#but I also can’t really blame him because I don’t think anyone else could do better certainly not anyone in the show | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

beefboyandbabygirl · 1 year ago

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Pretend It's Someone That Came for You (18+)

pairing: coworker!wonwoo x fem!touch-starved!reader

genre: coworker au, office au, strangers to lovers, angst w a happy ending, smut (MDNI!!), fluffy fluffy fluff fluff

description: you're lonely. you're so lonely you think it might actually kill you. but when wonwoo transfers to your office, he might just change that fact.

warnings: unprotected sex (do NOT pls my babes), soft dom!wonwoo, sub!reader, v loving sex, praise (f. receiving), confession of love, riding, fingering (f. receiving), pussy rubbing tihi, pet names (pretty girl, good girl, baby, darling, etc), VERY angsty beginning, yn is truly v sad so DO NOT READ THIS if u fear it will make u sad!!, they say i love u unrealistically fast but i had to do it, yn uses sex to feel less lonely/ends up feeling more lonely, relatable yn frs, slightly dramatized symptoms of touch-starvation (?), kinda boring plot but idc bc its CUTE AF

quotes from my creative director (@joshibambi): "finally!!" (she was fed tf up), "stanley is the most stanley man ever. i hate him but i love him.", (more r coming she actually didnt have time 2 read this and i didnt want to wait with posting.)

wordcount: 10.0k

a/n: this story was supposed 2 have more angst, like it was supposed to have this whole misunderstanding, but it just didnt feel right, it made me sad, so instead this is a short n sweet love story xx

Sometimes you think that the loneliness might kill you.

You weren’t always like this. You remember being a sociable, joyful child; half-broken bikes and teddy bears and booster seats. You remember pigtails and popsicle sticks and Power Rangers, and what came after that? Being a moody teenager, became being a moody adult. High school became college, and college became an office job that served to keep you alive, even if it didn’t feel like being alive. College wasn’t that bad, you remember, so at what point had you mistaken isolation for privilege? And at what point had you gone too far into that tunnel-hole to turn back?

You must’ve been cursed, you think, putting on your outfit for work in the deadly still apartment. Dust dares not move, dares not give you hope that you are not alone.

You must’ve been cursed, you think, coming into work to a string of half-hearted, mumbled greetings. Your office is off-white and black and gray and everyone inhabiting it is also off-white and black and gray, and their skin is faintly oily and sickly and their faces are dragging down as if the very earth was reclaiming them and you think that you fit in here better than anywhere else.

You must’ve been cursed, you think, when you spend your day writing emails and organizing documents of information into different formats to send to huge corporations. Sometimes you fantasize about the other end of the transaction. Maybe their office is warm and brown with an accent of blue, and maybe people put hands on each other's shoulders, when they tell one another they’ve done a good job.

Yes, there’s no other explanation, you think, and can’t even muster the energy to feel bad when you blame some old hag from your hometown. You think she must’ve conjured up the worst ingredients, something cartoonishly evil, and a spell befell you, sunk into the crevices of your skin and dug into your pores.

You lie on your couch with a glass of wine and the television going, but you’re not really listening. You don’t think anyone has touched you in six months. You’re not even sure you’re real anymore. You swear, you could live with no one hearing you out, because you’re not sure you’d have anything worthwhile to say, but you just needed someone to touch you. To reach out a hand and confirm, you’re real, you’re right underneath my fingertips, and I’m squeezing your shoulder, and I see you, and I feel you right here.

Sometimes you think that the loneliness might kill you.

Lying physically very still, you still feel like you’re scrambling, fighting the clutch of the curse, and tugging on metal chains. Maybe that’s where all your energy goes.

What do normal people do when they feel this bad?

Sometimes you leave open the window, and when the wind tugs at your door, you pretend it’s someone that came for you.

Tug, tug, tug. The door rattles against its hinges when the fatally empty sky brings to you, in outstretched palms, the wind interlaced with glimmers of hope.

There’s never anyone at the door. _____________________________

This particular day starts like any other. You wake to your alarm and you put on clothes and you get ready and brush your teeth. Then you trample down to the bus stop. The sky is smothered by a duvet of heavy rain clouds. The rain hasn't come yet, but you know it will. Your fingers become stiff and hard, where they adhere to the polyester strap of your bag, massaging it. The bag is cold and dead.

The bus ride is by far the greatest part of your day. It’s quiet - early enough that you’re only accompanied by a few other souls. You rest your head on the window, vibrating gently against the curve of your forehead, and watch the people in the street.

The bus hums a gentle tune and snakes down the streets. Then you’re there, and whatever solace that it offers you under artificial light and mediocre, felted seats is gone.

Your office building is maybe the most depressing place on earth. It’s no glamorous feat of architecture. It is but a large, orange-y, puke-y, brick square, and the building is shared between yours and the Forester company. You don’t talk to the Foresters, but you know they eat cream cheese bagels on their breaks and throw birthday parties and once you saw the branch manager squeezing a salesman’s shoulder and telling him he had done a good job. His fingers squeezed down and the movement of the fabric revealed a shoulder pad built into the suit. You remember thinking it was a shame that it blocked the real touch.

Today, you walk up the stairs with heavy steps and you idle into the office building, eyes cast down to the dirty, gray carpet. You begin the long trek into the back of the building where your desk is located.

“Morning, Y/n,” mumbles Tina.

“Morning, Tina,” you mumble back.

“Morning, Y/n,” mumbles Gerard.

“Morning, Gerard,” you mumble back.

“Morning.”

“M-”

Wait a minute.

Your greeting falls short. You don’t recognize that voice. Stopping in your tracks, your shoes scratch on the rough carpet, and lift your head to see him.

The first thing you notice is that he’s the most gorgeous man you’ve ever seen. He looks like he jumped out of an underwear commercial; he’s all strong jawline, sharp eyes, round glasses on his pretty nose, neatly trimmed, short dark hair stretching down the planes of his face. He’s wearing a button up (usually you wouldn’t even register the clothing your coworkers adorned, but something about how he wore it was noteworthy), a tie draping over the dress shirt, and formal slacks hugging his thighs.

He smiles at you sheepishly, hands nervously smoothing down his thighs.

“I’m Wonwoo” he says curtly, nodding to you. “Just transferred from the Wallingset branch.”

You nod. “Right. Wallingset,” you nod more. “Nice to meet you. I’m Y/n.”

“Nice to meet you too, Y/n.”

Something about your name on his lips makes your heart flutter. It’s pathetic, you know, but his peregrine being in his office chair, spilling your name from his pink lips makes you feel a little more real. You look at him and then you nod again-again, kicking your legs into gear again and walking the last stretch to your desk.

You can see the back of his head from your orange-wood desk. Papers and sticky notes are scattered among the desktop. The monitor watches you accusingly, all big and square and black, waiting for you to open it up and begin working. Your eyes linger on him for a moment. Then you work.

A few hours pass on emails and translating information from a company into a comprehensive sheet. However, today you’re having a hard time focusing on work.

This is not new.

Sometimes you briefly talk to a man at the grocery store, and your mind will wander to him for next week, wondering if he’s thinking about you too, imagining yourself cuddling with him, watching movies, imagining him telling you it’ll all be okay. Sometimes you briefly talk to a man on the street, sometimes it’s even a date, but whatever the case you obsess and you dream and you always end up alone.

Today the victim of your depraved mind is Wonwoo. The guilt is easy to push away. You feel sorry for yourself. You think you deserve this. You think you can’t survive without this. And so you imagine him hugging you, stroking your hair, and you imagine him falling in love with you, and you imagine not being alone. Your fingers rest on your keyboard. It’s old and mechanical. You think it’s from a yard sale, probably an old woman whose children moved away. It’s plastic, and it curves inwards underneath the pads of your fingertips. The keys are cold and dead.

You fully zone out, eyes blearing into the back of his head, but you don’t really see it, your mind has traveled elsewhere. You guiltily imagine his hand between your legs, on your chest, straddling him, kissing him. And it’s not rough, it’s loving, because in this world he loves you, and he’d do anything for you, and you don’t have to be alone again.

You don’t love Wonwoo. It’s not some magical love at first sight, it’s not a romance book, it’s real life. You’re lonely. You need this to survive.

“Hey, Y/n?”

You snap your head up. Maybe you were still daydreaming. But you recognized the voice well and true, and it was Wonwoo, leaned over your desk, hands in his pockets.

“Oh, uhm, hey-” your voice is shaky and you quickly rush to compose yourself, hands moving frantically and uselessly to glide papers over one another and, then, realizing that there was no point to your movements, stilling and looking up at him, cheeks flushed. “Hey.”

Wonwoo smiles gently. “Uh, you know, I was wondering,” he looks around the office, as if surveying the area. “If you knew where to get a good lunch? I don’t know this area at all, so..”

He trails off, looking at you expectantly for an answer. Now that he’s standing before you, it’s much harder to ignore the guilt you feel. You wanna gnaw at your nails until they’re nubs, you want to crawl under your desk and cover your eyes. Does he see how red your cheeks are?

“Uhm- well- I don’t- I eat a packed lunch, so I’m-”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I’m, uh, no expert,” you giggle awkwardly and watch his gentle smile drop into pursed lips. “But! Uh- I hear the- the hot dog stand, uh, just a little down the street is good!”

“Really? Maybe I should try it,” he contemplates, smile returning to his lips. “Would you mind showing me this mysterious hot dog stand?”

“Uh-”

Just seconds before you were thinking of his fingers in your pussy, and his hands caressing you, and him making you feel loved. He’s standing before you and he’s a totally normal guy, and you feel like shit. You feel like shit for using this fake image of him to comfort yourself. You can’t be around him, can’t convince yourself that maybe this’ll turn into something more - not when you always end up alone. Your brows furrow in determination.

“Actually, I have to, uh, get this done, so-” you gesture vaguely to your monitor.

“Right! Yeah,” Wonwoo seems embarrassed, biting his lips and nodding. “It’s, uh, just down the street?”

“Yeah, to the right when you walk out the building.”

“For sure. Thanks,” he doesn’t even look at you then, just waves you off half-heartedly and starts trailing down the office. His shoulders are incredibly broad and his belt wraps tightly around his small waist.

You feel like shit. _____________________________

Why is no one else cursed?

You look out of the window, lying on your bed after work. Everything is very still and unmoving - your whole apartment feels like it’s knotted in strings, tightened until everything is snapped into place, and if you move the wrong muscles, the invisible hands will let go and everything will fly and hurdle through your home, and you can almost hear the sound, like the hard, empty sound of throwing a bowling ball and getting a strike.

No one else is cursed. People crowd the streets with friends, family, partners, and they’re talking and laughing. You rest your head in the windowsill, a lone spectator in the window. The glass cuts you off from the streets.

The afternoon after daydreaming the way you did about Wonwoo is always hard. Your apartment seems intent on suffocating you. Your daydreams serve as a reminder that you’re alone, that you truly have no one, and the act itself is so humiliating, you sulk into a glass of red wine and sometimes you cry. What do normal people do when they feel this bad, you wonder again, sobbing in your bed and spilling wine on your nightie.

Nighttime falls early while you’re crying. You weep on and off, hug your knees, eat a microwave dinner and watch TV, light casting onto your pathetic form on the couch.

And in your most vulnerable state is when you most easily slip into your old habits.

You press an old contact in your phone, one you’d tried to steer away from recently. You wipe mascara from your reddened cheeks, you wear pretty lingerie, and you lie, completely empty, void of any warmth, on your bed, awaiting.

It’s the first time he touches you in months. When his hand finds your shoulder, you shudder terribly. Sorry, he says, and he seems taken aback. Just ignore it, you plead, just ignore it. He does so, unsurely, and every time his hand grazes over your body you shudder and sob and every time he hesitates, asking if you’re okay, you cry at him to continue.

It feels good while it’s happening. Skin beneath your fingertips, hands on you, a face close to yours. You and him are the only thing moving in the apartment, synergizing on your bed, conjoining and writhing, and for just a moment, you don’t feel so alone.

When you’re done the anonymous man stands back up, sliding on his pants in the late hour. He says it was great and you hum. But then he looks around, hesitating on every old piece of furniture, on every photo on the walls, and lastly on you.

“What?” you ask, lying naked in your bed. He grimaces at you, as if signaling that he can’t quite figure it out himself.

“I don’t know,” he says slowly, hands on his newly-clothed hips and surveying the corners of the room, where shadows pool. “It feels haunted in here.”

He leaves.

When the warmth is gone, the bile rises in your throat. Old habits die hard, you think, and you feel totally empty. You couldn’t go on like this. It was nights like these you began to feel like a martyr - sacrificing yourself for a brief escape. Because when the door is closed with a click and you’re alone again, you feel yourself trembling and your heart is glowing red in the empty astral plane. Brief, easy forms of pleasure are often the most harmful.

It feels haunted in here. You remember his words, and before you finally fall asleep, you wonder one thing. You wonder if you’re already dead. _____________________________

The next day is a pain to overcome. You’re slightly hungover, slightly sore, and very uncomfortable. But you comply with your routine, and you enjoy the bus ride, and when you get to the office everyone greets you.

“Morning, Y/n,” mumbles Tina.

“Morning, Tina,” you mumble back.

“Morning, Y/n,” mumbles Gerard.

“Morning, Gerard,” you mumble back.

“Morning, Y/n,” Wonwoo says. You look up from the carpet carefully, flashing him an apologetic smile. You hope he can read its intention: Sorry about being weird yesterday. You think he got it.

“Morning, Wonwoo.”

And then you’re landing yourself at your own desk and beginning work once more. It’s boring, but today you ward off the daydreams and you focus, and you’re getting an exceptional amount done.

The clock on the wall (off-white, but yellowing near the top) reads 12:28 when your boss, Stan, approaches your table. He’s half bald, and his suit is much too loose, and he has a ladder of wrinkles climbing his larger-than-life forehead.

“Hey, N/n!” he calls, so loud that a couple of heads turn at the commotion. You’ve asked him several times not to call you that.

“Stanley,” you breathe, tapping a stack of papers on your desk to neaten the pile. You wonder if you were in trouble, but if his smile is anything to go by, you’d guess not.

“My favorite woman in accounting!”

“Hehe,” you laugh half-heartedly. You catch the eye of Wonwoo, glancing over his shoulder with a small, teasing smile. You smile back.

“I have a big- oh wait, wait, new guy, uhh, Jeon? Come over here real quick!” Suddenly his solid fingers waft the now scared Wonwoo over. The spectacled man’s shoulders hunch up as he moves off the chair, nodding respectfully. Wonwoo stands beside Stanley at your desk, and you focus your attention on Stanley, hoping to not get too lost in the idea of Wonwoo again - you were doing so good today.

“I have a big job for you, and I thought you could work with Wonwoo on it,” Stan moves his hand up to cup the side of his mouth, as if telling you a big secret, “seeing as he was a bit of a star over in Wallingset.”

Shit. The guy you were daydreaming about was working with you? Wonwoo laughs, embarrassed, but you hardly have time to catch it. You can’t do this. Yesterday you were thinking about him fingering you while looking at you lovingly!

“We have a massive, new client! Just dropped a big competitor of ours, and they want us to do their six month report!” Stanley seems genuinely excited about this, so you can’t help feeling a little guilty that you’ll be a gobbering, slobbering mess, sitting beside Wonwoo on this.

“That’s great-”

“I know! So, my two star members in accountancy, I’ll hand this off to you. The data should be coming into your emails soon,” without letting either of you react, Stanley hunches over, like a coach does before a little-league baseball game, wrapping his arms around both of you and Wonwoo. “You got this, troopers!”

Stanley claps his hands on both of your backs, so hard you jerk forward at the movement, and then he bounces off to the elevator at the far end of the room. You sigh heavily from the interaction. It’s quiet for a moment, while you fiddle with the papers in front of you.

“What a guy,” Wonwoo muses finally, thin fingers resting on the edge of your desk. You giggle, unable to look him in the eye for fear that you might remember how you’d thought about starting a family with him. “Yeah.”

You and Wonwoo settle into an unoccupied meeting room, and it’s all very professional. Markers and post-its, trying to find the best way to structure the report, excel sheets to categorize and overlook data, double check numbers.

However bad you think it’s going to be, you’re wrong. Wonwoo is easy to talk to - he’s quiet, but he’s intelligent, and he understands how to bring on conversation, even when you fold in on yourself like a used napkin.

“Yeah, we used to steal signs from our neighborhood,” Wonwoo admits halfway into a conversation about your hometowns. “I don’t think that’s gonna fly anymore.”

“Why stop now? You’re letting societal rules hold you back,” you joke, and the two of you laugh, and it’s so pathetic, you’re certain you haven’t laughed this much in years, and the conversation has lasted maybe 20 minutes.

“Well, I could show you the craft, you know, it’s a delicate process-”

While Wonwoo talks your phone buzzes and you absent-mindedly pick it up, reviewing the notification.

Your grin drops. Faintly, you hear Wonwoo stop talking. He tilts his head to study the way you frown at the screen. “What’s up?” he asks.

It’s the guy from last night and he’s asking if you’ll be available again tonight.

Maybe it’s how you could almost forget it - how you let yourself into positions that would hurt you, just to feel seen and heard and touched. Maybe it’s the dichotomy of that encounter and now, talking to Wonwoo, and having the laughter steal away the loneliness. But you’re reminded so terribly of your position. You’re reminded that this, too, will end, and that the loneliness will return. You’re reminded that once the shift ends, you’re alone again.

Suddenly you’re a thousand daggers all pointing out. You shield yourself.

“Uh,” you trail off, putting the phone down again. “Just some guy.”

Wonwoo’s eyebrows raise. “Boyfriend?”

“No!” you say quickly. “No, he’s, uh. Just some guy.”

A pause.

“Okay,” Wonwoo says. You don’t even remember where you left off the conversation. You bite your lip because everything is all agony. The table is cold and dead beneath your hand.

“I’m thinking we group these together,” you say, eyes now tuned to your screen and fully submerged back into your work. Work. That was all that could cover your beaten down, cursed self.

The rest of the shift you feel Wonwoo looking at you carefully, as if he’s trying to read you. You don’t talk about yourselves anymore, no more banter, no more witty comments. You structure the report, and try to ignore how his eyes laser you open. You don’t like it. You feel like he can tell you’re a pathetic, lonely woman and that you have nothing and no one. You feel like he can sense the curse upon you.

This would be torture. _____________________________

It is not torture.

The next day, to your surprise, Wonwoo is nowhere to be seen. You wait 5, 10, then 15 minutes in the meeting room you’d camped in, before you begin working on your own. It’s slower without him, but you manage.

You can’t help but slightly worry about him. It feels stupid. You know you’re putting too much emotion into a person you’d known for two days, but you can’t help it. You wonder if he’s gotten hurt or injured, or if maybe he hates you and has transferred back. You think even Excel finds you pathetic.

You sit there for three hours, among the ruins of paperwork and your open laptop, running your hand through your hair and typing in sentences that mean nothing, and the wallpaper is off-white and yellowing at the top, and the blinds are closed to the meeting room.

Around 1 PM the door to the meeting room is opened, wood smacking against the glass that surrounds it, and Wonwoo stands in the doorway, slightly out of breath. You snap your head up to him, like the jerk of a lifeless doll, suddenly interrupted from a very disorganized Excel sheet.

