solid oak a few yards from the camp and ensconced herself in the crux of its branches. She had a good view of the road in either direction and volunteered to take the second watch in the middle of the night, which was her favorite time. Gerrit agreed to take the first watch as Cordes started to set up his tent. The priest refused to sleep on the ground and always took an extra fifteen minutes to erect a curious one-person canvas canopy. It wasn't even large enough to sit up inside, but whatever. The priest never asked anyone else to haul it along, so Gerrit wouldn't complain.

Remembrance and Cordes are thus handwaved away from the sexual center of the plot and they will neither see nor hear anything they aren't invited to. These arrangements left him and Llewellyn alone together on one side of the fire, and he supposed that was preferable during the orb situation anyway. Llewellyn couldn't handle his own bedroll, help with the fire, or unpack any of their supplies. Gerrit realized he would probably have to help the elf eat, too. And... Well, when he noticed Llewellyn fidgeting uncomfortably, Gerrit took him out into a thicker copse to see to his other needs. They didn't talk about it... Llewellyn could hardly undo his own buttons, though, and it wasn't the first time Gerrit had taken over.

I am very into watersports, so it creeps in, although I don't think there's a friendly community out there for that like there is for snz, so I haven't developed any kind of presence for it. It appeals to me for pretty much all of the same reasons as described above. Maybe someday I will start writing those kinds of stories on this account as well, but I don't know if they would find an audience, so maybe not. By the time the fire was hot enough to cook over, Llewellyn had tucked himself up to sit on a tree stump, exuding an aura of furious self-reproach. Cordes took some jerky into his tiny tent with him - for some reason. Gerrit made up two bowls of pottage and sat himself on the ground at the roots of the stump. He put one bowl on the ground for himself and then held up the other. "Hungry?" "Not particularly," Llewellyn replied, voice blunted with congestion. He coughed. "But you're going to make me eat something, aren't you." "I'd prefer you do it willingly." Gerrit tapped the spoon on the side of the bowl. "Come on. It's hot. You'll feel better." Llewellyn growled in a manner more suited to orcs than elves. "I feel like an invalid." Gerrit sighed. "Well, if it makes you feel better, we can pretend you lost your arms in an owlbear attack very tragically." He could feel Llewellyn's fiery glare on him and smiled a little. "Look, we've all done stupid things while adventuring. I'm sure you remember when I tripped and knocked myself out on that knight's shield during the tournament." "I remember," replied the elf, begrudgingly. "Besides, you're sick on top of the whole orb thing. Maybe your detection spell wasn't sensitive enough. Maybe the thing's not even cursed! Maybe it's supposed to do this, and we just don't know why." "I have a hard time believing that. What possible purpose could this serve?"

Porn! Gerrit shrugged. "Don't ask me. Dad says my mother was a druid, but I haven't got a magical bone in my body." He tilted his head. "We could always try smashing it?" Llewellyn's rejection was forceful. "Do you want to explode?!" Gerrit chuckled. "Not really." Llewellyn sighed. Gerrit held out a spoonful of pottage. Feeding both Llewellyn and himself was a bit difficult, but Gerrit did well enough when he could alternate. It would be better if he could use both hands equally like Cordes, but he couldn't, and so he didn't. He just thought about it wistfully as he worked. Llewellyn ended up eating most of his bowl, then went back to sitting quietly and sniffling. Gerrit finished the rest and put the utensils aside to deal with later. And... Even though Llewellyn hadn't asked, he drew out his handkerchief again.

More caretaking, more intimacy. Gerrit is a kind and loving person even though he's a fighter by trade. "Hey," he began, trying not to sound awkward. "You wanna blow your nose?" No one else was paying attention and Llewellyn didn't need to inhale any more of that crap. The elf gave him a shitty side-eye. "Come on," said Gerrit. "Don't be like this." He patted the ground in front of him encouragingly as if Llewellyn was a recalcitrant cat. "I'm fine," said Llewellyn, and then betrayed himself with a quick breath. "Hah--" "Come on," Gerrit repeated, "before you make a mess."

He is also pretty comfortable talking about a lot of things that people with the fetish have generally admitted difficulty acknowledging. This is because even though he's the one with the fetish in this, he is also the "Padgett" character and practical and not caught up in the anxiety prison. Llewellyn came down off the stump to sit in front of him, legs tucked underneath, and rested the orb on Gerrit's thigh to balance himself. His eyes were pinched with reluctance, but Gerrit could see that the elf's nostrils were already damp. "Hah- hh- hurry," Llewellyn gasped.

People should sit in each other's laps. It's good. Again, Gerrit reached out with the handkerchief, enfolding his companion's nose. He could feel Llewellyn's breath fluttering against his hand through the fabric and hear quite clearly how it kept catching on congestion. "Hah-hngk- Hahgkttscht!" Llewellyn ducked forward with the force of it and Gerrit steadied him with a hand on his hip. "Ngkttsch! Hnggktxch!!"

The sneezes now involve nasal consonants because of congestion. Sometimes people tend to have a certain way their sneezes always sound, and I try to maintain that, but these details are important to show a change in the severity of the cold (and evidence of sniffling for hours). Gerrit bit his lip sharply to keep from saying anything, but his body was singing with arousal. Llewellyn hiccupped a short gasp and Gerrit pulled the handkerchief away to present a clean corner. The current spot had become soaked and silvery. "Bless," he managed after a moment, and he carefully readjusted the cloth. "Are you going to sneeze again?"

Hiccupping is also sexy and cute. Also I spelled that wrong in the original, gdi... Llewellyn nodded, eyes teary with the effort of the first bunch. Gerrit wasn't surprised; the elf had been holding back since they left the dungeon. He couldn't imagine it had been comfortable, but Llewellyn had his pride. He never would let Gerrit give him love bites either. Annnd Gerrit was going to have to stop thinking about that. "Haptsch!" Easier said than done. Really. But Llewellyn's comfort came first.

Voyeur with a heart of gold. "Hahkptsch!" The sorcerer groaned softly. "Hah- hh- Hgnaptscxhx!" Gerrit did his best to assist Llewellyn through the fit. He kept the handkerchief secure, moving it when necessary to keep it dry enough. He steadied the elf when the sneezes bent his body or when he felt faint from lack of breath. He even massaged Llewellyn's nose for him when he was trying to blow it and the congestion was stubbornly refusing to move. By the time he felt finished enough to lean back, Llewellyn was flushed and light-headed, swaying where he sat. Gerrit was sweating and needed a towel. "........Thanks," murmured Llewellyn, eventually.

Sometimes kink authors tend to just write out like twenty sneezes in a row and I hate that, honestly. (No shade - I don't even have an example in mind because I don't read a lot of stories anymore and everyone has their preferences.) I just think that the kink should support the storyline and not the other way around. The story should be enjoyable and sexy but have a narrative structure and coherent rising and falling action. Even if a fit is a sexy scenario (it is), trying to make your eyeballs power through a repetitive series of nonsense syllables is counterproductive and takes the reader out of the story and into the realm of annoyance, which disrupts arousal as well. "Yeah," said Gerrit. "Sure." He swallowed. "Let's wash up." He helped Llewellyn to his feet and they went a little way to a creek (generously; it was little more than a ditch through the woods). Gerrit gently washed Llewellyn's face, careful of his tender eyes and nose, and sent him back to camp to lay down for the night. He lingered at the water's edge to wash the handkerchief and, well, to take other matters in hand.

If ya know what I mean. Llewellyn was completely out when he returned, and Gerrit was grateful. He smoothed the elf's bangs back and then settled beside the fire to take watch. The woods in the dark were full of the sounds of insects and small animals moving in the undergrowth. And Llewellyn snoring and sniffling in his sleep. Safe sounds. Gerrit rested his chin on his hand and looked toward the road. Damn orb. It was going to be a long way to Veigh.

And this was getting long, so this is where I cut it to make part 2, which I will also commentate in a bit (hopefully after a nap =___=). Thanks!

[bts5sosempire]

Freedom

A/n: a couple of things before I start lol, I'm not fluent in German so I Google stuff a lot 😂😂 so if you see them please pardon me. Plus this was in the draft for soooooo long that I just wanna kms cuz I forgot about it. Another thing I don't approve this kind of behavior too.

Pairing: Yandere! Kim Taehyung x Reader

Content: implied stuff, horror, scheme, manipulation, etc.

Words: 2,135

Prompt: “What's the different of give and take?”

Maybe it had been days? No, maybe it was weeks? Months or even a year? You don't know anymore, staying in this dark basement have deprived you of any human contact and light from the outside world. The chains shackling your ankles is enough proof to say that you were confined. Bruises formed around them long enough to tell that they were marred there. The entity.

Oh, how you long to be free.

Your story is a variance of like how Icarus had flown to close to the sun.

Instead of your wings burning off, it was your freedom and dignity taken. Two things that were given to you at birth. You would do anything to have them back. But in this, can you? If you can't, maybe in rebirth?

Many questions swirl in your head, enough to paralyze your thought.

But the sound of the heavy door caught your attention. The hair on your neck stands up instantly, as a horrible shiver ran throughout your entire body. This is enough to cause epilepsy. A small whimper made pass your lips, as you try to make yourself small as possible by scooting closer to the corner and hide from him. However, nowhere is safe from him.

Taehyung will find you no matter what.

Horrible fate isn't?

“Good morning,” his voice rang throughout the small space you were confined in, “I hope you're doing alright?”

Alright, wouldn't be the word you'd use in this situation you were in. It was more like killing you slowly and taking away your sanity little by little. Pieces of you being strip away and barring nothing but your skeleton and your vulnerable naked heart in front of him.

And that is something Taehyung prefer to keep it that way. Kind of mess up if you ask yourself about it. But he's the definition of that two words, ‘mess up’.

Your silence disturbs him.

“Why aren't you answering me?” he took a step and this cause you to recoil back into the corner tightly as possible. This causes him to stop in his steps. You fear to look at him right now, he may look harmless but that night—on that day—proved how dead wrong you were. You never have seen a person who smiles from joy by hurting others and in a slow torture style.

“You're that scared of me?” The words seem to lose their kindness in them. His hands start shaking uncontrollably. Breath getting ragged. The next thing causes the blood in your veins to burst with fear. He was crackling a burst of laughter, enough to haunt your mind for your entire being. Taehyung doesn't or maybe he does know, the things he does (to you) would be a tattoo in your mind. His hand made a slow movement to his waist and pull something, as a glint was shown in the dimly light basement.

“Let's play a game shall we?” he chuckles, and you whimper out of fear. Taehyung twirls the knife in his hand as he scrapes the tip of it against the brick pillar. The sound of two different elements making contact comes closer to your ears unpleasantly. You turn away and grip the hem of the tattered shirt, this time crying. You hate this, you want nothing to do with this any longer!

“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe, catch a tiger by the toe. If he hollers, let him go, eeny, meeny, miny, moe.” Taehyung voice stop abruptly and you bite your whimpers, in fact, you feel his presence just mere inches away, “My mother told me to pick the very best one, and that is YOU.” those words hit your ears with a strong shiver of horror. Tensing up, the tip of the knife trail up your back like water in reverse motion. But his trailing was very careful.

“If you win, you get to go free and I won't ever pursue you again.” His voice was low and eerie. The trailing stops in between your shoulder blades and stays there. “But if you lose, you will accept me wholly and be part of my life. How does that sound?”

