#but just remember that somewhere out there there's always hope. a reason to keep moving forward

[ladyintree]

when van laughs,  it doesn’t matter that they’re still strangers in some way,  it doesn't matter that it’s been so many years now since they’ve been together,  and it doesn’t matter that they’re still not together,  still haven't figured out what this is — taissa knows in her heart that she is in love with van palmer,  not just again,  but still.  that feeling never went away,  even after years of trying to bury it,  trying to convince herself that van was nothing but a memory during a tragedy.

she was wrong,  she always knew she was wrong,  but she made her decision.  she said goodbye to van.  she had to live with that choice.  

even as she moved on,  van was there —  or rather,  the absence of them was there,  reminding her she’d never feel whole with anyone else,   and she’d have to tell herself that that was okay,  because a life of happiness was unobtainable anyway,  after everything she’d been through.   so why did it matter?   she chose her road to success over any genuine happiness,  and she made herself believe she was doing the right thing.

there’s an ache in her chest now as she gets lost in van’s laughter,  filled with regret of the time lost,  but her entire body is warm in a way it hasn’t been in so long —  comforted by their presence,  relieved by their grin,  hopeful with their laughter.   she’ll do anything to keep making them laugh,  to give them reason to smile at all.

they’re beautiful.  the way taissa looks at them now tells them as much,  gaze full of endearment,   of a longing both innocent and hungry.    

she’s grinning,  nose crinkling as it always has when she feels that familiar fluttering in her chest around them.  like a teenager again with a crush.   it’s comforting, knowing van hasn’t lost this charm—   though,  tai can’t imagine them without it.   she bites her lip,   but a soft giggle falls from her anyway.   ❝  give me everything you got, then.   i missed hearing you ramble about…  anything and everything.  ❞    she lets out a breath,  as if she’s already trying to keep up with it all,  as she always tried.   there were so many times in their years apart taissa couldn’t stop herself from thinking back to them,  wondering if van had liked this movie,  hated this tv show,  heard that song.  there were times it felt easy to bury them in the back of her mind,  and then there were times they’d pop up uninvited,  begging taissa to remember they exist,   that they’re living a life out there somewhere she wasn’t a part of.   she can’t go back to that.  she can’t say goodbye twice.  

she nods,  still feeling relief in knowing they do get a tomorrow,  and another,  hopefully—  and another.   ❝  so i didn’t bore you to death the first time around?  ❞    she asks with a playful grin,   more confident now than she was then,   worried too many times that she’d crossed a line, said too much, asked the wrong questions.   she’s still not entirely confident that she won’t do that again,  but at least they’re getting to a place where this is more comfortable,  where it doesn’t feel too daunting to put it all out there.      

she has no shame,  doing what van won’t—  eyes meeting gazing to their lips,  a soft,  barely audible hum sounding from her lips,  remembering the way they’d kiss each other goodnight,  how van’s final kiss against her wrapped hair was her indication that it was okay to fall asleep.  she has the urge to beg for that now — can you put me to sleep?  can you hold me while i forget about everything else but the peace that comes with your arms around me?    she ignores it,  her chest deflating slightly,  eyes glancing back to theirs now.

her hands pat her knees,  and she forces herself up first,   turning to van and reaching out a hand,  one last excuse to share a touch,  but it’s also just natural,  even after all this time.   ❝  tomorrow,  ❞    she says in agreement,   a hopeful look in her eyes,  one van probably isn’t used to —- tai certainly isn’t.

van's laughter tangles with taissa's, a genuine happy laugh for the first time all night, possibly in weeks.

being back in new jersey puts them in knots. wears them out. they're looking forward to returning to the comforts of their home, to the rewards of their store, and to showing tai around town. showing her someplace new like they used to imagine they would one day. all of which would have been out of the question — hardly a thought — that first time in oberlin. they had closed themself off to her, tense and frustrated as van had been when taissa dropped into their life unannounced after all these years.

the most van had given her were lies and half-truths, not thinking for a second that they would stay in each other's company.

but they've still got it, don't they? whatever it is. seeing as tai flirts in that self-assured way that wraps van right around her finger. "oh-ho, that right?" their cheeks burn. they work against this by giving as good as they can get. van lays on the charm, slowly and smoothly, "'cause you haven't really seen me in action yet over there to know..." a bashfulness sets over them. winking an eye closed, their face scrunches up at her like it's them who can't actually take it. taissa turner is a woman who has always known how to knock van palmer right out.

— there's that, and there's how van's under the warm lamp of her attention. tai is taking a real interest in them, and in the interests which have made them who they are today. they've missed that. the way she would look at them when they were acting the most authentic to themself (not that van's ever been very good at hiding themself away), and how, in so doing, tai made them feel like they were somebody special. if she's wanting to know the person that van has grown to be, there is no better place to do that than in van's stomping grounds.

"we'll map it out tomorrow." van suggests. they will save for the trip the lecture they are forming on: the soul-searching road trip genre vs. hitchhiker horror, because it humors them to think that if this were a movie taissa would, in fact, be starring (hey, co-starring?) as the protagonist who discovers herself by taking america by wheel. but this isn't a movie; and van wants to drive most of the stretch; plus this is an eight-hour car ride, -ish, which is like. an hour in lesbian time.

taissa's whisper leads them both into another hush. as van gazes, they try not to gaze for long at her lips. they're sure she can hear their heart beating fast. they echo, "can't avoid it forever," like they're talking about multiple things at once. they have to pull themself away, "but i'm beat," they whisper. "and we both could use some sleep." a nod.

they are to carry out their usual routine. say goodnight. van will take their medication. they'll retire to separate bedrooms. these walls will not block out their thinking about each other. van tries to focus on now. not on how that could change in ohio where van is comfortable, embodying the person they are nowadays, away from a house where it wouldn't feel right to take it further. away from a state that feels like an open wound. one mile at a time.

[askorensprunki]

Can I hug you? :3

"By all means, bring it in, mate! Anyone can use a hug once in a while, yeah?"

[farfromharry]

I noticed

Summary: He never notices you, but Lando does

w/c 3456

Lando Norris x Reader

a/n this was meant to be a few hundred words, oops. if you have any lando or oscar requests, pls do send. also reblogs are hugely appreciated

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“I don’t know why you bother, he’s a dickhead.”

Your body sagged and you sighed, setting down your makeup brush and locking eyes with him through the mirror. He was still lounging across your bed in his going out clothes, hair done to perfection, his phone basically hanging out of his hand as he eyed you. It must have been the 4th time in the last hour he’d made a similar snide comment and you were growing tired of repeating yourself. “He’s not a dickhead, he’s just…” There were a lot of words you could have used to describe him. Hell, Lando could probably supply a few himself, not that you would like his suggestions. Rude and unpleasant came to mind. “Shy.”

He snorted. “Shy?” That was the last word he would use. “The last time I saw him he had his tongue down a random girl’s throat and his hand under her dress.”

You remembered that. The memory stung. It bad been a celebration for Lando, a race win, you couldn’t remember which one now. Much like tonight, you had gotten dressed up in the hopes of him finally making a move and yet when you arrived he already had a girl in his arms. Still, you shielded him from Lando’s harsh words, something he probably didn’t deserve.

“Lots of people kiss on a night out, Lando. He probably didn’t even talk to her.” Defending him to your friends had become somewhat of a routine for you.

“We were in a restaurant, Y/N.”

You didn’t know what else to say. It had definitely been inappropriate and you had no idea how the staff hadn’t put a stop to it. For some reason unbeknownst to Lando, you just couldn’t admit he wasn’t a good guy. You refused to hear it.

With a huff you picked up your brush again, resuming your makeup and paying Lando’s negative comments no mind. “Look, I don’t need you to understand it. You can keep your opinions to yourself.” Her tone was sharp, one he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of.

He didn’t say anything else until they were ready to go.

On your way out of the door he grabbed your arm gently. You turned to look at him with a raised brow, annoyance still simmering under your surface. Sure you would get over what he said soon, but you didn’t want to let him off too lightly.

“Look,” he started, eyes peering into yours with a genuine sincerity you didn’t see all the often. “I just want you to be careful, that’s all. I don’t want some asshole to break your heart.”

Lando and Jake were technically friends too, or at least they ran in the same circle, but that didn’t mean he did anything more than tolerate him. He hadn’t ever really spent much time with him, not on his own, but he had seen enough in group settings. He knew what he was like. You were far too good for him, but you couldn’t seem to see the bad in him.

“He’s your friend too,” you pointed out. “You are the company you keep right?”

His face fell and he put a step of extra distance between them. The words stung. Lando didn’t think he was a brilliant guy. He had his flaws, he didn’t always show up, he had messed a few girls around in his younger years, but he wasn’t like Jake. For you to even imply that he could be, it hurt.

Somehow, you didn’t notice the change in his mood, or how stiffly he agreed with you. “Right.”

If you noticed the sudden shift in his demeanour, you didn’t mention it. The two of you just climbed inside his McLaren and made your way silently to the party. It was awkward, uncomfortable, something that spending time with Lando never was. It made you shift uneasily in your seat.

Every now and then you’d glance over at him, hoping to see him trying to hold back a laugh that would shatter the tension lingering in the air. Each time you looked over he was simply looking at the road. You hated it.

Usually when you arrived somewhere together, he acted like a gentleman. He would open the car door for you, loop his arm with yours and you would wander into whatever social gathering you were attending with wide smiles on your faces. In a totally non-misogynistic way, he loved having you on his arm. It created a sense of pride in him. This time, he barely even checked you were following behind him until you made it to the elevator. What followed was a very uncomfortable ride up to the rooftop bar.

You let out a breath as soon as you could finally get out of the confined space with him. The bar was your first stop, then once some wine was secured, you greeted your friends and the hosts.

You didn’t stick with them for long, finding an empty couch to sit on that had a perfect view of the entrance. You had to be ready for the moment he walked in.

As Lando headed to the bar with Max (who he had found very quickly, the pair never far from one another), you painstakingly made sure every bit of your look was perfect. Unbeknownst to you, he was watching every move you made, a habit he picked up years ago when he first decided he was in love with you. His eyes followed you as you smoothed out your dress, brushing some hair over your shoulders, straightening your posture, double and then triple checking your makeup. You wanted tonight to finally be the night Jake noticed you. The dark-haired man’s stomach churned just at the thought.

Every few seconds you shifted, like you were anxious. You scanned your surroundings a few times, making sure he hadn’t entered without you seeing. You’d had more than a few nervous sips of your wine.

When the elevator doors opened and the man occupying almost all of your thoughts finally wandered in, your heart began to race. It was now or never. Really you should have been practicing what you were going to say.

Each step he took that brought him closer to you made your heart rate spike.

“Jake, hey,” you greeted, a beaming smile on your face. Any sane man would have stopped in his tracks, been utterly starstruck by how beautiful you looked. Your hair fell delicately over your shoulders, back straight, dress highlighting every desirable part of you, skin basically glowing in the light. Yet he barely paused to throw a half hearted wave in your direction. He didn’t even smile back. The man had greeted you like it was an inconvenience to him.

Lando watched the whole thing from his seat at the bar. He watched as you deflated, an ache settling in his chest at the look of pure defeat on your face. The brunette knew more than anyone here how much effort you had put into trying to get his attention. You had taken hours to get ready. Adamant thay every detail had to be perfect. Leaving his flat you’d actually been excited about where the night might go. And he had just brought it all crashing down in literal seconds.

For a second or two you didn’t move. Your eyes were fixed on the ground, breaths growing deeper. He saw it in the way your chest heaved. You weren’t going to hold out much longer. The last thing you wanted to do was cry in the middle of a party.

Lando swiftly excused himself from his conversation with Max, not that he’d been listening for the last 10 minutes anyway, and made a beeline for you in the corner.

You didn’t see him coming, you were too in your own head. When a pair of hands landed on your shoulders you were startled. He didn’t leave you wondering for long. His breath brushed your ear as he dipped his head down so he could whisper to you. “Come outside with me? I need some air.”

A frown curled onto your lips. He knew that expression well, you were confused. “We’re already outside, we’re on a roof.”

A few eyes began to glance at you both. He smiled at them. “It’s too crowded out here. It’ll be much quieter.”

You turned your body so you could actually see his face and try to get a read on him. “Are you okay?” Your own sadness was momentarily put on pause as your worry for him outweighed it. Lando was susceptible to anxiety, even anxiety attacks every so offen, you didn’t want to risk that right now. If he was overwhelmed, her feelings could wait.

It was wrong of him, he knew it was, but he played into your worry. “I don’t know. I think I just need to get out of here for a minute.”

You nodded, grabbing your clutch and gulping down the last dregs of wine that had been in your glass. “Let’s go.” You rose to your feet, almost headbutting him on the way up, and slipped your hand into his much larger one.

Really he should feel guilty about it, but he was just glad it worked.

The elevator ride down to the lobby was quiet. You were beginning to think about Jake again, how he had so easily brushed you off. Meanwhile Lando was thinking about you, and what the hell he was going to say when you both got outside. You were going to be so mad at him. The ding that signalled your arrival was far too loud in the silence.

Fresh air felt like a blessing in disguise. You took a deep breath as you finally headed outside. Then you remembered your company.

You whipped around to face him, eyes wide and hands immediately reaching for him like you were checking for any injuries.

He grabbed your hands in his, stopping your obsessing. “I’m okay.” You looked at him as though he was lying. Now was the time to come clean. “I,” he sighed. “Look, I lied.”

“What?”

“I’m fine, really.” You were still unsure, eyes slightly squinted like you were trying to suss him out. “I saw what happened with Jake. You looked upset and I thought you needed an excuse to get out of there. I didn’t know what else to do.”

If there was one thing you wouldn’t do it was admit that you weren’t okay. Lando hated how you couldn’t even do it with him. “Lan, I’m fine. Jake just— he had other things to do, that’s okay.” Excusing his shitty behaviour only made the man more angry. He had seen it all, the way he ignored you, sauntered up to the bar, greeted Max and your other friends, ordered himself a drink and then probably started chatting up the first girl he set his eyes on. He certainly wasn’t busy like you claimed.

“That’s your problem,” he exclaimed.

Your brow furrowed and your face twisted into something of offence. “Excuse me?”

“You’re too nice, too willing to let him walk all over you. He doesn’t give a shit about you, Y/N!” All these feelings had been building up inside Lando for months now. Every time you went on and on about your crush, every time Jake let you down or dismissed you again, he couldn’t take it anymore. He’d had enough. You needed some tough love, someone to tell it to you straight. “Why can’t you see that? Everybody else can!”

Your face fell. The words hit deep. Logically you knew he was right, Jake was never going to give you the attention you so desperately craved from him. He liked having girls falling at his feet. You weren’t special to him, just another admirer. He would never see you as more than someone in his friend group who he didn’t really talk to. To have it pointed out so clearly, especially by someone you care about, it stung.

“No matter what you do, he never notices you. I always notice you.”

You weren’t sure what to take from that. Was it a confession? The thought of him telling you his feelings right now was overwhelming. “Lan…” Your voice wavered. Now that he’d had his initial outburst, his anger died down. Enough to see the tears beginning to line your eyes.

He was such a dick.

He sighed, shoulder’s sagging. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-“

“It’s okay. I know.”

Like a cruel twist of fate, a couple exited the fancy bar where the party was being held. As they grew closer, stepping into the soft glow of light being emitted from the street lamps, you realised you recognised one of them. So did Lando.

Jake clearly couldn’t read the room. “Oh, hey Lando, Jess.” He greeted you both cheerfully, his mystery woman staring at you both as she clung to him.

You frowned, heart cracking just that big more. He didn’t even know your name? It took everything in Lando not to swing. “Her name’s Y/N.”

He completely ignored Lando’s words. Despite the fact he had basically only just arrived at the party, he seemed pretty hammered and eager to leave already. “What are you doing down here? Party’s great.” His voice was loud, practically echoing through the streets.

“Just needed some air.”

His smile was tight-lipped, fake. All he wanted was for him to go away. Obviously he was too drunk to know when he wasn’t wanted.

There was an awkward pause. Well, awkward for you and Lando at least, he probably didn’t even notice. Jake didn’t notice a lot of things.

“We’re heading off, anyway. Enjoy the party guys.” With that the pair wandered down the empty street, leaving you and Lando free to resume your heated discussion. You didn’t feel like arguing anymore.

A sob escaped your throat before you were able to choke it down. The tears that had been ever so close to falling earlier were back in full force. There was certainly no stopping them now. It felt like your heart had just been stomped on.

There was no way Lando was going to let you suffer on your own. “Come here.”

As soon as you were in his arms you felt better. Whether it was the warmth of another person, his scent or just the fact he made you feel grounded. Everything felt a little less loud with him here.

He leaned his head against yours, one of his hands on the back of your head, stroking your hair. It was soothing. You had no idea how long you stayed like that before the tears stopped. You would stay there forever if you could.

When your sobs turned to sniffles and your breaths grew more even, he began to speak. “You deserve someone who loves you.” He took a deep breath and his hand stuttered on your head. It was now or never. “Someone like me.”

He expected to feel you tense, to have you pull away. Some sign of rejection that would break his heart. None of that happened. You simply tilted your head upwards, so you could look him in the eye. You didn’t look repulsed or afraid, that was a good sign at least.

Your cheeks still shined in the light with leftover tears and he risked wiping them away. The way his thumb trailed over your skin was tender, like he was trying to memorise you. Your heart throbbed.

“You love me?”

There was no hesitation in his response. Lando was a man who knew what he wanted. When he had his heart and his mind set on something, he didn’t stop or waver until he got it. “I’m in love with you. I have been for years.”

It should have come as some surprise to you, maybe shocked you ever so slightly, but for some reason it didn’t. He was always there, right by your side when you needed him, in both your happiest and saddest memories. When you thought about your life in years to come, he was always there. He made sense. You weren’t you without Lando. Subconsciously you had probably been in love with him for years too, it had just taken it being pointed out for you to realise.

The eye contact between you didn’t waver even for a second. If it were anyone else looking at you with such an intensity, you might shy away. The way he looked at you made you feel brave.

You didn’t say anything, just fluttered your eyes shut and closed the gap between your lips.

He acted like he knew it was coming. Maybe it was just the reaction time of a Formula One driver, but he barely wasted half a second before he kissed you back. There was an intensity in the kiss that you didn’t think you had ever experienced before. It felt like any second now fireworks would begin exploding over your heads. You cursed yourself for not having done this earlier.

He was the first to pull away. You chased his lips with your own and he cracked a smile. He granted you one more chaste kiss which definitely didn’t quench your desire.

“Are you pitying me or did you really want to kiss me?” That was insecurity shining through.

Lando had poured his heart out to you, he was terrified of being a rebound or a second choice. He refused to be second best to Jake. It would be tough to walk away from you if you admitted what he feared, but he would do it to protect his own feelings. The last thing he needed in his chaotic life was a relationship that was one sided. If you weren’t all in he was going to have to walk away.

“I really wanted to kiss you.” A weight was lifted off of his shoulders. “I think I didn’t realise how I felt about you was love. With Jake I wanted his attention, I wanted him to look at me and tell me I was pretty. I tried everything to get him to like me. With you, I don’t have to do that because you’re already looking. I don’t have to be someone I’m not. I can be myself, comfortable. I never worry that you’re going to judge me because you’re probably right there being weird with me.” He laughed as you laughed. “Lando, you, you’re my peace.”

He looked like he was about to shed a tear. “Do you mean that?”

You smiled. He had never really understood the term weak in the knees until he saw that smile aimed at him.

“I mean that. I love you, and I’m sorry it took me so long to figure that out.”

His thumb hovered over your lips, tracing their shape with a look in his eye that was so fond you could have melted. “I would have waited forever for you,” he admitted. Those words basically turned you into a giant pile of mush.

Your smile quickly turned into a grin. “God, you’re cheesy.” You weren’t you and Lando if there wasn’t some playful teasing sprinkled in somewhere, even in the middle of a dramatic love confession.

Lando scoffed. “I’m trying to be romantic here. Do you mind?”

Neither of you could be serious for that long.

“Just shut up and kiss me again, lover boy.”

The kiss he placed on you was done with such a ferocity you were surprised you didn’t get scolded for public indecency. Clearly he had been holding back. You were more than happy to make up for lost time though, just maybe not in the middle of the streets of London.

When you finally returned to the party your lips were swollen and joy was radiating from every part of you. Max’s eyes found his best friends as the two of you re-entered the party with your hands intertwined. He raised his eyebrow and Lando sent him a wink. The elder was rather proud of him for finally making a move. It had only taken years.

You found yourselves tangled together on the dancefloor, arms around one another and heads touching. You swayed to the music. It felt like you were in your own little bubble. Just you and him, as it always was meant to be.

He brushed his nose against your cheek, pressing a soft kiss to your jaw. “For the record,” he whispered, lips curling into a smile at the fact he got to tell you these things freely now. “I will always notice you.”

Your heart soared. Yeah, he was the one.

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[little-diable]

Forever Mine – Harvey Specter (smut)

Y'all voted on reading my Harvey stuff, so here we go! I am so in love with this man, it's insane. Please like and reblog if you enjoyed reading this, your comments keep us writers motivated! Enjoy my loves. xxx

Summary: Harvey and the reader are best friends, but on the night when she asks him to pick her up from yet another horrible date, neither of them manages to hide their feelings any longer.

