#anyway that fact that they are unlikely to even reply. is making this email writing kinda less high stakes ig hahahhaah | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 5 years ago

Text

Fact or Fiction

Warnings: non-consent (fingering, toys, anal, vaginal, somniphilia)

This is dark!Ransom and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: Your publisher has died and now you must deal with new management

Note: This came to me out of no where but it was a ride yall. I wanted to write some somniphilia so get ready for some sleep action. Remember to read the warnings my guys and enjoy yourselves. Another double dick fic day.

Sidenote: it is a bit odd to write smut when your bf is listening to barenaked ladies lol

Thank you. Love you guys!

Please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

It was funny how things could change in such a short time. More often, it was tragic. Deep in your gut, you had the feeling this change would be the latter.

You stood in the elevator, counting the floors in dread. A month ago, you felt much differently on your ascent. That was a day full of hope. A young writer on your way to meet THE Harlan Thrombey, manuscript in hand. You’d left even more jubilant than you arrived. He loved it and hadn’t shied away from saying so.

Now he was dead and you feared so too were your hopes of a published book. This day you were to meet with another Thrombey. Ransom Drysdale, his grandson, had inherited the company to the surprise and chagrin of many, including his very own uncle.

You couldn’t disagree with Walt. Everyone, especially him, expected him to take Harlan’s place. But he didn’t and he was gone now, buried in resent and jealousy. None had seen him since the funeral. Or so you heard. The publishing business could be almost as dramatic as its fictions.

Top floor, you stepped out and were surprised to find that Deb, the former grey-haired receptionist, had been replaced with another. Younger, blonder, and more concerned with her cellphone than the ding of the elevator. You walked up to her round desk and waited for her to look up. She didn’t.

You cleared your throat.

“Hello, I have a one o’clock with Mr. Drysdale,” You said. She nodded and giggled at her phone. “Excuse me…” You looked around and found a rose gold name placard. “...Selina.”

“Fine, go on,” She shrugged. “No one’s in there. Knock first.”

You sighed and glanced around. There were a few editors you recognized from before and they peered over at the receptionist with open detest. You passed her perch and wove between the desks. You assumed, knowing you wouldn’t get an answer from the oblivious blonde, that Ransom had claimed his grandfather’s former office. The letters printed across the clear glass door assured you. That was new too.

You knocked on the frame, afraid to shatter the door. Ransom was squinting at his monitor and didn’t even look over as he waved you on and called to you.

“Come in.” He shook his head as he huffed at the screen. You entered nervously. “What is it this time?”

“Mr. Drysdale,” You greeted, “I’m here for our appointment.”

His brows drew together as he looked up. He hit a key and turned to you. He sat back in his leather chair as he leaned on the arm.

“Uh, yeah,” He blinked as he lazily reached over and grabbed a manuscript from the pile atop his desk. “Laura?”

You corrected him and he fished out the proper print and sat up. He opened it but didn’t even pretend to read a single word on the page. He smiled as he shifted closer to his desk.

“Close the door,” He said. “Sit. This shouldn’t take long.”

That didn’t sound good. You did as he said and took the stiff seat across from him. The former cozy leather had been replaced with cold acrylic. He tapped his fingers on the pages and ran his tongue beneath his bottom lip.

“Well, seeing as we’re doing a bit of redecorating around here, we decided to do the same with our writers. Streamline, prioritize,” He began. “My grandfather was a smart man, talented author, but he valued ‘style’ too much over ‘marketability’.”

Your chest tightened and you tried not to show your discomfort.

“Of course,” You said. “It makes sense. New owner, new directions. I understand.”

“Oh, great,” He smirked. “Then you also understand that the contract my grandfather, god rest his soul, promised you, must be reviewed before we go through with the signing?”

“Review?” You frowned.

“It’s the same for all our new writers,” He assured you. “My editors are combing over every word of your manuscript before we throw the ledger across the table.”

“He already read my manuscript, your editors too. I don’t--”

“He’s dead and most of his editors are gone or have taken on new responsibilities,” He interjected. “As you said, new directions.”

“Alright.” You sighed. “And so when will I be informed of the results of this review?”

He tilted his head, amused by your tone as he leaned back once more. He grabbed a pen and tapped it on his lip as he thought.

“Couple weeks.” He said.

“A couple weeks? I’ve already waited over a month for a contract. Now I get the circumstances required it, as tragic as they were, but with all due respect, your offer isn’t the only one I have on this manuscript.” You argued.

“Lesser publishers, no doubt, but you understand that under our submissions guidelines, you cannot accept an exterior deal until we have made an official decision.” He countered. “So, you can wait the three weeks before you march down to Penguin or whatever lowbrow manufacturer you’ve been talking with.”

You stared at him. He was very much unlike his grandfather. Harlan, for all his accomplishments, had an air of humility. Ransom, for all he hadn’t achieved, was entirely arrogant.

“So, you’re holding my book hostage?” You asked.

“I’m allowing you an opportunity provided you have patience,” He returned. “I could say no right now and send you out without a hope of ever signing with us.”

The curve of his lips irked you, along with the loose weave of his sweater. He didn’t dress like the owner of a publishing house; he dressed like a spoiled frat boy. You were quiet as you thought about the much lower offer from Charter books. Modest but respectable. And there were many companies who you had yet to approach.

You stood suddenly and marched over to his desk. You reached over and slid your manuscript across the desk and closed it. You gathered it up and tucked it under your arm.

“I’ll take the no over your games, Mr. Drysdale.” You said as your heart beat wildly. This was either a moment you’d deeply regret or gloriously relive. “I hardly see how sitting on a stack of books will help your profitability.”

He blinked and his smirk fell. Then he scoffed and tossed his pen down.

“Well, you sure are saving me a lot of work,” He mused. “One less pile of kindling hanging around will save my editors hours.”

“Mr. Drysdale,” You said as you backed away from him “I may not have inherited an empire but I think I can see as clear as any that you are out of your depth behind that desk.”

A glimmer of anger broke through his facade and his jaw ticked. He was quick to reclaim his maddening smirk and he shrugged.

“You’re right,” He remarked. “You’re just a writer. Unpublished, at that.”

You nodded and swallowed the insult. You spun and swept back through the door, certain to leave it open. You strode past the reception as she watched some Insta story on a new eye shadow palette. Even Harlan’s name couldn’t atone for buffoonery.

🖊️

Charter Books wasn’t far from Blood Like Wine Publishing. For the second time that week, you were in the heart of the business district. You were tired of waiting. If Charter wanted to publish your work without fanfare, you would take it over waiting on a whim.

Charles Halford was expecting you and as was your habit, you were early. The building didn’t bring you the same joy as Blood Like Wine had, though now that you thought of it, any such optimism had disappeared. You would settle and hope that this was a back road to a mighty second book. If your luck was to take an upturn, it might even be a sleeper hit.

You were directed to sit along the small line of chairs outside Halford’s office. You balanced your manuscript on your knee as you waited. You fidgeted impatiently and hoped the offer was still open. The email had seemed hopeful and that a meeting was scheduled on such short notice was heartening.

You looked up as the door finally opened. Your heart dropped at the man who stepped out. Ransom’s eyes caught yours as he turned back to Halford and tossed some quip at him. His forced laughter turned your stomach. The men were chummy; too chummy. Was this foreshadowing?

“Anyway, I should get back to it,” Ransom announced. “Figured I’d swing by. Get a few pointers.”

“I’m sure you’ll be back for more,” Charles boomed. “Remember, left to right.”

Ransom rolled his eyes and shook Halford’s hand. He turned and winked at you as he left, a cheery farewell to the receptionist. Halford perked up as he noticed you and distracted you from the unease that bubbled in your stomach.

“Early as always,” He said. “Come on in. We’ll get started.”

“Thanks,” You stood and he gestured you ahead of him.

You entered his office and waited for him to sit before you did. He dug around for his copy of your manuscript and turned back to you. He didn’t open it as he plopped it on his desk.

“So, you’re still looking for a buyer, huh?” He asked.

“Well, you know there’s so many options,” You said. “I wanted to go somewhere my book fits.”

“Of course, and it’s a great concept,” He replied. “Really… but…”

“But…” You took a breath.

“Well, you know, we’ve had time to think too and we’re more akin to easy reads. Our clientele, they want something simple, straightforward. You have clever prose and intricate devices but… well, that’s not really who we’re selling to.”

“I don’t understand,” You said. “What changed? You made an offer and suddenly it’s just… gone?”

“Look, there’s lot of publishers out there who would be a better match I’m sure and in this era, self-publishing is growing.”

“A publishing house suggesting self-publishing?” You shook your head and stood. You were numb. “I can read between the lines as well as you can, Mr. Halford. Thank you for considering me. I won’t waste your time if you’ve made up your mind.”

“Hey,” He rose and reached across the desk. “There’s always the next book. Maybe one day, we’ll have a chance to work together.”

“I hope so,” You said as you swallowed the bitterness. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out this time,” He said.

“It’s… business.” You sniffed. “I get it.”

🖊️

Charter, Storey, Hackett. Every no made the prospect of a yes even less likely. Your future stared back at you with paid online articles and ridiculous blurbs. It was a living, a meagre one, but it wasn’t your dream. It was starting to seem like a nightmare.

Another rejection and you were ready to burn the damn manuscript. You marched into the lobby that fronted Lucian LLC. You just wanted to go home but if you did that, you’d just sit and sulk as you had for days before. So instead you followed the scent of roasted beans into the coffee shop along the east side of the lobby.

You ordered a skinny latte and found a table in the corner. You dropped the heavy print on the table before you set down your stemmed mug and flopped onto the chair. You leaned your elbows on the table and rubbed your forehead. A cup clinked across from yours and you sat up, startled by the figure before you.

“Long day?” Ransom asked.

You looked around confused.

“What?” You replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I was walking by actually and I saw you through the window. Almost didn’t recognize you but… you look… tired.” He smirked and you rolled your eyes. “And I saw that manuscript in front of you and thought maybe we could have another chat.”

“I don’t want to talk about you reviewing my book until you decide you don’t want it,” You hissed.

“Okay, well, what if I told you we could have a yes or no by the end of our discussion, hmm?”

You squinted at him and ran your fingertips down the side of the hot mug.

“Why?”

“Why?” He repeated coyly.

“What changed your mind?”

“Look, can I help it that I feel a little bad about how it all turned out? Seeing you here, sulking, it really got to me.” He feigned pity.

“I wasn’t sulking,” You insisted. “I was taking a breather between all my meetings. There’s a lot of interest over my book.”

“Is there?” He pulled out the chair opposite you and sat. “Because I made a few calls and I’m pretty sure there isn’t.”

“You what?”

“A lot of people don’t wanna snatch a book out from under the Thrombey stamp,” He explained. “And as far as I’m concerned, we didn’t finish our negotiations.”

You chewed the inside of your lip and considered him. There was a twinkle in his eye. This man would make himself the bane of your existence until he could declare himself the victor. As it was, he might actually be the only prospect you had left.

“Fine. I guess I’m here already. If you want to talk, let’s talk,” You said.

His eyes sparked as they had back in his office.

“Alright,” He began tersely, “May I?”

He pointed to your manuscript and you slowly slid it over to him. He turned it and opened it. He bent over it dramatically as he read. You waited as he glossed over a few pages and sat up.

“Promising. I said so to the editors but you understand that it’s not all up to me.” He said. “It’s not that I don’t wanna publish you, I’m just being cautious. This company is my legacy.”

“It’s your grandfather’s legacy,” You affirmed.

He bit his tongue and blinked. He took a breath before he continued.

“Whatever,” He said. “It is my company now and I have to keep it alive. That means making smart decisions. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I’m just a writer.” You shrugged.

He sighed and reached for his mug. He dribbled a little down his chin and onto his blazer. He swore as he looked down and set his cup back on the table.

“Could you grab some napkins?” He asked. “Shit.”

“Napkins?” You repeated. You knew he was the type to have help but you were not looking to be his nanny.

“Please,” He said sharply as he held up his wet hand. “If you don’t mind.”

You slid out of your chair and grumbled as you crossed the cafe. You pulled out a dozen serviettes from the dispenser and returned to him. You dropped them on the manuscript and he grabbed them impatiently. He wiped up the coffee and left the napkins crumpled beside his cup.

You lifted your own, the foam entirely flat now, and took a sip. The espresso was strong and your cheek twitched. You set it down as you tried not to cough. The caffeine further addled your nerves.

“So what exactly are you offering?” You asked.

“I went over my grandfather’s notes and spoke with my team. It wasn’t all impractical. We can honour the printing terms but may have to tinker with the numbers…” He began and you nodded.

You listened intently as he went over his points and referred to your manuscript several times, flipping pages back and forth. He suggested a sex scene to liven it up but that didn’t really fit the motif of a medieval mystery set in a monastery. That disagreement didn’t last long as he plowed through his terms.

As you listened, you sipped and your head began to ache from the excess of caffeine. Three coffees a day would do that to you. Your stomach flurried as well and you found it increasingly difficult to concentrate. You left the dregs of your latte untouched and touched your stomach.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Drysdale…”

“Ransom,” He corrected.

“Sorry but… uh, I don’t feel very well.” You said. “I think… I hate to do this but I think maybe we should reschedule.”

“Well, there’s not much else to say. I’m sure you could give me an answer before you race off.” He stood as you did.

You leaned heavily on the table and grabbed your manuscript. You took your bag and groaned.

“Really, I feel… sick.” You said. “I gotta go.”

“Wait, wait,” He followed as you stumbled past him. You weren’t sure what was happening. Maybe it was the leftovers you ate for dinner last night. “You okay?”

“F-fine,” You shook your head to ward off the haze at the edge of your vision. You checked your phone. “Look, I gotta catch the bus.”

“You sure you can handle that?” He was overly concerned for a man who had as good as laughed you out of your office. “I can drive you.”

“Why would you do that?” You stopped just outside the building.

“Because you’re sweating a lot and I think it’d be a lot quicker to drive than to wait around for transit,” He said. “But hey, your call.”

You stared at him and your head pulsed. You touched your forehead and nodded. “S-sure,” You accepted. “Thanks.”

“Hey, we’ll just take it out of your final offer,” He kidded.

🖊️

Ransom

She barely buckled her seat belt before she was out. She slumped in the seat and thumped against the door at the first corner. Ransom hadn’t expected it to take effect so soon but she had downed her latte quickly.

When she got up to grab the napkins, he sprinkled the foam with the powder and quickly sat back. The idea hadn’t occurred to him until he spotted her through the glass. The drugging, that was. The thought of what he would do to her had played over in his mind since their first meeting. He couldn’t just let a writer walk all over him like that. He was in charge now.

He glanced over at her as he pulled up his long drive. She was still out like a light. He had to admit, she wasn’t a great beauty but she had a charm about her. And she was perfect to test out his toys on.

He got out and rounded the car. He opened her door and undid her seatbelt. Her bag and manuscript flopped onto the floor as he lifted her. He closed the door with his foot and carried her up the short walk. She was entirely limp. Completely helpless. He smiled.

He took her to the basement. It had taken more than a year but it was finally ready. Oh and what timing. It was like she was sent to him, just asking for punishment. Her trite little mouth had earned her more than a place on the scholarly blacklist. He had to make sure she paid.

He set her down on the velvet couch and undressed her a piece at a time. He fondled her chest as he bared it and sucked on her nipples just a little. She didn’t move at all. He checked her breathing and carried on.

When she was naked, he played with her cunt. Spread her legs and poked his fingers inside as he looked her over. She was so tight his cock throbbed at the thought of her walls around him.

He lifted her from the couch and carried her to the special contraption he’d designed himself. He laid her over it on her stomach. The angled board had her ass raised and her legs dangling off the end. He secured her wrists and ankles with the straps to keep her from slipping. He wasn’t worried about resistance.

He moved her hips just slightly and reached under her to spread her pussy. He positioned her clit against the little bump beneath the leather. He took the remote in hand and turned the vibe on. The buzz filled the room and he watched her cunt quiver. He dragged his fingers along it and felt her arousal. She came within minutes.

He walked around her as he thought of what to do to her next. He wheeled over the machine in the corner. He carefully lined up the dildo with her pussy. He pushed it inside of her an inch at a time. He made her take all of it; a whole eight inches of rubber. She didn’t flinch though her breath shuddered.

He neared her side and lifted her eyelid. He only saw the white as she remained entirely unaware. He rubbed himself through his jeans and turned the vibe up and hit the button for the machine. The dildo moved in and out of her as the device whirred quietly. Her cunt made wet sounds as she was fucked helplessly.

He went behind her and watched it go in and out. He dialed it up just a little, her body jolting a little from each thrust. He tucked the remote in his pocket and strolled close to her head. He undid his pants and pulled his throbbing dick out. He rubbed it against her lips and smeared his pre-cum around her mouth.

He delved inside as he glanced back to the dildo. He held her head in one hand as his other dove into his pocket and increased the speed yet again. He began to rock his hips and soon kept time with the rubber. He sank so deep into her throat that she choked and her body spasmed. Still she didn’t wake and he could barely stop himself from cumming.

He pulled his cock out of her mouth and a trail of spit dribbled from her lips. He went to the machine and removed it from her glistening cunt. The leather-bound board was soaked with her cum already. It sent a thrill through him and his cock twitched. He growled and turned away as he resisted the urge to fuck her right away.

He went to the chest of drawers and opened it. He pulled out a bottle of lube and clear glass plug. He should start small, he told himself, but he wanted to see her stretch for him. He wanted her to feel him tomorrow.

He crossed to her and squirted the lube between her cheeks. He massaged it over her hole and mixed it with her natural juices. She was so wet he wasn’t sure he even needed the lube. He dipped his fingers inside her pussy a few times before he returned his attention to her ass.

He poked his index finger inside of her. She definitely was unused. He played with her and added another finger and then a third. She quivered as the vibe had her cumming yet again. He peeked up at her to make sure once more that she was still asleep. He didn’t need to be so paranoid. The pills would even have him out for the count.

He pulled his fingers from her ass and positioned the plug against her tight ring. He began slowly, pressing it just until she began to open and then retreating. He paused as he reached to stroke himself. He was so hard it hurt.

He kept on, each time her hole gaped just a little more around the plug. At its widest breadth, he heard a sleepy grumble escape her. He pushed it just a little more and it slipped in all the way. Her ring closed around its stem and he thought he would cum just at that sight.

He shuddered and calmed himself. He grabbed his cock and tapped the tip against the flat end of the plug. He guided it down along her folds and felt the vibration ripple through him as he brushed against the hidden vibe. He angled himself up to her entrance and held himself there.

He wiggled the plug and slammed into her as hard as he could. Her legs jolted and he thrust again with just as much force. He wanted her to feel it, even in her subconscious. He wanted her to suffer. He picked up a rhythm, violent and frantic as her cunt clung to him. She came and he grunted as he fought to restrain his own climax.

He gripped the plug and pulled it out slowly only to press it back in. He did it again and again as he fucked her. His heavy breaths swirled around him as he watched her asshole gape. He was on fire, desperate for release.

He stopped and removed the plug entirely. He held it by the stem and held it against her back as he slipped his cock out of her cunt. He eagerly entered her ass with a rumble. She was still so fucking tight. He lost it. He fucked her so hard, his special toy shook beneath her.

His voice got louder and louder as he every thrust sent a ripple through him. He snarled and pulled out suddenly. He stroked his cock as he rubbed the tip along her ass and spilled himself down her thigh. He would have to wait to cum inside her.

He let out a shaky breath as he let go of his cock. He pushed the plug into her ass again and backed away. He left the vibe on as he paced around the room and cracked his neck. A couple minutes and he’d be ready for another go. Maybe he could cum in her mouth this time. That was easy enough to clean up.

🖊️

You awoke with a start. You sat up on your couch and looked around your empty apartment. You winced as you felt an ache in your ass; your cunt too. You hissed and touched yourself gingerly. You glanced down; you wore the same clothes and there was nothing amiss but the thrum in your core.

You shook your head and rubbed your eyes. You could barely remember leaving the cafe but how had you ended up back here? You only remembered the headache and the horrible stomach ache.

You reached for your phone and found several notifications across the lock screen. Foremost was the email from Blood Like Wine Publishing. You opened it and quickly read through it.

‘...I am excited to work with you on your first novel and the company is eager to see this through to its greatest potential.

Hope you feel better and look forward to our meeting next Wednesday,

Ransom Drysdale Editor-in-Chief Blood and Wine Publishing’

You stare at the email in confusion. Had you said yes? Ransom offered you a drive home… then it was all black but you must’ve come to some agreement. You must have found your way into your apartment and passed out on the couch. So why didn’t you remember any of that?

#ransom drysdale #dark!ransom drysdale #dark ransom drysdale #dark!ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x reader #dark ransom drysdale x reader #knives out #dark fic #dark!fic #au #fic #one shot

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currywaifu · 5 years ago

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𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: hidden side 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: chigasaki itaru/reader 𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: sfw 𝐰𝐜: 3.4k words

𝐚𝐧: Thank you for the request ♡ Lowkey based off similar experiences from school lol ~♪ I had so many different ideas, but I wanted to write this one for a while so here we go! P.S, happy belated birthday @starryneve :> ♡

Normally he’d be able to withstand not opening his phone every few minutes— he’d always make sure to clear all his AP, LP, SP, BP, whatever P before heading to work. Stamina bonuses were never a problem too, either he’d head to the comfort room or log-in during lunch break.

However, events were simultaneously running right now and he’d be damned if he wasn’t gonna rank in the top 1%, no, 0.1%.

Itaru discreetly looked around the office, and as soon as the coast was clear he opened up his desk drawer. His phone was stored inside, his team of expensive waifus auto-battling against the enemies for this event.

They weren’t doing bad at all, but he trusted himself a little more than the AI.

As he went over the best skills to use on the final boss, he heard a knock against the divider separating his desk from his co-workers.

“Code red, Chigasaki-san.” You muttered, volume low enough so only he’d be able to hear you.

Yikes, a red so early in the day? His boss must want something done immediately.

He hastily shut the drawer, sighing in relief that the metal filing cabinet barely made any noise.

“Thank you,” he said gratefully as he watched his boss approach from the corner of his eye, already looking agitated with a word yet to be spoken.

“Chigasaki, I need you to work on a new project,” his boss drawled on with the details; Itaru’s ears somehow being able to pick up on the necessary information despite all the words blurring in his head. Something about a presentation being needed and closing a deal— he’ll just check his email for specifics.

He continued to nod, pretending to absorb everything when in reality he was just looking forward to finishing the battle and getting his rewards.

However, hearing your name halted his movements. As you peaked over from your desk, Itaru could tell even you looked a little caught off-guard at the sudden mention.

“Yes, sir?” you questioned, swiveling your chair to face the two men.

“Since you’ve dealt with GeneSys before, I’m assigning both you and Chigasaki as the heads,” he explained, “there shouldn’t be a problem with this arrangement, right?”

“No, sir,” you replied.

“Not at all. We’ll start on the project as soon as possible,” he sent off his boss with a polite smile as the both of you watched his back disappear.

The silence restored in the room, you let out a quiet laugh to break the tension. “Honestly, thank god I’m partnered with you,” you sighed in relief, before humming thoughtfully “although I might get some envious stares for a couple of days.”

He pursed his lips.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” he said, but by the twinkle in your eyes, he could tell you knew he wasn’t being truthful.

Not that he minded. It would be an understatement to say he was pleased you were the one assigned to help him; if he could set a favourite co-worker, it’d probably be you. Not only were you dependable with work, but you didn’t bother him needlessly either. Even so, the two of you weren’t exactly friends, at least not until a month ago.

“Thanks for saving me. If he found out I was using my phone…” he trailed off as you shook your head understandingly.

“It’s fine, Chigasaki-san. After all, you’ve saved me a bunch of times as well,” you reminded him, “so what were you doing this time?”

Oh crap, he probably should get back to the game. He shouldn’t keep his waifus waiting, right?

“Oh, just messaging my troupe mates. They wanted to know what time I’d be home for practice,” he lied, pulling the drawer open and quickly selecting the skills and moves to beat up the final boss.

After collecting his rewards, he saw the little red exclamation point by the bento box icon. Lunchtime stamina bonus time~

“I didn’t realise it was 12 already,” he mentioned off-handedly, missing the way you jolted up for a second before pulling open your file drawer as well.

“Should probably have lunch in a while,” you said, unknowingly opening the same game Itaru was playing. “Want to eat lunch together? I’ll go over my previous experience with GeneSys Tech Corp.”

“Sure. The faster we get this over with, the better.”

‘So I could get back to my games in peace,’ the both of you thought.

Corporate slaves needed more rights. The project wasn’t so difficult that he’d collapse in exhaustion, but he was definitely frustrated with all the demands that needed fulfilling.

Should he game to destress? Ah, but he once he starts he might not be able to stop-

Itaru’s phone screen lit up, and he would have thought it was a game notification if it wasn’t for the ringtone blaring. As soon as he saw your name, he wondered if you somehow picked up on the fact that he was planning on slacking off taking a break.

“Good evening,” you greeted him, voice calm and not at all angry— right, he can strike off the ‘my co-worker has a 6th sense?’ theory. “Sorry to disturb you, just felt like checking in. How’s work going from your side?”

He looked at the graph currently shown on his desktop, already feeling a headache incoming. “Not too bad, could be better,” Itaru answered vaguely, not wanting to give you a bad impression.

He couldn’t figure out whether you believed him or not, the only tell being the hum you let out.

“Same boat, then. Seriously, for a company whose most relevant success is a video game in the 90s…”

Itaru immediately perked up, pressed at the mention of the game. “Right? Then again, what do you expect from them after that total disappointment of a sequel that-“ he suddenly stopped.

If he said any more he totally could’ve been in trouble just there.

“Oh, how’d you know about the video game? GeneSys rebranded themselves a couple years ago, so I didn’t think you’d know about it,” you questioned him, leaving Itaru to scramble for the best excuse he could think of.

Yeah, he’s not about to take the risk and assume you knew the game because you’ve played it before.

“Did some research on the company’s past endeavours,” he began, sounding as nonchalant as he possibly could, “I suppose I got a bit invested.”

That was one way to put it. He still remembered being upset as a teenager that the long-awaited sequel was a total cash-grab.

“Pfft,” you let out a small laugh, and for a moment Itaru felt frantic— did you somehow figure him out? He wouldn’t put it past the you who caught him using his phone, when no one else had, a month ago.

“This oddly passionate side to the princely Chigasaki Itaru-san is really nice.”

He was eternally grateful to whatever higher being (beings?) there was that this conversation was taking place over the phone. Despite the air conditioning, his face began to warm like his phone would overheat after playing for too long.

Seriously, all you said was that side of him was nice— not that you knew the full extent— so why did he feel like a cliche otome MC? Wasn’t he past the stage of getting flustered over stuff like this?

“Chigasaki-san, are you still there?” you called out, and Itaru calmed himself down to the best of his abilities before answering.

“Yeah, sorry. Connection got cut for a bit. You were saying?”

If a smile had a sound, he was definitely hearing it right now. “Oh nothing~ I was just thinking that your fans would be so jealous if I told them I got to see a hidden side of their prince just now,” you teased.

Probably not. It’s not exactly the definition of charming, not even urban dictionary worthy, but he’ll indulge you.

He didn’t even bother covering up the huff that escaped him. “And who knew my dependable and quiet project partner was so chatty? Keeping a guy up this late and distracting him from work?”

It was your turn to be silent, and before he could apologise you beat him to it.

“I didn’t realise it was so late! Sorry, I wanted to chat away the stress,” you explained, “should probably stop disturbing you, right?”

He looked at the time. He’s not sure what he’s doing exactly, but he doesn’t need to go in-game until the reset at midnight— might as well refill his irl stamina too, right? Well, if he could be the bento box that helped you refill your energy, why not?

… Yeah, that sounded better in his head.

“I mean, we could probably talk about work on call… or,” he paused for dramatic effect, “we could just talk.”

Itaru’s equally as relieved as you when you breathe a sigh of relief. Oh thank god, he didn’t want to actually talk about work. It was only the first day of the project, both of you had time to kill. Probably.

“Why do I have a feeling you’re gonna end up sniffing out my secrets?”

He snickered at your suggestion. “Then I’m not the co-worker you should be worried about then,” before you could question who he possibly meant, he continued, “though since you got to see a quote, hidden side of me, unquote, shouldn’t I know more about you?”

“Hmmm? Like what?” you asked.

“Like what you even do on your phone anyway? You’re on your phone just as much as me,” as he uttered those words you were voiceless for a split second, not unlike the momentary silence committed by Itaru minutes ago.

You tittered, your awkwardness not going unnoticed. “Mostly reading e-books, nothing too special.”

Okay, but the way you made it sound gave off the impression of it being fan fiction or something. Not that he’d judge, just a little surprising for you he guessed.

“Oh? What’s it about?”

His suspicion died down quickly enough as soon as you went off about the plot and characters of the story you were reading. He made a noise every now and then to let you know he was still listening, moving to his bed as he slipped on his headphones.

As you ranted about some complicated love triangle he figured would be popular in TV dramas and reverse harem routes, the more he found it undeniable that he enjoyed seeing this side of you, too.

He felt the tension of the workday slip off his system, your voice washing it away. Who knows? Maybe you’d consider a career in streaming or ASMR or something.

A couple of minutes pass by, and Itaru’s wordless responses died down after a while.

“Chigasaki-san?” you asked gently, not wanting to disrupt him should your suspicions be correct. When he didn’t respond, you smiled to yourself. Well, midnight just struck after all.

“Good night, sweet dreams,” you whispered before ending the call.

Imagine finding out from a 17-year old brat that his ranking dipped because he fell asleep listening to his co-worker’s voice while waiting for the reset. He was a little upset at having to spend diamonds just to climb back up the leaderboard, but at least he’s in the top 0.1% again. It was nothing a bunch of grinding couldn’t fix.

What he was mortified about, however, was falling asleep in call. He was the one who suggested staying in the call in the first place, yet he dozed off on you. You didn’t send him an angry text or anything, but he was still prepared to press an f in the chat for himself.

Itaru found that you were already sat at your desk by the time he arrived, prodding at the phone inside your drawer. While it was mostly hidden, if he looked close enough he’d probably be able to see what you were doing.

… Not that he was going to, of course. You were mutuals in this we-secretly-use-our-phones-at-work tendency, he wasn’t going to betray you now! Still, he was a little curious. A peek over the shoulder wouldn’t hurt, right?

“Chigasaki-san, good morning! You looked like you rested well~”

Mission failed. We’ll get ‘em next time.

“Aha, my apologies. I suppose I was more tired than usual,” he paused, feeling something off— by the way you narrowed your eyes slightly at something behind him he could tell people were probably eavesdropping.

“Don’t worry! It was getting too late to discuss the upcoming project anyway,” you replied, putting emphasis to deter any rumours. Though you weren’t shouting by any means, the sudden volume definitely got you the response you wanted by the upwards pull of your lips. “We can continue working on it now that you’re here.”

As he sat down, turning his chair to face you, Itaru was unable to mask the small grin he sported on his face. “Very cool of you. So you have this side to you as well?”

“I’ve always wanted to try out a scene like that! Though I always imagined myself more on the MC’s side than the ML’s.”

“Hm? MC? ML?” he asked, feigning ignorance to the terms used. Not that those terms were limited to use in games, but still it was a teensy bit suspicious.

“Oh? Uh, MC for main character and ML for male lead,” you explained to him, not knowing that he already knew what they stood for. “Reviews for novels use those terms a lot, so I guess I picked up on them.”

… damn you right, though.

“Didn’t peg you for an office romance lover,” Itaru said, watching you shrug your shoulders.

“What can I say? I’m a versatile person with many interests~” you grinned, the sudden flash of your teeth a little blinding.

Unexpectedly all it took was one late-night phone call for you to be more comfortable around him; he finds himself feeling much of the same. Still, weren’t you getting a little bolder with your vague responses?

Well, if his dating simulators taught him anything, it was clear that you were begging for a response. For an unathletic man, his heart rate increased steadily like a man on a morning jog— the anticipation similar to what he felt when a game continued to throw him pleasant surprises.

“Really? What else are you interested in, then?” he asked, keeping his voice low so that only the two of you could hear each other. On the outside, the two of you probably (hopefully) looked like you were discussing work; at worst, conspiring a business scheme together— the glint in both of your eyes said otherwise.

“Wouldn’t you like to find out?” you laughed quietly, almost tricking Itaru into believing you wouldn’t say any more. “For starters, I’m interested in you,”

He’s, well, more than a little dumbfounded. Shellshocked might be the appropriate word for it. Seriously, who told you it was okay to be so direct? Illegal, absolutely illegal. Someone arrest you already.

Still, his face is as calm and relaxed as ever; you wouldn’t have noticed anything was wrong if not for the colour beginning to dust his cheeks.

“What specifically about me?” He could be digging himself a deeper hole, but all the same, he could use this to turn things around.

You rolled your eyes at him, as though the answer was obvious. “Everything, pretty much— though especially your, let’s call it the non-princely persona. I’m onto you, Chigasaki-san~”

He resisted the urge to laugh, pushing down the bubbling feelings of excitement that threatened to leave him.

“Not if I expose you first, sweetheart~” he threatened jokingly.

Thus began a game that would end sooner than both of you expected.

“Chigasaki-san, is it alright if we end our planning session early today?” you asked him, picking up your mug and placing it between your lips. He found himself mirroring you, drinking his coffee as well before responding.

“Sure. You have something you need to do?” He asked curiously, the dip in his smile showing the slightest disappointment on his features.

Work was still stressful as always but your presence, especially over the past week, had made things bearable if not enjoyable at points.

“Yeah. I have to pick up something from a store and I don’t wanna rush before closing time,” you explained, setting the now-empty ceramic down. “Thank you for the drink, Chigasaki-san. It’s easier to work with no one to bother us, you know?”

“Don’t mention it. You treated me yesterday, so it’s my turn now,” he waved off, shutting his laptop to begin packing up his things. “Need me to drive you to… wherever?”