Your silence was all he needs now, whether you like it or not.

.

Taehyung had made you ‘play find the treasure’, around the house there were three specific items he wants it to be found and you already found one of them.

The discovery was gruesome. It was his first victim already decayed body in the Iron Maiden. A key was stuck to its mouth, and you almost retch at the sight of it. The smell of death was strong in the room, even blood that was supposed to be washed away was stained there. He wants you to fetch the key from its mouth. You were hesitant about getting it, but if it means freedom from this hell-hole.

You are all in.

The second item was a code, but it was in a room filled with advanced math and equations, but you can make out the scribbles of white and red overlapping with each other. There were papers already prepared there. Like Taehyung already had planned this all along, since there were layers of dust coated the papers and desk.

You thought you were going crazy for a second as you saw repeated math equations, but you weren't. Taehyung did that on purpose. At first, you weren't sure of your going to get out if all the numbers are right since, you added them, subtract, multiply and even divide them but it doesn't make any sense at all! You were getting frustrated. What were you doing wrong?

Letting out a frustrated sigh, there was something bothering you. Taking a look at the ceiling and around you, there were more whites than red in the room. And the highest number you achieve was 27. The inner corner of your brows knitted together and you grab all the papers scattered around you. You had color coded them. There was a letter you had scribble next to the number when you had the answer. On each and one of them.

Looking around the room one more time, there was something laying in a forgotten corner. The paper folded neatly. You went over there and pick it up.

Unfolding it, it was only the alphabet letters. But it does make sense to you now. Each number represents an alphabet letter. You grab the papers that were filled with scribbles and jot down a letter next to them. But the red is more apparent than the white ones.

Freiheit ist nights, aber in Narrenwunsch.

You recognize it was in German.

But whatever it means, it's going to aid you in your freedom.

Running out of the room, you went to find the final piece of treasure.

.

Taehyung watches from the cameras in an unknown room, as he successfully saw you retrieve the key. He was neither anxious nor impatient, instead, he was rather very calm.

You were intriguing his mind more, very compatible. All he needs is to get you to join him is his misfortune and mischief, by ruling his side like the person he needed in this reign he's going to take over.

“Oh? She already solved it.” A small chuckle reverberates from his vocal cords. It didn't take long for you to solve the problems.

.

You run past the living room where you were supposed to be in there like fifteen minutes ago and you came back to find a computer hook up in cables and cords, as its links to a double door. Something made your skin crawl, it's not the cold air in this dark place. It's like you're being watched.

Making a small step at the bright computer, your eyes wince at the contrast. There was a question written on the computer screen.

What is freedom?

You type in the letters and press enter, and a click resonates around the room. The heavy doors open with a loud cry upon forces.

Everything in you pause for a moment.

A gust of strong wind push through the small gap of the door, you feel it rustle pass your unkempt self. Light peers through the dark room, making the darkness scramble away as it was eaten up. A breath of amazement escapes your lips, as you saw the landscape you were surrounded with. Wildflowers bloom everywhere, a giant lake down below the field, mountains far away with snow decorating their top.

Shaking your head, you cut off your thought. You need to get out of here!

Without wasting a moment, you set foot outside and it feels like many centuries have passed since you last visited the outside world. The rush of adrenaline filled you with excitement. A smile made on your dry lips. You pick up your speed and run towards the no path field of flowers.

Petals float in the air as your legs hit the wildflowers. The sun warms against your skin.

But the sound of a gunshot cut you short your freedom as you halt all movements. All feeling of happiness and childish self-flew away from you as fear regrips your heart again. You turn around and saw Taehyung there with a gun pointed in the air with a cynical smile. He then pointed it at you.

“Your freedom must've tasted good because it didn't last long.”

“You said you would let me go.” Your voice came out raspy because of the lack of use.

“But I didn't promise you though.” He comes close to you. Your legs start to buckle in fear and anxiety. “This was merely a lesson for you.”

“What?” Anger surge through you, like a breath of disbelief, filling your lungs.

“You know what ‘Freiheit ist nights, aber in Narrenwunsch’mean (Name)?” His terrifying eyes bore into your orbs, that look is enough to make your body lock under pressure, but you refuse to fall under his gaze. “It means freedom is nothing, but a fool's wish’. You get it to don't you? I let you escape like this to tell you how easy it is to take and give freedom. The words give and take are no different since they are so close to each other.” Taehyung closes the proximity. His hand went to capture your wrist with his one hand and twist them around your back. He pulls you close to him, chest to chest. This makes you struggle in his vice grip.

“Since taking away your dignity didn't break you enough, I would have to break your ambitions, your hope, your everything, and even the light that glimmer in your eyes.” The gun in his hand came dangerously close to you, as he traces the cool tip of the gun right down the side of your face. He leans his face close to you, just inches apart. “I will make you depend on me for the rest of your life. Want to hear a term for that? It's called Stockholm Syndrome. With enough deprivation of human contact, you will become eventually paranoid and start begging for my attention, then I'll make you learn how to love me.”

“You're sick!”

“I don't appreciate being called mentally ill (Name) after all, I'm not the one who killed their family and was label that.”

A snarl emits from your lips, as your anger override your emotions to think properly and words blurt out. “You think throwing the crime on me would make me come running towards you and kiss your feet? Instead, this made me hate you with a fiery passion that I run away and you're the one who came chasing after me instead! In fact, I appreciate if they killed me off sooner I wouldn't have to deal with your psychotic-”

A hand had made contact with your face. And you were shocked that Taehyung had just backhanded you! You bite your lower bleeding lip. “You don't mean it, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't hate me, you love me. Say that you love me.” Taehyung commanded the last sentence with the gun pointed under your jaw.

You give him a hard stare for a good few seconds before closing your eyes awaiting death if you don't answer.

“Open your eyes and say that you love me! Say it!” Taehyung tugs you.

Refusing to open your eyes, and the metallic metal was removed from your chin as you were pushed to the ground as the air was knocked out from your lungs. You open your eyes and saw him loom over you. There weren't any emotions shown on his face.

.

On that field, Taehyung was nothing more than an animal mask with the essence of the devil himself as he takes you there. He retook your everything.

[neraawritesxx]

Thank you for the request, dear Anon! I hope you like what I came up with. A little angst, a little fluff, and some doctor!Sakura? A perfect combination!

title: lean on prompt: just please be my best friend right now, not the guy I confessed my love to pairing: naruto x sakura word count: 2,354 genre: angsty (really, it’s just wangst lol) // friendship // romance

He found her on his porch, leaning up against the front door, curled up in a sopping wet ball.

There was a split second where Naruto worried he had somehow managed to lock Sasuke out of the house again, but one glimpse of the damp, bubblegum pink hair revealed who exactly his surprise visitor was.

The blond approached with caution.

Naruto hadn’t heard from her in weeks – not since their falling out after, what he now dubbed, ‘the incident’ – and something deep in his chest ached at the sight of her, shivering and soaked to the bone on his doorstep.

What could she possibly be doing here? Now? After all this time?

“Sakura-chan?” Naruto tentatively called out.

At the sound of his voice, the rosette’s head snapped up at breakneck speed; flat, dispirited green orbs locked with his own. They were bloodshot and swollen from crying, rimmed with sunken pools of onyx. The same faded makeup framed the tear tracks which ran down the roundness of both cheeks. Where the wet, sloppy mix of mascara and eyeliner didn’t cover alabaster skin, Sakura’s complexion was flushed with angry, blister-like red patches.

In the back of his mind, Naruto vaguely remembered his best friend informing him that she usually broke out in hives when she was severely upset.

It took a moment for murky viridian depths to recognize him, but after they grew impossibly wide with acknowledgment, the dam broke.

Sakura’s face crumpled in turmoil, and a strangled, agonized wail escaping her parted, chapped lips. She scrambled to stand, her movements overwrought and frantic as she half-crawled, half-launched herself in his direction.

Naruto met her halfway, panic-stricken. He was so unused to seeing this side of his childhood friend.

He grunted with the force of their collision, instinctively wrapping one arm around her waist so that he could keep her upright. Sakura’s right hand clutched at the collar of his shirt, tugging impatiently on the cloth in tandem with her ragged breaths. One of her arms – he couldn’t tell which one at this point – was squished awkwardly between them and Naruto was sure there would be a bruise on his right bicep in the morning where Sakura’s left hand had the muscle imprisoned in a vice.

She was holding onto him as if he was her lifeline.

Just what was going on?

“I di-didn’t,” Sakura hiccupped between her tears. Her chin trembled against his collarbone, the wobbly movement causing her teeth to click together audibly. “I didn’t k-kn-now wh-where to go.”

Naruto’s chest tightened at her defeated confession, and that unnerved pang from earlier became all-consuming, a trickle of trepidation slithering down his spine.

The tenseness in Naruto’s shoulders – a stiffness that he hadn’t realized that he was carrying – deflated, and his body slumped forward, encompassing the petite, cherry-haired woman in a tender embrace.

Right now, Sakura needed him, and there was nothing that was going to stop him from helping her.

Their current fight be damned.

“Shh…,” The blond cooed affectionately. “Shh, Sakura-chan. It’s alright. I’m here.”

He wasn’t sure how long they remained under that awning, out in the rain, but enough time passed for his sweater to become drenched in a soggy blend of tears and the secondhand moisture from her own wet attire.

When a particularly strong gust of wind blew through the veranda, the fair-haired male quivered, though this time, not from the overabundance of repressed emotion.

Naruto expertly extracted himself from Sakura’s secure hold, maneuvering the distraught woman so that she was facing the front door, flush against his chest. His coral-haired best friend had calmed down significantly, sniffling almost soundlessly as she bonelessly leaned against him.

Sakura went along without a fuss as Naruto corralled her through the door and into the townhouse.

Luckily, at this time of day, neither of his roommates were home. Sasuke was somewhat inept when it came to dealing with a hysterical Sakura and Sai…well, if the hole in the kitchen wall amounted to anything, it was that the socially stunted artist now knew better than to call the rosette ‘ugly’ when she was distressed.

Shuffling Sakura into the living room, Naruto gently guided her to the couch, carrying most of her weight as he assisted her when she sat down. He tried to ignore the way the carpet gave a wet ‘squish’ underneath his sneakers, but he could already hear Sasuke bitching about the muddy mess they undoubtedly tracked throughout their home. The impending argument could wait, however, and Naruto brushed away any thoughts of the dark-haired Uchiha, instead focusing on studying Sakura face.

The color of her skin was eerily white, almost ashen in certain areas, contrasting greatly with the bright crimson that ran along her the expanse of her neck and the sides of her face.

“I’ll be right back…,” Naruto murmured, hesitating only slightly as he waited for her acknowledgment. It wouldn’t be worth the effort of leaving the room if he were to come back to find her bawling.

At the small bob of her head, the blond ventured off down the corridor to his bedroom. Naruto kicked off his shoes, socks included and traded in his sodden shirt for an extra-large, pullover sweat-shirt. He could make do with some damp jeans for now.

A quick rummage through a few of his dresser drawers produced a pair of gym shorts and one of his old, long-sleeved rugby jerseys. With unrepressed haste, Naruto exited his room, stopping only to deposit the extra clothing in the bathroom before returning to Sakura’s side.

She hadn’t moved, nor did she look in his direction upon his reappearance.

For a brief, unpleasant moment, Naruto felt out of place and out of his depth, warily watching her as the sound of his heartbeat revibrated in his ears.