Warnings: 18+, smut, piv, jealousy, possessiveness, lots of feelings, friends to lovers

Pairing: Harvey Specter x fem!reader (2.4k words)

“Harvey?” Her voice rang in his ear, drawing his tired eyes towards the clock on his nightstand. It was far past midnight, and even though it wasn’t unusual for Harvey to be awake late into the night, it had been one of those nights where he had passed out the second he had found shelter in his bed, hours ago. 

“(Y/n)? What’s going on?” It took her a moment to reply, to let go of a sigh before finding her voice to answer her best friend’s question. 

“Could you pick me up from somewhere?” Harvey had already set into motion to put on his clothes with the phone balanced between his ear and shoulder. Heavy breaths left her, filled with a sadness that made his heart clench in his chest. 

“What happened, baby?” The nickname left him all too easily, even though it was something he hadn’t called his best friend in years. The sharp intake of air he heard urged him on to move even quicker to find his way out of his apartment.

“Do you remember the bar we went to last month with Mike?” Harvey gripped his car keys tighter, clenching them in his fist. A hum left him as he stepped out of the elevator, letting his shoes meet the cold ground while jogging towards his car. 

“I’m waiting there.” And without another word, (y/n) had ended the call. 

……

She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, with her coat tightly wrapped around her frame, and her hands buried in the pockets of said coat. It had been a stupid idea, a fucking stupid idea, she shouldn’t have listened to her friends and how they had urged her to go on that date to finally get over her best friend – Harvey fucking Specter. 

It had been an awful date, nothing but a waste of her time, but deep down she had hoped it’d finally manage to take her mind off her best friend, the man (y/n) longed for with every rising of the sun. The man who’d never be hers. The man who looked at her with a love only family members shared, and nothing more. 

A cry wanted to break out of (y/n) at the familiar pain in her chest, squeezing her heart with its all too familiar grasp. Shaky breaths left her as she saw his car approach, needing to prepare herself for an uncomfortable conversation where Harvey would scold her for meeting up with a man like this, while being all too oblivious about her reasons for that date. 

“Thank you for picking me up.” She pressed a kiss to his cheek before properly sinking into the comfortable leather seat. Harvey’s hand found its rest on her knee, and with his thumb running over the exposed parts of her skin, due to her dress, he began driving. 

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” (Y/n) could tell that he was driving her back to his place, taking the all too familiar route she could probably walk blindfolded. Her heart was racing in her chest as it whispered to her, begging (y/n) to finally tell Harvey about the emotional chaos growing deep inside of her, while her mind forced her to stay quiet, to not risk a friendship she couldn’t live without. 

“Just a horrible date, nothing special.” The hand resting on her knee stopped moving, frozen to the spot as his eyes flickered to meet hers. For a moment, an uncomfortable silence began to fill the car, it clung to her like a second layer of skin, crawling up its limbs like a parasite. Dates had always been a struggling topic between the two, uncomfortable conversations they both tried to avoid. 

“Do I know the guy?” His voice was husky, growing lower with every further word he spoke. His fingers no longer stroked her skin, they had a tight grasp on her knee as if he was making sure she wouldn’t leave his side, not daring to let go as if he was scared to be alone.

“No, the girls introduced me to him.” Nothing but a hum left Harvey as a reply, letting the sound buzz through (y/n). Only as they arrived at his apartment complex to park the car did they find their voices again, sharing a small “Thank you” while Harvey helped her out of the car and led her to the elevator, with his hand placed on her lower back and his jacket wrapped around her frame. 

“Why do you always go on dates with these men? By now we both know your friends don’t have the best taste.” The question hung in the air, it forced a shudder down her spine while her heart slowly began to win the upper hand to silence her mind. Harvey was intently staring down at her, while keeping close to (y/n) with his hand moving from her lower back to her waist. 

“Don’t ask me this, please, Harvey.” Sadness dripped from her voice, followed by something he couldn’t pinpoint. But something inside of Harvey began to shift, it was whispering to him as if he could tell that whatever he’d force out of her, would change the outcome of this very night, a turning point neither could run from.

“You know I’m not one to back down, sweetheart.” Her tongue kissed her teeth while (y/n) pondered over her choices. She was grateful for the few seconds of silence they were offered as they stepped out of the elevator and entered the apartment she knew like the back of her hand. 

“Talk to me, (y/n), what’s going on?” Harvey was towering over her, even as she kicked off her heels and shrugged out of his jacket to expose the dress he loved seeing on her. His hands held onto her to guide her towards the couch, and even as they sat down next to one another, his hands held contact with her body. 

“Harvey, please, don’t make me do this.” She could tell that whatever he was waiting for her to say was different to what she was about to confess. Harvey was too oblivious, he wouldn’t ever pick up on the love she fostered for him, a secret that would turn their friendship into something (y/n) would curse herself for. Uneasy waters that would swallow them both without giving them a chance to swim. 

“It can’t be that bad, sweetheart. Is there something I don’t know? Did somebody hurt you?” Her glassy eyes got lost in his. She allowed herself to study her handsome best friend for a moment before slowly rising to her feet, desperately searching the now growing distance between the. If she was about to lay this on him, she needed some space, enough room to prepare herself to walk out of his door any moment now. 

Harvey’s jaw muscles ticked, he was growing impatient, angry even – about something he had awfully mixed up. He would burn down the earth for (y/n), would hurt anybody who dared to come too close to her. And yet he still didn't know that he was causing her this pain, a biting sensation that made bile rise in her throat.

“You wouldn’t get it, Harvey. Let it go.” Her eyes found the city below their feet, allowing her to study the numerous lights filling the darkness, the high buildings growing nearby and far away. It was a beautiful sight, a sight that tried to calm her aching heart, though without any luck. She heard Harvey move, could watch in the reflection of his big windows how he rose to his feet and walked up to her. 

“Talk to me, baby.” His muscular front was pressed against back, and for a moment (y/n) allowed herself to imagine being held by him like a lover would cling to their significant other. A thought that guided her next movements as she slowly turned in his grasp to stare up at her handsome best friend. 

With her breath hitched in her chest, (y/n) shifted her weight to press her lips against his. It was a quick kiss, a simple kiss, and yet it carried more meaning than any other kiss (y/n) had ever given. She felt him freeze at the touch, seemingly not expecting his best friend to cross that invisible line. 

“This is why I don’t want to talk about it with you, Harvey.” A tear dripped from her eye as the words rolled off her tongue. Harvey stared down at her with something so intense, (y/n) couldn’t help but peel herself out of his grasp, set on leaving his apartment and the man she had been in love with for years behind. 

“How dare you!” His angry words made her halt in her steps. Slowly, (y/n) turned back towards Harvey who wore an expression filled with hurt and anger. (Y/n) could only imagine how his opponents in court must feel whenever he directed his anger at them, forcing them to back down from any fight they couldn’t win – not against Harvey Specter.

“How dare you act as if I have no say in this. Have you ever wondered for just a second if I feel the same? If I was forced to carry the same heartbreak for years whenever you called me to pick you up from shitty dates with men who weren’t me?” Even though her heart began to race once again, begging (y/n) to realise what he had just confessed, her anger managed to guide her, letting her voice grow louder just like Harvey’s. 

“Then why didn’t you say something?” He stalked towards her, with eyes so fiery, (y/n) feared he’d burn her on the spot. Almost no space was left between them, with his chest pressed against hers to push her against the door, and his hand pressed to the spot next to her head. 

“Because I’d rather suffer from this heartbreak for years than risk losing you.” She got no time to reply as his lips came down on hers in a stormy kiss. (Y/n) instantly allowed her lips to move with his, letting their tongues tangle while her arms found their way around his neck. Moans rumbled through the both of them, sounds that rang in their ears like a song solemnly composed for this night only. Harvey’s hands found their way down her frame to pick her up without breaking the kiss, guiding them towards the kitchen where he placed her down on his kitchen island. 

“Promise I’ll take my time with you later, but fuck I need to be inside of you now.” Her excited chuckles left Harvey smirking as he shuffled her dress up to her waist, groaning at the sight of her drenched panties. She was mesmerised by the sight of Harvey lingering between her thighs, something (y/n) had only dared to dream of. 

“I bet your date thought he could have you like this tonight, spread out and ready to be fucked. But let me promise you something, sweetheart,” without breaking eye contact, Harvey ripped her panties apart to expose her aching heat to the colder temperatures now stroking her limbs. “No other man but me will ever get to see you like this again, from now on, you’re mine, you belong to me, and I will never share you.” 

“I only want to be yours, Harvey, like you will always be mine.” (Y/n) pulled him down for a kiss while he freed his cock from his dark trousers and reached for a condom. The seconds kept blurring by until Harvey finally pushed into her, letting his cock stretch her walls as his thumb circled her pulsing bundle.

Both moaned at the new sensation, having to adjust to something they had longed for all these years. With her back arched off the kitchen island, she let Harvey fuck her, letting their bodies meet with every thrust as if they were magnets finding together. A storm was rocking through them both, binding them together to forge another bond so strong, neither of them would ever be able to shake it off again.

Harvey’s name rolled off her tongue like a prayer, filling the apartment that would forever keep their deepest secrets. Both clung to the other as if they were scared that this was nothing but a dream, about to evaporate into a bitter nothingness as they’d be ripped from their sleep. 

Wandering hands kept searching the other’s closeness, clinging to the reminder that this was real, that this was not a trick of their brains but something they could forever cling to.

“I love you, fuck, I love you so goddamn much, (y/n).” Harvey’s moaned words left her heart somersaulting, forcing her upper body off the cold top of the kitchen island to meet his lips for a kiss. They were a tangled mess, and yet a mess so sweet, both were high on all the different sensations. 

“I love you too, Harvey.” Her walls fluttered around his cock as he met her swollen spot, pushing her closer to the edge. (Y/n) trembled beneath him, wordlessly begging his thumb to move faster, to circle her bundle with more pressure to push her closer towards her orgasm.

“Cum for me, baby, show me how pretty you look when you cum on my cock.” Harvey’s gritty voice gave her the needed push to cum beneath him. Her moans rang in his ears, filling every part of his body with an unfamiliar kind of pride he hadn't ever felt with another woman. His eyes didn’t stray from her pleasure-drunken features while fucking her through her high, a high he chased with ferocious thrusts.

Harvey came moments later with curses rumbling through him. She clung to him while his cock twitched inside of her, filling the condom with his release. Neither spoke a word as they stayed connected in the most intimate way, clinging to each other while the hazy fog of lust slowly began to lift. 

“Did this really just happen, Harvey?” Her whispered question left Harvey laughing. Slowly, he pulled out of her to toss away the condom before cupping (y/n)'s cheeks with his warm hands. His eyes studied her for a moment before pressing his forehead against hers to let go of a deep, relieved sigh. 

“It did, and I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you with me forever, sweetheart.”

[scary-grace]

hands-off, hands-on - a shigaraki x f!reader fic

This was inspired by this art and a comment left on it about the risks of trying to jerk off with a quirk like Decay. It was also inspired by @obsessedtomone and @scarlettcryptid, who encouraged me to write it and then to post it. The pun in the title was my idea and not their fault.

Shigaraki's quirk makes life difficult in a lot of ways, but there's only one he can't find a way around, and since you joined the League of Villains, it's gotten even worse. When the truth comes out at last, he's expecting it to be a disaster and nothing else. He definitely isn't expecting you to offer to help. (cross-posted to Ao3) Canonverse, one-shot, smut.

Shigaraki Tomura’s quirk is everything to him. It’s how he found himself alone in the world as a five-year-old, even if he can’t remember the details. It’s why Sensei took an interest in him, why Sensei took him in, why Sensei chose him to carry on his work. It’s the perfect tool for someone like Shigaraki, who hates everything, who wants nothing more than to destroy everything he doesn’t like. Decay is the best thing that’s ever happened to Shigaraki. And at the same time, it absolutely, categorically sucks.

Shigaraki might hate everything, but he doesn’t hate it all the time, and the times when he doesn’t hate it are times when he’d love to be able to just have whatever it is without being one wrong move away from ruining it. Name a thing he likes, and his quirk is ready and waiting to fuck it up – gaming, eating, sleeping, even reading the fucking newspaper. He can do all those things four-fingered, if he stays focused. It’s the stuff he can’t stay focused on that’s impossible.

He can’t stay focused when he’s horny, at least not enough to keep from potentially Decaying his dick off. Shigaraki doesn’t actually know if his quirk works on himself, and he’s not interested in finding out. And that means that no matter how horny Shigaraki gets or how many poorly timed boners he pops, jerking off is permanently off the table.

That’s not to say Shigaraki’s never finished. He has. He’s spent so much time humping pillows that he had to learn to do his own laundry. But there’s something really pathetic about being twenty years old with two working hands and still be stuck grinding on a pillow to make himself come, and it always takes so stupidly long. Now that Shigaraki’s got the League of Villains, now that he’s got plans to make and Sensei’s legacy to fulfill, he doesn’t have that kind of time. When he wakes up with the world’s worst morning wood after a dream he doesn’t remember clearly, there’s nothing he can do but wait for it to go away.

It fades – enough – but the feeling doesn’t, and eventually Shigaraki doesn’t have a choice but to drag himself out of bed. He slinks from his room to the bar, hoping it’ll be empty, with the rest of the League out and about preparing for the mission and Kurogiri somewhere nearby if Shigaraki needs him but not actually right there to ask him what’s bothering him. Shigaraki can pour his own drinks. Maybe he can get out of this if he gives himself whiskey dick on purpose. Kurogiri’s not in the bar, just like he was hoping, but it’s not empty, either. You’re there, sprawled out over the bar with a sweating glass of water on a coaster in front of you.

Shigaraki’s jaw clenches at the sight. “What are you doing here?” he demands, and you look up. “Don’t you have something to do?”

“I did it already.” You yawn. “Using my quirk tires me out.”

“Really?” Shigaraki can’t keep the irritation out of his voice. “Making people stupid is that exhausting?”

Your quirk is a weird one. It lets you increase or decrease a target’s ability to plan, reason, problem-solve, remember things, and learn – in other words, their intelligence. “From this distance, for as many people as you need me to hit?” You yawn again and drop your head back down to the bar. “Yeah. Remember, I have to keep them all being stupid the same way, right up until it’s too late. Or your plan won’t work.”

Shigaraki had the pieces of the plan before he made you use your quirk on him, but once you used the quirk on him, he did some fine-tuning on the strategy, and he came up with the idea of using your quirk the opposite way, too. While the rest of the League is planning to make the attack on UA’s summer training camp a success, you’re using your quirk every day on the heroes in charge of planning the camp itself. Shigaraki’s not actually going to know if it works until after the attack, and that pisses him off. “Go nap somewhere else, then.”

“I’m not going to bother you,” you say. “Where else am I supposed to go, anyway? Your room?”

Shigaraki’s this close to saying yes, just to get you to leave, before he remembers what his room looks like – and remembers that he spent a while trying to see if grinding one out would work this time. He can’t kick you out of the hideout. You look like shit, and you’ll attract a lot of attention. “Fine. Shut up.”

“Yep.” You fold your arms on the bar and rest your head on them, shutting your eyes.

Even when you aren’t looking at him or talking, your presence bothers Shigaraki. It’s bothered him since the beginning – as much as he’s bothered by the others, in a different way than he’s bothered by the others. While the others can at least manage to avoid pissing Shigaraki off, there’s nothing you do that doesn’t cause some kind of problem. If you’re talking to him too much, he’s annoyed because he doesn’t know why you’re talking to him. If you’re not talking to him, he’s pissed about that, too. If you’re not around, he’s mad that you’re avoiding him, and if you are around, he wishes you weren’t. The fact that you’re here was a big problem for him even before he started having the dreams.

Shigaraki can’t remember the details of last night’s dream, but he knows you were in it. He pours himself a drink, takes the bottle with him, and sits down at the far end of the bar from you. You don’t look up again, and Shigaraki finishes his first drink, then half of his second, with no improvement on the situation. He shifts on the barstool, trying to get more comfortable. He needs to find something else to do. Something that will distract him from how stupidly horny he is.

You’re right there, and being irritated with you for doing anything at all is as good a distraction as anything else. “If all you’re doing is making a couple of heroes slightly dumber, you’re not really pulling your weight, are you?”

You don’t stir, but Shigaraki sees your shoulders stiffen. “What else should I be doing?”

“More,” Shigaraki says. You lift your head to look at him dead on, and Shigaraki hates that so much that he loses his train of thought for a second. “I don’t want them slightly dumber. I want them so stupid they can’t walk in a straight line. You have to get closer to them for that? So get closer. Get out of here and –”

“If I make them that stupid, the heroes will know that something’s wrong,” you interrupt. “My quirk’s in the government databases. If I do anything too obvious, they’ll know I’m working with you, and they’ll change their plans. Or they’ll change who they’re using to execute those plans. For my quirk to work on someone, I need to know who they are.”

Shigaraki knows how your quirk works. He’s not stupid. “I could do what you want me to do, but it would ruin your plans,” you say. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I wanted to take a nap,” you say. You sit up straight on your stool, get to your feet and start towards Shigaraki. “Now I want to know what I did to piss you off.”

You’re coming closer. Shigaraki feels a surge of panic. “Get away from me.”

“No.” You sit down one barstool away from Shigaraki, but still way too close for comfort. Shigaraki’s skin feels hot, and in spite of the fact that he left his room wearing sweatpants, they’re getting tight. “You let me join the League, but ever since I got here, I can’t do anything right. You’re mad at me all the time, and today you’re even madder than usual.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are,” you say. You keep staring. Shigaraki looks away, and you say the first thing he’s ever heard you say that makes you sound like a villain. “Either you can tell me the truth, or I’ll use my quirk on myself and figure it out.”

Shigaraki’s stomach lurches. “I thought you were too tired to use your quirk.”

“Not on myself,” you say. Shigaraki glances back at you. You’re almost smiling. He’s seen you smile before, talking to Toga or Magne, but not like that. “You can tell me, or I’ll find out on my own. Your choice.”

You’re not screwing around. Shigaraki thinks fast. He could Decay you, but – Shigaraki writes off the thought before he can even complete it. He has to tell you something, and it has to be convincing. But he doesn’t have to tell you everything to keep you from using your quirk. It’s going to be humiliating, but nowhere close to as humiliating as the whole truth, and he opens his mouth and spits it out. “I’m horny.”

You blink. “So jerk off.”

“I can’t.” Shigaraki sees your eyebrows lift, skeptical as hell, and loses patience, even as his face heats up. “My quirk. Anything I touch with five fingers –”

“And you can’t jerk off without –” You break off mid-question, looking just as uncomfortable as Shigaraki feels. “So you’ve never –”

“No, I have, I just –” This is way more information than you need to know. Shigaraki grits his teeth. “You wanted an answer. There’s your answer. Leave me alone.”

You don’t leave Shigaraki alone. You actually move over onto the stool next to his. “So you’re just going to be a dick to me any time you’re horny.”

It’s your fault Shigaraki’s horny. Before you showed up, he could deal with things on his own, but now instead of videos and games to fixate on he has fantasies – because he can imagine about what you’d look like under him, what you’d sound like, what you’d feel like. All of which are the worst possible things for Shigaraki to be thinking about right now. He’s completely hard, again. Maybe you can tell, or maybe you’re using your quirk on him after all, because you’re making a really weird face. “If you’re going to be a dick any time you’re horny –”

You break off. Shigaraki thinks, fleetingly, about Decaying you. At this point he’d rather Decay himself, because if even he kills you, he’ll still have to remember that this happened. You take a deep breath, let it go. “Do you want help?”

Shigaraki’s mind blue-screens for a second. “What?”

“If this is why you’re like this, then it’s easy to fix,” you repeat. Your hands are clenched into fists on your thighs, and you slowly uncurl them. “Do you want me to help?”

“Help with what?”

“Jerking off,” you say. You make an awkward gesture, and every muscle in Shigaraki’s body goes tense as he imagines your hands around his cock. You have to be messing with him. There’s no way you’re actually offering – that. “Yes or no?”

“Yes.” Shigaraki finishes his drink and stands up before he can think any more about it. He grimaces as his cock strains against the fabric of his pants, and feels a surge of embarrassment when he realizes you’re looking at it – but it’ll be over soon. In the face of getting some, and getting it from you, nothing else matters. “Let’s go.”

Shigaraki’s nerves kick in on the walk back to his room. Not enough to make the hard-on he’s coping with fade even slightly, but enough to remind him that this is probably a bad idea. But you’re following him, and you haven’t changed your mind. Shigaraki’s not chickening out first. The nerves get worse when he opens the door to his room and realizes what a mess it is. “Uh –”

“Where do you usually sit?” You don’t look impressed – or disgusted, now that Shigaraki thinks about it. “On the bed?”

Shigaraki sits down on the bed – which he didn’t make, because he never makes it – and you sit down next to him. You don’t do anything. “I thought you were going to help me.”

“Show me what you do,” you say. Shigaraki stares at you. His heart is racing, his pulse hammering so hard that he feels it everywhere. “Go as far as you can, and then I’ll keep doing what you do.”

That makes sense, probably. Shigaraki’s mind is startling to scramble. He decides to think about it later and catches the hem of his shirt, hiking it up and out of the way. He knows from experience that it’ll slide back, so he pins it between his teeth and reaches down to his waistband, shoving at it until his pants are down around his thighs and his cock is free.

His hard-on looks like it feels. Uncomfortable, leaking, hot to the touch when he wraps three fingers and his thumb around his shaft. Shigaraki tries a few of the same insufficient strokes as always and feels the muscles in his abdomen and thighs clench. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. A frustrated sound edges out around the fabric in Shigaraki’s mouth. Aren’t you supposed to help him? He looks at you. You’re looking away.

