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mistyresolve · 2 years ago

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| His Foresight - Simon “Ghost” Riley X Medic!Reader (Part 1)

Word Count - 3k

Summary - Doc (y/n) is a medic at a base camp when they meet Lt. Simon “Ghost” Riley, when they meet for a second time it is because he’s been injured. During the two weeks it takes him to fully recover they develop an unspoken friendship. Simon’s next assignment is to escort a convoy across enemy lines, which would have been a walk in the park if they weren’t a part of that convoy. Even worse is when his worries and fears become real.

Tags/Warnings - Blood and Injury, Depictions of war and violence, Explicit Language, Character Death, Trauma, Opioids (they’re prescribed but i just want to add this in case), Slow Burn, Eventual Smut

A/N - im working on part 2 rn but it may take a little time for me to finish and upload but im in the middle of finals and have been busy with studying so please forgive me

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The first time Ghost came through your tent he was bringing in his comrade, Soap, for medical attention. It was a gunshot to the arm but nothing detrimental. A clean shot and the bullet had gone right through.

Ghost had remained quiet and observant but answered any questions you had about the wound.

“When did this happen?”

“Half an hour ago. Give or take.”

“Any meds?”

“Shot of adrenalin.”

You had sewen up the gunshot and nursed Soap back to health. However, Mr.MacTavish had been a difficult patient and after a week you discharged him early just to get him out of your hair. On multiple occasions you caught him trying to escape, claiming he was fine and ready for combat at least once a day. Most special ops were deluded like that, most thought they were superhumans. In a way, they kind of were with the speed at which they recovered. You would never tell them that. It would just go to their head.

Your tent has since been upgraded to a deployable field hospital. With a total of 50 beds and 15 staff members.

The second time Ghost made his way your way was on a stretcher. It was a deep and disturbing stab wound to his side, and if it were even an inch deeper it would have punctured his lung. It took you the whole two weeks he needed for recovery to get the full story out of him. Apparently, it was a series of unfortunate events which resulted in a hand-to-hand scrabble. He’d dominated his opponent and came out victorious but not without injury. He’d been all on his own for hours before finally making it to Exfil. In those few hours, he lost a lot of blood and was without any sort of analgesic until he was in the helicopter on his way here. Whatever the field medic had given him for the pain was enough to completely incapacitate the beast of a man. All the same, it was doing its job and controlling the pain. Your team had to do an emergency surgery at the base camp because he wasn’t stable enough for a medivac to a major hospital.

The man was in a foul mood when he awoke the next day. He wasn’t rude and uncivilized, but he made it clear the last place he wanted to be was bedbound in a field hospital. When it was mentioned he was going to be sent back home for recovery, he downright refused.

Strangely enough, it was also the first time you saw his entire face. When he first came in you were so amped on adrenalin and stressed that you didn’t register that his mask had been removed. It was immediately established that no other personnel apart from the small 3-man team already working on him would be allowed to interact with him to ensure his identity remained confidential. It was more for their safety than his if everyone was being candid. Even in his charts any identifiers were redacted and replaced with “John Doe”.

Two days post-op he insisted he be relocated to his barracks because he “could handle his own”. You compromised and told him you’d allow it under the one condition that he lets you come and check on him at least once a day. He did, but he didn’t exactly have a choice either because you would have shown up anyway.

That was where you were right now.

You knocked and waited for a response before letting yourself in, your supplies and kit in hand. It was just after noon when you arrived. You scanned his room. It was clean, almost barren. His blinds were half open, and the window cracked to let in the cool, fresh air. The clothes he was wearing when he came wounded were still in the biohazard bag we gave him when he left. The tray of food on the desk beside his bed was left untouched, and judging by the food variety it was from breakfast.

Upon hearing your arrival Ghost had forced himself into a sitting position. His face flushed with the change of position. His dark eyes were rimmed red from a lack of sleep, and his facial hair was growing. He was wearing a pair of grey sweatpants with the insignia of his old company and a plain black shirt. The shirt was loose and thin, but it did nothing to hide the muscle hiding underneath.

You rolled your eyes, blew out a breath, tossed your bag onto the bed beside him and pulled out the rolling chair at his desk to sit in front of him.

“You look like shit,” you knocked his elbow in a silent demand to lift his arm.

He grimaced but did it without complaint, “Ya, well I feel like shit.”

You lifted his shirt to get a look at the bandage underneath. There wasn’t any shadowing or blood seeping through so you gave him a quick nod before dropping the shirt, “Have you taken anything?”

He jerked his chin to the little orange bottle on his desk, “One of those.”

You picked it up to read the label, Oxycodone 10 mg OD.

“Nice, but you should be taking it with food,” you tilted your head in the direction of the untouched food. He merely shrugged, his eyes weary. His eyes turned the same golden brown of a whiskey glass in the sunlight.

You discreetly took his respiratory rate before moving on, “Any side effects? Nausea? Headache? Upset stomach?”

“Nope,” he said in exasperation. He leaned back onto his elbows, his long body stretching out across the width of the bed with his legs still hung over the side in preparation for you to change his dressings.

You gave him an unimpressed look, before pointing to the garbage bin he had at his bedside. There wasn’t anything in it but it was placed here in preparation, “If you aren’t going to be compliant I’m going to bring you back to the infirmary.”

“It came and went already. I’m fine,” he moved to lift his shirt, hinting at you to hurry up get the dressing change done and leave.

You scooted the chair closer, preparing your materials and supplies on his bedside table. When you removed the bandage and revealed the stitches you clicked your tongue, he hadn’t pulled any of them but the fact that it was still bleeding made it apparent he’d been more active than he should have been.

“How’s it lookin’ down there, Doc?” He rolled, his gaze following your movements with predatory grace. You glowered at the nickname.

You hummed, “Mhm.” and started cleansing the wound with saline before donning gloves and cleaning it more thoroughly. He hissed at the contact and you looked up, he had pulled his bottom lip between his teeth. His body tensed, and his muscles taut. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t find him attractive. Alluring even. Especially when he was in this position, and had that look on his face.

“Are you going to survive?” You asked pulling back slightly.

“Just cold s’all.”

He made it through the rest of the dressing change without so much as a flinch. In fact, he might have fallen asleep near the end for a second. He didn’t open his eyes until you finished securing the gauze with the last piece of tape. His lids were heavy and his mouth was pulled down into a slight frown.

“You going to eat lunch?” you tugged off your gloves and threw them into the bin beside you.

He nodded sluggishly and laid back on the bed, folding his hands over his abdomen. Maybe the Oxycodone was making him drowsy, but he looked like he desperately needed rest.

“Did you sleep well last night?” You rolled back on the chair, giving him space. He shook his head. You quickly finished cleaning up any remaining supplies or trash before filling out his chart, “Maybe if you didn’t keep reopening your wound you’d be healing faster and sleep better.”

He replied with a quiet, almost boyish chuckle, “I’ve been behaving, don’t worry.”

“You’ve been nothing but extra paperwork,” you retort, tapping his leg with your foot. You stood with a snap of your notebook. “What do you want to drink with your lunch?”

“Just water,” his eyes remained closed and you made your way for the door, bringing his cold breakfast with you.

You returned with a new tray of food, this time you picked foods that would be easy on the stomach. The damn fool must have smelt it as you walked down the hall with it because before you could knock he was opening the door and stepping aside to let you in.

“Such a gentleman,” you tapped his shoulder as you passed.

He seemed to perk up at the brief contact, “As always.”

You placed his tray on the table before picking up your bag to get ready to leave for the day, “Any last request?” When you turned to face him your cheeks heated at the way he regarded you. His face softened, melting into something akin to respect. He was so expressive and you didn’t think he was aware. Perhaps it was because he had grown accustomed to the protection of his mask. You almost didn’t wait for his answer before taking your leave, making an excuse that you needed to report back. You did, but it wasn’t anything urgent, you just needed to get out of his room. Away from him. If only to remember how to breathe.

The process for the following two weeks was the same, only each day you stayed a little longer. You talked a little more. Despite his reputation, he was… normal. He was a little aloof and standoffish at times, and horribly, criminally unfunny, but he grew on you. You were slightly upset and maybe even a little scared you’d never see him again when you officially discharged him. Even worse, you were scared to see him again. Only, every time he returned from a mission he would come to pay you a visit. You might have considered calling him a friend. Might have considered wanting more from him.

Soap would sometimes occupy Simon, having made a connection with you of his own. A different type of connection, but a wholesome one. Soap had made a jest about just recruiting you as the 141’s personal field medic instead of bothering you at work every other week. Simon had shot the idea down like water on a fire, and the topic was never brought up again. He simply stated, “Never letting that happen.”

He had his reservations about you entering an active warzone, let alone going on assignments with a squad like the 141. He’s never outright said it but he developed a soft spot for you. Over the months he had unintentionally carved a hole in his chest just for you; a place where he could protect and watch over you. His fondness for you only made it all the harder when he received the 141’s next assignment. It was a regular convoy escort but he felt sick when he read your name on the list. He even went so far as to double-check the itinerary with Captain Price. Went so far as to try and get you removed from the assignment. When you learnt of what he was doing you cornered him and chewed his head off. You understood his trepidations and his actions, but both of you knew he was out of line when he tried getting you booted from the mission.

The convoy, mainly consisting of medical personnel, equipment, and supplies, would be moving right through enemy lines to get from your current base to a new one a few towns over. It would be dangerous, you weren’t naive, but you were your own person. You were simmering, but you couldn’t help the twinge of regret for yelling at him.

In the days leading up to the mission Simon had grown distant, but remained watchful of you. He kept quiet, but you could see it in the shadow of his eyes, and in the muscles between his shoulders that he had a lot to say.

There was a total of 5 medical personnel that were being transported, yourself included. You would be a vehicle with Butters, who was elected as the head medic for the new base, and your driver was going to be none other than Captain Price.

As everyone was preparing to leave and loading up the last supplies, you caught Price and Simon in a quiet conversation, you couldn’t hear their exchange but you could tell it was heated. Price rolled back on his feet, fixing Simon with a tight-lipped smile before shaking his head. With that Simon backed away from him, pointed a finger at him saying one last thing before he turned and stalked towards the vehicle he would be in, obviously unsatisfied with Prices’ response.

Butters sidled up next to you, his pack slung over his arm and offering you yours in his other hand, “There has been a slight change of plans,” he sighed, “Our voyage is now split into two days, we'll be staying overnight in a town in between. Our route hasn’t been completely cleared yet.”

You turned your attention to him, your brows furrowing, “So they want us to have a sleepover behind enemy lines?” You almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it.

Butters shrugged, seemingly unbothered by the turn of events. Butters always seemed to keep his thoughts and feelings close to his chest, but it was clear very little invoked thoughts and emotions out of him. He enlisted when he was 18 years old; he was 32 now with a wife, 3 kids, and another on the way. There was a high probability he would be asking for leave in the next couple of months so he could be there for his next child's birth. It sucked because he was the only other medic you were close with. You’d miss him.

Butters and you jumped into the back seats of one car with Price, you’d be in the middle of the convoy, Ghost, Soap, and another medic in the other would take the rear, and Gaz and Roach would be in another vehicle at the front. There was also a total of five transport trucks. The convoy would be a giant target as we passed through, which is why the 141 was tasked with our protection.

Price explained that the ride would be slow-moving and briefed the two of you on what to expect. He instructed you both to stay alert and that there was a chance of running into a hostile.

The first couple hours were incredibly boring, but Butters alleviated some of it by tasking you with going over the manifestation of everything you guys were hauling with you. You also made conversation with Price about his last leave, he had returned home and “sat on the patio and smoked cigars” for two weeks.

The sound was louder than anything you ever experienced in your life. You didn’t even have time to scream before the force of the detonation knocked you unconscious.

It couldn’t have been longer than a couple of minutes when you finally regained consciousness. The vehicle was now completely upside down, the wheels still spinning as they faced the sky. The seatbelt was the only thing keeping you from landing face-first into shattered glass and rubble.

In front of you, Price was already pulling himself out the window and onto the street. He looked back into the cab and for you and said something.

Nothing was processing right. Not his words. Not your thoughts. Not the sight before you. Everything was foggy, as if it was a dream.

Price reached back for you, bracing you with an arm before releasing your seatbelt. Your knees cracked as they hit the roof, the glass ripping through your uniform. The pain didn’t even register. Price hauled you out with him before going back in for Butters.

Only he didn’t.

Instead, he returned with his gun. Before he could stop you, you crawled back in for Butters to get him yourself.

You froze. There was no saving him. There was almost nothing left.

He was on the same side the anti-vehicle mine went off.

You slowly backed out, shaking your head not believing your own eyes.

Price was crouched beside you, his back to the vehicle, his eyes revealed no emotion.

You looked back down the road you had just come down and the transport truck that was tailing you had stopped before entering the intersection. Beside them was the truck that Ghost and Soap were in. Ghost was jumping out, his gun drawn. Soap slid from the passenger seat to the driver's side. The medic they were escorting jumped out the back and ran for the transport truck.

It was then you noticed that Price was shooting at something down the intersection. You could see the flash as the bullets left the barrel and smell the gunpowder, but you couldn’t hear it. You couldn’t hear anything.

You brushed your fingers to your ear and when you looked at them they came away red. Blood.

The sheer force of the blast ruptured your eardrums.

You watched as Ghost applied suppressing fire and sidestepped in time with the truck as Soap rolled it into the intersection.

Price looked over his shoulder at you, his mouth moving. You could see it in his eyes the moment he connected the dots and caught that you couldn’t hear he turned to Ghost. Who jerked his head towards you and met your gaze. His eyes were wide, panicked. He ditched the cover of the truck and sprinted over while Price took over the covering fire. He slid into you, his gloved finger coming up to grab the sides of your face. He was gentle but urgent as he turned your head from side to side to inspect the damage.

You caught your reflection in one of the side mirrors, and couldn't recognize the person staring back at you. Their expression cataonic. Blood leaked out their ears, down their neck, and blood dripped out of their nose. Their teeth had gone through their bottom lip from the impact of the blast.

A low ringing began as sounds started to come back to you. Then it turned into an agonizing peal like you had stuck your head in a fire alarm. Ghost didn’t give you a chance to cover your ears because he was already pulling you into his chest, pressing one ear into his chest, and covering the other with his free hand. Using his remaining hand he raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

Soap pulled their truck up next to yours, making a barricade with them. He slid out, being careful to keep his head down and ready to join the fight.

Ghost started walking back towards the buildings behind, using his body to shield you from stray bullets. He smelt of gunpowder, sweat, and dust. He smelt familiar. His hard body against yours felt familiar. You felt the reverberation of his voice in his chest as he yelled something. You stumbled back with him as he moved, but he was practically carrying you at this point so you wouldn’t fall. His gun dangled at his hip. Soap was at the door to the nearest building, kicking the door open, the lock shattering.

The ringing in your ears was still present but you make out their muffled yelling as the rest of them filed in. Ghost sat you down at the far wall and behind rows of shelving units. Price and Soap guarded the entrance.

Price started talking into his radio, “Gaz! We got enemy fire coming from southwest of the fire hall. We’re down one and another has been wounded. We are fresh out of wheels, they planted fucking mines,” he yelled into his radio over the sound of oncoming and outgoing gunshots.

“We’re on our way,” Gaz’s voice replied through the Ghost radio that was attached to his shoulder.

Ghost then knelt back down in front of you and swore. His hands shook as he reached for a rectangular pack at his hip, a little red insignia printed on the front. A med-pack. He dumped its contents onto the floor, rummaging through it until he found what he was looking for.

He lifted your leg and started wrapping your thigh, but not before you saw what he was swearing at. There was a two-inch gash in your leg exposing raw flesh and muscle underneath.

“That’s not good,” you breathed. It felt like your throat was torn to shreds; as if you had inhaled the explosion itself.

“You’re fine,” he didn’t look up as he wrapped. It was tight enough that it hurt and you could feel your heartbeat crashing against the pressure. Despite that, the bandage wasn’t going to last.

You choked a laugh, “You might want to get out your, ‘I told you so’s’ while you still can,” You meant for it to come off as nonchalant but your voice quivered.

“You’re fine,” he repeated.

“I left a kit in the back seat,” You sucked in a sharp breath when he pulled the gauze one last time to tie a knot, “I don’t know if it survived though.”

Because it was right next to Butters before the mine tore through the side SUV he was on.

Before I could say another word, Ghost was moving towards the door. Requested for an update, then asked for covering fire before exiting the door. He returned moments later with the kit. When he brought it over he made sure to place it behind him so you couldn’t see the condition of it. You imagined it to be macabre.

As the adrenalin pumping through your body drained it began to tremble, cold rushing into your bones. Blood was already starting to dot the surface of the bandage.

“Powder,” You instructed Ghost. He moved fast, cutting the bandage away with the blade he pulled from its sheath at his thigh, and tearing open the packaging. It was a quick-clotting powder used to stop the bleeding.

You were no doubt in shock because you couldn’t feel the pain anymore. He rewrapped your leg; somehow, it was even tighter than before. You heard Gaz give an update over the radio, asking for more details and you could hear Price relaying the plan.

Your breaths became shallow and sedated, your strength ebbing away. You fought the urge to close your eyes in fear of never opening them again.

Ghost tapped a hand on your cheek, “Don’t be falling asleep on me, now Doc.”

You were barely able to ground out a “Sir, yes, sir,” before your chin hit the front of your chest and succumbed to the darkness pulling at you.

Part 2

Masterlist ❤︎

#simon ghost riley #simon riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley fanfiction #ghost mw2 #ghost x reader #MW2 #mw2 x reader #cod ghost #cod x reader #cod fanfic #soap mctavish #captain price #MistyGhosties

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dunmeshi-darlings · 8 months ago

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Hello

Can I request a laios x reader, with the reader as laios ex-fiance, since their arrangements was broken off when he ran away without explanation reader have been sad and mad about it. But then someday laios mother told reader about laios become a new king after defeating a demon, reader decided to go there, because reader want to know why he ran away

I'm sorry if this is difficult to understand, English is not my first language, thank youuu

Oh you got no need to apologize its all ok. i understand what you meant. id be happy to do this. thank you so much for sending an imagine in.

Even though its been many years since laios cut off the arrangement and disappeared you still found yourself getting upset at him. He just cancelled it all and ran off to not be heard from again.

Of course over the years that anger and frustration faded greatly but every so often your mind would wander and you would feel your cheeks heat up at the thought of being abandoned like that. but over all you figure it was probably for the best anyway, you dont mind your life and that touden was always...strange to say the least even if he was a looker.

One day though as you are going about your day when laios mother approaches you, asking if she can come in. You agree and let her inside, despite your feelings about laios you had no bad blood with her. you get the both of you some tea as she starts speaking. "Did you hear about the rise of the golden kingdom?" she asks, you nod and say of course you had. it had been the talk of the entire world ever since it rose up out of the sea, seemingly out of nowhere one day. Apparently some group of adventurers defeated the mad mage and seemed like those rumors about becoming the new leader of it was true. You say casually as you take a sip of some tea. "yeah well apparently Laios was the one that defeated the mage and rules the golden kingdom now." she says so casually causing you to spit all the tea you were drinking out, shouting in confusion you ask her if you heard that right? she nods and explains what she had been told from letters from falin, you knew that falin had stayed in touch with there parents but laios had apparently cut them off a decade ago much to your surprise.

You decide to pay a visit, you feel like you almost HAVE to. you need to know why he just left you like that, why he did what he did all those years ago. It took you a bit to get to the new golden kingdom, laios definitely had travelled a far distance since your last time you saw him. By the time you reach the kingdom a full month has passed, you ask the guards to message the king telling him that "Y/N from his arranged marriage wanted to see him." of course you werent sure he would even respond, i mean why would he. he didnt want to marry you obviously so why should he care about seeing you, especially now that he is a KING of all things. However you were surprised when the guard came back and agreed to take you to the king.

When you entered you saw him sitting on a throne. To his left you see a young elf woman with twin braids beside him, This must have been his royal advisor maybe? you werent sure. However you did notice his sister beside her chatting with her...except she was different, she wasnt a tall man anymore..atleast not fully. you noticed a plume of fluffy white feathers poking out of the opening on her chest and down her arms. It was clear she had been changed by some form of magic.

As you walk closer laios asks if everyone can leave the room for a moment, he wants to talk privately with you as they agree and leave leaving only you and him. "So Y/N, how have things been?" He asks awkwardly, its clear he is uncomftorable and doesnt know what to say. You had thought of the things you would say to him for years now, over and over you had gone over in your head what you were going to say to the man that just up and left you like that. you would be furious and scream, sob and cry, all the words you planned to say just dissapear and all you can say is a single word. "why.."

He sighs as he rubs his neck and begins to explain, He tells you how he had began to despise his parents for how they let falin be treated, and how instead of supporting her and her talents they sent her away to the magic school on a different continent. He had grown to hate his parents (more so his father but he had no fond feelings towards his mother either) even though falin kept in contact with them. He also explained how he never felt comfortable around people, that he had always felt more comfortable around monsters...and that in truth he hated people. Plus he admits he wasnt the richest person in the world so would have been able to give you a proper dowry. All of these together made him feel like he wouldnt have been able to give you the life you deserved, he didnt want you to be stuck with a man that hated everyone around him and hated where he lived and wanted to leave and get as far away as he could. He figured that wasnt fair to you, and he didnt know how to properly convey this and let you down easily so...he ran.

The weight of his words hit you harder than you expected...all this time you thought he just didnt like you or hated you ever, or he didnt care about you at all. All this time you hated him for what he did and that you swore you would get answers one day...but these werent the answers you were expected. It would have been so easy to continue to be mad at him, if he said he just didnt like you or hated you that would have been fine..you expected it at this point, but no...he did this because he didnt want to subject you to a miserable life with him..he knew you would be miserable with him if he had stayed there and he didnt want to put you through that...god this was so much harder than you were expecting. "You know....now that im king of the golden kingdom money isnt an issue..and ive made sure the kingdom is a kind place that treats everyone with kindness." you see him slump down a bit. "and since monsters come nowhere near the kingdom...if you want, we can get to know each other better..and see how we feel about each other then?" he says softly, damn that man he was a looker. you sigh, almost relieved its turned out that way. saying you would like that

#dungeon meshi #dungeon meshi x reader #laios #laios touden #laios x reader

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placeinthemiddleofnowhere · 1 year ago

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What were you thinking about when that buzzer sounded?

Pairing: König x Reader

Summary: You’re determined to find out why everyone thinks König is so scary, afterall he’s just some guy that’s taller than most people right? He’s probably harmless! Well, he’s a little scary, but you still like him anyway.

(No use of y/n or mention of gender/race)

AN: The latest chapter is finally here, and it is the penultimate chapter of the series. I hope to update this soon so you aren't left hanging too long for the finale, so fear not, I will put every effort into getting it written! Love you guys, and appreciate all the asks and comments you send me 🥰

Part 9 of A Rocky Start - Full Masterlist Here

-☠️-

For a moment, while you swam between waking and sleeping, everything was dark. The floor felt like it was shifting from underneath you. Piercing noise filled your ears and rattled throughout your entire body. Barely a few seconds later your retinas were scorched by sizzling orange light.

This isn’t right.

What’s happening?

You felt yourself frown despite the crackling ache that hammered into your skull, the wrinkle in your brow was more like a molehill. Even in the brilliant glow of the light around you, you couldn’t make anything out. You were only seeing hazy shapes and thinking thoughts that were barely more coherent. The piercing noise turned into a low buzz, though the room still felt like it was on an unsteady foundation.

What happened?

Where were the others?

You strained a moment, breathing heavily and stretching your body out. Were you lying down? You looked downward at your crumpled form and groaned. You’d confirmed it alright, as if the cold damp ground weren’t proof enough. It was difficult to tell how long you’d been laying like that, however if the prickling in your arms and legs were anything to go by it had clearly been a while.

You were struggling to try and work out what had happened. It felt like you were fighting for the last plank of wood in a shipwreck, your head feeling like it had been knocked and rolling in the foaming waves for some time before you’d come to. Though finally through the spray of racing thoughts you were able to grasp onto something more, a dull thudding sound that rhythmically beat behind you. A groan of anguish followed not long after, and then something that sounded like a string of choked curses.

“Looks like your friend has awakened, Captain. Shall we give you a break…?”

You frowned deeper, but you didn’t get long to work out who those words belonged to before you were seized. Suddenly Your body was being hoisted up by a pair of rough hands and you were all but thrown down in a deeply uncomfortable metal chair. As if that wasn’t enough to contend with, the unexpected movement sent your stomach and head roiling into green sickness. As you slowly started to snap out of it, you came to realise you were being bound to the chair that you’d been slammed into. A couple of pairs of hands were grabbing you and fastening you tightly to the cold metal, leaving you all bound up like a christmas turkey.

“You don’t look so good, Sergeant,” the voice from before taunted, sounding from somewhere above you. “But that makes sense, ah? My men already gave you quite the head wound back at the market. I wonder…are you even hearing me right now? Has your head been cracked open too many times now?”

You choked down the lump that had sat heavy in your throat and jerked your head up, facing the dark shape that had cast such an oppressive shadow over your eyes. Whoever it was, was standing in front of the light. You had no hope of seeing them, trying as you were.

“Fu-...fuck you,” you muttered, blinking your eyes up at the silhouette of your tormentor.

The man chuckled, a raspy sound that came from deep within his chest.

“You’re not lost to us yet, I see.”

You gritted your teeth and continued to desperately try and focus your eyes on the man. Something within you was burning, there was bile trying to force itself upwards the longer you held your head up, though intuition told you it wouldn’t be much of a shame if you spat up on whoever it was that had captured you.

“Who-oo are you?” you demanded, throat too dry to carry the threat you wanted.

“Oh, Sergeant, your condition might be worse than we’d feared. Don’t you recognise me?”

You shook your head up at the shadow man, growing tired of your confused state. Even tied to a chair you still couldn’t seem to piece together how you got there. The last thing you could recall was telling Soap and Ghost to run, warning them of an oncoming party of men that were approaching the back of the truck.

The trucks.

That’s right, you’d stolen yourselves away on the trucks - you’d all been waiting to see where they’d set up camp. Except…. They hadn’t stopped at any kind of base. The trucks had stopped so that they could get some respite after having to quickly pack up and leave their old haunt - it had been Soap that had said something about that. Soap had translated something they’d said.

Then König had said something through the comms…what was it again? He’d said-

“Am I not keeping your attention, Sergeant? How rude.”

If the disembodied voice wasn’t enough to tear you out of your thoughts, the slap that knocked your teeth together was.

Fresh pain blossomed over your cheek and you groaned out. It only served to make you even more acutely aware of the sorry state your body was in. Everything was hurting and nothing felt right. You’d been in some scrapes in your life, but for the second time you were sure this was going to be the end of you. Slowly but surely, whoever it was that held you captive was going to rip you to shreds.

At the very least, you decided you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of finding it pleasurable. You weren’t going to beg for him.

“Maybe you need a familiar face to wake you up properly.”

You glared up at the man above you, ready to spew vitriol that could outspark a petrol fire, but you didn’t get the chance. The wind was knocked from you when the chair was kicked on its side and you’d gone tumbling with it. Back on the grimy floor again, you thought, maybe if I’m lucky I’ll fall in a puddle and drown.

Self pity had stopped you from immediately looking ahead. Though the moment you managed to concentrate on anything other than the searing pain that was winding itself around your wrists, ankles and back, you were unpleasantly surprised to see a thunderous face over on the other side of the room. One that looked much like you felt.

“Price?” you croaked, locking gazes with his wide eyed stare.

He couldn’t answer you back. Price’s mouth was gagged with a thick piece of cloth, something like an old tshirt scrap. The fabric was wrapped tightly around his face and it was trapping all the expletives he’d normally be hurling from exploding into the tiny room. You strained as you looked at him, what was that that was dripping from his face? Had he been bleeding that much? It looked too thin to be blood alone.

You’d never seen the Captain like this before, he was in a sorry state. His face was sporting a rainbow of different bruises, and, from below that, swollen skin that had bubbled up into painful lumps. His armour and his weapons had been stripped from him, his jacket and hat as well, his hair was limply slicked back on top of his head. His shirt had been partially torn and that too was wet, it looked like they’d used a knife on him - you could see the bloody evidence in the form of a thick cut that striped roughly through his pecks.

“Price,” you said again, not quite sure what else to say. “Captain!”

You’d never seen him look so vehemently possessed by rage. He hadn’t even been this angry when he’d called you out for the whole König debacle. No, now that he was faced with you lying on the ground and lost for words he was the most furious you’d seen him in his life. If it weren’t for the gag, you’d have been convinced that he’d have spit fire.

“Speaking more confidently, Sergeant. This is good. Maybe now we can begin, yes?”

“Begin what?” you spat. “You think you can learn anything from me?”

The man chuckled, the sound emanating as if from a wide rocky cavern. The sound filled the room uncomfortably, squashing you, causing you to wince just before you were picked up by the back of the chair and set right upright again.

It was when you finally widened your eyes, that you were more clearly able to see the man in front of you. The sight of him made your heart drop. It was John Rousseau himself. His determined gaze was set on you as if he’d ripped himself free out of the photographs on your briefing documents and sprung to life in all his terrible glory. Though unlike the photographs, - taken when he’d been captured earlier on in his life- he was smiling now. He held something of a more deadly glint in his eyes.

You were left speechless then. What were you to say to the man you’d been chasing all that time? Now that he was standing in front of you in the flesh, tight black clothes showcasing his rippling arms and powerful legs. You weren’t going to last long if he was going to keep kicking and hitting you, you knew that then.

“This isn’t an interrogation, soldier - I don’t need to learn anything from you. We’re in the middle of making a very special video, a little gift for your superiors. They will get the benefit of seeing that you are alive - mostly. And they will know we are serious in our demands. In return they will give us back my brothers. If not then…you will not remain alive for much longer, will you?”

Rousseau’s widening smile reminded you of a venomous snake slithering out a dark crevice for the hunt. If that weren’t enough to unnerve you, the sound of something metal being scraped across the ground and the following rush of sloshing water lapping against its edges was enough to do the trick. All at once you realised exactly what Rousseau intended to do.

Price roared from the otherside of the room, in the corner of your vision, struggling futilely against his impossible bindings. Though you didn’t focus much on him. A shadow crossed the room and you painfully twisted your head to meet the barbarian that made it. You watched as another familiar face, the man from the market that had killed his associate, stood silently above you. He held a cheap old digital camera aloft in his hands and smiled slyly, giving you your last glimpse of cruelty before a cloth was forced over your face and the world went dark once more.

