#and. ok but this is that but worse because you’re also running a brick and mortar business. you get how this is worse right.

[challahbread]

between urban concafe and literal earthquake while i was in class. many earthshaking things occurring today

[whimsicalpolitical]

Shattered // Matty Healy x Reader

summery: you caught Matty doing the one thing you would’ve never expected him to do. Now you confront him, drunk

warnings: angst

Masterlist

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You are out with your friends in your favorite bar and all you want to do is forget about Matty. Forget about the past 4 years where you’ve been seemingly happy and thinking about how you will marry him some day. Forget about how you were tangled in bed, whispering promises to each other that you will marry some day.

Forget about how you caught him getting his dick sucked by a blonde chick and forget about the way he lied to you and broke his promises that meant everything.

“I don’t wanna talk about it tonight alright? Let’s just have fun,” you explained, raising your glass into the air and toasting to a banger night with your two best friends.

“Fuck him girl,” Lea said, nudging your shoulder slightly. You’ve known her since kindergarten and she knows everything about you. Therefore she knows the ups and downs of your relationship with Matty. But she also knows how much you love him and she always said that he’s whipped for you.

Doesn’t seem like he’s whipped for you now.

You are a few shots down, your friend already dancing on a table top, trying to pick up a guy that has been watching her for the last 20 minutes. You on the other hand don’t leave the bar stool, you keep sitting and keep drinking.

The bar door opens and your eyes drop to two tall men you are very familiar with. Ross and George. Their gaze finds yours and you quickly look away, taking a sip of your cocktail. You feel them coming towards you.

You hear your name but you don’t turn around. Ross sits down on the stool next to yours. “You ok?” He asks and you gulp. Your sight gets worse by the second, the drink in front of you starting to blur, your boyfriend of 4 years cheated and you have no place to stay in. You are not okay.

“Yeah,” you ex the cocktail and stand up, not even daring to look at them. They share a look and George finds your arm to steady you, after you almost fell down the little step.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you hiss and push his arm away from you. You walk towards the door, Lea and Maya not realizing that you’re about to leave on your own.

“C’mon,” George says, almost shouting your name at your attend to get away, “you’re not safe to go on your own.”

You laugh, “like you care,” you shout, already out the door. You pull a cigarette and a lighter out of your purse. “We do.” Ross says, his eyes full of pitty.

“Yeah? You care?” Sounds too ironic for you, “didn’t care enough to tell me your mate was cheating on me did you.” You let your back find the brick wall and you slide down.

-

It’s almost the end of tour and you are so relieved, you finally get to spend enough time with your boyfriend.

You couldn’t go to the boys immediately after the concert because you had an important business phone call. But now you’re on your way backstage. There are people cleaning up and packing up the things but you can’t find any of the boys.

You move to Mattys’ dressing room when you hear him. “Fuck,” he hisses through his teeth. Your first instinct was that he was hurt, reminding you of all the times he hurt himself on stage, unintentionally.

You speed up your movements, opening the door quickly, “Matt are you-.” You are immediately in shock when you see the scene in front of you. Your boyfriend’s head leaning back, mouth open, his hair completely in a mess. A blonde woman on her knees, her mouth around his dick.

Matty’s head shoots up and he pulls her off him in one movement. “Oh my god,” he says your name but you’re already turning around, starting to run at the complete other direction. You just want to get out. “Fuck, get off me!” You hear him yelling but you don’t care because he didn’t seem to mind to have her on him minutes ago. The tears are blurring your sight and you can’t even wipe them properly without them flowing again.

“Wait.” He screams at you but you’re already out and away.

-

That was the last time you saw Matty and the last time you spoke to any of them. Everyone tried calling you but you didn’t want to fuck with any of them. They betrayed you. All of them.

“We didn’t know,” George said, squatting next to you, “he’s a fucking dickhead but he’s sorry.”

You clap your hands, “oh he’s sorry, that’s fucking amazing. He cheats on me but he’s sorry so that makes it okay!” You inhale the smoke so hard, believing that if it hits your lungs you can finally forget.

“He made a mistake, listen to him at least? He’s fucking miserable.” You can’t believe what you’re hearing. They don’t have the right to come at you and tell you how shit he is, because it doesn’t come near as how you are feeling.

You look up at Ross through your teary eyes. He pulls his lips together, letting them form a straight line. You reach your arm out, waiting for him to pull you up. He does and you fall against him. He grips your waist and steadies you.

“Kiss me,” you mutter. Ross shoots George a confused look, they don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t either, you just know you want revenge.

“Come on Ross, kiss me.” You let your hands find his face, tracing your fingers through his beard. “Make me forget.” Your eyes drop to his lips and you come closer but Ross turns his head to the right.

“You’re drunk and hurt,” he says and puts an arm around you. George finds Ross’ eyes and he also puts an arm around you. “You would regret it in the morning and it wouldn’t make anything better.”

You didn’t need that turning down, you need to feel better and you really want to hurt Matty. “Take me to him,” your bottom lip trembles as you talk.

“Are you sure? Don’t do-“ you cut George off.

“M’sure.” You say. Both of them lift you in the backseat of George’s’ car. Ross gets next to you while George drives off to Matty’s house.

When you arrive you at his house you threaten Ross and George to drive off and not stay. “Okay, call one of us if you need us to drive you home?” You nod and stumble out of the car.

You don’t have a home but you don’t let them know because you don’t want to have that talk. Not tonight.

You arrive at the concrete walls and the door. You start hammering against it, without any idea of what to say.

“Jesus-“ Matty shoots up from the couch. He fell asleep there and he doesn’t know the time. He’s wearing black boxers and nothing else but he doesn’t care.

When he opens the door he meets your facade. Your make up smeared from crying. Hair a mess. And your lips trembling. For a second he doubts if you’re real, but then your hands are on his chest, shoving him inside his home.

“Shit, I missed you so much.” He says but then he sees it when you turn around. The bloodshot look in your eyes, the sweat to your brow. He can smell it, the alcohol mixed with your natural aroma. He nearly thinks he forgot about it but now you’re here and he remembers everything.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck. You.” You hit his shoulder everytime you repeat the phrase. His face is uncomfortable and you’re aware you’re hurting him.

“You’re fucking wasted.” He says and he feels bad because he knows he’s the reason. Before you can hit him again he holds your wrists, “cut it out.”

You are looking up at him fiercely, and he hates how much he sees the hurt. The trembling lip is not making things any easier and the tears slipping down your cheeks are a danger to his own.

“She meant nothing, I’m so sorry baby, please. I was fucking exhausted and you weren’t there and she was throwing herself at me. She meant nothing.” He repeats but you don’t listen, you just see the pictures in your head.

“Bullshit,” you slur and back up from him. Your eyes are pure disgust and he sees that. He is looking at you, pleading at you to forgive him. “You loved having her on her knees, you want that from me? Huh you want that.”

You start striping, leaving your shirt on his kitchen counter. “You want me to suck your dick like she did it? Was she better, ‘s that it?” You move over to him, hands finding the waistband of his boxers. Again, his hands find yours and before you drop to your knees he holds you up.

“Baby stop,” he pleads and now you are a real sad drunk. Sad drunk is the worst drunk. “You’re too drunk to have this conversation.” You drop down to the floor, hugging your knees.

“Why M- Matty. I loved you so much.” Your voice breaks and now a tear slips from Matty’s cheek as well. “Why wasn’t it enough? I loved you so much and you ruined everything.”

He drops next to you but he keeps his hands to himself, unsure if you’re comfortable enough to let him touch you. “I’m so sorry, fuck, I’m an idiot okay? I love you so much okay?”

You look at him and you know he feels sorry it’s just not enough. He shouldn’t have done it because now you can’t look at him the same anymore.

“I love you and I was afraid.” You turn your head away from him because you are scared that if you look at him long enough you will just forgive him.

“God. I would never do it again.” You can’t listen to this anymore but you need him. You need him in your life and you’re weak.

“I love you so much baby.” He says again and you take his hand. You take his hand and hold it. He pulls you up, his hands under your arms and he holds you tight against his chest.

He’s warm and he’s always warm. His heat radiating off of you ever time you are close to him. He puts one arm around your shoulders, not letting you go while the other rubs your back. His mouth is near your ear and he whispers stupid excuses in your ear.

“I’m so sorry okay? Please don’t leave me.” You sob into his chest, unsure of what to do.

“Was she the only time?” If he says yes now you swear you will give him a chance again. He’s gonna fucking say yes and you can start over.

“What?” He says and you pull back, to look him in the eyes. You can tell by his eyes if he’s gonna lie. Your right hand finds his cheek and you rub slow circles into his skin.

“Was she the first or were there others?” His eyes close and this is the moment you know that you don’t have a chance in your relationship. Now you’re disgusted and you immediately remove yourself from him.

You grab your shirt from the kitchen counter and pull it over your head. “Baby I’m so sorry I. Shit!” He hits a bottle from the table and you flinch.

“Have a fucking good life Matthew.” He grabs your arm but you smash away. You slap him across the face, open the door and leave his home for good.

This is it. The past years were a fucking lie. You grab your phone and you do call Ross. He answers immediately and he just hears your cries. He declines and gets in his car right away.

[jamiegeode]

Ok #the girls were fighting (irl) so I am not doing what I planned to do tonight but instead listening to sing street to compose myself.

And I’m thinking TOO MUCH about these songs and the movie that the musical is based on. Specifically Go Now and how that’s Brendan’s only song.

Drive it Like You Stole it *could* be considered his song. But Conor is the one who sings it. And I’m thinking like. He gave him that song and in Go Now he hid the sorrow and only showed the joy in getting his brother out of there. And in the movie, he gave Connor that song too. In the movie, it’s not Brendan’s song. It’s another gift.

Conor never hears go now from his brother. He sings it himself.

Something something the moon will sing a song for you but ten times worse to me because. He has so much joy that his brother is free despite him still being trapped. He doesn’t sit in hurt, he celebrates being left for something more.

And also in Go Now in the musical you still get that joy at Connor escaping in the movie. But it’s so different in the musical because of how it’s shaped. It’s not Brendan giving Conor all his cash and driving him and Raphina out to their grandads boat in mingled silence and laughter and then a wild joyful yell as they escape, disappearing to find their dreams, with the song he gave his brother slowly covering the sounds of the movie.

It’s his thoughts, clear and grand and said in his own voice.

So here you are

You've got another chance for life

It's what you want

I can see it in your eyes

You see so clear

It's coming into light

Go on, be wrong

'Cause tomorrow you'll be right

Just, the certainty in that. You will be right. Your risks are beautiful. Now go, before mom and dad notice.

Don't sit around and talk it over

You're running out of time

Just face ahead, no going back now

It’s not just the quiet of the car. It’s all of his well wishes that he doesn’t let out and the thoughts that played out in that quiet drive to the port.

Then the joy that builds because Conor chased his dreams instead of drowning in their impossibility like Brendan did. That joy-

You’re never gonna go if you don’t go now

You’re never gonna know if you don’t find out

You’re never turning back, never turning around

How that last line is a thing that Brendan needs to be true, because Conor’s dream can’t crash. He can’t come home because his dream fell apart. It’s too damn bright.

Go on, be wrong. Cause tomorrow, you’ll be right.

I’ve just gotta say. I’m Very Normal about how the musical emphasizes points of the movie that hit me like a thousand bricks in this song. It’s not the song playing over an ending sequence. It’s the finale itself.

[x-reader-theater]

hey! could you do m!reader who is a r*p3 victim and the bau gets into the case but Aaron Hotchner has to stand down from the case because he is emotionally involved with the reader. plot thickens!! the reader is Aaron's boyfriend who was afraid to tell Aaron what had happened to him. and in the end it's just the fluffiest fluff comfort from Aaron to the reader.

IF YOU ARE NOT OKAY WITH WRITING THIS IT'S 100% OK I STILL LOVE YOU AND YOUR WRITING❣❣❣❣❣❣❣

This one was fun. I also made Aaron super cute and I love this one. There are HUGE warnings for this.

Warnings: Mentions of Rape but none of it is actually shown it graphically depicted, lying, so fluffy you might actually die

@mystic-writes edited this as well. They edit all of my stuff and I will @ them every single time.

"This… was reported last night…" Garcia says, pressing a button on her remote to show a man with bruises on his face, and photos depicting sexual assault. "This is the fourth in a string of rapes happening right here in DC. This is Dominic Matthews, the first was a Gill Florence, the second a Jackson Henry, the third, a [Y/N] [L/N], and now, Mr. Dominic here."

"I-I'm sorry, say that again?" Hotch asks, his blood running cold as he sees your face appear on the motion behind Garcia, bloody, beaten, as well as graphic images of your rape. "Who was the third victim?"

"Uh, [Y/N] [L/N]. Why?" Garcia asks and Hotch starts picking up his things, and pulling out his phone.

"I have to go. I'm sorry," he says, rushing out of the door. The BAU look at each other, confused, and David gets up, walking out after Hotch. He walks into the man's office and sees him frantically packing his briefcase.

"Aaron, what's wrong?" Rossi asks, but Aaron doesn't look up. David walks into the room and places a hand on the startled man's shoulder, making him jump. "Aaron, you need to tell me what's wrong."

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose before saying, "[Y/N] is… he's my boyfriend."

Rossi's eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. "Boyfriend? How long have you been dating?"

Aaron shrugs. "A couple months. It was a spur of the moment thing. And I've always been into men. I'm just picky."

"This guy must be a real catch then," Rossi says and Aaron nods but sighs. "Go to him." Rossi takes his hand away from Hotch who gives him a thankful look. He turns to leave but David calls out to him, "And Aaron?" Hotch looks over his shoulder as Rossi says, "Good luck. I'm sure he's worth keeping."

He forces a smile and runs out of the office, leaving Rossi alone. When he goes back to the Round Table Room, all he says is, "Family Emergency. Aaron won't be joining us for this case."

–

You hear knocking at your door and you groan as you get up, your thighs and back still hurting even though it's been about a week since your assault. You open the door without looking through the peephole and try to immediately close it.

Aaron's large hand stops the door from closing and you sigh as you open the door with a nervous smile.

"Aaron! What brings you to my humble abode?" you ask, your voice shaking with every word.

He frowns. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what?" You ask, having your best look of innocence you can.

It doesn't work.

"Why didn't you tell me you were raped?"

You feel the wind being knocked out if you and you open your mouth to answer but nothing comes out. You try and force words out, but you can't. You stand in your own doorway, slack jawed and silent.

"I-I-I-" you begin to say, and Aaron reaches out for you. You flinch away, before your eyes widen, and you're saying, "I'm so sorry! Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I did that. Aaron I'm sorry."

You feel your knees begin to shake, and before you can fall to the ground, Aaron has his arms wrapped around you, and is holding you up.

You turn into his shoulder and you begin to cry, loud, wet sobs that only break when you cough, and Aaron wraps his arms around you, lowering the two of you to the ground while you cry and he holds you.

A few hours later sees you’re sitting on your couch in the fluffiest blanket you own, a mug of hot cocoa in your hands as Aaron bustles around your kitchen. He comes in with a bowl of soup and some crackers, putting them on the coffee table for you. He sits next to you on the couch, but he doesn't touch you. Sensing his anxiety, you lean into him, leaning your head on his shoulder, and he wraps his arms around you, tugging you into his lap. You put your untouched hot cocoa onto the coffee table where your soup and crackers are, and you just hold onto him, onto his clean, white button up.

"I was walking home from work," you say quietly into his chest. You're not even sure if he's heard you, but you don't want to raise your voice above a whisper. As if that'll make the memory worse. "He pushed me up against the side of a building. It was dark. He came from behind. Pinned me, face first against the bricks. And then he-" you cut yourself off with a sob but something comes out. You lost your ability to cry any actual tears hours ago.

"Shhhhh," Aaron says, rubbing your arm and pulling you into his chest more. "You don't need to talk about it."

You shake your head. "I want to. I-I want you to know. I don't want you to leave me."

"Oh, [Y/N]..." he trails off, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "I will never leave you."

You look up with your red rimmed eyes and ask, "Really?"

He leans down and kisses you, passionately, but not too hard, before pulling away, and pressing a kiss to your nose, both of your cheeks, between your eyes, and your forehead again. "Never. We'll get through this."

You nod, pushing yourself further into Aaron, who quickly shoots a text to Dave telling him what you told him, before turning off his phone and holding you even closer.

"My team is working on this. They will find the person who did this," he says and you look up at him again.

"But, what about you? Shouldn't you be out there helping them?"

He just leans down and kisses you again, muttering against your lips, "I'm right where I need to be."

[luimagines]

Might I request some slight angst? Like the reader has a crush on the boys but they see them with their Zelda (or closest female friend) and think they're a couple (when actually the Link in question is asking for advice on their feelings for the reader)?

Masterlist

Angst, angst, angst!

It may end up a bit closer to hurt/no comfort.... But I can do that. It's not my forte but I can do that.

Part 1 will include Time, Sky and Legend.

Content under the cut!

Time

“Thanks for taking the time to talk with me Malon.” Time sighs and cradles the steaming mug of coffee in his hands. It’s warm against his calluses and he hopes that he can get this over with before one of the boys (or worse, you) comes in to look for him.

“Any time Link.” She grins and sits across from him at the table. “What is it that you need?”

“I need advice.”

“Oh?”

“I... think I might have a... I’ve been thinking more about one of my traveling companions than I believe is appropriate and I don’t know what to do next or if I should do anything at all.” Time bites his lip and drinks a quick swig of hot drink.

It does little to actually calm his nerves and instead he burns his throat something fierce. But a distraction is a distraction and he takes it for what it is.

“Link, I think the word you’re trying to use is crush. You have a crush on one of them.”  Malon smiles a little tensely. “We’ve already had this discussion on what a crush is a few years ago, remember?”

Time chokes on his own spit. 

Yes, yes he remembers.

He avoided Malon for a while before he manned up and had that conversation with her and told her that he wasn’t interested no matter how flattered he was. He considers himself lucky that she was wiling to still be his friend- he wouldn’t know what he’d do without her.

“Can I ask who it is?” Malon tilts her head. “A few of your traveling companions might be a bit young for you, you know.”

“No- it’s not...” Time is quick to shoot them down. “Not them... It’s...”

Time takes another swig, trying to pay more attention in the dimming burn as he speaks. He murmurs your name at first, not wanting to meet Malon in the eye as he says it. But she doesn’t understand- he can tell. So despite the ever growing blush on his face, he says your name louder and Malon beams.

“Oh them!” She gasps with a small clap of her hands. “Oh Link that’s wonderful!”

She reaches over to place a hand on his. “Tell me all about them. What can I do to help?”

***

You were busy (along with the boys) tending to the ranch that Time has made you all stop at for the day. He said that it was his Hyrule and that the place belonged to a close friend of his. That you were safe and no doubt welcome on their land.

You took the work in stride. 

It was hard  and sun was hot, but if a little work was all it took to pay for a warm meal and roof over your head to sleep for the night then you’ll do with no complaints.

The others not so much but hey- that’s on them.

They can sleep in the barn for all you cared, you were going to do your part.

And if Time was a little more appreciative in the meantime...? Well... you suppose that it would just be a bonus.

You have to make a good impression on the people he cares about after all.

You hold the pitch fork over your head and rest the rod against your shoulder, draping your arms over it as you walk by the house. You were on your way to the stables to catch up with Twilight and figure out what needs to be done next when you spot something through the window to the house.

In your periphery- and you have no idea how you managed to see him- was Time, sitting at the table with the lady of the house in front of him.

You gulp a little come to a stop, trying to stay to the side and avoid being seen while you watch them through the glass.

It looks like they’re talking.

Nothing to be concerned about.

But then you see Time blush and curl ever so slightly in on himself.

He says something.

And Malon looks like she could jump over the moon.

She’s quick to place her hands over his and lean closer to him.

Time doesn’t push her away and instead gets the softest- dare you say, dreamiest look on his face when he finally looks up to meet her eyes.

He smiles.

It’s bright and it covers his entire face as one hands comes up from the cup to cover half of it.

He looks so happy.

Has he ever that happy when you’re with him?

It’s an arrow to your heart and you look away from the delicate moment to continue doing... 

What were you doing again?

You feel the tears begin to pool in your eyes against your will because of course he would like her. 

He’s known her longer.

She’s so pretty. She was drop dead gorgeous with bright flame like hair, and bright eyes and her figure would have been any man’s dream.

She has a house- has land- has a place for him and possible future children and then some.

Time’s the hero here- he could have anyone he wanted by title alone.

What do you have to offer him?

Nothing here- that’s for sure. You don’t even have a lot to offer if you were in your own home let alone his.

You gulp and try to steer clear from the boys less you want them to see your heart breaking and actually ask you what’s wrong.

You don’t try to wipe your tears away when you go to put the pitch fork away in the barn.

Maybe you’ll sleep here tonight instead of in the house with the boys...

You don’t want to intrude on the alone time he’s probably been looking forward to once you’ve arrived.

You don’t wipe away your tears.

Sky.

“Zelda, I’m telling you I don’t know what to do here!” Sky whispers in a panic as he nearly tears his hair out. “I can barely form a coherent sentence around them- how I supposed to go through with this?”

“And here I thought saving the world would have been your biggest problem.” She giggles slightly with a gentle hand on her mouth. “Just talk to them.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“They are... so good and nice and friendly... and in no way shape or form see me that way. And I just stutter and stumble my way other them and - oh god- they have to think I’m incompetent-”

“Link.” She smirks and walks up her childhood fiend, wrapping her hands around him. “Deep breaths, ok? You are a strong, capable and an intelligent young man. You saved our people- you saved me. And there’s a whole lot more good you’re going to do. I want to see you do it. And if that means you go through with this then so be it. But you actually have to do it.”

Sky hugs her back and takes a deep breath like he’s instructed. “Ok. Ok. You’re right. I’m going to look like an idiot in the process but you’re right.”

“I care about you and your happiness, you know that right?”

“Of course I do.”

“And you know I love you. right?”

“I love you too.”

“Good. Now, tell me all about them.” Zelda grin brightly as she pulls away. “We have to do this right and we only have one shot.”

***

You walked along the edge of Skyloft in an attempt to see beyond the clouds.

You can’t.

But that doesn’t stop from walking the perimeter regardless and trying to find a weak point in the cloud barrier. You also take the time to look around Skyloft and makes yourself acquainted with the place.

It’s smaller than you actually imagined it to be but it’s homey and you can see how it was able to produce someone as wonderful as Sky.

It’s nice.

You pass some of the others in the process and wave to them as you go- they look like they’re planning something with bombs, the edge of the island and a whole lot of rope.

If you walk a little faster away from them than your typical walking speed, that’s for you to know.

As you walk you come across a little alcove and climb through it out of curiosity.

It lifts you higher than you thought it would go and you mange to see Sky with a girl on the other side.

You try to remember who she is, or at least who she might be to Sky, what she might mean to him...

It hits you like a brick.

That’s Zelda.

The first Zelda.

The Hylia herself Zelda.

Your heart plummets at the sight of them alone together and you nearly fall over the rock at the thought of why they might be alone.

Zelda places her hands on Sky’s shoulder, talking to him sternly without hesitation and Sky smiles a little despite himself.

You can’t hear them and you know it would be rude of you to do this, but your morbid curiosity pushes you further and you crawl down.

Glutton for punishment you suppose.

“Ok. Ok. You’re right. I’m going to look like an idiot in the process but you’re right.” You hear Sky say. It’s a bit muffled and you have to strain yourself to hear it clearly but you don’t want to go further and out of your hiding spot in case they see you.

You look around the corner and see them hugging, tightly and with familiarity of comfort.

Right... childhood friends... and she’s so pretty too.... Man how can you compete with that?

“I care about you and your happiness, you know that right?” You hear her say. You gulp and try to fight your rising heart rate. You’re starting to breath a little heavier and have to cup your hand over your mouth in a vain attempt to muffle the sound.

“Of course I do.” Sky says.

“And you know I love you. right?” She says with no shame.

“I love you too.” Sky responds.

It’s the final nail on the coffin.

With tears now pouring down your face, you run away from them, from the alcove, from the boys by the edge of the island.

There’s not a lot of spaces to hide but you do find a spot behind the wall just on the other side of the island and hide yourself behind it.

You let yourself cry and try to take comfort from the little animals that come to see you out of their own curiosity.

Of course he’s with her.

Of course he’s taken.

Of course he doesn’t see you that way.

Why did you think he ever would?

Legend

“Zel, I’m not going to do this. You’re wrong. There’s nothing going on between us.” Legend sighs and runs his hands harshly through his hair.

“I beg to differ.” She rolls her eyes and flicks his forehead.

“Ow.”

“You’re blushing just thinking about them.” She crosses her arms. “Just admit to yourself you like them, I’m not asking you to confess to them...”

“Ok well-”

“Yet.”

“Zelda!” Legend jumps and rips his hat off. “I’m not- I just- I give up. I’m a lost cause. It’s never going to happen. I’m going to die alone and no one is going to remember me when I die.”

Zelda sighs and shakes her head, an amused smile on her face. “You’re not a lost cause. There’s a lot of ways this can go wrong but I promise you, not in the ways I’m sure you’re imagining.” 

“I love the vote of confidence.” He sulks and drops into a squat and holds his head in his hands.

“Link. I love you as my brother but you’re one of the most dramatic people I know.” She laughs.

“Zelda... I really like them.... What do I do?” Legend looks up with what can only be described as despair on his face.

“Well, you can try and do something for them or maybe get them something small that lets them know you’re thinking about them..” She offers. “What do they like?”

***

It’s not everyday that you find yourself inside the Hyrule Castle, let alone in a different Hyrule entirely.

It’s nice.

Different.

But nice.

You might be lost though.

Your group was allowed to explore for the time being as Legend tried to figure out what was needed to be done and where you would need to be situated. 

You were lost though.

There were so many hallways and doors and turns that took little to no time at all to disorient and confuse you.

At some point you end up on a balcony and you go to lean on the railing. It over looks a beautiful garden with a rose hedge maze. 

From the height that you stand, you can see Legend and Zelda talking in one of the corners of the maze, seemingly walking together, shoulder to shoulder, close and friendly.

You feel yourself tense a little and your grip on the railing tightens until your knuckles turn white.

It’s fine. 

They’re friends, right? Legend did say that he needed to talk to the princess.

So they’re talking. No biggie.

Zelda then smiles brightly and wraps her arm around Legend’s shoulder before leaning over and ducking closer to his face.

Did she just kiss him?

He doesn’t push her away. 

Your heart plummets and you turn away from the view, placing your hand over your mouth in shock. You gulp and turn back after a moment of digesting what you just saw.

