#and then i suddenly found it again and had absolutely no recollection of writing it or drawing the thumbnails.

[karvviie]

when the crack ship starts getting so serious you start making a comic for it

[here2bbtstrash]

it's sweet (explicit)

genre: a fluffy lil sickfic

pairing: taehyung x reader

summary: you forgot to call out sick from your dick appointment, but he stays anyway.

word count: 4.3k

contains: no smut just fluff????? new year new me 😎 but as this is fuckbuddies to maybe-lovers and there are certainly a few references in here to sex, because of who i am as a person, it's enough that i'm tagging it explicit anyway lmao. but this is all fluff! reader has the flu, tae is a sweet sweet boi and takes care of her, it's all a bit sappy~ 🤧

A/N: happy new year!!! and a very happy belated birthday to my capricorn prince 💜 this soft little idea got stuck in my brain and wouldn't let go, and i had a lot more fun writing it than expected. plus i feel like i only wrote tae as a menace in 2022 (sorry to tae 👹) so i had to right my wrongs with this one lmao. it was a nice interlude before i jump into LDOMLT ch11 (the final chapter 😭) - i hope you all enjoy and that your 2023s are off to a pleasant start!!!

read on AO3!

~*~

You genuinely enjoy being single.

With your last relationship officially in the trash, you’ve found yourself settled into a comfortable peace. There’s no man in your life to mess up your plans, to force you to have to compromise or share anything, to suck up your energy and domestic labor like some kind of emotional vampire. You can do what you want, whenever you want, and you have a reliable rotation of both sex toys and fuckbuddies to keep you physically satisfied when the need arises.

Being single, you have come to learn, is fucking great.

Except when you get sick.

A knock at your apartment door drags you out of your DayQuil-induced slumber. You move to sit up with a sniffle before letting yourself drop back into your veritable nest of blankets on the couch, struck with the immediate recollection: it’s just the food you ordered. You’d specifically put in a request that they leave it at the door, but maybe the delivery person is just being nice and letting you know it’s there.

Except then they knock again.

And ring the doorbell.

“Jesus,” you groan to yourself, aggressively enough that you’re nearly sent into a fresh coughing fit, but you manage to choke down the spasm in your lungs as you drag yourself to standing. You cross the short distance from your couch to the front door, sure you look like death warmed over, and swing the door open.

At first, you’re certain it’s the DayQuil fucking with you.

“Taehyung?”

The corner of his mouth pulls up as he blinks sweetly at you, expressive almond eyes peeking out beneath untidy dark hair— extra fluffy today, like he’s just washed it and waltzed out of the house without any styling. His clothes tell the same story, a plain gray hoodie and joggers, creased a little like he’d just pulled them off his bedroom floor, though everything looks fresh off the runway on him.

As your eyes trail down his frame, you take in the container of ramen you ordered, held easily in one of his large hands, his long fingers hooking over the side.

His presence is typically a welcome one, particularly on Friday nights like tonight, but those are circumstances where you tend to be a little more… put together. So why is he here tonight?

“When did you start working for D—”

The food delivery service name dies on your tongue as your thoughts finally catch up with your mouth. He’s here tonight because it’s Friday, and this is what you do on Fridays. He’s here because you didn’t cancel. You’d had the thought in a drowsy half-awake state between naps, then had promptly rolled over and pressed your face into the pillow, telling yourself you’d remember to text Taehyung when you woke up.

Which of course, you did not. And so here he is, having clearly intercepted your delivery. And, it now occurs to you, having to witness how absolutely godawful you must look in your stained sweatpants, your hair surely a mess from a day spent napping on the couch.

“Oh fuck,” you mutter, quickly crossing your arms over your baggy t-shirt, suddenly very aware of the fact that you’re not wearing a bra. Why that matters when you’re standing in front of a man who regularly leaves hickeys all over your tits, you’re not sure, but in this moment it somehow feels like it does.

“Tae,” you take a step back, trying to keep him out of your germ radius. “I’m so sorry, I forgot to text you. I’m super sick, I think it’s the flu. You should go.”

He frowns a little, his eyes jumping from you down to the takeout container in his hands. “This is like, barely warm.”

That makes you smile a little despite yourself. A very Taehyung greeting.

“Yeah, well.” You roll your eyes. “I pay twice as much so it can take an hour and be cold by the time it gets here. Makes sense, right?”

His dazzling smile at your sarcastic remark only heightens your own self-consciousness, and you quickly extend a hand for the container.

“Sorry to make you come all this way. Hopefully next week I’ll be back to normal.”

Taehyung nods, yet makes no move to hand over the soup he’s currently holding hostage. “You should rest. Let me heat it up for you.”

You can’t help but wonder what he expects to happen when he crosses the threshold, and that makes you heave a sigh, then quickly bury the cough that chases after it into the crook of your elbow.

Thankfully your voice doesn’t give out when you manage to answer him. “I’m serious, Tae. I’m not—” you pause, considering how to phrase it: desperate to be railed? “—you know, the way I usually am on Fridays. Nothing’s gonna happen tonight. Except maybe you’ll get sick.”

He shrugs, like there are worse things. “I get it. But you shouldn’t be alone.”

At least he’s been sufficiently warned, you think to yourself, and then you relent, leaving the front door of your apartment swung wide as you step back across the living room to promptly collapse onto the couch again. You bury your face in the blankets with a muffled groan as you hear Taehyung shut the door behind him, then make his way into the kitchen.

As is typical with any man that enters your kitchen, you expect to have to walk Taehyung step-by-step through how to do everything. But, to your surprise, he asks no questions: he seems to find a good-sized pot and figure out how to work the stove all on his own, and you can hear him humming softly to himself as he goes.

Truly a credit to the male species, you think to yourself with a bitter laugh.

You collapse back against the cushions, a little too aware of the fuckbuddy in your kitchen to be able to drift off to sleep entirely. Nevertheless, you still find yourself slipping into a haze, your eyes dropping shut just to snap open again at the tap of a bowl being set down on the coffee table in front of you.

Your eyes widen as you sit up and stare down at your ramen, only to find two halves of a soft-boiled egg staring back up at you. You’d ordered from your favorite place in the city, which is easily the best ramen you’ve had in your life, but you know those fuckers charge extra for an egg. Which is why your cheap ass never orders one.

But here one is. So that means…

Taehyung drops down onto the couch next to you before you can even finish compiling the thought in your brain, but he must be able to read the look on your face. “Oh, do you not like eggs?”

“I— no,” you answer quickly. “I mean yes. I mean, I like them, I just… Thank you.”

You glance up in time to see him shrug, his mouth twisting a little, like he’s suddenly made shy by his own kindness. “Gotta get your protein in,” he offers casually, and you laugh over the steam rising up from your bowl.

He keeps a tentative cushion’s distance away from you, but you can feel his eyes watching as you take your first sip of the rich, warm broth. While you slurp it down, you tell yourself not to get greedy with Taehyung’s time: you expect this will be it, that with his act of kindness done for the day, he’ll get to his feet and be on his way. As soon as your front door slams shut behind him, he’ll probably be pulling up his text messages with one of the many other options that must be available to him.

You try to ignore the way that thought makes your stomach twist, to just eat your damn soup and not think about it. It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

But to your surprise, Taehyung leans forward and snatches the TV remote off your coffee table with a triumphant sigh before slumping back against the couch, like he’s settling in. “Do you wanna watch something?”

You shake your head as you take another sip before answering. “You really don’t have to stay, Tae. I can appreciate that I’m not a lot of fun to be around tonight. And obviously you didn’t come here to watch me eat ramen.”

Already starting to scroll through your streaming services, Taehyung runs his free hand through his hair with a knowing, slightly horny smile. “Depends on what you mean by eat ramen.”

You nearly choke on a noodle, but he’s otherwise distracted, mouth dropping open a little as he clicks into one of the options.

“Oh, I know what we can watch.”

When he pulls up A Charlie Brown Christmas and promptly presses play, you can’t help smirking. “Christmas? You’re, what, five days late?”

Taehyung’s mouth opens again, like he’s going to say something, and then he just smiles that same self-conscious smile. “Ah, I just like the music.”

His long fingers splay out in front of him, miming along to the opening melody while he adopts the faux-cool expression of a jazz pianist. You hide a giggle in another sip of broth, and he quickly shrugs the impression off, crossing his arms over his chest as if to keep his limbs under control.

“And it’s cute,” he adds, voice halfway between shy and sentimental. “The little tree.”

It occurs to you now that you’ve never seen Taehyung so… your brain can’t find the right word. He’s just different tonight.

You nod as you slurp up a strand of noodles, and you can’t deny that he’s right as the movie plays on. It’s been years since you’ve seen it, not since you were a kid, but it’s just as enjoyable now, somehow timeless. You find yourself smiling softly as you finish your meal and settle back against the couch, tugging the blanket up to your chin.

All at once, Taehyung jumps up, and you watch dumbfounded as he silently scoops up your dishes and disappears off to the kitchen. When you hear the tap switch on, your jaw drops in sheer disbelief, and you sit up again, peeking over the back of the couch to get a glimpse of him: he’s pulled on the dishwashing gloves you keep tucked next to the sink and is making short work of not just the bowl and the pot, but the takeout container too, and your various other sick-person dishes you’d regrettably let pile up. Humming to himself along with Vince Guaraldi, like it’s something he does every day.

Your head spins as you drop back down against the cushion. What is happening? Did you take too much cold medicine?

That thought only reverberates louder in your brain when he returns, still humming the last few notes of the song. This time he chooses to settle in right beside you on the couch, as if entirely unconcerned about the contagious virus running rampant in your body— he just pulls you into his side, one arm wrapped over your shoulders, fingertips casually starting to play with the ends of your hair. Like it’s that easy.

You glance up at him, shaking your head a little, and Taehyung looks down to meet your gaze. “What?”

“This is just…” An incredulous laugh cuts off the end of your sentence. It’s hard to believe you’re looking at the same person. This can’t be the man who wraps his hand around your throat as he spits into your mouth, who will keep you in his bed for hours until you’re crying from overstimulation, who fucks you so good you can hardly walk the next day.

“I didn’t expect you to be like this,” you admit, pairing the words with a finger driven gently into Taehyung’s ribs. He squirms a little. “You’re… sweet.”

Taehyung’s lips part, and then he pauses, clearly considering how exactly to answer you. His mouth turns up soft at the corners, hesitant, as if he’s embarrassed to say what comes next. And then he says it. “You didn’t seem like you wanted sweet.”

The words settle over you, offered quietly in the low, rich tones of his voice, and as you keep gazing up at him, it strikes you: he’s not wrong. If he’d pulled this cozy domestic housewife act on you any earlier, on a normal Friday, you would’ve sent him packing without hesitation.

That thought makes you a little sad.

You tuck back in against Taehyung’s side, trying to refocus on the TV screen as you snuggle in under the blanket. Pressed close like this, you can feel the sturdy thud of his heartbeat in his chest, at a rhythm not dissimilar to yours.

“Well, I won’t tell anyone,” you breathe, and you swear you can hear him smile.

His touch lingers as the last few minutes of the movie play on: slipping from the ends of your hair to trace over the fabric of your shirt, then sliding further up to dip beneath the collar of it. The talented fingers you’ve become well-acquainted with work their magic in a new way, pressing firm circles into the muscles of your shoulders, muscles you didn’t realize were pinched so tight until he starts to work them open.

“Fuck,” you murmur, shifting a little to allow him better access as he continues. “That feels so good.” You can’t quite help the laugh that flutters out after your words; it’s certainly not the first time he’s made you say them.

There’s a small huff of breath from Taehyung beside you, and then his hand moves up to cup the back of your neck and give a gentle squeeze. It’s a comforting motion, and just arousing enough to make you sigh a note, your eyes briefly dropping shut. When they flutter open again, you realize the movie has ended, that he’s looking down at you, a knowing smirk toying at his lips.

“Don’t start,” you warn, unable to keep your voice entirely serious. “I meant what I said, I’m tapped out for the night.”

Taehyung raises his palms in the air, as if to claim his innocence, and you find yourself instantly missing the heat of his hand on your skin. “All I was thinking is that I kinda want dessert. Too tapped out for that?”

“I’ll never say no to dessert,” you admit with a soft smile. “I think I have ice cream in the freezer.”

Something glints in Taehyung’s eyes at your words. All at once he untangles himself from you and, rather than standing up and walking the long way around like a normal human, chooses instead to vault himself over the back of the couch, as if to get your freezer as fast as possible. You tip back against the cushions, momentarily overcome with laughter, and thankfully, it doesn’t trigger a cough attack.

After a second, you cocoon the blanket around yourself, then get up to follow after him, dropping unceremoniously down onto one of the barstools tucked on the far side of your kitchen island.

Taehyung glances up, clearly surprised, then continues trying drawers until he finds the silverware and retrieves two spoons.

“Just want to keep you company,” you say by way of explanation as he hands you one, and you reach down to pry off the lid of the pint of chocolate ice cream he’s set down on the counter. It’s only as you glance up again that you realize he’s grabbed something else, too, and is continuing to rummage through your cupboards. “Wait, what are you doing?”

There’s an innocent look on Taehyung’s face as he rights himself, the handle of a pan clutched in one hand. “I found something when I was looking for the ice cream. It’s my favorite. And I thought it might make you feel better, too.”

“Uh huh,” you intone, though your mouth is already starting to tick up, endeared. “A completely selfless act, I’m sure.”

“Of course it is,” he answers with an over-exaggerated wink, flipping the pan cooly in his grip. You squint at the bag as he thuds it down on the counter beside him, then sets the pan on the stove and flips on the burner beneath it.

Hotteok. You’d completely forgotten you’d even picked the bag of frozen sweet pancakes up a few weeks ago, that you had purposefully tucked them into the back of your fridge for a particularly good— or bad— day.

“Chef Kim,” you ask, feigning the tone of a journalist conducting an important interview as you fish your phone out of the pocket of your sweatpants. “Can I interest you in some background music, or do you prefer to cook in absolute silence?”

Taehyung glances back over his shoulder at you, his grin nearly too big for his face. “How about Sinatra?”

You raise one eyebrow at the admittedly unexpected suggestion. “Frank or Nancy?”

He pauses for a moment, as if considering. “Either.”

It’s only a few taps, and then Come Fly With Me is floating out of your Bluetooth speaker, and Taehyung is singing along to himself as he drops a frozen disc onto the heated pan, occasionally turning back to deliver lines to you with an extended hand.

You roll your eyes as you drag your spoon through the top layer of softening ice cream, sucking it into your mouth in an attempt to hide the grin that’s spread over your face.

By the third song you find yourself humming along too, trying not to put too much strain on your still-weak throat. The kitchen has started to smell of sweet, toasted dough as Taehyung works diligently at the stove, and he finally flips the burner off before turning back to you, a plate in each hand and a thick pancake stacked atop each plate.

“Sous chef, will you please apply the ice cream?” he asks, eyes wide and blinking as he sets the dishes down.

Quickly playing along, you nod as you begin to scoop a healthy amount onto each plate. “Yes, chef!”

“And sous chef, do you, uh… have any chocolate sauce?”

You bite back a laugh as his roleplay falls apart as quickly as it began. “It’s in the fridge.”

Taehyung promptly turns and pulls the door open, eyes searching the shelves before he finally spots the dark brown bottle and lets out a triumphant hum. He nudges the fridge shut again with his hip before striding back toward you.

“Plating is key,” he muses. You answer with an appreciative nod and a giggle when he uncaps the sauce, then leans down close to the plates, feigning intense focus as he drizzles each dollop of ice cream with stripes of chocolate.

Once his artful design is complete, he steps back, his tongue toying at the corner of his mouth as he spins one plate to admire his handiwork.

“What do you think, chef?” you tease, and he nods once, decisive.

“It’s perfect.” He glances up, shooting you a grin that knocks the breath from your lungs, and you try to collect yourself as he nudges a plate toward you, encouraging you to take a bite.

You carve your spoon through the pastry, right down the middle where it’s stuffed full of sweet brown sugar syrup. The flaky layers pull apart at the impact, warm enough that you can see steam rising off of the golden dough. You pair a small piece of pancake with a wedge of ice cream on your spoon, then bring both into your mouth at once, and the contrasting mixtures linger on your tongue: hot and cold, sticky sugar chased by rich chocolate. It’s so good that you can’t help but make a soft, appreciative noise as you press your hand to your mouth and chew.

“Do you want to know something?” Taehyung’s voice pulls your attention back, and you look up at him.

“What?”

“Today’s my birthday.”

There’s a split second where you wonder if this is another imagined scenario, and then your eyes widen as you take in the look on his face and realize he’s entirely serious.

“Wait, Taehyung, really?”

He nods once, bringing a spoonful of ice cream to his lips.

“I-I had no idea,” you stammer, suddenly feeling like an asshole. His birthday, and he���s here waiting on you hand and foot, while you haven’t so much as said a word of felicitations. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

As soon as the words leave your mouth, he’s waving away your apology with his spoon, then proceeding to answer around his bite of food. “It’s not like I expected you to know. I don’t really make a big deal of it.” He shrugs. “I tend to… I don't know. I get sort of melancholy this time of year. The holidays, my birthday. It’s a lot all at once. A lot of pressure. To be happy. To have everything figured out.”

Nodding slowly, you let his words fully wash over you before you respond. “I get that,” you finally murmur, working off another piece of hotteok. “Nobody ever talks about it, but I feel like birthdays are kinda weird as an adult. You have enough of them and it just starts to feel like a day, you know? Not special.”

“I usually find myself just hiding out, waiting for it to be over,” Taehyung admits.

You take a second to think back. “Yeah. I didn’t even do anything on my birthday this year.” A self-pitying laugh rises up before you can stop it. “Honestly, this whole year was such a flop. I’m glad it’s nearly done.”

Taehyung makes a face like he can’t disagree. “Hey, sometimes that’s life.” He pauses, brow furrowing slightly, then reaches a palm across the table. “Can I play a song?”

“Go ahead,” you offer, pushing your phone into his hand. You scrape your spoon along your dwindling dessert, and haven’t even managed to bring the assembled bite to your mouth before the music changes— from one Frank Sinatra song to another, this one with a driving blues rhythm.

Taehyung is already on his feet, hips starting to sway. “Ah, come on. You have to dance with me.”

He’s closed the distance between you before you can even protest, his hands smoothing across the blanket still wrapped over your shoulders.

“Let me take your coat, ma’am.”

You shift off the stool and onto your feet with a smile as he unwraps the blanket from around you and tosses it toward the back of the couch, missing by at least a foot.

“Why thank you,” you tease, feigning some kind of Transatlantic lilt to your voice that makes him really laugh. “Such a gentleman.”

Taehyung turns to face you again, and then you feel his large hand pressing to the small of your back, warm even through the fabric of your shirt, and your heart stutters a little. You take his other hand in yours and let him lead, let him pull you all the way in until you can turn your head and press your cheek to the firm plane of his chest.

Frank Sinatra croons on about how you can’t let life get you down, and suddenly there’s a weight settling in the pit of your stomach.

“I feel bad, Taehyung,” you admit, and when you glance up at him, he’s looking right back down at you. “That you’re here with me tonight.”

“Why?” he asks, like he really doesn’t know.

“Because,” you shake your head. “I don’t know. There’s a million better places you could be. I can’t even give you birthday sex.”

“I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t want to,” he answers simply, then leans back, guiding you under his arm for a spin.

A little giggle bubbles up in your chest, catches on the first syllable of your reply as you twirl. “A-are you sure?”

Taehyung nods, thoughtful, when you come back to center again. “This is a good reminder that… I like taking care of people. It’s been a while since anyone’s let me.” The hand holding yours gives a gentle squeeze, and you can’t help but squeeze back.

“Well, thank you for taking care of me,” you answer softly. “You did a good job. Pretty sure I’m on the mend already.” You blink up at him through your lashes, and the way his eyes are fixed on you makes your heart squeeze, too.

It’s nearly overwhelming, taking him in like this, close enough that you can see every stray beauty mark kissed over his handsome features. Fluffy-haired, big-dicked Kim Taehyung— who would’ve thought?

Taehyung’s adam’s apple jerks in his throat as he swallows, and you feel a sudden rush of heat all over, one you don’t quite think you can blame on a fever. It hardly even occurs to you that the two of you have come to a complete standstill now, barefoot in the middle of your kitchen, Taehyung’s palm pressed to your back, the fingers of your joined hands now shifting to lace together.

“Taehyung,” you’re breathing his name before you even realize it. “Would you… want to stay here tonight? Like, sleep together, literally?”

The smile that flashes over his face is nothing short of brilliant. “Yeah, okay.”

Your voice dips a little lower, teasing, as you smile back. “I really do think I’m feeling better, so. Maybe in the morning I can take care of you, too.”

Taehyung’s fingers brush the length of your jaw, then reach up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as you continue.

“I’ve got this spray that makes my throat totally numb, so.”

He pauses, his mouth so close to yours that you can feel his breath ghosting over your skin, but he can’t quite keep a straight face. “Fuck, why is that so sexy?”

You’re laughing against his lips when he kisses you.

[cuteciboulette]

So I've realized 2 days ago, while I was nearing a scene I had no idea how to even start, that in all my years in the fandom (2002 if I recall right, although in the past 22 years I haven't write GW for half that time - or at all for that matter ^^; ), I've never written Treize before. Not once. Actually, I don't think I had ever written Une before 2 days ago. Like... what? Because their presence is so important and in my early years, I mostly wrote IU. How come I've only ever wrote Sally twice (from the top of my head)? Hilde... not sure, once maybe? But I'm dreading Treize the most because I just don't get his character, my recollection of the show is sooooo skattered and I only ever cared about the boys anyway. But this got me thinking and low key want to do some stats ^^; because suddenly I'm wondering how often I wrote Trowa, Quatre, Wufei... and if by any chance Wufei isn't the one that featured the most out of the 3? How single-minded am I exactly?

So I got really really curious and instead of, you know, writing Treize for the very first time, I've just spent hours collecting data to the best of my abilities.

I've split the fics I wrote solo under any pen names, then the ones I've co-written (Edit: ... just realized I forgot one, all 5 boys need an additional point). I've also included noteworthy fics that have been left unfinished, or were never written but for which I remember enough to know which characters were meant to be in it. (Side note: I will never forgive myself for never taking notes about the detailed plot of VI, 25...), again for solo fics or co-"authored" (side note #2: I've found some very detailed notes about co-authored planed fics on my computer that I haven't included because I had absolutely no recollection of these fics so they were not "relevant"; we were just chatting online and I saved the logs).

It was sometimes a bit difficult to draw the line whether I considered a character to feature in a fic; mostly, I've defined them as having at least one line of dialogue although there has been a couple of exceptions. I also haven't included GAEC because I'm still unsure yet whether some characters are going to be in it or not.

Anyway, let's count how Duo obsessed I am, shall we?

(Let me know if you'd like to see the file with all the fics titles unmasked...)

[firewolf-pyro]

Episode three: map of a star Ship’s voyage

The glow of a shiny device on the center of a desk was the only source of light lighting up the office. The surface of the orb was absolutely crawling with deep glowing grooves, swirls and writing that could have come from ancient intelligent life. The light pulses every few moments mimicking that of a human’s breath. All in all the orb was near hypnotizing to watch.

“So this is the thing those poor unfortunate souls caught a glance of.” Jones sighed as he nudged the dark sunglasses that had begun to droop down his nose back up to fit on his pudgy face.

“I… I can’t take my eyes away from it-“ Kendra nearly whispered. She was not wearing anything to prevent the rays of soft blue from hitting her irises. Her tone was dreamy even as she leaned closer- reached out to touch the object.

“It’s just- gorgeous…” Henry agreed before shaking himself and grabbing Kendra by the shoulders to stop her from touching the orb with her bare hands.

“You all should be wearing your anomaly sunglasses for this.” Olesia insisted, coming around the side of the desk and pushing some dark sunglasses into both Kendra’s and Henry’s hands.

“Why should I want to look away-“ Kendra lulled as her stare became more intense. Her and Henry both whispered intensely-

“It’s trying to take us somewhere.”

Jones grabbed the sphere off of the desk and shoved it away into a bag. With a harrumph he pressed the sacked orb away into one of his many pockets.

“Okay! That’s enough for the two of you.” Jones scoffed before turning away from the crew. The two who had been entrances blinked and began rubbing at their eyes to wipe away the last of the sleep.

“What did you two see?” Olesia pressed once the pair had finally regained some of their senses.

“It wasn’t really… anything visual.” Henry began as he found his way back into a chair. His skin had spiked considerably as he began recollecting what he had just felt.

“It was more of like- a feeling. A pull almost. Like it wanted us to follow it.” Kendra continued for Henry. She was resting her head in her hands as she blinked down at the disc where the device had been laying only moments before.

“So it’s some sort of whisp technology? Get’s you to follow it and poof- you’re no longer part of this earthly world.” Jones snorted in amusement. He was in his office now messing around with one of the many lockers there on the wall. Without much thought he had placed it into one of the boxes and locked it away.

