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soaps-mohawk · 8 months ago

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Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 16: Big Brown Eyes

Summary: Things have returned to normal, or at least they seem to have. Nothing can ever go your way, though, can it?

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Word Count: 7925 words

Warnings: NSFW, 18+, smut, unprotected sex, p in v sex, oral sex, face sitting, grinding, spanking (it's like once and not even on the ass), Kyle is definitely a munch, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, reader is a little shit, angst, PTSD, nightmares, trauma, mommy issues, family issues, language, the author's bias showing just a tad.

A/N: Have you ever cried while writing smut? I have. Had two mental breakdowns during the course of this chapter, the worst of the two during the smut scene. Sobbing while writing the reader getting her back blown out? That's a new one for me. But, I did it. I finished Chapter 16 this week. I'm feeling significantly better than I was, at least physically. Giving it to you a day early because I feel bad about not posting last week. The events of this chapter pick up pretty much where the previous one left off. Timeline wise, this chapter is spread over roughly a week-ish. And special thanks to the battle rattle anon for inspiring part of this chapter 🫶

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(This is my all time favorite gif of him I swear I stare at it way too much)

You’re clawing at the door frame, desperately clinging to the last thing you can hold on to, the last shred of your life as you know it. You fight the hands pulling at your arms, threatening to pull you away from the comfort, the warmth, the safety of your home, of your pack.

Your mothers grief-stricken sobs reach your ears, her cries of desperation as they rip you from her, your father’s hate filled gaze directed at you over her shoulder as he holds her back. She loves all her children, but you were always her favorite. The bond between you two was always the strongest.

Now you know why.

The arms rip you from the doorframe seconds before the door slams closed. It’s like a gavel strike declaring your fate, cutting you off from everything you knew. You’re pulled back from the door, from the house that had become your safe space, from the pack inside.

They’re not your pack anymore. The thought is like a sharp knife, severing the lifelong bond in your mind. You’re not a part of them anymore. You’re alone in this world, cut off from what you knew, and it’s all your fault.

If only you could have presented as an alpha, like you were supposed to.

You’re sobbing, breaths coming in choking gasps. Your chest feels tight, your body tense and aching as you fight against the constricting hold around you.

“Easy, easy.” A deep voice murmurs in your ear, your senses beginning to return. “Yer alright, kitten.”

Your breaths continue to come in shaky gasps as you start to recognize your surroundings. You’re in Johnny’s room still. His arms are wrapped tight around you, your own pinned against your chest. You had fallen asleep before you even realized it, exhausted after your night with Johnny.

“Ye were havin’ a nightmare.” He says, projecting his natural beta scent in an attempt to get you to relax.

You squeeze your eyes shut, letting the scent start to numb your brain. The tears continue to slide down your cheeks, but slowly your breathing begins to normalize. Johnny begins to loosen his hold around you, not letting you go, but enough that you don’t feel like you’re being constricted anymore.

“Si gets them too.” Johnny continues, speaking quietly. His breath is warm as it fans your ear, reminding you that you’re awake now, and your nightmare is behind you. “Woken up tae elbows and fists in my face many times.”

You keep your eyes closed, taking in deep breaths as Johnny lays with you in silence, his fingers gently stroking your arms. You hadn’t meant to fall asleep. You hadn’t meant to have a nightmare. Not in front of them. You knew it would happen eventually, but you had hoped you could avoid it as long as possible.

You don’t want to reveal your weakness, your pain, your inner struggle to them. They have enough of their own, they don’t need to know how broken you are too.

You lay there, slowly calming your breaths and the slight tremble in your limbs as you wait for Johnny to begin questioning you. He’ll want to know, he’ll want to hear what it is that’s plaguing your mind. You’ll have to tell him, you’ll have to explain everything and then he’ll want to know more. He’ll want to unearth the brokenness and the pain that you’ve buried so deeply like an archaeologist looking for the secrets of an ancient civilization.

You don’t want to reveal it, you want to bury it again, lock it back in the recesses of your mind where it can’t hurt you. You want to compress it back down until you feel safe again without the threat of the past hanging over your head.

Johnny continues to relax his hold around you as you begin to calm down again, the tears finally slowing to a stop. You take deep breaths, trying to match Johnny’s even breathing behind you. You wait for it, the inevitable question, the prodding, the digging. He’ll want answers, he’ll want to know what plagues your mind, how much it’s been happening, why you haven’t said anything.

You’re not sure how much time passes as you lay there, counting breaths. It’s silent in the room, in the barracks. Even outside it’s quiet, as if the world is holding its breath, waiting patiently for the shoe to drop, for the truth to get revealed.

You can't wait any longer. The tension is too thick, the thought of waiting for the question to break the silence is too much. You'll rip the bandaid before he can try and force it from you. “I don't-”

“Ye don't have tae tell me.” He cuts you off before you can even start, the words slicing through yours, stopping you from spilling your darkest, innermost thoughts. “We all have them sometimes. No shame in that.” He tightens his grip on you for a moment, pulling you closer against his chest. “Simon doesn't even tell me all of his. Thinks he might scare me off, or somethin'. I'm no’ gonnae force ye to tell me anythin’ if ye don’ want to.”

You're taken aback by his words. You suppose they all have to be plagued by nightmares of their own, with the kinds of things they have to see when they're in the field. Ghost had told you a bit about the nightmares that haunt him, and that had only been one tragedy, one mission. You suddenly feel silly. The kinds of things you’re afraid of, the nightmares that terrify your mind suddenly seem inconsequential to the things they must dream about at night.

You wiggle in Johnny’s arms until you’re facing him, his eyes half closed as he stares down at you. You shift forward, pressing your face against his bare chest. His head tucks so his chin rests against the top of your head as he holds you, his breathing slowing just slightly as he drifts back to sleep. You don’t sleep, laying there awake as you listen to the slow, rhythmic beating of Johnny’s heart.

He’s snoring quietly, breath fanning across your hair as he sleeps peacefully. You let your fingers trail over his skin as you wait for his early alarm that will signal the end of your quiet moments of bliss, snapping you both back into your realities. You trace the scars lining his skin, all of them with their own stories, just like John’s.

He makes a garbled, snorting noise as your fingers brush over his ribs, his entire body twitching. His hand moves, his fingers wrapping around your wrist. “Tickles.” He murmurs, lifting your arm so it’s draped around his neck. He's asleep almost immediately, as if he hadn't woken at all from your tickling.

You continue to lay there as he sleeps, your mind drifting between sleep and your racing thoughts until Johnny’s alarm goes off. He groans, reaching across you to turn it off. He lays still, breath still fanning over the top of your head. For a moment you’re worried he’s fallen asleep again, but eventually he moves, rolling on top of you.

He presses his face against your neck, letting out a quiet groan. He’s heavy, but a solid weight above you. It’s comforting, the weight of him like a blanket keeping you safe. He presses gentle kisses against your neck, his fingers trailing across your shoulder before brushing over your mark. You let out a whine, arching against him.

“Screamin’ Jesus.” He curses, getting hard against your thigh.

“Don’t you have to go work out?” You ask as he begins to grind against you.

“Would rather stay here with you.” He growls against your throat.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” You gasp, bucking up against him.

“Worth it.” He grunts, kicking the sheets off the end of the bed.

“Someone missed the morning workout.” Kyle says as you and Johnny sit down at the table for breakfast. You’re the last ones there, despite Johnny skipping his early morning workout.

You take your normal spot between Kyle and John, sitting gingerly on the hard bench. There’s still a distinct ache between your thighs from Johnny’s enthusiasm and intense stamina last night and this morning.

“Aye, don’t worry. I still got a good workout in.” Johnny says cheekily, winking across the table at you.

You’re afraid you may combust as the other three pairs of eyes at the table look at you. It’s no secret what you were doing last night, or this morning. Johnny, as in most aspects of his life, is loud in bed. Kyle had known you were going to, and so had Simon, but you find your gaze turning to John as your face warms.

You’re not quite sure what you’re expecting as you look at him. It’s not like he had forbidden you from pursuing relationships with the others, or even shown any distaste at the idea. You were open to love the other members of the pack, just as they did one another, just as he did.

His face is stoic as he stares at you, before it begins to lighten, a gleam shining in his eyes. “Did he take good care of you?” He asks, the corner of his lips twitching.

You swallow thickly, your face getting warmer as you nod. “Yeah.”

“Good.” John grins. “ Then I suppose I can forgive him for sleeping in this morning, so long as it doesn’t become a habit.” He casts his glance across the table.

“I’m a bad influence.” You say, spooning porridge into your mouth.

“Certainly worth the trouble, though.” Johnny says, wiggling his eyebrows at you. “Especially when you do that thing with your tongue-”

Johnny’s words are cut off with a pained yelp as Ghost kicks him under the table. “Don’t go spilling all her tricks.” He grumbles, eyeing the tables around you.

You think your face might be permanently warm at the thought of anyone nearby hearing the topic of your conversation. Of course they know, but hearing about it was something entirely different.

Kyle walks you back to the barracks after breakfast, your hand in his, fingers laced together. His thumb rubs the back of your hand absentmindedly, shoulders brushing as you walk. Neither of you say anything, but you don’t have to. Unlike Johnny, Kyle is happy to exist in silence. They’re so very different, despite both being betas.

Your brothers had often joked about betas being boring, and how glad they were that neither of your parents were betas. You’d disagree now, after spending some time around betas. They’re just as complex as alphas and omegas, in their own ways.

Boring was the last thing you’d describe Johnny as last night.

Kyle holds the door for you as you enter the barracks, following you down the hall. You stop in front of your door, your hand pausing on the knob as Kyle leans in close to you.

His chest presses against your back, breath fanning your ear as he speaks. “Can’t wait to find out about this trick you do with your tongue.”

Your face warms again, your heart thudding in your chest as you turn to look up at him, tongue darting out to wet your lips. “You could find out right now.”

Kyle’s lips lift in a smirk as he leans in closer, trapping you against the door. “I’d love to, but I don’t think the Captain would be quite so forgiving if I skipped out on this training.”

You stare up at him, lost in his big brown eyes. “Soon?”

He smirks, leaning down to kiss you. “Of course. Just say the word.”

He leaves you there with your heart thudding in your chest, your stomach churning in excitement. You’d be more than willing to go that extra step with Kyle right at this very moment, but the subtle ache between your thighs thanks to Johnny is a good reminder why you should wait. You want to enjoy your time with Kyle.

You know it will be worth the wait.

“How have you been?”

You shrug, sinking back into the plush chair. It’s warm in the office, a stark contrast to the cold downpour outside. “Fine.” You answer, running your hands over your jeans. “Tired.”

“Oh?” Dr. Keller raises an eyebrow at you. “Have you not been sleeping well?”

“I’m...having a hard time falling asleep.” You say. It’s not entirely a lie, but it’s not the whole truth.

“Why do you think that is?” She asks, writing something down.

Your palms begin to sweat. You hadn’t planned on going into too much detail about this with her, but you knew she’d likely notice and remark on your tired appearance. “Been thinking too much.”

“About what?” She probes, staring at you.

You know you don’t have to tell her anything. What you share is up to you. Yet, you can feel the words bubbling up, threatening to spill over before you can stop them. “My family.” You say, releasing some steam from the boiling pot inside you. Tears burn your eyes, threatening to fall as you continue. “Especially my mom. I miss her a lot sometimes.”

“You had a close bond with her.” Dr. Keller says. It’s not a question.

You nod. “The closest out of all of my siblings.” You snuffle, wiping the tear trailing down your cheek. “Makes sense why.”

“Sometimes we have traits or behaviors that show before we present that hint at our possible status. Having a stronger bond with one parent over another, especially in mixed status packs, can signal what one might present as.” Dr. Keller says. “Were you the first omega to present in your pack?”

You nod. “Yeah. My older brothers were alphas, and I don’t know about my younger siblings.”

“That could all contribute to a strong bond with your mother.” Dr. Keller leans back in her seat. “I’m assuming you haven’t had any contact with them since the institute.”

“Not since I was taken from home. The institute didn’t support keeping those connections with previous packs and...I don’t think they would have reached out anyway.” You say, picking at the fabric of your pants.

“What makes you say that?” Dr. Keller asks.

You pause, not sure you want to open that bag of worms. If anyone is safe enough to do it with, you know it’s going to be Dr. Keller. She won’t judge you, she won’t think you weak or silly for having such thoughts, such fears. She doesn’t care how broken you are. You’re not part of her pack. She’s an outsider, a doctor above all.

“Well, they did send me to the institute, didn’t they?” You finally say.

Dr. Keller hums, staring at you for a moment before she drops her gaze to her notebook, writing something down. “I suppose you have a point there. Hypothetically, if you were given the chance to, would you want to talk to them again? It’s not uncommon for omegas to seek out their previous packs and families after they leave the institute.”

Your stomach twists at her question. Even if it is only hypothetical, you had existed for years in the institute thinking you’d never get to see or hear from your family again. They were behind you, lost to you. They wouldn’t accept your attempts to reach out to them, even if you knew where they were. Even after leaving the institute, you knew the chances of seeing them again or even just hearing from them was almost none. You have a new pack now, your old one doesn’t matter.

That’s just the life of an omega.

Would you want to? In this hypothetical world where this question exists as a potential option, would they even answer if you called? Would they accept an invitation to see you again, if they were given the chance? Could your father feel regret after all of these years for what he did to you?

“I...” You frown, tears pricking your eyes again. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” Dr. Keller says. “It’s a complex situation. If you ever wanted to, though, I’m sure they could make it happen.”

Your gaze snaps to hers, the shock at her words clearly written on your face. Of course they probably could. It was their job to hunt down hard to find people, and with the CIA at their backs, you’re certain they could track down your family easily. Would they do it for you, if you asked? Would they allow you to have that connection with your old pack while still being part of theirs?

“Most people keep some form of contact with their family, even after they move on to their own pack.” Dr. Keller says. “It’s not unusual, even among omegas. Just something to think about.”

“Do you still talk to your family?” You ask her, partly out of curiosity.

“I do.” She smiles. “I talk to my parents pretty regularly, and my older brother occasionally. He’s involved in this world too. He was in the Army originally, but now he does whatever it is he does.”

You’re surprised by her answer. Not so much that she still talks to her family, but that she’s familiar with this world. It makes sense, how easily she existed in it, beyond just being a professional. “Do you think it had something to do with you being chosen for this position?” You ask.

“Most likely.” She grins. “Laswell probably wanted someone who is at least a little familiar with this world, but also someone she knew would work well with you.”

“I think she made the right choice.” You say. It’s the truth. You like Dr. Keller. You trust her. You’ve grown comfortable in her presence and you look forward to your appointments with her. It almost makes you feel bad for withholding the truth from her.

“Good. I think so too.” She says. “So, did anything exciting happen this week?”

You chew on your lip nervously, your hands disappearing into your sleeves as your face warms a bit. “Johnny and I...had our first time together.”

“Oh?” Her eyebrows raise. “And that’s something you wanted?”

You nod. “Yeah. I’d like to get close to all of them, well, as close as Ghost will let me get.” You bite your lip again. “Ghost...gave me some pointers on how to handle Johnny. It worked. He...let me take control. I liked it.”

“Nothing wrong with that.” Dr. Keller says. “I think it’s great that you’ve discovered this about yourself. I know omegas are so used to being controlled in society. I think it’s great that you’ve found a place where perhaps you can take a little control back.”

She’s not wrong. Your entire life has been dictated for you, controlled by someone else. The baton of control was just continually passed from your father, to the institute, to the CIA, and now to John. Though John has granted you the most freedom of everyone that’s held control over you, there’s still requirements for obedience and submission to him. You’ll never be your own person. That’s just the way society works, and you’ve come to accept that.

Yet, you’ve never felt quite so powerful as you did in bed with Johnny, when you’d gripped him by the mohawk like Ghost had instructed you to. When you saw the change in his eyes as you took over, controlling him, telling him what to do. You liked it, exerting control over someone else for a change. He just let you do it. It still sends a thrill down your spine at the thought of the possibilities, the things you can do now that you’ve discovered this part of yourself. You’d never show it in public, but behind closed doors...

The book was right. Perhaps omegas can be powerful.

“What are we doing?” You ask, staring up at John as he straps a tactical vest onto your body.

“We’re doing an exercise, and you’re going to help us.” He answers, double checking the vest before putting a helmet on your head. “Think of it as hide and seek mixed with tag.” He finishes strapping the helmet to your head, taking a step back. “How does it feel?”

“Heavy.” You feel weighed down with the vest and the helmet.

“You’ll get used to it.” He says with a smile, guiding you towards the door of the warehouse.

It’s dark inside, nearly pitch black except for the light coming in from the open door. There’s fake walls set up in front of you, with space just in the middle like a sort of hallway that disappears into the darkness.

“Your job is to get from this side of the warehouse, to the other without getting caught.” John says. “No weapons, just you trying to evade us and get to the other side while we try and catch you,” John lowers the goggles on the top of the helmet, the world coming alive in shades of green around you. “And night vision goggles. Be smart about it. Understood?”

You nod, looking around with the goggles, trying to adapt to using them. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. You have a thirty second head start. Use it wisely.”

He leaves the warehouse, closing the door behind him. You’re left in complete darkness, with no sound but a fan running somewhere, probably to dampen any sounds that might echo. You stand there for a moment, trying not to breathe too heavily, as it might echo in the warehouse. You stare at the door behind you for a second before you begin to move forward, the adrenaline starting to pump. You have to get to the other side of the warehouse before they catch you. Are they working together or individually? What kind of strategy will they use? What strategy will you use?

You begin to pick up speed, running until you reach the end of the first hallway. It splits off in both directions, and you hesitate for a moment. Be smart about it. You don’t have many advantages in this situation. They’ve done this before, both in training and probably in the field as well. They’re highly skilled soldiers, trained to hunt down people in all sorts of environments, sometimes with nothing more than their scent.

Scent.

Of course.

You take off down the right hallway, following it as it twists and turns like a maze. A giant maze. There’s so many hallways, so many places to run, but not many to hide. That’s not the point, though. You have to get to the other side of the warehouse before they do. You have to track your way through this maze without getting caught by four special operations soldiers.

Simple enough.

You pause at a corner, undoing your vest so you can slip your sweatshirt off. You’re just putting your vest back on when the door opens, bathing the ceiling with light for a moment. It’s started. They’re inside. You can’t hear anything over the hum of the fan, and that’s almost more terrifying to you than if you had been able to hear them. The adrenaline is pumping now as you toss your sweatshirt in the corner before quickly backtracking and heading a different direction.

You try to keep your breathing quiet as you weave through the maze, doubling back and touching the walls every so often to try and leave your scent behind and confuse them. You take deep breaths through your nose as you go, trying to catch any whiff of them, any sign that you might have crossed their path or be getting close to them. They’ll reach the same area of the maze as you’re in eventually, sooner rather than later. You need to start pressing forward. You’re not just evading them, you have to reach the other side before they catch you.

You slip around a corner, pressing up against the wall as something moves behind you. You hold your breath, quiet footsteps passing by your position. Your hands are shaking from the adrenaline, the instinctual fear of being hunted rising in you. You take a couple of quiet deep breaths, slipping your shoes off to grab your socks before slipping them back on. You peek around the corner, finding nothing.

You toss one of your socks in the corner before doubling back, pausing as you cross one of their scents. Johnny. You recognize the citrusy tang in the air. Christ, you’ve never heard him be that quiet before. You continue on, your heart racing in your chest as you carefully weave around corners, slipping through hallways. They’re close to you now. They could be around any corner.

You pause as you cross the scent of leather and musk, something prickling in the back of your mind. It’s a fresh scent. You pause for a moment, looking in the direction he went before slipping around the corner. You still have your other sock clutched in your hand, knuckles white as you grip it tightly.

You should be nearing the end. The warehouse isn’t that big, even with all the doubling back and dodging you’ve been doing. You toss your other sock in a corner haphazardly as you decide to stop doubling back and go for the exit. You have to try and get ahead of them, as well as find your way through the maze to the exit door.

Simple enough.

Except, you have no idea which direction the exit is, or which direction you’re heading. You could be going backwards for all you know. You weave through the halls, around the corners, focusing on finding the end of the maze.

In your concentration you fail to notice the scent, weaving through the halls mindlessly as you attempt to reach the end of the maze. You pay for it as the sound of boots on the concrete floor rushes up behind you. You let out a startled shriek of surprise as your feet leave the floor, your body ragdolling over someone’s shoulder.

“Got her!” He yells out, weaving around a couple corners before light floods the warehouse, making you wince.

Your squint as your feet hit the ground again, the night vision goggles lifted from your face. Your nose crinkles as you stare up at Kyle’s smug face, his lips pulled up in a smirk.

“No fair.” You pout. “I was so close!”

“You were, but you got sloppy at the end there.” He says, undoing the strap of your helmet to help you take it off. You’re sweaty underneath it, hair sticking to your forehead. You’re glad you ditched your sweatshirt now.

“Not bad.” John says, exiting the warehouse, Ghost and Johnny following. “Nice strategy.” He says, tossing your sweatshirt to you.

You shrug, hugging it to your chest. “Had to think fast with what I had on hand.”

“Running around with no socks on too.” Ghost says, holding up your socks.

“Left you a little present. You can keep them if you want.” You smirk.

“Don’t want your nasty socks.” He grumbles, tossing them to you.

“That was fun.” You say, grinning up at them. “Like being hunted.” You don’t miss the quiet rumble in John’s chest at your words, his eyes darkening just a bit. “Can someone help me out of this now though,” You say, reaching for the velcro straps on the vest. “It’s squishing my boobs.”

The TV is playing some show, but you're not really paying attention. You haven't been, not for a while now. Your adrenaline had still been pumping a bit after your participation in the exercise earlier, putting you on edge the rest of the day. It had been a bit thrilling, the idea of being hunted like that. You can understand now how omegas enjoy being hunted, beyond just the inevitable end.

The thought of that being how the exercise ended, all four of them at once, out where anyone could see you...your skin begins to prickle as heat blossoms in your veins. Kyle would get to take you first because he won, he caught you so easily. Would John go second, or would he allow the other members of his pack to go first? Ghost would be rough, taking you from behind, hands bruising on your hips. Your teeth sink into your lip as you imagine him over you, a position you often found yourself in during your training with him. He's just so big, so strong. They all are.

You won't be able to control yourself during training if you keep going down that thought path.

John would be gentle, piecing you back together after the others have had their way with you. He'd take care of you, like a good alpha, dragging one more orgasm out of you after you think you can't anymore.

You let out a shaky breath, trying to calm your scent. You're stinking up the rec room with your fantasies. You turn your head to look at the TV, trying to focus on what's happening on the screen in an effort to distract yourself.

It doesn't work, the subtle dampness between your thighs ever present on your mind. You have half a mind to get up and seek out Kyle, but like a miracle he appears in the doorway of the rec room. You see his nostrils flare, the lift of his shoulders as he inhales. He can smell your arousal, the spike in the sweetness of your scent. You have no doubt about that. He doesn't say anything, though, instead he approaches the couch silently, kneeling at the end.

He settles himself on top of you, resting his head on your chest. He lets out a breath as he settles, keeping some of his weight off of you, but he's still pressed against you like a weighted blanket. You fight the urge to shift beneath him, to press your hips up against him, to seek any ounce of relief for the warmth between your thighs.

You're not sure he's watching the TV either as he lays there, relaxed over you. Your fingers trail patterns across his back, gliding over his soft shirt. He's in blue today, one of your favorite colors on him. He looks good in anything, the perks of being pretty, but blue is one of your favorite colors on him.

It's silent between you for a while, Kyle relaxed above you while you fight to relax beneath him. If he’s affected at all by your scent, he hides it well. You have half a mind to ask him to take pity on you, to slip his hand beneath your sweatpants and ease the ache between your thighs. He had said whenever you wanted it. All you have to do is ask.

You shift slightly beneath him, lifting your hand to his head. “Kyle?” You ask, gently trailing your fingers over his scalp. He'd gotten his hair buzzed recently, the curly strands shorter than normal.

He hums in response, the sound rumbling through your body from where his head rests on your chest. When you don't reply right away he lifts his head, blinking up at you with those big brown eyes.

“Kiss me?” You ask.

Your heart starts to race as he pulls himself closer to you, his body dragging against yours. His eyes dart to your lips before they look back into yours for a moment. He leans down, slipping his arms underneath your back as he closes the gap between you. His lips are soft against yours, his kisses gentle and controlled as he holds you like you might break in his grasp.

“Kyle?” You murmur against his lips, your arms wrapping around his neck.

He hums again in response, pulling away just slightly to stare down at you.

“‘M not gonna break.” You say, dragging your nails over his scalp again. “Kiss me like you mean it.”

His lips twitch in a smirk before he leans down, pressing his lips hard against yours. It’s a searing kiss that nearly steals your breath away. His tongue prods at your lips, and you part them to allow him in. He tastes like the tea he had been drinking after dinner, rich and earthy with a hint of sweetness from the sugar he added. You moan softly into his mouth as his tongue flicks against your own, your thighs squeezing around his waist at the thought of that tongue between your legs.

He smirks against your lips as if he knows exactly what you’re thinking, his body shifting over yours so he can press one of his thighs between your legs. You move instinctively, your hips grinding against his thigh. Finally you're getting some friction, some relief from the ache.

“Fuck.” He breathes, pulling you tighter against his chest. “That’s it.” He groans, pressing his thigh harder against your grinding hips. “Gonna cum on my thigh, just like that?” He nips at your jaw, trailing kisses down the line towards your neck. “Haven’t even touched you yet.”

You try to muffle your moans as you continue to grind against his thigh, the friction on your clit pushing you closer and closer to the edge. “Kyle?” You gasp out, gripping the back of his shirt. “Gonna fuck me on the rec room couch?”

He lifts his head from your neck, staring down at you for a moment. “Fuck, you’re right. Your room or mine?”

“Yours.” You say, hanging on for dear life as he scoops you up off the couch, wrapping your legs around his waist.

He walks you to his room, carrying you the entire way. He kicks the door shut, beelining for his bed. He drops you down on the mattress, your body bouncing as he hastily peels his shirt off, revealing an expanse of smooth skin marked here and there by scars. You immediately reach out, trailing your fingers over his skin. It’s just as soft as it looks, your fingers trailing the lines of his muscles.

His hand flattens over yours as it reaches his chest, pressing it into his warm skin as he leans down, kissing you again. His hands slip under your thighs, lifting you and switching your positions so he’s seated on the bed, and you’re in his lap.

“Anyone ever tell you how beautiful you are?” He says, looking up at you.

“I think it’s been mentioned before.” You say with a shrug, smiling down at him.

“It’s the truth.” He says, slipping his hands under your shirt. “Deserve to hear it all the time.”

“Bunch of handsome men complimenting me constantly?” You say, lifting your arms over your head so he can remove your shirt. “Can’t complain about that.”

“Luckiest men in the world.” He says, smoothing his hands across your back as he presses his face into your throat. “Pretty little omega.”

You shiver as his teeth nip at your skin, his thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts. You arch against his chest, pressing yourself closer. There’s a bulge in his pants, a shiver of pride running through you at the thought that you did that to him. You elicited such a reaction from him.

“I never properly thanked you.” You say, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“For what?” He asks, staring up at you curiously.

“For taking such good care of me during my heat. Couldn’t have been easy, seeing me like that, knowing you couldn’t even touch me.” You grind your hips against his, his teeth sinking into his lip as you grind against his bulge. “Tell me, how many times did you touch yourself while thinking about me?”

“Too many to count, love.” He groans, leaning his forehead against yours. “Sounded so sweet, getting ruined by our alpha.”

“Been so patient, waiting for this.” You gasp, still rocking in his lap, the wetness between your thighs intensifying from the friction. “Tell me how you want me.”

“Sit on my face.” He growls, pushing you off his lap so he can lay down on the bed.

You shove your pants and underwear down your legs, fighting the urge to be bashful. Kyle has already seen you at your most vulnerable, been up close and personal with your most private parts. Yet, it feels different like this. More intimate, and less of a necessity.

You take his hand as he offers it, letting him guide you to kneel over his face. You grip the headboard as you hover over him, his hands settling on your hips.

“Wait-” You say, before he can pull you down onto his face. “What if I suffocate you?”

“Then I’ll die a happy man.” He says, tugging you down onto his mouth.

You let out a gasp as his tongue drags through your folds, already soaked from his teasing. His tongue flicks across your clit, eliciting a quiet moan from your lips. Your hips jerk when his mouth closes around your clit, suckling at it with a lewd smack of his lips.

“Fuck!” You gasp, grinding your hips against his face as he continues to tease your clit, drawing patterns on it with his tongue.

You’re close already, your legs trembling around his head. He holds you steady, keeping you still above him as he wraps his lips around your clit, sucking on it harshly. Your knees attempt to squeeze around his head as you cum, soaking his face with a cry. He continues to lap at your folds, licking up every last bit of your release before he finally lets you move off his face.

You drop to the side, staring down at him as you try to catch your breath. He licks his lips, his face shiny with your juices. He reaches a hand over, tangling his fingers in your hair as he pulls your face down to his, kissing you. You moan at the taste of yourself on his tongue and lips, already starting to get wet again.

Kyle wraps his arms around you, flipping you onto your back under him. He hovers over you, the bulge in his pants very visible, even from this position.

“Sweet little omega.” He says, nipping at your lips. “So fucking perfect.”

“Kyle,” You gasp, pulling him down into a kiss. “Need you.”

“I got you.” He soothes you, pressing another kiss to your lips before he sits back on his knees between your legs, staring down at you. He drags his fingers through your folds, still just as slick as they had been before your orgasm. “So fucking wet.” He groans, hastily undoing his belt and pants, kicking them off the end of the bed.

You stare at him in awe, his cock just as beautiful as he is. Long and thick, curved just slightly. You can’t help but ogle him as he wraps a hand around the base, squeezing it. He’s hard, raging hard, the tip leaking precum already. He really has been so patient, waiting for this. You almost feel bad making him wait so long, but he had agreed to be patient, if only to keep Johnny from making everyone’s lives miserable with his pouting if he didn’t get to go first.

It’s only fair that you let Johnny go first too, considering Kyle will likely be the one you spend the most time with. It’s only natural, thanks to your bond with John. Kyle’s your beta, just as much as John is your alpha. You’d like Johnny to be your beta too, but you know without that bond with Ghost, it’ll never feel quite the same as it does with Kyle. Regardless, you’ll continue to treat Johnny as if he was your beta.

“What’s going on in that head of yours?” Kyle asks, watching you as you get lost in thought.

You truly do it at the worst possible times.

You lift your gaze to his, staring into those big brown eyes. “Just waiting on you to hurry up and fuck me.”

You let out a yelp as Kyle’s hand smacks your inner thigh, the sound cracking through the room.

“Don’t get cheeky now.” He warns, rubbing the spot on your skin that’s quickly turning warm from his smack. “Just making sure you’re alright.”

“Fine.” You say, spreading your legs further for him. “Be better if you finally fucked me.”

Your laugh is broken by a moan as he drags his head through your folds, his hand falling to grip your waist.

“That needy for me, huh?” He asks, teasingly pressing the tip of his cock into you before pulling back.

“Just worried you might not make it since you’ve waited so long.” You gasp, trying to move your hips to take him deeper into you, but he pins you with the hand on your hip.

“Careful what you wish for.” He says, the warning clear in his tone. You handled Johnny just fine, you can certainly handle Kyle.

You hope.

He finally takes pity on you, sinking his cock deeper into you. You moan at the stretch, flopping back on the bed as you try to relax around him. He rolls his hips in short thrusts, sinking deeper and deeper as you open up to him. You reach for him as he sinks even further into you, his body folding over yours. You wrap your arms around his neck, staring up at him as he seats himself completely inside you, hips pressed flush against yours.

“Hi.” You breathe, getting lost in his soft gaze.

“Hi, love.” He grins down at you, fingers brushing your cheeks as he leans on his elbows above you. “Doing alright?”

You nod, squeezing around him. “Yeah. Feels good.”

“Good.” He says, leaning down to kiss you. “Been waiting so long for this. Feels better than I imagined.”

You let out a quiet whine, clenching around him again. The thought of him imagining this, trying to picture what you’d look like, what you’d feel like while he waited patiently for his turn has your body burning hot. You shift your hips below him, causing him to move inside you.

“Kyle?” You breathe, shifting again. “Please move.”

“I got you, love.” He smiles down at you, pulling his hips back before slowly pressing forward again.

Your head falls back as he moves, keeping his pace slow and languid. Heat burns through your veins, your very nerve endings alive as he slowly rolls his hips into you. Something thrums in the back of your mind, the mark on your shoulder almost tingling as you stare up at him, your fingers trailing over the mark on his shoulder, a mirror of the one on your own. A shudder runs through him as your fingers brush the scar, his lips parting in a low groan. You clench around him at the sight of such unbridled pleasure on his face, pulling him closer against your body.

He drags your pleasure out as he makes love to you, slow and passionate and deliberate with every movement. You know you won’t last much longer, the sensations beginning to overwhelm you.

“I’m close.” You breathe into Kyle’s ear, pressing kisses across his neck. “Don’t stop.”

“Gonna cum for me?” He groans, keeping his thrusts steady. “Gonna let me see that beautiful face as you come undone for me?”

Your back arches as you cum, pushed over the edge by his words. Your nails bite into his shoulders, but he offers no complaint as he continues to roll his hips into yours, working you through your orgasm as he chases his own. His pace picks up slightly as he gets closer and closer to the edge, your eyes on his face, wanting to watch him now.

“Your turn.” You breathe, still trying to catch your breath from your orgasm as you clench around him.

His head tilts back, lips parted in a deep moan as his hips jerk. His cock twitches inside you, his thrusts getting sloppy as he cums. You trail your hands over his back, sinking your teeth into your lip as you watch his face morph into complete bliss. You’ve never seen anything quite so beautiful.

He collapses on top of you, just managing to keep his weight off of you thanks to his elbows planted on the bed beside your head. You continue to rub his back, fingers tracing the smooth, sweat slicked skin, only pausing to trace the scars that you find. Kyle presses soft kisses to your face, slowly trailing lower across your jaw and neck. He presses a kiss to your mark, a shudder running through you. He lets out a groan as you clench around him, shifting so he’s face to face with you again.