They were going to do to you exactly what they had done to Price. Finally you knew why he was so wet. Your body shook.. You could hardly breathe. Though you had to. Your training demanded it. You’d been waterboarded before, though now it wasn’t going to be a test. This was the real deal, there was no end goal in sight. You could hear the bucket being lifted off the ground, it was almost too late to remedy your panic.

No, you had to steel yourself.

Deep breath in, soldier.

And Hold it.

Hold it.

-☠️-

Ghost and Soap stood over the group in front of them with expressions so solemn that they could've dropped birds from the sky. Soap kept wincing as he’d shift his weight and forget his bad leg, and Ghost couldn’t stop staring off to the side, clearly replaying what had happened, turning it over and over in his mind until his eyes glazed almost grey. It was clear to see that neither one could reconcile with what had just gone down.

After a moment of empty silence, considering what to say, both the men eventually recounted what had happened to the others, facing Laswell and the rest of the men with their blank eyes and flat voices as they tried to stay professional. No matter how hard they tried though, their minds still lingered on the soldier they’d left behind, ceaselessly wondering what had happened to you.

Around halfway through your impromptu truck ride, with you on top while the two men hid inside, Gaz had reported that his group had reached exfil and regrouped with the rest of the team. Most of the remaining soldiers had made it there, along with a very rattled Laswell who’d explained to everyone that the safe house had been compromised and Price had been taken by surprise, caught in a trap laid out by the first rogue truck that had left the compound. Ghost, Soap and you of course had heard this through Gaz’s comms, one of the last lines to remain working - the other’s had faced multiple blasts and close combat bouts.

From that moment, now that they had contact and were aware of where Rousseau was headed, everyone was concentrating on regrouping with your team. They were tracking your signal and speeding along in the last of the working vehicles, hoping and praying they could reach the trucks and bring everyone back.

The men’s eyes flicked between each other as they let the story unfold, remembering what it was like standing in the almost pitch black of the cargo container while you lay above them. The tension that had yet to leave their bodies, only had them straining their tired muscles more.

Soap told everyone about you hissing over the line from above, telling him and Ghost about the trucks slowing down. You’d asked for orders and Soap had looked warily at Ghost then, watching as the man loomed over him and quietly searched for an answer. He’d curtly told you to lay low and stay quiet, tell them if anyone got out. It wasn’t long before you reported just that, and Soap had plastered himself to the doorway, straining to try and hear what they could be saying out there.

His French was rusty, rustier than his Spanish, but he was able to make out parts of a conversation that had broken out. They were talking about how glad they were that they could finally stop, one said something about needing to piss, the other laughed with him and said it was a wonder he’d managed to hold it in through the blasts. Another man had approached them and shouted over, saying that they needed to check the cargo first and ensure it wasn’t damaged or he’d make sure they’d never piss right again.

It was at that point, that it was evident that you all had to move. Though none of you could think of a way to make it past the small army undetected, especially if Ghost and Soap were required to burst from the creaking metal doors. Therefore, they’d decided to go with the distraction that you’d come up with, not a great one, but one that gave them a semblance of a shot to get away nonetheless.

König had intervened, he’d cut into the conversation with a new level of fury and demanded that you rethink your plan. ‘You can’t do this! Don’t you dare go ahead with this suicide mission!’ He thought it was sheer stupidity to throw a frag out into the middle of the group and just hope that they were too distracted by the fallout to track the direction it had come from. He’d all but ordered you to wait for the team to reach you all, but you’d argued back, saying that they couldn’t count on not being discovered until then. They were too far away.

You’d told him you loved him over the line, seemingly uncaring what the rest of the team thought of it now, and said that he had to let you work. Next thing they knew, you were informing Ghost and Soap that you were sending the frag out. It was difficult to hear König’s frenzied screams after that, they were just higher notes floating on top of the discordant din that was soon to follow.

When you’d pulled the pin all hell had broken loose.

Ghost and Soap clattered from out of the truck and you scrambled down from the top, rejoining the two men before sprinting like hell into the thin treeline. The wood’s were no longer as lush in the place they’d stopped, probably by design so they would know if they were being approached. Unfortunately it meant they were able to track your group running away as well. You could hear the distant sound of their cries start to get closer again.

Gunfire had broken out, peppering the air with loud shots. What seemed like hundreds of soldiers but was probably a group of around twenty, chased you all down and shot at your feet. They were demanding that you all stop, shouting in English and French and possibly other languages too.

For a wondrous minute it had seemed like you all might get away with your lives, but just as you hit a thicker portion of the woods, a single grenade was tossed in your direction and all of you were sent flying.

Ghost took over the report then. Soap’s voice cut out as he remembered the sickening churn of his stomach just before he’d blacked out. He was struggling to keep aloft. Only the thought of you out there somewhere kept him standing, the thought of your determined eyes as you fought like hell for the two men that had been intent on icing you out. All because they thought you were going to break up the team from your fooling around… And what did all that matter now?

Ghost slyly knocked his elbow into Soap, getting him to stay out of his mangled thoughts before he continued. He told everyone how Soap had been knocked out when he’d hit the ground, but you and he were still awake.

Soap had managed to rouse again, but he was hardly up to walking after his dodgy landing - never mind running unassisted on that bad right leg. Ghost wasn’t feeling a hundred percent either after being slammed into a thick tree trunk, but he was able to carry on. He’d tried to insist that you should help with Soap and you could all run together, but you’d shaken your head and denied him any assistance. You’d told him to take Soap and send the others forward, he had to direct them to you, or they’d never find you all in time you’d said. You could defend yourself from there, you’d assured them you could do it.

Ghost had tried to reason with you, pleaded with you not to be a fucking idiot, but you weren’t hearing any of it. You pulled out your gun, like a knight drawing their sword for the last stand, and told him simply that he could insult you after the job was done and you’d recovered Price. You’d reminded him that when you were all home safe, there would be a meeting to discuss your forbidden relationship, and he could get all of his famous remarks on record as well. Ghost’s face soured at the memory, but from there everyone was all caught up on what had happened.

He and Soap had reached the others and then they had pushed forward. Only, they didn’t find you by the rocks, or in the place where the trucks had been. That spot was empty save for a few men that had stayed behind to try and fight them off and prevent anyone from following. It was then that they knew they’d lost you and Price and the mission was over. They had failed completely.

König had heard enough. He’d been listening to their little tale with a curled lip that quickly turned to a full sneer and with every passing second that he spent revising over the details of their quest of incompetence, he felt his body temperature rise by another degree. He was so angry, he was shaking.

He stormed forward, slicing through the team of men that stood between him and Ghost with precision, ramming the Lieutenant down before he could think to do anything. It wasn’t possible to stop him, he’d borne down on Ghost with an animal force and soon he was swiping and clawing at him like he might take out his throat. The screams that were bursting out of him were nothing short of feral.

“It should have been you! You should’ve stayed behind, you rat fucking bastard. You lead your team on a suicide mission and yet here you stand telling us all about how we failed. You failed, you failed Ghost! You failed Sneak! Do you hear me? I will tear you apart! I will rip the skin from your bones and burn what’s left of you and then I will piss on your ashes, you fucking swine!”

“König!”

Horangi tried to be his voice of reason, but König was too far gone. He was incensed.

As if it weren’t bad enough that the love of his life had professed their love while they actively ensured their own destruction, he now had to listen to the Lieutenant prattle on about what had happened as if you hadn’t been pressured into being the sacrificial lamb. It was too much to bear. His head was ringing with your love confession and with the thoughts of what those men could be doing to you even as he tried to tear Ghost apart. The images were inspiring him to further cruelty, echoes of past sins and future vows.

König continued to pummel Ghost, trying to target his weak spots with prejudice, but he didn’t get to keep the upper hand for much longer. The Lieutenant wasn’t going to allow himself to be turned into mince. He wasn’t any good to Price or you if he let himself face König’s punishment.

Ghost grabbed out at König’s wildly swinging fists and caught one, using the moment of struggle to punch him in the ribs and swing round so that he was on top of the Austrian. König howled and flailed like a banshee, but he couldn’t do much of anything once he was on his back. Gaz and Horangi had joined Ghost, they assisted in pinning König down and now his shouts were reduced to heavy breaths as he stilled against the pressure. He was like an alligator with its mouth taped shut, the moment that the binding came off he was determined to strike again, bite through his prey in one clean motion.

Soap stood watching in horror from above the little skirmish. His face was paling to an ill shade. It was then that it finally occurred to him that maybe you hadn’t thrown away your position on a stupid fling. You weren’t turning your back on your family, you had just found someone else worth letting in. Why else would König sound as if he was ready to face death itself for you? You both had to be far closer than anyone could have comprehended.

Soap was left blinking silently as he gazed up at Ghost and then to Gaz, wondering, had they realised the same thing?

“König you need to calm down,” Ghost advised, voice straining as he fought through the pounding headache that blossomed in the base of his skull.

“Ghost…” König trailed, thinking on his words for a moment. “Unless Sneak is returned safely, I will never be calm again. In fact, I will make it my personal mission to break you. I will take you to some god awful hole somewhere and make sure that you live long enough through your torture to forget what daylight looks like. Only once you’re empty, will I bury the shell of you alive!”

Ghost’s left eye twitched, the lid took a moment to settle. König could hardly have known that he’d strike a nerve, but as he saw Ghost’s expression behind his mask he let his mouth curve into a smug grin behind his hood. Even if he couldn’t hit him physically he could settle for mental warfare.

Ghost struggled not to take his revenge. There was a brief moment of inner turmoil where he wanted to reach out and smash every tooth out of the mercenary’s head, but there was a voice in his head that demanded he didn’t. They needed every resource they had to retrieve their missing Sergeant and Captain. As much as he hated König, he couldn't deprive the team of an effective member, and loathe as he was to admit it he knew you’d need someone to come home to.

Ghost rose up off of König then, silently glaring down at him before he looked over at Laswell. His golden lashes caught the light, and then so did his eyes, showcasing the dangerous glint that settled just underneath the surface.

“Well, until we find Sneak and Price, why don’t you just keep yourself under control. Yeah?” He said gruffly, stepping away from König before he got second thoughts about beating him to a pulp.

König was allowed back up again, only when the others were sure he wouldn’t try and tackle Ghost. He hated having all their eyes on him. He’d never felt so afraid in all his life and now he was being put under a microscope by people that, as much as he tried not to for your benefit, he despised.

Horangi was his saving grace. His old friend turned to the others and shooed them off with a jerk of his head before he turned back and gave König a sympathetic tilt of his head. He knew better than to try and offer any words of comfort or to try and stick around. König was beyond calming, it was obvious to see from his flexing hands and narrowed eyes.

König’s mind was a storm of emotions. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so much, so deeply. He was furious with you, upset that you would throw your life away just to try and save the stupid teammates that had gotten you into such a predicament in the first place. His heart tore thinking of you trying to salvage your relationship with your brothers while they let you fall to the enemy.

Most of all though König felt terribly frightened. For once he had no control over the situation. He couldn’t smash his hulking body at the problem, nor threaten his way to the outcome he wanted. He just had to wait and hope that you would be alive somewhere and that you were ok. He could feel his breaths shorten at the thought of you being hurt by those awful men. Men just like him - men with no qualms about ignoring any sense of empathy in order to get a job done.

Was the world punishing him?

For some reason König couldn’t help but feel that whatever happened to you was his fault. Was it the divine justice? After all the people he’d torn through, all the faces he’d beat unrecognisably in the name of getting the job done, was one of his most treasured people going to be lost to him in exchange for his misdeeds? You were the one that had called him out on it all, how could you be the one to pay?

König felt dizzy, as if the world were spinning double time and the sky was waving and distorting in his vision. The light blue and purple hues were starting to fade with the closing light, and soon enough the sky would fall completely to black. Were you being kept somewhere dark? Did they have you bound and screaming?

He thought he was going to be sick.

All of a sudden he was locked in a glass cage, everyone around him was muffled and his body was constricted. He couldn’t breathe. He was cursing internally, gasping for air all the while.

Why couldn’t you have fucking taken me instead?

“König.”

König’s eyes flicked up, he jerked when he felt a hand on his shoulder. Suddenly he realised he’d been standing with his arms wrapped tightly around his body like a safety harness and let his hands drop to his sides. He peered down at the man connected to that stupidly brave hand and then locked eyes with Soap.He sneered, throwing the appendage away from himself before he gave into the compulsion to break it.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” König hissed.

“Laswell’s ordered us to move, mate,” Soap answered softly.

König looked off to the spot that everyone had been gathered in before, and realised that they’d all begun dispersing into the transports. Everyone was heading along to the beaten up trucks and piling in like cartoon clowns. Ghost was at the head of them all, König didn’t miss him, keeping a wary eye on Soap and König as he directed everyone else.

König laughed darkly to himself and started walking. Ghost didn’t need to worry yet. There was still time to save you, they were all safe for the time being. While you remained alive.

“Kind of you not to leave me behind,” König said, his voice coming out harshly through his gritted teeth. “Better you stay away though. You’ll convince me give into my temptations if you give me too much opportunity, Sergeant.”

König expected Soap to turn tail and run ahead of him then, but was surprised and annoyed when he noticed him keeping pace as they walked to the trucks together. It made König wonder if Soap wanted him to break again.

“You and Sneak have been seeing each other off base, haven't you?”

König stopped in his tracks again and locked eyes with Soap, looking for whatever evil had to be lurking in the abyss of blue. However if there was any ill intent, he couldn’t see it in his body language. Soap looked at him in earnest.

“Why would you bring that up?”

Soap ran a hand through his frayed mohawk and looked away for a second, nervously meeting König’s eyes again once he gathered his courage.

“Well you’ve been…” Soap paused for a moment, searching for the right word, “datin’, right?”

“This is hardly the time for your morbid fascination with our relationship,” König sneered, finally walking ahead again.

“It’s not morbid fascination.”

“Then what?”

“This team has been Sneak’s life for a long time now - we’re a family. When I thought they’d gone behind our backs and fooled around, was going to break up the team for the sake of some fun I was angry…but I know that’s not what it was now. So I just wanted to say I'm sorry.”

“Sorry? You’re sorry are you? I would never ‘fool around’ with Sneak,” König growled. “You all wanted to see our relationship with each other as a stupid crush because none of you think of me as a person. I’m not some dog that they picked up off the side of the road, I’m a man the same as you. I love Sneak with everything that I have. And now you’re claiming to love them too after the way you acted? Sorry doesn’t cut it. You and Ghost, fuck, the whole 141 failed Sneak. Don’t come to me with your pathetic apologies, Sergeant.”

König didn’t give Soap any time to answer his verbal lashing, not that he had much of anything to say to that. How could he stand and defend himself when he’d been the cause of your guilt and the reason that you’d felt pushed to send him and Ghost to their safety while you fell? He was motionless as König picked a truck to settle into, picking a relatively empty section of the bed that only grew more sparse as the other men inside scrambled to keep their distance.

Soap stared a minute longer, but he was forced to move when he realised he was one of the last to load up. His feet marched automatically, but his head never left the conversation. He’d think about it until the moment he knew you were safe again. He had to be able to get his chance to apologise properly, he had to prove that he loved you no matter what, even if Price wouldn’t let you stay on the team. He could live without working with you, but he couldn’t go on knowing he’d been the cause of your death.

König watched Soap trudge toward Ghost and closed his eyes, willing his breaths to remain steady and for his tears to stay safely welled behind his lids. He couldn’t let himself cry. It felt too much like admitting that you were dead already. Then where would that leave him?

Instead, he put his hand into his trouser pocket and clasped at the little wooden bird that had stayed safely hidden inside. His thumb traced along the smooth stretch of the swallow’s back and towards its beak, gently landing on the tip. He silently hoped that wherever you were, you’d feel the gentle kiss of his spirit and know that you would be safe again. However improbable that was - it was the only thing that could give him any thought of comfort.

-☠️-

It’d been a long and sweaty ride over to the next town, for the start of the journey anyway. Toward the end, night was falling and the temperatures cooled dramatically, suddenly leaving the soldiers glad for all of the heavy layers they were wearing. It made some of them look at König, Horangi and Ghost jealousy, for once, wishing that they too had full face coverage in the chill of the dark winds.

Ghost’s eyes had remained far away for the duration of the ride. No matter what Soap or Gaz said, they couldn’t get him to focus much on them. He was completely distant. It was as if his consciousness was held hostage from within his body, like his mind was replaying the days events over for him and holding him to his mistakes. Though when Soap had been brave enough to try to confirm his suspicions of Ghost’s guilt he was greeted with a ‘fuck off’ for his efforts.

Gaz put his hand on Soap’s shoulder, then gave him a gentle look. It had Soap swallowing thickly at the lump in his throat and soon enough he was looking away, doing everything not to turn into a screaming wreck in the wake of his dark eyes. Gaz looked away too.

“We’ll get them back,” Gaz mumbled, patting Soap’s shoulder again before he removed his hand. “At least for now, we know that they have each other.”

“Aye, and how do we know that?” Soap said bitterly.

“What do you mean?”

“We don’t know that they’re together. They could be holding them separately or could have them blindfolded and gagged. Hell, they could’ve killed one of them and only taken one back with them - there’s a lot more risk having two soldiers. We have no idea if Price and Sneak are-”

“Shut the fuck up, Soap,” Ghost growled.

Gaz and Soap’s eyes flashed over to Ghost in an instant. His tone was hard, and his slouched posture straightened back and returned all of his missing height.

“We’ll get em’ back,” he vowed. “Or we die trying.”

Ghost had no way of knowing quite how daunting that promise would be in light of things to come. Though when they finally reached a safe place to stop and reconnect with command back home, the severity of the situation landed upon all of them like a ton of bricks.

Laswell and Ghost managed to wrangle an empty room and took a private call with General Morrison. It was then, in the dark of that claustrophobic room, that they learned about the ransom video that had been sent over during their journey to their makeshift base - a tiny village with a few homesteads and farm land.

The general didn’t seem to want to give much detail about the video, he was shifty with them both. It was only from some not so polite prodding from Ghost, that the General revealed that they weren’t permitted to have any dealings with the terrorist group.

“They’re going to splash this all over the fuckin’ press general. This is going to be a disaster, and you’re saying that our response to this is to just do nothing?” Ghost spat.

“It’s all about optics, Lieutenant, you know that. The Captain and Sergeant will be a great loss, but we can’t be seen to be releasing criminals like stray dogs after said dogs were convicted of kidnapping civilians and blowing up markets. We can’t make the deal.”

“Then fuck the deal!” Ghost said, glaring into the camera lens with hot fury.

Laswell baulked, quickly realising that Ghost was going to get himself into trouble if she didn’t step in. She put a hand on his arm and looked pointedly toward the laptop, hoping to appeal to any shred of decency that might be lingering in the greying general’s arsenal.

“I think Ghost is trying to suggest that we put a team together and we track them down. We get our people back and take down that bastard Rousseau once and for all, sir.”

The harsh lines in the general’s old leathery face settled and his stare was neutral once again. Laswell untensed too. Only Ghost was left seething, he wasn’t going to be calmed at a time like this. The only thing that would put him at ease was knowing that you and Price were going to be returned safely. That wasn’t going to be anytime soon.

“John Price is a good man,” the general said after a long pause. “I can grant you a small team, but it can’t be on record. If this blows up, you’re on your own.”

“And if it goes well it was all a great effort organised by the cunning officers who sat bravely by their desks.” Ghost muttered.

Laswell kicked out at Ghost from under the table and was grateful that the general didn’t seem to catch his snide remark from through the terrible connection. She quickly smiled toward the laptop and nodded curtly. She could work with a few men, and she was pretty sure she knew of where to get a few more.

“Thank you, General Morrison. We’re grateful for the aid. I’ll have my people try to find out what we can and once we gather enough intelligence we’ll move in on the target.”

“Good luck, Laswell,” The general said warmly, face going cold when he stared to her left. “Ghost.”

From there the screen went black. Ghost and Laswell were left discussing plans, Laswell messaging her contacts as they talked, both agreeing that they would find a way to reach out to Farah while they formed a potential team. It was all a matter of muscle memory. They sparingly used your names while they were talking. It helped to keep emotion out of it.

However, they didn’t get to remain like that for long.

They had to find the video so that Laswell could send it to her intelligence sources and as soon as they were exposed to those first few painstaking seconds, it was all so real again. This wasn’t one of their usual jobs, this was a rescue effort to save two of their own. Two of their family members, that as they were speaking, were being hurt in all manner of horrible ways just to emphasise the sincerity of Rousseau’s threats. He was so morbidly calm as he stood making his demands from in front of the horrible abuses just inches behind him.

When it came time to tell the others what was going on, Ghost and Laswell were practically as flat toned as the general. It was taking a lot for them to go through it all, to explain that at that present moment they had to sit tight and wait for transport to take them away so that they could go back to base and refresh and resupply while you and Price passed the hours in unknown amounts of agony.

No matter how matter of fact they tried to keep things, it didn’t stop König from speaking up and forcing everyone into reality. He waited until everyone had been dismissed to reappear in front of Ghost. His steps were heavy and slow, his strides purposeful as he got into the Lieutenant’s face once again.

“I want to see the video.”

“No.”

Ghost’s answer was simple, no nonsense. There was no room for discussion. He folded his arms and straightened his back, ensuring that he was able to steady himself against the bigger man’s potential attacks. Luckily for him he could see Soap and Gaz nearby should he try to start a scrap again. His personal animal control unit.

“What do you mean no?” König grit out.

“It’s not a good idea” Ghost reaffirmed. “You don’t need to see that.”

“I have to see it. I have to know what they’ve done! Show me the Video!”

“It won’t help, König,” Laswell said, appearing at Ghost’s side. “We watched it to the end and it was…it’s something that will haunt me for a long time. It was bad, but Sneak and Price don’t seem to have any permanent damage. Take that as a comfort and refrain from watching that awful thing.”

König clutched harder at the little bird inside his pocket, holding it so tightly that the beak felt like it was going to pierce a hole through him. He was so hot. Even despite the dreadful cold of the night, he felt like he was going to overheat and his limbs were going to vibrate out of their sockets.

“No permanent damage,” König repeated. “What have they done then?”

Ghost and Laswell exchanged a brief glance. The air was thick between them, like they were looking through water.

“We need to know,” Soap said, coming to stand by König. “When we find them, we’ll need to know how bad they are.”

“Soap, don’t do this,” Ghost sighed.

“He’s right,” Gaz said, taking his stand between the two parties. “Tell us what happened.”

“Or show us,” König said darkly.

Ghost glared through the dark hollows of his skull mask, it really did feel like he was the grim reaper. He was the harbinger of doom. It chilled him to have to think about the horrible sounds and the terrible things he’d seen. He even wished he had just looked away at some point, but he couldn’t, he had to force himself to face it. It was his fault they were suffering, he’d thought to himself.

“They were waterboarding them,” Ghost revealed, “beating them too.”

Everyone was quiet, taking in the information.

“That’s not all, is it?” König asked.

“They stripped them down with knives and left em’ tied up and naked on the chairs while Rousseau spoke. They posted it up on social media, the video is everywhere despite the efforts to get it deleted. They weren’t doing very well. I think Sneak had taken in a lot of water, they were covered in sick.”

König felt his palm slicken and looked down, tilting his head when he noticed his trouser pocket turn from beige to bright scarlet red. One of the swallow's wings had broken off under the stress of his grip and lodged itself splintered side down into his hand. Now he stood motionless, looking down at the mess with empty fascination. He didn’t even feel the sting of it. He couldn’t get past the sight of his blood, the same colour as the tint in his vision.

He slowly withdrew his hand and inspected the tender flesh, gently pulling the wing from his cut and depositing it back into his ruined trousers with the rest of the broken bird. From there his plasma continued to drip, a flow of bright red washing over his hands like a tiny trickling fountain.

“You said, your people are on this Laswell, yes?” König asked, not looking up to see the disconcerted stares of the 141.

“...yes,” Kate confirmed, hesitating to answer. “They’re trying to see if they can find a source or get any clues from the room they’re in.”

She was scared that this was going to König’s final tipping point. The room was too quiet, there was too much electric energy charging through the air. It felt too much like the calm before an earthquake.

“Ok,” König replied, his voice sounding far away. “I should go deal with this…I will clean this up. I will fix it. It will all get fixed”

With that he disappeared like a spectre, trailing out of the room and out into the night as if he might completely disperse into nothing. It was like watching a plastic bag float away in the wind, no one could be sure of where he was off to.

“Should one of us…y’know?” Gaz asked, directing his head toward the open doorway.

“Maybe go find Horangi and see what he says,” Ghost shrugged. “He knows König best.”

“And the rest of us?” Soap asked, feeling his own fists clench at the thought of the video.

“We rest up and wait until we can give those cunts the pincushion treatment,” Ghost said, looking down to Soap’s leg. “You think you’ll be able to heal?”

“I feel better already knowing we’ll take those fuckers down,” Soap said, a ghost of a smile playing on his face. “Payback’s gonna be a bitch.”

-☠️-

“Bloody hell.”

Your eyes snapped open and you looked over to Price, watching as he slowly rose up against the wall and struggled to right himself. Your gaze flashed off to the side as soon as the ratty old blanket that’d been draped over him started to slip. Not that you hadn’t seen what was underneath it already, at that point you were just trying to do him a courtesy.

“Good to know you haven’t left us,” you said weakly.

From out of the corner of your eye you noticed him rush to fix his blanket, the whoosh of material sweeping up his body was like music to your ears. Knowing that he had the wherewithal to cover himself seemed like a good sign. You offered him the best smile that you could, more of a grimace really, and scanned over his face. It didn’t look much better than from when he’d been sleeping. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut and his mouth was still flecked with dried bits of blood and god knows what else that had stuck to his beard.

If there was anything to be grateful for in that moment it was the fact that they’d dropped the buckets of water over you after they’d finished recording that awful video. It’d at least cleared the putrid sick from crusting into your battered bodies. Some relief. Not that it helped with the pain that pulsed through you like a lightning strike.

“Where the fuck are we?” Price groaned, spitting out a clump of phlegm to his side.

You winced.

“No idea. I only woke up maybe a few minutes ago,” you sighed. “I remember them dragging us down a hallway and then being outside…I dunno, things are spotty for me.”

Price nodded and cast his sore eyes around the cell, looking from the dark metal walls to the crackling painted floors, to the little lamp in the corner that cast long shadows from your bodies and to the few feet between you, and finally he looked to the solid door on both your right sides. He groaned then and shifted his position, almost fumbling and crashing forward as he forgot to account for the bindings on his wrists and ankles.

“Fuck me!”

You remained quiet, glueing your eyes to the floor. There was something that felt so inherently disrespectful about looking at Price when he was like that. You’d never caught him in such a moment of vulnerability before. It was like seeing your father cry.

“I think we’re on some kind of transport, a truck maybe,” you said quietly. “They probably have us on the move so that they can’t be infiltrated again.”

Price grunted, barely acknowledging you as he struggled piteously from his side of the tiny cabin.

You tested your own restraints again, peering down at the cable ties that were painfully stretching around your wrists from over the scratchy blanket. The fabric was old and stained, a faint smell of fish emanated from it that you preferred not to think too much about. Nothing about the situation gave you any hope- it seemed awfully like you were the characters in the movie that wouldn’t make it. Maybe they’d give you both a few medals for your sacrifices.

You shivered at the thought.

“Have you tried to break the ties?” Price asked, pointedly breaking you out of your stupor.

“I attempted it when I woke up, but I don’t have much strength,” you said. “My ribs feel fucked. They’ve bruised them, if they haven’t broken them all the way. Hurts to move.”

“Bloody mediaeval cunts!” Price cursed. “They must’ve been planning this for months now. We fucked ourselves listening to anything those animals had to say to us.”

“I guess we underestimated how far Rousseau was willing to go to get his brother back. All those other men too.”

“Didn’t count on a snake like him to get sentimental.”

“Well, he seems plenty sentimental. Got us back something bad for that little redecoration job we forced him to make,” you noted, seething as you tried to laugh off your predicament.

“Some upgrade he got,” Price said sourly, “Wonder how the fuck he managed to set all this up. By all rights he should barely have any men left after what we’ve done.”

“I dunno, he had a whole lot of pick up trucks and a couple transports on the move. Probably had about one hundred men still loyal to him in just that group. No telling who else he has scattered around.”

“There were other trucks? I only saw two. The one that I was chasing and the one that came up behind us. How many did you see? Matter of fact, how’d you even end up here in the first place, Sneaky?”

You held your breath - though not for long. Your lungs still dully ached from doing that too much already. At the sound of the whooshing air leaving your body and bouncing off of the metal walls, Price immediately narrowed his one good eye.

“What happened?”

“It’s…a long story,” you said quietly.

“I have time,” Price snorted, looking around the cabin for effect.

You huffed out a breath at him and clutched at your side, feeling the pain shattering up your ribs like the crack of a whip. This was it. Who knew if you were going to live to even see the end of the day. You didn’t even know what day it was, or if it was even day time at all. You were finally going to tell him the truth.

“Me, Ghost and Soap were all tracking the trucks after they blew the old base. Gaz, König and Horangi went to exfil to try and regroup with the other teams. We were all supposed to reconvene and try to find you together but...we got held down by their forces and Soap took a bad hit to his leg. I told Ghost to take him and go get the others. They didn’t make it in time though,” you said, voice cracking as you recalled the foggy events like a broken down projector.

“Why the hell would Ghost leave you by yourself against an entire force of men?” Price growled, body snapping to attention.

“Because I forced him to.”

“Why?”

“Because they can go on and do some good, they’ll be able to avenge us and keep taking down the Rousseaus of the world. I wasn’t worth saving,” you said bitterly.

“Don’t you fucking dare say that. Why the fuck would you say that, Sneak?”

The look in his eyes was enough to shatter a million hearts. His anger could’ve melted the walls down, it beat so palpably between you both. It only made you hang your head in shame to think you were going to disappoint him. To think that that fierce protectiveness was going to be overridden by disgust.

You couldn’t keep lying to him anymore. You couldn’t leave the world weighed down by your secret.

“Because I was only going to be kicked off the team after this mission. I…I went against your orders. I’ve been seeing König for months now. The guys found out about the relationship. It wasted time and caused an argument that could’ve got us killed if we’d hung around the base much longer. I fucked up Price, I went against my word to you and I’ve only gone and gotten us killed! This is all my fault!”