He tried to shake discouraging awareness of it all, but the picture that Sakura presented, this unnaturally, heartbreaking tranquility, filled him with immeasurable dread.

Whatever happened to her to make her react in such a way, must have been monumentally significant. Childish theatrics and throwing tantrums wasn’t something that Sakura dabbled in; she never carried on like this without reason.

“Sakura-chan?” The blond ventured. Attempting to hide the slight note of discontent in his voice, Naruto cleared his throat before continuing, “I put some dry clothes in the bathroom for you. Why don’t you go get cleaned up and change, while I make us some tea?”

There was a pregnant pause, then tortuously slow, Sakura lifted her head, shifting her gaze in his direction with languid unhurriedness.

And for a long while, all she did was stare.

It was enough to make Naruto fidget in an uncharacteristic shift of antsy restlessness. Never, never in the history of their relationship had Naruto seen Sakura look so defeated.

Eventually, the pinkette rose from her perch, slipping out of the living room silently. Naruto turned to watch her pad down the hallway, disappearing into the designated sub-room. Only when he heard the soft ‘click’ of the bathroom door as it closed, did he finally move towards the kitchen.

-o-

A short while later found them both back in the sitting room. Naruto sat stiff as a board, in the middle of the couch while Sakura was on the floor, tucked between the sofa and the coffee table, a spare blanket from his bed securely wrapped around her shoulders.

She still refused to look in his direction, and Naruto wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not by the action.

This entire thing was a weirdly strange, convoluted mess and all Naruto wanted to do was talk to Sakura about what was going on, but he didn’t know what to say.

How do you comfort a woman who shows up on your doorstep, crying, after weeks of not talking to one another?

The same woman, who had previously confessed her love for you? A confession, mind you, that caused your brain to malfunction and your body to shut down, resulting in you just sitting there and staring at her like she sprouted another head?

Never in his wildest dreams did Naruto believe that Sakura felt anything other than close kinship towards him. He must have garnered a lot of bad karma in his previous life because when the situation presented itself, and he was given the opportunity to finally tell Sakura just how he felt, his mouth stopped working and his mind blanked.

It didn’t help that the rosette took his uncharacteristic silence as rejection, either.

As if Naruto Uzumaki would ever reject Sakura Haruno.

Naruto knew he was being absurd; that this was Sakura and she came to him in her time of need for a reason, but he was nervous, and it was awkward, and the last thing he wanted was for this entire situation to blow up right in his face like most things tended to do.

Despite his apparent desire to provide comfort, Sakura needed to be the one to initiate this discussion.

So, here he sat, idly twirling the mug of steaming green tea between his palms, trying to calm his array of frenzied nerves.

As if somehow sensing his internal dilemma, Sakura finally broke the silence.

“My patient died,” The emerald-eyed woman croaked, voice hoarse from disuse and her earlier breakdown.

Before Naruto could interject with remorse filled words of empathy, Sakura carried on, “He passed away on the operating table…he bled out…right underneath my very hands.”

Ah. Well, that explained it.

Sakura was always naturally drawn to people. She had some unquenchable thirst to help others, to seem them grow and mend with the aid of her skill. It was what fueled her motivation to attend medical school.

The death of a patient came with the territory of being in the medical profession. Thankfully, this only occurred in Sakura’s case twice before – and both times they hadn’t even been her direct patients – but she always took the news particularly hard.

Leaning forward, Naruto placed his cup on the glass tabletop, resting his left elbow on his knee for balance before setting his right hand on the shoulder that was closest to him.

“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, Sakura,” He assured, giving her an encouraging squeeze.

“That’s the thing Naruto…this…it might be my fault.”

She still wouldn’t look him in the eye, but Naruto felt the muscle under his palm go rigid. She must have been scowling.

“He came in complaining of nausea, fatigue, and shortness of breath…or at least that’s what the referring doctor noted in his chart. There was a familial history of chronic heart disease and blood clots, so immediately, I started him on blood thinners while we were conducting preliminary tests.”

The rosette paused long enough to take a breath, then she said, “I thought it was congestive heart failure. If it wasn’t serious, a few changes to his diet and some medication could help. If it were severe, the best option would have been coronary artery bypass surgery. Either way, it wasn’t a complicated case.”

The shoulder in his grasp began to tremble, and her voice hitched an octave higher as she continued, “What no one told me, or noted in his paperwork, is that he had been in an accident a few days prior to the start his symptoms. While I was too busy focusing on his heart, because that is what his chart lead me to believe the issue was, blood had been pooling in the membrane between his brain and his skull. It’s called a subdural hematoma, and it only got worse because I put him on Coumadin. By the time I realized what was happening and went in to operate so that I could relieve some of the pressure…it was too late and he just…flatlined right on the table.”

She was crying again, her chest heaving with the force of her sobs. “Tsunade gave me a few days off because the hospital wants to look into what happened and figure out where the exact miscommunication occurred. She told me that everything would turn out alright in a few days and I was fine…but Naruto…I could lose my license, and I don’t know what to do! I didn’t know where to go…and I…I just needed you.”

Sakura leaned against the outside of his thigh, pressing her cheek into the already damp material of his jeans.

“I know things aren’t exactly copesetic between us at the moment, but please, just please be my best friend right now. I need the man that protected me from bullies when I was a kid, not the guy I confessed my love to.”

“I’m here,” Naruto rasped voice thick with emotion.

Unable to do much with their current seating arrangements, he lifted his hand from her shoulder, burying it in her short, pink locks. His thumb immediately began to knead small, soothing circles into the soft patch of skin behind her right ear.

He reiterated, “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

At his declaration, the floodgates opened again, and Sakura did her best to muffle her sorrow against his muscle of his hamstring. Naruto tried to ease her pain as best as he could, given the circumstances. A coo of consolation here and a kiss to her temple there. He gave what he could freely and without hesitance.

Under different conditions, he would have provided more verbal assurances, but right now, empty promises that everything would be alright would amount to nothing.

Sakura’s livelihood was on the line over a simple lack of communication, and there was nothing he could say that would ease her discomfort. It would be best let her get everything out, and when it was all over, they would pick up the pieces together. She wanted him there, and he would be; reliable, and stable, and ready to face anything that life tossed her way.

And maybe, when this whole thing was over, and their lives returned to a semblance of normalcy, they could finally sit down and talk about them.

After all, the woman who loved him needed to know that he felt the same.

Send me a pairing and a prompt!

[renaroo]

The Things That Wait (3/4)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH, Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them – the Meta – whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs could spell the death for more than a few of them..

A/N: Long time no see!! Sorry for the long wait, but in my defense, since I last updated I’ve now become a professor’s teaching assistant and graduate research assistant. So there’s a bit of a dip in my amount of freetime and, as you guys can imagine the chapters aren’t getting any shorter lol But we’re almost done! Just a few twists before we get to the end : ) 

And a very special thanks to @freelancerfeels, Yin, Prim_The_Amazing, xXxDeadEyesNekuxXx, Aryashi, SuperSaiyajin4Vegeta, NotSoHappyHufflepuff, and Dewsparkle! And, of course, my absolute WONDEROUS thanks to my partner in crime, @theeffar <3

Who Lives And Dies

Tucker’s vision did not come back in a blink or even a gradient wave. It came back in layers of color and lightening of shadows. It came back in turbulent storms that passed with throbs from his head. And that was the frightening part. The sickening way he didn’t know how the time was passed between the blurs of vision as he broke through the waters of consciousness again.

The last time he was back fully to consciousness, Tucker turned abruptly to his hands and knees and barely got his helmet off before vomiting until he was almost certain his stomach had turned inside out.

But the throbbing was gone, the electric shocks through his nerves lessened to a dull pulse.

And Church was finally silent.

“Church,” Tucker got out weakly, rocking himself to the side so that he could land safely away from his own mess. His eyes were sore and probably bloodshot, still wet from the strain. “Church, I can’t keep doing this. You’re fucking killing me.”

It wasn’t as if Tucker expected a response. It was more like the long nights adventuring with the alien shamans and Donut than it was like having his best friend sitting back and whispering through his very being. It was like talking to the Church who was the friend he missed and not the possessing presence that escaped the chain mail from hell into the back recesses of Tucker’s psyche.

Things were simpler before he was at his best friend’s mood swings’ mercy.

“You’re not the one I got killed.”

The response was unexpected, like getting a response out of the mirror.

Mostly, though, it was unexpected because it was coming through Tucker’s own teeth, using his tongue, the words tasted with his own mouth.

Shocked to the core by the invasiveness of the moment, Tucker sat up straight as a rod and felt his own lungs freeze up with slight horror. Did he make himself sit up? How much control did he have left? Was he just so exhausted and worn down that he had thought up the moment hysterically instead of it actually coming to pass? Tucker did’t know. He wasn’t even sure how much he cared, because everything about it was horrifying enough on its own accord. He didn’t need answers to make the way his sides squeezed and his hairs stood up to back up the already traumatic sense of losing absolute control of himself.

He might have been even further frozen by the moment if a small cooing noise hadn’t picked up from behind Tucker and drew his attention away from his own existential horror.

Recognizing the sound, Tucker looked everywhere in its direction for his son and, eventually, found Junior standing in the hallway that had brought them to Caboose’s lab to begin with. It was a fairly large distance, especially considering how close they usually kept to each other, but the more Tucker looked the more he understood why that was.

In Junior’s tiny hands was none other than the weird pulsating device which had caused everything wrong for the last however-long Tucker had been writhing on the floor.

And that distance felt like only just enough for Tucker to breathe easy without Church continuing to writhe and freak out inside of him.

“Hey, bud,” Tucker tried to say soothingly. His voice was croaky and strained from the bitter taste of vomit still, but he pushed through it for his son. “Daddy’s not feeling so hot—“

Almost like a whimper, Junior muttered “Bow chicka honk honk.”

It was enough to bring Tucker a somber smile. “Heh, yeah. But. I’m better now. Okay? I’m just. Wow I’m so fucking glad you’re okay.”

He was about to compliment his son for being so smart as to figure out how to rescue them from the turmoil of Caboose’s device but, the more Tucker looked, Junior seemed less concerned with the attack or even with the device he was holding.

Junior’s attention was actually fixated behind Tucker, and it was enough to make Tucker freeze up again just before turning to see for himself.

Tucker’s heart pounded with each centimeter he turned, but once he was completely around and just looking around Caboose’s workshop the less terrifying the moment felt. After all, he had just gone through a living hell and it at least got Church to shut up for a stretch. But beyond that, there didn’t even seem to be anything within the room. And Tucker was looking pretty hard for what had freaked his son out. But there was nothing.

And then it hit Tucker like a bag of bricks.

There was nothing.

No Caboose. No android body on the slab. Nothing.

There was nothing there but them. It was then that Tucker vaguely remembered Caboose declaring something about distracting or keeping away something.

And the words Church spoke through Tucker’s own mouth began to sourly taste on his tongue again.

You’re not the one I got killed.

“Fucking — Caboose!” Tucker shouted as he scrambled to his feet.

Horrified, Tucker looked around. The sudden rush to his feet had made him dizzy, but it wasn’t going to stop Tucker. Not at that moment anyway.

There was something seriously wrong with what was going on. And Tucker wasn’t going to feel any comfort until he saw evidence that everything was chill himself.