“Give me a minute.” He says, slipping out of you as he presses a kiss to your lips.

“Tired already?” You ask cheekily.

“No,” He says, kissing you again before slowly sliding down your body. “Just need a minute to catch my breath. Besides,” He settles between your thighs, pressing them open so he’s face to face with your pussy. “I’ve got a mess to clean up.”

You stand outside the door of John’s office, brows pulled into a frown. You have a feeling you already know what he’s going to say, yet your mind keeps reeling, coming up with the most fantastical ideas as to why you were summoned to his office in the middle of the day. It’s weird that he’s in his office in the middle of the day. Usually they’d be off training, but he’d pulled them all into a meeting this morning after breakfast, one that had gone into your usual lunch time, and then they hadn’t gone to train after you finally got to eat.

“Come in.”

Your hand pauses on the handle as you hesitate, almost as if you could prevent what’s going to happen by just not going in. It’s a ridiculous thought. Avoiding this will only likely get you into trouble.

You step into the office, the air inside different from any of the other times you’ve been in his office. John’s face looks grim and focused behind his desk, and it’s not hard to tell you’re not facing John right now, you’re facing Captain Price.

You take the seat across from him at his desk when he motions to it, trying to fight the tears threatening to brim in your eyes as you stare at him. You won’t cry. You knew this was going to happen eventually. You knew going in what was going to inevitably happen. You had been well prepared for this part of your new reality, yet you don’t want to acknowledge it now that you’re staring it in the face.

“I know you’ve likely already figured out what’s going on.” He says, his voice gruff and deeper than normal.

You can see it in his face. He’s fighting his own battle with having to tell you. You hadn’t expected it, to see him struggle with it. He knew it as well as you did. He knew it better than you did, and yet, you can see the turmoil behind that focused gaze.

He lets out a sigh as he continues, hands closing into fists on his desk, his tone almost apologetic. The words sting despite the fact you had known they were coming, despite the fact you had expected them when you walked into the office. “This morning we had a debrief for a new assignment. We’ll be leaving tonight. All four of us.”

NEXT ->

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#call of duty #call of duty fic #tf 141 x reader #task force 141 x reader #x reader #Kyle gaz Garrick x reader #gaz x reader #John price x reader #captain price x reader #Johnny soap mactavish x reader #soap x reader #Simon Riley x reader #Simon ghost riley x reader #a/b/o #alpha/beta/Omega dynamics #omegaverse

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webslingingslasher · 1 year ago

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peters nerdy side>>>> can we get more hot nerdy peter pretty pleaseeeee

nerdy peter makes me feral.

Peter Parker was finally rewarded for all the shit he deals with.

A teen, who was a silent walker in school, but a near lethal hero at night, one that has to deal with more stress and traumas than any other kid at seventeen. Night after night, his spirit being broken down a little more each bad guy he’s put away.

Queens see a hero that keeps the streets clean.

Sometimes, all Peter could see was someone’s dad, or husband, or son he was putting away.

All that bullshit he’s been dealt, the bullshit about power and responsibility, was washed away when he finally got something good, something he really thought he deserved.

He got you, and that’s why he’ll stop at nothing to keep you.

“You got yourself a good one, parker. Don’t fuck it all up with your nerdy shit, pretty girls hate that.”

Was it dumb to listen to Flash of all people? Maybe.

Does he know more about girls and has a better track record at keeping them? Yes.

But of course, just like how you were the one to approach him, ask him out, kiss him first and ask for him to be your boyfriend, he should’ve trusted you. Could you really blame him though, not totally trusting he can have a purely good thing with no consequences?

He couldn’t, that’s why it shocked him when you made it clear you only wanted him.

You wanted Peter Parker, however he came. Science facts, nerdy hobbies, tirades and all.

—---------------------

Have you ever built up an idea of who someone was in your head, and when you date the other shoe drops and they’re nothing like you thought?

That was you with Peter Parker.

He was adorably perfect, noticing him when sharing a history class. Peter sat three seats up from you on the left, perfect position for you to watch his habits. The shake in his leg, tapping pencils on his desk, blowing a breath every time someone answered incorrectly, sitting up and leaning over his desk when something catches his attention, chewing his bottom lip while going over notes, poking his tongue out when he takes a test.

Peter Parker was the constant subject on your mind, starting in history and causing you to look for him in other classes, you only shared one more, typing class. He was three rows behind you, there wasn’t a good way to look at him, instead having to rely on his quiet murmurs when the teacher stands behind his computer.

After two weeks of pining you couldn’t stand it, stomping over to his table at lunch you sit down right next to him. His friends paused at your sudden and aggressive entrance.

“Hi. We haven’t really talked but we share typing and history. For two weeks straight I’ve been watching you and I can’t get you out of my head, and I would really, really like to go on a date with you.”

You can see it on his face, how he goes from shock to excitement, then as he looks you over his face falls. He thinks you’re fucking with him, you don’t know how to make him believe it’s real.

“Here,” you pull at your backpack and rip the front pocket open, you pull a sharpie out and with a slight tremble you grab his arm, pushing his sleeve up you uncap the marker with your teeth. Scribbling your number onto his skin, “think about it, let me know.”

Before you lose your steam you scramble to stand and grab your bag, “okay, that’s all. Um,” you nod at his friends, silence deafening as everyone at the table takes in the scenario. “Thank you, and… enjoy lunch?” Cringing, you turn to leave, whispering an ‘oh my god,’ to yourself while pressing a hand to your cheek.

Peter is sure in that moment you were a hundred percent serious and you just mortified yourself, spilling your guts and being met with nothing.

Six steps away he calls out, “yes!”

You pause, then turn, “what?”

“Yes! I’ll go on a date with you.”

Oh, that’s a new feeling. It felt like your heart had wings, your stomach felt like you were on a rollercoaster, flutters everywhere. You couldn’t even try to play it cool, the guy you’ve been crazy about just as interested and curious as you were. A toothy smile overtook your face, eyes lit up.

Taking a few steps closer, you felt giddy.

“Really? You will?”

Peter’s smile matched yours, he laughed through his answer, he can’t believe you actually like him that much. “Yeah.” Biting your bottom lip you pull it together, “cool, text me and we’ll plan something?”

“You got it.”

Nodding you walk off, Peter’s riding on a high like never has. He’s never had such a pretty girl like you like him, want him, notice him. He felt like he’s been rewarded, that he does deserve a good thing.

Flash scoffs when you sit back at your table, immediately talking and watching faces gasp and squeal.

“You got yourself a good one, parker. Don’t fuck it all up with your nerdy shit, pretty girls hate that.”

The last thing he wants to do, before he even gets you, is send you off. So, he listens and promises to be someone that should be with a girl like you, someone that isn’t really him.

—---------------------

You figured it was first date nerves.

That or just the fact you’ve never been alone with each other, especially under the guise of a date. It wasn’t like he was weird, but he was off. The person you watched in class was goofy, using his body to express himself, confident when speaking because he could back every word up.

This Peter was quiet, guarded and almost… boring.

You tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, he just had some jitters. Maybe if you kissed him it would settle him, you could prove that you liked him and he had nothing to be nervous about. Trying to look past his awkwardness you took the night as it was, wishing he was making you laugh like he had in class, or wishing he would ramble on in a story like you’ve watched him do with his friends at lunch or at his locker.

It may have been different than you thought but he’d come around after a date or two surly, you’d kiss him and after another few dates he’ll open up and be his true self. It was hope, but you were riding on it.

Peter ended the night by walking you home, conversation slowly dwindling as you approached closer, falling flat when you were in front of the building. Waiting for a moment you looked at his mouth, he made no reaction, you hadn’t expected him to sweep you off your feet but to not offer anything made you feel unsure.

“Can I kiss you?”

It was obvious from the look on his face that he wasn’t expecting anything in the slightest, but he licked his bottom lip and nodded softly, “yeah,” leaning in you wait for a moment, he makes no move, he has to be extremely nervous, no other option. You kissed him, you pressed into him and grabbed his face, his hands gently hovered and you pulled away.

Maybe he just pitied you, just agreed because you put him on the spot.

“Um, you know if you didn’t want-”

“Can we do this again, please?”

And just because he asked, and because it seemed like he realized he acted off and he wanted another chance, and because you really do believe in first date jitters, you say yes.

—--------------

The first time you went over to his house his room was oddly clean, empty spaces on his bookshelf and shelves, almost like he’d put things away. Eyeing a bin by his closet you walked closer, “you collect comics?” Hoping you wouldn’t find, but still opening the top and starting to look through the ones on top.

Peter took a deep breath, “as a kid, kinda stupid now, don’t you think?”

You furrow your eyebrows and shake your head, looking back down at the comic in your hand. You thought when you started dating he’d open up more, instead he got more closed off.

Clearing your throat you place the comics back in, in the exact same order and putting the lid back on. “No, I don’t think they’re stupid. I was hoping you had some new ones I could catch up on, but if you think they’re stupid now I guess I’ll have to get ‘em myself.”

If he had known you like comics he would’ve never said that. It’s his fault for leaving them out, he should’ve put them away like everything else that screamed ‘nerd alert’.

“I didn’t mean they’re stupid, just you know… collecting them as an adult… is.. weird?”

The lamest excuse you’ve ever heard, but you keep your patience. It hasn't even been two weeks, he’ll come around. You know it.

—------

Surprising Peter with a hug he budged against your weight before supporting you, talking to a friend while he wrapped his arms around your back. Picking up on pieces of the conversation you nudge your head up, interested in his words.

The Peter you like, the one that’s animated and rambling, moving his hands across your back as he talks. You place a kiss at the bottom of his neck, “whatcha talking about?” It sounded like a new program that was going to change the future of computer engineering, when you questioned he blew you off. “Nothing important.”

You had tried, you tried to be kind and patient and understanding but he just wasn’t who you wanted. You wanted that person, the person that’s excited about new technology and collected comic books.

Peter closed off when you asked, guarded back up, you wished it could’ve been different. Maybe one day he’d open up more, you didn’t want anything but his true self.

You gave it a month before you had to accept that Peter Parker wasn’t the person you thought he was, today, you had to accept that you were breaking up with Peter Parker. Pulling away you grab his arm, silently telling him to look at you.

“Can I come over later?”

“Yeah, of course. Wanna come with me after school?”

“Sure,” you wondered if he could see through your smile. It doesn’t seem like it, he leans down and gives you a quick kiss, you pull away and back away through the halls.

He has no idea what’s coming.

—------------

Gently pushing Peter’s shoulders down to coax him into sitting on the edge of his bed, you grin politely when he follows instruction. Dragging his desk chair to sit in front of him you pause to think about what you were going to say, clearing your throat you begin.

“So, I like you a lot, and I’ve enjoyed having you as my boyfriend for the past month-”

Peter’s eyebrows furrow, he holds his hand up, “enjoyed? Are you breaking up with me?”

You bite your lip and nod solemnly, “I’m sorry, Peter.”

The silence is unsettling, you look away from him, his figures deflated and his mind races.

“Why?”

Taking a deep breath and blowing it out you shrug, “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Peter. But, uh, you’re just… not what I thought you’d be like.”

How could you not like him? He’s done everything right. He was the perfect suitor, he acted like the typical non nerd male. The kind of all american guy every girl wanted.

“I don’t… what does that mean?”

You laugh, “I have a type, and you’re not it. I like nerds, like, straight up goofy, funny guys that know something about everything and collect comic books and get excited at new, humanity altering technology. I thought you were that guy, but I guess not.”

Oh my god.

He’s fucked it all up, he was dumb enough to believe you wanted something else.

He can show you he’s a nerd, he’s been one his entire goddamn life, he’s about to nerd olympics the hell out of you.

Peter jumps from his seat so quickly it startles you, his hands come down on the armrests of your chair, the seat tilting backwards as he pushes his weight towards you.

“I’m the biggest nerd you’ll ever meet.”

Your seat jostles when he lets go and opens his closet, pulling out a box he sets it on his bed.

“This is everything I put away when we started dating,” he turns with three rubik’s cubes, each one in various sizes. “,these are my rubik’s cubes, I can finish the standard in forty three seconds, the six by six took me about thirty minutes and this baby?” he bounced the biggest one in his hold, “, this is a twenty one by twenty one, it took me about three hours.”

Peter dropped them to the bed and continued, “and this is my national championship trophy for chess club,” he shoves it in your face before he keeps digging, a small picture frames come next, “this is when I won the states most innovative science fair project,” frantic digging, “, this is a figurine of my favorite video game,” two large disc sets next, “lord of the rings and star wars,”

He spins around, flying past your body where he picks up his comic book container, “remember when I was late to our date last week? I was getting these,” three new additions of an old comic you had just started to pick up, “, and currently?” Peter moved to his desk, tapping on his keyboard until his screen woke up, code covered the screen, he pointed between the monitor and a notebook, “I’m learning to read binary code.”

You felt like the grinch because your heart grew the times the size, adoration blossomed, you could feel your chest crack and glow. The Peter you wanted, the person you thought he was from the start, was real and in front of you.

This was who he was, so why was he hiding it?

“Why did you hide that from me? Peter, that’s like, the entire reason I wanted to date you. I liked who you were, then you turned into someone else.”

Peter rested against his desk and sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. “I figured a pretty girl like you wouldn’t want some nerdy guy, it might be cute at first but when I’m stoked about something I read on wikipedia and make it my thing for a day and talk your ear off about it, you’re gonna wish you had a boyfriend that just watches sport clips for fun.”

That’s the point you were trying to make, “that’s what I want! I was literally dumping you because you weren’t that.”

“Well, I am that. So there’s no point in breaking up, right?”

You hum and spin in his chair, “I dunno… you dragged me along for a month, hiding yourself from me, making me question everything. I mean, you have a lot to make up for, parker.”

“C’mere,” you’re not given an option, he reaches forward and pulls the chair towards him and pulls you from the seat, flopping himself down and tugging you into his lap. Your stomach clenches, this was the confident Peter you wanted, it was confidence in himself.

His pointer finger taps on the monitor, “you read binary from right to left, and you separate them into groups of eight. Now the key is knowing that each one and zero mean-”

Your mouth on his, cutting his words off with a kiss, you held his face tightly, never wanting him to separate from you. Caught off guard he froze for a moment, then wrapped his hands around your middle. Pressing into him, separating for air but giving small pecks.

“Baby,” kiss, “, I’m sorry,” kiss, “, I shut,” kiss, “, you out,” kiss, “I didn’t,” kiss, “, know it meant,” kiss, “, so much,” kiss, “, to you,” kiss.

“You’re so much smarter than me,” a chaste kiss, “it’s so hot,” you look into his eyes, he’s flushed out and breathing harshly. “You’re so hot,” another kiss, Peter feels like the room is spinning, he’s never felt so wanted, so needed, the way you can’t stop kissing him, how tight you’re holding him to you, how blown your pupils are, the way you’re gulping him like water.

“I mean if you,” he grunts when you kiss down his neck, biting into his collarbone. “, if you want, I could show you how quick I can solve my rubik’s cube.” Your hands drag up his hair, gripping and tilting his head away, better access to nibble and lick the skin. “Or, recite the first seventy nine numbers of pi.”

Attention caught, “you know the first seventy nine numbers of pi?”

“Mm hmm, I could also tell you” a whimper, “, all the elements. Want me to start rattling them off?”

Kissing the middle of his throat you hum, “I’d rather you take your pants off.”

For the first time in Peter Parker’s life, memorizing the periodic table got him laid.

#peter parker blurb #peter parker x reader #tasm!peter x reader #tasm! peter parker x reader #peter parker fluff #tasm peter x reader #peter parker angst #my writing

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glamourscat · 22 days ago

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Could you please write Bruce and batboys getting jealous when they meet their crush's ex boyfriend? Her ex is as rich as Bruce, handsome and a total green flag. But they broke up in a friendly term. Upon meeting him they got jealous seeing reader and her ex are still super close. Thank you ❤️

Batboys + Bruce and their jealousy while meeting your ex

Author's Note: I decided to do a mix of a headcanon and a drabble for this one, I think it fits the vibes of the request. i hope you like it :) This is also so damn long but i am a yapper at heart

DICK GRAYSON

I see Dick as a very confident individual. I mean, he is self aware, he is beautiful, rich and overall a good guy. A catch right? (let's ignore the cheating for a moment...)

Though, Dick grew up in a rather unstable situation, to say the least. I see him as a person who craves his s/o attention on him, not necessarely 24/7, but enough to remind him "hey, I am here and I love you"

Still, when he does get jealous ━━ for example in this scenario where you're his crush and he is meeting your ex, who's as equally as handsome as him, not that he would admit to it. Rich as Bruce and a green flag on top of that?━━ damn, he is cooked lol.

His jealousy will probably stem from insecurity. Because, if this guy is rich, beautiful and a green flag too, what does Dick have to offer now? If they are on the same level, or worse, your ex is slightly higher than him ━━ truly, what cards are left for him to play?

And so, I think he would feel insecure for a moment and thats where being overly into PDA comes into place. MORE UNDER THE CUT

"You’re awfully close today. I mean, it’s not like I’m complaining, but… are you sure you're alright, Dick?" you say with a small, soft chuckle as you look at the black-haired guy who just linked his arm with yours.

"Yeah… yeah, of course! Why wouldn’t I be?" he says, offering a smile that’s a bit too tight, a bit too forced for your liking. It’s not like you're a fool; you know exactly what the problem is. You saw the way he reacted when, walking casually through Gotham, you two happened to run into your ex by pure coincidence.

His eye twitched slightly, and his gaze was darting back and forth between you and your ex. You noticed the way his arm tightened around your waist, as if to say, Back off. If you had any doubts about whether he liked you before, now you have your answer.

JASON TODD

When I think of Jay, I imagine a healed version of him. I know people like to imagine him as this broken soul, and I’m not saying he isn’t; he has his fair share of trauma. But I like to think that from coming back as Red Hood to now, the present Jason Todd, he is a changed man.

He’s no longer the insecure, abrasive teen who swore nothing but vengeance and payback for what happened to him. He has accepted what happened; that doesn’t mean he forgot, nor does this mean he forgives Bruce. It just means he has the emotional capacity to be more confident in his own being.

So, how would he react upon meeting his crush’s ex? Well, chances are, if you’re Jason’s crush, you two are friends. He’s good at many things, but flirting, romance, and putting himself out there are not some of those. By being close friends, he is probably already aware of some aspects of your past, including your ex.

Thus, when he meets your ex, he is probably as nonchalant as ever. Does he feel a bit jealous? Maybe. Will those insecurities that have haunted and stained his past try to resurface, making him second-guess himself? Also yes. But he has grown enough to know he’s better than that.

"Jay?" Your voice is soft as feathers as you look at him. His green-blue eyes are focused on browsing the books on the shelves in front of you two, as silence fills the air in the small bookshop where you two had, by chance, met your ex just moments prior.

"Hm?" he hums, not taking his eyes off the books, but keeping an eye on you with his peripheral vision.

"Are you okay? You're awfully quiet. Did I say something wrong, or…?" You trail off, but he cuts you off.

"Nope, nothing's wrong. I'm just looking for a book," he says, moving to the romance section. "You like this?" His voice is quiet, yet it holds a softness to it as he shows you a book he damn well knows is your favorite.

"I mean, yeah. It’s my favorite. Why?" Your tone is slightly confused, just as quiet as his.

He shrugs as he places the book in the small hand basket he’s holding. "Nothing. Just thought I’d buy it. I trust you and your opinion. If you say it’s good, then it is."

He knows that in that moment, not giving in, not allowing those negative emotions to resurface as they did in the past, was the best choice he could’ve made if it meant seeing your smile—so timid yet flustered—with those rosy cheeks of yours, as you try to hide your giddiness from his words.

TIM DRAKE

Ah, my favorite little gremlin. The issue I have with Tim is not with Tim himself, but with the fandom that constantly mischaracterizes him.

I’m not even going to get into the coffee addict recurring joke, but I want to focus on one thing. "Precious bean Tim". This guy is absolutely unhinged. Dick, Jason, and Damian all had their moments, but Tim? His whole being is centered around being a sarcastic, witty little shit who does the most unhinged things, and somehow, people always give him a pass. (I mean... do we need to talk about his red robin run? Or when he was dating two people at once? Or when it's canon that at first impression people feel judged by him?)

My point is, Tim is literally out of his mind lol. He struggles a lot with his emotions, we see this in his Red Robin run, how obsessive he became over the idea of finding Bruce, someone he cares for. He was spiraling bad.

His jealousy manifests in possessiveness. Mine, mine, mine. Let's not forget that Tim lost his mother, watched his father die too. He is messed up emotionally, because everything that was his has always been taken from him one way or another. First his parents, then robin mantle by Damian and even his best friend (or lover) Kon at somepoint.

"You're pouting."

"No, I am not." He says, while comically enough, pouting more. It had been about 30 minutes, give or take, since you two came back from the movie theatre. Where you and Tim had to sit through an almost 2 hours long movie with your ex as the main lead.

Was he pissed? no, no, no... why would he be? Absolutely no. Him? Tim Drake? Jealous? Pff. Definitely wasn't. And yet, he kept pressing each key of his keyboard so hard, as he typed, that you feared it might come flying at his face very soon.

"If you're jealous you can just say so you know." You say with a half amused grin. If he wanted to act like a brat, might as well enjoy it. "I mean, who wouldn't be right? My ex is after all, rich, handsome, a great ac-" your words are cut off as his face he is pretty much pressed against yours.

When the hell did he come on the bed? He was sitting at his desk just a moment ago...

"Shut up" he scoffs as his cold nose nudges yours, his hand goes to the back of your head pulling you in for a kiss. and what a kiss. His lips, slightly chapped and cold, meet yours with such ferocity you're left stunned. His body has yours pressed on his bed, as he straddles your lap. Your tongues meet as he lets out a quiet little moan as your hands go in his soft raven hair.

"fuck- i am sorry" he pants gulping, cheeks red and eyes wide, as he pulls back after a few moments in a panic. what the fuck had he just done?

"You shut up now." you say with a little grin, equally as breathless as him, as you bring back your lips against his. Losing each other in a kiss that would be just the beginning of a beautiful imperfect thing.

BRUCE WAYNE

Now, Bruce was hard to crack, for me at least. Because, I think depending on the person, the situation and how he is feeling at the current moment, he can be like any of his sons.

His jealousy is not driven by insecurity or possessiveness in the conventional sense, like Dick’s or Tim's would. Not necesseraily.

I mean, we are talking about a man with his fair share of lovers

I think his jealousy would stem from his deep emotional connections and the high stakes involved in his relationships. Sure, Tim, Dick and Jason are all vigilantes too, but Bruce is the Batman. he cannot afford, he does not have the luxury, of dating who he wants just because. It's either flings or a deep emotional connection with him.

We see him getting jealous with Selina, for example, when he feels his emotional connection getting threatened by other men she is flirting with. His jealousy is so damn complex and subtle and sometimes it shows up as in actions and decision making rather than extensive show off of jealousy.

That's why I think if he has a crush on a woman (or man), his attidute will depend on the situation they find themselves in. He might become overall more vigilant, assertive or distant base on how the event will play out.

#batfamily headcanons #jason todd x reader #jason todd headcanon #tim drake x reader #tim drake headcanon #dick grayson x reader #dick grayson headcanon #bruce wayne x reader #bruce wayne headcanon #jason todd oneshot #jason todd fluff #dick grayson

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felassan · 1 month ago

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Lucanis and Crows snippets, under a cut due to spoilers.

How would Viago and Teia react to a Crow Rook being romantically involved with Lucanis? "Teia is going to plan the wedding, and insist that Viago give Rook away at the ceremony. Viago will sigh dramatically, lecture Rook about it, and then spend a week picking out the right gloves to wear." [source]

If Illario wasn't locked away, how would he react? "Under any circumstances, Illario would be upset since it's a whole lot of attention that's STILL not on him. He would definitely get drunk at the reception and tell the same two most embarrassing stories about Lucanis over and over until Viago knocked him out and put him upstairs." [source]

With Rook romancing Lucanis, is it possible that Spite could become affection or benevolence? "Spite's basic aspect is defiance. He can be more or less difficult depending on influence (rebellion vs. vindictiveness, etc), but at his core he's always going to be a spirit of "NOPE"" [source]

Lucanis' mother was the heir apparent to House Dellamorte [source]

Does Spite have any kind of feeling about Rook? "Spite is fond of Rook in his own Spite-like way. He and Lucanis agree on the point of trusting Rook over and above other people or themselves. He does go to Rook for help with Lucanis, after all." [source]

For the Lion King reference in Murder of Crows, Mary Kirby went to the cinematic animators and described it as Illario's "Scar at Pride Rock" scene [source]

User: "I cut Lucanis' hair and shaved his beard and I almost feel like I should apologise to him" / Mary Kirby: "Now he can't tell himself from Illario, and you've given them both a complex." [source]

Teia and Viago were half-written by Mary Kirby and half-written by Luke Kristjanson [source]

Lucanis likes his coffee black [source]

Would he judge your coffee order? "As long as it's not boiled, or instant coffee, or whatever that stuff from a can is, he's fine with it. Or at least, he will only judge you silently for it." [source]

What kind of treats does Lucanis like? "Sweet, because it goes better with his coffee. Savory, if somehow he is NOT drinking coffee at that moment." [source]

Lucanis grew his beard and long hair while in the Ossuary. "He hasn't exactly had a haircut in a while." [source, two].

Would Lucanis make Powerpoint presentations about jobs or to talk? "No, he doesn't want to talk to anyone, let alone explain things and present them. That's 300% an Illario thing. That man has a powerpoint to introduce his powerpoint about why you should listen to his powerpoint." [source]

"Lucanis would never be on social media. He'd be on YouTube watching videos of people restoring rusty cutlery with no dialogue until four in the morning." [source] Could he tell when content is manufactured? "Yes. And he gets upset and finds Bellara or Neve (whichever is unluckier) to rant about it." [source]

Lucanis' favorite stove burner? Right front [source]

"Spite doesn't have any concept of physical appearances. It looks the way Lucanis sees himself. Lucanis is never relaxed, even in casual wear." [source]

Along with Lucanis Mary Kirby also wrote Spite [source]

Mary Kirby wrote Illario, Luke Kristjanson wrote the Crow faction quests [source]

Lucanis' perfect date night? "I'm gonna be honest: There is a non-zero chance it would involve assassinating somebody and getting coffee, and I'm not entirely certain which would come first." [source]

Lucanis "has so much [trauma] to sort through, and he could really use some help. Like, a Marie Kondo level of help with that." [source]

What sparks joy for Lucanis? "Coffee, paella, wyverns, knives, REDACTED, book club, REDACTED, revenge..." [source]

Lucanis is older than Illario by a few months [source]

How did Spite feel watching Lucanis fumble after the near-kiss moment with Rook? "Confused. Spite, like most demons, doesn't really get emotions outside its domain. Not doing something that someone clearly wants you to do should make you happy! I mean, honestly, what's better than that, except maybe revenge?" [source]

Did Spite interact much with Manfred? "We wrote a bunch of interactions between them, though I have no idea how many made it in." [source]

Update:

What are the names of Lucanis' parents? / "I didn't give them names, and in the event that Lucanis comes back in a later game, I don't want to hand out info that might just get contradicted by his next writer. (If I don't answer a lore question for him, this is probably why. I don't want to write checks someone else has to cash.)" [source]

What is Mary's take on Spite's possible involvement or lack thereof in Rook and Lucanis' relationship? / "Honestly, I don't know, and that's a question his next writer might explore? Where do your pent-up feelings of frustration go when you're happy? What does an emotion like defiance even understand about love? (I think that's fun to think about, but your mileage may vary.)" [source]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #<- this is my spoiler tag #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #alcohol cw #dragon age 5

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luvvixu · 7 months ago

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mind over matter pt. 2

synopsis: witness how your marriage was bound to fall apart with you on the front seat and your husband gojo had missed the show—now, he gotta figure out the story on his own.

content: arrange marriage au, angst, husband!gojo, mean!gojo, mention of blood, strong languages, some unsettling scenarios, emotional trauma, read at your own risk

a/n: couldn't still believe that this ff blew up like tysm for all of your support! and thank you so much for waiting~ and like always, this is not proofread lol

previous / masterlist / next

“if i'm not mistaken, the mission would take at least three to four business days.” yaga passes satoru a sheet of paper where it contains all of the information he needed to know and what kind of things he should focus on investigating.

satoru looked at his former teacher in uncertainty despite the blindfold in his eyes. he's very hesitant to take the mission not because he cannot beat this curse, but because he still needs to apologize to you as soon as possible.

“yaga, c—can i not…” satoru was about to continue when he suddenly trailed off.

“not what?” yaga raises his eyebrow.

but to think that it's all his fault, he must have really hurted you this time, and you wouldn't probably hear him out that easily. that is why satoru thinks that it is best to just give you some space as of now, and when he comes back from his mission, that is the time when he would bother you with his presence.

“it's nothing. i’ll be taking my leave now.”

“very well—” before yaga could even finish his sentence, satoru already vanished in thin air.

the duo, yuuji and megumi, was on their way to visit you just like what they had promised to themselves a while ago.

it was around eight o'clock in the evening and here they are, kind of tiptoeing through the hallway where your room is located.

“i think it's better to let her know our presence first.” megumi said quietly to the pink haired male while holding out a basket with foods that are suitable for digestion of a pregnant lady.

“then it wouldn't be a surprise if we told her.” yuuji then answered. he was carrying two board games on his left arm and a uno card on his right hand. you actually once told them that you were exceptionally good at these kinds of games, so yuuji wanted to test that out.

suddenly, the two boys stopped in front of a door where they immediately froze at the smell of something oddly familiar. “me…megumi, is this y/n sensei’s room?” yuuji slowly mumbles out a word, his eyes going wide.

however, megumi didn't answer him. instead, he immediately tries to open the door without any hesitation just to know that it is locked.

panic slashed across their faces as the smell of blood coming out of your room becomes the leading factor of their franticness behavior.

“y/n sensei! are you there?!” yuuji keeps on calling out to you while megumi does the door breaking.

“it's locked! i can’t break the door!” curse these doors in jujutsu high. megumi could not help but to mumble profanities when he remembered that the doors in jujutsu high are purposely made this strong so any invading curses could not sneak in especially during sleeping hours where most of the sorcerers are vulnerable.

“itadori! call yaga sensei and shoko-san, quick!” megumi screamed at the other boy, whom he instantly obliged.

a weave of panic surge on their bodies because you are involved in this situation. not to mention, you are pregnant on top of that and that puts the situation into a more nerve-wracking experience.

sweat drips on megumi’s forehead as he still tries to break the door. kicks and punches were made but still the door wouldn't flinch his attacks. the idea of using his curse technique came into his mind but he's afraid that it would worsen the situation.

sooner and faster, yuuji came back with the two elders running faster than before. both also have a panic flash on their faces as yaga begins to break the door with his insane force. and after countless tries, he successfully invades the door.

everybody froze at the sight, because there they saw you, lying unconsciously in a pool of your blood that trickled down on your lower body.

“shit! what happened?!” shoko was the first to react and immediately came closer to you to check your pulse, it was there but weak. then shoko proceeds to check your baby's heartbeat, and to her disappointment, there was none that she could detect.

“yaga sensei, please help me get y/n to my clinic. now!” without a further do, yaga carefully lifted up your body and then proceeded to follow the frantic shoko to her said clinic.

on the other hand, yuuji and megumi watch the two elders quickly move away from the scene and that leaves the two. they had been quiet all the time, probably still traumatized because they just saw one of their teachers (plus with an unborn child) on the literal verge of dying.

megumi's eyes trailed on the pool of blood that had been sitting on your floor. he could tell that you had been unconscious for like way past an hour now due to some parts of the blood being fresh while some parts were dried.

“what the hell just happened…?” yuuji was still flabbergasted. he would never expect that this would happen when he just visualizes this night as a fun one because he got everything ready for a surprise mini party to cheer you up.

“i don't know.” megumi solemnly answered.

“...do you think y/n sensei and her baby would be alright?” yuuji added, totally worried about your situation.

for the first time in his life, megumi didn't think he that would utter the same word but with a different tone, different meaning, and in a different situation.

“i…i don't know.”

satoru gojo was busy walking through the busy street of roppongi despite the sky being nighttime. the whole atmosphere was still so lively from bright signage up to crowded night market stalls. this makes a perfect night for a perfect leisure.

but satoru isn't here to do that. he was supposed to do a job and finish it as soon as possible so he could get back to you and finally do the right thing.

he was about to enter an abandoned building when he received a phone call. without looking at the caller, he answered.

“what?”

“where are you?” it was his corporate friend, nanami.

a teasing smile made it into his demeanor. “oh wow! here is my underclassmen calling me first—!”

“i am asking you, where are you?” nanami was clearly not in the mood for his bullshit. his tone was beyond serious and it made satoru wonder if something happened.

“i'm in roppongi. somewhere behind a luxurious night bar.” gojo said.

the moment he said his address, the phone suddenly dropped. confused, the six eyes looked at his phone then just shrugged it off. for the second time, he was about to enter the said building when someone appeared from behind.

“you should go back.” there he saw nanami, breathless as he tried to catch his breath. looks like he ran his way towards his location.

“yo, my man! what are you doing he—”

“go back to the jujutsu high. i’ll be taking your mission here.” nanami explained like he was .

did something happen? was on satoru's mind.

“why?” satoru dropped all of his mischievousness as it was replaced by his unhidden worry—you were literally there at the jujutsu high.

there was a pause on nanami, he seemed very hesitant to say it and satoru was growing impatient.

“just say it nanami—”

“yaga asked me to take your mission on your behalf after something happened. it's about your wife. she was found unconscious in her room.”

never ever in his life he could feel the quickest adrenaline rush in his body as nanami didn't even manage to utter the last syllables of his sentence when satoru already uses his technique and teleports himself towards your room back in jujutsu high.

and there, he was welcomed by the janitors of the said school, mopping the dried liquid on the floor. the smell was so familiar that it made his body tremble in a span of a second.

“w-what the fuck happened here?” he asked the janitor who looked at him in pity as he continued to solemnly wipe the floor.