You threw your head against the metal behind you, feeling the tears weigh you down like canon balls and sobbed. No matter how pathetic you felt, you were at a complete loss of control. Everything hurt, your throat constricted and dried like sand, the noises you emitted were barely human.

It was all crashing down on you, the full weight of your cursed fate coming to fall on your lap.

This was all you deserved for going behind the team's back. You were probably going to die a slow horrible death, getting thrown in front of camera after camera until there wouldn’t be enough of you left to send back home. Every piece of you would be ripped away by whatever dark hole they chose to make a stop at, until you would become another part of the world’s fabric. Another soul for someone with willing hands to take.

Even despite that horrible line of thought, the thing that hurt you most was knowing that König would remember your last moments together spent in bitterness, and that would be all he’d have to hold onto. He’d think that you had turned on him again, he would be so full of hatred for what you’d done to him. You’d burst down his walls only to go and reinforce exactly why he’d had them in the first place. You wished you’d told him more than just that you’d loved him. You wished you could tell him that despite everything that had happened, he was worth it all, you loved every second that he shared himself with you.

You would still rather walk willingly to your death a thousand times than put König or anyone else at risk.

“...Sneaky. Hey! Are you listening to me…fuckin’ hell. Oi! Sneaky!”

Price’s voice somehow managed to break through the impassable swell of your emotion and soon his face was in front of yours, demanding to be looked at. You felt yourself frown, sniffling as you wondered how on earth he’d managed to shuffle all the way over to you in his condition. Even with his hands and feet tied, and his vision probably barely there, he had launched himself over to you and exploded through the barrier of your guilt.

“Listen to me. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Breathe with me! In and out. In and out…”

You gulped sickened gasps of air and tasted the salt of Price’s body in the back of your throat. It didn’t matter though. You didn’t care that he, and probably you, fucking stank. It was just nice to have him there, bringing you back from the brink of a full on mental collapse.

The same mental voice that had coached you through your torture, was the same that gruffly directed you now. Price always had your back. He didn’t let any of his soldiers go easily, and he had always tried to do his best for you. Even if you had spited him for keeping you from König, he was always going to be the man that felt like another father to you.

“Sneak, do you really think that this is your fault?” Price asked, finally breaking from his instructional regime. “Do you think it really matters to me who you’ve been shagging right now? I need you to stay on the level with me here Sneak, you’re not to blame for any of this happening.”

“Why?” you asked, coughing harshly as your throat tried to adjust.

“Why aren’t you to blame?”

“No, why aren’t you angry with me?” you wheezed.

You could hardly believe it. Your Captain was perched in front of you, a blanket barely covering his battered skin, and he was telling you that he was ok with the fact that you deliberately disobeyed an order. Had the torturers knocked a screw loose after all? You gawped him as if to convey just that.

“We might very well die here. I’m not going to waste my last moments angry with you. Especially when the reason I warned you off of that man in the first place, was in case he got you killed…It already happened once. I already lost Alex to love on the field, I didn’t want to lose you too, not to a man with enemies in the numbers of god knows what. Now you’re trapped here with me because you were too stuck on your own guilt to save yourself. You didn’t fail me or anyone else. I failed you, Sneak,” Price affirmed, bowing his head in shame.

The rough spikes of his hair were glistening and the skin on the back of his neck was washed out by the pale white light. He looked like a ghost of himself already. You shivered and bit the flesh inside your cheek, trying to process everything that he’d said.

Had you really been absolved? Just like that?

“Captain…”

He slowly lifted his head up and offered you a small smile, his grime speckled moustache lifting cartoonishly with it. You found yourself choking back your stupid tears and smiled at him in return, relaxing into the wall and soon into Price as he ambled to the wall and laid back with you, settling into your side.

“On the off chance we do find a way to survive this, I need you with me, Sneak,” Price said, his hoarse voice buzzing through you. “You can’t check out on me, ok?”

“Is that an order, sir?” you deadpanned.

“Affirmative. And If you go against this one, just know that my Ghost is going to make your ghost move puddles and dig ditches in the afterlife. Got that sergeant?”

“Loud and clear, sir.”

-☠️-

“Do you understand what you’ve done! You are sending your precious special forces to their deaths! Know this; fellow brothers and sisters around the world,” Rousseau shouted, his voice booming off the dour cement walls. “Your government does not care about you, it is you the people that must rise up from nothing and take what is rightfully yours. I will continue to take down your soldiers until you give me back my family and allow us to take our territories without interference. Let's see how many deaths it will take until your governments take us seriously, uh!”

You winced as Rousseau grabbed you by the neck, though you could barely summon the strength to fight back. He’d taken you out from the transport and into dark deserted buildings more times than you’re sure that you can accurately collect. There was so little of you left anymore, you could barely hold onto your promise to Price. That last blow would be the one that ended you.

You cast a weary eye over to Price, tilting your head slightly to your left, watching him as he struggled to stay upright. He’d been wheezing for days now. There was a time you’d become convinced he’d already died on you. You couldn’t really remember when that was. They hardly fed you or allowed you to drink. They didn’t want to deal with the toilet trips - or the open bucket trips more like.

You’d both held on far longer than what you might’ve predicted, but now your time had run out.

You’d kept Price entertained with your stories about König, tried to force him to stay awake. After telling him a little about your relationship, they started flowing out of you like a great epic. You'd told him about the time you’d made him wear a bright floral surgical mask after he’d lost a bet to you, and then an old lady had approached him to say how stylish he was. You’d laughed till you’d fallen into a coughing fit when you remembered him surprising you back at your little apartment that you shared together with a rose in his mouth, and you’d had to clean the blood after he forgot to remove a thorn - he’d moaned for days about his stupid cut lip. You’d melted at the thought of him hugging you tightly after, not telling Price that König had huffed out to you in a pathetic whimper, telling you that he was sad he couldn’t kiss you with his mouth so sore.

Oh, König.

You whined, closing your eyes as you watched Rousseau arcing his thick metal bar high above you. Rousseau was ready to strike, this was really it. For both of you. He was going to make Price watch his Sergeant die and then he would surely be next.

You zoned out, falling back into the dark recesses of your mind.

Even if he was far away, it felt like König’s lips were whispering quietly in your ears. His spirit was with you, even if his form was elsewhere utterly devastated.

Think of better things. Think of me, Schnuckiputzi, and how you’d threaten to slap me for calling you that. I love you.

There’s nowhere you can be sent to that I won’t find a way to reach you.

Just keep your eyes closed and think of me.

Next Part Here

#König #König x reader #könig fanfiction #modern warfare 2 #modern warfare fanfiction #mw2 #konig #konig x reader #a rocky start

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bnuyy2 · 1 year ago

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The First Snow

Gn! Reader x Masc! Fave

Synopsis: Your lover wakes to find the bed cold. He doesn't need to look long to find you seated at the window sill watching as the world goes white.

Word Count: 641

Warnings: fluff, domesticity, no pronouns for reader

Note: this is really short and just came to me as i was falling asleep like idk where this came from anyways i wrote this with many characters in mind, particularly the ones who are a little grumpy and jaded but so full of love 🩵

Something had woken you out of your sleep, and you opened your eyes to face the window.

It took you a moment to realise the brightness did not come from the sun rising at 1 o’clock in the morning, but from the street lights illuminating the sparkling snow layered on nearly every surface. You are careful not to wake your lover as you raise yourself from the bed and pad over to the scene, seating yourself on the wide windowsill to watch the cascading bits of fluff up close.

You had only meant to be away from bed for a moment, but you were thoroughly captivated and stuck in place. It took just a few minutes for the man you’d left behind to begin unconsciously searching for your warmth, scooching his body closer to your side and reaching out his arm.

When he realises there is none to find, he begrudgingly opens an eye in search of you, and finds your form sitting entirely too far away from him. He quietly grunts your name which coaxes a hum from you, but you don't face him.

"Come back to me," He mumbles, his eye drifting closed again as he awaits what he hopes will be your swift return to his side.

"In a minute," You respond, and there is no way he can sleep now.

He sighs, lifting himself from the mattress and trudging over to the ledge where you sit pressed against the cool glass, pulling close a chair to sit by you. Now you turn your attention to him and smile.

His hair is tousled in a way that only you are allowed to see, and though he would never admit it, his mouth has formed a pout. You reach your hand out to caress his cheek, and your smile grows as he snuggles his face into your palm, his stubble mildly abrasive on your skin.

"It's snowing," You quietly point out, and he nods. Only you thought in his exhaustion he wouldn't have noticed.

"Hurts my eyes," He mumbles, and you can feel his lips move against your hand, supple and warm. The brightness of the snow would surely sting eyes just woken from sleep.

You lean down and kiss his eyelids to soothe the ache, and he huffs a sigh from deep in his chest. When you straighten up again, you see the corners of his mouth have lifted a bit into a small grin.

"It looks lovely though," You reason, turning your eyes back towards the window.

He watches you, the shirt you slept in slipping to expose more of your shoulder. He sees the content look of your glowing face and your eyes sparkling with wonder.

"Yes. Very lovely."

Eventually he does move his gaze from you to the rest of the world, watching the first glimpse of winter.

From this, he sees roads made more difficult, a driveway that will need shovelling, and skin chapped with cold, and he doesn't doubt you are aware of those things as well.

What he loves about you is the space you make for beauty, letting your appreciation for it cushion you from whatever hurts may come. He has begun to learn to do so through you, his greatest beauty.

He will carry your sweet concerned voice in his mind as he drives with care and let you fret over his large frozen hands when he comes inside, frantically rubbing them between your own in an attempt to warm them before you go to fix him a hot drink. He also loves to see how your eyelashes catch the frost, and the endearing traditions you indulge in for the season.

"My love," You whisper. He had fallen asleep with his head on your thigh. You pat his hair down as you watch him shift at the sound of your voice.

"Let's go to bed."

You rise from the window sill and he lets you take his hand to return to each other's arms. There will be time enough to experience the pains and joys of winter in the morning.

#f/o x you #fluff #i had simon riley in mind for this #also works for nanami #id also love to know anyone else this would work for #simon riley x reader #nanami kento x reader #levi ackerman x reader #joel miller x reader #fave x reader #gn reader #jean kirschtein x reader #toji fushiguro x reader

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skendos · 26 days ago

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♡︎ Rate my boyfriend ♡︎

Chika Takiishi

Chika Takiishi is a beautifully complex soul.

As this arc comes to a close, we have watched him develop from a person who views those around him as either objects whose sole purpose is to serve him, or those who get in his way and need to be eliminated.

Following this development, Chika has finally acknowledged that it is okay to see people for what they are, and for what they mean to him.

Change is coming for Chika! And if those kind eyes and efforts to make people feel seen are anything to go off, then I think we have a total sweetheart on our hands!

Here are my trope, ratings and relationship headcanons for the blazing inferno 💖

cw: slightly mean chika (he’s learning🥺), kinda angsty if you squint, slight mentions of anxiety, panic attacks and fighting. this post is way longer than i intended it to be, so it isn't proofread. when will i ever learn to stop waffling

Trope - Acquaintances to lovers!

♡︎ Okay, hear me out! Chika and you go waaaay back, and not necessarily in the best way! So instead of childhood friends to lovers, let’s call it acquaintances!

♡︎ You first meet in your first year of your new middle school, whilst he was in the grade above.

Despite having been at this school for a few weeks now - you were still the quiet and anxious kid, and making friends was proving to be a little difficult.

With the schools cafeteria being full to the brim during lunchtime, you often found yourself taking your lunch to the rooftop and eating alone whilst enjoying the view. It wasn’t that bad.

On a particularly bright spring day, the blazing sunshine cast an especially beautiful golden hue across the vibrant pink cherry blossom trees below, creating a contrast so pretty that it was just too difficult to pull your eyes away. So you just stood there, in silence and admiring the tranquil serenity of the moment.

“Get out of my way.” A monotone voice drones out from behind you, making you jump and turn around to face its source, quickly snapping you back to reality.

Your curious gaze is met with a pair of seemingly lifeless but simply captivating, golden eyes. They show no emotion, there’s no depth to them. His short hair is a deep yet bright red, not quite like anything you had seen before. Still, you find yourself offering the boy a bright smile.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you guys coming over,” you say, motioning to the slightly taller, black haired boy, who didn’t say anything but offered you a small grin.

The boy in front of you doesn’t say anything, but he tilts his head ever so slightly and blinks, never breaking eye contact. It makes your heart race. Why are you feeling nervous?

You clear your throat.

“Anyway, sorry. I guess I just kinda zoned out. How long were you there for?” You start firing off, attempting to connect with him.

“Ah.. I’m sorry, you don’t know who I am. That was rude of me, huh? My name is y/n y/l/n and I’m-“

“You’re in my way.” The boy huffs, still never breaking eye contact with you.

Your mouth opens and closes for a moment, not quite able to form any words just yet. “R-right, yeah s-sorry about that,” you manage to stutter. “I just thought that-“

“I’m not interested.” He steps around you, walking away without so much as a glance back in your direction. “Just don’t get in my way.”

You blink at his retreating frame in confusion. What the hell just happened? Asshole!

“Heh, sorry ‘bout that. Chika’s like that. Seeya later!” The taller boy tells you quietly, before jogging over to his friend.

What was that all about?

And so, this became a common occurrence for the rest of your middle school days. You continued to eat your lunch on the rooftop (despiste your initial anxiety of another run in with Chika) and on the days that they were also there, you would try your hardest to stay at the opposite side. Wouldn’t want to get in his way, right?

Occasionally, the other boy who you came to know as Yamato Endo would ask if you were having a good day, or if you were enjoying your lunch, but he mostly just kept to himself. Or more so, kept to Chika. Usually bringing him food and really nice treats, even though he was always dismissed by the mysterious boy. It was a weird dynamic you thought, and not something that you would want to comment on.

After all, Chika still hates when people get in his way. He’s made that clear a few times by shamelessly throwing punches at Endo’s face when he got a bit too close to his ‘friend’.

Eventually, it was time for the boys to graduate middle school, and you spent your lunchtimes during your final year alone on the rooftop, before graduating yourself and attending a new high school on the other side of town, where you met your best friends.

You still thought of Chika and Endo quite frequently during your high school days. You’d heard through your friend who was dating a guy from Furin High, that they also attended the same school.

And that Chika was the strongest. Not that this came of any surprise to you.

The rest of your high school years passed within the blink of an eye. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? And before you knew it, you were working in family’s very successful bar and restaurant.

You had found yourself a cute little apartment in in town, and a cute little cat to make it home. You were happy, you’d made it.

It was a cold, dark, rainy Tuesday evening in October. The restaurant had been relatively quiet tonight, so you instructed your Aunt to go home early, giving the older lady a chance to catch up on some much needed sleep whilst you finished cleaning up and closing.

You’re busy with cleaning a table when you feel a cold chill from the door and hear footfalls entering the restaurant.

“Good evening!” You call cheerfully, still wiping down the table, not turning around. “Sorry, I’ll be with you in just a moment. I wasn’t expecting anybody else to come in tonight, you know? It sure is cold outsi-“

“Y/n y/l/n”

You freeze for a split second, before whipping around.

Suddenly, you’re face to face with him. Or, more accurately, face to chest. He was for sure a hell of a lot taller now than he was back then. The one that shut you down and told you not to get in his way 10 years ago. How does he remember your name?

He was so similar, yet so different. His short red hair was now styled into a long mullet, which was ombréd into a golden-yellow colour the further the length. It was wet, and the front fell over his face like bangs. Was he out in the rain for a while? Had he just taken a bath?

The most noticeable change for you however, was his eyes.

Those eyes that were once emotionless, hard and lifeless, were now glowing and shining. A deep golden colour with so much depth to them.

You took him all in, unable to form any words. He blinks down at you as you gaze at him with wide eyes, tilting his head ever so slightly, the same way he did on the rooftop at school, way back when.

“I- sorry, Chika. Am I in your way?” You say quickly, stumbling as quick as you can to stand up straight and take a step back.

A step which he quickly dismisses by taking another one closer to you, still holding eye contact and shaking his head no. Wait, no?

“Y/n y/l/n...” He repeats. Almost like he’s testing the taste of your name in his mouth.

“Are…you okay, Chika?” You question, the confusion blatantly evident in your tone.

“I think you’re interesting, y/n. Can I… stay for a while? I want to know you.” He sounds different. Pleasant, even.

Something about this exchange made your heart race. The same way it did on the rooftop when you first met.

Something is evident in his expression, the kindness in his eyes. Hopefulness.

You flash him that same bright smile. The one that hasn’t changed. The one he hasn’t been able to get out of his head for the past 10 years.

“Yeah! Okay, yeah! Let’s catch up. You go grab a table and I’ll be right there.” You say, heading over to the bar to grab a drink for the both of you.

There’s one thing extremely obvious in the way you’re feeling right now. Bashful excitement. So much excitement for what the future may hold for yourself and the handsome acquaintance from your school days.

And the rest - sweet sweet history 💖

Affection - 6/10

♡︎ I swear, he’s working on it! And he’s doing a damn good job too!

♡︎ After all, you are his first ever relationship. His first ever crush, the first person he’s ever been serious about. He’s new to this!

♡︎ Chika isn't big on PDA, or clinginess in general, but you bet that he's always going to be close by. He's very observant, and is more than happy to show you little signs of affection should he believe you need it.

♡︎ Had a long, hard day at work? He's joining you on the couch or in bed and pulling you into him, letting you rest your sweet head on his chest while he wraps a strong arm around you. His lack of words don't mean anything here. You always feel so special in these moments.

Got cramps? He's fetching you a fluffy blanket and a hot water bottle, letting you get comfy and gently stroking through your hair, or holding your hand gently stroking your skin tenderly with his thumb. He hates to see you hurting, and silently wishes he could take it away from you.

Thunderstorm outside? He notices you flinch as the thunder gets louder, and then lightening gets brighter. He watches you attentively as you try your hardest to ignore the storm and focus your attention on the TV instead. Though, after a particularly loud clap of thunder and a flash of lightening that caused your apartment to shut down into complete darkness, your composure crumbles and your boyfriend notices your rapidly increasing breathing.

He switches on the torch on his phone, and places it face down on the coffee table in front of you, lighting up room the best he can. He kneels down on the floor directly in front of you and takes your face in his hands, firmly yet so so gently. "Hey. Look at me y/n. Please, look at me." He instructs, never letting go.

Chika's heart physically hurts as you open your eyes that were previously screwed shut tightly. From the light emitting from his phone behind him, he can see the fear in your expression, and the tears gathering in your waterline. You were terrified of the storm.

Without wasting another second, he climbs back up onto the couch to join you, pulling you into him as close as humanly possible and wrapping both arms around you as tightly as he can. "Breathe, y/n. It's alright." His words are comforting, and you feel so protected in his hold.

He proceeds to talk to you throughout the remainder of the storm, until the power returned to your apartment. He talked to you about your relationship. About how he saw a cat on the street when he was on his way over that he stopped to pet, because he knows that you would never pass a cat without saying hello first.

It brought him so much relief to hear you giggle at his words. Seeing you scared was the worst thing ever for him. He wants to bundle you up into his embrace forever, protecting you against everything bad in the world.

Jealousy - 1/10

♡︎ Because WHAT DOES HE HAVE TO BE JEALOUS ABOUT? You've been captivated by his beauty forever! He's yours and you're his.

♡︎ Your relationship dynamic with Chika is very much sunshine x sunshine protector. Yapper x listener. Sunshine x midnight rain, if you will. He is well aware of how you feel for him, and he knows fine well that he trusts you wholeheartedly, as you do him, too.

Protectiveness - 11/10

♡︎ As much as Chika isn't a jealous partner, he sure as HELL is a protective one.

♡︎ A customer is rude to you at work? Uh-oh.. Chika is cornering them the first chance he gets and promising them that if they don't go back and apologise immediately, then he's beating their ass no questions asked.

♡︎ If he even dares catches wind that some scumbag was trying to force his slimy self upon you, after having been told that you aren't interested and that you have a boyfriend... Let's just say that Chika went out with Endo for a few hours that night. And the guy was seen by your friend the following day, packing his belongings into a moving van, battered and bruised.

Love Language - Quality Time

♡︎ Listen up! We all know that Chika is a man of very few words, and that's perfectly okay!

♡︎ Despite him not being very talkative, he absolutely adores silence in your presence. One of his most favourite activities is hanging out with you at your place (or his), and just being there with you whilst you do your own thing.

♡︎ Chika scrolls through his phone whilst you yap about your day, or about your friends, or about a tiktok you had watched of a cute cat. To anyone else, it would seem as though he's paying no attention to you as you talk and talk and talk. But, you know him well enough to know that he's taking in every single word you say.

♡︎ Chika loves date nights with you, his favourite ones being quiet ones.

Stargazing on a warm summers night, lying on a blanket with you staring up at the sky, listening to you lovingly as you tell him about constellations, moon stages and when you excitedly point out every shooting star you see.

Movie nights, spent with you on the couch. You're both facing the TV and he has his face nuzzled in the crook of your neck, his hand on your knee, rubbing gently with his thumb. He listens to you as you ask a million questions despite neither of you having watched this movie before. He lifts his head up, pressing a tender kiss to your cheek, before returning to his previous resting position and pulling you impossibly closer to him.

Oh yeah, that boy is so in love with you.

Skyla's note: Gosh! Well this was originally supposed to be a short list of headcanons that I was gonna write up and post this morning buttttt I did a whoopsie and got carried away! I will surely be doing this again with different characters! I well and truly adore this character. It's been so fulfilling watching him develop and open his heart the way he has. I hope we see him again at Ume's summer barbecue! Thank you so much to my best friends @kyuuyomii and @sunnyangy for inspiring me to be here and do this! I had so much fun writing this and it's all thanks to you two! I love you both very much!

#sk.writes!#windbreaker #chika takiishi #chika takiishi headcanons #chika takiishi x reader #windbreaker x reader #this ended up so much longer than it was meant to #smh

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dawnoftime22 · 8 months ago

Text

"...and it just did."

| W.M ( -> N.R)

Undeserving of a Love Like Yours, Chapter 5

Chapter Warnings: A very emotionally packed chapter, relationship problems, cheating, arguing, anxiety, overthinking, andd...just be prepared.

Summary: The truth unfolds itself easily on a special day.

Series Summary: When you're stuck in a complete hole of confusion and hurt with the one you thought you loved most, a certain redhead finds her way into your life.

Word Count: 8.7k (...oops)

Category: Angst.

A/N: this chapter has been eeeeverywhere with me. I wrote it in the car, at work, in my bedroom, and even at a hotel room. but, I hope you all enjoy<3 it's a whole lot, so it was quite difficult to finish, but february's over and I have more free time again!

also theres a playlist for this series out now :] in case you need something to listen to while reading. be careful while scrolling the songs to avoid just bits of teensy spoilers<3

Series Playlist

| Started on 10/01/2024, 12:16 PM |

| Finished on 05/03/2024, 3:45 PM |

Masterlist | Series Masterlist | N.R Masterlist

<- Chapter 4 Chapter 6 ->

"What is there to say?"

|——————————— ᗢ ———————————|

You drag your feet across the wooden floorboards, making your way towards the kitchen. Here it is again, the same routine. But yet this time, you see a sticky note left on the marble counter, illuminated by a dim overhead lighting.

You furrow your eyebrows, but go over to read it anyway, the bright color a big difference to the white counter. 'might not be home until tomorrow,' was written on the piece of paper. Your heart didn't drop as much anymore. Your shoulders only droop a little, as if just a teensy bit more weight had been added.

A quiet breath leaves your mouth. Your hand picks up the sticky note and scraps it up within your palms, throwing it off to a nearby trashcan in the kitchen. Who else needed to read it anyway? It was only for you. Only for you.

You shook your head of the remaining thoughts you had of her, but she couldn't quite leave your mind at least once. Always there. Always lingering. As if you had been cursed. But in honest truth, the only curse you had upon you was the spell of love.

Today was a special day. Key word on the was. Some type of hope swirling in your heart maybe had you looking forward to this day, but all of it had just gone down along with the piece of paper in the trash. Your eyes also flicker to it once more, seeing the many other colored paper sitting scrunched up with the one from just now. At least she had the decency to still leave notes.

But, today was, of course...your birthday. And out of all the people, your favorite person was certainly not present. Maybe she had forgotten, you thought. Maybe she just didn't care enough this year...no, how could she?

You snap yourself out, having stared off at the sunlight shining in through the windows. You go to the fridge to see what was still in there. A bitten sandwich from last night, and some leftover chickens, but your lip forms a line and you close it, your hand dropping off to your pocket to retrieve your phone.

It was currently 9:45 AM, the digits frozen still on the same numbers until the full sixty seconds passes by. Your mind was in a haze, but your stomach was empty and it urged you to find some food. Were you just going to go out by yourself? Your body seemed to stop you from even going to the living room. Take-out was an option, but instead you simply laid your phone down on the counter, it making a small noise, the textures clashing.

You put your head in your hands, covering up your face and sliding your fingers across your skin, your palm cupping your own cheeks as a way to get a grip of yourself.

Your phone came up with a notification of your calendar, getting out with a reminder of your birthday. What great timing. You clear it off your screen and unlock your phone, roaming the apps.

Just as you were about to push yourself off the counter and grab the last of the food in the fridge, your screen changes without you touching anything. The contact name came up with...Carol?

Your face relaxes a bit and your thumb hesitantly goes to pick it up rather than tap on the red button, the ringing going away. The phone goes along with your hand when you put it against your ear.

"Hey Carol." You say casually, trying your best not to sound too questionable, as it wasn't usual that she'd call you. You hear some distinct voices whispering in the background of her side, one sounding like a young kid.

"Hey, just wanted to call and um...check in on you?" Her voice ended up sounding questionable instead, and your face goes into a confused reaction, although a smile growing on your lips. You let out a small chuckle, your eyes roaming the space of the room as you thought of your words.

"'Check in on me?' Come on, you rarely do that." Your hand goes to grab a nearby notebook that's been left on the counter, saved for recipes. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to say happy birthday to you. Maria reminded me and she and Monica got me to...call you." You assume she had a small pause in her sentence because she was looking over at the other two people in the room with her, which was who you had heard earlier.

"That's nice of her. And thank you." The pages of the book was soft against your hands, your fingers tracing and fiddling with some as you smiled softly at the thought of Maria scolding Carol for having forgotten.

"Well that, or, I would probably not have any pancakes for myself right about now." She says, her mouth nearly sounding like it was full. You'd guessed it was.

"Even though you were threatened to wish me, thank you." You add on, laughing gently as you did. There was a page you landed on in the notebook with a cookie recipe. One, specifically where you and Wanda had made together, having shared a wonderful memory that day.

You could feel your heart beat within your chest, the pace going quicker as your eyes looked over the words written on the paper that was accompanied with smiley faces and hearts here and there.

The smile on your face had definitely faltered. You take in a deep breath, letting it out once you let yourself close the book. Carol's voice snaps you back to reality, having remembered you were talking with her.

"I'm kidding, I would've called you up either way. Really though, how are you?" Your teeth sank down on your bottom lip, probably enough to puncture the skin or leave a small mark, but you let it go once you talked.

"I'm...fine. Other than sitting in my house alone not knowing what to do than sulk in bed or contemplating my life choices." With that answer, the blonde definitely knew something wasn't entirely right. She stays quiet for a while, perhaps thinking.

"Do you wanna go out and hang at the bar? We can do some karaoke if you want that as a birthday present." She offers, and the attempt makes you smile weakly. She never really knew what to do for your birthday, not being the type to do birthdays more than just a simple wish to them. But for you, she'd offer to hang out, which is what you love to do most of the time.

"Sorry, but I don't really feel like partying or anything right about now. Well, tempting, but, I just wanna relax." You say quietly, sliding the recipe book back to its original place.

"Okay, then..." Carol trails off as her mind tries to come up with some more ideas. You were about to think she was going to just hang up sooner or later, but then you hear her voice continue with a more interesting take.

"There's the mall." You raise your eyebrows. She couldn't see you with you being over the phone, but she just knew you were probably surprised. And you were.

"And what would we do there?" You ask, your mind unable to conjure up the slightest of an imagination of going to the mall with her in a casual situation.

"Well, we could grab some ice cream, buy some things, go to the arcade, go...I don't know." She suggests, just nearly giving up. She wasn't good at this type of stuff really, she's simply basing it off of the times she and Monica hangs out together. You could at least picture the straight line her mouth forms when she finished her sentence, and you had to resist a laugh.

"Ice cream does sound really good." Your mind opened a little with the simple thought of ice cream. Even though the comfort of your bed and the couch seemed nicer, it's not a lot of times she ends up inviting you to hang out like this anyway.

"The mall it is." The blonde says, and you can hear some clatter over the phone. She had finished her pancakes, you supposed.

"Am I driving or...?" You trail off, fiddling around with your fingers and sliding them against the marble counter, the coldness a difference to the sunlight coming from the window.

"I'll pick you up." You then hear the sound of keys, and you couldn't back out anymore. She was driving to your house to grab you, and it'd be impolite to cancel.

"Okay." You say under a breath, feeling heavier with every second that goes by. The guilt and anxiety was eating you up, but the date on the calendar just next to the recipe book had your mind getting out of the thoughts.

"I'll be there in 10. Please don't be glued to your bed when I arrive," She said, to which you let out a quiet chuckle. You couldn't really tell if it was in a stern way or a soft way, but it definitely pushed you a little more to get up and change your clothes.

"I won't. See you here." You say gently and the end tone sounds out, making you pull your phone away from your ear.

With that decided, you push yourself off the counter, slowly going off to the bedroom. The closet opens easily, revealing the same clothes you see every day. You shuffle through some of the hanged shirts, looking at what to wear.

Soon enough, you pull one out. It easily slides off, brushing against the many other shirts within the closet. Your eyes don't linger on the other ones that weren't yours, and you close the door after grabbing everything else.

Later on, you get finished up with changing your clothes, and now you were only waiting for Carol to arrive. There was something that prickled within your heart, like a roses stem with thorns, a worry that maybe she changed her mind and she actually didn't want to hang out with you. Maybe she was only doing it out of sympathy? But that can't be true. What about all the times she's driven you back home when you got a little too many drinks?

...You take a deep breath and turn away from the wall you were staring off into like it was the abyss. Instead your hands checked that you had everything on you, like your phone, keys, and your watch.

Then, the sound of a car pulling up at the front of the house made you look up, your eyes carefully watching the windows. You see a Nissan outside, and it was obvious it was Carol arriving.

Quickly, you got off the couch while your phone made sound, definitely a text message from her that she's arrived. You open the front door, going outside. Her blonde hair could be seen clearly through the car windows, confirming the person in your head.

