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all-about-seggs · 4 years ago

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┗ Love- Lies- Bleeding

Pairing - Geto Suguru x Virgin!reader

Word count- 4.8 K

Warnings - Gaslighting, Corruption kink, snuff (not graphically depicted) and then reincarnation, cunnilingus, fingering, unprotected vaginal sex, adding blasphemy kink just to be safe.

A/n- Geto isn't a yandere here but it's Villan! Geto we're talking about so I think his actions are pretty in line with his current canon! Personality. Though a bit delusional. This is by FAR the longest thing I've ever written.

The gray cobblestones stretching across the shrine clicked against your thick wodden sandles, the quaintness of the place only making it seem unnaturally loud. It's was a regular autumn morning, which soon turned into noon as you felt the bright sun shining right on top of your head.

Having finished your morning tasks you were returning to the main shrine where the senior priestess would give you further things to do. Just the thought of more work non stop made you sigh at your monotonous shrine maiden lifestyle but as you lamented you heard footsteps behind you, the sound of which same as that of your own.

"Hey!.....", You turned around to see your little sister huffing as she catches up to you,

" y/n! He's here again!," The implications of her words made your face heat up, sure you were still a bit green and naive, but you made sure to discreet when it came to 'looking' at that one particular man that always seem to stand out among the hoards of faceless people you saw visiting the shrine everyday.

"How many times have I told you not to phrase it like that! You'll get me in trouble with the priestess!", Scrambling to get yourself together you retort sharply.

"Oh come on! Youre the one who used to stare at him from a distance like a lovesick teenager! Atleast now you're talking to him like a normal person", In terms of liveliness the sound of your back and forth was the only thing the place had.

"Watch it! If someone hears you we'll both get scolded", gently warning her again you find yourself turning back to where she came from. The other part of the premises where the peculiar man would be standing, as usual, in all his serene beauty, on the brigde overlooking the small lake.

A man in traditional Japanese cloths that you rarely see anyone wearing these days came to your shrine everyday, without fail for the past month. Everything from his attire to his elegant long hair left you in a trance and your eyes would naturally follow him.

Something about the fact how he'd always come here but never to pray or wish striked you as odd so at first you just observed and even before completely wrapping the situation around your head you two started sharing numerous conversations of the huge world that was right outside but so far away from your reach, his words fuelled the budding curiosity in your heart, the vastness of which made your trips to the lake, the most refreshing part of your otherwise monotonous daily routine.

Even if all you did was talk, a 'supposidly' demure maiden working in a shrine, skipping on her duties and rushing to the other side of the ginormous area to see a man felt almost elicit, scary even when you consider the consequences that would come if you were to get found out. The charisma his every action held was beyond resistance and you soon found yourself enraptured by the male despite everything.

"This is so pointless" you huffed, smiling out of self pity to hide the more frustrating emotions twirling within you.

"Yet you do it everyday", with a small nudge from her elbow you made your way straight to the lake, forgetting about your obligations as a shrine maiden, the responsibilities, the restrictions and all inhibitions put upon you in the name of god.

With quick steps you soon found yourself at the base of the curved brigde,

"Good afternoon Mr. Geto", your greeting came out in a rush, trying to ignore the warmth of your face, but your attempts at hiding your flustered state didn't go unnoticed by the man in front of you.

" Seems like you've been having quite a hectic day", smiling in his usual serene way Geto gracefully turns his head in your direction.

" Not any more than usual", calming your erratic heartbeat you slowly close the distance between the two of you and stand beside him on the arch of the bridge.

" It's really nice here", He remarked, his eyes sweeping across the tiny fishes swimming near the surface of the lake. You stared at him for a little while before finally asking the one thing that drew you to him the most.

" I always wondered, why do you come here everyday if you don't even want to go to the main shrine to pray?. Surely it's not just for this scenery."

" Hmmm? Pray for what?", Not particularly moved by your question he quizzically tilt his head.

"Well.....you know, the usual, success in job, finding a significant other or maybe even something materialistic? Although I doubt you're interested in the last one", you laugh a little to take the edge off your slightly personal question.

"Dreams come true through steadily applied efforts not praying", with his sage like appearance, his words didn't came off as a shock.

"Not the best thing to say to a shrine maiden but I guess it's somewhat true", Quipping back you just looked at him with a smile, silently revelling on your familiarity with each other.

"What about you? You never look like you're having fun while working here.... As if you're the one who's not satisfied with you're job" His voice took a more serious note and asked the question you always tried to push away but for the first time, you felt safe. Safe in talking about things what most people around you would call blasphemy.

"Yeah well, I wouldn't say it's my life's calling. It's basically following the ideals that has been written by others and just blindly following them day in and day out", just as you finished your sentence you realised how shallow and sad you just sounded but the slightly widened eyes of Geto was what made you mentally kick yourself before you hastily try to smooth things over.

" But! It's not that bad! Once you get used to-", after a few lighthearted words to clear the heavy atmosphere that was building up you were cut off with one long finger hovering just above your lips.

" It's okay, you don't have to worry about being judged with me", not touching your lips he quickly retreats his hand back,

"It's only natural to question your ideals and beliefs when you actually start thinking about them, it's a proof of growing up. I can say it was the same for me as well, I had thought I'd spend my whole life sequestered in 'that' place but...." His gaze takes on a far off quality as his words fade.

"What changed then?", Without even knowing why, you urged him to continue.

"Well, I grew up and realised mine were just idealistic views, far from practical."

"Wait! How old are you now?!", Unable to ignore your budding curiosity you went on,

With a soft flick to your cheek he snorted in amusement, his low baritone made you recognise your own rudeness as you rub the non existent pain off of your face.

"It's not polite to ask strangers their age, regardless of their gender, young lady".

"I'm sorry! It's just, your answer...... Was kinda vague so...." Trailing off, the fact that he didn't owed you any explanations dawned on you making you stop. But the sudden halt in your unabashed questioning didn't go unnoticed by the long haired man so he continued, as if reading your thoughts.

"Everyone's entitled to act idiotically every once in a while but you sure are abusing your privilege", he went on, after a few words of sass.

" It took a while but, I soon discovered my true feelings about the world I lived in and how I wanted to change it", The unshakeable conviction of his voice reverberated through your ears and there seemd to be more to the hint of darkness in his downcast eyes, but further questions left your brain as you felt genuine resolve through his words.

Before you could process what's happening, Geto pulled you in close, resting his hands on either side of the brigde railings, caging you inbetween the low wall and his body.

"How about we run away to a better world together?", not waiting for you to protest he spoke. The words falling from his lips were casual enough to make you overlook the outrageousness of their meaning and your oddly intimate position did nothing to stop your brain from short circuiting.

"The decision is yours y/n but I'll be waiting anyway," his voice seems to trail a little before he bends down, his thin lips ghosting over your right ear, " you see, I hate it when even the good gets destroyed along with the bad", with that he quickly pulles his body back, letting you have your personal space again.

"I'll come back here at 8 'o' clock tonight",

After announcing that smoothly, he turns his back away and walks off to the exit, leaving you gob smacked at his confusing words.You watch him saunter off, still to awestruck to move when you finally take a note of your own unsteady breaths and face that radiated heat rivaling the sun atop.

" Who would- even go along with that crazy idea", your meek words get lost in the now empty place but the longing in your eyes to see what lied beyond your conservative lifestyle was as clear as the autumn sky hanging above.

You turn your back on the place and jog off in an effort to escape your own complicated feelings on the matter. His casually spoken words clawed at your heart, an entire different life was just one step away and it was shocking to even you how much trust you were subconsciously putting in every single word he says.

The conflicting thoughts in your head kept you busy the entire walk from the bridge to at the door of the only home you had known for so many years and never once your feet held such hesitation as you entered the building to continue the tasks you had left behind for the momentary change you craved so much.

The evening passed by in a flash, the thumping of your heart only getting louder with each passing hour. You just got out of your bath and were getting ready to help with dinner when you heard two voices coming form one of the senior priestess's room

"I saw her talking to a man, he didn't looked like a -", their words weren't clear but one thing was. Their topic of discussion was you.

"No he was wearing a hakama", it was getting harder and harder to breath with every second. If they were to tell that to your other supervisors then it would become very difficult for you to live here.

"So he could be from a neighbouring temple, maybe just asking about something general?"

"But weren't they standing too close?"

Listening in from behind the door all you could make out was that they clearly saw you and Geto, but one thing was certain. You were about to be very strictly reprimanded for just having curiosity.

Before you could even think up of some excuses to get yourself out of this mess the previous offer of his night time rendezvous flashed in your mind. It got you thinking, if you were going to be made to stay under supervision for a while anyway then the least you could do was to meet Geto one more time so as to let him know that his idea was indeed crazy and that life wasn't that easy for you to give up on everything you've done until now just on a whim.

You couldn't exactly get to a proper conclusion, sure leaving seemed like the better option but the fact that you'll be heavily dependent on Geto for everything didn't sit will with you either. It's not like you had any other skills or connections and even if he said he'd take you with him, you weren't fully ready to trust him on that. Why would you? It's not like you two were connected or related in any way.

The meeting time was approaching fast and since it's dinner time soon most of the girls would be around the dining area to help. It was the perfect opportunity to slip out unnoticed and come back after explaining things to the kind person who brought a few extra colors in your dull life.

Shakily you made you way to the back door, knowing full well you're about to commit another offense.

In a few minutes you reached the bridge, it was empty right now, indicated that your are ether early or that maybe Geto was actually just messing with you and oddly enough you felt your stomach drop at the thought of the second option.

But before you could overthink out the negative options you sense eyes on your back and whirl around to see a happy looking Geto strutting towards you.

" I take it you have decided to entrust yourself to me?", Greeting you with his self assured words he smiles amicably at you.

" Actually- I've decided to not leave", you say, with both sadness and regret in your voice.

He listenes to you in silence, his face doesn't look convinced no matter how much you explain but he never interrupts you until you're finished.

" So, Is that what you really want? To rot in a place which binds you to unnecessary obligations?", He blankly says, after you're done.

"It's only natural to lose something in order to attain greater things y/n", steping in your personal space again he peers at you face, his eyes were slited enough to hide their true intentions yet leaving just enough space for the moonlight to give them an otherworldly glow.

His beautiful face just centimetres away from yours and before you can finish he grabs you by the chin and delivers a mind blowing kiss.

This wasn't good for your heart. Your previous resolve was melting, just like the rest of you. Geto quickly slipped his hot tongue inside your mouth, exploring every nook and cranny of it.

"Why are you going so far?", You ask, still not entirely convinced.

" Because we are the same, that's why I know what you want and I can give that to you. So trust me okay?", A few seconds pass as you both stare into each other, when you finally heave a sigh of defeat.

" I do want more than just a life of modesty,", having changed you decision yet again you look up at the man in a renewed resolve.

"That's my girl!", Almost excitedly he envelopes you in a warm hug,

"Well y/n? How exactly do you want to celebrate your new found freedom? ", giving his words a suggestive tone he leaned forward to press his lips against your ear, placing light kisses up and down its lobe.

A surge of heat runs through your confounded heart, voice raspy as you reply " Ofcourse I want to do it with you", the snickering above you made you realise the innuendo your words held,

" I meant the celebration! It as in the CELEBRATION OKAY?!", Frantically, you push against his chest to break your embrace, trying to explain the simple meaning behind your previous words but even so, you'd be lying to yourself if you said that the thought of sleeping with him never crossed your mind.

The unmarried virgin criteria you had to fulfill in order to be a shrine maiden was in the past now. So you couldn't find any reason to hold back now.

" I'd be an honor," Geto's melodious voice reverberated through the entire room and you whip your head upwards to look for the confirmation you needed.

With minimal amount of words Geto took you to a near by cottage, saying he atleast wanted your first time to be in a proper place. You thought he was staying at just a room in that cottage but it turned out he had rented the entire place.

For you, it was quite a luxurious thing, while it was something you'd love to revel in, you had other, more important matters to give your attention too.

With a soft click, Geto opens the bedroom door and ushers you in, you breathing coming out irregular, and you were almost shaking in both excitement and nervousness.

What if he doesn't like how I look like naked? Would he like it better if I had shaved? Wait- I hope I'm not wearing my ugly panties today!. While you were freting the small details, the long haired man quietly made his way towards the bed, where you sat, buring his face at the crook of your neck as his arms wrap themselves around you.

"White suites you",His voice rumbled in your ears, his tone as smooth and sweet as honey when he slipped his hand inside the collar of your top, parting the neatly tucked fabric until your chest was exposed. The sudden contact with the air and his hands made your nipples perk up. He fondles them a little while kissing up your neck and shoulders.

Slowly he undos the cloth belts that tied your red hakama to place and eventually you feel them loosen up and then down to the ground, leaving you in just your open white kosode.

Being so exposed in front of a man and that too for the first time made you instinctively cover your chest and crotch, but it was pointless really, because even your hands couldn't hide the dampness of your panties from the sharp eyes that seems to look straight through your meek attempt at modesty.

"Come on, show me everything", his eyes met yours, all attention on you and it was almost disconcerting how vulnerable his eyes made you feel.

Felling a warm rush of blood to your face, you slowly loosen the grip of your hands around your body, letting Suguru pry them off until they rested limply on your sides. Slowly you lie down flat on your back, shyly looking away.

"Getting embarrassed is fine, but there's no need to hid yourself, It's only natural to want to look at your lover's body",He says it with such low, sweet, seduction that your toes curl in response, the word 'lover' ringing in your ears sent your heart in a frenzy.

Slipping the rest of your garments off of your shoulders he gently kisses your ear, licking the contours of your jaw and all the way to the hollow of your throat. His mouth nibbed at the skin beneath as his smooth tongue caressed the marks it left behind.

Soon he latched his lips onto on of your nipples, his teeth grazing the hardened tips pulled a few moans out of you, his long hair tickled your skin wherever they fell and it took everything in you to stop yourself from grabbing onto them.

Moving lower, he soon reached your pussy, already dripping with arousal. You felt his breath on your folds as spreaded them with one of his hand and gave the smooth space inbetween a long lick.

Sucking on your clit with fervor, his arms around your hips traced it's dips and curves as he delves deeper into your moistened sex. Your moans were inevitable at this point, the feeling his mouth in the most intimate part of your body was making you shiver in ecstasy but as soon as he brought his hand near your hole you felt your thighs clench.

"Don't worry I'll only use one finger at a time to get you all nice and ready for later" Gentle reassurances flowed naturally out of his mouth as he covers his fingers in your slick before spreading your pussy more.

His digits push past your folds and buries themselves deep into your throbbing pussy, the sensation of being penetrated both new and arousing. Geto slowing moves his finger in and out as his tongue latches on to your clit again.

The sensations of being licked and fingered together intermingled in your body, bringing you closer to your release in no time. Although it was a good thing you didn't wanted to end it so quickly. He was undeniably good with his hands, knowing when exactly to add another finger or when to curl or rub them inside.

Maybe it's because it was your first time but the onslaught of your orgasm leaves you shaking and moaning wildly in the most unladylike ways you have ever acted. It was embarrassing how much you ended up enjoying while Geto did all the work.

Though he pushes you to your limit you can't help but want to watch his every movement, anticipation building inside you when he raises his head and props himself on his knees to get a better look at your blissed out face. You let out a sigh of longing as he bought his glistening digits to near your face as a proof of you how good he made you feel.

" I'm glad you like it honey", his voice dangerously seductive, he licks his fingers just as erotically, making you embarrassed.

" Let's move onto the part where you cum on my cock now shall we?", His crudeness may have been shocking but right now all you cared about was the cumming part so you let him manhandle your throbbing form until he properly lines himself up against your hole.

Suguru didn't removed his cloths fully, just loosened his hakama just enough to whip his member out.

" Deep breaths now y/n", his gentle guiding eased your mind, and so you relax your body to take him in because even if it's your first time, you were pretty sure he was big enough to make anyone ache.

A warm tingling pain tears through your core which soon mealted into something more euphoric, unbearably good even, making you cry out in ecstasy. He filled you up to the brim and you wondered how bad it will ache tomorrow. As soon as he bottomed out in you, the entire aura of the person about you changed and the room felt like it dropped a few degrees in temperature.

It was not what you'd expected as your first time. Not the painfully rough speed he started with. Not the large hand around your neck that threatened to cut off your air supply. And certainly not the cold, detached look in his face.

Even when your breathing was getting shallower by the second you still writhed in pleasure. It was alarming as to how much you were willing to entrust your entire self to Suguru who was nothing if not composed, keeping his hand firmly around your neck while thrusting his member in and out of your pussy, fucking you like some sort of rag doll.

Long gone was the mild mannered person you looked up at with heart eyes, maybe he was just different in bed, that's what you wanted to tell yourself but the lack of consent and the level of his roughness kept you from doing so.

He eventually let go of your neck, only to flip you on your stomach and shoved his cock inside from an even deeper angle. He didn't let you tap out until you came twice, with your third orgasm approaching just as fast.

The sumptuous heat from his body lingers on yours for sometime even after he pulls himself out

And you felt that the longer you stayed in his embrace, the more darkness seeped into you which would surely make you go numb eventually

You wanted to ask Geto what was happening but a few broken screams were the only thing you could make out, everything was sudden, how the pain made your vision go white to then pitch black and as your consciousness left your body all you could hear was Geto's calm voice.

" Next time you wake up, well be in a better world"

The few rustling sounds of fabric brought you back to the waking world, the dark blue skies outside with flashes of gold inbetween told you it was just the crack of dawn.

You slowly prop yourself up in a sitting position to look around the unfamiliar room.

You catch your reflection in the nearby window next to your bed, you looked the same save for the few indecipherable marks here and there.

" Good morning y/n", Quickly looking at your right, you see Geto just walking out of the bath, his mascular form only covered by a thin cottan kimono.

He was behaving normally, as if the events of last night didn't happen. So normally that you were starting to think you may have hallucinated the whole thing.

Walking towards your sitting form, Geto bends down to cup your jaw and layers his mouth on yours, the scent of his shampoo tingling your senses almost made you forget about everything else.

He breaks the kiss, gazing at your downcasted eyes, the heat from your face made him chuckle.

"Quite an innocent reaction considering all the things we've done", he smirks triumphantly at you, his eyes a mix of dark but intense passion. All the things huh. You thought. Your mind was still in a haze and it was talking longer to process your words and thoughts.

"What happened last night?, I can't remember everything properly", you were expecting straight answers, that how did you passed out or where you exactly were right now but Geto seemed to go off on his own tangent.

You were just like my past self,", were, he said. As if you're something else now. The man in front of you was changing his colors faster than you could comprehend his words and it was terrifying you.

"That's why it's my duty to show you everything that life has to offer, the entire extent of it. As long as you stay by my side.", Not paying an ounce of attention to your shocked state he want on,

" The people you were staying with before were only going to confuse you further, that's why I had to take you away".

"You are the most free and safest at my side, darling. But if you still want your preistess life back then, I'll be your god and you can spend the rest of your life worshipping me instead"

Of course, he didn't saw you as an equal who could stand beside him, you weren't even his lover, just someone below him who he needed to worship the ground he walked upon in. But even so, the fear you experienced just a few minutes ago dissipated, bringing back the curiosity that was at its height whenever he was around.

"Were you lonely?",Geto's eyes trailed up and down your face which halted in their track after hearing your words which oddly resembled pity.

" What-", the previously composed and slitted eyes expanded a little before his expression abruptly shifts, turning serious, making you flinch under its sharp gaze, the animosity that surrounded him contrasted with the previous tender kisses and touch.

With his one large hand he grabbed your face from the base of your jaw, painfully lifting it up until your entire body was a few centimetres above the surface of the bed.

" Listen up y/n, I didn't brought you here to dote on you and the only reason I wiped out your silly little shrine because I can't stand hypocrites who spread false teachings written by equally hypocritical people. It was your job to worship things you couldn't see before and now you have to do the same job for someone you can see. That's. All."

"Ofcourse, leaving isn't an option.I've turned your body into a reincarnated curse. If any of the Jujutsu tech people caught you roaming around, it'll be instant exorcism for you." He lets go of your face and sits next to your form, Geto was quite for a while, giving you time to sort out your own feelings on the matter.

You knew what was happening now. Inbetween those conceited words flashes of the warm blooded man behind the god slipped out and you had to resist the overwhelming urge to comfort the person who just confessed to have burnt down the shire you were living in just until a few days ago. Maybe your thought process was altered just like the rest of you body, or maybe you were always this crazy too.

The source of your sympathy was unknown but the twisted obsession of his was provided you with more solid answers.

Your meeting, the conversations, how you eloped together. All of it made sense now. He wanted to save you from the oppressive state of the place you had spend most of your life in, ofcourse he would. He was thinking of you in ways no one ever had. He loved you in ways no one ever will, or could for that matter.

And you,

You loved him too. You had to.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #smut #Jujutsu kaisen geto Suguru #suguru geto #geto suguru x reader #geto #jjk geto suguru #geto Suguru #Jujutsu kaisen x reader #Jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #geto Suguru smut #my writing #tw: Gaslighting #jujutsu kaisen scenario #jujutsu kaisen scenarios

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teawaffles · 4 years ago

Text

The Girl Who Sees Rainbows: Chapter 9 / End

“……I’m glad you’re safe.”

Immediately after the incident had been resolved. Patterson had arrived at the department store, and he called out to William, who had been speaking with another officer.

From the officer’s behaviour, one could discern a firm sense of loyalty towards the inspector. William also gave him a bow.

“Thank you for your hard work, Inspector Patterson.”

They’d exchanged civilities, but from their demeanour, one could sense an invisible line being drawn. Right now, the two of them were not lord and vassal — but simply a victim who’d been caught up in the incident, and a police inspector from Scotland Yard.

“It was just my luck today. I certainly hadn’t expected to be caught in the middle of a case like this.”

William sighed, and Patterson adjusted his glasses as he replied.

“I guess there are some things that even a renowned genius such as yourself cannot predict.”

“You speak too highly of me. We all have things we cannot foresee. Little things, that is.”

“…………”

William had dismissed an incident of this scale as a “little thing”, and once again, Patterson felt a sense of awe. At the same time, he was also secretly relieved that the incident had not been the government’s handiwork.

“There’s one more thing I didn’t anticipate.” William held up an index finger.

“I’ve made a small friend.”

He looked at Helena, who was with the other hostages under police protection. She was speaking with the young boy they’d met in the store, as well as the boy’s mother. He kept apologising over and over again to Helena in earnest, and she was trying to comfort him, telling him not to worry about it.

——Just in case, in order to ensure that outsiders would not realise that the Lord of Crime had been present at the scene, William had kept the details of what happened after the hostages’ escape a secret, even from the two children.

Someone had targeted her life today, yet Helena did not seem the least bit shaken. Patterson looked at her with a calm gaze.

“For a child of her age, she does have a strong spirit. Or perhaps, she could just be putting up a strong front……. Anyway, I heard that she played a role in solving this case?”

“Indeed. Without Helena’s help, I believe the Yard would’ve had an uphill task. It’s also a fact that she lies at the heart of this incident.”

“It does appear that way. We shall be investigating the background of today’s case as well.”

“Thank you very much.”

William bowed. Now that they’d gotten involved with this child, on William’s side, they would be investigating this case independently too.

As the conversation drew to a close, William appeared somewhat distressed.

“By the way…… I’d like to ask you something, Inspector: what do you want the most right now?”

Of course: the reason why he had come to the department store in the first place. Although it was quite a direct way of asking, he’d been unable to reach a decision even after spending all that time thinking about it, and so it couldn’t be helped.

Patterson thought for a while, and gave an extremely honest reply.

“If I had to name something, it would be a holiday. I’ve been really busy recently, so I’d like to take a good break and restore my energy.”

“……I’ll consider that, thank you.”

His answer had gone down a different road from what William had hoped, and internally, his shoulders drooped. On the other hand, Patterson mistakenly thought something was the matter, and began to think hard about what it could be.

It seemed the anguish of the most intelligent man in all of Britain, would continue for a little while longer.

T/N: I feel you Patterson… Also, Helena’s story isn’t over yet — stay tuned for the next part!

#moriarty the patriot #yuukoku no moriarty #yuumori #english translation #the girl who sees rainbows

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qlala · 4 years ago

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Is it cheating to submit a fic request for the pride post you just made? I neeeed the whole thing (I'm on my laptop, but insert the big gay eyes emoji)

fjskdgjslg "big gay eyes emoji" you know what? just for you. just for you i have written this. i'll clean it up and upload to ao3 later but for now: have 2.7k of len dragging a sunburnt, tipsy, and glitter-covered barry back to his apartment, and happy pride!

Len wasn’t the type to begrudge anyone a good time, especially when the good time involved loud music, leather harnesses, and throwing water bottles at cops. Central City’s annual pride parade came as close as it got to challenging that attitude; families, fellow queers, and queens descended on the city waving more flags than the United Nations after a hurricane, all decked out in color combinations that Len hadn’t been able to keep straight since the ‘80s.

The end result was the kind of crowds that could make a grown man feel claustrophobic in the middle of a city block, and that was without the visible haze of alcohol wafting off the whole event.

But what the parade lacked in personal space, it made up for with one very important commodity: unattended wallets.

The flock of sunburnt twinks in denim cut-offs made Len’s job almost too easy—a hand on a sweat-slicked lower back, a flash of blue eyes, and most of them wouldn’t have noticed their wallets going missing if Len had dangled their IDs in front of their faces afterwards. (While there were plenty of women dressed in just as little clothing whom Len certainly wouldn’t have minded getting within robbing distance of, he’d found queer women as a group to be less enthusiastic about uninvited touching and more enthusiastic about wallet chains, even when three sheets to the wind off of canned rosé.)

