#been working on the story for so long as well

[shadowfoxsilver]

There's this really cool thing that a handful of diaspora Palestinians have committed a lot of time and effort to called vetting (maybe you've heard of it?) in which they speak directly with a fundraiser holder face-to-face or over phone/video call to verify all portions of a fundraiser. There are so many posts [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] that talk about the details of this process to verify that a fundraiser organizer, recipient, and the details are correct by verifying legal documents like proof of residence, photo ID, fluency in Palestinian-Dialect Arabic, family tree constructions, etc.

These vetters have been posting about Palestinian/Gaza/Arab culture/Islam/etc. for a really long time, [1] [2] [3] (these are Wayback machine links to the tumblr accounts of 90-ghost, el-shab-hussein, & nabulsi before you start crying "but, you can post backdate on tumblr!") [4] (moayesh's Instagram because his tumblr is fairly new) meaning that they didn't just pop up after Oct 2023 to start posing as a qualified individual. They are real diaspora Palestinians with stories to tell and culture to share.

GFM also has strict requirements for withdrawing money, needing evidence of a bank account from a country they service and a solid way to transfer funds from that bank account to the recipient's bank account. If the funds are withheld from the intended recipient, that can be reported to and resolved by GFM.

If you're too overwhelmed by trying to distinguish between scams and real fundraisers, then whatever. That's your problem, not everyone else's. You don't need to publicly announce to everyone that you're too busy/tired/incompetent/ignorant to properly investigate fundraisers, so everyone else should stop supporting them as well. There are plenty of vetters and scam-busting blogs dedicated to helping people distinguish between real and fake.

Donating to established nonprofit aid organizations is absolutely a good deed and is much more straightforward, but it's not the only way to help. Especially with the repeated aid blockages, sometimes Ghazan families need a more direct flow of money to pay for the ridiculously inflated cost necessities (I recently received a video from Farah wherein she states that a bottle of dish soap cost $50. $50!!!!) as well as save up for evacuation costs once the Egyptian border crossing opens. (Thousands of dollars!)

With a few minor parts removed, here is a copy/pasted text that was originally in a reblog but now in its own post since the original account is gone. Links that didn’t work anymore have been left out. I figured it’d be useful for anyone who needs it.

[requiemforthepoets]

Would you be interested in writing something for Oscar? I feel like he would be the perfect guy to have your firsts with, so understanding and cute like imagine having your first kiss with him. He would be so understanding and would kiss you with so much care and ugh I need me a man like him☹️ would you be down to write something like that?

in a world full of wrong, you’re the only thing that’s right 𖦹 OP81

PAIRINGS: oscar piastri x female!reader

SUMMARY: the idea of falling in love scares you, but at the same time, you long for it. wanting to experience how it feels like having someone by your side.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: thank you for your request! i’m sorry that this one took days, i had already finished the original version of this one, but i was not happy with it so i scraped it off and decided to write a new one. i had also took some creative liberty if it’s alright with you. i hope that this one is up to your expectations. enjoy! :)

REMINDERS: this is purely fiction, the way how the character is portrayed in my story does not reflect the person that is portraying my character in real life. always separate fiction from reality, and do not repost or copy my work in any way.

WORD COUNT: 2.7k

WARNINGS: not proofread, typos, no use of y/n, traditional upbringing, reader is an only daughter, overthinking, anxiety, fear of falling in love, and some fluff

You had never been in a relationship before Oscar. In fact, you had no idea what being in love was even supposed to feel like at all. So when your friends came to you, venting about their partners or asking for some advice, you would just sit there, nodding along, and pretending to understand everything that they were saying. But the truth was that you were clueless. You had never experienced the ups and down that they spoke of. No fights over silly things, no making up with heartfelt apologies, no lingering fear of being left behind. Part of you had always wondered what it would feel like to have someone special, someone to lean on, but another part of you was terrified–utterly terrified of the vulnerability, terrified of the idea that maybe one day, that person you end up with could hurt you.

You had been raised in a traditional household, the kind where dating wasn’t just for fun, but that is meant to last with the intention of marriage. Your parents always told you to be very careful, that relationships were serious and sacred. It doesn’t help that you are an only child as well, so your parents can be really overprotective of you. So, when you found yourself daydreaming about having a boyfriend, the thought would always come with a sense of guilt. You’d see your friends with their partners and wish, even just for a second, that you could have that too. But then again, these fears would creep in–what if he cheated? What if he wasn’t who you thought he was? What if you weren’t enough? The doubts swirled around in your head constantly. But then, everything changed when you met Oscar.

You met him in a way that you never expected you would. It was during a vacation in Monaco with some friends. The week had been loud and chaotic–late night dinners, laughter, and a bit of madness here and there. Needing some peace and quiet, you decided to stroll around by yourself. The streets of Monaco were breathtaking, and you let yourself get lost in the gorgeous scenery, with your thoughts floating somewhere far away. So far that you didn’t even notice the guy speeding towards you on his bike. Before you knew it, he swerved, narrowly avoiding a collision, but you lost your balance and tumbled to the ground.

“Shit! Are you okay?” The voice was concerned but soft, and when you looked up, you saw a pair of worried eyes staring down at you. He had already jumped off his bike and was holding out his hand to help you up. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Oscar said, pulling you to your feet gently. His touch was warm and cautious, as if he was afraid you’d break.

“No, no, I should have been paying attention,” you quickly brushed it off, though your heart was racing for more reasons than just the fall. Up close, he was…well, you weren’t sure if it was the adrenaline or something else, but he was strikingly handsome. You didn’t know if it was love at first sight or from the shock of falling, but something inside you shifted in that moment.

“You sure you’re okay? I feel terrible about this.” He frowned slightly, scanning you for any sign of injury. “Let me take you to a hospital, just in case.”

You laughed nervously. “I’m fine, really. There’s no need for that.”

He didn’t seem convinced at all, but after some insistence, Oscar backed off. “Alright, if you’re sure. At least let me make it up to you. How about some coffee? My treat.”

Well, that’s pretty much how it all began. One coffee turned into another, then into long conversations about everything and nothing. You couldn’t quite believe how easy it was to talk to him. Usually you’d find yourself nervous around guys, but he was kind, thoughtful, and never made you feel uncomfortable and pressured. Slowly, those coffee dates turned into something more, and before you know it, Oscar had asked you to be his girlfriend. Though you couldn’t help but cringe when you thought back to the moment you said yes to him. You had never been so flustered, unsure of how to respond, that instead of a kiss like a normal person, you just gave him a hug. A damn hug. You had felt his arms wrap around you tightly, his laughter vibrating in his chest.

“So I take it that it’s a yes, then?” he had asked, his voice teasing but soft.

You had nodded into his shoulder, very embarrassed beyond belief. But Oscar being Oscar, he didn't care. He hadn’t even brought it up afterwards, as if he’d expect nothing more than that simple embrace–and that’s what you loved about him. Oscar never pushed you, never made you feel like you always had to rush into anything. He was patient and understanding in a way that felt comforting. Sometimes, late at night, you would lie next to him, just staring at the ceiling, wondering how you got so lucky. The fears you once had, the doubts that plagued your mind–none of them seemed to matter anymore every time you are with him.

One evening, after spending the day together exploring the city, you found yourselves sitting on a park bench, watching the sunset. It was quiet, the kind of comfortable silence that you loved and felt like home.

“Do you ever wonder if this is all real?” you asked him, your voice barely above a whisper. Oscar turned to look at you, his expression gentle. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know…sometimes I just can’t believe this is happening. I never thought I’d be in a relationship like this. Felt overwhelming and surreal sometimes.” he smiled, reaching out to take your hand in his. “I get it. I never thought I’d meet someone like you either.”

You blushed at his words, feeling the warmth of his hand in yours. “You really mean that?”

“Of course I do,” he said, squeezing your hand lightly. “You don’t have to worry, okay? I’m not going anywhere.”

At that moment, you knew. You knew very well that all the fears you once had, all the time you had spent overthinking and countless anxiety–they didn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. With Oscar, you felt safe, loved, and secured in a way you had never imagined. He wasn’t just your first boyfriend, he was your first in everything–the first person to show you what love really felt like.

Six months into your relationship with Oscar, you had managed to avoid what most people would consider a natural part of being a couple–kissing him on the lips. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to, hell you definitely do want to kiss him so badly, to the point you had daydreamed about it plenty of times, thinking about how his lips might feel against yours. But every time you thought about it, your mind would spin, and your nerves would take over. You’d never kissed anyone before, and the idea of messing up, of completely not knowing what to do, terrified the shit out of you. Sure, you had kissed him on the cheeks, hugged him endlessly, but never once had your lips touched his. You couldn’t help but wonder how Oscar was so patient with you, how he never complained or pushed for more, he was very understanding in a way that made you feel safe. Sometimes, you even questioned how he could be satisfied or survived with just a few cheek kisses.

Yes, you had been raised in such a traditional household, but Oscar was special–so incredibly special–that the pressure you put on yourself to make the moment perfect felt overwhelming. Still, you knew that at some point, you’d have to gather the courage to just do it. But every time you tried to psych yourself up, you’d just freeze, thinking about it drove you crazy. There would be times where you’d hear people joke about you being a prude, or wonder aloud how anyone could go long without kissing their partner on the lips, but the truth was, you were just terrified.

Then came Baku. It was Oscar’s second win at the Baku Grand Prix, and you had traveled to the race with his family to cheer him on. The excitement in the air was evident as you stood by the barricades at the Parc Fermé, anxiously waiting for him to climb out of his car. Your heart raced as you watched him pull into the P1 space, his car coming to a stop, and pulled himself out of the cockpit.

Your heart nearly stopped when he stumbled slightly as he got on the top of his car, and you had to suppress the urge to vault over the barrier to make sure he was okay. But Oscar quickly steadied himself, he then pulled off his helmet and balaclava in one smooth motion, his hair a sweaty mess, but his eyes bright with victory. Oscar spotted you instantly, a wide grin breaking out across his face as he ran quickly towards you, and before you knew it, you were wrapped up in his arms. You held him tightly, feeling the energy and adrenaline coursing through him as he hugged you back.

“I’m so proud of you,” you whispered against his shoulder, the words almost lost in the noise of the crowd. “You were incredible.”

Oscar pulled back just enough to look at you, his hands finding their place gently on your cheeks. His thumb brushed your skin softly, and for a brief moment, the noise of the world around you seemed to fade away. He gazed at you with so much love in his eyes, the kind that made your heart flutter. Oscar had always been patient, understanding, never once pressuring you into anything you weren’t ready for. He knew about your fears, about how you hadn’t had your first kiss yet, but you had never told him why. Even without knowing the full reason, he had always respected your space and waited for you to feel comfortable.

But something was different today. The way he looked at you was different, and you felt it too–a shift inside you, a calmness you hadn’t expected. You weren’t scared at this moment, not with him. Somehow, Oscar seemed to sense that change too. He smiled softly, his hands still cradling your face as he leaned in just slightly.

“Is this okay?” he asked quietly, giving you the chance to back out if you needed to.

Your heart raced in your chest, feeling like it was gonna leap out from your chest, but for the first time in months, it wasn’t out of fear. It was out of love, out of excitement, out of knowing that this was the moment. You smiled up at him, nodding gently. That was all he needed.

Oscar’s touch remained as gentle as ever, his hands caressing your face as he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead. It was familiar, comforting, something he’d done a thousand times before. Then, he kissed the tip of your nose, making you giggle softly, your nerves starting to melt away. Then finally, he leaned down and kissed you on the lips.

The world seemed to stop as his lips met yours, soft and warm, and everything you had feared about this moment vanished. It wasn’t awkward or overwhelming like you had imagined–it was simple, perfect. Oscar kissed you gently, not rushing, not pushing for more than you were ready for. It was the kind of kiss that made you feel safe, like he was letting you know that this was just the beginning, and there was no need to rush. When he pulled back slightly, his forehead rested against yours, both of you smiling softly, sharing a private moment amidst the chaos of the race celebrations around you.

“That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Oscar teased you lightly, his voice warm and full of affection. You laughed softly, feeling a warmth spread through your chest. “I guess not,” you whispered, hands still resting against his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your fingertips.

Oscar smiled, kissing your forehead again, and you knew in that moment that no matter how scared you had been before, being with him made everything feel right.

Later that evening, after all the chaos of the podium celebrations, press interviews, and flood of congratulatory messages, you found yourself in a much quieter setting with Oscar and his family. The energy from the race still buzzed in the air, but there was a sense of calm now, a comfortable warmth that filled the room as you all gathered around for a private celebration. You felt so at home with his family, like you were part of the family, and in moments like these, you couldn’t help but think of how lucky you were to have Oscar and this incredible group of people who treated you with so much love.

Dinner was simple but perfect, the conversation flowing easily between stories of the race and light-hearted teasing. You were sitting beside Oscar, with your hand resting comfortably under the table, something that felt so natural now, like an unspoken connection between the two of you. He would glance over at you every now and then, giving you that boyish smile that made your heart skip a beat every time. The moment you shared earlier at the track still lingered in your mind–your first kiss. It felt surreal, but in the best way possible.

After the dinner, Oscar had asked if he can spend the remainder of the night with you alone, to have some private moment. His family agreed and a few teasing had been made as well, but you and Oscar just laughed. By then, you decided to return to the hotel, to have some private and alone time with each other. Oscar sat beside you on the couch, his arms draped casually around your shoulders, pulling you close. His fingers played lightly with a strand of your hair as you leaned into him, your head resting on his chest. The bustling noise of the city seemed to fade into the background as you focused on the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath you.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that kiss all night,” Oscar whispered suddenly, his voice low so only you could hear him. Your cheeks flushed, and you turned slightly to look up at him, your lips curling into a shy smile. “Yeah? What about our kiss?”

He grinned, eyes twinkling with amusement. “It was worth the wait. I’ve been waiting for that moment since the day I met you. Being it during my win made it more special.”

You couldn’t help but roll your eyes playfully, though the butterflies in your stomach refused to settle. “You’re just saying that.” Oscar chuckled softly, his thumb brushing gently over your shoulder. “I’m serious. I’m not sure you realize how patient I’ve had to be. But you’re worth every second.”

You felt your heart was about to combust at his words, and you felt yourself melt a little more into his side. There was something about the way Oscar always knew how to make you feel special, how he could say the simplest things and make you feel like the most important person in the world.

You smiled up at him, your voice soft as you said, “I’m really glad it was you. I’ve always been scared of what it would be like, but you made it…perfect.”

Oscar’s expression softened, his eyes full of that warmth and affection you had come to adore. “That’s all I wanted. For it to feel right for you.” Leaning up slightly, you placed a gentle kiss on his cheek, feeling a surge of affection as you did so. “Thank you for waiting.”

“I’d wait a lifetime for you if I had to.” he smiled, resting his forehead against yours for a moment before pressing a soft kiss to your temple.

For the first time, you felt like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

[barcaatthemoon]

friend of the bride || lia walti x reader ||

You hook up with Lia at your best friend's wedding.

MINORS DNI, 18+, Smut warning.

You knew about Lia. You had never played against Lia, but you knew all about her. It was your job to know about football, both international and domestic. She hadn't played in the NWSL, but you were a pretty big Arsenal fan even before she had joined up. But even before then, you had heard people in the business talking about the Swiss player.

It made sense that she'd be in the bridal party. Lia was Ana's best friend, and maid of honor. In a way, you thought it was wild that the two of you weren't better acquainted. Obviously you understood Ana being hesitant about introducing the two of you. You were a bit of a womanizer to say the least, even if you had settled down quite a bit since starting your gig as an official NWSL commentator.

"Excuse me, I don't know if we know each other. I'm (Y/n)." You could feel Ana's eyes on you as you approached Lia. There weren't many people that made you nervous, but your best friend's new wife was definitely one of them. The two of you had been teammates years ago whenever Ana played on the Thorns, and maybe, just maybe, you had seen a spark all those years ago.

Nothing had ever come of it, and you were happier because of it. Ana was cool, and she definitely would have hated you whenever you transferred across the country at the end of the year. You weren't a native to New Jersey, but Rutgers had offered you a full ride, so you counted yourself as a bit of a Jersey girl. Sky Blue wasn't perfect by any means, but it was definitely the place that you had wanted to retire playing for.

"I'm Lia, and no, we haven't been properly introduced," she said. She outstretched her hand, and you took the offering. Behind you, you could practically feel Ana attempting to burn holes into the back of your head to deter you. "My friend is watching us."

"If I'm being honest, I don't blame her. She's heard stories of how I can be at weddings." Bashful wasn't something that normally worked well with you, but Lia found the blush cute. It became obvious as she patted the chair in front of her that she knew a bit about you. Ana had to have warned her before either of you arrived in Seattle for the wedding.

"I've heard stories of how you are away from weddings. I get it though, life feels a bit more special with all of this love in the air," Lia said. You thought that she was sweet, and a part of you was about to back out when she grabbed onto your wrist. "I fly out tomorrow afternoon, and I'd hate to leave without as many good memories as I can get."

"She'll kill me if we leave together," you told Lia. She glanced behind you and waved at Ana. You did everything in your power not to turn, but Lia seemed amused by whatever was going on behind you. "Is she being mean?"

"Not at all, but you should say your goodbyes and get your coat. I'm in room 615," Lia told you. She slipped her key card in your pocket, and you wondered how long she had been watching you. Lia left first, leaving you to sit there stunned for a moment. It was hasty, but you said your goodbyes and promised Ana that you'd be safe with her friend. She was a bit dismissive, but you didn't miss the little twinkle in her eye. If you had any more to drink, you would have considered that she was happy about you and Lia running off together.

It seemed almost too good to be true that Lia's room was on the same floor as yours. You made a quick stop at your own room to shed your suit jacket and make sure that you still looked good. Your room was only a few doors down from Lia's, and you wondered if she had seen you at all over the week. The entirety of the wedding party had been flown in several days earlier than all of the other guests, and you doubted the maid of honor had been an exception to that.

"You left your jacket. That's a shame, it looked good. At least I can still do this," Lia said as she grabbed you by your tie and pulled you into the room. You stumbled a little, but caught yourself as Lia's arms wrapped around your shoulders. She was still in her dress, but without her heels on, you were a couple inches taller than her. "You know, I had always hoped you would find your way to the WSL. I would have liked to play against you."

"I bet we could have had a lot of fun together." Lia seemed to catch onto the hidden meaning of your words quickly. You were a bit surprised by her forwardness as she kissed you. It was welcome, as was the feeling of her hands pulling your button out from where it had been tucked into your pants.

The women you hooked up with had all definitely wanted you, but they were rarely as confident in themselves as Lia. She was sweet and gentle, but it wasn't submissive in the slightest. She took what she wanted without overstepping, and it took you several moments for your brain to kick in and join her.

"Take my dress off," Lia told you. You didn't hesitate for even half a second to turn the Swiss woman around. There was a little clasp by the small of her back, and once it was undone, Lia let the dress slip off from her body and pool onto the floor.

You could see that her chest was bare, but that did nothing to prepare you for the sight of her. She stood in front of you completely topless. You weren't being subtle in your staring, but Lia didn't seem to mind it. She let you keep staring as she pushed you back onto the bed. Lia climbed onto your lap, and there she sat straddling you as she looked down at you.

"There are plenty of more comfortable places for you to sit," you started. Lia showed her amusement with a little half-smirk. Normally, your jokes garnered a bit more of a reaction, and the fact that she hadn't given you one made you want to try again. You wanted to impress this woman with every part of you, and you had no idea why. Nobody was supposed to mean this much to you, not for a single night anyway.

"I'm already practically naked on top of you, lines aren't necessary," Lia told you. You nodded and swallowed, somewhat nervous as she stared at you. It was like she was studying you, less out of curosity, but more in the way a predator would study its prey. "You're wearing too much, and I'd hate to ruin your very nice suit."

You nearly let out a whine as Lia moved off of you. You scrambled off of the bed and hastily undressed yourself, not caring that for a moment, you were more bare than she was. Lia hummed in appreciation as you stood in front of her, completely naked. She guided you down onto your knees in front of her and leaned over her own lap to kiss you.

"Show me what you can do. I hope everything I've heard about you is true," Lia said. Even after she broke the kiss, you didn't stop kissing her. Your mouth moved all over her neck and jaw, occasionally stopping to mark a couple of hickeys for her to take as a temporary souvenir. You were a lot less careful with your marking whenever you got to her chest, sucking as many love bites onto her skin as you could.

Lia tried not to rush you, but you could tell that her patience was growing thin. She ground herself against the palm of your hand as you cupped her over her underwear. You let out a pleasured groan at the feeling of her heat through the fabric. You could practically feel her arousal growing as she moved against your hand.

"More, I want more," Lia told you. You took your time teasing her as you took her underwear off. Your face was buried into the side of her thigh when your attention was pulled by a frustrated growl. Lia looked down at you with a look so sweet that you almost got whiplash from the way her hand balled into a fist around your hair.

You let her guide your face, only sticking your tongue out to give her something to seek out. Lia loosened her grip when she felt your lips wrap around her clit. Her thighs clamped around your head, holding you against her as she rocked her hips back and forth gently. You pried her thighs apart to make room for your fingers to tease at her entrance, stroking over the hole with the promise of penetration.

This time, Lia didn't have to ask or tell you to keep going. Once you got into your groove, everything came very naturally to you. Lia was moving wildly on the bed, each buck of her hips punctuated by a little creak of the bed. Between Lia's moaning, the bed creaking, and the absolutely obscene sound of your fingers fucking in and out of her, there wasn't a moment of silence.

"That's it, right there. Don't you dare stop. Oh fuck!" Lia exclaimed. You felt a sharp tug to your hair as her other hand wrapped around the back of your neck. You could feel her nails dig into your skin, but the pain of it just made your eyes roll back in your head a little. Above you, Lia's body held you close even as she tried to squirm away from you, torn between wanting to stop and wanting to see just how hard you could make her cum. Ultimately, she ended up pushing you away just a couple minutes later as her body began to approach overstimulation.

"I think you did a number on me," you muttered as you rubbed at the little nail indents on the back of your neck. Lia sat up on her elbows, just enough to see her reflection in the TV. She looked gorgeous to you, disheleved in the most perfect of ways. There was no denying what had just happened, not when you looked at Lia.

"I can do a lot worse," Lia laughed. You clammed up a bit at her words. You had no idea what was wrong with you because Lia shouldn't have been getting to you this badly. She was practically a stranger, and yet, you didn't want to just gather your clothes and run off to your own room just yet. "If you ever find yourself in London, message me. Now though, I think you should get going. Guests are going to be back any moment now."

"I've never been asked out and kicked out at the same time. You are something else," you said in disbelief. Lia could tell that you weren't angry, and just to keep it that way, she walked you out. A part of you wanted to linger, but aside from a pretty chaste kiss, Lia didn't give you the opportunity. You just had to hope that you'd catch her before she ran off the next day, but even if you didn't, you couldn't be mad about how your night went.

[pitchsidestories]

all's well that ends well II Lucy Bronze x Reader

masterlist I word count: 2010

a/n: hi, we hope you enjoy the full length oneshot to the snippet we posted last week. 🫶🏻

“You!”

Your voice was high-pitched and cracked slightly at the end of the question.

You didn’t care.

There was no way, she was actually here. You had heard the rumours but hadn’t believed any of it. And now she was actually here, right in front of your eyes, on the Chelsea training grounds.

She actually did it.

You watched her through narrowed eyes, subconsciously clenching your jaw.

She smiled brightly at you: “Yes, me. Good morning to you too, pretty girl.“

There it was, that typical smug smile. Lucy Bronze, just like you wanted to forget her.

“Don’t call me that.“, you warned her.

Bad enough that she was here, you didn’t need her stupid remarks.

She remained unbothered, teasing you some more: “Oh, someone woke up in a bad mood.“

“No, only still stuck in a nightmare called Lucy Bronze.“, you replied, taking in the unfamiliar sight of her in the blue Chelsea training shirt.

From the look on her face she clearly interpreted it as you checking her out.

You cringed.

“A nightmare, huh?”, she repeated with a grin.

You wanted nothing more than to wipe that stupid self-assured smile off her face.

“Dressed in Chelsea colours. Why did you come back? And of all clubs you had to choose mine?!”

You half-expected her to crack another joke but instead, her face turned serious.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t come here for you. I came for what the club had to offer.“

“In other words, Barca didn’t want you anymore.“, you taunted her.

You watched, waiting to see her face fall but it never did. She just cocked her head and replied: “Cold. But essentially yes, they didn’t guarantee me a spot in the starting squad so I left.“

Before you could stop yourself, you released a humourless laugh.

Following Lucys confused look, you explained: “You always leave when it gets uncomfortable. See you on the pitch.“

You turned around and took exactly two steps towards the football pitch before you heard Lucy catching up to you.

“What’s that supposed to mean? If you really think that you don’t know me well enough.“, she asked, her voice finally conveying some anger.

“Oh, I do know you.“, you shrugged and left her standing on the sideline of the pitch, joining your teammates for the warm-up.

To your surprise, she jogged up next to you, clearly not done with the conversation yet. “Sure. Of course you know me better than I know myself. You’ve always been such a know-it-all.“

You huffed in offence but before you could protest, she increased her pace and left your side.

In her place, Sam Kerr appeared with a curious look on her face: “Wait, you and Bronzey got history?”

“Yes, it was a long time ago though and I don’t want to talk about it, okay.”, you revealed reluctantly.

“Aw man, I love a good break up story.”, the Australian forward replied pouting.

“I know you do Sammy, but you won’t hear that one.”, you told her.

“I’ll figure it out sooner or later.”, she declared confidently.

“Don’t you dare asking Lucy about us.”, you warned your teammate.

“I’m sure she’ll tell me.”, Sam responded winking.

Much to her actual surprise the English defender did open up towards her, once it was just the two of them in an empty room.

“Our story is quick to tell we were together for quite a while, I went to another club, so we tried to do long distance, yet it didn’t work out.”

“And she thinks it’s your fault?”, Sam questioned.

“Obviously and she’s talking about comfortable all she has ever known is English football.”, the older woman shrugged.

The forward took a moment to think about what she just said before humming. “Oh, this is going to be a very interesting season.”

“Admittedly, I did a few things wrong in the past and there isn’t much I regret but these I do.” Memories of the moment Lucy regretted the most passed behind her inner eye.

“That’s too much information. I didn’t come for a deep dive.”, Sam intervened chuckling.

“Come on girls, don’t dally.”, Millie who stood in the doorframe called for them.

“She thinks she has something to say around here now that she has an honours doctorate.”, the forward rolled her eyes playfully.

“We’re ready, Doctor Bright.”, the dark-haired defender reassured the blonde with a teasing grin on her lips.

“Good to hear, Doctor Bronze.”, Millie answered happily.

A few days had passed since your conversation with your ex-girlfriend. During and post training you tried your best to ignore her. You were about to leave the Chelsea grounds, but a familiar voice held you back.

“Can we talk?”

“Now?”, you wanted to know.

“Yes.”, Lucy nodded.

“Fine, but be quick, I don’t have much time.”, you stated in an icy tone crossing your arms impatiently.

“Then you’ve to make some time.”, she emphasized.

“What do you want to talk about?”, you asked short-temperedly.

“About us. This is getting ridiculous. How’re we supposed to play together when you ignore me all the time?”, the defender countered eagerly awaiting your response.

The late afternoon light enhanced her tan, and her green eyes were glowing. You couldn’t help to admire the woman in front of you, but when you remembered what happened between you two and acid formed in your mouth, so you spat out words as cruel as the taste of that. Sentences you knew would hurt her.

“You’re less quick and sharp nowadays. Also how am I supposed to trust you on and off the pitch?”

Lucy blinked at you. Her face frozen, not slightest slip. Shaking her head, she replied: “You really have a way of making someone feel welcome here.“

“I’m normally more welcoming to our new signings… making sure they settle well into London…“

You stopped yourself from continuing and bit your lip. Why did you now feel the need to prove to her that your were actually good person?

“But not to me, I got it.“, she said, almost reading your exact next thought. She should know that you didn’t welcome her here.

“You’re a whole different story.“, you said plainly.

Your eyes suddenly caught sight of her arms crossed in front of herself. The little hairs stood up, small bumps forming around them. She had goosebumps.

“You’ll need a jacket. The evenings can already get cold.“, you advised her, trying to let no empathy seep through.

At once, you felt glad that you remembered to wear a long-sleeved shirt to training. You absentmindedly pulled the sleeves over your hands.

Your ex just rolled her eyes: “You act like I’ve never been to England.“

“You’re freezing. I can see that from here.“

“Yeah, this is obviously not Barcelona. But I’m not new here.“, she replied with clear annoyance.

You refused to let her have the point. “True but you never played in London though.“

“No, I didn’t.“

“See.“

It was petty but you won. You turned to walk away from her like you had done so many times in the past few days but again she wouldn’t let you. Her hand wrapped around your wrist, pulling you back in one swift movement.

“Where are you going? We’re not done here.“

You sighed in frustration: “I won’t ignore you in training anymore. Happy?”

“No.“

“There’s more?”, you frowned at her.

“Of course, it’s not done with that.“

Eyebrows raised, you waited for an explanation: “So?”

“We should talk about us too. And what happened.“, she suggested.

Your heart stopped for a second, your lungs felt deprived of air and you couldn’t do anything but stare at her for a second. There was no way you would bring that break up back again. You both knew how it had ended.

“Another time, okay?”

“Y/n…“

You forced yourself to a half-smile: “See you tomorrow.“

You found yourself in the starting line-up for the next friendly at Stamford Bridge. You would be playing on the right wing, in front of Lucy. And despite all your doubts, the game went well.

More than well, to be honest. It was like you had never been apart. Lucys typical runs forward gave you the opportunity to move towards the centre and position yourself in the penalty areas. One of her crosses was so precise that you only had to tilt your head to put the ball into the net.

“Amazing game, girls. The season is off to a great start.“, Millie cheered as she high-fived you way too hard.

“Yeah, thanks for the assist, Luce.“

“You’re welcome. I still know your movements on the pitch.”, Lucy waved it off while the look on her face was melancholic. There was a hint of fondness in her voice too.

“And I’m sorry for what I said about your playing style.”, you bit your lip guiltily.

“I know.”, the defender sounded almost amused.

“Good.”, you sighed relived.

“Don’t worry.”, the older woman added quickly.

“Bye Luce.”

“See you, y/n.”, Lucy watched you go with a sad smile.

“Lucy? You two are so weird.”, Millie tapped on the dark-haired defender’s shoulder.

Irritated she turned around to face her team’s captain. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you finally talk about it?”, the blonde asked frustrated.

“I try to, but she always runs away.”, the older player explained annoyed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll figure it out for you.”, Millie promised.

And the Chelsea captain stayed true to her words.

It was the next day when you found yourself locked in a room with your ex-girlfriend.

“Sam, Erin, that’s not funny, let us out!”, you commanded, hammering your hands against the door. You felt like a mouse stuck in a trap.

“Do you hear anything, Erin?”, you heard the Australian ask the Scottish midfielder. The reply wasn’t audible to your ears because Lucy had started to speak.

“They’ll open the door again once we talked about us.”

“That’s so childish of them. To talk about us? That’s history.”, you grumbled.

“Of course. It’s obviously not history for you if you keep pouting about it.”, the defender observed

“I’m not pouting, I’m so over you at this point.”, you corrected her.

“Sure. Keep telling yourself that.”, your former lover sounded unconvinced.

“You really broke my heart back then.”, you confessed quietly, your voice full of the sadness and hurt from days in the past when the breakup was still fresh like a open wound you thought would never heal.

“I didn’t do anything.”, she remarked calmly.  

“Yes, you did you left.”, you disagreed fiercely.

“I left because I had to. After you assured me, long distance would work.”, Lucy defended herself.

A grieving smirk appeared on your face, you remembered your old self, what a fool she has been. “I thought it would, but it didn’t that happens.”

“Yes, it happens. So, stop blaming me for leaving it was a mutual decision.”

“It wasn’t your fault- Cam we leave now?”, you directed the question towards the people who kept you in that room.

“Nope, you know what we want to hear.”, Sam declared grinning.

“Lucy, what does she want from us?”, you wanted to know.

“I’ve no idea., she admitted before continuing, we won’t get back together, Sam. That won’t work.”

“Exactly.”, you added quickly.

“That’s not what we want. Keep talking and you’ll see.”, the forward insisted.

“What if we begin again? Like we just met for the first time.”, Lucy suggested.

“Wait, what?”, you frowned.

“We can start over.”, she offered in a hopeful tone.

“You mean as in strangers who get to know each other?”

“Maybe.” , she nodded knowing fully well you’d never be a stranger to her.

“And we don’t know where this leads to?”, you felt your heart flutter against your chest, the door was open again and you both stepped into the unknowing. The past was the past the future was uncertain, all you could influence was the present.

All's well that ends well. Yet this was only the beginning and the closing of one chapter of your relationship.

[seresinhangmanjake]

Hi there! I'm crazy about your stories about Feyd!! Truly brillant!! I've sren your accettino requests...wanted to know if you could a Feyd x reader where they are married and she let him keep the harpies. One day, while Feyd is in a council, reader gets attacked or someone tries to have his way with her and she's saved by the harpies, who kills the man and than take her to their room to care for her, and when Feyd arrives he reward them or something....you choose the endind.

Thankss

Protecting His

Feyd-Rautha x reader

Warnings/Notes: I made it a little bit different, so I hope that's ok. Mention of attempted assault, but it is not detailed. Goes with my His series, but you don't have to read it before reading this. I know this could've been smutty, but idk, the inspiration just didn't take it that route.

Words: 1360

Feyd-Rautha Masterlist / Main Masterlist / Tag list

“I apologize, my Lady,” the harpy says as she dabs alcohol along the fresh slash on your forehead. “It’ll only be a minute more.”

Your chuckle is a weak breath of air. “You saved me. The last thing you need to do is apologize,” you tell her. 

She briefly pauses her work before continuing. “Our Lord na-Baron will not understand,” she says. 

She’s probably right. Red will be blinding his vision. It’s enough that a guest in your home—an invited guest, a welcomed guest—tried to take advantage of you in a moment when you showed him kindness, but a plethora of additional factors will only heighten your husband’s fury: the fact that you allowed yourself to be alone with another man, even though that was against your intention; the fact that that man touched you and tried to do more; the fact that you’re bleeding because of it; and the fact that Feyd wasn’t the one to protect you, and in his place, one of the harpies was forced to step in. As if they weren’t in enough trouble already. 

He’s been deciding what to do with them for days now, trying to figure out if they have enough use elsewhere to be worth keeping alive, but he’s been coming up short, and you know their fates at the hands of your husband are unlikely to be forgiving. 

They’d been so good for so long, so well-trained after they tried to take a bite out of you—literally—as you slept by Feyd’s side almost a year ago to the day. That act of disobedience cost them each a finger, but from learning their lesson, they eventually became trustworthy enough for Feyd to assign them as your handmaids. And they maintained the position until the unfortunate incident of one of them losing control. 

She tried to take a nibble out of your flesh, and worse, in a moment when you were holding your newborn son. When Feyd learned of this, he lost his mind. Though the harpy acted alone, Feyd banished the three to the other side of the fortress and took the hand of the harpy who tried to have you for her next meal—this harpy. 

You stare at the stump, a bandage replacing where pale, delicate fingers used to be. She’s lost enough. It’s not right that she suffer a lash to the neck simply for being within range of you. It’s not right that Feyd’s rage will have him do the same to the other two. 

“I’ll make him understand,” you promise her as she covers the cut with a strip of tape, and as if on cue, your husband practically blows the door down with the force of a hurricane. 

His eyes land on you and soften with worry at your injured state. They reharden as they find the harpy at your side. “What did she do!” he snaps. 

You quickly rise to your feet, ignoring the dizziness that slightly blurs your vision, and place yourself between him and the harpy. “She saved me.”

He rushes toward her, but with your hands pressing into his chest, you keep him at bay. “She tried to harm you not a week ago!”

“And now she saved me.”

Feyd sucks in a breath through his nose, his shoulders rising and falling, his chest puffing and deflating. His eyes fall to your face. His brow knits as his hands cup your cheeks. He presses a long kiss to your lips, then says, “Are you ok?”

“Yes,” you say. “He would’ve done more if she hadn’t been there.”

“I gave explicit orders—”

“I know,” you intercept. “But would you rather a dead wife?”

