#but she dug her fuckin heels in and ignored everything i said about how she also doesnt have to see that stuff and basically said

[bisexual-possum]

Jesus fucking christ i really should not have to explain to someone that they should care about others

[mizunetzu]

ok ok so my request 👉🏻👈🏻

it’s the most obvious thing but i have a full crush on bakugou, so can you please write about him x male reader, where the reader is like.. having nightmares or almost doesn’t sleep because of his quirk (idk like maybe he can hear something special or predict anything bad, doesn’t really matter) but feels safe around bakugou so he always falls asleep around him or even oN him and katsuki is like “😡(❤️)shit whatever” and the reader is kinda shy about that but totally ok with their friends being like “wow bro that’s kinda gay :> ” because he is comfortable with “oh that’s because i aM the gay✌🏻” and his classmates love him and everything and would never mock.. but one time someone from another class was really really rude bcs of that or said that katsuki hates it so the reader starts to avoid bakugou and bakugou geTS MAD about it because reader is just his and no one else’s >:0 maybe a little confession from him in the end, maybe some.. *gay coughing* angy k*ss from him

please make it angsty but with a fluffy ending please please and thank you very much in advance💙 sorry if it’s too big i can’t explain my thoughts properly thaha

Bruh I just realized how long this request is 💀💀 also look at me, writing it like decades after you requested it 😭 pls enjoy I’m actually quite proud of it (also isn’t that gif perfect hahah get it bc the prompt was abt like sleeping and bakugou’s sleeping and-yeah I’ll let u read now)

——————

Bakugou x reader - Angry Insomniacs

⚠️Warnings - mild arguing, it’s not that bad

Pronouns - male, he/him

——————

“Why are you always fuckin’ sleeping on me?”

It first started during the Sports Festival. The chicken race and cavalry battle really took a toll on (Y/n), and he was suffering harsh quirk drawbacks. That, being drowsiness.

Somewhere on the stands, (y/n’s) eyes grew heavier and heavier until he realized he had fallen asleep. He also didn’t realized until he woke up that no one disturbed him when he was near Bakugou. Be it fear, or just plain respect, (Y/n) seemed to get the best rest when he was with Bakugou. Not even Iida dared to wake him up when he dosed off on Bakugous shoulder.

He always made it a point to be in Bakugous vicinity when ever he could, taking naps with his head buried in his arms next to Bakugou at lunch, or having his head resting on his shoulder in the dorms.

“Oi! Don’t drift off on me!”

“Mm? Sorry, Bakugou.”

(Y/n) rubbed his eyes as he weakly pushed off the common room couch, stretching and yawning as he did so. “Can I sleep in your room tonight?”

“N-no, dumbass! Fuck kinda question is that, shit-for-brains?!”

“I’ll see you there later then, Bakugou.” (Y/n) gave a slight nod, Bakugou practically foaming at the mouth already, before trotting off the continue his nap in his own room.

Before heading to his room though, he walked into the kitchen to grab a post-nap time snack. Tsuyu, who was already digging in the fridge, stepped back so (Y/n) could grab whatever he wanted.

Tsu eyed (Y/n’s) slightly tousled hair. “Did you take another nap on bakugou-chan? Kero.”

(Y/n) hummed out a “yes.” Tsu hummed back in acknowledgment. Kaminari and Kirishima, unintentionally, started listening in from their place in the kitchen after hearing Bakugou being mentioned.

Tsuyu put a finger to her lip. “Ne, (Y/n)-chan, why do you always take naps on Bakugou-chan? It’s always him, kero, and you go out of your way to make sure it’s only him.”

“Why?” (Y/n) pulled off the carton of milk stubbornly hanging on to the fridge. “Because I like Bakugou. Duh. And I sleep better near people I like.

Kaminari gasped comically while Kirishima sputtered and choked on his words. Not just listening anymore, Kaminari but in. “L-like? Like, ‘like’-like?!”

Kaminari and Kirishima joined Tsuyu and (Y/n) near the fridge. (Y/n) nodded out an “mm-hm.”, whilst grabbing a cup from the cabinet.

“So you’re like...” Kirishima made wild, indecipherable, gestures with his hand. Eventually, after realizing no one was taking the hint, brought his voice down to a whisper.

“...like...gay..?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us?!” Kaminari grasped at his blond hair. (Y/n) thought for a moment, poured himself a glass of milk, and shrugged.

“I don’t know. You never asked.”

“And you’re so comfortable just telling us now? Why, kero-kero?”

“Because I’m gay as fuuuuuck.” (Y/n) took a swig of milk like it was a shot of whiskey. “And it’s not like it was a secret or anything.”

“Though I don’t think Bakugou knows. He’s too angry about me sleepin’ on him all the time to actually care about me.”

(Y/n) polished off his glass of milk. He set the cup down gently into the sink. “Eh, it’s not like I actually care for what he thinks about me.”

“See ya, I’m gonna finish my nap.”

“Uh-bye”

“Bye-bye.”

“Bye, kero.”

———

(Y/n) yawned as his head lolled off of Bakugou’s shoulder. He hissed, dusting off his shoulder angrily.

“Go sleep somewhere else!”

“I’m just goin’ to the bathroom, Bakugou, I’ll be back. Keep your shoulder warm for me.”

(Y/n) weakly stood up from his chair, and sluggishly walked out of the cafeteria. Damn, his feet felt heavy. Maybe if he hurried to the bathroom, he’d get back in time to catch a few more minutes of sleep before Bakugou exploded on him or lunch ended.

(Y/n’s) shoulder accidentally caught on someone else’s, making him stumble back and rub his shoulder. Monoma tilted his chin up in a mocking fashion.

“Ara? Is that (L/n) (Y/n) from class 1-A I see?”

(Y/n) nodded, only half processing his words as he continued on his way to the bathroom. Monoma followed somewhat behind, spewing words and one-liners that went in one ear and out the other. That is, until,

“Honestly, you would’ve thought that angry blond kid would’ve told you by now”.

(Y/n’s) ear perked up. He halted to a stop, Monoma following suit and shoving his hands smugly in his pockets. “What’s this about Bakugou?”

“Oh? He really didn’t tell you, huh? That’s...” Monoma stifled a condescending snicker. “...surprising.”

(Y/n) stepped closer. “C’mon man, tell me what?”

Monoma sighed. “Well,”

“I heard that Mr. Blasty, matter-o-factly,” Monoma jabbed his pointer finger into (Y/n’s) chest. “Really, really hates it when you sleep on, or near him. Actually,”

“I think he just hates you in general.”

(Y/n) furrowed his brows. He’s lying. He’s lying. He likes him, doesn’t he? Bakugou likes him, or else he wouldn’t have lead him on for so long, right?

Because he wouldn’t let just anyone sleep on his shoulder...right?

“You’re lying.”

“Well, believe what you want, honestly,” Monoma made a show of crossing his arms dramatically. “But you should see the way he shit-talks and glares at you in you’re sleep. It’s not like he can push you off though, you’re ‘just so persistent you’ll never leave him the fuck alone’.”

(Y/n) shoved his hands in his pockets. Monoma raised his hands in defense. “His words, not mine.”

(Y/n) turned on his heel and began to speed walk to the bathroom. Monoma yelled out from his spot in the empty hallway.

“Oh? You don’t want to hear what he thinks about your little crush on him?”

(Y/n) froze. He was under the assumption that everyone but him knew, could he be wrong? He pressed his lips into a fine line, turning around as composedly as he could. Though, he couldn’t mask the fearful curiosity in his eyes.

Monoma grinned. It was an unpleasant, sarcastic grin, one that didn’t look peaceful or pleasing at all.

“Well, I doubt that there’s anything to to say at all, so does it really ma-“

“What...what does he say about me?” (Y/n’s) voice quivered. He knew he was falling into Monoma’s trap, that he was just trying to provoke him, that he was looking for any kind of reaction, but his curiosity got the best of him. It really did, because Monoma’s words stabbed spears into (Y/n’s) heart, word by word.

“Blasty thinks it’s fucking disgusting how you like him, like, as another dude. Like honestly, he thinks you take him for an idiot for thinking he actually didn’t know! And the fact you sleep so close to him know full well you want to get in his pants?! He thinks you’re a pervert! A lazy shit! A fag! Ahahaha!”

Monoma loud cackles were cut short when he suddenly slumped over. He sunk to the ground, revealing Kendo, holding one big hand up and the other to her waist. She most likely knocked Monoma out once she heard his condescending retorts from the cafeteria.

Kendo sighed, bending down the haul Monoma’s arm over her shoulder. Her heavy glare softened once she caught sight of (Y/n’s) buggy eyed face starting at the ground where Monoma was.

“Sorry...he didn’t say anything too harsh, right?” Kendo’s words were gentle, but they sounded practically inaudible to (Y/n’s) traumatized ears.

He wordlessly staggered past her, heading back into the cafeteria to grab his lunch and sit elsewhere. He supposed he wouldn’t bother Bakugou anymore. Since he’s so damn ‘persistent’, he figured he’d stop bothering him for the rest of the day.

He wished he wasn’t so curious about what Bakugou thought of him. Like people say, ignorance is bliss. He could’ve gone his whole high school career without knowing Bakugou hated his every being. How was he going to face him in class knowing every pointer glare, every scoff, every insult was genuine?

(Y/n) felt his throat tighten. For the first time in years, (L/n) (Y/n) was fully awake.

——

It was the first time in many months that (Y/n) didn’t sit in the seat next to Bakugou, napping in his presence. He’d done it every day no fail, that is until this week. Actually, this is the 6th consecutive day he didn’t take a nap at all.

(Y/n) sat placid in his assigned seat, eyes wide and trying to keep awake. He couldn’t sleep without thinking of Bakugou, and every time he did it was always him scoffing and turning his back on him.

Every few seconds, (Y/n) would jolt harshly in his seat, rocking back and forth like a drug addict in withdrawal. He stared at his desk with eyes that could kill someone, and he dug his hands into his forearms to keep himself somewhat awake.

He didn’t hear Kirishima calling his name until he snapped his fingers infront of his face. The snap rang like a gunshot, surprising (Y/n) from his trance so badly he jolted back like he got electrocuted. Kirishima raised an eyebrow.

“You...ok man...?”

(Y/n’s) dry eyes landed fixed onto Kirishima. He relaxed, and let out a breath he didn’t know he was taking. “M’fine...”

His voice cracked like it hadn’t been used for days. (Y/n) let his eyes drift back forward, hunching back over and huddling his body like he was trying to squeeze himself to death. When Kirishima gave him a skeptical glare and crossed his arms, (Y/n) let out a small “m’ just tired, that’s all...” and gave the most pathetic smile known to man.

“If you’re so tired,” Mina, rested her arms on the back of (Y/n’s) chair. “Why don’t you sleep on Bakugou like you do every morn-“

“NO! I-I can’t do that!” (Y/n) whipped his head back, gripping the back of his chair so hard his hand turned white. Mina and Kirishima flinched, noticeably caught off guard with his sudden outburst. “I...can’t...I can’t do that...”

(Y/n) suddenly looked very awake, contrasting the way he looked like he was struggling to keep his eyes open the whole time they were in class.

(Y/n’s) breath steadied as he shut his mouth awkwardly. “M’sorry...for yelling...didn’t mean to...”

(Y/n) scrubbed at his eyes. The rush of adrenaline was already wearing off. Mina set her dainty pink hand on (Y/n’s) hunched form. “Why not...?”

“I just can’t.”

(Y/n) said nothing more. He went back to his occasional jolts awake and scrubbing his heavy eyes every 2 minutes. Kirishima sighed, shaking his head towards Bakugou, before shrugging his shoulders then forming an ‘X’ with his hands.

Bakugou clicked his tongue angrily, turning and facing back forward in his seat.

——

(Y/n) was practically seeing stars by the end of hero’s class.

It was a relatively simple assignment, 1 on 1 sparring, but it caused a lot of quirk use.

He fought both his tired eyes and Midoryia, but ultimately failing due to his harsh quirk drawbacks. Midoryia barely had to break a sweat to have (Y/n) come toppling down.

(Y/n) was ushered back into the horde of students murmuring “don’t mind” and “you did great!”, but he just slithered past and stood a few feet away from them, all the way in the back of the field.

All might was explaining something (Y/n) couldn’t quite hear. Not only because he was standing so far away, but because his hearing had been considerably wonky, not to mention the hissing, ringing sound irritating his eardrums.

“Oi.”

And even if the ringing had stopped and he could hear, his brain was too tuckered out to remember anything past five seconds ago.

“Oi!”

Gosh, speaking of his brain-

“OI! SHIT-FOR-BRAINS! YOU GONNA KEEP IGNORING ME OR YOU GONNA TELL ME WHY YOU’VE BEEN AVOIDIN’ ME?!”

Bakugou set off a small explosion. The blast wasn’t nearly as loud or powerful as in combat, but to a tired mans ears, it sounded like nukes. The ringing in (Y/n’s) ears spiked, and he cupped his ears tightly.

“B-Bakugou, nows not-“

“OH, YOU TRYNA TUNE ME OUT BY COVERIN’ YOUR EARS NOW?!” Another explosion. Bakugou’s gauntlets had been out for repairs since his last hero training, so (Y/n) could clearly see the glowing red and yellow spark from his fist. The ringing spiked again. His vision burned with sparks.

(Y/n) winced, saying nothing, and brought his hands to rub at his eyes. Bakugou eyebrow twitched.

“STOP IGNORING ME!”

Bakugou brought his hand out, his gloved hand starting to glow red with his next explosion. (Y/n) couldn’t take it anymore.

He stumbled forward, and grabbed Bakugou’s wrist. He shoved it out of the way, but his hand still ignited and set off a blast that propelled them straight to the ground.

“G-get off-a me!” Bakugou tried pushing (Y/n) off with his free hand.

(Y/n) pinned Bakugou’s glowing right hand by the wrist, using his other to hold down his other shoulder. (Y/n) would’ve never done something as ballsy and stupid as this, but he was too tired, too done, too much in pain to care.

“What are you actually trying to say!? All that stupid extra yelling and petty insults, they get you fucking nowhere! Spit it out! Or does trying to intimidate every single fucking person you meet just self-satisfaction?!”

Bakugou growled. He grabbed at (Y/n’s) shoulders, pushing off of him and pinning (Y/n) to the ground in his place.

“Then what about you, huh?!” Bakugou was angrily spitting at (Y/n’s) face. “Why the fuck did you stop getting enough sleep for your quirk?! Are you just that dumb that you stay up at night?!”

“I don’t wanna hear it from a stupid fucker like you, who can’t even take care of himself!”

(Y/n) hissed. He freed his dominant hand from Bakugou’s vice grip and pushed at Bakugou’s face, grabbing a fistful of his hair. “All you ever do is shit talk! Shut up! No one thinks it’s fucking cool!”

“What the hell are you even talking about?!”

The two wrestled on the ground, angrily grabbing and tugging at each other, and rolling around on the floor. There were shouts of “get Aizawa-no, get midnight-sensei!” and “All might, stop them!”, but the two were so caught up in their fight they couldn’t hear anything.

“Can’t you ever learn to mind your fucking Business?!”

“What the fuck does that even have to do with this!”

(Y/n) flipped Bakugou over one more time. He pushed him down by the forehead, pushing his head down into the ground while Bakugou flailed and kicked from underneath him.

“SHUT UP! WHY DO YOU EVEN FUCKIN’ CARE, BAKUGOU?! WHY DO...w-why do...wh...”

A sweet, sweet smell flooded (Y/n’s) senses. It smelt relaxing, tantalizing, it smelled like sleep. It smelled like sleep. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to sleep so bad. Maybe he could just...

(Y/n) slowly sank from his spot on top of Bakugou, flopping on top of his body and going completely slack. Bakugou’s eyes widened, and he covered his nose.

Midnight strutted from above the two, waving away a few stray wisps of her mist. Bakugou hacked out a new breath, while (Y/n) laid on top of him, peacefully asleep for the first time in days.

“Well, it seems like you two already know without me saying it.” Midnight motioned over to two small robots carrying a stretcher. “I’ll just take him to recovery girl and he should wake up in-“

Bakugou pursed his lips and wrapped his arms around (Y/n’s) sleeping figure when Midnight extended her arm towards them. He tightened his arms around (Y/n).

“I’ll do it. S-since this piece of shit attacked me first and...I’ll just do it-!”

Midnight eyed him knowingly, before waving him off and mumbling something about ‘youth’.

——

(Y/n’s) eyes fluttered open. His body felt like it was broken in every way possible. It was so sore, it hurt even thinking about moving. (Y/n) laid there, with his eyes half open, contemplating whether or not he should close them again.

Would he be able to sleep, though? Even if he’d started sleeping near Bakugou as a ‘don’t-wake-me-up’ measure, it slowly stopped being just that and more a matter of he felt safe and comfortable around him. In a way, he’s become a bit dependent on him, which is probably a bad thing, but he didn’t care.

Sleeping with Bakugou felt best. But that wasn’t an option, now was it?

(Y/n) pursed his lips, an involuntary groan rumbling from his tired vocal cords. He continued staring at the blinding nurse office lights, staring until he saw spots in his vision.

“Stop doing that-do you wanna go fuckin’ blind?”

(Y/n) flinched. He hated the way that familiar, aggravated voice still stirred butterflies into his stomach. He glanced to his side, as if to make sure he wasn’t just hearing things.

He met eyes with Bakugou.

“Bout’ time you fuckin’ woke up. Been waitin’ forever, shit-for-brains.”

(Y/n) averted his eyes back up to the blinding floodlights. Bakugou scowled. “Oi! Don’t ignore m-“

“How long were you here for?”

Bakugou went silent. It was his turn to avert his eyes, albeit more angrily.

“...I was here since you fuckin’ fainted in class, idiot. I even carried your stupid body here from the dumbass carrier bots.”

(Y/n’s) eyes softened, unlike Bakugou’s, who glared at the floor just beside the chair he was sitting in. (Y/n) checked the big black clock mounted on top of Recovery Girl’s desk.

It was 6:00 pm.

If Bakugou was telling the truth, he’d been sitting there waiting for him to wake up for 4 hours straight.

“Bakugou-its been hours since class ended-you should be at the dorms by now-! Why did you-“

“Well if you told me why you suddenly started avoiding me we wouldn’t be here right now!”

(Y/n) let his mouth fall closed. Bakugou scoffed. “Well?!”

(Y/n) opened his mouth, but it clamped shut when Monoma’s words echoed in his mind. Bakugou looked at him with an expectant face.

“I can’t tell you.”

“WH-“ Bakugou sputtered angrily. “COURSE YOU CAN! THE FUCKS STOPPING YOU!”

“Nothing I-I just can’t!”

“WHY!? WHY NOT?!”

“BECAUSE I LOVE YOU!”

“OK AND?! I LOVE YOU TOO!”

“THEN WHATS THE PROBLEM HERE!” (Y/n) shouted, before he cupped his mouth in realization. Bakugou’s eyes went wide aswell. “Wait I didn’t mean that-“

“YEAH! WHATS THE FUCKIN PROBLEM HERE?!” Bakugou recovered from his initial shock, already back to yelling. (Y/n) furrowed his brows with a blush.

