#anytime i get into a large body of water i nearly drown!!!!!

[akkivee]

in high school, i was the brand of nerd that helped my entire class pass algebra lol

my dad lent his voice for an anime movie in the 2000s so i’m technically a daughter of a voice actor lmao

my bday is the middle date between two of the yamadas

i have aquaphobia

[sweet-dreamins]

careless (f+a)

○ pairing: pro hero! katsuki bakugou x gn! reader, pro hero! reader, established relationship

○ word count: 3.5k

○ summary: after a successful battle you’re confused when katsuki isn’t happy for you, in fact he’s furious. shouldn’t he be proud of you?

○ content: a bit angsty, a bit fluffy, hurt/comfort, mention of cuts and blood

○ a/n: i rewrote this like 4 times lol but here it is!! (i may come back nd edit bc passive voice) feedback is appreciated, enjoy!

You and Bakugou were partners, but you weren’t partners. Sure, you were lovers in the nighttime, but on the field? Yeah, no thanks. The two of you had only partnered up a few times, and that was more than enough for you. Before even entering the field, you were hesitant that he’d let himself get distracted by you and you were right, just not for the reasons you think.

The dynamic shifted juuuust a little too much for your liking. One of the most...memorable times was when you were up against one of the more powerful villains. Anytime the villain would make a move towards you before you could even retaliate, Bakugou would slip in front of you- even going as far as to shove you back. To others watching, it seemed as if he was falling back into his attention-seeking habits or that it was so romantic that he put your safety over his, but you knew better (or at least you thought you did).

After that fight, you two had quite the shouting match in the ER afterward. Until he dragged the two of you home, insisting he was more than capable of taking care of the both of you. That, and his publicist was this close to having another conniption after hearing about your rather loud discussion….that the whole hospital heard.

You knew Katsuki only acted that way out of love and concern for you. You know that he sees you as strong. So, why did it still feel so demeaning? Why did it feel like he didn’t, maybe still doesn’t, see you as strong enough?

Even though after your discussion, you had decided to not do hero work together, the little voice in the back of your head wasn’t erased. Creeping in concluding that you were nothing but a pity fuck. The skewed, brutal honesty of the public never failed to make the little voice louder.

You did your best to not let it get to you, you really did. You ignored the tabloids and told your friends you didn’t want them telling you about the articles they had read. But this past week was just atrocious. Katsuki and you had gone on a coffee date, knowing that he was going to be swamped this week, trying to make up for crammed schedules. The paparazzi managed to find you-instantly getting into your personal space, effectively cutting your date short.

By the time you had got back to your apartment, the pictures were already released and practically everywhere. Katsuki tried distracting you by making you dinner and it was wonderful. But you stayed up that night reading every single headline, article, and comment about the two of you. Drowning yourself in the criticism as the voice began to get louder and louder.

Of course, you would never say it out loud, but since then you had been itching for a fight with a real villain. Somebody who can do some proper damage, somebody strong. Any kind of opportunity where you could prove your strength, show everyone that they’re wrong about you. That you’re good enough for Katsuki, that you’re strong enough to be a hero- that you are enough. And finally, finally, finally, the chance came.

You did wonderfully. The fight had dragged on for a while, long enough for reporters to arrive and commentate on the rest of it. Everyone could see how well that you handled everything, all the footage establishing your reputation.

Once the adrenaline from the fight had subsided, the ache in your body started seeping into your bones. Cuts that had been littered across your skin felt as though they had started glowing red, the cool night air kissing them. You still managed to put on a brave face for the crowd afterward, relief and joy filling your heart as the cheers far outweighed the jeers.

You let their praises wash over you, relishing the fact the little voice in your head had been silenced. Their words seeping into through your wounds, momentarily numbing the burning pain. Your heart was no longer squeezed by apprehension, finally at ease knowing that they believed in you, in your worth. As you gave your last interview and waved to the crowd, you made your way over to the ambulance.

His foot was practically tapping the ground at the speed of light, you were surprised he hadn’t made an indent in the concrete already. Katsuki stood there, arms crossed with a scowl on his face, furrowed brow, and glaring eyes. You didn’t know whether it was the exhaustion or if the night was that cold, but you could’ve sworn there was steam coming off of him.

He had arrived pretty late to the scene, coming from the other side of the city, but the footage of you was everywhere. Katsuki had seen the majority of the fight and despite not saying anything, it was obvious that he did not like what he saw. The lights from the ambulance bathed the two of you in red light. Strong arms envelop you in a firm but gentle hug. You close your eyes and breathe him in. You stand there in silence for a little while, simply basking in each other’s presence.

He leans down to mumble in a gruff voice, lips brushing against your ear,

“I already talked to the EMTs, we’re going home now.”

Although Katsuki had EMT training from when he was younger, only on rare occasions did he fully take patching you up into his own hands. Yes, he was always breathing down the neck of the poor medic who had the misfortune of having you as a patient, but typically he had enough self-control to let them do their job.

You were grateful to have privacy, but his reaction was off-putting to say the very least. He should be proud of you, right? That you handled everything so well, he should be congratulating you, right? So...why does he look like he’s two seconds away from grinding his teeth to dust?

The car ride to your apartment is as silent as the grave, thick tension weighing down the surrounding air, making your tongue heavy in your mouth. Katsuki’s knuckles turning white as he grips the steering wheel, not once sparing you a glance. Nearly all the lingering adrenaline from the fight and buzz from the crowd has faded, irritation and pain taking place.

Why the hell is he mad at me right now? He has no right or reason to be mad at me. Everything turned out fine!

As the city lights flutter past the window, you sit in the passenger stewing in confusion and anger. Wracking your brain trying to come up with a logical reason as to why he’s mad at you. Once you arrive at your apartment, you wait to hear the telltale slam of the front door, preparing to cringe- but it never comes.

Instead, Katsuki gently shuts the door behind him.

Oh. So he’s in that kind of mood.

Over time, you came to learn that there were levels to Katsuki’s anger. Everyone else in his life had been on the receiving end of his knee jerk reaction at some point. Yelling and slamming down everything he could get his hands on. But tonight, the type of anger in front of you. Only a few people had been privy to. The kind he has the force of an inferno behind it but is trying to channel it into a few million candles. The kind he wants to be careful with his words, spending every passing second trying to remove the barbs from his tongue, so as not to get it wrong.

Before you could get pulled back into your head, a large warm hand pressing at the small of your back kept you tethered to reality. Katsuki gently guided you to the bathroom, wordlessly turning on the shower, a silent signal for you to get undressed. The tension from the car had followed you into the apartment, a dark cloud, about to storm at any moment.

You slip into the shower, drinking in the way the water washes away the dirt and grime of the day. The peace is short-lived, the warm water trickling into your open wounds, your entire body stinging slightly. Peeking past the curtain, you see Katsuki rummaging through the closet for supplies. After he sets everything on the counter, he steps out to grab clothes.

Snatching the soap bar, you scrub your body down as quickly as possible, whimpers of pain involuntarily falling from your mouth. You had waited until Katsuki left, not wanting him to hear you crying out. Frantically blinking away your blurry vision, you finish washing up and wrap yourself in a fluffy towel, taking deep breaths. How are you going to keep it together?

In your shared bedroom, Katsuki was grabbing you a change of clothes while grumbling to himself. After throwing on a tank top and sweatpants, he paces back and forth with a scowl, running a hand through his hair. Trying to untangle the scribbles piling up in his brain, he takes a deep breath and looks into the mirror. He knows he needs to tread carefully, to get his words across in the best way possible. What you need right now isn’t yelling or anger, it’s honesty and support. He doesn’t want his anger to get in the way of what truly matters, repeating it over and over in his head,

I love you, and I care about you. I love you, and I care about you.

He makes his way back to the bathroom, clothes in hand, to see you standing there wrapped up tight in a fluffy towel. The precious sight in front of him squeezes his heart, making it a little hard to breathe. Here, in the safety of your apartment, you let yourself be a little more vulnerable and he loves it, wants more of it. But once you notice him walk in, you stand up a little straighter, wiping away the teary expression on your face. He grits his teeth at this but says nothing, reminding himself to keep it together.

You finish drying off and put on the clothes he brought you, one of his shirts and a pair of sleep shorts. Even though he’s standing right in front of you, being enveloped by his scent is still comforting. He leans against the counter, waiting for you to jump onto the space next to him, reminding himself one more time,

I love you, and I care about you.

He finally opens his mouth to say,

“That was really stupid of you.”

No response.

“You could’ve gotten seriously hurt, you realize that, right?”

Silence.

“You could’ve bled out and died.”

You spit back, “But I didn’t right? I’m still here, aren’t I? So it doesn’t matter.”

Katsuki grits his teeth, huffing through his nose, growling out,

“It doesn’t matter?”

“No, no it doesn’t because I’m fine. Everything else turned out fine, so who cares?”

You were certain you were right, no doubt about it! He was overreacting about this and it was honestly the last thing you needed tonight, so you had less patience than usual.

He snaps his jaw shut, opting for the silent treatment again with a scowl on his face. Katsuki douses a cotton pad in alcohol and swipes it across one of your cuts.

You yelp in pain and surprise, sucking breath in through your teeth, snatching his wrist. You shoot him a glare, at first he’s ready to glare right back, but once he meets your gaze he softens. That’s what you do to him. You’ve given him a safe space to be soft, to be loving- to be vulnerable. This is why this cuts him up inside so much more, he knows that you’re in pain, that you’ve been in pain for the past week. But every time he would ask, you brushed it off, adamant on shouldering it by yourself. He was even angrier at himself for not pushing harder, if he had you might not have pushed yourself tonight.

You were his safe space and your reluctance to be vulnerable with him, had him doubting himself. Was he not enough for you? Did you not think he could be your safe space? He had beat himself up over this, which added another layer of frustration that had to take the backseat tonight.

He continues working diligently in silence, repeating the process with the same care for every single cut. Rubbing alcohol, bacitracin, a bandaid, and then smoothing over it with his rough fingertips. Repeatedly, gently tracing plain patterns over the material, soothing the both of you. If the circumstances were different, he would’ve littered butterfly kisses over every single one. The amount of self-control that he was showing was unfathomable.

Katsuki was inches away from exploding, pulling his brain in endless directions between figuring out how to get through to you, wanting to just tactlessly spill his guts, and longing to smother you in frantic love. You were nearing eruption as well, desperately wanting him to say something, anything at all, but you also didn’t want to hear a single word of his lecturing. You also wanted nothing more but to hug him, to cling to him because fuck, tonight was terrifying but you couldn’t let him know that-you had to stick to your guns.

Both of you were stubborn as all get out, a trait that you both loved and hated in one another. Neither of you wants to be the first to give in, and yet desperately pray the other will. Here together, in your bathroom, and yet worlds apart, lost in your thoughts. You were unceremoniously dragged back to the moment in front of you by fear.

Whether Katsuki did it on purpose, he had left the worst cut for last. It was the biggest one, crimson and angry, your anxiety building as he prepared to clean it. You had handled the stinging of the rest of the cuts fairly well, this one was going to be your breaking point.

His warm, rough hands wrap around your thigh, lightly squeezing it to steady you.

“Wait! Please.”

Your hand shot out to wrap around his wrist, your brain still catching up to your outburst. He immediately stopped in his tracks, looking up at you and feeling his heart shatter when he saw your eyes. Pleading, looking for mercy in him, and full of fear. As soft as he could muster,

“Hey, hey it’s not going to be that bad, promise.” He carefully watches as you nervously chew on your bottom lip. He raises his large hand to gently cup your face, you instinctively lean into the warmth of his palm. A new, unfamiliar voice pipes up in the back of your head as you get lost in his carmine eyes.

Let go.You’re safe here.

You let go of his wrist to place your hand on top of his bigger one, absentmindedly stroking.

“Just take a deep breath, okay? It’ll be over before you know it.”

Drawing in a shaky breath, you nod and try to relax as he moves his hand back to your thigh. He gingerly wipes the cut, the alcohol instantly seeping in and burning. You cry out in pain, begging him to stop, but he doesn’t listen. He tries to be quick but still efficient, wanting to lessen your pain. He places a large bandaid on it, smoothing it down, and finally, finally, gives in and presses the lightest butterfly kiss on top. 

Fuck.

Your bottom lip is poking out, quivering as you do your best to swallow the sob clawing its way up your throat. Angrily rubbing away the tears that escape, you let out a trembling sigh, still trying to get a hold of yourself. Balling your hands into fists on your thighs, you sniffle and bite your lip so it’ll stop its ridiculous shaking. You instinctively berate yourself for how you’re reacting.

You should be stronger than this. What is wrong with you? 

The new, sweeter, softer voice comes back to say,

But it’s okay. Because it’s him.

Because it’s him. Because he’s the one who is fixing you, who is choosing to fix you. To be here with you, to choose you, and to love you. And maybe it is okay that you’re ‘weak’  in front of him. It’s safe here. Maybe you were wrong an-

“Do you understand why I’m mad at you?” His voice rumbles out, interrupting your thoughts.

“I-I don’t- honestly, no not really, I did nothing wrong tonight” You try not to roll your eyes at how watery and shaky your voice sounds. Katsuki sets his jaw and slowly breathes in and out of his nose, almost like a bull getting ready to charge.

“How am I going to get this through your head?” He mutters to himself, you roll your eyes in return and give him a pointed look. You know that you shouldn’t be getting riled up, but the exhaustion is sapping away your patience. Logically you know that you should just stop with the retorts, listen to him, and yet,

“Well? Are you going to tell me why you’re mad at me or am I just supposed to be a mind-reader?” 

That was the last straw.

“I don’t know how or why you can’t see this,” he starts slowly, mulling over his thoughts, “but the way you handled tonight was...it was...you shouldn’t have pushed yourself that hard.”

“But every-”

“I don’t care that everything else turned out fine!” He raises his voice momentarily, forcing himself to come back down, “I’m not mad that you took care of everything else, I’m mad that you didn’t take care of yourself.” Ruby eyes search your face for any sign of understanding.

“It doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks,” he notices how your eyes widen, realizing that he knew your feelings all along. You were mistaken for thinking you ever needed to handle it by yourself. 

“You are already strong and you don’t have to prove that to anyone. You don’t owe anyone shit, you don’t need to push yourself to the point of breaking just to show that you can make it there.” He slips his warm, coarse hands into your softer ones, gripping tightly. He leans forward to put his forehead against yours,

“I need you. I need you in my life, and I need you to take care of yourself.” Desperation seeps into his voice, begging you to give yourself the love you deserve. Quietly, he adds,

“For my sake, at least, don’t be careless, dumbass.” He pulls back slightly to look at you, eyes glassy and full of pain. He doesn’t say anything else, letting his words float around in your head. You laughably admit to yourself,

He’s right. I am a dumbass.

Your face is wet with tears, salty drops still haven’t stopped cascading down your skin. You were being foolish, but you didn’t want to admit it, letting your pride suffocate you. You’re sniffling nonstop but still trying to keep your cries as tucked away as possible, your whole body shaking with stifled sobs. He lets go of your hands to cup your face, thumbs wiping away fresh tears. 

“You can let it out, you know. You let me.”

You throw your arms around him, clutching him, afraid that he’ll float away from you. Keeping him in a tight, tight, tight embrace, hands collecting handfuls of his shirt. Like a broken record, repeating over and over again, strangled, I’m sorry’s. He hums in response, rubbing circles on your back as he holds you. Unbeknownst to you, he’s thankful you can’t see his tears that manage to slip out, knowing you would only cry harder.

The two of you stay like that until your sobs have subsided. He pulls away, wiping away the rest of your tears and holding your face again. You stare into each other’s tired and bloodshot eyes.

“I don’t want you to be careless anymore. I don’t want you to feel like you have to prove yourself to anyone. I want you to see what I already know, what is already true. You are more than enough, you are more than strong enough, and I need you to see that. Okay?”

Nodding, you whisper, 

“I know,” You bite your lip and nod again.

“I know.”

Sometime later, after cuddles and soft voices, you lay in bed, wrapped up in fluffy blankets. Rubbing at the gauze around your arm, you stare at the ceiling, ruminating on what Katsuki said.

He’s right. I don’t need to prove myself to anyone, especially not to assholes who don’t even know me. Next time that I want to be reckless, I’ll just think of him. The one who loves me and knows me.

You close your eyes and smile to yourself.

The one who knows I’m strong.

[acraftedmistake]

Nether Time!

Cassie and Petra need to get stuff from the Nether! It’s been a while since they’ve done this.

“Nether time!” Petra sang as she leapt out the portal.

“Nether time!” Cassie Rose chimed as well, landing right beside her friend.

The two exchanged big grins with one another. Cassie was holding onto her outfit so tightly she thought it’d tear.

It’s been ages since they’ve been in their house together. Everything still looked and felt the same. The red and teal carpet was still covering the netherrack floor, still stained and torn, the walls were that weird combination of wood and netherrack that she remembers so fondly, shelves and counters surrounded them, holding both their’s and the previous owner’s items. Those four cushioned chairs they placed in the upper left corner of the house--the ‘kitchen’--have yet to move. The kitchen itself was just a few chests filled with food, a battered stove that stopped working years ago, and a cauldron with strange splatters in it. There were also the remains of their kitchen table. Used to be fine, sturdy wood, but when they first arrived at this house, monsters were trying to break in, so they had to use the base of the table and the legs to fend themselves. The decorations were still hung up too! Bells, chimes, other sorts of art pieces attached to strings that hung from the ceiling, just as Cassie remembers it.

Well, it technically isn’t ‘their’ house. Their portal just happened to appear inside this strange old place one day, and they claimed it. Finders keepers, you know? Besides, the previous owners were probably long dead.

“Come on, we need to get your pumpkin.” Petra made her way to the counters beside the portal. The countertops were covered with broken weapons, ores, and strange nik naks they found over the years, and sitting in the middle of it all: Cassie’s white pumpkin.

Petra grabbed the hollowed fruit and spun it around in her hands, “You’ll be happy to hear I’ve been taking good care of your other pumpkins back at the cave.”

“That’s impressive, considering you somehow managed to kill a cactus that one time.”

“Hey, I already told you that stupid cactus killed itself. I was gone for one day, and when I came back, it was dead. I did nothing wrong.” Petra denied as she tossed Cassie her pumpkin.

Cassie quickly dropped her extra set of clothes to catch her it, “Did you water it when the soil got dry?”

“It’s a cactus. Water’s irrelevant.” Petra avoided Cassie’s little glare by facing the counter again and sorting through the random items.

Cassie held the pumpkin in her hands and stared at it for a moment. It’s been a few years since she’s worn it last. Memories were flooding through her. She still remembered how she first got her hands on her first pumpkin; she stole it from a crazy old guy’s backyard. She just happened to spot it while walking through a random town one day, Petra told her ‘If ya like it, get it.’ And she did exactly that. It was a real strange pumpkin. When the two cut it open, it hardly had any guts, and the inside smelled like… Nothing. Well, it smelled ‘wet’ if that was possible. The sorta wetness you’d smell in a forest after it’d rain. They were surprised at how durable it was too, which soon sparked the amazing idea of shoving her head inside the pumpkin and using it for protective gear. It sounds ridiculous--heck, it probably looks ridiculous--but it works, and Cassie likes it, so that’s all that matters.

Cassie ended up planting the few pumpkin seeds years ago, and before she knew it, she had a bunch of = pumpkins to last.

Cassie can trust Petra with the pumpkin care, but she always makes sure to check in on them. That white pumpkin got her into plants, she even has a few houseplants back at home, but she’s still too embarrassed to tell anyone yet.

“Oh!” Petra snapped her fingers. She dashed back to the portal, shoved the upper-half of her body into the vortex, then came back out with her Wither Skull in hands. “Nearly forgot this bad boy.”

“I’m surprised that thing’s still in one piece.” Cassie said while she watched Petra grab a cloth from a chest in the kitchen.

“Right? This thing’s insane!” Petra exclaimed as she cleaned the inside of her painted skull. “One time I forgot it outside, a quake happened, and when I ran out to get it back, a tree landed on it and it was still in one piece.”

“You ever thinking of repainting it?” Cassie asked. She began putting on her long, oversized, dark blue pants over her leggings.

“Nah, the stripes are iconic. “ Petra tossed the cloth aside then shoved her head into the skull.

Cassie let out a grunt as she struggled to put her large long-sleeved shirt over her hoodie. She knew she was going to be drowning in sweat with three layers on, but that’s three extra layers of fire protection. When she finally got it on, she began tying the belt around her waist and slipped on her thick, brown gloves.

As she was adjusting her gloves, Petra handed her a crooked pickaxe and a worn-down sword.

“If I knew you were comin’ over today, I would’ve made some better tools for you.” Petra said. She was holding a blue backpack in her other hand that’s seen better days. One black strap had been completely torn off while the other was just barely holding on. There were holes where the buttons used to be. Hopefully it’ll be able to hold their stuff.

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” Cassie said, holding the tools by the sides of her arms. “We’re just gonna pick up a few things anyways.”

Cassie stuck her head into the pumpkin.

“You ready?” Cassie asked, her voice muffled. She took the weapons out and held them firmly.

“Super ready.” Petra smiled as she watched Cassie twirl the tools around before shoving them into her pockets.

Petra swung open the front door, and a horrible heatwave rushed in and hit their faces. Cassie’s eyes watered. You’d think after all those years of exploring the Nether, she’d get used to it, but it always seems to get worse each time.