He’d taught a dozen visiting suburbanites the importance of not keeping valuables in their back pockets by the time he spotted a familiar profile in the crowd.

His usual red getup wasn’t much more modest than some of the outfits Len had already seen, but even knowing the shape of that body didn’t prepare Len for seeing Barry Allen stripped to the waist, bright-eyed and flushed and shimmering all over with a fine dusting of glitter. Len noted, on auto-pilot, that it didn’t seem like he’d put any of the glitter there himself; he was standing dangerously close to a drag queen throwing handfuls of the stuff on anyone who got within arm’s reach of her. It set the sun refracting off every dip and plane of muscle across Barry’s chest and stomach. Barry’s hair, already wild and dark at the roots with sweat, was full of it.

Len’s feet were carrying him closer before he gave himself permission to move. Barry managed to drag Len into his orbit at the best of times; visibly tipsy and dripping sweat, Len would’ve had better luck resisting the turning of the earth.

Up close, Len could take that Barry had lost his shirt somewhat recently; the slight touch of pink spanning his shoulders and chest had nothing on the serious flush across his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. He had a spray of new freckles as well. They were barely distinguishable under the haze of glitter stuck to his skin, but Len noticed them at once, the change unmistakable on an otherwise unchanging face (not a scar to be seen, even after three years of running into burning buildings and jumping in front of bullets; Len was equal parts frustrated and relieved).

It looked like someone had painted a few strokes of color across one of his cheeks at some point, but it was smudged to hell and back. The back of one of Barry’s hands was stained a tell-tale matching purple, and Len could only guess at what it had been at the start of the day.

He stepped into Barry’s space as easily as he had the rest, taking care to keep Barry between him and the source of the glitter, and hesitated for the briefest moment with his hand above Barry’s spine. He’d never touched Barry like this, skin to skin; the gloves had never come off between them, metaphorically or literally. Kept things neat.

Nothing about Barry was neat right now. He turned even before Len touched him, and the movement brought Len’s hand into contact with his side instead. It took everything in Len not to pull it back in a flinch, and he met Barry’s curious glance with a tightly-controlled smirk.

He’d expected Barry to step back, maybe add a bit of blush to those already-pink cheeks. Instead, Barry’s eyes took a belated second to focus, and then he gave Len a face-splitting grin.

“Snart!”

That time, Len did have to pull backwards to avoid Barry dragging him in for a hug. To think he’d been concerned about a hand.

Barry didn’t seem the least bit put out, smiling loose and easy like Len hadn’t iced him to the door of a bank vault the last time they’d seen each other. He hadn’t taken Barry for such a cheerful drunk—he seemed inclined toward melodrama on a good day—but Len would take it over any of the alternatives.

“Barry. Fancy seeing you here. And so much of you, at that.” He let his gaze slide down his bare chest and stomach, pulse ticking up at the warm brown of his nipples and the sharp vee of his hipbones that invited his gaze further down.

“You’re overdressed,” Barry disagreed. He wasn’t quite slurring, but there was a careful deliberation in his tone that told Len it was a near thing. He took a step closer and peered at Len, suspicion evident in those pale green eyes. “And… sober.”

“I’m not here to score. Perks include keeping my shirt on.”

For the briefest second, Barry looked almost disappointed. But it was gone in a blink, confusion taking over. He glanced down at himself, puzzled. Then his expression cleared, and he looked up with another easy-going smile. “I got hot.” His gaze dropped again, to Len this time, and he licked his lips. “Aren’t you… you gotta be hot in all that.”

Len was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and thin jacket, and it hadn’t hit eighty degrees all week. But he wasn’t in the mood to argue with drunk logic. And besides, another scan of the nearby revelers had made something unpleasant begin to scratch insistently at the inside of Len’s chest, and he tapped Barry under the chin with one knuckle to bring his attention back up.

The contact startled both of them—Len’s control had slipped, something he could not afford to happen around Barry Allen—but Len recovered first. “Where’s the rest of your team of do-gooders?”

“Lost ‘em.” Judging by the return of Barry’s crooked grin, it was an accomplishment, not a concern. “Cisco said the shot was too strong, but I didn’t wanna go. He’s the d…” He faltered, brows pulling together as he frowned. “S’the designed. Designinated, superhero, anyway. Shh!”

He shot a pointer finger toward Len in a movement that Len clocked, alarmingly, as intending to be pressed to his lips, as if he were the one who’d been chatting about Vibe’s secret identity. Len had three years of dealing with the Flash to thank for being able to catch Barry’s wrist in time to stop him, and he glared at him for the attempt.

But Barry only gave him a crinkle-eyed smile and twisted his hand in Len’s grip to clasp his wrist back. “S’so good to see you here. I didn’t think…”

“Don’t tell me you had me pegged for straight.”

Barry made a frankly insulting noise halfway between a scoff and a hiccup and tilted Len a condescending look.

“Speedster, remember?” he asked, far too loudly, even for a crowd currently screaming along to a pop song that’d been bad enough the first time Len’d heard it in 2000. “I see it when you...” He let go of Len’s wrist to make a gesture with two fingers, parting them in a V and sweeping them up and down Len’s body, the muscles in his forearm shifting distractingly under Len’s hand. God, the kid had to be a hundred degrees. “When you check me out. In the suit.”

Len smirked. “It’s cute you thought I was being subtle.”

“You’re cute,” Barry muttered, childish and sulky, and Len took it for the compliment it wasn’t.

“You had a point, Barry.”

Barry still looked displeased with him, but his brow was furrowed again when he met his gaze. This close, it was impossible to ignore that Barry had an inch or so on him. “About what?”

“You didn’t think…?” Len prompted him.

Barry stared at him blankly, and Len rolled his eyes and let go of his wrist.

“Get out of the sun, Barry,” he said. “Find a park bench. Wait for your little friends to come find you. Shouldn’t be hard—you’re as red as your suit.”

Barry either ignored his last comment or didn’t hear it. “Iris is here somewhere,” he said, possibly to himself. “She’s…” He twirled his finger absently beside his head. “Curly, today. And… bikini.”

Len strongly considered abandoning Barry to his sunburn to go find out for himself. But Barry was beginning to sway a bit, and a man closer to Len’s age than Barry’s was giving Barry’s toned back a speculative look from a few feet away, and Len gave in to the unsettled feeling gnawing at his ribcage. He refused to call it worry. It was annoyance—or, at the very least, the feeling was annoying him, which was close enough.

“As much a sight for sore eyes as that would be,” he said, allowing a magnanimousness he didn’t feel to color his tone, “I doubt Miss West ran away from her group and got heatstroke. Unlike some people”

Barry didn’t look the least bit chastened, lips curving up mischievously in a way that drew another couple interested looks. Len needed to get them both out of the crowd before he started breaking noses.

“Tell you what. Give Cisco a call, tell him you went home. My bike’s on Kingsbridge, away from the parade route.”

Barry’s smirk sharpened. “Trying to get me out of here, Snart? I thought you weren’t here to score.”

Len gave him a flat look, ignoring the decidedly interested way his body was reacting to Barry’s tone.

“You can barely stand.”

Barry’s eyes glittered at the challenge, and Len realized his mistake.

“Barry—”

He hadn’t even finished biting out the second syllable when the world spun out from under him, the noise and the heat and the press of the crowd swallowed up in a hair-raising charge of yellow lightning. Exactly two and a half seconds passed in a blur of movement, just long enough for Len to realize Barry was supporting the back of his head with one too-warm hand. Then the world came skidding to a stop around them. Barry’s momentum carried them both forward several feet even after their new surroundings materialized, and they very nearly went straight through a window again before Barry seemed to remember how to stop.

Len considered pushing him out the window anyway for the stunt. True, he’d been itching to get another taste of that feeling, the ozone snap-drag of Barry’s power like a live wire under his hands, but he’d rather have waited until Barry could pass a breathalizer.

He realized Barry still had an arm around him and shoved him off. It did nothing to dim Barry’s self-satisfied grin, and Len had to look away or risk giving into the interested once-over Barry was skimming over his body again.

“Pretty sure the point of a designated driver is not doing that.”

Barry followed him when he took a step back. Len made a calculated decision, decided the risk of touching Barry again was worth it, and pressed his fingers to the middle of Barry’s chest—right where the Flash insignia would be on his suit, his brain offered unhelpfully—and pushed him backwards, hard.

Barry unbalanced and wheeled back a step. Then the backs of his knees hit the edge of the couch, and he toppled, satisfyingly, back onto the dark leather cushions.

It was a nice couch. The whole apartment was nice, actually. Len could’ve drawn a perimeter of possible locations based on Barry’s speed and how long it had taken them to reach it if he hadn’t already known the address.

“Sit,” he said. And then, with a smirk: “Stay.”

Barry rolled his eyes. “Gonna have to ask nicer than that if you wanna boss me around in bed.”

The way he threw it out there, easy as anything, almost made Len miss a step as he turned away. He wasn’t going to lay a hand on Barry, not when he was drunk on sunlight and skin and whatever concoction Cisco had apparently cooked up for him. But hearing him say it, like they’d already gotten all of the messy parts out of the way—it set off warning bells in Len’s head, flashing past all the possible off-ramps he would’ve taken if Barry had ever tried to have the conversation in a more linear fashion.

“You’re drunk,” Len said, which was a coward’s answer, and behind him, Barry made a vague noise of agreement.

“Probably,” he acknowledged. “You could stick around ‘til I’m not.”

Christ. Len didn’t trust himself to look at Barry again, not when he knew he’d find him sprawled out and shedding glitter all over what had looked like a very expensive couch. “Stay,” he repeated, and went off to find the kitchen.

By the time he got back with two glasses of water, the problem had solved itself; Barry was out cold on the couch, his painting cheek pressed to the throw pillow he’d curled himself half-around. He was shivering faintly in the air conditioning, all cooled sweat and goosebumps, and Len resigned himself to the now-familiar impulse to help him that stirred in his chest. He put one of the glasses down on the table and, not trusting his hands, knocked his knee into one of Barry’s where it was bent close to the edge of the couch.

Barry buried his face into the pillow with a noise of displeasure, and Len said his name again.

“Last warning,” Len said. “Ten seconds, you find out if I put on steel-toed boots today.”

Barry groaned, and if the sound hadn’t made Len’s pulse skip, the easy shift of muscles in Barry’s arm as he pushed himself up to sitting again would’ve done the trick.

“Water,” Len said, unnecessarily, as he passed him the glass.

Barry took it with the tips of his fingers, as if it were something personally offensive to him, and took a single, polite sip before putting it down beside the other with no small amount of distaste. Then he glanced between the glasses, and up at Len, a dirty spark already lighting behind his eyes again.

“Don’t get your hopes up. They’re both for you.”

Barry let out a breath with audible annoyance and dropped back against the couch cushions to glare at him.

Len felt a modicum of sanity return to him. This, at least, was familiar ground: Barry, frustrated, asking for too much, too soon. True, it had always been about the hero business until now, but Len knew a pattern when he saw one. Give Barry an inch, and he always took a mile.

Len gave Barry one last, appraising look. He looked ridiculous, all self-righteousness and bare skin. There was only one break in the otherwise even coat of glitter, there on Barry’s side: faint, but unmistakable, the outline of Len’s hand on his waist. The feeling in Len’s chest coalesced into something pleased and possessive. He met Barry’s glare with a slow curl of his lips, then gave him an inch.

“Call me when you’re sober, Barry,” he said, letting his voice slip into the Cold drawl just to watch Barry’s eyes go dark. “And you can show me how well you sit up and beg.”

He could see the impatience radiating off of Barry’s frame, the effort it was taking him to stay on the couch instead of closing the space between them.

“Call your friends,” he reminded him. “Enough people got a look at your face today without the CCPD splashing it on every milk carton, too.”

In the elevator, Len reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the thin black wallet he’d liberated from Barry during their sprint across the city. Two and a half seconds: child’s play. A little extra incentive for Barry to track him down in the morning, not that Len thought he needed it. He flipped it open, noted the deer-in-the-headlights picture of Barry on his driver’s license with amusement, and then thumbed open the bill compartment.

Len smirked. Barry wouldn’t miss a few dollars; he owed him for the dry-cleaning it was gonna take to get the glitter out of his jacket, anyway.

#coldflash #leonard snart #barry allen #the flash #my fics #is 10 pm on a tuesday peak posting time? no! is it when i finished this? yes!#also this is blatantly nyc pride sorry #write what you know etc

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vanderlindemorgans · 4 years ago

Text

Cross My Heart (Chapter 5)

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x Reader

Rating: Explicit/18+

Summary: A traitorous Agent Whiskey returns to the United States on the run. Being cast out by Statesman, he soon finds that you’re the only person he can turn to - the embittered former flame from years long passed

Word count: 7.5k

Warnings: Eventual smut, some references to alcoholism and drug use. Reader is in her late twenties but there is an age gap between her and Whiskey. Chapter specific warnings: one scene takes place in a hospital, some medical talk, more heavy drinking, talk of death and alcoholism (specifically related to drunk driving), mentions of drug addiction, Whiskey being a dick, lotta heavy topics in general.

Read on AO3 | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Masterlist

“Alright, so the X-Rays have come back and as you can probably already guess your left arm has been fractured”.

The news hadn’t been a shock to you at all - it was only logical that the result of being thrown off the back of a horse was your arm breaking from the impact of the fall, nevermind the sheer amount of pain that it had already caused you was even more indication that something was definitely wrong there. All things considered, it still wasn’t a pleasant piece of news to receive, causing you to let out a low groan as you settled back into the hospital gurney they had allocated to you after the ambulance had pulled you in. Dressed in only a hospital gown, you felt the chill from the room's air conditioning prick the edges of your skin, the coolness of temperature making the whole experience even more foreign to you. Of course, it wasn’t like you’d never been to a hospital before - an unlucky bout of croup had sent you to the emergency room as a little kid when you’d almost stopped breathing. At the resurgence of that particular memory you felt yourself shudder, recalling the hours spent passed out in a brightly lit room and being forced to drink gross tasting liquid that was meant to clear up your airways. At least you weren’t choking on your own breath this time round.

“Well that’s just fantastic. How long will it take to heal? I kinda got a ranch to run” you asked the doctor, who was standing off to the side consulting the clipboard nestled against his arm. Sighing, he looked up at you with a look of sympathy while he ran through the information he’d jotted down on his notes. “Usually it takes twelve weeks for fractures to heal - given the fact that a good part of your arm has been displaced you’ll need to be put into surgery to shift the bone back into place, which we’ll have scheduled for you in the next twenty-four hours. Afterwards, I’ll be putting you in a cast for a couple of weeks and you’ll have to come back in for checkups weekly. I’ll also give you a list of rehabilitation exercises you can do to ensure the recovery process goes as smoothly as possible” he explained. “After your surgery and subsequent discharge, I heavily recommend a few days bed rest due to the concussion you have sustained”.

“So I’m guessing most physical labour is out then” you muttered under your breath, sighing once you realized how heavily this would impact your ability to keep things running smoothly back at the ranch. Yes, you had employees but without you to oversee everything things would slow down and descend into madness real quickly. You wished you had allocated some sort of second in command for times like this, a manager of sorts to keep things in place while you recovered but you’d just never gotten around to it, brushing the thought aside every time it sprung up with a simple “Why would I need extra help anyway? Nothing ever happens around here”.

“You’d be correct on that. Now, I have some other patients to check on but I will be back in about 20 minutes or so to prep you for surgery, though I will send a nurse to give you some painkillers so you can stop feeling the worst of the pain for at least a little while” he replied. You went to thank him but before you could you felt a light touch graze along your right arm. Your eyes glanced over to where Jack’s hand was placed, his touch delicate and comforting, sparking that same feeling in your chest that you’d felt when he’d stroked your forehead back at the ranch. His eyes met your own for a moment, deep cedar brown looking at you with nothing more than concern and worry, somehow pulling at a single string of your heart even though you wanted to fight against it with all your might.

Snapping you focus back into place, you nodded back over to the doctor and thanked him for all he was doing, listening to his reassurances that he’d have you fixed up as soon as possible as he hurried on out of the room to his next patient in need. Once he was gone, you exhaled in annoyance and went back to staring aimlessly at the ceiling, mulling over the inconvenience of your predicament.

“Everything ok, sugar?” you heard Jack ask you, feeling his enchanting eyes study your expression, his anxiety over your wellbeing plain as day. Letting out a small laugh, you returned his question with a small smile of your own. “Does it look like I’m ok?” you joked, gesturing vaguely to your fractured arm.

He chuckled at your sarcasm, always enjoying that certain fire you had to your character that refused to silence itself. Unbeknownst to you, that was one of things that drew him towards you in the first place - his own air of cockiness and confidence was equally matched by your spitfire and sarcastic wit. Finding out the sweet disposition that lay behind that harshness the first time round had taken him by complete surprise, but only did more to endear himself to you. God, he was such a fool for losing that. He was certain that your sweetness was still there, closed behind even more layers of hurt and pain that he’d caused such a large hand in.

From the moment the ambulance had arrived, Jack had stayed beside you, refusing to leave for even a single moment. It was quite endearing, truth be told, a feeling that attempted to worm its way through your steadfast reasoning against him. He’s a liar. Don’t fall for his shit again, you repeated to yourself. Though it was becoming harder and harder to continue regarding him as your greatest mistake when he was behaving so kindly and gentlemanly towards you. Just a part of his deceptive charm, I guess, you thought bitterly.

“Y’know, you don’t have to worry about things gettin’ outta hand down at the ranch. I’m more than happy to step up and help” he spoke up, snapping your attention back to his words and out of your own contemplation. You thought about his proposal for a minute, the temptation to say yes seeming very appealing towards you, though somehow that felt like admitting to weakness. The ranch wasn’t his responsibility, it was yours, left to you by your dear parents. It was your obligation to run it in their stead - there’d been difficulties along the way, sure, including the occasional nasty cold every now and then but you had pulled through without any trouble. You didn’t need help or any sort of handout, and you were more than capable of taking care of business by yourself, even with a broken arm.

Then again, it is gonna be kinda hard to run a business while being confined to bed rest. Briefly you thought about just closing the ranch for a couple of days while you got back on track yet once you thought about the loss in profits you discarded that idea quickly. It wasn’t like you were struggling to make ends meet but a dip in profits could cause a bit of issue.

“Yeah but...It’s my responsibility. I can’t just ignore that because I got a stupid broken arm” you rebuffed, though you didn’t sound entirely convinced of what you were saying yourself. Sadly, stubbornness was your nature and even if you knew you were fighting a losing battle, sometimes it was more about the principle of having a position rather than whatever thing you were debating over. Some would say that was quite a counterproductive way to look at things, and you’d agree with them, yet you still remained stubborn in spite of them, feeding back into the cycle.

“Darlin’, with all due respect, I think what’s best for you is that you take a step back and let someone else take the reins. You need to allow yourself to rest a lil. Tell me, in all the years of runnin’ the ranch by yourself, have you ever once taken a day off?”.

“No, but-”.

“Exactly as I thought. You’ve been doing an amazing job at keeping things together for all these years, sweetheart, but you gotta relax a bit. Let me help you” he interrupted, gazing at you with those heart-meltingly sweet eyes of his, a look which made you seize up ever so slightly in minor fake annoyance. Little shit, he had to be doing that on purpose.

“Fine, only if it’ll get you to shut up” you relented, rolling your eyes in a dramatic fashion and hitting your head back down into the pillow below, eliciting a playful smirk from him in return. “That’s my girl, stubborn as always” he jested.

To that you cocked an eyebrow at him in disbelief. “Your girl? Careful there, Jack, for a minute I thought you were capable of genuine compassion and care. I may have once been your girl, cowboy, but not anymore. Or did you happen to forget?”.

His own expression softened slightly in regards to your snide remark, his mischievous grin faltering while he turned his gaze to the floor, looking somewhat sheepish towards what you had said, a far cry from his usual air of arrogance. “Yeah, I guess I deserve that” he murmured. “Tell me, sugar, do you ever think one day you’ll believe me when I say that I’m sorry?”.

“When pigs fly, dearest” you smiled with a shit-eating grin, though you couldn’t miss that momentary flash of hurt in his eyes that made you pull back, a sharp pang striking through your chest that hurt harder than the agonizing ache in your arm, which really, was saying something. Could that be...guilt, perhaps?, you thought, searching Jack’s face for any further sign of offense. If he was feeling hurt, he was doing a pretty stellar job at hiding it. Maybe it was nothing, and even if he was hurt, well, he said it himself, he deserved it. Without giving you another minute to ponder your own feelings, a welcome interruption in the arrival of a nurse found you, shifting your thoughts towards the relief of finally getting some painkillers into you.

___

The surgery had gone over well, and after a grueling day spent hanging out in that hospital room hopped up on painkillers you were finally discharged late afternoon the following day. The worst of your concussion had cleared itself up too yet you were still confined to your bed for those first few days - the doctor was insistent on that fact, saying you could never be too careful. You’d begrudgingly complied, not wanting to cause any further problems to your health, and even if you had tried to go against the doctor’s orders, you knew that Jack would be there to send you off back to bed if you dared lift a finger.

Jack had doted on you the entire time, making sure you were well hydrated and cool enough in the midst of the hot Texas summer, fetching you snacks and whatever else you needed from downstairs. In his own words, what kind of man would he be if he didn’t take care of an ailing woman. You’d rolled your eyes and insisted that he didn’t have to go all out with looking after you yet he’d insisted. It was somewhat heartwarming, and it felt nice to be taken care of again after those last few years alone. It reminded you of when you’d come down with the flu back in third grade, staying home in bed lazily watching television and barely being able to keep your eyes open while your mum made soup in the kitchen. You could feel your heart drop at the mere recollection of your parents, pain that stayed beneath the surface rising up in full force. Usually you pushed those feelings down, not wanting to become distracted from the business, but today, you allowed yourself the indulgence of missing them. What would they think if they could see you now? Would they be proud, or disappointed?

Feeling your stomach grumble, you shifted over in bed and reached your only good arm out to grab onto the half-eaten grilled cheese Jack had brought in for you five minutes before, letting out a low wince at the pain that writhed through your other arm, which had been placed into a cast and sling for the time being. Already you couldn’t wait for the day you could get the damned thing taken off - you hadn’t been able to shower and you felt grotty and gross. It wasn’t like you had to impress anyone, it was just you and Jack lying about the place. Still, you could only take so many days of waking up with unwashed greasy hair. And it was itchy too. Oh dear god, it was fucking itchy. You’d heard about how itchy the plaster could get second-hand but you never anticipated it to be that bad.

Directing your eyes to the clock on your bedside, you took notice of the time and let out a small relieved sigh. You could finally take another one of those painkillers, the fourth and dismally last one for you of the day.

Your relief quickly fizzled out into disappointment when you realised the packet of painkillers that had been sitting by your bedside was empty. “Seriously? It’s only been a few days, I couldn’t have gone through them already…” you muttered to yourself in annoyance. Nevermind, there was another packet downstairs. You may have been perfectly capable of getting out of bed and retrieving it yourself, though you found yourself not wanting to be bothered with such a task. “Hey Jack, you there? I ran out of painkillers, could ya run some up to me?” you called out.

“Sure thing, sweetheart” you heard him shout back, and no more than two minutes later he was striding through your bedroom door, carrying exactly what you had requested within his palms. “How are you feelin’?” he asked.

“No better than six minutes ago when you last asked me that. Thanks for bringing these up though, fuck that stupid horse for bucking me off” you grumbled, sniping the blessed white packet out of his hands and into your fingers. “Pain making you grumpy, sweet girl? You seem a bit more full of spitfire than usual today” he joked.

“Nah, you’re getting the discounted version today. If I wanted to vocalise exactly what I was feeling right now you’d be obliterated in a second” you laughed, chucking a tablet into your mouth and washing it down with a large gulp of water, anxious to feel some semblance of relief.

“You don’t say. How’s your head doing, though? No dizziness or anything like that?”.

“I’m fine, Jack, I promise. You don’t have to fawn all over me just because I broke my dumb arm” you assured, rolling your eyes at him.

“I wouldn’t call in fawning, I only want to make sure you're comfortable and all that. Not only because of your arm and all” he smiled gently, reaching out to brush a stray hair off your forehead. It could have been the heat of the room but you could have sworn your skin felt on fire the moment he touched you. You could feel him press the back of his fingers against your head, unconsciously allowing your breath to hitch at his touch. And just like that, the warmth of his hand was gone, leaving an invisible searing mark in its place and your own head full of frenzied and confused thoughts.

“Like I said earlier, just call out if you need anything else, alright darlin’?” he said as he was leaving, words that you didn’t care to take notice of as he left you to yourself again. Blinking slowly, you couldn’t even fully begin to describe what had just taken place, or why one little gesture was throwing your mind into somersaults. Why did his mere touch have to affect you like that? Why couldn’t he just leave you alone? Groaning loudly, you settled yourself underneath the sheet covering you and huffed at nobody in particular, cursing both yourself and him for even existing. For fucks sake...