“Wh..wait so-“

“I LIKE YOU, YOU LIKE ME, SO WHY THE FUCK DID YOU STOP SLEEPING ON ME?!”

“Wait but...” (Y/n’s) voice was barely above a whisper. “Don’t you, y’know...not like it...when I do that-?”

“DUMBASS! WHERE’D YOU GET THAT FROM?!” It seemed like Bakugou got angrier and angrier each passing second. It was hard to tell what (Y/n) found so attractive about him.

“From...from Monoma...?”

Bakugou looked angrier than ever. (Y/n) raised an eyebrow. “YOU-I CAN’T BELIEVE-! I-! FUCK IT!”

Bakugou snarled and practically shoved his face onto (Y/n’s), angrily stealing his breath away with a kiss. The kiss, surprisingly, was soft and gentle, despite Bakugou’s previous intensity. It seemed to calm Bakugou down, and cheer (Y/n) up.

The two slowly parted for air. It was quiet for a second, something that rarely happened near Bakugou.

“I thought you hated me...”

“W-why the fuck would I hate you...dumbass.” Bakugou rested his forehead on (Y/n’s) shoulder. His spiky tufts of blond hair tickling (Y/n’s) face.

“Because Monoma said so...?”

“I’m gonna kill that bastard.” Bakugou snarled, climbing into the cot (Y/n) was in. He pushed (Y/n) back down into the pillow, pulling up the white blanket and laying down next to him. He guided (Y/n’s) head-a tad bit forcefully-to his chest. “...after we sleep.”

Bakugou shut his eyes, half irritated and half embarrassed, while (Y/n) chuckled tiredly. He nuzzled his head into Bakugou’s chest.

“Goodnight, Bakugou.”

——

Extra:

Monoma walked into class 1-B the next morning. He yawned, still a bit tired, when he ran straight into someone.

“Hey, copycat fucker.”

Monoma looked up. The class was empty, with no one but Bakugou standing infront of him.

Fuck.

Needless to say, Bakugou got another 3 days of house arrest.

——————

Bru this was so long ong

[wouldpollyapprove]

I’m Not Like Her

Summary: Y/n never thought she’d take a job as a barmaid, but she had to do what she had to do. Fleeing from a mob in Aberdeen, she was willing to do anything to live a peaceful life. And if that meant working for the Shelby’s then so be it. Life was normal until the mob decided to make an appearance in Birmingham, leading Tommy start to believe Y/n wasn’t exactly who she said she was.

Request: 17 from humor and 4 from misc? With tommy please 🥺❤️

Requested by @jenepleurepasbaby

Thomas Shelby x Reader

Word Count: 2.7k

Warnings: Language, alcohol, violence, angst 

A/N: This is barely edited b/c I have no paitence for that, but I really like how this turned out. Oh, and the cocktail I mentioned is from the 1920s but I’m not sure if it was popular in the UK or not. Anyway, I hope you guys like it and sorry for the angst, I couldn’t help myself.

Part Two

Masterlist

The noise filled the air, keeping people focused on what they were doing. It was too loud for anyone to notice much more than what was in front of them due to the alcohol in their system. It was always like that in the Garrison on a Friday night. Men clocked out of work, grabbed a girl, and headed for the pub. That’s how it always went.

Y/n had no time to think about anything but cocktail recipes as she filled orders. The men of Small Heath ordered everything straight out of the bottle. Whether it be whiskey, gin, or rum, it was always served either plain or on the rocks with a splash of water. It all came down to how much they wanted to stumble when they walked out of the door. The woman that tagged along were the ones that wanted to drink something fancy. They wanted to be more than some dirt poor girl from the wrong side of town. A lady in a countryside manor or a duchess in a French Château is what they wanted to be.

And that is what Y/n tried her best to do, give them a piece of a reality that would never be theirs.

She was too busy filling orders to notice the men that had entered the bar. Their appearance was almost identical to that of the Peaky Blinders that frequented the streets. They all wore neatly pressed suits, bulky overcoats covering their suit. No suspicion would have been drawn if it weren’t for the hats that sat upon their heads. 

Handing over the fifth Sidecar she’d made in the last fifteen minutes, Y/n wiped her hands off on her apron. “Good Lord, is it ever gonna slow down?” 

Edith shook her head from beside her. “I fuckin’ wish. I’m sick of this Irish beer Arthur ordered. Everyones to pissed to realize it’s shit.”

Y/n chuckled, “That they are.” Her eyes wandered around the packed bar, landing in bursts on the drunks that stumbled around. Just as she was about to turn back to her work, her eyes landed on three well-dressed men at the door. All the blood drained from her face, turning it ash white. The tammies they wore picking them out of the crowd

“Are you alright?” Edith asked, turning from pouring another glass of whiskey on the rocks. 

Her coworker nodded, before glancing at the clock on the wall above them. “Yeah, yeah, I’m alright. I’m off in five-” Mary passed behind her, on time for her shift for once. “-and Mary’s here so I think I’m going to head home.”

She wasn’t given a second glance as she stripped her apron off and fetched her coat from the back room. Eyes followed her like a hawk until she reached the door. Y/n didn’t bother to look at the three men that stood in front of the door, she shoved past them, knowing they wouldn’t make a scene. 

With the door to the Shelby’s private room open, Tommy kept his eye trained on the men while he kept up with the conversation he was having with Michael. The grip on his glass tightened when Y/n appeared and shoved passed two of them. He would have thought that by the time Y/n got off the men would have ordered a drink and found a table, but the stood near the door like statues. Only moved, turning on their heels, when Y/n shoved them out of her way and followed a few feet behind her. 

It was odd. Everything about it was odd. The men that had entered the bar ten minutes before were odd. Tommy could have sworn he’d seen the men once before. London came to mind when he thought of them and how they’d dressed. But no one in London would be caught dead dressing like that. And the man found it odd how Y/n shoved passed them, something he knew she would never do.

Tommy and Y/n had an interesting relationship.

Tommy was in love with her, there was no way he could deny it. He could ignore it, though. After what happened with Grace two years before, he wasn’t sure he was ready to wear his heart on his sleeve. Every once and a while, a sharp pain would overtake his heart and make him remember why he was afraid to love so openly again. He tried though. He tried to do as much as he could for her with what he had. Tommy did his best to protect and behind closed doors, he showed her his heart.

But that could never be aired out in the open.

Thomas Shelby couldn’t have people seeing him weak over a woman. He couldn’t be seen once more being destroyed by the touched of a woman who’d betrayed him.

Y/n was much different than her lover. She was as loyal as they came and would never betray him, not when he owned her heart. Not one to love as few had ever shown her such a thing, she had no problem giving Tommy the love he deserved. She didn’t care about the blood on his hands or the damage caused by the war. She saw past his outward appearance and his tough exterior, loving who he was before and after damage had been done to his heart and soul.

Though he was concerned, there was business to be done and it couldn’t wait. No longer a believer, Tommy prayed to God that he wasn’t making a mistake for not following after her.

Stepping out onto the dirt-covered cobblestones, the cold air bit at her exposed skin as Y/n waited for the men to exit behind her. She turned when the door creaked open, more light pouring out onto the street.

The tallest of the three linked his arm with her’s, dragging her down the street, her protests drowned out by the sound of the other men lighting their cigars. Once he believed them to be far enough from prying eyes, in front of a factory that was closed for the night, he stopped and swung the girl in front of him. “Didn’t think I’d fin ya, did ya?”

“You fuckin’ bastard,” Y/n spat, pulling her arm out of his grasp. “What the fuck are you doing here, Roger?”

It had been ages since the two had last seen each other, parting onto a hill that overlooked Aberdeen, blood and tears on both their faces. They’d shared some good times, getting into all the trouble they could. They ran from the law in Edinburgh, jumping a train with a bottle of whiskey in their bag. Y/n stayed by his side when his father put him in charge of his family’s company and she watched him turn into a hungry monster, out for money and blood.

A laugh vibrated his chest, he leaned forward, moving a piece of curly hair out of her face. How he’d missed those curls of her’s. “I’ve come to ask for your help, love.”

Swatting his hand away from her face, she pushed him away, wishing to create distance between them. The men beside him, supposed to be his body guards, did nothing, believing she held no power. She rolled her eyes at their dismissals, Ed and Jim had never been very good at keeping their boss out of danger. “No fucking way will I ever help you.”

“Ya used to help with everything. There was nothin’ ya wouldn’t do fer me.”

“That was before you killed Charlie-” Y/n folded her arms across her chest, wrapping her coat around her tighter. “He was my friend, Roger.”

The man rolled his eyes. He never cared about what he had to do to keep his business running. “He was taking you from me.”

“Your brutish behavior was taking me away from you. Don’t confuse the two.” Y/n reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She waltzed around the men as she dug around for a lighter, knowing the men in front of her weren’t gentlemen and would never offer over their lighters. 

Before she could get her cigarette lite, a crash from the alley across from them caught everyone’s attention. Roger, Ed, and Jim reached under their coats for their weapons. Y/n turned to see a couple of Peaky boys walk out of the alley. She’d seen them before, they normally helped in the betting shop and had accompanied their boss to London a time or two. “Roger, don’t shoot them,” she demanded, trying to step in his way. 

The Peaky Blinders drew their own weapons, ready to fire if they had to. 

Y/n rolled her eyes. Why were men the way they were? Instead of staying and watching blood spill, she turned her back to the group of men. “Don’t do anything too stupid, Roger. No one here will save you arse,” she warned him, walking into the darkness of Small Heath.

*~~*~~*

The two Peaky Blinders that escaped unscathed from their encounter with Roger Flint, which was a relief. One of the men knew exactly who Roger was as he came from Scotland. He also knew how rare it was for Roger to let someone live in a firefight. 

With ragged breaths, the two men rushed into the Garrison and wasted no time to find Tommy. Their boss was still where he was when Y/n had left, leaning in his chair, cigarette between his lips and glass of whiskey in his hand. 

The Shelby’s all turned when Ricky entered the private room panting like a dog. “What the fuck happened to you?” John asked, a little laugh ending his sentence. 

“W-we were out… out by the factory,” he started, clutching his side. “And Roger Flint was out there with some of his men.”

“Y/n was there with ‘em,” the man beside him added.

The mention of her name forced Tommy to his feet, his glass shattered to the floor. “Was she hurt?”

Ricky shook his head. “No, no-” He took a deep breath, trying to expand his lungs. “She seemed to know him. Personally.”

Was that worse than being caught with a copper? The mobster hadn’t the faintest clue, but he didn’t like the sound of it. “Where is she now?”

The two men exchanged glances, surprised that they hadn’t been chewed out for leaving her. “Don know. She left, I think she went home.”

Dragging his hand over his face, Tommy sat back down. How did Y/n know Roger Flint? That wasn’t a man anyone knew casually. A sigh escaped his lips as he took Arthur’s drink. The alcohol burned his throat as he emptied the glass. He thought Y/n was nothing but honest with him, but that was clearly a lie. 

So there Tommy sat, his family exchanging worried glances from around the room, while all his fears washed over him like a raging river.

*~~*~~*

Y/n slept like a baby, Roger easily faded from her memory as she slept. He was never much to remember. The man was nothing but an overgrown baby trying to make a name for himself as a mobster. It was pathetic. All that went through her mind as she dressed for work was the amount of glasses she’d have to clean off of tables and the shattered glass that would need to be swept off the floor. 

As she did every morning, Y/n stopped by the small cafe around the corner from her house. She was never one for cooking and her kitchen didn’t permit more than a sandwich to be made. It always seemed to bring her joy, stopping in to get a scone, and chatting with the owner. It was the start she needed for what she knew would be a long day.

Once she was feed, Y/n wasted no time walking to work. Dodging children, who ran through the street like monkeys, and women gossiping as they headed to the market, she finally arrived at the doors of the Garrison. Fetching the key out of her purse, she dropped it back in when she found the door unlocked.

The Shelbys had obviously arrived before her.

A smile tugged at her lips upon entering the pub, memories from the night before playing in her mind. Though the place was a mess, she was happy to be at work then to be helping Roger. Anything was better than being in the same room as him. Her smile faltered when she caught a glimpse of Tommy behind the bar. His muscles were tight and there was fire in his eyes. He looked up at her and all Y/n could see was boiling anger. 

She did her best to send him a smile as she tugged off her coat, placing it on the bar. “Good morning, love.”

His knuckles turned white against the bottle of whiskey he’d grabbed off the shelf. “Don’t bother, Y/n,” he growled. 

The smile dropped to the floor along with her eyes. Roger clearly hadn’t killed the Blinders, damn. It would have been much easier to pretend that her time with the Scottish mobster never happened then to ever have to explain it to the man she loved. “What’s wrong, Tommy?” she asked, deciding it would be easier to play dumb. 

It was a long shot, but there was a chance she could get the man to believe her word over that of his men.

Tommy shot her a dangerous look. A warning that stated he wouldn’t believe a thing she said. “Who were you with after work last night?”

“No one.”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” she snapped. 

There was a pause, making Y/n nervous, as Tommy opened the bottle of whiskey and poured it into the glass in front of him. The pub was silent while he sipped at it before he placed it back on the bar. “Let’s not play this game. I know a liar when I see one, Y/n, because I’m a liar.”

Y/n rolled her eyes at his words. “What do you want me to say? That I was with someone that wasn’t you?”

“Don’t play dumb, Y/n. Flint is the fucking enemy! And there you were waltzing’ around with him! How fuckin’ loyal!” he yelled and in a fit of rage grabbed his glass and threw it at the wall beside him. “I thought you were better than her, turns out you’re the same type of snake.”

His words burned against Y/n’s ear, causing her heart to shrivel up in pain. “Bite me,” she seethed. Before any more damage could be done, she reached for her coat and ran out the door., shouting, “I quiet,” on her way out.

How fucking stupid could she be, thinking she outrun away from Roger? He would always come back to haunt her. 

The door slammed behind her and once her feet hit cobblestone, she ran like a freight train, dropping her coat as she gained speed. She needed to create as much distance between her and Thomas Shelby as she could. God, she hoped to never see his face again.

Running along the streets of Small Heath, people shot her confused looks and moved out of her way as they saw nothing would stop her. Y/n ran, one foot in front of the other until her legs gave way and she tumbled to the ground. She pushed herself off the ground, sobs racked her body as she wandered into an alley, sliding down the wall of the brick building beside her.

“I’m not like her,” she muttered to herself between sobs. “I’m not like her.”

What Tommy didn’t know, was Roger was a no one to her. He had been nothing for a long time and she never planned on allowing him back in her life, not after all the pain he caused. But it was too late to explain that now. She had been labeled a traitor and there was no way to scrub that off.

The words tattooed across her forehead and the pain in her heart were nothing compared to the pain she felt for hurting Tommy as she did. He trusted her and, slowly, he was starting to recover from what Grace had done to him only for it to happen once more.

It killed her to think that she had done then one thing she swore to never do.

*~~*~~*

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[anythingandeverything1d]

Taken

Your pov:

“Wow.” Harry’s voice surprised you from behind and you spun around finding him dressed in a red Gucci suit embroidered with black flowers. His hair was perfectly pushed back from his forehead, and his rings perfectly arranged on his fingers. He looked sexy. “(y/n)....you look....”

You grinned and stepped towards him. “Probably not as good as you..” You bit your lip and smiled.

“Nonsense love...” Harry’s eyes were trailing your body slowly, his teeth biting his lips and a smile tugging at the corners. You had chosen a black evening gown to wear tonight, paired with a scrappy pair of heels. Your hair was half tied back, half draping down your shoulders in gentle curls and a dark red lipstick applied. Harry was taking you to some fancy party he had been invited to this evening. You weren't really sure who all would be there or what the event was, but Harry had assured you the evening would be fun.

You took a step toward him, gripping his hand in yours and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “I don’t know Haz...you’re pretty dashing in this suit.” 

Harry laughed and pulled you closer against his body, his lips tugging at your ear. “Please.” he scoffed lightly. “I don’t think I’ll be having dessert until we come home...”

You grinned, his hands moved down to your ass but you slapped them playfully away. “We are about to be late H.”

“We could skip it....just enjoy ourselves here...”

You laughed and shook your head, intertwining your fingers and pulling him towards the door with you. “I have a feeling we are going to have fun.”

“I think we could have more fun here.”

You kissed him softly and grinned, “Why not have fun here after?”

“Oh, now there is an idea.” Harry laughed while he opened the car door for you and helped you in. “An idea that will definitely involve me tearing this dress off you.” You smiled, rolling your eyes but knowing he meant every word and would in fact be tearing the dress off later tonight.

--

The party was being held in a fancy hotel with crystal chandeliers that hung low and sparkled in the light as you walked through the doors. You grinned as you walked in, Harry’s hand in yours. “This is beautiful.”

“Just like you.” He winked and you blushed, rolling your eyes at the statement. He always said little things like that, things that made your cheeks blush red, and butterflies fly in your stomach. You intertwined your fingers in his, placed a kiss on his cheek before walking towards the doors. Harry opened it for you and you peeked inside. The lights were dimmed, there was some music playing and people were dancing, having a good time, and standing around the bar. 

“Harry fuckin Styles!” You heard a voice yell. You watched as Lizzo came running up, a drink in her hand. “How are you love?” She pulled him into a hug and laughed before turning to you. “(y/n)! It is so nice to see you again dear, I’m so glad that the two of you were able to make it.”

“Oh is this your party?” you smiled. Lizzo and Harry had hit it off earlier in the year and you had come to love her. She was a fun upbeat personality that sparkled in every situation. She also knew how to throw killer parties, so you wouldn’t be surprised if she had set this whole thing up.

“No, no, but there is a guest list posted over there on the wall. I saw your names and was hoping I’d catch you at some point this evening.”

You nodded and smiled, looking at her drink. “That looks good. What is it?” It was a pink drink with fruit scattered throughout the glass. 

“Oh! They have special drinks for everyone here tonight. These are for the ladies, they are a strawberry watermelon something or other with vodka. Delicious, you must try it. The men have some kind of blue drink as well, I’m not exactly sure what's in it but everyone seems to be loving it and going back for more.”

“I’ll have to try one. It looks incredible.”

“It does look good...” Harry nodded with a grin. “May I have a sip?”

Lizzo laughed and shook her head. “Oh, you always were a jokester Harry. I have to go say hi to some other people, but I’m sure I’ll catch you around later this evening.” She waved and walked away with a grin.

Harry looked over at you and smiled. “Want to go grab a drink?”

“Always.” you nodded. You let Harry pull you to the bar and each of your got one of the specials. You took a sip, the drink was incredibly sweet yet there was something a little sour about the after taste. “How’s yours?” you asked looking at Harry’s.

“Good, very very sweet though. Yours?”

“Same. It’s got a bit of a weird after taste though. Want to try it?” Harry shook his head and held his out. You smiled, taking a sip. It was also sweet, but more like blue raspberry or blueberry without the after taste of yours, which made it even better. “Oh, I like yours better.”

“Do you want it? I can get a new one?”

You shook your head, downing your drink in a gulp with a grin. “No, but I do want to dance.” You tugged Harry out onto the dance floor, tripping over your feet and falling into his chest. The drink hadn’t been that strong, but you were definitely feeling something. Your head was spinning and your eyes felt tired. 

