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fleetingpieces · 4 years ago

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My One in a Million Chapter 4

Tagging @donttouchmycarrots and @sunflowerfox87 who I still can’t believe wanted to be tagged 🥺

Thank you so much everyone for your support ❤️

And as always, thank you @inloveoknutzy and Nayla for proofreading, you guys are the best ❤️

My One in a Million Masterlist

Chapter 4 - Morning routines

The feeling of the earth on his bare feet. Long nights playing video games with his friends. Streaming for his fans. Slow sunsets and starry nights. Having the gang at his flat all the time. Relaxing bubble baths. Sunday lunch with the Potters. Making the people who doubted him shove their words up their asses.

Those were all things Sirius Black loved.

Having his brother drilling him at 7 am on an otherwise perfect Friday morning was most definitely not one of them. Not at all.

“I told you a thousand times already, and I’ll say it again one last time. I am not. Going. To that stupid. Fucking. Dinner,” he practically yelled over the phone.

There was a tired sigh on the other end of the line.

“Sirius, please. Could you stop thinking only about yourself for once? They want you to come.” A short pause. “I want you to come.”

Sirius grunted lowly, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No, Reg. I gave them too much already. I can’t keep giving them more. I’m sorry.” He hung up before Regulus could get another word in and raked both hands through his hair.

Manipulative pieces of crap. They ‘wanted him to come’? What a fucking pile of shit. They had never wanted him there, they only wanted whatever they could get from him, asking for more, more and more, until they could suck him dry. They wouldn’t even be bothering with him if he was of no use to them.

Saying no to Regulus was the hard part. Knowing they were using him precisely because of this, that Regulus himself was using it against him, was almost like a knife twisting in his gut.

It hurt.

It hurt so fucking much, because Sirius still cared about him. He was still his little brother, despite the decisions they had both taken for their lives. But Regulus didn’t see it that way.

Sirius started pacing up and down his room, rubbing a hand through his face as his other went instinctively to his back pocket to grab a pack of cigarettes. He hated feeling like this, hated the push and pull that came with his family’s relationships; craving the acceptance of his own blood, wanting to be close to his brother, but also feeling like he needed to get as far from them as he could. Why couldn’t they understand he didn’t want anything to do with the company? Heck, he didn’t want anything to do with most of them, he only kept some sort of contact because of Regulus. Even if his brother didn’t really want anything to do with him.

A flash of pain slashed him in the middle of his chest, and Sirius stormed off to the balcony, a fag already between his lips.

Lighting it up felt like lifting some of the weight off his shoulders. He pictured all of his problems in his head and imagined exhaling them with the smoke, drifting away in the morning sky until there was nothing left of them.

Sirius snorted. He wished it was that easy to get rid of all his worries, but his brother’s voice kept whispering in his ears, no matter how many times he watched the smoke dissipate in front of his face, mixing with words that were not Reg’s but still sounded in his voice. Stop thinking about yourself. You’re such a disappointment. We gave you so much, and this is how you repay us? You don’t care about me. You don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care.

“Ugh, fuck,” Sirius grunted as he leaned on the rail and let his head hang low, pressing his forehead against the cold metal.

A low sound reached him through the fog of noises in his head. It was a song he’d never heard before, its rhythm slow and calming, and Sirius tried to focus on that to clear his mind and make the voice shut up.

He raised his head, looking at the place where it was coming from, only to be faced with a sight that almost made him drop his cigarette six floors down.

The new neighbor, Remus, was behind the glass doors of his balcony, standing on top of a yoga mat, wearing a black tank top and a pair of grey shorts that were dangerously hiking up his thighs in the position he was currently in.

His arms were stretched on top of his head, his toned muscles making the veins in his arms pop, and his broad shoulders working with the slow movements he was making. There was such a peaceful air about him. His eyes were closed and the sun was drawing golden lines that flitted through his hair as he bent down at the waist to touch the floor, leaving his back exposed.

The freckles on Remus shoulders disappeared below the t-shirt, and Sirius desperately wanted to know just how far they reached. He swallowed thickly, unable to look away. It was mesmerizing to watch Remus transition between poses, his lithe body flowing like water. He briefly wondered if the man was as pliable in other ways, but when his heart rate started quickening, Sirius decided he should stop being a creep and allow his neighbor the privacy he deserved. Before he could tear his eyes away though, a black shadow darted into the room and tackled Remus to the floor.

Sirius gripped the rail unconsciously before he realised it was just Remus’ dog, and he was left breathless once more at the image in front of him.

Remus was laughing as the dog nudged him with its head, two of its paws pressed over those powerful shoulders as Remus stroked the fur at its sides. The man’s eyes were crinkled, his curls falling onto his forehead in a tawny mess that was so cute Sirius thought he might die.

Seeing him smiling like that, it reminded Sirius of the Halloween party almost a week ago.

At first, he’d been annoyed about Lily bringing Remus and a stranger into his home, but that was mainly ‘cause Sirius had been on edge about the whole family drama. He had been looking forward to a chill night with his friends, and having outsider eyes at that moment felt like something that would have made him step on eggshells all night to avoid revealing his identity.

But Remus had proved to be as interesting as Sirius had thought him to be the first time they talked, always taking him by surprise with his comments and reactions.

Sirius desperately wanted to know where the hell Remus had learned to play like that. It wasn’t every day that he was beaten by someone that didn’t seem to have a lot of time for games, even if he’d been overly distracted by his toned thigh touching his own leg. Yes, Sirius had had a hard time concentrating, but he hadn’t slacked off. Remus was good. And Sirius wanted to know how.

He was intrigued by the man in so many ways, his interest peaking with every new little thing he noticed: the gaming, the yoga, his weird way of thinking -Sirius chuckled when he remembered how Remus had thought he was a fucking drug dealer-, him showing up at a party wearing a jumper that was a few sizes too big for him, looking so impossibly cuddly and warm; his relationship with his dog, his relationship with that Leo guy.

As Remus nuzzled his nose into the dog’s fur, Sirius thought about the rainbow coloured bracelet on Leo’s wrist. He admired the guy for wearing the flag so proudly, just there in plain sight for everyone to see. Sirius wished he could do the same, to stand tall, out in the open. But the consequences for him were way too high.

A small, annoying part of his brain felt the need to remind him that this didn’t mean Remus liked dudes. But Sirius took comfort in the knowledge that, at the very least, it meant that he was ok with it. That he wouldn’t condemn Sirius for it.

Sirius reached for a new cigarette, even if he was already feeling calmer, and put it between his teeth, taking a second before lighting it. While he played with the flame of his lighter, he wondered how Remus knew about Padfoot. Oh, what he wouldn’t do to know that story.

His heart warmed, not for the first time, at how Remus had defended Padfoot so fiercely, having no idea that he was right there; no idea how much his words meant for Sirius. Remus had understood him incredibly thoroughly for someone that didn’t even know who Padfoot was. That he was sitting right next to him. And Sirius wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but he wanted to find out.

It was no surprise that Remus hadn’t recognized his voice, even though he was clearly a fan. Sirius always hid his accent on his videos to conceal any connection to his family, so his parents wouldn’t intervene and ruin everything.

Suddenly, the music drifting from the room next door changed to a more upbeat one. Remus lifted the black dog up in his arms, something that couldn’t be easy given its size, and hugged it as he started twirling around the room, laughing brightly as he did.

He was dancing.

With his dog.

And the face he was making, like the animal meant the world to him... How could someone you barely knew be so fucking endearing?

Sirius was still staring when Remus turned around and lifted his head, his eyes locking with Sirius’. He stopped mid-turn, the smile slipping from his face. Sirius felt a blush prickling at his cheeks at being caught basically ogling him, but he waved with an awkward smile.

His only answer was a scowl, even if from afar he could tell Remus was blushing too. He set the dog down, glaring at Sirius, who let his hand drop slowly as he watched the man close the curtains in a slash.

Sirius hid his face in his hands, feeling the heat radiate from his cheeks. How could he fuck up so much? Remus would think he was a fucking creep now. Dragging his hands down, Sirius knew he would have to genuinely step up his game if he wanted to get to know this man.

In the afternoon, Sirius was still pondering ways to get more acquainted with Remus, and coming back empty handed. He didn’t want to just show up at one of his classes, he lived right next door for fucks sake! He should be able to find a way to start up a conversation with him, right? Although Sirius had to admit, he hadn’t seen much of the guy since he’d moved in. Of course, Sirius hadn’t exactly been in the right state of mind to notice him.

But life seemed to be on his side, at least this once. Because when he stepped into the coffee shop where he was meeting up with James and Lily, the first thing he saw was a head of tawny curls.

Barely keeping in his glee, Sirius walked towards Remus, figuring he could just say hi. He stopped dead in his tracks though, when he was just a few steps behind him and he realized Remus was humming the lyrics of An Open Letter to Myself.

“I love that song,” he said without thinking. The man had a lovely voice, sweet and a bit sad, and it made his curiosity peak again.

Remus jolted and turned around with surprised eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, but as gold met silver, his eyebrows dropped quickly over his eyes. Sirius was taken aback by the clear hostility in Remus’ features, which made him stutter as he cleared his throat.

“Sorry, I... I saw you and thought... I… uhm... should come and say hi? So...hi,” Sirius said and immediately groaned inwardly at his stupidity. Since when was he this clumsy?

“Hello,” Remus said in a polite, detached tone before he turned away.

Sirius took a minute to rearrange his thoughts while he placed his order right after Remus. They got their drinks at the same time, and before Remus could walk away from the shop, Sirius scrambled for something else to say.

“Your dog is beautiful, what’s its name?”

The corner of Remus’ mouth tickled up at the mention of his pet, but it was pushed down almost instantly.

“Cocoa,” he replied reluctantly, and Sirius almost spit his tea.

“Cocoa? That huge ass dog has a cute name like Cocoa?”

Remus rolled his eyes, but he was almost pouting. “I just really like chocolate, ok? Besides, he’s just a pup,” he said as he moved over to add some sugar to his chai latte. Sirius followed.

“A pup?” he said incredulously. “How is that a pup?!”

Remus huffed. “He’s only about two or three years old.”

Sirius stared at him in disbelief. That dog was already past Remus’ knees, and if what he was saying was right, he was probably going to grow some more.

“Did you adopt him?” he asked, tilting his head, thinking about Remus’ choice of words. He was focusing his whole attention on Remus, and that was probably the only reason why he noticed the slight stutter of his hand as he stirred his drink.

“Yeah,” he said in a breath. Sirius thought that would be the end of the conversation, but then -as if he couldn't help himself- Remus added, “he was very young when I found him. He was abandoned and practically left to die; his previous owners must have thought it was too much trouble to raise a wolfdog, and decided to leave him tied up in the woods instead of being decent human beings and finding him an appropriate home.”

There was such disgust in his voice that Sirius took a step back while his heart melted into a puddle. Of course he rescued dogs. Sirius was starting to wonder if this guy was even real. He’d been so thoroughly captivated by him in such a short time, it was a bit scary. Sirius hadn’t felt like this in a very long time. He hadn’t let himself feel like this, it was too risky, and he knew it would be more sensible to leave Remus alone and stay away from him before things got worse, but he had felt drawn to him ever since the Halloween party.

“That’s awful. No one deserves to be treated like that,” he replied softly against his better judgement. If things got worse, he’d deal with that later.

Remus’ head snapped up, and for a moment it looked like he was drowning. Sirius had no idea what had brought that expression to his face, but the only thought in his mind was how desperately he wanted to erase it.

In hopes of doing so, he tried to change the subject to something lighter. “So, you like games, huh? You really did a number on me the other day. When did you start playing?”

The response he got was not what he’d expected. Remus’ expression hardened, and he turned his gaze away as he discarded the used stick with more force than was probably necessary.

“That’s hardly any of your concern, is it?”

Sirius blinked. And then blinked again. Was he still mad at him?

“Look, I’m really sorry about this morning. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything, I just-”

“You really think this is all just about this morning?” Remus snapped.

“What?” Sirius was confused. What had he done? He’d made a little fun of Remus the first time they talked, but it hadn’t been that bad, had it?

“At least you weren’t smoking into my room today,” Remus added with a huff, which made Sirius frown.

He supposed he did smoke quite close to the edge of their balconies, but by the way Remus was talking, he felt like there was more to it. He tried to think of all the interactions they had had so far, but he couldn’t think of anything that would elicit Remus’ anger. His mind drifted to them sitting on his couch with the NHL game, how their shoulders had bumped together playfully, how Remus had even seemed to be comfortable once he got a controller in his hands. It was the only time Remus had acted in a friendly-ish manner towards him, without the scowl that seemed to be permanently weighing down on his brows. But none of his smiles had actually been directed at him, they had all been shared with Leo.

He smiled a lot around the blond, but whenever he was close to Sirius he seemed to be in a bad mood. Sirius hated that.

“What did I do for you to dislike me so much?”

“If you need to ask, it just shows that it’s not even worth answering you.”

Remus turned around and walked briskly to the door, leaving Sirius completely dumbfounded. The door opened just as Remus was reaching for the handle, and he almost bumped into Lily and James, who were coming in. Sirius watched as he nodded at them with a few words, threw one last glare his way, and disappeared in the afternoon sun.

Lily watched him walk away with a confused expression on her face. She glanced at James who just shrugged, and then she looked directly at Sirius with a deep frown. He seemed to be getting a lot of those lately.

“What was that all about?” she asked when they got next to him.

“He hates me, that’s what it was,” Sirius grumbled.

“Why?”

“I don’t know!” Throwing his hands in the air, Sirius stared at Lily like she held all the answers in the world. “He looks at me like I’m the worst person to ever walk the Earth. What did I do to deserve that?”

Lily winced, and Sirius felt his heart freeze where it had melted on the floor.

“Well, apparently, you haven’t been a very good neighbor, have you?” she said gently. Everything started falling into place then, and Sirius suddenly had a pretty good idea what she was talking about. He could be a very self-absorbed prick after a row with his family.

“What can I do?”

“Maybe you should try apologizing first,” she doubted for a second before she kept going. “I’ve heard you broke something important of his on the day you two met.”

“That was him?!” Sirius asked in astonishment, remembering the day he’d knocked someone over in the hall, and ignoring the few heads that turned his way at his raised voice.

“You’re joking, right? You didn’t know?” When Sirius only shook his head, still speechless, Lily stared at him, bewildered. “Sirius, how could you not know?”

“I was so angry at the time Lily, I barely noticed anything I was doing!” Sirius said in a pleading voice. He glanced at James for support, who looked at him in sympathy and understanding. Sirius rubbed a hand over his face. “I just needed to get out of the flat, I couldn’t stand the sight of Reg with his cold eyes and-” Sirius stopped himself, clenching his fists.

It all came back to him. How Regulus had suddenly turned up at his flat, even though he wasn’t supposed to know the address. Even though he hadn’t visited Sirius’ home in five years.

How Reg had looked at him with such clear disappointment, like Sirius was nothing more than a waste of space, and had told him that he was expected to attend the annual Black Enterprises’ gala and fulfill his duty to the family. How he had stated that it was time he stopped acting like a child, with his foolish, selfish dreams, and took his place in the company.

Sirius had never wanted anything to do with the monster corporation that was Black Enterprises. He hated the way they did business and how they treated people, like anyone outside the Black family was trash.

A hand on his shoulder shook him away from his memories before he could spiral down into the hole he’d been in in the weeks before Halloween. Sirius looked up, and found James’ kind hazel eyes.

“It’s ok Pads,” he whispered. “You’re out of there. They have nothing on you, and you owe them absolutely nothing. I’m sure you can fix this.”

Sirius hoped his friend was right.

#My One in a Million #wolfstar #wolfstar fic #remus x sirius #Sirius Black #Remus Lupin #neighbor!au #yoga!remus #remus #sirius orion black

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theodora3022 · 4 years ago

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Crown Jewel

(noun): a particularly valuable or prized possession or asset.

Pairing: Francis Scott Fitzgerald X fem! former assassin reader

Summary: Having betrayed the Order of the Clock Tower and fled to Japan, you hid your ability and worked at the ADA as a secretary for protection. Life was not as good, but you knew what Lady Christie would do if she discovered a traitor’s whereabouts. You knew someone would dig up your old dirt sooner or later, but why does it have to be this arrogant, awful man?

Notes: This is really self-indulgent (to satiate my cravings and daddy issues), so read it at your own risk. I am not comfortable with cheating, so Francis is single in this one and never went bankrupt.(But he is still a family man, his wife Zelda passed away before the events in the show) He is an arrogant bastard in canon so you might find his behaviour offensive but that is just how he is. Excuse my pathetic Canadian English, as I cannot write in British English at all. This fic took me too many hours to write, thankfully it is finally done...

Special thanks to my friends for beta reading this long thing, your encouragement and praises are what kept my fragile sanity intact in the process!

Word count: 4.2k

Warnings: Mild bimbofication, mild objectification, coercion, implied dub-con(We all know what happens in marriages right?), Yandere themes

She was beautiful, but not like those girls in the magazines.

She was beautiful for the way she thought.

She was beautiful, for the sparkle in her eyes when she talked about something she loved.

She was beautiful, for her ability to make other people smile, even if she was sad.

No, she wasn’t beautiful for something as temporary as her looks.

She was beautiful, deep down to her soul.

-F.Scott Fitzgerald

The entire Fitzgerald Estate is finely, thoughtfully decorated, lavish even. Like photographs right out of a luxurious architecture magazine, with marble floors, persian carpets and high raised ceilings. A manor that sits on the top of a little hill, surrounded by trees and flowerbeds. But no matter how beautiful it may be, no one can never feel quite at home in prison. You thought as you lean back on the living room sofa near the patio, slowly dozing off in the afternoon sunlight with a half-read novel on your lap. Maybe you would go for a swim later, you could use a soak before he returns.

It’s easy to forget how much blood is on your hands in peaceful times like these. Ever since he made you dispose of your count book, you can barely remember how many people you had slaughtered.

Your hands were once covered with callouses from hours of training, but now they are as smooth as the velvet curtains. The glow from the big diamond ring on your ring finger irritates you so very often, but he had warned you not to take it off.

“Lady Fitzgerald? Mrs. Smith is here for your fitting session.” It is one of the maids. Ah, is the tailor here already? You put up a smile for the guest and got up, silently cursing your “husband” in the process. Good thing he is at work most of the time, so you can at least enjoy this glamorous life every once in a while without wanting to bury yourself in a bottomless pit.

Another week, another one of those frivolous social events. But you have no choice but to accompany him to every single one of them. While acting as the leader of the Guild, Francis is also the head of the Fitzgerald cooperation, therefore this high society life has always been the norm for him. You, on the other hand, prefer lurking in the shades. All these shimmering lights, noisy parties, fancy dresses and high heels leave you either dazzled or vulnerable. You feel more like his nice accessory, a Christmas bauble than a wife. However, you know your obligations. Be his arm candy, smile, be obedient and not to speak unless spoken to. The alternative of obeying these absurdities is simply unthinkable. Merely the thought can make you feel chills on this warm summer afternoon.

It’s either this or absolute hell. No, that is not an exaggeration.

As an experienced assassin, you had prepared for death since you first signed up for the position. However, no one can bear the Order’s punishments. You know that too well, having witnessed it first-hand countless times.

At least you can live a carefree life with this option. With infuriating restrictions or not, you are still alive and maintain a certain degree of freedom. You should take this compared to an excruciating death any day. Plus you also get to live in extravagance, you cannot hate that for one bit. This rich man has spoiled you to no end, willing to fulfill even your most absurd requests as long as you are his darling wife. Let it be cars, clothes or jewelries, whatever you wish for, Francis would always make sure you got the finest of them. Not that is ever possible, but you could...get used to this.

However, you utterly despise this title, Lady Fitzgerald? No matter how much he pampers you or showers you with gifts, it would never make up for the fact that you only signed that marriage license under certain conditions. There are those sleepless nights, while you lay under silk quilts in his embrace in some exquisite mansion, you wish you were back in your humble Yokohama flat alone.

---a few months ago

Almost spilling your morning beverage due to running into one of your coworkers at the door, is surely a bad omen, but at the time you did not give it much thought. “Sorry, (y/n)-san. But there is an emergency.” Kirako Haruno?

Work has only just begun, and to your knowledge, there are no major events scheduled for today. Why is she in such a hurry?

Haruno is as terrified as if she just saw a bear in the middle of the street. Strange, since she is usually calm and collected.

“What has happened? Are you okay?”

“There are foreigners here, they are demanding an audience with the president. (y/n)-san, you can handle them, right? Please, keep them occupied while I notify the president.” Looks like this is your problem now since you speak better English compared to any other in the ADA.

She said it quickly without any pause. Also walked away before you had a chance to refuse, so Haruno missed how the colours suddenly drained from your visage and your horrid expression.

Oh, dear. Please do not let the foreigners be them… Although not many members of the Order recognizes you as you always don masks even at meetings, you still feel the world may have ended for you, as you wobble out of the office to the reception area with cold sweat. If Haruno had not hurried off, you would have found some excuse to get away from this troublesome situation. You should have called in sick today...

Are they speaking with American accents? Good gracious, you almost had a heart attack over this. You dealt with the Guild before, back when you were still in the Order when you still viewed Lady Christie as your older sister. She used to take you to negotiations meetings. You know how they are, so it should be a cakewalk to keep them occupied for at least a while. But...what if they identify you and report your whereabouts to the Order?! Would they be willing to do Christie this “favour”? The last time you checked, the two organizations were not on exactly friendly terms. So you should be fine as long as you act accordingly. Besides, the agency would not allow foreigners to harm one of their office clerks, precisely why you applied for a job ADA a year-and-a-half ago.

Get your act together, (y/n). Being this panicked is beneath you, everything will be alright as long as you conceal your fears.

Finishing on your diplomatic front preparation, you greet them with a professional attitude. “Welcome to the Armed Detective Agency, ladies and gentlemen of the Guild.” You try to talk in the calmest tone possible, without stutters. “Now if you would follow me, I shall prepare you some tea. The President will be ready for you shortly.” Now that you have a chance to observe them up close, you had to dig your nails into your palms, pressuring yourself to maintain composure. Why is the leader of the Guild here?! You had seen him before, there is no way you could mistake that arrogant blonde for anyone else. Even though you are pretty confident he would scarcely recognize you without a mask, that tiny possibility feels like a sharp blade pressing against your throat, ready to strike anytime.

Fitzgerald was not expecting someone who speaks flawless English to receive them. Not someone this cute, too. And here he thought this is just going to be like any other boring business discussion. But he cannot shake off this feeling of how he had seen your enchanting smile somewhere before. It was not easy to leave even a vague impression on the great Francis Scotts Fitzgerald, you must have been someone important. A business partner? A Government Official? Or perhaps a Socialite? You are someone with a high position, that he can be sure. But why would you Oh how he hates having blurry memories of something. As soon as he returns to the Guild base, Francis needs to look into their Database immediately.

“Earl Grey, imported from England. Would you like some refreshments as well?” Taking out a can of cream biscuits from your desk drawer, you are glad to see the redhead young girl nodding excitedly. You return a genuine smile to her before bending down to fetch the plate. You were not sure if you were just being oversensitive, but you felt a burning gaze on your back when you turned. Your assassin instincts were almost always accurate, could it be that Fitzgerald had remembered something?

“Is there something wrong, Miss? You are sweating so much.” You do appreciate the ginger girl’s kind words, but could she not say it out loud for her boss to hear? You were planning on keeping your panics to yourself. Moving unnoticeable further away from the Guild leader, you gulped nervously.

“My apologies. I am not feeling well this morning. Now, here’s your biscuits.”

“Aren’t they called cookies? They are truly delicious, thank you so much, Miss. I’m Lucy by the way.”

“In England, we call them biscuits. Would you like some more, Lucy? I have more if you’ll like it.” Her cheerful nature reminds you of a little sister, how could you say no to her pleading eyes. Unfortunately, this also made you forget how you are trying to remain incognito, and you let your hidden past out unintentionally.

England? That certainly rings a bell for the bright mind of Francis Fitzgerald. And no, he was not eavesdropping. You are talking to his employee, after all. Francis even forgot to scold Lucy about being a demanding guest on cookies because he was so deep in thought, searching for any clue of who you might be. He was about to recall something when you received the president’s notice about the meeting. “The President is ready now, this way please.”

After they entered the office, you realized how you had accidentally exposed yourself while explaining about biscuits. No, now all you can do is pray Fitzgerald was not listening in to that whimsical tea-time conversation. Your stomach suddenly feels queasy, a sign that maybe you should request to go home early. You surely do not want to face those calculating blue eyes again. Heck, you never trembled this badly, not even before the toughest missions.

He was planning on asking you some questions after that unsuccessful negotiation, but it would seem like you had taken a sick leave early.

You seem to be rather nervous around him. Suspicious.

Yet Francis cannot stop thinking about how you cared for Lucy. That consideration, if his little daughter is still around, she is bound to love you… It could just be professional kindness, but Francis had seen enough people to tell what is a facade or not. Zelda was like this too, in fact, it’s this admirable quality that had drawn him in the first place.

The great Fitzgerald had seen so many beautiful women, but your unparalleled warmth and grace outshine all appearances.

Wait, Francis had finally cleared the fog now. Aren’t you that girl with Agatha Christie, the head knight of the Order of the Clock Tower? No wonder you speak of England. He was so shocked when Christie introduced you as one of her finest knights. You were so friendly and lighthearted, how can you be that notorious master Assassin? It does not matter whether you had a mask on or not, he remembers those lovely (colour) eyes too well. He had found you to be alluring back then, but at that time he was too busy to concern himself with amorous feelings. Going through the guild files, he found that statement from Christie about how you had defected from the Order and a bounty for your whereabouts.

So, you are hiding from your former Organization? That is unfortunate. Francis had heard a word or two about how the Order is feared for its gruesome torture methods, how they still implement the old ways without mercy. You would rather work as a low-wage secretary then continue being one of their most esteemed Knights, something must have gone terribly wrong.

This is the perfect wager to let you, a kind, independent strong woman, bend to his will.

Now that he had thought about it, coming back home to a loving wife once again sounds more than wonderful. Having someone by his side forever, to love, to spoil, to have a family with had always been what he wanted. But fate has been cruel to Francis on this matter and had taken them away way too soon.

This time, he would make sure to do it right. Francis is determined not to let the tragedy repeat itself.

You were surprised by that clearly expensive gift box on your desk the next day you arrived at work. There is a letter attached to it? Your heart dropped when you saw the Guild's emblem embedded on the wax seal. What could they possibly want from you apart from...that?

“Dear Ms(y/n), Sir Francis S FitzGerald would like you to join him for dinner at (location). Please put on the dress in the box attached and be at (location) at seven p.m sharp.”

What a condescending letter. Not even a polite invitation, just saying he wants you there? You knew how this Fitzgerald is, that arrogant and greedy type, who would value money above conscience. Well, you still got some savings left, if that could shut him up you would not mind emptying your pockets.

You can never let her find you. Suicide before she did is a possible option, but you decided to save that as the last resort.

That is why you decided to put on that dress and go to meet him at this high-end western restaurant.

The hem of the dress is too short for your likings, but its sublime texture made you presume it costs a fortune. You cannot even recall when was the last time you had don such fine material. Life as a Knight major feels nothing more than a fever dream when Agatha was still your friend, your dear Commander.

What is Fitzgerlad’s intention of giving you such a scandalous dress? Is this some peculiar way to humiliate you? This is why you are better off acting as the blade, never as the tactician. Mind games were never your forte.

You are wearing that dress as Francis asked, good. He knew you would look gorgeous in it. It’s such a shame you always covered yourself up. Why wear those cheap, conservative trash when you can wear this?

Someone like you needs to be cherished, to be coddled. You do not belong in the shades or some little office.

“Mr. Fitzgerald. How may I help you today?” God, you feel almost naked in this piece of cloth, but you know you had to grin and bear it as he has the upper hand for now. “If this is about that business permit, I am not the one to make decisions.”

“Why, you are not going to thank me for the dress? You look absolutely breathtaking if you are wondering.” Crap, he is wearing a suit of a matching colour. Has he done this on purpose?

You blush a bit at Francis’s generous compliment, but you did not foreget why you are here.

“Please, do sit. And call me Francis, Miss.” Pulling the chair out for you, Francis smiled politely before signalling the waiters to bring out the appetizers. He is acting way too nice if all he wants is blackmailing you. You were expecting a simple, cold business trade, not...whatever this can be called.

“So, how is Lady Christie doing?” You put down the wine glass, sensing his malicious intent and narrowing your eyes. Of course, he knows, you should have expected this much from the leader of the Guild and an accomplished businessman. Lady Christie must have sent out wanted advertisements, too.

“If you know this much then you must know I am not a part of the Order anymore.” Just name the price already, then you can both go back to your respective businesses and forget your paths ever crossed.

Clever one, although Francis would expect anything less from someone like you. Not just anyone could be the Knight major of that Order after all. You sighed with frustration, clearly wanting to get this over with. “How much do you need? I still have a decent sum in my bank account.” It would probably be a large price, coming from this greedy man, but you are willing to pay for it as long as he stays silent.

You, trying to bribe him? How adorable. You must have been incredibly oblivious to not notice his intentions. Yes, normally a good check would silence Francis, but can’t you see he is not after your money here?

Instead of taking the pen, Francis shoved his smartphone in front of your face.

You turn paler when you figure out the contents. It was an email draft, a draft intended for your former Commander. It tells how the Guild is doing her a big favour by returning her astray Knight major to her proper place. Did he type out an email already? You can already feel those cold dungeon bars on your skin.

“Is money not enough? What exactly do you need?” Calm down, (y/n). If Francis did not send that email, it means negotiation is still possible. Just give him what he needs and be done with it.

To your shock, the blonde smiled smugly and said: “I want you to join the Guild.”

Join the Guild? “As an assassin?” Of course, he is after your ability. It was what made you a high ranking knight, no wonder he would want that for his organization.

“Not exactly. You see, I’m looking for a...personal bodyguard.” Hm, Francis is fond of the word “personal” in this context, it makes him feel like you are one of his possessions already.

“If you have any knowledge about my ability at all, you should know I am no good for frontal combat. With your status, fitting individuals would come running.” Is he toying with you? How despicable. Only a dastard would toy with someone’s mind, especially someone desperate.

Carefully taking your hand into his, feeling your soft skin and those light calluses on your fingers, Francis knows he has to do this the blunt way. You are such a fool when it comes to romantic relationships.

“Be my wife, you don’t need to worry about being discovered ever again. Christie cannot touch you as long as you are by my side. You can have whatever you want, just say the word. ”

This has to be a hallucination. Be his...wife? “Mr. Fitzgerald, have you got hit on the head earlier?” Feeling his forehead with the back of your hand: “You do not seem to have a fever. Are you feeling unwell?” Is he out of his mind? You, his wife? You are a dangerous assassin with a high headcount, not exactly wife material. No one sane wishes to be involved with you romantically, or so you thought.

He was not expecting such an eccentric reaction. Most women would be over the moon with the mere thought of becoming his mistress, not to mention an actual wife. Francis knows you are different, but this is out of his wildest predictions.

You are even harder to predict than the stock market of New York.

“This is a serious offer, love. Do you take my words as some jester’s joke?” He is not joking? Oh dear, you don’t want to marry this man. He did not even properly court you? And it is not like he is giving you a real choice either.

“What, are you going to refuse? That is fine, surely this email could bring a smile to Christie's face.” “No, please don’t send that email!”The way your pupils shrink suddenly gives him heartaches, but this is the necessary measure to make sure you are compliant. Francis had promised to spoil you, but sadly this is not a matter he can compromise with. He could make it up with gifts and attention later right? This life in exile is not fitting for a lady like you, so why don’t you let him take care of you? Don’t you understand what could happen to you had he not intervened?

That trembling little nod is all Francis needs for confirmation. As he brings your hand to his lips for a gentle kiss, he swore silently to himself how he would never repeat his previous mistakes.

“Now, let us go ring shopping. Pick the biggest diamond one if you like, but make sure to select it out with a matching one.”

----Back to present

After the fitting appointment, you decided to spend the rest of the afternoon with some confectionary practices. You remember well how Francis’s face would lit up like a Christmas tree if he comes home to the smell of your bakings. It disgusts you how much he loves your docile mask, how you are his perfect housewife, his Mrs. Fitzgerald. This bastard do take pleasure in others pain.

Still, you must keep your “husband” happy. Humming your favourite melody in a pink apron, you try to imagine you are just doing this for only your own amusement, in your own house to make this more bearable.

Baking is one of the many hobbies you picked up after becoming Lady Fitzgerald. You could not work, neither as an assassin nor a secretary, as he is concerned about your “safety”: “Why should my lovely wife trouble herself with those headaches? You should spend your day doing whatever interests you, like painting or knitting! Tell me anytime if you need tutors.” Then Francis gave your head a few pats as if you are some cute puppy? You can never count how many screws he got loose.

What interests you? Well, stabbing Francis in his sleep could hardly count as a suitable hobby. Guess you’ll have to think of other ways to utilize those kitchen knives. Since he forbids you to train with weapons, you are stuck with those pathetic feminine leisure activities.