___

Taking a sip of bourbon from your glass, you leaned against the side of the stairs of the veranda with your gaze fixated off into the distance, though you didn’t take any notice of what lay ahead, lost deep in your own thoughts that clouded your mind. It’d been a couple more days, and you’d finally been able to get out of bed and get back to helping out around the ranch - not that you were still of any use to anyone, given the state of your arm. It felt good to be back overseeing things, albeit a bit more behind the scenes than you had been in years. It’d be a good month or so before you were able to move your arm properly and have things back to normal. At first that fact did nothing short of irritating you, since you weren’t one to lie about helpless when work needed to be done. Over the last few days though, seeing the ranch go about with business as usual with Jack’s extra help had put you at ease a little. It still bothered you somewhat that you had to be asking any sort of help from Jack Daniels of all people, though really, he was the one offering it in the first place so you hadn’t so much as asked him to do anything, moreso conceding to his instistance at the behest of your stubbornness.

The pain was getting a little better too, though whether that had more to do with the painkillers or not remained to be seen. For example, you couldn’t feel anything now but you had just ingested two glasses of pure straight bourbon, so of course any type of pain would be numbed. Remember when it could numb more than just that? You let out a small snicker at the thought, sounding as hollow and empty as it felt. Once upon a time you might have been classed as relatively lightweight, a fact that changed after years of the trials and tribulations life had thrown your way. You still got drunk easy, but it took a good few glasses before you actually passed out.

“You know, you should let me sign that for ya”.

Hearing that familiar voice ring out from behind you, you swivel around so see its owner standing right in the opened doorway of your home, his hands casually resting in his pockets and his frame leant against the wall. “What are we, in middle school? I don’t want it getting dirty” you scoffed, rolling your eyes at him for good measure.

He smirked right back at you, letting out a small snicker that mirrored your own. “Why not? It’s not like you're gonna have to be wearin’ it forever. A little scribble in permanent marker wouldn’t do ya any harm” Jack grinned, taking a large step forward to descend down to your level, seating himself right next to you on the veranda. You cocked an eyebrow at him, letting your fingertips trail over the edge of the glass in your hands while you stared at him with utter audacity. “And yet I know you’re only so persistent in signing it because you’ll write something crude or vaguely flirty” you snipped.

“How little you think of me, sugar. I’d never dream of doin’ such a thing. I am nothing if not a gentleman”.

“Oh, do cut the charm, Jack. What is it you want?”.

“Please, can’t a man share a glass of bourbon with a lady without being subjected to the Spanish Inquisition?” he asked, wearing his devilish and frustratingly charming grin as he spoke, the appearance of which you swore made your cheeks flush a little bit hotter. Probably because of the alcohol...and it is hot out here after all...

“Not this lady, cowboy” you stated, gulping down the last dredges of bourbon in your glass and placing it back down to the floor with a thud. You went to go grab the bottle from beside you but found Jack had already snatched it up, pouring you another glass. Mumbling out a small thank you, you considered asking him if he wants a glass of his own, however once you caught sight of his silver Statesman issued flask in his hands you dismissed the idea entirely. With nothing else left to say, you glanced back up to the sky above towards where the moon was hanging over you two, the delicate light illuminating the stretches of countryside around your property in a soft glow, one that was both enchanting and eerie at the same time. Every now and then you would be reminded of how beautiful the Texan countryside could look, whether it be bathed in the rays of that damned blistering sun or the enigmatic glimmer of moonlight. It could pull you back to moments lost in time, years ago sitting right where you were in that very same spot, seven years younger and with the exact same man sitting beside you, head rested on his shoulder and looking out into the vast expanse of midnight black. Funny how things change, don’t they?

Out the corner of your eye you saw Jack shake his head, his eyes quiet, the sparkle of stark confidence bordering on plain arrogance missing. It was a similar look to the one he’d given you at the hospital that night, before he’d tried to cover it up with a certain facade of indifference. “What will it take for you to believe I’m sorry? What happened between us, it was all-” he started before being unceremoniously cut off by your interjection.

“In the past? I’m well aware of that. Doesn’t change how I feel” you stopped him. You’d anticipated him throwing out that line from day one and you’d come prepared. Shut it down. Don’t let him try to swindle you for a fool.

His expression changed to one more serious, a hint of him being slightly miffed that you cut him off in the first place. “Let me finish, darlin’. I’m gonna level with you for a second - what I did to you was one of the worst mistakes of my life. Letting everything fall apart like it did, I never should have let it happen” he expressed, his tone straddling between being firm and also being gentle. Cocking an eyebrow at him, you turned back to your glass of liquor, swirling the liquid around idly in a way that reminded you of that persistent thought running round your head. Did he have a point? Were you being too harsh on him?

Don’t become soft on him. Don’t do it. You shifted back into focus, pushing those thoughts far to the back of your tipsy mind while you took a couple large sips of liquor as if it were a lifeline. “Worse than whatever mistake led you to showing up on my doorstep?” you asked, eager to direct the conversation right back out of that uncomfortable territory and into something a bit more easier to stomach. Maybe later on you could ponder the true depths of your perceptions of Jack. Right now, though, you wanted to get wasted and not have to think about anything anymore. And hey, it’s not like I wasn’t wondering about the events that led him here in the first place anyway.“You never did tell me what happened. I know you said it was none of my concern but...I want to know. Call it a spate of drunken curiosity, if ya want”.

The question alone was enough to draw Jack’s face from being merely serious to an expression more cold and distant. He looked away from you entirely and rested his gaze to the few steps below the two of you, his hand clenching in a subconscious act that alone was enough to tell you his own reservations regarding the topic. “Truth is, I’ve been fucking things up for a good couple of years. What happened to lead me here, well, it ain’t a pretty story”.

“I don’t care, Jack, I wanna know” you asserted, surging with a sense of fiery confidence. It might have been the alcohol giving you a bit more moxie to push the topic. One thing was for sure though: you wanted answers, and you didn’t wanna let this go. Stretching your legs out, you finished off the glass you had while you waited for him to reply, not wanting to cave to your request even if he was looking at you like you’d threatened to kill the President.

Finally, he let out a low groan of annoyance and leant against the side of the veranda, not affording you a single look as he launched into his tale. “Basically what happened is some agents from an English based secret service came over to the states as a last resort - their base got blown up by someone and the two guys that approached us were the only ones left alive. Well, them and this other guy we had at our headquarters, but that’s a whole other story. The people behind the attack were a group called the Golden Circle, and Statesman had already been investigating them for awhile. I was called in by Champ to partner up with the Kingsman fellas, do the regular secret agent spiel of espionage and savin’ the world and all that crap. But, me and these other agents, we had an...ideological disagreement. I was covertly tryin’ to hinder them until the older guy got wise to my shit and shot me in the head. Ginger managed to bring me in and revive me, I went over to Cambodia where the two agents were confronting the leader of the Golden Circle, and to make a long story short things got nasty pretty quickly. I barely escaped with my life” he explained.

You nodded along to his explanation, the load of information being a lot to take in the first time round. You were always somewhat aware of Jack’s position as a secret agent though you were never privy to the nitty and gritty details - in fact, the way you’d found out about it in the first place was by complete accident and Jack had to beg Agent Champ to allow you to become cleared on even knowing the basics of his true work behind the front of being a Statesman investor. “And these ideological disagreements were…?” you pushed.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know” he deflected.

“Try me”.

He didn’t reply to you straight away, instead staring at you with a stark look of confliction across his face, an inner turmoil brewing inside of him on whether or not he should tell you even more. Being cast out as a traitor, he didn’t have to worry about breaking any sort of rule of confidentiality, so if you had to wager a guess at what his dilemma was, then it must have been that he felt mildly ashamed, or even embarrassed about the whole situation. In your mind though, you’d let him keep his secrets for weeks now, but if he was going to stay in your house you wanted to at the bare minimum know what he did that was so bad that he simply couldn’t return back home anymore. “Well go on then, hit me with your best shot” you prodded further, hopefully enough to get his demeanour to crack and for him to spill what exactly the entire fuss had been about. And sure enough, crack he did.

Running a hand across his forehead, he let out a low exasperated sigh, one that would have been inaudible if you hadn’t been seated beside him, indicating the exact moment he finally decided to break his own silence and reveal everything to you. “The Golden Circle were primarily a drug cartel and terrorist organization based out in the hidden depths of the Cambodian jungle. Their leader had devised a plot that involved lacing their distribution of drugs with a new type of chemical she created that caused death. Since their supply was mass distributed over the globe, they were holding the entire populace of drug users and addicts hostage to their respective governments, demanding a payout for the antidote. They didn’t, however, anticipate the President and other world leaders not really giving a red hot shit about the lives of junkies. Being the noble men they are, the Kingsman agents as well as the rest of Statesman were striving to get ahold of the antidote to save all those people. And that, is where me and them disagreed” Jack elaborated, avoiding your gaze in what appeared to be a calculated move in order to refrain from seeing your reactions to his admittance. In the span of two minutes, your expression had shifted from intense curiosity to straight up bafflement at what he was saying. It didn’t make sense - why was he against distributing the antidote? He was a secret agent, wasn’t he meant to save the world and innocent lives and all that?

“Let me get this straight - you were assigned on a mission to try to save the lives of innocent people, and you chose...not to do that” you asked, your tone laced with judgment. Not that you had intended for what you said to have come across any different. If what he was implying was right, then that would mean...

“Well, when you put it like that, sure, it sounds awful. I will concede, it wasn’t my best move. But all the people who ingested those drugs did so willingly. They knew they were taking a gamble on their lives the moment they stuck a damn needle into their arms” Jack grumbled defensively, allowing you to gawk back at him in utter disbelief. “Jack, no, you can’t seriously believe that? So what you’re saying is that the kid that decided to get high with his mates one weekend at a party deserves to die? Is that right?”.

“No, no, I didn’t mean like that, I just…”.

“Really? ‘Cause it sounds a lot like you’re saying that innocent people should die for their poor choices” you cut in, shaking your head to further drive your point in. “Jesus, just when I thought you couldn’t be a bigger asshole you proved me wrong”.

“Sweetheart, please, I know. It was a mistake, you don’t have to keep rubbing it in”.

“You know it’s a mistake, but do you truly feel it? Do you really feel remorse? Because if you don’t then it’s just a bunch of empty words” you rebuffed, shooting him with a cold piercing glare that could make an entire continent freeze over. Around about this time, you really began to take notice of the dazed feeling clouding you, every glass of liquor draining straight into your brain and making you feel like your entire head was swimming. Maybe take it easy on the next glass, why don’t ya? With that thought, you shoved the glass off to the side with your free arm and bit your lip, debating whether or not you should even say what you wanted to next. That debate, however, did not last very long as you found yourself blurting out exactly what was on your mind within two seconds of your last thought. “Jack, look...maybe I’ll hate myself for saying this later, and maybe it’s just the liquor talking but I don’t think you’re an inherently bad person. I think you’re an arrogant son of a bitch who does cruel stupid things but probably has a decent enough heart. You just...you gotta stop with this shit. Stop with the betrayals, and the lies, and the false promises, all of it, and just be the real you. The Jack I knew may be a prick but he was never one to let an innocent die on his watch. What’s really behind all this?”.

He continued to glare from his position beside you, somewhat intent on making you recant and drop the whole subject entirely. You wouldn’t go down that easy though, and he knew it, for as stubborn as Jack was you were at least ten times moreso, so when he folded first and trained his eyes low to the ground, you knew that he’d finally conceded. You could feel a whole shift in his demeanour from where you sat, the mask of defensive anger slowly falling away to reveal what was truly underneath: hurt. Pure, raw, unbridled hurt. Anguish that felt especially familiar to you and spoke to a part of yourself that you’d been turning away from for years, and even before he said those words you knew exactly what he was going to say.

“Years ago, before I became an agent to Statesman, I was married to the young woman I’d fallen for in high school. I think I told you about her in passing maybe once, or twice, I don’t know…” Jack started, trailing off once he began to fully re-immerse himself in the past, heartache plainly sewn across his features. It was then that you felt an ache of your own in your chest, a heavy feeling of guilt descending upon you once you realised the gravity of what he was saying. “I remember. You said her name was Lily, wasn’t it?” you murmured, your voice small and unsure, with a hint of something else present too. Regret? Guilt? Whatever it was, you couldn’t quite put a name to it, but it was there, strong as anything and clearly wasn’t going away any time soon.

Jack let out a small hum in reply, everything about his composure presumably a million miles away from everything around the both of you.“So you do remember” he muttered, brushing his fingers over the edge of his silver flask that he had cradled in his handles, tracing the Statesman logo engraved on the side with the pad of his thumb. “I remember you askin’ me about her the first time you came back to my apartment in New York - you saw the photo of her I kept on my desk and asked who she was. I only told you briefly that she was long gone, but I never told you how. The both of us were only twenty-three, and she was pregnant with our first child, a baby boy. Last time I saw her she left the house to go to the convenience store a few streets over”. He stopped himself for a split second, the darkness of his eyes being the all-too recognisable sign of falling deep into his own recollection, feeling as if he was reliving every memory that he revisited in his mind. “Twenty minutes later I get a phone call from a cop, saying there’d been an incident. Meth addicts had robbed the store at gunpoint and she’d been caught in the crossfire. She died instantly, and I wasn’t there to say goodbye. I never got to meet our baby boy, I never got to hold her in my arms again and say how much I loved her, because she was taken from me by a couple of meth-addled scumbags”.

You were honestly at a loss for words, not knowing if saying something would be the appropriate option or not. He was right, you knew he was married before - the time with the picture that he mentioned was the most you had heard of her. He never brought Lily up again, and you never thought to ask, since in your mind it wasn’t any of your business who Jack loved before. Now, the pieces were falling into place, the interwoven connections of his past to his actions as an agent making all the more sense to you.

What you wanted to do most was lean forward and envelop him into your embrace, tell him that you understood more than anyone what exactly that felt like, and even permit yourself to pour out your own heart to him. Drunk as you were though, you couldn’t talk yourself into doing anything more than placing a reassuring hand on his knee, letting your touch be soft and hesitant in case he shrugged you off, since you did basically just goad him into revealing his own wounds in the name of having answers. “Jack, I...I had no idea, I-”.

“How could you have known? I never told you” he mumbled flatly. In the dim veranda light, all though it was faint, you could swear that there was a teardrop lingering in the corner of his cedar brown eyes, nudging the dagger of guilt further into your heart. Say something, you idiot.

Starting off softly, you let your hand rest firmer on his knee, trying to catch his eyes into your own. Tearing his glance away from the flask, he looked back at you with the same raw grief that you had seen on your own face so many times. “I know it must have hurt like hell losing her. And you have every right to feel angry, and hurt that she was taken, but that doesn’t give you the right to hate. Every addict in the world is not the same man who took her life. You can’t just-” you started, before the sound of Jack’s harshest tone cut through your words like a knife.

“How would you know? Do you have any idea what it feels like to hurt, to have lost everything because of someone else’s choices?” he spat, anger seething in his scowl that was directed solely at you. It had taken you by surprise at first - as a reflex you withdrew your hand quickly from him as if he were burnt, perplexed at his sudden outburst. That didn’t last long however, as soon enough confusion was replaced by your own flair of anger. Now it was your turn to get defensive.“I think I do know what it’s like to hurt and to lose. In case you’ve forgotten, dickhead, there’s two people who should be right inside this house that aren’t anymore and haven’t been for about six fucking years now!” you yelled back.

Shit. He’d forgotten about your parents. The anger that had been in him disappeared without a trace right then, being replaced by something close to resembling remorse over his behaviour. “I...I didn’t mean...fuck, sugar, I…I’m sorry. I don’t even know what to say” he apologised. You didn’t say anything back to him. You didn’t want to dignify him with any sort of a response. First of all, how dare he? You were only trying to empathise with him, and here he was biting your head off for daring to suggest that he doesn't hate every drug user on the planet. Why do I even fucking bother?

The awkward silence between you hung for awhile, the two of you not wanting to break it for your own different reasons. You could feel Jack stealing glances at you, like he was trying to talk himself into saying something but never had the courage to follow through. Huffing to yourself, you took in your next glass fast enough to make your head spin. You’d have to turn in for the night eventually, and truth be told you were considering doing so right then when you heard Jack speak up.

“I never did ask...if you don’t mind me askin’ that is...what happened to your folks anyway?” he asked hesitantly, as if he knew the question was fat-witted to begin with. Not that you minded too much by then. Drunk you was a lot more forgiving than you were sober.

Taking in a heavy breath, you relayed your tale of woe to him, one hand placed steady to your side to keep you sitting upright. “It was late, and they were coming back from a friend’s 50th birthday party. Their friend lived in downtown Dallas, so they had a fair way to go to get from there to here. When they were almost on the highway, an out-of-control car barrelled towards them, smashing into the front of their windscreen and killing both of them instantly. The driver of the other car had been drinking - according to the local news he was a known alcoholic and had been out having a heated argument with his friend in the passenger seat. The only survivor of the entire collision had been his friend”.

You saw Jack blink at you in silent shock, the weight of your words falling heavily on him while he continued to process it all. “Shit, darling, I feel like an even bigger piece of shit than I already did. If you slapped me clean across the face and kicked me out on my ass after this I wouldn’t blame ya one bit” he replied to you solemnly in a way that didn’t leave you questioning the authenticity of his words - he was genuinely sorry this time round. Taking his apology in stride, you shrugged back at him and acted as nonchalant about the whole thing as possible, not wanting to ponder the topic further. As far as you were concerned, you’d felt enough things for one day and would very much like a break from it all.

“It’s fine. You had no way of knowing. But please, if you take anything from this, at least listen to my words: externalising hate towards random people only feeds your trauma. It doesn’t resolve anything, and the only person left suffering in the end is yourself”.

He furrowed his brow at you, most likely feeling a little defensive that the topic had circled back around to here, but considering his unruly display of anger earlier he wasn’t one to indulge in his own instinctual need to defend his position. “But...didn’t you want the man who took your parents away to suffer? Didn’t you look at every other drunk driving incident in the papers with a little more anger and rage than before?” he asked, earning a single eyebrow raise from you in return. “I mean...I guess what I’m trying to say is...it’s so easy to hate...why didn’t you fall into that trap?”.

“Well, I did, for a little. It was almost tempting to look at every person I saw struggling with alcoholism in red. Since the man who caused the collision was already dead as a result of his own mistakes, at times I’d externalise part of that pain I was feeling onto others, and sometimes that anger became so hot and so burning that it was almost impossible to ignore. I realised pretty quickly that hating alcoholics wasn’t going to bring my parents back and that I’d have to make peace with their passing at some point. Honestly, I still haven’t processed a lot of that shit myself yet I’m still out here living my life as best I can, and really, with my own drinking habits I’d be a goddamn hypocrite to even try to find any true hatred in my heart towards heavy drinkers” you explained. Taking one last sip of bourbon, you discarded your glass off to your side and chuckled lightheartedly. “God, If I drink another glass I’m gonna collapse on the fucking floor. Think it might be time for me to turn in for the night. At least it’s Sunday tomorrow so we can sleep in a lil”.

“Y-you’re goin’ to bed? You’re not telling me to get lost or anything?” Jack sputtered in disbelief, which in turn earned him a minorly strange look from you. “Why would I do that?” you asked.

“I quite literally just admitted to treason against my former organization to you”.

“So? You made a mistake. A pretty fucking big mistake, and a shitty one at that, but still, a mistake. You obviously have some of your own pain you need to work through, and I can get that. Doesn’t mean I agree with what you did, but I get it. I’m not gonna kick you to the curb just because you have issues”.Upon saying that, you hoisted yourself up by latching your free arm onto the veranda’s fenceline, stumbling a little as you fought to maintain your balance while being both drunk and unable to fully utilise one of your arms. Nevertheless, you’d managed to straighten yourself up, and once you’d determined that you were alright to take yourself upstairs you faced on towards the front door and grasped at the brass knob in your hands, taking a brief pause to turn back and nod softly towards the man behind you. “Night Jack, I’ll see ya tomorrow” you called out, leaving him to sit there and watch you disappear back into the house with a certain look of dumbfounded astonishment.

Tag list (lemme know if you wanna be added): @giselatropicana

#agent whiskey x reader #agent whiskey #jack daniels #jack daniels x reader #Kingsman #kingsman fanfiction #cross my heart #Kingsman: the golden circle #Pedro Pascal

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yutahoes · 4 years ago

Text

Otou-Chan

Yuta Nakamoto x Reader (Y/N) Smut

(Chapter Eleven)

Summary: 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐡𝐰𝐚 𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝.𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧 𝐘𝐮𝐭𝐚’𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬.

Warning: Fluff, Mentions of Sex, Teasing, Male Masturbation

Word Count: 2.3k

Masterlist

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️

11. Daddy

When six pm came, Ten went first while bidding the girl goodbye. Since she came to work late, she volunteered to clean up before leaving. "(Y/N), your boyfriend's here," he claimed and she rolled her eyes. "Hey, get inside. She still has things to do," he claimed before she could revolt. Yuta was already by the door in his dress shirt and slacks, different from the dandy boy that morning. Well, he really meant business now. The Japanese guy had to only bow at Ten who waved goodbye at the girl while mouthing that he's a catch, making her smile.

"You still have lots of things to do?" And she nodded while closing Jungwoo's computer. "Should we have a raincheck on that dinner?" he asked and she nodded, suddenly apologizing. "What time are you going home?"

She stopped to look at him who was staring straight at her. "I'm staying the night," she claimed that made him surprised. "My dad is getting out tonight and I don't really want to face him," she said sincerely while sitting down on her chair. "Besides, I'm late earlier. I can't go to work late tomorrow."

"Stay at my place." he offered and she shook her head. "I'll drive you early tomorrow. We won't have sex, I'll be really busy tonight," he claimed and she smirked. "Then go home, Yuta," she exclaimed then went back to her drawing. She's really cold-hearted, isn't she? Why is she pushing him off like this? And why is he so attracted to that?

Without any word, Yuta just left that made her sigh. It will be one long, cold night. She started editing her work which is really a work of progress, but she can't shake off the thought of Yuta. His lips, his biceps, his body, his cock, his eyes... Those eyes that drew her in, wanting to pull her to him. But she cannot have these feelings for him, he's too far to reach and somewhat, she can't really reach him. A knock on the door disturbed her, surprised that it was Yuta with a plastic bag on hand. Why is he still here?

He showed the bag which has take-home food from a steakhouse nearby, that insanely good steak house which boasts their high price of beef. "Dinner. I can't take you out so I guess I'll take you in," he said with a smile that made her so weak that she opened the door wide for him. Damn that smile, it makes him so lovable that she's hating how her heart kept on thumping on her chest. He went straight to what he believed was her table since it's the only spot with the lights on, smiling as he spotted what was on her tablet. (Y/N) quickly snatched it from him, hiding it. "You've been fantasizing about me so much," he claimed that made her glare, pouting at how she got discovered in making a sketch of him. "You are really talented." The sentence surprised her, does he really think of that? She muttered a silent thanks while blushing that made him smile. "Let's eat," he said while taking out the container from the plastic bag. "I don't know what you want so I ordered the same thing we had back in Paris."

"You remember what we had in Paris?" she asked and he nodded, showing her the wine that they exactly had during their first dinner together. "Your memory is pretty good."

Yuta just smiled as he sliced the steak for her. "I remember everything about you." then handed her the food container. "Go on, eat," he ordered that made her nod. "Busy day?" he asked while eyeing the work on her computer screen. An email was opened which is addressed to someone named Johnny Seo with an attachment. "So you really are an adult manhwa writer," he claimed more than to himself than to her.

(Y/N) had to laugh at that, did she not tell him about that? Or did he just doesn't believe her? "Wait, I thought you'll be busy tonight," she asked pointing her fork at him.

"I am," he claimed as he put broccoli on her fork that made her smile, eating it wholeheartedly. "But you agreed to have dinner with me so I had the night cleared out," he claimed that made her look at him. "Am I disturbing you?"

She shook her head as an answer. "Until what time do I have you?" Yuta answered ten pm and she glanced at the computer screen to see the time, she still has an hour left with him. "An hour? I don't think you roll like that and we have to finish our dinner." The guy had a confused look at her that made her sigh. "Sex, Yuta," she exclaimed. "One hour isn't even enough for you..."

The guy had to laugh at that. "You never fail to amaze me, (Y/N)," he claimed that made her stop. What does he mean by that? "I don't know whether to feel complimented or offended by that." Before she could react, he continued. "But I won't have sex with you tonight. Look at you..." he said then gestured to herself. "You can barely sit properly and I'm not that sadistic enough to abuse you." That made her blink, maybe what she said is really out of line. Why does she always think of sex when Yuta is involved? Maybe this is just like that coffee shop date back in Paris, simple and heart fluttering. "That brings me to my proposal. If you don't want to have a relationship with me, then I'll treat this as a business."

(Y/N) was listening clearly while staring at him intently. "Can you stop staring at me like that? You're making me crazy, I can't focus." And she giggled at how desperate he sounded. "Finish your food," he ordered that made her nod although she's already full. "Let's agree on something first. I don't want to call you my slut or my whore, or a fuck buddy at that matter," he claimed that made her look at him but he just tapped his fork on her food container. "Since you want it to be pure business, let's have ground rules. We need to have limitations. But first, what do you really want from me?"

The question threw (Y/N) off guard, what does she really want from him? Why did she suggest this setup anyway? "Well, you see, I'm an adult manhwa illustrator and I'm currently working on a project that will be my debut in the manhwa world," she explained and he nodded, focused at her. "And I needed inspiration, a model. That's when you came to the picture." Again, he nodded. "After I went back from Paris, Johnny agreed to let me have my own work to publish and I figured that I can get help from other manhwas or books but it's different, the way sex is when felt and read."