“Hi, shit, sorry,” he gasps, slinging his bag off of his shoulder to sit down next to you.

“Are you okay?” you ask immediately, and Wonwoo nods blindly, pulling his laptop out of his bag. “Yeah,” he says, cheeks slightly flushed and licking his lips. “My cat- my cat needed surgery, she got sick last night, it was an emergency.”

You nod in understanding, “it’s okay-”

You can hardly get the words out before Wonwoo rolls his chair back, wheels resounding hollowly on the floor, so he can look at you clearly. “I’m really sorry about this, it was not nice of me to leave you alone with this.” He gestures vaguely to the scattered papers, and you shake your head.

“It’s okay, Wonwoo, I get it,” you say reassuringly, peering up at him through your lashes. “You don’t need to worry about it. You’re here now.”

Wonwoo seems less intent on personal conversations today - it’s probably because he was so late, and now is trying to make up the time. But it’s okay, in fact you’re somewhat relieved, because it dampens the false hope that blooms in your chest, whenever he asks you about your life.

Even if you and Wonwoo work hard and quietly, you slip into the late hours of the night in an attempt to keep on track for your schedule. Outside the windows that separate you from real life, the sky turns orange, and then dark, muted blue, and stars begin dotting its impressive stretches. People begin to leave around five, and by the time you and Wonwoo finish all your work, you’re the last ones left on your floor of the office.

Wonwoo lets out a loud sigh when he finally finishes the second segment of your report, and the both of you slump back in your seats.

“It’s so fucking late,” Wonwoo limply throws his hand in the direction of the window. You smile a little, looking out. Smaller buildings spawn geometrically from the ground, and every once in a while someone walks by with their dog, spotlighted by the stretch of street lamps that stand outside the parking lot. “I really am sorry about this, you know. Really ruined your night,” he says quietly.

You shake your head. “It’s fine, I had nothing to come home to anyway.”

There’s a pause.

Wonwoo looks at you intensely. Oh shit, you realize, was that too obvious? Was that too pathetic? Has it just clicked that you’re a loser that no one wants? You nervously look back at him, but there’s no malice in his eyes. A totally unreadable expression adorns his features, where he’s leaned back in his leather chair, legs spread invitingly. You look away, feeling dumb.

“At least we followed our schedule!” you say. Wonwoo snorts.

“Yeah, thanks to you. If you hadn’t completed so much before I got here, it would’ve been hopeless.”

Now it’s your turn to scoff, blushing lightly and looking at the linoleum flooring. “I don’t know about tha-”

“Seriously, Y/n, just take the compliment,” Wonwoo reaches a hand over, and you watch its movement.

It’s like time slows down, not like the movies, no, like you can stop time with the heavy weight of your gaze, pinning his muscles in place. But you can’t, and it lands on your shoulder with a soft thud. Fuck. His hand is warm and alive on you.

“You did so well today, I-” Wonwoo cuts himself off, because suddenly you’re trembling.

He feels your body shuddering and jerking under his hand, like the wind rattles your door when you leave it open, and he can’t see your face behind a curtain of hair, but he hears you gasp, and, fuck, you look like you’re sobbing.

The man from last night had become so hesitant when you reacted this way. When your body trembled and shook and when you cried, but Wonwoo seems to understand. He peers at you from above the rims of his glasses, and his hand stays put right there on your shoulder.

“Y/n,” he whispers, so sincere it causes a pathetic squeak to escape you. What must he think of you? The thoughts spiral and you can’t control a single one of them, they dance like freed souls in your head, and you can’t stop the spasming of your muscles, and you know you look so pathetic beside him right. “Y/n, look at me.”

You don’t. You can’t. You can’t because there are tears spilling from the rims of your eyes, and rolling down your cheeks, wet and glossy. Besides, you’re an ugly crier.

“Look at me,” he says seriously, finger tightening on your shoulder. You try to steady your breath and calm your tears, before you obey and begin to turn your chair. The simple motion requires so much effort - it’s like the air has become so thick, that the friction against your leather seat slows you down.

Finally you turn to him, eyes first resting on his knees, then, carefully, traveling up to his face. He’s frowning.

Your face is reddened and your eyes are puffy, your cheeks are shiny and you chew your bottom lip in a futile attempt to keep the tears at bay.

Wonwoo looks genuinely devastated. The hand on your shoulder softens its grasp, then begins petting your arm, rubbing up and down. The action has you choking out gasps, trembling even more in his hold, and Wonwoo feels the need to roll his chair closer to you, so his other hand can grab yours. His thumb rubs over the back of it, and he lowers his head to look at you.

“Shh, relax, relax, Y/n,” he whispers, and you try to nod, but it’s so overwhelming; being touched, being seen, being heard, all at once. For months, maybe years, no one has touched you like this - as if they care. Now the feeling is foreign, so scorching hot on your arm and your hand, your body can’t take it anymore. You’re stuck between wanting to lean into his hands, wanting to feel how real you are, and how physically true your existence is, and wanting to shy away. What must he think of you?

“Y/n,” he says, squeezing his eyes shut to banish the sigh of your sobbing. “When was the last time someone touched you?”

You hiccup painfully. “Uhm- I- I don’t, ” your eyes are bleary and your lashes are wet. Your lip trembles and your whole body shakes when you try to breathe.

Apparently this was enough of an answer for Wonwoo, because he suddenly stands, somewhat harshly tugging you into a standing position too, and pulls you directly into the harbor of his arms.

Instinctively, you wrap your arms around his torso. His chest is pressed flat against yours, so, so warm, when he nudges your head into the crook of his neck, and presses his face against its side, sighing softly into you, and breathing warm air onto your hair. His palms push you into him, soothing your trembling body, and holding you like an anker. One hand travels up to your hair.

“W-Wonwoo, you don’t have to-”

“Shh,” he quiets you immediately, voice the softest wind of a peach tree. “Just let me take care of you.”

You do. Wonwoo holds you until you stop crying, and though it must’ve been twenty minutes or so, it feels like no time at all. Standing in his space, breathing in his dark cologne, and letting his heat thaw your dead heart is a totally timeless act. Joy and serenity flows from the places where your bodies touch. When you stop crying, Wonwoo holds you for longer.

Eventually, he lets you go.

You step back sheepishly, now much calmer and the red in your face faded. You wipe your tired eyes shyly with your sleeve.

“Thank you, Wonwoo,” you mumble, voice thick and garbled. When you look up at him, he smiles softly, although it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says softly, arm extending one last time to squeeze your forearm. Then it falls limp again.

“I, uh, I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”

“Of course.”

When you return home, you’re buzzing. Your entire apartment buzzes along with you, things seem to clatter and beam along with the bright, glowing of your heart. You snuggle into bed and nothing is still and even when you’re drifting into sleep, your nerve endings spin in joyful circles, and your feet are a static hum. Suddenly you are very, very real. _____________________________

You’d think the next day would be tense and awkward, and maybe it is at first, but soon enough you’re talking again, more intimately than before even.

This is Wonwoo’s doing - you know this. You know he’s smart and you know he doesn’t want you to feel bad, so he makes conversation and builds trust between the two of you. You know he hopes you don’t feel insecure. Every word he says and every flick of his eyes is riddled with it.

The conversation decidedly slows down your progress, so Wonwoo once more suggests staying overtime. You look at him for a moment before agreeing.

You can’t tell what his end goal is. A chamber of your heart has been revived and rebirthed, and you’re more chipper, more bouncy, but the rest of your heart insists: you’re still cursed - eventually it’ll go back to how it should be. You listen. You try not to get your hopes up that Wonwoo really cares about you. Why should he, really?

Although when you’re done for the day, about an hour after your usual 5 PM, you stand up and begin to pack your things, laptop sliding into your bag and clustering pens in your hand. It’s gray outside, but the sun comes in a single strand through a gap in the smog and the clouds. The wind hoots by the windows, and it smells like the indian you ordered for lunch together.

You stop your packing, feeling a set of eyes in your back. You twist your head to see him.

Wonwoo is sitting completely still in his chair, slack-covered legs spread open, and he makes no move to collect his own things. He just stares.

“What’s up?” you quip. You’re slightly nervous. Just before it was all silly childhood stories, college and weed and life before the dead-end job. Now Wonwoo has that unreadable expression on his face again.

He slowly lifts his hands from the armrest, eyes locked with yours, and claps his palms on the tops of his thighs.

Your eyebrows furrow.

“Wha-”

“Come here,” he says simply. When you stand completely still, like a deer in the headlights, Wonwoo scoffs and rolls his eyes. “What? You think you’re cured because someone hugged you once?”

“Cured?”

“You’re touch-starved, Y/n,” Wonwoo states matter-of-factly, “you need to be touched.”

“Touch-starved?” you echo, a bewildered expression on your face.

“We can also just hug, like yesterday,” he suggests calmly. You envy his collectedness. “I just don’t want you to feel bad. So please. Come sit.”

To emphasize, Wonwoo pats his thighs again, patiently. You step away from your bag with hesitating steps, pursing your lips. Your cheeks blaze when you look at his thighs again - they’re so long, and the folds in his slacks stretch down and centralize on his crotch and- You’re being a pervert.

“Okay,” you squeak and Wonwoo tuts. Why is that hot, you think, why the hell is that hot?

“We can just hug if you-”

You feel bold.

Without letting him finish, you swing your leg over his, and plop down, straddling halfway down his thighs. You thank God you put pants on this morning instead of a skirt, when you look down at where you rest on top of him.

Wonwoo is a little taken aback, but when you’ve settled on him, his hands find your waist and he looks up at you with a hum. Your breathing is a little shaky. Once again his hands provide a pumping of golden joy into your body, and more of you comes alive and becomes real, and you smile.

What had Wonwoo been talking about? Touch-starved?

“What’s, um-” your question is cut off with a gasp, when Wonwoo uses his hands on your middle to tug you closer. You rest on the highest point of thighs that you can without sitting on his dick. Cheeks red and eyes squeezed shut, you hear how Wonwoo hums, pleased. “What were you talking about? Touch-starved?” you whisper, keeping your eyes shut.

Wonwoo sighs, and once more, like the movement is entirely replayed, his hand finds your hair and pushes your face into the crook of his neck. You sigh against it, enjoying how his arms protect you and hide you from the evil of the world.

“If you don’t touch anyone,” Wonwoo begins, his voice low bass in your ear, “you become touch-starved. That’s why you reacted the way you did yesterday.”

His hands run up and down your sides.

“But- but I’m not crying today,” you say quietly into his neck. Wonwoo hums.

“No, that’s good,” he says. “We can stop if you really want, I just wa-”

“No!” your voice squeaks immediately, and, as if he were running from you, you fist his shirt to keep him close.

“Okay,” there’s a smile in Wonwoo’s voice. You can’t see it but you can imagine it.

Comfortable silence. Wonwoo traces patterns on your back and you breathe deeply against the skin of his neck. The two of you function as one living thing, the only living thing left in the office. Chairs are turned halfway, a couple lights are left on. The desks betray the past presence of humans.

“Wonwoo,” you pip.

“Mhm?”

“You don’t have to do this, you know? I don’t want you to do it if you- if it’s just.. Pity.”

Wonwoo sighs, and you feel the way his torso deflates underneath you. He trails his hand up from your back to tap your cheek. You move back and look at him.

Your faces are very close, you can feel how your exhales collide and then scatter, hell, you think you could count each of his eyelashes from here.

“I already told you. I’m doing this because I don’t want you to feel bad. I-” he hesitates for a moment, pursing his lips. “I’ve been there. So I know what it’s like.”

The thought of Wonwoo feeling like this, like you, is sickening. Genuinely sickening, you feel your insides turn to rot and mold and you frown so deeply, you think your lips might forever lock in that position.

“I’m okay now,” he reassures, reading you immediately. His hand finds your cheek and he almost cries out at the way you lean into it blindly.

“How did you-.. I- I always thought it was, like, a lifelong curse,” you say.

“A curse?” Wonwoo grins, thumb stroking over the skin of your cheek. It makes you happy, it makes you feel like your heart will burst.

“Yeah. I guess I just blamed some old woman from my hometown,” you giggle, blushing a little because, yes, it did sound stupid when you weren’t just echoing the theory to yourself, like playing a team sport alone.

“You’re not cursed,” Wonwoo promises, tucking your head into his chest. “I’ll help you, don’t worry. I’ll take care of you from now on.”

He does take care of you.

Every day you work overtime, and every day when you’re done with work, Wonwoo slides you into his lap and holds you, while you curl up in his chest. Then you talk and you laugh, and you listen to each other's music. His hands run warm up your back and in your hair and on your hips, gentle caresses, deeply intimate. For two weeks you and Wonwoo indulge in this nighttime ritual.

You have not felt lonely since that night. And Wonwoo can tell. Your skin is warmer and brighter, you smile wider, your eyes twinkle, and there’s energy in every movement. Your body thaws under his warm hands every night, and sometimes when you smile, he gets so happy he could kiss you.

You realize you like Wonwoo one particular night when you’re falling asleep in your bed and you can still feel the ghost of his arms around you and it lulls you into a deep, dreamless sleep, and when you wake up you smell a little bit like his cologne. That’s how you realize. You like how considerate and how gentle he is, you like how sweet he is to you, you like how he looks when he smiles and when he laughs and you like how much he loves his cat. You like how his arms feel wrapped around you.

And you like him, and suddenly your apartment is a song that you dance in, and every photo on your walls is smiling and your bed is always warm and so is your heart.

There’s nothing dead in here, you think, when you cook a delicious meal on the stovetop, sauce bubbling in a stainless steel pan. Nothing haunted about your home or your heart. _____________________________

“We’re almost done.”

“Mhm.”

“I can’t believe we’re almost done!”

Wonwoo looks up, bemused, lips made small and pointed. You’re staring at the almost-done document, scrolling up and down through long and arduous paragraphs. It’s nighttime again - not that you had to stay late today, it was a choice - and the city glimmers brilliantly in the coolness. You and Wonwoo wear sweaters to keep warm.

“Feels like a lifetime,” Wonwoo murmurs, same smile upon his beautiful face. His cheekbones point out from beneath his skin.

“Yeah,” you breathe, leaning back. You won’t put your fingers back on the keyboard. Not when it could be done so soon. You look at him, all snuggled up in a brown sweater. “What if..”

A pause. He tilts his head.

“Well, are we still gonna talk?” you chew your lip dejectedly, feeling a little sad and desperate, but Wonwoo only laughs. It’s a beautiful sound, it’s one you associate with joy.

“Of course,” he says, as his laughter quiets down. “If you want to.”

A shy smile forms on your lips. You turn to look back at the computer, but you hear the now-familiar sound of Wonwoo patting his thighs. You flit your eyes back to him, teasingly scolding.

“We’re not done.”

“We don’t have to be done now,” he shrugs, an equally teasing smile on his lips. You roll your eyes, but, unsurprisingly, you shift over to him, sitting down in his lap. He immediately tugs you closer, fingers searching for stimulation on the seams of your jeans. There’s something different about Wonwoo today, you realize, his touch is more feverish, his fingers dig deeper into the fat of your hips and he looks up at you like you’re a diamond-encrusted chandelier, hanging from the ceiling, all glittering jewels.

“What’s up?” you giggle nervously. It’s becoming hard to breathe with the way he paws at your hips.

There’s something in the air between you, but maybe you’re imagining it. Maybe it’s your mind playing tricks on you, concocting the magnetic pull that lingers between you, the thicker, heavier air, that urges you closer.

He sighs heavily, as if he was dreading this. All of a sudden composed, cool, icy Wonwoo is chewing his lip and avoiding your eyes, looking instead down where your fat gives way for his needy fingers.

“I, uh, I really like you, Y/n,” his voice shakes. “Would you. Maybe. Want to go out some time?”

At the last syllable his gaze locks on to yours, and you watch him visibly relax, because you’re fucking grinning.

Not maliciously, not crudely, not a dime or a dab of evil, only genuine joy.

“I-I would like that,” you control your smile, pointing your lips in the same way that Wonwoo does and blushing all over. Wonwoo grins too and it’s unbearably boyish.

“Okay,” he says, as if he can’t believe it. “Okay. Great.”

The window slams shut, the spell is undone by his hand, the dead defy their only law to bow to his necromancy. Wonwoo is alive and warm underneath you, and you are alive and warm on top of him, thighs pushed up against his and tugging at the fabric of his shirt. Your balloon of heart pops in your chest, and the bone-cage of your chest is filled with helium, that has you floating. Rosy and shiny, your heart beats at twice its normal speed.

There’s a lull in the conversation. It would’ve been a more comfortable silence, if you couldn’t see by how Wonwoo looks down and purses his lips, that he’s itching to say more.

Sparked by his confession, you confidently snake your hand up to tap his cheek lazily. He turns to you with a loafy smile. “What is it?”

He breathes out unsteadily.

“You’re-” he closes his eyes. “There’s so much I like about you. It- It makes me feel really bad that you weren’t feeling well, so I-”

He cringes at himself, one hand pushing away his glasses to rub the eyes underneath them.

“Can I make you feel better?” he asks vaguely.

You huff out a laugh. “Are you trying to ask if I want to have sex?”

He laughs too, behind his big hand. “No. It’s not the same, I want it to be about you!”

You laugh more, and Wonwoo’s face reappears as he lowers his hand. He looks up at you adoringly, dotingly. He’s smiling.

“I’m being serious,” he says quietly, when you finish. He seems less embarrassed now, more so smug. “I want to make you feel good.”

He’s paying an awful lot of attention to your hips, which he has not let up massaging and squeezing roughly.

“Can I..?” he begins, eyes fixed on your hips in his lap. “Can I make you cum?”

Then, slowly, Wonwoo lifts his hands and gently places them around on your face. His touch is always as soft as a hope-laced wind. He’s warm and he’s alive and he’s holding onto you, and you see it in his eyes: you’re real, you’re right underneath my fingertips.

“Please.”

That’s all he needs, before he presses his lips against yours.

The kiss is everything you want it to be; because it’s loving. It’s slow, it’s deep, it’s gentle, there’s no tongue, just the soft, warm, real, alive flows of his lips against your own. His hands on both of your cheeks caress your cheekbones gently, and warm air is spilled in the small space between you. He pulls away, panting.

“I don’t understand it,” he mumbles, before he’s pressing his lips back to yours hungrily. You let out a confused hum, and you have to gently push at his shoulder to back him off again. “What do you mean?” you ask.

“Why you were so alone,” he breathes, transfixed on your lips. “I want to be with you all the time.”

Before you can respond, Wonwoo grips the underside of your thighs, lifting you and himself from the chair and placing you on the desk. You gasp at the impact when the glass table meets your bottom, and Wonwoo is standing over you, suddenly so tall and so broad, and slimming at the waist. His narrow eyes become hooded behind the reflection of his glasses. His head is tilted down to meet yours.

“Can I take off your clothes, pretty?”

You don’t answer, only grip the edge of your shirt, tugging it over your head, so your bra-clad chest is exposed to him. He groans at the sight.

“You’re so beautiful,” he mumbles, nimble fingers dancing across your back to unclip the bra, sucking in a harsh breath the fabric becomes loose, sliding down your arms. “Such a pretty girl.”