Petra held the door open with her foot and the girls made some quick, last-minute readjustments with their outfits.

Cassie glanced to the side and spotted a familiar sign hanging under the doorknob. It was a piece of oak wood with the words “No Boys Allowed” that she made as a joke. That was way back when they first spawned into this house.

“Why do you still have that old sign up?” Cassie asked, surprised it hadn’t burnt to a crisp.

“To keep the boys out.” Petra said casually as she closed the door.

“But we’re the only two here though.”

“All thanks to the sign.” A little smirk formed on Petra’s face.

Cassie rolled her eyes and gave Petra a playful shove as they went out into The Neighborhood.

The Neighborhood… A sweltering ghost town. Awakening members used to live here years ago. Their ‘homes’ were just hollowed out holes in netherrack hills, making the place look more like a Hellish wasp nest than a cozy neighborhood. The openings were usually covered in old wood, and their front doors were rather busted or missing. And the way these houses were placed in such unorganized clutters just felt… Wrong. People weren’t meant to live in the Nether.

Any leftover space was taken up by Nether portals. It didn’t matter if the space between the houses were huge or cramped, people found ways of making the portals fit. Maybe the Neighborhood looked real pretty when the portals were all activated, but they’ve been deactivated for years, and Cassie and Petra weren’t planning on lighting them up anytime soon. It was bad luck to reactivate dead portals.

“So what things you lookin’ for again?” Petra asked.

“Gold’s high on the list,” Cassie replied, “we also need extra iron, extra flint, and some netherrack just in case.”

“Awh shoot, what?!” Petra froze. Her tone turned serious.

“What? What’s up?!”

“Do you know how hard it is to find netherrack!? We’ll be looking around for hours!” Petra exclaimed, standing on the netherrack floor. Surrounded by netherrack hills. With a netherrack covered sky.

Cassie couldn’t see Petra’s face, but she KNEW she had that big, dumb smile.

Cassie gave her a quick bonk on the skull and bent down to gather an arms-full of netherrack chunks, all while Petra was laughing.

“Damn, talk about lucky.” Petra teased, “You always had a good eye for rare items.” She slipped the bag off her shoulders and opened the flap for Cassie.

“Yeah, yeah. You gonna be messing with me the entire time we’re here?” Cassie rolled her eyes as she shoved the netherrack into the sack.

“Awh, come on, it’s been almost two years since we’ve done this. I’ve missed ya.” Petra said. The two began walking again. “It’s really boring without ya, you know?”

“Man, has it really been two years?” Cassie stared at her feet, a feeling of guilt starting to gnaw at her.

“But I mean--mentally, it’s only been two days.” Cassie said, looking back at Petra.

“Ex-ACT-ly. Time doesn’t move unless we’re together. Common knowledge.” Petra gave her a grin. Cassie couldn’t see most of it, but she could feel it. It was reassuring.

The two stepped over a wooden bridge that was splayed out over the ground. It’s been there since day once, wood planks, rope, and all. They kept telling themselves they’re gonna move it, but they never do. It’s not like it’s a huge obstacle or anything.

There was a lotta stuff like that around the Neighborhood. If you looked up, you could see more bridges hanging between the hills, many of them missing their planks or dangling by their threads, and a bunch of the houses built into the top of the hills had staircases, ladders, or ramps that stretched all across the area. Cassie and Petra had the “fun” experience of finding out which ones were stable or not.

“So, shouldn’t we start looking through the houses or somethin’?” Cassie asked, her eyes scanning the dozens of houses they’d have to scour through.

There were still items in these houses. Even though this place was abandoned years ago, a looming presence remains. Dirty dishes sitting in cauldrons, rotting meals on kitchen tables, unfinished letters on desks, wrinkled blankets on unmade beds, all signs that this ghost town was once full of life. Petra and Cassie have spotted many weird trinkets The Awakening members have made; chunky jewelry, small dolls carved from nearby materials, chimes, and masks that lacked eyeholes. Many, many art pieces included the Awakening symbols: A red flower with hundreds of petals, their empty eye, and the Hero. Another thing many homes seemed to have were mirrors, but they were never in one piece. Instead, they were often broken into several large parts and tied to strings that’d hang from the ceiling, or arranged in odd shapes on the walls. Sometimes the shape would resemble their eye, but most of the time it looked like nonsense.

“Nah, I have a different place in mind.” Petra replied.

“Have we been there before?” Cassie tilted her head.

“Perhaps.” Petra said, “Just gotta wait and see.”

The two stayed on the path, which was a mix of netherrack, gravel, and soul soil, passing under the hanging decor above.

Wooden poles were on each side of the path with rope tied to the tops, connecting them together while chimes, flags, and glass hung from the threads. When a hot breeze came by, the Neighborhood would create its own music. The clinking of the glass, the flapping of banners, the clattering of metal chimes, and the creaking of wooden doors created this strange but soothing sympathy to fill the silence.

“How’re things with the other Jesse and Olivia goin’?” Petra asked, swinging her sword around.

“Frustrating.” Cassie huffed.

“Oh?”

“Things were kinda going okay until Aiden decided to basically blurt out what was happening to our Jesse. Now Stella’s all stressed out, and we gotta keep an eye out for that cult creep, and Aiden’s probably gonna be super bummed that he made poor little Jesse upset--” Cassie ranted.

“I remember bout Aiden spillin’ the beans.” Petra commented. “Sorry everything’s been stressful.”

“It’s been so freaky with those two around! I dunno if I should be happy, upset, but Hero, everytime I look at them for more than a minute I start to feel sick.” Cassie felt that familiar queasy feeling rising in her stomach, “I’m not saying they’re bad people or something, just that… Everything sucks. And having our Jesse running around isn’t helping.”

“I mean, it’s a weird situation. Don’t blame you at all for feeling that way. Heck, even when I first saw them I was thrown off. Felt like two freaks wearing Olivia and Jesse’s skins.” Petra noticed her friend falling behind and waited for her to catch up.

“That’s a fun way to put it.” Cassie said, trudging along.

“Jess and Liv,” Cassie mumbled, “they’re nice, but I can’t wait for them to go home. I wanna forget this ever happened. They make me miss those two all over again.”

“I can imagine.” Petra went quiet when Cassie joined her side. The sounds of the Neighborhood filled the air.

Petra extended her arm out, “I’m here for ya, though, ya know? If you ever wanna complain, cry, or get angry about that Radar guy, I’m always here.” It was hard to see it, but through the gaps of the skull’s teeth, Petra was giving her a smile.

“Thanks.” Cassie took one hand out of her pocket and went to lock arms with Petra, something they used to do years ago, “I mean it.”

“Course.” Petra said.

And with that, the two picked up the pace.

Petra glanced at her friend then glanced at the various portals surrounding them, “I’m gonna guess Jesse and Olivia didn’t walk through an obsidian portal, right?”

“No, some weird blue portal. Probably lapis. I wish it was somethin’ as easy as obsidian.” Cassie sighed. “I’m guessing you haven’t seen Jesse recently?” She asked.

“Nope.” Petra lied, “Not yet. I’ll let you know though.”

Cassie gave her a nod and looked ahead. They were nearing the Nether Fortress. Their Nether Fortress.

Seeing this place after so long… It was like seeing it for the first time again. The broken, tall towers, the bridge stretching across the sea of lava, the ruined railway system, it was so otherworldly. The only thing missing were those hundreds of monsters crawling around the place that Cassie and Petra used to beat up.

That wide open bridge over boiling magma--with the Fortress being so close--was just begging Cassie to run across it.

Petra noted Cassie’s excitement and unlocked arms with her.

“Go ‘head, I’ll be right behind ya.” Petra said with a grin, and on cue, Cassie bolted off to the entrance.

Memories of the two of them raced through Cassie’s mind. The hot air hitting her face, the colors blurring together, her feet stinging each time they hit the ground, it was just like old times. This was liberating.

“Hey, I’m winning!”

Cassie whipped her head at just the right time to see Petra taking the lead.

“Not for long!” Cassie hollered as she picked up the pace.

They were both set on the entrance. Cassie could see Petra out of the corner of her eye. She could feel the confidence radiating from her, like she knew she was gonna win. But not this time.

When Cassie was just feet from the entrance, she dived. She crashed into the ground, her pumpkin making a loud THUD when it hit the floor.

Before she could push herself up, Petra fell on top of her. She must’ve had the same idea.

Both of them were laying on the ground, panting and laughing.

“Pretty sure I won.” Petra finally said.

“Nu-uh, my hand made it past the entrance first!” Cassie shot back, still breathing heavily.

“Yeah, but your hand didn’t touch the ground first, so technically--”

“Since when were you about technicalities?!” Cassie exclaimed. Petra could hear the laughs between her words.

“Alright, if it’ll make you happy, then I’ll admit it…” Petra got up and helped Cassie to her feet. “We tied.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Welp, guess we’ll never know who won.” Petra shrugged. Cassie gave her a playful shove.

“Yeah, yeah.” Cassie adjusted her belt. The two stopped and faced an intersection of three hallways.

“Which way do we need to go?” asked Cassie.

Petra glanced at the wooden arrow signs above then pointed ahead, “Straight, then a left, then straight again.”

“Got it.” Cassie started walking and couldn’t help but snicker at the words on the signs. There were a bunch of those signs hanging around here, their original words have long since faded, so she and Petra took some creative liberties.

Cassie recalled those directions, they were heading towards the ‘Spicy Abyss’, which was the second bridge on the other side of the Fortress. It's in ruins, so the two of them just like to sit on the edge and enjoy the view.

The middle sign was ‘Lotsa Boxes’, which is the hallway they’re currently walking through. It’s a rather wide hall--nearly as wide as the bridge they just crossed--that’s filled with abandoned stalls, carts, and chests. The stalls had boxes in, on, and around them, the old carts had boxes in them, and the chests--the chests were already boxes. This place must’ve been a Trading Hall, a storage, or even a marketplace for the Neighborhood back then. The way everything was arranged reminded Cassie of the night-market in Obsidian Town; lots of trading, buying, and selling, except not in the middle of the blazing-hot Nether.

Banners hung from short poles in the walls, all shades of red, turquoise, and gold while covered with symbols and faded words advertising goods. When Cassie and Petra first found this place, they were surprised at how many tools, ores, and old books were left behind, so of course they gathered them all up and sold ‘em. Made them a great deal of money!

The two took a left and continued down another hallway. They were pretty close to ‘Petra Fell’; those were the words on the last sign. It was one of the three tall towers you could see through the windows. It was the shortest of the bunch, it’s upper half is completely missing, but it was the best place to climb and get a fantastic view.

Cassie and Petra haven’t been on top of that tower in years. The last time they were, Petra was playing around near the edge, stumbled, and nearly fell to her death had it not been for Cassie catching her. Petra’s been terrified of heights since then. Cassie can’t blame her.

It’d be nice to rush through that tower again with Petra, even if she didn’t want to go to the very top, it’d be a great… The tower…

It looked different.

Cassie couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was off. She could feel it.

“Hey, did that tower get shorter? Or have I just been gone for too long?” Cassie asked.

Petra didn’t even glance at the tower, “Already noticing my hard work, I see.”

“Hard work?” Cassie tilted her head. Petra didn’t elaborate. Cassie kept pestering her, but she wouldn’t budge until they reached the end of the hall.

Where there used to be a big, gaping hole was now covered up by tons of banners. They were sloppily sewn together, trying to hide every piece of the other side.

“So,” Petra began, “Remember how I said I had a different place in mind to find those items?”

“Yeah?” Cassie answered slowly.

“And remember how we always wanted to build that bridge to the other side of the Nether?” A grin grew on Petra’s face as she watched Cassie’s eyes light up.

Cassie gasped, “No, nu-uh, you did not!”

“I did.” Petra raised her brows. When Cassie took another step forward, Petra yanked the banners off to reveal a magnificent bridge that stretched across the sea of lava and connected to the other side of the Nether. It was a mish mash of netherrack, nether brick, gravel, and even some obsidian. There weren’t any rails on it, and Cassie was certain it hardly had any support underneath it.

It looked dangerous.

It looked fantastic.

Petra watched Cassie take all this in. She was bouncing in place, hands over her mouth, all excited like a li’l kid. Man, Petra could only imagine what Cassie’s face was like under that pumpkin. Her eyes were probably sparkling and she had that big, dorky smile that’s bright enough to light up this entire fortress.

“Oh Hero, oh--Oh I canNOT believe you!” Cassie exclaimed, grabbing Petra and shaking her excitedly before giving her a big hug.

“Hey, we always wanted to see more of the Nether together.” Petra chuckled, “Thought this would be a nice little surprise for when you came back.”

Cassie let go to look at the bridge again; Petra took a lungful of air.

“And don’t worry, it’s stable.” Petra said, “I’ve tested this bad boy out hundreds of times and only had several near death experiences.”

“Perfect, great! All I need to hear.” Cassie was revved up. She dug her feet into the ground, ready to blast off, but she stopped herself. “Agh, wait. I promised Aiden I’d come back home soon.”

“How soon?” Petra leaned against the wall.

“Like, by the end of tomorrow, I think?”

“Well, you got here at a pretty good time, so we got, what? Several hours to work with?” Petra tapped the skull’s chin, “If we’re fast enough, we could see some good sights and get your stuff. So whaddya say?”

Petra got closer to Cassie, “Wanna see how fast we can blast through this sucker?”

Despite the skull hiding her face, Cassie knew Petra was smiling, and Cassie smiled right back at her.

[darkestdesired]

The Gladiators Prize

@bugmanor

Warning:Smut,Water sex,swearing,Felix being a sexy and clingy Beast,Poor little reader never stood a chance.

Request: NSFW Felix x Innocent/Shy S/o.

An:I am so so so sorry this is so late,I hope this is ok! It's been a while since I've written smut but i am kind of happy with how this came out.

Gladiators had always been my favorite thing to study in history class,they were usually more beast than man.The stories always ended two ways but always with death,Either the lion or the man were leaving that arena alive.

Most of the time it was the lion.

But i never thought I'd actually get the chance to meet one in real life,That was until i found out that my entire college history class was going to the city of Volterra to visit some of the many wonders it had to offer. I was absolutely stoked,i was living by myself and had been wanting to move there my whole life,I was even saving up and nearly had enough.Might as well see what it had in store for me.

The plane ride over was exhausting but i was so glad when our bus finally arrived,Mrs.Gillard whistled to get everyones attention."Alright everyone,our hotel rooms aren't ready yet so why don't you all check out the shops while we wait." There was a wave of relief filled sighs throughout the group causing her to roll her eyes.She was always such a mean woman. I wondered around next to a few shops before deciding to lean against the wall of an alley,pulling out my favorite book about gladiators and blocking out the ouside world.

"Hello there gorgeous,what is someone as stunning as you doing here all alone?" I heard a deep voice ask,Looking up my face heated up immediately as i saw the devilishly handsome man infront of me.He was like a giant compared to me,but he seemed a bit starstruck as well as our eyes met.

"I-I uh.." It was as if my brain had completely shut down,he didn't seem to mind though since he chuckled."Didn't mean to surprise you cara mia,I simply saw a living goddess and wished to introduce myself." He reached over and gently took my hand in his before bending down and making a show of keeping eyecontact as he kissed my knuckles."You smell absolutely heavenly my dear,and what might your name be?" He said in a gruff sultry voice causing my knees to grow weak. "My n-Name is (Y/n)" i said like the utter mess that i was. He smirked down at me and stepped closer,i dropped my book and tried to move back but i was already against the wall.He listed his arms and successfully trapped me between his hulking body and the brick,The cape he wore blocked me from view from the wondering people that walked around outside.

"Such a lovely name..(Y/n).." My name rolled off his tongue like it was his lifes mission to make me faint from bliss. "My name is Felix Volturi Cara Mia,I suggest you remember it." I gulped,"And why is that..?" His eyes chuckled as what sounded like the mix between a growl and purring erupted from his throat."Because you will be screaming it soon enough."

This is it..This is how i die,i thought as he leaned his face closer,his eyes dark with lust."You are mine.." He purred.Something in me urged me to let go and live in the moment,But the sound of one of my classmates yelling my name broke me out of my trance. With a flustered face i quickly moved his cape and dove under his arm,not even attempting to look at him in fear that i might fully lose control.

He watched as i ran out of the valley and out of sight,bending down he picked up my book.He sniffed the book and purred at my scent,He chuckled when he saw the title of the book."Mmm we are destined my little flower,You can not hide from me."

Tossing and turning in bed i huffed before sitting up,I had been lucky enough to not have a roomate,but even that joy couldn't suppress the events of the day.I couldn't get felix out of my head,I had never had someone so attractive talk to me before,and especially not like that.Thinking back on it he looked a lot like the gladiators in my book,if i didn't know any better i would have assumed he was one.

Realizing i wasn't going to be falling asleep anytime soon i decided a nice bath in the tub that seemed more like a pool compared to mine back home would get rid of the heated fantasies that brought a blush to my (S/c) cheeks,Tredding my way into the gorgeous bathroom i undressed on my way there,not even bothering to pick them up on the way, before hopping into the nice steamy water.

I guess that's why i didn't hear the sound of the window opening.

Felix sniffed the air,causing him to lick his lips when he could still smell the traces of my lust,he thanked the gods when he saw my cute but sexy black panties laying onthe floor.Not even hesitating he picking them up and breathed in my scent,barely stopping the growl that threatened to escape.He stuffed them into his pocket before getting undressed,setting his clothes on a chair.There he leaned against the doorframe and watched as i played with myself,i forgot to shut the bathroom door.Since the tub was round i sat with my back to him,Not even realizing the danger i was in.

Sighing in pleasure i added another finger to my tight pussy,"Ah..Mm...Felix..." I moaned. Biting my lip i leaned my head back against the edge of the bath."That's right,say my name again Cara mia." My eyes shot open and i saw Felix standing over me with a sly smirk. Gasping i quickly turned and sat on the other side ,Blushing furiously when i saw the state he was in. "Do not be frightened my love,I told you you are mine." He stepped into the tub until he was knelt between my thighs.

"H-How..How did you get in here..?" I asked,Shaking despite the warm water that engulfed me. He chuckled,"I have my ways,Now let us continue where we left off,Shall we?" Leaning in he captured my lips,he started off gently and waited as i froze with wide eyes.It only took a a few seconds before i melted in and began kissing him back.

From there the kiss got more and more heated,His strangely cold hands grazed at my fragile skin from my shoulders to my breasts,He swallowed my moans as he kneaded my breasts and piched my now perky nipples.My hands held on his braud shoulders for support,Knowing if i let go i would likely sink into the water. Pulling away he licked his lips hungrily as he saw my blazed out expression,"Look at you,So needy for your gladiator hm? Does the idea of such a strong man claiming you turn you on? You are my prize for all of my victories my dear,it is time to claim what is rightfully mine." He pushed his knee forward and smirked,obviously pleased as i began to rut against his thigh involuntarily."That's it,Give into the pleasure." He grinned when he pulled away his knee,eliciting a whine."Do not worry my dear,I will give you what you desire." Grabbing my thighs and wrapping them around his waste he wasted no time in guiding his large member into my aching core.

He hissed and clenched his eyes tight in ecstasy when he was fully sheathed in my warmth,"Fuck..You are so tight my goddess..Tell me..Am i the first man to taint your sacred flesh? Tell me! For i shall hunt down any who has dared to take what is mine." He growled while mercilessly pounding into me once i had gotten used to his size. "N-No..I..I was.." He grinned widely,his dark red eyes glowing as he drowned in the beautiful sound of my moans."You are mine! Do you hear me? No one will dare to even think about taking you from me once i am done with you! Tell me you are mine!I will treat you like a queen." He reached down and grabbed my chin,not to hurt me in the slightest but to force me to look deep into his eyes."I-I am yours! Please Felix..Ahn..hah.." Tears poured down my cheeks,wrapping my arms around his neck he nipped at my neck,causing me to wriggle.

Now that i had accepted him he was going to ensure that i would not be able to walk for the next month.Leaning back he pulled me with him so that i was now riding him,He opted to watch as i bounced on top,enjoying the sight of my breasts bouncing.

"Forget all about the life you have lived before my innocent little mate,i am never letting you go again." I was so blissed out that all i could do was nod,running my hands down his stunning abs.

"Fe-Felix..I'm so close..Please..!"He licked a a stripe up my throat,relishing in the shiver the visibly rolled up my skin."As am i cara mia,Come for me!" With a few more harsh thrusts i felt my body spasm in the most amazing pleasure i had ever felt before.I could hear his grunts as his hands tightened on my thighs,"Fuck...(Y/n)!" He hissed.

I kissed his forehead before burying my head in his shoulder,letting exhaustion take over."All mine." Was the last thing i heard before darkness consumed me.

When i finally awoke i was dressed in an unfamiliar bedroom with my back pressed against a cold chest,arms secured protectively around my waist."Go back to sleep my love,You are home now." Felix's deep comforting voice said against my shoulder causing me to smile."Hmm.." Was my only response as i buried myself deeper into him and drifted back to sleep.

My gladiator kept his word,He never let me go.

[obx-snippets]

Chapter 2 ∫ ≈ Ocean’s Siren at the Kegger ≈

Summary: Reina goes to her first kegger in the obx and it’s a lot more than she bargained for.