“You okay?” Harry asked concerned. You were gripping tightly onto his chest and his eyes were nervously peering down at yours.

You nodded, straightening yourself. “Yeah, just got a little dizzy.” You grabbed his hand and allowed him to lead you around the floor. You fell into his chest again fairly quickly, and he paused concerned.

“Everything okay?” 

“I.....I think I just need to go to the bathroom.” You stepped away from him, trying to ignore the spinning of the room around you.

“Do you want some help?” Harry asked, gripping your hand.

You smiled and shook your head, “No...no I’ll be okay. I think skipping dinner was the bad decision.”

“I’ll get you some food while you’re in the bathroom.” 

You nodded, walking towards the door. You made it to the lobby where you sat down in a chair, waiting for the dizziness to subside. “Are you okay?” A man in a tuxedo was standing above you with a sickening smile.

“Yeah....yeah...I was....I was just looking for the....for the bathroom.” you finished.

“Oh, I can help you out.” he reached out his hand.

“No. I can...I can get there.”

“Seriously, let me help.” He pulled you to your feet, his arm wrapped around your waist tightly. You lightly fell into him, whimpering as his fingers dug into your skin. He smiled, pulling you in the direction of the elevators. 

“The bathroom...” you mumbled pointing.

“There’s a bathroom where we are going...” he laughed. His lips pressed to your neck, his other hand snaking up your dress. “Are you feeling hot?” he asked with a grin.

You shook your head, trying to pull away from him. “I think....I...Harry....”

“Harry isn’t here, but I am.” You looked up at the guy. Something was wrong and you tried to push away. He held on tighter, leaving marks where his fingers were digging into your skin. “Now now, just relax dear we are almost there.”

“No...I....I need Harry.....let go” you were starting to panic. You wanted out of the elevator and away from this creep. You pushed back, but stumbled forward, your head in a cloud of confusion. The man moved his hand and hit you, his palm smacking your cheek.

“I said to relax.” He growled. His arm tightened around your neck. “You’re awfully feisty....you’ll be fun later.” You gulped for air, trying to stay conscious. 

“Let go...” you whined. You felt the darkness overtaking you, and you used one last once of energy to scream. “HARRY!” 

Harry’s pov:

(y/n) had been in the bathroom for a while. He was watching the women around him stumble, confused and what seemed to be very drunk. He made a plate of goodies for (y/n) and waited by the door, but after another 10 minutes, something didn’t feel right. He walked out, nearly running into a man. “Sorry.” he mumbled continuing on. He froze and turned, looking at the man. “Have you seen a girl, she’s about this tall, wearing a black dress?”

“No. No I don’t think I have.” The man smiled and Harry nodded, continuing towards the bathroom door. He stood outside, debating if he should go in or not. 

While debating, a woman came up behind him. “Excuse me, are you waiting in line or...” Harry turned and smiled. Florence Pugh. He had always wanted to meet her.

“Oh, no sorry. I was just looking for my girlfriend..she disappeared to the bathroom not to long ago. You’re Florence...right Florence Pugh?” He grinned.

“Yes, yes I am. You’re Harry Styles?”

“Yeah, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He held out his hand and grinned. “Would you mind..uh...checking to see if she’s in there?”

“Not at all.” She walked in and Harry stood back, waiting for an answer. She came back with a frown. “Sorry, there isn’t anyone in there.”

“Oh.” Harry’s heart dropped. Where had she gone? “Thank you anyways.”

“Good luck finding her.” She walked back in and Harry spun around. She had to be here somewhere.

Your pov:

You woke up confused, and with a pounding feeling in your head. You moved, only to realize that your arms were tied to the headboard of the bed. You looked around, hoping to see someone who could help, but instead you were alone. You pulled your arms trying to free them, but your body felt weak. There must’ve been something in the drink. You screamed, frustrated and scared. Of course you had given Harry your phone and purse. The only thing left was the Apple Watch on your wrist. If you could hit the emergency signal, you might be able to get someone’s attention. 

You were struggling to hit the buttons when the guy walked in carrying another girl. He threw her on the bed, gave you a smirk and then walked out, ensuring the door shut behind him. You looked at the girl, she looked vaguely familiar. “Hey...” you tried nudging her with her foot but she was down for the count. “Hey...” You looked at her face. You were pretty sure that was Florence Welch. “Florence....Florence Welch.” She stirred but barely. “Wake up!” you kicked her, a little too hard but you needed her to untie you. It was no use though, she was out. “Ugh!” you screamed frustrated. You tried wriggling out of the grasp from the ties but couldn’t get anywhere. “HARRY!” you screamed, hoping he was at least somewhere near by to hear. “HARRY! SOMEONE HELP!” 

After struggling to move at all you gave up. You closed your eyes, feeling the tears fall down your cheeks. You had no idea what was going to happen but you knew it wouldn’t be good, and yet, there was also no way of getting out. The guy walked in with a grin and pushed Florence to the side. You glared at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction he wanted. He laughed at your effort and climbed on the bed. “You are something my dear....” His lips pressed to yours and you turned your head, trying to avoid him, but only giving him more satisfaction. “Now now...we need you. You’re the one strong willed enough to be convincing. BRING IT IN!” he yelled. Another man walked in with a camera and set it up in front of the bed before walking out and returning with another woman, Emma Watson.

You had no idea what was happening but you regretted not taking Harry up on his offer of staying home. “Are you sure this will work?” the other man mumbled.

“Of course it will. This one here is going to get us what we want and if not, we will shoot her.” He smiled at you and you spit back at him, earning a laugh. “Mr. Styles must have fun with you...at least you better hope he does.”

The other man turned on the camera and lights while you were stretched out in bed. “Time to do your job dear.” 

Harry’s pov:

Harry was still wandering around looking for (y/n) when the announcement started playing. It was some guy, someone who looked vaguely familiar though Harry couldn’t place a name on him. He was live streaming over every tv in the hotel. Harry wasn’t really listening, he was still looking for (y/n) so he had tuned out the first half of the broadcast. What caught his attention was the cry, the terrified cry he had heard only one other time. His head whipped up, looking into the tear filled eyes of (y/n). She was tied to the bed, the man looming over her, tearing her dress, touching her face, and holding a gun to her head. He felt like he was going to be sick. He dialed 911, hoping to get help but they were already watching and aware of the situation. “Harry Styles, your girl here is a lot of fun....very spunky....if you want her unharmed you will need to follow my directions very closely. 3.5 million dollars needs to be deposited from each guest in the room...or youre love says goodbye.” He ended the broadcast and Harry dropped to the floor, unsure of how to save her.

“Harry Styles?” he turned and found himself eye to eye with the SWAT team.

“Yes.” he stood up, extending his hand. 

“We’d love a chance to talk about our plan, I understand it’s your friend-”

“Fiance.”

“Fiance. We will do our best but we need some information.”

“Of course. I’ll tell you everything I know. Under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m there when you find the room. I’m the first one in to get her out.”

“Deal.”

--

Harry had told the SWAT team everything, from the drink and how she had said there was a strange after taste, to the unknown host of the party, to her going to the bathroom and never coming back. He had been anxiously pacing around the hotel lobby since then, waiting for even an ounce of news. Last he had heard, he was waiting for the next broadcast so that they could track it’s signal. Cops were testing the drinks and everyone who had consumed them, while also examining camera footage from the day. His stomach felt like it was in a hundreds tangled knots, and he didn’t have any idea what he would do if they hurt her.

After nearly 2 hours, the man came back online. He looked angry, the gun in his hand pointed at (y/n). SWAT was pinpointing the location while Harry was focused on her. She looked exhausted, the bags under her eyes puffy from crying. There was blood dripping down her arm from where the ties were digging into her skin, and she was biting her lip, the way she did when something was wrong which only hurt his heart more. The man addressed the group as a whole again, explaining that no money had been collected and that he was getting frustrated. He climbed on the bed, unbuckling his pants. The fear in her eyes was too much for Harry and yet he couldn’t look away. The man stuck his hand up the dress, pulling her panties down and looking into the camera. “This one is for you Styles, lets see how fun she really is.” (y/n) was struggling, crying out and trying to move. He placed the gun at her throat and she stopped, breathing heavily as sobs escaped her mouth. He could tell she was giving up, she didn’t have much energy left.

“Harry...” she cried out, begging for help. Harry dropped to the floor. It was too much. Someone needed to do something.

“Where the hell is the police chief! Why don’t you have the location yet?” It’s clearly in this fucking hotel. Search the rooms!” Harry yelled. Everyone watched him, Lizzo came up and rested a hand on his shoulder but it was no use. “Someone find them and get her out!” he cried. 

“We are trying to-”

“You’re not trying hard enough!” He yelled. “Do you see this? Do you see what they are doing?”

“Harry..” Lizzo tried calming but he pushed her hand away.

“I’ll do it my self.” He hit the elevator button, only to be thrown 5 feet back by the explosion. Police rushed to the elevators, blocking off the area and looking for the source of the explosion. Harry stood up, tears falling down his cheeks. “They are hurting her..” 

“Mr. Styles. Please. We have the location. We know where she is. We are moving people in to get her, but it’s difficult. We need you to remain calm.”

“You said I could be there. I gave you information so that-”

“So that we could save her. So that we could save all of them.”

“I need to be there....I need to see her...I need-”

“It’s too dangerous. How do you think she would feel if she made it out only to find you dead. She’s going to need you after all of this and you can’t get hurt in the process.”

Harry cried more, waiting. It was nearly an hour later that they confirmed they were at the room they believed everyone to be in. Along with (y/n) there were 5 or 6 other high profile women missing but so far only (y/n) had been used as the hostage on camera, making the search even more difficult. Harry paced the tent the SWAT team was using as base, praying that everything would work out and she would come home safely. Finally, one by one the women were brought down. Most had no recollection of what had happened, still drugged from whatever was in the drink they had consumed earlier. The officer in charge followed behind the last women. He looked at Harry with a shake of his head. “She wasn’t in there...I’m sorry. We are continuing our search we just-”

“You just need to find her. Someone needs to find her.”

“Harry.” the officer sat him down in a chair, a hand on his shoulder as he looked into his eyes. “Is there anything we can use to track her? A phone? Or-”

“Her watch.”

“What?”

“She has an Apple Watch, and I’m fairly certain she was wearing it.”

“Okay...okay.. we can work with that. Do you have her phone?”

“Yeah it’s right here-” The officer took the phone and walked away without another word. Harry sunk his face into his hands and let out a shaky breath, just praying she wasn’t giving up.

“Mr. Styles.” The officer walked up with a smile. “You may have just saved her. We have the location of her watch. Our team is going in for extraction. Would you like to come as well?”

“Yes.” 

Your pov:

You were tied to the bottom of a new bed now. They had moved you to a new room, threatening to kill you if you made any kind of noise. You were exhausted, scared, and ready to go home. The men were packing bags, saying they were just going to take you with them. You knew you would never make it back to Harry if that happened. You would be killed, raped, sold into the trafficking world, and pushed all over the world as a sex toy. You figured it was better to die here. You closed your eyes, holding your breath. You wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of taking you. 

You were about a minute into holding your breath when the door bust open. SWAT team members pushed through, pointing guns at the men and demanding them get to the floor. A guy grabbed you, cutting the ties and pulling you back towards the hallway. You breathed out a sigh of relief knowing you were finally safe. “(y/n).” you heard his voice and your head snapped up. He was standing a few feet away, tears falling down his face, his curly hair disheveled and sweaty. You moved toward him, falling into his arms with loud sobs.

“Harry.....Harry....I’m I’m-”

“Shhh.....you’re safe. You’re safe now. You’re not going anywhere. It’s okay.” Harry was also crying, holding onto you tighter than ever before. Your hands tightened around his neck, blood dripping from your wrists down you back. Harry moved back away from the door, ensuring there was no chance of those men grabbing you again. He looked up, glaring at the men who had tormented and abused her. “You’re okay....I’m here....Shh...breathe love.....”

You stepped away, wiping the tears, and then gripping Harry’s hand like a lifeline. You followed the police down the hall and staircase, bombarded by paparazzi and new reporters at the bottom. You hid your face in Harry’s chest, his hands around your body shielding you from the questions and comments. At the tent, the men are turned to face you. Harry is next to you, an arm around your shoulder in support. “She’s a fun one.” The man spats laughing at Harry. 

“Say it again and you’ll see how fun I can be.” Harry growls. You grab his hand, preventing him from walking forward. He turns, his back to the men, his face to you. He doesn’t say anything, just holds you. There’s commotion from the tent behind and you peak over your shoulder to see the man free, a gun in his hand, and it pointed at Harry.

“NO!” you scream, as he pulls the trigger, a wicked smile on his face. “HARRY!” 

--

“HARRY!” you scream. 

“Shh...love its okay....it’s okay...” Harry is rocking you in his arms. You are soaked with sweat, your heart pounding and tears are streaming down your cheeks. “It was just a bad dream....” he whispers, his lips on your cheek.

You sit up, looking around. You are at home, in bed, with Harry. There’s no party. No guns. No men. Harry brushes your hair back and wipes the tears falling down your cheek. “We were- and you- you were shot and -”

“I’m okay. You’re okay. We are safe...” Harry soothes. “It was just a dream.” 

You look at the clock. It’s 3:30 in the morning. Harry pulls you back against his chest, he's rubbing your arms and softly singing. “It was just a dream.”

“It was just a dream.” He confirms, pressing a kiss to your nose. “Just a dream.”

---

So....fam....I really tried. I have to say I had BIG PLANS for this request but when it came time to write, I just couldn’t piece it together well. Idk what happened and I’m sorry. It’s not my favorite piece but I can’t edit it any more lol I need to be done. So this is what you get. I may revisit the request in a different way in a different piece though. I just need to be down with this one lol. Hope you understand

xoxo

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Summertime prompts list: 27 or 28 with rami? Please and thank youuu😘

I tried to do both—hope it turned out okay! “Late night talks around a bonfire—confessions (27) —serious musings (28).”

* * * * *

The sun was just setting and for a moment, you looked out at the ocean and let yourself get lost in her expanse, the sound of her surf, and the way the hues of the sky were melding with the hues of her water to become one palette of midnight-blues.

“Earth to Y/N!” your friend said, tugging on your ponytail.

“What? Sorry—I was just thinking.”

“Surprise, surprise. I wanted to know if you were ready for Moscato?”

“Ooo yes! I wanna see if the bottle I bought is any good.”

“The apple?”

“Yeah—how’d you—”

Your friend cut you off by handing you a wine tumbler as they took another sip from their own.

“It’s really good,” they confirmed as you took a drink, relishing in the sweet burst of the wine on your tongue and smiling as a strong flavor of crisp, green apples lingered once you swallowed.

“That’s gonna be dangerous.”

Smiling, you spread out the red and black checkered blanket you brought, ignoring the crumbs of sand that inevitably crept their way over the freshly laid fabric, and plopped down, wiggling your bum to encourage the sand beneath to provide you a more comfortable seat.

You watched as a few of your friends lit the bonfire and before you knew it, the sun had been replaced by the moon, nothing but the big fire’s glow and a few tiki torches left to light up the night.

Buzzed from the wine, the laughter, or maybe just from the ocean herself as she continued to crash on the shore, your eyes widened when a sudden whoop of cheers erupted. Immediately, your eyes met Rami’s. Swallowing thickly, you refilled your tumbler and retreated back to your blanket, wondering what the hell he was doing here.

As Rami made his round of hellos, someone turned on their speaker and music filled the night, loud enough to issue a challenge to the crackling bonfire and to the ocean.

“Come on! Come dance,” your friend pleaded, and you waved them off.

“I need way more booze in my system before I dance.”

Your friend laughed and gave you the middle finger as they headed into the small crowd that had begun dancing on the opposite side of the bonfire.

“Anyone sitting with you?” a deep, familiar voice sounded and you took your time traveling up the owner of that voice’s body before you met his gaze.

Rami looked like . . . Rami.

He was dressed in a pair of slim-fit, green shorts that stopped about two inches above his knee, and a blue or grey lightweight button down, loosely buttoned to show a portion of his chest, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up at his elbows. He was wearing a pair of worn canvas flip-flops, and when you shook your head “no” and he sat down, the smell of his cologne washed over you like a baptism.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Same old,” you shrugged. “I think the more interesting question in this situation is how are you?”

Rami smiled softly, his pretty eyes finally turning away from you and toward the fire.

“Tired.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he affirmed, giving you time to take a sip of wine.

“Ready for a drink?”

“I did a little pre-gaming,” he confessed as he shifted just a bit closer to you so he could reach into his back pocket and retrieve a small, silver flask.

“And you drove out here?” you asked, narrowing your eyes.

Rami laughed as he answered, “Still giving me shit, Y/N? I missed that.”

Rami’s eyes connected with yours and everything you’d ever felt for him came rushing back—the good, the bad, and the neverwas. Those feelings sloshed around in your gut like the sweet, summer wine you had been drinking, and when you finally broke free from his gaze, you took a shaky breath as you realized you felt like you were on fire, your skin set to melt at any second.

“Rami fuckin’ Malek! How are you? And where the fuck’s Sami?”

As Rami reached out to clasp his old friend’s hand, you shot off the blanket and escaped what you thought was the heat of the bonfire. As you brushed the remnants of some sand off the backs of your thighs, you walked down the beach until you were out of the light and immersed in shadow.

The Rami sitting around tonight’s bonfire no longer led the same life as the Rami from a few years ago who had shown up on your doorstep, grinning like a madman to tell you he landed the lead of a TV show. This Rami—this Rami was an international movie star.

He wasn’t the same man . . . was he?

As you made your way back to the bonfire, you shook off your thoughts and were nearly free of Rami’s intrusion until he was suddenly there, right in front of you, holding out your cup.

“You left this—thought you might want it.”

“Thanks, Ram,” you said, reaching for the tumbler and as you took it from Rami’s grip, his fingers brushed yours and when that old surge of electricity shivered through your skin, you knew you were fucked.

“Wanna, uh, toast with me?” he asked, his eyes flicking up from the way they had been watching your lips move when you thanked him.

Shaking your head and unable to hide your smile, you said, “Sure—but you better have something good to say.”

“Still giving me shit.”

You laughed and kicked some sand over his toes. “Shut up and toast already.”

Rami took a deep, dramatic breath and said, “To the possibility of tomorrow. Or tonight. To the possibility of possibility.”

You giggled and raised your glass, and he clicked his own tumbler that someone must have handed off to him with yours.

“That was a terrible toast.”

Rami swallowed his wine and grinned closing the distance between the two of you and wrapping you up in a strong hug.

Your brain short-circuited for a moment as you were assaulted by memories of friendship, and your sometimes more than friendship, the memories crashing like the dimmed din of the ocean until you just let yourself go, let yourself get swept out to the sea that had always been Rami. Rami fucking Malek.

“I missed your smartass mouth,” he said as he kissed your jaw near your ear and released you from his grip.

“I missed how expensive you smell.”

“You used to tell me that when I was buyin’ shit that was like 30 bucks a bottle.”

“It’s just the magic of you, I guess,” you grinned as you reached up and tweaked his chin.

“I’m not magic—I’m not even sure what the fuck I am anymore,” Rami said through a smile, his eyes containing more seriousness than you were prepared for.  

