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man-i-love-fanfiction · 1 month ago

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Double Babysitter - Hozier x fem! reader

Summary: You and Andrew end up with the tough task of babysitting your friend's child together.

Word Count: 6,325

Author’s Note: hi hi hi!!!! this is my first real fanfic, i’ve written little things here or there but this is the only full fic i’ve written. shoutout to the wonderful @deprivedmusicaljunkie for beta reading this, im so grateful for u! this is based on the Bluey episode Double Babysitter, it's not required watching but if you want to watch it to understand the fic better you can. i hope you enjoy!!!

ALSO: I do not know Hozier in real life, nor do i claim to. This is a fictionalized (ish) version of him. All other characters featured are fictional. Now, enjoy!

fic under the cut <3

Andrew was always vaguely aware of the fact that he was getting older. He had spotted the occasional gray patch in his stubble, noticed a faint wrinkle somewhere on his face. He even felt his back ache every now and again, but he had always brushed it off.

It wasn't until he had been asked by an old friend from college to babysit his daughter that he can say he actually felt old.

Of course, he wasn't complaining. He had met the young girl only a few times, but to say she held a special place in his heart would be an understatement. He had just finished up the last leg of his tour, so he had all the time in the world back at home. And he did owe Liam and Quinn, her parents, a favor. They deserved to have a night out just the two of them; watching their daughter was the least he could do.

He took this responsibility very seriously. He was even on time, arriving at 6pm on the dot, as instructed (given, it was only because he told himself he had to be there at 5:30).

He walked up to their doorstep, gave their door a few light knocks, and stepped back. It took a moment, but he could hear his friend’s voice call for Quinn through the door before watching it unlock. Liam opened the door with a puzzled expression that had Andrew wondering if he somehow showed up on the wrong day.

“Andrew, you're here… on time? Are you feeling okay?”

“Ha ha, very funny.” He replied sarcastically, accompanied by an eye roll. They greeted each other, Liam widened the door, and Andrew stepped inside.

“Honey, the babysitter’s here!” Liam shouted up the staircase. Quinn quickly emerged with open arms and gave Andrew a quick squeeze once she reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Andrew! It's great to see you. How long has it been?” She asked.

“About… six months, I’d say. The week before I left for the States.”

“That's much too long. We need to actually go out sometime soon.”

They spent a few minutes standing around and catching up, swapping stories about their jobs (including a concert story or two). It gave Andrew a moment to appreciate these smaller, mundane moments that seemed to slowly be becoming a rarity. He was mid-sentence when he was caught off guard by the pitter-patter of small footsteps rushing towards him.

“Uncle Andy!” He glanced down, finding a little girl already latched on to his leg; Katie, the reason he’d been asked to babysit. He reached down to pat her head, ruffling the little one’s hair.

“Hey there, lass! How are you?”

A muffled noise that sounded something like ‘I’m good’ came from the girl as she buried her face in his leg.

His sentence was cut off at the sound of another knock at the door.

“That's odd. I don't think I’m expecting anyone-” Quinn started, interrupted by Liam opening the door to find you standing on their front step. You didn’t even notice the surprised looks on everyone’s faces as you entered, blindsided by your excitement.

“Hey,” you said, giving Liam a side hug before moving on to Quinn and doing the same. Katie let go of Andrew’s leg and rushed over to you, joyfully screaming your name. A wide grin grew on your face at the sight of her, and Andrew couldn’t help but notice how beautiful your smile was. He immediately snapped himself out of it once he realized he had no idea who you were, let alone what you were even doing here.

“Hi, Katie Cat!” you exclaimed. He watched as you pulled her into an embrace, not noticing his presence until you pulled away. You looked up at him, your gaze meeting his, smile fading in awe.

“Y/N, this is my Uncle Andy,” Katie explained as she held on to your hand, quickly dragging you towards him until there was maybe a foot between you two before pointing upwards. A thought flashed across Andrew’s mind: Is this five-year-old playing matchmaker?

“Hi.”

“Have you met my friend Andrew before?” Liam asked.

“You do seem familiar. Didn’t you get drunk and sing Take Me To Church at the wedding?”

“Probably.”

“Oh my god, Y/N, I am so sorry. I think I double-booked myself and accidentally asked both of you to watch Katie,” Quinn admitted. “Again, so sorry. My head’s been all over the place today.”

“It’s alright. He got here first. I’ll just go, then. Leave you to it,” you decided, admittedly a little disappointed but understanding the whole scenario. You took a step back, turning to go before a small hand grabbed yours, stopping you in your tracks.

“Don't go! You can both stay.” Katie begged, puppy dog eyes in full effect. It's like she knew exactly how to tug on your heartstrings, because after that you were willing to stay for as long as she wanted. But you still needed permission.

“I mean, as long as it's okay with… Uncle Andy.”

Andrew gave you a nod, perhaps a bit too quickly. He couldn't tell if it was because he already knew he was going to need help with this, or because he simply wanted to be in your company. Either way, both were true.

“Two babysitters it is.” He conceded.

“Hooray!” She yelled, latching herself onto your leg as she had done to Andrew's just moments before. You looked down at her, a warm smile returning to your face, before looking back up at him. All three of you could tell this was going to be… an interesting night, to say the least.

Before they left, Liam and Quinn had given you two very lenient instructions. All you had to do was put Katie to bed by 8:30 and watch the house until they got home around 10. Everything else was fair game. Easy enough of a job for two grown adults. However, the way that your night started at their kitchen table made you wonder if perhaps their rules were too permissive.

You were sat across from each other, you and Andrew on the same side, Katie on the other. It oddly felt like you were being interrogated by this small child. Which, after offering a game of 20 questions so you could get to know each other better, wasn't exactly far off from reality.

“Why do I feel like she's going to ask me why I was at the scene of the crime?” he asked you in a whisper, leaning towards you. Andrew swore he could feel his heart skip a beat as you chuckled at his remark, and he was relieved as you revealed you felt the same.

“The real question is, is she Good Cop or Bad Cop?” You replied in the same hushed tone.

“Oh, bad cop. I’ve done this with her before, and when she wants to know something she’ll badger you until she gets an answer.”

“Perfect. She can be my lawyer in about twenty years.”

That elicited a laugh out of Andrew, a small chuckle that caught Katie’s attention.

“What's funny?” She asked, genuinely feeling like she missed out on your conversation.

“It's nothing.” You changed the subject to convince her it was inconsequential. “Why don't we get started? Ask us anything,” you instructed, regretting the words as soon as they left your mouth, mostly because of the next words that came out of Katie’s.

“Why don't you have a wife?” She turned to Andrew, whose mouth was now agape. Your own eyes had widened, shocked by the boldness of her first question before remembering she is a little girl that hadn't yet developed a filter.

“You haven't seen me in a while. How do you know I don't?” He retorted, a lazy attempt at deflecting the question.

“Do you have a wife?”

“Well, no…”

“Then why don't you have a wife?”

“Ehm… I think it's her turn.” He tilted his head in your direction. Katie agreed with a nod and thought for a beat. Once she formulated her question, her attention turned to you.

"How many friends do you have?”

“God, I don't know… four? Five?”

“That's not a lot. Why do you only have five friends?”

“Good question… back to him!”

Katie turned.

“How come I don’t see you often?”

“Because usually I’m on tour.”

“Is that why you don’t have a wife?”

“Huh. Maybe.”

“Do you want to get married?”

“Yes,” you both said. You exchanged a glance, surprised you both had the same answer. The girl across the table was oblivious to this small moment you shared, and immediately went back to her questioning.

“Will Tommy be the husband?” Katie leaned across the table, an excited gleam in her eye.

Tommy. Your ex. Last time Katie had seen you, you two were in love, almost madly. However, a lot can happen in four months, and you found yourself having to explain a breakup (a particularly messy one, at that) to this naive girl. You let out a sigh.

“No. Me and Thomas… we aren't really friends anymore”

“But you said he was your true love.”

“Not anymore! Next question. Please.”

“True love is forever. Is true love not forever?”

“It is! It is.”

“Then how come you and Tommy aren't friends?”

“Well, Tommy — Thomas,” you corrected yourself before continuing, your words stunted, “and I weren't as good together as we thought. It took longer than it should've to realize, but we couldn't work. Kind of like when you’re doing a puzzle, and it looks like two pieces fit, but when you try to put them together, they don't.”

It was like you could watch the gears turn in Katie’s little head; she was trying as hard as she could to imagine your comparison. Meanwhile, Andrew was watching you as you thought, mentally praising you for not only putting into words something obviously painful for you, but explaining in terms a kid could understand. Despite the supposed ‘way with words’ he had, he knew it would take him several tries and multiple rough drafts to do the same. He let you continue, his eyes never leaving your face.

“It’s just sometimes, you think someone is your true love, when actually they’re not. Sometimes some things aren't meant to be. And that’s okay. No matter how sad it makes the both of you afterwards, or how upset you get…”

Your sentence trailed off, your throat closing up with that all-too-familiar feeling you recognized immediately. All of this had happened months ago; the breakup between you and Thomas had devastated you of course, but you had recovered. But having to explain the complicated events between you two in such a straightforward way, to put all the emotions you felt into simple terms, made it all seem real. And it only made those feelings resurface.

Andrew could tell something was off. He, of course, had no idea about this past relationship, and frankly, it was none of his business. What was his business, however, was how you looked like you were about to cry, how he could see the tears in your eyes welling up. He wasn't about to let you shed a tear over this. So, he attempted a diversion.

“Alright, I think we're done playing 20 questions. How about a movie?” He stood up, a feigned smile on his face. Your eyes lit up at his suggestion and you stood up after him, following suit.

“You know what? Good idea. Katie, why don’t you go find something to watch with Andrew and I’ll make popcorn, get some snacks ready?”

For a moment you worried she wouldn’t comply and more innocently personal questions would be coming your way. However, Katie didn't seem to mind this interjection, immediately agreeing and hurrying over to the living room to find the TV remote.

You both watched as she scurried away before looking back at each other eyes meeting for the first time that night. A few seconds were spent just staring into his eyes, noticing how very green they were. This captivation distracted you from the awkward silence that filled the air between you. You broke eye contact first, stepping around your chair and pushing it in. You walked into the kitchen, the footsteps you heard behind you letting you know he followed you. You didn't speak until you knew Katie would be out of earshot.

“Thank you,” you said sincerely.

“No problem. I completely get it.”

“Jesus, my first babysitting gig and I almost cried. At this rate, I’ll have to go back to selling lemonade to make ends meet.”

He let out a laugh, and the sight of it made a smile tug at the corner of your lips, though you couldn't shake the feeling you looked a bit… pathetic.

“ You probably think I’m a loser, huh?”

“No! No, absolutely not. Love, breakups, endings … dealing with that stuff isn't easy. If I thought it was, I wouldn't write songs on the matter for a living. Having to explain it to a kid without crushing her dreams is even harder. If anything, I commend you for it.”

For a reason you couldn't immediately explain, his praise actually managed lighten your mood, to the point where you had to suppress the urge to grin from ear to ear.

“What is it?” Andrew asked, as if to tell you your smile hadn't gone unnoticed.

“That was… just really nice of you to say.”

“I mean, it's true.”

The room filled with silence for a moment before you broke it.

“Do you think we could just forget that the whole thing ever happened and get on with the night?”

“Absolutely. It's forgotten,” he agreed, borderline erasing it from his memory as soon as you asked. His attention shifted as he yelled into the other room.

“Katie, have you ever seen The Princess Bride?”

Andrew went off into the living room, following Katie, and a smile grew on your face as you looked through the pantry for microwave popcorn.

It took a solid ten minutes of searching due to the plethora of streaming services Liam and Quinn had, but you finally found The Princess Bride. Katie brought down some blankets from her room in the meantime. Given, because they came from a six-year-old’s bedroom, they were patterned with Disney characters and unicorns, but they were comfortable all the same. You sat on opposite sides of the couch, a bowl of popcorn equidistant between the both of you, and for a reason only her little brain could rationalize, Katie was sitting on the floor.

You looked at the screen in awe like it was your first time watching, when in actuality you’d seen the movie more times than you could count. You mouthed the words of the most famous lines, almost subconsciously, as to not disturb the little one’s first viewing experience. Of course, you also snuck a few glances at Andrew when the screen held less of your attention. Okay, maybe more than a few glances. It was the first time that night you both could actually relax, and you took the moment to size him up. His hair, which was up in a man-bun at the beginning of the night, had since been let down, brown curls now loosely framing his face. He wore a white sweatshirt and black jeans. On his feet were white Converse that were clearly well-loved, to say the least. Despite how casual it all was, he really pulled it off. It almost made you wish you could raid his closet, see what other unexpectedly stylish clothes he had in his possession, maybe steal a sweater on the way out.

Oddly enough, it felt natural, being this comfortable on opposite sides of the couch with a man that might as well be a stranger. It’s almost like you wouldn’t mind if this was your house, your television, your kid-

You were snapped out of your thoughts by the clapping you heard from Katie’s spot on the floor as the credits rolled.

“So what did you think?” Andrew asked. Katie’s gaze broke from the screen to look at him.

“I wanna watch it again!”

“You can watch it again another time with mum and dad.”

“I want to watch it now!”

“Katie, the movie’s over, and it's 8 at night. Get upstairs, put on your pajamas, and brush your teeth.” He scolded as he got up from his spot on the couch. He bent down, resting his hands on his knees.

“I said I wanna watch it again!”

“It's getting late, you have to get ready for-”

“Again! Again! Again!” She stomped. You knew she was bound to have a tantrum any second now. Something that, judging by the concerned on his face, Andrew had no idea how to handle. It seemed like it was your turn to come to the rescue.

You got up from your seat, walking over to Andrew to stand by his side (figuratively and literally).

“Could you help me out here?” He asked, his frustration with her slowly growing.

“Watch and learn.”

You turned to Katie and crouched down to be on her level.

“Do you want to play a game?”

She didn't give a verbal answer, but based on her frown immediately disappearing and her head nodding so rapidly you thought it might fall off, you could assume what she would say. You thought for a moment before continuing.

“All you have to do to play is go upstairs and do everything you would usually do right before you go to bed. I’m going to set a timer, and if you’ve done everything and you're in bed before the timer, you win. Got the rules?”

“Yep!” She squeaked, her excitement evident.

“Alright. Ready… set… go!”

She quickly ran out of the living room and up the stairs, leaving the two of you left stunned for a moment. You both got up from your crouching, and you craned your neck upward to be met with, to your surprise, a look of amazement from Andrew.

“I swear, you must be magic.”

You deflected his praise almost immediately.

“Please, I’m not even close to being magic. I just know that kids will do anything if you turn it into a game.”

“Which is a level of sorcery that I can only wish to achieve!”

“If we end up babysitting again, you can always become my apprentice.”

“Offering a second date already?”

You knew he was teasing, but the romantic suggestion was enough to make your heart pound in your chest. You responded the only way you knew how.

“Shut up…”

You bantered and talked, taking advantage of the very little time you had to try and get to know each other (past the deep secrets you already knew from Katie’s questions). Your conversation immediately felt as if you knew each other for years, not hours. There was almost a click to it; the back and forth between the two of you happened easily, naturally. But, like all things, it couldn't last forever. After about ten minutes, a small voice yelled from up the stairs:

“I’m done!”

“We’ve been summoned.” Andrew stated.

He started walking towards the staircase, and nodded his head to tell you to come along. You caught up to him with no hesitation.

Andrew opened the door to Katie’s room and took a look around. It was as messy as one expects a five-year-old’s bedroom to be. Toys, anything from fake jewelry to Barbies, were scattered across the floor. Her drawings, mostly scribbles of rainbows and cartoons and her family, hung on her wall. Stuffed animals and fuzzy blankets were contained in a chest in the foot of her bed. After a moment, he held the door wider, giving you room to walk inside. You thanked him and walked over to the side of Katies bed. A bit unsure of what to do, Andrew stood behind you as you talked to Katie.

It was as messy as one expects a five-year-old’s bedroom to be. Toys, anything from fake jewelry

“Hey, you tricked me!”

“Yeah, I did. But now that you're all ready for bed and tucked in, aren't you tired?”

“I guess,” she started, a yawn interrupting her thought, “I am.”

“Then it's time for you to go to bed. Good night Katie Cat.”

You leaned in to place a kiss on her forehead before Katie let out a yelp.

“Wait! I can’t go to bed yet. I need a story.” She whined. “Mum and dad tell me a story every night before bed. I can't sleep without it.”

“What do you want it to be about?”

“Can it be about a princess? Like the movie?”

“Sure. Well, there was-”

“It needs to start with ‘once upon a time’.”

“Does it really have to?”

“Yes.”

“Alright then,” you conceded, knowing as much as you wanted to protest, she wouldn't let it go.“Once upon a time, there was a princess… that was trapped in a tower… guarded by a dragon.”

“Wow, that’s never been done before,” you heard him whisper behind you. You looked over your shoulder and shot him a small look of disapproval.

“Well, to her it's original. Just go with it,” you chided before continuing.

“As I was saying, there was a princess trapped in a tower. And there was a prince,” you turned behind you again, mouthing ‘that's you’ to the man behind you, “that was trying to rescue her.”

“Can I be the dragon?” Katie asked eagerly.

“Whatever you want, dear.” You replied, giving her approval. Katie let out a roar and, shockingly, Andrew got into character, already miming holding a sword and shield.

“Hello, Ms. Dragon. Listen, I have to slay you. I’m not happy about it either. It's the only way to save the princess.”

He gave you a quick glance, one you would've missed if you had blinked in the wrong moment. He returned his focus to ‘the dragon’.

“I usually am a pacifist, so I truly hate to do this, but I must…”

He faked a lunge towards her and began to tickle her, making both of them double over in laughter. You attempted to engrave the memory into your mind in fear that you would never experience a moment as heartwarming as this one again. He gave up after thirty seconds, standing up again.

“And just like that, the dragon was defeated!” You announced.

“Now the princess needs to marry the prince!” Katie yelled, almost commanded.

“What?” Andrew asked, more confused than opposed. Katie only gave him a disapproving look, which was enough to make him comply.

He knelt down on one knee and scoured the ground for something that had caught his eye before: a toy ring. He snatched it off her messy floor and held it towards you in an extended hand.

“Princess, I have rescued you from the dragon. Now, should you say yes, I would like to have you as my wife.”

This wasn't necessarily the most romantic moment of your life, but for some reason, it definitely made the list. A fact that was a bit pitiful, sure, but still very true. Which was exactly why you- technically, the princess- needed to take the story in an alternate direction. It was a personal way to protect your ego.

“And the princess said… no thanks.” Surely that would save your self-esteem from his imaginary judgment. To your surprise, it did the opposite. His brows furrowed in confusion, and his smile dropped.

“What? Why wouldn't the princess want to marry the prince?” He asked, trying to give you a look as if to tell you to just go with it. You, of course, got the message, but decided to lean more into your own narrative.

“She didn’t like the look of him.” Lie. But one that kept the girl entertained, her laughs growing louder.

“Why not?” Andrew couldn’t help but feel just a little offended, even though he knew everything you were saying was intended lightheartedly, the real purpose being to entertain the girl.

“Well, he was a bit lanky, for starts.”

“That’s not exactly something the prince can control. You have to cut him some slack there.”

“And his hair was better than hers! It was beautiful. All long and curly and fluffy. The princess simply wasn’t having it.”

“Wait, you think my hair is-.”

“And to top it all off, he was tall! Very tall. She’d have to go on her tiptoes just to kiss him, which, honestly Katie, gets very inconvenient.”

Andrew was about to counter, the words on the tip of his tongue, but stopped himself upon hearing the fits of giggles escaping Katie. He decided to let the moment be, taking in both your and Katie’s smiles from this new perspective.

You turned, your face showing your feigned contemplation. For a brief moment, you enjoyed the fact this might be the only time you'll be taller than him. A sigh escaped your lips and your eyes rolled, but you couldn't hide the smile on your face.

“I guess the princess could try and give the prince a chance.”