“Hey,” Shigaraki says, the hem of the shirt falling from his mouth, and you look at him. “You wanted to help. Pay attention.”

Your face is flushed. You nod, and you reach out – but only so you can grasp the hem of Shigaraki’s shirt and pull it out of the way again, your knuckles brushing over his abdomen in a way that makes him twitch. You’re sitting closer to him now than you were before, close enough that he can almost feel the heat of your body, and imagine how it would feel to have you pressed against him. One of your hands is holding his shirt up. The other comes to rest on his lower abdomen, fingertips brushing through his hair, centimeters away from the base of his cock.

Shigaraki squirms involuntarily, trying to move your hand lower and jeopardizing his own strokes at the same time. Even when he lifts his hips to meet his own hand, he can’t lose control the way he wants to, can’t chase the feeling he needs. He needs it. He needs it and he’s never come even close to having it, until now. Shigaraki tries to focus. You’re only going to help once he’s gone as far as he can, so he’d better get there as fast as possible.

He shouldn’t have told you to pay attention. Now you’re watching everything, your face still flushed and your eyes glued to Shigaraki’s every move, taking everything in. Do you like this? Do you like watching Shigaraki’s pathetic attempts to get himself off? Whether you like it or not, you’re still touching him when you don’t have to. Shigaraki’s fingers tighten involuntarily around his cock, his fourth finger almost coming down, and he loosens up in a hurry. But that’s no good, either. He tries again.

It’s the same as always. Shigaraki makes it one or two strokes before it gets dangerous, enough to show him what he could have and not enough to get him there. He’s sweaty and his heart is beating too hard and the same frustrated tears as always are stinging his eyes. He curses, lets go – and a warm hand slides between his legs to replace his.

Shigaraki almost comes on the spot. It takes every ounce of willpower he has, and he almost blows it again as he watches you adjust your hold on him, shaping your hand more closely around his cock. You’re slow about it, but you sure as hell aren’t hesitant. Shigaraki can’t look for longer than a few strokes. It’s too humiliating to see the intensity of his own reaction, precum oozing from the tip of his cock and his hips jerking upwards into your hand. He clenches his jaw and shuts his eyes.

“Hey. Pay attention.” Are you making fun of him? Shigaraki opens his eyes and finds you looking at him. “I need to know if I’m doing it right.”

“What do you think?” Shigaraki forces the words out through gritted teeth. “Do you need me to tell you you’re doing a good job or something?”

“That might be nice,” you muse. Your hold on him loosens slightly – not enough to complain about, more than enough to read as a threat. “Since I can’t do anything else right around here, I at least want to be good at getting you off.”

Your grip tightens again, and you run your thumb lightly over the tip of Shigaraki’s cock at the end of the next stroke. Shigaraki couldn’t pull a move like that if his fucking life depended on it, which it would. He was going to tell you not to ask stupid questions, like if you’re good at getting him off when he’s two seconds away from blowing his load all over himself, but instead he moans, so loudly that people can probably hear it two streets away. You replay the same stroke, slower this time, pulling Shigaraki’s back into an arch to match the upward motion of your hand, and then you spend a few seconds just toying with his tip, barely touching him at all.

Are you trying to make him squirm? Shigaraki hates that it’s working, hates that you won’t just give him what he needs – but then you’re back to stroking his cock again, and Shigaraki relaxes, as much as it’s possible to relax. It feels good, even better than he thought it would. And even better than that, because he doesn’t have to do anything. All he has to do is sit back and enjoy it.

“Hold your shirt up,” you say, and Shigaraki grabs it clumsily. Your now-free hand traces quickly down Shigaraki’s chest, along his stomach, skidding sideways over his hip before sliding between his legs. There’s not room for both of your hands. Shigaraki spreads his legs without thinking twice.

You make a weird sound – maybe a gasp. “Stop that,” you say, but now you’re cradling his balls in addition to stroking his cock, so Shigaraki’s not interested in stopping much of anything. “It’s working.”

No shit it’s working. Shigaraki’s entire body is wound tight, so much that he can’t even twitch or thrust or squirm – all he can do is strain, agonizingly tense, every atom of his body focused on the motion of your hands. Shigaraki squeezes his eyes shut. His shirt crumbles away as he claws at it, the sheets on his bed going the same way a second later as he fights to ground himself. He needs more. Shigaraki needs to come right now, before he grabs onto something he can’t replace.

The word struggles out of his mouth sideways, twisted and strained just like the rest of him. “Please –”

You don’t answer him, but Shigaraki feels you shift closer to him. He opens his eyes and you’re right there, close enough that he can feel your breath against his skin. You’re watching him, head tilted, lips parted, so close. Shigaraki’s so close, and he needs more from you. He seizes the front of your shirt to pull you down to him, only for it to Decay when you’re halfway there. But Shigaraki gets lucky. You lean in the rest of the way and press your lips against his.

It’s not because of that. Shigaraki’s coming hard enough to see stars, hard enough that he blacks out for a second, but it’s not because you’re kissing him. His cum spills everywhere, onto his sweatpants and his stomach and over your fingers, and you keep stroking him with slick hands. You don’t pull away until Shigaraki’s whining against your mouth and you’ve drawn out every drop of cum he has to give.

And then you sit back, and let go, and look away. “I need a new shirt.”

You’re sitting next to him, on his bed, in just your bra. The sight would get Shigaraki hard again in an instant if you hadn’t just made him come hard enough to disconnect his spine. He raises a shaky hand and points to his hoodie, slung over the back of his computer chair, but you don’t go for it. Instead you get up and head to the bathroom to wash your hands.

Shigaraki needs to wash everything. His sweatpants, himself – the stupid mattress, since he was dumb enough to Decay the sheets off it right before he blew what feels like the biggest load in history. What else was he supposed to do, though? No way was he going to be able to control himself while you worked him over. No way is he going to be able to think about anything else the next time he sees you do anything with your hands. Or with your mouth.

It occurs to Shigaraki vaguely that while he’s solved the initial problem of being too horny to function, he’s set himself up for something even worse – more dreams, made all the more vivid because he’s got experience to back them up. He might be good to go for now. Probably for the rest of the day, since it’ll be a miracle if he can do anything other than clean up and take a nap. But he’ll be right back where he started the next time he wakes up from another dream about you.

The water from the sink shuts off, and a moment later you come back out, snagging Shigaraki’s hoodie off the chair and pulling it on over your bra. Shigaraki feels a faint twinge of foreboding at the sight, but it fades fast. Sure, he could wake up tomorrow morning with the boner from hell and it’ll be all your fault. But now he’s got a way out of it, and the way out of it is so good that what it takes to get there barely even matters. And he’s in a good enough mood to admit to himself that you do things right a lot more than you do things wrong.

Which reminds him – “Hey,” Shigaraki says, still humiliatingly breathless, and you pause in the act of pulling the hood up. “You did a good job.”

He might still be out of breath, but your face is still flushed. “Good,” you say, and you turn to leave. Shigaraki doesn’t hear you speak again until you’re already out the door. “Next time I’ll do better.”

Better might kill him. Next time. Shigaraki pulls up his sweatpants so his dick isn’t hanging out, makes no other effort at cleaning up, and falls asleep with something that feels like a smile on his face.

[revlw]

HI! Hello!! It's 💕 anon again! I hope you're doing well and today went good for you!

If it’s cool with you, could I have more yan!paycheck but this time how they comfort the reader? Maybe a oneshot where Elliot and Chance are in the readers cabin trying to make them feel better while she cries?

The reason why is up to you! I was thinking maybe they got too overwhelmed during a round or maybe bc of a nightmare? Your choice, I know whatever you write will be absolute cinema <3 AAAGJHFHDHEJ I LOVE THEM sorry not sorry shrugs

𓏵 ETHERED

YAN! PAYCHECK X READER

Warning ! : Emotional distress , Emotional dependency , Implied obsession , Possessive behavior

Note ! : heh I rock aint I / Artist : @/wiitchingh0ur on X

The rain outside doesn’t fall right.

It taps wrong against the window — too steady, like a clock counting down instead of a storm rolling through. You press your forehead to your knees and try not to think about it. About the wet noise. About the hurt in your chest that doesn’t have a name. About the weight behind your eyes.

Your cabin creaks.

The fire flickers in the hearth, pretending to warm things that aren’t truly cold.

But you are. Cold. Somewhere beneath your skin. Or beneath the skin of this place.

You hear the door open. You didn’t lock it. You never remember to lock it.

“[Name].”

It’s Chance. His voice always sounds like someone trying not to crack a joke. Today it doesn’t. Today it’s flat.

You don’t lift your head. You don’t have the strength to answer. That’s okay. He walks in anyway.

Boots scrape the floor. Pause. Hesitate. Then:

“I heard you didn’t show up at the main.”

No answer.

A creak. A crouch. The scent of ash and forest and something you can’t name.

“I thought maybe you just needed space. But…”

He sees your shoulders shaking.

“Shit,” he says softly. “You’re crying.”

Fingers graze your back. Stay there. Too warm. Not enough.

“You should’ve said something.”

A beat. Two.

“You never say anything.”

You don’t mean to cry harder. But you do. And now it’s too loud. Ugly. Human.

He moves closer. You feel a leg against yours.

“I’m right here, dummy. Just let it out.”

His voice is soft now. It shouldn’t be.

His hand finds your hair. Stays there. Possessive. Gentle.

Then — another voice.

“Hm.”

The door didn’t make a sound this time.

“Of course you’re here.”

Elliot.

Your heart jolts.

Chance tenses. “Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything.”

He’s already inside, already closing the door, already leaning against it like it’s his right to keep people out. “Just noticing. You’re always first. Always playing the hero.”

Chance’s laugh is low and sour. “At least I show up.”

“I always show up,” Elliot says, eyes flicking to you. They change when they see your face. Something in him stills.“[Name].”

He crosses the room. You feel him kneel beside you, opposite of Chance. You are bracketed now. A storm in a jar.

“You’re crying,” Elliot says, like he’s naming a crime someone else committed.

“Why didn’t you call for me?”

You shake your head, throat closing.

“You know I’d come.”

His voice is velvet now, edged with steel. “I’d always come.”

Chance snorts. “She didn’t call me either.”

“Still made it here first though.”

“Like that matters.”

“It matters to me.”

The words hang in the air, sharp and heavy.

You hiccup a sob.

Neither of them speak for a long moment after that. Just the fire crackling. The rain tapping its wrong rhythm against the windowpane. Your breathing—uneven, wet, dragging.

Then a warmth wraps around your waist.

Chance.

He’s pulled you in fully now, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. One arm around your back. His chin rests lightly on the crown of your head.

You’re not sure when your fists had curled into his shirt, but they have. Tight. Like if you let go, you’d disappear.

Elliot’s hand touches your jaw.

A featherlight caress. He’s looking at you like you’re something broken and rare. Like you need to be handled carefully or you’ll vanish through his fingers.

His thumb catches a tear.

“I don’t like seeing you like this,” he murmurs. “I don’t like that I wasn’t here sooner.”

“She didn’t want anyone here,” Chance mutters into your hair. “That’s the problem.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Elliot’s voice is tight now, nearly trembling. “But if she’s hurting—if something’s wrong—I should be here. We both should. Always.”

His hand drifts to yours. You feel the cool brush of his knuckles as he carefully, slowly, laces his fingers through yours.

“You don’t have to do this alone anymore,” he says, lower this time. Closer. “You don’t get to do this alone anymore.”

Chance exhales into your hair. “We mean it, you know. You don’t have to hide. Not from us.”

“But I…” Your voice cracks. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”

Elliot’s arm tightens around you. “You’re not a burden.”

Pressing his forehead into your temple. “You’re… shit, [Name]. You’re everything.”

It’s not the first time you’ve heard something like that from them—but right now, it lands differently. Right now, when you’re cracked open and full of nothing but ache, it doesn’t sound sweet. It sounds frightening.

Like a vow. Like a threat.

Like a promise you’ll never be allowed to undo.

Your tears slow. Your throat aches. But the weight on your chest has shifted—less sharp, less crushing. They’ve stolen some of it, just like they said they would.

You don’t want to say thank you. Not because you’re not grateful. But because it would encourage them. And deep down, something inside you whispers that they’re already too far gone.

But they’re here. And right now, that matters more than anything else.

So you say nothing.

You just stay in their arms. In the warmth. In the cage. You let Chance rock you and let Elliot’s fingers draw invisible shapes on your spine.

Eventually, your breathing evens out.

Eventually, the tears dry.

They don’t ask permission to stay.

They just do.

Waiting for anyone or anything to try and take you away.

You sleep.

They don’t.

And thats enough.

@revlw 2025

[obeymeshallwedateaddict]

The first 'I love you'

I've been writing so much angst recently that it's beginning to depress me sooo I decided to lift myself out of my melancholy by writing some fluff <3 I hope you enjoy it.

Summary: the brothers say "I love you" to MC for the first time.

You can read more of my work here: Masterlist

Contains: Fluff

GN!MC x each of the brothers

............................................................................

Lucifer

Today was an especially long day for the first-born. It seemed like his responsibilities were endless. The demon had to go through piles of paperwork with a due date by tomorrow and make sure to send them to Diavolo along with dealing with his unruly brothers once more. By the end of the day Lucifer was completely spent. He sat himself in the cozy armchair of his study, gazing out the window when suddenly a thought of you flopped into his mind. He smiled to himself before picking up the phone to send you a quick message with the hopes of you accepting to come keep him company. And exactly as the demon had thought you accepted and showed up at the door of his study minutes after your response.

Now you and the first born were sitting together on the couch before the fireplace, watching the wood dissolve into ashes as well as the roar of the flames. You were listening to the soft crackle of the wood as it burned into the silence, which both you and him seemed to enjoy. Overall it was a peaceful evening. Over time you felt Lucifer's gaze land on you. You looked over at him just to see the softness of his expression. It was the first time you saw him gaze at you with such softness. He smiled gently at you before returning his gaze to the fire.

-For as long as I've lived I don't remember feeling as much at peace as I do now. –The demon mumbled and you smiled at his statement.

-You should know that... You're the reason I feel this way, MC. –Along with his words you felt Lucifer's hand land on top of yours. He held it gently, caressing the back of it with his thumb from time to time.

-What do you mean? –You question in a soft voice, waiting patiently for the demon's response. He took a deep breath and moved his gaze to you once again.

-I believe they call this feeling "love" from what I'm aware of. And I'm pretty sure that's what I'm feeling right now. I love you, MC... –Silence followed as the words sank into your mind. It was the first time he said those three words. You felt your cheeks heat up and a soft smile found its way onto your expression.

-Truly and deeply. –Lucifer whispered with a soft sigh, finishing off his last statement. His thumb caressed the back of your hand once again and soon enough you gained the courage to speak.

-Lucifer, I... I feel the same way.. I love you. –Upon hearing your words the demon pulled you flush against himself, into his embrace. He pressed a soft kiss to your temple. His lips lingered there for a moment before pulling away. But instead of letting you go he just proceeded to hold you close for the rest of the evening.

Mammon

Recently you noticed that the second-born was restless. He'd always run here and there, causing trouble or going to modeling gigs to earn some cash. He often had to endure Lucifer's punishments since he'd either skip class or sleep through it... Or.. he'd get a bad grade which wasn't something that rarely happened. One night just as you wer about to go to bed Mammon rushed into your room and grabbed your arm, pulling you away with him without saying a thing. You followed behind him since you had no other choice even if what you truly wanted was to lay in bed and fall into a peaceful slumber. Since you were only wearing your pyjamas you hoped that the demon wouldn't lead you somewhere out in public. But instead of that he led you to the attic. He pulled a ladder that led to the roof that both of you climbed.

Now you were sitting on the roof of The House of Lamentation, staring off into space along with Mammon. He sat there silently without saying a word, just staring into the night. Suddenly he moved closer towards you and put an arm around your shoulder. The movement came as a surprise to you but it was warmly welcomed. His body heat was radiating to you, keeping you warm.

-I saw ya shiverin' so I decided to do ya a favour and keep ya warm. Don't think much of it. –The demon mumbled and looked away from you, as if he was counting the stars, shining on the surface of the night sky. You chuckled to his words and shook your head. He'd always come up with an excuse to get close to you and you were pretty sure that was one of those moments.

-After all I wouldn't want my human to freeze eh? –He spoke and moved his gaze back to you as you rolled your eyes.

-Yeah. I wouldn't want that. –You murmur and snuggle closer to the demon. You saw his cheeks flush red and he quickly turned his face back towards the sky.

-Y'know.. you're the only person I truly wanna keep safe... –Mammon began speaking but stopped himself midway through. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair before continuing.

-MC, what I'm tryin' to say is that I.. that I love ya! Keep that in mind... –He speaks and you hear a soft gulp coming from him. Though that didn't stop you from getting flustered. After all Mammon had never actually said those exact words before. Of course he'd always hint to it but he never actually said it until now. You smiled and wrapped your arms around him in a warm hug.

-I love you too, Mams –You whisper and nuzzle your head into his shoulder. The demon chuckled smuggly and leaned in to press a soft kiss to your shoulder.

-'course you do. After all I'm The Great Mammon! All people love me.. –There was a fleeting pause before he continued.

-But hey.. don't go forgettin' what I said! There will be consequences if ya do! –He spoke and squeezed you tightly. You spend a few more minutes up on the roof before heading back to a warmer place.

Leviathan

A few days ago the third-born got a new game and he was really excited about it. From what he told you it was a dating simulator game with a catch at the end but neither did you or Levi know what the catch was. So one day you decided to be the first ones to find out. Both of you sat together in his room, picking up the controllers and begining to play. Of course Levi set you as the heroine so he and a couple of in-game bots were competing, trying to get the intimacy score up. As expected Levi was the one who managed to get the highest score but that didn't matter now. It was the end of the game and both of you were on your toes, waiting for the so called 'catch' that the game was announced with. You wandered around in the open game world but nothing was happening. There weren't monsters at the end like the other game you, Levi, Mammon, Satan and Lucifer once played. There wasn't anything interesting. Just the usual cherry blossom tree with the bench underneath it where Levi confessed his in-game love to you. After a couple more minutes of wandering and search for some kind of secret there might be in the game the third-born sighed and left the controller aside. He rubbed his temple before speaking.

-Such scammers. It's rare to encounter a game whose description doesn't fit the gameplay. That's so lame. –He groaned and pulled out his phone to write a review of the game.

-I mean.. we did have fun, right? –You speak and leave your controller next to his.

-I guess so. If you count all of the cringe things I had to do to get that intimacy score up fun then yes. Otherwise the game is pretty much trash. Though the graphics were kinda nice. I'll give it that. –You chuckle to his statement and move closer to him in an attempt to see what he was typing as a review. You felt the demon tense up, which made you look towards him rather than the phone in his hands. His cheeks had taken a pink shade and he had stopped typing. He bit his lip before speaking.

-You know.. the time spent with you.. is... p-precious.. even if the game wasn't what we expected it to be. –He said and looked away in an attempt to hide his flushed cheeks.

-Yeah! I love spending time with you, Levi! –You respond with a smile, clicking 'Post review' on his phone so he doesn't forget. Afterwards you look over at him and see that his ears had turned red which provoked a soft chuckle out of you.

-Yeah me to... Uhm.. actually MC.. eh.. I think I.. I l-love you... No.. actually I know I l-love you...

–Your eyes widen at his confession, your cheeks heating up. Though you quickly spake off the surprise and put on a smile.

-I love you too, Levi... –He stops at his tracks to your words and soon enough turns his head towards you with the pinkiest blush on his cheeks.

-R-really? –He asks and gulps but you nod with a wide smile on your face.

-Yes. Really. –After your statement you wrap your arms around the third-born in a warm hug. As the evening proceeds you and Levi watch an anime, cuddled up together in his bathtub of a bed.

Satan

Since it was exam season the fourth-born was lost in the words of the study books before him. He couldn't settle for anything but the best. And no. He wasn't a perfectionist. He just wanted to outsmart Lucifer. It was his ultimate goal. Though he never achieved it which made him restless. Second to Lucifer? No that couldn't do. And so there he was. Studying in an attempt to surpass his older brother.

One day he had invited you to accompany him to the library to study together and since you had nothing else better to do you accepted with a happy smile on your face. After all you wouldn't say no to spending time with one of your favourite demon brothers. And now there you were. Sitting together in the library, going over the topics of human corruption and seduction over and over again. Though the phrase "human seduction" echoed in Satan's mind and he couldn't get rid of it. He was lost in his thoughts. You had already seduced him and his brothers but the question was whether someone had managed to seduce you. And if someone had.. who was it? Satan could only hope it was him.

Soon enough a tap on the shoulder from you managed to pull him out of his thoughts.

-Satan? Are you okay? –You asked, looking over at the fourth-born with a concerned expression. He shook his head and put on a warm smile as he looked at you.

-Yeah. Everything is okay. I just zoned out for a moment. –He responded and moved his gaze down to the book that was sitting on the table before both of you.

-Okay no problem but could you explain to me this topic right here? I don't really understand it.. –You point at a paragraph in the textbook and he nods his head upon reading the paragraph himself.

-Sure.. hm.. but before I do, MC.. I want to thank you for coming with me today. It means a lot.. –The fourth-born mumbled before running a hand through his hair. You smiled and nodded.

-Of course, Satan. You know I enjoy coming with you to the library to read books together or just study like today. –You say and read over the paragraph you mentioned to Satan one more time.

-Actually, MC.. You've become more important to me than books.. –The demon speaks and puts his hand over yours, trying to get your attention. You turn your head towards him and look at him in confusion.