Legend looks a little more miffed, running his hands through his hair and shaking it roughly. Zelda shakes her head and flicks him on the forehead. They interact with familiarity and you can see that they’re closer than Legend wanted the group to know.

Were they together?

Was it taboo? 

You look away again and leave the balcony, wanting to get away from the place as quick as you could.

Away from the garden.

Away from the princess.

Away from Legend.

He probably wanted to be alone with her for a reason- to keep it all a secret and not let it get out.

How could you stand a chance against the princess of all people? Someone that would share his position in history- a part of his trauma and adventure and shares those moments with him. Not to mention to social status and the fact that she’s already in his own Hyrule.

He deserves more than what you could give him.

He deserves to be happy.

You hope that she can give that to him.

Part 2 

[forasecondtherewedwon]

Guest Side Story

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Sarah Wilson Rating: T Word Count: 3214

Summary: Sam told Bucky not to flirt with Sarah. But this is her house, so Bucky's pretty sure she makes the rules.

Bucky’s missed white lies. Ones that don’t hurt anybody.

“Is that cigarette smoke I smell on your coat, James Barnes?” “No, Ma. ’Course not.”

“And you’re sure this dame knows it’s my arm she’ll be on?” “Sure, Steve. She’s been after me to fix the two of you up for weeks.”

Stuff like that.

Past few years, Bucky’s either been transparent or a brick wall, all lies or all truth. Which one he loses more sleep over just depended on the day. The most human thing, he’s learning, is to work with a little of both: fact and fiction. Give something here, hold something back there. Lying doesn’t have to be mean-spirited and telling the truth doesn’t have to make him feel hollow and guilty. Maybe you can only realize this kinda thing when you find your way home, even if the home isn’t yours.

Bucky’s standing in the kitchen listening to Cass teach him how to fish. It’s purely theoretical, no gear involved, just the overexaggerated motion of Cass’s arm as he mimes casting. Laughing, Bucky lightly grabs the boy’s elbow before it can collide with the refrigerator on an especially big swing. Cass downsizes his demonstration without pausing the excited flow of his instructions.

AJ catches Bucky’s eye; from the look on his face, he’s beginning to suspect that Bucky might already know how to fish. While Cass is focused hard on his hands pretending to show how to fit live bait onto a hook, Bucky smiles at AJ over the smaller boy’s head and raises a finger to his lips. White lies. Let Cass believe he’s the expert.

When Cass is winding down, Bucky moves around him with a grin, carrying an empty plate to the sink.

“I got it!” AJ declares, whisking it from Bucky’s hand and pumping a squirt of dish soap in the center while his other hand runs the hot water.

Cass slotted the Pop-Tarts the plate lately held into the toaster for him (no better end-of-the-day snack, Bucky was told) and now AJ’s cleaning up. They’re a hospitable family, all day long. No phoniness, no insincere offers of help that they’re hoping Bucky won’t take them up on. He actually had to race the kids to the shed to store a toolbox earlier. On the boat, Bucky has room to put in the effort for the Wilsons, but inside the walls of their home he’s not allowed to do a damn thing because he’s a guest. Per square foot of property, he doesn’t think he’s ever been treated this well in someone else’s house.

“Fine,” Bucky concedes, “but I’m doing all the dishes tomorrow—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And don’t get up early to drink a glass of orange juice and try to wash it before I’m awake, ’cause I’ll be listening.”

The boys giggle and Bucky leans against the counter, hovering while AJ hands the plate off for Cass to wipe dry and pretending not to listen to Sam and Sarah talking in the next room.

…But there isn’t a full wall separating the kitchen from the living room and Sam knows Bucky’s hearing’s good, right? He doesn’t think they’re discussing anything that private and if Sam’s annoyed with him later for what he supposes Bucky might’ve heard, Bucky’ll just offer up another white lie and swear he couldn’t hear a thing. And Sarah… Sarah wouldn’t think any worse of him if she knew. Bucky imagines she’d have a lot of compassion for his frequent urge to give Sam a hard time just for the hell of it. He flicks a quick glance over his shoulder, just to see her, and concentrates on what they’re saying, giving himself vague permission because he overheard his name.

“This was your idea,” Sarah’s saying. “You brought the stray cat home, just like when we were kids.”

“Don’t compare him to something cute,” Sam complains. Bucky’s mouth tenses to keep his smile from spreading too far.

“He is a guest in my home, Sam, and he’s more than earned it after the work he’s been putting in with the boat.”

“And what about the work you’ve been putting in watching him do that work?”

“Sam. Grow up.” Sarah’s voice is playful and Bucky almost turns, wondering what her expression looks like.

“So you’ve just been appreciating his skill with a wrench and some sandpaper,” Sam says skeptically.

“If I’m also appreciating his shoulders in that shirt— if—” she emphasizes when Sam tries to interrupt, “—it’s nobody’s business but mine.”

“Ok, you definitely can’t have him sleeping on the couch.”

“What do you think I’m gonna do? Try to sneak him to my bedroom after lights out? With you listening, trying to catch us? Uh uh. Your sister is a grown woman with two children, a home, and a boat she couldn’t manage to sell, and she can lust where she damn well pleases.”

Bucky snorts out a laugh and AJ gives him a funny look. Kid’s too perceptive.

“He’s tricky,” Sam lectures. “You can’t see it, but I do. I’ve been around him a hell of a lot more. You think he smiles like that at everybody? If he smiles at me at all, I gotta assume he just looked up and saw a meteor hurtling towards where we’re standing and is only smiling because we’ve got seconds to live and I won’t be able to tell anybody.”

“You are hilarious.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You’re telling me your friend is charming. That’s what you’re describing. Don’t I deserve to be charmed? Where else is he gonna sleep, huh? With you? In one of the boys’ little beds while they share the other one? Because I know you’re not suggesting we skip the pretense and put him right in with me.”

Sam lets out a noise of obvious frustration.

“Time to intervene,” Bucky tells Cass and AJ, leaving them to swap confused shrugs in the kitchen as he saunters into the living room.

“Hey,” Sam greets stonily, arms crossed over his chest.

Just for fun, Bucky decides to be all the friendlier.

“It’s so great of you to put me up. Thanks, Sarah. This beats a hotel by a mile.”

“Our gourmet kitchen does offer an impressive range of sugary cereal,” she jokes. “I might even cook you boys a special breakfast tomorrow before you head back to the dock.”

Bucky’s grin widens.

“Oh yeah? I wouldn’t wanna—”

“No, it’s no trouble—”

“Well, that would be—”

“Both of you stop it,” Sam orders.

“Sam, go outside,” Sarah orders right back. “Play some tag with your nephews.”

“Sarah, I’m beat. We’ve been working on that boat all day.”

“Mhmm, you and the rest of the neighbourhood. You worked all day and you come home and there’s still two kids to entertain. But guess what?” She smiles deviously at her brother and throws a few fake punches at his stomach. “You’re Sam Wilson, the Falcon! Looks like you’re special after all. Me and Bucky here know you’ve still got some gas in the tank. Go on.”

Sam looks fairly planted to the spot as he glares from his sister to Bucky, but he eventually moves with a lurching step.

“I’m gonna be right outside,” he warns.

Bucky sidesteps out of his path and says nothing, though it’s hard to resist the instinct to egg him on.

“We’re gonna have a super-secret discussion about which towels he can use,” Sarah goads at her brother’s back.

Sam ignores her, corralling his nephews in the kitchen and guiding them out the door into the fading daylight with a hand on each of their narrow backs.

“Great kids,” Bucky observes.

Sarah nods, watching her family disappear, then turns to him.

“We’re not really gonna talk about towels.”

“No?”

Bucky’s eyebrows rise in surprise and delighted anticipation until Sarah grabs a folded blanket off the back of the couch and passes it to him.

“We’re making up the couch.”

“Oh.”

This is ok too. Actually, really nice, standing next to Sarah and unfolding the blanket as she stuffs a pillow into a clean case. Her eyes find his already on her and he swears he almost blushes; he’s been smoothing out the same crease in this blanket for a good thirty seconds with no result, just watching her easy movements, the way she flips her braids back when they fall forward over her shoulder.

“I hope you’re comfortable,” she says, lingering once they’re done.

“I woulda slept on the floor. A closet, even, like Harry Potter.”

“You read Harry Potter? Don’t tell the boys—they’ll be bugging you to play wizards with them.”

Bucky laughs and shakes his head.

“Nah, I just watched the movie.”

“Which one?”

“There’s more than one?”

“You really better not bring it up then,” Sarah advises. “They’d try to tell you everything at once.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to get in out of my depth.”

It feels like a significant look they exchange after his words. Bucky wants it to be—he thinks he does—but he feels awkward, romantically clumsy. Heartstrings tied together like shoelaces, waiting to trip him up. He’s been telling himself she’s only being kind, but after eavesdropping on her conversation with Sam, he knows she’s interested. In his shoulders at the very minimum. Was that right? His shoulders? Just in case, Bucky does his best to square them. Can’t hurt.

He’s fucking ecstatic when Sarah does glance down briefly, her gaze returning to his face with something flustered in it. Sure, she’s a mom and she runs a business, but it’s like she told Sam: she deserves to be charmed. Bucky’s not entirely sure he’s doing it right though.

“So,” she says, “Sam was just being a pain when he tried to convince me you can’t sleep on the couch because you’ve got a bad back, right?”

Bucky sighs but keeps smiling. It’s natural in her presence.

“I’d say that’s him making old-man jokes about me.”

“I apologize for my brother and his bad manners.”

“Ah, he’s not totally wrong,” he concedes, perching on the arm of the couch. “These last few birthdays have required more candles than you could fit on a cake.”

“Then you just have to get yourself a bigger cake.”

Bucky laughs.

“I guess optimism’s pretty much a family trait?”

“We work at it. They say you need to take the good with the bad, but they don’t tell you that means creating the good out of nothing a lot of the time, if you want any at all. The Wilsons worked that out some time ago, so we mostly do alright.”

“It’s a good feeling to be around,” he tells Sarah earnestly. Clearing his throat, he gets to his feet. “Feels good, being around you.”

“We’re… I’m happy you could stay with us.”

The light’s softened in the room and her voice has gone with it. Bucky shifts on his feet.

“It’s a pleasure to be here,” he assures her.

Sarah’s eyelashes flutter when she looks from his mouth to his eyes. Probably too try-hard to bite his lip now. God, Sam thinks Bucky’s so suave with Sarah, but it feels like he’s only got one move and it’s fucking smiling. Some Casanova he is. Sarah, meanwhile, is beautiful and authoritative and generous and moving closer to toss the pillow he’ll rest his head on tonight onto the couch.

“Anything else you need to be comfortable?” she asks, gaze slipping from one of his eyes to the other. “Another pillow? Pajamas?”

“I’ve got some, but…”

“But?”

Sarah gives him a questioning look and Bucky starts summoning the courage to make a move. He’ll touch her waist—no, take her hand. He’ll cup her sweet face so there’s no doubt what he means.

“But,” he picks up, “if I get cold in the night…”

There’s longing in her eyes, Bucky knows it, but Sam bangs in the screen door right then, one nephew squealing where he’s been slung over Sam’s shoulder.

“Well,” Sam announces loudly to the house at large, “that’s it! No more gas in the tank! Everybody get to bed!”

Sarah appears sorry as she steps back. Bucky almost reaches out to pull her in, to take another shot with another lousy line. Shit, he’s bad at this.

“There are more blankets in the hall closet,” she says, and slips away.

“Thank you,” he calls after her.

Sam walks past, Cass still dangling upside-down over his back while AJ runs ahead, and watches Bucky like a hawk (or some other bird of prey) as he digs through his overnight bag. What’s Sam expecting him to pull out? A strip of condoms? Bucky extracts a green toothbrush and holds it up with an expression of fake wonder. Sam rolls his eyes and heads off down the hall.

They are going to bed early, barely 9pm. That’s probably late for the kids though. Bucky’s pleasantly weary after a day outdoors, more working than talking, feeling like part of something as the Wilsons’ community came together to repair the boat. Seeing Sarah throughout. Flashing Bucky a smile while she spoke to a neighbour, grasping his outstretched hand to let him help her aboard so she could see their progress, checking Sam’s work like she’s his foreman while Bucky grinned and watched the siblings good-naturedly pick at each other. Sam was probably out like a light and Bucky should be too.

He’s not.

He can’t get to sleep right away, but it’s peaceful to lie here on the couch, on his back, while the house gets dark and darker. Sarah left the nearest window cracked for him and a gentle breeze washes in with the chirp of insects. Bucky’s already looking forward to being woken by the sun streaming through in the morning. It’d be good to get from now to daylight in a single stretch of sleep; that’s what he fantasizes about while he lies on his back: no nightmares. His head’s propped up by the pillow he tells himself smells like Sarah, though it probably just smells like her laundry soap.

It’s hard to put his finger on what’s missing, why he can’t fall asleep, until he hears the soft shuffle of footsteps on carpet. They’re too close together to be Sam’s—either hesitant or made by child-sized feet. Bucky cranes his neck around, expecting to see someone walk past on their way to the kitchen for a glass of water. His gaze roams over nothing for a minute, then he slumps back as the footsteps retreat. Maybe it was Sam after all, getting up to look in on his nephews or something. It’s the sorta thing Bucky would do if he were an uncle; he’d treasure the time with those kids, try to remember everything about his visit so he could hang on to it when he found himself half a world away, in Berlin or Riga or Madripoor.

He’s settling, trapping the blanket against his chest with a heavy hand, when he hears the footsteps approach again. Then back away seconds later. Slowly, Bucky starts to smile to himself. It’s Sarah. Can only be her. She’s either trying to psych herself up to come in here and talk to him and failing, or trying to resist venturing down the hall and succeeding.

On her next attempt, she gets closer, and Bucky sits up, kicking the blanket aside, and drops his feet to the floor in anticipation of her rounding the corner. He’s nervously gripping the couch cushion on either side of his knees when she does.

“You sneaking past Sam?” he asks quietly.

Sarah jumps, pressing a hand to her chest.

“You scared me. I wasn’t sure you’d be awake.”

Bucky shrugs, dreamily fixated on her smile. One of her neighbours turns on their porchlight and now Sarah can probably see his smile too.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he says.

“Shoot. Did you need something else?”

Kinda funny how she’s pretending she was coming out here for another reason and is just making a detour for him. He knows better, but he’s got enough remnants of being a gentleman not to call her out on it.

“Nah. It’s nothing to do with you.” Bucky stares at her a few seconds and changes his mind. “You know what? Actually, it is you.”

“What is?” Sarah asks with a hushed, confused laugh.

“The reason I can’t get to sleep. Sarah…”

But she smiles and does what he did to the boys earlier—holds a finger to her lips.

With the confidence of a woman at ease in her own home and her own body, she steps forward. She wore a yellow t-shirt today, but the one she wears now is pale pink. It’s loose and worn and reveals the strong, elegant curve of her shoulder when she moves and it slips. Gazing up at her, Bucky shifts until he feels the back of the couch. His hands hover in the air as Sarah digs one knee, then the other, into the cushion on either side of him. She lowers herself onto his thighs.

Moving slow like the hour, deep like the black sky, Bucky runs his hands up her back.

Sarah’s palms land on his shoulders and, smiling, she confesses to him, “I like these.”

He’s smirking when she ducks her head to kiss him.

Now that he has her here—on his lap, in his arms—Bucky forgets every way he wanted to touch her earlier. How he was gonna woo her with tender contact applied just right. Well, thank god for Sarah. She sets the pace of the kiss and, when his hands go still at her upper back, reaches around to bring one of them back down to her waist. He can feel that there’s no bra beneath her shirt.

“Rusty,” he breathes when their mouths slide apart.

“You were on that old boat all day,” she reminds him. “You know I’ve got patience for rusty.”

Still, Bucky wants to do a little better, prove that maybe he’s what she had in mind when she decided he was worth smiling at. He cradles Sarah closer, pulling her in, dipping his fingers into the valley of her spine when she arches into him. They kiss firmer, then faster. At her quick nod of encouragement, he moves his hands to her hips. Lower.

“Sarah?” Sam slurs sleepily from down the hall. “You outta bed?”

Sarah presses a hand to Bucky’s chest and pushes off his lap, other hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. He chuckles too.

“As the Falcon, timing is one of his greatest strengths.”

“And as his sister,” Sarah counters, “it gets on my last nerve.”

“Well, I didn’t wanna say that, but…” Bucky grins.

“Sarah?” Sam calls out again.

She sighs.

“Is he trying to wake the boys?” She takes a step away from the couch, wearing a regretful smile. “I better go.”

Bucky catches himself before he can blurt out I’ll miss you. Overeager fool.

“See you in the morning?” Sarah checks, something shy about her now, but not in a bad way. Cautiously hopeful, Bucky thinks. He’s been feeling that way himself.

He gives her one more smile for the road.

“You bet.”

[fandomtookoverlife]

Spiral

Pairing: Hotch x fem!reader 

Summary: you received some life-changing news the day before, now you’re trying to keep focus and get a confession out of an unsub. Keeping focus has never been so hard, with your mind spinning and Hotch sending you further down the rabbit hole. Somehow things get even worse when the psychic unsub announces your news for all to hear. 

Note:  italics are reader thoughts 

Warning: anxiety/panic attack, break down, swearing 

Word count: 1.7k

Category: angst(?) 

A/N: this is not based on the cm with a psychic. Def channelling my own breakdowns while writing this, I hope it comes off how I intended.

I might do a second part where we learn of Hotch’s and reader’s relationship and we then jump to his reaction

Back story: in my mind the reader and Hotch like each other fucked, it became awkward and here we are

Other blog: @mac99martin

Masterlist  

---

Fuck psychics, sitting there all-knowing when everyone knows they’re full of shit, you don’t like psychics on normal days, when they’re unsubs, you hate them even more. Fuck psychics. 

Ok maybe your new found hate for psychics isn’t totally about them, (although the one in front of you definitely plays a part in it) you may have found out some very stressful, very shocking, life-altering news yesterday and you also may not be dealing with it very well. And by not dealing with it well, you mean not dealing with it at all. You've been avoiding and ignoring it, the rational part of your brain is telling you that this is not something you can ignore, but the other part of your brain is absolutely terrified and is using the case as an excuse not to deal with it. And you are using your dislike for psychics as an outlet for your emotions, is it right? No. is it healthy? No. but it’s helping and you’re freaking out so what are you going to do? 

Speaking of not helping, Hotch is with the unsub now. Not only is he not getting anywhere with her, but he is also so horribly distracting. You seriously need to focus but looking at him, all it’s doing is sending you into a spiral. All you want to do is put this unsub behind bars but your mind is fighting with itself: one part actively fighting to keep your brain far away from the topic that will remain nameless and unthought about. The other going in circles of panic and anxiety and terror. The unsub is helping the first, she’s a handy distraction. Hotch is helping the latter, you so much catch a glimpse of him and you revert into the frenzy that is your mind. Fuck, this fucking sucks, ok come on can’t focus on that, you can’t cry or stop breathing that can wait till later, now you need to focus. 

And that’s where the loop starts all over again: Focus-Hotch-Spiral-Focus-Hotch-Spiral...

-Focus You’re so lost in the war going on in your mind you completely lose all sense of reality only noticing that Hotch is not only no longer in the integration room when he calls your name. 

You try your best to snap out of it and control your breathing, but looking at Hotch, Hotch looking at you, you feel like you're shaking while your body remains perfectly still, your heart is pounding and you stop breathing. Okokok-breathe, focus, what’s going on right now. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Ok not bad that sounded pretty normal if you do say so yourself. 

“I asked what you thought.” His voice was stern and annoyed but his face looked worried. 

Snap. The. Fuck. Out. Of. It. “Oh um,” wait who’s said what, shit I really should have been paying attention. “Well clearly she wasn’t responding to you,” ok pretty good, actually now that you think about it she wasn’t responding to any of the male officers when they arrested her, “and she didn’t respond to the male officer earlier, anytime she talks to a man she becomes confident and flirtatious” Flirting: Hotch-Spiral, Focus “we should see how she reacts to a woman.” 

Ok, so you had your ups and downs but all in all that went pretty well. You avert your eyes from Hotch’s, focus focus focus focus… “Ok you’re in.” 

“Wh- me?” 

“Yes… you.” 

You know what? this can be good, small room, nothing to focus on except the case, no Hotch, ya I can do this. You give a nod, pick up your file and walk into the room. 

“Hello Ms.Shaw, I’m ssa Y/N Y/L/N.” you look down at your file making a show out of opening it while also keeping an eye on her. 

When Hotch entered earlier, doing something similar, she straightened her back and leaned forward, making a show out of her breasts, she half smirked and half-smiled when she looked up at him. 

When you introduce yourself she sat back in her seat, crossed her arms and glared at you. Unlike when she saw Hotch, she looked very displeased with you. 

You sat down across from her and gave her a smile, she narrowed her eyes and furthered her glare towards you. She eyes you up and down for a second before practically sneering at you, “what do you want” 

“I just want to talk” you put simply 

Maintaining eye contact she leaned forward “Bet you do” 

At this point, with Hotch, she had a smile on her face, enthusiastic to speak with him. Right now, she’s almost challenging you, she’s even getting defensive. 

“Probably want to talk about those murders you think I did” 

“The murders you did do” you respond all while having a sweet smile on your face. Won’t that just piss her off, and it does. 

She just hums in response, her face stone cold, staring you up and down, and then, she smiles, “I think we should talk about you.” She says it almost sweetly but you can tell that there’s mischief behind it. 

“Oh?” 

“Ya, you’ve been… busy lately…” 

you really couldn’t guess where she was going with this at this point, nowhere good so, “as have you” you retort back. 

“Hmm, but in different ways,” she smirks 

Hell ya in different ways, I’ve been working my ass off and you’ve been murdering people. 

“See I’ve been busy working, as a psychic, I use my power to help people, it’s very time-consuming-” 

Right power, helping, you don’t have and you don’t do shit 

“While you,” she looks you up and down again, “have been getting a very different sort of busy, haven’t you?” 

….wh- what is she- what is she even implying right now?

Busy like- and that’s when you’re reminded of your… state. Remembering hits you like a ton of bricks, solely because you had forgotten, the thought has your mind clouded again and your anxiety spiking. 

You’re back down a spiral, get back on topic this isn’t the time, “I’m not sure what you're getting at.” Breathe, “Oh come on, you know,” and she looks down again, if the table wasn’t in the way, you would say that she’s looking at your stomach, no no she’s not why would she- how could she- your mind is biased, it was already thinking about that and it jumped to conclusions, get back on topic. You can’t be thinking about this now. -focus. 

She leans in but doesn’t lower her voice, glancing up at the mirror, she’s very aware that people are listening in, and she doesn’t mind, “you’re pregnant” 

Wtfwtfwtfwtf no no no no, how could she possibly know that, you just found out, it’s not like your showing, she can’t know, how the fuck did she know that? 

She can see it all over your face, your mind is jumbled with thoughts again and you’re freaking out. 

She just sat back and smiled watching you break down, but she wasn’t done yet. 

The people behind the mirror couldn’t see your face to see how bad you’re freaking out, that mixed with their own shock, they weren’t helping, not that they nor you would know how they would help. 

“You looked surprised that I know that, you doubt my skills” skills- what- psychic- whatever 

“Or maybe you’re just in shock, you just found out recently right,” she clicks her tongue, “must be quite the surprise.” You feel so overwhelmed, this was supposed to get you away from all of that, your spiralling again, unable to pull yourself out of your break down that has been going on since you found out. Once again just the thought, the reminder, has you feeling like you can’t breathe, like you're going to be sick, like your head is spinning. “I can see this is a lot for you, but I think you’re forgetting one thing,” 

Spiral-spiral-spiral forgetting? Wha- wh- spiral-spiral-spiral-Hotch 

Your heart stops, you look her dead in the eye, you can see it, the mischief, she knows, she opens her mouth to say something- “SHUT UP” you stand up and yell at her. You’re panicked and desperate,

Your outburst shocks everyone behind the mirror, but it only makes her smile wider, “what you don’t want everyone to know?” 

“STOP” your losing it 

“Or you don’t want him to know?” 

(ok fine, maybe she is psychic)

“SHUT UP” you scream, your voice is cracking and your breaking 

“What you don’t want everyone to know your pregnant and that one of them got you-”

“STOP!” You slam your hand on the table and your eyes are watering. 

Morgan busts through the door, taking you into his arms and steering you out of the interrogation room and into the viewing room, only giving the unsub a glance as he slams the door behind him. 

Once you are in the viewing room you turn away from your team, your eyes still glossy, you’re shaking, you can barely breathe, that panic attack-mental breakdown you’ve been putting off, it’s finally catching up to you, and your feeling every second of the overwhelming… you don’t even know, just everything, and still trying to hold it in as you hyperventilate and remember the people around you. 

You do your best to hold in your emotions for a little longer as you go to leave the room, away from people. You hear Derek’s voice, “how much of that was true?” 

One more second one more second one more second, 

In out, in out, in out, “every word” is all you get out before you lose it and you basically run away. 

“Shittt,” the event weighs heavy on the team’s mind as they make sense of what just happened, “well, it wasn’t me.” Morgan, trying to lighten the mood best he can 

The team looks around the room “Well it certainly wasn’t me” Rossi horrified at what has just played out in front of him 

Spence's face goes absolutely red when Derek looks at him; he doesn’t have to say anything because as hotch speed walks out of the room, it is very clear who the father is. 

“Shitttt” 

---

Tags: @spencers-renaissance @averyhotchner

(I’ll tag anyone in part 2 who asks for it in the comments😘😘)

[stevesharrlngtons]

just a little downhill.

mickey x reader

summary: after a hard day of work, mickey comes home to a very unwelcome and unexpected guest: his little brother.

word count: 4.5k

a/n: mickey and his brother goodness! as briefly discussed, kevin’s face claim is pete davidson (: and if you’re curious, here is another discussion of mickey’s parents. i hope you enjoy and if you do, i’d love to hear it (:

Although Mickey had been out from under his parents order for years now, he never seemed to shake the responsibilities they had assigned him. 

When Mickey was old enough, with a high school diploma under his belt and not much else, he escaped two towns over to flee his parents and their needs. To, at the time, do his best to escape their overbearing asks and assumptions of him. He took very little when he fled in the night; a few articles of well worn clothing; his box of drugs and corresponding paraphernalia; an envelope of mementos of his relationship with you; and you, as well. You both escaped your grim situations with wild eyes and hearts, between flurried kisses and giggles, you made your way to your new lives. 