It’s a blow. Not a wise one, considering he almost lost you during the birth of your son, but it’s reality. You could’ve died tonight. The man that wanted to hurt you wouldn’t have kept you alive to name him after the fact, whether you’re the na-Baron’s wife or not. He’s much too high-ranking, and without your voice there to reveal his lies, he could’ve pinned the crime on anyone.

Feyd’s hands drop from your face, and during your husband's brief placation, you glance over your shoulder at the harpy. “It’s best you go back to your cell now. A guard will escort you.”

She bows her head. “Yes, my Lady,” she says before she treads lightly around you and your husband to the door. 

Only once she’s gone and Feyd has settled into his seat at the foot of the bed do you say, “Don’t kill her.”

His head snaps up. “You will not tell me what to do.”

“I’m asking.”

“Why?”

You snort. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Feyd crosses his arms over his chest. “Are you teasing me at a time like this? Your life–” His eyelids pinch and he shakes his head. “You could’ve–”

With a sigh, you move to sit beside him on the mattress. “I’m fine,” you tell him. “But you cannot punish her for saving your wife. It’s not right.”

He pauses in his contemplation before he says, “What was she even doing on this side of the fortress?”

“She said she wanted to apologize to me and that you wouldn’t permit it, so she snuck over,” you answer. “You could’ve at least let her do that much.”

“I couldn’t risk it,” he lightly snaps. “I couldn’t risk you and the baby.”

When your hand lands on his forearm, he takes your fingers between his. “And they don’t have to be around us ever again if that’s what you want, but please reconsider hurting them further. They were always kind to me and–”

“Except when they tried to steal you from me to eat,” he reminds you.

“Yes, well, they were more kind than uncontrollably hungry.”

Feyd stares at you long and hard. His thumb rubs back and forth over yours. “You’re serious.”

You give a single decisive nod. “I am.”

—

When Feyd unlocks the cell door and steps inside, two of the harpies skitter across the floor to Feyd’s feet. They paw at the ankles of his pants. One’s head nuzzles the toe of his boot. He pays them little attention, his eyes on the hunt for the one tucked in the corner against the stone wall. She shies away from the blazing ray of his glare. 

“My Lord, we are very sorry for what our sister did,” the first harpy says—the eldest, the tallest of the three. It is most fascinating to see her so low. She tightens her fingers into the pants fabric, but Feyd kicks her off, and her entire body jolts back like a creature freshly injured.

“So very sorry,” the second, who has backed away alongside her sister, mimics.

“Please spare–”

“Hush, I’m not in the mood,” Feyd scolds. 

“Y-You will kill us?”

Feyd finally tears his stare from the huddled harpy to the ones by his feet. “You can pray to the kindness of my wife that I will not be,” he says. “You,” he juts his head back to the other. “You get a reward that I expect you to share with your sisters.”

Her head lifts from where it was resting atop her knees. Her dark eyes widen a touch. 

“A reward?” one of the others says.

“For us?”

Feyd gives a curt nod to the guard behind him, and a moment later, the man who attempted to take you against your will is tossed into the room. Already battered and bruised, he remains face down on the cobblestone flooring. A groan escapes through his lips, but that and the slightly pinkish hue of his skin from whatever blood remains in his veins is all there is as proof of life. 

“A meal,” Feyd says. “Enjoy it while it lasts.”

The three glance at the body and then back up at Feyd. He doesn’t say another word as he turns on his heel and signals his guard to relock the cage. He doesn’t look back as the screams begin to echo through the dank halls. He has better things to do, like tending to his wife. It’s been a long day, after all, and she could use the comfort.

[soaps-mohawk]

I'm so sorry to everyone that I freaked out with the last post, I was trying so hard not to 😭 I have that like instant fear as soon as I see "we need to talk" or something in the same vein. I always think it's something bad.

This isn't bad, at least depending on how your perspective I guess.

So...I'm having thoughts about CRCB in October. I planned out posting schedules for Kyletober and CRCB and my Patreon stuff and it's going to basically be a post every day, sometimes multiple in multiple places.

That's a lot.

So, I am set on doing Kyletober since all of the fics are already written, but I was planning on continuing CRCB during October as well. But...I think I need a little break from CRCB. It's been about eight months of posting almost every single week and it's been a lot. I'm struggling with chapters right now and with work it's vastly limiting the time I have to write and focus on things and I'm kind of burning out right now.

So, what I wanted to discuss was potentially putting CRCB on hold for October while I focus on Kyletober and everything involved with that. Trying to do both is a lot and I'm not sure I can handle all of it, plus life, plus work.

I was planning on not necessarily putting CRCB on hold, but doing more of a "whenever I can/am inspired" random posting chapters kind of like I did in the beginning when I first started writing the fic, in November/December because those are very busy months and I will be dead tired from work and just general life.

I think I might still do that for November/December and possibly into the new year since there's no way the fic will be finished even if I posted every week until the end of December.

BUT

That's something I'll think about and make a decision on later.

Right now, my thought is...would you hate me if I put CRCB on pause in October? IF I do, I promise I won't end Chapter 39 on a cliffhanger. I wasn't planning on it anyway, but I promise I won't end it on a cliffhanger if I decide not to post any chapters in October.

That way if I do put it on pause, then I can not focus on it for a bit and give my brain a refresh, and I can also focus all my energy on Kyletober.

So yeah, it's going to be a lot doing both at the same time, and honestly I'm ready for a little break from CRCB. It's been going for a long time and it's a lot of words to get out in a week. I've been super stressed lately and I'm just struggling a lot trying to get through chapters.

So yeah. That's basically the dilemma here and the discussion to be had. I know y'all will tell me it's my blog and I can do whatever I want, but I would like opinions on it. Are y'all okay with me putting CRCB on hold to focus on Kyletober? Then pick it back up for probably just whenever I can chapter updates for the rest of the year? In January things will calm down and I'll have more time to relax and write and maybe get close to finishing the story. Plus I know a lot of my readers will be busy the next three months with the holidays and vacations and family and school and all of that, so you won't have to worry about getting behind and having to catch up with a bunch of chapters.

So...let me know...

[hard-core-super-star]

Can i ask one for Kate Bishop. One where kate and reader's are best friends .they sleep together after being drunk. R is hopelessly in love with her. Everybody including kate knows this but it's like an un spoken thing.katie says doesn't see r like that because obviously she's afraid of losing the friendship if the relationship fails. Tells r that night was a one tym thing . After sometimes start seeing somebody so r will get the idea. So much angst ,heart breaks ,Kate being an idiot ,r being lovesick puppy .and a Happy ending .☺️ Its okay if you can't .Thank you ♥

an inch away from more than just friends [K.Bishop]

pairing: kate bishop x reader

summary: falling in love with your best friend is supposed to be easy. unfortunately, neither you nor kate are particularly good at talking about your feelings.

warnings: a complete mess of fluff, smut, angst, and idiots in love; kate is HORRIBLE at acknowledging her feelings; drunken hookup in a storage closet {lots of grinding + teasing; r is a brat and kate is annoyed but turned on; small bits of dirty talk}

wordcount: 4k

a/n: I'M ALIVE! sorry for not posting much on here, i've been spending a lot of this past month working on my vampire!kate story so inspiration has been quite limited. i'm thinking about posting more short drabbles but idk how to format them 😅 anyway, i hope you're all doing well and i hope you enjoy <3

* * * * * * *

You weren't sure how you had ended up here. You hated parties. Especially ones thrown by rich people who had nothing better to do than spend a ridiculous amount of money on expensive booze and shitty food.

Not to mention, this particular party was being hosted in some skyscraper in downtown New York, which meant no matter how badly you wanted to escape the bustling atmosphere, there was nowhere else to go. Even the balconies that littered the outside were subject to the nonstop sounds of traffic.

At least it was better than being inside and having to sit through endless small talk about things you didn't understand.

A familiar voice pulls you out of your thoughts as you lean against the railing, silently watching the cars drive by on the street below you. "There you are."

You turn your head and give Kate a small smile. "Hey."

The archer approaches you, a certain bounce in her step that isn't coming from her normal bubbly personality. 

While you weren't the biggest fan of these types of parties, Kate somehow thrived in them. Sure, she could be awkward most times, and she had a terrible habit of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, but she was charming. And as much as she hated the rich men who she had to rub elbows with all night, she understood them.

She'd grown up in this life while you...well, you were an outsider. Someone who didn't fit in, no matter how many expensive outfits the young CEO bought you or how many people she argued with.

The only thing you two could agree on was that the best part of these events was the free alcohol.

"How long have you been out here?" Kate asks as she joins you, her side pressing against yours and giving away how tipsy she already is.

"Like twenty minutes," you reply. "It was getting too stuffy in there."

She laughs and you allow yourself to admire her jawline and the way the city lights bounce across her skin. "Tell me about it. I swear I've had the same conversation with everyone."

"I don't know why you still bother coming to these things."

"It's good for the company, I guess," she says with a shrug. "And it gives me an excuse to get dressed up with you."

You roll your eyes at her, hating the way your heart instantly skips a beat at her words. She always gets extra flirty when she drinks. If you were more of an optimist, you might even believe her words had some sort of truth to them. 

"You're an idiot."

She makes a face at you, her features a mixture of annoyance and amusement. "You always say that."

"Because it's true," you say.

"Whatever," she huffs.

The two of you stand there for a few minutes, basking in the closeness of your bodies. It's a small thing, but it's moments like these that remind you just how deep your feelings for the archer run.

The buzz from the alcohol in your system leads you to rest your head on her shoulder without a second thought. Her arm wraps around you in an instant and it's not until that moment that you realize how cold you are.

"Can we leave yet?" You ask in a soft voice. It's a little embarrassing how desperate you are to be away from the bustling party.

"Almost," she replies. "I think you owe me a dance."

You groan, already dreading the looks you'll definitely get. "Do we have to?"

"Yes, we do." She gives your side an affectionate squeeze before pulling away from you. "Just one dance, and then we can leave."

You know better than to trust her words, but you can't pretend dancing with her doesn't sound nice. Clearly, Kate isn't the only one with lowered inhibitions right now.

"Fine," you roll your eyes but reach out for her hand.

Her fingers interlock with yours, and she leads the way to the makeshift dance floor. Thankfully, most people seem too busy in their own conversations to pay attention to the dancing couples...and you and Kate.

It fills you with more bitterness than you'd like, but you try not to dwell on it. It's easier said than done...until her hands land on your waist and pull you close to her. 

"You can come closer, sweetheart, I don't bite."

A nervous laugh escapes you. Mainly because you've listened to enough of her superhero stories to know for a fact she does bite, but also because getting closer to her is the last thing you should do right now.

She makes it far too easy to do, though, so you give in and wrap your arms around her neck.

The two of you start swaying to the soft music being played by the small group of musicians at the front of the room. It's hard not to spend the entire time admiring her features from this distance and as much as you try to ignore it, it's impossible to deny the way your heart flutters in your chest every time you make eye contact with her.

Your silence seems to surprise her, considering the way her eyebrows furrow together. "You okay?"

You nod and try to ignore how close your faces are. "Yeah, just...thinking."

That seems to get her attention and her concerned look turns into a slightly mischievous smile. "Oh yeah? About what?"

"Wouldn't you love to know?" You reply, hoping your attempt at teasing her will help distract her.

It doesn't work and instead of moving on, she wordlessly pulls you closer, her smile turning into a smirk when your eyes widen from the sudden proximity. "Come on, sweetheart, don't get shy on me now."

"You're annoying."

"Is that why you've been staring at my lips this whole time?"

Her words catch you off-guard, but they're not exactly far-fetched. The alcohol in your system mixed with having her so close only equals a long list of bad ideas. You can't deny how enticing those ideas sound, though.

You somehow manage to find your voice long enough to throw her observation back at her. "I think you're projecting, Katie."

"So you don't want to kiss me?"

She's toying with you, you know she is because you've seen her do it countless times, but you can't find it in yourself to really care. You know you shouldn't do it. You try to remind yourself that you're both drunk and simply trying to rile each other up for fun.

That no matter what happens, it won't mean anything. At least, not to her.

The longer you think about it, though, the less the potential consequences matter to you.

"I do," you reply, your voice barely above a whisper. "But only because it's the only way to shut you up."

You expect her to laugh at you and change the topic, but, of course, she doesn't. Because the only thing Kate loves more than annoying you is taking you by surprise.

In an instant, she closes the distance between your faces, her lips meeting yours in a borderline hesitant kiss. You're certain you've never seen her so nervous before. It's strange but endearing.

More than that, it helps distract you from how nervous you are.

She pulls away from you with a smile so bright that it makes your mind swim. "I guess you were right, kissing me does shut me up."

"Is that your way of trying to convince me to kiss you again?" You ask, doing your best to act nonchalant.

You're not sure that it works very well, but thankfully, she makes no teasing comments about it. She simply steals all your thoughts away by kissing you again.

The fact that you're one step away from fully making out in the middle of the dance floor isn't lost on you. Kate seems to come to the same realization as you at that moment and she reluctantly pulls away from you just to grab your hand and lead you away from everyone's gaze.

You don't know where exactly she's taking you, you just know it's definitely not toward the exit. You'd love to call her out on it and act upset and yet...you don't. How can you when your curiosity is practically eating you alive?

She drags you into the first storage closet she finds, closing the door behind you and pushing you against it. The action steals your breath away, along with the rest of your coherent thoughts.

You weren't going to act like you'd never fantasized about doing this with Kate but you'd always imagined it would happen under different circumstances. Although, if you're completely honest, you can't say you're actually mad about it.

"Hi," you whisper, your eyes drifting down to her lips once more.

"Hey." Her hands find their way back to your waist as she steps forward, effectively trapping you against the door. "Are you...still okay with this? 'Cause we can just leave and act like nothing happened."

You appreciate her thoughtful words even though the fire she started within you is burning far too bright to be put out now. 

"Yeah, I'm okay," you assure her. "I don't think stopping is an option now."

Your words seem to make her hesitation disappear and her smirk instantly makes a comeback. "And why is that, darling?"

"You know why."

Kate leans in closer, one of her hands drifting down to grip your leg and lift it up until it's wrapped around her waist. "Maybe...but I want to hear you say it."

"In your dreams, sweetheart."

You feel incredibly proud of yourself until the archer pushes herself against you, creating the most wonderful friction against your center. The movement catches you off-guard and you let out an embarrassingly desperate moan at the feeling.

The brunette takes advantage of the moment and ducks down to attach her lips to your neck. "I would love to put you in your place but you are far too adorable like this."

Your head tilts back to give her more access to your skin as you struggle to put yourself together long enough to reply to her words. "I wouldn't describe this as adorable."

She chuckles against your skin, the feeling of her warm breath sending ripples of pleasure down your spine. You almost can't believe this is actually happening. For a second, you briefly wonder if you're simply dreaming.

There's no way the pressure of her body against yours isn't real, though. No way for the pleasure you're experiencing to be completely made up by you.

The hand still on your waist gives you a soft squeeze before she guides you against her. There's something slightly humiliating about grinding against her in some random, badly lit, storage closet that only adds to the intensity of the moment.

Kate seems to read your mind considering the way she moves against you, drawing out another barely supressed moan. "You're holding back, y/n/n."

Her teasing words only make you want to tease her right back. Just because you've wanted her like this for a long time doesn't mean you want to make things easy for her. Riling her up is always more fun anyway.

"Maybe you're just not as good as you think you are," you reply, hoping she won't call you out for grinding against her so desperately. 

She has no plan to make things easy on you, though, and as annoying as it is, it's also incredibly attractive. "That's not what your body is saying." 

"How can you be such a dork at a time like this?" 

"It's my talent." 

"Keep telling yourself that." 

She groans, out of annoyance rather than pleasure, but you know your slight defiance is a turn on for her. It's almost funny how someone so bratty gets such a rush out of putting other brats in their place. "I hope you know your attitude is going to cost you later." 

"Don't threaten me with a good time, Katie." 

Her hand finally makes its way up your thigh, and she cups your heated core in one quick move. "How am I the annoying one?" 

You let out a sharp gasp, your hips rocking against her hand with zero shame or hesitation. You're already so close to falling apart, the coil in your stomach embarrassingly close to snapping already. In your defense, it's been a long time since your last hookup. 

"Not so mouthy now, are you, sweetheart?" Her amusement is more than clear and, even though you'd love nothing more than to wipe the smirk off her face, you're a little preoccupied with the mounting pleasure. 

"Kate..." You whimper, attempting to pull her impossibly closer to you. "Fuck."

Her teasing energy is quickly replaced by satisfaction. Satisfaction that motivates her to speed up her movements, effectively replacing all your thoughts with the feeling of her hands on you.

"You gonna cum for me, baby?" She asks, her lips trailing a path from your neck to your jaw.

"Yeah," you reply, your voice a breathless, needy, whisper. "...please."

"Such a good girl. Go on, let me hear you fall apart for me."

Her words are exactly what you need to let go. It's a little embarrassing, and the lack of full contact makes it a little less satisfying than you'd like, but your orgasm crashes into you almost instantly. Your hands grip onto her shoulders as you ride out the waves, her soft whispers guiding you through the overwhelming sensations.

You're shaking and panting and absolutely spent after such a rush of emotions and Kate is right there, holding you close through it all. Somehow, the affection and care she's showing you feels even better than the orgasm you just had.

"You okay, baby?" She asks as she leans back just enough so your eyes can meet again.

You nod, still too shaken to find your voice. 

"You're too cute." 

Despite your breathlessness, she gives you a quick kiss, pouring far too many feelings neither of you want to think about right now into it. The alcohol must be draining from your system because you're already starting to freak out about this.

About how difficult it'll be to act like nothing happened. Like you're not completely in love with your best friend.

There's no way for you to deny it now. Hell, Kate herself can't deny it anymore either.

And yet you both try.

"Do you want to go back to my apartment?" She asks once you're able to pull away from each other.

The intention is behind her words is more than clear and it somehow manages to bring your confidence back. "Only if you let me repay the favor."

"I think we can definitely work something out," she replies with a genuine smile.

That's all you need to take her hand and drag her out of the storage closet. Her laugh rings out in your ears as you make your way to the exit.

True to your word, you spend the rest of the night returning the favor and drawing orgasm after orgasm out of Kate. It's not enough to make you believe you'll be together the way you want to and yet it's more than enough for ythe moment. 

It's more than you ever thought you'd get from her.

Unfortunately, morning comes too quickly and it brings the realization that you severely underestimated how much things would change. How quick Kate would be to sweep everything under the rug and deny it even happened.

It hurts but it's not a complete surprise considering the way the archer reacts to most things.

You manage to work through it, silencing your desires in favor of making her comfortable and keeping her in your life. It's not the healthiest thing in the world but you manage.

Your friendship only suffers for a few days before you're back to normal. No one would even notice anything if it weren't for the major heart eyes you throw her way all the time.

Everyone knows, though. Everyone cares except Kate.

Instead of talking about it like a normal person, she decides to make things worse by getting a girlfriend. You don't even know who she is and the archer doesn't give you any real details, she just mumbles something about a coffee shop and a cute dog.

You've never known Kate to be particularly reserved but she is this time. Not just that, she actively ignores you. Dodging your questions expertly and pretending there's nothing weird about how little time she spends with you.

You had always assumed it would be your feelings that ruined your friendship but Kate managed to ruin everything on her own. It's almost a skill.

Somehow, even as your heart breaks and endless questions swim around your mind, you manage to keep going. More than that, you match Kate's energy and pretend you don't even notice the change in her attitude. You're not sure who's more hurt by that but you don't even care.

You treasure the brief moments you get with her and mentally shout at her every time she cancels another movie night. Her excuses are endless. One day, she tells you she's too busy with Avengers work, the next she's too caught up with Bishop Securities.

The only thing that brings you some sense of comfort is the fact you're not the only one being lied to. Her so-called "girlfriend" gets the same excuses as you, at least that's what Yelena tells you. The Russian has no reason to lie, though, so you believe her and ignore the rising thought of making Kate jealous.

That's the only thing you're able to do: ignore Kate and the feelings you still have for her.

It works for a while...until the archer finds her way back to you.

It's the middle of the night when you hear frantic knocking on your door. You suppress your fear long enough to make it to the door, baseball bat in hand.

You open the door and come face to face with those same blue eyes you've tried not to think about for over a month. "Kate?"

"Hey," she mumbles, nervousness instantly creeping into her voice. "I, um...can I come in?"

You're tempted to say no and slam the door in her face. You're honestly half-way to doing it when you notice the way she's swaying and clutching her side."You're not drunk, are you?" You question.

Your attempt to lighten the mood falls flat but she smiles anyway. "No, I'm unfortunately sober."

You hum in response before stepping aside and letting her come in. There's a voice in the back of your head that warns you not to get caught up in the past. To keep your distance until she, at the very least, apologizes for being such a jerk to you.

Kate manages to make it to your couch without tripping while you lock your door and put the baseball bat back in its usual place. You brace yourself for the uncomfortable conversation that's bound to follow as you follow after her.

"So...what happened to you?"

Her only response for a few moments is a groan and you do your best to stifle your laughter. For someone who's the human embodiment of a golden retriever, she looks a lot like a grumpy cat right now.

"Stupid mission," she grumbles while attempting to stretch her sore muscles. "I don't know where someone can get the money for that many henchmen."

"Says the rich girl," you reply with a smirk.Kate rolls her eyes but some of the tension in her shoulders disappears. 

"Oh, shut up."

Your cross your arms over your chest before raising an eyebrow at her. "I don't think you're in any position to talk to me like that."

A barely noticeable blush spreads across her features. "Sorry," she mumbles. "I just...I've missed talking to you like this."

You wish it didn't but your heart skips a beat at her words. It's stupid considering the fact she's the one who put you guys in this situation yet there's nothing you can do about it. Your heart still belongs to her.

"Is that why you've been ignoring me lately?" You ask, unable to keep the bitterness out of your tone. "Why are you even here, anyway? I'm sure your girlfriend's worried about you."

Your words cause the smallest of changes in Kate's body language. She hunches down almost as if she's trying to sink into herself and disappear. You've seen her like this far too many times to not know how she's feeling.

"She would be if she didn't hate my guts right about now," she replies with a sigh. "Can't say I blame her, breaking up with her and leaving on a mission isn't the most mature thing to do."

"Wow, you're finally self-aware," you tease her, more out of habit that anything else. "A lot can change in a month, huh?"

The lack of annoyance in your tone allows her to relax again. As much as you might like to be petty, she seems genuinely sorry and upset. "Okay, I deserve that. I've been an asshole to you."

"Yes, you have, but it looks like karma finally caught up with you."

There's an edge of concern to your words that you can't quite hide. She doesn't seem to be in excruciating pain which hopefully means she's not badly hurt but with how stubborn she is, you wouldn't be surprised if she was blatantly hiding a gunshot wound.

Kate chuckles as she leans back against your couch, the movement allows you to search her suit for bloodstains and, thankfully, you find nothing except a couple of tears in the fabric. "Karma's a bitch..but I probably deserved it."

"Probably?" You ask.

"Okay, fine," she grumbles. "I definitely deserved it. It just...seemed like the right thing to do."

You can't hold back the scoff that leaves your lips. "On what Earth was ignoring me after hooking up with me "the right thing to do"?"

She grimaces, the words hitting her a little too hard. You feel a little bad for her even though these are simply the consequences of her own actions. "I was afraid of ruining our friendship. I didn't...I don't want to lose you, y/n. You mean too much to me."

A part of you wants to keep being petty about the whole thing but you've missed her far too much to push her away now. Even though she probably deserves it for being such an idiot.

"You have a very weird way of showing it." You finally allow yourself to close the distance between you two, walking over and taking a seat next to her.

Kate's hand instantly finds its way into yours, her head turning to look at you. There's a thin layer of tears in her eyes that tugs at your heartstrings. "I know...and I really am sorry."

"I know," you reply, giving her hand a soft squeeze. "You're my best friend, Kate, I've always known you're an idiot."

She rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything more, allowing a comfortable silence to fill the room.

There's a lot more you both still want to say and yet neither of you makes any attempt at breaking the moment. It's almost comforting how quickly you fall back together like two slightly damaged magnets.

Finally, after minutes go by, Kate allows herself to tell you the truth.

"It's you," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "It's always been you and I'm so sorry I tried to pretend it wasn't true."

Her words bring a wave of relief, and a slight bit of annoyance that you do your best to supress. "Can you just shut up and kiss me before I kick you out?"

She laughs, a real one this time, before leaning forward and stealing your breath with a kiss.

It's not enough to fix all the damage but it's a start. And you're more than happy to flip the page with her.

[badkitty3000]

can u write a five x reader smut where five makes the reader watch him jerk off before fucking them

This request has been in my inbox for a LONG time...sorry. I set this during season four, and it's mixed with my usual sense of humor and confidently sexy Five 😉

Forced Confinement: Friends to Enemies to Lovers

Five x Female Reader-Insert, 5.7k words, one-shot, reader request

Warnings: Smut, explicit sex, masturbation

Summary: You and Five used to be friends. That is, until he got you stuck in the endless cycle of time traveling trains and no way home. Now he is the last person you want to be stuck with at the end of the world. But, after months of resentment and bickering, you and Five finally work out your differences

It had been eleven months. Eleven months since you and Five had taken that stupid fucking train to nowhere. Why you had let him talk you into going with him, you had no idea. You had been friends and you trusted him, sure, but that didn’t mean you wanted to skip out on the real world forever and live in captive domesticity for the rest of your life. You had wanted adventure and danger, which always seemed to follow Five wherever he went. But that’s not what this turned into. This had turned into playing house.

After nine months of mindless travel to various timelines that just seemed to get worse and worse, you were about ready to kill one another. The passive aggressive arguing had gradually turned into bickering, which then turned into outright shouting matches. You wanted to go home, god dammit! You didn’t care that time travel was tricky or unpredictable. He had gotten you into this mess and you demanded that he get you out of it.

To get you to shut up, Five had presented you with a temporary solution. When you came across a mostly still standing house with a greenhouse and clean water, he begrudgingly suggested that you two stay there for a few days. Just to relax, wash up a bit, and gather some food. It would also grant him some time to think about how to navigate this situation you were in. You had agreed, although you had scoped the crappy house out first to determine if there were separate living quarters. There was only one real bedroom, but Five conceded it to you and said he would take the living room floor.

A few days had turned into two months.

You knew he was trying his best. You knew that. And you knew he certainly had never meant to get you stuck in this endless loop of time travel fuckery. He had only been trying to save the world. Again. Only this time, he wanted company. And since you and he had become friends over the course of the five years you had been serving him large quantities of whiskey and beer at your bar, he had asked you.

It’s not that you were best buddies or anything. You had never hung out outside of the bar. But he was a frequent enough customer that you and he had a good rapport. You were comfortable around each other, which you had noticed for Five, was kind of a big deal. And maybe you were a little flirty with one another as well. Not that anything had ever happened between you, but the tension had been there.

So, when Five had come stumbling in one night, seemingly already drunk, and had plopped down on a barstool in front of you with a smart-ass grin on his face, you were intrigued. After a very confusing and convoluted story about something called “marigold” and Five having the power to teleport and time travel, you were already hooked.

How many times had you dreamed of doing something amazing? Something so incredibly exciting and weird that when you told your friends all about it later, they wouldn’t believe you? It was just one of those silly fantasies that never left your head. But the longer you ran that bar, and the more comfortable you got pouring shots and mixing drinks for others, the less likely it became that your fantasy would ever be realized.

But time traveling subway trains and teleportation powers? It was everything you had been waiting for! When he told you his idea of trying to get to the correct timeline and stop another apocalypse from happening, you barely even hesitated.

In those first couple of months, you didn’t really mind being lost with no real way to get back home. It was still exciting and you were getting along great back then. He confided in you; told you he had asked you along because you were his only real friend and he just didn’t want to face the unknown alone again. He had apologized when it became clear he was just as lost as you were, and he promised to get you back safely. You made each other laugh, and invented stupid games to kill the boredom, and would cuddle up together on cold nights even though there was nothing romantic going on. Those were the good times.

But now…now, it was like the two of you were living in some bad sitcom with no laugh track. Five was still good looking, there was no getting around that. Even when he was grubby and dirty and his deodorant gave out months ago. Yes, he was hot, you could admit that. But that wasn’t quite enough to cover the fact that he was an arrogant, know-it-all asshole that was systematically ruining your life. You missed your bed. And your bar. And god, what you wouldn’t do for some fucking fast food. You had dreams about McDonald’s French fries and if Ronald McDonald himself had come walking up to you and told you he’d give you a Big Mac if you sucked his dick, you’d be on your knees in a second. That’s what this had come to; you would blow a clown for a hamburger.

Instead, here you were, in some bullshit little Hobbit house, listening to Five’s snoring from the other room. And if you had to eat another fucking strawberry, you were going to vomit. You would rather eat a dozen half-cooked subway rats than choke down another one of those god damn red berries. Sometimes you laid awake at night, envisioning Five choking on one, his eyes bulging as he panicked and tried unsuccessfully to get air through his blocked trachea. It brought a small amount of comfort to you. Until the morning, when you walked out and saw there were no animals in your traps, and you wanted to cry. No meat. Only fucking strawberries.

“We need more water,” you told him as you came out of the green house where the first few sprouts of cucumbers and green beans were finally starting to come through.

“So? Go get some, then,” Five muttered back at you, his head buried in a notebook while he sat at the wobbly kitchen table.

“No. I’m always the one that has to go get the water. It’s your turn.”

Five glanced up briefly, then looked back down at his incoherent scribblings. “I’m busy.”

“You’re busy?” you asked incredulously. “How the fuck is making little pictures in a book busy?”

He looked up again, his worn-down pencil paused in midair. His eyes narrowed. “They are not little pictures. They are complex mathematical equations that your simpleton mind cannot possibly understand.”

You snorted. “Fuck you.”

One corner of his mouth turned up just slightly and he set his pencil down, leaning back in his chair and draping one arm over the back. Fuck, if he didn’t look amazingly hot like that. Asshole.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“What in the hell are you talking about?”

He scoffed. “Don’t play dumb. You’ve been eye-fucking me since we got here. Actually, since before we got here.”

Your eyes widened in disbelief. “What the…are you delusional? Did you hit your head the last time you were out scavenging? I have, under no circumstances, been eye-fucking you.”

“Ok, sure…whatever you have to tell yourself.”

You placed a hand on your hip and tilted your head to the side. “If anyone is eye-fucking anyone, it’s you to me. I see the way you just so happen to look in my direction when I’m changing clothes.”

“If I do that, it’s only because I want to make sure you’re actually changing into something new instead of wearing that shitty old tank top that smells like dead rats.”

“That is my best tank top! And look who’s talking. Who wears a suit in a fucking apocalypse? It’s insane!”

“At least I don’t walk around with my tits half hanging out. I mean, fuck, those things are going to knock you out the next time you have to run from anything. It’s like you’re just begging for attention.”

You smiled. “Oh, I just bet you’d love to see me running with my tits hanging out, wouldn’t you? Probably play right into some weird-ass Baywatch fantasy you have.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart.” He tossed his head so that the piece of hair in his eyes flicked out of the way. “You are wearing the literal last pair of tits in the world right now and I wouldn’t care if you slathered them in baby oil and shoved them in my face.”

You watched as his eyes moved briefly to your chest before landing on your face again. You smirked. “Gosh, Five, you’re right. I don’t know what I was thinking. Of course you don’t want anything do with these.” You ran your hands up your sides and rested them on your breasts. Then you began to rub them and squeeze them together, all while looking him directly in the eye. You gave a little moan and licked your lips. It was subtle, but you saw him swallow and shift in his seat.

Five rolled his eyes, but you could tell you had gotten to him. “While the tits themselves may be alluring, there is the unfortunate fact that they are attached to the body that is powered by your idiot brain. Therefore…not interested.”

You gave them another hard push together, and then let out a short laugh before dropping your hands. “That’s what I thought.”

“What did you think?”

“That you’re a dickless asshole”

Five flashed you that devious smile that you had come to associate with an unfortunate fluttering inside your stomach. “I’ll concede to being an asshole. But dickless? Quite the opposite, sweetheart.”

Your mouth went dry at that implication and you momentarily had a loss for words. After a couple of seconds, though, you regained your cool.

“As much as I’m sure you’d just love to whip out your little pickle dick right now, how about you get your scrawny ass up and go get us some water? Sweetheart.”

Five gave a short laugh. “And as much as I’m sure you’d love to be choking on my pickle right now, like I told you…” He pointed his pencil at the notebook. “I’m busy.”

Without another word, he lowered his head and started scribbling again, ignoring you completely. Your mouth opened in another retaliation, but then it snapped closed again. There was no point in continuing your little childish spat. Five was a stubborn old bastard and it was a waste of time. You might as well go get the damn water yourself.

Giving a loud, dramatic huff, you flipped your hair over your shoulder and stomped away. You did happen to notice, though, that Five looked up to watch you leave. So, as a final act of brattiness, just before you were out of sight, you made sure to bend over and act like you were tying your shoe while wiggling your ass in the air. Which, if Five had the oversized brain he was always saying he did, he would remember that your shoelaces had disintegrated a month ago.

As you angrily made your way to the old well that was your water source, you mumbled out loud to yourself.

“He thinks he’s so fucking smart. Well, he’s not. Just because you’re a smoking hot asshole does not mean you’re a genius, I guarantee you.”

You tripped over a rock and you cursed before continuing on. “And he is dreaming if he thinks I’m the one that wants to fuck him. Granted, it has been a long time since I got laid, but still. I think I can do better than Five Hargreeves, even if he is the last man on earth.”

You approached the old-fashioned well pump that was still in service and started pumping, much more vigorously than needed while you ranted to no one. “Honestly, he is so hard up for some ass, it’s embarrassingly obvious. But, good luck buddy, because that ain’t happening.”

You watched thoughtfully as the water slowly poured into the plastic bucket that served as your portable water reservoir. You stared into the distance; the landscape not quite as bleak as the others you had seen. This one at least had some trees and wildlife. “Still…I did see him shirtless that one time and I can’t seem to get that little image out of my brain. The guy has sex appeal, there’s no doubt about that. And I suppose he’s not all bad. He did let me take the bed, after all. He hasn’t even tried anything, either, which I suppose makes him kind of a gentleman.”

You gave the well a few more pumps to fill the last of the bucket. “But why hasn’t he tried anything? Maybe he doesn’t think I’m attractive? He said he likes women, though. I wonder if he jerks off when I’m not around?”

You smiled to yourself, feeling your chest tighten a little at the thought. “I guess I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t used him as motivation for my own hand-fucking. He might be annoying but I bet he can deliver in certain areas.” You paused a moment more and sighed angrily, looking toward the sky. “Damn it…now I’m horny!” The water started overflowing in the bucket and you realized you’d been pumping the well for too long, wasting your most precious resource.

“Shit!” You stared at the dusty ground that was now turning into a muddy puddle around your feet. “He doesn’t need to know about this, that’s for sure. I don’t need yet another lecture on water preservation.”

Hoisting up the bucket, and holding it against your chest because the handle had given out a week ago, you started back towards the house.

“I’m going insane,” you panted as you made your way up the slight incline. “It’s official; I’ve finally lost it. Stuck out here in the middle of nowhere and talking to myself. Cool.”

As you walked into the house, the water bucket was partially obstructing your view and it sloshed water down your front as you set it heavily down on the floor.

“There,” you declared, out of breath. “Here’s the water, no thanks to – Oh holy shit!”

When you had looked up, you had been assaulted with the sight of Five pleasuring himself right there in your cozy kitchen. You froze, taking in the sight, not able to look away. He was on full display, with the chair pushed out from the table, facing the doorway. His shirt was open, sleeves cuffed up, head thrown back, eyes closed, pants undone, and his cock in his hand. He was languidly stroking himself, appearing to not be in a hurry to finish the job, while he sat there with his legs spread open for all to see. Well, not all to see…just you.

“Oh my god, I’m sorry…shit…what are you? Ok, never mind, um…I’m gonna, yeah, just go…” you stammered while still staring directly at the obscenity before you.

You said you were going to go, but you were rooted to the spot. Eventually, after what seemed like an inordinate amount of time considering what was happening, Five opened his eyes and looked at you. No, not looked. Stared at you. Those bright green eyes bored into you and a small smirk played on his lips.

Still panicking, but also confused as to the very real sensation of moisture not caused by the bucket of water forming between your legs, you abruptly turned to leave.

“Stop.”