“miss y/n was found unconscious and there was blood…in her lower area.”

blood, y/n, unconscious, my wife, danger, the baby…my baby!

that was the only thing that came into his mind as he went out of the hallway and ran somewhere he wasn't aware of. his mind raced with negative thoughts.

and since his life is not always about sugarcoating—he thought that probably you just had a miscarriage, got attacked by some curses, or worse, you're dead. his wife, you, were hurt when he was away and not even there to at least protect you.

unbeknownst, to the man, tears were threatening to slip down his six eyes, making his blindfold become wet as it was being absorbed by his tears constantly. satoru could feel that his body was filled with self-loathing, guilt, and regret all over his system.

“satoru.” a voice called him from behind. satoru does not need to turn around to know who it was. it was yaga.

“come to my office.” without waiting for him, yaga already left with satoru trailing behind him. taking off his blindfold, satoru wiped the tears that were about to fall.

when they arrived at yaga’s office, he saw his two students, yuuji and megumi, sitting quietly by the couch. they were both acting quietly odd, like they knew what was going on too.

“where's y/n?” satoru asked.

“do you want to know what happened first?” yaga avoided his question for now. instead, he goes into the other aspect that he's been wondering too. satoru fell quiet, so yaga took it as a yes.

the principal looked at the two students who were already looking at him. sighing deeply, yaga then proceeds to start explaining.

“y/n was found unconscious by these two. it has been over an hour since she's been in that situation judging by the dryness of her blood. right now, we still had no idea about her state since shoko's the one who's been handling the situation. and it's been a while too since we have seen her.”

“and the baby…i'm sorry, gojo. but we have no idea either.” yaga sighed heavily. satoru was all silent, he couldn't bring himself to utter any word. he was too caught up about the situation that he had so many things to say to the point that he couldn't figure out where to start.

“i know it's not my business to interfere but…did something happen that leads to this?” the principal asked the strongest. the next moment was something that everyone expected—they did not receive any response from the man.

suddenly, the door burst open, revealing the tired doctor. her eyes landed on your husband who's still frozen about your condition. on the other hand, satoru was too busy drowning himself with his thoughts to notice shoko in the room.

“itadori, megumi…go back to your dorm for now. it's getting late and i’ll just update you two tomorrow.” shoko scurry the two younger boys and they obliged.

as the door in yaga's office closed, the three grown-ups fell into a silent atmosphere, only the sound of the air ventilation could be heard inside.

“h-how’s y/n and the child?” yaga was the first one to speak among the three. but shoko's attention was drawn to gojo only and gojo was still unable to move.

“her situation was so severe that we needed to put her into a hospital as soon as possible.” shoko said quietly and directed to gojo only. her eyes were trailed to him, and only him. she wants him to taste the bitter medicine of his aftermath and she is going to make sure he's taking it.

call her brutal and cruel, but in your realm of marriage where her role is only being a worried close friend, she would choose you over everything. that's how much she cares for you. shoko could see what kind of person you are, and she believes that you deserve better than what you are right now.

sure, gojo was right when he said that she'd only known you for a short period of time. but that is enough for her to determine that she is going to stick by your side whatever may happen. because she knows how a gojo satoru works, she knows what kind of person he could be.

if gojo can manage to leave shoko out in his life, then he could do it to y/n too.

“she was bleeding too much, i'm afraid it has to do with the child. so if we don't act fast, we might have to choose who to save—are we going to save y/n and lose the baby? are we going to save the baby and lose y/n? or…what if we lose them both—”

*boogsh!*

a sudden explosion was seen. the four walls inside yaga’s office have officially become three when satoru couldn't handle his emotions that he let his cursed energy slip and create a hole into one of yaga’s walls. the impact was so strong that it literally shook the whole jujutsu high.

and surprisingly, none of the three inside the scene was scratched, just emotionally taken aback. the once gojo satoru who couldn't even utter a word earlier, was now looking at shoko with a mixture of menace, trouble, anger, grief, and…extreme sadness.

shoko ties his stare, looking equivalently. “did you hear what i said, gojo? your wife and your baby are currently facing the grim reaper. do you understand that?” she said calmly but there is a hit or hardness into her tone.

“shut up! fucking shut up!” another surge of curse energy flows in different directions, making yaga and shoko feel goosebumps on how strong it is.

“satoru!” yaga yelled in panic.

“where is she? where the fuck is she?! show me where she is!” satoru screamed at the doctor. shoko, whose face is now back to emotionless, decides to subside her annoyance to the man as she knows you are the top priority right now.

“i will let you see her. but once you see her, you have to teleport us into the hospital immediately if you still want to see her open her eyes.” shoko said seriously. thankfully, satoru managed to calm himself alone and just stared at shoko, waiting for her to continue.

“y/n was experiencing placenta abruption. it's a very serious complication in her case because the placenta in the inner wall of her uterus is completely detached. it greatly affects the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients and the situation causes her to bleed heavily.”

“i immediately minimize the bleeding but i cannot guarantee the two's safety, especially the baby, since it is not worth the risk to imply cursed energy to an unborn child—” before shoko could even finished explaining, satoru already stormed out of the room and just proceeds to the room where his guts tell you where. he was being followed by shoko who was screaming at him.

opening one of the doors, there he saw you all pale. he could feel your cursed energy barely beating, and that scared the shit out of him because that indicates your weakness.

“o-oh god…” satoru couldn't help but to feel his breathing pattern becoming irregular as a single tear followed by another drop from his gorgeous powerful blue eyes.

this can't be happening. you were just fine a while ago!

“y/n, oh my g-god! my wife…” gojo satoru, known by his title as the strongest sorcerer in his generation, was seen crying over his dying wife and dying unborn child. his tall figure was trembling in tangled emotions that he couldn't even determine the two ends.

“sorry to ruin your moment, but if you want to save your family, it's better for us to keep moving now.” shoko followed the suit, still savage as ever.

gojo does what she said and teleports the three of you into the bestest hospital that he knows. ignoring the toll on his cursed energy as it took more, more than the usual usage, satoru believes that your well-being should be his priority rather than his.

when they arrived, shoko immediately started to bump the people out of the way and started to call for help. “someone! get us to an emergency!” she screamed.

meanwhile, satoru keeps your body close to him. hugging your frame ever so delicately, scared that you might break or disappear.

a man like satoru gojo, whom to some called him a man-god, find himself crying out to every gods and deities out there to help you, to help him get this through. he prays and prays to keep you safe and how he's sorry for all of the things he would do.

for sure, he knew this sudden care for you is not born out of pity or regret, it is a late realization on how much he couldn't bear to see you like this. because deep inside him, satoru couldn't deny the warm feeling of having someone that was waiting for him to come home, provide him service, and even give him a bundle of joy.

the words he swore to himself that he doesn't need a wife to console his woes as he is completely capable of being by himself was getting eaten by his current self. served on a silver platter, satoru didn't mind eating his own words.

a stretcher was bought on sight and shoko instructed him to put your body there and watch the series of doctors rush your body into the emergency room. satoru watches the light above the door where you were in turns red, signaling that it requires immediate medical attention.

placing his traumatized body on one of the cold walls of the hospital, sliding his man shoulders and crumbling himself into small pieces to make himself as small as possible. never he would have thought that the night would end with him continuing to pray for your safety.

satoru didn't realize that he dozed off within the walls of a random corner of a hospital where he brought you in. he only realized his current situation when he could feel someone kicking his lower body constantly.

opening his tired eyes, he saw shoko eyeing him while still continuing to nudge him. “good, you're awake.” she said.

it feels like a surge of energy flows to his body and it immediately makes him rise up faster than he could. that was also when he started to feel all of the aches in his body just from sleeping in that kind of position.

“fuck, my whole body aches.” he mumbles to himself. satoru was about to stretch himself when he saw the time on the wall.

5:05 AM

and then his eyes landed on the door.

there was no red light anymore.

“y/n. shoko, where's y/n?!” anxiousness washed all over his body. he didn't know what to expect on what answers he's about to receive regarding his family condition.

meanwhile, shoko thinks that gojo looked like a lost puppy on how his eyes literally beg for a positive answer. despite his six foot frame, he looks like a poor and desperate child.

“the operation ended an hour ago. y/n was now stable and goy transferred into one of the private rooms. while the baby…” she pauses.

“w-what? what happened to my baby?” shoko almost grimaces the way satoru addresses the unborn child, wondering where the hell did he get the guts to say that.

the doctor was this close to brutally and savagely roast this man until he flew in shame—that’s how mad, angry, and upset shoko from what satoru did to you. but today is not the suitable day for that, she may be cruel but she had limits. so, shoko forcefully swallowed the harsh words and decided to just put it aside.

“the baby was delivered early through cesarean, it's the only way to save y/n and the child. the baby is currently in a neonatal intensive care unit where the bestest doctors monitor the child until it reaches mature development.”

so basically, you give birth to his child. satoru couldn't explain what he's feeling right now. he's happy for the baby, and yet at the same time, he feels really undeserving, but he still wants to be part of the child's life—this is too complicated for him.

and besides, this is not the right time to contemplate. because as a husband and father, he needed to stay with his family to provide them love, support, and to patch that once had been wounded. and he's going to start with…

“can i go and see y/n?” deep inside him, satoru felt ridiculous for asking that question since he is the literal husband! or was he? after everything he had done to her for five years?

shoko then tiredly pointed at the room at the end of the hallway and satoru, with the help of his long legs, never ran faster than his whole life.

gently opening the door in your room, satoru was greeted by your peaceful and sleeping form with all of the tubes connected on the back of your hand. closing the door behind him, satoru finally let go of the tears he's been holding the whole time, ranging from the confrontation with you until to to this situation.

sitting on the chair beside your bed, satoru weeps as he holds your arm. at this moment, the strongest no longer exists, it was just gojo satoru who couldn't stop himself from muttering an apology to his wife that he did so wrong.

they say, you would only realize the importance of something when it's now late. satoru would absolutely agree to that statement and he could even provide proofs and evidence. at first, he's being a total dick and douchebag to his wife who clearly doesn't even do anything wrong to him. then his own wife endured all of his actions for the whole five years and still remained as if their relationship could be only determined on a sheet of paper.

“i'm sorry. i'm so sorry.” satoru may not know what would happen the moment you would open your eyes. would you send him away? or would you let him stay despite all of the pain and trauma he caused you? for now, he can never know.

but one thing he's going to let you know, he's going to change for you and for his baby. he's done doing things for himself, and now, he should focus on you.

and he's going to start with cutting all of his ties to his mistress.

[part 3 is now posted! for those who wanted to be tagged, just say it on the comments — ©luvvixu2024]

taglists: @mistymuii @kalopsia-flaneur @sherryuki-callmeyuki @tttttttf @slyhersophia @rirk-ke @username23345 @lvstru @neteyxms

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finelinefae · 9 months ago

Text

birdy [Pilot!harry x teacher!y/n]

synopsis: it’s the 1950s. harry's had a hard life and y/n just wants the truth

word count: 12.3k

contains: fluff, angst, childhood trauma, nightmares, abusive father, neglectful parents, grovelling, smut (size kink, tiny praise kink, breeding kink, oral m receiving)

this is part 3 of the aviator read part 2 here

this could have gone one of two ways...

. . .

Y/N was convinced that returning to the airbase took only half as much time as the journey to reach the campsite. She hated hiking, even more so after this trip, but she had places to be so she charged down the trail all the way back to the airbase. The clouds overhead seemed to mirror her anger, morphing into shades of grey, empathising with her mood.

“Y/N, Harry went back earlier this morning. We came back from the bonfire and he was hyperventilating and shit. Thought he was gonna pass out so me and Pat went to get him some water but when we got back he was gone.” Sonny had told her when she had asked why Harry was missing.

Y/N’s mind instantly went to the night she had woken up to one of Harry’s nightmares. She wondered whether or not that had something to do with his sudden disappearance. However, it didn't seem to cool the anger she felt that seemingly continued to grow with every fueled step she took back towards Offutt.

As she made it out of the clearing, she noticed a figure sitting under a tree in the distance. She paused, squinting her eyes and immediately recognising those broad shoulders and that head full of brunette curls. Now that she could finally see him, she wondered if it would be better to just let him sit and wallow in whatever guilt he may or may not be feeling but she considered confronting things like this as self-care and she wouldn’t allow herself to return home without knowing why she had woken up alone this morning.

She ignored the droplets of rain that began to fall slowly from the sky. Instead, she trudged through the slightly muddy grass. Y/N caught his head turn as though he sensed her incoming. He shot up, standing tall and began to walk towards her.

Harry couldn’t even react when he saw the anger radiating from her face. He knew what he had done and there was no good reason for it, “Y/N-”

When she was finally in front of him, Y/N took a deep breath to steady herself. “Don’t ever disrespect me like that again,” she said firmly, her voice carrying her emotions. Then, turning away, she began to walk away from him.

She felt a hand wrap around her wrist but she tugged it, breaking free from his grip, “No,” She turned around to face him, “You walk away from me, I walk away from you.” It’s what she planned to do all along, make him realise how much it hurt to have someone turn their back on you.

Harry’s heart seemed to crack as her voice trembled, “Y/N,”

“Why?” Her bottom lip wobbled but she held her breath, trying to be stronger than him, “Why would you do that? Y’know, I’ve put a lot of faith in you Harry, I trusted you. People labelled you so many things and I always backed you up but that was just…Mean. You are being mean.”

“I know, I know,” Harry said, which only fuelled her anger even more. He had no idea what it felt like to wake up alone, especially after admitting something so honest.

“You have no idea,” Her voice raised, “You have no idea what that felt like because you will always be the person who leaves.”

Harry couldn’t seem to find the words. She was right and finally seeing him how he saw himself. There was nothing good about him and he had been told that his entire life by all the people he cared about. Everything he loved as a child was taken away from him with claw marks all over them. He had been forced to grow up, leave home and raise three kids. He knew one day that they too would be taken away from him- they’d find better people, a happier life - and he would be left with nothing because it was all that he had known and all that he had deserved.

Y/N couldn’t seem to fathom how he stood there in complete silence. The silence seemed to birth a new feeling inside her, another seed planted in her slow-burning heartbreak.

Until His voice murmured something, barely audible to her ear, "It was you."

She stilled, “What?”

His head lifted and she finally got to see him through the fog of anger. His cheeks were tear stained, his eyes red-rimmed and tired like he had barely slept. His hair looked as though he had run his fingers through them one too many times. “In my nightmare, it was you.” He confessed.

Y/N was struggling to breathe, “What are you talking about?” She whispered, her eyes glassy.

“I haven’t experienced it that way in so long, I-I thought I was okay now.” Harry's chest rose and fell with each heavy breath.

“What did they do to you?” Y/N took a step forward.

“I thought I was at home. I-I was in my room in my own body and my pops was there sitting in his armchair. He wouldn’t stop laughing at me and then I looked down and saw y’ on the floor,” Harry inhaled sharply like he was picturing the moment as he was re-calling it, “I tried to wake y’ up but you wouldn’t reply, y’ wouldn’t wake up and he was just sat there laughing and laughing. I was calling for help but no one could hear me and t-then he started saying I did it.”

Y/N couldn’t hold back her tears anymore as Harry began to cry. She wanted to reach out for him, to remove every bad thing that had ever happened to him and replace them with good.

“He said it was me who hurt you,” He cried, “I tried to save you Y/N but I couldn’t and he was just laughing.”

“Harry,” Y/N whispered, grabbing his hand and feeling him grip her fingers so tightly she thought it would cut off the circulation.

“I woke up outside,” He murmured, sniffling, “I was sitting out somewhere in the morning and Sonny and Patsy found me. I could hardly catch m’breath and they went off to get something that’d help but I was too ashamed. I couldn’t face them and I couldn’t face you either.”

"Why?" Y/N couldn't help but ask, despite all the times she had promised him she would be there for him.

Harry's gaze fell to the ground as he struggled to find the words. “Because,” He huffed, trying to smile but he just looked broken, “What’s a girl like you doing with someone like me? God, I love you so much Y/N. I’ve never loved anybody in m’ whole life and the only thing I know about it is that y’ give the people y’ love what they are most deserving of and you deserve so much more than what I can give.”

Y/N’s lips parted but he continued, “I have nothing. I am nobody. Outside of this place, I have nothing. I come from a family of nobodies and you…you are everything.”

Y/N’s heart ached with every word he spoke and the vulnerability and pain on his face. She felt as though he was cutting himself open and he had nothing more he could hide away from her, “Harry, you are changing that.” She whispered, her voice filled with conviction.

He frowned, puzzled by her words, uncertain of their meaning. “The way you are with your brothers and Elise, what you’ve given them, it is the biggest example of love I have ever seen. This life you’ve shown them here comes from your love Harry.” She said, a smile breaking through her tears as his expression softened. She reaches up to cup his cheek in her hand, “I don’t want you to give me something better, I want you to give me you and the love I have seen you give to the people you care about. And I want to give you love too because I love you more than words can even comprehend and you are so deserving of it.”

Harry’s eyes close softly as if he can’t quite believe the words he’s hearing and he’s trying to absorb it all. Y/N pulls his head down so their foreheads are pressed against each other, “Maybe you thought you had nothing but you always had love and if this is your nothing then I want all of it. That is what I want you to give to me.” She whispers.

There's a pause, a moment of silent understanding between them, as Harry processes her words. His eyes slowly flutter open, revealing a depth of emotion that takes her breath away. She sees in his gaze a mixture of disbelief and gratitude as if her words have unlocked something within him that he never thought possible.

And then, as if drawn by an invisible force, Harry's hands find their way to her face, his touch gentle yet firm. It's as if he's trying to memorise every contour, every line, every curve as if he's afraid that this moment might slip away if he doesn't hold on tight enough.

"There is nothing in this world that means more to me than you," he whispers, his voice barely above a breath. "Thank you," he adds, his words filled with sincerity and love.

Y/N smiles softly, her eyes reflecting warmth and understanding. "That's okay," she says gently.

The rain pours around them as they stand underneath the shelter of the tree. Harry doesn’t even ask for permission, too eager to, as he presses his lips to hers. Y/N squeaks in surprise but melts into him when she allows herself to feel all the things he can’t communicate, put into every motion of his lips.

Harry feels new like the burden of his childhood is eased from his shoulders as the light from her kiss injects itself into his body. He wonders how he could ever allow himself to walk away from this, “I’m so sorry Y/N.” He says against her lips, “I love you, I’m sorry.”

Y/N sighs, “We’ll learn,” She says, “We’ll get better and we’ll both learn.”

It’s more than just words of forgiveness, it’s a promise and the start of something new.

When they finish kissing, they both look up at the sky and see how hard the rain is pouring, “I think I’m over this trip now.” Y/N sighs, “I don’t think I ever want to go camping again.”

“Oh c’mon it was fun,” Harry teases with a sniffle but then sees her deadpan expression, “Okay it could have been better but at least we’re together now.”

Y/N takes her hand away from him and crosses her arms, “Who decided that?”

Harry’s face drops, “I-I thought-.”

She quirks a brow, “I haven’t forgiven you for leaving me yet. That was just cruel and you should know better!”

Harry looked at her apologetically “I know baby-“ He reached for her hand but she swiftly moved away, stepping out into the rain and walking back towards the trail.

“I won’t be letting you off so easily.” Harry’s shoulders slumped as he stayed glued to the floor, watching her walk away from him.

He tried not to smile as she stumbled over the uneven ground, her clothes getting wet from the rain. He cupped his mouth and yelled, “But y’ still love me right?”

“Of course I do you idiot!” She yelled over her shoulder.

Harry smiled, “I love you too, bigger than the whole sky Y/N.”

“Oh yeah?” Y/N yelled, “Prove it!”

Harry chuckled, running over to join her in the rain.

. . .

To grovel actually meant to get down on your knees and beg for not only days but weeks in Y/N’s books which Harry had gradually come to realise.

They returned from the airbase before everybody else and arrived at Y/N’s house to shower. Harry had tried to persuade Y/N to shower with him, using the classic excuse of ‘it’ll save water’ but she was too smart for that and he knew better.

Soon, life resumed its usual rhythm after the camping trip, but there was a noticeable change in Y/N and Harry. Others noticed the absence of tension between them, seeing the love reflected in their gazes whenever they looked at each other. However, they couldn't understand why Y/N refused to acknowledge their relationship, or why Harry seemed so smitten and eager- all of a sudden walking around like he was a lovesick puppy in need of attention.

Every day Harry would be doing something for Y/N, whether it was buying her flowers at the start of every week or walking her home during his work breaks. He’d rarely ever be seen with another woman, let alone make eye contact with them, all because he was desperate to make it up to the only woman he’d ever want for the rest of his life.

“Y/N,” Francine, one of the nursery workers, called her name as she was washing up paint pots in the sink, “He’s here for you.”

Y/N tried to hide her smile, “Could you tell him to wait please Fran?”

Soon Fran returned and in her arms was a giant bouquet, “He couldn’t stay very long,” She handed Y/N the roses, “But he told me to give you these.”

Y/N’s eyes widened, her hands still dripping wet as she held the red roses in her arms. She placed them on the countertop and took out the card attached to the bouquet. ‘I love you bigger than the whole sky, your Harry.’

Y/N bit down on her lip as she folded the small piece of paper and slid it into the front pocket of her apron. “When’s that boy gonna put a ring on y’ finger?” Loretta, one of the older nursery workers asked.

Y/N scoffed, “Only if he can get near my hand first, Loretta.”

Although marriage would definitely not be happening anytime soon, the picture of it in her mind made her smile.

In the evening, Y/N had been enjoying some much-needed girl time with Molly and Patsy. Y/N hadn’t seen Nancy since the night of the bonfire. She was rarely ever home to the point where the girls wondered why she even bothered renting her room out for much longer.

They sat around the living room in pink robes, watching a movie and reading magazines. It had been a while since Y/N had had some downtime with her housemates. So much of her time had been either working or being trapped in the whirlwind that was her relationship with Harry.

“Can I have some of that?” Patsy asked, unable to keep her eyes off the television as she held her hand out for the bottle of wine.

Molly passed it over but her eyes narrowed on Patsy, “Is that Sonny’s sweatshirt you’re wearing under that?”

Patsy finally looked away, her mouth opening and closing, “N-no?” She lied, terribly.

“Did you sleep with him?” Molly questioned.

Patsy swallowed, “No…maybe…yes.”

Patsy's feeble attempt at denial only made Y/N and Molly laugh harder. Y/N struggled to stifle her giggles, while Molly's laughter rang out loud and clear.

"And? How was it?” Molly urged, her eyes twinkling with mischief.

Patsy’s face flushed bright red, “It was good.”

“That’s it?” Molly frowned.

“Fine,” Patsy’s shoulders slumped, “It was wonderful, Mol. The best I’ve ever had.”

“You’re lying,”

“It’s true!” Patsy exclaimed, “There’s just something about ‘em, right Y/N? You slept with Harry already didn’t you?”

Y/N’s smile fell from her face, “Huh?”

Molly smirked, “Now you definitely cannot lie about that. Everyone knows it.”

Y/N's smile faltered, confusion flickering in her eyes. "What do you mean, everyone knows?"

Molly's smirk widened. "Come on, Y/N. It's written all over your face. You've got that look all the girls have, you know the one where they lie about being with someone when it’s clearly not the truth."

Y/N's cheeks flushed as realisation dawned on her. "Oh," she murmured, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

"So, spill it," Molly urged, leaning in with a mischievous glint in her eye. "Have you?"

“I don’t know…Maybe,” She could feel the corner of her lips tugging upwards and her hands quickly shot up to cover her face.

Her two housemates squealed, jumping up from the couch with excitement, “You have?” Molly grinned.

“Yes!” Y/N laughed.

“Tell us all about it!” Patsy fell to the floor and leaned in towards her.

“O-Oh, I-” But as luck would have it, Y/N was interrupted by the doorbell ringing and then the door swinging open.

“Patsy?” Sonny’s voice rang down the hallway as he invited himself in again.

Molly rolled her eyes, annoyed, “What is it?”

Footsteps sounded against the hardwood floors as Sonny entered the living room. His eyes landed on the girls as they sat on the floor, “What are you doing?”

"What does it look like we're doing?" Molly retorted, crossing her arms defensively.

"Can I join in?" He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

Patsy groaned, "Just tell us what you want, already."

“Oh,” Sonny shook his head as if reminding himself why he was here, “Elise is sick,”

Y/N stood up, “What? How sick?”

“George has had to bath her four times already and Harry can’t seem to get her to sleep. It’s manic in that house, y’ gotta help us out.” Sonny begged.

"But it's girl's night," Molly said firmly, gesturing toward the girls in their gowns. "And we're not your nurses or your babysitters."

"Please?" Sonny's eyes pleaded, darting towards Y/N.

Y/N sighed, relenting. "Fine. Let me get dressed." She manoeuvred past the girls seated on the floor and headed upstairs to her room to change.

“What? Patsy, y’ can’t be serious?” Molly whined.

“It’s Elise and Sonny’s sister.” Patsy shrugged as though it was reason enough.

Molly huffed, knowing no matter what she said it wouldn’t be enough to persuade them to help a sick child. The girl’s night they had planned would just have to be put on hold, “Alright,” She conceded.

Sonny led the girls across the estate to the Styles’ household. Along the way, Y/N and Molly teased Patsy and Sonny when they noticed them holding hands inside the pocket of Sonny’s aviator coat. The closer they got to the house, the more they could hear Elise wailing from inside.

He swung the door open, the girls following behind, “I’m back!” Sonny called as they entered the kitchen, “I bought reinforcements.”

Harry turned around when they all stepped into the room. He was shirtless, holding onto a crying Elise, her little face all scrunched up and red. His eyes immediately gravitated towards Y/N, “You’re here,” He sighed as if the sight of her had alleviated some of the stress he was feeling.

Y/N walked straight up to him and took Elise out of his grip, “M here,” She sighed, “Oh sweet girl, it’s okay,” Y/N kissed the side of the two-year-olds head, swaying her side to side in her arms.

“She’s been sick all afternoon, must have got it off some kid at the nursery.” Harry exclaimed, his eyes tired from taking care of his sister and being at work all day, “I’ve tried everything. Normally singing her to sleep helps but she won’t seem to settle and I’m all out of ideas.”

“Hey,” Y/N placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling his warm skin, “It’s okay, we’re here to help you.”

He relaxed beneath her touch, the sentiment making him smile, “Y’ don’t have to,” Harry murmured.

“Harry,” Y/N gave him a stern glare, “I want to.”

His lips curved into a grateful smile as he nodded. "Thank you."

Y/N was so ensnared by his captivating eyes she had to force herself to look away, “Go shower. We’ll clean up down here.”

Harry saluted playfully, brushing past her but not before pressing a hasty kiss to her cheek. Y/N gasped, spinning around and seeing a hint of a smirk on his face as he ran up the stairs.

“Ha Ha,” Elise croaked, pointing at her brother.

Y/N’s expression softened at the little girl’s tired voice, “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

As Sonny and Patsy helped clean the kitchen, Molly made a start on dinner and George and Y/N bathed Elise in the kitchen sink. Although Elise was exhausted from being sick all afternoon, everyone went about their chores whilst trying to bring a smile to her face. Whenever she giggled at George and Sonny's antics or Patsy's playful arguing with Sonny whenever he attempted to flirt with her, the group would cheer from their achievement at making her laugh.

Once they’d put all the dishes on the table, Harry had come down from his shower. Y/N drew in a breath when he walked through the door with damp curls and a towel around his waist, “Jus’ need to grab something,” He smirked as he walked past Y/N who caught the smell of his coconut shampoo.

As Y/N stood at the kitchen sink to get rid of Elise’s bath water, she felt his solid form come up behind her. Her lips parted, a breath of air escaping her, as he placed a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed. With his other arm, he reached out, his hand still resting on her shoulder, to open the cupboard above her and pulled out a clean hand towel.

The warmth spreading through her body dissolved once he pulled away. She let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding when she heard his feet against the floor fade as he left the room.

To her side, Molly and Patsy were trying not to laugh as they covered their mouths and tried to resume what they had previously been talking about before they were briefly interrupted. Y/N rolled her eyes and walked to the table to begin plating up dinner for everybody.

Harry had returned from his shower and now sat at the end of the table with Y/N to his right and Elise beside her sitting in a high chair. She was nibbling at the food George had prepped for her, taking small bites when she felt like it.

Everyone tucked into their meal as a smooth jazz record lulled in the background. Suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence, George piped up, “So is everyone dating at this table?”

Sonny groaned, “Why’d you bring that up?”

“Because!” George paused, cutting into his meat, “I can’t handle the tension in this room, it’s like you all want to have sex with each other.”

“George don’t be so vulgar,” Molly snapped, her tone sharp, “But he does have a point.”

“Well Patsy and I are together,” Sonny put an arm around Patsy’s shoulders only to receive an angry glare in return, “What?” He took his arm back, “They already figured it out!”

“Well, what about Y/N and Harry,” Patsy crossed her arms, wanting to divert the attention to something else, all heads turning to face the couple at the end of the table.

“Well, I-I-“ Y/N was all flustered, not knowing how to approach the subject until Harry stepped in.

“It’s up to Y/N,” Harry shrugged, taking a bite from his fork. Y/N’s head whipped in his direction, “I’ll do whatever she wants me to do.”

As he spoke the words, she felt his hand land on her thigh. Y/N stilled as he squeezed her knee but instead of freezing like she always seemed to do with him, she placed her hand on top of his and flipped his hand over to intertwine their fingers wanting to show him at least some grace for his ability to speak when she couldn’t find the words.

“Well good for Y/N. You see not all girls are easily swayed by you boys, you know.” Molly remarked.

“Ahh are you sure about that Mol? Maybe it’s just because you’re the only girl here who hasn’t tried to sleep with any of us.” George quipped with a teasing grin.

Molly scowled, “Don’t you have to follow Nancy around or something?”

Sonny burst out laughing as George’s face fell, “Yeah yeah, you can all laugh but the other day I swear I almost got a smile outta her.”

“Oh nice, an almost smile yeah that’s really great George.” Everyone laughed around the table.

By the time dinner was over and everyone had been ridiculed at least once, Elise was already half asleep. Harry volunteered to tuck her in, lifting her gently and carrying her upstairs to her bedroom. As the others stepped outside for a smoke break, Y/N took it upon herself to clear the empty plates and tidy up.

Before tidying, Y/N went upstairs to use the bathroom. As she climbed the steps, she noticed a partially open door. Intrigued by the humming coming from the room, she quietly peeked inside.

It was dark other than a small candle lit up in the corner of the room. Harry stood by the window with Elise in his arms. Her cheek was resting on his shoulder as her small hands fisted the sleeve of his shirt. His big hand rubbed up and down her tiny back as her eyes fluttered open and closed. She almost resembled a cherub resting on a fluffy cloud as Harry hummed her to sleep, his head turning an inch to press a soft kiss to the side of her head.

Y/N's eyes glistened with an emotion she couldn't quite place. Her heart felt like it was trying to leap out of her chest and walk into the room to join them. The longer she stayed fixed on the two siblings, alone in one space, it seemed as if they were the only two people existing, if only for a brief moment in time.

Not wanting to disturb their peace and quiet, Y/N carefully tiptoed away from them to give them the space they needed.

She stood at the kitchen sink and began filling it with water and soap. Her mind drifted to the image of Harry holding Elise almost as if he were her own father. Y/N’s heart had been hurting for Harry and his siblings ever since he had broken down to her on the hill. A part of her wondered if she was doing all this because she felt she had to fulfil some kind of duty to them but it never felt like work helping the Styles’ siblings, she just had a spot for them in her heart that was growing exponentially by the day.

Y/N felt that presence that had become so familiar to her, come up behind her as she cleaned the dishes. His arms snaked around her waist, swaying them slowly to the gentle bossa nova that played over the record player, “Dance with me,” He murmured, pulling her away from the sink.

Y/N laughed, spinning around in his arms and pressing her wet and soapy hands to his face. Harry’s face scrunches, “Have I told y’ I love y’ today?” He asked, nuzzling his cheek in her palm.

“Hmm,” Y/N pretended to think, “I don’t think so.”

“Well I do,” He says, “I love you bigger than the whole sky, Birdy.”

“I love you too,” Y/N replies because she always will no matter how angry she is or was with him.

“Enough to forgive me?” He tries but his face already says he knows the answer.

Y/N inches forward, her lips brushing his, “Almost,”

Harry grins, pulling her in closer, “This could be our life y’know.”

“What could?”

“All this,” He motions to the house, “We have our own house and make our own food. Everyone is safe and we’re happy. Maybe have a couple of kids-”

Y/N scoffs, “A couple?”

“Alright,” Harry chuckles, his head falling back, “One, five, eight or even zero, I don’t care I jus’ wanna be with you.”

“That sounds nice,” Y/N sighed, falling in love with the image she had painted in her mind, “And we’d live here?”

Harry kissed the top of her head, resting his cheek on it as they swayed, “We can live wherever y’ want Birdy, I go where you go.”

Y/N can’t help but pull his neck down to kiss her. Even though they weren’t exactly together, Y/N couldn’t help but kiss him when she wanted to, which was more often than it wasn’t. She’d never tire of the way his lips felt against hers, how she’d melt in his embrace and feel his heart beating against his chest.

“Just so we’re clear, this doesn’t mean we’re together,” Y/N mumbled against his lips.

“I know Birdy, I know.” He smiles, kissing her even harder.

Harry ends up helping Y/N clean the kitchen, drying the dishes while she washes them. It's a new experience for him, doing something domestic with the person he loves. It feels small and simple yet meant more to him than he could seem to understand.

“Since I’m tryin’ to be better, I gotta tell y’ something,” Harry pinches her sleeve, needing to touch her in some way at all times.

“What’s wrong?” Y/N asked, immediately beginning to worry.

“Oh no it’s nothing so bad, it’s just my Mama sent us a letter a few weeks ago and I think ‘m gonna go visit her without the boys.” He shrugs, “Jus’ to check in on her y’ know?”

Y/N knew Harry didn’t want to admit the truth about his visit. Despite the fact he never had a close relationship with his mother, he had always been her protector. Harry couldn’t stay away from his home no matter how hard he tried, too afraid that if he did, something detrimental would happen and he’d feel nothing but guilt for the rest of his life.

“On your own?” Y/N frowned, “Y’ don’t even want George to come with you?”