Placing the tray onto the preheated oven rack, you were cleaning up the mess from the process when two strong arms abruptly wrapped around your waist from behind. You knew exactly who it is since you had sensed his presence when he first set a foot into this ridiculously large kitchen. You also had to take deep breaths, reminding yourself why you shouldn’t just aim your fists at Francis’s nose then and there. These past few months with him had raised your resilience to an incredible level, you could tolerate his demanding physical affections without the urge to jump off a cliff now.

Curling your lips upwards, you push yourself to leave a light peck on the tall blonde man’s left cheek. That is mandatory, you had learned that on the first day here. “You’re home early.” The way you say those words is so sweet, even sweeter than those sugary treats in the oven. Even though you have to be careful, not letting the venom underneath slip out.

This is what Francis S. Fitzgerald longs to come home to, the love of his life after a day of gruelling meetings and other work. Once a renowned assassin, a second-in-command Knight in a Prestigious Royal Order, but now you are just his little housewife. He could never find a shinier trophy to demonstrate his power and influence. The haughty Blonde knows you have not entirely given up on the idea of escaping, still holding a grudge towards him, time will tell whether you accept your place or not. But that does not matter now, right now the Guild leader just wants to watch some brainless tv show on the sofa, with you on his lap to unwind, some Bordeaux would be nice too. He could handle all those business meetings if that means holding you to sleep every night. The sight of your smile makes it all worth it.

You belong to him now, his most prized possession, the crown jewel of Francis Fitzgerald’s collection.

And you have no say in the matter as long as you wish to stay in the land of the living.

It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving,

But like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.

-F.Scott Fitzgerald

(Hey! Thank you for reading! Commetns and reblogs would be greately appreciated!)

#bsd #bsd francis fitzgerald #yandere bsd #yandere francis fizgerald #the guild bsd #bsd the guild #bsd fanfic #yancore #yandere x you

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mae-gi-writes · 4 years ago

Text

The Fine Line | Juyeon (The Boyz Imagine)

Requested! Prince Juyeon! au x Royal Guard! Reader.

In which you’re stuck with the most disorderly prince of Nuine, Juyeon.

To anon: this fic took me so long to write and I am so sorry for being so late. BUT i hope that you like the end result and that I made your idea justice! Please do let me know :) <3 Stay safe and stay healthy <3 xx Thanks so much for requesting!

Genre: fluff, crack-ish? Just all the good stuff.

---------

"Your Highness ,no."

"Come on Y/N, don't you want to try a teeny tiny piece?"

"I said no."

"Ah come on! It's just a bite!"

"No."

Juyeon finally threw both hands in the air with exaggerated exasperation, "you're really no fun."

"I'm not on duty to have fun, if I might remind you," Y/N snapped, barely keeping hold of her neutral facade when the prince kept acting in such a foolish manner, definitely not like how royalty should behave and yet, the king had stuck her with their youngest son, Juyeon, who knew nothing of royal pride nor did he care about where his family came from.

That wasn't what unnerved her though. What did was the fact that Juyeon thought he was free to do as he pleased, whenever he pleased, and it didn't matter whether he was prince or not. That, in itself, was a motto than did not run smoothly in Y/N's mind.

She was a proud soldier, one that had climbed through the ranks at lightning speed because of her amazing dexterity and talent in wielding weapons as though they were water and she was mother nature.

But she hadn't signed up for this, a.k.a babysitting the most irresponsible royal family member of Nuine.

Except -- she kinda liked him.

And not just as a friend, or a mere man.

She really liked him, and that only fuelled her hatred. Why would she like such an incompetent man in the first place? It must be the hormones! At least, that was what she had come to the conclusion, before realizing that there was much more to this little crush than she thought there was.

Juyeon sat on the ground of the royal garden, legs crossed as he observed her with alert eyes, "do you ever smile?"

Y/N didn't bother answering him. Though she had a huge urge to just roll her eyes.

"I don't get it. You were so happy and nice when we were young," his orbs were calculating, deep with thought as he surveyed her as though she was a book he couldn't quite decipher, "what happened to you?"

"Life happened. Not everyone gets to spend their days doing nothing like you."

The heat of his gaze did nothing to help, and she found strength in her feet to stop herself from squirming.

Leaning forward to rest his elbows on his crossed knees, the prince tilted his head in curiosity, no trace of offence whatsoever on his face despite her harsh reply.

"What?" She barked.

“Did I do something to you?”

“Huh?”

Juyeon tilted his head to the other side, “what did I do for you to be so pissed that you have this permanent grudge against me?”

“I don’t have a grudge,” she huffed.

“Okay so, why then?”

"Just because, Juyeon. Not everything I do needs to have a reason.”

He puffed up his cheeks like a blowfish, “Jeez, you’re really mean Y/N. I just wanted to be friendly, make conversation you know?”

It might have been true that during their childhood, Y/N and Juyeon had been very close, practically attached at the hip even. Because of her father being appointed head of the Royal Guards serving the Majesty of Nuine, Y/N was always around roaming the halls and lifting weapons much too heavy for her spaghetti arms. But her interest had been there since her young age, her passion for fighting and the natural talent that came with weapon wielding a skill that her family had recognized very early on.

So it was no surprise that she got enrolled in the nearest soldier academy despite her mother’s protests, following right into her father’s footsteps and gladly acing all midterm tests with flying colours.

Everything changed one dark night, when her father died.

After that, Y/N had never really been the same. Did she blame the Royal Family for his death? Not really, it was in their job description after all.

But did she resent Juyeon for having lived a sheltered life all his life? Maybe so.

It was selfish of her. Though, it wasn’t like she could control herself.

A few days later found the pair in the middle of Nuine's street food market, with Juyeon craning his neck in curiosity over the multitudes of heads inclined towards a stall in particular.

Y/N tugged on his shirt sleeve, "your majesty, I think we should go."

"Oh but wait, this is the best part," Juyeon insisted without peeling his eyes away from the said cook behind the stall. As if on cue, the cook flipped what seemed to be an omelette pancake in the air.

The crowd gasped as the pancake flipped twice on itself, before landing securely on an already-prepared plate.

"Wow!" People burst into applause almost immediately while the chef bowed and extended the pancake to his most recent order.

"Alright," Y/N was already turning, one hand gripping Juyeon's arm in warning, "we've seen enough--"

She was tugged back instead as the prince moved forward until he reached the front of the stall, a crooked grin dancing across his lips as he peered at the cook from underneath his cloak.

"Can I have an omelette please?" Juyeon asked while ignoring the dagger eyes coming from Y/N's direction.

"Tomatoes? Olives? Onions? Ham?" As the cook listed all his ingredients, Juyeon merely nodded along and Y/N let out a trepid sigh. Her foot started tapping on the ground, impatient.

"Juyeon, you know what your mother said about--"

"Oh it's fine, Y/N. Live a little."

"But--"

"If anything happens -- and it won't," he hurriedly added as she opened her mouth to protest, "then I'll take full responsibility."

"And I will lose my job," she couldn't help but mutter under her breath.

------

And of course, considering Juyeon's luck, something was bound to happen.

It was only mid-afternoon -- a few hours after they had returned to the Kingdom, that the prince doubled over due to a stomach ache, coiling so bad that sweat broke over his forehead and his mouth was a tense, thin line of pain.

"I told you so," Y/N tutted while helping him maneuver his way into the bathroom, head practically buried into her neck as he groaned in pain.

"Y/N really? Right now?" he all but groaned against her.

She was about to find a snarky comeback, only for the prince to lurch himself straight at the toilet bowl. Disgusting noises echoed through the room and Y/N turned away from the scene briefly, her own stomach twisting into tight knots.

Y/N was strong, yes. But have someone throw up in front of her? Even smelling that? No way. She could live without that.

When he was done heaving twice more, now sprawled across the toilet bowl as though it was the only thing keeping him grounded, Y/N crossed her arms over her chest as she judged him with a smug look.

“See, this would never have happened if you had only listened--”

Juyeon held up a hand, silencing her, “not now, please.”

He really did look awful. His usually tan skin was the colour of chalk, fingers holding so tightly over the toilet lid that his knuckles flushed white. As he tried lifting himself from his position, his knees buckled and he would’ve face planted on the ground if not for Y/N’s arms quickly holding him up against her.

Silently, she moved him back to his bedroom before tucking him underneath his covers, all the while avoiding his gaze that seemed to poke through her countenance with an emotion she couldn’t quite explain.

And then, came the tiniest murmur, “sorry.”

Y/N paused for a moment. Her eyes fluttered to his face.

Juyeon gazed back, hooded eyes seemingly genuine to apologize, “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

She quickly swallowed, “it’s fine.”

There was a soft pause in which Juyeon’s heavy breaths filled the air. It was suddenly warm in his room, maybe because the thick curtains were now drawn against the slow-setting sunset off the coast of Nuine’s edge, the light a vibrant golden slithering through the wine-coloured drapes. Feeling suddenly vulnerable and out of place, Y/N stood up from her crouching position at his side, causing the man’s eyes to flutter up at her movement.

“Where are you going?” He asked as she made to move towards the door. When she glanced back, she couldn’t help but notice the confusion on his face as he blinked up at her like an over-sized man child.

“I thought you’d like to rest, your Highness,” she replied stiffly.

Another pause.

Then, in the smallest voice possible, Juyeon mumbled out:

“Could you--stay? With me?”

She blinked, “stay? With--”

And then the words made sense in her head.

“Uh--” her cheeks coloured instantly at the thought of being so close to a man. Or maybe it was because it was Juyeon, or it was the heat! Right! Totally made sense that it was the heat. Her mouth moved before her brain did: “Sure.”

What in the name of Nuine are you doing? Her brain screamed at her the moment she sat herself down on the bed’s edge, Juyeon’s body instantly curling up against hers with his head resting upon her lap as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Uhm--” Y/N’s brain blanked out at the warmth of Juyeon’s head against her thigh, “what are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” as he spoke, his breath washed against her legs and goosebumps suddenly erupted along the skin there. She shifted uneasily, trying to force herself to stay still despite the fact that there was a full grown man lying down on her like a cat in need of affection.

“Can you pet me?”

His question threw her off guard. She blinked down at him, at the way his eyelashes were casting dark shadows over his cheeks, “What?”

“My mom used to pet me whenever I was sick,” he murmured, one of his hands grabbing her own before placing it atop his own tuft of hair, “it used to calm me down, make me go sleep.”

“I’m your guard, Juyeon. Not your personal maid.”

He let out a long sigh, then dropped her hand, “Fine then.”

The silence that followed felt so thick and coated with an awkward kind of tension that she knew, without reading Juyeon’s expression, that he was currently mad at her. Trust him to be a little brat about it. Usually, Y/N wouldn’t even spare him a second glance. That kind of behaviour was one of a five year old child, one that she wasn’t going to tolerate.

But maybe it was the fact that he was being so dependent, maybe it was the closeness of their two physical bodies and the lack of distance between them. In any case, her heart melted slightly when she felt him shift in her lap and before she knew it, her hand had moved on its own to caress down the side of his skull.

The sight that left Juyeon’s mouth was laden with such satisfaction that it sent shivers running up her spine. He proceeded to nuzzle his nose right into her thighs, causing her to yelp slightly.

His head snapped up, “what?”

She recovered quickly though, snapping, “I want to make myself clear, Juyeon. I am not, and will not be, some kind of mistress that you bring to your quarters whenever you feel like it. I’m your Royal Guard.”

“Jesus Y/N,” the prince turned so that he was facing upwards, gaze landing right onto hers without flinching, “Is that the image you have of me? That I take advantage of everything that moves?”

Suddenly embarrassed, she cleared her throat, “That’s not what I said. I just wanted to let you know.”

“I know you’re not.”

“Okay good. Just so that I make myself clear on where I stand.”

“I wish you didn’t though,” his murmur was a low one, but still one that reached her ears and prompted her to ask, “What do you mean by that?”

Her question was only met with stubborn silence, which made sense, as she might see how Juyeon might have taken this as an offensive use of words. But she’d never been one to beat around the bush and had always been passive aggressive whenever Juyeon was concerned.

Once, she thought that she actually liked him.

And maybe she had. But instead of falling straight into that pool of romantic feeling, Y/N had just brushed it aside, already deciding for herself that it was never going to happen and that she shouldn’t keep her hopes up.

That was, in part, why she was used to being so cold and distant.

It was the only way she could protect herself, make the prince hate her.

She was about to let it go and change the subject, when his words pierced through the air like needles, “what is it about me that you can’t stand?”

Her hand froze in mid-stroke, still entangled in his dark locks.

His gaze was so intense she felt him burn holes through her skull.

Y/N cleared her throat. Looked away.

“I--I don’t hate you,” she finally managed to whisper.

“I know you don’t,” Juyeon’s dark eyes were still surveying her every movement, “but can you be honest with me? What is it with me that you can’t stand? It’s almost like--I don’t know. You don’t even look at me when we talk. You barely acknowledge me sometimes, and you never try. With my brothers it’s like--it’s like you’re this completely different person. You talk to them, you laugh. Why don’t we have that? What did I do Y/N?”

“You did nothing.”

“If I did nothing, then why aren’t you looking at me?”

It feels all too real suddenly; the heat radiating from Juyeon’s body, the intense emotion swimming through his dark brown swirls even though she couldn’t muster the courage to actually lock gazes with him, and the weight of his head on her lap as though they were blissfully in love and comfortable in each other’s presence.

Her eyes quickly flitted to the golden descending rays dancing along the curtains, anything to keep her away from his probing stare, “I...”

“What?” Juyeon pressed on, “tell me.”

Pressing her lips into a thin line, she kept quiet.

“Okay,” Juyeon sighed once more. Then without warning, he hoisted himself up before his face suddenly zoomed in on hers, so close that she couldn’t help but fall back against the headboard as he dipped his head down so that it was level with hers.

Her heart speeding up, Y/N tried not to focus on the lack of distance between them. Though that was quite a hard feat, considering he was everywhere she looked.

Sitting there in Juyeon’s bed, with him trapping her from any sort of escape felt as though she was on the brink of a cliff being pressured to jump when she clearly had no intention to. But when she opened her mouth to protest, Juyeon’s eyes snapped up to hers in a way that told her words weren’t going to work, not anytime soon.

She swallowed thickly.

“It wouldn’t have bothered me if it was anyone else,” once he started, it was almost like the flow of words were suddenly too much for him to keep in. He kept on going, voice closing up with emotion, “but it’s you, Y/N. No matter how much I try not to think about it...I do. A lot. And I--I hate it, the way you don’t even seem to acknowledge my existence. I just--I just want to get along with you because I--”

Before she knew what she was doing, one of her hands had shot out to yank his shirt, with him toppling over before she landed a kiss smack on his lips.

Juyeon stared, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights, jaw slack in naked surprise.

“Wh--What was that?” he stuttered, a red blushing mess that she would’ve made fun of, if she hadn’t been trying to stop herself from being just as red as he was.

“Look Juyeon, I might hold some feelings for you,” Y/N said it outright though her cheeks were flaming ablaze with heat, “but I just hated you so much, after my dad died. I--I couldn’t look at you without thinking of his death and I tried really hard to loathe your guts. But then...” she shook her head, bit down onto her bottom lip as she chewed on the words that were about to fall from her mouth, “but then, I just--couldn’t. Hate you, I mean.”

“S-So you--you’re telling me that you-- that you might -- that--” he was gesturing so wildly she thought he might faint from shock. Breathing out softly and pinching the bridge of his nose, he closed his eyes shut for a moment, as if to regain his balance. Then, he opened them once more, “you like me. But you hate me.”

“Tried to,” she corrected him.

“That--That doesn’t make any sense, Y/N.”

“Yes it does! I liked you, then I hated you. And then I hated that I liked you because I just couldn’t hate you--” His hands were suddenly at her hips, “Enough talk,” and no sooner had she tried figuring out what that meant that the young man was dragging her over to his lap before his mouth pressed down onto hers in a passionate kiss.

Y/N tensed for a few seconds, before her body slowly melted in his embrace as his mouth moved slowly over her own, a sinuous dance of lower lip against her upper ones while his arms tightened their hold around her waist. She gasped softly at the feeling of his hard frame against her curves, causing the prince’s mouth to tilt up in a smirk as he progressed the intensity of his kisses. Mouth chasing her own with a hunger she had never been victim to, one of Juyeon’s hands didn’t hesitate to ghost up her arm, along the back of her neck, to mess up her tight ponytail so that her dark hair fell around her shoulders like a curtain.

There was a soft throaty rumble that signalled his approval of this newfound hairstyle, before he slanted his lips even further by tilting his head. Kissed her deeper, with longer strokes and with his tongue slowly introducing itself into her mouth. It was almost like she was being consumed by his entire being, her breath being taken away every time she tried to as she drowned into Juyeon’s ocean of feelings that seemed to emanate in the form of every kiss, every touch, every line of his body that aligned with hers and set fire to her skin.

Only when her back met with the soft foam of the mattress that realization trickled through her mind like icy water. Unlatching their lips with a soft ‘pop’ and scrambling back against the headboard, she looked up, right into Juyeon’s hungry, predatory gaze, one that swam with full-fledged desire, a thirst that she had never seen on the young prince’s face before.

“Juyeon?” her whisper was breathless, and she felt like slapping herself for sounding so needy.

“No,” he let out a soft growl, leaning over her body with his arms settling on either side of her head. HIs mouth started a slow, sensual path of kisses that trailed up her neck, leaving fireworks exploding behind her eyelids, “you’re not talking. You’re not telling me off, not now. Not tonight,” he nipped at a small patch of skin right under her jaw and the girl squirmed, desire rippling through her veins and shooting right down south. It didn’t help that every inch of his muscular frame was pressed against hers as though demanding her to beg for what he could give her.

“Please tell me you’re not playing around,” came Y/N’s soft spoken murmur. She hoped that he didn’t hear it. But it was Juyeon, and Juyeon heard everything that concerned him.

“I wouldn’t do this with anyone else, Y/N,” his eyes locked onto hers and she saw his gaze brimming with a vulnerability, a tenderness that shook her to her core and made her heart flip upside down, “you of all people should know that.”

“So you like me?” she hated how squeaky her voice sounded. He only let out the softest of chuckles, before he leant down to peck her on the mouth, “yes. Yes Y/N. I kinda like you a whole damn lot.”

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boop-le-snoot · 4 years ago

Text

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 8

Releasing two chapters today in honour of my birthday! I am officially 23 years old. Oh my God, what the fuck? I feel ancient.

Rating: Explicit.

‼️TW: Reader is EIGHTEEN! Recreational drug use, smoking and alcohol consumption, deeply internalised self-loathing, very questionable moral standards. Daddy kink taken half-seriously. BDSM themes in later chapters - explicit content will come with it's own TWs. FIRST PERSON POV.

Summary: You're Peter's classmate, a child of rich and famous but uncaring parents. Getting paired up for a lengthy project with the boy was an interesting turn of events and you don't know whether to feel blessed or cursed when you develop, seemingly, a perfectly normal, harmless crush on Tony Stark. Fueled by feelings of inadequacy and boredom, your life spirals out of control - and you're lucky your newfound friends are there to pick up the pieces even if you cannot find it in yourself to believe these amazing human (and not so human) beings voluntarily give you more than a fleeting glance and an offhanded thought. And they brought cake!

A/N: I started writing this for porn and now? Look at all this plot. Disgusting! Featuring: the Hulk, more Bruce fluff, and DISASTER PARENTS. It's gonna get worse before it gets better y'all.

My beta, @miscmarvelwritings is the Peter to my Tony. Love you 3000, baby.

The beeping startled me awake, the haze of my recent memory made me very unsettled. Last thing I remembered was laying down on the couch and Peter's admission - the little! Guy! Was! Spider-Man! Holy! Shit!

Beeping intensified and I heard grumbling and shuffling coming from the side of me. A warm sensation engulfed my right hand and I smiled. I'd recognize that hand anywhere. Bruce was in the room with me so I was definitely in a safe place.

Me eyelids parted meeting a set of oddly fluorescent green eyes. Holy fuck, that was no Bruce, it was... But how? His form was slouched in an uncomfortable position over the bed, crease marks on his face. It was Bruce's body, Bruce's face but who held control over it - he was no Bruce Banner.

"No worry, Princess is safe," The voice that left his mouth was much more primal, with an unmistakable growl underneath. He watched me, alert, scanning my face with unblinking eyes. "Bruce asleep now. I keep watch."

I swallowed the unease. "Hi, Hulk, and thank you," Squeezing his hand very, very gently. "Nice to meet you, by the way."

He grinned, all teeth and sharp canines. He looked like a wolf. The look was so out of place on usually gentle Bruce's face that I had to study it, had to memorize that stark difference between Banner and his alter ego. The smile faltered slightly as he closed his eyes. "Bruce waking up now. See you soon." And with that, his head fell onto his arm, dead weight and limp.

His hair was tousled, a curly mess, and he wore the same shirt I remembered him in. Upon closer inspection it still bore minor stains of what I assumed was my blood. It was probably the only time I would get to look at him, really look at Bruce without the fear of being caught, being weird or getting misinterpreted. He was really handsome, the five o'clock shadow silver on his usually neatly shaved chin, his jawline was firm and... He really was beautiful.

His eyes slowly blinked open, the usual colour brown. Noticing me awake, Bruce immediately perked up. "Morning. How do you feel?" He asked, voice croaky and sleep-drunk.

It sent shivers down my spine. "I'm good, nothing feels amiss besides the left part of my face. That's kind of puffy," I admitted, failing to describe the full-and-pulling sensation I was currently experiencing. "I met the Hulk. He was nice." I added as an afterthought. Thought he should know.

Bruce frowned. "He does that sometimes. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. I think, I think I'd like to meet him properly one day," I admitted my biggest curiosity. After all, I've already met real aliens.

Bruce seemed speechless for a moment. "Are you sure?" He stuttered. "He's...a bit much," He parroted my previous comment about my house, much to my amusement. "You sure it's not the concussion talking?" Banner squinted at the monitor at my bedside, avoiding my eyes.

"I'm very sure," I squeezed the hand I was still holding in quiet affirmation. "Besides, he promised to see me soon."

"Oh did he," Bruce muttered darkly but I could see his face brighten nonetheless. "Right, so I'm going to call in Strange and we can see about unhooking you from all these things," Bruce gestured to the various wires and monitors.

True to his word, Strange waltzed in no more than ten minutes after Bruce called him. Seeing me, the usually stoic man began snickering, unsuccessfully attempting to hide his amusement by swirling his cape in an unnecessarily dramatic fashion. I was not impressed, Bruce was not impressed and neither was Tony who walked in shortly after all the wires were removed from my persona.

"So... Is someone going to tell me why is Dumbledore so joyful this fine morning?" I crossed my arms under my boobs.

"You don't remember?" Tony snorted at my negative head shake. "Before you passed out, you demanded cake and said Wizard here looks like Benedict Cumberbatch. To be fair, I see the resemblance, but you...." Tony paused to snicker multiple times. "You managed to butcher up the guy's name multiple times, I swear to Thor, what came out of your mouth was..." The engineer laughed, making a broad and vague gesture with his hands. "What did she say? Bubble-butt Orgy-pants?" He asked Bruce who was as unsuccessful at hiding his laughter as Strange himself. Even the wizard's cape was bouncing.

I wheezed, suddenly coming to a realization. It wasn't a concussion induced lucid dream, I had actually said that. "It's really bold of you to assume I can pronounce and remember his name while I'm sober," I said. "I just call him British-guy Funny-name." Tony cackled at that, giving me a hearty thumbs up and ungracefully plopping down at the foot of my hospital bed.

"How do you feel, Buttercup?" He was looking earnestly at me now, his sparkling brown eyes big and round and worried.

I had to distract myself to keep from literally face-planting into his lap then and there. "Good, actually." Tony nodded happily, and I raised my finger. "But for the record, Doctor Strange..." I addressed the man who turned to me expectantly. "Please don't get pissed off, I have a request..." He nodded warily. "Don't shave? I mean, now that I can clearly see the resemblance between him and you... Please don't shave off the beard or you'll look like an angry aardvark."

The men in the room gaped, most of all, Stephen - his face was somewhere between resigned suffering and surprised disbelief.

"Angry... Aardvark..." Tony fuckin' WHEEZED. "Fuck a duck..." The engineer clutched at his stomach in an obnoxious fit of laughter, Bruce was snorting too. "The fuck is an aardvark?" The lone word seemed to have a magical effect on Tony, increasing his laughter with every time he repeated it out loud.

"Duly noted," Stephen nodded with as much seriousness as he could before cracking a reluctant smile. "I see that the healing technology Tony developed has worked well, if judging only by your sense of humour returning. Good," With that, he waved his hands about and the puffy feeling from my face disappeared. "I took some liberties and added a healing spell with Loki's help." Seeing my raised eyebrow, he elaborated. "Loki was deeply touched by your kind gesture towards his teammate and offered his help. You should be good to resume your daily activities by nightfall although I recommend you take it easy. And call your mother, she stopped by and instructed me to request you communicate at the first comfortable opportunity."

The mild pity and disdain on Strange's face told me that he was the one who had actually spoken with her. She must've been especially icy and bitter considering I had interrupted her daily routine with getting punched in the face. How inconvenient.

With that, Stephen left me with a parting pat on the shoulder, taking Tony with him - the engineer managed to squeeze a whole hug out of me before being bodily (magically?) dragged behind Strange. I was really uncomfortable with all the attention I was receiving wearing only a thin hospital gown and I told Bruce exactly that - promptly, Natasha arrived with a bag I recognised as my own, an ostrich Birkin that held a cute, soft cashmere loungewear set, some basic toiletries along with a set of underwear and a pair of slippers.

Evidently, my mother packed this bag. Never in a thousand years I would wear a $1200 worth of leisure clothing at a hospital. Even Natasha whistled when I first examined the bag's contents.

"Yeah, yeah, my mother's a bit much," I said, immediately cringing at how obnoxious that sounded.

"No shit," Natasha rolled her eyes. Something told me she'd met her too.

"Wait 'til you see my dad," I replied in an identical tone, disappearing behind the door to the bathroom. It was all very luxurious, extra and overall very Stark. Friday's voice coming from the ceiling made it known that I was still in the tower, the AI informed me of the date, time, weather and the further instructions to follow Natasha after I was done freshening up.

Showers had never felt so good.

I was greeted by muted cheers and a hefty brunch on the common floor. Lots of hugs, too, even Loki paused his brooding to give me an awkward, albeit very genuine embrace. I whispered a thanks for the spell which made the moody god considerably less moody - in fact, he smiled like a child on Christmas Eve. Suddenly, I felt much less out of place with my disaster self.

The pleasant part was done and I geared up to call my own personal curse.

"Hello, mother, it's kind of you to pick up," I started the usual. I could literally feel the confusion and concern of the people in the room piercing my back. "Sorry for interrupting your meeting. Yes, I am quite well now. No, Josh can keep running your errands, I will stay at Mr. Stark's for the time being. Tomorrow morning, probably, don't wait up. I will, absolutely. Oh, is he? Wow, that's amazing. I'm so happy," I chirped. My face was one of the suffering kind. "Yes, dinner on Friday night. Okay-I mean, yes, I will ask. He's actually right next to me." I paused to turn around and look at Tony, mouthing 'she wants me to invite you for dinner'.

Tony's speed was breaking the laws of physics as he snatched the phone right out of my hand. "Hello, this is Tony Stark speaking. You know, maybe you should come over to Stark tower. Yes, the whole family. Thanks, bye." He promptly pressed the end call button right as mother had started her goodbye-have a nice day-live long and prosper speech. "How the fuck do you put up with that woman?" He started at me with a mix of concerned incredulousity.

"She's an acquired taste," I groaned. "You just wait. My dad. I..." I literally had no words to describe the upcoming disaster. Tony had no idea what he just had condemned all of the tower's inhabitants to. "Why am I like this? Why are they like this?" I raised my head up to the ceiling as if the AI living in it could give me all the solutions to my life's problems.

"Get some rest, Princess," Bruce was kind enough to spare me any more misery as his warm, broad hand steered me towards the elevator by the small of my back.

As he dutifully fluffed my pillows and handed me a glass of water and my smartphone, I unashamedly basked in the soft attention I was receiving from the older man. I still felt somewhat groggy; best case, I'll fall right asleep and if the dreamland avoids me, I would browse tik tok and Instagram until something else would strike my fancy. The gentle murmur of him describing the latest lab incident I missed out on and the hands combing softly through my hair were the best sleep aides I could have ever asked for.

Bruce is too precious for this world. Too pure.

Friday rolled in with the force of a pissed off rhinoceros. Dad had flown in on a Thursday afternoon, stopping by the house to drop off his suitcase and happily dangle the keys of a brand new Chevrolet Corvette in front of my face before briefly stopping to ruffle my hair, kiss mother on the cheek and drive off into the sunset to "catch up with people at the studio". Jetlag wasn't a word in that man's vocabulary, he probably snorted a line or three as soon as he stepped out of the airport.

I could carry my groceries in the bags under his eyes. He just waved off any of my attempts to get him some rest only showing mild interest when I spoke about my friendship with Tony Stark, absolutely disregarding the rest of the team sans Captain America and the billionaire himself.

I might as well have been in front of a trainwreck, watching it happen second by second. The moment all three of us stepped out of the elevator onto the tidied up common floor, I had the sudden realization of exactly how much we weren't a family.

We were the exact opposite of that.

My mother, tall and slim and perfectly posed in a sleek blue dress with diamonds glittering around her chin, neck and fingers, her obnoxious greed proudly on display. My father, in his early fifties, well-groomed and fit, in his tight designer pants and a plain white t-shirt under a stylish tweed blazer. He looked ridiculous. Only Tony could pull off something like that (I shuddered. Sigmund Freud sends his regards!). And me, little old me, in my $900 jeans, $1500 Gucci sneakers and a mesh crop top I got at Hot Topic. At least, amidst this mess, my eyeliner game was on point.

I smiled sardonically at Steve who came to greet us. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

"Captain Rogers," My father greeted him with his Hollywood smile.

"Steve," An equally fake and toothy grin came from the superhero as he gallantly greeted my mother and swept me into an unnecessarily tight hug.

Point one, my father smirked. Somewhere in the corner, Wanda made a gagging noise - quietly, of course, I only knew about it because she did her telepathic mumbo-jumbo to make me aware of her stance on this particular matter.

Point two, my mother loudly announced she was vegetarian while simultaneously praising the catering services that Tony used. Clint had enlisted Bucky and Thor to help him cook and now all three were smiling awkwardly as mother spoke about the "incredibly talented immigrant workers".

Point three, dad made it his JOB to brag about my skills and achievements as if he was the one encouraging me to pursue them. It was fair, I suppose, since he paid for it but alas, it sounded a lot less like he was a proud father and more of a "look at what my puppy can do". I had to tip my proverbial hat to Tony and Bruce there, they both began to describe our lab work in such unnecessary detail, using so many long words, even Loki began quietly chipping in with totally random, long, difficult words. Confusion was beginning to seep through the eternally cheerful facade that my dad wore.

Or maybe it was the coke and Adderall wearing off. Who knew.

"Peter?" Came the dreaded question from my mother. I shook my head in quiet despair as Peter visibly cringed at my mother's voice.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"That vile boy has been taken care of," I could absolutely see Natasha saying the same thing and the only difference laid in the fact that I knew my mother wouldn't actually kill a person. She would hire someone to do it for her. "It's really unfortunate my daughter got in the middle of that sort of situation."

Wow. My mother just called Peter a coward. Wow. Tony briefly went cross-eyed with anger.

"Baby, why you bein' so quiet?" Dad, the mitigator that he was, intervened before a real shit storm could start. Which meant, as usual, putting me on the spotlight. It was me between a rock and a hard place: nothing, and I repeat - nothing I ever did or have done was good enough for both of my parents at the same time.

"I'm fine, dad, just chillin'," I replied, pushing my food around on my plate. He hated it when I ate too much, which was really anything more than two glasses of water and a salad. Being around models on a strict avocado and coke diet really skewed his sense of normal.

"Nah, baby, you're brooding," His teasing tone could've fooled anybody. Just messing around with a teenager. "Come with me tonight, there's a party, Billie Eilish is going to be singing. Not my style but you like that weird goth shit, might cheer you up a lil'," Dad joked and everybody around the table smiled happily at last. Everyone except Tony that was - his press-tour smile was still glued to his face. I hated it. It was unnatural.

"No, dad, you go have your old people fun," I rolled my eyes.

"Jesus Christ," I heard mother mutter on my other side but she kept quiet beyond that.

"C'mon, don't be a spoilsport," Dad insisted.

"Actually, we have a project planned up in the lab..." Tony trailed off, attracting confused looks from his teammates and friends. Pete looked at me in pure envy.

"Alright, alright, dad, I'll go with you, jeez," I mumbled, flushing from the sheer amount of embarrassment flowing through me. Partying with your own father, how sad and pitiful is that?

"I'm very upset at you ditching me," Tony poked a fork in my direction but didn't press the matter further. I avoided the looks of my friend's friends. I avoided the hell out of Bruce who kept making his perfect, round puppy eyes and radiating so much kindness and support I nearly choked on my intermittent sips of water.