The two of you exited the coffee shop, the cool breeze hitting your faces as the two of you descended the stairs. As you turned to greet him farewell he fought to keep his hand still as he looked at your wind-blown hair, slightly unruly but endearing at the same time.

“If I didn’t know you better I’d say you just wanted to be around me a little longer,” a soft, airy laugh escaping your throat. A smile touched the corners of his mouth and played in the laugh lines beside his eyes.

“Who’s to say you’re wrong, though?” he watched the red creep from your cheeks to your neck, half reveling in his success and half wondering if it went any further. He’s only a little dismayed that you hastily wished him goodbye and ran off to who knows where, but there was always tomorrow.

By the time you enter the game shop you’ve calmed down, for the most part, hair still a little disheveled but otherwise alright. Did playing around and teasing him finally come to bite you in the ass?

Ugh, that felt like a moment in otome games where the MC decides to tease the ML and the comeback has them all flustered and they run away.

Okay, that’s exactly what happened.

Seriously, you were an adult, what were you doing acting like a teenager? Did the dating simulators infect your brain or something?

You browsed through the new figurines to distract yourself, waiting for the inventory manager to retrieve the game you pre-ordered a while back. Once you and Itaru Chigasaki finished this deal with GeneSys you were going to immediately put in all your free hours into playing the game.

From the corner of your eye, you could see a familiar character, his figurine hidden a couple rows back.

“Damn, haven’t seen you in a while,” you muttered to yourself, grabbing the figurine. Shitty sequels aside, the OG game was totally fun. Maybe it was due for a replay of the game? You could probably dig up the cartridge somewhere in your room.

Distracted by your nostalgia, you wouldn’t have noticed him if it wasn’t for the narrow space causing you two to bump into each other.

“Ah, sorry…” you apologized for blocking the way, about to put back the figurine and move on until you heard your name.

Shit, you knew that voice all too well.

“Chigasaki-san?!” you exclaimed, taking in his widened eyes and knowing your expression wasn’t too far off from his own.

Once the initial wore off, rationality and relief took place. To think you were hiding the extent of your, uh, gaming obsession when in reality he wasn’t too far off, as far as you could tell by the sleek, limited-edition controller he was holding.

Yeah, he might even be worse than you.

“When I implied wanting to spend more time with you, I didn’t think it’d be like this,” he said, a good-natured laugh leaving him. Despite your original embarrassment, you followed suit soon enough.

“I guess we both ended up seeing each other’s secret pastimes at the same time, huh?” you replied, shaking your head at the ridiculousness of it all.

“I was right though,” you began, watching Itaru’s eyebrow quirk upwards.

“Right about what?”

“Liking this hidden side of you,” you smiled in delight as he looked at you uncontrollably fond, finally getting to fix your hair with his free hand.

He’ll ask you out properly some other time, but for now…

“Just the hidden side of me?” he teased, his hand sliding from the top of your head to poke your cheek. “Meanwhile here I am, liking all of you.”

You huffed, rolling your eyes in faux exasperation. “I like all of you, too.”

want to order again?

#a3!#a3! act! addict! actors!#a3! itaru #a3! x reader #itaru chigasaki #cafe: dessert menu #chigasaki itaru #itaru x reader #a3 itaru #a3! game #a3! actor training game

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entitynumber5 · 4 years ago

Text

hurt never meant

Chapter 1: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29723250/chapters/73101963

Summary: Jon and Martin enter a battle of wits regarding the hiding of injuries.

Content warnings: paranoia, blood, injury, canon-typical worm mentions, descriptions of wounds and scars, stitches, needles, internalised ableism, swearing, arguments, toxic work environment, nausea, food mention.

It was very fun to write Martin being petty and stubborn but my god, having Not!Sasha in this fic was PAINFUL!!!!!! Hopefully the second chapter will be finished soon. Full text below the line. I hope everyone’s having a great day <3

The Tube is choking with artificial heat, pumped unregulated through the vents so that inside in late November, cocooned in coats, the passengers shift and sweat and mumble in discomfort. Martin tries to remember the mundane cycle of complaints and platitudes he follows in circles every morning: the air is drying out my contact lenses. At least it’s not summer. I wish I wasn’t wearing a coat. You’ll be grateful when you get outside.

Each circle is broken, just before he completes it and begins again, by the sensation of heat crawling beneath his skin, a tingling upwards motion. It ripples across his face, inducing a drowsiness like fingers dragging his eyes closed, before the prickling across his scalp sends him spiralling into discomfort once again.

He tries to force himself back to his commuter’s hymn, but the heat feels internal, spreading outwards as if attempting to meet the warm air of the Tube. It’s different from the normal unpleasantness. It’s too distracting. He shifts his weight between bursts of dizziness—he gave up his seat three stops ago for a person with a tiny baby strapped to them, and now he is squeezed against the door by the passengers who have joined him since—and a fresh wave of stars burst across his vision at the sharp slice of pain through his left foot.

Martin clings tighter to the bar as the pain wraps around his ankle and flares up the outside of his calf. For a moment, he thinks his whole leg might collapse beneath him and he is almost grateful for the way they are all shoulder-to-shoulder in the compartment.

Perhaps he should have called Rosie and told her. But a deep-rooted part of him cannot bear to take time off, remembers the times he had dragged himself to work feeling much worse—smiling from behind the till even during a bout of flu that made his entire body ache, carrying plants to cars at the garden centre a few days after he dislocated his shoulder helping his mother up after a fall. At least, at the Institute, he has a desk and a chair and very few opportunities for heavy lifting. Given time to take some weight off the injury before lunch, he is sure no one will even notice. And by tomorrow, he will be fine.

The next stop is his. Outside, the cold air takes some of the unbearable flush from his cheeks and he walks the rest of the journey with his coat open to counteract the heat of the train. He resolutely ignores the throbbing in his left leg as he joins of the parade of commuters, bustling in tandem along narrow pavements. The Institute isn’t far.

Martin fights the instinct to immediately make Jon a cup of tea. He knows it takes Jon a while to warm up to him each day, withdrawn and nearly always absent in the mornings. By the afternoon, Jon is slightly more receptive after enough time co-existing without incident, slightly more willing to drink the tea offered to him even if he always smells it beforehand. Morning tea is fed to the plants; afternoon tea, Jon tolerates.

He should stop by the staff room, anyway. The first aid kit inside is well-stocked. He knows this because he did it himself, spreading the task out with extensive research on the empty, boring workdays before Jon and Tim had returned from their leave. There are painkillers inside and the sort of durable bandages Martin doesn’t have at home. But the urge to sit down drags him past the door and straight to his desk.

“Morning, Sasha,” Martin says, supressing a loud exhale of relief when he lowers himself into his desk chair.

Sasha glances up distractedly from her computer and pulls out one of her earbuds. “What was that, Martin?”

Martin tries to fight an unfamiliar nervousness, an old friend from his early days in the Archives where he wasn’t sure where he stood with Tim and Sasha. “I was just saying good morning.”

“Of course.” Sasha smiles, although her expression is blank, almost cold. “Good morning to you, too.”

Martin gives her a tight-lipped smile in return. Sasha pops the earbud back in and returns to whatever work she is doing on the computer. He wonders if she can hear the noise of the repeated error notification over her music, wonders what she is doing to make the computer so combative.

Before Prentiss, he has a vague memory of there being a radio on Sasha’s desk. She wouldn’t turn it on everyday—sometimes, she could only get work done if she was wearing noise-cancelled headphones—but whenever she did, she and Tim would sing along to cheesy ’80s hits. He thinks he remembers them dancing together, the middle of the open plan office becoming a makeshift dance floor, but he cannot hold the entire picture in his mind. It’s like a reverse polaroid, fading out of view rather than in. Perhaps he only dreamt it.

He shakes himself out of the fuzziness filling his mind and tries to focus on checking his emails. He left leg throbs dully beneath his desk, but the pain becomes peripheral as each email dredges up the irritation he tries to avoid indulging on weekends. Elias has sent a motivational Monday email about the importance of teamwork and rallying together, especially after a difficult few months for all of us. Rosie has forwarded a fundraising form from his old supervisor in the library, who is apparently raising money for Dementia UK. He tries not to think about how difficult it had been to explain to the aforementioned supervisor why he needed time off to help his mother settle into the care home in Devon. And there is no email at all from Tim, who has stopped bothering to even send his apologies for being late with each new blow to his and Jon’s relationship.

“Martin.” Jon’s voice, slightly raised to catch his attention.

Martin looks up. Jon’s door is open just a crack. Before he can reply, Jon adds stiffly: “My office. Five minutes.” And then he closes his office door firmly once again.

Martin resists the urge to groan and lower his head to his desk. While he’s glad that telling Jon about his faked CV seems to have been a small but significant turning point, he isn’t sure he can manage another complicated conversation dredging up old anxieties today. He doesn’t want to reveal each shameful, painful secret he has in a futile attempt to make Jon trust him.

He can’t concentrate for the next five minutes. He alternates between watching the second hand on the clock across the office and refreshing his emails. He resigns himself to giving a fiver to the library fundraiser and eating the leftover takeaway in the fridge for lunch rather than getting a meal deal. He tries not to think about where Tim might be or what sort of mood he will be in when he finally arrives.

As soon as five minutes have passed, Martin stands. But with his stomach twisting in anxiety and his thoughts spiralling, he has managed to relegate the pain in his leg to the bottom of his mental priority list. Now that he’s standing, it’s demanding first place again. He has to grab the edge of his desk, almost sending his nearly-dead office plant and pot of pens flying across the floor. His monitor, still displaying emails, wobbles dangerously with the desk. He stands completely still for a moment, trying to breathe around the wave of nausea induced by the pain.

The prickling hotness is back. He hopes his face isn’t red when he finally plucks up the courage—and energy—to knock on the door of Jon’s office. It wouldn’t be the first time, he supposes. No matter how hard he tries, he finds himself blushing quite often whenever it is just him and Jon in the latter’s office.

“Come in,” Jon mumbles from behind the door.

Martin creaks open the door carefully and steps inside, trying very hard to make himself smaller, non-threatening. Jon sits behind his desk, staring at his computer screen. He doesn’t look away, but he waves Martin into the spare chair opposite him.

Martin has a feeling that sitting down would be a dangerous decision. He clears his throat. “Actually, I’ll—I’ll stand, if you don’t mind.”

This finally draws Jon’s eyes away from his monitor. “Alright. Although I can assure you that, unlike some of its brethren in Artefact Storage, that chair doesn’t bite.”

Martin tries to smile. Jon has been doing this more since the confrontation and subsequent reveal over his CV—trying to make jokes, or some approximation. An attempt to diffuse the tension, even when Jon’s body language is nearly always screaming: I see you as a threat.

“I’m sure it doesn’t,” Martin replies, “But I, um—I was just reading this article about the impacts of sitting at a desk.”

“A productive start to your workday, then,” Jon mutters.

“And so I’m gonna try standing up a bit more,” Martin continues, deliberately ignoring Jon’s comment, “Around the office.”

“Around the entire office or my office specifically?”

Martin can feel the irritation—stirred by the emails, deflated initially by Jon’s joke—rising inside of him again. “Does it matter?”

Jon sighs. “I suppose not.”

“So, what did you, um, what did you need from me?” Martin asks, trying not to shift with nerves. He knows it will aggravate his leg.

“Sasha still appears to be having difficulty with her computer, so I was hoping to delegate the task of digitising the disproved statements from 1995 to 2000 to you,” Jon says.

Martin tries not to visibly bristle. Jon has been doing this a lot lately, too—far more frequently, in fact, than the half-formed jokes. He hoards the statements that won’t record digitally, combs them again and again for details rather than delegating this task to any of his Assistants, and only asks for very vague follow-ups.

But Sasha had volunteered to digitise the disproved statements. She said she liked the clear structure it gave to her day, always able to take a full hour for lunch to visit her new boyfriend, and how it led her to different places within the Archives. Besides, she has a transcribing qualification, although she had asked Martin the other day how to insert line numbers into a document. Brain fog, she had explained with that same thin smile.

Martin is quite happy to do whatever minuscule tasks Jon would sporadically trust him with, as long as it meant he had some idea of what Jon was currently putting all of his energy into. He doesn’t want to digitise statements from the ’90s.

“Will that be a problem?” Jon asks after the silence drags on.

“Nope. Not at all,” Martin lies, “It’s just that…”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “Go on.”

“I thought I could perhaps… do some follow-ups on the statements you’ve been reading.”

Jon sighs again. Distractedly, he lifts his left arm, his sleeve rolled up to his elbow, and scratches at the slightly-raw but almost-healed wound along his forearm. The stitches have dissolved, but Martin can see the pink scarring where they were placed across the wound, which is raised in comparison to the flat worm scars surrounding it.

“Don’t scratch it,” Martin tuts, “You’ll reopen the wound.”

“Martin,” Jon replies, exasperated, “It’s almost completely healed.”

“Completely healed? It’s not—it’s never going to be—you needed five stitches!”

“Yes, as you keep reminding me.”

“Because I—” Martin splutters, trying to find the words. “Because I worry about you.”

“Your worry is entirely unnecessary.”

“Is it? Because I think you’ve given me more than enough reasons to be worried about you lately.”

Jon’s jaw twitches angrily, but his expression is level when he forces his eyes to Martin’s. “I didn’t call you in here to have yet another pointless conversation about my mental or physical health.”

“Of course not. You called me in here to…” To do a completely meaningless task because you don’t trust me with anything else. He takes a deep breath and knows he cannot say that. “Digitise the 1995-2000 disproved statements.”

“Well remembered.”

Martin manages not to roll his eyes. “I’ll get started right away.”

Martin turns to leave. The first step is easy. The pain arrives on the second, taking him surprise, a direct strike to his ankle. He stumbles and has to steady himself again, this time against the chair Jon had offered him at the start.

“Martin,” Jon says, a hint of something like surprise—or worry—in his voice. He is half-standing from his own chair when Martin looks over his shoulder at him.

“I’m fine,” Martin insists.

“You’re clearly not fine. Are you injured?”

Martin leans into the chair so he can turn to face Jon again. At this angle, Martin catches only a glimpse of the healing wound where it snakes behind Jon’s wrist. But even with a limited view, the memory of the first time he had seen it grips him.

It had been near the end of the day. Martin went to use the toilet before he headed home, but the moment he was inside, all he could smell was blood. And for a moment, all he could think was the worms, they must have missed some of the worms, where did I last see Tim, oh, god, Jon hasn’t left for the day yet, is Sasha still in the office, the worms, worms again, always worms, it was only a matter of time. It was like walking through the Archives after the siege to give his statement: the musty smell of the worm carcases and the metallic hint of blood beneath. Jon and Tim’s blood.

He had lifted his sleeve to his nose to block out the smell and tried to gather some semblance of calm. The blood was in the sink. One of the bathroom stall doors was closed but not locked, a shadow just visible underneath. When Martin called out a cautious hello, the door creaked open at the behest of the occupant’s foot and Jon stood sheepishly inside, pressing a wad of red-stained tissues against his arm.

“Ah. Hello, Martin,” Jon had said. And then, “Heading home?”

Martin had shouted. He can’t remember what. His voice was always higher than it was loud when he was upset. After that, it had been a blur of the same lies. “I’m fine,” as Martin tried to apply pressure to the wound. “I don’t need stitches,” when Martin insisted on taking him to A&E. “It’s really not that bad,” while the doctor was injecting the anaesthetic and stitching the wound. “Why would I lie, Martin? For the last time, I cut myself on a bread knife,” repeated in the days after, again and again, no matter how much Martin pushed.

“Martin,” Jon says again, interrupting his train of thought, “Are you injured?”

Jon is lying to him. Jon is playing a game. Perhaps unintentional, perhaps well-meant, but nonetheless—two can play and Martin has thrown his hat into the ring. The irritation scratching against his ribcage is replaced with a petty sense of satisfaction.

“I sprained my ankle on the way to work. Tripped while I was getting off the Tube,” Martin tells him, “You know me. Clumsy as anything. It’s nothing serious.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like nothing,” Jon snaps.

“It’s fine.” Martin smiles. “I’m sure it will clear up on its own,” he adds, since Jon had something to that effect to him while bleeding profusely in the bathroom stall.

“Perhaps you shouldn’t be digitising the statements, after all,” Jon murmurs, almost to himself, “Sasha hasn’t yet transferred them to the office and the boxes can be rather heavy.”

“Honestly, Jon, I can manage,” Martin interjects. The satisfaction has faded slightly, replaced with that desperate urge to prove himself, to show he doesn’t need time off work. He won’t go home. And he won’t be a liability while he’s here. “Besides, what else is there for me to do? Unless you want me to follow up on that statement?”

Jon looks down at his desk. A flash of panic crosses his face when he realises the statement folder is open and Martin, at any time, could have read it. He closes it, deliberately slow, as if trying to hide the reason why. “I’m sure I can find you something else to do at your desk.”

Martin knows this has become a different point of pride now. A dangerous point of pride. He doesn’t want Jon to fuss over him. He doesn’t want to be handled. He will do his job as usual and no one will know he is in pain, no one needs to assume he is anything other than fine.

“I’ll digitise the statements,” Martin says, “In fact, I’ll get started right away.”

“Martin, I—”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“If you insist.”

“I do.”

“Then…” Jon hesitates. “Have a good day, Martin.”

Martin almost folds at the softness in Jon’s voice. For a moment, he considers taking it back—the stubbornness, the bitterness, the insistence that he’s fine. Would it hurt to give in, for a day, to the urge for rest? But it would. He knows it would.

“You too, Jon,” Martin murmurs, dismissing himself from Jon’s office and managing to make it out of the door without flinching every time he puts weight on his left leg.

Jon refreshes his emails. He deletes Elias’s aggressively positive bulletin before panicking that he will somehow know and transferring it back to his inbox. He flips through the statement on his desk. He makes sure the pages are in order, properly aligned. He takes the tape recorder from the drawer. He takes a sip from the sealed water bottle he keeps in the same locked drawer as the tape recorder. He lifts his thumb, letting it hover above the button to start recording.

Martin, he thinks. And he can’t begin the statement.

Martin is not fine. Jon is going to prove it. He had decided this before the emails, the statement, the water. But at the crossroads of burying himself in work or investigating Martin’s denial, he realises that it was never really a choice. He needs to know.

Perhaps Martin is hiding an injury related to Jon’s clandestine investigation. The tunnels are dark and, in places, littered with debris. A person visiting without the right equipment—or, at the very least, without a torch—could easily hurt themselves. Or likewise, if the tables had somehow turned, Martin could have lost his balance in the station while following Jon. The best lies always held some element of truth.

The worry eating at him is for this scenario, Jon tells himself. Not for Martin. He is not worried for Martin.

Jon props his door open slightly with his shoe. Now that he has taken to working in his office, door closed, he no longer worries so much about working in only his socks. He never liked the feel of his firm work loafers, and it’s easier to sit comfortably in his chair when his feet aren’t covered. He checks to see if any of them have noticed him, but in the bullpen, Sasha doesn’t look away from her malfunctioning computer, earbuds in. Tim has yet to arrive. And Martin’s desk is empty.

He goes back to his own desk and sits down. From this angle, he can see through the small gap where his shoe is holding the door open. A direct view towards Martin’s desk. He will know when Martin comes and goes, will be able to examine his reaction to movement and pain. Jon begins a timer on his phone—he should keep a record of how long Martin takes, that might give him an idea of the extent of the injury—and then throws himself into scouring the evidence that Basira left the last time she visited.

Jon keeps stopping to check the timer. At fifteen minutes. At eighteen. At twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-four. Martin has been gone for far longer than Jon had expected.

At thirty-seven minutes, Jon steps out of his office.

Sasha gives him a brief wave as he passes, but the other two desks are still empty. Jon feels himself frowning. He checks the staff room, but it’s empty and the kettle is cold when he touches his fingers to it. Next, he forces himself to walk slowly to the stacks where the original statements, even disproved, are stored. It is light and temperature controlled here, adjacent to the room where Martin had once stayed for months while they waited for Jane Prentiss’s attack. Because he knows now that was what they were doing: waiting.

Jon keeps his pace slow and measured. He realises he’s still not wearing shoes, which makes it easier to walk quietly along the stacks looking for the right dates. 1980-1985. He’s getting closer. He stops just before 1995-2000, listening for any clue Martin is there.

The first thing he hears is heavy breathing, every other inhalation hitching in pain. Jon grips the shelf behind him, digging his fingers into the wood, focusing on the sensation of the grain. He grounds himself, refuses the first and overwhelming urge to check on Martin. And then, shifting his weight very carefully, he leans forward so he can see through a small gap in the shelving.

Martin is sitting on one of the wheeled, plastic stools used for reaching the higher shelves. His left leg, the one he couldn’t put weight on earlier, is extended in front of him. The hem of his left trouser leg has hitched up slightly, revealing Martin’s sock—covered in tiny dinosaurs and padded as if hiding bandages beneath. His body trembles, almost like a slight blurring around the edges. He is gripping his thighs tightly, digging his nails in as he squeezes is eyes shut.

Jon’s heart clenches. He knew, in his office, that Martin was injured. But this is something else entirely. Beneath the sickly lighting, Martin is pale, almost grey, his skin shinning with a thin layer of sweat. Jon recognises the tightness at the edges of his mouth, the way his throat works against a rising nausea.

“Martin,” Jon says, stepping into view before he can think about what he’s doing.

Martin leaps off the stool, but the motion sends him immediately careening into the opposite shelf when his left leg won’t hold his weight. He catches himself before he falls fully, but he lets out a breathless “shit” that Jon attributes to both the pain and the shock. He tries to pull himself back up to his full height, but Jon can see the toll the sudden movement has taken on him.

“Christ, Jon,” Martin gasps, struggling to regain his breath.

“You’re lying to me,” Jon says. He stops himself before he adds: again.

Martin’s eyes widen slightly in alarm, a look of panic washing out his features further. “Jon, I—I thought we—I’m not—”

“About your injury.”

“Oh.” Martin deflates. “Oh. That.”

Jon is so angry he doesn’t have energy to spare on being embarrassed by his lack of subtlety. “Martin, you look awful.”

“Thanks,” Martin mutters.

“You should take the day off, at the very least.”

“Jon, I’m grateful for your concern, I really am, but—”

“If you say you’re fine again, I swear I will—”

“It’s a sprain,” Martin interrupts, insistent, “Nothing I can’t handle.”

Jon sighs. His anger leaves him, replaced with a sort of sadness he can’t quite place. Nothing I can’t handle. That sentence implies a comparison, a time before that hurts Jon to think about. “Let me get the boxes, at least.”

“No,” Martin says quickly.

“Martin, you clearly—”

“I’ll get them,” Martin insists, “Your arm—”

“Is almost healed. The same cannot be said for your allegedly sprained ankle.”

Martin rolls his eyes. “Allegedly?”

Jon doesn’t dignify his echo with an answer. “My physical therapist says I’m ready to start—”

“No, see, that’s exactly why you shouldn’t be here!”

“I know my limits, Martin. You, apparently, do not.”

Martin laughs humourlessly. “Oh, for gods—”

“What?” Jon bristles. “I attended physical therapy, didn’t I?”

“Because I texted you every day to make sure you went. Because I sent you home when you tried to come back into work too soon.”

“I am more than capable of looking after myself.”

“You stabbed yourself with a bread knife!”

For a moment, a rebuttal sits on the edge of Jon’s tongue. He almost reveals the truth—the door, the blade of Michael’s finger tearing through his flesh when he tried to go after Helen. But no, that would be too much. That would be giving Martin exactly what he wants.

“So you finally believe me,” Jon says calmly.

“I’m finally starting to believe you’re never going to tell me the truth,” Martin replies.

“I’ve already told you the truth.”

“And so have I.” Martin looks him in the eye, unwavering. “I sprained my ankle. I’m fine. I can do this.”

Jon sighs. He rubs at his eyes, wishing he had gotten more sleep for the past—well, the past year. “In that case, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Jon echoes, although he has no idea why, and leaves before Martin can question him.

Back in his office, he paces. He checks the timer on his phone. It’s been an hour. He sits down, glancing between his computer and the door, the computer and the door, the computer and the door. Eventually, he hears Martin drop a large box of case files on his desk, far louder than he would ever usually allow himself to be. Jon sighs again. He is not sure what battle they are locked in, but he knows it is going to be long and hard-won.

Jon goes back to scrutinising Basira’s evidence. A collection of statements taken from people in the vicinity of the Institute during Jane Prentiss’s attack. A profile on some of the employees who had frequent contact with Gertrude, including Martin’s old supervisor in the library. He had sent a reference of thinly-veiled insults across with Martin’s employee record and, for some reason, Jon had never liked him since.

He is disturbed by conversation outside.

“Afternoon, Tim,” Martin says.

“Afternoon, is it?” Tim replies bitterly. “I didn’t realise.”

Only then does Jon realise it is after midday and Martin still hasn’t badgered him about getting lunch.

“Can I get you anything?” Martin asks, his tone much softer. “A cup of tea, maybe?”

“Thanks, but I prefer coffee these days.”

Martin laughs, a small, quickly fading sound. “Believe it or not, I do also know how to make coffee.”

“I guess I…” A loud, exhausted sigh from Tim. Then, in a smaller, kinder voice: “A coffee would be great. Thanks, Martin.”

Through the half-open door, Jon watches as Martin grips his desk and uses it to leverage himself up. The change of elevation clearly makes him dizzy and he stands for a moment, breathing deeply while he reaches an equilibrium. But when he walks, he is mostly managing to mask the pain, at least until he leaves Jon’s field of vision.

Jon listens. He hears the familiar squeak of the staff room door swinging closed. After a fortifying breath, he forces himself out into the main office. Sasha’s desk is empty; she’s probably on her lunch break with the boyfriend who works at the wax museum. Tim is sitting in his chair, hands in his lap, staring blankly at his computer. The screen isn’t on.

Tim blinks. Pulls his dull gaze away from the computer. The shadows beneath his eyes are deep and purple, and he doesn’t even attempt to smile. “Can I help you with something, boss? Must be big if you’re willing to leave that office of yours.”

“Have you noticed Martin behaving strangely at all?”

“Oh, bloody hell, Jon, not this again,” Tim hisses, “I’m not helping you spy on—”

“No, no, not that,” Jon interrupts, “I believe Martin injured himself on his way to work, but he won’t tell me how severe it is.”

“Wow. Sounds kind of like someone else I know.”

“Tim.”

“I suppose he learnt from the best.”

“Tim,” Jon snaps, “Did you notice anything?”

“No.” Tim sighs. “No, I was a bit distracted, to be honest. I was sort of hoping Sasha would be here. I, uh, I need to talk to her about something.”

“Will you keep an eye on him?”

“I already told you, I’m not—”

“It’s not spying.”

“It’s as good as!”

“It is not.”

“You would know.”

“Tim,” Jon says, lowering his voice for impact, “If you are not going to do any work, at least—”

The staff room door whines open. Martin walks out backwards, holding the door open with his shoulder as he shuffles into the office a mug in each hand. One is the novelty mug with a celebrity and slogan on it that Jon doesn’t recognise, no matter how many times Tim has tried to explain; the other is the plain, sunny yellow one Martin always gives to Jon.

“Oh,” Martin says, pausing when he sees them both, “Is… everything alright?”

“Fine,” Tim replies, “Jon was just interrogating me about why I was late. And I was just telling him how I was passing by London Zoo when I heard a scream and I immediately began running—”

“Alright,” Jon interrupts, “I’ve heard enough.”

Martin lifts the hand holding the yellow mug slightly. “I made you tea.”

Jon tries to push away the warm feeling that unfurls in his chest, every time Martin says this. “Thank you, Martin. Let me take those from you.” He adds, firmly, “Both of them,” for good measure.

With some manoeuvring, Jon manages to relinquish Martin of both the mugs. He places Tim’s down on his desk, receiving a mumbled thanks, before walking the distance back towards his office door. Martin lingers in the doorway to the staff room, looking casually at Jon, but there is a stubborn set to his shoulders.

“How are the files?” Jon asks.

“Terrible,” Martin replies with a slight pout, “I’ve already read five statements about three separate Oasis concerts.”

Jon shudders. “I never liked the ’90s.”

Martin chuckles. “Yeah, well, at least they weren’t getting up to anything actually spooky.”

Jon hesitates. He knows, if he moves first, he will have lost this particular battle. But the war is still all to play for. He assesses the determination on Martin’s face and decides that, on his occasion, he will concede. Just this once.

“Well,” Jon says, clearing his throat, “Good luck with the rest.”

“What, you’re not going to make him put a quid in the jar for saying ‘spooky’?” Tim interjects.

Jon startles. He had almost forgotten him and Martin were not alone. “It’s a first offense.”

“It is not,” Tim calls after him, but there’s something playful in his tone, at least, “That’s preferential treatment!”

Jon goes back into his office without replying. He keeps the door open.

For the rest of the afternoon, Tim doesn’t exactly keep his word, but he does do everything in his power to prevent Martin from getting any work done. Tim isn’t subtle about it, but Martin tries to resist. He only plays two rounds of online Battleships with Tim before insisting on returning to the disproven statements. Tim then attempts to throw pens from his pot into Martin’s, scattering most of them around the office. When Sasha comes back, he quietens slightly and they all fall into some semblance of productivity. Jon does catch Tim playing solitaire when he passes his desk on the way to the bathroom, though.

Sasha is the first to go home. She leaves without stopping by Jon’s office and the absence scratches at his consciousness, some long-buried sense of rejection that he soothes and smothers with the knowledge that this is what he wants. He wants space to work. He wants to snap the lines of connection that might lead him towards betrayal.

Less than twenty minutes later, Tim is next. And he tries to take Martin with him.

“Come on,” Tim whines, his voice carrying through the barely-open door to Jon’s office, “Just one round. On me.”

“Tim,” Martin replies, his voice gentle but holding his position, “I really can’t. Not tonight.”

“We could grab something to eat instead? I’ve been meaning to try this sushi place right near—”

“I can’t eat—”

“Oh, right.” Tim clicks his fingers in remembrance. “You’re allergic to fish.”

“Not all fish,” Martin adds, like an apology.

“Not all fish,” Tim echoes, “But no sushi, just to be on the safe side.”

“Yep.” Martin sighs. “Sorry.”

“No, no, don’t apologise.”

From his office, Jon can hear Tim shifting slightly. The floors are hardwood, carefully maintained over the years, and despite taking some damage during Prentiss’s attack, Elias insists on keeping them. They creak. He remembers Martin mentioning it once in passing, when he was staying in the Archives, how sometimes he thought Jon was there even on the nights when he left before it got dark.

“At least let me walk you home,” is Tim’s last attempt, “A sprain is definitely not nothing. I sprained my wrist years ago climbing and it still plays up sometimes. Especially when I’m caving, actually, but that’s a story for another time.”

“Well, um… I won’t go climbing any time soon, then?”

“Are you just saying that to make me feel better?” Tim says in his most flirtatious voice.

Martin laughs. “I appreciate it, Tim. But I’m—I just want to finish this off. Before I leave.”

Through the crack in the door, Jon sees Tim raise his hands in surrender. “Well, I tried.”

“I’ll be alright,” Martin adds, almost guiltily.

“You better be.” Tim hesitates again. Jon watches him pat the pockets of his coat, searching for his phone or perhaps his keys. “You got my link? The NHS website one about strains?”

“I did. Thank you.”

“And you know about calling 111?”

“Also yes.”

“And you can call me if you need me?”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll go,” Tim says, resigned, “Just—take care of yourself.”

“You too, Tim,” Martin replies softly.

Tim heads off, again without stopping by Jon’s office. And it’s habit, by now, it’s not unusual for Tim to do this, but Jon taps the desk lightly with his fingers to try and dispel the feeling of wrongness sitting on his chest. He watches Martin go back to the computer, a tension around his eyes that suggests at a headache and the same pallid, nauseous look visible even in profile.

Jon considers the work he has left. The work he knows, realistically, he will never quite finish because every statement, every piece of footage, every lead, only stirs up more questions. He could stay. He could push himself on into the night, as he has done so many times before. He could find another reason to go into the tunnels. But deep down, he is exhausted—by the need to know, by the itch at the edge of his knowledge where uncertainty lingers and festers. He wants to rest and he thinks if he leaves now, Martin might, too.

Jon gathers his things, stuffing a few statements inside his messenger bag before shrugging on his coat, his scarf, his gloves and his hat. The cold air hurts his scars and dries out his skin until they become tight, small movements made increasingly uncomfortable without intervention, so he’s resorted to wearing more layers. Finally, he puts his shoes back on, retrieving the left one from the door and then closing it behind him when he steps out into the main office.

Martin glances away from his computer. “Heading home?”

“Yes,” Jon replies, as casually he can, “I thought I would call it an early night. Would you—I thought—perhaps you would like to join me?”

Jon tries not to notice Martin’s cheeks flushing pink. “Oh, um, I—I was actually—I think I should stay. Just for another half an hour or so. It’s just, I’m nearly finished with October to December 1999 and I know it will bother me if I leave it.”

Jon quirks an eyebrow. “That interesting?”

“Hmm.” Martin shrugs. “Mostly just a lot of people worried about the turn of the millennium.”

“Ah. I remember that.” Jon doesn’t let on that he spent October to December 1999 researching that very phenomenon obsessively, walking the line between intense curiosity and deep dread at the possibility of catastrophe. There are some things—many things—Martin doesn’t need to know about him.

Martin smiles. “Well, I… I better get on.”

“Martin,” Jon says, trying to keep his voice measured. He feels like he is wavering between an offering and an argument. “I know I stressed the importance of digitising those files this morning, but there is no reason to spend overtime on—”

“There is, though,” Martin interrupts, “A reason.”

“Oh?”

Martin looks him in the eye and almost smiles. “I want to.”

“Right,” Jon sighs.

“Right,” Martin echoes.

“I suppose I’ll—I’ll be going, then,” Jon murmurs, tapping Martin’s desk just once in deference to the slight tremble in his body, the way he isn’t quite sure what to do with his hands. “See you tomorrow, Martin.”