Five’s voice was different than usual. Harder. Commanding. And you inexplicably stopped in your tracks.

“Turn around.”

You obeyed and slowly spun around, nervous as to what you might see, or have him see. You were sure the look on your face would give you away.

Five hadn’t moved. He was still stroking himself and he looked like he didn’t have one ounce of shame about it, either.

You swallowed hard. “What…”

“I decided after your little show earlier that I just couldn’t help myself. And now that you’ve got some wet t-shirt action going on, I’m going to need you to stay. I think you owe me that.”

Looking down at yourself, you saw that the spilled water had created a nearly see-through situation over your chest. Even your bra was soaked through, and your nipples were visible through the thin fabric. When you glanced back up, you bit at your lower lip. Despite the blush growing across your cheeks, you were intrigued with this new game.

“Owe you?” you asked, your voice cracking as you tried to keep your cool.

Five groaned quietly, picking up his pace and ignoring your question. “You really do have magnificent tits. Now, take that ratty ass top off.”

You couldn’t believe you were actually going along with his demands. You should be telling him to fuck off and throwing the nearest heavy object toward his head. Instead, you found yourself holding his eye contact while you slowly stripped your wet shirt away and dropped it onto the floor.

There was another deep moan from Five as he worked his shaft over with his whole hand, his breathing becoming louder.

“Bra,” he rasped.

As you unhooked your bra and let it fall on top of your shirt, you smiled at his reaction.

“Fuck honey…I’ve been dreaming about these tits for so long and they do not disappoint.” He groaned low in his throat again. “Perfect.”

You eyed him up and down, taking in the detail of his cock as his fist slid easily over it. It was most definitely impressive. Much more than you had imagined and you found yourself running your tongue over your bottom lip involuntarily.

“Shit, Five…I guess you weren’t kidding. Definitely not dickless.”

“You like what you see?” he asked, looking out under the pieces of hair that had flopped in front of his eyes.

You nodded, and then began to move closer in. “Yeah, I do.”

Five shook his head, pausing his fist fucking momentarily. “I don’t think so, honey. Not yet.”

“Not yet what?” you asked, thoroughly confused. Did he not want you to jump on top of him?

“I know you’re just dying for my cock to be buried deep inside you right now, but you’re going to have to wait. That’s your punishment.”

With your eyebrows drawn together, you suddenly felt very stupid standing there topless while he continued to jack off.

“What the hell…what do you mean? Punishment for what?”

“For walking around all bitchy and complaining about everything. All while throwing your body in my face and leaving me high and dry.”

“What!? You’re the one that has been the asshole –”

“Shut up, sweetheart. I don’t need to hear your mouth. I just need to look at you. Now drop your pants.”

It took a minute for your mind to comprehend just what the fuck was going on here. Five Hargreeves, your friend turned enemy turned…jack off partner?...was ordering you around like you were his own personal interactive porno mag. And you fucking liked it.

As you started unbuttoning your shorts, you gave him a lopsided smile. “So, how long have you been using me as your whack-a-thon inspiration?”

“I could ask you the same,” he snarked back before working just a little harder when your pants came off.

“Since about 3 months in,” you admitted with a shrug, pushing your panties all of the way off.

“Fuuuck,” Five groaned loudly, closing his eyes briefly before scanning your body hungrily. “I think I lasted 2 weeks.”

You laughed, leaning back against the table with your hands behind you as you pushed out your chest. When your eyes caught his again, you let out a soft whimper.

“Damnit…I really want to fuck you right now.”

“I know, darling,” he responded, his voice dripping with condescension. “You’ve made that quite obvious.”

Neither of you said anything more for a moment. The room was filled with the sound of your collective heavy breathing and the slapping noises as Five jacked himself hard and fast. You could see the beads of pre-cum forming around the head. On a whim, you decided to lean in, bending down with your mouth open and tongue out, to daintily lick up the tempting drops. Five growled and flung his head back again while you gave one more flick of your tongue over the slit and backed away again.

“Finger yourself,” he grunted out.

When you smirked, licking all four of your fingers before lowering them between your legs, the sound Five made, a shaking, guttural sound, had you thinking he was on the verge of blowing his load. But he only seemed to concentrate harder, working his fist over his thick shaft. You watched as his thumb traced the underside of his swollen tip, the veins that ran from top to bottom prominently on display. You had never really thought the sight of a man pleasuring himself in front of you would be that hot, but the wetness dripping out of you right now proved that maybe it just depended on the man.

Because watching Five unabashedly fuck himself; his left hand tight around his cock and his hips jerking up in response; the tendons in his forearm taught and straining; his hair hanging messily around his face, his eyes never leaving yours; had you more worked up than you had ever been in your life.

“Fuck, Five,” you moaned as your own hand began to move through your slick folds.

“Damn it, I’m going to come. On your knees,” he growled through clenched teeth.

You dropped down without a second thought, just blindly following his orders. Your hand was still working furiously, and you were unsure if he wanted you to suck his dick or not, so you just waited for further instructions. When he groaned loudly and shifted forward in the chair, his own hand moving fast, you realized what he was going to do.

“Don’t you dare come on my face,” you rasped out. You removed your fingers from yourself so that you could lean back, exposing your chest at a better angle.

With a strangled moan that sounded like some sort of wounded animal, Five bit at his bottom lip while he came; long ropes of cum covering your chest and dripping down your stomach as he unloaded onto you again and again. You watched his face as it contorted in orgasmic bliss before finally relaxing again, his hand slowing, and his body easing back into the chair.

“Fucking hell,” he whispered through heaving breaths; eyes still closed. “You have no idea how much I needed that.”

As you knelt before him, covered in his semen, and still horny, you frowned. “Good for you.”

When he opened his eyes, he had the nerve to laugh and he shook his head. “Give me a minute, ok? I might have a fairly quick refractory period, but it’s not immediate.”

“Hmm, yeah. Likely story,” you said under your breath, although your mouth twitched up with amusement as you stood up. “I’m going to use our most precious resource to wash up.”

“Use it sparingly,” Five reminded you.

“I think I’ll use as much as I want, considering it’s your cum that’s currently drying all over my tits right now.”

“Fair,” Five said with a breathy laugh.

After you found one of the clean rags that doubled as a washcloth, you dipped it in the bucket of cool water and started to wipe at your chest. Five watched you bend over, ringing out the cloth and letting the water run down your breasts and abdomen. His refractory period may not have been instant, but watching you like that was most definitely speeding the process along.

While you were enjoying giving him this show, what you really wanted was a little more satisfaction than just watching him jerking off. With your body as cum-free as it was going to be for the moment, you sauntered back over to Five who was still sitting in the same chair; pants open and semi-hard dick out. When you stood in front of him, he looked up at you through the fringe of hair covering his eyes, that damn smirk of his playing on his lips. Without even thinking, you hauled your right hand back and smacked him across the face.

As he raised a hand to his stinging cheek, he glared up at you. “What the hell was that for?”

With a smile, you straddled his lap, draping both arms over his shoulders and leaning in to kiss him. After biting at his bottom lip, you pulled back.

“That was for stranding me here in this hell hole.” You kissed him again, tugging hard at his hair at the back of his head. “And for being the world’s biggest prick.” Your groin slid over his hard cock and he grunted. “And for looking so fucking hot all the time.”

Five grabbed your chin in his hand, holding you steady as he gazed into your eyes; his deep green ones sparkling as that arrogant look crossed his face again. Gripping your ass tightly with both hands, Five stood up, taking you with him as he slammed your body down onto the rickety kitchen table. When your back hit the wooden top with a thud, the pedestal holding it up wobbled dangerously underneath. You huffed out a loud breath from the impact.

Standing between your legs that were still wrapped around his waist, Five reached down between you, grasping his hard cock and rubbing the tip against your clit. When you gave a tiny whimper, he nodded.

“I’m sorry I got you stuck here. And I’m working on being less of a prick. As for looking hot all the time? That I can’t help so much,” he said with a grin, continuing to massage your slit by running his dick up and down, spreading your wetness over both of you.

“Asshole,” you rasped after sucking in a loud gulp of air. Your hands clutched at the edge of the table and your hips rocked against him.

He shook his head, closing his eyes with a moan before locking onto yours again. “No. If I were an asshole, I would have done what I’ve been dying to do for months now.”

“Which is?”

“Sliding into bed with you in the middle of the night and waking you up with my dick shoved between your legs.”

Your head tipped back as you tried to push yourself harder into his cock that was continually sliding over you in just the right spot. “Oh shit, Five…I wish you would have.”

“You’d like that, huh?”

You nodded. “I’d still have kicked your ass, but not before I’d let you fuck my brains out.”

“How about I fuck your brains out now and we can discuss kicking my ass later?”

“Sounds good,” you breathed out.

Five used his hand to guide himself inside of you. Once the head of his cock was inside, he thrust himself into you, impaling you on his sizeable dick, and watching your face for your reaction.

“Oh god…” you cried, gritting your teeth against the intensity.

“You ok?” he asked as his hands traveled over your thighs, sides, and hips.

You nodded. “Yeah. Definitely ok. Fuck, that feels good.���

With a self-satisfied smirk, Five grabbed your ass tightly with both hands, squeezing each cheek hard and digging his fingers into your flesh. When he started to guide you by pushing and pulling you over his shaft, you let him take full control of your body. With your arms splayed to the sides and your head tipped back against the table top, you wanted him to break you down; strip you of your inhibitions, and make you his.

“Shit…” he hissed through his teeth. “I need…fuck…I need more of you.”

Without warning or consent, he pulled you roughly up by one hand before pulling out of you and yanking you off the table to standing again. Not sure what his game plan was, you just stood there until he stepped out of his pants that had dropped around his ankles, and held you tightly to him. With a long kiss that made you momentarily forget where you were, he pulled back again.

“Floor,” he gasped.

Despite having a perfectly good bed in the other room, you were thinking the same thing he was. There was no time for relocation. You needed him inside of you again. Immediately. Hands clutching at one another, you both clumsily dropped to the floor. There was a moment of ungraceful maneuvering while you hastily repositioned yourself, but once Five was on his back and you were mounting him again, his dick slid inside once more and you let out a high-pitched whine.

In between grunts and whimpers as you started to move your hips, you attacked his mouth, face, and neck with kisses. Eventually, one of his hands came to rest in your hair. When you looked him in the eyes, he was smiling. Not his normal, asshole smirk. An actual, affectionate smile.

“I’m not sure why we waited this long,” he said before kissing you deeply, while also bucking his hips up, driving his dick in harder.

“Because we hated one another,” you explained as he sucked kisses onto your neck.

“Not always…fuuckk…” he moaned when you slammed harder on top of him.

“I kind of don’t hate you now.”

Five laughed and squeezed one of your breasts in his hand, hard enough to make you hiss through your teeth.

“Five….” you whined.

“Keep fucking me, baby. Harder.”

You were fucking him as hard as you possibly could. So hard that you were seriously concerned about the health of your knees as they bore most of your weight and dug into the hard dirt floor of your crappy kitchen. But that didn’t stop you. Riding his dick like it was somehow essential to your existence, you had never wanted anyone more than you did right then. You couldn’t control the loud cries and broken sobs that filled the small kitchen, and Five wasn’t exactly being quiet either.

“Oh shit, honey…please keep doing that…I’ve wanted this so badly.”

After one more long kiss, you could feel your body start to reach its climax. As Five grasped your hips again, working you over even faster, you let yourself go with a broken moan that got louder the more your body reacted to his. With your back arched, head tipped back, and your hips twitching wildly, Five clenched his teeth and looked down between your bodies. He could see the white lather of your arousal coating his cock. With a husky growl, Five pushed you down and came inside you.

Gasping for air, you collapsed into him, chests heaving against one another. He held you loosely, his hands idly caressing your back and hair.

“Five?” you panted; nuzzling your nose and mouth into the side of his sweat-damp neck.

“Yeah?”

“If you had been fucking me like that this whole time, these last several months could have been much more enjoyable.”

He let out a breathy laugh. “If I were more confident in my time travel skills, I would go back and remedy that.”

As your playful kisses traveled over his neck and cheek, you gave him one last, deep kiss on his mouth before pulling back again. You stared deeply into his eyes that you only just now realized were so easy to get lost in.

Moving a stray piece of hair from his forehead, you smiled sweetly. “While I definitely would not mind more of your amazing dick action, I am going to murder you if I have to spend one more day in this strawberry hellhole.”

Five matched your snarky grin with his own, and smacked your ass swiftly. “Off.”

Rolling your eyes, but not able to hide the blush that dusted your cheeks again when he took that tone with you, you unfurled yourself from his body and stood up. Offering a hand out, you helped Five to his feet.

“While the thought crossed my mind to leave you in the dark just so I can get some more action, I don’t have the heart. Look,” he said as he pointed to his notebook that had just recently been pinned under your body on the table.

When you looked closer at his illegible scrawls, you frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I did it.”

You looked back over at him with raised eyebrows. “Did what?”

“Found our way home. While you were out getting water, I figured it out.”

As the realization of what he was saying washed over you, you shrieked and threw your arms around his shoulders, pulling his damp, naked body into yours. “Five! Oh my god, you did it! We can go home?”

He nodded, a giant smile growing over his face. “I think so. And I think I figured it out so that we will have time to stop the whole mess that was starting to go down before we left, too. I think we can save the world.”

“Oh my god! This is amazing!” You pulled him tighter and kissed him hard on the lips, still smiling. “Five, you’re amazing!” Then a thought came to you and you tilted your head to the side. “Hang on…if you figured this out while I was out getting water…were you really jerking off to thoughts of me, or just your own mathematical genius?”

Five shrugged with that sexy, lopsided smile of his. “Can’t it be a little of both?”

“Holy shit,” you laughed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here and go home.”

Five pulled you close with a jerk, his arm around your waist and his hand resting securely on the small of your back. With a look that made your heart flip in your chest and your knees weak and wobbly, Five leaned in to kiss you, biting gently at your lips before pulling away and rubbing his cheek across yours.

“Why leave now? We have all the time in the world and things were just getting good,” he said, his voice low and smooth; the rush of his hot breath down your neck sending shivers down your spine.

“Ok,” you breathed out before tipping your head back so he could access your neck. “What’s a few more days?”

[fannyyann]

Matthew Tkachuk on friend, former teammate Johnny Gaudreau: ‘I’m going to keep his memory alive’

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Matthew Tkachuk, reigning Stanley Cup champion and prince of South Florida, was bouncing off the walls at the Baptist Health IcePlex on Tuesday. He delivered light cross-checks to his Florida Panthers teammates and led the pack in conditioning drills, and his mouthguard received its customary chomping.

It appeared to be business as usual for the young star who is always occupied with something, whether it be selling the sport in Florida or partying with the Stanley Cup all summer.

Right now, that might be for the best.

Tkachuk’s dream summer turned into a nightmare when he learned of Johnny Gaudreau’s death on Aug. 29.

Gaudreau and his brother, Matthew, were killed in a traffic crash in Oldmans Township, N.J., outside Philadelphia. Police said the brothers were riding bicycles when they were hit by a driver trying to pass an SUV on a two-lane road.

Tkachuk and Johnny Gaudreau played together for six seasons with the Calgary Flames, a couple of American kids taking western Canada by storm, often on the same line. The two left the Flames in the summer of 2022, Gaudreau signing as a free agent with the Columbus Blue Jackets, while Tkachuk was sent to the Panthers in a blockbuster deal.

Tkachuk, whose life has been a whirlwind for months, hasn’t had enough time to process Gaudreau’s death in the month since it happened.

“You put so much work into a season, that’s where all of your energy goes,” Tkachuk said. “Then you make the playoffs. You make the Final. And then, when it was over, we got to celebrate this summer. It was the greatest summer of my life, and some of the most incredible memories were made. But then, right at the end of this amazing summer, the unthinkable happened.”

Gaudreau took Tkachuk under his wing in Calgary, and a forever friendship was formed. Understandably, Gaudreau is on Tkachuk’s mind every day, but that was already the case long before Gaudreau was gone.

“Ever since I left Calgary and came to Florida, all I ever do is tell stories about Johnny,” Tkachuk said. “At one point, I was probably telling the guys down here a Johnny story once a week. I was always talking about him, about something funny he had done, something he had done in practice, whatever. He was the kind of guy that you could never get out of your mind, and I hated being away from him.”

Gaudreau and Tkachuk talked all the time after leaving Calgary, and while they badly missed playing together, they looked forward to having another opportunity to wear the same jersey and maybe even play on the same line.

The NHL 4 Nations Face-Off — a tournament among the United States, Canada, Finland and Sweden — will be in less than five months in Boston and Montreal. Then, in 2026, NHL players will return to the Olympics for the first time since 2014. Between the NHL balking at its season being delayed and COVID creating havoc with the 2021-22 schedule, NHL players have not participated in the Olympics for a decade.

“You have to understand that Johnny and I talked about being in the Olympics together a lot,” Tkachuk said. “In 2022, when they canceled us from being in the Olympics, we were so upset. We were both playing really well together in Calgary and we thought we were going to be so good in the Olympics. We talked about it all the time. That was a tough one. He had played for Team USA in so many big events, and I know it meant a lot to him. Obviously, we would have been together this time. It’s tough to think about right now. But I know he would have been excited for those tournaments and he will be on my mind during those times even more than he usually is.”

Tkachuk doesn’t require nor ask for any sympathy. He simply misses his friend.

“Trust me, I feel like I’m the luckiest guy in the NHL,” he said. “I get to play a sport that I love, and it’s my job. And I get to play it (in Florida), which, in my opinion, is the best place in the league. The lifestyle. The fans we’ve developed down here. The way our fan base is growing and growing every day. You wouldn’t want to be anywhere other than this place. It really is the best, and I’m so lucky to have this life. I came here to win a Cup. I looked at this group of guys and I knew it could be done. I knew something special could happen. I guess I was right.”

Tkachuk’s emotions will surely peak in a few weeks, when the Panthers play on Oct. 15 in Columbus for the Blue Jackets’ home opener. In lieu of typical opening night ceremonies, the Blue Jackets will honor the memory of Johnny and Matthew Gaudreau.

“I really haven’t thought about that night too much just yet,” Tkachuk said. “But I have a feeling that it’s going to be pretty tough to play that night. It’s not just me that’s feeling it, obviously. The whole league is feeling it right now. Anyone who knew him is feeling it even more.”

Tkachuk is busy preparing his Panthers for a chance to claim back-to-back championships. Dynasties aren’t much of a thing in the modern-day NHL, but the Panthers have won the Cup once, have been to the Final two years consecutively, and their core remains in its 20s.

“We can do something special,” Tkachuk said.

Even still, a small part of his mind remains focused on the international tournaments, where he’ll never get the chance to play with Gaudreau again. But he does have a chance to honor Gaudreau during those tournaments.

“It’s been a really, really, really tough few weeks,” he said. “I still can’t even believe it. It’s just so sad. All of it.”

While sitting and looking down at the Panthers practice facility, Tkachuk’s face alternates emotions, his mind churning.

“You know, the thing that’s getting me through this is those stories I was telling you about,” he said. “Those stories about him I tell all the guys constantly. I’m going to keep those stories with me forever and I’m going to keep his memory alive in everybody by continuing to tell those stories.”

He hopes to generate another story involving Gaudreau when the Olympics arrive.

“He would have been there and wearing that Team USA jersey meant a lot to him,” Tkachuk said. “It means a lot to me, too. When I’m there, he will be on my mind the whole time. Even more than usual. And I’ll be telling stories.”

[corkinavoid]

Fun Facts about Fiance to a Star

Lore/relationship drama of Phantom family and those connected to it, this time. Long post, be warned.

It all started like a fairytale - Madeline Walker was the fairest in all lands, beauty and grace, genius magical prodigy, skilled with a sword, kind, loyal, and fierce. When she first came to AMITIE, young and full of stars in her eyes, Clockwork had warned her not to dig too deep.

She did not give his warning much thought.

Over the years, a lot of men tried to win her over, but she declined all of them. Vlad, who had fallen in love with her at first sight, decided to be smarter than most and claimed the place of her best friend, hoping that later she would notice him. Madeline did not. Instead, she had fallen - both literally and metaphorically - all over Jack Fenton, who, unlike all others, had never given much thought to her beauty or genius. Jack only saw a girl who was just as interested in studying otherlings as he was.

The three of them together - Maddie, Jack, and Vlad - had created lots and lots of trouble during their years in AMITIE. It was Jack who once overrun the fifth floor by a giant plant spirit - a weave of a charm gone wrong. Even now, years later, it is not recommended to bring any plants on the fifth floor hence they may come to life. It was Vlad who accidentally forced a blessing of Nocturn over a whole class of White Golds, and Clockwork had to spend a week trying to release them from their forever sleep. It was Maddie who engraved an explosion charm into her staff, which backfired splendidly a month later - the ceiling of the cafeteria still has a few scorch marks from that day.

And it was all them together who created the first unmarked door.

It was a breakthrough, a path to the Other Side, an accomplishment like no other. For the first time, humans could come to the Other Side at will.

Unfortunately, it also meant that otherlings could come into the Mortal Realm just as easily. But nor Maddie, nor Jack or Vlad knew it then.

Excited at the successful experiment, the working door to the Infinite Lands, Madeline proposed to Jack then and there, and he, overwhelmed by his happiness from all sides, agreed instantly. Vlad was forced to accept it - he did not like it, but Maddie made her choice, and he could not convince her otherwise.

Just a year later, Jazz was born. And, by sheer coincidence, the second unmarked door had appeared, not in the research labs in the underground floors, but on the eighth floor, by Vortex's classroom, without anyone noticing.

It was not long until the Darkest Pariah had noticed these new paths. And, when he went through out of curiosity, what did he find? A place full of mages of all sizes and shapes. Ancients - his subjects - teaching humans of the ways of magic. And a charming maiden with hair as bright as fire and a wicked grin on her lips, with magic like no other. It must have been destiny.

Yet, when he asked, the maiden turned him down, just like she did with every other man. She claimed she was already married. Pariah did not understand - her soul was untied, which meant whatever marriage she was speaking of has not been official in his understanding. So, finding no other way to claim what he already thought of as his, he stole the love of his life and brought her to the Other Side.

She fought him. Again and again, every day, until Pariah saw no other way than to simply charm her into accepting him.

A year later, the Wandering Star was born. Maddie insisted on him having a human name as well, but Pariah never liked how 'Daniel' sounded.

Meanwhile, as Pariah was enjoying his play-pretend at a family, back in the Mortal Realm, both Jack and Vlad were going insane with worry. They kept searching and searching for Madeline, first together, then separately after a fair share of arguments between them. It was Vlad who had finally found her through many trials and dangers. In Pariah's castle. With a kid.

Long story short, he stole her away, together with Danny, and brought them both back to the Academy. The charm Pariah put Madeline under fell just as they got to the Tower, and Vlad, in his frenzied and panicked state, confessed to her at that moment. He told her he could protect her and do it better than her oaf of a husband, he would accept the half-otherling kid, he would do anything for her. He already did everything for her, he stood in the way of a burning curse that was guarding Pariah's castle...

But Maddie, overwhelmed by a sudden flood of memories that came back after Pariah's charm fell, pushed him away and ran to find Jack, leaving the heartbroken, cursed man where he stood.

In the next few years, everything seemed to go back to normal. The doors - each and every one that spawned over the Tower - were sealed and locked away. Jack and Jazz reunited with Maddie, and Danny was accepted into the Fenton family easily. Clockwork offered them to stay, to live in the Tower - if Maddie or Danny ever stepped out, they would immediately be found by Pariah. The Academy was the only place that was hidden from his gaze.

Danny grew and learned more and more. He met Tucker when he was five - the boy's family were magi-blacksmiths, and they moved to the town near the Academy to have access to its research and labs. Later, they both met Sam. She was undergoing a course of Trait control in the Tower since her familial plant powers were amplified by a blessing granted by Undergrowth. Sam bragged about a prophecy that spoke of her gaining unlimited power in the future.

Vlad, who disappeared shortly after Maddie's return - supposedly to gain control over the remains of the burning curse that were left in his body - came back when Danny was eleven. Yet, he didn't try reconnecting with Fentons, nor did he speak to Danny about anything. He buried himself in research and, slowly, merged in the background. Just another unfamiliar face in the crowd, another researcher in the Tower.

When Danny was twelve, he found one of the sealed unmarked doors. What happened next, everyone in the Academy remembered as the Time Catastrophe: when re-opened by a child that had way more power than he could control, the door did not lead him to a different place. Rather, it led him to a different time. Clockwork later explained it as a mistake caused by the fact he was personally mentoring Danny most of the time, so the boy must have unconsciously picked up a thing of two from him, from the Ancient of Time.

In any case, through that door came Dan. And it went... Not very well, but by the end of it, the older, different, wrong version of Wandering Star stayed in this dimension. After all, it was an accident that brought him here, and there was no way to send him back. Jack and Maddie offered him to join the family, of course, but the man declined. And, seeing that he was not the Child of King to the Other Side, not the one Pariah was looking for, Clockwork let him leave the Tower. He became a mercenary - a wanderer - and wasn't that ironic, given his name.

Everything came to an end two years later, when Danny turned fourteen. The Rift, a giant portal to the Other Side, opened over the Tower, and countless demons came through it. And, at the front lines of the otherling invasion, was the Darkest Pariah.

On his right side was Vlad and a girl who looked so much like Danny.

The demons, born over the years from Pariah's loss, grief, and anger, could not get through the walls of the Tower. Guarded by the oldest Ancient, it stood tall and protected by numerous shields the Ancients have created over the ages. Fentons were safe inside, but... There was no one to stop Pariah. The Ancients, bound by the Crown, could not fight the King, only defend themselves. So, in his attempt at luring the ones he desired out, Pariah sent the demons to towns and cities around, threatening to keep killing everyone they find until the Academy gives him what he wants. And he wanted Maddie.

When she heard about it, she knew she had no choice. One life over hundreds, maybe thousands of others, it was a simple decision. Yet, before she could make it, a child stood up in front of Pariah.

Danny, who cared for his mother and called Jack his father, despite knowing he was not born to him. Danny, who spent his life in the Tower, closed off from the wide world because of Pariah's obsession. Danny, with two friends by his side, an ice blade in his trembling hands and silver in his eyes that spoke of anger, of hurt, and of a burning desire to protect those he loved.

The Rift was closed only half a day after it was open.

Darkest Pariah met his end at his son's hand.

To the outside world, the Rift had been an unfortunate catastrophe caused and later handled by the mages of Academy. Only a handful of people - and the otherlings, of course - knew the truth, and none of them really wanted to share it.

Vlad, narrowly escaping death with the help of Dani, was made to stay at the Academy, where Clockwork could keep an eye on him. He never confessed it, but everyone was sure he's been the traitor who told Pariah of Maddie's and Danny's whereabouts.

Dani - Vlad's poor attempt at recreating Danny, the reasons for which he also never told another soul about - had spent nearly a year in Frostbite's care. At first, she remained loyal to Vlad as her creator, but over time, with the help of many talks with both Danny and Clockwork, she learned the whole ugly truth about everything that happened. Since then, she never spoke to Vlad and never returned to the Academy, spending her life as a free spirit and roaming the world.

Soon after the fall of Pariah, Maddie, who was now free to leave the Tower, decided that her life as a mage and researcher had come to an end and left it behind. Jack followed her, deeming his wife more important than magic. They offered both Jazz and Danny to go with them, but Danny could not leave the Tower yet - not because of someone or something keeping him there anymore, but because of the responsibility that fell on his shoulders after Pariah's defeat. He was the Heir now, the rightful Prince to the Other Side. Jazz stayed behind as well, for many reasons, starting with the fact she did not want to abandon her brother and ending with her own goals, most of which were related to magic.

Two years later, Clockwork had given Danny a scroll with a long-forgotten prophecy that tied him with one of the Gotham princes.

-------

This is the very brief run-through Danny's life before the events of Fiance to a Star. I skipped over a lot of details here, like how Sam's prophecy turned out, for example (short answer to that is pretty much 'unfortunate plant possession'). If you have any questions about other characters, feel free to ask them! Depending on how much I get, I might end up making a whole another post with answers.

Oh, yeah, by the way, about Fenton/Phantom. Fenton is Jack's last name, and, naturally, both Jazz and Danny have it. Yet, Dan and Dani technically do not belong to the family, so after Jack and Maddie left, Dani jokingly offered Phantom as a last name for Danny, Dan, and her. Since they are phantoms of each other, she thought it was poetic. The boys thought it was a great idea, and later, Jazz was also included in the Phantom family. It wasn't long before Sam and Tucker also started using it, so now they are a weird mix of friends and family that all go by one last name in certain circles (among otherlings, mostly).

[yoshiyolotli]

To the GO Fandom ...

So ... I am not sure who will see this but I needed to write something.

I fell into the GO Fandom earlier this year after my adult son told me about his writing fanfic on AO3 (for a completely different fandom), and clicking on the link for @phoen1xr0se while reading DFAFM. Since then I have become moots with only a small handful of other fans and followed some of my favourite writers. I am even editing a fanfic! I can't forget about @deichselschwein and DYWACTG! Such a fun story that had me checking daily for updates. This story taught me about weekly updates and having to be patient.

Then @klikandtuna wrote (at some point) FTL and I learned to cry over a story and care deeply about fictional characters on a page.

I had all summer to interact because I am teacher and was on summer holidays. I have been back at work since the end of August and am missing this fandom and my daily interactions greatly. The few I do interact with have become people I look forward to reading about, seeing others leave them "Asks", and maybe even have a short text chat. I miss the way this fandom supports each other, but also allows the messiness of life.

I want it back! It's funny, being someone born in the 70s I never figured I would find a community online ... but I have - even if I am very much on the fringes of it.

This story became important to me after my sister introduced it to me. THEN I saw S1 ... well, we all know what happens to a GO fan after that! 🎣

Anywho ... this long ramble is to say, as much as I hang out on the fringes (I don't write fanfic) of this fandom, I am grateful for it. This spring and summer was the first time in close to a decade I read just for fun ... your stories were the reason why!

I will keep checking in as school finds a rhythm ... we shall see as I teach 12 year olds Maths and Science ... but I miss you all. Keep looking after each other!

[synthetickitsune]

hoshi,,,blind date,,,fluff

Hoshi (SVT) | Blind date fluff | 0.7k | gn!reader

The evening was… nice.

And that’s about all that you can say about it.

Honestly that is in part why you seldom say yes to blind dates. But since your one-plus-one deal coworker and trusted friend in one insisted you and their other friend Soonyoung should give it a try, you eventually agreed.

There was nothing wrong with him. He was nice. A little awkward, his shyness matching yours, but you didn’t mind much. He was laughing at your jokes a little too hard, but it was endearing. The conversation flowed well, he was kind, funny. Nice.  

Not to mention handsome. Maybe slightly cuter than a guy has any business being, but it works so well for him. It’s very charming, actually.

But for a date, it was nothing special - which is to be expected, of course. It was obvious he liked you, as much as you could like little more than a stranger, which made him less of a social butterfly than he is at the office (at least from what you could tell from his stories). You’re sure that the next date would be better since you’d be more familiar with each other, but honestly… Is it worth it? Perhaps you had too high expectations after a long and tiring week, just craving something magical to make the struggle worth it.

You feel slightly guilty for feeling that way when Soonyoung has been nothing but sweet the whole time, even now as you’re strolling along the river with the setting sun shining down on you, he’s great. It’s quiet, the comfortable kind of quiet. You’re grateful for the brief pause in conversation as you sip on the cold drink in your hand. 

The park on your other side is getting empty, but there’s still plenty of people chatting on the blankets having a late picnic. The insects are buzzing, the water is rippling. It all makes up a nice ambiance of dying summer.

While you’re pondering the pros and cons of a second date, the kids in front of you finally talk their parents into buying them some ice cream. Just as you’re passing by them, the youngest one tries to run away from its siblings and the ice cream suddenly splatters on the ground as they wobble. The kid looks at the mess like it’s the biggest tragedy to ever befall mankind.

You bite your lip, trying to stop yourself from laughing. Soonyoung next to you isn’t so successful.

He starts walking faster, about to burst, and his barely contained laughter only makes it that much more difficult for you so you match his pace, and then all it takes for you to lose it is one glance at each other. At least you’re out of earshot of the parents fussing over the kid.

“It’s not nice,” a shaky breath interrupted by laughter, “To laugh at something like that.”

“Thanks for the reminder,” you don’t take the scolding to heart, instead you try to calm your breathing. Which just makes Soonyoung laugh harder, which in turn makes you laugh again.

“We’re really messing up our karmas,” he finally manages to say relatively calmly after a couple minutes. He wipes at his eyes quickly and you take the opportunity to do the same.

“I’m so glad you started laughing first,” you take a deep breath, “I thought you’d judge me.”

“Never!” his hand shoots up to clutch at his chest as he acts all offended.

“Are you sure?” you tease, “I’d be very disappointed if that was a lie.”

“My sense of humor is really childish,” he waves you off. His ears look a little red. Soonyoung really is a bit too cute. And you still don’t mind.

“Yeah? Give me your worst joke,” And that challenge is your undoing. 

How you got here, sitting by the river and leaning on Soonyoung because you’re laughing so hard, you have no idea. It’s a blur - and the memory is filled by too many jokes that would just make your cheeks hurt more. He really wasn’t kidding, the jokes are bad. Horrible. Childish. And exactly your taste. And just what you both needed to relax and be comfortable apparently.

Somehow you’re still sitting there when the sky gets dark, just talking. The contrast of before and now is night and day. Suddenly you’re reluctant to leave even though you really should. And your date doesn’t seem too excited about the idea of leaving either - not even after you already scheduled another date.

Although you think just one more won’t be enough.

[waywardchaos3]

Satoru Gojo Kiss Prompt: Back From The Dead

Pairing: Satoru Gojo x fem!reader

Prompt(s): “You came back./…” “I promised, didn't I?” + Returned From The Dead Kiss

Rating: Angst with some Fluff

Warning(s): This story contains some manga spoilers, but since I have not read the JJK manga or seen s2 at the moment, it's not totally accurate... I just hope you all enjoy it as this story isn't super specific to the prompts but it's the same idea, yeah?

WC: 1,926

Main Masterlist

A/N - This is yet another story of mine that was inspired by a fic written by another amazing writer here on Tumblr! It was inspired by this fic by the amazing @just-jordie-things!

*I will definitely have to make another story like this that is more based on the events of the manga and the anime when I get the chance too, so stay tuned for that!*

It had been weeks since your long-time boyfriend, Satoru Gojo, had been sealed in that damn box.

The world around you fell into chaos in a matter of minutes since word had got out that the great Satoru Gojo was in the prison realm.

Curses and Curse users seemed to crawl out of the shadows and the depths of hell itself to celebrate his removal from this plane.

Every day there's a new challenge just to keep up with exorcising all of the curses that came out of hiding.

There aren't many jujutsu sorcerers left...

So many have decided to or were forced to retire...

So many have died...

With that being said, there are only a few of you left who can fight this fight.

You included, even though you'd instead go straight after Geto for doing this to Satoru and putting you and so many others through this.

Not only do you have to deal with your desire to go after Geto and fight against curse users and powerful cursed spirits, but you also have to deal with the weight of fear you're carrying, not knowing of his well-being.

Is he even still alive in there?

You hope so...

You've also wondered if he's okay or if he's hurt so many at this point...

You know that time works differently in the prison realm, but that's all you know about it.

The box was supposed to be a rare object, but Suguru Geto had somehow found it and used it with such ease to seal Gojo inside.

Will he ever return?

You don't know for sure, but you hope that if you and the others can get your hands on the box and find a way to unseal him, your hope would be restored.

Thinking about Satoru and Geto being the one who had sealed him away as much as you have been ever since he was sealed into the box causes your mind to be occupied with anxiety for you to patrol the area you were asked to properly.

Your teeth grit together roughly as the thought of Geto being the one behind Satoru being sealed away in that box, your eyes currently focused on a rather rowdy group of teenagers messing around on the other side of the street near an alleyway, distracted.

Your feelings about Geto, who had once been a very close friend of yours, have always complicated, especially after he had reportedly killed his family and went on to slaughter hundreds of non-sorcerers...

You've struggled so much with the way you miss him, too.

No matter what he seems to do or what heinous acts he commits, some nights, you still cry yourself to sleep because you wish that things could go back to the way they were.