"Alright, we will be waiting downstairs with Josh, say your goodbyes," Mother announced as she subtly towed my father towards the elevator. He'd had a whiskey too much and felt particularly chatty much to Tony's displeasure. "Thank you again for your hospitality."

As soon as the doors closed behind my parents, the group of superheroes erupted into a confused debate. I saw Tony blankly staring at the ceiling. Bucky cursing. Thor overly calmly talking with Loki.

Beyond caring about anything, my face flamed as I made a beeline for my dad's latest, untouched glass of whiskey (single malt, neat, double) and downed it in one go. The conversation stopped promptly, people eyeing me with visible concern. Steve was outraged.

"No," I announced, stopping any and all questions, slamming the glass on the table and departing towards the elevator that had made its way back upstairs. "Just no." Were my parting words as the doors closed once again on a startled and disgruntled group of superheroes.

Please check your blog settings before requesting to be added to the taglist. I can't tag some of y'all.

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub @mostly-marvel-musings @vozit @littlegasps @pilloclock @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads @hermione-grangers-wife @individualistfem @as-i-layhereinyourbed @sleep-i-ness @gigglyfox01

#party favours #bun writes #stephen strange x you #stephen strange x reader #Stephen Strange x y/n #tony stark x y/n #tony stark x reader #tony stark x you #bruce banner x y/n #bruce banner x reader #bruce banner x you #LMFAO BEING A DISASTER RUNS IN THE FAMILY

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jisungffs · 4 years ago

Text

coffee breath - felix.

words: 5.1k

reader: gender-neutral

genre: fluff

tags: best friend!felix x aromantic!reader, coffeeshop au, non idol! au, implied lgbtq!felix, minho is a minor character, minsung is mentioned. this whole thing is strictly platonic, none of this is meant to be romantic. just a cute fluffy fic honestly. the end has a little tension but not a lot.

warnings: THIS WHOLE THING IS PLATONIC, DON’T READ IF YOU WANT ROMANCE, swearing, multiple descriptions of food.

requested by @aritodla, check her out, she’s an amazing artist and a really sweet person overall.

Lee Felix was a sweet boy. He had kind eyes, freckled cheeks, and an air of infectious happiness around him. He always tipped generously, he never got angry at the staff, and he always cleaned up after himself. Lee Felix was a sweet boy. And it was a shame all you knew about him was his first name and his coffee order.

Even though Felix only started visiting your coffee shop a few weeks ago, you could tell he was a genuinely nice person. Everything about him was lovable.

Like the way he always said thank you after you took his order.

Or like the way he gripped his coffee cup with both his hands when the weather was cold.

Or the way he had a billion stickers on his laptop, adding a new one every week.

Or the way his eyebrows furrowed when he wrote something down..

Or the way he nodded along when he heard music he liked.

Lee Felix was a sweet boy. And even though you didn’t know much about him, you really wanted to. Because Lee Felix was sunshine. And you were in need of warmth.

It was a sunny day — one where it was warm enough to find solace in cafes and under the awnings of fashion stores, but not warm enough to make you want to curse out everything around you. The perfect weather, really. It was on this day that Lee Felix decided to wear his Twice t-shirt. It was barely noticeable — just a little white logo on the breast. It looked like a regular black tee from a distance. But you noticed. Because not only did you want to get to know Felix, you were also a huge fan of Twice.

Felix gave you his usual order of a cappuccino and a chocolate scone and went back to his seat. Felix liked Twice! You wondered who his bias was. Or what his favourite song was. It was really cool that Felix liked Twice right? You finally had something in common.

You drew a little Twice logo on the coffee foam. You didn’t even realize it. It was pretty usual for you to draw about what’s on your mind, and your cafe didn’t exactly have strict rules about foam art.

Felix was once again on his laptop today. You could recognize the colourful sticker-covered laptop from a mile away. His brows furrowed as he typed away, only getting up to collect his order. He was back in his seat and was about to continue whatever he was doing when he noticed the logo on his coffee, drawn on foam. His eyes widened slightly, his mouth broke into a grin. You noticed him getting his phone out and taking a picture before you had to attend to other customers.

It was a windy night. Felix was already in the cafe by the time your shift started, and was peacefully nibbling on a muffin while doing something on his laptop. His eyes never left the laptop screen. He checked his phone from time to time, but never spent more than a few seconds on it. From the looks of it, he was unaware of everything outside his screen and his table.

The closing shift never had a lot of customers. It was just Felix, you, and a couple of regulars in the little cafe.

And the regulars had already left by the time you were done cleaning up. It was five minutes until closing time, and Felix was still there, probably not knowing he was the last one there. You knew you had to tell him he had to leave soon, but you didn’t know exactly what to say. You weren’t the best at the closing shift.

You approached his seat awkwardly. “Excuse me…? Sir…?”, you said tentatively before gently tapping on the table.

Felix jumped slightly at the interruption. He quickly looked around the cafe. “Oh”, he said smally, “Am I the last one here?”

“Yes, and the cafe’s closing soon”, you said with a patient customer service smile.

“Sorry, I didn’t even realise”, he laughed. “I was working on some music and I guess I got carried away”

“Well,”, you struggled to find something to say,” If you like to sing, we have live music on Fridays”

What was that??? Who says that??

“I’ll keep that in mind”, he laughed, shutting the tabs on his laptop.

His phone screen played the Fancy MV, connected to headphones lying on the table. He was probably streaming it, and your mind raced at the conversation starter.

“You’re streaming Fancy!”, you said without thinking. You immediately cursed yourself for not spending more time thinking about what to say. He barely knows you, for god’s sake.

Felix didn’t seem to mind. “You like Twice?” Felix said with raised eyebrows and a goofy grin.

“I do”, you replied, mirroring his grin, “Chaeyoung’s my bias.”

Felix's eyes widened. “Wait a second!”, he said, “Were you the barista who drew the logo on my coffee yesterday?”

“That was me!”, you said laughing.

---

It was a sunny day - the kind where you technically could go out, but it was just a lot more comfortable staying inside. You started mixing Felix's drink as soon as he came to the counter. Felix looked pleasantly surprised. “Guess I don’t have to order anymore”

“I mean,” you said with your eyebrows raised, “You do have to try other drinks at some point, you know? You’ve ordered the a cappuccino and a chocolate scone everytime you came here, and they’re not even that good”

“Hey!” he cry-laughed. “Don’t you dare say that about my cappuccino.”

“By the way,” you added, “I think you’ll like the music today”

Felix raised his eyebrows. His lips quirked up when he realised a lo-fi playlist of Twice songs played through the speakers.

It was an average day -- the awkward phase between afternoon and evening, the weather so ordinary there was nothing to comment about it. Felix shaked his head as he reached the counter and saw you start to make his drink. “Oh I’m not having that today”

You raised your eyebrows, “Oh?”

“Yeah”, Felix said, fixing his posture and smirking. “I’ll have a black coffee, please”, he said in an over dramatic voice.

“Brave today, are we?”

“Yes, and” he said like a child boasting about his most recent tag game, “I won’t add any sugar to it”

“Oh boy”, you sighed, shaking your head.

Five minutes later, Felix’s (black) coffee was ready. Five and a half minutes later, Felix’s black coffee was at his table. You watched as he took his first sip. His entire face scrunched up at the bitter taste. He noticed you looking at him. He gave you a thumbs-up, still wearing the most pained expression known to man. Felix should not drink black coffee.

It was a windy day, the thick grey clouds above threatening to spill over during the night. Felix apparently wanted to prove a point, seeing as he once again ordered a black coffee (no sugar).

“But you hated it yesterday!”

“Clearly you didn’t see the thumbs up”

“Yeah, I was too busy looking at the agony on your face”

He pouted, “But I want a black coffee~”

You sighed. “This will be your villain origin story”.

Not surprisingly, Felix had the same expression of disgust as soon as the black coffee touched his lips. Still not surprisingly, he kept up the cool-edgy-guy-who-drinks-black-coffee schtick.

It was a cool yet humid day - the most polarising weather possible. It was a lonely afternoon with hardly any customers in the coffee shop. It was a weekday afternoon, after all. Felix came into the store wearing a black hoodie and a smug grin.

“Please don't tell me you want a black coffee”, you said even before he fully got to the counter. The boy clearly hated the bitterness, but wanted to prove a point anyway.

“Hey, this was your idea!”, he laughed.

“We have more than cappuccinos and black coffee, buddy. We don’t have to go into the extremes right away”

“Well I’m hoping that if I keep drinking the black coffee, I’ll get used to the disgustingness.”

You shook your head and laughed. “Tell you what,” you clapped your hands together, an idea hitting you. “I’ll play around with some ingredients and make you something I think you’ll like.”

“Ohhhh”, Felix said. "That sounds fun"

"Yes and maybe it'll help me add drinks to the menu too", you grinned.

"I shall not show you mercy, O worthy opponent". Felix spoke with a British accent, bowing to add some flair.

You played around with steamed milk, vanilla syrup, espresso, chocolate powder, and sugar. Plus whipped cream for good measure. A few minutes later, the drink was ready. Felix came up to the counter and looked at the drink in mock apprehension.

"I call it the Felixir", you said, . "Get it? Like Elixir?"

Felix let out a laugh.

“I know. It’s dumb. But!”, you said, "I played around with a bunch of stuff I know you like. It has chocolate, espresso, whipped cream and some other stuff. I have no idea how it tastes, but my barista senses told me this would be nice".

"I trust your barista senses". Felix took a sip of the Felixir. Whipped cream made a button on his nose. Felix's lips curved into a smile. His half-moon smile shined through. "Your barista senses rock", he said, punching the air.

"Do you like it?"

"I LOVE it. I don't know how you got my favourite ingredients so spot on."

You laughed. "Barista instincts, my friend".

Felix took another sip, holding the cup with both hands.

"Anyway," you continued, "this one's on the house. You deserve it for enduring the black coffee".

"This is so much better than black coffee", he babbled. "Black coffee has so much caffeine in it?? I was practically vibrating all of yesterday".

"Black coffee is for people with a lot of shit to do and not enough energy to do them", you agreed. "This one has espresso too, and also a shit-ton of sugar, so you might still vibrate today, just letting you know."

"I'll take being a popular kid's iPhone if it means I can have whipped cream and caramel and the other stuff".

It was a sunny day. Ladies in sundresses waited for their dates outside the cafe.

“Not a lot of people here, huh?” Felix commented.

“It’s a weekday afternoon, what do you expect? Only teenagers on their lunch breaks come here. And you, for some reason”

“How could I stay away from my favourite barista?”

You rolled your eyes. “Since you’re here anyway, let’s talk. I’m bored.” Was that too blunt?

“Cool, what do you wanna talk about?”

“The meaning of life, God, or Twice. You pick”

“Trick question, Twice is God and the meaning of life”

“You’re too smart”

Felix stroked his hair back, “I know”

You roll your eyes. “What are your favourite songs by them?”

“Literally their entire discography, but Fancy or TT if I had to choose”

“Fuck yeah. Those songs are queens”

Felix looks at you approvingly. “We should hang out sometime”

It was a clear day. Trees danced around in the wind. Another afternoon where there was hardly anyone in the little coffee shop. Felix ordered his Felixir once again with a cheery tone. You spent some time cleaning up the kitchen and rearranging the items on display. Felix was waiting near the counter once you got done, absent-mindedly checking his phone. He put down his phone and gave you a bright smile when he noticed you coming back.

You smiled back. “What’s the occasion, bub?”

“Nothing, I’m just a little bored and I wanted to hang out with you”

“Well, there aren’t a lot of customers so I guess that works out perfectly”

“How’s your day going so far?”

“It’s pretty boring, to be honest. Maybe I’ll watch a movie when I get home. My shift ends in like half an hour.”

“Whaaat? I was planning to watch a movie too! I live right upstairs, actually”

“Really? That explains why you’re always here”, you laughed.

Felix laughed back. “I have nothing to do today”. Felix gave you an expectant look.

Oh.

“Me neither”, you said casually. “Do you think we should watch something together?”

“Yes!” He giggled. “I know I’m not the best with invites, but I’m glad you picked that up”

“Honestly, I’m surprised I got that. I’m really awkward with invites too”

“More reasons to be friends, then”

“We live closer than I thought, by the way. I live across the street. It’s a five-minute walk.”

That afternoon was a pleasant one. Breeze played with the little children on the street. Felix and you were sprawled on the couch, mindlessly watching the trashy movie on TV. An orange cat ㅡ his roommate’s apparently ㅡ decided to laze around on Felix’s lap, his hand absentmindedly stroking its soft fur.

“Why are early 2000s movies so much more dramatic than they need to be?” Felix commented.

“Right? I remember watching this as a kid and it wasn’t half as bad”, you replied

“So it’s true then. Adulthood only makes things go downhill”

“Hey now you’re the one being dramatic”

“Wrong, I’m always dramatic”

“Your apartment is pretty nice, by the way.”

“Thank you. You’re free to come over whenever”

“Won’t your roommate mind?”

“Not really. Minho’s out most of the time and he brings over his friends all the time too.”

You smiled. “Hey also,”, you said. “Since we live pretty close by, we can hang out at my place some time too!”

“That sounds great”, he smiled widely.

It was a cool day. Most of your patrons huddled themselves in hoodies and cardigans. Felix ordered his drink before giving you a curious look. “Did you come to the cafe yesterday?”

“No, I didn’t have a shift. why?” you asked, slightly thrown off.

“Oh that explains it”, he said, “I came in yesterday and you weren’t there. The other barista didn’t know how to make my drink. Or even what it was, actually. And," he paused, "I missed talking to you”

An embarrassing smile crept up your face. “That’s so sweet”, you said, barely audible.

Felix was about to walk back to his table when you said “Hey actually,”

Felix turned around.

“I downloaded a really awful movie yesterday. Wanna make fun of it together at my place?” you said, just a little hint of nervousness in your voice. “My shift ends soon. But like, you don’t have to if you’re busy or something, we can always-”

“I’d love to,” he smiled.

The evening was breezy as you and Felix laughed over the hilariously, excruciatingly bad movie. Felix and you bonded very fast, apparently. Felix was resting his head on your shoulder. It felt so… natural. It was effortless. And comfortable. It was as though your bodies just did what felt familiar to them. You felt Felix’s body shake every time he laughed. You added sarcastic retorts every now and then, Felix joining too. The movie was terrible. But this moment with Felix was beautiful.

It was a breezy summer day, about a month after Felix came over.

Loving Felix was easy. It was second nature. Felix just clicked with you. The line between friends and best friends blurred quickly. And based on how much he spammed you with messages and how much he visited the cafe and how diligently he memorized your schedule and how many times you hung out, he loved you too.

Your phone buzzed.

felix:

are we doing anything today?

maybe

im in the mood for hot dogs i think

oooooo should we go to the park then?

yes !!

after my shift sounds good?

yesss

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*.✧

You used to find those emoticons cringey until Felix started using them. Now, it was just fucking adorable.

(｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

The park was a few streets away. It was a big one. Preteens ran around and played frisbee with their friends or their dogs or their parents. But the two of you luckily found a park bench ever-so-slightly away from the noise and the chaos.

As you sat there talking about nothing and everything, you quietly took in Felix's features. His skin was radiant in the setting sun. His freckles, darker from the sunlight, looked like little flecks of chocolate. His eyes lit up whenever he talked about music. Or cooking. Or you. His cheeks rose and fell with his words, his eyes crinkling up when he smiled.

It was a beautiful moment. You lay your head on Felix's shoulder, half lost in thought. The sun painted the park in a subtle shade or orange. The kids around the park laughed and jumped, being loud and being kids. Felix had stopped talking by then, too busy taking in the sunset. His head rested on yours, your hands almost touching. It was a beautiful moment. But moments with Felix were always beautiful.

It was a cold night. You snuggled into your blankets, intently watching something on your phone.

Your phone buzzed. Felix sent you a meme.

you:

???????? why are you awake

it's 2am

go to sleep

why are YOU awake ????????

im watching something 👉👈

im just reading fics and stuff akdkkdj

what kind of fics 👀

they're fluffy stop making everything dirty

i can't stop me (by twice)

sjskksksjjd

oh also

do you make the brownies and stuff?

or is that someone else

in the cafe i mean

that's me babeyyyy

why tho

i like them :D

:"D

baking w you would be fun 🥺

🥺🥺🥺

im good at baking

and so are you

but maybe we should yeet away the recipes and do whatever

baking is supposed to be precise tho :(

if it fails we eat the cookie dough and erase the whole thing from our memory

nice

i mean

im supposed to be precise with the cafe stuff too but the Felixir wouldn't exist if i followed the rules

now you're getting it

when are we doing this?

buddy

we live five minutes from each other

just come over whenever

fuck planning

im *this* close to straight up giving you my keys

me too tf

hell yeah

also this isn't distracting me from the fact that you need to sleep soon

i feel kinda sleepy actually ngl

sleep.

okay 👉👈

gn !! ily

and please sleep soon aksndn

ily2

okay :]

It was a clear, pleasant afternoon, your curtains swaying in the breeze. The smell of freshly made cookies wafted through your apartment. Felix sat on top of your counter, his legs swinging. Felix took one of the newly-made cookies into his hand and regarded it intently. “Looks pretty good so far. It’s a little bit hard but that’s obvious, we added a lot of ingredients and didn’t adjust the flour properly”

“So much for experimentation”

“We did add a lot of fun stuff though, so my money’s on it tasting good”.

You both bit into a cookie. It was… alright. It wasn’t bad, but you expected it to taste a lot better or a lot worse. You both gave each other disappointed smiles. “Underwhelming.”

“But hey! It wasn’t bad!” Felix added.

“True. Still thought the cookies would be more… more. You know?”

“I know. But who cares about that?” Felix put his arm on your shoulder, “Making this with you was the most fun I had in a while and I couldn't care less what they ended up tasting like.”

You let out a small smile. “I love you”

“And I love you”

You looked up at him. His soft brown eyes were warm with affection.

“Now,” Felix continued, “The cookie dough’s gotta be better right?”

You laughed. “The cookie dough is chocolate sludge at this point”

“Yeah, maybe using M&Ms as chocolate chips was a bit much”

“Probably. But let’s race. Whoever finds the most M&Ms in the dough wins.”

“I already know I’m winning”.

It was a drizzly night. Streetlights reflected on the wet asphalt outside Felix’s apartment. Felix and you had decided to have an impromptu sleepover. It was almost 3am, both of you slightly delirious from the caffeine and the staying up. You were yelling at the TV, desperately trying to get your character to do something, damn it. Felix just smirked beside you, his character easily attacking yours. He was choosing not to kill you quickly, which was almost more annoying than dying straight away. It wasn’t long before Felix won the game. You pouted in annoyance.

“Maybe I should start killing you quickly so you won’t be loud and Minho won’t yell at us for making noise”

“This game sucks”, you pouted.

“You’re just new to it. Did you know you can do twice as much damage if you press B after you attack?”

“Really?”

“Yeah! And do you know how to dodge?”

“No” you said like a kid admitting to breaking something.

“Why did you make me skip the tutorial?”, Felix laughed.

“The past is in the past, Felix. How do I dodge?”

Felix spent a few minutes teaching you which buttons do what and which attacks are effective when. It only took a few slightly frustrating runs before you almost came close to beating him. Maybe he was going easy on you, but that didn’t matter. It was fun.

“You are learning, my protégé”, he said approvingly.

It was a chilly evening. Old white sheets lay spread out on your bedroom floor, your furniture haphazardly moved to the living room. Felix had texted you earlier that day, promising to help you paint your room. You were almost done painting half a wall when you heard his familiar deep voice. “Hey! Missed you.”

“Missed you more”, you smiled.

“What do you need me to do? How may I be of assistance?” he curtsied.

You rolled your eyes. “Just grab a paint brush and do that wall over there. Just make sure it's even and don’t get any on your clothes.”

“You say that with a million paint splatters on you”, he laughed.

Felix got to work. Neither of you really talked. It seemed that Felix was lost in thought, letting his hands do the painting. But it was fine. Because moments with Felix were always beautiful, even the silences.

You were finished with your first wall when you decided to play calm music on your phone. Soothing guitar chords filled the silence.

It was hard to keep track of time. Five songs? Six songs? Maybe an hour? Both of you had made a lot of progress with the walls. It didn’t matter. What did matter was Felix. Halfway through the third or fourth song, you noticed Felix singing to himself.

It was barely audible, he probably wasn’t even aware of it. But his voice was soothing. And soft.

You had never heard him sing before. You wished you did. You could listen to it forever. Felix’s singing voice felt like sweaters and cozy winter days.

You didn’t say anything. You knew he’d be embarrassed if he knew you noticed. But the rest of the painting session gave you butterflies, to say the least.

It was a chilly day. Felix was hunched over his stovetop making ramen while you dramatically read out a fanfic to him from the table. You just finished the kissing scene when Felix let out a disappointed sigh.

“I know right?” You commented.

“I don’t get it. Don’t you think they’d make way more sense as just friends?”

“Waaaay more sense. I feel like the kiss scene is just so unnecessary.”

“I don’t get why writers think everything should have romance in it. I mean, love is friendship right? I mean, for me, it is.”

Your heart stopped. A smile crept up your face. You continued reading out the fanfic, but you didn’t focus on it at all. Because Felix said love is friendship. Love is friendship. Love is friendship!

It was a cold night. You were all bundled up in bed with a hoodie and a blanket. Felix was on the phone with you, refusing to hang up despite being half-asleep.

“Seriously Felix, you can’t even keep your eyes open”

“Mm. But I want to talk to you”, he yawned. His half-asleep voice was deeper than usual and very quiet.

“Alright bub. What do you want to talk about?” You started to feel sleepy too.

“I don’t know. Maybe how amazing you are?”

You laughed. “Fuck off”

“No but… your hair is so soft. And your coffee is really good. And you’re awesome. What the heck. I love you.” he said. He spoke slowly. You could tell he was almost asleep.

“I love you too you beautiful bastard”

You were met with the sounds of soft breathing.

Felix was very endearing when he was half-asleep.

It was a rainy day, rain knocking against Felix’s living room windows. Felix shared a blanket with you atop the couch. You leaned on Felix, your head on his chest. His heartbeat synced with the rain on the window. Felix’s arm draped your side. Both of you focused on the movie in front of you. It was a good one so far. The plot was well written, and the actors were doing a good job.

A door creaked open behind you. Felix and you turned to look at the source.

Felix's roommate, Minho entered the living room. He looked well dressed in a leather jacket and chunky black boots. "Do you think Jisung will like the jacket?", he asked Felix.

"He's gonna love it", Felix replied, smirking.

“Alright, I gotta go”, Minho said, picking up his umbrella and walking to the door. He looked at you. “Sorry we couldn’t talk today, y/n, but have fun with your boyfriend”.

He was already out the door before either of you could protest. Felix looked at you awkwardly before turning back to the TV. Felix was not your boyfriend. And clearly he wasn’t very comfortable being called that. To be fair, neither were you.

“I’m sorry about him”, he sighed. Both of you looked everywhere but each other.

“Don’t be," you said, “ I know people think we’re dating because we’re comfortable with each other and stuff.”

“Right. But hey, you’re my best friend and you always will be.”

You smiled. “You too”.

It was nice being best friends with Felix. Everytime you’ve been this close with someone, they all seemed to expect more. They all seemed to expect romance. But that just didn’t work for you. Romance was weird.

You’re my best friend and you always will be.

Felix wouldn’t mind, would he? Probably not. But what if he’s mad you didn’t tell him yet? What if he thinks you don’t trust him? Or maybe his whole view on you will change and maybe he won’t like you after that. What if that happens?

You’re my best friend and you always will be.

You’re his best friend and you always will be. It’ll be alright. It’ll be harder the longer you wait right?

What if he really will be mad at you though? He’s your best friend, why haven’t you told him yet?

A mere few seconds passed before you shifted off his chest. Felix sat up, sensing your tension. He paused the movie. "Y/N?"

Fuck it. It’s too late to ignore this now. You looked into his eyes before turning away. “I’ve been holding off on telling you something.”

Felix’s voice filled with concern. “Tell me.”

You took a breath, trying to keep yourself from panicking. You were too nervous to look at him. “Minho joked about us being together and I know neither of us see each other in a romantic way, but I just�� I don’t know why I haven’t told you this yet. But… it’s not just you. I don’t feel romantic attraction to anyone. I’m aromantic.”

Felix put his hand on your shoulder and moved closer to you. Your thoughts were still racing, your heart rate still high, your breath still shaky. You were still too nervous to look at him.

You kept going, “I haven’t told you this. I know. And I’m sorry. But you’re still my best friend and I hope you don’t think I don’t trust you or something. I love you, okay? I just… I guess I just don’t like coming out. But I just had to today for some reason. I’m sorry if this makes you view me differently.” You thoughts were still racing after you said what you wanted to say. Your hands shook slightly.

And Felix noticed all of that.

He put his hand on top of yours. “Y/N”, he said gently.

You hesitated, then looked at him. His eyes were warm. His smile was understanding - the smile of someone who’s done this before. The smile of someone who’s already dealt with the emotions you were having. He gently pushed your head back onto his chest. “Breathe with me.”

His chest raised as he took a breath. You closed your eyes and took a breath too. He let it out in a few seconds. So did you. He took in another breath.

Felix spoke softly. “Coming out is hard. Even if it’s to someone you love. What you just did there takes so much courage. And I’m so, so proud of you. I love you so much. And our love doesn’t have to be romantic for it to be deep. I love you. And nothing will change that.”

You buried yourself in his chest.

His chest rose and fell with every breath he took. You breathed with him. His heartbeat was calming.

I love you. And nothing will change that.

“Thank you.” you said. “For everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“Felix?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it weird?”, you said quietly, “That we’re always so close together? I really like being with you. And hugging you. And cuddling you. But I won’t do it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“No. It’s not weird. Not to me. I love this. And we can do this all day long without it meaning anything more than friendship.” Felix gave you a forehead kiss. “Besides,” he said, “What good are best friends if they don’t give you hugs?”

You hugged him tighter. “I love you so much”

“I love you so much too.” His voice was warm and kind and understanding. You didn’t bother holding back the tears.

Lee Felix was a sweet boy. And Lee Felix was the sun, giving you warmth and love and reasons to wake up. Lee Felix was a sweet boy. And the universe was a thing of beauty to let your love shine through.

a/n: this took a really long time to write bc of personal stuff im sorry, but this req made me realize i was aromantic skaskdlkdlk :’D. remember my requests are open so feel free to request stuff from me and i’ll try not to take eight years to do it. take care yall

#felix #felix x reader #felix x male #felix x gender neutral reader #skz x reader #skz x male #skz fics #best friend!felix #best friend fic #felix fluff #aromantic #coming out #coffeeshop au #skz #stray kids #skz fluff

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whats-rambled-rambled · 4 years ago

Text

Stuck in reverse - pt 5

Neil x Reader

Chapter 5: Someone like you

(<- see Chapter 4, 3, 2, 1)

summary: camping, watching sunsets, oh - and Neil plays a guitar

warnings: is beer an alcohol? Language. Feels. Lots of feels.

author’s note: when did we stop putting lyrics into fanfics? I miss that! Del Amitri - Tell Her This is one the three songs that inspired me to write this story in the first place.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

---

As you were adjusting the straps of your backpack, you heard your team hollering happily by the van’s trunk. You shot a glance at their direction. Neil was just taking out his own backpack and you noticed a familiar shape next to him.

He brought the guitar.

You snickered at yourself, because that meant you were officially, royally screwed.

“Oi, mate, you plan on stealing some poor girl’s heart with this thing?” a young medic teased and nudged your friend’s shoulder.

Neil snorted and looked directly at you. “Maybe,” he said as an innocent smile appeared on his face. Then he winked.

Son of a bitch.

You scoffed and rolled your eyes, but the corner of your lips twitched.

___

The trail went mostly through the forest. The fog in the air, leaves rustling under your feet, the smell of resin and mushrooms – every step made you more and more relaxed. You tuned out your teammates’ chatter and just focused on taking in the views. You were still a bit tired after the previous night, not really in the mood for talking. The sadness was gone though, replaced by peaceful contentment.

You reached your destination in the afternoon and spent some time setting up the camp on a small clearing in the woods. The team set up nine small tents in a circle, leaving some place for a campfire in the middle.

You were halfway through unpacking the cool box when your phone buzzed. You raised your eyebrows when you noticed it was a text from Neil. You looked around, but you couldn’t see him anywhere. You opened the message only to find a set of coordinates there.

___

“Well, that certainly is a dramatic sunset, all right.”

Neil was standing at the edge of the cliff overlooking the valley. He jumped at the sound of your voice, turned around and greeted you with a wide grin on his face.

“Oh just wait until you see the view from up here,” he laughed and waved his hand to make you join him there.

You crossed your arms. “Nope, thanks, I’m perfectly good here.”

“Fine, you chicken, you’re missing out though,” he teased and turned his back to you.

You shook your head, annoyed at his comment. “Damn, I hate you so much sometimes,” you said through the gritted teeth and made few steps in his direction, still keeping your distance from the rim.

Neil started laughing and looked at you over his shoulder. “No, you don’t.”

You didn’t know why that thought made you this agitated, but you could feel your whole body getting tense. “What, you wanna tell me you remember the ridiculous way I take my coffee but you don’t remember that I am terribly scared of heights?”

Neil’s shoulders dropped when he noticed the angry look in your eyes. “I’m sorry, I thought-… You seemed okay when we were parachuting in Canada.”

You sighed. Yep, that was it. He’d moved in with Nikki few weeks before that mission, so he wasn’t there when you were sitting on the bathroom’s floor, barfing your guts out because you were so terrified and anxious. Only switching into your mission mode allowed you to survive that day without breaking down in front of everyone.

“Fake it till you make it, huh?” you laughed bitterly. “Nah man, I can push through it in the field, but after hours?” - you shrugged - “I’m useless.”

Neil opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but then shook his head, reached out his hand and smiled lightly. “Do you trust me?”

Of course you did.

You took his hand and let him guide you toward the edge of the cliff. You could feel your knees shaking and your breath became shallow.

Neil was closely watching your reaction, trying not to push you too far out of your comfort zone too soon.

“Few more steps and we’ll sit down, I promise,” he said softly.

You squeezed his hand and nodded.

Neil sat down and pulled you next to him before you had a chance to peek down the precipice. You looked around and gasped at the view. The river wound through the valley, reflecting the colours of the sun, which was slowly hiding its face behind the top of the mountains up ahead.

“I told you so.”

You chuckled, too mesmerized by the scene in front of you to say anything. You leaned back and sighed happily. With the corner of your eye, you could see Neil looking at you with a shade of a smile on his lips before he turned his head and focused on the sunset.

You both watched in silence the sky changing into more orange and purple tones.

Suddenly you felt a change in Neil’s mood. He was pinching his left hand’s little finger, lost in his thoughts. He must have noticed your gaze, because he took a deep breath, as if he was bracing for something.

“Why did you leave?” he asked quietly.

“What?”

Not that you didn’t know what he meant. You knew exactly what he was asking about, but you weren’t sure if you were ready to have that conversation.

“Why did you leave?” he repeated his question, still not looking in your direction. “...Back then.”

The sadness in his voice took you by surprise.

“Neil, I-” you hesitated, fighting the urge to laugh it all up and change the subject. But he deserved to know. “Look, you were so happy and so in love, you’d put all your time and energy into your new relationship and that was okay. I just wanted to give you a bit of space.”

His eyes darted at you as he scoffed in disbelief. “A bit of-...By completely disappearing? I thought that our friendship was stronger than that.”

That accusation hit you hard, so without thinking twice you blurted, “Hey, you didn’t call me either.”

The painful look in his eyes made you regret saying that almost instantly. God, it hurt, and it’s been eating you alive all those years, but you just knew-

“That’s not fair.”

You pulled up your knees and wrapped your arms around them. He was right.

“I know, I’m sorry,” you said softly. “Look, from the bottom of my heart, I was genuinely happy for you both. Really. But-...” you sighed heavily. You felt light-headed, knowing what you were about to say. You desperately wanted to get it all out once and for all. Even if jumping from that cliff seemed like a more pleasant option at that moment. “...at the same time it did hurt like bitch,” you ended quietly. There, you said it.

The silence was deafening.

You shot a quick glance at Neil. He was staring at you with his mouth open, his brows furrowed in confusion.

“Why-”

You looked into his blue eyes, hoping he would see the answer in yours.

“Please don’t make me say it,” you whispered, barely holding your emotions at bay.

Neil’s eyes widened as he gasped quietly in sudden realization. You could almost see him finally connecting all the dots in his mind. His expression was a mixture of shock and dread.

“Jesus, Y/N, but you never- why didn’t you say-”

Ah, that was the easiest question.

“Because I valued our friendship more than...” - you took in a shaky breath, fighting the tears welling up in your eyes - “...than that and I didn’t wanna risk it.”

No, the irony of that whole mess wasn’t lost on you, but you were glad Neil decided not to point it out. His intense stare was unbearable though.

You stood up, unable to bring yourself to stay any longer, terrified of what you might hear next.