Martin smiles, this time. A full smile. “Bye, Jon.”

Jon turns. He begins to walk away. In his mind, he sees an alternative: going back, asking Martin to walk with him to the station, an offer he knows will, at least, make Martin think again. The both of them squeezed among commuters, hands stuffed into the pockets of their coats because of the cold, elbows knocking against each other every so often as the crowd tightens and expands. The awkward, protracted moment of goodbye when they part to separate platforms, the glimpse of the other walking away and the pang of sadness that comes with it.

It’s manipulative to ask, a cruel trick, and yet—is it? Is it, if that is something Jon wants, too?

Jon doesn’t turn around. He keeps walking, even though he knows—somewhere deep and hidden and insistent—that he will regret it.

#cw paranoia #cw worms #cw injury #cw blood #cw nausea #cw toxic work environment #cw internalised ableism #cw food mention #cw needles #i feel really shy about posting this?#idk why #it was genuinely hard to write not!sasha that might be it #my confidence might be low right now but my love for martin increases daily #so i will write him no matter what 😤#my writing #love to eveyone #thank you for reading #<333

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theycallmebeccawrites · 5 years ago

Text

Chris & Ellie Series: Episode 21

Greetings all! I hope you guys are having a good day and if not, I hope it gets better for you. Today is a bittersweet day for me. I gave Ellie July 17th as her birthday in honor of my grandma, who passed away in 2016, a couple days after I started writing the Chris and Ellie series. My grandma would have been 92 today. ❤

My grandma always encouraged me to do what I love and I love to write, so I do. And I love sharing what I’ve written with you guys. So thank you for allowing me to share this little world I have created with all of you guys. And thank you all for reading.

xo Becca xo

Pairing: Chris Evans x Ellie Spencer (OFC)

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: language

Episode Summary: The lead up to Ellie's birthday and the surprise that Scott has planned for her.

Disclaimer: This work of fiction is not to be reposted, used or translated without my permission.

This episode can also be read on AO3.

The Chris and Ellie series is primarily chronological. It begins with a flash forward to 2016 and has a few other scenes in the future. However, the majority of their story is told in chronological order starting in 2013 and going through 2017. Each episode starts with a date to help you place it within the story.

The Chris & Ellie Series Masterlist | Chris & Ellie Masterlist

Episode 20.5

Episode 21: Birthday Confessions

July 2014

Music flowed through the speakers as Ellie merged off the freeway and onto the exit for LAX.

"I don't have to go, you know," Scott said as he looked over at her.

"Yes, you do," Ellie replied, glancing at him. "You're in a wedding and your family has been looking forward to seeing you."

"I just don't like the idea of you all alone," Scott admitted. He knew she had come a long way in the weeks since she'd started opening up about what had happened between her and Chris, but he hated leaving her there alone.

"I'll be fine," Ellie assured him with more confidence than she actually felt. She hadn't been by herself in the house since December and that felt like a lifetime ago. If she was being honest with herself, she'd never really liked being in the big house when it was empty, but now it was filled with memories she didn't want to revisit.

"Thanks for driving me," Scott said as Ellie navigated the departures drop off area.

"It was the only way for me to ensure you'd get on the plane," Ellie replied in a joking manner as she pulled over in front of the designated area for the airline he was flying.

Scott gave a mumbled 'ha' before he leaned over and gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. Then he got out of the car and went back to the trunk to get his suitcase. He gave her another wave before he disappeared into the steady stream of people going into the airport.

Not ready to go home yet, Ellie ran a few errands before she made her way back to Chris's house. She parked her car in the garage and then made her way inside.

With no desire to hang out in the big house, she quickly made her way through the kitchen and out the backdoor. Using the patio off the kitchen and the steps down to the pool deck took longer than going out the door through the basement, but she didn't like going down to that room if she didn't have to.

Once inside the guesthouse, Ellie let Daisy out of her kennel and then sat down on her bed to check her email. She'd finished editing a book a couple weeks ago for a new author and was waiting for her next assignment. Instead of finding a new manuscript to read, she found an email saying that one of her main authors would have one ready for her soon, so they were keeping her schedule open.

After replying to the email, Ellie closed her laptop and leaned back against the pillows on her bed with a sigh. She had been hoping to distract herself with a new manuscript while Scott was gone, but now that wasn't an option. She'd already picked up a few extra shifts at the bookstore, helping people who wanted to take days off, but picking up seemed better than staying at Chris's more than necessary.

Picking up her phone, she sent a couple texts, seeing if anyone wanted to hang out that night. Unfortunately, no one was available, but she was able to make plans for other nights during the week when she wasn't working. Including accepting a couple invitations for the Fourth of July.

Thus, the first week Scott was gone went by in a breeze. She worked on the second and went to a movie with some friends after work on the third. Then she spent the morning of the fourth with her cousin and the late afternoon and evening with Pierre and some of his friends. She picked up another shift on Saturday and then spent Sunday with her cousin's family, not wanting to spend the whole day alone at Chris's house.

"You've had a busy week," Pierre reflected after she'd told him all about it during dinner at his condo during the second week. In fact, he'd already known how busy she was keeping herself, thanks to a group chat he'd found himself part of with her sisters, cousin and Scott. He wasn't convinced it was a good idea to have such a chat, but it made the others feel better.

"It feels good to be busy," Ellie said with a shrug before muttering, "Better than staying alone in the house, anyway."

Whether or not she wanted him to hear the last part, he had, and he realized her sisters were right to raise concern over her sudden shift in personality. Ellie, they had explained to him, was a homebody by nature. A trait she'd shared with Chris, Scott had told him privately.

"What's wrong with staying at home?" he asked, cautiously.

Ellie sighed and shoved her food around on her plate before looking up. "Other than that it's Chris's house and I'm just a house guest?" she asked.

She sounded snarky, but he sensed that she was trying to mask her true feelings. Instead of prying, he waited her out. They'd been friends for nearly two months and he'd learned quickly that she liked to process her thoughts before she could speak them aloud.

"It's the memories," she finally admitted. "There's nowhere in the house that I can go that doesn't have a million memories flooding back to my brain of happier times. Not even the guesthouse is memory free, but there, with my things, I can push him out. That isn't possible in the rest of the house though. He's fucking everywhere."

Pierre nodded consolingly. He'd been through many a breakup, but only one that had left him in a house full of memories. Of course, he'd had to suffer through the rest of his lease before he'd been able to move. But moving to this condo had been a fresh start.

"And I'm crying again," she said in an exasperated tone as she brushed away the tears. "I told myself that I'd cried enough over this whole situation."

Pierre stood up and grabbed a box of tissues off the kitchen counter and brought them back to the table. Instead of sitting back down across from her, he took the seat next to her. He handed her a tissue and she gave him a weak smile before blotting the tears.

"Obviously, I don't know your financial situation or what your agreement is with Scott's mom regarding room and board, but have you thought about moving out?" he asked Ellie.

Ellie shook her head. "I hadn't gotten that far yet," she admitted. "Chris is gone for another few months and technically, living there when he isn't there is what I'm paid to do."

"Think about it," Pierre encouraged her. "It might be the next step you have to take."

The idea of finding her own place stayed at the forefront of Ellie's mind in the days that followed, but it wasn't until a night where she had nothing to do but sit in the guesthouse that she did anything about it. She went back to the links she'd found in her early days of living in the Los Angeles area and looked for availabilities within her price range. There were a few of them, but none in areas that she'd feel comfortable living by herself in.

Unlike the last time she'd been hunting for an apartment, she wasn't tied down to a specific part of town because of a job. Nor was she as strapped for cash as she had been. Thanks to the added income of editing manuscripts and not having to pay rent, she had managed to pay down a lot of her debt with the money that Chris's mom had paid her.

Despite having a wider area to search for a place to live, Ellie found herself struggling to find anything less than $1,000 a month that allowed dogs. Frustrated, she closed her laptop and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. Which only served to remind her that in addition to finding a place to live, she'd have to buy furniture as well as she didn't have any.

"We'll find a place, Daisy," she said, scratching her dog's head. "I don't know where yet, but we'll find a place."

By the time Scott returned from the east coast, a few days later, she'd sent off applications for a couple of apartments an hour or so away, but both had come back saying she'd been added to a waiting list for an apartment. She considered telling Scott that she was thinking about moving out but decided against it. She knew he was still worried about her with everything that had happened and she didn't want to worry him more than she had to.

"You're a doll for picking me up," Scott said once he was in the car and she had merged into the traffic leaving LAX.

"Gave me an excuse to get out of the house," Ellie replied before mentally kicking herself. "Daisy and I spent yesterday lounging by the pool."

Scott lowered his sunglasses and raised his eyebrows. "Under an umbrella?" he asked, seeing that her skin, while glowing, was still barely tan.

"And wearing lots of SPF," she replied with a laugh. "How was Massachusetts and the wedding?"

"The wedding was beautiful," Scott stated before going into a full rundown of the wedding. Followed by an elaborate explanation of his family's Fourth of July party and what he had done with his family while he'd been home.

"Sounds like you had a blast," Ellie said with a smile.

"Oh, I did, but it's nice to come home to some quiet," he replied and then smiled. "But don't worry. It won't be too quiet, after all, we both know what's happening on Thursday."

"I know my birthday is on Thursday," Ellie said, cautiously as she glanced at him. He wore a big smile on his face. "Scott Evans, what have you done?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," he replied, then mimed zipping his lips closed, locking them and throwing away the key.

He remained annoyingly tight lipped over the next few days, which put her slightly on edge because she had no idea what he had up his sleeve. She knew the two of them had two very different types of fun; she liked to stay home and play games while he liked to go out and dance.

Thursday morning, Ellie came up to the big house to find a cinnamon roll in a pastry box for her on the kitchen counter along with a note from Scott.

Izzy told me that you guys always had cinnamon rolls for breakfast whenever someone in the family had a birthday when you were growing up. I didn't make it (that would have been a disaster) but enjoy!

She cut the large cinnamon roll in half and ate half of it, then took the other half back to the guesthouse with her, to take to work. Once Daisy was settled in her kennel, Ellie grabbed her stuff and left for work.

The sense of relief that came over her as she drove away from the house was only more confirmation that it was time for her to move out.

Later, during her lunch break, she looked for apartments again and, after failing to find much in the Los Angeles area, decided to try looking in Oregon. She hated the idea of leaving LA and her friends, but the truth was she could live anywhere and still do her editing.

—————

“She’s coming!” Scott called as he ran down the stairs. "Everyone get away from the window!"

He heard her sisters scrambling into spots that couldn't be seen from the window as he made his way to the main floor. Hearing the garage door opening, he made his way down the hall to the kitchen and was waiting there when Ellie came into the house.

"Hey there, birthday girl!" he greeted her with a big grin. "I noticed you didn't leave me a piece of the cinnamon roll."

"You're damn right I didn't," Ellie replied with a tired smile.

"Before you go to your room, can you come look at something in the living room for me?" he asked.

"I have a call with my sisters in like ten minutes," she told him, glancing at the clock on the stove.

"It'll be fast, promise," Scott insisted. "Like a minute tops."

Sighing, Ellie put her stuff down on the counter and then followed him down the hall to the living room. "So what am I -" she started to ask, but shut her mouth when she saw her sisters sitting casually in the room.

She stared in disbelief as tears began to well up in her eyes. She felt Scott nudge her from behind, encouraging her to go to her sisters.

"Happy Birthday, El," Izzy said, reaching her first. She wrapped her around Ellie and hugged her tight.

"I'm happy you guys are here," Ellie said, through her tears. "But what are you doing here?"

"You didn't think we were going to make you celebrate all by yourself, did you?" her youngest sister, Riley, asked with a grin as she gave Ellie a hug. "We were here last year, too. This year we just brought Sydney with us."

"I'm here to make sure those two don't get too wild," Sydney said, jokingly as she gave Ellie a hug. "And to make sure we do things you like to do for your birthday weekend."

"Birthday weekend?" Ellie repeated. Then she saw Scott lingering in the doorway. "This is what you've been planning all week, isn't it?"

"Part of it anyway," Scott replied with a grin. "I'll let them tell you the rest."

"You're the best," Ellie told him. She reached her hand out to him and he took it, squeezing it. "What is the rest?"

"Our gift to you is a weekend getaway at a beach house about an hour from here," Sydney told her. "The five of us and Pierre, but he'll be coming tomorrow after work."

"When are we going?" Ellie asked.

"As soon as you can pack a bag," Izzy told her.

"What about Daisy?" Ellie asked, only then spotting her dog curled up in her favorite chair in the corner.

"She's coming with us," Scott replied. "I've already packed her stuff."

"Thanks," Ellie said, smiling at him. "What do I need to bring?"

"I'll h-" Izzy and Riley started, but Sydney stepped forward and took Ellie's hand before saying, "I'll help you pack."

"Thank you," Ellie muttered under her breath as she and Sydney made their way to the guest house.

Twenty minutes later, she and Sydney came back into the main house, locking doors as they passed them. They followed the voices out to the garage and found Scott and Izzy loading things into his car while Riley played with Daisy.

"Isn't someone driving with Scott?" Ellie asked as Izzy took her bag and put it in the backseat.

"Daisy is going to be my copilot," Scott told her

"Are you sure?" Ellie asked him. "I can ride with you."

"Nah, you ride with your sisters, Daisy and I will be fine," Scott assured her. "Besides, she doesn't try to change the music like some people I know." He gave her a pointed look.

"I would be offended except you do the same thing to me when I'm driving you," Ellie retorted before maturely sticking her tongue out at him.

"Very mature for a 29-year-old," Scott commented.

"Let's get on the road, shall we?" Sydney interrupted in a mom tone.

"You guys head out, I'll do a quick check around the house to lock it up and then Daisy and I will follow," Scott offered.

"Shotgun!" Riley shouted out.

"It's Ellie's birthday, Riles," Izzy said, shaking her head. "The birthday person always gets the front seat."

"Fine," Riley sighed. "Let's go."

Thanks to traffic, the drive took longer than an hour, but Ellie didn't mind. It had been a long time since she'd gone anywhere with just her sisters and it was just like old times. Telling stories, laughing, and talking over each other as Sydney drove.

The beach house was down the street from the beach, rather than oceanfront, but they could see the ocean from the balcony off the largest of the three bedrooms. The house had a Mediterranean feel to it in its design and decor. The first floor had the smaller of the three bedrooms rooms, a half bath and an open concept living, dining and kitchen. The second floor had a full bathroom and two bedrooms, the largest of the two having two queen sized beds in it. The best part of the house, though, was the backyard that looked like it belonged in Italy instead of Southern California.

By the time Scott got to the house with Daisy, the sisters had unloaded the few things that had been in the trunk of Ellie's car and had ordered takeout from a nearby restaurant. They helped him unload his car, putting their luggage in the bedroom with the two queen sized beds, leaving the other two rooms for Scott and Pierre.

Then they all headed outside to relax on the back porch while they waited for their dinner to be delivered. Sydney poured everyone drinks, except for herself, a fact that her sisters quickly noticed.

"Are you pregnant?!" Riley demanded.

The corner of Sydney's mouth twitched, but she nodded. "I didn't want to say anything tonight, because it's Ellie's birthday, but -"

"Shut up," Ellie said laughing as she gave her sister a hug. "It's the best birthday present you could give me!"

Hearing the doorbell ring, Scott went to answer it, leaving the sisters to celebrate. Knowing the sisters had already paid for the meal, he gave the delivery person a cash tip, thanked them and closed the door.

As he carried the food back to the girls, he paused when he heard Ellie say: "I have some news myself."

Given what her sister had just announced, he froze, his mind instantly going to the idea that she might be pregnant with Chris's baby.

"Relax, I'm not pregnant," Ellie said with a nervous laugh.

"Fucking hell, Ellie," Izzy said in a relieved tone that matched how Scott was feeling. "Don't scare us like that."

"What's your news, Ellie?" Sydney asked, drawing everyone's attention back to Ellie.

"I'm going to move out of Chris's house," Ellie announced. "I don't feel comfortable there anymore. In fact, I hate being there by myself."

Scott could tell that she was holding something back and so could her sisters, because Riley called her out on it.

"What aren't you telling us?" Riley asked.

"I'm having a hard time finding a place here that I can afford," Ellie replied, her voice trailing off. "So I might be moving home. Want a roommate, Riles?"

Scott felt his stomach drop. He didn't want Ellie to go back to Oregon.

"I thought you were saving money," Sydney said, snapping into the protective older sister/mothering older sister mode.

Scott smirked. Her sisters had this.

"I paid off a lot of things," Ellie replied. "And I have some savings, but…"

Scott heard her sigh.

"After everything with Chris went downhill, I haven't felt right accepting the money that Lisa has been paying me," she confessed to her sisters. "I've been donating my paychecks to a non-profit organization that provides books to underprivileged kids in the LA area. It seemed fitting since she and I met at the bookstore."

"Oh Ellie," Sydney said, the tone not one of scolding but of compassion.

Backing up, Scott decided to put dinner on the dining room table and get dishes out so they could serve themselves in the house. Allowing the sisters and himself time to process Ellie's confession. All of them.

He hated the idea of her moving period, but especially the idea of her moving to another state. The paycheck donation was a whole different situation, one that he wasn't fully capable of processing just yet. Obviously, there was guilt on Ellie's part, but for what? Taking advantage of his mom's trust by boinking Chris? His mom liked Ellie and she would have loved holding the fact that she'd picked Chris's wife over his head.

Scott shook his head and sighed. Hearing footsteps, he looked up and saw Riley in the doorway. "I was just going to call you guys in," he told her, gesturing to the food that he'd laid out.

"Awesome, I'll get the others," Riley replied before disappearing outside again.

One thing he knew for sure was that if his mom ever found out that Ellie had donated her paychecks because Chris was a dumbass, Scott would pay top dollar to witness that confrontation.

He was still smirking to himself when the sisters filed in. He let them go first and then dished himself a plate of food.

No one said a word about Ellie's possible move until they were all seated at the table outside.

"For the record, I think you moving back to Oregon is a bad idea," Riley stated, looking at her older sister. "I've never seen you run away from your problems in my entire life. Never mind the fact that everyone will wonder why you left California. And you know how our family talks, it will be all over town within five days of you stepping foot on mom and dad's farm. We won't talk, but you know how they are, they'll figure it out. They always do."

Scott picked up his drink and took a sip, hiding his smile. Ellie was stubborn, but her sisters wouldn't let her do anything stupid. And neither would he. He was going to do everything in his power to get her to stay in LA.

Episode 21.5

Want to find me off tumblr? I'm @beccatheycallme on twitter. I also post my stories on AO3.

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bbnibini · 4 years ago

Text

PSISLY: An Obey Me!CYOA – forty-four🔖

{ OPEN STATUS : YES

> approved > displaying capture targets

Mammon : 100♡/100♡ Satan: 85♡/100♡ Barbatos: 0♡/100♡ Lucifer: 5♡/100♡

CLOSE STATUS : YES >approved }

You wondered where it all went wrong.

Everything had been perfect since you discovered the identity of your secret admirer. Uncovering sides of Mammon that perhaps he wasn't even aware of himself, you spent a lot of time getting to know each other, marveling at every new thing you discovered about him. You kept his love-filled words close to your heart, lingering there at times when you felt lost and perhaps even unloved. His penned words were beautiful yet poignant, hopeful yet deep which, you have eventually discovered reflected so much of Mammon himself. He often rebuffed your praises, perhaps shy of your careful observations. There would always be a blush there dusting his cheeks, colouring itself in deeper shades at every sneaky kiss. You always liked those nights when you talk about anything that pops out of your minds, and you thought he liked them too. But now, you were starting to feel doubt.

"Mammon, I didn't mean to--"

He turned away from you and covered his face with both of his hands. "This ai-- this won't…" he hesitated. "It will never work between us."

How did it come to this?

💌💌💌

Flashback to this morning when it all started.

"Mammon?" you couldn't help but reach out to him, your hand touching his cheek. ' Didn't the spell work?' you thought to yourself as you heard him stutter a 'Yes', kissing your inner palms.

"Is something amiss, my love? You look like you've seen a ghost."

So it didn't work?

You shook your head and let your hand rest on his cheek. "No…I was just wondering if you wanted to sleep some more."

Why is he still acting like this?

"If I sleep now, then it would ruin yesterday's efforts." he fiddled with something in his DDD--his email app; showing two booked tickets to Devil's Coast. Signs of the old Mammon showed in his boyish grin. "And all it took was covering for an acquaintance's shift."

"Is that why you're there yesterday?"

Mammon smiled shyly. "Yes…I wanted to surprise you. Is it too early to celebrate the conclusion of our final exams?"

You couldn't help but smile back. You planted a kiss on his lips which he happily received. "Very early. But this is a nice change of pace before Armageddon."

"Ain't that the--" he cleared his throat and quickly corrected himself. "Very true. Once this weekend is over, we are back to our old, monotonous routines."

You weren't imagining it. Something about his graceful movements really did seem off. "I'm looking forward to it!" Then again, you supposed there was a reason behind this. You decided to humour him and pretend you haven't noticed anything. "Let me wash up first and we can grab something to eat?"

"That sounds lovely."

Hoping your feigned smile wouldn't betray you, you shut the bathroom door and quickly opened your DDD to text Satan.

You looked at your own reflection in the mirror and nodded to yourself. Turtleneck it is. You learned your lesson the last time. A mixture of Mammon's toiletries and yours were in the bathroom, making you remember how he was trying his best to hide his excitement from invading half of your space the first time you talked about sharing a room. Not like his room was safe from your own stuff too--it just so happens that he likes hanging around your room lately because of how busy you were. He usually finishes his council duties early and tries (read: tried) to help you with yours, until both of you immediately realise that his bystanding was the best help he could offer. Any pouting from his side was placated with hugs and kisses, words of love he was too shy to say back and a loving gaze he couldn't help but give you when he thought you wouldn't notice. He still isn't the most honest demon when it comes to expressing his feelings, but you can see that he was trying. You just hoped that his recent gentlemanly behaviour is also a part of his trials and he isn't involved in anything dangerous.

Letting go of your nostalgia and embracing the present back in your thoughts, you wondered about the sound of shattering glass from outside. There you saw a flustered Mammon picking up the shards of what looked like Lucifer's china with his bare hands--his gentlemanly facade was nowhere to be seen.

"Mammon, no! Put that down. You'll injure yourself!" you cried, responding on instinct to take his hands into yours, throwing the shards back to the floor in the process. You snuck a look at Mammon and saw his troubled expression, bitten lips you usually noticed when he wasn't having the best kind of thoughts---or you simply dubbed as sad Mammon upon discovering it one drunken, wild and passionate night. You couldn't smell any alcohol on him this time though so you wondered what caused him to look this way.

"I'm fine…" Gentlemammon was back, albeit with a shaky voice. "Please don't worry, I still have to clean this up."

"Let me help you."

"It will heal quickly even if I get injured. There is nothing to worry about." he assured you, keeping your warning in mind, only to take it back once he saw your worried look. "I will wear gloves this time," he said as he hastily placed each pair on, a small smile forming his lips as he did so. "There, you see? I will be fine. So please step back now and I'll do it myself."

"What were you doing anyway?"

Mammon avoided eye contact. "I wanted to serve you breakfast in bed."

"That's very sweet but, you shouldn't push yourself too hard."

Silence. He continued picking up the shards, disposing of it in a trash bag nearby. "I want to push myself." You heard him sigh. "However, I suppose it's my mistake to assume I can carry this out without failure. Can I try again though?"

You didn't have the heart to reject him especially if he looked like a kicked puppy right now. "Of course! But I want to eat with you."

A compromise that he was willing to adhere to. The pancakes he made were slightly charred and oddly spicy. The Melancholy Coffee™ you praised him for making the other day tasted even worse---unpleasantly bitter that if you didn't attribute its strong, bitter taste to Mammon's love for you would have caused a gagging reflex. A feigned smile was painted on your face for the rest of breakfast, making mental notes to take stomach medicine once he is out of sight. You comforted yourself with the fact that you had a date with him today. The bitterness subsided a bit with your early morning daydreams.

Satan had been a wonderful accomplice. With his intervention, Mammon avoided bumping into anyone, thus making his situation a lot less complicated. The avatr of wrath gave you a conspiratory smile and a wink, mouthing you well wishes for your day by your lover's side to go smoothly. You nodded and mouthed back at him a thanks in reply. Your back and forth didn't escape notice however. You avoided Mammon's sensible questioning with a clueless smile.

"I haven't seen even Beelzebub at the dining area today. Is everyone but Satan asleep?"

Smile.

"I was going to pay back Leviathan for the money I owed him this morning. I wonder why he isn't around today…"

He will pay back?! Smile

"I wonder how my dear eldest brother Lucifer is doing--"

S-smile…

"As I thought, perhaps expecting change from me is unsightly. I'm sorry if I'm wasting your weekend by asking you out out of the blue…"

Smi--

"Wait, no!" you held him by his face and vehemently denied his claims. "I love you, Mammon! I'm looking forward to today as you are!"

Blush.

Your faces resembled tomatoes. Satan had to clear his throat to remind both of you of his presence.

"If you flirt any longer, you'll miss your bus."

"R-right…" you looked away.

"Certainly." Mammon stuttered. You felt a hand reaching out for yours, turning to Mammon who had a bashful smile. You smiled back and interlocked your fingers together.

The ride to the amusement park was awkward yet pleasant. You saw cracks in his facade a couple of times, familiar with the reluctance on his movements unlike his odd and almost unsettling finesse at the cafe. You still weren't sure if he really is still under a curse or not, or if he is and it was weakening every moment, but you decided to wait for him to address it on his own. You have recently learned that Mammon gets really flustered if you pay attention to him (bordering almost on timidity) and loses his will/drive if you let him know that you are aware of him. A few pillow talks ago, he admitted it was because he only wanted to show you his cool sides, to which you answered (with much confusion), "But you're always cool though?" and he responded with his usual remarks, ranging from "idiot" to his classic "weirdo"™. Today, much like yesterday however, there was none of that. Instead, he called you several affectionate pet names, and even bashfully shared some snacks with you that he usually considered as "indirect kiss territory", which is Mammon Code for "I ain't doin' this cos I like it, kay?" which totally meant that he was doing it because he liked the heck out of it.

"Hey Mammon," you looked at his reflection from your window seat as you spoke. "Why did you write me a letter?"

You saw him blush an adorable shade of red from the window. "What's with the sudden question?"

"I was just curious," you answered. "I didn't know you could write so well."

"I-is that so…"

"I really appreciate it, although you might be tired of hearing it already."

"...."

"I'm so glad you sent it to me. To be honest, I was beginning to wonder if anyone will ever remember me once I go back to the human world." you remembered your first interaction with him and laughed. "We didn't have the best first impression of each other, didn't we?"

"...I should have treated you better."

You leaned your head on his shoulder and kissed his cheek, looking up to meet his eyes. "You're doing it now and that's what matters."

You sensed sadness in his eyes for a fraction of a second before the conductor announced your stop. You must have imagined it.

💌💌💌

"Wahhh! Mammon, look! Look! Is that Red Devil?! Kyaaaa he's so cuuuute!!"

"O-oi, don't pull-- I mean…Cease! Cease!"

You couldn't help it! There was so much to see everywhere! The crowded theme park was filled with all kinds of attractions at every direction that any child or child-at-heart would definitely enjoy. Taking a photo with the park's mascot, Red Devil is one of the first activities you have done from your many planned ones on your date. Your contagious enthusiasm had infected him that by the time he realised he was grinning at every picture, it was too late. He looked oddly disturbed but you only laughed it off and reassured him that the shots were great!

"It isn't...after all, I'm--"

"Mammon?"

"It's nothing." You were beginning to feel bad for dragging him along.

"Is everything okay?" he suddenly turned pale and you asked him to sit down. "Do you want to take a break?"

He declined your offer and shook his head. "I'm fine. Let's continue our date, shall we?"

Eh?

That pose…

"The Devilish Duke?"

It was definitely the Devilish Duke from the manga adaptation of Emison Beckstein's timeless classic, The Emerald-Eyed Earl. The Devilish Duke was the protagonist's fiancé and was a minor villain in the story. He became hugely popular because of the success of the manga adaptation as well as the artist's interpretation of his design. You couldn't help but mention it right now because Mammon was currently mimicking the Duke's infamous "courtship pose", which many otakus credit for being the very first ever "kabedon".

Mammon's eyes widened once you mentioned his name and quickly pulled away. He dragged you gently to the next attraction before you could say a word.

His odd behaviour only persisted as your date went on-- a kiss on your hand near the fountains, like what Senpai-San did to Shujinko-chan in Heartbeat Memorial: My First Love, Please Notice Me Or I Will Spontaneously Combust! ; a reiteration of an infamous line from a popular otome game, Mystery Message Delivery in the ferris wheel, as well as a kiss at its top, just like Mary Sue and Gary Stu from the popular Devildom Drama, I'm a Powerful Demon But I Fell in Love with a Human?. If you weren't familiar with the references, your heart must have already given out the first time he attempted those moves at you, but since you were aware of where they're from, you couldn't help but think it was cute instead. He must have done his own research to make you happy, but it was a failure on his part to not realise that you would have been happy even if he didn't go out of his way. Then again, it was pretty unfair to complain because anything Mammon did in your own biased eyes was precious and adorable.

"I love you, Mammon." you muttered loud enough for him to hear while you were in line for the Devil's Teacups . He must have heard it because he squeezed your hand tighter as you waited.

There were still times when he persisted on keeping his Gentlemammon™ facade, much like when he declined going to the horror house with you, only for you to find out he wanted to turn you down in the first because he wasn't very good with ghosts (You had to wait for him to defrost after turning into a literal ice sculpture when one of the ghosts grabbed him by the ankle). He also swore not to let you ride "rigorous rides", but finally let his hair down and rode all of your favourite thrill rides with his usual energy and cheer. By the time he realised this, both of you were lining up for the March of Death for the third time. You learned your lesson already and didn't make a fuss about his tiny revelation. Instead, you held him by the arm and smiled at him. "It's fun, isn't it?" Mammon looked shocked at first, but as he sighed and finally replied, you noticed he was back to his usual self. "It certainly is." Your heart immediately deflated at his answer, but more than anything, you couldn't help but be disappointed in yourself.

He had his guard up for the rest of your date and you didn't know why. It seemed like he was forcing himself. The sun was starting to set, and the bus home had been terribly late so you had a lot of time to contemplate while waiting for it to come. Mammon had been silent, looking up at the sky as if searching for something far away. You didn't want him to wander too far so you pulled him back.

"Why have you been acting weird since yesterday. What's wrong?" you couldn't help it. You have finally ran out of patience and you're starting to take his unusual behaviour personally, which you know deep down was unfair especially with how he went out of his way today.

Mammon looked taken aback, frowning once he processed your words. "What do you mean?"

"That. Why…why are you doing that?"

"..."

When he didn't answer, you finally aired out the thoughts weighing you down. "I didn't want to ask you because I wanted you to say it first, I'm sorry. Was it because of what I said last night?"

He called your name, sounding hurt. "Do you not like it?"

You shook your head. "I meant it when I said I don't like it, you know. And I mean it in the best way!" You held him by the hand and placed it close to your chest, hoping your beating heart was already telling. "I prefer the real you."

"Do you really mean that?"

You nodded again. "I even consulted Satan yesterday to undo your curse. You...you were cursed, weren't you?"

"So it was you."

What?

"Mammon,what's going on?" What did he mean by that? You started to worry.

However, despite your repetitions, Mammon didn't answer. Instead, he only looked at you guiltily. At some point, he held your hand back with his trembling ones. He needs time, you thought to yourself and kissed his knuckles, not saying a word. Eventually, your patience was rewarded.

"...I asked the witches to curse me."

You quietly urged him to continue speaking. "I just wanted this date to be perfect, y'know? Don't wanna screw it up. I always do.

Now don't look at me like that. It's unfair. Ya say one thing but mean another. Even you are sick and tired of me, yeah?"

What…

When did you ever say that?!

It hurt. It hurts to think that Mammon ever thought you'd think of him that way. You thought you had been a wonderful lover to him, always showering him with affection and treasuring every moment you shared together. You thought he knew how much he mattered to you, but it turns out you weren't expressing yourself enough and he assumed you were lying to yourself.

"I…I never…"

Crap. Now, you can't even see him clearly. Stupid tears. You felt him wiping your eyes at every tear shed, muttering apologies as he gently held you in his arms. "Shit! I didn't mean to make ya cry. Fuck, this is why I'm such a screw up! If I coulda stayed cursed for a while longer, you'd never cry like this!"

"Mammon…I love you." you repeated those words again and again until you were satisfied. "Didn't I tell you? I love you for who you are and what you are that I have eventually found out on my own."

He didn't speak after what you said, instead he pulled you away from the hug. Despite feeling disheartened, you continued to speak. "Mammon, I don't care how long it takes for you to accept that you are all of the things I tell you. If I can lend you my eyes so you can see what kind of wonderful demon I'm seeing whenever I look at you, I'd do so in a heartbeat. I love you."

You thought this would placate him, but instead, he sneered. "Which part of me do you actually love?"

"Everything!" you answered. "I love that there is so much more to you than meets the eye---I feel thankful every day that I have been privy to see that sweet and sincere side of you, especially in your letter. True, I did not feel that way at first, but the letter, oh Mammon. I fell in love with you upon reading its first passages! No one had ever said such precious words to me in my life, so I wanted to do the same for you."

"In the end, it's always that stupid letter."

"Excuse me?"

"IT'S ALWAYS THAT STUPID FUCKING LETTER!" he shouted, immediately regretting his outburst once he saw the hurt look on your face. However hurt you looked as the truth was spoken to you, he pressed on and twisted the knife even further. If a sweet memory is a calm before your inevitable storm (read: breakup), it was better to at least tell you the truth.

"I can't see it. I can't see that wonderful demon you're always talking about---the one who wrote that letter to you." The sunset dyed his silver hair orange. "I tried seeing him. Maybe it's me who's the problem, y'know? You kept on telling me I'm all these amazin' things, but I just couldn't. All I see is...me."