Now, all these years later, you both were still shacked up in your cozy ground floor apartment, with it’s warped tiles and shag carpets, and Mickey had never been happier. Sure, he worked a demanding manual labor job and he had few future prospects, but he was on his own and living with the woman he loved. To Mickey, there truly wasn’t anything better than that. He suspected he could be forsaken to any living conditions, demands or labor, but as long as he had you by his side, he would be happy as a clam. 

You were the one who kept him sane. The one who taught him how to float instead of thrashing in the water. The one who taught him the gentle caress of love. The one who was the only salve for any and all problems that were thrown his way. 

And when it came to his chaotic life, he needed your healing touch more often than he would like to admit. 

Because while the distance between him and his turbulent family offered excuses for why he couldn’t invariably swoop in and save the day, the milage didn’t often deter his parents from calling on Mickey whenever they needed something. Their expectations still held true no matter the separation.

Mickey was expected to come over and soothe tensions when their fights reached a volume to where the neighbors got involved. 

Mickey was expected to drop everything, no matter the circumstance, to help wrangle their old mutt whenever he escaped and began to terrorize the neighborhood kids.

Mickey was expected to drive the hour to their trailer whenever there was an appliance that needed fixing. Usually after his father had stormed off in frustration when he couldn’t do it himself. 

Mickey was also expected to fix a litany of other things that his parents refused to call in an expert about, but had no problem pawning it off on their son (even if he was no more qualified to fix things then they were).  

But above all, Mickey was expected to look out for his little brother. To watch out for him, and to take care of him when he couldn’t take care of himself. This had always been his most fervently requested task, and possibly the one he resented the most. 

And when he came home to find his fuck to of a little brother with his back against the brick siding of Mickey’s apartment building, a joint between his lips and his head angled toward the sun, he knew his everlasting duty to care for the kid was about to rear its ugly head once more. 

Today was just an exceptionally bad day for this to happen. 

Because before he even saw Kevin’s face, it had been a day where he had just wanted to come home, lay his head on your lap as you pressed delicate kisses to his skin. He needed to be enveloped in your soothing smell and coaxed into relaxation by your voice. He just needed you, because today had been awful. The last thing he needed was to deal with any member of his fucking family.

The day started off with the buddy he carpooled with burning a hole in his brand new seat cover on the way to work. Then it was announced that OSHA would be monitoring their site they were at for the morning, which meant nothing got done and the crew was way behind schedule. When lunch rolled around, Mickey dropped his sandwich on the ground, which caused his coworkers to start an uproar of teasing and laughter whenever he was around. And, of course, after he was already in their crosshairs, his drill decided to stop working, which only fueled the other mens mocking. 

And to make it all worse, his mother had been calling on a loop since noon. He refused to answer, not wanting to deal with her drunk ramblings or vicious criticisms, which just meant that the calls kept coming. Now that he thought of it, he was sure the sudden vibration in his pocket had been the reason he had dropped his sandwich in the first place.

Thanks mom. Fuck you.

“The fuck are you doing here, Kev?” Mickey grunted from around his cigarette as he approached his front door. 

“Didn't Ma call?” 

“I don’t answer her calls sober,” he shoved his key into the lock and pushed the door open with his shoulder.

As the door opened, Mickey cringed as Kevin quickly sprang to his feet and pushed past him into his home. He had expected it, but it still made his stomach drop as it happened. When Kevin planted himself somewhere, he was often hard to peel back up. Last time Kevin had come over to beg for money, he didn’t leave for four days, leaving a permanent lanky body print in Mickey’s couch. 

“Can’t really blame you for that,” Kevin chuckled as he collapsed onto the living room couch in a huff, “we didn’t invent The Scale for nothin’.” 

The Scale referred to the made up increment system the two invented in middle school on how high they had to be to pleasantly deal with their parents. Their mother was usually a Bill and Ted and their father was always at very least Cheech and Chong. The brothers sometimes would still refer to The Scale when they were going through a spurt of getting along. But this was not one of those times. 

Mickey hadn’t seen Kevin on an unencumbered social call in over two years. Kevin used to visit every weekend; to party, play video games or just spend time with his older brother; but now it was only under the guise of extorting money (that Mickey really didn’t have to give) or in a search of a place to crash while he was on the outs with their parents or whatever girl he was currently seeing. 

Because of his mother’s incessant calls and Kevin’s mention of her, he assumed it was the latter this time. 

“Yeah, well clearly you’ve already started,” Mickey grouched, as he tilted his head to the blunt that was still between his brother’s lips. 

Mickey was anything but a prude, but when his deadbeat brother came swaggering into his home with no humility or shame, smoking pot and bogarting his couch, Mickey suddenly turned into a stuffy Christian mother, sticking his nose up and huffing at the mention of any illicit substance. 

“Oh, I’m sorry man, you wanna hit?” Kevin asked, completely oblivious to his brother’s annoyance. 

“What are you doing here, Kev?” 

Kevin’s eyebrows raised at Mickey’s bluntness and whistled low under his breath, before settling back against the couch. 

“Take the stick out of you ass, Jesus Mick,” 

“I’m serious, Kev. What is it? Spit it out, I had a long fucking day. I don’t have the patience to deal with this.” 

“You sound like dad,” Kevin chuckled, smoke billowed from his mouth as he propped long legs onto the coffee table. 

His tolerance for Kevin running thin already, Mickey marched over to the couch and shoved his legs from the coffee table with haste. Kevin’s eyes grew wide with surprise and slight betrayal when he looked at his brother again. 

“I’m not fucking around, Kevin! (Y/N) is gonna be home any minute and I want you gone when she gets here,” Mickey raked a hand through his tousled locks and went in search of his work coat to find a new cigarette. 

“(Y/N) loves me,” 

“Yeah, because you prey on her kindness. Now tell me what it is or I’m calling dad to pick you up.” 

That seemed to scare him enough to reveal the reason for his visit.

“I need a job.” 

And there it was. Mickey let out an encompassing sigh as he turned his back to his baby brother. This wasn’t the first time Kevin had asked for a job, and Mickey doubted it would be the last. 

Others might applaud his brother’s initiative to better himself and search for personal contacts to find him work, but Mickey knew better. He had tried to help him get a job more times than he could count, and Kevin always did something to fuck it up. 

Whether it be never showing up, being high on the clock, failing drug tests or fighting with customers and coworkers, something always went wrong. Mickey had burned many a bridge to defend his brother from these employers, because no matter how insane Kevin made him, he was still his brother and he would be damned if anyone said a bad word about him. Other than him, of course. 

“Yeah? And what the fuck am I supposed to do about that?” Mickey challenged. 

“Talk to Stephen,” Kevin replied simply. 

“Fuck no!” Mickey almost laughed, “Man, I need this job, I can’t have you fucking it up for me.” 

“I won’t! I won’t fuck it up!” 

“Yeah, ok. Whatever you say, Kev.”

“I’m being serious!” 

“No, no way, dude. No, Kev. I can’t lose this job. I got bills and shit, now! Did you know you have to pay for garbage pick up at a place like this? Because I sure as shit didn’t! We can’t even bury it like dad did,” Mickey lectured, “and y’know what? I got a girl, one I’d really like to fucking keep. Which means actually keeping this stupid construction job to keep paying for fucking garbage. I can’t have you gettin’ us both canned.” 

“I’ve changed, Mick. I have!” Kevin reinforced when his brother rolled his eyes, “I’m twenty four now. I got like, perspective on stuff, and shit.” 

“Kev, -“ Mickey started, but didn’t continue as he heard a key in the front lock. 

Seconds later you appeared, hair piled high on your head and still adorning your work uniform. Even with his brother pissing him off and the weight of an awful day on his shoulders, Mickey couldn’t stop the goofy smile that spread over his face when he saw you. Worn from a hard day and in your boxy hotel maid get up, you were still the most gorgeous woman he had ever laid eyes on. 

“Hey, baby,” Mickey said as he crossed the living room quickly to greet you. 

“Hi, baby,” you looked up at him, a similar lovesick smile on your lips as Mickey wrapped you in a crushing embrace. 

You craned your head back to capture his pouted lips in a kiss. They will tinged with more nicotine than usual, and you knew something was off before you pulled apart. Your hands had begun to inch toward Mickey’s nape when you heard movement on the couch. When you pulled away, you saw him

“Oh, hey, Kev. I didn’t see you there, honey,” you offered him a kind smile as you moved to rest your cheek on Mickey’s chest.

Mickey tried to keep the scowl off his face as his brother grinned at you. 

“How ya been, (Y/N/N)? Man, it feels like it’s been ages!” his brother charmed, pushing up from the couch to come meet you for a hug. 

When you pulled away from Mickey to do so, Mickey swore you were taking a part of his resolve with you.

“It has, you don’t come ‘round like you used to,” you said, parting from Kevin to smoothe your hands over his broad, boney shoulders. As you inspected Mickey’s baby brother, you spied something new, “this a new addition?” 

You poked the ridge of black ink peeking out of his t-shirt, just below his collar bone. 

“Awh, yeah. Yeah it is,” Kevin pulled down the collar of his shirt enough for you to see the tattoo that joined the ranks of his many others, “it’s the Brooklyn Bridge.” 

“Oh,” you said, a little surprised by the choice, but admiried it nonetheless, “I like it. It’s nice linework. Can’t say the same for the rest of ‘em, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, very funny!”

You winked up at him before you removed yourself from his orbit to return to Mickey’s. Though, on your way back to your man, you saw the firm look of displeasure on his face, and that face was directed firmly at his brother. You stopped in your tracks and traded glances between the two boys, one angry and one bashful, before you spoke. 

“Alright, what’s goin’ on?” 

“What do you think is goin’ on?” “Nothin’.” the brothers spoke in unison. 

You turned your gaze hard at Mickey. He let silence hang in the air for a long beat before he spoke.

“Kev is lookin’ for a hand out. But what’s new?” Mickey scoffed. He planted a swift kiss to the crown of your head before he walked past the both of you to the kitchen. 

“Hey, fuck you man! All I was asking for was help!” Kevin shot back, he turned quickly on his heel to face his brother. 

“I can’t give you any fuckin’ help, Kev! Look what I got,” Mickey waved widley, “there ain’t shit here to give!”

“You could give me your contacts, I could start sellin’ the shit you have left from -” 

“You aren’t taking my contacts and you’re not touching the shit I got from Georgia. That’s mine to do what I please with,” Mickey bellowed, yelling louder than you’d ever heard before, “I don’t need you fucking up the relationship I have with my clients, either.” 

“Clients,” Kevin said in a mocking, posh accent, “their fucking drug addicts!” 

“Yeah? And what the fuck are you, again?” 

“What the fuck am I? What the fuck are you, man?” 

The two had slowly begun to advance toward each other in their squabble, and now were only a pace apart. You knew if they were to get any closer, fists would be thrown. It wouldn’t be a good fight, neither boy had ever been good in physical altercations. The fight would likely consist of misthrown punches and cheap shot kicks, but that didn’t matter. You didn’t want either to get hurt or take anything too far. 

“That’s enough!” you shouted over their bickering, “Mick, c’mon. Come talk to me in the bedroom, please.” 

Mickey’s angry expression faltered the moment he looked over Kevin’s shoulder at you, “Baby, I can handle this.” 

“Mickey. Bedroom. Now.” you had already started to head that way, and Mickey knew if he wasn’t right behind you, he’d be in deep shit. 

With a petulant sigh, he followed you down the hall to the bedroom and shut the door behind him when he entered. You had sat on the edge of the bed and Mickey found his place to slouch against the opposite wall. 

“I can’t deal with him, baby. I can’t deal with his bullshit anymore,” he said, defeated. 

“He’s your brother, Mick. You love him. And sometimes the people you love need more help than you do.” 

“But that’s the thing, he needs so much more. He takes and he takes and he takes, and somehow, he still needs more. I can’t give him anything else. No one can. He’s more of a fuck up than I am, and that’s saying something,” Mickey puffed. 

“You’re not a fuck up, Mick,” you frowned, your brows peaking with heartache. 

Mickey gave you a pointed look, “I kinda am. You don’t gotta sugar coat it.”

You stood from the bed and crossed the short space between you two. When you reached him, you wrapped your arms around his waist and nestled close to his chest. Mickey accepted your embrace easily and gratefully. 

“You are not a fuck up, baby. You have a good job, you have a good life. You provide for me, for our little two person family. And you make me happier than I ever thought possible... you simply aren’t a fuck up because no man I love could be,” you smiled at the tail end of your sentence. 

You propped your chin on his chest like you had minutes earlier and looked deep into his green eyes, both soft and brimming with adoration. 

“I fucking love you so much, you know that?” he smiled, little crow's feet growing by his eyes as he did. 

“I do. And I love you, too.” 

Mickey sighed, relaxation soothing his muscles at the sound of your confession. He gently pressed your cheek back to his chest and reveled in the feeling of your body against his. 

“But really, baby, what are we gonna do about Kev?” you asked after a moment of calm. 

Mickey’s brows furrowed, the pressure behind them intense and blaring. 

“He’s not our problems, baby. He’s an adult.” 

“He is. But he’s also a sweet kid with a good heart, and he just needs some extra help. And I think we should try to help, at least the best we can.” 

Mickey’s head made a thud as he collapsed to the wall behind him, “baby, we can’t keep doing this. We can’t keep bailing him out. We can’t keep bailing them out.”

The image of his parents popped behind his eyes, both fragile and gray and somehow even crueler than ever. He didn’t want to spend his life being their eternal whipping boy, cleaning up their messes when they couldn’t. And that included the mess they had made in his brother.

“This isn’t about them, alright? Fuck them, you know precisely what I think of your parents,” you frowned, and Mickey felt his heart pick up with pride at your protectiveness, “but you also know what I think about Kevin. He really is a good kid deep down. He’s talented. He just needs a little more support before he’s gonna feel comfortable jumping out on his own.” 

“He still drives me fucking insane…” Mickey retorted.

“He’s your little brother, of course he does.”

“Baby, he really does. You have no idea how much that little shit gets under my skin.”

“Oh, c’mon! You love him! He’s like, sad, high, tattooed Big Bird,” you giggled as you heard a grumble vibrate in Mickey’s chest. 

“Yeah? Well, then what am I?” 

You pulled away from him once more, but only far enough to look him in the eyes. 

“You’re like, strong, sexy, smart Big Bird,” you said, your voice a seductive purr as you placed a few chaste kisses to his jaw, “or Snuffleupagus.” 

Mickey’s face twisted in confusion and slight disgust, “why?” 

“Because he was always my favorite when I was a kid.” 

And his expression instantly extinguished into one of warmth and tenderness. Emerald eyes bathing you in liquid love. 

“You just never stop being cute, do you?” he grinned. 

“Nope,” you said, letting the work pop from your lips. 

He placed a gentle kiss to your forehead and took a deep breath of your pheromones; your sun bathed skin and your sweet smelling hair. And as he let his lips stay perched on your skull, he realized that he would do anything for you, no matter the request. He had had this feeling many times before; of his overwhelming and striking devotion to you; though it never ceased to rattle his swelling heart in his chest, and remind him the exact reason he was put on this earth: to make you happy. 

So, if you wanted him to try and help Kevin, then he would. It was the least he could do for all the happiness and love you brought to him. 

But, if he was being honest with himself, there was always going to be a part of him that wanted to nurture his baby brother in any way he could. 

Somewhere in his mind and his heart, Kevin would always be the small blushing bundle handed off to him in a dingy hospital room. It was one of his first formative memories, his little brother wrapped in a white blanket as his mother’s groggy eyes looked upon both of them. Mickey had never held a baby, let alone a newborn, and the tiny writhing creature looked very strange to him, red and angry and crying.

A month before Mickey’s mother would give birth to Kevin, their father had stormed out of the house, and by the time her water had broken he had still yet to turn. So pained and afraid, his mother had piled Mickey in the car after her and drove them both to the hospital. A cigarette in one hand, while her other gave the steering wheel a death grip. As she groaned with contractions and cursed at the traffic, she said something to him that he never forgot: 

“You are the real man of the house, Mickey-honey,” she said in her graveled voice, “this little boy is always gonna look up to you. You gotta live up to that.” 

And that message had bounced around between his ears as his mother, alone and in extraordinary agony, gave birth to his brother. Who as he had held him in his tiny spindly arms, Mickey knew that he would keep him safe forever. No matter what.

A part of that soul promise to his blood now seemed to be finding Kevin a job to keep him afloat. To keep him out of trouble and away from falling down the path their parents had. He honored past his past self in that moment, continuing on with the pledge to keep his brother safe. 

“Fine,” Mickey muttered to your skin, “we’ll help ‘im.” 

“Really?” 

Mickey simply shrugged. 

You moved your hands from where they had been secured behind his waist to come and cradle his cheeks, “you’re a good man, Mick.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he played off, eyelids fluttering. 

“The best man I know,” and you kissed him tenderly, the soft feeling of your lips electrifying him.

He hummed when you pulled away, but with more anguish than pleasure. 

“Let’s get this over with,” Mickey said. He quickly untangled himself from you and exited the bedroom before you could even process your post kiss haze. 

“Kev,” Mickey called, finding his brother laying down on the couch now, the television remote in his hand as he flipped channels, “get the fuck up.” 

“Hey, woah, listen Mickey, alright? I’m sorry! I am, I’m sorry,” Kevin began, stammering nervously. 

Mickey could tell that his brother was trying to save face. That he was trying to bargain for his help, and that he believed that Mickey was coming back to tell him to leave and never come back. But he didn’t stop him, Mickey thought Kevin deserved to squirm a bit. 

“I know I’ve fucked up, like really fucked up over and over again. But I got this this time, ok? I’m like, I’m ready for, I don’t know, a fresh start. I’m ready to do better.” 

Mickey simply crossed his arms as his brother stared up at him with heavy set brown eyes. They were flickering around the room, scared to look at his older brother who loomed over him. Mickey was sure he was searching for you, knowing he could always grovel at your feet for sympathy. 

“Fuck! What am I supposed to say, stop being such a-“ but Kevin stopped himself before he finished, knowing it likely wasn’t smart to start name calling the person he was asking a favor of. 

“No, no, continue. What am I being? Hm?” Mickey raised an eyebrow. 

Kevin’s jaw tightened, “.... a really, good guy.” 

His pained voice would have made Mickey laugh if he wasn’t wearing a stoic persona. It reminded him of when Kevin was forced to apologize as a child, their dad’s hand pulling up his ear as he spat out an apology. 

“Imma ask around, alright? Been hearing about some landscape work a buddy of mine has been talking about. I’ll call you tomorrow.” he finally said, putting his anxious brother out of his misery. 

“No shit?” Kevin asked with a suspicious lilt. 

“No shit. And if you get the fuck out of my house in the next five seconds, I might even put in a good word for you.” 

“Fuck,” Kevin exhaled, his body deflated like a balloon against the cushion, “you have no idea-“ 

“Nope, I don’t,” Mickey interjected, “and I don’t want to. Now fuck off, dude. My lady is home and I don’t need you here.” 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, alright!” Kevin said as he was shooed off the couch and to the door, “thank you, (Y/N/N), you hear me, babe?” 

You heard the commotion from the bedroom and popped your head out to watch Mickey escorting Kevin out. Stripped down from your uniform and now bundled in a pair of Mickey’s thread bear sweatpants and his favorite Scorpions t-shirt. 

“You look gorgeous, by the way! So good, does Mickey tell you enough?” Kevin had widened his gangly limbs in the door frame to keep his brother, who was shoving him quite hard, to stop him from leaving. 

“He does, Kev. I promise,” you grinned at the brotherly exchange as they threw jabs at each other, “I’ll see you soon, honey.” 

“Bye, (Y/N/N)!” was the last thing Kevin got out before Mickey slammed the door in his face, not worrying about if there were stray fingers left behind. 

“That fucking kid…” Mickey said under his breath, locking the deadbolt with a resound click. 

You pushed away from where you had leant against the wall and walked toward him, “my man… my sweet, strong man who has such a big heart and helps out his family.” 

You plastered yourself to his back, bringing your hands down to fiddle with the hem of his shirt, “my man who provides for me,” you pressed a kiss to his shoulder, “for the people he loves,” one to his trap, “who is the best person I’ve ever known,” one to his neck. 

Mickey whimpered under your ministrations, caught up in the whispered pleasure of your lips and nimble fingers that greedily took inventory of his torso.

“You’re really tryin’ to start something, huh?” he chuckled as you began to suck on his pulse point. 

“And if I was?” 

As soon as the last syllable left your mouth, Mickey had twisted around to take handfuls of your thighs to hitch you up around his waist. 

You couldn’t hold in the excited giggle that bubbled from your chest as he marched you both back toward your room in quick succession. His long strides getting you both back between the sheets in no time. All thoughts of  dropped sandwiches and burn holes and faulty equipment and pesky little brothers, gone. Now, there was only you, and that was just the way Mickey liked it. 

if you follow me you know that i have been going through a major writing block and a creativity dry spell, so while i don’t think this is my best work, it is fun and silly and soft and nice to write (:  if you enjoyed, i would really love it hear it <3 ‘til next time!

[chalkrevelations]

And finally, here we are, Episode 36 of Word of Honor, and I have some FEELINGS. Let me show you them.

There also will be Episode 37 here, btw, because I’m not gonna do a separate reaction for a three-minute episode, no matter how grateful I am that we got it.

(Spoilers, so if that’s not what you want right now, scroll on by and come back after you’ve watched it. Them.)

Let’s get to the meat of the episode right away: THE HAIRPIN. And Wen Kexing knowing Zhou Zishu would have it, because he’d definitely take it with him if he was going on a suicide mission! Y’all. I really have to yell about this for a minute: That’s how secure WKX has become in his knowledge of what he means to ZZS! After all that time angsting and hiding the truth of his identity and worrying that he’s not worthy of ZZS and that he’d be rejected if ZZS knew the truth about him! But now, WKX has finally reached a point where he understands and knows (zhiji, the one I know) he’s so important to ZZS that ZZS would never ever go off to die without taking his most precious possession, the hairpin that his husband gave him! I can’t. My heart. This is like a declaration, after all that time saying they were zhiji, that WKX finally is able to truly see ZZS as that, to know him in his bones, and all of this is also delivered in the middle of WKX in a strop, irritably chastising his husband as an evil brat for running away from home to get himself killed, with Gong Jun’s little  >:(  face in full effect, and I am so filled with love for this show and this couple at this point that I have to pause Youtube just so I can roll around on the sofa, clutching at my chest and scaring the cats with my inarticulate noises. This is so good, y’all. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted. Also, now you know how it feels, WKX, you asshole. Which I suppose is why you even confess that it will would be more painful for the one who survives when if the other dies. And you were prepared to do that to him a second time? I cannot believe you, you asshole. You get to sleep on the ice couch for a month.

And then there’s some Six Cultivation Power mind-melding and what looks to be an INCREDIBLY STUPID and HEARTBREAKING ending that would leave us Burying One of Our Gays, so it’s a good thing Episode 37 (all three minutes of it) exists. It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, here, show. Some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues, including the spottiness of human recall, the possibility (based on the fact they’re still on the mountain in Ep 37) that Chengling never actually saw either of them again to get the full story, and the way Gao Xiaolian basically calls bs on the whole thing. But this is still a gossamer-thin thread on which to hang Ep 37. Ep 37 basically functions as reassurance because of the mere fact of its existence, because they’re clearly both alive, right there in front of your face, regardless of the other fact that it doesn’t actually make any sense, based on Ep 36. It ultimately doesn’t matter if there is no Step 2, because Step 3: Profit! is … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen. No matter how vaguely unsatisfying the lack of Step 2 may be.

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot - queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly just enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands. (I mean, barring anything else, they’re a couple in the original source material, so checkmate, censorship.) So, are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening at the end of Ep 36 - what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling - isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told - by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level - is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? Is Ep 37 canon? Does it matter, when “what is canon” is already so slippery on this show, where you can apparently lip-read something that’s different than what you’re hearing, and it functions as canon because of the mere fact of its existence, because it’s clearly … right there. In evidence. Happening. On your screen.

Anyway, just some thoughts on all that, which I guess is my own fanwankery work to join up the end of Ep 36 with Ep 37, which was, of course, delightful. No matter how much I might bemoan the lack of Step 2, I had a stupid, dopey grin on my face all the way through Ep 37 and might have even teared up a tiny bit at the very end. You can’t prove anything. Lemme tell you, though, it’s a good idea to have 37 on hand when you run into the brick wall of the end of 36, because while WKX’s willingness to sacrifice himself for love is theoretically great, it is not something I actually want to see come to fruition, given the pall it would cast over the entire joyous experience that the ZZS/WKX relationship is throughout the rest of the show. Sure, there’s always fic, but there’s a heaviness that hangs over the Bury Your Gays trope, and it’s retroactively ruined shows for me before. So THANK YOU, to those of you who hooked me up so I could immediately move on to Ep 37.

What else? Other things:

OK, so, first, I have to get this out of the way: Did we actually already see all of those “flashbacks” we get in the first part of the ep, during the conversation between Zhou Zishu and Jing Beiyuan, when all the political stuff is supposed to be finally falling together to give us the big picture? I would have to go back and scrummage through those eps to be sure, and I’m not going to spend time doing that (yet) when I still need to do some keysmashing about Zhou Zishu and Wen Kexing OH MY GOD, but I do feel like some of this was new information, not just stuff that I’d glossed over because it didn’t seem important at the time? If so, not on, show. I will be keeping an eye out for that on re-watch. I am, however, perfectly willing to accept – if it turns out to be true – that you utterly distracted me with the failboats-in-love storyline, to the detriment of my focus on, you know, plot or whatever. It’s happened before. (It’s one of the reasons I need to go back and watch The Untamed again, at some point.)

OMG FAKE KEY! And as ZZS points out, this has been foreshadowed for us from early on, with WKX’s fake Glazed Armors plot. :bangs table with fist: YES. This show is going to reward re-watching SO MUCH.

Duan Pengju, oh my god, this asshole. The look on his face when the Armory didn’t open was so gratifying. Also, ha. I wondered when ZZS was finally going to be done with his shit. In fact, so much gratification in this whole scene. Xie Wang’s face when he realizes WKX double-crossed him – what, did you think you were the only tricksy one in that little alliance, Xie’er? And, holy shit – I cannot believe that Xie’er actually words this as WKX failing him, taking us back around to this theme one more time again. I would maybe feel a little worse for you if you hadn’t been a hairsbreadth away from killing him before ZZS stopped you in the last ep, Xie’er. Also if you hadn’t helped get A-Xiang killed. So I think the fail in this relationship is going both ways. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like you’re going to get the time WKX had to start untangling yourself from the ways your abuser has fucked you up and over.