“I don’t want any of you touching this thing without your sunglasses. Just study it with caution.” Jones said as he patted the now locked locker. He turned to look at the three others who were now sitting idly at their own desks. He could see the stress, the wonder on each of their faces.

Olesia sat staring at her desk. She was busy drawing up theoretical blueprints that could explain what was going on inside of a device like that. Kendra had provided her with the exterior drawings- so now she knew the spacial limits she needed to work with. Or so she had thought. The drawings, though, were not enough for her. Olesia stood and walked past the rest of the crew, walked right past a sleeping Jones. It didn’t take her long to pick the orb up and out of the locked box. She had only had the device in her hands for a few seconds when the thing pulsed a brilliant white light loud enough that the room around her sounded with a CRACK.

Olesia stared wide eyed at a blue holographic world that she had been thrown into. It was all fast paced around her, stars zoomed across the sky as if a ship were moving near light speed through space. Briefly time slowed down for her. It had slowed enough for her to see a fleet of Dalek ships swarming to her side before the whole scene suddenly shifted directions. Kendra the ship suddenly turned away from the incoming fleet back in the direction she had come from. Then it all slowed again- her focus shifting to a space rock that was hurtling closer and closer towards her. Time seemed to freeze on that moment in a sort of glitchy way. Moments before she nose dived into the rocky surface of the massive stone.

Olesia threw the orb hard back into the locker she had only just picked it up from. Her body shook violently as she looked around herself. Jones was still asleep at his desk. No one else seemed to notice that she had even unlocked the locker in front of her.

“Are you alright?” Kendra asked once the sound of the orb being tossed back into the locker registered in her mind. She was peering over the privacy screen of her desk into the office. Olesia took a shaky breath in and turned to look at her coworker. Despite her terrified expression she shook her head confirming that she was okay.

“Yup!” Olesia squeaked as she wandered back to her desk. Henry could tell she was lying, the man standing up from his desk to join her at her desk.

“What did you see?” Henry asked in a low tone. He was leaning over her as she was trying to catch her shaky breath.

“It, I think it showed me how it got here. Well, at least a part of how it got here.” Olesia stammered as she pushed Henry away from herself.

“I pushed something - that there. The symbol there,” Olesia spun around in her seat to point at a spinning circle that Kendra had added to her drawings. Henry leaned over her shoulder to look at what she was pointing at.

“This one here?” Henry asked and ran off with the paper after having snatched it from her desk. Kendra gasped and tried to stand up to follow him but ended up sitting right back down. Henry skidded to a halt at the locker which was still open. The device sat at the back of the locker, glowing ominously.

Without a second thought Henry grabbed the orb up and pressed his finger right into the swirling symbol. The brilliant white flash transported Henry’s mind through what felt like time. He felt as if he had been crushed under rubble for decades, billions of years even- only slowly rising up away from the center of the earth as the days passed by. He felt as if he hadn’t seen the stars for so long- the relief he had felt when a sudden earth quake ripped away the last layer of earth above him was immeasurable.

It wasn’t the stars he saw however. The faces of some strange looking aliens took over his vision. Their faces were covered in scales yet their clothes looked more than modern. They were like the lizard people he saw in movies. He was scooped up from the earth, clumsy claws dropped him down onto the side of a ruined concrete roadway.

“Owe-“ Henry yelped as he tumbled down a short distance of the path. Without a warning he was back standing in the office room.

“Is it some sort of telepathy?” Kendra asked from the door of the office. She had regained herself but now Henry was shaken to his core. He set the orb back into the lock box before sinking down onto the ground in front of her.

“Maybe it’s some sort of nano-bot? I’m not sure my mind feels foggy all of a sudden.” Olesia whispered as she pushed past Kendra to get into the room. She too picked the orb up from the box and began turning it over and over again in her hands. She pressed the button too and went rigid as her mind was torn from her.

“What did you see?” Kendra asked as she walked around her friend’s side. Olesia was standing stall still staring straight at the wall in front of her. No one was home it seemed.

“What happened?” She asked only moments later as she wobbled in place. The orb dropped out of her hands onto the floor in front of her.

“It was as if it was playing in fast forward- but skipping years, decades even. I watched it - watched myself get passed from hand to hand - the technology being replicated and studied until -“ Kendra whispered to Olesia as she pressed herself into her arms.

“I think there is something a lot more dangerous in that pond than just this orb.” Kendra sobbed, burying her face into Olesia’s shoulder. She closed her eyes tight, the image of a Dalek’s dome lights flashing a brilliant blue against the dark black halls as it screamed a hate filled war cry the only thing her mind could fully retain.

[macyomoiji]

Levi x reader

An eye for an eye

W: smut, cunnilingus, face sitting, romance, fluff

I’ll write another part soon enough, gimme feedback!

As fun as it is to sit looking out a window, Levi needed a distraction.

You’re still getting used to the semi recent update made to your relationship. It feels like it went from acknowledging one another for years to a couple more spent silently pining after one another.

At some point you wondered why you hadn’t made romantic advances sooner. The conclusion being you and the Captain preferred to deal in absolutes. So rather than risking rejection, you built a foundation of trust before delving into straight forward or physical expression. Refraining from jumping into the physical aspect surprisingly helped to alleviate the stress that came with saying “I love you.” He surprised you by taking the initiative and saying so first. Progress took quite some time. Each expedition put a pause on the progress of your relationship. Some required a day for your to recollect yourself before hitting ‘resume’. Others like the most recent one that resulted in losing all of Levi’s squad and many from your team, required more.

How is it that thinking of your second time feels more stressful than the first? Stressful in the sense that having experience is typically a positive. But experience requires practice. Which you can do now that you’ve returned from the expedition.

The only injuries you sustained are a headache and scabbing from having been burned on your forearms. Had you not showed up to assist in protecting Eren, you wouldn’t have been to close when he transformed. At least it serves as additional information to protect others futuristically. You showed up to rescue Eren right as the Levi Squad was surprised with the female Titan concentrating their healing to recover sight through one eye.

“An eye for an eye” You mumble to yourself while changing out of the thin t-shirt and shorts you found yourself in upon waking up. At some point after Eren fought the female Titan, you fell unconscious. Regardless…the thought of putting literal meaning to the statement is somewhat entertaining. Yes you know it’s silly to focus on revenge rather than what you stand to gain if the female Titan is incarcerated. But you also know you can’t dwell on the loss of your comrades. So we resort to fleeting thoughts of revenge when idle.

“Why stop at one eye?” The unexpected response causes you to jump and grab the sheets on the bed that you have yet to make.

“Have you heard of knocking?” You squeak. It’s not as though you mind, it’s just a question asked suddenly from being startled.

“How are you feeling?” Levi knows you well enough to dismiss the filler question. And you know when he’s planning to do something. Was it the semi subtle locking of the door? No, it was his tone and odd sense of urgency.

“Like I need to do something active. My muscles feel so stiff.” You sigh with your back still to him and resume changing your clothes.

“W-..I can think of a few things to do.” The fact that he stutters every now and again when around you is enough to convince you to accept his offer.

“Care to expound upon that?” You tease while hearing a couple footsteps before a gasp escapes your lips. You were putting your arms through their designated opening in your blouse when his hands stopped you taking your blouse and dropping it.

“I’d prefer to show you.” He says with one hand holding onto your hip as the other gently pushes your hair over your shoulder. You can feel his warm breath on your skin as he kisses your shoulder.

“Where do we start?” You murmur as the surprise wears off. Your words accompanied by your eyelids lowering. Turning your head he ceases to pepper your skin in seemingly tantalizing light kisses.

“First,” rather than explaining further, his lips meet yours in a slow and sweet kiss. Both of his hands direct your hips turning you to face him. He pulls you close to him so you can feel his body relax against yours. One of your arms is stationed over his shoulder while the other travels up his chest and to his shoulder.

“Then,” your lips parted from his for just a moment before his hands moved up your back to your bra straps. His lips returned with more urgency.

“Okay but;” each sentence completed through action. This sentence paired with you helping to remove his suit jacket. His lips tell how much he missed you. Funny how you can miss someone so much when their consciousness is absent.

“I have a fractured ankle.” It isn’t said out of nowhere. You could tell something was off. Normally he wouldn’t tell you if he were injured but he knows he’ll be limited at one point or another. If not limited then required to find an alternative way of moving one way or another.

“Good thing there’s a bed.” Both of you have no desire to part your lips so he sounds almost as breathless as you. Levi can feel your lips turned into a smile and for some reason it adds to his need to be closer. One of his arms around you holding you to him while the other helps to ease him onto the bed. Your body follows; straddling him as your fingers delight in the feeling of his warm skin as he removes his shirt and cravat.

“Are you feeling well enough to continue?” Concern is visible on his face that you can now see as he holds your face in his hands. A thumb softly rubs your cheek while you catch your breath.

“Yes Levi~.” The light blush on his pale skin is damn near irresistible. If there were fewer or no negative outcomes…you’d gladly abuse your ability to summon the blush that looks so nice on his shoulders, neck and face. He feels similarly about the sounds that leave your soft pretty lips. As if on que for an example, one hand stays to hold you by your face as his lips find their way to your neck. His other hand made its way to grab at your breasts.

“I love your pretty little moans.” His teeth nip at your skin. Each kiss, lick and bite makes you feel hot. Although Levi enjoys having you ontop of him, he also loves attempting to smother your body with his. He gives no notice as he rolls over to swaps positions with you. You are well aware of how much he loves making you blush. It’s something he gets away with at your expense. Not like you don’t already blush or get flustered more easily than you’d like.

“Shhh…making the sound is embarrassing enough without you teasing me about it.” Attempting to cover your face with your hands is out to a halt as his hands move up your arms. Levi takes a moment to look over your features while his hands rub at your stiff muscles until his hands find and hold yours.

“I’m not teasing you sweetheart. Simply stating my opinion.” Checking to make sure there’s enough space he then pulls your arms above your head, he uses one to hold them there. Moving down your body with his other hand, his lips peck yours. Normally he’d pepper more kisses along your skin. But you were out of commission and he hasn’t had the opportunity to make physical contact without curious eyes scrutinizing his actions. There’s no complaint from you, only a gasp when his tongue flicks your sensitive nipple.

“I want to make love to you.” Your breath hitches when his mouth attaches to the hardened bud to add to your need for him. Your legs having already been bent and pressed to him proceed to wrap around his waist.

“N/n there’s no need to rush.” How he can hold back is beyond you, but his body doesn’t lie.

“Meanie.” The bulge in his pants is gradually becoming more stiff and you’re intent on exacerbating the growing need he’s subduing. Slowly your hips roll, allowing you to draw a groan from him.

“You’re complaints fall on deaf ears.” Right as you were about to respond he moves down which makes your legs lose their place around him. Lips pressing along your skin meanwhile his hands move down your sides squeezing and rubbing in an attempt to massage your body. “Besides, you should enjoy this as much as I do…” his murmur buzzes against your skin as he fervently removes your short and panties. Goosebumps rise on your skin from the sudden chill to your skin. There’s no way for you to hide how quickly he’s turned you on, not that he’d let you anyways.

“You enjoy doing that?” Your voice wavers but you got to ask the question before he added to your feeling self conscious by holding your knees and pushing them apart.

“Of course…you are my favorite flavor after all.” How he loves to hear your normally sweet voice. Especially when-

“Nnghh Levi!” -it falters and your words mix with cute sounds of struggle from the pleasure his tongue grants you. Levi starts by pressing his tongue to the bottom of your entrance. Using both arms to hold you in place, his tongue travels slowly through your folds where he presses in. Dipping his tongue deeper now that he’s reminded of how delicious you taste. His lips brush against your clit which elicits another moan of his name. He swirls his tongue around the little bundle of nerves inadvertently causing you to reach for him. Propping yourself up in one elbow, you watch as his eyes meet yours. There’s something about watching his tongue move up and down collecting your essence with his tongue. His locking eyes with you adds to that something.

You may have just woken up but he’s known you long enough to be able to tell if you want him to stop. His love for you was decided pretty early on. Needless to say he took the time to learn how to read you just as well as you read him.

“I wonder if I can get you to swear again.” For whatever reason he was quite proud of himself for having gotten you to yell and whimper what you normally mutter or say on occasion. Mostly because he had succeeded in making you cum harder than you usually do.

Levi kisses and sucks carefully at your clit before sticking his tongue back out to push into you.

“F-fffeels so good.” Your breathy moan helps spur him on. Feeling his tongue press in and out of you deeper increases the pleasure that lays over you like a blanket.

“Move with me darling.” He says. Confusion adds to your pleasured expression. Taking a hold of your hips and waist, he turns while guiding your body to sit up as he now lays under you.

“Wait no! I don’t wanna hurt you.” Your concern is sweet but you’re missing his point. He wouldn’t move you to sit above his face if he didn’t feel confident in his ability to catch you or move you.

“You’re fine.” He reassures and with both hands still holding you, he sticks his tongue back out and pulls you down. The feeling that you can only describe in so many ways, begins to grow. A coil sounds appropriate.

“Aaa-are you sure?” You say once he’s stuck his tongue into your hot and dripping pussy.

“I want your cum on my tongue N/n” He ignores your uncertainty this time and then starts lifting and lowering you on his tongue.

Without notice the feeling of his tongue surprisingly reaching further into you than expected helps distract from your worries. “O-oh my god…nnnhh” You continue moving up and down as you use one hand to run through his hair. You hold one of his hands after they return to hold onto your thighs.

Now that your worries have diminished, you gradually move fasted while trying to keep your eyes on his. That coil is pull until it slowly straightens.

“Wuh-will you let mmmm me return the favor?” Your breathings increases as he reaches with one hand to grope at your breast and play with you hardened buds. The heat from his hands mixed with the roughness of his skin ands to tour pleasure. He’s ignores you again. It isn’t because he doesn’t care, Levi simply wants you to focus on one thing at a time and right now the only thing he’s concerned with is how hard he can make you cum.

“Oh fu-…L-Levi…” Your moan is stifled by your lips pressing together. But He doesn’t want that he wants to hear your pretty voice falter and crack. His hands grab under you at your upper thighs as he gets a firm hold of you to help move your hips faster. That coil is now held tight and your walls no contract more frantically and consistently as you push yourself to sit up. Your hands grope at your breast partly for the added stimulation but also to keep them from bouncing as much.

“Mmmahh! Leviimclose.” Your words jumble together as your hips adapt to the increased pace allowing him to free one hand. His objective is clear as he reaches out his index and middle fingers for you to suck on. You do your best to slide your tongue around his fingers. Taking his wrist with one hand and you suck on his digits. It’s hard for him to describe why he loves your expression. Eyesbrows knitted together and cheeks hollowing repeatedly while you pant and struggle to stifle your moans.

He takes his fingers from your mouth and once you let go of his wrist he proceeds to press and rub circles on your clit. The feeling of your pussy beginning to flutter adds to his determination to make that coil snap. His tongue remains diligent in its pursuit to force you over the edge without the ability to hold back.

“Levi I’m- heh mmm!” Seeing you this way is one of his favorite sights. But that’s not something he plans to tell you anytime soon. You can feel your body tense up and know your release is right around the corner.

“Cum for me.” The muffled and murmured words send gently but immediately effective vibrations.

And suddenly the coil snaps resulting in a mix between hot and zapped with light electricity. “Mmm fuck…Baby! I’m..hehh! I’m cumming!” You throw your head back as you your back arches letting most your muscles loosen while your toes oddly do the opposite and curl. You quickly pick your head back up and return to look at the man you love as he holds you prisoner against him. Fingers still diligently rubbing circles over your clit the other arm securely behind you. His tongue going slower but pressing harder staying faithful to the original mission.

“LeviLeviLevi mercy!” The amount of pressure that built up inside you is surprisingly vibrant and visible over other parts of your body aside from the usual neck, face and chest. You do a decent job at keeping yourself from doing any unnecessary thrashing.

“Hmhmhm” is more or less the sound he makes and the one you feel as it adds to the overwhelm.

Whines and whimpers are music to his ears while watching you pant as you try to grab at his hands. The feeling caused by his relentless assault finally results in your inability to hold back. Momentarily your hearing is compromised by the sound of your heartbeat sort of echoing.

At last, creamy looking cum escapes mixed with the slippery clear arousal. It’s not even as crazy as you lead yourself to believe. The previous concern is lost as you feel yourself tremble while bright spots cloud some of your vision. When he finally lets up you’ve already slumped and can let yourself fall to your side.

Of course he doesn’t simply let you topple over. “Evil but…Love you” your breathing finally begins gets a moment to regulate and you let your eyes close.

“I love you too.” Levi says in his more sincere attentive tone after hearing what you assume was him looking for a cloth or handkerchief.

“Trynna knock me unconscious again?” You say once you can finally breathe properly.

“Simply trying to quench my thirst.”His light chuckle is always a rare but pleasant guest. Even if it’s sometimes at your expense.

The man isn’t a robot. He’s capable of enjoying things. However, he only does so when he’s comfortable. Perhaps it’s a fear of some potential threat seeing what he enjoys with the intent of taking it from him. New recruits probably won’t see him drop his guard enough to see these emotions or expressions grace his facial features. But as long as he continues to trust you and let you in, you have no reason to complain.

Rustling It’s been a few minutes since you closed your eyes. Soft lips press against your forehead while two warm hands help you sit up. His movements are slow and gentle as you can sit peacefully with your back against his chest. Your heart rate is close to normal again and upon opening your eyes you’re handed a cup of water.

Alone time with Levi is worth quite a bit to you. Not simply for the sexual pleasure, nor how you get a feeling of pride knowing he trusts and loves you.

He presses his lips to your head after putting the empty glass on the bedside table. Your fingers move through the space between his to hold you while you cross your arms. These quiet serene but rare moments;

“Would you like to take a nap?” Willingness to put you before himself. The fact that he still tries to do small things while maintaining secrecy. His grey blue eyes don’t even linger on other women when not associating with him.

“Nuh uh. An eye for an eye, remember?” Your playful statement earns a light hum in return. How those around you can resist is a mystery. There is the possibility that everyone is just fucking blind. Regardless; it’s a mystery you don’t care to find an answer to or feel fear for what that answer may be.

“You’re mine.” Levi’s lightly accentuates the possessive declaration as his fingers squeeze yours while squeezing your sides. Content with the the simple act of holding you.

“Hmmm” you hum and squeeze his hand so as to affirm the stating claim. “And you’re mine.”

[alpacaparkaseok]

Shut Eye

pairing/genre: idol!Yoongi x reader, fluff

premise: In a world where every night you meet your soulmate in your dreams only to forget their face and voice when you wake up, you’re now more desperate than ever to find them.

word count: 2.6k

a/n: I was listening to the piano version of ‘For Forever’ from Dear Evan Hansen while writing this...so maybe that explains it?? THIS IS SOOO CHEESY YOU GUYS

requested by anon - thanks for the fun request, hope you enjoy! a picture of your ask/request will be at the bottom of the post. Thank you!

_________________________________

You awoke with a gasp, the covers flung aside in an effort to grab the notebook and pen you kept handy on your nightstand. Not bothering to flip on the lamp, you used the little moonlight filtering in through your window to write down the events of your dream.

You spent most nights in the dreamscape with your soulmate, his face and voice a blurry mess in your mind. The two of you would talk for hours, that much you know. The general idea of the conversation would stick with you as well, but beyond anything else, you’d wake up with the same familiar feeling.

The specific brand of heartbreak that tends to accompany goodbyes. 

Tonight’s dream had been something entirely different, though. Try as you might, your mind can’t seem to conjure up the exact words your soulmate had so calmly whispered in your ear as you stood on a red carpet facing innumerable flashing cameras. However, one thing was for certain.

He was trying to send you a message. 

He was trying to find you out in this big world. 

You’ve made a bullet-point list now, with the words red carpet, famous?? and beautiful suit starting off the list. As the list continued on, you only grew more and more confused. Why did your soulmate choose that dreamscape? After years of the usual sitting room and long chats, something must have happened to make him change.

Frustrated, you scanned last night’s notes to see if anything out of the ordinary had happened. You nearly gave up before one of the final bullet-points caught your attention.

we talked about family

did we talk about our family??

Eyebrows scrunched and lips pouted, you wracked your brain for any recollection of the conversation from the night before. Indeed, you remembered waking up with the distinct feeling of discussing future baby names, but for the life of you, you couldn’t remember what he had said he liked. What you did remember was that it was a name that had made you laugh, and that he had been upset about it for the rest of the evening. 

Not too upset, though. He’d still quietly warned you in the way he always did when he knew he was about to wake up. Softly lacing his hand through yours, running his thumb over the back of your knuckles until in the blink of an eye he was gone. 

There had been several occasions when you’d woken up still feeling the ghost of his hand on yours.

The notebook in your hands glared up at you, an unwelcome reminder that you were nowhere near close to understanding the meaning of your most recent dream. 

Normally, you would have just let it go. But today was different. Today you woke up just knowing that he had meant something by the dream. The way he’d brought you out on that red carpet, your arm linked through his as he led you toward a group that was already posing for pictures-

Wait. A group? You’d forgotten that part. Another bullet-point was added to the growing list.

part of a group (friends?)

Your eyes drifted shut as you tried to remember any more details, the ways the cameras flashed seemed to impair your vision as you’d looked at the group that had smiled as you neared. One of them had made some extra space for you and your soulmate, and you’d nearly keeled over when you saw who it was.

But who was it?

You sighed, scribbling one last bullet-point before your brain quit functioning.

I recognized the friends - famous?

It was a bit discouraging to look down at the list and see so many question marks, but you paid it no mind as you tossed your notebook back onto the nightstand and found the strength to get up for the day. 

You’d just have to wait until the next dream.

•••••••••••••••••••••••

“I have no idea where this is going,” you admitted while staring up at the ceiling,  sprawled out on your bed. “But I just know that he’s trying to tell me something. You know?”

Your best friend, Ji-eun, just laughed on the other side. “I’m sure he was...but honestly, who knows? Maybe he just wanted a change of scenery.”

“Ugh. You’re no fun.”

“Well, I hate to break it to you, but no more fun for you tonight. I’ve got to go to bed. Got to wake up early tomorrow, remember? It’s a big day.”

“Oh, that’s right! Are you nervous?”

You’d nearly forgotten that your best friend was also one of South Korea’s most beloved singers. On most days, you forgot her stage name, too. 

“No, not really. I just usually hate having to sit there by myself, you know? There are so many groups, and them I’m just by myself. Looking beautiful.”

“Aww, poor IU, all alone.” You teased. “I’d go with you, but-”

In an instant, Ji-eun, or IU, squealed and you knew that she had an idea. “Yes! Come with me!! I’ll sneak you in! You won’t even have to worry about the red carpet- wait.”

You winced, having held the phone at a distance from your ear so as to not immediately lose your hearing. “Oh no, now what? You know I’m not fit for award shows, Ji-eun.”

“Didn’t you say that your dream was on the red carpet?”

You blinked. “Yeah.”

“Sooo,” Ji-eun dragged out, “Maybe you’ll see him.”

A wry laugh escaped you. “What makes you think he would recognize me even if he was there? Or that I would recognize him?”

IU made an indecisive noise. “Well, you already described his beautiful suit-”

“Hey, no teasing. It was absolutely gorgeous.”

“Exactly! If there’s a guy that shows up wearing that suit, then maybe that’s him! And, maybe he’s part of a group! You would recognize the group if you saw them, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re just trying to get me to come with you,” you drawled, ignoring the little spark of hope. 

“Obviously. Hey, you know that really pretty red dress you bought not that long ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Wear that, and work your dreamscape magic or something to help him remember the red dress. He’ll recognize you when he sees you tomorrow!”

With an eye roll you’re pretty sure Ji-eun heard through the phone, you groaned. “If he’s even there. If.”

“So you’ll do it?”

In the end, it was the memory of having to say goodbye every morning without even remembering who you were saying goodbye to that had you agreeing. 

••••••••••••••••••

Falling into your dreams had always felt more like waking up, the urge to stretch and run around almost too much to deny. Tonight, you entered the familiar sitting room that you’d frequented nearly every night for the past few years.

Your soulmate is waiting for you when you enter, his back turned to you.

A part of you knows that the two of you have been through this many times before. You’ve technically met your soulmate hundreds of times - maybe even thousands at this point. But every night, it’s the same little feeling of anticipation as you wait for him to turn around. 

Always wondering who it might be. Always dreading the moment you wake up and forget his face all over again, waiting for the next dream to identify him.

He’s in the black, lightly checkered suit that he wore last night, not a single strand of his black hair out of place as he turns around with wide eyes.

Your breath is momentarily caught in your throat as you suddenly recognize him, not only from the previous dreams but from nearly everywhere else in the waking world. 

“Hey,” Yoongi mumbles, a soft smile gracing his lips as he looks at you. “You look beautiful.”

You looks down at the red dress you’re wearing, the same one you’re planning on wearing at the award show. Nodding at his suit, you grin.

“Are you wearing that to the award show today?”

He nods, stepping toward you. “I wish you could go, I know that I’d be able to find you-”

“I am.”

Yoongi stops, his mouth slightly open. He takes a single step toward you. “You are? How?”

“Ji-eun is my best friend, remember?”