-I have?

-Yes, MC... –He says in response and looks down at the book in front of him

-Actually what I'm trying to say is that I love you, MC... I've known for a while now but I was trying to find the best fitting time to tell you.. –Satan spoke and looked back at you with a soft, sincere look in his eyes. Your eyes widened and your cheeks reddened at his words. It was the first time Satan said those words. The way they came out of his mouth made you want to hear him say it again, again and again. You swear it made you weak in the knees even if you were sitting on a chair at the moment. Soon enough the smile returned to your face and you turned to the fourth-born who had an anxious look in his face.

-I love you too, Satan.. –You speak and see his expression light up. He quickly pulled you in for a warm hug full of all the pent up love he's held for you. Then he pulled your chair closer, the warmth of his hand around yours grounded him. Finally, he was where he wanted to be—by your side, knowing that it was him who had won your heart. In that moment, nothing else mattered, not even the books before him.

Asmodeus

The fifth-born was feeling very pamperous today. From the moment you woke up Asmodeus was right there with you, showering you with compliments and affection. He took you out shopping for clothes and makeup. The demon of lust showed you each of the new items in the new collection Majolish had released with big enthusiasm. He even bought for you and himself a few matching pieces! Afterwards he took you to a pastry shop to take a few pictures together with some pretty cupcakes the fifth-born had had his eye on for a while.

By the end of the day you were spent. Asmo made sure to take you to every place he desired throughout the whole day. Now you were sitting together in his room, enjoying a glass of demonus and sharing a conversation with one another. It was peaceful. The floral scent of candles could be sensed throughout the room which almost made you feel drowsy. Asmodeus' voice was like a soothing lullaby, which helped you relax after the long day. Soon after the soothing sound of the demon's voice stopped and your eyes popped open. You looked towards him. He was gazing at you with eyes full of love and admiration. It was like he had seen an angel. Upon seeing you open your eyes Asmo smiled and sat closer to you on the bed.

-You are awake? I thought you had fallen asleep, sweetie.–He speaks in that same soft voice he used earlier. The same voice that could make you weak in the knees. And the same voice that was about to lure you into a peaceful slumber.

-I was about to, but you stopped talking. –You responded, putting on a fake pouty expression to which you earned a heartfelt chuckle from the fifth-born.

-Oh so my voice made you feel drowsy? What a compliment, MC! –Asmo smiles and gazes at your face without saying anything.

-You know... You looked really beautiful like that. Your eyes closed, your body relaxed, a soft smile to your face.. i haven't seen such.. angelic beauty since I fell from grace. –He spoke up once again with a gentle tone, looking into your eyes with a sincere expression.

-And as much as I love and appreciate beauty.. recently I've been feeling different. Not about beauty of course. It's not like me to be insecure.. but about you. –He stopped talking after the last sentence and looked down at his hands which were resting on his lap. He fidgets with his fingers, biting his lower lip in an attempt to find the right words he was looking for. You shot him a questioning look before deciding to speak.

-What is that supposed to mean? –You say in a soft voice, looking over at the demon next to you.

-I love you, MC. And it's not the kind of love I have for beauty, or my fans or even random succubi. It's more deep and pure if you know what I mean. –He looks back upon finishing his sentence and your eyes widen. Of course he's said that he loved you before but this time it felt different. It felt real and genuine. Your heart fluttered to the thought and you felt your cheeks heat up. Asmo immediately noticed the colour of your face and let out a subtle chuckle.

-The colour of your cheeks is telling me that you feel the same. Is that right, hun? –He speaks gently and reaches to take your hand on his. His touch is soft and gentle without any unnecessary force. You smile and squeeze his hand.

-It's true. I love you too, Asmo. –You murmur and look over at the demon whose expression looked as bright as day. His smile was wide ans you could swear that his eyes were smiling as well. He pulled you in for a hug and placed a soft to your cheek, forging all of his pent up love into it.

Beelzebub

One evening the sixth-born invited you to dine out with him, to celebrate a recent accomplishment at RAD. The demon's smile shined bright when you agreed. It was always so pure and innocent which made him easy to love. After getting ready you walked towards the entrance where you saw Beel waiting for you. He smiled upon seeing you and offered you a warm greeting. Both of you walked to Hell's kitchen since Beel mentioned that he's been craving hell burgers ever since he woke up that day and couldn't wait any longer to have it. Not to mention that you heard his stomach growl a few times on your way to the restaurant.

Soon enough both of you were sitting on a table at Hell's kitchen, with a bunch of food surrounding you. The amount of it could make you gag just by stealing a glance but the sixth-born didn't seem to mind. Without wasting another second he began devouring the food in front of him while you began eating what was on your own plate. After a while you picked up your glass and took a sip of the demonus, offered by the waitress. Its sweet yet bitter taste flooded your mouth, making it easier to swallow the dry food. Beel on the other hand didn't seem to have problems with finishing his food in just a few minutes without even touching his own demonus though he didn't leave it. Soon after finishing the food he made sure the glass of the alcoholic drink was also empty. After a while you.felt his gaze fall on you. He wasn't staring deep into your soul or anything like that. He was just mindlessly gazing at you as if he was admiring the way you fed yourself to the food before you. You lifted your gaze to meet his and he offered you an innocent smile which you returned before taking another sip of your demonus.

-How was the food? –You question, in an attempt to begin a conversation. The demon looks down at his empty plate and thinks for a few seconds before lifting his head.

-Honestly? I was too hungry to taste it.. I just swallowed it without thinking much.. –He spoke as he fidgeted with his fingers underneath the table. You chuckled at his words before shaking your head.

-You had so much food yet you didn't taste it? Ooohh Beel... –You roll your eyes before taking another bite. The demon didn't respond. Instead he continued looking at you with a thoughtful expression which you couldn't help but be curious about. What could he be possibly thinking around? Was he waiting for you to offer him your food? You might as well. But before you could Beelzebub spoke up.

-You know, MC. I think you've become as important to me as food is.. or even more of I dare to say.. –Your eyes widened softly before turning back to normal. You looked at him with a questioning expression and swallowing the food before speaking.

-More important than food? What do you mean? –You question and leave the fork onto the empty plate, gazing into the eyes of the sixth-born.

-What I mean is that I.. I love you, MC. –He said with a soft voice. You caught a glimpse of pink, color his cheeks before he looked away. You immediately reached and took his hand in yours before responding.

-Aww, Beel.. I love you too.. –You spoke as you caressed his knuckles. He lifted his head, eyes immediately locking onto yours.

-You do? –He asked and you nodded with a soft smile.

-I do. A lot. –He smiled upon your words and squeezed your hand, tight enough for you to feel his love through his grip.

Belphegor

After a long day at RAD the seventh-born had invited you to stargaze together in the attic. So when the night arrived you put on your pyjamas and hurried to the attic, only to see that Belphie was already there waiting for you. He was sitting on the bed with his sleeping attire on, barely keeping his eyes open. You chuckled to the sight and walked over to him. When you poked his cheek his eyes opened gently and he looked at you.

-Oh, MC. You're here.. –He said as he laid onto the soft mattress pulling you along with him. You chuckled and let yourself be pulled by the demon.

After a while both of you were snuggled warmly together, gazing at the stars through the window. The atmosphere was peaceful. There weren't any distractions. Only the faint glow of the stars and the sound of your and his breathings. Belphie gazed at the stars as if he was counting them. You settled your eyes on a few stars which looked beautiful from the angle you saw them and stared at them. Upon pointing them out to the demon he smiled and pulled you closer, telling you that two of those stars were his and Beel's. The moment was precious to both you and him.

After a while you felt the demon move his gaze to yours, gazing at you with soft and sleepy eyes. Next he snuggled closer to you, laying his head on your chest, exhaling contently as he did so.

-You've so comfortable, MC. I love cuddling and watching the stars with you. It's soothing.. –He said in a sleepy manner before closing his eyes, drifting off into a peaceful nap. You caressed his hair, fidgeting with the locks of it. Unexpectedly though the demon mumbled something which you could barely understand.

-I love you, MC... –He whispered and you looked down at his sleeping form in awe. It wasn't rare when the seventh-born would speak in his sleep so you weren't as surprised. What surprised you though were his words. "I love you". You've never heard him say those words to you. Sure, he'd always show you through acts of love or physical touch but words were different. You felt your heart flutter and your cheeks heat up as you caressed your hand over his hair once again.

-I love you too, Belphie. –You whispered in response. You wondered whether to answer him since he would probably wake up to the sound of your voice but it felt essential so you did. Upon hearing your words the demon squeezed you tighter in his sleep which caused a wide smile to appear on your face. It was his way of showing you that he heard your response and how happy it made him feel.

[covenofagatha]

A dance with death (and her wife) (Part 8)

You struggle after Rio and Agatha disappear from your motel room

Word count: 5500

Warnings: murder, sex, oral, strap-on, sex toys

A/N: thank you to everyone who read this fic and I really hope you guys are satisfied with the ending!

It’s been a month since you’ve last seen them. 

It’s been a month since they fled your motel room and left in their respective cars, going somewhere, because they either thought you were serious about catching them, weren’t entirely sure, or for some third reason unknown to you. 

You can’t believe they would just leave like that. Leave you like that. After everything, they thought you would just betray them? 

Blood had boiled through your veins that night, anger at having come so close to what you think you’ve always wanted, and you had swept through the room in a tornado, throwing flowers and shoving papers off the table and banging on the wall. Tony tried to get you to calm down but you had snarled and he had looked at you like you were a feral, rabid animal. 

Maybe you were. 

You grabbed your keys and stormed off to your car, leaving Tony to deal with the dead body. Lead foot on the gas pedal, you drove hysterically to Agatha and Rio’s house, pleading and begging and praying that they would be there. 

It didn’t even look like they had come back. You turned the place upside down, out of rage, out of fear, out of hurt.

You had sunk to your knees and hadn’t moved from your spot on the floor the entire night until you felt a hand on your shoulder after light was breaking through the windows. 

Looking up, a pinch of hope in your heart, you were incredibly dismayed to find that it was only Tony. 

“Come on, kid,” he had said. “Let’s get you home.” 

You had numbly agreed and two hours later, you were on the jet with him flying back to Miami. He had told the Westview PD that you had gotten far too entangled in the case and that for your own safety, he was pulling you off it. Plus, it seemed that the killers had left Westview. 

You couldn’t bring yourself to reveal their identities, even though you knew it wouldn’t be hard for them to piece it together with Agatha and Rio gone too. 

When you had landed back in Miami, you had attempted to resume your normal life, but the memories of their mouths against yours and the thrill you felt with them haunted you. 

The cases in Miami were boring, even when it was a female killer. It was as if all the colors in the world had faded and everything was just a dull gray now. 

Tony made you go to therapy but it didn’t help. And you kind of had trust issues with therapists now. 

You would wake up, go to work in a zombie-like state, come home, and sit in the dark until you dozed off, hoping you would wake up to find them standing there. 

They never did. 

Two weeks after coming back, the bags under your eyes were prominent and you looked racoonish, you were hardly eating because you couldn’t taste it, and you were getting maybe two hours of sleep a night. You spent the nights now pouring over the database, trying to find new cases that could be them in case they were trying to send you a message. 

Nothing. The Witch and Lady Death, Agatha and Rio, had completely vanished. 

They had brought you into their life, made you remember what you did, made you into a murderer, and then left. You were supposed to be with them right now, wherever they were. 

It was funny, you hadn’t been completely sure you wanted to go with them until you couldn’t. 

The irony left a bitter taste in your mouth. 

“Agent, you need to stop all this moping and crying,” Tony had finally snapped at you one day, about three weeks after you’d been back. “They’re gone, they got away, let it go. You’re going to kill yourself if you keep this up.” 

You had clenched your jaw, your resentment at him being the reason why you were here coming back with a vengeance. It had dissipated a little, but now it was a roaring fire in your head. “I quit,” you had said, and his mouth had dropped open but you were already putting your badge and your gun on his desk. 

It has been a week since that, and you’ve spent it curled up on your couch, staring into space. 

There’s a knock on your door and you stumble toward it. The pizza guy is standing on your porch and you take the box and hand him a $20 before slamming the door in his face. 

You’re not sure when the last time you’ve actually said a word out loud was. 

Maybe since you’ve quit. 

You know you’re in a depressive episode, it happens sometimes, but this one feels worse than all the others. 

And then the sadness turns to anger and how dare they do this to you. Do they not realize that they’ve completely fucked up your life? Are you ever going to see them again? 

When you get to the bargaining point soon after, because apparently you’re going through the five stages of grief, a plan begins to form in your mind. 

Their murders brought you to Westview. Maybe you can bring them here. 

For the first time, you let yourself go into the suitcase of clothes they gave you. You reach into the small pocket of it and pull out a vial, one you took from their house on the last night when you had torn through their house. One of Agatha’s “potions.” 

And you finally feel life starting to seep back into your bones. 

Now you just had to figure out who. Could be a random person, it would definitely be easier that way. But you need to draw attention to yourself, need to make sure that they see it. 

Your doorbell rings and you shove the vial back into the bag and go see who it is. 

It’s Tony. You swing open the door and he breezes past you into your living room. 

“Come on in,” you mutter sardonically under your breath, your voice sounding hoarse. 

You can hear him scoff and then the curtains are drawn and you wince when you realize just how dark it’s been in here. The sunlight burns you and you take in the mess that your house has become. Plates with half-eaten food and cups still mostly full litter the coffee table and bookshelves, stuff you couldn’t even be bothered to clean. 

Tony points to the box of pizza. “Early lunch?” 

As if you know what time it is. “Yeah, something like that,” you shrug. Did you order that today? Or was that from yesterday? The day before? It’s all completely blurred together. 

“How are you doing?” He asks and you almost snort. 

How does it look like you’re doing? “I’m hanging in there,” you say and he forces a smile. There’s an awkwardness between you and the man who used to be a father figure and you know it’s all your fault. 

“Why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? Pepper’s out of town and it’s just me, so let me cook something for you. I want to make sure you’re eating, I’ve been worried about you,” he admits and it tugs at your heartstrings just a little. 

You nod. “Yeah, okay, sure. What time?” 

He checks his watch and you can see 11:31 am on it. You could’ve sworn it was some time in the evening. “How about six? I can make some pasta? Chicken alfredo, your favorite, how does that sound?” 

“That would be great,” you agree, trying to ignore how much it hurts that he remembers. 

“Okay, good,” he says. 

A silence stretches between you and you rock back and forth on your feet. “Um, can I bring anything? Dessert or a side or something?”

He smiles for real this time and chokes out a laugh. “How about that crumb cake you used to bring to all the dinners? Remember when Happy ate almost the entire thing and then pretended he hadn’t?” 

“Like the crumbs weren’t all over his mouth and his suit,” you finish the story, chuckling. Back when things were simple. “I can whip one up, don’t worry.” 

“Excellent. Well, I guess I’ll see you tonight then?” He says and you purse your lips in an attempt to smile. Did you forget how?

“Yeah, thanks,” you confirm and he dips his head before making some excuse about why he has to leave. You lead him to the door and then close it after him, exhaling for a long time. 

A random person being killed might not get the attention of Agatha and Rio. But the director of an FBI branch? 

That would most likely do the trick. 

Now you just need a few more things. It can’t just be a sloppy kill, you need it to be direct, exact. You need it to be so much like their murders, need it to look like The Witch and Lady Death followed you back down to Miami, that they know with one-hundred percent certainty that it was you. 

You have the drug. You have a knife that can be used to cut through his flesh. You have some bleach, but you don’t have the hydrofluoric acid for clean-up or a purple azalea. 

It will be tough, probably impossible, to get the acid so you drop that. Even if it appears to be a copycat killer, the result will still hopefully be the same. 

Or they won’t come and you’ll get arrested.

It’s a risk you’re willing to take. 

You go to the grocery store to pick up the things you need for the crumb cake and then stop by a florist to get the flowers. It’s a smaller one, a little further out of town with no cameras, so it will be harder to track down whoever bought the flowers soon to be at a crime scene. When you order a bouquet of purple azaleas, the older lady at the register coos. 

“Aw, honey, whoever you’re getting these for must really be a special someone. These are beautiful flowers,” she tells you and you smile wistfully despite yourself. 

“Yes, they are,” you agree, talking more about the people being special than the flowers being beautiful, but both are true. The sickly sweet honeysuckle scent has become a pleasant smell to you, whereas before, it made you want to throw up. 

She hands the bouquet over to you and you pay in cash. Then you drive back to your house, put the flowers in a vase, and bake the cake. 

An hour later, when it’s ready, you take out the vial and douse the top with it. You shouldn’t feel a thrill, shouldn’t feel a burst of adrenaline run through you, but this is the most alive you’ve felt in a month. 

You put on a dress, black for the occasion, and do your hair and makeup. It feels like you’re on a death march, walking toward something inevitable that will either make or break you. If it doesn’t work, if it doesn’t bring them back to you, you’re not sure what you’re going to do. 

Spend the rest of your life on the run? Rot in prison? Or –

No. You’re not going to think about that, not even going to count that as an option. It’s going to work. It has to. 

And then it’s time to go. You wrap up the cake, put a blazer over your dress and slip the knife and a single flower into the pockets, grab cleaning supplies, and get in your car. You’ve been to Tony’s house a few times for FBI Christmas parties and the occasional dinner with Tony, his wife, and a few other colleagues, but you still remember which way to go. It’s complete muscle memory, you don’t even realize that you’re driving until you get there. 

Your heart rattles against your ribcage, but not from nerves. It’s from excitement. 

God, you’re really fucked in the head, aren’t you? You tell yourself that it’s not because you’re about to kill him, it’s because you’re going to see them soon. 

It doesn’t take long for Tony to open the door after you ring the doorbell and your breath is already coming out short and shallow so you have to slow it before he suspects something. 

“The cake,” you say, presenting it to him and he rubs his hand together before taking the pan from you. He leads you into the kitchen where you smell the pasta he’s been cooking. It makes your mouth water and for the first time in a month, you actually want to eat. 

The dinner is nice; pleasant conversation, good food and wine. He catches you up on some cases the FBI is working on, but there’s no hostility in his voice. You laugh and smile and do whatever is appropriate, just killing time until the main event. You haven’t been able to stop thinking about them, about Agatha and Rio, and your fingers twitch against your leg in anticipation. 

Tony goes and gets the cake and your breath stutters in your throat when he unwraps it. “Do you want a piece?” He asks, cutting himself a big one. 

“No, I’m pretty full,” you say and he shrugs, accepting it without a fight. You watch him with wide eyes as he takes his first bite and you swallow hard when he goes back for more. 

“Mm, this is so good,” he moans with his mouth full and you can’t help but wonder how long the drug takes to work. 

You don’t have to wonder much longer, because after the fourth bite, he coughs. You can’t breathe when he sets his fork down and reaches up to loosen his tie. There’s a change on his face and it absolutely delights you. 

He slides his chair back and you jump up. 

“Is there something in this?” He asks, but he sounds weak, tense. You walk around the table as Tony slides forward out of the chair and onto his knees. You bend down and tilt his chin up with your fingers. He’s struggling to hang on, little gasps slipping out of his mouth, but your eyes gleam as you take in the sight. 

The skin on his face tightens, shrivels, and dark lines etch into his face as his cheeks start to hollow out. You’ve got to give it to Agatha, she knows her way around chemicals. 

It’s only another minute or two and his body goes limp and slips down to the floor. The heat inside you is back, the ache floods through you, and more than anything, you wish they were there to take care of you. 

They will be soon. 

You just have to follow through on the rest of it. 

Standing up, you stretch your back just a little and then bend back over and grab onto his feet. You’re stronger than you look, but it still takes a good amount of effort to drag him into the living room. Agatha and Rio didn’t seem to stage their crime scenes per se, but no body was ever found in the kitchen, always on the floor of the living room. 

You straddle his body, unbutton his shirt, and pull the knife out from your pocket. Taking a deep breath, you hold it over where his heart is, grip the handle with both hands, and plunge. 

It goes in easy. Blood oozes out, but honestly, not as much as you thought. You remember reading that once the heart stops, the body doesn’t bleed as much, but since he just died and you’re cutting near the heart, there might be a little. 

That must be why Agatha and Rio had a relatively easy clean-up. 

You grunt with the exertion, dragging the knife in a circle. It’s harder than it seems to break through the bones of the ribcage, but you’re finally able to reach in and grab it. 

Pulling the heart out makes power rush through you and you squeeze it just to know what it feels like. It’s squishy almost, and more blood spurts out. 

And then you grimace. What are you supposed to do with it? You could leave it, but then you risk your DNA being found. You could take it with you, but you have no need for a heart. 

An idea crosses your mind and while it’s not a great one, it will definitely take care of the problem. You take it back into the kitchen, stuff it into the drain, and put a plastic container over it before turning on the garbage disposal. You have to hold the container with two hands so it doesn't fly off from the sheer force of the disposal destroying the heart. 

When you finally stop hearing resistance, you wash the container better than you’ve ever cleaned something before, making sure to get rid of any trace of chunks of heart and blood. 

And then you run out to your car to grab the bleach, gloves, and sponges from your car and get to work, scrubbing the floor until there’s nothing left. And then you put the purple flower into the gaping wound of his chest and you’re gone. 

When you get back to your house, you call the police and leave an anonymous tip about the sound of a struggle coming from Tony’s address, too impatient to wait for Pepper to come home and find him. 

And then you bide your time. 

A day passes. You turn on the news to see a special report about the director of the Miami FBI branch being murdered in his own home by seemingly the same killer as one from New Jersey. 