“Oh, now that’s deep,” you said, your brows furrowing with slight concern, but your voice still holding a teasing lilt. “Don’t go all tortured artist on me now. Surely you didn’t come out tonight to muse about your life?”

Rami was quiet for a moment, taking a sip from his cup before he said, “I came out to see you.”

You groaned and closed your eyes for a second before replying, “Scratch that, Alex. I’ll take Tortured Artist for 300.”

Rami laughed quietly, “I meant it when I said—”

“Rami?! Dude! Thought you were Sam! How the fuck they hangin, man?”

Saved again, you returned to the comfort of your blanket, but pulled it away from the fire and out of the light of one of the tiki torches. You flopped down onto your back, your heels dug comfortably into the sand as you enjoyed the cool breeze that wafted up from the ocean instead of the intense heat of the bonfire.

“Rami’s here!” your best friend announced as she landed next to you, flecks of sand pinging against your arm.

“I know.”

“You talked to him?”

“He talked to me.”

“He talked to you?”

You chuckled. “Yes, sweet drunk. He talked to me. Said he missed me.”

Your best friend launched herself half on top of you, her eyes looking ginormous as they peered into yours, the wine from her breath wafting over your face as she faux whispered, “Oh my fucking GOD.”

You reached up, laughing, and squished her cheeks as you said, “I KNOW!”

“Tell him. Tell him how you feeooph—"

“Finish that sentence and I’m garnishing my wine glass with your lips.”

She licked your fingers and you released her as she countered, “S’not a glass. It’s plastic.

You looked at each other and laughed, her rolling away to lay on her back next to you again for all of 30 seconds before another song came on that she liked.

In a stumbling flash, she was up and gone and your field of vision was once again unimpaired as you looked up at the night sky.

“Tryin’ to hide from me?” Rami asked as he sat down.

“You found me, so I’m not doing a very good job.”

Without looking, you could tell that Rami’s face fell by his tone when he said, “I’m sorry. I have no right to impose myself on you.”

Before he could get up, you reached out and grabbed his wrist.

“Don’t go.”

“You sure?”

You looked over at him and gave him a sweet smile.

“I’m sure. Besides, one of our pals is sure to interrupt us.”

Rami snorted, “Yeah. Lookin’ for Sami.”

“By the way, where is he?”

“Not you too,” Rami groaned as he laid on his back, mimicking your position with his knees bent and heels dug into the sand.

“Fine. Don’t answer. Shall we just dive right into your existential crisis?”

“I hate you,” Rami deadpanned.

“You brought it up by saying what the fuck even is my life earlier . . .”

“Sami is out with his new girlfriend. Didn’t bring her because she doesn’t like the beach.”

You sat up on your elbows and looked over at Rami. His eyes were closed, his wine cup nestled into the sand near his hand.

“She doesn’t like . . . the beach? That’ll last,” you finished with a snort.

He chuckled. “Haven’t met her yet, but I’m not feelin’ her. I think he’s still hung up on Annalise.”

“Who is here tonight, loving the beach . . . and that Pauly-D lookin’ guy she brought.”

“I texted him that as soon as I got here.”

“Snitch.”

Rami opened his eyes and twisted his head to look up at you.

“What? You’ve always been a snitch. And the two of you have always had the worst taste in women.”

Now Rami sat straight up and turned to face you, his face now hidden in shadow thanks to your distance from the fire. However, people seemed to have forgotten about you, so it didn’t look like you were going to be interrupted again.

“Like you’ve had better luck.”

“Keepin’ tabs on me?”

Rami shifted and you were able to see his face again, his eyes lit up with his desire to tease you.

“And if I am?”

“I’d really love to know why.”

Rami bit his lower lip, sucking it into his mouth before releasing it.

“I’d rather show you why.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach as you looked over at him, the night suddenly too hot again despite your distance from the bonfire.

His eyes held yours, more effective than any venom that could cause paralysis.

Your tongue wet your lips, seemingly of its own accord, and that was all the invitation Rami needed before he leaned over and kissed you, his warm hand sliding around the back of your head.

His lips were a little chapped, but when your tongue met the warm, wet, softness of his, desire replaced every conflicting emotion that had run amok in your mind that evening.

You pulled Rami closer as you laid flat on your back and he shifted, his body half covering yours as he explored your mouth.

When the kiss ended, you knew things would never be the same between you again. This was it—this was the moment when your relationship chose a side. No more straddling. No more giving, then taking back.

“Rami. I—”

“Shh. Just listen,” he interrupted, leaning up on his arm so he could look down at you. “No matter what happens to me, my first instinct is to talk to you. I just wanna hear your voice. I find myself living with you in my mind as this eternal figure of response. I always wonder what you would think about something. And I think that’s what’s happened in my past relationships—no matter who I’m with, the only voice I wanna hear is yours.”

You searched his face and were overwhelmed by the vulnerability you found written on it after his confession. For this single moment, you held the power to accept him or to reject him.

“Thank god you’ve finally pulled your head out of your ass to realize that what’s best for you has been right in front of your stupidcute nose this entire time.”

“In front of my stupidcute nose, huh?” Rami said, his face transformed by your acceptance.

“Yeah. I said it.”

“Wanna get out of here? Go someplace and talk?”

“I do,” you answered. “But first I really wanna make out with you.”

Rami laughed, a deep rumbling that sounded low in his throat and chest.

“Whatever you want, Y/N. I’m gonna do my fucking best to make sure you have it.”

Grinning, you pulled him into a kiss.

[morphituu]

Milagro

Chapter 3: “MTF”

Ch: 1 - 2  

“There- right there,” she gasped, her head thrown back and jaw dropped in bliss. Her fingers dug into the wall and eyes fluttered, the heel of Nick’s palm pressing tight circles against the small of her back where it had caused the most misery. He steadied her as she swayed, almost delirious to have the tight knot in her muscles worked loose after weeks of achy days at work alongside bad chairs that only made it worse, even with the small support pillow she’d bought to try and alleviate the discomfort.

“Fuck,” she drawled, and he patted her side, snorting when she faced him with heavy eyes and a loose grin.

“Feel that good?” he asked.

“You have no idea how sore it’s been,” She leaned back into her hands, her stomach poking farther out as the ease in her spine returned. “Now that I can’t, all I wanna do is sleep on my stomach,”

“Maybe a heating pad would help?” he suggested.

“Or you could keep giving me back rubs,” she smiled, her bottom lip between her teeth and walking into his chest until her chin rested against his collar. Callie didn’t loosen her hold around his waist until he agreed, nuzzling her face against his neck as he pressed wandering kisses into her jaw.

Before he could get carried away, he unwound from her, more notably removing his hands from her ass. “Okay I gotta go,” he kissed into her cheek, even leaning down to place one on the top of her stomach.

“Text me when you’re off- I might still be at Rosie’s.” she called as he walked towards the door, and he waved, bothering Pucca who had been sprawled across the couch before leaving.

Callie exhaled, looking around at the few things that needed to be done before leaving, scratching her growing stomach like an animal. Need more cocoa butter.

↠

His fingers flipped through the paperwork as he ambled towards the back of the station, his Clubmasters pushed up and the last few bites of a concha between his jaws. His new stack of Miranda Warnings, a new citation book, the daily roster of criminal suspects that they were to keep an eye out for- nothing exciting. Looked to be another uneventful day ahead of him.

“Jakoby!”

Nick startled, turning to find Ward stomping down the hallway furiously, pushing through other officers.

“Wha?” he asked, the concha still in his mouth and hairless brows tightening.

“The fuck have you been?” Daryl hissed, pulling Nick back down the hall, his papers and bag nearly falling from his arms.

“Daryl what’the fu-”

“Kandomere’s been here an hour grillin’ me and you haven’t been answering your phone!”

“It didn’t ring-” but he was already pulled into an office, his neutral mood immediately plunging as soon as he laid golden eyes on the blue-haired elf perched neatly at the edge of the table, turning his cold gaze on the officers.

“Orc,” Kandomere greeted.

Here we fucking go. “Elf,” Nick replied just as snobbily, setting his papers down and sitting beside Ward.

“We’ve been trying to reach you all morning,” the elf explained, fixing his baroque waistcoat, marred with golden swirls embroidered into royal blue, silky fabric, a shining chain hanging from the pocket that matched the dazzling breastplate most elves brandished.

“Didn’t get any calls,” Nick replied coolly.

“Would you like me to show you the call logs?”

“Here,” Nick took out his phone, sliding it across the tables surface. “See for yourself. Oh but wait- you already have everything tapped! How could I forget,” the Orc grinned.

“A small price to pay for your freedom,” Kandomere replied matter of factly, his eyes on the folders he was pulling from his equally elegant leather portfolio briefcase.

“Can we just get this over with?” Ward interjected, and Nick crossed his brawny arms.

New statements and briefings- page after page of incident descriptions were handed out; encounters with possible Bright’s, and always the same questions: any sightings, any signs, anything suspicious around their homes. Always the same questions with the same answers.

Call logs were always laid out, and Kandomere could never seem to wrap his head around believing them when they’d explain spam calls were a far more common thing than ringing up an old Bright friend they’d had no contact with in years.

After the small stacks of papers had been skimmed, photos were distributed; a large stack that made up what Tikka could’ve looked like, or how she could be disguised. There was always that one to reference her, not that Nick or Daryl needed it. The events of that night would always be branded into their minds.

Newest photos were always at the top, and new ones hadn’t been added in months, but Nick stopped on one before he could toss it aside with the others. The elf wasn’t even showing her face, and her hair was very long, however it was the shape of her mostly concealed profile that halted him. Small chin, but sharp jaw. He acutely studied it, even tilting the image, willing the girl in the photo to turn.

“Something ring a bell?” Ward asked, looking over.

Nick winced, still moving the photo around under the light like it would change the angle. “Hair is too long,”

“Need I remind you it was 4 years ago you saw her,” Kandomere pointed out.

“No, you needn't remind me,” Nick mimicked. “Where was this one taken?”

The Elf overlooked his papers. “Dana Point, 2 days ago,”

It had been years they endured these weekly visits, even after formally agreeing they’d go on with their lives like nothing had happened. But if there was one thing the MTF was known for, it was twisting arms to get the information they wanted, which included written agreements evaporating into thin air like they’d never been interrogated into signing. It had also been long enough that Nick had figured there’d never be anything about Tikka to ever show up in these meetings again. But now, here Nick was, questioning the clarity of his own eyesight as he stared down at this strangely familiar portion of a face.

Nick placed it down apart from the others. “This one’s a maybe,”

“For real?” Ward exclaimed, snatching it before Kandomere could.

“What do you say?” Nick asked him.

“Dunno. She was always cowering and hunched over but this girls all straight and normal,” he sighed, placing the photo down.

“There’s been no other sightings like this one?” Nick asked, a little more invested than before.

“No,” Kandomere dropped the folder onto the table bitterly. “That individual slipped under the radar,”

Nick thought back, shuffling through the papers to locate the briefing from the week prior. “Is this after the sightings in San Diego?”

Kandomere nodded, watching Nick flip the found paper back and forth, skimming it for anything he could’ve missed in his boredom.

“Okay assuming it’s her- why would she come back? LA is MTF’s headquarters,” Ward asked, leaning forward.

“Don’t you think I’ve asked Shield of Light that same question?” Kandomere angrily bit back, and the officers rolled their eyes. Back to dead ends. “Lest you not forget to not interact if you see her-”

“And not apprehend.” Nick and Ward said in unison, only stirring Kandomere’s annoyance further.

“We’re done.” Kandomere turned as he spoke, and the men rose, no goodbyes or handshakes before they departed.

The two walked in silence, always left with a bad taste in their mouths after meetings like those. Ward would never say it aloud, but Nick suspected he was impacted differently from Tikka. Though Nick had had a close brush with death, Ward had come face to face with accepting he was a Bright; a responsibility that weighed heavily on his mind and filled him with fear. Harnessing something so powerful, even briefly, had been a branding experience. He’d sometimes look at himself in the mirror, searching for anything he’d missed over the years that could’ve given any indication to being such a powerful individual, and it sometimes left him unsure of who he really was.

“That was fuckin’ weird,” Daryl mumbled as they made it to the locker rooms.

“What’s weird would be Tikka coming back,” Nick said just as lowly, moving to his locker.

“Maybe she wants to catch up around some drinks,”

Nick glared flatly, pulling the lock off and stuffing his belongings away for the day.

“Would you call them? If you saw her?”

He studied that question, a few scenarios flying before his eyes in rapid succession before finally shrugging, then nodding.

“Seriously?”

“She brought a storm with her last time. I can’t have that shit around Callie and the baby,” he explained, a little upset over the confusing emotions of betraying a friend he’d once been ready to throw his own life over to keep safe, but his priorities had changed drastically in the years. He’d gone from have nothing to lose, to everything. “What if Sophia was around when you saw her?”

“Nah man, I get it. Kids change shit.” Ward nodded, buttoning his uniform.

Nick finished dressing, his belt the last item to wind around his hips and everything shoved into the utility pockets before he stopped to fix the photos on the inside of his locker. The 12 week ultrasound was beside his and Callie’s photo booth strip, and below that a few shots of them together over the years, even one of Pucca when she’d dug up his garden for the first time.

They both turned when Sergey came rushing through the locker room, ignoring protests from defensive officers that were merely offended by his proximity as he fumbled to open his locker.

Nick’s nose scrunched, the pungent scent pushing a low chuff from him. “At it with Dura again?”

Sergey exhaled, eyes closing as his forehead hit the locker. “Ukhe'uk uko viciouuk nalkruska ukhe'uk shal heaav,”

“No shit?” Nick laughed, Ward looking on curiously, a brow cocked.

The rookie pulled up the back of his shirt with a long groan to reveal the deep crescent marks adorning his skin, and the deeper scratches moving up his spine and arms, some of them covered with bandages.

“Jesus,” Ward looked on in horror beside a cringing Nick, connecting the dots. “You do that to Callie?” he asked him, nudging his shoulder.

“She likes to be roughed up a bit,” Nick smirked, causing Ward to blow air between his lips.

“Y’all are too much.”

Nick bumped Sergey’s arm, leaning in to say lowly, “Fold lav-li shal gism agh ukhe'll calm poshat.”

“Fold her!?” Sergey exclaimed, his eyes wide.

Ward looked back as he was leaving the locker room, concern written across his features.

↠

The door opened, and Rosie smiled as soon as Callie did. “Heeeeey!”

The sisters hugged, arching over Callie’s stomach. “And how’s my little niece doing? Is she doing good?” Rosie cooed to her belly, her hands being slapped away.

“Why is everyone so convinced it’s a girl?” Callie mumbled in question, walking into Rosie’s home before kicking off her shoes by the door.

“I’ve never been wrong, where’s Nick?”

“Working. Where are my babies?” she asked, looking around and leaning back into one hand as the other fanned her face.

Rosie glanced back outside, and when she found no truck, she spun. “Callie! Did you take the bus?”

“It’s fine, people are a lot nicer when they don’t know you’re carrying an Orc’s baby,” she winked, even though Rosie was in a state of disbelief. “Ninos!” she exclaimed, arms throwing open when Dyani and Joaquin spotted her from upstairs and came bolting down into her embrace.

She showered them with kisses and soft words, slipping pica fresas into their waiting palms before they tried to pull her back towards their rooms.

“Gonna get them all wired and then leave me with them?” her sister said bitterly, moving to the living room.

“Ah you’ll do the same with mine when it’s old enough.”

“C’mon, you’re not gonna be able to last,” Rosie pushed, a wide smile across her devious face.

“I want it to be a surprise!” Callie defended, holding Dyani’s foot steady as she painted her tiny toenails, the narrow, blue eyed girl looking on in amazement how her aunt did it so meticulously.

“And at that moment, you’ll look down at it’s little face and say oh, I guess I did want the other one,”

“You’re awful,” she laughed, setting one foot down and picking up the other to balance on her round stomach.

“I wanna throw a baby shower for you. I’ll pay for a goddamn ultrasound if I can just know the theme!”

“Unisex showers exist,” Callie battled, flashing a stubborn glance in her sisters direction.

“What about a gender reveal?” There was a glimmer in Rosie’s eyes when she tried that one, but Callie still shook her head.

“Nope. You can’t crack me, it’s useless,”

“Agh, okay pues,” Rosie gave up, sitting back in her couch and her fingers tapping against her Corona as she watched Callie paint on the glittery blue polish. “Trish offered to help with it,”

Callie snorted. “She wants an excuse to hang around and gossip. She’s become Tia Laydee, two different baby daddies and all,”

“That’s a steep accusation,”

“It’s true and you know it,” she paused to let Dyani’s foot go, telling her to keep her feet up as she spun in her spot and snuggled up beside Callie with her tablet in hand. “I told her to leave me alone and she went and started kicking up shit just to be petty. You notice that whenever she wants to reconcile it’s always passed along through you or mom? She’s never called or texted me. She’s two faced,”

Rosie nodded stiffly, knowing she was speaking truthfully on the matter. At least I tried, Rosie thought to herself, but knew there would be nothing more to argue. She wouldn’t want unnecessary drama in her life either, especially if she were back in the position of a first time mom.

“Feel any kicks yet?” she asked instead, drumming her fingertips against Callie’s stomach.

Callie shook her head, the corner of her mouth pulled in. “Sometimes I think I do,”

“You’ll know when it happens,”

Callie’s hands rounded her stomach, and she looked outward, her head a little loose atop her shoulders and her thumbs rubbing slowly over herself.

“Hey,” Rosie poked her arm. “Que paso?”

A shrug, but her shoulders remained in. “What if it never starts kicking?”

“Don’t,” Rosie held up a finger, halting the intruding thoughts. “Don’t go there. You’ll drown yourself before there’s even a hint of a possibility of that happening,”

“I’ve already lost-”

“Before you finished your first trimester. You’re not in pain, your scans are clear, and nothing is wrong so there’s no reason to believe something like that would happen. You’re what, 16 weeks now? You’ve officially left that place and now you’re here. You’re gonna make it this time,” Rosie comforted, smoothing her hand along Callie’s hair as she looked on with a weak smile, her eyes glossy.

Her leg was bouncing, her eyes a swarm of unsaid worries, but the longer Rosie’s words settled into her mind, the more she calmed. Rosie knew to an extent what she felt- to have your own creation ripped from your arms, and then to go on with that as a scar seen across your own body no one else could, but she still wished there was something she could offer to ease her, though she knew there would be nothing definite until Callie could hold her baby in her arms.

“How’d you and Nick manage to pull it off?” she asked, veering away from that dark corner. “Was it the fertility treatments?”

“No, not this time. I mean it technically worked the last time, but the shots and mood swings and everything- I couldn’t do it again. Sex became like a chore after having to do it on a schedule around the clock,” Callie explained, speaking from the corner of her mouth when Dyani looked at her mom curiously, the mention of a very taboo word sparking her interest.

“You,” Rosie snapped her fingers, pointing towards the back room Joaquin was in. “Ve con tu hermano,”

“Maaa!” Dyani griped, her curls framing her thin face as she leaned forward to look past her aunt.