“I have to go, I’m in charge of the food today,” you muttered and turned away to walk back to the camp.

“Y/N-”

Your heart clenched painfully in your chest. You pinched the bridge of your nose and shook your head, not looking back. “Neil, please. It’s just- I can’t do this right now.”

The short walk to the camp gave you enough time to pull yourself together. The policy is to suppress echoed in your mind and it helped you put the cap on your bottled emotions and to shove them back into the deepest corner of your heart. The rest of the crew was sitting around the campfire, listening to Seb’s story about his recent cinematic discoveries. You let him finish his rant before you joined them.

“Who’s hungry?” you asked, rubbing your hands together. Seeing your squad’s enthusiastic reactions put a smile on your face. “Okay, I need more hands for this!”

As you were giving instructions to Ira and Elliot over the cool box, you noticed Neil coming out of the forest. You saw Wheeler walking up to him and asking something, but he just shook his head, patted her on the shoulder, grabbed a beer from a bucket and sat down near the campfire.

Two hours later, most of the food you’d prepared was gone. The group switched to drinking and singing along to Neil’s guitar. You included, the atmosphere of camaraderie grounding you in the moment. After covering few of the classics, Neil started taking the requests.

“Hey, how about Passenger and Let her go?” said Wheeler, smirking.

Neil’s lips pressed into a thin line as he glared at her. If looks could kill, she’d be dead right then. For a moment it seemed like they were having a short non-verbal argument, then Neil sighed, clearly defeated. He put on a brave face though and played the first few chords.

What the hell was that about?

The rest of the guys whooped and joined him singing the lyrics. As the song progressed, you could swear Neil’s face became sadder, and by the end of the song you could feel a lump in your throat. The tenderness in his voice when he sang the last lines took your breath away.

//Only know you love her when you let her go

And you let her go//

The image of Nikki flashed before your eyes and you got up to grab another beer.

“All right guys,” Neil laughed and downed his bottle, frowning slightly. “Speaking of- ...let me choose the next one.”

Of course you recognized that song. Bloody hell. You remembered the first time you heard it, that winter afternoon, Neil and you snuggled under a blanket on his couch, watching the latest episode of your then-favourite TV show, and you slowly falling in love with the music, the lyrics… and your best friend in the whole world.

//Tell her not to go

I ain't holding on no more

Tell her something in my mind freezes up from time to time//

“You know that all this time I had no idea you are that childhood friend that broke his heart?”

Your heart sank at those words. Wheeler was standing right next to you with her arms crossed, a smug expression on her face. Your jaw dropped and you looked over your shoulder at Neil. Nobody seemed to know that song, so he just kept singing alone, smiling sadly.

//Tell her not to cry

I just got scared, that's all

Tell her I'll be by her side, all she has to do is call//

Your mind went blank, not allowing you to fully grasp what you’d just heard. “Me neither,” you said under your breath.

Wheeler snickered at your shocked face. “Apparently.” She placed her hand on your shoulder, squeezing it lightly and went to her tent, leaving you standing there alone.

You turned around and noticed Neil looking at you, the fire flickering in his eyes.

//Tell her not to go

I ain't holding on no more

Tell her nothing if not this: all I want to do is kiss her//

You held your breath, your hands were shaking. The thought appeared on your mind, but you were too scared to take it seriously.

What if he really meant it?

Why were you doing this to yourself? Enough. You left the camp and headed to the stream in the woods. You splashed the cold water on your face and sighed heavily.

“You have no idea how many times I wanted to call you.”

There he was, leaning against the tree, his hands in the pockets, his face tense and serious.

��One day I woke up and realized that you were gone. Days were passing by and it was getting more and more difficult.” Neil gritted his teeth in frustration as he looked away. “Goddammit, I thought you were mad at me, or hated me for some reason,” he exhaled slowly and fixed his gaze on you. “Or that you didn’t care anymore. I just tried to make some sense of it all. Believe it or not,” - he laughed bitterly - “I wanted to give you some space too.”

You wanted to laugh at that comeback, but a little sob escaped your mouth instead. The pain in his eyes was breaking your heart into a million little pieces. The tears were slowly getting mixed with the water on your face so you tried to wipe them with the back of your hand as you walked up to him.

“Neil, I’m sorry,” you said quietly and pulled him into a hug.

Neil wrapped his arms around you and buried his face in your hair, trembling lightly as he let out a shaky breath.

“The thought that I lost you for good was-” his voice broke before he could finish the sentence.

You pulled back so you could look at him. The tenderness of his expression made your heart skip a bit. Neil pressed his forehead into yours and closed his eyes.

“Jesus, I was so stupid. I’m so sorry,” he said softly.

You were lost for words, so you just shook your head lightly and placed a hand on his cheek, stroking it slowly with your thumb. Neil fixed his eyes on yours as he brushed a strand of hair away from your face.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered and sighed, biting his lip.

You chuckled lightly and smiled. Your fingertips slowly traced down his jawline, your heart pounding in your chest. “I’ve missed you, too.”

Neil tilted his head as he pulled you closer. Then he kissed you like there was no tomorrow and nothing else mattered anymore.

(next Chapter ->)

((bonus chapter ->))

#neil tenet #neil tenet x reader #neil x reader #tenet #robert pattinson #neil tenet fanfic #tenet fanfic #stuck in reverse

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clairecrive · 5 years ago

Text

"Childhood crush" - Alfie Solomons x reader

So this one is for the lovely @evelynshelby, today is your birthday and as a present here is a little something for you. I hope you like it and that it will be able to make you feel a little better✨ I haven't proofread it I'm sorry, but I wanted it to be out for your birthday so here it is.

I haven't written Alfie in what feels like forever and I actually missed him lol. The Bane request is the next one don't worry anon.

Requests are always open and feedback is always appreciated!

Tag list: @mollybegger-blog @br0ck-eddie (let me know if you wanna be added)

Life could be such a wonderful experience. Feeling the warmth of the sunlight on your face while taking a stroll down a park, listening to the quiet sounds of the birds resting on the nearby trees. Humming a little tune of your own you relished in feeling the moment to its core, in its simplicity. Who could have thought that such a simple action could bring such powerful emotions? Well, maybe the Romantic poets did but that's beside the point.

Afternoon strolls were a recurring thing between you and Alfie. It had started a couple months ago when you thought it would be such a waste to be coped up into a restaurant with a beautiful day blossoming outside. Surprisingly, Alfie had agreed too despite the bad hip. He thought it would be a unique opportunity to get to know you better and indeed it was right. Along with the flowers, your relationship was starting to blossom too. It was crystal clear that there was something between you two but for some reason, neither of you pushed to put a label on it. You'd rather enjoy each other company in every possible way: evenings at the pictures, morning dates at a museum, dinner at your place and of course, your favourite one, the afternoon strolls.

Today wasn't any different than any other day. You were enjoying Alfie's company, walking alongside, observing the way nature was waking and growing more colourful. You were so taken by the sheer pink of a flower growing at the roots of a tree that when you looked up, it took you a moment to realize that the man who was walking your way, was rather familiar. Not in a good way though. Occasional meetings on the streets were something that you had always found rather dull but this one was different. You could tell by the feeling of dread that suddenly took over your bones or the shivers that made you slightly tremble. The man that had been unaware of his effect on you and yourself, was the one and only Stephan Loop.

Stephan had been your first crush but also your first heartbreak. Nothing really happened given that you were eight and he didn't reciprocate your feelings. That wasn't the worse part, you couldn't blame someone for not thinking you're pretty, even at the candid age of eigh you knew that. What broke you was what happened because of the crush.

You thought you had been sly about it but you couldn't have been more wrong because he knew and made it very clear that he didn't feel the same, even if you hadn't ever thought that he did, or well his cousin did. Sweet old wretched Clode thought it was rather fitting to make your crush very public. That meant not only poor Stephan that did nothing but stare probably not understanding what was going on, but also the whole class, which of course was very delighted by all the drama. It may sound a little childish because nothing really happened, but it was one of your most embarrassing moment, one that still haunted you from time to time. It's safe to say that you didn't recover from the embarrassment and shame yet. The crush was long forgotten but the shame... that will never fade. So when you saw his face coming closer you couldn't help but turn to Alfie for help, who was completely unaware of the intern turmoil you were experiencing.

"Alfie, quick hide me." you hurriedly walked over him and then behind him.

"What the fuck are you on about pet, what is going on?" He had been looking at the ground to try and not triple over any little rocks or branches. So he was genuinely startled by your sudden movement.

"Now it's not the time to ask questions, Alfred. Just put that massive body you have to use and hide me, please." You took the back his coat in your hands, holding it tightly so that you could keep him in place. A rather stupid thought given the difference between your hights and strength levels.

He hadn't a clue about what was happening but the fear and panic on your face were real. That much he knew. You kept glancing at the approaching Stephan, your face getting paler and paler as he took more steps towards you. It didn't take long for Alfie to connect the dots. He didn't know why but he knew that that man was the cause of your distress. So of course, he took the opportunity to turn the situation in his favour. Grabbing you, he brought you in front of him and softly pushed you on a wall you were walking by, his face getting dangerously close to yours.

This wasn't exactly what you had in mind when you asked him to hide you but Alfie was a cheeky bastard so you should've expected it.

"Don't take advantage of the situation Alfred." You warned him narrowing your eyes and staring pointedly at him.

"I don't know what you're talking about pet, I'm just doing what you asked, see? I don't think he'll be able to recognize you. I fear that your face is still too exposed tho. Here." and got even closer, your noses were now touching. If he inclined his head, your lips would too. Too into the moment, you let him distract you and have his way with you. He was even about to do it, that bastard, when you suddenly remembered yourself and pushed him away. You didn't know if Stephan had already walked past you but at this point, you didn't care.

"I actually prefer to die from an old wound that to open a new one, thank you very much asshole." you spat leaving him behind. But of course, Alfie being his annoying self didn't let you venture far off before catching up with you.

"A thank you would be enough, pet. " You heard his pace quicken thanks to the sound of leaves he stomped.

"Why the hell would I thank you?"

" 'Cause I've saved you from an embarrassing moment, like the gentleman I am."

"Yeah, by making fun of me. What a hero." you sassed with a roll of your eyes even though he couldn't see it.

"How was that making fun of you?" He sounded genuinely taken back

"Why would you pretend to kiss me? Couldn't you just hide me in a different way?"

"Public display of affection make people nervous so they don't look, alias you'd have been safe. You're welcome."

"Whatever you say Alfie." you mumble trying to put space between the two of you not in the mood to have this conversation anymore.

"Stop running Y/n, you know I can't keep up with you with this bloody stick." He growled and you knew he was getting frustrated.

"Well, maybe that's the point." you mumbled loud enough so that he could hear you.

To be honest, Alfie's behaviour was nothing new. He always did like to make fun of you or to put you in a tight spot just to see you all flushed and embarrassed. He was a sadist, that old bastard. But you also like to make fun of him and his nice and elegant walking stick so it was fair game really. The similarities between what he did and what happened with Stephan were too close though to let you brush away his comments like an irritating joke.

You slowed down after a while, letting him catch up with you, and he did eventually, in silence.

"So, wanna tell me who was that bloke?" he asked after a while.

"Not really." you mutter with a shrug.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked further.

"Not really." His cousin did.

"So what did he do that had you hidin' behind me like a scared kitten?" He persisted like you know he would.

"Let's just say that he's related to the most embarrassing moment of my life." You confessed.

"So he did hurt ya. Want me to let him meet my fists?" He oh so kindly offered.

"Although that's really kind of you, I think it's not necessary. And he didn't hurt me, his cousin did, " you started letting him in slightly, "she made fun of me because I had a little crush on her cousin, who was the guy we saw earlier. I haven't spoken to either of them since that day."

"Did he make fun of you too?" he just asked.

"Not really. But I'll always be the girl who had a crush on him you know? How can I ever look him in the eye after that?" You finally open up, looking to him and you find him already staring at you.

"He should feel fucking lucky to have a girl such as yourself crush on him. But, if it really bothers you still, you could be the girl he saw again after all these years, at the arm of a gentleman such as myself." He joked but you knew that his words were a tacit offer.

Smiling at him, you take the arm he was offering. Oh, how you cherished this man.

"Well, I think I'll take you up on that, thank you very much." you beam at him, leaving a sweet kiss on his cheek sealing the deal.

#tom hardy #tom hardy imagines #tom hardy fanfiction #tom hardy x reader #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie #alfie solomons fanfiction #alfie solomons imagine #alfie solomons #alfie solomons imagines #alfie solomons x reader #alfie x reader #alfie solomons one shot #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinder fanfic #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders

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pathetic-has-been-rockstar · 4 years ago

Text

Finding Warmth

Pairing: Crowely x reader

Written for: @spnchristmasbingo

Square filled: sharing a bed

Warnings: none

Summary: Chuck is gone, Amara is in charge, and the world is finally free. You're heading to the bunker for the first proper Christmas celebration with Team Free Will, but you're forced to stop along the way. When the former King of Hell shows up, you manage to surprise him, and discover a new side of the demon.

Words: 2644

Beta: @raspberrymama

my work can be found on AO3, here! If you’re interested in the whole series, you just have to click here!

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The road to the bunker is pretty long, and the radio doesn't bring reassuring news. Apparently, there's a snow storm raging somewhere, and the roads aren't going to be open for long.

With a sigh, you peek at your car's clock. It's well past nine, and you're hungry and tired, so you decide to pull over at the first motel sign you see. You book a room, head to the gas station next to the motel and buy a couple of sandwiches, a cupcake and a couple of soft drinks. You're in the mood for some beer, but you're tired enough as it is.

Walking back to your room, you make a call.

“Hey there, Dean!”

“Kid! We were starting to worry. Where are you?” You smile at the concern in his voice. Since Chuck is gone and things have changed, he became almost overprotective in regards to his little found family.

“Still a state over. Snow storm raging, closed lanes. I've managed to snatch the last room in a motel, tomorrow morning things should be better.”

“Crap. I'm sorry. Anything we can do?”

“Nah, don't worry. I'll have some food and hit the bed, it's been a hell of a drive so far”, you quietly thank yourself for being reasonable and driving something maybe less fascinating but definitely more comfortable than the Impala. Dean's voice brings you back shortly.

“Take some rest and stay safe, ok? We'll check in tomorrow, but you keep us updated”.

“Won't miss. Night guys.”

You quickly hang up and walk in your room. It's pretty cold, close to the road, and the bed doesn't look really comfortable, but it still beats the idea of sleeping on some shoulder of the road.

Once you're done with your dinner, you try to turn on the tv, but it doesn't work, just like the heating, apparently. Bored and slightly frustrated, you make yourself a cup of tea using the courtesy set, then pick up your phone and send a text.

A moment later, a familiar British accent rings behind you.

“Hello, darling.”

You turn around in your chair, smiling at the king of Hell. As usual, he's clad in black, looking both impeccable and mildly bored.

“Hello, Crowley. How are you?”

“I'm curious, actually. How can I help my favourite non-hunter on this fair night?”

The day he won't tease you about the fact that you still refuse to label yourself as a hunter will be the day Hell freezes over, probably. You laugh it off, and make your request, hoping he's in a good mood.

“Do you have a way to bring me to the bunker that's not through a snowstorm?”

He tilts his head, looking at you.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I need to get to the bunker, but the snow...”

“Do I look like a bloody taxi service to you?”

Alright, he's not in a good mood. You shake your head, feeling the tiredness of the day washing over you, and you shift a bit in the chair.

“You don't have enough juice anymore, do you?”

He gives you a cold glance, and doesn't even bother denying. He pulls up a chair and sits, stretching his legs under the table and looking at you.

“Why are you in a rush to get there, anyway? As far as I know, the Wonder Brothers are on holiday break.”

“Yes, they are. I'm part of that break.”

He looks surprised, then he pouts for a second before talking, like he does when something doesn't go the way he wants.

“Of course you are. Well... since you summoned me for a stupid request, I'll take advantage of it. Which means... I'm staying here.”

You choke a little at the idea. You're not going to complain about spending a night with him, but the idea of doing it like that, without anything to steal, hunt, or kill just feels a bit weird. It's also the first time that you two spend time together alone after the whole Chuck affair and his return from the Empty.

“The whole night?”

He nods, eyeing the bed with a smirk you know too well.

“You fear we'll run out of things to do, love?”

“Oh, please. It's freezing in here.”

“One more reason to take advantage of the bearer of Hellfire, love.”

You laugh off his swagger and take it for what it is: the very essence of Crowley, and a clear attempt to play his favourite game of making people uncomfortable. Then, you remember something.

“Yeah, sure. Hang on, I gotta pick up something from my car.”

You grab the keys of your car and rush out of the room, leaving a very bemused Crowley behind you.

That's not how he was expecting a nightly summoning to go... nor what he was hoping for. You don't seem particularly interested in replaying that only night in which you fell between his arms, but that doesn't mean he won't play his cards to get there.

He walks to the table and picks up the cup of what looks like tea, but smells like chemicals and bad food colouring, until he hears you stepping back in the room and closing the door behind you.

“Here.”

Crowley raises his nose from your cup of “tea”, which he was curiously smelling, and looks at you with a confused expression.

“... what... what’s that?”

“A box. Inside it, there’s a thing I’d like you to have on my behalf. It’s called a present, or gift. Mortals do this thing of exchanging them at Christmas. Remember that?”

“... you got me a present. A... a Christmas present.”

“Yeah.”

“You... got the King of Hell a Christmas present.”

“Former king of Hell, last time I checked. If you don’t want it I can always take it back, you know.”

Setting the cup back on the counter, Crowley’s stare shifts from your hands holding the box to your face, studying your features. You seem good willed enough.

“I didn’t say that”, he mumbles.

“Well, take it, then. Careful, it’s fragile.”

Crowley finally takes the box from you, brushing your fingers with his ones in doing so, and noticing the slight pink tingeing your cheeks for a moment.

The box is wrapped in brown paper, but you drew a geometric pattern on it, snowflakes-shaped. Then, watching more carefully, Crowley sees a pitchfork here and there in the middle of the snowflakes, and he smiles. You really put some effort in that, and you're glad he seems to appreciate it.

“You surely do have a certain sense of humour, kitten.”

“There’s not a single good enough reason to be dull”, you brush off his compliment, but it surely flatters you.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

With a snap of his fingers, the wrapping paper opens without tearing, making you smile. You stand, awkward, and watch Crowley carefully examining the wooden box in his hands, until he sees the name branded on it. Immediately, he grins. You certainly know him.

“Kitten, of all the surprising things you could have done, this goes easily up in the top ten.”

“I am surprising, after all.”

You shrug, awkward. You're happy that he liked the present, but you keep hoping that he won’t ask you the most obvious question, the one whirring through your mind since you decided to give him one bottle of the finest whisky in the world.

“Indeed. Just... why?”

“One of my clients saw a bottle you left at the store and asked me if I was interested in whisky. I treat him pretty well, so he sent me a couple of these, and I thought you might like it.”

“That's not what I asked.”

“It's just... tradition, you know?”

Crowley shakes his head, carefully setting the bottle on the table of the motel. You both are well aware that what you gave him is rare, coveted, and incredibly expensive. It surely is not a token exchanged to respect a tradition.

“No, it's not. And you put me in a difficult position, now. I haven't gotten you anything.”

You smile, a bit disappointed by the fact that he deemed that present as a formality.

“It's fine, actually. You must be terrible with presents.”

“Pardon?”

“Of course. You were a king, used to being revered and obeyed... when was the last time you gave someone a present, just because you felt like doing it? And don't mention paying Dean's bar tabs, that doesn't count. It must be something you picked out, not a deal.”

Crowley thinks about it for a second, then scoffs. You got him, and yet he's not particularly bothered. There's something in the way you tease him that he really likes. Perhaps it's because you're not scared of him, or maybe because you don't seem conflicted about him. No awkward shuffling and senseless musings about right or wrong. Even after your night together, you simply moved on, like you would have done with any other one-time lover... even if perhaps he didn't exactly appreciate that.

“Alright, kitten, you got me. But I'm sure that, if I had a chance, I could certainly surprise you with a nice present”.

“Ah, now. I gave you something... it's already impossible to be spontaneous.”

“I don't think this game has fair rules.”

You laugh and relax on the uncomfortable chair. “Of course it doesn't. Christmas is a very tactical time of the year. If I surprise you with a present, you will be forced to be nice to me until next Christmas. I'm an evil genius in a very hot body.”

He laughs, his eyes roaming your forms.

“While I can definitely see that... I'm sorry, love, but you lack conviction.”

“Meaning what?”

“I am quite the epitome of the villain... and that speech lacks the necessary emphasis to be believable. In fact, I think you like Christmas quite a lot, and you took real pleasure in giving me something.”

“I've never been so insulted in my life!” you mock him, making him laugh. You've always taken a certain pride in being the one able to make Crowley genuinely laugh, and his humour is one of the things you appreciate most of him.

He snaps his fingers and conjures two crystal glasses from thin air. They're made of crystal, finely etched, and you recognize them as a part of his personal collection, one you've often seen in his hand. He gives you a questioning look.

“... what is it, your highness?”

“I was wondering how upset you'd be if I were to share my present with you.”

You think about it for a second, then solemnly look back at him.

“You know... I think a quality check is in order.”

“Just what I thought. Let's see if mister Gordon and mister MacPhail have honoured fifty years of ageing.”

When Crowley pours you your whisky, you immediately take a deep breath of it, studying the articulate aroma. You rarely had the chance of drinking something this old, and you're always curious about it.

The first note is sweet, like apple and honey, followed by a hint of smoke, and that promise is kept when, after a proper toast with your favourite demon, you indulge your dram. The sweet and thick taste is balanced by a sour note, and it leaves a peaty finish on your tongue. After the first few sips, it's already going to your head, and you lick your lips. The smoky finish reminds you of something similar, far more tempting.

Something that's currently sitting in front of you, telling of a deal he made with the owner of a distillery in the Speyside, a couple of centuries ago. You try to engage in conversation, at first, but time flies, the bottle empties more and more, and pretty soon you're half asleep.

You almost miss his laughter when he stands up and places his hands on your shoulders, helping you up on your feet. You protest weakly, closing your eyes.

“Come on, kitten. Let's get you to bed.”

“... no... I don't want to, it's cold...”

“I'll see to it. Do you trust me?”

The warm voice purring to your ear is a dream, a promise of comfort and warmth that you’re not willing to give up, but you also know you’re not supposed to indulge.

“... I shouldn't...”

“But do you?”

You drop your head on his shoulder, rubbing your face against the fabric of his suits while you nod.

“... yes.”

“And thanks to Christmas magic, this time you won't pay for this mistake.”

Crowley laughs next to your ear while he effortlessly carries you to bed. With a snap of his fingers he takes off your shoes and clothes, substituting them with a comfortable flannel pyjama.

You curl up under the thin sheets, shivering in the cold bed, and close your eyes, trying to relax. You hear another snap of fingers and you feel Crowley slipping in the sheets behind you, wrapping you in a warm embrace.

You'd like to protest, but he's too warm, and you're tired. All you manage to do is let out a muffled sound, before snuggling closer to him and falling asleep right away. You enjoy the best night of sleep you had in months.

The following morning, you open your eyes and, for a second, you don't see anything. It takes you a moment to realize that you must have turned in your sleep, and your face is now pressed against Crowley's chest. One of your arms is folded between you, while the other is draped on his side. You pull back, suddenly awkward, making him laugh. Your breath hitches imperceptibly when you feel the soft rumble shaking his chest, but you hope he didn't notice.

“Morning, love.”

“I... hi. How... how are we... did we...”

Crowley runs a hand through your hair, pulling them away from your face. “We shared the only bed, yes. I think we could have done something more interesting, but you were drunk, and quite exhausted.”

“I wasn't drunk, just... never mind. What time is it?”

“Barely 9. We still have plenty of time to get to the bunker.”

“... we?”

The kiss on your forehead is so light that you wonder if you imagined the light prickle of his beard on your skin, but Crowley lingers there for a moment before answering your question.

“You surely need a copilot to get there in one piece, and you can't die while you're one up on me.”

You finally chuckle and slowly, very slowly, you disentangle yourself from Crowley. One of his hands moves on your side, and his fingers sink in the fabric covering your skin. The shiver running down your back has very little to do with the room temperature.

“... alright, you can come with me, then. Let me just take a shower and...”

“No rush, love. Actually, why don't we...”

Your phone buzzing furiously on the nightstand interrupts Crowley. You give him an apologizing look, then grab your phone and pick the call, groaning.

“Yeah?... yes, Dean, I... alright, sure. Thanks. I'll get going”. You hang up and turn to Crowley, blushing. “He... he heard that the roads are open, but the weather cast says it's snowing again this afternoon. We'd better get on the road.”

Before he can say anything, you stand up, grab your bag and walk into the bathroom, locking the door behind you. On the good side, you're so confused and excited that you barely notice the cold. On the bad side, you're so confused and excited that you almost try to use your mouthwash as skin tonic.

Crowley , still lying on the bed, smirks at the stained ceiling. He's seen how nervous you are around him, and he congratulates himself on his decision to come with you at the bunker. He's never been a fan of holidays, but it looks like things might change soon.

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Thank you for reading! I truly hope you enjoyed this little story. Every kind of feedback is very much appreciated, just as much as likes and reblogs!

Please, do not repost my works or part/s of it on different places, not even if you give credits.

#spnchristmasbingo #reblog #crowley x reader #spnfic #fanfiction #writers on tumblr #fluff #christmas fluff #crowley x fem reader

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exit-goat · 4 years ago

Text

Between Friends

To say, “you met me at a very strange time in my life,” would be an understatement for Fiona and Charlie. Fiona’s life had come crashing to a halt, and Charlie, well his just got turned upside down. They’re lost, looking for someone to anchor them down, to keep them afloat. Will they help guide one another out of the wreckage or lose even more along the way? Only time will tell.

Chapter 1: Perfect Strangers (x)

Chapter 2: Penny for your Thoughts

CW: tipsy!Charlie, drinking, lingering glances, angst, mentions of cancer, mentions of parental death, mentions of divorce, lingering touch, dialogue heavy, mature language, the very briefest mentions of pussy eating/blowjobs/sex

Word Count: 7k what can I say this chapter kinda got away from me

AN: this chapter is a doozy, very plot heavy and dialogue heavy. This fic is going to be a sloooow burn so bare with me lol. I really want to establish back story and set the scene first before launching into the NSFW content (there will be smut in this fic, promise) Any and all comments/questions are always appreciated! Let me know if you want to be on the tag list and I’ll happily add you!

***

Charlie turned toward Fiona, the familiar sound of his name being called pulling him out of his introspective daze. He met Fiona's eyes with a confused look.

From this close, Fiona could see each and every freckle scattered across his face. She also noticed the slight signs of ageing. Shallow creases were present at the outer corners of his eyes, across his forehead and around his mouth.

They added to his appearance, made him look more mature and dignified. It was a stark contrast to the fresh-faced image of a young Charlie that stuck out in Fiona's memory.

"Yes, can I help you?"

The deep baritone of Charlie's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. A slight blush crept across her cheeks as her eyes met his. His face was no longer contorted by stress, but there was still an intensity behind his eyes. It sent a shiver up her spine.

"I knew it was you, Charlie. You always did stick out from those around you, huh?"

Fiona joked lightly, seeing if he would work out who was standing in front of him. Growing up in Indiana, she would joke about how Charlie was a beacon in a crowd of people. No matter where he went, he was always at least a head taller than those around him.

Charlie, however, looked more confused than ever. He tilted his head slightly to one side, his eyes skating over Fiona's features.

"I'm sorry, do we know each other? I don't mean to be rude, but-"

"Oh, don't tell me you don't recognize me." Fiona interrupted him, "I know a decade is a long time, but I don't think I've changed that much." She flashed him a knowing grin, then looked at herself in the mirrored wall behind the bar.

She had changed a bit over the years. Living in California, where it was summer all year round, gave her once pale skin a beautiful, healthy glow to it. Her hair had lightened naturally, from dark chestnut mahogany to a lighter auburn colour from the years spent under the sun.

Her facial structure was more poignant. Most of her baby fat had gone away with age, leaving her with a sharp jawline and noticeable cheekbones.

But, besides these little details, Fiona thought she pretty much looked the same. Maybe she was a bit weathered from the stress of life, but she still saw the same young girl from Indiana looking back at her in the mirror.

She turned her attention back to Charlie, who was looking her over again. His face etched in focus as he studied her, trying to match the face he saw now with ones from his memories.

She was definitely familiar to him. There was something about the way she spoke to him like an old friend. When she smiled wide, a dimple at her chin appeared, causing a crease to form at the end of her laugh line.

Yes, she was definitely familiar to Charlie, but he couldn't quite place where he knew her.

It took him a moment longer, his mind lingering on whatever was bothering him before Fiona approached. But, when his gaze met Fiona's once more, realization washed over his face.

"Fiona Webster." He spoke with disbelief, searching her eyes to make sure he wasn't mistaken.

When Fiona smiled wide at his recollection, Charlie stood from his seat and embraced her in a hug.

That smile brought Charlie right back to his high school days. Memories of lunch breaks spent in the drama room, meeting up in the morning to walk to school, and walking home together flooded Charlie's mind.

His body engulfing her with warmth and familiarity. She reached up and wrapped her arms around Charlie's neck. The smell of his cologne, sandalwood and citrus with a hint of some kind of warm spice (star anise or cardamom maybe??) wafted off his shirt as she let her head rest on his shoulder for a second.

Charlie tightened his grip around Fiona's waist briefly before pulling away. He honestly could not believe that she was here, in this hotel of all places.

When Charlie stood to his full height, Fiona noted that her earlier observations had been spot on. Charlie had filled out his frame. His arms were thicker and more muscular, his shoulders were broader and his chest… it was more substantial, but in all the right ways.

Fiona remembered how boney Charlie used to be, but now, his chest and abdomen had a healthy weight packed on them. To put it frankly, Charlie was huge. He was truly a brick wall of a man.

"You cut your hair…" Charlie said absentmindedly. Fiona was sure he didn't mean to say that out loud.

"A few times since you last saw me, yeah." Fiona chuckled, beaming up at him with a playful smile.

She instinctively tucked the loose strands of hair that fell around her face behind her ears. Charlie let out a nervous laugh before moving to sit back down. Fiona followed and sat down on the stool next to him.

"I just meant that it's shorter than I remember." Charlie felt heat rise to his cheeks as he faced forward. He definitely hadn't meant to say that out loud.

There was a brief silence as the pair took a sip of their drinks. Charlie started fiddling with the label on his beer bottle again, not knowing what to say next.

"I hear congratulations are in order."

Fiona mused, stealing a sideways glance at Charlie. He let out a curious 'hmm?', turning his head to face Fiona.

"Your theatre! I've heard rave reviews about it over the years, Charlie, you're a great success!"

Charlie smiled bashfully, the tops of his cheeks turned a lovely shade of pink at Fiona's kind words. He turned away from her, without a word, and took a swig from his beer.

"Oh, don't be so modest, Barber." Fiona teased, "I know you must be proud of the work you've done, the shows you've directed."

"It's a group effort, really." Charlie shrugged.

Fiona scoffed playfully, shaking her head with a smile playing at her lips. Always so humble, she thought to herself. Charlie was never one to hog the spotlight. He always made sure that everyone felt included and celebrated. She was glad to see that he hadn't changed.

"It is! I wouldn't be where I am today without the amazing work and attitude of the cast and crew." Charlie defended, smiling at Fiona.

He paused, taking another sip from his drink.

"Everyone puts a lot of effort into every production. They do amazing work, really."

"So what is the great Charlie Barber doing in Los Angeles, hm? Scouting new talent? Opening a new theatre? Expanding your empire?"

Charle smiled lightly at the goofiness and grandeur of Fiona's questions, but it didn't reach his eyes. That same intensity that Fiona had seen before had returned.

"It's… complicated," Charlie mumbled while signalling to the bartender for another round, "I don't want to bore you with the details."

A quiet lull swept over them, neither of them speaking. They sat together, idly sipping at their drinks. Fiona was trying to find a way to bring up whatever was plaguing Charlie without seeming intrusive or coming across as pushy.

It had been ten years, and Charlie had no reason to divulge his personal life to her. They had been friends for a long time, though, and Fiona couldn't help the concern she felt for him.

After all, they had been with each other during the roughest times of their youth. That would always mean something to Fiona. No amount of time or distance would diminish that.

"How have you been? L.A treating you well?"

Charlie's voice broke the silence causing Fiona's head to turn. She had been so wrapped up in thought that she nearly forgot he was still sitting there.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, L.A has actually turned out to be better than I thought it would be." She smiled fondly, thinking about all the memories she's made in this sunny city.

"And while I'm no star-studded director like yourself -" she teased, nudging Charlie's shoulder with her own, "- life has been kind to me."

"Oh yeah?" Charlie nudged Fiona back, a broad grin on his face. "That's good, I'm glad to hear it."

He looked quite sincere then like he genuinely meant what he said, like the words spoken were not from a place of kind pleasantries but from a place of truth. Fiona mumbled a quiet 'thank you' turning away as she felt a slight blush creep across her cheeks.