You make your way to the car, opening the front passenger door. "Hey," you say gently, going in and and closing the door along with you.

"Hey." your greetings were simple, a usual thing to happen. Carol glanced at you while you buckled in, giving you a small smile before starting to slowly position the car back to the roads.

The car had some old soft rock playing, filling up the quietness. It also had you already moving just a little to the beats, staring out the window as she drove you both to the mall. She's always had good playlists. Sometimes you'd even have an urge to ask her to give you some of her cds.

"So, what are you aiming to steal my money for today?" She jokes after a song, her eyes focused on the roads. You let out a small chuckle, looking over to her.

"I'm not letting you spend your money on me for something that isn't a drink." You shake your head, fiddling around with your fingers in your lap. The blonde notices it when her eyes flicker over to you for a second before returning to the roads.

"It's your birthday, Y/N. You have to have a little fun. Let loose," she says, and you raise an eyebrow, turning your head to her. The last two words were new, at least when it comes out of her mouth.

"Maria's words, not mine." she quickly stated, making a smile grow on your face. You stop fiddling with your fingers and instead intertwine them with each other, your gaze going back to the window.

"Come on, any ideas?" The car stops at a red light, and she looks over to you. You stayed quiet in thought, although nothing much came up. She sees only the side of your head until you made your decision.

"We'll do yours," you say, having unable to think of anything. Your mind was clouded over. Honestly, a part of your body just wanted to lie in bed hopelessly the whole day, but something else pulled you.

"Then it's settled," she nods, the steering wheel turning with her hand as she made a right. You think over her words on the phone call earlier, 'Ice cream, buy some things, arcade', and you start to get just a bit more excited.

"Ice cream first?" You ask, looking to her with hope. She furrows her eyebrows and makes a face to you, and your lip forms a tight line, like a child asking for something and getting scared of the answer.

"Of course ice cream goes first." The car goes forwards once more, the light having turned green. You cheer quietly, and she gently shakes her head at your antics. At least she got you to release the emotional tension you had in your body. Even if just a little.

The rest of the car ride consisted of singing and dancing, the conversations being light. The weight on your shoulders got lifted up just a little bit more. When you were about to arrive and she was going to park, 'Please Mr. Postman' started playing and your face brightened at the intro.

She raised her eyebrows at your quick happiness at the simple song, but smiled and laughed at how fast you got into singing it. Really, it's always been a main song for whenever you hanged out, but it's been so long since she saw you sing it, she got surprised. Soon enough though, she sang with you, the two of you moving in your seats to the words.

When the song ends, she turns off the engine and both of you get out the car. The parking lot wasn't all that filled up, so it was a chance there weren't many people in the mall.

She puts on her cap and walks to the entrance with you behind her, the noise of crows and other birds made sound, echoing from somewhere afar as you made your way to the sliding doors.

The cold air of the mall quickly greeted you like a slap of reality in the face, like waking yourself up with a cold shower after laying in bed for too, too long. A way to make you feel more alive.

The ice cream shop wasn't far, and with how little amount of people were here, the two of you got to go to the counter right when you arrive to order your preferred flavour.

Your eyes watch the ice cream get put on the cone, and you do a little dance when your hand got ahold of it, while Carol was giving her money to the cashier of the total cost.

The cashier smiles at the two of you and says their 'thank you', making you smile back before turning around, Carol easily catching up with you from your slow walking.

The two of you walk and enjoy your ice cream, the coldness definitely making you more free feeling. There were clothing stores, shoe stores, little snack shops, and every other thing you could ever imagine. You passed by each one though, but you did point out some cool looking things here and there to Carol.

Soon enough, you come upon a pet shop and your eyes widen, your lips matching with a smile. You walk towards it, wanting to look at all the animals. Carol had to walk faster so she didn't lose you.

There were parrots, cats, dogs, hamsters, fishes, bunnies, and even some lizards. Your mouth was agape as you stared at some of them, but you walk over to the cats.

"Aw, look!" You point at an orange cat, who's sitting patiently with it's tail smoothly flicking back and forth as it watched people pass by.

Carol was looking at the dogs until you called, making her go over to you to see what you were melted at. As if you hadn't already from the other little animals.

"This one is so cute." You lean forward and capture the attention of the cat, making it stand up and walk closer to you.

Carol's head tilted slightly and her eyes squinted as she inspected the info of the cat. The name, the breed, the date and place of birth... "...Goose. Huh."

"I want to take it home." You blurt out as you let the cat follow your hand around, and its head moves here and there instead of its body. It was a playful cat, a paw going up here and there to reach out to you.

"You should get it if you love it that much." Carol says, with her usual deadpan voice that you honestly find amusing. Although, for this, your face turns deadpanned instead and you stare at her, making her raise your eyebrows at you. It was nearly a staredown.

"Danvers, I cannot take care of a cat...let alone myself." You gesture to the cat, and it looked at you questionably. Your shoulders slump a little at the last words of your sentence, and Carol frowns a little.

"I'm sure it'll be able to help you cope or something." Really, she was thinking in her head of surprising it to you as a birthday present for later tonight when she sends you home.

"Why don't you get it? I think Monica would go crazy." You glance back at her, and she purses her lips, staring at the cat. It was the most vibrant color of all the other cats.

"And Maria would go crazier." She said, turning to you for a second but then going back to the entrance of the shop instead, perhaps making her escape from you flipping the table to her.

"You can convince her." You say, the volume of your voice going up a little considering she's farther away. You take a quick glance back at the cat, hesitating to leave, but going away to catch up to the blonde.

"No, now, we are going to the arcade." You laugh when you hear her stern voice, although something in you knew she had a thought about getting it.

You looked around as you walked, seeing the arcade not far away now, the place lit up by machines and screens. But something caught your eye and made you look twice.

Were you dreaming? Well...having a nightmare? You felt like so. Your body definitely didn't react in a good way. Honestly, your heart felt like you were about to have a heart attack with how fast it was beating.

Carol's hat made shade for her face from the sun coming through the mall's glass roof as she walked. She stops along with you when she noticed, confusion filling her face at the sudden stop.

When she follows your eyes to where you were looking though, immediately her eyes widen and her face was in complete shock just as yours were.

A brunette, green eyes...green jacket...

It couldn't have been.

You look closer on the face, and it was. And her hand was not swinging by itself as she walked.

It wasn't with your hand either, because you were plenty of feet away from her.

It was with someone else. Something in the back of your mind felt like they were familiar, although you couldn't even dare focus on that.

Your whole day-- well, your whole world fell apart right then and there. Just like that.

You can feel your heart beating up to your ears, and it felt like time stopped. And not in the good way. Oh, you wish. You wish it was the time you saw her green eyes staring back at you and the whole world only felt like it held the two of you. But not anymore.

Maybe it was the numbing adrenaline rush of the shock coming through, but you take in a deep breath, ripping your gaze away. You couldn't bare to look at the sight anymore.

You clench your jaw, your hand gripping itself in a fist. Your eyes pooled with tears and Carol looked at you, her own misery at finding out the truth obvious on her face, although she was mostly worried about you.

"You know what? Maybe we can...do this another day." You say, trying your best to not let your voice shake entirely, but it did falter.

"You don't wanna--" She was about to suggest trying to distract yourself with the arcade, but at the same time, nothing could make you feel better after seeing such a thing.

"Just take me home." Your mouth moved quickly and you spoke quietly, your eyes flicking back to the spot where she was walking, but she was out of sights already.

You turn around and walk fast, not wanting to linger anymore. Carol walks with you. There was nothing said as you made your way out and to the car. The lovely sounds of the birds chirping now fell on deaf ears as your legs kept you moving.

The car door opens easily with the pull of your hand, and you get in, but you were careful to not slam the door. Carol gets in after you, and turns on the engine.

Her eyes go over to you. You already had your seatbelt on and had settled in your seat, staring out the window. She was about to say something, but she held her tongue, not wanting to make matters worse.

And what would anyone have to say in this anyway? Your lover left you, replaced you with someone else, and broke your heart. 'It will get better'? The only path to take was to go through the pain and that was it. Until you somehow get back up again.

The music starts up once more, and it didn't make you happy as much anymore. You couldn't even focus on it if you tried. You were trying to blink away the tears and ignore the way your throat was swelling up on the inside.

Carol drives you back home safely, keeping her eyes on you here and there. The ride was quiet other than the music, but it was obvious the tension was high.

There were questions unsaid, many going around in your head, but you didn't wanna trouble her with all of them, and she probably wouldn't know what to answer them with anyway.

Soon enough, you arrive back to your house, and you gently unbuckle your seatbelt. At the corner of your eyes, your tears were starting to seep out, just a little.

Carol makes sure she says something before she regrets just being silent, "Hey," she said quietly, and you look at her, your eyes shining with unshed tears. It was the softest you've heard her voice yet.

"I'm always here, if you need me," she says. She knows it won't be much, but it needed to get out of her head. You nod, and sniffle, trying your best to not cry just yet.

You don't say anything back. If you did, you would've broken right there. Instead, you pull on the car handle and open the door, getting out.

Carol watches you as you leave, and she makes sure you get into your house safely before getting out the driveway.

You close the front door of the house, locking it, and freezing in your tracks, taking in a sharp breath before letting it out as a sigh. You nearly hoped it didn't happen, that you would only do that and just wake up from sleeping right now.

But then you let out a sob and lean back on the closed door. You hide your face in your hands, closing your eyes as you started crying, and your chest wracks with broken sobs.

How could she do such a thing? Did she not love you? Were you simply not enough? Too much? You couldn't stop yourself with the questions roaming your head, overthinking everything as you go. The kindest soul with the warmest heart, now broken into a tiny million pieces just because someone couldn't talk about their feelings. Yet you seem to always find a way to blame yourself for every situation.

Sure, maybe even if she did talk to you, your heart would still break, but would it have felt like this? Would it have felt like your lungs were going to collapse from your cries?

You sniffle, and try your best to steady your breathing, but you couldn't, so you just let it do whatever it wants. You wipe your eyes with your sleeve, but the tears keep flowing, so it barely did much.

Fatiguely, with a heavy body, you made your way to the kitchen. You wanted to go to the bedroom, but it was so far, and everything in there would only make your head spin even more. The couch was a choice, but your eyes linger on that recipe book you had looked through this morning.

Your hand twitches to grab it, but you bite your tongue and instead grip the counter, letting yourself slide down on the kitchen floor. You clutch your legs and curl up. The grip your hands held with the fabric of your jeans were enough to probably rip them.

You still had hiccups leaving your mouth, tears leaving your eyes, and you were definitely about to sob once more. The kitchen tiles blurred from your vision getting clouded with tears.

Your hands clumsily reaches in your pocket to grab your phone, and you somehow made it to your homescreen.

The phone was set down on the floor, your hands shaking as your tears rolled down to your chin and dropped down to stain your shirt.

You look up, trying to gather yourself up, but of course you couldn't. Your body needed to let the emotions out, especially after such a situation.

For a few more long minutes, you sat helplessly on the kitchen floor, your breaths going with their own minds instead of your own. You take a few deep breaths, your legs splayed out in front of you before you sniffle and take one last deep breath.

You sat up a little more properly with the little energy you have, and slide your phone just a bit closer to yourself, your fingers gliding across the screen as you opened your calls app, and hovered your finger over the contact name.

You tap on it, trying your best to recollect yourself before she picks up. Your teeth bites down on your bottom lip, every tone of the calling sound making your heart beat faster.

It ends, and her voice comes through.

"Hello?" There's the soft voice. The gentle, soothing voice that lured you into falling in love.

"Wanda." Your voice nearly faltered, but it kept a little of it's stern tone. Your hand slid down to the kitchen floor, the texture keeping your emotions steady, at least enough for a couple minutes.

"Hey, what's up? Did you see my note?" She asks. She's been lying to your face all this time and you didn't even know it. How blind were you?

"Do you know what day it is today?" You ask, ignoring her own question. You sounded so calm in your own anger you honestly nearly even scared yourself.

"No...what?" She was confused, and you could imagine the innocent act of a face she made.

"It's my birthday." You put simply.

"Oh..." that was all that sounded on the phone, and you knew the call didn't get cut off. She just didn't know what to say.

"I'm sorry I didn't stay Y/N, I...forgot." She says slowly, and it was obvious she was trying to tread her tracks carefully.

"I can come back tonight, I promise." You almost didn't want her to, but you needed to talk it out. You didn't say anything else, not wanting to talk about everything else over the phone.

"Goodbye, Wanda." You whisper, your voice breaking at the end. You were sure she noticed it, but you'd want her to anyway.

You ended the call, tapping on the red button. That wasn't the end of it yet, of course, but for now, your hand only rests on the floor, your body falling limp against the cabinet.

She calls, but you don't hear it. The phone rings, on, and on.

You clench your jaw, tears filling up in your eyes once more. Your hand weakly silences your phone, and for the next couple more minutes, you lay crying, until your throat was dry and your muscles ached from sitting on the floor.

|——————————— ᗢ ———————————|

The sun had gone down by now, and the moon came out of hiding.

You were no longer on the kitchen floor, but you were on the couch, curled up like a cat. You haven't done anything but cry ever since you got home. Only right now, your tears had dried, staining your cheeks

You hear the front door unlock, and you feel it coming, the moment you've been dreading.

The brunette appears from behind the door, closing it as she went in the house. Her eyes roamed the place, and eventually, it lands on you.

She lets out a sigh of relief when she realized you were still here. You let out a heavy sigh as you sat up properly.

She heard it. Even with the distance, the quietness of the room captured it. Her heart beated harder in her chest.

"Y/N, please, I'm sorry." She pleads as she makes her way to the couch, having carelessly kicked her shoes off, leaving one tilted on its side. You haven't even said anything yet, and you almost feel sorry yourself.

"Hey,"-- You were sitting right beside the armrest, so, she leans over and gently puts her hand on your cheek. --"I love you. I'm sorry."

You gently push away her hand, turning to look at her with your jaw clenching. She can see the anger in your eyes and it had her giving you a little space.

"Do you?" You say, your head moving slightly, and she notices the way the corner of your eyes seemed a little red. You weren't even looking at her. That was only the second part of the situation.

"Yes!" She says her eyebrows furrowed. She raises her hands in exaggeration before moving one up to her hair, sliding it back as she let out a breath. "...Why is that difficult to understand?"

"Well, maybe because you didn't even say anything when I said it to you just a few days ago!" Her mouth opens, and you assumed she was about to argue that she was drunk during that time, but she lets out a scoff, and that's even worse.

"You're pissed off about that too?" She seemed mad, and you nearly regret even blurting out the sentence.

You close your eyes with your hands, just wanting this to end even though it's just started and just barely scratched surface of what you need to talk about...or argue. You hoped it was the first one.

"Of course I am, Wanda! Where have you been?" You try your best to keep calm, but your voice was laced with anger. Hers though, was higher volume than yours.

"At work!" She walks around to the front of the couch, and you slide your hand down your face. Her face looked so believable, but you knew it wasn't the truth. You saw it with your own eyes.

"Bullshit." You whispered, looking at her with tired eyes. She gets confused and sits down on the couch, her eyes focused on you. You shift your position.

"What? I'm not ly--..." Her voice was a little high of a volume, and she doesn't finish her sentence when she hears you take in a shaky breath.

"...I...saw you." You said quietly, and Wanda, having been caught up in trying to make you believe her had to go quiet in thought of what exactly you mean.

She swallows down a lump in her throat, her eyes catching yours.

"Saw me?" She asked, her voice reducing down to almost the same volume as yours.

"You...were with someone else." You were shaking and your breath was trembling. You willed everything in your body not to sob while trying to get the rest of the sentences out. Her eyes widened at your words, and that was it.

"And I know it's not another person, because I saw your face." You point your finger to her, gently pushing on her chest with it to enunciate your words. Gently. You were never the type to lash out or be rough even when you were angry.

She goes quiet. Both pairs of your eyes were welling up with tears, that much was obvious. Any other words she's had before had died in her throat.

You see a tear rolling down her cheek from the side, and you held your hands back from wiping it off.

She looks at you, guilt swimming in her eyes, and she takes a shaky breath in before letting it go.

"...There's really..." She looks away from you, unable to even stare back at you. Your heart felt heavier than you knew it could.

"...nothing I could say or do to make you feel better." She said tearfully, her lips going down as she thought of her next words. She swallows her collected saliva again. That hit you like a million little glass pieces piercing through every part of your living, loving soul.

There really was not much she could reason with other than the fact that it had been true. She's fallen out of love with you, but even she didn't want to admit it.

"I've been with someone else. I...wanted to tell you. I just didn't know how." She admitted with her shoulders going up at her last words. There it was. The truth coming straight out of her mouth. Your lips nearly trembled, but your teeth sank down on it.

"How...long?" You ask, and you almost didn't want to know, but for the sake of closure, you urged on. She stays quiet, her own hands gripping the couch.

"How long, Wanda?" You pressed. Was it a month ago? It couldn't have been longer than that.

"Only after eight months of us moving here." It was before you even had your break. You made the math quickly in your head. You moved in a little more than a year ago, so it's been...six months?

You had been in this devouring hole for six months, and you hadn't even realized it. And she didn't tell you or break up with you. Instead she requested a break. No wonder your hope had died to sparks and to nothingness.

"What?" You whispered under your quivering breath, your head tilting in disbelief as your eyes spilled out in silent tears.

"Wanda." You say her name softly. She looked down in her lap as you let out another breath that nearly sounded like a sob. She sniffles, and you know the both of your hearts are breaking.

"Why?" You ask, although it was more of a thought from your head that spewed out unintentionally rather than a logical question. She couldn't answer. She didn't have an answer herself. It just happened. That's how it always is.

"...I thought you loved me." Your voice was small, as if speaking any louder would make the entire universe disappear in fear, just like your love had.

"I did! Or, I do!! I don't know!!!" She blurts out, not being able to decide which one. Her body had deflated at the high chance of losing you tonight.

"So you fell out of love with me completely?" Your eyes watch her carefully, and just for a vivid moment, she hesitantly, just barely nods.

"And you didn't think to just...break it off." You whisper, although it was more of a sentence to yourself. But she heard it anyway. It was obvious what you were pointing towards in your sentence. She sighs. She knows she's taken a step she couldn't take back.

Really, how can someone bring theirselves to having a full conversation about falling out of love? It's a difficult thing to do. Sure, you'd be heartbroken either way, or somehow you would have been able to work it out, but you supposed something else in you just wished you hadn't suffered all those months hoping for absolutely...nothing.

The two of you sit in the silence of what you'd think is death, not knowing what exactly to do with it all. The love you once had was gone. Or at least...hers.

Something spins around in your head. It's been spinning for ages since she had called to take a break, and you had hoped you never had to say it, but what else was there? You could start over, but this love had already started over before. Or had tried to. Technically it was both. This was the end of the road.

"...It's over." You whisper out into the room, and Wanda finally glanced up at you, her face full of heartbreak. Even though she probably saw it coming. You've seen that look before, and your stomach was about to collapse at even a second of it. You kept the eye contact though, needing to fully close this.

In a way, you searched her eyes, for some reason, still searching for anything that once was. But there wasn't anything but hopeless desperation.

"No...no please, I need you." She says, taking breaths in between as she cried. You hated seeing her like this. But you hated going in circles just as much.

"If you really did, then you wouldn't have done such a thing." She had nothing else to say to that. It had been your breaking point. You averted your gaze and stood up, hesitating for a moment, but eventually going off to the bedroom as she sat there in the consequences of her actions.

You walk into the room and close the door, locking it right after. You gently lean your head against the door, while silent tears freely move down your skin. The supply of water in your body was definitely infinite for today. A part of you wanted to laugh at the mere thought, and just to cope, but you were too tired to even do so.

You take in a breath, looking up to the ceiling as you felt your throat swell up, but you try your best to be quiet. You'd hate for her to hear you sob in the other room. She might be doing the same thing herself. You squeeze your eyes shut for a short time, wishing for it all to just stop.

And technically it's about to.

Gently, you push off the bedroom door and your legs take you to the front of your closet. The next move was obvious.

Your hands clenched theirselves as your eyes stare at the closet doors. You take a look around the room, taking in the space with your eyes lingering on some parts. The book Wanda hasn't finished reading. She stopped reading it ever since she started to disappear. You should have seen the signs.

The little teddy bear she got, the daisies you got her in the corner of the room, the DVDs she has in the TV stand, the music collection you have next to it.

You rip your gaze away and let your hands open the closet doors. A travel bag and a luggage bag was just under the hanged clothes, sitting within a compartment.

With trembling hands, you slide both out, putting them on the bed and unzipping them. It was the same bags you used to move into the house.

You grab some of the clothes you once shuffled through just earlier this morning, making sure to remember which ones are Wanda's, and not yours.

They were placed into the bags, and you stared at the folded shirts. They looked wrong. You throw your head back with a sigh, frustrated. The bed dips when you sat on it, the bags moving along just a little with it.

What are you thinking? The promise to stay, to fight through it all, it had all fallen apart. The one person you didn't leave after just a few months, and yet here you are. Packing. You let your body fall down completely on the mattress, legs dangling while you stared at the ceiling.

How many times have you stared up there? You don't even want to know. Before you lost all motivation and your emotions ran slow, you slowly prop yourself up to your arms and got back up. If you stopped now, you won't be gone in the morning.

Toothbrush, toothpaste, everything else you need and all the essentials. The last of it gets stored in the empty parts, and with the quiet sound of the zipper zipping, it was done.

With a relieved sigh that you could now simply lay on the pillows, your arms splayed out, your body giving up the last of its energy. You definitely couldn't get up anymore to do anything else.

This was the last night you were sleeping in this bed.

The crickets couldn't be any more louder with filling up the silence. You hated it. It felt too short, but all at the same time, it feels like it's gone on for too long.

Your vision faded into black as your mind stayed loud, up until it crept into your dreams. She slept on the couch that night.

In the morning, you woke up heavy and go through everything as if you didn't even sleep. Not even a cold shower helped you. Honestly, it might have just helped numbing the pain in your chest instead. You gather your items, gripping your bags tightly.

What if you just drop them and simply isolate yourself in the room? No. You shook your head, walking over to the door.

Your hand remains on the cold door knob for a short while, and you almost stay long enough to have it warmed up from your skin. It gets twisted though, and you open it.

If not for the sleeping figure on the couch, it would have been an empty room. You walk out to the front door with your eyes lingering on her.

Maybe her love was too good for you anyway. You just couldn't give her enough. Or too much. It didn't even make sense anymore. There was no in between your heart and mind could agree on. Even you didn't know what you were thinking.

Just as you click open the lock and went to open the front door, she slowly awakes. The shuffling makes you turn to look at her. You catch the realization and sadness in her eyes when you locked sights. Damn the loud clicks and creaking sounds of the doors.

"Where are you going?" She asks, but it was more of a question, than her wanting to stop you.

"Somewhere that isn't here." You say quietly, like a secret thats not meant to be said. She stares off into a space in the room, lost in thought.

"I really am sorry." You hold your breath a little longer, waiting for her to say something else. But she didn't.

There wasn't anything possible to heal the broken love you held. Maybe if she gave in, but her hands had been touched by someone else and her lips...perhaps had met another's.

"I love you." You whispered impulsively, although quiet and quick, it made sound to reach her ears nonetheless.

But yet, she was silent.

You stare at her for a second more, and few seconds too long to say you're determined in leaving. She wasn't looking at you.

You take a step to turn, and the door slides open with the pull of your hand.

You take another, then when you're outside and the door closes gently, the quietness of it all consumed you.

You check your belongings, you had your bags, your watch, your phone. You have everything except for her.

You check your last pocket, and in it were the keys to the house. You slide it off and it clinks, a familiar sound that you hated made your heart skip a beat every time you heard it.

You leave it off somewhere at the front of the house, and you hope you don't remember where you put it.

It all blurred together as you went to your car, turned on the engine and drove off. Of course you had a plan in mind. You've thought about it a hundred times, but you never thought you'd go with it.

The car arrives to a stop, near the place of your favorite cafe. But you aren't going out. You just needed to drive away from the house.

"Fuck." You cursed under your breath and slammed your fist on the steering wheel, and somehow your hand had slid down to the horn, making you bump into it and the car beeped loudly. You jumped, and looked around alertedly, but no one was there. The sidewalks were empty.

You relievedly let out the breath you were holding once you made sure you were in the clear. Thankfully, it wasn't lunchtime or the weekend.

"God," the word comes out under your breath as you shook your head. The thoughts in your head were harsh, and your shoulders slumped at it.

"How could I have ever possibly thought I was actually the one?" You whisper to yourself, staring at the logo of the car, still somehow shiny, just sitting there in between the controls even from how much you've driven the car.

You grip the steering wheel, but then you notice your arms being covered in a certain cloth. One all too familiar, one you chose in instinct in the morning. You look down on the sweatshirt you're wearing, and it was obvious. It was Wanda's.

You clench your jaw and your hands move to peel it off yourself, the sweatshirt turning into a jumbled up piece of clothing that was inside-out. You didn't even want to look at it, so you threw it to the backseats. You'll deal with it later.

Soon, you went to grab your phone, your hand shaking as you turned on your phone, trying your best to find a certain contact. You hold the device tighter, trying to stop the shaking. But you couldn't.

When you found it, you were hesitant to tap on it, your mind loud of everything bad that could happen. But it was Kate. You take in a shaky breath and tapped on the call button, exhaling your breath as you put your phone to your ear.

"Hello?" Her voice comes out gently. The kinder tone almost makes you let out a breath of relief. Your shoulders relax only a little though.

"Kate?" You ask in a whisper, fiddling a little with your steering wheel and tracing the round shape, the texture brushing the skin of your fingers.

"Hey, what's up?" It was still gentle, but there was a hint of concern in it. She can already tell something was wrong even though you barely said anything.

"Um...I..." Your breath was shaky, and she could hear it. On the other side of the phone, Kate was frowning, but she stayed quiet as she gave you time to get your words out.

You were nibbling your bottom lip as you thought about how to talk about your situation, and in the midst of the moment-- "...Wanda and I broke up," you spew out the words, your mouth not even caring to follow your mind anymore.

"What? What happened?" She was certainly shocked, and you look out the window, trying to distract yourself while at the same time speaking to Kate.

"She was with someone else," you say. The florist you once saw a few months ago came out of his store, greeting a customer outside. It was like you were watching a scene you were once in, in another person's view.

"Oh, shit." She swore out unintentionally, the surprise taking over her mouth. "Sorry," she apologized quickly, and you can imagine her blinking to get ahold of herself. It almost made you let out a soft chuckle.

"...I'm sorry, Y/N. God, I could never imagine Wanda would have done that." Kate said quietly. She adored your relationship together, that much was true, but she also saw the parts of Wanda that you wish weren't true. Yet this, this was an unexpected turn.

"...And since I left the house, I can't even sulk in bed or anything." You let out a gentle breath of a laugh, but it was more of a nervous one.

"I mean, I should've had a plan but-- we'd just keep seeing each other and it just...hurts." The florist had said goodbye to the customer who bought the flowers. He seemed happy as he rewrote some things on his little chalkboard. That man was definitely living his best life.

"Where are you gonna go?" She asks, and you go silent. You couldn't go to Carol's. You wouldn't. She's living with Maria and Monica and you probably wouldn't have a room to sleep other than in the living room on the couch. You wouldn't want to intrude on her living conditions anyway.

"I don't...really have anywhere to go to, so anywhere, I guess." You sink into your seat, looking down in your lap to stop staring at people. Kate was silent for a moment, and you're guessing she either didn't know what to say, or is thinking about something.

"My place is available to you if you want to come. You're always welcome here," she offers, and your eyes relax while your fingers fiddle with theirselves, thinking it over.

"...If that's okay with you. I mean, I don't want to intrude on anything--" You add on after quickly, but you get cut off by Kate.

"It's fine. Don't worry about it, I've missed having you hanging around. And I promise you, I have two forks and spoons now so we don't have to share one or get a plastic one from Mcdonald's that'll break after a few minutes." She jokes, and that actually made you laugh.

"Okay. Okay, thank you, Kate. I'll be there tomorrow." You sit up more properly, getting ready to drive to the airport. You hadn't visited her in a while, so you already had money ready.

"I will be there to pick you up. Okay? Do not get a cab," she says sternly, and you take in a big breath only to let it out as a small sigh.

"Kate," You say sternly back, wanting to protest and not burden her more. But she hums in disagreement. You know she cared about getting you safe and being the best friend she is, but your head was killing you.

"No. No, Y/N. I am not letting you cry in a cab awkwardly first thing you get out the airport." She argues softly, and you let your shoulders down in defeat. At your silence, she waits.

"I'll let you know when I land." You give in, your voice small.

"Okay, good." You can hear the relief in her voice, and your lip tugs up into the smallest smile

"See you, Kate." You were about to end the call, but she speaks up again.

"Hey."

"Take care of yourself."

"I'll try."

"See you."

The call ends, and you start driving.

end of chapter 5.

Series Masterlist <- Chapter 4 Chapter 6 ->

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cheynovak · 1 month ago

Text

Sheriff’s Bargain - Part 2

Characters: Beau Arlen x F/Reader Y/N

Summary: Y/N, a seasoned con artist, is arrested after returning to Montana, where her past comes back to haunt her in the form of Sheriff Beau Arlen—the man she abandoned five years ago. Facing charges linked to a drug lord, she’s offered a deal to work as an informant. Torn between her criminal life and lingering feelings for Beau, Y/N must decide whether to help him bring down the crime ring or continue running from her past.

Warnings: Mentioning of breaking the law

English is not my first language

*Please do not copy my work, reblog/comments/likes are appreciated*

I worked with Beau and the sheriff's department as best as I could, but every day felt like walking a tightrope. No matter how much I helped, I couldn’t shake the feeling that they saw me as the devil in disguise—a criminal wearing a thin mask of cooperation. Beau, especially, kept his distance. Professional, detached. Like I was just another asset in his pursuit of justice. Maybe that’s what I was now.

The latest task was more difficult than I expected. I’d already given them all the intel I had, but most of it was old, whispers on the street, fragments of conversations from six years ago when I was doing jobs for Declan King. And in the criminal world, six years was a lifetime. They needed more than whispers. They needed something concrete.

So they wired me up and sent me back in. My target: King’s right-hand man, Grady. A dangerous guy with a reputation for sniffing out rats. I thought I could handle it—I’d slipped into and out of tighter situations before, but this one was close. Too close.