Warning: Cursing, panic attack, mentions of aquaphobia, drowning.                  S L O W B U R N

Word count: 3.2k

Pairing: JJ Maybank x female!oc

Masterlist

a/n: thank you to those who are showing interest in the series so far! Hope you stick around till the end!  

After long-wearing hours of searching for a suitable outfit, Reina gave herself a pep-talk in the mirror as she sat on the floor, staring deep within herself. If it weren't for Mina and Chris being at work so late, they would diagnose her to be clinically insane.

"It's a party, quit being a pussy."

"It's near water, why the hell would you even go?"

"I mean....you were invited, so it's sort of rude if you don't."

"I don't even drink anymore, so I could bring my own Gatorade."

"Why would you say 'yeah, I know where the boneyard is.' Fucking dumbass, you just moved here yesterday."

"Where are my pills?"

The setting sun was seated on an orange and pink horizon that it claimed as its throne. The breeze carried the ocean's salty scent in the air, tousling Reina's hair that she fought to keep tucked behind her ear. Her flip flops slapped against the hard cement, moving her bike by her side, not yet having the courage to step in the sand as she walked alongside the beach. She could hear the faint sound of pounding music, and as she neared the supposed kegger, the hollering a cheering of teens became clear as day. The lights of burning torches danced across her brown as she stopped just at the beach's edge, her toes only inches from the golden sand. A familiar sensation bloomed in her stomach like a flower that was hidden from the sun for too long. Excitement? Thrill?

A feeling that she hasn't experienced since that night. There was a smaller crowd of teens surrounding a small area of a particular part of the beach, and Reina had to squint her eyes to make out John B holding up a blonde boy by his ankles as he performed the infamous game, the keg stand. Pride tugged at her heart, knowing her past self would have stood up to the challenge of lasting longer. But she stayed put, hugging her body over the soft material of her white oversized sweater that covered a portion of her blue tennis skirt.

Her jaw instantly clenched, and eyes screwed shut upon hearing the water so close. The waves were mocking, tormenting enough to make her breathing ragged and uneven.

A gleeful cheer brought Reina to open her eyes to see John B patting his blonde friend on the back after he successfully lasted thirty seconds on the keg stand. Cheap beer dripped down his contoured chin, his laugh traveling to where Reina stood. She guessed he was one of the other boys in John B's van but wasn't sure what his name was.

Was he Pope or JJ?

His cerulean eyes shimmered under the torch lights, his toothy grin surprisingly contagious. Reina hadn't even noticed she was smiling until a pair of blue eyes latched onto hers, heat quickly radiating up her ivory cheeks. Her lips parted as if to say something but realized how far he was and quickly closed her mouth. It seemed the blonde surfer discerned what she attempted and opted to pass her a nod before stalking away with his arm draped over John B's shoulder.

Reina couldn't comprehend what she felt once she made eye contact with the boy. His ocean eyes. His handsome, chiseled features. That toothy smile that spread to her own lips. That gray muscle tee that made her mind wander. Her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth as she watched Kiara punch another boy on the arm for tossing his red solo cup on the sand.

The one who ordered the sprite.

John B was leaning forward as he sat on a fallen tree trunk, his finger prodding the blonde's side before gesturing toward a gorgeous blonde girl dancing provocatively in a small crowd. It seemed like she was the bait for the night, but Reina wasn't impressed.

"Hot, isn't he?"

Reina let a yelp slip her lip as she jolted away from the smirking girl standing next to her. She was casually drinking her beer; her dyed hair pulled up into a bun with bobby pins holding back stray hairs. She had seen her at the Wreck along with the other rowdy teenagers that occupied too much of her time for just a couple of drinks.

"W-what?" Reina cleared her throat, playing dumb as she wrung her hands to let her sweater's sleeves cover her hands.

The girl glanced at her from the corner of her dark hazel eyes as she gave her a pointed look. "The one you were ogling is JJ." she stated, pointing one of her fingers that held her red solo cup toward the blonde who was currently staying still so Kiara could pluck something out of his eye. "The sweetheart who ordered the sprite is Pope, and you met the rest--oh, and I'm Harlow. Westwick."

Harlow held out a hand, and Reina glanced down at her black painted fingers before shaking it gently.

“Reina Lynch.”

Harlow made a face, “Reina. I like it.”

Reina was surprised when she felt a smile pull at the corner of her mouth. She looked back up at Harlow, a kind expression of her own on her face.

“Thanks,” she replied.

Harlow took a large gulp of her drink, blinking wildly when some of it splashed into her eye, “So,” she started, clearing her throat, “how long you been in the OBX?”

Reina let out a sigh, carding her hand through her hair before tugging her sleeve back over her hand, “not long,” she answered, “definitely still adjusting.”

Harlow nodded her head, shivering from a gust of wind before brushing some of her baby hairs from her eyes, “Yeah, it takes a while,” Harlow laughed, “where are you from?“

“Cali.”

Harlow gaped quickly with a laugh, “Oooh! California, I like it. That’s totally rad, dude.”

Reina let out a laugh, a real laugh. “Nobody talks like that in California, you know?”

Harlow’s pink lips parted, ready to reply to her when the song switched, causing a gasp to slip from her mouth, “I love this song!” she exclaimed, turning in small circles to find a place to set her cup down, “dance with me!”

Reina clammed up immediately, the smile slipping from her face as her eyes darted to the crowd of drunk dancing teenagers. “Oh, no, I-“

“Come on!” Harlow cried over the blaring music and shouting, her dainty hand wrapping around her wrist, “please! nobody else likes to dance to this song with me!”

Reina pondered for a moment, letting Harlow shake her limp arm, chewing on her bottom lip. Worry pooled her eyes, wondering how it would feel to jump back into the party life so soon. She hasn't had a drink, so as long she steered clear of any and all alcohol consumption, one dance didn't seem like the worst thing. Besides, her blue Gatorade was tucked safely on her bike, where she had parked it by a palm tree.  

“Okay,” Reina sighed, itching a random spot on her neck before she touched her regrettable scars and coiled her hand away, a smile touching her lips once she met Harlow's eyes, “one dance.”

She didn't seem like it at first, but Harlow Westwick was a firecracker who's adrenaline had boosted to a hundred by the time she started dancing. Reina couldn't help but laugh anytime the girl poorly busted a dance move that, in her opinion, was killer. Instead of trying to mirror anyone else's movent, Reina gradually let her body sway to the heavy pumping music, her eye getting lost in the darkness and focusing on the song's base. Soon enough, the two had been dancing for an hour, disregarding Reina's 'one dance' policy.

Reina followed the tipsy girl around the boneyard, not bothering to tell her to ease up on the drinking as she didn't see it as her place to tell her what to do. She had caught Kira glancing toward her and passed her a small smile before quickly grabbing Harlow's waist when she nearly fell face-first on the sand. Too occupied with keeping Harlow upright as she marched down the beach, Reina overlooked JJ, John B, and Pope staring at her from where they sat around a bomb fire.

“So,” JJ started, downing the last of his beer, “what do we think of the new girl?”

John B casted his eyes over to Reina, who was dancing with their friend, more trying to hold her up than anything, “She seems cool,” he replied with a shrug.

Pope nodded along, his eyes still on Reina and Harlow down the beach, “She sounded nice, and she’s currently babysitting Harlow, so seems like she could hang.”

JJ tapped his ring clad finger against his plastic cup, his eyes dancing side to side, “Think I could bag her?”

His question sent the other two boys into a groan, Pope rolling his head back and John B tossing a nearby empty solo cup at him,

“Jesus, man! Do you think about anything other than sleeping with girls?”

JJ looked up, pondering, “Weed,” he answered, “spend a lot of time thinking about weed.”

“Yeah, we know,” Pope said, rolling his eyes.

“She could be gay,” John B suggested.

“What makes you think she’s gay?” JJ asked, face scrunched in confusion.

“What makes you think she’s straight?” Pope rebutted.

“Touché, Pope,” JJ tipped his empty cup at him, “touché.”

The wind was nipping at Reina's skin once the music suddenly died down. She had been following Harlow for so long that she just realized how different the sand felt under her sandals. The ground was a bit more firm but squishy at the same time, unlike the dry sand she had been wondering just hours prior. Reina stopped dead in her tracks when the sound of waves broke her from her trance. She inhaled sharply, her smile dropping, and her eyes widening in mild horror. The smell of salt became like a toxin in her lungs, and she stumbled back, her hands balling into a fist. If she knew Harlow would lead her this close to the water, she wouldn't have taken up the offer to dance. The dark sky made the water look like a raging god, calling her to step into its deadly grasp.

Despite the influx of cold wind, Reina found herself sweating under her sweater as she created more distance between herself and the ocean. A flash of a flowy green dress came across her eye when she saw Harlow drunken figure dancing toward the water. Her heart nearly jumped out of her chest, seeing her tread dangerously closer to the shallow part of the ocean. The girl couldn't even keep herself balanced on the sand, and the waves would devour her immediately if she got any closer.

"Um, Harlow," Reina's tone was scarcely over a shout, not wanting to scare the girl. "could we maybe head back to the party?"

Harlow flimsily whipped her body around, her pale cheeks flushed with heat as a grin played on her lips. "There's not a pool at the party, Reina!" Harlow stated, her hand's failing to properly set on her hips as they kept slipping off.

"This isn't a fucking pool, it's the ocean. Now could you please--Harlow!

The giggling mess of a teenager took another tantalizing step into the water until she was knee-deep. The waves roughly slapped onto the back of her legs, her body bucking forward, bringing Reina to gasp. Any person with sense would have marched to Harlow and dragged her away from the water to prevent her from drowning. But Reina stayed glued in place, watching the tipsy teen splash water about. Maybe if she called her enough times, Harlow would listen.

Reina bounced on one of her legs, her pleading eyes desperately trying to spot one of her friends in the crowd that seems small considering how far they had traveled. Another loud splash brought Reina to look back at Harlow. Water must have got in her eyes, and she was brutally rubbing her knuckles over her eyelids to cease the burning. Reina's heart stopped upon seeing a wave hurtling toward Harlow, but as her words got stuck in her throat, the water slammed into her back, her body lurching forward face-first into the icy sea.

"Harlow!" Reina cried, taking a hesitant step forward. Her ears keened in on the waves, her eyes adjusting to the darkness to try and spot Harlow but nothing. She prayed that her head would appear above the waves, smiling and breathing. But nothing again. It's as if the ocean had eaten her alive and didn't think twice to bother apologizing.

Reina's breathing became uneven once she realized Harlow wasn't resurfacing as long as she stood there doing nothing. "Fuck me.." she huffed and shook her head.

Without a second thought, Reina was dashing forward down the small hill that led to the water, kicking off her sandals. Her mind was so hellbent on saving Harlow that she didn't focus on how the water felt on her torso, how it tugged on her figure to swim deeper. She knew if she let her mind find out that she was indeed in the ocean, she would surely drown, and both girls would be lost at sea.  

Reina's hair was now wet as she was forced to dive under and let the salt burn her vision as he tried to make out Harlow's silhouette in the darkness. She kicked around, her hands roaming the area until she felt her hand swipe across a clothing material. She instantly heaved the girl's body up until Harlow's face was above water. She was completely unresponsive, and a sting of guilt tugged at her chest. If she hadn't hesitated, Harlow would still be breathing.

She pulled Harlow to the shore with all her strength, letting her body lay on the wet sand. Reina brushed her damp hair from her face and tucked it behind her ears to better examine the girl. "Harlow," Reina called to her urgently, cupping her face in her hand to try and shake her awake.

She had never performed CPR, but this was a life or death situation. Reina pressed both hands on Harlow's chest and began pumping up to thirty. Reina gripped her jaw and plugged her nose to pry her mouth open and started breathing air into her lungs. She repeated the action a couple of times, and just when she lost hope, Harlow's body began jerking violently until she was coughing up water to the side along with some of the cheap beer that she let screw with her mind.

Reina's heartbeat eased as she let out a sigh of relief and sat back on her heels, looking up and letting her eyes flutter shut. Harlow wiped her mouth with the back of her hand before sitting up, her eyes wide with her mouth agape as she stared ahead at the ocean that nearly killed her. Silence loomed over the two girls, both trying to process what had just happened. The only sound was their heaving breathing, the taunting ocean, and the party that was likely to go on until the sun rose.

"We shared our first kiss," Harlow giggled after fleeting silence, resulting in Reina snapping her neck toward the girl.

"W-what?" she muttered, her face reddening as confusion pulled at her brows.

Harlow was beaming, and the wink she sent to Reina made her squirm in place as she stared at the girl stunned.

"Harlow!"

Both girls looked back to see Kiara, JJ, John B, and Pope rushing toward them.

“Holy shit!” Pope examined the girl's soaked state and shivering bodies, “what happened?”

“Had a near-death experience, P man,” Harlow answered as her feet wiggled in the sand, “but God herself over here saved me.”

“Are you seriously cracking jokes right now?” Kie shouted, her features stitched into an angry frown, “you almost died!”

"That's an exaggeration," Harlow quipped with a quirked brow. With shaky hands, Reina helped Harlow to her feet. She looked among the girl’s group of friends, averting her eyes from the ocean beside them.

"I had to perform CPR," Reina mumbled quietly to her statement. But it seemed Kiara and Pope caught on as they're eyes bulged from their sockets.

“Dude, for real, are you okay?” JJ asked, his eyes bouncing between Harlow and Reina.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Harlow sputtered with a shrug as she held her body to find warmth, “never almost drowned before, so I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel.”

“What is wrong with you? You could have died! You can’t just go out into the ocean drunk as shit!” Kie lectured.

“Yeah, Kie, I get it, alright!”

The two girls' voices started to rise as they argued, John B and Pope hurried to step between them, trying to mediate. Reina stood a few steps away from them, biting through the skin of her lip until her mouth filled with the taste of iron. Without knowing what she was doing, her feet started to move her away from the group, unaware JJ had his eyes on her the entire time.

________________________________≈Ω≈___________________________________

Reina's hands were trembling as she unlocked the door to her house, her face blank when she entered the cold living room. The driveway was vacant of any cars, meaning she was completely alone. Alone with her thoughts.

Her worst enemy.

When she took another step across the cold wood floorboard, she nearly slipped. A gasp sounded through her lungs, and her mind found an opening. A door that had been locked for so long that she never dared be this close. But with her soaked hair making a puddle on her feet and her wet sweater weighing her down, the tears that began streaming down her cheeks were inevitable.

Reina tossed the keys toward a wooden table near the door and fled to her bedroom. She had to use the wall as support as she pressed her hand against her chest, trying to even out her breathing. But it was too ragged, and she felt like collapsing. Though her room was large in width, she could feel the walls closing in on her. Like her nightmares had finally cornered her.

A sob racked her throat, and she began to tear off her skirt along with her underwear. She didn't want to feel anything related to tonight's events. She regretted going at all.

Reina finally stripped out of everything until she was bare. Her legs gave under her, and she fell to her knees and shuffled back until her spine made contact with her bed. If ripping her wet hair out was an option, she would do it immediately. From the air conditioning blowing down on her, she knew a stuffy nose was guaranteed, but she didn't want to feel anything.

With her jaw wobbling uncontrollably and her body shaking, she held her legs close to her chest and rocked back and forth.

You're not in the water anymore.

Reina threw her head back, scraping the side of her neck along the pattern of her scars. The tune of the windchime seemed so distant, but yet it was enough.

"I'm sorry," she sobbed.

Her heart steadied, the warm tears continuing to flow like a blanket trying to comfort her.

"I'm sorry, dad."

@pogueszn @mdlyncline @bricksatanakinswindow @ponyboys-sunsets @kaitieskidmore1 @casper17 @moonshinerbynight @cordeliascrown @acvross-the-universe 

[hiccanna-tidbits]

Happy Holidays, RotBTD Fandom!!!

Hello everyone! This is my Secret Santa gift for @siodymph’s RotBTD Gift Exchange!! Or a preview from it anyway--the full fic is actually much longer and is still a work in progress ^^; 

I got @disney0bsessoid5150! I admittedly stalked your page a bit and it seems like you ship Jackunzel and enjoy angst, so I was just like ohhhhhhh yes, I can work with that!!! Truthfully I used it as a bit of an excuse to finally start on an angsty Jackunzel fic I’ve wanted to write for a loooooong time now. I think it’s approaching like...4 years that I’ve had the concept now?? Anyways, I guess I’m finally getting around to it! And I owe ya one for giving me an excuse to finally get up off my butt and get started on it XD

So I came across and really fell in love with the idea of icicle!Jack a few years ago, where basically Jack gets covered in icicles after his power goes out-of-hand in some way and like...double-freeze him, or Pitch does some shenanigans to use the icicles to make the poor boy even MORE isolated. Largely inspired by NightmareHound’s comic strips about Icicle Jack on deviantart as well! And of course my Jackunzel Trash brain instantly was like “Angsty Jackunzel fic??? Angsty Jackunzel fic??? Do I smell ANGSTY JACKUNZEL FIC???” as soon as I saw Icicle!Jack, so here is said angsty Jackunzel fic. The full first chapter will be posted on my fanfiction.net account Infrared-Ultraviolet soon!

Now without further ado--please enjoy this preview from my new story, Melting Icicles!

(Preview starts under Keep Reading marker)

The winter seems to last an eternity.

February is beginning, and some of the ice is starting to melt. Jack Frost treks through the forest again, heading for the creek.

Spring isn’t coming anytime soon, not on the Nightmare King’s watch. And if this means Jack Frost has to refreeze the entire forest and dump another 2 feet of snow on it, so be it.

He’s getting awfully tired of doing Pitch’s bidding, and although he admits it to no one but himself, he feels he could use some sun after all these months of dark. But if he loses the Nightmare King, he knows he will be alone again.

Someone who fills his mind with vicious whispers is better than no one at all.

The ice across the top of the creek is cracked and splintered in places, revealing water starting to rush with spring fervor. Certainly well on its way to thawing completely, if the late winter sunshine keeps up.

He spots a plump female rabbit a little ways down the bank, ears twitching and nose to the ground. She sniffs cautiously around the dead reeds and gingerly puts a paw down on the ice, pressing down as if to test it.

Seemingly satisfied, she takes another step forward, hopping slightly with her back legs so that her front half is now entirely on the ice. Jack feels himself tense up.

She wants to cross, he realizes.

The rabbit takes a few more paces forward, tiny, furred nose twitching as she goes. She takes one more step, and there’s a small snap beneath her.

“No, no, go back!” Jack hisses, feeling anxiety creep up in him like a brewing blizzard. “It’s not safe to cross yet!”

Frustration prickles at him as he watches the rabbit, willing her to back up to the banks. Couldn’t she wait until after he re-iced the creek to try and get wherever she needed to go?

The rabbit skirts the small fissure and continues on her way, albeit more timidly. Another louder crack sounds and she freezes again, nose twitching furiously.

Jack creeps carefully along the treeline to get a better look at where she is. The ice is nearly as clear as a window, and he can see the waves of the chilled stream rushing by below it.

It may as well be paper-thin.

The rabbit takes another step forward, and a crack spreads out in front of her, splitting and bifurcating like the branches of an eerie tree. The crevices grow and grow, scattering off to the side and spreading into a wide semi-circle almost completely surrounding her.

The entire ice cover is about to cave in.

No! Jack lunges forward, jabbing his staff at the thawing stream and sending a fresh wave of ice surging down it. The rabbit’s head turns and her eyes widen at the fast-encroaching wisps of blue-white. She leaps backward, spooked.

In one slow, horrifying moment, the ice gives way beneath her, and she plunges into the stream. Jack can’t quite put his finger on why, but the image chills him to the very bone.

It’s almost as if there’s a haunting sense of…familiarity.

Snapping out of his shock, he jumps into action. He slams his staff down against the icy creek, and it shatters like glass, fragments of ice spilling into the rushing water below. Crouching down, he plunges his hand into the water and freezes it into a thick dam of ice.

The rabbit lets out a cry as she collides with it seconds later, the wind knocked out of her temporarily. Jack scoops her up and pulls her out of the water, starting to massage her soaked, cold fur.

“It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs. “You’re safe now.”

He summons a burst of wind from his staff and lets it sweep across the rabbit, dragging the cold water away. The rabbit shudders as it passes, paws twitching uncomfortably.

“I know it’s cold,” he says meekly, an apology heavy in the words. “But you’re going to be alright. I promise you.”

“You shouldn’t make promises you can’t keep,” he can almost hear the Boogeyman saying.

Well, you’re wrong. I’m going to keep this one.

He starts to run his hand back and forth through the rabbit’s fur, trying to generate some semblance of warmth. The creature trembles, letting out a low whimper.

The shivers start small, nothing more than tiny tremors. But with each stroke, they grow stronger and stronger, until the creature is shaking like an autumn leaf.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m trying.”

The rabbit jerks suddenly, starting to twitch and squirm toward the edge of his hands. He reaches out his thumbs to try and grab her, but she’s too quick. In one fluid movement, she twists out of his hands, toppling to the ground.

There’s a shock of red as she hits the ground, and Jack sees crimson lines rapidly beginning to form in her gray-brown coat. Places where his icicles grazed her in the fall, he realizes.

Not again…

“No, please…” His voice is shaking, becoming desperate. Frantic. “I want to help. Please let me help.”

He has to be able to do more than hurt. He has to.

Pitch has to be wrong about him.

The rabbit starts to drag herself away, leaving a trail of cherry-red in the snow. Tears brimming in his eyes, Jack reaches out and gently scoops her up again, careful not to touch the gashes.