"Did you ever go back to school? After you left New York? I remember how devastated you were when you had to leave."

Fiona shifted in her seat. The memory of university and New York made her heart ache. She let out a nervous breath, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"No, I uh, I never continued school over here." She fiddled with the straw in her drink while she spoke, not looking at Charlie.

"It's not that I never wanted to go back to school because I did, and I still do! I just… there was just never a good time to go back, you know?"

Fiona looked over to Charlie, who nodded in agreement, before continuing.

"And between taking care of my mum and work, and just life in general, I wouldn't have been able to even find the time to attend classes, study and do homework and…"

Fiona trailed off, realizing that she had started rambling. Whenever school and university was brought up, Fiona had a tendency to get defensive.

It probably stemmed from her guilt of having to leave school in the first place. She really had no reason, though, to get defensive. She left school for admiral reason, to fulfill her familial duty.

She was so excited. Attending NYU had always been a dream of hers, one she and Charlie talked in-depth about during their high school days. Fiona loved New York, loved the bustling crowds and the sounds of heavy traffic.

She graduated high school a year after Charlie did. When she finally got to the city, Charlie was her personal tour guide. He took her to all his favourite places around the city.

Her first year of university was everything thing she hoped it would be, and more. She had met some fantastic people and learned so many new things. She quickly fell in love with New York and all it had to offer, but unfortunately, life had other plans for her.

About halfway through her second year of school, Fiona's mum got really sick. With her dad out of the picture, it fell on Fiona to be the one to take care of her mum to make sure she wasn't alone.

Fiona left New York with a heavy heart. All of the possibilities of her future and the beginnings of the life she was building for herself faded quickly in the rearview mirror as she taxied to the airport.

Fiona sighed to herself, stealing a glance at Charlie.

"Hey, I totally get it. Life loves to throw curveballs." He gave her an understanding smile. "How is your mum, by the way?"

Fiona chewed the inside of her bottom lip. She knew this would come up, knew Charlie would ask about her at some point.

While Fiona had made peace with her mum's death during the many rounds of chemotherapy, it was hard to talk about.

"She uh… Actually, she passed away a couple of weeks ago."

Charlie reached over, placing a hand on Fiona's back and soothingly rubbed circles between her shoulder blades.

"I'm sorry to hear that." He spoke softly, then, his gaze turned downward. He hadn't seen Ms. Webster in a long time, something he now wished he could apologize for. He never meant for so much time to pass without reaching out.

"She was always very kind to me, something I'll always be grateful for. Honestly, I don't think I would've made it through high school if it weren't for your mum taking me in, letting me sleep in the guest room when things got bad at home… she was an amazing person, Fiona."

"Yeah, she was." Fiona smiled meekly at Charlie before turning away.

She could feel tears start to form and collect at her eyes' waterline, threatening to spill over. She directed her gaze up at the ceiling, blinking rapidly, willing the tears to go away.

This is not the time or the place she thought to herself, as Charlie continued to trace soft circles across the expanse of her back. Fiona cleared her throat before speaking again.

"Yeah, my mum loved you, considered you to be one of her own. She would always say that she'd just pack up your things one day and steal you away to come live with us."

"That sounds like her." Charlie chuckled while Fiona's face broke out in a grin.

"I think she may have even looked into ways she could adopt you."

The pair giggled some more and continued to reminisce about their shared teenage years. The topic changed to their time in high school, how they would spend lunch breaks in the drama room and the many many misadventures of their science teacher Mrs. Horowitz, who always managed to set something on fire during lab days.

They recounted the many late-night movie marathons they would have whenever Charlie stayed over on weekends. How they would morph into sincere heart to hearts out in the backyard, under the night sky.

Fiona and Charlie quickly fell into a rhythm as their conversation continued on into the late-night hours. There were no more awkward silences or weird disjointed topic changes.

Talking with Charlie felt effortless, Fiona noticed. She hadn't realized how much she missed him before now. Sure, she thought about him in passing from time to time, but her thoughts never dwelled on him or the past for too long.

The drinks continued to flow along with their conversation. Fiona was currently working on her third vodka tonic of the night, and Charlie was halfway through his sixth beer. Fiona was definitely feeling a little buzzed at this point, and she was sure that Charlie was, at the very least, a little tipsy.

You wouldn't know it just by looking at him, but Charlie was a lightweight. He always had been. The sheer size and magnitude of his body would have most people convinced that Charlie could handle himself, but Fiona knew better.

If past experience wasn't enough to be sure of his drunkenness, his demeanour gave his definitely gave it away. During one of Charlie's stories about his son, Henry, he had unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, exposing his white undershirt.

Fiona's musings, and Charlie's story, were interrupted by the sound of Fiona's ringtone.

"Shit, sorry," she mumbled to him, fishing into her pants' back pocket for her phone.

When she pulled it out, she saw the name DANIEL WEBSTER flash at the top. Her brows furrowed, and a huff of air involuntarily escaped from between her lips.

"Do you need to get that?" Charlie inquired, stealing a quick glance over Fiona's shoulder.

"Hmm? Oh, no ", she turned the ringer off and set the phone down on the bar before turning her attention back to Charlie, "it's not important."

"I take it you and Dan still aren't on good terms, huh?"

Fiona scoffed and shrugged her shoulders, "I honestly don't think my brother and I have ever been on good terms."

Charlie's eyebrow quirked up, and he let out an amused hum. There was an alcohol-induced grin playing at his lips as he faced forward to sip his drink.

He silently agreed with Fiona, thinking back to the few times he interacted with Dan. Charlie remembered how, no matter what the situation was or the topic of conversation, Fiona and her brother were always on opposing sides.

It's now, or never Fiona thought to herself, taking in Charlie's appearance.

He looked relaxed for the first time since Fiona had sat down. His elbow rested on the polished wood bar top, and his head was propped up by the palm of his hand.

She'd only have one chance to bring up whatever was troubling her estranged friend, and it had to be now as they both let a comfortable silence sweep over them.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Fiona asked while leaning on the bar, mimicking Charlie's position.

Charlie's eyes flicked toward Fiona, the grin still present on his face. He let out a light chuckle as he replied, "what?"

"I can tell… or at least it seems like something's bugging you." Fiona paused, searching Charlie's features.

"Or at least that something is weighing on your mind. I could tell from the other side of the bar."

Charlie stayed silent, watching Fiona closely. The intensity returned to his eyes, and it was too much to bear. Fiona adverted her gaze to her free hand, as her fingers traced along the ridges and grooves on the bar top.

"Obviously, you don't have to tell me. I mean, we're practically strangers, but -"

"We're not really strangers, though, Fiona. Never were." Charlie interjected, causing Fiona to tear her focus from her fingers' movements to look up at him.

"Right," she said, holding eye contact with him before dropping her gaze back down.

"Well, either way, I guess… I just, I thought that maybe you'd want to talk about it with an unbiased third party, you know? Maybe I could offer some insight, or even just be a pair of ears who'll listen without judgement."

Fiona shrugged her shoulders, not daring to look up at Charlie. She was worried she stepped over a line, crossed some boundary of Charlie's without realizing.

On the other hand, Charlie was surprised and touched that she wanted to help him, even after all this time. It caught him off guard a little bit, to know that Fiona could still read his body language. It was as if the past ten years had never gone by. As if they hadn't fallen out of touch.

"You're right…," Charlie sighed.

Fiona glanced up at him then, her eyes studying his face. She stayed silent as she leaned off the bar, straightening out her posture, waiting for Charlie to continue.

"Can you keep this just between us?" Charlie knew that is was foolish to ask such a thing. He knew even before the question had left his lips, but he had to ask, just to be safe.

He knew that whatever he told Fiona, she would keep it to her self. She had proven that a thousand times over in the years they had known one another.

"Who am I going to tell?" Fiona teased lightly because, really, who was she going to tell? Her only confidant was her mum, and it wasn't like she and Charlie shared many mutual friends.

Charlie held her gaze; each muscle in his face was set and rigid. The stern look he gave her caused Fiona's smile to drop a little. She gave a curt nod and said,

"Just between us."

Charlie relaxed a little, letting out a deep breath. He sat up a little straighter and ran a hand through his hair.

"Nicole, my wife, is here in L.A for a new project she's working on, and she brought Henry down with her a couple of days ago."

Charlie paused for a second, his fingers absentmindedly twisting his wedding band around his ring finger.

"I got in today, and I thought that we'd have some family time, see Nicole's family who lives down here, and just have a nice mini-vacation before I have to go back to New York."

Fiona nodded her head, listening intently and watching Charlie closely. He was starting to tense up again. His shoulders were pinched up together, and his brow was furrowed as he recounted the events that took place earlier in his day.

"Anyway, I finally get to the house after being stuck on a plane for five hours. I'm not even in the house for more than 10 minutes when I'm served with fucking divorce papers, by my own sister in law!"

Charlie let out a huff of air, wringing his hands together.

"Shit, I'm sorry, Charlie." Fiona tried to console him, reaching over to rub circles on his back.

The corner's of Charlie's mouth quirked up the tiniest bit at the returned gesture. He gave Fiona a small smile while trying to get his breathing to return back to normal.

He hadn't meant to get so worked up about this, and he conceded that Fiona was right; he did need to talk about it. If he didn't, he would just bottle it all up to fly off the handle at some unsuspecting person later on down the road.

"No, don't be sorry. This has been a long time coming, actually, something we were already in the processes of doing."

Fiona nodded.

"The thing that really gets me is that we both agreed, at the start of all this -" Charlie gestured in the hair with his hands, "- to not get lawyers involved. We agreed that we'd use mediators and figure it out ourselves… peacefully, amicably."

"Mm, divorce can be tricky like that," Fiona spoke softly as she continued to rub circles on Charlie's back at a slow, but steady, pace.

"You say that like you speak from experience." Charlie looked up at Fiona, who offered him a small consoling smile.

Her eyes held a touch of sadness to them, and what Charlie thought to be guilt.

"Were you married?"

The hand on Charlie's back stilled for a moment as Fiona's gaze drifted around the room before meeting Charlie's once more.

"I was, yeah. But, uh, not for very long."

Charlie's eyebrows shot up at her confession, "You were married? Really?"

Fiona nodded her head.

"I thought you always said that you weren't the marrying type."

"I'm not. My marriage proved that." Fiona let out a small chuckle, shaking her head at Charlie.

Her hand left Charlie's back to push her hair back behind her ears.

"How long were you married?"

"Just a year. I couldn't let it go on past that, it wouldn't have been fair."

She cast her eyes downward, settling on studying the stripes on Charlie's button-up instead of looking him in the eye.

"When did you realize…" Charlie trailed off, not knowing how to phrase the question.

Fiona understood, though, what Charlie was getting at. "When did I realize that I didn't want to be married anymore?" She offered.

"Honestly, the moment he proposed, and the moment I said yes, was the moment I realized."

There was a brief pause, and then Fiona continued, "And before you say anything, I tried really hard to make it work. Joseph, Joe, was such a sweet guy. He was always so patient and understanding with me. Not to mention he was a dream when it came to stuff with my mum, and I really did love him. It's just…"

She trailed off, looking up at Charlie again. He was studying her, looking at her so intently and focused. There wasn't any hint of contempt or disgust in his eyes, like she had anticipated, so she continued.

"I never felt like a… like a bride. I didn't get any butterflies when trying on dresses or arranging things like the floral centrepieces or the napkins' colour. I didn't get nervous the night before or when I was walking down the aisle. And I know I shouldn't have gone through with the wedding, let alone stay married for a year."

Fiona sighed, "I just desperately wanted to make it work, for Joe and for me. It's just not who I am, you know?"

Charlie nodded, "You can't force these types of things."

"Anyway, to make a long story short, I told Joe, and he did not take it well. He filed for divorce, and we had a long and lengthy battle over our mutual assets and who gets what. In the end, he got most of it. Which was fine with me because I effectively wasted a whole year of his life. He deserved more anyway."

"Long and lengthy, huh?" Charlie's voice cut through the thick fog of shameful memories that clouded Fiona's mind.

"Yeah, but I'm sure yours won't be like that! Your divorce will probably just fly right by, quick and easy."

Charlie's face broke out in a wide toothy grin. It was just so absurd, describing divorce as 'quick and easy.' He couldn't help the giggles that escaped him.

"Here's hoping," He said, raising his beer bottle to Fiona, who, in turn, raised her glass.

"So, do you have any advice for me? Having been through this yourself."

"I guess I would tell you to try not to escalate things, learn when and what to concede on."

Fiona shrugged her shoulder, "I don't know, just try to remember that regardless of how it plays out and who gets what, that you and Nicole were once in love. Remember that your relationship wasn't always where it is now."

Charlie sat silently for a while, mulling over Fiona's words. While he had heard them many times before, from marriage counsellors, mediators, friends, and family members, it sounded more convincing when Fiona said it.

Maybe it was because she had been through it herself. Or perhaps it was because Fiona had this convincing way about her. She could get anyone to believe that the sky was actually green just by stating it matter-of-factly. Whatever the reason, Charlie made a point to commit her words to memory.

The silence between them was broken by a loud and amused snicker from Fiona.

"God, when did we get so old!" She exclaimed with a shake of her head and a broad smile playing at her lips, "I mean, the last thing I ever thought we'd talk about is divorce, and yet…"

It was just so absurd to Fiona. She was sitting next to one of her oldest friends from high school, talking about something as grown-up as divorce proceedings. She couldn't help the giggles that slipped out of her; the more she thought about it.

Really it was a normal thing that happened to everyone, getting old. Still, she never really thought about Charlie getting older and having older people problems. And she especially didn't imagine this is where she'd be at this point in her life.

At twenty, Fiona never thought that at age thirty-four, she'd be starting her life over again, lost on what to do next, or where to go, a university drop out, and living in California.

From beside her, Charlie let out a deep chuckle as he watched Fiona, her shoulders shaking as she tried to suppress her laughter. Charlie knew precisely what Fiona was getting at. He was no stranger to the existential dread of a life half lived.

Charlie had many late, sleepless nights. Nights where he would toss and turn in bed, his mind full of the endless anxiety that his best years were behind him.

"Tell me about it," Charlie spoke once Fiona's giggles died down. "It's like one morning I woke up, and I'm suddenly thirty-five years old, like I aged overnight."

Charlie shook his head, a grin plastered on his face. Usually, he would pity himself for his life's dullness thus far, but the alcohol in his system has crossed the wiring in his brain. At this moment, he found the lack of excitement in his life as amusing as all hell.

"I never did anything fun when I was in my twenties," he stated. "I never had any wild nights or one night stands. I never did any of the experimenting you can get away with when you're young."

Fiona nodded along, listening attentively.

"I didn't do any of the fun, reckless shit you're supposed to do. No, I spent the majority of my twenties worrying about bill payments and mortgages, life insurance and being a husband."

Charlie let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding, his gaze directed at his hand clasped around his beer bottle.

He had never admitted these feelings to anyone, not even to Nicole. But, confessing his feelings to Fiona felt… freeing, even more so when he lifted his gaze to see her nodding and smiling at his words.

"Tell me about it!" She replied, perhaps a little too loudly. The remaining patrons surrounding them turned their heads at the abrupt, disruptive noise, but Fiona paid them no mind.

"It's hard not to feel like your best years are behind you, especially when you had to grow up faster than those around you." She said, consciously lowering the volume of her voice a little bit.

Fiona had never met anyone her age that felt the same way about their twenties. All of her peers only had good things to say and funny stories to tell about how they spent their twenties.

All around her, people told stories about their crazy one night stands, pregnancy scares, partying, and the places they travelled too. Fiona never did any of that. She didn't even go anywhere outside of L.A for her honeymoon.

"I spent my twenties and nearly half of my thirties taking care of and being responsible for my mum. While I'm so grateful for the time that I had with her, I just wish… I wish that the responsibility didn't fall onto my shoulders."

God, that makes me sound like such a terrible person, she thought to herself, taking a sip from her drink to busy herself and avoid eye contact with Charlie.

"I know what you mean," Charlie spoke, causing Fiona to snap her head up to meet Charlie's gaze.

"Don't get me wrong," he continued, "I loved building the theatre from the ground up and working through all the problems that came up during its development, but sometimes I feel like the stress of it all shaved a good ten years off my life."

He chuckled to himself, taking a final sip of his beer and setting down the empty bottle on the bar top.

"And being a husband was… rewarding in its own way. I learned a lot, through being married, about partnership and responsibility."

The bartender walked over to the pair, interrupting Charlie's next thought. He picked up the empty beer bottle and Fiona's empty glass.

"It's last call," the bartender spoke, as he placed the glass and bottle somewhere under the counter. "You two need anything else?"

Fiona turned to look at Charlie, who gave a slight shake of his head, then turned back to the young bartender who stood in front of them.

"No, we're ok, thank you," Fiona answered, flashing an appreciative smile at the man, who gave a curt nod before leaving.

"There's just more I wish I'd done." Charlie continued, "I don't know. I guess it just feels like I missed out on a lot of things because I got married so young."

Fiona tilted her head to the side, her eyebrows furrowing together.

"Like what? What sort of things?" she inquired.

"Well, like, Nicole and I, we never, we uh we never…" Charlie trailed off, his eyes darting from Fiona to just about anywhere else.

Fiona's eyebrow lifted, and her eyes narrowed slightly. "You never… what?"

"We never…" Charlie started again, his eyes still dancing around the room, trying to find a focal point.

He glanced over at Fiona, her eyes wide and expectant. Charlie just sighed and mumbled, "it's embarrassing."

"Oh, it can't be that bad." Fiona playfully nudged Charlie's shoulder.

Charlie shook his head lightly, his cheeks turning a light shade of pink.

"C'mon Barber, you have to tell me now." Fiona urged lightly.

Charlie shook his head again. This time, a light chuckle escaped him.

"Besides, it's just me." Fiona continued with a wave of her hand, "who am I going to tell? And it's not like I'm the walking, talking poster-child for an avid social life either. So, I'm probably in the same boat."

Fiona shrugged when Charlie met her gaze. There was a coy smile etched on her face, her eyes filled with sincerity.

Charlie sighed, "We never did anything.. adventurous in bed."

The words were just barely above a whisper. If Fiona wasn't sitting directly beside Charlie, she probably wouldn't have heard him.

"That's completely normal, Charlie. Most couples don't have sex 50 Shades of Grey sty-"

"No, you don't understand," Charlie interrupted with a shake of his head, "We only ever had sex using two, maybe three, of the most basic positions."

Charlie glanced over at Fiona for the first time since his confession. Her eyebrows were shot up in surprise, and her jaw hanging open, lips forming into a little 'o' shape.

Charlie nodded his head and shrugged, "Yeah, I know."

Fiona's face quickly dropped, making Charlie chuckle. She didn't mean for her facial features to portray her surprise so blatantly. It was just so shocking and not at all what she assumed at first.

Fiona's mind was reeling with questions. She wanted to ask Charlie which positions he was talking about. He must be talking about the more fun basic ones, right? Surely he didn't mean they stuck to variations of the missionary position.

Fiona went to speak, to reassure her friend in some way. But each time she opened her mouth, the words died on her tongue. She was genuinely dumbfounded, at a loss for words. So she sat on the barstool, her mouth opening to speak and then closing again periodically.

Charlie stared at Fiona as he watched her process the information he just gave her. He could practically see the wheels turning in her head, her eyebrows furrowing together slightly, and her bottom lip snagged by her teeth.

He tried to suppress the small chuckles the rumbled out of his chest as he watched Fiona at a loss for words. This was someone who always had a comeback, a word of encouragement and kindness. Charlie had never seen Fiona rendered speechless before.

After quite some time, Fiona spoke, "Not even any foreplay?'

The question was quiet, mumbled, and laced with a tone of awe or wonderment. Charlie wasn't sure she had meant to say it out loud.

His suspicions were proven to be right when Fiona looked up at him sheepishly, a bright red blush spread across the tops of her cheeks.

Fiona looked away from Charlie, tucking her hair behind her ears.

"I don't know if you'd call it foreplay, but, yeah," Charlie replied, shyly.

Charlie could feel the heat rise to his cheeks, but he wrote it off as the effects of the alcohol.

"What do you mean?" Fiona pipped up, looking quizzically at Charlie.

Charlie cleared his throat, "We only ever did, uh, hand stuff. And only just to, uh, get the job done…"

God, he felt like a grade-schooler again, sheepishly talking about sex. He couldn't even bring himself to say the proper terminology.

"Wait, so you're telling me that she never…" Fiona trailed off, making a suggestive motion with her hand near her mouth.

Charlie just smiled at her, shifting ever so slightly each time Fiona's tongue pushed out against her cheek. The alcohol and lack of food in his system had already fogged his brain, making him slightly dizzy.

At least, that's what Charlie was telling himself. As he watched Fiona, he willed his body not to betray him by sending blood down to his crotch at the lewd gesture.

"Nope, never. Not even on my birthday." Charlie admitted with a longing sigh, tearing his eyes away from Fiona before clearing his throat.

"And she never let me go down on her either," Charlie paused, his mind flashing with memories of him nearly begging to go down on Nicole. "I think that's the one thing I miss the most," he mumbled, half to himself, half to Fiona.

Fiona nearly choked at the blunt honesty of his words. She remembered the way Charlie all but devoured his food like a man who'd been starved for years.

It wasn't long before her mind made the connection, images of what Charlie would look like, feel like, between her legs.

Fiona's thighs clench instinctively at the thought, her cheeks and ears set aflame by a red hot heat. Her gaze shifted to inspect the different bottles of alcohol, lining the shelves behind the bar.

The two sat in silence for a moment, Fiona meticulously observing each individual bottle. At the same time, Charlie fiddled with the wedding band on his finger.

It wasn't until Charlie caught a glimpse of his watch, catching the time, did he break the silence.

"Shit. I should probably get back." He mumbled, turning his head to face Fiona.

Fiona looked down at her phone, the time reading 10:45. "Yeah, I probably should too, I've got work pretty early tomorrow."

She pushed off the bar, giving her leverage to carefully step down from the stool. Charlie did the same, stumbling slightly as he untangled his legs.

Fiona was quick on her feet, coming up close to Charlie. She wrapped a hand around his waist, putting the other firmly at the centre of his chest.

"You ok?" she asked, looking up at him, while only the slightest hint of amusement on her face.

Charlie stiffened momentarily at the suddenness of Fiona's touch but quickly relaxed into it. Her hand on his chest was so small, yet it felt so stable, grounding Charlie to the spot where he stood.

"Yeah," he mumbled, "just these damn long legs."

Fiona chuckled, squeezing the side of his waist before stepping back from him. Her hand still lingered on his chest, absent-mindedly tracing the buttons with her finger.

"You are far too tall to be sitting on those stools."

Charlie returned her smile, letting out a breathy laugh. He was just about to reach for his wallet when Fiona's hand swatted lightly at his chest.

Charlie looked at her, tilting his head to the side inquisitively.

Fiona smiled, shaking her head side to side. "I've got this. You saved me from an otherwise very boring night."

"Let me at le-"Charlie started, but Fiona swatted him again.

"Barber, let me get the drinks, ok? You are, technically, my guest here in the city of angels, after all." Fiona winked at him before flagging down the bartender to settle the bill.

When she returned to Charlie, Fiona looped her arm around his waist once again. He had been swaying where he stood, not noticing until Fiona was there to stabilize him.

Fiona chuckled again, "C'mon sea legs, let's get you to bed."

Charlie mentally cursed himself for only eating a few pieces of roast chicken and nothing else since his breakfast this morning. At the same time, he let Fiona lead him to the hotel elevators.

"What floor are you on?" Fiona asked after pushing the 'up' button on the wall between elevators.

"I'm on the fifth floor, I think.." Charlie fished around in his pants pockets, looking for his hotel key.

He pulled it out from his back pocket, the number '515' scribbled on the envelope it was encased in.

"Yeah, the fifth floor," he confirmed as they both stepped into the waiting elevator car.

Charlie took purchase against the handrail while Fiona pushed the correct button.

"Looks like we're on the same floor." She smiled at him over her shoulder before hitting the close door button.

Fiona stepped back next to Charlie as she watched the doors close shut.

The elevator gave a sudden jolt upwards, causing Charlie to lose his footing and come crashing into Fiona with a grunt.

Again, Fiona's instincts were quick, and she caught Charlie in her arms, a hand on his chest like before. Only this time, this time, their bodies were touching.

Charlie's legs tangled with Fiona's, and his face was so close to hers that she could feel the warmth of his breath fan across her face.

The pair locked eyes. They stayed like that for just a moment before Fiona slowly pulled away, untangling her arms and legs from Charlie's body.

Charlie cleared his throat and mumbled a soft 'sorry,' leaning back against the cold metal wall. He stabilized himself by placing his hands on the handrail beside him.

Fiona copied Charlie, settling back into the wall as she focused on the changing numbers that indicated each floor. She placed one hand on the handrail, her fingers brushing against Charlie's briefly.

The rest of the ride was spent in silence, staring straight ahead. Neither of them dared to look over at the other, but they would have seen identical blushes spread across the other's face.

Fiona let out a breath when the elevator doors finally opened again. She stepped out, reaching for Charlie's arm as they walked down a nondescript hallway. This time, Charlie leads the way, interlocking Fiona's arm with his own.

"This is me," Charlie spoke, coming to a stop outside his door.

Fiona untangled her arm from Charlie's, turning to face in front of him. The two stood opposite from each other, Charlie leaning slightly against the wall.

He was staring at Fiona, studying her face, with a smile tugging at his lips.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Fiona asked, smirking up at Charlie.

Charlie's smile widened, an amused huff of air leaving him.

"It's nothing, I just was expecting this to be a shitty night," Charlie stated with a shrug, his hands finding purchase in his pants pockets. "And I definitely wasn't expecting to see you again, especially not here of all places."

Fiona's head dipped down, her hands brushing her hair behind her ears. It was a nervous habit, a self soother of sorts, that Fiona had always done. It was something Charlie had always found it to be earnestly adorable, though he never said that out loud.

"Hmm, I was pleasantly surprised to see you too. I, I.." Fiona paused. She wanted to tell Charlie that she missed him, but something inside her stopped her.

Instead, she said, "It was nice to see you again, Charlie."

Fiona flashed Charlie a toothy grin and gave him a light jab in the chest with her finger. Charlie caught her hand in his own before she could pull away.

He gave a light tug on her arm, beckoning Fiona closer to him. Fiona's breath hitched as she looked into Charlie's eyes. His brown eyes were burning with… adoration? Sincerity?

Fiona couldn't tell, but the look in Charlie's eye was warm and welcoming, impossible to tear away from. She had gotten so lost in it that she didn't notice Charlie wrap his arms around her, pulling her into a hug.

She hadn't noticed that she wrapped her own arms around his neck, that Charlie was now smirking at her. Fiona cleared her throat and gave an awkward chuckle.

Fiona let herself relax into Charlie's arms, resting her chin on his shoulder. "Don't be a stranger, Barber, seriously."

"I won't promise."

"I'll hold you to that."

Fiona pulled away, her hands dropping to pat lightly on Charlie's chest.

"Good night, Barber."

Charlie stepped back, his arms dropping from Fiona's waist, go fish out his hotel keycard.

"Good night, Fiona." Charlie smiled.

With that, Fiona turned around and made her way back down the hall towards her room.

*********

taglist: @hardlyinteresting @gurl-ly

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breakingsomething · 4 years ago

Text

the fall - part five (here we go again)

basic summary: both naomi and marvin talk to some old friends. meanwhile, jackie clears some stuff up with henrik and chase. chaos ensues.

trigger warnings: explosion, panic attack

"so what do we do, exactly?"

naomi, sitting on the bed where anti should have been and staring into space, wasn't sure how to answer that question. she bit her lip and let out a sigh, suddenly feeling very tired.

"i don't know," she murmured. "i guess i - i got to get a doctor from hecate, if i can. i know someone who knows someone, so i can maybe do that. would you mind looking after him while i call?"

lucas hesitated, curling his legs up from his perch on the windowsill. "uh, sure, i can try," he said uncertainly, and naomi flashed him a grateful smile. she hadn't mean to get lucas so thoroughly involved, but she was glad she had help. she'd have to take him out for lunch or something later to thank him.

"you're the best," she grinned. lucas stood and smiled back before standing and walking over to where the man had passed out again, slumped against the door. naomi couldn't even imagine the amount of pain he was in, drifting in and out of consciousness between fits of confusion and anger. what could have actually happened to him?

she watched lucas press a hand to his forehead, wincing. "he might have a fever," he murmured. "he's all hot and sweaty."

"sure you're not a doctor yourself, lucas?" she joked, trying to lighten the mood. he shook his head, snorting.

"my brother was. a non mag, of course." lucas wrapped an arm around the man's chest, trying to carefully lift him up. "anyway, not important. go call your friend. i'll be ok."

she paused as she left the room, suddenly worried. this day had been a lot more stressful than she'd planned.

marvin had mentioned this brother before, of course. he'd never said his name until today - fuck, what was his name, andy? - but he'd mentioned his glitching, and what he'd done to his brothers. never specifics, but it wasn't hard to imagine. naomi wondered why marvin was helping him after all he'd done to them. she wasn't a revenge driven person herself, but she knew her friend usually was. then again, this was his brother. whether that changed things, she really didn't know.

she went down the steps to the store and sat at the bottom, calling a number she hadn't intended to ever call again. fuck, the things she did for marvin… "hello?" she said cautiously as the phone finished ringing.

there was a brief silence on the other end of the line. "naomi?" kai said softly. he sounded like he was on a train or something. "uh… i thought we agreed to… never speak again?"

she covered her face with her hand. fuck, this was so much worse than she'd wanted already. "ja, we did," she mumbled. "but, uh… i need a favour. are you still friends with char?"

she heard him take a breath, licking his lips. she cringed at the sound. "i am," he said. "why - wait, let me guess. a doctor?"

she nodded, although kai couldn't see her. "my… friend's brother is hurt, he needs a magic doctor and i don't have enough connections in hecate to get one. so -"

"- you called me," he finished. "yeah, that's cool, i get it."

she closed her eyes, a pit of guilt roiling in her stomach. "i'm sorry -"

"don't be!" he said, far too cheerily. "i'll call her up. are you at your shop?"

she made a noise of confirmation. "mmh. listen, kai, i'm -"

"nai," he said, and he sounded so defeated. "it's cool. you don't have to call me again if - if you don't want."

"ok," she murmured. "thanks."

kai hung up without another word.

naomi stared at her phone for a long moment, feeling sick. she wasn't sure how long she would have sat there feeling angry at herself if it weren't for the loud scream upstairs. a scream that could only have come from one person.

she scrambled to her feet, racing up the stairs two at a time and throwing open the door to the spare room. she was greeted with the sight of lucas, flat on the floor, and andy sprawled out next to him. lucas pushed himself away, coughing and grabbing at his neck. his face had three long, bleeding scratch marks down it. "he tried to fuckin' kill me!"

andy wheezed, shakily pushing himself back up. he was extremely pale, and trembling badly. despite that, he fumbled next to him on the floor and grabbed a book that had fallen from one of the boxes. naomi crouched next to lucas, holding both hands up to show she meant no harm as andy lifted the book threateningly.

"hey there, andy, we're all - we're all friends here," she said, trying to keep her voice level. andy growled, attempting to make what naomi could only assume was meant to be a threatening sign with the hand that wasn't holding the book. however, he seemed to have forgotten about his broken wrist and hissed in pain, pulling his legs up to his chest and curling into them.

"he jumped me!" lucas cried, voice higher pitched than usual. "he was pretending to be asleep or something, he tried to strangle me!"

naomi turned her attention to andy, who held the book up again in warning. "andy, we're with marvin, he - he helped you, didn't he? we're going to help you too. we'll help fix up your arm, you'll be safe here."

lucas sat up behind naomi, and andy promptly began glitching wildly, his eyes flickering from colour to colour. naomi smiled reassuringly, very slowly moving closer. "andy, it's ok, it's ok."

"i think, uh, his name is anti?" lucas said, thankfully getting the hint and moving further away. "is that right?"

the man's chest rose and fell rapidly, and his body twitched for a moment. then he gave a tiny nod. naomi's heart leapt. "ok, ok, i got it," she said. communication was finally happening. thank the gods.

"ok then, anti," she said quietly. anti's eyes darted back and forth, arm shaking as he held the book in front of him. "listen." she threw all caution to the wind. "i - i hear you have an interest in hecate, our international network of magic."

anti's eyes widened for a brief second, but he was silent. naomi waited, and when there was no response, she kept talking. "i can't tell you everything, of course. i don't even know everything. but if you go lay back on the bed and - and don't try and, you know, kill anyone…" she hesitated. "i'll tell you some things."

"naomi -" lucas began to protest, but she shook her head without turning round. anti glitched, face filled with anger and frustration and pain. he was very white, and looked like he might pass out again.

eventually, he gave a small nod, and naomi smiled in genuine relief. "ok!" she said, overjoyed to have handled the situation. "ok, good!"

her phone rang from inside her pocket. both she and lucas jumped, and she pulled it out to answer it. "hello?"