Grady wasn’t an idiot, and I felt him watching me the entire time, waiting for me to slip up. He got suspicious. Real suspicious. And he was right, all of the sudden I asked to meat pretending to be in trouble needing to loan money, I never asked my clients for loans, and they knew, but I played my part.

Things almost went south, but I kept my cool, spun a story about old times, and managed to walk out of there with a new bond, they would call me whenever they had a job for me. Whatever that may be.

I was shaking when I left their place, in desperate need for a drink.

But now, sitting alone at the bar, I could still feel the adrenaline coursing through me. I was shaking inside, no matter how calm I’d appeared on the surface. I’d been one wrong word away from being found out, and that scared me more than I wanted to admit.

The whiskey in front of me wasn’t helping. It wasn’t chasing away the cold fear that had settled in my bones, but I kept drinking anyway, hoping that eventually it would. The bar was dim, full of noise and life, but I felt distant from it all, lost in my own head.

That’s when I saw him.

Beau walked in, scanning the room like he always did, his eyes sharp and focused. He spotted me instantly, and I could see his jaw tighten as he made his way over. He didn’t belong here, not in this seedy dive bar with its sticky floors and cheap liquor. But then again, neither did I. Not anymore.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice low as he slid onto the barstool beside me. He didn’t order a drink. He just sat there, watching me, his eyes darker than usual.

I glanced at him, then took another sip of my whiskey. “Didn’t realize the sheriff was making house calls to dive bars now.”

“You should be more careful,” he said, ignoring my sarcasm. “Grady’s men hang around places like this. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

I laughed, but it sounded hollow even to my own ears. “I think I’ve already attracted all the wrong kinds of attention, don’t you think?”

Beau’s gaze didn’t waver. “What happened back there?”

I swallowed hard, my grip tightening around the glass. “I handled it. Just like I always do.”

“Barely,” he said, his tone sharp. “We were listening, Y/N. You were one step away from blowing your cover.”

His words stung, more than they should have. “What do you want me to say, Beau? I got in, didn’t I?”

Beau leaned closer, his voice dropping. “This isn’t a game. These people aren’t going to let you walk away if they find out you’re working with us. And if you go down, we can’t pull you out in time.”

I met his gaze, feeling a surge of frustration. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t been living with that reality for years now? I tried to stay as far away from King as possible, I know what he is.” I set the glass down a little too hard, the sound sharp against the noise of the bar. “I’m doing this for you. For your case. Don’t forget that.”

There was a moment of silence between us, the weight of everything unsaid hanging in the air.

“For me? I didn’t start a life in crime, did I?” Beau finally said, his voice softer but rough. “No,” I said, my voice quieter now too. “But you asked me to help, didn’t you?”

He didn’t respond, just stared at me with those eyes that made it hard to breathe. I wondered if he saw it, the fear I was trying so hard to drown in whiskey, the exhaustion that came from years of looking over my shoulder. Or maybe he just saw me for who I really was, a criminal trying to play at redemption.

Beau sighed, running a hand through his hair. “Look, Y/N, I get it. I know this isn’t easy for you. But we’re in deep now. You keep going, and we’ll get King. But if it gets too dangerous, you need to tell me. You need to let me pull you out before it’s too late.”

I looked down at the glass in my hands, turning it slowly. “Look, don't pretend you even care for me after what I did.” Beau was quiet for a moment before he spoke again. “Maybe I am.”

There was something in his voice that made me look up at him, something I hadn’t heard in a long time. Concern. Real concern. For me. And that was what scared me more than anything.

“I can handle it,” I said, though I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince—him or myself.

Beau’s eyes softened, but he didn’t push me further. Instead, he stood up, sliding some cash onto the bar. “I’ll drive you home. You’ve had enough for tonight.”

I wanted to argue, to tell him I didn’t need his help, but the truth was, I was too tired. Too tired of fighting him, of fighting myself. So I nodded, letting him guide me out of the bar and into the cool Montana night.

As we walked to his truck, the silence between us felt different. Not heavy with tension like before, but something else. Something almost… familiar. For the first time in years, I didn’t feel like I had to run. At least, not tonight.

But as Beau opened the truck door for me, the memories of last time I hopped in his car lingered in my mind.

The drive started off in silence, the only sound the steady hum of the engine and the occasional bump in the road. I stared out the window, the dark Montana landscape blurring by, trying to piece together the tangle of emotions that had knotted up in my chest since Beau walked into that bar.

I wasn’t sure how to explain it to him—or if I even wanted to. Finally, Beau broke the silence. “Why?” I blinked, caught off guard. “Why what?” He glanced at me, his jaw tight. “Why do this? Work with me. Was it just because I asked?”

I sighed, looking back out the window. “Yes, because you asked. What else was I supposed to do? It was either help or rot in a cell.”

He shook his head, like he was upset with the truth, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter. His voice dropped, more raw now. “Why date me back then? Was it just for the money? Another job?”

The question hit me harder than I expected. My stomach twisted, and I knew this conversation was inevitable, but I wasn’t ready for it. I could feel his eyes on me, waiting for an answer, and I stayed quiet, hoping that maybe if I didn’t respond, the question would disappear. But my silence spoke louder than words.

I owed him an explanation. After all this time, he deserved at least that much. “At first... yeah,” I admitted softly, the words heavy in my throat. “It was about the job. You seemed like someone I could get intel from, maybe sell it and make a quick score.”

I could feel him tense beside me, his grip on the wheel tightening. “Figures,” he muttered under his breath, but he didn’t interrupt.

“But then…” I continued, my voice almost a whisper, “I realized you were a good man. Different from anyone I’d ever met. And that’s why I left.”

Beau gave a short, humorless laugh, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, but it wasn’t a smile that reached his eyes. “I’m sure you’ve stolen from good men before. What made me different?”

I looked down at my hands, fidgeting with my fingers, the weight of his question hanging between us. “You were different, Beau. You didn’t deserve to be dragged into the mess I was in. You were too… good for me... You still are.”

He was quiet for a moment, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. I could feel the frustration rolling off him in waves, the unsatisfied tension in his smirk. “Good men get conned all the time, Y/N. It’s not about deserving.”

“I know that,” I said, my voice trembling slightly. “But with you, it felt different. You made me see something in myself I didn’t want to face. That’s why I left, not because I didn’t care… but because I cared too much.”

Beau glanced over at me, his eyes softened, though the hurt was still there, just beneath the surface. “You could’ve stayed. Maybe we could’ve figured it out.”

I shook my head, tears prickling at the back of my eyes. “No, Beau. You deserved better than the mess I was, better than someone who couldn’t even be honest with you.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, just drove in silence, and I wondered if I had said too much or not enough. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he sighed deeply.

“You know,” he said, his voice low, “ I was angry when you left. But what hurts more now is that you didn’t trust me enough to let me help you. To see who you really were, to get you out.”

I swallowed hard, feeling a lump form in my throat. “I didn’t what to get out, Beau." He looked at me, "And now?" "I-I, I don't know… at least I’m trying to, I guess.”

We didn’t say much after that, the silence between us heavy but not as suffocating as before. There were no easy answers, no way to fix the past. But maybe, just maybe, there was a way forward, even if it was messy and uncertain.

As Beau pulled into the driveway of the safe house where I’d be staying for now, I took a deep breath. This wasn’t over—neither the case nor whatever this was between us. It felt like we were standing at the edge of something, and I wasn’t sure if I was ready to step off or if I was going to fall.

I asked if he wanted to come in. He hesitated, his hand hovering over the keys still in the ignition, eyes locked on the house ahead. For a moment, I thought he might say yes. But then he shook his head, his jaw set. “Not tonight,” he said quietly, his voice rough, as if it took more effort to say those two words than he wanted to admit.

I nodded, swallowing the lump in my throat. “Okay.”

The air between us felt heavy, weighted down by everything unsaid, everything I couldn’t fix. I jumped out of the car and started walking toward the house, the cool night air biting at my skin. With each step, I felt a strange mix of relief and regret—relief that we had finally talked, that we’d gotten more out in that car ride than we had in all the weeks working together. But regret… because I’d hurt him. And seeing the hurt still lingering in his eyes twisted something deep inside me.

The porch light flickered as I reached the door. I fumbled with the key, but my mind was still back in the car with Beau. He’d been distant, cold even, for most of our time working together. But tonight, for the first time in years, he let some of that guard down, even if just for a moment.

I should have felt good about it. I should’ve felt relieved. But the truth was, knowing I had caused him that pain… it felt horrible. Worse than I’d imagined it would.

Once inside, I leaned against the door, closing my eyes for a moment, trying to calm the storm of emotions swirling inside me. I wasn’t used to this—feeling this way, caring this much about someone other than myself. It was easier when I was just a con, slipping in and out of people’s lives without looking back. But with Beau… I’d let myself care. And now I couldn’t escape the consequences of that.

I hurt him, and I didn’t know if I could ever undo that.

I opened my eyes, my heart pounding as I took in the sight of the trashed room. Furniture overturned, papers scattered, and the uneasy silence that followed the realization that someone had been here—looking for me. The blood drained from my face. I fumbled for my phone, my hands trembling as I dialed Beau’s number. He picked up on the first ring.

“Beau, someone’s been here. The place is smashed—”

“I’m still close. Stay put. I’m on my way.”

Minutes felt like hours as I stood in the wreckage, waiting, every sound making my pulse spike. When Beau arrived, he rushed to me, his eyes scanning the room before settling on me, his jaw tight. He didn’t say anything at first, just placed a hand on my arm, grounding me in the chaos.

His colleagues from the department showed up soon after, combing through the place, searching for clues, for any sign of who had broken in. But I already knew who. Kings men. He must’ve gotten wind that I was here. I was on their radar now, and the realization sent a chill down my spine.

Beau stood next to me as his team worked, his presence steady and solid in the middle of my spiraling fear. When the search was over, and the immediate threat cleared, he turned to me, his brow furrowed with concern.

“You can’t stay here,” he said, his voice firm. “We’ll find a new safehouse, but for tonight…” He hesitated, his eyes searching mine. “You’ll stay at my place.”

I didn’t argue. The fear gnawing at my insides left no room for pride. I nodded, my voice barely above a whisper. “Okay.”

At his house, the tension still clung to me like a second skin. I sat on the couch while Beau moved into the kitchen. He returned a few moments later with a cup of tea, setting it down in front of me. His eyes stayed on me longer than usual, a mix of worry and something deeper swimming in them.

“You’re scared,” he said softly, leaning against the counter.

I didn’t deny it. “I am.”

He didn’t say anything, just turned, rummaged through a drawer, and came back with a gun in his hand. He held it out to me, his expression serious. “Do you know how to work this?”

I nodded, my voice steady despite the fear. “Since I was five.” His eyebrows shot up, his concern deepening. “Five?” I smiled, but it was bitter. “Girls with normal childhoods don’t grow up to be criminals, Beau.”

He watched me for a long moment, the weight of my words sinking in. His shoulders sagged slightly, and I could see it in his face—he wanted to ask more, to dig deeper into the past I rarely talked about. But he didn’t. Instead, he sat down beside me, the space between us charged with unspoken things.

“You don’t have to be that girl anymore,” he said quietly.

I looked at him, really looked at him. But no matter how much I wanted to believe him, the fear, the darkness of my past, still felt too close, too much a part of me.

“Maybe not,” I said, forcing a smile.

Beau didn’t respond, but the look in his eyes said enough. He wasn’t going to let me run this time. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“Tell me about her.”

I looked up, meeting Beau’s steady gaze. “Really?” I asked, a little surprised he wanted to go down this road.

He nodded, leaning back slightly. “I presume the stories you gave me on our dates were... false?” There was a hint of amusement in his voice, but the tension between us lingered.

I smiled, a little apologetically. “Most of them, yeah.”

“Come on,” he said with a teasing glint in his eyes, trying to lighten the mood. “You’ve got dirt on me too.”

I shook my head, my smile fading. “Yeah, but you’ve got dirt on me to put me in jail.”

His face softened, and he didn’t deny it. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, watching me, waiting. The easygoing sheriff was gone, replaced by a man who wanted to know the truth. I could see the weight of the years between us, the unsaid things that were about to come to the surface.

I took a deep breath, staring at the floor for a moment before looking back up at him. “You really want to know?”

Beau didn’t move, just nodded once. “Yeah. I do.”

I leaned forward, clasping my hands together, trying to figure out where to even start. My life wasn’t a story with a clean beginning or an easy ending. It was messy, full of jagged edges and broken pieces.

“I grew up in a place where trust got you hurt,” I began, my voice low. “My dad… he wasn’t a good man. He ran with the wrong crowd—gamblers, lowlifes. He was a con artist, too. I guess that’s where I got it from. But he wasn’t careful. He owed a lot of people money, people who weren’t too happy when he couldn’t pay.”

Beau stayed quiet, his eyes never leaving mine, but I could tell he was taking it all in. He didn’t interrupt, just let me keep going.

“I was five when I learned how to handle a gun,” I continued. “Because he wasn’t home most nights, and when he was, it wasn’t safe. My mom left when I was a kid, so I didn’t have anyone to teach me what normal was. I learned survival from the people around me—thieves, liars, con artists. By the time I was twelve, I was running scams with my dad. He called it ‘teaching me the family business.’” I laughed bitterly at the memory. “But really, it was just survival.”

Beau’s face hardened, but he didn’t say anything. I could see the way his fists clenched slightly at his sides, like he was imagining that little girl growing up in that world.

“Eventually, I got good at it. Better than my dad. I moved on from his small-time schemes to bigger things. By the time I was twenty, I was on my own, pulling jobs for some very dangerous people. And once you’re in that life, it’s not easy to get out. You know too much, and people don’t forget that. You don’t get to just disappear.”

I looked down at my hands, feeling the weight of all those years press down on me again. “That’s why I left you, Beau. I didn’t want to drag you into the mess I was in. I thought if I just disappeared, maybe I could protect you from all of it.”

I glanced up, searching his face for some sign of what he was thinking. For a long moment, he didn’t say anything. Then, finally, he spoke, his voice quiet but steady.

“I knew you were running from something, but I didn’t realize it was all that.”

I shrugged, trying to play it off, but the truth was, telling him all of this felt like exposing a part of me I’d kept hidden for years. “It’s not exactly first-date material.”

He gave a small, humorless smile. “No, I guess not.”

Silence settled between us again, and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He was piecing things together, seeing me in a way he hadn’t before. And I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse.

“You’re not your dad, Y/N,” Beau said after a moment, his voice firm. “You’ve made mistakes, yeah, but you’re not him. You don’t need to be like him.”

I let out a long breath, my eyes drifting back to the floor. “Sometimes, it feels like I am. Like I’m stuck in this cycle, doing what I know best because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”

Beau leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, closing the distance between us. “You’ve been trying to survive your whole life. That’s not the same as being a bad person.”

I looked up at him, his words sinking in, but I wasn’t sure I could believe them. Not yet, anyway. “I don’t know how to be anyone else,” I whispered.

Beau reached over, gently placing his hand on mine. “Then maybe it’s time you learn.” I stared at him, the warmth of his touch grounding me in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

“How?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. “You’re doing it already,” Beau said softly, his eyes steady on mine.

For a moment, the air between us shifted. The tension that had been simmering for weeks boiled over. My eyes drifted to his lips, and before I could think twice, I leaned in, crashing into him with all the pent-up emotions I’d been trying to ignore. His lips were warm, familiar, and for a second, he let me. He kissed me back, and it felt like the world was slipping away.

But just as quickly, he pulled back, his hands on my shoulders, gently but firmly pushing me away. His eyes were conflicted, full of emotions he wasn’t ready to act on. “Bad idea,” he muttered, standing up and running a hand through his hair.

I sat there, my heart racing, feeling the sting of rejection, but also knowing he was right. This was too messy. There was too much between us now.

Beau walked toward his bedroom, not looking back. “Goodnight,” he said, his voice low and strained.

I watched him disappear down the hall, my mind spinning. I wasn’t sure what I expected when I kissed him, but this—this felt like a deeper kind of hurt. One that came with the weight of everything we’d been through, and everything we hadn’t said.

I sat there for a long time after, the house quiet, the warmth of his touch lingering on my skin.

Let me know what you think ❤️ for more stories s

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thornybubbles · 2 years ago

Text

JJBA Yandere Scenario: Jealousy (The JoJos: Josuke, Giorno, and Johnny)

Josuke

Jealous Josuke is an emotional wreck. He’s rage and paranoia personified. He wants to be a good boyfriend. He really does, but every time he sees you with that guy, he feels like he’s going to lose his mind. He’s in constant flux between flying into a rage and having a full on panic attack. You love him, right? So why hang all over that guy so much? Are you cheating on him? You wouldn’t do that to him, would you? He sure hopes not because he doesn’t know what he’d do if that was true. He’s pretty sure he’d go insane though. Every moment you two aren’t together he’s wondering if you’re with that guy or not. His imagination goes wild, taking his thoughts to places he doesn’t want them to go.

Are you in love with that guy?

Are you going to leave him?

Are you cheating on him?

Are you cheating on him right now?

Are you cheating?

Are you cheating on him?!!!

It was lunch break. Josuke had left the classroom to roam the mostly empty halls. He couldn’t sit in the classroom with Okuyasu constantly asking him what was wrong. He needed to be alone to think. He needed to decide what to do. He just needed to calm down first. It was proving very difficult to do so, though, as thoughts of you in the track star’s arms kept popping into his thoughts. He rubbed his temples, trying to ease the headache that was forming. HIs hair was a mess and for once, he didn’t even care.

He was startled by the feeling of a hand touching his shoulder. He whirled around and his bloodshot eyes locked onto the form of Yukako.

“Koichi is worried about you.” She said with a stern tone, almost as if she was accusing him of something.

It took a few moments for her words to sink in for Josuke.

“Huh? Worried? Why?” Josuke asked.

Yukako ran her fingers through her long black locks in a casual manner before she answered.

“You’ve been acting like you’re on the verge of a mental breakdown for days now. I’ve noticed it as well.” she said. “What’s going on, Josuke?”

Josuke sighed. First Okuyasu, now both Koichi and Yukako? He guessed he wasn’t really hiding his feelings very well. Well, he wasn’t really trying to.

“I think she might be cheating on me.” he blurted out before he could stop himself. He gritted his teeth and his hands began to tremble. Just saying it out loud made him want to go on a rampage.

Yukako noticed the way his fingers twitched and the way his jaw tightened. She knew that level of fury all too well. She sighed and crossed her arms across her chest.

“You mean your girlfriend? Cheating with who? With that muscle head from the track team? The one with the terrible bleached hair? The one I always see her talking with when you aren’t around?” she said, bracing herself for what she suspected would come next.

Sure enough at the mention of the hated rival, Josuke’s rage exploded like a volcano. He slammed a fist into a nearby locker, caving the door in to the point that it popped off of the hinges. He stood there panting heavily for a moment before summoning Crazy Diamond to fix the door. He didn’t know whose locker it belonged to, but he figured that a random student shouldn’t have to pay for his tantrum.

Yukako felt a drop of cold sweat run down the back of her neck. She wondered if her own tantrums had that same effect on those around her. Poor Koichi. She waited for Josuke to look calm enough for it to be safe to speak to him again.

“I’m not the type to interfere in the problems of other couples, but seeing you like this upsets my Koichi, so I’ll give you some advice…” she began.

Josuke thought Yukako was the last person to have any business giving anyone advice on romance, but he listened to what she had to say anyway. It wasn’t like he was coming up with any solutions on his own.

“Kick his ass.” she said simply.

Well, he should’ve seen that coming.

“Let me rephrase that… Give him a warning. One warning. Tell him to stay away from what’s yours, and if he can’t follow that one, simple request… kick his ass.” she said, her eyes and voice taking on a steely edge.

Josuke mulled over what she said. It was such a simple answer, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it. Of course he couldn’t just beat some dude up for no reason… but he did have a reason, didn’t he? That lowlife spent way too much time with his babe for his liking. Always stealing her time from him… giving him a warning first made things fair… Surprisingly, Yukako’s advice made perfect sense.

“Don’t just think about it, Josuke. You need to confront him. Tell him to back off and enforce it if you need to.”

Yukako turned and started to walk back to the classroom before turning back to him and adding,

“And then you need to talk to her. Remind her of who she belongs to. If you don’t set her straight�� you’ll lose her.”

Those last three words chilled Josuke to his very core. He stared after Yukako as she walked away from him. Putting the jock in his place made sense, but was Yukako implying that he needed to… “get rough” with you? Josuke wasn’t sure that he would, or could, take things that far. He did plan to talk to you about it though. He was going to have to explain to you how you made him feel whenever you spent too much time around other guys. More than that, he had to make sure that all these fears of you cheating on him were just in his head and not a terrible reality.

Josuke made up his mind. He was going to take Yukako’s advice. He’d find out where that bleach tipped jock hung out and confront him after school. He’d have to be careful, though. If he ended up having to pulverize him, he didn’t want word of that getting back to you. You were understanding, kind, and open minded, but he didn’t think you’d be happy to hear that he’d beaten one of your friends to a pulp. Why were you friends with that guy anyway? Wasn’t he enough?

Josuke shook his head furiously. No, he couldn’t go thinking like that again. He’d work himself back into a frenzy. He needed to think clearly. He was going to have to be patient and wait. He’d feel a lot better once he’d made sure that scumbag left you alone for good. He was going to hate it, but he needed to avoid you until then. As much as he needed to bury himself into your embrace, he wouldn’t be able to control himself around you. He was still angry and the last thing he wanted to do was blow up in your face, blaming you for doing something he still wasn’t sure you were guilty of yet. He just didn’t know what he’d do if he found out anything funny went on between you and that piece of shit. He would go insane. He’d go insane and it would be all your fault.

He spent the rest of the school day twitching with barely restrained fury.

Finally the end of the school day came and Josuke couldn’t get out of the classroom fast enough. He spotted you briefly but was careful enough to stay out of your range of sight. He spotted his true target talking to a group of boys coming out of the gym. That was him! The guy you were (might) be leaving him for. There wasn’t anything special about him. Sure he was a bit on the buff side, but Josuke’s muscles were just as good! Besides, it didn’t matter whose muscles were bigger, Josuke could still win in a real fight. All this guy could do was run. What could a mere high school athlete do against someone who fought with the most dangerous people in the world on a daily basis? What could he do against someone with a Stand like Crazy Diamond? Nothing! That’s what! And Josuke was going to prove it! Tonight! He waited for the other boys to leave before he made his move.

“Hey, you!” Josuke called to the track star.

The boy cast a confused look at Josuke, not understanding the cause of the hostile tone he was being given. Josuke told him to meet him at sunset out in the rice fields, describing the same one where Jotaro had taken him to hunt the rats, explaining that he had something important to talk about. Those fields were far from prying eyes. No one ever went out there except the farmers during harvest and planting season. There wouldn’t be any witnesses to what Josuke was going to do to the chump… if he had to. (He really hoped he would have to.) The boy agreed to meet Josuke, already feeling that the delinquent was challenging him to a fight for some unknown reason. The boy rose to the challenge eagerly, refusing to be intimidated by Josuke.

Josuke stood in the middle of the field, staring out at the horizon as the sky changed colors. The sun had fully dipped behind the treetops, but its light still hung in the sky, not wanting to give up the fight against the nighttime so easily. Just like him. He wasn’t about to let some lunkhead steal you away from him. And he wasn’t letting you go for anyone else either. He wouldn’t give up. He wouldn’t give you up to anyone!

“What’s this about, Higashikata?”

Josuke looked over his shoulder at the boy, his expression a cold look of contempt.

“I want you to stay away from my girl. Don’t hang around her. Don’t talk to her. Don’t even look at her.” Josuke said simply.

What he did next would depend on how the boy responded. If he agreed, there wouldn’t be any problem. If he didn’t, well…

The boy gave Josuke a confused, disgusted look before letting out a sharp bark of a laugh.

“Oh my God.” He said. “I never pegged you to be one of those types of boyfriends!”

Josuke turned to face the boy fully.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” he demanded, his anger starting to simmer to a boil.

“It means that you’re an asshole, obviously.” the boy scoffed with an obnoxious roll of his eyes.

“What kind of boyfriend I am isn’t any of your concern. I told you to stay away from her. So what’s it gonna be? Are you gonna leave her alone, or am I gonna have to get my point across in a different way?” Josuke said in a warning tone.

“I won’t have to leave her alone.” the boy said with another scoff. “If you’re this pathetic and clingy, she’ll end up leaving you anyway.”

Josuke felt something inside of his mind give way and a flood of the most horrible thoughts and feelings rushed forth like a tidal wave. None of it showed on his face though. Only a slight look of disdain as he raised his chin slightly to look down his nose at the subhuman pile of dogshit in front of him.

The boy fell to his side as his right leg snapped like a dry twig. The lower shin bone jutted out of the flesh of his leg gruesomely. The boy screamed, clutching his ruined leg and writhing in pain. Crazy Diamond hovered over the boy waiting for the mental order to break his other leg.

Josuke sighed, closing his eyes in mock frustration.

“Man, you really know how to say the wrong thing, don’t you?” he said, ignoring the boy’s screams.

He was answered with more screaming. Josuke just stared at the boy, his blue eyes empty and cold. Normally, he wouldn’t be able to handle the sight or sounds before him. He didn’t like watching people suffer. This was different though. This wasn’t a person in front of him. It was a thing. A nasty, squealing thing that was trying to take his happiness away from him. It was a worthless speck of filth that wanted to dirty up his world. He wanted it to hurt and scream and bleed and DIE!!

“All you had to do was say that you’d leave my girl alone. That’s it. I don’t think that was really too much to ask, was it?” Josuke said, his voice as expressionless as his face.

“But I’m feeling a little bit lenient today, so I’ll give you a chance. I’ll let you go if you can outrun me, but the trick is that you have to do it on that broken leg. I’ll even give you two chances, but only two, because you don’t really deserve three. If you fall over, or I catch up to you, then you lose and I punish you. Strike one, I break your other leg. Strike two, though, I break your spine. So you better be able to get away from me or you’re gonna permanently lose your title of track star.”

The boy stared up at Josuke through terrified, tear-filled eyes, unable to process the madness of what he’d just been told.

“On your mark…” Josuke said.

The boy braced himself in a stance as best he could on his shattered leg. This was insane! He knew he couldn’t get away, but he had to try.

“Get set…”

The boy wobbled dangerously, his leg throbbing with pain and bleeding everywhere. He felt like he would throw up any moment.

“GO!”

The boy flopped over, unable to even stand on his ruined leg.

Josuke shook his head.

“Didn’t even make it past the starting line. I thought you were supposed to be good at this.” He mocked.

The boy tried to crawl away as Josuke loomed over him. His left leg arched upward in a grisly way as Crazy Diamond stomped down on his kneecap, reducing it to powder. Another round of tortured screaming issued forth from the boy. Josuke just looked on with an uninterested gaze.

“Ready for round two?” Josuke asked.

The boy stopped screaming and began to shout at Josuke.

“You insane fuck!” He cried. “You psychopathic piece of shit!”

The boy didn’t have any clue just how Josuke was putting him through this torment. He was just standing there! How could he hurt him without even touching him?

Josuke raised an eyebrow.

“Hey, I’m giving you a chance here and now you’re gonna swear at me? Not sure if you deserve a second chance. Maybe I should just break your spine anyway?”

“Go ahead if you think it will do anything!” the boy screamed at him in a moment of defiance. “Paralyze me if you think it matters, but when I’m lying on a hospital bed, I’ll make sure everybody knows that it was you that did this to me! Everybody will know what a fucked up monster you are, including that girl of yours. She’ll hate you! She’ll be so sick of you for what you did that she’ll leave you and--”

He was cut off by Josuke’s fist slamming into his jaw, cracking it.

“YOU JUST DON’T KNOW WHEN TO SHUT THE HELL UP, DO YOU?” Josuke thundered, his face contorted with so much rage that he looked downright demonic. “LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN KEEP RUNNING YOUR MOUTH THROUGH A BROKEN JAW! HUH?! YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY NOW?! YOU SACK OF SHIT!!!”

What did this guy know? You weren’t going to leave him! You wouldn’t! You couldn’t! This loser didn’t know what he was talking about!!

He wanted to keep hitting him. He wanted to pummel his stupid face until there was nothing left of it but scraps of meat and bits of bone. He wanted to splatter his brains all over the ground and soak the dirt with his blood. But he didn’t. Somehow he managed to reign in his anger. He knew that if he kept hitting him, he would kill him. Not that he cared about the punk’s worthless life, but his reputation (especially with you) would be in shambles. His friends would never forgive him. His mother… he didn’t even want to think about how she’d react. You, though. You would hate him and fear him. He couldn’t live with that.

So instead, Josuke had Crazy Diamond methodically torture his rival. His spine was broken, as promised, but so were his ribs, his arms, the tiny bones in his hands and feet, his fingers, his toes… each bone was slowly and methodically shattered, until the boy was begging for it to end. That’s all Josuke needed to hear.

He allowed Crazy Diamond to heal the boy and the Stand did so, though reluctantly. The boy was stunned. Taking full advantage of his now healed legs, the boy clamored to his feet and started to run. He was grabbed by Crazy Diamond.

“Ah! What is this?” He cried. “What’s happening?! Something’s got me!”

He struggled to break free from the invisible hold, but it was too strong. He shrank in on himself as Josuke approached him.

“Y-You were breaking my bones without touching me… Then suddenly I’m healed and now I feel like I’ve been grabbed by something I can’t see! How are you doing this? W-what the hell are you?” he said with a whimper of terror.

Josuke glared at him. He was afraid. Good. Maybe now he’ll finally listen to reason.

“Doesn’t matter.” Josuke answered. “All that matters is whether or not you plan to keep pressing your luck. Are you going to leave my girl alone or do I have to give you another round of pain?”

“I-I’ll l-leave her alone. I’ll do what y-you say. Just… please… l-let me g-go…” he stammered, exhaustion evident in his voice.

Crazy Diamond released the boy, and he dropped to his knees. He looked up as Josuke stood in front of him.

“Now, you’re gonna go about your life pretending that this little encounter didn’t happen.” Josuke warned. “If word of what happened today gets out, I’m not gonna be happy with you. Especially if my girl finds out about it. If I find out that you talked, I’ll find you. And you won’t like what happens when I do. Do I make myself clear?”

The boy nodded.

“I won’t tell. I w-won’t tell anyone.” he stammered.

Josuke’s expression suddenly brightened. His lips stretched into a deceptively friendly smile.

“Good! Now run home, and forget all about this.”