He takes a moment to recall that tidbit of information about you, nodding. “So...we’ll see each other.”

“I hope so.” You tilt your head. “But will you recognize me? It was so hard for me to remember any details after last night’s dream, I feel like it’s getting harder.”

“I think it is,” Yoongi agrees, striding over to you and grabbing your hand even as a light pink dusts over his cheeks. “But I don’t think I’ll be able to forget this dress.” With a wink that belies his shy nature, Yoongi leads you out onto the red carpet, where cameras are waiting. 

He walks you through the event, glancing at you every few seconds as though afraid that you’ll disappear at any moment. That’s certainly a valid concern - it’s happened plenty of times.

You’ve just made it to where the rest of the members are standing when you feel the tell-tale pull back toward reality. 

You’ll be waking up at any moment now. Most likely because of that pesky nest of birds that have decided to camp out just outside of your windows. 

Instinctively your grip on Yoongi’s arm tightens, and he turns to you. He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’re about to leave.

“What if it doesn’t work?” You blurt out, taking in every last detail of him. From the way his cheeks are still pink to the fit of his suit. 

Yoongi absolutely shocks you as he presses a chaste kiss to your forehead, pulling you a little closer. His breath that dusts over your ear feels so real as he whispers gently to you.

“We’ll find a way. I promise.”

•••••••••••••••••••

It was the same dream as the night before; the same infuriating goodbye that seeped into your bones as you hurtled awake. However, this time, you could have sworn that you recalled a puppy-dog gaze that was begging you to remember him as you left the dreamscape.

You’d worn the red dress you currently had on, the red lace falling just below your knees. A part of you remembered the way your soulmate had reacted when you’d waltzed into the dreamscape, the way you had casually linked your arm through his as you walked onto the red carpet.

Today you couldn’t find the energy to write anything in your full notebook, opting to bury your head in your hands.

“Who are you?” You groaned. The feeling of his soft lips against your forehead has you sighing, wishing that you could replay it all over again. After shooting a glare at the red dress hanging in your closet, you grabbed your notebook to write down one note before getting up.

We love each other

•••••••••••••••••••

Ji-eun - er, IU, instructed you to wait for her at the entrance to the photo-op portion of the red carpet. She would be busy doing little interviews before that, which honestly didn’t seem that appealing to you. 

Especially not when you were so nervous you thought you were going to throw up.

Staring down at your red dress, you nearly jumped out of your skin when there was a hand on your shoulder.

“Ha! You’re jumpy today,” IU teased, “I wonder why.”

“Oh good, you’re finished.” You ignored her tease, happy to get moving. “You look amazing.”

It wasn’t a surprise, but she still deserved to be complimented. IU looked absolutely ethereal in her flowy green gown, the two of you looking like some sort of Christmas ad. 

“You look great as well!” She motioned toward the carpet. “I think we’re just after this group. Ready?”

Armed with a smile and your best friend at your side, you ventured onto the carpet. It was easier than you though it would be; most of the time you were stepping aside to allow the photographers a clear view of IU.

You’ve nearly made it to the end when a fresh round of screaming picks up. 

There’s only one group that can command that much attention.

You couldn’t help but crane your neck as you see BTS walk onto the carpet, just a couple of groups behind you. Your eyes widened on their own accord when you saw them, unable to shake the feeling of having met them before. 

Of course, they pay you no mind. However, you couldn’t help but chuckle at the way Suga took a moment to get up on his tippy-toes, looking around. You went to point it out to IU, nobody paying either of you any mind as you walk off the carpet. You lost all ability to speak, however, as you took a closer look.

It’s the suit. 

The one that is checkered with a light gray, the one that fit your soulmate just right. 

It’s the black hair that’s perfectly styled. 

And as Suga turned to look your way, you didn’t miss the way his eyes caught on your red dress.

Almost like he had been looking for a red dress.

In the span of a single heartbeat, you made eye contact with the idol, the same question lingering in your eyes. 

For Min Yoongi, that’s all it took. 

Abandoning all precepts, he took off down the carpet, heading straight toward you. From the way the other members took one look at you and your red dress and immediately began speaking to those present, you knew that they’d been waiting for this. Knew that they weren’t planning on keeping this low-key, because there was no real way to do that. 

Not as Yoongi saw you and knew. 

You managed to take three steps toward him before he was before you, grinning with his gummy smile even as his ears turned red. 

“Quick,” Yoongi breathed out, reaching down to take your hands in his. “If it’s really you, tell me what name we can’t agree on for a girl.”

The question threw you off guard, making you laugh. But after a moment, you found with a gasp that you remember.

You remembered everything.

The way the two of you first awkwardly stumbled into the dreamscape at the age of nineteen. How you eventually opened up to each other, grew to care deeply about the other. 

You remembered the nights when the two of you were rambunctious and laughing at stupid stories Yoongi told you about the boys. 

You remembered the nights when you sat in silence, dreading the moment you would have to wake up.

And you remembered that just a few days ago, Yoongi had brought up family. You’d spent the night talking about how many children you’d want, how you’d raise them, what you’d name them.

And there was one horrible name that he loved and you hated, and neither of you were willing to budge on it.

“Ugh,” you groaned even as you smiled. “We are not naming her Pearl! It would make her sound like a pirate ship!”

The cameras flashed, which made Yoongi’s eyes glimmer as he laughed along with you. Then, without a care in the world except for knowing for certain that it was all real, Yoongi tugged you closer until your foreheads touched and all you could see were his dark eyes pulling you in.

“I told you we’d find a way.”

Hundreds of cameras flashed, documenting the moment and effectively labeling it a dream come true.

masterlist

[doveypink]

the one i left behind [technoblade imagine]

summary: you recount the moments leading up to your death. genre: angst words: 5.3k warnings: death, (past) abusive relationships, swearing, general violence a/n: i've been working on this one for a long time. i hope you all enjoy reading this as much as i did writing it!!

[ part two: come and find me ]

Freezing. I was absolutely freezing.

The brisk wind was sharp, leaving pinpricks of its icy touch upon my skin. I could have sworn there was snow, but when my eyes finally cracked open to peer around me, there was only the burning blaze of the sun and lush fields surrounding me. I turned my head to the side lazily, feeling the grass tickle my cheek. My body felt stiff and I stretched my arms out as though clasping the sky between my fingers, and my muscles loosened as I lifted myself from the ground. How long had I been laying there? Time seemed to escape me as I tried to recollect myself. I was just tired, that was all; if I went home now, I’m sure I would remember again. I would make myself a big meal, as well, something hot to melt away my chill, even though I didn’t seem to feel any ounce of hunger within me.

I walked in the direction of a place I couldn’t quite remember, attempting to turn the preceding events over in my mind. The only thing I could seem to recall was the smell of something burning, a bright flash of light, a big bang — fireworks, an image of creation and destruction all at once. It was almost as though I had never existed before this moment, lying in a bed of flowers, untouched by the calloused hands of the living.

I walked through the field, reaching out to pick a single flower from the blades of grass—a blood-red carnation—when I noticed that the shade of my skin had lost its warmth. Where it once had the flushed undertone of my blood, it was now ashen with the impression of death. I flinched, suddenly shivering as my cold bones once again made themselves known. A thought occurred to me, a memory that had slipped my mind in my haze: I only had one life left. 

And I lost it.

Without thinking, my feet began to glide over the earth, kicking up dirt and pebbles as I ran. If I had lost my last life, something awful must have happened. What was it? I tried to pull the memories from the vault in my mind, but it seemed to be locked. All that was left were the shadows under the door, the footsteps in the distance, the keyhole that could only provide a glimpse into a scene.

I smelled it, then, the same scent that I recalled upon waking up, though fainter: something hot and burnt. Up ahead, there was a wisp of smoke floating above the trees, and I hurried towards them. The ground became blackened with scorch marks and, among the ruins of a building I could no longer recognize, I caught sight of blood. My heart sank, and with a start, I realized that there was a crater full of rubble and fires that had long been burning. I stepped through the debris, stumbling over broken doors, shards of glass, golden goblets and picture frames; dozens of signs of life all buried in ash and smoke, melted into a haunting image of destruction. Nothing was recognizable, but I knew what this place was: L’Manburg. Or, more accurately, what was left of it.

I searched the ruins of the country, cringing at the blood streaked debris and discarded weapons and armor that lay haphazardly among the wreckage. I circled the edge of the massive crater, unable to step much further into the space due to its depth. I looked down at the scorched land and moved out, surveying the surrounding area. 

Upon noticing the remnants of a building—someone’s house, maybe? It was too far gone to make out—I felt compelled to search what was left of the structure. I wasn’t sure what drew me to suddenly climb through burnt wood and broken cobblestone; some part of me felt as though I would find an answer to all my questions, a sign, anything to point me in the right direction. I felt desperate to find something to satisfy the tug in my cold heart. My freezing hands sifted through the mess, shoving away rubble and pushing through the debris until my hands were covered in dirt and bruised from the digging. My hands suddenly found something smooth and dense, and my searching became frantic as I pushed through the ruins to find what I had been unknowingly searching for: my bow. I tugged it out from under stone and dirt, running my fingers down the edge of the smooth silver. It remained unmarked despite the destruction surrounding it, the curve of its limbs untarnished and shining brilliantly in the evening light. I searched some more and discovered the hard shell of my arrow quiver and a number of silver-tipped arrows still inside. I stood and slung the quiver over my shoulder with my bow in hand, feeling almost complete with the items on my person. 

The wind picked up and blew through my hair, insisting that I look further. I stepped into the wreckage of the building, an unsettled feeling rising in the pit of my stomach. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of red against pale grey stone; I turned, staring at the scene before me with wide, horrified eyes.

A short distance from where my bow was found, there was a violent splatter of crimson against the rubble. It looked like a balloon full of paint had popped, streaking the cold stones with a sickeningly bright shade of red. Among the drying mess, there was a flurry of scorch marks strewn across the area, a minor crater digging into the earth where the scene lay. I realized what this all was, my hands trembling as I clutched my bow. 

I had died here.

I screwed my eyes shut, plagued with a sudden onslaught of memories that I no longer wished for. Falling to my knees, I held my head in my hands and shook violently, my head pounding with a torrential rain of scenes flashing in my mind. All I could do was be swept away in the flood.

* * * * *

“Are you still mad at me?”

I blinked at Techno with an arrow in hand, sharpening its tip and inspecting the edge. I was mad at him, but I didn’t feel like giving him an answer. If he had to ask, he already knew; we were both smart enough to understand each other like that. He sighed when I wordlessly turned my gaze back to my arrow, stepping towards me and plucking it from my grasp. I jumped up, prepared to steal it back. “Hey—!”

“You know why I had to do this. Don’t get mad at me,” Techno said, his voice low and serious. 

I crossed my arms and frowned. “Right. You have to team with Dream just to blow up a country. You definitely couldn’t have done it on your own or, I don’t know, with me to help, yeah? Because the great Technoblade is always right—”

“We have common interests—”

“And I hate being interrupted.”

Techno went silent after I snapped at him, adjusting his cape while I gritted my teeth. “I thought you hated him,” I said slowly, “and I hated him too. You know what he did, you know how it hurt me, and you still…” I trailed off, feeling suddenly exhausted—exhausted from fighting, exhausted from chasing a peace I could never have. 

Techno placed a gentle hand on my shoulder—a gesture he rarely used, and reserved for me—and met my eyes. “Just this once,” he said. “I still owe him a debt, but this will be the end. It’s within our reach.”

“I could die,” I said plainly. This made Techno pause, his entire body freezing over like a lake in winter, so I pushed further. “I could die. I could lose my last life, and I gladly will for what we’re doing, because I believe in this. I know we haven’t always been right, but I know that this is. I hate that you let Dream in, and I’m going to be angry. I deserve to be angry.”

“You’re not going to die,” he said with certainty. “Not when I’m there.” 

I couldn’t tell if Techno was trying to reassure me or himself with his words, but either way, the weight of the possibilities made my stomach turn with anxiety. “You can’t be so sure. I’m not exactly as talented as you are at everything,” I countered.

“Don’t say that,” Techno insisted, his tone full of frustrated reassurement. “I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you. Never again. And hey,” he started, poking my cheek, “you’re more than capable of handling yourself, anyway. You couldn’t die even if you wanted to.”

“I think you have too much confidence in me, Techno.”

“Cut that sentence 3 words short and I’ll consider agreeing with you.”

I sighed, finally letting myself crack a small smile. “I’m still mad at you, but I trust you. Only out of pity though—I know you couldn’t last a day without me around.”

Techno grinned, his sharp-toothed grin melting the ice as he returned my arrow. “Good thing it’ll never come to that.”

I shook my head, twirling the arrow in my hand while I inspected it silently. Techno turned away to prepare his own weapons, leaving me alone with the aftermath of our conversation. 

My anger had been redirected with my friend’s words of reassurance, now colliding with my resentment for Dream. Even though I did have faith in Techno, I still feared the possibility of Dream playing a trick on us. I sharpened my arrow and considered my choices: I follow Techno’s lead and go along with Dream’s help, or I take matters into my own hands. I finished up with my arrows, placing them neatly into my quiver as I prayed that the latter wouldn’t have to occur.

I already knew well enough that war was brutal.

With a deep, tired sigh, I leaned back and recalled a time not so long ago—just a few years at most—when I wasn’t resentful of Dream. We were friends, once, and I’ll admit that I admired him; I bitterly wondered what would have happened if I had ever found the courage to tell him just how much I adored him, but the thought made some long forgotten part of me ache, prickling my heart with thorns. It was shameful of me to wonder what could have been, even more so to speak it; there was a reason why only Techno knew, and there was a reason why his decision made my blood bubble over in frustration and betrayal. 

I considered the moment I caught Dream shifting, edging away from his former self as his own hubris overtook him, rotting his soul as something else took form. He had always treated me as an equal, and he charmed me with his kind words and gentle gaze. I couldn’t begin to understand how suddenly he was so cruel to me, taking me by surprise when his usual soft tone became sharp and grating, tearing me apart from the inside out. I had only ever been supportive of him, even when he did things I couldn’t agree with; even when his friends turned their backs on him; even when I found myself seeking his approval at every turn despite his cruelty. Nothing I did could ever seem to be enough.

The first time I was separated from Dream was after Techno captured me, initially planning to use me as leverage against his rival to put an end to the government. After finding me, though, he must have seen what I couldn’t: the hollowness that Dream had left behind. The anarchist took pity on me, if you could even call it that; mostly, Techno shook me awake from the nightmare I had been living and made me realize the extent of Dream’s manipulation. I felt dirty for a long while after my realization, plagued with the sense that I would never feel safe or whole again. A part of me still felt that way, even, but at least I had the sense now to not seek out the shadows when they beckoned me over.

Technoblade was a surprisingly good friend through it all. It was him who helped me become myself again, but he would always argue that it was my own doing. He frustrated me sometimes with his monotonous tone and his thirst for anarchy, but at the end of the day, I could never stay mad at him; Techno had a good heart, and his honesty and dedication to his morals was enough to convince me. Even through my fog of anger at his teaming with Dream, even when I questioned whether this was a good idea, a sensible part of me knew that this was nothing like what Dream had done to me. Techno didn’t hide his nature as Dream did, and I could trust him in that.

A knock on the cabin door brought me out of my thoughts. I heard Techno’s footsteps as he stepped back into the room, a knife in hand. “Do you know who it is?” he questioned, scrutinizing the door when I shook my head in response. I stood from my chair and followed behind Techno, who peeked out the window and let out a tired sigh before swinging the door open.

“Hello, Dream. What are you doing at my house?” my friend deadpanned.

Dream lowered his grinning mask, his own lips drawn back into a polite smile. “Oh, just checking in before tomorrow. I wanted to see if you needed anything.”

“You could have sent a message first,” Techno replied, tapping the messenger device on his wrist. “I don’t really appreciate unwanted guests.”

“I figured it wouldn’t be much of a problem since we’re on the same side now. And I tend to find surprise visits are a lot more… Insightful,” Dream mused. His eyes peeked over Techno’s shoulder to meet mine and I stiffened, standing straighter. Dream, perceptive as usual, smiled wider, his eyes crinkling slightly at the corners before he spoke to me in a soft voice. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

A cold hand gripped my heart, the blood pulsing in my ear drums. I hated him; I hated that he hardly had to speak for me to begin to crumble. I attempted to reply in a steady voice despite the slight tremor that shook me. “Yeah, it has.”

Before Dream could say anything else, Techno stepped up as though to shield me. “You know, we have everything we need here. You should probably make sure your things are sorted, though,” he announced. 

Dream’s smile faltered for half a second before returning. “Hm, I think you’re right. Just remember to give me the signal,” he said, beginning to turn away from the door. Dream hesitated, giving me one last look before he addressed me, his words kind, though laced with a cold, haunting tone. “I’ve missed you. Good luck tomorrow.”

It wasn’t until Techno had shut the door and confirmed that Dream had left that I allowed myself to breathe. I hadn’t even realized that I was holding my breath in the first place; I felt lightheaded and weary as Techno sat me down and asked if I was alright. I nodded, watching the worried man cross the room to fetch me a glass of water. With a shudder, I took in the sight of the floorboards and listened to my friend rummaging around the kitchen. My stomach churned and my mind flashed with sudden clarity about what I would have to do.

I was going to kill Dream.

The following day felt like a blur. Every motion leading up to the total destruction of L’Manburg was like a sharp jab of a paintbrush, a swipe across a canvas already drenched in paint. There was a picture here, some greater meaning when you stepped away from it all, but in the midst of things, it didn’t quite matter. All Techno cared about was erasing the country for good and keeping us alive; all I wanted was to get the day over with.

I had spent the entire night trying to decide whether it was truly a good idea for me to go after Dream or leave him be. A part of me felt that it was a terrible idea, a decision that would only serve to lead me to certain death; still, another part of me wanted closure. I didn’t think of myself as anything special compared to Techno, Phil, or even Dream himself when it came to combat skills, but the truth was that I was more than capable of holding my own in battle. I had been through my fair share of wars, and the experience in addition to training with Techno led me to become a skilled warrior of my own. As I considered it, I found myself realizing with a newfound confidence that I had the strength to take down Dream all on my own if I wanted to. My only question was how I would go about this.

The answer came surprisingly soon.

Techno and I had been doing well against L’Manburg’s defense—there was only a scare when Sapnap came close to taking one of Techno’s lives during a fight, but I had stepped in with a nicely timed arrow to his head, which made our enemy disappear into a cloud of smoke as his life was lost. Techno and I chugged some invisibility potion, courtesy of Phil, and hid around a building to watch everyone fight off the withers while we healed ourselves.

“What’s taking him so long? We’ve been at it for—” Techno glanced at his watch, “—thirty minutes! And here I thought Dream was all about punctuality,” my friend griped, taking a bite out of an apple.

“I’m not surprised. Of course he would choose today to take his sweet time,” I assessed, thumping my head against the brick building. “He’s probably going over his plans to sacrifice us next as we speak.”

“We are not getting sacrificed.”

“You never know,” I hummed. “It’s not a bad thing to be cautious, is it?”

Techno snorted. “Well, I suppose not. We’ve survived this long, though, so I have a good feeling about this.”

I nodded, peering in the direction of my friend. We couldn’t see each other due to the potion, but if I focused hard enough, I could catch a shift in the light that alerted me of his position. I felt a sudden urgency within me—some calling to spill my fears, inky and black, before I choked. “I need you to do me a favor,” I blurted.

I watched the light shift and turn. “What? What’s going on?” Techno wondered.

“If something happens to me, if I lose my last life,” I began in a serious tone, “don’t look back.”

“I… don’t understand. What are you saying? You won’t—”

“Techno, if I die, you carry straight through with the plan. Don’t come for my things, don’t try to help me, just go. Please. Can you promise me that?”

The light shimmered slowly, hesitantly. “Of course you choose now to drop that on me,” Techno muttered bitterly, but I could hear the underlying hurt. “I can never say no to you, though, can I?”

“It is your best trait,” I joked, though there was a heaviness in my voice.

The shift in the light leaned back as Techno sighed. “Alright, fine. It won’t come to that, but I’ll do it. I promise.”

“Thank you. For everything,” I confessed, stressing the importance of all that he’s done for me in my reply. 

Before Techno could reply, a resounding boom went off nearby. Dirt and debris flew past us as plumes of gray smoke shrouded our sight. Between the clouds of smoke, I could see a flash of bright green and a bone-white mask.

“He’s here,” Techno mumbled next to me. “Let’s get moving.”

The pair of us sprinted across the land, dodging at the sight of explosives and attacking enemies under the guise of our invisibility. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Dream dropping TNT from the tops of buildings and hurling them at every patch of land in his vicinity. By the time he was finished, I knew there would be nothing left.

The invisibility began to wear off shortly after that, and I watched as Techno’s vibrant red cape began to fade back into view. I followed my friend from a short distance until I realized that Dream was completely distracted in his efforts to destroy the nation. As Techno veered down one path, I caught him by the arm. “I’m heading the other way,” I said.

Techno immediately began to protest. “No, you’re not. Don’t be stupid.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You were the one worried about losing your last life, and now you’re trying to split? We have to stick together.”

“I’ll be quick. You won’t even know I’m gone,” I reasoned, already turning to leave. “I promise I’ll be back.”

Techno frowned, but eventually his shoulders became less tense as he reluctantly decided to let me go. I gave him a nod of thanks before hurrying off to a building that hadn’t yet been destroyed. Fortunately for me, the citizens seemed to have cleared out, so no one was there to intervene as I leapt over crumbling buildings and the charred remains of the nation. My heart raced in my chest and I clutched my bow tightly in my hand. It would all be over soon enough, I thought, and I would be the one to end it all. 

I reached a building that hadn’t been completely damaged from the TNT and scaled the wall. My fingers were wedged into the grooves of the brick until I reached the ledge at the very top, tugging myself up and throwing my legs over the side. I huffed and looked up to watch Dream, practically gliding on air as he hurled explosives at the ground without remorse. I squinted and realized through the haze of smoke and ash that he had nearly hit bedrock, yet he continued to demolish the same area of land. It was like he wanted to blow a hole straight through the ground, so deep that he’d be able to see the other side. 

I shook away the nervous shudder that ran down my spine and instead raised my bow to aim while Dream was distracted. I glared at the back of his head and lined my sight to him, the familiarity of the motion sending a sort of ease through my tense muscles.

It was an easy shot. I could do it.

I drew a deep breath and held it while I drew my arrow back, pulling the string taut. With a slow sigh, I released.

My arrow soared above the destruction, seeming to transcend the rules of time and space. The light made the metallic edge glimmer as though a star was shooting across the expanse of land, bright and beautiful and destructive all at once. 

Dream was still turned away as the arrow launched towards him, and for a moment I felt sure that I had succeeded in my efforts. Right before the arrow was able to lodge itself in his head, though, Dream ducked, and the arrow flew past his head. He rose again to stand straight and turned slowly to face me, the blank eyed smile on his mask mocking me. My blood turned to ice in my veins and I frantically drew another arrow to fire, this time pointed at his heart. 

Before I could release the arrow, Dream held up a stick of dynamite and pelted it right next to the building I stood on. It was close enough that I took damage and fell back as the earth shook around me. My head smacked against the roof and I groaned at the dizzy shock that sparked against my skull. I lay there, my head pounding, focused on the rumble that rattled my bones as I tried to regain my bearings. 

By the time I had struggled onto my knees, Dream was hovering over me. I glared up at him for one silent moment before snatching my bow and striking his mask, which cracked and shattered to the ground. He stumbled back and I took my chance to load an arrow, but my head was still pounding, my coordination thrown off by the blow I had taken. Dream took advantage of my weakness and kicked the bow out of my hands, where it skidded across the roof and over the edge. I had made a feeble attempt to catch it before it tipped over, but I was too late.

Dream caught a fistful of my hair, yanking me backwards, and I growled, an animalistic sound that scratched my throat as I dragged my feet and struggled in his grasp. I kicked up dirt and clawed at the pale hands that trapped me, yelping when my captor shoved me to my knees. I must have looked ridiculous, like a child throwing a tantrum, as I thrashed and screamed to try and get away. “This is what happens to anyone who doesn’t follow my orders. You really thought you were smart enough to turn on me?” Dream laughed darkly, tightening his grip even as I scratched streaks of red into his skin. “You’re pathetic. I almost feel bad for you.”

“Fuck you,” I spat, attempting to jerk away, but Dream’s grip was unbreakable.

“I hope you’re not this rude to Technoblade. Where is he, by the way?” I struggled while Dream called out for my friend, who I watched sprint towards us between exploding buildings and smoke.

“Dream, what is this?” Techno heaved, meeting us on the building. 

The man in question nodded his head towards me, a warrior bloodied and brought to my knees. “I think it’s about time I used that favor,” he said coldly.

My heart sank to the pit of my stomach, and I felt my body begin to numb with fear. If I wasn’t sure of it before, I was now; this was the end for me. 

It was almost laughable, the irony of this situation; the promises to keep each other safe that I had made with my best friend—the only friend I had left—were tearing apart at the seams. 

“Maybe you should rethink this before you do something you’ll regret, Dream,” Techno threatened.