He looked back up at you, giving you a sheepish grin.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He took your hand and carefully placed the ring on your finger, as gentle as he would be if it was made of diamond and not plastic. His calloused fingers wrapped around your hand, undoubtedly hardened by all the guitar he’d played over the years. The feeling of his hands on yours, him looking up at you, the way his eyes were staring into yours with such admiration, it all almost felt like a real proposal. Not one that came after slaying a dragon, but after years of knowing and loving each other. One that came before celebratory kisses and preparing for a wedding. One that made your heart stir and your mind wander, only stopped when you heard him mutter something.

“You kinda have to finish the story.”

Right. The story. His words snapped you out of your deep thought, and you blinked a few times as you focused back on reality and not what you’d made up in your head about the man you'd only known for about two hours. The gorgeous, tall, kind, funny man you had only known for two hours. You cleared your throat.

“So, the princess finally said yes to him. And then they got married and they all lived happily ever after!”

You took a bow, as if you had just finished up a broadway worthy performance. Andrew, however, stayed in his spot on the floor still kneeling, something you only noticed when you looked up to smile at him to find empty space where you expected his head to be. You looked down at him and whispered.

“You can get up now, you know.”

“Oh. Right.”

He got up and did his own small bow before making an announcement.

“Alright, story’s over. Time to go to sleep.”

Though she had enjoyed it, by the end of your story (performance?) Katie's eyes were already drooping, so she had no more hostility towards going to bed. You walked over and stood on the left side of her bed, Andrew on the right.

“Goodnight, Katie-Cat. Sweet dreams.” You said softly before placing a small kiss on her forehead. He quickly did the same, placing a kiss on her forehead as well.

“Goodnight, Katie. Sleep well.”

He paused for a moment before adding on something you hadn't expected.

“I love you.”

As if your heart couldn't melt any more.

“Love you too, Uncle Andy.” She mumbled before making herself comfortable, snuggling up under her blanket; it was almost a signal for you to leave the room. You both obeyed, walking towards her door frame. You flipped the light switch, leaving the room in darkness, and closed her door behind you both.

You hated to admit it, but a smile grew on both of your faces.

Unsure of how to celebrate (a handshake was too formal, a high-five was too loud), after an awkward rotation of gestures, you settled on a fist bump.

Does fist-bumping a man ten minutes after calling his hair beautiful count as mixed signals?

“We did it!” You whisper-shouted after your small celebration. Andrew's tone mirrored yours as he spoke.

“Jesus, is this what being a parent feels like?”

“I hope not. No offense to you, but I’m miserable.”

“Oh no, the pounding headache’s got to you too?”

“That and the back pain from all the crouching over.”

“At times I could feel my hair turning gray.”

“What I’m hearing is that you could also go for a cup of tea right about now.”

“That's exactly correct. However, this isn't our house, which means it's not our place to make tea.”

“It can be if you give me two minutes.”

You shot Quinn a quick text to ask.

hey. is it alright if me and andrew make some tea? I know you said we could do whatever but i feel bad if you're not home.

It took a minute, but Quinn replied.

i trust you both so much i’d let you cook a three-course meal without me home. go ahead and brew your tea.

“Well, we’ve got Quinn’s approval.”

You showed him the text, and he let out a soft chuckle, nodding. You both headed down the stairs as quickly (and quietly) as possible.

You returned to the kitchen and began to look for teabags while Andrew looked for a kettle. You didn’t dare to make a mess, so you both just closed and opened drawers until you found exactly what you needed. He filled the kettle and placed it on the stove while you made the hard decision between chamomile and earl grey; you immediately made your decision when he made a comment about chamomile being his favorite.

You leaned on opposite sides of the counter, the stove between the two of you. After a minute you fell into a silence that was comfortable, but unwanted. It was the first time that night you had the freedom of being alone now that Katie was fast asleep, yet you had no idea what to do with yourselves. Biting at your lower lip, you thought of something to say.

“Hey, we did a pretty good job being her court jesters for the night.” You finally commented. Andrew nodded his head before jokingly correcting your statement.

“More accurately, we did a good job being her prince and princess.”

“Almost made me think I should’ve pursued a career in acting.”

“You have to give some credit to your co-star here, as well.”

“Oh, absolutely. Oscar-winning performance. I appreciate you incorporating props, as well.”

“One of the greatest improv moments of my career.”

“I had no idea I was in the presence of such a legend. ” You said barely, being able to hold back your laughter. Your conversation fell back into a now-familiar rhythm. The topics started anywhere from how you knew Quinn to how much you both loved Katie, but as you went on you diverted to your favorite movies snd Andrew’s interest in classical literature. The only interruption was the whistle of the kettle, which you had almost forgotten about. Andrew took it upon himself to prepare the tea, even after you insisted that you would take over. Instead, you actually took in the kitchen, finding something unexpected on the counter.

You were both surprised that Liam and Quinn actually owned a radio.

“Do you mind if I put on some music?” He asked.

“Not at all.” You stepped to the side, giving him permission to turn the radio on.

He twisted the knob of the radio, searching for a station for a moment before stopping. He landed on a station playing jazz, turning up the volume as he recognized the tune: A Kiss To Build A Dream On by Louis Armstrong. Instinctively, he tapped his foot to the beat.

You both stood in silence, one that almost drowned out the song playing. This silence was just strong enough for you to formulate an idea. You liked this song, you were bored, and most importantly, you wanted to be close to him. So you decided to take a risk. You extended a hand in his direction.

“Care for a dance?”

It took him a moment to process your question out of shock. After a few seconds, he stuttered out his answer, his gaze shifting to your hand.

“I- No, I couldn't. I have two left feet. I’d probably be… stepping on your toes the entire time.”

You shrugged.

“Who cares? It's just us, and I’m not gonna judge you.” You reassured him, motioning for him to join you.

Andrew was quickly learning he couldn't say no to you.

He gave in, taking one of your hands in his and placing the other one on your waist. At first, you awkwardly kept your distance between each other, like two teens during a slow song at their school dance. However, you got more into a rhythm as time went on, eventually getting comfortable enough with him to rest your head on his chest, as close as you could get to his shoulder with his height. Andrew was hoping you were more focused on dancing so you couldn’t feel his heart beat out of his chest. He kept his promise of stepping on your toes, mumbling a “Sorry!” every time he did so. He wasn't as bad as he made himself out to be. He even tried to spin you by the second chorus, almost crashing you into him, but helping you regain your balance. Laughter was your only response to any of this.

Much to the dismay of you both, the song ended, and you pulled away from each other. You missed his touch, your hand buzzing from the sudden change. Another song began to play from the radio: I’m In The Mood For Love by Julie London. Christ, it was like the universe was sending you a sign. Everything else throughout the night had all led up to this.

You could barely process what was happening when Andrew placed his lips on yours.

The kiss was small and chaste, cautious in case you didn't reciprocate. It was so sudden that you forgot to kiss him back, just absorbing the moment that you had slowly been longing for more and more throughout the night. When he pulled away, all he saw was the astonishment and shock on your face. He didn't notice how your gaze was fixated on his lips, and instead frantically began to apologize.

“Shit, I misread you, didn't I? I’m so sorry, I apologize. You have every reason to be upset with me.”

His suggestion made you laugh.

“Are you kidding me? That's all I've wanted all night.”

You saw something change in his demeanor, and he let out a sigh of relief.

“It's alright if I kiss you again, then?”

“Yes! Yes. Please do.”

As soon as you gave him permission, he placed his hands on the sides of your face and pulled you close to him.

Another thing about the universe is that not only does it send signs, it tends to have impeccable timing; just as Andrew leaned in to kiss you again, you heard the front door unlock. Quinn’s voice rang through the hallway.

“Hey, I don't know if you got my text, but there wasn't that much traffic so we got home… Oh. I see we're interrupting something."

You both let go of each other, a look of guilt like you’d been caught doing something illegal. Thankfully, Quinn was no cop.

“I’m not mad or anything. Just happy you waited until Katie was asleep to start swapping spit.”

You both thanked her, ignoring a passing comment she made about how she “always did think you’d be good for each other”. You said your goodbyes, hugging Liam and Quinn with smiles and faces that were still flushed from earlier. You waved them a final goodbye and walked out onto the patio together, Andrew holding the door for you again. You were alone together again.

“So, do you think we could pick up from where we left off before?” You asked a mischievous glint in your eye.

“I thought you'd never ask.”

He finally leaned down to kiss you again, holding your face gently. This time, you reciprocated, placing your hand on the nape of his neck to keep him as close as possible. It was slow, as if both of you decided to take your time; a gentle precursor for all the kisses to come in the future. Your hands made their way into his hair, his making their way to your waist. You stay like that for what could have been forever for all that you care, but's only a minute.You both pulled away to get some air, small pants escaping your mouths. Andrew looked down at you with wonder, a smile growing on his face.

“You really are magic.” He mumbled.

“Still not magic. Just… me.” You deflected again.

“Is there a difference?” He asked rhetorically. He let out a sigh before speaking again.

“ Y/N… God, I feel like a teenager saying this, but… would you want to go on a date sometime? A proper one, with no babysitting or playing pretend. Just me and you and staring at a painting or a sunset or each other's faces.” He rambled, taking a deep breath. “Whatever you want.”

Letting out a laugh, you replied.

“I would love to.”

You gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“Good night, Andrew."

“Good night, Y/N.”

Andrew gave you one last peck on the lips before you, unfortunately, went your separate ways for the night. Walking back to your car, you also couldn’t help but feel like a teenager, but because he made you so… giddy, so willing to start something new with him. You could barely keep down the butterflies in your stomach. All of this caused by coincidence, a bit of fate, and a babysitting gig. Not how you thought the night was going to go, but perhaps the most pleasant surprise you’d ever had.

You got into your car, and tuned the radio to the same station as before. All the songs remind you of him.

You had the stupidest smile on your face the entire drive home.

#hozier #andrew hozier byrne #hozier x reader #andrew hozier byrne x reader #hozier fanfiction #hozier fanfic #writing #fanfic #writeblr #writers on tumblr

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superblysubpar · 8 months ago

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thank you so much for requesting @pastel-pillows I love writing Robin so much, and I'm also SO soft for her 💛 I hope you love this, thanks for your patience!

1439 words | my blog is 18+

“That guy’s totally going to spend all of his last paycheck getting that pink bear.”

“Who?” She shook her head, searching the crowd hard and making her forehead wrinkle.

You leaned closer to match her eye line, whispering, “There.”

Her breath hitched, and you’d like to think it was from the bump of your nose against her cheek as she followed your finger pointing down to the idiot in question. She gasped, before a burst of laughter shot out of her.

“That’s Steve!” Robin laughed harder, swiping at her eyes as the boy at the bottom of the hill in the gray jacket missed the bottles with the baseball again when a pretty girl ran her fingers through the back of his hair.

“Oh my god,” you laughed with her, leaning against each other to avoid falling over.

It had been the perfect night, if such a thing could exist.

The Indiana air wasn’t too sticky yet, the promise of a beautiful Summer making things buzz louder, shine brighter, and had the whole town out for the rinky-dink carnival.

When Robin had asked you to go with her, it was a string of jumbled and rushed thoughts spit out at you as she played with your fingers and a blush made her freckles stand out. She’d blinked up at you under fluttering eyelashes, the definition of hope and excitement and a little bit of nerves.

It had been an easy yes.

You’d spent the day changing your outfit six times, and reminding yourself that just because words like weightless, giddy, complete, were what you’d use to describe how Robin Buckley made you feel, you didn’t want to get too ahead of yourself. For all you knew, this wasn’t like that for her at all.

And maybe that’s why you’d suggested dragging each other up the huge hill for some innocent people watching after filling up on too sweet of treats and riding all the rides (or well, the ones you were fairly certain wouldn’t break down). Because maybe watching her try and fail to eat cotton candy without making a mess, or laugh when she sabotaged your throw so she could win a game, and swipe at powdered sugar on her lips with her tongue as she asked you if she got it all had your stomach swooping more than the rides did.

So when she grabbed your hand as her laughter subsided and squeezed your intertwined fingers, her thumb swiping over your knuckles as she did, you couldn’t help but shiver.

“You cold?” She whispered, turning her head to catch the end of your exhale and the rise of goosebumps on your neck.

“I’m fine…” the word trailed off as she didn’t waste a second before shaking off her jean jacket.

Robin wrapped it around your shoulders as your heart pounded louder than the music playing below you both. Her fingers lingered on the collar of the jacket, playing with it as your eyes traced her jawline.

“Better?” Murmured as her finger dared lower, swiping over your collarbone.

You hummed, not trusting your words with her too close to the erratic throb of your pulse point. She was still so close, you could count each freckle dotting her nose and cheeks if she’d let you sit there all night. Could smell the cotton candy on her skin, mixed with apple shampoo and you were starting to convince yourself it was all too sweet, too unfair if you didn’t get a chance to taste it.

It was a little like right before a ride starts. The rules have been given, and you’re locked in, but they’re doing their final checks. And everyone around you is talking, restless. Nerves or excitement bubbling out of you all in the only way humans know how to deal with it. Joking and laughing, and talking to fill the space riddled with anticipation, legs swinging or fingers tapping. And then, as if you’re all under this sort of same agreement, a thumb’s up is given, and nobody moves or talks, and the ride starts.

Robin’s fingers skated up your neck, down, and back up as she swallowed, her eyes staring straight at your lips as she spoke like she didn’t know what a period was.

“So I really like you and I mean shit I really hope I’m not reading into all of this so wrong and if I am can we just agree to forget it but if not I think you’re amazing-“

“Robin, stop talking,” you interrupted, voice scratchy and rough and sounding nothing like yourself as your hands grabbed her elbows.

“Right, yeah,” her breath exhaled against your lips as her nose traced down the bridge of yours and her eyelids blinked rapidly, “Once I get going it’s hard to stop and it just sort of keeps tumbling out and-“

“Robin, I need you to stop-“

“I know sorry-“

“So I can kiss you,” laughing quietly as your hands traveled up her arms to her shoulders.

And Robin Buckley was finally speechless.

The thumb’s up had been given, and if you just tilted your head an inch, your top lip could bump her bottom, and maybe you both knew it, so neither of you moved for a moment.

A first kiss can be magical, but a first kiss with someone like Robin Buckley?

Her lips slotted over yours with ease, leaving too quickly and drawing away as if she was waiting for you to run, but your fingers curled around her neck and pulled her back eagerly and that was all she needed. Her mouth parted over yours slowly as her hand cupped your jaw and yours moved up into her hair.

It felt a little like you were on the sizzler again, brain scrambled and breath caught. Butterflies in your stomach not knowing if they should fly right or left or tumble forward in a somersault.

Robin’s lips moved with yours patiently, like she was going to take her time for once and nobody could stop her. She sighed when you pulled at her bottom lip harder, her free hand curling around the hem of your shirt at your hip like it was the only thing keeping her on the ground.

It was addicting, sweet sugary lips that you were greedy for, wanting the high that you hoped you’d never come down from. Your fingers cradled the back of her head, honey waves tangled around them as you tilted her and broke away against your will.

Stupid lungs needing air.

You kissed over her pink cheeks, to her jaw, ragged breaths taken against her skin as she did the same against your temple. Mouthing at her neck until she arched, and made a gasping sort of sound when your lips found a spot below her ear. You had every intention of getting her to make it again when a loud air horn blasted.

“Winner! Winner! We have a Winner!”

Dazed faces blinked at each other before you glanced down at the commotion, Steve standing in front of the booth holding a giant pink bear out to the girl.

Robin turned to you, chest heaving, eyes sparkling as her thumb dragged over your bottom lip and let it go softly.

“Idiot,” she murmured.

“Me?” You laughed, kissing her wrist as you asked, “Or Steve?”

Robin studied your face, fingers trailing over your cheekbones as she shook her head, “Me.”

Your head tilted, eyebrows lifted in a silent question and she smiled, a little lost in a big Robin Buckley brain thought.

“You know when you spend so much time being anxious before a ride, and then you finally convince yourself to do it, and it becomes your favorite one, and you’re so damn mad at yourself because of how much time you wasted being able to ride it?”

“Telling me you want to ride me, Robin?” You grinned, laughing when her cheeks grew brighter red and she sputtered around her words that you couldn’t help but notice weren’t quite a no.

You stood, and held out your hand, waiting until she grabbed it to start to pull her back down the hill.

“Where are we going?”

“Riding the ride some more,” you called, tugging her fingers as you stepped backwards. “You’re about to win your girlfriend a giant bear in way less tries than your best friend.”

Robin practically rolled you both down the rest of the hill she started running so fast, your hand clutched tightly in hers, proudly. As if they were always meant to be intertwined, like without them laced together, she wasn’t complete and neither were you.

#superbly subpar robin fluff #robin buckley blurb #robin buckley fluff #robin buckley #robin buckley x reader #robin buckley x you #robin buckley x y/n #robin buckley fic #stranger things fanfic

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marblemoovt · 1 year ago

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Waterfall - Guts/Reader

Masterlist

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 7.9k

Warnings: Smut, Fluff, A sprinkle of angst, AFAB Reader, Porn with a little bit of Plot, Oral Sex, Fingering, P in V Sex, Edging, Aftercare (Let me know if I'm missing any)

Summary:

Months after the eclipse, you're still grappling with it all. But at least you're not alone. You might as well get railed to ease the burden of living.

------

“I’m ok,” you repeat, smiling more easily now. His brows furrow and he rests his forehead against yours.

“I could have lost you,” he whispers, his eyes sheen in the light. You click your tongue and pinch his cheek. Guts scowls but doesn’t move away.

“But you didn’t. I’m right here. I’m standing right in front of you, so why do you keep looking back?” There’s a slight tremor in your tone. You unclench your fists, pushing him back to create some distance. There’s a brief flash of emotion across his face, but it dissipates with the heat simmering your blood. “I’m right here,” you whisper against the roar of the waterfall.

Note:

Hello! I know I disappeared for like, almost a year. No freak accidents or anything of the like. Life has just been busy and I have poor time management. But I missed writing, even though it did not miss me ;-; The writing gods did not bless me with inspiration for a long while, not to mention I have a stubborn habit of only having one wip at a time (I have multiple ideas, but I only work on one fic at a time).

In any case, I hope this brings joy to somebody. I am frankly tired from editing this monstrosity so I'll leave you to enjoy :)

Happy Reading! ヾ(•ω•`)o

Note: This does take place in the same universe as Love Triangle but this can be read as a stand-alone.

Water cascades down your body, beating into your skin. The temperature was freezing earlier, but now it’s numbed into a slight chill. You stare at the rock wall, trailing along the cracks and crevices that crater the surface. Sprinkles of minerals sparkle throughout, reflecting rainbows when the moonlight hits them just right.

The cold bite of metal stings into your shoulder, and you jerk away from the contact. Whirling around, you come face to face with Guts. He stares at his hand, clenching it into a fist before it drops to his side.

“You’re gonna freeze to death,” he says. You notice the gray towel peeking out behind his arm.

You drag your fingers through your hair, shaking off the water droplets. A few stray drops trickle down your chin, and Guts watches them drip along your collarbone. “I’ll be done soon,” you say. The phantom blood still sticks to your raw skin, the scent of iron lingering while your body becomes a collage of self-inflicted wounds. You scrubbed and scrubbed, but it’s not enough. Not even an entire ocean can wash away the atrocities you witnessed. But maybe that’s the burden of surviving the eclipse, for living when you were marked for death.

“You looked done 20 minutes ago. Skin’s gonna start peeling if you don’t stop,” he says. You look away from Guts and pick at the dead skin underneath your nails, grimacing at your wrinkled fingertips.

“I don’t feel done. I don’t think I ever will,” you admit in a hushed whisper. Guts doesn’t say anything, offering his hand for you to take. Accepting the gesture, you’re tugged into his chest. The soft towel gently pats your skin dry and tousles your wet hair. He pauses, eyes scanning your face. “I’m okay, as okay as one can be in our situation.” Your lips twitch into a small smile, but this seems to only frustrate him more.