It once again becomes blindingly clear why ZZS has been my ride-or-die during this whole thing: Under the grumpy, irritable, day-drinking yet somehow eminently practical exterior, he’s actually an idealistic do-gooder who just wants to make the world a better place for people and sacrifice himself for great justice. Never let it be said that I don’t have a type. Also, I mean. Zhang Zhehan’s FACE. Let’s don’t discount the power of that.

Final word: Don’t miss Ep 37. All three minutes of it. They are perhaps the most important three minutes of the entire show.

(I mean, not FINAL final word. I expect to be going back for a re-watch and posting more things, particularly on eps from before I started typing up 1000K-word reactions this first time around.)

[gustafsnightangel]

Shattered Lives Ch 40 Pt 3

They were awake early, first by Lily, closely followed by three excited boys, it was snow fort building day. The kids were up and dressed in record time, Brendan taking it upon himself to get Lily ready to hurry the process along, the twins practically dragging Gustaf out of bed before he caved.

“Ok, ok, I’m getting up.” He chuckled. “Go help Brendan with breakfast and Lily, we’ll be right there.” He said to the twins, Sildie’s giggle into his shoulder had him smiling. “I’m starting to regret my decision.” He quipped, hands roaming that lush body he’d ravaged the night before.

“It’ll be fun and they’re so happy.” She cupped his face with her hand and kissed him sweetly. “You make them so happy love.”

“We’ll see after I bury them in the snow up to their eyeballs.” He nuzzled his face into her neck, her scent arousing him. “Ever had sex in a snow fort?” He asked slyly, her burst of laughter was a sure fire no.

“No I haven’t.”

“Well if we put a roof on it and make it an igloo.” He kissed her longingly. “I might take you out there and fuck you in it.” He growled.

“That would be one to cross off the bucket list.” She laughed.

“It would. You could be my snow kitten.” He purred.

“It’ll be cold.”

“I’ll warm you up.” He kissed her again and pressed her into the mattress. “God I wish I had more time with you this morning to ravage you again.” He devoured her mouth and then pulled away. “I have to get up and shower before we give three boys an education when they come looking for us.” Her laugh always made him smile. The one that he only heard when she was stress free, guilt free, grief free, and genuinely happy, at peace with the world around her and her place in it. God he wanted more of that for her.

Showered and dressed Gustaf found the boys and Lily at the table eating, fueling up for a long day of snow fort construction. Making tea they discussed their fort, or rather the main fort and three smaller walls for the snowball fight, the boys were thinking long term. “This might take a couple of days to build.” He said gently, not wanting them to get their hopes up of everything being completed in one day.

“We can build and then do something else for a bit for a break.” Brendan suggested.

“I like that plan. And no throwing snowballs until we declare a snowball fight day.” He smirked, knowing the twins would shove more snow down his shirt given the opportunity. “We build, then we have a few days having the snowball fight ok?” All three agreed and Lily squealed making them all laugh.

Sildie emerged from the bedroom to a laughter filled room. What she wouldn’t do to have the kids this happy all the time. She knew there would be tears and grief again at some point, but this was such a relief, acknowledgment they were healing. She sat and ate with Gustaf, the kids putting on layers and boots and coats. “You taking all four or you want me to keep Lily in here?” She asked as she sipped her tea.

“Taking all four. Lily will have fun throwing snow at the boys.” He grinned.

“Brave, brave man.” She chuckled. “You ok if I kick back and read for a little bit?”

“Sore after yesterday’s hike?” He asked slyly, not meaning the hike at all.

“A little stiff that’s all.” He leaned over and kissed her tenderly.

“I’ll massage it out later.” He growled and she snorted a laugh.

“I’m sure you will.” His grin was wicked, the sparkle in those Nordic blue eyes mischievous. “I’ll come out for a while and take some pictures, maybe sit out there in the sun and read, keep and eye on Lily.”

“Whatever you want to do love.”

“That’s the thing I’m a little lost.” She murmured.

“Idle hands are the devils plaything.” He muttered as he stood.

“You better watch out then.” She looked at him from under her lashes and bit her bottom lip.

“Careful kitten.” He growled at her ear. “I’m keeping score and that perfect ass of yours is going to be fire engine red when I’m done with you.” The ripple of arousal that shuddered through her made him grin. “You like the sound of that don’t you? Hmmm?” Her kiss was her answer, hungry, for him.

“Go make your fort.” She scoffed and playfully pushed him away.

Gustaf took the kids outside and helped them choose the location for their main fort and where they would build their three smaller walls for the snowball fight. They spent the morning crafting bricks of snow and packing down the floor of the fort. Sildie sat reading and taking pictures, a few videos, and watched as Gustaf and the kids bonded. It was so important for them to have this time and she was grateful that she’d found someone like Gustaf who wanted her as much as the four kids that came as a package deal. She ventured out with Lily and they started a small snowman, the tiny girl having the time of her life tossing more snow around and giggling as it rained down on her. By the time lunch rolled around they had five layers of bricks up for the main fort and Lily had built a snowman, sort of. It looked more like a blob but she was having fun.

“After lunch we can pack the gaps.” Gustaf said as he sat next to Sildie, the picnic style lunch an easier solution than shedding boots and jackets to eat inside.

“Something Lily can help with too.” Liam said taking a bite of his pizza.

“We have to be careful with Lily, make sure her fingers don’t get too cold.” Sildie said closing the front door bringing some hot chocolate and cookies out. She loved how the boys wanted to include their sister in everything they did as a family.

“Oh.” His face fell.

“She can help love. Just like when we built the snowman earlier. We just have to keep an eye out. Her fingers are much smaller than yours and mine, and she can’t voice what she’s feeling. You can tell me your hands are cold, she doesn’t have those words yet or know what they mean so we have to remember to check her fingers.”

They devoured the cookies, Lily asking for a second one and Gustaf giving in. Sildie sat with her book as the construction continued and by mid afternoon they’d started on the roof when Lily needed her nap. She fussed, not wanting to go down, but her body was clearly overruling her. Stripping down Sildie curled up in their bed with her, content with reading while the tiny girl slept, those wayward thoughts of having kids with Gustaf flitting in and out of her mind.

With the light fading, the boys as well, Gustaf called it a day and herded the kids inside. They were beat, but they had an igloo, complete with roof. Although how stable that roof was he couldn’t say. They could spend some of the morning tomorrow doing the other three walls for the snowball fight and call it good. The kids went to take showers and warm up as he stood in the doorway to their room and smiled. His two best girls curled up in their bed fast asleep. “You’re going to make a great mother someday love.” He murmured to himself as he snuck a few photos. Closing the door quietly he went to the kitchen to start dinner.

“Mum mum mum.” Lily patted her cheek softly.

“I’m awake little lady, just resting my eyes.” She chuckled and snuggled the child in closer, giving her smooches. She took Lily to bathe and get in her pajamas and realized it was very quiet in the cabin. Coming out to the living room four boys were curled up in front of the fire listening to Gustaf read Harry Potter. Lily squirmed in her arms crying a dad dad, and as her tiny feet hit the floor she was off running to him for a cuddle. Their bond was so strong, she thought, and her heart swelled. “He’s so good with them Quinn.” She whispered. “Don’t be mad at me for wanting this.”

“Well hello little lady.” He chuckled, that deep rumble Sildie adored filling the room as he snuggled Lily to him. “You going to help?” He said and kissed her head as he kept reading.

Sildie made tea, noticing the stew nearly ready on the stove, the timer ticking by. It was the little things he did, just took care of that made her feel so loved. The little things she didn’t have to worry about so she could read, or take a nap, or just have five minutes to herself and breathe. But he did them because he wanted to, not because he had to, or was asked to, and it was also the reason she sometimes felt she was taking advantage of him. “You’re not.” She muttered quietly under her breath. “He does it because he wants to. It’s his choice.” And it was, sometimes she just had to remind herself of that.

The boys sat around the table as the timer went off, Gustaf coming into the kitchen to help, Lily attached to his hip.

“I’ve got it, go sit.” She tapped a hand on his chest and kissed him sweetly.

“Good nap?”

“Yes. Didn’t really mean to crash out but I did.” She chuckled. “It’s still early so this one should go down normal time.”

“Good to know.” He growled. “Because even though I’m tired after today, I have a craving for you.” He breathed, and kissed her temple. She felt her pussy clench, just the thought of him fucking her was enough to get her system buzzed. “I’ve wanted you all day.” The brush of his fingers at her hip sent a shot of arousal to her core as she tried to get the garlic bread ready for dinner, his low chuckle mischievous.

They sat and ate, the twins telling her all about their afternoon and that she needed to go and check out the fort. She assured them she would when the sun was up. After dinner the kids cleaned their teeth and crashed out early, the days activities wiping them out. Gustaf sat on the floor in Lily’s room, the little lady tired and nearly asleep holding onto his fingers. Standing at the door she videoed him talking to Lily, soothing her, it might come in handy when he was away and homesick. It would be worse for him this time around and she was getting herself prepared to help him anyway she could. Lily would feel the separation more this time too, something Sildie wasn’t looking forward to. These moments seemed fleeting knowing he’d be gone for three months, and she’d capture and keep as many of them as possible.

He was tired, the exercise from the day had started to catch up with him. Finishing in the bathroom he crawled into bed, Sildie sitting up reading as he sighed into the pillow.

“Long day.” She chuckled.

“A lot of exercise.” His huff was one of humor. Even as he said that his hand wandered up her thigh, he still wanted her, craved the feel of her. She startled him when she snapped her book shut, placed it on the nightstand, and moved to straddle him, his semi hard erection pressing against her.

“Feels like you’re up for something.” She grinned, lips ghosting his.

“I’m always up for something with you love.” His fingers tangling in her hair as he devoured that clever mouth.

“Your turn to lay there and take what I give you.” She breathed and gently rocked her hips, her slick heat coating his cock.

“You going to ride me kitten?” He asked, dusty blue eyes finding hers.

“Mmmm, eventually.” She hummed and nipped his jaw before heading south over his chest and torso to kneel between his thighs. Hands spread his hips wide until his feet were flat on the bed, her tongue tasting him as she settled in to feast. As her lips kissed over thigh and torso, her fingers grazed his package sending fireworks off in his brain, the light scrape of her nails enough to make him hiss. “You like it when I do that.” She purred and did it again to emphasize her point, the hiss turning into a growl as she licked the base of his cock. Teasing him relentlessly she built his release up, and by the time she took him into her mouth to suck on him he was ready to beg her to let him come.

“Fuck kitten you feel so good.” He groaned as he thrust up into her mouth gently, his mind scrambled by the sensation of those nails raking his balls and her mouth sucking him into oblivion. She stopped as he peaked, the low whimper of frustration making her smile as she released him with an audible pop. Crawling up his body she kissed him, tongue teasing before she climbed off him and straddled him to face his feet. Hands guided his legs down to lay flat and slightly apart. Scooting forward she took his cock in her hand and stroked him, his hands kneading her ass as she positioned him at her entrance. Taking a hold of his ankles she impaled herself on his cock slowly.

“Kitten.” He choked, arching his head back as her tightness enveloped him, fuck she felt good. Moving her hands to the mattress she pressed against his ankles for him to widen his legs stretching her hips as much as her body would allow. Her soft moan as she started to ride him causing him to grip her ass and hiss as she took him apart.

As she rode him he slipped his fingers through her wetness, those silken folds spread wide for him to play with. “Let me feel you come kitten.” He said as he stroked slick fingers around her back door. She tensed as he toyed with her puckered hole, the orgasm looming, he felt it flutter around his rigid member. As she thrust down onto him he slipped two long fingers into her ass, the sudden fullness tipping her over the edge. With a soft cry she came hard, her pussy spasming around his cock.

“Don’t stop.” She cried and rode him harder, those long digits sinking further into her ass, the push and pull filling her deliciously. “Daddy don’t stop.”

With her this tight he wasn’t going to last, his own breathing becoming ragged as he held of blowing his load. As she crested those nails raked his package, the heel of her hand on her clit. She fucked him, took everything she needed from him for her own pleasure, giving him everything of herself in return.

“Daddy.” She cried as she teetered, her rhythm becoming faster as she took them both over the edge.

“Fuck kitten.” He groaned as he came, sparks dancing in his vision. She kept the torturous pace until they were both spent. Resting where she was she forced air into her lungs, breath ragged. A grin bloomed on her face when she felt him sit up and curl over her, hands supporting her, the need to feel her close. “I love it when you fuck me.” He growled, chest still heaving and gently bit down on her shoulder before sucking it. “Your moves kitten are out of this world.”

“I love taking you.” Her hand hooked behind his neck and she turned to kiss him tenderly. “Taking what I want, but giving you everything in return.” She kissed him again.

“Keep kissing me like that and I’ll have to return the favor.” He chuckled.

“If you’re not asleep first.” She grinned, he looked tired.

Eventually untangling themselves and bathroom hygiene seen to, they snuggled warm and satisfied. He had every intention of rocking her world again, but the toll of playing in the snow all day won the battle and pulled him under.

“Sleep love.” She murmured as she felt him relax as she stroked his scalp toying with the longer scruff of hair he’d been growing out. Laying there she let her mind drift, finally having the time and space to think about their future, to actually start to lay down roots. She plunged into sleep with him a while later, thoughts of their own brood of kids in the forefront of her dreams.

The scream that tore through the night woke him from a dead sleep with a start. He looked at his sleeping goddess beside him, Sildie was still out cold and he smirked. The woman could sleep through a nuclear disaster. Lily’s cry came again through the monitor, the little lady clearly not happy about something. “I’m coming Lily bear.” He murmured as he untangled himself from Sildie and got out of bed. Pulling on some sweatpants he padded out to Lily’s bedroom, the poor girl was beyond it. “What’s wrong little lady?” He soothed as he picked her up. Snuggling her in close the sobs of dad dad muffled into his chest broke his heart. “You have a bad dream? Hmmm?” He rocked from side to side the movement soothing her a little. “Shall we get you cleaned up? Have some cuddles?”

“Dad dad dad.” She cried, the tone softer now.

“You’re fingers are all cold.” He said laying her down to change her. “You get cold little one?” Once changed he fished out a thicker set of pajamas and dressed her.

“She ok?” Sildie mumbled from the doorway as he picked Lily up and curled her in wrapping the blanket around her as well.

“I think she got a little cold.” Damn he loved the look of her like this. Sleepy and crumpled, it was sexy as sin. “Go back to bed love, I’ve got her.” He murmured as she came to him and simply wrapped her arms around him and swayed.

“I love you.” She said softly.

“I love you too. Go back to bed.” He chuckled.

“You’re sure?” She mumbled, almost asleep on her feet.

“I’m sure.” He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Ok.”

He chuckled as she shuffled back to bed. She was so adorable like this, but knew she’d kick his ass if he told her that. “Alright little lady. Back to bed for you too.” Lily had grown heavy in his arms.

He put Lily in her crib and took two steps before she started crying again. She wasn’t having it. She wanted Gustaf and he knew deep down she wouldn’t settle again tonight without him. “All right.” He soothed as he picked her up again. “You’re all right Lily.” He sighed. “Let me get my book and you can sleep on me while I read.” It was 3 am anyway and he doubted he was getting anymore sleep tonight.

With a quietly sobbing Lily in his arms he went into their room and grabbed his book from the nightstand, being careful not to disturb Sildie.

“Come to bed love.” She mumbled.

“She won’t go down, I’ll read on the couch with her, so you can get some more sleep.” He said and she rolled over to look at him.

“Bring her in here too.” She murmured tugging the covers back. “We’ll all snuggle up.”

Tossing his book back on the nightstand he did as she asked, all three of them curling up together under the covers. Lily’s sobs eventually turned into even breaths, the tiny girl finally sleeping.

“She’s asleep.” Sildie said softly.

“I can go try to put her into her bed.” He said, his fingers drifting up and down her naked body.

“No it’s ok.” She leaned up and kissed him tenderly. “Close your eyes love. Sleep some more.” His arm stiffened and drew her closer.

“My two best girls, my family. You’re beautiful love. Every inch of you. Inside and out.” He kissed her sweetly before she snuggled in closer, the three of them eventually falling back to sleep.

The next few days passed in much the same fashion as the ones before it, minus Lily invading their bed and sleeping on Gustaf. Days of fort building and setting up for their snowball fight, building a snow family that now stood proudly beside the fort, and a Lily sized snowball fight where the boys got to be a little sillier than usual.

They’d spent the day finishing the battle ground, the snowball fight scheduled for high noon tomorrow, and we’re now snowboarding on the small slope at the rear of the cabin. While the boys learnt to snowboard, Sildie found an old sled and took Lily down a few times, the child squealing and chattering the whole time. At the bottom of the hill she got some video of the boys and smiled. “I hope you’re seeing this Quinn. How happy they are.” She chuckled as Brendan wiped out face first into the snow, coming up with a grin plastered across his face. “Don’t let Ana destroy this.” She pleaded with the universe as her eyes cut to Gustaf. Her goofy man, so much love and kindness in that sweet soul, she thought. “He’s suffered enough because of her, let it be done. Please, just let it be done so we can move on.” That gorgeous smile spread across his face, those laugh lines winking at her. “I’m so in love with you.” She whispered.

She smiled as she thought back to yesterday when they worked on the fort and then hiked back to the lake to ice skate while the weather was cooperative. The twins falling on their asses most of the time giggling and making Lily squeal, while Gustaf skated with her in his arms. Her carefree, handsome man so at peace. It calmed her soul to know she could give him this, the time and space he needed to really relax and be himself.

Laughing as Gustaf wiped out, much to the amusement of the twins, she headed inside with Lily to start lunch, the boys following a while later as a storm started to roll in. The twins sat at the table with sulky faces. “Why the long faces?” She asked setting sandwiches out.

“The storms going to ruin the fort.” Liam huffed.

“No it won’t.” Gustaf said. “It’ll make it stronger actually, fill in all the gaps.”

“What if it falls down?” Finn asked, and Gustaf could hear the disappointment.

“It’s only a small storm Finn it should be fine, if not we’ll fix it.” He shrugged.

“Oh. Can we go play in it later?” He asked.

“Not today, by the time this blows through it’ll be bed time.” He grinned. “Anyway you know what fresh snow means?” The kids shook their head. “Better snowballs.” It also provided more insulation around the igloo for him to strip his goddess naked and fuck her into oblivion, but he kept that wicked thought to himself.

With a quiet afternoon of reading and playing board games, the kids amused themselves by strategizing how they were going to get Gustaf tomorrow. Brendan looked at Sildie pleading with her not to say anything as she overheard them snickering. She hovered near the table and kept her eyes on Gustaf and Lily while she spoke.

“I won’t say anything, but just know, if you dish it out you have to be able to take what he dishes back, because you know if you gang up on him he will retaliate.” She chuckled at their grins.

“We know.” Finn giggled.

“Ok then.” Boys, she thought, will be boys, and this is exactly what they needed, the overly large boy as well. It’s one of the things Sildie adored about her lanky man, he was a big kid at heart with so much love to give.

The snowstorm eventually subsided to gentle flurries and with the kids showered they were ready to settle with hot chocolate around the fire for reading and quiet time.

While the boys showered, Gustaf ventured out to the igloo to set the scene. With a few candles lit, he lay down a few mattress pads and sleeping bags to insulate their bodies from the cold, snow packed floor. Making sure nothing was going to catch fire and adjusting the terra-cotta pot heater, he came back inside to three boys and a very fussy Lily ready for some Harry to round out the night.

“Is the fort still up?” Brendan asked.

“Yep, still standing. Thought I’d check on it now as the snow’s almost stopped falling.” He glanced at Sildie and winked before snaking an arm around her hip as she stirred the hot chocolate. “You up for a little voyeurism tonight love?” He murmured, lips ghosting the pulse at her throat as he took Lily from her.

“We’ll freeze our asses off.” She snorted.

“Totally worth it and I set up a heater in there so it should be toasty by the time we head out.” He growled, his tone saying come and play.

“Let’s get the monsters to sleep first.” She scoffed.

“Piece of cake.” He bit down on the pulse thrumming under her skin and sucked. “I’m going to make you scream kitten, all those delicious sounds I’m going to pull from you.” He purred and left her standing there stirring the hot chocolate, pussy gushing already.

As Gustaf read to them, Sildie took a shower and slipped on a base layer, she had no idea what he had planned but it was going to be near, if not below freezing out there, igloo or not. The boys said their good nights and went to bed no fuss, no complaints, Lily didn’t get the memo.

“Don’t throw a monkey wrench in my plans little lady. You had your snuggle time the other morning.” He soothed as he rocked her, Lily eventually starting to drift. “That’s my Lily bear, sleep time. More snow fun tomorrow.” He cuddled her close, no rush to be anywhere, even though his cock was saying otherwise. She needed to go to sleep and stay there for the night to be a success.

An hour later he closed Lily’s door, checked on the boys, and found Sildie in their bedroom stretched out on the bed reading. With a finger to his lips to silence her, he crooked the other one asking her to come to him. Grabbing his phone and the baby monitor, he took her hand and led her to the front door. Silently pulling their boots and coats on they slipped out to the igloo like a couple of teenagers sneaking out of the house to get up to mischief. Making their way inside, it was a much warmer environment that greeted them than the outside air. There was enough room for them to discard their boots and coats, the base layer the only thing either of them had on.

He turned to look at her, gaze devouring every inch of her. A moment later his hand disappeared into her hair, mouth savaging hers, that unbridled need to have her suddenly consuming him. Groaning into her mouth she palmed his already hardening member, the firm strokes chipping away at his control. “Fuck kitten I want to ravage every inch of you.” He growled, tongue demanding entry into her mouth to tease hers. “Make you scream those beautiful sounds.” A hand dived under her shirt, greedy for her breast, the sharp pinch to her nipple causing her to cry out and clutch at him. “Just like that.” He stripped her down to bare skin and helped her do the same for him, cock hard and ready for her. Gripping her chin he claimed her mouth slowly, savoring every bit of her even though he wanted her hard, fast, and now. “On your hands and knees kitten.” He growled. “I want to fuck that pretty mouth.”

She dropped to the floor as he rose up on his knees, erection standing proud. Her mouth watered at the sight of him, she wanted to taste him, feel him. She loved this side of him, dominating, controlled, erotically sinful.

“Open.” He purred and she obeyed. He rested the tip on her bottom lip, tongue darting out to flick over the pre come that had gathered there. With a slow, gentle thrust of his hips she sucked him in. With a hand lightly fisted in her hair he pumped his hips, the sensation of that sultry mouth around him fueling his desire for her. When he was rock hard he stopped and pulled out. Loosening his grip on her hair he guided her up to kiss her. “You always feel so good when you suck me kitten.” He murmured, lips ghosting hers. “Lay down, hips on the pillow.” He said and helped her get comfortable in the confined space.

Talented hands spread her knees and pressed her thighs open. Dipping his head down he feasted, not waiting, not gentle, he devoured her like she was his last meal. The sounds that came out of her were feral, pleasure overloading her system at every touch. Her soft cry filled the snow enclosure as she came, the release so sudden it surprised her. Kissing his way up her body he claimed her mouth, the violent shiver of need streaking through her. “Always my favorite dessert. Are you warm enough?” He asked, the last thing they needed was to get sick.

“I’m fine.” She grinned.

“Mmmm good. The night is young kitten. I’m going to wreck you so slowly.” He said wickedly. “Give me your hands.” He commanded and she complied. From a pocket of his jacket he produced the scarlet silk cord and bound her wrists to the outside of her knees.

“You came prepared.” She smirked.

“Always. Not too tight?”

“No.” She breathed, eyes fixated on her bindings and those seductive fingers securing them. The lack of blindfold was a new experience for her. Rarely did he bind her while she had her sight. Taking her knees in his hands he pushed them open and back toward her for comfort until he was ready to take her.

“Look at me.” He purred and watched as her eyes snapped to his. “I want you to watch kitten, watch what I do to you, watch when I fuck you, watch as I take you apart a piece at a time.”

Kneeling close to her he straightened and stroked his tip through her wet heat. “Fuck kitten your soaked for me.” He murmured as he rested at her entrance. That soft gasp tumbled from her lips as he tip fucked her slowly, the broad mushroom head spreading her open.

Slender fingers slipped through her silky folds, each touch igniting every nerve in her body. She didn’t know what was more erotic, watching him toy with her, or his gaze. A gaze that held so much love and absolute devotion.

“Can you see kitten?” He purred, fingers dancing over her clit. The whimper falling of its own volition as she nodded.

Grasping her ankles in each hand he held them out to the side as wide as her body would allow him to stretch them into a V and watched her eyes take in every movement. “Relax your legs and hips.” He said softly and as soon as she did he thrust in. Her body bowed back as he slid in deep, his woman writhing in ecstasy as he filled her. Not waiting for her to settle he started to plunge in and out of her tight pussy, his girth stretching her further. “Look at me.” He growled and her eyes snapped to his, ice blue as the igloo around them and so lost to him as he started to pound into her slow and deep. The symphony of sounds coming from her as he took her would have woken the kids had they been inside the cabin. Those beautiful noises that aroused him, pleasured him, stoked the raging inferno inside him and the lust he had for her. Stroking his hands down her thighs he held her tightly and fucked her, the sound of their bodies slamming together adding to their pleasure. “Come for me kitten.” He commanded and felt her body obey. It welled up inside her and burst out, a soft scream tumbling from her lips as it ripped through her. “That’s it.” He crooned as another orgasm built quickly.

He was hitting every spot, stretching her, filling her, the pleasure almost too much.

“Watch me fill you kitten.” He growled, her eyes focusing on where his cock speared into her again and again, drawing out such ecstasy.

“Daddy.” She cried, her entire body tensing.

“Let it take you kitten.” As she came he thrust in harder, enjoying the feel of her clamp down around him as he buried himself to his hilt. “So good for me.” He murmured. His hands stroked down her body as he stilled his hips, the girth of him stretching her wide.

“Daddy.” Her whimper almost snapped his self control. That one word in that tone was enough to have him draw out of her and slam himself home. Not yet though.

“Soon kitten.” He purred, fingers drifting to her breasts. Rolling the nipples between his fingers she gave into the sensations, giving up the final shred of control. As he pinched the tiny buds hard he flexed his hips, the slight movement filling her completely, the arch of her spine offering herself to him. His cock throbbed inside her, all that wet heat clenching at him, she felt incredible. With each flex of his hips he built her release, it surged up from deep within her.

“Daddy, please.” Her whimper turned to a moan as he filled her again, the borderline painful pinch of her nipples sending a shot of pleasure to her clit.