"Mammon."

"You said I was sincere, but I don't remember bein' sincere at all when I was writin' that stupid thing, so I tried to be even if I was bad at it. You said I was thoughtful so I tried to be, but look at where that thoughtfulness went---tears on your fucking face." he laughed bitterly. "I'm an absolute saint, aren't I?"

"...I really meant it you know?"

" 'Course you do. That's fer sure. But lovin' a scum means he's still scum. You deserve better, and I can't give that to ya."

"But Mammon…I only want you."

Mammon's bitter smile never left his face. "Do ya really? Or do you want the Mammon who wrote you the letter?"

!!!

"See? I gotcha, didn't I?"

You don't understand. What did he get that you didn't? You love Mammon, that was the truth. You did not love him, and weren't even aware of him at first, but the letter he sent to your locker changed that. It was a catalyst for finally seeing him in a completely different light. What was the difference between the Mammon who wrote the letter to the Mammon in front of you in the first place? Aren't they one and the same? Was he joking right now? Because you certainly weren't laughing.

However many thoughts were racing in your mind right now, only three words seem to come out of you.

"I love you," and every utterance only brought more tears in your eyes, afraid of the possibility that Mammon must have been feeling the same way right now.

You were tired. Tired of explaining it to him, tired of reassuring him that he was fine the way he is. Every 'I love you' was like a dagger to your heart, growing conscious of the fact that both of you may feel the same way, but both of your feelings weren't reaching each other at all.

In your exasperation, you couldn't help but finally say,

"I don't want this anymore."

You wondered where it all went wrong.

"Mammon, I didn't mean to--"

He turned away from you and covered his face with both of his hands. "This ai-- this won't…" he hesitated. "It will never work between us."

*beep!*

"Get on first. I'll catch up with ya."

"...okay."

How did it come to this?

💌💌💌

You didn't know how you were able to get home that night. You couldn't even remember the people you spoke to before you went back to your room. The side of your bed was empty of Mammon as well as your heart.

You didn't realise that you hurt him. You might have meant well and were even truthful of your affections for him, but the truth still laid there, mocking you in the face--you were idealising him. You thought you knew him by a few reads of the scented passages of his letter, that you refused to see him for who he really is. Oh, what a hypocrite you are.

His question continued to linger in your mind as you retrieved the said letter from your drawer. You didn't have the heart to read what it says anymore.

Why does it matter? It's all over.

Thinking in that vein, you sighted the gas lamp near your table and started entertaining darker thoughts.

Why not just forget about everything?

[ What will you do? ]

💌Burn the letter

💌Hesitate

💌masterlist

#psisly #hamartia series #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #obey me fic #obey me fanfic #obey me cyoa #interactive fiction #obey me mammon #obey me mammon x reader #obey me satan #obey me satan x reader #obey me barbatos #obey me barbatos x reader #obey me lucifer #obey me lucifer x reader #love letter #secret admirer

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years ago

Text

The Nazis and your privacy

Roderick Miller:

The nonprofit organization to which I belong recently put the personal data of around 410,000 people on the internet, connected to interactive street maps of where they lived. The data includes their full names, date and place of birth, known residential address, and often includes their professions and arrest records, sometimes even information about mental or physical handicaps. It also lists whether any of their grandparents were Jewish.

How would you feel if somebody published your personal data on the internet along the same lines? The website described above is based on the personal data of victims of Nazi persecution and is part of a memorialization project. But given that much of personal data is probably available on a number of corporate servers to which the government could have unrestricted access, what is to stop this data from being misused? Even if the information was never made public, how would your personal data be exploited if a right-wing Christian extremist government were to take power in the United States? Is it so far-fetched to imagine such personal data exploitation in a Handmaid’s Tale future?

The Nazi German government conducted a census on 17 May 1939 in which a special “supplementary card” was included, where every person had to list if each of their four grandparents was Jewish or not. In the 1980s, a census was conducted in West Germany that led to a lot of resistance from the left, including massive street demonstrations. Several academic works about the planned 1980s census were published at the time, in which the thesis was put forth that the Nazis misused the 1939 census data to create the deportation lists to send the Jews to concentration camps and their subsequent deaths. The resistance to the 1980s census led to its being delayed from the original date of 1981 until they finally managed, in 1987, to meet the criteria put forth by a decision of a 1983 German Supreme Court which severely limited the extent to which the private data of individuals could be used.

Later research, however, proved that although the Nazis did, in the end, misuse the 1939 census data, in that they sent the “supplementary cards” of people with Jewish grandparents to the local police (ie Gestapo) registration offices throughout Germany, this only happened in late 1941 and 1942. Not only were the deportations already in full operation by this point, but by this time the data on the “supplementary cards” was largely no longer valid — many Jews had already been deported, and most of those who remained had been forced in the interim to move into smaller, crowded apartments, so-called “Jew houses.”

The 1939 census data was not needed to create deportation lists by 1941/1942 anyway, since the Jewish communities had been forced by the Gestapo to make card indexes of all known Jewish people. These card indexes — it was a typical Nazi tactic to force the people they were persecuting to directly assist in their own persecution — were usually the basis of the deportation lists. In some cases, the Jewish community was itself forced to write the deportation lists and decide who could remain and who got on the train.

Today we don’t need the Gestapo to force us to give up our personal data, we offer it up voluntarily to social media like Facebook or major US government contractors for the military and intelligence communities like Google. Many people offer their data up to maintain their social presence on the internet or merely for convenience. The standard reply to this is often “I don’t have anything to hide,” but that’s based upon the assumption of a government that respects personal privacy and doesn’t arrest people based on their political opinions, sexual preferences, or lifestyle choices.

If the Nazis had had access to personal data the same way that these corporate conglomerates do today, there would likely have been very few survivors of the persecution of people for their race, political stance, sexual preference or for the fact that they were somehow seen as physically or mentally handicapped. Add CCTV video surveillance and facial recognition software to the mix and there would have been next to no survivors. This isn’t some kind of alternate reality conjecture á la Philip K. Dick’s Man in the High Castle, however. The abuse of data by the NSA has already shown what is possible in a supposedly constitutional democracy, and the slow slide of the US government into new forms of corruption in the last decades, culminating in the 2016 election of Donald Trump as president, leaves a bleak vision of a future that eclipses even the worst fictional visions of dystopia.

One of the main problems is that we don’t expect or receive protection of our personal data by default, and though the EU has already created such laws, as it stands right now you need to take extra steps yourself to reduce the amount of your data that can be exploited: quit Facebook; reduce using Google insofar as it’s possible (ie no email accounts); use browsers like Epic that don’t store your data, automatically delete all cookies and trackers, and hide your geolocation with a built-in VPN. But unless most of the population takes this step, which is very unlikely, or laws are put into place to guarantee personal data privacy by default instead of with a fair amount of extra effort, then most of the population is in the position to be commercially exploited and maybe, depending on how things go in our so-called constitutional democracies, persecuted in ways they can’t yet imagine.

I deal with Nazi history on a daily basis, and that doesn’t make it any easier to read the daily news. I look around the streets of Berlin, where I live, and the memories of the past are omnipresent in the places where victims of the Nazis once lived, loved, and worked. My distinction between past, present and future is getting more and more blurred, and the further we allow ourselves to offer up our personal data to institutions whose use of that data is out of our control and whose abuse of that data seems to increase every day, the less this distinction between past, present and future seems to become.

Roderick Miller is a US-born historian living in Berlin and the chairman of the nonprofit organization Tracing the Past, whose online project Mapping the Lives ties personal biographies of those persecuted by the Nazi regime with interactive street maps.

https://boingboing.net/2019/01/21/census-and-genocide.html

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parkkjiminssi · 6 years ago

Text

Outcast

Kim Taehyung x Reader | social media au

Part 10: How

In a world where superpowers exist, you would think that there’s no such thing as being different. Y/N, however, was branded with that tittle early in her childhood days after almost destroying her school and hurting her classmates. In attempts of escaping her past, Y/N attends to a high school that’s in a neighboring city. What will happen when Y/N meets the Elite Nine? What will happen when Y/N meets a boy named Kim Taehyung?

tag list: @astronomyturtle, @namiiy, @momdancingtomcr, @perseephony, @moonfairyjoon, @vstellarkth, @stephgiriseok

word count: 2.9K

a/n: I’m sorry this is so long 🥺 I just wanted to throw some fluff at you guys. Like always links are on my bio!

Y/N and Taehyung:

Today was just a chaotic as yesterday had been. A lot of questions were left hanging in the air and of course you all were looking for answers.

“Where’s Kay?” Avery asked once all of you, well most of you, were sitting on your usual table.

“She didn’t wanted to come to school today.” Lynn responded as she swallowed the bite she had taken out of her rice ball. “I guess she wasn’t ready to face Jimin.”

“Speaking of Jimin,” Avery continued, now turning to you. “where is he? He’s not with the boys.”

“As soon as he walked into class and didn’t see Kay, he tried leaving but Mr. Shin trapped him into a force field.” You answered. “I’m guessing now that it’s lunchtime and Mr. Shin is no longer on top of him, he’ll be leaving one way or the other.”

“To be honest, it was about time somebody said something. Neither of them were ever going to say anything even if they’re dying of love for each other.” Avery said as she took a bite of her own rice ball.

“That’s just the way Kay is. She’s afraid to get attached.” Lynn said with a sad chuckle. “I guess she’s actually just afraid of going back to that hellhole. As if I’ll let that happen.”

You placed you hand on top of Lynn’s trying to provide comfort. “We won’t let that happen if the time ever comes.”

“Which it won’t!” Avery added.

“But if it does, we won’t allow for anything to happen to her.” You finished.

Avery looked over her shoulder and waved at Namjoon. He returned the wave with a dimpled smile. It made you uncomfortable the fact that due to your disagreement with Taehyung, now the boys were eating separately from the girls.

“Avery, you don’t have to be here with me you know.” You said while sipping on your juice nervously. “You should be with your boyfriend.”

“Oh, no. It’s okay, Y/N. I really don’t mind it!” She said cheerfully. “Anyways, has anyone seen Jinx? She hasn’t arrived yet.”

“I saw her hiding.” Lynn said as she now took a bite out of her dessert. “I’m guessing she’s also avoiding Jungkook.”

“Wow, it’s not like her to miss class. I hope they all fix this, Namjoon will get a stroke. He’s already super stressed with all his president duties.” Avery said in between laughs.

Lynn and yourself joined Avery in the laughter.

Little did you know that a certain blonde haired boy was watching you, wishing that he could be there next to you. Laughing with you.

“Stop starring.” Hoseok murmured without looking up from his plate.

“What are you talking about?” Taehyung asked confused.

“Just go and talk to her. I’m sure she’s forgotten everything by now.” Namjoon added in.

“N-no, I can’t.” Was the only thing Taehyung said before stuffing his mouth with food, unable to say anything else.

More like refusing to answer anything else.

Subconsciously, Taehyung’s graze fell upon you once again. However, this time you also turned to look at him. Your eyes locked for a small moment but as soon the two of you realized what had happened, you quickly looked away.

I’m sorry, Taehyung.

Jimin and Kay:

Jimin was determined to speak with Kay about what had been said in the chat last night. He wanted to know if it was true, he needed to know. He had tried to contact her through any means possible. Text, call, kakaotalk, email, FaceTime, Snapchat but Kay just wasn’t answering. And as soon as Jimin saw that Kay wasn’t at school, his whole plans went down the drain.

He tried his best to leave. To go find Kay. Unfortunately Mr. Shin wasn’t having it, and trapped him inside a force field throughout the whole morning.

“Any sudden movements and I’ll make sure to close this field on you. I’m sure you don’t want to die crushed.” Was the only thing he needed to say to get Jimin to settle down.

“Jimin, calm down. We’ll think of something.” Taehyung whispered to him when Mr. Shin had turned around to write on the board.

“Thank you, Tae.” Jimin replied with a sad smile.

Lunchtime soon came around and there were still no signs of Kay.

As he walked towards the cafeteria, he bumped into Lynn and asked her about Kay.

“She stayed home. I’m sorry, you know how she is.” Lynn said while looking down. “She’s just afraid, you know, of that place.Which has nothing to do with this, but she’s just being dumb.”

“Like hell I’m going to let those bastards lay a hand on her.” Was the last thing he said before taking off running. To where? Well, to the Clearwater’s home. To Kay’s home.

“Wow, Jimin looked so cool right now.” Yoongi finally spoke after a long moment of silence.

Jimin ran. The dumbass could’ve just taken his car, but in a moment of frustration like this, this was the only thing that came to his mind. Later he came to regret this decision when his legs were sore and couldn’t climb up the tree next to Kay’s window. Regardless, he still climbed and knocked on her window.

Kay tried her best to ignore him. To pretend that he wasn’t there but Jimin screaming at her was very hard to ignore and very hard not to laugh at.

“Kay, you better open this fucking window. You don’t know what I’ve been through to get here.” He screamed in between pants, his cheeks red from all the running. “If you don’t open it, I swear I’m going to bust it open.”

“Fine, fine!” Kay eclaimed as she finally opened the window and helped Jimin climb through it. “What do you want?”

“Really? What do I want?! Not even a glass of water or—“

Jimin was cut off by a splash of water on his face, courtesy of none other than Kay herself.

“Kay, can’t you be serious for just a moment?!” Jimin said frustrated, his hands grabbing on to Kay’s arms. “Why haven’t you answered my calls or my texts? Why didn’t you go to school?”

“Why? So you could laugh at me or tease me?” Kay said as she tried her best to free herself from Jimin’s hold.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because you’ve only seen me as your best friend and I’m so in love with you.” Kay yelled, tears finally streaming down her face. Thank god that her parents were out working. Otherwise, Mr. Clearwater would’ve busted in to Kay’s room ready to pummel whoever it was that had made his daughter scream like that.

“Kay, all this time I was the one that was in love with you and thought that you only saw me as your best friend.” Jimin sighed, his hands letting go of Kay’s arms and embracing her instead.

“Y-you in love with me?” Kay asked. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I don’t know, Kay.” Jimin said as he gently stroked her back, trying to comfort her. “I guess I was just always scared or had this idea that you’d never see me as anything more than your best friend.”

“That’s just silly. You seriously could never tell all those times that I would flirt with you?” Kay pulled away to look at Jimin in the eyes.

“Well now it does sound silly and no I couldn’t.” He said looking away. “I was just always trying not to think too much out of things so our friendship wouldn’t become awkward. I guess I just didn’t wanted to lose you, it didn’t matter if we stayed friends forever. I was content with being just that.”

“But I know that the moment you started dating someone else, I was most likely going to lose it. Kay, please hear me out.” Jimin finally gathered the courage to look at Kay in the eyes. It was now or never. “I know that you live in constant fear that one day those assholes from the center will come back for you. That that’s why you’re afraid to form bonds and get attached.”

“Jimin, I—“

“No, please let me talk. If I don’t say it now then who knows when I’ll gather up the courage to say it again. Maybe another five years will pass by.” Jimin cut Kay off, causing a soft giggle to escape her lips.

“When I first met you, I thought you were the most beautiful girl in the entire world. As we started to talk more, I just became more and more entranced with you. From there, our friendship grew and you became comfortable enough to share your story with me. Still to this day, I feel very honored to know that I was the first person you ever confided in about this aside from your family, of course.” The two of them smiled at the memories. Of how close they had gotten in these five years. Of everything they had gone through together. “Kay, ever since that day I made myself a promise to not let those sons of bitches lay a hand on you ever again. I’ve been training and doing everything in my power to become stronger, so when that day comes I’ll be ready.”

Kay was practically sobbing at this point. She always felt like shouldn’t enjoy her life because sooner or later it would be over once again. Oh how she hated that place and the people that ran it. How she hated the fact that she always had to be watching her back and how she didn’t feel like a human at all. That she was only an experiment for them and nothing else.

“Kay, you deserve to live a normal life.” Jimin said as he whipped off her tears. “You also need to learn to depend on others and that it’s okay to show weakness every once in a while. Because unlike before, you have us by your side now. Kay, I love you so much and I won’t let anything ever happen to you.”

“I-I love you too.” Kay said in between sobs.

“I loooove you! Marry me Rebecca!”

“D-did you just quote catbug?” Kay looked up at him, a smile growing on her face.

The two of them started laughing out loud. The sadness and frustration from a while ago were long gone. This is what Kay loved the most about Jimin, he always managed to find a way to make her smile. After a couple of minutes, the two of them finally managed to calm down.

“Jimin, I love you so much. I really do, but I—“

“I know, I know.” Wow, Jimin was surely doing a lot of interrupting today. “I’ll wait for you as long as it takes. Can I ask for one thing, though?”

“Sure.” Kay looked up at him with curiosity.

“Can I kiss you every now and then?”

A slight blush appeared on Kay’s cheeks. She definitely didn’t expect something like this, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t like the idea. “Yes you—“

Before Kay could finish, once again, Jimin took her in him arms and kissed her.

How the two of them had been wanting to this for a very long time. How lucky they were to have each other.

Jungkook and Jinx:

To say that Jungkook had looked everywhere was an understatement.

Jungkook had left no stone unturned trying to look for Jinx, but somehow the girl was nowhere to find. It was like she had become invisible or something.

Wait a minute.

...

“SHE FUCKING TURNED INVISIBLE!” Jungkook shouted in frustration.

How had he not thought about this before? He had spent the whole day looking and he even missed lunch time, which according to him was his favorite class despite what everyone said. How dare they say it’s not in the curriculum?

Jungkook sighed. He was exhausted. He walked over to a nearby bending machine and pulled out a few coins from his pants. Just as he was about to choose his drink, he noticed something odd on the reflection.

A floating school uniform?

Well, it’s now or never.

He selected the banana drink before reaching for his phone in his pocket. Jungkook pretended to click on his phone and then placed it against his ear.

“Hey.” He started saying.

Meanwhile, Jinx was standing right behind him. Hiding in between a fake plant and a wall. She never thought she would have to resort to something like this to avoid Jungkook. This boy sure was persistent and she just wasn’t ready for this.

“No, I can’t seem to find her.” He continued. “I don’t know, dude. I’ve looked everywhere, it’s like she vanished.” Pause. “Maybe she decided that after all I wasn’t such a good guy to have a crush on.”

No, that’s not true. Jinx thought.

“At times I can be too childish and irresponsible. I play around too much and my grades are not the best but my feelings for her are not a joke.” Pause. “Since the first moment I saw her, something clicked inside me. I know I probably seemed pretty weird because I kept on starring but can you blame me? She’s so perfect. She’s so smart and so funny.”

A smile started forming on Jinx’s features. Jungkook’s words made her feel all warm inside.

“She never gets mad when I ask her to explain something to me or if she can help me with my homework. Jinx is so sweet and compassionate.” Pause. “Yeah, perhaps I should leave her alone. There’s a reason why she’s been avoiding me.”

“That’s not true!”

Surprised, Jungkook turned around and slowly started putting his phone away in his pocket. He honestly didn’t think she was going to come out of hiding.

But there she was, completely visible and slowly walking up to him. Jinx extended her arm and with her small hand she grabbed on to his blazer.

“I’m not avoiding you.” She finally said. “I’m just scared.”

“Scared of what?” Confusion evident on his voice.

“It’s just, I’m so used to being on top of my studies. I want to go to a good college and help my family.” Jinx kept her head down. She just couldn’t bring herself to look at Jungkook in the eyes. “I’ve never felt something like this for anyone. When I started liking you I got scared. Scared that maybe my grades would drop and of these new feelings. I also get scared that maybe one day you’ll get bored of a girl like me and leave.”

“A girl like you?”

“A girl that doesn’t know anything about liking someone or how to do anything other than studying and not being—.”

Jungkook placed a finger on Jinx’s lips to stop her from continuing talking. His bunny smile slowly growing.

“Jinx, I like you for you. You don’t have to change anything about you, because you’re perfect for me.” Jungkook removed his finger from her lips and started stroking her cheek. “I could never get bored of you. I learn something new about you everyday, all in all I just can’t get enough of you. But look, if this is going too fast then I’m willing to wait. I will wait for you until you’re ready. No rush, really! I know it’s been a few months since we met and all.”

“You’ll wait for me?” Jinx finally lifted her head to look at Jungkook.

“Of course! Just please don’t stop liking me in the meantime.” Jungkook said nervously. “My heart won’t be able to take it.”

“Jungkook, maybe for the first time in my life I should start living my life in the moment.” Her heart was beating a hundred miles per hour but she knew she wanted this. Jinx had never been so sure. “I like you, Jungkook. When I’m with you, you always make me forget about all my troubles. I forget about school, grades, college and getting a good career. There’s no worries with you and you actually make me feel like a fourteen year old girl. You’re right, it’s only been a few months and it’s crazy but I never thought that I would feel like this for you.”

Jungkook took Jinx’s hands in his and brought it up to his lips. He placed a small, gentle kiss on each hand. “Jinx, would you like to be my girlfriend?”

Jinx threw her arms around Jungkook and bobbed her head up and down in excitement. “Yes, of course I would like to be your girlfriend!”

Jungkook wrapped his arms around her waist and gently picked Jinx up and spinner her around. He then placed her on the ground just as gently as he had picked her up. Jungkook pressed his forehead against hers.

Jinx closed her eyes and smiled. “Jeon Jungkook, please treat me nicely. You’re my first boyfriend.”

Before Jungkook could say anything, they heard footsteps coming down the hall. It was most likely a teacher or a hall monitor and if they were caught, they were going to get detention for sure!

Jungkook wrapped his hand around Jinx’s and pulled her along with him. “Run!”

“Where are we going?” Jinx asked. She definitely didn’t wanted to ruin her school record that soon.

“Anywhere! I don’t want you to get in trouble.” Jungkook said and he kept on running with Jinx’s hand in his. A slight blush tinted Jinx’s cheeks and a small smile rugged at the corners of her lips.

Jeon Jungkook. He surely was going to change her life.

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shazyloren · 6 years ago

Text

Sticky Notes

Summary: Someone is leaving Daenerys Targaryen sticky notes with quotes of love on them all around the office. She doesn't know who it is, but when it click, her world will never be the same.

Notes: So this year, I am taking part in a challenge on tumblr by user @jonerysfics and @mhysaofdragons in which for seven days from Valentines day I am uploading a new one shot. So Day 1, 14th February, which is when I'm uploading this, the prompt I chose was 'Secret Admirer'. This is the story I came up with.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17780852

--------

Another one.

Daenerys grabbed the pink sticky note from her computer screen and eyed the writing. Calligraphy, handwriting that wasn’t familiar to her in the moment. The fountain pen used for this had danced across the paper surface with freedom and expression, the same as before.

Someone was leaving her love notes across the office, someone in the company she worked for. How did they know she was single and wanting a date anyway? They were clearly just assuming as it was Valentine’s Day at the end of the week. She quickly places the notes in her folder without anyone else seeing, sliding it amongst the pile of other she’d found that week.

You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams - Dr. Seuss.

And the quote, of similar calibre to ones her frantic eyes had read on the others. She didn’t mind, in fact, it made her flush like a woman who had never been complimented before. But this was crazy, she had no possible clue who could be leaving her these notes.

She’d made a list of the potential men who could’ve left the note and had reasonable grounds to believe it was none of them, almost all of the men in the office were married or gay, so who on this plain of existence was leaving her the notes? Sliding into her lumbar support chair, she opens her notepad to the list of potential men and went through the list with suspicion.

Jaime Lannister was a man in a position of wealth near the top of the ranks in the company, but that was unlikely, he was spending Valentine’s with his sister who had just endured a bad divorce, to take her mind off of things. He was a man of good looks, but the calligraphy was certainly not his, she’d read his reports and the typos present was enough to know this wasn’t his work.

Gendry Waters was head over heels for Arya Stark, head of communications, so unless she’s beaten him up and finally forced him to move on then she completely doubted that it was him. The boy man spent most of his day talking about her or making excuses to visit her department and leaving Daenerys love notes was not on that same line of thinking.

Frustrated, Dany shuts the notepad and decides she can’t even focus on her paperwork without some coffee in her system. So, asking the others at their desks if they wanted a drink and not getting a single reply from anyone (everyone seemed to be grump today) she toddled off to the staff room for a caffeine boost.

Head of Administration, can pick out a mistake in a report from a mile away but cannot deduce who is leaving her love notes around the office. And that no one else had noticed was even more of an intriguing factor for her. The fact that the bright pink heart sticky notes had been dotted everywhere with this beautiful blue inked calligraphy had not been seen by another human was completely mind boggling to her.

She pushes the heavy staff room door open, her small, slender frame sliding through as others come out of the way to let her by. Once she passed through the door, she quickly walked over to her locker in which she keeps her special coffee that no one else is allowed to touch.

Searching for the keys in her small jacket pocket, she finds the right combination on her lock before twisting the key in the mechanism and opening it. Her breath catches in her throat as the locker door swings open, revealing her mug and her coffee, with a little pink love heart stuck on the mug.

How?

Her heart is hammering fast in her chest, pumping oxygen quickly around her body as she tries to keep her breathing going. She can’t, she’s speechless, shocked. How had they got into her locker? How did they know the combination? And how did they manage to resist her special coffee? Surely there’s a security risk with this… unless it was security?

I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once - John Green

Her eyes scanned the note, completely frozen into the spot her feet were placed. All of these notes, admissions of love that Dany had never known before. Destruction, that’s all her relationships had been, fiery chasms which were doomed from the start. Yet this person, so effortlessly loved her, or at least admired her enough to wonder what it was like to love her.

She grabbed her mug and coffee, and slammed the locker shut for short of not wanting to be missing from the office for too long, but her mind was racing. Images in her mind of a faceless man, mysterious yet handsome, his hands touching her, his arms embracing her. It had been a while, for it wasn’t like her to just go with random guys in bars or clubs. But loneliness was deeply rooted in her, and like all women, they find the right time will eventually come.

What was she even thinking? A man or woman even, that she did not know of, was leaving her love notes in the office, opening their heart in a way that was completely unexpected and she should find it odd, peculiar. Yet her she was, emotionally affected in the opposite way, it was endearing, sweet.

No Jaime Lannister could concoct this together, no Gendry Waters would even find the time to think of her in this moment, so who was it? Who was leaving these morsels of affection for her? She couldn’t think as she switched the kettle on and filled her coffee mug with a spoonful of her special blend.

She needed milk, she somehow remembered, as images fill her mind of every outcome of this thing that had been happening. Maybe it was someone from the basement, on of the dodgy technicians who can’t even say a word to her when she goes down to complain, who just sweat nervously and scamper away. It would be a disappointment if it was.

She opened the fridge, her heart in her mouth as she prayed it wasn’t one of them, but it all stopped again when she spied the same colour and writing attached to her small carton of orange lidded milk. 1% fat, perfect for the amount of caffeine she intakes for the day, now sporting a ig, pink heart on it.

Everyone knew the orange was hers, so this wouldn’t be something hard for people to find out, but the fact that someone had gone to this effort, when if they’d liked her they should’ve just asked. Maybe they were scared, had a fear of rejection. Or maybe they wanted to play with her emotions like some sick freak who got off on toying with her. Maybe it was none of those things.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever - Alfred Tennyson.

Daenerys Targaryen had never blushed like she had in this moment, she wondered what all this would come to, whether she would find out who it was and what they possibly wanted from her. The idea that someone is so consumed and in awe of a simple girl like herself was completely bonkers, that he thought on her daily and would be able to create an Eden for them both to glide through.

Feeling stressed, she put both notes in her pocket, placed her coffee back in her locker and made the coffee with haste. A few minutes later, she was returning to her desk with a headache from thinking too much and a conundrum she was sure to fail in figuring out.

Sliding in her seat, she pulled the two notes out of her pocket and added them to the other fourteen now present in her folder. She put the folder away, and booted her computer. She needed to focus on the work, she had a lot to do that week and she couldn’t be distracted by someone’s obsession with her. Even if she wanted nothing more than to know who it was, she had priorities.

“Miss. Targaryen” Daenerys hears Jaime Lannister say from across the room about one hour into her shift, her mind forcing her to think about work and numbers and emails and orderings so that she doesn’t linger on the pink hearts. She looks at the man impatiently as if she was annoyed he’d disturbed her momentary peace. She notices he’s holding the phone from his desk in her hand. “Boss wants a word”

“Oh, okay” She shakes her head and straightens herself up. She nods in Jaime’s direction as a thank you before gathering herself and beginning a walk up to Boss’ office. It was top floor and while most people took the elevators, Dany preferred the stairs, it got her exercise in.

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever, We accept the love we think we deserve, I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul, One is loved because one is loved. No reason is needed for loving, You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.

She couldn’t help but think about all the messages she’d received over the past few days, notions of love and affection that made her feel gooey. Now wasn’t the time, especially when she had been summoned by the boss. He’ll be wanting an update on Gendry’s progress she suspected, he was a new starter and was coming up to his review period. But all she could think off was this secret admirer.

She reached his office on the top floor of the building and knocked when his secretary outside said it was okay for her to enter. She opened the door and breathed in a little when the smell of lemons and mint hit her nose. It was always pleasant when she entered the office, that familiar smell was almost comforting to her. He could fire her and she’d still be calm.

“Good Morning, Mr. Snow” She uttered politely, smiling and wandering over to his desk. He was writing something on the computer, his glasses on the edge of his nose as he began clicking the screen with his mouse. He looked up from the table and his eyes met hers.

“Hello, Daenerys” His gruff, northern accent chimed as he finished his last bits of business on the computer, a small smirk present on the corner of his lips. She hardly saw him, maybe only once every few weeks as he was always working between the three different buildings they had in the city, but she always forgot how young he was for a CEO and how handsome he was. “Please, take a seat”

She nods before sitting opposite him, nerves kicking in as to what he wanted to say to her. “So, Mr. Lannister said you wanted to see me about something, sir?”

“Daenerys…” He started with a sigh, deep and clear across the room it sounded. “How many times do I have to ask you to call me Jon and not sir? You make me feel ancient when you address me as such”

“Only every time we talk, sir” Dany meekly grinned.

“From now on, it’s Jon, okay?” He warned. She just nodded, them both knowing she wouldn’t do as such and would still refer to him as sir or Mr. Snow. “So, I just wanted a quick chat, don’t worry you’ve done nothing wrong, quite the opposite actually” He mused. “I’ve been going over the figures and reports a lot the last few days and as the company is ever expanding, I’m needing to expand the Admin team”

“Oh” She blinked in surprise.

“I’ll be putting a post up for two new positions within the Administration department, one a regular Administrator and one, the Head of Administration” He spoke cryptically. Daenerys was confused, she was the Head of Administration. “Sansa is leaving her position, she’s my Reports Analyst on the board and her position has opened up, I’d like you to fill it”

This has been the strangest day of my life so far , she mused inwardly as his words was over her in complete and utter surprise. There was many things going on in her life, and she did not expect that this week would bring about a secret admirer and an offer of a position three steps above her current job.

“Sir, I can’t-”

“Jon, first off” He intercedes. “And secondly, you certainly can and you certainly will”

“Jon…” She winces as she speaks his name, making this meeting become too informal. “I have no training in that sort of field, I do Admin sure but that role is Admin, Payroll and HR all rolled into one. If I do it I won’t be able to complete it with satisfaction”

“Daenerys Targaryen, for too long you and your clever mind have been sat down in that Admin office not being tested enough, for too long you’ve been dealing with Gendry pining over my sister and Jamie Lannister picking his nose. It’s time you had a challenge, and I know you’re up to it” He reassured.

She was consumed by confusion and surprise and sweetness and fear. Everything rolled into one as the events of the day (that had only been an hour give or take) melded into her mind and warped her vision slightly. She wanted to accept, she wanted to be free of this doubt crawling under her pale skin. But she just couldn’t do it, and she didn’t know why. “I’m sorry but, this is a huge step, it’s a lot to think about and…”

“Have you ever read The Perks of Being a Wallflower?” He asks suddenly, causing Daenerys to be sidelined by her own thoughts. She shakes her head, but doesn’t say anything. “My sister Sansa recommended it to me when we were younger, and there’s always a quote that has stuck with me some eight years later. We accept the love we think we deserve, and it’s completely true”

“Huh?” Dany blinks. We accept the love we think we deserve, We accept the love we think we deserve, We accept the love we think we deserve, We accept the love we think we deserve .

“Obviously in this case it’s praise, you don’t think you’re worth-” She cuts him off.

“It’s you” She says suddenly, her brain exploding all at once. We accept the love we think we deserve . She glances to his desk and spies on the corner, a small bottle of ink and a fountain pen. Her breathing is shaky, as she looks around the desk for pink heart sticky notes but can’t find anything, all she can find is his hands, gripping the edge of his table.

“Dany, are you okay?” He asks, his own voice cracking.

“Why” She demanded to know.

“Why what?” He asked, a raised eyebrow.

“Jon Snow don’t you give me that eyebrow, why me?” She stands in her seat, eyes steely as she pierced his own gaze with her knife one.

It all made sense in her mind, he would have the master key to lockers besides the janitors so that would make sense into how he got into the locker. It was a known fact about the milk so leaving a note like that in the fridge wasn’t a bother. And him sticking a note on her PC would be easier than most, he was allowed anywhere in the building and wouldn’t be noticed if he stood near a desk. He knew her car, so when she’d left last night and there was on on there…

Her mind was racing, suddenly the mysterious and intense faceless man from her mind had his face, and somehow it was a match-up. His eyes were wide and yet somehow his face had softened when she looked at him. She knew she was red in the face, that the embarrassment of all these acts of devotion were easily readable on her features.

“I… felt something, when I looked at you that I had never felt before” He stumbles. “Corny as it sounds that feeling was the only thing stopping me being drowned in work and bullshit from the family and all the craziness my life seems to want to throw at me as of late. There’s things going on, things that mean soon I will have to let go of this company”

“What…”

“Things I don’t wish to speak off, or I may be lost in the dreariness and doubt that this thing brings with it. I was bold, and stupid yes, in what I started doing last week, but time was running out Dany, and I needed you to be that source of light once again, I needed you to know, to have something good to remember me by”

Daenerys tried to deconstruct the riddles in her mind, but she was coming up blank. Something is running out of time, his time here was, and he wanted to act fast, he was having to give up the company for something. His sister, Sansa was leaving her position. It was all confusing, all overwhelming. But what did feelings for her have to do with all of this?