Maybe I can at least wash them off before she goes…

The rabbit goes limp in his grip, seemingly with little fight left in her. For one horrifying moment, he wonders if she suffered the same fate as the squirrel, until he feels the shallow rise and fall of her breaths against his hands. His entire body slackens with relief.

“Allow me.”

An unfamiliar voice sounds behind him, and he turns.

The snow-melting girl from the clearing is looking right at him, long blonde hair streaming out behind her like a river of sunlight.

She can see me…

He expects her to shudder or wince at the sight of the coating of icicles, but she doesn’t even appear to give them a second glance. She steps forward, bare feet quickened with a sudden sense of urgency.

She kneels before him and sits on her knees, starting to wrap the ends of her long hair around his hands and the shivering rabbit in tight ropes. He doesn’t resist, too surprised to protest. He feels the rabbit finally relax against him, something about the touch of the girl’s hair seeming to finally calm the animal down.

Then the girl begins to sing.

A golden-orange glow glides down her hair, brighter than the purest amber. When it reaches his hands, a sudden warmth surges through him. A warmth unlike anything he’s ever known.

He leans into it, feeling like he’s stepping into the sunlight for the very first time.

“Flower gleam and glow Let your powers shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine

Heal what has been hurt Change the fates’ design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine What once was mine” 

Her words are haunting, making him feel an emotion he finds he doesn’t quite have a name for.

The glow fades as the girl finishes, and she delicately pulls her hair away. The rabbit perks up, long ears sticking high in the air and nose wriggling curiously. The cuts on her side have completely vanished, any trace of red seeming to have been carried away with the winter breeze.

She hops out of Jack’s hands and bounds cheerfully away, eyes bright and eager again. In moments, the icy stream, the cold winter spirit hands, and the sharp icicles appear to have been completely forgotten.

“You…saved her.” He looks up at the girl in wonder. “From…from me.”

She shakes her head, smiling. “No, we saved her. I saw what you did with the ice dam. She would have drowned if not for you.”

“Only because I spooked her and made her fall in in the first place,” he mutters.

“Because you were trying to make the ice thicker so she could cross,” the girl says gently. “You were only trying to help.”

He scoffs. “Yeah, and look how well that went.”

Her smile widens, and Jack could swear he picks up just the slightest hint of a smirk in it. “She’s alive, isn’t she? I’d call that a net success.”

“Only thanks to you,” he mumbles.

He looks over her, and he finds his curiosity gets the better of him. She may be strange, but he can’t help but be intrigued. “Who are you, anyways?”

Her face falls suddenly, pink-purple dress seeming to sag like wilting flowers. “You mean you don’t know?”

He gazes at her, puzzled. “Should I?”

She stops and thinks on this for several moments before finally shaking her head. “No…no, I guess you wouldn’t.”

“How can you see me?”

She looks taken aback for a period before smiling sadly. For just a moment, she looks like she might be on the verge of tears.

She appears contemplative, like she’s choosing her words carefully. Finally she says, with the air of holding quite a bit back, “I’m a spirit too.”

“A spirit? A…Guardian?” He suddenly backs away, growing wary of her.

My replacement…

“Well, no…not exactly.” She looks away, frowning. “I help them sometimes, when they need it. But I’m not…one of them. I’m Rapunzel,” she adds, looking back at him and smiling warmly.

“Jack Frost,” he mumbles, not sure how to response to this entire situation. Never, not once in his 300 years of existence, has someone just…come up and cordially introduced themselves to him.

It’s amusing, really. Something that must seem so mundane to all the people he sees walking about the streets of the towns and cities he wanders through seems completely alien to him.

“I know. I’ve been watching you.”

He gives her a strange look, and she slaps her hand over her mouth, eyes widening.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…! That must sound so creepy! I wasn’t—gosh, I didn’t mean to be following you around! I’m so sorry!”

She buries her face in her hands, as if slowly realizing the size of the hole she’s dug herself into.

Jack can’t help but chuckle at the utter unexpectedness of the entire scenario. “I don’t think it’s creepy. Just…strange. I mean, why would you want to trail me?”

She peeks at him from between her fingers, expression shy. “I see those frost patterns you leave on the trees. They’re beautiful. I…did accidentally melt a few, though.”

She looks away again, embarrassed. He remembers her hand recoiling after touching his frost the other day, her gasp of horror. He thought she’d been appalled by the freezing cold…but perhaps she had only been dismayed she had started to melt it.

The thought that someone appreciated his work was more comforting than she knew.

He looks over her and something suddenly clicks in his mind—the ice-melting hands and feet, the flower-colored dress, the life-giving healing hair, the light green eyes. “You’re a spring spirit,” he realizes.

She smiles at him, shrugging. “I am, but…I think all of the seasons are beautiful. I love yours, too. I came out a bit earlier than I was supposed to so I could have a look at everything you’ve done. It’s gorgeous.”

If Jack Frost still had color in his skin, he’s sure he’d be blushing. How embarrassing.

He tries his best to deflect the compliment, smirking at her instead. “Oh, what gave away that I was a winter spirit?”

She smirks right back at him. “Oh, nothing, really. Just a shot in the dark.”

It’s a moment before it dawns on him that she hasn’t started to retreat after she finished her healing. She hasn’t apprehensively scooted away from the protruding ice spines, hasn’t eyed him with the same careful fear as someone creeping past a chained beast that could rip free at any time and lunge. If anything, she’s made herself more comfortable next to him—hugging her knees to her chest, resting her chin on her hands and regarding him thoughtfully.

She’s just naïve, he thinks bitterly. She’ll find out soon enough that all I can do is hurt people. She can’t fight my nature any more than I can.

Nonetheless, the girl seems kind, if lacking somewhat in worldly wisdom. He hates the thought of anything bad happening to her.

“I’m surprised you let yourself get so close,” he says, the implied warning clear in his voice. “You know…considering all this.”

He gestures at his torso, sweeping a hand in front of his lower chest to show off an especially honed row of icicles. Rapunzel seems unfazed.

“I’m not worried,” she says nonchalantly. “I think I can manage to not get close enough to jab myself.”

“But what if I got closer to you?” he retorts. “What if I attacked you? You know, getting cut with these, it wouldn’t be…” He trails off, unsure what he’s trying to say. “Just…you shouldn’t trust so easily, Rapunzel. I could hurt you.”

She shrugs, looking almost annoyingly unperturbed. Smiling, she holds up a lock of blonde hair.

“I have this, remember? I think I can handle myself fine. Besides…” Her eyes soften. “You don’t seem like the type who wants to hurt people. You just seem…lonely. And sad.”

He bristles suddenly, alarmed. This girl he barely knows, who he met mere minutes ago…how had she pegged him so entirely?

“How can you know that?” he asks, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.

She smiles again, and this time, there’s something bittersweet about it. “Well…if you wanted to hurt people, you wouldn’t try and make the winter beautiful just because you can. You’d make it angry, destructive. But you wouldn’t find ways to make it into art.”

He sighs, looking away. “Those gashes on the rabbit…you know those were because of me, right? I…I didn’t mean to hurt her, but stuff like that just…happens, if you’re around me. When I try to help.”

“But you were trying to help,” she says, without missing a beat. “And that’s what matters to me.”

“So stupid,” Pitch whispers in his mind. “So tragically, trustingly stupid. People who try to see the good in monsters are only going to get devoured in the end. When she succumbs to some tragic demise, there will be nothing to blame but her own bleeding-hearted naivety.”

She makes no move to distance herself from him. No move to flee from the obvious danger. If anything…he swears he can see her inching closer.

He looks back at her, eyes growing as cold as the ice he trails throughout the forest.

“You’re making a mistake,” he says harshly. “It’s not safe around me. You want to end up like…”

Like the squirrel?

He stops short, finding himself reluctant to spill the details of the incident…no matter how relevant.

Perhaps, he finds himself thinking, she doesn’t need to know. Not yet.

Idiot. Of course she needs to know. How else will she see what abominations you’re capable of?

“…marred like that rabbit?” he says instead.

Of course you pick the story with the happy ending. Of course you pick the comparison that could persuade her to stay. What on earth makes you think she’d want to, anyhow?

“I’ll take my chances,” she says softly.

Jack hates himself for the unadulterated exhilaration that courses through him.

What the hell is wrong with you?! You shouldn’t want her to stay! She’ll get impaled in the end somehow, and it’ll be all your fault…

“You look like you need a friend, Jack Frost,” she adds, eyeing him sympathetically. “No one deserves to be alone.”

He thinks of a man cloaked in black, and he looks away guiltily.

“I do have a friend,” he argues. “And he says…he says no one else would want to be my friend. He hasn’t been proven wrong yet.”

She scowls deeply—an expression that looks almost amusingly out-of-place on such an innocent, serene face, he thinks.

“That doesn’t sound like a very good friend, if he tells you things like that,” she retorts.

He shrugs, trying his best to look indifferent. “It’s all I know. It’s better than being alone.”

“Well, then maybe it’s time for you to know something better.” She brightens up again, the frown flitting away as quickly as it had come. “You think you could use another friend?”

She gazes expectantly at him with those big green eyes of hers, and he feels a prick of annoyance at how convincing she’s being. It’s an offer that’s hard to refuse, he has to admit.

In a heartbeat, the Nightmare King is back, whispering doubts into his mind. Telling him it’ll only end in disappointment and abandonment and being alone once again.

For once, Jack ignores it.

“It’s at your own risk,” he says simply.

“I can live with that.” Rapunzel shrugs. “Will I see you again?”

His lips, long-since blue and frosted over, form the tiniest hint of a smile. “I think you will.”

[avengerscompound]

Above the Crowd

Above the Crowd:  A Black Widow Fanfic

Buy me a ☕

Character Pairing:  Natasha Romanoff x F!Reader Square: @ladiesofmarvelbingo​ - E3 Balcony Sex

Word Count:  1360

Rating: E

Warnings:  Smut (F|F vaginal fingering, semi-public sex)

Synopsis:  You and Natasha go away on vacation together and when the crowd outside your hotel room is making too much noise for you to sleep, Natasha helps take your mind off it.

Above the Crowd

It was hot and you couldn’t sleep.  Something that seemed to be the norm around here.  It didn’t seem to matter what day it was or how late it got, there was always something going on outside your window.  Parades or street parties.  Fireworks.  Or sometimes just groups of drunken idiots causing trouble.  The street was always busy and noisy and there were always colored lights flashing through your thin curtains to wake you up.

You’d thought it would be a fun place to take a break from the whole ‘Avenging’ thing.  Where Nat could just be Nat.  Where the two of you could get drunk and dance, and ride roller coasters or Ferris Wheels and eat food that had been deep-fried but definitely shouldn’t have been like butter and avocados and slices of pizza.

It had been fun, to begin with, but you were starting to think maybe this should have been a stop on the way to somewhere more relaxing, rather than the entirety of the vacation.  A serious lack of sleep didn’t lend itself well to a romantic getaway.

You stepped out onto the balcony.  There was music coming up from the street and sounds of people enjoying the hotel’s water park despite the fact it was already past midnight and it was supposed to close at ten.

The air was humid and had the strong scent of jasmine and that carnival scent that was a mixture of sugar, hot oil, sawdust, chlorine, and manure.  You breathed it in and watched the people below enjoying themselves.  For a brief moment, you considered going down to the water park too.  Maybe it would cool you down and wear you out enough to help you sleep.

But you didn’t want to go down alone and as far as you knew, Natasha was asleep.

When her arms circled around you from behind you nearly jumped out of your skin.  “Holy shit,” you gasped, putting your hand on your heart.  “I swear one day you’re gonna give me a heart attack.”

“Shall I get a bell and ring it anytime I go through a door?”  She teased.

You turned in her arms, laughing softly.  “Yes, please,” you said. “A big one.”

Natasha started laughing quietly.  “I’ll get right on that.”  She brought her lips to yours.  They were soft and they caressed yours gently as she kissed you.  You ran your hands up her back and into her hair.  She hummed softly and when you went to pull back, she chased your lips.

“I was thinking of going down to the water park,” you said.  “They haven’t closed it and I can’t sleep because I’m so hot.  Do you want to go too?”

Natasha ghosted her lips along your jaw and down your neck.  “No,” she breathed and sucked softly on your skin.  “I think I’d rather do something else.”

You pulled back and looked at her.  “Should we be going inside?”

Her green eyes glittered and she smiled her cute little half-smile as she returned your gaze.  “No, I think it’s nice out here.”

“Tasha!” You squeaked and rubbed your nose against hers.

“You don’t want to?”  She said with a playful tease in her voice.  “You don’t like the idea of all those people down there having a fun time being so close and yet so far to catching you?”

You shivered a little and looked back over the crowd below.  “No, I do.”

Natasha spun you around and ran her hands down your arms, guiding your hands to the railing.  She kissed your neck and ground into your ass as her hands moved again, this time to your breasts and she squeezed and kneaded them.  “You need to be quiet, zolotse,” she whispered.  “Think you can be a good girl for me?”

“Yes, Tasha,” you whispered.

She continued to massage your tits with one hand and the other ran down your stomach and slipped into your pajama pants.  She slowly ran her fingers up and down your pussy through your panties.  Slowly teasing you.  You hummed softly and flexed your fingers on the railing.  You kept your eyes on the water park below.  It was lit up, the blue of the water glittering under the artificial lights.  There was a large bucket that would slowly fill and when it tipped its contents on the people below they all screamed in delight and ran from it.

Natasha’s touch became firmer.  She palmed your cunt, making your whole body buzz in anticipation for more.  Your breath started to catch and you focused on keeping it steady.  Each breath in came in jagged and then shuddered out of you again.

As you started to adjust to the pressure of her hand, she slipped it into your panties.  She ran her fingers down to your entrance and collected up the moisture that had begun to seep from you and she used to to help her fingers move smoothly up and down your folds.

You moaned and shifted, spreading your legs wider and pushing back against her.  She sucked hard on your throat, and you knew tomorrow there would be a mark where her lips had been.

She kept slowly grinding her hips against your ass but her fingers became more and more focussed.  Your whole body buzzed at the mixture of sensations, and your moans started to get a little louder.

“Shh…” Natasha soothed.  “You want those people to hear you?”

You clenched your teeth and shook your head, trying to smother the sounds you made.  You logically knew there was no way they’d hear you down there anyway.  Not over the water and the screams.  It is fun to play the game though and struggling to keep quiet intensified everything, making your skin prickle and your cunt tingle.

Her fingers ran quickly over your clit, sending tendrils of pleasure creeping out through you.  You closed your eyes and just gave yourself to it.  It was like she was playing your body like an instrument.  Her lips on your neck and her hips grinding into your ass.  One hand squeezing and massaging your tits and the other working your clit.  When two of her fingers pushed inside of you, it felt like you were going to fall apart around them.  She fucked you quickly with them, moving them in and out as her thumb rubbed back and forth over your clit.  The pads of her fingers kept pushing down on your g-spot again and again, and each time it did it made your knees buckle and your toes curl.  The only thing holding you up was her and the balcony railing.

A fireworks show began across the road. The colorful light danced on your skin and the sounds of the explosions began to drown out the sound of the crowd below. 

You relaxed.  Letting the sound of the fireworks drown out the sounds of your moans.  You tilted your head back and Natasha captured your lips.  You grew light-headed as you moved your lips with hers and your legs began to tremble.  Everything was both soft and fuzzy and immediate and intense.  Your core seized up and you broke the kiss and came on Natasha’s hand, letting the sound of the fireworks drown out the sound of your cry.

She kept moving her hand, slowing down but curling her fingers so they pressed and dragged over your g-spot, again and again.  You weren’t sure if your orgasm ended and another one hit you, or the first one just became dragged out and more intense.  Your knees buckled and you bit down into your hand as you screamed and squirted for Natasha.

Natasha hummed and her hand slowed and she pulled it away.  You nearly collapsed right there and then but she caught you and kissed you gently.  “There you go, my darling,” she teased.  “Let’s have a cool shower to clean you up and then you should sleep.”

“Mm…” you hummed, feeling quite high and far off thanks to the endorphins coursing through your system.  “You’re so smart, Natasha.”

She chuckled and led you back inside.  “I know, zolotse.  I know.”

[maxinemorningstar]

When the worse comes to worst, Suzue was ready to selflessly give everything. Her loyalty was unwavering that she was ready to throw away her life to protect Daisuke. They had come this far and Suzue wouldn’t let all their efforts be in vain. Shigemaru Kambe was on the run but he had left quite the handful to keep them busy-- if not eliminated off his tail.

Fandom: Fuguo Keiji Balance Unlimited Rating: T Tags: Alternate Plot, Canon universe, Angst, Action, ASV Suzue ;) Words: 1,551

@marialenikiforov @kannra21 @innovativestruggles @unholysoggytea Please tag the team for me HAHA!

Prompt: Sacrifice | From our server at http://discord.gg/fugoukeiji

When the worse comes to worst, Suzue was ready to selflessly give everything. Her loyalty was unwavering that she was ready to throw away her life to protect Daisuke. They had come this far and Suzue wouldn’t let all their efforts be in vain. Shigemaru Kambe was on the run but he had left quite the handful to keep them busy-- if not eliminated off his tail.

Their helicopter had been taken down by the white-haired bodyguard and the only way to flee this cargo ship was to get on board the discarded helicopter Shigemaru neglected to use for his escape. Suzue had her suspicions about this aircraft but as long as it would take them off this ship, they had no choice. With both Daisuke and Suzue equipped with their own ASV, the two were able to round up the criminals. Haru did not expect Suzue to make an appearance due to the Adollium jamming but here she was in action-- and it was arguably one of the sexiest things Haru had ever seen.

"I think that's all of them." Suzue scanned the ship for any further signs of human life besides them.

Daisuke loaded the crooks at the back of the pilot seat, scooting Haru inside to keep them from doing anything fishy. With only two headsets, Daisuke took one as Suzue took the other so that she could pilot the helicopter.

"Everything seems nominal." Suzue nodded, preparing to take off.

The deck below them was starting to blow up, fire spreading across the floors and the large cargo boxes stacked on the ship. The helicopter lifted off the deck and gained altitude as fast as it could. The dome of light grew and Suzue took them as high as she could to avoid getting caught in the explosion. The helicopter took a turn and the dark-haired lady set course back to Tokyo.

The ship started to sink with everything in it. Daisuke looked at the damage they had caused, the fire reflecting off his blue eyes. Shigemaru had wanted him dead, that was for sure. Despite his orders to keep Daisuke alive, this sort of move had made him certain that in the end, his father did not want him chasing after the secrets their family held.

If he had wanted him to live then that would mean he wanted him to become the heir as planned.

If he had wanted him to die then there was another plan Shigemaru had in mind.

For a moment, Daisuke looked at Suzue, a hint of doubt clouded his mind. Suzue had been by his side through thick and thin. She was always there when he needed her whether he asked for it or not. Suzue had not let him down. Never.

"Oi, Kambe!" 

Daisuke snapped out of his thoughts, turning to Haru who was yelling at the top of his lungs. The sound of the helicopter's engine and propellers drowned out his voice. Haru's expression was enough to brief him that something was terribly wrong.

Under the pilot seat, there was a briefcase with a timer.

Daisuke's eyes widened, pulling out the cased bomb. It looked very much like the gas bomb he was trapped with at the embassy. Except-- it wasn't a gas bomb.

"It's an explosive adollium-based bomb."

There was a panic among the criminals and Suzue found it hard to keep her cool.

"Daisuke-sama, how long before it detonates?" she asked.

Upon checking, the timer was already set off once the helicopter had left the ship.  "We have eight minutes and fifty seconds."

The lady took a deep breath and pressed on her earring. "HEUSC, estimated time of arrival at Tokyo Bay."

There was a moment of processing and HEUSC had calculated their time of arrival. "Arrival at the nearest port is twenty-five minutes and seven seconds at full speed."

Not enough time. Not nearly enough time. 

"HEUSC, tell me how to disarm the bomb." Daisuke followed up.

But the AI was prompt to give him a refusal. "Unable to answer."

Haru tsked, yanking the bomb off the floor only to realize that it was mounted.

"You have got to be kidding me. I thought we could just throw it off into the ocean!"

Suzue felt cold around her hands. With as much research she could do regarding adollium-based bombs from Mizuo Future Technologies, the range and damage this kind of bomb had was catastrophic. The radius could be as wide as five kilometers, wiping out a large portion of the city. They were still too far from the nearest port and at this rate, they might have to consider the options of whether or not they keep going to their destination.

"Fuck it, I'm getting off this chopper! No way I'm going to get blown into smithereens by a bomb!"

"Count me out too!"

"Scoot over I'm getting off!"

The cuffed criminals caused Suzue to waver the helicopter's balance, tipping side to side from the scuffle at the back. Franz had managed to open the hatch and jumped off into the sea from desperation. The other crooks followed him, jumping off into the water as Haru tried to keep them in.

"You idiots actually prefer dying in the water?! Kambe, we need to get them!"

Three minutes and two seconds.

Daisuke hesitated to answer. There wasn't enough time. As much as he'd want to turn them in, the bomb was about to detonate anytime soon on them. Suzue knew there should be at least a couple of parachutes with survival gear in the helicopter. 

"Daisuke-sama, there should be a couple of parachutes in the compartment. You and inspector Katou need to get off. It should have a "

The blue-eyed man opened the compartment hatch and found a couple.