“Let it come kitten.” He growled, patience was key he thought, but his own self control was crumbling. “Let it claim you.” He felt her body tense so tightly he thought she’d snap something, before a scream tore out of her as she came. Gripping a breast in each hand he pulled out and thrust in hard and deep, hitting every spot inside her until he bottomed out. Relentlessly he took her, pounded into her until one orgasm became another and a symphony tumbled from her lips. After her fourth he slowed to let her catch her breath, the gentle movement as erotic as what he’d just done to her. “Look at me.” He murmured, the soft command all she needed to obey. “Do you want more kitten?”

“Please daddy.” She whimpered, she wanted to feel him, have him devour her, fuck her senseless.

“So good for me. Roll over.” He said drawing out of her gently and helping her roll to her knees, chest bowed to the floor, head to the side.

Keeping her knees together he stroked those long digits over her folds, toying with her. He let his hands roam her body, more to check she was warm than to arouse her. That soft gasp turned into a moan as he slipped inside her, the tightness of her like this nearly making him come. Circling a hand on her ass cheek he was so tempted to spank her. “You’re going to find out what this means one day kitten.” He said as his hand circled.

“Yes daddy.” She whimpered, and he groaned at her answer, that endearment had his cock twitching in response.

“One day soon kitten.” He murmured.

“Please daddy.” She begged. She wanted it, oh, she wanted him to spank her right here and now.

“Kitten you are so good to me, but that’s not on tonight’s agenda. I have special plans for when I spank you the first time.” He purred as he snapped his hips and slid into her deeply.

With each thrust and flex of his hips, the tightness caused them both to grunt and groan, the ecstasy almost too much to handle. Taking her hip in his hand he pistoned his, watching her beautiful body take him in with each brutal stroke.

“Fuck kitten, I love taking you like this.” He growled as her pussy tightened around him and he increased his pace. Fucking her deep he took hold of the other hip and let his primal urge surface. Once he found his rhythm she was coming over and over again, her screams closer together and louder. His goddess in the throes of being fucked was a beautiful sight.

“I want to feel you daddy.” She whimpered and pushed back. “Please.” She begged, it was maddening what he was doing to her, making her feel and she couldn’t get enough of him.

“Greedy little kitten.” He teased, as his thumb slick with her wet heat pressed against her back door. “You want it all don’t you?”

“Please daddy, please.” Her gasp turned to a groan as he slipped his thumb inside. That groan turned to a scream as he thrust cock and thumb into her in a devastating rhythm.

“Such a beautiful sound when you come.” He purred and took her over for three more just like it. “Rock back, take me deep.” He commanded and felt all control slipping away when she did as instructed. “Fuck kitten just like that.” He took her hard, the rough brutal fuck of the primal beast that had surfaced pleasuring them both beyond conscious thought. She bounced on him as his hips drove his cock into her until he bottomed out, her thoughts non existent, brain completely turned to goo.

“Daddy.” She screamed. “Daddy please.” He gripped her hip painfully hard and pulled her on and off him as he fucked her, the scream a long wail as she came. She was sure she blacked out and maybe saw a few planets amongst the stars that were exploding in front of her eyes as her climax shattered her. His hand snaked around to finger her clit and she came again catching her off guard. Gripping her hip he rode her, taking what he wanted, the beast roaring from within him as he filled her with his seed. He took her, took them both, the sound of skin slapping against skin mixing with their groans and cries as they prolonged the pleasure for each other. Leaning over, he pressed his chest to her spine mainly for reassurance, and kissed the nape of her neck before nipping it.

“Lay down I’m not done with you yet kitten.” He growled and pulled out of her slowly. Helping her lay flat on her side, he rolled her to her back. Kissing her tenderly he looked at her flushed face in the candlelight, stunning, so beautiful with the burnished copper hall fanned out across the sleeping bags. He nipped at her throat, the trail leading him to hardened nipples. Biting down gently he sucked on them, hands cupping her breasts to feel them, fondle them. Those soft sounds urging him on, to take whatever he wanted. Kneeling between her thighs he bent and wrapped her legs around his neck, knees resting on his shoulders and feasted. Supporting her spine with his hand he lifted her so she was resting on her shoulders, thumb circling her back door and inching inside.

It was too much sensation, she came instantly, the soft mewling and frantic hands pulling on her bindings telling him she was all his, completely at his mercy, and totally beyond all comprehension. He added three fingers into her pussy, a groan at the sudden fullness turned into a cry as she came again. Fingers and tongue busy, he wrecked her, building her up and tipping her over until she was an incoherent mess.

“Last one kitten. Then I’ll take you inside and take you some more.” He murmured against her clit. He took her hard, unrelenting and she screamed as she climaxed, fuck he loved that sound. Lowering her to the ground he covered her with his body and nuzzled her neck.

“I don’t think I can move.” She mumbled, surprised she could string a coherent sentence together.

“Take a moment.” His amusement thick in his voice.

“I think I’m gonna need several moments. I guess I can cross igloo sex off my bucket list.” She laughed. She’d never felt this relaxed.

“Told you it’d be fun.”

“It’s not as cold now.”

“Because we heated it up.” His grin playful. “You’re beautiful.” He said honestly. “So beautiful.”

“Only to you love.” Her kiss was nothing short of sinful.

“You can’t kiss me like that after what I just did to you.” He said indignantly. Her giggle made his cock twitch, wickedness.

He sat back on his knees and released her bonds, the gentle kiss to her wrists always giving her that warm and fuzzy feeling. The tenderness from him was astounding and nothing short of mind blowing to her.

“Come on, let’s get dressed before we catch a chill now we’ve stopped fucking each other’s brains out.” She grinned.

“Good point.” He kissed her tenderly. “I love you Sildie.”

“And I love you sweet man.”

They helped each other dress in between stolen kisses and urgent hands. He felt like a randy teenager full of hormones. Carting the bedding back inside, he listened as he opened the front door, the cabin still quiet, all tiny humans were asleep in their beds where they should be.

Gustaf tidied up the igloo while Sildie checked on the kids before visiting the bathroom and curling up in bed to wait for him.

She was dozing by the time he lay beside her. “You ok love?”

“I’m ok.” She sighed, still floating on the sea of bliss he’d inflicted on her. “So relaxed.” She said half asleep and he chuckled. “I can’t move.”

“Drink some water.” He said as she managed to roll over and face him. He steadied the glass as she drank, a sly smile tugging his lips. Draining what was left in the glass he placed it on the nightstand and climbed in under the covers, those soft curves calling to him. “You’re almost asleep.” He chuckled and all he got was a grunt of acceptance.

“Iloveyou.” She mumbled, already drifting.

“I love you too. Snuggle in. Sleep now.” He cocooned her against his body, long limbs holding her close.

No sooner had he tucked her in against him, she was out cold. “Night kitten.” He purred and followed her into a dreamless sleep with a grin plaster across his face.

@hausofobsession @ill-skillsgard @grandpa-sweaters @authentic90skidd @tuckersgirl @fairlyfallacy @flowers-in-your-hayr @raewritesfiction @stinkerbelle007 @kamie-b @mrsaugustwalker @skrsgardspam @loliwrites @trippedmetaldetector @lihikainanea @fay-walden @nandadb @grimeundglow

[anntoldst0ries]

Christmas (Baby please come home) - part II

Pairing: Dr Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Dr Vicky Valentine)

Word Count: 6k+ 

Rating: R

Summary: Ethan & Vicky’s first Christmas together… will everything go as planned?

Category: Mini series, completed. Part I can be found here.

Warnings: A tiny bit of explicit language, mild sexual content. Other than this - I declare fluff, fluff and nothing but the fluff! :D  

Author’s note: Part II is here and it’s long - sorry not sorry :D I put a lot of effort into this story and I hope you’re gonna like it :) I’d like to thank A. from the bottom of my heart, not only has she proofread it and corrected my mistakes, but also gave me the most amazing feedback. Jenner’s response is also hers, but she thoughtfully let me use it :) This is for you my dear <3

Written for CFWC Winter season, using prompt 10. 

Christmas Eve

And then it was just them. 

In the car.

Alone. 

“For someone who has just said more words in 5 minutes than he does for a whole week, you’re surprisingly quiet, Dr Ramsey.’’

“Excellent observation, Dr Valentine. This is exactly the type of insight that earned you a spot on the Diagnostics Team.” Ethan threw her a tiny smile. “But it’s not surprising. It’s called getting things back on an even keel.”

She didn’t say anything, just gently moved her gaze outside the window, where the wintery Boston landscape unfolded right in front of them. In the background, Frank Sinatra’s velvety voice tucked her like a blanket and she couldn’t help but think he’d love White Christmas in the state of Massachusetts.

It wasn’t until then that she actually realised the Christmas song was playing in Ethan's car and not from the radio. This healthy compromise (Sinatra for him, Christmas song for her) made her smile, as she knew how much of an effort listening to Christmas tunes was for the man sitting on her left. His ears must have been bleeding heavily. She made sure of it, playing the jingles at full blast every evening, scarring him for life. 

“Did you call your family to let them know you’re not coming?” Ethan’s deep baritone roused Vicky from the sea of thoughts she was immersed in. 

“Nope, for two reasons: a - they didn’t know I was coming in the first place and b - I am still undecided.” 

Vicky noticed the muscles on his face twitch in an instant.  

“What can I do to help you make your mind up?” Ethan gently took her tiny hand in his and caressed the inside with his thumb. Then, he took it to his mouth and placed a kiss with great reverence, as if he was a religious fanatic and she was an object of religious cult. 

This took her by surprise. She was expecting a snotty remark, a raise of an eyebrow or dead silence. Instead, the question hit her with a load of affection so genuine that warmth instantly spread in her chest.

She knew exactly what it was that she needed.

He knew exactly what she was going to ask for.

“Ethan, I… listen, you and I both know there is something more to your reaction. What I said in your office, it was just a trigger. I don’t know what it is and frankly I thought about never mentioning it again. But we both know that the next time this happens, you will cut me off again. I am not going to force you to do something you don’t want to. I just can’t keep going through the same cycles and… and—“

He put his palm on hers and took a deep breath. 

“Are you hungry? Tired?” The older doctor asked with concern.

What the hell? Oh, I see what you’re doing Ramsey. Change of subject. Fine. I said what I wanted to say. The ball’s in your court now, doc.

“No to both.” She said as neutrally as possible, trying her best not to show him that the sudden change of subject upset her.

“Good. Before we go home, there is a place I need to stop by, is that ok?” The question sounded shyly, it wasn’t a tone she’d ever associate with him.

“I’ve never heard of a murderer who asked his victim if it’s ok to stop by the crime scene.”

“Trust me, if I were to murder you, you wouldn’t know.”

“Hmm, I’d like to think I know you well enough I would at least suspect.”

“I’d like to think you know me well enough to also know that I’d rather give you one of Dr Ramsey’s signature tirades. They are worse than murder.”

“No arguments here. So, will you tell me where we are going?”

“You’ll see.”

Soon, Ethan parked the car. He unbuckled the seat belt, opened the door and rushed to the other side, to open hers. He reached out for her hand with a faint smile and she blushed at the gentlemanly gesture. 

Having intertwined their fingers, Ethan led her along a high brick wall until a gate materialised in front of them. He gently pushed the gate and let her through. Only then did she realise where they actually were.

“Commonwealth Avenue Mall? What are we doing here?”

“If you ask me, it’s one of the most picturesque pathways I’ve ever seen and not only during winter. I like to come here for my runs and to… contemplate. Walk with me?” He asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Hand in hand, they walked down the alley. Fresh snow scrunched underfoot and the strings of lights danced to the melody of delicate wind. If this wasn’t a fairytale setting, she didn’t know what could be.

Vicky studied Ethan’s features carefully. Although he was still a closed book sometimes, she’s gotten quite good at reading him over the months. After Edenbrook, Ethan Ramsey was the second biggest field where her sharp diagnostic skills were heavily utilised. Maybe that’s what she should focus on once she starts her PhD? “The curious case of Ethan Jonah Ramsey.”

That’s how she noticed that something was clearly eating Ethan from the inside. If her calculations were correct, there was approximately 1/1000 chance of him making a decision to speak, so she decided to throw him a lifebelt. 

“Ethan, I can see that you want to say something, but it feels like you’re hesitating. Please don’t feel obliged to talk, I want you to do it on your own terms. As long as I know you want to talk to me eventually, I’m fine.”

“If I don’t speak now, I’m afraid I might never summon the courage.” Ethan tried to make it sound like a joke, but she knew how serious he was right now. She knew how much it had to cost him. Suddenly, she stopped and put her hands around his neck, then pressed her forehead to his.

“Don’t do this because of me.”

“Because of you? I’m not doing this because of you. I’m doing it for you. For us. What I’m about to say is painful, Vicky, but it’s nowhere near as painful as the thought of losing you. I’ve already told you how much time we lost because of my stubbornness. When… when you and Raf were locked in the hospital room…when I thought you were slipping from my grasp…” He had to stop to clear his throat and take a deep breath, clearly struggling to talk. “I promised myself that if life gives me a second chance, I will not waste it. I will work on this, on us, harder than I’ve worked during my 10 years at Edenbrook combined. I’d climb every damn mountain and swim every ocean if that’s what it takes to have you in my life.” 

She wanted to cry. It took every ounce of her strength not to. Ethan wasn’t a blabbermouth, but when he spoke - man, he knew how to choose his words wisely.

“Ethan, whatever it is… we will get through it. Together. You are not alone, darling.”

Ethan felt tears prickling from underneath his closed lids. Not only because of what she said, but also because of what she didn’t say. He saw the impact of his words in her eyes, yet she didn’t want to make this about her, but him. Her selflessness was one of the things he loved and admired most about her.  The older doctor never let himself be so vulnerable with any other person and as hard as it was for him, it also felt strangely right. As if all the pieces of this crazy puzzle called life finally came together. 

Feeling as ready as he’d ever be, he took a deep breath and said: “Let me take you on a trip down memory lane…”

25 years earlier

Ethan is 11 and he’s sitting alone in his room. The window in the 4 walls of his world overlooks the street and it's his only connection to the outside world. The window sill underneath is wide enough to sit on it, but not very comfortable for a long time. 

He doesn’t know how long he’s been sitting there, unmoving. It may have been hours, it may have been days. Time lost its sense.

He’s already past the point of pain caused by the unnatural position, his body has entered the numb phase, and he doesn’t feel anything anymore. He wishes his mind could join his body in the bliss of being rid of feelings.

It is only thanks to the carollers wandering on the streets that he’s convinced it must be Christmas Eve. And how he also knows it’s been 27 days since his mother walked out on him. Anger mixes with despair, yet he’s unable to stop waiting for her, stop jumping involuntarily at any movement in close proximity of his home. There is still hope.

Unbeknownst to him, Alan stands on the other side of the door trying to make the hardest decision today: to save his son or to be there for his son. Alan is a painful reminder of the life they once had, a bridge to the reality that tumbled down. He slowly retreats from the door, unsure if he’s doing the right or the bad thing. How are you supposed to know? Life does not exactly prepare you for moments like this.

Everyone asks him how Ethan is. No wonder, he is just a child whose mother disappeared into thin air. But do they not realise he suffers too? He loved, loves this woman more than life itself.

Alan was furious at Louise. But was he surprised? Not entirely. Deep down, he always knew that she was a restless soul. She always gave him hints - a subtle comment here and there, some words said during one of their fights. But he was blindly in love, so whenever she gave him reasons to think they shouldn’t be together, he ignored it. And when she did something that surprised him, she won him over and he lost the argument with himself.

What worried Alan was that Ethan started showing Louise’s personality traits. And as much as she fooled him, he didn’t want his only child to end up broken and hurt. If he could, he’d do anything to protect him. But even as a father he was unable to shield his child from the damage of being abandoned by his mother, the only person that should forever shower him with unconditional love. How does one ever recover from such trauma?

Ethan knew. Although his dad tiptoed around him, he felt it. He knew exactly that he was fighting internal battles. He knew that his father suffered. 

There wasn’t anything that he wanted more than for his dad to come and hug him and tell him everything’s gonna be alright.

Or for his mum to come back home and explain the unexplainable. 

But somehow he knew this wasn’t going to happen and he was tired of waiting for a miracle.

And on this Christmas Eve he made a decision: he will never let anyone fool him with a promise of unconditional love ever again.

He will separate himself from the rest of the world, build a wall so high no one will ever be able to jump over it. 

No one will hurt him again, because you can’t hurt the rational mind, you can only hurt an emotional heart.

Today

“I haven’t cried since.” Ethan was now full on sobbing. “Until I met you, that is.” 

She pulled him as close as humanly possible and enveloped him in a tight hug, with his head resting upon the crook of her neck. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks abundantly.

The older doctor was afraid that once he’d start, he’d never stop crying. All his shattered dreams, his sleepless nights, silent prayers, fake smiles, they all joined forces and attacked him with all their might. Had it not been for her hard grip, he might’ve fallen on his knees. How this petite girl found so much strength was a mystery to him, but he’d never been more grateful. 

She kept rubbing soothing circles on his back and neck. It made her feel so unspeakably sad that the man she loved had to carry this unimaginable burden throughout his whole life. And as much as it sucked, she was happy that from now on, they could carry this burden together. Although he didn’t say anything, Ethan must have agreed, as she felt the tension slowly leaving his shoulders. They stood there in the freezing cold for what felt like forever. But neither of them seemed to mind, because they were in their tiny little bubble, impenetrable, where no one could hurt them.

Finally, the older doctor broke the silence.

“Let’s go. You must be freezing.” 

“I’m about 5 minutes from hypothermia but I should be fine. I know a great doctor.” 

“Well, one of the most important principles of modern medicine is ‘prevent, not cure.’ Plus, I think someone has really missed you.”

———

“OMG Jenner st—“

Before she was ready to finish the sentence, she was already on the floor, laughing like a maniac. 

“You will be the death of me, Jenner.”

I’ll treat that as a compliment, Vic. But Christmas treats first, chatting later, lady!  

That’s how she thought the conversation went in the dog's head. Ethan helped her get up and took her coat. 

“I hope you are still not sleepy.”

“Not really, why?”

“Because I need a companion.”

“Always & with pleasure, but I assume you mean something else right now?”

“You minx. I want you to sit down comfortably, I’ll pour you a glass of wine. You can watch one of your favourite Christmas movies or play Christmas songs - whatever your heart desires.”

“Who are you and have you eaten my own Mr Grinch, Christmas-friendly creature?”

“I just need you to sit here whilst I’ll be working. Now go and get changed.” 

She obeyed quickly, which she always did when he used his commanding doctor voice on her. Whilst changing into leggings and a hoodie, some weird noises reached her ears, clearly coming from the living room. When Vicky came back, a glass of white wine sat on the coffee table. But that’s not what surprised her.

The 37-year old diagnostician was tangled in Christmas lights and so was Jenner, who thought his master was playing some sort of game with him and kept jumping around Ethan.

“What are you doing?”

“Well…since, because of me, you had to call off Christmas, I’m reinstating it. I will take all the decorations out while you’ll be sitting here doing nothing, maybe apart from instructing me on how to do it right. Does this sound like a fair punishment?”

“Only if you let me record this and post it on Pictagram.”

“Don’t cross the line, Valentine.”

“Ethan Ramsey, king of rhymes! Fine, I suppose I can still die happy knowing I’ve instilled the Christmas spirit into you.”

“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to actually dump you in the forest…”

“Talk to the hand, Gramps!”

 ---------

Christmas Day

Christmas mornings were always rushed and crazy at the Valentine household. Although Vicky loved Christmas in her family home, she didn’t know how much she actually enjoyed the lazy, easy Christmas mornings until she was able to experience it. And she couldn’t be more content that it was with Ethan.

Mercifully, he let her sleep until 9am (obviously, he wouldn’t be himself if he didn’t mumble something about her sleeping too long and how she was able to function like this, but she completely ignored the remarks) and then brought her breakfast to bed, which she consumed in its entirety, with a little help from Jenner. The most important meal of the day had been delivered with a complimentary kiss, which was her favourite part.

“Ethan!” She shouted from the bedroom, not quite ready to leave the comfort of his bed. The older doctor left her with the food and went to prepare them both a cup of coffee.

“Jesus Christ woman, you’re so loud I’m starting to consider getting rid of my stereo.”

“Oh, it didn’t seem to bother you last night.” She winked at him and he grinned involuntarily. How was it possible that she was in possession of his facial expressions too?

“Anyway, can you please remind me what time we have to be there tonight?”

“Be where tonight?”

“Naveen’s Christmas Party.”

“We’re not going.”

“Yes, we are.”

“No, we are not.” 

“Ok, let me rephrase this: me and my unearthly seductive dress are definitely in attendance. If you and Your Royal Grumpiness wish to stay home, be my guests.”

“You don’t play fair.”

“All’s fair in love and war.”

“You know how much I hate rubbing shoulders with idiots in bowties.”

“I do, but let me offer some consolation. This time, you don’t have to do this, because we are not raising any donations. Also, we can laugh at those idiots together and if either of us is stuck in a pointless conversation, the other can always rescue them.”

He couldn’t argue with her logic, instead pulling her close against his chest and kissing the top of her head.

Later this evening 

“V, how much longer until you are ready?” Ethan was growing impatient. He hated waiting and just couldn’t understand what took her so long. He was convinced that even wearing a garbage bag, she’d be the most stunning woman in the room.

“Ethan, nothing has changed since you’ve asked me 5 minutes ago.”

“Fine, but don’t be surprised if I leave without you.” 

“No you won’t. But for someone who didn’t want to go at all not longer than 8 hours ago you are quite eager now. Call me an influencer.”

“I’ll call you whatever you want if this means we can leave soon. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can come back.”

“Whatever I want? Bad move Ramsey, bad move.” 

“I’ll sho—“

He turned around and the words got stuck in his throat at the sight unveiling in front of him. She looked like a freaking goddess, who decided to descend from Mount Olympus and grace the mortals with her presence.

“You were saying?”

“I..I… you..well..” For a man so educated he now sounded less articulate than a toddler. To make things worse, a certain body part painfully reminded him that behind the facade of accomplishments, he was still a primate. 

“Ethan, could you stop talking so much? I can’t hear my own thoughts.” She laughed and it was so infectious that he couldn’t help but smile. 

She decided to wear a long, black gown, with a thigh high split showing her slim, tanned legs that he was a total sucker for. The ensemble was complimented by crystal embellished sandals and glamorous drop earrings. 

“I’ve never seen anyone whose insides matched their outsides so accurately. To me, you are perfect.”

Her heart stopped and she felt butterflies waltzing through her stomach. No matter how many times Ethan complimented her, she always felt like Cupid punched her right in the face. And she hoped the feeling would never fade or disappear.

“So you watched Love Actually with me yesterday.”

“Watched is an overstatement. I might have peeked a few times.” Ethan cleared his throat. “Can we go now?”

“Absolutely not. Did the Edenbrook gala not teach you that if you need to attend an event you are not particularly excited about, you shouldn’t go sober?”

“I suppose you have a point here. One drink.”

“Three.”

“Two.”

“Deal! Pleasure doing business with you, Dr Ramsey.” 

Ethan poured them both a glass of his best scotch. Before she was able to take a sip, he stopped her with his hand. “I’d like to propose a toast.”

“Fire away.”

“To curing the incurable. In medicine and in life.” He sent her a sweet, genuine smile that made her heart beat ten times faster.

Then, they made some bets about what’s going to happen during this year’s party, who’s going to get so wasted that they will be forced to perform a walk of shame for months to come. For the whole time, the younger doctor couldn’t shake the feeling that he is studying her.

“What is it? And don’t tell me it’s nothing, I’ve spent too much time with you for my observation skills not to improve insanely. Like it or not, you created a monster.”

“I like to think of it as making the world a better place… nevertheless, I’m impressed, Dr Valentine. For a 3rd year resident your skills are exquisite.” 

She put her hand on her heart and smiled. All the compliments she’s ever received in her life faded in comparison to one from Ethan Ramsey. Her high school hero, her inspiration and she still couldn’t quite believe it, the man she was now sharing her life with. 

“Now, if you’ll allow me, I must order a cab now, otherwise I may lose a battle soon.”

“What battle?”

Ethan looked at her, lust flooding from his eyes. He quickly stepped behind her and gripped her waist, then leaned into her ear, catching it ever so gently with his lips. This alone was enough for her knees to give out and she was never more grateful for the kitchen island and the fact she was holding onto it for dear life. But he didn’t stop there. He whispered into her ear and no other sounds in the world could compare to the symphony of his voice, dripping with desire.

“The one in my mind, between my rational mind and my primal desire, urging me to rip off this dress and devour you right now.”

Goosebumps spread across her body, a painful reminder of the fact that maybe her mind and mouth could lie to Ethan, but her body couldn’t. Damn it.

She knew it was a matter of milliseconds before she’d be unable to make a rational decision, so she quickly slipped from Ethan’s grip and whispered: “You should order it now then.” Then, she placed a gentle kiss on his cheek.

“Oh, you’re gonna make me work for it, aren’t you?”

“Well, that’s only part of the reason. The other, bigger part is that I just really, really want to show up at this party with my insanely hot boyfriend by my side, without finally having to hide and pretend. Unless…he’s ashamed of me.” 

“Vic, there are a lot of things in my life that have ‘shame’ and ‘you’ in one sentence. I’m ashamed of running away from you to Amazon. I’m ashamed of denying my feelings for so long. I’m ashamed of hurting you, more than once. But to have you by my side, to finally call you mine? That’s my greatest pride. Now, shall we?” He offered her a wide smile and his arm.

“You asshole. First, you try to seduce me and then you make me cry. Let’s go then, Naveen is going to kill us. I promised we’re only gonna be fashionably late.”

———————

The party was already bustling when they arrived, the room filled with chatter of many guests in attendance. The event was Naveen’s pride and a tribute to his many years as one of the most important figures in today’s medicine. It was almost like Elton John’s Oscars after party - everyone wanted to be there. Being there made Vicky feel special, but more than that, uneasy - she was still just a resident and somehow felt like she didn’t belong there. At least, not yet.

In the background, the string quartet played classical versions of popular songs and carols. The venue was impressive, located within one of Boston’s most prestigious hotels, whose owner was Naveen’s - obviously - long time friend. 

The second Dr Banerji spotted them, he practically ran in their direction, almost bumping into one of the guests.

“Well well, if this isn’t my favourite pair of doctors. Dr Valentine, you look like you walked out of one of Botticelli’s paintings.”

“Enough with the formalities. I’m so happy to see you, Naveen! Merry Christmas.” She hugged the old doctor tightly and although initially surprised by this display of affection, he instantly relaxed and returned the hug.

“Merry Christmas, my dear.” 

“It’s quite something, this party of yours Naveen. You’ve outdone yourself.”