Guts growls, his jaw clenched shut. “I’ll kill him.” There’s no room for questioning who ‘he’ is. You bring a hand up to cup his cheek, and his posture relaxes. Your thumb traces the bags underneath his eyes.

“I’m ok,” you repeat, smiling more easily now. His brows furrow and he rests his forehead against yours.

“I could have lost you,” he whispers, his eyes sheen in the light. You click your tongue and pinch his cheek. Guts scowls but doesn’t move away.

“I’m not…. ”He sighs and finally meets your gaze. “I’m not angry at you.” Guts fiddles with the towel in his hand. “I wasn’t strong enough to save you.” His touch drifts towards the bandages wrapping his torso.

You walk up to Guts, enveloping him in a hug. “Can we pretend for once that everything is ok? That spirits aren’t hunting us, and a bunch of Apostles won’t fuck up the world?” When he doesn’t respond, you look to see him staring at the ceiling. “Guts?”

“Clothes,” he stutters. “You’re not wearin’ any.” You look down at your naked body pressed against his.

“You weren’t shy earlier when you were drying me.” Leaning in further has the desired effect when you feel a bulge against your lower abdomen. “Looks like someone has no complaints,” you say with a smirk.

Guts groans and shudders when you roll your hips. He wraps an arm around your waist, palm splayed against the curve of your back. His hand slides to squeeze your ass, and he whispers into your ear, “Don’t provoke me.” It’s a similar tone to when he shouts orders on the battlefield. You take it as an invitation to tease him further. He notices the glint in your eyes and clicks his tongue. “Brat.”

You know he’s soft beneath that tough exterior. You can see it in how he brings you something warm to drink when it’s cold, how his hands naturally gravitate to your waist or the small of your back. Guts doesn’t like saying it, but you just know. Currently, he’s scolding you for being in the water too long. You won’t point it out, but he grabbed the softest towel to dry you.

“I love you,” you say. His hands freeze, and the lines on his face soften.

Guts sighs, “How can you be so lovely and infuriating at the same time?” He cups your cheek but quickly recoils upon noticing the gleam of metal contrasting against your skin.

You grab his wrist and press a kiss onto the palm of his prosthetic hand. “It’s one of my many talents,” you reply, pressing another kiss to his lips to prevent him from biting them.

“It’s strange,” Guts mumbles. Your other hand slides down his chest, trailing along his abs to the waistline of his pants. His breath hitches, and he nips your earlobe in retaliation. “Sometimes I still feel it when you touch that hand,” he says.

“Do you feel this?” You trace the outline of his growing erection, eventually rubbing your hand against the bulge in his trousers. He bucks his hips into your touch, and a low groan escapes from his lips. “Or what about this?” Slipping your hand beneath the fabric, you’re surprised by the lack of an additional layer. “Expecting something, are we?” You grin impishly at him, inching your fingers closer to his cock. Your skin is still cold from the water, and Guts is blazing beneath your touch.

“Not at”—you firmly grip his shaft and begin stroking languidly—”all,” he forces through gritted teeth. You can almost hear the creak of his jaw as it strains under pressure.

“So you weren’t expecting to find me still naked at the waterfall and indulge in some intimate acts?” You stop stroking to tease the head of his cock, running your thumb over the frenulum. Thick precum coats your hand, and you reluctantly pull away, but only to see the frustration grow on Guts’s face. “Then I guess there’s no need for me to continue.” You wade through the pool and use the waterfall to rinse your hand.

As you’re flicking off water droplets, a broad chest presses against your back, and thick arms wrap around your waist. The sudden force pushes you into the rock wall, your hands flying up out of instinct to lessen the impact. You turn your head to see Guts, completely bare, his clothes lying in a forgotten heap by the pool. That explains what’s twitching against your lower back. You grind slow, lazy circles against his stiff cock, grinning at how he trembles with the slightest rock of your hips.

“Stop,” he pleads, squeezing his arms to constrain your movements. It’s cute; he’s pretending to stop you, but his hold is too lax.

You hum and redirect one of his hands to your breasts, sighing at the contact. “If you really wanted me to stop, you wouldn’t be enthusiastically rutting like a dog in heat,” you say. As if to prove your point, a low whine pitches in the back of his throat when you press against him to hinder his movements.

“So maybe I don’t want to stop,” he admits. “Maybe I want to rough you up against the wall until you can’t walk the next day.” The imagery sends a gush of slickness between your thighs, and you rub them together to ease the ache.

“Then why don’t you?” You spin around to face him and hook one leg around his thigh, tugging his hips closer. The sharp exhale followed by a groan is music to your ears. Your arms drape over his shoulders, sinking your nails into his broad back. You have him trapped. Or is it the other way around? He could effortlessly pry you off, but his dark eyes hold no intention of letting you go. “I don’t break easily, you know,” you whisper against his lips, his breath fanning your face.

Guts bites his lips, fingers bruising your hips, marks he’ll kiss in the morning when you’re bedridden. “I—“

You cut him off, and his Adam’s apple bobs. “Let me make myself clear, Guts. I want you to fuck me.” His breath hitches, the click of his throat silenced by the rush of water. “Fuck me so damn hard I don’t remember a thing about this shitty world we live in.” You want to spend at least an hour free from the waking nightmare that plagues your daily life. Maybe this isn’t the best way, but it is the most pleasant.

You know you’ll go to bed and dream of crimson skies and shrill screams. A world where the tang of metal never leaves your mouth. Where rot and decay fester in your lungs, smothering you alongside the scent of burning flesh. And then you’ll wake up, touch your face to feel the wet streaks streaming down your cheeks. Guts will be sleeping beside you, faring no better in his dreams, relaxing only when you hold his hand and lay on his chest.

Yeah, the world is fucked up, and so is your mental state. You might as well get railed to ease the burden of living.

But enough about later. What’s happening right now is important. And what’s happening right now is Guts pleading with his eyes to please you. He has one arm hooked underneath your leg to support it, the other still wrapped around your waist, hand dipping to cup your ass. He grinds his erection against your clit, and you bite your lip to hold back a moan.

Guts kisses behind your ear, sucking on the spot. Your blood thrums through your veins, buzzing with electricity. “Guess the waterfall will be useful,” he says.

“How so?” you hum, closing your eyes as he trails his lips along your jawline. You tilt your head back, and he peppers your exposed throat with kisses, playfully nipping but careful to avoid breaking the skin. A tingle shoots up from the base of your spine when his teeth scrape over your pulse, tongue laving over your racing heartbeat.

“Others won’t hear any of your screams.” He hoists you up, and your legs instinctively wrap around his waist. “I get to have you all to myself.” Your back thuds against the wall, the rough rock leaving a light sting on your skin. There’s a hunger in his eyes that threatens to devour you. He always gets that look when he’s determined to spoil you rotten.

You ignore the throbbing heat in your core, focusing on the slanted curve of his lips. “Ooh, confident are we?” you tease, dragging your nails across his back, grinning at the shudder it elicits.

“I’ve always been skillful with my hands,” he says, lowering your feet. At the shallow end of the pool, water laps at your knees. The chill heightens the burn of your skin, and the slickness between your thighs becomes impossible to ignore. Guts sinks down, kneeling in front of you, hands parting your legs gently. He tuts and gazes at you with mock scorn. “You cleaned up earlier, but now you’ve made a mess again.”

“And whose fault is that?” you reply, inhaling sharply when his fingers rub circles into your thighs.

He hums and plants a kiss on your kneecap, lips skirting up closer to the source of your dripping cunt. “A man should always take responsibility for his actions.” His warm breath is like a spark of flint on kindling. It starts a blazing heat that crawls up and pools in your stomach, spreading throughout your veins until your entire body is engulfed in flames.

A thin veil of fog blankets your mind. For a second, you almost forget how to breathe. He looks up at you from between your legs, tongue swiping across his bottom lip. He looks eager to taste you; it causes you to clench tightly, gripping around nothing but air. And you want him to fill you up, to replace the void the eclipse left behind after it tore almost everything from you.

Your body seizes up. A cool jet of air against your clit catches you off guard. Guts looks you in the eyes, trapping you in their dark depths. “If—at any time—you want me to stop, tell me,” he commands. His lips are pressed into a thin line, and he holds your gaze. He won’t continue unless you agree.

You wrack your brain together, drumming your fingers on the wall behind you to form a coherent thought. But all you can focus on is his warm breath against your skin, the burning ache in your core that beckons for his attention.

Guts sighs, drinking in your scent deeply. He licks his lips, and his fingers dig into your flesh. “I don’t want this to be like the other times,” he admits.

You stare at him quietly, observing the clarity in his eyes. This isn’t the first time you’ve sought each other’s company. After all, who better to seek comfort from than someone who’s been through the same traumatizing event? Overcome with grief and guilt, you found solace in the warmth of his body and vice versa. It wasn’t always sexual, but sometimes you crave the shelter of having no other thoughts besides pleasure. To know nothing else but pure bliss for a brief respite.

Guts mistakes your silence for rejection. “Let me cherish you,” he pleads. “Let me worship you the way you deserve.” And you recall dark nights of clashing teeth and tongues, scratches and bruises made just to feel something—anything. There’s still a tinge of purple around his collarbone, the imprint of your teeth long faded. The harsh lines on his face are nonexistent. His touch is light, revering.

You don’t think you’ve ever felt this important. Guts doesn’t treat you like glass. He looks like he would raze the entire world in flames for you, and all you need to do is ask. Cupping his chin in one hand, you stare into his earnest eyes. Guts pulls away to plant kisses along your knuckles. The corners of his mouth curl up at your sigh when he nips at your fingertips. It’s hard to describe this feeling. All the tension and worry in your body building up like a brick wall suddenly crumbles to dust.

And how can you say no when he looks so eager to please—to love you? A brief taste of copper coats your tongue, and you ignore the phantom claws dragging down your lower abdomen. You focus instead on Guts’s soft touches, the steady gurgle of water, and the moonlight filtering through the pockets of sky in the ceiling.

You are safe.

“Ok,” you whisper. Slowly, you spread your legs apart and cool your burning cheeks with the back of your hand. “Please touch me.”

Guts plants a kiss on your inner thigh, trailing upwards. He wants to drag this out and tease you until the anticipation has you dripping with need. With one calloused hand resting on your pubic mound, he licks a long stripe through your folds, groaning at your intoxicating taste. A jolt of pleasure crawls up your back before slamming into your core.

Your eyes nearly roll into the back of your head when he eats you out messily. Obscene slurps and groans bounce off the rock walls. Guts slings one of your legs over his shoulder and focuses on your clit, inserting two fingers into your dripping cunt. Spots of light dance across your vision when he crooks his fingers to stroke your sweet spot. It’s a wonder how you’re still standing.

Just as the band in your stomach goes taut, Guts pulls away. The pleasure building in your body drops and transforms into a sharp ache that has your body screaming for release.

“Your legs are trembling,” Guts points out.

You press harder against the wall and try to remember how to stand. “No, I’m not,” you say.

Guts hums and plants a kiss on your clit, the kind that fills your veins with lava and sets off the butterflies in your stomach. “You can be so damn stubborn.” He stands and carries you with ease, wading towards the edge.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Some underwater training,” Guts replies, refusing to elaborate further. He stops and sets you on the ground. The water reaches just below your chest in this position; the sudden coldness shocks your skin. It makes you hyper-aware of your sensitivity.

Gus parts your legs, and you lean back slightly, using your arms to support yourself from behind. His touch radiates familiarity, hands caressing all the spots that work you up. You lick your lips and part then to ask another question. “Wha—“

“Always wanted to see how long I could hold my breath,” Guts cuts you off, petting your clit gently. He gazes at you through hooded lids, a grin ghosting his lips. “They say the average is 3-5 minutes. Let’s set a new record.” His words send tingles throughout your body, and you clench at the thought.

“What do you mean?” you ask, distracted by the circles he’s drawing with his thumb. If you time it just right, you can buck your hips and have him stroke your swollen clit.

“Don’t worry about it.” And the next thing you know, his head’s underwater and his tongue is prodding at your entrance. Your fingers immediately thread his hair, tugging his scalp when his nose brushes against your clit.

The water and walls blur into blobs of colour, your heartbeat thundering in your eardrums. The throbbing between your thighs quickens, and that band in your stomach threatens to snap and give you whiplash. Guts brings a hand up close to your clit. You squeeze your eyes shut, dangling on the precipice of an orgasm.

He surfaces from the water. His shit-eating grin only widens when you vocalize your discontentment. A flick to your clit shortcircuits your brain with a jolt of pleasure, eliciting a scream from your lips. One of your hands slips, and suddenly the world is careening backwards—or is it forwards?

Strong arms wrap around your body, and suddenly you’re face to face with Guts instead of the ceiling. Water splashes and drenches both of you in the crossfire. You try to stand up, but Guts digs his fingers into your hips. Something warm brushes against your bare cunt.

This new position has you straddling Guts. Even the most minuscule movements cause some degree of friction. The look in his eyes tells you that he’s barely restraining himself. Since his hands hold your hips in place, you lean forward and attack his neck with bites and hickeys. Guts hisses and immediately stands up, hoisting you with him.

“Let’s move to land. Wouldn’t want you to drown,” he rasps, shuddering when you lick over his racing pulse.

“I can think of other ways to leave me breathless,” you whisper, lifting your head and baring your neck. The perfect place for his hands to wrap around.

“Another time. Right now, I want you to sit on my face,” he says, setting you on the ground. Your cunt throbs in response, and you crawl—a little too eagerly—into position. You stop mere centimetres from his face, hovering in your hesitation. Inklings of doubt blot your thoughts. What if you’re too heavy? What if you smother— “Too long,” he grunts, interrupting your inner monologue. Guts grips your thighs and pulls you down, wasting no time ravaging you with his tongue,

You suck in a breath, hips rocking at a steady rhythm. Your eyes nearly roll into the back of your head when his mouth latches around your clit and sucks greedily. He pulls away with a pop, the bottom half of his face glistening with your arousal. He licks his lips and groans, “Fuck, you taste amazing.”

“Less talking, more licking,” you say.

“What, no please?”

You don’t humour him with a response and take matters into your own hands. You lift your hips and grind against the ridge of his nose.

Guts swears under his breath, inhaling your intoxicating scent. “What am I going to do with you?” he groans.

You huff in frustration at the loss of stimulation. “What you should have done ages ago. Now shut up before I make you.”

Guts doesn’t move. “Not until you say please,” he says.

“You’re such a fucking tease,” you moan, wriggling your hips to no avail since his hands have barred you from moving any lower.

“I just want to hear you beg for it.” He spreads your lips and admires how wet you are. When you remain silent, he massages the area surrounding your clit. “No? Not gonna cave in?”

You narrow your eyes and scrape your nails against his broad chest. “Fuck, you.” It comes out through gritted teeth.

Guts chuckles. A low sound filled with mirth. “Oh, love. You wish.” His thumb probes your entrance, pulling out to slide along your slit. “I do have to praise you for holding out this long. It must feel unbearable.” And it does. Your skin is about to burst at the seams as the pleasure threatens to drive you mad. Never given enough to bring you over the edge, but just enough to stimulate the ache in your core—the desire to be filled.

“Not. At. All.”

Guts clucks his tongue, drawing circles around your swollen clit. “Liar.” He slowly pushes a finger into your cunt, adding another when he feels how wet you are. It doesn’t take long before the squelches reach your burning ears. His fingers curl and stroke that sensitive area on your walls. The pace is agonizingly slow, and it only deepens the ache. You bite down on your bottom lip, almost hard enough to draw blood.

Your body trembles when he plants a kiss on your clit. Ah, to hell with playing hard to get. You might die if he doesn’t give you an orgasm right now.

“Guts?” you groan, clenching when he pets your clit in response.

“Yes, my love?” He sounds so smug. You don’t even need to look to see the smirk on his face.

“…Please,” you whisper, hissing when he stops his ministrations.

“Didn’t catch what you said. Gonna need you to repeat that.” He slowly resumes his movements, rubbing his fingertips against your walls.

You grunt and try to focus, blinking to clear the fog in your brain. “Please. Fuck. Me.” You punctuate each word with a thrust of your hips. Guts’s fingers immediately retract, and you whine at the loss, only to throw your head back when he eats you out like a man starved.

His hands hold you in place, only allowing enough freedom to ride his face, which you do—greedily. He runs the flat of his tongue across your slit. Every so often he comments on how good you taste, normally ending with how he can never get enough. You don’t know. You don’t really care. He’s drawing patterns on your clit, each stroke bringing you closer to climax.

And you’re so close. You can almost feel it. Guts must sense it, too, because he focuses on your clit, hands locking you snugly against his face. With his unrelenting tongue, you cum with a scream. Your entire body buzzes with electricity, clit throbbing in time with your clenches. Guts doesn’t stop, and soon the pleasure borders on pain. It’s too much. You jerk away, but he keeps you trapped in his hold.

You can’t think anymore. You can only incoherently babble for him to let you go. And then it creeps up on you. The aftershocks of your last orgasm, combined with the continued stimulation, tighten that band in your stomach again. Tears sting the corner of your eyes, blurring your vision. It’s too much. You want it to stop.

But it feels so fucking good.

Guts swaps his tongue for his fingers, filling you up once more. Your back arches when he brushes over your g-spot. You mewl and beg him to do it again.

“One more time. Cum for me one more time,” he orders. And how can you say no when he uses that tone? Guts pays special attention to your previous request, fingers curling with practiced precision. “I want even the gods to hear you scream my name.”

He doesn’t need to convince you. Liquid heat pools in your stomach, bubbling like a pot about to boil over. His name is the first sound to leave your lips when you come undone. Guts is gentler this time; he draws out your orgasm slowly, careful not to overstimulate you. Your vision burns with tears as your body curls up before sagging bonelessly.

You heave a sigh and crawl to the side, shuddering when the cold air hits your sensitive skin With a content smile, you stare at Guts in a daze, fuzzy warmth blanketing your mind.

“Good?” he asks.

“Mhmm.” Your eyes drift to his erection; it twitches under your attention. Suddenly you’re aware of the heady scent of musk in the air. Licking your lips, you look back at Guts. He doesn’t say anything, but his pupils are blown. “Can I?” You inch closer to him, and he nods. You spread the precum leaking from the tip with your thumb. On an impulse, you lick the remainder off your finger, smirking when you hear his sharp intake of breath.

A bitter saltiness greets your tastebuds, but it’s milder than you anticipated. You well up some saliva in your mouth and use it to lubricate your hand to begin stroking. Slow, firm pumps have him twitching against your palm.

“Faster, please,” he groans, jerking his hips upwards to match your strokes.

“Ooh, so you do know how to be polite,” you say as you tighten your grip and increase the pace. Guts’s chest rises and falls faster than before.

His face distorts in a mixture of disbelief and pleasure. “Shut the fuck up,” he grunts, nose scrunching.

You laugh and rub his thighs soothingly. “Just this once,” and you take as much of his length into your mouth as you can manage. Running your tongue across the underside of his cock, you widen your jaw to avoid scraping him with your teeth. Anything you can’t fit gets stroked by your hands. Glancing up, you notice him watching you with a tenderness that’s been rare as of late.

He’s been worrying and training almost to the point of obsession. You want to ease that ache in his chest and have him forget momentarily about all you’ve gone through together. Although, judging from how his eyes are starting to glaze over, your objective doesn’t seem that far away.

It started out small, but now the walls echo with his moans and breathy whines. Each sound is like a lightning bolt between your thighs, burning you with strikes of pleasure. You bring a hand down to play with your clit, hoping to ease the ache.

His cock pulsates in your mouth. His entire body starts shuddering, and you know he’s close. So you slow to a halt and chortle at his frustration. The look he gives you could wither the low-level spirits that hang around. Taking a breath, you inch slowly down to take more of his cock, chest brimming with pride at how his body immediately tenses.

“You’re going to kill me here, my love,” he groans, hips stuttering between pulling away and pushing further in.