"But what about you, Suzue-san?" Haru buckled one of the parachute packs on his person. 

Suzue smiled sadly and looked at the two. "I'm going to turn around and lead the bomb away from the city."

The two men chorused a sound of surprise.

"You're not serious about that, are you Suzue-san?!" Haru protested.

The light-haired man tried to talk her out of the idea of sacrificing herself but Suzue had already made up her mind. For the first time in a long time, Daisuke had shown vulnerability.

"Suzue, you're not doing this. You're coming with us."

Suzue's eyes started to water, the pricking heat of tears had taken over her clear vision.

"Daisuke-sama, we've come this far to know the truth about your parents." she softly replied, a crack in her voice just ever so softly snitching that she was about to cry. "I don't want everything I've done to get us here to go to waste. Your father is being tracked. Everything is all laid out for you now. You just need to follow the trail."

One minute and twenty-nine seconds.

"What are you talking about? Suzue-san, you need to get off with us!"

Suzue smiled. "Katou-sama, take care of him for me."

The woman opened the hatch Haru was leaning on, sending the policeman off. Haru's yell grew silent and the parachute had deployed.

"This is as far as I can take you, Daisuke-sama." Suzue looked at him with teary eyes and placed a hand on his cheek. 

Forty seconds.

She leaned in close and placed a soft peck on his lips. Daisuke watched her mouth one last promise, and with that, they exchanged smiles.

"Thank you for everything."

Suzue pushed Daisuke off the hatch, eyes never leaving the man's own until his parachute was deployed. With the two men now in the safety of the water, Suzue had to redirect the helicopter high enough to keep the blast radius away from the sea and land. 

Ten.

Nine.

Eight.

Suzue was not going to let it end with grief.

Seven

Six.

She had promised him.

Five.

Four.

Three.

No matter what.

Two.

One.

...

The explosion was bigger than Daisuke had expected. He watched the display of light in the sky with a heavy heart as the waves splashed the tears off his face. Haru rowed his raft as fast as he could, pulling Daisuke into the boat.

"Suzue-san? Where is she?" he frantically asked, shaking the man for an answer.

Daisuke refused to talk. He couldn't look Haru in the eye.

It took the brunette a moment to realize that Suzue stayed in the helicopter until the end. He was silent, just as much as Daisuke was at that moment.

After Daisuke sent for help and was rescued by the coast guard, searches were held to find Suzue Kambe's body.

"Let's go, we need to track down Shigemaru."

Haru turned to Daisuke and shot him a look of disbelief. "Are you kidding me right now? After Suzue-san had done you want to carry on as nothing happened?!"

He grabbed Daisuke by the collar of his shirt and was just about to land a punch on his face when a familiar car resurfaced from the water. Daisuke's amphibious Bentley Continental GT drove out of the sea and onto the port deck. It swerved off to prevent hitting Daisuke and Haru before it stopped.

The door opened and Suzue Kambe stepped out, protected by her ASV without a scratch.

“What are you two waiting for?”

[kpopwrites]

Drowning in A Dream Chapter 4

 A/N: This one is rollarcoaster with some nerve wracking moments, sorry! Anyway, this is the second time I’ve written a chapter late at night, so I’m super sorry if there is any spelling or grammar errors! Taglist and requests are open!

TW: Possible smut in upcoming chapters, angst, fluff, swearing, mentions of depression, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempt, slight gore

   The growl seemed to press pause on any and all activity in the room as Taehyung continued to literally growl at Jimin. “V, calm yourself.” Namjoon instructed calmly, taking a sip of blood red wine. “I won’t allow you to use them as another playmate. It’s bullshit.” V snarled, ignoring his older brother. Jimin smirked, obviously wanting to edge his younger brother on. “Oh? And why is that V? You don’t like that thought? What makes (Y/N) so different, hm?” He purred, reaching across the table and grabbing your hand, kissing it. This seemed to make V snap as he quickly grabbed Jimin’s wrist, holding it tightly. “Just one meal… One peaceful meal is all I ask for.” Yoongi grumbled. “(Y/N), I think it’s time you went to bed, it’s getting late and if you are planning on leaving tomorrow, you’ll need your rest.” Glancing nervously glancing between the two brothers, you decided to just listen to Namjoon, standing up and bidding everyone goodnight. Namjoon led you to the guest bedroom. “Are you okay?” He asked, looking straight forward as he walked. 

   You nod. “Why was V so upset? I mean, Jimin’s flirting is… a little much, but he’s harmless.” Namjoon seemed to choke on his laughter, obviously trying to hide the chuckle. “He’s far from harmless, we all are. Very foolish of you to completely trust your life with strangers, not that we would let harm fall upon you.” He hummed, opening the guest bedroom door. You blushed slightly. “Thanks…” You mutter awkwardly, looking around the room. There was a loud crash from the kitchen, causing your head to snap towards the sound. “What was that?!” You ask, worried. “Nothing, I’m sure Hoseok knocked something over on accident. He’s very excitable sometimes.” Namjoon shrugged before nudging you into the bedroom. “Good night.” He shut the door immediately. 

   You sighed, fiddling with the rather large tee shirt before laying down on the bed. “Goodnight to you too, I guess.” As you closed your eyes, the events of the day flowed through your brain, causing sorrow to fill your being. The more you thought about it, the worst you felt. What would your grandma have thought? Your brothers? Sure, you didn’t talk to them much, but they loved you… You know they did. Not to mention, your grandmother had always told you how important you were, how you were destined for so many things. If she had still been here, she would have slapped you for your attempt. But she wasn’t. She was gone, never coming back. Grieve consumed you as your eyes watered, thinking back on just how much she had done for you. 

   Carrie (Y/L/N) was a saint in your eyes, your savior. She had taken you in after your parents had disappeared, raising you along with your other adopted siblings with their own tragic stories. Not only had Carrie adopted four different orphans, but she also ran an animal shelter and donated any excesses money to anyone in need. When you would ask her why, she would simply explain how she would rather give others basic things than buy herself unnecessary things. “As long as we have each other, my precious babies, we don’t need anything else. I’m your grandma, I’ll always care for you.” Those words echoed in your head, causing a small sob to escape your lips. After wrapping your arms around yourself, you turned onto your side and tried to sleep. 

    You woke up the next morning from a hand gently shaking you awake. You opened your eyes, still red and swollen from your rough night. Jin stood above you, smiling happily. “Rise and shine! Wakey wakey! Up and at ‘em!” He yelled loudly, walking over and opening up the curtains, letting light flood into the room. You groaned, covering your eyes as you sat up. Jin hummed a soft tune as he set down your freshly washed and dried clothes. “Here, I washed them for you darling. Would you let me make you prettier?” His words seemed… different than how Jin normally sounded, making you slightly uneasy. Your grandmother's reassuring words floated around your head for a moment before you nodded. “Yes, I suppose so.” You whispered, yawning as you rubbed your eyes. 

   Jin grinned with delight, though the grin seemed slightly more mischievous than you had seen from him before. Your brain, just having woken up, didn’t seem to care, instead directing your sleep deprived body to follow Jin into his room. “You know, where I come from, they called me the most handsome man in the world.” He commented. “Then we moved here. People weren’t very accepting, calling us horrid names.” Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, watching the man as he gathered materials from his desk, keeping his back towards you. Small town racism wasn’t uncommon, but you had never seen nor heard of anything like that anytime recently. “I’m sorry. People can be so awful sometimes.” You whisper, keeping your eyes glued to Jin’s hands as they worked on opening many different drawers and containers.

   The man mumbled to himself in Korean, seemingly in an inner debate. “If you don’t want to waste any materials, you don’t have to.” You smiled softly, thinking that was his problem. Jin let out a hearty laugh, going back to normal within a split second. “No no no dear, just wondering how I could possibly improve an already perfect face.” Your cheeks lit aflame as you looked away. “Thank you.” You whisper, nervously toying with your fingers. “I mean it. Usually… usually I don’t like people being anywhere near as perfect as I am, but you’re different.” His voice got softer as he began to massage something into your skin. His breath hit your lips, making you blush even more. “V was right to protect you last night. I love my brother, but he is trouble… He’ll break your heart, maybe more if you aren’t careful.” He whispered, staring in your eyes for a moment. 

   The tension in the room was weighing heavily on you, your heart beating quickly as you locked eyes with Jin. “You’re so beautiful… Tell me, would you let me feel your lips on mine?” He whispered, leaning forward ever so slightly. The door slammed open as Hoseok walked in, pouting unhappily. “Ya! Why do you get to kiss (Y/N) huh!?” He yelled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Namjoon said the door has to be open. He doesn’t care if you give them a makeover, but you have to keep the door open. And no more of that, it’s not fair.” He huffed, leaving the door open behind him as he walked out. Jin sighed, looking down and shaking his head before he continued to apply various products to your now burning face. 

   “Oh well, maybe next time if you come to visit.” He said calmly, obviously not nearly as phased about the almost kiss as you were. “You will come to visit, won’t you?” Jin pouted out his lip, begging you with his eyes. “Everyone enjoys you so much, even the ones who don’t show it much. Namjoon, Yoongi and Jungkook seem cold, but they aren’t immune to your charms.” He mused. “Charms? I wasn’t trying to charm anyone… I was just trying to show my thanks.” You say, looking up as Jin carefully swiped mascara on. “Normally I would do a much heavier look, full of red and blues and blacks.” He smirked, knowing you wouldn’t quite understand what he meant. “However, you’re so naturally stunning, I don’t want to mess with it. I don’t understand why quite yet, but Namjoon is studying it.” You chuckle softly. “Namjoon is studying why you aren’t putting heavy makeup on me?” Jin let out a hum of amusement. “Something like that.”

   He reached over to his desk, carefully grabbing a hairbrush and styling your hair. It took another five minutes of fussing and pruning before he finally let you see. You were amazed by how Jin had transformed you. Your messy bed hair, perfectly styled to match the shape of your face. The dark undereye bags that plagued your face were seemingly non-existent. You reached up, touching your face in shock. “You should become a makeup artist Jin!” You praise, grinning. “No no, they don’t hire men my age.” He said, putting away his products. “I’ve seen makeup artists in their sixties.” You protested, trying to convince Jin on your idea. 

   The man laughed, shaking his head as he mumbled something in Korean under his breath. “Breakfast.” Namjoon called out, his voice not sounding strained despite the fact that it echoed throughout the cabin. You stood up, thanking Jin once more before going back to your own room to change. As you closed the door, you jumped, spotting Yoongi half asleep on your bed. “Yoongi, you startled me.” You hold your hand over your heart, sighing. “Sorry… I was just wondering if you’d like to nap with me before you left. It’s a long walk, and you’re going to need your strength.” He hummed, voice so rough and raspy it made your heartbeat speed up. 

   “Right now? Breakfast is ready.” You commented, making Yoongi frown slightly. “Oh? Say, (Y/N), what’s that in your eye, come here, let me see.” You furrowed your brows, leaning forward and looking into Yoongi’s eyes. Instantly, your limbs felt like cement and you longed for your bed like a baby longing for their mother. “You sure you don’t want a nap? You seem so tired…” His voice echoed in your head as he reached forward, slowly pulling you onto the bed and into his arms. Your brain, too flooded with the sudden need for sleep, didn’t even bother to question things as you snuggled against the man, closing your eyes and falling asleep within mere moments. 

Taglist:

@jennyjq​ @boy9wolf​   @slutkoo​ @flakeypancake​ @leftflowerprunedonut​ @vickylamore​ @elenaramos1​ @trinityautumn​ @blackgirlutopia​

[propertyoftoru]

invading your dreams

A/N: Hi! its been almost two years since i last wrote which is so crazy because writing has always been a passion of mine. After some thinking i decided to start posting again which is a little scary but also very exciting! So please let me know what you think?! Feedback means so much to me! Also requests are now open! I’ll write for just about anyone or anything as long as i feel like i have enough knowledge about that person or subject! So send some in!  Warnings: light smut? swearing? idk i dont usually put warnings on my writing Word Count: 812 (very short i know) His hot breath fanned over the sensitive skin of your neck, causing goosebumps to rise in its wake. He stood behind you, pushing his chest against your arched back, dragging his fingertips along your arms. You let out a small whimper at the delicate touch, craving more.  “tell me what it is you want petal” his voice was thick and sweet like honey, and yet it was taunting because he knew just exactly what you wanted. “please don’t make me beg for it” your voice was trembling now, so desperate for his touch right where you needed it ever so badly. His fingertips now trailing along the exposed skin right above your shorts, lighter than even a feather’s touch. He chuckled at that, a sinister yet playful chuckle, because of course he was going to make you beg. He found your begging to be absolutely delectable. Your soft whimpers and cries for his affection. But you could not bring yourself to wait another second. “Oh gods please, i need you.” He growled at that, his hands now gripping your hips with such force that it was sure to leave bruises, not that you were complaining. He then spun you around and sunk to his knees, peering up at you through his lashes with those green eyes that were just drowning in lust. His slender fingers hooked around the waistband of your shorts, dragging them down at a painfully slow pace, bringing your panties along with them. You stepped out of them whilst grabbing a fist full of his black shiny locks, tugging on it slightly causing a small moan to erupt from his throat. His big hands grabbed at your thighs with a neediness you weren’t expecting from the usually dominant and brooding man. His eyes remained locked with yours as he leaned forward licking a thick stripe along your heat. Your knees nearly gave out right then and there but you used your hold on his hair to remain standing. Not giving you anytime to brace yourself, his tongue began moving at a relentless pace, flicking against your swollen clit. You feel yourself hurtling towards the edge of your orgasm quicker than you’ve ever experienced before, your find yourself gasping for air and your legs begin to tremble as you tiptoe right up to your climax. His name became the only word in your vocabulary, the only word your mouth knew, and by the fates you were screaming it, crying it out for all to hear. “Loki… fuck...Loki please don’t stop… i’m gonna…” You shot up from your mattress, sucking air into your lungs, sweat drenching your entire body, your hair sticking to your forehead. You looked around your bed to see your pillows and sheets an absolute mess, undoubtedly from you thrashing in your sleep. Your mind in a lust filled haze, unable to accept the fact that it had only been a dream. You squeezed your thighs together noticing that you were in fact soaking wet and throbbing because of your impure thoughts of The God of Mischief. You swallowed thickly, feeling how dry your mouth was you decided that you needed nothing more than a glass of ice cold water at that very moment. Pulling on a large t-shirt you stepped out of your room and hurriedly made your way to the kitchen. Ripping open the cabinet and grabbing yourself a cup you poured yourself a glass of water, gulping it down before filling the glass again. You spun around meeting the eyes of 4 very confused men. Steve’s cheeks dusted pink because of your lack of pants, his eyes the size of saucers. Bucky had his bottom lip pulled between his teeth, his eyes greedily dragging down your body.  “Dude you look like shit” Sam was the first one to speak, a wolfish grin upon his lips. “Gee thanks dude.” You replied, eyes narrowing at him. You heard an all too familiar chuckle sound from across the room, your eyes meeting his vivid green ones. As he strode across the room, his eyes never left yours, his gaze making you feel vulnerable and exposed. Almost like he knew exactly why you appeared disheveled and sleep deprived. Finally he spoke, “What is it that troubles you petal?” He approached you, towering over your shrinking form.  A chill ran down your spine as you heard that pet name roll deliciously past his lips, sounding dangerously close to the tone from your dream. You swallowed thickly having trouble finding your voice. “J-Just didn't get much sleep last night.” you spoke with a trembling voice. “No? Why is that pet?” The corner of his lip was brought up into a sly smirk. “I...I..” you opened and closed your mouth looking for something to say. Anything to say. “Tell me.. What is it you dreamt of last night, little dove.” A/N: I know I know a bit of a tease. Let me know if you would want a part 2 with actual smut! It feels so good to be writing again! PART 2

[wild-moony-joonie]

Saving Up for A Rainy Day:

Author: Laura(me)

Warning(s): Sort of steamy? I guess? Sakura and Kakashi got that friendship+sexual tension. 

Pairing(s): Kakashi/Sakura(kakasaku).

Synopsis: He just really needed to pee.

________

It was a gray sky, a cloudy rainy day. The perfect day to wear a favorite chunky sweater, and sip a cup of hot steaming tea wrapped up in three blankets on a small sofa under a large window. Sakura’s pink hair peeked out of gray and cream blankets swaddled around her small figure, as she perched on a small dark gray futon in her apartment. Her cup of tea and bowl of soup lay abandoned on the rickety coffee table. She had taken the luxury of taking a long hot bath last night after training all day with Kakashi and Naruto. Her bright jade eyes flickered open sleepily, her consciousness slowly seeping back into her. She sat up, and ran her hands through her choppily cut hair. Trying to shake off the drowsy feeling from the cold dimmed lighting, and the warmth of her comforters. She stood, only to find that after her bath last night, she had thrown on a large blue-green sweater with a pair of buttery soft pink lace underwear and thick cream wool socks. Shrugging, she continued to the bathroom to relieve herself before she returned to her haven to waste away her day off.

Two blocks over, Kakashi was facing a similar lazy morning. Instead of waking up alone, he woke up partially smothered by each and every single one of his ninken. Pakkun, was currently curled up on Kakashi’s chest, nuzzling into the dark blue sweatshirt adorning the Jounins torso. His other ninken pups, were contentedly laying on both him and his bed. Kakashi, after being severely beaten into submission by Sakura’s super strength yesterday, had felt the need to cuddle with his dogs. Yet, he was not surprised that he ended up minorly regretting it. He was quite clear how he got here, but the real question was how he was going to get out of it. He noticed that at least his left hand was free, and it was some small consolation, but it didn’t change the fact that he really had to fucking pee.

Sakura had pulled on a small pair of dark gray cotton shorts and was coming out of the bathroom after a refreshing shower, to make herself an omelet to satisfy her late morning hunger. When, Pakkun suddenly appeared in a puff of smoke in the middle of her Kitchen.

“Pakkun! What’s wrong? Is Kakashi okay?” the cherry blossom haired kunoichi asked, panic slipping inter her tone. She had fallen for Kakashi not long after Naruto had returned to Konoha, but she knew that nearly every woman who had gotten close to the copy-nin had fallen for the elusive man and he never showed them anything other than polite disinterest. So she had locked away her heart from the silver-haired older man. Not to mention her was her teacher, and a good ten years older than her. It’s not like calling him ‘Sensei’ in a kinky sort of fashion didn’t appeal to her, but it was an unspoken rule.

“No, no. Kakashi is technically fine, but he let his ninken team out last night to cuddle, and they fell asleep on his entire body. I was the only one he managed to wake up.” Pakkun’s gravelly voice yanked her out of her thoughts. “He needs your super strength to help get them all off.”

“Alright Pakkun, tell him I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“Good to see you Sakura,”

“Bye Pakkun,” She sighed after he left and picked up her keys, and slid on a pair of small wooden sandals at her front door next to the kitchen. The rain was pouring relatively hard as she stepped out of her apartment buildings. She paused, contemplating her options. She could run back upstairs and ask one of her neighbors for an umbrella, or she could sprint the two blocks to Kakashi’s apartment. She looked up to see the creepy old man in her building peeking at her out of his window. Sprinting it is.

Kakashi’s front door creaked open, and was firmly shut by a thoroughly rain soaked pink haired Kunoichi. Kakashi couldn’t help but stare at her. Her dark blue-green sweater clung to her lean curvy figure, and due to her not wearing a bra, he could see every curve and contour of her figure. Her short shorts, had ridden up slightly and he could see the lace pattern of her underwear through them. Oh god. Kakashi quickly averted his eyes as she approached him.

“Oh Kakashi,” She sighed, “I guess I’ll help you out. But when I’m done, I’m gonna need a hot shower.”

“Sure Sakura. Just let me pee first.” Kakashi agreed quickly to whatever she wanted, unsure that he could have denied her anything in his current state of mind. She cracked her knuckles crisply and then got to work on gently lifting the sleeping ninken off him one by one. She slipped her hands under Bull, the last but not least, and effortlessly lifted him off Kakashi’s right half of his body.

“Oh thank god!” Kakashi gasped and sprinted to his bathroom, desperate to relieve himself after laying for thirty minutes having to pee. She chuckled in his wake, and couldn’t help but be amused at the sight of Comrade Killer Kakashi not wanting to wake up his ninken by shoving them off, so he called her in. She was minorly annoyed, but she didn’t mind spending anytime with Kakashi as she did Sai. So she supposed it wasn’t the worst. Kakashi walked out of the bathroom, looking significantly more comfortable with an empty bladder.

“Have a nice time in there?” She grinned at him as she made her way towards the open door to use his shower.

“Yes. It was quite enjoyable.” He sniffed, doing his best to save himself some dignity. He decided to occupy some of his time by reading the latest Icha Icha novel, eagerly turning each page. Around ten minutes later he heard the water in the bathroom shut off. A soft string of curses were uttered and he chuckled at his young students choice of words she most likely learned from Asuma’s dirty mouth.

“Kakashiiii?” Her voice trailed off as a whine of embarrassment.

“Yeah?” He called back, wary at the source of her embarrassment.

“Do you have clothes I can borrow? Mine are all wet.”

“Oh.” He was all that he could say, then, “Yeah sure, let me get them.”