"So you need me for that?" he asked. "To feel sex, to experiment what you had in mind." And she nodded, suddenly not meeting his gaze. Why is this so embarrassing? "Okay then, I'll be your model. You can use me if you feel like it but you'll have to pay me." That made her choke on her drink. Pay him? He knows that she had financial trouble and yet he's asking her to pay him. Of course, there must be a catch on that. But is having sex with her isn't enough for him? "You'll go on dates with me." He really had his ways, doesn't he?

The girl nodded and he grinned. "So it's a deal then?" he asked and she kissed his lip that surprised him. "It's a deal," she claimed then ate her food. "Don't you have any ground rules or limitations?"

The girl bit her fork, looking at him at the sudden question. He's such a great negotiator, maybe that's why he' so good with his business. "Then what do you want from me?" she asked, mirroring the same question he had earlier.

He smiled at her and she gasped at how angelic he looked, a total irony. “I want to take care of you,” he claimed while tucking a loose hair behind her ear. “I’m serious when I said that I wanted to adopt you.”

But the girl chuckled at that which made him raise an eyebrow at her. What’s so funny? “Adopt me? As a pet or as a daughter?” He smirked at that, it can be one way or the other. “Should I call you master? Sir? Daddy? Appa? Abeoji?” Damn it! The things he wanted to do to that mouth just to shut her up. “What do you call a father in Japanese?” This girl, really.

“Otou-san.” he said with a smile. “But you cannot really address me as –san, we’re the same age.”

“Otou-chan, is that right?” she asked and he gave a haughty smile. The girl ate the vegetable on her plate, letting the fork linger in her mouth. “Otou-chan.” Yuta pursed his lips. Why does she sound so good speaking in Japanese?

Yuta removed the fork from her mouth. "You really make me want you," he said in a low voice. In no time, (Y/N) was pulled on his lap, her hands on his chest going down. They started kissing, tongues battling against each other. His hand was on her side, rubbing circles while the other was tugging her hair. He started attacking her neck and she moaned at how he sucked the soft spot on her skin that makes her breathless and tingly. Yuta's mouth is really so good that it turns her on so much, making her really wet. She started grinding on his lap that made him groan. She could feel how hard he's being and started rubbing his throbbing arousal with her hand that made him curse in Japanese. “You’re fucking beautiful, baby.”

The girl laughed then gave him a quick smack on the lips. “Fathers shouldn’t fantasize their daughters. That’s weird, Otou-chan.” she said cutely but he just pulled her closer. “The things I want to do, (Y/N). Thank God I’m not sadistic enough.” The girl feigned a shock, mouthing ‘You’re not?’ that made him laugh.

A ringing of the phone disturbed the two of them, making (Y/N) move back to her seat. "It's ten pm already," he claimed as he took the phone which registered Doyoung's number. "I have to work," he claimed then canceled the call. He lightly glanced at the girl who was just staring at him. "Damn, I don't want to leave you." He pulled her chair closer to him. "Can't you just stay the night with me?"

(Y/N) smiled then shook her head. "You wouldn't finish your work if I get too close to you." And he nodded as if agreeing to what she said. Another ring and she lightly glanced at his phone. "You should really go." he nodded then stood up, cleaning up the food containers and putting them back in the plastic bag. He quickly threw it by the garbage can and smiled at the girl who was looking at him. He bid farewell and she gave him a naughty smile that made him squint his eyes at her, "Take care, daddy." she said that made him look at her once again. Fuck, this girl is really something.

Yuta cannot really focus on the web conference he had with some foreign investors. Why do they have to start at ten-thirty when they can just talk at eleven? Maybe he still had time for (Y/N) and take care of this arousal. He remained poker face the whole time, his business-like image, in front of the computer screen but under the desk, he was holding his cock. Why does she need to call him daddy and make him crazy like this? Honestly, he doesn't know that he had it in him but he wanted to hear her shout his name while he pounds her tight hole. He wanted her to whimper under his touch and beg for her daddy to make her feel good. He wanted her so much that when the conference ended, he immediately closed his laptop and started jerking his cock as if fucking her. Damn, the things he can do for this girl. He can't wait to feel her again and all he could think of is when will she need him.

But she never called again even if days passed. Did she forget about him already? And he thought there's something going on between them. But can he disturb her like this? What if she hates him for being clingy? This is really frustrating. "(Y/N)?" Jaehyun repeated once he asked about her. The three were out again because of Taeyong's request, just because Doyoung called and told him about Yuta being distracted at work. "She's really busy with the manhwa lately, I don't think she's going home because of that," he claimed that made Taeyong look at the other guy who was listening intently. "It's a big break for her if Johnny decides to publish her work." And Yuta nodded at that, she did mention that. The reason why she wanted to be in this set up with him. "But I think it's a go, she'll just need a sponsor for the finance."

The guy smiled but before Yuta could answer, Taeyong suddenly spoke up "I'll do it, I'll sponsor her." that surprised the two of them. "If she finds out that you sponsored her, do you think she'll be happy with that?" he asked and the other nodded. She didn't accept his money in the first place so sponsoring her would really push her out of his life. "Besides, Jaehyun is helping the two of you. I wanted to help too. I just wished that you would get fucked after this." he teased, making the younger laugh and Yuta annoyed.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ ❤️❤️

Chapter 10 / Chapter 12

#Smut #yutasmut #yutanakamotosmut #nctsmut #yuta nakamoto #yuta nakamoto smut #yuta smut

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insomniziam · 5 years ago

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Analysis of the PR Relationship between Liam and Maya

Okay, Liam and Maya made their relationship official in September 2019 through Liam’s Instagram post:

(notice how there are only two points of contact on his behalf, the two fingers on her waist and their foreheads. Doesn’t come off very relationship-y to me. I can’t say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this were photo shopped)

Conveniently, this news came to light a few days after the release of his new single at the time, Stack it Up (shocker, I know). And what did we get? The same thing that happened with Zigi:

Bringing attention to Liam’s new single and of course, the new up and coming model (sound familiar to you at all?)

Maya Henry

But who is Maya Henry? The first real news we ever get about her is due to her father spending a whopping 6 million dollars on her fifteenth birthday party back in 2016 (more on that later). But what does this prove? That her father is incredibly rich, and has no issues spending millions of dollars on a single night if it means getting his name in the papers. He hasn’t just done this with Maya, he spent another 4 million on his son’s 18th and another 4.5 million on his own 56th birthday, and both somehow made headlines (paid promo maybe?)

That’s not even the best part... They tried to do their own Kardashian style reality TV show but it flopped massively.

(Literally the only place I could find it anywhere was dailymotion...)

They have a Facebook page, but most of the videos have been set to private on YouTube so you can’t watch pretty much anything on the page anyway. There’s probably on average 50 interactions per post (and that’s me being generous).

Maya started her own YouTube channel early 2018, but that didn’t gain any traction either (it’s currently sitting at 16K) and there are no videos on the page at all (I’m pretty sure she’s deleted them off, although I can’t find copies of them any where, probably because no one actually cared to download them).

I will admit, she was doing pretty decently before she was connected to Liam, had even done a few international covers for magazines like Elle Romania and Vogue Ukraine.

But Gigi had walked the New York Fashion runway at the age of 18, a feat Maya herself didn’t seem to be nearing. However, Gigi also has a lot of connections that no doubt helped her gain a following (her “friendship” with the Jenners, as well as her connections with Swift and her mean girl posse).

(If ya’ll don’t see how this was a publicity stunt, I don’t know what to tell you)

But how does an increase of following help you career wise, isn’t about talent? You may ask, and I would have a hard time not chuckling at the question, because talent has nothing to do with it (Miss Gigi “I’m still learning how to cat walk” Hadid is a testament to that).

As for the answer, an increase in following leads to an increase of fans, which leads to an increased likelihood of more people buying the shit her name is attached to - makeup, accessories, clothing lines ect. - and increased viewership that have her (and her ‘best friends’) starring in. *cough* Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show *cough*.

But one thing in particular that really stood out, was Gigi’s ‘relationship’ with one Zayn Malik... you see where this is going?

Why Liam?

Now, unlike Zayn, Liam didn’t really have any bad press he needed to distract the general public from. However, he pretty much only had three different talking points in interviews; ‘his son’, Cheryl and One Direction. Those three subjects no one really cared to listen to anymore, because it was the same bullshit over and over again. Enter new (but also extremely old) topic: a new girlfriend!

It gave the papers something new to talk about (although funnily enough, they would always end the article talking about Cheryl and her kid), someone Liam could use to promote himself a little more. So although the benefits were heavily leaning to her side, there still was something in it for Liam, and she had already been linked to him in the past, an easy set up.

Maya’s Age (this is where you’ll either feel really grossed out or extremely pissed, fair warning)

Now this is where shit gets hella shady. According to articles, Maya has been 19 since last year:

Using the fact that Maya’s 15th birthday was in 2016 as according to this Daily Mail article detailing all the expenses and a little bit of quick math, it’s easy to see that she only turned 19 in February of this year.

Now, your eyebrows might be furrowed right now, and you may be asking why does her age matter?She’s still a legally consenting adult. However according to articles, Liam and Maya had actually met back in 2015 at a One Direction Meet and Greet:

Sound familiar at all?:

This shit has me feeling sick to my stomach (I did give you a fair warning) because this is the second time Liam has been linked in some way to what some could argue somewhat child grooming behaviour. Because not only did he meet her back in 2015, when she was actually 14 despite what the papers are trying to tell you she was 15, he apparently started dating her back in 2018, when she was 17 years old:

Realising their mistake, my guess is that Liam’s team tried their best to have her birthday changed a year earlier, so as to make people think they started dating when she was 18, to make their relationship more acceptable. But the damage had already been done, and when someone made a thread on their twitter pointing out this fact, some absolute idiot decided to use Liam’s twitter to try and discredit them:

Despite the fact that neither Liam or Maya were tagged in the thread, meaning that whoever was behind the keyboard would have had to go searching for it, especially since the thread probably only had a few hundred interactions before, they drew eyes to it. (The tinhat in me wants to believe that this was actually a smart move made by Liam to show people just how shady their relationship is, but I highly doubt that fact considering how creepy it makes him look 😒)

And, because people were smart enough to actually read through the thread, they weren’t buying what whoever was running the account at the time was selling:

It’s not a good look, but I guess any press is good press according to Liam’s team.

Conclusion

Maya and her family are crazy thirsty for attention. They tried to acquire that attention through spending millions of dollars on birthdays parties to gain headlines. Obviously not enough for them, they tried out their own reality TV show which somehow made it to season two before scrapping the whole thing entirely due to low ratings. Maya started a YouTube channel, it didn’t go as well as she hoped and then focused on Modelling full time. However she wasn’t climbing anywhere near as much as she would like, and since her father had no issues paying for celebrities in the past, probably had no issues with paying Liam’s team for him to play boyfriend, and try to recreate a Zigi situation.

Liam’s team saw this as an opportunity for a new subject to be brought up in interviews and headlines and decided to go for it. They fucked up with the age, tried to fix it and just made the situation worse, and hoped eventually everyone would just forget about it.

At least, that’s my best guess

#this took me a lot longer than it should have #laya #laya is fake #liam payne #maya henry #pr relationships #bearding #with a sprinkle #zigi #zigi is fake #laya is zigi 2.0 #gigi hadid #zayn malik #free Liam #ziam #ziam is real

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guiltysecretpasttime · 4 years ago

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Blended

I was (thankfully) given some time off during this holiday season; which I promptly used to spend time with the family and recharge at home. Also spent time watching various movies during this time and a little LoK story idea came from it.

In my usual writing preference – it’s still a Lin/Tenzin endgame story but – in sort of a modern setting AU, blended family/semi-highschool themed with ages differed a bit (Lin and Tenzin was aged down by around 5 years). Expect it to be tropey and may be a bit of a cliché. This is written on a whim so if it doesn’t make sense…ah well. Haha! May edit this piece later on…

I’m considering this to be a short story, just a little self-indulgent-written-for-fun type of thing. But if other people enjoy it too then that’s such an added bonus so I’m sharing it with you as well. 😊 Let me know what you think since this is somewhat different from my usual style, I guess.

Also – I have misgivings regarding creating OCs so I’m likely to lean on canon characters and take a lot of creative license in developing them for the story.

---

Title (tentative): Blended

Legend of Korra, Lin/Tenzin, Modern AU, no bending

(Not sure if one-shot or will be multi-part yet)

---

Tenzin, Republic City Primary School

“Thank you for making time to meet today,” The silver-haired lady clasped her hands together on her desk. “I know you must have a packed schedule, but I think it would be good to have the check-in session for your daughter today.”

“Yes, of course – anything for my daughter.” The bald and bearded man threw a look at the door’s window, where he could see his daughter swinging her legs while seated at the corridor.

“Ikki is a bright child and she’s been doing her best to catch up with the class requirements. She excels the most at individual tasks.” The teacher continued to talk a little bit more about the projects that the students have been working on.

Teacher Yue handed the father a folder marked “Ikki”. Tenzin carefully picked it up and looked into the contents, smiling as he saw Ikki’s artworks and class outputs.

“However, I see that she seems to have challenges in adjusting in a large class set-up.” Yue shared. “It’s nothing to worry about though. We’ve had several transferees in the past as well and this is usual; I expect that might take a little bit longer since it’s a transition from homeschooling to a big school.”

Tenzin frowned and he hurt for his daughter. His two children had both been homeschooled until recently.

They also had to experience a lot of upheaval in the past year or so – from the divorce, to being uprooted from their childhood home, moving to a new city, and then going to a new school.

He did notice that while his son was as precocious as ever (maybe owing to his young age?), his daughter had become more subdued since their move.

“What can we do for her?”

“Well, we have a big sister-little sister type of mentorship program.” The teacher pushed forward a brochure and several index cards. “It’s mostly an afterschool interaction activity, we have here several students who have been volunteering. Maybe you’d like to ask Ikki to join?” She pointed at the index cards. “Feel free to select which mentor you think would help her best. We usually ask the parent or the student to select their preferred mentor profile from the roster. We would not want Ikki to feel uncomfortable; you’d know her best than any teacher.”

He nodded. After a few moments perusing the index cards and the brochure and pulled out one from the pile. “Let’s go with this girl.”

Tenzin pointed out to a profile labelled Jinora.

---

Jinora, Home

The ten-year old girl has just finished putting hair in a bun when she heard a knock on her bedroom door.

“Jinora!” It was her oldest brother. “Mom says I can use the car today – want to leave with us instead of riding the bus?”

“Sure!” She called back, quickly grabbing her backpack. “I’ll be down in a bit.”

“Alright!”

Smack!

“Hey! Why did you do that for?”

“Good morning bro!”

Jinora rolled her eyes good-naturedly. That was probably her other brother slapping the arm of the other one.

Even at eighteen and sixteen years old respectively, they tend to act like children occasionally to the consternation of their mother.

She hurried down, knowing that if she did not do so, there would be no pancakes left for her.

Jinora heard her mother’s gruff voice in the dining room. “Bolin! Leave some eggs for your sister!”

“But, Mom,” Bolin spoke through a mouthful of scrambled eggs. “I’m a growing boy. I need this stuff.”

“And Jinora is a growing girl,” Their mother drolly responded, taking a sip of her coffee after putting down the last batch of pancakes on the platter. “There should be enough from everyone.”

“It’s fine, Mom,” Jinora immediately sat down and her brother forked two pancakes to her plate. “Thanks, Mako.” She slathered butter all over the cakes then squeezed a load of maple syrup.

She ignored Bolin gagging at her left at the amount of sweetness. She also ignored her mother who was hiding a smile and shaking her head at seeing the display.

In their family, it was only Jinora had a penchant for sweets. Her mother said she likely took after her father in that regard.

Her father…her absentee father…

Jinora shook off her maudlin thoughts when she saw Pabu, Bolin’s pet guinea pig, land on her mother’s shoulder, probably hopping from her brother’s backpack which was hung behind his chair.

Pabu began chewing their mother’s greying hair without warning.

Wheek-wheek-wheek.

“BOLIN!”

“I’m so sorry, Mom! Pabu get down from there – leave mom’s hair alone!”

All in all, it was another morning in their household.

It was noisy and sometimes chaotic, but Jinora would not exchange it for the world.

---

Ikki, library

Truth be told, Ikki liked going to school. She even liked her teacher and classmates.

She liked to be busy and the activities were very interesting. Getting homeschooled and only seeing their tutor, nanny and Meelo had become very tedious anyway.

Staying at their old home also reminded her acutely that their mother was not there anymore. She did not understand what happened, but she tried to.

It has been more than a year since their parents sat her and her brother down to explain that they were separating but it did not mean they did not love her and Meelo any less.

At first, she thought it might have been her fault (or maybe Meelo’s fault for that matter, he did fart a lot and that annoyed her terribly). Her dad and mom were quick to quash those theories, however. They spoke of drifting apart, change in priorities and other grown-up things that she supposed she will understand when she gets older.

But for now, she supposed as she opened her notebook on one of the long tables in the library, they would need to get used to their new living arrangement.

It was difficult last year as they were shuttled to and from two households. It also did not help that their mother was starting out with her new venture had been spending less time at her home. On the other hand, Ikki noticed their father spending more time with them, cutting down his work hours. It all came to a head when Pema had said she will be moving to another country to establish her new business. And so, they ended up -.

“Hey, are you Ikki?”

Ikki looked up to see an older girl with dark brown hair in a bun.

She nodded her head yes.

The girl gave her a bright smile and extended her hand.

“I’m Jinora and welcome to Republic City!”

---

Lin, Future Industries Head Office

Lin tiredly wiped her glasses clean before putting them on again, rereading her email response for one last time before hitting send.

It had been a long yet productive day. Her team had managed to fulfill all the visual design requirements that were due that day. She reviewed the different files sent to the printers, making sure that the final and correct collaterals were attached.

Her last task was to ensure that the last set of proposals were on-brand and aligned with Future Industries’ visual identity. Once she had provided her comments and revisions needed on the file, she sat back as she waited for the files to be uploaded to their server.

She reached for her cellphone, wanting to check on her kids while waiting. She looked at their family group chat and read messages from the last time she sent one.

Ohana (Lin repressed the urge to cringe. That was the final time that she would ask Bolin to create their group chat)

Lin: Kids – as mentioned earlier, I’ll be home a bit late. No need to drop by to fetch me; have dinner already and don’t wait up.

Jinora: Mom, I’ll be staying behind after class – I got a mentee! ☺ Mako Bolin can you wait up?

Mako: Jinora Bo has training today; I think we can wait for you.

Bolin: Jinora 👍🏼

Jinora: Mako Bolin thanks! 🙌

Jinora: Mako what will you be doing while waiting? You sure you’ll be okay?

Mako: Don’t worry about me. I’ll manage.

Lin scrolled through some more messages. Knowing her eldest, Mako would like skulk off to the library.

Jinora: I met my mentee this afternoon. She’s such a lovely girl.

Lin smiled at this. Her daughter had always been the polite one.

Jinora: Her name’s Ikki and she’s two years younger than me. She said she and her father had first checked out Patola Mountain Primary.

Lin frowned. Patola Primary was far; she went there as a child.

Mako: Kid didn’t like it there?

Jinora: They didn’t have the chance to know. They had to move besause of her father’s job.

Bolin: heeey sorry guys- just about to be done with training. Just gonna shower …unless I just shower at home?

Jinora: Ew, no Bo. Shower first please

Mako: Agree. You’ll stink up the car, bro.

Ding!

Lin drew her attention from her phone as her laptop screen indicated that the files have been uploaded. She hit the send button and packed up for the day.

She was looking forward to spending some quiet time with her kids tonight.

---

Bumi, White Lotus Headquarters

Bumi leaned back in his fully ergonomic chair, thinking about how times had changed.

Being in an office was something he balked at when he was younger. But now, after serving a long career in defense and military, he submitted his retirement and come to the aid of his younger brother.

Ah, his only brother – back in the day, he would be hard-pressed to keep contact with his brother.

His brother who took on the role of spearheading their family’s company back when their father died.

His brother who had the task of continuing to revive the company and making sure it keeps up with the times.

His brother, who, despite being the youngest, was tagged by the board of directors as the heir apparent owing to his excellent academic records.

His brother who Bumi had felt envious of at some point. He later on realized that his brother actually missed out on a lot of freedom in his life.

His brother who managed to keep their company part of the Top 100 and make malls relevant again.

His brother who probably made some life decisions for the benefit of their company rather than his own.

His brother who had been through hell and back the past year when he and his much younger wife called it quits. His brother whose ex-wife is now galivanting somewhere in the Fire Nation, expanding a business built on horticulture and floristry.

His brother who, despite making some decisions that Bumi might not agree with, is still family.

And if there was anything that their parents taught them – family is permanent.

The ex-military man took a deep breath, looking at their last family photo. For what it’s worth, he liked to think that their fragmented family had found its way back into each other in their adulthood.

Bumi had to admit that Tenzin did have remarkable business acumen that benefited their company, a conglomerate built on the mall industry. With the fourth industrial revolution at hand and the shift towards virtual and digital, the White Lotus Corporation had been challenged during the last years of their father’s life. Tenzin had worked hard to change the ways of working and the culture in the company.

To do it, he had to make sure that there is a buy-in from the board. Ironically, to bring the company to the current century, he had to abide with one of the most archaic practices – an arranged marriage, a marriage that would serve as a press release to the business world in general, that their company was stable and there to stay.

Bumi had been surprised to get a call from Tenzin back then. He had called to let him know of his impending engagement, seeking support. Bumi had cheered, given his congratulations – but named the wrong bride. He had launched into a long tirade, berating his brother for his choices. Tenzin had shouted back his defense.

He still did not understand why Tenzin acted the way he did. However, he could never regret his niece and nephew which came from this questionable business-like union.

Bloop-bloop-bloop.

Speaking of which…

“Hey Uncle Bumi!”

“Hello there, cloudchild!” Bumi greeted his niece with a nickname his sister Kya came up with, given that the kids were actually born somewhere near the mountains. “How’s the new school?”

“It’s great!” Ikki beamed at him and gushed into a long narrative of what she had been up to in the past days.

Bumi enjoyed video conferencing with his niece and nephew. Granted, Meelo had a short attention span but Ikki had always had the flair for storytelling.

It pleased him to see her spark back. He had heard from his brother and their trusted bodyguard/chauffeur Shung that Ikki had been withdrawn during the first weeks in Republic City. It saddened him to learn that the otherwise bubbly child had been affected in that way.

“…And then, I invited her over! Daddy said it was okay – and she’s sooooo nice. Didjaknow she also knows how to play the piano! We practiced a bit. She’s good even if her family didn’t have a piano, they only had this electronic keyboard but it’s so short. But she did well. She said she had a stepdad and it was totally okay. They’re a happy family. D’you think I’ll have a stepmom too? I think it would be okay if Daddy thinks so and maybe we’ll be a happy family here too and you know I joined this contest in school and I-.”

“Whoa, slow down, kiddo.” Bumi let out his booming laughter. “I didn’t quite catch it – what’s the name of your new friend?” He was heartened that Ikki seemed to have adjusted better now.

“Jinora!” His seven-year-old niece practically chirped the name. “She’s actually here!” Ikki turned to someone from beyond the view of the webcam. “Jin, it’s my Uncle Bumi – I want you to meet him!”

“Um, it’s fine, Ikki.” A calm voice of an older child can be heard. “I can wait here.”

“Nooonseeense.” Bumi could see Ikki pull something, rather someone to the camera. “Uncle Bumi, this is my friend Jinora. Jinora, my Uncle Bumi.” She said by way of introducing them.

Jinora gives a small wave and a soft hello.

Bumi gives them a short bow. “Nice to meet you, Jinora. It’s great to meet the friend of my favorite niece (Ikki please don’t tell Korra).”

Ikki gives a delighted clap and proceeds into another lengthy tale on what she and Jinora were working on that day at home.

Bumi smiles back at them, observing the children’s banter as they demonstrate the monologue that Ikki was preparing for. It was amusing.

Heh, they could be cousins.

He recalled when he was young, he, his siblings and even the sisters-who-must-not-be-named would stay over in one house after school to work on school projects. It had been one of the highlights of his childhood. He was glad that his niece would be somewhat experience it; he had been worried a few years back when Tenzin and Pema (primarily Pema) were very protective of their kids. It was to the point that they were both homeschooled and basically kept out of the public eye and the public itself.

It can’t be good for socialization. But what can he say? He didn’t have kids so he probably wouldn’t know what he was talking about, right?

He’s just fun ole Uncle Bumi.

Nonetheless, as he turned his attention back to the two girls, Bumi promised himself that he will always be there for his brother’s kids. It’s the least he could do as their godfather.

---

Mako, Republic City High

“I worry about Mom.” Mako picked at his dumplings during lunch time, a stark contrast to his brother who was eating a lot (“Coach said I needed to bulk up!”).

“Why? Has my dad been overworking her?” Asami slipped beside him at their usual lunch table. She brought out her packed lunch of pasta and a bottle of coconut water. “Just let me know and I can try to look into it.” She was, after all, interning at Future Industries in her spare time.

“Now that’s just powerplay.” The exchange student from Ba Sing Se High chortled, taking a sip of his sparkling water. “And that’s a no-no and Auntie will definitely get mad if she hears about that.”

“You would know about powerplay,” Bolin swallowed a mouthful of chicken, pointing his fork at the other boy. “Wasn’t that why you got the last slot in the elective you wanted to take this year?”

“Who? Me?” The other boy dramatically placed a hand on his chest, eyes widening. “You think, I Wu would stoop so low as to manipulate the results of the audition for the voice elective? Don’t you think I have enough talent to get into that class?”

Bolin just snorted into his food and Asami choked on her drink. Wu cracked a smile at their reactions.