Two days. There’s a nationwide manhunt for the killers. You wonder if you’ve made it even more unsafe for them to come get you. 

Or maybe they’re just not coming. 

Three days. 

You’re back on the couch, in a cocoon of blankets, coming to terms that maybe you’re just never going to see them again. You wear the clothes they got you, anything to make you feel like they’re still in your life, and spray their perfume over you and over the blankets and over the pillows until your entire house smells like Thanatos. 

On the fourth day, you decide that you need to eat something or you’re going to wither away right there. You trudge your way into the kitchen slowly, a quilt wrapped around your shoulders, and you’re opening the fridge when you hear something. 

Your door is opening. 

Forcing yourself to calm down, you grab leftover chicken alfredo you took from Tony’s house and turn around. The container slips from your hand when you find Rio and Agatha standing there on the other side of your island. 

“Hi,” you breathe, feeling like you could cry tears of relief. 

Rio takes out a knife, twirls it between her fingers, and stalks over to you. You step back against the refrigerator and she presses the blade to the center of your clavicle and you should be scared. 

But then she leans in and sniffs up your neck like Agatha did in the evidence locker that day and you’re just excited. 

The older woman’s eyes watch the two of you carefully and you meet her gaze, seeing the heat in them. 

The knife digs into you, piercing your skin, and you can feel blood dripping down. Rio’s eyes dart down and her hazel eyes are dark when they flick back to yours. 

“Hey, doll,” she says, voice husky. “We saw your little stunt.” 

A smirk pulls at the corners of your lips. “Did you like it?” 

Agatha walks over, trailing her fingers on the surface of the island. She invades your space and swipes up the blood from your chest and holds her finger up to your mouth. “We sure did, superstar,” she says and you envelope her finger with your lips, sucking your blood off it. 

And then Rio sticks the knife into the waistband of her pants and draws you in for a hot kiss. She moans when she tastes the metallic flavor on your tongue and grips your waist to pull you in even closer to her. 

Agatha yanks on your hair, dragging you away from Rio’s mouth with a strand of saliva and then her lips are on your swollen ones, tugging and biting your bottom lip. 

While her tongue slides into your mouth, Rio kisses down your neck and over the slight puncture from her knife, soothing the sting. 

“I didn’t think you guys would come,” you confess against Agatha. 

Rio bites down on your collarbone and it makes you hiss. “We just wanted to make sure you actually wanted this,” she says hotly. Your chest flushes and she takes out the knife again and swiftly cuts through the silky fabric of your shirt. 

“I do,” you say, pleading for them to believe you, pouring all the emotions you’ve felt the past month at the thought of losing them into your tone. Rio kisses down your breasts, nipping at you through your bra and it makes you gasp. 

Agatha pulls away from you and steps behind Rio, moving her hair and pressing her mouth to the younger woman’s neck. “Poor Rio was so upset to think you would betray us like that,” she purrs and Rio nods, pouting mockingly. “I think you better make it up to her first, show her how much you want this.” 

The double meaning is clear and you are only too eager. You flip her around so her back is against the fridge, maybe a little more rougher than you need to be, and sink to your knees in front of her. 

You fumble with the waistband of her pants and she tips your chin up with her knife, reminding you of the night she did that with her gun. 

“Do a good job and we’ll reward you,” she says. 

Your hands finally drag her pants and underwear down and you smirk. “Ask your wife if she thinks I did a good job last time,” you retort and Agatha chuckles darkly from behind you and grips your hair before shoving your face into Rio’s dripping pussy. 

Rio gasps and Agatha holds you in place while you flatten your tongue and drag it through Rio’s folds. Her hips jerk on your face and you look up through your eyelashes to watch Agatha kiss her wife. 

Her scent invades your nose and her flavor fills your tastebuds and you moan, losing yourself in her. You lick around her clit until she’s practically shaking and she has to wrap an arm around Agatha’s shoulders to stay balanced. 

When you finally give in and suck on her clit, Rio keens and you can feel her growing even wetter on your chin. You see Agatha grip Rio’s throat and the sight makes you groan from how hot it is. You can hear Rio’s messy breathing as she starts to rut her hips against your face and you pick up the intensity, lapping harder at her cunt. 

Your jaw starts to hurt but you don’t dare stop because when you dip your tongue inside and curl it up, licking up against her walls, she clenches and the prettiest sounds you’ve ever heard fall out of her mouth. 

“I’m close,” she pants and Agatha, still sliding her lips against her wife’s, reaches down to rub Rio’s clit, her finger bumping against your nose while you keep thrusting your tongue inside Rio. 

Rio’s getting tighter around you and her breaths are more constricted until she finally lets out a loud moan and her whole body jerks and her walls clamp around your tongue as she rides out her orgasm. 

Agatha steps back so you’re able to rest back on your heels and you smile up blissfully at them, the entire bottom of your face soaked. 

“Did I do a good job?” You simper and Rio’s hand grips into your hair and pulls you up. It stings but it only makes you more turned on. 

Rio cleans your face with her mouth, taking extra care to suck on your lips. She nips and you breathe out sharply. “You did acceptable,” she says haughtily and you grin. 

“Let’s go, superstar,” Agatha says, leaning in to kiss you and then Rio, wanting to taste her wife. “Where’s your bedroom?”

You point down the hall and you follow them to it. You can feel the pool between your legs and each step puts the tiniest bit of pressure on your clit, making you squirm while you walk. 

“Please,” you whisper. They seemingly ignore you and tell you to sit on your bed while they root through your room, maybe looking for a wire or a camera or something. 

But then Rio chuckles when she opens your nightstand drawer and you know what she’s found. “Look, Aggie,” she says, holding up some of your sex toys that you keep in there. It’s been far too long since you’ve used any of them and you clench involuntarily around nothing. 

Agatha walks over and pulls out a harness and a dildo and shows them to you. “Do you want me to fuck you with this, pet?” She asks and you nod eagerly, practically drooling. 

“Agatha,” Rio says in a hush, holding up another toy, a small egg vibrator and a remote. When she thumbs at the dial on the side, it turns on in her hand. “Wear this so I can control it while you’re fucking her?” 

You let out a filthy moan at the question and the older women laugh. “Seems like we got our answer,” Agatha says, making quick work of pants and underwear. You shrug off the tatters of your cut shirt and quickly take yours off too, the cold air on your sopping pussy making you shiver. 

Rio kneels down and kisses Agatha’s thighs and then mouths at Agatha’s cunt for a few seconds, before sliding the toy into her. Agatha lets out a small groan and your jaw drops open. You might cum the second you feel her skin on you. 

The electricity is back, for the first time in forever, and it races under your skin, lighting your entire body up. You’re hungry, so hungry for more, and Agatha steps into the harness and Rio helps her fasten the dildo into it. 

Agatha climbs onto the bed and you scramble back to lay against the pillows, legs propping up and spreading. 

“So eager,” Agatha tuts, positioning herself and rubbing the dildo against your entrance, coating the toy with your wetness. She drags it up and down and presses against your clit until you’re sweating under her, your hands coming up to hold onto her hips. 

She pushes the tip into you and your walls bear down around it, clenching and trying to drag it in. Agatha chuckles at your desperate state, but it quickly turns into a moan when Rio turns the dial on the control and she jerks forward violently, pushing the toy all the way inside you in one motion. 

Your head drops back and your back arches, forcing your hips up even more so you can somehow feel her deeper. “Fuck,” you curse, the fullness exactly what you need to satiate the ache inside you. 

Agatha takes a deep breath, fingers digging in tightly to the bed next to you, when Rio turns up the vibrations. 

“Pet,” Agatha says in a low voice, slowly starting to shallowly thrust inside you like it would hurt her to pull out more. You sharply inhale when she curves into the spongy spot each time and your heart is beating so fast you think it might explode. It feels so good already that tears are pricking in your eyes and Agatha leans down to capture your lips as she picks up the speed. 

The vibrations from the toy inside her are so strong that it’s affecting the dildo inside you and you’re reduced to a moaning mess. You tilt your head and through your hazy vision and the fog settling in your head, you can see Rio with a hand between her legs, watching you get fucked by her wife. 

“I wanted you guys to come back so badly,” you practically sob, hips rising to meet each one of her thrusts, each motion of the cock in and out of your body rubbing against your clit and making you gasp. 

Agatha chuckles breathlessly above you, the exertion causing a slight sheen of sweat to perspire on her forehead. Her cheeks are red and she tosses her hair over her shoulder so she can see you better. She’s biting on her red lip as she takes you in. “We know, superstar. We missed you, too. But we’re never letting you go now.” 

“Good,” you say and you pull her down for a kiss. Her thrusts are getting sloppy now, losing rhythm and her hips stuttering, but you don’t care because you’re already so close. 

And so is she, by the looks of it. Her cock fills you perfectly, and you can feel the veins on the toy dragging against your walls, and she’s panting into your open mouth, both of you exchanging hot air between the two of you. Your senses are heightened, on fire even, and you’re on the edge, tingles, fireworks, spreading through your body. You’ve never felt this alive in your life and you crave more before you’re even done right now. 

And then she puts a hand around your throat and it’s like all the air from your lungs dissipates. She squeezes lightly and you moan explicitly, feeling like a livewire is running through you. 

“Agatha,” you whine. 

She huffs and somehow speeds up, and she lets out broken whimpers when Rio turns the vibrator up even more. “Cum for me, pet, cum with me,” she says and presses on your throat to constrict your airway ever the slightest and you do. 

You slur incoherent words while you orgasm, the dam inside you breaking and pleasure floods through you like nothing you’ve ever felt before. Agatha slumps on top of you, her hips convulsing inside you involuntarily as she rides out hers too. 

She lays there for a minute or two, your walls twitching around her. And then she pulls out and flops on the bed next to you. Rio comes over and gingerly takes the strap-on off Agatha and pulls the toy out of her. 

“You both okay?” Rio jokes and you both nod, thoroughly worn out. 

“What now?” You ask and the two of them look at each other. You cannot survive them walking away from you again. 

Agatha props herself up on an elbow and brushes a sweaty hair off your forehead. “What do you want, superstar?” 

“You two.” 

Rio chuckles. “Good, because if you didn’t say that, we brought gasoline and we were going to set your house on fire.” 

You gape at her and look back and forth between Agatha and Rio. “For real?” They both nod solemnly, although you can see Agatha trying not to smile. The wheels in your head turn. A fire started this whole thing, fifteen years ago. Maybe it makes sense that fire is what ends it. “Do it,” you tell them. 

“Excuse me?” Rio says, clearly taken aback. 

“Set my house on fire, make it look like I’m dead. I have the azaleas downstairs, we can scatter them outside and make it look like The Witch and Lady Death killed me. My death is faked and we go off the grid. It makes sense. You guys followed me from New Jersey, took out my boss, and now you took me out, too. The last two connections to your case.” 

It’s a good plan, even they have to admit it. 

So Agatha goes and gets the gas while you pack up a small bag of things. You leave Rio’s knife and the empty vial from the drug in the living room so it looks like The Witch and Lady Death burned in the fire too. 

You douse the kitchen and trail it to the front door so you have an easy escape. Rio hands you the matchbox, and it makes the same sound it made when you strike the match on it as the last time. You take a deep breath, look at them, and they nod. 

You flick it and a brilliant blaze of fire erupts, quickly spreading through the whole house. 

And you don’t even look back on your way to their car, the three of you sliding into it. 

Agatha pulls out of the driveway and you smile to yourself. 

You don’t know where you’re going or what will happen, but you’re with them now, so everything is going to be okay. 

[mykaelaaa]

detour that lingered

✰ helly r x fem!reader // 4k

✰helly's fed up with lumon and needs a distraction. that makes the two of you.

clicks.

so. many. clicks.

thousands of them made in the past five minutes. maybe more.

you're not really sure. all done by your work colleagues while your hands rested on the desk. cold and almost lifeless. work-wise speaking, anyway.

wide, luminous square of light above you started producing annoying buzz-like hum three weeks ago, exactly on tuesday at 10:03 a.m.

it's drilling in your head but somehow, no one else seems to be bothered. you did report the issue. and in return got million-dollar response from the multimillion-dollar company saying:

"thank you for reporting the malfunction. we will do our very best to make sure your surroundings are as comfortable and enjoyable as we can. but remember, be grateful for what you have, because Lumon has your back."

milchick's refined words, of course.

delivered with his wide smile that fools concerningly big amount of people. well, minus the one if you think more thorough.

time passes agonizingly slow here.

staring at the screen and scattered numbers that still, after months in here, don't really seem to make sense.

you glance down at the bracelet on your wrist. you don't know anything about it. nor the clothes you bought, or where. or how come you picked just this color of the shirt but not a different one. why does your pen holder keep moving even though you swear you put it somewhere else. who in the right mind decided forest and football field green was the office aesthetic?

it's trapping.

sometimes, when you are bored out of your mind, which happens way too often, the green of the desks and flooring all morph into one big green blob, obscuring your vision and you don't know how it happens except blink a few times until it disappears. but lately it stopped.

and you know who's to blame, partially that is. for snatching a few seconds of so rare and precious serenity away.

ever since helly replaced petey, red came into the picture and it was no longer monotonous green.

it's always peeking in the corner of your eyes. one minute it looks like she just left the photoshoot for whatever fancy office magazine out there. the next, it's ruffled by her hands and she's two numbers away from losing her sanity.

but you like her. as a coworker, obviously. well, okay. a bit more than that. but that's debatable and confined deep inside of you for now.

it's just extremely refreshing another person recognizes the deranged, whatever the fuck this is, going on in the building. and they don't only nod along and go chase numbers on autopilot.

she's funny, terribly sarcastic, talented at giving you side eye when something stands out—most importantly, biggest Lumon hater next to you.

others are okay. to put it plainly.

dylan is funny on occasions but too hooked about reaching 100% for some reason. at times it makes you feel bad. to each their own.

irv is undeniably a wise, old guy outside the work. the one that knows a little bit of everything about, well everything. and he loves art.

mark is mark. sometimes there, sometimes lost in thought. carrying that specific and awkward type of humor that makes you feel like you should laugh but also unsure if it was a joke or just a remark that sounded like one. but you're more than welcome for anything that stands out in these four walls.

but helly? she actually asks things.

your first interaction with her was a disaster. which is amazing, by the way. she reminded you of yourself on the first day. a shitty attempt at escaping you did, running in circles and stuck in a loop of doors and hallways. each leading to nowhere hopeful.

you sat back and waited, watching it unfold. feeling slight remorse of how good it felt, knowing she will realize there's no way out. that will make the two of you.

that was helly's first warm welcome here and you couldn't relate more.

by the time milchick caught up with her, you were sure you still hold a record of how many times you saw mr. milchick in one shift. about twenty three.

you should ask helly how many times she ran into him that day.

a day after, you saw her hand pulling the divider down, scooching forwards a bit. a sweet, covert whisper reached you.

"do you know what the fuck is going on here?" heavy emphasis on 'what the fuck'.

you had to just stare at her frozen, caught between "oh my god finally" and "wait, will it be worth it?" and then, since it was the best thing that has happened since you got here, you grinned like an idiot. thanking kier internally.

but also, you felt pity for her. you tried, you complained, oh so many times but met a dead end street. you know milchick hates to see your head tilted and eyes narrowed. forming an actual smart question that throws the unusual work conditions in the spotlight. milchick being milchick, just gives you his programmed response.

if she keeps this up, you owe her a drink.

somehow. if lumon introduces alcohol.

"what you thinking about?"

her voice dragged you back to reality. you blink, shifting your focus off the screen where number 6 is floating like it's waiting for you to do something about it.

helly's watching you, head propped on one hand, looking amused. her eyes—lumon's os standard shade of whatever blue—should blend perfectly into the dullness of this place.

but they don't. somehow they don't.

you grew fond of it. maybe.

you shift in your seat. recalling what have you been truly been dozing off about. but it's a failed attempt.

"just your usual, loyal mdr employee stuff. thriving to reach 100."

she snorts, quietly. and your chest feels weirdly warm. it's been happening a lot lately. since you cracked the code of her sarcasm.

god. you're really starting to pick up mark's jokes.

"hmmm." she draws it out like she's considering something. "shame. i thought you had some mastermind prison break plan in the making."

you smirk, letting your eyes glaze over her features just a little. "maybe i do?"

helly raises a brow. "that so?"

"you know, almost a year here does wonders to your imagination. maybe my outtie is married to a drug lord with, like, fifteen escape routes if we get ambushed. therefore my talent."

you sigh and add, "but instead i'm stuck here. like a bird in a cage, forgetting what flying is like."

she narrows her eyes like she's analyzing you. but it feels different than when milchick does it. better. "oh, wow. that's the most poetic thing you ever said."

"you haven't been here long enough then."

she clicked her tongue smoothly, "gotta make sure to use most of my time on that then."

irving's head peeks out from the green barrier. "ladies. more work, less talk."

helly throws you the 'how the hell did he even hear?' look. you just shrug.

"breaks soon anyway, irv." mark chimes in, though he sounds disinterested about the idea of break. you get him. not much opportunities to get your mind to shut off besides the vending machine.

"yes i know, mark. that doesn't mean we can all chit-chat."

"are you trying to be the good guy here just because she's new?" dylan said, leaning back in his chair that made a screeching sound. he turned his attention to helly, dead serious. "don't listen to him. his bathroom breaks? he's been sneaking off to see some guy from—"

"dylan, that's irrelevant—"

"no it's not, irving." dylan keeps going but you were too busy being overwhelmed with helly jabbing you in the ribs.

you flinch. "what?"

helly, still pressed lightly your side, doesn't even look guilty about it. she's close. close enough her knee is barely brushing against yours. enough that the space left is borderline nonexistent but you can feel it anyway. and it feels like there's a heavy boulder on your back.

it's new. but it feels nice.

when and why did she get so close without you noticing?

she tilts her head a bit and you can feel her hair enveloping your shoulder. it sounds ridiculous but it feels like it's burning straight to your shirt.

"come with me to the supply room."

it's not a question but more of a silent order. your throat dries up and it feels burning. you shift and your hands, like they got a mind on their own, latched onto the nearest thing it landed which was your shirt. you smooth it out for no apparent reason.

"for what?"

"i don't know. office supplies?" she deadpans like it should've been obvious. it is obvious. you just couldn't focus.

you quickly dissect the desk. there are more than enough pens in the holder. sticky notes are untouched and started to collect dust. two hundred and thirty eight of yellow notes last time you counted. judging the way helly's desk is the same, you catch on it.

yeah. this is not about the damn supplies.

helly wheels back out of the way, making room. still waiting on you get along with the idea.

so you push your chair like it's an announcement. irving gave you a quick, iffy look like he saw this as an opportunity to get dylan off his back and shift the topic on you two. but before he could, you stretch your arms out like you're letting out the negative energy of intense, office labor.

"gonna grab some stuff," you claim, standing. "ms. helly, you coming?"

she's already up, rolling her eyes. "obviously."

dylan just snickers, mark doesn't even bother giving a second glance.

the pair footsteps barely make a sound against the tedious green carpet. competing with the noise of the ever buzzing lights.

you wonder if the redhead next to you, who's on a very serious mission to reach the supply closet, ever noticed those little things. and it's not like you're in a rush to get back to the desk either.

when you reach the room she wastes no time. helly briefly stepped aside to let you enter first before following behind. the second you stepped in, discerning same smell of paper and metal hit you.

helly swings the door shut behind you with more force than needed.

she exhales. loudly. did it echo that much or helly r. just pulls you into different realm by doing frankly anything?

you catch her breath hitch for a split second. it looks like she craved this. this getaway or whatever you name it. her shoulders relax against the wall and you feel weirdly happy for her. you would like to be the reason she feels at ease, but you can't just self proclaim the title "i made helly feel good" without her approval.

that sounds wrong the more you repeat it in your head.

"finally," she mutters under her breath, sinking in the surface deeper before pushing off.

"one more minute there and i'd throw myself in the printer or something and hoped for the best."

you huff a quiet laugh, adding, "tried and it didn't work."

helly smiles, one corner of her lips tugging up. and you should probably not stare for too long. it's inappropriate. that's what they say. i mean, it's logical. so you look around the room and—wow.

nothing changed. dry and uninspiring as always—stacks of papers fanatically sorted by colors, and too many cardboard boxes with useless serial numbers.

"so," you start, not knowing what is it that you're about to say. or why does your mouth run faster than the brain. and why does the room feel smaller, like someone turned the heat up.

and why is helly, now on the opposite side of the room, suddenly so engrossed in a shelf of supplies she's seen a thousand times—so engaged it feels like she's not here for a moment.

you sigh, slow and even. "what do we need?"

helly smirks like she was waiting for you to ask. "nothing really."

"i figured."

helly watched you for a second more before grabbing a pack of staplers off the shelf. not really doing anything worthwhile with it—just to keep her hands busy. her fingers tap against the box restlessly, spinning it around, shaking it, repeating the cycle. like she desperately wants to be occupied, and it made you anxious.

"needed an excuse," she admits, voice just a bit hushed but not unheard.

"for?"

she shrugs, giving the box one last twirl before setting it down. her mouth twitches like she's holding a grin from escaping, eyes tracing from the shelves to the floor, to the lonely chair in the corner meant for short employees, and then you.

her lower lip disappears between her teeth, careful not to ruin the lipstick. she leans back against the closet, hands slipping and intertwining behind her. the distance between is only a few steps away but it felt like she's a scorching furnace right in front of you.