“If George goes he’ll jus’ get upset. I probably won’t even tell ‘em I’m going, I jus’ wanna make sure everything is okay. Maybe if I show m’ face she’ll stop sending so many letters every weekend.” His voice carried a mix of concern and weariness.

“Well okay,” Y/N paused for a brief second, “I mean I could come with you, maybe, i-if that’s something you’d want.”

Fear flashed in Harry’s eyes, “No,” He stated firmly, “I’m not letting you anywhere near that old bastard.”

Y/N knew he was referring to his father, “I won’t let you go alone, Harry. It’s either me or one of your brother’s but I will not let you go into that house by yourself.” She wasn’t going to lie and say that she wasn’t afraid for him. She’d never met his Father or truly knew the depths to which he had gone into causing such trauma for Harry but she wasn’t going to allow it to continue. “Please, let me come with you.”

Harry opened his mouth to immediately reject her offer but paused, considering her words carefully. He saw the determination in her eyes, the fierce loyalty she held for him, and it touched something deep within him. He also knew she was stubborn and wouldn’t let up over something like this no matter how much he refused.

After a moment of silence, he sighed, relenting. "Alright," he finally murmured, his voice laced with apprehension. "But promise me, Y/N, you'll stay close and keep your guard up. My old man... he's not an easy man to deal with. We’ll be in and out of tha’ house all in the same day.”

Y/N nodded solemnly, her resolve unwavering, “Thank you,” She said.

. . .

With the days that passed before Harry would return to his childhood town, his fear and anxiety seemed to grow. His nightmares had continued to worsen, each one of them had turned into one about Y/N. On the nights when Y/N slept in her own bed, he found himself walking through the dimmed streets in the middle of the night to sneak into her house and crawl under the covers with her. She’d whisper soft things into his ear, promising that everything he dreamt of was simply just that, but he struggled to believe her as he held her tightly in his arms until the morning arrived.

They took the two-hour train from the station to his home town in Wyoming on the day of the visit. Harry barely spoke a word as he held Y/N’s hand in his lap all the way there. They had decided on wearing somewhat fancy attire. Harry wore tailored trousers with a belt and a white shirt tucked into it, whilst Y/N settled on a new blouse she had yet to wear and a long skirt with kitten heels. They hadn’t spoken it aloud but part of them wanted to show without telling his parents just how well they were doing for themselves.

“Baby,” Harry whispered, nudging Y/N awake after she dozed off on his shoulder, “We’re here now,”

Y/N hummed, her eyes fluttering open to the window. Outside was the train station which was really just a raised platform by the train tracks with a small ticket booth nearby. The place was almost deserted, with only a few people stepping off as the train pulled in. Harry grabbed her purse and held Y/N’s hand as they exited the train and stepped onto the platform. It wasn’t long before the train was off again, leaving a bellow of smoke behind.

Glancing around, Y/N noticed how grey Harry’s hometown was. The buildings seemed weathered, and besides the train station, there wasn't much else to see—just a row of buildings housing a grocery store, a clothing shop, and a bank. Everything became increasingly sparse and lifeless the further out of town you ventured, and Harry’s house just so happened to be situated on the outskirts.

When they left the train station, Harry walked to a cab that was already parked outside with no other customers. He opened the door for Y/N to enter first, “Are you okay?” Y/N asked, sensing Harry’s discomfort.

“Y’ know there’s nothing more I wanna do than take y’ back to Offutt right?” His eyes were hard as he stared between the two front seats out of the windshield of the beaten-up vehicle.

"I know," Y/N's voice was quiet, a hint of uncertainty creeping in as she wondered if she had pushed too far by insisting on accompanying him. However, before she could dwell on her thoughts further, he picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to it, reassuring her without words.

Y/N tried not to react too shocked when the vehicle stopped far outside of the town they had entered. In front of them was a house that looked as though it was made out of planks of wood hammered together. There was a front porch with a rocking chair that was rotting away and a clothesline with white sheets blowing in the breeze.

“This is your home?” Y/N wondered, looping her arm with Harry’s when he came up beside her.

“It’s never been m’home,” He replied, lowly.

As they approached the front door, it creaked open before they could even knock. Standing behind it was a woman with the same green eyes Y/N had noticed in each of her children. Her hair was wispy and greying, with streaks of brunette that were a darker shade than Harry’s. She had heavy bags under her eyes and wrinkles all over her face. Her thin lips turned into a smile, her eyes watering as she opened her arms to the man beside Y/N, “My boy,” She croaked.

Harry stiffened when he felt her arms wrap around him, “Mom,” He grumbled.

The woman pulled away and then her eyes turned to Y/N, her smile drooping, “Who’s this?”

Harry opened his mouth to introduce herself but Y/N quickly stepped in, “I’m a friend of your son, we met on the Airbase.” She held her hand out.

Harry’s mother looked down at her hand and then back to Harry, “You’re bringing girls home now? Where are your brothers?”

Harry’s jaw tightened, “They’re not here.”

“And Elise?” She went on.

“She’s back home,”

“This is her home,” His mother argued, “And I’m her mother,”

“We won’t be staying here for long,” Harry said, moving past his mother and stepping into the house. Y/N tried to offer his mother a smile but she just frowned.

The inside of Harry’s childhood home was cold and empty, lacking any hint of life or sign of a whole family living here for well over ten years. Bits of furniture littered the house here and there, each individual piece looked battered and beaten.

“Are you staying for dinner at least Harry? I’ve been cooking all afternoon,” His mother walked to the small kitchen and started stirring a pot that was already cooking on the stove.

Harry looked down at Y/N, “We can stay,” She told him even though she knew he didn’t like the idea, she didn’t want to let his mother’s cooking go to waste.

“M taking Y/N to m’ room,” Harry grumbled, unwilling to wait for his mother to say anything.

Y/N followed him to a small room near the living room. It was no bigger than an average old pantry, containing only a small, single bed and a little chair and table tucked into the corner. Above the bed hung a mobile adorned with wooden planes painted blue, dangling gently. Y/N reached out and held one of the jagged wooden planes in her palm.

The corners of her lips turned upwards as she examined it, wondering if Harry’s love for planes stemmed from a young age. Turning round to face him, she fell back onto his bed and sighed, “Come lay with me,” Her hand dangled from the bed, her fingers reaching out to brush his.

Harry shook his head but fell onto the bed beside her, his feet dangling off the end. It was so small that Y/N had to practically lay on top of him, her chin resting on his chest as she looked up at him. She brushed some of his hair out of his face, “How are you feeling?” She checked in.

“Strange,” He murmurs, “Seeing you in this house made me realise how foreign this place is to me now. You’re home and this is just… Something I don’t want in my life anymore.”

Y/N’s gaze softens, “Your mom never told me her name, I don’t think she likes me very much.”

Harry’s hand slides up her back to play with the ends of her hair, “She doesn’t like anyone really but her name’s Debbie if y’ must know.”

“Debbie,” Y/N replies, her voice soft, “Hey, if things get uncomfortable we can go, just say the word.”

Harry felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude at her calming, understanding nature, “Thank you for being here.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Y/N teased and Harry laughed, the sound echoing in the darkened room of his childhood.

Despite Debbie’s cold attitude towards her, Y/N still tried to make an effort by helping set the table for dinner. In the corner of her eye, she caught Harry fussing over his mother when he saw her hands were all scathed from being outside every day as she poured stew into each bowl. The image made her eyes glisten with tears that threatened to fall until she blinked them away.

As they placed each bowl of stew on the table, a thud sounded from outside and then the squeak of the hinges on the front door as it swung open. Y/N’s heart stopped as Harry paced towards her, moving her behind him as an old man stumbled in. She grabbed Harry’s sleeve, peeking past him to see a man with hazel eyes and balding, grey hair. His face was wrinkled and scruffy, his nose red but his face gaunt. His footsteps were heavy against the wooden floorboards, with every inhale of his breath he seemed to suck out the warmth from the house.

His eyes fell on Harry and then to Y/N, “Hello boy,” His voice sounded like gravel as he spoke.

“Old man,” Harry’s voice was something Y/N had never heard from him before. It felt like he was trying to control all of his anger whilst also trying not to show his fear. She squeezed his arm a little, hoping it would give him some reassurance.

“Nice to know you’ve remembered your family,” He sniffled, closing the door behind him.

“Y’ make it hard to forget,” Harry replied.

Debbie walked in between them like it was something she had done many times before whenever there was tension, “Jack, you’re just in time for dinner.” She was much too cheery but it felt hollow and insincere, “Harry’s friend is joining us from that camp they’re staying at.”

Jack glanced at Debbie with a flicker of annoyance before turning his attention back to Harry and Y/N. "Well, aren't we all just one big happy fuckin’ family," he muttered, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

Y/N felt the tension in the room thicken, a silent battle unfolding between the family members. She exchanged a knowing glance with Harry, silently urging him to stay composed.

Ignoring Jack's jab, Debbie gestured towards the dining table. "Come on, let's sit down and eat. I've made your favourite, Jack," she said.

Sitting at the table, Jack's presence felt heavy in the room. Y/N looked at Harry, silently showing her support. She knew dinner would be tricky, but she was committed to being there for Harry. She held his hand under the table and squeezed. Harry rubbed his thumb over the pulse point on her wrist in order to relax himself.

It was just dinner and they’d be going home straight afterwards. Home to his real family, where it was safe and he was most loved.

Debbie came out of the kitchen with two cans of beer and placed them in front of Jack before sitting beside him. He cleared his throat as he opened both cans, “Where are y’ brothers?”

“Not here,” Harry spoke, lowly.

“Don’t get funny with me boy, where are they?”

“I already told you.” Y/N jumped when Jack’s hand smacked down on the table, Harry’s hand squeezing her in assurance like this was a normal reaction to have.

“You’ve left y’ brothers at that camp and bought this random whore here?” He spat.

“Don’t call her that,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

“I don’t even know her fuckin’ name and y’ bought her into my house?”

Harry opened his mouth to reply but Y/N interrupted him, “My name is Y/N,” She said, her eyes hard, “And if that’s how you speak to someone you don’t know Mr Styles, I hate to see how you speak to those you do.”

Y/N could feel all eyes on her at the dinner table but she ignored them, acting as though what she said didn’t matter, as she tucked into the stew that was in front of her. “Next time you come back here,” Jack gruffed, “Y’ bring your brother’s. Much prefer them here anyway.”

This time it was Y/N’s turn to feel a bubble of anger rising within her, “Don’t want no more whores in my house, except y’ mother,” He chuckled, darkly, “She’s the only one allowed here.”

Harry shot up, his chair scraping against the floor, “How fuckin’ dare you,” He spat.

“Sit down,” His Father ordered, refusing to look up at him.

“Harry,” Debbie whispered, tugging on his hand to try and pull him down.

Reluctantly, Harry lowered himself to his seat. His jaw clenched as he stole a glance at Y/N, silently grateful for her unwavering support in the face of his family's hostility. He’d refuse to open his mouth for the rest of the dinner, in hopes it would speed things up and they could leave. He was filled with regret that he had allowed Y/N to come to this Hellscape, even more so for even considering it in the first place.

It fell silent- nothing but the scraping of cutlery against plates- until Y/N decided to speak, her anger too much to withhold any longer, “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling me that Mr Styles,” Harry must have gotten whiplash from how quickly his head whipped around to look at Y/N as she spoke.

“Say that again,” Jack replied, lowly.

“I said I would appreciate it if you’d stop calling me a whore, it’s rather distasteful.” Y/N dared to look up at him, meeting his lifeless eyes when she did. She felt Harry’s fingers squeeze hers but she refused to break eye contact with the only man who she had ever hated before even meeting him.

“Distasteful? What are y’ a slut from Preston?”

“No,” Y/N continued, “I’m not a whore or a slut from Preston and if you knew me or your own son, you’d know he wouldn’t dare bring someone with the likes of you home with him.”

Rage flashed in Jack’s eye, “Why you little-”

Harry rose to his feet as Jack raised his hand in the air, bracing himself for the impending blow. But before Jack could strike, Y/N intervened. "The fact that you assume so little about me, Mr. Styles, is your first mistake," Y/N declared, her voice unwavering. "Truthfully, I know people. Put a hand on me, and I'll go straight to my father. He's a doctor, you see—a very important one who knows a lot of important people. One of his patients just so happens to be the Governor. Do you know the Governor, Mrs. Styles?" Y/N directed a smile at the timid lady sitting opposite her, who blinked in response and quickly nodded her head.

"As much as I hate throwing around big names, sometimes it pays to know people more powerful than those who assume they have it all," Y/N continued, her gaze steady on Jack. "Wouldn't you say, Mr. Styles?"

Y/N stood up from the table as Jack’s jaw clenched, biting his tongue to stop from speaking. She grabbed Harry’s hand and intertwined their fingers, “To answer your question, your sons are at Offutt Air Base not camp. It’s their home where their older brother raised them along with that little girl you both abandoned. You can assume I’m a whore or a slut or whatever you think I am however much you like Mr Styles but I will not let you sit there and strip all of the love your son has shown to your children when you weren’t willing to give them anything.”

“Thank you for the dinner Mrs Styles but we’re leaving,” Y/N looked up at Harry who was already looking at her with nothing but pride all over his face, “I’m sorry Harry but I can’t stay here anymore.”

He nodded, following her out of the house but stopping when his father stood in front of him. Y/N gasped when Harry raised his arm and punched his father straight across the face. Jack groaned, cupping his nose as blood began to drip from it. Harry gripped his shirt in a fist, “Call my wife a whore again and I’ll fucking end you.” He spat, pushing him away.

Y/N and Harry ignored his mother as she fretted about his now injured Father, walking out of the house.

As soon as they stepped off the porch, Harry pulled Y/N to the side of the house where they were shielded from view and pressed her against the wall. His lips met hers eagerly, his hands cradling her face as her eyes fluttered shut. "You called me your wife," she breathed between kisses.

"Easy mistake," he replied quickly before his lips seeked hers once more.

Once they pulled away, their chests heaving and Harry’s lips tinged pink from Y/N’s lipstick, the biggest grin stretched across his face, his eyes sparkling more than she had ever seen before, “I didn’t think I could love you any more than I did.”

Y/N’s eyes watered, a mixture of love and the come down from the adrenaline that had fueled her in the last few moments all began to hit her at once, “You are everything to me,” He murmured, “Everything.”

"I love you too, Harry.” Y/N leapt into his arms, wrapping herself around him and refusing to let go.

After leaving the house, it felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted, as though a burdensome weed had been plucked from their lives. The air seemed lighter, and even the moon appeared to shine a bit brighter overhead. As they walked, Y/N couldn't help but notice the peace reflected in Harry's eyes whenever he glanced up at the sky.

Though it wasn't the end, it felt like the first step towards releasing the things that brought no good into Harry's life. With Harry's arm lazily draped over her shoulder and hers around his waist, they stumbled down the street, unable to find a taxi or any passing vehicles to take them back to the train station. To outsiders, they might have seemed like a drunken couple, but in reality, they were simply two people deeply in love and, for that moment, they felt truly free—and that feeling was even better.

They boarded the last train back to Offutt that night, and Harry was adamant about keeping Y/N close. Despite the empty carriage, he insisted she sit with him, to the point where she was practically sitting on his lap.

As Y/N grew tired, Harry allowed her to rest her head in his lap while she stretched out across the seats. He gently played with her hair and traced the contours of her face. "Can I show you something when we get back?" he whispered. Although exhausted, and longing to simply fall asleep with him in her bed, she nodded in agreement.

Y/N giggled as Harry skipped ahead, the smile on his face had yet to be replaced as he led her to the warehouses at the airbase. “C’mon slowpoke,” Harry called much too loudly for this time of night.

“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” Y/N shook her head, her cheeks aching from smiling so much.

Keys jangled in his back pocket as he pulled out a chain that had too many keys for Y/N to count dangling from it. He plucked one out and put it into the padlock that was keeping a lock on the large, metal doors to one of the hangars where the planes were kept.

The doors clanked open as Harry pulled them apart enough for them to walk through. The light from the moon slipped through the gap, creating a dim light within the hangar. Harry switched on the lights in the panel on the side and the whole room lit up. Y/N followed Harry as he took her to the back of the warehouse where some of the planes which needed fixing up were kept.

He stopped in front of a single-engine propellor aeroplane, painted blue with white stripes. It had a cockpit with a glass canopy and seated two people inside. Y/N frowned, “Is this what you wanted to show me?” Living on an airbase, she’d obviously seen plenty of planes that were different variations of the one in front of her so she was unsure what she was meant to be looking at that had got Harry so excited.

Harry rolled his eyes playfully. He came up behind her and placed both his hands over her eyes to cover them. She stumbled as he nudged her forwards towards the side of the plane, “We’ve been working on this for a while and me and the boys have been struggling to give it a name. It was only until I met you that I realised what the perfect name for it was.” Harry removed his hands from her eyes, Y/N’s eyes squinting to adjust to the light until they focused on a word written in yellow on the side of the plane.

Birdy.

Y/N’s lips parted, walking up to touch the yellow font to see if it was real. She turned on her heel, eyes watering, “You named a plane after me?”

Harry bit back a grin, eyes twinkling, “Of course I did,” He whispered, “Need you with me all the time, now I can have you in the air too.”

“Oh Harry,” She sobbed, wrapping her arms around his neck, “It’s wonderful,”

“Yeah? Y’ like it darling?” He kissed the top of her head.

“I love it,” She sighed, her eyes darting to the cockpit, “Can we sit in it?”

“Course,” Harry helped her up the little ladder and into the cockpit, before sitting in the spot next to her. “The electrics aren’t on so if y’ touch anything it won’t move.” Y/N’s hands pressed some of the buttons, still unable to believe she had a plane named after her.

Harry smiled watching her and then leaned in to kiss her. Y/N ran her fingers through his hair, pulling him closer. Their lips met in a passionate kiss, and Harry deepened it, his tongue sliding into her mouth and his teeth nipping at her bottom lip. “Harry,” Y/N breathed, her eyes fluttering shut as he began to kiss down her neck.

“This is for you baby. There ain’t nobody else for me,” He whispered, “and I don’t want anybody else.”

His fingers brushed down the skin of her arms as her head rolled to the side. He kissed the base of the column of her neck, “You love me?” He asks, voice raspy.

“I do,” Y/N hums, her hands all over his clothed torso gripping the fabric in tight fists.

“How much,” Y/N gasped as his fingers played with the buttons of her blouse before he slowly undid the first one. He pressed his lips to her collarbones as he continued on the next button.

Y/N’s hands fell to the buckle of his belt, tugging on the metal to pull him closer. With every inch of skin that was revealed, Harry would place a small kiss there like he was worshipping every inch. Y/N could feel his breath fan over the top of her breasts as he got to the middle button, “C’mon baby, how much?” He taunted.

His hand slid up her back under her shirt to the clasp of her bra, “Tell me how much y’ love me and I’ll make y’ feel good hmm? Is that what y’ want birdy?”

Y/N nodded, “So much Harry, so much.”

“What?” Harry grinned, “Y’ love me so much or y’ want me so much?”

“Both,” Y/N gasped, “Please,”

Harry’s lips mould with hers as he uses both hands to remove her blouse, the buttons flying everywhere. Y/N’s hands fumble to remove his belt as Harry tugs his own shirt off hurriedly. His hands are hot against her body as he unclips the clasp of her bra, “So beautiful,” He says, in awe.

Y/N’s cheeks heat at the compliment. His hand splays across her bag, his pinky finger digging into the hem of her skirt as he continues to kiss her deeply. “Harry, I-” Her face feels hot as she stops herself, feeling too embarrassed to ask the question.

“What is it darling?” He cups her cheek in his hand, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone.

She looks up at him, her eyes round and full of lust, she cups the bulge of his dick through his trousers in her hand, “Please?” She whines.

“Y’ wanna suck on m’ cock sweet girl?” He smirks, seeing her get all flustered as she nods quickly. She’s already trying to unbuckle his belt before he has time to say anything else. Her eyes widened when his cock springs out of his boxers, she still couldn’t get over how big he was as she wrapped two hands around the thick girth and pumped up and down.

Harry groaned, feeling her hands wrapped around him. She pulled away to sit up on her knees in the seat, tucking her hair behind her ears and bending forward. Harry’s head falls back against the headrest as she puts one hand at the base of his cock and kisses the tip. “So big,” She murmurs.

“Gonna take it in y’ pretty mouth baby?” Harry taunts in a playful tone.

Y/N sucks on the tip, her eyes closing as she tastes him for the first time. Gradually she takes him deeper, inch by inch, her tongue sliding against the thick vein of his cock as she does. “Good girl,” Harry praises her, grabbing her hair and holding it in a fist.

She stops when the tip hits the back of her throat, using her hand to jerk off what she couldn’t take in her mouth. Harry groans when Y/N gags and pulls away to catch her breath, “Careful baby,” He squeezes her cheeks together and forces her to look at him. Seeing her red, glossy lips and hazy eyes, drool falling from the corner of her mouth from how big he was, almost made him cum right there. He wiped his thumb over her chin and kissed her, “Doing so good my girl,” He murmured against her lips.

As she goes back to mouthing at his cock, he can’t help but run a hand down her back and squeeze her ass beneath her skirt. Y/N makes a sound that sends vibrations down his cock and he knew she’d have to stop before he came down her throat, “Need to be inside y’ baby,' ' Harry spoke.

Y/N’s pops him out of her mouth, “Are y’ gonna fuck me now?” Her big doe eyes look up at him. She almost looked innocent if it weren’t for his cock in her fist.

“Yeah darling girl, M gonna love on y’ now.” He tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear.

Y/N's hands tangled in his curls as she adjusted herself to lay back on the seats. Harry’s lips parted as he looked down at her, her chest heaving and her nipples pebbling under his gaze. He ran a hand through his hair, the glass canopy around them fogging up with their breaths.

Harry swallowed, moving on top of her and holding himself up with his hands pressed into the plush seat beneath. Y/N’s legs parted for him to rest between them, her hands going to his back, fingers digging into the hard muscle.

“Are y’ okay?” Harry murmured, brushing some of the hair from her face.

Y/N smiled, “I’m fine,”

Y/N could feel his hardened length on the inside of her thigh as he pulled her skirt up and revealed her white panties. Harry tutted, “Did sucking me off make y’ this wet baby?” He asked, his fingers moving her panties to the side to reveal her dripping cunt.

Harry’s fingers dipped between her folds, brushing over her clit to collect some of her wetness before smearing it all over her pussy. His hand travelled down, smearing her juices over the tip of his cock before he lined himself up with her.

“Y’know, I don’t think I ever apologised properly for what I did that day,” He pressed open mouthed kisses a long her jawline as the tip of his cock teased her entrance, “What do y’ say darling girl? Y’gonna let me be good and fuck my apology into you?”

Y/N’s hips bucked into him, “Mhmm,”

Looping her arms around his neck, Y/N’s lips parted as Harry eased himself into her. She was suddenly reminded of just how big he was as he moved further and further inside of her until he bottomed out and she could feel every inch of him as she clamped around him, “S’ good,” She hummed, her eyes fluttering open and closed.

“Yeah?” Harry chuckled, kissing her quickly, “M nice and snug? Can y’ feel me in y’ baby?”

Y/N nodded, grabbing his hand and spreading out his fingers to press them against her tummy, “Feel you here,” She sighed.

Harry kissed her forehead, “Y’ like that?”

“The best,” She smiled, lazily.

“Made just f’ me that’s why,” Harry smirked.

Slowly, Harry began to slide in and out of her, taking his time knowing this moment was different to their first time. It was softer- gentle even. Y/N whines, feeling all of him against the walls of her pussy. Harry groans when he sees her stomach bulge when he moves back in her - a sight he could never overcome no matter how hard he tried.

“Y’ fucking perfect Y/N. Feels so good.” Harry’s voice wavered as he felt himself get lost in the feeling of her.

As his hips moved faster, the closer he was to his release. He held her hips, glancing down to see his cock moving in and out of her. He feels her pussy clenching tightly around him, signifying she was close to her release too.

“Am I making my girl feel good? Hmmm?” He presses his nose against her cheek as her head falls to the side. “M’ best girl, lovin’ me the way you do, how’d I get so lucky?” Y/N couldn’t seem to find the words to reply, her body writhing beneath him.

Harry pressed his hand down on her tummy, the added pressure making her groan, “Y’ gonna have my babies in there one day?”

“Yes,” Y/N gasps as he fucks her harder.

“Yeah? Gonna have all my kids and be a pretty little housewife?” Y/N whimpers, her hands scratching down his back. “I love y’ so much.” He whispers.

“Love you,” Y/N slurred.

Harry’s hand begins to rub at her clit, the added sense of pleasure filling her entire body with heat that only continued to build the more he pumped his heavy dick inside of her. Y/N feverishly craned her neck to kiss him, needing that extra physical touch.

“Y’ gonna let me cum in you, darling girl?” Harry murmured, his voice shaking.

“Please cum in me Harry,” Y/N’s eyes blurred as the bubble of heat burst in her belly.

With a final thrust, Harry released a heavy groan as his cock filled her insides with his cum. Y/N’s back arched into him as her breath caught in her throat, her eyes rolling back when she came around him at the same time.

Harry fell on top of Y/N, his sweaty forehead against her chest. She lazily moved her hand to his hair, running her fingers through his soft curls. Harry puckered his lips to press a kiss right where her heart was beating erratically.

A silence fell around them as they tried to catch their breaths, “Have y’ forgiven me yet?” Harry murmured, his hands tracing patterns on her hip.

"I think I forgave you ages ago; I just wanted to punish you a little," Y/N admitted, a truth she had realised for a while now.

"I deserved it," Harry agreed.

"You did," Y/N acknowledged.

“But I’ll be better. For you, I’ll be anything but I’ll always try to be better,” He looked up.

Y/N cupped his face, “I don’t need you to be anything but you.”

Harry kissed her palm, “Thank you… For it all.”

. . .

“Are you nervous?” Patsy asked as the girls sat on top of the hill on a picnic blanket.

“A little,” Y/N lied, she had hardly been able to sit still since this morning.

“Hey,” Molly smoked a cigarette, “These boys have done this plenty of times, I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

“I just hope it all goes well, they’ve been working months on this.” Y/N’s eyes darted around to see if she could spot him.

Elise sat on the picnic blanket in a diaper, chewing on her fingers and making noises. Molly swooped her up in her arms as she stood, “What do you think Elise? Will your brothers actually do something smart?” Molly cooed.

Patsy hit her shoulder lightly, “Don’t be so mean,”

Y/N’s ears pricked as she heard the sound of an engine in the distance. She removed her sunglasses, trying to see where the source of the sound was coming from. “Look!” Patsy pointed towards the thing moving in the blue sky.

Y/N’s caught sight of the blue plane flying in the air, if she squinted enough she could see the yellow spelling of her nickname on the side, “He’s there!” Y/N laughed in disbelief, “He’s there!”

The plane flew closer and Y/N could make out Harry sitting in the cockpit with George beside him. All the girls waved, Elise giggling as they jumped up and down. Y/N took her hat off and started waving it around to try and catch Harry’s attention.

His head turned and a huge grin spread across his face as he saw her wearing a red dress just like she had told him she would after he told her they’d be flight testing the plane again and he wanted her to be there to watch.

“Will you be able to see me on the ground?” Y/N asked as she sat atop his worktop whilst he worked on the plane, her legs swinging backwards and forwards.

“It depends on how close y’ are. I can’t really see that well when ‘m flying high up.” He tells her.

“Hmm,” Y/N thinks, “What if I wear something colourful? Will y’ be able to see me then?”

Harry bites back a smile, “Maybe,” He shrugs, coming up to stand between her legs. He leans forward to kiss her, “Why? Y’ planning on wearing something special for me Birdy?”

Y/N bites her lip, her eyes sparkling, “Possibly.”

“C’mon,” Patsy snatched the blanket off the grass, “They’re going to land soon,”

The girls headed back to the runway where the plane would land. They could already see Sonny looking through his bicolours. Patsy waved, running towards him and falling into his arms. “Did y’ see?” He looked down at her, happiness all over his face.

“It’s great baby,” Patsy kissed him.

Y/N watched as the plane descended, growing bigger against the sky. With a rumble, the wheels made contact with the ground, the plane gradually slowing down as it ran down the runway. Everyone ran towards the plane as Harry lifted the glass chamber and hopped out with George coming round the other side.

Cheers sounded through the air from everybody. Harry’s eyes immediately met Y/N’s, his hands reaching out to catch her in his arms. She leapt into his embrace, moulding her lips against his, “That was incredible!” She squealed when they pulled away.

“Yeah?” Harry was trying to remain calm but she could tell he was proud of what he and his brothers had achieved today, “Y’ proud of me?”

“So unbelievably proud,” Y/N spoke, her eyes radiating the truth in her words.

“Ha, Ha!” Elise squealed for her brother.

Harry’s smile widened into a grin as Molly placed Elise into his arms, “Did you see that Elise?” He kissed her chubby cheek, “Did y’ see your brother flying?”

Elise just babbled in response.

Y/N wrapped her arms around Harry and Elise, joining in the embrace. At that moment, surrounded by the people he cared about most, Harry knew that he was exactly where he was meant to be. With a contented smile, he squeezed Y/N's hand, silently thanking her for always believing in him.

“Hey have any of you seen-” George glanced around before his eyes landed on someone in the distance, “There she is,” He murmured to himself.

Everyone watched as he ran towards a woman standing by the entrance of the warehouse, “Is that Nancy?” Molly held a hand over her eyes to block the sun so she could get a better look at them.

“Hey, I think it is,” Patsy agreed, her eyebrows furrowing.

Y/N looked up at Harry who just shrugged.

. . .

The same evening, the Styles’ house was filled to the brim with people who had come over for their house party, celebrating the success of today. Elise was staying at a family’s house since the party would most definitely be going on well into the night.

Y/N observed Harry from across the room as he engaged in conversation with his pilot friends as she sipped on a cocktail Patsy had given her. She had no idea what was in it but she drank it anyway, knowing it was probably better not to ask. Every so often, their eyes would meet, and a smile would pass between them as they communicated in a language only they knew.

She noticed his lips were still tinged red from the lipstick she had kissed him with as they got ready for the house party. Y/N had offered to wipe it away for him but he liked the idea of people knowing he had been kissing you just by looking at the colour of his lips and yours.

Y/N’s heart felt so at peace as she glanced around the room and spotted each member of her found family. Her life had been so grey and mundane until she came to Offutt where everything changed and love had given her a whole new palette of colours.

It had been hard and full of ups and downs but it was worth it, every second of time was worth it.

She felt a presence come up beside her and turned expecting to see Molly or Patsy but was surprised to see Nancy standing there, leaning against the wall next to her. “It’s funny, I’ve been here longer than you and I don’t think I’ve seen anyone look at somebody the way Harry looks at you.”

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed, “Thank you? I’m not-”

“Listen,” Nancy turned to face her, “I’m sorry.”

Y/N’s eyes widened, “W-what?”

“Please don’t make me say it again,” Nancy turned away again, “I was a bitch and I liked Harry but not for the same reasons you do. I should have stood up for you and him the night of the bonfire when that asshole came and spoke to you but once again I was a bitch and quite honestly I probably still am a bitch but I’ve met someone who I really like and I’m trying to be better.”

Y/N’s eyes softened, “Nancy-”

“I totally get it if you hate me and I don’t expect to be friends with you but George is Harry’s brother so we’re probably going to be seeing more of each other and-”

“Nancy,” Y/N interrupted her rambling, “It’s okay,”

Nancy’s shoulders dropped, “Really? You don’t hate me?”

“I’ve never hated you, I just haven’t particularly liked you but I think that could change if we truly got to know each other.” Y/N shrugged.

Nancy's eyes widened with surprise, hope flickering in them. "You mean that?" she asked, her voice tentative.

Y/N nodded, offering a small smile. “If you're George’s sister then one day we might be sister-in-laws and that would make things awfully strange if we didn’t get on, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Nancy huffed, “Those boys sure do need a break from family drama. I mean there’s some serious daddy issues in that family.”

Y/N laughed, it was the first thing they both had ever agreed on, “You can say that again.”

Nancy's face lit up with relief and gratitude. "Thank you," she breathed, her voice trembling with emotion, “I-I’ve never been good at having friends and I truly am sorry for being so horrible. If it helps, I guess you managed to prove me wrong, I think I even proved myself wrong with the way things are now.”

Y/N reached out and squeezed Nancy's hand reassuringly, “It’s all okay.”

Nancy and Y/N spoke for a little longer. Giggling as they compared their boyfriend’s habits with one another until George came over and whisked Nancy away.

A hand snaked around Y/N’s waist, her gaze falling on those ring-clad fingers. She turned to look up at those beautiful, green eyes, “Hi Harry,”

“Hi Birdy,” He whispered, his eyes darting from her eyes to her lips and then back up again. “Y making friends?”

“I’m trying,” She grinned.

“Good to know,” He smirked and then held out his hand, sliding his fingers to thread with hers, “Y wanna dance with me?”

“M not very good you know,” She had told him plenty of times before.

“S just swaying,” He repeated the words he said to her the first time they danced together.

Y/N laughed softly as Harry pulled her closer, their bodies swaying gently to the smooth jazz music filling the room. She rested her head against his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. With a contented sigh, Y/N relaxed into his embrace, letting the music wash over them. In that moment, as they moved together, there was nowhere else she'd rather be than in the arms of the pilot she pictured spending the rest of her life with.

"What are you thinking in there?" Harry tapped the side of her head with the pad of his finger.

Y/N hummed, "I'm just happy,"

"Yeah? You are?"

"Yeah," Y/N sighed, resting her head against his heart, “I love you, Harry, so much,” Y/N murmured.

“I love you too Birdy,” Harry leaned down to brush his lips with hers, “Bigger than the whole sky.”

taglist:

@ribbonknives @scorpiotulipicon @hermionelove @champagnepronlemsxxxx @n0vaj3an @roxyfan14-blog @avasbeanie @idontcareforausernamesblog @tpwksummer @celesterry @love-letters-to-uranus @boredhsblog @tpwk-harry-styles @groupieloveclub @estaticheart @unknownkii @royaler1999 @lovebittenbyevans @harryscherri @emsma11 @fairytale07 @psciostyles @hannah9921 @junhuisworld @fandomxo00

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bo0tleg · 8 months ago

Text

One thing I like about Top Gun (1986) is how believable the development with Ice and Mav's dynamic is.