He got up and carefully contemplated what to do. He was currently wearing his only pair of navy sweatpants, so he decided to wear his dark gray boxers with dog bones on them and give her his sweatpants. He gathered the pair of dark blue pants and a dark green sweatshirt. He was sure that it would all be way too large for her. He was a solid 15 centimeters taller than the seventeen year old girl. Her hand slid out from the cracked open door of the bathroom, and he placed them in her small palm.

“Thanks sensei,”

“Anytime Sakura,” He returned to his lounging with Icha Icha on his couch, when not even a minute later did she walk out of his bathroom holding her neatly folded wet clothes, and wearing a green sweatshirt with large navy sweat pants. She was practically drowning in Kakashi’s clothing, the opening of the sweatshirt exposed her collarbone, and it reached to her mid thigh. She had rolled up the pant legs, and the sleeves of her sweatshirt until she had deemed them an acceptable length. Despite that fact, she still had some trouble walking.

“Uh… Sensei?”

“Yeah?”

“Why aren’t you wearing pants?”

“Those are my only pair,” He murmured, flushing deeply as he gestured to the pair of pants she was currently wearing.

“Ah.” She nodded and then place her pile of damp clothes on the coffee table opposite the couch he was currently lounging on. An awkward air set in the room, filling it slowly like pouring molasses. They avoided eye contact, knowing that if they didn’t certain things might happen. She couldn’t help but admire his slim hips, that were now obvious in the dark gray patterned boxers that clung sexily to his figure.

“You should stay Sakura. I can’t let you walk back out in that.” His low voice had pulled her from her thoughts, and she couldn’t help but be terribly attracted to him. They both noticed the rain the was now dumping in buckets, the thundering droplets of water streaming down the windows in his living room.

“Alright, what do you want to do?” She asked, doing her best not to look at the lower half of his body.

“Not sure, would you like something to eat?”

“Yes please. I haven’t eaten since Lunch yesterday.” As if to attest to this comment her stomach made a loud rumbling, like a cat, angry it had been forgotten.

“No wonder you’re so skinny. You’ve been skipping meals.” He said accusingly, as he ambled towards the kitchned with the slender pink haired girl in tow.

“Not on purpose. I’m just so tired at the end of the day I fall asleep before I get around to eating.” She protests, shrugging as she finishes her excuse.

“You should really eat more. I don’t want you getting weak on me.”

“You’re one to talk,” she crossed her arms sassily as he turned to look at her. She leaned back and stretched her arms above her head, exposing her toned pale stomach. The too-big sweatpants sitting low on her hips, exposing a thin line of pink lace. Oh. God. Kakashi couldn’t hold back anymore.

“S-sakura?” he stuttered turning his burning face away from her.

“What is it Kakashi?”

“I think I’m falling for you… Bad.” He was thoroughly embarrassed and ashamed of this confession. HIM. A top jounin of the hidden leaf village. He was ashamed that he had fallen for the young teen girl in the first place. She was seventeen and he was twenty-eight for god’s sake. He could only imagine what her parents and Tsunade would think of him from then on.

“Me too Kakashi.” His head snapped up at the softly uttered words, unsure if he had heard her right. She was smiling timidly her face turned away from him, in two strides he crossed the small galley kitchen to stand right in front of her. He firmly gripped her chin in his hands, and turned her to face him.

“You have to understand Sakura. I’m not falling for you because you’re young, or beautiful. I fell in love with you after I saw how strong you had become. I truly admire you’re strength, your bravery and your brains. You are so much more than a pretty young face to me. You are Sakura Haruno, the Killer Kunoichi of the hidden leaf, student to one of the legendary Sannin. Not some shallow seventeen year old who can’t see past their nose.”

“Thank you.” The words were soft, and she pressed her forehead against his lips. “Thank you. For believing in me. For seeing my strengths, and for knowing my weaknesses. Thank you Hatake Kakashi.”

[vminity21]

Can’t Get Enough

Pairing: Yoongi X Reader

Word Count: 1.4k

Warning: smut

Hot water pangs along your shivering skin, roasting your frame just enough to make the goosebumps wave among your limbs. The shampoo drizzles down your shoulders, your fingers brushing through your soaked hair while you cleanse your body from the long work day you’ve just endeavored not long ago. It doesn’t take long before you’re wrapped in a towel, the ends of your hair clinging to your shoulders while the cool air wisps across your exposed shoulders and legs. Looking into the mirror, you swiftly run a hairbrush through the mild tangles, blow drying, to then waltzing into your bedroom to sift through your drawers for clean pajamas.

You nearly gasp in surprise when thin fingers drape from behind you, burying his nose within your freshly cleaned hair. “Well, you’re home early,” You tilt your head, a smile spreading across your face as you melt into his arms. Yoongi moves to press his cheek to the side of your neck, his silver strands tickling your skin while he sways you gently from side to side.

“I just missed you,” he whispers, moving his lips to press against the corner of your jaw. With opposite schedules, sometimes it’s hard for the two of you to spend quality time together.

“But,” you drag out, “you just saw me this morning before work. And, last night. And, the night before,” Yoongi pecks another warm kiss along your shoulder which distracts you just enough for your words to melt on your tongue.

“Maybe I just can’t get enough of you,” he squeezes you once, your heart fluttering at his sweet words.

“Mmm,” you moan dreamily, “I concur,”

It’s then you crave the love you two haven’t been able to make in what feels like forever; prodding your fingertips along his hands, you soothingly tickle at his skin, carefully swaying your ass against his growing erection. When a tepid, pout of a kiss greets the back of your neck, tingles broad every millimeter of your skin, a light hum sounding from your lips. Your heat squeezes with anticipation, especially when Yoongi undoes your towel to where it plops to the ground. With his large, heated hands he slowly palms along your hips until his fingertips rest above your clit; his other hand sliding to your breasts, his middle finger and thumb circling along your nipples while he simultaneously massages your throbbing sense; your head leans back to rest upon his shoulder. Eyes closing in immense liking, you can’t help but moan his name, “Yoooongi,” especially with the burning sensation arising within your core. Yoongi’s lips trace your neck in very detailed, seductive kisses; slipping his vibrating fingers to swim in the ocean flowing between your folds causing him to lean his hips into your ass; the feel of his erection prompting you to bite your bottom lip, a sly smirk forming while he continues to pleasure you.

Abruptly turning to face him, you help him out of his clothes, crouching to your knees to pull off his black pants; his warm skin knocking the breath out of you as the two of you envelop each other in a sultry embrace; his lips finding yours almost immediately; parting and relocking in such a fast pace, you’re hardly containing yourself, especially when you tighten your arms behind his neck just to relish in the feel of each of your naked chests pressing together to intensify the paradise you two so easily bestow on one another.

“Holy shit, I’ve really fucking missed you,” Yoongi breathes, his tongue brushing yours before snatching your lips once again, his hands moving to squeeze your ass before slamming your back against the dresser drawers. A high-pitched gasp releases from your agape mouth, his fingers slide within your walls, curling slightly to find your g-spot, your eyes rolling back while he pumps; your slippery folds tempting to bring him to his knees, especially when you bring your hand to his being, gliding rapidly up and down. His lips pause against yours, breaths panting in unison from the growing climaxes, but it’s only the beginning. You want to be on the bed, and you want him underneath you without any doubt.

It doesn’t take long for him to read your mind, especially when you shove him toward the bed, him crawling backward before he collapses onto the pillows. Your heat comfortably sits upon his erection, grinding slowly for a tease while he groans in response. Arousing him arouses you, and when your hands knowingly soothe along his abdomen, your mouth waters at his silver tufts sticking to the perspiration forming along the line of his forehead. His jaw clenches to control himself from sexing you so rough that you’ll forget your name; yet, he enjoys taking his time, making sure you’re enjoying every bit of this as much as he is.

His fingertips rest on your knuckles that have chosen a spot to rest on his thighs; when your head moves in view of his penis, your eyes widen in excitement before hungrily licking along his shaft. Him jolting his being unintentional as a slow, deep moan of pleasure leaves his heaving lips. He knows that you know exactly what you’re planning to do; grazing your tongue effortlessly along his tip, you tighten your lips over the head, taking one, long suck before accepting all he is within your oral cavity. “Holy shit, [Y/N],” he exhales, your head bobbing up and down numerously, not breaking away anytime soon, drooling all over his being whilst sucking; the salty taste of his precum igniting a hunger in you that you didn’t realize you missed. Once his erection is drenched from your skilled mouth, you hover above him to steal a few more sloppy kisses, tongues pirouetting in perfect sync- when he hears your gasps, he rises suddenly, to move to reposition behind you-you remaining on your hands and knees, but he does the opposite of what you expect. His fingers spread your folds as your scent drowns him in ecstasy, “I’m gonna tongue fuck the shit out of you,”

Your eyes enlarging from his highly arousing statement, your core clenches before its greeted by the harsh swivels of his tongue; your arms weakening from the sensation before he shoves his tongue within your vaginal walls, pumping profusely until your thighs tremble in return. Licking with the tip of his tongue he returns to flick it along your vaginal lips, glorifying in your screams of delight, beckoning him to continue, sucking your clit in multiple streaks, an orgasm building to the point you become increasingly light-headed.

“Yoongi,” you moan, so breathless from how brilliant he performs his tricks, your climax wanting to peak, but you stop him, “Yoongi, please,” you beg, ready to be fucked so hard you forget where you are, “Yoongi,” your pleas are about to be answered. When your back bounces among the mattress, Yoongi hooks your legs over his shoulders one at a time before bringing the head of his penis to your heat. Your entrance is moving instantaneously with your pulse, yearning and yearning to be satisfied. Without any hesitation, Yoongi dives inside you, thrusting severely within your core- his being so deep within you, your head is reeling from how incredible he feels, pounding vigorously to the point you can’t catch a breath. Your liquids forming between your thighs cover his erection with every stroke, his hair swaying over his eyes while he performs his task; the two of you so enchanted by the way your bodies fit; the way the halves of your hearts fit; the way your hands intertwine perfectly, the way you two so naturally complete every aspect of each other. The love both of you hold for one another is endless.

When the climax peaks, you whimper his name, your legs tensing from the powerful jolt leading to sensitivity plaguing your entrance. Yoongi ejaculates into you, his hips jerking until his spilling ceases. His release melting onto your inner thighs, him crashing beside you; both hyperventilating with accomplished smiles adorning your faces.

“Wow,” you breathe, “I think you need to get off work early more often,” turning on your side, before snaking your leg over his waist. His fingers move to trace the side of your arm, him inching closer to press a loving kiss upon your lips. Staring into his brown eyes, you whisper, “I’ve missed you so much,” and really that’s all you two can explain; because no matter where either of you are; even if you’re in separate rooms, there’s nothing that compares to the anticipation of getting to be within each other’s arms, cherishing countenances and kissing away the fear of losing a love that will never be lost.

[2ptonpt]

Thinking Out Loud Ch. 2

Shelby Bates grew up with the Winchesters, fighting alongside them and saving the day as needed. She was living the life she loved with the man she loved, until a dark family secret comes out and she is kidnapped while Dean can only watch helplessly. Dean struggles to live without her- the only person that ever made him feel like he was worth something, until she shows up years later.

Pairing: Dean Winchester X OC(Shelby Bates)

Word Count: 3105

Rating: M

Masterlist

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

  Chapter Two: You're Not Alone

Some days I just can't go on I stumble and fall And I hang my head But You reach out for my hand And You lift me up Again and again Oh, yes, You do -Owl City ft. Britt Nicole

 Dean sighed happily. He didn't know when he met the Bates' that he would come to care so much for the girl who annoyed the hell out of him as soon as they met. He had known Shelby for nearly ten years of their lives. In 1989, John was following up on a lead about the demon who murdered Mary.

 -TOL-

 While driving down a dark back road heading to what he hoped would be a motel, John Winchester sighed angrily at his rear view mirror. His two sons were bickering in the back seat, seat belts long forgotten. He didn’t have the energy for these two.

 “Dean! Control yourself son. Buckle your brother back in and get in your own seat. You hear me? So help me if you don’t, I’ll pull this car over and make you two walk to the motel!” John eyed his eldest son angrily through the rear view mirror before Dean sniffled a bit and pushed Sam back down into his car seat. Just as Dean buckled his own seat belt, he lurched to the side, hitting his shaved head on the side of Sam’s own shaggy one. Rubbing his own head while checking his little brother over, Dean asked his dad what happened. Only to be answered by a growl and slamming of the Impala door. The two boys’ heads popped into view of the window and looked out into the rainy night. A royal blue Camaro sat perpendicular to their own car, smoke coming out of the hood and the hood slightly tee pee’d.

 While John looked over the damage of the body on his car, the other man walked up and held his hand out with an old receipt from a gas station. It had chicken scratch on the back; probably the driver’s insurance information. John shifted angrily. His poor Baby, he had just had it washed. He grabbed the receipt out of the man's hand. He paused. Was that?

 "You a hunter?" John asked with surprise in his voice. Hearing his dad, Dean got out and walked around to the other side of the Impala, looking up at the scruffy man in the leather jacket. Dean followed his father's line of sight to the mystery man's wrist, where a braided leather bracelet with an anti-possession pendant tied into it. A squeak came from the uninjured side of the Impala. A second later, Sam came up by Dean and grabbed his hand. He was still a bit shocked by the impact. Dean shrugged him off and walked away when his father gave them a look, telling them to get back into the car.

 "What?" Is all the verbal response John received. His question was answered when the man's hand slowly went behind his back.

 "Whoa, whoa man. No need for a gun. I'm not the boogeyman. I'm the guy who hunts him. John Winchester." John said with a tight smile, slightly forgiving the fellow hunter for the impact on his car. The man huffed quietly and shoved his hand out to shake John’s.

 "Sorry ‘bout that. Can't be too careful. Name's Colt Bates. And this-" Colt said, turning around to behind his Camaro and reaching into the shadows,

 "Is Shelby, my daughter. Shelby, mind your manners now. What would your mamma say?" Colt lightly scolded the young brunette, who had silent tears running down her eyes. She looked up at John through her eyelashes and sniffled, then held out her hand to the large man.

 "It's nice to meet you Mr. John." The shy girl said. John shook her hand, eyebrows raising ever so slightly at how firm the handshake was coming from such a small girl. After releasing her hand, John called for his boys to come back around.

 "Now boys, this here is Colt Bates and his daughter Shelby. They're going to ride back with us to a motel and we're gonna come back tomorrow to tow his car." At the words coming from the legendary hunter's mouth, Colt stilled.

 "Nonsense John, we can call a cab-" While the two older men discussed what to do with the vehicles and such, the three young children looked at each other tensely.

 "Hi, I'm Shelby. What are your names?" Shelby looked at Sam and Dean with her bright green eyes, tears still coming down but getting less frequent. Dean scoffed at the crying girl, What a wussy! He thought. Shelby just ignored him and looked at the short, brown haired boy next to the mean blonde one. He smiled shyly at her and introduced himself,

 "I'm Sam, it's nice to meet you. This is Dean, my big brother. He can be a jerk sometimes." That made Shelby smile a little and Sam chuckled, while Dean crossed his arms over his chest and stomped back the Impala. He slammed the door to the back seat. Shelby and Sam shared a small smile.

 The slamming door grabbed the two mens attention and John grumbled while Colt smiled a bit. They had decided to drive back in the Impala, since it had less damage to it. Colt unloaded some essentials from his car and loaded them in the trunk of Johns ride. He whistled softly at the impressive arsenal in the demon-warded trunk. He'd have to take note of some of the items in there.

 The car ride to the motel was filled with the quiet chatter of the men talking about what they needed to fix the cars. Dean noticed that John had relaxed and seemed to have forgotten about the yellow-eyed demon for the time being. He was okay with that. Anytime John caught wind of that thing, Sam and Dean took the brunt of his frustration when he lost the trail, which happened more often than not. Maybe this dude and his wussy daughter would distract him long enough for a break.

 Dean scoffed when Shelby's head fell on his shoulder as they rounded the corner for a motel. Sam and she had fallen asleep about 10 minutes into the ride. He ignored the cold feeling he got when Colt picked Shelby up from the middle of the back seat.

 -TOL-

 Almost as if she was reading his mind, the warmth from his left side disappeared when Shelby bolted out of her position gasping his name in terror. Another nightmare. Dean shifted to a more comfortable position and glanced at Shelby sidelong. She had tears in her eyes, much like the night they met. Only this time Dean didn't think of her as a wussy.

"Sorry, Dean." She murmured. Dean nodded his acceptance and rolled out of the bed. Shelby pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. She eyed Dean carefully as he padded the kitchenette and started the coffee pot. He then walked over to his duffel and grabbed a few things before heading into the bathroom. Before he shut the door, he heard a soft 'thank you' leave Shelby's lips. He turned slightly and gave her a soft, half-smile.

 "Anytime, Princess." Shelby's mood lightened at the nickname he had given her years ago, while she was in her pony-wanting stage. She gave him a warm smile as he turned around and shut the bathroom door. She checked the time. Three p.m. Damn, we slept longer that I would have liked. Shelby watched the coffee brew as her thoughts flew back to her dream. One she had often.

 -TOL-

 Breathe, Shelby. Just breathe.

 But she couldn't, the cold water surrounding her at all angles wouldn't allow it. She looked down at her hand, which was connected to her mother's bigger one. She followed the tan skin up her mother's arm and to her face, to her closed eyes. This wasn't right. She should be looking at bright green eyes. And her mother's skin should be a deep tan, not turning pale.

 Tired. So tired. Right as Shelby closed her eyes she felt someone grab her harshly from above. Dragging her up.

 Breathe, Shelby. Just breathe.

 "Damn it Shelby. Wake up. I can't lose you." Shelby swam out of the darkness and towards the familiar voice and gorgeous green eyes. But not her mothers.

 "Dean." She shot up, gasping for air.

 -TOL-

 The real memory didn't quite match the nightmare she always had. It was her dad's bright blue eyes and his deep, gruff voice that met her when she awoke. Fifteen years ago, her mother drowned. Sucked down by something supernatural while trying to rescue Shelby when she leaned too far over the lake’s dock. Her family had been on a short vacation in Arizona. Colt and Amelia had just taken out a huge vampire nest and decided to celebrate. To this day they never found out what had grabbed Shelby off the dock and ultimately took her mother. To this day she still hadn't stopped blaming herself.

Ever since she and Dean had started to get along, her nightmare changed. To his voice, his eyes. Rescuing her. She had long since told him and Sam about her mother's mysterious death. And Dean knew about her regular nightmares. She still never told him about his appearance in it. She was too embarrassed.

 She heard the shower turn off and glanced at Dean as he stepped out of the bathroom, clad in a blotchy green towel. Shelby averted her eyes from Dean's bare chest. She had seen the smooth slab of skin so many times before, she wouldn't be able to count. But after her dream she felt jumpy around him. Dean looked her way while he moved to the dresser by his bed and grabbed the clothes he would need for the day. Shelby cleared her throat before grabbing her workout clothes and disappearing into the bathroom. Dean dressed, smirking to himself the whole time. He loved to tease her.

 Shelby wiped last nights makeup away from her face and pulled her knotted hair back in a high, messy bun. She pulled on her black shorts and grey tank top before splashing some cold water on her face to wake her up a bit. After brushing her teeth, the brunette opened the door to a fully dressed Dean on his laptop.

 "I'm gonna go for a run. Wanna come?" Dean shook his head no and continued to check the internet. Probably looking for a lead. Shelby sighed. She was itching for a case, but she wanted to enjoy this day, especially after everything that had happened last night. Grabbing a twenty dollar bill from her brown leather book bag she smirked.

 "You know, one of these days all those greasy double bacon cheeseburgers and pies are gonna catch up with those rock hard abs. And you'll be saying, 'Damn, why didn't I listen to Shelby when I had the chance?'" Dean rolled his eyes at the girl, grumbling about having good genes, and turned towards his laptop once again. Shelby sat down next to him and pull on her socks and running shoes. She slipped the twenty into her shorts pocket, then her moms old army knife into her thigh sheath that the shorts covered. It wasn't very comfortable while running, and the shorts didn't hide the huge bulge coming out of her left leg but she'd rather look stupid than be caught without a weapon.

 "Well don't take too long. I wanna be on the road by tonight. Might have something in Alabama. Hey, and stay away from that damn bar! Shelby?" Dean got no reply as the door slammed behind the huntress. He smirked at her. Such the attitude. That's one of the things that drew him to her constantly.

 He pulled the old ring out of his front pocket. He'd seen the heart-shaped garnet ring in a thrift shop a few months ago while their dads were on a hunt in Indiana. He, Sam, and Shelby had decided to check out the small town. They came upon a thrift shop. While Shelby was busy softly fiddling with an old guitar, Sam pointed out the antique ring to Dean, who bought it as quickly as he could without her seeing. Garnet was Shelby's birthstone. It was killing him to keep this from her.

 Even something as small as a ring, which was supposed to be a surprise, made him feel slightly guilty about not telling her what was happening. He told Shelby everything. She was honestly the only person keeping him together in this life his father dragged him into. When John yelled at him for screwing something up on a hunt, it wasn't his little brother that brought him out of his rut. It was Shelby.

 She had this thing about her, which made everyone in the room a little happier. That something, whatever it was, drove him crazy half the time. Because he wanted to be mad, get angry back at his father. For making him feel useless, like he didn't matter. It wasn't Sam's voice saying not to listen to him, no. It was Shelby's soothing voice that brought him back to reality. A reality where he mattered. He saved people's lives. He did matter. Shelby made sure he knew that.