"maybe to get the fuck away from that desk and pretending like any of this shit is normal," she dips in the closet even further, voice laced with a raw honesty. "i mean, who the fuck hunts scary looking numbers for a job?" helly snorts, openly fed up with it all.

she expects you to understand. and you do. of course you do.

"and, like… you're pretty much the only one that gets it." helly adds softly and again, the thing in your stomach twists, turns and before you know it, she had you smiling.

you shift your weight, mirroring her stance without meaning to. it's the most natural thing you've done since carving out fruit in shape of kier's face and putting an x sign over it of for some useless lumon anniversary thing.

"alright then, miss helly r. tell me everything."

her eyes flicker with curiosity, and maybe slight suspicion—but she grins anyway. "everything?"

"yeah. i can't team up with someone who's also really keen on burning this shithole down without knowing them."

helly scoffs, crossing her arms but there's amusement behind that. "we are severed, you know. think we're kinda missing 90% of the lore here."

"no, not like that." you explain, taking a break to think. "tell me…tell me who do you think is the worst dressed here? or who's outtie has a dungeon in their basement?"

her lips quirk and it feels like a veil of something unspoken just fell over your figures—the realization, maybe a relief, a shimmer of whatever the third option may be.

helly tilts her head and considers, "worst dressed? gotta be milchick."

you raise a brow playfully, "milchick? really?"

"yes, like a hundred percent." she lazily slumps forward and shakes her head, "that man looks like he lost a bet and has to walk around like that. and the moustache?"

you let out a laugh, staring down at the floor. clutching your shirt with one hand dramatically. "you don't like a moustache? helly r?"

helly rolls her eyes, giving you a look before pointing at you. "okay, your turn. dungeon."

"mark."

"no fucking way."

"it's always the quiet and normal ones you least expect."

she clicks her tongue in denial, "he's too stuck up for that. but hear me out," she leans as if she's about to reveal mindblowing rumour, "dylan."

there's not much you can disagree with to be honest. "well—fine, i can see it." you take in a deep breath, same smell of stale paper hanging in the air.

"who's the best looking around here?"

"wow, i met like less than ten people."

"that's more than plenty."

helly exhaled sharply, eyes wandering everywhere but at your direction. "well," she dragged out, "definitely not cobel. unless you're into having affair with your boss that's thirty years older than you."

now, that made you dwell on it in silence more than helly would like. to the point her expression started to transform into a concerning one.

you found it amusing, although it's better to start explaining yourself.

"i can look past that if it means i can get out of here." nice save. holds bit truth to it.

redhead was still worried, wheels turning in her head and she nodded in flimsy approval. "you know what? i like how determined you are to the point you'd get with our boss."

helly laughed. and for the first time in ages she felt okay.

okay. safe. distracted. something she thought was impossible ever since she got here. it wouldn't be a stretch for her to say it's addicting. you're addicting and this impromptu trip to get away. she'd rather stay here and count papers one by one with you than be in the office, divided by desks.

she scratches her head in thought and clears her throat. "milchick can look charming but he would just turn out to be an ass."

"and the moustache."

"dealbreaker. immediate."

"and mdr candidates?"

the silence eats her alive and she wonders if you can see it. she supposes you wait for her to continue. but it feels like someone drove nails in her shoes and wrapped chains around her. she fixes her posture. paces in place for a moment, aware there's nothing more comfortable to lean on in here anyway. but she knows better than not to speak what's on her mind.

"i guess it's you." man. straight to the point.

not mark? isn't that a delight. "me? really?"

you watch her furrow her brows and swear she looks offended. "yeah, what? who do you think i was gonna say? irv—"

"—i don't know." helly watched your short lived and secretly nervous detour, dragging your shoulder against the closets that stopped once you faced her. arm length of distance. "maybe mark. you hesitated." your finger pointing at her made her feel like a kid sent into a corner.

"i was thinking."

"about mark?"

she glares at you, but it lacks any real malice. helly stays there. she doesn't move or back away. and you start to notice things that you have noticed before, but it feels almost privileged and paralyzing.

yes, she always smelled memorable—you realized that on the very first day she arrived because it was new and not industrial-made air freshener. her perfume lingered in the elevator at the beginning and end of every shift, right now it's seizing every sense you have. and you let it, like it's a matter of life or death.

before you can be smarter about this—not that you want to—your eyes dart over her face. the maroon of her hair catches the white glow of the room like copper. there's a faint scar near her temple, scarcely hidden under the strands. familiar dips of her smile lines are harder to make out, replaced by lips set firm—but not too firm. like they want to say something. but they never do.

no voices, no music, no window that casts wind and traffic, yet it feels like your breaths would suppress all of it if given.

on paper, this looks like a terrible idea. but in practice? it's rare and tempting. especially for a lumon employee.

you reach out to put one hand on the nape of her neck, hesitating halfway. helly took it as a implied question of yes or no. she could tell that much. instead of saying it with fear her voice might fail her, she decided to suck it up and take your hand and guide it where you wished. fingers nearly intertwining like you've both done this hundred of times before, creating a habit.

helly was never this close to someone. physically and mentally.

she doesn't know what her outtie does, with who, how or when. does she have a spouse? kids? is she widowed or divorced? will her outtie ever run into you and remember? any of this?

a brisk worry that you should be getting back to the office dashed through your mind. but it was discarded as quickly as it came.

"listen—i," helly whispered. there was everything and nothing in her head at the same time. exhausted of this job and every day being the same as the one before.

she swallowed harshly, "i know we can't be doing this by—by some dumb company rules but it…"

"it's okay if—"

"no. i mean, it feels right," she nods carefully, like she's convincing both of you. "it feels nice."

neither of you know how to do this properly. or if there's a way to do so. there's a general idea of it. kissing, sex, intimacy and all that comes along.

after all, lumon didn't pass a rule forbidding such profane acts for no reason.

helly smiles faintly, delicately putting her hands on your waist and tugging you closer. fingers dancing on your hips. it was all done in a tender manner, making you wonder she pulled out this sudden confidence out of her pocket while you were daydreaming.

perhaps she was always like this. just another thing to uncover about helly r. amongst many.

it was mutual, bound to happen and next to world ending.

your heads tilted in sync, felt her hands froze on your waist and yours were trapped under her hair upon contact. helly's nose bumped against your cheek along with her bangs tickling your forehead. her lips were lightly chapped, inviting you in. deeper and deeper for more without knowing what that 'more' signifies.

helly backed away and it took her absurd amount of willpower to do so. she rested her forehead against yours. breaths combining together, fast paced like you've both been running down the hallway from entirety of lumon.

"i don't know how to do this," you barely made it sound coherent.

she chuckled, and for this newfound proximity, it ringed in your ears differently. "me neither but it's good."

with no effort helly reeled you back in, fingers brought back in life—now gripping at your clothes. it was more eager and natural. her lips chased yours and she let low groans sneak past her. it was a new sound to you, that caused you to lose control over your own hands too. tangled in her hair that was unsurprisingly soft. you tried to pull her even closer but it was nearing the impossible.

do you even have the right to do all of these things right now?

your back hit the closet. making the irrelevant boxes shake, threatening to fall down. helly's hot breath was all that you could feel as it slid down your cheek, to the jaw and up to your ear. making you shudder. she didn't give one single shit about the cameras and mics.

"how—how far can i-we go?"

seriously? she slightly winced when you tugged her by the roots just to see her better. she looked down at you with some feral look you haven't seen before. panting and gasping. hair disheveled by your fault.

"i don't know helly. all the way."

she doesn't know either. she has faint idea that will involve bunch of improvising but she doesn't care. if needed, she can survive off doing just this.

before you could react, she grasped your jaw gently. forcing you to tear your eyes away from her and be taken care of.

helly settled between your neck, leaving kisses on your collarbone and what's exposed. you smell of something so sweet and distinctive it's like a drug to her. waiting on your reactions because she can't be too greedy. even if she wants to.

"fuck—helly," it was overwhelming. and hearing you, all torn apart, made her weak of all sorts. making her moan near your ear, which was like a last straw of the day.

"helly…i-just…"

"i know," helly breathed out. she feels it too, if not twice as intense than you. but she can't compete right now.

her hands travelled down, lower and lower and you bucked your hips into nothing. she let you guide her lips back, cupping her face. she registers no one in the whole fucking department ever handled her with such care. she allows herself to sink in your touch.

and before you reconnected, your noses bump again. uneven breaths and surrendering knees and—

"so, uh—break is like, almost finished. hope you're all good in there."

mark.

helly hoped she will never hear any of them again.

"is he fucking with us right now?" she speaks with eyes still closed. either in disbelief and let-down or to get back together.

"yeah-yeah, some stuff kinda—fell off the shelves so we had to clean up." you yell out. holding onto helly's shoulders for support.

"oh. yeah, happened to me month ago or so. just uh, try to get it cleaned up in five minutes."

you looked back at the redhead that stared like she had received a letter from lumon saying they approved of her quitting the job.

"what?"

"this is not finished. it's not over, we ain't done, we—"

"—okay, okay. you had your chances to get me in the supply room before and now you want to make up for all of them. i don't think so." you teased like you don't wanna stay here forever. hoping the handle broke or something so you're caged in.

"yes and no. i didn't know what i was missing out."

if someone was to tell helly you have some magnetic superpower in you, she would have believed it. she doesn't want to remove her hands off you, or let the heat you two created go back to usual lumon's cold, or see you in the office hunting numbers rather than her lips.

but she has to adapt and get her way somehow. and she will. win both you and that 'leave' letter.

[hufflepuffsthunderdome]

Never Easy (Part One)

Schlatt x gn!reader P. Two -> Summary: Based on this request. Schlatt runs into an old friend at the bar and high school tensions come back to the surface. Teenage feelings come to the surface again as the pair realise their feelings never changed. Warnings: Use of the nickname 'tiny' instead of Y/N a few times, swearing, making out

"What the fuck?" a voice somewhere behind Schlatt says as he sits at the bar. He pays no mind to it, chatting happily with his friends until he hears his name called, "schlatt?"

He tenses up as he hears his name, closing his eyes and drawing in a deep sigh as he braces himself to come face to face with the camera of a fan shoved in his face the second he turns around.

"Schlatt?" the voice repeats excitedly, a hand placed on his shoulder to get his attention. He turns in his chair and looks down at the person in front of him, still slightly taller than them even sitting down.

"Hi?" he asks, forcing a smile on his face as he watches you observe him. He tries to be nice, even if the last thing he wants tonight is to be stolen from his friends by fans, he doesn't want some bad interaction someone has with him being plastered over reddit even more.

"Holy shit it is you?" you laugh as you look at him, your hand still on his tense shoulder as you examine him, "Beth said it was you but I couldn't believe it. From the back you look just like any other tall guy with a -"

"Do I know you?" he interrupts, as his eyes scan you, taking you in. Your face is filled with excitement and clear recognition, something about the way your eyes watch his makes it feel like you're seeing into his soul and opening him up from the inside. It's unnerving, to be looked at with such familiarity that he just can't place.

"You don't remember me?" you ask, retracting your hand from his shoulder, the excited smile dropping to a forced one as you keep your gaze locked on him, "it hasn't been that long has it? I would've hoped -"

"Tiny?" he says in surprise as his eyes widen, the name falling so naturally out of his mouth after all this time. He doesn't know where it came from but something about that soft smile you gave him pulls the years of memories back to the front of his brain as he looks at you.

"Ugh still with that nickname," you groan, before giggling excitedly as Schlatt all but tackles you in a hug.

"Holy fuck this is insane," he laughs giddily as he engulfs you in his arms, you two standing there embracing for the longest time. It's been years since you've seen each other, you've both changed so much it's almost impossible to think that you were even able to recognise each other.

One of his friends coughing from the bar behind him and shooting him a teasing look is all it takes to make him retract from the hug and put his guard back up. He sits back down in his seat with a grumble as he blushes, "Tiny, these are my college friends. Lads, Tiny."

"We're really sticking with that nickname huh?" you say as you roll your eyes, introducing yourself to his group of friends as they make idle small talk.

Schlatt can't help but admire you as you talk to his friends, so effortlessly sliding into the group as if you've known his friends longer than he has. You were always good at that, all through school. Half the reason he had a social life was because he would get dragged around everywhere with you, as this little bottle rocket would effortlessly charm anyone they met, dragging the socially awkward giant along with them.

You've changed so much, it's not surprising he barely recognised you. You look different, new hair, new piercings, new glasses, shedding the awkward, shaggy high school look for a more refined one. You held yourself with new sense of confidence, the kind earnestness in your smile still evident, clearly having never left.

You moved after school, shedding the cold east coast snow for the sunny west coast beaches, which has clearly done wonders for you. It's almost like you brought the sun back with you, as you stand in the dimly lit bar nearly glowing as you beam and laugh at something his friend says. You brought the sun back to him.

He feels a pit begin to form in his stomach. A bottomless chasm that makes his stomach sink as he watches his friend make you laugh, a feeling he hasn't felt since high school. He thought he shed that feeling when he went to college, maturing. Maybe, he's starting to think, he just never met another person like you.

You turn and look at him, meeting his eyes as you smile brightly, laughing happily in almost disbelief at the fact that you stumbled on each other like this. He feels his heart catch in his chest as the blood rushes to his cheeks and for a split second he feels like he's back in maths class, being paired up together for a project for the first time.

The small thud next to him jolts him from his day dreaming as he looks at the bag on the desk next to him, tattered, torn messenger bag being held together by hope and tape.

"Hey," your sweet voice above him says as you sit down next to him, casting him a bright, smile, mouth full of metal. He stares for a second as you sit before he just nods, eying you cautiously as you grab your notebooks out.

"I hope you're good at maths," you say, barely noticing his lack of acknowledgement as you laugh to yourself, "cause I am not!"

"What?" he asks confused as he watches you turn and meet his gaze again, their wild hair falling in front of their face before you shake it out. He hasn't been paying any attention.

"Oh don't worry," you say as you begin copying work down from the board, "I'm not a total drop kick, you won't have to carry too hard."

"I'll be back," you say as you turn to look at your friend group standing on the other side of the room stealing glances over at you, "I should go tell my friends they can leave without me... I'm stealing you when I come back," you say over your shoulder to Schlatt as you walk away.

All he can do is nod as he stares at you as you walk off, feeling like a school kid again as his high school crush saunters their way back into his life.

"But anyway I heard that they actually ended up getting divorced!" Schlatt says as he sips his drink, laughing as he looks at you next to him in the booth, "serves the bitch right failing me on my ancient Egypt essay," he scoffs as he downs the last of his drink.

"Surely you're not still cut up on that?" you laugh as you lean back against the booth, looking over at him as you watch him go into a delightedly animated rant on how much your old ancient history teacher screwed him over.

It feels like no time has passed at all since you last saw each other, the two of you immediately fall into a familiar conversation as you reminisce and talk about life.

"I'm gonna scream," he says angrily as he pushes through the crowds, dragging you behind him through the halls as you head towards the doors leading out of the school towards the football fields.

You run along behind him as you weave through people, yelling apologies over your shoulder as you chase after your friend, "you gotta slow down I can't keep up."

He lets out a frustrated sigh, raking his hand through his hair as he pushes open the doors, holding them open for you to catch up with him. You pant as you run to catch up with him, bending over to put your hands on your knees to catch your breath. He laughs as he looks down at you, hands shoved in his pocket, "you're so unfit."

"We can't all have 10 meter strides," you grumble as you nudge him and straighten up, walking down the steps and onto the football fields, "you gonna tell me what's wrong?"

He digs around in his backpack, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper that he thrusts into your hands, "53," he says as he throws his hands up in the air in frustration. You uncrumple the paper and glance across the writing, 'Technological development in ancient Egypt.'

"Shiiiitt," you say as you grimace, "she's really got it out for you huh?"

"Don't I know it," he sighs, looking dejectedly down at the ground as he walks across the field. You can almost hear the doubt in his brain as he walks.

"What do you have next period?"

"PE?" he says as he looks down at you next to him as you walk.

"Wanna grab a slushy instead?" you ask, as you shove the failed assignment into your pocket, forgotten.

"You're an angel you know that?"

"You look beautiful," he says as he rests his arm on the booth behind your head, a dazed look in his eyes as he gazes down at you, "you were always beautiful" he mumbles softly, seemingly absent mindedly, "but I mean... wow."

You stare up at him, surprised at the gentle tone in his voice, something about the way he says it, and the way he's gazing down at you, his expression filled with nothing but love and innocence, it fills your chest with butterflies.

He notices your shock and brings his already empty glass up to his lips, taking a drink of nothing as he attempts to distract himself from what he just said. "I'm getting another" he grumbles as he realises how unnatural he looks with the empty glass, sliding out of the booth and making his way to the bar.

You can't help but admire him as he moves across the bar, he still holds himself the same way he did in high school, slouched, lumbering, folding in on himself, as if he's trying to make his 6'3 frame vanish from everyone's view.

He stops by his group of friends that are still congregating near the bar, chatting with them for a while as he orders another drink. He runs his hand through his hair as he nods at something someone says and you can't help the way your mouth goes dry.

He's filled out since you last saw him a few years ago. He's broader, softer, you can't help but imagine how nice it would feel to run your hands along his shoulders, slip them under his shirt.

You always thought he was a handsome guy, all the time you knew him. There's something about this new look he has that just does it for you. He looks rugged, more mature, a far cry from the lanky boy you once knew. His jeans and thrift shop button ups replaced with shorts and jackets that make him look put together, so much more like a man and less like a kid. You never even considered how handsome mutton chops could look on someone.

"You've gotta hold still if you wanna keep your ear," you laugh as you hold his head in place, falling apart in a fit of giggles as he shrieks when the cold water from the spray bottle hits the back of his neck.

"I don't think I'm talented enough to justify van goughing it," he says as he laughs along with you, taking a sip of his beer as his eyes stay glued to yours through the reflection in the mirror as he adjusts the towel around his shoulders.

"I reckon you're plenty talented," you hum thoughtfully as you run the comb through his hair, "hopefully not insane enough."

He laughs as he tilts his head down, a pleasant shiver running up his spine at the feeling of hand in his hair as you position his head where you want it, the sound of the scissors distracting him from the sound of his heart beat in his ears.

"Don't fuck my head up yeah?" he says as he finishes off his beer, tossing it in the bin along with the other bottles that were emptied before this dumb decision was made, "I'd look ugly if i had to shave it all."

"Don't be silly," you hum as your tongue pokes out your lips in concentration, "you'll always be good looking."

You see the red blush creep up the back of his neck as you trim his hair, pausing to look up and meet his eyes in the reflection. He's staring back at you, face red with a blush as he eyes dart across your face, yours staying glued to his. You both just stare, through the reflection, neither of you daring to move, neither of you brave enough to speak.

He walks back over and places a drink down in front of you, grumbling to himself about how expensive it was, "you're lucky I'm rich now doll cause damn they're trying to milk me dry with these cocktails you're drinking."

You just watch him as he sips his drink, his hand resting on the back of the booth as he crosses his foot over his leg and leans back. He looks so different now, better, you think as you admire him. He turns to face you, catching your eye with a puzzled expression as he catches you staring.

"What?" he asks as he places his drink down, chuckling nervously under your gaze.

You shake your head and shrug as you smile up at him, "you look really good Jay."

It's drizzling down by the time you get outside, the wet ground making your already wobbly legs slip slightly as you walk down the street. Schlatt chases after you, steading you with a firm hand around your waist when he catches up, "don't go running off now."

"I'm tired" you giggle drunkenly as you lean against him as you walk, "I'm gonna head home."

The rain patters around you, making both of you damp as you walk down the sidewalk, "hold on I'll get an uber," Schlatt says ignoring your groan of protest.

"No no no i can walk," you slur as you tilt your head up to look at the rain, "it's only like 40 minutes from here."

"40 minutes are you insane?" he says as he wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you back towards him when he thinks you're gonna try to wander off again, "I'm not letting you walk home in the rain let alone at night drunk."

You go to protest but he's already walking you under an awning as he pulls out his phone, "don't be stubborn."

You huff childishly as you rest your head against his arm, closing your eyes as you sigh happily at the calming feeling of his warmth against you. You wrap your hands around his arm, clinging to him as you wait for him to order a lift, smiling to yourself when he bends down awkwardly to rest his head against yours, relishing in the comforting weight of him against you.

"Can you stop being a dick for like two seconds?" you sigh as you sit down on his back patio step, burying your head in your hands, "aren't you meant to be helping me not making me feel worse?"

"I told you he was a dick from the start," he says as he stands in front of you, hands in his pockets as he looks down at you. He hates seeing you like this, so dejected. He hates himself even more for the excitement he had to push down when you told him you were broken up with.

"Making me feel so much better," you say, your voice shaking as you scrunch your eyes tight.

"I'm sorry I'm being a dick," he sighs as he sits down next to you, leaking back on the porch as he stretches his long legs out on the steps below him, "but you're better off." When you don't reply he continues, "you were too good for him. You're too good for anyone at school."

"If I'm so good why do they break up with me," you say as you finally look up and meet his eyes, his heart breaking as he watches the tears well up in your eyes.

"They just couldn't see a good thing when they had it," He pulls you into a hug, wrapping his arm around your waist as he lets you burry your head in his shoulder and cry. He rests his head on yours as he rubs your arm, trying to sooth you, trying to ignore the way his heart aches as you sob, "even when it was right in front of them."

The uber drive is quiet as you rest your head against the window, watching the bright city lights as you drive past, eyes struggling to focus on any one thing for very long.

Schlatt can't help but stare, it's all he's been able to do since you got in the uber. You look angelic, the artificial yellow of the street lights illuminating your features and making you glow like you were sent down from heaven.