The track star did just that, putting his well trained (and now unbroken) legs to good use. He ran the entire way home.

-----

Things had been very strange for you for the last few days. First of all, Josuke seemed as though he was actively avoiding you lately. When you spoke to him, he always seemed to have a manic look in his eyes, as well as a need to rush through the conversation in order to get away from you as soon as possible. Okuyasu told you that Josuke was acting like that around him and Koichi, too. Today was really strange, though. You hadn’t seen Josuke all day and for the last half of the day, Yukako kept giving you suspicious looks. You had no idea what you had done to have her keep looking at you that way, but you made it a point to stay out of her way for the rest of the day. For all you knew, you probably accidentally gave Koichi too many compliments or something. You were more worried about your boyfriend and what you could have done to make him act like he wanted nothing to do with you. You were going to have to talk to him about it. You had a terrible feeling that he might be planning to break up with you.

Imagine your surprise, when Josuke showed up at your window later that night. He looked disheveled and had a wild look in his eye. His precious pompadour was in a disarray, long, loose, strands had broken free and dangled in his face. Curious, you let him into your room. Once he climbed all the way into your room, he was all over you. He grabbed you up in a tight embrace and planted a desperate, needy kiss on your lips. When that kiss ended, he kissed you again, and again, and again.

“I missed you.” he whispered.

“I can tell.” You quipped. “Here I was, thinking you were sick of me.”

Josuke let go of you.

“You thought I was sick of you?” he asked, sounding surprised.

“You’ve been avoiding me for days now.” You explained to him. “Every time I talked to you, you acted like you wanted to be anywhere else but near me. You stopped calling me and you wouldn’t pick up the phone when I tried to call you. Your Mom would answer and tell me you were busy. Then, today I didn’t see you at all. Is there something going on, Josuke?”

Josuke gave you such a desperate look just then. He grabbed you by the shoulders and led you to the bed where he made you sit. He sat down next to you and grasped your hands.

“I need you to be honest with me.” Josuke said.

You gave him a concerned look but nodded your head.

“Sure, Josuke.” You said, growing worried.

“Would you ever leave me for someone else?” He blurted out, not even hesitating to confess his worst fear to you. “Would you cheat on me?”

You stared at him in disbelief. That was why he’d been avoiding you? Did he suspect you’d found someone else? Had he truly lost his ability to trust you? What on earth had happened to make him feel this way?

“Josuke…” you began.

“Just tell me the truth!” He shouted, a frightened, anguished tone to his voice. “Please, babe! I need to hear you say the words!!”

You sighed. He needed confirmation of your loyalty. It hurt your heart to think that he felt that you would do something so deplorable as cheat on him, but that miserable look on his face made it impossible to hold it against him. For someone that seemed to be as tough as diamond, his heart could shatter so easily.

“Josuke, I love you to pieces.” You say plainly. “I don’t know what I could have done to make you lose your trust in me, but I’m sorry. I would never do something like that to you. I’d never even dream of it.”

Josuke seemed to deflate like a balloon and collapsed against you. You almost fell over from the sudden weight. You put your arms around him and held him close. His chest was heaving and you could hear his breath hitch. He was crying.

“Jojo?” You asked, using his nickname for once. Sensitive as Josuke was, he hardly ever cried. It took something really bad to make him like this. It must have been bothering him a lot.

“Thank God.” he sobbed. “I thought… I just don’t want to lose you. You’re the only thing in the world that makes me feel sane anymore. When I’m with you, I can feel normal. I don’t have to think about how it feels like my life’s gone to shit. I get so tired of how crazy everything is now. I just want to feel like a normal human being again!”

His words caused a thrill of discomfort to shoot through your very soul. That sounded… well… not very healthy. You opened your mouth to say something to him but you found yourself suddenly staring up into his tear streaked face. He wore a manic expression that chilled you to the bone.

“Promise me that you’ll stay with me forever!” he said. It was a demand. There was no option to deny him.

“I-I promise, Josuke.” You stammered, shocked at how unhinged he was behaving and beginning to fear for your safety.

“You’ll promise what?” Josuke ground out, his voice taking on a threatening tone that caused goosebumps to break out across your skin.

“I-I promise to s-stay with you forever, Josuke!” You said.

He sighed in relief and closed his eyes tightly, before crushing you to his chest.

“I knew. I knew you wouldn’t betray me like that.” he said. “I just had to hear you say it. I had to be sure. I knew you’d tell me the truth. I knew you’d never lie to me, would you, babe?”

“Of c-course not…” you said, terrified of what he’d do if he didn’t like your response.

“Of course you wouldn’t.” He said, holding you so close that it was starting to hurt.

“If you did… if you lied to me… or tried to leave me… I’d lose my damn mind.” he said, his voice shaking and sounding completely unhinged.

“Then… I just don’t know what I’d do.”

Giorno

Jealous Giorno is going to do anything he can to bring your attention back to him. He’ll be like a peacock spreading his feathers in a not-so-subtle attempt to earn your affections. He’s had his eye on you since he became Don, and seeing you always hanging around that lowly con man set his blood on fire. He made it a point to use whatever methods were at his disposal to find out exactly what kind of men you found attractive. You liked men with long hair? He stopped wearing his hair in a braid, letting the long, blonde locks flow over his shoulders. When he found out what your favorite color was, he had all of his new suits tailored to be in various shades of that color. After a while, he noticed, to his delight, that his efforts were having an effect on you.

“I see you started wearing your hair down, sir.” you said, feeling awkward about starting a casual conversation with the most powerful man in Italy.

Giorno turned to you with soft eyes and a gentle smile. You were actually speaking to him! Though, he didn’t care for your formal tone.

“You may call me Giorno, if you like.” He said. “Do you like it? My hair, I mean.”

“Uh, yes… it looks very nice.” You stammered, trying to keep your composure but failing miserably. Your cheeks felt like they were on fire. You were embarrassing yourself in front of a very dangerous man and you hated yourself for it.

Giorno felt like his heart had sprouted wings. Your shyness was very unbecoming of someone in your profession, but to him, it was the most precious thing he’d ever seen.

“No need to be so shy.” He said, teasingly. “You don’t have to be so stiff and formal when you speak to me.”

He motioned for you to sit, waving to the ornate chair in front of his desk.

“Here, sit. Would you like some tea?”

You timidly took a seat as you were told.

“Yes. Thank you.” You answered.

This went on for a while, with Giorno making subtle changes to himself in order to gain your favor. But he was becoming frustrated. No matter what he did, you still stubbornly stayed by the con man’s side. Why? What was he missing? What else did he need to do? You couldn’t actually be in love with that low life, could you? What could a man like that possibly give you that he couldn’t? What could possibly be keeping you by his side?

A little more research into your life and he found the answer. Ah. So you were the con man’s bodyguard. And… you were a Stand user. How interesting. Once he found that out, GER seemed very interested in meeting your Stand. Giorno realized he wasn’t the only one with a crush.

Giorno decided to get in touch with your current employer to see about discussing an exchange. Money solved most problems, didn’t it? It shouldn’t be too hard to convince your boss to relinquish your services to him.

Once Giorno had the con man in front of him, it took so much effort and all of his sense of professionalism to keep from scowling at him. He was a wormy, greasy snotball of a human being with a cowardly disposition. His nervous eyes flicked around the room to where Mista and a few other gangsters in Giorno’s employ stood up against the walls, staring back at him menacingly.

A suitcase was placed on Giorno’s desk in front of the con man. He eyed it suspiciously but made no move to open it. He looked up at Giorno with worry in his eyes.

“If I give you my bodyguard, then I won’t have anyone watching my back” the con man whined “I’ve scammed a lot of people in my day and some of those guys are dangerous. Dangerous and pissed off at me. I can’t afford…”

“Why don’t you actually look at what I’m offering you before you complain about what you can’t afford?” Giorno interrupted, trying his best to quell his growing irritation.

The con man glanced from Giorno down to the suitcase. Timidly, warily, he loosened the latches and slowly opened the suitcase. His eyes lit up like the New York skyline.

“You can have her.” he said, digging his hands into the cash. He pulled out stacks of bills and looked at them like they were rare works of art. Giorno’s eyes darkened at how easily swayed the man was. He was just another greed driven criminal that viewed human lives as nothing more than tools or products to be bought and sold. Of course, Giorno was no better. He was the one buying you after all. Still, to think of you working under such a man made his skin crawl.

“Then I suppose we have no more business together. You may take your leave.” Giorno said, wanting the speck of living filth out of his sight as soon as possible.

The con man put the bills back in the suitcase and slammed it closed. He snatched it up and grinned at Giorno.

“With this much cash I won’t need a bodyguard anyway! I’ve got enough money to buy my own personal army now! It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Giovanna!” he chirped happily.

“The pleasure is all yours, I assure you.” Giorno muttered under his breath.

If the con man heard him, he didn’t acknowledge it. He held the suitcase under his arm and started for the door.

“Don’t know why you want to spend so much money on her anyway. She’s a great bodyguard, but not good for much else.” the con man said over his shoulder.

“What do you mean by that?” Giorno said. His eyes narrowed dangerously.

“Bit of a prude. Not interested in having any fun, if you know what I mean.” Said the con man while making a lewd gesture with his hands.

Girono felt his teeth grind against each other.

“Yes I think I know exactly what you mean.” he growled. “I believe you were on your way out.”

The con man cast him another grin and left.

Giorno snapped his head in the direction of his second in command.

“Mista,” he said.

The gunman gave a nod and headed for the door.

“What? Really?!” came a cry of surprise by one of the other gangsters. “But he took the money!”

He was a rookie in the group, but he should still know better than to speak out of turn. Giorno affixed him with a glare that had him snapping his jaw closed and staring at the floor. The two thugs on either side of him sidled a few inches away from him. The rookie seemed like he was trying to become one with the wall, but he didn’t say anymore.

Giorno turned away from him. He would discipline that fool later.

A day passes, and you get the word that your boss has been murdered. It’s assumed that one of his past victims finally caught up with him. It wasn’t long after that that you were contacted by Giorno. Now, you found yourself sitting in front of Giorno as he offered you a small smile. His eyes were alight with something that resembled glee. You couldn’t imagine why he seemed so happy and you weren’t about to ask.

“It’s come to my attention that you are in need of a job,” he said. “I’ve decided to offer you a place by my side… as my bodyguard!” he said, adding the last part rather quickly.

You looked up at him and he had such a calm, placid look on his face. His eyes though, had a strange urgent look to them. It was almost as if he was trying to mentally will you to say yes. You thought for a moment, weighing your options. The thing was, you really didn’t have any options. Your original boss was out of the picture, and as much as you didn’t like the man, he paid well. And strangely, nobody else had been willing to hire you within the organization. They kept saying things like, “You don’t have the credentials” or “You don’t have enough experience”. Lies. Not only that, but they all seemed very nervous about your presence. They all seemed like they just wanted to get rid of you. You don’t know what could have happened to cause your reputation to plummet so severely that no one would hire you, but it put you in a very bad position. You owed people money. You owed very dangerous people a lot of money. You looked back up at Giorno.

“When do you want me to start, Mr. Giovana?” you asked.

It seemed like the entire room sighed with relief, even though only you and Giorno were in the room.

“I’m very glad to hear it, though I believe I told you to call me Giorno,” he said. His smile was friendly enough, but there was a slight edge to his voice that made you feel that the request was actually an order.

“I’m sorry, Giorno.” You said, correcting yourself.

His smile brightened.

Once you were actually in his employ, your life suddenly took a turn for the better. Everyone you owed money to, suddenly dropped any obligations you had to them. Your bills were paid, and even your groceries were bought for you and delivered to your door. You were provided with expensive and opulent jewelry, clothing, and anything else you could possibly want or need. No one else that you worked for ever went this far for you. And as much as you appreciated what he was doing for you, you were starting to feel a little suffocated.

There was another problem with your new job. As time passed, you could feel yourself developing feelings for Giorno that went well past what was professional. You stifled it as best as you could but with every moment you spent by Giorno’s side, it became more and more difficult. Developing feelings in a job like this was dangerous. Love dulled a person’s sense of reasoning, and you couldn’t afford to lose focus. It could cost you your life. Not only that, but there was always the risk of losing the one you loved. You didn’t think you could handle losing someone you were really in love with. Furthermore, you didn’t want to die and leave a grieving loved one behind.

Giorno seemed adamant about developing a friendship with you though. You thought it odd. He wasn’t like anyone you’d ever worked for. When he asked your opinion on something he seemed genuinely interested in your thoughts. Sometimes he would even make changes based on your opinions alone.

Giorno seemed to have three sides to him. One was the cold, business like persona he presented to his underlings. The second was the persona of the old friend that he showed only to his closest and most trusted allies. The third was the persona he showed only to you. This side of him was the strangest. He would only reveal this side of himself when it was just the two of you and on days where there were no pressing matters to deal with. He would talk with you for hours about all kinds of things. Eventually, these conversations between the two of you began to get more revealing.

One night, when the two of you were alone, Giorno opened up to you about something he had never shared with anyone. He told you about his neglectful mother and his abusive stepfather. He told you about wanting to find out who his real father was and even showed you the picture he had in his wallet. The image of the mysterious man gave you shuddering chills that resembled the one you got whenever Giorno gave someone that certain glare that he had. After being told something so intimately private, you found yourself opening up to him as well. You told him about your own lack of a father and your drug addicted mother. You told him about how as a small child you would scream and beg for her to feed you only for her to stare you dead in the eyes while she wordlessly jabbed another needle in her arm. You told him about how you came close to starving to death many times. You told him about how you found your mother dead from an overdose one day and had to live on the streets. Then one day, you got so sick you thought you were going to die, only to miraculously recover and find that you had developed your Stand. From there, you began using your Stand to do odd jobs to keep yourself fed and rent an apartment. You eventually got swept up into mob business and the rest is history.

You never told anyone else that story, not because you didn’t want anyone to know about your past, but because you didn’t think anyone else would care. Giorno cared. He told you about how he got involved with the mafia in the first place. He told you of how he met Bruno Bucciarati, and how he planned to rid the streets of illegal drugs. He vowed to you then and there that he would make sure that no other child would have to endure what you went through due to your mother’s addiction.

From there, the relationship you had with Giorno became less and less professional. Of course the two of you maintained a respectable distance from each other when around others that weren’t a part of Girono’s inner circle but, behind closed doors, when it was only the two of you, Giorno seemed to revert to being a needy child. He started making more and more physical contact with you, and for once, you allowed it. It wasn’t the first time a boss of yours tried to get physical with you, but their touches disgusted you and you refused them everytime. Giorno’s touches were so innocent and timid. It was almost as if he was afraid you would strike him if he got too close. He never did anything to make you uncomfortable and his touches were always gentle. He would only ever touch your hand, or hug onto your arm in the beginning. Eventually he got bolder and would embrace you in full hugs or lean up against you, resting his head on your shoulder where he would end up falling asleep. The level of trust he put into you if he was willing to fall asleep in your presence was touching. In this line of work, trust was something you didn’t sneeze at.

Giorno never attempted to cross the line with you. So when he ever felt the need to initiate physical contact, you would freeze up and let him do so at his own pace. You treated it as if you were being sniffed by a deer or rabbit or any other skittish and easily frightened animal. Giorno was certainly frightened. He feared rejection. Your rejection. So you made it a point to never push him away. And for his part, he never gave you a reason to. It was safe to say that your feelings for him had fully developed past a simple crush.

Apparently you weren’t the only one who felt that way. One night, you entered Giorno’s office to find that the lights had been dimmed and there were candles everywhere. Giorno’s desk and the other furniture had been rearranged to make room for a table and chairs. On the table was a lavish meal with wine and even dessert. Giorno sat in one of the chairs, looking at you expectantly. He wore an opulent version of his usual suit (in your favorite color) and his hair was impeccable. It framed his face beautifully. The ringlets that usually adorned his forehead had been loosened and hung in curly strands against his face. You blushed at the sight of him.

He proposed to you that night. You were surprised, but you didn’t hesitate to say yes. That’s how you found yourself on a yacht headed out to a private island with him for your honeymoon. Little did you know that once you got to the beautiful and sprawling villa he had set up there, you would not be leaving. Now that Giorno finally had you, he decided that he no longer wanted you putting yourself in harm’s way for him. You were his bodyguard no longer. You were his wife and he wanted you to live in luxury and safety. So he would clip your wings and put you in your gilded cage. You would be cared for and provided for and have nothing but the best of everything at your fingertips… but you would never know freedom again.

Johnny

Jealous Johnny is hostile and passive aggressive.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Johnny spits as you bring your friend to the camp.

Since you joined up with Johnny and Gyro in the Steel Ball Run race, Johnny’s mood has improved greatly. You’ve given him a new lease on life and make him feel like he’s actually got something to live for again. It helps that you talk to him as a person and not just treat him like a helpless invalid.

So when that rancher starts showing up at all the races and taking all your attention, it gives him such an uncomfortable, sour feeling in his belly. Don’t you know that guy isn’t just a fan? His crush on you is so painfully obvious it’s sickening! Why can’t you see how he’s manipulating you? Always buying you expensive dinners and clothes and things! You’re in a race through wilderness and rugged plains, for Christ’s sake! What do you need a velvet shawl for? All that jewelry will make you a target for bandits! It’s so obvious to Johnny that the rancher is trying to steal you away from him!

Johnny doesn’t know how to handle his jealousy. He becomes moody whenever you aren’t around and Gyro worries that he’ll go back into a depressive state. Johnny’s demeanor always brightens when you’re back with them though. Of course, when you keep talking about your fancy fanboy, Johnny starts getting snappy.

“Do you ever stop talking about that guy?” He grumbles. “Why don’t you marry him already, since you like him so much?”

“He’s already asked me to.” You say. Johnny almost falls off of Slow Dancer, while you and Gyro laugh your asses off.

Johnny doesn’t think it’s so funny. Once he gets himself back in the saddle correctly, he sends a glare your way.

“Tell him no!” He all but screams at you.

Both you and Gyro stop laughing to give him looks of shock. Johnny takes a few minutes to compose himself before he explains.

“At least… at least wait until the race is over…” he said, not making eye contact with either of you.

“Well… that was the plan.” you responded, giving Gyro a confused look. The Italian just shrugged and returned your expression.

“Besides, I don’t even know what I’m going to tell him. I’m not even sure I feel that way about him.”

Johnny didn’t respond. He stared straight ahead at the road over the top of Slow Dancer’s head. Her ears flicked nervously, as if she could sense her rider’s feelings. Johnny’s mind was churning with all manner of unpleasant things. The thought of what you would do after the race was always on the forethought of his mind. Gyro would go back to Italy, that much he knew. There was always that part of him that didn’t want Gyro to go, but Johnny didn’t really feel it was his place to keep his mentor away from his previous obligations. You were a different story. You were in the same boat as Johnny, disowned by your parents and all alone. You didn’t have a reason to leave once the race was over. Where would you even go anyway?

The rancher was a problem. If you decided to marry him, you’d have a reason to leave. You’d run off with your rich fanboy… and he’d never see you again. He’d be all alone… just like always. Johnny felt his heart clench. For the rest of the day he’s unable to even look at you.

When you had the gall to bring your rancher friend to the camp, Johnny was not happy. When you suggested that the rancher join up with the group for the duration of the race, it took all of Johnny’s self restraint to keep from shooting both you and your rancher fanboy. Fortunately, Gyro seemed skeptical about the idea as well. The Italian pointed out that they didn’t need an extra party member. Not only that, but they had no reason to trust the rancher. Gyro thought it very suspicious that he was always in every town they went to. He thought that the idea of the rancher being merely a fan of yours was too convenient of an excuse.

Good ol’ Gyro, always coming through! Johnny thought.

But the rancher pulled Gyro aside and had a long conversation with the Spin user. The longer Gyro spent talking to the man, the less of a suspicious scowl he bore. By the time they were done talking, Gyro was smiling. In a matter of moments, Gyro was loudly welcoming the newcomer to the group. Johnny made no attempt to protest. He just fumed in silence.

Dammit, Gyro! He thought. You were supposed to be on my side!

Johnny’s insides felt like they had turned to lava. His stomach and chest burned and this time it wasn’t due to Gyro’s cooking. It had been a few days since the rancher had joined the group and it seemed that both you and Gyro had been won over by his charms. Johnny was forced to watch as you and Gyro trailed along beside the rancher, hanging on his every word. Johnny rolled his eyes at the sight. You both looked so pathetic following him around like puppies. What’s worse is that he seemed to be the only one doing any work anymore.

“Sure, I’ll put up the tents all by myself!” he yelled, bitterness very clear in his voice. “You guys can just have your little chat. Just let the guy in the wheelchair do all the work. That’s fine.”

You and Gyro seemed to break out of your trance, realizing just how long you both have been neglecting your chores. Gyro went about setting things up for the nightly meal while you started gathering firewood. Johnny sighed to himself, satisfied that things were starting to go back to normal. That’s when the rancher took it upon himself to walk over and start helping Johnny with the tents.

“You know, I get the feeling you don’t like me very much, Mr. Joestar.” he said in an irritatingly good natured tone.

“Oh, you noticed. Here I thought I was hiding it.” Johnny said sarcastically.

The rancher had the nerve to laugh at his response. Johnny scowled and turned away from him.

The rancher began to ramble on about things Johnny didn’t care about, but at some point, the conversation turned to you.

“I guess I haven’t been hiding my crush on your friend too well.” He said. “I know how you must feel, but I assure you I have no ulterior motives.”

Johnny stopped what he was doing to glare at him. The rancher just beamed at him with the biggest smile he’d ever seen.

After a moment, Johnny’s glare faded and he sighed.

“Can you blame me for worrying though?” Johnny said, all hostility gone from his voice. Fine. He’d play along. Just until he knew what this guy really wanted.

They talked for another hour or so until Gyro called them to come to dinner. Johnny sat, slowly sipping at his stew. The rancher turned out to not be the kind of person he thought he was. His motives were genuine. Wouldn’t you know it? He was actually a decent person. He was probably one of the nicest people Johnny had ever met. He had begun to understand why you and Gyro liked him so much.

And Johnny still despised him.

Nice as he was, the rancher still planned to get you to marry him. He still planned to take you away. Johnny would never forgive him for that. If not for that, Johnny may have been willing to forget about his plans to get rid of him. Ever since the rancher joined the group, a dark plan had been forming in Johnny’s mind. He wasn’t sure how he would pull it off without alerting the suspicions of either you or Gyro, but he was sure that by the end of the week, he’d have something figured out.

His plan came to fruition when you found yourselves traveling down a trail that bordered a rather steep cliff. It wasn’t an especially long fall… but it would do the trick. Johnny had to be careful though. He could use Spin or his Stand and you wouldn’t notice, but Gyro had far more experience in using both. He would notice… well he would if it weren’t for the fact that Johnny had been practicing and perfecting his own Spin technique and testing it to see if Gyro would detect it. At first Gyro noticed every single time and wanted to know what Johnny was trying to do, but Johnny would always have a convincing excuse. Eventually Gyro stopped noticing. Even when Johnny was trying to get him to see, Gyro never did. The technique was subtle. Just a slight tipping that would cause whatever was affected by it to go slightly off balance. All it took was to affect the hooves of the rancher’s horse. The man was a decent rider, but not to the level of the three of you. His horse wasn’t as disciplined as a race horse normally was, either. It wouldn’t raise any suspicions if his horse suddenly got a little clumsy.

“Whoa, boy!” The rancher “Steady now!”

Johnny turned back to look at him, making an effort to feign concern. You and Gyro turn around, too, just in time to see the rancher lose control of his horse as it stumbles over its own feet. Both horse and rider plummet over the side of the cliff.

You scream.

Gyro swears.

Johnny doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t even blink.

He remembers people would always talk about traumatic events happening in slow motion. That didn’t happen here. One second the rancher and his horse were there, then they weren’t. It happened so fast that no one could have done much to stop it. Exactly how Johnny planned it.

The three of you ride up to the edge of the cliff. You start crying. Gyro mutters something in Italian. Johnny just stares impassively upon the body of the man he just murdered. He should feel sick and horrified by what he’d done, but he doesn’t. He feels justified. Accomplished. Satisfied. It isn’t until he sees you dismount your horse to run from the scene that he feels anything that could be considered guilt.

Gyro places a hand on his shoulder.

“Go to her, Johnny.” He says solemnly. “I’ll… I’ll take care of things here.”

Johnny looks into his mentor’s face seeing no trace of suspicion or accusation. He only sees the slightest hint of grief. He couldn’t imagine why. Gyro hadn’t even known the rancher that long. He supposed that it was just sadness at the situation that Gyro felt. Regardless, the only thing Johnny cared about was that Gyro didn’t suspect a thing.

He steers Slow Dancer in the direction you ran to. He finds you sobbing into your hands while leaning against a tree. He rides up on Slow Dancer and slides off of her to plop onto the ground next to you.

He doesn’t get a chance to say anything before you’ve flung your arms around him and are soaking his shirt with your tears. He pulls you closer, trying his best to not grin. He missed this. You and him being close.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

Johnny doesn’t know why he said that. He isn’t at all sorry for what he did, and he isn’t sorry for your loss either. He’s glad your annoying fanboy is gone. Though, “sorry” is what you’re supposed to say in situations like this, right? Though the longer you cry and wail, the more annoyed with it he gets. It isn’t your crying that bothers him so much as the reason you’re crying. Why were you shedding tears over that guy? You’ve known Johnny much longer. He should mean more to you than that guy ever did. Why are you carrying on like this for a guy that was little more than an acquaintance?

It wasn’t that Johnny didn’t care about your feelings, he just wanted you to remember your feelings for him. You did have feelings for him, didn’t you? Maybe that was the problem? Maybe you needed to be reminded of just how important Johnny was to your life? Maybe he needed to show you just how much you needed him?

Yes, Johnny knew how selfish and awful he was being, but he didn’t care. He’s always been selfish for as far back as he can remember. It’s probably part of the reason people kept abandoning him. You would never be allowed to leave him though. Even if you didn’t love him… even if you hated him… Johnny would make sure you never abandoned him like everyone else. The dark determination within him had never burned brighter.

#yandere jjba x reader #yandere jjba #yandere josuke #yandere giorno #yandere johnny joestar x reader #yandere johnny joestar #yandere josuke x reader #yandere giorno x reader #reader insert #jjba x reader #yandere jojo #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba

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elleloquently · 2 years ago

Text

invisible string [7] : ellie williams

part six

| college!ellie x female!reader - after suffering several rewrites, part seven is finally here! a huge thank you to everyone who has been so patient and supportive <3 also, i know it's typical to post the tag list at the top but there were quite a few people so it's at the bottom instead, sorry abt that! this part is a lil different so im kinda nervous hahahaha

| c/w - anxiety

your body carried you down the familiar path to class, but your mind felt absent.

you got there early, habit, but paced around in the cold until the very last minute. you knew ellie would be there, her habit - apparently, sitting and waiting in the seat next to yours and you felt unable to face her.

either you didn't truly know why you felt that way, or you were clinging onto the last dwindling thread of delusion that your mind allowed.

you liked ellie. you really liked ellie. and ellie... 'liked' you... too?

the minutes ticked by quicker than you could gather your thoughts and you made a break for the classroom, your fingers turned red from clutching onto your cold drink so tightly.

you were preoccupied and you had hardly even drank any of it. you frowned at your useless purchase. the ice was melting and the sight looked off-putting, but your stomach was hurting too much anyway to try and make it worthwhile with one last sip.

your idea to throw it away upon entering the classroom was short lived, as the professor was standing in the front of the room and you didn't want to cross the front to throw away your practically full beverage.

it sloshed in the cup and you winced, imagining your own stomach as it twisted.

ellie glanced up as you came around to your seat and the crease on her forehead disappeared immediately as her eyes landed on you. the idea of keeping a secret made you feel dirty, but you weren't sure if you were even actually keeping one.

"was worried you weren't coming or something," ellie muttered, glancing over as you claimed your spot next to her.

you smiled but didn't meet her eyes. the feeling of your heartbeat pounding in your ears was overwhelming.

"are you okay?" ellie asked, her voice a low whisper as she studied your expression.

you tried to focus instead on your notebook and laptop. you didn't want to be rude and you definitely found it difficult to resist ellie when she was staring at you like that, but you needed to clear your head. the idea of clearing your head sounded ridiculous though, and you thought maybe you hadn't had a clear head since the first day that ellie decided to speak to you in class.

ellie tapped her pen on your desk and you jumped, realizing too many seconds had gone by and you still didn't answer her question.

"i'm good. just stressed, i think," you responded, not totally lying but not completely telling the truth, either.

you hoped your answer was enough to hold ellie over at least until class was finished, your professor seemed grumpy lately and you didn't want to subject yourself to an in-class call out.

ellie sighed and sank down in her chair, physically pulling away from you. your heart ached while you watched, suddenly wanting to tell her everything. a frown was etched onto her lips and you wanted to swipe it away.

throughout class, you spent more time watching ellie take notes than taking notes of your own. halfway through it seemed as though ellie gave up too, because she started doodling over her written words. you glanced over often, not trying to be sneaky because you didn't particularly mind if ellie caught you. if she did catch you, she would only grin and carry on anyway.

the ice melted quicker in the warm classroom, the condensation relentless and a small pool was beginning to form around the bottom of your cup. you quickly wiped it away with your sleeve, face burning. the patheticness of the remaining drink was taunting, beads of water slipping and threatened to dampen the corner of your notes.

it felt like a token of your anxiety, the way you couldn't stop it.

ellie had been watching but you didn't notice, until a very pointed "dude" left her mouth. you turned to face her, pausing the action of wiping off the cup with your sleeve over your hand,

"are you done with that?" ellie asked, to which you nodded weakly.

"you don't want it anymore?" she rephrased, wanting to be sure with confirmation.

"i do not want it," you whispered back, setting your eyes on the drink that's caused you too much trouble in such a short amount of time. you glared at it and ellie raised an eyebrow, trying not to smile. she reached her arm out, and it took you just a moment to understand what she wanted.

you handed ellie the cup, not really seeing the appeal in the drink anymore but decided there was no harm if ellie wanted it. instead, she surprised you by standing up from her chair, drink in hand. she swiftly and quietly moved to the front of the room, throwing it away and returning to her spot without a word.

oh. problem solved.

the evidence from your moment with dina and jesse, gone.

ellie didn't give it a second thought, but you replayed it in your mind over and over until the lecture was finished.

“so, should we hit the dining hall or do you wanna just go back to my dorm?”

ellie posed the question with such a casual confidence that it caught you off guard, the pen you were putting away nearly slipping through your fingers.