"nai," came marvin's panicked tone. "fuck, nai, they're not here, there's nothing but mess and missing clothes and - and everything smells of black magic, naomi, he must have another magician helping him, my brothers are gone!"

the ceiling fan spun above them, letting out a consistent hum that henrik tried to focus on. if he didn't focus on anything else, he'd be forced to think about the two green bots floating on either side of the fan, monitoring their every move.

always there, always watching.

he felt something nudge his side. he turned his head very slightly, just enough to see chase's face out the corner of his eye. he gave the tiniest nod to show he wae listening, trying not to act suspicious in front of the bots.

chase raised his eyebrows and flickered his eyes downward for a second. henrik glanced down too, watching as chase oh so casually moved his jacket, revealing… henrik gasped, and chase shook his head, covering himself again.

"a gun?" henrik mouthed, careful not to actually speak the words aloud. he held his fist in front of his mouth to hide what he was saying. "where the fuck did you get -"

"doesn't matter, ok?" chase mouthed back, also covering his mouth from view of the bots. "i thought we were gonna have to deal with anti, so i took it. i don't know if i should - should we try to jump him or something?"

henrik shook his head. "bad idea. he has - he has proper magic, chase, we don't."

chase rubbed his eye, scrunching up his face. he didn't respond for a moment. then - "are we sure he's not being possessed by anti? i mean, the black eyes -"

"can't be that," henrik mouthed. "i know what being possessed by anti looks like, unfortunately, and it's not that. this is something different. it must be that necklace he's wearing." he paused, glancing at the bots. "where do you think he got it?"

"black magic like that… i don't know," chase admitted. "i don't know as much about the whole magic aspect of this world as you guys do. jack only told me so much, and even he didn't -"

the door suddenly swung open. both of them jumped, before resuming their previous positions, trying to act as natural as they could.

jackie came in, the black having disappeared from his face and hands and now looking just like their normal brother. henrik couldn't see the necklace anymore, so he assumed he had tucked it under his black hoodie. jackie swallowed and sat down on the end of the bed, not blinking or taking his eyes off his brothers.

"what were you talking about?" he asked softly, calmly. too softly. too calmly.

"wh-what the fuck's it to do with you?" chase spat, failing to hide the trembling in his voice. his palm was sweaty against henrik's. "we don't have to t-tell you anything."

jackie blinked, and henrik let out an embarrassing squeak of fear. jackie glanced at him, his dark blue eyes full of something henrik didn't recognize.

"i should explain," he murmured. "i never meant to hurt you."

"you - you threw me into the goddamn air and slammed me into the floor!" chase cried, voice high. "you absolutely meant to hurt me!"

jackie shook his head, just slightly. "you don't understand, chase. i'm trying to protect you."

"then explain how," henrik said, and they both turned to look at him. they were the first words he'd spoken aloud in close to an hour. "explain to us, and we'll listen. we won't interrupt." he turned to his little brother. "right, chase?"

chase looked torn, but he nodded. "sure, whatever," he mumbled. jackie gave a shaky sigh, running his fingers through his hair.

"ok," he breathed. "ok. i'll explain everything."

marvin didn't bother heading back to the shop.

he'd already explained his plan to naomi as he was leaving his family's empty flat, where the tv was still showing a pause screen for a video game and the bedrooms were covered in clothes that had been hastily thrown out of closets and drawers. "i'm going straight to hecate," he told her. "i can't find my brothers myself."

"but - pye, fuck, hecate can't help you!" naomi exclaimed, distressed. "you left the organization! what do you expect them to - marvin!"

marvin buckled himself into the car, dimly thinking that a car crash would absolutely be the last thing he needed right now. "i was their best goddamn mage, naomi," he said confidently. "they'll let me back in. and if they refuse to help me - well, i have something they won't be able to refuse."

naomi immediately understood. "you - you can't just give that up."

marvin took a breath, starting the car with steady hands. "i don't have a choice," he murmured. the book he'd put in his jacket dug into his chest. "look after anti. he can be a bit unstable, just don't talk down to him or anything and you should be fine."

"i - yeah," naomi said softly. "good luck. and be safe."

hecate golf club was on the other side of town.

it only took about fifteen minutes to drive there. from the outside, it looked completely normal; a dark brick building next to a large green field, surrounded by a tall blue fence that marvin knew was warded to keep out unauthorized intruders. the sky was just beginning to darken, and there didn't seem to be anyone around that he could see. he stopped in front of the locked gates, glaring before climbing over it, swinging himself to the other side. he was sure he was attracting attention from inside. good. let them try to stop him.

the front of the building was lit up, pale orange lights glowing on the path to the red double doors that marvin promptly knocked on, three times as loudly as he could. he rubbed his arms, shivering in the cold air. fuck, he hoped his brothers were alright. he hoped he'd be able to find them before something bad happened.

would jackie hurt them? would he? marvin didn't like to think so. but then again, marvin had never thought jackie would kidnap and torture his older brother, either. he didn't know anything anymore.

the doors opened, a tall, dark skinned woman wearing a black vest answering the door. marvin didn't recognize her. "if you've left something inside, we can go and retrieve it for you," she said, bored. "if you're looking to apply for a membership, you'll have to wait 'til morning."

marvin felt his eyes spark. "fuck off with that shit," he spat, and the woman's eyes widened. "just ask the goddamn question so i can come inside."

the woman blinked, clearly taken aback. maybe she was new. "have… have you heard of argus s. litvak?" she asked, almost timidly.

"'i believe magic lives in every spirit, lurking, hungry, for those who deserve the knowledge to free the mind and body,"' marvin responded, titling his head up. "i need to see kazuki kamata."

the woman shook her head slightly. "i'll need to contact my supervisor, it's after hours and i have to see your records -"

marvin slammed his fist into the wall, startling the woman. "do you even know who i am?" he shouted, desperately trying to stop his voice from shaking. "marvin "the fucking magnificent" mcloughlin, one of the greatest mages hecate has ever seen?"

he was starting to panic as the woman shook her head again, faster this time, and began to close the door. "wait, please, please, i need help, i can give you rare spells!"

he pulled the book from his jacket, waving it in front of her. "these are all the spells i've ever discovered, some of them are rare and shit, please, this is all i have. i have to find my brothers!"

the woman looked startled. without looking away, she reached up behind her ear and tapped, a small device there lighting up. "miss kamata?" she murmured. "there's a man named marvin mcloughlin here, he wants to see you. says he has rare spells in exchange for your help. no, i don't know either. yes, i'll - are you sure?" she paused. "ok, we'll be right up." she sighed and opened the door fully. "come inside, we'll -"

the second the barrier spells were down, marvin raced through the door, running past the woman despite her cries of protest. "sir - sir, come back, you're not allowed to run off unattended!" he didn't listen. he never did.

he knew exactly where he was going. there were several protection spells that he immediately broke, darting down the brightly lit halls and ignoring the open mouthed stares of various other magicians. he didn't stop until he reached a door at the top of a long flight of stairs with a golden plaque reading "kazuki kamata - please knock before entering." he threw the door open and practically fell inside, gasping and panting. "kazuki -" he started, before realizing there were about ten other people in the room apart from her. he must have burst into a meeting. every one of the sharply dressed magicians was staring at him, eyebrows raised. his cheeks burned, but he averted his gaze from them and instead focused on the woman sitting at her desk.

marvin had always found her to be intimidating. he couldn't help it. she was about six feet and wearing heels to make her even taller, with white jeans and a matching jacket. her black hair was let down to her shoulders, framing her soft face. even from here, her blue eyes bore into marvin, immediately making him regret running all the way up here.

"always the rulebreaker, even after leaving our organization," she said, a smirk forming on her face. "you must have been really desperate to see me."

the other magicians tittered softly. marvin refused to look at them. "kazuki, i need your help," he said, straightening his back. "please."

she tilted her head and stood, her hair floating upwards as she rose into the air and over her desk, landing gently just in front of marvin. "we didn't do our usual alliteration joke. this is a serious issue?."

he let out a shuddering breath, trying to keep control. "my - my brothers are missing, taken by someone magic. i need your help in finding them. please." he looked at her with pleading eyes. "just this one last favour. then i'll go and i won't bother you again."

"would you like me to escort him out, miss kamata?" said a man with frizzy black hair and a casual black suit who was slouching against the wall, arms crossed.

marvin glared at him. "raymond."

the man nodded at him curtly. "marvin."

"ok, come with me." kazuki beckons him to the door and marvin wasted no time racing after her, face burning as he left the room of sniggering magicians behind. the woman walked down the hall, opening the door to an empty room filled with shelves of books. marvin immediately began talking, furious.

"why do you keep that bastard around?" he said angrily, sitting himself on a desk in the centre of the room. "he's such an asshole."

"he's useful," kazuki said. she folds her arm. "teleportation isn't common, you know."

marvin spluttered. "he - he tried to steal my magic books, he cheated on me, i'm pretty sure he tried to kill me at one point -" he was going to continue when he suddenly remembered why he was here, guilt slamming into him. "fuck, my brothers!"

kazuki folded her arms, waiting. marvin began to explain, suddenly panicky again. how had he forgotten, how had his anger gotten the best of him again? yet another strike in the "asshole marvin" book. "kazuki, fuck, my brothers are missing - two of my brothers, one of them is sick, the other one took the other two, i don't know where, i don't know -"

"slow down," kazuki said calmly. she held both hands up and brought them down, like that would make marvin any less panicked. "something is wrong with your brothers?"

marvin couldn't believe what he was hearing. "i - yes, that's not - did you hear what i said?" he rolled his hands in a circle, trying to find the words to explain. "they're missing, ok, i have brothers and they're missing!"

"explain quickly," said kazuki. "and i'll see what i can do."

marvin did, trying his best to make sense. once he'd gone through most of the main details, kazuki nodded, clearly evaluating the situation in her head.

"i see," she said. "a rogue magician. and you think he has a black magic magician with him because…"

"the house fucking reeked of it, kaz, there's no way -"

"you will refer to me as kazuki if you must call me by my first name," she said firmly, and marvin's heart sank. he nodded rapidly.

"ok, ok, ok sure, whatever. can you help, please?"

she narrowed her eyes. "you broke many of the protection spells on the way in here."

"i'm sorry," marvin said, suddenly feeling extremely small.

kazuki pursed her lips. "you also tried to steal from me. or have you forgotten?"

to his horror, marvin felt tears well up in his eyes. "i never meant to hurt you, i'm so, so sorry. please, fuck, i'll…" his breath hitched. "fuck, i have my book, ok? the one you wanted? i'll give you all of it." he pulled the book from his jacket, handing it to a surprised kazuki. "this is all i have. i'm fucking begging you, kazuki, i've never begged for anything in my life but i'm begging now. i can't find them myself. i can't risk them g-getting hurt!"

he scrubbed the tears off his face, embarrassed, and when he looked up again, kazuki had softened. "i see clearly how much you care," she said quietly. marvin just looked to the floor.

after a pause, kazuki spoke again. "fine," she murmured, and marvin raised his head in surprise. "i'll get some of my best on it as soon as i can. if the situation gets bad, i'll call a friend from crawley to help."

marvin sobbed, covering his face with his hands. "fuck, kazuki, thank you, thank you -"

"and then you don't contact us for help again," she said. marvin didn't really expect her to say anything different. "i've saved your ass too many times, marvin mcloughlin."

she silently handed him a tissue from her jacket pocket, and marvin took it, avoiding her eyes. "thank you for everything," he mumbled. "and sorry for being an asshole."

she didn't reply to that. he was grateful all the same.

they were both sitting fully up on the bed now, henrik still holding tightly to chase's arm. he didn't mind. he held him and ran his fingers through his hair, waiting silently for jackie to start.

jackie was sat cross legged across from them, hands twisting in his lap. "suppose i should st-start from the beginning," he muttered. his stutter was starting to come back full force, and he was staring at his lap instead of looking them in the eyes. chase couldn't believe this was the same person who'd tried to throw him into a wall.

"everything was going wrong," jackie began. "henrik had b-been kidnapped and k-kept in that fucking basement for so - for so long. chase's k-kids went missing and you went to jail and came back t-two or so weeks later as a suicidal wreck. jamie… left." he suddenly shook his hands out, biting down on his lip. "anti - he was getting in my head. in my d-dreams. trying to fuck with me. i wasn't gonna let him - wasn't gonna let him hurt us anymore. i was s-so scared, guys, fuck." he covered his face with shaking hands, and chase suddenly felt a rush of warmth for him. he was about to reach out and pat his shoulder when henrik made a small noise, reminding him of what was happening. he sat back again, feeling guilty.

jackie shuddered and continued. "i knew marvin had left hecate cause they - they wanted his b-black magic, they wanted all his spells and shit and he didn't want to give it to them. he was too much of a p-pussy to use the magic he found. but i knew he must have been finding this b-black magic from somewhere. i decided to… to use my own skills to find out."

he meant his talent with computers and hacking, chase knew. he nodded slowly.

"i found… some kind of fucking small or-organization thing. they said - they said they'd sell me some magic i could use to protect you lot." his hand flew to his chest, touching the necklace underneath his hoodie. "b-but it was at a cost."

he paused. chase narrowed his eyes. "the cost of what?"

jackie's lip trembled.

"marvin didn't even notice," he said, very quietly. "he didn't know how p-powerful those spells he had were. neither did i. but it wae good enough for them."

chase's eyes widened, heart pounding. "jackie - you, you - you gave marvin's spells to a random black magic dealing organization?"

"just a few!" jackie protested. "i tore a few pages out of his book, i'm sure marvin has a c-copy somewhere -"

chase covered his mouth and let out a long groan. "oh my god. oh my god."

"but it worked," jackie said, and his grin was back. "the magic worked. it's… it feels like a fucking drug. i'm so… i'm p-powerful. so much more powerful. it goes far beyond my photokinesis. it's like -" he waves his hands around, small sparks of darkness falling off of them. "it's incredible."

he suddenly went quiet.

"i hunted anti d-down," he murmured. "he was all alone in those waterworks, the p-pathetic bastard. really, there was no p-point in him wasting away there anyway. and he - he thought it was just another easy f-fight for him." he gives a sharp laugh. "you should have seen the look on his face when he realized. by then it was too late."

realization dawned on chase. he immediately felt sick.

jackie kept going. "he fought so hard those first few weeks. k-kept sassing me, fighting me. so…" he trailed off. "i m-made sure he would never do that again."

"you killed him?" chase said, voice extremely high in pitch.

jackie shook his head, eyes glazed over. "no."

he didn't elaborate. just continued talking. "it was exhilarating, watching him get q-quieter and fight less. i think it was the lack of elect-tricity that was subduing him. still, he t-tried - tried to - kept t-trying to -" jackie made a choking sound. "marvin found him. anti's in his head." he looked up, eyes wild. "d-d-don't you agree with me, chase, henrik, my brothers, don't you agree i was doing the right thing?"

"you tortured him?" henrik whispered. his voice was hoarse. jackie's face twitched, his eyes changing from blue to black to blue.

"he tortured you," jackie said. "wouldn't you like to know he got what he deserved?"

henrik was shaking. "you're the same as him," he choked out. "how would i know you would not torture me too?"

jackie made a noise of shocked disbelief. "henrik - henny, hen, schneep, i'm your brother!" he tried to reach out to touch him, but chase slapped his hand away, rage suddenly replacing his fear. jackie looked at him, surprised.

"anti is… our brother too," chase said. "like it or not. he's terrible, he's a fucking bastard of a person and he's done horrible things and i will admit, the sound of him suffering doesn't greatly upset me. but by blood, he is our brother. your family bullshit doesn't mean anything."

jackie stared at them. and for a moment, there was no brother in front of them. just a stranger. a stranger with fully black eyes and a disgusted scowl that chase couldn't have ever imagined on jackie's kind face.

"you don't get it," he said.

"you've said this," chase replied.

"i'm trying to protect you," jackie insisted.

"you sound like a broken record," chase said. "over and over. what would you do if we tried to leave? would you torture us too? you've already thrown me with your new magic. why would i trust you not to do it again?"

jackie's mouth opened and closed. he looked like a fish out of water, a man completely out of his element.

he was spared from having to answer when someone began to pound on the front door.

"open up!" came a booming, authoritative voice. "this is the police, and i would recommend opening this door!"

it didn't take them long to find him. of course it didn't. they were hecate, the most powerful magical organization in the world. normally, marvin hated them. today, marvin was grateful. he didn't know what he would have done without them.

"we've located a huge magical spike in new romney," kazuki told him as they quickly walked down a flight of stairs to the front doors. "a motel somewhere - dark magic, magic we haven't seen the likes of in years. there is…" she went quiet for a moment. "i'll talk about that later. we've sent magicians out there already, through portals"

"i can do portals," marvin said quickly. despite being several inches taller than kazuki, he was struggling to keep up with her pace. "please, let me -"

"i was going to advise you took us there anyway, mr mcloughlin," kazuki interrupted smoothly. marvin raised an eyebrow.

"oh, i'm mr mcloughlin now, am i?" he said with a laugh. then he played back what she'd said. "wait, you're coming too?"

"of course i am." she sounded almost offended. "this is unknown magic. whoever your brother has with him must be powerful."

they opened the doors and stepped out into the chilly night. several other magicians were racing around, back and forth into the building. "what kind of magic are we talking?" marvin said. "i've seen black magic. why so much fuss? i mean, of course i'm grateful, but -"

"you don't - i'll explain it all later," she said, sounding stressed. "also, that book you gave me? your magic book? a bunch of the pages are missing. i hope you weren't thinking i wouldn't notice that."

marvin stopped walking. "wh - no, they're not!" he spluttered. "i swear, i swear, i wouldn't risk doing anything that would harm my brothers!"

kazuki stared at him suspiciously for a moment. then she glanced away, shaking her head. "whatever. we'll deal with it later. come round here, don't tell me you've forgotten the portal spots!"

there was of course a premade portal path in every branch of hecate; that was just common sense. "i've never been to new romney before," marvin admitted. "this might be hard."

"just focus." and for a moment, kazuki smiled, and she was just marvin's old friend again, real warmth in her eyes. then it was gone. "and be quick about it, these are your brothers," she snapped.

finally, marvin felt at ease. he was contributing. he knew what he was doing. at last, he was able to help with something.

he closed his eyes and prayed, for jackie's sake, that his brothers were ok.

they were all very quiet.

"police," jackie mumbled under his breath. he'd gone very pale. absentmindedly, he began to tug on his hoodie strings. "fuck, ok, ok."

jackie had been afraid of police ever since he'd gotten arrested for getting in a fight with some guy. he'd spent three hours in jail, waiting until marvin came to collect him. he hadn't spoken for hours afterwards. chase guiltily wondered if they could use that fear to their advantage. his hand touched the gun in its holster on his side, loaded and ready to be used.

the banging continued. "if this door isn't opened within the next ten seconds, we're breaking it down!"

jackie was on his feet in an instant. immediately, the darkness returned to his eyes and face, inky blackness being summoned to his fingertips and forming a whirlwind in the air. the chest of drawers underneath the window was ripped from its place on the floor and slammed against the door, blocking the exit. more furniture around the room followed it, barricading the window as well and preventing anyone from getting in. once he was finished, jackie stepped back, eyes melting back to their usual blue.

"ok," he said, shaking with panic. he turned on his brothers, who were both still holding each other on the bed. jackie's pupils had dilated to small pinpricks. "ok, so we're gonna go out the -"

the door exploded.

one second there had just been silence. then there was a fist of burning fire tearing though the room, bursting through everything stacked in front of the door like it were paper. chase instinctively grabbed his brother at the same time as he grabbed chase, and the force of the blast blew the two of them onto the floor, slamming into the wall. they cowered there against the roaring, thunder like boom of the blast. at one point chase's hearing gave out completely, leaving nothing but a ringing like a constant tinnitus spike from hell. he didn't open his eyes - he couldn't. all he could do was hold his brother close and hope the pain would disappear.

they were outside the motel when the inside of the building blew up.

the journey through the portal had been fine, as kazuki had reassured marvin it would be. it was always slightly disorienting getting used to being in a completely different place, like stepping out of a lift in a building you've never been in before, so when the explosion went off, it took a moment for it to register.

once it did, everything seemed to slow.

"chase!" marvin screamed. his legs were suddenly moving faster than he thought possible, leaving kazuki in the parking lot. "henrik!"

there were magicians, so many of them. magicians, and nonmags, too. he could almost sense the difference in them after having been around both types of people so much. so much blurry movement, screams and panicked cries, racing away from the spot on the second floor where everything was burning. marvin was running towards it. "chase, henrik, jackie, jackie!"

there was so much happening. marvin couldn't even compute everything that was going on at once. he could see a water based magician trying to put out the flames, he could see a woman being thrown back, a man screaming in pain, flames, flames, sparks of coloured magic flying -

and darkness. pure and black, in coils of thick, inky looking magic. it was taking over the fire, but the magicians were fighting back. without looking, marvin relit some flames in his hands and pushed through the smoke, searching, terrified out of his mind. "chase, henrik!" he screamed again, desperate for anything, anything.

a face appeared through the blackness. it took marvin a moment to register who it was, because his face was so filled with dark shadows that he was almost unrecognizable. but marvin would recognize that reddish brown mess of hair anywhere.

jackie. black eyes, black veins, streaks of obsidian trailing down the skin of his face and neck. tendrils of sharp charcoal emerged from his body, wisping into shadows that dissolved to nothing at the ends. when marvin looked at him, his eyes flickered back to blue, fear instantly sparking in them.

marvin had never felt such paralyzing shock in his life.

"it was you," he breathed. the flames hissed in his hands, dying down to embers on his skin. "you were the black magic signal they saw."

jackie just stared.

marvin could see two men helping his brothers in the background, and his heart leapt. they were ok. that was something. that was something.

"i didn't mean for this to happen," jackie murmured. the darkness began to retreat into himself, his body returning to normal.

and before either brother could say anything else, there were disembodied chains of silver wrapping around jackie and he shrieked, spikes of pure black reappearing and attempting to tear through the magic, but there were more magicians upon him and he roared, panic shot through his voice, and there was one second in which marvin could see his blue, blue eyes, burning brighter than any flames or magic he'd ever seen.

"marvin!" jackie howled. "marvin, help, please!"

he just watched. it was all he could do.

he was almost grateful when the flames became too much and he collapsed to the floor in a heap.

what had happened was this.

someone had blocked the door from inside. the group of five magicians who had gotten to the motel first, under the guise of police, had tried to bust it down, but the door couldn't be opened. one of them had the brilliant idea of levitating the furniture from the other side in one fell swoop, vanishing it and reappearing it in the parking lot, and then opening the door. which, in theory, might have actually worked.

but the combination of jackie's unrestrained black magic and the simple levitation spell happening at the same time in such a small capacity had been too much pressure for the tiny room. the explosion had knocked out chase, henrik, jackie and all the magicians for a brief moment, but the blast had cleared the door enough for them to get inside. after marvin had collapsed, kazuki told him, jackie had gone completely off the rails, not holding back before escaping from the chains and vanishing completely. he had killed one magician. two others were injured.

marvin had listened to this whole thing from a hospital bed, where he'd been taken after inhaling so much smoke. once kazuki had finished telling him, he'd rolled over and stared at the wall. he couldn't summon words anymore.

"i'll leave you to your grief," was all she said before gently touching his hair and stroking a strand behind his ear. he'd almost sobbed at the contact, but didn't cry. he still hadn't cried. he didn't think he'd accepted any of it yet.

the nonmag's were convinced it was a gas explosion, and no one was going to say anything otherwise. no nonmags had been hurt. there was something to be grateful for.

chase and henrik were alright. marvin hadn't yet seen them. but raymond - yes, raymond, that bastard - had come to tell him that chase said he was sorry for not realizing and for being a dumbass. normally, marvin would have laughed hearing his ex say those words. today, he didn't say a word.

anti was ok too, apparently. naomi and lucas had been marvin's third and fourth visitors, and had sat on either side of his bed to talk to him. "my friend's friend who's a doctor came over and helped settle him, fixed his arm up as best she could and got some food into him," naomi said. "miss kamata herself later came round to see him, when she told us about the explosion - why didn't you tell me you were friends with her, by the way? i mean, kazuki kamata!"

she was joking, but it just felt like more guilt being stacked on marvin's shoulders. he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly tired. "i don't know. 'm sorry."

naomi seemed to pick up on his mood. "ok, well. anti is in here too, a few rooms away. he's still… pretty sick. luckily, i think the wounds in his mouth were dealt with almost immediately after it happened, or he would have choked on his blood. jackie must have -" she flinched at the look on marvin's face. "sorry. i'm… marvin, i am so sorry."

"me too," lucas said, reminding marvin that he was still there. he took a breath, looking uncomfortable. "i… i'm sure your brother was a great guy."

"he's not dead," marvin snapped, and lucas's shoulders shot to his ears. he cleared his throat, adjusting his glasses awkwardly.

"yes, of course," he mumbled, cheeks burning.

"maybe we should go," naomi said loudly. she jumped to her feet, eyes wide as she nodded towards to the doorway. lucas got the hint and raced out like he was on fire.

naomi turned back to him, a soft sadness on her face.

"i'm sorry," she said quietly. "please, don't blame yourself. i know you, marvin magnificent, and i know that's what you're doing. but… this couldn't have been prevented."

marvin nodded numbly. he could barely hear her anymore.

naomi leaned down and very gently pressed a kiss to marvin's forehead. then she straightened, blinking like she couldn't believe what she'd done. "see you," she said quickly, before following lucas out the room.

marvin touched his forehead gently and felt warmer.

when he turned back to look at his bedside table, a bouquet of multicoloured freesia flowers had grown out of it. they were the most colourful thing in the room.

no one knew where jackie was. his signal couldn't be tracked anymore, which could mean anything from he'd taken the necklace off or he'd died. marvin didn't believe it could be that last one, though. he'd know if jackie was dead. he wasn't sure how, but he'd know.

marvin knew everything about his brother. or he thought he had, once. he wasn't sure if he knew anything anymore.

end act one - beneath the music shop

#jacksepticeye #boop writes #marvin the magnificent #chase brody #jackieboy man #henrik von schneeplestein #antisepticeye #naomi gudmundson #lucas ross #kazuki kamata #the fall

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otterdoeswhatever · 5 years ago

Text

A God, A Goddess, and a Nymph Walk into a Party

Lore Olympus: Poly!Hades + Bi!Poly!Persephone x Bi!Poly!Reader

More Persephone x Reader for this one tbh

(There will be future ones (If people like this one, there may be a smut part two))

Reader is a Nymph who works at Underworld Corp and befriends Persephone. Persephone takes a liking to her and has her meet Hades to see if he likes her too. Reader has doubts they actually like her because they're gods and she's just a nymph. But they reassure her and end up asking her out.

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You swiped your employee ID as you headed to your department at Underworld Corporation. You started working there a few months ago and by now you had settled into a routine of familiar tasks and familiar faces. However, on this particular day, you noticed a face across the entrance lobby that you didn’t recognize.

She was not a Nymph like you or many of the others working there.

She was pink from her pixie cut to her toes, had absolutely perfect curves and was clothed in a white dress. Overall you found her rather cute. Especially with her big sparkly eyes that were looking right at you ...Wait. What!?

You did a double-take and realized you were correct, she was staring directly at you, and… were her pupils shaped like hearts!? Your face heated up as you blushed a darker shade of your (fave colour) skin, before quickly turning away and retreating to your desk.

Later that day, you were occupying yourself with your work when a head peeked over the wall of your cubicle. It was the pink mystery girl! You looked up at her incredulously, unsure of how to react.

“Derek is going for a coffee run, and was wondering if you wanted anything?” She asked, eyes sparkling, and grinning giddily down at you.

You uttered your order and before you could say anything else she had scampered away.

A bit later the girl returned and knocked on the wall of your cubicle to rouse your attention. She held your drink order and a small paper bag with the cafe’s logo on it. She handed you your drink as you thanked her.

“My name’s Persephone by the way, and I was wondering if you maybe wanted to have your drink in the employees' lounge with me? I also got some extra sweets if you want some!" She offered.

She was so bubbly, adorable, and had the cutest smile that how could you say no?

And so you ventured with her to the lounge, the both of you sat down at a folding table one you got there. She then pulled out all the options of sweets and made sure to keep them on the paper bag so that they wouldn’t touch the tabletop.

With a variety of doughnuts and other pastries laid out before you, Persephone spoke, “You can choose first!”

You took a moment to look over your options before you choose your favourite out of the selection. Afterward, Persephone picks up a cinnamon roll and took a big bite. Her face lit up with a stuffed-cheeks chipmunk smile in delight of the sugary taste.

You giggled a little. "So you like sweets, huh, Persephone?"

She swallowed and reddened a little bit "Yeah, I've got a pretty major sweet tooth." She mussed with her hair a little " What about you-?" She froze suddenly and looked at you in sudden realization. "Oh my gods, you must think I'm so terrible! I never asked for your name! I'm so sorry!" She leaned across the table and grabbed both your hands.

You flushed at the sudden contact, the closeness of her face and the sight of her cleavage you could see down her shirt, but you snapped your gaze back up as quickly as possible to try to stay respectful.

"Oh, um, it's totally fine. My name's (Y/N)" You reassured her.

Her sad pouty face relaxed as she sank back into her chair. However, she had not yet let go of your hands.

You smile at her nervously "Um Persephone? I can't exactly eat or have my drink if you're holding my hands." You stated with a bit of an awkward chuckle.

Persephone quickly pulled her hands away and blushed heavily, "Oh! Sorry again!"

You continuously reassured her until her apologizing ceased. The rest of your lunch break with Persephone went very well. Before you knew it, it was over - much sooner than you would have liked it to be.

Persephone was just so easy to talk to! Other than, you know, her being so damn pretty - like goddess levels pretty - and making you nervous. Over the next two weeks, the two of you developed a routine of meeting for lunch and became good friends. She eventually asked if you would like to hang out after work sometime, to go to a party with her.

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Hades had taken notice of whenever Persephone would twiddle her fingers, play with her hair, or fiddle with the hems of her clothing. He could tell she was nervous about something.

He walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her from behind. She squeaked in surprise and looked over her shoulder at him with a pout.

He chuckled, “What’s wrong, Sweetness?”

”What do you think!? You gave me a heart attack!” She said in a tone of exasperation, in all of her adorableness.

Hades snickered once again. “Yes, I could see that. Let me rephrase that, dear. What’s been on your mind? You’ve seemed anxious lately.” He explained, nuzzling into her neck and breathing in her scent.

Her pouty expression changed to a shocked one, with a flush spreading across her face before she hastily turned her head to try and hide it. However, Hades had already noticed. He loosed his grip only to turn her around, attempting to get her to face him. However, she still avoided his gaze, looking away.

“Nothing’s wrong,” she mumbled, unconvincingly.

He gently took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head towards him. Resting them on her face as he reassured her with a kiss. After they had separated he spoke again. “You trust me, don’t you?”

She nodded.

”Then please tell me.” He begged.

She gave out a small sigh of defeat. “There's this girl at work…”

Hades instantly went into protective mode, “Is she harassing you? Just tell me and she will be dealt with-”

”No, no, no, no…” Persephone interrupted. “It’s not like that at all! It’s like the complete opposite! We’re really good friends!”

He looked confused, “Then…. What’s the problem?”

Persephone avoided his gaze once again. “Well, um, it's just….. She’s like SO pretty, and funny, and amazing to talk to, and likes a bunch of the same stuff we like, and it's amazing hanging out with her and-”

Sniggering, Hades pressed a finger to her lips and shushed her. “Ah, I see. You LIKE her.” He said in a mocking purr.

Persephone's blush deepened immensely and she pounded a fist harmlessly on Hade's chest. “SHUT UP!!” She exclaimed, embarrassed, before burying her face against him.

Chuckling, he kissed the top of her head, “It’s quite alright dear, there's no need to be embarrassed. It’s not like we haven’t talked about doing this before.”

“I know, I guess I'm just nervous you won't like her as much as I do…”

Hades pondered for a moment. “Well, the only way to find out is for me to meet her, right? How about inviting her to Zeus’ party next weekend? That way I could meet her and if you’d like you could introduce her to your friends too.”

Persephone's face lit up at the suggestion. “Yea! That would be fun!”

Hades smiled softly down at her. “Alright, then it’s a date.”

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You felt a mix of emotions when Persephone had invited you to this party: Excitement, nervousness, and confusion.

Persephone attempted to reassure you, “Don’t worry (Y/N)! Everyone there will love you! You’ll get to meet Artemis, and Hermes, and-”

You zoned out as she excitedly rattled on, getting into your own head and worries. This party was being thrown by ZEUS. THE ZEUS. And almost everyone there was supposedly going to be a god or goddess, or at least demi-god. You were just a Nymph. A lower-class citizen. You didn’t belong there. As you delved deeper into your self-doubt a question suddenly came to mind.

“Persephone, why were you invited?” You blurted out without thinking. Then suddenly realizing how rude that sounded you stammered to explain yourself. “I MEAN, JUST YOU SAID ABOUT HOW EVERYONE THERE IS AT GOD LEVEL, I KNOW YOU LIVE IN OLYMPUS, BUT I GUESS I WAS JUST WONDERING HOW A NORMAL UNDERWORLD CORP EMPLOYEE GOT INVITED???”