I've seen a lot of the "Rivals suddenly become buddies after traumatic event together" in media, but I don't think I've seen it done better than in Top Gun. Mostly, I attribute it to how much build up it has.

Most of the time, the 'Rivals' hate each others guts throughout the entire movie/series and then they go through an extremely traumatic event that binds them for life and shifts their entire concept of each other. Ice and Mav never once changed how they saw each other, it just changed their understanding of it.

Ice saw Maverick as dangerous and Mav saw Iceman as stuck-up and commanding. And they weren't wrong, by any means.

From the beginning, they have tension between them because of how different they are. And it ends up in the audience seeing Ice as the 'Antagonist' because that's how Mav sees it, and we're seeing it from his perspective as the protagonist. But Ice was never inherently wrong, in fact he was right.

Other than his first scene, Iceman always has a point in what he's saying. He's criticizing Mav, not insulting him. Sure, he does it in a brash way because masculinity, but he's not trying to insult him, he's trying to knock him down a peg and wake him up to reality. All Ice wants is that he starts to act as a team player, start caring about everybody's safety AND his own, rather than being reckless for the sake of being reckless. But Mav sees it as an insult because he can't process criticism in a healthy way (due to how he grew up). The same thing happened with Charlie, for the record.

And so the strife between the two begins. What I like about it is how it bleeds out of them over time, becoming more settled as the movie goes on. In the locker room "You're dangerous" scene, the tension is palpable. It's obvious they're agitated by each other, and feel the need to prove they're the correct one.

If you pay attention, this whole... demand for superiority goes away as time progresses. They're fine with each other's presence, it's not like they're constantly at each others throat all the time. In the shower scene, Ice dropped all of the aggression and competitiveness from his tone and is instead just laying out what he thinks. He's not undermining Maverick, he's not lecturing him like a child. Iceman is just telling Maverick exactly how he sees the situation in hopes that it would make him realize what the fuck he's doing, but with little hope that it'll actually work.

That doesn't mean Ice is always correct either, he doesn't understand why Mav acts the way he does, thus fails to take into consideration the emotional trauma behind it. Which only causes even more strife.

The entire time, Iceman isn't being a dick for the sake of it, he just wants Mav to stop being stupid (by his standards). And Maverick doesn't understand it because all he gets from what Ice says is insults.

Maverick isn't good at understanding what people mean to say if it's implied, you need to say it to his face. This is the reason he stayed quiet in the shower scene, because Ice finally laid everything out in simple words that he can understand without making it sound like a dick-measuring contest.

Thing is, the tension mellows out. At the beginning, you could see the tension and cut it with a knife. By the middle you can see them getting used to each other without jumping to constantly trade jabs (namely: the volleyball scene, it's just a bunch of guys being dudes, and the scene where Charlie says that Mav flew recklessly in front of the whole class, Ice doesn't comment on it in any way). Over time, they've settled down into their tension without needing to address it all the time.

Then Goose dies.

And the tension between them is still there.

Just because Goose isn't there anymore, doesn't mean their whole dynamic vanishes all of a sudden. You can see their hesitation towards each other (especially Ice), and that's great! It demonstrates that Goose dying doesn't magically resolve their problems with each other in solidarity.

Ice tried to give his consolations to Mav, and is awfully awkward about it. You can see on his face that he wants to say more, but doesn't because he knows it's not his place given their history. And not much is said, but a lot it communicated. (Val Kilmer is a killer actor for this, OH MY FUCKING GOD BLESS THAT MAN)

Even in the graduation scene you can see how out of their depts they really are with each other. A stilted congratulations, that was it. But they're trying, and that's what matters.

A scene I think gets overlooked a lot is the scene right before the Layton, where Ice expressed his worries about Mav to Stinger, and Mav heard him. Because I feel like that was a shift that was more drastic than the Layton itself for them.

What Ice was doing in that scene wasn't doubting Maverick's flying abilities, it was his mental health. Sure, he passed the psych eval, but that means next to jack shit when in a real combat situation so close after his backseater dying. And Ice might be worried that he's gonna be left hanging, but with the way he was speaking I'm more inclined to believe he was more worried about Maverick's wellbeing than himself. Ice almost looked resigned. He knew it was gonna get dismissed because that's the military for you, but he still wanted to try to vouch for Mav to stay groundside, if only to keep his mind at bay.

But Maverick heard him, and as usual, he read it as an insult. He wasn't wrong to assume Ice didn't believe him capable of flying the mission, which wouldn't be a lie, but failed to realize that he had more than one reason to want Maverick on the ground rather than in the air. And for the first time, Maverick believes him.

Up until this point, Mav dismissed all of Ice's so called 'insults' because he was certain in and of himself. But now he isn't anymore.

And it affects his performance in the air. I'm not saying he was as shitty as he was at the start of that combat because of what he overheard, but I am saying that it certainly didn't help matters in the slightest.

So their weird 'stepping-on-eggshells' situation is all over the place by that point. Because they started to care about each other despite not being what one would call proper friends yet. It's establishing a potential friendship by implying that 1. Ice cares about Mav's wellbeing and 2. Mav cares about what Ice thinks.

On the ground, they have the wingman exchange, and their suddenly buddy buddy. Thing is, it wasn't sudden at all.

They've been setting this up the entire fucking movie.

Going back to what I said at the beginning: Ice thinks Mav is dangerous and Mav thinks Ice is stuck-up and controlling. After the Layton, they still think those things because they weren't wrong to begin with. What changed was that instead of seeing it as something that pitted them against each other, it was seen as something that simply was about the other, and that there was no changing it. It could be good.

Mav being dangerous could be good and Ice being stuck-up and controlling could be good, because those were just traits of who they were. By the end of the movie they didn't change how they saw each other, just how they interpreted each other.

And it was built up during the entire fucking movie.

There was a reason to why they acted the way they did with each other because of the stilted interpretation they had of each other. From rivalry to friendship (and perhaps more later down the line), it's glaringly obvious throughout that it wasn't a sudden shift, it was exponential.

That's why I think it was so well developed, because you could see it coming.

#I implied that Mav is autistic here and there because yes #i just love them your honor #this is what I call good writing folks #take notes #top gun #tg86 #icemav #iceman x maverick #top gun iceman #tom iceman kazansky #iceman kazansky #pete maverick mitchell #pete mitchell #top gun 1986

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awritesthings1 · 1 year ago

Text

All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: An anthology of your life with Tommy, from friends to strangers to lovers, and all the little moments in between.

Warnings: 18+, implied DV, substance abuse, childhood trauma, ptsd, overprotective tommy, swearing, brief smut, longfic oneshot, feminist themes (motherhood & being a wife in the 1920s).

ao3 link

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

Your daddy was a drunk. You remembered the fact since you could walk. He stayed home while the working men left for the factories, then disappeared in the late hours of the morning until his eventual return when the slam of the front door woke the household up. Mother used to hold you at night as she curled up in your bed. She was sick a lot. Always sniffing into the back of your neck when you were asleep. Sometimes the sleeve of your nightgown would get soaked while she muffled her hiccups.

She looked sad, too. In the morning, she kept the curtains drawn and stayed away from the outside world. She told you it was to keep nosey Mrs. Gretel away from her family affairs. But Mrs. Gretel had left Birmingham two months prior.

By seven years old, you were the 'man' of the house. You had gone to sleep one night, and when you awoke, your mother had vaporized into the air like a rabbit in a hat.

“She left because of you,” your father slurred at you.

You hated him.

She left behind her long-sleeve dresses, scarves, and wicker hats that covered nearly every inch of her skin. They were far too big for you then, but when your father came home at the end of the week with a stack of cash, you ran to your mother’s closet, which had remained untouched until then, to find only cobwebs. Gone. Every single one of her dresses. You looked out at the moon in those early hours of the morning and swore to it that when you were bigger, you would get him back so much worse.

And so you were left to clean up his smashed glass bottles and scrub the alcohol out of the gritty carpet. Your little hands struggled to pluck the glass from the floorboards. In a year’s time, they were covered in little scars.

On your tenth birthday, you decided you were grown enough to take matters into your own hands. When he was passed out on the floor from whatever he managed to fill his pipe with, you grabbed the small bottles he hid under a loose floorboard and poured them into the gutter at the back of your house.

You turned to run back to the door when the contents of the bottle were empty, but a ball almost tripped you over. You gripped your tattered skirt before you could lose your footing and snapped your head around with a fierce pout.

“That’s my ball,” pointed a young Thomas Shelby.

You put your small hands on your smaller hips. “You kicked it my way on purpose!”

You weren’t entirely sure, but you suspected it.

“Maybe I thought you were pretty,” he grinned.

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

“Ewwww! I would never go out with you!” You squawked.

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

Seemingly unaffected by your distaste, he continued. “Do you live there?” He nodded to the house whose roof was falling apart.

“What’s it to you?” You frowned stubbornly, not wanting to admit that, yes, that was your house.

“The curtains are always drawn,” he answered, walking over to pick up his ball from your feet. He was the same height as you were at the time. “My brother Arthur said it’s haunted. He saw a ghost in the window once. He said it was a woman and that she starved to death.”

Your nose scrunched up. "Well, he’s a phony!”

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

He kissed you down by the docks that winter. It was your first kiss, and a clumsy one at that, so you didn’t remember much of it.

By thirteen, you had given in and sold the rest of your mother’s belongings to support yourself. You hated yourself for it, and that nagging voice inside your head told you that you were no better than your father. Oh, and your father? Your father lost vision in his left eye from a bar fight. Too bad it wasn’t both.

Sometime later, a boy two years older than you saw your wandering hand in someone’s bag at the fair and threatened to teach you some manners ‘the hard way’. You bit anxiously on your nails and pleaded with him because he was bigger than most boys his age, when Tommy’s brother Arthur (who you’d seen hanging around the Garrison) came passing by and threatened to ‘toss him about’. The other boy, not all believing in Arthur’s temper, rushed forward, and the two ended up rolling in the dirt, but by then you were gone with a stolen pocket watch in your fist. Nearly two legs and an arm deep in poverty, some quick cash, or a hero complex? You’d take the penny.

At fourteen, a lady knocked on your door. It was a lady of the night who had come to inform your father that he had fathered a son with her. You were glad it was a boy. A girl wouldn’t have stood a chance in the slums of Birmingham. Life was hard, but Birmingham was harder. Your father had refused to listen to the young woman and shooed her off. You never saw her teary-eyed face again.

At fifteen, your father attempted to wash his hands of you by marrying you off to the highest bidder. There was no real auction, but just about anyone who suggested a handsome sum of money did the trick.

“His name is William,” you exhaled, kicking your legs over the edge of the dock.

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

Your finances were getting tight, and the gloomy pressure to take up working at night like many young ladies was beginning to loom closer and closer. You hated being a woman. Boys would never have to worry about selling themselves to survive.

“I’ll put a gypsy curse on him,” he decided, squinting his eyes from the bright reflection dancing across the water.

You hit his shoulder.

“No, you won't, because then you’ll be cursing me.”

The severity of your situation began to dawn on Tommy. No amount of pestering Polly for change to spare would relieve you of your burden any longer.

“That’s it, then?” He gulped, shifting his glassy eyes to the harbor.

You sighed and followed his gaze.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll never have to see dad again, and William promised to take care of me.”

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, here we go, why?”

“You know why.”

You were engaged to William on the eve of your seventeenth birthday. He was a very proper man and never dared to go any further than hooking an arm around yours on formal occasions. You were never attracted to his thin mustache nor the thick lenses he wore. In fact, he was incredibly awkward at social occasions, always checking his pocket watch and avoiding eye contact with whichever circle he stood in.

Tommy began to fade out of your life around that time. Margaret—a lady who had taken you on to help with the sewing of her family’s tailoring business—told you that Tommy was spotted arm in arm with another girl that week. You expected to feel jealous, but you felt nothing. You knew love would never be your right. Love was for the more fortunate.

You spent that year learning how to be a wife. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too different from what you did as a child—cooking and cleaning up like you did when your father came home, that is. It was comforting to have a routine in place. It meant finality—no one walking in and out of your life as they pleased, and certainly no more growling stomachs. Perhaps being a wife was a skill your mother never learned. You were grateful for William’s mother, who seemed to be more than enthusiastic to show you the reigns.

After a year-long engagement, you caught your fiancé, William, locked in a compromising position with another man.

“Oh,” was all you got out before leaving his house.

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

You sat down at the fountain across the street. William and his lover’s silhouette were visible behind the blinds he had drawn on the second floor, which peered over the sidewalk. You watched their shadows fluster their feathers around the room like headless geese, and for a moment your head surfaced above water and laughter frothed out between your sealed lips. Perhaps Birmingham made you a little mad.

You didn’t go through with the marriage. You suspected William was relieved.

That week, your father left. You never knew whether he left on his own accord or just never made it home one night. Either way, you never really cared to find out.

With nothing left to lose, you knocked on the Shelby family’s door at Watery Lane. Finn appeared around the other side of the door a moment later.

“Is Tommy home?”

Finn nodded, spinning on his heel to alert his brother. When Tommy did appear, his shoulders were tensed. Disheveled hair never looked so stylish on him. When you saw his suspenders (which were hastily thrown on), you wanted to ask who he expected to be at the door that he planned to answer dressed in such fashion but then thought better of it. He peered down at you, then checked over his shoulder before ushering you inside and up to his bedroom.

“It’s… smaller than I thought,” you landed on, taking in his room.

After all these years, you had never stepped foot into the Shelby home. You weren’t the type of person to come door-knocking.

You turned around to face Tommy after hearing him click the lock on his door.

“Are you hurt?" were the first words he had spoken to you in a year.

“No.” You pressed your lips together, eyeing everything from the bed to the view out the window.

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

Your vision began to blur then. “I don’t know,” you said honestly, trying to stop your bottom lip from trembling.

Desperately, you pushed your hair back and straightened up, attempting to hold yourself together. You must have looked like a puppet being held together by a string, given how poor you looked.

Tommy’s boots pad across the wooden floor. “You love me?”

Did that word truly exist? How could you answer if you never knew what it meant to love?

You don’t meet his eyes. He licked his lips, pushing your head up to meet his with his thumb. His eyebrows rose expectantly.

“I don’t know what to do, Tom,” you breathed, avoiding his question. “I’m all alone now. No William, no father…”

His lips parted, and you watched with fascination as the cogs turned in his head. “Yes… that is a problem." His breath fanned over your face.

You gagged, a reaction you yourself had not expected, before rushing to his door, only to remember that, yes, he had locked it, before turning to the nearest silver bucket in the corner to empty your guts.

The first thing you heard when you caught your breath was, “are you pregnant?”

No, but when you stand so close to me and I can smell the cigarettes you smoke and your freshly washed skin, I can imagine a future where we are married, and I see your face growing more disappointed as we age together because you married a woman who never knew how to be a mother to your children nor a wife who knew to tend to you with affection by your bedside when you’re ill.

“No,” you choked, spitting out the vile taste in your mouth. “We never did anything.”

You wanted him to know that. You wanted him to think that you never let William touch you because you never loved him, not because William wasn’t interested in girls.

A moment later, Tommy sat beside you on the floor and quietly combed your hair away from your wobbling lips.

“So, if you’re not pregnant and you don’t love me, why are you here?”

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. How were you supposed to answer that? After letting your guts loose in his room, you thought he would surely have booted you out the door.

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

“A minute, Finn!” Tommy growled at the door, refusing to back away from your trembling frame.

You were so hungry. Margaret had to cut back your hours ever since her husband fell ill. She spent more time by his bedside than keeping the store open, which meant you were making less than usual. The imminent closing of the store hung over your head like a taunting crow, gouging your insides like you were Prometheus. Birmingham your chains, a woman your fate, and the bird your punishment for thinking you deserved more.

“I should go.” You shivered at the draft inching towards your skin from the open window.

Tommy’s intense gaze stuttered, falling to your lap, where you picked at the dead skin around your nails. He cleared his throat, fishing out the key from his pocket. Although it was dull and muted from the years, it gleaned brightly in your eyes as if it were the reward you came for. Flushed, you grabbed it out of his hands without sparing a glance. Electricity sparked in those precious seconds, igniting a deadly fire in your belly.

“You’re cold." Tommy flinched at your touch.

You retreated as soon as the key slid into the hole and unlocked with a click. In your haste, you left the most valuable thing you owned there in his room.

Your heart.

The months went by, and summer arrived. The stories your mother told you left you expecting a bright gleam of air that would wash over the streets and paint each tree and every patch of grass a frighteningly bright green that would even encourage grumpy Mrs. Gretel to come out to preen her stubborn roses that would just not grow. Birmingham left less to be desired. The summer days never came, and that persisting bitter bog thickened, albeit with slightly less rain. There were gray clouds, smoke from the factories, and a shivering north westerly, which pushed said clouds at breakneck speed as if they had somewhere to be. You looked to the sky one day and said a prayer for blue breezes and sweltering sun, but the sky was empty.

Sometime later, men marched the streets armed with guns in their ‘dashing’ uniforms. A war, they said, a great one. Queues lined the street for the post offices and grocers. Rain rivaled the bustle of the city. What did it feel like to love someone so much as to stand in the pouring rain next to the gutter? You wanted that kind of love. Not the love you could only give yourself because even you didn’t want your own love.

One of the soldiers decorated in medals stood on a crate at the port, yelling something supposedly inspiring that captured the attention of many young men. The words honorable and patriotic were tossed in there like a delectable salad, enticing them in the way farmers held a carrot to a pig’s snout.

You pitied their mothers. Their daughters were married off, and then their sons were swooning over the idea of dying. Birmingham was filthy, rotting, and disgusting. You needed to leave.

You kissed Margaret goodbye on the cheek one Tuesday morning. Ever since your pockets turned out empty, you had been working as a bedside nurse for her ill-stricken husband. They were good to you, and they were probably the only people you could consider family.

She patted your cheek and said, "you're doing good to serve this country.”

You hadn’t had the heart to tell her you were leaving because the city was marring your flesh, so you slipped her the sugarcoated lie of wanting to join the war effort so that you might help others who were bedridden, just like her husband.

At the train station, you stood with your suitcases held tightly in both arms. You had to set one down to hold onto your hat as a train full of men waving their caps out the window pulled into the station. Some children weaved between the crowd, wagging a newspaper above their heads, hoping to make a quick penny. To your side, women wept for their brothers, husbands, and lovers.

“Who are you wishing off?” asked an elderly woman who was clutching her cane.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m boarding the next train.”

She laughed, and you wondered how old your mother would be now. Would she have grown wrinkles and settled into a deeper laugh like this woman?

“My dear, you have a bright imagination if you think they will let a woman on any of these trains.”

A sudden anger filled your blood. “Why not?”

“These men are heading straight for London, where they will be shipped away to France to fight,” the woman explained as if it were any other day.

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

She shook her head, and her frail hand curled tighter around her cane. “They’ve stopped the trains so they can transport soldiers to London.”

You frowned. “Then how will I leave Birmingham?”

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

Men boarded the train, clapping each other on the back with a wink and a laugh. When a line of men on the platform thinned, the train whistled, and you looked over just in time to see Polly, Ada, and little Finn standing with their hands crossed over their hearts as they waved to the train.

No. It wasn’t possible.

But it was because you caught the gleam of the razors sewn into their peaky caps. Tommy, Arthur, and John all stood aboard the train, sticking their heads out and waving to Polly and Ada with a grin that wrung your stomach like a wet cloth.

Those countless daydreams you spun, the intricate webs you wove, began breaking down to thin fibers. In one pathway, you stayed there in his room and told him the truth you always denied yourself. You loved him. In another, you stood next to Polly, close to tears, as you begged him to come home safely. There was a resounding click in that moment as your breath stuttered. You had been the person who wiped away those futures, thinking it was nothing but an annoying spiderweb. Oh, how wrong you were!

“Tommy!” You left your suitcases behind and stepped around the old woman as you ducked under hugs and tearful goodbyes.

“Tommy!” You cried again with the gusto of someone who certainly shouldn’t be as concerned as they were considering you left him in his room that day.

Thankfully, his eyes eventually found yours as you pushed through the last line of people. You stood there and stomached all your regrets head-on. It was funny how, up until that moment, you managed to squash every seed of doubt. Why was it that you only realized what you had when it was slipping out of reach?

He never called your name back. He just stared at you blankly as the train pulled away, unlike you, who clung to the image of his frame even as the train disappeared from sight and the crowd began to disperse. You stood there unblinking, hoping to soak up the last of him before you forgot the intensity of his eyes or the humming rumble of his voice. Because the idea of something you held dearly becoming a memory meant that it could as easily be forgotten, and that terrified you. Your eyes were watering now, against your best wishes.

You overheard Polly ushering Finn and Ada off. Finn rushed home without protest, but Ada stopped in her tracks when she saw you hunched over your knees in tears. She smiled weakly before chasing Finn home. It was then that Polly’s shadow approached your huddled frame. She didn’t say anything, and for a moment, you weren’t sure if she expected you to stand and apologize for being such a mess. That’s when a penny clattered to the ground beside you. She squeezed your shoulder once before disappearing.

You kissed that penny as if Tommy would feel the power of it across the country, then ran back to Margaret’s, having forgotten your suitcases.

“Oh…” She exclaimed, slapping her tea towel on the counter when you walked into the kitchen. “You missed your train?”

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

Throughout the war, you thought of Tommy every day until your stomach lurched. Would it have worked if you had stayed? Would you both have grown old together instead of subjecting yourself to the spray of dirt when a bomb went off nearby?

A day ago, your supply rations never came. It wasn’t like hunger was anything new, but when your mind was too focused on surviving the perilous weather, it was hard to save other lives. You made work with what little supplies you had left. The morphine went stint within hours of its arrival, and the cries of pained soldiers filled the medical tent all night. You did what you could, wiped sweat from their foreheads, and wrote letters to their mothers and lovers with what supplies you could scavenge. Some were written on cardboard from shell packaging, others on torn pages from the bibles they kept over their hearts. Pens were useless—the ink ran in the rain—so you scribbled everything down in pencil.

Before you left for France, you were warned of the bullets. No one ever warned you about the shrapnel, nor the bombs or grenades. They shattered soldiers’ bones beyond repair and left bodies unrecognizable. There wasn’t much you could do when most of their flesh was missing.

Keeping faith became an impossible task. Supplies were depleted, and nurses were dejected. Sally, who had been writing home for news of her brother, recently had her letters returned with the black stamp. Death—return to sender. She spent only an hour sitting on a trunk, letting her tears fall, before she got back to work. Grief privileged those with time, something no one could afford in these conditions.

Then it came—the day Arthur Shelby was carried in on a stretcher. You were making your rounds around the beds when a truckload of yelling men pooled through the entrance of the tent.

“Nurse!” They all yelled, some limping, others setting down stretchers of men on the dirt between the filled beds.

You and two other nurses dropped everything and ran over to attend to the wounded. They were all covered head to toe in dirt, groaning and clutching limbs that were twisted the wrong way. One in particular coughed and huffed while he fought against hands, which were fruitlessly pushing him back down on the stretcher.

“Let me go!” He yelled, wrestling against an older nurse.

“It’s alright, Mary. I’ll handle this one,” you patted her shoulder as you swapped places.

You dunked a washcloth into a bucket of water to wipe away the dirt in his eyes. “Calm down; you're safe here,” you said, starting your usual script of reassurances.

When the striking blue eyes squinted up at you, your blood ran cold. You froze before taking his head in both your hands, despite his protests. “Arthur? Arthur, it’s me!”

He loosened his grip on your wrist. “Huh?”

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

He spat blood and gritted his teeth. “Fucking hell, where’s the whiskey?”

You laughed despite the smell of blood encompassing the tent. You quickly fetched the alcohol you had been using to clean wounds and pressed it to his lips. You weren’t sure if it was whiskey or not, but you reasoned he was in too much pain to be able to tell. He drank it with a groan of pleasure. You didn’t try to snatch the bottle away as he emptied it down his palette; you just sat and grinned at the way he suckled it like a newborn baby while you cleaned away his cuts.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, Arthur.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, his lips still wrapped around the bottle.

You tried to stay by his side for as long as you could before the second wave of patients came tumbling through the flaps of the tent. One of them lost their grip on the stretcher, and the patient went sliding into the dirt headfirst.

“Fuck!” They all swore, abandoning the stretcher to drag the limp man further into the makeshift hospital.

You rushed to help when a hand gripped the back of your neck. You yelped in pain as your hair got caught in a fingernail when they turned you to face them.

And there he was: Tommy Shelby, covered in a thick layer of dirt, heaving for air.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Voices cried for you, but between the ringing in your ears and the wrath in Tommy’s blue eyes, you were frozen in place.

“The fuck are you doing here, eh?” He yelled over the anguished men.

You suddenly felt stupid standing there in your Red Cross uniform.

“I was looking for you, I—”

His dirty hands cupped your cheeks—something you were painfully aware of from the uncomfortable itch from the mud on your flushed skin—and pulled your forehead to his.

“You think this is some fantasy?” He squinted. “You think there’s any fucking moonlight to kiss under here, eh?” He spat.

His eyes held that haunted look you had seen on many soldiers that passed through the medical tent. Your eyes watered. Perhaps it was from the humidity and dirt being kicked up as nurses and patients scuffled around, not because you could hardly recognize the man in front of you. The blood smeared above his eyebrow worried you, so you reasoned that he was mad because it had been leaking into his eyes. Dutifully, you reached to wipe it with the back of your hand. He grabbed your wrist harshly, bringing it down to your side. He was in shock; you scolded yourself.

“Where’s John and Arthur?” Tommy swallowed, flexing his hands.

You led him to Arthur, who had been left in his corner while the nurses attended to more serious cases. It hurt watching the brothers reunite after their ordeal, so you left them alone no matter how much you feared them being discharged before your return. After all, everything you ever wanted sat in that corner, but it would be selfish to coddle Tommy all to yourself. Still, you couldn’t help sparing a glance when you walked up and down the tent, attending to patients.

Later that night, he came to you under the candlelight of your tent. He cleared his throat upon entry. You were lying face-up on your cot when he cleared his throat and peeled back the entrance to enter. The candlelight painted the mountain peaks of his face in a dull amber and the valleys in a frightening shadow. You sat up, pulling the thick cover over your shift.

Tommy kneeled next to you, resting on the heels of his boots. He licked his chapped lips and itched his nose. “You don’t belong here.”

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

Nothing prepared you for when he swung his brooding stare towards you. He exhaled loudly before running a hand over his face.

“You should have stayed in Birmingham.” He said it like a warning.

“And done what?”

Vulnerability never looked good on Tommy. His head hung and his fingers itched at the back of his head—a tick you used to love; now you weren’t so sure. Because your Tommy was never afraid, but this man in front of you was alarmingly tense despite the clear efforts to mask it.

What have they done to you, Tom?

Under the dim light of your tent, you barely recognized him. A stranger’s eyes were blown wide in a frightening state of shock, something most soldiers mirrored. War washed out the sweet blue pair you knew, refitting them for a steely weapon. You hated seeing him like this, so still, so unsteady, cocooned into the corner as if afraid to take up space.

You feared you looked no better. Having worked till the point of exhaustion, you usually found yourself awakening against a wooden crate or trunk to the cries of patients who demanded your attention despite your body not having the strength to stand. Today you had been lucky and found yourself crawling distance to your private tent when your knees started wobbling and your head lulling.

The wooden reinforcing of your private tent fought in vain to shelter your bodies from the elements; it still flapped and whipped about, sometimes rocking your cot. Yet Tommy remained still like those life-size stone statues you’d find outside an important building, brooding at the dirt and locked in an internal battle. You shifted to the edge of your makeshift bed and leaned close enough that you saw how the top buttons of his dirtied uniform were missing and most of his clothes were torn.

His arm, which was breaking out in goosebumps, lay heavily across his knee so that he could rest his forehead there limply. He looked in a bad enough condition that you feared the possibility of him succumbing to the wasteland threatening him outside your tent. You wrapped your arms around the scruff of his hair and pulled his face into your stomach, where he could hide from the terrible world. On instinct, his arms wound around your waist, and you felt his warm exhale against your skin through the thin fabric of your slip.

His tin water bottle clanged against the satchel he wore, which made you wonder if he had any time to rest at all if he still had all his equipment tied to his uniform.

“I didn’t…” His voice was muffled by your slip. He cleared his throat again, shaking his head.

When he dropped the thought, you spoke up. “Have you eaten?”

He slapped your thigh haphazardly. “No, do you have a cigarette?”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, instead gently pushing him away so you could kneel beneath your bed and fish a cigarette from your satchel. You pinched one from its tin case, then thought better of it and tossed it on Tommy’s lap. Gratefully, he collected one from the case and lit it with a nearby candle. You watched his chest rise and fall as he took an especially deep drag. His eyes shut as the nicotine rushed to his head.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he muttered under his breath.

“How are you here, Tommy? One of the night nurses should’ve been on watch.”

“Oh,” smoke puffed out of his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows, “there is.”

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

The butterflies in your stomach dove. The blue in his eyes appeared translucent as they hazed over like a ghost. His shoulders were slumped dejectedly, and he had a hand pushing through his greasy, unwashed hair to relieve his neck from the weight of his thoughts.

He pointed to you then, with the cigarette nursed between his fingers. “I need to know why you changed your mind.”

“About what, Thomas?”

His voice slurred and slipped into a deeper register from the lack of sleep. "Why you came back. Why you came to France.” Tommy shook his head lazily. “You expect me to believe you had a sudden change of heart? What? You a patriot now?” An amused exhale curled out while he took another drag. “Well I don’t believe it.”

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

“How’s Arthur?” You tried to avert the conversation.

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

Tommy held your stare and swallowed dryly. “Trying.”

“You can go join him if you wish.”

He looked at the entrance of your tent as if he were weighing his options, then shook his head and took another drag before clearing his throat. “It’s different now.”

Naïvely, you sank to the ground beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

The next time you saw Tommy, you were working a shift at the hospital. After the war, you received a medal for your efforts, which easily got you a job in Birmingham. You pleaded with them to send you to any other hospital—London, Manchester, Liverpool—you didn’t care. Anywhere but Birmingham.

“You should be honored to work for me!” Exclaimed the head nurse at Birmingham Hospital, who didn’t seem too pleased with your distaste for the city.

You thought the job would be the final nail in the coffin, but you surprisingly got along well with the head nurse once you had put your animosity aside. So much so, she offered to lease you a room upstairs from hers.

Then came that dreaded night where you were finishing the filing of some documents when a patient was being rushed in. Your ears perked up, and you looked through the blinds of the office to see a man being rushed by. Something small and round had fallen off the stretcher while the nurses paid no attention, pushing him around the corner and down towards the operating theater. Curious, you exited the office.

And there on the ground was one of those peaky caps Tommy and his brothers used to wear. You knew this because you picked it up and nearly cut yourself on the blade that was sewn into the seam. You spent the next hour gnawing on your nails. Your imagination sparked ideas about the beaten man who was lying in an operating room two doors down in surgery. Was it Tommy? Arthur? John? The shadows under your eyes darkened at the thought. No, it was probably some other Peaky Blinder. The Shelby brothers were too careful. Still, you knocked over your coffee in a mad dash to the bathroom, where you heaved up your dinner.

You volunteered to stay until the morning, but the head nurse on duty for the night refused and sent you home. You didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, you arrived early and made a beeline for the emergency ward. You grabbed the admission form and scanned the patient list. There were only two emergency patients who were listed under the final hour of your shift, a woman and a man, which made it easier to narrow it down to the man who was admitted at quarter to midnight in ward four, room seven.

When you peaked through the crack in the door, you knew you had been worried for a reason. Tommy lay under the covers, battered and bruised, with a swollen eye and a nasty scar where he had reportedly received surgery for trauma to the head.

You slipped inside quietly and closed the door. Tommy’s eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open, stealing miniscule amounts of air into his lungs. He looked as good as a ghost.

“Tommy…” You clutched his peaky cap (which you meant to return) between your fingers.

He didn’t move an inch, so you set the cap down by his bedside table, carefully watching the rise and fall of his chest.

What have they done to you, Tom?

On the second week, he woke up while you were cleaning the windowsill. He coughed, and you whipped around in shock.

“Nurse?” He asked hoarsely, blinking away the blinding light.

You rushed to his side, tears bursting like the fountain you passed on your way to work.

“Don’t move,” you urged when he tried to sit up.

“I have to get to London,” he slurred, only half awake.

You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you. You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you.

“Tommy… it’s me.”

He shrugged your hand off his shoulder with a hiss. “Fucking hell.”

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“Please don’t move; I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” You couldn’t hide the way your voice broke.

He looked up at you, then, through bloodshot blue eyes. You wished you knew what was going through his head. Happy or sad?

“Am I dead?”

“No,” you smiled weakly as a tear fell.

“Can I have a smoke then?”

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

“Yeah? Yeah? That’s bullshit! Why do you keep coming back then?” He pinched your chin, glaring furiously into your eyes. “Eh?”

He stood so close that he blocked the light from the chandelier, which mournfully hung from the ceiling. You shivered in his shadow.

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

“But you did!” He accused, pointing in your face.

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

“I’ve had it! If you want to leave, then fucking leave; otherwise, don’t stand there all righteous waving empty threats over my head because I know you won’t leave.” He shook his head with a wild look in his eye. “No… You won’t leave. You won’t leave because you love me. You keep coming back,” he pointed matter-of-factly.

Tommy’s eyebrows danced between being terribly furrowed and alarmingly raised during his passionate monologue. It was rare for him to emit so much emotion these days. The war changed men, and Tommy was no exception. A chilling stillness framed his presence, which even you weren’t excused from. No more laughter, no more dreams of working with horses, because he was above all that now, wasn’t he? It was ambition that ground his teeth together and hollowed his eyes. Still, you couldn’t forget that the anger came from vulnerability, because it took a lot for someone to get under Thomas Shelby’s skin.