“Stop,” you whisper, face warm and red. Your heart has never beat this way. It’s utterly unbearable and addicting at the same time, it’s without rhythm or class, it’s wild. And it’s because he’s looking at you and it’s not just lust. It’s adoration. There are deeper strings to the make-up of his eyes, there are lines connected to his heart, and he’s all flushed.

“What?” he asks. “I’m just telling you the truth.”

Wonwoo throws your bra on the floor next to him, hands finding the hem of your pants. “Can I take your pants off?”

You nod, still so shy and abashed, because Wonwoo’s eyes feel like a pink spotlight, and you are bathed in its warmth. He unbuttons your pants and you gently slide off the table to work them off your legs.

“Your panties are cute,” Wonwoo remarks (it should feel lewd, but he has a hand on your hip, that brushes the bone and he smiles at it). “Thank you,” you breathe, before you’re taking them off too.

Wonwoo doesn’t need to, but he still insists on gently lifting you back onto the table, and he kisses your nose when you’re sitting before him. He’s standing in between your legs, and then he’s looking down at where wetness drips onto the glass table.

His hand slides down your stomach, resting on the fat of it. He’s smiling, he’s so gorgeous, because he’s smiling the most gentle smile at how wet you are and how it leaks onto the table and his hand is so warm on your stomach, doing nothing, yet turning you on even more than you’d ever been before.

He sighs like he’s carrying the greatest burden on his broad back. “You’re so pretty,” he says, almost exasperated by it. He pinches some of the fat of your stomach between his fingers lovingly. “I can’t believe I get to have you like this.”

Then the hand on your stomach slides down further. His large, veiny hand cups your pussy, the tips of his fingers just barely teasing your hole. You whimper against him, hands finding his biceps for support. Wonwoo studies you, craning his neck down to peer at your face, while his fingers begin swaddling your folds.

“You’re so wet, baby,” he mumbles, trying to catch your eye where you bury into his chest. One finger dips into your hole, penetrating slowly and settling knuckle-deep.

“Wonnie!” you cry out, squeezing your eyes shut.

“Mmm, clenching down on Wonnie’s finger so hard. My beautiful girl.”

He begins pushing his finger in and out of you, pace slow and torturous. His other hand slides up and down your body, squeezing your waist then your thigh, then coming right back up to fondle your chest. He pushes your back flat against the glass, so you’re all splayed out for him and you watch him from there, eyes hooded and legs spread to accommodate him. He breathes in shakily at the sight of you.

“Shit, Y/n. What were you doing hiding all this from me?” His finger picks up the pace, as another finger slips in alongside it. You’re moaning and panting, lips red and hair mussed, unable to focus on his words, when his fingers curl against that spongy spot inside you. Apparently Wonwoo expects an answer though, because he speaks again, voice lower and rougher. “Hm? You didn’t want to go have lunch? What, was it that guy?”

“W-What?”

“Just some guy,” Wonwoo echoes your past words, emphasizing with a harsh thrust of his fingers.

“N-No, I- Hng!” you cry out, when Wonwoo’s thumb presses onto your clit. He rubs it torturously. “I-I was embarrassed because I- I was thinking about you!”

“Oh?” this catches Wonwoo’s attention, as he diligently works his hand within you, staring down at your naked form, fully clothed and tall. “Tell me what you were thinking about, baby.”

“This!” you cry out, too high off the pleasure to really feel embarrassed about it.

“Pretty, sweet, dumb baby. You were thinking about you whimpering and writhing while I fuck you with my hand, hm?”

“N-No,” you mumble, cheeks aflame. “W-Was thinking about you l-liking me.”

At this Wonwoo hastily leans over you, pressing his lips onto yours again, and this time his tongue pries open your mouth, wet and warm in the cavern of your mouth. You moan into the kiss, hips canting into his hand. There’s something so desperate about him then, something so eager in the way he crooks his fingers, and how he kisses you, panting and covering your face in warm air. You feel a tight knot in your stomach.

“Cum on my fingers, please, pretty, sweet, baby, darling,” he mumbles into your mouth, rushing out the words before he’s sealing your lips again.

“God, I think I might fall in love with you.”

That makes you cum. You cum so fucking hard, clenching around his fingers like an air-tight seal, and your cum spills onto his fingers and his name spills into his mouth. The curse comes out with it, escaping like the air that spills out from an ancient, rediscovered chamber, and dissipating into the night. Your heart is beating and you’re breathing into his mouth, nose brushing his.

“Good girl,” he breathes, finally releasing your lips and letting his lips fall heavy and wet on your cheek.

He pulls out his fingers, unbearably wet and slick, and you think for a second that he’ll let you calm down and then maybe he’ll put his dick in you, but as soon as the fingers are out of you, they’re settling back on to your clit, rubbing heavy-handed circles.

You whine, arching your back off the table and wiggling your hips at the overstimulation. His other hand catches your hip and he shushes your cries softly.

“You can cum again, can’t you, baby? You can take it,” he says, so nonchalantly, while his slick fingers rub you. You cry out. Your legs are shaking. “Think you can cum again from just this?”

“Y-Yes,” you sigh and when you look down, his entire hand covers your pussy, as he pets your clit in circles. He smiles at your words, pinching your clit teasingly. It causes a squeak to escape you, hips struggling against his hold, where he pins you to the table.

“Good girl,” he praises, purring. “Letting me use your pretty pussy like this, letting me make you feel good.”

His body in front of you prevents your legs from closing, but, God, do they try, knees pinching his thin waist, and hair bunching up on the glass when your face scrunches up in pleasure.

“A-a-ah!” you cry out. Your hips involuntarily begin to inch away from him, but Wonwoo pulls you back with one strong hand, tutting.

“Don’t do that,” he mutters, pouting. “You need to be touched, remember?”

The whole thing is so heart-achingly intimate. The way he stands, still fully clothed and with a huge fucking tent in his pants, simply rubbing your pussy and looking at you with heart-eyes. Seriously, eyes swimming with adoration for you, teasing words slipping from his mouth unable to mask the genuine wonder he feels, at how you gasp and you arch and you clean and you jerk from the simplest of his movements. And your pussy is so warm and wet under his hand, and his body between your legs is so warm, and you cum again from just that; from how much love he looks at you with, and from the fingers crooking to pinch your clit again, wet and swollen underneath his glistening fingertips.

“W-Wonwoo!” you cry out, cumming again, and your body convulses around his, when it oozes out of your hole. Wonwoo’s fingers gently work you through it. His gaze on you is so intent, so careful and insistent, you can’t bear it, the way he sees you totally lost in the pleasure he brings you.

“There you go,” he whispers gently, fingers letting up and disappearing from your pulsating pussy.

“Wonwoo,” you mewl tiredly, pushing yourself onto your elbows to look up at him. He looks at you, so sweetly, so attentively, hands immediately finding your back to stabilize you. “Can I please have your cock now?”

“We don’t have to-”

“I want to!” you interrupt him, brows furrowed and lips in a pout. Wonwoo grins at that and though he may deny it, you don’t miss the red that twinges his cheeks.

“It’s just if you were too tired..-”

“I’m not,” you say decidedly, and Wonwoo nods.

“Okay. C’mere then.”

You’re confused when Wonwoo sits back down in the office chair, fingers working his slacks open. He doesn’t answer to your grimace though, only manages his pants unzipped and in one lift of his hips, peel both them and his boxers down.

His cock springs free, and your confused grimace is replaced with one of awe. It’s pale and veiny, the head is red and thin, white liquid oozes from it, like melted candle wax. And it’s huge.

You’re too slow to mask your amazement, it seems, because when your eyes return to his face, he’s already looking at you, smiling smugly.

“Come ride me, baby.”

You don’t need to be told twice. You slide off the table eagerly, lumbering over to where he’s relaxed against the back of the chair. He looks up at you, all naked and pretty, with a grin.

The top buttons of his dress shirt are unbuttoned, but he must’ve given up halfway. Either way, the milky plates of his chest are exposed, shining gloriously in the warm office light, and he discards his glasses, face fully exposed to you. He’s beautiful, and you think to tell him.

“You’re beautiful,” you whisper, planting each leg around his, so you’re straddling him. Like your ritual, Wonwoo grips your middle and pulls you closer, but this time it’s even closer than normal. Your stomach meets his dick, all heavy and hot on your skin, and your breath hitches at the sensation.

“You’re beautiful,” he teases, looking up at you. You smile.

“Can I put it in?” you ask.

“As if the answer was ever gonna be no?”

You snort out a laugh, raising yourself by your thighs and gripping the base of his dick to steer him inside. He hisses at the feeling of your hand grappling with his impressive size, and he hisses once more when the head of his cock buries into your heat.

His hands on your waist anchor himself while you slowly sink down, until he’s so fully sheathed in you, you think the tip of his cock must be brushing your heart, because it feels like it’s swinging in your chest.

“You’re so big,” you whimper, clutching his broad shoulders, and scrunching the fabric on top of them.

“Don’t say shit like that, I’m gonna cum, babe,” he grits out, fingers bruising your waist. You mewl, clutching his shirt. Then you begin to bounce.

Your thighs flex on either side of him as you heave up and down his cock, the both of you gasping into each other, and clutching each other for stability.

“Shit,” he pants out, genuinely out of breath. “Fuck, you’re the loveliest girl in the world.”

You cry out, pressure already welling in your stomach and burying yourself in his neck like you’ve always done, and it’s so intimate and he’s warm, and, fuck, he wants you. You can feel it in his grip, in his cock, in his words; he wants you more than anything. The thought makes you wanna cum.

Wonwoo is not quiet at all. He grunts and whines and his words are strangled and garbled, but frequent, showering you in affection and praise, while you bounce eagerly on his huge cock.

“You’re so pretty, baby.”

“Your tits are so perfect, shit.”

“Pretty girl.”

“Loveliest, prettiest, sweetest girl, bouncing on my cock, fuck.”

Praises spill from his lips in purrs, one after another, and when you cum you can’t help but return it tenfold.

“Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonnie, fuck! Gonna- fucking cum, I think I’m- f-falling in love with you”

You and Wonwoo come alive. Cum spurts from his cock and into your pussy, and you both cry out, entangled and completing one another in the space where you meet.

And it’s true, falling in love with him is so easy. And falling in love with you is easy too, you realize, because the second he’s spilled his cum in you, he pulls you from his neck to kiss you so deeply, so thoroughly, you think your lips might never unpuff from his hasty, bitten kisses.

His cock, now soft, still inside you, his warm chest against yours, his nose nudging yours, his eyelashes fluttering against your skin, the kiss is totally perfect, and you’re warm, and the windows are all closed and fogged up and there’s no curse other than the most fatal and most perfectly tantalizing of them all: love.

You are not alone. You’re sitting in his lap and you think if you give it a day or two more, you might want to spend the rest of your life with him.

You catch your breaths.

“You’re really good at that,” you say finally. He grins again, perfectly undone, hair tousled and cheeks flushed. “Yeah?” he asks. You hum.

After some minutes of keeping him inside you, kissing lazily, running your hands over his pretty chest and arms, you pull back, beginning to flex your legs to pull him out of you.

“What are you doing?” he asks, hands wafting to still your movements. You furrow your brows, confused.

“Am getting your dick out of me?”

His hands sink down on your hips heavily, fully encompassing his dick again. You sigh at the feeling.

“Don’t do that, silly. You’re touch-starved, remember?”

He tilts his head teasingly.

“So why don’t you just sit snug on my cock, so you can get all the closeness you need?”

#jeon wonwoo x reader #smut #wonwoo smut #jeon wonwoo smut #svt smut #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen smut #svt angst #wonwoo angst #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo x you

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1moreff-creator · 1 month ago

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DRDT CH2 EP16 First Impressions

We’ve reached the end of the chapter! A bittersweet feeling, finally getting closure on this chapter while also ushering in a new hiatus. Still, congrats to dev for making it this far! Hope they enjoy their break, while we enjoy whatever they’ve cooked up for the ending!

Without further ado, let us enjoy peak.

Spoilers for the entirety of CH2 (hell yeah). CW: Execution, suicidal thoughts.

It’s Aceover.

ONE vote for Teruko! Do we think Ace voted for himself? Did the mystery voter from Trial 1 repeat their vote on Teruko? Or did they not, and the vote’s just Ace? {Hindsight: It’s CH1 Mystery Voter probs}

MonoTV: “You got it right!” IT’S ALL OVER.

Okay wait it’s actually kinda weird to see the new David sprites outside of the Trial. Like it’s trippy idk why. That’s crazy.

Eden: “Why her of all people?” Poor Eden, at least give her an answer! Even if it’s just “it was the easiest option” man.

Whit: “I really thought that no one would repeat what happened to Xander and Min.” Is this the very first piece of anti-Whit Time Loop theory evidence? Or is he just lying? I don’t believe the theory, so I’m passing that one to the defenders.

Ace: “I killed her. And if you can’t forgive me for that, then there’s nothing I can say.”

Hey remember when Nico said they didn’t see the point of saying sorry if they wouldn’t be forgiven anyways? Yeah.

The foils are foiling :O

Both Teruko and Eden blaming themselves in their own way (Eden mentioned it in Ep10 “just like Min!” and now Teruko’s bringing “misfortune” into the conversation), man we are in for some sad times with these two. And everyone else ig.

Hu: “How could you say it’s just misfortune?” And Hu is very against this idea, interesting.

“So we can’t blame ourselves for failing to prevent something like that.” Ah, there’s the ticket. She’s trying not to feel guilty about it, which is kinda fair, Arei’s death is 99% Ace’s fault.

Eden: “The Ace I met for the first time wasn’t a murderer.” Oof, Eden hitting us with the full highlight line. She’s so great for this honestly. Everything she says afterwards is also great for her character, I love her (and I don’t need to read her lines with suspicion!!! I’m free!!!)

Veronika. And she’s still smiling. Go worst girl! /affectionate

“The only thing anyone can do in this killing game is to shatter.” We are… getting worryingly close to secret quote wording here.

Rose: “Are you saying Ace was pushed into killing because of things like almost being killed?” (Paraphrased) Oh God she’s gonna feel guilty too because she let Nico get the turpentine! Even if that doesn’t work if Ace had already chosen to kill Eden, still! How much self-blame can we have this trial?

Teruko: “No.” Yeah thank you.

Ace: “Did you all get the Veronika virus or what?” God I’m gonna miss him so much actually.

[To Levi] “Shut up for the rest of your life and kill yourself!” Holy SHIT he’s going out with a bang. {Hindsight: I didn’t realize how accurate this would be}

David: “You still have it in you to throw stones in your glass house.” Did this motherfucker correctly use the idiom Ace fucked up earlier? He’s such a piece of shit /affectionate.

Ace: “I don’t care if it made me a hypocrite!” AGH-! New sprite and the voice acting continues the hot streak of being absolutely fucking stellar! Holy hell!

[To Levi] “I just needed a reason to stay mad at you!” Ouchie!

[The whole Levi v Ace thing] This is just fucking incredible. Levi still doesn’t understand, Ace just wanted to stay mad so he could live with his betrayal, just peak character writing all around. And peak VAing, of course.

Teruko: “I need you to do a favor for me. It might just save your life.” YOOO I CALLED THIS!!! Blackened Blaze of Glory let’s fucking goooo!!!! Thanks to shinycrows for asking me that!!!

“Kill MonoTV for me.” Alright so. Not the best plan ever, but then again, it’s not like any plan against the killing game will work on CH2. Also the way she said that was great.

MonoTV: “Yeah, more murder!” Why’s it so funny for?

Teruko: “Arei died because you’re a coward, Ace!” YO why’s she going so hard right now?! This entire scene is incredible, I don’t even have any words for this much peak. The emotion in her voice, holy fuck- Oh yeah because Arei’s crying reminded her of something! In the playground! So Teruko does have a small connection with Arei so she’d feel real bad (for more reason than just death of someone she knew)! I didn’t put that together till now.

[Ace punches MonoTV] PEAAAK! Oh shit it actually broke! That was so fucking awesome! Let’s fucking go Ace!!!!! Also MonoTV is definitely just coming back, right?

That broken MonoTV sprite though!

Eden: “Finally, it’s over—“ The lack of music is making this really impactful, even though we know it won’t work. Holy shit.

MonoTV: “A fatal error has been detected” We breaking out different fonts?

MonoTV: “Now loading the default XF-Ture personality drivers.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

AND THE CROWD GOES FUCKING WILD!!!!

Now we have the question. Was MonoTV created by XF for the game? Or did XF just create the AI, and someone repurposed it for thre killing game?

Also what are these defaults going to be?

…Wait whose voice is this? Someone we know? Please tell me I’m bad at recognizing voices! {I think it’s still MonoTV’s VA, just doing a different act, but I’m not sure}

[MonoTV speech] Didn’t expect MonoTV of all damn characters to have a badass moment, but I guess this is the world we live in now.

“But there is no reason to punish Ace a second time.” UHHH Chat are we cooked?

The death of every participant? This is about rule 14, right? “All murderers must be held accountable”? The “everyone is responsible for Mai’s death and must be punished” theory seems to be gaining ground.

It’s also saying this is why it was created, so XF likely did have a direct hand in the killing game. Min MM not looking so implausible all of the sudden.

“I will pass the punishment…” chat we’re actually immensely cooked what.

“I will now proceed with the execution of Teruko Tawaki.” UHHH LUCK BETTER COME IN CLUTCH!!!

[Machine Gun] BRO?!?!?!

Charles: “That thing will surely kill you!” Even Charles is sounding extremely distressed here, damn! But I guess Teruko is relying on her luck maybe?

Whit: “Charles! Stop talking and cover your eyes!” I mean yeah good advice but you know- More pressing things atm

Teruko: “No :)” Why’s she so silly coded?

Teruko: “Killed? I doubt it. As if something so kind could happen to me.” AAAAAAH!!!! The suicidal tendencies return with a vengeance!!!

[Her speech] Holy fuck holy fuck this is crazy she’s actually doing the unhinged Lucky Student thing of relying on luck she’s going in I’m so terrified for what’s about to happen.

“I’ll show you all what it means to be the Ultimate Lucky Student.” Shit boutta go crazy.

[LEVI DOES THE THING] OF FUCKING COURSE!

Bro I was not ready for this. I wasn’t ready in the slightest. This motherfucker better survive against all odds or it’s all over.

Bro that sprite- He’s so cooked.

MonoTV: “His injuries are not fatal” Wait are we saved? Arturo look I know you’re not a doctor but for the love of God tell me you can do something about this holy shit. I wasn’t ready for this.

VERONIKA. Holy shit she’s actually insane.

Arturo: “He could live…” Please??? For me???

Wait now that I’m thinking about it. He hasn’t said his secret quote. We might be saved.

[Whit sprite] … Huh??? Bro what the fuck is happening this episode.

Ace: “Execute me right now!” Ough this shit insane!!! I can’t- I genuinely can’t react. I’m just overcome with emotion at this point.

“I’ll have a third death in my hands!” … Wait the math. Unless he’s counting himself… does he blame himself for Taylor’s death???

[The entire Arturo - Ace debacle] I…holy shit???? The genuine distress in Arturo’s voice when he says he can’t save Levi??? Ace clinging to the hope that he can??? Bro what the fuck??? This is insane???? I can’t- I can’t compute- This is actually insane. This is so much. Levi better not fucking die after this I swear to god-

Ace: “I don’t want to die…” Holy shit dev did it. I’m feeling just as bad for Ace as I felt for Min. Bra-fucking-vo. Holy fuck. No words.