Persephone looked at you slightly shocked for a second before giggling, though you couldn’t tell if it was genuine or awkward. “Well, I guess I can’t really blame you for not knowing. I am pretty new, and I guess a lot of people don’t really know… But, I am actually a goddess, the Goddess of Spring.”

You looked at her in astonishment, jaw agape. You felt like the BIGGEST idiot in the WORLD. How could you not know that!? You were so embarrassed that you buried your face in your hands as a blush consumed your visage. “I’m so dumb…” You muttered.

Persephone was quick to reassure you while she rubbed a soothing hand over your back. “Hey! Don’t say that! Like I said, a lot of people don’t know!”

You peaked through your fingers at her. Well, you guessed that explained why she was so gorgeous. And well, since a literal goddess had invited you to this party with her, you felt that you had no choice but to go. It couldn’t be that terrible if you were there with her, right?

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This was terrible.

You stood at the front entrance of the devastatingly beautiful mansion and began to doubt all the things you had said to yourself earlier to encourage yourself to go. You didn’t belong here!

Gods and goddesses entered the mansion wearing the most amazing outfits you had ever seen. You self-consciously fiddled with the edge of your favourite dress (Or fave fancy clothes, if you wanna rock a pantsuit, you do you bb), as you watched them, still not moving from your spot.

“(Y/N)!!” Persephone called your name. As soon as you turned you were taken off guard as she suddenly hugged you. After collecting yourself you hugged her back. Pulling away, Persephone's eyes lit up as she examined your outfit. “Woah! You look amazing (Y/N)!!”

You flushed softly. “Thanks.” You looked down to her outfit and your blush erupted on your face, 10 shades darker.

She was wearing a dress that would very much break the workplace dress code. It was incredibly revealing, short, and low cut. It put her cleavage on display and hugged the curves of her body perfectly.

“YOU LOOK GREAT TOO!!” You said louder than expected out of panic.

“Aw, thanks!” She said in appreciation. She leaned in and gave you a kiss on the cheek and you absolutely froze. The only thing that broke your spell was seeing Hades. He was tall and had a nice physique, he also had a strong jawline and Roman nose. His red eyes that were both alarming and alluring stood out against his blue skin and white hair. He was breathtaking. In a different way than Persephone was.

Hades was technically your boss but you had never seen him before. Well, there was one time you saw him down the hall, and your eyes met. It was the single most terrifying experience in your life and-.OH, GODS, WHY WAS HE WALKING TOWARDS YOU!?

While your panic increased, Persephone waved at him. “Hi Honey!” She said, cheerily as ever.

You turned to look at her with wide eyes.

Was ... was Persephone with Hades???

“Hello dear.” He swooped down and gave her a peck on the lips and your heart was crushed.

You realized that you read the situation all wrong - Persephone and you were just friends. She was just an affectionate person and there was nothing more. You kept your disappointment internal as you greeted the God of the Dead.

“Um, hello Mr.Hades,” You say with a mix of awkward and nervousness.

Hades chuckled “Oh, there's no need for that, ‘Hades’ is just fine. And you, Love?” He asked, making eye contact with you

“Oh, uh, (Y/N).” You stammered, feeling dumb compared to how eloquent he just was.

“She's my friend from work I was telling you about!” Persephone added with her normal happy disposition.

You saw Hades give her a knowing smile. What was that about?

“Okay, well we should get into that party (Y/N). We’ll catch up with you later Hades!” She called the last part as she started to drag you inside.

You heard Hades calling back, “I’ll see you two later!” Then your ears were filled with the almost overwhelming sound of music.

Persephone dragged you all over the party, introducing you to her friends. Some, like Artemis and Hermes, were nice and pretty fun to talk to. You even had some pleasant conversations with Hades. But you still felt the disappointment of your recent discovery of Persephone and Hades being together weighing down on you.

And it didn’t help that you could hear people talking behind your back about you being Nymph trash, or how they were trying to get into your pants. Even Zeus seemed a little too interested in you. You were trying to ignore it but it was slowly starting to get to you.

Eventually, it was time for the dinner portion of the party and Persephone brought you to sit at a smaller round table with her and Hades.

….It was pretty awkward…..

The awkwardness level increased when suddenly, while Persephone was flirting with Hades, you felt her hand on your upper thigh! Looking at your with the same flirty look she was giving Hades, she bit her lower lip.

You shot out of your seat and exclaimed, “I, uh, gotta go to the bathroom.” And without waiting for a response you scampered off.

You became lost and ended up on a balcony out-back that viewed over the magnificent garden. You sighed and ran a hand through your hair and you leaned against the balcony.

This was all just so much. You were so confused by all the emotions coursing through you. Persephone was with Hades. Your boss. King of the Underworld. God of the Dead. But she seemed to want you too.

There were quite a few times you had to question whether Persephone was flirting with you or just being friendly. But this time you were 100% sure of her intentions.

A chill breeze went by and you shivered. Suddenly a jacket was placed around your shoulders. You practically jumped out of your skin and whipped around to see Hades standing there.

He raised his hands in peace. “ Sorry to scare you, It’s just me.”

Usually, it would scare you still just being around him. But for some reason, the sight of him calmed you down.

You gripped the suit jacket he had given you and pulled it tighter around your shoulders. “Sorry, you just surprised me, and, uh, thanks for the jacket.” You said, going back to lean on the railing and look out over the garden.

He matched your position beside you. “So… You left dinner in a hurry. I’m sorry If she surprised you or made you uncomfortable.”

You quickly started to defend yourself, trying not to lose your job. “I’M SO SORRY SIR!! I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE WITH PERSEPHONE, AND I HAVE NEVER DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO HER AND SHE HADN’T DONE ANYTHING LIKE THAT TO ME BEFORE EITHER AND I-!!” Suddenly something he had said clicked in your head. “Wait… what do you mean, you’re sorry about what she did??” You asked in confusion, tilting your head slightly.

“There you are!!” You heard Persephone called, turning your head you saw her running over to you and Hades. “(Y/N), I’m so sorry! I should have just said something instead of doing that to you!” She apologized profusely, gasping and panting all the while.

“Okay, slow down! I’m really confused. Can you guys just explain to me what's happening??” You questioned desperately.

They looked at each other, then looked back at you.

Hades was the one to start. “Well, I suppose to start I should tell you that when we started dating, Persephone and I had a conversation about boundaries and things we were interested in. One of those things was bringing another person into this relationship.” He explained, actually looking quite bashful.

“And then one day while I was at the office I saw you! And well… I just thought you were so beautiful…” Persephone explained, both of you blushed at her statement.

“Wait, really?” You said, feeling dumbfounded.

“Of course!” She responded.

Hades continued the explanation. “One day Persephone and I had a talk, and she told me she was interested in someone. That person being you…”

“So we decided to set something up so you and Hades could meet, to see if you got along.” Persephone cut in.

“Persephone and I talked after you and I had some conversations, and we agreed that we both liked you..” Hades said, a darker blue dusting his cheeks.

Persephone sheepishly spoke up.“But I guess we should have been honest, you really seemed shocked when I made a move.” She chuckled nervously. “So, uh, yea! Now you know!”

“And you don’t have to answer now! You can definitely take time to think about it. Also, you don’t have to worry about me firing you or anything if you say no.” Hades chimed in.

It took you a moment to process everything they just told you. You looked at them in disbelief as they watched you nervously, Hades's arm wrapped around Persephone's waist, both with blushes on their faces, eagerly awaiting your response.

“You...like me??” You asked, not convinced.

“Yes?” Hades responded, confused by your disbelieving tone.

“But…. why???” You said.

They both looked genuinely shocked at what you had just said.

“What do you mean?” Persephone questioned.

You went on the explain yourself. “I mean, you guys are gods. I’m just a nymph. I don’t belong here, and I don’t belong with you guys… Wouldn’t you guys prefer to date another god or goddess?” You crossed your arms and looked away.

“Well other than Persephone, no other god or goddess wants to be associated with me like that,” Hades responded woefully, on how others viewed him.

“And, well, honestly, there’s too much drama. Most of the people here are either too stuck up or would try to use it as blackmail later.” Persephone added. Persephone walked over to you and took your face in both of her hands, tilting it to look at her. “But don’t worry, you decide if you want to do this we’ll play by your terms. If you want to be a secret, you’ll be a secret. If you want people to know, then they can know.” She smiled that adorably sweet smile at you.

A small smile graced your face. You saw Hades smiling too over Persephone’s shoulder.

“Okay, well…” You wrapped your arms around the pink goddess’ waist, pulling her in a little. “I think I’d like to try.”

She grinned brightly and pulled your face in for a kiss, though she quickly pulled away. “Sorry! I got excited! I should have asked first-” You cut her off by kissing her. Making sure the kiss lasted longer this time.

You pulled back and saw Persephone's big eyes filled with sparkles and her pupils in the shape of hearts, just like the first time you saw her. She grinned and looked to Hades who came over and being more reserved than Persephone opted to give the both of you soft and sweet forehead kisses.

“Well then, should we head back to the party? There's a lot of good food in there that we shouldn’t let go to waste.” He asked both of you, a smile still on his face.

Persephone looked at you. “ You ready to go back in?”

You gave her a smile and nodded in response.

“Alright then, let’s go!” She took both your hands and pulled you back into the mansion, skipping her way back to the party while both you and Hades chuckled and made an effort to keep up.

This certainly wasn’t how you thought the evening would go, but you believed this could turn out well.

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#lore olympus #lore olympus hades #hades #persephone #lore olympus persephone #hades and persephone #hades x reader #persephone x reader #couple x reader #fanfic #fanfiction

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diamondcamefromhell · 5 years ago

Text

Timeless love

Jaskier x female reader series part 3

[PART 1] ; [PART 2]

Summary: This is an AU, where Y/N is a young woman, trying to make ends meet with her freelancing writing job. She lives in her small Nottingham studio apartment along with her cat Apollo. Things change when one evening as she is waiting for her taxi, she meets what she thinks is Joey Batey, but the man in front of her is convinced he’s Jaskier, a character from her current favorite show. Y/N now has to figure out what to do.

Warnings: Swearing, vomit, alcoholism and alcohol-related borderline abuse

Word count: 2,251

NOTE:

This part has some heavier stuff than any other work Ive written, so please, proceed with caution for your own sake. nothing too graphic happens, but still want to make sure you know that it does have a certain character that could be triggering to some. he wont be a dominant feature in all parts, but i feel it’s important for Jaskier to interact with people like that, as he continues to learn about our world.

hope you enjoy this part nonetheless. feedback, as always, is greatly appreciated <3 [im really nervous to see what yall think]

I don’t know when, but I managed to get some sleep. Not much, as it was just 7 am when Apollo started meowing and jumping on me, asking to be fed. I sit up, my gaze immediately going to the coach, where Jaskier seemed to be sleeping soundly.

I crawl out of the bed, going to the kitchen, where I see lute back by the fridge. He eventually put it down last night. I wonder how long did it take for him to fall asleep. I sigh, as quietly as possible pouring some food for my cat, who purrs as a thank you.

I stare out the window, as cars start going up and down the street. The town is waking up. I tiptoe around my apartment to go get my laptop from the coffee table. I am surprised Jaskier didn’t ask about it last night. But then again, he didn’t know most of the things in my apartment, he probably was overwhelmed.

I go back to my bed, opening and booting up my old friend. As I enter the password, I am greeted with a picture of him and Geralt on that rock, at the end of episode 6. I loved that whole scene so much. I stare at it, not believing the same bard is sleeping on my coach. I know better, so I change the picture to one of the default ones.

I open chrome, exiting the youtube page that has his song on it. He is not ready for that.

Or maybe I wasn’t. But it didn’t matter.

I go to email, checking for work. I have a few requests, and I decide it’s best to get some work done before Jaskier wakes up and we have to have more awkward conversations. I manage to write two articles, and then he awakens.

His face, for a second, is full of confusion, but then he seems to remember where he is. Now, his expression grows sad. I know he probably wished this were just a nightmare. I know he wished to wake up, back home. With Geralt and even Yennefer. But instead he got me and Apollo, who was already jumping on the coach, greeting Jaskier.

“So that wasn’t a dream,” he murmurs, but I catch it. I close my laptop.

“I’m afraid not.” I respond, as he looks at me, his expression still cold. “I’m sorry.”

“Well, what can you do.” He forces a smile, which I don’t really like, but I decide it’s best not to comment on that. Instead, I nod.

“I wish I could do something. Anyway,” I clear my throat. “Are you up to trying something new?”

“Depends on what it is.” Jaskier perks up, his clouded gaze clearing a little.

“Dirty beans.” I say, jumping out of my bed, I smirk at him. “Or as people call it – coffee.”

“I think I will pass on dirty beans.” He frowns and I giggle.

“You will not.” I say, as he smiles, just a little. And I know it’s genuine. A little hope in these dark times.

I go turn on my coffee maker, putting in the capsule. I decide to make him a latte, nothing too strong. I make myself giggle, when I realize he may be lactose intolerant. I guess we will find out. I stare at him, and decide to add two sugars.

For myself, however, I go black, with one sugar. I need the energy, as I feel absolutely exhausted. I take the drinks, giving him his cup. He sniffs the drink, taking a sip. I don’t sit down, closely watching his reaction.

He doesn’t frown, and actually looks pleasantly surprised. Smile curls his lips, and I catch myself smiling too.

“Glad you like my dirty beans.” I say, finally sitting down, sipping my own. The bitter taste hits my taste buds, waking me up in an instant.

“It’s nice. Thank you.” I smile.

“You are welcome, Jaskier.” I say, leaning back on the couch. “Let me know if you are hungry, I will cook something.”

“I will, thanks.” I glance at him, realizing how surreal it is. Yet we both seem calm.

“Then we might need to go out. Try to see if we can find something around here.” I feel anxiety rush over me. “It’s best if we do it in a day too. Safer.”

“What will we look for?” I shrug, closing my eyes.

“We’ll see it when we find it.” I look at his attire now. “However, you will have to change.”

“Sorry, I didn’t pack anything.” He says, smirking, and I feel a wave of ease wash over me. I am glad he is making jokes.

“I have some clothes that should fit you. I think.” He looks confused, nearly scared, so I continue. “Not my clothes, but I buy some for Dave, he sometimes needs them, because well… he doesn’t have that much.”

“Dave?” I cant read Jaskier’s tone, but he seems confused.

“He lives in the apartment in front of mine. We are… acquaintances at best.” Jaskier nods, as I place my coffee down.

I rush to my small wardrobe, going to the second drawer, where I keep clothes for Dave. Poor guy vomits on himself so often, and he doesn’t know how to wash clothes exactly. If they’re not too disgusting, I wash them, but I keep fresh ones at hand.

I get them at a thrift store, so most of them aren’t to fancy or anything.

I pull a pair of old black jeans, trying to imagine if Jaskier could fit in them. I think he should, but then again, I didn’t exactly examine how he looks that much. I’ve seen it for hours on tv. Dave is not a big man, and I thank my angels for that, as I pull a white shirt that should fit Jaskier too. I dig around to find a pink hoodie.

For a moment I think he wouldn’t wear it, but then I remember what he is wearing now and realize he probably would be fine with a bit of pink. I turn around, revealing his outfit, but Jaskier looks confused.

“Please tell me you know how to dress yourself.” I tease, and he laughs.

“I do, if you can’t tell, I dress nicely.” I chuckle, but don’t respond. “This is weird.”

“Just change.” I throw the clothes to him, and he starts undressing before my very own eyes. It takes me a moment for shock to pass away, before the blush rushes to my face. “In the bathroom for Christs sake!”

I point to the only other room in my apartment as the bard looks very confused. But one look at me, flustered and red sends the message, as he smirks, gathering his clothes and leaving the room. I fan my face with my hands.

Now I don’t meant to act like such a loser and fear seeing a man’s nipple. It’s just that I know I might have to stay with him for a couple more days, so it might make things weird. Also, I already had a crush on him, kinda, and I didn’t want to deepen it even more.

When he comes out, I am already seated, calmed down and drinking my coffee. I turn my face and immediately feel a wave of something rush over me. He looks so different. The pants are a bit big, I notice, but nothing a belt cant fix. The shirt, however, fits perfect, hugging his body. And the zip up hoodie ads a familiar pop of colour.

I feel my face become hot again.

“Verdict?” He asks, twirling around.

“You need a belt.” I say in one breath, rushing to get him the damn thing, before his pants fall off. Which, they nearly did already. When they are secure, I give one final look. “You look normal, so you’re good, I guess.”

“I don’t feel normal.” He says bitterly, and I sigh.

“I know, Jaskier. Not your usual attire, but this way, you will stand out less.” I stare at him, knowing there is a way bigger problem at hand.

He now literally looks like Joey Batey. An exact replica. And if someone, who has seen the hit show, sees him, it will be bad. I suddenly get a headache.

“We have a different problem. You look exactly like someone well known. That’s why I mistook you when I saw you last night.” I say, rubbing my temples.

“Who?” I sigh again.

“Joey. Joey Batey.” I grunt, closing my eyes. “If people recognize you as him, there might be… trouble.”

“Do townsfolk know him that well?” I glare at the man, but then I remember he seemingly knows nothing about my world. So I ease up.

“Yes. He’s like Geralt.” I compare. “The world just knows him. I guess we will have to stay close to home. And wear your hood up.”

I ignore my headache, chugging down my coffee, as Jaskier puts his hood up. He looks adorable, but I don’t say that, instead I nod, approving. I decide to go without breakfast, as the more I think about having to go outside, the more anxious I get.

And I am out of my medication, since I don’t like going to a doctor. I silently curse myself out, as we make our leave. The corridor still stinks, so I give Jaskier an apologetic glance, who in return gives me a soft smile. I feel a chill rush down my spine, when the door behind our backs open. I drop my keys, thankfully after I already locked the door.

I quickly pick them up, turning around to face my neighbour. Dave is staring at Jaskier, his eyes wide with surprise. He has never seen me bring a man home.

Dave is wearing grey joggers, with various stains on it. I notice some blood, but realize it’s best not to ask, not with Jaskier in the earshot. His shirt also clearly has dried vomit on it, and he oozes of vodka and something else. It makes me dizzy and sick.

I try to imagine what the bard is seeing. A frail, tiny white male. Bald, but with a black creepstache. Shaking uncontrollably. It must be so confusing. I want for us to get away, only then I notice Jaskier shielding me ever so slightly. My heart beats faster.

“Hello Dave.” I say through my teeth, stepping in front of Jaskier, so now I would shield him from the curious stare.

“Y/N, sweetheart. Didn’t know you had company.” He says, holding on his door frame, stabilizing himself. I force a smile.

“Yes, well. He’s a friend.” I say, stepping in front of ‘my friend’ more. Dave wasn’t generally violent, but he could get jealous and insecure from every male person who ever walked this earth. Let’s say he has a fragile ego.

“Introduce us, then!” He smiles, and I notice he’s missing his front tooth now. Poor man.

“I’d rather not, Dave.” I say, firmly, as he takes a step forward, using me as a stabilizer now. I want to step away, but I know it would cause a scene. And he wasn’t generally violent, but there instances.

“C’mon sweetheart.” He leans in, whispering. “Your friends are my friends.”

“I said no.” My voice comes out weak as the stench from his is making me feel dizzy. I feel like I am about to throw up.

“She has said no, Dave.” Jaskier speaks, startling me. I almost forgot he was there. He steadies me, as I didn’t even realize I was drifting back. Then I notice my hands shaking. I’m beginning to panic. Fuck.

“We are in a rush, Dave.” I deescalate the situation, as my neighbor was shooting daggers at Jaskier. “Next time, I will introduce you two.”

“Where are you going?” Dave steps back, but he grabs my upper hand. I get startled, squirming a little. That seems to tip off Jaskier.

“Let go.” He steps in front of me now, his voice firm. Dave, to my surprise, listens, letting me go immediately.

“You got yourself a good man, Y/N.” He says, laughing. He steps in his apartment, slamming the door. I lean on the wall, taking a couple deep breaths, which don’t help as it stinks in here.

“Are you okay?” I shake my head.

“I need fresh air.”

I practically jump down the stairs, and when I reach outside, I go around the corner to throw up. My stomach hurts.

Dave is usually kind. He rarely ever lays his hands on me, but whenever he does, it’s never nice. I wish Jaskier wasn’t there to witness this. I glance over my shoulder, to see his worried look, I straighten up, wiping my mouth.

“I’m fine.” I grunt, ignoring the fact that his gaze doesn’t change.

“You shouldn’t have to deal with that, a lady like you…” I lift my hand, annoyed. He get’s the hint, shutting up.

“In this world, Jaskier, I’m no lady.” I put my hair behind the ear, anxiously looking around. “Get used to that.”

“It’s not fair.” He argues, worry not leaving his face. I sigh, walking past him.

“The world isn’t fair.” I bitterly say, before taking a deep breath. I face Jaskier again. “Now let’s look for something that could help you.”

He knows this conversation is over, as I feel anxiety come back. I have no idea what to look for or where to even begin.

[PART 4]

~~~~~~~~

TAG LIST [if you wish to be added or removed from the tag list, lmk]

@ultracolorfulnerdcollection ; @viyamystic ; @sleepyblossom ; @killjoy-acid-crash

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dessiekarma · 5 years ago

Text

My Harem is Entirely Bad Boys (Kirisaki Daiichi x Reader) Pt.6

Chapter Six: Sorry For Your Tragic Backstory, But Don’t be a Dick!

“Son, are you up?”

Hara lifted his head up to glance at the large time on his phone. He was probably going to be late to school again, not that it really mattered.

“Yeah I’m up.”

“I wanted to remind you that you’ll need to skip practice today to make your doctor appointment.”

The door swung open with Hara facing his father, a clearly unhappy look on his face.

“What appointment? I told you I didn’t want to go to any other doctors.” Hara whisper hissed at the older male.

“Your mother and I had you on a list for an experimental treatment, we think it may actually help to stop-”

“It won’t stop!” Hara exclaimed before glancing back into his bedroom and lowering his voice again. “How many doctors have to tell you two that? I accepted it so why don’t you!?”

“Maybe not stop but slow down the degeneration an-”

Hara stopped listening as he turned back into his bedroom and shook the girl in his bed quickly. His father watched on with pursed lips, clearly wanting to say something but biting his tongue instead.

“Hey, you need to get going.” Hara nudged her out of the bed and ushered her to gather her stuff and take her leave.

“Kazuya, you know we don’t mind you having…friends but we’ve asked you not to let so many people into the house.”

“Then you shouldn’t have agreed to give me the room with the door leading outside.”

There was a brief stare off between the two before his father finally gave in and made no further effort to correct his son’s behavior. Hara sighed heavily as he pulled on his school uniform.

Of course, neither of his parents had the actual backbone to upset him in any way. Anyone who didn’t know their situation would call him a spoiled brat and he knew they were right.

“I gotta go.” Hara said pushing his bangs firmly over his eyes and walking past his father. “I’m staying late for practice…I’ll be home later.”

“Please, Kazuya why won’t you at least give it a try?”

The teen stopped walking but didn’t turn back to the desperate sounding man.

“Because we’ve been doing this for more than a decade…I’m sick of getting my hopes up.”

The older man flinched as the front door slammed harshly.

~~~~~

“Oh shit, what’s with the face?” Yamazaki asked as Hara practically slammed his lunch tray down on the table beside him.

“He’s just all up in his feelings because we had to give Mako back today.” (Y/N) said with her own eyes looking red and glassy.

“I can’t believe she said we did the best on the project.” Hara commented cracking open a can.

Seto chuckled just a bit. “Probably because you two were the most realistic parents I’d ever seen with all that fighting. It’s no wonder everyone kept thinking Mako was real. I don’t know that the assignment had the desired effect, I thought you were a great mother.”

“Oh…” (Y/N) didn’t exactly know how to take her friends compliment. Her heart was suddenly beating faster and the room was a second from spinning.

Squinting her eyes shut tightly she focused on keeping her breathing leveled. She could NOT have a panic attack right now in front of her friends. Bringing herself back down she smiled at him.

“Thank you! I’m actually still pretty upset about giving him back but I know that’s pretty silly.”

“I don’t believe so.” Furuhashi commented. “You developed a motherly instinct and bond with Mako. It would be hard for a mother to give up her child.”

“Yeah.” (Y/N) pushed her food her plate before placing the spoon down. “Hanamiya, you want my lunch? It’s not going down right and I hate wasting food.”

“Sure whatever.” The black-haired male took her plate slowly and tried his best to seem uninterested in her or the food.

Though not a lie that she didn’t feel hungry anymore, she wondered if the rest of her team noticed that Hanamiya wasn’t eating today. And come to think of it there were other days when he didn’t eat much more than a can of coffee.

She didn’t want to assume but the thought had been in her mind ever since she ran into his mother. If she was working at a department store in the mall, she couldn’t possibly be making that much money. The tuition here was ridiculous and the lunch prices not much better. How the hell could he afford to go here?

Rich dad?

Benefactor?

(Y/N)’s thoughts were cut off by some random guy coming up behind her and slinging an arm around her shoulder. The guys watched as the girl stiffened upon immediate reaction before regaining her cool composure and turning to the male with an almost deadly look.

“How can I help you?”

“So polite, I can tell you’ve been in this business for a long time.”

The guys looked at each other in confusion while they watched (Y/N)’s face instantly grow darker.

“What do you want?”

“Come on you should know that one! I want a date!” The guys said pressing up against (Y/N)’s back harder, his hand rubbing her shoulder creepily the other slipping under the table. “So, what’s your price? Hourly or do you charge by our activities? How much to let me do it all hmm?”

The entire table went frozen at the male’s implications. Clear snickering could be heard from the table of girls not too far away. Sitting there was none other than Yamazaki’s ex-girlfriend herself.

Both groups waited patiently to hear what (Y/N) would say. Having been ambushed out of nowhere there wasn’t much time to think, she would either snap at him or give some cliché remark about her rates being too high for him. Her team looked on in surprise as the girl smiled at him with an almost genuine look.

“I haven’t thought about my pricing in a while! It’s a little tricky because too high and I won’t get nearly enough customers. But too low and I may put your mother out of business!”

The boys at her table almost started laughing before the mystery guy yanked the girl out of her seat by the collar in rage. (Y/N) held no expression as the male pulled her up closer to him and drew a fist back ready to land square on her face.

Just as the team was about to get up to help their manager, they saw her head slowly tilt back before jerking forward to make hard contact with an unsuspecting nose.

The loud crunch was sickening and by now most of the cafeteria had gone totally quiet. Any grip that was still clinging to the girl’s collar was soon released as she drew her knee back and brought it right up into the place no guy wants to be hit.

The team along with every male in the cafeteria cringed hard at the sight of the male literally throwing up from the force of that knee. With her would-be attacker on the floor curled up in a helpless ball the boys figured it was over but looking into (Y/N)’s face there was a dark look they hadn’t seen before.

Sure, enough her foot reeled back before making impact with the boy’s side. He yelped out in pain but (Y/N) kept the blows coming, sometimes lifting her foot to stomp on various parts of his body.

Hara stood up slowly and placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder making her jump hard and take a swing at him. The punch landed directly in his stomach, making him double over in pain.

As if suddenly becoming unblinded by her rage the girl’s face melted back into the look they had all become used to.

“Kazuya! I’m sorry!” (Y/N) said taking the male’s face into her hands and trying to look into his eyes unsuccessfully of course.

Wheezing just a bit Hara managed to straighten up and give her a reassuring smile.

“Remind me to never play punchies or bloody knuckles with you. Are you okay?”

“What on earth is going on here?” One of the school administrators bellowed, slamming the doors to the cafeteria.

Before anyone could speak up it was none other than Mei running up to him, looking as if she’d been traumatized by the events.

“My friend went up to (Y/N) to ask her out and she totally freaked out! Look at him!”

The administrator looked to the boy struggling to get up off the floor and narrowed his eyes at the accused girl. Before he could open his mouth, it was Yamazaki who was out of his seat.

“That’s not the truth! He accused (Y/N) of paid dating! He said he wanted to know her rates and he did it with the intention of embarrassing her! He said it so loudly everyone in the cafeteria heard him!”

“It’s true!” A small voice piped up from the other side of the lunchroom. The guys recognized her as one of (Y/N)’s reverse trap lovers. “He went up to her and asked her how much she would charge to let him ‘do it all’ totally unprovoked!”

“Be that as it may, it was no need for physical confrontation.”

(Y/N) sighed before whipping off her jacket and unbuttoning her white shirt to pull over her shoulder. There on her clear skin was a shiny dark bruise. Hiking up her skirt slightly, the boys gawked at a handprint shaped bruise colouring her thigh. The markings were so dark and done with so much force, it was a wonder she hadn’t cried out.

“He was purposely squeezing me to intimidate and hurt me. I was defending myself.”

“(L/N) (Y/N)? You’re the Tōō transfer…Surely you’ve heard of excessive force, right?”

(Y/N) bit her lip so hard the boys knew it was seconds away from bleeding. She looked pissed and expectant.

“Young man, get to the nurse and get patched up. (Y/N) please come follow me to the Headmaster’s office.”

“What that’s complete bullshit!” Hara found himself yelling loudly. “She has the proof that he was hurting her and she’s still in trouble? Excessive force my fucking ass! He was going to punch her in the face and if she let him get up who knows what he could have done to her!?”

“Settle down!”

“No, that’s the stupidest fucking shit I ever heard!”

“That is enough! I am giving you one last warning. I know your parents may allow you to do whatever you like. I however will not, condition or no condition.”

Hara was boiling with rage at this point.

“Fuck you!”

The administrator looked just as red and angry however his eyes flickered with thought. Sighing heavily, he deflated and waved a dismissive hand at the boy.

“Sit down and finish your lunch. Come on (L/N).”

The cafeteria sat dumbstruck at the lavender-haired boy. Anyone who talked to any of the school’s staff like that was sure to be suspended, yet here he was with nothing but a reprimand.

And you would figure anyone would be happy with that but not Hara. No, he was absolutely trembling with rage. His teeth grit harshly, and his eyes blurred even more with tears that he wasn’t going to let fall. Maybe he was crying because he was angry or maybe he actually just sick of this constant reminder.

Pounding his fist into the table he stalked off after (Y/N). Without hesitation Yamazaki followed quickly behind his friend.

“I should really go and make sure they don’t make things worse for (Y/N).” Furuhashi said throwing away his food.

“You aren’t afraid you’ll get into trouble and they’ll call your parents?”

“I’ve recently gotten engaged, they are content enough with me at the moment to let a few things slide.”

“I’m going too. (Y/N) didn’t look right and I never thought she could lash out like that. Best if we gave her some team support. Hanamiya you coming?”

The pale boy simply sat and continued eating his lunch like nothing ever happened. He shrugged his shoulders.

“What good would that do? I’m gonna stay here.”

~~~~~

“So, you see why we have to keep such a close eye on you?”

(Y/N) nodded her head solemnly. She knew she only put herself in this situation based on her current and past actions. Disagreeing did no good.

“You better not be expelling her!” Hara’s voice rasped from the other side of the door. “I will shit all over your office!”

The young girl couldn’t help but snort at the principal’s taken aback expression. Shaking his head he turned back to (Y/N) and gave her a small fatherly smile.

“That’s an interesting boyfriend you have there.”

“Kazuya isn’t my boyfriend. He’s just my teammate who cares whether or not I will still be a part of the team tomorrow.”

“You will be. Regardless of everything, I know you’re a good kid. You have a 4.0 GPA and have even managed to reign in that unruly basketball team with their rough play. Though I do hope they continue to win without it.”

“W-what? How long have you known about that?”

“Oh I’ve had my suspicions ever since Hanamiya hurt that Seirin player a few years back. Between you and I, so long as the ref never called them out on their play, I would have allowed it to continue in an effort to keep bringing in those wins.”

(Y/N) sat awestruck. Things just weren’t adding up. Hanamiya had said outright that the Headmaster was unhappy with the team’s actions and was keeping an eye on them. In fact, it seemed to be the exact opposite.

“Dear don’t look so concerned. Rough play is simply a part of sports. Take the Detroit Pistons for exa-”

“You never asked Hanamiya to stop the rough play?”

“No, I can’t say I’ve spoken to the young man since he asked permission to be coach. Which brings me to the deal I want to make.”

“A deal?”

“While I can understand self-defense, even you admitted to using excessive force. Now I can’t let that go without punishment. However, you know as well as I do that those boys on your team are a stubborn lot. They never will agree to this if I asked it of them myself. A local newspaper has asked two Tokyo high school basketball teams to sit for an interview and Kirisaki Daiichi would be one of them.”

“Why would the newspaper want to interview us?”

“They are doing a feature on student leadership and wanted to feature two excelling teams led by student coaches.”

(Y/N)’s minded whirled for just a bit before the lightbulb went off. Her lips parted into a soft o shape as her Headmaster nodded with a smirk.

“So, then the school we will be interviewing with is…”

~~~~~

Seirin sat awkwardly on the other side of a huge round table.

(Y/N) could feel her captain’s stare burning holes in the side of her head. The energy in the room was incredibly tense and the only sounds were breathing and the occasional pop from Hara’s gum.