You moved to grab your purse, to make good on his word, but he halted your movement by grabbing your shoulders, roughly at first, before loosening his grip. You softened at his frantic demeanor. He was scared—oh, so afraid of you walking out that door again. But how could you ever explain it to him? You were never born for love. You would never know how to love him properly the way wives were supposed to because what you felt for Tommy was sickeningly deep. So much so that the mere impression of him sealed off your ribcage and ruined any chance of your heart beating for any other soul, so much so that you carried the weight of him in your bones because you could never shake him off.

When you looked back at life, all you saw was the absence of love. You used to imagine yourself growing up and falling in love with a handsome stranger, then getting married in a proper white dress to go live in your proper house. But when you looked in the mirror, you saw a ghost. The pathway of your life was laid out before your eyes once, and what you saw didn’t match the reflection. The man you were supposed to marry couldn’t even look at you, even if you cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until your fingerprints turned white and pasty.

Because what it all came down to was simple. You never got to become the person you envisioned. Instead, you were cursed to live as a blank slate and be consistently reminded of what you were supposed to be and of who you were: no one.

Tommy exhaled in a quick huff, pressing his forehead to yours so that he saw you clearer, without all the tension and bullshit in the way.

“Here it comes, Tommy.” You took a shaky breath. “I love you, but I could never be the perfect wife to you, and I would be a terrible mother.”

There, in all its ugly colors and shades, you hung yourself with the truth.

He shook his head as if he too couldn’t believe your words.

“Fuck’s sake! Forget about all that." His eyes watered out of frustration, but he was still puffing in anger. “I need you. You. Not some whore.”

You bit your lip to muffle the god-forsaken cry ready to erupt from the volcanoes you suddenly found roaring in your stomach. An earthquake overtook your hands the more you fought the inevitable eruption. You grabbed both his hands to stop yours from shaking.

“I have to be cursed; there’s no other way!”

“No!”

“My life slips through my fingers like grains of sand—”

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

“You’re not fucking cursed, and I’ll tell you why." Tommy cut you off. He leaned in, licking his lips, which had turned dry from all the shouting, and squeezed your hands. “Because my ancestors charmed dogs with their magic, they didn’t scare little girls with curses,” he paused. “But you… You waved a hand over my head, and now I’m no better than a dog.”

He closed the space between you, pressing his forehead against yours, and stroked both your cheeks, wiping at your tears. You held him there in a meek attempt at reciprocation.

You wished the world were ending so then you could grab Tommy’s hand and say, ‘I’m ready, Tom. The world is ending, so let’s kiss and love each other under the flames without any fear because the world is ending.’

But you were never good at expressing yourself with words, so you sealed it with a kiss, hoping he could taste the unspoken words on your lips the same way you tasted the tears. He responded in earnest, gripping you roughly by the scruff of your neck to seal the promise laden between your lips; no more running.

It was just your luck that you would bump into your ex-fiancé, William, while visiting a bar in London with Ada. You were buzzing from the warmth of three sweet liquors and whatever else Ada insisted you try, and everything was starting to seem a little funny by the time he approached you.

He engaged in pleasantries, swishing his wine around the glass and sniffing it occasionally, like many pompous older men tended to do. There was only so much smiling you could afford before you caught your reflection in the freshly wiped bar and realized how poorly your acting skills were. Ada was no help, muttering something about finding a phonebooth and then slipping into the belated and boozed crowd. It was then that the supposed nectar in your glass began to taste like the cleaning products—that nose-scrunching stench. Thankfully, William was too involved in some tangent to notice you muffle a gag into your palm.

The dazzling hum in your ears muffled out all his words. In your drunken state, William appeared to be more confident than what you remembered, but you were unable to decipher whether it was from a change of heart or if he was trying to fall back in your good graces. Otherwise, you were blinded by the roaring bustle of the bar and the delicious swell of music that seemed to reverberate across your being.

Growing a little bored with William’s story, your attention wandered over his shoulder, still being sure to nod every now and then as if you were deeply pondering his words. Not far away from his side, a man seemed to linger—a man who was careful not to reach your eye. You must have laughed a little harder than usual because William turned sharply to the man at his side, gave him a quick once-over, then returned his attention to you, but by then it was too late, and you knew exactly what William’s relationship was with this man and where William’s confidence had come from.

“You’ll make a fine wife and a finer mother someday,” William quickly added.

You cursed the witch inside you, who laughed from her stomach and used his shoulder to steady herself. Once upon a time, that was all you longed to hear, but now, with a half-spilt martini in hand, you couldn’t care less. Both of you had found happiness despite your unconventional circumstances, and there was no more to it. You could close that chapter without any loose threads.

A little drunk, you thanked him, disappeared, and never thought of him again.

“I can’t do it, Ada,” you stressed, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the baby in your arms.

Motherhood came rumbling into your life like a rusty engine spitting out oil. ‘Instinctual’, the mothers down the lane from Arrow House had said, ‘it’s like your body has been preparing for it your whole life.’ How awful, you thought, and by the time one of them finished speaking about their experience with their first, your nose was so scrunched in disgust that you would need an iron to flatten out the wrinkles. It wasn’t until now that you longed to be in their shoes, because nothing came naturally to you.

“He’ll latch eventually; he’s just a little fussy,” Ada reassured.

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

Then, after an hour of rubbing your sons back on the verge of tears, he finally began feeding from you. Ada soothed your back the whole time and cooed softly to calm both you and your unruly boy. Sometimes she brought Karl. He would obediently sit on her lap, playing with his wooden horse, while your little Charles fussed.

One time in the early morning, when you were up attempting to feed Charles, Tommy rushed in alert with disheveled hair and sunken eyes.

“Sorry,” you mouthed, deflated your hardworking husband had been disturbed from his sleep.

He ran his hands over his face and sighed. You mistook his action for frustration and desperately tried to hush your baby. Tommy moved over to the rocking chair where you sat, trying to feed little Charles in your arms.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered into the crook of your neck. “How is he?”

You flushed under the moonlight, suddenly embarrassed that your husband had caught you in this vulnerable position with the top of your slip peeled down. Your exposed skin hissed when he pressed a kiss against your pulse.

“I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Tommy inhaled sharply against your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder to peer down at Charles. Charles had settled since Tommy walked into the room, acutely aware of his father as his little hands made a grabbing motion for him. Diligently, Tommy relieved your arms of Charles and cradled him close to his chest. Within minutes, the little baby was gurgling happily and blinking in a way that suggested sleep was on the horizon after all.

Your husband didn’t dare make any sudden noise as he gently set Charles in his cradle. Once he was surely asleep, Tommy guided you up from the rocking chair and into your shared bedroom.

“See?” you hissed, still maintaining a soft voice, “he only wants you.”

Tommy wouldn’t hear any of it, pulling you into his arms as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Your slip was still pooled around your hips, so he took the opportunity to plant a kiss above your breasts, where your heart was.

“He loves you,” he drawled in that husky voice of his. “I know he does because I do.”

Your head ached, but you couldn’t help the way your body reacted to his words and touch. Tommy’s wandering hands teased the silk fabric that clung to your hips as you felt his nose trail down to your breast, where he kissed one of your aching nipples delicately. Suddenly hot, you hummed in delight, the back of his shorn scalp pleasant beneath your nails. A grunt, bathed in that musk of his devours your senses. Inhaling sharply, he took the bud between his full lips, sucking, licking, and nibbling gently while his hands explored further down. Your head lulled back from the pleasure, gasping and withering under his skilled tongue.

The next thing you knew, Tommy was tugging the rest of your silk slip off and reminding you of just how much he loved you.

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

Your little boy loved to play in the backyard of Arrow House. Much like his father, Charles adored horses. Big ones, small ones, black ones, white ones—but most of all, he favored his Shetland pony. Tommy had brought it for Charles before he could even walk. He said something about it being important for his son to be raised around horses from a young age. And while you didn’t necessarily disagree, it still stressed you out to hold your baby so close to such a large, muscular animal. You knew the Arabian breeds spooked easily, so you steered clear of them and were able to keep Tommy and Charles happy.

But now he had grown up so fast and was able to run around on his own two legs, climb trees, and bruise his knees on the way down. The sun beat lovingly on the apples of his cheeks as he dirtied his trousers, kneeling by the fence to feed his Shetland (affectionately named Biscuit) hand-picked grass through the gaps.

“Charles! We’re leaving!” You called when he ignored his father.

Stubbornly, Charles spun around to pout his lip and cross his arms. He glared at you as threateningly as a five-year-old could. You bit your lip to hide your smile because he really did look like a little Tommy with those big blue eyes. It would only be a matter of time before he perfected his father’s stare. With a sigh, you shifted your daughter into Tommy’s arms before approaching Charles, who was picking angrily at the grass.

You reached a hand out toward him, "let's go.”

“No!”

“All right,” you said decisively, spinning around, “Ruby will have all the fun then.”

“No!” cried your little boy.

You stuck a hand up in surrender and started walking back to Tommy. “No, it’s all right.”

“No, no no no!” Came his protest, chasing behind you as the gravel crunched beneath his boots.

You paid no attention to him, keeping your eyes trained ahead, silently relieved that your ploy worked. Tommy watched on in amusement while Ruby suckled on her thumb, curiously watching her brother storm closer.

“You hear that, Ruby? We’re going to spoil you,” a short smile played on Tommy’s face as he adjusted her so that she sat comfortably on his hip.

“And me!” Charles added and gave his best pout.

“No, Charles, you said you didn’t want to go,” you reminded him, raising your eyebrows.

“I do! I do!”

“Hmm,” you thought aloud, and held a finger to your chin while looking to the sky in exaggerated contemplation. “Very well, but only if you get in daddy’s car right this instant.”

He climbed into the backseat of the Bentley without further fuss.

When all the bags were neatly packed in the back for the day’s festivities, Tommy came around your side to sit Ruby on your lap. Quickly, he leaned in to kiss you and pinch your cheek, which swelled into a glowing grin.

He smiled back and whispered low enough for only you to hear, “got him wrapped around your finger, eh?”

You laughed. “Him and a few other Shelby’s I know of.”

The thundering sound of music could be heard from outside the theater on the corner of Old Pauls. Inside, patrons mused between champagne, dancing, and making a display of their wealth by bidding on little trinkets. It was one of the many charity galas Tommy had to attend because of his new move into politics. Usually, you enjoyed dressing for those sorts of things, but tonight you simply weren’t feeling up to it. Maybe it was the drape of your dress not sitting right or the new leather shoes that still needed breaking in.

Your shimmering smile faded into the crowd as you snuck through the back door in your satin bordeaux dress. Old Pauls sat perched above the cemetery it was named after. Conveniently across the street from the buzz of the theater, it was airily quiet and stuck out from the rest of industrial Birmingham. Your heels clacked across the pavement as you wandered up and down the garden, glimpsing at stone angels and silver plaques. All you had to light your path were the streetlights and the moon.

Your diamond wedding ring twinkled under the stars as you stopped to trace a name. It was the same as your mother's, but with a different last name. Still, you always wondered what happened to her. Had she gotten married to another man and taken his name? You expected to shiver at the idea, but you found that thinking of her no longer unnerved you. She packed up the title of mother when she left you all alone in that cramped house.

Light spilled out onto the pavement across the street when the entrance to the theater swung open. A few men flew down the steps and split off in different directions. Thinking it odd, you remained crouched until they disappeared around their respective corners. That’s when you saw Tommy exit through the same doors, throwing a cigarette and wiping at his brow while he looked up and down the street. Quickly, you stood and waved your arm to get his attention. When he noticed, he stormed down the steps and stalked across the street and through the gates of Old Pauls over to you.

“I needed some air,” you spoke up before he could get a word in.

His eyes wildly flickered back and forth from yours in a frenzy. Under the moonlight, they looked almost translucent, and, save for a ghost of blue, his pupils were wide.

“Why the bloody hell are you out here, eh?” He demanded, gently shaking your head between his hands for emphasis while his eyebrows rose expectantly.

“It’s quieter.”

When he tilted his head to the sky and exhaled, your stomach dropped at the sight of blood. Your ears, which had been tuning out the music, flinched when a shrill cry from a woman rang out the theater doors. The music was gone, now replaced with screams as all the patrons rushed out, tripping over each other like it were a race. You turned back to Tommy, now as worried as the others.

“What the hell happened? Are you hurt?” You urged, gripping his white collar, now red, to inspect where the blood was coming from.

“Not mine,” he cleared his throat, grabbing the hand on his collar to tug you down the street.

The frame of your world stretched a little wider, like light pouring in through open shutters. Car doors slammed, and drivers honked at the agitated crowd who ran this way and that across the road.

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Shouted a man who took no care to avoid bumping into you.

You stumbled back, your hand slipping from Tommy’s on impact. Rage flickered across his features briefly, having noticed the man push through you, but he reconnected your hands and continued walking fast. When he reached the Bentley, he urged you inside, holding your hand the whole way until you were seated in the passenger seat.

“What the hell happened, Tommy?” You repeated as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

You sank back into your seat as the engine roared to life. Peaky Blinder’s followed the frenzied crowd, moving together like a pack of wolves onto the streets. They only parted to let Tommy’s Bentley through. Out the window, people were fighting and throwing fists as they all tried to escape the mayhem.

“Why aren’t they letting people through?” You asked after witnessing a Peaky Blinder block the road and refuse to let a car pass.

“Doesn’t matter.”

He never told you anything when it came to business. And although you suspected this was much more than the doing of the Shelby brothers, Tommy’s face never betrayed him. Simply put, if he didn’t want you to know, you wouldn’t.

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

“No.” He exhaled deeply, cleared his throat, and then reached to give your thigh a squeeze.

You knew it was a lie when his eyebrows rose. He only did that when he was worried. Your tongue remained pressed to the back of your teeth the entire ride home.

The howl of the wind whistled down into the valley of the gypsy camp Tommy had brought you and the children to.

“Pack your things,” he had said one night after storming through the front door of Arrow House, “we’re going on a trip.”

Charles and Ruby cheered, but you suspected something sinister beneath his intentions.

So, there you were, picking at the grass by your feet while you perched on the bottom step of the gypsy wagon Tommy parked beneath a tree for shade. He kept quiet for most of the ride, absorbed in leading the horse around loose gravel and stones, or rather, he led you to believe he was lost in concentration. Because, when it came down to it, you knew Tommy better than to assume nothing was wrong.

The past week, he had been acting different, jumpy even. He ran into the nursery during the early hours of the morning on edge, as if expecting something to be amiss. You tried interrogating him, but he brushed it off, insisting things were fine. Fine—you began detesting that word. Fine this, fine that, but if things were really fine, then why was he on edge?

Then came the bloodshot eyes and the slamming of his desk drawer when you entered the office. Only this time he couldn’t deny the unmistakable jingle of a bullet, which rattled in the wooden compartment like some sort of airy death chime.

A black hand. One for each Shelby. And since you were now one too, that meant neither you nor the children were subjected to any special treatment. A week, he said, a week for his family to clear up the business while he stayed here watching over you like a shepherd to his flock.

And watched he did, standing next to where you sat, he found peace observing Charles and Ruby as they chased each other around the overgrown field. There he remained for an hour or so, frighteningly still, the only motion being his sharp jaw chewing on a mint leaf, somewhat reminiscent of the soldier in your tent all those years ago. Next to him, tied to the tree, the black steed filled the silence with snorts and grazed favorably on the loose roots and grass patches.

“Ruby was crying this morning. She’s scared, Tom." You sighed.

Tommy hadn’t been there when you woke up that morning in the caravan. He returned shortly after, ominous as ever, just as Ruby had begun to settle.

He tossed the stalk of his mint leaf into the grass and offered you his hand. You looked up at him in question for a moment, slightly suspicious of his intentions. Nevertheless, you slid your hand into his, and he stood you up, sat down on the higher step, and pulled you between his legs to sit on the lower step. He hugged you from behind as he slouched to rest his head on your shoulder, then exhaled deeply.

“We will be home soon,” he whispered in your ear, brushing your knuckles tenderly.

“For how long? Until we get another bullet in the post?”

Tommy’s throbbing forehead found solace in the warmth of your neck.

“You’ve never been one to run,” you continued, “what’s bothering you? We took a vow that we would share everything.”

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

Frustrated, you tried to get up, but he held you firmly against his chest.

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

You waited in silence for more information, but more did not come.

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

“I don’t want you any more involved than you are.”

“They’ve sent death knocking on our door; how more involved could I be?”

Tommy moved methodically, licking his lips and clearing his throat. He squinted his eyes up at the glaring sun.

“It’s nothing you should be concerned about. I’ll keep us safe.”

“Nothing I should be concerned over, Thomas? Just how many people are we at war with?”

He didn’t answer, so you turned your head away from him. Charles and Ruby had since settled by a patch of flowers. Charles was crouched over, helping his sister gather all the yellow flowers for her yellow dress.

The tension broke the surface then.

“Why are you still fighting, Tom? Is this,” you nod to your children and breathe in the fresh air, “not enough?”

You pictured Arrow House and its lavish garden, one to compete with all the wealthy families down the lane. You thought of Arthur, John, Polly, Ada, and all his family that lived to see his success. Everything, from the thoroughbreds in the stable to the fancy cars. The money itself was a testimony to his drive. What more could the gangster of Birmingham want when he already had everything?

You had gone and worked yourself up now because the world seemed blurrier than before.

Tommy, still on his guard, guided your chin to your shoulder so he could kiss the tears away. “It is enough.”

“Then make it enough. You’re respectable now, so stop the fighting.” Your voice broke at the end.

He hung his forehead on your shoulder. Like a flower sheltered away from the sun, Tommy wilted when he was away from his business. Usually, you were a strong enough light to keep him going, but whatever business he had gotten himself into was poisoning him, and ever the addicted flower, he kept running out to the fields, continuing to drink in the sunlight until it was too much and turned his leaves brow. Because business was what occupied his mind day and night, he was unable to turn the cogs of the engine off and let the air out of the tires.

A hand brushes your hair away to kiss the spot beneath your ear, airing out the destructive thoughts.

God, you loved him anyway. An overpowering feeling that ruled over calculating minds like Tommy’s and faint hearts like yours. You were no better than him—both addicted to a little sunlight.

The framed photographs on the wall shook as your third-eldest slammed the door to her room closed.

“I hate you!” She cried from the other side.

Your husband, Tommy, sighed to the ceiling, then stalked past you to his study, no longer interested in anything your daughter had to say. They had been at it for the last ten minutes arguing over some boy she was seeing, and your ears were just about ringing having witnessed it from the sidelines. You were left there in the hallway, an unwilling participant in the unspoken feud between father and daughter, and you understood that whoever you went to console would take it that you were siding with them, even though you just wanted to keep your family together.

Going to your daughter was the instinctive answer, but you knew she needed time to cool off. Tommy was the only reasonable choice.

You knocked on the door to his office before letting yourself in.

“Come to lick my wounds, eh?” He mused while smoking a cigarette.

Your lips wormed into a thin line. “This needs to stop, Tom.”

“Yeah,” he said, tapping the ash into his tray, “it will fucking stop.” He points with his cigarette, “I’ll make it fucking stop.”

You sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

The chair screeched as he stood. “I’m her father, and if I say she can’t see that boy, she can’t. It’s only a childish fling; she’ll get over it.”

He poured a whiskey and downed it by the time you walked around his desk so that you were face-to-face with him.

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

“Yeah?” He scoffed. “Well, that can be undone.”

You held his glare, a challenge lighting in your own. “So easily, you think?”

He paused mid-drag, catching onto the underlying meaning in your words. “No,” he said, setting the cigarette down in the ash tray and grabbing your shoulders. “Don’t act like that.”

“Act like what?”

“Like you’re threatening our love over some fucking boy that’s charmed our daughter. They’re too young.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Oh, sweet and nice, I’m sure. But he’ll have no place in this house.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I fucking said so!” He spat.

“Don’t yell at me.”

“Or what? You’ll leave me?” He huffed in amusement. “You won't; you love me too much.”

“You’re so certain?”

He paused for a moment and stared at you as if he couldn’t believe what you had said.

“Yeah, because we still fuck like two people who love each other, eh? And you’ve not told me no before, so if the day comes and your body no longer wants mine, then I’ll be worried. But until then, don’t test me with empty threats." His face hardened.

He knew you like the back of his hand. All bark, no bite. You loved him inexplicably, even after all these years, gray hairs and all. His face, body, and soul nourished you until you were satiated and full. And even if his eyebrows furrowed at times, you were willing to bet that it was for aesthetic, a shapely shadow gathered over the years from being the stoic leader the Peaky Blinders and Shelby family needed. How could you fault him for it?

Because, at the end of the day, you were a team. Even if he played the role of an overprotective father a bit too convincingly, he only ever wanted what was good for your daughter. Everything he worked for, ultimately, was for his family. A family man. And that came with its virtues and vices because, despite what Tommy thought, he wasn’t perfect; no one was.

Shrinking under his hands, you breathed a sigh and appeased him. “End this feud, Tom. Find peace with her. I don’t care what you do, but by the end of it, I expect to be able to sit down at the dinner table without having to beg my husband and daughter to look up from their plates.” You stroked his hands, which held your shoulders, and finally blinked up at him.

A haze of softness swept across his glare and melted the glaciers to a thin sheen of blue. The seams of exhaustion frayed one by one through his muscles. He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned down for a kiss of absolution. Not entirely prepared to surrender, you tilted your head so that he found the corner of your mouth instead.

“It will be done, love.” He brushed the apples of your cheeks tenderly. “And by tonight,” his voice lowered, “I promise you’ll forget all about it.”

Only then did you accept his kiss, eager to put the grievance to rest. Tommy, on the other hand, had other plans and stepped forward so that you were pinned between his desk and hips. He quickly began to gather your skirts above your waist, but you pulled away just as fast at the hiss of air against your exposed skin. An unsolicited gasp escaped his mouth when your knee brushed him there, and you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth, looking deep into his eyes.

“Promise me you won’t break her heart. She might not be old enough now, but I don’t want you to put her off love forever,” you caressed his jaw.

“No,” he agreed, breathier than usual, flexing the hands that were still caught up in the fabric of your skirt.

“And our Daisy may never say it, but I know she loves you dearly. So please, Tom, be gentle with her. I don’t want her to grow up despising you. Tell her you love her, kiss her forehead, hug her.”

He deflated, and you watched him swallow his pride. Cogs turned against the sweltering lust, threatening to deplete the clever thoughts in that powerful head of his in favor of your careful touch. Please, please, please, you begged without uttering a word; agree with me on this, Tom.

Tommy leaned back down to rest his forehead on yours; his face gave nothing away. You were sure he had found something to say, which would make you feel like a fool for asking. However, when you embraced those faint subtleties of emotion flickering across his face like candlelight, so miniscule you might blink and miss it, you found nothing of the sort to suggest any hostile nature. Because Tommy loved you.

“I will.”

A/N: Tried doing a long one shot, what does everyone think? Yay or nay? Comment to be added to the tag list!

Taglist: @maliceofwonderland , @fairytale07 , @goblinjnr , @ilovepeoplesdads , @multidimensionalslut

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steddieas-shegoes · 10 months ago

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It’s been done in every which way but Eddie being in an accident of some kind that leaves him paralyzed, but his doctors believe he could walk again with intense physical therapy

He’s stubborn and absolutely hasn’t dealt with any of the trauma of the accident and takes it out on his physical therapist, Steve, who is used to patients being pretty angry about their situation

He always meets Eddie where he is though, tries to keep a smile on his face and joke when appropriate and even shares his cookies from his lunchbox with him

Eventually, Eddie starts making some progress, but instead of being happy about it, he panics and cancels all his PT appointments for the week

Steve tries calling, texting, emailing, doing everything he can to encourage him to keep going, but it all goes unanswered until Gareth, one of Eddie’s closest friends, calls him on Eddie’s phone

He’s depressed and he won’t get out of bed, he’s given up. He’s tired of being in pain and having to try to so hard just to move his damn legs a little

Steve isn’t usually this personal with clients, and tells Gareth he can’t discuss anything medical with him due to patient confidentiality, but insists he should try to drag him to the office the next day before it opens

And somehow, probably through guilt, Gareth manages to wheel a very sullen and grumpy Eddie into the side door entrance to the office at seven in the morning

Steve tells him to come back in an hour to pick him up and Eddie ignores the goodbye Gareth says to him

And Steve pretends nothing is wrong at all, goes through the usual temperature and blood pressure check, asks how he’s feeling and gets a grunt in response, asks if there’s any pain and gets an eye roll

But Eddie met his match in Steve because Steve then pushes him to the center of the workout room, where a large mat is out and a walker is set to the side

“What’s that?”

“Your walker.”

“I don’t need one seeing as I can’t fucking walk.”

“You are today.”

And Steve knows he’s pushing and he hates being pushy

But he knows what his clients are capable of, and he knows without a single doubt in his mind that Eddie is ready to use the walker for five to ten minute increments. He has the leg strength and the stubbornness, he just needs the belief in himself

“Do you want me to hurt myself worse?”

“Of course not. And if you get tired, the seat on the walker is right there. But you can walk and you will walk.”

“And if I call Gareth to come get me right now?”

“Then I don’t believe my services are of value to you anymore and I’ll wish you the best.”

It pained Steve to say it because he knew he was fucking good at what he did, maybe the best in town. His clients often had to wait for his availability to open for weeks or months at a time because of how many people were referred to him

But he said the right thing because Eddie huffed, groaned, and cursed under his breath before wheeling himself to the edge of the mat to hold onto the walker

He pulled himself up

His legs were shaking from not being used for the last few days more than the bare minimum, but his determination was clear

Steve slowly pulled the chair away as Eddie unlocked the brakes of the walker and glared at Steve as he took one step, then two

Sure, he was relying pretty heavily on the walker, maybe more than Steve would’ve liked to see, but he was moving

He made it across the mat and then locked the brakes, sat down on the pad on the walker, and gave a sarcastic grin to Steve

“Happy?”

“Are you?”

And maybe Eddie wasn’t ready to be asked that because he was suddenly sobbing, covering his face as tears flowed down his cheeks

Steve gave him a few seconds before moving to kneel in front of him, pulling his hands away

“You deserve to have your life back, Eddie. You’ve been lucky to have the chance to walk again. Let’s not waste it, okay?”

Eddie spent the rest of the session walking across the mat and taking breaks every two minutes or so

It was better than Steve even expected, but he reminded Eddie not to do too much at once

Eddie didn’t miss any more appointments with Steve, and every appointment, he seemed to be more charming and flirty, more like “the old Eddie” according to Gareth, who drove him most days

Steve never admitted it out loud, but he knew what he felt for Eddie was different from other clients. It felt more personal, and it felt like it could be more someday

When Eddie graduated to a cane, Steve’s services were officially no longer needed

And Eddie decided that he should probably take Steve out on a date

“Since I can walk and hold your hand now,” he winked.

Steve should say no, but he doesn’t

Because holding Eddie’s hand feels even more right as his boyfriend than it did as his physical therapist

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #headcanon #physical therapist Steve #idk going through my notes on things I’ll never have time to actually write #but maybe someone else does #I’m literally ignoring work so hard right now #I’m just tired!!!!#im just a girl who doesn’t wanna work anymore!!!!#cw: injury #cw: mention of accident

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buck-star · 1 year ago

Text

I only want you | Bucky Barnes

Pairing -> BestFriend!Bucky Barnes x BestFriend!Female!Reader

Summary -> During the party he confesses his feelings for you, he kisses you but the next day he isn’t the same anymore. Your best friend is the biggest idiot you have ever seen and you don’t know why.

Warnings -> Bucky being an idiot, mention of Bucky’s past/trauma, Sharon being a bitch, hurt/comfort, angst, crying, kind of insults, fluff

Wordcount -> 7.1k (it’s long but it’s worth it, I guess)

A/N: I want to thank @mrsbuckybarnes1917 for listening when I came up with that idea as well as supporting me to find the way through all the ideas, and thank you so much for proofreading it, I really appreciate it. I’m sorry when I hurt someone, trust me I cried a lot while I wrote that oneshot but I just needed to write something to calm down my feelings and yeah here we are. I hope you all enjoy it.

Divider made by @firefly-graphics.

Masterlist | Bucky Barnes Masterlist

Bucky isn’t really a drinker, especially not since he became the Winter Soldier. He enjoys the taste, but the serum that is constantly running through his veins makes it impossible for him to experience the effects of the alcohol. It isn’t rare that he wishes to get drunk so he can forget all the memories of the things she did during the time with Hydra. It’s like Thor knew exactly about his thoughts because he is waving a flask of Asgardian Ale in front of Bucky, and the brown-haired man decides it is the perfect opportunity to drink his troubles away.

“Buck, you shouldn’t drink too much of that Asgardian Ale,” you mumble while you sit next to your best friend and look at him. You know about his trouble and about his traumatic past, but you also know it’s never an opportunity to drink it away. He has the glass completely full again and smiles at you.

“It’s oke; I can’t get too drunk. I’m the Wiener Soldier,” he says and bursts out laughing. Then he lifts his glass and turns around. "Cheers!" he shouts through the room, even when it’s almost impossible that someone hears it.

The music is way too loud to hear your own words without shouting. So it isn’t surprising when the people in the room don’t hear what Bucky shouts. Except for the two next to him, you and Steve.

“Cheers, pal!" Steve shouts and lifts his glass as well. He smiles at Bucky before he pours the liquid down his throat. You shake your head and turn around. Your back leans against the counter, and you place your forearms on top of the counter, looking at the people dancing in the middle of the room.

“Haven’t felt like that since the 40’s,” Bucky groans, filling his glass again. Then he turns to you and looks straight into your eyes. “I feel like I’m 20 again; it feels better than I thought. Do you always feel like that?” he asks and places his hand on your shoulder, standing up slowly to stand in front of you.

Then he winks at you while he almost falls to the side. You almost burst out laughing when he tries to grab something to not fall.

“Woah, the room is spinning. I didn’t know Tony was able to build something like that,” your best friend says while holding your shoulders so he won’t fall down.

You look at him and grip his arms to lead him to the seat next to you again, but he doesn’t want to move. You giggle when he leans closer, and the stubble from his beard tickles you. Bucky kisses your cheek softly.

“My lady, wanna dance with me?” he asks and looks at you with the most adorable puppy look.

His blue eyes are almost begging you to dance with him, and even when you would prefer to bring him into his room and make sure he goes to sleep, you can’t say no.

With a nod, you stand up as well, and he wraps his arms immediately around your waist. He doesn’t walk far away from the counter, just a few steps, so the two of you can dance without crashing against something. Bucky spins you around while he holds you still, pressed against him.

You wonder how it must feel for him when the room is already spinning, but the way he smiles and looks at you makes your mind dizzy, and you can’t think of anything other than him. You lay your head against his shoulder, and the heat of his body warms you. His hands are around your waist, making you almost melt in his embrace, and you could stay like that for the rest of the evening.

After a few minutes and Bucky almost lying on the ground and sleeping, you push him to the seats. Making sure he doesn’t miss the chair, when he sits, he immediately looks for his glass.

“Where is it? I’m thirsty," he says, looking at you with a slightly sad gaze.

You feel a bit sorry for him, but you reach for another glass, this time with water. Bucky looks at it skeptically, but then he pours it down his throat. Shaking his head like it’s something awful he doesn’t like. You chuckle, and it makes him look at you.

“Have you ever tried that? That’s awful,” he tells you and offers you the glass even when it’s empty.

“It’s not that bad,” you reply, and you take the glass to place it on the counter next to you.

“We should bring you into your room, you should sleep a bit,” you say, taking his hands into yours.

Before you can pull him up, and with you out of the room, he pulls you closer, and his lips are just a few inches away from yours. He is so close that you can feel his breath against your lips; it's warm and smells strongly of the ale he has consumed. You need to close your eyes for a moment. The man in front of you is making you go crazy.

“I don’t want to go to bed, not yet. I want to kiss you first, can I?” he asks you, and you immediately feel like he is Bucky from the 40’s again. And even when you don’t agree to drink his troubles away, you’re happy that he doesn’t have to suffer with his past right now. And let’s be honest, the 40’s Bucky is a gentleman, and you always wanted to know him; now you have the chance, at least for tonight.

“Doll?” Bucky asks, and you feel a shiver along your spine because of his soft voice.

You look into his eyes and smile softly.

“Of course,” you answer, not sure anymore about the question he asked.

He leans closer and kisses you softly. Bucky’s pink, plumb lips are so soft on yours, you never imagined them being that soft. You slide your hands through his hair, playing with his light curls. His lips move slowly against yours, while he lets you feel everything you tried to avoid when you’re around him. The feeling in your stomach whenever he touches you, the way he looks at you, or talks to you. You adore the way he tells you ‘Doll’ and you enjoy every moment you can spend with your best friend.

And that’s the point where you thought he would never feel the same for you. He is your best friend, and he was always a gentleman, so you were sure he was just nice. And now he is kissing you, with his hands at your waist, holding you close. Bucky is drunk, so you aren’t sure if it’s just a situation of his drunken state, but they always say: drunk people tell the truth, so he would feel the same for you as you feel for him.

When the two of you move a few inches away from each other, you still look into his eyes. His gaze looks a bit foggy, but you can also see the storm in his blue eyes.

“I love you; you’re the most adorable girl I know. You don’t know what you do to me whenever you look at me or just touch me softly. My feelings go crazy, and whenever another man walks close to you, I want to push them away and tell them you’re mine. I can’t sleep because I think of you; when you’re in a room with me, I can’t concentrate on something else, just on you,” Bucky says, and he smiles softly, his cheeks turning slightly red. “I have loved you for so long, but I thought you would never love me the same way. I was the Winter Soldier, and I don’t think I deserve someone brave, strong, wonderful, and perfect like you,” he adds, leaning his forehead against yours, wanting you to be as close as possible and feel your warmth.

You smile and press your lips against his again. The tingling feeling in your stomach grows again, and when he stands up, he towers over you, placing his hands around your cheeks, and he pulls you closer.

“I love you so much, my doll,” he whispers and slowly lets go of you, his hands gripping your waist again.

“I love you too, Buck. And you deserve everything good; it wasn’t you when you were the Winter Soldier. You’re a gentleman and the most precious one; I love the way you care about everyone you love,” you tell him, and he blushes.

Bucky lifts one of his hands and presses two of his fingers onto your lips, trying to make you shut up before you can compliment him more.