You slide your mouth off his cock and lick your lips, massaging his balls with your hand. “I want to milk as much of your cum as I can and drink it all,” you say, rubbing your thumb against the tip. You feel a twitch against your fingers and smirk. “Seems like you’re on board with my plan.”

One of his large, warm hands is placed against your head, stroking your hair. You close your eyes and lean into his touch. “Not the only place I’d like to fill you up,” he says, and you can hear the grin in his tone.

“Are you sure you can last that long?” you ask, and his fingers cheekily tug on your hair. The gesture draws a chuckle from you. You open your eyes to see him full of amusement.

“You’re underestimating the stamina of a great swordsman,” he boasts.

You raise a brow. That’s a big claim. “Hm? Then why don’t you show me what your sword can do?” You straddle his hips, your drenched cunt seated against the shaft of his cock. It twitches against you, and you bring a hand down to tease the leaking tip.

“Change of plans?” Guts asks, tone wavering as you slowly pump his cock.

You hum, “I’m feeling a little impatient today.”

“What happened to milking me for all I’m worth?” The cockiness in his tone returns. “Going back now on those big claims?”

You chuckle and flick the head of his cock, watching Guts writhe in response. “You’re trying to rile me up, but it’s not working,” you say.

“Can you blame me? You’re irresistible when you get all fired up,” he says,

You line up the tip of his cock with your entrance, slowly sinking down until his entire length is inside you. “Sorry to disappoint, but the only one losing their cool today is you.”

You start bouncing your hips, finding a steady rhythm to keep. Angling your body, his cock drags against your walls in all the right places. Guts begins aiming his thrusts when he notices how you cry out each time he hits the mark.

Guts groans, face screwed tight in concentration. “You’re gonna squeeze me to death,” he moans.

You smirk, running your hands across his chest. “It took you this long to realize my intentions?”

He responds with an airy laugh. “You always were a damn good strategist.”

“And you’re living up to your title, General,” you say, feeling a twitch inside you. “Oh? You like it when I call you that, don’t you?”

Guts looks at you with a sheepish grin. “If I say I do, will you call me that more often?” he asks.

You hum, tracing his abs with your fingertips. “I’ll consider it, but it would have to be sparingly. Don’t want to inflate your ego too much,” you tease. A spank smarts your ass. The sting is quickly soothed by a gentle massage. You retaliate with slow, deep thrusts, grinning when Guts curses and loses his ability to form sentences.

His cock throbs inside you, swelling up in preparation for his release. Guts’s fingers are bruising your hips, and he’s rutting into you. Slamming yourself down, you remain seated.

“Fuck, I was so close,” he groans, cock twitching in your warm cunt.

“I know. That’s why I stopped,” you say.

Guts looks at you with betrayal. “You, my dear, are a cruel lover.”

You tsk and clench tightly around him. “I may be a bit mean, but never cruel.”

“If this isn’t cruelty, then wha—“

You cut him off with a roll of your hips, successfully speech-jamming him. “You’ll see,” you say.

You continue drawing out his release, bringing Guts near the edge only to wrench him away. You’ve lost count—not that you were even counting in the first place—of how many potential orgasms you’ve robbed him of. But from the sour gleam in his eyes, a few too many.

Any of his attempts to take over the pace are thwarted when you turn into an immovable object. The loss of friction is not deemed a worthwhile risk because Guts soon lets you have your way after only a few attempts.

“Good boy,” you purr, a chuckle tickling the back of your throat. “Look at you, getting turned on when so much as a compliment is awarded.” You drag your fingers down his chest, sloping along the defined ridges of his muscles. “It’s kind of cute,” you admit.

Guts watches you through hooded lids, mouth parting as incoherent pleas spill between his lips. You tsk and twist your lips into a mock frown. “Oh no. Did I wear you down already?” You cradle his face in your hand, brushing your thumb across his cheek. “I can feel you throbbing inside me. Do you want to cum?” you ask, receiving a shudder in response when you roll your hips.

“Mhmm,” he grunts, nodding in fervour. Guts runs his hands along your thighs, gently squeezing the soft flesh. “Please,” he adds politely.

You hum and slow your movements. “Do you deserve to?”

It’s borderline hilarious to watch the gears in his head turn. The vacant look in his eyes shifts as they widen. “I do,” he says, but the slight wobble in his tone is tinged with nerves.

You can’t stop the grin forming on your face and opt to kiss his damp forehead to hide it. “Relax,” you hush, “I’ll let you cum……

“…eventually.”

Guts groans and slides a hand between your thighs, fingers searching for your clit. You clench tightly around him when he taps it gently with his thumb. “Looks like the blood’s starting to rush back into the right head”—Guts slams his hips upwards, nearly winding you—“Ow, fuck! Ok, ok. No more jokes during sex.” You wince from your sore abdomen. “I’ll cut you a deal,” you pause to gain his attention. “If you make me orgasm within the next ten minutes, I’ll let you cum.”

“You can’t take back your word,” he grunts through gritted teeth. You squeal, arms flailing to wrap around his neck when he flips you onto the ground. There’s a pregnant pause as you stare into each other's eyes. Warm. There’s so much warmth in his gaze for you. “Beautiful,” he says, running his fingers along your face.

Your chest squeezes tight. You turn your head, feeling the cool stone floor press against your burning cheeks. “9 minutes,” you say. Guts clicks his tongue and lifts one of your legs over his shoulder. He angles his thrusts, ramming into the deepest parts of you. The inferno consuming your body melts your bones to liquid.

“With the sounds you’re making, it won’t be long,” he grunts. You clench tightly around him like a vice. Every well-aimed thrust sends your walls pulsating around his cock. The familiar tightening in your stomach takes hold and threatens to tear you asunder. “Fuck you look so good like this, I don’t think I can hold out much longer.”

You feel calloused fingers brush against your clit, and a bolt of electricity strikes the base of your spine. He chuckles at the way your body curls open like a flower, eager to meet the sun’s rays. When your hips raise to meet him halfway, who is he to deny you of more pleasure?

He brings a finger to his mouth, groaning at your lingering taste on his skin. Before you know it, the building pleasure threatens to burst. He rolls your clit between his fingers, applying constant pressure. Your eyes nearly roll into the back of your head.

How much time was left? Gods, you don’t remember anymore. All you can think about is how you’re a second away from release.

The intensity drops. Guts’s thrusts remain deep; his cock drags along your walls in a sweet, slow torture. The flames licking your body from the inside are dying, but the embers are stoked just enough to keep the fire going. “You wouldn’t dare,” you seethe between clenched teeth. The muscles in your jaw are almost as tense as the knot in your stomach.

“Who says I wouldn’t?” Guts remarks calmly. A slight chill creeps up your spine, and you begin to sweat for reasons other than physical exertion.

“But then you don’t get to cum,” you say, trying to build a counterargument to sway him. You were so close; you needed just a little more to get there. In all honesty, both of you knew that if he really wanted to, Guts could easily ignore the bet. But that would mean destroying the mutual trust you spent years building. And you know both of you would rather die than betray the other.

“You said within the next ten minutes, I still have two left.” He slaps your pubic mound lightly, fingers resting above your swollen clit. “It’s not like you specified a time, only a period. So it doesn’t matter if there’s only a second left as long as you cum before it’s over.”

You shudder. What have you done?

Guts begins mumbling to himself. Between the grunts and groans, you can just barely make out a decreasing string of numbers. He’s seriously counting down the seconds he has left before the bet is over??

You arch your back, fingers fisting the stone floor with nothing to ground you. “Fuck me,” you sigh, lifting your hips to feel his cock brush against that sensitive spot.

“Already am,” Guts rasps, wiping the sweat from your brow. “Any other requests?”

“Yeah, fuck me harder.”

He leans down to plant a kiss on your damp forehead. “As you wish.”

And fuck you harder he does. You swear you must be above the clouds with all the stars you see. The slap of flesh echoes in your ears, filled with strained grunts and moans. You like it when Guts is vocal; it makes you feel like you’re doing a good job. One of the quickest ways he can turn you on is by moaning your name, which he’s doing right now. His breathy sighs as your name slips out of his mouth repeatedly like a prayer… it drives you crazy.

There’s only one thought in your mind; it overtakes all the others. You’re on the brink of an orgasm, standing at the edge of a cliff as you wait for the final push. “M’ close,” you say. Your clit throbs, and you feel a tug in your navel as the pressure builds.

“Then let’s bring you closer.” He slowly increases the pace, and your nails claw his back, leaving scratches in their wake. “I want you to look at me when you come undone. Can you do that for me?” You nod, eyes nearly rolling into the back of your head when he rubs your clit. “Good.” His fingers maintain pace, and he consistently rams his cock against your g-spot.

Your body thrums with pleasure, ready to come undone at his command. Guts wraps a hand around your throat and squeezes gently. He wasn’t affecting your oxygen supply, but fuck did it do things to you. His thrusts become deeper, pounding into you at a steady rhythm.

That was all it took to shove you off the edge. Your walls spasm around his cock in a toe-curling orgasm. All you can focus on is the waves of mind-numbing pleasure crashing into you, the force of the undertow sweeping you away.

Guts continues to thrust, helping you ride out your orgasm. As you come down from your high, dizzy and lightheaded, you feel his cock swell inside you. He pulls out, pumping his cock as his warm seed spills onto your stomach.

You laugh a breathy chuckle, staring at the mess he made. “I think I need another bath,” you say.

Guts kisses the top of your head and says, “Then let’s get cleaned up.” He scoops an arm underneath your knees and wraps the other around your back.

“Guts!”

“Don’t worry. I won’t drop you,” he says, walking towards the pool. Wading in, he brings you to the stream of water. Already, the spray of droplets is freezing against your skin. You shudder and cling closer to Guts and the heat he radiates. “I’ll help you wash up,” and he lowers your legs, a hand still resting on the small of your back.

“I am capable of washing myself,” you say. Hopefully, the rising sun made the water at least slightly more tolerable. But from how it feels like your feet are encased in ice, you don’t have much hope.

Guts cups some water in his hands and pours it onto your shoulders. “I know you can, but I want to,” he says, kissing the side of your temple. “So stop being stubborn and let me help you.”

You roll your bottom lip between your teeth. “I don’t kn—“ Guts flicks water at your face with a smirk. You pause, your brain struggling to process what happened. “You!” Your eyes narrow into a glare.

Guts bolts, his laughter reverberating the cave walls. You run after him, but it’s difficult despite the water reaching only your calves. Guts is somehow brute forcing his way, but you adapt a weird mixture of hopping and running to catch up.

Once you’re within arm's length of Guts, you kick up the water, successfully splashing him. The smug grin on your face falters when he turns around with a mischievous glint in his eyes. He moves only a single step before your flight instincts take over.

Your heart is thumping against your chest, thundering in your ears. His fingertips brush against your spine, and you squeal, dodging to the side. Large splashes grow closer and closer. But they suddenly stop. And amid your confusion, you stop running.

Looking over your shoulder, you see no sign of Guts except a few ripples in the water where you expected him to be.

“Got ya!” Big, strong hands wrap around your waist, and the ground disappears beneath your feet. The world spins in a whirlwind of lights and cool shades of blue and purple. As your surroundings grind to a halt, warm arms pull you into an embrace. Your laughter is dampened by his hug, and you blink to quell the dizziness.

You stare into his eyes, watching black swallow brown. He brings a hand up to cup your cheek. “Shower?” you whisper, unwilling to break the stillness. If the universe would let you, you would spend every day like this with him. To wake and sleep together, sharing the mundane moments of life and experiencing the little pockets of joy as they occur. But that’s not the kind of world you live in— not if Griffith has anything to say about it.

Guts leans forward to plant a kiss on your forehead. “Yeah, let’s get cleaned up.” He guides you back to the waterfall, fingers intertwined. You follow him without resistance. All the running around has warmed you up, but that only makes the water feel colder. Guts is careful as he washes you. “I know it’s cold, but you’re being so good for me,” he coos. His hands firmly glide across your skin. You feel him pause to trace the scars on your body, gently tracing the thin lines on your lower abdomen. His touch dips down between your thighs, and you part them.

He does nothing more than clean up the mess he made, but you’re still sensitive. Little tremors run through your body, the aftershocks of your ground-shaking orgasm. Guts surprises you with a kiss on your neck. You swear this man is trying to kill you with his affection. With the uncomfortable slickness gone, you lean against Guts and relish in him pampering you. If only you had brought more soap. You could have asked him to wash your hair.

“Done?” he asks, to which you nod. Guts picks you up again and carries you to dry land, where he dries you off with the towel again. “Arms up,” he commands. And before you know it, a shirt is pulled over your head. The fabric still smells like him. Smoke from a fire pit and the medicinal scent of herbs from his ointment. You glance over and watch him put on his pants. Your eyes trail along the scars on his body. Most of them have healed nicely, but they’ll always remain to remind you how close to death you were that night.

Your fingers absentmindedly rest against the area of your brand. Before you can slip into a spiral, Guts calls out your name. His brows are furrowed, and his eyes are focused on where your hand is. “I’ll be fine,” you insist. You’re unsure if he believes you, but he nods and doesn’t pry further.

Your eyes begin to droop, and a big yawn escapes your mouth. “I think it’s time to rest,” Guts says. Luckily, your sleeping arrangements aren’t too far. With Rickert’s help, Erica was able to find a larger bedroll for you and Guts to share. You never voiced the thought out loud, but you liked the closeness it forced. Something about sleeping in his arms brought you a sense of peace and security.

When he holds you at night, the nightmares leave you in peace. The screams quiet, and the stench of iron is replaced with cedar and smoke. The arms around your waist are tender. Guts is like a kiln; you’re dry clay—fragile at first but robust after exposure to his warmth.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Guts asks, petting your hair. You’re lying in bed, limbs tangled like vines wrapped around a tree.

The corners of your lips curl up. “Like what?”

Guts leans his forehead against yours. “Like I’m everything to you. That’s my job,” he says.

You’re smiling so much your cheeks ache. “I love you.”

Guts mirrors your smile. His hand slides down to cup your face. You can feel his breath tickle your skin. His eyes dart to your parted lips before closing the gap.

The kiss is slow and tender. Soft, pliable lips that leave you panting for air. Guts trails his mouth along your jawline, leaving a path of fire as he moves to the hollow of your throat.

You can’t help but let out a content sigh when he pays attention to the sensitive area. Your cheeks tingle at the thought of waking up and being greeted with a new mark. Guts plants one last kiss on your collarbone before drawing you closer to him.

“I love you so much,” he mumbles into your skin. You snuggle into him, wanting his scent to envelop you. His next words are so quiet you almost miss them. “Promise me you won’t leave, too.”

Your heart stutters in your chest. You look into his eyes and see a reflection of what you’ve become. His dark circles fare no better than yours, and that vengeful spark has dulled, having been weathered over time by grief.

You lost your friends and family, but so did he.

With the brand carved into your skin and the spirits waiting around every corner to devour you…. “You know I can’t promise you that,” you say, and you hate how your words feel like a punch to your own gut.

“Then lie to me and promise anyway,” he whispers, staring at you through glossy eyes.

You bite your lip but refuse to look away. Raising a hand to wipe his tears, you say, “I promise to stay for as long as I’m able.”

Guts nods, soothed by your response. “Rest. I’ll keep us safe.”

Us. The word sends your heart a flutter. You shift into a comfortable position and drift into darkness, dreaming of campfires and starry skies for once.

End Note:

It's like I can't decide whether I want the fic to be sad, happy, or horny. So why not all three?

I also decided to bite the bullet and get image dividers, because trying to get center formatting and having it stay consistent across platforms is tiring. Do they look ok? I got them from a Tumblr post by @/saradika if anyone wanted to know.

I have no idea when my next work will come out. I already have some fics queued up and knowing myself, I'll either speed right through them, or drag them out too long and lose interest lol

I'll see you guys at my next hyperfixation! (。・∀・)ノ

Reblogs are appreciated!

#guts x reader #guts x reader smut #berserk x reader #berserk fic #berserk #afab reader #otherwise gender neutral #no y/n #fluff and smut #Angst #But just a smidge #It helps season the fic #This sat in my drafts way too long #Why is writing smut so hard #Why can't I have some sort of divine oracle to enlighten me?#Time to yeet this into the void and never look back

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kivino · 1 year ago

Note

KIVI, YOU SWEET ANGEL YOU.

can you write a price x gn!paramedic!reader where price is on leave, and maybe he gets into a car accident that isn’t too bad so he refuses to go to the hospital, but the cute paramedic keeps insisting on at least checking him out in the ambulance……….. 😋

DOUBLE VISION || JOHN 'BRAVO 0-6' PRICE X PARAMEDIC!GN!READER

Word counter – ~1.9k

Tags/Warnings – mentions of car crash, intoxication, medical examinations, fluff, first meeting, and lack of medical professionalism, lmao.

A/n – PLSS I HOPE YOU LIKE IT POOKIE, IT TOOK ME A HOT MINUTE TO GET TO THE REQUEST I’M SORRY MWAH. also credits for the name go to @mockerycrow as well, they’re a genious and have the biggest brain out of the two of us.

ao3 link for this fic

It’s always a slow process for John - getting used to the slow, civilian ways when he finally gets his leaves approved. When he spends so much time on the field, more often than not he starts to forget about “the other side” of life. Lack of noise, mundane mornings, and silent nights come and with them, the all-encompassing feeling of loneliness starts to set in his gut. John gets reminded about the lack of anyone’s presence in his life. No one is waiting for him back home, and no one will probably be any time soon, with how work takes over most of his free time. And then the captain remembers he’s not getting any younger.

Of course, he had plenty of experience and relationships before, but none of them lasted until now when his hair was already graying and wrinkles were starting to riddle his face here and there. John wasn’t insecure about his age, no, because that would be foolish, really, rather it was the fact that he had no one to share with all the years that were ahead of him.

What John also had a hard time getting used to was driving the busy streets of London with its crazy drivers after months of not getting behind the wheel, which brings him to this moment. Well, it really was on him for trying to get somewhere after happy hour in all the pubs in the area ended, he should’ve probably anticipated some drunk idiot would want to drive back home today. John wasn’t in the right headspace at the moment to fill out all the paperwork and figure out who was in the wrong. His thoughts were far away from here. Probably all the impact from the airbag and the hit.

He’s had it worse before, of course, so some bruises and scratches here and there wasn’t something he couldn’t handle. John felt some pulsing pain in his knee, making it harder to stand upright, and a bit of an ache in his neck from the whiplash, but again, it wasn’t as bad as getting thrown into the wall by an explosion or falling out of a damn helicopter.

So now he has to spend the whole evening working out things with the police and that drunk idiot who bumped into him, freezing his ass off in the rain. Just perfect. John feels a surge of annoyance and exhaustion wash over him, he pinches his brow, letting out an impatient sigh. Cops have arrived on the scene already and started examining the two collided vehicles, after putting around some traffic cones so some other lucky fellas don’t decide to join in on the fun. From his spot on the sidewalk, John can also see the paramedics, who had to get involved because as soon as cops started questioning that drunk guy, he decided to scrunch into himself and show the world all the contents of his stomach. As if it needed to get even more complicated than it already was.

“Excuse me, sir? You’re the other…driver involved in the accident?” John suddenly hears a voice, a bit on the quiet side, which brings him out of his thoughts that involve strangling somebody in a variety of different ways. And oh, his nights instantly become tens, if not thousands of times better when he sees the owner of said voice.

Judging by the identifying markings you were a paramedic, and a very cute one at that, with your dull green uniform and a big jacket on, brows tied together in a concerned expression. Oh, and your eyes, they looked absolutely lovely in the low streetlights. Price is taken aback for the moment, forgetting every word in his vocabulary. He feels his heart starting to beat faster, blood flowing through his veins so fast he’s sure if it wasn’t for the evening darkness he’d most likely resemble a tomato. But then John realizes he must say something because just staring at you would just make him seem like some old creep. And he absolutely didn’t want that.

“Yes, that would be me.” He speaks up after clearing his throat. You nod to that, attentive gaze still on him. John then adds on after a short pause, which took him to let out a deep sigh. “You need me for anything?” Anything. Something. Please.