Without much more fanfare, and certainly without anything helpful from Church, Tucker extended his plasma sword and gave chase through the halls, only letting himself be bothered just enough by the device as he passed Junior to be reminded that Church was still somewhere deep within his own head.

As he ran down the halls, Tucker swiftly brought his helmet back to his head.

He was on the look out for Caboose.

And, however unfortunately, Tucker was quickly successful.

Then, for a second time, he felt a voice that was not entirely his own escape his throat. But it was more natural, something that was on the tip of Tucker’s tongue anyway.

“Caboose?”

His helmet was broken — crushed like a can on the floor. It laid closer to Tucker, like a grim warning at his feet, begging him to not look further in, to follow the red trail of carnage. But, of course, it was far too late for that.

Tucker’s vision was absorbed by the sight of gore that waited for them. There was such a stark contrast between the crimson blood still gushing and the bright, royal blue of Caboose’s armor. Just like the angle of Caboose’s head, how it tilted unnaturally, bruised and bulging beneath the skin, was absolutely no mistaking what Tucker was seeing. What it meant.

Or how that empty, lonely feeling of being alone again felt heavy on his chest as he stared at everything in the world halting and no longer making sense.

All he knew was that, as gunfire and shouting rang out from outside the base, that same emptiness and despair that still threatened to swallow him whole was staved off as it was filled by utter rage and anger.

The plasma sword pulsed at the touch of Tucker’s white knuckled grip.

Hiding Junior was the simple part. Even with the strange, pulsating device that Caboose had kept before, the combined raging in Tucker’s head of his own and of Church’s pierced through the static like uncomfortableness and pressed forward.

Junior protested in small, groggy yips but he didn’t follow them out once they left.

Tucker wasn’t in the mood for disobedience, and beyond that he wasn’t really himself anymore.

Faintly in the back of his mind, he could recognize the external urge twisting within his head, that pissed off, blow-hard temper that he had tested for years in Blood Gulch was suddenly racing through his own bloodstream. And while he had never necessarily known Church to do anything with that outrage… well, Tucker very much for the first time in his life felt like he had a lot more fight than love in him to give.

Outside of the base, sword drawn, Tucker scanned the valley. With an almost inhuman reflex, though, his senses honed in on the source of the activity closer to Red Base on the complete other side.

The plasma sword pulsed with his rage.

Simmons and Grif were behind the Warthog, as expected. It looked like the tire was blown out, and the closer Tucker got, the more he could see what was sprawled out on the other side of the vehicle — sparking and smoking. It wasn’t equipment, but familiar brown armor hollowed out at its center.

Lopez, Tucker thought momentarily before gritting his teeth and skidding behind the nearest rock for cover from whatever the source of the bullets was.

Fuck! This guy’s anti-robite, Church snarled between Tucker’s ears.

“You fucking talk in my head again I’m going to rip you out of this armor myself,” Tucker warned, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to orient himself. “Jesus, Church, that hurts like fucking hell—“

“Oh, good, I was worried you were talking to me.”

Both Tucker and, in a sense, Church, squeaked out in surprise. But the momentary shock wore off and Tucker spun around on his heels with his sword out right at the throat of the speaker. Which, in hindsight of course, was a huge damn overreaction considering he was staring right in Donut’s visor.

“Donut, what the fuck?” Tucker hissed. “What’s going on? What happened to Lopez? Who’s attacking? And did they come from Blue Base?”

Donut hummed a bit and cocked his head to the side. “Uh. What order do you want those in?”

“Any!” Church screeched through she speaker of Tucker’s helmet It was almost enough to make the turquoise coated marine sigh with relief that Church was benevolent enough to spare Tucker’s vocal cords.

“Right, so, Lopez was on his way for the cremation apparently and this guy that Grif and Simmons knew followed him, and then he shot Lopez! And then when Grif tried to hit him with the Warthog he shot out the tire. So then I tried to say something and guns started going off, and—“

“Fuck okay, I get it!” Tucker cut him off as a bullet ricocheted off the other side of their rock. “The guy’s an anti-robite—“

“Hey hey hey! You can’t fucking make those jokes! I can make those jokes!” Church snapped at him angrily.

“Why? Because you’re a robot?” Donut asked innocently.

“What? No. Because I’m Jewish! Fuck you—“

“Everyone shut up, I’ve got a plan,” Tucker demanded, ignoring the throb of his head. “We need answers, I’ve got a feeling that this asshole, whoever the fuck he is, can give them.”

“Oh, speaking of answers, I didn’t give you all of them,” Donut tried to interject only to get a shushing from both Tucker and Church. “It’s weird when you guys are synched together like that.”

“No, we’re not,” they both answered at once.

Not leaving space for the irony to set in, Tucker slowly tilted out from around the rock, looking for the source of the gunfire. The arcs of the bullets were simple enough to trace, but it was all going too fast for Tucker alone. “Church,” he began to whisper, but it was without need.

“Got it,” Church answered and, suddenly, the HUD of Tucker’s helmet responded.

Deliriously, Tucker watched as the shots were traced in blue outlines, all meeting back at a point toward the wall leading into the valley. The Hud squared the area then, after blinking, enhanced and enlarged the space. It revealed an alcove where a gray armored body was perched, a battle rifle — which had a model read out on the HUD — aimed and firing.

“Holy shit, how’d you do that?” Tucker muttered.

“Wait until I show you the intercom function,” Church responded cheekily. He then had a heavy pause and low rumblings of curses entered Tucker’s head. “I know who that is — fucking goddamn bastard asshole cockroach son of a bitch—“

“Whoa,” Tucker uttered in confusion.

“We’re not in real trouble, this guy’s an asshole but he helped us out before. This is just a misunderstanding. We just… y’know, have to keep everyone from killing each other,” Church said confidently.

“Sounds simple enough,” Donut replied cheerfully.

“No it doesn’t, because Lopez is already dead,” Tucker pointed out. “And Caboose—“

“We’ll figure out the stuff with Caboose after we straighten this out, Tucker, keep up!” Church snapped.

Donut hesitated, clutching his gun a little tighter. “What happened with Caboose?”

A tight, hot knot twisted itself deep inside Tucker’s guts, but finally he could feel that it was completely his own and not some influence or electric tingle through his body. That sickness and unease, that… emotion he couldn’t deal with yet. That was all him. No doubt about it.

“Later,” Church insisted in a hiss. “First we’ve gotta stop the gun shit or someone actually will get hurt. And it’ll probably be someone actually important and not a stupid robot.”

“Now who’s the anti-robite?” Tucker huffed.

“Hey, what the fuck did I just say about those jokes?” Church snapped.

“Okay, jesus christ—“

“I just said I’m Jewish!”

“Church, what the fuck is your plan already!?” Tucker all but screamed.

The shooting momentarily stopped from the other side, and it was enough to make Tucker think, however momentarily, that things were about to cool down and they could get some answers, but to his horror instead the valley was filled with a different sound. One of honking and blarghing. And almost immediately, Tucker felt a pain wipe through him stronger than any shock Church had sent toward his spine.

“Junior! What the fuck!?” Tucker cried out, turning to see his son bounding over from the Blue Base with Caboose’s weird contraption in hand.

He just knew that the shooter saw Junior and had been stunned into inaction as well, though probably not for long.

Tucker’s first instinct was to throw himself toward his son, make sure there was no clear line of sight between the shooter and his halfling son. But he didn’t move on it. He stood flat footed, shocked with his own inaction, as a quiet, low, sense of self preservation grew louder than his fatherly intent.

And then, suddenly, Tucker felt sick with disgust at what he could only assume was Church’s deepest and ugliest intrusion into Tucker’s senses yet. Because no one — not even Church — had the right to override that sensibility he felt deep inside toward his son. How dare Church make it otherwise.

But for all that time had stopped, it suddenly, quickly, caught up once more all too quickly. Not with the sound of a bullet but with a motion of pink at Tucker’s side as Donut stepped out into the clearing nonchalantly.

“What the fuck are you doing!?” Church’s voice cracked.

“There’s a kid on the battlefield, no one would shoot with a kid on the battlefield. It’s totally against the rules,” Donut reasoned. “It’s like I tell Tucker all the time, there’s all kinds of fun things like filling other man’s holes with your bullets that you can’t do with children around, that’s just wrong. Besides, you said that we don’t have to worry about this guy—“

Tucker heard the words but he wished he hadn’t. It made the image too hard to even comprehend once it all came crashing down with that very sound of a shot that he had dreaded would end the time freeze before.

Donut’s body jerked uncomfortably at the sound of armor cracking and hollowing out under the pressure of artillery shells. A straight shot, aimed with sniper’s intent, right between the breast plates which had been far oversized for Donut’s frame anyway — loose enough to let the already questionable gap over their chests seem even more inviting.

In a blink, a red dust filled the air where Donut had been standing, and suddenly Donut was on the ground, flat on his back with his uncocked pistol laying out of his reach.

The blood was sprinkled over Donut’s armor plating, but the real horror of it was the way it bubbled out from the under armor links between the plates, how it filled the gaps like floodwaters, bubbling and hissing at the sudden and immense exposure to air.

Screaming was happening around Tucker — from the Reds, from his son — but Tucker couldn’t scream.

Tucker didn’t have control of his mouth to do so. And it wasn’t because of Church that time.

Sword drawn, his feet racing beneath him, Tucker was covering ground until, in what seemed like a moment’s notice, he was at the wall which this so-called Agent Washington had been barreled down in. He was standing, rifle still aimed in the direction of the others, like he somehow hadn’t seen or heard Tucker approaching from his flank. It was the epitome of coming across someone redhanded.

By the time Agent Washington was looking his way, Tucker was slicing through half of his rifle in one swoop. Then he sent his elbow into Washington’s helmet with another.

Off his footing, Washington stumbled back, but he used what was left of his gun to block another blow from Tucker’s sword. He seemed determined to use the action to disarm Tucker, letting the blade sink through the metal before twisting.

Tucker had a grip like none other on his sword, a thought that almost immediately made him think of Donut. And then it was followed by a pang of that hot writhing emotion he was avoiding again.

Stupid, Tucker thought just before Washington hit him with a barrage of fists and elbows, well placed to knock the wind out of Tucker and break his stance.

When Washington pulled out a bowie knife, however, Church had apparently had enough of being a passenger.

“Fuck this! HEY YOU ASSHOLE!” Church screamed from Tucker’s armor before lighting up in a bright flash of white right between them. “DID YOU FUCKING FORGET SOMETHING!?”

Genuinely shocked, Washington dropped his shoulders and stepped back in surprise. “Alpha— but… how—“

Seizing the opportunity, Tucker pivoted through Church’s image and hit Washington front on, connecting with the nose of his helmet and sending his head flying back into the cement wall.

And like that, Washington was out at Tucker’s feet, and Tucker’s heart was racing.

Not the least of which because of the sobbing he could hear meters away in the valley.

Church flickered a bit before disappearing, or whatever it was that he did to retreat back behind Tucker’s body and armor.

It didn’t matter f he could be seen or not, though, because Tucker was raging internally. He hated Church, how could he tell Donut that this fucker was safe? How could he not have known?

And that was just the hate that wasn’t from Tucker himself.

Pushing aside the complexities of sharing a headspace with Church, Tucker turned back, breathing hard and panted, and looked to where he could see Simmons and Grif gathered around. At where Donut had fallen.

“Fuck, oh my god, jesus, Donut…” Tucker wheezed.