“You need more than two fingers to make me shut up,” you giggle, and his smile grows before he leans down and presses his lips on yours. He makes you speechless with the way his soft and warm lips move against yours.

“You two are almost disgusting,” Steve mumbles next to you, making you chuckle.

When you and Bucky break the kiss, you look at Steve. He still looks at you and blushes when he recognizes that you caught him looking at you and Bucky.

“You think it’s almost disgusting, but you can’t stop looking at us, huh?” you ask, and he immediately turns his head away while his cheeks get deeply red.

When you turn your head back to look at Bucky, you feel a burning look in your back. Without looking around, you already know the person who is staring at you with the same angry gaze; she always looks at you. Bucky recognizes your thoughtful look and looks up to see the person behind you. His hand clenches around your waist, and you hiss softly.

“Sorry, doll,” he mumbles, immediately losing his grip around your waist.

“Tony is staring at mine,” he growls, and you look around. You see Tony standing on the other side of the room and looking in your direction. He looks annoyed, and when you look a few inches further to the side, you see the person who is burning a hole in your back. Bucky thinks it’s Tony who is looking at you, but you know he is just listening to the person next to him. She is the one who hates you for being Bucky’s best friend, and now she will hate you more because Bucky kissed you. Sharon has had a crush on Bucky since you met her the first time, and he sometimes looks flirty around her, but he is always like that around friends. Otherwise, he would date Tony, Thor, or Steve as well.

The next morning, you wake up to the sun slowly brightening your room. You open your eyes and smile when the flashbacks of the last night come back into your mind. You and Bucky shared a lot more kisses, soft touches, and dances during the night.

You sit up slowly, stretching your limbs, and look at the clock. It’s just a bit after ten in the morning. After a few more minutes where you just look out of the window and enjoy the sun and the comfortable silence in your room, you stand up and walk through your bathroom.

With a few movements, you get out of your clothes and walk into the shower. The hot water runs along your body, and you feel your muscles relaxing under the warmth. You close your eyes, enjoying the moment just for you. In front of your eyes, you see Bucky kissing you the way he did last night. Your fingers are brushing softly over your lips, and for a moment, you feel like he is kissing you again. His hands are around your waist, and his body is pressing against yours.

But when you open your eyes, you just hear the sound of the water and your towel in front of you. No Bucky, right now. Just the thoughts making you smile again and the feeling in your stomach are the most wonderful you have ever felt until now. You are already excited to see him in a few minutes, but first you need to finish your shower and choose some comfortable clothes to wear.

With the biggest smile on your lips, you walk through the floor and into the shared kitchen.

“Someone looks really happy today,” Tony says, and you blush immediately.

Your eyes scan the room, so you can find Bucky and go to him. Talk to him about the last night and make sure you meant what you said. When you walk a few steps further into your room, you see Steve lying on the couch, holding his hand and groaning.

“I don’t know what happened last night. Tony, how can you manage to never have a headache?” he asks, and Tony laughs before he places his hand on Steve’s shoulder.

"Painkillers are really useful. It doesn't help to remember, but they help against the other effects after being drunk,” he says, and Steve nods. He doesn’t want to get up, so he just closes his eyes and tries to sleep a while longer.

You look around and see Bucky in front of the counter. Sharon stands next to him, and her hand rubs his back up and down. You roll your eyes, disgusted about the other girl, as you walk to them.

“Hey, Buck,” you say with a smile, and when the brown-haired man turns around, he smiles softly.

But in another way, as usual, he looks a bit sad, and instead of looking at you, he looks to the side.

“Hey,” he mumbles and takes his bowl with cereal.

Then he walks to the table, and Sharon follows him. You look at them both; maybe he has a hangover? You try to push the negative thoughts away and make yourself a bowl with your favorite cereals. You walk around the table and sit down in front of Bucky; he doesn’t look at you, and he doesn’t talk to you. He was just focused on his cereals and probably deep in his own thoughts.

“Buck?” You ask carefully, and he hums but still doesn’t look up from his bowl. “Can we talk? I mean just you and me?”

He nods in response and finishes his breakfast, then finally looks up to see you. But something is still different when he just loves to look into your eyes and adore the colors, but this time he looks at you like you’re someone else.

He waits until you finish your breakfast as well, and then he follows you through your room. Your best friend closes the door behind himself and looks at you.

“What’s up?” He asks with a cold voice, and you shiver immediately.

“Do you remember last night?” you ask, playing with your hands. You don’t want to look at him; you’re scared about the way he looks at you.

“No, but Sharon told me about it,” he tells you, and you nod softly.

For a moment, the two of you are quiet. You don’t know what to say, but the silence is uncomfortable as well. You shift from one foot to the other, your hands sweating, and you feel like you need to throw up.

“Why are you so cold?” you then ask and look at Bucky.

He clenches his jaw with his eyes staring at you, and the way he looks at you makes you even more uncomfortable. He never looked at you like that; the coldness almost showed hate in his eyes, and you can’t help but feel the tears burning in your eyes. He notices the tears in your eyes, and a sarcastic grin forms on his lips.

“Why are you crying now?” Bucky asks you loudly; you hiss and feel so small in front of him.

“You- Buck, yo-” You start to say something, but he interrupts you.

“Don’t call me ‘Buck’ or ‘Bucky’. You have no right to say that. You don’t deserve to say that,” he shouts, and your eyes widen.

“What do you want me to call you then?” you ask, trying to wipe the tears in your eyes away.

“Use my name. I have it for a reason,” he says, and you nod, not able to say anything.

You don’t know what happened to him. Last night he confessed his love to you, and now he acts like he hates you and has never even thought about loving you.

“Want to talk now or not? I have better things to do,” he says, rolling his eyes annoyed.

You feel a tear slowly falling down your cheek, not knowing the man in front of you anymore. He isn’t like your best friend; he isn’t like the one you fall in love with; he isn’t the one who kissed you yesterday; and he isn’t the Bucky, you know.

You shake your head. You want to talk; you really want to, but you can’t. At least not with the man in front of you. Was it all a lie? Was it all just fake? Or what happened that he is the way he is right now.

“Good,” he says, and he turns around to leave the room.

The moment he closes the door behind himself, you break down on the floor. You fall on your knees, the tears streaming down your cheeks, and you’re sobbing loudly. There is no feeling inside of you right now; you feel empty. You stare at the wall in front of you, his face in your mind, his smell, and the way he kissed you last night. You hear his words, like he is standing next to you and saying them to you. The ones of the night when he confesses his love to you and the ones he said a few minutes ago when he was looking at you with his cold, blue eyes.

“I love you; you’re the most adorable girl I know.”

“Don’t call me ‘Buck’ or ‘Bucky’.”

“I can’t sleep because I think of you; when you’re in a room with me, I can’t concentrate on something else, just on you.”

“Want to talk now or not? I have better things to do.”

It takes a while until you slowly calm down. You're curled on the floor, and the tears are still streaming down your cheeks. But your sobbing is quieter, and you slowly fall asleep on the floor. All the tears and the crying make you so sleepy that you don’t recognize Steve walking into your room and lifting you up to place you in your bed.

He sits next to you, his fingers stroking your hair softly out of your face, and he looks at you with a soft but sad smile. He saw Bucky walking out of the room, his gaze as cold as the whole morning, and even when he doesn’t know what happened at the party, he doesn’t want to leave you alone. But he also doesn’t want to interrupt you while you’re crying because he knows you would have to hide it, and he knows you need to let the feelings out of your body.

You don’t sleep well; nightmares interrupt your sleep every time, but you’re too tired to stay awake for a while. In every dream is Bucky; first he helps you, but in the next moment he shouts at you, laughs at you, and does everything you never thought he would do to you. You’re sweating and whimpering in your sleep, turning from one side to the other.

Steve tries to comfort you with his hand on your thigh, but it doesn’t work. With widened eyes, you wake up, starting to cry again for a few minutes before you fall asleep again. You don’t mind if someone sees you crying or not; you can’t escape Bucky, his coldness, not even in your dreams, and it robs you of all of the strength you have.

“Y/N?” Steve asks when you’re awake, but you turn around so you don’t have to face him.

You mumble a soft ‘mhm’. Steve sighs, his fingers drawing small circles on your thigh.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” he asks, but you shake your head.

You just want to be alone right now. Steve nods and stands up, walking through the door, but before he leaves the room, he turns to you.

“If you need me, you can call me or just come to my room,” he offers.

“Thank you,” you whimper, and the tears are streaming down your face again.

You can’t stop thinking about Bucky; he is burned in your mind like something you need to be. Something you need to be happy, and yes, he is someone you need to be happy. Without him, it doesn’t feel the same; watching your favorite movie wouldn’t be as fun because there is someone missing who holds you when you cry out of joy because they are married. Playing board games wouldn’t be the same because the one freaking out because he doesn’t get what he wants isn't playing the board games with you. Eating your favorite snacks and ice cream wouldn’t be the same because the one man who always laughs about your snack and ice cream decisions wouldn’t laugh. The one cuddling up wouldn’t let you cuddle with him, and you would miss HIS warmth and HIS scent. It’s not just a man; it’s the ONE man; it’s Bucky.

Wrapped in your blanket, you sit against the headboard of your bed. Looking through the channels for something that could distract you. But you feel like Bucky is manipulating the television because every channel shows a movie you used to watch with Bucky.

Everything reminds you of him: every place, every movement. Every second reminds you of Bucky, the memories you both have, and the moments you shared. And now he treats you like you’re the worst thing he has ever seen, and there is no reason why he does it, right?

You don’t want to sit in your room, but you don’t want to see Bucky somewhere as well. But you feel hungry after some time, and even when you wish you didn’t have to stand up to get some food, you don’t want to make yourself feel worse just because of Bucky.

So you slowly get up; it’s already afternoon when you walk through your room. Before you reach the door, you see the pictures on your wall. He and you took so many pictures during trips or parties, some when he was joking and others when he tried to look mad. Even when he really looks like a pouting puppy, when he tries to look mad at you, you always laugh about his pouting face.

You open your door and immediately hear the voices of the others. But there are not a lot of them; just three of them are there and talk. Steve, Bucky, and Sharon. With quiet footsteps, you walk closer to the room. You look at the floor, hoping that no one will see you.

But when your feet meet the ground in the room, the gazes of the three of them are immediately on you. Steve smiles sadly when he sees you. You probably look like a wrack, with red eyes and tears all over your face, but you don’t mind. Sharon looks at you with a smile, and Bucky is as cold as before.

When you make your way to the counter, you hear Sharon flirting with Bucky, and you feel like you want to throw up. You hate her, especially since she is a jealous bitch when you’re with Bucky. And now he has him for himself - exactly the plan she had.

“Buck, look at me,” she says, and you look around to see what they do. That’s the moment you wish you wouldn’t be in the room right now. Sharon leans closer, and her lips meet Bucky’s softly. His arms are wrapped around her waist, and you see yourself in her. The moment you had last night, and now he kisses her, not the one he confessed his love to last night.

The tears forming in your eyes - they're burning. They slowly stream down your cheeks, but you don't make a noise; you just look at them until they break the kiss, and Sharon looks at you with a wide bitch smile again.

“You’re right!" you shout, and Bucky turns around to look at you as well.

With a confused gaze, the two men look at you, and you chuckle sarcastically.

“You don’t deserve me. You’re an idiot, and I would prefer to be killed by the Winter Soldier instead of being your best friend,” you shout, and you see the change in his gaze.

You don’t mean it, not really, but the anger inside of you lets you say things like that.

You see, you hurt him by saying that he has nightmares because of the Winter Soldier; he blames himself for that, and you were the one who was able to give him moments where he didn’t blame himself, but now that you mention the Winter Soldier in a way, you hurt him the most you can. And you’re sorry for that, but you hate him so much right now that you can’t stop yourself from telling him things like that.

“I feel like he would love more than you ever can,” you say, and you walk a few steps closer to him. “I hate you, in a way I never thought it would be possible,” you hiss and turn away to grab some food from the counter before you leave the room.

Bucky looks at you, and the moment those words leave your mouth, his small world breaks a bit more. The only person who loved him so much hates him now. But he deserves it, doesn’t he? And he can’t bring himself to walk to you and ask what he did because he is way too mad at you for a reason he doesn’t want to admit in front of you.

It's been a week now since you saw Sharon and Bucky kissing each other. The day he started to be an ass and the day you told him he didn’t deserve you. And you didn’t change your mind; he hasn't been nice to you since that day; he ignores you; he doesn’t even look at you. His arms are always around Sharon’s body, and his lips are on hers.

You don’t really care about yourself anymore; you’re mostly in your room, crying or just laying there and waiting until you finally fall asleep. Steve tries every day to get you out of bed and wants to plan your favorite trips, but every one of them reminds you of Bucky, and you prefer your warm and comforting bed.

Someone knocks at your door, and you hum in response before Steve opens the door.

“Want to eat something? I cooked, and you need to eat,” he says, but you shake your head and turn around so you don’t have to face him.

Steve sighs softly and walks closer to you. He sits next to you on your bed and runs his fingers along your side.

“Do you want to tell me what happened between you and Buck? He looks different as well since the party,” Steve says thoughtfully, and you slowly turn around to look at him.

Your eyes are red, and he can see the tears all over your cheeks. Steve lifts his hand and wipes the tears away, smiling softly at you. You slowly sit up, your back against the headboard of your bed, and you pull your knees against your chest, wrapping your arms around them and placing your head on your knees.

“I thought-“ you sob quietly. “He said he loved me, and then he suddenly was with Sharon,” you mumble, and you can’t stop the tears again.

“He told you he loved you? When? I mean, I know it, but when did he tell you?” Steve asks, and your eyes widen for a moment.

He knows that Bucky loves you? What happened to Bucky being the way he is when he really loves you? Why is he kissing Sharon when he could have you? He could have the one he really loves.

“At the party, he told me he loved me. He kissed me,” you mumble, and Steve’s jaw drops.

“He finally managed it?” he asks, and you nod.

“And the next day he was the idiot he is, kissing Sharon, and it looks like they are happy together,” you tell him, and he shakes his head.

“I need to talk to him,” he tells you, leaning forward to kiss your cheek.

You look at him while he leaves your room. He almost runs out of it, and you don’t know why, but you don’t mind. Steve wants to talk to Bucky, but it won’t change his feelings for Sharon. And maybe Bucky thought it was her when the two of you kissed. Maybe he thought it was her when he confessed his feelings.

Meanwhile, Steve rushes into Bucky’s room. He sits on the edge of his bed, staring at the television. He doesn’t want to see Sharon today; he misses you, even when it’s just looking at you or hearing you talk. But since you’re in your room and only outside when you’re sure no one else is outside, he hasn’t heard or seen you in days.

“Buck?” Steve asks softly, and Bucky turns his head to look at the brown-haired man. He looks more broken than ever before. Steve walks closer to Bucky and lets himself fall next to his best friend in bed. “Where is Sharon?” he asks, and Bucky shrugs.

“Don’t care,” he says, and he stares in front of him again.

“Pal, what happened that you’re the way you are with y/n?” Steve looks at Bucky and sees the small tear escaping the corner of his eye.

"Nothing; she doesn’t want me,” he answers, and Steve chuckles softly. Stubborn idiot, but still his best friend and the idiot in love with you.

“She told me you confessed your love for her. And the two of you kissed. When she told me, I remembered, and it was her; it wasn’t Sharon, pal,” Steve continues, and Bucky’s eyes widen before he looks at his best friend again.

“We did what? And Sharon, what?” he asks.

“You kissed. You and y/n. But Sharon was just standing next to Tony on the other side of the room and was staring at the two of you,” he repeats, telling Bucky what he remembers. Bucky shakes his head, thinking about the version of the party and then the version he heard.

That’s definitely not what he heard about the evening. That’s not even similar to the things someone told him about.

“No, that’s not true,” Bucky says thoughtfully. “But even when, don't you know anymore what she said? She hates me, Steve." Bucky mumbles, and he feels even worse when he thinks about you, the way he treats you, and the things you said to him. Even when he understands it now, he understands why you said those things.

“I need to talk to her,” Bucky mumbles, but then he shakes his head. “Do you think she would listen?” he asks and looks at Steve, who nods.

“She is in love with you. Even when you’re such an idiot,” Steve tells him, pushing his best friend up. “Talk to her, pal,” he says, and Bucky smiles softly before he walks through the door.

He isn’t sure what to say when he talks to you. Maybe you don’t want to listen; maybe you won’t understand. Or do you really hate him now? Do you want to see him? So many thoughts run through his mind while he walks along the floor, unsure what to do or say when you ignore him or if he messed up after all the things with Sharon.

Bucky reaches your door and knocks softly. He hears your softy ‘come in’ and he opens the door. Now it’s too late to turn around; he has to talk to you now. You look at him, and your gaze gets. immediately cold.

“James,” you say, and he shivers slightly.

He didn’t know something inside of him could break more, but when you called him ‘James’ with that cold voice, something inside of him broke more.

“Doll,” he mumbles, closing the door behind him.

“Don’t call me that; call your new fucktoy that,” you hiss, and he looks at the floor.

You’re mad; he has never seen you like that before, but he can’t blame you. You’re hurt, and he is the reason for that. He hurts you so badly, but he loves you so much more than he can ever tell you. He can’t and doesn't want to be without you when there is just a percent chance for him to be yours. He would do everything to be yours.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. He hates when you’re so harsh and cold, but he understands it.

“What do you want here?” you ask, and he plays with his hands before he answers.

“I want to talk to you,” Bucky says quietly, and you chuckle sarcastically.

“I don’t want to talk to you, James,” you say, and you see him wiping some tears away.

“Please,” he begs, but you shake your head. “Can you please listen to me? Please?” he tries again, and he doesn’t want to go without telling you everything he feels, everything about the way he acted, especially why he acted like that. “Doll, please listen to me. Just this time, if you want me to go, then I will, and I will never talk to you again if you don’t want me to,” he says and sobs quietly.

You haven’t seen Bucky crying; sometimes he looked like he was about to cry, but he never cried. And now he stands in front of you, begging and crying for you to listen to him. And you want to listen, but the anger inside of you gets in control of you.

“You could have talked to me earlier. I fucking- I don’t care anymore,” you shout, and he flinches.

The strong super soldier looks like a small boy.

“Please, I love-“

“Shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear all those lies anymore. Just shut up and go with those lies to your new girl,” you say, anger in your voice, and Bucky can’t stop the tears streaming down your cheeks.

He hurt you more than he thought he did. But he was so mad at you; he was mad about the things he heard. And now he is about to lose the most important person in his life. He loves you more than everything; he never loved someone as much as he loves you.

“I’m sorry for hurting you. I really am. I love you,” he whispers, and you shake your head sarcastically, laughing.

“I saw that. You treated me like the worst person you know; that’s love for you?" you ask, and he immediately shakes his head.

“No, but I didn’t know about the things that happened during the party,” he says, and he walks a step closer, slowly, to make sure you’re oke with it.

You want to throw him out of your room, but you also want to know what happened and why he was the way he was. He wouldn’t beg and cry when it wasn't important to him. So you accept when he takes a seat at the edge of your bed and looks at you. His eyes are red, and you can see the traces of his tears on his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” he mumbles, still blaming himself for doing all this to you. Bucky wants to touch you; he wants to hug you; and he wishes you would tell him it’s oke. But he knows he needs to explain his behavior before he can get some of that; when you’re ready to do it, then.

“What happened that night?”

He is interested in knowing what happened, and you clear your throat before you think about it again. When he turned into an idiot, you tried to avoid all his touches, his words, and his kisses so you didn’t need to cry all the time. And now he wants to know the truth, and you want to tell him, but you don’t want to cry because of that.

“Thor had some Asgardian alcohol there, and it made you drunk. We danced a bit; you told me you loved me; you kissed me,” you tell him, and he nods.

“You didn’t flirt with someone else?” he asks, and you shake your head.

“No, why should I? I love you, and I was happy you felt the same, but then you acted completely different the next day,” you mumble and look at him.

Bucky is playing with his fingers; you see the way he suffers because of his metal arm, and you remember the things you said about the Winter Soldier, and he probably hates his metal arm even more now.

“Why did you do it the way you did, and why are you suddenly so nice again?” you ask, and his jaw clenches slightly. Not in an angry way, but more in a thoughtful clenching.

“The morning after the party, I had a bad hangover and didn’t remember much of that night. I know that I kissed someone, but I don’t know the person. Sharon came into the room, and she asked me how the party was, and I told her I didn't know because I had too much alcohol. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and when I asked her why she said I kissed her that night,” he tells you, and you nod, blaming yourself for being the same way to Bucky as he was to you, even though it’s not his fault.

“I told her I don’t love her because I love you. And she told me about your night with a guy I don’t know. Sharon said you were flirting with me, but you have someone else, and you were flirting with me so you can make jokes with your boy about me being so dumb and really think you could love me the way I love you,” he continues, and your jaw drops slightly.

“Bu- James, there is no one else. I love you, and when you changed into the idiot you were, I hated the thought of you touching Sharon and the way you kissed her. But when you love me, why did you kiss her?” you ask, and Bucky runs his fingers through his hair.

“I wanted a distraction,” he whispers quietly, ashamed of that.

For a moment, you both sit in silence, looking at each other. “Did you really mean it?” he asks, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion.

"When you said those things about the Winter Soldier?” He asks, and you see his hands shaking softly. His anxiety gets worse when he thinks about your answer; maybe you could really mean it? Maybe you really think the Winter Soldier could love more than Bucky can?

“No, I was mad. I’m sorry, Buck,” you say, and he nods. You smile softly when he doesn’t tell you to stop calling him ‘Buck’. “I’m really sorry, but I didn’t see how much I would hurt you with that,” you add.

“I think I deserve it,” he replies, and you want to agree, but you also know it would make him feel worse.

He was an idiot, but now that he sits there, he begs and cries that you listen to him so he can excuse his behavior. He blames himself for so much; you don’t want him to blame himself for more.

“Buck?” you ask, and he hums in response. “Tell me the truth, please.”

You look into his eyes; the blue is as warm as the one you’re used to seeing when he is with you.

“I love you, doll. I never wanted to hurt you; I want to be yours. I want you to be mine,” he says, blushing slightly. You don’t know what to say. You want to tell him you feel the same, but at the same time, you’re scared he will go to Sharon when you’re not enough for him anymore. “I’m sorry, you had to listen. But thank you for listening,” he tells you and stands up to leave the room.

You reach for his metal arm, and he flinches when you touch it.

“Sorry,” you say, slightly shocked, and let go of his arm. Bucky turns around and smiles softly.

“Just didn’t think you would touch it.” His voice is so soft, exactly the way you love when he talks to you.

“Can you stay?” you ask and look down; maybe he would prefer to go to Sharon because you were really mean?

Bucky’s smile grows, and he lets himself fall down next to you and wraps his arms around your body, pulling you into his lap. His hands slide your back up and down, and he looks into your eyes like they are the most adorable things he has ever seen. Your arms are wrapped around his neck, and you play with his soft hair.

He leans closer, his lips almost touching yours, when you stop him.

“Did you brush your teeth and clean your face after she kissed you?” you ask with a raised eyebrow, and Bucky can’t stop himself and bursts out laughing.

“Yes,” he whispers, and he places one of his hands on your neck to pull you closer. His lips touch yours softly, and you almost melt in his embrace. Bucky moves his lips against yours, and a small smile appears on his lips.

“I love you, James,” you mumble against his lips, and he rolls his eyes.

“Can you be serious for a moment, doll?” he asks, laughing, and you look like you need to think about it before you answer him.

“I don’t know what you mean, James,” you giggle.

“But I love you too, doll,” he chuckles, pressing his lips on yours again to make you shut up and feel you as close as possible in that moment. He feels complete and comfortable now, being with his girl, the one he loves more than everyone, the one who loved him even when he was the Winter Soldier.

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aemondapologistfrfr · 5 months ago

Text

The Knight of Your Dreams

addam velaryon(of hull) x targ!fem!reader

Summary: You help Addam learn the ways of dragon riding. Feelings start to emerge the more time you spend with him.

Warnings: 18+ swearing, oral(f receiving), fingering, p in v

Authors Note: me wanting to read an addam ff but there’s like 2 so i’ll do it myself!!, reader is rider of silverwing bc that’s a pretty ass dragon let me be obsessed w her, oldest daughter is the therapist for mothers and i recognize that as the baby, jace was kind of bitchy in ep7 and it’s reflected in here bc i was lowkey gagged like i get his trauma but damn acting like harwins traits aren’t fine asf 🙄

Word Count: 3k

⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ��⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆

Jaces voice cracks as he begs Rhaenyra to get rid of Seasmokes new rider. I feel for him but in a time of war for the crown we need all the help we can get. Rhaenyra is at a loss for words and looks to him sadly. I turn to him as his tears begin to fall.

“Brother,” I start.

“No,” he sniffles. “You wouldn’t get it. You have the silver hair and violet eyes. Everyone knows what I am.” he words have a bite behind it like I had a choice in my parentage, like any of us had a choice in our parentage.

“Jacaerys,” Rhaenyra walks to him to comfort him but he’s running out of the hall. She turns to me and sighs. She walks back to her desk as takes a seat.

“I’m sorry.” I whisper not knowing what to say to comfort her.

“It’s not your fault. I just never expected him to say those things.” she looks to me sadly as I take a seat on the other side of her desk.

“I don’t think he meant it out of malice. It’s just something he’s felt his entire life and it seemed to be bubbling over.” I try to find reason in his actions and words.

“Have I too not had accusations and insults thrown at me for the entirety of my life?” she places her head in her hands.

“You have had more years to subjugate those accusations.” my words are soft.

“Yes, I know. I had just thought maybe he wouldn’t have blamed me so fiercely. I’m trying. This was his idea after all. I can’t change the past and I won’t be dismissing Addam.” my ears perk up at finally hearing the new riders name.

“I don’t think he blames you, mother. What could you do? Father didn’t have a taste for women like us.” a playful smile comes to my lips.

“And I never faulted him for that. He was a kind and caring man. Who raised you regardless.” she looks off as our minds drift to Laenor.

“If it makes you feel any better he seemed to also blame me.” I shrug my shoulders looking to her.

“It doesn’t,” he exhales deeply. “I don’t want this to cause a rift between you two, but I fear what I’m going to ask of you may further it.” her eyes look to mine pleading.

“What can I do?” I ask tilting my head.

“I need to focus on finding a rider for Vermithor. I need you to help train Addam. You know what a fresh bond from a full grown dragon feels like. Help him learn some commands, take him flying, do what you must to prepare him. Please, daughter.” her eyes begging.

“Of course,” I nod my head and begin to rise.

“Thank you,” she rises with me and offers me a hug before I leave the hall.

I walk out of the hall and begin my journey to the guest chambers. I have no idea what to expect from this man. As I’m approaching the door Corlys walks out.

“Lord Corlys,” I nod my head to him.

“Princess, what can I do for you?” he stops in front of me.

“I’m to help Addam learn the ways of dragon riding.” I offer him a smile.

“He worked hard on my docks and I expect nothing less from him in the skies.” his words sound almost proud.

“I would expect nothing less from the man Seasmoke claimed.” my smile widens. Corlys nods to me once more before leaving down the hall. I let out and exhale and knock on the door.

“Come,” a deep voice comes from within. I slowly open the door and turn my head around the corner. The man standing before me takes my breath away and I’m quick to advert my eyes as I seal the door shut behind me.

“I am Princess Y/n. Rhaenyra has sent me to help train you in the ways of dragon riding.” I smile softly to him as I walk deeper into his chambers.

“I’m honored, Princess.” he bows deeply as I chuckle walking to him.

“We have no need to bow as dragon riders.” I stand in front of him as he rises with a sheepish smile.

“Of course, Princess.” he starts to bow his head again but stops himself.

“Y/n.” I softly correct. “No need for titles either.” as I look up to him at his full height.

“Y/n,” he smiles down to me and I can’t help but smile back. “I am Addam.” he offers me his name.

“Addam.” his name falls off my tongue. “Rider of Seasmoke. Tell me how that happened.” I go to sprawl across his couch.

“He hunted me down himself.” he claims a chair across from me. “I was on the shores and Seasmoke started circling the sands. He usually flies around Driftmark so I thought nothing of it. Until he started flying directly at me. I’ll admit I fled to the trees. He had no trouble finding me anyways.” he bites his lip sliding his eyes to me.

“He claimed you?” I sit up on the couch searching his eyes.

“Yes, only a fool would approach a dragon.” he shakes his head.

“So you think I’m a fool, Addam?” I tilt my head smirking.

“No, I didn’t say that, Princess,” he stutters and looks at me worriedly.

“I claimed a dragon. I wasn’t gifted a dragon egg as a babe, but that wouldn’t stop me. I used to sneak through the pits to look at them and one day I got too close to Silverwing and now I have a dragon.” I smile thinking back to that day. Rhaenyra was livid but so proud.

“I didn’t mean any offense, Princess.” he uses my title once again.

“Y/n,” I correct rising off of the couch.

“Y/n,” he looks up to me.

“Let’s go to the library. I’d like to help you learn some commands and High Valyrian.” I hum as I walk to the door and hear him jump to his feet.

“I’d be honored if you taught me, my Prin- Y/n,” I smile at his correction.

⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆

We’re all sitting around the dining table enjoying a meal in silence. Jace has somewhat settled over the past fortnight about Addam and sourcing another for Vermithor. Addam has been doing excellent in learning High Valyrian and is getting more comfortable around dragons.

“How fares your classes with Y/n?” Rhaenyra asks looking between me and Addam.

“She’s been absolutely perfect. She’s very patient with me, yet never fails to give me a hard time.” he turns and smiles to me chuckling.

“You usually deserve it.” my eyes crinkle as a smile spreads across my face.

“I’m thankful you’re feeling more confident.” Corlys nods from Rhaenyras side.

“Flying is just..” Addam trails off not being able to find the word of how euphoric it truly is. Jace lets out a scoff and I feel Addam turn in on himself next to me making my brows furrow.

“What the fuck are you still so mad about?” I snap down the table at him.

“Y/n,” Rhaenyra scolds.

“You’ve avoided Addam for the past fortnight. He isn’t here to begrudge you. Seasmoke chose him and he had no choice in the matter. What is it that you want us to do, Jace?” I rise from my chair to look at him.

“Y/n, please,” Addam looks up to me with pleading eyes. Jace mumbles something under his breath before scraping his chair against the stone and leaving the hall.

“To your chambers.” Rhaenyras eyes narrow on me and I roll my eyes and leave the hall.

I walk up the stairs as anger and frustration are still flowing out of me. I don’t know why I’m so protective over Addam. He’s just so sweet and so innocent. I don’t know why Jace wouldn’t try and bond with him. They have more in common than he knows. I push my chamber doors open and slam them behind me. I pull a book out from my shelf to get lost in for a couple hours.

⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆

“Come,” I call looking up from my book to see Addam enter. “I hope my mother wasn’t too angry after I left.” I smile as he clicks the door shut.

“No, just a little frustrated.” he sits next to me on the couch. “What are you reading?” he pulls the book out of my hands playfully and begins to read aloud. “So the knight rushed up the stairs to save the Princess and-“

“Addam,” I whine trying to pull the book from him.

“Oh, but it was just getting good.” he smiles raising the book above his head out of my reach. I go to stand to reach it and he stands himself to tower over me. “Seems like you’re too short, Princess.” he chuckles looking down to me.

“Addam,” I pout looking up to him.

“You’re too cute.” he pinches my cheek with his free hand and I can feel my blush creep up my neck. “I was coming to see if I could sneak you out of here and we could go for a moonlight ride?” he offers my book back to me.

“I would love to.” I snatch my book from him.

“I’m surprised you’re so willing to abandon the knight of your dreams.” he chuckles as I toss my book to the couch.

“I’ll return to him later.” I hum as Addam chuckles pulling me out of my chambers.

We quietly make our way down to the pits and our dragons greet us. We offer them warm greetings before we mount and take our saddles. We emerge into the moonlight and our dragons quickly take to the skies. I sigh in relief as the wind whips through my hair. I turn to look at Addam who is equally enjoying our time.

Our dragons twirl and dip around each other playfully. Silverwing drags her claws playfully into the water causing it to spray up on me as I giggle. We slowly start flying back to the pits as Seasmoke sings us a low song. Once we dismount Addam begins to laugh at my sea ruined dress.

“She’s lucky this isn’t one of my favorite dresses.” I huff as we start into the castle.

“It’s not? But you look so pretty in it.” his eyes scan me over as I feel my cheeks heat.

“Thank you, you’re very kind.” I say bashfully.

“I have to compete with the knight in your book somehow.” his fingers dance around mine as I feel my heart pound.

“There’s no competition.” I say hushed grabbing his hand.

He walks me back to my chambers with his hand still in mine. The halls are silent save for the low grumbles of the dragons below. As we stop outside of my chambers he lingers looking down at me.

“Addam,”

“Y/n,” we say each others names at the same time.

“I just want to say thank you. For your kindness, and your patience, and for how much you care. It’s always unexpected.” his eyes search mine.

“You are deserving of kindness and compassion.” I say hushed bringing my hand to his cheek. He dips down and kisses me quickly.

He pulls back before I can even start to enjoy the moment. I furrow my brows and pull his face back down to me. The second kiss is more fierce and passionate. Our tongues dance and caress one another as I melt into him. We pull apart breathing heavily.

“Enjoy the rest of your night and the knight of your dreams.” he smiles down to me before he opens my doors.

“I’ll imagine him as you.” I can’t help the smile that spreads across my face as I slip into my chambers shutting the doors behind me. A small giggle bursts out of me as I’m still giddy from his kiss.

“Princess,” Addams voice comes through my doors once more.

“Yes?” I ask opening my doors.

He lifts me up and brings his lips to mine again. He kicks the door shut as I sigh into his mouth. His hands are digging into my backside as my arms wrap around his back. My hands roam all over his muscled shoulders and back while I get lost in his kiss.

He breaks the kiss by setting me back on the ground as I look up to him trying to catch my breath. He looks to my swollen lips as he licks his own. My hands travel to his chest as I start to lift his shirt off.

“We don’t have to, I didn’t mean to barge in here.” his words tumble out of his mouth as my fingers trail over his muscled torso.

“Mm, but I’m so thankful you did.” I smile looking up to him.