“Why, thank you. You know what my favourite part is?” He locked arms with the younger doctor and leaned in to whisper in her ear. “This party satiates my hunger for gossip for months to come. And I’m pretty sure this evening will be, for many reasons, unforgettable. Enjoy your evening, my friends, I shall see you around.” 

Naveen winked at Vicky and Ethan felt like there was some sort of unspoken agreement between them, one that he wasn’t a part of.

“What was that about?”

“What was what about?”

“I know you and I know Naveen. Something is off here.” 

“Ethan Ramsey, are you jealous? FYI, I don’t fancy older men. Oh no, wait. I totally do.” She was trying really hard to stay serious, but failed miserably.

“Very funny, Valentine.”

“Sorry Gramps. This one you were totally asking for.”

“I’m gonna go get us some real drinks, I need to hydrate myself heavily if I’m to survive the evening.”

“Don’t cloud your judgement too much, Ethan. You may need it.” 

Maybe he was imagining the whole exchanging looks thing between Vicky and Naveen. But now he was certain she’s hiding something. And he intended to find out what it is or he was not Dr Ethan Ramsey. 

After he fetched them the drinks, they found their seats and soon Naveen made his annual speech, summarising the whole year and thanking tons of people. Vicky loved experiencing Naveen as a speaker, he didn’t have Ethan’s commanding presence, but his years of experience and sincerity in his voice made everyone listen with absolute silence.

He then joined them at the table. Of course he sat us with him, Ethan thought.

“Naveen, if you think I’m going to be your source of hospital gossip, think again.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We don’t spend as much time in the hospital together and I miss my dear friends.”

Before he was able to respond, Vicky pinched his thigh under the table and sent him a murderous look. 

“We miss you too, Naveen. Now, why don’t you two catch up properly, whilst I’m gonna go and do my round of talks, there are a couple of people I wanted to chat with.”

“Sure, feed me to the lions, Vic.”

“When have you become such a drama queen, Ethan? If I wanted to feed you to the lions, you’d be standing over there.” She pointed her finger to the corner of the room, where some big pharma executives were enjoying themselves. She waved friendly in their direction, and they responded in kind.

“Alright gentlemen, I need to run before they catch me.”  

Before she turned around, her and Naveen shared meaningful looks, but before Ethan had a chance to ask, she was already gone. Plus, Naveen changed the subject and the two immersed themselves in a very interesting conversation, which reminded Ethan how much he liked his mentor, not as a doctor, but genuinely as a human being. This made him one of a few people Ethan truly liked.

Dr Ramsey was one of those people who, when they were focused - whether on the case, on the conversation or on watching an opera - dedicated their attention entirely to said activity. Which was probably the reason why the sounds coming from the stage took him by surprise. He didn’t realise that the string quartet had been replaced by a group of young people, who started playing more lively. 

No longer than 30 seconds later, someone started singing, but the voice was not coming from the stage. It was coming from behind. Suddenly, all the guests turned their heads around as one. 

The snow's coming down

I'm watching it fall

Lots of people around

Baby please come home

The angelic voice belonged to a beautiful girl in a black gown. She sat on a bar stool, side-facing everyone. Suddenly, she jumped from the seat and started walking towards the stage, each step sensual.

The church bells in town

All ringing in song

Full of happy sounds

Baby please come home

Ethan must have looked like an absolute idiot, because he sat there gaping like a fish.

They're singing "Deck The Halls"

But it's not like Christmas at all

'Cause I remember when you were here

And all the fun we had last year

Once on the stage, she owned both the stage and the crowd. Some people started dancing, others clapped to the rhythm and sang with her. When she finished and took a bow, the audience applauded her generously. 

“Good evening everyone. I’m Vicky and I’m a doctor at Edenbrook Hospital. Thank you for organising this amazing event, Naveen, and thanks for having me. And now, please meet these amazing musicians, whom I have the honour of calling my friends. Back in high school we formed a band, which we called Valentine’s Day… that was a very accurate name on many levels.” She chuckled and the crowd followed. 

“You are looking at people who never gave up on their dreams and now play in some amazing venues. I couldn’t be more proud of them. It would have been the same for me, most likely, if it wasn’t for a book, which I’m sure a lot of you ladies and gentlemen are familiar with. It’s called Diagnostics Principles. After I read it, nothing was the same. And here I am, all these years later, getting covered in blood and sweat almost every day. But today, I can at least bask in the glory of the amazing people standing here with me.”  

“I’d like to dedicate this next song to the author of the above mentioned book. He changed my life in more ways than he can realise. And although I promised him we will not exchange any Christmas presents, I haven’t spent any money on this one, so technically it doesn’t count, right?” She earned another amused reaction from the crowd.

“It’s my favourite Christmas song and I’m so honoured to be able to sing it for you.”

The subtle sounds of a piano reverberated in the room and she started singing, her voice pure and powerful.

O Holy night

The stars are brightly shining

It is the night of our dear Savior's birth

Ethan couldn’t move or breathe. He just stared, completely transfixed. 

Long lay the world in sin and error pining

'Til He appears and the soul felt its worth

A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices

For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

To hear her singing was one thing. To feel all the things the act was doing to him, was completely different. With every sound produced by her vocal cords, a new, overwhelming sensation was born inside of him.

Fall on your knees

O hear the Angel voices

O night divine

O night when Christ was born

O night divine

O night

Oh night divine

Their eyes locked and she sent him a look so full of affection that he felt a warm tear flowing down his cheek. 

For him, it was anything but watching a performance. It was a spiritual experience. Towards the end of the song, she hit the notes so high, that he couldn’t help but look around the room. Everyone was in awe of her. And he was never prouder to call her “his”.

After the last bits of instruments resonated, the guests gave her a standing ovation. Ethan clapped his hands so hard that they hurt. He even whistled on his fingers which he hasn’t done since high school. To hell with it, he thought. 

And then he ran, knowing that in a second he will not be able to squeeze through the crowd of admirers. He scooped her in his arms and kissed her with so much passion that she felt dizzy.

“Wow, that was different.”

“What do you mean?”

“The kiss, it felt different.”

“There are so many things I want to say right now, but I can’t do it here. How much longer do we have to stay?”

“I promised the guys I will sing a couple more songs with them and then I wanted to introduce you and have a drink together. After that, we’re free to go.”

“Deal.”

——

“My feet are killing me. I don’t know how I survived in those heels, but I’m walking barefoot for the next 2 days.” 

“How fitting since I’m not going to let you out of this apartment until we have to go back to work.”

“I’m gonna go get changed in my PJ’s”

“Ah, not that soon.” Ethan said with a devilish smile and then approached her, reaching for her hand. “May I have this dance?”

“Although I’m tempted to say no to Dr Ramsey just to prove a point, I could never say no to Ethan.” She took a bow and gave him her hand.

“Lucky me. I just wanted to dance with you away from the prying eyes. For the whole evening everyone stared at you. I’m a selfish man and I was counting the minutes until I have the view all to myself.”

The sounds of Something by The Beatles started seeping from a glamorous gramophone.

“The Beatles? I didn’t take you for the type who’d listen to them.”

“Frank Sinatra christened this song the ‘greatest love song ever written.’ And who am I to argue with him?”

For a moment they swayed in silence, cheek to cheek. Then, the older doctor leaned back and looked her straight in the eye.

“So, you are not great at keeping promises, are you?” He mumbled playfully. 

“You mean the “let’s not exchange gifts” thing? I stand by what I said earlier, I haven’t spent a dime on it, so it doesn’t count.”

“It’s funny that you don’t even begin to realise how wrong you are.” He was very serious but there was a rare gentleness in his voice. “First of all, you mentioned you had a band in high school and that you sang but you never told me that you practically traded being a music star for being a doctor.” She blushed shyly at the compliment.

“Secondly, when you sang, I just couldn’t take my eyes off of you. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard and I consider myself an audiophile.”

“Coming from you, this is officially the biggest praise ever. I will have this printed and framed. You may even get an autograph if you play your cards right.”

“Shut up, I haven’t finished. You can ruin the moment later.” Ethan playfully swatted her arm. 

“With you, I am discovering parts of myself I never knew existed. And I’m strangely content with this. So, to sum up, all of the above makes me feel very guilty that I didn’t get you anything.”

“Ethan, you don’t have to give me anything. But it’s funny you said that, because you don’t even begin to realise how wrong you are.” She was proud of herself for being able to use his own words as a counterargument. 

“Actually, you gave me the biggest gift yesterday: a real part of you. I’m guessing, actually it’s more than a guess, that this is not something you shared with many people.”

“I haven’t shared this with anyone.”

“And that’s the biggest gift I could ever ask for. I want to be the person who helps you carry the cross, no matter how heavy it is.”

He pressed her even tighter against his chest and rested his chin on her head. But he felt the need to express all the other things his words couldn’t, so he gently lifted her chin and pressed his lips to hers. She tasted and smelled divine. On a very basic level, she smelled like coconut and mango. 

To him, she smelled like spring, summer, autumn and winter. Like a promise of sun after the storm. Like home. Ethan finally found his home, his safe haven.

The kiss made her feel dizzy again and then she remembered.

“So, the kiss. It feels different. Why?” She looked at him so innocently it almost made him sweat. Ethan cupped her cheek as if he was holding the most precious thing in his palm… and for him, he was.

 “When you were singing for me, I made a promise. From now on, whenever I kiss you, I want to make it feel like it’s the last time, but also a promise of the million more kisses we will share. Merry Christmas, Vicky.”

“Merry Christmas, Ethan.”

***************************

If you made it this far, from the bottom of my heart - thank you & you are awesome! I wish you all the best in 2021, let’s hope it’s a better year for us all :)

Tag list: @genevievemd | @terrm9 | @starrystarrytrouble | @danijimenezv | @mercury84choices | @maurine07 | @gryffindordaughterofathena | @jamespotterthefirst | @justanotherrookie | @alwaysmychoices | @takeharryandgo | @beckaroo | @lucy-268 | @aarisa-frost | @openheartfanfics | @caseyvalentineramsey | @brooks-eden | @heauxplesslydevoted | @iemcpbchoices | @lovingramsey​ 

[to-star-lake]

re: untitled [ end ]

pairing | jjk x reader genre | ceo!jk, arranged marriage word count | 4.2k pt. 1, pt. 2, pt. 3

Jungkook turned towards the door, his fingers resting on the handle for a moment. He turned and looked back at you.

“Come home to me, ok?”

You nodded. 

He turned the knob and opened the door, the light that poured in illuminated the soft smile on his face. You let him take a few steps out into the gallery before following behind him, and you watched as he walked through the crowds of people, his movements fluid, cutting perfectly through the chaos in the room. 

You don’t remember ever seeing Jungkook smile this much before. You never knew how sweet and infectious and healing it was to see. And all of this made the knot that had been forming in your stomach twist into something increasingly painful. You felt a mounting pressure in your chest, tears rising in your eyes once again but you suppressed them. You watched as he pushed through the front doors of the gallery, a gust of wind outside catching his hair, and from his profile you saw how the streetlights outside lit up the little stars in his eyes. 

You knew you shouldn’t keep what you found out today about Taehyung from him, but you felt a responsibility to confront Taehyung yourself first. How could you have been with a man for over a year and not know that he was using you to steal from your company? 

You took a deep breath and brushed at the hem of your dress, looking around for Taehyung, and spotted him alone by the bar on the opposite end of the room. You made your way over to him and as you approached him, he lit up brightly, reaching an arm out around your waist, pulling you in for a hug and a soft peck on your cheek. 

You flinched visibly at this contact, and he noticed. 

“Is everything ok? I was starting to think you weren’t gonna come by, I tried calling you a bunch of times,” he said, a concerned expression on his face as he pulled away slowly. 

You took a breath in, “I’m alright, just a long day at the office.” 

“Do you want a drink?” he asked, motioning for one of the bartenders but you held your hand up. 

“No, that’s alright, I think I’m still a bit hungover from last night.” 

“Yeaaah,” he scrunched his brows together in recollection of last night’s events, “Namjoon was pissed after he escorted the two of you out. Was everything ok? You know, between you and him?”

Taehyung’s emphasis on the word ‘him’ made you cringe. He as a name, you thought. 

“Everything’s fine,” you answered impatiently, quickly growing tired of the small talk. 

“Well..” Taehyung seemed to sense your annoyance and assumed it must’ve been that you didn’t want to discuss the topic of you and Jungkook, so he quickly changed subjects. He opened his arms and gestured at the gallery. “What do you think?”

You glanced around, doing your best to feign a smile. “It’s beautiful, Tae. Everything you dreamed, and more,” you could feel your jaw tightening, the lie seething through your teeth. “It looks like it must have cost a fortune,” you continued, cautiously. 

He laughed, reaching a hand up and adjusting his glasses. “It did, but I couldn’t have done it without you,” he smiled. “Without your encouragement,” he seemed to catch and adjust himself. 

You did your best to muster a smile at this, and proceeded to choose your next words very carefully. 

“So, Miya told me this morning the security guys are working on an IT audit, I had to clean out my emails and cloud,” you began, watching him carefully, gauging his reaction to each word. 

He ran a hand through his hair and took a sip of his drink, “Oh yeah, I saw the memo. I haven’t had a chance to go through mine yet.” 

He isn’t closing off, you thought, and this encouraged you to go on. “Well it got me wondering, when was the last time we did a finance audit?”

He was raising the glass to his lips again and froze for a moment as you said those words. 

“It’s not my area of expertise, so I thought I’d ask you. I don’t even know if we need one..?” you continued, watching as his irises made microscopic darts back and forth for a moment before he took a much larger gulp of his drink and set the glass down on the counter. 

“Oh, we don’t need to audit our books,” he answered, looking at you and smiling. “I actually conduct internal audits every quarter, so we can avoid those pesky external audits.” He tilted his head, checking his surroundings before sliding an arm around your waist and lowering his face to your ear. You tensed up, your hands forming into fists at your side at his words and at this sudden contact. “This stuff is nothing you need to worry your pretty head about.” 

You felt every muscle tense in your body in an attempt to hold yourself back from punching him square in the gut right then and there, biting your teeth together to keep yourself in check. 

He inched his body closer to you. “Since everything is okay with him, would you want to come over tonight?” 

You took a deep breath and stepped back. “You know, I’m still not feeling well from last night, I think I’m just gonna go home and take it easy.” 

He stood upright and studied you for a moment, and you put on the best poker face you could manage, continuing to smile. “You do look a bit flushed,” he reached out and caressed your cheek with the back of his fingers. “Yes, get some rest, you’ve been too stressed lately.” He leaned down and gave you a peck on the cheek and you turned quickly, walking towards the front entrance with as much grace as you could, given that what you really wanted to do was slam his head through the wall. 

“Fuck!” you shouted once you got in your car, slamming your palm against the steering wheel, gripping onto it tightly, hunched over and taking purposeful deep breaths to calm yourself down. 

You couldn’t stop your mind running the entire drive back to the penthouse. You felt disgusted. You were disgusted with Taehyung. At how he easily he could smile and lie to your face like that. At how he’d been stealing from the company all this time, taking advantage of you. But more than anything, you felt disgusted with yourself, for allowing this to happen.

You bit at your lower lip nervously as you rode the elevator up to your floor, a million thoughts running through your head. You wondered how you would tell Jungkook. You wondered what he would say, what he would think of you. You wondered if he would hate you. A part of you hoped he would hate you. Because that would be easier than seeing him smile, while you were being pulled down into the depths of a suffocating guilt. 

When the elevator doors opened to the penthouse floor, you saw that the hallway was darker than usual. And you felt your eyes grow wide, looking at the scene in front of you. The lights overhead in the hallway were dimmed and instead it was lit by a row of candles, lining a path covered with flower petals, leading to the penthouse door. 

You along the path carefully, and upon opening the door, saw the entire room lit with candles, vases of flowers placed along every surface, and Jungkook seated quietly in the arm chair beside the window. You noticed he had changed into a pair of grey sweatpants and a sweatshirt with the hood over his head, and was leaned back lazily in the chair, hands resting in the pocket of the hoodie. 

He turned and saw you walk in and stood up swiftly, brushing the hood back from his head, revealing the messy flop of dark waves of his hair. He was beaming, and walked over to you while you stood frozen by the door. 

“You’re here,” he greeted you, and you could hear the smile in his voice. He slipped his arms down around your waist and pulled you into a kiss. You looked around at the apartment when he pulled away. 

“Jungkook..what is all this?” you asked, dumbfounded. 

His smile grew, and out of the sleeve of his sweatshirt, he produced a small bouquet of wildflowers and held them out to you, like a magician would. “Happy anniversary!” he declared. 

You stood, unmoving, blinking at him, brows furrowed in confusion. 

“You aren’t impressed? I’m pretty impressed I pulled off this trick, although I was sitting there for so long some of these petals got crushed, plus I was practicing with this a bunch of times in the mirror-” he chuckled to himself but you shook your head, finally registering what he just said. 

“Did you just say happy anniversary?”

He tossed the bouquet aside onto the kitchen island and smiled. “You don’t know what day it is?”

You looked around, thinking, until you remembered. It’s now late September. The last week of September. The 26th. The day the two of you were married. Slowly, you lifted your head to look at him and asked sheepishly, “You remember the day of our wedding anniversary?”

He nodded, scrunching his nose in a proud smile. “I also remember your birthday, and your parents’ birthdays, just to make you feel a little worse,” he laughed softly, reaching his hands out and brushing the sides of your arms playfully. 

You couldn’t hold it together any longer. Tears flew from your eyes and you fell to your knees, your stomach was clenching and your chest felt like a brick had been dropped on it. 

Jungkook dropped to the floor with you, squeezing your arms, tilting his head to look at you while you shook your head from side to side, averting his direct gaze. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, I was only joking,” he said frantically, confused and frazzled by your reaction. He slipped a hand under your chin and lifted your head to look at him. “Don’t cry, it’s okay.” He leaned down and kissed your forehead, making a soft shushing sound against your skin. 

You lifted your hands to his chest and pushed him back gently, shaking your head. “JK, I have to tell you something,” you said, looking up at him and upon seeing how intently he was focused on you, you knew you couldn’t lie to him, there was no debate, there was no room for your pride, and the words and feelings that’d been wracking your head and heart began spilling out beyond your control. 

“I was at the office earlier, and I was running out to come home but Seokjin stopped me outside my office, he was all nervous and panicked, and so I told him to just tell me what was happening and to be quick about it,” you stifled a sob, taking a breath to try to calm your nerves a little. “Jungkook, he showed me all these bank statements. They showed Taehyung’s been stealing from the company. He’s been transferring twenty thousand dollars each month from the corporate account to an offshore account filed under Vante Studios LLC, he’s been doing it for a year, I-”

You looked up at him and saw the austere expression on his face hadn’t changed, his eyes remained focused intently on you, listening closely to every word. Your head dropped and you took another deep breath to stop the tears. “Jungkook, I-” you stared down at your hands helplessly in your lap. “I’m so sorry..I didn’t know..” you kept staring down, too afraid to look up at him. 

“I’m such an idiot, I should’ve known…” your voice dropped below a whisper. You hunched over even more, unconsciously wanting to make yourself smaller, so small you might disappear right in front of his eyes, so you wouldn’t have to face him. 

You heard him take a deep breath and you braced yourself for what might come next, but he reached his arms around you, pulling you into his chest, holding you tightly against him. 

“Shhh, don’t cry,” he whispered softly into your hair. “And don’t say those things about yourself.” 

His words made the tears return. 

“I’m so sorry, Jungkook, I’m so so sorry..I didn’t know..” 

He pulled back and brushed strands of your hair from your face, and cupped your cheeks with his hands, wiping away some of the falling tears with his thumbs. “It’s okay, Y/N. I knew.” 

You looked up at him, confused. “You knew?”

He nodded. 

“Since when? How? Why didn’t you say anything?” you felt a surge of adrenaline rising. 

He laughed softly. “Well I pay pretty close attention to the books, and saw that withdrawal a few months ago and looked into it. I thought it might’ve just been a discrepancy with a payment, until I overheard Taehyung say the words Vante Studios one day when he was on the phone. And I didn’t say anything to you, because, well-” he gazed at you with soft eyes. “You seemed to like him. A lot. I thought you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I thought maybe you would think it was just some ploy for me to get you to stop seeing him. So I kept it to myself, and tried other things to make up for it.” 

You felt your eyes widen in an epiphany, “The defense contracts-” 

He nodded. “I thought if I couldn’t do anything about him, I’d just have to make up for the lost revenue. And then I bought out the shareholders to give you a majority of the company so your assets would be protected.” 

You felt your head drooping over again upon hearing his words, upon realizing how far he’s gone to protect you. “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me about it..”

Jungkook lifted your face to look into your eyes and smiled. “I guess I’m a bit of a coward in this way. I didn’t want you to hate me. Well, I thought perhaps you already hated me, so I didn’t want you to hate me more. I thought I’m the guy your parents forced you to marry. And here’s a guy that you actually like. I thought if I ruined this for you, I’d ruin any chance of redeeming myself in your eyes. And you’ve done so much for the company since you took over. I’ve been running around, doing nothing to help, while you’ve grown this enterprise beyond what our parents could’ve ever imagined. And the longer I was away, the harder it was for me to come back. But when I found out about Taehyung, selfishly, I thought it was my chance to prove myself. So I let it go on at the expense of the company, and worse, at the expense of your trust,” He caressed your cheek gently. “So please don’t apologize or feel badly about this. I’m sorry for keeping you in the dark, and for letting it affect you so.”

The two of you sat in silence for a few minutes, and you felt your tears begin to dry and your heartbeat begin to slow to its normal rhythm. He held your hands, squeezing them and smiling, and asked, “So you were running out to come home earlier? To see me?” 

“Oh, oh my god,” you sat up at the sudden recollection. “Jungkook, your emails-”

He tilted his head, confused for a moment, and then, realizing he knew what you meant, laughed. “Oh, those old things..” he reached a hand back and scratched at his head. 

“I’d never seen them before today,” you rushed on, gripping onto his arms in your excitement. “I forgot that, years ago, you sent me a picture of Yoongi making out with my friend, remember?”

He tossed his head back, laughing at the memory. “Oh shit, I can’t believe I did that, it was so juvenile-”

“No, well I ended up just diverting all of your messages somewhere and never saw that you’d sent me more, and-”

“Wait so you haven’t seen the emails I’ve sent you?? Any of them??” He exclaimed. “Well, I suppose that’s better than, all this time I thought you were just ignoring me,” he chuckled. 

You squeezed your hands around his arms, “Jungkook, all those photos you sent..all those beautiful, beautiful photos. I can’t believe you’d gone to all those places,” you felt these words coming out, propelled by the emotion of a kind of openness you felt between the two of you that you’d never felt before. “And you know, it’s so funny. When I was younger, I had this notebook, it was like a travel journal, I glued all these pictures of the places I wanted to go to with descriptions and lists of the things to do, and it’s such a coincidence, it just reminded me, those were also the places you went! That you sent me pictures of!” 

His lips curled into a gentle smile and he said, “Well, it’s not soo much of a coincidence.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“I’ve seen your notebook,” he laughed. 

“My travel notebook?”

He nodded. 

“Wait, when?? How??”

He placed his hands on your shoulders to calm you down, and you realized you were sitting up on your knees in excitement. 

“Gosh, I think we were like 14?” He furrowed his brows, trying to recall the memory. “Remember, we were both still at the Princeton Academy together back then? Anyway, you were already in Calculus, and I was flunking out of Algebra 1. Remember, my parents begged your parents to let you tutor me?”

Your eyes grew wide in recalling the same memory. “Oh my god, I used to go over to your house after school to help you with your homework, I remember! Oh JK, you were so bad at math..” you heard yourself laugh and he did too in remembering how he struggled over the concept of equations, how you’d spend hours at the dining table in his parents home going over formulas with him, using every metaphor in your arsenal to help him understand various math theories. 

“Ha, god I hated math. And I remember you hated having to tutor me,” he laughed. 

“It was because you never paid attention!” you chuckled at the memory. “I could never get you to focus, you were always messing with your phone or bringing your toy model cars to the table instead, or eating, oh my god, you were always just eating.” 

“You remember one day you were timing me on a practice exam and I looked over and saw you flipping through the pages of, it looked like a scrapbook? I asked you what it was and you told me it was your travel journal, it had all the places you wanted to go, and then you shushed me and told me to focus on the test,” he was beaming at the memory, his eyes curling into glowing crescents. “Anyways you flipped to a page about France, and I saw there was a photo of a bakery.” 

“Oh! I remember, it was a photo of La Gourmandine in Nice, it showed a bunch of strawberry turnovers sitting in a windowsill to cool,” you continued, catching on to the same memory. “Oh my god, that was when you brought out the pop tarts.” 

He squinted, trying to remember. 

“The pop tarts! You pushed your exam book aside and came over to my side of the table and when you saw the picture, you immediately went into your parents’ pantry and brought out a box of strawberry pop tarts. You took out a package and handed one to me and pointed to the picture and said, ‘we have those right here.’”

He threw his head back, laughing as he remembered. “Right, you’d never had a pop tart before! Your mom was so strict, she never let you have refined sugar, I remember now. We ended up eating so many snacks that day.” 

“God, the pop tarts started it, then you brought out the all the sugary cereals I wasn’t allowed to eat, the sour gummy worms, the chips, the sodas-” 

He was clutching his stomach in laughter. “We got so amped up on sugar. Oh, and then my mother came downstairs and told me to go walk the dog, you followed me outside and I normally take Gureum down to the pond behind the house, down that giant, steep hill. And you, oh my god, you took off your shoes and squished your toes in the grass and you said to me, ‘I bet I can make it to the pond faster than you.’”

“That’s right! I can’t believe I did that, that was so out of character for me, I challenged you to a race? And you fell! You literally took like three steps and then tripped, and you pulled me down with you! We basically rolled down to the pond, and Gureum was just barking at us from the top of the hill like we were idiots.” 

He smiled, “Don’t you remember what happened next?”

You thought further on what came next. 

“We were laughing so hard when we made it to the bottom of that hill, like, amazed we were still alive. And you were stretched out on your back like a starfish, just so happy. I’d never seen you laugh and smile like that, you looked so free, you were so spontaneous. And I reached over to brush a some specks of grass and dirt from your cheek and you sat up, leaned over me, and kissed me,” he recalled, smiling. “You said you’d never kissed a boy before and just wanted to know what it would be like.” 

You looked up at his glittering eyes as he described the memory. 

“And then my mother came outside and called for you cus your parents were here to pick you up. That was it for me, you know,” he continued, sighing. “When I saw you smiling and laughing like that that day and you kissed me, I was done. You were it for me.” 