[Thanatophobia]

(Fear of death right? Fits)

… Okay, so. I know someone brought up this term in relation to Ace. Genius, first.

Second, that might just be one of the greatest executions I’ve even seen, if not the best. I usually don’t care much about how good executions are, but this… this is incredibly good. The music was banging. The execution method was unique. It wasn’t related to his talent, but his character, which makes it better imo.

(Also are the “unexplained illnesses” related to Xander’s family?)

And even through all this… dev showed the corpse. When they didn’t show Min’s. Why would you allow me to cope even further? You drop XF and show a corpse- holy shit. I just can’t even process anything.

And he didn’t say his quote. He never said it I don’t think. Levi better survive.

VERONIKA. Holy shit she’s actually getting more and more unhinged by the second the hell-? Yeah remember when she looked unnerved by Min’s execution?!?! She ain’t looking unnerved no more!

Hu: “The elevator is open!” We’re just- gonna ignore- Alright, I guess it’s fair. Surely Levi survives right?

Rose please tell me you looked away. I know you saw Levi so it’s not looking great either way, but still.

Teruko: “Go on without me.” Is she going to talk to David maybe? About the secret?

“Everyone was gone.” Alright no, she’s just going to mourn or something?

[Teruko reflects on her similarities to Ace and Arei] I really like this moment, it’s nice of her to say what the audience was probably already thinking.

MonoTV: “I must convince everyone that I’m the villain.” And what does this mean MonoTV? Genuinely too burnt out to think about it any harder rn.

MonoTV: “That is the fate that I have, to make others suffer.” HOW ARE WE TYING MONO FUCKING TV TO THE THEME OF FATE?!?!?!WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT FUCKING “TERUKO-MONOTV PARALLELS” WHAT THE FUCK?! DEV YOU SON OF A BITCH YOU DID IT AGAIN!!! /positive

[Teruko breaks down] Holy hell…

“I had known the answer…” AUGH- The character writing… it’s so good… fucking hell this is incredible…

Where do we even go from here? Teruko’s speed running the themes of trust and fate like they’re not the main themes of the series?!?! I’m going crazy.

… Are we seriously leaving it on a cliffhanger whether Levi is alive or not? Like, I know the “surviving students” thing counted him, so I’m guessing he’s alive, but… hot damn. This is an evil cliffhanger.

(Also I find it funny that David’s silhouette sprite did in fact change to what the dev said was his new default lol)

“Seems there’s something he’s not proud of” The nailbiting right.

General Thoughts

…

Bro how the fuck am I expected to even begin to summarize this shit?!?!

Okay, in… ascending order of crazy.

Did David just… not speak almost the entire episode? Did he even have any lines when Teruko was being executed? The fuck is going on with him? He didn’t even reveal Teruko’s secret???

Veronika was unhinged. Loved that for her. Hope she gets worse, it seems like CH3 will be a fun chapter for her (I hope that doesn’t mean she dies).

Whit officially gets his very own unhinged/breakdown sprite! We’ve completed the set! I mean, it’s not as crazy as others, but it matches Rose’s so…

Everyone endures further trauma, fun.

I even feel bad for Arturo! Poor guy did not ask for this shit! There’s fun foils here with Levi trying to protect the group as much as he can and Arturo being forced into the role…

Also. Of all ships. I did not expect Aceturo to get a dub here somehow.

I somehow called more or less predicted what Teruko was gonna do. Fun how that happened. And her little character reflection at the end was awesome, I loved it very much. Jesus fuck.

That’s gotta be the best execution I’ve ever seen, hands down. I don’t care that there wasn’t a single horse there. This is much better.

Also, no secret quote from Ace. So those are 100% not a good metric for defining who is at risk of death. Wonder if that means we’ll get a flashback with him?

XF-Ture Tech?!?!?! MonoTV character building kinda?!?!?!?! I’m going crazy?!?!?!

Levi??? This motherfucker better be alive. There’s no reason he should be dead, so I’m gonna assume he’s alive. But wow… I guess weightedblankettt was sorta right on the “final orbit” interpretation of Levi’s connection to Shoemaker-Levy 9, just… not in a way we expected. (If that meant nothing to you don’t worry about it).

And Ace… Hot damn. Just… an entire character arc at the eleventh minute, huh? How’s that for the people who were saying Ace wouldn’t be remembered, huh? Levi probably owes him his life, in a way. He broke MonoTV. He faced his thanatophobia to try to help Levi survive. Just… so fucking good. I said it in the reaction. I genuinely felt just as much grief for him as I did Min. And coming from me, that’s… a lot. Just incredible writing and voice acting and everything in between…

This cements it, btw. This is my favorite trial from anything DR related ever. It’s genuinely insane. I am going to make a more detailed, more coherent post analyzing the entirety of Part 2 of this chapter, because it deserves it. It deserves more thought than I’m able to give right now on account of feeling too many emotions. Stay tuned for that, I guess.

Props to the dev, the VAs, and anyone who might have laid a hand on this at some point. It’s genuinely incredible, this is an unforgettable experience. Holy shit.

I don’t- I don’t have the emotional energy to keep writing. Just… I think I need to calm down for a few hours. Genuinely loved every second of this. Thanks for reading, and see you when I gather my thoughts enough to trust myself to be coherent.

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #drdt spoilers #ace markey #teruko tawaki #monotv #liveblogging #levi fontana #what the fuck happened

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talleyuh · 5 months ago

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just finished the bear season 3 and there is such a collective cognitive dissonance from everywhere from the writing of the show all the way to the social media marketing.

i know i’m biased because i particularly like syd and carmy together, but this season was strange but in different ways than the last season was strange.

not only does carmy take a backseat as a protagonist about halfway through, he and syd have hardly any scenes together, but i think the show almost suffers for it. this season was certainly funnier than the last, but the neil and ted fak got old and old fast. it certainly doesn’t help that even though carmy has a new arc every season, but he doesn’t take the lessons he should’ve learned into how he should act going forward. it’s stunting his growth and now that we have three seasons to compare to one another, it’s only more apparent.

we’ve already talked about how funny characters are stronger than comic relief characters and that’s essentially what the faks are. i really liked neil’s more vulnerable moments where he got to be taken seriously but it’s hard to take him seriously when all of his screen time is him doing stupid shit. also the hauntings thing? it really was not that funny.

also the show is making such an active attempt to rewrite its own history and i don’t understand why. so many little details that connect moments from the past and present to make up who the characters are and yet it’s kind of being thrown out the window.

claire being described as carmy’s peace threw me for a loop because he felt out of place in his own relationship. i think we all know the clip of carmy’s late s2 panic attack where thinking of claire and him together makes it worse but now we are given so many more scenes of when he was happy? what narrative are they trying to spin here? was carmy genuinely in love with claire or mostly disinterested, because it can’t be both.

even claire doesn’t seem interested in being with carmy at this point, and who can blame her?

her presence was just kind of weird to me, because she didn’t really interact with the rest of the cast until the 9th episode. i think her brief hospital scenes were to flesh her out more, but it’s really just creating vulnerabilities and revealing the seams. and because she’s never really been developed as much as everyone else in the series, we’re left with more questions. who was that in her bed? why was she never fired for insane medical malpractice? what is any of this for?

also a lot of the lighting this season has changed. i saw one user (can’t remember who but their post was super interesting) mention how much warmer and inviting the scenes with syd are as opposed to the coolness and almost detachment the scenes with claire were. except we see carmy in cool lighting a lot more this season.

i also wanted to add where carmy gets overwhelmed in the finale, thoughts of claire coming in with a violin sting like a horror movie doesn’t add to the narrative that they keep telling us. that’s another thing i noticed. they tell us how great claire was even though their time together hindered him being involved with his passions and his coworkers, but they retcon things and add scenes of them happy and have carmy tell us how amazing she is but they barely cared to show us.

a huge theme in this show is family and responsibility. and the scene where neil fak said claire could be the one to take care of carmy and vice versa really rubbed me the wrong way. first of all, i think it kind of supports the idea of codependency which isn’t great but i could be reaching. second, carmy isn’t really equipped to take care of anyone and i think the way he interacts with his coworkers when he’s frustrated is proof of that.

don’t get me wrong, i thought this season was amazing television, christopher storer is a brilliant writer and director, joanna calo really should helm more episodes bc ice chips was actually a perfect episode, and ayo getting the opportunity to direct tina’s episode was so amazing and i really hope i see her name in more directorial projects in the near future. but i think we’re getting a little lost in the plot here and losing sight of what the heart of the show is. the literal restaurant. and logically some of the decisions made don’t exactly hold up and i would hate to see this show fumble.

it can’t be a coincidence that so much of the show’s marketing is tied to carmy and syd and i think efforts to trick the audience are actually making the show suffer. or the increasingly less subtle decisions in the editing in the few scenes of them together? are you really gonna gaslight a whole audience for the sake of a misdirect?

#the bear fx #the bear #sydcarmy #chris storer

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madi-writes-things · 8 months ago

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Stay… (Jake Webber X Reader)

Summary:

“I’m at the hospital” “What do you mean?!”

Word Count: 1,046

TW: Hurt/Comfort, Arguments, Car Accidents, Hospitals, Head Injury, Use of Y/N

You almost never fight, but everyone has their breaking point… and tonight appeared to be both of yours. It wasn’t even anything big. Jake had to go to an important dinner meeting, and you felt left out. By the time he got home you were already in a mood, which only pissed him off. He was just trying to help, but you refused to tell him what was wrong.

“It’s not a big deal.” you lied through your teeth. It hurt your feelings when he didn’t invite you to dinner, when you knew for a fact that the other influencers had brought their partners. “Don’t worry about it” your words were laced with venom.

A look flashed across his face that was unreadable, but his words quickly filled in the context. “Oh… so that’s what we’re doing?” He was really starting to get mad now. It was too late to tell him that it really didn’t matter, and that you just want to forget about the whole ordeal. “You refuse to tell me why your mad, and you just get pissy when i ask… I’m done trying to have a rational fucking discussion with you”

You knew that he was right, but his words just made you more upset. “I shouldn’t have to fucking tell you why I’m mad Jake, maybe if you thought about anyone other than yourself you could figure it out!” At this point tears were streaming down your face, and you could see that they had started to form in his eyes as well. You didn’t mean for it to come out that harsh, but you also didn’t know how else to make him understand that he really hurt you.

“I can’t stand you when you act like this…” He turned to walk to your shared room as he said this. The pain in your heat grew tenfold hearing him say he couldn’t stand you. You knew he didn’t mean it, but that didn’t soften the blow. You immediately walked into y’all’s room and stated grabbing clothes from your drawer, quickly packing them into a tote bag. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He looked confused.

“Since you ‘can’t stand me’ right now, i figured I’d get out of your hair… I’m going to a friends house.” You watched as he tried to think of something to say, before eventually deciding to let you go. You both needed some space and time to reset.

You quickly packed enough clothes for a week, before going down to your car. You wanted him to stop you, but you knew that he wouldn’t. You don’t blame him, you knew he didn’t want you to go… but you also know that he needed space too. As you started driving you realized that you didn’t know where you were going, you decided to find a lot to park in and call a friend.

As you exited the highway you noticed that traffic was coming to a stop, so you started to slow down. A strange sense of panic rushed over you as you looked in your rear view mirror. Oh shit oh shit oh-

***

You woke up 3 minutes later to EMS crowded around your car. You quickly roll your window down and ask what happened. As they explain what happened you reach up to touch your throbbing head, only to see blood on your hand as you pull it away. You got very light headed at the sight of the blood, and suddenly everything was dark again.

***

As soon as you got to the hospital you knew you needed to call Jake. You waited until thy were done with your exam, partially because you wanted to know how bad it was… but mostly because you were scared that Jake wouldn’t answer. How were you supposed to know that Jake had been crying since you left, just hoping you would call. The phone rang three times before you heard a sleepy voice greeting you.

“Y/N?” You realize that you didn’t responded fast enough when he speaks again. “Is everything okay?”

“I’m in the hospital.” Your voice breaks a little at the end, you haven’t stopped crying since you woke up in the ambulance. Unfortunately for the EMS people you refuse to talk abut anything other than the fight.

“What do you mean!?” This broke you, you couldn’t handle the thought of Jake being mad at you anymore. “Y/N, where are you?”

You told him what hospital you were at, and that you were okay. Jake was there in less than five minutes, you didn’t question how he got there so quick. As soon as you saw him you started crying… again. You could see the look on his face change from worry to relief to shock within three seconds of finding you. You understood why… the nurse had let you look at yourself in a mirror, and it wasn’t good.

Once he registered that he had found you, he rushed to you. “What happened, are you okay?” He reached up to inspect the bruises and small cuts on your face. You flinched away. It hurt to move your face, and someone touching it right now wasn’t something you wanted to think of.

“I’m so sorry… for everything” Jake quickly assured you that hew was sorry too, and that it wasn’t your fault that any of this happened. “They said that i could go home as soon as i got a ride.”

***

As soon as you and Jake got home he started making a bed on the couch. It didn’t register what he was doing at first. “You can take the bed, I’m sure it isn’t good to sleep on the couch after an accident.”

He was being so respectful, but all that you wanted was for him to hold you and tell you that everything was going to be okay. “Don’t…” It was so quiet that he almost didn’t hear it, you didn’t know what to say. “Can you please stay with me, I don’t want to be alone.” He followed you to y’all’s shared bed, doing his best to hold you without upsetting a bruise. You fell asleep to him telling you how much he loves you, and you’ve never felt safer.

———————————————————

I hope that y’all enjoyed it, feel free to send a request my way.

-Madi <;3

#johnnie and jake #2010s youtube #hot emo boy #jake webber imagine #hurt/comfort #car accident #jake webber fluff #jake webber #jake webber imagines #jake webber x reader #Jake Webber angst #Madi writes things #madi makes things

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cameronspecial · 8 months ago

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Neverending Texts

Pairing: Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: N/A

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 0.7K

Summary: Rafe's small crush on his tutor definitely doesn't lead him to text her a little too much.

A/N: Insipred by this post.

Masterlist

Rafe’s education is not a responsibility Y/N ever expected to have on her plate. However, tutoring seems like a no-brainer for the girl who likes teaching and it is not like she could say no to Ward Cameron. Plus, Ward offered her an insane rate and even though her parents are rich, it is still nice to make her own spending money. Rafe and Y/N’s relationship is odd, to say the least. He always seems to have an interest in her, while she would rather be kept out of his social circle. This dynamic is only intensified by Rafe getting her number to set up tutoring sessions. He’ll often send her random texts that are so out of pocket, but she knows he is trying to invoke a conversation between the two of them. During all hours of the day, she will randomly receive jokes, facts, or gossip from the boy. Her responses were always a single word, not inviting the discussion to go any further. It never deterred him from trying every day though. Her hand shoves the hook through the stitch and the hook grasps onto some yarn to be pulled through. The buzz from her phone freezes her hands. She picks up the device and lets out a breath with a shake of her head. What is your ideal date? Normally, his texts would allow her a one-word answer; however, this one can’t be answered as such and she feels bad if she ignores it.

She takes a second to think about her reply. Baking pizza with extra mushrooms and a movie night. Maybe watch rom-coms. She sets her phone back on the desk and goes back to her crochet project.

———

He is pleasantly surprised she gives a thoughtful answer to the text. It seems his tactic of open-ended questions has worked. It doesn’t shock him that her idea of a prime date is something more intimate. Y/N has always been more reserved, so it makes sense she would prefer one-on-one time with her date. He likes that. That sounds like the perfect date, except for the extra mushrooms. We’ll have to only put it on half of the pizza.

Who said you were invited?

He chuckles at her retort and shakes his head. Why is there someone else you are dying to go out with? He holds his breath at her reply, not wanting her to say what he thinks she might. The little bubble with three dots displays her effort to rejoin. It stops eventually and no new words appear in a new bubble. He bites the corner of his lips as his thumb hovers over the button. He decides to bite the bullet, bringing the phone to his ear. It dials three times before she picks up. “Wow, moving on to phone calls to tell me your random thoughts. You really are getting more persistent, Cameron,” she teases. He can hear something clatter on the other end, “Can you blame a guy for wanting to hear your voice, Teach?” She giggles with a sigh. “What did you need?” she urges. He shrugs, “I told you. I just wanted to hear your voice. I also wanted you to answer my question and to hear if you are lying.” “Why do you care so much?” she questions, rolling her eyes.

“Because if you don’t have anyone else on your mind, then I was hoping I could be the one to take you on that date.”

“I have no one else, but why me? What makes me so special in your mind?”

“You just have this je ne sais quoi to you that I can’t get out of my mind. We just click, Teach, and I know you can’t deny it.”

———

She traces the surface of her desk with her crochet hook as she tries to focus on his words. “I know you can’t deny it.” She would never admit she felt the spark he was talking about. It’s been something she tries to bury deep inside of herself because their personality dynamic would not make sense. Rafe likes all eyes on him and to be as loud as possible, whilst Y/N enjoys a quiet night in. The more she thinks about it, the faster her heart starts to beat, telling her to say yes. Yes to a chance at love. Yes to opening herself up to someone else. Yes to stepping outside of her comfort zone. “Okay, let’s go on a date.”

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @thepatriarchykeychain @drewsmusee @starkowswife @maybankslover @forstarkey @loving-and-dreaming

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron x reader #outer banks #rafe cameron imagine #outer banks fanfiction #outer banks imagine #outer banks x reader #rafe cameron outer banks #rafe fic #rafe outer banks #rafe x reader #rafe obx #rafe imagine #rafe x you #rafe cameron x you #outerbanks

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justkending · 6 months ago

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Mr. & Mrs. Hunt (Chapter 4/7)

Mini-Series Summary: Two of the most stubborn people in the group partnered together for an undercover mission are also the two people with the most hatred for each other, so what could go wrong? Or is it, what COULDN’T go wrong?…

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger Reader

Word Count: 3900+

A/N Note: Only a few more chapters to go (I think, but we're both lost on how long this series will be.) Thank you guys for reading and as always, thank you for the love and support!

____________

Chapter 4:

Y/N's POV

It wasn’t him. It was 100% me. I did this to myself. I built a wall so quickly around him because I didn’t want to like the man behind my misery.

My teammates knew enough about my backstory to think they had an idea of my reason for joining SHIELD: helping the little guy because, at one point, you were the little guy—the manipulated guy—the one who no one saved, so you had to save yourself—and now anyone else who can’t do it for themselves.

Yet, there were so many other things I kept for myself, and things files couldn’t tell you. No files existed of them, and I’m glad because I didn’t want the pity.

James Buchanan Barnes was the reason behind my abuse. Not personally, but my abuser was obsessed with his accomplishments under the German and Russian terrorist organizations and wanted to make a female, more skilled, discrete, and sleeker version of the Winter Soldier.

Who fucking didn’t, right? God, every goddamn evil bastard on this godforsaken shit show of a planet wants to remake something that was a once in a lifetime kind of thing and crack more than a few eggs to get to that point. Selfish asshole…

Being constantly compared to him and then beaten for not hitting the unreachable mark of the man I was ‘of no comparison to’ after years of trying to hit that standard, and then being asked to be on a team with him? A lot of emotions hit me like a train when I got that news.