“oh,” you winced, and immediately knew how bad your reaction was.

“oh,” ellie copied with a dry laugh. “it’s okay, we don’t have to do anything.”

“no,” you quickly rushed out, not wanting to make her feel bad but you did have another class. “it’s just, homework.” you tried to explain.

“it’s okay,” ellie repeated, fidgeting with her hands.

“i’m sorry…” you smiled sadly, unsure if you should hold eye contact or keep packing up. ellie looked away, straightening her shoulders as she hoisted up her bag. you copied her action, guilt filling up inside of you.

you felt conflicted but were left with no choice, unable to soothe your guilty conscious.

ellie quickly recovered however, and an easy smile graced her lips as she bid you a goodbye.

“okay, I guess i’ll go back to my room alone,” she complained, giving you a pointed look.

you pushed out a laugh, amused by ellie’s tone but you felt defeated.

"i'd come with you if i could," you said honestly.

ellie dropped her exaggerated expression and met your eyes. "i know," she said.

your heart jumped and you had to leave, before weeks worth of confessions left the tip of your tongue. "text me, okay?" you said, trying really hard to force your voice not to wobble.

"always," ellie replied, raising her hand to wave bye as you finally parted ways.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

you didn’t mean to ignore ellie.

with finals only a week away, it wasn't exactly easy to find agreeable times to hang out, no matter how badly you wanted it.

you had felt bad, regretfully declining when ellie asked you to hang out after your shared class. the burden of homework was holding you tightly in its grasp... though you would've had no problem doing homework with ellie.

you did have homework. it was just after your class. the class that ellie had no idea of you having, since you had originally told her that you were free that hour simply because you wanted to have lunch with her. you certainly didn't regret that day, but you felt a little awkward about the idea of finally coming clean now.

so, you told ellie that you had too much homework, and tried to ignore the dejected face that ellie failed to mask at your response.

you hadn't told her about your run in with her friends, either. if dina and jesse wanted ellie to know that you had run into them, they could tell her. you hardly knew them, anyway. the idea of making them a conversation topic felt strange.

that was monday, when you completely blew off ellie except not really because you seriously had a class so you aren't sure why you feel as though you've transformed into a total liar.

you had texted since then, just a little, unable to sense the difference between friendly friend texts and friendly flirty texts.

someone that ellie likes.

someone that ellie likes likes likes someone that ellie likes ellie likes-

you reached for your phone on your bed, forcibly silencing your inner monologue.

hey, are you still free to hang out today?|

you stared blankly down at your screen before rapidly deleting the drafted text, letter by letter.

hey ): i don't think i'm gonna be free to hang out today|

you squinted at the screen until the words looked fuzzy. when you opened your eyes normally again, the text didn't look any more appealing. you huffed and deleted that one too, tossing your phone as far away as you could without dropping it off of the end of your bed.

you had said no to ellie last. she was probably waiting on you to make the next move... how would she feel if you just... didn't?

unless she was totally normal, going about her day and being busy and most definitely not waiting to hear from you.

someone that ellie likes.

yeah, that's... normal. right? right?

you decided that maybe you needed to study a little harder in your psychology class, because you couldn't decipher whether or not it was a logical thing to get caught up on or if you were just going totally crazy. running yourself delusional? likely.

being around ellie and pining after her felt much more appealing when there wasn't a possibility that she could like you back.

you desperately wished to backtrack but yet, there wasn't really much that changed, was there? just one silly little sentence... one that you were probably misinterpreting anyway.

the thought kept you busy on tuesday, though for once you were able to throw yourself into your studies as a distraction instead of being distracted away from your studies. you didn't reach out to ellie, and no new messages came. you didn't hang out that day.

wednesday was your last actual day of class, the last class before finals began.

it quickly dawned on you that it was your last guaranteed time to see ellie. the idea of not being able to sit next to her in class anymore was all that you needed to adjust your priorities for the time being.

you were determined to be in a good mood, determined to make the most of your 'last' but not really last day with ellie.

while getting ready, you were very much aware of the anxiety picking away at your brain, posing you a million questions that you didn't have the answer to. you compensated by carefully picking out an outfit, taking extra time to prepare for the day to make sure you felt as good as possible. all the while, an aggravating dark cloud loomed above you despite your rejection of it. you smoothed down your top in the mirror, ignoring the way that your hands were shaking.

it seems to be a case where every time you are specifically set on having a good day, you end up having one of your worst days.

by the time you left for class, your stomach was hurting. it wasn't a new sensation, the way the uneasiness built up and felt as though it was pricking away at your insides... but it wasn't on par with your idea of a good day.

the wind felt overstimulating and perhaps your last straw was when you were walking behind someone to get into the building, and you know for a fact that they saw you because you made eye contact, but they didn't hold the door open for you and it nearly slammed in your face.

you felt like a laughable character, the way that tears welled up in your eyes as defeat swallowed your previous optimistic determination.

face hot and rapidly blinking, maybe your final final straw was ellie, who was already sat and almost immediately raised her eyes to look as you entered the classroom.

"no melty drink today?" she questioned teasingly, though dropped her tone as concern washed over her once realizing your state.

"what's wrong?" she quickly replaced, leaning into you so her voice could be hushed.

you could've laughed at her question and you nearly did, because sincerely, what was even wrong? you couldn't think of one valid explanation on the spot, and the real reason was enough to bring back the tears that you had desperately wiped away outside of the door.

but it was ellie, so you spoke anyway.

"just wanted to have a good day," you admitted, instantly hating how pathetic your voice sounded.

"and it's not a good day?"

you shook your head, finding yourself wanting to confide in her about everything. you should've hung out with her yesterday.

"wanna come over after class? talk about it? make it better?"

ellie presented the offer so casually, so immediately that it almost made you feel worse. you wanted to say yes.

"i can't," you forced, and ellie's eyebrows knitted together.

"that's okay," ellie said, but it came out a little too quickly.

you didn't want it to be okay. you wanted her to be annoyed or upset that you hadn't been hanging out with her and the worst part was that it seemed like she did feel that way, maybe deep down, but she wasn't openly expressing it whatsoever.

you frowned and it was difficult to find any mental footing with rational thought. you were not entitled to her greater emotions simply because she liked you. as a friend.

"is it okay?" you questioned, a little too sharp and it was embarrassing.

"yes...?" ellie's eyes darted over your face in confusion.

"sorry," you breathed, forcing a reality check. "i just... feel bad."

"don't you always?" ellie retorted, and it wasn't supposed to hurt but it did.

"what?" you were taken aback and ellie focused elsewhere, no longer looking at you.

"nothing. you just... you say you feel bad when we hang out but now you're saying you feel bad if we don't."

her response made you furrow your eyebrows but you really wanted to crawl in-word, not realizing how strongly ellie had picked up on your habit of feeling.

"yeah, 'cause i-" you started, but ellie shook her head.

"it's fine. you don't have to make up an excuse or... really. don't feel bad."

it's not that easy.

ellie smiled but you wished that she didn't because it was obvious that it was forced. the reaction made you wonder if there was something going on with ellie too, or if you were just actually bothering her.

you opened your mouth to speak but your professor initiated the start of class, review questions instantly rolling in. ellie sat hunched over her notebook, which sparked an idea.

you leaned over and began rummaging through your bag until you felt a small pad of paper in your grasp. you stole ellie's pen from her desk and she watched but pretended not to care.

on a blue sticky note, you drew something simple. a little doodle of a planet like you had done before, and a couple of stars. you felt silly and a little bit stupid but you pressed the post it onto ellie's desk, along with her pen.

you could see ellie contemplate whether or not she should show that she noticed it, and you had to press the back of your hand to your mouth so that you didn't release a laugh. you didn't watch her and decided to instead focus on your review, giving ellie 'space' to decide what she wanted to do.

a few minutes ticked away until the little blue square and pen reappeared on your desk. ellie's addition included her own planet, and a few stars mixed in with yours. you felt better, more capable, and raised your eyes to look at her.

ellie didn't have the time to pretend like she wasn't watching you. your lips slipped into a smile that ellie matched, leaving you to feel okay enough to focus on the review without worrying.

at the dismissal of class, you felt strangely sentimental. you packed up quickly so you could leave at the same time as ellie but she was hesitating at her desk, waiting for you.

"can i keep it?" she asked, glancing to the sticky note that you held delicately in your hand. it was sweet and you automatically handed it over, wondering if she was going to put that one on her wall too. you hoped that she would.

"are you going back to your room?" you questioned softly. ellie held the door open for you as you left the classroom.

"yeah," she answered with a heavy sigh.

you had a bit of time before your next class, about an hour to try and turn your situation around.

"ellie?" you started, walking shoulder to shoulder throughout the hallway. she looked at you in concern, eyebrows drawing together in anticipation.

"i wasn't making up excuses. i do feel bad if i can't hang out because... because i do like hanging out, so-"

"it's alright," ellie interrupted, though her voice was softer than before.

you nodded and carefully continued on. "i don't mean to always feel bad, i swear. it just... happens. and then i feel bad for feeling bad and it's just so...ridiculous. do i sound ridiculous?" you conclude with a frustrated laugh.

"maybe a little," ellie contemplated, but you could tell that she was teasing again by the way that she moved her head, as if she's mentally debating with herself. "but i get it. seriously, you're fine. i like hanging out with you too so you don't... have to worry."

she tentatively reassured you and joked instead of outwardly apologizing, and you wondered where she got that from. you're grateful anyway and relieved, but roll your eyes playfully at her sincerity. inward, your stomach is doing flips.

like like like.

that word is being used entirely too much lately.

"i ran into your friends the other day," you mention, hoping that it sounded casually enough. "dina and jesse?"

"oh yeah?" ellie laughs, but her hand fidgets with her sleeve.

"they seem really nice... it's lucky, to have friends like that, you know?"

ellie nodded, smiling knowingly. it felt like a safe topic, so you continued on.

"i didn't know if they mentioned it... i'm sure they were just being polite but they invited me to lunch. it was just nice of them to offer anyway... said it was nice to meet someone that you liked, they're friendly. i just hope i didn't seem completely rude, i was sort of running late so i couldn't talk long but... how long have you guys known each other?"

your cheeks grew warm as you rambled so you stopped yourself, looking to ellie instead. the smile had left her face and she stared straight ahead. she looked pale, a white cast replacing the usual pink warmth on her cheeks.

"i'm sorry," you quickly rushed, not knowing what you were apologizing for.

"don't be," ellie stated, but her words were short.

"did i say something...?"

ellie blinked and faced you. "no, you didn't say anything."

you breathed a sigh of relief, but still didn't want to toe a cautious line. it was too much, too quickly, and you weren't good at making things sound casual like ellie usually seemed to be.

"is that all they said?" ellie questioned, and you quickly nodded.

"yeah. yeah, it was short. i had class. it was on monday morning," you clarify.

"oh," ellie realized, as if she had managed to find a missing puzzle piece. "did they say something?" she rephrased, coughing out a laugh.

"it was super quick," you reiterated, but your heart was racing.

"okay. i just thought maybe... you seemed weird on monday. maybe they said something stupid," ellie said, but you could tell she was still thinking it over. maybe that was your sign, really the only clue you needed after all. ellie actually looked stressed though, and you wished that you hadn't brought it up at all.

"weird?" you tried to sound surprised, but you knew exactly what she was referring to and why you had been that way. "not weird... just stressed. i have so much to do, i know you do too," you tried, attempting to smooth over the awkwardness.

"was it because i just assumed we were going to hang out?" ellie mumbled, sounding accusatory yet upset with only herself.

"ellie, no." your palms were beginning to feel too warm but you wrapped them into your sleeves anyway. "i like hanging out with you."

like like like!

you continued, grasping for straws and desperately wishing that dina had never called your name. "i've sorta been spending more time with you than my homework," you laughed carefully. "i like it, don't get me wrong. i just had... you know, school."

ellie nodded but she wasn't listening, not really.

“i didn’t mean to freak you out,” ellie said, her tone slightly defensive.

your jaw dropped in surprise and you felt as though your head was spinning. "what?" you asked, genuinely confused. you weren't sure exactly what illiciated the response, either you actually blindly said something stupid or you were blindly unaware of ellie's feelings.

the conversation was going nowhere, quickly. you were speaking but not listening, both absorbed in your own feelings to the point of ignorance.

"ellie, we're fine," and despite the circumstance you selfishly loved the excuse to let her name roll off of your tongue. you halted to a stop as the hallway came to an end, not truly ready to part ways.

ellie stood still for a moment and you wondered if she was gathering her thoughts until she finally spoke again. "of course we're fine," she concluded. she didn't meet your eyes and you deflated for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

"hey," you started again, another failed attempt to fix the conversation.

"it's okay," ellie breezed past you. "i know you're busy, i'll see you later, alright?"

she didn't give you a second to respond before she was out of the doors and out of the building. you were left standing there, mouth agape and head reeling.

there was too much to confuse, too much to get wrong and you found it difficult to differentiate a good start from a bad end.

you wouldn't get to just see her next class, and it felt like your last opportunity had truly been your last opportunity.

you went to your next class but you weren't really present, not with ellie on your mind and every wrong step that had been taken. it hadn't even been a full confession and it went wrong. maybe you had gotten it all wrong, or maybe you were both dancing around your own feelings, destined to screw it all up.

[ part eight ]

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

tags :

@pinkfillerose @whore-era @lilisvlibrary @elliefilms @whteflwcrs @jasontoddsdreamgirl @icedcold @sarahsmileslikesarahd0esntcare @evanpetersluver @muthafuckingstargirl @pctcr @illicitghosts @mell0w-mushr00m @queen-arya22 @deafelliewilliams @urmyheartshaka @yourfrenchteacher @me-and-your-husband @blairfox04

#ellie williams x reader #ellie williams x female reader #ellie williams x you #ellie williams college au #ellie tlou x reader #ellie williams fanfic #ellie tlou x female reader

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inumaaaki · 2 years ago

Text

“FOR YOU, I WOULD.”

character: toge Inumaki

wc: ~2700 words

cw: none, mild angst to fluff.

INAMUKI TOGE⸻”BY YOUR SIDE, THERE IS NO BETTER PLACE TO BE.”

toge would be, simply put, the best boyfriend you’ll ever have. as we all know, he has a habit of putting others first. and that’s when it comes to strangers. so, when it comes down to his lover, you’re in for x1000 caring intensified.

he fell for you first. it wasn’t love at first sight per se, but he couldn’t deny the immediate attraction at first glance. you were radiant, a first year with very little experience handling curses. but even despite all the dangers and tragedies you faced, you always seemed to hold a positive outlook.

when you first met him, you didn’t know about his curse. You had never seen him before. you were rushing to meet yuuji for your daily practice session. turning the corner, you bumped into something.

immediately two hands reached out to steady you. Startled, you looked up. to see the cutest boy you’ve ever laid eyes on. with the prettiest, purple eyes.

you rushed out your apologies, rambling on and on like you always did when you were nervous. “oh I am sorry I wasn’t watching where I was going⸻”

“shake shake.”

you blinked twice. salmon? what does that mean? and then it clicked. his uniform, he was a student. he didn’t look that much older than you. oh! a second year!

proud at your genius, you smile brightly. “oh! you must be a second year! I only know yuuta and I heard there’s a panda in your class, whom I would very much like to meet, but I didn’t have any chance to come say hi because of gojo-sensei!"

“he keeps our hands so full. i’ve only been here for two weeks and whew the curses I’ve seen. anyways, what’s your name? we should definitely hang out some time!”

when you were only met with his silence, you felt heat beginning to crawl into your cheeks.

he looked at you, for a moment, and you felt his eyes drop a little bit, as if in sadness.

“oh, I- sorry⸻.” you mumbled, with your head dropped walking past him.

that is until his hand wraps around your wrist, stopping you in your tracks. you look back towards him, a question on your face.

he seemed hesitant then, a first. then his response came in form of him unzipping his hoodie with his free hand, revealing to you his gorgeous face. he was even more beautiful than he seemed. that’s the first thing you thought before you noticed the marks around his mouth.

he smiled apologetically, and you felt like the dumbest person in the world.

the inumaki clan, of course. salmon. of course.

slowly, you turn to face him, placing your hand gently on his that was still holding your wrist.

you squeeze his hand gently. a small apology. but also because with the way he was looking at you, you were left speechless.

after that encounter, you ask megumi about him. he tells you how he communicates using rice ball ingredients, but also how they all learned sign language for him.

it doesn’t strike you as something difficult to do, so you set out on learning whatever you can in whatever time you have before you see him again.

it all started from there. the next time you saw him, you thought you were signing words, but you messed up the whole thing. his genuine laughter at your funny gestures rung through the open field, but his hand had come to land on your shoulder, smiling at you. thank you. you can clearly tell what he was trying to say.

you shared phone numbers, and that’s how you discovered his amazing personality. toge was funny, so funny, and he was not afraid to show you how he felt.

toge wasn’t shy with you. whether in texts or with how he acted with you in public. how he slung his arm over your shoulder, or leaned over you when there was something you wanted to show him. at first, you had assumed his physical touches were his way of communicating because of the lack of speech. however, it took you only to see how he acted with Maki or anyone else to immediately turn down that theory.

he was always turning up, always seeking you out. He’d text you during lunch breaks to join him and ask you to train with him. (much to yuuji’s dismay at first, to have lost his training partner. but the pink-haired boy was a hopeless romantic who realized what was going on from the first glance and backed away.)

you two grew close, forming quite a special bond. but it was still a friendship. to him, perhaps, you thought. but to you?

the way your heart did a mini leap when you laid eyes on him. How you’d clutch your phone all the time and jump to check it whenever the ping sounded. hoping it was him that texted. and the stupid, ear-to-ear smile that you would sport whenever it was him.

both of you were obvious, however, to how you felt. and you, how could you not see how much he cherished you??? with the way his eyes softened upon the mere mention of your name. panda pointed it out once, teasing him non-stop about his crush on you, which earned him a stern, “stop talking,” from his silver-haired friend.

later on that night, panda had burst into toge’s room, a hand clutched dramatically to his chest. “you cursed me!” he feigned a swoon, “and it took hours for its effects to subdue, all for (y/n), my friend! We must get you two together.”

and that was how his five-step plan to woo you started.

however, unbeknownst to them, you were sent on a mission that day. where you encountered a grade one curse, where all that should have been there was a flock of grade four curses.

you tried your best, you really did, but you were severely overpowered. before collapsing, however, you were able to send out a request for aid.

toge and panda were immediately notified, their little gossip session turning upside down once they received the summons on their phone.

toge had never felt this stressed. he knew you were capable, but even he would have trouble facing a grade one curse on his own. he sat in the back of the car, legs bouncing up and down with both fists clutched so tightly he was sure his fingers would leave bruises. but he did not care, you were probably hurt, and maybe, probably…no, he refused to even think it

and this stupid driver, can’t he go any faster? he thought bitterly, and in his anger, almost spoke out the words.

panda’s hand on his bouncing leg stopped him. he snapped his head to the left, looking at him.

panda was worried about him, it was clear as day. “She’ll be fine.” he finally said.

toge’s breath was shaky on its way out.

and they had arrived just in time. his eyes had barely registered what it was seeing, the curse, crushing you in its slimy, disgusting hand⸻your face, bloody and unconscious ⸻

“let her go.” his yell was filled with fear, and anger. the next moment you were in his hands, he caught you before you could fall.

toge was seeing red.

“die.”

the curse burst into flames and disappeared, a grade one curse dealt with in mere seconds, before it could even realize what was going on.

panda stared on at the scene, at how his friend set down the girl he loves down with shaky hands. at how softly he cradled her face, a lone tear making its way down his cheek.

and toge…how he wished he could call out to you, he wanted to say your name, he wanted to so badly. to comfort you. to apologize for not being here sooner. for not murdering the higher ups who stupidly messed up your mission.

that’s when he made a vow to always protect you. he hated it, how helpless he felt just sitting here, waiting to arrive to shoko. he hated how his hands were stained red because it was your blood. you, the most precious, bright and innocent thing in his world. the person who made his curse gnaw at him at every waking moment. because he wanted to be a full person for you, he wanted to give you the best, he wanted to say your name, to speak words of love into your skin, to tell you how he felt under a starry night as you gazed up at him in those beautiful (e/c) eyes of yours.

but now, as he held your shaking body in his arms, he was ready to lay down his life just to see you open your eyes again. and that’s when he closed his own, making a prayer to whoever was listening.

***

you opened your eyes to a wooden ceiling. a blurry vision greeted you, but it was slowly improving with every passing moment.

groaning, you tried to remember how you’d gotten here. you remembered a mission, a bunch of grade four curses that you were sent to deal with, and then⸻

it had come out of nowhere. you had immediately sent out for help, but that’s only just before it had gotten to you. it was impossibly fast, and it had been toying with you. If it had decided to deal with you at once, you suspected you wouldn’t have been alive by now.

you wondered who had saved you for a brief moment, but you quickly shook the thought away, realising your main priority was to get up and start training. you had to get stronger to avoid further accidents like this.

you also wondered, if toge had been worried about you, or if he’d come to visit you. you cursed these thoughts that were never ending.

but your answer came faster than you thought. you’d barely sat up, when you noticed him.

he had pulled out a chair just next to your bed. His hair was ruffled, as if he hadn’t brushed it in a while. His head was drooped low, soft breathes escaping his lips. but most importantly⸻

oh god how did you not notice before?

his hand holding yours on the mattress. your fingers intertwined.

you flushed; eyes fixated on the sight. your heart beat loudly against your chest. you suspected, if you had been connected to a monitor, it would definitely had alerted the nurses with how fast your heart was beating.

“toge-kun…” you whispered, eyes softening as you looked at him. what did you do to deserve a person like him in your life?

you startled however when he woke up, purple eyes slowly fluttering open until they met yours.

he looked at you for a moment, mouth hanging open.

before his eyes widened and he pulled you in into a bone-crushing hug.

you hugged back with all the strength you could muster. The warmth that enveloped you, the peace he summoned. It was the best feeling, a feeling you were growing drunk on.

you don’t know how long you stayed like that, you didn’t want to pull away, neither did he, it seemed, but after some time, you knew you had to.

you slowly pulled away, but your faces were inches apart. Your eyes met his lips, his breath fanning your face. they then travelled to his eyes, to find them glossed over with tears.

his hand reached out to cup your cheek, and you closed your eyes, leaning in to his touch.

“toge-kun,” you sighed in bliss. he had you, body and soul. you loved him with all you were. you suddenly felt this drive to show him, to love him, to tell him.

with both your hands your grabbed his hand, glancing at him before you placed a feather-kiss on his knuckles.

his eyes softened. a blush cutely adorning his pale cheeks. smiling, he took hold of your hand and did the same to you.

you couldn’t help but smile in return, both at his actions and at the heat travelling to his ears. was it possible, that you had the same effect on him as he did you?

it didn’t need another thought, you slowly parted your lips, “toge…i-I lov⸻”

his palm pressed itself on your mouth, silencing you. He frowned at you, shaking his head.

confused, and a little hurt, you obeyed, watching in confusion as he pulled out his phone.

his eyes narrowed as he scrolled on his screen for a moment, before a satisfied “ah” left his lips once he found what he was looking for.

his finger hovered above the screen, hesitating.

if you thought he was blushing before, he now looked as red as a tomato bro.

before you could think any further, a determined look set on his face. he pressed on the screen.

and whatever you had expected, this wasn’t it.

his voice played out, but not in the way you only heard it ever saying rice ball ingredients, no, it was his beautiful voice speaking, speaking to you.

“i thought a lot about how I am going to do this,” the recording started, “and this seems like the only way.”

you felt tears welling up in your eyes. you knew the strain saying one word had on him, to do this? it must have been excruciating, and he must have gone somewhere deserted, so he wouldn’t risk hurting anyone.

the recording ended there, but on his phone, you could see two more, each barely a few seconds long. you knew. he must have had to stop to take his cough medicine.

without realizing, you grabbed his hand, looking at him with so much love.

he pressed again.

silence for a few moments, then him taking a deep breath “……(y/n)”

treacherous tears spilled from your eyes, and you laughed, connected your forehead to his. closing your eyes as you continued to listen.

“…(y/n), my (y/n).”

“thank you for coming into my life, (y/n).”

the recording stopped.

his gentle touch on your chin made you open your eyes.

you startled. he was so close, one breath and your lips would touch. and he was looking at your lips, and you couldn’t help but look at his as he played the last recording. his lips moved in sync, and for one magical moment, it was as if he was speaking them to you.

“(y/n)…I love you.”

you smiled like an idiot, the smile he loves so much. laughing through your tears that were now flowing freely.

in another world, maybe you would’ve been able to talk, to share discussions and hear your name running off his tongue every day. but that other world wasn’t something you were looking for, or wasn’t even something you wanted.

because this couldn’t have been any closer to perfection. It was perfection. this moment, as he finally leaned in and pressed his lips to yours. as you kissed in a declaration of love, a promise to each other, like a warm blanket warming you during a cold night.

you kissed until you had to pull away to breathe, but he was already chasing after your lips. he captured them again with ease, his lips dancing with yours again. you couldn’t help but sigh in contentment as you wrap your hands around his neck. he pulls you closer by the waist until your chests are pressing together.

finally, after what seemed like a lifetime to you, but also what felt like too soon, you both pull away, gasping for air.

you met his eyes. his oh so beautiful eyes that looked at you like you were a miracle. his miracle.

uou chuckled; joyous laugh full of adoration. “you just had to say it first, didn’t you.”

he nodded, a sly smile on his lips.

“salmon.” he says.

you rubbed your nose with his, unable to do anything but smile as you admire him.

you peck his lips, meeting his eyes once more.

“I love you too. my cute salmon.”

a/n: can you tell that i am in love with this man.

#toge x reader #inumaki toge x reader #inumaki toge fluff #toge fluff #jjk imagines #jjk x you #jjk headcanons #jjk fluff

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morelikeravenbore · 5 months ago

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How did Auralie get her scars?

🦋✨ Hello there li'l anon friend! Thank you sooo much for sending in this question and for taking an interest in my bebe!

Not gonna lie, I went full blown too-much for this one and ended up writing a ~1.3k word fluffy drabble instead, lolol. But if you'd like a tldr, Aura got her scars after obtaining a scratch from a Venomous Tentacular seedling in her father's greenhouse. Since the wounds were magical in nature, the scars weren't able to be erased, but thanks to the wise words of her plant-loving (slightly eccentric) Hufflepuff Papa, she learned to see the beauty in them.

Anyways, this little oneshot is based after events in How to Make a Villain that haven't been published yet. For anyone reading along, there aren't any hard spoilers, but there are hints that they've been through some ✨stuff.✨

🦋 TW: none! Mostly fluffy with a little bit of angst and a general air of trauma. Photo of Aura's scars by me, Sebebe's scars by @lorriiraine

Preview: Much to the chagrin of his peers, excelling in his studies was, to put it mildly, downright bloody easy, and though his natural proclivity towards excellence often put him on the receiving end of bitter remarks and jealous taunts, Sebastian took pride in the fact that despite everything that had been taken from him, his intelligence remained unfaltering.

That is, until he fell in love.

Sebastian Sallow was no idiot, by any means. Having been raised by two fiercely academic professors, he'd spent much of his childhood with his nose buried in a book, studying magical theory and practicing wandless magic well before he'd taken his epochal trip to Ollivander's. Needless to say, by the time he arrived at Hogwarts — armed with a dragon heartstring wand and an itching desire to point it at everything — his intelligence was rivalled only by that of his sisters: the Sallow twins, though grieving the tragic death of their parents, were the brightest pair of students the school had seen in recent memory, an unstoppable force of Slytherin brains, resourcefulness, and ambition who were destined for greatness despite their unfortunate beginnings.

In fact, so brilliant was Sebastian's studious mind that when those unfortunate beginnings turned into unfortunate endings — starting with his sister's curse and ending with his uncle's death — his grades remained so impeccably high that even the strictest professors were loathe to punish him too severely when he repeatedly broke curfew to steal books.

Much to the chagrin of his peers, excelling in his studies was, to put it mildly, downright bloody easy, and though his natural proclivity towards excellence often put him on the receiving end of bitter remarks and jealous taunts, Sebastian took pride in the fact that despite everything that had been taken from him, his intelligence remained unfaltering.

That is, until he fell in love.

Little did he know that the thing that would ultimately turn his brain from highly efficient machine into flobberworm mush would come not in the form of N.E.W.T studies or brutal exam revisions, but from a girl who was so beautiful she rendered him incapable of coherent speech, rational thought and, perhaps most difficult of all, an inability to restrain himself from pulling her onto his lap and staring at her all gooey-eyed like he was now, their faces so close he could count every sun-kissed freckle across her nose.

To think he'd once thought himself too smart to ever fall in love.

What an idiot.

'You have a scar.' Aurelie was the first to break the silence they'd been enjoying for the better part of the afternoon, tilting her head to inspect the two faint scars that adorned his bottom lip. 'What happened?'

Sebastian had to hold his breath as her fingers ghosted the corner of his mouth; though the great weeping willow they'd settled under for the day offered some privacy from the shrewd eyes and wagging tongues of their fellow Feldcroft residents, it wasn't quite an appropriate place to enact all the romantic fantasies he imagined whenever she was perched in his lap like this.

'Flying —' He cleared his throat. 'Flying accident.'

'Quidditch?'

'No, uh —' Me crash broom. Biiiig idiot. 'I borrowed my father's broomstick when I was seven. Crashed into the side of the house.'

'Silly,' she murmured, giggling so close to his mouth that he inhaled it.

Sebastian nodded: the only response he could reasonably manage as her breath fanned pleasantly across his face, as warm and sweet as the summer air in his lungs.

Yes. Me stupid. Give smooch.

'You have scars, too,' he observed, his feather-light touch mirroring hers as he traced the delicate scars along her jawbone.

Though they did little to mar her beauty, the three long scratches seemed somehow too violent for features so fine, like cracks in an ornately gilded mirror, or chips in an otherwise pristine marble slab. He'd often wondered how she'd gotten them, but the mere thought of her suffering any sort of pain was so intolerable that he'd never found the courage to ask.

Seeming to sense the disquieted tone of his thoughts, Aurélie caught his fingers and pressed them to her cheek, effectively short-circuiting his brain again.

Me like touch face.

'Oh, those,' she said mildly, leaning into his touch. 'Gardening mishap.'