Gulping down as much air as he could, Tucker raced out toward the others, trying to not selfishly think about how terrible it was for his son to have to witness another dead friend twice in the same day, and instead kept his mind on his friend. God, his friend — Donut was his friend, had become something like his best friend in their time in the desert and beyond. Everyone liked Donut. Everyone—

Grif was enraged. Tucker knew it as he approached because Grif wasn’t talking. He was standing beside Simmons as Simmons fretted over Donut’s chest wound. Simmons was talking, blabbering incoherently really, but Grif was coldly attentive to what was going on. He looked up at Tucker almost immediately.

“Did you kill him?”

“No,” Tucker said. “He’s unconscious. Is… Is Donut…”

“He got shot in the goddamn heart,” Grif snarled. “What do you think, Tucker? Show me where this backstabbing motherfucker is so I can kill him—“

“I… I think this is all a mistake,” Tucker said, though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why.

“What’s a mistake?” Grif asked without a moment’s hesitation.

“Shooting Donut…” Tucker said. “It doesn’t make sense. He didn’t have reason to— I mean, he was entering the valley through the wall, right? Whoever killed the others was already here. This is all a mistake. When Washington was with us, he was a cold motherfucker, sure, but he trusted us for some reason, right?”

“Us…?” Grif repeated, his voice growing only harsher with each uttered syllable. “You weren’t there, Tucker. And neither was Donut. And now one of you is dead, and… fuck what am I saying, who am I even talking to? Why would you not kill Washington?”

Tucker felt strangely out of touch with his senses as he turned his head ever so slightly from Donut’s body and toward Grif’s angry, screaming face. He could hear a ringing in his ears, like there were still gunshots going off, but in his head rather than around him.

“Because I owe him,” Tucker didn’t say, though it came out of his mouth all the same.

Grif was furious. “Who the fuck are you?”

Blankly, hollowly, Tucker shook his head. “I… I don’t know.”

The device in Junior’s hands pulsed with an energy Tucker could feel more than he could see. And a headache intensified inside Tucker’s skull, seemingly tearing him in half from two different directions.

“Washington killed Donut in a firefight and we’ll get him for that,” Tucker didn’t say. “Believe me, I want it as bad as you. But we need answers and he’s about the only guy I can think of right now in this three ring circus who can give them. Because he did this, but we don’t know who did Sarge or who did Caboose.”

“Caboose is dead!?” Simmons all but shrieked. “What the fuck is happening!? Why the fuck is it happening!?”

Tucker reached up and gripped the side of his helmet, eyes squeezed shut. “Why the fuck did I open that chainmail?” he groaned through the throbbing.

“Is that supposed to be a fucking joke!? What the hell’s wrong with you?” Grif demanded.

“A lot right now,” Tucker answered, feeling sickly again. “A whole hell of a lot.”

Agent Washington was unconscious still as Grif and Simmons hovered nearby.

For precautions, the Freelancer’s weapons had been removed, as well as his helmet, gauntlets, and boots. Church seemed particularly insistent on those points since — according to him — Freelancers would have weapons hidden in every spot they could manage. And any questioning of that point earned a defiant who has the most experience with Freelancers from the ghost of a friend.

Tucker’s head felt like it was filled with cotton balls or else he would have had a feistier response to such a claim.

Grif was standing further away from the Freelancer, Tucker sitting next to where Washington was tied up in the brig. But he was still closer than Simmons, who seemed morose and almost ill with worry from his spot near the exit.

There was still a thick smell of iron in the air, be it from injuries of everyone in the room or lingering from the horrific sights they had been exposed to involving their once-friends. Tucker couldn’t tell anymore.

And Church seemed strangely fixated on Washington rather than the far more important things surrounding them.

Things only finally stepped back into motion  when, beside them, Washington stirred again.

Immediately, everyone tensed — Grif cocking his rifle while Tucker got to his feet and activated the plasma sword from its hilt.

For a moment, after turning his body as much as he could in his restraints, Washington seemed to be processing things. His wrists twisted in their binds and his feet pressed against their ropes to separate at the ankles but all was to no avail. By the time his eyes opened, he was angered.

Which was fine by Church, who preferred when everyone met him at his level of anger.

Tucker was more reluctant to celebrate.

Washington’s eyes fell on Tucker first, flickering with unfamiliarity and confusion, before he glanced instead to the remaining Reds. His scowl regained its full judgment and he twisted and contorted himself as much as he could. “Let me go. Now,” he demanded.

“Fuck you, dude,” Grif snarled back.

“You fucking killed Donut,” Simmons’ voice cracked with emotion and anger like Tucker was unused to seeing from him.

“You betrayed me first!” Washington bellowed. Somehow, even restrained and on his side, Washington conveyed an unhingeness and rage that Tucker had never really felt from someone before. At least, not from anyone who meant it squarely for Tucker—

“Fuck you, dude! If anyone betrayed anyone, you betrayed me when you left me and Tex for dead! Fuck. You!” Tucker did not scream in a rage, did not nearly take a step forward with his sword aloft. But his body did all the same. And regaining his composure was all Tucker could do to grab onto his limbs and step his body back. “What the fuck, Church.”

Washington for a moment seemed genuinely alarmed, his eyes widening slightly as he looked Tucker’s way. Then he just looked confused. “Alpha?”

“I’m not a computer!”

Tucker reached up and held a hand to the helm of his helmet. He could feel the gazes of everyone around him, especially Grif and Simmons.

“Tucker, what the actual hell?” Grif demanded.

“I don’t know!” Tucker snapped through gritted teeth.

“There’s someone else in there!?” Washington yelled. “After all this, you still let Alpha implant on someone else? Haven’t you figured it out? DIdn’t you listen to anything I told you all before you stabbed me in the back!? The AI will fuck with people’s brains! Not to mention the Meta—“

“Stabbed you in the back? Fuck off! You killed us! After all we did for you!” Simmons screamed.

“I told you to give Epsilon to the UNSC after we destroyed the storage facility! I told Caboose that doing that would make sure all the people responsible for playing us like puppets would see the justice they deserved! And instead of doing that, instead of ending all of this fuckery, you abandoned me and then left me to be imprisoned to rot. So yes you stabbed me in the back, and I don’t give a fuck about anything we all did together before until I get Epsilon back from Caboose before the Meta fucking gets it!” Washington growled. “And what’s more, Alpha is still alive, and you left him to possess and overwrite the brain of some other unsuspecting idiot!”

“Liar!” Church roared.

“I’m not unsuspecting!” Tucker added, though he could barely process what it meant. “And only people who know me are allowed to call me an idiot.” Gaining more and more confidence in his own words again, Tucker stepped toward Wash. “And, by the by, Caboose is dead, and until we get some answers you can forget us answering any of your questions.”

For a moment, Washington seemed to freeze in place. His face drew back in shock and he looked at Tucker in slight horror. “Caboose… Caboose is dead?” he asked, almost solemn and regretful considering his earlier anger and bombast.

“He was… basically torn apart,” Tucker answered lowly. “And Sarge was beat up and strangled. There’s some… some kind of monster involved in all of this. But you still killed Donut — our friend — so until you can give us a clue as to what’s going on, forget us giving you any answers.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Washington tried to twist himself into an upright position. “Where’’s Epsilon?”

“Dude, did you not just hear what we fucking said?” Grif asked in disgust.

“You don’t understand,” Washington shook his head. “Free me, take me to Epsilon. Everything you just told me… the Meta is already here. He’s killing your friends—“

“The ones that you aren’t,” Simmons hissed.

“—and he’ll kill all of us to get to the remaining fragments,” Washington continued, glancing toward Tucker warily. “Including yours.”

“I’m no one’s fragment,” Church answered darkly.

“Wasn’t Epsilon with your kid?” Simmons suddenly spoke up.

Then, despite Church’s outrage and darkness, Tucker’s body was suddenly immensely feeling, and a tingling chill rode down through his spine and limbs.

“Junior,” he thought out loud — the first time he was allowed to really think of his own priorities since Church began to take over the the steering wheel.

Church… why weren’t you worried about Junior?

The thought was not voiced, but Tucker knew it didn’t have to be. Not with how strangely connected they were. Not with how shocks of pain proceeded movements and voices that were not his own.

He had been ignoring the itch of a thought about what was happening to him. No one wants to believe that they are being used as a meat sack for someone thy thought of as a friend.

But in that moment, as his fatherly instincts overrode any further dictation from Church himself, Tucker knew he couldn’t ignore the obvious any longer.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong with him. And Church was the source of it.

Not my thing to worry about, Church replied flatly. There was no denial, not even any feigned confusion about the fact that he was dictating so much of what they were doing all of the sudden.

And that was telling in its own way.

Have… Have you ever done this to someone before? Tucker dared to think.

He could almost feel the coldness from the man — the ghost, the computer, the whatever — that he had thought of as his best friend for so long.

I don’t remember. Not on purpose, Church admitted. It’s too familiar to be new. But I’m not… Tucker, I don’t want to…

What happened to people when you did this before? When you made their body do things and think things they didn’t want? Tucker pressed, knowing that any anger and upset he felt was naked and open for Church to infiltrate inside his brain like everything else.

I don’t know. I think… I think I’m just… me again. Eventually, he confessed.

“That’s not happening,” Tucker swore through his own tongue again. He was determined and pissed which almost made up for the betrayal and disgust.

Church wasn’t fighting back again, so Tucker just continued forward, sword unsheathed, looking desperately for his missing son. Something that Church probably could have helped with, but he wasn’t offering and Tucker sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.

And that was when they finally came across Junior.

The alien child was clutching the Epsilon unit close to his chest, terrified, as he should have been. There was something hardly visible, but still obscuring the area behind Junior.

“Fuck! Active camo!” Tucker cried out to the others behind him in warning. “Junior, duck!”

His son did as ordered which opened Tucker up to a leap through the air, sword barred as he swung down for the spot where he had noticed the obscuring shimmer. Sparks flew on contact with something metallic and angry. But, to Tucker’s surprise, it wasn’t the end of the moment.

As the active camouflage began to fail, the free arm of the perp flew up, grabbed Tucker by his shoulder, and proceeded to suplex him in a move that immediately made the aqua marine begin to see stars.

“What the fuck, no one said the Meta could do that!” Tucker whined, still trying to get his bearings as he pushed to sit up.

“As far as I know, he still can’t,” a familiar voice said lowly.

Church, for once, was utterly speechless.

Tucker turned over to his knees almost immediately, expecting a flash of black armor to go with that familiar sound. “Tex!?”

He didn’t receive what he thought, however, because it wasn’t that at all. Instead, there stood a massive armored body with a domed yellow helmet, and intimidating white glaring armor. Something about it, the bulk or the weapon or just the low rumble that escaped with every breath. But it was terrifying and it wasn’t Tex.

Not her body at least.

“Buenos días, cockbites,” her voice came from the armor. “Guess who’s back?”

[dangerousreputation]

Hard To Get - Shawn Mendes

Wooooow,, this took me almost two weeks to write an its probably not very good lol. this was requested by the sweetest person every thank you for requesting.

Warnings: Smut

Now lets get into it and please send me feedback / requests yall i love them a lot!!

—-

This wasn’t really your scene, until tonight. The prominent stench of alcohol, wearing clothes that showed off a little to much skin, and being hit on every five minutes by a different guy. You were out with your friends just to get away from reality for a night. Dressed in a black top with thin straps and a low cut that was covered with mesh and light wash jeans that hugged your legs perfectly. Your feet were incased in black pumps that made your legs look miles long but you had to admit that the aching in your feet had started to become a pain in the ass. Your hair was pressed through a straighter and makeup felt heavy and a little sticky against your face.