This whole night has pulled up nostalgic memories of your relationship throughout the years, memories that, in your absence he would think back on fondly, missing the good old days. When things were easy.

Now, as you sit beside him, and he thinks back to the awkward kid he knew when he was in school, the friend he tried to ignore his feelings for, the beauty before him he's still in love with, he doesn't think your relationship has ever been easy.

He doesn't know what good deed he's being rewarded for, or what deal he made with the devil that led him back to you, but by god he's not letting his second chance slip by this time.

"I've missed you," he whispers as he moves closer to you, his breath shallow when he feels your hand move to rest on the seat next to him as you turn to face him, "so much."

You stare up at him, eyes big and shiny in the light from the city as you admire the man next to you. You shift your hand along the seat, gently slipping your palm over his, "I've missed you too."

Neither of you are sure who moves first, all you know is it feels like a dream. Your lips crash against each other in a passionate kiss as years of yearning and pining bubble to the surface.

Your lips meld together as your hands desperately grip onto each other. Yours wrap around his neck as you twist your body against the seatbelt to face him, throwing your legs over his thigh as he wraps his arms around your waist. He groans into your mouth as he desperately attempts to pull you closer, tongue gently parting your lips as you moan against his in return.

His tongue slides against yours, exploring your mouth as you move your lips against each other. His facial hair is rough against your face, a contrast to his soft lips dancing against yours.

You pull away to catch your breath and immediately nudge his head to the side, sucking gently as you kiss down his neck, biting at any skin you can touch in a desperate attempt to get closer to him.

"Come back to mine?" he breathes in a hot pant against your temple as he tucks his face in your neck, all you can do is nod.

[rememberwren]

A Dichotomy of Thought || 2

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five | Part Six | Further Parts

Simon thinks of a way for you to make up to them almost hitting Johnny with your car.

#

It’s not all blackness. There are white days.

White nights, too. Just not in the way Johnny might have hoped for. Instead, the blinding glare of sun on snow makes his eyes water. His sunglasses have been dislodged in the crash, lost somewhere. His arm, too. Fire crackles, the sound dampened by the snow. His leg is crushed beneath a piece of scrap metal that’s been bent like a twig, and all around him is the smell: smoke and gas and blood.

Ghost is there, too. Ghost peeking up out of the snow, his white camouflage and Johnny’s double vision disguising him until only the black outline of his mask is visible over the glare of all-else. Johnny blinks hard but Ghost only ever swims into focus for a moment. Around the edges of his vision, it’s all darkness, darkness.

“Where you been?” Johnny croaks, tasting blood.

“Been here all this time,” Ghost says, mask flexing where his jaw moves.

Johnny wakes up then. Because Ghost wasn’t there, and that detail is enough to break through the all’s-well fog that seems to lay over dreams like a fine mist. If Ghost had been there, it’s likely that he would have been lost like the rest of the crew. Then what would Johnny have left? An artificial knee; a weak arm; headaches twice a day. Everything a boy could have ever dreamed of.

Johnny wakes from these white dreams with his heart pounding, Simon’s hand on his shoulder urging him awake. Simon isn’t sleeping these days—at least not when Johnny might catch him in the act.

An hour before sunrise, the sky the same color as a fresh bruise, Johnny croaks out in the darkness of their bedroom: “C’n we have eggs for brekkie?”

#

Johnny used to do all the cooking, back in the Before times as Simon has taken to calling them in his mind, but Simon is a quick learner; he always has been. It’s one of the (many) reasons why he had managed to move up through the ranks in the military so quickly. When he has a problem, he develops a narrow-minded focus that has been referred to more than once as a ‘dog with a bone’ mentality.

But he’s learning that Johnny is not a problem that he can fix.

Simon becomes excellent at seeing everything and nothing at once. His head is expertly turned to keep his lover only in the periphery of his vision. In that way, he pretends not to see the way Johnny first goes to the counter, intending to shift himself up and sit on it the way he used to in the old days before the helicopter went down. He’s almost there when he must remember that he has only one arm, one weak arm. One throbbing leg. Perhaps he could scramble up onto the counter like old times, but perhaps he couldn’t, and his pride is too beaten to take the risk. So he goes to the kitchen table, the one made of mismatched chairs and scratched oak wood, and Simon has to pretend that he doesn’t see the way Johnny struggles to even pull his chair out.

Grab it from the middle, Johnny, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. Help is not wanted here. Help is the opposite of helpful. Already the frustration is building behind Soap’s eyes like a balloon filled with too much air, latex creaking, ready to pop at a moment’s notice or less and send all that fury rushing out. Simon can take it. He can take it—but he dreads it.

It’s not him, he tells himself, scrambling an egg in the pan. It’s the pain. It’s the fear. It’s poisoning his boy’s head, and he doesn’t know how to help. Doesn’t know what to do except endure. Put his head down and barrel through the storm and pray that when he comes out on the other side, Johnny is still there with him.

Johnny has his head in his hand when Simon sets the plate in front of him, the eggs cut into bite sized pieces—and that’s a battle they’ve already fought a thousand times before Simon could convince Johnny to just accept his help, just let me cut up your fucking food Johnny for fuck’s sake let me do it so you don’t starve yourself to death.

It’s familiar to fight beside Johnny; it’s surreal to fight against him.

“Thank yeh,” Johnny mutters morosely. He perks up a little when Simon adds two pale green ovals to the table beside his orange juice, marked with 33’s. He takes those first, on an empty stomach no less, but drains the glass of orange juice which Simon figures is better than nothing.

“How’s your pain?”

“A five maybe.”

Simon internally adds two. There was a pain chart posted up in Johnny’s hospital room in the ICU: a barrage of circular faces displaying the spectrum from peace to agony. Little tears had been coming out of the corners of the face’s eyes at the SEVEN marker, its color just beginning to turn a fiery red. It’s been three months since they were stuck in that tiny, hellish room, but whenever Johnny gives a number for his pain, the chart is the first thing Simon thinks of.

The two eat together. Afterwards, Simon takes the dishes to the sink.

“Let me help.”

Simon doesn’t bother telling him no. When Johnny gets an idea in his head, for worse or for better, it’s better to let him see it through. Even if it inevitably ends in rage.

Simon takes his time washing each individual dish, making sure not to have too many dishes waiting to be rinsed at once, even if it means polishing the same fork over and over while Johnny struggles to relearn doing anything with his non-dominant arm. His crutch is propped up against the corner where the counter turns, watching them.

Their shoulders brush. Johnny looks up at him with pupils blown wide and then ducks his head, nuzzling his temple against Simon’s jaw. It’s the most affection they’ve shown each other in weeks.

“‘m sorry for how it’s been lately,” he says, water dripping off his elbow and onto the floor. “How I’ve been. A right angel, aren’t I?”

“Always.” Angels make him think of death, and death still makes him think of Johnny. How fucking close he came to scattering his lover’s ashes instead of passing him dishes to be rinsed. He tells Johnny the same thing he tells himself: “Things will get better. You get stronger every day.”

Johnny laughs weakly. “My arse.”

“It’s a fine arse.”

“Better ‘n fine. Jesus fucking Christ, this is harder than it looks,” Johnny says. He’s breaking out in a sweat, turning over his clean juice glass beneath the clear stream of water. Part of that sweat is pain, part exertion.

“You’re doing—“

The glass slips from Johnny’s fingers, and he tries to catch it with a hand that’s no longer there. It shatters against the laminate flooring, scattering glass like a bomb scattering shrapnel. They both stare long enough for a single beat of their hearts before Johnny brings his good fist (his only fist—Simon has taken to calling it his Good Fist in his mind) down on the lip of the sink, bellowing a curse that probably has the neighbors jerking in fright.

“Just a glass,” says Simon. But he knows better. “Come here. Don’t step in it. Y’re barefoot.”

He guides Johnny out of the danger zone and into the living room, pausing only to backtrack for his crutch when he notices the way his lover struggles to walk a straight line.

Simon gives him the remote and sweeps up the glass. By the time he comes back into the living room, Johnny is asleep, head back against the headrest of the couch. If it weren’t for the soft snores, Simon would feel the need to check if he were dead.

#

Simon sits in the armchair with a book in his lap. The words swim on the pages. He has never been this tired in his life; not even on missions where sleep seemed contraindicated. But behind his eyelids he sees a car bearing down on his Johnny, and stupid, foolish Johnny stepping out to meet it. He can’t even step out onto the balcony for a cigarette, not without worrying that when he comes back he’ll find—

A slamming of a door startles Simon awake from where he had begun to drift into a nightmare. Glancing toward Johnny first to make sure Soap hadn’t woken—and he hadn’t, though his head had fallen into an uncomfortable position that would surely leave him with a crick in his neck—he gives a dark glare toward the door.

Ever since the old man in the apartment beside them had died, it had been a never ending parade of fuck-ups in and out of the place.

Being angry is addictive. He finds himself wanting to feed his fuse, putting his book down and going to the door and throwing it open, ready to leave a lasting impression on any misfortunate soul left in the hallway.

Figures it would be you.

Your eye looks better today. It is less swollen, less pink. You’re sitting slumped against the door of 7C, ready to fall backwards should it open too abruptly, but at the sound of Simon’s door opening, you jerk yourself into a standing position

You gape in horror at the sight of him, and Simon gets a sick sense of pleasure from it. Make that equal parts pleasure and guilt (he usually doesn’t get off on frightening women, though it happens more often than he intends it to). He glances towards his door, peeking in through the crack to spy Johnny’s slumped, sleeping figure, assuring himself that it’s still there.

“You…live here?” You point at 5C, from which Simon has just exited.

“No. I broke in,” he deadpans.

“Is he okay? The…the guy I almost—“

“He’s fine.” Truth is, he’s so far from fine that Simon doesn’t think he could find fine with a map and a compass. But technically from her standpoint, it is true. She didn’t hit Johnny. If Johnny hadn’t stepped out in front of her, they never would have come so close in the first place. But clearly she doesn’t know that, and Simon isn’t going to tell her.

“Thank God,” you mutter, fresh sorrow in your warbling voice. “Tell him I’m so sorry. Again.”

“Shouldn’t be driving like that,” Simon says, while he’s in the habit of being a dick. He nods his chin towards your face. “Can you even see?”

“Better today,” you admit. “Please, if there’s anything I can ever do to make it up to him, and to you, let me know—“

And suddenly, like rays of light spilling down from parted clouds, he knows what he wants. What is within your power to give him, that is.

“Give me five minutes,” Simon says.

He watches a series of complex emotions flit across your face. He’s never been good at reading people; he doesn’t know what any of them mean. At length, your shoulders lift toward your ears as you steel yourself. You say: “You’ll have to talk to my boyfriend first.”

“For five minutes?” Simon asks, glancing back at the apartment door as if Johnny is liable to be standing there. He lowers his voice a little. “I just want one fucking cigarette without worrying about him taking a swan dive off the balcony. Please.”

You give him another strange look. But this time something that he says has gotten through to you. Looking every bit like a woman being coaxed to the gallows, you ask: “Five minutes…and all I have to do is what? Watch him?”

“Yes. He took two oxy at breakfast, he should be out for a while. Five minutes, you have my word. Give me your phone.”

“I don’t have one.”

Who doesn’t have a fucking phone? he wants to ask, frustration rising sharp and noxious in the back of his throat, but he doesn’t. He works his own phone free from his pocket. There isn’t any passcode on it, no thumbprint requirement or otherwise. He’s never kept secrets from Johnny.

“You know what a seizure looks like?”

“No,” you admit, mouth slipping into a comfortable frown.

“You’d recognize it if you saw it. Call an ambulance.”

“Is that—could he—?”

“He could. But he won’t. Five minutes.” Then, because he’s a piece of shit and because he can tell you’re thinking of chickening out: “You owe us.”

That steeliness appears back in your eyes. You nod grimly, clutching his phone in your hand, and go to slip past him into the apartment. But first…

Simon grips your wrist. His grip is gentle, but it has you going stiff and still all over, like a rabbit in a dog’s jowls. Playing dead, you are. Then he whispers: “That’s my boy in there. You do anything to hurt him or get any funny ideas, I’ll break your legs off. ‘m I clear?”

“You’re clear,” you whisper, voice in that strange warble again. This time you wait for him to nod his head in permission before slipping past him into the apartment, shutting the door behind you with a quiet click.

#

It is strange, being in someone else’s space. Eager as you are to intrude as little as possible (you’re more than happy to assuage the guilt that has roosted something foul in your belly since yesterday’s near accident in the parking lot), you can’t help but snoop. It’s human of you. Somehow, after everything, you are still human.

There are photographs on the walls of strangers: pretty girls who share a familial resemblance with their arms around each other; men in combat fatigues with weapons slung across their shoulders; a young blond boy and a German Shepherd. The space is tidy and small, a mirror image of your own apartment next door with the kitchen on the south side and the living area to the north instead of the other way around. The scent of breakfast clings to the air, and there are clean dishes drying in the dish rack.

On the couch is a man, his head lolled forward until his chin rests against his chest. He snores softly. Dressed in loose fitting pants and a t-shirt, his crutch rests against the couch. His right arm is missing.

You can barely breathe for how badly you don’t want to wake him. You can’t help but trace your eyes over his features though: the arch of his cheekbones, the lines of his jaws, the fullness of his mouth. There are scars along his temple, a livid purple in the morning light that streams in through the window.

He’s drooling on his shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” you whisper. He flinches in his sleep, and it sobers you. No more talking. The last thing you wanted him to do was to wake and catch you looming over him. You can almost hear his rough, accented voice: Did Jesus send ye? Did He tell ye to finish the fucking job and do me in?

You have just made a second near-silent circuit of the apartment when the door opens and the larger man re-enters, slightly out of breath. You glance down at his phone and see that only three minutes have passed. Stepping out into the hallway, he gives the sleeping man a lingering glance before following after you.

“You’re early.”

“Yeah, well. Couldn’t relax for fuck all. Thanks anyway.” You can’t help but take note of this man’s exhaustion: the solid darkness beneath his drooping eyes, the way his huge form seems to sag in on itself. It doesn’t take a psychic or a sleuth to put together that he hasn’t been resting, and you can guess why.

“You need your rest too,” you remind him.

“Thanks for the tip.” He says it with all the charm he might say, Fuck off.

You lift your hands in the universal sign of surrender. Message received. You’d overstepped enough with your car. The last thing he needed was advice from you. Glancing toward your apartment door, that old phrase comes into your head “No good deed goes unpunished”. But if all punishments are for good deeds, you must have been a saint in a past life.

Still, you find yourself offering: “If you ever want me to watch him again while you smoke or shower or nap or something. You know where I’m at.”

He stares at you. His eyes are so dark, you can barely tell pupil from iris. He’s not conventionally handsome—not the way the other man is, perhaps—but he is striking: brow low and strong, eyes dark like coffee without cream, mouth full and unhappy. Like Nietzsche said, you look into him and he looks into you. Then he nods, and without even telling you his name, disappears back into his apartment.

You stare for a long moment, feeling oddly bereft at the abrupt ending to this communication. Eventually, you try the doorknob on 7C.

Still locked.

[undercoveravenger]

What is your favorite Ghost type?

Do you like Ghost all soft and quiet or more sarcastic and a bit rude, or maybe more yandere?

Not going to lie, I thought we were talking about ghost type pokemon until the second sentence - anyway...

In my mind, Ghost falls somewhere in the middle and could lean easily one way or the other depending on the story and the role he's filling. My favorite Ghost evolves - changing and shifting with the relationship.

He's gruff, intimidating, to start - all clipped words and barked orders and extra PT, and he only gets meaner when he realizes he likes you. Ghost has lost a lot - had almost everyone he's ever cared about ripped away from him - and he doesn't want to lose you too so he lies to himself about caring about you.

It doesn't work. Eventually he realizes that the way he feels for you isn't going anywhere and he starts to ease up. There are fewer harsh words, he cuts back on the training he demands from you, he even starts finding excuses to reach out and touch - clapping you on the shoulder after a good training op, correcting your (already perfect) stance at the gun range, a hand out to haul you to your feet on a mission.

It's about this time that the itch starts - that biting little voice in the back of his mind that demands he learn everything there is to know about you, from your favorite color to the name of your childhood pets. He's around a lot more at that point, though he's always got an excuse ready if you question his presence.

He starts surprising you: pulling your favorite candies from a pouch in his tactical vest, offering little tidbits of himself in conversation with you. It's the softest he's allowed himself to be in years but he aches for more - for your arms around his waist and your chin on his shoulder as you hug him from behind while he makes you breakfast, for you tangled up with him in bed, for your voice, rough with sleep, calling him Simon.

It's not obsession, not really, but he can see the life he could have with you stretching out before him and it's too tempting not to act on so he asks you out and you say yes and the date goes better than he could've hoped. The next thing he knows he's saying "I love you" and you're saying it back and Ghost's the happiest he's ever been.

He's protective, willing to fight tooth and fuckin' nail to protect this little scrap of happiness. He knows you can handle himself, but he keeps an eye out for you in crowds and on missions. He's always ready to have your back and if someone hurts you? Well, what's a few war crimes in the name of love?

----

Yandere Ghost though? Now that's a scary thought. He's military, and not just that but he's pretty highly ranked and for good reason. He is damn good at what he does. He's trained in infiltration, in gaining access to an area without anyone knowing he was there. Ghost's a trained killer - and you've given him an objective.

The worst thing would be the not knowing.

Seeing people around you going missing only to reappear weeks later in a completely different region, their bodies dismantled to near unrecognition with brutal precision.

The way your home feels ... off whenever you get back after being gone for a while, like someone had been there. Things have been moved slightly, you find groceries you remember wanting but not buying. Sometimes you catch a flash of a cologne that feels familiar but you can't quite recognize.

The worst thing is the way you've started to question yourself, that you're starting to wonder if you've lost your mind, that you didn't even suspect Ghost might have something to do with it until it's too late.

[goodlucktai]

raised on little light (1/3)

rise of the tmnt word count: 2k pairing: leo & oc i've had this idea rattling around since the rise farewell comic earlier this year made it canon that the turtles had another brother and a sister floating around somewhere. we know who their sister is, so this is my take on that 5th brother. i hope you enjoy meeting him <3 big thank you to @soldrawss and @mykimouser for enabling my insane behavior (and thank you again to sol for drawing the art i included in this chapter!!!) title borrowed from northern attitude by noah kahan read on ao3

x

2020

Leo regretted his last words as soon as they left his mouth.

“Hero moves are totally your style”? As if Raph doesn’t have enough issues already.

But what he meant—what he would have tried to explain if there was time—was that Raph is his hero. He’s always been Leo’s hero. And if Leo could be anything like him, even for a second, even if it was the last thing he ever did, then he could be satisfied with that. 

It’s a silly thing to be stuck thinking about, laying on a torn up chunk of earth with a monster ominously lumbering somewhere below, looking for where it threw its toy. Laying there, feeling every bruise and broken bone, and hoping that he didn’t hurt his big brother’s feelings.

They’ll be okay, Leo thinks, trying to make it be the thing that gives him courage instead of just more homesickness. They’ll miss me, maybe for a long time, but they’ll be okay.

Leo’s supposed to be fighting for his life, but it’s all he can do to keep a grip on the photo in his hand, the only thing in this entire dimension worth holding onto. It’s all he can do to keep his eyes open when every blink is longer than the last. 

It feels like enough of a rebellion. The Krang looked annoyed that he was still breathing the last time it batted him through the void like a fly, which gives Leo the idea that he should probably be dead by now. He feels a detached sort of pride at how grown-up he’s being about all this. Better late than never

Leo waits for the Krang to come for him, dripping his blood and sneering his daddy’s nickname for him hatefully as it does, and hopes he made his family proud. 

Leo hopes he’ll go wherever Gram-gram is. It would be nice to know someone when he gets there. 

Movement in his periphery snags Leo’s attention. His brain starts throwing up warning flags, signaling danger—anything moving around in here is another parasite, or a Krang hound, nothing he’ll want to be sprawled out on a silver platter for—but he can’t summon any urgency. 

He turns his head and finds himself looking up at another turtle. 

It’s the very last thing he expected to see. They both just stare at each other for a moment. 

The newcomer appears to be a few years older than Leo, based on the broadness of their shoulders, and half a head taller. Their skin is more gray than green and their plastron is so pale it’s closer to white than yellow. Their carapace, what Leo can see of it, is a deep blue-black and they’re covered, skin and shell both, in white spots. Two of the spots on their face give the impression of eyebrows lowered in a glare, but they don’t seem angry at him.

The turtle is completely unfamiliar to Leo, which is saying something. He thought he and his family had the monopoly on… this whole situation. 

Disquieted, Leo remembers that he’s supposed to be the only turtle here. That was a very significant part of the decision he’d made. 

It must be a hallucination, he decides, instantly comforted by his own reasoning. That makes sense. He just wished that if his mind was going to conjure him some dying company it could at least be someone he knows. An imaginary Mikey or Donnie or Raphie for one last hug. One last affectionate forehead bonk. An “I still love you,” if that wasn’t asking too much. 

Don’t you cry now, he scolds himself sternly when his eyes start to blur and burn. It’s not about you. 

With a resounding crash of metal against stone, the Krang finds them at last. He’s snarling something that Leo is too slow to piece together before he cuts himself off—surprising the hell out of Leonardo by acknowledging the hallucination. That’s not how that works. 