“Oh, I won’t be regretting anything. But you might.” Dream gestured with his free hand towards the bundle of fireworks in Techno’s hand. “Kill them.”

The situation was eerily similar to another from so long ago in this very nation—when Techno was ordered by Schlatt to kill Tubbo. I could see the realization in his eyes, the acknowledgment of the parallels, the regret and anger and so much fear. I had never seen him so scared, but he remained stubborn. “I won’t do that,” he replied.

Dream’s grip tightened as he jerked my head forward for emphasis. “Listen, Technoblade, you’re going to kill your little friend here because you owe it to me. If you choose not to, I’ll just take them for myself so I can do it instead. You probably wouldn’t want that, though—I won’t be so kind. Oh, and don’t even think about trying to kill me instead. One of you was already stupid enough to try.”

“This isn’t what I meant when I said I’d do you a favor.”

“Isn’t it, though? Look around, Techno. The only reason this is happening right now is because Tommy betrayed you. He could have chosen you, he could have stayed on your side, but he didn’t. This is the consequence, right? And this—,” I yelped as Dream snatched me and held me up as evidence, “—is what happens when I’m betrayed. You all agreed to help me, and now my trust is broken. So pick up a fucking weapon and do me a favor.”

My friend stood frozen as he tried to calculate some way out of this, but I knew I had ruined any chances of a better life for us. It was my actions that were about to get me killed, by the only person who ever truly loved me, nonetheless.

“Do it,” I told Techno. “Please, just get it over with.”

Technoblade looked down at me, his eyes full of hurt as his brows furrowed. “No. You’re crazy, why would I do that? I made you a promise—”

“So did I. But there’s nothing else to do. I fucked it up, so I’m asking you to do this. Not for him, for me,” I pleaded, painfully aware of the grip Dream had on my hair. “I’d rather it be you. No one but you.”

I watched as Techno’s face contorted into a woeful expression. The guilt was bubbling over in the pit of my stomach, an all-consuming feeling that made me sick with sorrow for what I was asking him to do. We were one and the same, him and I, a pair of lonely people made better with the other around. I would miss him and, even if he never chose to admit it, I knew he would miss me too. I could only hope that my absence wouldn’t destroy him. 

Slowly, Techno raised the firework launcher as he pointed it at my head. “You know, I always had a soft spot for you.”

My smile was regretful and watery; I prayed that he could hear my apologies without having to speak them out loud. I prayed even more that he could hear my unspoken words of gratitude, the unfinished symphony that was our friendship. “You’re the only person who ever knew me.”

Behind me, Dream groaned in annoyance. “Shut up with the monologues and get it over with,” he griped. With a harsh shove, the tip of the fireworks were pressed against my forehead. I bit my tongue, the metallic taste of blood in my mouth as I tried not to seem too meager in my final moments. Dream dropped me to my knees as he escaped the line of fire, now peering over Techno’s shoulder in waiting. I watched my friend’s hands shake, the light tremble of his finger as it hovered over the trigger. I wanted to give him some sort of reassurance, but how could I? How do you ease the heart of someone forced to kill their friend?

With a shaky, mournful sigh, Techno looked down on me, his knuckles white as he gripped the weapon. “I’m sorry,” he said. 

I squeezed my eyes shut with tears running hot over my cheeks, trying to recall a better picture in my mind. I thought of when I first met Techno, brainwashed and broken, a person slowly made whole again. I thought of the softness in his eyes even as he yelled at me over some mistake I had made. I thought of the nights he spent hunched over his desk writing about anything until I threw a blanket at him and dragged him into his bed. I thought of the mornings we would wake up early on a day of traveling just to catch the sunrise. I could have seen it a thousand times, and still, nothing would have ever compared to him; no amount of wealth or glory could even come close to making me feel as elated as he did. Techno was, without a doubt in my mind, my soulmate. The universe decided that for us; the sun and the moon and every star in the sky chose to bind us together, and what reason did I have to refuse it? 

My heart ached, jumping as the click of the trigger sounded. There was a bright flash, a pop, an explosion of color and sound—

Then nothing at all. 

[ansksosns]

Sealed Fates

This blog has no followers b u t this is my secret writing blog, where I have not posted any works....until now. 

Simps, I present to you; Tobirama Senju. 

Part 2 can be found here!

Word count: 3023

You burst through his office doors, not bothering to knock or give any announcement of your arrival to his household despite the late hour. You knew he wasn’t asleep; the man only slept when exhaustion won the battle against his mind and body.

Surely enough, there he sat at his oak desk, gracing you with a rare display of surprise upon his face.

“Tobirama Senju.” You growl, gritting your teeth.

He quickly collects himself, his surprised expression disappearing as though it was never there. He now looks tired—How many days has it been since he truly slept?

“I do not recall inviting you into my home.” He says pointedly, as his eyes fall back on to the papers in front of him. He begins scribbling on them, probably updating notes on the newest jutsu he’d created.

His lack of urgency towards you only makes you more annoyed; you thought the two of you were finally getting somewhere, after Tobirama saved your life from the clutches of death a mere month ago. You quickly learned that you were wrong, as he became more reclusive than ever following your discharge from the hospital.

You had every intention on broaching this topic with him in a professional manner, even going so far as to schedule a meeting with him—a meeting, with the man you served as some sort of assistant for a better part of your career as a shinobi.

All formalities went out the window when you quickly caught a glimpse of a very specific marking on the small of your back; one you knew quite well, but had no recollection of getting.

“How long have you had the seal on me?” You bark, taking one step closer to his desk.

He stops scribbling for a moment, considering your words carefully.

You don’t give him a chance to defend himself. “At what point did you decide to brand me with your jutsu?”

You take another step closer to him, and slam your hands down on the desk to get his undivided attention. You won’t let him get away with this without some sort of consequence; he may be above you in the world of shinobi, but he was not above you as a human being. It is time he was reminded of that.

Tobirama gives you a low sigh and then sets his quill aside. He leans back in his chair, lacing his fingers together in his lap. He looks at you with narrowed eyes, silently telling you to tread carefully as you speak. You ignore his warning, and more forward with your wrath.

“I have given you more than adequate work; I’ve dedicated my entire life to yours and Hashirama’s dream for this village. I have fought beside you, and for you without ever asking for anything in return.”

You notice your arms have begun to shake, so you grip the edge of the desk to stop yourself. Tobirama’s eyes have not left yours since he looked up at you, and you find yourself suddenly wishing he would look away. His stare is penetrating; making you feel as though he sees right into your very being.

Despite this, you continue with your rant. “Using this seal to spy on me, whenever, wherever you want—that is your payment to my loyalty, my blood, sweat, and tears?”

Your voice is bordering on shrill as you speak. Tears threaten to spill over your eyes, and you curse yourself for such a display of weakness in front of Tobirama.

“I have forgiven you for many, many, unspeakable things, Tobirama, but this crosses the line.”

He scoffs at you, while giving you a heated glare.

“You think I would place the Hiraishin seal on you with malicious intent?” He asks in disbelief.

His voice is lower than usual, cloaked in anger, as though he is offended by the accusations you are making against him.

You give him a humourless chuckle, “You would do anything if it meant furthering your goals.” You spit back at him.

You can feel the pressure of your chakra rising in the air around you, as you find yourself getting more and more upset with the man in front of you, and for once you think you will get the better of this stubborn man. Of course, he is one always one step ahead of you—his significantly more powerful chakra is threatening to squash yours as soon as the words are leaving your mouth.

Though you know it is a losing battle, you do not back down.

“I will not be insulted in my own home.” He states.

You’ve never seen him this angry before; not even with Madara. You have seen a lot of Tobirama over the years—one would argue that, aside from Hashirama, you know the younger Senju brother better than anyone. This anger you are seeing is entirely new to you though, and if it was not for the rage that burned within your soul, you might have even felt bad for invoking it.

“I will not be disrespected—not by you, or anyone else.” You reply, leaning into his personal space.

You have known Tobirama for too long; you know how to play to his weakness’. The pressure from your chakra, though significantly weaker than his, mixed with a newfound rage, and your close proximity, should be more than his sensory skills can handle at the moment. It would throw him off, and that is what you need right now to get a win.

“I will not tolerate being berated by an insolent girl, on a subject she knows nothing of.”

He surprises you by moving himself forward, sharing a space with you without a second thought. You are eye to eye now, his piercing gaze striking through you that much more. Your chakra’s shove against each other, battling for dominance.

You wonder why he doesn’t just end it; he is more than capable of doing so. Why drag it out for longer than necessary, especially when it is causing this much anger inside of him?

“This is my body, Tobirama!” You snap. “You do not get a say in this, no matter your excuse!”

Your proximity does not bother him, and it annoys you greatly. Even when you have the confidence to be this close to him; to challenge him—he is throwing you through another loop. When will you ever win with him?

You grit your teeth, breathing slightly heavier than you would normally. You continue to hold his gaze, though you feel like it is killing you from the inside out to keep doing so. You can’t back down from him this time; Tobirama has long ruled over your heart and mind far too easily. Now was a better time than any to prove to yourself that you can no longer be easily swayed by the younger Senju brother.

Tobirama narrows his eyes at you, lifting himself from his chair, pushing you out of his space with the sheer force and pressure of his chakra. You stumble backwards a bit, your stance falters for a moment as you are in awe of the raw power he possesses. You do not see it often, as he makes sure his power is stored away for only those who deserve it.

For a moment, you think you have gone too far.

You quickly regain your composure, and use your chakra to force his right back at him. His lips twitch upwards slightly, like a smirk was threatening to pull at the corners of them.

Was he...enjoying this?

It is gone as quickly as it appeared. You convince yourself that you imagined it.

“That seal saved your life.” Tobirama argues. He rounds the desk quickly, leaving you with no time to move with him before he has you trapped against the desk, facing him.

He leaves enough room for you to escape, if you feel the need to but you know you won’t. You are aware of what he is doing—forcing your hand to make you submit to him in this argument. He’d done it time and time again, though never with malice. Tobirama has spent his life being in command, never one to give up the control unless absolutely necessary. He understands that the presence of his chakra is intimidating, and he often uses that to his advantage. Clearly though, he has yet to realize that the threat of his chakra doesn’t work on you anymore.

“I don’t care.” You respond, your grasp on the desk behind you causing your knuckles to turn white. “I’ll never be able to remove it. I’m tethered to you for the rest of my life.”

You don’t mean for your words to sound so delicate, as though they were a confession of your soul. It doesn’t particularly bother you, because you have no intent on leaving his side any time soon, but your poor choice of words change the nature of the argument to an area you did not prepare yourself for.

Tobirama’s chakra stutters before the pressure of it dies off completely. Your own chakra is now powerful against him, causing it to forcibly push him away from you.

He is no longer glaring at you, but staring at you with eyes wide, and a slack jaw.

Perhaps your words affect him more than you can comprehend.

You retract your looming chakra, and step towards him, but he takes one step back for each foot you move forward. He is quick to hide his emotions again, replacing the softness he held in his eyes for you with a drawn out and irritated sigh. With closed eyes, he turns away from you.

You watch in complete disbelief. Tobirama Senju has just backed down from you; he submitted, and in turn, admitted to his defeat. You did not expect this from him.

You open your mouth to speak, but the lax of his shoulders stops you.

“I thought of it as a means to protect you.” Tobirama says gently. There is no trace of anger, or annoyance in his tone anymore.

You feel your resolve crumble at his tone, and your heartbeat doubles in the confines of your ribcage.

You hate this.

You hate how he renders you like this so easily.

His hands ball into fists at his sides as he lets his words hang in the air, allowing you the time to process them.

“You do not need to protect me, Tobirama; You have so much more to take care of in the village. You should have complete faith in my abilities as a shinobi to take care of myself.”

He scoffs loudly at your words, and shakes his head from side to side but he refuses to look at you.

You want to question him—make him tell you out right that he doubts your skills and has no faith in you at all; that your stint in the hospital and him saving your life were all the signs he needed to change his mind about you.

But seeing him this way leaves you with no other choice other than waiting it out.

Minutes pass as you both stand there in silence. Tobirama is seemingly struggling to find the words he has been looking for, and you are just waiting for him to speak them. You decided that one way or another, the two of you would settle whatever this is before either of you leave the room.

You only hope it won’t end with him saying all the things you can’t bear to hear; such as how useless you are, or how much he doesn’t need you anymore.

If that is what it came to though, so be it. If it meant sorting this out, you would take his words with your head held high.

You rest your hips against the desk, folding your arms over your chest.

“Tobi,” You say gently, to serve as a reminder that you were still here with him. You know, of course, that he can’t forget that; he is especially strong with his sensory skills—almost always aware of everything around him without meaning to be.

He turns to you and your breath catches in your throat. He looks utterly defeated and exhausted. His hard, pensive gaze turned in for a much softer one and lips parted slightly. The tension in his forehead usually caused by having his brows knitted together in concentration is gone, and it makes him look much younger.

Tobirama was either always dressed in his armour, or kimonos since they had established the village; it helped maintain an almost royal like status to the clans who joined the founding of Konoha.

But he is just a man—still so young. War often aged people much further along than they really are; something you often forgot.

You find yourself then wishing, if only for just a moment, that you can take it all back. You wish you were easier on Tobirama, and gave him more of the support he needs without question.

But you knew, as Madara once said, Tobirama Senju will always listen to you. Though you would never take credit for the accomplishments he succeeds in, you are aware that you have an influence on decisions he makes from time to time. The two of you are a team, always; even in your stubbornness and anger, you worked together like it was second nature to you both.

Damn him for doing this to you. Damn him all to hell.

“I have lost almost everyone I have ever loved.”

He says it slowly and carefully as though he is not sure if the words will scare you away.

He takes one step closer to you, and stops as though he is unsure of what to do. Words bubble in your throat, but no matter how much you will them from yourself, they do not come out.

“I refuse to lose you, too.”

The words are spoken so quietly, but they ring loud and clear in your mind. The doubling of your heartbeat from earlier now tripled as his voice echoes off the walls of your brain. It’s just like him to confess such a thing behind a wall of pride, but the fact that he said it at all meant that he is serious.

Your balance on the desk gives out, and you quickly slam your hands into it to catch yourself from falling completely. Tobirama steps closer to you, his eyes searching your entire self, up and down. The words are caught on your tongue; a lump forming at the base of your throat prevents you from breathing.

Tobirama’s voice fills the silence. “Putting the seal on you without your knowledge was wrong, I will admit that much.”

He sounds stronger now, more determined than you have ever heard him before.

He takes one more step closer to you. Your knees grow weak.

“But it was the easiest decision I have ever made. I will continue to stand by that decision until my very last breath, even if it means you hate me for it.”

Those words manage to snap her out of her dream like state. Does he think getting rid of you will be so easy? It is just like him to do something like this—damn him. This all could have been avoided if the two of you had just told each other sooner.

You lean forward, slowly raising your hand to the side of his face. You give him ample time and room to inch away from your contact if he wants to, but he does not move. You cradle his cheek in your palm, fingers hooking behind his ear, thumb gingerly brushing against his cheek bone.

It is to your surprise that he leans in to your touch, and closes his eyes. Your heart pulls in your chest.

“I could never hate you, Tobi.” You say softly.

This is the truth; no matter how idiotic he is, the harder he pushes you away, giving you the Hiraishin seal—you could never hate Tobirama Senju.

“I am tethered to you for the rest of my life,” You repeat. In a moment of boldness, you grab one of his hands and slowly drag it to settle on the seal that is placed on the small of your back. You hear his breath catch.

“—By something much stronger than this seal.”

You love him, more than he will ever truly know.

You ghost your lips over his, waiting for the moment he will push you away, but it never comes. His grasp on you only tightens as he pulls you flush against him, capturing your lips in his.

He is soft, at first; gentle with you as he engulfs your body in his arms. The palm you had on his cheek slides down to his neck, lazily clinging to the ends of his hair.

You both pull away, only leaving a breath of space between the two of you. Your eyes meet briefly, before he is on you again, kissing you harder than before, with a certain finality burning through. You only return the kiss with as much passion, scared that Tobirama will be gone the moment you stop.

You pull him closer; he grabs you by your hips with a bruising force, walking you backwards into the desk before lifting you with ease to sit upon the edge of it. He kisses you harder than the other times, rutting himself between your legs.

It is all lips, teeth and tongue with the two of you; low and heady sighs escaping your mouth when he pulls away from you, leaving trails of kisses and bites down the side of your neck. Gasps leave you and you encircle your legs around him, securing him to you. Hands tugging at his hair, causing salacious groans to seep through his tentative mouth.

You say his name sinfully, and before you can register his firm grasp on you, he is lifting you up off the desk, and moving you from the office, to his bed room.

[veryverynotgoodwrites]

PH!!! I NEED IT!!

Oh my, oh my, oh my.

Many big things have been happening in my Perilous Harbor doc lately! I've decided it'll likely be 25 chapters, and I've actually started writing the first few pages of chapter 15 even though I haven't written the middle of chapter 14 (spoiler alert: it's going to whump so hard).

I have so many delicious little bits coming up. Let's settle for a little unedited preview from chapter 14 to sate your appetite, shall we? Maybe a little something that induces some squeals?

Spoilers below the cut!

Before she’d really decided where to go, a heavy wooden door was before her. She knocked softly, almost hoping there would be no answer.

“Enter.”

Emma ignored the stutter of her heart as she pushed open the door and found Killian sitting at his desk, shirt unbuttoned to the bottom of his chest and sleeves rolled up to his elbows with a drink in his hand. He hadn’t yet taken his brace off, but he’d obviously settled in for the night if the glaze in his eyes were any indication.

He stood and cleared his throat at the sight of her. “Ah, come in,” he stammered, and she told herself he had to be the rum talking. “Drink?”

“No,” she shook her head and closed the door behind her, but didn’t move any farther into the room.

The last time she’d been in here, she had been sure she was going to be negotiating the terms of her stay here as a hostage. If she had known then that months later she’d be here with her parents as a member of the crew with an incredibly undefinable relationship with the man who had once held her aboard this very ship against her will, she might have jumped off the bow of the ship in an apparent bout of lunacy. But now, as they stood watching each other in heavy, awkward silence, the shift in their dynamic had never been more palpable.

He scrunched his brows as he always did when he could read her thoughts, but couldn't conceal the mischievous glint in his eyes as they narrowed on her. “Why are you here, Swan?”

“Swan?” She leaned against the door and crossed her arms across her chest. “I thought we had moved past that.”

Killian raised a brow at her and set down his glass. “Have we?”

A loaded question. She wasn’t even sure of the answer herself. Their kiss was still seared into her mind, lingering on the periphery of her thoughts every waking moment. Only actively avoiding the memory kept her from plunging into an endless abyss of emotional turmoil.

She liked him, and she couldn’t bother denying it anymore. She had kissed him, and it was the recollection of the utterly wrecked look on his face as he had laid atop her that night that had her mustering every bit of swagger she could manage. “Haven’t we?”

It wasn’t an answer. No, it was just another way for her to avoid telling him the truth about her feelings, but as she looked at him, excitement danced in those crushing blue eyes. Not excitement, she realized, but hope. She had given him hope, and that spark set her heart soaring and her stomach plummeting.

They were impossible, she knew that without a doubt. With her parents now safely aboard the Jolly, it would be a matter of weeks before they arrived back in Misthaven and took back their kingdom with her mother’s patched together army of dwarves and werewolves and fairies. Once that was finished, she would return to her life at the palace and Killian...she didn’t know where he would go, only that his disdain for royalty meant he most certainly wouldn’t stick around for her.

She wished that knowledge would have kept her from desperately wanting their circumstances to be different.

“I-”

“Emma-”

They both spoke in unison, stepping toward each other, then clamped their mouths shut and froze at the same time. A blush crept into her cheeks. “Sorry,” she jerked her chin. “Go ahead.”

The neck of his shirt gaped to reveal tufts of dark curls as Killian scratched nervously behind his ear. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the other night,” he admitted, and she could have sworn her heart stopped beating entirely. “I must apologize if it was out of line.”

For a moment, she was dumbfounded as she processed his words. She had kissed him, and here he was apologizing for her actions as if they were his own, as if it was him who had committed a grievously unchivalrous sin. “It wasn’t,” she reassured him with a smile. “It was fine.”

His eyes were again alight with mischief as he closed in on her with long, sauntering strides. “Just fine?” he mused. “I seem to recall you felt differently at the time.”

Her cheeks burned red hot at the memory of her breathy sighs as he’d kissed her, but she refused to yield an inch. “I must have forgotten.”

“No you didn’t,” he purred, stopping a yard away. A cat toying with his prey. “While we’re on the topic,” he tilted his head, tongue darting across his bottom lip, “why did you kiss me, princess?”

Her breathing hitched, and Killian’s gaze darted to her chest, assessing the rapid rise and fall of her breaths, before meeting her stare once more with a smirk. Every instinct roared at her to open the door and run away. But she was Emma Swan, and she would not be cowed.

“Because I wanted to.”

This time he sucked in a breath, and shock flashed across his face. All he could do was stare and stare, and Emma was almost convinced she’d won this round when he took another step toward her, closing the distance between them completely. She could smell the rum on his breath, and she was suddenly aware of the intimacy of her being in his room, their proximity to his bed, the delicious heat radiating from his bare chest. She stumbled back a step, but hit the door with a gasp. His smirk grew wider. A cat toying with his prey indeed - he had her pinned, and the thought absolutely thrilled her.

“Well,” he breathed, “in that case…”

His hand came to rest on her waist, fingers trailing under the bottom of her loose shirt, searching for bare skin. His touch was gentle as he pushed up to her ribs, burning tender strokes into her side that had her lower back bowing off the door into his warmth.

Gods, she wanted him.

Her reaction didn’t go unnoticed and he smiled, but his hand stilled and his eyes went soft as they searched her own, their faces now inches apart. “Why are you here, Emma?” His voice was a whisper, his question raw and vulnerable.

“I…” Her lips faintly brushed his as she swallowed, and her eyes fluttered shut. His hand tightened on her side, but he didn’t move. “I needed somewhere to go.”

Would that be how this ended? The way it all began?

Killian seemed to track her thought, and his hook stroked down her back, pulling her flush against him. She opened her eyes and tilted her head back to look up at him.

“Why me?”

His eyes darted back and forth between her own, and as soon as the whispered words had left his mouth, she knew he didn’t just mean tonight. His hand trailed up her arm and he stroked his ringed thumb across her cheek, watching as she blushed in his wake. She pushed up onto her toes and wrapped her arms loosely around his neck, but even as their lips brushed together once more, he didn’t seize the kiss. He was waiting, she knew, for her answer. For permission.

“Because…” she swallowed, squeezing her eyes shut. Just tell him. “Because I l-”

Three loud bangs reverberated through her bones and she jumped with a curse. Killian flinched, but tightened his grip on her waist protectively. He was smiling at her faintly, expression tender, and as he reached back to open the door, he placed a gentle kiss on her hairline. Its meaning was clear: to be continued.

The door cracked, Killian let out a heavy sigh of frustration. “We best be bloody sinking, Mr. Smee, or I’ll have your-”

“We have a tail, Captain.” Smee’s eyes darted fearfully between Killian and her, then to the arm he had securely fixed around her, the grip that tightened once more at his words. She couldn’t imagine what this must look like, what he must have assumed was happening, what was actually happening in here-

“How far?” Killian’s face was stone cold as she looked up at him, hands falling to rest on his forearms.

Like that looks any more innocent.

Smee tracked the movement, but looked urgently back to his captain’s waiting face. He coughed nervously, trying to catch his breath. “Just broke on the horizon. They’re gaining fast.”

[mistersshelby]

Could you maybe write something when the reader has to undergo an surgery or any medical treatment and she doesn’t tell anyone about it but Thomas finds out. They wouldn’t be together or anything but he would be into her and vice versa. A the beginning (the confrontation) maybe he would be cold and stuff and then soft? I wish you the motivation to write! And can’t wait for anything you post! Take care!!! x

hi love, i hope you like this!!

tw: rape mention

questions, comments, concerns

masterlist

Ada squeezed your hand as you walked into the abortion clinic together. It was just a few days ago when you had repeatedly knocked on her door, tears streaming down your face, to explain that the man who had raped you three months ago had left more inside you than you initially thought.

It was just three months ago that your world had turned upside down, a Blinder that Tommy had just hired not even a week ago had gotten you very drunk and pushed you into a coat closet. It was so loud in the Garrison that no one heard your screams and Ada only found you passed out in a pool of your own vomit hours later once everyone had left. When you had told Ada, Ada had gone to Polly who quietly fired the man, telling Tommy he had stolen from the company. Tommy never questioned it.

Since then, you had been different and everyone at Shelby Company Limited was beginning to notice. Normally the only cheery person who worked in the office, you kept to yourself now. Only talking to people when absolutely necessary. Tommy lit a cigarette and watched you, “What’s wrong with her?” Tommy said to Ada one day.

Ada frowned, “Don’t know what you mean.”

Tommy looked at Ada, obviously not buying her bullshit, “She hasn’t brought flowers in for everyone’s desk in months. She’s taking all of next week off. She’s never asked for time off. When I asked where she was going she said she wanted to catch up on her reading.”