I turn to him so he can begin untying my gown. His fingers make quick work of my gown and I’m soon stepping out of it. I turn to face him as his eyes roam over my body that the slip is doing nothing to hide. Once his eyes lock back onto mine he stalks over to me and kisses me.

His hands ghost along my thighs before he slowly starts to lift my slip off of me. He steps back and groans as he takes in my body. He pulls me back to him as his hands begin to roam across my skin. I whimper into his mouth as his hands cup my breasts. His thumbs brush against my nipples pulling a whine from me.

“The noises you make are simply divine.” he whispers against my lips. “I want to hear more.” he says lowly before bringing a hand between my thighs.

“Addam,” I moan as he trails a finger along my slit.

“Mm, I quite like that.” he chuckles as he swirls around my clit as I grip onto his arms.

His other arm supports me as he begins to speed up his movement. My breaths are coming out in pants as my hips chase the pleasure his fingers are offering me. He slips a long finger down to my core and begins to dip in.

“Let me know if it’s too much.” he whispers as he begins pumping slowly.

“Not enough,” I whine breathlessly grinding down on his hand.

He removes his hand and I cry out. He chuckles and pulls me to my bed. I fall back as he continues to push me further up the bed. He begins to unlace his trousers while looking to me. Once he’s freed my eyes drink in his body and my thighs spread open a little more taking in the length of him. He settles between my thighs with his face at my core.

“I don’t care who hears, I want to hear you.” he says lowly before attaching his mouth to my wetness.

My hips jolt up into his face as his tongue laps at my clit. He circles two fingers around my entrance before slowly sliding them in. A sob tears through me as my legs shutter. His free hand trails up my torso and claims one of my breasts and begins to tease one of my nipples.

“Yes, please Addam,” I beg as my hand rests around his that’s pinching and pulling my sensitive bud.

His tongue quickens at my words and my jaw goes slack as whimpers fall from my mouth. His fingers start to pound into me as my hips grind into his face. I cry out his name as pleasure washes through me as he starts to untangle himself from me.

He snakes up my body before crashing his lips into mine. I sigh against him as I taste myself on his tongue. As he settles between my thighs I feel his length gliding through my wetness.

“Are you ready?” he pulls back looking down at my squirming body.

“Yes,” I nod as my chest rises and falls rapidly.

He begins to push into me watching my face and drinking in my noises. Once he’s fully sheathed he brings his lips to mine. I whine as his hips begin to slowly rock into me. The stretch of him is making my head spin as I become lost in the pleasure. My legs wrap around his waist and his hips snap into mine at the new angle causing me to sob out.

“‘m sorry.” he grunts trying to slow his movements.

“More,” I whimper bucking my hips into his.

He kisses me fiercely once more as he begins to snap his hips into mine. I moan into his mouth as his pace speeds up. I’m slowly sliding up the bed and he continues to move with me lowly chuckling. My head hits the headboard as I moan loudly.

“Sorry,” he breathes out and places a pillow between my head and the wood.

His hips never falter as he brings a hand between us and starts to circle my clit. I sob as pleasure course through me as I clench around him. His hips shutter but his fingers and hips keep up their movements as I screw my eyes shut at the repeated pleasure. Shockwaves continue to flow through me as his trusts become stronger.

“Addam,” I whine as pleasure starts to burst through me again.

He twitches inside of me and I feel warmth spreading throughout. My legs fall from his waist as my breaths continue to come out in pants. He pulls out of me and falls to the other side of the mattress. We sit there catching our breaths before I turn to him and kiss him once more.

“Was I better than the knight in your book?” he offers me a lopsided smile.

“Considering the knight in my book is just my fingers, yes.” I giggle kissing him again.

⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆ ☀︎ ⋆⁺₊⋆☁︎⋆₊ ⊹ ⊹₊⋆☁︎⋆⁺₊⋆

masterlist 🔌

#hotd smut #addam velaryon #addam of hull #addam velaryon x reader #addam of hull x reader #addam velaryon smut #addam of hull smut #x reader smut #x reader #x reader fic #smut #hotd fic

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therandompagesblog · 2 months ago

Text

SKZ Mate: Chapter 16

Warnings: trauma related, abuse, bondage, reader has flashbacks, stockholm syndrome, assumed sexual assault but uncertainty if true, uncomfortable scenes

The first few days were hard for Y/N. She felt lonely and craved physical affection. Jisung was still not back and she was worried Chan and Hyunjin were torturing him. Some of the wolves spoke to her, like Seungmin and Chan who made sure to check in on her but she still felt isolated. Not as isolated as her dream. Even Felix and Minho completely refused to make any verbal contact with her. Y/N wanted to beg Chan to make it stop so she could apologise to the wolves and make the bond better. She even made a list in her bedroom on how she could fix it. Her biggest priority was Felix, her ray of sunshine was now an icy wolf. Y/N wanted to apologise to him, even if he didn't want to hear it, it would be enough. The next grumpy wolf on her list was Hyunjin. She wanted to understand him and learn how to please her alpha but she found him difficult to be near sometimes. For the simple reason that she never actually saw him that often. Then there was Minho, he was another one she did not understand but she still wanted to check in on him. Jeongin was another alpha who she desperately wanted to get to know him but knew he was still learning and was at his vital stage of growing and gaining power. Y/N had no intention of disrupting his journey, she only wished to get to know him than mere passings. Y/N wanted to ask Chan when he came back if they could spend time together if he was ready, but Y/N was patient. Seungmin and Changbin were comfortable and happy with her. Both made efforts to talk to her despite the circumstances. Y/N sighed as she looked at her list. The only way she could bond with them was by using words as actions were prohibited. In all honesty, her ass had turned black and was rather sore, which she did not appreciate. She had never seen it so black, ever. Focus Y/N. Focus. Y/N placed her hand on her head tapping it in frustration. She was an omega for goodness sake and she couldn't even please her pack. She got it right the first time so why did she get it wrong the second time? Y/N shook her head and forced herself to find Felix.

Felix was sat downstairs in the living room watching one of his programmes with Seungmin. He seemed to be in a better mood but not his usual self and Y/N hoped she could reconcile with him.

"Felix-ssi?" Y/N called out as she plopped down in front of his feet, leaning her head against the sofa, making sure she didn't touch him. Felix didn't respond to her and carried on watching his programme so Y/N tried again.

"Felix-ssi. I am sorry for getting you into trouble. I am really sorry if I caused you more pain. I only want to fix it." Y/N pleaded but was met with silence.

"Felix. Y/N-ssi is speaking to you." Seungmin spoke as he turned off the TV.

"I heard her. I have nothing to say to her." Felix answered.

"Don't you think that's unfair? Y/N has been through enough as it is. She didn't ask for this-"

"Neither did we Seungmin. Neither did we. We didn't ask to be given a broken omega. We didn't ask for all this trouble, but everything seems to follow her." Felix shouted, causing the female wolf to drop her head in shame. Y/N accepted Felix's outburst, his feelings were valid but she didn't know what else to do.

"Felix, stop!" Seungmin shouted as he threw down the remote. He was sick of all the arguments.

"Felix has a point, Seungmin. It's not even been two months yet and almost all of us have been punished by Hyunjin. She doesn't even know how to be an omega!" Minho shouted, his words burning deep into her body. She doesn't even know how to be an omega. He has a point. His words were true. Everything she thought she did know was gone. Two months I've been here and I've caused a pack to divide because of me. Jisung is downstairs because of me. Felix killed San because of me. San died because of me. It's all my fault. Y/N stood up, ignoring the shouting matches around her as she made a decision. An irrational decision? Maybe, but Y/N needed to put things right.

"I'm going to put it right," Y/N spoke up but they ignored her, only scoffing at her words. "I'll go to Hongjoong."

Y/N ran out of the house and phased into her wolf form without a second thought heading straight into the woods. Her heart burned with determination as she broke through the clearing. She was close to the border of Wraithwood. She could smell its dark essence. Y/N sped up, ready to bolt towards the clearing when something tackled her with a snarl.

"You will not go." The brown wolf growled, almost challenging her. He was an alpha, but she did not recognise him. Y/N challenged the alpha with a growl ready to pounce when the alpha ordered her to sit down.

"Jeongin?" Y/N called out as the werewolf paced, ready to block her moves.

"Yes. I didn't mean to frighten you, but what you are doing is wrong. You cannot go back to them. We are your mates." Jeongin stressed, his dark brown eyes looking deep into hers.

"No. I'm not leaving. I wanted to put it right and talk to Hongjoong. I don't want a war." Jeongin huffed at her words and trotted over to her, nuzzling his head into her neck as he tried to calm her.

"You're so brave but it would not work. Trust me it would not. Hongjoong would never let you come back." Jeongin explained as his snout nuzzled against hers.

"I want to put it right." Y/N pleaded with the young alpha.

"You put it right by staying with us. Do not let Felix and Minho hyungs anger cloud your judgement. Hyunjin ssi tells me you're smarter than Hongjoong himself so why have you forgotten all your wisdom? Why have you forgotten who you are." Jeongin asked.

"I'm scared of Jeongin. I'm scared of being treated badly all over again. I'm scared of people having high expectations. I'm scared of being actually loved." Y/N admitted.

"No one has expectations of your omega." A black wolf called out. "No one has treated you badly, you're imagining it. Almost craving it. You see the good in Hongjoong that is not even there, Y/N. He brainwashed you and all your views you ever had. That's why it hurts so bad to see San killed. It felt like you had killed him."

"I feel like I'm missing the whole plot here," Jeongin explained as he looked between her and Hyunjin's wolf.

"She misses Hongjoong. She loves him. Y/N believes that everything Hongjoong did was in her best interest. Every time he punished her she would do her best to please. Her existence only existed if he was there. She could only breathe if he was there and the only way she could survive was by pretending that it was all because he loved her. Yet, that pretend feeling accidentally moulded itself into reality. She accidentally rewired her own brain to survive which lead to Seonghwa being allowed to punish her more. Locking her in a dark room as he taunted her, slowly dragging her until she went mad. But still she somehow managed to fight her way out and now her brain is still trying to justify his actions, because she's afraid of the reality. She's afraid to recognise that she was going to be used in a ritual so her brain tells her we're the enemy."

"How do you know that," Y/N whispered, slowly backing away. He can't know that.

"I can know that Y/N. Which is why I'm telling you to accept that your feelings were real but you need to let them go. It's time to come to terms with that and I'll help you, just like you helped me." Hyunjin whispered while Jeongin nuzzled himself into the omega, trying to piece together what the older alpha was explaining.

"He's right omega. We can help you get past this. We will listen to whatever story." Jeongin promised as he felt the wolf whine out in pain. Images of her struggles flashed through the male's mind.

Jeongin shuddered as he saw her reliving her darkest moments. He saw Hongjoong's menacing eyes burning deep into hers. He saw the way Hoongjoong's fingers gently touched her body, caring tentatively to her before they shifted into bloodied hands that grasped her throat as he whispered cruel things to her. The way he changed from a proud alpha to a disappointed one. He saw the way Seonghwa babied her as he carried her around, spoiling her, only for him to edge her closer and closer to their goals. He saw the way the wolves pleasured her as a group, driving her to every brink of madness and he couldn't tell if she wanted to or wanted to. Jeongin wanted to be sick as her images flashed through him. He tried to be strong like Hyunjin who allowed her to break in confidence. He wanted to be a strong alpha for her. He wanted to protect himself from all the horrors of the world. He wanted to show her how much better the world is but he wasn't strong enough, not yet, but he will be.

Taglist for the iconic readers:

@galaxy4489 @mbioooo0000 @jisungs-iced-americano @maybeimmia @hwangrfrnd @pixie0627 @wolfo2027 @kayleefriedchicken @leamueller920 @borahae-reads @jennibahng @cookiesandcreammy @leezanetheofficial @jutdwae-flower @danceonmyheyday @jc003 @hpnsfwaddict @linocz @itzreetal987 @skzdreamer13 @reallychaoticwoo @liv1sworld

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azrielsdove · 11 months ago

Note

I had the idea late at night so idk if you don’t want to write that, i understand haha

Reader and azriel are mates and have been for a while, nesta and elain were made and feyre and rhys asked cassian and azriel to look after them. Reader was okay with it but elain showed her a different side then the others, where she is rude and is telling her az will be hers, reader tried to bring it up in private but no one believed her because elain is so nice in front of everyone. Elain starts to sit in readers place and stands next to az, so reader isn’t even going out anymore. Az has a lot of other missions as well and tells reader that he only loves her and elain means nothing to him, maybe elain overheard that. After a mission az gives rhys his reports and then fell asleep on the couch, elain lays down next to him but he is so out that he doesn’t even feel her, reader wants to see after az and sees that, when she is trying to leave, rhys finds her and she shows him everything that happened even the parts where elain was rude, reader then leaves for awhile to get away from everything and azriel just loses it. You could add more angst if you want but i would love for a happy end with az and reader maybe where is is also pregnant?

The Other Woman: Azriel x Reader

Warnings: Angst, Spiraling thoughts

***

Elain Archeron was quickly becoming the bane of your existence.

You understood the she had gone through incomprehensible trauma along with her sister, and you understood why Rhys would appoint Azriel and Cassian to help them. You had no issue allowing your mate to help the poor girl come back to life, accepting her new fate. No, that was not the problem.

The problem was that she was a nasty, two-faced, bitch.

The first time it happened you were completely taken aback, shocked by the words that had come from the otherwise soft-spoken female.

“He’s going to be mine, you know.”

You had stilled your movements, turning slowly to see her peeking out from the library doors. “Excuse me?” You asked, certain you had misunderstood.

She gave a sneering smile. “Azriel. I’m going to make him mine.”

You couldn’t help the laugh that had burst from you. “Okay then,” you said, moving to continue walking. You made a note to bring it up to your mate later, warn him that Elain may have gotten too attached.

Unfortunately the following days had been hectic, Azriel was sent on a dangerous mission for Rhys. You hadn’t gotten a chance to speak to him, and with the state he came back in you had no interest in adding anything else to his plate.

It happened again a few days later.

“Why would he stay with you when i’m here?” She asked, looking you up and down.

You raised an eyebrow at her. “I’m sorry? What are you on about?”

She rolled her eyes. “Azriel, obviously. Why would he need you any longer? I’m certain I can satisfy him miles better than you can.”

“Mhm,” you mused, nodding at her wild claims. “Do you understand the mating bond?”

She made a noise of annoyance, crossing her arms in front of her. “I have a mate, and I can’t stand him. That ‘bond’ means nothing to me.”

“It means something to Az,” you said, staring her down. “What has he done that makes you think he’s interested?”

She gave a pretty smile, smoothing the skirts of her dress. “Feyre has Rhys, Nesta has Cassian. It only makes sense, does it not? Three sisters, three brothers. He’s smart enough to have already figured it out. The only thing standing in our way is you.”

You hummed at her delusions, turning to leave the room. “Have a nice night, Elain,” you said, acting as if she had just been talking about the weather. You refused to give her the satisfaction of upsetting you.

Some nights later you were sitting with Azriel as he caught up with his brothers, lost in thought while you sipped your wine. You heard a faint call of your name, turning to meet the concerned eyes of your husband. “Are you alright, my love?” He asked, scanning you over for anything amiss.

You smiled, shaking your head. “I’m fine, just thinking.”

“You’re thinking pretty hard there. Az was calling your name for ages,” Cassian laughed, but his eyes showed the same concern. You sighed, taking a bigger drink of your wine.

“I’ve just been dealing with something, that’s all,” you said, swirling the liquid in your glass nonchalantly. Azriel watched you closely, trying to read what was wrong.

“You can always tell us,” Rhys offered, tipping his glass your way.

You took a deep breath, looking down at your hands. “Have any of you ever had any issues with Elain?”

Three blank stares met yours.

“I’ll take that as a no, then,” you muttered into your wine.

“What kind of problems?” Azriel pressed, worry in his expression.

“She’s just been, a little….rude to me.”

Silence.

And then loud laughter.

“Elain?” Cassian gasped out, pounding on the table. “Quiet, docile, Elain? Are you sure you aren’t confusing her with Nesta?” You shot him a nasty look, Rhys’ own chuckle drawing your attention to him.

“How has she been rude?” He asked, not hiding the smile on his face.

You looked down at the ground, embarrassment coloring your cheeks. “Maybe i’m just reading into it. I thought she was jealous…that she was into Az.” You regretted even bringing the topic up as Cassian and Rhys broke out in more laughter.

“No way! Elain has a mate, remember? Why would she go after a married male?” You nodded at Cassian, acknowledging his words.

“Yea, i’m sure i’m just misunderstanding,” you mumbled, draining your glass in an instant. You stood, heading for the door.

“Aw now, we didn’t mean anything bad! It’s just such a shock that Elain would be trying to get Az!” Rhys called out behind you, trying to convince you to stay.

You looked back, eyes connecting with Azriel’s. “I’ll be up shortly,” he said, his unspoken words hanging in the air. He was not going to let his brothers get away with laughing at you. You gave him a small smile and continued out to your room, leaving him to deal with them.

***

Elain only grew worse after that. She started openly flirting with Azriel, laughing at anything he said and placing her hand playfully on his arm. He always pulled away from her, moving to stand by your side as a silent “Stop”.

She didn’t care.

Azriel spent the nights trying to convince you that Elain didn’t matter to him, that you were the only one for him. You wanted to believe him, needed to believe him, but the comments she made when no one else could hear were getting to you.

“You’re too ugly for him.”

“Don’t you think he would want someone younger? Are you even able to give him children at your ancient age?”

“I know he wants me. He looks at me when you aren’t paying attention.”

“You’re pathetic, you know. He deserves better. He deserves someone who can stand proudly at his side.”

Her words swam around your head, eating away at you. You were sinking down into yourself, drowning in self-doubt. What if she was right? What if Azriel really did deserve better?

You began spending more time locked away in your room, an attempt to avoid Elain’s nasty comments. You had no desire to see her throw herself at Azriel, and you didn’t think you could handle much more of her taunting. A rational part of you knew that this was ridiculous, your husband would never give her a second look. Another part of you was embarrassed that this young girl was so good at getting into your head, that she had rendered you a shell of yourself. The largest part of you, unfortunately, bought in to all she said and hid away in shame.

Azriel was getting progressively more worried about you.

“My love,” he murmured, stroking his hand through your hair as he held you close. “I have half a mind to tell Rhys to send her somewhere else. Why does she trouble you so?” He couldn’t understand how Elain had torn down his perfect wife, leaving this ghost in her place.

You buried your face farther into his chest, wishing you could just disappear. “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

He sighed and held you tighter, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “You are the stars in the sky, the warmth of the sun, the cool breeze under my wings. Nothing, and no one, is comparable to you. Especially not Elain Archeron. You are all there is for me, you are my everything. My heart and my soul. She is nothing to me.”

Tears fell from your eyes and his words prompted you to look up, the love shining on his face washing over you. “I know, Az. I know it’s foolish to allow her to make me doubt us.” You ducked your head down, ashamed. “Though sometimes I still wonder if you should’ve been mated to someone more powerful.”

Azriel clicked his tongue at your age-old concern, a conversation the two of you had gone over many times. “You know as well as I do that that’s not true. You were the one cauldron-made for me. We were sworn to each other from the day of our creation. Do not ever forget that.” He slipped a hand under your chin, bringing you back up to look at him. He studied your face like it was a painting, like he needed to memorize everything he saw. His thumb came up and brushed away your tears as he pressed a sweet kiss to your lips. “Elain will never be what you are.” He kissed you again and again, swallowing your fears with his adoration.

Neither of you noticed the form of the female standing outside the slightly open door.

***

Azriel was tired, shuffling through the house after yet another mission. He hated that he had been gone so often recently, especially with the issues you’ve been having with Elain. He was sick with worry over the whole situation, and was growing aggravated with Rhys’ lack of action. Even when Azriel had spoken to his brother himself, the High Lord still struggled to believe his quiet sister-in-law was being so horrible. Az even went to Feyre, who got upset that he would accuse her sister of such things.

He ran a hand over his face, making his way to the library to find you. He was disheartened when he opened the doors and found you weren’t there. He took a seat on one of the leather couches, deciding to just wait for you there. Azriel knew that you often came around this time to browse the books, and he was too tired to continue searching for you. He gave a gentle tug on the bond to alert you that he was home before tipping his head back and closing his eyes.

***

Elain was positively delighted to find the sleeping form of the Shadowsinger. She looked around quickly to make sure no one saw as she gently closed the doors to the library behind her. She wasted no time in curling up next to him on the couch, resting her head in his lap. She slowly dragged his arm over her waist, a wicked smile coming across her face. She knew you would be coming to find him, and what a sight you would see when you did.

***

The second Cassian dropped you at the House of Wind you were practically running through the halls. When you had felt the tug that meant Azriel was back, you demanded Cass bring you home in the middle of lunch. He grumbled about not being done as you packaged the food up for him, pulling him from the little restaurant. You were in much better spirits today, Elain hadn’t approached you in days. When Cass suggested going down to Velaris to eat you had jumped at the opportunity, excited to be in the happy bustle of people who lived there.

You slid to a stop in front of the library, one of his shadows twisting around your legs. “Hello,” you cooed, a smile on your face. The shadow started moving faster, almost as if it were upset. Worry took over your heart then, concern that Azriel had gotten hurt.

You threw open the library doors and stopped dead in your tracks. There, on the couch, was Azriel. Uninjured, asleep.

And curled up on his lap was Elain.

You stood there in pure horror, not noticing Cassian coming up behind you. “What?” He said, taking in the sight in front of you. You didn’t realize you were shaking in rage until he put his hands on your arms, trying to pull you away.

“Get off of me,” you ground out, ripping your arms out of his grasp. Cassian called your name, trying to stop the explosion that was about to happen. Your vision was red, the anger and pain of seeing the two of them cuddled up like lovers too much to handle. “I’m going to kill them.”

“You will not,” came a powerful voice, Rhys stepping in front of you. “My office. Now.” You wanted to spit at his feet and tell him to shove off, but one look at his eyes told you that wouldn’t end well. You huffed, allowing him to lead you away.

Unnoticed on the couch, Elain smiled.

***

“Why would you stop me?” You practically yelled, pacing back and forth in front of Rhys.

“You can’t murder my brother and sister-in-law in their sleep.” He said, as if this was a regular occurrence.

“That filthy bitch,” you swore, turning to face Rhys head on. “I tried to tell you who she truly was, and no one listened.” You glared at him, crossing your arms in front of you.

“Elain has never showed signs of what you spoke of. As horrible as it is, could it be that Azriel was a part of this?” He regretted the words before he was even done saying them.

“Why do you refuse to believe that she could be playing a dirty game behind your back? Behind everyone’s back? I had no reason to make up lies about her, Rhysand,” you spat out, power crackling at your fingertips.

He stood, coming to stand by your side. He pulled your hands into his, looking down at your glowing fingertips. “Show me,” he said, voice hardly above a whisper. You faltered, power fading away. You were embarrassed to let him see how badly she had affected you, but you knew he would not believe you otherwise.

“Okay,” you whispered, looking up into his eyes. You felt the strange sensation of Rhys entering your mind, pulling through all your memories with Elain. He listened to all the nasty things she said when no one else could hear, and felt the pain she caused you. When he was done he looked ashamed of himself, upset that he had brushed you off.

“I-I’m sorry,” he said, pulling his hands from yours. “I should have trusted you.”

You nodded. “Yea, you should have.” Rhys looked at the ground, his hands in his pockets. “I want to go away for a while. Anywhere. I can’t stand to be around her any longer, and I certainly have no interest in speaking to him.” You couldn’t even say your mates name, the hurt cutting too deep in your chest.

“As you wish,” Rhys said, “I’ll meet you on the balcony in an hour.”

***

Azriel woke with a start. Something was very, very wrong. Starting with the female asleep next to him.

He didn’t stop himself from jumping up, nearly knocking her to the floor. Not that he cared. “What are you doing?!” He hissed between his teeth, angry that she would pull a stunt like this.

Elain smiled up at him prettily, stretching as if she had been asleep for hours. “I was just sleeping, Azriel.” He hated the way she spoke his name, as if it were a sensual demand. “Your sweet little mate didn’t come to you, did she?” She fake pouted, tucking a hand under her chin.

Azriel’s eyes flared, his shadows whipping through the room. He stepped closer to her, hauling her to her feet with a strong grip on her arm. “This game you’re playing is done. Speak to me or my wife again, and I will make sure it’s the last thing you do.” He couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty at the fear in her eyes as he strode from the room, searching for you.

***

Rhys had taken you out to the cabin at your request. You wanted to be somewhere alone, but safe. “What should I tell him?” He asked as he headed to leave.

“Tell him to figure out what he wants before it’s too late.” Rhys nodded, looking you over once more. “If you need anything, i’m just a call away,” he quipped, tapping the side of his head before winnowing out of sight.

You sighed, sinking down into the plush sofa in front of the fireplace. You stared into the burning flames for what felt like hours, lost in your own mind. Azriel wouldn’t have lied to you, would he? Your mate has always been an honest male, had always loved you with everything he had. You found it hard to believe that he was messing around with Elain behind your back, regardless of what you saw. You knew how nasty she could be, and wouldn’t put it past her to pull something like this.

At the same time, the image of his arm draped lovingly around her was burned into your brain. You saw it over and over again, how well they complemented each other. The strong, dark Shadowsinger and the quiet, warm Archeron sister. Had the cauldron made a mistake? You couldn’t help but remember her words, ‘three brothers and three sisters.’ You and Azriel were mated decades before she was born, it could be plausible that the cauldron had made a mistake.

Yet the cauldron had also given Elain her own mate. It wouldn’t mess up twice, would it? Unless the cauldron had meant for you and Lucien to be mated, and Elain with Azriel. Perhaps something got crossed over and the pairings were mixed. Could all your years of joy and love with Azriel be wrong? You never felt anything was awry when you were with him, always feeling like you were truly meant to be.

You sighed and wrapped a blanket tight around you, willing it to keep away the lonely cold. You couldn’t imagine a life without Azriel by your side, and you didn’t know what you would do if that’s what he wanted.

***

“Where is she?!” Azriel bellowed through the halls of the House, shadows infiltrating every room and hallway. Rhys and Cass stood in front of him, trying to calm their brother. “I know you know! What kind of a game are you playing, hiding my own mate from me?!” He was angrier than he had ever been, angry at himself, at Elain, at Rhys. How could he have let Elain play him like that?

“I won’t tell you anything until you’ve calmed down,” Rhys stated, power rising to match Azriel’s.

“Calmed down? You expect me to calm down when that witch has been ruining my mates life, and now she’s disappeared and no one will tell me where she went?!” Azriel was seething, pacing angrily in the hall.

“I’d watch how you speak about my sister, Azriel.” He whirled around to see Feyre, eyes cool as she took in his agitated form.

“Your sister is a disgusting, selfish, spoiled brat! Someone tell me where my mate is before I tear this city apart!” He didn’t care that he was yelling at his High Lady, at his High Lord and brother. All he could see was red, and he was half a second away from leaving the House and looking for her on his own.

“Enough, Azriel,” Rhys commanded, bringing attention back to him. “Feyre, unfortunately it does seem true that Elain has been acting…undesirably.” There was a silence for a moment, her eyes widening as he shared the memories you showed him.

“Oh, Az,” she soothed, taking a step closer and reaching a hand out for him.

“Don’t touch me!” He shouted, pulling back from her. “I need to know where she is. I have to explain that what she saw was a dirty trick.” The anger was fading from his voice, despair taking over. What if you didn’t want anything to do with him anymore? He wouldn’t be able to handle losing you over this.

“Az,” Rhys started, voice calm. “She asked to go away. You’re going to have to give her time to process what has happened.” He took a step towards his brother. “I am sorry I didn’t listen before. She showed me her memories, of everything Elain had said. She will be dealt with, I promise you. I should have never let it get this bad.”

Azriel knew it wasn’t entirely his fault, but that didn’t stop him from lashing out. “Yea, you should’ve listened. When has she ever lied to you, Rhysand?” He shook his head. “Let me know if she contacts you,” was the last thing he said before storming off towards your shared room.

***

Some time had passed since you left Velaris, and the loneliness was threatening to overtake you. You had felt some tugs on the bond once Azriel realized you were gone, and had shut him out. You didn’t need him bothering you as you tried to figure out what to do. After pondering for days, you still had no idea what was true or not. You felt like you were losing your grip on reality, that you were sinking down into a pit of your own creation. You’d hardly moved from the couch since you arrived, staring into the endless flames.

A knock at the door startled you, but you no longer had the energy to truly care. You turned your head slowly to see Rhys walk in, eyes full of worry. “Have you moved at all?” He asked, taking in that the food he had left was untouched.

You shrugged.

Rhys came and sat next to you on the couch, looking you over. “He’s losing it without you,” he said softly, unsure what kind of mental state you were in.

Your eyes moved from the fire to him, stare blank. “I think you should come home. Being out here alone isn’t doing you any good. You’re withering away to nothing.”

Good. You’d rather disappear than live with the idea of Azriel and Elain. Rhys seemed to read this on your face, gingerly grabbing one of your hands in his own. “She’s been removed from the House. She’s not allowed out without Feyre or myself with her. She won’t hurt you anymore.”

You blinked. “What does Azriel think?” You asked, voice hoarse from no use.

“Az couldn’t care less about her. He’s worried about you.” There was a pleading in his eyes, begging you to come back with him.

“What if she was supposed to be cauldron-made for him?” Your voice was quiet, broken. You could feel the pain of your words as they hit Rhys, the shame of having ignored your attempts at warning him how Elain truly was.

“She isn’t. Even if you and Azriel were not mates, I have never met two people more suited for each other than you. It is clear that the love you hold is a special thing, something most won’t ever experience.” He tugs your hand closer. “Please. Come home.”

You didn’t know Rhys to lie to you, and your heart longed for Azriel. You couldn’t hide from this forever, regardless of how it turned out. “Okay,” you said, allowing him to pull you to your feet and winnow you back to Velaris.

***

Azriel was waiting when Rhys flew you back to the House, eyes wide as he took in the state of you. When Rhys set you down you immediately stumbled, head light from the lack of eating and sleeping. Azriel caught you before you could hit the ground, an alarmed gaze shooting to Rhys. “We will talk later,” he said, “take her to your room. I’ll send for Madja to check her over soon.”

Azriel nodded his thanks and carried you to your room, tucking you into the bed. You sunk into the familiar smell of him, trying to force the spinning in your head to disappear. “My love,” Azriel murmured, brushing hair out of your face. “What have I done?”

You opened your eyes and took him in. Truthfully, he didn’t look much better than you. There were deep shadows under his eyes, and his face was unusually gaunt. The stress of this situation had clearly taken its toll on the both of you.

“Are you in love with her?” You asked, tears pricking at the back of your eyes.

Azriel looked at you as if you had grown two heads.

“I’m sorry? In love with Elain? In hate with her is more like it.” You couldn’t deny the acid that dripped from his words, the anger the permeated the room.

“I saw you two. Asleep in the library.”

He scoffed. “I fell asleep waiting for you. She took it upon herself to take advantage of the situation.” He looked down at his hands, silver lining his eyes. “I never should have let it go this far.”

You sat up slowly, reaching out for him. Azriel moved quickly, gently laying you back down as he laid beside you. “Easy, my love. Your body is weak.” You hadn’t realized how bad you had gotten during your time at the cabin, suddenly feeling dizzy and sick.

“I’m so sorry, Az. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t handle it,” you sobbed, not even noticing the tears that had started falling.

“No, no. Don’t apologize. You did nothing wrong. I should’ve fought harder against her, tried harder to get Rhys to listen.” He cupped your cheek, running his thumb through your tears. You curled into his touch, allowing him to wrap his arms around you and pull you to his chest.

You cried until your head was pounding, Azriel whispering sweet nothings into your ears. “I love you. Only you.” Your tears slowly stopped, until you felt confident enough to look up at him.

“I love you. I shouldn’t have doubted you,” you said, leaning up to kiss him.

A knock sounded at the door. Azriel jumped up to get it, letting Madja into the room. She began checking you over, tsking at the state of you. “I’ll give you something for dehydration, and you’ll need to start introducing food again. Start with soup, and work your way up. I have a sleep aid as well, I recommend you take it promptly.�� She ran her hands over your arms and legs, ensuring all your bones were still in good shape. She did the same over your head, shoulders, and chest.

“Your heart sounds good, and your lungs are working well. You were lucky the High Lord came when he did, much more of letting yourself wither away and you’d have a significantly harder recovery ahead of you,” she chided, continuing her check of your body. Her hands swept over your abdomen before she paused, bringing them back up. “Ah,” she murmured, Azriel immediately on guard.

“What is it? Is something wrong?” He asked, gripping your hand a tad too tightly.

Madja shook her head. “No, nothing is wrong.” She looked up at you and cocked her head. “You are a lucky girl, you know. Not many pregnant fae could have refused food and drink for that long and still kept a reasonably healthy body and fetus.”

You stared at her.

She stared back.

Azriel stared at the both of you.

“What?” You finally asked, breaking the silence that had settled over the room.

She smiled, pressing her hands against your abdomen again. “A baby. Healthy, winged, i’d say 12 or so weeks along?” 12 weeks? You did the math in your head, realizing with a start that around 12 weeks ago Elain started terrorizing you. That shortly after that her words began affecting you worse and worse, that you couldn’t understand why she was able to make you so upset.

Now you knew.

“A baby,” Azriel whispered, looking at you. Madja took that as her cue to leave, placing the medicine on your nightstand and slipping from the room. He pulled you into his arms, inhaling your scent deeply. Sure enough, there it was. A lighter, fresh scent hidden under yours. He must have missed it throughout the recent stress and his back-to-back missions.

“A baby,” you whispered back, more tears threatening to fall. “Our baby.”

You saw tears of his own in Azriel’s eyes as he leaned down to kiss you, whispering “baby” in between each kiss.

The ordeal with Elain behind you, you allowed yourself to slip off into sleep, dreams of your future with Azriel and your child playing in your mind.

***

I’m so sorry this took so long for me to finish! I got into a bit of a writing rut, but I hope this was what you wanted. Thank you so much for your request! <3

#acotar x reader #azriel x reader #azriel x y/n #azriel x you #acotar x you #acotar x y/n #requests #the other woman

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