On most of those nights, Satoru sat awake with you, comforting you as you wept and reminisced about the good old days when you, Satoru, Shoko, and Geto were friends and would hang out and also go on missions together.

Satoru had spent hours combing his fingers through your hair, cooing softly about how he missed those days, too.

And now that you're here, Satoru is sealed away, and Geto is to blame; it's as though all of your feelings have become crystal clear.

You HATE Suguru Geto!

You hate who he's become.

You hate that he let himself take such a dark path.

You hate that he betrayed you, Satoru, Shoko, and jujutsu sorcerers everywhere.

Right now, though, you mostly hate him for what he did to Satoru.

When it comes to Satoru, though... you love Satoru Gojo.

You had known him since the two of you were very young children. You became close friends with him, which stayed that way until you got into high school when he asked you to be his girlfriend.

You had been dating ever since.

And even with Satoru sealed away, you love everything about him.

Not sensing any cursed spirits or cursed energy in general, you huff, deeming the area safe for now before starting your trek back to the apartment.

Walking home, you think about how long you've tried to remain positive.

For your students.

For the other sorcerers.

Being the closest to Satoru, you know that you have to put on a brave face and ensure everyone that hope is not entirely lost, that at the end of the day, everything will be okay, and good will triumph because that's how it's supposed to be.

You are feeling hopeless, though, and you've been carrying those feelings since that day in Shibuya when Itadori told you that Satoru had been sealed away.

You remember every second of your short interaction with him that day.

His wide eyes, his shaky voice, the way he had asked you what that meant, and then the look he had given you as he looked to you for guidance on how to help with the situation.

In response, you had sent him off rather quickly to help at the bus station, but truthfully, you just needed him gone so he couldn't see your entire foundation crumbling.

And then came the deaths of your friends... your students... and people you had fought alongside your whole life...; they all began piling up, and you couldn't help but feel hopeless...

What else was there to feel, though?

The man whose mere existence was supposed to put all of this at ease was gone, and now, with how long he's been sealed away, you're starting to think he'll never come back.

Cold raindrops hit your face just as you reach your apartment building.

You consider yourself lucky to have made it to your apartment building before the storm started, but the weight of your anguish squashes such positive emotion.

It's only a matter of time before you're killed too, you think bitterly, more irritated by the notion than afraid.

You know that you're getting reckless, as many of the others who are still fighting the fight have told you.

You're running on little to no sleep... Barely eating anything, which means your energy is always low.

In fact, the last few curses you'd had to exorcize were low enough in grade that you considered yourself lucky, but you knew that if you were to run into a grade one- or a special grade- you'd be lucky if your death is quick and painless.

"What am I going to do?" you mutter to no one and nothing in particular as you dig in your pocket for your keys, ready to enter the building and just go to bed and sleep—or at least try to.

As you're about to enter the building, you realize that the rain seems to have stopped, as you no longer feel the chilly wet drops hitting your skin.

'I could've sworn that the skies were overcast just a minute ago,' you ponder before tilting your head back to look up at the night sky.

Sure enough, the stars aren't visible, and the sprinkle had turned into a full-on downpour.

Even though you're now paying attention to the storm, hearing the distant rumbles of thunder, curiously, you remain dry.

You're not under an awning, and you don't have an umbrella, so you're not sure what's causing this phenomenon.

Your brows furrow in confusion as you stretch your hand out in front of you, reaching as far as you can, and to your surprise, you remain dry.

"What the hell?" you mumble as you look down at the pavement around you.

You can see a clear line before you, where the raindrops are pelting the pavement just in front of your feet.

You've seen and witnessed many weird things in your life as a jujutsu sorcerer, but this has to be the most peculiar thing you have ever seen.

You do a slow 360° turn, and just as you thought, the pavement underneath you is dry.

That's when you notice something strange when you turn away from your apartment building's door.

The dry patch of pavement stretches out another ten or so feet and clings around another figure.

As you look up at the figure, the air gets knocked out of your lungs as you see the familiar head of white hair, causing you to sputter for a second as tears sting your eyes.

"Satoru." you whimper out before running towards him at full speed.

As you reach him, you crash into him, clearly knocking the air out of him.

After stumbling back a few steps from the impact, his strong arms wrap around you, and he's holding you tightly against his chest.

"Oh my god... Satoru..." you gasp out as you cling to him tightly, with your arms around his neck and your legs wrapping around his hips to keep yourself in place, your hands getting lost in his pure white hair as you have your face buried in the crook of his neck.

"I know, sweetheart... I know..." he breathes gently against your neck as his own hands are lost in your hair, breathing in your familiar scent he'd damn near forgotten.

When you finally pull away from him, it's only for a moment, just long enough to see Satoru's pretty face, seeing that it's unharmed, which fills you with relief before your hands grab the collar of his t-shirt as you tug him against you so fast that your lips slam together.

This kiss is messy, your teeth clashing with his, both of you panting so hard that it's challenging to kiss properly, but you don't care about that one bit.

Just a minute ago, you were so sure you'd never seen him again, but now that he's here with you, you'll take any scrap of closeness you can get.

He has one arm wrapped under your legs to help support you, while the other tangles in your hair, pulling you back while he gasps for breath.

You let go, gasping for breath. "Oh my god, you're here, you're real, you-you're alive..." you whimper as you press your forehead against his, your hands cupping his face. "You came back...”

“I'm alive." he nods against your forehead, his lips brushing yours again.

"I promised, didn't I?"

That's right. Itadori mentioned that before he was sealed in the box completely, Satoru had told Itadori to tell you that he promised to return to you, no matter what and no matter how long it took.

"I'm here; I'm home," he says before giving you a long, deep kiss.

He lets go a few moments later, and you look him straight in the eyes.

"I thought-" you choke on your burning throat. "I thought you were gone, I thought- I thought I'd never see you again..."

You're tearing up again, the weight of your emotions confusing you, but you still muster a smile as you look at him. "I thought I lost you..."

"Oh, baby," he sighs, setting you down on your feet so that he can wipe your tears away. You didn't lose me; I'm right here." He assures you, and you nod, leaning into the warmth of his palm. And I'm not going anywhere, never again, okay?"

You nod back at him, shutting your eyes as you relish in the comfort of his presence.

Now that he's back with you, you can finally get your life back on track and end what's been happening with Sukuna and Geto.

Right now, though, all you want to do is stay wrapped up in his embrace, which is what you will do.

[flurry-of-stars]

𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓈𝑒 𝐻𝑜𝓁𝓁𝑜𝓌 𝐻𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓈-𝓥

⋆｡°✩𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓿𝓲𝓸𝓾𝓼𝓵𝔂⋆｡°✩ 𝕺𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖛𝖎𝖊𝖜 - 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝕴- 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝕴𝕴- 𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙 𝕴𝕴𝕴-𝕻𝖆𝖗𝖙𝓘𝓥

⋆｡°✩𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕴𝖓𝖉𝖊𝖝 ⋆｡°✩ Slow burn romance, female reader, small age gap (Fyodor is thirty, the reader is in her early twenties.) No Abilities AU 𝒲𝑜𝓇𝒹 𝒸𝑜𝓊𝓃𝓉: 8k 𝓐𝓾𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓻'𝓼 𝓝𝓸𝓽𝓮: Man...it has been a while. I've had this sitting in my drafts since May. It feels amazing to finally get it out. So sorry for the long delay! I hope you all enjoy! (˶˃ ᵕ ˂˶) 𝓛𝓲𝓴𝓮𝓼 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝕽𝖊𝖇𝖑𝖔𝖌𝖘 𝖆𝖗𝖊 𝖛𝖊𝖗𝖞 𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖗𝖊𝖈𝖎𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖉 ♡

“Damn it–!”

A sharp gasp of shock escapes you as your dominant hand betrays you, releasing the cup of tea seconds before it can reach your lips. The fragrant liquid, thankfully lukewarm, splashes on your lap and coat before thudding to the floor, thankfully undamaged.

Curling your hand into a fist, you draw it close to your chest, holding it with your other hand.

A sharp, burning sensation radiates through your fingers and palm, each pulse of agony sending jolts of discomfort through your arm. Inhaling sharply, you squeeze your eyes shut, trying to bear with the pain.

The pain was getting worse.

You were already well aware it was from the long hours you imposed on yourself as Fyodor’s translator. The lengthy days working away over these pages, treating each of his chapters with care to ensure each was translated perfectly from his native tongue into English, without his story being changed or translated incorrectly.

Well, at least hoped you were doing a good job of it.

You exhale sharply, releasing your pulsing hand from your gentle hold as you get up.

Bending down, your fingers curl around the gold handle of the cup, preparing to return it to its place on the small, new rolling table Dmitry had dropped off for Fyodor over the weekend. It's intended purpose was for a laptop but it made for a pretty good work space too.

Olga had bought it for him when she went into town, Fyodor had said. You smile. The last time you had tea with the couple had been pleasant…even if Dmitry had trouble speaking in English.

Your thoughts are disrupted as another jolt of pain shoots through your hand the moment you lift the teacup by its handle. Like a thousand little lightning bolts rippling through each digit down into your wrist.

Grimacing, you use your non-dominant hand to scoop the cup up, placing it down before you make your way to the bathroom to freshen up.

The bathroom in Fyodor's cottage was simple and practical, with only the essentials. Practical like him, you thought.

You couldn't help but admire the clawfoot bathtub, a novelty for you, and notice that there used to be a mirror above the sink, despite its absence now clearly marked by an outline on the wall.

You shrug off your burnt orange coat as you step into the cramped room, placing the wet fabric gingerly onto the sink, letting the dry portion hang off the side. With a determined effort, you grab the old sponge scourer nearby and begin scrubbing, trying to lift the sweet liquid from the fabric.

As you draw the sponge down the material, the pain flares up again. You wince, your hand trembling with each stroke, the sponge slipping through your fingers as searing pain ignites in your palm. You grip the sponge tightly, each squeeze sending waves of agony through your wrist.

‘Grit and bear it,’ you quietly whisper to yourself, taking a deep breath in to steady your nerves, ‘You can’t let something as silly as this stop you.’

You resume cleaning the coat, each movement accompanied by a few sharp huffs of pain.

Anger flares in your chest, mixing with the burning sensation in your wrist. You can't let something as trivial as a sore wrist stop you from salvaging your coat.

How pathetic would it be if a wrist injury kept you from cleaning your favourite coat? It would end up with a permanent stain, a constant reminder of your failure, and you'd have to abandon it—

Your anger falters, and your hand pauses mid-motion. 

Abandoning your coat was unthinkable. It’s a prized possession, one you couldn’t bear to part with. But if something loses its usefulness, it’s cast aside for something better, something newer, something more valuable.

No…no, no, no. You can’t let that happen.

As pain grips your hand like a tightening vice, you stifle a whimper, continuing to scrub the wet patch with increasing aggression. The determination to remove the stain overrides the pain throbbing in your wrist and hand.

You can’t let it lose its usefulness. You can’t let it be replaced by something better. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t…

No...no, it's okay....the stain is coming out...it’s all okay now… it's not damaged....it's still okay...It’s still wearable. It’s going to be okay…it’s still useful. It hasn’t lost its usefulness…

Breathing shakily, you glance at your wrist, the bandage damp. It’s not broken. No bones are sticking out, your fingers are intact, and your palm is still in place.

It’s just a bit of pain, that’s all. Some ibuprofen and you’ll be fine. There’s no reason to delay work over something that can be managed with a few pills.

As you hang your coat up to dry, you nod to yourself before leaving the bathroom.

You’ll take some ibuprofen and get back to work. The pills will ease the pain, and if they don’t, it really isn’t that bad. You can endure it. You have chapters to finish translating and only five days until the convention.

You have to keep going. 

You have to.

︵‿︵‿୨✩୧‿︵‿︵

A silvery light cascaded down upon her cheeks, casting an ethereal glow that seemed to transform her countenance into something otherworldly.

The teardrops that glistened upon her skin resembled stars, tracing a sorrowful path along the delicate contours of her face, only to fall, tumbling through the air like unheeded dreams.

It was in this moment that the true weight of my words struck me—a realization that pierced my very being. With my tongue wielded as a weapon, I had unwittingly thrust it into her heart, inflicting a wound far deeper than I had ever intended. How cruelly could one soul harm another in the throes of passion and despair?

My mind scarcely registered the sound of her chair scraping against the stone floor as she rose, her back turned to me, a sob escaping her lips that shook her entire form, quaking as violently as the bitter winds of winter might.

A constriction seized my throat, and my voice, once vibrant, was stifled in the depths of my anguish. In an instant, my body sprang forth, the chair clattering to the ground with a resounding thud. I could not permit her to leave. My heart, that treacherous organ, would not allow it; it throbbed with a fierce determination to bridge the chasm I had unwittingly created.

“No, wait, don’t go…!” I cried, leaping from my chair. I reached out to her, grabbing her wrist–

I tried to reach her—

Grabbing her hand in mine, I—

Fyodor’s pen clatters onto his desk as he rubs his face in frustration, letting out a soft groan.

No matter how hard he tries, the words refuse to flow from his pen as they once did. Gently, he pushes this page to join the other drafts for the latest chapter on the floor, a heavy sigh escaping his lips. 

Just days ago, his inspiration had been explosive. Like a match tossed into a canister of petrol, igniting his mind with a flurry of ideas so intense that he hadn’t slept, desperate to get every thought down.

Ideas had sprung to life like a box of fireworks.

Intense.

Bright.

Uncontainable. 

Now, pens lay empty on his desk, dried of the ink they once held, mere shells of their former selves. He had gone through so many pens and sheets of paper, he'd already needed to call Vivian purchase a restock of supplies on his behalf.

But now, he can barely write a few paragraphs without tossing the draft aside.

He’s gone back, rereading every chapter from the beginning to the latest. He’s even reviewed your translations, hoping that the sentences you’d woven beautifully in English would reignite something, anything within him.

But it has only led to more crossed-out sentences, reworked paragraphs, and shredded pages.

At one point, he even considered rewriting an entire chapter. One of the first chapters. Inhaling deeply, he pushes away from the desk and stands, moving through his room, lit solely by candlelight.

His steps are soft, boots gently tapping against the floorboards. As he moves, Tolstoy rises from his spot under his chair and trots after him, mewling and weaving between his legs.

Fyodor huffs, watching as the old cat bumps his head against his leg, meowing several times. Tolstoy lifts his paws towards him, making a kneading motion in the air. A plea to be held or pat.

“I’m fine, Tolstoy,” Fyodor murmurs, pacing the small room, his footsteps echoing around him. His gaze drifts from the feline to the cluttered shelf of books on his desk. His eyes skim the spines, each one bearing the name of a close friend.

The spines are covered in a thick layer of dust so dense that Fyodor’s finger leaves a clean trail when he brushes over them.

When he withdraws his hand, his fingertip is entirely black. He rubs the dust between his finger and thumb, studying the imprint with a thoughtful expression.

He moves along, using his fingertip to uncover each title, freeing each from the clutches of the dust that clings to them.

Each name represents a fond memory. Each book a reminder of his past, of times part of his heart still ached for. All of these books were cherished, beloved by him.

He felt as though these books were more than just the stories written inside. That they held his past memories in them as well.

Memories of when he received these books and those who were gracious enough to give them to him. It was foolish to yearn for the past. He was foolish to yearn for it.

His slender fingers continue along their path until–

His gaze shifts to the last book on the shelf, one coated with a thicker layer of dust than the others. Thankfully the dust had only accumulated on the plastic covering the book had been delivered in.

The grey hardcover book was missing its name along the spine, a fault by the manufacturer when they had first been in production five years ago. Fyodor was given the first copy to keep while the rest of the errors were destroyed.

It was his first published work—anonymously, of course. Vivian had created his pseudonym, a gesture for which he remained grateful, despite the name alias now representing something more painful.

His fingertip hesitates over the dust-covered spine, pausing as if uncertain whether to disturb it. It lightly caresses the edge of the plastic covering the spine before withdrawing, as if he had touched something he wasn’t meant to.

Inhaling deeply, his right hand caresses the back of his left hand, gently running up to a little ways above his wrist before slowly caressing down as he exhales. 

As he inhales deeply a second time, he focuses on the gentle caress of his right hand on the back of his left hand. With each breath, his hand traces a path up to just above his wrist before slowly descending again, as if following the ebb and flow of his breath.

The delicate movements were almost hypnotic. He exhales slowly, his body relaxing.

Why was he doing all of this?

His reason to write, to create and weave stories was no longer present. His writings, his novels….did any of it have a reason to exist when his own raison d'être was no longer–

He sharply exhales, glaring at the wall.

Suddenly, a loud mewl rouses his attention. He looks towards his desk as a furry paw plants itself on his arm. His dark eyes turn, gazing down at Tolstoy as he paws at his arm, mewling and chirping at him. He huffs, finally reaching down to scratch behind his ear.

“I said I’m fine,” he whispers, much more softly than before. His hand runs smoothly down Tolstoy’s neck, enjoying the softness of his plush fur. He follows the curve of his spine to the base of his tail before lifting his hand, returning to scratching behind his ear.

He turns his gaze towards the clock above his door. He hums softly in thought, finally pulling his hand away from Tolstoy’s soft fur. He gives a soft mewl, reaching out to keep patting at his arm.

However, Fyodor steps away, moving towards the door.

“It’s almost midday,” Fyodor murmurs to the feline, encouraging him to follow. His voice sounds breathless, even to his own ears as he runs a hand smoothly through his ruffled locks of hair, “I’m sure Огонёк has already gotten started on lunch.”

He pushes open the door, gratitude washing through him as he notices you kept the curtains closed and the candles lit just as he asked for hours prior.

He furrows his brow, puzzled by the unusual silence. Normally, you would already be bustling in the kitchen, clanging pots and pans as you prepared lunch.

You would look up and tease him, either about what took him so long to come help or ask if he was that worried about you burning the cottage down. A faint smile briefly flickers onto his face.

His leather boots echo against the hardwood floor as he makes his way to the only other room you could be in.

Suddenly, a sound of discomfort reaches his ears, prompting him to quicken his pace towards the living area. He grabs onto the door frame for support as he calls out in concern, hoping for a response, “Огонёк? Are you–”

He pauses, his voice catching as he takes in the sight of you. His eyes scan your figure, starting at your bandaged hand that is clutched tightly to your chest. Your other hand grips it fiercely as if trying to suppress the pulsing, burning pain underneath.

Pages are strewn about on the rolling table and the carpet, creating white patches around you. Even your pen is lost in the mess. But what captures his attention the most is your expression.

Though your eyes widen in surprise at his abrupt arrival, your face is twisted in agony.

 Your eyebrows are furrowed together, lips pulled back in a scowl, and your eyes are glossy. It's not difficult for Fyodor to piece together what happened.

You pushed yourself too hard.

Again. After he had told you not to. After you promised you wouldn't.

You should have listened. Why didn't you listen??

“You’re pushing yourself too hard, yet again.” His eyes are like cold steel, assessing every detail of your struggle, his eyes moving from your bandaged hand, to the twisted look of pain on your face.

How could you keep doing this to yourself? Why do you insist on suffering this way? Did you enjoy making yourself suffer, when he was right here to help?

Why didn't you ask for help?

He continues with a chilling calmness, each word enunciated with a surgical precision, “Your discomfort is palpable, and yet you persist as if it’s inconsequential.”

Were you doing this on purpose?

“Mr. Dostoyevsky–” You open your mouth, attempting to explain, but Fyodor’s narrowed eyes cut you off, silencing you with their intensity.

“It’s as if you’re deliberately ignoring the physical damage you’re inflicting on yourself,” he continues, his tone devoid of warmth. “Do you honestly believe that this relentless drive will yield any true satisfaction, or are you merely too obstinate to face the consequences?”

Why are you being so stubborn? Why can't you just listen to me?

You bristle at his words, your frustration bubbling to the surface. You move the rolling table to the side, “You don’t get to dictate what I can and can’t handle!” you snap, moving the rolling table aside with a forceful shove. Fyodor’s eyes widen slightly, his usual composure momentarily disrupted.

He hasn’t seen this side of you before now. 

“I’m not going to stop just because you think I’m overdoing it!” Your voice rises, defiant and fiery as Fyodor goes ridged, his arms crossing over his chest, “I don’t need your approval or your pity!”

Fyodor doesn’t waver, his cold demeanor unmoved by your outburst,  “It’s not about permission or pity,” he counters, his voice retaining its unsettling steadiness. “It’s about your responsibility to yourself before you jeopardize your future.”

Your anger intensifies, a wave of frustration surging through you. “I don’t need a lecture on responsibility,” you retort sharply. “I know my limits. I’m capable of pushing through–”

Fyodor steps closer, his presence imposing, his tone taking on a steely edge. “Do you truly grasp what could happen if you persist?” His gaze pierces through you, forcing you to step back, dwarfed by his intensity. “This isn’t mere discomfort or fleeting pain. You risk a permanent injury that could render your hand useless.”

His voice drops to a frigid whisper, “Envision living with that consequence, knowing it was avoidable. Picture squandering your entire future because of a few extra hours of work. That’s the reality you face if you don’t step back and take care of yourself.”

For a moment, he notices your brows knitting together, your lips twitching as if about to curve downwards, your eyes appearing slightly glassy. But then, the fire reignites in your gaze as you step back, wrapping your arms around yourself defensively. “A few extra hours of work isn’t going to cripple me! You’re just being paranoid–!”

“Сверхуважаемая госпожа.”

Fyodor’s tone, colder than the snow that fell two days prior, makes you flinch, your eyes widening in shock. He remains unmoved, his gaze penetrating as if seeking to unravel the deepest recesses of your soul.

His jaw tightens as he delivers a single, icy command. “Остановись.”

Your hands clench into tight fists, your eyes narrowing with defiance. As your vision blurs and your chest tightens with the sting of anger and hurt, you glance back at the rolling table, where your work remains incomplete.

Inhaling sharply, you turn, grabbing your shoulder bag, which holds several more of Fyodor’s chapters. As you prepare to push past him, he calls out, “Where are you going?”

“Home,” you snap, “Since you clearly don’t want me here.”

Fyodor’s frustration is palpable as he follows you towards the door. The flames of the candles lining the hallway flicker wildly, some nearly extinguishing from the draft of your angry departure. “You are behaving like a child–”

“Oh, so now you see me as a child?” You retort sharply, not even glancing back. A harsh, humourless laugh escapes you as you wrench open the door. A frigid gust of air rushes in, extinguishing the remaining candles and plunging the hallway into darkness.

As the biting cold brushes against his skin, Fyodor’s body tenses involuntarily. You don’t look back as you leave, slamming the door behind you with a force that echoes in the empty hallway.

Fyodor stands alone in the darkness, his hands trembling slightly.

The impulse to chase after you gnaws at him, but his feet feel as though they are rooted to the spot by an invisible force. He stares ahead into the darkened corridor, his ears filled with the faint, almost nervous sound of his own breathing.

Even as Tolstoy approaches him, mewling and weaving his furry body against his ankles, Fyodor stays completely still, only the sound of his ragged breaths filling the dark corridor. 

︵‿︵‿୨✩୧‿︵‿︵

Brown, withered leaves, exposed once more due to the snow melting crunch under your boots as you storm away from Fyodor’s cottage, your shoulder bag swaying wildly.

Anger and adrenaline still flood your mind, your body feeling rigid and tense. Your bare arms are wrapped tight around your body in an attempt to protect your exposed skin from the cold elements.

Honestly, who does he think he was, telling me what I can and can’t handle? He doesn’t even know me. I could handle this and more. If I really wanted to, I could even cartwheel right now! Juggle a trio of bowling balls even!

Well...if you had the strength--

An angered huff escapes you as you slip under the floral archway, the aroma of flowers doing nothing to soothe your furious spirit as their petals seem to curl further away from you and inwards. As if they aren’t sure what to hide from; the growing coldness or your burning anger.

Your boots click against the damp, slick cobblestone path, your eyes catching glimpse of a ball of vibrant orange up ahead. You glance up noticing a familiar orange tabby cat doing circles around a cute, handcrafted bowl with cute, tiny blue paw prints painted along the trimming.

Olga kneels down as far as her old body will allow her as she scoops the intensely smelling wet food onto the bowl, murmuring something sweetly in Russian as the tabby begins devouring the served food as if it would be starving.

As the elderly grandmother stands up straight, she blinks a few times, her eyes falling on you before she gives an old, weary smile, “Oh dearie! Why hello! What are you doing out here?”

Stopping at the gate separating you both, you watch as Olga approaches you, her steps slower and more careful than before, “Did Fedyka send you on an errand?”

You hesitate for a moment, boot tapping against the cobblestone path. You could just say yes and continue on your way. Olga would be none the wiser. But as you stare down at her, fully taking in her kind, warm smile, you feel your resolve caving, despite the anger still clawing at your heart.

“Not…exactly,” you reply carefully, still unsure if you should tell the elderly lady the truth. You could just save all your ranting and venting for later when you could call Trixie. But the idea is dismissed the moment you see her face fall. She moves closer, unlatching the gate and opening it.

“Here dearie, come in,” Olga insists, the loud creak of the old gate startling both you and the tabby cat. Although the feline quickly goes back to eating like her life depends on it, “I’ll make you some tea and you can tell me all about it.”

You hesitate to enter the elderly couple’s garden, your eyes flickering from Olga’s plump form to the cobblestone pathway leading to the bus stop. You hum, looking back as the tabby cat mewls cheerily, following Olga back up the cobblestone steps.

She stops, looking back at you. Her ears twitch as she mewls, as if asking if you're going to join them.

“Mitya is out today selling some of our homemade jam, so we’ll have the place all to ourselves. We can have some girl’s time.” A hearty laugh escapes her as she opens the door leading into her cozy cottage, the mushroom-shaped bell on the door ringing merrily as she opens it.

“It's been years since I last shared tea with my girlfriend's. Come, come.”

With a sigh, your mind is made up. You head after Olga, up the stairs and into her and Dmitry’s marital home. 

The moment you step over the threshold, warmth envelops you like a tight, welcoming embrace. A delectable aroma dances in the air, wrapping around you as if beckoning you deeper into the home with the promise of delicious, homemade food. 

The fragrant scent of fresh herbs fills your senses, mingling with the enticing aroma of deliciously seasoned meat and the sweet-tart notes of pastries cooling on a rack.

As your eyes begin to take in the small, cozy cottage, you notice the floral patterns on the walls, complemented by a beautifully embroidered tablecloth draped over an old, sturdy oak table.

Above the warmth of the crackling fireplace, an Orthodox cross catches your eye, hanging between photo frames that crowd the mantel. The more you gaze around the living space, the more religious imagery you see scattered about, alongside photos of faces you’ll never personally get to meet.

Your gaze drifts to the mantel, where Olga and Dmitry's wedding photos catch your eye, and your heart swells at the sight of her in an elegant wedding dress. One photo captures them at a sun-drenched beach, sharing ice cream and laughter, their joy palpable.

Another image shows them with someone else—Olga, Dmitry, and a heavily pregnant young woman—smiling warmly as they enjoy tea together at the same dining room table, a snapshot of blissful camaraderie.

The warmth radiating from these photos mirrors the inviting glow of the hearth.

An old rocking chair sits nearby, adorned with a warm knitted blanket made from light colored yarn. It seems the tabby cat has claimed this spot as her resting place for the time being. She yawns, stretching her soft body out before curling into a tight ball of fluff. 

Across from the rocking chair, a comfortable-looking recliner holds another similar knitted blanket, bunched on the seat as if someone shrugged it off before leaving. There’s a pair of reading glasses and an old, worn grey hardcover novel left behind as well, an old, fraying bookmark peeking between the pages.

To the right, the warm, welcoming kitchen beckons.

The cupboards are a pleasant, natural dark oak, accented with delicate floral designs in white and light mocha shades. One cupboard door features a painted bouquet of flowers that looks fairly new, judging from the light pinks and yellows used for the petals of the flowers.

One of the two stovetops burns intensely as a large pot of stew boils and bubbles away, the smell almost making your stomach growl.

On the windowsill, several small plants catch your eye—herbs, you realize, their names written in Russian on their pots. Beneath the sill, sweet-smelling pastries cool, their deep purple blackberry filling peeking out from beneath the small pastry stars on top.

And there’s Olga, murmuring to herself in Russian as she prepares the teapot. You hang back, quietly watching as she fills the delicate gold and blue metal teapot with water, the malty aroma of the black tea leaves wafting through the air.

Black tea...Fyodor had a habit of choosing those tea leaves too.

Once the pot is on the stovetop, she looks back at you, mirth in her eyes, “Come, come dearie. Make yourself comfortable. The tea won’t be long.”

Murmuring your thanks, you sit somewhat awkwardly at the sturdy dining table. The timber groans beneath you, as if annoyed to be roused from its peaceful slumber. You grip your black skirt nervously, picking at your tights while keeping your head down.

What should you say to Olga about what happened?

Olga and her husband seemed to know Fyodor very well—so well, in fact, that you briefly wondered if they were related. Their bond was strong.

If you dared to say anything against him, would she defend him? Would she be angry with you for storming out, for yelling at the man she spoke of with such fondness and care?

Maybe she would even be heartbroken that you, the one supposedly doing so much good for Fyodor, would turn around and lash out at him.

You grip your skirt tighter, your knuckles turning white as a flurry of thoughts and consequences clutter your mind.

Suddenly, the loud whistle of the teapot jostles you from your internal struggle. You look up to see Olga humming peacefully to herself, organizing a wooden tray with the teapot, delicate teacups, and a few of those delicious-smelling pastries.

She carefully approaches the table, placing the tray in the center before she sits down.

As she begins pouring tea into the cups, she looks at you gently and asks, “Now, tell me, dearie. What happened?”

She gently glides the teacup and saucer towards you, the spoon left inside the cup. You gaze into the warm liquid, getting a small glimpse at your reflection.

The weight of your argument with Fyodor still weighs heavy on your mind as you let out a deep sigh. Picking up the spoon, you begin stirring the liquid as you finally speak up.

Whatever would happen after you explained yourself, good or bad…you would just have to accept it.

︵‿︵‿୨✩୧‿︵‿︵

Honestly, who does she think she is?

Does she foolishly believe her own stubbornness will somehow be enough to stop the damage she is causing to herself? Perhaps I really should have a word to Vivian about her…unruly conduct…

Thoughts swirl like a snowstorm in Fyodor’s mind, his dark eyes scanning your translations but not fully taking them in. He huffs, flipping back to the first page before admitting defeat.

He tosses the pages back onto the rolling table, dropping his weary body onto the window seat in the living space, his hands raising to rub his face.

A mewl comes from his side as Tolstoy joins him, bumping his head against his ankle. He slumps onto his side, his paws gently batting at his shoe.

Fyodor gives an irritated huff, his eyes darkening as he looks down at the feline, “You’ve been pestering me all day.” He grumbles, standing and moving past the clingy feline.

He makes a beeline for the kitchen, the dark tabby on his heels, mewling and chirping almost urgently. He huffs, stopping at the table, “You have never been the clingy type, Tolstoy. I hope you do not intend to make this a permanent habit.”

The feline leaps up onto the dining table, mewling and nudging his broad head against Fyodor’s palm.

Tolstoy didn’t care about the complexities of human emotions and relationships. He was just a house cat, desiring nothing more than scratches and food. Fyodor couldn’t help but envy his simplicity right now.

With a sigh, he absentmindedly scratched behind Tolstoy’s ear, the cat purring contentedly as he settled against the table. Yet, his mind was far from the soothing rhythm of the moment; it wandered restlessly back to you.

What is it about the young that they believe themselves to be impervious? Where do they get this delusion that nothing awful will ever befall them, until they stumble headfirst into danger, as if the world were a playground rather than a battleground?

Fyodor knew this truth all too well; he, too, had once been young and naive, with dreams soaring above the mundane realities of life. A life free from troubles and strife. A true paradise. 

But you… with God as his witness, you seemed determined to earn the title of the most bullheaded human. Your fierce dedication was admirable, yet it danced dangerously close to folly. Did you not see the precarious edge upon which you teetered?

He recalled the way your eyes lit up when discussing your work, a flame that both intrigued and unnerved him. It was as if you were blind to the shadows lurking just beyond your fervor. How could he make you understand the balance between passion and prudence?

He huffs, a small smile playing on his lips. He wondered briefly if he had more grey hairs because of your impulsive, stubborn actions.

How many times had he found his mind wandering to you after you left for the evening, stressing and fretting like a mother hen?

Did she make it home alright? Did she eat? Is she taking the time to rest? How is her sleep schedule? She isn't staying up too late at night to work, is she?

His mind kept him awake a good extra hour each night as he stressed and worried about you.

It felt as if you were a tempest, sweeping through his carefully ordered life and leaving a trail of chaos in your wake.

Yet, there was something within that chaos. A certain warmth—a flicker of life that stirred something long dormant within him. He could almost picture you, fervently writing away at your translations, lost in the world of words, oblivious to the risks that accompanied such fervour with your condition.

It was infuriating, yes, but also undeniably captivating.

With a shake of his head, he forced himself to focus on Tolstoy’s rumbling, soft body, using the cat as a distraction from the whirlwind of thoughts.

Perhaps he should apologise for being so hard on you. Sit down with a warm meal and discuss things properly. Maybe he could even help you write the translations.

He just didn’t want to douse the flame of your passion.

After all, wasn’t it this very fire that made you who you were? Still, he couldn’t help but feel the weight of responsibility settle on his shoulders. The world was far less forgiving than the safe cocoon you seemed to inhabit.

As he steps away from the dining table to brew a fresh pot of tea, he begins wondering if it was possible to find a proper way to guide you, without extinguishing that precious flame in your heart.

Above all, he wished to ensure you were ready for the challenging journey that awaited you.

The road ahead was fraught with uncertainty, and he feared it would be less about sunshine and rainbows and more about thorns and obstacles. His greatest hope was to prepare you for the trials that lay in your future.

He places the teapot onto the stovetop, reaching up into one of the cupboards. He retrieves the matching teacups, stepping towards the table to prepare everything for your return.

He huffs as he notices the once clingy, needy feline is now curled up, snoozing quietly at the end of the table. 

“I suppose you exhausted yourself chasing me around all day, hm?” He muses, resisting the urge to stroke Tolstoy’s soft fur, not wanting to risk the feline chasing him around for pats again.

As Fyodor leaves Tolstoy in peace, he hums softly and makes his way to the fridge, quietly sliding the door open.

His thoughts drift to what you might prefer for dinner upon your return. You had experimented with five different dishes this week, but most had earned only your disapproval so far. He surveys the remaining containers, a frown settling on his face. Given your past reactions, he doubted any of these meals would satisfy you.

He pauses, gripping the side of the fridge more tightly; whenever he was disinclined toward something heavy for dinner—or too preoccupied to prepare a proper meal—his mother would always offer him a warm bowl of манная каша.

A bittersweet smile tugs at his lips as he recalls how she would fill the bowl with nuts, fruits, and a drizzle of honey. Back then, he insisted that he didn’t need all the embellishments; plain porridge was sufficient. Yet, as he reflects now, he understands her desire to make it special and full of nutrients.

He reaches into the fruit box, only to find that with the season shifting toward Winter, the selection is limited to cranberries, apples, and pears. Disappointed, he crouches down and opens the freezer. There, next to the ice cube tray, sits a bag of frozen berries.

Perfect.

The sharp whistle of the teapot pulls him from his thoughts as he stands, the bag of frozen berries still in hand.

He places the berries on the countertop, removing the teapot from the stove, turning the hot plate off for the moment. Setting the steaming teapot at the center of the table, side by side with the teacups, he tries to recall where he last saw the bag of semolina when a sudden flurry of knocks at the door jolts him from his reverie.

You’re back already? But he hasn’t even had time to prepare the porridge. He calls out, his voice steady. “Come in, Огонёк.” After that, he heads toward the pantry, opening the doors to continue his search when another set of knocks echoes.

His lips press together in confusion as he closes the pantry. He was certain he hadn’t locked the door after you stormed out. Perhaps he had been too lost in thought to notice. But as he approaches the door, his frown deepens; it is indeed unlocked. He reaches for the handle, calling out, “Огонёк, the door is unlocked. Why are you—”

The door creaks open, a cold breeze sweeping in and playfully tousling Fyodor’s hair and coat. His eyes widen for a moment before returning to their usual calm.

Yes...that would explain why you weren’t opening the door.

︵‿︵‿୨✩୧‿︵‿︵

“--And so, that’s...what happened.”