Your elbow was resting on a high table in front of the drinks in the second bar of the night. You watched your two friends run off with two men doing who knows what, your gaze following them behind a wall before a smile broke out on your face and shook your head before taking a sip of your drink. You went to turn your body back to the table when your eyes met an intense pair of eyes the color of bark on a redwood tree seared into yours.

A little frightened at first then realizing that this intense gaze was being held by a man who looked about 19, dressed in a black buttoned down dress shirt with a design of white flecks across the fabric, his sleeves were rolled messily and bunched up before his elbow. His hair looked unruly, curls falling against his face and around the top of his head, his skin looked pale, but a little flush against the bold lists of the room. He was tall, taller than most people in the crowded, cloudy room and from the way his shirt was stretching across his arms, you could conclude that he was muscular.

He watched your eyes trail down his lanky body with a smirk etched on his lips and took a sip of his drink. Breathing seemed to become a little difficult when your eyes met his once again. He was almost inhumanly beautiful but you knew about guys like him, they’re extremely attractive and use that to their advantage to get in your pants.

You widened your eyes before a frown creased between your eyebrows and turning around. You were here to be the designated driver, not to hook up. After a few minutes the mysterious man waltzed over to your figure before introducing himself, “Hi, I’m Shawn.” He stuck out his hand which made your hand look about the size of pea.

Intrigued with his formal gesture, you placed your palm is his and shook it. You smiled at him, “(y/n.)”

“Can I buy you a drink?” He asked, licking his lips.

“If you want.” you rolled your eyes. It’s not like you were a rude person, but you have met one too many guys like Shawn.

“Judging by your body language, you look like you could use one.” He laughed and lord did he have a beautiful smile, but if this kid really wanted anything from you, he was going to have to do a lot more than buy you a drink.

After the drinks have arrived, you downed in before he could even pick up the glass. He looks at you with his eyebrows raised and the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. Rolling your eyes again he asks, “You like roller coasters?”

What the hell kind of question is that?

“Yeah.” you say sharply.

“Are you a screamer?” he laughs at himself a little.

“What else are you supposed to do on roller coasters besides ride them?” you snap at him, not understanding the point of this conversation.

He mumbles something under his breath then smiles again before bringing his drink to his lips. Your breathing started to become more rapid as you watched his adam’s apple bob as the liquid slid down his throat.

His finished glass was slammed down onto the wooden table a little too harsh for your liking before standing up and towering over you. Placing his palms on the table behind you and leaning so close to your face you can see the part of his cheek that is marked with a scar and his breath fanning over your face. You heart seemed to stop beating for a split second and eyes widening. You felt your confidence shrinking along with your posture to put as much space as you could between yourself and Shawn.

He lowers his head to burn his gaze into your eyes and holds eye contact with you for what feels like forever as he slowly licks his lips. He tilted his head to the side before speaking lowly in your ear, “(y/n), how about you meet me in the room in the back of this place? I bet I can make you scream a lot louder than you do on roller coasters.”

Although you cannot deny the heat that rushes throughout your body and the thumping sound of your hear in you chest, you scoff at him and it almost sounds like a laugh. “Fuck off.” You turn around quickly and returned to you position, slumping over the bar table.

He chuckles darkly before his chest presses against your back, “I’ll be in the back when you’re ready.” Then the hot presence behind you is gone and you feel yourself let out a sigh of relief but also a wash of disappointment that he didn’t do anything else.

*

Your friends had come to talk to you about the ‘hottest guy they’ve ever seen in their whole entire life’ and your encounter with each other. You brushed it off and told them how much of a player he must be to have that much confidence in himself and to just walk up to some random girl and ask her to hook up in the back of a bar. They lectured you on how you need to loosen up and live a little which lead you to brushing them off and chasing the subject.

To your disappointment, you focus was placed upon a girls laugh, that echoed throughout the room. Over the fogginess of the bar you could see Shawn with a smirk across his lips, leaning over the girl with the annoying laugh. It wasn’t a pang, or a wash, it was as if lightning with the emotions of; jealousy, anger, envy, and disappointment hit you like a train. Maybe it was the drinks that amplified everything.

Your friend saw your face and grabbed your opposite arm to pull you back to face her.  “I thought you said you didn’t like him, like at all.” she mumbled to you.

You shook your head and frowned, “No,” you (fake) smiled at her, “I mean I didn’t say that, but I don’t like him.”

She nodded before two men walked up behind her and your other friend with closed mouth smiles and hungry eyes. Rolling your  eyes, you nodded your head at her to turn around and when she did, she jumped and wrapped her arms around his neck before being swept off of her feet and taken away to do who knows what with him.

You turned around to slam into a hard chest. Following the build of this mystery man’s body up to his face, it was Shawn. He wore a sly smirk as he looked down at you, “Like I said thirty minutes ago, I’ll be in the back if you need a good time. Don’t hold back anymore baby.” His lips traced against you ear slightly but just enough to send shivers down your spine.

He sauntered off into the dark alleyway that lead to a few bathrooms and storage rooms, looking over his shoulder to see if you were following him. Swallowing your pride, you straightened your shirt and took a deep breath before stepping through the crowd and around the brick wall to find him leaning up against it with one leg bent and his eyes darting to yours.

He looked at you, his eyes a different color than they were moments ago. He chuckled darkly which contrasted the bright colors of his cheeks that were now the color of roses. His bottom lip was pulled harshly into his mouth by his teeth then returning to their rightful place.

Your stomach dropped as if you were on a roller coaster when he took two large strides to press your back up against the wall behind you. With one hand, his fingers pressed into your lower cheek as his palm rested along the underside of your chin. His steamy lips pressed to your with so much force it hurt your teeth. Gasping for air after his lips sucked yours leaving them bruised and swollen, his teeth dug into the skin of your neck.

You winced as pain shot through you only to be subsided by the pleasure of his tongue rolling over your skin. The room seemed to rise 25 degrees and your skin seemed to be searing hot against his. He pushed his muscular thigh between your legs and you couldn’t help but let a moan slip past your lips.

Your eyes widen because almost no boy or man has made you moan before. His lips stopped their movements and he looked up at you with hooded eyes. A smirk crossed his cherry colored lips, the impulse to slap him and that stupid smirk that crossed his god-like features was flashing across your mind but before you could raise your arm his long finger rapped about you wrist to bring them in a tight hold above your head. A complain was about to fall from your lips but they were being pushed against Shawn’s before you could say anything.

With his free hand, his fingers swirled over the skin on your neck and the material covering your stomach before circling around the button of your jeans before popping them open and pushing them down to the ground. His thumb pressed into your hip bone as he sucked hickeys onto your neck which you would yell at him later for doing. Linking his fingers into the sides of your underwear he slid them down your legs as little bumps covered your skin because of the chilled air.

The pads of his fingers stopped in line with your hipbones on the middle of your lower stomach before looking at you. You almost gasped at his appearance; dark curls falling around the crown of his head due to you running your fingers through them, lips so pink they look the color of bubblegum, cheeks dusted with the color red, eyes dark but wide with curiosity, and skin steamy. He searched in your eyes for any signs for you to stop before you two went to far with each other, but found nothing.

Pressing is lips to yours quickly before moving down to your collar bones and sliding his long fingers lower. Immediately pushed his middle finger between your folds and up into you caused you tow gasp. Smirking against your skin he started to rub figure eights into the bundle of nerves as he pushed his ring finger into you. Moving in and out of you, your eyes rolled into the back of your head as your mouth hung open.

“Can you take another?” he asked, huskily in your ear.

You opened your eyes to meet his beautiful facial features again but shrugged your shoulders before Shawn slipped another finger into you. Your whole body felt as if it was on fire. Sweat was covering the top of your nose and underneath your eyes as the pleasure started to build up. Silencing your moans by covering your mouth with his he started to trail his steamy lips down your body. Pressing his lips above your belly button then right above where his hand is before coming back up to your lips.

He pulls his fingers out of you quickly before stepping back and shoving his pants to the ground. Your knees almost gave out as you collapsed against the wall due to the after shock of Shawn. He smirked as he saw you struggling to keep yourself up before mumbling, “Jump.”

With all the strength left in your legs, you leaped off of the ground to have Shawn catch your thighs and wrap them around his waist and presses you against the wall. He lifts you by your torso to slide into you. You couldn’t help your eyes rolling into your head and the whimper that leaves your lips as you hear him let out a deep groan.

Filling you to the brim and having his thick muscular body between your legs was a deadly combination. Pushing into you and rocking your two bodies against the wall felt heavenly as he buried his head into your neck to press kisses against your jawline. He rolled his head back and closed his eyes feeling you tighten around him, knowing that you were close.

Picking up the pace and a few more rough thrusts, you finished with his name slipping from your lips, He slowed down and pulled out of you to finish on your stomach with a groan. He looked up at you through his thick lashes before saying, “I’ll go get a towel or something to clean it off, please don’t go anywhere.” He set you feet down on the ground before the heat were his body was left you. You sighed and ran your finger through your hair before walking over to the mirror to examine the damage that this beautiful boy did to you.

Your eyeliner was collected in little flecks and grey lines underneath your eyes due to squeezing and rolling them, you lips looked puffy and bruised and your hair was collected in little knots caused by you sliding up and down the wall of the empty bathroom. Your legs felt like noodles as your muscles struggled to keep you standing and your breathing had only just started to return back to normal.

The squeaking sound of the bathroom door opened as the volume of the club increased then decreased as the door closed. He walked over to your nude body and placed a bottle of water in your hands. You quickly snatched it out of his grasp, assuming the events that were coming next had turned your attitude towards him sour. Your quickly started to pick up your clothing on the ground and proceeded to place them on your body.

“Bye.” was all you said as you walked out of the dirty bathroom with your heels in one hand and the water in the other leaving Shawn stunned in the bathroom. He knew that he shouldn't want to ask you to come back to his place to just talk about random things or ask you if you wanted to get coffee, but he did. And if you would would have stayed he might have had the guts to do so.

[dreaminglee]

Pentagon Hogwarts!AU

Gryffindor :

1. Hui

Sorted to Gryffindor in an instant, all of his family was Gryffindor student as well.

Courage and brave, ready to take a bullet for his friends.

Leader of the famous Frog Choir.

Sometimes reckless.

Well-liked and known by everyone, who doesn’t know the main vocalist-slash-the Leader of Frog Choir?!

Aside from his status in Frog Choir, everyone know him because he’s friendly as well.

Arrogant in terms of his musical prowess.

When you can’t sleep and went down to Common room at night, Hui will be glad to sing you a lullaby.

But also likes to nag at other Gryffindor student about everything. He basically cares for everyone.

The one who organized cool Gryff parties and invited other Houses only to brag. lol 

The one who come with ridiculous dare when playing Truth or Dare.

Also the one who will do any dare thrown at him.

Will start singing We Will Rock You at Quidditch match.

Ofc everyone will follow him.

2. Wooseok

School’s Prankster Mascot.

Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes’ VVVVVIP customer.

Also on Filch’s VVVVVIP detention list.

Dangerously reckless.

Almost fell down from the Owlery just because someone dared him to pet one of the sassiest owl.