You let out a sharp exhale, listening to his words, and without even commanding your body to, simply by instinct, reached your arms up around his neck and pulled yourself against him in a tight hug. He slid his arms around you lazily and rested his chin on your shoulder, sighing. 

“JK?” you said after a few moments like this. 

“Hmm?”

You pulled away, sitting back on your heels. “We need to do something about Taehyung.” 

He sighed. “We could loop in Namjoon. I’m sure he’ll will want to fire him right away.” 

“Fire him??” you exclaimed. “I don’t want to fire him, I want to sue the shit out of him, he should be rotting in jail for- why are you laughing?”

Jungkook pulled you close to him, smiling. “I take it this means you definitely don’t want to see him again?”

You frowned at this, “And you know, if I could murder him and cut him into a million pieces with no repurcussions that would also be preferable to just firing him-”

He leaned down and kissed your cheek and laughed. “You don’t have to do all that, love,” he said softly. “Let’s call Namjoon. We’ll fire him, the company will put out a statement, his reputation will be ruined, he’s done for.” 

You contemplated this for a few moments and nodded. 

You and Jungkook got Namjoon on the phone, conferencing in Seokjin as well, and laid out the entire situation. Namjoon was furious, and went off about lawyers and and taking legal action. You and Jungkook insisted that you simply wanted Taehyung removed from the company, and a statement issued about what he did, and leave it at that, that you are choosing not to pursue legal action. Ultimately, Namjoon and Seokjin also agreed with this course of action, and Namjoon said he would take care of this immediately before hanging up. 

You leaned back into the sofa and Jungkook reached out to take your hand in his. 

“Well,” you began. “What now?”

“Weeelll, you know, we never did go on a real honeymoon,” he said, smiling. 

“But where would we go? We haven’t booked anything, where would we even stay?” The realist in you challenged. 

He slipped his arms around your waist and shook you playfully, “Awh come on, where’s that spontaneous girl hopped up on pop tarts and soda? We can go anywhere! And you know,” he sat up and looked at you intently. “We could go, and we don’t have to come back.” 

You laughed at this, “Yeah, ok, realistically, I think I could maybe spare a week away from the office? At most?”

“Y/N,” Jungkook sighed, leaning his arm over the back of the sofa to turn to face you. “I’m being serious. Let’s go. We can go to all those places you’ve wanted to see. We could move around, spend six months, a year, at each place.”

You knit your brows together at this, “Ok, but most of those places are abroad, how are we supposed to run the company if we aren’t here to run the company?”

He smiled, “Let’s give it to Namjoon.” 

“You want to give the company to Namjoon??”

He took your hands in his. “I want you, I want us, I want us to be free.” His eyes gleamed, he looked at you in earnest, an edge of desperation in his words. “I want you to be free. I want to see you smile and laugh every day, without any stress, any worries, I want us to live.” 

You felt a kind of weight lift from you at his words. “But..our parents’ legacy..”

“Is our parents’ legacy. Not ours.” 

You looked into his eyes, into his dark irises gleaming, and for the first time, without any reservation, feeling an incomparable surge of courage, decided to take a leap. 

“Let’s get Namjoon back on the phone then,” you said, and you watched as his eyes lit up. “I have a feeling he’s going to be very pleased with this news.” 

fin. 

[naralanis]

To learn to want (and to love)

“What is it that you want, exactly, Hermione?”

Hermione has to blink, bleary-eyed and not entirely alert. She’s been reading the same paragraph on Transfiguration Today for the past ten minutes or so, and her reading glasses are practically dangling off her nose she’s so out of it, so Ron’s question takes her by surprise.

“I--uh, what?” she stutters, pushing the spectacles up and turning to face him. The lamp on his side of the bed is still on, and it illuminates the circles under his eyes, his slightly receding hairline, and, most importantly, his frown.

“What do you want out of this, Hermione? We’re not--” the words seem to elude him for a moment, so Ron opts for just vaguely gesticulating around the space between them, a gulf in their bed that has been steadily widening for the past decade or so. “We’re just going through the paces here. What are we doing??” He finally huffs out.

It takes Hermione by surprise, but it also doesn’t. She’s not an idiot, she knew the signs were there; she had just chosen to ignore them because they didn’t necessarily bother her at all. She hadn’t thought they bothered Ron either, because he certainly never thought to bring them up -- not when the sex stopped, or when their casual, affectionate touches seemed to fizzle out, not even when they went most of their days not saying anything other than ‘good morning’ and ‘good night’ to one another.

Maybe she had been a little too willfully ignorant.

She wants to answer him honestly, she does, but instinctively she knows that’s not exactly what he wants to hear. So Hermione shrugs  her shoulders and blows out a weary sigh.

“I’m not unhappy.”

Ronald visibly deflates, as she had predicted. He runs a hand over his hair -- it’s mussed and sticking out at all angles -- and he sighs so low and defeated Hermione can’t help but feel terrible about it. It isn’t his fault -- it isn’t hers, either, which somehow makes this worse.

His gaze meets hers and he looks so sad, but there’s a little smile tugging at his lips, like he’s trying to be happy for her sake.

“But you’re not happy.”

Well.

The divorce comes easier and quicker than anyone ever expected, and Hermione is simultaneously surprised and a little bit miffed that it doesn’t seem to catch any of their friends and family off-guard. Even Rose shrugged when she and her brother came by during Easter, saying something along the lines of “honestly, I saw it coming” and going back to her crème eggs.

Hugo, on the other hand, had been inconsolable and angry, and he unfairly directed all of that emotion towards his father, who did nothing more than take it and tell Hermione they would deal with it. Hugo returns to Hogwarts still acting a little cold, but he gives Ronald a hug at the platform and deep down Hermione knows they’ll be OK.

She lets Ron keep the house, because she never really felt any huge attachment to the place and knows he has some pride in the brick walls he erected himself, in the picket-fence he painstakingly paints over every summer or so. They still meet regularly for family dinners, they go out with their friends, and somehow it’s easy, like pressure had been lifted.

Ron helps her move into her new flat in the heart of Muggle London, grumbling all the way about the five floor walk-up where magic is not allowed. Rose enjoys the little reading nook Hermione made for her in her room, and Hugo thaws considerably at the brightly decorated bedroom full of Chudley Cannons posters.

It’s better, for them. Different, but better.

Hermione finds herself enjoying her work more. With no husband to come home to, and the kids away at Hogwarts for most of the year, she stays later, looking over complex runes and equations with more gusto than she’s experienced in years. She almost feels like a student again.

Sometimes -- when Ron goes on dates, or maybe when Ginny needles her enough after a round or three of Butterbeers at the Leaky Cauldron -- Hermione wanders if there’s anything she should be wanting. She’s content, she’s fine. She’s not exactly thriving, but she can’t figure out what on Earth she could possibly want, so she pushes it aside and laughs along whenever Harry jokes about her settling for things too easily.

It’s random and undeniably odd, when it happens. Hermione’s focusing hard on a tricky little rune she came up with while mildly intoxicated with Ginny last week, and now her sober brain cannot make heads or tails of it. She’s so entranced she misses the three insistent knocks, her door swinging open and a harried woman rushing into her office.

“Goodness’ sakes, Miss Granger! Hello!”

She jumps when a hand is impatiently waved right in front of her face, and then she almost falls out of her chair when she finally sees Narcissa Malfoy staring up at her. 

Hermione has no time for a greeting, because suddenly Narcissa tosses a loud, buzzing object at her and practically hissing as she speaks. “Please make this bloody thing stop!”

Hermione’s reflexes barely kicked in time for her to catch...

“Is this an iPhone??” She manages to squeak as the device buzzes and trills, the screen going absolutely nuts with colours.

“I don’t care what it is, will you please silence it without destroying it?”

Eyebrows shooting up and jaw snapping closed, Hermione dutifully turns it off, and Narcissa’s breath of relief is loud and heavy.

“Thank you,” she says, taking the thing back from Hermione between thumb and forefinger, as if touching it disgusted her. “Draco gave me this bloody thing, I have no idea...”

Somehow, Hermione hears the whole story about how Draco is “in” with Muggle technology and gave his mother a smartphone to help her “keep up with the times,” a statement that offended Narcissa to no end, and Hermione laughs as the blonde tells her. Somehow, she forgives Narcissa’s blustering intrusion and even teaches her how to turn the contraption off when walking into heavily warded areas such as the Ministry, because that can make some Muggle technology go haywire. Somehow, they end up talking for about an hour and Hermione forgets all about her runes, because wouldn’t you know it, Narcissa is a surprisingly easy person to talk to.

And so, Hermione accepts her offer of lunch the next day as a thank-you for the whole iPhone incident. 

They meet in a swanky little bistro at Covent Garden and Hermione almost walks right past Narcissa, because the woman is wearing dark wash jeans and a bloody t-shirt, with her hair up in a sleek ponytail and cat-eye sunglasses perched on her head. She does a double-take when Narcissa waves her to their table, and Hermione teaches her a bit more about the phone, genuinely impressed to learn that Narcissa has now got FaceTime down pat.

Hermione doesn’t remember how exactly they end up making plans to meet again the following week, but it happens. And then, the next week, and the week after that, until Hermione just blocks out her lunch-time every Wednesday on her calendar. Ginny comments on the meetings with a laugh and a raised eyebrow, but Hermione brushes that off.

They talk, a lot. About everything and nothing, all at once, and Hermione comes to find that Narcissa is not only smart, she’s wicked smart. Like, knows complex arithmancy smart, like ‘I invent potions for fun’ smart, like ‘yes I know basically all the constellations, what of it?’ smart. Narcissa has a wealth of knowledge to share and seems happy to do so with Hermione, who soaks it all up like an eager sponge, leaving their lunches happy and sated from more than just the food.

That isn’t to say Hermione doesn’t teach Narcissa a thing or two, either, iPhone incident aside. Hermione talks her ears off about Muggle authors (Narcissa is absolutely enamored by anything of Agatha Christie’s and the thought tickles Hermione to no end), and she also teaches her all about the Muggle painters of centuries past (Narcissa is inexplicably fond of Vermeer). Once, on a whim, Hermione presents two tickets to Les Misérables in the West End, and Narcissa just sobs the entire time while Hermione just hands her tissue after tissue.

Narcissa learns that Hermione puts her milk in before her tea and they have a spirited argument about it, because the blonde is simply affronted, and it ends with Hermione not-so-begrudgingly vowing to switch it around. Hermione learns that Narcissa has never been on a roller-coaster, so Hermione takes her to The Big One in Blackpool and learns the hard way that Narcissa gets motion sick very, very easily.

Before she knows it, this thing with Narcissa has lasted over a year, and both Rose and Hugo ask her if she’s planning on inviting the woman over for Christmas, and that’s when Hermione’s thoughts grind to a halt, because she had not even considered it, but now that the idea has been planted in her head, she wants, wants, wants.

She wants to invite Narcissa over, so she does, and the Slytherin comes bearing gifts that make Hermione’s children and her ex-husband squeal in delight (to be fair, the dragon-ivory chess set Ron received was lovely, if a bit excessive). And as they eat their roast and drink wine, Hermione gets lost in the vibrancy of Narcissa’s smile and the glimmer of her eyes in the candle-light of her dining room and suddenly she wants, wants, wants.

She wants their parting hug to last a little longer, she wants the kiss Narcissa bestowed upon her cheek to be a few centimeters to the left, she wants to hold on tighter and ask Narcissa to stay the night because she can’t bear to part with her just yet.

And, like that, something suddenly just clicks in her head; a feeling slots itself into place inside her chest and Hermione is a bit overwhelmed, because she’s never quite wanted so much before and she doesn’t know how to deal with it.

It’s Ron who helps her, in the end. She calls him up (on his brand new iPhone -- Merlin those caught on fast) and he comes over immediately, finding her pacing her living room thrumming with manic energy, and once she relays her predicament he just laughs until he can hardly breathe.

“‘Mione,” he says, shaking his head with fondness. “You fancy her. Of course you want to snog her senseless; frankly we’ve all been waiting for you to do something about it.”

Oh.

‘We all’ entails, apparently, literally everyone Hermione has ever met, including her landlady with whom she hardly talks but who somehow knows all about how often Narcissa comes by her place.

So Hermione makes a plan, because she wants, wants, wants to tell Narcissa about her recent discovery at New Year’s. She prepares accordingly, because she’s Hermione Granger and she won’t do anything by halves, so she writes out her confession in about sixteen inches of parchment and carries it nervously with her all through the party.

And Narcissa is absolutely radiant, enough to make Hermione forget all about those thoughts carefully penned to parchment. Hermione wants to dance closer and closer to her, she wants to rest her hands on her waist and sway with her, she wants to tilt her face just so and breathe the same air until their lips brush together.

Narcissa looks at her like she can read Hermione’s mind, and maybe she can; maybe she can see all the want shimmering through Hermione’s eyes, because Hermione never had a great poker face to begin with. And, to her surprise (not to mention relief), Hermione sees that want reflected on beautiful, beautiful azure, so she follows Narcissa beckoning finger until they’re pressed together and the dance-floor fades away to nothing.

Hermione wants, wants, wants, and finally, finally, Hermione gets it.

[marireadshellblazer]

Hellblazer Issue #9

Beinveneu, Power Bottoms!

The issue starts off once again hammering home the kind of world John lives in. Glimpses like this of what everyday life is like in John's world are so important for world building. We aren't simply being told the place is bad, we are seeing example after example of problems that are inescapable in his environment. Homelessness, prostitution, domestic violence, murder, etc in all it’s gory and disturbing glory. John walks by all this, not getting involved, meaning that this is at least somewhat normal for him. Yet, it still disturbs him; he isn't really numb to all the chaos and darkness around him. He isn't some hardened "badass" who fears nothing. He understands perfectly well that this isn't ok, but good or bad this is still normal in his world. And I think that he feels powerless to do anything about it.

It could also be that seeing these things all around him has to do with his depressive state. That is, the bad parts of society are so obvious to him because that is what he is choosing to focus on. He sees himself as down in the gutter with this dark side of society. I’m not saying this is all in his head or anything, but I think that his feeling that the world is coming down around him inside is reflective of how he is looking at the outside world. In issues like this one John is largely in his own head. Therefore, the world around him naturally reflects his perspective as opposed to what it is/might be like in reality. When you’re sad the world can feel like it’s rushing on around you, happy and oblivious to sorrow, which gives a heightened sense of loneliness. When you’re worried or anxious, time may seem to be either too fast or too slow, and over sensitivity may make the people around you seem rude, or again oblivious, to the problem even if it’s so obvious to you personally. In John’s case, his guilt and feelings of uselessness and failure cause him to hyper focus on the things that degrade the world around him; the literal destruction in the world around him. This destruction and darkness just keeps pulling him in further, victimizing him the way he victimized the people in his life. The humanoid figures chasing him and the oil trying to claw at him are manifestations of how his mind is further falling into depression and self-loathing. His attention keeps going back to the wreaking ball taking out chunks of a brick building nearby, which reflects how the stress and anguish he feels is taking out chunks of him inside. The pain is eroding his hard outer shell that allows for him to keep it together in the face of danger and madness.

In my opinion, issues where John is our narrator, waxing poetic, are some of the best ones. I just love it. But for the life of me, I’m not able to really explain exactly why.

Happy birthday, indeed.

One thing that, according to what I have read, makes Hellblazer stand out as a comic is that it doesn't really engage in "comic book time"; that is, unlike most comics or shows like Pokémon, the main character isn't 10 years old the entire series. John actually ages in real time. In this chapter, he turns 35, and a few issues later, 5 years after this issue came out, John turned 40. By the end of the series he is getting up close to 60. So, fun little trivia piece there.

All the stress, guilt, and just the everyday gloom have caught up to John on what I imagine is not a happy holiday for him. Poor John.

Beautiful, John. Just lovely.

 Be careful what you wish for, hun.

As far as I can tell, I think the D.T. the man is referring to is delirium tremens, which is a symptom of alcohol withdrawal. I agree, not something you want.

I love that in John’s periods of overwhelming self-pity and self-loathing he becomes quite the poet. Honestly, this issue as a whole is really well written.

Also, he manages to light himself on fire. Oh John…

I’m pretty sure this is a reference to a novel by Richard Fariña.

The scene where John pulls himself back together is just awesome. It’s like that hard outer shell is shaking him like “get it together!!” I just love it.

Something that stood out to me is that the wreaking ball comes in and destroys the couch he had been sitting on after his conversation with himself. He leaves the spot where he was ready to just give in and it’s taken out by the wreaking ball that had been serving as a metaphor for his self-hate the whole issue. He destroys the idea of giving up and just letting things go. Things like this are a great reminder of why I love comics. Imagery like this, even though it can be done through written word, hits different when the imagery is presented through art.

Oh man…Zed. Back in the fold. John really does represent freedom for her. I just feel so bad for her. Her situation is terrible, and she knows that running away will only make things worse and, in the end, unless she’s dead there’s no escape. Cults are scary. I’m glad that they have this understanding despite her insistence on staying. There is a kind of love and trust there. Which John then promptly betrays. I do like their relationship and I wish she could have been around a bit longer.

Their scene together is really a beautiful moment. There’s sadness, there’s passion, and it ends with John realizing that he’s once again gone through with yet another betrayal.

Swamp Thing showing up totally changes the tone. Just wham! And now for something completely different!

Dick move taking over his ciggs. Like dude, those are expensive.

I love this issue. All around good time.

I’m feeling this on a spiritual level rn

[1a-imagines]

Can I request a one shot for Bakugou when he's a Pro Hero and opens up his own agency, since heroes have to be out and about all day and night they're exhausted, so the agency has a personal shopper system and that's how he meets the reader. The reader is back and forth a lot, they never know who specifically they shop for, they just gets lists and also acts as asistant to anyone. Jealous coworkers see them getting along with Bakugou and they start overworking them?

A/n: This was so much fun! And what better time to post it than the lil shits brithday? Nah. I love him really

Quick little side note sort of ended being more of a personal assistant than a shopper but i hope you enjoy anyway.

----

"Ground zero, sir? Here are those files you wanted. O-oh! And since it's lunch I thought you might appreciate some food so I went out and ordered some curry for you." You sent him a smile as you watched his eyes widen at the food placed on his desk.

"Why?"

"H-huh?"

He let out a sigh. "You didn't need to do that.." he muttered softly. He could never understand why you always felt the need to go out of your way to do nice things for him. Sure you were technically the office assistant, it was your job to help him, but you weren’t required to buy him lunch!

He reached over and gratefully took the food. The smell alone was making his stomach growl. "Oh it's no problem! You always forget to eat when you're busy! And you’re busy a lot these days, since your rank is rising so quickly. I figured, as your assistant, I should make sure you're eating properly too."

He looked down at the food, you really were too nice for your own good. Looking out and caring for people who you owed nothing to. It annoyed him to no end! If you kept being so nice to everyone then people were going to take advantage of you! He had to keep a careful watch on you at all times to make sure you weren’t getting into trouble!

Granted, he didn’t really have to look out for you but who else would do it if he didn’t!?

He had been skeptical when his colleagues had suggested hiring someone like you for the company.

‘Oh great! Another headache to deal with!’ had been his first thoughts.

But he had to admit that it was one of the best decisions his company had made, and he didn't just think that because he actually liked having you around compared to some of the other idiots around here. You were helpful, and you took a load off his work pile every now and then, you brought him drinks and made sure no one bothered him when he was busy working. It made his work life all the more easier.

"Thanks." He hesitantly grumbled before taking a bite, you couldn’t help but notice how his eyes lit up for a slight second. "This is really good! How the hell do you know what I like?"

You let out a giggle. "You're a popular hero with a big following, all I had to do was search up 'Ground Zeroes favourite foods' and I learned that you like spicy food pretty quickly!" You really went to all that trouble just to get him lunch? He huffed through his nose. "Stalker."

"EH!?" he chuckled at your reaction before continuing. "Next time you can just ask me what I like. You don't have to go browsing the internet like some stalker fangirl." His smirk widened as he watched your face turn red.

"O-oh- right! Yes.. Of course!" Teasing you was way too easy and way too fun.

“You said it was lunch right? Have you had your lunch break?” he asked after taking another bite of the food. You shook your head and he rolled his eyes. Just like you always had to make sure he was eating well and taking breaks he had to do exactly the same for you. He didn’t need his assistant collapsing on him.

“Take it now then, here-” he reached over and pulled another chair closer to his desk. “You can eat with me since you got way too much food for me.” It wasn’t that much, he just wanted a reason for you to stay around for a while longer. He didn’t know why, he usually preferred spending breaks alone, it was practically the only time he got a break from everything and everyone. But, there was just something about you that made him feel at ease. He actually enjoyed talking to you, and this was a rare thing for him.

He loved watching you tense up at such a simple request. It was almost like you were surprised he wanted to eat with you. Then again, he didn’t do this with any other of his employees.

“Are you sure it’s ok sir?” You asked unsurely.

He sighed at your never ending courtesy. “I wouldn’t say it otherwise, just sit down.” You compiled and sat next to him.

He gave you half his food and you eagerly dug in, running around after people all day was a good way to work up an appetite, but as soon as the spiciness of the curry hit your palate your face turned red and you began to cough as the heat scorched your throat.

Bakugo burst out laughing at your reaction, your face had twisted into pain as you began gulping down water, it didn’t really help much. Your lips and tongue still felt like they were on fire. How can he stomach this stuff!?

You had never heard Bakugo laugh so hard before- or at all for that matter.

Once you cooled off you couldn’t help but laugh with him. It was nice to see him smiling for once, even if it was at your own expense.

Your combined laughter carried out of his office and down to where the rest of your coworkers were working. They could hear the pure joy you two were sharing from all the way down the hall and a few of them began to pry. They had never before heard their usually grumpy boss laugh like that.

Three of them walked up and peaked through the window to his office. You two hunched over laughing with tears in your eyes, you looked awfully close, a little too close for some of their likings.

“Hmph! What a suck up she is!” Setsuko muttered bitterly as her eye’s narrowed at the sight.

“I know.. We’ve worked here for years!! And yet Y/n who's been here what? Three months? gets all the special treatment?” Kimiko agreed.

“I-I don’t know.. She’s just doing her job..” Mariko chimed in as they watched the two of you wipe the tears from your eyes. She had never seen their boss so happy before, usually he was in a bad mood over something or other. However, when you were around, he seemed to soften up, it was kind of sweet in a way. She enjoyed seeing this new side you brought out of him, but she knew that a few of your fellow co-workers didn’t enjoy this “special treatment” you got.

“Don’t be stupid Mariko! You don’t see her getting the rest of us lunch do you? She’s supposed to help everyone around the office! She’s just trying to get a promotion!” Setsuko countered as they turned away from the window.

“That’s a good point though!” Kimiko grinned, a glint of mischief in her eyes. “She’s our assistant too. Maybe we should start taking more advantage of that?”

Mariko shifted uncomfortably at the suggestion, “I-I’m not so sure-”

“Good idea Kimiko! She needs to learn her place!” They completely ignored the shy, petite girl next to them. Mariko couldn’t stand listening to their childish plans and walked away from the scene.

As soon as you left Ground zeroes office after your lunch break the two girls approached you with friendly smiles on their faces. “Y/n! Glad we found you! We have some boxes over there that need to be put in the basement? Think you could do it for us?”

You sent them a curt nod, “Of course!” Thought you regretted not looking over at the box pile before answering. The pile of boxes just about reached the ceiling! There were so many! Your jaw dropped as Setsuko patted your shoulder. “Thanks a bunch!” Was the last thing they said before leaving you to it.

“Ok, I can do this! They might not even be that heavy! Maybe I can carry a few at a time and be done quickly!”

They’re so fucking heavy!

One box in and your arms were already aching, what was in these things!? Bricks?! That was the only thing you could assume from the weight of them. You weren’t sure what kind of bad luck you had been cursed with today but suddenly it seemed like your shift was going to become a lot more grueling.

Three hours later and you were practically crawling along the floor, the pile still only half finished. You had the great idea of using an old desk chair with wheels so you could push a few boxes along at a time but it was still really heavy and taking forever! Not that you could exactly do anything about it, this was your job. At least you didn’t deal with this everyday.

You wiped the sweat from your forehead and shook your arms to relieve the pain. “Just a few more left!” You tried to encourage yourself.

Little did you know about Marikos guilty, green eyes staring at you from across the office.

The week didn’t get any better for you. You were constantly running around having to do these ridiculously hard tasks all alone. They’ve had you fixing all the broken office chairs, scanning about 500 pages of forms only to say they didn't need  them anymore, they’ve had you going all over town to buy supplies or lunches for them, as well as running up and down all 50 floors of the office building doing a bunch of other ridiculous tasks for them. It felt unfair but it’s not like they were making you do things that were outside of your job description? So how could you complain about them when they weren’t really doing anything wrong?  

You felt so exhausted. You couldn’t even enjoy your breaks without them coming to ask favours of you. You felt even worse that you had barely any time to help Bakugo with his tasks. You were sure he didn’t need help- he always stressed he could do everything alone but you hoped he was at least remembering to eat. He was always too focused on becoming the number one that he often forgot to take care of himself unless you were there to remind him.

“Y/n! Would you mind going to grab us some coffee?” Kamiko asked you as you handed them the prints they wanted you to fetch,

Ok, that was a pretty simple task! That’s not unreasonable at all! You sent them a smile, a smile that was slightly strained due to your fatigue, “Of course!” You stepped around them to head towards the break room where the coffee machine was, but before you could go far they stopped you again. “Oh! No! The coffee in the break room is kind of gross, it’s never strong enough ethier, especially when you have a mountain of paperwork.” Setsuko giggled. “Would you mind going to ‘The steamed bean’? Here are the directions if you need them!” She handed you a note and you gawked at the address, It was all the way over the other side of town! “Y-you realise I don’t have a car to travel this far right?”

“Ah, we know, but we figured you wouldn’t mind since it’s a nice day and all! Besides, Exercise could do you some good!”

‘What's that supposed to mean…’

“Ok.. I guess I could but-!”

“Thanks so much! You’re a doll! We owe ya!” Kamiko waved as they walked off. “-won't it be cold by the time I get back…” You trailed off, speaking to the empty space they once stood in. You sighed. It was your job to assist them, but sending you all the way across town for coffee? It was a bit unreasonable. You just couldn’t seem to find it in yourself to argue about it.

You set off on your journey through the city, You had to admit that it was a nice day but the walk was too long for your liking. You could’ve gotten the train or a bus but you didn’t tend to bring change with you to work, You had a weird feeling Setsuko and Kamiko might have known about that. So it left you with walking.

The walk gave you a lot of time to think over the past week and all the jobs they’ve had you do. There was just no doubt about it.

‘They’re taking advantage of me.’