Your retelling of events comes to a close, your fingers drumming against the table in a rhythmic motion. Your bandaged wrist rests tenderly on your thigh as you quickly add, “I know Mr. Dostoyevsky is only looking out for me. I know he doesn’t want me to end up in hospital or to lose the function in my hand…”

You pause.

Out of the corner of your eye, you notice the orange tabby trotting towards Olga, tail held high. She leaps up onto the grandmother’s inviting lap as you continue, “But this job, my work…it’s so important to me. I…” Your gaze drifts towards your bandaged wrist. You flex your fingers open slowly, “I want to be useful to Mr. Dostoyevsky. I have to be useful to him.”

Your fingers curl up tightly, causing another thunderous wave of pain to rush through your hand, into your wrist. You bite your bottom lip, suppressing those sounds of pain that threaten to leave you. Straining your voice, you continue, “His success as an author in the international world rests on my shoulders. If he fails, it’ll be entirely because of me…”

You swallow around the lump forming in your throat, a shaky exhale escaping you as you stare at your hand—your stupid, wounded hand. Each pulse of pain feels like a reminder of what you suffered when you were small and vulnerable.

It's a burden you never asked for, a memory of your tainted youth...it looms over you like a storm cloud, threatening to unleash its fury.

Right now, that burden could cost you your job. Or worse; it could destroy Fyodor’s career as an author…and your own dream of becoming one. The weight of it all crushes your chest, tightening like a vice.

No…no, no…anything but that. Ruining your own dream was one thing, but dragging Fyodor down with you was unthinkable. You couldn’t let that happen. You couldn’t—

The sudden clink of Olga's teacup settling back onto its saucer jolts you from the whirlwind of thoughts in your mind, snapping you back to the present. Yet, the anxiety clings to you, heavy and suffocating. You swallow sharply, your breathing unsteady as you meet her gaze.

You had braced yourself for a scolding for daring to raise your voice at someone so important to her. Instead, you find warmth in her eyes—a glimmer of compassion that eases the weight on your chest.

A small, weary chuckle escapes her lips as she strokes the back of the tabby purring contentedly in her lap. “Oh, that sounds like our little Fedyka. I remember him scolding that rambunctious friend of his just like that so many times when they were young.”

Another chuckle follows, accompanied by a calm sigh. Her lips curve into a gentle smile, her eyes sparkling with a wisdom you can only dream of possessing. A flicker of hope ignites amid your anxiety, her presence wrapping around you like a comforting hug.

Olga leans forward, her gaze steady and reassuring. “My dear, I understand your need to push yourself. It sounds like you’re under immense pressure, feeling as if one misstep could make everything come crashing down.”

“But you must know his scolding came from a good place.” She leans back, her hand scratching the tabby behind the ears as she smiles warmly at you. “I know he worries for you, just as any good friend would.”

She pauses, allowing her words to settle before continuing. “I’ve watched over Fedyka since he was small. He has always been intent on ensuring the safety and well-being of those he cares for.”

Her gaze drifts to your bandaged wrist resting beneath the table. “I don’t mean to be rude, dear, but that fire in you—that passion and stubbornness—it’s a double-edged sword. While it drives you in your work, it’s also wounding you…causing you pain, isn’t it, dear?”

Her eyes return to yours, revealing a faint glimmer of nostalgia, of heartbreak beneath her warmth. “You are a determined young lady. But there’s a difference between determination and recklessness."

She reaches for the teapot, gently lifting it. “You should listen to him. I know you feel that everything rests on your shoulders, but it’s okay to take a step back. In fact, you should.”

As she refills her cup, her brows raise, and you feel the weight of her silent, parental scolding. “You were struggling to stir your tea just moments ago with that hand. I may understand your emotions and drive dearie, but that doesn’t mean I don’t agree with Fedyka.”

Heat rises in your cheeks, and you cough awkwardly, looking away. A fond chuckle escapes Olga as her tone softens further as she places the teapot back down. “I know that boy. Trust me when I say you can lean on him. In fact, I’d wager he’d prefer you rely on him than continue bearing this burden alone.”

You pause, the weight in your chest still heavy, a storm of thoughts brewing in your mind, looming and ready to engulf you. You glance up at Olga as she delicately sips her tea and blurt out, “But what if I’m the reason he—”

“Ah-ah,” Olga interjects gently, lowering her cup just enough to speak. “None of that, dearie.” She sets her cup down with care. “Your primary concern should be taking care of that wrist of yours.” Her gaze softens, a smile slowly spreading across her face. “Mitya and I want to see you succeed just as much as we want Fedyka to. So please…take his advice."

Your gaze turns downwards, gazing into the cold cup of tea before you. You stare hard at your own reflection, taking the time to really absorb Olga’s words.

Deep down, beneath your drive for success and your fear of failure, you knew she was right. If you didn’t stop and rest like Fyodor had told you to, you would ultimately be the reason for your own failure. 

Your gaze drops to the cold cup of tea in front of you, studying your reflection as you absorb Olga’s words. Deep down, beneath your ambition and fear of failure, you know she’s right. If you don’t heed Fyodor’s advice to rest, you risk being the architect of your own downfall.

Fyodor could find another translator if needed, but if you continued to push yourself, you might lose the use of your hand entirely. You have to stop, even if that thought fills you with reluctance.

Yet perhaps there’s a compromise to be made. If only you could talk to Fyodor—

“Thank you, Olga,” you murmur, your mind racing with thoughts of how to make this work without needing to stop completely. You lift your teacup and down the cold, sweet liquid in one swift gulp before adding, “I need to go.”

With a warm, almost motherly smile, Olga watches you rise from your chair, her trembling hand still stroking the orange tabby’s fur. “Go on, dearie. I’m sure he’s waiting for you.” As you move quickly toward the door, she calls out, “I’ll send Mitya around in the morning with some more tarts for you and Fedyka!”

With that, you step out of the cozy cottage, taking the cobblestone steps two at a time as you make your way back to Fyodor’s place. Your boots greet the cobblestone path as you hurry on, the gate groaning low as you shut it behind you.

Technically, you owe him an apology, don’t you? This isn’t the first time he’s scolded you for pushing yourself. Ultimately, Fyodor is just looking out for you, as any good boss and friend should.

A friend…

Warmth flutters in your chest as you step under the archway of flowers once more. The golden orb in the sky slips shyly over the treeline, casting elongated shadows that dance across the forest floor. Its rays shimmer and create a mosaic of bright highlights that ripple with the gentle movement of the water.

The sky is a canvas of pale blue, tinged with hints of orange and pink, hinting at the day’s slow descent while still holding on to the lingering warmth of afternoon.

The lake’s surface ripples faintly as if greeting you, even if you know otherwise.

A friend to Fyodor…those few little words had you smiling a goofy grin from ear to ear. You’d only been working for him for a few weeks, but you had grown more comfortable with him. Learnt more about him.

You’d learned his preferred tea leaves, his favorite meals, and his love for the cello and classical music.

You knew how he would endlessly gaze across the lake whenever you both sat outside. You even knew why he pursued this career path. You both cooked and ate together for every meal, chatting and joking with each other.

You spent five days a week, ten hours or more each day with him. Sure, those were your regular working hours, and it was part of your role to be there, but that had to count for something!

…Right?

You reach the cottage door just as your thoughts threaten to spiral into another overwhelming storm. Curling your non-dominant hand around the door handle, you twist it and push the door open, calling out, “Mr. Dostoyevsky! I’m–!”

Your voice catches in your throat as you take in the sight before you. Standing in the candlelit entryway of Fyodor’s cottage is someone else—someone you could swear you’ve seen before. His captivating eyes turn towards you.

You swallow your words, taking in his features: a strong jawline and an old scar that runs from the top of his left eyebrow, down across his left eye and halfway down his cheek. Yet, despite the prominent scar, his complexion remains fair.

"Handsome" is the first word that comes to mind.

One vibrant blue and one calm green eye scan you from head to toe, a mischievous smirk tugging at his lips as he leans against the doorway leading into the living area.

Most of his hair, white and soft looking, like fallen dove feathers, is tied back into a thick braid cascading down his back, while the rest of his fluffy hair delicately frames his face.

He stands with his hands in the pockets of his grey woolen trench coat that covers his darker grey sweater and white scarf. He straightens up, tilting his head as he continues to appraise you.

Like Fyodor, this man speaks with a deep, gravelly voice, laced with a thick accent that’s subtly different from Fyodor’s. Ukrainian, perhaps? “Why hello there. You must be the brilliant assistant I’ve heard so much about.”

His heavy black boots click against the wooden floorboards as he steps closer, and you find yourself rooted in place, gripping the door handle slightly. He stops just a few steps away, towering over you— he's taller than Fyodor.

“I… I wouldn’t say brilliant—” you manage to reply, earning a deep chuckle from him.

“It’s wonderful to finally put a face to the name. And what a pretty face it is.” He reaches out, capturing your non-dominant hand and lifting it to kiss the back of your fingers softly.

Your heart skips a beat, any word you mumble coming out as a stutter. You cough, trying to find a response as his unique eyes lock onto yours.

Then realization hits you like a ton of bricks. He’s one of the men from the photo in Fyodor’s room. Keeping your voice steady, you gently pull your hand back. “You… you’re a friend of Mr. Dostoyevsky’s. I saw you in that photo he has in his room.”

His eyes flicker with recognition, his hands sliding into the pockets of his black trousers. He tilts his head slightly, the mischievous smirk never leaving his face. “Ah, that old thing? I’m surprised Fedya still has it.” He takes a step back. “But you are correct, Огонёк~ I am a very close friend of his.”

A shiver runs down your spine at his teasing tone.

“My name,” he says, his voice a charming timbre, “is Nikolai Gogol. But please, I insist. Call me Kolya, darling~”

© 𝐹𝓁𝓊𝓇𝓇𝓎𝑜𝒻𝒮𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓈-𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟦 ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*𝓣𝓪𝓰𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ (SorryifImissedanyone!)

@tecchoussuperlady @hearts4heidi @lovestruckbook @wixxlemuff @twinkaesop @livelaughyo @yonseibananamilk @honeyangelsblog @soggyoreoinmilk @verminthorr @cherridove @slowlyfoulenthusiast

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[merrybloomwrites]

The Only Way of Knowing You (Chapter 1)

Story Summary: After a chance encounter, Y/N finds herself on a series of dates with Harry Styles. She shares with him her innocence regarding physical intimacy, and he takes his responsibility in teaching her all about that very seriously.

Chapter Summary: Y/N is overjoyed to head to the hospital to meet her new nephew, and ends up meeting Harry Styles as well.

Word Count: 1.7K

CW: mentions of people giving birth

AN: So excited to finally post this series! I've really enjoyed writing this and hope you'll all like it. Thank you to the anon who requested shy virgin reader!

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You’re anxiously waiting to get a text or a call from your brother-in-law. You’d spoken to your sister yesterday morning and she mentioned that she felt like she was having contractions and would probably be in labor soon. So casually! You figured that since this is her second baby she must be feeling more relaxed about the whole situation.

But that doesn’t stop you from worrying about her for the whole day and a half between that call and when your phone finally rings again, Brian’s name appearing on the screen. He’d been sending regular updates to you and your parents and the last one sent almost two hours ago just said “it’s time”. 

So this call must mean your new nephew is finally born. You quickly grab the phone and answer the call. 

“Brian, hi!”

“He’s here!” He exclaims. “Born at 1:35, 7 pounds, 2 ounces, 21 and a half inches long.”

“How is he doing? How is Kyra?” 

“He’s perfect! Kyra did great, she’s resting at the moment. We'll send a picture soon. She asked that no one come this afternoon but we’d love for you to stop by tomorrow. Your parents are coming in the morning and bringing Wyatt to meet her little brother.”

“Ok great! I’ll talk to them and coordinate what time.”

“Awesome, you’re gonna love him! Listen I’ve got a couple more calls and I want to get back to them but I’ll talk to you later.”

“Bye Brian, give Kyra my love!”

“Will do, bye Y/N.”

You hang up and literally squeal with excitement and relief that he’s here and everyone is doing well. You let out another happy noise when you get a couple pictures from Brian. You’re immediately in love with this little boy, even if he looks like an alien/old man hybrid. You wish you knew his name, but your sister made it clear she is keeping it a secret until you and your parents meet him in person. 

At 8PM your mom calls and you figure they just got Wyatt to sleep. You talk for a bit and make plans to all meet at the hospital the following morning at 11. 

You’re so excited that it’s nearly impossible to fall asleep, but you manage. The next morning passes quickly, and suddenly it’s time to head to the hospital. 

Once there you find your parents and your niece signing in and you do so as well. Finally, the four of you make your way to the right room. Just like when you met Wyatt nearly three years prior, you immediately fall in love with this little baby the second he’s placed in your arms. 

“Everyone, meet Jasper Lucas,” your sister says. 

For half an hour you all get to spend time with Jasper as well as check in on Kyra, who truthfully looks fantastic for having just given birth the day before. You and your parents step out in order to give the family of four some time together. 

Your mom comments that she could use a coffee and your dad hastily agrees so they head off to the cafeteria. You figure they must not be used to taking care of a toddler and decide to go over and help out that evening. 

They ask if you want anything and you decline, choosing to instead go into one of the family waiting rooms and check on a project for work. 

The room is empty when you enter but after a minute you hear footsteps. Looking up from your phone, you’re shocked to see who just walked in.

Harry Styles casually sits in one of the other chairs. You subtly glance at him, noting his jeans and sweater combo, as well as the look of pure excitement on his face. After pointedly looking anywhere but at him for a moment you can't help but turn towards him again.

“Hi!” he says cheerfully when he notices you looking at him. 

“Hello,” you manage to squeak out. 

“I’m Harry,” he says, leaning towards you with his hand out.

“I’m Y/N,” you reply while politely shaking his hand, hoping you’re doing it right. Which is wild because you;ve shaken hands with people hundreds of times but like, this is Harry Styles. 

“My sisters just had a baby,” he adds, and now you understand why he’s practically vibrating with glee. 

“Congratulations! Mine has as well. Is this Gemma’s first?” You realize a second later how creepy you now sound, using his sister's name when he hadn’t even told it to you. 

Before you can apologize he laughs and says, “Yes, her first. So you know who I am then?”

“I mean, I don’t live under a rock so yes, I am aware that you’re Harry Styles.” 

“Can you do me a favor then, love?” 

You nod, willing to do anything he asks, especially if he continues to use such sweet terms of endearment like ‘love’.

“Gems kept this whole pregnancy private, and isn’t planning to announce she’s had a baby for a few weeks. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut, but I just had to tell someone. Can you help keep this a secret and not let anyone know about the baby?”

“Oh of course, yea, secret’s safe with me.”

“I appreciate it. We may be adults now, but I think I’ll always fear the wrath of my big sister,” he says with another laugh. “Is this your sister's first as well?” he asks.

“No, I have a niece, Wyatt, she turns three next month,” you reply.

“And this little one, boy or girl?”

“Boy. His name is Jasper. My sister always said she wanted one girl and one boy so I guess she got her wish.” 

You refrain from asking him the same question, not wanting to look like you're asking for personal information about his family, but he apparently doesn’t feel that way because he says, “Gemma had a girl. The tiniest little thing. I think. At least she looks that way in the picture.”

“You haven’t been able to see them yet?”

“Not quite, they needed a few more minutes before they were ready. Our mum’s in there with her, has been the whole time, so I’ve been anxiously waiting on my own.

“I feel that. I was the same way the past couple of days.”

“Well at least we have each other now, I feel much less jittery being able to talk to you,” he says.

“Glad I could help. People say I’m an excellent conversationalist.”

“Oh I can see that already, I’m quite enjoying this conversation.”

Just then Harry’s mum, Anne, walks into the room.

“Harry dear, they’re ready for you,” she says, giving you a quick smile before she walks out again.

He jumps out of his seat and says, “Sorry to cut it short, but-”

“Not a problem! Go, meet your niece. Bet she’ll be very happy to meet her Uncle Harry,” you reply.

“Would you want to keep talking? Later?”

You look at him, confused. “I’m not sure how long I’m going to be at the hospital.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t mean here. I just meant, maybe we could meet again, some other time. At some other place. Preferably with better coffee.”

“Are you asking me to hang out with you at a coffee shop?” you inquire, wanting to make sure you fully understand what is happening.

“I am. Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve actually asked someone on a date, guess I’m a tad rusty.”

Your eyes go wide at the word ‘date’. You were already perplexed, wondering why he’d want to hang out with you as friends, but making it a date? 

Your mouth works faster than your brain, and before you can really think through your answer, you hear yourself saying, “I’d love to get coffee with you.”

“Fantastic! Here, write your number in my phone and I’ll text you to set something up,” he replies while unlocking and handing over his phone. You’re practically on autopilot typing in your info and handing the phone back to him.

“I should go, I’ve got a niece to meet. It really was lovely chatting with you.”

“I agree. Say congrats to your sister for me!”

“I will, please say the same to your sister.”

“Of course,” you reply.

“Goodbye Y/N. I’ll talk to you soon.

“Looking forward to it. Goodbye Harry.”

With one last shy smile, he walks out of the room, leaving you standing there feeling rather shell shocked. You don’t have long to dwell before your own mother pops back in saying Kyra is ready for you all to go back.

You spend another hour there before leaving to go out and get some lunch. While you’re at a local restaurant, trying to encourage Wyatt to eat her lunch rather than play with it, you get a text from Brian saying Kyra and the baby will be discharged later that afternoon.

After lunch you go to their house and entertain Wyatt while your parents make sure everything is clean and ready for them to come home. Brian, Kyra, and Jasper arrive just before dinner, so you stay to make sure everyone eats and is as content as possible. 

You leave after cleaning the dishes, knowing everyone is ready to settle down for the evening. Back home you hop in the shower, and when you get out, you have a text from an unknown number. It reads, “Hello, Y/N, it’s Harry.”

Your eyes go wide and you let out a nervous giggle. Honestly, there’s a part of you that thought you had hallucinated the interaction this afternoon, but here’s proof that it all really happened. Before you can type back you get another message from him saying, “If you’re not busy, how would you feel about getting coffee this Saturday? Say 1PM at Inkwell Cafe?”

“Sounds perfect,” you reply. Your phone dings again a second later and you read, “See you then! Have a great rest of your week.” After sending a quick “You as well!” you toss your phone to the side. 

You get into bed, and reflect for a moment on everything that happened since getting up that morning. You knew it’d be a wonderful day; how could it not when you got to finally meet your perfect nephew?

But to have met one of your favorite celebrities and now have a date with him? Never in a million years would you have guessed the day would end this way. You fall asleep feeling like the luckiest person in the world.

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AN: Thank you so much for reading! I hoped you liked this chapter and can't wait to share the rest!

[godmadeaterribleerror]

Chapter 19 - Don't Look Back

Series Masterlist

Author's Note: Sorry for the slight delay! I was hit with a big case of “this chapter is very important so it has to be perfect” and “I have a crush on someone and it’s rendering me incapable of human function." Enjoy!

Chapter Title from Love From The Other Side by Fall Out Boy

Word Count: 26.4k (for context that is longer than the first 4 chapters combined. Someone needs to restrain me)

Chapter Summary/Warnings: You have work to do, and Ben keeps to his word. Usual warnings, with emphasis on assault. No rape, but one non-con kiss. Make the best call for yourself.

Read on A03!

Chapter 18 - Chapter 20

You’d been right. Word of mouth spread fast, and Sage knew about your speech. Homelander as well, but he’d reacted about as you’d hoped to anticipate. Proud, smug, certain beyond a doubt that you had been speaking of him. 

Sage knew better. She knew what you’d really meant—who you’d really been speaking of—and the only thing that saved was that she couldn’t do anything about it. 

Because word of mouth spreads fast. 

But the internet spreads faster. 

Everyone has an opinion on what, in a brilliant twist of journalism, was being called Believe-gate. Everyone has seen the photo of your fearful expression when the “CIA terror attack” on good, christian America had begun and Homelander had shot off the stage. Fear for your lover, gone to fight for what’s right. Or, if the photo was of your fear expression when your extraction operation had begun and Homelander had gone to kill your team. 

It all depends on who you ask. 

If you ask Homelander’s supporters, or Homelander himself, you’ll hear the narrative you’ve been forced to memorize and parrot almost every day. Your fear was for Homelander, whom you loved. The attack by the CIA on a group of innocent civilians was a tragedy both in the losses of A-Train and Ezekiel, and as the American people had to learn they couldn’t trust their government. They could only trust their heroes, trust Homelander, to keep them safe. 

If you ask the Starlighters, or read the CIA’s official statement on the matter, the alleged “attack” had been an extraction operation for the Anomaly that had gone sideways. Employees of Vought had interfered with a government sanctioned mercenary team—lead by William Butcher and containing Soldier Boy but not in official association with Starlight—and collateral damage had been unavoidable. People should write their congressman to divert more money into funding Butcher’s team, and boycott Vought products until the Anomaly was freed. 

That’s closer to the truth, but reality is still far more absurd than either side seems to properly capture. Not absurd in the way the media seems to think, because gossip and rumors spread like the wildfire climbing steadily back under your skin. In meetings—as Sage goes over damage control and shoots you cold, measured glares—you see post after post, headline after headline, and video after video of speculation. You’re honestly a little surprised it took this long for the ball to get rolling. You’d thought the aftermath of your interview was going to be the largest fallout—the biggest step and ultimate catalyst—but you’d been wrong. This was it. For some reason, the Believe Expo was what did it. People are trying to figure out what was really going on. Someone posits a theory on Reddit about you’re a robot or shapeshifting supe who stole the face and identity of a dead PhD student. NPR runs a story about the history of government and corporate propaganda, and CNN does a frame by frame breakdown of recording of your speech. A video essay about how you were Homelander’s girlfriend but had been tortured and brainwashed by the CIA to infiltrate Vought. Old footage of the Firecracker rally circulates as people dissect your every facial expression. One person accuses you of being obsessed with Homelander. Another says you’re just Stormfront with a new face. There’s a small online movement that’s pretty sure you’re actually Sage’s girlfriend and Homelander’s just bearding for you, and another that’s convinced you’re Robert Singer’s estranged love-child. One person sends an email accusing you of being Stan Edgar’s daughter. Several people accuse you of working for the Chinese, and several more of being a British Spy. At A-Train’s funeral, one stupidly brave man with a microphone had shouted a question of what’s your response to allegations you had an affair with William Butcher, and you’d almost laughed in his face. 

That might have been your favorite moment, because it made you snort and think of Ben’s sour expression. 

Butcher couldn’t fucking handle you, Sunshine. 

Benjamin, you can barely handle me yourself. 

I’m having a grand fucking hell of a time trying. Butcher would start whining like a bitch. 

You whine like a bitch. 

Brat. 

Cunt. 

That’s the part nobody has guessed. People have landed on pieces of the truth. You are a dead PhD holder—everyone always seems to forget you actually had the PhD—and you are infiltrating Vought, but not because anyone told you. If anything the biggest opposition you faced to your plan has been from your side. Not a day passes where just the phantom of Ben doesn’t tell you to come home. To wear blue and let him just come get you. 

And that’s the part people seem to be missing. It’s obvious to you, but you’re biased and have the full picture. The fear on your face at the Believe Expo was for Ben. For the split second you’d thought you might lose him. People couldn’t trust their heroes, but nobody needed to break you out. People should absolutely not demand Butcher be funded further. You did not want to return to find Butcher, Ben, and Frenchie jerking themselves off over a collection of military-grade weaponry. In all the millions of people stringing you up to search for the truth, the real you—if Vought is right or the CIA is right or if you’re playing them both—they all miss the only two things that really mattered to you.

Kill Homelander. Whatever it takes, however you have to twist and pull yourself apart, you will kill Homelander. 

Go home to Ben. Tell Ben you love him, then go wherever he goes. 

As the week starts to pass, the scandal doesn’t turn into just another story. It only grows. Sage puts you back on tower lockdown, and most of the time it’s just you, The Deep, and Ashley on 99. You have to record videos and do livestreams and keep pretending you don’t want to lean over to Homelander in the dead of night and just kill him. Find a way to make yourself stronger than him and strangle his throat, or use all the fire you have in your control to reduce him to a shriveled husk that’s still in only half the pain you are. You smile all day—in the dim yellow lights of Homelander’s room and into flashing cameras at Sage’s orders—and at night you drag up the fire, miss Ben, and feel the cracks in you start to spread. 

You’re the most famous person in America. 

You want to go home. 

You have to go home. Before the cracks reach something fundamental and you just break. Without Ben to pick you up. 

Overall, you’d know getting the V was going to be a delay, but it’s not as large as you’d expected. The time added by finding V is being lost by how fast everything else is going. How it’s snowballing and rolling down the mountain with you even having to push it. Three weeks are added to your timeline just as two are lost, and you’ll be home soon. 

If everything goes well, you’ll be home soon. 

You’re keeping yourself whole. By threads and stitches and temporary bandaging, you haven’t completely lost yourself and fallen apart. But the cracks are coming faster, larger. Nightmares that you have to learn to hold down, because Homelander can’t see you break. You wake up paralyzed and cold, still haunted by images of Ben asleep, or gone, or having just left. He wouldn’t, you know he wouldn’t, but Homelander had still cornered you after the Believe Expo and told you that he had. 

He’d dropped you in the Seven’s meeting room, and pushed you into the wall by your throat. 

“You didn’t know,” he’d sneered into your face, and you’d had to shake your head weakly. 

“I didn’t, I swear-“

“Were they there to save you? Take you away again?” 

“I don’t know-“ 

“Tell me the truth!” He’d roared, spit flying in your face and coconut making you sick. “I’m so sick of everyone lying to me!” 

“I am,” you’d clawed at his gloved hand, the leather cold on your skin, choking on your words. “That’s the truth, please, I didn’t know-“ 

Homelander had laughed. “Doesn’t matter, they didn’t get you. Your precious little Soldier Boy ran.” 

That wasn’t true. You’d told Ben to go, he hadn’t run. He’d never run, not away from you. 

“They left you. Didn’t even try to keep you.” Homelander had tsked, shaking his head. “I’d stay.” 

You’d just nodded, unable to speak, and Homelander’s jaw had ticked. Hand tightening around your throat. 

“I said I’d stay. They left you, Soldier Boy left you, but I’d fucking stay. You’re a fucking manipulative bitch, who can’t make anyone like you, or anyone stay without tricking them. I’m the only one who sees through you, who doesn’t fall for your silly tricks, and that’s why I love you. You can’t fucking trick me, and I know you love me.” 

Your nods had grown frantic. “I know, please, I can’t-“ 

“I’d stay.” Homelander had hissed. “You love me and I stay.” 

“You’d stay. I love-“ 

The door opened. Your desperate, lying words had failed in your mouth because the door had opened and a group of people had walked in. Interns or cleaners or tech workers, just normal people. 

Homelander had lasered them down, their bodies falling to the floor with sickening crunches and wet sounds. He hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t even blinked. Just killed them and turned back to you with an annoyed expression. 

“People don’t even knock anymore.” He’d sighed. “I mean, it’s manners. None of these people were raised in a fucking barn, right?!” 

“I, I can’t,” you’d coughed slightly. “Breathe, can’t breathe-“ 

Homelander had rolled his eyes, glaring at you as he spoke. “Say you didn’t trick me.” 

“I didn’t trick you, I can’t-“ 

“And you love me.” 

“I love you-“ 

“Say Soldier Boy left you.” 

“He left, I can’t, please-“ 

He’d dropped you to the floor, scowling as you’d pulled yourself back up on shaking legs. “Good.” He looked you up and down one. “I can trust you.”

That had been what you’d been angling to hear for weeks. All of this had been playing the game until Homelander trusted you. It was even more vital now, if you wanted to find the V. But you’d only been able to stare at the bodies on the floor. Blood on your feet and splattered across your face, and it won’t come off. Not really. Never entirely. There’s guts spilled across the room, a brain visible through a hole in a skull, and mouths frozen in permanent screams that you’ll see for the rest of your life. 

That night your dreams had been haunted by red hands and cold skin, and when you called for Ben to find you, no sound had come out. You’d woken up paralyzed, and a pattern had begun. This became the new normal.

You’d had nightmares in the tower. But they’d been bearable, no worse than they’d been before. You’d woken up cold and curled into your own body, your breath and heart still steady enough to be silent to Homelander. 

Now they felt like death. They felt like a burning, white-hot sort of cold under your skin and in your blood, an inescapable hurricane that would devastate what little was left of your control. Nightmares of Ben vanishing in smoke, hearing him fall to the ground and not get back up. Nightmares of blood rivers that pull you away and under and down, until all you can see is red. All you can taste is metal and it freezes your tongue. Holds it still when you wake up with a high, ringing feedback in your ears, and holds you down when you try to rub off the lingering feeling of dread. The sense that this is eternal, and you only have yourself to blame. 

You chose this. In every nightmare you jump in the river, and if you don’t Ben falls in smoke that you can’t pull him out of. Every time you wake up you’re frozen, and every day you can’t breathe without tasting coconut and iron. Over and over until you think you’re going mad, because you look at your hands and they still have blood on them. You can’t see it, but you can feel it. It’s tying that cold you’ve felt from the start into the fire, pulling it up faster and faster as your skin starts to grow molten on your body. As the cold runs through your veins and heart and begins to leak into the world. 

At first, you don’t notice. You’ve felt this before, this feeling of every nerve in your body growing heavy as your blood grows cold and pushes out of you. You’d felt it with Tek Knight. Felt it when Homelander had pulled you into the sky during that fight outside, and when he’d grabbed your face after Noir II. Brief flashes of something like a glacier rushing in and over you, covering anything that dared touch you. But it had been temporary. Brief, polar flashes that were gone in a second. This was long. This was arctic, permanent, and you could barely control it. Nobody touched you, nobody ever touched you here, but it was still spreading like mold around you. People go rigid when they pass you, and start to look cornered and feral when they sit in a room with you for too long. They look trapped. They look how you feel. 

After one meeting, where a Vought “journalist” sat across from you and Homelander—asking you pre-written and approved questions about love and your future and it’s so cold—Sage holds you back. Homelander gives a clap of his hands and crude, white-toothed smile before vanishing with a jump and a sonic sound, but Sage holds you back. 

“Sit down,” she nods to the chair you’re only half risen from, and it’s not a request or suggestion. She’s telling you to sit, and you do. You’re not at an advantage right now, you’ve made too many risky moves that—while paying off—had shown too much. Shown you.

You sit, and wait. You won’t speak first, because you don’t know what game you’re playing and can’t afford to make the starting move. 

Sage frowns at you, tilting her head, but begins to speak. “I’ll admit I’m not sure what you told Soldier Boy that incited such an event, but it did allow me to understand you better.” 

“Understand me?” Your words are spoken through the constant cold. Too controlled, almost bored. “I don’t think there’s much to understand.” 

“There’s more than I usually face.” Sage looks you up and down, and sits across from you. Leaning forward. “It’s taken me longer, as well. There’s been one last piece of the puzzle I couldn’t quite find, and you handed it to me. I thought of you better than that.”

“I don’t think I am a puzzle.” You frown. “And I’d never think of myself better than anything-“ 

“Yes, I got that quite a while ago. Someone who values themself, values their life, doesn’t volunteer to stand in the front lines of an unwinnable war. Doesn’t forgive as easily as you do.” 

You shrug. “I believe that there are very few things that are truly unforgivable. I can only think of one.” 

“Rape?” 

You swallow, frost pushing up your throat, and Sage hums. 

“Unsurprising. That’s another puzzle piece that fits you well, and another reason your little performance will never really be sold.” 

You’re not shocked you haven’t fooled Sage, but it’s not her that you need to have a hold over. So you just watch her silently until she scoffs. 

“This is just us talking. Homelander won’t hear, I’m not looking to lose my first semi-worthy opponent to an easy to spot trap.” 

You still don’t speak, and Sage smiles. 

“Smart. Would proof help? How about,” she looks you up and down. “When we met in January, I was genuinely considering flipping to your side. Homelander is an emotional, pathetic imbecile who refuses to truly acknowledge that I am significantly more intelligent than he, and while I have no care for people,” her face twists slightly as she says the word, like it tastes sour on her tongue. “I did think I could face an equal challenge taking down a well-established international conglomerate as I was facing with the United States Government. But with a new, unexpected player I decided this could still be interesting.” Sage sits back, looking you up and down. “I showed you mine.” 

Sage wouldn’t call Homelander a pathetic imbecile if there was a chance he might hear—she’s still very capable of being lasered in half—but she could pull a tape and show select footage. So you just blink. 

“Fine.” Sage sighs, and pulls out a pen. Pink, with a fluffy top. She passes it into your hands, careful not to touch skin, and nods. “Click it.” 

You glance at the pen, and push the ballpoint out. 

Sage’s voice echoes through the room. Homelander is an emotional, pathetic imbecile who refuses to truly acknowledge that I am significantly more intelligent than he. 

You frown at her. “Collateral?” 

“You’ll hold on to the pen, after this conversation I’ll wipe all the tapes and break all the audio bugs in front of you, and then you’ll return the pen to me. Deal?” 

You nod slowly, taking the pen. “Deal.”

“Good. Show me yours.”

“I don’t know what you want me to show you,” you shrug. “Like I said, I don’t believe myself to be a puzzle. And you’ve already figured me out.”

“I hadn’t,” Sage corrects you. “For months, I hadn’t been able to see the whole picture. Your forgiveness is… inconsistent.”

“Really,” you say dryly, crossing your arms. “I’ve only been raped by one man.”

Sage hums. “Would you forgive me?”

“Would you earn it?”

“Maybe.”

You lean back. “Then maybe I’d forgive you.”

“Even though I’m actively working with your rapist? Am aware of the trauma he inflicted upon you and yet still chose to enable him?” 

The cold is sitting in your throat. “All depends on you. Like I said, you’d have to earn it.” 

“And how did Butcher earn your forgiveness?” 

You frown. “Butcher?” 

“He’s the thing that incited Homelander looking into Becca Butcher. Discovering Ryan Butcher. Wanting more.” Sage gives you a half-smile. “Taking you.” 

“I don’t hold people accountable for the actions of others.” Your voice is still bored, even as the cold starts to numb your tongue. “Butcher had no way of knowing that Homelander would do this. He didn’t even know who I was until last year.” 

“Is that the same grace you’ve offered Soldier Boy?” 

Your heart stutters, falters, and freezes. “I haven’t offered Soldier Boy anything he hasn’t earned.” 

“And that’s the thing.” Sage narrows her eyes at you. “You really believe he’s earned it. Despite all of his crimes, of which are an impressive amount and magnitude, you’re still forgiving him. And couldn’t figure out why. It doesn't fit with anything else, it’s completely irrational. But the answer isn’t something that’s supposed to be rational, and I made the mistake of factoring it out.” 

“I don’t-“

“You’re in love with Soldier Boy.” Sage looks you up and down. Her handiwork she gets to admire. “And I didn’t catch it because, by all logical reasoning, you shouldn’t be. I didn’t even consider it until I’d exhausted all other possibilities, and even then I settled on some odd sort of camaraderie. But you love him.” 

The cold becomes like frost lining your heart, and every beat begins to spread it further. Move it out. Play the game, don’t break. “What would it change, if I did?” 

“You do,” Sage says simply. “You are in love with him. It explains everything that felt out of place. Every action you made that didn’t line up with what I’d anticipated.”

“What you’d anticipated?” 

“Yes. For example, you shooting me. It was a reckless choice that backfired on you completely, but every time I ran over the scenario you would still do it. I’d wondered if I’d undersold the stakes, made you feel backed into a corner when that wasn’t my intention. But you’d still shoot me. You’d always shoot me, and it was because I misestimated your stakes. You love Soldier Boy, so if I tell you he’s in danger you will act.” 

“That doesn’t mean I love him.” You give Sage a passive shrug. “Maybe I shot you because you’re fucking annoying.” 

“No, you wanted to hear my plan. That's why you’re still sitting here.” Sage nods to the door. “You could’ve left. You could’ve gotten up and run out the door. You’re faster than I am, you’d have gotten away, showed Homelander the pen, and won. But you know I’d have a countermove, and that’s why you’re still here. That’s why I’m here.” 

“Why you’re here.” You repeat slowly, and Sage nods. 

“We’re the only players that matter now.” She grins at you. “Homelander and Butcher and Soldier Boy can flash their toys, but in the end you’re stronger and I’m smarter. My plan will work better, and you’ll respond in a way I won’t predict. You’ll have a move that would be successful, because you’re fucking powerful, but you’ll sidetrack yourself in the name of humanity and love. In the end the question will be if you can control yourself. If you can forsake being good enough to be great. My bets are on no, but you’ve surprised me before. And that’s what makes this interesting.” 