 -TOL-

 Shelby took a few big gulps of the cucumber flavored Gatorade she had purchased from a gas station a few blocks back. She looked at her watch. 5:26. She should probably head back, it was getting dark. Shelby was glad for the warmer January weather in Georgia. She was a little chilly when she started her run in her tank top and shorts, but by the time she had been running for a few minutes she started sweating. She drained the rest of her Gatorade quickly before tossing it into a recycling bin by a bench in the park she had found.

 Her trip back was quicker than she anticipated, Dean too apparently, for when she opened the unlocked door at six pm, she saw Dean had a crumpled piece of old college-ruled notebook paper in his hands. His eyes were tinged pink around the edges and glassed over when his head shot up. Shelby looked away quickly, not wanting to impose on whatever he was thinking about. She grabbed a change of clothes and her shower bag out of her duffel and headed to the bathroom for a long-awaited shower.

 -TOL-

 When Dean heard the shower turn on he glanced back down at the piece of paper in his hands. Shelby didn't know he had stolen it from her a few years ago. It was a song she had written. For him, but apparently she hadn't wanted him to see it because he found it in an old journal of hers while he was looking for some info on a case his dad had caught wind of.

 It was right after John busted his mouth open for raiding a Djinn warehouse by himself, only being saved from death by the sure, calculating hands of Shelby. Just in time. Shelby had cried silently that night in the bed across the cheap motel room, scribbling something in her leather-bound journal. He assumed it was new info on the Djinn they found.

 Turns out it was this song, which he keeps folded in his wallet at all times. It helped him through whenever his dad got rough on him.

 Some days I barely hold on When life drags me down I wanna let go But when my spirit is weak You come to my aid And strengthen my soul

I'm lost without You I'll never doubt You Your grace is beyond compare And though when it rains, it pours You know all I have is Yours You smile when you hear my prayer

You rescued me and I believe That God is love and He is all I need From this day forth for all eternity I'll never wander on my own For I am Yours until you call me home i close my eyes and I can hear You say You're not alone

Some days I just can't go on I stumble and fall And I hang my head But You reach out for my hand And You lift me up Again and again Oh, yes, You do

 Dean smiled lovingly at the doodles lining the side of the page; a horse head, some flowers, and a very detailed sketch of a .44 her dad carried around all the time. There were small notes of lyrics, like they were added as an after-thought; having no home yet in the script on the page. She was a great singer, and even better at writing songs it seemed. This wasn't the first she had done. Some of them she even shared with Dean; sometimes Sam, who could never seem to stop complimenting her on the job well done.

 Dean felt the same about her songs and voice, she had this way of painting a picture with her voice. The way her fingers glided over the guitar strings killed him. Yet somehow he could never seem to do more than smile appreciatively and murmur 'good job' when she was finished. Maybe it was because he saw how she squirmed under the lime light of Sam's doting; and how her eyes lit up like New York City when she heard the soft acceptance from the oldest Winchester brother.

Shelby opened the bathroom door just as Dean slipped the paper back in his wallet. He looked her over before saying,

"Alright, let's pack up, we got business to take of."

 "Dean, are you forgetting something?" Shelby tried to keep a smile from her face.

 "No, unless you found my razor, I've been missing it since Florida." Shelby had noticed. The dark stubble adorning his otherwise smooth face explained everything. She had found it, in the back seat in between the cushions. She had left it there, rather enjoying the 5 o'clock shadow.

 "Nope" She popped the P. She squirmed under the stern green eyes latched onto her form.

 "Well in that case-"

 "Dean, come on! I wanna do something for my birthday!" Dean smiled. Oh how he loved teasing her.

 "I know Princess, if you would just calm yourself and get ready, I have something to show you." Shelby smiled as she ran to her duffel bag, excited for what Dean had in store.

 -TOL-

[epicfics]

Humans Fic: 15 After Zero - 3) Humans Are Red, Synths are Blue

My black boot heels scrape the grainy pavement in a rush to get inside. There is no avoiding it – no matter how swiftly night is falling upon us, the sight of Leo Elster dragging a dead Synth through town is going to bring out stares fiercer than the burning sun. I don’t know where we’re going, but from what I understand, if you want to survive among humans but remain within proximity to Synths, renting a flat on the town boundary line will bring you close enough to the forests, which they have taken over.

My father is gaunt, especially pale under the glow of slivered moon. He doesn’t speak to me, except to direct me occasionally with left or right. Meanwhile, the Synth’s right arm makes a stiff, upside down L across my neck. He isn’t too heavy for me, but I’m also cursedly petite in comparison.

The town walls are within sight, we must be nearly there – but then the roll of cries begins, as high-pitched as opera and as incessant as a lawn mower. I wince at my twinging ears; I hear the words, “Play with your dollies in prison!” and “Go jump in a lake, Elster!”

Leo’s head does not turn, but I’d be happy to do so myself and deck who ever shouted that last blow. Telling someone who’s already drowned in a lake once to do it again is unforgivably redundant.

It turns out I am right about Leo living close to York’s walls. But I expected a proper flat, small, somewhat untidy. Maybe with an emo-looking cat inside. Instead, my father lives in a rusty shed, the size of Stonehenge in a box. When we reach it, he carefully slips out from under the dead Synth’s left arm to dig a small key out from his jeans. While he twists it into the padlock that chains the shed door to a drilled spike in the ground, he says without looking at me, “How’re you holding up with him there?”

My first impulse is to lie so that he’ll hurry up. Honestly, I barely feel weighted down. Not just by this Synth, but by objects in general. It’s one of the less irksome things about being me; I can grab as many books as I want from the library and Mum can get all of the groceries out of the car sooner. Of course, since I’m not allowed to show my freak flag to anyone outside of the safe home that she’s strived to create for me, I have to feign weakness.

And now, for once, I’m away from home and I don’t have to lie about it. Unfazed by my thoughtful silence, Leo, apparently already knowing the answer to the question before he asked it, pulled the door to the shed open and walked into a dark world smelling of paint and dirt. A bit apprehensive, I take slow steps forward, the Synth hanging on my back like a bulky cape of rocks. My father turns around – this time, he does look at me – and says gruffly, “Get him in here so I can turn on the light. And close the door,” he adds as I finish scuffling in. “No one can see what we’re doing.”

And what are we doing? I’ll admit, I haven’t thought so far ahead, as I’ve been in a rare state of shock for most of this day. It has briefly occurred to me that we might be honoring this Synth with a funeral.

This Synth…there were several Synths lying dead on the street from where we took him. We only took one. Why?

 Compartmentalising, I hand the Synth off to Leo and do as he says. Once the giant glass bulb dangling from the ceiling is radiating a ghostly white light, I even take a dust-caked line of rope and tie it from the shed handle to a hook on each side.

Leo sees this and nods approvingly, and I look at what he’s done. The body is lying across a table, connected to a computer screen, flickering with coloured coding, stationed above his head. An experiment? Looking down at his subject, I hear an unintelligible curse muttered, and Leo snatches a large pair of shears from the ground behind him.

“Louisa.” I start, the thrill of proof that he knows my name instantly shot down by an order. “Take these, cut his clothes off.”

“What?” I can put up with a lot, but this is weird even for me.

He approaches me, holding out the shears at an angle. “We don’t have time. Just…trust me, okay?”

With a bobblehead’s nod, I accept the shears. An odd look in his eyes, he raises his hand, and it wavers above my hair. No sooner do I realise he’s aiming for an affectionate gesture than he withdraws it and walks away.

My heart sinks. I won’t cry, not for the second time in front of him. Willing my focus to take over, I begin with detachment to cut away the Synth’s khakis.

I remember what Mum says. Have I mentioned yet how he was barely a better boyfriend to her than he is a father to me? I’m not surprised. I’m not. I’m just…disappointed, all the same.

My hands smoothly guide the shear blades up the pant leg. This is alright, I think, until I draw near the more private area. An inexplicable chill touches me – a fear that spreads through my lungs like liquid nitrogen. I hadn’t noticed before, hadn’t put my hands around the legs deep enough, but they are protruding with metal splinters from the thigh down. They have stuck my hands, and now my fingers are smeared with red blood and the same, sick blue of a Synth’s.

I stare, horrified. “No.” I smell something foreign, chemical, like bleach and rubber and metal…my head is high but my feet are down, my head is high but my feet are down.

Leo, who’d been assembling various tool for God knows what reason, looks back at me and yelps. As I shake feebly, my head spinning, he’s whipping a smudged white rag out of a box and running it over to a plastic jug of water. Once the cloth has been dampened and sprayed with a strong-smelling disinfectant soap, he comes over to me and begins roughly rubbing it over my hands.

It stings, and I unwillingly say, “Ow.”

“Sorry.” His eyes roam over me in concern for a pause, then he begins to clean my fingers more gently.

Three minutes later, my fingers are healed but my hands are still an ashy sort of blue. “It’s not coming off,” I quake in a whisper.

“It will,” he promises. He looks me in the eyes now, frowning slightly, as though I am a package he never sent for. “Do you…draw?”

I think I am in a permanent state of confusion with him. But he presses, “With markers? Like, Crayola?”

I shake my head. “The one time I did, I got the ink smeared all over my palms. I haven’t touched them since…”

Oh. I get it.

Giving an affirming nod, my father tells me, “Synth blood will wash completely off in give or take a few hours.”

I breathe freely again. It was such a big reaction for such a small thing, and he doesn’t judge me for it. He doesn’t even ask…

Leo turns back to the Synth. With a perplexing expression still on his face, he says, “I’ll take over. You can have a seat over there.” He flicks his head towards a broken mattress surrounded by wooden crates. Is that where he sleeps? He must read the alarmed look on my face as being residual trauma, because he now asks hesitantly, “Are you going to be okay?”

I nod, probably too many times to be convincing. But I move to the mattress and watch him work. Once the Synth’s clothes are cut off, and there’s nothing left but a nude, busted open android, Leo Elster does something else weird. No, it surpasses weird, because grabbing a pair of metal tweezers and pushing them back into the graft of a dead Synth’s skeletal structure is mental at the very least. Feel like asking him what he’s doing anytime soon? an unkind thought in my head voiced itself.

Almost as though he could hear it, Leo explains suddenly, “He’ll be charging in hibernation mode for a while.” Ducking his head around the light to put a dab of something that seems like silicone glue on the cuts, he goes on talking to me. “When he’s ninety percent he’ll need to be unplugged or it could risk short-circuiting him in this condition.”

Unable to go by without asking any longer, I shake my head. “He’s dead though. Why are you charging a dead Synth?”

Leo sighs, though whether it’s a patient or impatient sigh I have no idea at the minute; I don’t even know him at all. “He’s not going to be dead. I need to patch him up, activate his system, and upload the consci -.”

“Consciousness code,” I finish for him, jaw falling open. “You’re trying to bring him back?”

He was. And judging from his downcast countenance, I sense there’s more to it than to see if he can do it. No, the man I see has lost everything. Why wouldn’t he want to see if he can bring some of it back?

It is quiet for two minutes before Leo finally admits, “With all the Synths being wiped out in this war, it seems like they’ll all go extinct unless I figure this out. Who knows, maybe if they can be rebuilt and rebooted, humans will get tired of trying to kill them.”

Have you met any of them, Dad?  I want to ask. But this is a rare moment of disclosure for him, and I know he’s doing it for my benefit.

And I hate to change this subject, but I need to know.

“Did Mum tell you?”

Leo stops applying skin packs to the Synth and puts the equipment aside.

“Tell me what?” he asks, sounding careful.

“About me. About my…sensitivity.”

His lips twitch in a manner that I think might be him trying to form a sad smile for me, but he is too sad even for that. Leo answers, “She wrote to me. Sent pictures. Occasionally asked for my advice, although I was hardly equipped to give any. And yes, she told me. How you feel like your universe is one huge allergy. Everything’s too loud, too bright, the taste of food makes you sick. You have a hard time processing these things because a Synth’s senses are enhanced. And because I did too.”

Am I really having this conversation? Because my mother, bless her, can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be me. And all along, she’s handled my affliction so well because my father told her how it worked.

“Thank you,” I say suddenly.

He blinks, confused. “For what?”

Instead of answering, I stand from the mattress and walk over to the table. “Did she also tell you,” I say very seriously, “that I want to be a doctor?”

And in a case of miracles at work, a small smile is pulled from Leo Elster’s lips. “Would you care to take on your first patient?”

As we begin to trade pliers and surgical knives back and forth, I notice that my fingers are no longer blue. They are no longer red. 

They are the result of it – a faint tint of violet.

[big-pp-energy-ven]

Lonely Hour {OC One shot}

OCs featured: (Henry x Nexus)

Editor's note: I usually don't write as much, I honestly prefer comics. I wrote this weeks ago and I kinda want feedback. Please enjoy... maybe I'll post the rest later (it got cut off).

________________

The amount of body's grinding against each other in such close proximity made Henry claustrophobic, viewing how so many people were from their school.

All their movements were jagged, loose, and awkward, some people putting in actual effort to dance while the others shimmied the songs. The lights were dimmed with some strobe neons swiping the walls, and there was one main speaker blaring popular hits from the decade. 

The volume was astronomical, and quite surprisingly, no one called the authorities to shut down the party.

Hanging by the wall, Henry and his close friend, Shade, stayed near each other in hopes to not get lost in the crowd. 

It was difficult to hear anyone, not even themselves, talk or even shout.

The vibrations of the sounds resulted in Henry to become nauseous. 

Shade held their red cup tight, watching their purple haired friend crumple to the ground in boredom.

Guilt struck them, as they realized that Henry wasn't the type to enjoy massive crowds like this; or really any sort of crowd. He had spaced out when Shade kneels in front of him, mouthing something like,

"Do you wanna go someplace quiet?" 

Though he couldn't hear them, Henry nodded, only to rise from the floor and follow them out of there.

Apparently, many of the kids at school were invited to this spring break party by a small group who rented a large enough airbnb for the majority of the people who came. There was a pool, and the lot had enough space for the party to carry on outside. Of course, there were a few college students, just in case the cops raided, so that they could pull it off as being a frat house party (which would most definitely backfire anyways).

Upon entering outside, the warm, humid evening air hit their faces. It was ten-ish, and most of people's curfews were way past that time… but it's not like they cared.

Henry and Shade take a load off from being inside, and take a seat wherever there was a space available. Most of the outdoor seating was taken up by some participants, who were smoking and hanging out. So, the duo sat on the first few steps of the patio, watching everyone have a good time.

A different song played, with a mixture of ambience from the partiers in the pool, and crickets. The smell of weed hits Henry's nostrils as they sit in silence…

Shade takes a dab from their vape pen, exhaling it out momentarily. 

"Do you think Fikod's having a good time?" Henry murmurs, loud enough for Shade to hear. Fikod and Shade were siblings and usually they were both always next to each other, due to them being fraternal twins. 

"I bet my ass he is," They snort, some leftover vapor excretes from their mouth, "He's probably getting stoned right now."

Henry chuckles with Shade, imagining his friend getting high with a group of other stoners.

Despite what everyone else was doing, Henry didn't want to get involved with it. If anything, he'd probably have one or two beers and that would be enough for him to get mildly tipsy…

This made Henry feel kind of left out, even though he's making the best decision, and it caused him to feel bad for holding Shade back from their fun.

He couldn't handle the amplified music, the large crowd, the drugs- nothing.

He began to wonder why he was even invited or brought along by them- knowing that he didn't like partying.

A part of him wanted to get out of the house, away from Zhila, his aunt. He would've done something else entirely if he didn't want to attend this party.

"Shade," Henry turns to his bright ginger-haired friend, "do you wanna go out there?" 

With a swing of their head, they stare at Henry with widened eyes, "What? Me?"

Shade processes what he said, before answering solemnly, "Well, I do. I wanna try to hook up and smoke."

Then, they pause, tapping their pen against their knee… "But I don't wanna leave you sitting here."

Henry scoffs, rolling his grey eyes, "Don't worry about me so much?" 

I don't wanna be alone.

"You're just saying that, man," Shade scoffs back at him, more playfully.

"I'm being serious," Henry perks up, meeting them at eye level… 

"I don't mind."

God damn, I just wanna leave this place.

Shade's eyes avert away from Henry's for a second, thinking. A reluctant smile grows on their lips, their freckles creasing as they do…

"Alright then," they utter, boosting themselves from the step. As they turn to go back into the home, Shade says very sternly, "If you need anything, please come find me. Okay?"

Henry raises his phone, as if to gesture to them that he'll call if he needs help.

Plodding up the patio steps, Shade's feminine figure eventually squeezes by a group of people by the entryway of the home, disappearing from Henry's sight.

For the next few minutes, he sat on the stairs, in his own thoughts… watching everyone else have fun.

The siren girls splash each other and pool other people into the water as a joke. A few groups of guys are recording and vlogging their experiences. A small mixture of girls and boys are doing a choreographed dance for tiktok…

Gross.

Henry fiddles with his phone, pretending that he was messaging someone on his phone, while in reality, he was scrolling through his social media.

Various posts and snaps of people from the party, posing with their friends, videos of them doing shots and other crazy shit.

The soft tapping of Henry's shoe was increasing in speed as he scrolled deeper into his feed.

Just threads and threads of everyone posting their point of view and having fun.

He saw a few people he knew, like Rain… who was only there for the aesthetic and the weed (most people were anyways).

Brit and his current girlfriend, Briana, both had taken "couple" selfies… like everyone else.

And Nexus, who was posed in a very dominating stand, carefully taken by one of his posse, as if it were a photoshoot.

Envy courses through Henry, and it made it feel like he could easily break his phone with a single clench of his fist.

Henry knew he could just walk home from the party and call his own driver, but… something was holding back.

This is a heinous night, he thought to himself glumly.

Around this point, it was eleven, and it seemed as if the party was just going through its second wave. Eventually, Henry got up and headed back into the airbnb, nearly bumping into a few people.

"Fuck you too, jackass!" Someone shouted to him, as he ambled through the thick patch of bodies.

Unsure why he even went back inside, Henry aimlessly strolled through the crowd, seeing how gross everyone's dancing was… it was a lot worse than homecoming dances, and those are cringey.

Someone's hoof stepped on his foot, causing him to stumble over himself in pain. Limping through the rest of the way, Henry made his way to where the kitchen would be, and from there it stunk of various aromas.

The kitchen wasn't crowded, but there were still people hovering around with drinks and chatting. Just annoying people in the way. He told himself that he wouldn't drink this time, though he found his hand digging through the melted cooler for a beer.

It was room temperature beer, but it didn't matter, he needed something to distract and loosen him up for a bit.

Straight from the can, Henry takes a lousy swig, seeing how no one was there to drink beside him. It tasted like crap, but he's tasted worse.

For the next half hour, Henry lingered in the kitchen, when he finished off two cans so far… fortunately, he ate something before he downed those two beers; unfortunately, it was almost three hours ago.

Yet, his stomach clenched and his throat was parched, and the dizziness set in.

Resting his eyes, Henry leaned against the sink of the kitchen, preparing for the worst of the storm. I don't like to think I'm a lightweight, but this fucking sucks… it's only two cans.

Trying to soothe himself, he grips him thumb in hopes to reduce the urge of wanting to vomit anytime soon. The music thumping sent the same vibrations to his head, worsening the effects.

He heard a familiar voice enter the kitchen, though it was drowned out by the party's ambience. Clenching his eyes, Henry's brain ran laps around his skull, not able to sit still.

"I'm telling you, it's just not fair," says a harsh voice, "I can't even spend time with him because he's with his 'girl'. I'm his best friend, damnit!"

That voice. 

Henry squinted his eyes, blurry figures were mobile blobs to him until he blinked a few times to refocus his vision. He saw similar ginger hair, and thought that it was Shade. Without any hesitation, Henry lumbers over and wraps his arms around the figure, words that manage to crumple from his mouth,

"Shade~ you were gone for such a long time!" Henry whines, having a good hold of the figure..

"Henry, get the hell off me!" A male voice barks out in confusion. 

Tripping backwards, Henry's eyes refocus,  fully recognizing the voice. Upon a clearer picture, he mistakes Nexus for Shade.

The orange cat held his ground and glared at him with a contorted stare… his other acquaintance hung beside him. 

"Oh God-" Henry gapes, attempting to blubber out, "Nexus, I'm so sorry, I thought you were Shade."

Instead Nexus grimaces, as if disgusted, only to murmur, "Whatever, dude. Just watch where you're going."

Henry lowers his gaze, his face hot with embarrassment… or from the intoxication.

Nexus' ear twitches, "Are you drunk or something?" His vibrant lime green eyes peer into Henry's soul.

It took Henry a second to properly respond, his mouth visibly stammering, but that gave Nexus his answer already.

"Hey, Nex, I gotta go…" The other kid next to Nexus frowns, gesturing over his shoulder, sending Nexus into a mild frenzy.

"Bro, really?" Nexus grumbles, angry.

The other guy hurries out, leaving just Henry and Nexus hanging about.

With an aggressive flick of his tail, Nexus sighs… going on to leave the room kitchen.

"W-Wait, Nex," Henry slurs, resulting in Nexus to whip around with an annoyed expression.

"What?" He hisses.

He's so hostile…

"Can I hang with you? Just-Just for a little while…?" Henry pleads, barely able to stand up straight, as he leaned against the counter. Nexus peers at him with a disdained glare, studying him up and down...