You sighed. Maybe Bakugo was right about you being too nice, a pushover even.. He had warned you about it time and time again but you didn’t listen. Being kind was just in your nature. You had every right to file a complaint against them for overworking you, the bags under your eyes were evidence enough, so why didn’t you? Because it was your job? Because you didn’t want to be causing trouble in the first few months of being there?

You huffed. You were angry with yourself for letting it get this far!

Though, you were too far into the walk to turn back now, the coffee shop wasn’t much father but you made a note to yourself to let this be the last unreasonable task you did for them!

The walk was almost an hour a half. You’ve never felt so relieved to see a coffee shop sign in your life! You couldn’t have felt more happy for your aching feet but when you made it to the door you noticed the sign had been turned to-

“Closed!?” you squeaked in defeat. All this walking for… this!? You sighed, Taking a moment to lean your body against the brick wall of the building.

Soon, you began trudging back to the office. You couldn’t exactly return to them with nothing, You didn’t want to get in trouble for not doing your job properly, and something told you that they wouldn’t hesitate to put in a complaint about you given the opportunity. So you bought them coffee from a different place before you got back.

You were dragging your feet at this point, your legs numb, you weren’t entirely sure what time it was; but the sun was begging to set over the city, leaving an orange glow in its wake. Once you arrived back at the office you found your two coworkers talking to Bakugo as they packed away their stuff. “We got everything finished on time thanks to your help sir!”

“Yeah, whatever..” He dismissed them and turned around to see you standing there, you looked overheated and sweaty from the 3 hour walk in the sun you had just taken, the bags under your eyes were prominent on your face, right next to how flushed your cheeks were. He blinked.

“The hell happened to you? You look like a mess.” He commented and you shot him a soft glare for the jab. “I was just out getting coffee for-” you looked behind him to see they had both left. You deflated, you eye twitched in annoyance. They really just-

Bakugo followed your gaze, catching on. “Why the hell would you go into the city to get coffee for them? We have coffee here.” He crossed his arms. You shrugged and placed the two coffee cups down on a nearby empty desk. “They asked and it’s sort of my job to assist them.”

“And now their shifts are over and you went to all the trouble for nothing.” He pointed out and you internally groaned. “Yeah.. pretty much.”

The office was practically empty now apart from the odd few night staff that were coming in for their shifts. You knew you had been set up, this wasn’t just bad luck like you had first thought. But why would your coworkers do this to you?

“Well better not let them go to waste.” Bakugo sat down and took one of the coffee cups. You smiled a little. It felt like he was looking out for you in a way, It was sweet. You sat down opposite him and let out a big sigh of relief at weight off your feet. You tried to relax your tired body as much as you could. It felt like the first time you had relaxed in a week. Your behaviour made Bakugo raise an eyebrow. “How fucking far did you go for coffee?” he asked you before taking a sip out of his cup. “The steamed bean.” you heard him choke on his drink and you jumped up. “Are you ok!?”

“Are you!?”  He backfired, staring up at you in disbelief. “Why the hell would you go there!? Not only is it miles away but you know it’s always shut on wednesdays, right?” you suddenly felt the need to collapse and sink into the floor.

It’s always closed on wednesdays!?

They really did set you up then!

You sat back down and Bakugos eyes followed you. “Oh.. don't tell me that's why you’re in pain.. You didn’t walk did you?” he narrowed his eyes, you could tell he was judging you and it made you too shy to give a reply. The look on your face must have said enough because he shook his head at you. “Idiot.”

“They asked and-”

“Just because it’s “your job” doesn’t mean you have to take that shit from them! Don’t let people use you and overwork you!” he scolded. You couldn’t help but smile despite being lectured and he noticed. “What? Why do you have that stupid look on your face?”

“I just- didn’t realise you cared so much about me.” He saw his shoulders tense which only made you smile more. This was priceless.

“I don’t- I just don’t want my employees being overworked!” He defended himself but you couldn’t fully believe his words. “You can’t fool me that easily, I’ve already heard plenty from the other workers around here that you’re a pretty stern boss. You’re serious about work and get annoyed when it’s not done on time.”

“Who the fuck said that!?”

“Point is! I’ve never actually seen that side of you. So either everyone else is lying or..” You shyly looked away “you have a soft spot for me~”

You heard him tut, his head also turned away from you as he crossed his arms. “That’s the conclusion you’ve come to? You’re dumber than I thought.”

“Well, you do invite me to eat lunch with you a lot, even making dumb excuses like “theres just too much food to eat it alone”, and you stay back after your shift ends just to talk and drink coffee with me.” You gestured to the scene around you, feeling pride when you saw his cheeks turn red. You knew that you had busted him. You let out a laugh at his reaction and he muttered for you to shut up.

Something about you laughing at him really pushed his buttons. He didn’t like that the tables had turned on him. Usually it was him teasing you, you were the one supposed to be blushing! Now he was the one with red cheeks and he couldn’t stand for this! “So what if I am a little soft for you?”

“h-huh!?”

“If I happen to like you a little more than everyone else around here? What are you going to do about it?”

“I- you-”

He smirked, just like that he had turned it back around. So easy. This was how it should be. With you getting all embarrassed and shy, not him. You hunched over in defeat, you were too tired to play this game with him right now. Especially when you knew you wouldn't win.

Though, you couldn’t help but wonder if he meant it? Did he really like you more than everyone else?

You took a nice long gulp of the warm coffee, you couldn’t wait for the energy boost, you really needed it after the week you had just had.

“You don’t have to worry about those two anymore.” He suddenly spoke up.

“What? Why?” You asked as you watched Bakugo absentmindedly fiddle with the cup. “Cause they’re getting fired tomorrow.” He smirked and you froze up. Were they getting fired because of you!? You knew they deserved it but you couldn’t help but feel guilty. Jobs are how people make a living, their source of income and if they don't have that then-

“Quit your worrying would you?” His voice cut through your thoughts, you blushed at how easy he could see through you.

“Listen, it’s not just because of you, though you are a big part of it.” He muttered the last part so you couldn’t hear and before you could ask him to repeat himself he carried on. “When I was helping them with work today the files they’ve been writing up on their computers were complete shit. I can’t have people like that in my agency.” You sighed in relief. Bakugo leaned forward to lock eyes with you. He glared. “Also, Mariko told me everything they’ve been making you do the past week.”

Your lips parted in shock. “Mariko?”

“Yes, I’m terribly sorry I didn’t help sooner.” You turned in your chair to see the shy girl approaching. “I-I knew what they were doing and I thought they’d stop but they didn’t- I’m not really good at confrontation you see so I-” she inhaled through her nose. Stopping herself from making excuses. “I’m very sorry I let it go on. I told our boss when I found out they sent you all the way across town on foot to a closed coffee shop. I wish I had said something sooner. I’m sorry.” She bowed deeply and you tensed up at the confession. You had never expected this from her. You could see how genuine she was being, how sorry she felt. You placed a hand on her shoulder and pushed her up. “It’s ok.” You smiled. “Thank you for helping me in the end! I really appreciate it.” You told her, Mariko seemed unsure, but curtly nodded anyway, “If you’re sure.”

She glanced over to her boss who’s eyes had never left you, despite you turning away. It reminded her of the look on his face when she told him about what had been happening. She wished you could have seen it, how worried he was. Maybe then you would understand just how much he cared for you. This wasn’ just a simple workplace relationship anymore.

She giggled quietly, a knowing twinkle in her eyes. “Well I should be off! Have fun you two!” She waved. You waved back, though you were unsure what that look she had given you was about.

“Never ever let anyone take advantage of you again you hear me?” Ah, back to the lecture now. You sent him a smile and nodded. “I’ll try my best”

He groaned at your answer. Trying isn't good enough! He needed to know you wouldn’t get put in a situation like this again. He threw his head back, “You’re lucky I’m around to keep you out of trouble.”

There was a small silence as you stared down at your lap, “I am.” You agreed, his cheeks tinted red at your response.

“Ok! Enough of that mushy shit! You look starving, come on let's go get some food. My treat.” He jumped up and you followed a frantic look in your eyes as you were about to argue that he didn’t need to do that but he stopped you before you could by placing a hand over your mouth. He expected you would have this reaction.

“No, shut up, just let me do this for you. I still owe you for when you bought me lunch last week!"

You bit your lip as you took his hand into yours and lowered it from your face, neither one of you pulled away. "That just sounds like an excuse to take me out."

To your surprise he leaned down to be level with your face. He smirked as his eyes burned into yours. "Maybe you're not such a dumbass after all. It is an excuse, I'm taking you on a date."

You gulped. You were thankful you were holding onto his hand because your knees suddenly felt weak as his breath hit your cheek. "Then I guess I can't turn it down." You smiled and he squeezed your hand. "Let's go.”

Bonus:

You sat in his car, driving around the city as you tried to find a good place to have dinner.

“So what are you thinking?” He looked over to you with a playful glint in his eyes. “How about The Steamed Bean?”

You let out a loud groan and sunk into the seat at the jab to your pride. “You’re the worst date ever!"

He chuckled at your reaction, "We'll see if you still feel that way when the nights over~"

[albino-whumpee]

The boss´ herding dog

You can thank insomnia for this one. Also, my need to show an aspect of Albus I´m DYING to explore on the arc after For you. This is a few weeks after the whole photos fiasco. Sann has barely started to learn sign language so he will sound a bit cut(?).

Taglist: @castielamigos-whump-side-blog @giggly-evil-puppy @cowboysrappin @haro-whumps @burtlederp @neuro-whump @comfortforthepain @whumps-the-word @whole-and-apart-and-between @broken-horn @ashintheairlikesnow @rosesareviolentlyread  @starnight-whump @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @as-a-matter-of-whump  @whumpasaurus101 @grizzlie70 @twistedcaretaker

CW// Slavery, dehumanization, suggestive language to taunt, manhandling, blood, angry caretaker, workplace bullying, conditioning, pet whump, mentioned ableism and negative views on stimming, mentioned past noncon and fucky victim self blaming (it was necessary kind of fucky)

It was odd for him to show the collar around. People stared, people whispered. Albus would hear them talk about him on his back all the time now. But he would keep working. As it was what his owner bought him for. He knew that. He knew it and yet…

“Do you really have to go, Tony?” He asked the man putting his things inside a cardboard box. As he scratched his wrist over the leather band Sasha gave him to cover the number. He frowned at the clean desk, the walls that had been decorated with flyers ideas and visual references, the drawer with his snacks too were gone. All fitted inside the trash bag the lady had put into her cart a few moments ago.

It was a quick clean up so the box was almost empty. His analogue clock, his sketchbooks, his computer, tablet, photos of Sasha and him, of his family and even one that included him looking awkward as Sasha hugged him and Tony took the photo with his phone.

It was funny how much of a life could fit inside a box.

The man shrugged, pulling the box over the empty desk. “I hit the boss’ son. I have to, buddy” Albus lowered his head. If he hadn’t…he shook his head. There wouldn’t have been a party in the first place if he hadn’t. He had been good, but sometimes, it wasn’t enough to be more than that. Tony’s wide hand squeezed his shoulder “It’s not your fault, Al. I promise I hit that bastard because he deserved it. But is annoying because I didn’t have a brick to build him a prettier face” he joked making the albino smile. The other smiled too, opening his arms “Hey, Al can I hug you? I’m gonna miss you man”

The albino didn’t need to be asked, not from him. But it felt good to know he had an option. “Im gonna miss you too” Albus pulled his arms around his waist and squeezed. Sinking on his chest. After a moment they pulled apart and Tony dig through his things to take out the bags of snacks to put them on his arms. “Sasha will keep them on her office now”

“You know she’s never there”

Tony grimaced “But she lets her office open. You can take them and come to have lunch with us” Albus mouth opened to say Zarai wouldn’t- hadn’t allowed him to do that. Even if he went grocery shopping with his ID… “I talked with her. With miss Montenegro. She said it’s alright if you came with us. Just to notify her before you go” Tony smiled. He had his jaw on the floor. Always helping him like that… he couldn’t help but go for another hug.

“Thank you” the albino muttered as the man ruffled his hair.

“And how’s Sann? Everything going ok?” Albus scratched his neck as Tony sat on the chair. They still had time before the new guy came. Tony crossed his arms “He’s having a hard time isn’t it?”

“He’s adapting…slowly…”

They had been eating on the floor with Sann for a while now. Until they could get him to sit at the table. “It was a full conversation to tell him to not be naked in the house...and that he could sleep in my bed alone without...earning it...” that made a vein pop out Tony’s forehead.

“That pervert bastard” he said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah… At least he’s doing very well with Sasha’s lessons. Told me about this new book he´s reading in signs!” the albino smiled remembering how happy he had looked to see them come back the first few days. The book pile over his nightstand growing and growing as the days went by. For some reason calculus text books from Zarai’s days at college and an old encyclopedia had caught his attention.

It had become normal for him to work on the laptop on the studio’s sofa and have Sann sitting next to him on the floor reading. Sometimes, he mindlessly hanged his arm only to find Sann leaning on to it. He had tried not to touch him, to pull away, but he had caught his hand and pulled it to his head. Sloppily signed it felt good when he did that.

“And how are you feeling?” Tony suddenly asked taking him by surprise. His face was knit with a bit of worry.

Albus forced a smile “I’ll be fine” he replied. The other hummed.

“Don’t forget Jeremy is also there and half the trainees adore you. If you need help” Albus nodded bitterly. Lee had stopped talking to them entirely. Wouldn’t listen to her tasks unless another person told her. A few people had become like that towards him now.

Because he was a box boy and would always act keeping his owner´s pleasure in mind like a loyal dog, he had heard them say. And they were right. He had been trained to have his owner’s safety as his maximum priority. If Zarai was in danger, he wouldn’t doubt a second to switch places.

Albus had to say goodbye to Tony that day to welcome days of dealing with the aftermath of what Robert had provoked.

Dealing with people letting things slip carelessly just to see him try to catch it, bossing him around, laughing when he did all the tasks, when it was “just a joke”. Having almost a heart attack upon finding a dog plate full with dog food over his desk with a note that said “for the boss’ puppy” he had to throw away and clean before Zarai saw it. Going to more public zones was tricky now. He was fine with the rumors. But hearing two trainees talk about their lack of promotions and suddenly seeing him enter the room to use the copying machine went really uncomfortable when he overheard one sigh.

“At least I don’t get deals by making my pet sleep with them” Albus hand crunched the pages on his hand and slammed them on the machine before he turned to them. Recognizing the dirty blonde who had talked as Galván. A guy who had graduated from a top college because his parents could afford it with pocket money and worked there because his uncle made a few calls.

“Ma’am´s position was earnt through her own hard work and years of experience. I would be very happy to remind you, you will need either her or my signature to have your degree after four years of dropping college, so you can find any other job than just an internship someone gave you” the guys snorted.

“What? Puppy boy can actually bark?” The other guy went, a black haired guy with a wiry body type and at least two heads taller than him. He vaguely reminded him of handler Harry. His primary handler. The one who supervised his whole training, and the one to make him stop circling his thumbs, wiggle his leg or tap when he was nervous. Until eventually it came back and Zarai said nothing. They started rounding him “Look at you, acting like you own the place” one of them reached to his neck and Albus stayed still as he uncovered the collar. Digging his nails into his hand “but you’re just the herd dog. Looking after your Master’s sheeps”

“By that logic, I guess the sheep should know they’re below the dog’s watch” the guy felt a chill seeing Albus’s crimson eyes gleam darkly. A grin crept to his face as he firmly put the guy´s hand away. “You were so slow at the beginning and asked me for help for something that took me two days to learn. It was me who helped you not get fired in your first week, wasn’t it? The dog with no degree” the guy scrunched his nose. Albus felt strange as something coiled inside his stomach and a white stinging pain formed behind his eyes “You better not stray from the herd and stay where I can see you”

“Shut up” the guy said pathetically, amusing Albus.

“Shut up what? Remember your manners” and Albus was bitterly reminded of training. Of the white rooms and the men who smiled when they shoved him to his knees. Who lifted his chin up and mouthed his instructions. The same he was saying now, echoing through his memories “You will refer to your superiors with respect. And when they ask you to do something, whatever it may be, your only reply will be “yes, sir” understood?”

The other guy laughed at his friend. Picked his ribs before turning to Albus again.

“Well, aren’t you sharp? My uncle’s boxie is a dumb domestic who can’t even clean a spot right. Just mindlessly begs to be forgiven all the time” there was something on his smirk that made Albus’ skin crawl “he became a lot more fun when they taught him how he could be useful as a romantic” the boy´s eyes sparked with malice “Heard all the ordeal with the CEO’s pet and you, sir” Albus froze “But I need to know from you, sir. Do you herd him too?” He took a step closer to Albus in that same suffocating air as the handlers. Albus tried to control his breathing. It would be fine. Their conversation had gathered a few faces, as well. Quietly amusing themselves with the show “Do you make the Romantic say “yes, ma’am” to her when she’s using him? Or do you make him say that to you only? I heard you were a romantic too, so maybe, you’re just teaching him how she likes it so he can join in? Or maybe, he’s worse than that? He’s your pet sir?”

—

The sound of her heels made faces on the crowd watch on her direction. Many of them running away as soon as they spotted her. Giving her freeway to the middle of all the commotion.

“Take it back!” She heard Albus scream eraged, so atypical from him. It was a surprise to see Albus being held back by a trainee as another stood before him with his knuckles peeled red and covering his bloody nose. Two guys restraining him harder as they saw her. Albus spit a bit of blood as he shouted “You know nothing about him! Take it back!” He jerked against the guy restraining him.

“Mister Serra stop!” the blonde trainee said putting his all into not letting go even as he squirmed so violently. Kicks in the air just to get an inch closer.

“NO! He has no right to say that about him! He doesn’t know shit about us! None of you do!” He screamed at the top of his lungs “Let- ngh, Let me go Jeremy!” He said through gritted teeth. “I need to knock some sense up that stupid head of-“

“Hear this out, the dog wanting to explain to me about a cocksleeve!” He cut him, just making Albus fight harder.

“Enough!” She hollered coming to his line of sight. Freezing them completely. Some people had taken out their cameras and she snatched one phone out of their hands. “What is this? A high school quarrel? You’re adults in the working force, gentlemen” she let it sink, seeing how Albus went stiff and trembled since the moment he spotted her. Zarai turned her head to the trainee with the bloody nose “We wont send some little piece of paper for your parents to sign, you go straight out” Albus eyebrows knit in horror stopping to struggle.

“No, please wait, ma’am” he whispered shakily as Jeremy balanced letting him go.

“I dont even need to know who started. you’re fired. Get your stuff out now” she said pointing to the widened eyed trainee as Albus suddenly collapsed on the floor. “All of you better erase those videos right now unless you are sure you can face the consequences.” She growled loud enough for the crowd to let a thick quiet settle. She knelt in front of Albus and he flinched wildly when she approached her fingers to his neck.

“Pl-Please, please no. Im, I, Im sorry, please! he, he said-“ he covered the collar with his hands. Trying to keep her from taking it away.

“I dont care what he said” she terminated before she took a napkin Jeremy handed her “Im not gonna take it away, are you ok? You took quite the hit there” he nodded slowly, somewhat relieved but not taking away his hand from his neck just yet. Albus kept looking at the ground as she wiped away some of the blood off his mouth. He saw her stand and talk again to the half dispersed crowd. “Most of you don’t know me very well yet. But have clear that I do not take lightly when my property is damaged and much less when the most capable member of my team has to endure your childish behavior” Albus head sank slowly as she kept talking. Nodding when Jeremy asked if he was alright and helped him up “I thought better of you. But you have proven to me not worthy of that right. I’ve had enough of this situation” she eyed every single frowned face, every guilty and compliant. “If I hear, or see, something like this happens again, or I find any of you trying to start a fight or bullying others, I will have them personally seen outside the building after signing their resignation letter and put you on the blacklist of candidates myself. Are we clear?”

“But what about-“

“Are we clear, Miss Lee?” Zarai directed to the black haired girl among the crowd. She stared at the ground while she nodded “Whoever refuses to accept this can come to my office to explain and sign their resignation. Thats all. Disperse”

She watched them walk away, before she turned to Albus “Follow me”

The albino´s heart leapt before he walked after her with his head down. His heart drummed at each step and seemed to halt to a stop when she opened the door for him. Albus stared into her eyes, but as many other times, she was unreadable when she cocked her head.

Clenching his jaw, he stepped inside and heard the door close behind him.

He had fucked up.

He had completely broken her trust in him and he would finally be punished.

What was he thinking? Mistakes weren´t allowed.

Zarai walked past him to a small cabinet behind her desk, but Albus had his eyes locked in the ground. Not wanting to see what exactly she would use to punish him until she was on it.

“On the desk” she ordered still rumminating through a metallic box. The boy breathed in deep before walking to her desk with shaky legs. The uncertainty of what would come just made his heart race faster. He sat on it obediently anyways.

“M-Ma´am, I´m so sorry…” he started, fear taking the worst out of him, his hands got damped in sweat.

“I know you are” she replied calmly before pulling his chin up with soft fingers “Lift your head, hun” Without meaning to, he flinched wildly at the sight of blurry fingers over him. Zarai fished his jaw and pressed slightly on each side, to turn his head up “Hey, hey, don´t move. I know it hurts but I need you to stay still so I can put it on”  Zarai then poked his cheek with something cold, making him blink at the refreshing sensation on his skin. “Doesn´t hurt, right?”

He blinked confused at her, “L-Lidocain?” he said in the smallest voice she had ever heard.

“Uh-huh” she kept rubbing the gel over his bruising cheek. Completely frozen over the desk as she cleaned his busted lip. After a moment she closed the lid of the gel and put it back on the metallic box. He now recognized it as a first aid kit. After she put a bandaid she looked down to throw the package in the trash “You can come down now. How´s it?”

It took the boy a moment to reply, slipping off the wood desk with ease “Better…Thank you, Ma´am”

She hummed as she put the box away, sitting on her chair as the boy stood in front of her desk utterly transfixed in her calmness.

Albus kept eyeing her furtively. Worry visible as he kept rounding his thumbs. She took notice of it quickly and stopped herself from checking her computer to sigh. “Tell me”

“Im sorry for the trouble ma’am”

The woman lifted her eyes.

“No, Im sorry. I should have done this sooner, dont worry about it” she turned on her chair to face him. Lips parting and biting it for a second “You have been working for me for six months, Albus. You know better than this” the way he sank on his shoulders confirmed “I dont wanna know what they said because your reaction was probably justified. I trust you in that. But you can’t do this again, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am” he kept quiet for a minute before he dared speak up again “Ma’am?” he tried “Why wont you punish me?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“Would you want me to?”

“N-No… I mean- no, but-” the boy stammered, squeezing his hands tight as he lowered his head submissively “…But I won´t complain if you think I deserve it”

“That´s not going to happen. You did nothing that required punishment, Albus” she sighed.

“But I started…I punched him first” he admitted.

“Well…that’s certainly surprising” she found herself wondering how he had reached his face with his small height “But no. You won’t be punished for it. The guy was also getting on my nerves with that sly mouth. So maybe I should thank you”

The albino sneaked a little smile “Then…then will you keep me? Will I be able to keep working?” Zarai sighed and nodded. The albino looked shaken, capable of keeping his composure, as he went back to work later. She knew by just watching him automatically doing his chores and cleaning up when it was time to go with a blank face.

The elevator was quiet and the ride home even more. Zarai wasn’t exactly a feeler. But she knew the way his eyes were fixed on the floor as he waited for her to enter the house was empty. She gave him a headpat then. No words as she didnt even know what to say to him that would cheer him up. But still, he leaned on to it.

“Thank you, ma’am” he said when she took away her hand to open the door.

“Everything will be ok yeah?” she smiled at him before they entered the house. The boy trailing after her feeling a small blush on his cheeks. He could hear Cloude’s loud voice and smelled something very sweet. French toasts?

Sann came trotting to meet them. Wearing one of Cloude’s shirts that were too big for him and basketball shorts. He bowed to Zarai who gave him a headpat too and a smile before walking to the kitchen to greet Cloude.

“French toasts arent breakfast?” She teased.

“Time is a social construction. Its 10 am somewhere” Cloude thought french toasts were for breakfast too, but Sann had never tried them and frankly possibly neither Albus. Prepared them? Yeah for training surely. Eat them? Not so sure “Just a lil something after a hard day” he said to her before she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

The freckled boy smiled wide before he spotted the bruise on his cheek.

“What happened?” He signed worry flooding his face as Albus shifted uncomfortably. Taking off his leather band as he remembered what the other guy had said. Anger threatening to come back. Sann noticed his knuckles were bruised too. “Hurts?”

“Nothing important” Albus shrugged. Looking away “Dont worry, it was just a scratch. but it looks ugly because…albinos bruise easily…” he said every word slower than the last, as his bitterness leaked through his words. Waiting for him to nod, to sign yes, for anything but him softly soothing his swollen knuckles.

“Easy or not, bruises still hurt” he signed as an affirmation, eyes losing focus to wonder back on memories. Sann looked up again before stroking his healthy cheek. “Wont ask how. Instead, Want some ice?” Sann smiled after signing. Just before noticing a tear rolled down Albus’s cheek. Then he frantically started to round his chest as an apology.

The albino shook his head not able to shake the smile off his face for the rest of the night. It was even more difficult as Sann finally sat on the border of the chair. Next to him. To eat french toasts for the first time and had Cloude laughing at their reaction. Even more as, deep into the night, he stroke Sann’s hair while sitting next to him reading the space part of the encyclopedia. Sometimes asking what a word meant and pouting when he didnt know. Taking out the dictionary and reading the meaning together.

The futon on his back didn’t feel so hard suddenly. Even if he managed to keep himself awake way after Sann left to sleep, he covered his eyes. After a moment, he passed his fingers around the leather collar on his neck. Loosened up to sleep like always. Still there. The physical permission to keep having all that. A cozy place to sleep, a job, friends as well as the insults and degradation.

What deemed him her property.

He had her words stuck in his mind all day. His Ma´am had made something clear that day but it didn´t make him feel better at all. It was just…so exhaustingly confusing. He didn´t understand how to be good for her, how to keep the punishments away. By some lucky strike he had managed to get this far without fucking up, but this was an strike and he knew better by now to think she would wait for a third to act.

Albus let out his breath as he covered his eyes with his hand. Feeling the warmth of his swollen fingers, he opened his eyest to stare at the knuckles with bandaids Sann insisted in putting after some ice and smiled before rolling over to face the door, covering his head with his arm like an instinct the handlers didn’t put in him, and closed his eyes to sleep.

For a moment, Albus swore to himself he would figure out his owner as he went by, even more carefully now. It would be ok. As long as he had that one person by his side, it would be enough.