“Another pest ,” the Krang hisses. His serrated teeth glint when he draws his gummy lips back in an ugly smile. His tone is oily and unpleasant when he adds, “You’re less colorful than those other ones. I would have remembered seeing you. Where were you when your accomplices were fumbling about in my Technodrome like the stupid creatures they are?”

“We won,” Leo reminds the alien, even though it makes him cough. His lips are warm and wet now but he won’t think about why. “Blew up your ugly ship. Who looks stupid now?” 

“Shut your mouth!” the Krang roars, going from slimy to homicidal in about three seconds. Leo cringes, every ounce of animal instinct in his body urging him to hide in his shell and ride the rest of this nightmare out. 

The spotted turtle snaps, “Don’t talk to him.” 

It would have made sense if he was looking at Leo when he said it. Don’t engage, don’t bait the big monster that could kill you with as much effort as it takes you to blink, et cetera ad nauseum. If only he’d had a nickel for every time he heard that. 

But instead the turtle is looking at the Krang, and he’s radiating the kind of cold-blooded murder that you mostly only see in movies. He has one arm flung out in front of Leo like he actually means to use it to stop the Krang from getting any closer. 

“Don’t even look at him,” he goes on, sounding seconds away from baring his teeth. 

This guy is significantly unaware of the danger he’s facing, and Leo ought to warn him about what enormous clusterfuck he’d just wandered into. Leo ought to say he appreciates the reptile solidarity, but you should definitely run, new guy. 

But this probably isn’t actually happening outside of his own head. And besides, Leo has to focus really hard on his numb fingers so he doesn’t drop his photo. 

“I’ll look where I please,” the Krang says, as unbothered by the hallucination as he was by Leo’s entire family. “Starting with that fool head of yours. I’m interested in whatever backdoor led you here. If it’s my way out, well —”

Adrenaline surges through Leo, and he’s hardly aware of moving before he’s lurching up and shouting out, “No!” 

He can’t get out, he can’t. Leonardo won’t be able to trick him again. He won’t be there to help this time. 

“I do have one thing for you,” the spotted turtle interrupts to say, reaching over his shoulder for what turns out to be a compound crossbow strapped to his back. 

Leo doesn’t know a lot about archery so it’s weird his fictional turtle does, crank-cocking the weapon like it’s an extension of his arm. He watches cluelessly as the turtle slides something very purple out of his jacket pocket and notches it into the groove where the bolts are supposed to go. It’s definitely not a bolt, but it’s a piercing-type projectile of some kind, and it fits in the crossbow like it was designed with crossbows in mind. 

The turtle aims the bow at the Krang, who clicks the claws of his metal suit on the ground the way Splinter would drum his fingers on the kitchen counter when he was waiting on the microwave. The Krang looks condescending and mildly curious, like he’s watching dumb little animals do something they’re not trained to do. 

“He told me to tell you he’s sorry he couldn’t be here to see this part,” the spotted turtle says, and then shoots without a second of hesitation or unnecessary dramatics. 

The Krang bats the projectile away, or tries to, but it explodes on contact with his armor, and suddenly all Leo can smell is burning metal. Then burning meat. 

The Krang begins to scream, clawing at something defiantly purple with a mind of its own that eats straight through him the effortless, immediate way corrosive acid chews through soft tissue. It moves like nanotech, covering as much of the Krang as possible in a manner of seconds and clearly designed to consume whatever it touches like a school of cartoon piranhas. 

Donnie would love it, color scheme and all. 

The Krang stumbles drunkenly, howling like a creature possessed, and Leo and his turtle companion both watch silently until he tips over the edge of the hunk of torn earth they’re on. Gravity is nonexistent in this dimension, so he doesn’t so much fall as sort of drift in another direction while he’s distracted with the purple stuff that’s doing its best to eat him alive. 

The last handful of minutes have been so bizarre that it’s actually going pretty far in convincing Leo that none of it happened for real. The Krang hasn’t actually found him yet. This is clearly a dream. Or a pre-death electrical storm as the neurons in his brain fire up to fizzle out.  

He tips his head to the side again to stare up at the archer, who is putting his bow away with perfect confidence that whatever that purple thing was, it will do the job. 

“Who are you?” Leo asks stupidly. 

“Gio,” the probably imaginary turtle replies.

Leo’s mouth runs off before he can stop it. “Just Gio? Like Cher?”

God, he thinks. That was stupid, Leo. Not the time or place, Leo. You’re in the prison dimension. You’re dying here and you can’t even cut the jokes now? Raph was so right about you.

But the imaginary turtle surprises him by smiling slightly, the corners of his mouth pulling just barely upwards in a way that somehow completely transforms him. Not the time or place for jokes or smiling at them but here they are. Like company.

“Giorgio Hamato,” ‘Gio’ says. That lands in Leo’s ears as something remarkably worth making a lot of noise over, but he can’t begin to unpack it. And after a second, he forgets what the remarkable part was. His mind is a deck of cards that got shuffled too enthusiastically and ended up scattered all over the floor. Gio doesn’t seem to mind when Leo just blinks at him, adding, “I’m here to take you home.”  

“Pretty sure Uber doesn’t come out this far,” Leo mumbles, the words a paint smear, all thick and wet and muddy. One of his teeth feels broken and it’s keeping him awake, a blistering ache that cracks through the back of his mouth like lightning. “And I’ve got, like, zero bars.”

This is how I cope, he thinks, watching the bigger turtle absorb the second bad joke in as many minutes. Leo’s blinking fast so he doesn’t cry. He’s trying to focus on anything but the pain radiating through his whole body, and the swallowing darkness all around him, and the ruins of ancient metal ships looming where they float unrestricted by gravity, and the ballistic howls of a pissed-off pink alien still dealing with whatever the heck this Gio guy did to him.

He can’t focus on any of that because all of that is scary and he’s already terrified. He needs to not be terrified because he doesn’t want to be that kind of ghost when he haunts his family. He wants to be the friendly, funny kind, the kind that gets to stay at the end of the movie, the kind that will make silly faces at Mikey so he doesn’t get scared, and leave sticky notes for Donnie to remember to charge his phone and drink enough water, and cover Raphie with an extra blanket while he’s asleep because it gets cold at night but he always leaves his bedroom door open for them.

If Leo’s friendly and funny, if he helps, he’ll get to stay. He didn’t get to stay the first time, so this time he has to make it stick.

Larger hands wrap around his. It doesn’t register for a second, and then it does in a big way.

Leo jerks his head up. Moving just that much hurts like his ribs are broken all the way down and the bones in his leg have all melted into liquid agony, but it clears some of the fog away.

Someone is holding his hands in the prison dimension.

An alien like the Krang wouldn’t know the first thing about the human gesture, the togetherness of it, so it’s not some mean trick that’s being played. And it can’t be an imaginary turtle that Leo dreamed up, after all, because kindness would be the last thing he’d give himself.

Possibly very real Gio says, “Fuck Uber. Whatever that is. And don’t repeat that word.”

The punchy breath Leo chokes in is going to punch out again as a laugh or a sob. Leo squeezes the bigger turtle’s hands, photo crinkling between them, suddenly tethered to something in this void and hysterically certain that he’ll die for real if Gio lets go.

“I’m sixteen.” Leo’s voice wobbles. He doesn’t know what to react to first. He doesn’t understand how this is happening. He holds on. “I can say the fuck word if I want to, I’m practically an adult.”

Gio’s face does something it hurts to look at. His eyes are dark and sincere, the shape of them entirely familiar. There’s a warmth inside him that permeates the gloom. A star belonging to a much larger galaxy, but more significantly, belonging to the same crooked constellation Leo belongs to.

I know you, he thinks, surprised by the truth of it. I do. Where have you been?

“We’re going home,” Gio says, the certainty in his voice like one of those huge stones a river parts around, unmoved by the currents and crashing water. “I know the way out. Don’t worry about it. Close your eyes.”   

The worst thing that could happen has already happened, Leo thinks. There’s no reason not to trust him. There’s nothing left to lose. He closes his eyes.

He feels himself drawn in, tucked against the built-in armor of a turtle chest, head resting on a broad shoulder. He’s been carried like this a million times before. He didn’t think it would happen again. Somewhere along the line, he’d been picked up for the last time and put down for the last time, and now he’s here, where no one who loves him can reach him, to scoop him up when he falls asleep on the sofa and take him to bed.

But Gio lifts him up like he’s still a kid. The Krang is bellowing hateful promises in between the grating shrieks of pain, promises of what he’ll do when he gets his hands on Leo, but all of that is far away. 

Leo isn’t afraid anymore. He isn’t going to be a ghost.

He’s pretty sure he’s going home.   

[myjjongie]

THREE .ᐟ ── my little tsundere

SYNOPSIS: another casual grueling day at your job lands you to reunite with jake sim—your hallway crush who moved away in high school. not wanting to hope for more from the chance encounter, you end up being paired with jake for a semester-long project. knowing deep down things will never happen, your only goal is to be friends with jake. while on the other hand, you haven't left jake's mind since he moved away.

word count; 611

“hi welcome in!” you chimed hearing the opening of the cafe door.

too busy dealing with something at the register, you didn’t look up to correctly greet the customer. you could faintly hear low mumbling from the customer—sounding as if they didn’t know what to get. finishing up the minor task at hand, you raised your head to truly greet the customer.

yet not the usual “did you need some help” or anything of the sort came out. in truth you were shocked. the person standing at the counter was familiar, like you had seen his face somewhere before.

then it hit you, you know this face. you’ve come to find yourself staring at him in the hallways, across the cafeteria hall, and even in your classroom.

it was jake sim.

but what was he doing here? you haven’t seen or heard of him since your second year of high school. before you could even think, you were already speaking.

“jake?!” your voice came off surprised.

“yeah?” he let out that soft laugh you always adored hearing.

“what are you doing here? haven’t seen you since high school.” you could feel yourself stiffen from awkwardness. unsure of how to go about the convo.

“i just moved back from australia for the new term.”

“oh! so you went to australia! that’s so cool!” as you kept speaking you felt your voice get higher.

jake let out a small laugh, finding your reaction cute as well as amusing. yet too you, you felt like you wanted to die right then and there.

“so what did you wanna get?” letting out a awkward laugh, trembling hands finding its way to the register screen.

“i was trying to see what drink is sweetest. but honestly i might just get my friend whatever, he didn’t specify. you know?”

you awkwardly laughed once more. “no yeah! totally get that! if anything i recommend the strawberry and banana float!” at this point you felt like you were saying whatever. hoping it would end the interaction sooner than later.

“yeah that sounds pretty good. i’ll get that then! and can you add on three iced americanos?” once jake confirmed his order he pulled out his card to pay.

“of course! okay so your total is twenty seventy-five.” retrieving his card to help finish off the payment.

“wait the americanos were four bucks?” jake was surprised by the insane price difference.

“yeah. one of the reasons i like working here. the coffee is so much more affordable.” you let off a quiet laugh turning around to get started on his drinks.

once facing the espresso bar did you truly want to just smack your head against it. through out the whole conversation you felt like one big idiot. did jake even remember you? you never gave him your name, and you sure as hell weren’t going to give it to him now.

you soon finished the four drinks in the span of 3 minutes when it would’ve taken you twice as long, or if not even more. in truth you really wanted jake out of the cafe, feeling far too embarrassed to try and keep up the casual conversation.

“okay here you go!” forcing out a customer service smile.

“wow that was really quick!” jake felt truly impressed by your quick work.

“haha. yeah. well see you around.” you faintly smiled toward jake, hoping he’d let this be it—allowing you to wallow in embarrassment.

“thank you again! i’ll see you around!” jake beamed a smile you oddly seemed to miss.

as jake turned away to leave, you immediately ducked behind the espresso bar. mentally cursing at yourself in the process.

prev | m.list | next

evie's note: okay some people know. but this shit actually happened to me. like obviously it’s changed A LOT. but a guy i did like in HS pulled up to my job at random. like shout out to him cause we wouldn’t have this smau tbh

out of my league taglist ... ( if interested leave a reply ! )

perm tag: @ikeulove @leehsngs @ijustwannareadstuff20 @enhanextdoor @zaycie @dylanobr1ens @miraeluv @ancnymcnzjy @lvvrikss @treasureteez @delirioastral @izzyy-stuff

@rairaiblog @izzyy-stuff @thing89 @cinnamqnki @viagumi @zyvlxqht @wonzzziezzzz @manuosorioh @hizhu @soobundle1009 @right-person-wrong-time @vvenusoncasual @letwiiparkjay @jayhoonvroom @djikeu @aineest4r @wenomakiluvr @jaysguitarstring @heejamas @haechology @kukkurookkoo @ilovhoonie @trsrworld @ilovewonyo @luhvletters @wonuziex @p1hbrook @qtke @remgeolli @hunnyuwu @starniras @lovenha7 @stayar1 @miszes @ilovejakealot @hoonieyun @jakeznii @ikeuheartz @jakesbabymomma @starfallia @kiribirien

©myjjongie 2025

[lampridius]

i hope there haven't been too many boothill requests lately... could i request how he'd comfort a reader who gets panic attacks? especially if they manifest most physically, in stuff like intense shakiness, chills, nausea, lightheadedness.. basically looking like they're about to pass out.

⋆.ೃ࿔🌸*:･ 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘬𝘢𝘪: ꒱ 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳 𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘭 ✴ ───────── ❝ 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙘 𝙖𝙩𝙩𝙖𝙘𝙠𝙨 ❞ －𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘶𝘴 ．．• ♡︎

─ .✦ 𝗯𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀: boothill ──── .✦ 𝘳𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴 | 𝘮𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵 | 𝘳𝘦𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘴𝘵 ──── .✦ 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙨: i've gotten many boothill requests lmao

you don't remember what set it off this time. maybe it was a sound - sharp and metallic in the distance. maybe it was nothing at all, just your body deciding to short-circuit because it could. either way, by the time boothill finds you, you’re curled in on yourself, shaking so hard your hands can’t stay still.

your skin’s gone clammy and pale, breath stuck somewhere between too much and not enough. everything’s too loud and too far away all at once, like your senses can’t agree on what’s real. the edge of the world keeps tilting, and if you stand up, you’re pretty sure you’ll fall over. maybe throw up first.

but then you hear him - boots first, as always. heavy, steady steps. grounded. alive.

“whoa now, darlin’,” he says low and easy, the way someone might speak to a spooked animal. “breathe for me, sugar. in nice an’ slow. don’t gotta do it perfect - just gotta do it.”

you can’t speak. can’t move. just look at him with wide, unseeing eyes, and maybe that scares you more than anything - how he’s looking at you. not with pity. not even with panic. but with focus.

he’s seen wounds. bleeding. broken tech and broken bodies. but he crouches down beside you like you’re the only thing in the universe that matters, and gently sets one metal hand on your back - not pushing, just there.

“ain’t gotta talk,” he murmurs, voice a steady drawl like the ticking of a watch. “just listen to me a minute, alright? you’re here. with me. you ain't dyin’. your brain’s just kickin’ up a storm it ain’t got the tools to fix yet, that’s all.”

he slips off his coat and drapes it over your shoulders without asking, pulling it snug so your body has something to ground against. it smells like dust and iron and him - something real to latch onto.

when you start to sway, he shifts closer and lets you lean into him, holding you firm against his side with a warmth that doesn’t care if you’re trembling or sick or crying. he’ll take it all. he’ll anchor you.

you don’t know how long it takes before the shudders soften. it’s not quick. your stomach still churns, your limbs are jelly, but there’s a weight holding you steady now. boothill hums under his breath—a rough, tuneless thing—while you press your forehead against his shoulder and try not to fall apart again.

“that’s it,” he says eventually, real quiet. “you ride it out, just like this. we wait it out together. and then we’ll get you some water. maybe a nap. maybe some of those crunchy space chips you pretend not to like.”

you don’t laugh, but your shoulders twitch. and that’s enough for him.

he doesn’t make you explain. doesn’t try to reason it away. he just stays - solid, real, warm - until your breath evens out and the world feels less like it’s trying to swallow you whole.

and if it ever tries again?

he’ll be there.

every. damn. time.

[cuteandhughesy]

AH CONGRATS ON 1000!!! proud to be be on them ❤️❤️

i would lovveeew me some #25 and #1 with my g matt rempe

prompt no. 24: grabbing them by their chain to kiss them + prompt no. 1: “you’re such a loser”

a/n: had to work and change the prompt a wee bit to fit! hope that’s okay

matt has become accustomed to how his brain operates. after all, it is his brain we are talking about. he has never once questioned his decisions or impulses, even when other people think they’re the wrong ideas.

it’s just, sure maybe they’re not always smart choices, but why would he think of them if he wasn’t meant to act on them. it’s how matt dictates things he loves—things like hockey, fights, his family and you.

you, his sister alley’s best friend. you, who is always smiling and happy, dealing with all his teasing and black eyes like you care about him. which, of course you care about him. you told him so.

you, who blasts taylor swift with all the windows down no matter what time of day it is. you, who shows up to all his games even when his family can’t. you, who has no idea matt’s in love with.

the sun is hot, beating down on matt’s already sunburnt chest as he lays on the beach towel. there’s a pair of obnoxious sunglasses covering his eyes, ones that you say look like goggles. matt lives for the look on your face anytime you spot them—partially why he’s wearing them now at the beach. that and the sun is fucking relentless.

matt’s head is turned to the side, just enough where it doesn’t look obvious that he’s starring at you. you’ve got a creamsicle orange bathing suit on, laughing and tossing a ball back and forth with his sister a few feet away. you’ve cut your hair recently, and it sits just above your shoulders. matt remembers when he first saw the new look, only a week ago, and he had to physically keep his jaw from dropping.

it suits you so well.

but he also thought that about you’re old hair. matt’s a bit biased.

your bathing suit is leaving nothing to the imagination, and matt feels like he’s melting for an entire other reason that the sun. he watches as you dart through the sand in favour of keeping the ball from smacking the ground. your tits move under your triangle bikini top, jiggling just enough to have him groaning.

matt feels like a perv teenage boy—checking out his friends sister while she frolics around at the beach.

he needs to get ahold of himself and quick. matt pushes off the bench towel, not bothering in telling your alley about his plans before he makes his way down to the water. despite the heat in the air, the water is little chilly.

matt huffs, sinking deeper and deeper into the water, making his way out far enough that’s he’s able to keep his shoulders under the surface without ridiculously hunching over.

it feels like only a few minutes of staring off into the horizon before matt hears another person swimming through the water. his brows furrow, glancing behind himself only to see you.

you smile, coming to a stop only a foot away from him. your hair is wet, meaning you must’ve dunked your head under somewhere along the way. the water is clear enough that he can see your body below the surface, highlighted by your creamsicle bathing suit.

“hey,” you beam, “what are you doing out here.”

“swimming,” matt hums.

you roll your eyes, but there’s no annoyance behind it. “no shit,” you say lightly, nudging your toes against his leg under the water. “I meant what are you doing out here by yourself.”

he grins, “the answer is still swimming.”

you laugh, chin dipping below the water. “without me?”

matt swallows thickly. “maybe I needed to get away from you.”

your mouth opens, a half laugh and half scoff leaving you. “rude,” you chime before splashing him with water, further soaking his face and loose hair.

before you can swim away, matt’s darting towards you, grabbing your ankle—right over the beaded anklet you made a few weeks ago with alley, beads in ranger colours—and pulls you towards him.

there’s barley 3 inches of space between you and that makes matt grin. he licks along his bottom lip, teasing the water on his tongue. “your bathing suit is driving me insane.” he admits shamelessly, voice hushed.

“good insane or bad insane?” you ask playfully.

he laughs once, the sound breathy. “what would you prefer?”

your eyes glimmer with something unique. “whichever is the truth.”

“good insane,” matt whispers after a beat, lips sliding into a smirk in the way your own smile breaks across your face.

“you’re such a loser,” you say half heartedly, reaching out and fixing the chain around his neck, twisting it until the clasp is at the back. you let your fingers linger there for a moment, just barley brushing through his thick hair—eyes never straying from matt’s.

he swallows, shrugging casually. “maybe.”

“definitely,” you retort.

matt’s eyes fall down to your body like he can’t help himself—which in all honesty, he really can’t. the orange colour looks almost neon under the water, making it even more vibrant and beautiful. your nipples are pebbled under the thin material, practically falling to him.

his eyes meet yours again, and unspoken conversation held between them. suddenly the water doesn’t feel so cold.

matt wants to kiss you. right now.

and he’s pretty sure you also want him too. you shift a little closer, one of your soft legs slipping between his below the waters surface. you swallow, tongue darting out to moisten your bottom lip.

in that moment his mind is made up. after all, if his brain is thinking it, it has to be the right decision—matt knows that by now, and so do you.

his hand wraps around your lower back, dragging you against him. his other hand slides up your front until he’s cupping your jaw in his rough palm. your heads tilt naturally as matt swoops down, enclosing his lips with yours.

it’s a slow kiss—one that’s somehow even steamier than the messy make outs. his tongue drags across your lip teasingly, making your grin against his mouth.

“you taste like beach water,” you mumble into the kiss, hand sliding up his thick neck and resting on his cheek.

matt kisses you again, “so do you.”

you smile, leaning back in and re-connecting your mouths.

“guys!” alley calls from the shore, unaware of how her brother and best friend are sucking faces. matt forces himself to pull off you and you turn, facing his sister and squinting as the sun beats down, altering your vision.

she continues, hands cupped around her mouth, “stop swimming and let’s go! mums got the barbecue on.”

matt’s hands enclose around your hips, pulling your ass against his crotch as his sister talks. you squirm, shooting him a smile over your shoulder.

“we’re coming!” matt tells her.

—

(unedited)