Sebastian could only grunt questioningly in reply, struck dumb again by the warmth of her skin and how softly it yielded beneath his calloused palm. It wasn't often she let him touch her so willingly; after all, there were scars that ran deeper than her marked skin, barely healed wounds that were so fresh and tender that she flinched away if he wasn't careful enough, slow enough. Part of loving this tentative girl was learning to control the moments his brain flipped off and his rambunctious heart took over, when his once infallible logic and reason were trumped by his big, dumb heart.

Theirs was a love that had exploded into existence at the start of their seventh year only to smoulder away inexorably for the rest of it until the flames inevitably reared up to engulf them. Now, a month after graduation, both a little scorched around the edges, neither of them were quite used to being together together, still reeling from the events that had nearly torn them apart while trying to navigate a future they'd never seen coming.

Of course, Sebastian had known from the beginning that his future was bound to hers — but never like this.

'Papa raised Venomous Tentacular when we lived in France,' Aurélie explained, closing her eyes as he stroked his thumb across her cheek. 'Maman was not happy about it. She argued that it was too dangerous to keep such aggressive plants in his greenhouses, especially with a curious daughter in tow.' She cracked open an eye to peek at him, a little wry grin teasing the corner of her lips. 'She didn't approve of my enthusiasm for gardening. Apparently, "it's not becoming of a lady to have dirt caked under her nails all the time." But Papa insisted.'

'Hufflepuff's and their plants,' Sebastian murmured, surprised he was able to string together four words that actually made sense.

'Yes,' she said, glancing up through her lashes with a smile tinged with pain. Sebastian returned it in kind, his own smile heavy with the burdens he shouldered. He knew how it felt to have the warmth of every happy memory tempered by the cold indifference of loss, every fond recollection skewed by sorrow. Like a favourite landscape seen through a rain-lashed window, familiar yet distorted, so too were his own memories of his past, of Anne and his parents, his childhood.

With a patience that was new to him, Sebastian waited in quiet observance while Aurélie disappeared across that great chasm of death to visit a happier time, letting her own tainted memories sweep her away until the rustling of summer wind through willow branches brought her back to him.

'Well,' she said, shifting her faraway gaze to meet his, 'you can imagine her horror when a Tentacular seedling reared up unexpectedly and scratched me.' She gestured at her face, tilting her chin back to show him the full extent of the damage her gardening mishap had left behind. Sebastian instinctively leaned forward, wanting so badly to kiss, to soothe, to mend, but mindful, as always, of taking his time.

Pretty.

'It was the worst fight my parents ever had,' she sighed. 'Maman was distraught, said that I'd ruined my face and that Papa had been irresponsible to let me near them. She tried every remedy under the sun to erase the scars — magical and mundane, Healers and Herbologists... even a Curse Breaker when she got really desperate. But magical wounds leave scars, so...'

She trailed off with a shrug, and Sebastian thought that if he didn't kiss away the lingering sadness from her face right then and there, he might actually explode.

'And what did your Papa think?' he asked, his voice a reverent whisper as the tip of his nose brushed hers.

'He used to say that my scars were simply "physical evidence of my curious nature and adventurous spirit",' she whispered back, repeating her father's words with perfect recollection. 'And that they only made me more beautiful.'

'Wise man, that Papa of yours.'

No more sad. Me smooch now.

When he leaned in again, dipping his head to brush his nose along her jawline, she didn't move away.

#ask morelikeravenbore #morelikeravenbore writes #morelikeravenbore #sebastian sallow #sebastian sallow drabble #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy drabble #sebastian sallow fluff #aurelie collins #sebastian sallow x fmc #hogwarts legacy fandom #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy oc #sebastian sallow x mc #hogwarts legacy sebastian #sebaura

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ordon-pumpkin · 10 months ago

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Remembering (Alt Title: Apollo Gives The Best Hugs)

A short (2280 word) fanfic set after The Sun and The Star. (Tags: Hurt/Comfort, fluff, Solangelo, Apollo being a good parent)

Note: I read The Sun and The Star and I spent most of it hoping for a scene like this at the end to explain the whole Will forgetting about Apollo returning thing. Since the book seems to have… er forgotten. Quite a disappointing oversight but that’s what fix-it fics are for. So, here’s what I envisioned happening. From Apollo’s POV because I miss it. 💛

//////////////////

My son and his boyfriend had embarked on a dangerous quest. One that left me worried. I respected their choices, even if their journey was one I wished they wouldn’t take. The life of a demigod was riddled with danger, quests, and things unfathomable to a regular mortal. Yet, it was commonplace for them. It felt as though my relationship will Will as his father had barely begun. Now, he had journeyed far from me. My heart ached at the thought of losing him.

While they were away I continually checked Camp Half-Blood. After several unsuccessful visits the dread started to grow. Until one day I showed up only to see a head full of messy blonde hair running towards the infirmary for supplies.

Will!

My son.

My beautiful son!

Tears welled up in my eyes. He had survived! I could sense pain coming from him and see bandages and scratches across his form. He was drained from being away from the sun for too long. But the injuries were, thankfully, minor. I turned to look where he had come from. I saw Chiron and Dionysus talking with Nico. He too was pretty banged up, but all things considered he looked well. I thought I saw shadows shift near him. Perhaps my mind was playing tricks on me. Though, with a child of Hades who knew for certain?

Will had disappeared into the infirmary. I approached the doorway and leaned against the frame. My son grabbed supplies; fresh bandages and ointments. He paused to look down at a bandage wrapped around himself. It had bled partially though. The bandage needed to be changed, but of course Will would put Nico’s needs first. I shook my head and blinked away the tears in my eyes. He was incredible. My son.

“Don’t neglect your own wounds. What good is a doctor if they are fighting off infections?” I said simply. “You know… I could help with this.”

Will’s back remained turned to me as he filled a bag with anything he might need. He was focused and determined. “Thanks, but I’ve got it. I heal fast anyway.”

I hummed in amusement at the reply. “Oh, I’m sure you do.”

He froze.

Then, slowly, he turned around. The expression on his face was difficult to read, as if a million things were going through his mind. After a moment, he reached his hand up to run his fingers into his curly blonde hair. He sat down hard on one of the infirmary beds. A look of shock on his features.

“Dad?” His eyes were watery. “Oh gods.”

“Will?” I approached him as if he were a frightened animal that might run away at any moment. I didn’t want to scare him away, not when I finally knew he was safe.

“I-I’m sorry.” Will’s voice cracked.

“Sorry?! Whatever for?” I took another step in his direction. “My son! A hero that survived Tartarus! I’ll admit I was worried. But I knew if anyone could succeed it was you and Nico!”

A light blush dusted his cheeks at the praise, but he still appeared to be struggling.

“When I was down there… I forgot.” Will began before stopping himself. His head tilted away from me as he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.

“What did you forget?” Again, I found myself concerned.

He looked down at his hand and picked at the sheet covering the bed. “I forgot you came back.”

The words left me speechless.

“When I was down there. I-I guess it messed with my head. I thought you went off to fight Python, became a god again and that was it. That you never came back. That I’d be lucky to ever see you again at all. I remember now. You’ve visited. We’ve sat around the fire together. But when I was down there I really thought you never did.”

A gasp escaped my lips. Will turned to look at me. His words felt like a knife to my chest. Because there was a time when I thought that’s how it would be. Finish my trials, become a god again, everything back to how it was before. It wasn’t what I wanted now. My experiences as Lester had changed me. Still, the Underworld had caused Will to forget that I had returned to him.

I couldn’t help but think that such a thing was exactly what I deserved.

“You were…far from the sun.” I felt the heavy weight of shame cover me like a cloak. “The Underworld didn’t even have to do much to make you believe that I left for good. It’s what you rightfully should have expected based on my track record. I hadn’t been there for you like I should have in the past. It only seems fitting that you would think I returned to godhood and abandoned you.

Fists clenched at my sides, not angry with him, but certainly with myself.

“Will…” My eyes met his again and I hoped he could feel the sincerity in my words. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He studied me briefly. His eyes darted from mine to my hands, then my slumped shoulders, the tension in my neck. Will’s eyes were those of a physician looking for signs in the body language of a patient. Then his demeanor shifted, the studious look melting away. Finally, those same eyes rolled at me. The corner of his mouth twitched upwards into a smirk. “Stop that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I feel bad for forgetting. Even if it was temporary.” My son got up and walked towards me. I could see that his eyes were now watery, matching my own. “But you haven’t. You haven’t forgotten what you promised!”

I swallowed and the tears spilled. He was right. Jason’s sacrifice. My promise to remember what it was like to be human. How could I ever forget? The experiences I had as Lester, they changed me. Being around my children reminded me of the person I had become, who I wanted to be. I was determined to remember. Though it didn’t mean I still couldn’t be ashamed of my absence in the past.

“I haven’t forgotten, but I certainly couldn’t blame you or your siblings for being upset with me for being so distant before.”

“Seriously, stop it. You are standing in front of me right now!” Will stepped closer to me as he spoke his hands gesturing freely. “You are here checking up on me. Making sure I made it back safely. I’ve been back for less than 5 minutes! How many times have you checked while I was away?

A sheepish smile crept on my face. I wasn’t intending to go from absent parent to helicopter parent. But you try finding out that your kid is heading to Tartarus of all places! Can you blame me for being worried?

“That’s what I thought.” Will rushed forward and wrapped his arms around me. “It means a lot to me. You being here. Checking up on me. Checking in at Camp Half-Blood. It means everything. Thank you, Dad.”

Great. As if I wasn’t already crying! I returned his embrace and began to glow, pouring healing energy into him. I noticed Will glowing as well and felt him breathe out in relief as all of his remaining injuries and aches faded.

His voice was a bit muffled against my chest. “You give really good hugs. You know that?”

“The best in existence, I assure you.” I smiled.

He laughed at that, but made no move to leave the embrace. Which I certainly had no objections to. Will had been away from the sun for too long. I could feel him regaining strength in my arms. He could take all the time he needed.

“Oh.” Another voice came from the doorway.

I turned towards it to see my son’s boyfriend.

“Apollo.” Nico’s lips were curved in a subtle smile before he caught himself. He tried to hide by rubbing his hand over his mouth. “You’re here.”

It occurred to me that while in the Underworld Nico may have forgotten I ever returned as well. He did seem pleased to see me, which was quite a win in my eyes. It made me feel as though Will was happy for me to be in his life as well.

“Yes. I am.” I said. Nico was tough, as was Will. I didn’t interfere with their quest, but I didn’t see a need for either of them to be in pain any longer. My voice became stern. “And you are hurt.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle.” He looked away.

Will scoffed in annoyance. “Always the tough guy.”

“Get over here, future son-in-law, and let me heal you.” It was as much me teasing them as it was sincere.

“DAD!” Will groaned.

I laughed in return. To be fair, I wanted to be there for my kids. But maybe the idea of embarrassing them from time to time was an added benefit.

To my surprise, Nico approached. Exhaustion was evident on his face. These two had been through a lot together and apparently the idea of feeling better was more appealing than keeping up a tough guy appearance.

He stopped within arms reach of us, eyes squinting. “Never mind. I can’t say I’m the biggest hugger anyway and you two are a little…bright.”

I dimmed the glow and noticed Will doing the same. I reached out the arm that wasn’t around Will. “Let me help you, Nico. Please? Those injuries can leave you sore and achey for weeks, much longer if I wasn’t sure Will would be healing you. He needs to rest as well. It’s the least I can do.”

The son of Hades reached up his hand to brush along some partially healed gashes on his face. “Okay, but can you leave these?”

“Whatever for? Is there a deep meaning behind them.”

“No Dad, he just likes the look.” Will looked up at me. “And so do I.”

“Ah! It does go with his aesthetic!” I understood. They certainly suited him. “They will remain I assure you.”

Nico blinked at me before shrugging and allowing me to wrap an arm around him. In a moment I could feel him breathing easier. It’s likely that the boy didn’t realize how tense and sore his entire body was outside of the nicks, scrapes, and bruises until that pain subsided.

When I felt that the wounds were healed I loosened my embrace.

I looked into Will’s eyes. “I’m proud of you.”

Then I turned to Nico. “BOTH of you.”

Nico nodded appreciatively and stepped back, while Will wrapped his arms around me again and squeezed quickly. “Thanks Dad. It means a lot.”

He walked over to where he had been gathering supplies.

“I guess I won’t be needing these after all.” He took off his own old soiled bandages, revealing no remaining cuts underneath, and disposed of them.

Nico stretched and rolled his shoulders. No doubt realizing just how banged up he had been before. He tried to be discreet in checking to see if his facial scars were still there, which I found to be amusing. They were fully scars now, and they did compliment his look.

Behind him something caught my eye. Shadows moving in the doorway. Which must have been what I had seen near Nico earlier.

“Uh. Nico, your kids are here.” Will crossed his arms with a smirk.

“Kids?” I raised an eyebrow.

Nico sighed. “Not exactly. They are demons made from my emotions.”

“He calls them Cocoa Puffs.” Will offered like that explained everything.

Considering the many so-called impossible things I’ve seen in my thousands of years, I didn’t bother prying too much. Perhaps one day Will and Nico would recount their adventure to Tartarus but it would be on their terms if they wanted to share the details with me. “And are these ‘Cocoa Puffs’ friendly?”

“Yeah, they’re friendly.” Will replied.

I crouched down and made sure I wasn’t emitting light. If these shadowy creatures were important to my son and Nico then I would not wish to hurt them even if on accident. Our natures were not all that compatible but I wanted to try. Darkness and light didn’t need to be enemies. One approached cautiously and I reached out a hand. The contact reminded me of interacting with other spirits, but these creatures didn’t seem menacing. In their own strange way, they were kind of cute.

“Ah. Hello there little ones.” I suppose what I was doing was petting them, or some variation of the action. They seemed to find this acceptable.

Nico watched the interaction cautiously. His hand rested on the hilt of his sword, not in a threatening manner. It was more likely a reflex brought on by his desire to protect them from danger. I was the sun god, they were darkness. I couldn’t blame him for his concern. Will walked to Nico and brushed his hand against his free one. Their fingers intertwined and Will squeezed. Nico turned to him with a soft smile. The other hand fell from the sword. They seemed to be having a silent conversation. About me, I assumed, which made me quite curious. But the fact that the son of Hades was actually smiling was more than enough for me to recognize that it couldn’t have been a bad one.

After a bit of interacting with several of the Cocoa Puffs I stood and tapped my finger to my chin. “So these are Nico’s children?”

Nico huffed in annoyance as he’d already offered an alternate name.

I continued anyway in a sing-song voice. “So I’m sure that Will has adopted them! Which makes them basically myyy grandchildren!”

“Daaaaad!” Will rubbed his free hand down his face. He was blushing. Though Nico and I both noticed something else.

“You’re glowing again.” Nico teased and elbowed his boyfriend lightly.

“I can’t help it! Is it not enough to just blush when I’m embarrassed?!?!” He glared at me.

I laughed. His pout was adorable. “Would it make you feel better to know that I do that too sometimes?”

“What? Really?!” Amusement danced in Will’s bright eyes.

“Yep. Your Aunt Artemis finds it entertaining.” I rolled my eyes. “I adore my sister, truly, but we are indeed siblings and often interact well… as you’d expect for siblings to do. She’s always finding ways to embarrass me to get that reaction.”

Will laughed loudly at the notion and it was like music to my ears. “Actually, that does make me feel better.”

After that we headed to the dining pavilion to meet with Chiron for dinner. The boys trailed behind me, but I heard their hushed conversation.

“I’m not usually much of a hugger, but I feel a million times better. Didn’t even realize how sore I was before.” Nico whispered.

“Well, he is the god of healing.” Will pointed out. “I feel a lot better too. Not surprising that he gives good hugs all things considered.”

“Healing hugs.” Nico teased. “No wonder he has a care bear for a son.”

“Oh shut it!” Will snapped, but it was quickly followed by laughter.

Nico’s voice dropped even lower to barely a whisper. “I’m glad he’s here. You worried me down there. I knew the sun would help, but having your dad here is even better. It seems to be speeding up your recovery a lot. I know how much this means to you.”

There was no audible response from Will, but I could feel the warmth of his smile. Which was more than enough to make me have to wipe away a tear that had yet again escaped my eye. I wasn’t sure I deserved to feel as welcome as I did.

What is it about kindness? It’s a melody that overwhelms me. One I never want to take for granted.

////////////

Now, I don’t speak as the god of prophesy when I call Nico my future son-in-law.

It is for them to decide their future.

I do speak as someone who sees the love Will and Nico have for each other.

I do speak as someone who knows it takes a lot to go through Tartarus together.

I do speak as a dad who wants, more than anything, to see his children happy.

#Apollo #Trials of Apollo #Solangelo #Dadpollo #nico di angelo #Will Solace #Cabin 7 #lester papadopoulos #riordanverse #toa #the sun and the star #the sun and the star spoilers #fanfic #ordonpumpkin writes #tsats

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midnightsnyx · 1 year ago

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what if i told you (i love you) part 3 - joel miller

pairing: joel miller!fem reader

chapter summary: with Joel and Ellie still in Jackson, you try to navigate your confusing feelings towards Joel. warnings: small mentions of violence, angst, fluff, swearing I think. let me know if i missed anything please! also this isn't edited at all. if you know tlou and wanna beta this story, that would be lovely <3 word count: 3k masterlist series masterpost ask box tag list form

authors note: thought I abandoned this story? same. so it's been a hot minute, and I'm not sure if anyone is still interested in this story but it's been in the back of my mind and then 3k words poured out of me at work today. I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, but I hope you like it anyways. I'll tag the people who asked, but I know it's been MONTHS so if you want to be removed from the tag list, send me a message and if you want to be added to the list, fill out this form. if you've got any questions, comments or thoughts, my ask box is here or just leave a comment in the notes:). thanks for reading, like & hit that reblog button if you enjoy it🩵

When Jack was first born, you went through a rough time. You were a new mom in a post-apocalyptic world and still trying to get over the betrayal you felt from Joel. You spent many nights at the kitchen table with Maria or Avery, crying or sitting in silence and feeling numb. The hardest nights were when you missed him, because that meant feeling weak and you hated letting yourself feel like you needed him.

Your task of avoiding him during his stay in Jackson is becoming particularly difficult because of the duckling you seem to have acquired. Ellie trails after you nearly anywhere you and Jack go and Joel has no intention of letting Ellie out of his sight for longer than a few hours. A small part of you is jealous that he seems to see the girl as a daughter when he wouldn’t even accept Jack but you can’t blame her, so you let her tag along while pretending Joel isn’t always hovering in the background like a mother hen. During movie night, you seat Jack with Ellie and go stand in the back with the adults. Brad, one of the men around your age immediately comes over and tries to strike up a conversation with you. He’s nice enough, and not hard on the eyes but you never really let yourself make time for dating. You have your hands full with your kid so you just smile politely but entertain him, listening to him talk about going on patrol but tune him out when he begins bragging about taking out a pack of clickers. You know his story isn’t true because Avery was on the same patrol as him and told you when the clickers showed up, he hid while everyone else took care of it.

At some point, you can feel a pair of eyes on you and immediately you know who it is without having to look. You’re trying to ignore it but his eyes feel like they’re burning a hole in your head so you turn to look and as you do, he quickly walks out of the building. You don’t know what comes over you, but you excuse yourself from your conversation with Brad and follow Joel outside. He didn’t go far, you find him leaning against the wall near the door a few feet away, arms crossed and deep in thought. It’s close to impossible to sneak up on him unless he’s feeling safe or is with someone he trusts. You’re apparently neither anymore because his head shoots up as soon as you get close.

He stares at you, mouth opening and closes a few times before he looks back at the ground and scuffing his boot in the dirt. You’ve no idea why you even followed him out here in the first place and after a few more seconds of silence, you start to head back inside but his voice stops you just as it did a few nights ago. He still has this invisible hold on you and you can’t understand why.

“Sarah,” he mumbles so quietly you wouldn’t have heard it if it wasn’t silent outside. “Her name was Sarah and she was my entire world and she’s gone.”

Tommy had admitted to you on one of your bad nights while he and Maria were trying to comfort you that Joel had lost a daughter. You’d put two and two together after Tommy made the memorial with Maria’s late son and the name Sarah who you knew was neither of theirs.

“Yeah,” you whisper, hating the ache in your chest you feel for him. You can’t imagine losing Jack but you don’t know if you can accept what he is insinuating. You can hear him walk towards you and you fight the urge to leave because as much as you don’t want to be around him, this is the first time he’s opened up to you.

“I thought it’d be replacin’ her,” he mumbles and you realize he means Jack. That accepting another child would mean replacing his late daughter.

You turn around to find him closer than you were expecting and take a step backwards, almost toppling backwards but his arms reach out and catch you. He doesn’t let go immediately, hands firm and steady gripping your arms exactly how you remember. For a moment, neither of you move. It’s as if you’re in a trance and it only breaks when the door flies open and Jack comes running out the door with Ellie chasing after him.

You pull away from Joel, picking up Jack when he reaches for you.

“Mama! The movie’s over,” he says and then frowns. “You were gone.”

“I came out for some fresh air.”

He grumbles and tucks his face in the crook of your neck. “‘S cold,”

You’re about to respond when Joel shrugs his thick brown jacket off and drapes it over Jack but it’s big enough that it covers you as well.

You mumble a quiet thanks, ignoring the curious look Ellie gives you both and bid goodbye to the both of them, promising the girl that you would see her tomorrow.

It was inevitable, you realize, sitting at the table listening to Jack tell Joel and Ellie a story you’d told him too often.

“And-and then the Prince saved the Princess from a huge monster who’s teeth go click click click and then they went to Fred and Bob’s house for dinner!”

You can feel Joel’s eyes on you the entire time Jack is telling them the story. He’s clearly piecing together that this isn’t just some made up story you told your son but a kid-friendly version of something that happened between you and Joel. It was shortly before you left Boston, Joel and yourself going to Bill and Franks for something. You’d been distracted because it was just after you found out you were pregnant and hadn’t told anyone yet and you turned your back for a split second while you were in the wrong place and nearly torn apart by a clicker. Joel had been furious, saying you needed to be more careful but he couldn’t have been that mad because after lecturing you for ten minutes, he’d pinned you against a tree and kissed you until you couldn’t remember your name.

It was one of the last times he had kissed you before you told him you were pregnant and then left Boston.

“Quite a story,” Joel says, looking at Jack who proudly smiles at the older man's comment. “Does the Princess have a name?”

Jack gives you a curious look and when you don’t say anything, he shrugs and looks back at Joel.

“Mama never said.”

Ellie snickers quietly, obviously also realizing that the story is based on actual events. Joel gives her a look but she doesn’t back down despite his glare. She leans towards Jack and grins.

“Do you have any more stories about the Prince and Princess?”

Simultaneously, you and Joel both say “no” a little too loudly which earns the two of you some looks.

“I think it’s time for someone to go to school,” you say, standing up and offering your hand to Jack who grumbles but climbs off his chair and requests to be picked up by you rather than walk. You know you’re probably babying him but he’s growing too quick and soon he won’t want to be carried around by his mom so you’re cherishing every moment.

You chance a look at Joel before you leave and he’s wearing the softest expression you’ve probably ever seen on him and it makes your stomach do somersaults and cheeks warm. It’s probably a bad idea, no it’s definitely a bad idea but when it comes to Joel Miller, you always made bad choices.

“You guys can walk with us if you’d like,” you say and Ellie is out of her chair before you even finish the sentence. Joel looks a little more hesitant but he still doesn’t like going far without the girl in his sight so he follows the three of you outside.

Of course by the time you get to the small school Jackson has, Jack is more than happy to go in and play with his friends. He gives you, Ellie, and a startled Joel hugs before running inside without looking back. You’re grateful that you have a place here where Jack can have as close to a normal childhood one can have in this world. You can’t imagine if you’d stayed in Boston what kind of upbringing he would’ve had. You certainly don’t miss it there, aside from the nights you missed Joel which were far and few in between up until he showed up here. The reason he’s here is still unclear although you have a suspicion Tommy knows more than what he’s told you and even Maria. The length of Joel and Ellie’s stay is also not known. You were expecting them to just need to stop and get supplies before continuing their journey but they’re still here and you have no idea when they’ll be leaving.

You’re not sure what possessed you to invite Joel and Ellie to your little house for dinner but here you are, chopping vegetables to make soup. Jack is still at school and the soup will take time to cook but Ellie insisted on helping you prepare it and Joel said he needed to go see Tommy. It’s kind of nice to have company even if it’s in the form of a fourteen year old. Said fourteen year old has been awfully quiet the past twenty minutes and you can tell she’s wanting to ask you something but is stopping herself.

“Go ahead,” you eventually say, tired of her silence.

“Joel is Jack’s dad, isn’t he?”

You’re so tempted to say no, only for the fact that she obviously looks up to Joel and you don’t know who she would look at as the bad guy. And honestly is the best policy, right?

“Yeah,” you tell her, noticing when her shoulders deflate.

She’s quiet for another five minutes before asking, “Did Joel tell you to leave?”

You’re quick to answer this question because as wrong as what Joel did was, it was your decision to leave Boston and you don’t want to put some wedge between them.

“No, I left because I wanted a better life for Jack.” It’s not a complete lie, Joel is part of why you left but you really did want a better life for your son than what he would’ve had in Boston.

“Alright,” she eventually says and then: “Can you pass me another carrot?”

And that’s that. You both chat about random things, she tells you some terrible puns and you buckle and reluctantly tell her some more stories of when you, Joel and Tess lived in Boston. She tells you that Joel won’t talk about Tess and she feels guilty about her death. You listen quietly, letting her spill out things she must have been holding in knowing Joel didn’t want to hear it.

“I knew Tess really well,” you tell her. “She wouldn’t have done what she did if she didn’t think it was worth it.”

Ellie looks at you hesitantly. “Yeah?”

You nod and she smiles a little before asking if she can come with you to pick up Jack, but you tell her that Avery is going to pick him up and drop him here. Since you’ve got some quiet time, you decide to do some cleaning while Ellie goes to the house she and Joel have been staying at to take a shower.

It’s a couple hours later when there’s a knock on your door and you’re figuring it’s Avery with Jack so when you open the door, you almost drop the broom you’re holding when you see Joel standing in front of you and Jack in his arms. You start to ask why Joel has Jack and where Avery is when you see the woman in question standing at the bottom of the stairs with a sheepish smile on her face.

“We, uh, ran into Mr. Miller on our way here and Jack insisted that he come with us,” she explains but you can’t stop looking at the duo in front of you. Jack is smiling, arms wrapped around Joel’s neck and telling him a story but Joel is watching you warily, like he’s expecting you to yell or something.

“Hi mama,” Jack says but makes no move to leave Joel’s arms. In fact, he looks very pleased that the older man is carrying him.

“Hi baby,” you reply, unsure what to do. You don’t want to upset Jack by taking him from Joel but you can’t tell if the latter is uncomfortable. Avery, sensing the tension, smiles brightly and waves awkwardly.

“I gotta go feed Lucy,” she says, already walking backwards. “See ya, Jack!”

Jack shouts goodbye to Avery and you finally snap out of your stupor, stepping back to let Joel walk inside. He toes off his boots and you’re about to offer to take his jacket when you realize he’s not wearing one because you never gave him it back last night.

“Dinner smells good,” he says, following you to the living room where Jack finally wriggles out of Joel’s arms but only to get a toy to show him.

“Look Mr. Miller,” the boy says, offering a wooden train that you gave him for his birthday. An older gentleman in the town made it for you after hearing Jack talking about how much he loved looking at pictures of trains.

“That’s a really nice train,” Joel compliments, sitting down on the couch. Jack immediately climbs up and settles down next to him, chatting about the toy and you watch as Joel listens intently, nodding at the right times and you remember that he’s done this before, it may have been twenty years ago, but he’s dealt with an excited almost five-year-old.

The front door opening and closing tears your attention away from them and you look to find Ellie walking towards you, shrugging off her jacket. She lays it on the rocking chair and then plops down next to Jack, shooting you a small smile. There’s something in her expression that is sadder than when she left and you wonder if something happened since she left but you don’t bother asking her now. Instead, you go set the table and check the soup to make sure it’s done before calling everyone to the kitchen. Jack makes sure his chair is as close to Joel’s as he can get it so he can keep talking to him.

You have heavily conflicted feelings about the relationship growing between them. On one hand, it’s kind of nice that Jack is getting to know his dad, even if he doesn’t know Joel is his father. On the other hand, if you let Jack get too attached to Joel, it’ll break his heart when he and Ellie leave. So, you decide tonight after Jack is gone to bed and Ellie goes home, you’ll sit Joel down and ask him why he’s here and when he’s leaving.

Of course that doesn’t happen because Ellie and Jack pass out on the sofa after reading every children's book you own and you and Joel end up sitting at the table, drinking some liquor Maria had given you that you never got around to drinking. You’re not drunk, but you’re tipsy enough that you feel relaxed around Joel and laugh at whatever he’s saying. It almost feels like Boston, when the days were so long and dark that all you wanted to do was sit and drink with him and eventually wind up in bed together.

Except now, you’ve got two kids who are sleeping in the living room and no intention of going to bed with him. Well, maybe if you let yourself have a few more glasses and if there weren’t kids in the other room but that’s just the alcohol in your system making you think things you shouldn’t.

“Do you remember when Frank asked how long we’d been dating?” He asks and you snort at the memory. You didn’t know at the time why Frank would even think that since you and Joel had been bickering the entire time you were at dinner, and Tess had to tell the two of you to knock it off multiple times. She had choked on her water when you asked why Frank thought you were dating and he said that it was because the two of you reminded him of Bill and himself.

“Yeah, Tess nearly choked because she was laughing when we simultaneously shouted no and then Bill caught us making out behind his house,” you say, smiling behind a sip of your drink. He doesn’t react to you saying Tess’s name and just shakes his head with a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. He tilts his head a little so he’s looking at you and not the ceiling.

“If I thought it covered the pain I caused you, I’d say sorry,” he says quietly and a little broken.

You look away, swallowing loudly. “Well, sorry would be a start.”

You don’t say that you’re not sure if you can forgive him, even if he did say sorry. Even if he knelt in front of you and begged, you’re not sure if you could push past the last five years. Every night you spent sobbing into your pillow in Boston while you waited for him to come back after you told him you were pregnant. Every bad night you had here in Jackson, thinking of why he did it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers softly, like it’s a secret.

Blinking back tears, you clear your throat and nod. “Thank you.”

Thank you but I can’t forgive you, goes unsaid. But a little voice in the back of your mind whispers, I can't forgive you yet and you can’t help but believe it a little bit.

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