"You're not gonna throw up, are you?" Nexus muses, unrelated to Henry's question. 

"I dunno," Henry chortled, shrugging.

Idling in the archway, Nexus finally contemplated his thoughts before turning to his drunken companion. 

"Okay, you can chill with me," Nexus exhales, approaching him, "but don't do anything weird again."

This takes Henry back for a moment, as if he was jabbed with a pencil. Just as Henry was about to say something, Nexus waltzes back into the party area…

With an uneasy step, Henry follows after him into the crowd.

For however long they were on the dancing grounds, Nexus bopped with a few people he knew while Henry tried his best to fit in… though the pound of the music made him more queasy. His coordination when it came to dancing was awkward and trying at times, while Nexus and his other companions were "moving".

Dancing at this point was just simply jumping and swaying, but even Henry wasn't able to do it due to how the room was beginning to spin.

Everything was so loud.

His own thoughts were drowned by the blasting Post Malone song…

it made his head hurt, and his mouth began to gather up saliva.

The nausea had set in finally.

Henry started to sweat as he realized what was about to occur, but instead of drawing attention to himself, he bit his thumb in order to stop himself from potentially vomiting…

Nexus hadn't noticed Henry's ill expression, as he was trying to keep his mind in a different place. It was when the female he was dancing with taps him and inaudibly gestures to Henry, who had gained a headstart out of the crowd and exiting the room. 

Irritation drenches Nexus' face, as he dismisses it, glancing over to see Henry's figure disappearing from sight.

I have my own problems to deal with right now, Nexus scowls internally.

That's when it hit Nexus, like a wet sock.

He probably made Henry feel uncomfortable, and this caused him to leave. For a while, Nexus swayed on the thought of it… 

He's a big boy, he shouldn't have his feelings hurt.

The tense presence of guilt hovers over Nexus, despite trying to brush it off, but once the current song was over, he had swam through the heavy crowd of sweaty bodies.

Entering a corridor that connected to the living space, there were hazy clouds of various odors and smells, while couples made out on the side of the hallway.

Nexus knew where the nearest bathroom was, seeing there was a short line… not seeing Henry anywhere, Nexus just cuts to the front and pounds on the door with his hand.

"Henry, are you in there?" Nexus calls through the door, hearing muffled coughing from within.

The people waiting give Nexus dirty looks, as Nexus continues pounding, getting antsy himself. 

"Dude, please come out. A-Are you throwing up?" Nexus ignores the glares and just rests his ear on the door. 

"Someone's been in there for almost like ten minutes already…" said one of the people who waited in line.

With a nervous flick of his tail, Nexus grips the door knob to see if it were locked; it rotated fully. Holding his breath, Nexus pokes his head into the dimly lit bathroom and sees Henry sitting by the toilet, his head hung low.

"Ah shit," Nexus spats, hurrying over to the slumped figure of his friend. Is he that drunk? Nexus goes to check on him

"Henry!" He places a palm on his shoulder, resulting in Henry's muscles and body to contort in response, as he sat up in a frenzy.

Immediately, Nexus goes to settle down his dazed friend, seeing the genuine panic in his grey eyes; his face is red and puffy as if he were crying.

"Fuck, man," Henry groans, squeezing his temples, only for Nexus to stand up beside him and offer to help him to his feet.

Well, it didn't smell like vomit, Nexus though in relief, but he must've left just in case he did.

Slumping over Nexus' shoulder, Henry staggers on to his feet, leaving his supporting weight directly on Nexus; causing it to be rather difficult to even carry him.

With a hard grunt, Nexus manages to remain standing and soon help his drunk companion out of the bathroom. Not even bothering to look at the people waiting, they both head off to someplace a lot more quiet.

The side of the house where some of the bedrooms remained occupied for "various" reasons, but there was an area for the den…

People were going in and out, though for the most part, no one was there.

Nexus let Henry go, allowing him to plop onto the sofa, where he stayed silent.

Going to sit next to him, Nexus spreads out, a few feet from where Henry rested.

A heavy sigh slips from Nexus' nose, allowing himself to sink into the softness of the sofa.

There wasn't that much of an odor, other than cotton candy from a vape, but it was one of the calmest places of the airbnb.

Maybe they weren't allowed in here, but oh well, there wasn't a sign.

The house still shook from the music being played obnoxiously loud, only there being a certain amount of time until someone filed a noise complaint. 

Peering over, Nexus notices Henry's face in a serene state… still clenching his thumb as if his life depended on it.

Filling the silence, Nexus starts by saying,

"How much did you drink tonight?"

There was a delayed reply, when Henry lets out a bleak mumble, "One… tw-two? Probably."

Nexus examines him, seeing how Henry could pull off being sober, but now noticing how lifted off he was, it didn't seem possible. 

"Do you always get drunk?" Nexus was making conversation, not sure how he was going to respond.

Henry bobs his head side to side, rubbing the side of his face. 

"I don't like drinking…" He stifles slowly, his tongue twists over itself, "but I was feeling pretty…"

He doesn't finish his sentence as if he stopped himself…

Nexus starts anticipating,

"Feeling pretty what?"

Resting his head back, he gestures dismissively, "Forget- forget what I said… don't listen to me."

There was a forced chuckle from him, as he placed his palms over his face… 

Nexus was invested, seeing how strange he was acting. 

Henry's thoughts weren't his own, it felt like they could say something completely different. His thoughts were doing relay races, passing each of his emotions around like a baton…

"I dunno where my friends are," Henry whimpers aloud, spilling out nonsense, "I wish I didn't come here."

Nexus' ears twitch with intrigue, only for him to voice genuine concern,

"You didn't come alone?" Nexus questions, hoping he would comprehend what he said. 

"I didn't wanna say no," He pouts.

He's really off the rails, Nexus grimaces, I should help him calm down.

Nexus remembered the two people Henry hung around with constantly, Shade and Fikod… from what he gathered, they brought him along against his will?

Or so Nexus thought, at least.

He's barely able to say complete sentences, Nexus thought, or hold a conversation. I don't think I'll get anything out of him.

"Do you wanna go home?" Nexus asks simply, waiting for a response.

Instead of a straight answer, there were sniffles. 

Never in all the years Nexus had known him, he'd never seen Henry so distraught… or really cry. 

"Why do I feel so lonely here?" Henry croaks out through sniffles, taking his hands off his eyes. 

This struck a nerve in Nexus.

No, he thought, you aren't alone. You're surrounded by so many people… how can you be alone?

Without thinking, Nexus tugs on Henry's hoodie to bring him down to earth.

"Are you hearing yourself?" He spoke sternly, almost snatching Henry's attention.

"What's going on in that head of yours, bud?" Nexus stares him dead in his eyes… 

Henry's head sways, as his eyes met Nexus'. 

"I told youu," Henry whines, "not to worry about it…"

"You're so annoying!" Nexus lashes out, nearly yanking on his hoodie strings. "What the hell is going on with you? I get that you're drunk, but you keep saying these things and it's fucking annoying. What are these subliminal messages? Are you trying to get under my skin? Make me feel bad, is that it?" 

Having shaken him up, Henry's eyes were opened enough to see his pupils dilating, as Nexus fumes with agitation, his nose flares, and his brows furrowed in the dark. 

The bitter words Nexus spat was the product of pent up frustration from throughout the evening…

Brit had ditched Nexus to be with his girlfriend for the whole time, almost involving him as the third wheel. Seeing how much time Brit spends with her, Nexus felt casted aside, nearly a second thought as he was gradually losing his best friend over a girl.

Maybe it wasn't justified, or quite possibly childish for Nexus to have a fit, but he was just so angry over the treatment…

Brit and him had been through thick and thin for the longest time, but now it was tainted by Briana- "the love of my life" according to Brit.

Releasing his frustration on Henry was a mistake, seeing how it definitely shook him to his core. Nexus' chest had puffed up from the outburst, still having a tight grip around Henry's hood strings.

"N-Nexus, I…"

"Shut up." 

The hold of his hoodie strings loosened, Nexus' hand sank to his lap… as if he was overwhelmed by defeat.

The ginger cat's tail curls up, and his ears lower, leaving his expression solemn.

The way his own words left a sour taste in Nexus' mouth causes him to show regret.

There was silence that hovered over them, intensifying into something far more tense.

They had broken eye contact after the burst, but somehow faced each other… Nexus rested his eyes, closing them or a moment. 

Why did I say that? Since when did I become so harsh, Nexus scolds himself.

I'm just so done with everything that's happened tonight, I just want this to be over and done with now.

Even through the vibrant bass of the music that played, Nexus sensed an increased heartbeat… jumping up in anxiety.

Why is Henry so antsy all of a sudden? Nexus opens his eyes.

Henry had begun to pull in close towards his face, abruptly sending Nexus into surprise, only for his face to land on the crook of Nexus' shoulder; making it seem like he chickened out from something.

"What was that about?" Nexus croaks out, feeling sudden heat down his body. Henry shook his head, burying his face deeper into the side of Nexus' neck.

"I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it…" Henry murmurs under his breath, which Nexus clearly heard.

Instead of acknowledging it, Nexus just sat there with Henry slumped into his shoulder, with many thoughts facing through his brain.

Conflicted emotions, similar to the way he felt about Brit…

He weirdly enjoyed Henry's comfort, Nexus had a feeling that there was something more. A pair of Henry's arms had made its way around Nexus' waist, alerting chills up his spine.

What is this feeling? Nexus muses, the heat progresses to his face.

"First, you were crying," Nexus comments, "now you're being clingy?"

The way Henry's breathing brought up the feeling again made Nexus wanna squirm, yet continue along with this...

[ask-sweetest-devil]

Hey, I wrote about when Finley lost his horn and his crazy girlfriend found out. @ask-devil-iggyko ___________________

Aside for the sharp, screaming pain coming from the left side of his head, only one thought shot through Finley’s mind after Beel had broken his horn,

‘The Queen can’t know’

He already knew that it would be disastrous if she found out. Queen Hallie was, for the most part, level headed and calm, unless it came to someone she cared about getting hurt. Finley could remember the rampage she went on when Monica had almost died as clear as day. Thousands had met the void due to the rampaging horror that was and is their Queen. She had killed indiscriminately, angels and demons and whatever other soul was unlucky enough to cross her raging path. The same thing had happened when Julchen had received a fair amount of her scars. They all learnt quickly to hide their injuries from the glowing green eyes of the queen.

He knew how catastrophic this would be if she found out. This wasn’t a cut or scrape. He had been maimed. If the Queen found out about this, about who did this, his sister would meet her grave. Not that Finley particularly minded the idea of his queen murdering his sister, but he knew that Hallie would catch hell, pun intended, from not only the council but also Gerhart., and that was not a fight that he wanted to bear witness to anytime in his life.

It would bring about the very end.

He stumbled into his apartment, mind swimming with possible ways to hide this from Hallie.

‘Can I just stay home until I think of something? No…. She would come to check on me…. Perhaps I can make a false horn? Some kind of prosthetic? I doubt that would fool her. Maybe….. Maybe Julchen can just fix it, she is quite talented in magic and I doubt she would want her mother to find out about this either….’

He decided that Julchen was his best bet. He simply needed to get into the castle and find her without being spotted by the Queen.

It seemed simple enough.

____________________________________

“Where in satan’s name are you, you big albino brat?!” Finley whispered harshly, “One would think that finding a walking car fire wouldn’t be this difficult!”

He had been skulking around the castle for some time now and had found neither hide nor hair of the Queen’s eldest daughter, nor her bird. Sure, the castle was large, but Finley knew it like the back of his hand.

She wasn’t in her room, or the library, or the arcanium, or the courtyard or the wine cellar! As far as he knew, those were the only places she ever went and the more time he spent looking for her, the higher the chance was of him getting caught.

He slowly and carefully peaked his head around the corner of a hall, gazing into the throne room on the off chance that Julchen was in there.

She wasn’t, of course, but luckily for him, neither was the Queen. He breathed a sigh of relief and stepped forwards into the room, looking around its expansive space.

That was, until, he felt a familiar chill creep up his spine.

‘Shit’

Feminine fingers met his shoulders and he felt cool breath on the crook of his neck.

“Have you come to visit me, my handsome stag beetle?” Cooed the last voice he wanted to hear right then.

She didn’t seem to have noticed his horn straight away, which Finley was immensely thankful for.

“I always delight in your company, your highness,” Finley replied, doing his best to hold back a fearful shake in his voice, “But I am actually looking for your Eldest.”

“Oh, it's so lovely seeing you bond with my daughters,” her voice sounded, hands running from his shoulders up to his ears as Finley shuddered, not in pleasure like he usually would, but in terror, “But I’m afraid she’s off on business. No matter how many times I try to get her to stay home, I can’t tear her away from battle….”

Finley wanted to wrench himself away, to come up with some sort of excuse and just disappear, but he was paralyzed in horror. The queens fingers creeped ever higher and before he could stop her, one grazed over where his left horn used to be.

The silence was thick, and suffocating. Finley heard the Queen’s breathing stop and her body shift and shudder slightly.

“....Finley...” Her voice rang out, deep and slow.

Finley wanted to vomit. He could hear the barely restrained fury seeping into the sound of his own name.

“What. H̯̠͖̙͓ap̙̗̬͜p̥ḛ̜̯̕n̛͚͍̩̲͈͕e͙̞͉͝ͅd͈̭?̯͖͈”

He whirled around, breaking himself out of the queen’s grasp.

Her body writhed, her form losing composure. Her ivory skin turning an inky black and seeming to morph with her dress.

“M-my Queen!” He shouted in alarm, “I- uh- I mean Hallie! Please! It- It was an unfortunate accident, I swear to you!”

He shrunk back as her form lurched, losing all resemblance to the woman it once was, seven emerald eyes glaring out at him with six floating hands sporting gnashing razor teeth on the palms hovering around the immense amalgam that was her true form.

“F̫̖i̛̘͔̲n̹̕l̗̻͙͔̖ẹ͈̖̘̩͍y̘ ̳̗El̨̞̻l̼͈̖i̡͕̪̦̯o̵̱͓͔͕̫̦t̤ ̕ B̛̤͙͚̩e̱̫͚̜e̻̼̗̬̝͔͚l̳̠̱z̮ḛ̲̹̰b̙̦̠̼̠̳u͖͙͙͈͖͉͠l͍̪̯͙̝ ,̧̟ ̛̫d̜̣o̦̪ ͓͉̮̙̳͡n̫̯̘̰͙̖͖͜o̳͍̜͎̗t͈͚̹̹ ̼̯̤͝l͟i̯e͏̦̼͉̳͚ ̡̬͓͍̬t̻͖͓̫ǫ̟͍ ̫̙̦̠͕͢m͉̫e͇̹̳̥̹͈!̗̳̰͔͕̭̕ͅ ̨̫͔̲͍̗ͅT̸͕̼͇̼e̠̠̫̘̭̳͉ĺ̻̣l̪͕̰͚͜ ̹̠̰͞me̤͖͕ ̤͙w̺̻̪̲͖̙ͅha͘t̵͚̖ ͈̟̖̗͚͔̱̕h͍̬̺̮̱͞a̞̟͕̝p̬̩̰̲͞p̘̞e̫͍͚͞n̙̳͙e͍d͏̟̞ ͖̳̪͇̰ r̪̳͈̙̩͈i̺̞̗͙̳͕͔g͇̖̺̕h̫̥̝̙̜͕ͅt҉͇̳̗͚ ̥͖̙̬̪͉̰n̳̪̬͇̲͕̮o̳̲͢w!” Each maw rang out.

They all spoke as one and Finley had never been more terrified in his eons of life. The terrible cacophony ringing out into the core of his very being and making him feel as if he was wading through ice water..

“It…. It was my sister...” He stuttered softly, even like this, he could not lie to her.

A hideous scream rang out all around him, resonating throughout the halls of the throne room and likely throughout the entirety of the nine circles themselves.

The amorphous mass of black inky tar that was Hallie shuddered with raw rage. Standing nearly two stories tall in front of the horrified demon.

T̷̤̎̀̉̃̂ͮ̄h̨̰͙̪ͩ̿ä́t͉͕̙̪̝̏̇͆ ̳̜ͮͤ͑̐́ͯ́̚h̤̣͙̥̫̪̭͐aͨ҉̞̹̻̙r̬̩͋͊̐l̛̙̘̗̪̮̤ͭ͒̃ͅo͈̲̭̥̣t̥̞͓̦͆̐͒ ̣̹̏̏̉̋̎̊ͥh͂̅ͨ̔ͨa̳̰̥̟̥̤͉̽̾̐̄ͭ̂s̝̙͎͙ͮ͊ͩ̚ ̵̱̱͉̻̩̣̅̽̍̚m̜͗̓̄ặ̙̳͡ď̙̘̯̪͕͂̽ͣ͆̊̊ȇ̩̳ ͓͇ͤ̌̾̿̀h͖͍̥̥̾ͥe̙͇̪̙̼̙̋ͦ̽̿ͪ͞r̬̺̰̼̥ ̥̗̂ͧ̉̕ḻ͔͔̻̱́ȧ̠͇̺̩̝ͮs̷̼̜ͫͯͬ̀̅t̸̂̿̃ ̨̥͕̿̃̊̽m͓͚͓̯̗̙̘i̛̯̺̹̟̯͕ͪ͊̌ͥ̀̍s̓͐ͣ̂ͩͬ͌ț̡̤̎̔͆̾ͨ̎a̻̠͚̝̤̩̓ͮͥ́̑̓̚k̞̣̙̗̫̗̠ͮe͂ͫ̂͒͂ͯ͐͘! ̝I͇͈̟̹̝̥͕ ̰͕̤̠̦̖̗ẁ͍̇i͝l͚̿̉̂̏̓l͎̯̰͇͎̮͙̇͂ ̩̖̞͓̰͎̅̂ͫ̎̆r̟̦̲ͯ̓ͤ̍̽͂̚e̲͆̄̽͑n̝̟̤̊͛̃̆̅͒d̙̙͓̭̮̳ ̛̣̞͊̉h̸͆̓ͭ͌ͮ̈͂e̡͖̻̖ͥ̆r̮ ͖̮͙̹̇̄̍̔t̲̯̀͆̿̀ͤͬ̏o̷̪̰̪ͧ͒ͮ̓̆ ̸̻̦͖̗ͮͥ̾͛ͣ̉ͧh͕̰̝̥̣͉͙ͦ̂e̢̦̪͎͔̥̺ͦͦ̈ͮͫ̍̊r̭͎͙͜ ͋́͡b̹̩ͮa̲͉̥͉̩̯͒̂́͠s̲̟ͩͭ̒̍̾͌ȇ̓͂ͫ̉ͦ̾͡ ̷͈̙̲͆ͬ͌̉e̫̖̍̌l̥͕̋̑e̼͇͖ͩ̽̚m̛̲͎̭͈̭̈́́e͕̩̜̰ͣ͞n̛̠t̍͗̓͛ͯs̻̞̓̊͌ͤ͗ͬ͌ ͈̓̆ͤ͛͂ͦaͩ̏̃҉̭̥̜n̫̻̠̰̲̟͓̿̉̉̍̎͒d̯̩̑ͥ̓ ͫ͆ͪ͒ͮ̚͠ṡ͙̞͚͉̇̔̌ͯ̍̃́w̬̱͍a͏ḽ̆ͤ̓̔ͪl͓̜̥͕͋̃ͪ͑ͮ̈́̊o̟̰̿̅ͫ̀ͬ̑̅w͖̟̮̎̅ͭ̑̔̈́ ̜͔̝͔̬̤̇͑̅ͯͅt̶̂̔ḫ̘̟̩̪̈́̄̋͆e̖͖̖̬̾͒̎ͅm̖̬͖͂ͨ̅̈͂ͭ ͙̟̭̟̙̼ͫ̚w͓͖̃̒̍̄ͮ̽ͫ͘h͉̠͋ͦ̍̍͒o̷̟͚̩̮͕̗̪l͙͚̤͚͇̂̐ͭ̅ḛ͈̤͖̭̺̱̿̀̈̀̏̽̏͞!̛̜̱̳̘͔͗̎̌ͥ̔͐̅

Her six floating hands spun, summoning a great portal and Finley knew he only had one chance left to stop her, though he loathed to stoop down to that level.

He began to cry.

Hiccuping sobs left his lips and the spinning of the hands immediately ceased. The rage melted away from those seven emerald eyes and morphed into immense worry. The queen’s form shrunk, gaining stability until a pitch black version of the woman he knew stood before him, hands immediately resting on his shoulders and glowing eyes peering into his.

“O͝h̵ deàŗ. ́Fi̴n͘le̛y, ̷m͏y͝ love, ͟wh͞y͢ ͟do y̸o̶u c͘ry҉?̷ P̵l͞eas̴e!́ I'̸l͠ĺ do̢ ̕any̛th͝ing f͏or th̕i̴s͘ ͘t͡o͝ ͟ceáse!͞” Her voice wavered in concern, the chorus that previously sounded from her being weakening and returning back to a singular voice.

“Please, Hallie,” He knew how much she prefered being called Hallie to her formal titles, “Just don’t leave me. Stay with me for now. I don’t want revenge, I just want to be with you...”

The colour bled back into hallie’s face as she embraced the demon before her, holding on to him as if he were a life preserver and she were drowning.

Finley grimaced, false tears drying in an instant.

He loathed manipulation, but sometimes,

It was necessary.