“Just checking up.” John feels his heart melt at that small smile that grazes your lips, making it obvious you’re satisfied with his answer. “You seem to be holding up better than the other driver.” You joke in an attempt to either lighten up the mood, which John appreciates, or to calm yourself a bit. It didn’t escape him how you seemed a little shaky. It was Friday night, so today’s shift might have been rough on you. Always the Friday nights.

“Well, anyone would hold up better than that bloke.” He jokes with a bit of abandon, a low chuckle escaping his lips, as he starts to overthink himself. John suddenly feels like a dumb teenager, which is never a good sign, especially when there is someone he’s interested in right in front of him. Price feels like his laugh is too rough, stance is too relaxed and everything is just a bit too much when your eyes are on him. Oh, he’s so going to embarrass himself.

“True, but let’s not tell him that.” You give a quiet laugh and John’s worries die down a little. Not completely, but enough to let his eyes get glued to your face. “How are you feeling? Is there any abnormal pain, anything unusual or out of the ordinary?” Oh, so you’re the type to get straight to business, huh? Interesting. Price liked that. “If there’s anything wrong we’ll get you right to the hospital.” Price declined when he got asked about the hospital before by another paramedic because there was no way he was going to spend even more time out of his house because of some minor scratches. But if it meant you’ll be there, he’s calling dibs on the seat beside you in the ambulance truck, dear lord.

“My knee’s complaining a bit, love.” John can see your eyes going as big as two shiny coins when you hear that pet name, which, to be fair, slipped out completely unintentionally. However, by the way you instantly light up in another shy smile, he can tell you don’t really mind it, so his nervousness caused by this… “happy accident”, comes down again. “Some bruises, but I’m not about to hold you up because of those.”

“Oh, well, that’s alright, come with me and I can check you out…” You stutter over your words while talking a bit too quickly and once you understand what you said, an annoyed groan comes out of you. Way to embarrass yourself. “I mean, check your knee out in the ambulance, alright?” You again shoot him a smile. Which probably is in vain, since he’s a patient at the moment, and you’re at work, and that’s very much frowned upon, but what can you do? You don’t meet a man like that everywhere. He looks a bit rough around the edges, but that’s part of the charm.

“I’m sure your hands are already full with that hero of the day over there, I’m good.” What. The fuck. Are you doing. John. The only chance he gets to talk to you and he’s blowing it, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t know why he said that. Maybe not to seem desperate in a very self-sabotaging way, but that’s just. Oh, John, you’re too old for playing some damn games with someone you like.

“You know what? I insist.” Your voice is lower and rougher. And when you top it off with another one of your sweet smiles and a gentle touch on his shoulder? John is a gone man. Turning into complete mush, putty, if you will. God, for this perfect smile he was ready to smash and repair every single house appliance and pipe in your house.

“Alright then. Anything for you, love, lead the way.” And you did, with your hand resting softly on his back, helping him forward. John wished you would’ve been bolder with your touch, so he could feel more than just a light graze, but still. It felt good.

And then he finds himself in the back of the ambulance truck, this cramped, tiny space making him hold his breath from being so goddamn nervous in your presence. You told him to take a seat while rummaging through some cabinets and various medical bags for something. Seemingly not finding anything that you needed you spoke up to him again.

“Okay, now let me see your knee, sir.” You mumbled while kneeling in front of him, your eyes concentrated on the man. He didn’t mind you calling him sir at all. John was so used to being called that, but right now it just spread that very pleasant warm feeling inside of him.

“Well, I’m not taking my pants off. Not without a dinner first.” Price chuckled, as he tried rolling up one of his pants legs. And, well, his statement wasn’t that far from the truth. The whole deal with examination was a bit awkward to begin with, so he didn’t want to make it even worse.

“I’ll think about it, big guy.” You chuckle, as you finally start looking at his knee, small, feather-light touches sending sparks over Price’s skin. So, you enjoyed teasing him like that, huh? In combination with that nice, sweet smile? Oh, John is sold. He definitely should you invite somewhere while he still has time on his leave. But before he can open his mouth to make a brave offer you speak up again. “Looks like you have a minor sprain in here, your knee’s all swollen. I’ll apply some elastic bandages, that you’re going to have to wear for some time and redo yourself. But overall you seem to be doing good” Price couldn’t help but feel like that last remark wasn’t about his health.

“Yeah. Yeah. That’s all fine with me, love. Do what you have to.” You only nod in response, spending some time rummaging in the cupboards once again and emerging victorious with a roll of elastic bandages in your hands. You return to your previous position in front of John, and adjust his knee with a firm hand, mumbling a quiet “Hold still, please”. Oh, he’d freeze for centuries if you had asked him to. But he does, and as you wrap the bandage around his knee, which just kept pulsing with hot pain, he couldn’t help but admire you. The trained movements, the concentrated gaze, the warm touch…Maybe he really should act on his thoughts. Maybe it’s his chance. Maybe something can work out and this accidental meeting will become…something more.

Price wanted it to become something more.

His imagination ran rampant, picturing you wearing something nice and fancy, in case you do agree on a date. John totally should not be thinking this when you were right there, finally putting some finishing touches on his knee bandaging, so he forced them out of his mind and cleared his throat. Here goes nothing. But before Price can even utter a single sound you’re already being called over by your colleague. Guess he’ll just have to wait until you’re free of your duties, huh?

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ikeromantic · 1 year ago

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Entwined, Ch 10

Part 10 of a multipart series. Mai has been reborn in the modern age after a full life in the Sengoku. The warlords as spirit animals find her again after 500 years of searching for her soul. Approx. 3500 words.

Part 1

Previous: Part 9

Mai sat on the park bench, people watching. Her mind was crowded with all of the things she might say when Hideyoshi arrived. Tossing one phrase after another. Too generic. Too cruel. Too ambivalent. Was there any good way to -

CLANG

The sound shook her out of her thoughts and back into the moment. She could see a light pole, and a man on the ground beside it. Mai went to check on him. It sounded like he crashed pretty hard.

“Are you ok?” She got a good look at him as he lay there. Despite the stunned expression, he was very attractive. Young-ish but with gray hair and astonishingly violet eyes. He had a book clutched in one hand.

“Oh! Hey! It’s you!” He smiled up at her, his face almost angelic with the change in expression.

Mai was pretty sure she’d never met him, but she nodded. “Yep. It’s me!” She held out a hand to him. “Let me help you up.” There wasn’t any blood, but she thought he’d have a pretty good bruise on his cheek.

“Thank you.” He took her hand, but didn’t really use it as he stood. She tried to let go once he was standing, but he kept hold of it, still smiling brightly at her as if they were the best of friends. Or lovers. “It’s great to see you again. I wanted to go visit you but Mitsu-”

��There you are!” A shorter, blonde guy walked up and grabbed his arm. “Come on, fool. Stop bothering that idiot.” He glared at them both. “Did she catch you walking into a pole again? What have I told you about reading while you walk?”

Violet-eyes let go of Mai finally, and she took a step back. These guys were weirdos. Cute but bizarre.

“I did, but Ieyasu! Look who I found!”

The blond turned his glare full-on to Mai. “Yes. Some girl. Great. Come on, Mitsunari. I don’t have time for this. We have lectures to get to.”

Ah, they were either students or professors. Mai relaxed a little. “Hey, it was nice meeting you. You should um, put some ice on your face, ok? I’ll just . . . go . . . sit . . .”

“Thanks for checking on this idiot.” Ieyasu held out a hand to stop her. “It’s - it’s nice to meet you. I’m Ieyasu, and this guy is Mitsunari.”

“I’m Mai.”

Mitsunari smiled brightly. “Let’s have lunch together, Mai.”

Ieyasu let out an exasperated sigh. “She literally just met us. She isn’t going to just go somewhere with strangers.”

Mai let out an awkward laugh. They bickered like an old, married couple, she thought.

“But Ieyasu, we’ve known-” Mitsunari started to speak again, but his friend turned suddenly, knocking the book from Mitsunari’s hand. He immediately went after it with a murmured ‘oh no’.

“Actually, I have some time before I meet up with a friend. I’d be ok getting coffee or something, if you like. There’s a stall just a little ways from here.” Mai wasn’t sure why she felt so comfortable around these two. They just seemed nice.

The blond looked as if he might say no. His lips were turned in a firm frown, a little wrinkle between his brows. “Alright. Let’s get it over with then.”

She wasn’t sure how to take that response, but had no time to change her mind. Mitsunari had already recovered his book, and now linked arms with her.

“Ummm . . . alright. But you know you don’t have to? I thought-”

“Come on.” Ieyasu set off toward the coffee stall with a determined gait.

Mai followed after with Mitsunari, uncertain how she felt about this turn of events. But at least it was a nice distraction from her thoughts. “So, you two are students? Or -”

“I’m a guest professor,” Mitsunari smiled at her. “I teach project management. Sometimes I do consulting work too.” He shrugged as if this was no big deal. “Ieyasu teaches and runs a compounding pharmacy.”

“I could have said so myself,” Ieyasu shot back over his shoulder.

She held back a smile. “What do you teach, then?”

“Organic chemistry. Biochem.” He frowned. “Why do you care?”

“I was just curious. Sorry.” Mai wasn’t sure how to react to him. He seemed at turns to really dislike her, and at other times, friendly.

Ieyasu sniffed. “You shouldn’t apologize so much. It’s fine to ask questions.”

Mitsunari laughed and patted her hand. “He’s so excited to spend time with you again. You’ve really unsettled both of us.”

“A-again?” Mai raised an eyebrow. “Have we -”

“There it is.” Ieyasu grabbed her arm and tugged her away from Mitsunari. “What kind of coffee do you want?”

Mai studied his face. There was something about his bright gaze that felt so familiar. She could recall his voice speaking her name with gruff affection.

“Stop staring at me like that. If you don’t tell me what you want, I’ll get you a plain, black coffee.” Ieyasu grumped at her.

“But she likes sweet things,” Mitsunari spoke up. “I bet her favorite isn’t even coffee. Let’s get her a strawberry milk tea!”

“I do really like those,” she said after a pause.

Ieyasu nodded. “Great. Perfect.” He pointed to a nearby park bench. “Mitsunari, go sit with her there. And don’t say anything stupid.”

Mitsunari nodded. “Thank you for reminding me, Ieyasu! You are such a good friend.”

The blond gave a tired sigh and turned away to get in line.

“Is he always like that? I feel like he is,” Mai said as she let Mitsunari lead her off to sit down.

“Hm? Oh yes. Ieyasu is always so kind. He worries about the people around him all the time.” Mitsunari gave her an angelic smile. “It’s good you remember that about him.”

There it was again, Mai thought. She couldn’t place them, but she felt like they’d met before. She was about to ask when Ieyasu arrived with their drinks in hand.

“Here.” Ieyasu handed her drink over and sat down next to Mitsunari.

No one said anything for a few moments. They sat in companionable silence, sipping their drinks. Mai studied them over the rim of her milk tea. She knew that she knew them. There was a sense of it, like a song lyric just forgotten. Out of reach, but only just. She felt sure if she asked the right questions, it would all come back to her.

“Do you like your drink?” Mitsunari noticed her gaze and gave her another angelic smile.

“Mmm. Yes. It’s very good. Thank you again, Ieyasu.”

He gave her a nod in reply, not making eye contact.

“I did have a question for you. Mitsunari.” Mai smiled back at him. “This is going to sound like a weird thing to ask but, do you know a guy named Mitsuhide?”

“Of course.” Mitsunari chuckled. “He’s -”

“An actor, right?” Ieyasu interrupted. “I think we saw him in a production.” He flashed a warning look at his friend.

Mitsunari seemed immune, or perhaps hadn’t noticed. “Oh, yes. I’ve seen him on stage several times. You even perfo- ow!” Mitsunari jumped. “I think something bit me! Ieyasu, did it get you too?” He rubbed at his leg.

Mai decided to try a different tack. “Ieyasu. I know that I’ve met you before. You and Mitsunari and Mitsuhide as well.”

His jade green gaze widened before he shrugged and looked away. “So?”

“So where do I know you from? I feel like . . . we were friends?” She couldn’t help the pleading tone of her voice. “It’s like I’m losing my mind. I keep having these - these memories of places and things that . . . aren’t . . . normal. And meeting people like you two. People that seem so familiar but - but I don’t -”

Mitsunari took her hand in his. “You’ll remember it all eventually, Mai.”

“Right. So quit trying to push. You’ll just hurt yourself.” Ieyasu added gruffly. He nudged Mitsunari. “We need to get to the lecture hall. Come on.”

“But, wait! You can’t just say that and then leave. I need to know. Where did we meet? When? How did we know each other? Why do you remember but I can’t?” Mai felt a surge of frustration and helplessness.

Mitsunari gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “I promise you’ll remember it all. And until you do, we’re all here, watching out for you.”

Ieyasu gave a curt nod. “We’ll be around. But don’t use that as an excuse to do something stupid.” He stood and began walking away.

“I have to go now. But I’m sure we’ll talk again.” Mitsunari’s gentle gaze made Mai feel slightly better as she bid him goodbye. She still felt confused and out of her depth, but reassured too.

She spent the next hour sipping her milk tea and wandering through the park, thinking about the last several weeks. Her life until now had been uneventful. The usual ups and downs, full of laughter and tears. She hadn’t considered that there could be more to it. Memories, friends, lovers from another life in another time. It seemed too incredible to be true.

In the end, Mai decided it didn’t matter whether it was too incredible or not. She knew she felt these things, and her vivid recollections from other times felt like real memories. She didn’t need to know how it worked or why it was. She really just had one choice to make. To believe these things were real, or to refuse. Simple enough . . .

“You look lost in thought. Everything ok?” Hideyoshi’s voice took her by surprise, though he’d shown up more or less at the agreed time.

Mai gave a half-hearted laugh. “Yeah. You know how it is sometimes. When you just go around in circles?”

Hideyoshi smiled and reached to tousle her hair, but stopped short. He cleared his throat, suddenly awkward. “You said we needed to talk?”

She realized as she looked at his nervous posture that she really didn’t want to break up with him. He was such a nice guy. Even now, he was more concerned with her comfort than his own. But it would be cruel to say nothing and so she took a deep breath and nodded. “We do.”

He let out a breath. “Alright.”

Now that the moment was here, Mai wasn’t sure what to say. She struggled for a moment, trying to find the words to express what lay in her heart. “I really like you. It’s just . . . you’re more like a big brother. Or - or a good friend. Comforting and kind and -” Mai stopped herself from saying more as she took in Hideyoshi’s pained expression.

He sucked in a breath, “I suppose I deserve that.”

“What? No!” Mai drew back. “You’re honestly the sweetest guy. It’s me, you know? I have a . . . a lot going on.” She felt a sudden urge to spill the whole thing to Hideyoshi. Her weird dreams and sense of deja vu, her confusion over Mitsuhide and her feelings for him. But that wasn’t fair to him.

Hideyoshi stuck his hands in his pockets and fixed his gaze on the ground. “It’s not you, it’s me, right?” He made a sound that might have been laughter or tears or both.

“Oh, no, that’s - that’s not what I meant. I-”

He shook his head, looking at her again. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve told a woman she’s like my little sister. Knowing how she felt about me. Using my responsibilities to - to keep people at arms’ length.” Hideyoshi’s lips twisted in a small, sad smile. “Kind of ironic to have it turned around on me now. With the - the one -” He stopped talking and took a moment to look out at the park, staring at nothing in particular.

Mai felt her heart twist in her chest. She wanted happiness for Hideyoshi, but she knew he wouldn’t find it with her. Not the way he wanted, anyhow. It just killed her to see him hurting like this. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

“You shouldn’t apologize.” He pushed his hair back from his face, trying to master his emotions. “I’m glad you told me. You were - are - so honest. I’ve always admired that about you. Even if it sucks to be on this end of it.”

“Hideyoshi.” She wanted to hug him, but he looked so brittle in this moment, fragile. And even worse, she felt as if they’d been here before. Navigating this space between friendship and romance.

He forced a smile though his eyes were damp. “Would it be alright if - if I still text you sometimes? Just as a friend?”

Mai nodded. “I’d like that. I meant what I said. I care for you.”

“Good.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to lose you.” He rubbed his face as if to banish the unshed tears. “I might go quiet for a little while though. Just to - to give us both some space.”

“Sure. That’s probably a good idea.”

Awkward silence fell between them, with neither sure of what else to say. Mai wanted to cry, but she felt like that would be wrong. Afterall, she broke up with him. But seeing the vulnerability in him, the openness, the hurt . . .

“Is it ok if I hug you?” Hideyoshi held up his hands as if to show her they were harmless.

“Yeah. I’d like that.” And then she was enveloped in his arms, her cheek pressed to his warm, firm chest. His hands rested on her upper back, cradling her gently. She knew she was crazy to give him up - any girl would be lucky to stand beside him. But she wasn’t any girl. She was - my little mouse - Mai, and she knew her heart was elsewhere.

After a moment, they parted. Hideyoshi looked better for the brief embrace, though he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

“I think I’ll just go now. This is a good spot to end.” He gave an uncertain half-smile. “See you around?”

“Yes.” Mai nodded. “Definitely.” She wanted to apologize again, to tell him what a great guy he was and how sorry she felt to cause him heartbreak. But he was right. This was a good way to end it. More words would spoil their goodbye. So she waved and watched as he walked away, leaving an ache in her chest that made the afternoon feel colder and more empty.

After he was gone, she took out her phone, itching to talk to someone. Her finger hovered over Mitsuhide’s icon but then she scrolled past to text her friend, Asami. They’d grown up together and if anyone could make her feel better about dumping an absolutely perfect guy, it was her.

They met up at an ice cream shop - Asami’s idea - to split a brownie sundae.

“Trust me, warm caramel will make us both feel a lot better. Me, because I am forever alone, and you, because you’re drowning in hot guys and can’t make up your mind.” Asami grinned as she held the door open for Mai.

“Oh my god. I am too making up my mind! That’s why I talked to Hideyoshi.” Mai stormed past, feeling a little put out by her friend’s carefree smile.

Asami laughed. “Don’t pout. I’m only teasing. I know that couldn’t have been easy.” She gestured to a table. “You save us a spot. I’ll order.”

Mai forced her mouth out of the moue it was making and nodded. She knew her friend was just trying to cheer her up. And she was right. Any girl would be happy to have the problem of too many cute guys in their life. It was just less fun when it was you, and the guy you liked was Mitsuhide. Because he was -

“Here.” Asami put the sundae down on the table. It was immense. Three scoops of ice cream piled high with whipped cream, chocolate and caramel sauce, cherries, and rainbow sprinkles sat on a giant, soft, chewy, cocoa brownie. Decadent. Ridiculous. Exactly what a girl needed after a teary eyed breakup.

For several minutes, there was just the sound of spoons clinking the glass dish and happy sighs.

When they’d done a fair amount of damage to the ice cream and dug into the brownie, Asami asked, “So. What happened? I thought Hideyoshi was the perfect guy? Is he, like, secretly eating babies or something?”

“No,” Mai giggled. “He really is damn near perfect. I just . . . he doesn’t . . .”

“Ohhhhh. I get it. No chemistry. When he kisses you, no zing. No juice. No -”

“Oh god, Asami! Stop it! You’re so dirty!” Mai was blushing now, her face hot with embarrassment.

Her friend gave her a knowing look. “But I’m right, right?”

“Yeah,” Mai admitted reluctantly. “It’s like, I care about him. But not as a lover. I can’t imagine him in bed. Or, I can? But I don’t want to.”

“Pfft. I’d imagine him in bed. My bed. You should give me his number.” Asami grinned, then her expression fell, becoming serious. “It’s hard to tell a guy he’s friendzoned. I’m sorry you had to do it. But you got it over with, and it sounds like he took it well.”

She nodded. “I almost wish he’d yelled at me or something. I feel like I kicked a puppy. And,” Mai paused, “this is going to sound weird but, I kind of feel like I told him that before?”