Play the game. Even as you start to cave in, play the game. “You know I’m stronger than Homelander. But you haven’t told him, he still thinks he’s the strongest supe alive.” You frown at her, trying to pull everything together in your head. “You don’t want him to know I’m stronger. If I fight him, you don’t want him prepared. You want me to kill him.” 

“I do.” Sage shrugs. “I’d like to martyr him, but I don’t think I will. I think I want to play this out.” 

“Make it interesting?” 

Sage smirks at you. “Make it interesting.” 

“It’s your move,” you say, throat tight. “And, while we’re being honest, I’m fucking winning right now. So, what’s your move?” 

She laughs. “You were winning. But I’ve figured you out, so your lead is gone.” Sage’s smile becomes crude and chilling. “In exactly one week, you’re going to propose to Homelander, live on VNN.” 

The cold rushes, so fast. It had been building up and up and now it’s everywhere. A week isn’t long enough. You still haven’t found the V, you’re not close, and a week isn’t enough time. Every piece of your innards and piece of your mind is freezing, because you can’t. You can’t go home yet, but you can’t go fast enough. And you’ll die before you smile at Homelander. Before you let him touch you. He’ll take it as a sign that he’s done this right and now he’s won you. Your blood is frozen and creaking in your body, but Sage is still smirking across from you. 

Breathe evenly. Hold your blood in your body with calculated breaths and careful words. “And If I don’t?” 

“Then I lure Soldier Boy out, and put him back to sleep.” Sage stands, and you can’t move. You can only watch her walk around the room reaching into bowls and under furniture to show you tiny audio bugs that she crushes in Her hands before taking the pen back. “You have a week. Your move.” She pauses at the door, looking back at you with a frown. “Don’t make me wrong about you. I have no interest in being wrong.” 

Then you’re alone, and the cold becomes big. It’s inescapable, how unending this feels. It’s too massive for you, too wild to control and spreading too fast to contain. You stumble your way back to Homelander’s apartment—people parting around you like you’re made of poison—and lock yourself in the bathroom, dropping to the floor in desperation to not break. You’ll find a way out of this, you always find a way out of this, you’ll get through this and go home and this isn’t permanent. Sage hasn’t won, because everything in you is still you, and soon you’ll go home. Everything is cold and bursting out of you, this feels like it will last forever, but it won’t. It can’t. 

The cracks continue to grow, and when you sleep that night you’re plagued by smoke and ice that makes you weak and swallows Ben. You hear him fall and he doesn’t rise back up, and you reach for him only to find him further than you’d thought. 

When you wake up, you’re still held down. Paralyzed and frozen without relent. You want to go home. You’d overestimated your strength, you didn’t want to beat Sage, or trick her, or win. You didn’t want this to be interesting, you just wanted it to be done. You’re exhausted, and alone, and you miss Ben so much. You’re not going to win, because these cracks are starting to be dangerous and you can’t stop them. You’re too weak to stop them, you don’t know how, and you can’t be smarter or stronger because you’re just so tired and almost every part of you is growing thinner and softer by the second. One step away from shattering. Breaking. Maybe you’ve really just already broken, but in a way you didn’t realize, and now you can’t be sewn back together. Your fire is sputtering out once more, you can’t pull it back up, can’t kill Homelander, can’t save Ben. You’re going to break and it’s going to make Ben go under, and he’ll never hold you again. You’re going to be in this vast, hollow loneliness forever, and Homelander will keep you on a shelf as your last embers flicker harmlessly, and you’re going to never see Ben again- 

Calm the fucking hell down, Ben’s voice in your head is rough as it says your name. You’ll see me again, you fucking promised. 

That strange thing is humming in your chest. It hasn’t left you since it appeared. Since you’d seen Ben. Through the day it sat in you silently. Undisturbing, shifting and rolling with a dull ache near your heart. Just a piece of Ben that you got to keep, that always felt like him. Like he was there, warm around you in the cold and tending to your fire. Then, at night, it roars. Twisting with your guts and kickstarting your lungs and mind when you grow frozen. Speaking to you in the dark until you feel like you again. A part of you that’s ingrained and unmovable, that’s not plagued by this cold because Ben is warm. Never afraid because Ben is safe. It’s angry and bloody and zealous, but it’s Ben, and so it smells like pine and feels good. Feels solid and easy, makes Ben feel more real. You’re on the too smooth, silken sheets of Homelander’s bed and everything is cold, but you can almost feel his breath on your ear and his voice rolling into your body. 

I did promise. You sigh into the dark of the room, and your breath comes out in fog. But I don’t think I can talk my way out of this one, Pretty Boy. 

Why the goddamn hell not. 

I’m not smarter than Sage, or stronger than Homelander. I said whatever it takes, but I can’t, Ben. I can’t. I just want to come home. 

First of all, shut the fuck up. You’re being stupid, Sunshine. 

Fucking rude- 

His voice cuts you off. It’s doing that a lot more lately. I don’t give a shit. Homelander is a pathetic fucking pussy, and Sage is a heartless bitch. You’re perfect the goddamn way you are. It’s goddamn infuriating how you’re so perfect, because it’s inconvenient. And if you want to come home you’ll wear blue and not a single fucking thing in the world will stop me getting you. 

That’s part of the problem, Benjamin. I’m not perfect, I can’t fight them, and I can’t let you come and get me. You know that. 

You are fucking perfect. You’re a goddamn pain in my ass, but you’re still beautiful and sure as shit smarter than you should be. And all I know that I fucking miss you. 

You’re crying. Silent tears you have to muffle and wipe away, because even if Homelander isn’t here you can’t chance that he’ll see you break. If you break, it can’t be in front of Homelander. You won’t allow it. 

But Ben’s voice sounds so real. Deep and pushing calm into you—soothing your blood back into your body—because as long as Ben’s voice is here and talking like this nothing can hurt you. 

I miss you too, Benjamin. Your smile is soft and tired, but you can feel Ben there. Something a little more solid than a phantom around you. 

Come home. Just fucking come home. There’s a beat of silence, and his voice in your ear is hoarse. Please. 

Soon. 

You always say soon. Just come home now. 

Ben- 

I miss you. I fucking miss you and I don’t want you home soon. I want you home now. His voice is building with frustration, and something in you is starting to spark in time with that strange thing. I can’t keep worrying about you. You promised, and I trust you with my goddamn life, but I don't trust you with yours. 

Hey. You frown into the dark. My life, Benjamin. My choice to stay. 

I haven’t fucking gotten you, have I? I’m respecting your stupid fucking choice, but I still hate it. I fucking hate this. 

I know you do. But there’s more work to do. 

You don’t have to be the one to do it. You can just- 

I can’t. You hug yourself, the warmth in you growing stronger. Not pushing the cold down, or your blood back in, but rising the fire to fill the cracks the cold is leaving along your head and heart. I can’t just come home. I have to do this. This has to be me. 

There’s another stretch of silence—that thing climbing up your spine and lighting up every nerve—before Ben’s voice rings around you once more. Fine. 

Thank you. You’re not sure why you’re thanking him. He’s not real, but it’s an instinct. Thank Ben, always thank Ben because everything in you is back in your hands and you love him. 

Don’t. 

You smile into the dark, your tears drying in your eyes. You can’t fucking stop me, Pretty Boy. 

I will soon. You’re going to come home, and every time you thank me I’m going to fuck the words out of your mouth. 

I don’t think that’s going to have the effect you intend it to. 

Yes it fucking will- 

Ben. Your voice in your head is dry. If every time I thank you I get fucked, I’m never going to stop thanking you. I might start just thanking you randomly, specifically so you fuck me. 

The thing in you is bellowing and jerking your heart around. Smartass. 

I mean, you had to have seen that coming- 

I just want to see you coming, beautiful. You can almost see his wink. All over me. 

Horny old man.

You love it. And you’re no fucking better than me. 

Than I. And excuse you, I for one can keep it in my pants- 

His voice snorts. I know you, Sunshine. You want to fuck me more than anyone has ever wanted to fuck me. And a lot of people have wanted to fuck me. 

Braggart. 

That’s not a real word. 

Yes, it is. 

Well then what the hell does it mean. 

You brag a lot. It’s pretty self-explanatory, Benjamin. You could’ve gotten that one yourself. 

Shut the fuck up. 

Make me. 

I will. When you get home I’m going to shut your pretty mouth up for a whole goddamn year. With my cock, and my hands, and- 

Fuck you. 

I promise I will, brat. I’m going to fuck you so much you’re never going to want anyone else to touch you. 

You don’t need to fuck me to do that. You sigh, trying to sit a little longer in the warmth as daylight starts to creep into the room. I already don’t want anyone but you, Ben. 

His voice is silent for a second, and you think it’s going to say what it always does, because you love me, but it doesn’t. The thing rattles with an ache in your body, and Ben’s voice is softer than you’d expected when you hear it again. I don’t want anyone else either. 

Good. Your breathing is easy, and you can really almost feel Ben. Behind you, around you, in you. Can you still fuck me anyways? 

His laugh rolls through you, and that thing feels lighter. You feel lighter. Deal, Sunshine. 

Deal. 

The thing fades into dormant ease once more, but you’re still warm. Your blood is still trying to break out of your body, but you’re holding it in. 

And the fire is building. Faster and faster, blazing up into your skin, the fire is building. 

And you won’t break. 

In the morning, your lockdown is temporarily lifted so Homelander can parade you to the masses. They’d long fixed the damage you and Ben caused to the tower lawn—the grass is green once more, and the sidewalks have been repaved smooth and black—and they’ve set up a stage that’s reminiscent of Firecrackers. Not quite as dramatic, twice as large, and with better rigged lights. You could just walk out the doors of Vought Tower—they’ve barricaded the path for that very purpose—but Homelander trusts you. And you’re so close. You’re holding on by a thread, but you won’t break. Not yet. 

Homelander’s been touching you more. Never casually, and not like that, but his hand isn’t just on your lower back anymore. It’s clasping into yours more often, and not in the intimate, careful way Ben does. A cold, leather glove that snaps around your hand, no fingers intertwined or thumb rubbing on your skin. Yanking you around in a way that makes your elbow snap, slamming you into his back and not bothering to steady you. You let him, he has to trust you, but it makes you colder. Homelander will look at you with cruel blue eyes, devoid of any light or warmth or life, and you feel like a prize. He’s won you, and now he’s growing more and more confident, less and less afraid. 

He still won’t touch you with skin. You can’t figure out why, but Homelander’s so very careful not to even brush his skin against yours. You’d think it’s fear. That you’ll feel him, and see something he doesn’t want you to. It’s not about you burning him, you haven’t used fire in front of him since he’d taken you and he knows it. He thinks you’ve burnt out. Learned your place and burnt out. So it has to be about a fear you don’t understand. 

You try not to question it. It’s saving you from being touched like that, and that would break you. That would irreversibly shatter you, and you wouldn’t be able to pull yourself back together. So you don’t question it, use that small part of Ben that’s comfortable in your chest to feed the fire, and try to keep the cold in you. You’ll have to, for this. You can’t afford the cold taking control and falling out of you. You can’t afford flinches or numb expressions when this winter becomes something that’s beyond you. 

So you push it down, down, down, and smile at Homelander. Too sweet, too many teeth, almost manic. 

But you smile at Homelander, and play the game. You’re almost done, so you play the game. 

“Babe?” 

He turns on you with a shark-like expression. You’ve baited him with blood—drawn right from your heart and making you cold—and he’s taken it. 

Homelander says your name, and it's hard to keep smiling. “I like babe, it’s right. Keep using it.” 

You nod, and don’t speak. Waiting for him to prompt you. 

“If you want something, say it.” 

“I was just wondering if you could carry me to the rally later?” Your words are softer than you’d intend, but your tongue is numb in your mouth and it’s the best you can manage. “I just want to get more used to flying with you-“ 

“Of course you can,” Homelander looks you up and down. “It’s not like you’ll get hurt if I drop you.” 

You make yourself laugh, and it doesn’t sound like you. But you keep smiling. Allow yourself to sound smaller. “You won’t drop me, right?”

He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous, you’d take a week to scrape off the pavement.” Homelander’s eyes narrow on yours. “Don’t you trust me?” 

“Of course!” Voice lighter. Don’t let a crack show in it. “I’m just scared of heights.” 

“Oh,” Homelander nods, and starts to walk to you. Arms opening to pick you up, and you have to not scream. Have to keep your teeth from chewing at your cheek and your hands from shaking. “Then let’s go fly. Now.” 

“I, I’m not ready-“ 

“Honey,” Homelander’s voice is annoyed, and he’s glaring again. “Humans have silly little fears about heights. Not us. You’re going to get over this, fucking now, because you aren’t human anymore.” 

You’re not afraid of heights. You’ve never been afraid of heights. You’ve only ever really been afraid of three things in your life. 

Being worthless. 

Losing Ben. 

Homelander. 

But you can’t break. Play the role. Nod slowly and walk into Homelander’s arms. Feel cold but keep it in you, because you don’t have time to let it out. You have six days to do everything, and being defiant isn’t a luxury you can afford. 

He’s still grinning at you, and his teeth are too white. They look fake. “I knew you’d come around. Sage said you wouldn’t, said you’d always be a little too weak, but look at you.” He laughs, and you have to keep smiling. “Still fucking weak, but ready to fix it.” 

He doesn’t let you respond before yanking you up the stairs and onto the roof, and your words and protests die in your throat because he has to trust you if you want to go home. And when Homelander shoots up into the sky, you can’t scream or push him away or even go rigid like you’d done before. You had to pretend you trusted Homelander. That he’d won you and now you trusted him. You have to pull him closer on purpose, even though he’s colder than the air around you and your body hates it. It hates touching him, it hates him touching you. He does it as if you’re his possession. With callous, thoughtlessly placed hands and like, if he were to drop you, it wouldn’t matter. You’re his to break. 

You’d flown with Homelander before, but that had been for transportation. He’d been focused and bored, carrying you like cargo. This was purely to force any fear or weakness out of you with speed and brute force. He’d done flips, your body tossed around through the air and his arms so loose on you there’s not a second where you are certain he won’t drop you. Halfway through you start to hope he will. That you’ll fall with a sickening splat below, someone will post it online, and Ben will come get you.

But Homelander doesn’t drop you. He goes so fast your skin feels like it’s peeling off your face, so high the air feels thin, and through clouds that leave you damp and chilled. 

You weren’t afraid of heights before. You think you might be now. Another line on the growing list of things that, even if you manage not to break, will never be good again. You’re not sure how long you’re up in the air, but when you land back at the tower your hands feel bitten with frost and there’s bile in your throat. 

“Go get yourself together,” Homelander orders, nudging you to the door back inside. “I’ll be back in an hour.” 

You nod, and try to smile at him. He grins back, but his expression turns slightly sour the longer he looks at you. 

“Don’t fucking cry. And wear your supe outfit.” 

He’s gone in a blast of wind, and you’re left to stagger back to his apartment. Alone. Blood so cold, but without time to get a hold over it. You just have to keep going, and hope this settles within the hour. 

You find your way back to the apartment, still freezing into your bones. Trying to stoke the flames under your skin with that thing of Ben’s in your chest, with thoughts of good things. 

Music. City Lights. Ben. 

Go through the movements. Don’t vomit—it will take too long to do, time you don’t have—and hum to yourself until the air feels warmer. You can still feel the cold rushing in your blood, but your skin is warmer. You sing a song of summer, and at least your skin feels warmer. You don’t break. 

Do your hair and makeup yourself. Ashley had offered you a team this morning, and you’d turned it down. You’d made sure Homelander heard your words—I know what I should look like, I don’t need people helping me—and Ashley had nodded and dropped it with an anxious expression and tug of her hair. So now you stand at the mirror, putting on lipstick that’s the wrong shade of red for your skin and applying shadow in a way that’s not you. Not a style you’d ever wear, not when you had control over it. But it’s the role. This is the right red for this version of you, because it’s a red Homelander likes. This eyeshadow is exactly how you have to do it, because it’s how the paid Vought artists did it. How the world thinks you do it. 

You keep a small part of you in your makeup. There’s a green, metallic eyeliner in the collection that had appeared in Homelander’s bathroom, and you trace it on your inner eye. It flashes whenever you move, and it’s impossible to miss. Just a little green, where Ben won’t miss it. Just a little light that doesn’t feel blinding, but feels peaceful and alive. You don’t break. 

Now get changed. You have to get changed, because you’ve calmed down enough to not be in danger—or a danger—and done your hair and makeup. The hour is almost up, and so you have to get changed.

The only reason you’re managing not to vomit every time you wear your supe costume is because there’s still a stale smell of Ben on it. You’re surprised Homelander hasn’t noticed, but he also doesn’t know what Ben smells like. The pine could just be from the outdoors, the gunpowder from the attack. And the part that’s just Ben—not shampoo or lingering parts of his day that grow stronger on his skin—is yours to know. It’s a strong smell, powerful and Ben, and you know it’s his. Same as you know that the thing in you is him, something of Ben’s that’s left a tattoo on you. You know all of him, and this smells like he feels. Like he tastes. 

You still remember what I fucking taste like? 

Shut up. I miss you, and I love you. Of course I remember, don’t be a dick about it. 

Would you prefer I give you my dick about it? 

You snort softly into the empty air. That one’s not even good. I expect better from you. 

You fucking shouldn’t. 

And yet, I do. 

Because you love me. 

Because I love you. You frown at your reflection in the mirror. The green hair clip you’ve been wearing—the one you’d been clinging to since you’d seen it in a costume room and stolen it to keep—looks out of place. It feels too much like you, and you don’t look like you. You look like a statue, or doll. 

I look stupid.

You look hot. You always look hot, Sunshine. It’s one of my favorite things about you. 

Wrong. You smile at your reflection, and that’s your real smile. You’re talking to Ben—even if it’s just his phantom—so that’s your smile. You like that I’m smart, and that I’m kind, and my pussy.

And all of that is fucking hot. Because you’re hot. 

Thanks, Pretty Boy. You’re hot as well. 

I fucking know that. That’s why you love me. 

That’s not at all why I love you. I love you because you care, more than you’ll ever admit. I love you because you never give up on anything, and because you’re honest. I can trust you, I can always trust you. I love you because you always do what you say you will, and you’re never trying to be anything but yourself. You’re an asshole, Benjamin, but you’re my asshole. You’re a protective, abrasive, vulgar manwhore, and I love you so much it makes me a little insane. 

Brat. 

Cunt. 

You also love me because I’m a good piece of ass. I’m hotter than the goddamn sun and you want to jump my bones, admit it. 

I’m allowed to love you because of who you are and also think that you’re stupid hot, Benjamin. You make me laugh and feel safe and happy so I’m always going to love you, and you’re so handsome it hurts to look at so I’m always going to want to jump your bones. 

Good thing I want to fuck you until you’re dizzy and can’t even damn speak, beautiful. 

I think I can live with that. You sigh. I miss you, and I have to go. 

I miss you too. Kick their fucking balls into their throats. 

You huff a small laugh into the air. Gross. 

You love me. 

I do. The cold in your blood is tangible, but so is the fire. And both are yours. Completely yours. 

You can do this. You can fucking do this, do it right, and go home. 

It still takes holding your tongue between your teeth to not scream when Homelander grabs you, and control over every muscle in your body to not go rigid when he touches you, but you do it. You keep your body limp and smile at his cruel face. You land on the stage—the crowd only one push or wrong noise from a riot—and keep smiling. You shrink into yourself, step back into Homelander’s shadow in a careful way that’s about being shy. About not wanting the spotlight, and seeking comfort in love. 

It’s really about trying to get away. About giving your feet just an inch they can move away, because they want to run. Everyone is watching you like you’re going to be their salvation. Like they’re going to eat your flesh and it will bring them comfort. Like you’re going to put on a show and it will be glorious, like you’ll bring them something they’ve been missing. Homelander is watching you as well, and you’re trying to get to where he can’t see. His eyes make that cold spread, make it rile up in wind that sweeps through your body like a storm.

So you’re quiet, and meek, and give Homelander no reason to look at you. You wave to the crowd and smile in a small, pliant way. Sage walks up onto the stage and you get the same, small nod that she offers Homelander. You return it with a sweet expression, and fade into the background as Sage and Homelander work. All you have to do is be here, stand silently, and do as you’re told and it will be more than enough. Cameras are angled at your every shift and breath, and you’re still nothing more than a statue. Homelander tells a completely fabricated and implausible story about how he used to fly you to Paris at night so you could picnic on the top of the Eiffel Tower. The Deep shows up and talks about how hard all the lies have been on you and Homelander, his two closest friends, especially after the recent deaths of your teammates. You considered them family, and this is a period of grief, not of—as the Deep puts it—being a total hater on true love. Ashley gives a speech about how when she first met you, she knew you were in love with Homelander because you couldn’t stop laughing with him about nothing. She says you and Homelander have invited her over for dinner, and everyone here should one day hope to have his burgers and your chocolate mousse cake. 

In the hum of the speaker feedback, you hear Ben snort. Suddenly he’s everywhere. Around your body and between your fingers and resting on your head. 

I remember when you tried to make us a cake. I wasn’t sure if it looked or tasted more like actual dogshit. 

Fuck off. You ate the whole thing. 

I’ll eat fucking anything, Sunshine. That cake was a goddamn travesty.

Guess who’s not getting a cake for his stupid birthday. 

I’m a little damn old for a cake. His voice drawls your name on the wind. I’ll just eat you instead. 

Smooth. And you’re never too old for cake, Benjamin. I’ll even put vanilla ice cream on it. 

I thought I wasn’t getting a fucking cake. 

I changed my mind. You’re getting cake, and it’s going to be the fanciest cake you’ve ever fucking seen. And I’m going to put rainbow sprinkles on the ice cream, and there’s not a thing you can do to stop me. 

Can I still eat you? 

Yes. But you’re eating the cake first. And you have to grill burgers. 

For my own fucking birthday? Isn’t the whole point supposed to be that I don’t do shit? 

Would you rather I make the burgers?

You and Ben had tried to make burgers four times. Technically, you had tried. He’d already known how, because he was a goddamn red blooded fucking American man, and attempted to teach you, but you had not been a good student. You’d burnt them every time, but you kept getting distracted. Ben’s muscles would ripple when he flipped a burger and he’d grin at you while he talked about meat and things being tender, and you think you just kept blacking out in an effort to not fuck him right there. After the fourth smoke alarm resulted in you and Ben sitting in the dining hall while Mallory lectured you about fire safety and banned you from the kitchen’s grill, you’d decided this was just a skill you didn’t need to have. Ben could make burgers. He was better at it, and always got focused in a way that made you both want to fuck him—have all that intensity and care turned on you—and just touch him. Run a hand across his forehead, into his hair, and check that he was real. It made you love him more. 

You’re not sure if the phantom is reacting to the burger comment and you calling him adorable, but something rumbles around in your heart and Ben’s voice grumbles. Shut the fuck up. 

It’s a little easier to look mindlessly happy. You can feel this remnant of Ben in you—this thing that is him—climbing up a little higher to sit on the top of your chest, so it’s easy to pretend you’re ditzy and humble and your smile is light and carefree. Ashley concludes her speech, and Sage is up. You and Homelander represent the best of what the world has to offer. Two people who have loved each other from the first time they saw each other, and who, despite the hardships and obstacles, will always prevail. She says Homelander will always find you, and you manage to keep smiling. Ben’s Thing tightens in you, and you can practically see his angry expression, but you keep smiling. You will build a perfect American family, and Ryan Butcher will be returned to where he belongs. 

I haven’t been being a dick to the Kid. 

You blink. What? 

You told me not to be a dick to the Kid. I haven’t been. I’ve been a goddamn angel.

Okay. You fight the confused frown on your face. Why are you telling me that? 

Because you seemed to really damn care about it. I don’t know. Shut the fuck up. 

But- 

You were right. He’s not like Homelander. He’s a little bit of a pussy- 

Benjamin. 

What? 

Don’t call a twelve-year-old a pussy. It’s uncouth. 

But he is a pussy- 

How can he possibly be a pussy. 

He can name all fifty states. 

I can name all fifty states. 

That’s different. 

How. 

You’re a fucking know it all.

Hey- 

You’re a sexy know it all. You look hot when you get riled up, and talking about pretty much anything gets you riled up. If you sat in front of me and named all fifty states I’d get a fucking boner. 

That’s weird, Ben. 

Fuck off. You’d love my boner. 

You lightly bite the inside of your cheek to keep yourself from smiling. I would. 

You’d suck me off, and look fucking hot doing it, and then I’d eat you out and make you cum on my face- 

You’re trying to distract me from you calling Ryan a pussy. 

No. Shut the fuck up. 

You shut the fuck up. I would suck you off, and then maybe I’d let you eat me out- 

Maybe? 

And then I’d make you clean up and get dressed and learn all fifty states. 

That information will never be goddamn useful, Sunshine. Would be a waste of my fucking time. 

Because you’re such a busy man? Is getting a boner from listening to me talk and then eating me out that time consuming? 

So I will get to eat you out. 

Fuck you.

That’s what I’m fucking asking- 

Stay on topic, Ben. You should be able to name all fifty states. 

Why in goddamn Christ- 

You’ve been around since before Hawaii and Alaska, and you’re barely younger than Arizona. It’s a little sad you can’t, Pretty Boy. 

Well, I’m not a damn loser pussy, so I don’t really give a fuck. 

Rude. 

You’re not a loser pussy either. No woman of mine would be a loser pussy. 

Your heart stumbles a little faster, and Ben’s Thing hums in your body. Thanks. 

Don’t. 

You can’t fucking stop me- 

Because I’m not there, beautiful. If I were on that stupid fucking stage and you thanked me, I’d pick you up, carry you home, and stop you with my cock in your pretty fucking mouth. 

You need to get a grip on yourself. Maybe start putting effort into filtering the phantom better. Because, even in your head, your voice sounds breathless. Okay. 

No big words, Sunshine? Just going to let me fuck your face- 

Shut up. Cunt. 

Brat. There’s a beat of silence, but it’s still louder than the noise of the crowd because you can almost hear Ben’s breath in your ear. I miss you. Come home. 

Soon. You feel something heavy, sickening in that piece of Ben inside your chest. You can’t stand it, it makes your heart hurt, and you need Ben—even this strange fragment of him—to feel happy again. And as soon as I do, I’m kicking your ass and making you apologize to your grandson for calling him a pussy. 

It feels lighter, and Ben’s scoff isn’t painful. Don’t call him my grandson. 

He is, by definition, your grandson. Don’t be a pussy about it, Benjamin. 

Smartass. 

Old man. 

You like it, you fucking grave-robber. 

Am I a grave-robber, or are you a cradle-robber? 

You’re a goddamn grown woman- 

And you’re an ancient, grumpy man-child. 

You love it. 

I do. You don’t repeat the second part, because Ben’s voice doesn’t prompt it out of you. It just falls into a comfortable, happy silence everywhere around you, and you feel safe. You might have never been in more danger—Homelander at your side and the eyes of the world on you—but everything that’s been breaking in you feels a little more manageable. You’re still full of that never ending cold, but it’s not falling out of you or trying to escape. You can sit in it easily, because you can almost feel Ben there and your fire is still growing. Sage is still talking, and you let it pass through you. This will get through you, and you’ll go home soon. Sage calls you the sweetest and most genuine person she’e ever met, and you hear Ben’s snort. She talks about how Homelander treats you like an equal, and there’s a spark of annoyance in Ben’s Thing for you. She calls you and Homelander American Heroes, and you can keep yourself modest and happy as Homelander laughs and waves off the compliment. 

But you can’t stop the momentary static of your heart, or the numb of your body, when Homelander kisses your cheek. A new crack forms—long and somewhere critical—and Ben’s Thing in you riots. Grows louder than the crowd, louder than the ringing in your ears. 

You almost don’t see Homelander freeze. He goes still and rigid, his face twitching and looking sick, and you realize that the cold is leaving you. Homelander touched you, and Ben’s Thing is roaring in some sort of pain, and you’ve lost a hold over the polar feeling in your body. 

Fuck this, I’m coming to get you- 

Benjamin. He’s everything in you that’s good. Everything is cold and you’re afraid and you can’t control yourself and you’re going to lose, but Ben’s voice is still around you and you’re still you. You haven’t broken. You’re so close, you won’t break, and this piece of Ben will help hold you together. You can’t. You know that. 

He fucking touched you- 

He only kissed my cheek. I’m okay. You’re not. You know what this means, even if Homelander had recoiled from you with a look that won’t last. But you’re so close. There won’t be time for escalation, you’ll be home soon. You’ll falter and break when you get home. 

Ben’s voice doesn’t seem convinced. You don’t fucking look okay. You look like you just got goddamn shot, you need to come home right now- 

I’m fine. 

When Ben says your name, there’s some sort of strain in it. The same ache and pounding that you can feel from that thing inside of you. There’s not a single goddamn thing you can do to stop me- 

I know. But please don’t. If you trust me, Ben, please don’t. 

You don’t know why you’re arguing with him. This Ben isn’t real, it can’t come get you. But it’s so deep inside of you, keeping you together as Sage’s speech concludes and Homelander herds you up to the front of the stage, you entertain it. It doesn’t feel fake. It feels like him. The sharp, bitter anger in your chest feels like his, the gravely frustration in his voice sounds like it’s coming from right behind you, and it’s so fucking important that you keep it there until you’re in control again.

I do fucking trust you, but I can’t just leave you- 

Not leaving me. You’re never leaving me. You’re waiting. 

Ben’s Thing stabs into you, and you almost flinch from it. I am waiting. I’m waiting for as long as it takes. But Christ, I fucking hate it. I don’t want to wait, I want you home. 

I want to come home. I want to come home more than almost anything. But- 

Almost? His words are a grunt from somewhere at your side. The hell do you want more- 

You. Fire is building in you, fed by the warmth of Ben’s Thing beating in your chest. I want you. 

That thing roars. Claws against your ribs and heart, and you can’t think about anything else. You’re going through the movements—waving and smiling to the crowd—but everything in you is about Ben. About how you’ve never felt a fervor like this anywhere but in him, and you miss him and want him and love him- 

Fine. He’s relenting. He’s only in your head, but he’s still relenting with a low, tired voice. But if I see even a little bit of fucking blue- 

You can break down the doors of Vought Tower and carry me home. You swallow, and keep your face bright as something in you wilts when Homelander’s arm wraps around you. I’ll see you soon, Ben. I promise. 

I know. And I’ll wait. 

Thank you. 

Don’t.

It doesn’t go dormant, but Ben’s Thing stops being loud. It moves back to resting near your heart, existing always with that arctic sensation in your body. It takes all the strength and will you possess to pull the lingering bits of it—the fear it’s made of—back into you and hold them there when Homelander vaults up into the sky. He’s not touching you on skin again, and Ben’s Thing has tugged much of it out of the air around you, but your blood is still singing, trying to reach anything else and make it feel this. Feel the pure, raw terror that the infinite cold is made of, that’s rushing through you. Rushing out of you. 

But it’s not just fear falling out of your body. It’s something furious that’s for Homelander touching you. And you’ve felt things that aren’t fear move out of you before. You’ve felt heat, want and love and adoration, run out of your body when Ben’s touched you. When you’ve gotten to touch him. 

Homelander leaves you on the roof to find your way back to his apartment, saying he has business to attend to. He looks like he might try to kiss you, but fear and hatred leaks out of you when he moves and suddenly he’s gone.

And you have a theory. You have a little more than five days, this Thing of Ben’s still burning peacefully inside of you, and a theory.

You have to test it. The cold in you is growing, but so is the fire. Both are, for now, in your control. The fire and the cold are everywhere in you and on you, but not around you, and you’re holding them there. If you’re right about this, then everything will work. You’ll go home.

But you have to test it first. 

You spend that night, alone in Homelander’s apartment, making a new plan. You can’t test on Homelander, he needs to keep thinking you’ve gone docile. That you’re out of tricks and are back to being what he thinks you are. You can’t test this on Sage, she’ll figure out what’s happening and you can’t afford that right now. This is the only advantage you have over her, because you’re certain she doesn’t know about it. If she knew, she wouldn’t let you go to rallies, or go anywhere near her. This is the one thing she can’t control or predict or understand.

Feelings. She can’t control how you feel. She can’t stop you being afraid or angry, can’t stop you loving Ben, and can’t prevent how when it all becomes too much your emotions aren’t yours anymore. How they’ve been building up and up  and up, growing loud and feral, and now they’re bigger than you are. You’re more afraid than you can hold in you. Afraid for your life, and your self, and for Ben. And every time Homelander’s touched you or Sage had threatened you the fear has grown until it’s sweeping through your body. 

But it’s not just the fear. It’s your anger, your fury that this isn’t fair. This is wrong and fucked up and you have to be the one to fix it, but you just want to go home. You’re full of wrath for yourself, for Ryan and Becca Butcher, for Hughie and Annie and MM and Frenchie and Kimiko and everyone you love being forced into this. It’s stoking the fire, and that’s why everything is white-hot now. The anger and fear are made of the same thing that pushes out of you in moments when they consume you, and now they sit in your blood to be weaponized. 

The only thing bigger than them is your love. It’s grown so large in your heart and head and soul that it’s become its own animal. It starts in you, and it belongs to Ben. All this love in you is for Ben. You’ll always know him anywhere because your empathy has decided that he is you. He’s something so crucial to you, your love for him is so powerful, that you don’t recognize him just because you know him. You can feel him when he’s not touching you, sense him when he’s close. Nothing has ever been as powerful as your love for Ben, and your empathy knows that. It knows that he won’t hurt you, he’d never hurt you, and that it’s only this strong because of him. Because Ben let you touch him and wasn’t afraid of you, and now he’s everything. Just as much a part of you as the fire has become, and you’ll always return to him. 

You’re so close. 

Right now you have to be angry and afraid and learn what it can do, and then you can go home and love Ben. Spend the rest of time loving Ben. 

But first you have to be angry and afraid. 

It takes four of your five remaining days to prove and understand your theory. You go along with Sage’s orders and Ashley’s requests, because right now the act is vital to keep up. You can hear the protest crowds from the 99th floor, and every time you catch a glimpse of social media it’s all about you. You’re America’s sweetheart and savior and symbol, and this is all you have left to do. 

You test on the Deep first. You hold your anger in every muscle of your body, and ask the Deep about something simple. 

“Hey, Deep?” 

The idiot pauses in the hallway, spinning around to grin at you with a puffed out chest. “Anomaly! What’s going on, does Homelander need me-“

“No,” you give a light, silly giggle, like a schoolgirl who just heard her crush liked her back. You don’t throw up on the Deep’s dumb, shiny suit. “I just wanted to know if you got the funding for your new movie?” 

“Oh, shit, yeah! I mean with A-Train dead, rest in power, brother,” he puts his fist up in a salute and you have to hold down a scoff. “There’s like a fuck ton of money just lying around, and I was like ‘uh, guys. What if I got the money, right?’ and they said-“ 

You’re not listening to what Vought Studios said, because you’re trying to figure out how to touch the Deep without him realizing. You wait until he’s completely engrossed in his story then start to walk, gesturing for him to follow. He falls into a pace at your side, talking about getting good writers that will do his character justice, and you lean to the side. Brush your arm against his, and all the wrath in you flares. 

The Deep’s voice grows louder. Tighter. “And I don’t fucking understand why they didn’t just give me the money, right? I mean it’s not fucking fair I have to pull all this shit together by myself. I just want to chill the hell out, but somehow this falls on me to fix this shit-“ He freezes, because by his last words he was in a full on shout. Almost a scream. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know where that came from. Don’t tell Homelander I was yelling at you, I really didn’t mean to-“ 

“It’s fine,” you smile, and it’s more sweet than smug. But you feel really fucking smug. “You’re just passionate.” 

One down. One step closer. 

Next, you find the writers. Skinny McBrown-Nose and Bald Pussy. You’ve forgotten their names again, and you’d feel a little worse about it if the moment they saw you they didn’t start trying to feed you anecdotes to use about your love for Homelander. 

“What if,” Bald Pussy leans forward with a toothy grin. “You asked him out first. And he said no, because he loved you and wanted to protect you, but it broke your heart.” 