“Again, Wu – don’t let Mom hear you call her Auntie.” Mako reiterated for the nth time in their friendship. “She hates it.”

“That’s why I do it.” Wu winked at them.

“Wait, Mako, what were you saying about Mom?” Bolin managed to ask in between bites of food. “Is something wrong? I mean, she’s a little bit run-down but she said it’s just because of the time of the year.” The last quarter of the year, after all, is usually the busiest.

“No, it’s just – well,” Mako sought words to explain it. “I’ll be leaving for college, you’ll be away for training, and okay, Jinora would be there but she’s in middle school now…” He trailed off. With Jinora’s aptitude and interests, Mako would not be surprised if she took on a lot of electives and extra-curricular activities. “Mom works too hard, you know?” He ended lamely.

“She has always looked out for us, but yeah,” A shadow passed over his brother’s face. “Ever since Pa passed away a few years back, she poured much of her energy to ensuring our welfare. She’s barely spent time for herself.”

Mako met Bolin’s now worried eyes.

The brothers knew that their mom had sacrificed a lot for them and Jinora.

When they first met Lin and one-year-old Jinora, she had already been under a lot of duress – taking care of a baby, leaving behind Jinora’s deadbeat dad, settling down in a new neighborhood and restarting a career. It had been two years later when she married their father San, who had been a sergeant at the city’s police station at the time.

And, Mako thought wearily, history has not been kind to Lin Beifong at all. While they did have four years (four wonderful years that Mako will treasure for the rest of his life), their fairytale-like family life came to an abrupt end.

San was involved in an armed bank robbery four years later and had not survived the gunshot wounds – leaving Lin behind with two boys at the brink of puberty and a young daughter.

Bolin and Jinora had been very confused at the time. Mako, already fifteen, had been expecting that he and Bolin would be forced into the system or sent off to their relatives in Ba Sing Se. He felt that Lin would not be in any way obligated to take him and his brother in; they were not blood relatives anyway. They were just stepchildren.

To his stunned astonishment, Lin did neither. He recalled crying in Lin’s arms that night after his father’s funeral.

She had asked him, with a confused expression, why he was packing. Lin wept alongside him as she explained that Mako and Bolin are her sons and there was no way that she was sending them away.

Since then, Mako made sure to look after his mom the way she looked after them. The brothers’ protectiveness was soon well-known in their neighborhood.

Probably also why no one had expressed any type of interest towards Lin even years after…

Mako reflected that it might have been a good move on their part but now it might have been a little bit selfish.

He and Bolin would now need to rethink their strategy…

After all, their mom Lin deserves all the happiness in the world.

---

Tenzin, Republic City Primary School – Parking Lot

“Are you sure you’re not just using this as an excuse to have a sleepover?” Tenzin looked over at his daughter, a teasing grin out of place on his face.

“Of course not, Daddy.” Ikki replied indignantly, kicking pebbles as they waited at the parking lot.

“Why can’t you do the project at our house?” He was actually leaning towards allowing Ikki on her first ever sleepover/overnight but he wanted to hear from his daughter.

“We’ll need a big big printer, Daddy.” Ikki raised her arms to show him just how big. “We’ll need to print out my project and Jinora’s mommy has a big printer and lamin-lami-lamintor (“Laminating machine, dear?” Tenzin clarified.) because she frilancets (“Freelances?”).”

“Mmhhmm.” Tenzin looked across the school building, shifting Ikki’s overnight bag on his shoulder.

Ikki timidly approached him the other night, asking if she could spend Friday night and Saturday at her friend Jinora’s house. They had an output required of them of the big sister-little sister program. Tenzin was actually unclear as to what is the specific output that the girls had decided on but it did require a large-scale printer and a laminating machine.

Jinora attempted to explain to him what they were going to do during the last week that they were in his house but he felt out of his depth so he had nodded and let them work on what they needed to.

The father had met Jinora several times already in the past months so he knew the child was in earnest that their intent for the overnight activity would be mainly to finish a project. He also realized (well, Bumi made him realize) that Ikki was old enough for a sleepover (and Pema’s overprotectiveness would be to the detriment of their kids’ development). Additionally, he thought grimly, it would also keep Meelo from wreaking havoc on the work area of the girls.

Nonetheless, he took up Jinora’s mom’s offer to meet up for snacks before she takes the kids home. This would give him a chance to meet the mom, discuss some ground rules and as well thank the mom privately for letting Jinora help Ikki come out of her shell during her first months in Republic City Primary. Jinora did say that her pa and mom used to do the same before she spends the night over at her other friends – the parents meet up, share a small meal, get to know each other. Tenzin thought this was a good parenting tactic; it would definitely assuage his fears as well.

But now, said mom was late.

Jinora had hurried to them, dragging with her a large cartolina and illustration board. She explained that her mom’s work meeting overran and if it would be okay if she rode with them? Her mom will be meeting them at the local diner instead, so they don’t get caught up in traffic.

Tenzin could feel his impatience growing.

So far, this woman was not making a good impression on him.

How on earth she produced a lovely daughter like Jinora was beyond him.

---

Lin, Narook’s

Damn Sato, Lin ground her teeth as she finally parked her car into the last parking space in front of Narook’s. Of all the days for a meeting to go over time, it has to be today when she had explicitly asked to leave early to fetch her daughter.

Jinora had provided her enough context to know that making a good impression with Ikki’s dad was important to her daughter.

Lin heard that the dad was some big shot divorced corporate guy, who, she thought, was a bit paranoid about his kids’ safety.

Lin acted as an arts club moderator so she was regularly present at the Republic City High, which gave her chances to meet Ikki whenever she drops by the primary school to fetch Jinora.

The girl was a sweet child – energetic and delightful once she felt comfortable enough with you. It had come to her attention, in the short conversations with the kid, that she was not allowed to go out and play with other kids in their old neighborhood so she was very much excited to have a new friend outside of her class and her family.

When Jinora mentioned their culminating project and their dilemma on the timeline and materials, Lin suggested that they take the project home to work on.

The crestfallen expression of Ikki as she stated that her dad would not allow her pushed Lin to share that she’s willing to talk to the dad to help convince him to give his permission.

The infectious smile that burst on Ikki’s face was enough to convince Lin that she made the right decision.

Now, however, as she entered the diner, spotting her daughter at the corner booth, she froze and started to doubt all her life decisions that led to this moment.

Wondering and questioning the universe what had she done in her past life for her to deserve this.

Across Jinora, beside the talkative Ikki, sat Tenzin – her former boyfriend and Jinora’s father.

---

Note: Soooo hmmmmmm. What do you think?

#linzin #linzin fanfic #legend of korra #lin beifong #tenzin #jinora #ikki #mako #toccatina's fanfics #toccatina wip

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letsbenditlikebennett · 4 years ago

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FroYO What The F&*% Is Up, Kyle? || Ariana & Kyle

TIMING: Before Kyle did Bex a big yikes PARTIES: @darkh0wl & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Just two wolves who sniffed each other out in a yogurt shop, as you do.

Okay, so maybe it was winter and maybe it was too cold for frozen yogurt. But a craving is a craving, so Kyle had to satisfy it. He headed down to Flagg’s Froyo, avoided the sticky tiles inside the shop, and found a table with his cup that was honestly more topping than yogurt. He leaned back in his chair, eating specifically the popping boba one at a time. Kyle closed his eyes for a moment, relishing in the mouthfeel of boba, but he could smell...something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what, but there was a familiar sort of smell. His brow furrowed as he breathed in deeper and looked around for the source of the smell.

The only reason her frozen yogurt hadn’t melted had to be due to the temperature alone. Even with talking through what she was feeling, Ariana still found visiting Chloe had left her feeling heavier. Like so many other effort she’d made to help others, it just seemed to crumble in her hands. At this point, she wasn’t sure which felt worse-- trying to help or not trying at all. She had stopped by here after class as a means of killing time. Athena was out at the sorority house planning some sort of event and the thought of just hanging around the apartment alone felt like too much. At least here, the constant thrum of background noise kept her somewhat stable. She stirred around her frozen yogurt with her spoon yet again and almost didn’t even pick up on the smell until it was practically hitting her in the face. Her head whipped up as she saw a guy not much older than her standing in front of her who was undoubtedly also a wolf. It was likely what drew him over to her to begin with. “You can sit,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, “I’m Ari. Take it your nose brought you this way?”

Kyle didn’t honestly know what his game plan was once he was already headed toward the other table. He didn’t know why he was following this scent or what it even was. Now that he was standing in front of this girl, he felt like a major creep, but she seemed excited. Kyle did as she said and sat across from her in a bit of a daze. She smelled so familiar. Like home in a way that Kyle hadn’t really experienced before. Sure, he’d smelled the same thing out and about before--in passing, on full moons, maybe on some patrons at the bar--but never in a context that meant anything. “Uh, I’m Kyle. What do you mean my nose brought me this way? How did you know?”

As Kyle took a seat with her, Ariana quirked a brow up. Almost immediately it was easy to tell he hadn’t met another wolf before. How new was he to this? Hopefully not quite as out of the loop as Luis. Even there, she wasn’t even sure how good her help did. She swirled some of the strawberry froyo around in the cup and shook her head. “Like, literally, your nose brought you here. It’s a wolf thing,” she said nonchalantly. Sure, this was serious, but she couldn’t beat around the bush. Not right now. It was too exhausting, but she did quickly add, “You do know what you are, right?”

The bold, blunt statement of, “It’s a wolf thing,” caught Kyle off guard. He couldn’t help the look of surprise that washed over his face. He hadn’t met another, he’d just sort of figured everything out on his own, trial and error style. Kyle set his cup of froyo toppings down and ran a hand through his hair. Was she--was Ari a wolf, too? Or how had she known? He sighed in mild annoyance. “Of course I know what I am. But how did you know? Are you--y’know, a wolf, too?” He paused for just a beat before adding, “Or are you, like, a mindreader?”

It was hard to keep a straight face as Kyle was clearly taken aback by her words. Ariana had never been so great at the whole beating around the bush thing. It didn’t help that it was also the exhausting route and she was already pretty tired. Then he was asking if she was a wolf or a mind reader and she shook her head. Oh, Kyle. She’d only just met him, but this felt like a very Kyle thing to do based on all the internet memes. “Both,” she said to him with a nearly convincing serious face before a smirk broke out. “Okay, just a wolf. But you made that way too easy.” If he couldn’t immediately discern she was also a wolf, she had the feeling he was still new to all of this. Or at least he hadn’t met other wolves before. “So, how long have you been-- well, you know?” She made a little claw motion with her hands as she asked the last part.

For a second, Kyle’s mouth hung open in surprise. A mind reader?! That was incredible, and already his mind was churning with a hundred questions. But then Ari was smirking and his excitement waned. “Wait, so you’re not a mind reader? Bummer. That sounds dope as hell.” The pieces were clicking together now. Why Kyle could smell her so well, why she smelled so familiar, and even why he felt so oddly at ease with her. He tried to shove that last feeling down. He was a lone wolf and no one was going to change that. “Oh, me? I’ve been a wolf since high school. But I’m kind of the only one I know. Or, I guess I was until I met you.” He shrugged, brow furrowing as he looked back down at his froyo. A creeping question lurked at the back of his mind. Would things be different if he’d met someone sooner? Would he have become a part of some kind of pack? The thought unsettled him in a way he couldn’t pin down, so he cleared his throat and began talking again. “What about you? How long have you been…?” he mimicked the claw motion with a hand, a smirk crossing his face now, too.

Ariana almost felt bad that Kyle had seemingly fallen for her joke about mind reading. As cool as that skill may have been, there was a lot she preferred not to know. That and the world was loud enough already. Especially closer to a full moon. She didn’t need the additional ruckus of other people’s thoughts filling her head. “No, definitely not a mind reader,” she said as she shook her head, “Wolves are cooler anyway.” As she took a bite of her lemon raspberry froyo she could see him beginning to understand. So, he wasn’t necessarily too new to this wolf thing, but new enough that he didn’t know others like them. “High school… how old are you now? Had to be a tough change to make during high school, but you seem to have a pretty good grip of the whole wolf thing.” At least as much as she could tell from their current setting. Hell, at least he knew what he was already and wasn’t trying to actively push her away. She found herself laughing a bit as he mirrored her own motions. “I was born a wolf,” she explained, “My parents were wolves, too. I didn’t really- It wasn’t until recently I actually got to meet others like us. I was pretty young when my parents died.” Murdered would have been a more accurate term, but Kyle seemed comfortable with her, it was probably best to not totally freak him out. “Have you been staying safe? Do you have a good place to spend the full moons?”

“Dang, I was starting to hope this whole being a wolf thing had the added bonus of mind reading. Like, maybe I just had to unlock more levels,” Kyle said, grinning. “You’re right, though. Wolves are cooler.” He took another bite of his topping cup and nodded along with what Ari was saying. She was right. It had been a hard transition in high school. He was just figuring himself out and then he had added being a wolf on top of it. It had shaped him, for better or worse, into sort of who he was now. “I’m 22,” he said and shrugged. “I feel like I have a pretty good hold on things. Give or take.” Take. It was definitely take, but he’d just met this wolf. He didn’t want her to know too too much. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. So Ari had had a long time to practice this whole wolf thing. Maybe that’s why she was so calm about talking about this over froyo. He had questions to ask about being born a wolf--he hadn’t even really thought about werewolves being born, though it made sense--but then Ari casually dropped it on him that her parents were dead. Any smile from his face slowly fell and he let his spoon sink back into his cup. “Oh-- I-- I’m sorry about your parents. I can’t imagine that’s easy, on top of being a wolf.” But she pressed on with questions, so Kyle did his best to oblige her. “What do you mean good place?” he asked. “I mean, I’m staying as safe as I can in a weird town like this. I’m kind of just...driving to the edge of town during a full moon, and I just roam the forest, you know? Usually, I make it all the way out of town, too.” Oops, had that been too much? She didn’t need to know how fragile his grip on control was. Not now.

So Kyle wasn’t too much older than she was, though she had kind of guessed as much. Ariana was eager to have another wolf that was her age to hang out with. Part of her immediately thought that Kyle and Luis would probably get along well. “Nice, I just turned 19 a few weeks ago,” she told him with a smile, “That’s pretty amazing. It’s always a give and take sort of thing, but easier to stay safe if you have a better grasp of the whole thing. I think really riding into it helps?” It was hard to control something you denied, which at least Luis was past that phase. She could tell Kyle seemed surprised she had been born a wolf. So, outside of being a wolf and her being the first one he’d met, he really wasn’t all that well versed in this stuff. That was okay, she’d fill him on everything he needed to know. Plus, she’d introduce him to the others which would give him a whole little community. She took another big bite of her yogurt before she realized he was apologizing. No matter how much she’d heard it, she was always thrown off. “Oh, it’s fin- I’m okay,” she assured easily, “My older sister had always taken good care of me. Don’t get me wrong, losing family sucks, but like, I’m okay. And I think the wolf stuff is a little easier if you don’t know anything else, you know?” Or, at least it felt like she was starting to be. She’d had plenty of time to grieve her parents, it was the more recent losses that seemed to haunt her recently, but she was healing. She was having more good days than bad and that was something, right? She shook those thoughts away and answered his question. “A good place far away from town where you can just be a wolf without worrying about others,” she explained, “It sounds like you have a pretty good setup in place though. Still, I wouldn't mind having someone to hang out with on the full moon. I go pretty deep out into the forest. I have a few different spots I rotate between to keep hunters from catching onto where I am. So if you wanted to join…” She didn’t want to force him, but she’d feel a lot more secure that the other wolves were staying out of trouble if they were together.

So, Ari was younger than Kyle and clearly in better control over the wolf thing. That made him feel unexpectedly bad, never mind that she had had way more time to gain control. He nodded along with what she said about embracing the wolf thing. “Yeah, I agree. The whole being ashamed of what I am thing, it’s--it’s not for me. I like being a wolf. It’s way cool.” He took another bite of his toppings, popping boba in his mouth one by one as he listened to Ari speak about her family. That was heavy. He wouldn’t be coping as well as she seemed to be, that was for sure. “Still,” he said, once his mouth was empty, “it’s not easy and I’m sorry you have to go through that. I’m glad you’re doing okay with it.” He balked at the offer to join her on a full moon. That wasn’t something he’d ever considered. What if he hurt her? It wouldn’t be intentional, sure, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a possibility. He barely knew her. How could he even be sure she wasn’t somehow working with hunters? That was a ridiculous thought, though. One that Kyle brushed aside as he considered her offer. “Uh,” he started. Did he want to say yes? Did he want to commit to something he was probably going to regret later? “I don’t know,” he said, his brows pulling together. “I think I’ve been doing pretty good by myself. I haven’t seen any hunters. I’ll think about it, though.” He wouldn’t think about it. Kyle had already made his decision, whether he would admit that to himself or not. He didn’t want to be connected to someone who could possibly count on him. Not now. The circumstances didn’t feel right. He was a lone wolf, and he didn’t want to change that now. Ari seemed nice enough, but he didn’t want to be vulnerable in front of someone else.

Ariana found okay to be a fairly relative thing. She’d had nearly sixteen years to cope with what had happened to her family. Even Celeste, Sammy, Winn… time had passed. There were still days where a memory or thought could throw her for a loop, but she could manage easier now. She could keep moving forward even though her life would no longer look like she had always pictured it. She could adjust, mostly because she had to. She’d always had to adjust in some way or another and grief, pain-- it wasn’t all that different except in the fact it was harder. “Thanks,” she said as she moved some mochi around with her spoon. She wasn’t sure what else to say so she eagerly awaited his answer about joining her on the full moon, only to be disappointed. For some reason, he’d rather spend the moon alone even though instinct seemed to pull them together. “Oh,” she started slowly, “I mean, I have too, just thought it’d be nice to spend it hunting together. See who can catch the biggest buck and all that.” She wasn’t sure why the rejection stung so she busied herself with her yogurt again momentarily. When she really thought about it, all she really wanted was to help and have it go well. She wanted to fulfill that purpose of bridging the supernatural worlds together in a way Celeste had started, but Celeste had always been so much better with people. What would she do? A joke to lighten the mood was all Ariana could come up with. “What,” she said with a smirk that felt forced, “You think I’ll slow you down or something?”

Kyle’s lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t miss that Ari had genuinely wanted him to join her on the full moon. After what he’d done to his mother… He shuddered and tried to play it off by setting his spoon down and mumbling something about brain freeze. That bought him enough time to consider her request even more fully. He hadn’t known that other wolves hunted on the full moon. It made sense, but he hadn’t really considered it for himself. Would they eat the deer they took down? Kyle wrinkled his nose at the thought. “Do you eat the deer?” he asked, prodding at his frozen yogurt. That didn’t sound like the most appetizing way to go about things, but he didn’t want to judge Ari too harshly. “I’ve never hunted anything. I guess I’m almost worried you’d speed me up,” he said with a chuckle. “I usually just...run, I guess.” He didn’t really think about it, he just went to the forest and let himself go. He let himself forget all of his human worries and just be free. Most of the time, he was in the woods, anyway. Sometimes, he didn’t quite make it out of town. But even then, he just spent the night chasing rabbits or the occasional stray cat. He never caught them, but he had fun trying.

Ariana watched Kyle carefully as she tried to make sense of his body language. It seemed as if he was considering her offer at the very least though she couldn’t be too sure. As she set her own nearly finished yogurt down, confusion crossed her features. Her head tilted curiously and her eyes widened a bit that he asked if she ate the deer. The answer seemed obvious though when he mentioned he just ran, concern started brewing in her stomach. “Uhm, yeah,” she looked around carefully before lowering her voice to a whisper, “The full moon makes us kind of bloodthirsty and all. Better deer than the alternative. So, I fuck off deep into the forest and just let instinct take over.” The thought of just running didn’t quite add up to werewolf nature though and she had the feeling he wasn’t being entirely truthful with her. While she didn’t necessarily want to call him out and push him away when he likely needed her experience, she had to bring it up somehow. “You just… run,” she asked slowly. Her wide eyes didn’t do much to hide her disbelief as she started to fiddle with her spoon again. “That’s… I really think you should join me. I’d really enjoy the company and we’re kind of pack creatures by nature and all.” Her mind briefly thought of Luis who was also new to this and went through struggles she couldn’t quite understand. She sat up a little straighter and quickly added, “Actually, I have a friend I want you to meet. He’s-- well, he’s really new to all of this and trying to figure things out. Since I’ve always been like this, I kind of worry I can’t really relate to him as well as he needs, you know?”

Kyle had to take a moment to process that Ari ate the deer. He hadn’t eaten--...had he? The creeping realization that, in fact, he probably had eaten the stray cats and wild rabbits he chased made his stomach flip. He set the cup of yogurt down and nudged it away from himself. How many missing cat posters had been put up because of him? Kyle swallowed thickly and bit his lower lip. “I--I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t eat--or I didn’t think I ate things like that? Maybe I do? I don’t know. I’m not new new to this, but I don’t know if I’m the right candidate to--what did you say? Fuck off into the woods?” He didn’t know who this friend Ari spoke of was, but Kyle knew that he couldn’t relate to them either. He hadn’t exactly embraced pack life as much as he’d just embraced the idea of being a wolf. Ari had a point that they were social creatures by nature, but the thought of being so tied down in such a specific manner had Kyle feeling uneasy at best. “I guess I could meet your friend I--I don’t know. I don’t want to disappoint, but I don’t think I’m any help, you know? You’re kind of the only wolf I’ve really met. I don’t have experience on that front. I don’t know that I could be relatable in the way he needs, I guess.”

There was no hiding the wide eyed look that crossed her face when Kyle said he didn’t think he ate things. Ariana knew that couldn’t be true, not when the full moon had such a hold over them that made them basically insatiable. Even with her memory of her full moons crystal clear, there was no denying the hold it had on her. How the hunt was the only thing that drove her during those midnight hours until she reached contentment and fell asleep cozily on the forest floor. “Right,” she said slowly, “You probably do eat things… it’s like-- the full moon makes us pretty much bloodthirsty and hungry, but not like, to each other. Pack instinct kind of kicks in there.” Her voice was low but her hushed tone was serious. The yogurt cup was long since forgotten on the table and she watched him carefully with concern in her eyes. “I think you two would get along. It’s not necessarily about tips, but it’s a pretty big life change to go through. Everyone could use someone who knows what they’re going through.” Really, Luis could use all the support he could get though now she found herself worried for Kyle, too. She noticed the sun was getting lower in the sky and glanced down at her watch before she fumbled in her bag to grab a pen and paper. She quickly scrawled down her number and told him, “This isn’t the best place to talk, but text me soon, okay? We can go for a hike if nothing else.” She only half meant that. She had every intention of working on wolf things with him, but she didn’t want to scare him off just yet. “I’m supposed to meet my girlfriend soon, but take care, okay? This town can be dangerous for people like us.”

#wickedswriting #kyle #froYO wtf is up kyle #parental death tw #sibling death tw #both tws are mentions

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sad-sweet-cowboah · 5 years ago

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Among These Pages

Summary: After a painful breakup, you move to a new town and you’re instantly attracted to a small bookshop near your new residence. The new owner has definitely caught your eye.

Warnings: Smut and mild cursing

A/N: So this idea originated from a Discord chat (again) in an Arthur specific server. Needless to say this one was fun to write.

The hot sun beat down amongst the worn cement and faded asphalt of this little town you now called home. Bright and sunny, though a little bit too hot for your taste. You quickened your pace to seek the shade of a tree, careful to keep out of the paths of others.

Having slight relief from the blistering sun, you squinted around for another view of your surroundings. A small, quaint village bustling with its inhabitants. The streets were lined with independent shops, restaurants and cafes. The buildings and walkways were splashed with brightly colored plants and paint, immediately setting a cheerful vibe in the atmosphere.

After spending the first day moving in and unpacking, you decided to take a break and explore your new residence. You’ve only really experienced it through your car windows, and stopped in one of the cafes once or twice. However, you now wanted the full experience. Though with how sweltering it was, you were probably better off driving.

You fanned yourself for a moment and cast your attention down the length of the block. More food, smoothies, coffee, ice cream, except you weren’t all that hungry at the moment.

However, another sign caught your eye. Though too far to see, your curiosity spiked and you walked forward. As you drew in closer shapes began to appear, along with letters. Morgan Books, painted in gold lettering in a distinctly Western styled font. Underneath was a stack of books with one opened on top. A bookshop. Being from where you were, you were used to the large corporate bookstores. You hadn’t come across an independently owned one in years.

Checking this place out was a perfect excuse to get out of the sun for a bit. You increased your pace until you were standing at the store front. The building like the others surrounding had a somewhat rustic appearance, part of the charm that attracted you to living here. The windows were dusty and the inside was fairly dark, but you could make out the silhouettes of shelves. You approached the entrance and pulled open the door, ringing a bell overhead. You stepped across the threshold to be greeted by a cool breeze of air conditioning.

You sighed in relief and looked around. The shop itself was fairly small, or at least appeared that way as it was full of multiple bookcases, all of which were stacked floor to ceiling with books. The floorboards creaked elsewhere, and you turned to see someone appear from around one of the shelves.

A man, tall and broad-framed. He offered a quick smile. “Hey there, welcome!”

“Hello.” You greeted him politely.

He stepped closer, allowing a better view of his face. You couldn’t help but to notice how handsome he looked. “Need help findin’ anything?” he asked.

You shook your head. “Nah, just exploring, really. I saw this place and I wondered what sort of treasures lurked within.” You lightly joked.