“You’re going to run so many suicides for me when we get out of here.” Hanamiya whispered into (Y/N)’s ear, sending a chill down her spine.

It had truly been a struggle to get all the boys to agree to sit for interview questions and that had been without mentioning the other team that would be.

Yamazaki had agreed the moment he found out it was to help her while the other guys requested favors in exchange for their presence.

Furuhashi requested to be lifted from the homework duty he’d gotten thanks to the Valentine’s bet.

Hanamiya requested that she make him lunch for the rest of the month, no store-bought or chef-prepared bentos allowed.

Hara’s dumbass jokingly requested a kiss, which he got. Not expecting it, however, he had no time to react and bitched about being “caught off guard” and not getting the opportunity to kiss back.

Seto merely waved the girl off and said he would save his favor for another time when he could really use it.

Now the guys were thinking that they had been lowballed. Not only was this the team that killed their chances at the winter cup last year, but they were also the team they had the most tension with.

To top it off, the interviewer was running late and now they were all stuck there as neither wanted to be the “weak team” that ran away.

(Y/N) looked at the players on the opposing team. She had seen them during the Rakuzan v. Seirin game but just as she found with Yosen’s ace, it was much different being face to face. Kagami was nothing short of intimidating, with his piercing almost unnatural eyes.

Their captain was scowling hard in direct contrast to Hanamiya who had this aura of faux innocence surrounding his face. The glasses guy looked about ready to jump across the table and throw hands.

Kuroko was another story, looking as if he was the one analyzing her team intensely. Several times (Y/N) locked eyes with him and gave him a small smile which he surprisingly returned. Seeing him too, made her wonder how exactly he was this “phantom” or “invisible” man. He had baby blue hair for fucks sakes!

“Kuroko Tetsuya, I don’t believe we’ve met.” The blue haired boy said extending his hand to the girl, who hadn’t said a single thing the entire time they’ve been sitting here.

“(Y/N) (L/N), it’s very nice to meet you. I saw your game against Rakuzan and thought it was amazing!”

This seemed to snap the attention of all the team to her. Before she could reply the dark-haired male, in front of her slipped a paper to her secretively.

‘Blink twice if you’re being held against your will.’

The young girl was caught between a laugh and a scoff, confusing the sharp-eyed male who’d passed her the note. He tilted his head as he tried to examine her face.

“Okay you blinked like four times, so I’m a little confused.” Izuki said with genuine concern.

“I’m perfectly content where I am. I have classes with Kazuya, before I knew it one thing lead to another and I was managing the team.”

Before anyone could even comment on that, she was already noticing the looks on their faces and continuing with her explanation.

“I am not a naïve person and am very aware of the things they have done. We were able to have a nice clean game against Yosen not too long ago. It would go against everything I believe in to judge someone on only their worst qualities.”

“I agree.” Kuroko’s calm voice resonated in the room with a strong conviction. “It’s hard to defend someone when only you’ve seen the good in them and everyone else has only seen the bad. I know that too well.”

“Exactly, spoken like a true protagonist.” (Y/N) said with a wide smile.

“This guy is way too bland to ever be the protagonist of anything.” Hara chuckled snapping his gum rapid fire.

“You think so? He talks like one and even has the ‘spot the protagonist’ hair.” (Y/N) leaned across Hanamiya, ready to defend her opinion to the death.

“We just played a purple giant and there’s split brow red head right in front of us!” Yamazaki replied, clearly siding with Hara.

“All the generation has weird ass hair.” Seto added acknowledging the obvious.

“Because if the story was told with their team as the main cast then that Miracle would be the protag. Kuroko is the protag of Seirin because blue hair is way more unnatural than red. Come on guys, it’s really simple.” Furuhashi interjected after picking his side in the debate.

“Then am I the protag of KiriDaii?” Hara asked, twisting a portion of his bangs between his fingers.

“Hell no, that’s me!” (Y/N) said with indignation.

“What why?”

“Because your hair isn’t natural and I’m the middle of the year transfer student!”

Seirin didn’t know how to respond to the conversation that had unfolded in front of them. Talk about anime protagonists and hair colour wasn’t something they expected, especially from a team like Kirisaki Daiichi. Clearly (Y/N) had been some sort of catalyst for the group.

Of course, the boys have always made their public image out to be very presentable. If they ever did attend some sort of event, they usually came across as cold but polite. The stereotypical image of a rich kid who thinks they are better than you but know better than to show it.

To see them acting like normal teenage guys was almost unsettling. But it made sense…after all, regardless of what they were like on the court, off the court they were just that. Teenage boys.

Kuroko’s eyes left (Y/N) when he felt a different pair glaring in his direction. Turning, he met with a harsh pair of olive eyes. Hanamiya had gotten up in his face before and the two had definitely had a stare down to the death but this expression was unreadable. Finally, after what looked like an internal debate the older male opened his mouth.

“Wait, there’s no way that’s actually your natural hair colour.”

“Well I was born with it, so yeah. All the generation have natural hair.”

“Shut the fuck up, are you serious? I thought the rainbow scheme was just a gimmick.” Hanamiya asked looking more or less stunned and in disbelief. “What the hell was in the water your moms were drinking?”

“I don’t know how to answer that.”

(Y/N) snorted into her hand. She didn’t expect this whole situation to turn out the way it was. If she was being honest she was almost prepared for a fight to break out instantly.

Still it didn’t go unnoticed to her that one of the Seirin members was neither speaking to his teammates nor ever bothered to look up at her team. And she wasn’t naïve to who this person was. In fact, he was the first face she looked for when she walked into interview room today.

Extremely tall and one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen in her life, she wished he had an actual smile on his face. Her captain pulled those a lot.

Hanamiya did it to seem indifferent and strong to others. And the guy at the end of the table was fundamentally not so different, he was trying to put on a strong front and pretend like being there didn’t bother him. But from what she’s heard of him, he did that for others…not himself.

“Terribly sorry for running so late!” A flustered looking man said nearly out of breath. “Were you waiting long?”

“Not very, though Kirisaki Daiichi arrived before we did.” Riko said standing to shake hands with the journalist.

“I will admit it was a bit of a wait, seeing as my team strives to be professional with our time.” Hanamiya said with a bright smile through the subtle snark of implying the older man was in fact unprofessional.

“Right! My deepest apologies. Now, we can get through the joint questions first and then move onto individual teams. Now Seirin, there have been lots of eyes on your aces and while we are interested as well we figured this would be a great opportunity to get some info of your other members.”

“Of course!” The short-haired girl nodded.

“As for Kirisaki Daiichi, for such a high-ranking team in such a prestigious school there haven’t been many interviews conducted with you. And to my knowledge absolutely none since Hanamiya Makoto has taken the team. So, we would very much like to change that today!”

~~~~~

“I uhh”

While the tension had completely once been eradicated in the boardroom, the stuttering and aching silence let everyone know it was back with a vengeance.

“I apologize if that was an inappropriate question to ask given our current audience but I did my research. It would seem the only remaining player from that team is Hanamiya, however he seemed not to be directly involve-”

“Not directly involved?” Hyuga exclaimed before he had the chance to stop himself.

The other Seirin team members were trying their hardest to get him to calm down. (Y/N) nervously bit on her nail as she glanced to her captain. He was sitting almost unfazed, staring at Kiyoshi waiting for him to give his answer to the question.

‘After your terrible injury in the game against Kirisaki Daiichi, how have you managed to deal with these limitations?’

“Why don’t you finally admit it!? You had every intention of hurting him and everyone in here knows it!” Hyuga shouted to Hanamiya who finally looked away from the brown-haired male.

“He’s not wrong.” Hanamiya’s voice came out smoothly, shocking his entire team. “I was just an ordinary player on the team back then, but still…it was me who gave the order to use rough play on him.”

Even the reporter looked shocked by this admission and simply nodded before scribbling words down on his notes. Turning his attention back to Kiyoshi the reporter urged the male out of his overall shocked state.

“So, how exactly are you coping? Is there a lot of resentment…anger?”

“Acceptance. You can’t change what’s happened you can only come to terms with it. I’ve accepted that my peak has come and gone. It was halted early and without me ever even knowing, it passed me by. I’ll never be as good as I could have been, but I’ll keep trying to be the best that I can be now. That’s how I’ve coped with it.”

“I see. That’s very unfortunate but inspiring that you have continued to push out of a bad situation. And for you Hanamiya, is there any guilt? Was it your intention for it to escalate this way? Any comments?”

All of KiriDai was watching their captain closely. Way before now all of them had formed their own opinions on the incident with Kiyoshi but it wasn’t their game, none of them played in it so none of them ever bothered voicing their opinion.

Hanamiya always acted like he couldn’t be bothered to give a shit about anything or anyone but still they wondered if there was something else there. Then again, they figured he would give some bullshit answer to keep a public façade.

“As you can see Kiyoshi refuses to be broken by me and continues to put himself out there when playing me. Some people call that bravery…I call it reckless. He’s put his own flesh and bones on the line for others, I believe he will come to have resentment but not towards me.”

(Y/N) tried to read the male’s eyes but found them to be blank.

“I’ve lost every game I’ve ever played against him. I’ll never get the chance to beat him at his best….and I am unbelievably sorry for that. I take full responsibility for everything that’s happened to him.”

Kiyoshi was gaping at the male who refused to make eye contact. He heard it in his voice, that was almost an apology. Of course, he knew Hanamiya well enough to know that he would state that in the most selfish and underhanded way possible. He wasn’t smirking or mocking them for believing a lie…he was, for the first time, being genuine.

“I see…So, Hanamiya Makoto, what inspired you to play basketball?”

“My father.” Hanamiya replied without missing a beat, once again surprising everyone on both teams.

“Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

“Uhhh okay.” The journalist seemed to be fumbling with his notes, clearly trying to steer the topic away and remove the heavy veil hanging in the air. “Ahh yes Mitobe! There isn’t much information that’s been gathered for you. Would you be open to a few questions?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard you speak since we got in here. Talk about a man of few words.” (Y/N) smiled at the male who had appeared to be slightly nervous.

“More like a man of no words. Mitobe is mute!” The cat-mouthed boy stated awkwardly to (Y/N).

The girl covered her mouth in shock and appeared wide eyed. She wanted to smack herself for even trying to talk. Honestly, she had just been trying to break the tensions between both teams.

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to offend!” The black-haired male lifted his hand as if to tell her not to worry about it but of course (Y/N) dug herself even deeper. “Do you want me to run and get you a paper and pen to write your answers down?”

“That’s okay, I can translate for him.” Koga replied with a smile as he tried to calm the girl down.

“Okay umm if you need to sit closer or something I can trad-”

“Oh my god just leave him alone! He’s mute, not invalid!” Hara shouted in a fairly loud and angry voice, startling everyone in the room. “He survived just fine without you, he doesn’t need your help now. So, sit down and quit embarrassing us!”

“Hey, you shouldn’t talk to your manager like that. She was just trying to help, even if coming off a little strong.” Hyuga spoke up in the girl’s defense.

“Yeah you were really too harsh with her, Mitobe knows she meant well.” Koga urged, seeing the face of a clearly distressed girl.

“She’s fine!” Hara asserted only to hear mumbling under the breath of the boy on the far end of the table. “What did you say?”

Fukuda almost didn’t respond, not really having expected the male to hear him from that distance. Still Hara was coming off as rude and it wasn’t gonna take much urging to him to repeat the comment he gave.

“I said ‘You must be blind or stupid not to see she’s obviously upset.’”

It happened so quickly that (Y/N) almost didn’t process what had happened. One second Hara was drawing his fist back at the boy and the next Yamazaki was pulling him out of the room.

“Okay, I’m calling it guys. We should probably end it here.” Seto said getting ready to stand before (Y/N) slid out of her chair first.

“No, stay and finish the interview. He probably doesn’t want all of us around him right now.”

“And you think he’ll be okay with you?” Furuhashi asked with slight concern in his eyes.

“Doesn’t matter.” (Y/N) said, heading out to find her friends.

With that the girl bowed respectfully to the other team and journalist before excusing herself. Almost immediately after turning the corner, her perpetually pissed-off looking friend nearly slammed into her.

“Zaki! Where’s Kazu-chan, what the hell happened?”

“He’s just sitting on the roof, sulking. Really, he just has some personal stuff he’s going through, and I thought it’d be best to leave him alone.”

“Nah, I need to talk to him.”

“(Y/N) wai-”

The girl was no longer listening as she bolted down the hall and right up the flight of stairs. Her legs were aching as she climbed the steps incredibly fast. Finally seeing the light shining in from the small window, she pushed the door open and squinted her eyes in an effort to adjust to the brightness.

“What the hell do you want? If I didn’t want Zaki here what makes you think I’d want you either?”

“God you’re in a bitchy mood today.” (Y/N) commented, finally spotting the male sitting on the opposite end of the roof.

Walking over to him she sat directly in front of him with crisscrossed legs.

“Just leave me alone. Why are you always in everyone’s business?”

“Because you’re my friends.”

“Friends usually know when to leave someone the hell alone.”

“Do they? I haven’t had many friends since I came to Japan so I wouldn’t really know. But in everything I’ve ever seen, the friend usually keeps pushing.”

“Yeah well this isn’t one of your fucking anime okay? All I need is for you to leave me alone and go away.”

“Kazuya just tell me what’s wrong? Why did you go off on that Seirin guy? Why’d you start yelling at me? I refuse to believe those were just bad attitude actions, so what gives?”

“I’ve had a bad week okay?”

“Well why?”

“Oh my god it’s just one question after another with you!”

“Yes! Because I want to know what’s happening with you. Maybe I can help!”

“You can’t! “

“How do you know that!?”

“Because I know me better than you! Not everything has an answer and not everything can be fixed! Stop trying to fix me!”

“I’m just trying really hard to understand you.”

“Fine! You want to try and understand?!”

(Y/N) flinched as he got up in her face and turned her head away from him screwing up her eyes. She didn’t think he’d hit her but it was her natural reaction to cower away. Hara suddenly had his thumb and forefinger on her cheeks, gripping her face slightly to turn her.

“Look at me.”

The young girl allowed him to face her towards him and was instantly surprised to see him looking at her eye to eye. He’d pushed his bangs off to the side and was staring at her intensely.

Maybe she didn’t know the words…but she knew right away something was different.

“Your eyes…”

“Are creepy?” Hara scoffed still holding onto the girl’s face.

“Suit you.”

The girl honestly meant that. His eyes were a pretty hazel colour with the black part of his pupils extending way too far down to look natural. Both seemed to split the coloured portion of his eye from the middle to the bottom. It made him look almost feline in appearance.

“What’s up with it?”

“It’s called coloboma.”

“Huh it makes you look like a demon or like a pissed off cat. That kind of fits your personality don’t you think?” (Y/N) smiled only for Hara to finally release her and sigh as he sat back. She thought about what Fukuda had said and as if all the pieces were clicking together, she cocked her head at him. “But that’s just cosmetic, if you went off on that guy back there…. Hara can you see?”

“Shittily but yes…for now. Something called a comorbidity or whatever the hell. One of my brothers has the keyhole eyes like me but I was just even more unlucky. I was four when I realized my eyesight was shit at night.”

(Y/N) could see Hara staring off to the side and knew he was about to let out everything and anything he had ever kept secret.

“So, they tested it and turns out that was just the beginning. Choroideremia, which basically just means my eyesight is going to gradually get worse and worse until I just can’t see at all. Completely, totally blind and there isn’t a damn thing anyone can do to stop it.”

There was a hard silence cloaking the two. It was even heavier than the one they had just experienced in the room with both teams. Hara was ready to just get up and leave, he didn’t regret telling her…with that outburst she would piece it together eventually.

His whole team probably would, when the only person who had known was Zaki. He knew it was foolish to think he could keep it from them for so long. His team would think he was a worthless player and he would gladly take that. But he knew (Y/N) would pity him and that was going to set him right back off.

“Yeah well I’m sorry to hear that but don’t think telling me that is gonna excuse you for being a dick.”

Hara’s eyes widened and his head snapped towards her like he couldn’t believe his ears. The girl was pouting and with arms crossed looked pissed off.

“What?”

“Like I said, I get that you’ve been going through a lot, but you were seriously about to fight a guy. He doesn’t know your life, cut him a break. And don’t ever fucking yell at me like that in public again! I’m your friend and manager, not a damn kid!”

“Is that seriously what you’re worried about right now?”

“Uhh yeah! You embarrassed the hell out of me! I think you owe me and everyone in there an apology!”

Hara blinked very slowly at the girl. Everyone who had ever found out about it pitied him. They treated him like some sort of feeble infant. Even Yamazaki had to outgrow that habit.

It would seem that, it didn’t matter the situation, (Y/N) was never going to react the way he thought she was. Whether it was her reactions to an arranged marriage or to a disability, she was never overly soft with people. Some people would even call that apathetic or kinda bitchy.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say to me right now?”

(Y/N) sighed heavily and let her angry face fall into one of concern.

“It’s not that I don’t care about you, Kazuya or what’s happening. But it honestly changes nothing between us. You don’t get a free pass to do whatever the hell you like just because you have shitty eyesight. I’ve known you not even a full year. You managed to survive without me and I’m sure you’ll continue to do the same. I’m not saying I won’t make a mistake ever or that I won’t worry about you from time to time but you’re still the same person with or without your problems.”

“And when the day comes that I can’t see at all?”

“Then you’ll deal with it as it comes. We’ll get you a basketball that beeps or some shit. Look I don’t know much about blindness but millions all over the world deal with it and when it happens, I’m sure you will too.”

“Huh…you know you’re the only person whose ever reacted that way. I guess now I must just seem like a fucking moron that threw a tantrum huh?”

“Hell yeah, a big ass temper tantrum! Honestly one more outburst like that from you and I’m gonna have to put you in a time out corner or something.”

Hara laughed before looking up at her again. Under his bangs he could always see that she had a very cute shape to her body but with his eyes out for the world to see…he was really looking at her for the first time. From the face, she was plainer than he’d been able to see previously. But still he found himself drawn to her.

Crawling over to her again, his face was only inches away from hers. She was staring directly into his eyes in a way none of the other girls he’s ever been with has. She wasn’t staring AT his eyes she was looking into them. She was seeing him, looking at HIM.

His hand was gently caressing her face and he noticed her own eyes gently flicker to his lips. His smirk grew before he drew even closer and whispered,

“And how many tantrums do I have to throw before I get a spanking?”

The girl clicked her tongue before pushing him away.

“I’ll have Furu give you one now! He’s the sadist of the group, I’m sure all you have to do is ask!”

“Fuck that shit! I want a spanking from a cute girl not a flogging from my sicko teammate.”

“So, I’m a cute girl huh?”

“Yeah you are.” Hara admitted without missing a beat, surprising (Y/N) who had expected him to give his typical sarcastic ass comment.

“Ha funny, come on we should head back to the guys!”

“Awe don’t leave yet! I figured we could have some fun up here for a bit, after all I did just reveal to you my tragic backstory!”

“Yeah whatever!”

“Don’t even pretend! You were really into me for a second there!”

“Maybe in your dreams.”

“Come on, I’ll make you feel really good.”

“Don’t say things like that so nonchalantly!”

“So, is that a yes?”

~~~~~

“Why the fuck did you two take so long!?” Hanamiya shouted out at the two as they made their way down the final stair.

“Yeah we were kinda worried.” Yamazaki said looking between his two friends.

“Worried my ass! I just wanna get home but I can’t because (Y/N) has my damn train pass.” Hanamiya mumbled sounding just as grumpy as he’d been earlier with Seirin.

“Honestly though, is everything okay with you guys?” Seto asked (Y/N) more so than Hara.

“Yeah Kazu-chan had a bitch fit but he’s cooled off now. Maybe he is the protagonist considering how much he openly cries and causes drama.”

“Shut up.” Hara laughed, pushing the girl playfully.

The guys all narrowed their eyes at the two. They could see the clear shift, half as those who have experienced it first hand with (Y/N) and the other half as having witnessed it from their other teammates.

He was falling for her.

“Well now that that matter is solved, I think you owe us more than was offered.” Furuhashi broke the silence, placing his hand on (Y/N)’s shoulder.

“Yeah I know.” The girl deflated, not wanting to be reminded of the deception she used to get her team there today. “How about I treat us all to ramen? I just got paid and I think I can spare to feed my team.”

“Hmm you have a job?” Seto asked raising a brow at the girl.

“Yeah, of course! I told you I like to earn my things and not just leech off someone. So, are we getting food or not!”

“Fine, let’s go.” Hanamiya said, all but dragging the girl along out the door.

Standing at the back of the group, a certain two males stayed behind Hara was staring out after his team and Yamazaki was staring at him. When the rest were finally out of earshot he spoke up.

“She knows, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“And you willing told her?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“I guess after seeing how she handled Furuhashi’s situation, I was hoping she would surprise me too. Tell me something I wasn’t expecting to hear, and she didn’t disappoint.”

“…You know Furu’s got it bad for her too, right? That he’s just too stoic to show it more than he already does?”

“Yeah, I’m not stupid.”

“And I’ve told you how I feel.” Yamazaki sighed as Hara looked at him almost sullenly. “You’re still not gonna give her up easily, are you?”

“You know I can’t.”

~~~~~

“Who the fuck wrote that!” Hara yelled accusingly at the now frightened students in class.

(Y/N) stared at the words on her desk, owlishly. The classroom had grown so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet and Hara was sure to cause hell when he found out who was responsible for this bullshit.

“Well!? I’ll look through everyone’s shit to find a pink marker! And when I find it, the person I found it with bet-”

“Haha how pathetic!” (Y/N)’s voice chirped out, laughing genuinely. Hara turned to her in surprise and watched as she licked her middle finger and swiped it over the desk smudging the ink.

While her voice and demeanor oozed confidence, Hara could clearly see a hurt look in her eyes as the words ‘Yariman’ and ‘Slut’ smeared across her desk.

“What kind of weak shit is this? If you’re gonna vandalize a desk, don’t be a fucking pussy and use a marker! Carve it in there to get your point across! Oh man, Kazuya, I’m gonna go grab a wet napkin to wipe this crap off.”

Hara watched as the girl took off down the hall, avoiding the gaze of everyone in class. He knew exactly who it was that went and wrote that on the girl’s desk.

It was growing more and more out of hand. Something told him there was more going on than just a jealousy for Yamazaki. (Y/N) said they’d had issues from before.

Whatever happened in middle school was finally exploding all around her.

And now that he thought about it, how much did any of them really know about (Y/N)?

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unpopularly-opinionated · 5 years ago

Text

RE: My post earlier about the Ooblets Epic Games Exclusive backlash.

I’m not going to show the Twitter user, if you follow the indie game development scene on Twitter it’s likely you’ll recognize this tweet, either way that’s not who I am. The Ooblet’s account on the other hand is fair-game since it’s basically a product placement.

I feel it needs reiterating how utterly dense this kind of tweet is, and how completely skewed the narrative for this issue has gotten, so let me reiterate in obnoxiously large and emboldened font to try and get the point across:

THE GAMING COMMUNITY IS NOT TOXIC

“Honesty” and “transparency” are all well and good, but unless you’re honestly trying to drive away your own community, perhaps you should try being a little less honest and a little less transparent. No one (or I guess no one but this guy and the few who agree with him) is going to thank you for honestly throwing them under the proverbial bus after they’ve spent months, if not years, supporting your project; your dream.

I’ve heard from others that “this is just how they write” and “it’s meant to be funny”, and to an extent, I can understand that. But let me just include some screenshots from the post in question to reiterate my point, because I feel like my previous post didn’t quite get the point across:

(Context: What the Epic Games Exclusivity Deal means for you, the fan and/or financial backer of Ooblets).

I get that the Fortnite bit is the joke, ha ha, Fortnite used to be wildly popular, I get it, good meme. What isn’t the joke, and what was part of why people got upset was the first bit, specifically the “download the Epic Games Launcher and make an Epic Games account” bit, that bit.

Now, I personally have no qualms about having the Epic Games Launcher on my PC. I have long since looked beyond the ‘scandal’ of tech companies saving and selling my data to distant lands to be used for nefarious moneymaking schemes. Is it bad? Sure, maybe. Would I prevent it had I the chance? Of course. Do I have that chance? Not a chance in the world, so I decide to live with it.

That said, many others have not reached that point of fuck it, and understandably so. I hit that point because of my negative outlook on society as a whole but, praise be, there are in fact still some optimists out there who look at these shitty corporate tactics and say no to them, and good on them for that.

That is what I would say is the bulk of the primary issues people have with the Epic Games Store. The missing features bits aren’t terribly important, as even this post says, if you have a social life on Steam, then use Steam. The EGS does not need to be your do-all replacement.

This is where the post should have stopped. Here and now, had this post ended, any and all issues with this decision would have been but a whisper in the wind. As I said in my previous post, yes they undoubtedly would have received plenty of critical, and non-critical backlash for the decision regardless, but ending the post here would’ve 100% put the developers on the right side in this situation and I’d be right up there agreeing with that tweet.

(Context: Are you angry at Epic and/or us for this decision?)

Referring to earlier when I said that playful tone and humour are all fine and dandy, I understand that this is probably meant to sound playful and humourous, but it comes across as largely self-important and ignorant, and the bits that follow do in no way dissuade from that appearance.

While my response to this complaint was similar to their own, in that you should just use Steam for the features that the Epic Games Store lacks, they go on to essentially say that this is just baby EGS and that Steam used to be just like it and look at it now.

While they aren’t technically wrong, from a development point of view, the big thing they need to understand is how web standards have dramatically changed since 2003 when the Steam store launched. Launching a store, of any variety, without a shopping cart is a big no-no.

As far as missing features go, that’s not like missing a friends list or a IM feature, that’s missing a crucial part of a web-based storefront. Imagine going to a store and only be allowed to purchase one thing at a time, that would be ridiculous.

Their response to this was as corporate as any triple-A publisher, or really any corporation at all, from any industry. Just a complete disconnect from society that frankly is unwarranted from what is quite literally a two person operation. Not to mention, their response is quite literally what every parent warns their kids about at a young age. “But mooooooooooooom, everyone is doing it!!!!” Yes sweetie, but if everyone jumps off a bridge, are you going to?

Apparently, yes.

And not to discount the idea of making money, by all means make money, but let me put it this way, had they left this post exactly where I said they should have previously, all of the blame would be at Epic’s feet. Because at the end of the day, having your game be exclusive to one service does not make you money, it makes them money. So this whole “everyone is doing it” schtick doesn’t fly when coming from the developers. Had this been a post by Epic (and frankly with all the shilling I could be convinced it was from them) then this argument might have made just a tiny bit more sense.

Underlined in yellow are the jokes; the “playful” and “humourous” attitude I’ve heard so much about. Underlined in red however, are what the developers are actually genuinely saying with complete and utter seriousness.

“There are worse things in the world to be upset about.” I kid you not, that’s their argument.

Now, all of that reiterated, to get to the actual point of this post (wish Tumblr let you do multiple “Keep Reading” lines but I digress), the article linked in the tweet here is about the previous “non-critical” backlash I mentioned they’d receive, though multiplied exponentially by their horrendous blog post, and further community responses to said blog post.

I’d like to refer to a completely unrelated post I made quite a while ago that really needs to spread like wildfire if you ask me:

RECEIVING INSULTS, UNCRITICAL FEEDBACK, AND/OR DEATH THREATS DOES NOT INVALIDATE THE CRITICAL FEEDBACK NOR THE ISSUE AT HAND.

I am by no means wiping away death threats or mean words as things to scoff at, by all means take them as seriously as you will, but under no circumstances should 20+ people telling you to kill yourself invalidate the hundreds of fans and financial backers who are upset with your recent financial decision, or your response to criticisms to those decisions.

This happens time and time and time again. Someone of note does something bad, for one reason or another, and instead of responding to the completely warranted and justified criticism and feedback they instead play up the 15+ people who IM’d them to drink bleach and throw it up as “an example of the ever present toxic gaming community”.

More or less, the substance to this article is their “apology”, and I use that term very loosely but I’ll get to that, to the community at large for the recent events. The post summarizes the issue from their (biased) perspective, posts some screenshots of the colourful responses they’ve received, the usual woe-is-me schtick.

I’d like to highlight a few bits from it to further exemplify the continued mindset of these people:

I have given the full context to this next statement with these screenshots so that I can now take parts of these statements out of their context to, at least to my belief, succinctly identify the mindset of these folks:

“I understand the relationship people think they might be owed when they exchanged money for goods or services, but...we’ve never actually sold them anything and don’t owe them anything at all.”

I don’t want to get off-topic any more than necessary, but this, this right here is why fundraisers, Kickstarters, GoFundMes, Patreon subscriptions, or any other form of crowdsourcing platforms need to be handled with extreme care. I hesitate to say regulated legally, but I am by no means opposed to that idea.

I want to express this carefully and plainly: LEGALLY, yes they are absolutely right that they do not owe anyone anything. At least to my knowledge, they didn’t have a formal Kickstarter, their financial backing came primarily from whatever it is they do for a living AND the support of their Patreon backers.

And while I do not feel that it needs addressing, for the sake of consistency I will address it: MORALLY they owe the game to anyone who financially supported them with the express purpose of developing the game.

“We definitely owe all of you who supported us, but also fuck off you entitled cunts because we don’t owe you shit.”

When in the face of well-deserved criticism, deflect deflect deflect. As if a broken record, I’d like to again emphasize that yes, legally they owe no one anything. Morally, they do. Legally, they don’t. Morally, yes. Legally, no.

This, in essence, is a response to the majority of people who are like me, who aren’t screaming vitriolic personable attacks, telling them to drink bleach, long jog off a short pier, the works. Essentially: “If you aren’t with us, then you’re against us.”

Because apparently pointing out your blatant mischaracterisation of the gaming community, your outrageously awful personal relations skills, and most especially your morally bankrupt understanding of the relationship between you and the people financially supporting your passion project means we are, by their logic, on a level equivalent in nature to the 10+ people telling them to drink bleach.

Fixed for typos:

Remember how I said this was an “apology” in the loosest form, well what I was referring to was how in the beginning during their (totally unbiased) summary of the events, they more or less said “Sorry you didn’t respond the way we wanted you to.” Beyond that, yeah, it’s not an apology.

And why would we expect one? Nothing they have spat out in the face of their fans so far has even a hint of self-realization or self-reflection in it. Even their acknowledgement of their (horrendously under exaggerated) bad PR skills comes across as a hollow acknowledgement, if it can even be referred to as an acknowledgement at all, because if you truly truly acknowledged it, then this post wouldn’t exist.

As to this anti-Semitic fabrication making the rounds, I have not seen it so I will take their word for it that they did not make one, especially since I have seen fabricated evidence involving Discord messages rearranged out of order. What I feel needs addressing specifically in this chunk though is his reference to “my messages taken out of context to insinuate I don’t care about our patrons/fans”, because if you’ve seen my previous post then you’ll know no amount of context makes this statement look good:

Sure, it’s a true statement of fact now that they have Epic’s money, but it’s fairly obvious that it reads “We have Epic’s money now, we don’t need you anymore.” I’m sure they didn’t mean that, but that when combined with their other statements regarding how they don’t owe their patrons anything, what they are saying is clear as day.

But hey, credit where credit is due, at least with this we can agree:

But of course, as these people are now infamously known for not ending their posts where they reasonably should...

Now I know how much money goodwill, faith, and morals make, and again I would fully expect this kind of response from the likes of EA, Ubisoft, Bethesda, or fuck even Amazon or Facebook to show that corporate greed has no industry bounds, but this is a two person team whose passion project is to make this game which is being financially supported by loyal fans and future customers.

And that’s just it, that is the mind-boggling part to me, that this is all just the self-important, mischaracterising, morally bankrupt, and childishly ignorant ramblings of a small little husband and wife duo.

In summary...

As was said in the blog post, I’m sure that looking from the outside in we don’t get to see the full scope of the vitriolic comments they’re receiving, so to that I give them credit, and the most sincerest of apologies. I’ve received a few death threats and vitriolic hate-filed messages in my time on the internet, and while personally I am unphase by them, I can fully understand that it can be damaging to one’s self-esteem and self-confidence, especially when it comes in relation to your passion project. I am sorry.

But unwarranted, hate-filled, vitriolic, suicide-baiting messages do not invalid those of us criticizing you for the things that you did do, the words that you did say, and the actions that you did take. I mentioned this in my previous post, but as it stands, the centerpiece to this issue isn’t even about the Epic Exclusivity Deal anymore, it’s about you. You and your treatment, of not just the community at large (for which, might I add, is your primary customer base), but of your treatment towards your loyal fans and financial supporters along the way.

You, for whatever reason, act as most of us have come to expect a soulless and faceless triple-A publisher would, when in fact you are just a two person team with public faces. You’re taking the shots that the likes of EA, Activision, or Bethesda would and have taken, but you’re forgetting that it is above and beyond easier to find you then it is to find them.

All we, but more importantly your fans want from you is for you to make the best game that we all know you’re capable of. And for those who supported you this far along the way to be given even an ounce of respect, despite you not needing their support anymore.

#long post #seriously don't click keep reading unless you really want to read this #it's stupid long #ooblets #indie games #indie developers #video game development #random rant

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