“Deja break up? Weird.” Her friend tilted her head. “But didn’t you tell me you have all kinds of feelings like that with the Mitsuhide guy? Like you knew him before and stuff?”

Mai took a breath. She hadn’t told Asami everything. It was too strange, and she didn’t want her friend thinking she’d lost her mind. But . . . “Do you believe in reincarnation?”

Asami raised an eyebrow. “For real?”

“Yeah.”

After a moment, her friend shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I mean, something has to happen when you die. So why not? Wait.” Asami’s other brow shot up. “You think you were with him in another life? Mitsuhide or Hideyoshi?”

Mai swallowed. “Both? Like I knew them both? And not just them.” She spilled everything over the rest of the sundae. Her dreams and feelings and all of the strange moments she’d had. It felt so good to tell someone she trusted. To just let everything out after worrying over it alone.

When she finished, the ice cream was a memory and Asami was thoughtfully tapping the licked-clean spoon against her lips. “Well. Either you’re insane or reincarnation is real and for whatever reason, you’re drawing these people back to you from your former life. Or lives.”

“That’s not much help. You’re supposed to make me feel better.” Mai tried to frown, but she honestly already felt better just talking about it.

“Hey! I’m the honest friend. You want blind reassurance, ask somebody else.” Asami stuck her tongue out.

“I would, but Kaiya’s too honest as well, and everyone else is either involved or not a close enough friend. So it’s on you.”

Asami laughed. “Fair enough.” She set the spoon down. “I don’t think you’re crazy. So I guess that means we’re stuck with the reincarnation theory. The only other thing I can come up with is some kind of conspiracy but that seems like a lot of work to date a seamstress. No offense.”

“None taken.” Mai smiled.

“So. If that’s the case, then why don’t we try to make you remember? Then you’ll know who these guys are and what they mean to you. Include your hottie theater friend.” She winked. “Want to make it happen?”

“I . . . yeah. I do. But how?”

Asami pulled out her phone. “I know a guy. Does hypnosis and stuff. I don’t know if he’s helped with this past life stuff, but supposedly he can help you diet and quit smoking so it’s worth a try.”

Mai wasn’t sure about that, but she nodded anyway. “If you think he might help, then I’m down.”

“Great. I’ll see what he says. And in the meantime -” Asami pointed at her. “No moping. If you start to mope, I’ll call Kaiya and we’ll both show up at your place.”

“No moping,” Mai agreed. “In fact, I think I’ll swing by the theater tonight and take a few shots of the stage. I want to do some color match and contrasts with the -”

“Oh. God. It’s always work with you.” Asami laughed and rolled her eyes. “Sure, fine, whatever helps you get through. But I know the real reason you want to drop by.”

Mai tried to look innocent but she knew she was failing as Asami’s smile widened.

“There might just be some hot, golden-eyed, platinum haired guy who needs a little help with his co-”

“Asami!”

“What? I was going to say costume. Obviously.” Her friend’s smile was mischievous and gave the lie to her ‘obvious’ statement.

Mai felt a rush of love for this friend that had been there for her every time she needed it. She grabbed Asami’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re the best. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just remember that on my birthday. I was looking at this phone -”

They both broke into laughter, the emotional moment passing.

Chapter 11

#ikemen sengoku au #reincarnation au #entwined #ikesen mitsuhide #ikesen mitsunari #ikesen ieyasu #ikesen hideyoshi #fanfiction #fanfic #otome #otome guys

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alienaiver · 1 year ago

Note

Hello! For the writting game what about Bakugo + 43?? :D

HELLO! <3 i am so sorry for the wait, but YES! bakugou is so fun.... he'd hate me for calling him adorable BUT HE IS! 🥺🧡

number 43 was "this is the third time you’ve broken a promise to me, I’m starting to think you are doing it on purpose.” so i tried to do something fun with it!!! (i am mostly a fluff writer, after all.....) ✨

there're no warnings and this turned out to be 1.1k words! bakugou is called your work wife tho, he got that energy<3

Your eyebrow twitch as you stare at the notification on your phone. It’s a confirmation e-mail for your purchase of a brand-new refrigerator with the delivery details included inside.

Except, you did not order a new one. At least not yet.

You shouldn’t be on your phone right now, but the notification intrigued you and now you’re just perplexed. It hasn’t even been 45 minutes since you complained to Bakugou about your fridge breaking down and how the expenses for a new one will be astronomical to your budget.

Bakugou Katsuki, the man you’re in love with, is with almost a hundred percent certainty, the one who’s done this without your permission. You scroll down and can’t stop a shriek from escaping you at the total.

If you accept this, it’ll be the most expensive thing you own.

You roll your eyes and put down your phone to massage your temples. This is getting out of hand. He is purposely going out of his way to break his promise to you these days and it’s adding gray hairs to your head and wrinkles to your forehead.

You are Pro Hero Dynamight’s personal secretary, managing everything to do with his Pro Hero life. Sometimes you wish he’d hired a PR manager too, but you digress and just thank the stars you’re good at your job.

Six months ago, you confessed your feelings to him.

It went about as bad as it could go. He’d invited you to dinner, something he’d done often – he doesn’t have many people in his life that doesn’t have to do with his line of work. He can’t find the time, he always says. You’d felt brave and confident when you confessed, but he froze immediately as the confession left your mouth. Stumbled upon words to find a nice way to turn you down while maintaining your current relationship.

He never gave you a proper reason, but you suppose you’ve been fine without one. Ever since that day, he’s been buried in work trying to rise further in the ranks. He’s in the top three now and you’ve noticed he’s slowed down significantly again, seemingly satisfied with his current position. You pretend to tidy up some papers on the left of your desk, to keep your hands occupied as you attempt to calm down before walking into Bakugou’s office to scold him.

You’d only given him two rules back then, promising everything would turn back to normal if he promised not to break them: a) Don’t talk about the confession and pretend it didn’t happen and b) that he should not, under any circumstances, compensate his guilt by buying you things. You’d rather wilt into the ground than let pity run your friendship.

But there’s been a pattern the past few weeks. When you walked home from a dinner party at Kirishima’s place a little over a week ago, he’d teasingly mentioned your crush on him, a tilt to his voice you hadn’t heard before. You blamed it on the wine that evening and Kirishima’s joke about Bakugou being your work wife.

He also bought you a ridiculously expensive kitchen set of pans, casseroles, and knives this weekend after cooking at your house and complaining about the quality of your stuff – or lack thereof, more like.

You puff up your cheeks to try and alleviate some anger but it ends up just festering, growing. Did he forget your promise? That feels out of character for Bakugou – maybe he does have stress from his hard work.

Maybe he blew a fuse in his brain.

You accidentally startle a passerby when you abruptly stand up, prepared to yell at the most explosive hero in Musutafu. You’ll be fine.

You hope.

Before your anger fizzles, you aggressively force his door open, making him look up in irritation from his documents, but you see his brow relax at the sight of you. It pisses you off even more.

As you approach his ridiculously large desk, he leans back and takes off his reading glasses, fidgets with them in his hands. He knows what this is about. If he smirks, you’ll burn down his office, you decide.

Luckily for him, he doesn’t. He keeps a straight face as you stand with your arms crossed looking down at him. With a petulant sigh, you rub the space between your eyebrows as you speak, “y’know, this is the third time you’ve broken a promise to me, I’m starting to think you are doing it on purpose.”

He leans further back in his chair as he puts the glasses down. He looks almost bored as you chance a look at him. You’re about to back-track (so much for a violent chew-out, your brain adds) and stumble over words when he smiles, all teeth and closed eyes, “I’m busted, huh?”

Huh?

Huh, fucking indeed.

He smirks then, but your brain has already forgotten its prior decision and is instead following his every movement as he gets up and rounds the desk to stand by you. The confidence he exuded on his way over wanes slightly the closer he gets, and not only his cheeks but his ears and neck get redder and redder.

He clears his throat when he deems himself close enough and your brain reminds you to turn your body towards him. You fail to do so but just stare blankly at him.

“When you confessed I…” his voice is unnaturally strained and high-pitched so he clicks his tongue to gather himself, “I’d already planned that I’d confess to you when I would reach the top three…”

Huh?

It seems your brain has lost most of its vocabulary.

He shakes his head to gather himself again before reaching out to take your hand – you let him. Breathlessly, he says your name and you never considered your own name to be beautiful before you heard it in this exact octave.

“I wasn’t sure how to confess… or let you know… and I was afraid your feelings had died down… so I had to do some testing before I was confident…”

Bakugou? Not confident? You accidentally snort out loud and finally, finally your brain catches up and you’re able to move your body so you’re facing him properly. He scowls but squeezes your hand nonetheless, “’m in love with you.”

You must’ve blanked out because he says your name again, this time annoyed as he leans over to see if you’re ignoring him on purpose. You come back to yourself as his eyes are searching yours and that’s the moment you can’t take this anymore. You lean forward to kiss him, and the grunt he lets out makes you smirk, knowing you’re the one with the upper hand right now – even if your heart is beating just as fast as his is.

Maybe it’s not so bad that he broke a few promises. This is the perfect apology.

#fr i apologize humbly for the wait and hope this meal made it worth it <3333333333 #now i only need ushi and link!!!!! i hope to get them done before i leave on the 6th #bnha x reader #mha x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou katsuki x you #nohr.writing #nohr.bnha #writing game

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maize-is-lost · 1 year ago

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Finally finished Louie's introduction that I started here. All that's left now is Pom's section and then I'll post all three (four?) scenes together as one chapter! If you haven't seen the previous part, I definitely recommend checking it out for context.

Louie’s in a haze for the rest of the day. He packs, makes his call to his grandma, and picks up a coffee and a pikpik carrot muffin at the coffee shop that got him through high school. He hasn’t had time to stop by in almost a year, now. He leaves a generous tip.

The moments in-between are spotty. He’s not sure if hours or days have passed before he’s back at Hocotate Freight’s headquarters.

“Excuse me,” a tired voice says, snapping him back to the moment. He turns, now-cooled coffee halfway to his mouth, to see a woman standing behind him. She’s short and older than him, though he can’t tell by how much, given how recent the wrinkles and gray hairs must be.

They’ve never met in person, but he’s seen pictures. Even if he’s not good with faces, he knows this is Olimar’s wife.

“You’re Louie, aren’t you?” Unsure of how to respond, he just nods. “I see… I, well… I’m not sure how to say this.” She laughs halfheartedly. “You know, Olimar always talked about how he wanted to invite you for dinner. I can see why! You’re far too skinny for a boy your age!”

He looks down, then back up to her. “That’s what my grandma says too. Mostly because I eat too much.” For some reason he could eat and eat and never gain any weight. It probably had something to do with him being an outbreed. Nana always said full-blooded Hocotations had to be short and stout: short because all their food was either close to or under the ground, and stout to store extra water and nutrients for later. Louie had just gotten the short end of the genetic stick by inheriting traits that made him stand out.

Either way, his joke gets a full peal of laughter out of her. By the time she composes herself she’s out of breath and there are tears in her eyes. After a moment she sighs, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I see why my husband liked working with you,” she muses, wilting a little at the mention of Olimar. “I heard they were sending you to the planet The Transmission originated from. I… I have to be honest… I’m not sure what I want you to find when you get there.”

Louie’s eyes widen. She continues, swallowing down some nervousness before she gets to what’s been stuck in the back of his mind all day. “The speaker in The Transmission wasn’t my husband.”

“I know.”

Her jaw drops. Olimar’s wife looks at him with something like joy and disbelief. “You already know. That… makes this much easier to say, then.” She clears her throat. “As much as I want you to find my husband and bring him home… I don’t want anyone else to get hurt while searching for him. I… I know that he wouldn’t want that either.” She sniffles, dabbing at her face with her sleeve. It’s making Louie want to run away more and more with every passing second. “That’s all I had to say. Please be careful when you’re out there.”

He gives one last nod before turning to leave. He heads straight to his ship from there. He doesn’t see the President or any of his coworkers before he takes off toward the mysterious planet, so Olimar’s wife’s words are all he can think of as he flies toward the stars.

He’s not taking any risks when he gets to that planet.

#I have a lot of thought's about Olimar's wife and how she's characterized in-game. If you can't tell. Maybe I'll elaborate someday #I also have many thoughts about the differences in species we seen in the pikmin games so casually inserting my headcannons here #gosh y'all have no idea how excited I am for getting past the 'Louie realizes he's in a horror game' section and into the 'Louie decides #he's going to live his best life anyway and be a jerk to anyone who's in his way of that' section. I think it'll be fun.#pikmin #pikmin au #pikmin fanfic #louie pikmin #four riders au

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schrijverr · 1 year ago

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A Behind the Scenes of: The Modern Day Portraits

Jonathan returns to his YouTube channel for the last time to talk about the portraits at the end of the book.

On AO3.