Will I amount to being the trained spy and agent I am for Shield with him by my side? Will he make me look like a completely pointless addition to the team? After five years of already working with the Avengers and then learning who the Winter Solider was? Steve’s best friend and probably the only person he could relate to in their journey? All the way to having to work with him… The change-up was instantaneous, where I would have begged for baby steps.

Then again, when has the world made it easy for me?

So yes. I was an ass and kept him further than arm's length away to stay safe from learning that he was a good guy when I wasn’t ready to like him yet. I had a lot of trauma I never thought I’d have to work through with the infamous man himself, and that irritation and annoyance just continued when he finally matched my energy, and we never strayed from that relationship until… now.

And here he was, genuinely asking what HE did wrong when I was the reason for our enemies’ plot line.

“Bucky, I don’t think I can talk about this right now,” I breathed out slowly, feeling the tears prick in my eyes.

It had been a minute since I cried and felt this vulnerable, and I couldn’t seem to stop it. I think subconsciously, I didn’t want to stop it, but my mind was begging my body to hold out until he was out of the room.

“Y/N, if I did something to you, I didn’t realize-”

“You wouldn’t have known,” I whisper, not trusting my voice to stay steady, but also not wanting to put anymore of the blame on him from here on out.

He wasn’t a bad guy.

He had proved himself time and time again to be a really good guy. Even when he broke and decided he hated me back, he still had his moments when he put it aside and showed chivalry. I admired him for it even when I ignored the admiration.

Makes it hard to fully hate a guy who made sure ladies weren’t opening any doors for themselves. Or a man who remembered Morgan’s birthday and bought her an ice cream cake before stealing Steve’s shield to sled down a hill her dad told her not to. Or a man you treat like absolute shit 99% of the time, and he still checks on you when you have nightmares, and he grabs water and an ice pack and helps you even out your breathing before waiting for you to go back to sleep.

I didn’t ask him for the help, and he never mentioned the handful of times he fell into the routine of soothing me back to sleep. Never brought it up, never made me feel like I owed him, and never hinted at remembering such kindness.

But now?

“You wouldn’t have known why it started this way to begin with. And you likely won’t,” I sigh, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth before turning around; a lot more put together, even if it was just a mask I had learned to put on most of my life.

“I don’t understand,” Bucky furrowed his eyebrows at my disposition.

“I don’t expect you to, but maybe we should go to sleep and talk about it later. It’s getting late, and you have to go to your ‘job’ tomorrow,” I say with hand quotes. “We have to keep the ruse going.”

“A few hours of sleep doesn’t affect me,” Bucky shook his head, and I could see him itching to put his hands back on me, but he held back. “Please. I need to know what the hell I did.”

“Again, Bucky,” I say sternly this time, all emotion I’m struggling to keep at bay shoved down. “You are not at fault, and tomorrow I’ll talk to you, but for now, I need to sleep on it.”

He read my face for lies, and I kept it neutral. I wasn’t going to break here. Now was not the time. I needed space to think about how I was going to approach this after so long of avoiding it and being put on the spot wasn’t going to work for me.

“Ok,” he said, softer than I think I ever heard him talk. His eyes were soft and sensitive, and I didn’t know how I felt about it…

He turned and walked out of my room, gently shutting the door behind him and turning off the overhead light he had originally flashed on.

I didn’t instantly head straight to bed. I stared at the doorway in the dark, seeing the faint silhouette of the barrier between us. He was still on the other side, and I could hear his heart rate higher than normal.

This was affecting him more than I thought it would. Why was he so worried about what I thought of him? He didn’t seem bothered by my disinterest in the past. Or at least I didn’t figure he did.

____________________

When I woke up, Bucky was already gone. His truck, normally in the driveway, was missing, and I knew he had taken off for our mission report.

Thankful, I took the time to make my coffee, sit on the front porch, and watch the neighborhood take on its morning routine.

People were on runs with their family dogs, moms were doing their morning walks with strollers, some neighbors were out already tending to their gardens, and everything suburban seemed to be on track.

Towards the end of my cup, I notice Ms. Bauer coming back from her jog she must have taken earlier than the others.

“Oh, hello, neighbor!” she shouted when she spotted me, uniformly checking our house like her head was on a swivel if she heard a pen drop in it.

Still in her jog, she sashayed over to my lawn, and I mumbled, “Here we go,” smiling at her as she followed the sidewalk to our steps.

“How are you doing today, Bethanne?” I grin standing from my patio chair and going down the steps to meet her at the bottom of the flight. “Is there a run club I didn’t know about? You’re the 10th person I’ve seen getting a head start on their steps for the day.”

She laughed and waved a hand at me before taking an earbud out, pausing her music on her watch, and placing her hands on her hips as she looked up at me.

“There is actually a mommy and me walking club on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Depending on the weather, of course, but who knows,” she grinned up at me. “Maybe you can be joining it sooner than you thought.”

“Maybe not as soon as you think,” I laughed, holding my mug tighter with both hands so I wouldn’t strangle her instead and leaning on the banister. “We wanted at least a year in the house by ourselves before we add another set of feet to the chaos,” I scrunch my nose and add, “but I’m excited for the day Beau and I have a mini-version of us running around here.”

“Speaking of Beau,” she grins, looking to the driveway. “Where is he today? He’s usually home with you most of the time, right?”

“Oh, it was time for him to get back to work. He took off for a few weeks to get moved in and spend time with me before we had to get back to the real world,” I answer as planned.

“That’s right. I think I remember you guys talking about that at the first block party,” she nodded, watching me carefully for slip-ups. “Can you believe it’s only been two weeks of you guys here? I feel like you two have been a part of the community for at least a year.”

“You’re sweet,” I gush convincingly and look out to the neighborhood for effect. “You guys have really taken us in as your family, and you don’t know how much I appreciate it. We appreciate it,” I correct and look off in the distance like I’m thinking of my sweet, doting husband when, in reality, I was thinking of the day this mission was over and I could carry on with my normal life. “I don’t think I’ve mentioned this. Beau isn’t one to really talk about it, but his family life wasn’t the best. They’ve practically been strangers since he turned 18.”

“Oh, is that so?” she inched up, feeding on the new (fake) information.

I nod. “When we started dating, my family took him in as his own- well, I only had my dad around for most of my life, but they got along really well. He passed three years ago,” I give a tight-lipped look as I look down at my feet in sadness. “They developed a bond, which wasn’t hard considering who my dad was. He was the best, though we might be biased in thinking that. Taught Beau how to do a lot of things dads are supposed to teach their sons. Well,” I sniffle for added effect. “Anyway, we’re kinda on our own now. No extended family we’re close with, and with my dad’s passing, it’s really just us. So when I say we’re grateful for y’all’s hospitality, I mean it.”

She seemed to buy it, as much as an undercover convict could, and smiled kindly up at me before placing a hand on my arm.

“Of course, sweetheart. We’re just lucky you two are some of the good ones. You’d be surprised who’s come in and hasn’t made the cut. Lawns in disarray, unfriendly attitudes, and you know the list,” she winks and rolls her shoulders back before stretching in her spot. “Speaking of being lovely neighbors, how would you and Beau feel about a dinner at our house? Reggie and I have been talking about having you over for quite some time now, and I think we can finally host.” Before I could ask, she stopped me and explained. “Kitchen renovation. It was and still is a pain in my ass, but it should be doable for a small dinner.”

“That sounds lovely,” I beam as much as I could act. It was the perfect next step, and the bait had been taken, but a part of me wanted to settle things with Bucky in our personal dispute before we put on our masks for the two main perpetrators. “Let me check with him and see what his schedule will look like now. He’s getting some new orders today, and some things are changing in the company. We’ll know more tonight. But we will for sure make it work.”

___________

After Bethanne told me some useless neighborhood gossip, she excused herself, and I went back inside to get ready for the day and consider how I would approach Bucky on our issue.

I knew it was time to be truthful, even if I dreaded it. Bucky had proven time and time again that he wasn’t the enemy, and I needed to deal with my issues. I was tired of wasting energy on hatred and anger, and these last two weeks proved that Bucky wasn’t the one who should have been receiving the blunt force end of my trauma.

I had until four in the evening to come up with an idea of how I wanted to go about it, but I had stress cleaned instead and couldn’t come up with a non-terrifying way to approach this life-changing conversation.

Finally, I found it best we get dinner in the town over (as not to have any peaking eyes or eavesdropping ears as we dive into my life story I hadn’t indulged to near anyone before), and I would talk to Bucky there. However, plans changed when Bucky came home.

From my spot in the kitchen, I heard him shout in his domesticated voice across the street, “No, that sounds perfect! We’d love to!” The door opened just as he finished his sentence, and his voice became clearer.

I moved around the island and slowly walked toward the door to get a view of who he was talking to, and I noticed Bethanne at her mailbox waving to Bucky.

I furrowed my eyebrows at the obvious commitment he put us in, and after he waved back, he shut the door behind him, looking at me, and dropped the act quickly.

“What did you just agree to?” I asked, nodding my head behind him.

He looked me up and down, and I almost forgot I had picked a new, semi-fancier sundress for our “surprise anniversary dinner” (at least the front I was trying to put on for getting out of town without too much suspicion).

(Make whatever color you please or change it in your mind if you want! I'm choosing to pick it as a darker red.)

“You look nice,” he says as his eyes trail back up to my own, and I swear I see him take a gulp.

“What did you agree to?” I asked again, focused more on what he had decided for us regarding Bethanne.

His previous shocked face faded away, and he rolled his eyes slightly before throwing his work bag to the side.

“Bethanne invited us to dinner. I said yes because we need to build a relationship with them,” he replied stoically, as if my question was dumb and pointless.

I just stared at him and let my “personal vendetta” look rest on my face. He studied me and had the decency to shrink ever so slightly.

“What?”

“What happened to discussing things first?” I said in an eerily calm voice.

“I didn’t think accepting dinner at a home we’ve been trying to get inside of for the last two weeks is something we’d have to discuss.” And now he straightens up, throwing his empty arms to the side.

A few seconds later, I yelled, “You dipshit!” in a muffled grunt, keeping my voice down as much as I could handle and balling my fists in anger.

His eyebrows shoot up and he huffs with his chest puffed out as he marches to me. I see the intent in his eyes, and I start walking away towards the opposite room closest, needing a minute not to lose my shit, and if I have to look into his stupid azure eyes like he wants to read everything passing through my mind, I’ll break.

“Don’t walk away from me,” he growls, and I shoot him a look over my shoulder as I shift my pace and head down the hallway to the bedrooms. “Y/N, stop being a stubborn ass and-”

“Unless you want a heel thrown at your head, and you’re welcome for being civil about this, I suggest you leave me alone,” I shout behind me, turn sharply to the left, and go to my room.

“I don’t even know what THIS is! You looked at me like you wanted to kill me when I walked in, and I haven’t even talked to you today besides updates about work,” he said just as I slammed the door in his face. “Oh, real mature. Shut the door like an adolescent. Wait, I forgot. You are one…” He mumbles the last part and I hear him lean on the door.

Instantly, I whip the door open, and he doesn’t have time to predict his next move. He falls flat on his back on the wood floors of my room, only padded by a thin oriental rug I made Tony buy me.

He’s winded from the fall and clutches his chest as I bend down next to him and say, “I said. Leave. Me. The. Fuck. Alone.” I stare at him for a second, solidifying my threat. I stand to walk out and only give him a glance as I pass the doorway.

_____________

Bucky’s POV:

I left her the fuck alone.

I may have been royally pissed (that is a blatant ass understatement), but something about the look in Y/N’s eyes told me not to push unless I wanted to wake up with my head no longer attached to my body.

I was too scared to leave her room in fear I’d run into her when she wasn’t ready and risk taking the chances of the guillotine earlier, so I sat on her bed and tried to rack my brain to where I slipped up to cause whatever the hell I walked in to…

I knew almost instantly and realized what a stupid, simple mistake it was. Bethanne asking me to dinner set her off, I knew. But her comment about talking with each other before making decisions told me my mistake.

Something happened I didn’t know of, and I may have just fucked whatever it was up. As for what it is? No goddamn clue. But using context clues and just basic reading of the body language, Y/N had already made a plan, and I threw it out the window, likely.

I heard footsteps before I could think further, and Y/N appeared in the doorway, taking a deep breath. She would have convinced me she was going to be civil if it wasn’t for her history, but I was excited to see which lane she chose.

“One thing before I bite my tongue,” she says in almost a whisper, like she’s trying to keep her frustrations at bay. “You make me want to shave my head like Britney Spears in 2007 75% of the time. This moment was almost a tipping point for that kind of outcome..” She lets out a long breath like she passed the test of keeping it together.

Surprisingly a lot more tame than I was expecting.

“Glad you got that out of your system. Now, please tell me what the hell happened?” I asked, keeping my guard up in case she resorted to her typical insults and fury.

“Oh, now you want to communicate,” she mocks and walks to the bed, harshly sitting next to me but leaving a copious amount of space between us.

I let it slide because I know she’s fighting bigger demons, like the urge to insult me, until I personally dig my own grave and say goodbye to my cruel reality.

“Bethanne was goading us,” she answers, thankfully getting right to the point. “Something about her proposition seemed off, and I wanted to clear some things up with you before we jumped on the offer.”

I nodded my head, seeing that my instantaneous reply wasn’t thought out. That was on me, yes, but she also reacted extremely dramatically, expressing an odd feeling about the interaction instead of hard proof.

“What did she ask, and what was off about it?” I question, trying to stay mission based because something seemed off still.

“It wasn’t what it was but how she was asking. Something in her tone and the way she was looking at our house and me. Like she was trying to take in detail after detail up close. Checking for cracks in the foundation,” she answers and turns to me just slightly. “She also said her kitchen was under renovation, and something felt off about it.”

“The vibes about our neighbor getting a kitchen renovation made you knock the wind out of me when you opened your door?” I said before I could think, but I didn’t budge, my furrowed eyebrows aimed at her.

She matches my glare and turns her body fully to me.

“It seemed like an excuse,” she answers slowly.

“To what? Host a dinner? That’s kind of the opposite effect. Who would want to host a dinner when you have kitchen renovations? It means they trust us if they’re willing to let us see a house that’s not perfect like the front they put on.”

‘That’s what you get from it, but I think they just planted a little seed of their own.”

“What do you even mean?”

“Kitchen Reno? That’s an excuse to say, ‘Oh, Charlotte, I can’t cook the chicken pot pie I was going to make for you two because our new oven hasn’t been delivered and installed yet. You know? Because we have the kitchen under renovation? I completely forgot,’” She acted in a convincing Bethanne impersonation and then quickly turned back to serious.

“You got that from a kitchen reno comment?” I deadpanned after a minute.

“I got that from understanding women masterminds who know how to manipulate a situation. I am that woman, so I think I can read them pretty well,” she says confidently back.

Touché.

“And what if you’re wrong?” Her bitchface grew at my question.

“First off, I’m not. Second off, even if I was wrong, we are supposed to consult each other about accepting invitations into the house of our suspect enemies,” she ran a hand through her hair, which I notice now looks styled differently. Did she curl it or have it blown out? And yes, I know what a blowout is. I have women friends and coworkers.

Yeah… I was in the wrong here, and that’s on me. I wasn’t thinking. I also had a long day snooping around for more information about this whole operation, but it isn’t necessarily an excuse… It’s not like I haven’t worked on a case like this in the past. I mean, minus being fictitiously married to a coworker.

“I’m sorry,” I say, and she gives me a weird look. “What?”

“I wasn’t expecting an apology,” she says, standing slowly and straightening her dress.

“I know when to accept I made a mistake,” I shrug and stand as well.

She studies my face like there's a retort that’s going to follow, but I just stare at her silently, communicating that I’m set on my apology.

“Ok…” she drags out, watching me as she steps toward the door. “Well, I guess we need to get ready for tonight. Considering we have dinner. With our neighbors. And we need to set up bugs if possible.”

“Guess so,” I nod, crossing my arms.

She stops suddenly and looks at me with a look of realization. “You’re in my room.” She steps to the side, leaving room for me to leave, and avoids eye contact.

She’s still acting weird, but I need to change and get my head in the game for tonight, so I walk out with a subtle head nod as I leave.

Marvel Tags:

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Bucky Barnes Tags:

@chloe-skywalker @charmedbysarge @jbarness @bellamy-barnes @katiaw2 @aikeia @stopjustlovethemcu @enchantedbarnes

Mr. & Mrs. Hunt Series:

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sturniolos-blog · 9 months ago

Note

a matt oneshot where estrella is 14 and has her first panic attack

First Panic Attack - Matt Sturniolo x Y/n Oneshot

warnings - anxiety, panic attack, this made me sad for ellaaaa, cute after, sorta short, swearing, angst, also sorta same storyline as my last fic

—————————

8:37pm

“Well i don’t know what you want me to tell you, Matt. It’s not my fault you work all the time and barely come home to see our daughter, or our son for that matter.” I throw my hands up.

Matt and I were arguing because our 14 year old daughter, Ella, didn’t want to spend anytime with Matt. Mailo didn’t really care, he loved spending time with Matt even if it was only a little.

Matt scoffs and shakes his head, “Don’t fucking blame this on me, y/n. You know i’m seriously busy, and you know that if I could take time off, i would.” Matt argues.

I lean against the kitchen sink, crossing my arms. “Do i? Do i know that? Because Chris told me you just got an offer to take two weeks off but you said you didn’t need it.”

Matt looks at me, swallowing harshly. “So what, you’re keeping tabs on me?” He accuses.

I let out a laugh in disbelief and start to walk away.

“Where are you going!?” Matt raises his voice.

“Away from you! I’m not crazy, Matt! Of course i’m not keeping tabs on you, i talked to chris and he let it slip!” I yelled.

Matt stays silent and scratches his head.

I scoff, “Yeah don’t fucking say anything. I am done with the lies, i am done with the excuses, and i am done waiting for you to be a father.” I point at Matt as we stand in the door way between the living room and the kitchen.

“I am a great father!” Matt yells at me.

“Oh yeah?! Well you sure don’t fucking act like i-”

“Dad! Mom! Somethings wrong with Ella!” I hear Mailo yell from upstairs.

Matt looks at me before shoving past me and rushing upstairs.

I follow after him, rushing upstairs. Matt opens Ella’s door to see her on the floor crying with her head in her hands, Mailo sitting on the floor next to her.

My heart breaks for my daughter.

Matt sits on the floor next to Ella as Mailo gets out of the way. “Talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?” He rubs her back.

Her breaths were scattered as i walked in, pulling Mailo back softly.

“What’s wrong with her, mom?” Mailo asks me.

I hush Mailo as Matt stays next to Ella, waiting for her to speak.

“M-mom?” Her voice cracked, her breaths were uneven as she choked on her own sobs.

I teared up and took my hands off of Mailo, moving on her left side while Matt was on her right, “Yeah, baby? I’m here.” I also put my hand on her back as she took heavy breaths, her breaths sounded like a rock skipping on water. It was heart breaking.

“G-get dad out of the room.” She said, her voice was harsh but quiet.

Matt looks at me, a pained expression on his face. “What?” Matt breathes out.

“Matt, you should go.” I say in a hushed tone.

Matt scoffs. “But-”

“Mom, get him out!” Estrella yells as she buries her head in my chest, crying as her whole body shook in my arms.