“I’ve accomplished so much in such a short space of time, I’ve allowed myself to become the very best CEO that there ever was and the happiness of my staff is something I’m proud off. But I’ve been lying to myself for a long time now, and things have changed. And you are part of that change in me. If only for a small while”

Dany doesn’t know how or why it all clicked into place, but it did suddenly. Her mouth hung open, her eyes watery as she realised the ramifications of what he’s saying. “You’re sick” He doesn’t reply immediately, he doesn’t have to. He just bows his head into a low nod and let’s the moment breathe. “How long?”

“For a while, a headache that I couldn’t shake” He confirmed. “Went to the doctors and lit up like a Christmas tree, as such. I don’t know when, and I don’t want to know in all honesty, but I know that if I didn’t do something for you before I left this company and this world, I’d end up being furious with myself in the afterlife, if there is such a thing as one”

She couldn’t process this, but the feeling of admiration and love she’d held inside her this morning was replaced with a melancholy sadness that she’d never experience before. “Sansa… is she?”

“She will be CEO after me, yes” He nodded, rubbing his head as if he was already tired and wishing to go and lie down somewhere. “So please, take her position” Daenerys didn’t say anything for a while, she was just aghast as the information overload that had been handed to her. “I’ve never said this out loud, but you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen”

The air is hot suddenly, and she feels the warmth of his words hit her somewhere deep. Tears were hot and heavy in her eyes, and her heart ached for this man before her. A man she didn’t know very well, who doted upon her, a man she wished she’d got to know better. She was so sidelined by the revelation that she didn’t even notice him coming around to her side of the table and sitting in the other chair next to her.

“It’s not my place to ask this of you, and if you have plans then I shall be respectful and accept your wishes. But this Thursday will be my last Valentine’s Day on this earth, and I would like to take you to dinner, if it pleases you as such” He was leaning on the chair arm for support, his hand shaking a little.

Daenerys was so overwhelmed. She had been offered a brand new position, found out the boss was dying and had a crush on her all within the space of five minutes. Her mind was doing a million calculations and as she stared into his eyes, on the seat directly adjacent to hers, she couldn’t find it within herself to deny him of this.

“Kiss me” She demands, grasping what little amount of power she had in the room, trying not to be overwhelmed by the heartbreak that was sure to follow in the coming weeks. “Kiss me and show me that your feelings are true, that you really do like me and I will do everything in my power to be there for you”

There’s a moment just when the world around them completely stops, that time stands still and everything else fades away. There’s no ticking clock teasing them of time they have left, there’s no one to tell them to not do this reckless thing that was about to happen, there was only her and him. His eyes held a small amount of lust but mostly regret. She wonders if perhaps he’s wishing he’d said something to her years ago when he hired her, instead of waiting for this catalyst that had spurred him on.

But when he places a hand on her cheek, his thumb wiping away the tears she had spilt for him, she felt warmth and love and devotion. The same feeling she got when reading those notes the past few days.

And so, their lips join.

Bittersweet, that was her overwhelming feeling as his soft lips move in sync with her own. It’s glorious, wonderful, tantalising and crackling all at the same time, but there’s such a sadness to the kiss. She’s never been kissed like it in her entire life, but the she couldn’t fight against the thoughts that were going through her, the realisation of his confession. She wanted to pull away before she lost herself in this beautiful moment, but she couldn’t, she could only try and help ease his pain in this way.

Daenerys thinks about the feel of his lips on hers that sends her mind into a sensual state of intoxication. She wished more than anything to reach towards his face and touch them lightly but that wish battled the urge to just keep kissing him. The lips were the gateway to the body, in her mind, they were softness, passion and the promise of the sweetness to come.

But there was no sweetness around the corner that she could stomach. Only a looming sense of doom she had been familiar with that came to follow her. But he was a miracle in this moment, a gentleman in the way he’d wooed her, honest in his intentions and heartbreaking in his confession.

When their lips parted, there was an overwhelming silence. In that silence all of their feelings and secrets were laid bare, all of their passions and the spark of love that existed between them. In that moment, in his devoted and secret love, she was strong. One kiss and she had the courage to do what had to be done.

“Jon” She breathed raspily, her hands on his arms as their foreheads touch. There was a moment where neither of them breathed, the air clinging to them as if a verdict would be laid out bare for all. “Thursday night at 7, yeah?”

He sighed deeply, kissing her once more in thanks for giving him that small piece of happiness. “Thursday night at 7” He agreed, leaving small kisses on her neck, causing the skin on her face to feel redder than the lipstick she’d been wearing before the kiss. “Beautiful”

Pink heart sticky notes, oh how I am thankful for you.

It was strange from then on out, she was living in a time bomb where anything could strike at any time. Oblivion was inevitable, but the way he and her faced it together, after that day, was strength to accept what was coming. All she knew was that by the time Thursday came around, and she had finished her dinner date with him, she’d fallen in love the way you fall asleep, slowly and then all at once.

#jon snow #daenerys targaryen #jonerys #jonerysvalentine #mhysaofdragons #jon x daenerys #game of thrones #fanfic

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yourkittywilde · 6 years ago

Text

love me harder

TAGGING → @yourkittywilde & @sammynolanh

TIME FRAME → April (aka allie has forgotten the date)

LOCATION → Sammy & Kitty’s apartment, LA.

WARNINGS → nsfw

NOTES → sammy’s insecurities come out.

sammy

Sammy wasn’t usually an insecure guy, and he definitely wasn’t the jealous type either, or so he thought. Maybe it was because of the situation and how their relationship had blossomed but seeing Kitty interacting with Mike again made Sammy see red. He never thought it would be a problem, in fact he thought he was over the whole situation of Kitty going to LA and sleeping with another guy. It’s not like they were together but Sammy had always loved Kitty and when he found out he was heartbroken. So seeing this interaction, even online, made him overthink and made him upset. He needed to tell her how he felt, they were engaged and hidden feelings were never good.

kitty

Kitty stopped looking at the time hours ago. Watching the minutes tick by and being stuck doing absolutely nothing of importance was exhausting and brain numbing. Getting home was the highlight of her day. She put her bag on the side table before drinking the last of the coffee in her hand and placing the empty travel mug next to it. Dude had come out to greet her — he was wonderfully predictable like that (regardless of the time of night) — and she assumes Sammy is asleep until she sees the light in their room on.”Hey, babe.” She leans against the door frame tiredly with a small smile on her lips. “I’m glad you’re still awake.”

sammy

Sammy tried his best to keep a smile on his face, putting his phone down to greet his fiancé. He reached out to pull her in for a hug and a kiss on her cheek. “Hey, Kitty... You are?” He smirked slightly. “How was your day?” He asked as he rubbed her back gently.

kitty

Kitty wraps her arms around him, smiling into his embrace. She really did love this man. Her eyebrows furrow for a second, it was weird for Sammy to use her name rather than a pet name in casual conversation. “I am.” She nods, pulling back from him. “I missed your face.” The blonde shrugs at his question, really not wanting to talk about work. “Long. And your day? ... Miss me?”

sammy

Sammy nodded. “It felt long as well...” he replied, letting the girl pull back when normally he’d probably hold her tightly against him until she begged off with a laugh. He felt weird, he felt like he had stumbled on something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing but the messages were public and they were innocent but still it bothered him so much. He felt a little crazy and paranoid. Had Sammy lost his touch?

kitty

“Yeah? What did you get up to all day?” She questions, moving to sit on the bed and tugging at his hand for him to join her. She studies his face briefly as she bites gently on her lower lip. It wasn’t like she expected him to be super affectionate and happy all the time, but it was Sammy, he sort of just... was. At least when it came to her. “You okay?” Kitty asks, squeezing his hand softly.

sammy

Sammy sat up with a sigh. It wasn’t a big sigh but definitely a noticeable one. “I-um I slept most of the day, then went on a hike...” his mind trailed off and he looked at Kitty. His eyes big and his lip poured in the way that he was trying to hold back emotion. “I don’t think I’m comfortable with you talking with Mike.” He said gently as to not upset her too much. He didn’t know what she would say or how she would react.

kitty

“Mike?” She asks with a confused look on her face. “Wait ... seriously?” Kitty can tell by the look on his face and the way he was acting that he was in fact serious, which made zero sense. Mike was a friend. Kitty chose Sammy — not that it was a particularly hard choice. “It’s not like we’re sexting or anything, Sammy. What is it you think we’re talking about?”

sammy

Sammy raised his hand in defense “I-I know you’re not, I know you wouldn’t do that to me...” he brought his hand to run through his own hair, anxious about this conversation. “I- just... it’s too soon, Kitty. What happened really fucked me up... I mean I thought I was okay with it, I wanted to be okay with it but I’m not and seeing how friendly you two are just makes me feel crazy...” he confesses, not looking straight at her.

kitty

This wasn’t a conversation kitty expected to be having tonight... or at all. She takes a deep breath before responding, trying to push to the side her initial instinct to react defensively. Sammy was being honest, even before they started dating they’d agreed to be honest with each other even if it sucked. She couldn’t fault him for it now— at least she was trying not to. “Ok.” She says simply, more to herself than to him as she gathers her thoughts. “Mike is my friend. You’re my fiancé. Like... I get it... I think.” She tucks her hair behind her ear and lifts her gaze to the man. “But you asked me to marry you. I said yes. If it’s too soon for me to be talking to someone I slept with before we even started dating, then maybe all of this is too soon?”

sammy

“Just because I asked you to marry me doesn’t mean I’m okay with seeing you hang out with a guy you slept with in between us being friendly... please don’t make me feel like I’m acting crazy. I mean how did you feel when I was hanging out with Viv or even Travis and we weren’t even really dating yet. I don’t even talk to them and Viv was one of my best friends but I knew how you felt about it...” Sammy sighed. “You think that because I’m insecure about this that getting married is too soon?” He asked curiously because he had no doubt in his mind that he wanted to marry her.

kitty

“That’s so different.” Kitty rolls her eyes without even realising she was doing it. A reaction she had whenever Vev was brought up. “She was also your ex. Your ex who you flaunted around as your fake current perfect girlfriend while still wanting to sneak over and sleep with me in the middle of the night. As for your ginger lover, at least I never claimed to be super into you and then went and slept with someone else. When I was with you, I was only with you. And we were only friends when I was with Mike.” Her brain was trying to tell her to slow down, but her heart sort of took over when it came to that part of their relationship... or non- relationship. Probably not unlike how Sammy feels about mike, but she was struggling to see that right now. “And you sort of are being crazy. Last I talked to Mike he was refusing to tell me who he was seeing, and before that he was giving living creatures to Cassandra July to woo her, and before that he was dating someone else. All of which happened after we were together for one night ... and I’m with you.” She shrugs at his question. “I think it’s too soon if you don’t trust me. God, if it’s too soon for us to get over what happened at the start of our relationship, how is getting married a good idea?” Her stomach sinking as she spoke. “Are we gonna be like, old as hell and still bringing it up?”

sammy

Sam pouted. “I never slept with Travis after I met you.” He reminded her. He didn’t like any of what he was hearing. It almost sounded like she was the one doubting their engagement. “Okay. You know we’re weren’t ‘just friends’... we made out, we kissed in an airport... I- whatever. Anyway. That’s not the point I’m trying to make.” He groaned in frustration. “It’s too soon because you didn’t even tell me you were hanging out and then I see a picture of you too together and it made me feel dumb. I’m sorry I’m upset over this. I just wanted to tell you how I felt about it.” He explained. “Am I not allowed to be upset about that? Or feel jealous? Is that a reason for us not to get married?” He asked her, getting up from the bed to stretch his legs. His arms wrapped around himself as he bit at his nails. “We haven’t even properly gone out in LA because you’re ‘too busy’.” He tries to make a point.

kitty

“Thats not true. I did the math and I’m not an idiot.” Kitty shook her head, and paused for a moment. This wasn’t about Travis, so now really wasn’t the time to get into an argument about him. “I didn’t realise I had to tell you every time I spent time with my friends. You’re my boyfriend not my dad. But cool, I’ll remember for next time.” She looks up at Sammy when he stands. He looks sad and Kitty’s heart breaks a little, but her intentions so often get lost and confused between her heart and her mouth. “You’re allowed to feel whatever you want. And I want you to tell me. But I’m not going to cut off one of the few friends I have in this city because you don’t trust me. And if you don’t trust me I don’t see how we’re meant to have a marriage that actually lasts.” She raises an eyebrow, getting frustrated with this whole conversation. “I am too busy. I work all day doing things that a high school intern could probably do for a man who refuses to acknowledge my presence in a room unless I unbutton my shirt, and when I’m not scanning pointless emails or defending myself for even being there, I’m writing papers for my classes so I can graduate next month. I spend Sunday’s with you because it’s the only time I have. I don’t know...” She sighs. “What is it you want me to do, Sammy?”

sammy

Sammy huffed and looked away from Kitty. “I’m your fiancé.” He reminded her. “And I don’t expect you to tell me every time you hang out with someone but you know it’s different with him. I’m sorry but it just is. You would want to know if I was hanging out with any of my exes... I don’t want you to cut him off...” Sammy sighed and looked back at Kitty, walking back up to the bed and kneeling in front of her. “I want you to have your friends and live your best life in LA but It would be nice to get a heads up...” he shrugged and looked away. It felt pointless now to argue about her friendship with Mike. “Ideally I would like you to be more considerate of my feelings... but I get that it’s not exactly what you’re used to...” he commented and got back up off the bed, he couldn’t help but feel frustrated but decided to just ignore it. “I’m gonna go take bath... I-um I think I just need to relax... calm myself.” He told her quietly before disappearing into the bathroom.

kitty

“You knew what I meant.” Kitty replies, trying unsuccessfully not to roll her eyes. She loved Sammy, surely that was all that mattered. She sighs and looks down at the floor briefly before her gaze lifts back to her fiancé. “Mike isn’t my ex.” She corrects him. “But... You’re right, I would want to know.” She admits, biting down on her lower lip and wishing he didn’t make a valid point. “Wait... that’s not fair.” She murmurs with a sudden pang of pain in her chest as he stands back up. “I only care about your feelings. Sure, I’m not perfect, and okay fine, maybe I should have told you I went out for a drink with Mike... but of all the stupid people on this stupid planet, I only care about your stupid feelings. I love you, and I can’t- you should-“ She swallows, pushing down the lump building in her throat. “You were the only person who’s always believed the best in me... But you don’t, do you? You just pretend you do and then when you get annoyed enough at me you bring up how you actually feel.” Getting up from the bed she nods, and runs her hand through her hair. “Okay. I’m gonna go... make coffee and... I don’t know, finish writing a paper.” She muses, watching Sammy leave the room and pouting at their puppy. “C’mon Dude, let’s go.”

sammy

Sammy was turning the faucet on when he heard her words. He shook his head and followed her back. “I do believe the best in you. I know you’re not perfect and I know I’m definitely not perfect... I’m not annoyed, Kitty. I’m hurt.” He told her. “I’ve always told you how I’ve felt. Even if you may never believe me because you still hold me to whatever guys in the past have done to you. I’m not them and I don’t lie to you.” He reminded her. “I love you and I want this to work between us, but we have to do it together, stop the fucking blame game. It’s not healthy and it’s not going to get us anywhere.” He took a deep breath and walks up behind her. “I think you need to stop working for the night. You need to relax, get some rest.” He places his hands on her shoulders and gives them a soft squeeze. His lips lower to her neck, pressing a soft kiss. “Come take a bath with me.” He suggests.

kitty

“I don’t know how else to show you I care about your feelings, Sammy. I’m trying... I’ve been trying since like the day I fell for you... Do you really not see that or did hurting me because I hurt you just seem like a good idea at the time?” She never wanted to hurt Sammy... He honestly was the only person in the world she hated seeing upset. “I’m sorry.” She says so quietly it’s basically a whisper. “I should have told you I was seeing Mike, but i guess I didn’t see any reason to? You are the only person I want to be with — in any way.” She shrugs. “But if we want this to work we really gotta deal with what happened before we got together... Mike, Vev, Travis... having the same argument over and over again is exhausting. And it hurts too much.” She admits, knowing she was probably the worst at bringing it up. Kitty’s shoulders relax almost instantly with Sam’s touch, and she wants to melt into him and forget this. Forget everything. “I love you.” She speaks softly and honestly. “I thought you were taking a bath to get away from me and relax... having me join you would defeat the purpose, don’t you think?”

sammy

Sammy furrowed his brows and shook his head. “I would never try to hurt you purposefully.” He told her as he turned her around so he could look at her. He ran a hand through her hair gently and tucked it underneath as he pulled her in to kiss her head. “Babe, even when I’m upset at you I want to be with you. Don’t you get that?” He let out a small laugh. “I never want to get away from you.” He kisses the side of her head before pulling back again slightly. “I love you. So much.”

kitty

“That’s not what it felt like...” Kitty closes her eyes for a second, not fighting back when Sammy turns her. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” She says looking up at him, her arms wrapping around his waist instinctively. “What do you want me to do?” She asks calmly. “About Mike.” She couldn’t not be friends with him, but she also didn’t want to upset Sammy any more. “Never?” She smiles faintly, partly at the kiss, but mostly at the pet name. It felt normal again — She used to make fun of those couples, now she was one half of one. “You still want to marry me then? Even if I don’t consider your feelings?” She asks a little sadly. “I love you more.” Kitty muses, standing on her toes to kiss his cheek softly. “Are you going to have a bath?”

sammy

Sammy sighed and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly to his body and not letting go. Instead rocking her lightly with his own body. “I know. I’m sorry.” He whispered, he head resting on hers. “I don’t know, maybe involve me more?” He suggested with a small shrug. “Of course I still want to marry you... I know I have a lot of emotions you’re not used to and we can work together to find a good balance between us, okay?” He told her as he pulled back to be able to kiss her. “Yeah, you gonna join me?”

kitty

“Involve you.” She nods against his chest. “I guess I can do that.” Kitty says simply, not really sure what that involved when it came to her and Mike, but she’d work it out. “Are you sure? Because contrary to what you think, I’m not completely immune to recognising feelings. You’ve been... not yourself since we moved to LA, which also happens to be when you proposed. And now there’s this, and I just don’t want to... I don’t know...” she trails off, shrugging tiredly. “I’ll join you.”

sammy

Sammy nodded. He knew what she meant. He hadn’t really felt like himself since they moved from New York, also him getting sick. “You’re right... I’ve felt a little off with my emotions since we left New York. I think I just need time to adjust... but my feelings about you have only intensified... maybe that’s why I’m jealous?....I wish I could explain it...” he replied as he rubbed her back and began leading her to the bath, which was full by now since Sam had left the water running.

kitty

He wished he could explain it, and Kitty wished she could understand it. "I just hate seeing you so down all the time." She admitted, following him to the bathroom and pulling her shirt over her head, tossing it onto the floor. "You moved your life to LA for me, and now you're miserable. You're snapping at me more, you're sleeping more again..." She moves closer to him and tugs at his shirt, standing on the tips of her feet to pull it off. "I need you to be happy. I want to make you happy again... Because I miss you." She says softly as she takes off the skirt she's wearing before resting her hands Sammy's chest. " We don't have to get married soon, if you need to go back to New York I'm not going to hold it against you."

sammy

Sammy stood still as she helped him undress. He shrugs a little bit. “I’m not... miserable. I’m just sort of in a funk, I guess.” He responded as he wrapped his arms around her. “And, it’s not your fault LA isn’t as great as New York.” He teases her with a quick laugh. “No, but really. I’ll be fine, I’ll get over it. I’m just... adjusting. You make me happy, I just, I thought maybe I’d get to spend more time with you.... I feel like I never get to see you anymore and we live together.” He kisses her cheek. “But I also understand that your job is important to you and you’re important to me so I’m okay sacrificing our time apart.” He explains. “Makes me miss you all the more.” He smiles down at her and pulls away to remove his bottoms before getting into the bath. “Come on, the water feels amazing.”

kitty

Kitty huffs. “LA is way hotter than New York...” She smirks as she takes off the remainder of her clothing. “In every conceivable way.” She joins him in the bath, humming happily at the warm water and her insanely sexy fiancé in front of her. “You’re right. My career is obviously important to me.” She agrees. “But the best part of my day is waking up next to you.” She tells him before laughing quietly and shifting closer to Sammy. “I swear to God if you ever tell anyone how corny I am with you I’ll... I don’t know... but it’ll be bad.” She threatens, only half joking with him. “I’ll try and make more time for you, babe. And we’ll do whatever you want — besides napping all day because you know I get bored.” She reaches out to intertwine her fingers with his. “Though... in case you’ve forgotten, we have forever now.” She smiles and looks down at her hand. “Or do I need to put a ring on your finger to remind you? Like a wedding band or something.”

sammy

“I guess you have a point there...” he grins at her as he pulls her onto his lap under the water, his hands wrapping around her ass. “Oh, so it’s not just the morning sex, good to know.” He teased and squeezed her ass playfully. He raised his brows at her threat and laughed. “Oooh, I’m so scared.” He jokes and leaned into her face. “I’m gonna expose you to Jimmy Fallon.” He joked and kisses her, one of his hands meeting hers halfway to come together. “We don’t have to do whatever I want. We can do things you want to do, too.” He offered with a small smile and shook his head, bringing up her hand to kiss it. “I haven’t forgotten.”

kitty

Kitty tilts her head to the side, pretending to think it through for a second. "The morning sex is okaaay, I guess." She teases, biting down on her lip as his hands grabbed her. "You should be scared, Samuel Hummel. I've been told I'm a very scary person." She comments. It was true... Just probably not when it came to Sammy. The man is the only person on the planet who seems to think she's cute when she's mad -- which is more than annoying when she's actually mad. "You wouldn't." She furrows her brows at him. "I'm gonna make you write in your vows to never expose me. That way you're bound until death do us part." She shrugs smugly and kisses the tip of his nose. "We already do everything I want to do. We went to the beach, you come to church with me, and we have hot as hell sex." She smirks. "It's your turn." It was still hard for Kitty to wrap her head around the fact she'd managed to get Sammy to want to spend the rest of his life with her -- that she was actually engaged. "Don't forget."

sammy

Sammy rose a brow and bit his lip. “Only Okay?” He asks. “It seems like you need a reminder...” He smirked and pulled her in even closer, skin to skin. His mouth moves to the exposed skin on her shoulder and kisses up to her neck “that’s the plan, babygirl...” he spoke quietly. His lips trailed up to her ear and smiled against her skin. “My turn, huh? I think I have an idea of what we could do,” he spoke suggestively, his free hand massaging the curve of her ass and his other intertwined hand guiding them so she could pull at his hair. He nibbled at her earlobe and pulled back with a grin. “I won’t forget.” He told her and he went in to kiss her deeply.

kitty

"Maybe I do..." Kitty wants to smirk in return, but Sammy's lips had always had a way of making her forget what she wanted to do. She moans and her breath hitches in her throat as he moved further up her neck. "Can't wait." She murmurs softly -- she's talking about marrying him, but that could have been lost in translation. Who knew one affectionate pet name could and would melt her. Kitty lets her hand be moved, her fingers now twisting into his messy hair and tugging gently while her other hand glides down his back and under the water. "So what's this idea of yours?" She asks with a half smile, but finds his lips attached to her before he can answer. She groans against him, pulling at his hair to deepen the kiss in anyway she could. Kissing him always felt easy and right. "I think we could probs do that forever." She says a little breathlessly, pulling away only slightly for air.

sammy

“Forever seem like a good idea... but bathtub sex also sounds like a good idea.” He reasoned with her, an excited grin appearing on his face as he went in to kiss her again, the pulling of his hair making him groan into the kiss softly. His hands now roaming her body as things got a bit more heated. He was now strikingly aroused and Kitty could most definitely feel it. His lips left her mouth again to return to her neck, his hands rounding up to grab her breasts, teasing her a bit as he squeezed them. He left kisses down her neck to her chest until he connected to her left breast, his tongue teasing at her nipple.

kitty

Kitty’s eyes shut briefly, and she bites down on her lower lip. “Oh my god.” She says, almost whimpering as he stops being a tease and his mouth actually connects to her breast. Her hips instinctively grind against him in response and she can’t stop herself from smiling. She honestly doesn’t remember ever smiling as much during sex as she does while she’s with Sammy — it was strange, but also sort of perfect. Her fingers tug at his hair a little harder, and she’s aching to get closer to him. Kitty kisses up his neck slowly and at one point her lips pull at his skin probably a little too long to leave a mark. “You obviously want me...” she speaks quietly into his ear. “So what exactly are you waiting for?”

#para: love me harder #para: sammy #sammy #//once again from ages ago #//i think? idk time is merging #//also bless ariana for giving me para titles

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chinuppoppins · 7 years ago

Note

prompt- tandy and tyrone are pen pals that meet up at some point.

So uh, this is going to be a either two or three part-er. I had fun with this one and may have gone a little off topic. Hope it is still alright!

Tandy sighs when her mom hands her the sheet of paper, her brow raising almost off her forehead when she reads the heading. “You adopted a solider for me?” She asked slowly and Melissa nodded from the other side of the counter. The diner isn’t as busy as it usually is, the rainy weather had something to do with it. “Mom, seriously?”

Melissa Bowen wipes her hands against her apron and shakes her head. “Honey, I’m concerned, that’s all. You seem lonely to me, I mean you don’t have any friends, Liam screwed you over-”

“That asshole better hope I don’t get my hands on him!” A voice yells from the back and Tandy sighs when Greg looks through the window at her annoyed face. “What? Who the hell steals EVERYTHING you own and leaves town like that.”

“Mom, Greg, really- I appreciate the thought, but I’m alright on my own.” She told the older, concerned adults while her mom rolls her eyes.

“Just write ‘em, give it a chance. I have a feeling that those men and women serving are just as lonely as you are.” Melissa says.

Tandy looks down at the paper and the name of the person she was sponsoring. Tyrone Johnson. “I’ll think about it.” and then looks down at her phone. “Ah shit, I’m late for class. I’ll see you two later.”

------------

A few weeks pass when she comes across the paper that her mom gave her crumbled at the bottom of her bag, smashed by her books. Tandy sits on her bed as she begins to read the letter.

‘Dear Tandy,

Thank you for adopting one of our soldiers through their deployment. The kindness and support that you will be providing will help their time from home a little easier. Provided within is the name of the soldier you will be sponsoring. Please keep in mind that your soldier may be in a remote location so internet access is limited as well as receiving letters.’

She eyes the rest of the letter until she comes across his name again. PVT Tyrone Johnson. She sighs as she reaches for her computer and types his email address. Tandy honestly doesn’t know what to say. So she wings it. “Hi, Tyrone. I’m Tandy Bowen, your pen pal/personal care package sender. So is there any specific items you want or need. Just, you know, nothing gucci cause I am on a college budget. But um, thanks for your service and stuff, I mean honestly, I’m not too sure if I could ever do it, especially with the man that was put in charge of our country. Anyways, hope to hear from you.”

She reads it over a few time before just saying fuck it and sends the email before crashing into her bed. At least she was attempting to reach out to another human.

----------

Months pass and she was in the middle of writing a thesis statement when her computer bings with a small notification at the right side of her screen. She clicks it and is quickly brought to her gmail account and an email from her soldier buddy. A small smile plays on her lips and she quickly opens it up and blinks the sleep from her eyes.

“Hey Tandy, I’m seriously sorry it took me this long to get back to you. I really didn’t know I was signed up for the adopt a soldier program until I got your email. I reached out and found out that it was my mom that took the initiative to sign me up. Don’t worry though, I’m not an expensive guy and besides, Gucci doesn’t play well with desert camo anyway so your wallet it saved for now. It’s cool though that you are in school, what’s your major?

Yeah, I know the country is screwed up. Though my vibe on joining The Marines was to protect the innocent you know? I mean, someone’s gotta look out for the little guy.

Um anyway, below is a list of some necessities if it isn’t too much of a bother for you. Can’t wait to hear from you again!

-Tyrone Johnson.”

Tandy finds herself reading the email more then once and then finally the list he sent, it’s the usual types of things that a person would need. Through her eyes stop at the fact that he requested food and not just any type of food, but candy, specifically sour patch kids. She decides then and there that her first priority was to get this guy some sour patch kids first thing in the morning.

------

For Tyrone Johnson, joining the Marines and leaving his home was what would help him succeed in life. He thought that this path would give him respect and yeah, it was harder most days than others. Though a day he saw as a good one was when he received an email from a spunky sort of girl. It takes him a while to come up with a good reply for her and when he does, he sends it as quickly as he could.

But a reply never comes back, maybe he crossed a line with her? Hell if he knew. However he eats his thoughts when he hears. “Johnson, mail for you!”

It’s a medium sized box that he quickly rips into, his eyes meet a bag of sour patch kids and he beams. She had gotten his email and she actually got him the candy, alright, this Tandy Bowen was amazing. His eyes quickly fall to an envelope with ‘Read Me’ written neatly on it. So he sets aside his candy and carefully opens up the envelope to find a letter written on a piece of college ruled loose leaf paper. The writing is neat, pretty and in a mixture of cursive and print. There is a faint smell of lavender on the paper and some of the items in the box. He skims the note before fully reading it, chuckling at the doodles in the corner of the page. There was something about a handwritten letter that was much deeper and personal.

“Hey, Ty!

Just so you know, the lecture I am in is super boring right now so rather than falling asleep like the sleep deprived girl that I am, I decided to do something much more interesting which is writing to you.

I think that your reasoning for joining the Military is really honorable and of all things, The Marines? Pretty awesome. I am majoring in Biological Sciences at Loyola University. It’s in my home city of New Orleans. I’ve always been interested in science, kinda nerdy, yeah, but it’s what I am was always good at so why not?

So I looked through your list, and while I approve of your candy choice (sour patch kids are my second favorite candy after all) , I decided to throw in a few of my favorites as well. You got to broaden your horizon, my friend. What I wish I could send you is a Beignet, you haven’t lived till you’ve tried one. My mom and her boyfriend own a diner and while Greg is awesome, he sucks at making them. So we get an order every morning from the bakery and I am not allowed to touch them.

I was actually kinda wondering how old you are, Tyrone Johnson, where you came from, life before you joined up? I mean you don’t have to if you’re not comfortable. I’m 20 though, I waitress at my mom’s diner and like I said, on a college budget.

Talk to you soon!

Tandy”

Tyrone smile stretched from ear to ear and of course one of his commanding officers notices. “What's got you so giddy, Johnson?”

Frank Castle is a pretty intimidating sort of guy. He was at least six foot two and was complete muscle. “It’s a package sir.” Tyrone explains as Frank nods, folding his arms across his chest and smiles. “My mom signed me up for the adopt a soldier program, so this girl just sent me a care package.”

Frank plops next to him and looks into the package. “Whoa, she sent swedish fish, those are my favorite. Karen would never send me those,” He chuckles. “Though Lisa might sneak some in the care package.” Most of the men knew Frank’s story. His wife and him divorced mutually and a few years later, he met Karen Page. She was a reporter that his daughter had actually set him up with. “So you know anything about this girl?”

“Uh, she is a college student, we come from the same city, but she doesn’t know that.” Tyrone tells him. “Her mom owns a diner and she goes to school for- biological science.”

“So you finally over that Evita girl?” Frank asks, mouth full of swedish fish

Tyrone thinks for a moment and then shrugs. “I think so, maybe.”

“Don’t be so indecisive kid, women hate that. Write back to that Tandy girl, see those written letter hold more of a punch, trust me.” Frank advises before taking another handful of sweets and leaving him with a pen and paper.

‘Hey Tandy,

Thanks for the package and the candy. So you are from New Orleans, huh? Well, we have something in common-’

-----

She is on her break at the diner when she finally reads Tyrone’s letter. It’s neatly handwritten, unlike any sort of handwriting from a guy she had ever seen. She remembered reading something about how you could know someone through their penmanship, and maybe it was right.

‘- I’m from New Orleans too. I grew up in the lower ninth and then moved to MidCity when I was nine. I’m missing the food though and my parents. When I come home for leave, I plan to just eat my weight in beignets and calas. Another thing we have in common? Well I just turned twenty myself while on duty. My mom was upset that I wasn’t home for it. She gets scared sometimes, you know? I have an older brother, he’s in a wheelchair from being gunned down by some crooked cop when we were kids. Mom was never the same after that. I had a nine o’clock curfew till I left for basic. I can’t blame her though. Maybe, if it’s not to weird, we could meet up when I go on leave? I could come to your mom’s diner so it’s not that awkward.’

Tandy doesn’t miss the fact that there is a stray tear making its way out of the corner of her eye when she reads Tyrone’s letter, though her heart skips a beat when he asks if he could meet her. She panics, would he even like the girl that he would be meeting? Weren’t they moving too fast, they had to be moving too fast. What if he was catfishing her, could that be a thing. This whole pen pal thing was supposed to be a way to make a long distance friend, not one that was from her hometown. So in her nature, she decides to run from this and him.

The summer months pass and she still can’t rid of the nagging guilt that had been eating away at her. How she so carelessly ditched someone who was slow close to being called a friend. She has morning shift at the diner, her mom is already there and so is Greg, cooking up breakfast.

“Tandy!” Her mom exclaims as she walks through the door. “Can you do me a huge favor and take care of table three?”

Tandy nods as she walks past the table first, going back to the kitchen to pull her apron on and her hair up. She rounds the corner again and pulls out a notepad and a pen. “What can I get for you?” She asks, eyes trained on her paper.

“A beignet would be great.” A male’s voice says. “Though I was told they were not made here, since Greg sucks at making them. Did you remember to pick them up this morning?”