Ships: jargancy, jopper, steddie, Robin x OC, byler, elumax, Dustin x Suzie

Warnings: homophobia mention, racism mention

~~~~

“Hi, I’m Jonathan Byers, the main photographer and editor of A Collection of Queer Photography and I apologize that it has been this long,” Jonathan starts out the video looking a little embarrassed and rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Continuing he says: “I had a lot of plans for this – pages I wanted to discuss, guests I wanted to have – but I got swept up in other projects, so I have kind of lost steam for this project, but I wanted to have some semblance of an ending, so today we’re looking at the modern day portraits of everyone at the end of the book, which had always been my intention to end with.”

He grabs the book and starts flipping from the back as he explains: “The whole point of this book was to show the little snippets and snapshots, but these final few pages are showing us now and they’re portraits, which means they are more deliberate, which makes them interesting to explore in contrast to the other ones.”

Jonathan looks back up, having found the page, and says: “Not to discredit them, I’ve done a lot of portraits and being deliberate isn’t a bad thing, I just like casual photos more.”

“You might be asking yourself, but Jonathan, if you like those better, why didn’t you include a snapshot of everyone now at the end?” he goes on. “And that is because I wanted to end on that deliberate note. I wanted everyone to think about what they found important about themselves now and they people they grew up to be and allow them to highlight that.”

“And, of course, a lot of the snapshot include the kids, who were are not putting in a spotlight, because most of them are too young to comprehend what they’re agreeing to,” Jonathan adds.

Then he turns back to the book and says: “The first portrait is of my parents and is called Jim & Joyce Hopper-Byers. I put them first, because I kind of organized them on age and affiliation, if you want to call it that. Like we’re a family, but they are groups. Kind of. It just happens.”

On screen Jim & Joyce Hopper-Byers appears. It’s of an elderly Hopper and Joyce. Hopper is now entirely bald and Joyce’s hair is completely gray and thinning, wrinkles and sun spots cover both of them. The two are standing on the porch of their home, Hopper holding Joyce around her waist and Joyce leans against him. The two smiling contently and looking at peace.

“My parents really wanted theirs to be outside of their home,” Jonathan says. “And I am really happy that it looks as peaceful as going there is. Because that’s the most important thing about them I wanted to capture.”

“Neither of them had a great start – which I won’t go into that much – and they didn’t find each other until later in life,” Jonathan tells the camera. “Getting to photograph a peaceful retirement for them is really special to me.”

“I also like the homey feel of the place, since it has been such a haven for all of us and it still is for many local queer kids today. It’s not only an important aspect of this book, but of them and it fit with the themes.”

“On the page next to is is the portrait of me and my partners, which is taken by Jane, my sister,” Jonathan continues. “I’m glad it’s her, who got to take this photograph, since I was the one that taught her and it bonded us over the years. And because she is also in a polyam relationship, so I trust her the most with capturing us.”

“The titles are pretty simple, so it’s called: Argyle, Jonathan & Nancy Byers,” he adds.

The portrait in question appears. Argyle still has long hair, now with streaks of gray in it. He is wearing a long skirt as he sits on a chair in a sleek apartment, legs crossed. Behind him on the left is Jonathan smiling awkwardly and hunched over a little. He is also older, fully gray and slightly bald in his shirt, jeans and flannel. Nancy is on the right, a hand on Argyle’s shoulder. She looks a little severe as she has always done, hair pulled up in a tight bun, power suit on. She looks friendly, but is smiling only faintly.

“We collectively wanted it to be a more family-style photo in our own home, since we didn’t know if we were going to have that when we started dating and we wanted to show other people out there that you can,” Jonathan says. “Though, I suppose we all had a different take on the why.”

“Of course, dating multiple people isn’t a usual home thing, but for me it also came from growing up poor with a shitty father, so the idea of being able to a home filled with loved ones, seemed far away and out of reach,” Jonathan explains.

“I am also wearing work clothes in the photo, which might seem counter-intuitive, but it’s because I build this home with my work and the people in it with me,” Jonathan says. “My work clothes have always been my comfort clothes. And as the photographer, I wanted you to see the person behind the photos in the book.”

“For Argyle, he has lived in a more absent home, where no one cared about what he did as long as he didn’t step too far out of line,” Jonathan moves on to the next subject. “So, he’s wearing clothes that make him happy, because he is in a home where he can do that now and still be loved.”

“That sound right?” he asks, eyes focusing on something behind the camera.

“Yeah, baby boy, that sounds right,” Argyle’s affectionate voice comes from off screen. “I also wanted to be visibly genderqueer in a portrait, because it’s often not allowed and seen as ill-suited, but look how well it suits.”

“It suits perfectly. You’re very beautiful,” Jonathan smiles, a rare moment of sappiness.

“Ahww, you’re so cute,” Argyle squeals and now Jonathan does blush. “I’m gonna have to kiss you now.”

There is a cut after that, though Jonathan still looks a little flushed as he goes on: “Nancy is also dressed in her work clothes. That was important to her, because she loves her career and she takes it very seriously.”

“Nancy’s home life as a kid was very picture-perfect and American,” Jonathan says. “She was expected to become a housewife and she has always resented that. She never wanted to become like her parents and showing that she has that home, but isn’t the housewife was very important to her.”

“A lot of people have called her cold online, but you have to understand that there is much more to her than this, but she likes exuding this,” Jonathan says. “She’s not cold for cold-ness sake. We talked about it in the video about her career, how hard it is to be taken seriously. This professional persona is what she is proud of, not the only thing she is.”

He flips the page and snorts: “This one was difficult, because it just felt weird to not have Steve and Robin in the same picture, because they’re so closely intertwined. But we settled on having both portraits done in the same room to show their closeness, because otherwise it wouldn’t fit the format. But we did consider it.”

“Starting on page 226 we have Eddie & Steve Munson,” Jonathan reads.

The portrait in question appears. Eddie and Steve are in a cozy living room on a couch together. Eddie is sprawled against over the couch, arms thrown over the back. Eddie still has his long hair, now streaked with gray, his laugh lines are permanent and he smiles easily. His style is much the same, he has a cut off band shirt and black jeans with chains, his arms filled with bracelets. Steve is leaning against his side with a soft smile. Steve is wearing a big sweater and glasses, which had become necessary in his 30s. His hair is shorter now and he dyes it, highlights throughout.

“Eddie put a lot of thought into his outfit,” Jonathan says. “He’s been told his whole life that he’s too much and that he’ll grow out of it, so he really wanted to show that he was still there and still metal.”

“Steve likely put as much thought into it, because he very much likes dressing himself,” Jonathan adds. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now, but Steve got a lot of flack for how much he cared about his appearance. Caring about your hair or clothes would get slurs hurled at you for being effeminate, which is ridiculous but also the society we live in.”

“I personally like how Steve dresses. He’s always dressed softly, approachable. I think he really came into himself once he stopped trying to force himself to be a straight jock,” Jonathan comments idly.

“For them, they wanted their portrait to be casual. Closer to an evening on the couch than an official portrait,” Jonathan goes on.

“Steve has been forced into too many family portraits that were more for show and Eddie has always hated the portraits they had to do as Corroded Coffin, since he’d be checked over meticulously to see if nothing ‘too gay’ showed,” Jonathan explains. “So this casual style is more comfortable for them and it really suits them.”

“On the next page are Robin and Rose, of course called Robin & Rose Munson,” Jonathan continues.

Robin & Rose Munson appears. In it, Robin’s hair is green and she has an undercut. She grins brightly into the camera as she holds Rose close. Rose is still a fat lady in a beautiful floral dress. Her long red hair is up in a ponytail and she has an elaborate flower themed make up look on. Robin’s patterned button up matches Rose’s dress and is loosely tucked into light gray dress pants which are held up by suspenders.

“For them it was important to be old and very much lesbians,” Jonathan says fondly. “Neither of them had any role models and especially none above age forty, so they wanted to be that for all the baby lesbians and bisexuals.”

“They’re also very much a butch/femme couple and they dressed up for this to highlight those parts of themselves, because they’re very tied to how they identify themselves,” Jonathan says.

“Rose has been masculinized a lot due to her size and told she couldn’t be the princess in a story, so to say fuck you to that and show up anyway was important to her,” Jonathan explains. “She loves dress shopping, trying fun makeup and dressing loudly. She called it queer femininity when she was here and that’s what she’s there to represent. The femininity that’s done for yourself, outside of society’s expectations, and I think that’s really cool.”

“Robin, of course, is doing the same for butches out there,” Jonathan goes on. “She is just so much herself and it’s delightful. She doesn’t let the fact that she’s nearly fifty stop her from dying her hair a fun color and wearing loud patterns and masculine clothes. She’s still a weird girl in her heart and she never ‘grew out’ her tomboy phase and she’s still amazing and successful and in love.”

“Both of them are very aware of what they represent when they go out into the world. What little queer girls on the street see. They’re both pillars in their local community and they want to be that bit of hope for people.”

“And they just really like being loud and having fun with their style,” Jonathan says. “I don’t know if I know many people, who can just delight in eccentricity like they can.”

Jonathan flips the page again and says: “I first thought about putting Jane, Max and Lucas on the next page with Erica, since she and Lucas are blood siblings, but it just didn’t fit right as logic. The whole point is that blood relations are the end all, be all and Lucas and his partners have lived in the same city and Will and Mike for a very long time, while Erica is the god-mother to Dustin and Suzie’s children, so that’s how the order was created.”

“First up, Jane, Dr. Lucas & Max Mayfield-Sinclair,�� Jonathan introduces.

The photo is of the three of them with their pets. Max is sitting on a chair a husky next to her that she pets his head, her crutches leaning against her on the other side. Lucas is leaning against the chair with a smile, holding a white fluffy cat in his arms. El is sitting on the arm of Max’s chair, she has a tabby cat in her lap and a bird on her shoulder. El’s long hair is in a bun and she looks a little like a hippy, a sharp contrast to Max’s professional wear, while Lucas is their middle ground with his respectable sweater and jeans. He now has glasses and looks like a typical dad, his afro now big and fluffy. All of them look happy, content. Age is starting to show and it fits them well.

“I first wanted to add their pets to the title as well, but they foster pets with an alarming regularity and Jane didn’t want any of them to feel excluded, so we decided on human members only,” he informs the audience fondly.

“However, including their pets was very important, since they’re a huge part of their lives with Jane and Lucas running a vet’s office together,” Jonathan says. “They love their pets very much and I loved including them, even if it made posing a little more difficult.”

“Max is in the middle, since she is dating both people in the picture, so it’s more fitting to have her there. Also, she had to be seated, so it made more sense composition wise,” Jonathan explains. “She is also the only one in work clothes, because she wanted to highlight both her disability and her career. As an activist and lawyer in the anti-ableist movement, it was important to her to be visible in that way, so I ensure that her crutches could be in the photo as well.”

“Jane on the other hand is fully dressed in her comfy clothes,” Jonathan smiles. “She’s had a really rough childhood, before mom and dad adopted her, so having her individuality means a lot to her. She wanted to highlight her own personality and not a professional idea of her – though their vet’s office allows for a lot of personal style. I think she did that marvelously.”

“Lucas dressed not fully comfy, but also not entirely professional. He usually has his hair up when working, for example. He is also aware of how he’s perceived, but for different reasons,” Jonathan goes on, getting more serious. “As a black man he’s very aware of how he’s perceived, so while he seems to just be a normal guy, I know he put a lot of thought into his outfit.”

“He has always been made to feel as an outsider, which means he gravitated towards more ‘normal’ styles when going out. He and Jane actually have a few overlaps in style, but he put on a more professional outfit for this, because he wanted to remind people that he is a veterinarian, who accomplished things and not a hoodlum or gangster,” Jonathan says with a small sigh. “It really sucks that he felt the need to do that, but a sad reality.”

“However, he doesn’t erase himself either,” Jonathan adds. “Those are his clothes and how he dresses, just more when people come to visit that aren’t family. And he did let his natural hair be, instead of styling it. So there are still pieces of him there, he just chose to give a more professional front, like some others have done as well. Maybe just for different and shittier reasons.”

The photo on screen gets replaced by the next one. It’s of Mike and Will in an art studio. Will is sitting on a stool Mike is behind him, resting his chin on Will’s shoulder. Both of them have short hair now and wrinkles are starting to show. Mike is in sensible work clothes that prioritize comfort, while Will’s clothes are a little eccentric and covered in paint. The two are smiling softly into the camera.

“The next one is Mike & Will Byers,” Jonathan introduces. “If you’ve read the book, you might have noticed that Mike loves clinging to Will’s back and that hasn’t stopped yet. I don’t think that posing like this was on purpose, it just is natural for them.”

“Their portrait is taken in the studio, because while it is Will’s work space, it is also a very personal space for them,” Jonathan says. “Mike often poses for Will’s work and they do a lot of craft projects with their daughters there.”

“Will is an artist to the bone and he has gotten so much more comfortable with himself throughout the years, something I’m really proud of. The two of them showed up for this portrait as themselves and that is pretty great for both of them and not at all what they would have done when they were still kids,” Jonathan says.

“Like I’m quite serious, they had kind of forgotten this was happening, so Mike had just come home when I got there and Will was still painting,” Jonathan laughs at the memory. “The back of the canvas you see on the side there is a painting that will be first shown at the opening of the exhibition Will is doing at Tate Modern this year.”

Jonathan looks at the photo again and smiles once more. He adds: “Both of them struggled a lot with internalized homophobia in their teen years, so for it to be a casual domestic photo, a little intimate look into them, is amazing to see.”

He lingers on the page for a second longer, before he clears his throat and flips to the final two pages of the book.

“Okay, on the left we have Dr. Dustin & Dr. Suzie Henderson,” Jonathan moves on.

On screen it appears. In it, the two are standing hand in hand in a modern house. Suzie is wearing functional yet professional clothes, some tools hanging from her belt, while Dustin is a sweater vest and khaki pants, gray at his temples. The years has made the two of them softer, putting fat on their bones and laugh lines on their faces.

“They have also chosen to pose in their work clothes, but it was a little more deliberate than Mike and Will,” Jonathan says. “They have a really big passion for their work and bring that into their personal lives by going to all sorts of museums and organizing field trips and experiments at home for their own kids and other interested kids in the neighborhood.”

“Suzie really wanted to wear her tool belt, even though at NASA she works more in design than actually making the prototypes, because she is a tinkerer first and she wanted to highlight that, since she works in a male-dominated field,” Jonathan explains.

“Dustin is just dressed in his professor clothes. He loves lecturing and from what I’ve heard, he’s pretty popular under students,” Jonathan says. “It’s strange sometimes, to picture the kid with graphic tees that always argued and knew better, now being an adult with a lot of patience. He’s really grown as a person and this outfit truly does show that, if you knew him back then.”

Then Jonathan turns to the final page and says: “Of course we’re ending the book with Erica, the baby of the family. Though she isn’t a baby anymore. If Senator Erica Sinclair is familiar to you, this is not a coincidence, because she did also use this photo for her reelection campaign.”

Senator Erica Sinclair appears, which is a portrait of Erica. She is in front of the Capitol building, smiling into the camera with a sharp grin that has a ruthless edge to it. Her curly hair is up in a bun and she is in a power suit, the little American flag pinned to the lapel. Age has seemingly not yet hit her, she looks powerful and on top of the world. In her prime as an adult.

“Erica is a very important person in our lives and it is sad that she couldn’t be more present in the book – we touched upon it before, I think. Definitely in interviews. But since she is a senator, we did have to be careful about her public image,” Jonathan explains.

“But we did get a few good candid shots of her in the book and I think it’s delightful to see her as an ambitious smart young girl and then as a successful woman,” Jonathan says. “It’s not unknown that she is a huge inspiration for many black girls and girls in general out there and her success is something that both of us really wanted to highlight.”

“She put a lot of work and effort into getting where she is and she has given her whole life to politics. And with that, to bettering our world for all sorts of people, such as queer people, which is central to the book,” Jonathan says.

“I wanted to end with her, not just because she is the youngest and we kind of went based of age, but also because she is the future,” Jonathan goes on. “She is trying to systematically change things for everyone and she is succeeding. That is very hopeful for me and I wanted it to end hopeful.”

“Anyway, that was the behind the scenes of the modern day portraits. Hope you enjoyed it and that it was interesting. Thank you so much for sticking it with me throughout this series,” Jonathan signs off for the last time this series. “Bye!”

A/N:

*Removing my hand from Jonathan’s body to stop puppeting him*: Okay, so I did have many plans for this that I am no longer doing (I know very sad), because I got swept up in other things and by that I mean that I re-binged Leverage, wrote fics for that, decided to write I Found Myself a Cheerleader (AKA a 174K cheerleader!steve steddie au), re-binged FMAB and wrote fics for that, before starting an archaeologists stobin au that I will start posting soon.

So, this will be the last chapter, though I am not saying that I’ll never add anything to this verse, just likely nothing big and not with any regularity. I do hope you enjoyed this last addition and I really want to thank everyone, who has read this and left nice comments, rereading them inspired me enough to add this final chapter and give it a proper end.

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lighthousecocaptains · 1 year ago

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OFMD Week Day 5: AU/Crossover Mania

This is a modern AU where Ed is a car guy and Stede knows jack about cars lol and as always, also available on ao3

Stede smoothed the front if his pastel pink button up shirt. He had worked so hard to steam it yesterday only for the front to immediately wrinkle as he tucked it into his navy slacks. He’d tried to panic iron it, but it didn’t seem to hold. Now he was late for his appointment.

He pulled his car into a parking spot and turned it off, adjusting his floral bow tie—a light blue with hints of cream and pink in the flowers—before he got out and went inside the repair shop. It was hardly busy with only one person standing at the front desk chatting to a large worker with dreadlocks and a black-and-white striped shirt. Stede stood a couple feet back, starting a line.

Stede waited there for a few minutes, watching as other workers came out from the back to walk into an office to Stede’s right. The placard on the wall said “Edward Teach, Owner” which made sense. The place was called “Ed’s Car Repair and Detailing Services” after all, so this Ed guy was clearly in charge. From his point of view, he couldn’t see inside the office beyond a sliver of wall. Stede wondered what the owner looked like. Surely he would be at least as beefy as the workers that milled about, right?

As one of the workers came out of the office, he caught Stede’s gaze. This guy was much shorter but definitely not any less built, and he wore an all black mechanic’s jumpsuit. He looked Stede up and down before he grimaced, giving Stede a glare and heading out the back door again. Stede looked down at himself, wondering what had the man giving him such a look. Was it the wrinkles in his shirt? Aside from them, he thought he looked quite stylish.

The customer at the desk finished up and walked out, and Stede walked up to the desk with a smile. “Hello! I’m Stede Bonnet. I have an appointment to get my car inspected.”

The worker—his name tag read Ivan—said nothing as he typed into his computer. After a long moment, he looked at Stede and asked, “are you having any issues or do you just want it looked over?”

“Yes, there’s an issue,” Stede began. “When I try to clean the windshield, nothing happens. The cleaning liquid stopped coming out.”

Ivan blinked at Stede for a long few seconds. “Okay.” He turned back to the computer and typed some more. “We’re a bit backed up at the moment, so it will be a while before we get to your vehicle.”

Stede looked around the room. No one else was there. He turned back to Ivan. “How long do you think?"

Ivan sighed. He grabbed the mouse and clicked a few times. "Looks like we might be able to get to it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Stede's brows rose. "Well, you see, online it said that you would be able to see it right away, and it's a small issue. Will it really take that long? I have this important work event, you see. I need my car back by tomorrow morning."

Ivan blinked at him.

Stede let out a breath. "What if I paid extra? Is there a fee for rush service? I would gladly pay it."

Ivan did not seem to register this offer, as his expression did not change in the slightest.

"Please," Stede began to beg. "It's incredibly important that I make this event. Is there..." He looked around helplessly. "There must be something I can do..." His eyes stopped on the door to the owner's office. "May I speak to the owner? Perhaps he would understand my predicament."

Ivan sighed as he backed away from the desk and walked over to the office. "Sir," he said, opening the door slightly but not going inside, "a customer wants to speak to you."

Stede watched curiously as the door opened and a man walked out. He looked about Stede's age and had long black hair pulled back into a ponytail and a thick black beard, both graying in spots, making him look distinguished. He wore a plain black t-shirt and dark, loose pants, and his tan arms had many tattoos. As he stepped out of the office, his large brown eyes fell onto Stede, and Stede found himself unable to breathe for a moment. He hadn't expected such a beautiful man to own a repair shop.

Ed came over to the desk. He read over the document on the computer for a moment, each blink showing off how long his dark lashes were. He furrowed his brows and looked st Stede. "What seems to be the issue, exactly?"

Stede smiled apologetically. He hadn't meant to bother this nice man. "Well, I was hoping I could have my car fixed before tomorrow. I have an important event in the morning."

Ed's eyes lingered on Stede for a moment, falling slowly over his torso. He cleared his throat. "I, uh...I like your bow tie," he said, his voice a tad softer than Stede had expected.

Stede's smile brightened. "Oh! Thank you." He patted it gently with a hand. "You have excellent taste."

The corner of Ed's lips upturned just slightly before his eyes fell back onto the screen. "Well, it seems a shame to waste your time for such an easy fix. I'll grab some wiper fluid and meet you by your car."

Stede nodded. "Yes, thank you! Thank you so much."

Ed nodded and went to the back door, taking one more look at Stede before he went through it. Stede smiled to himself as he turned and went out the front door, going to stand beside his car. The owner was going to fix his car. How nice, he thought, that he would offer such a thing. Stede was beginning to worry that he would have to leave and bring his car back another day.

A moment later, Ed came out the front door and turned to look at Stede's car. He whistled. "Oh, she's a beauty."

Stede turned to smile at him. "Isn't she?" He looked at his car, a bright turquoise Ferrari. Freshly washed, not a scratch on her.

"What's her horsepower?" Ed asked. "Is she modded?"

Stede stared uncomprehending at Ed. He didn't know what any of that meant. "Uh...I don't know."

Ed looked back at Stede for a moment. "Oh," he said.

They stayed there for a moment, just looking at one another. Stede couldn't deny that Ed was an attractive man, but he was a car man, and Stede knew nothing about cars. He just thought they were pretty, and looking good was very important for Stede's job as the owner of a country club (which he hated). He wished, often, that he could just be around cars all the time. He loved looking at them and hearing them and driving them and cleaning them. He did his own detailing, and he took great pride in that, but now he wished that he had taken the time to learn more about how they worked. Now, he looked like an idiot in front of Ed.

"First, we need to pop the hood," Ed said, setting the container of orange liquid down on the sidewalk in front of the car. He looked at Stede. "Do you know how to do that?"

Stede nodded, unlocking the car and opening the front door to pull the latch that popped the hood. He closed the door and stood there, waiting for Ed to fix the car.

Ed lifted the hood and moved the rod to prop it open. His dark eyes looked up at Stede and used one finger to make a "come here" motion at him. Stede's cheeks heated but he complied, going to stand beside Ed.