“Now, mija.” Rosie asserted, her expression set in stone as her daughter stood, and trudged slowly to the back room stock full of games and another TV they had all their consoles hooked up to. She looked back to Callie in hopes her aunt would save her, but she hid her smile behind her fingers and suppressed a giggle when Dyani’s head poked out from behind the wall, only to be snapped at by her mother until she settled into the room with a loud, exasperated groan.

“Nick went back to using his nose to track my cycles,”

She saw it take a few times over in her head for it to register, but not make any more sense. “What?”

“He can smell when I’m about to start my period and he goes into heat around those times so it was just about waiting,” Callie explained. She’d never said this out loud to anyone, not even her friends that she kept up with, so it left her feeling a little… embarrassed. She’d gotten used to these little Orc things, but to others, it was all new and admittedly, probably, very strange.

Rosie’s mouth was pursed into an ‘o’ as her words turned in her head, her eyes moving around. “So you had sex on your period?” she asked lowly.

“Before, like right before. A little during… yeah, we did but it worked!” Callie exclaimed with a reserved smile.

“And that kept you from miscarrying again?” Rosie asked, sitting deeper into her seat.

“Oh!” I thought she meant… ”I don’t know actually. Nick says 3rd times the charm but I think it has to do with the Orkish prenatals my doctor prescribed,”

“Oh yeah? Stronger dose?”

Callie nodded eagerly. “My nails and hair are growing so fast now it’s stupid,” she mumbled, curling her fingers to look at her nails.

“Yeah I was gonna say, you didn’t have all this the last time I saw you,” Rosie chuckled, lifting a few locks of hair off of Callie’s shoulder. “Little girl is gonna have so much hair,” she added, her face tightening in tenderness.

Callie rolled her eyes. “I’m just gonna go ahead and assume it’s a girl since everyone thinks it is,”

“I’ve never been wrong. Guessed all four of mine and got Santi’s, too,” Rosie boasted, earning a light shove from her sister. “Have any names picked out?”

“Nick mentioned Leonardo last week and I haven’t been able to get away from it since,” Callie said softly, her bottom lip between her teeth in a smile as the name brought forth warmth.

“A little Leo,” Rosie pouted. “Too bad it’s gonna be a girl,”

Callie snorted. “Veronika or Camilla than. Maybe Renata,”

“Nice long names that’ll be a bitch to spell in kindergarten,”

“Fuck you.” Callie laughed, throwing a stuffed animal as Rosie guarded her Corona.

↠

Just walk in when you get here chato

Nick chuffed, replying to the message sourly: Stop calling me that, brat

But he followed Callie’s instructions after parking the truck in Rosie’s driveway, and let himself into the tall two story house. No one to be seen in the foyer, and from what he could see around the corner, there wasn’t anyone sitting on the couch before the large wall mounted TV, either.

“Uncle Nick!”

He pulled his head back, finding Dyani bounding towards him from down the hall that leads to the other rooms of the house, her dark curls bouncing around her face.

“Ahh there’s my girl,” he grinned, leaning down to hug her tightly and place a few kisses on her head as she embraced his waist. “Where’s your Tia?”

“Drinking with mama,” she sang, her wide grin narrowing her already fox like eyes.

Nick’s ears flicked. “Drinking?”

“It’s iced tea, you little liar!” he heard Callie call from the back of the house, and frowned down at Dyani playfully as she looked up at him with big, guilty, blue eyes.

“Can I play the plant game on your phone?” she asked innocently, and he narrowed his eyes at her with a low ‘hmm’ before handing the phone over, watching her bound away in the direction he was headed.

He found his lover in the same guest room they’d spent a few days in a couple years back when Rosie and Daryl had gone on a trip, leaving Dyani and Joaquin in their care for an extended weekend. Nick withheld a chuckle, wondering if Rosie would ever know that he had Callie pinned to that very wall she had hung a few family photos on.

Callie was rested in the lush chair beside the spare bed, her feet propped up on a stool with pillows under her elbows and a mug of tea balanced on her round stomach, beaming at him warmly.

“That’s a Kodak moment,” he grinned.

“Look at all the maternity clothes Rosie still has!” she piped excitedly, pointing to her sister who was half in the closet and throwing bags around.

“Yeah now you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg at the mall,” she huffed, stacking another two pairs of elastic banded shorts onto the already tall pile atop the bed.

“That expensive?” he asked, leaning his knee against the bed as he looked over the piles of jeans and shorts and shirts.

“About 60 bucks a piece,”

“What- why!?” he shouted, holding up a pair, trying to justify why they’d be so heinously priced.

“That’s why I’ve been doing the hair-tie trick all this time,” Callie mentioned.

“Why didn’t you sell any of this?” Nick asked. “Could’ve made a fortune,”

“Cause I knew you’d have a baby one day,” Rosie said softly, looking at Callie in the same manner.

“Now I can buy that stroller set,” Callie realized, and Nick looked at her enthusiastically.

“You wanna?” It was the first time she’d been the one to approach buying anything baby related, and it made his heart thunder with excitement.

She nodded, hiding her smile behind her mug and toes curling as he walked towards her and leaned obro his hands against the armrests to kiss her a few long times, but only until Rosie cleared her throat loudly.

“Excuse me, I don’t like being the third wheel in my own home,” she smiled sarcastically.

“Let’s go get it tonight,” Nick offered, catching Callie off guard.

“I don’t have the money to right now,”

“I’m gonna buy it,” he corrected, as if she should’ve known that already.

“You?”

“Yeah, me. That’s my baby,”

“That’s in my stomach,”

“That I stuck in you and is my job to carry around-”

“Oh God, both of you stop and just go buy the stroller,” Rosie demanded, having finished bagging the last of the clothes up and grabbing the pair still in Nick’s hands.

“Excuse me you had no place butting in,” Callie grinned smugly.

“Don’t make me punch you in the stomach.” Rosie fired back, and Callie’s jaw dropped as Nick scoffed loudly.

Their visit dragged on, partly due to Dyani asking Nick to help her with her homework when Rosie caught her on his phone. It wasn’t often that kids had Orkish uncles at their disposal when taking Orkish language courses, so he sat with her at the small desk in her room, walking her through pronunciation and sentence structures, impressed with how quickly she was picking up a third language.

It also gave Callie the chance to help Rosie set up dinner in the meantime, a quiet Joaquin stepping in to follow his mother around as they threw something together. Daryl arrived soon after, but was greeted by a smack to the back of his head instead of a kiss from his wife when he came in with a cigarette between his lips and motor oil coating his hands and boots. Not only was there no smoking allowed inside, or around the kids, but around his pregnant cuñada, no less. He quickly extinguished it, giving a low and bashful ‘sorry’ to Callie before a quick kiss on the cheek, then a hesitant one to Rosie who’s killer gaze could’ve ended his life there at that moment.

By then, Nick and Callie stayed for dinner, all of them huddled around the long table and chatting with one another, mostly about Rosie and Nick’s day to day bullshit on calls and Daryl’s dilemmas with people who didn’t know anything about car maintenance.

By the time they were leaving, a deal had been struck up between the men that if Daryl changed the oil to Nick’s Dodge, he’d plant the ridiculous amount of flowers and shrubbery Rosie had insisted on adding to their jungle of a backyard.

With goodbye hugs and kisses to the kids, they left with bags full of clothes and a few containers of leftovers, a pep in Nick’s step as he rounded the truck to help her in.

“You’re awfully chipper,” she grunted, struggling into the truck.

“I have an idea in mind,”

“Which is?” she asked, but he closed the door and made his way around to the drivers side, throwing the bags in the back. “Hello?” she giggled.

“You’ll see,” he turned the ignition.

“Oh c’mon,”

He shrugged. “It’s just-”

Nick’s phone buzzed loudly against the center console, and a quick glimpse at the screen had him exhaling, already annoyed immensely. “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me- hello?”

“Orc, get here now,” Kandomere greeted, just as cheerily as Nick had.

“I’m kind of busy-”

“Now.” The line went dead, and Nick looked at the screen, struggling to stifle the stream of curses that fought past his clenched jaw.

“Duty calls?” she asked, leaning on an elbow in his direction.

“Shouldn’t take that long if you wanna come with. We can still go afterwards,” he tried, hope curving his hairless brows up.

“Determined to get that stroller, huh?”

His finger pointed to the door lock in a jabbing motion once he’d closed the drivers door, and she pressed the button diligently, her feet lifting to sit indian style in the seat as the music volume increased inside the truck.

Antagonism radiated off of Nick as he stomped hotly to the station, a deeper glare on his face than usual. Small greetings were brushed off quickly in his haste to make it through the winding halls of the station, the door bouncing off the wall when it swung open to the room Kandomere was already in, Ward sat before him in a chair.

Nick stopped his rampage. He could feel the tension in the room before he’d even need to scent it. He was quieter in closing the door behind him, and there was neither hateful glares or bitter remarks between the Orc and Elf. Something was wrong.

Kandomere gestured towards the seat beside Ward, and before Nick sat, the photo of Tikka in his hands stopped his heart. It was entirely, definitely her. Longer hair, sharper clothing, but there was no mistaking that face.

“Holy shit,” Nick mumbled, observing better once it was handed to him. “Where?”

“LA, 2 hours ago,” Kandomere handed out more, a brief encounter showing her moving through a crowd of people before melting into the background again.

“Why didn’t you grab her?” Ward asked.

“There’s a system in place for identifying people. We can’t just grab anyone off the streets,” he pinched the bridge of his nose as he exhaled that, barely getting it out through his clenched jaw.

“You really needed to confirm this?” Nick asked with raised brows, a disbelieving grin on his face.

“Orc-”

“Nick. My name is Nick,” he interjected, golden eyes unwavering against Kandomere’s icy blues. He tugged the ends of his waistcoat stiffly, fixing his posture.

“There’s also been spikes in wand activity,” he grabbed another chart, tossing it onto the table. “There were sporadic signals around these towns, but since then there’s been another source setting off the detectors,”

“Two… two wands?” Ward yelled.

“What would she need two wands for?” Nick asked below his breath, overlooking the multiple blips that had been recorded.

“She was raised Inferni,” Kandomere reiterated.

“And then she helped kill her own sister. Why would she revert back?” Ward questioned, but none of them had answers, only assumptions.

“Ideals change. Something could’ve spooked her- anything. Bright’s are unpredictable,” Kandomere listed, unsatisfied with his own justifications. He watched the officers exchange looks, and straightened his collar. “You two are going to be tailed for the time being,”

That caught both of their attentions, their heads snapping in his direction.

“Until she’s apprehended I can’t risk you two running off-”

“You think we wanna get caught up in that shit again? Risk my daughter? He’s got a baby on the way, we don’t need this shit! We ain’t got nothin’ to do with it this time!” Ward hollered, standing fast enough that his chair fell back behind him.

Kandomere only organized the scattered papers, biting back harsh words, and instead gritting through dazzling fangs, “You won’t even know they’re there.”

Nick only scoffed, pulling his hands down his face. This is just fucking great.

“Don’t approach-”

“We fucking know!” Ward forced out as calmly as he could, though Nick could see the red burning in his eyes and that vein bulging on his forehead. The men rose, uncaring enough to push in their chairs or even bother closing the door behind them as they left.

Kandomere exhaled, eyes still trained on the open door as he calmly stacked the papers and photos, his tired eyes eventually moving away.

Nick and Ward both seemed to have the same general idea, for in unison they headed for the morning briefing room where no one would be. It was dark, the chairs placed upon the tables, the smallest bit of light coming in from the hallway. The perfect place for the men to let go of that held breath, and circle aimlessly to collect their scattered thoughts.

“This is such bullshit,” Nick scoffed, stopping to squat down with his hands on his head.

“Why the fuck does he assume she’d come scopin’ us out? If she’s stirrin’ up dark magic how are we gonna help?” Ward questioned, out loud, but he was facing a wall, trying to push the confusion out in hopes it would stifle the anger.

Nick shook his head, staring at the cold floor. “Callie’s gonna leave me this time,”

Ward spun, dark brows knit together. “Say what?”

“I keep getting her involved in horrific shit, but this time? If she finds out? She’ll leave. If I even mention a little of what���s happening she’s gonna freak and wanna protect that baby even if it means leaving me,”

“No she won’t,” Ward argued, but Nick stood, his body looking like it was on the verge of caving in on itself.

“I dunno- maybe it’d be best to send her away ‘til this blew over,”

Ward stepped in front of him, his head following his until Nick kept eye contact and accepted that ‘you sound like a fucking dumbass’ look. “Yeah, you do that. Sending your pregnant lady off for some unknown amount of time is the best way to start a family,”

The Orc exhaled, nodding, turning away with that idea obliterated.

“Just keep it cool. Don’t say anything until you have to,” Ward advised. Nick wondered then if he’d ever match that degree of level-headedness, but figured it had taken years upon years to even get there. Nick still had some time.

“Sherri know?”

Ward smirked, shaking his head. “Nah, she’d leave my ass too,”

A beat of silence, and then they chuckled, both in the same goddamn boat.

“Callie’s waiting,” Nick intoned, his mood a little less miserable.

“Yeah I gotta get goin’. Keep your eyes peeled, Fogteeth.” Ward cautioned, bumping forearms with Nick in classic Orkish style. They parted ways in the hall, Daryl moving onto work and Nick heading for the front, returning quick hello’s and nods a little kinder this time around.

Outside, his eyes immediately scanned the night for anything out of place, but couldn’t see anything outright, neither MTF or platinum blonde elves with glowing wands.

Callie was still curled up in the passenger seat, scrolling through her phone and taking small bites of the duritos Rosie had sent them home with.

“Oo, you look irritated,” she chewed, watching Nick climb into the car with a hard exhale.

Don’t say anything until you have to. “Some moron mixed up a bunch of intakes,” he lied, masking his nervous lip biting by turning to pull his seatbelt on. Her soft ‘ha’ calmed him, and he blew air quietly before turning to start the car.

“How d’you keep your cool working with so many idiots?”

“Same way you do working with a bunch of slackers.” He winked, apprehension draining from his jittering hands with every smooth palm of the wheel. In Callie’s hold, they stopped fidgeting altogether, even as he often glanced in the rearview mirror, keeping a watchful eye for the tail.

↠

He pulled the cart from the others, pushing it to her waiting hands so she could lean on it while they wandered. It was either this or asking Nick for a piggy-back ride; her back was in complete misery. Doctors warned that every week her center of gravity would shift, more so carrying an Orcs child, but she didn’t expect this.

“Don’t leave me alone- I’ll buy half the store,” Callie cooed, already eyeing the dollar section hungrily.

“That’s why I ask you to come with me to Home Depot everytime.” he cackled, steering the cart from behind her when he saw a familiar glint in her eyes upon scoping out the small, porcelain donkey shaped salt and pepper shakers. Callie groaned low, muttering and arguing as he did with his face pressed against her hair and directing the cart towards the back of the Target.

Of course they didn’t stay entirely on track. She finagled the cart back into her control towards the pet section, picking out, in Nick’s opinion, an extremely tacky baby pink studded collar for Pucca, but she dished out the same opinions when he plucked a bundle of onesies with poorly drawn duckies all over them from a rack.

“But look at the socks!” he argued, face twisted in affection when he held up the duck shaped booties.

In the end, both were tossed in the cart before finally heading for strollers, a few snacks also thrown in, of course.

He followed with the cart as she looked them over, critical of the brands until she stopped, and pointed to the tag.

“This is the one,” she declared, and he caught up after stopping to look at the expensive oscillator, looking it over just as critically.

“It’s all black,”

“Sleek,” she grinned, head tilted as her touch traced the soft curve of the carseat handle to the pleated canopy that folded neatly like fairy wings.

“What if it’s a girl?”

“Then we’ll cover it in pink blankets and make sure she wears shirts that say daddy’s girl,” her playful grin aided her words, and Nick flushed, his ears twitching as he cleared his throat and grabbed the large box from below to place in the barely spacey enough cart. He hushed her lowly when she elbowed his side, seeing the gooey emotions take hold of his imagination. Countless times he’d envisioned a little girl with his nose and eyes, attached at his hip during everyday errands and tasks, showing her everything and never less than nothing.

“You sure you wanna buy it?” Callie asked, following when he redirected the cart.

“Mhm.” he hummed proudly, his chest puffed. It was cute, really, Callie thought. Looking at him, she’d never peg Nick for the dad type, but he was already adapting to the role seamlessly.

The lines were long and cut into the paths of shoppers, igniting a few squabbles between people that thought it ridiculous to be stuck at a Target so late at night, but with Nick’s arms around her and hands clasped atop her stomach, leaning back against his chest meant it was easy for her to ignore that racket as they waited for their own line to progress.

“Can we have Jamba Juice for second dinner?” Callie asked, having spotted a few people carrying the cups. Saliva pooled in her mouth just thinking of the Mango-orange smoothie.

“No more cheese?” his chin moved atop her head as he spoke.

“Always, but our avocado wants a smoothie,”

Nick chuckled. “Don’t blame it on the baby,”

“It’s like you, always hungry,”

“You can’t use that anymore since you’ve started eating your weight in cheese.” An elbow in his ribs made him grunt, and effectively shut him up.

The cashiers bewildered expression when looking between Callie’s round stomach and the towering Orc beside her stirred a few low growls from Nick, but she just pulled him along once their purchase had been made, a comforting arm looping around his as they headed for the food court.

His line of sight still jumped around in the rearview mirror as he drove home, a wide hand splayed across her stomach as usual. He was to an extent relieved that she hadn’t caught onto what he felt was poorly masked distress he tried to play up as ‘stomach aches’. More like nausea, honestly.

Callie in turn held a hand over his, her thumb stroking the rough skin in hopes to somehow ease his troubles that went far beyond what he was letting on to. Even that small caress alleviated some of the unrest however, as well as keeping a safe hand over their baby.

Another glance in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t see any sign of a tail. Kandomere had been truthful.

His hand smacked Pucca’s bottom firmly, the pitbull dropping her front paws from Callie’s stomach and her ears flattening against her skull like her body did to the floor as he scolded her, tail still wagging and big eyes looking up at him.

“Nick,” Callie pouted, her heart going out to their K9 companion.

“She knows better- what if you knocked mama over?” he asked Pucca, but she was rolling onto her back, feet in the air and wiggling back and forth. “Dumb beast.” he mumbled, patting her side a few times.

Nick didn’t waste time in sitting in the middle of the living room with the box, meticulously laying out the pieces of the stroller and carseat set, and offering an upturned palm to Callie to help lower her onto the ground next to him, more of an observer as she sipped her Jamba Juice. She traded him the instruction manual for pieces again and again after she’d contributed her expertise which was clicking the carseat into the car base.

It took no time at all to finish popping the last wheel into place, and Nick stood to master folding the stroller before picking up the car seat to click it in, pulling the canopy down.

“This is surreal,” he grinned, wheeling it around the house, testing it’s turning radius and balance before taking the car seat back out to study its weight.

“Those get heavy as shit with a baby in them,”

“Weight lift with it then.” Nick lifted the car seat, flexing playfully to make her giggle.

When he suddenly grabbed the base beside her on the carpet and took with him the car seat and his keys once hung on the hook by the door, she struggled to follow him outside, finding him already half in the backseat of the truck and tugging on the seatbelt. She waited, leaning back into her hands and swaying side to side to try and alleviate the restlessness in her legs as he pulled back forcefully against the seatbelt wound into the base, finally at peace with how secure it was before clicking in the car seat, and stepping back beside her.