She freezes and looks up from her notepad, her pen falls to the floor and her voice isn’t quite working. Sitting before her, is a young man in a military uniform. She blinks once, then twice to make sure she isn’t seeing things and then asks. “Tyrone?” In an unsure tone and he smiles. He’s more handsome than she imagined with a strong jaw, beautiful eyes and a sculpted chin. She wondered for a moment if he was made from marble or something like that and had to fight off the need to actually trace his jawline with her fingers. Tandy glances over at her mom who had a shit eating grin on her face and then sits across from Tyrone. She had a million questions, she she just goes with the first one. “How did you find me here?”

Tyrone sits back against the booth, his hat on his left and tells her. “After you never got back to me, I got worried that maybe I crossed a line. I wanted to drop me, but Frank Castle wasn’t having it. He’s my commanding officer and has kinda adopted me as his son? I don’t know. I know that this sounds creepy and down right stalking, but his daughter looked you up and then told her dad, who told me what diner you work at. I’m sorry, you’re weird out, I’ll leave.”

Tandy reaches out and grabs his hand. There is a jolt, a spark almost and he stops in his tracks. “No, stay. I mean it is a little strange but, I should have wrote you back. I just, I don’t know, I got scared. I can’t believe that you actually still want to see me. I really did screw you over.”

He beams at her and she can’t get his smile out of her head, jesus christ, what was wrong with her? “Well” He tells her. “You have all week to make up for it, deal?”

Tandy stretches her hand out to shake his. “You got yourself a deal.”

#cloak and dagger #tandy bowen #tyrone johnson #tandy x tyrone #trandy #Anonymous

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wetsydy · 7 years ago

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Baby Don’t Sleep - Chapter One

A/n A beautiful collab I did with the lovely @hanannnnnnn :) Jamilton, obviously, because our boys are amazing. But thanks for the amazing time of writing with you! This was super fun and a great leaning experience :PP

Warnings: Language, obviously. Sorta not really smut ig?

Word Count: 1996 words :)

It wasn’t unlike Thomas Jefferson to be like he was, because obviously, he was who he was. First things first, he was snarky. Snarky as hell, but he could be caring, if he wanted....

But Fuck, he didn’t want to. Honestly, he could care less of what other people wanted or thought. As long as he had his coffee and his laptop charger, he was fine. He could stay up all night, sipping his iced coffee and typing emotionlessly on his laptop for his newest article on the latest news Washington gave him.

Though lately, he had been getting work with the one man he hated, Alexander Hamilton. The thought of him just made him want to groan out loud. He was a demon, he could swear on it. Usually, Thomas rarely talked to him, beside the meetings where they almost always disagreed on everything and anything. And whenever the two where together, the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. He huffed as he walked into the office building, a large cup of StarBucks iced coffee in his hand as he walked in, nodding to the few men who greeted him, but looking bitter, as always. It’s unlike Jefferson to be ‘excited’ to go to work. It parted him from his mansion, Monticello. And some people swore he loved his own home more than America, but he wasn’t saying they were wrong, probably because he never heard of the rumors being said.Thomas entered his office, and placed his coffee down on his desk. With the intentions of starting the day’s workload straight away, he opened his laptop and brought up a couple of emails from Washington he had yet to reply to. He began typing, but was almost instantly interrupted by a knock at his door. He groaned.

“Come in.”

And who else would it be? Hamilton, obviously. Just the thing he needed to make the morning that little bit easier.

Thomas practically grimaced when he saw who had entered his office.

“God, Hamilton,” he sighed, annoyed. “What the fuck do you want?”

“Shut the fuck up,” the smaller man instantly replied. “I’ve got some documents here that Washington said you’d need.”

He carelessly tossed the thick stack of said documents on Thomas’ desk, and in doing so, knocked over Thomas’ iced coffee in the process.

The room was silent. Hamilton could tell that Thomas wasn’t in the greatest of moods anyway, so this really was the icing on the cake.

“Uhhhhhh...” Alexander tried to come up with something intelligible, but failed.

“Get. Out. Now.” Thomas’ nostrils flared in rage. “Get the fuck out.”

And for once, Hamilton didn’t argue, and slowly slipped out of the door.

Thomas sighed and rubbed his eyes. This was perfect. Fucking perfect.

He began to clean up the mess that Hamilton made, lamenting the loss of a perfectly good beverage.

Maybe he’d force the other man to buy him another. Maybe not. Maybe he’d like another form of payment.

Alexander clumsily walked out of Jefferson’s office, in hysterics, really. He smiled nervously towards the people around him, walking on to his office, somehow with a look of shame on his face. But Thomas? Oh Thomas was just pissed.

The Virginian huffed, loud. Probably a little over the top, but he couldn’t give two shits of what the others would say.

“Fucking..../christ/.” He growled, putting the lid back on the now immortals empty cup of coffee (he had placed the ice cubes in there so they wouldn’t melt on the floor) and threw it in the bin just a couple feet away from him. Sighing curses as he cleaned up his desk so it wouldn’t be sticky later on.

Once he had cleaned he relaxed back into his recliner, thinking of what he could tell or perhaps do to Hamilton for ruining his drink and a few papers next to it. And soon, a devilish smirk popped onto his face.

* * *

The end of the work day rolled around. Jefferson checked his watch. It was still early by Hamilton’s standards, but everyone else had already started packing up to go home. He lingered for a while, waiting until everyone left to make his way to Hamilton’s office.

When he arrived, he didn’t bother knocking. He walked right through and saw the Caribbean man’s eyebrows lift up slightly in surprise, but apart from that, Hamilton seemed indifferent.

“I expect an apology,” Thomas declared.

“I’m sorry you put your shit in places that you shouldn’t.”

“Excuse me?”

Hamilton rolled his eyes. “Drinks don’t go on the fucking edge of a desk, you dick.”

“Shut up. I want you to reimburse me,” Thomas said, his voice akin to a growl. That caught Hamilton’s attention.

“How so?” Alexander seemed to have lost some of his cockiness. Thomas rolled his eyes a bit, placing his hands on the immigrants desk, leaning in threateningly. His eyes narrowed into practically slits as they locked into Hamilton’s. The smaller man leaned back slowly, swallowing a little.

“Buy me another one.” He finished, staying still though, Alexander could nearly feel his breath on his face, even with leaning back.

“Excuse me? I’m not going to replace something that was mostly your fault. You selfless asshole.” Alexander hissed, but nearly choked when Thomas inched closer, and he froze in place.

“Do it. Or I’ll be sure to make your life a living hell. Trust me.” The male smirked, then shook his head, his curls bouncing with the movement as he leaned up. “You can’t change my mind Hamilton, it’s already been made.”

Hamilton wasn’t going to let Jefferson win. Not this easily.

“Oh really?” He lifted an eyebrow. Trying not to seem intimidated, he carried on. “Bold of you, Tommy. Real bold.”

Hamilton couldn’t help it. He’d never learned to shut up, and this situation wasn’t any different.

Thomas’ reaction wasn’t the one that Alex expected. The taller man simply chuckled coldly. The fact that the laugh had no actual amusement or emotion in it made Alexander start to wish that he had never opened his mouth in the first place.

It seemed to him that Thomas has finally snapped.

Thomas stopped laughing and looked Hamilton dead in the eye. “Stand up.” Alexander swallowed a little, he cleared his throat. “What? Are you—? Are you fucking serious? You can’t tell me what to do. You can come into my office and order me around—“

“You can’t come into my office and start shit either. Stand the fuck up, Alexander.” The Virginian hissed. It was rather a harsh comment, and Alexander nodded a little, nervously standing and dropping his pen, he barely even noticed Thomas used his first name, based off of the fact that he had pissed him off and he was actually really intimidated by the males height and his MuScLes. Thomas took his time looking at the other man. He dwarfed Alexander. He had at least a head of height on him. And, if he was being honest, he was kind of enjoying bossing Hamilton around.

Alex tried to hide his own stirrings but found it hard to do so when this /fine ass/ man was examining him.

Without warning, Thomas reached out and grabbed a handful of Alexander’s hair. He pulled, gently at first, testing the boundaries. He saw Alexander’s eyes light up with some sort of fire. Thomas took this as a signal of approval and continued, pulling harder. Alexander couldn’t help the soft groan that left his lips as the taller male pulled his hair, his eyes met Thomas’ unafraid, now.

The Virginian tutted gently, shaking his head. “Quiet.” He demanded “We don’t need to be heard, you fucker.” He hissed softly, but watched the smaller man’s response once more as he tugged his locks, and he couldn’t help the soft chuckle that left him. “Damn Hamilton....” he sighed, and couldn’t help but feel a little aroused at the sight, god...he looked so helpless against that hand..Thomas’ eyes travelled down to Hamilton’s exposed throat. He licked his lips, and began sucking on Alexander’s neck.

A moan escaped the smaller man, causing Thomas to tighten his grip on Alex’s hair.

Drawing back, Thomas spoke. “I’ve warned you to be quiet.”

Alex kept his mouth closed, and watched Thomas take off his tie and hold it up to Alexander’s mouth.

“Hmm,” Thomas commented. “This colour suits you. Open up.”

Alexander surprised himself with how readily he opened his mouth to allow Thomas to gag him with his designer tie. Alex inwardly scoffed. ‘Probably cost the douche a couple hundred dollars for this thing,’ he thought.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when Jefferson adjusted the tie, making it tight enough that Alex felt the pressure.Thomas pulled back, looking at the male, he smirked softly at the sight as he nodded a bit, he sighed, moving away to move the male’s papers over to the side, before he pat the polished wood. “Mm...look at you. You’re being so good for me now. Sit.” He commanded, and Alexander was quick to scramble up on then hardwood of the desk. He stared (still up) at Thomas with a little shiver as he ran his hand up the smaller males side, leaning forward to lick and kiss at his throat and collar again, his hands swiftly moving up to untie his tie with a smirk because Alexander made no move to stop him at all. Once Alex’s tie and shirt buttons were out of the way, Thomas proceeded to bite and kiss all over Hamilton’s torso, marking him as his, showing his dominance, mankind the smaller man squirm. Alexander was aware that he was getting excited. Very excited. He hoped and prayed that Thomas wouldn’t notice.

But, of course, Thomas noticed. Thomas noticed, alright, and froze. Slowly, Thomas smirked and stood back away from the desk. He straightened his posture and regarded Alexander, who was still sitting helplessly on the desk.

“Payback, motherfucker,” Thomas grinned, an evil expression cast on his face.

Alex’s eyes widened, and he began protesting against his makeshift gag.

“Oh! I’ll be taking that back now,” Thomas commented, and untied the cloth from Alex’s mouth.

As soon as the gag was removed, Alexander (unsurprisingly) began speaking at a mile a minute. “So you’re just gonna fuck me up like this and leave me? You’re gonna get me all worked up and fuck off??!”

Thomas shrugged and began buttoning Hamilton’s shirt buttons again, ignoring the other man.

“You dick!” Hamilton swatted Jefferson’s hands away.

“I’m the dick, huh?” Thomas finally replied to Alex. “You’ve has this coming a long time, darling.” Alexander stared at him, and kept jerking his hands away when he attempted to button up his shirt again. “How the hell am I going to explain these hickeys?” Alexander hissed, leaving Thomas to chuckle. “That’s part of the point, darlin’.” He drawled, part of that southern accent he was so proud of showing in that sentence. “You’ll find a way, I’m sure.” He shrugged, staring at the gag/designer tie he had, then shook his head and tied it on anyways.

Alexander looked pleadingly at Thomas. “Thomas—don’t do this.” He pleaded. Thomas simply shrugged, and made his way to the door. Emotionless.

He turned back and addressed Alexander one last time. “Not a word.”

All Hamilton could do was nod wordlessly.

Thomas was almost out of the office when Alexander decided to speak out.

“Wait! Is this gonna be a... I don’t know... a thing?” Alexander’s voice sounded achingly desperate.

Thomas didn’t turn around, but answered him all the same, his hand still on the door handle.

“I suppose.” He paused. “But I’m making the rules. You’ve given me enough shit already. It’s time I get something in return.”

And with that, the Virginian stalked out of Alex’s office, leaving the smaller man sitting on his desk, love bites exposed on the places that his hair and collar don’t reach.

Hope you enjoyedddd!!

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aj-the-psycho · 7 years ago

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The Hour: A Sanders Sides Story - Chapter 2

CONCERNS AND AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER

TW: none

Summary: Logan talked about his hour to his best friend and he is concerned.

AO3 Link

Usually, Logan would complain about Roman’s exaggerated stories about ‘nonsense with a combo of drama’ as Logan put it. It doesn’t matter that Logan and Roman had known each other for years, Logan still couldn’t stand Roman’s theatrics. Especially, not right now. Logan had called his best friend last night to meet him at the coffee shop near campus, because “I need some… help… with something.”

“You? Mr. I-know-everything-about-everything, needs my help? Oh, this should be good then.” Logan had groaned at the nickname during the phone call, but didn’t say much else.

And now, here they were, sitting in a coffee shop, a galaxy away from their initial topic of discussion with Roman re-telling his morning about how he was attacked by a stray cat with arms gesturing wildly. Logan was irritated. Very much so, but he couldn’t help but get lost in his thoughts with Roman’s booming voice as a background noise.

“Roman…”

“...and then the cat jumped—like, literally launched at my face—and just scratched me everywhere like a maniac,”

“Roman.”

“You know how expensive this shirt is? You know how much effort I put in the morning to perfect this magnificent look for all ladies, lords and non-binary royalty to admire? Plus, I—”

“Roman!” Logan quickly interrupted, his voice stern but kept his volume low.

“What,” Roman replied monotonously, annoyed that his story was interrupted. Rudely so.

“I asked you to come here, to help me with… annoying emotions and feeling and… ugh I hate this.” Logan slumped his shoulders, one hand sifting through his hair.

“Gee, Logan. It’s just a soulmate. You know the concept of soulmates is stupid, right? You’re supposed to fall in love with a stranger, it’s not going to work. Why do you even care about all this anyway? You’re not one for romance and all things love.”

Logan paused. He pondered on Roman’s questions for a bit. It is sort of true that he was supposed to be a perfect match with a stranger. What if they’re not compatible. It is also true that he despised romance or emotions in general. So why does he care now?

“I didn’t. Care about soulmates I mean. But since I had my hour, I felt differently about this whole thing. I couldn’t get this person out of my head. And then I realized that I actually want this. That I would very much like to… grow old with someone?” Logan trailed off for a moment, starting to get lost in his thoughts again.

Roman was a little surprised. He never heard Logan talk with this much emotion mixed in his words before.

“How did it happen anyway? You never told me.”

“That’s because you never wanted to know.” Then, he began telling Roman about his hour.

November, last year

Logan woke up with a start. ‘Why am I awake?’ He checked his alarm clock and saw that it was midnight.

He thought maybe he felt dehydrated, so he went outside and had a glass of water. Feeling a little better than before, he went back to his room and laid back down on his bed. He slowly closed his eyes and try to go back to sleep.

He then felt a sudden pain in his head. Ignoring it, he groaned and shifted in his bed to get comfortable. However, he felt his bed is a bit off. Slowly, he opened his eyes again and was greeted by a very confusing sight. The wall on the right side of the bed that is usually covered with diagrams of space and galaxy posters is now decorated with little Polaroid photos. The room also had a subtle glow from the fairy lights hung above the headboard. He stood and walked to the window opposite the bed.

‘Am I dreaming right now? If I am, the fact that I’m aware that this is a dream would mean this is a lucid dream. Unlikely, since I can remember I was awake a second ago.’ Logan started to analyze his surrounding, as well as the state of his mind.

He looked down and realized that he looked different than usual. ‘Noting how different I look and the fact that I feel shorter than usual would mean I am not in my own body which means… I’m currently in the hour… ’ He let the revelation sink in for a moment. ‘Yes, it would make sense since I just turn nineteen about twenty four hours ago. Am I still in Florida?’ He walked to the bedside table and checked the location using the phone that he found there. ‘Affirmative.’

He quickly wrote a very brief note with very limited information on a post-it note that he found in one of the bedside drawer.

Name: Logan Sharp

Age: 19

I am currently a student in Sanders University, majoring in Astrophysics.

We are also from the same area.

Logan was about to be done with the note without writing his address. Writing his address would mean that his soulmate could visit him easily. But he also don’t trust people with personal information that could put him in danger. So he put an additional sentence to justify his need of not putting his address.

I am not adding my address because

He paused. ‘Of course I’m not going to say that I don’t trust this person—well, that is true—that’s just rude.’

Because… reasons

After that he added his email address and phone number to the note. Done with the note, he looked around for a mirror to see what his soulmate looks like. He found a half-body mirror in the bathroom. As soon as he saw the reflection in the mirror, he noted the heterochromia right away. A warm honey color on the left and a cool grey on the right. He stood about three inches shorter than Logan himself and had subtle muscles in his torso, noticeable muscle-cut along the upper arms. Wavy brown hair, tousled from sleep and freckles scattered across the nose, cheek and bleeds over to the neck.

“Cute.” Logan said quickly. He immediately blushed after he realized that he said that out loud. Of course, Logan didn’t tell Roman this part, or he will never hear the end of Roman’s teasing, which is both embarrassing and annoying.

After that, he went out of the bathroom and looked at the clock hung on the wall near the living room. ‘I have about ten minutes left.’ He decided to explore the house a bit. It is true that he didn’t like people—especially strangers—to know personal information about himself, but he couldn’t help but be a little bit hypocritical by snooping around in a stranger’s house. Yes, it’s his soulmate’s house, but they’re still a stranger to him.

Right next to the first bedroom—his soulmate’s bedroom—there was another room next to it, the door partly opened. He peeked inside and saw a sleeping figure facing the door. Logan was shocked at first seeing how similar this person looked to his soulmate. ‘Twins? That, or at the very least they are related,’ Logan concluded in his head.

He went back to the room and re-read his note, double checking if he left out anything important. He then put the note on the bedside table under the cell phone. He sat on the bed again, waiting for the minutes to run out. He felt nervous all of a sudden. ‘I will have to meet this person one day. Oh no, I’m going to screw it up. I have the social abilities of a chicken nugget and I would have to speak to this person and actually talk about important decisions and matters of the future. No, no, no, nononono-’

His train of thought is interrupted by a sudden pain at the back of his head. The pain crawl its way to the front of his head. Once the pain receded, he opened his eyes that he didn’t realized he had closed and found himself back in his own room. He looked around and saw nothing unusual, aside from his desk lamp, which was turned in. He went to turn it off and saw a glimpse of a note from his soulmate written in bubble letters.

‘Nope! Not now.’ He went back to bed and tried to sleep again.

That night, Logan didn’t sleep again until it was three in the morning.

Present time

“That… is actually pretty interesting. What’s their name?” Roman commented and asked after Logan was done with his story.

“Patton Harvey.” Logan uttered the name. Although this Patton person is a stranger to Logan, he already felt an attachment with the name despite never meeting the person himself.

“What am I going to do Roman? You, of all people, know how I am in a social situation. Aside from that, there the added weight of… emotions,” Logan grimaced and continued, “that I would have to deal with—which you know I’m not good at. I have the emotional capacity of a teaspoon.”

“Well, Logan, I do not know how this friend of yours will help you. You know how I feel about soulmates,” The bell above the door of the coffee shop chimed, but Roman paid not attention to it and continued his rant. Logan who sat facing the door glanced at the door briefly. Then he did a double-take.

“I think soulmates are bullshit-”

“Roman…”

“You’re supposed to be a perfect match with a total stranger-”

“Roman, please…”

“Like, what if the universe make mistakes-”

“Roman!” Logan was getting impatient.

“What if it’s all wrong-”

“Roman! Stop it!”

Roman stopped at Logan’s raised voice.

Initially, Logan didn’t want to attract any attention to Roman and especially not to himself. However, he spoke too loud. The second Logan’s blue eyes met a pair of mismatched ones, his world felt like it stuttered to a halt.

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bevioletskies · 7 years ago

Note

Starmora prompt to consider: Gamora and Peter are in college together and have to work on a project together.

songs in this fic: dance with me by orleans, the closer i get to you by roberta flack & donny hathawayword count: 3.7k | ao3

In the three years he’d been in college, Peter had come to learn he had a particular aversion to certain two-word phrases. Among them: morning lectures, waitlisted classes, mandatory attendance, cumulative exams, and the oh-so-dreaded…

Assigned partners.

It wasn’t that Peter didn’t like working with other people. In fact, unlike most students, he generally loved the experience. He was curious about others by nature, and getting along with people was never much of a chore for him. In any group project, even with just three people in it, he could find kinship with at least one other member. Assigned partners, however, was a different story. Especially when said assigned partner was the infamous Gamora (no last name, as far as he knew, anyway).

She was well-known around their sizable college on Xandar for a handful of reasons, most which were rather tragic. Gamora was the last living member of the Zehoberei race, largely in part to her adoptive father, Thanos. She and her sister, Nebula, were generally quite reserved when it came to sharing their private lives, but anyone could dig up old news articles and learn that they had only been rescued from their violent upbringing at the age of fifteen, leaving them physically and emotionally scarred for life. They hid it well, though, keeping their chins up despite some of the nasty comments that immature classmates threw their way.

Beyond that, Gamora was part of several different clubs and organizations, with ambitions of getting into law school. She hardly spoke in class, but she had the highest grades in just about everything, constantly booking private office hours with her professors to make her goals known. Peter could admire her drive from a distance, sure, but getting to know her up close?

“Don’t think that you’ll have it easy because you’re partnered with me,” Gamora said, dropping into the seat beside him, her bag slamming down with a loud thunk. “If you slack off, Quill, our TA will hear about it.”

Peter blinked. “Hi to you too, it’s so great to meet you,” he said dryly.

Getting to know her up close was…interesting, to say the least.

“I’m serious. I’ve seen your posts on the class discussion forums, or should I say, your lack of them?” Gamora’s lip curled. “I’m not carrying you through this class. It’s a prerequisite for two of my fourth-year classes.”

“Hey, same here,” Peter said with a surprised chuckle. “What’s your major, anyways?”

“Sociology. Yours?” It was the kindest thing she’d said to him so far, though Peter suspected it was more of reflexive habit than an actual desire to know.

“Education.” Peter turned away briefly to accept the project outline that was being passed around, grabbing one for each of them before looking back at her. He’d never been so physically up-close to her before, surprised and a little bit disturbed to see thin slivers of metal visible underneath her skin. That certainly wasn’t a Zehoberei physical trait; it had to have been the result of Thanos’s cruelty.

“I didn’t know education majors had to take communication courses,” Gamora said. She still refused to meet his eyes, instead opting to skim over the project outline. “We have to collect primary research and present a proposal to the entire class.”

“So…every college project ever,” Peter snorted. “Why is this even done in partners?”

“Because we have to be each other’s opposition.” Gamora tapped her finger on Peter’s sheet, right where the criteria said exactly as such. “That’s clever, actually. Means that you can’t rely on me to do everything for you.”

“I don’t know where you’re gettin’ the idea that I’m a slacker,” Peter protested. Gamora gave him a pointed look.

“You don’t participate in class or in the online discussions, I overheard you asking our TA at least twice if the final was cumulative when it says so on the syllabus, and you snored during our last three lectures,” she said, getting to her feet. “Excuse me for being cautious.” She hoisted her bag over her shoulder. “Meet me in the student lounge in the Nova building tomorrow? I don’t have class, so it’s up to you when we meet.”

“I was gonna…ugh.” Peter let out a resigned sigh. Clearly, his plans to head into the city and skulk around the pawn shops for Yondu were going to have to wait. “I’ll be there at noon.”

“Don’t be late,” Gamora called over her shoulder as she made her way down the steps of the lecture hall. Peter could only watch her go with a shake of his head, wondering what exactly his professor had gotten him into.______

To Gamora’s surprise, Peter arrived five minutes early (she had been here ten minutes ago, but still). He looked for all the world like he’d just rolled out of bed, his hair a rumpled mess, the collar of his T-shirt woefully lopsided. Peter dropped his bag into the seat opposite her and sank into the cushion with a labored groan. “Just woke up?”

“Nah, early morning shift.” Peter cracked his knuckles, satisfied with the way they popped. Gamora looked vaguely disgusted. “I work at the radio station.”

“Really?” For the first time, Gamora sounded genuinely interested in what he had to say.

“Yeah, I do the playlists and social media. Sometimes I help edit the announcements and current events stuff,” Peter shrugged. He began unloading his bag, yanking out his laptop and project outline. “You, uh, you write for the newspaper, right?”

“Among other things, yes,” Gamora said neatly, directing her attention back to her own screen. “We don’t really pay much attention to the radio station, though, except for that disastrous fundraiser you attempted last semester.”

“Hey, there are plenty of rich kids around here who would love to get their ships washed,” Peter said defensively.

“But by students in swimsuits? That’s dangerously archaic and a tad suggestive,” Gamora replied, though she chuckled softly as she said it. “We got plenty of quotes from the administration about your little stunt, enough for a front page spread. It was a busy week.”

“Welcome Week usually is,” Peter laughed. “So, you have any topics in mind yet?”

“It still has to be related to some aspect of communication,” Gamora pondered aloud, leaning back into her seat. “Something that can even have opposing ideas. We gather and present the same primary data, but we have to come to different conclusions.”

Peter hummed to himself, drumming his fingers against his keyboard thoughtfully. Another minute or two passed before he let out an excited shout, startling a few students trying to sleep on the beanbag chairs nearby. “I got it!”

“That was fast,” Gamora said, eyeing him curiously. “Go on, then.”

“What makes a better communicator - an introvert or an extrovert?” Peter smiled at her triumphantly. “C’mon, you can’t tell me that isn’t good.”

Gamora twirled her pen between her fingers, nodding slowly. “You know…that isn’t half-bad.” Peter pumped his fist in the air in victory. “But how would we measure it? Based on what kind of data? What constitutes an unbiased conclusion?”

Peter clapped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously. “Let’s start with an abstract and go from there, yeah?”

She quirked her brow, setting her pen down. “Sounds like a plan. I’m impressed, Quill. You might be smarter than you look.”

His grin widened. “Hey, I have good ideas every now and then.” He turned his laptop towards her, open to a blank word document. “After you.”______

Meeting outside of class hours became a weekly occurrence for the two, usually in the Nova student lounge. It was mostly out of necessity - after all, there was only so much they could communicate via text and email - but occasionally Peter would send her an extra message or two that wasn’t related to the project at all.

Saw your article this morning - do you have a personal vendetta against the radio station or something D:

I think your sister literally ran into me in the admin building like five minutes ago does she always look this angry or did I do something please help

Did they not have memes on Zehoberei?? Is that why you aren’t responding to the last three I sent you

“We didn’t have Internet on Zehoberei, Quill,” Gamora sighed as she sat beside him in the lecture hall one day. Peter startled at her sudden presence; she had never voluntarily elected to sit with him before. “And ignore Nebula, she’s just…tempestuous.”

“So you do have something against the radio station,” Peter said teasingly. “What’d music and campus news ever do to you?”

“Nothing, I just think it’s an inefficient way of communicating. All your reports are looped every fifteen minutes, which means whenever someone tunes in, they either miss a portion of it or miss it entirely,” Gamora pointed out. “All the newspaper’s articles are published online, which students can access whenever they want.”

“You’re against the old-school, huh?” Peter hummed thoughtfully, leaning back in his seat. His shoulder brushed hers as he did. “I see how it is.”

“Did you pull something when you jumped to that conclusion?” Gamora said dryly, though to her surprise, Peter merely laughed, shaking his head in amusement. The genuine warmth of the sound made her shiver. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said, still chuckling. “You busy tonight?”

“We’re meeting on Thursday, aren’t we?” Gamora asked, frowning.

“Sure, but if you’re free…I’d like to change your mind.” Peter smiled.

Gamora hesitated, which in her mind, already said something about herself. She was planning on doing her usual evening routine - attempt to meet up with her sister, only to get spurned for one reason or another, and instead spend the rest of the night licking her wounds and doing homework in her dorm room, alone. But for some reason, the offer sounded rather appealing. “Fine, but I’ll still be bringing my laptop, whatever it is we’re doing. I can’t take the entire night off.”______

The grass was still slightly damp from the afternoon sprinklers as Gamora crossed the lawn into unfamiliar territory. There were certain areas of the school’s campus she’d never been to, considering most of her classes resided in two buildings on the other side of the quad. The stars in the night sky twinkled mischievously from up above as she paused outside the door, urging her to knock. With an inhale of anticipation, she neatly rapped her knuckles against its surface.

“Quill?” she called. The door swung open, revealing a cheerful-looking Peter, wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, only now he had a pair of headphones slung around his neck and a small device hanging on his belt.

“Hey, welcome to the den.” He stepped aside, gesturing for her to come in. She glanced around as she did, taking in her surroundings. It looked less like a radio station’s quarters, and more like a typical dorm room, with random junk strewn about. Records, tapes, and seemingly disassembled electronics were packed and stacked on nearly every surface, including the single worn loveseat that sat opposite the broadcasting booth. A student that Gamora vaguely recognized from one of her old language classes was inside, speaking animatedly into the microphone, while Peter’s bag and schoolwork seemed to be set up on a small desk by the equipment.

Peter took a minute to clear off the couch, carrying his laptop over and motioning for her to join him. They sat down together, watching the radio host in amicable silence for a few minutes before Gamora finally spoke. “Somehow, this is exactly what I pictured.”

“Okay, so we’re not as fancy as the newspaper office,” Peter shrugged. “We…we’re cozy.”

“When were you at the newspaper?” Gamora asked, pulling out her own laptop. She was beginning to suspect Peter didn’t have much planned besides spending the evening in each other’s company, which admittedly wasn’t as terrible of a plan as it might have sounded a couple months ago when they first began working together.

“I, uh, might’ve had a crush on the culture reporter, Bereet,” Peter confessed. “She was in one of my film study electives, and she seemed to know her stuff about movies, and I wanted to see if she’d be interested in my contributions on music in film. Turns out she’s kind of a Top 40 girl. Which isn’t, like, bad or anything, just…she didn’t really wanna hear anything I had to offer or say.”

“She means well, but she is…particular,” Gamora said carefully. “Anyways, what am I doing here?”

Peter unwound the headphones from his neck and held them out to her. Gamora accepted wordlessly, albeit a little uncertainly, as she slid them snugly over her ears. “Showin’ you what the radio station can do that the newspaper can’t.” He pressed play.

Dance with me, I want to be your partner…can’t you see the music is just starting?…

He watched her nervously, watched as her eyes slid closed and her shoulders dropped as the tension in her body slowly dissipated. She almost seemed to be swaying a little, absorbing the song and its lyrics - or maybe she was drifting off to sleep, he couldn’t quite tell.

Night is falling, and I am falling…dance with me…

When the song finished, Gamora pulled the headphones down to her shoulders, glancing over at him with a soft smile. “It was…pleasant. I liked it.”

Peter grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yes.” Gamora gently took the Walkman from him, turning the device over carefully in her hands. “But if you think the newspaper is lacking in music, I think I need to introduce you to streaming services, Quill.” He couldn’t help but laugh again - part of him wanted to be annoyed, but there was something about the way she spoke that left him utterly charmed. “There you go again - what is it?”

“Nothin’, it’s just…you’re funny. I didn’t expect that.” Peter held out his hand for her to give it back. “Here, let me play you another one.”

Gamora pressed it into his palm, their fingertips brushing slightly as she did. She shivered. “I don’t think anyone has ever thought of me as funny before.”

“Well, that’s a shame. Then let me be the first.” Peter couldn’t help but stare a little as she tucked her hair behind her ear before pushing the headphones back into place, shaking himself out of his reverie before pressing play once more.

The closer I get to you…the more you make me see…by giving me all you got…your love has captured me… ______

Semester-long projects, suffice to say, were just about no one’s favorite, but Peter soon found himself dreading its end. After that night, Gamora had become a semi-regular visitor of the radio station, having quickly memorized Peter’s work schedule. She dropped in at least twice a week with leftover pastries from the newspaper office or one the other dozen committees and whatnot that she was a part of. They usually spent the first ten minutes under the guise that they had something to talk about regarding the project, but would then delve into something a little personal, a little more intimate, even.

One night, Gamora had made a rather strange request - that Peter join her in her dorm room instead, and if he had spent a little more time checking himself over in the mirror before leaving, no one had to know. However, when he arrived, she seemed unusually distraught.

Her room was exactly what he expected it to be; neat and well-kept, with everything in its place. There were no extraneous decorations or trinkets to be found, just a perfectly-made bed and organized desk with nothing on the floor but her bookbag. Gamora’s tear-streaked face told a different story. “Gamora, hey, what happened?” He immediately sat on the foot of her bed, wondering if it would be too invasive to reach out into her personal space.

“Do you have a sister, Quill?” she asked.

“Yeah, uh, Mantis, you might know her from - never mind. Did somethin’ happen with Nebula?” Peter said worriedly.

“I didn’t know who else to talk to about it.” Gamora glanced at him almost apologetically. “This probably wasn’t what you were expecting when I texted, but…”

“It’s okay. I was in the neighborhood,” Peter joked, bringing his legs up onto the bed. “I mean, I’d like to think we’re at the point where we can talk about stuff that’s not about class. We’re…friends, right?”

For a moment, Peter internally panicked, wondering if he’d misspoke, as Gamora suddenly looked very odd, like she’d swallowed something sour. She clenched her jaw a little, her brow furrowed upwards, before she finally relaxed, braving a watery smile. “Yes, I think we are.”

Peter spread his arms wide, a rather goofy expression on his face. “So lay it on me. What happened?”

Despite the uneasiness in her stomach about the Nebula situation, Gamora couldn’t help but find her smile widening as she settled in across from Peter, putting her phone aside so she could properly meet his eyes. “It all started earlier this week…or really, to be more accurate, when we were children…”______

“Don’t tell me you’re nervous, Quill.” Gamora smiled almost teasingly as she slid onto the bench beside him, smoothing out her already-crisp blazer. It was presentation day, a day that both of them had been secretly dreading, and they were dressed much nicer than their usual attire, considering professionalism was a big part of their mark. “You’ve got a strange look in your eye.”

“It’s just my face,” Peter protested, though the wrinkle in his brow instantly faded the second Gamora playfully elbowed him in his side. “Are you ready?”