He chuckled. “Well, you’ll find plenty here. Got new n’ used, so feel free to look ‘round.”

You nodded in response, and turned your attention toward the endless amount of books. You scanned the shelves, following along with the signs marked on top of which cases held which topics. You found that he had a little bit of everything; from encyclopedias to New Age books, to computer guides (from the early 2000’s) to conspiracy theories. You had to giggle to yourself upon reading some of the synopses for a collection of the more esoteric pieces.

Time soon became lost to you with more exploration. All the while the man who greeted you earlier moved through the shop occasionally. After a while it felt like you’d been here for ages. When you checked your phone, you’d realized nearly a half hour passed since first walking into this place. You blinked in surprise. You hadn’t anticipated spending that much time here.

As you were putting your phone away and moved toward the front of the shop, the man sat at his register and caught your attention.

“So, find any treasures?” he casually asked.

You paused to turn to him. “Guess I did, you have a…uh, an interesting collection.” You responded, tilting your head back toward some of the shelves.

He nodded in agreement, offering you a half-smile. “You’d be surprised what people come in askin’ for, or what people come in to sell.”

“Well if I needed a how-to book on Windows 2000, I’ll know where to stop by.” You said with a giggle.

He shook his head and smiled even more. “See? Those books have been on them shelves for years. Ain’t sure why I still keep ‘em ‘round.”

“Antiquity value perhaps?” you joked.

He gave a small, hearty laugh. “’Spose so. Guess I should get rid of ‘em, they belong in a museum at this point.”

His laughter made you smile. “Anyway, I should be heading back home and unpack some more…”

His expression changed to curiosity. “You jus’ move here?” when you nodded, he asked, “Where from?”

“Couple hours north,” you answered. “Needed a change of scenery, you know?”

He nodded in understanding. “You’ll be glad ya moved here. This lil’ town has its charms, folks here are nice too.”

“I’m glad, believe me,” you sighed. “It’s a nice change of pace. I’m glad to have found this bookstore too, it adds to the charm.”

He grinned at you. A cute, slightly lopsided grin that somehow made your heart flutter. “Glad you think so.”

---

The next two days was spent unpacking the rest of your house, keeping yourself focused on it to have everything organized before the first day of your new job. It was Sunday, and by noon you’d finally unwrapped the last of your décor and placed it accordingly in your living room. You smiled to yourself as your eyes panned across the room, proud of how much you’d accomplished in just three days. Sure, you didn’t have too many possessions, yet it was a relief to tackle the largest of chores.

Though you hadn’t expected to finish this soon. With only half the day gone, you wondered what else to do. You supposed you could explore more, and that little shop on the corner popped up in your mind, along with the image of the handsome owner…

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to stop by again.

After a quick lunch break and heading outside, it was only fifteen minutes of walking before you reached your destination. It wasn’t as hot out today which you were thankful for. You strode up to the door and pulled it open, the bell once again alerting your incoming presence.

As soon as you stepped in, your eyes darted to the shopkeeper who sat behind the register. He peered up at your entrance.

“Hey, welcome back!” he greeted with enthusiasm.

You blinked in surprise. “You remember me?”

“’Course, when ya live in a small town, you tend to remember faces,” He explained. “Y’back to find more treasures?”

You smiled. “In a way, I finished unpacking earlier than expected so I thought I’d come back into town for a bit.”

“So you’re all settled in then?” he asked.

“For the most part. I start my new job tomorrow, so I’d figure I use my free time productively by…looking for more old computer manuals.”

He chuckled at that. “Now that ya mentioned it, I think I better do some inventory o’ the place. Might as well get rid of the useless stuff,” He spoke while standing up. “I won’t get in your way.”

You nodded, sidestepping as he rounded from around the counter to move past you. As he passed by, a short whiff of his cologne wafted through your nostrils. He smelled good, and you briefly turned your head to take a look as he walked away. He was certainly broad, almost too broad to fit in this little shop. Yet he moved between the bookcases with ease.

He turned a corner, obscuring himself from your vision. You turned your attention back to the books, looking for the topics that would particularly spark your interest.

It’d fallen quiet, aside from the creak of floorboards and sliding of books across wood. Out of the corner of your eye you saw him pass back and forth with a few in his hands, carrying them towards the back. You’d sneak another glance or two without him looking, appreciating his physique.

After a little while, you found yourself poring over a book on the religion of Wicca. It was something that piqued your interest in your earlier life, though never had a chance to really learn about it. You’d only just began to skim through it, although the content was interesting enough that you started to read.

A loud crash emanated elsewhere in the shop, causing you to jump in surprise. The shopkeeper hissed out a curse, prompting you to peer around in search of the source.

“You okay?” you called out.

“Yeah,” he replied with a sigh of annoyance. “Jus’ one o’ these shelves fell apart.”

You listened to the sounds of him attempting to clean up the mess, and followed it through the narrow aisles until you found him. He was bent over, attempting to collect the disheveled books spilled at his feet.

“Here, let me help.” You said, automatically starting forward.

“No, you don’t have to –” he began, glancing up at you.

“There’s a lot here.” You stated, gathering a few into your arms.

He didn’t argue further, and together the two of you managed to collect them all. He nodded in thanks and headed toward the back once again, with you on his heels. He led you to an open door to reveal a small back room. From over his shoulder you spotted a chair and desk, and a pile of books placed haphazardly on top of it. He placed his armful on an empty space and gestured for you to do the same. Once you emptied your arms and exited the back room, you turned to him.

“Thank you.”

You nodded to him. “You’re welcome…” you glanced around the shop again, and an idea struck your mind. “Need any more help?”

“Nah, jus’ ‘bout halfway done I think.” He answered, placing his hands on his hips.

“I could help with that though,” you pointed out, though surprised at yourself for even offering. “Kinda curious what else you got that’s ancient and obsolete.”

“Oh there’s plenty…” he responded, rubbing the back of his neck while he peered around as a thoughtful look painted his face. “Tell ya what, if ya find anything interestin’ that need to be off the shelves, I’ll let ya keep it for free.”

Bewilderment crossed your mind. “Wouldn’t you be losing money then?”

“A couple of ‘em won’t hurt business,” he said. “Better n’ throwin’ ‘em out or puttin’ em in storage, ya know?”

You didn’t want to decline his offer since he had a good point, yet you still felt bad regardless. “Alright, fair enough.”

And so you set to help him. All the while you two held a casual conversation. You learned his name was Arthur, and that he owned this place for a few years. Other than running this store he lived on a small ranch on the edge of town. You shared a little bit about yourself, including your career and a couple of shared interests you had with him.

Surprisingly enough, you’d pulled out many more old texts than you anticipated. Some were so worn and dog-eared that there was no resale value, and Arthur told you to just throw them away. Throwing away books? You instead convinced him to give them away, and he found an empty box and labeled it “Free Books”. You skimmed through them briefly to see if they caught your eye, yet none did and they ended up in the box.

After a little over an hour passed before the both of you picked the place clean. You dusted your hands off after placing the last few in the box. Arthur picked it up and carried it outside, placing it on the sidewalk. We walked back in and said, “Hope that gives ‘em some good use.”

“Hey, people will take anything free,” you pointed out. “Maybe even pull in more revenue for you.”

“Well here’s hopin’,” he sighed, briefly glancing toward the floor before meeting your gaze with a small smile. “Thanks for the help again, I appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome Arthur, I actually had fun helping you.” You answered with a grin.

He chuckled softly. “Fun, eh?”

You nodded. “Sure, you’re a nice guy and fun to talk to.” You answered.

You weren’t sure, but his face reddened a touch as he ducked his head. He laughed again, shy and…cute. “Thank you, though I ain’t that much of an interestin’ person.”

“Nah, I beg to differ,” you argued lightly. “Either way, I think I’ll be coming back. I like it here, and if you’d need any more help…”

“You’ve been more than helpful Y/N,” he answered, waving his hand as if trying to flit away your words. He then paused, realization crossing his face. “Actually…no, never mind.”

“What is it?” you pressed.

“Well,” he released a heavy sigh. “I’ll be honest, business ain’t as good as I’d hoped. I’ve been tryin’ to think of new advertisin’ strategies, pull in more customers. Problem is I ain’t too good at it.”

“So…you’re asking me to help you advertise? Or create one for you?” you questioned.

“I know it ain’t fair to ask,” Arthur answered quickly, his face shadowed with a look of guilt. “We hardly know each other and you jus’ moved here –”

“I’ll do it.” You softly interrupted.

He blinked, staring at you in surprise. “Whuh?”

“I said I’ll do it,” you repeated, smiling at him. “Luckily for you, I took a few advertising arts classes in college.”

The surprise remained on his face. “Uh –” he huffed, and cleared his throat. “I don’t want ya to feel pressured or nothin’ –”

“I’m not, Arthur,” you assured him. “You were gonna ask for a reason right? I don’t mind. Besides, I haven’t used my art skills in years. Might as well put them to use again.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.” You affirmed. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’ll give me something fun to do after work.”

Arthur was silent for a moment. He finally nodded and spoke, “Alright, as long as I ain’t troublin’ you with it.”

“No trouble at all,” you replied with another smile. “I’ll come up with something good, I promise.”

His smile matched yours. “Then I look forward to it.”

---

The next few weeks kept you busy. After settling in at your new job and coming home to sit at your computer to design flyers didn’t leave you much time for other activities. Still you stopped by the bookshop to plan with Arthur and discuss strategies, or suggested many ideas that he seemed to like. You laid out a few thumbnails of different designs for him to pick and choose, narrowing it down to two that he really liked.

You stopped by every day to update the progress, even when you didn’t have to. Admittedly you were enjoying his company, and you had a feeling he liked yours as well. After moving to a town where you knew no one and were far from your family and old friends, you were just fine with considering Arthur as one. As time passed on he’d become friendlier and more open to you, offering you a drink or snack even when you’d come by for a few minutes.

Sometimes you’d stay longer just as an excuse to be close to someone other than your new coworkers, and to admire how nice he looked. He always dressed in either button-up shirts or a nice T-shirt and Wrangler jeans like a cowboy, the fabric accentuating his broad frame in all the right ways. His sandy hair was trimmed neatly, and he kept his face somewhat clean shaven, although something about having stubble lined across his sharp jaw set a spark within you.

A relationship was the furthest thing on your list at the moment, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t admire how attractive he was.

Soon after you produced a finished product, and quite proud of the result after not having designed anything since your college days. It was a weekend which meant you were free, and upon printing out a nice colored version, you headed to the bookshop almost instantly.

Arthur loved it, as you had hoped. He paid for multiple copies to be printed and distributed around the town, and you spent the afternoon stapling them to telephone poles and handing them out in some of the shops. You thankfully had gotten a positive response from most of those you’ve spoken with, which gave you hope. You wondered how Arthur was doing on his end.

After a few hours you’d met back up at the shop, tired and arms empty, but Arthur looked as pleased as you did. You settled down in the back room while he handed you a water bottle from his mini fridge. You took it gratefully and gulped a swig, sighing in relief.

“I think we did good.” you said as he settled across from you.

He nodded in response, followed by taking a drink from his own bottle. “I think so too, lotsa people seem interested.”

“I would figure more people would come in here often.” You said thoughtfully.

“You’d think, but this place is more of a tourist trap than anything,” Arthur responded. “Can’t complain, but I understand. Ya get used to one place, it gets borin’ after a while.”

“Well, hopefully this will be the beginning of a new era for this place.” You enthusiastically gestured to the surroundings with a flourish.

Arthur smiled at you, chuckling as he took another drink of water. He didn’t speak, however your eyes met his. You’d never noticed before how absolutely gorgeous his eyes were. From a distance they appeared blue, yet you could detect hints of bright green surrounding his pupils. You wanted to view them even closer. Somehow you couldn’t tear your eyes away.

The entrance bell however sounded, pulling your attention and his toward the front of the store. The telltale signs of potential customers. Arthur glanced out in surprise, and immediately stood up to greet the newcomers. You stayed in the back room while he dealt with the customers, listening to their voices with a smile on your face. Who would have thought it would work that quickly?

You left shortly after, catching Arthur’s eye briefly as you walked by him helping out a young couple that wandered in. A gaze that lingered a second longer than you intended, however you felt it was best to leave him to deal with his shop at the moment.

—-

Two weeks passed and you hadn’t stopped by Arthur’s shop, mainly because each time you passed by, the building seemed to be teeming with customers. You felt more than happy, and proud of yourself that you helped a business owner earn more revenue after a dull streak.

You did find yourself missing his company. Each day he hung in your mind like a cloud. You certainly liked him enough to call him a friend, yet those gorgeous eyes of his would meet you in your dreams.

That following Saturday evening, you received a text from him.

Hey, would you mind stopping by?

He was vague yet direct. Perhaps he was going to ask you another favor? Either way you were excited to see him again, and to inquire how everything was going. You headed over just minutes after responding to his text, hoping your eagerness didn’t overflow into your phone.

The first thing you noticed was the closed sign hanging in the window, which explained the lack of people this time. It was just past 7 pm, and you walked up the door and knocked. Movement shadowed behind the glass and Arthur’s silhouette appeared just a moment later, meeting your gaze between the glass and smiling wide. He opened the door.

“Hey there, come on in.” He stepped back and gestured.

You walked in and turned to face him. “So, I’ve noticed business has gotten better recently.”

“All thanks to you,” he responded, the grin on his face only growing wider. He then lifted his hand to reveal he was holding a bottle of whiskey. “I wanna thank ya.”

You blinked at the alcohol, surprised by this but you didn’t have any objections. You smiled and nodded in approval. “You don’t have to thank me Arthur, but I’m not about to turn down a good drink.”

He chuckled heartily. “Sure I do, the booze is jus’ a bonus. C’mon.” He waved toward the back room and strode for it, and you were right behind him. Once he stepped inside he grabbed a couple of plastic cups, and filled the both of them with a few cubes of ice. He then poured in the whiskey before topping them off with some soda. He handed a cup to you, and then held up his own.

“To you, for your design and advertisin’ skills.” He said, although rather awkwardly. You figured he wasn’t good at that sort of thing, but you didn’t mind. Bringing your cup to tap against his, you smiled again and took the first sip simultaneously with him. The sweet soda tinged with the smokey bitterness of the alcohol was a pleasant mixture against your tastebuds.

It was quiet for a moment, and Arthur took another sip before drawing in a deep breath. He focused on you. “Drink’s good?” He asked.

You nodded, taking another sip of your own. “Very. Haven’t had a chance to have a good drink since I moved here. Had to resort to a few gas station beers.”

He snorted softly, a small smile of amusement appearing on his face. “Gotta introduce you to the good bar in town sometime.”

This piqued your interest. “Oh? There’s a bar here?”

“‘Course, every small town has a bar,” he pointed out. “It ain’t on any of these main roads though, it’s closer to the outskirts. I imagine ya probably didn’t explore that much.”

“Can’t say I have,” you said thoughtfully. “But I’ll take up the offer of you showing me.”

“Jus’ name a time, ya won’t be disappointed.” He confidently replied.

You finished your first drink after a little while and Arthur poured you a second to which you were not opposed to. The effects were taking hold of you before you knew it. Your lips were looser with each sip you took, and you found Arthur was the same way. The two of you spoke about random topics, anything ranging between favorite colors to what you cooked yesterday. Things that were otherwise too boring to discuss, yet somehow with Arthur they seemed more interesting.

A little while later, the conversation became deeper. Arthur spoke some about his earlier life and what kind of environment he was raised in, and how his teenage years were spent bitterly. You shared the reason why you moved: you were previously living with your significant other, only to find your shared bed occupied by two bodies when you arrived home early one day when you weren’t feeling well. The reveal absolutely crushed you, which led into an emotional spiral and you looking for a new place to live the next day.

It’d been a little over a month since then. Your mind was still heavy on the breakup until you stopped by here the first time. Arthur and his charming little shop seemed to absorb any lingering sadness you had. Seemed like both yesterday and ages ago.

Regardless of the story, the pair of you were chortling in good spirits. You ranted about all the negatives about your old partner, releasing the leftover bitterness you’ve suppressed and turned it into humor. It only heightened your mood more, and with each drink it only increased.

After a few more minutes it quieted down again, though the smiles remained on your faces. You since became immune to the sting of whiskey, immensely enjoying the flavors and the inebriation that accompanied it.

Arthur reached over and poured himself another helping. His sigh caught your attention. He stared down into his cup, fixated with a thoughtful expression.

“I gotta say, I’m glad you wandered in here that day.” He murmured, peering at you with a sidelong look.

“Yeah?” you chirped.

He nodded slowly, taking a swig of his drink before focusing onto you with a serious gaze. “I’ll be honest, I was thinkin’ ‘bout closin’ up.”

You were taken aback by this statement. “Why?”

“You saw for yourself. Hardly any business. Shelves lined with books decades old,” he snorted without humor. “Truth is openin’ this place ain’t even my idea.”

“Then whose was it?” you pressed tilting your head in curiosity.

“My fiancée’s,” he smiled bitterly, gently swirling his drink. “Eh, ex-fiancée. Had the grand idea to run a business together. Picked out this place herself. N’ like a fool I fell for it.”

Ex-fiancée. Your heart raced upon learning this new information, and you wondered what happened between them. Would it be too prying to ask? “So…what changed?”

Arthur shrugged. “She found someone else more interestin’. Said we had too many differences in our lives to really enjoy each other…” he trailed off to take another sip, his eyes shifting to gaze in the distance.

Your heart broke for him. Rather than wallowing in those feelings, you instead asked another question. “But why hold on to this place if it was her idea?”

His gaze pulled back to you. “Guess for a while I was hangin’ on to the dream that she’d come back n’ pick up where we left off. Obviously that didn’t happen. Stupid, huh?”

You frowned at this. Hell, you understood that pipe dream all too well. There was a brief time where you wished your ex would come after you like in the movies in some dramatic fashion, pouring out apologies and begging you to come back. Wishful thinking.

You noted his hand was resting against the table. In a quick movement you reached over and placed your hand comfortingly on his forearm, and offering him a sympathetic smile. “It’s not stupid at all. You loved her and you held on to the one thing that you knew she loved too.”

Arthur’s eyes dropped to your hand. “For too long,” he sighed. “After a while I knew there was no chance. Still I continued, kept this place open for my own sake. Came here every mornin’ with a rock in my stomach, least until recently.” He explained, his voice softening towards the end. He peered over to you again.

Your heart raced once again. The way he was looking at you… it was obvious as to why he mentioned that last bit. Hell, you knew for a while. He wasn’t subtle about trying to steal glances your way these past few weeks. As attractive as he was, you were denying yourself of your own feelings out of protection. It felt too soon after your last relationship, although it seemed Arthur had been single for a while. You were afraid you’d change your mind. “And why is that?” you asked, wanting to play dumb to hide your initial hesitation.

His arm moved – at first you thought he was pulling away, until his hand met yours. Palm to palm, skin rough but warm. His fingers entwined with yours and you automatically did the same. “I think you know,” he murmured.

His thumb smoothed against the back of your hand. Your eyes bore into his. Such a gorgeous light blue, glistening in the lamplight of this tiny room. Despite the table in between the two of you, it was hardly an obstacle to view him in better focus. Upon closer inspection, you could detect pools of green surrounding his pupils, reminding you of tropical beaches.

His lips were parted, wafting his gentle breath against your face. Scented with alcohol and the sweetness of soda, he seemed to be growing closer.

You closed the space immediately, the booze flowing in your system offering a boost of confidence. His mouth was surprisingly soft against yours, and within seconds he returned the favor. Your free hands joined, mirroring their counterparts with ease. He pulled you closer with no effort.

After a moment, he pulled back slightly to stare at you with a soft expression. He released your hand to cup your cheek gently, and you leaned into his touch with a smile.

“You don’t have to hold on to those thoughts anymore.” you sighed to him.

His smile mirrored yours. “Neither do you.”

---

It was nothing but pure bliss following that night. You’d fallen into a routine to spend some time with him every day, even when you had work. Arthur was such a sweet lover and was not hesitant to hold you whenever he had a chance. His arm around your waist, or pulling you into his lap. You helped around the bookshop more, even when he told you that you didn’t have to. Yet you insisted, and redecorated some of it to give a new energy while keeping its rustic look. It certainly attracted even more customers.

He took you to the bar as promised, and it quickly became a regular spot for casual dates. It was just as charming as he explained, accompanied with lovely patrons and entertainment. You were soon completely comfortable with this small town, completely integrated into its community thanks to Arthur. People often recognized your face from the bookshop, and the praise following was something he was elated to hear about.

A couple of months have passed, and you swore Arthur’s smile grew bigger each and every day. He looked forward to running the business again, and left those bitter thoughts of his ex behind with the help of you.

One particularly slow weekend day, you were spending time in the shop as usual. It was late afternoon and the last customer left an hour ago, thus creating a quiet and relaxing atmosphere. Closing time would be in less than an hour, and you just assumed no one else would be wandering in.

While Arthur manned the register, albeit with boredom, you began to observe some of the newer inventory. The shelves were thankfully lined with more recent texts to fill in the gaps of what you’d sorted through previously. Once again you found yourself coming across the book of Wicca again, the same one you were skimming through just months earlier. You were surprised no one purchased it with the heavy amount of traffic that passed through.

The book served as a better distraction than you realized. You pored over it, so focused on the information that you didn’t notice the presence that loomed over you until gentle hands found your waist.

“You can keep that if ya want.”

You blinked in surprise, turning your head to look at him. “No, I’d feel weird about it.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It’s still your store, I just can’t take it.” You pointed out.

He shook his head and quietly laughed. “Ah, it’s alright sweetheart. I know you were interested in that. ‘Sides, it’s been sittin’ here for months, n’ I can always order more if people want ‘em. Pretty sure it’s here for ya.”

“I still feel like I should pay…or something.” You murmured, placing the book back on the shelf.

“Now I don’t wanna hear none o’ that,” Arthur lightly chided you, despite wrapping his arms around your waist. “I never did properly thank you for all the help you’ve given me.”

You turned around in his grip, giving him a playful smirk. “As if all this affection wasn’t repayment enough?”

“’Course not,” he snickered, and leaned in to place a chaste kiss on your lips. “Think I got quite a while ‘fore I’m even,” he reached over and plucked the book from its spot, and pressed it into your hand. “Until then, take this.”

Your fingers instinctively wrapped around the spine, and you sighed again. He was adamant about you keeping this book, and there was no use arguing with him. No point in denying a free gift anyway. “Alright, I’ll keep it.”

He smiled in response. “Don’t ever think y’gotta pay for somethin’ in here. If ya like it, then help yourself.”

“You tell that to all the girls?” you asked.

“Only to the ones I like.” He replied with a wink.

You giggled, stepping back to lightly slap his chest with the book. “Alright you, I’m gonna head home. See you tomorrow?”

He nodded, drawing you back in for a hug and another kiss. “See ya tomorrow, darlin’.”

Breaking from the embrace, you headed toward the exit. Somehow you hadn’t noticed how much darker it got outside until you saw the iron-gray storm clouds through the door. You opened it just as a loud thunder clap rumbled through the air, vibrating the floor beneath you. A split second later, rain began to fall.

Well shoot, you walked here today.

Arthur’s low hum sounded behind you. He stepped up beside you to observe the weather. “Guess you ain’t goin’ anywhere for a while.”

“Guess not.” You agreed. You weren’t opposed to staying longer, however you were hungry and some leftover pizza at home was calling your name. Hopefully this storm would be quick.

Arthur seemed to have read your mind. “Got some snacks in the back, c’mon.” He said, reaching your free hand and leading you through to the back room.

The two of you settled at the table with a shared small helping of cut fruit. While it wasn’t much, it was enough to curb your appetite for the time being. It was quiet aside from the raging storm, which settled to an even calmer atmosphere. You popped a grape into your mouth, peering over at Arthur as he munched on an apple slice.

His eyes met yours. “Somethin’ wrong with my face?” he asked jokingly.

You snickered, scooting closer. “Yeah, a whole lot of handsome.”

He snorted and shook his head with a dejected smile. You learned early on that his self-esteem was low, even though he hid it fairly well. Any comments toward his physical appearance was usually deflected.

“It’s true, you know.” You insisted. “You ever see how some girls stare at you when they’re here?”

“Nah, only ever got eyes for you, darlin’.” He answered.

“It’s pretty obvious,” you continued. “They’re not so subtle with their googly eyes, even when they try to be.”

Arthur laughed again, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Guess I’m blind to it.”

“You must be, if you can’t tell how sexy you are…” you stood up briefly to slide into his lap. Your hands cradled his face. “Probably the most attractive man in this town.”

His cheeks flushed with a light shade of pink, ducking his head slightly to avert your gaze. “You’re jus’ bein’ sweet.”

“I’m being truthful,” You corrected, slipping your hand beneath his chin to tilt his face back up. Once he was looking at you again, your hands moved to his shoulders, down his arms and to finally take his hands. “I could stare at you all day, you know.”

He chuckled in response, entwining his fingers with yours. “I could say the same ‘bout you.”

“Ah, but this is about you…” you spoke softly, pulling his hands up to your mouth, placing soft kisses on his knuckles. “From your gorgeous eyes to your sexy jawline to your absolutely stunning body. And the way you dress? It’s like you do it on purpose just to make me feel all hot and bothered.”

“I don –”

You gently shushed him by planting your lips on his. Tasting faintly of fruit, your tongue swiped out to steal the flavor from his lips. You pulled back to see the flustered expression on his face, his mouth betraying a slight smile tugging at the corners.

He released your hands to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you even closer on his lap. “Guess I can’t complain if you like it all.” He murmured.