Ada shrugs, “Yeah, and? Maybe she actually wants to catch up on her reading. Maybe she’s sick of flowers.”

Tommy’s frowning and shaking his head, he puts out his cigarette on the ashtray behind him, “No, it’s more than that and you’re not telling me, but no matter, Ada, I’ll figure it out myself.”

“Thomas,” Ada said sternly, “Leave it alone.” And then she walked off, leaving him to watch you by himself. There was no way he was leaving it alone.

So now it was that you walked into the abortion clinic with Ada, an appointment she had gotten for you. She had explained that she had once considered the service and Pol had made an appointment for her and so they knew her and Polly there. It was easy to get you in.

“You’ll be alright, I’ll be waiting out here, okay?” Ada squeezed you close for a minute before handing you off to the doctors. You weren’t doing very well with the trauma and quite frankly didn’t feel much of anything since. You felt you were just going through the motions of life without actually feeling or processing any of it. It was difficult for you to bathe because you couldn’t stand the sight of your own body. You had moved a bunch of heavy furniture in front of your door for fear of someone breaking in. You slept with a kitchen knife under your pillow just in case. And now as you followed the doctor into another room, you felt no fear, though you had heard horror stories of women who got abortions and died. Your life didn’t quite matter to you anymore.

But, as it was, you came out a couple hours later to an anxious Ada, in loads of pain, but alive. You wondered if one day you’d grow to regret terminating the life that grew inside you, but all you knew now was the idea of anything of his being inside you made you feel like you needed an entirely new body.

Ada talked a lot while she brought you home, the start of your week off from work as you recovered. She stayed with you well into the night making sure you were alright before finally leaving well past midnight. You were sad to see her go, you hated to be alone, but didn’t want to ask her to stay either. You were thankful for the pain pills, though, as they wiped out the possibility of nightmares. The nightmares were always the worst.

***

Tommy stared blankly at your empty desk for the second day in a row. Finally, he got up to leave, not telling anyone where he was going and turned up on Ada’s doorstep.

“Tommy?” She frowned when she opened the door, “Is something wrong? Why are you here?”

He storms past her into the house, not waiting for her to invite him in, “I need to know what’s going on with Y/N, she’s my employee, I deserve to know.”

Ada scoffed and closed the front door, “You’re not entitled to her personal life, what is this obsession with her lately that you’ve developed?”

Tommy collapses into a chair and sighs, rubbing at his forehead, “I’m worried about her.” He says quietly.

She sits across from him and scrutinizes him quietly, “You fancy her, don’t you?”

“What?” Tommy shakes his head, “No, she’s just not herself and I want to know what’s bothering her.”

“Okay, well, as her friend you should take my word for it that she’s alright. I have it handled, Tommy, alright?”

Just then, Tommy spies a doctor’s note on Ada’s coffee table and snatches it up.

“Tommy, give that back!” Ada says urgently, trying to grab it from his hands.

“Did you get an abortion?” He says, having scanned the paper.

She snatches it back from him, “Christ, nothing in this family can ever be private. But no, I didn’t.”

“Then who’s paper is that?” Ada’s silent, opening and closing her mouth a few times before Tommy’s put it together. “It’s Y/N’s paper, isn’t it? That’s why she took next week out, to recover.”

“Tommy, I swear to God, leave it. If you show up at her apartment bothering her while she’s recovering–”

Tommy rises and walks towards the door, “Thank you for this enlightening visit, Ada, you’ve been a tremendous help.”

“Thomas, I’m not joking, you leave her alone!” 

But Tommy closes the door before she can say anything else.

***

“What d’you mean he’s coming to my apartment?” You were on the phone with Ada, sat in bed with a cup of tea.

“He… He’s been trying to figure out what’s going on with you the past few days, I dunno why he’s so obsessed with it, I think maybe he fancies you,” You snort at this and Ada waits for you to stop laughing before continuing, “but he came over today and found the doctor’s note. He thought it was mine and when I said it wasn’t he put it all together.”

You groaned, “Fuck, Ada.”

“I’m sorry, he’s been badgering me for days, I didn’t expect him to show up at my house.”

There’s suddenly a loud knocking at your door and you sigh, “Well, looks like my employer’s here so I should go answer that.”

“I’m really sorry, Y/N, honest. When Tommy wants to know something, he figures it out.”

“It’s fine Ada.” The knocking grows louder, “I’m gonna go before your brother breaks down my door.”

They say their goodbyes and you shout that you’re coming so Tommy will stop pounding like murder on your door. When you finally push your couch away from the door and open it, Tommy bounds inside.

“I’m on vacation, you know.” You say moodily.

“You got an abortion.” He says it like an accusation.

“That’s my private information.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

You frown at the hurt in his voice, “Why would I tell you?”

“That’s a fuckin’ dangerous procedure, Y/N, why would you need to get something like that done? Were you worried about the money? Raising a baby? I could’ve helped. I would’ve helped you.”

You stare at him for a moment, “Are you serious? This is somehow about your hurt feelings because I didn’t give you the chance to provide for my baby, a baby I didn’t want?”

“You could’ve died, Y/N! It’s not fuckin’ about me, it’s about you! Did you even think about that?”

“Of course I fuckin’ thought about it!” You shouted, “And I decided I’d rather be dead than carry around the baby of the man who raped me, alright? Is that what you wanted to fuckin’ hear, Tommy?”

He looks as if you’d punched him in the stomach, “Wha–? Rape? Who?”

You shake your head, “It’s not important.”

“That’s bullshit,” He’s angry again, “Who was it?”

“It’s none of your fuckin’ business Tommy. I know you can’t stand it when you don’t know everything, but it’s not your business. I don’t need you running around killing people in my honor. It’s already been taken care of.”

“Taken care of? By who?”

You stand there shaking your head, “Why do you need to know? Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”

“Because you’re my employee, I’m responsible for you.”

“Polly and Ada took care of it for me. Please just drop it.” You wince and bring your hand to your abdomen. Tommy rises immediately and guides you to the bed.

“Are you alright?” He brushes the back of his knuckles against your cheek as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. 

His face is very close to yours and it reminds you of the crush you had on him when you first met the Shelbys. You used to watch him smoke and ended up picking up the habit just so you’d have an excuse to have some alone time with him outside the office. “Fine.” You murmur, tearing your eyes from his.

He sits on the edge of your bed quietly for a few moments before breaking the silence, “I’m sorry if I… Pushed you too hard.” You snort. He continues as if he didn’t hear, “I’ve always felt… Protective of you since you befriended Ada and came to work for us. You’ve always been so… happy.” He smiles at the recollection of your first day at the office. You had been walking around humming, putting flowers on everyone’s desk. John told you he would cut you if you didn’t stop humming, and you simply giggled and tucked a flower behind his ear. John had smiled the rest of the day. “I never wanted this world to change you and now I feel responsible for allowing all of this to happen.”

“Tommy, you didn’t… How could you have stopped it?”

“It was Frank, wasn’t it? The one Pol let go on his first week? She told me he stole something.”

Tears prick your eyes and you look away from him, “He trapped me in a coat closet at the Garrison on a Friday after we all headed there after work. I drank too much.” You shrug and swipe at your eyes, “It was my fault, Tommy, not yours.”

He’s shaking his head, “It was your fault for getting drunk in my bar? In the one place nothing should have ever harmed you? I hired him. I was at that bar. I noticed you were both gone and I just thought maybe you had taken a liking to him. I should’ve looked for you.”

“S’Alright, Tommy. I don’t blame you. I blame him.” He’s quiet now, and then you remember something that makes you laugh, “You know, Ada said on the phone that she thinks you’re acting like this because you fancy me. She’s absolutely barking, but it gave me a good laugh.”

Tommy’s still quiet, but he turns to look at you. Not a hint of a smile on his face, “Would it be so horrible if I did?” He turns away from you quickly, “Don’t answer that.”

You frown at him, “Tommy, you–?” You shake your head, “I’m nothing like the women you typically go after, I’ve seen them, I’m not–”

He shakes his head, “Just forget it.” He stands, pulling his cap back on, “Let me know if you need anything.”

“Tommy, wait!” But he’s already gone, the door shut behind him. “Fuck.” You swore and fell back against your pillows.

***

You spent most of your days away from work debating on ringing Tommy and then thinking better of it. Before you knew it, it was time to return to work. You weren’t 100% yourself again, you weren’t sure if you ever would be after what Frank had done to you. But, you felt much better. You even brought some flowers into the office today.

John hugged you when you came in, taking his flowers and saying he missed you, which made you smile. You went around the office distributing the flowers, until you knocked on the door of Tommy’s study.

“Come in.” You heard his voice call through the door.

You ignored the way your heart seemed to want to jump out of your chest as you leaned against the door behind you. “I brought you some flowers.” You say quietly and he looks up from his work.

Then he looks back down, no emotion on his face, “You look well.”

You place the vase you had already filled with water and sugar on his desk and then place the flowers inside, “Can we talk?”

“Is it important? I’m busy.”

You almost back out just then, thinking maybe everything he had told you was a fever dream that you had imagined, but you stand your ground. “Yeah, it is.”

He looks up again, placing his pen down, and gesturing for you to sit, “Go on, then.”

You take a deep breath, “I never smoked before I met you, you know. I didn’t drink whiskey before, either. I started smoking so I’d have an excuse to be alone with you during the day and I started drinking whiskey to impress you. But I knew I wasn’t like the women you were attracted to, I saw the girls you watched carefully in the Garrison.” You shrugged, “So I never said anything. I was happy just getting what little attention you’d give me. But I’ve been in love with you for ages, Tom.”

He’s shaking his head, “You’re the girl who brings flowers to the office everyday and you think you’re in love with me?” You open your mouth to protest, but he holds a finger up to quiet you, “How about this, eh? After you told me to leave it alone, I left your apartment and tracked down Frank. Then I brought him back here and I tortured him for three hours before I finally killed him and burned his body. You still think you love me?”

You shake your head, “I know what you do, I know what kind of man you are, it doesn’t scare me. I’d been fantasizing about you killing him for weeks, so, thank you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me in the first place?”

“Because I was ashamed, Tommy. I blamed myself, hated myself, every second of every day until you came to my apartment and told me it wasn’t my fault.” Tears stream down her face now, “I didn’t want you to look at me differently. Like damaged goods.”

He looks at you like he’s not quite sure what to do, but eventually stands and walks around his desk to meet you. “Come on, stand up.” He coaxes and pulls you out of your seat and into his arms, “I’m sorry.” He says, stroking your hair, “I won’t let anything happen to you again, alright?”

He pulls back to press your foreheads together, “I love you. Nothing you do will ever change that.”

His face is so close to yours, his breath intoxicating, you can barely think about anything else. You manage a nod and then you slowly lean just a centimeter forward, to see how he reacts. His hand is on the back of your neck and reaches up to tangle in your hair before he pulls you forward the remaining inch. The kiss starts off soft and tentative, both of you seemingly unsure if the other is going to break it off at any moment. But then Tommy sinks his teeth into your bottom lip and you can’t help the way you moan.

Tommy backs you into the desk and then lifts you up to sit on it before pulling away breathlessly, “Is this… Is this alright? I know you’re probably…” He trails off and you know he’s thinking of Frank, “We can stop.”

It was true you knew you couldn’t handle the idea of sex at the moment, but kissing him was blissful. Kissing him you could do, “Can we just… Keep doing this for a while? Nothing more?”

He smiles, “We can do whatever you want, sweetheart.” And then he leans down to kiss and suck on your neck, your eyes rolling back at his touch.

“Tommy,” You said and he pulled away immediately, searching your eyes with concern, “I love you, too, you know. No matter what you do.”

He smiles again and it’s truly lovely, even lovelier that it’s just for you. He brings his hands back up to cradle your face and softly kisses your mouth, “I think you should probably get back to work now.”

You nod and slide off the desk, “Okay.”

He gives you one more kiss and then you walk out of the study. When you look back at him as you shut the door, he’s still watching you, a grin on his face. You weren’t exactly healed, not entirely yourself again yet, but you think with Tommy’s help you’ll get there one day.

You smile to yourself as Tommy walks around the office humming for the rest of the day.

[sylvie-writes]

Loopy

Request: can you write something where the reader calls steve "stevie" for the first time during some random cute moment and he's just like, really flustered and cute about it -anon

Thanks for the request hon! Hope you like it!

Warnings: any inaccuracies and grammar mistakes (it’s midnight for me once again)

Indulging.

It could be a sin.

And here you were indulging in a nice buttery bag of fresh popcorn. Tony had recently invested in a vintage popcorn machine and the whole team couldn’t get enough of the new fad item.

Repeatedly you popped the delicious treat in your mouth, savoring every salty bite. Think of it as a reward! The whole team, including you, had gotten back from a night mission that left you feeling sleep deprived. So instead of sleeping like most of the team, you stayed up with Wanda making popcorn and binging the Hunger Games. She had never seen any of the movies before and you figured what better time than at the ungodly hour of 3 am to start a twelve hour marathon.

Somehow Wanda was wide awake, maybe blame it on the cliffhanger of each movie keeping her so energized. You reached in the bucket and to your surprise, your hand had almost reached to the bottom.

Just shrugging, you crunched on the last few pieces of popcorn before suddenly yelping in pain.

Wanda immediately paused the movie and rushed to your side from her end of the couch.

“Oh my gosh! (y/n) are you ok?!”

The immense amount of pain was so strong you couldn’t even form words, just tears.

“I’m gonna go get Steve!” With that Wanda rushed down the hall and to the elevator, leaving your hand glued to the point of pain in your jaw.

Seconds later Steve came running in, only sweats on, he didn’t even care to throw on a shirt, too worried about your well being. If your tooth would stop palpitating, maybe you could be amazed by his carefree state, but at the moment you cared more about the tooth.

Steve crouched down in front of you, holding your face in his hands, while Wanda went to go turn on the lights. It was 7 am and no one cared at this point if the team could hear or not.

“Sweetheart, I need you to let me see what’s wrong.”

Reluctantly, you removed your hand and he patted your thigh reassuringly before placing his hand back to its original place on your face. Gently prying your mouth open, Steve looked around the best he could in the morning lighting. In a matter of minutes, Steve saw your back right molar cracked.

“Oh honey, your molar is cracked.”

A sound of distress came from you and Steve laughed, earning a smack from Wanda.

She went to go get you an ice pack while Steve helped you up from the couch to take you back to bed. Wanda handed you the pack of ice that was more valuable than your life at the moment. In appreciation, you hugged her before she continued her movie marathon.

It was almost impossible to sleep the remaining three hours. You tossed and turned in an attempt to calm your nervousness. Steve was out like a light, the poor baby was so worn out from the day's event.

That very morning, Steve immediately got out from the bed and made an emergency appointment with your dentist.

“Ok babe, your appointment is at 10:30, you better get going.” He sat on the edge of your bed brushing your hair to reveal your baggy eyes. A frown rolled onto his face and he kissed a side of your cheekbone.

The clock read 9:00 am, meaning you best get up now or suffer in pain, you could always sleep later. Right?

Due to Steve’s military upbringing and his punctuality, you were there exactly at 10:30 am. The office was practically empty except for the receptionist and the tv playing in the corner. It couldn’t be that bad? Just a filling, that was all you were hoping for, but nope!

“Ms. (y/l/n) your right mandibular 2nd molar is split into two separate parts. You’ll need an extraction” The doctor looked at your face of fear as your eyes grew wide.

The doctor went on giving you all the details and pros and cons. He mentioned it needed to be done now so the crack wouldn’t further. You were put in a position to basically be forced to agree.

“Doll, it’s gonna be fine.” Steve kissed your forehead before the dental assistant ushered him to the waiting room.

Your breathing and heart increased tenfold as they put the mask on your face, pushing nitrous oxide into your body, finally causing your body to calm.

While under anesthesia you had no sense of time whatsoever, you could barely even remember when you fell into the dark void of sleep.

It must’ve been an hour that passed before you woke up to the dental assistant giving you some precautions and telling you to take it easy before she left. The anesthetics made it impossible to focus on what she was saying. Your head was spinning and you tried your best to act normal. Mission Failed.

Steve walked in after speaking with the doctor who was giving him the numerous amount of pain medicine prescriptions. You could blame it on the medicine, but his smile seemed so bright. Honestly, it felt like you were hungover.

“How are you feeling, (y/n)?” Steve stroked your face, well actually the jaw wrap around your head. He felt absolute pity for you. One minute you were enjoying your precious popcorn and then the next it cracked your tooth.

You just giggled at his touch, slightly tossing around in the chair. Steve looked completely baffled, after all he had never been around anyone under the influence of nitrous oxide. Back in his day, you were wide awake probably screaming internally to yourself the question of why you were there in the first place.

“Hiya Stevie! Oh! You’re gorgeous!”

Giggles once again spewed from your mouth as you turned to look at the blonde who was blushing madly. You had only been dating for a month by now and of course there were pet names, but never Stevie. Naturally, Steve’s reaction was to be embarrassed, but that didn’t mean that he thought it wasn’t cute.

“Don’t you get all shy on me now, Cutie!” Your hands went to his face to smoosh his cheeks and lips together, creating a duck face.

“Hon, I think you should get some rest now, c’mon.” Steve tried to help you up from the chair since the doctor had already discharged you.

“Stevie! Just like Stevia the sweetner!” In a sing-songy voice, you garbled out the words.

Let’s just say after many attempts, Steve finally just wrapped his arms around your waist. It was hilarious! You tried to kiss his face the whole way, and just ended up laughing endlessly, all while high on the laughing gas. If he weren’t so busy caring for you, Steve would have loved to record this and blackmail you later. Well, not blackmail per se, just payback after you recorded him one night, drunkenly blabbering about his love for you. Yeah, Thor let him have the Asgardian Mead…

Once Steve got you in the car and secure, you both went to go get the pain medicine. It was about a few minutes later, you were still talking, claiming you were fine, but mid sentence you just fell asleep causing Steve to snicker. At the stop light he snapped a picture of you sleeping with your mouth wide open, leaning on the seatbelt with your jaw wrapped. You’d absolutely murder him later, but that’s a whole other story.

The prescriptions were unexpectedly ready in time, making the drive back to the compound even shorter.

Steve himself was tired, yet he pushed through, carrying you from the car all the way to your shared room. You stirred and found yourself on his shoulder.

“Woah buddy boy! We haven’t even gone on a date yet!”

You slurred and laughed to yourself, falling back asleep, but not before catching a glimpse of Tony and Natasha, mocking the incident that just happened.

Carefully, Steve laid you from his shoulder and onto your bed.

He pecked your forehead before changing into his own pair of comfortable clothes, snuggling against your smaller body. He didn’t fear that he’d wake you up because at the current moment you were snoring louder than a middle aged man.

Many hours later, the sun was down, meaning it must’ve been dinner time. You groggily awoke from your sleep, trying to recollect your memories. As you looked around the room, Steve’s side was empty and you went to turn on the lamp on the nightstand only to be met with one thing…

The picture Steve had taken of you in the car with a note which read; “Dinner will be ready soon, doll.” A small winky face beside the ending. That sneaky son of a biscuit knew exactly what he was doing!

You just picked up the picture and burst into a fit of laughter.

Okay so maybe you deserved it…

[iamnightduchess]

As You Are - Special Chapter (R18) : Perfect Storm

Chapter summary:

The ethereal vision that greeted his eyes upon entry should be that of one of the forbidden sins in the history of humankind. She was even more breathtakingly beautiful in her purest form - scars and marks, imperfections and all.

Like the cracks on an unbreakable golden chalice.

He was the luckiest son of a gun to be the first to drink from said chalice and it made the wine tasted even sweeter. He could get drunk or get high on this woman for all eternity.

Reiner realizes he might have just unleashed an unstoppable storm when he drank from her chalice. He’d known she'd become an inescapable addiction upon first taste, the way he would be hers. He’ll get her so high, she’ll never come back down anymore. It’s a perfect extrication.

Well, you’ll never get to heaven if you’re scared of getting high.

Pure smut. A 10k special Thank You insert. Available on AO3.

A/N: This chapter is a special insert as an appreciation to my beautiful readers for their amazing support in helping me achieve my second personal writing milestone - 10k hits! It’s beyond my wildest dreams ever. Thank you so much, guys! This is also my personal belated birthday present for Mikasa on 10 February (and Reiner’s VA ;D) and an early Valentine’s gift to my beloved OTP and to you guys. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Content note: Pure smut in its truest explicit nature. No plot advancement. Just a good ol’ short chapter of ReiKasa dicking it out in the showers, discovering more of each other and a post-coital small talk on Reiner’s personal choice of drawers. Or lack of it. Who says Reiner is not taking their baby making efforts seriously? Takes place in ch.12 of As You Are.

Rhythmic muse: High by Alina Baraz.

----

Take me deep into your mind...we can get away…

As You Are

Special Chapter

Perfect Storm

Reiner closed the distance that stood between the bed and the bathroom in three long, hurried strides. He couldn’t be bothered with fixing his yukata; he let the shift hang open, letting himself hang out in the open. The sounds of the morning storm and early rolling thunder in the far horizon had been almost deafening, only several knots away from being too close to their fleet. The breeze slipping through the opened windows grazed against his nude torso in a prickling coldness. The second he stopped short in front of the steel arc of the bathroom door, he remained still.

His eyes glazed over the statuesque figure standing underneath the pouring shower, covered by only skin - porcelain, smooth, inviting. Sounds of the raging storm outside only emphasized more of this mystifying woman's beauty in its natural state, no different than a tantalizing spell cast by nature itself. The steam evaporating from the showerhead formed a curious, enticing silhouette around her body. His eyes lingered fondly at the way she closed her eyes in bliss under the long steady streams of hot water flowing down those supple skin, tinting her lusciousness raw with a delectable blush. Serene, lost in her own tranquil space.

Apart from bearing the reddening imprints that he’d left on her long slender neck from their lovemaking much earlier, between the enticing lines of her svelte curves and enticing edges, her creamy skin wore numerous dark marks and scars with their respective stories - ones that he was very aware of mostly. Long-term ODM usage would be responsible for most of them.

Others?

They were beckoning him to seek out the answers.

Just half an hour earlier, his body took hers for the first time. Reiner tasted heaven when she reeled him in to the deepest, most sacred part of her. With every pull and every push, he could feel himself unburdened everytime their hips met.

Lighter and unshackled.

Liberated and wanted.

Desired and needed.

The water flowed down her face and he found himself becoming envious of the way the warm liquid gets to lave at those long lashes, the sharp outline of her nose and her lips in a soft translucent caress.

He had all of her and he was left wanting more.

Reiner shrugged the night shift off his shoulders without any hesitation and stepped into the bathroom. A small marble tub, almost full to the brim, sat at the farthest corner of the room just next to an old gold-framed wall mirror which appeared to be more relic than vanity. In the dim lighting of the clouded sun peeking through the windows, the steaming water looked absolutely inviting.

A sigh escaped his lips. He could really use a good, long soak right now.

A low, guarded moan pulled his attention back to the now flushing body underneath the flowing water. He ran his tongue against his thin lips impulsively at the visual stimulation; she was as vivid, tempting, no different than a marble carved into perfection. All hard and muscled exterior, safeguarding the soft centre within. Painted with dark marks of bruises and battle scars of untold histories - a privilege he no longer had since the moment he inherited his Titan powers at the age of eleven. But she wore them naturally with effortless pride. Priceless yet they're worth more than some steel medal of honors he’d seen the men in Marley’s military fought to the death for.

Reiner closed the distance between them, stopping just in front of her with their bodies almost grazing. She opened her eyes, those anxious gunmetal irises in between the flowing water somehow confided that just like him, she’d never been this exposed; naked and vulnerable in front of another person in her whole entire life before. He saw the way she crossed her arms against her chest and the juncture of her thighs in uncertainty, conscious and suddenly feeling the need to cover herself even when he’d seen almost all of her much earlier.

He lifted her chin with a delicate touch. The pad of his thumb began to caress the outline of her lush pursed lips before tugging her lower lip gently, savoring the sensuous way her breath felt against his skin and the feral manner she bit at his fingertip.

His member twitched in reflex upon the sudden stimulation, threatening to break his own self restraint.

He grinned regardless. Apparently, he’s not the only biter in this marriage and that realization only got him being turned on more than ever before. Eager to find out just how much more wicked she could be. Just how much more of him she’d bite.

Reiner nudged her arms away from her chest gently, marveling as the perky globes bounced softly from the slight movement and finding himself staring far too long in amazement at the tempting blush on her face leading all the way down her drenched neck and to her chest. His hands began to knead the sculpted packs on her abdomen instead, touching a much larger discolored mark encircling her under chest, that resembled the shape of a large incomplete strap that was far too large to be from the ODM gear.

He couldn't help but wonder. "How did you get this?" His hands continued rubbing against the mark that stood out so painfully amongst her pale, milky complexion.