“Matt, get the hell out!” I yell, tears filling up in my eyes.

Matt clears his throat and nods, “Come on, Mailo.” He hurries Mailo out, shutting the door as he leaves the room.

Estrella let out multiple sobs, “I can’t stop shaking- mom! W-what’s going on!? Why can’t i breathe?” Estrella freaked out.

I hold her tightly, “You’re having a panic attack, Ella. It happens and it’s okay but you need to think about something else.” I tell her.

“I can’t, mom!” Her voice cracks as she her body racks with sobs.

I let out a sigh, “You don’t tell me about school anymore. What’s going on with that?”

Her fingers claw my shirt, “W-what?” She lets out another cry.

“Any boys? any girls? anyone i need to know about?” I keep going, hopefully distracting her enough.

“No girls. There’s this guy- jason. He’s really sweet, and i like him. But i don’t think he likes me.” She says, her voice was quiet but her breaths and cries were slowing down.

“Is he cute?” I ask.

She lets out a laugh, “Mom!”

“I’m curious!” I defend.

Her smile drops slightly as she comes to a realization that she’s okay now. “It’s gone now.” She says, taking her head away from my chest but still in my arms.

I nod, “Do you wanna talk about it? About what got it started?” I ask softly, my fingers brushing through her hair.

She shakes her head and looks away, looking guilty.

I sigh, “Is it about Dad and I?” I ask her, i figured it was.

Estrella looks at me and nods.

I look down for a second.

Estrella sees my look. “I’m sorry, mom- it was stupid, i-”

I cute her off, “It wasn’t stupid, baby..” I trail off for a second as i shrug. “It was reasonable. What happened?”

She plays with her fingers for a second, “I don’t know.. Mailo came in my room and said you guys were fighting again, so i let him in and we tried watching TV. B-but i don’t know, i just started crying- and then everything went blurry, and then i-”

I hushed her as she almost started crying again.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.” I kissed her forehead.

We sat in silence for a couple seconds.

“Can i ask why you wanted dad out of the room?” I asked, one hand tracing circles on her back and one still brushing through her hair.

She shrugged, “I was mad at him…” She trails off for a second before taking a breath. “I am mad at him..”

I nod.

Estrella speaks again, “He’s never home anymore, i miss him a lot. A-and so does Mailo but Mailo doesn’t say anything because he doesn’t want dad to be mad at him.” Ella admits.

I shook my head, “Whether you like it or not your father is always gonna love you guys.. He could never be mad at you guys.. especially for having feelings like a human being. It’s okay to feel like that, Ella.” I tell her.

She nods, “But he probably hates me now ‘cause i kicked him out..” She says in a quiet tone.

“I’m gonna be honest with you because you’re older. He probably is upset, but he doesn’t hate you. Why don’t i talk to him first, then you can say what you want to? You can tell him how you feel.” I suggest.

Estrella shakes her head rapidly, “I can’t, mom! He’ll be so mad at me!”

I hush her, “Ella i’m serious, i’ll stay in the room with you guys. He won’t be mad.” I say.

She sighs and nods, “Okay. Thanks mom.” She says.

I kiss her forehead, “Anytime.” I smile before standing up and helping her up too.

I open Ella’s door and walk out into the hallway, opening Matt and I’s room door.

“Ella, you’re okay!” Mailo jumps off the bed that him and Matt were sitting on.

“Of course i am you dork.” She replies.

I laugh, “Alright guys go do something else and play nice.” I ruffle Mailos hair.

“I’m gonna get the good controller!” Mailo yells, running downstairs.

“Come back here you jerk!” Ella chases after him.

I laugh before shutting our room door after walking in.

Matt was sitting on his phone, him biting his nails.

“Matt..” I say softly. Sitting on the bed next to him.

I put my hand on his shoulder but he shrugs me off.

“Stop.” He says.

I shake my head, “Please, talk to me.” I plead.

Matt turns off his phone, putting it on the nightstand.

He sniffles, “W-why doesn’t she want me anymore?” He lets out a sob.

I put my arms out to him and he immediately hugs me as i rest my back against the head board, his arms going around my torso and his head into my chest as his body lays in between my legs.

I run my fingers through his hair, “Oh baby..” I mumble, kissing his head.

He let out soft cries into my shirt. “I know i’ve been a bad father- i just don’t know what to do anymore..” He cried.

I hushed, “You haven’t been a bad father.. i’m sorry i told you that. You’re an amazing father- Estrella just told me she misses you.”

“A-and it’s my fault, because i didn’t even take off time for my own children. I’m a horrible person..” He sniffled.

I kissed his head once more, “You aren’t, Matt. Trust me, she loves you so-”

I get interrupted by a knock on our door with it opening.

Estrella peaks her head in, “Dad?” She asks, her voice soft.

Matt shoots up, wiping his face with his hands and sniffling. “Yeah, sweetheart?” He answers, trying his best not to cry.

Ella comes in and sits on the bed as i watch, keeping my word on staying in the room with her.

She clears her throat, “I’m sorry for kicking you out of my room. I didn’t mean it. I love you so much and you’re the best dad. But i miss you, a lot. A-and Mailo does too, he’s just to scared to admit it.” She confesses.

Matt nods and sniffles, “I know, baby. A-and i’m so sorry, let me make it up to you, yeah?” He suggests.

Estrella laughs and nods.

Matt looks at me, “Pizza?”

I laugh, “Sounds good to me.”

Mailo then comes in the room, “I want pizza!” He barges in.

Matt laughs and ruffles Mailos hair.

—————————

i hope you guys like this one because i know i did !

taglist: @sturniolosmind @novasturniolo03 @hearts4chriss @vinniehackerslefttoe

#matt sturniolo #chris sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #christopher sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #sturniolo #matt sturniolo x reader #matt sturniolo x you #spotify

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viridescent-din · 2 years ago

Text

Hope

Joel x reader. Smut, 18+ only Fingering, age gap.

There’s no hope for you.

You don’t take it personally. There’s no hope for anyone anymore. But it still stings, knowing it will probably never get better. Knowing that in spite of everything, even though you and everyone else that’s left has been given the worst hand fate could have dealt, you can’t ever have what you want. What’s right in front of you.

Joel, leaving you for weeks on end to smuggle God knows what. Angry when you come, angry when you don’t. Short tempered and mean, hurting under all those layers of pain and experience and grime. When you met Joel, you promised yourself you would dig into him, make your way through those layers and burrow under them. Warm him from the inside out. You wanted to know him.

Now you do, and it hurts more than ever. It’s a nicer pain than feeling nothing at all, but it’s still heavy. The lingering glances Joel gives you make you feel truly alive, but they make you ache too. The wandering eyes, the brushes of his arm, the death grip he holds you in on the runs when you stumble across infected. You know Joel well enough to understand they mean something. To you and him. He doesn’t touch other people like that. He doesn’t care for them. Protect them.

If he’s felt the way he does for you this long and hasn’t done anything about it, he’s never going to.

It’s possible that Joel doesn’t want to make the first move - doesn’t want to be the one that really changes the comfortable (almost, almost domestic) closeness you two have. There’s lots of reasons he wouldn’t: he’s older than you, for one. There’s also FEDRA and the Fireflies and anyone else who keeps an eye on Joel, looking for a weakness. The lack of confirmation between the two of you as to just what you are bleeds over to anyone who watches you interact. If something changes, if Joel really admits this is real, it won’t stay between the two of you no matter how much he might try. They’ll notice. Joel can’t afford to lose anyone else.

It’s hopeless, you and Joel. So you try not to think about it, and you never, ever push him.

Joel can’t take this much longer. Can’t take you.

It’s killing him. Everything is: his job, his age, his sorrow. Everything is wearing Joel down, making him drag his feet and look for the nearest somewhat safe spot so he can collapse and finally rest. For just one fucking minute.

He only feels rested when he’s with you. And Joel hates himself for that. Hates putting that amount of responsibility on you - to burden you with him. You’ve never asked for that.

Of course, you’ve never asked because you’re scared that if you do, Joel will leave. He doesn’t blame you. He’s not entirely sure that he wouldn’t.

You’re so good. It blinds him sometimes, your goodness. Sometimes it’s like the sun, shining down on Joel as he overlooks the ruins of whatever given city he’s in. But sometimes it’s like the light on the soldier’s gun twenty years ago, forcing Joel to realize everything he holds dear is devastatingly fragile.

If Joel let you give yourself to him the way he knows you want to, all he would do is take. He would envelope you, trap you in his chest. He’s cold and gruff and he would expect you to just deal with it. More than you already do.

“Should be an easy run,” you finish telling Joel late one night. You try not to notice how nice he looks in red, even if the shirt he’s wearing is dusty and beat up. “I’ll be back before morning.”

“I’m coming with you.” Joel responds gruffly. You purse your lips.

“I know you had something planned with Tess,” you say. “It’s just the mall. I’m not even leaving the QZ.”

“It’s boarded up for a reason.”

“I trust the people that say it’s safe -”

“Tess can handle herself. Ain’t no thing for me to go with you.” You still.

You don’t mean to be upset with Joel, but stings anyway, the lack of faith he has in you. It’s times like this that make you feel young. Stupid and incapable.

Needy.

“Tess can leave the QZ on her own but I can’t even make a quick trip to the mall?” You manage to keep the accusation out of your tone, but it’s still implied. Joel knows.

“Hey,” he says, short. “That’s not what I’m sayin’.” You swallow.

“I know, Joel, I just -”

“Tess has experience. She’s been doing this shit practically since it all started.” You nod as you look away, nails digging into your palms as you clench them. Your heart jumps when you feel Joel take your hand, prying it open. “Quit doin’ that.” He murmurs. Joel’s hand is warm, spreading waves of heat throughout your body. You unclench your fist, and Joel rubs his thumb over the lines of barely broken skin. “It’s different with you,” he says, barely audible. “You know it is.”

For a second, you think this is it. The walls are coming down, and Joel is admitting. Confessing, even. You look at him, eyes wide and hopeful.

He drops your hand and walks away.

“I’ll be back tomorrow night. Be ready.” He says. The door slams shut behind him.

“What are we even here for?” Joel only thinks to ask once you’ve led him into some sort of breaker room. You shine your flashlight at all the light switches and levers, looking for the right one. Joel frowns at himself. He should have pressed you for more information about this. It’s not like him to… not. “If I’m just here to take you shopping, we can leave now.”

“Yeah, Joel, you’re here to take me shopping. Prom is right around the corner.” You say. Smart ass, Joel thinks. He lets himself smile while you aren’t looking.

“Think you’re a little old for that.” Joel shines his own flashlight overheard, looking at all the decay. Water drips onto his face, and he wipes it off.

“I’m not that much older, you know. I am twenty f-”

“Don’t finish that sentence.” Joel stops you. You grin at him before lifting a lever. Machinery whirrs around you both, and the lights slowly flicker on.

“Whatever you say, old man.” Joel rolls his eyes, but secretly, he’s relieved to have you teasing him again. Joel doesn’t like how he left your place last night, how real it felt. How for a moment, he was the cause of the hurt that flickered over your face. “This way.” You tell him, leading him down the maintenance hallway and into the actual mall.

Even Joel can’t help but marvel at it, even in ruin. It’s massive, and all the stores are reminding him of brands he had forgotten existed. His chest clenches at the sight of some of them, the models that would have Sarah’s age.

The last time he went to a mall was with her.

“Holy shit,” you breathe, eyes wandering. “Look how big it is, Joel! Everything is -”

“Are we gonna be here all night?” Joel demands, suddenly gruff and impatient. Your face falls. “Let’s get what you want and leave, alright?”

“Right,” you say, excitement gone. “It’s um - I just remember my mom going to the mall whenever one of us got sick. I know there’s… there are like, pharmacies or whatever. I thought it would be good to stock up on medicine.”

Joel pinches the bridge of his nose, angry at himself for taking his shit out on you. It’s not your fault he insisted on coming.

It’s a good plan, too. Joel is surprised he or Tess didn’t think of it.

“That’s good. Smart.” He tells you, trying to ease the tension. “Do you remember how to find your way around a mall?” You shake your head. “It’s called a directory. It’s a map, usually on the first floor.” Joel spots an escalator a few feet in front of you. “Let’s go look at one, yeah? Better than wandering around the entire night.”

“Okay.” You agree. “Lead the way.”

The pharmacy is on the second floor, so you and Joel head back the way you came after looking at the directory. You start rambling about how there might not even be anything, how a mall probably doesn’t have as much as a CVS or a Walgreens. Joel stops you.

“Even one bottle of antibiotics is better than none,” he tells you. “This was smart. Good job.” You give Joel a small smile.

“Thanks,” you say.

The pharmacy turns out to be well stocked - you and Joel jump over the counter and find practically everything full. Joel watches you look at the labels of everything a few times before you take to dumping things in your backpack. Joel is more careful, on the lookout for penicillin and any other helpful meds he can remember. He falters when he grabs one prescription and reads it: cryselle, low ogestrel. Birth control. Before he even realizes what he’s doing, Joel glances at you.

“You ready?” You ask. You’re standing on the counter, looking down. Joel shoves the pills in pocket.

“Yeah,” he says, swinging his backpack over his shoulder. “Let’s -” Joel doesn’t even hear the growling until it’s too late, until a rotted hand grabs your ankle and pulls, the crack of your ribs on the counter bouncing off the walls and the look of surprise on your face permanently searing itself onto Joel’s brain.

“Joel!” You scream, the infected chomping at you, practically ripping the skin of its neck to reach you. Bite you. You let out another scream, one pure terror and pain. Your torso is throbbing, a blinding pain that’s making it harder and harder to keep the infected off you. You thrash, kicking its legs in an attempt to get it off, but you only make its knees collapse so its weight falls on you even more. You let out a frustrated sob.

This is it, you think to yourself. Even if I get out of this, Joel is never letting me do a run again. Your arms start to weaken at the thought, subconsciously giving in.

The shot fires so close to you it makes your ears ring. The infected stops growling, slumping on top of you. You push it off, dazed.

Joel is on you in an instant, hands running over every inch of bare skin you have. Hands, wrists. Neck. He hooks his fingers under your chin and forces you to look at him, distress written all over his face. You cough, wincing as it rattles your ribs.

“Good,” you manage. “I’m clean.” Joel sags with relief, his forehead pressed against yours. He smells scared, stressed and acrid. You close your eyes and breathe it in.

“C’mon,” Joel says, standing. “There could be more. There’s always more.”

He takes you to his apartment. His, not yours. You drop your bags at the door, kicking off your shoes. Joel leads you to his bedroom, and you sit on his sheets, wincing. When you pull up your shirt, your skin is raised and bruised. You tug it back down.

“Does it feel like a clean break?” Joel asks. You shrug, not knowing what he expects you to say. He leaves, coming back with a bottle of pills and a glass of water. “Ibuprofen.” He explains. “Nothing fancy for a few broken bones.” You thank him.

“Should we wrap it?” You ask.

“Don’t know. Might make sleeping on ‘em the first night easier.” Joel watches you. “Can I see?”

You swallow as Joel stands over you. Slowly, you lift your shirt.

To Joel’s credit, he doesn’t freak out. It dawns on you that he might be thinking you’re making a big deal out of nothing. You don’t know what Joel’s life was like before you were in it, but you know it was worse than a few cracked bones. Embarrassment creeps up your face.

“It’s nothing.” You dismiss it. Joel nods.

“Nothing.” He agrees. He doesn’t sound convincing, though.

It’s not even that bad. Joel knows that.

He watches people die every day. He’s seen the worst of death and then some. He’s seen people stumble into the QZ holding their innards in their hands. He’s watched people rip their tongues out as the virus infects them, trying to rid themselves of the spores they can feel invading their bodies.

You have a few cracked ribs. You’re strong. You can handle it.

But the thing is, Joel can’t. He’s worn down, he’s exhausted and scared he just can’t keep himself from caring so much.

He’s making this a bigger deal than it is. Joel thinks you feel the same - you’re waving him off, saying you’re fine. Saying it’s nothing. The wound is, sure. But the terror Joel felt when he saw you disappear behind the counter in less than a second? That isn’t nothing. It’s everything. You’re everything.

“You wanna stay here for the night?” Joel asks you. Splashes of black and blue spread over your torso, painting your skin. It makes Joel feel sick. He shouldn’t have let this happen.

“Yeah,” you say. “If it’s okay.” Joel shrugs in response, hunching his shoulders to ward his paranoia away. You give him a small smile, tugging your shirt down. Joel turns around, walking over to the small dresser near the door and digging out one of his flannels. He knows you like them, and you know Joel likes seeing you in them just as much. He tosses it to you on the bed. You catch it smoothly, laying it next to you. Joel faces the wall, letting you change your shirt.

And then he hears it.

It’s a small noise that you make. It probably isn’t even one of pain, you’ve been through worse than this, it’s just a hiss of discomfort as you raise your arms above your head to take your shirt off.

And Joel is rushing towards you, brow furrowed, hands outstretched and mind telling him no, no, no, just like it has for years.

Joel’s been silently telling himself no to you since he met you. He’s older now.

He can’t bring himself to listen anymore.

Joel kneels in front of you, grunting as his knees protest. Your eyes are wide, and you’ve frozen. Your hands are gripping the hem of your shirt, holding it just above your navel. You watch as Joel’s eyes flick towards the bareness of your stomach, and even though he just saw it so he could look at your ribs, Joel can tell you know he’s looking in a different way now. He swallows, leaning forward.

“Let me help you, baby.” Joel says. You draw in a breath.

“Are you sure?” You whisper. You know what this means, what Joel’s thinly veiled statement implies. Joel returns your gaze.

Joel reaches forward, grabbing the hem of your shirt and lifting it carefully over your head. A small ‘good job’ tumbles off his lips when you raise your arms without making another sound of discomfort again, and Joel sees what his praise does to you.

He leans back on his heels, looking at you sitting with your breasts exposed on his bed, bones cracked and in need of repair. He watches you wait for him to really promise something, to show you that this is finally happening.

You’ve been so patient. Joel can’t make you wait any longer.

“Joel,” Joel’s name comes out a gasp as he lays you down,

Joel props himself on the wall, sitting on the pillows. He pulls your back against his chest, arm over your collarbone while his other hand dangles between your legs. He massages your thighs and your eyes slide shut. You grip his forearm, nails biting into his skin.

When Joel’s fingers have finally worked their way up and are tracing your slick entrance, you whimper.

“I know, baby. I’ve got you.” Joel licks the shell of your ear as he murmurs, and you feel so safe. He’s capable and willing and wanting, you can feel his hardness against the small of your back.

If it were anyone else, this would feel sudden. But it’s Joel. You’ve been waiting so long. You’d be lying if you said you understood why it was now that he finally decided to do something, but you don’t care. You don’t care why this brush with death was the one that made the walls come down. You just care that it did.

Joel kisses your neck, sinking his teeth into the muscle of where your shoulder meets your neck, and you gasp, keening against him.

Teeth marks on your shoulder. Bruises on your hips. Joel is trying to make up for the fact you’re battered from today’s supply run. You’re about to say something about it when his fingertip pushes into your cunt. Your mouth drops open, and you moan so loud you almost slap your hand over your mouth instinctively.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” you hear Joel say as he slides his finger further in. Your thighs tremble, and Joel stills. “Hey,” Joel says your name, serious. “How long has it been?” He asks in a whisper. He runs his thumb up painfully slow over your clit, the same way you would to someone’s back or shoulder if you were trying to comfort them. It makes your head spin. “I gotta know how slow you need it.” He explains. You open your eyes, and Joel is staring at you.