“And then some.” You added, wrapping your own arms around his neck. He drew you in for a second kiss, softer and sweeter than the previous. He held you close to him, his body warm and solid against you. Seconds ticked by as it gradually grew deeper and more fervent. His tongue slowly invaded your mouth which you happily accepted. His large hands smoothed up and down your back, both soothing and igniting your body. A soft moan slipped from your mouth, unintentional yet you didn’t regret it.

This caught his attention. He paused and parted the kiss, confusion plain in his expression. His eyes however betrayed his thoughts, aquatic pools shining brightly in the lamplight. He wanted more and was held back by his hesitation. It seems like you would have to take the lead.

You offered a soft nod to him, a silent acquisition of permission for his unmentioned desire. Removing your hands from around his neck, you reached down and peeled your shirt off, tossing it to the side. Arthur’s eyes widened, staring without shame at your chest, only reflecting the hunger in its prominence. He moved then to attach his mouth to the crook of your neck, kissing your skin lovingly. Your head tilted to allow him more access, quietly encouraging him to explore more of your body.

He did just that. His calloused palms roamed the expanse of your back. His fingers trailed with feather-light precision up your spine. You shuddered in his grip, arching your back and pressing against him even more. He rumbled softly in appreciation while his other hand found the zipper of your jeans. You anticipated feeling him venture further, only for him to grip your ass. He stood up, catching you off-guard and you expelled a yelp. His journey with you was short as he brought you back down, resting your back on the table before him. You locked eyes with him as he smiled down at you, reaching up to caress your cheek. He dragged his fingers down your midline to the hem of your pants, gripping them to tug them straight off.

You were now down to your underclothing while he was still fully dressed. He was certainly moving fast. “You’re gorgeous too…” he muttered, his gaze scanning you up and down with great interest. He rested his hands on your hips, standing in between your legs. He leaned down to kiss your collarbone, moving his lips in a steady line following his trail from earlier. Looping his fingers through your underwear, he pulled them down just as his face reached just below your navel.

He tossed your panties with your other discarded clothing. As exposed as you were, you didn’t feel embarrassed. Your yearning for him was driving you wild. He kissed your mound before taking his spot in the center, and a split second later the wet presence of his tongue appeared along your slit, searching for his target until he honed in on it.

Good lord, who knew he was so good at oral?

You covered your mouth while he worked his magic against you, moaning quite loudly through your fingers. He held your trembling legs tightly against his shoulders, occasionally peering up at you for validation. Your other hand carded through his soft hair, allowing your touch to encourage him further.

He toyed with your entrance, exploring your inner walls. It wasn’t long until he hit that spot, a toe-curling and edge-gripping sensation that had you squealing his name. You were thankful this place was empty for once. He rubbed your inner thigh, offering his own encouragement. Your climax was arriving almost too quickly for you to comprehend. “A-Arthur,” you gasped. “God –“

You could barely utter another word as your pleasure washed over you like a powerful tidal wave, snapping your legs tightly to him while he lapped at you, drawing it out until you were writhing and whimpering from overstimulation. He broke free from your grasp with ease, standing back up to stare down at you.

As your breath evened out, you sat up slowly. “Where did that come from?” you asked.

He chuckled, offering you that crooked smile you loved so much. “I do have some tricks up m’ sleeves.”

You giggled with him, reaching out to wrap your arms around his neck. He leaned into your embrace, joining his lips to yours for a short kiss. You brought yourself to your feet and pressed closer to him, highly aware of what rested against your thigh. Sliding your arms off, you knelt down. “I got tricks of my own too.”

Before he could speak, you palmed him through his jeans. He took a deep breath, easing out a quiet moan to you. You nimbly unzipped his confinements, reaching in to fish out his already hardened manhood. He was larger than you anticipated, but not enough to intimidate you. You wrapped your hand around, finding him thick in circumference. To describe him as well-endowed would only serve him some justice. Your fingers couldn’t touch.

You peered up at him. He was staring at you with curiosity, the rosy tint in his cheeks only increasing. There was still a hesitant energy to him, enough to not push you further.. You offered him a slow rub, memorizing every inch in your hand from root to tip. He released a shuddering breath, his eyelids fluttering slightly.

A soft smile crossed your lips, and you brought yourself forward to kiss his hot skin. You parted your lips to slowly engulf him, keeping your eyes locked to his. Your tongue slid languidly along his silky flesh, drawing along the thick vein that lay on the underside. Soon you had a set rhythm, bobbing your head in an undulating movement. He moaned deeply, breaking his gaze to tilt his head back. His fingers tangled within your hair, a gentle hold that prompted you to take more of him.

The sounds he made were glorious. Guttural groaning with your name, pet names, wrapped with his pleasure. His palm pressed against the back of your head. As gentle as he was, you sensed an urgency behind it. And so you dove further, swallowing him whole with some effort.

“Oh –” he huffed, his hips shuddering with a small buck. “Shit, darlin’. S-sorry.”

You uttered a soft hum and rubbed his thigh soothingly in response. Pulling your mouth back, you deep throated him again. He swore out loud a second time and gripped a nearby chair. You repeated a third time, raising your hand to fondle his balls through his jeans. His breathing became erratic the longer you pleased him, taking him whole with long swallows and a wiggle of your tongue. He gripped your hair hard, though he broke any direct contact with your head, too lost in his ecstasy to aid your movement.

Though hardly any time passed when he spoke your name. “Sweetheart, ain’t g-gonna last.” He gasped out.

You stopped immediately, pulling your mouth off him with a pop of your lips on the tip, swiping off a small pearl of precum that formed. You sat back quietly on your knees as his breathing regulated, and he was able to straighten up and focus on you again. “God damn, your mouth…ain’t no other like it.” He sighed.

You smiled smugly and stood up, closing the space between you with a swagger. Your arms slung around his neck again while you gave him a sultry look. “Didn’t want to be done yet.”

Arthur caught on immediately, pulling you in closer with an iron grip. He ground against you, his rough jeans on your soft skin felt wonderful. His erection rested between your thighs, just inches of where you wanted it to be. “Didn’t think so.” He growled, setting a shudder through you.

With one swoop he propped you back onto the table. His lips hungrily latched to yours while his hands explored every inch of your bare body. His fingers found your center with easy, relaxed strokes. Your moans silenced in his open mouth. You could only hold on while he pleasured you with his hands, though your patience for all of him was wearing thin. His shirt balled up in your hands, fingernails digging deep into the fabric and against his skin.

You pulled back to gasp out. “Arthur, please!” you panted. “I need to feel you.”

He paused his ministrations, bringing his gaze to you. A sweet smile touched his lips and he moved to grip your hips, shuffling slightly to align himself to you. His hips rocked forward, allowing himself to poke between your folds. He invaded you slowly, inch by inch and spreading your inner walls. You hid a wince, underestimating his thickness. He watched your face intently as if to note any discomfort. Soon he was completely joined with you.

He caressed your cheek, asking a silent question of your comfort. You nodded to him and kissed his palm, then trapped his thumb between your lips to suckle on it. Out of the corner of your eye you could see the faint surprise on his face, and you couldn’t help but giggle.

His hand left your face to take place once again on your hip. He brought himself back and forward in one smooth motion. The discomfort dissolved almost instantly as your body accepted him, soon replaced with waves of pleasure. You moaned loudly, gratefully, hanging on him while he rocked you to the very core.

He murmured a breathless swear, gripping you tightly while he continuously thrust into you. You were enveloped by your own ecstasy, whispering his name into the air. Lost in your pleasure, you almost didn’t feel him lift you from the table. He held you without effort, driving himself even deeper. His grunts and groans vibrated deep in his belly, vibrating against you.

“Sweetheart, ya feel so nice.” He crooned.

You couldn’t form a coherent response. You could only muster up a long moan the more he fucked you, the further he reached and the harder he rocked. He paused briefly to move from the little room out into the main area. You felt him press you against a bookshelf. The books housed in it shuddered and some fell.

“A-Arthur?” you panted in question.

“Scientology books, no one reads ‘em anyway.” He quickly answered.

You couldn’t help but to laugh, a hearty giggle that switched to a squeal once he pounded into you again. The bookcase creaked behind you, tapping against the wall. The small aware part of your brain wanted to be careful, that is until Arthur shifted to snake his hand between you, his fingers once again toying with your clit.

You stifled another squeal, keeping yourself from becoming any louder than you already were in case any passerby somehow heard you, despite the storm still raging outside. Arthur seemed to have other plans, ramming himself so hard that you could only shout his name. His mouth latched to your neck again, not hesitant to mark and abuse your flesh. He growled with a nearly animalistic tone, echoing deeply throughout the shop.

Your second was on a quick ascent, peaking and surging through your center and radiating through your muscles. You cried out his name, your walls clenching around him. He grunted, unleashing a shuddering breath.

“Jesus, gonna finish soon.” He huffed to you, and caught your lips for a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss. He held you again with both hands. His pace hastened and his hips became erratic, unshamefully moaning against your tongue.

Every one of your senses was overwhelmed in the most wonderful ways. Your taste and smell were overwhelmed with his essence, your nerves tingling as you came down from your high. Nails dug into his flesh, spurring him to finish even sooner.

The clear ringing of a bell pierced your otherwise distracted attention. The bell indicating the store’s door opening, followed by faint footsteps. It brought you back to reality quickly. Ripping your mouth from his, you tried to gasp out his name, only to have him nearly slap his hand over your mouth.

“Shh, nearly there sweetheart. Jus’ be quiet.” He grunted quietly.

Part of you was nervous about the idea of being caught by someone, yet another side seemed to enjoy the thrill. You barely managed a nod while he somehow quietly fucked you, keeping you pressed against the bookshelf and undulating rolling his hips. You locked eyes with him, hyperaware of the creak of the floorboards that sounded as if they were growing closer. Your heart raced despite the endless amount of pleasure racking through your body.

It almost seemed as if he wouldn’t finish in time, until he pulled out of you and stifled a low groan. Hot trails of his spend painted your bare stomach. His entire body shuddered and he eased your legs to the floor, planting a quick kiss on your forehead before ushering you to the back room.

Your legs felt like jello, but you managed to scurry back into the room, ducking from view of the shop while Arthur stuffed himself back into his pants and hastily adjusted his appearance before disappearing from your line of sight. You heard him greet the newcomers, his voice cheerful and not a hint of what just happened a moment before.

You swiftly and silently closed the door, cleaned yourself up, and redressed. A few quiet minutes passed by before Arthur opened the door back up. He smiled at you and let out a sigh of relief. “They didn’t catch us,” he announced.

“I thought it was closing time,” you said.

“Close, had ten til,” he rolled his eyes. “Usually how it goes…”

You sighed heavily. “Of course…” You stepped up to him, wrapping your arms around his neck. Despite the fatigue that took hold of your body, you felt energized from the whole ordeal. “You sent them on their way?”

Arthur took a hold of your waist, pulling you flush against his torso. “Once they found what they were lookin’ for, though they did hear us a lil’��I had to tell ‘em I was rearrangin’ some o’ the shelves.”

You snickered. “Gotta say, it was a little bit of a thrill feeling like we were gonna get caught. Like we’re teenagers sneaking around or something.”

Arthur snorted and grinned at you with a sly smirk. “Yeah?”

“Sure, but let’s wait until after closing time. Don’t wanna scare off the customers.” you amended.

He nodded, his face twitching thoughtfully. “Next time, I think my house is more suitable,” he laughed. “More comfortable than a bookcase.”

“Oh I’d hope,” you replied, arching your back and feigning a look of pain. “Pretty sure that threw out my back.”

Arthur’s eyebrows raised in surprise, though quickly realized you were joking and shook his head. That same adorable crooked smile returned to his face. “How ‘bout I massage ya to make it up?”

“How about we do that at my house?” you proposed with a cheeky wink.

#Arthur Morgan #Arthur Morgan x reader #Arthur Morgan x reader smut #modern!Arthur Morgan #modern au

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bookandcranny · 4 years ago

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Beatrice - Chapter Two

“We parted on difficult terms. He had some ideas that… challenged my sense of professional integrity. I told him I was out and, well, men like that don't tend to handle rejection too gracefully.

All I know of him after that point is that he ran into some health problems and was forced to step down from his position. It may seem cruel but I think the world is better off for it. Rappaccini is no more qualified to treat the human body than I am to teach a dance class.”

Students filed into the corridor, too busy rushing to their next destination to take note of the visitor as she slipped into the lecture hall. Branching off from the main room itself was a small office, and inside, a lone professor plugging attendance data and homework grades into a blocky desktop computer. Gianna waited until the last lingering students dispersed before announcing herself with a knock on the doorframe.

The professor looked up. “Well look who it is.” She adjusted her glasses and squinted at the figure before her, taking all of her in from the spots of dribbled varnish on her shoes upward. “And who is it who stands before me? Not Virgil’s little girl.”

“I actually go by Gianna these days. Or Ms Alexander if you’re feeling formal,” she said wryly, though not without affection.

Her face broke out in a grin that deepened the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She unhooked her cane from the arm of her chair and stood. “The last time I saw you, Gianna, you were half-- no, a quarter of your height and missing your front teeth. Time is a funny thing, isn’t it.”

“You’re telling me, Dr Bagnol.”

“Call me Petra. Or Professor if you’re feeling formal.” She winked and patted her arm. “We are colleagues of a kind now, aren’t we? I think you’ve earned the privilege.”

“I don’t know about that. You’re a biochemistry teacher and I fuss around with cotton swabs.”

“Technicalities! Don’t sell yourself short. You know, your father called just recently and when he told me you were going to be working here, I thought he was going to burst a lung the way he wouldn’t stop singing your praises.”

Gianna blushed at that.

“Frankly, I’m surprised you didn’t set your sights higher than our humble university. I heard you were studying in Naples for a while.”

“I guess I was feeling homesick. Then I moved back in with my parents for a while and soon it was the opposite feeling.”

“Sick of home,” she supplied. “I know the feeling. I remember being your age, never wanting to be still for a moment. I was only surprised to hear you weren’t seduced away by foreign shores.”

She shrugged. “It was never about distance, I just needed to find a place where I felt like my life could really begin. And for right now I think that’s here.” Wanting to move the subject away from herself she added, “Dad says hi, by the way. He also says you need to start answering your email more than once a year.”

“Email. A man of literature like your father should give more respect to the written word. You tell him I won’t settle for less than a hand-scribed letter, like they did in the old days. I want to smell that clean valley air he goes on about etched into the paper.”

Gianna laughed. It was reassuring to find some things never changed. Although the silver in her hair had grown more prominent, Dr Bagnol was in many ways just the same as she remembered her. She never knew exactly how she and her father had met, only that it was while they were both still students, and that Petra had been a firecracker from the start, determined to surpass the role that had been imposed on her as a disabled woman in a field that was often unwelcoming to her. Though Gianna couldn’t say she knew her very well personally, the mythos that had been handed down to her had definitely played a part in her decision to become more independent.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Petra said. “Virgil dropped some hints that I should track you down once you started working here but I told him I wouldn’t have that kind of attitude. You’re a grown woman and you don’t need nannying. However,” She picked up a tote from her desk and slung it around her shoulder. “Since you came to me, I’m free to invite you to lunch.”

“Dad wanted you to check up on me?”

“Don’t take it for a lack of faith in you. Parents worry. It’s what they do. I’m sure he just wanted you to have a familiar face to turn to, should you need it. Come to lunch with me, Gianna. We’ll catch up.”

“Oh, that’s okay. You don’t have to--”

“I’m just going to keep asking until you give in. You know that, right?”

She felt herself soften under her insistence. It wasn’t as if she had other plans anyway. “Yeah, alright. That sounds nice.”

Petra led the way to a little sandwich shop not far off campus and, despite Gianna’s protests, insisted on treating her. The weather was kind to them that day so they took their lunch on the patio watching the cars crawl by to the rhythm of the neverending traffic. They sat and ate and spoke of nothing in particular until, without warning, Dr Bagnol’s gaze caught on something in the distance that put a troubled frown on her face.

“What is it?” She started to turn in her seat.

“Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly. Her voice had taken on a sharp quality that startled the young woman, but she caught herself and when she spoke again her voice was even and deliberate. “I thought I saw someone I knew. That’s all.”

Not satisfied with her answer, Gianna glanced over her shoulder. Across the street, standing motionless in front of the crosswalk, was the withered old man she had seen in the garden that first day: Beatrice’s father.

Ever since she had met her that one evening on the fire escape, Gianna had come into the habit of chatting with her almost every day. She couldn’t always guarantee she’d be home from work when Beatrice went out to tend the garden, but on the days she spied her from her window she never hesitated to climb down and visit.

Their chats together weren’t anything especially profound; she got the impression Beatrice really just wanted a friend to keep her company while she worked and Gianna was happy to provide. Often they kept the conversation light and simple. One would ask about the other’s day, or an interesting book they read, or something they heard in the news. Then Beatrice would eventually be summoned by her father or the memory of some other chore she had to attend to inside, and they would part ways.

On the occasions Beatrice wasn’t in such a pleasant mood however, no matter the initial topic the conversation would eventually find its way back to her father. Apparently he was, as Gianna had predicted, in a bad state and sick more often than not, and while Beatrice wasn’t his sole caretaker he trusted her more than the average nurse. The old man had been a doctor before being reduced to the role of patient, and a somewhat renowned one at that. He had homeschooled his daughter and taught her everything he knew. Now she was expected to apply that knowledge by taking on the bulk of responsibility for his care.

He was frail, she said, and the state of his health could be unpredictable, so she was on constant vigil. The only time she really had to herself was when he was asleep or on a rare errand, and she spent that time for the most part in the garden, the place that gave her the greatest sense of peace. It must have been hard on her, Gianna often thought, to be in the prime of her life and chained to his bedside. She understood though. If it had been either of her parents she was sure she would have done the same.

Knowing this also gave her some more sympathy for the old man. It painted him in a more human light, and she berated herself for ever being afraid of him in the first place. But seeing him here now, staring at her again with those scrutinous sunken eyes, resurfaced some of that initial dread. Dr Bagnol seemed to sense it too.

At the moment Beatrice’s father was wearing an unseasonal gray overcoat and carrying an old-fashioned black carpet bag. He lifted his free hand and slowly waved at Gianna, his stony features cracking with the barest attempt at a smile, which did nothing to soften his appearance. In fact, the more she looked at him the more leering the grin appeared to be.

“Don’t acknowledge him, Gianna,” said Dr Bagnol coldly.

“No, no, it’s fine. That’s just my neighbor.” She forced herself to give a friendly wave in return.

Petra reached across the table and grabbed her hand back. “What do you mean he’s your neighbor?”

“His building is next to mine. Why?”

She sighed shakily and gave another glance across the street. The man was beginning to shuffle away now, the retreating shape of him becoming swallowed up by the crowd of fellow pedestrians. Petra released her hand and drew in a tense breath. She steepled her fingers together over the table.

“His name is Giacoma Rappaccini. He was… I knew him, for a time. Not well. He came to me for some insight on a project of his years ago.”

“I heard he was a doctor,” Gianna offered. “You worked together?”

The professor chose her next words carefully. “Officially, he was a 'doctor of holistic and alternative medicines', before he retired that is. But he liked to dabble. Botany, chemistry, anthropology, philosophy. I knew when I met him that he was the sort of man who could spend a hundred years studying and still feel he hadn't learned enough.” She smiled ruefully. “It was a quality we shared, so I agreed to assist him.”

“Doesn't seem like you like the guy much.”

“We parted on difficult terms. He had some ideas that… challenged my sense of professional integrity. I told him I was out and, well, men like that don't tend to handle rejection too gracefully. All I know of him after that point is that he ran into some health problems and was forced to step down from his position. It may seem cruel but I think the world is better off for it. Rappaccini is no more qualified to treat the human body than I am to teach a dance class.

"He's a brilliant intellectual, sure, but he lacks any compassion, any consideration for the value of human life outside of points of data on a chart. He never cared about helping people with his medicine; he only ever cared about pushing his own limits. I think, in the end, he must have pushed himself too far."

Gianna sat and processed that. The man did give her the creeps but in the scant few times she’d witnessed him he’d never come across as malevolent, and Beatrice clearly loved him. Even on the bad days, she only ever spoke well of him, and it was hard to believe a girl like Beatrice could exist without having had a loving upbringing. Whoever her mother was or had been surely was loved by him as well. That was enough evidence for Gianna that he couldn’t be everything Petra claimed him to be.

“You said he’s your neighbor. Has he ever spoken to you? Invited you over?”

She shook her head. “Rumor has it he’s a pretty private person, and I’m not exactly going over to borrow a cup of sugar or anything.”

Gianna opted not to mention her afternoons with his daughter.

She relaxed at that reassurance. “Good. Take my advice and stay far away from Rappaccini. Nothing good ever came from getting too chummy with that man. Now, where were we?”

They changed topics and the conversation gradually returned to safer, more pleasant territory, but Gianna couldn't stop thinking about what she had said, about the old man and about the sweet but melancholy girl who was left alone with him.

-----

Against the professor’s advice, Gianna did continue meeting with Beatrice. It hadn’t even been a question in her mind whether she would. If anything, knowing about Petra’s history with Dr Rappaccini made her all the more curious about the young woman.

She reasoned that she was still technically acting in line with Dr Bagnol’s wishes; she hadn’t so much as glimpsed the shadow of the man since their lunch outing, and the more she spoke with Beatrice the more certain she felt that the daughter was nothing like the boogieman father Petra had described to her, however much of her telling was even accurate.

Beatrice was a sweetheart, bookish and reserved. She smothered laughs behind her hand and averted her eyes when she found herself caught in Gianna’s warm gaze. She was smart, happily listing off the latin genuses of her favorite plants and reciting lessons on phytochemicals she suddenly remembered (she might as well have been speaking latin here too, for as much as Gianna understood her) but at the same time strangely naive.

She had a boundless love for the world, yet Gianna got the impression she’d seen very little of it. Her eyes always went wide with interest when Gianna spoke of the traveling she’d done. Gianna never thought it was all that impressive but she would gladly talk about it, would say just about anything in fact, if it would get her to pay more attention to her than her flowers for a moment.

One time, Gianna playfully inserted a flirtatious Italian phrase into their conversation and was flustered to find Beatrice spoke it near fluently, as well as Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian…

“How many languages do you know?” she asked, stunned.

“Six,” she replied. “Not counting English. I’m thinking about trying Mandarin next, and I can read Arabic but can’t speak it. Honestly, I’m not great with the conversational stuff. I’m just good at memorizing new vocabulary and being able to understand multiple languages gives me a much wider variety of reading material.”

She spoke about her talent with words like it was a card trick she’d picked up in her spare time.

“What do you like to read about?”

That got her excited. When Beatrice got excited she found it harder to play coy or smother her emotions under a layer of cool composure, so of course Gianna tried to get her excited as often as possible.

“Everything. Anything. Father’s library is huge but it’s mostly textbooks and old scientific journals and stuff like that. Which is fine,” she added hurriedly. “I like to read those too, but what I really like to read is… romance novels.”

She confessed it like it was some deep dark secret, grinning and turning berry red beneath the brown of her skin. It occurred to Gianna quite suddenly that she was falling in love with her.

The panic set in right away. She had been happy to have Beatrice as a friend, tamping down her attraction in order to keep spending time with her, but now it was becoming clear that the dam wouldn’t hold forever. She needed to say something, if only to keep from leading her on, if only to keep her from getting the wrong idea or, heaven forbid, the right one.

What if she was straight? Did gay girls read romance too? Did gay girls wear their dresses long and their hair short like her? Gianna had crushed on butches, on femmes, on lipstick, chapstick, snapback, every kind of sapphic on the vast spectrum of preference and presentation, and she still couldn’t get a read on her. Beatrice seemed to be from another world, another time, somehow out of step with the rest of humanity. If she started dropping hints, she couldn’t predict if she would follow her lead or recoil in disgust and never speak to her again.

That night, Gianna had a strange dream. She might have expected she would, given how wound up she’d felt since their last discussion. The ghost of her had followed her up, back through the window of her apartment, and as she tossed and turned in bed that night she was dizzy with it.

In her dream, she found herself walking in a cathedral. As was the way with dreams, her sight was blurry and visions danced and flickered in front of her eyes before vanishing in the same instant. However even as the edges of her surroundings blurred like a bad photograph, she heard the echoing of her footsteps clearly, and felt the largeness of the air around her. There wasn’t another way to describe it, she thought, just a strange sensation of vast emptiness surrounding her, rendering her infinitely smaller by comparison.

She was a child now, and she was at a wedding. Or could it have been a funeral? There were flowers everywhere, but dark ones with big thorns and a smell that clung to the back of her throat and watered her eyes. She reached out to touch one and.

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#writeblr #chapter story #horror romance #gothic #lgbt #rappaccini's daughter #my writing

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suitofvibraniumarmor · 4 years ago

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Headstrong

Part Three

Summary: After moving past the locker room incident, Bucky and Haven continue on with training for an upcoming fight. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC Word Count: 1895 Warnings: Angst; discussion of cancer, amputation, infidelity, drunk driving, car accident and related injuries. A/N: Taglist is open, you can be added to the one for this fic or Buckvember simply by sending an ask. Happy Reading!

Series Masterlist

Right after dinner, Haven put on a touch of makeup, smoothed out her shorts and t-shirt, and slipped into a pair of sneakers before telling Wes she was going out for a little bit.

When she entered the bar, she looked around for Bucky; he raised his right arm to get her attention at a booth toward the back of the place. She waved an acknowledgement, stopping at the counter to order a drink for herself before she joined him.