“That looks good,” he nodded, both of them looking at the elegant black car seat perched perfectly in the middle seat.

The corners of her mouth kicked up in a small smile. “Yeah it does,” she agreed, looping an arm around his back as he leaned over to kiss her head, his arms hung around her shoulders. It was becoming easier to imagine their lives ongoing now with a little mutt mixed in, but it was harder to imagine that one day they’d be arriving to the hospital with an empty car seat and leaving with a baby in it, coming home no longer as just a couple, but a family.

“This is what you had in mind earlier?” she asked, and he haughtily nodded.

“Now to get one of those baby wrap things. Carry it right here.” he motioned to his chest, and her heart fluttered some more. More images flittering across her eyes; a baby so small in his strong arms, cradled safely against his chest.

Her eyes welled some; god damn hormones.

It was then that Callie loosened her grip on her bubbling excitement, and let more of it consume her, allowing the daydreams and desires to occupy the darker parts of her mind that immense worry had populated.

No more of that shit. You’re staying ‘til the end, little one.

--------------------------------------------------------

Ahhhhhh shiiiit it's starting There's gonna be a lot of fluff and cuteness in this sequel so if you're not about it, please step aside while i release all the pent up fluff i had in me while writing the endless smut of Bell Peppers haha. thanks for reading!🖤

Orkish translations: -Ukhe'uk uko viciouuk nalkruska ukhe'uk shal heaav: she's so vicious when she's in heat -Fold lav-li shal gism agh ukhe'll calm poshat: fold her in half and she'll calm down

Spanish translations: -ninos: kids -que paso?: what's wrong? -Ve con tu hermano: go with your brother -cuñada: sister-in-law (okay i think i got this one wrong??? i know sister in laws call each other it but my husband isn't here as i edit it so if it's wrong please forgive me🙏)

[caroline18mars]

A Man On Fire - Chapter 36

“Nooooo, I don't want to get out in the cold anymore, let's stay here forever” she whined as Jared got up and held open her coat for her, “ok, stay here where it's busy and crowded, or sacrifice half an hour and walk ourselves warm to end up in our cosy, warm room with comfortable couches and a ridiculously warm and soft bed?”. Harper rolled her eyes “You don't play fair” she sighed, “all is fair in love and war” he grinned and grabbed her hand as he guided her out of the coffeeshop where the icecold and windy street greeted them. “So, going home..that's quite a big deal, are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” he put his arm around her shoulder and held her tight to his side walking down the street, “yep..it's not that I want to, but I need to know..I need to know why they hate me so much..why they always treated me differently than my siblings” she sighed deeply, her warm breath mixing with the cold air formed a foggy cloud “it's not gonna be your average 'meet the parents' moment, I can tell you that much”. The despair in her voice was almost unbearable “I think it's real brave what you're doing” he squeezed her shoulder “so any tips on what aristocratic families do these days? Maybe I should get into golfing or cricket or something? I want to blend in because I don't think your parents will be expecting some long haired musician/actor as their son-in-law”. Her hiccuping burst of laughter wrapped a warm blanket around his heart “son-in-law? Uhm no, my parents certainly won't be expecting that, ohh wait, maybe we should tell them we're married, they'll go ballistic!” she kept on giggling. “And you? What do you think about marriage?” he blurted out, he needed to know, Harper stopped in her tracks all serious of a sudden “Marriage? Nothing but heartache and misery, I swore to myself a long time ago that I'll never be nobody's wife, I've never felt the need to be ayone's possession which is basically the definition of marriage, isn't it?”. 

Jared didn't know whether to hug her or be dissappointed, he'd never given marriage any thought but hearing her say the word, triggered something hidden deep inside of him, what would it be like to grow old with her? it definitely wouldn't be boring, on the contrary, it would be adventurous and very rock 'n roll, he could actually see his unborn children in her eyes, really beautiful kids if they looked like their mama. “Yeah, I guess it is..do you make any distinction though between marital possession and sexual possession?” he pulled her against his body with a very dirty grin, “now you're talking! I'll always submit to such an exquisitely skilled lover of your caliber, although I think you're holding back where I'm concerned, I think there's so much further you want to go where sex is concerned, don't you? Let's say that I'm convinced you're into something a whole lot more kinky than just spanking my ass” she wiggled her eyebrows. Why not push all my fuckin' buttons at once, you little minx? Dingdingdingding! “oh really? You're convinced, huh? Well, that's for me to know and for you to find out, so if I were you, I would get that sexy ass to our bedroom RIGHT NOW!” those last shouted words made her giggle “ohhhh goodieeee” she clapped her hands in delight, wasn't she just amazing? A girl that was so excited and looked forward so much to getting thrown and pushed around a room and a bed was an absolute keeper, his heart beat so hard in his throat and his groin ached behind the zipper of his trousers seeing her giggle and skip away from him, he quickly caught up with her breaking down in a fit of laughter when he saw her lose her balance on another strip of ice.

'Bang' went their erotic bubble the minute they set foot inside the hotel, “there you are! We've got a million interviews lined up, you should be glad someone around here remembers the PR” Shannon came stomping over to them. Harper hung her chin against her chest, she just couldn't get a break around here, could she? All she wanted was to get some much needed lovin' from her man, who had kept his distance last night too, bleeegghhhhhh, what did a girl have to do round here to get fucked senseless??. “Sorry, I have..” he scrunched up his nose, feeling absolutely guilty as he cupped her face, “it's ok..you have a job to do, I understand” she tried not to pout, “I'd love it if you came along” he tried to twist her arm. “You kiddin? Get out into that cold again? nope, na-ah, no sir, no way” she shook her head trying to keep it light and funny between them, “alright, why don't you go warm up the bed then, be back late afternoon, we'll have some time together before the show” he whispered. “I don't want to be a wet blanket, but..” Shannon moved closer trying to get their attention, Harper took a step back and mouthed a silent 'go, it's ok', “alright, alright, ok, lead the way Mr. PR-man” he growled at his brother as he reluctantly turned on his heels and followed Shannon out with a sigh, signing to her to keep in touch during his absence. Ok..what to do? More coffee? Ugh no, her blood pressure was through the roof more than enough already, go to a museum? Nope..out of the question she went out into that cold again, then what? Read a book! Yessss, perfect idea, she hadn't read ever since she got to Europe, Jared and her job here had absorbed most of her free time, curl up under the covers and get lost into another world, she asked her key and almost ran to the elevator.

Oh those dreadful interviews with their copy/paste questions, he hated how he had always thrown up a wall around his personal life in the past, because right now he wanted nothing more than just talk about her, then he wouldn't miss her as much, hold it, hold it, hold it, take a step back, you are not turning into one of those ugly codependent couples you hate so much! You are so not! Fuck it, yes I am, ok ignore and focus back on the question and the interviewer, hope it's better than those ugly glasses she's wearing. 'Beep', no, focus on the question, before they think you're an absolute asshole, oh sod it they already think that anyway, he dug his phone out of his pocket and kicked Shannon's leg to answer the next question, he had a mail to read and that was far more important right now.

From: HCDeRobiano

To: BJLCubbins

Subject: shock!

Jaylicious,

' A leg went over and she positioned herself, ligned up his dick with her entrance and slowly, ever so slowly she pushed down and impaled herself with a loud, blissful moan'

Uhm, what the fuck is this? So, I went online to get inspired for my next painting and I bumped on some real cool stuff on this site called 'Tumblr' and what do you know? I get these suggestions to also check some extra cool dude called Jared Leto, curious as I am, I check and..well, well, these girls are writing the hottest stuff with you in a very kinky main role. Are they ex- or current groupies of yours? Because they all seem to write from reality..and there's so many out there, I'm flooded by an exuberant amount of smut. Oh and then there was all these threads about what a jerk you are in bed too, they're calling you all sorts of horrible names..what is that all about? that sounded a whole lot more real from real groupies.

My eyes hurt from reading way too much stuff about you, why did I ever decide to get online?

Confused Coco

From: BJLCubbins

To: HCDeRobiano

Subject: Re: shock!

Babe,

Get offline, now! So you went 'there' huh? How do you think I feel reading all those stories about myself and their fantasies about my sex life..they make me look like some kind of pornstar in those fics, but they're 'just' fans ('just' is an ugly word, but they're my meal ticket, you know what I mean) I swear I've never touched or met any of them in real life, they're just stories, those stories on Tumblr come from the imagination of some very dirty minds :). That other stuff you're mentioning is a site full of slander I tried to shut down, but no matter how hard I try, those trolls just keep on popping up and haunting me, don't believe what's being said, please! Yes some of those things happened a long, long time ago, but never the way what they're saying, it's difficult to explain..

All you have to know is that I love you veryveryveryvery much, ok? You're the only one that matters!

Don't go running off again, just wait for me and we'll talk, all through the night if that is what it takes to believe me!

Your 'Jaylicious' (I like it, you're so original, where do you come up with these nicknames?)

WHAT??? slander?? but it actually happened? Of course it happened, what did he think she was? Retarded? Did he ever see that interview with Howard Stern she had just seen for the first time, where some sleazy pornstar talked about Jared's 'monster' that obviously had given her as much pleasure as it gave her? Of course he had, and he expected her to get offline the minute she found more info about his past in half an hour than she had gotten out of him in weeks? Put the phone down, just put it down and grab your book, relax, of course he had a past, she had one too, and she knew that he was no choirboy, that much had been obvious during each sexmarathon they had so far, but then why did she feel a little dirty right now? Don't be a hypocrite, come on, ok book, where was I? She browsed for a few seconds but then threw the book back on the nightstand, ok not able to focus, fine, TV then, she flicked through the channels like a maniac, ooohh some more 'Catfish' reruns then. 'Beep' the screen of her phone lit up, and she quickly grabbed it thinking it was Jared, 'Happy now? You destroyed everything, after everything I did for you, is this how you repay me? I'll never forgive you for this, I'm on my way to New York right now and I swear I'll have you and all your godawful paintings evicted in no time, so you won't have a 'home' to come back to'. Harper sat up in shock gasping for air, Sean..oh god no, her fingers trembled as she pressed down on his name and held the phone to her ear, pick up..voicemail, fuck! Text him back 'Sean, no I'm not happy, how can I be happy when the person I thought was my best friend tried to kill me, just because he feels rejected!? Have me evicted, fine by me, but don't touch my paintings, please, I'll beg if needs be, but please don't destroy them, they mean more to me than anything or anyone in this world, please Sean?' there, sent, with an aching heart and close to tears, for fuck's sakes Jay, will you just come back? I need you here, I need someone to hold me and tell me that everything is going to be alright. A tear found its' way down her cheek, followed by a whole lot more and she didn't even try and stop them, her heart nearly burst in her chest, she just wanted to be happy, just to lead a simple, uncomplicated life devoted to painting and creating, but that wasn't gonna happen soon, was it? Oh Jay, please, I need you so much right now..call him? No, he was working and she wasn't ready yet to show him just how silly she was being  at times, he'll be here, just let out all those stupid tears right now so he can hold you later without having to see what a mess she really was, no, no, her sadness was her own and nobody else’s business.

[tilltheendwilliwrite]

Qi Flows for Her

Chapter Five

Previous Chapter

Pairing: Steve Rogers x OFC x Bucky Barnes  |  Word Count: 5112 Warnings: Language, angst

Celine made sure she was last onto the jet where she took Bucky’s previous seat in the back, darkened corner, as far away from the others as she could get. She snapped the hair band wrapped around her wrist, using the physical pain to remind herself to breathe. Her hair hung forward, hiding her face. Back to the straight, dark brown of before, she listened as they murmured about the rest of what they found and looked after Peter who had been knocked out for his own good.

God… that had hurt like rejection hadn’t hurt in years.

Hunched over, she leaned her face against the wall, the metal cool against her skin. A tear worked its way down her cheek. She’d known this was going to happen, had been saying so since the beginning. Yet, she’d still chanced to hope this time would be different. This time someone would see her for who she truly was and not react with fear.

Why do I bother to hope? She snapped the elastic at her wrist again.

“Celine…” The whisper of Charles' voice only made her flinch.

“Go away, Charles…”

“Darling, I can feel your pain.”

“Pain you have a part in instigating. Go away, Charles!”

“Celine… please…”

She sighed. “What did you expect? That I’d come here, reveal myself, and everything would be tea and crumpets? Go… the fuck… away!” She gave a mighty push and slammed her shields closed.

Her inner demons were relentless after. The voices of hate and disgust hissed and wailed in her head. The self-loathing caused her to wrap her hands around her middle. She was an abomination. A freak. A thing to be feared and despised. No one wanted her. No one would care if she just walked away.

Disappeared.

Died.

The phone in her pocket vibrated.

She ignored it.

It continued to go off for the next fifteen minutes straight, becoming an annoying vibration against her thigh until she finally dug it free. “What?” she sighed, expecting Charles.

“Little girl, next time you pick the fuckin’ phone up on the first ring!” The snarling voice of Logan had her lip twitching.

“Yes, papa,” she sassed.

“What the fuck happened, Celine?” he demanded.

Sighing, she glanced through her hair at the others speaking quietly away from her. “Can’t, Logan. Not now.”

“You’re on the plane?”

“Yeah.”

“Did they hurt you?” he snarled.

“No.”

“Not physically, you mean. Dammit, Charles! I told you sending her was a bad idea!”

It almost made her smile. The Wolverine was highly protective of those he called family. “I’m a big girl, Logan,” she murmured. “I tie my own shoes and everything. I’ll be fine.”

He huffed a dismissive bark of sound. “You ain’t fine! I can tell you ain’t fine! Do I need to come kick around a few super soldiers again? Cause I fuckin’ will!”

“The way I heard it, it sounded like a draw, though Steve said you’re a heavy son of a gun.”

“He’s one to talk,” Logan grumbled.

Leaning her head back against the wall, Celine smiled slightly. “Put up a bit of a fight, did he?”

He snorted. “Decent enough.”

“Good. You were getting full of yourself again.”

“Tricky little witch,” he scoffed. Silence descended for a few seconds before he murmured, “Celine… you can come home. I can replace you if you want.”

She wiped the tear from her cheek. “Nope. Charles sent me. I’m staying until they kick me out.” No matter how much it hurt.

“Look, if you’re doing this to punish Charles cause you’re pissed, then don’t. He’s already hurt you shut him out.”

This time she snorted. “He deserved it.”

“Yeah, probably,” he chuckled. “Take care of yourself, darlin’. And if you need me?”

“I’ll let you know, Logan. Tell Rogue I miss her.”

He grunted just before the line going dead.

She stuffed the phone back in her pocket and returned to her silent reflection, feeling only slightly better.

When the jet landed what felt like hours later, she was down the ramp and into the tower as if the hounds of hell were nipping her heels. To her mind, it wasn't far from the truth.

***

Steve and Bucky watched her go, neither knowing how to fix what they’d wrought.

Peter was alright, the bullet nothing more than a flesh wound, but the way the boy had reacted to her… they’d quite literally watched her heart break.

She was far more powerful than they’d realized. So much so, she’d plucked a soldier off the mountain and ate him before throwing something, likely his soul, into... hell? The underworld? Somewhere else? They had no idea.

Were they a little disconcerted? Sure. Who wouldn’t the hell be? But were they scared of her? No. The shock had kept them mute though, something they now realized had done a lot of harm.

She’d sat, huddled and silent in the corner, gradually curling in on herself, getting smaller with each passing moment until her phone had rung.

Steve had been about to go over and force her to answer when she’d finally dug it free on her own.

The irate voice of Logan was one he’d never forget, and he’d exchanged an eye roll with Bucky. He was a gruff son of a gun, but intensely loyal and protective, especially of Charles. Clearly, that protection extended to Celine.

Logan’s accusation, the comment about hurting her, had caused both of them to stiffen in offence. Her denial and his rewording had jabbed them both firmly with guilt.

Logan was right. They hadn’t hurt her physically. Emotionally? In her heart?

Yes.

“Shit,” Steve hissed softly once the others had exited.

“More like fuck, punk. We screwed up.” Bucky sighed, making his way toward Celine’s seat where he crouched down and swiped his fingers through the dark droplets on the floor. “She’s been bleeding.”

“What?” Steve jolted, coming quickly to Buck’s side.

“Yeah. We should check on her.”

“Pretty sure she doesn’t want to see us, pal.”

“So? We fucked up. We should fix it before it gets worse.” Bucky got to his feet and headed for the doors.

They walked in silence, both feeling intensely guilty.

She'd done some incredible things tonight, but they hadn’t told her so. Had her force been a little excessive? Sure, but seeing Peter take a bullet had Steve longing to hit the asshole sniper with his shield, so he understood how upset Celine must have been.

When Natasha stepped into the corridor, blocking them from getting on the elevator,  Steve heard Bucky sigh and tried not to echo it.

“Need something, Nat?” Steve asked.

“I hope you get it now. You'll send her on her way?”

Steve frowned and shook his head. “Why? Celine’s part of this team.”

“Really!” she snapped. “After seeing what she did? What she is?”

“What I saw was a powerful woman who was treated like a freak tonight by her own team. Me included. She's still a person. Still Celine. Her powers don't make her anything different.”

“Shit! You've got a hard-on for her too! I knew Barnes was balls deep, but I expected better of you, Cap.”

Bucky’s hand wrapped around her throat and slammed her into the wall. “You're pushing the line, Natalia,” he snarled softly. “Celine may be Styx, she may be ridiculously powerful, but she's bruised, broken, and your snide comments aren't doing anyone any good!”

“She’ll destroy this team!”

“You said the same thing of me when Steve brought me in. The ghost. The Winter Soldier. The HYDRA weapon. Fuck you, Nat! She's no different!”

She blinked at him, stunned. “She's completely different! Did you not watch her kill a man tonight by eating his life force? Was that simply my imagination?”

“And I kill people with a gun or a knife. So what?”

“You're not about to take us all out in our sleep!”

“But I could if I wanted to!” he roared. “So could you, goddamnit, but you don't see any of us trying to shove you out the door!”

Laying a hand on Bucky’s shoulder, Steve urged his friend to let Natasha go. Once he had, Steve rounded on her himself. “You've taken issue with Celine since the moment she arrived. What's the beef, Nat? What's the real problem here?”

“This is the real issue! You're both so blinded by the hot new piece of ass; you can't see the danger she presents.”

“And me, Natasha? Am I also blinded by a hot piece of ass?” Wanda asked, appearing behind them. She looked at him, and Steve felt a clutch around his heart. The red wash of power in her eyes showed how disconcerted she was feeling. “But then, I am also one to be feared, to be treated like a freak. To be caged and collared because of what I am. What Hydra made me.”

“Wanda, no… I…” Natasha shook her head. “You're different.”

“How?” she asked coming closer. “I use similar powers. I can kill nearly as easily. You also locked me up to keep me away from people because I was a danger to society. Because you didn't trust me. Celine has shown me nothing but kindness after I have proved myself untrustworthy three times,” her voice rasped with self-hatred. “I keep telling myself, I cannot control other people's fear, only my own. Tonight… I failed at both.”