“I’m always ready,” Gamora drawled, smirking, before they both directed their attention to the front of the room.

The next thirty minutes dragged on in nervous anticipation as other groups went up to present. Peter bounced his leg underneath the table until Gamora literally dug her fingers into his knee to get him to stop, her hand remaining there a little longer than necessary. Finally, after what felt like forever, the two of them were called on, and they made their way down the steps.

“Communication and personality are undeniably correlated, but is there causation to be found? Do extroverts have it easier when it comes to expressing themselves and making their ideas heard, or do introverts win out in the end?” Gamora began as Peter pulled up their presentation on the large pull-down screen.

“We conducted fifty interviews with students from different faculties, different backgrounds, different dreams - to come to opposing conclusions about who has it better,” Peter continued, gesturing towards the video that was queued up in front of them. “This includes our colleagues - I work at the radio station, and Gamora works at the school paper. You might think they’re mutually exclusive, but you’d be surprised at what we found.”

Their ten minutes, all things considered, went seamlessly - Peter only fumbled his words once, and Gamora’s voice shook as she spoke of her own experiences as a person that somewhat fell in between what she called the “admittedly narrow definitions” of what it meant to be one or the other. As with any college lecture, the applause they received was obligatory and entirely disinterested, but their professor seemed impressed enough, nodding and laughing in all the right places, asking a few questions at the end that they answered near-flawlessly.

Peter exhaled shakily as they sat back in their seats, both relieved and a little remorseful. “That went okay, right? We did good.”

“We did,” Gamora smiled. “Who knew we would make a half-decent team?”

Class wasn’t over, though, as much as they wanted it to be, and they had to sit through another five presentations. Peter couldn’t help but whisper snarky commentary under his breath to Gamora throughout, in which her reactions would range from rolling her eyes to biting hard on her lip to stop herself from laughing out loud.

When the second-last presentation was halfway done, Gamora glanced down at her phone and, without warning, ducked out of the room in a hurry, her bag in tow. Peter could only stare after her despondently, wondering if that was suddenly it; if by next week, when their professor started their finals review period, she would be sitting at the front again, she would stop visiting the radio station, she would stop talking to him entirely.

Peter practically sprinted out of the lecture hall the second they were dismissed, glancing around for any signs of where Gamora could have gone, though he was sure she was long gone by now. It was only when his eyes drifted a little lower that he spotted her sitting under a nearby tree, smiling hesitantly at him from across the way.

“You sure hightailed it outta there,” Peter commented when he approached her. He was unsure of whether it would be weird for him to sit down. “Something up?”

“My sister texted, she actually wants to have dinner with me tonight,” Gamora said, holding up her phone triumphantly.

“That’s great!” Peter exclaimed, deciding to sit cross-legged beside her. “One step closer to working it out, right?”

“I hope so,” Gamora chuckled in relief. “I thought it would be kind of rude for me to go back inside and interrupt the presenters so…I’m glad you found me.”

“Yeah?” Peter’s heart thumped a little faster. “Why’s that?”

“Well, partially so I could tell you in person why I can’t come to the station tonight,” she replied apologetically, reaching across to take his hand in hers. “But…if you’re free tomorrow night…I have the keys to the newspaper office. You know, for comparison’s sake.”

“You ain’t sick of me yet?” he said disbelievingly.

“Oh, give it some time, Peter, I’m sure it will happen eventually,” Gamora teased. “So is that a yes?”

Peter nodded eagerly, his eyes crinkling in the corners as Gamora gazed up at him, her dark eyes compelling him to say the answer they were both looking for. “It’s a date.”

#ask #Anonymous #starmora #starmora fic #myfic #marvel #college fluff is always my jam #thanks for the request lovely!! i hope you enjoyed :)

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aiimaginesbts · 8 years ago

Text

The Tiger’s Labmate (M)

~A Namjoon Birthday Fic~

Namjoon x Reader

Genre: University AU, fluff, angst and smut

Warnings: Public sex (I don't know why I keep writing these with Namjoon XD ), unprotected sex, inappropriate laboratory conduct

Word count: 8,456 words

A/N: As always, I have @hoeseok to thank for beta-ing this fic for me <3

Disclaimer/Copyright

You are perched on the tall laboratory stool at one of the tables, trying to look unaffected. However, it is difficult to maintain a cool facade when the girls in your class make a show for their sympathy for you as they pass by to take their own seats, smiling with pity, patting your back in consolation and saying words of encouragement in tones that are just chirpy enough to tell you that they're actually enjoying your misery. It isn't surprising though; you knew this would happen after the grouping for this course's lab came out and you are again paired with one of the guys.

Just then the man himself saunters into the room, quickly spotting you and heading over. Your gaze moves higher and higher as he approaches, finally having to tilt your head up when he stands next to your table. "I guess we're lab partners this semester," he points out the obvious with a dimpled smile.

"Yeah." You nod and gesture for him to take the seat next to yours. Namjoon. No introductions are made since he probably knows who you are, and assumes that you know him since you're taking the same course. Truthfully, you had to ask a classmate to point him out to you earlier. He's not easy to miss, you thought to yourself as you took in his towering height, his small, handsome face and his cute smile, wondering for a second why he hadn't caught your attention before. The answer is simple, really, and you know it yourself. After being paired with three different guys in various courses, you decided that the male population in your course are jerks and didn't bother getting to know the rest unless you had to.

Up close, Namjoon's height seems more intimidating, which is why you feel better when he's sitting rather than standing. His dimples look even more adorable at a shorter distance, and his eyes manage to convey a sincerity that somehow endears him to you. On the other hand, your wariness isn't something that is so simple that it can be brushed off with physical attributes. Before you can open your mouth to tell him something to that effect and probably make a fool of yourself from the get-go, the postgraduate student supervising the lab sessions for the course walks in and starts the briefing right away.

The first experiment is very simple and goes off without a hitch. Namjoon is pretty helpful and does his part so far, but that is to be expected. Perhaps it is the application of the theories you are taught in class that gets them excited, but they're always eager to run the experiments. It's getting them to write the reports that you find troublesome.

The labmates you've had before this were horrible partners. Knowing that they are paired with one of the top students in the year, they simply let you do all the work – essentially forcing you to do so since you need to keep your grades up to hold onto your scholarship. At first you tried to arrange meet-ups and write the report together, but they either contributed nothing to the discussion or simply not showed up at all. When you tried splitting the work, they didn't even bother to send in their parts before the due date, and you ended up having to finish their share of the work the night before the deadline.

Last semester you'd had enough. After two rows of being disappointed by your labmate, you marched towards the supervising postgraduate and demanded to work separately. As expected, she was taken aback by your unexpected request and the other students in the session enjoyed the drama, even though it was short – you weren't out to embarrass or demean your partner, no matter how angry you were with him. If you're going to end up doing everything anyway, might as well keep all the marks to yourself. At least others won't be benefiting off of your hard work. It was as simple as that.

There is no doubt that the girls are looking forward to witnessing another fiasco this semester, especially when you're paired with yet another boy. You absolutely loathed the fact that they have already expected that you will lose patience with your new partner, but unfortunately it is an outcome that you believe will unfold as well. So it is with wariness that you ask Namjoon how he plans to divide the report work between the two of you, fully expecting him to shirk the responsibility or make excuses to dump the work on you.

"Why don't we meet up and write it together?" He suggests with a nonchalant shrug.

"That's fine by me. How about we do it on Thursday night?" As long as you actually turn up, you add to yourself.

He winces at the idea. "Sorry, but I have badminton practices on Thursdays. Can't we do it another day?"

You frown, not wanting to reschedule the days you have set for meetups for your other classes and unable to rearrange your own club meetings. "How about the weekend? My evenings are full on other weekdays."

"I don't really want to spend time on homework on weekends," he hisses, features scrunching in repulsion at the idea. It may have been cute if you're not so frustrated you are tempted to pull at your hair. Or better yet, at his brown locks. However, before you can voice your irritation or come up with another solution, he suggests, "Why don't we divide the reports? You write the one for this experiment, I'll do the next one, and so on. That way we can work on our own time."

You purse your lips in thought, intrigued by the idea. "Sounds good, but how will I know that you won't submit a shitty report?"

His only response is a rise of his right eyebrow, which makes your heart flutter for no good reason. Still, you can't bring yourself to trust him without seeing the quality of his work. "Why don't you pass me the report at least two days before the due date? I'll do the same. That way we can check if there are any mistakes that needs correcting." And I'll have time to write a proper report and toss out your shitty one.

"Sounds reasonable," he says in that deep voice of his as he hurriedly shoves his things into his black backpack, obviously in a rush to join his friends who are already walking out to get lunch.

"I guess I'll take this one then," you call out to his retreating back, and he acknowledges you with a wave. Looks like you have about two weeks until he shows his true colours.

As you've expected, Namjoon finds nothing unsatisfactory in your first report, submitting it as it is. Trepidation starts to creep up on you as the days pass after your second lab session, anticipating Namjoon's email. You can't explain why you're feeling this way when you've already prepared yourself to receive shoddy work. Unlike the other guys you've been paired with before, you find yourself really wishing that he will not disappoint you.

Surprisingly, a notice of an email from Namjoon pops up on your notifications three days before the deadline. Immediately you open it and read through the attachment, the assignment that you've been working on before lying next to your laptop, completely forgotten. Diving into the report, you expected a simple write-up that doesn't explain the results of the experiment well, or worse, a blatant copy of a senior's report, but it is nothing like that. Pleasant surprise fills you with every page, every sentence like drops of water pouring into an empty glass after a long drought, and you actually have to read the document twice before replying to the email, unable to believe there is nothing you want to change.

From: y/n y/l/n To: Kim Namjoon Subject: Lab Report

Nothing to add or correct. I'll print it out and hand it in at the next lab session.

He doesn't reply so you assume that he doesn't have a problem with it, but the next time you see him, a corner of his plump lips seems to be curled up just a smidgen. Ultimately you decide that his smugness is just a fabrication of your imagination, and decide not to comment upon it.

This part of the semester continues in more or less the same manner; each of you taking turns to complete the report, neither of you having anything to correct or add to the other's work. Your classmates quickly lose interest when the supposedly imminent blow-up on your part never arrives. For once, you have been lucky enough to get a partner who isn't only a smart and responsible student, but also a good-looking and friendly man. Not that you know him in much depth, really, since you never really interact beyond the lab sessions and the formal-sounding emails you exchange with each other, but you can tell that he's a warm and kind person just by watching him from afar. The semester passes by without any incident, because you don't count slowly falling for your labmate worthy of note.

Until one morning, you wake up to find that another email has been sent to you last night, just after you had gone to sleep. Seeing the name of the sender fills you with dread and you quickly tap on the notification to open it, rubbing sleep from your eyes as the application loads on your phone. The message jolts you up more effectively than any cup of coffee ever could.

From: Kim Namjoon To: y/n y/l/n Subject: Lab Report

I was just going through the calculations again and spotted a mistake. I've corrected it and will print it out to submit in the morning.

You check for an attachment, looking for the amended report but there is none. Immediately you type out a text to Namjoon – the first message you've sent to him that isn't in the form of an email.

Y/n [07:15]: There's a mistake in the calculations?

After staring at the phone for several moments, you start to feel like an idiot for expecting a reply right away. It's pretty early and he is probably still asleep, since the lab session is the first class of the day and it doesn't start until nine. In an effort to stop obsessing over his reply, you decide to take a long shower to soothe your nerves.

The cool drops of water hitting your body doesn't do much to distract you from the mistake you might have made, but it does calm you down a little, and by the time you get back into your room, your phone illuminates with a reply.

Namjoon [07:40]: Good morning to you too.

Before you can feel bad for bombarding him without a proper greeting, your phone chimes again.

Namjoon [07:41]: It's just a simple mistake. I already corrected it and made changes to the subsequent calculations so don't worry.

Biting your lower lip, you consider your reply as if he is right in front of you and you need to say it to his face. Of course you worry. Perhaps you did make a mistake, but what if you got it right all along and he just botched up your report? However you don't want to come off as frantic and distrusting, especially since he has done nothing wrong so far. You find yourself keen to give him the benefit of the doubt, but past experiences have taught you to be thorough.

Y/n [07:50]: Can I see it before we hand it in? I'd like to see where I went wrong.

The phone goes quiet for a while after that, during which you try not to badger him with more messages. It has taken you a few minutes to think about and type out your last reply, so he probably put down his phone to do other things. Instead you switch on your laptop to open your copy of the report so you can try to detect any mistakes. However, before you can open the document, the screen of your phone brightens with another message.

Namjoon [07:58]: Sure, I'm about to head out and grab some breakfast. Why don't we meet at the lab before it starts? It should be open by then.

You stare at the device in your hand in surprise. Truthfully you expected him to simply email the file back to you, but you suppose it's easier to meet so he can point out the changes to you himself. Although he must be confident with his correction, since there won't be any time to change the report by then. Shrugging to yourself, you toss the things you need for the day into your tote bag and head out.

The walk to the chemical engineering block isn't too far from your dormitory if you take the shortcut, but this morning you decide to walk past the other academic buildings, brisk steps covering the longer route allowing you to vent out the nervous energy bouncing inside. As it is, you're already in the lab when Namjoon arrives, cheeks bulging like a squirrel harbouring what you guess is the last of his morning meal.

"Here," he barely manages to make out with his mouth full, handing you a packet of chocolate bread. "Have you been waiting long?"

You shake your head, both to his question and at your surprise at his gesture. "Aren't you going to eat that?" He asks. "I didn't poison it, you know."

"No eating in the lab," you state, dropping the bread in your bag. Then you smile at him, wanting to let him know that you appreciate it. "But thank you. I'll eat it later."

He laughs at your response. "You're such a good girl, y/n." For some reason, you can take his words as a compliment, blushing instead of feeling irritated as you would with someone else. Looking down at the bag where the food is being kept, you feel warm and suddenly relaxed. Lifting your gaze, you look at Namjoon settling down and rummaging his bag for the report. Then you realise; you trust him. He has proved all your expectations wrong and shown his capability and sense of responsibility over and over again. There's no reason for you to worry. He must have made the changes after making sure that he is correct, and you feel a little small for doubting him.

Still, when he turns the pages of the report, you lean closer to see the numbers his index finger is pointing at. "You just did a miscalculation here. It's supposed to be three-point-six to the power of negative five, not the power of negative six," he says in a matter-of-fact tone.

You plunge your hand into your bag to search for your calculator, but he is one step ahead of you. "Here, use mine," he says, setting the black device on the table so he can watch while you double check the mathematical workings.

He is right; your calculation was off by a power of ten. The guilt deepens as you try to formulate an apology. "I did get it wrong. I'm sorry about that, and thanks for correcting it."

"Hey, it's no big deal," he grins, the prominent dimples making another appearance. "I can't believe that the tiger actually makes mistakes."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh! Um," his eyes dart away from yours as he realises that he has committed a faux pas. "I didn't mean it in a bad way. Everyone makes mistakes after all."

"No, I don't mean that," you clarify. "What did you call me?"

This time you can see the tips of his ears colouring as you zone in on the slip of his tongue. "I thought you knew... the guys in our class call you that. B-behind your back, of course."

He says it like it's a good thing, but you ignore his last sentence. You know that they talk about you behind your back, but to have a nickname that isn't meant in a good way actually hurts more than you could have imagined. To you, caring about your grades is a good thing, necessary even, since you have a scholarship to maintain. Attending a private university costs a fortune, but you made your choice when you wanted to join one of the best programs the country has to offer. You have no choice but to do your best in assignments, tests and reports, even if it means having to be strict with your partners. It's just as frustrating for you to get an uncooperative teammate as it is for them to get an overzealous one.

"I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have said that," Namjoon apologises, correctly interpreting your silence as a sign of being hurt. "Especially since I don't agree with them."

"It's not like I enjoy asking people to do our joint assignments properly," you say, glad to hear that your voice is coming out strong and stable. "I'd love for someone else to take the reins, but we can't all be rich kids who don't need to care about their GPA."

"I understand. That's why I really am sorry."

You nod mutely, accepting his apology. A few moments of silence pass, and he adds, "Some rich kids do care about their GPA, you know."

Scoffing in disbelief, you glance sideways to see him already looking at you. "You mean, like you?"

"Well, more than academic performance, I'm actually interested in learning. I'm not here to just get a degree to make my parents happy. Although there's that too, of course," he acknowledges with a tilt of his head.

You hum thoughtfully at his statement, a little impressed despite yourself. Once in a while you've had to remind yourself that you're ultimately in the pursuit of learning, not just to get straight A's. "You must be one in hundreds then."

"The only one in this class probably," he laughs, and you can't help but crack a smile even though it isn't even that funny.

"And you're the only one around here who makes me feel happy just by smiling," he comments on your improving mood.

"What?"

"I'm just saying you should smile more. You look so uptight most of the time."

"How can I help it, with the guys calling me names behind my back," you say half-jokingly, trying to gloss over the fluttering of your heart at his previous comment.

"Who cares about them? A smart, capable woman like you doesn't need a man to survive, or to be happy. Unless... you need to get laid?" A wiggle of his eyebrows accompanies the last remark.

"W-what?" You repeat stupidly, flabbergasted at being asked such a daring question by the guy you've developed a crush on out of the blue.

"I mean, how long has it been since you've gotten some physical satisfaction?" He rests his elbow on the table and plants the side of his face in his palm, watching you as if your answer to the question is the most interesting thing in the world. You, on the other hand, don't think you've ever felt more mortified your entire life.

Before you can think of a response, he bursts into laughter. His impossibly deep voice makes his guffaw insanely sexy, and your body responds accordingly, tingling at the pleasant sound. "You're cute when you get all panicky like that. It's good to see another side of you, different from the intimidating student with perfect GPA. See, you're a normal human being just like the rest of us," he nudges you playfully and looks away, a signal that you're off the hook.

However, something about his words, something about him makes you want to answer the question. To expose your weak, vulnerable self. To show him that he should not be intimidated by you. "It’s been a while."

"Hmm?"

You're not sure if he didn't hear your whispered answer, or if he doesn't understand what you meant by it. "It has been a while since I... got any physical satisfaction, as you put it."

At first he looks surprised by your confession, but in a split second his features soften, then turn thoughtful. You can almost see the gears turning in his head before he ceases any and all of your mental activity by leaning in to whisper, "How long has it been since someone got this close to you, then?"

Warm breath tickles the shell of your ear, the close proximity, the smell of soap from his morning shower mixed with his scent causing your heart to beat twice as fast. "A-a while."

"Really?" He sounds genuinely surprised, but is quick to recover to pull back just a little so he can cup your face and look into your eyes. "Then... how long has it been since you've been kissed?"

Before you can answer, he darts forward, pressing his lips to yours. Even though the kiss is soft, almost hesitant, it catches you by surprise. Your eyes wide, unblinking, unlike his closed ones, so near you can see each eyelash, but not for long. It's not difficult to give in to the kiss, your eyelids fluttering shut and you press back against him.

Sensing your reciprocation encourages Namjoon to deepen the chaste contact, angling his head to get even closer and making things a lot less innocent. His tongue swipes your bottom lip and you part them immediately, letting him explore your mouth. The hand on your cheek remains there, his thumb softly brushing back and forth but his other hand has other ideas, moving down the side of your body.

The white lab coat you're wearing adds another barrier to his touch but he doesn't let it deter him, continuing to the hem of your skirt where it meets your knees. He pushes them apart so he could drag his stool a little closer between them, hiking your modest skirt up to your mid-thighs. You're already short of oxygen from his kiss, but air flow seems to completely stop as you feel the slightly rough palm brushing against your inner thighs, making its way closer and closer to your center.

Nervousness mounts inside you, but you don't want to stop him, regardless of what he may think when he discovers the proof of your arousal between your legs. Sure enough, it only takes a gentle pressure on your panties to tell both of you that you've soaked through the material. He pulls back a little, breaking the kiss but still close enough for you to see that his brown irises have all but disappeared with lust. "How long has it been since you've gotten this wet?"

His question retains some of the teasing that it had earlier, but it is almost unrecognisable under the need in his voice. "I don't remember," you breathe, barely able to get the words out. The statement is truthful; you honestly can't remember when you've gotten so aroused, if ever. All you know is that you want him to keep touching you, even if it causes you to burst into flames.

You sigh into his next kiss as he rubs your core through the ruined panties, but shame returns when he backs away and abruptly sinks to his knees between your legs. His hungry gaze pierces into you as he silently hooks the band of your panties. Biting your lower lip, you nod and lift yourself up using the seat as a leverage so he can pull your underwear down.

With your skirt bunched up nearly to your waist, your pussy is completely exposed to him. Knowing that he can see your juices dripping onto the stool fills you with utter mortification, but his position between your legs prevents you from closing them. He runs the tips of his fingers up and down your slit tentatively, experimentally applying more and more pressure, enjoying the increasing volume of your moans until two of his digits pierce into your warm heat.

You hiss in pleasure as your walls part to make room for his fingers, moving in and out slowly at first, but gradually gaining speed. Unconsciously you buck forwards, blinding searching for more, just a fraction of an inch but it doesn't go unnoticed by Namjoon. Using his free hand, he coaxes you to widen the space between your legs so he can lean forward to flick his tongue over your clit.

"Namjoon!" You gasp and he groans, from the taste of you or from his name uttered so wantonly from your lips, you're not sure which. He alternates between giving your bundle of nerves kittenish licks that drive you crazy and pressing the flat of his tongue against it, making you tremble. His digits never stop moving, now making obscene noises every time he shoves them into your flooding core, but you can't bring yourself to care.

That is, until his dewy lips form an 'o' to suck on your clit, and any remaining sense you have is tossed out the window. Your grip on the edge of the table is so hard that your knuckles turn white but you hold on, calling his name over and over as the only thing you can think of is his mouth attacking your sensitive bud and his fingers hooking to brush against that spot inside you and you simply explode. From head to toe your body shakes from your orgasm, head thrown back as you hold on to the table and the strands of his hair so you don't topple off the stool.

Blinding white adorned with stars fills your vision as your high takes over, not noticing that Namjoon has removed his fingers so he can lap up your juices. Once you've regained your sight, he has already licked you clean, although the lower half of his face is covered with your essence. The sight floods your pussy again and this time you make the initiation, pulling him up to share a rough kiss, but before you can do anything else, the sound of your classmates approaching wrenches both of you back to reality.

Remembering where you are drives you into a panic, hopping down your seat to yank your ruined panties back on so hurriedly you almost fall over but Namjoon quickly grabs you by the shoulders and hold you steady until you're ready to sit again. Then he swiftly wipes his face with the sleeve of his shirt just as the first of the students pile in. Your cheeks are blazing with arousal and embarrassment, and for the rest of the morning you can't bring yourself to look at Namjoon for more than two seconds, focusing on the motions of the experiment instead of his face, his lips, his fingers... and the tent in his pants that he tries to hide by standing as close to the desk as possible.

After that incident, you find yourself talking to Namjoon a little more. Just a little more. Your conversations mainly revolve around classes and assignments, never anything personal, but at least you've gone beyond the formal weekly emails that you exchange for the sake of your lab reports. However, neither of you brought up that occurrence again, and you start thinking that it was just the one time. Slowly you're able to gather your courage to act normally around him again, even as your feelings for him grow, enraptured by his personality and wit. On the other hand, part of you is disappointed that he hasn't made another move since.

Your contact with him, even in classes are still minimal, since you usually sit with the more studious girls and he typically hangs around with the guys in the class, although sometimes you spot him sitting away from the rowdy crowd when he wants to concentrate. Times like these make you wish that you can sit next to him, wondering if he will make interesting comments on the topics covered in the courses as he usually does in your shared lab sessions. The cowardly side of you prevents you from taking the leap, afraid of what others will think if you suddenly sit close to him, wondering if people will assume that you're dating if you do so.

It's not much of a concern for Namjoon it seems, as you find out a fortnight later. Halfway through your Process Plant Design class, the lecturer flashes the next assignment on the large projector before the computer room. You look at the problem carefully, mentally planning the design of the heat exchanger in your mind, but your thoughts are interrupted when he declares that the work must be completed in pairs. Upon finishing his announcement, students get up from their chairs at once, navigating around the long tables to secure a partner of their choice. You're glued to your seat, watching your girl friends pair with each other, swivelling your head to see anyone you can team up with.

"Wanna do this together?"

Tilting your head up, relief washes over you even before you see Namjoon, because you already know that it's him. You'd recognise that pleasant voice anywhere. You nod, agreeing right away and pull up a chair so he can sit next to you in front of the computer you've been using. This course includes the usage of AutoCAD, a drawing software that you find very engaging. You thoroughly enjoy figuring out the commands needed to draw the equipment, examining the results at different angles, slowly building the 3-D models to completion.

As usual, you like to do things methodically, but Namjoon works a little differently than you do. You don't notice very much since you take turns working on the lab reports separately, but now that you're discussing the assignment, you realise that he loves trying new things. He prefers to attempt the problem at hand using steps that are not established, experimenting with the software. At first you find it extremely frustrating since it results in a lot of mistakes, but slowly you start to enjoy his way of going about the homework, learning almost as much about the software in one day as you have the whole semester.

In fact, the two of you get so engrossed in the drawing that you stay for over an hour after the class ends, the lecturer telling you that he needs to lock the room by eight that night and reminding you to leave by then. You don't stay that long, but the sky is already tainted a deep orange when you and Namjoon exit the building. You start heading off in the direction of your dormitory, but he stops you by grabbing your wrist, freezing you in your tracks at the first physical contact you've had with him since he touched you so intimately.

"Where are you going?"

"Back to my dorm," you answer incredulously. He must know where you're staying; most of the students are staying at the dorms, as the university is quite isolated, housing options are very limited.

"I'll walk you back," he offers, but it's more of a statement than a request.

"Isn't the boys' dormitory the other way?"

"Yeah, but it's getting late." True enough, the walkways between the buildings are deserted, most of the students have already headed back after classes, the latest of which is at 5 o'clock. You don't intend to argue with him, but the direction he's dragging you towards makes you dig your heels into the cemented walkway, forcing him to slow down, but you're not strong enough to make him stop completely.

"Namjoon! Why are we going this way?" You exclaim as he pulls you away from the buildings into the large circular garden in the middle of the academic structures.

"Because this is a shortcut, dummy."

"I know that," you retort. The beautiful campus has the departments built around the huge garden. Although a 'park' seems a more fitting term; it has sections of trees growing thick and in large enough groups that it's impossible to see through them, several gazebos and even a stream running through it. Cutting across the gorgeous green space would bring you to the other side of the academic grounds, and your dormitory lies just beyond. "But we’re not supposed to use this way after six!"

Namjoon rolls his eyes, suspecting the reason for your protests. "You don't believe this place is haunted, do you?"

"You know that if a security guard sees anyone entering this place after hours, they ask you to take the longer route, don't you?" You counter.

"Did you see any guard stopping us?"

"No."

"Good."

You jerk your arm out of his hold irritably, but continue to walk on the stones placed in a twisting path, a trail made for aesthetic purposes as well as to discourage people from trodding on the grass. "Do you know why one side of the buildings is never finished?" The buildings surrounding the garden are built in the shape of a five pointed star, but one side remains unfinished and deserted.

His non-committal shrug almost goes unnoticed out of the corner of your eye as you widen your strides, eager to escape the park. "It's because they won't let the university build on their land."

"Who's 'they'? You mean ghosts?" He doesn't sound convinced, not by a long shot, but he's not making fun of you either, and you're thankful for that.

"Ghosts. Demons. I don't know, supernatural beings. The university isn't new and it's not like they don't have money so why don't they finish it otherwise? It's the only explanation. And you know that stream is part of their dwelling too, don't you?" You point to the running water just a few metres away, repeating the stories your seniors have told you.

"You know that people say talking about them is a way of summoning them, don't you?" His soft whisper from behind you lends the words a creepy air and you immediately clamp your lips shut. You continue walking resolutely, fuming at your own idiocy. "You were the one who made me talk about it," you blame him. Only silence greets your unfair accusation, and after a few steps you realise that the sound of his sneakers have stopped.

Turning around, your heart leaps into your throat. Behind you stands no one. "Namjoon?" You call, fear making you frantic, wondering what caused his disappearance.

"Namjoon!" You start to retrace your steps despite being scared out of your wits, finding him being the only goal in your mind. However, before you can take more than a few steps, a hand taps your shoulder from behind, making you scream, the worst scenarios playing in your head. It's only Namjoon, laughing so hard he has to clutch his stomach.

"Fuck you, Namjoon! That was mean," you scold him, your voice coming out much louder than you intended as you realise that he must have hidden in some of the greeneries to scare you. You march past him at full speed, not caring for his company for a second longer.

He follows you from behind, still chuckling softly but it soon dies down when he realises how angry you are at his little prank. Catching up to you is easy with his long legs but upon catching sight of your teary eyes he sobers completely, then apologises somberly. You ignore that apology as well as his subsequent ones and after a while he falls silent. Still, he sees you right to your dorm, where you leave him without so much as a 'goodnight', much less a 'thank you'.

Over the next few days, messages from him continues to fill your inbox at sporadic intervals; either apologies or attempts to start a conversation, all of which are ignored, but he has a good sense to stop just before he gets on your nerves too much. The time also gives you a chance to reflect upon your actions. Instead of remaining angry at Namjoon, your vexation turns onto yourself. You're not completely unreasonable, and you do know that he was just playing a harmless joke, but when you actually think about it, the reason you're so annoyed is because how it made you react. The crush on him is something that you've already acknowledged, albeit a little begrudgingly, but what you didn't expect is the depth of your feelings for him.

You're used to being overlooked, used to being made fun of, used to being talked about behind your back, used to be taken advantage of and used to being the brunt of jokes due to your intimidating behaviour in classes, too-serious personality and strong outward front. You've told yourself over and over again that you don't care, yet it has made you even more closed off to people, afraid to show that you're just as flawed as the next person, that you're not strong because you want to be, but you're strong because you have to be. It doesn't matter what others think of you because people don't really know you, but with Namjoon it's different.

It may have started out as an accident, but Namjoon has seen through your cracks and instead of thinking less of you as you'd expected, he respects you even more as a person because of it. Your weaknesses, instead of being something to be hidden, becomes the reason he wants to get to know you better. The progress may have been slow, but you've been lowering your guard more and more around him as your trust in him grows. Perhaps that is why it hurt you so much when he laughed at you, even over something silly.

Your insecurities may have played a part in the way you reacted, but you know that it's your shock over your feelings for him that made you lash out. The thought of him in danger, or of simply being absent in your life leaves you cold and terrified. After being used to distancing yourself emotionally from most people, the thought of liking someone this much and potentially opening yourself to being hurt is more than you can handle.

Most of all, as more time passes by, the more idiotic and immature you realise you're being – up to the point where you have no idea what to say to redeem yourself. So when the following week rolls by you sit there on the bench next to him, watching him twist the small red valve wordlessly, still being stupidly silent because you don't know how to express regret over your behaviour.

The air between you and Namjoon is heavy, only broken by his simple comments at how much sodium hydroxide has been used to titrate the solution in the conical flask. Normally you would argue with him over the shade of pink your phenolpthalein has turned into, but this time you write down the readings without complaint, accepting his decisions; your foolish way of making up to him that he probably won't recognise.

Nothing worthy of note happens all morning until you're done with the experiment. You're washing the glasswares used while Namjoon puts them away, and just as you're rinsing the last beaker you hear a smash of glass next to you. The supervising postgraduate swoops down to your table, telling Namjoon off for breaking the glass burette. Others file out of the lab, eager to get lunch but you stay behind, even though you can't do or say anything while he's being berated for his carelessness.

With a warning to be careful in the future and orders to clean up the mess, she exits, still frowning and mumbling to herself, leaving Namjoon behind with you. You get off of your chair and walk over to the corner of the room, scooping up the broom and dustpan that sit on the floor. "That's okay, you can leave, I'll clean up," he says, but you shake your head and start sweeping up the pieces that fell on the floor. "Sorry for troubling you," he apologises yet again, starting to pick up the shards of glass on the table.

"Don't do that, you'll hurt yourself." You let go of the handle of the broom to reach for a cloth to protect your hands as you take the sharp remnants of the glassware from him. He nods gratefully, taking over the sweeping. "Besides, that's my line."

"What do you mean?" He asks, confused.

It's time to set your ego and fears aside. The only way for things to change, for better or worse, is to push past your insecurities. "I'm sorry for acting the way I did before. I know it was just a joke."

"Nah, I'm the one who took it too far," he brushes it off, but you want him to know that you're sincere. About everything.

"Still, I shouldn't have gotten so mad and ignored you after that," you reason, and before he can argue, you continue, "besides, I never returned the favour you did for me that time." You have doubts about bringing this up, but you want him to know what you desire and this is the only way you can think of to bring it about.

"What favour?" His expression is genuinely puzzled as he tips the contents of the dustpan into the special bin for broken glassware.

"Uhm, that... you know." You can feel your cheeks heating up, even though he isn't looking at you, too busy taking off his lab coat and folding it.

When he takes in your hesitation and expression, however, the topic that you're trying to broach suddenly clicks in his mind. "Oh." It delights you to see him flaring pink as well, for the first time seeing Namjoon in a less than his usual confident state. "You don't have to. I didn't do it to get anything in return."

"Why did you do it then?" You ask even though you're dreading the answer. It's not because he pities me, is it?

"Because... I like you," he says with a shy chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck nervously before mumbling, "and you look really pretty in a lab coat."

"Oh." This time it's you who aren't sure how to respond. The cleaning is done, but neither of you move, almost frozen, both not wanting to leave the company of the other. Namjoon has made his feelings clear. It's high time that you do the same. "Well, to be honest... I said I want to return the favour, but it's really because I want to do it."

"Oh." The tension is so thick that you can cut it with a knife. "Why do you want to do it?"

Presented with the same question that you've asked him before, you find the answer thankfully easy. "Because I like you too." With the confession off your chest, you step closer to him. Placing your palms on his chest, you note that he has gotten completely stiff, from shock or nervousness, you don't know which, but his muscles jump pleasantly under his shirt at your touch.