“And you tried to get over him,” Skinny McBrown-Nose jumps in with an up-beat bounce to his words. “But nobody made you feel the way he does. There’s nobody else for you, and you’d just resigned yourself to a life of solitude when he confessed his love for you. He just couldn’t bear to see you with another, and he decided that putting you at risk would be fine, because he’s the strongest man in the world. As long as he’s there, you’ll be safe.”

You blink, because that is shockingly close to being accurate. For them it’s about Homelander and not Ben, but it’s more you than anything else they’ve pitched. 

There is no one else for you but Ben, although you don’t think you’d ever even try to get over him. When this is over you’ll just resign yourself to not being loved by him and dedicate yourself to loving him in secret. 

Ben is the strongest man in the world, but he’d never put you at risk. He hates you putting yourself at risk, and if he knew one of the reasons you’ve been staying at Vought was to protect him he’d probably have an aneurism. 

And as long as he’s there, you are safe. There’s not a safer place in the world than at Ben’s side. 

“I, um,” you have to cover your hesitation, because the writers are looking at you with nervous, expectant expressions. “I think Homelander would prefer he asked me out. It fits in better-“ 

“But this way,” Bald Pussy interjects eagerly. “We hit the demographic of liberal women in the 18-44 range. They’ll love that you took the move first, and that he loved you so much-“

“I don’t know.” You pull all the dormant cold from your blood and focus on it—let it choke you—and lean forward enough for your hands to touch theirs. Lightly. Unnoticeably. Holding their gazes so they don’t look down and see it. “Maybe I should go get him, and you can tell him-“ 

“No!” Bald Pussy’s eyes widen, and he shakes his head frantically. “I mean, no need to involve Homelander, you’re probably right-“ 

You can’t be sure if this is just an average, healthy fear of Homelander, or your fear of Homelander. The fear that haunts you and follows you everywhere. You have to be sure. “I mean, I like it. I think I can just approve it myself-“ 

“Don’t worry about it!” Skinny McBrown-Nose’s voice is a squeak. “I mean, you shouldn’t bother him. It wasn’t that good an idea, and we’ll come up with a better one, so you don’t have to risk it. Right?” 

That’s fear for you. Skinny McBrown-Nose is afraid for you, to talk to Homelander and offer him something he might hate. He has no rational reason to be afraid for you, not with what he’s been told. It worked. 

You agree softly and walk away from them. You have more work to do. 

You fall into random people and bump against passers by. For the first time in years, you’re touching everyone you can on purpose. Doing it randomly is helping you from falling apart, as their emotions aren’t intense or overwhelming. They’re mostly just bland, flavorless neutrality. It’s not a great indictment of the emotional health of Vought’s employees—how soulless and empty everyone is—but right now it’s working in your favor. You can ignore the emotions that each touch gives you and just study the way they react. 

Some stumble slightly, and a lot of them freeze. Several double over before looking around with slack, pained expressions, and one even falls to the ground. Dropping with a strangled sound like you’d shot them. 

And you know you were right. You’ve proven yourself right, and you almost fully understand it. You’re so close. To going home, to being with Ben again, to being done. This is almost over. 

Almost. You just need to find the V. You have just less than two days left, and you won’t fail. Your nightmares are growing worse and you’re still waking up paralyzed, unable to breathe or move or think anything outside of blood. So much blood, all on your hands. Not strong enough to clean them, too weak enough to wipe them on another. And there’s just so much blood. 

But you’ll get through it. You’re almost home. 

The more you do this, the more you feel Ben. His voice is always louder now, and you think you might be going insane. You don’t know if it’s this new power taking you over and driving you mad, or if you just miss him so much you’re losing your mind, but Ben feels closer than he had before. Maybe it’s because you’re almost ready. Maybe it’s anticipation. 

But no matter what it is, he’s still everywhere. His Thing in your chest is almost always alight, and his presence is solid. Just as permanent as your love for him, just as strong and warm as he is. It feels so purely Ben that your body starts to look for him where you know he won’t be. He’s not going to be in Homelander’s bathroom, or in the Seven’s meeting room, or Ashley’s office. But you can sense him all the time, and the phantom is getting away from you. Muttering in your ear at inconvenient moments about random things that were far too detailed.

Why the fuck did you love those stupid sunglasses? He’d grumbled one morning, a little before your talk with The Deep. You’d frowned into the lukewarm air of Homelander’s kitchen. 

What are you talking about? 

Those shit quality, knock-off Soldier Boy sunglasses you always wore. Why did you like them. 

Oh, you’d blinked at nothing, tapping at the bridge of your nose. Why?

I asked first.

But-

Just answer the damn question, Sunshine. There was a pause, and you could almost hear his sigh. Please.

You had to fight the smile on your face, because Homelander could walk in at any second. Well, since you asked so nicely, Pretty Boy, they reminded me of you. 

He was scowling. You don’t know how you know, but you’re certain he was scowling. They were fucking blue. 

Yeah, well- You pause, his words settling in. What do you mean, were. 

Don’t fucking worry about it. How did they remind- 

Why did you use past tense. What happened to my sunglasses. 

I said don’t worry about it, his voice muttered your name, and it was almost sheepish. It’s not- 

Benjamin. 

They broke. 

What. 

When I lost you, they got smashed- 

First off, you didn’t lose me. Stop saying you lost me. Second of all, why are you asking me about my broken sunglasses. 

You loved them. I want to know if you just fucking like sunglasses, or if it’s something else- 

I loved those sunglasses because they made me more certain you were real. You’d cared enough to give them to me when Butcher had dropped them off, and that made me happy. It made me think you cared about me- 

I do care about you. He sounds indignant. Of course I fucking care about you. I- 

I know you care, Ben. That’s why I’m not that mad about them hypothetically being broken, because I don’t need proof- 

Why would you ever fucking need proof. 

Because you’re confusing. You’re the love of my life, Benjamin, and you confuse the fuck- 

His voice sounded like it had somehow dropped an octave when he says your name. What the hell did you just say.

I said you’re a confusing piece of shit- 

No, the other thing. 

I said I love you. You know that. Let me talk. 

Sunshine- 

Homelander had walked in, and you’d had to tune out Ben’s words around you to feign joy in his presence and interest in his words. Ben’s voice had fallen back into a soft sound of static, but his Thing had remained—steady and comfortably—in your chest. A constant, dependable, holding you down until only a few hours later when you’d heard him from nothing again.

You would fucking know what this shit means. 

You’d frowned at the stall of the bathroom, collecting your thoughts and trying to reign your anger back to your body. What shit? 

Manifest Destiny. Doesn’t even make any damn sense- 

It’s the nationalistic belief that Americans had the right to expand westward, and should exert the means to do so. 

Smartass. 

You fucking asked me the question. It’s not my fault I knew the answer.

You’d heard Ben’s snort, and his Thing had rolled over inside you. Brat. 

Cunt. 

Someone had entered the bathroom, and Ben’s voice had gone silent around you—a smell like pine and barbecue fading from the air—as his Thing had remained burning in your chest. You didn’t dwell on it, you didn’t have the time or energy to even think it over once, especially as it just kept happening. Over and over, through the evening and night, Ben’s Thing kept growing brighter and Ben began to intertwine into your senses. You start to spare it thought, especially as the conversations keep starting from silence about nothing. 

I’d never hurt you. 

I know that. You barely managed not to stumble as you walked through the hall, his voice taking you by surprise. Why are you telling me that? 

Because Annie’s fucking wrong. I’d never fucking hurt you. You’d have told me if it hurt, and I’d have fucking tied your hands up if you tried to keep doing it. 

You’re just confused enough to not let that turn you on. What? 

If you kept trying to do your fucking brain magic after saying it was hurting you. I’d have tied you up to stop you from doing it. I’m not- 

Why are we talking about this? 

Because I wouldn’t hurt you. I love you, and I rather fucking ship myself back to Russia- 

You sigh. I told you to stop saying that, Ben. 

He went silent for a second, and his Thing in you rumbles. What. 

Stop saying you love me. 

No. 

Please- 

No. I fucking love you, let me say it- 

Ben, please. 

Stop saying please. I don’t want you begging unless it’s for me to make your pretty fucking eyes roll back in your head- 

I’m not joking- 

Do I sound like I’m damn laughing. I love you-

Benjamin- 

You almost walk into a wall, and have to cut off your own voice in your head to regain your balance. And now you’re certain it’s not worth second guessing, because Ben doesn’t love you. You simply miss him so much your stupid brain is inventing random reasons for him to talk to you. It’s only been two weeks since you saw Ben last, and it’s driving you insane. 

If you weren’t already so preoccupied with trying to get a lead on some V, you might be more worried about that. But right now you need the comfort that’s provided by Ben’s voice rolling through you as he tells you he loves you, and the easy joy that talking to his phantom brings. The way it makes his Thing so powerful and devout to whatever feeds it. 

You still can’t figure out what feeds it, but it’s only growing more and more hungry. It’s still holding your head together, though, so you entertain it. You have a whole morning dedicated to finding V, and Ben’s phantom and Thing can follow you wherever so you don’t break. You have two days left, so you have to play the game and keep your mask on and find the V. If letting Ben haunt you will keep you sane, so be it. There are worse ways to be hungry.

A-Train said Homelander kept some in his room, but you’ve been looking over almost every nook and cranny and shadow and hollow, and there’s nothing. Homelander didn’t throw it away, he wouldn’t, but you don’t even have an educated guess as to where he’d move it to. It doesn’t help that you have to at least try to sneak around Sage’s notice, or that Ben’s voice keeps muttering everywhere about things that don’t matter. It’s keeping you sane—his grumbles and feel all around you, pushing your cracks back together—but it’s a little distracting. You can’t care about breakfast or guns or the movie Palm Springs—you don’t actually remember watching that one with him, you weren’t sure he’d like it—because you have to rummage through cabinets and empty rooms of the dead members of the Seven.

Ben’s voice keeps telling you he loves you. You give up on trying to shut him up, because you don’t have the time. He’s here to keep you steady, and it’s working fairly well. 

I still can’t fucking believe they were keep my shield in goddamn Ohio. 

Uh huh, you nod mindlessly into the air, pressing the wall in Firecracker’s old room like you might find a secret door. Annie probably would’ve mentioned a secret door, she lived here for almost three years after all, but you can’t afford to leave any stone unturned. 

I mean, why even go to trouble of putting it back together if you’re going to put it in taint-fuck Ohio-

Benjamin. Why are we talking about Ohio.

Because if Vought was keeping V in Ohio with my shield, I’ll blow their stupid fucking tower up- 

Your shield was fine, you big baby. And It doesn’t matter where Vought was keeping V, what matters is where Sage is keeping it. Now.

Ben’s grunt sounds from somewhere behind you. You’re right. 

What was that? 

You’re fucking right. You’re always fucking right, so don’t damn gloat- 

I am not always right. 

Yes, you are. You’re going to find the V and come home, because you fucking promised and you’re always right about this shit. 

What shit? 

How people think. Their dumb fucking pussy emotions and thoughts. 

Well, I do try. 

You’ve probably already fucking found the V. Homelander probably didn’t even hide it, because he’s a smug pussy who thinks everyone fucking loves him. 

You almost drop the vase you’d been turning over in your hand, mouth falling slightly open. Holy shit, Ben. You’re a genius. 

Goddamn right I am. His voice pauses in your head, and you can almost see the knit of his brow. But why the fuck do you think that. 

Because Homelander’s a hubristic piece of shit. He won’t think anyone would ever cross or betray him, and if they did he doesn’t think they’d get away with it. 

So? 

You smile, fingers tapping against the vases slightly dusting glass. I know where the V is. 

It takes an effort not to sprint back to Homelander’s apartment. To look nonchalant and bored as you open the door, to call out to see if he’s there, and walk up the stairs carefully just in case. 

You duck under the bed, and there’s a black box. A small, sleek black box without a lock, weighting barely over five pounds when you pull it out. 

There’s only one vial. One small vial of green liquid, with a label on it that reads Project Anomaly, Trial 6. 

It’s your V. Ben’s V. 

It’ll have to do. 

There’s only one last move. One last careful move. One more thing before you can go home, and one more day to do it. 

You make dinner for Homelander. You’re not sure what he likes, but he’s made you eat a lot of corn dogs. You don’t know how to make corn dogs, so you heat up some hotdogs and hope it’ll be enough. 

It needs to be enough. 

When he arrives, your smile is tooth-rotting. You’re small and quiet and weak, and you’re all for him. You’re cold and exhausted and everything in you is taut, but you’re so close.

“Hi, babe!” You’re going to vomit. You can’t, but later you’ll need to cut off your tongue so you can never even risk sounding like that again. “I made you some food.” 

“Food.” Homelander stops in front of you, and you don’t flinch. “What’s the occasion that finally made you stop fucking moping?” 

“It’s an offering,” you give him a simper. It hurts your face. “I want to apologize, and talk about us.” 

Us. You want to scream but you turn it into a sweeter smile, and Homelander’s face twists into a wide, smug smirk.

“Us?” 

He says the word like it’s real. Like it’s applicable to you and him, and you’re not barely alive anymore. So close. 

“Our future.” You pat the seat next to you. “Eat first, you’ve been running around all day.” 

Homelander lowers into the seat, and frowns at the sad, limp hotdog in front of him. “What the fuck is this.” 

“We don’t have a lot of raw ingredients, I did my best with what I had, I’m sorry-“ 

“I am not eating this limp dick excuse for food.” He pokes the hotdog, and turns to fully face you. “Talk.” 

“I, um,” you take Homelander’s hand gingerly, waiting for him to yank it back. He doesn’t. “Sage suggested that I should propose to you, and I just wanted to talk to you about it. Make sure that’s what you want-” 

“Sage suggested.” He scowls at you. “So you don’t want to marry me? What am I doing wrong?!” You stare at him, frozen in place as you try to hold your blood in your body, and Homelander’s voice grows louder. “Fucking answer me!” 

“Nothing!” Your voice is nervous because you love him and want him to be happy. Not because you keep seeing red on your hands and his face and splattered across walls. You’re holding one hand up to his face and it’s to comfort him, and you’re not forcing your fingers to stay steady. He’s so angry, and cold, and everything in him is like a tornado. Moving and changing too fast, making you sick. “I just want to make sure marriage is something you want too! I love you, that’s enough-“

Homelander’s moving, and before you can even realize what’s happening his mouth is on yours. His hold on you is like a chain, uncaring and harsh and wearing you down, wrapping around your throat until all you can do is think no. No no no no no- 

“I knew you’d see it my way.” His words are hissed against your lips, and something finally breaks deep in you. Far, far down in an artery you feel it snap, and if this doesn’t work, you might not survive. 

“Of course,” you have to smile. The world is ending but you have to smile. “Thank you for waiting, babe.” 

Homelander stands up, almost pushing you away, and claps his hands. “This is going to be a fucking wedding. They won’t be saying all those lies about us when they see it, it’ll be befitting of the gods we are.” He grins to himself. “And everyone loves romance. Fucking sheeple will eat this up. I’m going to get you a ring-“ 

“Can you get it from Paris?” You give him a pout. “I’ve always wanted a ring from Paris.” 

“Of course, honey. Only the best for the bride of the century.” Homelander nods, and kisses you again. You’re drowning, falling, dying, breaking- “I’ll go now, Sage won’t bitch about it when she sees how much people love us.” 

You pretend to start and protest, but he’s already gone. And you’re alone. You’re breaking—the cracks are starting to split open and the world is going blurry—but you have to go. You’re on a time limit, and you have to fucking go.

You’re so close. You can’t fail now. 

Homelander’s fast. Paris is far, but Homelander’s fast. You probably have an hour, likely less if he gets word. You’ve already wasted time on the floor, clinging onto the parts of you that are somewhat intact to get your through this. Trying to focus on Ben’s Thing in your chest—bloody and loud—to keep your feet moving. 

And you run. Nobody guards Homelander’s room, people are barely even on 99 lately, so you run. Faster than you’ve ever run in your life, one hand over the original V in your pocket to keep it from falling out. Out the door, down the stairs, not stopping to check if anyone sees you. The fire is scratching under your skin, and you’re going to pass out from the cold you won’t let leave you, but you go. 

Down, down, down. 82. 74. 66. 53. 

The alarms go off. The stairwell lights up red, the blare of a siren echoing off the gray walls, and you keep running.

50. 47. 42. 

A door opens somewhere, the creak and scrape on the concrete barely audible. 

38. 

A man in all black is aiming a gun at you. He has brown eyes, and his hands are shaking. 

His eyes burn out first, and you keep running.

35.  

Three more. One of them has a tattoo of a flower visible on her wrist. It curls and twists with the burns on her hands.

31. 27. 23. 

More bodies. The stairs are littered with bodies, and everything is painted in blood, and the water from the sprinklers is going up into steam. You can’t see your next steps, or the floor numbers, but you keep going. 

Down, down, down. 

A green EXIT sign is glowing through the smoke and mist. You slam into it, and you might hear something crack. 

Go. 

People are screaming, most of them parting around you. A few more bodies drop, a few more flashes of curly hair curling up in smoke and a scar on a cheek growing larger. One man’s shout of stop sounds like your father. 

Fucking go. 

You can see the exit. The doors of Vought Tower are made of glass, and it’s sunny outside. Everything is sparkling, like it just rained. 

GO. 

Someone calls your name. Your real name, your full name that’s carved on a gravestone in Boston. But the voice is wrong. There’s only one voice that’s right, that’s safe, and it’s the deep one that’s roaring for you in your chest. You don’t stop. 

That’s your name again. A woman is calling your name. She’s small, with dark skin and the coldest eyes you’ve ever seen.

She’s not safe. Everything in your brain is gone—replaced with a smooth song that feels familiar and an instinct to go home—but this woman is not safe. 

She’s talking to you, saying words you should understand, but you have to go. She’s telling you that you’re interesting, but she’s still won. That you shouldn’t use that vial in your pocket, because it might kill you. That you’ll never find the right kind, and that someone that makes everything in you scream is coming to take you away. That you’re out of the way, you failed to control yourself and now this shrewd woman has won. 

You can see the sun. It’s warm. It feels safe. The grass is green, and it’s reaching up to the sun. 

And you let go. You stop trying to keep yourself steady and strong, and you let all the exhaustion and loneliness and horror out into the air. Someone screams, and it might be you.

Glass shatters, and something stings your skin. There’s blood on your hands, and you don’t only belong to you anymore. 

But you can feel the sun.

———————

In the week after the Believe Expo, Ben started to lose his mind. 

He’d been in a meeting when it had started. Sat silently a few tables down from where MM, Mallory, and Butcher were interrogating A-Train. Ben had been kicked out of the actual process, because apparently nobody fucking appreciated how all his questions were about Her, and if she was okay. What did her smile look like, if she was even smiling. Was she having nightmares, and was Homelander keeping her locked up. Why was A-Train such a fucking weak pussy who didn’t help her. 

So he’d glared at them from across the room, trying to both listen to A-Train list off stupid fucking passwords and building locations and not break the glass in his hand. It would shatter everywhere, and Ben would probably have to fucking clean it up. 

That’s not glass, Pretty Boy. It’s plastic. 

Feels like fucking glass. 

Well, it’s plastic. You really think the CIA would give us real glass? When most of us can’t seem to stop blowing shit up and Hughie startles at the smallest sound?

Ben had smiled into the air, ducking his head so that nobody would see him looking like a fucking idiot. Plastic can still goddamn break, Sunshine. 

Her voice hummed somewhere in his chest, right next to the Thing. Well, it’s easier to clean. 

He’d snorted, and looked up as the doors from the hall swung open. Hughie and the French Prick had burst into the room, both shouting incoherently and tripping over each other. 

“The bloody hell is wrong with you two, ain’t you able to see we’re busy?!“ 

Kimiko had stepped over Hughie and the French Prick as they untangled themselves, ignoring Butcher as she marched over to Ben. 

He’d frowned up at her. “What.” 

She’d glared at him, signing something she fucking knew he didn’t understand, and dropped her phone in front of him. 

It was Her. A picture of Her, at the Believe Expo, frozen on the stage. Staring off into the distance, stage lights washing out her perfect features, her mouth open and her eyes wide. The headline above the picture read Anomaly’s Speech Interrupted by Terrorist Attack from the CIA. 

“The fuck is this.” 

Kimiko signed at Ben aggressively, and he didn’t fucking understand- 

“She says that it is all over the news.” The French Prick had stumbled up behind Kimiko, translating with a frown. “That it is bigger than the court trial. People are, to quote roughly, ‘losing their fucking minds’.” 

“Frenchie, what the hell are you talking about.” MM had called, still seated across from A-Train. “What’s bigger than the court trial?” 

The French Prick had said Her name, still watching Kimiko. “She is everywhere. The article Kimiko is showing Soldier Boy is from VNN, and there are many more about her and Homelander and the Believe Expo and-“ The French Prick had sighed. “Mon Coeur, I am not saying that to them.” 

Kimiko had turned to him, gesturing again with another point to Ben. 

“Because it will not be helpful.” The French Prick had looked at Ben, then said in a lower voice that Ben had still fucking heard, “this is already not very good-“ 

“If you don’t fucking tell me,” Ben had growled. “I’ll rip off your hands and make you eat them.” 

Kimiko had stepped between the French Prick and Ben, still gesturing at the former with only a brief pause to flip the latter off. 

The French Prick had let out another fucking sigh, and said the words slowly. “There are many… outlandish rumors. About her,” The French Prick had nodded at the phone, still in front of Ben. “And the nature of her life.” 

“Frenchie,” Butcher had drawled from across the room. “If you don’t start talkin without being a cryptic cunt-“ 

“Many are calling her a messiah. Some think she is an insider, a spy for either the CIA or Vought. There are investigations into her past, her paternity, and relationships with Homelander and…” The French Prick had winced as he spoke. “Monsieur Butcher.”

Ben had needed to take a walk. His fist had curled against the table, blood had pounded in his ears, and Her voice in his head had hummed do not kill Butcher. It will be messy and just a huge inconvenience for everyone, so Ben had stood up—the bench screeching as it flew out from under him—and stomped out of the dining hall.

Butcher had, surprisingly, not been a total fucking dickless piece of shit about it. Nobody had even mentioned it as more and more rumors and speculations poured in, each more fucking insane than the last. Ben started to long for Her to haunt him again, because right now he was being suffocated with this version of her that wasn’t fucking Her. It wasn’t even a goddamn person, it was a product, an idea for the fucking masses to project onto. She wasn’t a liar, or a honeypot, or a silly bimbo just caught up in a whirlwind romance that had gotten away from her. She was a brilliant, beautiful, fucking perfect woman. She wasn’t brainwashed—Ben pitied the fucking idiot who would try to, She’d give them a run for their money—or anyone’s fucking bastard child, and she had a PhD. In Anthropology, because she cared so fucking much about people and making the world good. Because She was good. She was the only person in the whole fucking world who was good. She wasn’t Homelander’s or Butcher’s or CIA’s, she was Ben’s. She was the most painfully strong-willed woman he’d ever met, and she wanted Ben.

And he had to just fucking watch, like an undeserving fucking pussy, as people kept talking about Her like they knew her. They didn’t know her. Ben knew her. He knew that this was part of Her stupid plan, and that she’d be home soon—She’d fucking promised—but that no matter what he’d wait until everyone else was dead and the building around him was in ruins for Her to return to him. He knew that, if this wasn’t tearing the country apart and inciting riots in the streets, She’d find it all hilarious. 

That’s the third person this week to accuse me of getting a BBL. She hummed in Ben’s ear as he listened to Hughie ramble on about the newest developments. Like I could afford an ass this good on a waitress’ salary.

He coughed to cover his snort, and Mallory shot him a glare.

“Is there anything you would like to say, Soldier Boy?” 

Ben rolled his eyes. “Shut the fuck up.” 

“I’m your reporting officer-“ 

“You’re still not fucking paying me,” Ben sneered. “I’m not here for you, or your shit fucking ideas. Hughie, keep talking.” 

Hughie nodded nervously, and continued. It was a lot of pointless shit about how they had to keep to their stories, what allegations were worth addressing and what was just nutjobs talking out of their asses. Ben wasn’t really fucking listening, just staring at another photo of Her, in that stupid fucking costume, wearing a smile that wasn’t Hers. 

He missed Her smile. Ben missed every fucking thing about Her, but her smile was a goddamn work of art. When it was real it was wide and toothy and made everything around it brighter. Her eyes would scrunch with it, and it always looked like she was keeping a secret. Something just for Her, about how beautiful the world was and how she got to see it. When She gave Ben that smile, he got to be in on the secret. He got to see every single fucking perfect part of Her—understand a little more about why She loved this shit life so much—and if she let him he’d keep making Her smile until everything was almost as beautiful as She was.

He kept his promise. It had clearly been important to Her—for reasons Ben didn’t understand—that Ben was better to the Kid. She’d cashed in a fucking favor for it, and Ben knew she wouldn’t forget that it was Her last one. She’d wasted them on making him watch TV and read goddamn books and getting her some chocolate from the dining hall in the middle of the night—he’d have fucking done it without the favor, because She’d sprawled herself across his chest and held his face between her hands with a pretty pout on her lips—but She’d never used that last one.

But She wanted Ben to be nicer to the Kid. So he marched into the dining hall for dinner and sat at the almost empty table. 

The Kid stared at him over a book, and Ben grunted. He didn’t have a goddamn clue how to do this. 

“The fuckin hell are you doin here?” Butcher appeared through the kitchen doors, two plates in hand. He set one down in front of the Kid, dropping down across from Ben with a scowl. “You ain’t been to one of these since-“ 

“Shut the fuck up.” Ben muttered. He didn’t need another fucking reminder She was gone. “I live here just as much as you do, you fucking pussy. I can eat wherever I damn well please.” 

Butcher narrowed his eyes at Ben. “Then where’s your food.” 

“I only just fucking sat down-“ 

“You can have mine.” Ben felt his jaw clench as the Kid pushed his plate across the table. “I’m not that hungry.” 

“Ryan, you eat your own fuckin dinner and let me-“ 

“Kimiko gave me some cheese earlier.” The Kid mumbled. “I was showing her my homework and she was eating cheese. I asked for some-“ 

“Ryan-“ 

“I didn’t mean to eat all of it, I was just hungry-“ 

“Ryan-“ 

“And Mom said sharing was good!” Ryan looked at Butcher with wide eyes, and the pussies face fell into a glower. “She said sharing was important!” 

Butcher’s glare turned to Ben, and Ben pulled the plate closer to his body. He wasn’t that fucking hungry either, but Her voice kept ringing in his head. 

Be kind to Ryan. For me. 

“Uh,” Ben looked at the Kid, who was watching him with an openly nervous expression. “Thanks.” 

Was that so hard, Pretty Boy? You were almost civilized. 

Shut the fuck up. 

Her laugh echoed around Ben’s head, and he gave the Kid a small nod. “What are you reading.”

“Of Mice and Men,” The Kid answered, and his voice was so fucking quiet. “Aunt Grace says it’s important for my education-“

“That the one about the huge idiot who gets shot in the head, yeah?” Ben frowned, because he’d read that book. Over 80 years ago, but he’d read it. “It’s-“

“Lennie gets shot?!” The Kid’s face had fallen, and Ben blinked. 

“Uh-“ 

“Bloody hell.” Butcher sighed, pulling the book away from the Kid with a glare at Ben. “Tell him about your homework Ryan. I’m gonna go get you another fuckin book.” 

There was silence for a second after the door closed behind Butcher. 

“You don’t have to listen to me talk about my homework,” the Kid mumbled. “It’s not that interesting.” 

Be kind to Ryan. “I don’t fucking care. Talk.” 

The Kid started slow. He’d been right, it wasn’t that interesting. It was all books and history and science and fucking math. Ben goddamn knew what ecosystems were, and he didn’t give a fuck about calculating percentages, but the Kid seemed to. He got all damn cheerful naming the fifty states, and Ben didn’t have the fucking heart to shut him up. She’d asked him to be kind, and this seemed like the type of shit She’d love. She wouldn’t care that it was all for fucking children, She’d ask the Kid about his opinion on the symbolism in their stupid fucking books and his opinion on the Lousiana purchase.

So he let the Kid talk, all the way until the dining hall finally started to fill with the rest of the team. Annie and Hughie first, followed by Kimiko and the French Prick, all of whom gave Ben odd looks but didn’t interrupt the Kid’s ranting. MM and Butcher arrived—A-Train was still mostly keeping to himself, Ben hadn’t even seen him outside of meetings—and the Kid was cut off mid-sentence as Butcher dropped another book on the table.

Ben stood up. He’d done what he had to, and been nice to the Kid. He could leave.

“Are you not eating with us?” The Kid was frowning at him. “I thought you were going to eat with us.”

Ben wasn’t sure what to do. “I’m not-“ 

“Sit your ass down, Soldier Boy.” MM grunted, not looking up from his plate. “Eat your fucking dinner.” 

The Kid was still fucking watching him with a sad expression that turned into a smile when Ben slowly returned to his seat. 

Ben wasn’t sure how he allowed it to happen, but he was back in the dining hall the next night as well. He kept thinking about how fucking happy She’d be he was talking to the Kid, and how the Kid didn’t seem to care that Ben had tried to murder him at one point. He just seemed happy Ben was there, and his face lit up when Ben sat across the table again. So Ben was there the next night, and the night after that, and suddenly he was fucking eating dinner with everyone. 

The Thing was still fucking trying to tell him something. He still didn’t fucking understand. It kept going on rampages around Ben’s body, trying to force him to get it. To just know what it wanted him to, what the Thing had decided was so fucking important for him to know. And it was still trying to tell Her. She wasn’t here, Ben had to keep reminding the Thing She wasn’t here, but it didn’t give a shit. It was rioting inside of Ben like it did when She was sad and he needed to help. To hold Her until her heartbeat was steady, or talk to Her until her perfect fucking brain was Her’s again. When it was trying to tell Ben to touch Her, that he should touch Her and all the pain and fear written across her pretty features would vanish, because Ben would make Her feel good. He’d touch Her and kiss her and bite her and fuck her until she was happy. He’d do fucking anything to make Her happy. 

And the Thing roared. 

There were points where the Thing would explode inside him, and Her voice would become clear. Like she was right at his side, grinning up at him as she spoke. Telling him about things only She would think of. The real Her, not the echo of her in his head. The Thing would squeeze in Ben’s chest in the middle of the night, and Her voice would start talking all too fast about how she couldn’t come home. She was weak and couldn’t come home. Ben told Her to shut up, because she would. Not coming home wasn’t a goddamn option. 

And She still wasn’t wearing blue. She’d promised, fucking sworn, that she’d wear blue if Ben needed to come get her. But she wasn’t, so Ben just waited. Mallory turned on the Dining Hall TV for some sort of stupid Vought show, and She looked so fucking exhausted and small—shrinking into herself in a way that Ben knew meant she was afraid—next to Homelander. But Ben had to just listen to Sage give a speech about their fucking relationship, and not go help Her. He hated this, but he fucking couldn’t go until She gave the signal. The Thing was raging inside of him, and Her voice was following him—teasing him with a lightness in her voice—but Ben had to just watch. Talk to Her in his head about anything, because that’s all he could have right now.

Then Homelander kissed Her cheek, and the table had cracked under Ben’s grip. Everyone was fucking looking at him, and She looked so fucking afraid. Homelander had touched Her. That weak, pathetic fucking pussy wasn’t supposed to touch Her. Ben should’ve been there to fucking kill him for even looking at Her- 

Ben was moving before he was even aware of it. Stalking down the halls, back to the apartment, because he was going to get Her. The Thing was going fucking feral, and Her voice kept trying to stop him, but nothing could stop him. Nothing was going to stop Ben from fucking killing Homelander, right fucking now. He had his shield and himself, and V or no V, he’d take the shot and he wouldn’t fucking miss. He wasn’t going to keep fucking leaving Her- 

Not leaving. 

She kept talking to him, her voice desperate in Ben’s head. He had go goddamn save her, bring her home- 

Her voice wouldn’t shut the fuck up. She wanted to come home. She wanted him more. She’d see Ben soon, but he had to wait.

He had to keep fucking waiting. He had to put down his shield, put his shirt back on, push his suit back into the dresser and just miss Her. Wait for her and miss her.

After a while, someone knocked on the door. Ben scowled—if it was Hughie or Annie here to talk about fucking feelings, he’d punch their teeth out—and went to answer the door. 

It wasn’t Annie or Hughie to talk about feelings. It wasn’t Mallory or MM or Butcher to lecture him either, or even the French Prick to do whatever the hell the French Prick did. 

It was the Kid, looking up at Ben with an anxious face. 

“You, um, you weren’t in the dining hall for dinner. I wanted to see if you were okay.” 

Ben blinked at him. He didn’t fucking love how he seemed unable to hold a normal conversation with the Kid. It was just a small fucking human. He could act like a grown ass man.

“I’m eating alone. Go back before Butcher starts fucking looking for you.” 

Ben went to slam the door, but the Kid stopped him. Shot out a hand and stopped Ben. “Please, wait-“ 

“How fucking strong are you?” 

The Kid stared at him. “I, um, I don’t know. My dad said I was really strong-“ 

“Anyone ever tested it?” 

“Tested what?” 

Ben sighed. “Your strength. Given you some weights, put you under a car-“ 

“A car?” The Kid shook his head frantically. “I don’t, please don’t put me under a car-“ 

“Calm the fuck down, I’m not going to do it right damn now.” Ben rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell Butcher tomorrow.” 

“Tell Butcher what-“ 

The Kid’s words were still panicked, and Ben sighed, running a hand over his face. “We need to figure out how strong you are. Just so you don’t fucking break something.” 

“I broke a cup,” the Kid mumbled, staring at the floor. “When I got here. And I’ve broken some people-“ 

“That’s not your fault,” Ben snapped, Her sad face flashing with smoke in his brain. “If nobody’s taught you how to control it, you shouldn’t be fucking expected to.” 

The Kid nodded slowly, still staring at Ben. “Will you help me?” 

“I don’t-” Ben’s fists curled at his side, and he cut himself off as he saw at the Kid’s wide, hopeful eyes watching him. Watching Ben like he was better than he was, like he’d somehow earned the Kid’s trust. Ben cursed himself, and sighed. “Fine.” 

“Will you come to dinner?” 

“No.” Ben wasn’t going to relent on that. He didn’t need everyone’s fucking sad, pitying looks, not right now. Not when the Thing was still rolling around inside him, not when he could still see Her face—full of frightened shock—and couldn’t do anything about it.

“Can I eat here?” 

Ben blinked. “What.” 

“May I please eat here? If, um, if it’s okay with you I can go ask Butcher-“ 

“Why.” 

The Kid shrugged, eyes dropping to the floor. “I want to ask you some questions, please.” 

Ben frowned. “About what.” 

The Kid said Her name, and the Thing fucking moaned in pain. “I just, I want to know about her. Nobody will talk about her, and Kimiko said you were-“ 

“You can fucking talk to Kimiko?” 

“I’m trying to learn,” the Kid shrugged, glancing up quickly. “It’s important to understand and respect others, even if they’re different-“ 

“Fine.” 

The Kid looked fully back up. “Fine?”

“You can eat here. Don’t bother getting Butcher, he’ll be a fucking ass about it. If he whines like a dickless pussy, I’ll deal with it.” Ben stood aside in one sharp step, and the Kid walked in the apartment slowly, looking around with wide eyes. 

“Your place is nicer than Butcher’s.” 

“Everyone decorated their own,” Ben grunted, moving to the kitchen. “And Butcher’s fucking boring. No color in that asshole’s place.” 

“Who decorated yours?” 

Ben sighed, said Her name, and ignored the stab through his heart. “Sit the fuck down. We’re eating bagels.” 

The Kid waited silently as Ben pulled out plates and prepped the food. When he stalked back over to the table—The Kid watching him and sitting with good fucking posture—Ben slammed the bagels down and dropped in his seat. The Kid was in Her seat.

He had to be okay with that. She’d kick Ben’s ass if he moved the Kid just because he didn’t think anyone else should ever even try to take her place in any fucking way. 

The Kid took his first bite, and stared down at the bagel as he swallowed. “Is this-“ 

“Strawberry cream cheese,” Ben muttered, shoving half of his own in his mouth. “Better than fucking crack.” 

“Oh.” The Kid nodded, and took another small bite. 

Ben sighed. “She liked it.” 

Don’t lie to the child, Benjamin. You love that shit twice as much as I do. 

“She showed it to me,” Ben amended himself, face dropping into a scowl. “And I love it as well.” 