Lots of pranks going wrong so he got quite a lot of bruises.

Madam Pomfrey scolded him a lot, but that didn’t stop him.

Gryffindor Quidditch Team’s Keeper

Because... come on, no one fits Keeper more than our Giant Wooseok.

Really use “You will like me because i’m a Keeper.” pick up line.

Surprise, surprise! Slytherin Yuto’s bestfriend!

Hogsmeade weekend trip go to : Spinwitches Sporting Needs. To check on Quidditch gear. Ofc with Yuto too!

In contrast with Jinho, he often mistaken as senior.

His Mom bought him an auto-grown uniform robes from Madam Malkin since he grow like a damn tree.

3. Shinwon

Gryffindor’s Catalogue Model.

Popular because his body proportion.

Kidding. He’s popular because he’s Go Shiwon, everyone loves Go Shiwon.

Surprisingly, member of the Rat Race Club.

One of the Quidditch Commentator Duo.

Extra af.

Lots of unnecessary comments during the match.

And a lot of roasting other Houses too.

“Nice dodge by that giant Gryffindor keeper over there! Really good at dodging Bludgers but unfortunately bad at escaping from Filch!”

“Go Shinwon!”

“Sorry Professor!”

“Back to the game, oh by the way Wooseok I heard you asked that senior from Hufflepuff on a date?”

McGonagall whipped out her wand and cast the mic on silent.

Favorite sweets : Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans.

Favorite Hogsmeade trip : following Yanan to Honeydukes.

Afraid of dogs and werewolf-type animal, nearly fainted when he met Fluffy.

Hufflepuff :

4. Jinho

Hufflepuff’s Head Boy

Hufflepuff’s Sunshine

Frog Choir’s Ex-Leader, left the Choir when appointed as Head Boy, but sometimes joined them on special occasion.

Moved to the Magical Creature Club, can be seen carrying around Bowtruckle on his shoulder.

Really likes Care of Magical Creatures subject, all the creatures loves him! even the Niffler and Hippogriff.

Everyone wants to hug him.

Come on, even when he’s the oldest amongst his friends, he’s still the most adorable.

Lots of first years mistaken him as a fellow first year. (so yeah, imagine their horror-stricken face when Yanan told them that the boy who’d they called by ‘bro’ for the past 1 hour is Jinho, the Head Boy, seventh year, and all that).

But he’s just laughing and told them not to be scared that much, after that, all Puff’s younger student idolized him.

Don’t be fooled by his appearance tho, because he’s really damn scary when mad.

One time Jinho blew up mad in front of lots of kids, even Hui and Hongseok had to drag him out of the room to calm him down.

Everyone got shocked to see him that mad even the younger kids starts crying.

But Jinho will go back to his usual self when the problem got sorted.

The one who will stand by with a glass of warm milk / coffee when everyone get hangover.

5. Yanan

Made in China

“Annyeong Chingudeul”

Loves herbology

Everyone’s friend, greets everyone, no matter what house or which year are they in.

Fat Briar’s bestfriend (?)

Every Hogwart’s Ghosts bestfriend tbh, this kid just love to befriend everyone, even the ghosts!!

Comes from a long line of Old Great Chinese Wizard Family, but no one realize because Yanan is too cotton candy looking to be the heir of ancient wizard family thing.

Don’t be fooled by that face because he won’t hesitate to kick your ass when he is mad.

His favorite part of the weekend Hogsmeade trip : Honeydukes.

From Acid Pops to Wizochoc, this boy right here have tried all of it.

On the top of his list : Fizzing Whizbees and Sugar Quill (because he can chew at it on class).

Treats puff’s younger kids who’s in a bad mood or sad to Honeydukes, sometimes you can see Shinwon by his side for a box of Bertie Bott’s .

Karamela Flume -the owner- sometimes give him bonus sweets, as Yanan is very polite and also bought lots everytime he come.

Favorite subject : Muggle Studies, Potion, and Herbology!

Muggle Studies because he really amazed by how Muggle world works, nowadays he’s fascinated by their cotton candy machine.

Potion and Herbology because his family is famous for their ancient chinese healing magic, Yanan can concocted various healing potions and his love for Herbology clearly helps him when making potions.

Ravenclaw:

6. Hongseok

Smart.

Straight O’s student. 

Instead of helping kids who cannot solve the riddle, he’ll helping them by giving hints.

Likes to have a deep talk with the Eagle Knocker.

Ravenclaw’s famous hot nerd.

But also pretty buff up, working out everytime he’s not studying.

Girls silently died when Hongseok rolled his sleeves just because

Dem muscular arms of him ofc *A*

Awkwardly tried to joked with others but mostly failed.

Very familiar with the kitchen’s house-elves altho he’s not hufflepuffs. It’s because he sometimes come to cook or grabbing snack for his late-night studying.

Good at food related charm. Don’t ask why.

Frog Choir’s fixed member, but he always said that he’s not and only performing because Jinho and Hui asked for his help.

He can see a person’s potential just by talking with him, and he’s a good adviser too.

Great observant. He’s good at sensing everyone’s mood, always know whether you’re in a good/bad mood or have some good/bad news to tell.

7. Kino

Metamorphagus.

Change his hair color on hourly basis, but only his close friends who know the meaning of his hair colors.

Transforms into other Professor to release Wooseok from Filch’s detention.

Only McGonagall and his friends who can tell Kino behind all of his disguise. (yeah, even Flitwick, his own Head house, sometimes got fooled by his ability. But he never gets mad)

Use his abiility to sneak out at night, to find Room of Requirement. (Again, Filch never realized the Flitwick he meet every night is Kino in disguise)

Why Room of Requirement? Boy need to practice his dance every day, and which room can fulfill his need?

The first one who will go whenever McGonagall held the ball dance practice. And he’ll be willing to help teaching the younger kids who can’t.

Needless to say, he and his partner will be the first one to hop on to the center of the hall @ Yule Ball.

Cannot control his appearance when he talk to the girl he likes. His hair color, nose and ear shape will change uncontrollably.

 A really, really sweet kid.

8. E’Dawn

The epitome of eccentric.

Likes to give vague answers to the door knocker. Makes other Claw student groaned because it means it’ll be a long time for them to get in. Also loves to argue with the eagle.

Only his close friends can call him Hyojung.

Can emitted a dolphin-like scream.

But also spitting rap like fire.

Sometimes use rap-rhymes when insulting people.

Throwing aegyos whenever he got the chance. Making people want to coo but also kick him at the same time.

Hardcore deadliner.

Transfiguration test at 11 A.M? This boi will only start studying at 10.45.

But then got the highest mark among his classmates.

Late-night, philosophy-related discussion with Hongseok.

A good listener, when there are other Claw students who can’t sleep or having a problem, he’s beyond ready to lend ears.

Great observant no.2. But different from Hongseok, he’s good at reading situation. Someone joked too far? He’ll steered the conversation so the jokee know that he/she crossed the line. Someone got uncomfortable with the discussion topic? He’ll change it naturaly.

Slytherin

9. Yeo One

Pureblood.

Have two persona. The cold, intimidating Yeo One & Bright, friendly Changgu.

You’ll get Yeo One at the first time you meet him, or if you’ve ever got on his nerves. And also if you insulted, or looking trouble with his friends/loved ones.

But when he trust you to be around him, you’ll see Changgu.

Even though he’s a pureblood, his family is the lenient one, he’s not that judgmental about blood status.

Cunning, good at making people to obey or doing something for him. But not in a bad way.

Slytherin’s Seeker.

Have a big fanbase among the other Quidditch players.

Good at fan service.

Loyal af. But never showed his loyalty in front other people.

Dare him to do something? He’ll do it to prove you wrong.

Girls like it when Yeo One styled his hair up because Yeo Chang Rude. they think he looks hotter with that hairstyle.

Pro at controlling facial expression.

10. Yuto

Transfer student from Mahoutokoro.

Beater in Toyohashi Tengu Junior.

Sorted to Slytherin when he transferred to Hogwarts and naturally scouted to Slytherin’s Quidditch team as Beater.

Have a small group of loyal fans who cheered him every match.

Surprise, surprise pt.2 ! Gryffindor Wooseok’s Bestfriend!

So it all started at 2002 Quidditch World Cup.

Yuto ride his mini broomstick outside his family tent, when he saw a kid taller than him riding his mini broomstick too.

They started a race (cute one ofc) and their family found them so cute, they exchanged addresses.

So Yuto and Wooseok become an Owl-pal and always met on a Global Young Quidditch Player Summer Camp.

Ofc Yuto jumped when an opportunity to be exchange student to Hogwarts come.

lol so done with Yuto-Wooseok backstory ppl.

Yuto is a shy puppy. But his flat expression make people mistake him as a scary, cold, typical Slytherin.

Will start blabbering in Japanese when caught off guard/shy.

But that’s his charm that make girls secretly like him.

A gentleman.

A hard worker.

Even when everyone always told him that he’s the best Beater Slytherin ever had, it didn’t stop him from training every day.

And he never forget to give credit to others.

“Oh no, of course we win because Yeo One Hyung caught the Snitch so quick!”

When Slytherin won a game but he thought that he did bad, he will go to the Training Grounds for another hard training.

A loyal friend, will silently support his friends.

When he smiled, everyone doted him. 

lol finally done with Pentagon Hogwarts!AU *dies* it took me almost 2 weeks because of work, lots of distraction lol, and mainly because I kept adding point to all members lol. I’m sorry if there are members who didn’t get as much background stories as the other :( and if my sorting is different with what you guys had in mind... I planned to make few short scenarios based on this also :> (after I finish one scenario request I got a few days ago omg so happy lol).

Hope you guys enjoy <33333333

[dominodebt]

can’t sleep dump

I can never sleep the night before a new semester, so I dug out some old Overwatch WIPs that I probably won’t finish for something to do. Some of these are real rough (I didn’t really feel like cleaning them up) but it’s all I’ll be able to put up before I get back in the swing of classes.

Reyes wonders if he should knock, then decides fuck it, I’m the Commander, and lightly kicks the door open with the toe of his boot.

           She’s in there—because of course she is—and glances up in alarm at his sudden appearance.

           She looks frazzled—a far cry from the polished and perfectly put-together Mercy that had stood in her Valkyrie suit not six hours earlier, defending Overwatch’s work before a panel of UN ambassadors, flanked on all sides by Morrison, Amari, Reinhardt, Lacriox. And him, of course. He’d stood right fucking beside her, daring any of those self-important suits to try and talk down to her.

           Her suit had shone under the harsh lights of the assembly hall—wings spread wide, halo-shaped headpiece perfectly polished. Her voice had carried strong and clear through the lofty room, staring down the panel without hesitation.

           But now, she’s shed her protective armor, and stands in an old sweatshirt that bears some logo he doesn’t recognize across the front and leggings darkened with what looks suspiciously like bloodstains. Her hair is messily tied back, most of it falling forward into her face, and the dark circles under her eyes contrast sharply with the fairness of her skin and the bright blue of her gaze.

           He arches an eyebrow. “You look like shit, Doc.”

           Her surprise quickly melts to irritation, and he cracks a grin at the scowl she sends him.

           “Thank you, Commander,” she snips back. “Whatever would I do without your stunning insight?”

           He just chuckles at that, shaking his head as he eases into the infirmary, kicking the door shut behind him. She watches him out of the corner of her eye—probably wondering what the fuck he’s doing here without any apparent reason at two in the goddamn morning—but she obviously doesn’t care that much, because she smoothly gives him her back, bending back over her desk to pour over more documents.