She swallowed bitterly, her expression darkened as a wave of recollection began to resurface. "The day you and Bertholdt tried to take Eren, I had been reckless. I was too focused on saving Eren from your titan's clutch that I was grabbed by a pure titan from behind. It broke my ribs immediately and I might have died that day if it wasn't for Jean's help." From the way she winced, it made him understand that the mark remained capable of inciting an unpleasant phantom pain upon reminiscence even years after it happened. She conceded to her own insecurity, reaffirming his perception. "It's ugly. I hated seeing it every time I looked at the mirror."

It was him, his ignorance and his selfishness who had indirectly caused that mark and left her with a painful reminder that she could never get rid of from her body.

His first mark on her body ever.

Reiner gritted his teeth in tremendous guilt and frustration. God, he didn’t know. It must have been extremely excruciating for her. He immediately lowered himself downwards with his knees rooted onto the cold bathroom floor, causing her to gasp and eyes to widen in surprise. Grabbing her on the curves of her waist, he looked up and sent her a grave look of regret. “I’m so sorry for all that I’ve done to you. All the pain that I’ve caused….” His apology manifested itself through a morose whisper. The warm of his breath, the tantalizing graze of his coarse facial hair and the light brushing of his lips against her taut skin sent the rippling muscles of her abdomen jumping in an enticing jolt. He could feel her hands grabbing the back of his head gingerly, fingers gripping his now wet tresses, her calm breaths getting heavier yet he didn't do anything further than burying his face against her torso even when his lips were already close to her mound. “Don’t hate the mark. Hate me. I did that to you.”

“No. I won’t.” Mikasa shook her head, dismissing the absurdity in his plea.

She thinks the mark is hideous yet not even once, ever held him accountable for it. 

It only made her even more exquisite in his eyes. He implored, “Anything on you or what you are would never not be beautiful to me.” 

They both remained still in that quiet moment, losing themselves in their own intimate sanctuary. Only the sound of running water and the steady storm outside accompanied their mutual embrace of the other's past sins, repercussions and acceptance of each other's flaws and imperfections.

----

Mikasa pushed Reiner’s rock hard body against the cold bathroom wall using her own as their lips once again tried to wrestle each other out of an imbalance between air, warmth and rapture using their tongues and teeth. Torsos and limbs brushing up against each other, his larger hands grabbed the supple exterior of her derriere, cupping and squeezing them raw with his palms - he could even write his name on the supple skin using his finger nails. He pressed inwards so that their hips grinded tantalizingly against each other in a torturous friction. His member then jerked upwards into a semi-hardening state from feeling her on him alone. He breathed her in; her signature scent was already bathing his skin and his body already stained by her warmth.

Mikasa pulled away from the kiss and gazed deep into his eyes. While he took advantage of the immediate breather to touch the tip of his nose against her own, causing the corners of her lips to curve upwards into a tiny, shy smile.

He'd only ever dreamed of being in heaven but if this feels like being in one, then he’d rather stay like this with her forever. His hands fiddled around the curves of her waist, squeezing the willowy contour passionately, loving the feel of her soft wet skin in his hands.

Her fingertips kept on trailing along the column of his neck, grabbing gently at his nape before settling on his shoulders, gripping carefully at the juncture of his limbs to soothe the strained muscle knots she’d discovered there. Her dominant hand later began trailing along his sternum, a finger drawing a straight, tantalizing line down his chest. Through every inch of skin that she touched, he could sense a tiny spark pulsing through his veins, reawakening the already satiated lust within.

A small hiss escaped through his gritted teeth the second her roughened palms caressed his chest with languid but precise circular motions. He observed the way her thumbs traced unhurried circles against the second most sensitive spots on his body and the way the muscles of his own pectorals and abs jumped in reflex from her touch.

Reiner let out a long languid whimper upon the sudden exhilaration. Mirroring her actions, a hand moved upwards from the rounded mound of her ass along her spine teasingly before curving sideways. His large palm seized one of her porcelain globes in his hold and he pressed on the dusky nub using his thumb, rubbing the hardened tip with the cautious of touch. Nibbling tenderly on her cheek, his question came out in a low, shaky drawling against her ears. “Mikasa...how do you want me to touch you...fast or slow….?”

Her answer came in the lowest, deepest whimper from her chest. “Either...Just keep going...” Eyes tightly shut, his younger bride threw her head back in an increasing rapture and a low, unguarded groan escaped her gasping lips upon the intensity of his touch. He watched in wonder, tinged with a tiny pride upon the new discovery - she’s extremely sensitive there it seems.

This exotic beauty's body is a dynamite yet at the same time, an undiscovered wonderland, primed for his lifelong conquest - one he'll never want to stop worshipping.

Through every breath and every inch.

Through every touch and through every kiss.

The tip of his nose ventured from her temple down her slender neck before halting right above the swelling of those appetizing twin mounds of her chest. Kiss her he did, at the same spot he just savored. He drew the outline of the weighty globe with his tongue, suckling hard and absolutely losing himself to the bliss of her skin’s sweetness to the way her soft cries sounded to his ears - muffled by his messy wet tresses, ensnared by her own open mouth kisses. He could feel the warmth of her breath on his scalp as her heaving became more urgent. His plastering bangs grazed her chest until they turned into a flushing mess.

His other hand had already made its own bold move by slipping in between the juncture of her thighs and running the pads of his digits across her wet slit. She immediately gritted her teeth upon the sudden invasion, probably due to the soreness from his earlier thrusting, but he’d sooner turned her hissing to another wave of moans when he caressed her lower mound with a wickedly soothing rhythm. 

Too lost he was in the beguiling pleasure that would sooner overtake all sense of inhibition that he’d missed the way her nimble hand had already wrapped itself around his member, already stretched out to its peaked state. The coolness of her palm burned the most sensitive part of his body as the skillful hand of a competent blade wielder projected her prowess through the way she handled his length -- with thorough, natural precision.

He just kept on growing stronger in her hands.

No one has ever made him feel like this before.

No one.

He could feel as if his soul was leaving the confinements of his physical form the moment he saw her dropping down to her knees, just like he did with her earlier. However this time, when she gazed at him with those tempestuous eyes and burning cheeks, he’d know he’ll never be able to resist her newly-unearthed desirous appetite.

It was quite contradictory that even when he’s the one who’s looking down at her right now, she’d always have the power to make him yield to her silent commandeering force.

Despite the flowing water washing away at their skins, he’s still stained by her; her essences seeping through his pores in unwavering waves no different than a perfect raging storm piercing through a man’s perseverance.

Oh God, she’s just naturally good at blowing him... and his mind.

----

He ran his lips against the irezumi on her back, drawing a cross with his tongue like a sacred offering, lapping up the water drizzling down her skin like the nectar of an exotic flower. Right before he filled the impure void within through one messy yet solid thrust into her, clinging to her lithe body from behind as they fell into a familiar, acquired rhythm not too long after.

He pulled her in for another searing kiss from behind. His other hand underneath one of her knees, his larger build pressed her slightly smaller frame hard against the wall through every onslaught of his hips against hers. Both of them were getting off of the high from the other.

Mikasa’s relentless moans soon turned into a long, dragged out, almost incoherent chanting of his name; urging him, needing him with every part of her being, that she’d broke the skin on his forearm when she became undone on his third deep thrust.

Reiner observed the way Mikasa tried to wash away the bleeding from the bite-shaped bruise on his arm with the water from inside the tub itself. He dismissed her attempt by pulling her body snug against his chest, staring at the mark in awe and reassuring her with nothing less than pride in his tone. “Hey, that’s my first mark from you.” He still remembered how she managed to cut off the same hand clean from his wrist on top of Wall Rose years ago.

“It’ll be a scar.” She persisted, still trying to argue with his insistence.

She gave him his first mark and without his regenerative powers, that mark will remain on his body forever until he’s buried six feet under.

He buried his nose into her drenched hair, taking in the scent from the glycerine soap he used on her earlier. “All the better because it’s from you.”

They stayed for a while inside the ceramic tub, with her head resting against his shoulder and his arms around her, listening to the sounds of rolling thunder and turbulent sea waves coming through the opened windows of the bathroom.

After a good while, it was her who suggested that they step out and step back into the awaiting demands of the day. “We should really get going before Gabi storms in for another ‘rescue’ attempt.”

Snickering, he released her reluctantly and sent an admiring stare at her retreating figure, still dripping with bath water until she disappeared behind the door to their shared chamber.

By the time he followed suit into the conjoined bedroom, she had pulled her skirt over her hips. She stared in disbelief the moment she saw him discarding the towel around his waist and had his legs through his breeches immediately.

Her inquisitive gaze did not go unnoticed. “What? I travelled light and I wasn’t expecting the detour to the Island.” Everything he had was on his body.

“All this time, you’re…” Her words trailed off suspiciously.

A thin eyebrow raised snarkily to emphasize his answer. “Yeah. I’d prefer not wearing one either way. It’s breezier and actually a much healthier habit too.”

“Whatever suits you.” Mikasa shook her head, feigning an impending state of disinterest while fending off an oncoming headache.

He gave her an improper wink. “You’ll thank me when I have given you healthy, kickass babies, Mikasa.”

She groaned in retaliation at his blatant lewdness. A trait of his that has always been apparent since they were younger still remained despite the years that had gone by in between. Despite all that, she couldn’t help her lips from curving into an amused smile.

Just a fleeting thought of envisioning a strong young boy or a girl with golden blonde hair, cheeky comebacks and a headstrong attitude was enough to make the fuzziness in her heart return right before the fleeting fantasy was interrupted by the same vision but with three more of the same identical boys and girls and a burning house of chaos behind them.

“....four be a lot?”

“Huh?” She blinked back at his question.

“I was asking, would four babies be a lot for you?”

She’d known it was an intended humor. They both knew that he couldn’t possibly have enough time for such an unattainable dream. She wasn’t oblivious to the dismal glint in his eyes.

“Perfect.” Her heart suddenly felt a lot heavier.

---

A/N : After what went down in the previous chapter, I am willing to be virtually sucker-punched by you guys because of this chapter. I am hurting my emotional well-being with this chapter, and I said to myself, why should I be suffering alone? Haha Kidding, guys. Thank you so much for your time & till the next update! Take care & stay safe. xoxo

[percy-the-penguin]

The Breaking Point 2/?

I promise the next chapter will be better I just ran out of creativity and didn’t want to rewrite it  This contains a short musical scene. The song is Erase Me by Ben Folds Five Word count: 1037 TW: Fire, mentions of blood, let me know if there’s anything else I missed

That’s exactly where Boleyn was found. She sat in that same position the whole night. Knees to her chest and her head tucked between them. Luckily she had stopped crying by the time Parr walked in 

“B?” She called softly 

Boleyn sat up straight and took a deep breath before responding from her corner “Over here”

Boleyn usually wasn’t one for nicknames but Parr was her best friend so it was different 

Parr walked over and knelt in front of her “Are you okay? I was worried about you when you didn’t come in”

If she was so worried, why didn’t she come out to check on you earlier?

“Sorry for worrying you” Boleyn said evenly 

Parr looked alarmed when she noticed Boleyn’s hand

Boleyn glanced down at it. The blood was dried and it was swollen. She winced whenever she tried to move it 

“What happened?” Parr asked with concern

“Just a small mishap.” Boleyn soothed. She was fully aware it was broken 

“I think-” Parr quickly stopped herself, not wanting to get in trouble for saying what she thought. Not again. Never again

“You can tell me” 

Parr looked back up shyly “I think you should get it checked out” she said in a whisper 

Boleyn nodded her acceptance “Alright. I’ll get it checked out. I’ll go right now in fact”

“Thank you” Parr said with a small smile “Would you like me to come with you?”

“Oh, no, that’s quite alright. You should stay here, help make sure Seymour doesn’t kill anyone”

Parr nodded “Okay.”

Bolenyn stood and waved a goodbye to Parr with her good hand before starting the walk, the loneliness creeping over her once again

She frowned as she came back an hour and a half later “Guys?” she called but there was no response

They had done it again. Left her alone. She couldn’t believe it. She had gone to get her wrist and hand fixed up, having come back with a green cast on it and everyone was gone. She checked her phone and no texts either. So now here she was, sitting in the garage and furiously writing every possible social interaction, every possibility, every outcome, trying to figure out what she had done wrong. She hadn’t hurt these people, why were they being like this? She froze as her pencil suddenly snapped in her hand. She dropped the remaining half, her breathing shaky 

“What was our home?” 

Boleyn glanced at a picture of the original queens 

“Paper not stone..”

She watched as a small air current made the picture flutter to the ground

Memories swarmed through her mind of the past days

“A lean to the most. Oh when you pour..you're half away. Gravity want..like it always does”

She was pulled from the memories back to her place in the garage

“Did I waste time?”

She moved a page to look at another

“Would it be easier..? To just delete..our pages and the plans we've made?”

Images flashed through her mind. Aragon, Seymour, Cleves, Howard, Parr. She slammed her hand on the desk

“Erase me, so you don’t have to face me”

She flipped the surface in front of her 

“Put me in the ground and move the daisies. Ah, the memory, see how it goes, when you erase me.”

She ripped three of the pages in half

“Erase me.” she watched them fall to the floor

She picked up some more papers and a lighter 

“So what will you do? With no me for you.”

She set a corner of the paper on fire as Parr walked in

“B?”

“I know what we said. What if I left, a thing to” 

She dropped the burning papers to the ground as the others walked in

“We know that you don't seem to think about what you need to if you reached you'll find that you..have erased me”

The papers caught fires to others and smoke rose lightly behind Boleyn 

“What the fuck is this?” Seymor asked

“You’re crazy!” Howard said 

Someone rushed to presumably get a fire extinguisher but Boleyn couldn’t tell who, everything was a blur

“Turn around in two weeks time” Boleyn glared at how close Anne and Parr were standing “replace me”

“Ah, the memories” Boleyn flicked the lighter on “Everybody knows how it goes” she watched the flame with a smirk  “you just erase me!”

The desk was also on fire and she dropped the lighter on the ground next to some wood 

“And if you feel nothing, guess what I’m gonna be” Boleyn looked to them 

“Nothing”

Her expression went blank as Cleves, rushed in, putting the fires out with the extinguisher 

She didn’t hear when people started yelling. She barely felt herself moving as she pushed past them and left out the front door. It didn’t even register when she came too hours later standing at the edge of a lake, her phone broken on the ground in front of her

Her emotions suddenly took over and she collapsed to the ground. She hit her head on a rock

Then there was darkness 

When she woke up again she was laying in bed with no recollection of what happened after the pencil snapped. She shut her eyes again as the light made a sharp pain stab through her head. She groaned in pain as she put her pillow over her face 

“Oh you’re awake” Said a voice with absolutely no enthusiasm, maybe even a bit of disappointment. It was Howard 

“Yes” Boleyn stated “Now turn the lights off you..you..” she struggled to come up with the word. She grimaced and groaned 

“Wow that’s the first time you’ve ever not finished a paragraph”

Boleyn threw the pillow that had previously been over her face at her cousin with a scowl 

“What happened? Why does my head hurt so bad”

“You set a fire and we found you bleeding next to a lake”

Boleyn scoffed “Please, I would never be that stupid”

“Yeah that’s what we thought too, bitch” Howard mumbled 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Figure it out, you know everything else” was the response Howard snapped back

“Why are you here?” Boleyn asked suddenly 

“Fuck off” Howard said quietly, keeping her head down as she exited the room

“Hm” Boleyn said in contemplation. Maybe part of her cousin did care after all. A small smile formed on her face as diluted thoughts formed 

They like you. You’re doing something right. Keep doing it, you can’t lose them too

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Eccentricity [Chapter 10: Stay, I Need To Be Myself]

A/N: I hope you enjoyed the fluffy times while they lasted. 😉

Series Summary: Joe Mazzello is a nice guy with a weird family. A VERY weird family. They have a secret, and you have a choice to make. Potentially a better love story than Twilight.

Chapter Title Is A Lyric From: “Where Were You When The Sky Opened Up” by The Dangerous Summer.

Chapter Warnings: Language, sexual references (not graphic), angstttttttttt.

Word Count: 6k. 

Other Chapters (And All My Writing) Available: HERE

Taglist: @queen-turtle-boiii​​​ @bramblesforbreakfast​​​​​​ @maggieroseevans​​​​ @culturefiendtrashqueen​​​​ @imnotvibingveryguccimrstark​​​​ @escabell​​​​ @im-an-adult-ish​​​​​ @queenlover05​​​​ @someforeigntragedy​​​​ @imtheinvisiblequeen​​​​ @seven-seas-of-ham-on-rhyee​​​​ @deacyblues​​​​ ​ @tensecondvacation​​​ @brianssixpence​​​​ @some-major-ishues​​​ @haileymorelikestupid​​​ @youngpastafanmug​​​ @simonedk​

Uninvited

“Hey, it’s our song!” Joe turned up the radio as he steered his Subaru down the Lees’ cobblestone driveway and into a parking spot facing the woods. We’d been back from Chicago for a full week now, and—with the notable exceptions of classes and the early morning hours when Joe soundlessly crept out of my bedroom window—were very rarely apart.

“And I would do anything for love

I’d run right into hell and back

I would do anything for love

I’d never lie to you and that's a fact.”

“Uh, this is not our song,” I objected, the soles of my shoes propped against the dashboard. “I was not consulted. A couple’s official song cannot be a unilateral decision.”

“But I'll never forget the way you feel right now

Oh no, no way

And I would do anything for love

Oh I would do anything for love

I would do anything for love, but I won’t do that

No, I won’t do that.”

“Oh okay, what are you, the relationship police? Alright, Chief Baby Swan, let’s hear your brilliant suggestion. Wait, let me guess. Something by The Killers. Vampire Weekend. My Bloody Valentine. Is there a band called Chipotle Veggie Bowl?”

“Never Gonna Give You Up?” I suggested.

He laughed, dragging me over the center console and into his lap. “Oh, you are the worst!”

I straddled him in the driver’s seat, cupped his face in my palms, giggled as I touched my lips to his, soft and cool and lithe and inviting. When I broke the kiss, Joe pulled me back in, knotting his fingers through my hair. The way my thighs fit perfectly around him; that sharp, instinctual, now so familiar ache of longing. “I want you,” I breathed.

He pretended to be scandalized. “Right now? At this exact moment? In my parents’ driveway?”

“Yeah,” I confessed.

He grinned, unbuckling his belt. “Okay.”

“Really?!”

“Yes. I’ve lost all sense of decency. I’m an animal. You’ve absolutely ruined me.” His hands travelled beneath my U Chicago sweatshirt and tore it over my head. Yes, he had converted me to Chicago apparel. It was very embarrassing. Let’s move on.

“I’m sorry,” I moaned softly. I lied. I wasn’t sorry at all.  

“I think we might need to get our own place.”

“Why?”

“Because I love the way you ruin me. And I want you to do it...” He went on, kissing me after each word: “All. The. Fucking. Time.”

I yanked off his Cubs t-shirt in one vicious tug. “We’re okay out here?” I didn’t really care; I should have, I was aware of that. But I didn’t. The Lees, most likely, would not call my dad to report us for public indecency. I could imagine Scarlett’s voice in my head, warm with approval: Get it, girl.

“Totally. And we’re far enough away from the house, Rami shouldn’t be able to hear us.” Joe nipped lightly down the side of my neck: carefully, always so carefully.

“He’d only get your side of things anyway.”

“Well yeah, that’s what I’m worried about! Your thoughts wouldn’t be so intrusive. I don’t care if he knows I’m a fantastic lay.”

“Oh, are you?” I teased, grinding my hips against him. “I hadn’t noticed.”

Joe smiled as he unbuttoned my jeans, deliciously slowly. “Well let me...just...refresh your...memory...”

I kissed him, roughly and deeply, arching into him, biting his lower lip. Yes, yes, yes...

Joe pulled away, still smiling but blinking and dazed. “Wow, all the sudden I feel...like...really calm.”

“Thanks...?” A week of almost constant sex might do that to a person. Sure, maybe, what did I know? My lips found his again. My hand skated down his bare stomach and into the waistband of his boxers. Joe began to help me peel off my jeans; then he stopped.

“Wait wait wait, I know this feeling.” Joe lifted me off of him and pushed me back into the passenger’s seat, gently but stubbornly. I tried not to be offended.

“What—?”

“Shhh.” He grabbed the headrest of my seat and twisted around to peer out of the rear windshield. I followed his gaze. There was a new car in the driveway, parked up by the front porch: an anonymous black Honda Civic. The plate said California. It was probably a rental. “Oh fuck,” Joe whispered. His eyes were enormous, glassy, horrified.

“What is it?”

“Stay here.” He threw on his Cubs t-shirt, zipped his pants, fastened his belt. “Stay down, stay quiet. And no matter what happens do not get out of this car, do you understand me?”

“Joe, why—?”

“Do you understand me?” His voice was low but severe, so incredibly unlike him; his dark eyes were flinty. Just like that night with the apples in Mercy’s kitchen, that night when Ben almost...

“I understand,” I heard myself reply.  

“Good.” Joe climbed out of the Subaru—smoothing his shirt and then his tousled hair—and rushed over to intercept the unsolicited guest. I peeked around my headrest to watch, my right palm braced against the center console, that feverish lust that had been rushing through my bloodstream gradually weakening, perishing, vanishing like seawater baked from the sand under a rising sun.  

The stranger stepped out of the Honda Civic, and although I knew his face, it took me a moment to place him. It was like—I could only imagine, having never been myself—a child stumbling into their movie heroines and beloved stuffed animals come to life during their first trip to Disneyland, amazed and yet somehow gut-twistingly uneasy as they gawked up at that grotesquely inflated cartoon face, that mask of lipstick and rouge that didn’t quite match their recollections, that dreamlike mirage plucked from pages or screens and impelled into a physical form that suddenly swallowed up space and gravity and oxygen. I had seen this stranger before in the massive painting that adorned Gwilym Lee’s upstairs office.

Cato.

He was very tall and very beautiful, classically beautiful, Ben-level beautiful. Joe often jokingly referred to him as Idris Elba within the Lee household, and a mid-thirties version of Idris Elba was just about right. He wore an immaculately tailored grey suit and aviator sunglasses, which he removed to greet Joe, folding and then sliding them smoothly into the front pocket of his suit jacket. His face was solemn and observant; he had a closely-trimmed beard without a fleck of silver. He extended a hand, which Joe shook.

“Hey, Cato!” I heard Joe say, muffled through the walls of the Subaru. I couldn’t make out Cato’s replies; his voice sounded deep, rumbling, extremely level. “So nice of you to stop by! I didn’t know you were in town. Yeah, everyone’s doing great. Even Ben. Hahaha, yeah, you know how he is. You know exactly how he is. But it’s all good. Well look, I’m just gonna go run a friend home and then I’ll be back in fifteen, maybe twenty minutes and we can all chat. Okay? Awesome. Feel free to head inside, I’m sure Mercy would be thrilled to play hostess. There’s sweet tea in the fridge and a hummingbird cake on the counter and...oh, something else too...some weird type of cookies she baked this morning. Help yourself. I’ll be back before you can say ‘tyrannical vampire murder cult.’”

“Tyrannical vampire murder cult,” it looked like Cato replied without a hint of a smile. But he wasn’t paying attention to Joe anymore. His eyes had found the Subaru, and then me; he was staring with that intense, seeking bewilderment that reminded me of Rami and Lucy and Ben when I’d first met them, when they were still trying to puzzle out why my mind (and my mind alone) was a night-draped, silent ocean of the unknown.

He's trying to read me, I realized. He’s trying to read me and he can’t.

Joe was jogging back to the Subaru now. At last, Cato turned away from me and headed into the house. The carved pumpkins from Weber’s Farm still lined the front porch: Scarlett’s Thunderbird, Archer’s Vantage, Rami’s swooping bat, Lucy’s moon and stars, Joe’s moustached jack-o-lantern, my (but actually Gwil’s) snapshot under the sea, Ben’s miniature Lee residence complete with the winding cobblestone driveway. Joe swept into the driver’s seat, adjusted his rearview mirror, and spun out of the parking spot.

“Goddammit,” he hissed as we barreled down the driveway.

“Why is Cato here?”

“I have no idea.” Joe looked straight ahead as he drove, preoccupied, consumed with possibilities. His fingers drummed the steering wheel. “We have to pay dues to them, all the covens do. Gwil cuts a check. But that’s not until around the New Year. That’s almost always when Cato stops by. Collects the payment, interrogates us in a way that masquerades as conversation, hangs around town for a few days, reports back whatever we’re up to...which usually isn’t much. Holidays with the extended family, gotta love it. I don’t know why he would be here now.” Joe shook his head. “Maybe something to do with Ben. It would have to be Ben. There’s no other reason.”

“And you don’t want him to know about me.”

“No, I don’t.”

“But...Cato isn’t all that dangerous,” I said, not understanding. “Is he?”

“Not alone, no. But the people he works for are.” Joe sighed, glancing over at me as he drove, serious and sorry and sad. “There’s a lot of violence in my world. A lot of darkness. I’ve tried to protect you from that as much as possible. And maybe I’ve done too good a job, maybe it’s too easy for you to forget what we really are. Most vampires aren’t like Gwil’s coven. They’re not like me. They kill easily and unrepentantly. And I don’t want any of them knowing that you exist, that you’re a weakness of ours. I want them to know as little about you as physically possible.”