The Kid nodded, but didn’t say anything else. Taking another bite, waiting for Ben to speak.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Ben leaned back in his chair, glaring at the Kid. “Three questions. That’s all you fucking get. I don’t have to answer a goddamn one if I don’t want to, and you don’t get them back. So choose fucking wisely.”

The Kid nodded, and looked back down at his plate. Ben shoved the rest of his bagel in his mouth, watching the Kid carefully as he chewed. 

“What’s her favorite color?” 

“All of them,” Ben swallowed, his words becoming clearer. “She liked every fucking color. She said she didn’t want any of them to feel bad about being ugly, so she wouldn’t pick a favorite. All colors had something to contribute.” 

“Even orange?” 

Ben snorted. “Halloween and the damn Grand Canyon.” 

The Kid took another bite, looking up at Ben. “How did you meet her?” 

“She fucking kidnapped me.” Ben grumbled, and the Kid’s mouth fell open. Ben rolled his eyes. “Not like that. She woke me up to kill Homelander, and we lived in a safe house together. We grew,” Ben frowned, searching for the right word that explained how She was his whole life. How he’d decided that, in the end, he would fucking die and kill and bleed for Her. How She made him happy and was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. How She was perfect, and adored Ben, and they’d always fucking burn together. “Close. Once we stopped trying to damn kill each other, we grew close.”

“Okay.” The Kid looked fucking sad, his mouth hanging slightly open.

“Spit it out,” Ben muttered. “Whatever the hell you want to say-“ 

“I’m sorry.“ The Kid’s voice was almost a whine, and he sounded desperate. Talking too fucking fast. “I, um, I know she’s not here because of me, and what my dad did to her, and Butcher says it’s not my fault but-“ 

“Shut up,” Ben’s words were rough, but he was getting worried the Kid was going to make himself pass out. “Butcher’s, for fucking once, right. You’re not your shit-fuck father, buddy.” That felt like something She’d say. “And she wanted to help you. She doesn’t hate you.”

“Why?” The Kid gave Ben a pathetic, sad look. “Why did she help me? After what my dad, what Homelander did-“ 

“Because that’s not the type of person she is.” Ben snapped, and his voice was harsher than he’d meant it to be, but the Thing was bellowing inside him. “She doesn’t hold things against people, even when she fucking should. She wants to help people, and so she fucking does.” Ben sighed. “She thinks the world is good. She’s mean and rude and has a smart fucking mouth, but she still thinks this shit is worth something. And she’s a fucking genius, so she’s probably right. She probably didn’t even damn think to blame you, so don’t fucking do it for her. She doesn’t like people doing shit for her.”

“She doesn’t?” 

“No.” Ben watched the Kid’s soft, eager expression. “She works her fucking ass off for everything, and earns every damn thing she gets. Never even asks for shit in return.” Ben scowled into the air. “She deserves a fuck ton more than people are giving her.” She deserved fucking everything. “Does everyone’s goddamn jobs and all she gets is an apartment and a limited company credit card in fucking Mallory’s name. If the CIA weren’t full of such fucking asshole pussies, they’d just give her goddamn control of everything and we’d all be home in an afternoon.”

“She sounds really cool.” The Kid mumbled, and Ben nodded. 

“She is fucking cool.” He grunted. “She’s fucking perfect.” 

The Kid looked up at Ben with big eyes. “Yeah, it, um, it makes sense why you love her.”

Ben’s whole world stopped. 

He did. 

He loved Her. 

With every single fucking part of him, Ben loved Her. That was what the Thing was. Love. For Her. That’s what it had been trying to tell him. He loved Her. 

She was perfect. She was the whole world and everything around it and between it, and Ben loved Her. She never fucking wavered, and was so fucking smart and beautiful and good, and Ben loved Her. She trusted Ben, she wanted him, and he fucking loved Her.

This was the stupid shit people wrote all those songs that She loved about. Where they talked about it like it was evasive and the most amazing pain you’d ever fucking feel, and how their person was the best person and nobody fucking got it like they did. This pain was fucking amazing, and Ben never wanted to stop feeling it. It made his heart—that’s what the fucking Thing was, and Ben was a goddamn idiot—ache because she wasn’t here, but it also meant he got to want Her. The pain meant She was in sight, and Ben just had to fucking wait. He’d never stop waiting. If the next time he saw Her was in a thousand fucking years, Ben would pick her up into his arms all the same and kiss her until she moaned into his mouth and he could breathe again. Because his person was the best fucking person. Nobody did fucking get it like Ben did. She was better than every other goddamn pussy fucker on the planet, and she was a goddamn force of nature. She made oceans part and lightning strike and the sun followed Her because it wanted to share Her warmth. She was so fucking perfect, so powerful, that she’d managed to make Ben’s heart beat in a way it hadn’t before. He’d been alive for over a goddamn century, and he’d never had everything be about his heart, and how it needed to be in time with Hers. 

This was all the goddamn movies she’d made him watch, where two people would look into each other’s eyes and the music would swell and everything would fade to black as they kissed. This wouldn’t fade to black. This would keep going, and Ben would eat Her pretty face and suck her lips until they were swollen. He’d put wets kisses along her jaw and bite on her neck, and she’d fucking moan and the lights would stay up as Ben fucked her. Really, properly fucked Her like she deserved, made her unravelled and wrecked under him. Everyone would fucking see, because the whole fucking world needed to see Her how Ben saw her. And he’d keep going and going until she looked at him like he was everything, and Ben would keep fucking loving Her until someone figured out a way to kill him. And even then he’d crawl back to Her. They’d have to pull his fucking heart out of his chest and launch it into fucking space where he couldn’t follow it. He’d probably follow it anyways, because space didn’t have fucking shit on Ben, on his love for Her. His love was bigger, more important, and if space tried to take his heart Ben would just have to figure out how to fucking kill it and get Her back.

This was probably like poems and books, as well. She’d say it was. She’d say that love is the most poetic thing in the world, and that love in some form runs through every great story in history, even the tragic and heartbreaking ones. She’d make this shit poetic. She’d hold Ben’s face between her hands and say a bunch of things he didn’t understand, using allegories and metaphors and smiling at him, and it wouldn’t fucking matter what Ben understood. She would be there, telling Ben she loved him and smiling and saying it a million different ways because that’s who she was. Her brain moved too fucking fast, and She’d only be able to tell Ben she loved him in a way that was beautiful. 

Ben didn’t need to be fucking beautiful. This was pretty fucking simple, he loved Her. That was all that needed to be fucking said, there was no other goddamn way to put it. Ben loved Her, like nobody had ever loved anything in goddamn history. Ben loved Her, and whenever he thought the words his heart would feel a little easier in his chest.

Once She was home Ben would get his hands dirty for her and do whatever she told him and make Her feel fucking good. That’s what he was here for now, to make Her feel good, to touch her and praise her and worship her until she understood that she was perfect. She’d fall apart because of Ben, and she’d fucking smile at him after, and that would be all he needed to keep living. She could have all his food, and take all his sleep and oxygen and goddamn peace, but Ben would fucking thrive. Because She’d be there and he could keep loving her.

But now, he had to get through the rest of dinner and show the Kid out while acting like everything was normal. He had to get through the rest of his fucking life acting like everything was fucking normal. Like he wasn’t in love, in stupid fucking love, with Her. 

He’d tell Her. She had to fucking know. Ben would hold it within himself until She was home and happy, then he’d tell her. 

He didn’t have a fucking clue how. He’d never done this shit before, where it really fucking mattered that he did it right. He could get her shit. Something she’d like, that proved that Ben listened. He always fucking listened to Her.

She liked those stupid off-brand Uought sunglasses. She’d wear them all the damn time, and they’d broken when he lost Her. He wouldn’t get Her blue one’s this time. She shouldn’t wear blue, unless it was to tell Ben to come fucking get Her. He didn’t want to get Her Soldier Boy sunglasses, Vought didn’t deserve Ben’s money—technically the CIA’s money, but who gave a fuck—or his likeness. 

Ben got Her green ones. Simple fucking green ones with the same aviator frames, that he could give to Her and say he loved her and she’d smile at him. 

He kept eating with the team. The Kid kept asking Ben questions, a lot about history—like he was supposed have a fucking clue just because he’d been alive for some of it—and a lot about Her.

“I wasn’t alive in the fucking 1800s,” Ben muttered as the Kid showed him a worksheet question. “I don’t have a goddamn idea what that painting means.” 

“The book said it was about Manifest Destiny,” the Kid frowned. “But I can’t find a definition, and Butcher and Aunt Grace don’t want me to have a phone.” 

Ben actually agreed with that. The Kid didn’t need to see all the shit people were saying about him, or about how Homelander and Her were in love but maybe She’d been fucking Butcher. Ben wished he could unsee it. Wipe it from his goddamn brain. He was about to say he didn’t have a fucking clue about the Manifest Destiny shit, but She must have told him at some point. This seemed like shit she’d tell him about, and suddenly her voice was reminding him. 

“It’s the nationalistic belief that Americans had the right to expand westward, and should exert the means to do so.” 

The Kid blinked at him. “Really? Are you-“ 

“I’m fucking certain.” Her voice in Ben’s head had been fucking certain, so he was as well. “That’s what it means.” 

“Okay.” The Kid started to write on the paper, and people began to trickle in for dinner. Butcher sat at the Kid’s side—glancing over the worksheet once and giving an approving nod—as Hughie and Annie sat on Ben’s bench. Neither flinched when Ben glanced at them. MM and A-Train arrived, the fast pussy finally seeming to develop some team spirit, and the French Prick and Kimiko were late. Ben hoped they were finally just fucking. If they kept making silent heart eyes at each other without just fucking, he’d shoot them. The French Prick specifically, because Kimiko would just be a waste of a bullet. If Ben couldn’t fuck his woman, everyone else better start appreciating what they goddamn had.

“You still need my phone for that bloody school shit, Ryan?” 

“No,” the Kid didn’t look up from his paper. “Ben helped me. Manifest Destiny means,” he paused, squinting to read his own handwriting. “The nationalistic belief that America should expand to the west.” 

Butcher scowled at Ben. “That so?” 

The Kid hummed, and Ben shrugged. “I’m fucking right, so don’t lose your stick up your own asshole.” 

“You seem real fuckin sure-“ 

“He is right, Butcher,” MM muttered. “That’s the definition. Not sure how he knows-“ 

“All of you seem to be real goddamn convinced I’m a fucking idiot,” Ben snapped. “I’m not a boring pussy, but I know things. I’m not a goddamn asshole without a fucking brain.” 

“I think we just aren’t sure what you would know,” Hughie mumbled, glancing at Ben nervously. “I mean, you haven’t been in school in a while. And I don’t think they taught westward expansion with any, like, nuance in the early 1900s.” 

“They didn’t,” Ben sighed, and said Her name. He needed to say Her name more, it made his heart squeeze but it always sounded fucking right. “She told me. And she’s a fucking nerd,” he tried not to smile. He fucking missed her. “She’s always fucking right about that shit.”

A-Train was looking at Ben weird again. Ben was about to fucking ask what the hell is problem was, why the pussy wouldn’t just talk to him. Ben hadn’t even ever really tried to kill him—as far as he remembered—and everyone else was talking to him. He’d defiantly tried to kill everyone else at least once, so why the fuck A-Train was being so damn strange- 

“Does she like school?” The Kid was asking Ben with those same fucking wide eyes, and he couldn’t not talk about Her if he fucking tried. 

“She says there are massive flaws in the American education system,” Ben shrugged. “But she likes learning, because she’s fucking insane.” 

“What was her favorite subject?” The Kid’s voice was growing eager, and everyone else was silent. “In school?” 

“English. And the fucking social one. Anything about people.”

“Arts and Humanities,” MM offered, frowning at Ben. “If it’s not STEM, it’s Arts and Humanities.”

Ben didn’t have a fucking clue what STEM was, but Arts and Humanities sounded familiar. “Sure. That shit.” 

“I like English as well,” the Kid was smiling, and Ben couldn’t stop his mouth from twitching. “But I also like science. Biology is my favorite-“ 

“Let the old ass fuckin eat, Ryan.” Butcher muttered, standing up. “You want pizza rolls?” 

“Yes, please.” 

Butcher nodded and stalked off, and the Kid turned back to Ben. 

“Does she like biology?” 

Ben sighed. “She likes everything. I think she gives at least a small shit about biology, because she talked about it when she’d work on my shell shock.” 

The Kid needed to stop asking fucking questions about Her, because Ben was learning he was incapable of just lying or telling him to shut the fuck up. His stupid heart would grab his mouth and use any fucking excuse to talk about Her—about how good she was and how she made everything around her good as well—because it wasn’t allowed to say Ben loved Her yet. 

“What’s shell shock?” 

“PTSD.” 

“What?” Annie leaned over Hughie, frowning at Ben. “What are you talking about?” 

“She was doing her fucking brain magic shit on my head.” Ben snapped. “She asked to, and it was fucking working.”

It had been working. Ben would never tell Her, because she’d get that pleased look in her eyes and bounce around the room, taunting Ben until he grabbed Her and kissed all the smug words out of her mouth—actually, he would tell Her, because that sounded fucking amazing—but it had been working. Ben’s nightmares about Russia and pain had faded, and he didn’t hear drums in the constant background anymore. Now it was only Her, following him and making him lose his fucking mind. 

Annie nodded, and dropped it for the rest of dinner. Ben answered a few more of the Kid’s questions, ignored A-Train’s silent, strange looks, and ate his barbecued ribs. When he was done he cleared his plate, dropping it into the sink, and nearly punched Annie when she came up behind him. 

“Soldier Boy?” 

Ben whipped around, fist’s clenched. “Christ on a fucking cross-“ 

“Why didn’t she tell us about the PTSD treatment?” Annie crossed her arms, standing her ground. “We should know-“ 

“Me and you pussies weren’t exactly buddy-buddy,” Ben drawled. “And you don’t need to know shit about what she and I do.” 

“If it affects the team, we do.” 

“Well it fucking doesn’t-“ 

“It was probably hurting her,” Annie pushed on, and Ben’s jaw clenched. “It wasn’t just vanishing. Whatever she was doing to fix you was going into her.” 

“She’d have fucking told me-“

Annie shook her head. “She wouldn’t.” Annie said Her name with a sad expression, and Ben’s heart hurt. “She, well, you know her. She wouldn’t ever tell anyone she was hurting, not until she had to.” 

“She’d fucking tell me.” Ben insisted. She’d never fucking lie to him, and he’d never doing anything that would hurt her. “If it was hurting her, she’d have told me and I’d have fucking stopped her-“

“Just, listen.” Annie sighed. “I know she cares about you. A lot. And if you care about her, you won’t make her keep doing that when she gets back. It’s not her responsibility to fix you, even if she...” Annie looked him up and down. “Cares about you.” 

“I fucking know that,” Ben hissed. “You think I don’t fucking know that? I care about her more than you’re goddamn capable of imagining-“ 

“Then don’t hurt her.” Annie shrugged. “She won’t say it’s hurting her, but her nightmares were getting worse even before the tower. She’s dealing with a lot, do this one thing for her.” 

Her nightmares had been getting worse. And She’d been staring at corners and shadows when she didn’t think Ben was watching. “How the fuck did you know that.” 

“She’s my friend,” Annie frowned. “She told me stuff.” 

“What other stuff did she tell you?” 

“Enough for me to believe that you don’t want to hurt her.” 

“Stop speaking in fucking riddles-“ 

“Soldier Boy,” Annie shook her head. “I’m not trying to fight with you. Not right now, with everything being so fucked. But just, don’t hurt her.” 

Annie left, and Ben couldn’t fucking move. He’d never hurt Her, he fucking loved Her. Everything in him was dedicated to protecting her and loving her, and he’d rather go back to sleep or ship himself to Russia that let her hurt anymore- 

She knew that. Ben was certain She knew that. She didn’t know he loved Her, and he wished her voice would stop trying to fight with him about that, but she knew Ben would never fucking hurt Her. He’d keep her safe, he’d always care for her and make her happy. Everything good was Her, and Ben’s heart kept beating so she could have it when she came home. 

The blood in Ben’s body had turned into Her. This is what people must have meant when they said love would drive you mad. Her voice, growing clearer and clearer in his head, was still telling about strange fucking things Ben hadn’t been thinking about before. Sometimes it would even say that She loved him, and Ben decided that he was getting a little too fucking into this fantasy. Where he could ask Her voice in his head questions and she’d answer like it was Her. Really Her. When he’d finished buying Her sunglasses—She’d be real fucking proud, he’d used Amazon without calling Hughie to make him do it—Her voice had been tired and sour around him, but still so slightly amused. Sounding like Her. 

Do you think he watches tentacle porn? 

Ben had frowned into the empty apartment. What the fuck are you talking about. 

The Deep. Do you think he watches tentacle porn? 

I don’t fucking know. Why the hell would I know that. 

You don’t have to actually know, Pretty Boy. You can guess, or offer another type of porn. My vote is tentacle, but if you think there’s another- 

What’s that one you told me about that I couldn’t fucking understand. With the dogs. 

Beastialty? 

No, smartass. With the costumes- 

Oh. Furries.

Ben had nodded at nothing. Is there an ocean version of furries? 

Maybe. I don’t actually know. 

You don’t have to actually know, Sunshine. You can fucking guess- 

Shut up. 

No. 

Benjamin- 

No. 

Fuck you. 

I will. When you get home I’m going to blow your fucking mind. There’s not a single goddamn thing I won’t do to you, not if you ask real fucking nice- 

Not a thing? Are you going to tentacle fuck me? 

Brat. 

Cunt. And there probably are ocean furries. Rule 34 and all. 

What the hell is rule 34.

Her snort had rumbled in Ben’s chest. Oh, that’s going to be so much fun to show you. 

You can just fucking tell me- 

No. I want to see your face, it’s going to be adorable. 

I am not goddamn adorable- 

Yes, you are. You’re downright cute, Benjamin. Deal with it. 

Ben had sighed. You’re lucky I love you. 

Ben, please. Stop saying that. 

No. I fucking love you, and there’s not a goddamn thing that will make me stop loving you- 

Ben- 

His phone had buzzed with a message from Butcher about another A-Train meeting, and Her voice had vanished into the hum of Ben’s heart. He’d smiled at her sleepy face, still his lockscreen because there was not a fucking chance in hell he’d change it now, and left to go hear A-Train list out another bunch of stupid fucking passcodes.

He kept hearing Her. Her voice was only growing stronger, and Ben must miss her somehow more than he’d thought fucking possible because she was always there. 

Benjamin. 

He’d tensed, standing in the shower after returning to his apartment from dinner, and repeated Her name back to her in his head. 

Would you hate it if I asked you out? 

What. 

If I told you I loved you, and asked you out. And don’t say you love me. You’re not allowed to say you love me. 

Shut the fuck up, I’ll tell you I love you as much as I fucking want- 

Ben. Please just answer my question. 

No. 

Benjamin- 

My answer is no. Why the fuck would I hate it if you asked me out. And if you told me you loved me- 

I don’t know. Gender roles? Guys are supposed to ask girls out. 

We’re not fucking children. Let me finish my damn sentence. If you told me you loved me, there wouldn’t be a single fucking thing you could ask of me that I wouldn’t give you. And it doesn’t matter, because as soon as you’re home and safe I’m going to tell you I love you and fuck you stupid. 

Stop saying that- 

No. I’m going to make you cum all over me a hundred times in every single fucking position I can think of. Then I’ll make some new ones, and figure out which ones are your favorite, so I can keep fucking you forever. 

Ben had almost been able to hear that small sound She always made when she was trying to hide how wet he’d gotten her. I’d like that. 

Good. Because it’s fucking happening. The moment you say the word, you’re fucking mine, Sunshine. And if you want to suck my cock, I won’t stop you. 

What a gentleman. I’m one lucky gal, having such a generous… Her voice had trailed off, and Ben had seen her pretty lips falling into a frown. Heard the chew of her cheek. Boyfriend sounds stupid. 

Boyfriend is stupid. Ben had scowled, because boyfriend was too weak a word to describe what he needed to be to Her. And girlfriend was a fucking pathetic thing to call the most perfect woman to ever exist. And I’m not ever going to call you my girlfriend, because we’re fucking adults. 

That’s true, hundred year old men shouldn’t have girlfriends. That’s pretty embarrassing for you.

Brat.

Cunt. There was a beat of silence. What would you call me?

Doesn’t matter, Ben had shrugged, even though She wasn’t real and couldn’t see it. As long as we’re fucking together, I don’t give a shit what we call each other. 

He’d want to call Her his wife. Suddenly he was goddamn certain that, one day, he’d fucking marry that insane and perfect fucking woman. If She’d let him. As Her voice hummed and faded away again, Ben decided that whatever she’d give him he’d take. He’d ask, at the right times, what she wanted. If it was everything he wanted. But if she didn’t—she might never want exactly what Ben wanted, not with Homelander as a stain on her head—Ben would genuinely be fucking fine. Not Her type of fine, where she just didn’t want to talk about how much everything was hurting Her, but just fine. As long as She was with him, Ben would be fine. 

His dreams were getting fucking horrible again. He’d wake up from nightmares filled with blood, unable to breathe with Her voice in his head. 

Blood. So much blood. I don’t have time to clean all this blood- 

Breathe, Sunshine. He’d glare into the dark, because even if She wasn’t real it was fucking painful to hear her voice so afraid and weak. Just fucking breathe. 

There’s blood, Ben. It’s everywhere, and it’s not mine, and I miss you. I miss you so much- 

Wear blue, and I’ll come fucking get you, right now. 

No, I’m so close. I can’t. 

Then breathe. 

Ben’s own heart had slowed, and his own breathing became even. 

Thank you. Her voice had whispered, right in his ear. He could almost feel Her soft hand, gently tracing his jaw in the dark. I’m sorry. 

Shut the fuck up. Don’t ever thank me, or apologize. 

Please- 

No. I don’t want it. I want you home, because I fucking miss you. Nothing else. 

Okay. Silence, then. I’ll see you soon. 

He’d sighed into the dark, and stared up at the high ceiling. He’d forgotten to turn off the bathroom lamps, and there was light leaking under the door of their empty bedroom. I’ll see you soon.

They were still looking for V. A-Train had given them a list of warehouses and Vought storage spaces, so right now Ben’s job was to comb over them with Butcher, Hughie, and the French Prick for clues. There were hundreds of warehouses and cargo ports and underground bunkers, and Hughie kept finding fucking more. There was one in Sacramento that A-Train had claimed was full of V, but Hughie couldn’t find it on any records. It had seemingly disappeared off the face of the damn planet. There were fifty more like it, a lot of others in fucking places like New Orleans and Austin that held supe gear, and several in Akron and Portland and Chicago that were label miscellaneous. They’d kept Ben’s shield there. In a fucking miscellaneous warehouse. 

“This is getting us fucking nowhere,” he muttered, crumpling another paper in his hand as Her voice turned back to an easy song in his head. “It doesn’t fucking matter where Vought kept them. Sage would fucking hide anything she didn’t destroy.” 

“You got a better fuckin idea, Gov?” Butcher snapped, not looking up from his own papers. “We ain’t got much to go on, we’re doin the best with the shit we’ve got.”

“Our best is fucking dogshit-“ 

“Maybe it’s offsite?” Hughie paused his tapping of the computer. “Vought has, like, a lot of shell companies, right? Maybe Sage moved it there, off of any records.” 

Butcher nodded slowly. “Frenchie-“

The French Prick sighed. “I will go tell MM.”

“What about Homelander,” Ben grunted, frowning at Hughie. “Are you looking where he’d keep it?” 

“We can’t be sure he has any-“ 

“He does.” Ben’s snap was cold. “He might be the one keeping it offsite, where Sage can’t fucking find it.” 

“Lad, he’s ain’t totally fuckin wrong,” Butcher glanced up and Hughie with narrow eyes. “Homelander ain’t tryin to hide it from just the CIA, he’s tryin to hide it from everyone. And Vought’s his fuckin playground. He might be keepin it wherever he damn pleases.”

Hughie sighed. “Maybe, but I can’t check that without the list of shell companies.” 

“Do your fucking braking shit,” Ben scowled. “Isn’t that your whole fucking thing-“ 

“It’s hacking, not braking. And it’s not my whole thing-“ 

Hughie cut himself off as the Kid pushed into the dining hall. 

“Is it pizza night?” He sat next to Butcher, right across from Ben. “I know it’s early, but I’m really hungry-“

“It’s Friday, ain’t it?” Butcher started to pull his papers into his chest, shoving them down to Hughie. “And we can eat early. We’re the cunts in charge of ourselves.”

Ben returned his papers to Hughie as well, because this wasn’t going to do fucking shit. There wouldn’t be V anywhere, Sage was too smart of a bitch to leave it lying around. Ben could eat dinner, and then hang over Hughie’s shoulder until the man proved himself fucking useful.

He ate Her favorite type of pizza. He’d been eating Her favorite type of pizza, because it reminded him of Her. Of her smile and the soft look on Her perfect face when Ben would get it without her asking. She didn’t need to ask. Ben knew everything about Her that he needed to in order to keep her happy. It was how he was able to answer all of the Kid’s questions, and usually that knowledge would make his heart a little slower. Make Ben feel a little more at ease that She be safe and happy with him. That there was at least one way in which he was deserving of Her. But tonight his heart was going a mile a damn minute and he couldn’t fucking figure out why. He felt like something was choking him, like every nerve in his body was burning and he was cold. The pizza was warm, the dining hall was warm, but Ben felt cold. And it only got worse and worse. He felt fucking sick, something felt wrong. The longer the night went on, everyone having joined them to eat and talk about anything but the mission—a recently imposed rule by MM after Butcher had said the words supe jizz might have fuckin V in it and everyone had lost their appetites—the worse Ben felt. He was dying. Everything fucking hurt and he felt like he was going to fucking collapse- 

The whole room lit up red, and deafening alarms started to sound through the building. Ben and Butcher were up first, MM and Annie close behind them as they stormed to the door. 

“What’s going on-“ 

“Stay right fuckin there, Ryan.” Butcher roared, and the Kid froze in his steps. “Hughie, don’t let him out of your sight. Everyone else-“ 

“We don’t know what’s going on, Butcher.” Annie’s words were loud, but unsure. Ben could even fucking hear her heart racing over the sirens. “It might just be a fire drill-“ 

“We ain’t supposed to be hooked up to the drills,” Butcher snapped, pounding the wall and opening a full fucking arsenal panel. Someone should’ve told Ben about that sooner. “And we ain’t supposed to get alerts unless it’s defcon 1. It might be-“ 

“It’s not Homelander,” MM held up his phone. “I’ve got a Google alert on the fucker, he was just in France-“ 

Ben caught the gun Butcher was tossing to him. “It’s fucking something.” He grunted. “Something’s real fucking wrong. Get a gun and start moving.” 

MM frowned. “How the hell do you know-“ 

The doors burst open, and one of those pussy fucking agents—the man—yelped as five gun’s clicked with barrels aimed at his head. 

“Don’t shoot! Please don’t shoot-“

“What the fuck is going on,” Ben didn’t try to make his voice nice or kind. Something was going on, he’d never felt this type of goddamn suffering in his life, and when he’d paused for just a second he’d realized Her voice was gone. It wasn’t humming softly around in his head and heart anymore. It was just fucking pain. 

“Soldier Boy, sir, I’m sorry to bother you but-“

“Fucking talk!” Ben roared, his ribs starting to cave in. “Stop pussying around and use your goddamn words-“ 

The agent shouted Her name, and the gun broke in Ben’s hand. “She’s in the lobby, but nobody can touch her-“ 

Ben didn’t wait to hear more. She was in the lobby. The sky felt like it was fucking falling and Ben couldn’t really see beyond something red lining his vision, but She was fucking here. He was sprinting down the hall, and into the elevator with Annie, Kimiko, and somehow Butcher the only ones managing to keep up. His fists were clenching and unclenching, nobody was daring to fucking speak, and as the elevator started to drop the pain began to subside. Like it knew he was getting closer. It knew She was home. 

The elevator had barely dinged before Ben was out of it, ripping through the metal with his hands. They hadn’t stopped in the lobby—they’d stopped three or four levels above—and people were trying to get on. Scrambling forwards, then falling back with surprised sounds as Ben pushed past them. All of them looked fucking afraid, like they were running from something. 

There was an overlook into the main lobby. The first seven floors had hallways that wrapped around the entrance, and Ben had a feeling that if he just kept walking towards what everyone else was fleeing from, he’d get there. Butcher and Annie were calling after him, but Ben didn’t fucking care. She was so fucking close, he had to fucking get to Her-

He heard Her screams first. They were raw noised of pure fucking pain, and she was probably trying to fucking say something. Ben could only hear his blood in his ears, and hHr screams, and her heartbeat. Fast and wild and pounding out of her chest.

Ben could hear Her heartbeat. That was Her heartbeat. He’d recognize it underwater and in deep space and buried twenty feet under the ground. It had made him turn around at the Believe Expo, because he’d have just kept walking and telling Her voice to stop torturing him with ideas that she might be there, but he’d heard her heartbeat. And this was Her fucking heartbeat.

She was alone, curled into Herself in the center of the lobby. Ben could finally fucking see Her, four floors below him, collapsed on her knees and screaming. Covered in blood, clothing scorched, and fucking screaming. Everyone was either fleeing, passed out in an odd pattern across the floor, or watching with wide-eyes from a wide circle that had formed around Her. Nobody was helping Her. Why was nobody fucking helping Her- 

She wasn’t looking at him. She wasn’t looking at anyone, her eyes screwed shut as she screamed again. It was the worst fucking sound Ben had even heard. He needed to fucking get to Her, now. He’d survive the jump down, he wouldn’t even fucking feel it. He took a step back, readying to go, go to Her, he’d wasted too much fucking time and he had to get to Her, but a small hand yanked him back. 

“What the fuck-“ 

Kimiko was glaring at him, pointing at the people scattered around Her and signing something Ben couldn’t fucking understand. 

“I need to help her-“ 

She shook her head, gesturing to the weak, knocked out pussies on the floor. 

“They’re not fucking burned, there’s not even any fucking fire. And I’d fucking survive it anyway-“

“It ain’t fire, Gov.” Butcher was out of breath, shoving his way forward with a glower at Ben. “If you hadn’t just bloody run, you’d have heard what’s goin on.” 

“If you pussies don’t let me go and shut the fuck up, I’ll fucking kill you-“ 

“It’s the empathy!” Annie was right behind Butcher, her voice desperate. Below, She screamed again and Ben died a little bit. “People were trying to help her, but they kept screaming and collapsing. There’s not any fire, she just,” Annie’s eyes landed on Her, flinching as She screamed. “They’re feeling Her. Anyone who goes too close to Her feels whatever she’s feeling.” 

“And they’re all fuckin passing out from it, Gov.” Butcher sighed, shaking his head. “We just got to let her tire herself out, if anyone gets just a little too bloody close they’ll-“ 

There was not a chance in goddamn hell Ben was going to wait. She was here, she was home, he was done fucking waiting. If he felt that pain, or passed out, or even fucking died, at least it would’ve been to get to Her. 

He yanked his hand away from Kimiko, sending her stumbling backwards, and jumped down to the lobby. 

The floor cracked under him, and Ben braced himself for the pain. To roar and scream like she was and fucking crawl to Her if he had to. 

Nothing came. There was a dull kind of ache, but no pain. Everything that hurt was the noise of the alarms and the horrible sound of Her screams. He took a careful step, closer, and still nothing. Another, and the alarms and gathered crowd fell into the background. Her heartbeat was louder, and it was all Ben could hear. Everyone could fucking watch with stupid pussy gapes, all that mattered was Her. 

Her eyes were still closed, and when she screamed again he heard the words, running from her blood into his. 

Ben. 

He ran. It took two, bounding and powerful strides to grab Her. Hold Her in his arms. To fall to his knees at Her side, and pull her up into his chest.

Her screams stopped. Ben cradled Her head in his hand, his other squeezing her waist to make sure She was fucking real. He felt a flash of something boundless, something infinite and indestructible, and then she passed out. 

Ben carried Her to medical. He wanted to carry her to bed, to let her just rest, but he had to make sure she was okay. That someone with a pussy fucking degree would look at Her and tell Ben she’d be ok. Everyone was parting around then, and Ben didn’t give a fuck. She was in his arms, and everything was going to be okay. 

They gave Her a bed. Every doctor on the staff popped their head in—Ben thought they might be drawing straws for who’s turn it was to check on Her—and the French Prick came in with a vial of a golden liquid, attaching it to Her IV. 

“The fuck are you doing,” Ben grunted, but didn’t move from Her side. He’d pulled a chair up beside Her, and wasn’t going to fucking leave until her eyes opened. Until She could look at him and say she was okay. She was going to be okay. She had to be fucking okay. And if she wasn’t, Ben had to know that so he could figure out how to help. If he could fix it or heal it or just had to stay there, at Her side until she smiled. Whatever it fucking took.

“It is a suppressant.” The French Prick glanced at Ben’s scowl. “It will not hurt her. It will help.”

“How.”

“We do not know what will happen when she awakens. This will make sure people other than yourself can approach her safely.” 

Ben nodded slowly, looking back at Her face. Perfect, at complete ease in her sleep. “Fine.” 

Then it was just them again. Ben’s hand was in hers—nobody could make him stop touching Her with a fucking nuke of Sage’s gas pointed to his chest—and she was sighing in Her sleep. 

Perfect.

He loved Her more than the whole fucking universe, and he wouldn’t be able to tell her that when she woke up. When Her eyes opened, it was going to have to be about her. Ben would have to fucking swallow the words, and tell her he loved her when she was ready to hear it. When he was convinced beyond a doubt she’d be okay, and that she’d keep smiling at him no matter what she felt for him. She wouldn’t leave him. She adored him. Even in her fucking sleep her fingers had twined themselves into his, and Ben had never been more certain of anything or anyone. He was certain he loved Her. He was certain he didn’t deserve her, but that his whole fucking life from here on out was going to be about earning her. This was all about Her now. 

Everything was Her. 

And Ben couldn’t say it where She could hear him. But he had to say it, now, or he’d explode. 

“I wanted to hate you,” he started in a low voice, watching Her eyes flutter in sleep. Perfect. “I should’ve fucking hated you, and I really goddamn wanted to. You seemed like everything I fucking despised. People who think they’re better than me because they’re too weak to see the gray of the world. People who sit in ivory fucking towers and think they’re worth more because they’re smarter than me. People who think they deserve to tell me what to do, pussies who are too fucking good for anything.” He sighed. “I really fucking tried to hate you. It would’ve been easier. Made this stupid shit so much fucking easier. But you can never make anything easy, can you Sunshine. You have to be the most beautiful fucking pain in my ass all the goddamn time.” 

She shifted slightly, heart still slow and steady, and Ben smiled. “You wouldn’t fucking stop proving me wrong. You don’t think you’re better than me, you are better than me. You’re better than fucking every sorry pussy in the world. You see all the gray, but you still keep doing good things, and that’s so fucking hard to do. I’ve been trying to, for you, and Christ, it’s exhausting. But you just do it, like there’s no other option. You’re the smartest person I’ve ever fucking met, and you’re fucking funny, and you never think you’re better. You explain everything you say if someone asks, and you’re not nice about it, but you do. You love answering questions, you love people, and I don’t fucking get it. I don’t fucking understand how you’re so fucking perfect, and why you couldn’t just let me hate you. Why you couldn’t just be a fucking bitch, why you kept smiling at me and laughing with me.” She hummed in her sleep, and Ben reached a hand out. Brushing his thumb along Her cheek. “You’re so good, Sunshine. I couldn’t hate you, because you’re just good. You’re too good for everything, but you’d never lord it over anyone. You’re the most beautiful woman in history, and you’re a goddamn brat, and I could never really fucking hate you.” He felt a lump form in his throat, and She leaned into his hand. “I love you.” He sighed Her name, listening to the easy sound of Her heartbeat. “I love you. You burn, I burn, and I fucking love you.” 

She was safe. 

She was home. 

Ben loved Her, and they were going to be okay.

End Note:  Can you guys tell I’m a whore for Chekov’s Gun? We did it squad. She's home. Thank you all for sticking through the darkest part (there WILL be more angst, but like. hurt/comfort. Lined with fluff and character growth that doesn't make us want to die), and every form of support you've shown me. You guys are the best, and I'm very sorry for doing that to you. See you soon!

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