           “Doc,” he tries, leaning back against the stainless steel operating table. “Do you know what time it is?”

           “Do not touch that, I just cleaned it,” she orders instead, flipping the page over to read the backside.

           He rolls his eyes—she can see out of the back of her damn head, he’d put money on it—and pushes off the table, standing with crossed arms in the middle of the infirmary.

           “Doc, for fuck’s sake, it’s two in the morning—”

           “So go to bed,” she cuts him off, giving the document a quick sign before picking up another. She glances over her shoulder, quirking an eyebrow. “Träum was schönes.”

            His expression darkens, unimpressed with her tone as she turns back to her paperwork.

           “You know, you could be telling me to rot in hell for all I know.”

           “Perhaps I am.”

           He scoffs under his breath. Typical Angela. Whip smart no matter the hour.

           “How do you say, stop overworking yourself and go the fuck to sleep in German?” he asks, pacing closer to peer over her shoulder. His sharp eyes catch the familiar header of a handful of KIA forms, and his stomach tightens. Goddammit Ange.

           She whirls around, back bumping up against the desk, hands splayed out behind her to cover her work, eyes tired and narrowed and lacking their usual spark.

           “Leave me be,” she tells him somewhat icily. “Please.”

           He wants to call her out on her bullshit—he knows all about trying to stay up past your demons, denying sleep to deny dreams—but he just sighs instead. She doesn’t need a lecture. Not from him, of all people.

           “Anything I can do to help?” he asks instead, dropping his arms as he stands over her. He glances around the infirmary—how she keeps the place absolutely spotless, he’ll never know—looking for something to offer. “I could wipe down that table I clearly contaminated.”

           She cracks a smile at this, reaching up to thread her fingers through her hair and push it out of her eyes. A small sigh escapes her, and her whole thin frame seems to deflate. She’s so small under all that armor. He forgets sometimes.

           “I’m serious, Doc. You look terrible.”

           “I feel worse, if you can believe it,” she murmurs back, looking across the room, eyes glassy and unfocused, hand still tangled in her hair.

           He shifts his weight, wondering what to do. People have always been Jacks’ strong suit.

           But then Ange never really fell into the normal category of people. She was always more of a person—a singular unit that he was more in tune with than anyone else.

(old Mercykill ficlet. it was supposed to be a simple character study but just kept rolling on. no idea where it was headed or what my plan was for it lol)

Amélie awakes with blood in her hair.

           She stirs slowly, allowing herself a brief moment to simply draw in a few breaths as she lies in bed, wondering about the dull ache she’s been feeling in her muscles lately. She shifts, preparing to push herself up, when her right hand knocks against something hard and cold.

           Her eyes snap open as her fingers curl around the sleek handgun she doesn’t remember putting under her pillow.

           Frowning, she sits up, retrieving the weapon and studying it in the pale morning light. It gleams as she turns it end for end and she tries to remember owning it, let alone going to bed with it. An idea occurs to her, and she relaxes, letting her muscles fall where they may. Her fingers immediately find their placement on the grip like she’s been handling weaponry all her life.

           Has she?

           She’s barely given the thought a moment of her time before some sort of mental shield slides into place, snapping her out of her reverie. Her puzzled expression drops into a cool mask of indifference as she sets the handgun on her nightstand, though a tiny voice whispers how strange it is to retain such a closed-off state of being when she’s clearly alone.

           Something else clicks into place. Her thoughts seem to evaporate as haziness settles over her mind like a fog, clouding her reflections.

           Shower. She pushes to her feet. She needs to shower.

           She strides across the floor of her bedroom to the bathroom, bare feet silent against the chilled hardwood floor. Something about this tickles her memory—she remembers laughing with someone, warm arms holding her, a teasing voice threatening to push her out of the cozy bed and onto the freezing hardwood floor. She’d laughed and laughed and held him tightly as she begged him not to—

           “Pitié,” she’d told him breathlessly, tears in her eyes as her laughter filled the room. “Pitié, Gérard!”

           Then, just as suddenly, memories from last night come flooding back to her—

           “Pitié,” the man had begged her, eyes wide and full of fear she he stared up at her. “Pitié, s'il vous plaît!”

           She stumbles into the bathroom on unsteady, unfeeling feet, slamming the door shut behind her.

           Once inside, she allows herself a few uneven breaths, gripping the sink tightly, trying to dispel the thoughts and commit them to memory at the same time.

           Had she been the woman? Had the man been Gérard?

          Which man? There were two in her memories—

          Had she killed him? Had she killed them both?

          Her fingers curl tighter against the marble sink as she fights the safeguards she knows reside in her mind. Slowly—despite her gritted teeth and clenched fists—they slide into place, and there is no sound in the bathroom but her slow, steady breathing.

          She opens her eyes, lowering her gaze in a long-memorized action that saves her from catching a glimpse of her reflection. Still, she can only run for herself for so long, and her expression sours as she studies her hand where it still rests upon the sink.

          The clash of color between her pale blue skin and the stark white marble makes her stomach rolls at the sight.

          Shower, Amélie. Take a goddamn shower.

          So she does, studying the now-familiar sight of blood washing down her drain as she scrubs the stuff out of her dark hair. Her skin is littered with cuts and bruises, and she knows—somewhere, something in her knows—those open wounds should sting under the hot water, but she feels nothing.

          When’s the last time she felt anything?

          The shields snap back. Amélie hastens to turn off the water.

          She dresses swiftly, and feels a fit of nervous energy settle over her as she paces around the apartment that she knows she’s been sleeping in for the past few weeks but has no memory of purchasing or previewing. There’s hardly any furniture and nothing on the walls or shelves.

          What happened to that vase Gérard brought back from Egypt?

          The question draws her up short.

          What vase? What Gérard?

           The door to her apartment suddenly swings open, and Amélie looks up to see another woman calmly stepping inside, closing the door behind her.

           Relief washes over her. This is what she’d been waiting for.

           The relief is tangled with confusion though, because don’t people knock before entering rooms?

           What people?

           Amélie shakes her head as if that will help shake her thoughts as she faces the other woman, who carries a handful of folders and papers.

           “You’re awake,” the woman remarks. Her voice is cold and harsh. It reminds Amélie of the broken glass she’d pulled out of her hair last night.

           She doesn’t answer. The woman doesn’t seem surprised.

           Wordlessly, the woman hands Amélie a photo—clearly taken at a distance and then blown up.

           Wordlessly, Amélie takes it.

           It’s a woman, she notes with disinterest. She’s wearing a doctor’s coat and holds a clipboard to her chest, smiling kindly at someone cropped out of the photo as she reaches out with an extended hand.

           Ocher eyes trace the woman’s figure, analyzing things she doesn’t remember being taught to see.

           Fingers and palm of her right hand slightly calloused, particularly the index—weapon experience.

           Narrow stance and poorly distributed weight—no military history.

           Friendly eyes and an open smile—

           Amélie hesitates. She has no idea what that’s supposed to mean.

           The thought throws her for a loop—she knows what a smile is, doesn’t she?—but the woman is watching her so she boots the mystery from her mind with the help of her ever-present mental buffers.

           “You want her dead?” Amélie asks bluntly. The question feels natural, but tastes oddly in her mouth.

           The woman nods. “Yes.”

           Amélie is suddenly seized with the desire to ask why, but she’s too drawn to the doctor’s expression. She wonders if she was ever that happy.

           She’s pulled back into the memory from earlier—the one with Gérard—and she sets her teeth.

           “Pitié!” she’d cried with delight.

           “Pitié!” the man had begged brokenly.

           A wave of nausea hits her, and she sways where she stands.

           The woman looks up, and Amélie gets the distinct impression she knows exactly what’s going on in her head. Even if Amélie herself hasn’t figured it out yet.

           They stare at each other for a brief moment before Amélie simply hands the photo back.

           “You can handle this, can’t you?” the woman asks.

           Amélie frowns. The statement is harsh—accusatory. Like there’s a reason behind it.

           Her gaze drops back to the photo. The woman’s smile burns a hole in her memory.

           Not even her mental shields can stop the sudden flood of voices.

           “Amélie, Amélie, can you hear me?” a kind voice, the voice an angel would have. Warm and gentle and drowning in concern.

           “Doc, you gotta get back! This place is crawlin’ with Talon—” a thick accent that is for some reason immediately associated with a bizarre belt buckle.

           “Don’t touch me, McCree, that is my wife!” a voice that Amélie knows, but cannot remember why.

           “I said.” Amélie looks up in surprise, having completely forgotten about the woman’s presence. “You can handle this, can’t you?”

           Something washes over Amélie. A blanket, of sorts. It numbs her to the outside world. She’d call it cold, but she doesn’t remember what cold feels like.

           “No one can hide from my sight,” she replies, in that low, dark voice that provokes pleas for mercy.

           A voice she knows is her own, but a voice she doesn’t recognize.

(Old. Very old. I think I have an even older version of this floating around on here. The idea was to follow Amélie as she turns into Widowmaker, but no matter how much I fought with the plot, I could never seem to get it right. A concept I really like but could never execute properly. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.)

Jack is talking, but Gabe isn’t listening.

           It’s kind of a usual thing.

           His trained ears catch on all the important words—fight, wound, emergency, McCree—but other than that, he lets his eyes and mind wander as Jack chatters on. The strike commander is either unaware of Reyes’ lack of attention, or so used to it that he ignores it.

           He gaze sweeps over Ana, talking happily with Reinhardt. As he watches, Ana breaks out in laughter at something the enormous man says, and he cracks a grin. Those two are so obvious sometimes.

           A sharp movement catches his eye, and he frowns, looking over to see a blonde in a perfectly pressed uniform standing alone a few feet away from everyone else, eyes downcast as she fiddles with something on the front of her blazer. A button?

          Reyes tilts his head, frowning as he watches her surreptitiously fumble with the medal pinned off-kilter to her chest. She clearly has no idea what she’s doing and wants no one to know.

           He steps away from Jack—dully aware that the Commander is still talking and this is obnoxiously rude, if not insubordination—and moves towards her, smirking as she continues to fight with the medal.

           “Everything okay, Doc?” he asks, smirking as she starts in surprise.

           She snaps her head up, eyes wide, before they narrow defensively.

           “Yes,” she snarls back. “Thank you very much. Sir.”    

           He laughs at that—he forgot how quickly her temper could flare—and crosses his arms, settling in.

           “Your medal’s fucked up,” he tells her, arching an eyebrow and looking pointedly at said fucked up medal.

           She scowls, blue eyes narrowing behind her platinum blonde bangs.

           “It is not,” she corrects him frostily. “I was just trying to—”

           Reyes sighs, cutting her off. “Valor medals are different than the other ones,” he explains, crossing his arms. “The pin’s sewn into the ribbon on the back, you kinda have to…here—”

          He reaches out, maneuvering the fabric of her uniform and weaving the pin through it quickly. He drops his hands quickly, stepping back.

           “There.” It’s absolutely ridiculous he should feel embarrassed.

           The doctor flushes darkly, looking at the floor. “Thank you,” she murmurs back.

(probably the worst thing I’ve ever posted lol this sucks so bad but in my defense it was like one of the first mercykill things I wrote. whatever. I’m tired and will regret letting the world see this in the morning but for now fuck it.)