“I,” you feel your cheeks burn. “I haven’t ever…” excuses build on your tongue before you even finish your sentence. I haven’t had time. I was the only survivor I knew of for years. I was only a kid when this all started. I can’t trust anyone around here. I’m younger than you. You don’t say any of them. You can’t bring yourself to.

“Oh, baby -”

“Please don’t stop,” you plead. Joel doesn’t move, his finger still inside you, gaze piercing. “Please, Joel. It’s not - it doesn’t have to be a big deal. I need this.” You can’t reach Joel’s lips from here, not with the way he’s holding you, so you drop your head and drag your lips across his forearms instead. “I need you.”

Joel closes his eyes, screwing them shut like he’s upset. But when he opens them, there’s no trace of anger. Just affection.

“I’m not gonna stop,” he promises you. You nod, relieved. “I’m taking care of you, darlin.’”

When Joel pushes another thick finger inside you to prove his point, he chases away any doubt you had remaining.

“I’m not going to use my cock on you tonight,” Joel tells you after what feels like hours of him working you open.Your disappointment is obvious. Insecurity begins to set in on you, but Joel won’t let it. “Not tonight,” he repeats. “Another time.” It takes a second for you to believe him, but eventually you murmur a quick ‘okay.’ “For now, I want you to finish with my fingers. Think you can do that for me, baby?” You nod, and Joel rewards you by curling his finger. “Good girl,” he says, and you clench around him. Joel smirks, amused, and rubs the thumb he has on your shoulder up and down soothingly. “Relax,” he tells you. “I’ve got you. Let me in.”

You try to wrap your head around the fact that this is happening, that after years of pining after Joel, he’s finally here. He’s sturdy and strong and present - you can feel all of him, his heartbeat against your back, his breath on your neck, his fingers so deep it’s like you can feel him in your stomach. His smell grounds you, filling your senses. You’re so full, so full of Joel. You have been for a long time now.

You take a deep breath, letting yourself inhale Joel’s scent. Your exhale is shakier as Joel presses in deeper. Your gaze flickers down to where his fingers disappear, and you whimper at the sight. You’re never seen yourself like this, swollen and puffy. You’re transfixed by Joel’s fingers pumping in and out of you, shiny with your slick. He suddenly finds a spot you’ve never had touched before. You moan as he massages the spongy place, trying to find your breath. When Joel keeps at that and rubs at your clit again, your vision starts to blur.

“Joel,” you gasp, the feeling foreign and overwhelming. “Joel. Joeljoeljoel -”

“Shh. You’re okay. I’m here,” Joel slows. “Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” You exclaim. Your mind is spinning as the corners of your eyes begin to go white.

“Okay. Alright,” Joel soothes you. “I know, darlin’, I know. Feels so good it’s almost scary, isn’t it?” You screw your eyes shut, your chest heaving as you pant. Joel presses on, his confident voice pushing you close to the edge. “But you don’t need to be scared. You can let yourself have this,” Joel takes a breath in, his voice getting distant. “You deserve this, alright? Let me give this to you.” Joel almost sounds like he’s begging. “Please let me do this for you.”

All you can do is clench around him in response.

Joel knows, Joel knows he shouldn’t be doing this. You’re better than him. You should have someone more handsome, someone younger, someone kinder.

Someone with less blood on their hands.

But Joel is selfish. He’s a selfish man, he has been since he lost Sarah, and he wants this. Wants you. He wants to give you something, make you feel good for just one second in the shitty world you have to live in. He needs this. He needs to know you’re getting some type of pleasure.

He hesitates when you say this is your first time.

It shouldn’t surprise him - you don’t have the resources people before the virus did. No internet, no sex ed, no parents or older siblings to ask.

You don’t like new things. Joel knows you don’t like being inexperienced. You’re too good at what you do, it makes your tolerance for being out of depth very, very low. And this is so much more personal than anything else. He can feel your embarrassment when you confess to him, unable to even finish your sentence.

“Oh, baby,” he murmurs, and it isn’t because you have anything to be ashamed about, it’s because Joel is pretty sure you’ve barely even touched yourself and you still find it in you to trust him to do it. To beg. Joel is a sick man, because it goes straight to his dick, your trust and desperation.

He wants to give this to you, and he doesn’t care if it also feels like taking.

When you cum, sweating and writhing in his arms, you clench tighter around Joel’s fingers than he knew was possible. He can feel your fucking heartbeat, and his hand isn’t even on your chest.

You’re far away when Joel eases his fingers out of you. He manages to lay you down on the bed, cautious of your ribs. He starts to stand to get a washcloth to clean you up, but you grip his hand.

“Please don’t go,” you tell him, vulnerable. “Please, Joel.”

Joel hates himself. Hates that he’s ever acted in some type of way that would make you think he would leave you when you need someone.

When you need him.

“I’m just grabbing something to clean us up,” he promises, rubbing your knee. “We made a mess, darlin’.” You sag, relieved.

Joel caves once he’s in the bathroom and out of your sight. He presses his fingers to his tongue, savoring your taste. He sucks his fingers off like a starved man, and can’t wait until he gets it straight from the source.

There is hope after all. For you and Joel. You can tell because of the dull throb in your core. Joel’s half hard cock against your hip. The medicine in your packs by the door, the softness of Joel’s lips over the skin of your ribs.

There is hope - always was. Even though you had to wait for it.

#joel miller #joel miller imagine #joel miller x reader #joel miller smut #joel miller x you #joel #joel imagine #joel x reader #joel smut #joel x you #the last of us #the last of us imagine

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stillness-in-green · 19 days ago

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Do you think that afo's claim is true that Shigaraki never made a choice of his own?

Okay, so, I wrote about a thousand words answering this, and what I eventually settled on is that you can’t (or at least, my rambly ass can’t) really answer it properly without meandering into a philosophical cul-de-sac about The Problem of Free Will. I tried to rewrite it and it just got longer. Blame the Philosphy 101 class I took back in college.

Consider: What does it mean to “make a choice of your own”? What is required for free choice, and has Shigaraki’s free choice been not merely hindered but wholly fettered for his entire life? Is his agency limited in a way unique to him? Was it possible for him to have made decisions other than the ones he did? Why or why not?

On top of a bunch of philosophical/biological questions applied to Shigaraki as if he were a real person, you also have the meta-narrative questions. What does Horikoshi think? Did he intend AFO to be read as a reliable narrator in his claim about Shigaraki’s lack of free choice? Are those answers consistent with the way Shigaraki and AFO’s relationship is portrayed and the portrayal of the actions of other characters in the story?

I don’t really want to turn this into a dissertation on the nature of free will, and that’s not a solved problem in the real world, anyway, so any possible answer is going to come down to a practical, situational assessment and a judgement call. With that in mind, hit the jump.

Per this post, the evidence points towards Horikoshi believing that All For One was making a truthful statement, if only because, if it weren’t true, presumably he would have written Deku contradicting the man, which he didn’t. And, indeed, Shigaraki himself, in his rueful musing that he was just a kid throwing a tantrum after all, would seem to agree as well. So taking the text purely at face value, AFO’s claim is likely true in the sense that the author intends it to be definitive. (Which makes Deku killing Shigaraki all the more loathsome, but that’s neither here nor there.)

So the next question is, am I as a reader obligated to agree with Horikoshi as an author, and do I?

Ultimately, my answer to both halves of that question is no. If I take a holistic view of BNHA, one that accounts for the entire scope of Shigaraki and AFO’s relationship rather than just the stuff at the very end, I do not think that AFO’s claim about Shigaraki was correct—or, if it is correct, then there’s little difference between Shigaraki’s agency and that of anyone else in the world.

See, the thing is, every piece of evidence we have pre-Liberation War points to an All For One who was genuinely trying to cultivate Shigaraki into a powerful force with a strong will of his own, someone able to stand on his own two feet, able to be a Villain to be reckoned with entirely on his own merits. Post-Kamino, AFO reflects in his own mind—talking to no one and thus with no one to fool—that it is a teacher’s job to raise their ward to be independent. Tomura relied on him, but now that the Heroes have locked AFO away, Tomura is ready, rage stoked, to take charge, and he’ll be fine, able to use his experiences, his hatred, and his regrets to fuel himself moving forward.

Heck, even the previous, very damning, “He will be the next me,” rejoinder to Ujiko could, absent AFO’s stupid endgame conflation of quirk consciousness with literal consciousness, easily be read as AFO intending Shigaraki to be the next person like himself, the heir to AFO’s position and resources, rather than his literal next vessel. He’s got no reason to play coy with Ujiko, after all; if he was referencing the vessel business, why not just say so?[1] In a story that wasn’t trying to convince everyone that the continued existence of the quirk All For One is precisely synonymous with the continued existence of a certain orphan boy born under a bridge, AFO would have no reason to be pursuing cockamamie possession plots, and therefore no need for a Shigaraki whose will can be simultaneously stronger than One For All’s yet easily shattered with a single well-timed reveal.

1: See more of my previous posts than I care to try to link where I complain about Horikoshi’s bald-faced, bad faith lying to the reader for the purposes of building drama or misdirection.

Being independent means being able to make your own choices and chart your own course. There was a point at which AFO wanted that for Shigaraki; the fact that Shigaraki was able to meet his expectations in this regard has no inherent bearing on Shigaraki’s free will. You get into irresolvable paradoxes real quick-like if you start saying things like, “Shigaraki being independent because AFO wanted him to be independent means Shigaraki isn’t truly independent!”

It’s kind of like saying, “My parents want me to graduate from school and become independent, but if I just do what they want, that makes me their puppet. I’ll flunk out and keep living at home, instead. Being dependent on my parents’ income will really prove how independent I am!” See the issue? Person A’s desires for Person B do not impede Person B’s free choice unless Person A acts on Person B in a way that limits their choices. Person A encouraging and supporting Person B in becoming independent of Person A is the antithesis of limiting them.

This portrayal continues into the backstory we see in the My Villain Academia flashbacks. From what we see, AFO was not teaching Shigaraki that he could only destroy (the common interpretation), but rather desensitizing him to the option of destruction. My read was that AFO wanted Shigaraki to be wholly amoral and grudge-bearing against Heroes, such that Shigaraki would pursue vengeance on Hero Society without recognizing or hesitating over ethical boundaries; beyond that, though, he was happy to let Shigaraki do things however Shigaraki saw fit, be that raw destructiveness or alliance-building with other Villains.

When his ward was young, this encouragement involved some behavioral modification tactics. That’s the kind of phrase that sounds bad, but it’s actually a very standard part of parenting; I would argue there’s only one thing AFO does to Tenko that really goes beyond the pale. Giving him the family hands and telling him to always keep them close is, by any measure, a grossly manipulative and controlling thing to do, explicitly intended to keep the boy from healing.[2]

2: Though it’s notably something AFO has been inflicting on himself, too, since we know he kept Yoichi’s hand. Given the striking parallel of AFO coming to Tenko as one family-killing orphan “born” under a bridge to another, one wonders how much of what AFO does to Shigaraki is based on his own life, and how much that might have been behind the, “He will be the next me,” quip. Shigaraki musing that he takes things when they’re offered to him feels of a piece with this. Sure, it could be something AFO groomed him towards, but it could also just be an outlook on life Shigaraki learned from AFO in the same way any child might pick up on their parents’ philosophies.

As to the rest? There are two major things I could point to, and both are—while diametrically morally opposite to the standard goals of childrearing—pretty normal in terms of childrearing philosophy.

Firstly, AFO pretty clearly buys Tenko a nice computer directly after he murders the two thugs that had been picking on him.[3] Secondly, he heaps Tenko with verbal praise for the same act, compared to his gentle scolding when Tenko was previously being reluctant. As to whether AFO used further methods of behavioral conditioning, that’s less clear. Him sitting on the bed keeping his hands to himself while Tenko writhes on the floor in an agony of itching is certainly repellant, but he’s not withholding physical comfort in the way behavioral modification would describe unless he had previously been giving Tenko physical comfort and was now denying it. After that one hug under the bridge, though, we never see AFO physically touching Shigaraki again until the cave, and at that point the two of them are mentally merged enough that AFO can presumably feel safe about touching Shigaraki without the latter having any sudden turns in temper that would get AFO Decayed. So I think the giving/withholding of praise, and the rewarding of physical objects of value, is more supportable as an argument of AFO using behavioral modification tactics than him giving/withholding physical expressions of comfort.

3: Nothing else in Tenko’s room is 100% provable as a reward in this sense. The rows of books are there from the very beginning. The computer monitor definitely only appears after the thugs are killed; previously the only thing on Tenko’s desk was the pile of family hands. The mangled Hero toys, however, could have shown up sometime in the interim between Tenko being brought to the room and his encounter with the thugs. We don’t get any angles showing the shelves containing them in the scene where AFO is encouraging him to act as his heart desires, so we don’t know for sure whether Tenko already had them by that point or not.

As to whether all this had a debilitating impact of Shigaraki’s free will, I’m skeptical. To my eye, and with the exception of the business with the hands, the way AFO raises Tomura is bad because AFO teaches Tomura to do bad things, not bad because it’s damaging to Tomura’s independence—unless, to return to a similar example I used before, you’re prepared to say with a straight face that it’s damaging to a child’s independence to buy them an ice cream cone for making an A on their big math test or give them a time-out punishment for hitting another child in class. Maybe it’s “damaging” to their sense of freedom in some big abstract way, but the purpose is to teach them how to successfully navigate life, not to impede them, and it’s not anything millions of other parents and teachers aren’t doing all across the globe. That is to say, it isn’t unique.

So yes, AFO was raising Shigaraki to be a Villain, but no mentor alive has raised a child without intending them to be something, even if that something is just “a functioning member of society.” AFO’s goal may be different, but his methodology (again excluding the hands) is not, so if the claim is that Shigaraki’s choices aren’t free because of that methodology, despite the numerous instances of AFO openly, vocally encouraging Shigaraki to make his own free choices, couldn’t you also say the same of literally anyone else who was raised using those same childrearing methods?

This question is even in the series, sorta: during the training camp attack, Mr. Compress observes, “You kids today have your values chosen for you.” Most of the characters in the series act according to the morals they were raised by, without ever attempting to actively evaluate or interrogate those morals. They may be encouraged to find their own paths, but that encouragement comes with the unspoken assumption that their “path” should be a healthy and law-abiding one, whereas Shigaraki’s path will be that of a dangerous criminal—but one who’s still being encourage to choose what kind of dangerous criminal he wants to be!

I’m perfectly willing to concede that AFO raising Shigaraki to be the Symbol of Fear put more restraints on him than e.g. Jirou or Ochaco’s parents encouraging their daughters to pursue their own passions, but I’m very unconvinced that that disparity is so sharp that we could say Shigaraki has no free will at all while the heroic characters enjoy total self-determination. Hell, in the early series, AFO has a freer hand with Shigaraki than All Might does with Deku! All Might has some very specific ideas about the kind of “narrative” Deku needs to establish in order to inherit the Pillar position All Might wants for him—he has to keep the power secret, he has to win the Sports Festival in a blowout, he has to appear confident at all times, and so on. All Might shakes the mentality eventually, leaving Deku freer to write his own story, but the same can be said of AFO being arrested and leaving Shigaraki to develop on his own.

Want a better parallel for AFO’s impact on Tomura’s developmental years? Let’s look at Shouto, instead. He was conceived and raised by Endeavor for a very specific purpose, and Endeavor was way more domineering about it than AFO was! Does that mean Endeavor deprived Shouto of free will? Or was he just worse at predicting how his child would respond to any given stimuli than AFO?

Shouto gets rebellious and lashes out and makes the decisions he does because of the abuse he suffers and his feelings about the parents perpetuating that abuse: can we really say, then, that he’s acting of his own free will in a way Shigaraki is not? Does AFO having a better understanding of human nature than Endeavor inherently make Shigaraki less capable of defining his own sort of Villainy than Shouto is of defining his own Heroism? Shouto, after all, became a Hero rather than deciding on literally any other career path; can we thus say he had no choice in what he became? If he “chose” to be a Hero because Endeavor was pressuring him to be one but also because he wanted to become someone who could reassure others, can we not say that Shigaraki “chose” to be a Villain because AFO was pressuring him to be one but also because he wanted to avenge himself on the society that abandoned him?

AFO may have engineered the circumstances that led to Shigaraki wanting that revenge, but Endeavor is equally responsible for the circumstances that led to Shouto wanting to become “a Hero who can reassure others.” Does AFO doing so knowingly while Endeavor does so unintentionally change the level of agency expressed by their respective children?

Would an omniscient God knowing what decision a certain human will make when faced with any given problem mean the human is less free in themselves to make that decision?

You see how deep this question winds up taking us into the philosophical weeds? Let’s refocus somewhat. Up to this point, I’ve been talking exclusively about Shigaraki’s path as a Villain and whether or not he made any choices of his own when walking that path. While AFO—and Deku, for that matter—certainly try to reduce Shigaraki to a helpless infant incapable of free choice, one of the things that’s so compelling about Shigaraki is that he’s not wholly defined by his Villainy.

Think back to that big collage we get in Chapter 419 as the background for Shigaraki’s psyche shattering. All of the images in those fragments are people Shigaraki has harmed.[4] Indeed, with a few exceptions, we see them right in the moment that Shigaraki is inflicting that harm! I’ve seen this moment explained on many occasions as indicative of Shigaraki feeling a sudden surge of realization and guilt, that he hurt all those people and it didn’t even mean anything because AFO set him up for all of it. That reading never quite sat right with me, though. Shigaraki is not a character prone to expressing much in the way of guilt, and him suddenly doing so feels like… Well, it feels like Woobie Tenko to me, a construct I loathe.

4: Give or take Gigantomachia, who I don’t think Shigaraki ever actually managed to put a scratch on, despite six weeks of dedicated efforts to do so.

As an alternative reading, then, consider that moment being framed as “all the choices Shigaraki thinks he made that were actually just him following the path AFO set for him.” And if we read it that way, then it’s very notable what isn’t there.

All his scenes bonding with the League. Taking and then returning Twice’s mask. Telling Toga that going to Overhaul is for everyone’s sake. Playing video games with Spinner. Telling Dabi he looks forward to meeting his recruit. Remembering Mr. Compress wanting sushi.

Expand the lens out. Also not included in that collage are any scenes of him working with Kurogiri, trading quips with Ujiko, or winning over Gigantomachia.

Expand again: talking with Overhaul about the alliance, the bar meeting with Stain, accepting Re-Destro’s pledge of loyalty, addressing his new army? No, no, no, and no.

I said in the post I linked before that even Shigaraki’s affection for the League is suspect based on the order of events around the reveal, but it’s telling that when AFO bellows to a shattering Shigaraki that all that he is was granted by AFO himself, the scene conspicuously omits any and every interaction that involves Shigaraki meeting with others in a non-violent way. If we’re meant to believe that he is a creature who can only destroy, one who never made a choice of his own, those are some pretty serious omissions!