“A weakness,” I repeated. I didn’t like that.

He smiled faintly. “It’s a compliment to be somebody’s weakness, Baby Swan.”

“I guess so.” The towering pine trees whipped by in a verdant blur. The sky above was thick and grey and churning. “You’ll be okay, right? Ben will be okay?”

Joe seemed to find that amusing, ridiculous even. “You don’t need to worry about us.”

“But I still do.”

“We’ll work it out, whatever it is. Cato is a reasonable guy. And Ben is definitely capable of...well. Advocating for himself.”

Capable of unparalleled carnage, he means. The memory of the first day I’d met Ben hit me like a hurled stone, illuminated my mind like a pulsing neon sign: the coiled tension in his muscles, that mindless, animalistic hatred in his eyes. Yes, he must be quite the monster when he wants to be. But he didn’t want to be anymore. I knew that completely, unquestioningly.

Joe pulled into Charlie’s driveway. The police car was gone; my 1999 Honda Accord and Charlie’s Toyota Corolla rested idly side by side. My dad would be working late tonight, until eight or nine at least. A pang of loneliness struck in my gut, just beneath the ribs; I had grown so accustomed to the absence of solitude, of quiet. The silence suddenly felt so loud.

“Don’t let it ruin your night,” Joe said as I got out of the Subaru. His words were affectionate; but his voice was still distracted, distant. “Don’t let it bother you. Everything will be fine, I promise. And as soon as Cato’s gone, everything will go back to the way it should be.”

“Okay,” I replied, not feeling very comforted at all. I don’t like the way he pushed me off him when he saw the car. The way he’s barely looked at me since. The way he called me a weakness.

Joe was already checking his mirrors, preparing to leave.

“Hey. Mob guy.” I leaned into the rolled-down window. “I love you.”

And the grin lit up Joe’s face like the sun. He crawled across the passenger’s seat, drew me into him by the collar of my brand new U Chicago hoodie, kissed me until that wild, interrupted desire was flaring up again in my arteries and nerve endings and everywhere else. The thunderous clouds in my skull split open. Everything’s still okay. It really is. “I love you to death. And then back again.” He retreated and shifted the Subaru into reverse. “I’ll see you soon. But maybe not too soon, I might be tied up with this family thing for a while. Don’t wait up tonight.”

“No problem. I’ll just call one of my other monster boyfriends to keep me company. The werewolf should be free. It’s not a full moon, is it?”

“No bestiality,” Joe retorted sternly. “That’s illegal, ma’am.”

I smiled and waved as the Subaru swerved out of the driveway and disappeared. Everything’s okay, I told myself, standing in the front yard under darkening skies. Everything will be okay.

And I kept telling myself that, again and again like Hail Marys, until I was dozing off in my bed alone six hours later.

Hit It And Quit It

I dreamed of the beach at La Push—my toes wriggling beneath the cold sand, the ricocheting cries of seagulls, the primordial growl of the frothing waves—and woke up with the ghost of saltwater in my sinuses. I grabbed my iPhone off the nightstand. Two new texts: one from Archer—Hey would it be distasteful or hilarious to dress up as Dracula for the Lee Halloween party? Asking for a friend.—and one from Jessica asking if she could copy my Marine Botany homework. Absolutely nothing from Joe.

When was the last time I didn’t have a text from Joe waiting for me in the morning? I struggled to remember, my mind still foggy with snippets of dreams. A week? Two weeks? A month? It felt like forever.

I tapped out a text to Joe with my clumsy, just-waking-up thumbs: I am resolved. No more nights with my werewolf boyfriend. Dude scratched the hell out of me and then barked at the mailman. Had to drop him off at the SPCA for neutering. See you soon! xxxx

I tried not to obsessively check my phone as I showered, got dressed, gathered my textbooks and notepads and pens. And yet still, I noticed: Joe didn’t text me back.

The rain poured from a grey sky all through my drive to Calawah University, Marine Botany class with Jessica, our frantic dash across campus beneath her hot pink umbrella to Forks And Spoons. My human friends had custody of me during lunchtime today. Angela was studying for a Computer Science quiz, Eric working on an article for the Calawah Chatterbox, Mike histrionically lamenting a sprained ankle coming just on the cusp of basketball season. Jessica bought me a chocolate chip muffin as thanks for texting her a picture of our Marine Botany homework this morning. Ah, the sweet taste of academic dishonesty.

I was relieved—more than I would have liked to admit—that all five Lees were at their usual lunch table, looking worn and tired but normal enough. Ben was hiding behind a pair of sunglasses and his black U Chicago hoodie that Joe and I had bought for him last weekend, sipping steaming tea out of a mug that he gripped with both hands. Scarlett flipped moodily through an astrophysics textbook. Rami repeatedly tapped the tabletop with a pen while Lucy knitted a lavender sweater, never raising her eyes from the jumble of yarn in her lap. They all murmured to each other in low, furtive voices, their mouths barely moving. Joe gave me a wave and a drawn smile; but only after I waved first.

Angela was now scolding Jessica for her lack of moral integrity.

Jess rolled her eyes, gnawing on a chicken finger that was burned black around the edges. “I’m here ostensibly to become an anthropologist and in actuality to find a hot rich husband, not to learn how to identify like sixty different types of algae.”

“Then why even take Marine Botany?” Angela asked, confounded.

“Calawah University forces every student to take at least two science classes, even if you’re a humanities major. Because they’re fucking fascists.”

“Oh, fascists, a big word for you!” I congratulated Jessica, patting her shoulder before returning my attention to my homemade veggie quesadilla and leftover slice of Mercy’s hummingbird cake. I was getting so good at this eating respectable meals thing. Joe would be proud.

Angela chuckled. “How’s that finding a husband thing going, by the way?”

“Awfully,” Jessica sighed. “I had this really promising flirtationship going with a frat boy in my Indigenous Peoples of the Arctic class. Ellsworth Jonathan Griffin, gorgeous blue eyes, blond man bun, his dad is a partner at a corporate law firm in Los Angeles. That’s the stuff dreams are made of. But I’m pretty sure he dropped out because I haven’t seen him in a few days. Also he would bring Absolut vodka to class in an Aquafina bottle.”

“You can probably do better,” I said.

“Well we can’t all end up with Lee boys, now can we?” Jess snapped irritably.

When it was time to depart for our afternoon classes, I met Joe in the doorway of Forks And Spoons, linked my fingers around the back of his neck, tugged at his dark, auburn-tinted hair.

“You okay, mob guy? You seem a little...” Exhausted? Edgy? Sad? “...Distracted.”

“I’m good. I’m great.” He kissed me briefly, fleetingly. No big deal; after all, we were in public. Right? “Are you cool to hang out later?”

“Absolutely. Can we go to La Push if it stops raining? I know it’ll be cold, but I woke up with the beach on my mind and haven’t been able get it out all day.”

“You got it. Can I meet you there? I have to take care of a few things first. Have to, uh, hunt.”

I stared up at him, feeling my stomach drop, feeling rapidly and jarringly off-kilter. Joe rarely mentioned hunting around me...not in a serious way, at least. It was one of those things that knocked me out of the fantasy of how compatible we were, how possible. It was a reminder of all those interminable differences that lived in the hushed space between us. “Okay.”

“I’ll...I’ll explain everything then. At La Push.”

“Okay,” I said again, very uncleverly. What’s going on here? What exactly did Cato say?

Joe smirked; finally a flash of playfulness, that contagious light he was built of. He smoothed my hair with one feather-light stroke of his hand, touched his lips to my forehead. “Don’t be late to Chemistry. I can’t have you failing out.”

“Of course not. How would I be able to get my Marine Biology PhD from U Chicago?”

But Joe didn’t laugh, didn’t even smile; he just left.

Ben was hunched over our table in Professor Belvin’s classroom, his arms encircling his notebook, the pen in his hand scribbling frenziedly. The window was wide open; the rain outside had weakened to a docile drizzle. He was still wearing his sunglasses. He didn’t acknowledge me at all.

“Rough night?” I asked, sliding into the seat beside him.

“Yeah.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“I definitely do not.”

“I’m sorry,” I told him. Ben glanced up, his thick eyebrows raised; they peaked just above the rims of his opaque sunglasses. “Whatever it is, I’m sorry.”

For a long time, Ben just looked at me; maybe wanting to say something, maybe just feeling that decorum necessitated it. “You shouldn’t be,” he replied at last. And he spent the rest of class paying no attention whatsoever to Professor Belvin’s lecture on the Pauli exclusion principle and instead scrawling untidy Welsh phrases into the formerly pristine pages of his notebook.

It was just after 5 p.m. when I arrived at La Push, the tires of my 1999 Honda Accord crunching over the gravel of the small parking area, the wind whipping ferociously. Joe had gotten there first; he was sitting on a rock down by the water with his back to me, peering out over the Pacific Ocean, tossing pebbles and shells into the waves. We had an hour of daylight left. The sky was obscure, grey, dim. Fine droplets of rain like mist sailed through the biting autumn air and clung to my skin.

When Joe spotted me, he leapt off the rock and watched me approach with his hands in the pockets of his North Face jacket. He wasn’t wearing anything Chicago-related today, which was highly unusual. I waited for him to touch me, to hold me, to tell me that everything was okay and always would be...at least for the next ten to fifteen years. He didn’t. “Hey,” he said instead.

“Hi.”

Joe nodded down the beach. “Let’s walk.”

I have never been especially good at mundane, monotonous rambling. That’s a Scorpio thing. And yet monotonous rambling is exactly what I did: I prattled on about my classes, Charlie’s bowling league, Renee’s new life in Florida with Paul, the ocean, the weather, anything to fill that space between us that all at once felt so enormously significant. I was vaguely aware that I was afraid to stop talking; I didn’t want Joe to have the chance to say whatever was on his mind.

Finally, Joe stopped walking. He took my hand, ran his thumb over the faint scar from when I accidentally cut myself in Mercy’s kitchen. His shoes sank into the wet sand, left imprints there like fingerprints. He turned to face me, pained, grave, and oh god, far worse: guilty.

“What?” I asked, terror swelling in my lungs, my bones, some inborn warning of impending ruin.

Joe gazed out over the crashing sea, then came back to me, like a dislocated joint popping back into place. “I am so sorry.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I...” He spoke slowly, haltingly. “I thought that this was something that was doable. But I was wrong.”

“What...?” And then a possibility occurred to me, a glorious possibility. Of course. A grin erupted across my face. “This is a joke, right? You’re joking, you’re always joking, this is just—”

He shook his head. He wasn’t joking. I wrenched my hand out of his and stared up at him in furious disbelief.

“It’s not fair to you,” Joe said. “This thing, being with someone like me. I can’t give you a future. I can’t give you an uncomplicated existence. I mean, come on, you have to worry about getting murdered around my own family—”

“Do you have fucking amnesia?” I demanded, incredulous. “Joe, we just talked about this. We just made plans to move to Chicago after graduation, we agreed that it was what we both wanted. I don’t want a normal human boyfriend. I don’t want normal human in-laws. I want you, Joe, and Ben, and Mercy and Gwil, and Rami and Lucy and Scarlett, I want the whole ridiculous Lee family package and there’s nothing you could say to make me decide that this isn’t worth it.”

“Look—”

“No, something happened, right? Something happened with Cato, or Ben, or someone, something happened and now you think that you have to do this but I’m telling you that whatever it is we can figure it out, we can figure it out together, isn’t that what you promised me?” He said he wouldn’t leave. He promised me he wouldn’t leave. All those things...all those things he said...

“Listen.” And now his eyes were stony. He didn’t call me Baby Swan. Oh, this is bad. This is so bad. “It’s not fair to me either.”

“And that’s what this is really about,” I realized. My voice was abruptly fierce, caustic. All those other women; those beautiful, graceful, immortal women. How did I ever think I could compare?

“It’s not personal.”

“It’s the most personal thing there is, Joe, it’s pasts and futures and love—”

“It’s not though.” He smiled, just barely. “Maybe we thought it was, but it’s not.”

It hit me like a brick, like a bullet; I couldn’t catch my breath. I was drowning in thin air, like a sawfish, like a shark. “Well I’m glad you figured that out on your own fucking schedule.”

“This was my fault,” he said. “All of it. And I am so profoundly sorry for the pain I’ve caused you, and I take full responsibility for it. I hope you’re able to move on knowing that there’s nothing you could have done differently. These are just the realities of my world. You’re better off in your own. And you’re going to make someone very happy someday.”

It's all so empty, so excruciatingly generic. “You’re a monster,” I seethed at him, tears stinging in my eyes.

“Yes,” Joe agreed softly.

“I hate you.” I wasn’t sure if I meant that, but I still said it. Maybe I could will it into being true, like how people find God after a particularly grim diagnosis; there’s no harm in trying to make it real. There’s nothing left to lose.

“That would be more than fair, given the circumstances,” he said. “I won’t bother you again. I’ll ask you to do the same for me.”

“Sure.” Tears were streaming down my cheeks now; my breaths were ragged, hitching. I need to get out of here. I need to get away from him.

A shadow of concern crossed his face, the first one I had noticed since yesterday afternoon. “If you need someone to drive you home, I’d be happy to—”

“I’d literally rather die.” And I left Joseph Francis Mazzello standing on the beach with the twilight wind in his hair and the sun setting behind him like time slipping through an hourglass.

I fled to my Honda, turned the keys in the ignition, covered my face with my hands and wept in raw, heaving shudders as Hungry Like The Wolf played from the mixtape that Joe had left in my cassette player. I ejected the mixtape, rolled down my window, tossed it out onto the rain-slick gravel. I couldn’t stand the thought of going home. Charlie would be at work until late tonight; Joe would never set foot in the house again.

I have to go somewhere. I can’t just sit in that goddamn bedroom. I can’t be alone.

I wheeled my car onto the main road and drove until I came to an unceremonious mechanic’s garage with a fractured concrete floor and cracks like spider legs across the windows. When I stepped out of my Honda, Archer raced over to meet me, beaming and wiping his hands clean with an oil rag.

“Hey, you know you’re not allowed to come here unless you bring Taco Bell with you...” Then he saw me, he really saw me. “Whoa, what—?”

And Archer caught me as I collapsed into his arms, sobs ripping through my throat like fangs.

Benjamin, 24 Hours Earlier

It was bad. Whatever this was, it was bad.

I knew because Rami could read Cato, and I could read Rami; the hazy wisps of color that unfurled from him were a hectic, wrestling electric blue: distress, grief, anxiety, denial. Cato’s own aura had always been rather unforthcoming—he tended towards deep, mellow greens and purples of congruence and contemplation—and forever tinted with an opalescent quality that spread like wildfire to the people around him, the people who were under his influence, that intangible calming and harmonizing effect, that irrational sense of wellbeing. Everyone in the room had that faint opalescence shimmering around them now, even Rami, whose unspoken turmoil remained a roiling rather than a storm. And I thought—not for the first time—that if Larkin was a spade that hollowed you out, scraped along the jagged snags of your split bones to empty you of any ambitions and loyalties that had come before, then Cato was the anesthetic that made the mangling go down smoother, the promise that you would someday still catch glimpses of innocence. Larkin was a purger, a purifier; Cato made you believe again.

There were pitchers of sweet tea and a heaping tray of butter pecan cookies on the living room coffee table. Cato sat on the neat white sofa, one leg crossed over the other, stoic, waiting. Rami stared vacantly from the loveseat; Lucy was beside him, her delicate bare feet tucked beneath her and her fingers laced through Rami’s, her brow knit into grooves of worry. Scarlett was next to me on the largest couch, her boots propped up on the edge of the coffee table, her hair in a long French braid, periodically cracking her knuckles. It was nearly the only sound. Mercy bustled around the room gifting everyone tall chilled glasses of sweet tea; Gwil stood by the virtual fireplace on the big-screen tv, his hands in his pockets, his lips pressed into a rigid line.

The front door opened, and Joe stepped inside, his car keys rattling in his fist. For as long as I’d known him, his color had so often been a bright and buttery yellow, his aura more visible and constant than anyone else’s. Lately, he was increasingly cloaked in the rosy pinks of love or the vivid, shifting, crimson reds of lust; and Rami and I bonded over our shared efforts to politely ignore that particular variety of thoughts.

Joe pointed to Cato. “What’s going on?”  

“How long?” Cato asked him.

Joe feigned cluelessness. “Huh? What do you mean? Oh, car chick?! That’s nothing. She’s just a friend.”

Cato blinked. “Do you really think I just arrived in Forks today?”

It rolled through Joe like a wave: surrender, apprehension, dread. The realization that Cato had been watching us for days, weeks even, meticulously keeping just enough distance to stay out of Rami’s range of hearing. Joe’s now-opalescent aura dipped from cerise to an agitated mahogany. “Two months.”

“And she’s talented.” Cato’s voice was impatient, incredulous; How could you be this stupid? that voice said.

“No,” Joe flared, like shards of wood cracking in a fire. “No, she’s got nothing to do with you, with us. With our world. She’s got nothing to do with it.”

Cato circled the fingerprint of his index finger around the rim of his misted glass of sweet tea, meditative. “In one hundred and seventy years, I have never met someone who I couldn’t find if I wanted to. And yet the second I turned my back on that girl, she was gone. Vanished. The world was a blank map. How is that possible?”

No one said anything. Finally, Cato looked to Rami.

“You can’t hear her thoughts, can you?”

“No,” Rami admitted.

“And how many times has that happened in...how old are you now, the same as Ben? How many times in the past century have you met someone who made you feel normal, weak even? Who made you feel human again?”

“Never,” Rami conceded.

“You too, right?” Cato asked me. “You can’t see what she’s feeling. She’s nothing but white noise.”

I nodded reluctantly.

“She’s talented,” Cato said again, decisive.

“Oh god,” I choked out, burying my face in my hands. Now I knew what Rami had heard. I knew everything.

Joe shook his head almost violently. “No, that’s not fair. There’s no way of knowing if that would translate to life as a vampire or how it would manifest. There’s no way of knowing if she would survive the transition at all. And none of us are ever going to find out because she has nothing to do with our world.”

“She does,” Cato insisted. “Because you brought her into it.”

Scarlett shivered beside me, crossed her arms over her chest, clutched her leather jacket tighter. “You can’t be serious, Cato. You’re not a monster, you know she might not survive—”

“And that would stop Gwil. It would stop me, sure. When has it ever stopped Larkin?” Cato gestured to me. “With him? With me? With Akari or Araminta or Liesl or Rigel or all the ones who didn’t make it, who died screaming as they scorched from the inside out? It has never stopped him because he doesn’t care. He finds talented people. He covets them, covets them jealously, like jewels or money or lovers. And they either become one of his possessions or they become nothing at all.”

“No,” Joe whispered. “No, no, no...”

Rami was shrinking into the loveseat, overwhelmed by the emotions in the room that were dragging his aura into whirling greys, those desperate and dark thoughts; not even Cato could mute them entirely. Lucy tried to soothe him, laid the back of her fine-boned hand against his cheek. Mercy covered her gaping mouth. Gwil studied the floor, thunderstruck, absorbing it all.

“This is a courtesy that I’m doing you right now,” Cato told Joe, his large palms clasped together, his voice sorrowful and yet unyielding, almost pleading. “This is a warning. If he finds out about her, about what she can do...he’s going to want her. And he gets everything he wants.”

“He can’t find out,” Gwil said hoarsely.

“No,” I agreed. Death or a hundred-year sentence. Either way, a part of you dies. Either way, a part of you ends up in a box six feet underground and clawing for the sun.

“What can we do?” Scarlett asked Cato. “I mean...is there anything we can do?”

“You have to get rid of her. That’s her only chance. Get her out of your orbit, away from our world, away from where Larkin or anyone who serves him would ever cross her path. I won’t tell him about the girl. I’ll try to deflect his attention. If she’s already been spotted, I’ll tell him that she’s useless, just another one of Joe’s litany of casual liaisons. And that’s a risk I’ll take, I’ll do it out of respect for your coven, Dr. Lee, and for Ben. But there is absolutely nothing I can do for you if Larkin finds out for himself. I don’t think I’m the only one he has watching you.”

“Of course not,” I said bitterly. “I’m sure he has all sorts of eyes on me. The white whale. The one that got away.” This is my fault. It’s all my fucking fault.

“It’s not,” Rami murmured; and nobody else heard my side of it, but I think they understood.

Joe’s aura was now murky, sunless, almost black. It was a color I hadn’t thought he was capable of. His eyes were slick and bleary.

“Son?” Gwil prompted. Mercy was sobbing into a handkerchief patterned with roses. Mom, I ached instinctively, before pushing the thought away.

“I won’t do it,” Joe said. “You’re asking me to break her heart and I won’t do it.”

I begged: “Joe, you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand! You don’t understand what this will do to her, what it’s going to do to her for the weeks and months and years that come after, she might never forget—”

“Do you want her to end up dead or in a hundred-year contract?” Cato shot back. “Do you want to see how much of that girl you care about so much is left after a century with Larkin?”

Everyone’s eyes fell on me. I could feel them, full of pity and horror. I’m what’s left. Someone gutted of everything but rage and bloodlust.

“No, of course not,” Joe said. Thanks a lot, brother.

Cato smirked without any humor at all. He had known. “Then the choice is easy.”

“Son,” Gwil said again.

Joe gazed back at him with huge, agonized eyes. His words were brittle, raspy, hollow. “Dad, I love her.”

“I know,” Gwil replied. His aura was a blue like cobalt: profound sympathy, compassion, mourning. “And that’s why you’ll do the right thing.”

Twenty minutes later, I was puffing on my vape pen as I paced back and forth across the wrap-around porch like a caged bear, watching the sun disappear behind the western hemlock trees that raked the clouds. Gwil, Rami, Lucy, and Scarlett were with Joe; Mercy was trying to convince Cato to stay the night in one of the guest bedrooms. I could hear her ludicrously gracious protestations through the walls. “We know it’s not your fault, dear, this...this...situation. We know you’re just the messenger. And you’ve been so important to Ben all these years, so kind. It’s really no trouble at all...here, let me at least wrap up some cake for you to take...”

The front door opened and closed. Scarlett appeared beside me, resting her forearms on the porch railing. She sighed, closed her eyes, said nothing.

“This is going to destroy him,” I told her.

Scarlett nodded, her face bathed in silvery moonlight, marvelous and yet forlorn. The aura that surrounded her was a deep, despondent indigo. It matched the sky. “Yeah.”

“And to think...” I exhaled heavily, nicotine-tinged vapor vanishing into the damp night air. Rain was coming; I could feel it in my bones. “I was just beginning to like it here.”

[arigatouiris]

bloody brilliant // midoriya izuku

Author’s Note: After a LONG ABSENCE, I’m back! Sort of, I’m trying to write again regularly? I was in a slump for a bit and managed to play The Last of Us II and make my mental health worse (in a good way?) lmao. Thank you for such kind words yesterday when I was at my worst?? You guys are amazing and the positivity just UGH I LOVE YA’LL. This was requested by @allurajarren​ a while ago and I am so so sorry it took so long! I’ve made a few changes haha I hope you like it uwu 

Also, this might come as a weird surprise which might not even be welcome but Mineta isn’t such a bad person in this? Although I do hate his guts lol

Word count: 4461

Pairing: Midoriya Izuku x Reader

Warnings: fluff, angst, reader with a plant quirk

You’ve had a lot of people call you delicate in the past. 

You hated the word. You hated everything that represented it, you hated being correlated with it, you practically hated it because it reminded you of how weak you were—your mind had already been overridden with the ideology that your weakness wasn’t just because of your quirk, but it manifested within your very psyche. 

You hated when they called you delicate because you knew it was true.

Yet, you strove on. A part of you wanted to prove people wrong because so what if your quirk was plant-based? So what if you were like some comic-book villain? So what if your quirk had many weaknesses? That didn’t mean you couldn’t be strong, right?

After all, you had gotten into U.A, you couldn’t be a complete failure, right?

You kept holding yourself going despite how difficult things were. People from your middle school deemed that you wouldn’t hurt a soul, and someone like you becoming a hero made no sense whatsoever? Your entire body ached with the failed expectations of your friends, family, peers from middle school, who only expected you to fail—and getting into U.A., did very little to make you feel proud. The only solace you found was jotting your thoughts into your diary, which remained the stronghold of your psyche—the very exoskeleton that kept you standing on difficult days.

Your diary was a kind of psychological exoskeleton that protected you from pain and contained your anxieties, but just like the skin of a snake, it only could hold on for a bare minimum of time; your mind always ends up cracking under pressure or hollowed out by time—and will keep growing back again and again, until you developed a more sophisticated emotional structure, held up by a strong and flexible spine, built less like a fortress than a cluster of treehouses.

Your insecurity dragged on and you believed you would never be able to overlook it, until your eyes landed on Midoriya Izuku.

The boy had you floored from the second you saw him on your orientation, his speed, agility, tenacity, his willingness to keep pushing despite how it was hurting him, everything about him reminded him of a part of your brain that kept pushing you, that kept telling you that you could dream too, that you could be where he is now. 