She walked away, and Steve's heart cracked. It appeared many of them were regretting what happened tonight.

“Celine is part of this team. She stays part of this team,” Steve said with finality.

“Fine. But my working with her comes as a last resort. I don't trust her to have my back.” Nat spun and headed away from where Wanda had gone.

Bucky waited only until she was out of earshot before muttering, “I'm not sure I trust you'll have hers.”

“Buck,” Steve sighed.

“I ain't ever seen her like this, Steve. She's been confrontational and just…”

“Nasty,” Sam muttered, wandering down the hall. “I'll go talk to her.”

“You alright with what happened tonight?” Steve asked.

“Alright?” He took a deep breath, eyes widening as he shrugged. “Not sure I’d say alright. Am I gonna throw a hissy fit? Nah. I kinda think Scott’s got the right idea. Better with us than against us.” He patted Steve's shoulder. “Am I gonna think twice about pissing her off? Hell yeah!” Chuckling, Sam continued on after Natasha.

“That's four,” Bucky murmured, a smirk twitching his lip. “Let's go poke the bear, see if she'll forgive us.”

“I think you mean the dragon. Damn that was cool,” Steve grinned.

“Now you sound like Parker.” Bucky’s face fell as they got on the elevator. “You think the kid will come round?”

Steve sighed. “Hope so.”

She’d been so happy spending time with Peter. Having the kid look at her in fear had just killed her.

When they stepped off the elevator, they had the answer hit them full force.

“Celine! Please!” Peter was standing outside her room, one hand pressed to his ribs, the other banging on her door. “I'm sorry! Let me explain!”

“Peter? Shouldn't you be in the med wing?” Steve asked sternly.

The kid shook his head. “Not until I apologize. Not until I tell her how sorry…” Pain took his breath, not all of it physical.

“Okay, kid.” Taking Peter by the elbow, Steve held him up. “How long you been here?” he asked.

Seeing as how the kid was still in his suit, he doubted Parker had even been to see Bruce, or if he had, the kid had snuck out.

“A while,” Peter mumbled.

“And she hasn't answered?”

Peter shook his head.

“FRIDAY located Celine.”

“Celine is on the roof. Captain? It appears she's is quite distraught. She is standing on the roof ledge.”

“What?!” Three voices bellowed before all of them scrambled for the elevator. It took them to the glassed-in common room where they barreled out the door to hit the exterior stairs which would take them to the roof.

Steve grabbed Peter's shoulder. “Are you alright to go around? If something goes sideways…” He didn't need to say Peter was the only one capable of catching Celine.

“I'm good, Cap!” Peter turned to go.

Steve dragged him back. “You stay out of sight. Let us talk to her before you do anything; you get me?”

“Yes, sir!” Peter nodded.

“Go.” He gave the kid a small shove and sprinted up the stairs after Bucky. His heart stuttered when she came into view.

Hair blowing back in the wind, balanced on the balls of her feet, she stood, hands relaxed at her sides, staring out over the city.

“Celine?” Bucky called quietly.

“Doll, you want to come down from there?” Steve asked, both of them edging closer.

Her head turned only enough to show them her profile. The tear streaks were impossible to miss. “Not particularly, Captain. I like the view.”

“Sweetheart, we'd really like it if you came down from there,” Bucky muttered, moving slowly forward.

“I am not your sweetheart, Sergeant. I am not your doll, your baby, your darlin’. I am Celine. I am… a vampire. I am Styx. And I am always to be feared.” She turned to walk the narrow edge of the building.

“Celine, please come down.” Steve would beg if he had to.

She paused, looked at him, and sighed. “You believe I do this, walk this ledge because I wish to hurt myself?” A snort of derision escaped her. “I wish to clear my mind, nothing more.” She turned back to face the city, turning her back on them. “I have no wish for company, especially from those who see me as something to be despised.”

Striding forward, Bucky reached for her arm only to have her dance out of his reach. “Celine!”

“What, Sergeant? Are you here to look at me with fear again? Are you going to tell me to leave? Explain how I am too much a freak to be part of the Avengers?” Night seemed to flow into her, swirl around her. It darkened her hair and brightened her eyes. She stepped backward, crouched, and snarled like an angry animal. “Then you tell me now to go, and I will pack my things!”

“No, Celine,” Steve said, holding up his hands. He approached with caution like he would a wounded creature. “Yes, you surprised us with what you did, maybe even spooked us at first, but we're not afraid of you.”

“Yes, you were!” she almost howled. “And after you said…” She shook her head. “I knew you would fear me. Everyone fears me. I should never have hoped for anything different.”

The words were so soft they could barely hear them, but they hit harder than the Hulk.

Bucky walked toward her, hands raised. “Read me, my aura, my emotions. I’m not afraid of you, Celine. Steve’s not afraid. Sam’s not afraid. Peter isn’t afraid. Wanda isn’t afraid. Come down. Talk to us. Let us show you.” He held out his hand.

“No… no, you lie!” She gave a violent shake of her head. “I won't look! I won't! I can't take anymore! Why are you so cruel?”

Peter landed on the ledge a few feet away. “Celine, I am so sorry.”

She whipped to face him, and Bucky lunged.

His arms closed around her, dragged her from the edge and back to the center of the roof. Expecting a struggle, he held her tightly, but she only sagged, eyes wide and staring at Peter.

The curl smoothed from her hair, the colour lightened. Her eyes lost their glow, and her face fell. Instead of struggling, she turned into Bucky, turned away from Peter, as a distressed cry escaped her lips.

“No, no… you were afraid. I made you afraid. You wouldn’t… let me help…” she moaned, clinging to Bucky.

This time it was the devastation on Peter’s face which broke Steve’s heart. “Celine, doll face Peter’s sorry. He, like us, didn’t mean to hurt you. But you were pretty impressive tonight. More than we’d expected. Read us. See for yourself. It's not a joke.”

“Promise,” Bucky murmured and stroked her arm. “No one's gonna be cruel, darlin’. Give us a chance.”

She bit her lip and looked between the two of them. Such pain shadowed her eyes Steve's heart felt like it tore open for her and whatever trauma had forced her to this point, to where she felt the need to wall herself off from everyone.

A moment passed before her amber eyes filled with relief and she sagged against Bucky. “Oh…” the word flew free on a heavy exhale.

“Can you forgive us, baby?” Steve threaded his fingers through her hair, gently pulling her head back so he could see her eyes.

They were wet, as was her face, so he wiped her cheeks dry. A breath shuddered from her, and she gave a slow nod. She looked as shocked, possibly as stunned as he and Bucky had been when she’d thrown a dragon into the sky and plucked a man off the mountain.

“I thought your dragon was incredible, Celine,” Steve said softly.

“And the way you dealt with the guards on the gate, and the people at the warehouse… amazing,” Bucky smiled.

“You were really spectacular, Celine. I'm… sorry I hurt your feelings,” said Peter, coming closer. “You did… kinda startle me, what with you havin’ just, like, eaten a dude. I promise it won't make me spaz out on you next time.”

“Peter,” she whispered, hands tight to her chest.

“Hug?” he asked, holding out the one arm. The other remaining pressed to his wound.

Bucky let her go, but Celine was hesitant to reach out until Parker gave an exasperated sigh and simply dragged her in via a shot of webbing and hugged her.

“You wanna fix me now?” Peter asked. “That is if it's still okay?”

She nodded a small jerk of her head before placing her green glowing fingers on his side.

His eyes widened in surprise when the pain disappeared. “Wow. Celine, you're so awesome!” He laughed as he lifted her off her feet and swung her around.

“Peter!” she squealed in surprise.

Chuckling, he dropped her to her feet and hugged her tight with both arms. “Thanks, doll,” he drawled, bussing her a kiss to the cheek - bold little shit-eating grin on his face - and darted away. “I'll check-in with Bruce. See ya tomorrow!”

She pressed her fingers to her cheek, eyes full of tears, but a smile was twitching her lips. Turning to face them, her smile broke free. “You people are so messed up.”

Bucky grinned while Steve laughed.

“Maybe it's your previous fri-uh-colleagues who were messed up,” Steve said with a sheepish grin.

“Yeah, darlin’,” Bucky smirked, “You just needed a couple’a old guys and a kid to see you for who you really are.”

“Speak for yourself, pal. I ain't old,” Steve snorted.

“Maybe being in the ice that long just froze your self-preservation brain cells,” Celine quipped.

“Then what's Peter’s excuse?” Bucky asked.

“Young and foolish,” she scoffed. “He doesn't know any better.”

Steve shook his head and held out his hand. “C’mon. You were bleeding on the jet. Let’s see it.”

She arched a brow in wry condemnation. “After the last few days, do you honestly think I cannot fix myself?”

He arched one in return, shook his hand and said, “Just give!” It was a fair imitation of what she’d done the day they’d met, causing Bucky to burst out laughing.

Rolling her eyes, Celine stalked forward to hold her hand out palm up. “There, you see? Perfectly fine.”

Steve frowned as he traced his fingers over her palm. “What did you…” he started to ask when it dawned on him what she’d likely done to herself. “Celine…” Heart hurting, guilt filled him for what she’d gone through, those talons of hers digging into her flesh with her anguish. “I am sorry.”

Her eyes softened. “I know, Steve.”

Bucky collected her opposite hand, sighing quietly as he stared at her unmarked flesh. “I promised you I wouldn’t feel any differently and at the first opportunity to prove it, I fucked it up.”

She gave her own sigh, released their hands, and patted both chests. “You are good men, but you are only human. I am,” she shook her head and turned away, “not.”

Steve went after her, grabbing her by the elbow to drag her back against his chest. “You are as human as the two of us. Powerful you may be, but you’re still human, Celine.”

Her eyes brightened, and her hair curled. “I am not. Human’s do not feed off other humans.”

“Your mutation only makes you different, Celine. It doesn’t make you less human.” Bucky’s hand curled around the back of her neck.

Trapped between the two of them again, Steve couldn’t help but notice the heat she radiated like a furnace. People always commented on how hot he or Bucky ran, but Celine seemed to nearly double their temperature. Cupping her chin, he tilted her face up, so her diamond-bright eyes shone for him to see. “You aren’t a freak. You’re an Avenger. We’re all a little… abnormal.” He couldn’t understand how she could’ve grown up in a place like Xavier’s school and view herself so differently from the other mutants. If anything, it should have been a place she fit into fairly well.

“I believe I’m a lot abnormal, Steve,” she chuckled, the curl of her hair growing more prominent as her eyes drifted down to his lips.

Bucky’s hand went from her nape to her throat, pressing up beneath Steve’s to tilt her head back onto his shoulder. “You ain’t the one with the vibranium arm,” he said, smirk growing.

Her eyes watched his lips as well before her tongue darted out, moistening hers.

Steve had never wanted to kiss a woman as badly as he did Celine in that instant. The desire he was trying to contain roared into life.

It sent her eyes darting back to his. They blazed bright, burned into him, filled with distress and sent her jerking away from them both. “Sorry! Sorry. That’s my bad… ha, I should go.” She darted away, down the stairs before either of them could move to stop her.

Groaning, Steve thrust his hand through his hair. “Fuck!”

“No shit,” Bucky muttered, trying to adjust his pants without being overly obvious.

“What the hell keeps happening here?” Steve grumbled.

Sighing, Bucky shook his head. “I don’t know, punk, but…” a wash of red filled his cheeks, “I… kind of like it.”

“What?” he gasped, jerking his head up to look at Bucky.

The metal-armed soldier shrugged. “Feels… good having her between us. I don’t know. She just… fits.”

“Bucky…” Steve shook his head.

“I know, I know. Can’t seduce a recruit,” he huffed. “But Steve, you can’t tell me you don’t feel it. We ain’t talked about it, keep pushin’ it to the side, but we can’t fight what we’re feeling.”

“She won’t even be a friend, Buck. Besides, you just watched her rabbit when she got a hint of something off me. I’m not going to put that pressure on Celine.” Steve stalked toward the stairs. “I don’t even know what the hell is happening! Every time it's just us, you, me, her, it’s….”

“Intense sexual heat?” Bucky chuckled.

“Laugh it up, jackass,” Steve grumbled.

“I’m serious!” he scoffed. Grabbing Steve’s arm, Bucky forced him to stop. “I’m asking this in all seriousness, if she chose me over you, would you be okay with it?”

“Bucky… I… Why are you even going there?”

“It’s a hypothetical, Steve. Just answer the fucking question.”

“I’d have to be, wouldn’t I?”

“But you’d hate it, right?”

Jerking his arm away, Steve snapped, “Yes, damn it! I’d hate it!” and stormed down the stairs.

Bucky simply jumped over the rail to land in front of him. “I’d be the same way!”

Coming to a stop, Steve’s eyes closed in pain. “I know, Buck. I can’t be your rival. I won’t be. I don’t have it in me to go against you, and you know it.”

“Stevie.” Bucky’s hands closed over his shoulders, gripped tight, shook him a little. “You think I could?”

When he looked up, Bucky’s eyes were bright with emotion. The smack which came to Steve’s cheek was anything but light, yet it was full of affection, even as it stung something fierce.  

“You’re my brother, Steve. I wouldn’t ever do that to you. I love you, pal, and we’ve been through too much hell to fight over a girl, even a dame as amazing as Celine. Whatever comes, we’ll figure it out. Besides, she’s skittish as a baby deer,” he sighed. “Doubt it will go anywhere for either of us.”

Both sighed unhappily and continued inside.

***

A little panicked, Celine made her way back to her room, thankful she avoided seeing anyone else. Riding in the elevator, she allowed herself a small amount of hysterical laughter for, sure enough, she’d found herself sandwiched happily - and hornily - between the two soldiers again. Her nature had taken over thanks to her overactive libido, and she’d drawn them in.

And it had felt… good. Too good.

The spike in Steve’s chi had nearly made her moan and beg for a taste. The Captain was potent!

Bucky, too, though slightly more in control, his arousal had shivered through her. It was subtle, like the nip in the air which preceded a snowstorm but it was still delectable.

So intent was she on the near taste she’d had, something she really should be berating herself for, Celine did not notice the aura waiting in her room until her hand was on the doorknob. Steeling her spine, she slowly pushed her door inward.

The lights were on, the one sitting on her couch doing nothing to hide her presence. Natasha smirked smugly at her.

“I do not remember inviting you to my room,” Celine said cautiously, remaining in the doorway.

“You didn’t. Come in, shut the door, and sit down.”

Brow arching, Celine snorted. “I think I will stay where I am.”

Anger flared in her aura before Natasha smoothed it away. “I think… Adeline, you will want to do what I say.”

The use of her real name was so rare, Celine momentarily froze. Closing the door, she moved toward Natasha, growing angrier by the second. “So, you have found my birth name. What of it?”

Picking up a tablet, Nat read, “Born Adeline Evans to one Tammy Evans, drug addict junky, and alcoholic absentee father, Marcus Evans. Ran away from home at thirteen, wanted for questioning in the death of one Franklin Delacore after he was found dead on the floor of your bedroom.”

She refused to flinch, only sat in an armchair and crossed her legs. There was nothing there. Charles had seen to the reports, the heart attack the man had had was ruled as an accident. Her mother’s drugged up ravings were nothing more than the ramblings of a woman out of her mind.

“Lived on the street, it seems from the age of thirteen until fifteen.” Here Nat looked up. “Wouldn’t it be interesting if the police were informed of the mutant Styx whose MO perfectly fits the two cold cases they have from way back when Adeline was a teenage runaway.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” Celine asked, without a hint any of what she’d said had been true.

“Oh, I’m not done yet,” she fairly purred. “There’s also the information about poor Thomas and Jacob. Nasty business that. It really would be a travesty if the new team found out what you’d done to your old team. To your friends.”

“What do you want, Natasha?” Celine asked a second time.

“What I want is for you to leave and never come back, but we can’t always get what we want, so how about what I need?”

Tired of these games, Celine snapped, “Just spit it out, Widow!” Hair curling, nails lengthening, she dug her talons into the cushioned arms of her chair.

Natasha stiffened her entire countenance sharpening. “I’ve safeguards in place, Styx, so think twice about hurting me. Anything happens to me here, or on a mission, you're a part of… all this information goes public.” She smiled, a predatory baring of teeth. “It would be a pity if the Professor's involvement in all your messes came to light.”

The cold weight of fear wrapped around Celine’s heart. “Get to the point, Natasha.”

“I see how you look at them you know. Steve and Bucky. They’re too blinded by the pretty girl to see the monster you really are. You're going to stay away from them; you're going to stay away from all my friends. You'll limit your involvement with the team outside of missions.” She got slowly to her feet, triumph and bravado coating her innate fear of what Celine was. “Isolate yourself, Celine, or I'll do it for you. Permanently.” Striding toward the door, Natasha dropped the tablet in Celine’s lap, the faces of Jacob and Thomas staring up at her from the screen.

Celine spoke softly, “Be careful, Widow. What you try so hard to protect… may not take kindly to your methods.”

“You’ll never tell them. You try so hard to be human, fit in, but you're a monster. I know it. You know it. If they knew what you'd done….” Natasha let the words hang as she shut the door and walked away.

Celine stared down at her lap and lightly touched first one and then the other face.

Natasha may have found the information on the boys, she may know some of Charles involvement, she suspected the Widow had likely bugged her room, but Natasha didn't know everything. She couldn't for there were no records of what Celine was beyond the mental knowledge shared by four people.

But the two smiling faces on the tablet in her lap, the one lost and the one…. She couldn't bear to think about it. The pain it caused was simply too great.

She placed her hand flat on the screen and ignored the tears which fell down her face as she cried for things she could never make right, and for the life she might have possibly had here.

Next Chapter

[twistedsinews]

@chyrstis​

Faith/Dex - 13. A Drunk Kiss

Saints Row; Faith/Dex, Johnny; PG-13

“The fuck are you doing in my bar?”

The bare edge to her voice was dangerous.  A mere moment earlier, before she’d noticed him, she’d been smiling.  Gat barely so much as glanced at him, but Dex knew the man well enough.  Two Saints – fucking bullshit – that had been sitting at the bar vacated their seats, leaving only the three of them.

“It’s a Friday night and I was in the neighborhood,” Dex offered.  “I thought I’d take in some atmosphere.”

Even before he’d finished talking, her hand had slid to an overhand grip on one of the bottles in front of her.  Her mouth curled into a snarl over the tight set of her teeth.

“How’s this for atmosphere-...”

Gat cleared his throat.

He hadn’t taken his eyes off her, and, with whatever it was they said without saying, her impression grew darker.  Dex didn’t speak the language, but he’d gotten the gist of it: Johnny wasn’t going to let her stab him outright, she wasn’t happy about it.

“Fine, whatever.”

Without ceremony, she grabbed the nearest glass from behind the bar, and filled it out of the same bottle she’d been preparing to brain him with.

“I don’t get a choice in this?”

“Yeah, you could choose to walk right back up those stairs before I break your legs.”

The grunt of disapproval from his left told Dex everything he needed to know.  He was safe... or, at least, safe enough.

Seating himself across from her, he pulled the glass closer... and gave grave consideration to its contents.

“...it’s green.”

Filling another glass from the same bottle, she ignored him.  Or ignored Johnny, who, for his part, appeared content to ignore them both.  The mutual silence left Dex to consider the contents of his glass.