Ed pointed to a bright blue cap at the front left side that read Wiper Fluid. "See this?" He pulled the cap off. "This is where the wiper fluid goes." He picked up the container he brought. "You can buy a container like this at any car shop. Shouldn't be more than a few bucks for a gallon like this." He pointed at some words on the container. "You want to make sure that you get one that won't freeze in the winter. Here, you need one that goes to -20 degrees Fahrenheit. This one also helps repel water, which will help keep your windshield looking nice even when it rains." He opened the container and began to pour it in. "Try not to spill." When about half the container was gone, he stopped and recapped it. "There. That should do it."

Stede smiled. "Wow! That was so easy." His smiled faded as he turned to look at Ed. "Oh. I suppose I didn't need to bring it in to be fixed."

Ed smiled back at him. "It's alright. I'm glad I got to see your fancy car." He returned the cap to Stede's car and closed the hood. "I'd love to take a ride in something like this one day."

Stede's heart leaped. "Are you free now?"

Ed looked at Stede, startled. "What?"

"If you're free, we can go for a ride right now," Stede said with his goofy smile. "Otherwise, I can come back some other time. It's only fair since you took the time to teach me to fix the problem with the wiper fluid."

Ed scoffed and looked back towards the car. "I couldn't. I've got a business to run. They might fall apart without me there."

Stede looked back to the repair shop. "It doesn't look all that busy to me. And you deserve a break. It must be hard running a business on your own."

Ed let out a slow breath. "I don't know..."

"It would be quick," Stede said. "Five minutes. Of course, I won't twist your arm about it. Just thought that if you would like it, I would offer."

Ed turned to look at Stede, a smile growing on his face. "Alright. Let's go.”

Stede went over to the driver's side, his hand hesitating as he reached for the door handle. He turned to look up at Ed already at the passenger's side. "Actually...would you like to switch?"

Ed's eyes widened. "You'd let me drive?"

"I figure you must be a good driver, working with car's and all," Stede said. "Go ahead." He tossed Ed the keys.

They switched sides and got into the car. Ed put the key into the ignition and started the engine, excitement blooming on his face as it roared to life. "Oh yeah. She purrs."

Ed backed up and took them out of the parking lot, speeding up as he got onto the road. Their heartbeats quickened and adrenaline rushed in as Ed went faster and faster. Then, they reached a red light, and he slammed on the brakes. Ed breathed heavy, catching his breath. He looked over at Stede, worried that he would be mad, but Stede wore a large grin.

"That was incredible," Stede said with a laugh. He met Ed's gaze. "You drive fine cars well."

They stared at one another for a long moment as their hearts raced. Then, the light turned green and Ed had to look away to drive. He took them back to the repair shop, parking in the same spot Stede had earlier. They both got out, and Ed handed Stede his keys.

“Thanks,” Ed said. “That was fun.”

”Of course,” Stede said.

Ed went to turn and head back into the shop but hesitated. “If you ever need anything else…for the car, I mean, let me know.” He pulled a business card out of his pocket and handed it to Stede. “Repairs. Detailing. Anything. I’ll personally see to it.”

Stede looked at the card, beaming. “Wonderful! And what do I owe you for the wiper fluid?”

Ed smiled. “Consider it complimentary.”

”Oh, I couldn’t possibly,” Stede said. “Please, let me pay you.”

Ed looked at Stede for a long moment. “How about dinner?”

”Dinner?” Stede gave a lopsided smile. “That sounds lovely.”

“You have my number,” Ed said before he turned and went back into the shop.

Stede watched him go with a happy sigh. He looked down at the business card again, a light feeling in his stomach. This wasn’t how he had planned for the day to go, but he wasn’t disappointed in the slightest. He got back into his car, driving off with a silly grin on his face, excited about something in his life for once. He liked this feeling. He hoped this was the start of something great.

#ofmdweek2023 #ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #edward teach #my fic #modern au

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white-melod1s · 10 months ago

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Chapter 1: Orpheus Detective Agency

“I think this will do.”

Standing in front of an abandoned building, a man dressed in a long gray coat and a matching hat mumbled to himself as he played with his pipe. However, there was one problem. He does not have the finances needed to revamp the floors and he is in desperate need for a place to start his small business. He took a deep breath and sighed. Perhaps this is his sign to start saving.

But who’s going to help him out? He’s the type of person who would rather do his own things than asking for assistance. To which was the reason why his friend circle was small. Of course, he values them very much, but sometimes, it can be hard for him to tell someone his troubles. Which is the case now.

That’s when he remembered, he does have a friend who has a wider social circle. Maybe he can ask her for help. He quickly made his way toward one of the nearby phone booths, put in a few shillings and punched in her number.

“Hello, is this Lady Truth speaking? I need to speak to you.”

——————————————————————

“Wait- you’re starting a private detective agency?”

Sitting across him was a female with blonde hair. She was so shocked that she almost jumped out of the seat she was in. The disbelief on her face was visible and her loud voice made people around them turn their heads to look with distaste.

The man covered his face and shook his head. He reached a hand out and put it on her shoulder, signaling for her to sit back down. “Settle down, Truth. No need to be so loud. We aren’t the only people in this cafe after all.”

Lady Truth’s face was as red as a tomato. She timidly nodded her head as a means of apology. The people around them no longer paid attention to the duo as they went back to what they were doing. Seeing that their focus was shifted, she turned her gaze back to the man on the other side of her and questioned him. “I know you just came back from the army, Mr. Inference. But are you sure you want to become a private detective? They don’t earn a lot of shilling, you know. But if that’s what you want to do, I’m more than willing to help you get in touch with my friends who can help with the expenses.”

The man, Mr. Inference, nodded. “Thank you-“

“But! Under one condition!”

He paused. He was not expecting her to be making compromises. “And that is-?”

She brushed a stray hair behind her ear and looked him in the eyes. “If you don’t mind me becoming your assistant.”

Now it’s Inferece’s time to be baffled. Not that he didn’t expect her to say something wild like this. But rather, he’s known Truth for quite a long time now and he knew for sure that she would not be a good person to go to in terms of reasoning. “If you don’t mind me asking you, why?”

Truth was still for a second. There were unknown emotions in her eyes as Inference noticed. But he decided to not pry. “But of course, if you don’t feel comfortable telling, you’re not obligated to answer-“

“I’m looking for someone.”

“Ah-?” Inference was a little surprised. He didn’t think the ever-so-friendly Lady Truth would have trouble trying to find a person considering her wide social circle. But the pained look on her face told him that whoever this is meant a lot to her, and he should just leave the topic as is.

“Very well. I don’t mind.”

The smile returned to Truth’s face once more as the two made their way out of the cafe to make plans.

——————————————————————

“Young master, you have a phone call.”

A man who looked to be in his mid-20s was sitting in front of his desk, his eyebrows wrinkled, as though something was troubling him. Besides him stood his younger brother. Both of the young men had raven colored hair, except one white streak that seemed to be dyed purposely. Perhaps it’s a family tradition?

“Noir, go take the call.” The young man told his younger brother without ever looking up from his paper. “If they ask for me, tell them I’m busy and not available for visitations.”

Noir rolled his eyes and followed the butler out of the room. He was used to being ordered around by his older brother. Or maybe, his adoptive older brother.

That’s right. Noir was the odd one out. Ever since he was young, he lived in his older brother, Désire Mélodis’ shadow. While Désire was loved and praised by many, he was the outcast. He was used to being treated like a piece of garbage, and he grew numb to it eventually.

“Here, master Siegfried.” The butler bowed after he held the door open for him. Noir nodded at him and made his way to the phone before picking it up. “Siegfried Mélodis speaking, who is this?”

“Oh hey, Siegfried! Is Désire busy?” A familiar voice came through the speaker and Noir pinched the bridge of his nose. Great, an old familiar that he didn’t want to see. She was too chatty and always tried to make conversations with him.

“Yes, Lady Truth. He is busy.” He replied in a monotone. “Perhaps you can schedule a time to meet with him later.”

“About that…” she trailed off. “I don’t think it can wait.”

After some brief explanation, Noir had a general idea of what the purpose of this call was. Apparently, she’s starting a detective agency with a friend of hers but they did not have a supporter who can supply them with finances. The Mélodis family being the most respected and rich family in the area, of course she would be asking them for help.

“I will let him know once he’s free.” He promised. After Truth said her enthusiastic good-byes, he hung up.

“What a childish idea… Désire surely won’t agree to such a request.”

To Noir’s disbelief, Désire agreed, not even hesitating for a moment.

“Oh, you see.” He explained, with a grandeur in his voice. “Since they are so desperate for some mysteries to be solved, we may as well give them a hand and help them out.”

Désire’s expression changed, a meaningful smile played in the corner of his mouth. Watching his older brother, Noir made a mental note not to interfere with whatever he’s about to plan.

——————————————————————

“Oh look, Mr. Inference. They’re here!”

Truth waved her arms about as soon as she spotted Désire and Siegfried along with their butler and a few maids. One of them stood out from the rest with her fiery red hair. Truth paused. The maid seemed new and she felt like she'd seen her somewhere. Just as she was about to ask, Désire took her hand and kissed the back of it.

“O-oh. Good to see you again, Désire.” She stammered with a blush.

“It’s a pleasure to see you too, Lady Truth. You are even more beautiful than the last time we met.” Straightening up, Désire replied with a smile.

Noir rolled his eyes. Then he bowed and introduced himself. “Siegfried Mélodis.”

Inference tipped his hat. “Inference.” He replied, nodding to both Siegfried and Désire.

“You wish for my assistance to help fund the detective agency?” Désire asked Truth. She nodded. “It would be great if you could help. Your family holds a high regard in society after all. If you are able to help, it could also bring some name to our small detective agency. And who knows, we may be able to pay the debt back to you!”

“I don’t know about-“ Inference objected but Désire simply laughed. “Oh, don’t you worry, Lady Truth. I am willing to help and you don’t have to pay anything back. Goodness, no. We are friends, aren’t we?”

Even though Désire was kind enough to help, Inference had a very bad feeling. He couldn’t put his fingers on what it was that was unsettling but something told him that he shouldn’t trust the Mélodis family easily. He kept his distance and quietly observed the duo. He also noticed the younger Mélodis looking visibly uncomfortable around his older brother. Maybe it’s a sibling thing, something he couldn’t quite understand but it did bring him back to his childhood for a second.

“…-ister Inference, Mr. Inference!”

Truth crossed her arms on her chest and puffed up her cheeks. “Earth to Inference, are you even there? What had your head in a cloud? I was talking to you.”

“Hmm, what is that?”

“You remember what we were talking about earlier? Why do you want to name it ‘Orpheus Detective Agency’ and not ‘Inference Detective Agency’?” She asked. Inference simply lit up his pipe as he blew out a puff.

“That’s a story for another day, Truth.”

#truth and inference #idv #idv mercenary #naib subedar #idv gardener #emma woods #idv seer #eli clark #idv photographer #joseph desaulnier #idv fanfic

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averagejoesolomon · 2 years ago

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Surprise! This is one heck of a chapter and it was eating away at my brain all week, which has resulted in a quicker-than-usual chapter. Have some Matt and Rachel!! If you're new here, you can read Full Circle from the beginning on Ao3.

Chapter Ten

“What are you doing here?”

It’s well past sunset, but the sky hasn’t yet forgotten the light of day. A low, radiant blue eases up from the horizon and stretches toward the dark and deepening promise of an oncoming night. The grounds of the Cameron estate have faded to a pale, strained gray, which might explain why Matt hears the voice before he spots its source. With less than ten minutes until total nightfall, Rachel is little more than a silhouette as she rounds the crest of a shallow hilltop.

Matt turns away. “You told me to get lost,” he reminds her. “So I’m getting lost.”

He doesn’t add that it’ll be another fifteen minutes before his cab arrives, because the last person he told was a burly, cross-armed bouncer at the mansion entrance who told him to move along. With the party still in progress, Matt was ordered to wait further out of sight, which is how he finds himself at the edge of the property line, tucked alongside a budding willow tree and the pond over which it weeps. That’s just as well. This is a better vantage point anyway, and he can finally give up on this ridiculous, bow-tied cover.

But even when he’s hidden away, Rachel still finds him, and she’s walking with the kind of purposeful, powerful stride she usually saves for rogue agents, right before she takes a swing. “That’s not what I’m asking,” she bites, “and you know it.”

She’s still got that thread of cruel fury strung through her every word. When Matt hears it, he can’t help but snatch it from the air and pull. “I thought you didn’t want to see me again.”

There’s no stopping Rachel when she sets her mind to something, which means there’s no stopping her as she charges straight through the evening with her hands twisted into fists. Matt drops his duffel on instinct, defaulting into a defensive stance, but with every step, he sees more of her—the wrinkles in her dress, the disheveled hair, the way her heels sink into the muddy hillside. She dissolves from strength to sorrow right before his eyes. “Langley says you’re supposed to be in Romania,” she shouts. “Abby says you’re flying in from Texas. And now you’re running around my home, starting arguments with my—”

“I didn’t start that argument—”

“Enough.” She lands right at his feet. “Just enough, already. You’re going to stand there, and I’m going to yell at you, and you’re going to listen—”

“No, you’re going to listen.” His finger lands inches from her face. “I’ve had just about enough of you riding in on your high horse and looking down on me—I’m not that clueless kid you met at Camp Peary anymore, and you’re gonna stop treating me like I am.”

Her teeth grind against the set of her jaw. “You’ve got three seconds to get your hand away from me before I snap it into ten different pieces,” she tells him. “Who do you think you are, talking to me like that?”

Wrath is stealing his patience, and his goodwill, and his logic, but even with all of that heat pumping through him, he knows better than to tempt Rachel into following through on a threat. He lets his finger fall, but raises his voice to make up for it. “Why shouldn’t I talk to you like that?” he says. “God forbid anyone disagree with the almighty Cameron sisters—”

“You leave Abby out of this. This is not about Abby.”

Matt’s whole life has been about Abby since the day he met her. “Of course it’s about Abby,” he says. “Everything’s about Abby, because she makes everything about her. She twists the whole world around her little finger and then she acts surprised when someone says they’re in love with her, and then she—”

“When someone what?”

“I told her,” Matt barks. “And she totally blew me off, because she’s selfish, and reckless, and she can’t commit to anything—not even herself.”

“Hey, do not talk about her like that,” Rachel snaps. “You do not talk about Abby like that. What has gotten into you lately—and don’t you lie to me. Do not lie to me. I know when you’re lying.”

“On account of how you know everything, huh?”

Rachel takes another step forward, frantic and fast. Just short of a jab. She’s right up to his chest when she says, “You have been looking for a fight since you first got here—so guess what? You finally found one.” Budding tears gleam against the empty sunset, but they ain’t the product of sadness. These are the bitter, burning tears of righteous rage. “If you’re going to be angry with someone, then you better start with me, Matthew—and you better strike me down quick, otherwise I will come back at you blow, after blow, after blow until that bruised jaw is the least of your problems.”

There’s a part of him that can’t stand the sight of a woman like her crying in front of a man like him, but it’s small, and dwindling fast compared to the part of him that wants to twist the hurt deeper into her core. In that slim instant, all he wants is to humble the Hell out of her, the same way the Circle has humbled the Hell out of him, and it’s only after she makes the offer that Matt realizes he does want a fight, actually.

It’s real annoying, that she gets to be right about this, too.

“Why can’t you just admit that there are some things not even the mighty Rachel Cameron knows about?”

“There’s plenty I do know—I know you’ve been doubling up on missions.”

“So what?”

“I know you stopped going to church.”

“What’s that got to do with—?”

“I know you just kicked my dear friend into the ground, and threatened him to the point of tears.”

“Yeah, and that guy’s a real prize, by the way.” His words freeze against the springtime air and mingle with the fog on her breath. “Honestly, Rachel, you deserve better than him, and the fact that you don’t see it—”

“I do see it,” she shouts, and to emphasize her point further, her bare left hand cuts through the mere inches that separate her face from his. “That’s why I’m not married to him, you virtuous asshole. But even if I was, you can’t just throw people around like a rag dolls—”

He grabs her wrist and holds it there, hand shaking at the same furious frequency as his voice. “You’ve got no idea what I can and can’t do,” he says, and it comes out like a warning—low and ragged. A blinding white tension teases every last nerve he has. “Not one damn clue.”

But Rachel’s chin stays high, her voice even as ever. “Get off of me,” she says, and when Matt doesn’t listen, she gives the order again. The second time comes with a shove that sends them both backwards, stumbling through slick clumps of grass. “Get off of me.”

Instinct sends his hand out to catch her elbow, aiming to steady her, because he’s given enough farm tours to know heels and mud don’t mix. Except Rachel sure don’t see it that way. She just pulls further back, because Rachel has never needed anyone else to keep her steady. When she does catch her balance, she pauses. Studies him. Her eyes pass over him from top to bottom, searching, until a great, round tear finally grows too heavy and trails down the curve of her cheek.

Her voice shakes with his. “What… happened to you?” He wonders how long she’s been dancing around this question, because now that it’s finally out in the open, it feels tender and wilted. “You used to be patient and kind. You used to show mercy to everyone you met.”

Matt has to swallow, hard, to keep back indignant tears of his own. “Yeah, well,” he snaps. “Maybe all that nonsense was making me a godawful spy.”

“Maybe it was,” she agrees, with all of her stubbornness and pride. “But I know plenty of good spies, Matthew. It’s not often I meet good people. And it’s a shame, and a waste, and a categorical disaster that Joe wrung that out of you—”

“Don’t.” He’s lost count of how many times he’s had to fight this particular fight. “Don’t even start—this ain’t about Joe.”

And for the first time all evening, Rachel’s voice drops to something just above a whisper. He’s got no choice but to key in and listen good. “Everything you do is about Joe.” Her face grows long, holding back the quiver in her lip as she keeps each word steady and concise. “And I don’t know how you haven’t figured that out yet.”

It’s real easy to get lost in this line of work. Matt sees it all the time. He’s seen analysts lose hours of their life to encryptions that can’t be cracked. He’s seen field agents get buried under guilt, or grief, or paranoia. Some people get so lost in the world of espionage that despite their greatest and most determined efforts, they never land back home at the end of the day.

Matt ain’t lost, because Matt’s got Joe. And the same goes for Joe, just the other way around. There’s a tether tied straight through their centers, wrapped tight around the parts that keep them grounded. Whenever one strays too far, the other is around to pull him back in. And they do. Pull at one another. Day after day, night after night, minute after endless minute, he feels Joe’s tug against his gut, begging to be drawn back into safety. And when that feeling fades, Matt knows its time to call in reinforcements of his own—sure enough, Joe always knows just how to reel him back in.

But Rachel’s watching him like all she wants to do is reach out, pin him down, hold him right by her side, and he wonders if he’s stumbled into another one of those unnoticeable things. He wonders what Rachel notices, staring up at him through disappearing daylight.

“Matthew.” His name sounds secure on her lips. “What are you doing in Baltimore?”

“Rachel—”

Try again. “Who is trying to attack my father?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Try again, try again. “Who are you running from?”

“No one, I swear—”

Try again, and again, and again. “Then who are you running toward?”

In the silence that follows, the crickets begin to play their song while an icy breeze rolls over the lake. It sends ripples through the water and catches in the long, billowing branches of the nearby tree. It’s hard to tell if Rachel’s shivering is the result of rage or the steadily dropping temperature, but Matt supposes it don’t much matter either way.

He shrugs the jacket from his shoulders, sliding his arms free one at a time before wrapping it around her. Rachel promptly refuses the offer, wriggling free of his reach as she brings a hand up to wave him away. “I don’t want your jacket,” she grumbles. “I don’t want your help.”

“S’not my jacket,” he reminds her. “You bought it.”

She wipes away the second tear as it falls. “Well I don’t want it.”

“You’re freezing,” he says, trying again. “Can you give up on being stubborn for thirty seconds and just let me help you?”

“Not until you let me help you.” She swats the jacket away once more. “Not until you tell me what he’s got you doing, and how much trouble he’s gotten you into.”

“First of all, he hasn’t gotten me into anything—if Joe had things his way, we’d be sipping Romanian wine on the patio of a three-star hotel right now.” Matt shoves the jacket onto her shoulders and holds it there. “And secondly, when things went sour in there, Joe was the guy who stuck up for you, so maybe you ought to give him a little more credit—”

“He was sticking up for you.”

Matt just shakes his head. “I’ve seen Joe stick his neck out for me plenty of times,” he says, and it’s true. But when Joe fights on Matt’s behalf, it’s different. When Joe fights for Matt, there ain’t nothing holding him back—that is, of course, except for Matt himself. “That one was for you.”

Rachel considers this, absentminded hands grasping at the lapels of the oversized jacket and pulling it shut around her front. Her face twists up in that same way it always does when she’s thinking, calculating, strategizing, and Matt just knows that she’s trying to balance new information with the instinct in her gut. “That doesn’t change the fact—”

“One of these days, you’re gonna have to realize trust go both ways.” He lets his hands fall, and she stands a little taller without the weight. “One of these days, you’re gonna have to realize I know what I’m doing.”

In a business of identifying patterns and understanding assets, there ain’t no one better than Rachel Cameron. That’s the truth, through and through. In an instant, she can piece together mannerisms and character traits that would take most people years to notice, handily storing them away in her head for future use. Matt’s seen her process in action on more than one occasion, and it’s amazing to witness. So when Rachel says, “You’re different, now,” he knows it to be a categorical fact observed by an expert in her field. “You’re different than you used to be.”

And it’s hard not to agree with her. “I’m different than I used to be.”

He’s not sure when it happened. There was no glorious, enlightening moment in which he became a fully capable intelligence agent, with some secrets so secure not even the CIA knows about them. There was no ceremony, celebrating his promotion from shining rookie to rugged professional. When someone has run as many missions as Matt has, maybe it’s inevitable that slowly, without warning, he becomes the kind of guy who chases leads across continents. He becomes the kind of guy who bashes Russians with billiard balls and kicks know-it-all NSA agents to the ground. He becomes the kind of guy who fights with the friends who made him this kind of guy in the first place, and he becomes the kind of guy who doesn’t have enough energy left for mercy.

And when she lays it all out for him, right there in that springtime chill, Matt starts to realize that maybe he doesn’t like the kind of guy he’s become. Rachel certainly doesn’t, and Matt very much wants to be the kind of guy Rachel likes.

Her voice is softer now, but still has an edge that can cut right to his middle. “I don’t know what path you’re on,” she tells him. “But if you keep walking that way, I won’t follow. I swear to god, Matthew, I will not watch you sacrifice yourself to espionage. I won’t do it. You’re too good for that.”

Throughout his career, plenty of people have told Matt that he’s good, but none of them have meant it in the way Rachel does now. They say he’s talented, gifted, skilled. Rachel says it with her soul—good. The way saints are good. The way God is good. The way him, looking at her, is good. “I don’t…” he tries, but the words get lost somewhere along the way. He has to restart. “I don’t know if I can stop. I have to keep doing what I’m doing. It’s important work. It’s good work.”

In the distance, tires crunch across the stone drive and Matt turns to clock the noise. The headlights meet him dead-on, exposing the pair of them in an otherwise dark night, so he throws his hand up to block the glare. Sure enough, a bright yellow taxi sits idle at the mansion doors. He turns back to Rachel with so much left to say and not enough time to say it.

She beats him to it. “Then you better find a good way to do it,” she says, with a subtle sniffle. “Or you better figure out how to do it without me.”

With one, easy motion, she pulls his jacket from her shoulders and shoves it into his chest. It knocks the air from his lungs as he strains for another argument, but Rachel isn’t willing to listen anymore. She pops her heels from her feet and lets them hang by the fingertips as she turns away. Matt picks up his duffel and follows her lead. It’s a miserable trudge for the both of them, cast in two opposite directions—one toward a cab he doesn’t want to take and the other toward a party she doesn’t want to attend.

When he reaches the taxi, Joe’s already waiting inside, ready to reel Matt in. “We’ll get a hotel for the night?” he asks. “Flight’s not until late tomorrow evening.”

Matt slings his muddy bag onto the floor at his feet. “Sure, you get us a room,” he says. “I’ve got a stop I have to make first.”

#Full Circle

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