It wasn’t love, but more of an innocent curiosity that had you itching to watch more of how Midoriya conquered people’s expectations of him. From the very second how he threw the baseball using his fingers, and to how he managed to come fourth in the cavalry battle, you just couldn’t look away. You obviously jotted these points down in your diary, and you were aware of how your diary was slowly turning into a book where you jotted down whatever you noticed about him—what could be his weaknesses, what could be his strengths, his quirks other than breaking bones, what fascinated him and what of him fascinated you. There was quite a lot, indeed.

When you were leaving class one evening, you noticed how his arm was limp by his side.

     “Midoriaya-kun?” You questioned, tilting your head a bit.

He turned to you and his face reddened, a trait he often showcased with literally any girl he spoke to. You thought it was adorable, and you couldn’t quell the growing noise within your own chest.

     “Y-Yes?”

     “Is your arm okay?”

Midoriya let out a chuckle before rubbing the back of his neck rather bashfully, “Y-Yeah, it’s nothing. I overused my quirk again while training yesterday. I’m heading over to recovery girl now.”

You smiled at him before nodding and turning away, feeling the pace within your chest increase as you rephrased the entire conversation within your mind. You had finally spoken to him (not that you hadn’t before, but this was your very first conversation with the boy without the assistance of anyone else). You had spoken to Midoriya and hadn’t sounded like an absolute idiot!

     “(l/n)-san!”

Your heart froze at the mention of your name. Turning around with wide eyes, you noticed Izuku running toward you.

     “Y-Yes?” By now you were certain you had a crush on him.

What else could months of stalking lead to anyway?

     “You forgot your bag.”

Scratch the part where you told yourself you’d managed to have a conversation with Izuku without making a fool out of yourself. You had. You had made a fool out of yourself.

You weren’t normally a very shy person, but perhaps it was because of his bashful nature did your nature become quite timid as well. Letting out a breath, you moved to the back of the dorms, toward a small forest clearing. Present Mic had shown you this area, someplace you could practice your quirk without any hindrance. Walking over to your regular area, you let out a breath before putting your diary down, before turning to spot a sapling growing on the ground. Taking a deep breath, you reached forward, urging the sapling to move out of the ground, using your quirk to rapid its growth; the plant moved, grew in an instant before flowers bloomed on its stem, thorns pricking at the corners, and you manipulated its structure and made the thorns bigger, the stem girthier, and the flowers poisonous. 

But it took a lot longer than it did the day before. You wondered if it was because your mind was occupied, and you also took note of how you stood idle while you were doing it. Clicking your tongue, you got to work.

I can’t let this get to me, you thought, picturing Izuku’s face, knowing how hard he might be working to master his own quirk. I have to get stronger.

*

     “Midoriya shounen, you probably shouldn’t train so hard and break all of your bones at once.”

     “It’s not like I��m trying to break my bones.” He said, apologetically, as All Might led him inside the forest behind the dorms.

     “Perhaps if you tried segregating how much of your quirk you use while you use it? You aren’t allowing it to accelerate all over your hands, when you focus it on punches. The power is devastating, and can break you.”

I’m aware of that bit, Midoriya thought, letting out a sigh. He turns to an open clearing, noticing a weird sapling growing at the corner. Blinking twice, he walked over to the plant, but stopped before touching it. From one look, he could tell that the flowers were poisonous, the thorns were unusually bigger, and the stem of the plant itself looked like a rope.

     “Is something wrong?”

     “No, I think,” Midoriya swore he had seen this type of quirk before, “I think I’ve seen this somewhere.”

At this, All Might moved aside and spotted the plant that was in front of the boy. As if he had recognized it in an instant, All Might smiled before thinking of you fondly.

     “It must be (l/n) shoujo.”

Izuku’s eyes widened at the mere mention of your name. Ah, he thought before scrunching his eyes together, That’s right, I’ve not really seen her quirk in action before! As he turned to face All Might, Midoriya spotted a small book beside another tree, before walking over to it and picking it up. 

     “I think you should take a break for today, Midoriya shounen,” All Might said softly, “Pushing yourself too hard isn’t good either.”

Nodding with a smile, Midoriya held the book in his hands before heading to the dorm. In the meanwhile however, his curiosity got the better of him, and wanting to look for a name, he opened the first few pages of your diary. 

Sometimes, I think Midoriya-san just needs to rest his bones a bit.

His eyes widened at the words written down. Whoever this person was, they were talking about him! Turning to another page, he found more words of him, some were worried for him, some were highlighting his weaknesses (which he gladly made note of), and some were praising his strengths. A smile sat on his lips as he read what was written, no judgment in mind, before bumping into someone.

He blinked when he spotted Mineta. The purple head tilted his head at Midoriya’s smile before cheekily grinning at him.

     “That looks like a weird smile, Midoriya,” Mineta teased, “What’s gotten you smiling like me?”

A dark shade overshadowed Izuku’s face as he shook off Mineta’s words.

     “It’s definitely nothing like your smile, Mineta-kun,” He said softly, “But, it’s nothing. I was just... recollecting something.”

     “Hm,” Mineta scoffed before walking away, “I hope it’s not something stupid like a crush.”

Izuku chuckled before entering his dorm room. Leaving his school bag by the bed, he opened the diary once more before reading the words written about him again, from the beginning. 

It can’t be Uraraka-san, he thought before humming and tracing his finger over the writing. On second thought, why can’t it be Uraraka-san? Does that mean she watches me and takes note of me? Or is it Asui-san? She seems to care about my wellbeing too, right? 

A blush adorned his face as he thought, It can’t be Yaoyarozu-san or Jirou-san, definitely. They don’t seem the type to... He gulped, unable to even finish the thought.

Shooting up straight on his bed, Midoriya suddenly jerked up, almost certain he tore a tissue on his neck. His eyes were wide and his grip on the diary tightened just a little bit, and a yelp exited his mouth.

And just as the door opened, Midoriya exclaimed, “(l/n)-san!”

Mineta blinked at the door before closing it behind him quietly. I thought I was the freak, he thought as he walked back to his dorm. It’s a stupid crush. I’ll ask him about the damn homework some other time. 

*

     “Izuku-kun, will you kiss me?” Your face was inches away from his, your hand was wrapped around his wrist. 

Izuku could feel his cheeks burn at how close you were, your eyes were dead focused on his form. You weren’t looking anywhere else, and why were your lips so shiny? He gulped when he realized he had been looking at them, before you moved in and closed the gap. You kissed him like you had been dreaming of this for far too long, and your grip on his wrist merely tightened. And just as Izuku eased into the kiss, closing his eyes, nourishing the feeling it was giving him, he felt a strange warmth cascade on his skin.

His eyes shot open and the alarm noise was blaring into his ears. He lay there, ignoring the sound of the alarm, and he thought of you—how your lips felt against his, how your eyes were looking into his soul; he felt the warmth rush to his face again and he felt a bit ashamed, a bit relieved that it was indeed a dream, but mostly, Izuku felt like he had run a marathon in less than an hour.

He thanked the stars that it was a weekend, but he still had to go over and give you the diary. He bit his lip when he thought of you again, your eyes looking right into his, and without realizing it, Izuku bumped his feet against the bed and cussed.

Get it together, he thought before feeling the embarrassment rush to his features. Grabbing the diary, Izuku swallowed air before attempting to head to your dorm room; knowing full well that you might either be there or near the forest. He hasn’t actually spoken to you voluntarily, and while this realization made him feel weird inside, not to mention the wet dream he had of you, Izuku felt a strange excitement—like he was suddenly 5 years old and the girl he was sitting next to finally smiled at him.

He knocked twice on your door, but there was no answer. For a second, he wondered if he should just leave the diary in front of your door, but remembering a certain purple haired classmate of his, Izuku thought it was best if he handed it over to you personally. After all, he had no idea if you were going to be mad at him or snap at him for taking your book; maybe, you headed back where you left it, in hopes of finding it right there, but Izuku knew that he had stolen that chance away from you. Rushing to the forest, he spotted you there, frantically looking over at every inch, and a soft smile crept up to his lips. Slowly approaching you, Izuku held the book in his right hand while his left hand rubbed the back of his neck.

     “Um,” He alerted you, not wanting to scare you, “(l/n)-san?”

You jumped at the sound, turning to him with a strikingly red face; you looked troubled, but he only assumed that was because you thought your book was missing. Izuku slowly handed the book to you before offering an apologetic smile.

     “I—I’m really sorry! I found it here and I didn’t know whose it was! I was training with All Might, well, actually, I was about to train but he told me not to? So I had to leave, and while I was, I spotted the plant you made? At first, I didn’t know you’d made it—and All Might was the one who said—”

     “Midoriya-kun, thank you!”

Izuku’s eyes widened to spot you smiling at him, holding the book close to your chest. The sight of you warm and happy did a number on him, but he didn’t move. Suddenly, he recalled how big your eyes looked when you were about to kiss him and his face heated up. Moving back a couple inches, you were shocked to see how repulsed he suddenly looked.

Your face turned purple, “I-Is everything okay?”

He nodded vigorously before almost retching, “Y-Yeah! I... I have to go!”

Your heart fell at the sight. Suddenly, you didn’t want to care about why he made such a face at your smile. Perhaps, he had read your diary; maybe, he had been repulsed by how you would watch him. Maybe, it was because you were a delicate person, not in tune with who he associated to be, and that was why he was repulsed. Maybe, if you had been anyone but yourself, Izuku would have returned that smile. Your gradual need to voluntarily care less grew in your heart, but you were intrinsically kind—there was no way you could not care. You felt a growing desire to care less about things—to loosen your grip on your life, to stop glancing behind you every few steps, afraid that someone will snatch it from you before you reach the end zone—rather to hold your life loosely and playfully, like a volleyball, keeping it in the air, with only quick fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

But you had no friends you could trust. You could not even understand why something so trivial made you feel something so inexplicably deep. 

After the weekend, Izuku noticed you walk into class, a solemn look in your eyes. He wondered if it was because of how abruptly he had left that day, ignoring what you were about to say. He wanted to know right away what you were thinking, what was running through your mind. He wanted to know your every detail, wanting to jot down points in his own diary that he noticed about you. He suddenly hated that he needed to get to know you in order to continue this process, but with you just sitting there, looking sad and anguished, possibly over something he had done, left him feeling helpless and Izuku hated every breathing moment of it.

A twisted sense of frustration grew within him, with how long it takes to get to know someone—and how it required having to spend the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do.

He quickly shut his eyes when he realized that sensory overload blind the back of his eyes.

Walking back to his dorm, he noticed you wave at Tsuyu-chan and Uraraka-chan before heading to the back of the dorms. Instantly, he knew you were heading over there to train, and swallowing the rock in his throat, Izuku rushed over to you and cleared his throat, wanting not to startle you.

You turned around and your eyes widened, but you forced yourself not to react. Whatever these feelings were, you had long accepted them as being one-sided, so there was no point in pining.

     “Are you headed to train?” 

You nodded, confused at his query. 

     “Is it alright if I join you?”

You blinked, “You want to train with me?”

     “I’m sorry but,” He took a breath, “I read what you’d written about me. I’m sorry! I know I shouldn’t have looked, but you made so much sense about my quirk! I wanted to thank you for your observations, but I guess... I just... Will you please let me train with you?”

Izuku bowed in front of you and you stood there, floored. Scrambling to have him do anything but bow at you, you bowed back because you really had no idea how to respond to him. Izuku noticed before standing up straight, with you following right after. 

     “Okay. But, I... I’m not as good as you.”

     “Good as me? I’m not even good!” He laughed, following you to the clearing.

You turned to him with a deadpan, “Midoriya-san, your modesty is an insult.”

     “I-I’m sorry...” He rubbed the back of his head.

When you reached the area, you stood opposite to where he stood. Izuku took a deep breath before wondering what your offensive moves were like. You were often curious yourself, considering you hadn’t particularly trained with someone before. You were mainly a defensive fighter, but this was your first time wanting to fight offensive.

     “I’ll try to go on the offensive.” You said, pressing your hands together.

Midoriya nodded before looking at you intensely. The look made you nervous, but at the same time, it was devoid of any judgment. In an instant, Izuku’s legs were pinned to the ground he stood on, vines wrapping over his feet. He tried to move, but the grip could literally remove his legs. His eyes widened when he spotted you standing exactly where you were, and he wondered what was to come next.

In a second, he turned to his left and spotted a tree trunk coming right at his face, but Izuku moved, pulling his legs away from the vines, rushing toward you; however, what he didn’t expect was to trip over the trunk and fall face flat on to you.

He heard you whine, but he assumed that was because he had fallen over you. But it was when he opened his eyes did he realize what had actually happened. His face was cushioned on your chest, your breasts having covered his fall. Izuku felt a wire in his brain short-circuit, before pushing himself away from you, quickly scurrying to the other end of the forest. You slowly got up a moment later, and when he expected you to yell at him, berate him for being just another Mineta, you looked worried instead.

Eh?

     “Are you alright?”

Midoriya froze at how you sounded, your voice almost shaky. He could only nod. You let out a breath before sitting right where you were, a sullen look enveloping your features. 

     “I-I’m sorry—”

     “I thought I hurt you...”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

     “What?”

     “People usually call me delicate, but the thing is... I don’t have any control over my quirk. It’s a powerful quirk, I’m aware... But I can’t control it because I’m delicate. Weak. People were right. I’m no fit to be a hero. I can’t be like you, Midoriya-san, I can’t be stronger than this... I almost hurt you terribly. You’re already doing your best. And those scars on your hand... You have no idea how much that bothers me. Stupid, right?”

Not at all. What are you saying?

     “Someone like me shouldn’t dream so big. I took notes of you hoping I could be like you, but this just proves to me that I can’t. We’re so apart in skill, I just—”

     “(l/n)-san! Snap out of it!”

Your eyes widened to see Izuku yell at you. You paused, before waiting for him to finish.

     “You’re not weak! You’re anything but weak. Your quirk, it’s one of the most beautiful quirks I’ve ever seen! And your precision! You don’t know it, but this quirk is killing me the more I use it and controlling it is hard, I’ll admit. But if I had the dexterity that you do, I’d be a lot stronger. I’m not strong. I’m anything but,” He got up before moving to you. Bending down to your level, Izuku offered you a hand and brought you up to a standing position. “You’re really strong, (l/n)-san. You don’t see it.”

You teared up at his words, but blinked them away.

     “And about people calling you delicate in the past...” You couldn’t ignore the feeling of his hand over yours. “I know that it’s hard to not let it get to you, but trust me, you are going to make an amazing hero.”

You wanted to hug him but you held yourself back. You smiled to yourself, feeling the back of your eyelids burn again, but you just let yourself look at Izuku’s hand in yours, feeling absolute joy rush into your features. Looking up at him, you smiled once more. Izuku was already smiling, but a string in his heart tore as he recollected something.

Izuku-kun, will you kiss me?

His face suddenly reddened and he pulled away, causing you to blink once again. He didn’t look repulsed, he looked... shy? Nodding a couple of times, he scooted away from the area, leaving you behind.

*

For an entire week, he wondered if he had blown things off to a point where he couldn’t ever fix them.

Sitting in the common room, he laid his head in between his legs and groaned, the couch feeling heavy against his body. Mineta and Kaminari spotted their friend being an absolute grouch before Mineta sighed and walked over to him. 

     “What’s up, man?” 

Izuku sighed before shaking his head. 

     “I screwed up.”

Mineta rolled his eyes, “Screwed up things with (l/n)?”

The green haired male instantly looked up at the smaller boy who presented a rather unamused expression in his face.

     “H-How did you...?”

     “Only the both of you look like you’re dying so, it wasn’t hard to connect the dots. Also,” He grinned, “You were screaming her name out the last time I saw you.”

Izuku remembered that episode and pretended not to hear Mineta.

     “Just go talk to her, don’t be a wimp when it comes to matters of the heart!”

I thought he was just a regular pervert, Midoriya thought with wonder. Maybe there’s more to Mineta, after all—

     “And tell me how her breasts feel like—”

     “Good day, Mineta-kun.”

Letting out a breath, he rubbed the back of his neck, wondering why he lets the image of you kissing him breach his every interaction with you. He bit his lip before spotting you heading to the clearing again, to train in silence and solitude. He missed interacting with you, and he wondered where this guilt came from.

Following after you, he noticed the way you walked; brisk, yet smooth. He watched you train, moving vines and branches effortlessly, a lot quicker than before. In just a week, you had managed to excel so much that it amazed him. He didn’t want to be seen watching you, so he hid behind a tree and just stared in wonder. There was a kind of unnoticed excellence that carried on around you, and Izuku noticed this every day—the hidden talent of how you effortlessly carried on being yourself—you would be renowned as a masterpiece if only you’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking a buried jewel such as yourself, who may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.

It was at this point, when his eyes widened slowly did he realize that he liked you. 

And boy, did he really, really want to kiss you.

Gulping, he got up to address you like a regular person would, but he tripped on absolutely nothing and fell face flat in front of him, now revealing him to be a creepy stalker. Please don’t think I’m Mineta—

     “You’re nothing like him, Midoriya-kun. Are you okay?”

I guess I spoke aloud, he thought before getting up and looking at you.

     “I... I’m really sorry.”

You shook your head, “I understand that it must be hard to face me. I must make you angry.”

Eh?

     “I understand if you think I’m weird—”

     “(l/n)-san, I think you’re bloody brilliant.”

Your eyes widened at his blatant observation. 

     “What?”

     “I’m running away from you because... because I...” His face was quite possibly burning him, “I like you.”

     “I like you too.” 

He looked at you like you were joking, but apparently you were not.

     “Oh.”

     “Yes.”

You two just stood there, not knowing what to say. You moved a bit, suddenly feeling shy under his intense gaze.

     “Why... Why were you avoiding me then?”

Because I had a dream where you kissed me, he thought before breathing out, noticing the way your eyes widened and face reddened. Oh god.

Don’t tell me I said it aloud!

     “Midoriya-san... You... What?”

Moving over to you, he grabbed your hands in what felt like the most random and instantaneous reaction he has ever had, and pressed his lips to yours, right before muttering an apology. A second later, he could feel you kiss back, the hand that was free was on his cheek now. 

Pulling back, he let out a breath in relief. 

     “I like you, Midoriya-san.” 

     “Call me Izuku.”

     “Izuku-kun,” you tilted your head sweetly, “Will you kiss me?”

He turned to you with a bright red face, shocked out his mind before he spotted you giggling a second later. 

     “Oh, you’re teasing me, I see.”

     “Glad you caught on.”

[starlene]

So here we go! The story my muse whispered into my ear yesterday is done. As always, I based it on the musical, but I don't think there's anything major in here that contradicts the book canon either, for those of you who are more into that!

Words of love

Gabriel John Utterson wants to confess his feelings to Henry Jekyll – if only words will co-operate.

Gabriel John Utterson never did anything spontaneously.

Behind his back, people sometimes called him boring, but personally, John simply thought of himself as a rational, methodical person. Career-wise, he vastly preferred paperwork to any high-intensity courtroom battles, and outside work, he mostly stuck to his routines. In short, his ideal life included predictable outcomes, no shocks and no surprises.

So, when the understanding had dawned upon him that he could no longer keep on living without confessing his love to Henry Jekyll, it had only been the first step in a process that would take weeks – a painstaking process to plan the most appropriate confession possible.

Of course, John conceded, the smartest course of action would be to say nothing at all. He had no idea how Henry might respond, so it would be the safest choice to content himself with Henry's friendship and nothing more than that. It was just that lately, that had stopped feeling like an acceptable option. For a while now, there had been a tiny nagging suspicion in the back of John's mind, just loud enough to be quite impossible to ignore and getting louder by the day, that Henry might share at least some of his feelings. What if the same sort of visions ran through both of their minds when they sat by the fire having a late-night chat? What if friendship wasn't all his best friend desired, either? And, a terrifying thought struck him, what if something happened to Henry before John gave him the chance to find out about his feelings?

At first, John considered sending Henry a letter. After a careful examination of all sides of the issue, however, he decided that even the slightest risk of his writing ending up in the wrong hands – Poole’s, or Maisie the housemaid’s, or anyone else’s – outweighed the reward of being able to write down just the right words.

He would have to meet Henry to speak with him in person. And for that to succeed, he would have to sit down, imagine the situation the best he could, and plan his every word in advance.

"I wanted to ask you if I may share some of my thoughts with you tonight," imaginary John would begin, and imaginary Henry would nod. "If you wish to hear no more, just tell me, and I will keep quiet from then on," he would then continue, and imaginary Henry would listen, silently focusing on his every word.

"Henry, remember that day when we were starting our second year in university," imaginary John went on, but real John shook his head. No, he probably wouldn't – and besides, if all went well, there would be plenty of time for such recollections later on. Better to focus on the present.

"Henry, you must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you–" dear God, no, even imaginary John couldn't say something like that without blushing. Maybe something a little simpler.

"Henry, I love you," imaginary John tried again, and real John nodded. That would be a good, straightforward start, though it might require some explanation when moving forward. Imaginary John took a little pause and went on.

"I've been in love with you as long as I can remember. You are the most extraordinary, ambitious, intelligent, handsome, enticing–" real John put a stop to imaginary John's rhapsody. It was all true, of course… but maybe a little less would do.

"–intelligent person I've ever met. Though I know it's highly unusual, I've never met anyone else who made me feel the same, and I wish to stay by your side for the rest of my life." That felt better. Sometimes, when imaginary John said these words, he saw an expression of warmth and affection on imaginary Henry's face – but sometimes, his face instead took on an expression of confusion and unease. Better add some caveat so real Henry would not end up looking the same.

"I however understand if you cannot reciprocate my feelings. Holding you so close to my heart, I simply didn’t want to go on any longer without letting you know what you mean to me," imaginary John went on. A little melancholic, perhaps, but that would do. Now, only a finishing touch was needed.

"Please know that no matter what, I will always respect and love you."

There! Imaginary John had finished his speech. For a moment or two, imaginary Henry pondered everything he had just heard, and then… well, then the mental picture got rather foggy. Real John was certain that his secrets would always be safe with Henry, whatever they were, but beyond that, he had no idea how Henry might react.

Only one way to find out. It was time to put the plan into action.

~

Sitting in Henry's library across from his friend, John felt like his own insides just might crawl out of his body to strangle him. Could any declaration of love, indeed anything on earth at all, be worth feeling so horribly agitated?

Had his nerves not completely blinded his senses, John would've noticed a worried look on Henry's face. Despite his grand plans of using science to rid the world of this evil and that, Henry didn't often show empathy towards his friends – but this was so unusual of John, demanding to have a strictly private meeting and vehemently refusing to say what it was for, that Henry felt certain there was something wrong with his best friend. And now John was sitting on Henry's couch, face completely drained of all colour. What if he was deadly ill and had come to Henry to ask for a cure, and what if Henry couldn't come up with one?

"John, please, speak your mind. Why did you want to meet me tonight?"

No way out for John now but to say his part.

"I wanted to ask you if I may share some of my thoughts with you," he began, nervous enough to keel over, and Henry nodded. "If you wish–"

John trailed off. What was it he’d been planning to say next? Maybe it would be better to start over, so he could get the words flowing correctly.

"I wanted to ask, and, if you wish, I–" John lost his train of thought again. It felt like the words he had repeated to himself over and over again were slipping away from him.

"If you wish, tonight, may I–"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. John had a vague notion he had planned a full speech once, but he had no recollection of it anymore. Whatever had compelled him to attempt this in the first place, he briefly wondered, and why had he let the madness go this far, so far that forever holding his peace was no longer an option?

John started over one more time, swearing under his breath, so flustered he hardly knew which words were spoken only in his mind and which ones out loud, and the unwanted realisation of how handsome Henry looked tonight snaking its way into his consciousness… before he could put a stop to it, John's last attempt at speaking his mind stumbled its way out of his mouth.

"I wanted to ask, may I fuck you?"

Oh God. Oh fuck.

The silence that ensued was loud enough to break eardrums, but there was no way in hell or earth John was going to say another word now. Had he been looking, he would've found Henry's blank expression frustratingly hard to read – but seeing how he had buried his face in his hands with the firm intention of never, ever looking towards Henry's general direction again, he had no idea.

After an eternity and a half, Henry spoke.

"Well. I can certainly understand why you wanted to make sure no one else was around to hear that."

He rose from his chair and walked towards the library door, a door that separated his private rooms from the hallway. All the while, he talked quietly, almost to himself.

"Poole has a day off today, and Maisie is staying with her mother to take care of her for a while, but just to be absolutely certain…"

John heard a key turn in a lock.

"Though to be quite honest, knowing you, I'm just surprised that you didn't put the request down in writing and submit it two weeks in advance." Before John knew it, Henry was sitting next to him on the couch, so close their legs almost touched.

"But you meant that seriously, right?"

John managed a nod.

"Good. It's a bit of an unexpected proposition, but my answer is yes."

Raising his eyes to meet Henry's, John was greeted with a mischievous smile – and, suddenly, a hand on his thigh.

"So what are you waiting for?"

Though his outburst had hardly been the carefully constructed declaration of everlasting love he had planned… well, a thought flashed through John’s mind, maybe there were certain upsides to leading a spontaneous life after all.