“Thanks for meeting me,” she started, sliding into the booth. “After this morning … honestly, I wanted to forget everything about it, but Wes said it’s probably best not to ignore it and let tension build up.”

Bucky nodded. “Sure, I can understand that. I hope you know, Haven, it was truly an honest mistake. I wasn’t paying attention, I’ve never been there before. It won’t happen again.”

“Thank you,” she replied, smiling softly. “I know it was a mistake — I was never worried about that. I wasn’t exactly gracious in my reaction, but you caught me off guard. I apologize for that.”

“No apology necessary.”

Her drink arrived. She thanked the waitress and took a few sips before continuing. “And I want to apologize for the way I declined your lunch invitation. We’re going to be working together closely and often, but I thought if I kept things more professional than I did with my last coach … it’s a self-preservation thing, I guess. I let things go too far with him, let it become personal. Too personal, and it almost cost me my career.”

Bucky assured her that he could understand. “Boxing was the most important thing to me, and it was taken away. Turns out, it takes two flesh arms to stay in the ring. I got lost for a while, hid away — I’m sure you heard about that. I’m pushing myself, taking this job and getting back into the business in any form. What I’m trying to say, Haven, is that we don’t have be best friends or anything, but, besides all the work together we’ll be doing, we’ve got some things in common. There’s going to be a personal note to our relationship, but even that doesn’t have to cross professional lines.”

“Thank you,” Haven told him quietly. The tension in her shoulders released and she continued to sip at her drink. She wanted to tell him more, but the words wouldn’t come. Something she was doing was giving her away because a few seconds later, Bucky’s warm fingers covered hers.

“When you’re ready to talk about the rest of it, we can. There’s no rush.”

Haven pulled her hand out from under his. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

They finished off those drinks, and Haven paid the tab for both of them. They bid each other goodbye with a wave in the lot and went their separate ways.

For a couple of weeks, they kept things what Bucky called casually professional. They didn’t see each other outside of the gym again, he was extra careful about which locker room he went into at the end of each session, and he didn’t push her for any personal information. He didn't offer any, either.

Haven was getting stronger and more ready for a fight by the day. They hadn’t been training together long, but Bucky could see she was chomping at the bit to compete. Her punches were coming harder and faster when he called out combos, their sparring sessions were becoming more intense.

“There’s a fight in Los Angeles at the end of the month,” Bucky informed the siblings one afternoon after he and Haven had showered, and Wes was able to join them in the gym. “I think Haven can be ready by then. The other fighter on the card, Helen Cho, is also a newer pro and, from my research, I think she and Haven will be a good match.”

“You really think I’ll be ready?”

Bucky nodded with enthusiasm. “Without a doubt. Honestly, I’d put you in the ring against this girl today, if we had to. You’re a natural boxer and your lighter training while you recovered probably helped you to stay on track. What do you think?”

Haven looked at Wes, who nodded. “All right. I’m in.”

“Great,” Bucky smiled. “We’ll get you on the card and start training harder over the next couple of weeks. I want to be in Los Angeles a few days before the fight to do some training in their weather, get your body adapted to it.”

The next task was to contact the right people, find a flight and a hotel, and work out a temporary training schedule. They talked about nutrition, too; all of them wanted Haven in top fighting condition so her first pro fight could be a win.

While Bucky put the finishing touches on the training schedule, Haven and Wes quietly argued about something by the door. Wes finally won out after a few minutes, it seemed, and left the gym. Haven huffed, her hands tightening into fists at her sides. Bucky wouldn’t have been surprised if she stomped her foot for effect.

“Coach, do you have some time to talk before you leave,” Haven asked, blurting it out as a statement and not a question.

Bucky nodded and motioned for her to join him in the ring. They both sat on the edge of the ring, their legs hanging over. Haven leaned forward on the ropes. Bucky kicked his legs with his hands in his lap, patiently waiting for whatever it was she had to say. When two minutes passed and she hadn’t said anything, Bucky decided maybe it would be easier for her to open up to him if he opened up to her first.

“Right after I won my last title, I couldn’t shake the pain in my left arm,” Bucky began. “I did three more fights and it just got worse every time. Finally let my trainer convince me to get it checked out. Doc did x-rays and found a mass on my humerus.”

Haven frowned. “Cancer?”

“Cancer,” Bucky echoed. “It could have been removed and maybe beat with chemo, but I let it go on too long. I didn't want to hear that whatever was happening would end my career, but it did anyway. They had to take the arm, or it would have taken my life.”

“I’m so sorry, Buck.”

He smiled, both in gratitude for her empathy and because she hadn’t called him Coach. “The upside, I guess, is that being a prize fighter puts you in line for cutting-edge technology like this.” He flexed his prosthetic arm and a light whizzing came from inside the thing. “I can’t fight but I can function. And I’m alive.”

She sniffled, and Bucky could see that her eyes had glazed over. “Do you ever get angry that you can’t compete anymore?”

“Sometimes,” he confessed.

She leaned back on both arms. “I was so angry when I thought my career would be over. Punched a hole in the wall in my bedroom one day because I got so angry.” She looked up to the ceiling, so Bucky kept his eyes on his hands in his lap. “Brock Rumlow was my coach from the very beginning. I was training at this gym in town, straight out of high school, not even sure if I wanted to do this for real, and he was new to coaching. He told me I had potential, so my dad and Wes went all in. They built this gym, and the three of them got me into the amateur league. Brock was a good coach, until he wasn’t. A few years ago, we started dating. It was always there, somewhat, I guess, despite the age difference, but we decided to make a real go of it.”

Bucky pressed his lips into a thin line. He fought Brock Rumlow when they both were amateur fighters and knew about Brock’s reputation, but this wasn’t the time to comment on that — especially when he didn't know how much Haven was aware of.

“Besides coaching me, Brock had a management agency that he owned. It went under, and Brock lost his mind. He was drinking all the time, sleeping around. I was so concentrated on getting my pro bid, I ignored all of it.

“We were coming home from a party one night though, and Brock had been drinking. We were arguing about the cheating — I’d had enough, I guess, and I wasn’t exactly sober. The argument really escalated and Brock lost control of the car.” She drew in a deep breath, staring ahead as though the images were playing in front of her. “The car rolled a few times, crashed against a light pole. How we managed to keep that out of the news, I’ll never know.”

Bucky scooted closer, covering one of her hands with his metal hand; she didn’t even wince or pull away. “How extensive were your injuries?”

“Ironically, I broke my left arm right about where you said your cancer was at. I’ve got a rod and a plate supporting it now. Bruised kidney, shattered spleen.”

“You’re lucky that’s all you made it out with.”

Haven paused, then nodded. “Yeah. I am. Anyway, after that, I told myself that I would keep boxing and my personal life separate. I wouldn’t ever again make the mistake that I made with Rum with anyone else.” She turned to look at him. “This fight, this championship you think I have a shot at — all of that means the world to me. I want to come back strong. I don’t want to be the girl who almost lost her shot because she dated her coach and it came back to bite her in the ass.”

“Hey,” Bucky said, shaking a finger at her, “as your coach, it’s my job not to let anyone bite you in the ass.”

She laughed, and Bucky found that he quite liked the sound. “Well, thanks, I appreciate it. I mean, I think I’ve got a pretty nice ass and bite marks would just ruin the image.”

“I’ve seen it,” Bucky reminded her, “and — not to overstep — but bite marks or not, Haven, you do, in fact, have a nice ass.”

That made her laugh even harder and painted her cheeks with a blush he hadn’t seen since the day of his interview. She swatted at him playfully, but Bucky dodged out of the way, slipping out of the ring with Haven not far behind him.

He waited with her while she shut down the lights in the gym and locked up the building. She walked with him to the front of the house where he was parked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Starting to get chilly at night,” Bucky commented.

“Yeah, it is.”

Bucky fished his keys from his pocket, wanting for some reason to linger in their goodbye. “Running tomorrow morning?”

Haven gave him a thumb’s up. “Bright and early.”

“I’ll see you then. G’night, Haven.”

“Night, Bucky.”

She had skipped the ‘Coach’ bit again; Bucky wondered if she even realized she had done that. He got into his car and pulled out of the driveway, waving goodbye one more time to Haven before turning his eyes to the road.

Headstrong: @disastersoldierbucky @ashleymalfoy @amanda-teaches @star-spangled-man-with-a-plan @tanelle83 @tellmewhatyouwill @capandbuckylvr @pinknerdpanda @ntlmundy @siggy85 @itsallyscorner @m-blasterrr @just-the-hiddles

Buckvember: @peace-love-hobbitness @disastersoldierbucky @connie326 @rebekahdawkins @wonder-cole @shynara51

#marvel #fanfiction #bucky #bucky barnes #buckvember #bucky x ofc #bucky barnes x ofc #buckvember queue

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cyndecreativity · 4 years ago

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Anniversary - Dark Souls 2

Velstadt watched a soft, warm smile claim the face of his liege. A smile that reminded him of the fires tended by the old women far outside Majula or the daughter of Lord Aldia. A smile the General recognized for he had worn one many a time himself. Even before last year’s Nehma’s day when he admitted the warmth to himself and his Lieutenant.

The smile faded as a young King approached his liege to pull his attention from his imminent Queen. Velstadt watched as the Kings exchanged pleasantries for a bit. The conversation seemed inconsequential. He returned to scanning the crowd.

“General Velstadt.”

He started, so focused on his duties that his personal awareness waned. He turned to the Lord Aldia’s daughter. A young creature, red hair covering half her face, a choice that made the girl difficult to read.

He offered her a neutral smile. “Lady Shanalotte. It is good to find you well.”

The girl smiled slightly. “And you, General.” She looked back for a moment, somewhat tense. “I had hoped to ask you about a delicate matter.”

Velstadt groaned inwardly. The delicate matters of teenage girls fell just outside of his abilities. “Why come to me, my lady?”

She looked back again. “My bodyguard, the Lieutenant. My… father, Lord Aldia, said you might know why she is acting so strangely.”

Fear clenched the General’s chest. His focus shifted entirely to the young Lord’s daughter. “Strange how?”

Shanalotte pulled a face – half of a face, anyway – and looked around the party. “I… am unsure of how to describe it. I’ve never encountered anything like it before.”

Velstadt swallowed. They had exchanged regular letters, a joy and relief for him when they came, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Her words made it seem she looked forward to this charade of an event. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, my lady. I will go to her imminently.”

Shanalotte nodded absently as she turned away, her duty seemingly complete. Velstadt smiled at her back until she disappeared between a few dancing bodies. His eyes returned to scanning the room, a brief glance to his King, desperately searching for his Lieutenant.

“General?”

He tensed at the voice, frustrated at the interruption. “Lady Shanalo-“ He froze mid-spin toward the voice.

A tall, muscular woman sporting a long purple braid struggled with a confused smile. “Shanny is over enjoying the punch.”

Velstadt’s brow lifted, his mind coming to understand the vision before him. “Liandra?”

The confusion fell away, leaving only the bright smile. She nodded to him. “You seemed to enjoy my dress so much last time, I called in a favor with my friend. She had a few extra hours to whip me up a little something between all the other noble ladies in the area.” The braid spun out as she tugged the skirt of her dress to spin with her.

He smiled warmly, a familiar smile he caught on his King earlier, as his Lieutenant availed him of her charms, reminded him of the fire in his chest. She glanced down to the low cut V of her dress, a deep emerald green that accentuated her hair and eye colors, that did not attempt to hide her scars, that led to a flowy, gauzy skirt that she tossed about girlishly, playing with it as she beamed at him.

“Never felt so girly in my life.” Embarrassment crept into her voice, a self-deprecation that did not suit her at all.

Realization dawned on him; he had stood there like an idiot, dumbfounded as she flaunted herself in his direction with no discernable reaction from him. His fingers buzzed as he wrapped his fingers around her bare arms. “Liandra, you look beautiful. And I’d say you look more like a Lady.”

She laughed once, a twinkle in her eye as she glanced to the floor. “Thank you. But look at you!” She released her gauzy skirt to gesture at him, her hands coming to rest on his chest. “I think this is only the second time I’ve seen you without your armor.”

He glanced down. “Second? I’m sure it’s been more than that.”

A sly grin spread on her lips. He recognized that grin. But it did not disarm him as it once did. “I’ve seen you in your smallclothes far more often, that’s true.”

A blush spread on his cheeks despite himself. “My lady!” He cleared his throat. “Not in polite company, at the very least.”

She giggled and drew closer to him, forcing his hands onto her back. “Maybe later, in private?”

He stiffened as she drew closer. “It is our first anniversary. I… had hoped to celebrate.”

Hazel eyes lifted to his and he witnessed it again, an ember danced behind her eyes, as he saw in Vendrick’s eyes, as he felt mere moments ago. Even as the embers danced, she dropped her head onto his shoulder. “Vel?”

He glanced around at the guests, searching for a brief glimpse of his liege. His hands slipped up the back of her dress, holding her tastefully. “Yes, my lady.”

She inhaled slowly and slid her arms around his midsection, a warm and provincial hug. “Thanks.”

His brow furrowed as he followed flashed of Vendrick through the crowd. “For what?”

Her hug shifted slightly, still base, but she worked toward tasteful. “For now.” She sighed gently. “For loving me. Even if it is just for now.”

Shanalotte’s words echoed in his mind. “Liandra, is something troubling you?”

The Lieutenant took a slow breath. “Not really. Just… Shanny needs a lot of looking after, you know? She needs a better parent than Vendrick or Aldia are willing to provide. I guess I been thinking a lot about what she needs to know and how she’s growing up so fast and… Will I have to watch her die or go Hollow like everyone else?”

Velstadt took a slow breath and dropped his eyes to his lover’s back. His fingers drifted to play absently with the end of her braid. Even as a warmth spread through his chest, he felt it fade into the void in his left shoulderblade. “Immortality presents unique challenges, does it not.”

Her head rolled against his shoulder. He pulled her tighter against him, propriety be damned. “I’m sure you understand the circumstances of Lady Shanalotte’s birth. Who is to say that she is not Immortal as the rest of us. Or that she can even go Hollow?” His hands rubbed her back in an effort to comfort. “And even if she isn’t immune to death or Hollowing… I’ll be there to hold you through the grief.”

Her hands slipped over his shoulderblades, jerking to avoid the Curse. “I’ve lost so many, Vel. My father, my brothers, my regiments. I was supposed to take care of them, too. And Shanny… I feel like her mother. Or at least her sister. I’m having to raise her, be the one that answers her questions, especially lady questions. I’m basically raising that girl. And… I don’t think I can lose a child.”

Velstadt pressed a kiss to the exposed area of her neck. She chuckled once, an exhalation from her nose, and lifted her head slightly. “You can do anything, Liandra. You are so much stronger than you think. It will hurt, that is without question, but you have the capability to survive it. And you no longer have to survive it alone. Remember that.”

He shifted his head to peak into her hazel eyes. “But, as I said, Lord Aldia and his brother created her to be immune to the Curse, to outlive the cycle. She was designed to usher in a new Age.” Her brow lowered. “Yes, I know, that does not preclude her from being treated as a Person. I merely hope to address your worries as to her mortality versus your own. There is no reason to believe you will have to grieve for her. It is far more likely she will grieve for you.”

Liandra’s eyes widened, brow piqued.

He allowed himself a chuckle. “You had not even considered that possibility, had you?” He drew a hand back to tuck a few stray hairs back into her style. “But I’m sure we will have died in glorious combat long before we succumb to the Curse. Lady Shanny will have to cry over our funeral pyres. If she even can.”

Liandra laughed once and pulled a hand to smack him lightly on the shoulder.

He grinned to his Lieutenant. “Merely a jape, my love.” She relaxed visibly. “Have I addressed your concerns?”

She took a slow breath. “Yeah, I suppose.”

He nodded down to their entwined bodies. “Perhaps we could engage in a more respectable distance, then?”

She sighed heavily and moved to kiss his cheek. A blush spread from her lips against his flesh and he scanned the crowd as a feeble attempt at distraction. She shifted her body away from him, moving to stand by his side, her hand slipped down to thread with his. Though such contact remained too personal for polite company, the loneliness he felt faded, replaced by the warmth of her hand.

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 5 years ago

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𝙼𝚎𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚒𝚍 𝙷𝚊𝚒𝚔𝚢𝚞𝚞 𝙰𝚄

I have decided that I am terrible with headcanons, and don’t know how to write them well in anyway, so for this AU I’m just gonna do a series with little(Did I say little, I mean long as fuck) one shots~

And I’ll be doing my favorite people first and then maybe more if people request them~!

>Admin 𝕋

˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ

･ﾟ 🎀 𝒮𝓊𝓃𝓈𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝓈𝓂𝒾𝓁𝑒𝓈 🎀 ﾟ･

Deep down. So very deep down, in the depths of the ocean, there lives a colony of a species no one on the planet knows about. It is made up of thousands of merpeople that live in harmony with the creatures and plants of the sea. They hunt fish for food, and play around with each other when the weather calls for it. This colony is was free to do what the want, when they want to, but there was one rule they absolutely could not break, no matter what. Never go to the surface.

But, there is always someone who breaks this one rule.

A boy, somewhat to be around the human age of eighteen. He looked like sunshine himself and had a million watt smile. This boy didn’t look like most the merpeople that he lived with; where most of them had darker colors on their tails, he was like a beam of light.

His tail was of a bright orange with a glimmer of red, and his scales shimmered whenever the sunlight it them just right. His hair was orange as well, and so were his eyes, though they were more of a brown-orange. Unlike most of his friends, he was playful and energetic, always laughing and pranking people.

He was smaller than the majority of the merpeople, but that just made him faster at swimming than everybody else. They hated him for it. But, being fast was beneficial for him, because that means that this boy can leave the village of his people without anyone ever noticing, so that he can go up to the surface and bathe in the sunlight.

And today he was doing just that. Hiding behind a large group of seaweed, he watched the guards standing in front of the entrance to his village, the only way to get in and out. The two merman looked bored out of their minds, and one of them was even yawning tiredly. That was when the boy knew this was his chance.

Bending in on himself, he propelled forward off of the bed of seaweed and quickly zipped pass the two, laughing the whole time. By the time they both noticed, he was feet away from them. “Hinata?! Seriously, again?! Your dad said you needed to stop doing this!” one yells, wanting to catch up, but ultimately knew that he wouldn’t be able to keep up with him. The other guard put his hand on his shoulder and shook his head, exasperated by Hinata’s actions.

“Sorry Ukai, but that would stop me from having a good time!” Hinata quipped, motioning his tail in a sparkly wave before swimming away. The guard Ukai sighed, drooping his head.

“I am so going to get fired for this aren’t I?” he asked to his colleague, turning to him. His friend smiled and nodded.

“Probably.”

♥*♡∞:｡.｡　　｡.｡:∞♡*♥

It would’ve taken awhile for Hinata to get to the surface, since his home was far down in the sea, but fortunately his tail was strong and fast, so it would only take him thirty to fourty-five great strokes of his tail to get to the top.

With one last whip, he broke water and jumped high in the sky, feeling the heat of the sun on his face. Hinata dropped back to the water, but kept his upper half floating on the surface. This was what Hinata lived for; the sunrays, the heat, the feel of it on his skin that was constantly shadowed by the dark depths of the ocean.

He knew he was different than his family, needing to feel the sun, or he’ll get sick.

Hinata never told them he needed it to live though, not wanting them to worry about him. He loved them with all his heart, but they wouldn’t understand him even if he tried to persuade them. All of his family members mean well...They were just a little too overprotective of him for no apparent reason.

Closing his eyes, he huffed out a breath, relaxing under the ray and loving the feel of the waves hitting against his back and loving how calm it was today.

Though he thought he would be alone, he heard something to his right. Opening his eyes slowly, looking in the distance only to see an unidentifiable object floating towards him. Sinking down and submerging his tail, he swam to the strange object. It was circular in shape, with what seemed like flowers painted on it. It was also floating atop the ocean while holding something inside it.

Upon further inspection it looked like a....human, a human. Orange eyes widening, Hinata dropped further into the water so that only half his face was showing. He watched with suspicion as the object drew closer to him, until it was close enough to touch. Hesitate, he put his webbed hand on the thing, Hinata stopped it from going any further and examined it’s contents. It was indeed a human, like he thought, but it seemed to be sleeping.

Curiosity getting the best of him, the orange haired merman grabbed ahold of the mysterious object and with a little help his tail, he gently pulled himself up to see the face of the human.

They was pretty, even to someone like Hinata, who thinks that people are gross looking with their legs and their walking, but this one. This was one really was pretty. Their hair a beautiful (h/c), and the way it glistened in the sun made it seem like there were stars in it. Looking toward their face, he saw their eyes were closed, their eyelashes long. Hinata poked their cheek and watched as they stirred, their eyes blinking open slowly, panning over to him.

With wide eyes she screamed at him, “AAAHH! What the hell?! Wait, where am I, who are you!? What is happening?!” looking around, she saw that she was nowhere near the shore. She must’ve drifted off and actually drifted off. Trying to calm to her beating heart, she peered over to the boy and asked again, “who are you?”

Hinata stared at her unblinkingly, not understanding what she said, though he did understand the ‘you’ word. Since coming up to the surface he picked up on the human language, but not enough to form sentences. Instead, he poked her cheek and watched her flinch at his cold finger. “Do you not speak English?” she asked. Hinata knew ‘English’ and ‘not,’ so he assumed she was asking if he spoke her tongue, and with a shake of his head, she sighed, mumbling to herself about how he knew that much at least.

“What am I gonna do? I don’t even know where I am...” she trailed on,”Lost at sea with a weird kid you doesn’t speak, and I don’t even know who he is!” she complained. Looking back, she crossed her arms and stared at Hinata, who gazed back. Slowly, she questioned, “What is your name?”

Hinata knew that one and he opened his mouth, but what came out was a high pitched, piercing screech, hurting the girl’s ears. “Stop! Stop!” she yelled to him to which did, looking at her quizzically. Rubbing her ears, she shook her head, bewildered. “What the heck was that? That wasn’t human, what--” she cut herself off when she looked over the floaty and saw a tail. The tail connected to the boy, and Oh my god, it’s a freaking mermaid, this can’t be real.

Reaching out into the water, she gently stroked his tail with Hinata watching intently. It really is real, not fake at all, she thought to herself. No wonder he can’t understand me.

Taking her hand out of the water, she glanced to the boy again, and saw that he was still staring at her, and then to her legs then back. She could tell he wanted to touch her legs, so she extended one out for him, curious as to what he would do. The same as she did, Hinata raised his hand and touched her leg, his eyes filled with wonder. She couldn’t understand how she wasn’t freaking out more, but he seemed to be a good person, merman, fish; whatever he was. His fingers felt soft and gentle as he stroked, as if he was petting her.

Taking her leg back, she moved around in raft to fully face Hinata. They stared at each other for a few moments, then (y/n) huffed out a breath and hit her head against the raft. “How am I supposed to get back to land now?” she whispered to herself, not knowing that Hinata heard her.

Hinata knew that too. She wanted to get back to where she lived. Hinata has helped many humans get back to shore, though they weren’t awake like this one was. Deciding he would help her, he took a hold of the floating thing and start to swim to the toward the shore.

(y/n) looked up and then to Hinata seeing he was taking her somewhere, perhaps to land? She watched as he continued, until soon enough there was land in front of her. Smiling widely, the girl started to spout a stream of words that Hinata couldn’t understand, but he knew she was grateful for what he was doing for her, and he couldn’t help but smile back at her.

♥*♡∞:｡.｡　　｡.｡:∞♡*♥

Coming up to a cove, Hinata steered to raft to the rocks where the sea was the most calm so the girl wouldn’t get in even more trouble. She got off the raft and took it with her into the cove and then turned to Hinata, the smiled still plastered to her face. But, he couldn’t understand her; it was frustrating to say the least.

He took her by the cheeks and pulled her down until their lips were touching. The girl gasped, her eyes widening, but she didn’t push away, finding that it felt strangely good. Hinata pushed his tongue in and licked around her mouth, then suddenly pulled away from her and grinned. “There we go!” he exclaimed.

(y/n) yelped and fell on her butt, “I can understand you!” Hinata nodded and chuckled.

“I shared some of my power with you, so we can talk to each other.” he explained. She instantly shut her mouth and covered her lips, her cheeks red.

“Wait, couldn’t you have done that when we first met?” she said. Hinata blinked at her then put his hand to his chin.

“Huh, I could’ve done that. I guess I didn’t think of that until now.” he laughed out, leaning against the entrance of the cove. (y/n) facepalmed and shook her head.

“You aren’t very bright for a mermaid.”

“Merman.”

“Right. Merman. Well, thank you, uh, what’s your name?” she wondered. Hinata beamed up at her.

“My name is Hinata! I’m not supposed to tell just anybody that so you better keep it a secret!” he announced. She giggled at him.

“I don’t think anyone would believe even if I tried. Thank you, Hinata, for taking me back to the shore.” she said gratefully and then sat down. “Is there any way I can repay you for your kindness?”

Hinata thought for a bit, then he chuckled, lifting his body out of the water, showing off his orange tail to her, it’s shimmer bright and distracting. Hinata took her hands in his and held them close to his chest, and leaned into her personal bubble, almost like he was going to kiss her again. Instead, he said in a cheerful voice,

“Teach me about the world above the sea!”

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu au #mermaid au #mermaid haikyuu #hinata x reader #hinata shoyo #shoyo hinata #oneshot #reader insert #haikyuu imagine #hinata shoyo x reader

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