It’s not as if Shigaraki’s relationships with the League and other Villains couldn’t be attributed to AFO’s influence! It’s AFO’s resources, after all, that allow Shigaraki to make enough of a splash that he starts attracting other Villains’ attention to begin with. If AFO taught Shigaraki to value his subordinates,[5] it might have only been so Shigaraki could become even more determined to be a Villain because the friends he made were equally harmed by Hero Society as Shigaraki believed himself to have been. There’s practically no decision Shigaraki makes that the reader determined to take AFO at his word couldn’t say he was groomed into making.

5: Which AFO himself very much does not, give or take how much you think that might have been different for Early Series AFO, with his stirring lines about the nice view All Might must be enjoying, standing atop the mountain of bodies of AFO’s allies.

But if that was intended to be the case, why aren’t the League in that collage, or the scene preceding it? Why not call out even the aspect of Shigaraki that seems most genuinely and truly his, if everything he is was decided for him in advance?

And that takes me back around to whether or not AFO is supposed to be read as correct. The conspicuous absence of the League and Shigaraki’s other allies in the “all that you are” collage would suggest AFO is wrong, but if AFO is supposed to be wrong, why doesn’t anyone ever tell him so? God knows Deku’s not shy about pushing back against Villain statements he disagrees with!

To me, it feels like Horikoshi couldn’t bring himself to let AFO claim ownership of that aspect of Shigaraki. Horikoshi wrote those friendships, those alliances; he has to know what they mean for Shigaraki, as a person and as a character. The fact that he doesn’t allow AFO to retroactively poison them says to me that Horikoshi doesn’t want to let AFO have that win. He can’t have Deku or Shigaraki call AFO out, either, though, because then AFO would be obviously wrong, and that would undermine Deku’s (presumed) decision to just go ahead and murder Shigaraki because he’s an entity that can only destroy, just as AFO intended him to be.

So instead we wind up with a story that says AFO is right while furtively, guiltily leaving out the many, many puzzle pieces that prove the complete image of Shigaraki Tomura is something other than what AFO describes.

Well, I’m not obligated to follow the story’s lead on that. When I look at the whole picture of Shigaraki’s life, his relationship with AFO, the friendships he made, the allies he gained, I see a character who very much did have choices and, particularly in the stretch between Kamino and the first war, made them with just as much freedom as any other character in the series. Shigaraki’s baseline morality being influenced by AFO does not limit his free will any more than Deku’s morality being influenced by Inko and All Might limits his. Shigaraki’s circumstances being set in place by AFO does not limit his ability to make free choices once he’s out from under AFO’s direct supervision anymore than the same could be said of Shouto relative to Endeavor.

Summing it all up, I would really only buy that Shigaraki never made a choice of his own in the sense that AFO set up every choice he made, so all those choices were made under false pretenses. But even this, the story fails to bear out thanks to scenes like AFO giving Tenko/Tomura freedom to roam around basically unsupervised, and AFO’s (as well as Kurogiri’s, insomuch as Kurogiri had the ability to steer Shigaraki towards AFO’s preferred outcomes) later arrest. AFO can't set up every choice Shigaraki makes when AFO cedes supervision of the situations Shigaraki encounters!

The question of free will versus determinism is a thorny one; it’s very normal to be hugely uncomfortable with the idea that free will does not exist, and everyone in the world is basically a highly sophisticated robot whose programming is determined by a combination of their life experiences and their physical makeup. But if free will does exist—independent of genetics and life experience, and not fatally curtailed by the basic tactics adults use to prepare children for the world ahead of them—then yes, I think Shigaraki has as much or nearly as much free will as anyone, and AFO's claims to the contrary are just him being self-serving and inflating his own influence.

Thanks for the ask!

#bnha #shigaraki tomura #bnha afo #no. 2 green #todotalk #bnha endgame #stillness answers

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myslutwritings · 1 year ago

Note

could you do headcanons of how muzan, kokushibo, and enmu would act when jealous? Tysm in advance if you do end up taking my request :))

yes! i like this idea. and ur welcome:))

➤ How Muzan, Kokushibo and Enmu act when they get jealous!

➤ Sfw headcanons (not proof read)

including: Muzan, Kokushibo, Enmu.

•

warnings: none.

Muzan

Jealousy scale: 10/10.

I lied, it’s 10000000000/10

Come on, don’t be surprised.

You belong to him, no one else.

On top of burning jealousy this man is POSSESSIVE too.

Now, you have QUITE the ✨looks✨

So the chances of a man or a woman approaching you, attempting to initiate small talk or simply flirt are high.

And that right there of course makes Muzan uncomfortable. Absolutely hates it when anyone approaches you but he knows he can’t cause a scene like that knowing you’d be against it.

You can tell because he shoots that person the DEATH stare, wraps his arm protectively around your waist and just stares down at said person hitting you up.

Has the undying urge to murder them, literally has to physically restrain himself from punching their head off.

One day.. ONE DAY, he’ll give into his intrusive thoughts though the next time someone dares to flirt with him.

You’re a loyal S/O so you obviously reject them.

This deeply satisfies Muzan.

Like hell yeah, reject that worthless piece of scum!

The last thing the person sees is him cracking a sinister smile at them.

What you don’t know is that when you’re asleep he actually tracks them, hunts them down, and kills them.

Muzan can’t really help himself. These are his instincts, demon nature, ya know?

Kokushibo

His jealousy scale is similar to Muzans.

I mean, come on, this man become a demon because of his jealousy.

So yeah, he is a jealousy prick.

He’s more jealous than possessive though.

He knows his S/O has a charming and attractive personality with the looks that kill.

Kokushibo isn’t a big fan of going out to public places. But you can’t really blame him, his demonic form is clearly visible. Six eyed freak.

So, other humans aren’t usually flirting with you, in the beginning, he initially thought this was a problem he wouldn’t ever have to worry about considering he’s always around you, plus you never go out that much.

However, on those days you do go out, leaving your boyfriend behind for a few hours. You return back to y’all’s home later that night to inform him about the stranger that flirted with you.

Of course, he gets jealous, no surprises here.

You notice a rapid change in his body language.

It’s quite difficult to wrap your finger around what’s going on through that head of his.

Kokushibo rarely expresses his emotions after all.

He must remain menacing and put on that whole “emotionless” act.

If you assumed he only became jealous.. well, you thought wrong. I like to think Kokushibo would also feel insecure:(

Refuses to admit it, but you love him so you can tell right away that he’s feeling both insecure and jealous.

Koku knows you love and care for him greatly but there is always a dark thought looming in the back of his head, telling himself that you secretly don’t love him and are going to abandon him for someone else.

He lowkey thinks that he isn’t good enough for your love and affection.

He’s so complicated because he doesn’t express it. Instead he handles this jealousy and anger by killing whoever tried to take you from him.

Kokushibo is aware you’re against it but he couldn’t care less. He cannot risk losing you.

Another problem he suffers from is whenever you attend the uppermoon meetings.

So, in this situation, let’s say you’re a demon.

Higher ranked or lower, you still attend those meetings with him.

No one usually bothers you two APART FROM DOUMA.

Bro will not hesitate to rizz you up right in front of kokushibo.

“Woah! Hey, there, Y/N-chan. You look quite beautiful today!~”

Douma you fucked up BIG time.

Gets decapitated for staring at you 😍😍

Not only Douma receives the message but so does every uppermoon.

Enmu

The picture i used above is his facial expression whenever he catches someone that isn’t him tryna hit on you.

Okay, so out of all the other demons, Enmu is the least jealous but he still gets jealous if you catch my drift.

Jealousy scale?? maybe a solid 8/10 or 7/10??

Mostly becomes jealous when other demons flirt with you. Not really humans because he can easily just kill them!!

Feels VERY threatened when a higher ranking demon flirts with you.

I mean, he has the urge to fight them because you belong to him but he knows he’ll get his ass kicked.

If it was a lower demon flirting with you then Enmu would kill them. No questions asked.

Is ALWAYS touching you.

Touches you even more when someone flirts with you.

Like he either has his arm wrapped around your waist or he’s holding your hand TIGHTLY.

Just wears a fake smile when some demon or human is being a little too friendly towards you.

Enmu is reluctant when it comes to even letting you out by yourself. he’s lowkey paranoid someone will try to steal you from him so he’s always attached to your hip.

During the times he isn’t present he will find out if anyone ever upset you, talked to you, flirted with you, etc.

Even if you don’t tell him, he’ll find out and downright TORTURE them if they’re a human.

Honestly, it really depends on how he’s feeling.

His jealousy scale changes on how he is feeling.

If he’s in a rather good mood that day then he’ll leave it be if you ask nicely.

But be wary of the days he’s in a bad mood. Enmu will show zero mercy.

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alexendria-rose · 4 months ago

Note

I loved Stephen's last one, I kept thinking, what would happen if Y/N was tougher and more powerful. She would be an experienced witch like Agatha, but she would be more bitter and sarcastic. She would be like the badass witch who helps Kamar-Taj and everyone is afraid of her, she and Stephen never really got along, but they are "friends". I agree with the previous request, we all love Wong. America was afraid of Y/N because she was a witch, she looks at Stephen and says "your wife scares me" , cuz they are married in every universe , so no Cristine, the love of his life would be the one he "hated" the most. Their song would be Endgame by Taylor, because Y/N is a woman of reputation lol.

I'm brazilian, so if that If it's not understandable, it's Google translate fault.

💖

A/n- OMFG LOVE THIS. No I completely understood! I hope you like what I have my love! 💜

I’m Your Endgame~

Stephen Strange X Reader

Warnings: cussing if you don't like that- honestly thats a warning for all of them lol. and also some witch stuff but- I mean if you watch marvel you fine lol

༺═────────────═༻

Y/n sat at the Sanctum library a book in her hand as she glared up at the other students/sorcerers keeping their distance from the witch. The girl who never uttered a word, the girl who was much more powerful than anyone else around- and that scared all of them. The fact they could easily be in her eye-line and could easily use her powers on them without an hesitation. One of the students walks up to her slightly shaking from her presence.

“U-Um miss-“

“Y/n.” She states looking up at the male student watching his hands shake, the sweat forming on his forehead.

“D-Doctor strange wants to see you in the office.” He stutters before scurrying away from the girl. She rolled her eyes using her red magic powers to put the book back into its place. The students watching it all at the way she didn’t even need to pay attention. She stands up pulling the black hood over her head before using her own magic to open up a portal to the sanctum; walking through the red portal spotting a certain sorcerer at his desk looking over some spells.

“What took you so long.” He grunted while looking up at the woman in front of him. She slowly pulled down her hood staring at him.

“Stupid students- maybe blame them Strange.” She mumbled making her way closer to the desk before sitting herself down on the edge of the desk looking at him with a monotone expression.

“You really do just make yourself at home, don’t you?” He grumbled organizing the papers and books in front of him so she didn’t dare crumble them.

“Have to- with this mess you call home.” She muttered a sharp glare towards his way. “Why did you need me anyhow.” Stephen sighed rubbing his face with his hands.

“After Wanda’s death. I did some research about Westview.” He walked his way around the front of the desk to face her his arms crossed. “Came across a woman named Agatha Harkness, found out she was in a witches coven. Was wondering if you knew of her.” Y/n scrunched her eyebrows looking at the man.

“So you assume I know any witches because I am one?” She scoffed jumping off the desk. Stephen groaned rubbing his face with his hands. “But yes I do know Agatha.” Stephen huffs at her attitude rolling his eyes as well.

“You could’ve just started with that.” He groaned at the witch in front of him. She just smirked leaning against the desk as she looked at him. “Apparently though- Wanda put a curse over here. She can’t use her powers and she is appearing as someone other than Agatha. We’re keeping an eye on her.”

“Oh what shit show did she get into with Wanda to have her powers strip from her.” Y/n laughed softy using her hands to play with her magic. “She probably deserved it knowing her; she was always jealous of my powers.” Stephen quirks an eyebrow at the woman.

“How did you know her anyhow?” He mutters watching the way she played with magic so flawlessly.

“She taught me how to control my powers; found out she mostly just wanted me to strengthen it so she could take it for herself.” She groaned lightly her eyes focusing on the magic. “Guess you could say at one point we were friends.” Stephen watches the woman in front of him, taking in her dark expression, she was always so closed off. It irritated him more than anything; he couldn’t read the witch in front of him. She knew that everyone was scared of her in Kamar-Taj knowing if they ever made her bad side she would absolutely destroy them with one click of her fingers. Maybe that’s why he didn’t exactly like her.

“Didn’t know you had friends.” He replies moving his way back towards the desk his cloak trying to move him back for some irritating reason- he mutters a quick stop it to the cloak.

“I don’t do friends that’s why.” She pulls her hood up covering her face once again. “Just like I don’t have anyone close to me. I have one mission only to protect kamar-taj for Wong, I owe him.” She muttered before disappearing into her portal back to the library. Stephen watched as she disappeared suddenly missing her presence but quickly pushing that thought back down. She was mysterious and powerful, she never bothered to do small talk- she would simply just walk away, she was right she was only here to protect Kamar-Taj not to make friends- so why did it hurt when she said she didn’t have friends.

༺═────────────═༻

Y/n walked through Kamar-Taj keeping her hood slightly up as she watched the young students learning to be a sorcerer. She noticed a girl barely being able to make a spark and Stephen next to her instructing her. Ah- that was the girl who could travel through multiverses. Y/n walks up to the pair pulling her hood down.

“You have to be calm and stop overthinking.” She stated to the teenager, the girl snapping her head quickly. Stephen rolls his eyes.

“America this is-“

“Y/n.” America mutters moving her hands down slowly as she stared at the powerful woman. Y/n chuckles lightly smacking her lips together.

“So America isn’t it? How do you know me?” Y/n said in low tone crossing her arms as she stared at her-Americas face filled with surprise, before looking at Stephen.

“Your wife scares me…” America hummed lowly, Stephen’s eyes widen at her comment.

“Wife what are you talking about!” Stephen grunted crossing his arms as well as he glared daggers towards America but also showing a hint of disgust but also sort of flutter hit his chest at the idea. Y/n face scrunched up at her words shaking her head before laughing.

“Oh god, wife?” Y/n snorted. “Have fun with her Stephen. I’ll keep an eye on you America.” She muttered turning away from the pair. Stephen continues to look at America his arms crossed like he was a pissed off dad. America bites her lip looking up at Stephen.

“You’re telling me- you aren’t married yet?” America giggled lightly looking at the blush that raised to Stephen’s cheeks.

“What do you mean “married yet?”” Stephen uttered trying to contain the fluttering in his stupid chest but it didn’t help that his cloak was basically rubbing his cheeks to make fun of it-Stephen smacks his cloak away muttering another stop it.

“You and her are together in every universe I’ve met a Stephen strange. I mean it makes sense- she has always scared me though.” America laughs trying not to snort at his expression that turned to be full on flushed. “Christine was never the one for you- every universe you guys don’t end up working but that witch was always the one to fascinate you.” Stephen brushed his go-tee with his hand as he thought about what she said- but also he thought about when he went into the multiverse with America and how the conversation with his other self made much more sense.

༺═────────────═༻

“Are you happy Stephen?" Sinister Strange snarled. "That's what Christine told us." Stephen hitched a breath looking at Sinister Strange looking out the window catching a glimpse of other Christine. Sinister Strange laughed wickedly. " I said of course I'm happy- I lost the love of my life what I thought anyhow." Stephen tilts his head towards him.

"I just need the Darkhold please." Stephen hesitated bringing his hand out indicating him to give him the book.

"You don't realize what you have do you?" Sinister Strange taunted walking towards Stephen slowly as he crossed his arms. "Still obsessed with Christine not realizing what you have right in front of you? The one thing we thought irritated us the most- might say a witch?" He smirks, Stephen scrunched his eyebrows in a confused manner. "Oh god you still don't realize huh? Well how about this- you and I swap universe so I can have the one person I lost."

"Yeah how about no." Stephen grunted-

༺═────────────═༻

Y/n sat on the bench late at night looking up at the stars as she idly played with the magic in her hands- she often wondered if what she had was a curse on her; or it if was the help the common good. She didn't like that people were afraid of her but it easier then keeping people close- after killing her parents at such a young age, she promised herself to not let people see the real her. To keep herself guarded from that fact, so she rather then be feared then let herself open up so easily. The only person she even considered to open up was with Stephen- even though he irritated her and got under her skin she often wondered why; she never let anyone get under her skin- mostly she was still deep in thought about what America had said; it rattled her core for some unknown reason.

"What are you doing out here this late?" She heard a deep voice say in calm tone. She put her hood down letting her hair flow down and her deep e/c eyes look towards the voice- none other then the devil himself, Stephen Strange. Y/n sighs softly moving her eyes back to the stars that littered the sky wondering if anyone would ever find out how many stars are actually up in the sky. "Deep in thought I presume?" He sits himself down on the bench next to her his blue robe swishing around as he does. She looks at him a small smirk on her face.

"I guess you could say that." She muttered softly her eyes landing back on his- her stomach fluttering just a bit; realizing this she looks away from those stupid cheekbones.

"This is a perfect spot for that." He smirk his eyes wandering towards her.

"It's just so beautiful- the only thing that will ever make sense to me." She whispered under her breath. Stephen continue to look at her through his lashes- his breath hitching at the sight of her; it was like ever since America said what she did his eyes opened up and he cursed himself for not noticing it until now. She was so strong, so independent, the wind blew her hair like it was meant for her, the way her eyes gleamed at the sight of stars and the small smile that placed on her face- like shes never felt so much peace until now.

"I agree." He muttered as he continue to stare at her his heart racing thinking of her being the only thing to make sense to him- her beauty couldn't even be compared to the stars because right now all he could look at was her. She glanced at him seeing him stare at her made her body shiver at his intense stare.

"What?" She asked in a soft tone, her facial features contorted in confusion as he continue to stare at her, but a small smile still placed on her face.

"You know I don't think I've even seen you smile." He whispered softly his hand slightly grazing against hers subconsciously, her breath hitching at the contact but trying not show it.

"That's because people are scared of me and never talk to me." She mumbled keeping her eyes locked onto his. "Why do you anyhow?" She added tilting her head to the side as she continued to stare at those piercing blue eyes.

"That's because you have something beautiful inside of you. It's hard for some people to tell, but it is there- because I see it." He muttered his face moving closer to hers, her heart thumped against her chest her eyes flicking towards his lips back to his eyes, before finally his soft lips were against hers and she swore she felt something she never had before. He moved his lips against hers in sync, her hand instantly moving to his cheek, this was her fist kiss, this was the first time this has ever happened to her. He pulls back from the kiss a small smirk on his face, she blushed a deep red her eyes piercing into his.

"What was that?" She mumbled, he chuckled deeply watching the way her face was flustered but blank making sure not to show how affected she was.

"A kiss." He joked around, she groaned punching his arm lightly.

"I know! Do it again." She grumbled, he chuckled before cupping her cheeks smashing his lips against hers- making sure he was never going to let this beautiful powerful witch slip through his fingers.

༺═────────────═༻

A/n- Here is my Masterlist! Come check it out and please please if there anything you want me to do, private message me or press that request button!

(Masterlist)

#x reader #fanfiction #oneshot #benedict cumberbatch #benedict cumberbatch x reader #doctor strange #sherlock holmes.#doctor stephen strange x reader #doctor strange x reader #stephen strange x reader #stephen strange #marvel x reader #marvel

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