Putting your weight on the balls of your feet and his steady form, you tiptoe to press your lips against his. Namjoon's reactions are reflexive, leaning down so he can deepen the kiss, his hands on your back pushing your body flush against his. Evidence of his arousal is made clear to you just as you feel your underwear dampening, reminding you of your promise. This time it is you who sink down on your knees, trying to make quick work of his belt and jeans. Although the lab takes up most of the floor and it is lunch time, if anyone passes by they can still see you and Namjoon, but that risk adds to the thrill of doing something forbidden. No one would believe that the rigid model student would do such a thing, in a laboratory, no less.

Once you manage to undo his button and zipper, you impatiently pull it down with his boxers, and his cock slaps you in the face as it's released from its confines. "Shit! Sorry, are you okay?" He cups your face in concern, but it doesn't mask how his voice has grown husky with lust. You smile up at him, taking his shaft in your fist and flicking your tongue over the tip, much like the way he flicked his own over your clit weeks ago.

Namjoon's groans fill your ears as you suck on the head, growing louder when you take more and more of him in your mouth. You start bobbing your head up and down his cock, giving him a preview of your warmth as your pussy gets wetter and wetter, begging for his dick. Your hand pumps the other half of his length that you can't quite swallow, meeting your lips every time you take him in. His fingers tangle in your hair, his tight grip providing you with balance but he doesn't force your movements. "God, you're amazing," he croaks when you fondle his balls gently with your free hand, the sudden twitch of his hips warning you of his impending high but you stop before he could reach his peak.

The only sounds coming out of his gaping mouth are the noisy inhale of air to replenish the oxygen in his lungs, but you can see the disappointment etched across his features at your denial. "Namjoon, I want you. Inside me," you tell him clearly, leaving no room for doubts or misunderstandings.

"A-are you sure?"

"Yes," you confirm, nearly tearing up as you rub your legs together, you need him that much. He helps you to your feet and you let him, not trusting the little strength left in the lower half of your body, but he doesn't stop there. A squeal escapes you when he lifts you into his arms, prompting you to wrap your legs around his waist so he can carry you to the table you'd just cleaned earlier, depositing you on the surface and placing himself between your dangling legs.

"Do you know how cute you are when you make sounds like that?" He asks right before he smashes his lips against yours, not giving you an opportunity to answer. "How beautiful you are when you have a serious look on your face?" Your mewls are muffled as he nips on your bottom lip. "How sexy you are when you're like this?" He undoes as many buttons of your blouse as he can without taking off your lab coat, exposing the tops of your breasts to him. "Do you have any idea how hard I've been crushing on you all semester?" He flips your skirt up and pushes your soiled panties to the side, shoving two of his fingers all the way to his knuckles easily due to your overflowing juices.

"Namjoon," you moan, holding on to him for dear life as he slams his digits into you over and over again, already making you shudder with excitement and desire.

"Do you know how delicious you taste?" Retracting his fingers from your heat, he pushes them into your mouth, watching like a depraved man as you suck on them, tasting yourself as your eyes lock onto his. "I could eat you out all day," he professes, coaxing you to lie down on your back and staring at your pink center with only his starving gaze makes you squirm.

You'd love to feel his mouth devouring your pussy again but right now you're desperate for something else. "I need you inside me right now Namjoon. Please."

"Anything you wish," he says with a grin. He tugs your underwear off and runs the head of his cock along your folds, coating it with your arousal. You're already going crazy with the simple contact, and you know you're destined for insanity the moment he pushes into you. Inch by inch he spreads you open, stretching you to the limit to make room for his cock until he's completely buried inside you.

For several moments all you can do is focus on your breathing, while he pauses to give you time to adjust to his size. "Damn, you're so tight. I don't know how long I can last like this," he breathes.

"I don't care. I just want you, Namjoon."

"Fuck," he mutters to himself at your words and begins to move, withdrawing until only the tip remains inside you, then plunging all the way in with such force that you let out a grunt as you're pushed back on the table. "Are you okay?"

"More than okay. It feels so good."

That is all the approval Namjoon needs. Holding your waist in a bruising grip, he starts thrusting hard, mercilessly pounding you into the unforgiving wooden surface. You can't control your cries of pleasure bordering on pain from his powerful thrusts, but you don't want him to stop, so you circle your legs around his middle, lifting your hips to try to meet his piston-like movements.

"Just look at your boobs bouncing in your lab coat like that, fuck you're so hot," he murmurs appreciatively at the sight before him. On the other hand, you can only whimper pathetically as your body jiggles with his thrusts, your limbs starting to tremble as he shoves you closer and closer to the edge.

His name falls from your lips repeatedly with growing urgency as you spin further and further out of control until you finally snap. Your screams heightens his pleasure almost as much as the sensation of your walls caving down on his cock, forcing his own high as he fucks you through your own. His release is hot inside your depths, and you relish the feeling, especially when he moans your name and bends over your body, burying his face in the crook of your neck. Soft kisses along your collarbones draws out a sigh of contentment from you, allowing yourselves a moment to come down from your euphoria before reality takes over.

As soon as you're both dressed, Namjoon helps you off the desk, but doesn't release your hand. His thumb swipes your hand back and forth tenderly as he asks, "I know I went about this all wrong, but would you be my girlfriend, y/n?"

You nod bashfully and feel his interlaced fingers tighten around yours as he smiles happily at your answer, his dimples giving you the urge to poke them. As you stroll out of the lab hand in hand, you wonder to yourself if you should bring an extra pair of underwear in your bag from now on.

#hyunglinenetwork #bts writing squad #armiesnet #noonanet #networkbangtan #bangtan bookclub #namjoon smut #namjoon fluff #bts smut #bts fluff #the tiger's labmate

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renaroo · 8 years ago

Text

The Things That Wait (1/4)

Disclaimer: Red vs Blue and related characters are the property of Rooster Teeth. Warnings: CHARACTER DEATH, Language, Canon-typical violence, Psychological manipulation and trauma Rating: T Synopsis: [Reverse Big Bang Entry] Tucker opens an unexpected email that ends up sending himself and all of the Reds and Blues toward a collision course with the unexpected and the completely deadly. In doing so, they face a beast familiar to many of them -- the Meta -- whose single minded efforts to complete himself with what remains of the Project Freelancer AIs could spell the death for more than a few of them..

A/N: AT LAST! My entry for the Reverse Big Bang held by @rvbficwars in collaboration with my sister from another mister, always lovely and enjoyable beyond compare @theeffar who made me SO pleased by giving me an excuse to create a real Horror Story for an RvB fic -- the one genre I’ve really wanted to try out in RvB but have so far -- until right now -- not had the opportunity for!

The Reverse Big Bang was a blast and working with Effar is, as always, a blast. So very much thank you to the other mods of the blog for running such a smooth, tight ship and for working with me in all my silliness and the confusion of the last few weeks as I tried to straighten out my evolving situation.

The final wordcount for this chapter is 5454 exactly, and the overall wordcount for this four-part fic should be 24k! So YAY! I hope it’s as enjoyable to read as it was to write!

Starting at Zero

One thing they neglected to tell Tucker about being promoted and reassigned was just how fucking boring it was going to be. Which one wouldn’t have thought because, for one, he was having to work with the exact aliens that had been trying to wipe out the entirety of the human race for the whole Great War. That, alone, should have been full of excitement.

But fighting aliens was a lot less dangerous than being worshipped by them, and as much as Tucker’s self-proclaimed ego might have determined otherwise, he was not enjoying the constant drooling of four-jawed creatures who were constantly trying to touch his kid.

Which was weird and creepy.

The other thing they hadn’t told him about his assignment was that he was not the only one to be sent on it. That, as it turned out, happened to be one of the nicer surprises. What with Donut not being the least likable person on the planet. Even for a Red.

Not that Reds and Blues were real.

Maybe that was why they assigned him to the stupid desert in the middle of nowhere. The fact that he could not pretend that Reds and Blues were still a thing, even when Caboose and Church didn’t act like Tucker had more than proven his point.

Somewhat paranoid, Tucker wondered if that had put him on some kind of blacklist. Which didn’t make sense — they promoted him to Private First Class and gave him a cushy job that was basically hanging out with his kid and babysitting some touring diplomats. Even if it had meant all but freakin’ dehydrating in the desert, that was a lot better off than most of the crew from Blood Gulch had been.

He thought. Maybe.

Tucker wasn’t really good with details at the moment.

Especially when he was sitting by his sleeping son, boredly playing solitaire through his HUD, and wondering idly if their alien tourists would get bored of the sand covered pyramids yet so they could move on to a different, better part of the planet.

Like one where actual women were stationed.

After all, last he saw Kaikaina she was still in Blood Gulch and making him pay ransom for the nudes she took of his tramp stamp. And lat he saw Tex…

Well, last he saw of Tex, the closest thing he had to a non-guy friend, she had gone evil, kidnapped his son, and blown up a ship to disappear forever.

Tucker’s life was fucking weird.

He was mulling over the details, and some fleeting thoughts of his career, when the solitaire matte before his eyes suddenly exploded into a flash of white that too him off guard.

The surprise of it made him jump, which only served as an annoyance later when he was left with the realization that it was just a new email alert popping up over his helmet’s HUD.

“Ugh, that’s fucking annoying,” he decided before checking on the email anyway.

While he didn’t exactly have any expectations for what the email was going to pertain to, nothing could have surprised Tucker more than the answer he got. His debit card’s automatic payments had been declined.

“What the hell,” Tucker said out loud, straightening up and glaring at the email before attempting to open his military payroll.

His small utterances had been enough to cause Junior to roll over and sleepily yawn, his rows of teeth clattering together as he did so. The little alien child was looking at Tucker a little bit expectantly.

“Sorry, bud, just go back to sleep,” Tucker tried to assure his kid only for his body to go rigid at the next alert he received. Account not found. “What the…”

Junior woke up even more, sitting up in his bed and chattering nonsense alien blabber at Tucker that he couldn’t be bothered to translate. He then leaned in, looking even more concerned.

“Hold on a sec, kiddo,” Tucker all but ordered before looking over from their bunks to Donut’s bunks. “Hey! Psst! Donut! Donut, wake up! There’s something up with our accounts! Money’s not getting transferred or some bullshit! Do you know how much debt I’ve got riding on being paid off by automatic payments? I’ll give you a preview: it’s fucking staggering!”

With a yawn and stretch, Donut turned in his bunk and looked across the way at Tucker and Junior. The desert had done nothing to diminish his much self-care Donut did, so him turning to look their way required removing his sleeping mask and Tucker and Junior both acclimating to the fact that Donut’s face was covered in some disgusting black mask.

“Tucker, why’re you still awake?” he yawned. “Aren’t we going hiking to the tallest temple tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’m so excited that I can’t sleep,” Tucker replied flatly. “Put on your helmet and check your military account. It’s saying I’m not in the system anymore!”

“How’re you supposed to get paid?” Donut asked, reaching over and grabbing his own helmet.

“That’s the problem!” Tucker groaned in return.

“Okay, okay, calm down,” Donut replied, putting his helmet on, clicking it into place as quickly as he could. The moment everything was aligned, Tucker could see the lights to Donut’s helmet come on and his visor light up. It was kind of like plugging into the Matrix. But being allowed to keep your eyebrows. “What am I looking for again?”

“Account log in,” Tucker answered. “I’m not showing up at all!”

“Huh,” Donut answered without elaboration.

Groaning, Tucker grabbed the sides of his helmet. “Yours too? Maybe it’s just the system’s down?”

“Oh, no, I logged in automatically,” Donut said with a casual flip of his wrist. “I just have more money than I realized. Sc-a-whooore!”

Annoyed, Tucker narrowed his eyes. “Wow, congrats. That’s really fucking comforting.”

“Why? You need a loan?” Donut asked, folding his fingers together.

“No! I was being sarcastic. Like… dude! What the fuck’s going on? Why can’t I find my account?” Tucker asked just before another flash of white crossed his HUD, that time making him yelp and fall back out of his chair.

Donut and Junior both looked at him without moving even an inch to check on him.

“You know, you really should unplug from your helmet more often,” Donut said with a shrug. “Having technology hardwired to your brain twenty-four seven can’t be all that good for you. Or else we would have just all gone Ghost in the Shell ages ago.”

“Gone Matrix, dude,” Tucker corrected. “And I’m fine, it’s just my email alert caught me by surprise.”

“If you say so,” Donut sang, already beginning to take his helmet back off. “That must be whatever troubleshooter was wrong with your stuff. You know how tech is! Sometimes it makes you get in from behind and earn it!”

“No, Donut, I don’t know what that means,” Tucker scoffed, opening the email. “Huh, that’s weird. What the fuck’s going on? It’s all encrypted and shit. Like. it’s a whole page of numbers and bullshit! That’s not going to help me pay my debt off to sassysluts dot com!”

“You pay for porn?” Donut asked in mild concern. “I had no idea being straight was so hard. I just go to Harry Potter sites—“

“I don’t pay for it, I just… sometimes click download when I shouldn’t,” Tucker answered. “It’s asking me to download. I’m totally clicking it because, unlike porn, it’s my email. And viruses never come from emails.”

“I don’t know, Tucker, downloading an unknown email to a helmet connected to your brain seems like a real bad idea,” Donut tried to argue, but of course Tucker had already accepted anyway.

Junior was clicking his jaws in concern and in general looking disturbed.

“Oh my god it’s saying it’s only two percent downloaded,” Tucker whined. “What’ve I done!?”

“You let a stranger in through your backdoor and know you’re going to wake up with regrets in the morning,” Donut responded.

“Okay, you’re no help,” Tucker began to snap when he felt it.

It started with another white flash before his eyes, something that finally didn’t make him jump the way the others before it had, but unsettled him into silence all the same. He was anticipating for the flash to fade back and allow him to move on with his conversation or, at the very least, his download when a harsh chill moved its way down his spine.

The same implants which allowed Tucker to have access to his HUD were beginning to burn, like a computer on overdrive, Like they were running too much, too fast, and the skin around it was burning. He wanted to reach back toward it to yank the metal from his flesh but he couldn’t move. Something was stopping the impulse, like an electric jolt overriding his nerves and sparking in the back of his mind in reverse.

He let out a cry of surprise and stomach churning horror at the sensation. It hurt. It fucking hurt and he was more surprised by the development than anyone.

Vaguely, he could hear his name being called and blarghed nearby him but things were turning inward on him very fast and with a lot of power.

All he knew is it all goddamn hurt and he couldn’t make it stop.

His HUD flashed something other than white for a second, though his brain could hardly process it through the shock and pain. It only really made sense to him later. Ten percent.

His neck, the base of his skull, was scalding and he was sure he was yelling, but he couldn’t hear. It was all white.

Before it said twenty percent he was unconscious entirely.

There were a lot of ways the dream usually started. A few things were the same — the familiar surroundings of his quarters in Blood Gulch, the humidity of an unending arid, summer day, and the complaining. The complaining was probably the most constant of the constants.

After all, you didn’t really spend the better part of five years with someone and not have their quirks imprinted on the front of your skull. Visible every time you closed your eyes.

It was a mark of either torture or a genuine friendship. And it was only someone like Church who could have made the two nigh indistinguishable.

Usually that voice was joined by another — his own, Caboose’s, Tex’s. Less common, the Reds would be there, joining in with the blanket complaints. Tucker liked to think it was a sign that he at the very least had enough self respect to limit his dreams to Blue Base, but it wasn’t always true.

In fact, it was infrequently true enough that hearing Donut interject in the middle of Church’s usual string of complaints was actually not even all that shocking.

“Wow, I can’t believe that just like that, you’d insert into another man like that! I think usually you’d err on the side of caution and at least give them some preparation!”

“What the fuck do you want from me, dude? I panicked! I was haunting a fucking email. It was about as quick thinking as I could get. Plus, you know Tucker. What are the chances he’d open an email titled Warning, Fucking Ghost Inside, Prepare to Have Your Shit Wrecked!”

“I mean, it sounds like the title of a porno.”

There was a thoughtful pause.

“Okay, fair enough. Tucker’s the one jackass that would open anything remotely pornographic. You know, he’s had his identity stolen, like, twelve times! Just since I’ve known him!”

“Is that a lot?”

“Yeah, Donut! It’s a fucking lot! Though, honestly, maybe it wasn’t stolen and he’s just lying as an excuse for why my credit had to be used every time we ordered something for the goddamn base. Between him and Tex, it’s amazing that I didn’t die sooner just to get out of paying interest.”

There was a cooing noise, closer to Tucker’s face that suddenly sprung the marine from drifting between consciousness to full alert. A fatherly instinct that told him that as much as nothing seemed unusual about Church whining and Donut being… himself, he would never ever have a dream where he let Church around Junior without full supervision.

“Dude!” Tucker gasped, jolting awake and sitting up only to partially collapse backwards when the dizziness pounded him, face first.

There were still spots in his vision as Donut fell back, being caught by Donut almost tenderly.

“Hey! Slow down there! You’ve had a lot put in you while you’re out!” Donut said soothingly, if not nonsensically.

Beside him, leaning in close over Tucker’s other shoulder, Junior was fine and visibly unhurt. Concern, though, was racking the young alien’s face as he looked over Tucker worriedly. His jowls clattered together in a series of noises that probably should have been easier for Tucker to decipher, but with his headache and the general confusion of the moment, were just about meaningless.

“I… I thought I was hearing Church…” Tucker babbled confusedly, reaching up to rub at his eyes only to awkwardly discover his helmet was on. Something that he probably should have figured out with his HUD activated, but in his defense he also hadn’t had any idea what else was going on in the moment. “That was… man, that was weird as fuck. Desert’s getting to me.”

“Uh… I don’t know about that…” Donut half sang as he gently guided Tucker back to leaning against a wall.

Tucker began to sober up rather quickly at that, looking directly at Donut with surprise. “Wait! Church is here? I was really hearing him? Holy shit! Where is he? Why hasn’t he ever wrote me back! Dude, you better not be telling me he was going on adventures without me. I would be so pissed — oh fuck. Did he bring Caboose? Fucking bet he brought Caboose. Ugh. Never mind. I need you to grab one of those stupid big rocks the aliens worship and use it to knock me out before Caboose gets here.”

Donut hesitated, as if he was considering the offer, when the moment was interrupted by that familiar, angry voice.

“Hey, jackass! I didn’t bring anyone but myself! And that was already hard as hell, so if you’re not dying or anything I’d like to take a rest or something,” Church snapped at Tucker.

Ah, just like old times.

“Dude! Church! Did you hear what I was asking? Do you have any answers? Do you want to yell them at me? Can I video tape it so I have something to yell at me when you decide to completely fuck off the face of the planet again?” Tucker asked, whipping his head back and forth. The action was causing the pressure behind his eyes to build and the dizziness to only intensify, but Tucker didn’t care. It was worth it to see his friend again.

Of course, it was a little disheartening to not be rewarded with seeing Church.

“Calm down, your vitals are jumping all over the fucking place,” Church snapped.

Tucker squinted. “Vitals?”

“Yeah, I’m haunting your armor. Which fucking sucks, by the way. Why’s your chest piece a size too small?”

“Right!? I’ve been trying to tell people that for ages but no one believes me about how much it chaffs my nipples!” Tucker yelled. “My superior officer always…. told me to shut up and to put matters into my own hands…”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Shut up. And if it bothers you, put matters into your own hands—“ Church began to say only to stop short and hum. “Huh. Okay. I get it.”

“Yeah, plus I definitely took that advice, and that’s why I made my special rock,” Tucker informed him. “But it never helped with the nipple stuff.”

“Gross,” Church replied flatly.

“You had a rock, too!?” Donut cried out excitedly.

“GROSS!” Church repeated. “Okay, seriously, we’re derailing from the actually important shit. Which is getting you guys going while I take a momentary snooze.”

“Going where? Why the hell would we be going anywhere for you?” Tucker asked. “I can’t even see you, dude! It’s making it super confusing to talk to you! And what the fuck is this shit about you hiding in my armor!?”

“What? No! I’m not hiding in your armor, I’m haunting it!” Church snapped.

“I don’t know, Church! It sounded a lot like hiding from the asshole rather than embracing it to me,” Donut corrected, folding his arms. “And trust me, I should know!”

“What!?” Church and Tucker yelled in unison.

“The asshole you were telling me about.” Donut clarified.

“Ah, gotcha,” Church responded. “Okay, that makes sense.”

Hairs prickling on the back of his neck, Tucker raised up his hands over his head. “What the fuck are you doing in my armor!?”

“Oh, calm down. You’re so insecure,” Church snapped. “I’m haunting your armor. And it’s not because I’m hiding from that asshole fucker Agent Washington.”

Tucker reached for his helmet achingly. “Agent what? Okay, seriously, Church, I can’t concentrate on the bullshit you’re saying if I can’t see you. It’s weirding me out! You sound so fucking close and it’s just creepy that I can’t see you!”

“Jesus, Tucker, have you never talked on a cellphone before? Fucksake,” Church groaned.

Without much more hesitation, however, the former Blue leader presented himself. Or what Tucker could only assume was Church presenting himself. It looked like Church, but in his supposed ghost form — glowing white and transparent. Still in his regular armor and with a sniper rifle.

And also super fucking small, floating just a few feet in front of Tucker’s shoulder, like a pirate’s parrot waiting to perch.

“Happy? Better be because I’m fucking exhausted after emailing myself here and explaining everything to Donut already,” Church snapped. “And making myself visible for the most sensitive guy on the planet is only draining me more!”

“Hey, ladies love the sensitivity,” Tucker corrected him.

“Do they? I know I do,” Donut added unnecessarily.

Junior tilted his head and gave a signature Bow Chicka Honk Honk.

Tucker, having spent more than enough time in the desert with him, just gave Donut a frustrated glance and shrugged his hands at him expectantly. “Dude, what’ve I said before?”

“You say a lot of things to me, Tucker, but I usually forget them after Tequila O’Clock, and so do you,” Donut reminded him.

“I leave you for a year and you’ve completely canoodled with the enemy,” Church stated flatly to Tucker.

“You mean colluded, and I didn’t collude with anyone!” Tucker argued.

“I know what I said and now you’re just changing subjects,” Church said pointedly.

“Why’re you haunting my armor and why are you hiding from this Agent Asshole?” Tucker asked somewhat seriously.

“I just told you I’m exhausted from haunting that email. Why can’t you ask Donut? He has the four-one-one,” Church argued.

“Uh, because I want to be able to take it seriously and not have… embellishments,” Tucker said, eyeing Donut a bit, though the Red seemed far from offended.

“Ugh, forget it,” Church groaned. “Long story short, there was a whole lot of bullshit that went down, Agent-Fucking-Washington got me and Caboose together again. We went looking for Tex. Didn’t find shit. And then Washington decided to blow up some dead bodies before telling me that Tex and I aren’t ghosts but we’re computer AIs from this Project Freelancer bullshittery!”

Tucker blinked. “Yeah, checks out,” he said flatly. “Wait, is this guy just an asshole because he pointed out the obvious?”

“It’s not obvious because it’s not true! I’m a ghost and so is Tex, and this entire goddamn planet is the worst kind of purgatory imaginable,” Church huffed angrily.

“Ghosts that get downloaded into armor to haunt them, sure,” Tucker rolled his eyes.

“Don’t fuck with me now, dude, I’m high strung and tired so I need to—“

“Reboot?” Tucker snickered.

“Tucker. I’m telling you, dude, don’t fuck with me right now. I just got exploded-dead by Washington already. I don’t need any additional bullshit,” Church hissed.

“Is that why you’re tired and think he’s an asshole?” Tucker asked, a note of concern in his voice despite his best efforts to suppress it.

“Oh! This is where it gets really interesting,” Donut informed Tucker. He looked like he would have been right at home snacking on some popcorn at that moment.

“No, he’s an asshole because he’s an asshole,” Church affirmed. “And I’m tired because in order to email myself to you before shit went down, I had to use that bastard Wyoming’s time-thingy to send me back before I died and, like, thirty minutes before you, coincidentally enough, sent out a distress signal to the building we were exploding.”

“Wait… you went back in time?” Tucker asked, baffled. “I’m about to send out an emergency signal!? And what’s this bullshit about you exploding a building? Do you need us to go, like, stop that?”

Church let out an annoyed sigh. “Oh my god, you’re really not accepting the fact that I’m tired and Donut has all the info you need.”

“I’ve been with Donut for, like, eighteen months, dude. You’re my best least-hated friend and I’ve not talked to you once since all this shit went down.” He paused for a moment before frowning at Church’s image. “I’ve missed you.”

“Awesome,” Church replied flatly. “Noted. Prepare to miss me even more on your guys’ way to Valhalla.”

“Valhalla?” Tucker asked curiously. “Is that where the explosion is? Wait! Where’s Caboose? Do we need to save him? I’m proficient at saving Churches, but that’s got a, like, fifty percent less chance of happening if Caboose is around!”

“TUCKER! Let me sleep, goddamn!” Church screeched. “Turning off. Sneak yourself and Donut out of here and start toward Valhalla already before shit goes down.”

“Wait!” Tucker cried out only for Church to disappear with an audible click.

He looked at the vacant space where Church had been but as hard as Tucker looked, Church didn’t pop back into existence.

Being at least somewhat aware of his father’s distress, Junior let out another worried noise before crawling into Tucker’s lap. It was a small gesture, but it at least gave Tucker reason to reach out and gently take hold of his son. That hold developed into Tucker protectively picking up the young alien messiah as he knew they were, for better or worse, about to race out into unknown circumstances.

“I don’t know what I hate more,” Tucker lamented. “How much he randomly disappears on me, or how much he’ll just pop back up and ruin a decent goodbye.”

Donut’s head tilted curiously. “Was that a decent goodbye?”

“Dude, how long have you known Church?” Tucker asked seriously.

“Fair enough!” Donut responded in a rather chipper tone.

Annoyed, Tucker pursed his lips and looked Donut’s way. “You realize he really is a computer program, right? Like. That’s the only way anything has made sense since Blood Gulch.”

The Red hummed and tapped a finger on the chin of his helmet. “Well, it would fill in some holes. But I think it’d leave some others gaping wide open! Just desperate to be filled!”

“Yeah, but it’s better than everyone having fucking ghosts but only Church and Tex bother to do anything with them,” Tucker pointed out. “You don’t see fucking Crunchbite around, bitching about how to raise Junior! If he was, I’d fucking ghostbust him!”

“I think Sarge had a ghost, though, maybe,” Donut continued.

“Donut, you’re thinking too hard about it,” Tucker decided. “Church is totally an AI. Someone could only be programmed to be that annoying.”

“So Sarge is programmed too…” Donut gasped. “Tucker! How many people do we know who are just computers?”

“Uh… Lopez… Sheila…” Tucker began listing.

“It’s spreading!” Donut yelled out.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Tucker grunted, shifting Junior in his arms before pushing up to his feet. “Are you coming or not?”

“Oh, I’m always ready to come,” Donut replied before spryly leaping to his feet in one smooth motion. “But should we tell the aliens? I mean… we are representing the Peace Corps. And we are taking Space Jesus with us.”

“Hey! Don’t inflate his ego,” Tucker warned, petting Junior’s head to the child’s annoyance. “I told you, Donut, we Tuckers have naturally inflated egos that make us fucking masters at dishing out what the people want, but also stupid dangerous to flatter. With a much bigger ego, we could take over worlds with charisma alone.”

Donut brought a hand to his chin thoughtfully. “Hm, I would like to see evidence of this.”

“Can’t, too dangerous,” Tucker shrugged in response. “Which, by the way, is also why we’re not telling these alien assholes we’re leaving. Church said that he went back in time because I sent a distress signal from here. Which means we were distressed.”

“Makes sense,” Donut nodded.

“And what’s more distressing than getting turned on by a bunch of conservative nut jobs who want to treat an underaged kid like he’s some kind of holy, reverent shit? These guys are totally going to try to kill us!” Tucker decided.

“It must be the one named Clark,” Donut gasped, pounding a fist into his right hand. “I knew not to trust someone named Clark! Who’s ever been a good guy named Clark!?”

“Superman,” Tucker said without hesitation. “Wait, why Clark?”

“Because Church said your emergency mentioned CT, obviously short for the evil known as Clark!” Donut announced.

Tucker merely stared back at the Red. “Donut, if you know that, then you also knew why I was even suggesting we leave without a note! In fact, you know more shit than I do if Church was telling the truth! We’re just wasting time here!”

“I think we’ve been super productive, actually,” Donut said, folding his arms. “I really wasn’t sold on our motivations until you laid everything out there for me like this. Now I’m totally with this new vision. Not exactly my creative decision, but I like it.”

“Okay, forget it, I like flying by the seat of my pants so let’s just head to this Valhalla place and figure out things from there,” Tucker decided.

“Oh! And while we’re on our way, I’ll fill you in on what Church didn’t mention to you!” Donut replied enthusiastically as he followed Tucker toward the vehicles for their camp.

“He’s dead again, this Agent Washington’s an asshole, Church wants us in a place that I swore was something those Thor movies made up but apparently not,” Tucker listed off. “See? Totally got it.”

“Uh, you’ve got the boring relevant stuff,” Donut argued, jumping into the driver’s seat. “He didn’t even start to tell you what Red Team did on their adventure before exploding the building!”

“Red Team was there? Jesus, how the fuck did that not make it to the summary?” Tucker asked, setting Junior in the seat between them and buckling him in.

“Eh. I’d say narrator’s bias,” Donut answered.

He started up the Warthog they were in and before the aliens could even stir awake at their camp, Donut was flooring it and they were bounding out of the desert. It was just Tucker’s hope beyond hope that along with the Red Team shenanigans, Church managed to also tell Donut how to get to the near mythical Valhalla.

Valhalla, as it turned out, was far enough away from the desert temple that an entire body of water and some grassy knolls were along the way before they even got close.

Whether it was sleep or recharging, Church kept true to his word and was a non-presence for the vast majority of the trip. It kept Tucker’s headaches and confusion at bay, but didn’t remove the consistent, low hum from the back of his mind throughout the trip. It really was less and less like any haunting Tucker had ever been aware of and more like some kind of computer virus to his whole body.

Though, when he mentioned the analysis out loud to Donut, he was assured that it made absolutely no sense as an analogy.

Donut’s own biases, however, were just as self evident.

“And that’s why I absolutely cannot believe that Church just left out everything that Sarge, Grif, and Simmons did during the whole adventure! You could really make an argument that they were the whole catalyst for so much of what happened!” Donut argued, driving them through the grassy planes, seemingly oblivious to even the idea that there could have been some sort of pathway or road for them to take instead.

Junior was curled up in Tucker’s lap, trying to sleep despite the off roading unease, so big by then that he was half out of Tucker’s lap entirely.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that it was totally necessary to know everything they did alongside Church, Caboose, and Washington, but it did help make some sense out of all the random elements that came into play,” Tucker agreed.

Looking dissatisfied with the compromise, Donut sniffed and tilted his chin up and away from Tucker. “No appreciation for storytelling,” he surmised.

“Guess not,” Tucker shrugged. He then looked ahead to the direction Donut was guiding them toward. He shifted uncomfortably. “Man. I thought after all that time stuck at that boring temple, seeing some green and life again would be a huge relief but… it’s just kinda unsettling to keep driving through more and more wilderness, y’know?”

“Nope, have no idea what you mean,” Donut shrugged.

“It’s like… at the end of this, are we just going to find some cabin in the woods we have to stay at. Like idiots? And then we do something that unleashes some unholy terror on us? And we’re picked off one by one?”

Donut tilted his head. “Huh. That wouldn’t take too long. There’s only four of us. Three if you and Church count as the same person! Do unholy terrors go after ghosts? I’m not sure. I was never really that religious.”

“Fuck if I know. I one time told a girl dressed up like the Virgin Mary that I’d fill her with some Holy Spirits, and next thing I know middle school Tucker isn’t allowed in any church in all of Detroit!” Tucker deadpanned. It wasn’t the zinger he was hoping for, mostly because Junior was asleep and unavailable for their patented trademark, but also because barely a breath had left his lungs before he was looking ahead and faced with a rather shocking sign laid out before them. He raised up slightly in his seat before settling down again to not disturb Junior. “Whoa! Look how fucking tall that is — holy shit! Are these bases?”

“Yup! Looks like we got to Valhalla — just like Church described, just less destruction. Guess he exaggerated on that part,” Donut said cheerfully just before they pulled over another hill and saw the long stretch of grassland between the two bases. Then, suddenly, they were met with several crashed helicopters, vehicles, and scorching fires around each. Also, in the distance, a familiar wrecked ship could be seen. “Whoops! I stand corrected! My bad,” Donut added.

“Yeah, this isn’t much better than my idea bout the cabin,” Tucker said flatly. He looked around just once before a bright white light flickered on over his shoulder, drawing both his and Donut’s attention toward it. He raised his brows expectantly. “Well, well. Look who joined the world of the living. Finally. Good sleep, Church?”

“Yeah, I’m back to one hundred percent, you could say,” Church replied candidly.

Tucker leaned toward Donut and stage whispered, “Like a battery…”

“Hey, I can hear that, jackass!” he snapped. “Forget that, though, tell me what you guys did about the people who surrounded you.”

“What people?” Donut asked.

No sooner had the exchange completed than the distinct sound of multiple guns clicking to lock their triggers could be heard just behind them.

Church flinched. “Ohhhh.”

Stiffly, Donut and Tucker both glanced to each other and then slowly raised their hands.

“Church,” Tucker said in annoyance, “ghost or computer — doesn’t matter. You’re, like, the worst wingman.”

“Ever. Of all time,” Church added.

“What?” Donut asked.

“How the hell did I give you details about every little thing that happened, and didn’t remember to explain that?” Church asked with annoyance of his own. But it was far from something Tucker could concentrate on.

The real concern, for the moment at least, was figuring out how to get themselves out of the current disaster. And, hopefully, to find out exactly what the hell was going on.

#writing #rvb fic #RvB: The Things That Wait #Lavernius Tucker #Leonard L Church #Franklin Delano Donut #Alpha Church #Tucker Junior

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