Whatever it was, wasn’t poison.

She downed her glass in one go.

Not to be outdone, Dex knocked his back.

~*~

It knocked him flat.

Dex couldn’t keep up, but she didn’t seem to take it personally.  He topped out at three – which might have been a half too much – around the time she forewent the glass and started drinking straight from the bottle.  Eventually, even that was forgotten as she leaned, elbows against the bar, peering up at him with a kind of studious curiosity.

Wherever they’d been at when he stepped through the door had slipped his mind.  He was – it seemed – in good company.

“I think I... forgot, why do I hate you so much?”

“Lotta people do,” for the moment, at least, he was too relaxed to take it too personally.  “Comes with the job.”

Leaning on one arm opposite from her, Dex felt the hint of a smile where it tugged at the corners of his mouth in response to her expression.  His breath caught in his throat when she angled her head, catching his lips briefly against her own, but lingering, as he answered to the same.

When she retreated, her gaze flicked, questioning and unsure, from their hands – almost-but-not-quite touching – to his eyes.

“You gotta work tomorrow?”

“It’s Friday.  Nobody gotta work tomorrow.”

“Rooms upstairs.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”  She pulled away from him, suddenly.  “I gotta close out the... thing, and go...”  Blinking at Johnny, who had quite simply remained on the sidelines, she asked, “Gat, what’s the thing I gotta go and do?”

“Pay the dancers.”

She nodded once, concisely, as though it had jogged her memory, “Right.”

The look she gave him as she slipped out from behind the bar left Dex smiling at nothing as he turned back in his seat to wait for her return.

Except, the moment she was out of sight, Johnny grabbed him by a handful of his suit jacket and was pulling him towards the stairs.  When Dex struggled, digging his heels in, an arm hooked around his ribs, rather firmly insisting.

“Hey – Hey.”

“Gotta tell ya, man,” Gat merely dragged him up the stairs and towards the elevator hallway, “Of all the plans you ever had, this one is gotta be the one you ain’t using your fuckin’ brain.”

“Fuck you, Gat; I know what I’m doing.”

“Like hell, you know what you’re doing.  Hey, wanna know what I’m doing?  I’m callin’ you a fuckin’ cab, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Oh, what, you think I can’t handle myself?” Dex snapped, shoving him away when Johnny’s grip on him finally loosened... and very nearly falling backwards from the effort, had Gat not reached out to steady him.  “In case you don’t remember, I ain’t the one got-...”

Johnny’s fingers dug into his shoulders as he regarded Dex from behind tinted glass.

“Dex.  Tomorrow morning, that woman gonna be sober.”

[ephrampettaline]

pray i don’t look back | bella & ephram

chatzy log with @thisbrutalbelle

Ephram had been up all night, walking.

He'd told Ruby and Freddie that he'd be pulling an all-nighter at work, but that wasn't the truth. He’d intended to spend the night with Faye, taking care of her during her Needful time, but things went ... sideways. Returning to the house or the station was out of the question until he got a better grip on himself.  So Ephram reverted to form and struck out for the thick old-growth forest, doggedly roaming and hiking the way he'd used to back in the holler, full of high-strung energy and wanting to drive it out of himself to the point of exhaustion.

He'd done well, in regards to that goal. And now trembling and weary, he found himself at Bellamy's door. Ephram knocked, then rang the doorbell, shutting his eyes and leaning against the doorframe with a soft sigh. This could be a mistake they'd never recover from. But still, Bella was the only person he could think of who would be the right one to visit this predicament upon.

Bellamy clutched her skull as she heard the doorbell ring, any kind of ringing was intensifying the pulsating of her brain within her thick skull. Whatever was going on within the town and affecting those within it was conflicting with the illness Bellamy already had. Like a body would fight off a cold her illness was trying to prevent another from taking control of it's host so Bellamy had arisen the night things became worse fully shifted but with her mind telling her to take her medication, since then the house was littered with candles as it had been before her first trip to Monte Carlo. She needed to remain in her human state it seemed and she was glad for it, even if it did mean that for some odd reason she was leaking for more than she usually would. So much so she'd actually had to taken to using tampons again and was walking around with a box of tissues to deal with her face.

Once the more intense pulsing stopped she regain some semblance of herself, allowing the muted pulsing to continue as she opened the door. "Ephram," she let out, feeling her nose immediately begin to spurt black goo as her illness attempted to stop the false memories from coming. It didn't work, the moment she saw him it was like a dumping ground of memories to filter through. It didn't help that in trying to match faces she found another so very similar to his own. "You look exhausted," Bella noted as she stepped aside to let him in, lips pulling back as she felt ripples of pain in her head. Fortunately the mass of tissue hid the physical expression of her pain.

The sound of her voice, that sweet candy scent of her, made Ephram rock back on his heels at his body's visceral reaction -- twice over, now. He hung onto the doorframe with one hand, eyes opened only to slits so he could see where she was, and reached out with the other hand to touch her face. Wiping a gentle thumb beneath her nose and the tissue to clear away the metuo sanguis and just ending up smearing it across her pale cheek, the feel and smell of the black stickiness making him bare his teeth slightly.

"Bella, honey," Ephram croaked, "somethin' happened and I don't want you to freak out because I'm still here, okay? And I ain't in any danger of not bein' here." Honestly, Ephram didn't know if that was quite true, but it was best, he thought, to keep on believing it. Faith took on primary importance at times like this.

Stepping inside, Ephram slowly opened his mismatched eyes; one his usual stormy blue, the other clear white straight across. "It's safe," he said immediately, voice pleading with Bellamy to believe him. "I'm okay. It's still me. Mostly."

Bellamy felt his warm hands on her face and relaxed, a distraction from her head, but he was odd. The moment he smeared that blackness across her face she knew he was not himself. It wasn't just exhaustion it was...she didn't even know. No one was themselves, or were they? No, she didn't remember Ephram being like this. Even as she scrunched up her nose at the contradicting memories of him she couldn't recall a time when he seemed so hard but airy at the same time. It wasn't natural for his person, or the persons she was remembering him to be. In response she grabbed him back, hands gently latching onto his elbows in an attempt to steady him - forgetting she had her gross tissue in her hand.

As he spoke she grew confused, trying to place in her head what he was on about. It certainly helped once he made the statement there was more than one person inside him at least allow her mind to separate Ephram from Anaxis, even if each had their own levels of false memories mixed in with the ones that were true. Helpful as it was it brought back the realisation that there was something dark in him like their was in her and immediately her hands let go of him. In theory it was easy to say she wanted Ephram it always had been, but in practice it had never been so. "Ephram don't -," she started looking to her side as though trying to find a way to escape so she wouldn't do anything stupid. What if the demon put out the candles and she couldn't stop her shift? What if the demon was there to punish her for all she'd done by manipulating her once more into hurting him.

However as she glanced back at Ephram and saw the two hues of his eyes caused her to flinch as memories of Valentin twisted in with the ones of Anaxis. It didn't matter she'd seen Ephram with differing eye colours before she had seen them far more often on her sire and her illness could only push back so much on what was happening in her head. "No, please," she let out, shaking her head as she stared directly into them. One so terrifying it could so easily have overpowered the other but it was impossible for Bellamy to only gaze at his whitened eye and ignore the other when she remembered how much hurt she had seen in it. Kicking the door shut she lifted her hands, dropping the tissue to the ground and ran her fingers through his hair. "Of course it's you," Bellamy said, her fingers finding the back of his neck. Lifting herself onto her toes she kissed him gently on his cheek, fingers scratching at the back of his neck. "Ephram, it's just us," this time she assured herself.

He could feel the conflicting impulses in Bellamy's responses, how she touched him and flinched back and reached forward again, the pattern that had been present in their relationship from the very start. Being attracted and repelled, sometimes simultaneously, the force of their emotions always taking precedence over rational thought. And by God, how Ephram had missed it.

The confident touch of Bella's cold little hand on the back of Ephram's neck stilled him, and the kiss on his cheek, her spoken assurance, were enough for Ephram to let himself slump forward against her as though his bones had turned to water. "Oh, honey," he said. "I din't know what else to do, I cain't go to Freddie and Ruby over this when I dunno what the fuck the reaction's gonna be -- with me, not them, they'd still love me -- but Anaxis, the fuckin' demon's right here with me like it's been all along but now it's..." Ephram dug against Bella's head, pressing his white eye to her skull as if he could gouge it out, make it go back blue or make it join his dismembered eyeballs in Faye's Black Cabinet. "It's right up here in front with me."

His arms were wrapped around Bellamy so tight that Ephram had inadvertently lifted her enough that her toes left the floor, and blood seeped slowly through his jeans, from low on his hip. Where the demon seal mark had been branded into his flesh. "It wants to talk to you," he muttered, dropping his chin to Bellamy's shoulder. "I won't be able to stop it."

Bellamy nodded her head gently as he held her and understood as best she could. Bella had interacted with the demon more than anyone else and if there was someone he was less likely to harm it was Bellamy. Most importantly, she assumed, even if he did hurt her she was the most deserving of that. Ruby and Freddie did not deserve to suffer, especially Freddie who did quite literally everything exactly as he should when it came to the situation. No doubt if Ephram returned home to them he would have handled it with perfection but that didn't mean whatever the demon did to Freddie wouldn't hurt Ephram, least with Bella she assumed he knew she could not only take it but would not feel so very awful for it. The thoughts of this disappeared quickly, as he pressed his eye to her and continued on the change Bellamy realised that this was not Ephram trying to hold back the demon in his mind but trying to contain what had already come to the fore front of it. It wasn't just him that lingered in his head but the beast too. "Shhhh," Bellamy said, kissing his cheek once more, and then again as though their closeness could push it away and Ephram could take complete control once more.

It was only when she felt his blood on her exposed thighs that she realised he had lifted her from the ground and just how tightly he did have a hold of her. Perhaps the tightness was him, the need to be held but as he continued that the infection inside his mind wanted to speak with her she realised if that demon was in the forefront it had likely had a part in now giving her no way to get away from it. She had her strength but with all the candles lit it prevented her from her fangs even coming out. "No, no, no," Bellamy begged as she buried her face in his neck, thinking to herself if she could not see him, the way his face moved with it's own unique expressions then perhaps she would not be manipulated. "What if I can't?" she whispered, arms tightening around him too. If she could not escape she could at least let Ephram know if the demon did speak she wasn't hurting him, she wasn't going to let it make her hurt him.

A coldly rational part of Ephram's subconscious had thought exactly along the same lines as Bella presumed; that she was a vampire and could take much more physical punishment than his human wife or fairy husband could, that she knew what Anaxis was capable of and might enjoy or at least feel that she deserved such brutality. But mostly he'd simply followed the dictates of his panic response once he'd realized what had happened, and headed for the one person who could be there for him while he tried to regroup, marshal his resources, and come up with a plan. "I need you," Ephram blurted, his fingers digging into Bellamy's soft flesh. "Please don't choose it over me, honey, I can't -- I don't--"

Ephram cut himself off with a strangled noise of agony, breathing heavily against Bellamy's shoulder. Then he lifted his head and smiled, faintly amused, perfectly composed. "Kind of sad, all the begging, don't you think?" Anaxis' unctuous, slippery tone was unmistakeable. He set Bella back down on her feet and brushed himself off with a look of exasperation. "We'd better sit down before I fall down, and some coffee wouldn't go amiss. Be a sweet princess and make me some, would you?"

Strolling through Bellamy's open-plan space, Anaxis settled in the kitchen area and vigorously ran its hands through its hair, forcing the unruly blond haystack into something resembling order. "Give me a tea towel or something, would you, pet?" it grimaced, unbuckling its belt. "Before this blood dries and sticks his jeans to him. Ordinarily I wouldn't mind, but sigh," Anaxis shrugged dramatically, "what canya do when you gotta share quarters?" The demon leaned back in its seat, lazily looking Bellamy up and down. "So tell me, Bella," it asked with a smirking grin, "did you miss me?"

Bella's grip grew tight as she felt him lose the verbal and physical control of his form, she didn't want him to disappear and leave her with it. Even if he was inside, still not just aware of everything going on but experiencing it along side the demon she immediately felt alone and her body grasped at any physicality that might be left of his. Not much lasted, the moment the demon breath on her neck she shuddered with fear. The last time she had seen it the demon had knocked her out and left her naked in the rain on the street and yet she still had thought fondly of it beyond that. It made her chest feel empty, breaking down on itself with worry that she had merely lied to herself, that she didn't really see the demon for what it was but had only said it to get Ephram back. Slowly she allowed it to sit her back down, staring at the floor for fear looking at the creatures face would make her weak. "Less sad than petty you'd need to comment on it," she retorted as she noticed the blood on her thigh. Ephram had to be in pain, no wonder he couldn't hold the creature back when it was hurting him like that. A voice in her head reminded her she had hurt him like that too but fortunately the overloading of memories was good for one thing, a reminder that it had not only been hurt between them.

"Making coffee for you would be like giving Hitler a backrub," Bellamy responded, words strong but gaze still finding itself on anything but the demon. She could hear it's movements through, could tell with just the sound of it that the demon was running it's hands through Ephram's hair. She could envision the creature so clearly in her mind with that sleek hair, pushed back and Ephram's body wrapped up in a suit as they boarded a ship to experience their bliss, a dark bliss. It was only as time had gone on she realised that the images they had created that night likely still haunted Ephram. Not just her in her strange beast like form but of all the actions Anaxis had made along side her. Immediately she wanted to apologise once more but she knew Ephram wouldn't get it. "Fine," she said of the towel, hearing the sound of his belt unbuckling and realising she needed to occupy herself. Each time she focused on Ephram and how she could not hurt him the demon seemed to move in a way that reminded her of their fun. She hadn't had sex in so long and he had done...exquisite things to her.

Beginning her breathing exercises she took breathes in and out, counting them while she searched for a tea towel. Once she found it she looked up, she had not anticipated Ephram's eye would still be there and her lip quivered with the desire to cry that now she could truly see that he was aware of everything she did, and everything going on. It wasn't just something she could ignore. Looking away wouldn't help, looking directly into that one part of him that remained maybe would. Extending a hand with the towel to him she nodded her head. "For a while," Bellamy responded honestly as she looked at both of the eyes in Ephram's skull. "Now you just seem...unuseful. I mean, I have Ephram, I have Teddy, I have Iann, I even have a dog that is more useful to me than you are so...," she followed up with a shrug, trying not to get overly focused on the wound on his side. As much as she wanted to heal it Bellamy knew that she couldn't, it was on him and the demon and Ephram were the only ones who could - well maybe a witch or Iann could but not her. "Not anymore."

"Ephram's still here, you know," Anaxis said sharply, and with an abruptness that only a vampire would catch with their heightened senses, its face slackened back into Ephram's more haggard look. "It's true," he nodded wearily. "It ain't the same as usual. We're, uh ... roommates. Instead of terrorist and hostage. If I wanna say somethin' or do somethin', it can't stop me. And I gotta give it some leeway so if it tries anythin' big, I'll have the strength to prevent it." Giving a wan smile, Ephram finished, "So I wouldn't mind that there cup of coffee, honey, minus the Hitler backrub."

He gave a jaw-cracking yawn and then Anaxis was back again, smiling coldly at Bellamy as it took the tea towel from her and folded it against the seeping wound, careful not to touch it. "Still denying Ephram's agency, eh? Only this time it's to spite me instead of to please me. How disappointing." It didn't bother to do up Ephram's jeans again, merely keeping one hand on the makeshift bandage. "And I'm pretty sure you're trying to convince yourself that you don't still want me. Your Ephram and your Teddy and your Iann and your dog, they can't give you the kind of fun that I do, little one."

Still smiling, Anaxis lowered its chin slightly, fixing Bellamy with a dark, desirous gaze. "None of them can bring you the delectable pain and pleasure that I can. None of them can offer you a place at their side for eternity, and oh my, isn't that the sticking point for you, Bella? The idea of living out your five hundred cogent years all alone?" It wrinkled its nose, a more Ephram gesture than an Anaxis one. "Now that Ephram's pulled out entirely from your pact to be immortal together. Thrown you over for a brainless heifer and a cunt-mouth bauble."

In part it upset her to hear Ephram while it looked like Anaxis, but it also kind of ticked her off that Ephram was actually asking her to make coffee for the beast as she had once done easily at it's pleasure. Reflection on that genuinely did make her cringe, what had she been when it had first come out other than a doting housewife. "Fine," she responded as Anaxis returned, raising a hand to open the pantry and removing some items. The smell of fresh air, not littered with edelweiss that swung open from it gave way to the pulsing in her mind Anaxis and Ephram had distracted her from. This was a lot to have sprung on her, perhaps having something for her hands to do would be good even if she felt a kind of spite towards both within the body for asking her to make it.

"Fortunately your disappointment means little to me," she responded, he'd scolded her before for not going about things the right way. Bellamy could never get how to treat him right, unlike Freddie she had no idea what Ephram needed. So perhaps being unkind to the demon and purposefully cruel was not

Folding his hands on the table, Anaxis leaned forward and peered closely at Bellamy. "You're angry with him about a whoooole supernova of things, aren't you?" In the demon's silken, airy tones was a piqued interest in this new development. "Going back on his promise to be immortal with you, not wanting to live with you, shunting you aside for these two lovers of his who fill his heart in a way you were never able to. And the two of you were supposed to have such a special bond!" Anaxis tutted with exaggerated, insincere sympathy as it accepted the cup of coffee and blew on it. "You two should really talk it out, have a heart-to-heart over milkshakes at the Choklit Shop."

The demon was enjoying itself, that was clear to see. But there was also a stifled quality to its usual air of debonair, cavalier evil; it was constrained now, leashed. And as it put the coffee mug to its lips, it was a grateful Ephram who sighed in contentment. He was cold and strung-out on weariness and nerves, and the coffee felt like it ran liquid warmth through his body. "It's true," he murmured, not looking at Bellamy. "If you're pissed at me, you're allowed to say so. It ain't like you forfeited the right to be mad at me just on account of what happened with the demon. I mean, hell -- I'd like to think we had at least a ​little​ bit of fuckin' relationship that din't have to do with Anaxis."

His voice got sharp at the end of the sentence, tart and faintly pissed off himself. Ephram finished off the cup of coffee and then Anaxis said slyly, "How about that -- the boy's got his own bone to pick, and for once it doesn't involve me!"

In all honesty Bellamy wasn't mad Ephram was with Ruby and Freddie, just ​how​ he was with them. The collective of them didn't bother her but the demon was right, they'd not only been able to get Ephram to live with them but to live with them in a mansion and that did. In a way she felt she'd been owed those things because he'd promised them to her and even though she'd screwed up he had not even cared a little about how it would hurt her. None of this she said though, instead she blew on her coffee gently and lifted her gaze to the demon. "I knew someone else in this town had to be watching Riverdale, it is sort of surprising to think a demon would be an Archie fan though."

However as she took a sip and heard the turn in tone that indicated it was Ephram she broke the glass with her teeth as she tried to close her mouth in frustration and forgot her strength. "Fuck," Bellamy let out as she boiling hot coffee spilled onto her shirt and her thighs, burning her skin and healing immediately. "God, Ephram, if you're going to make me talk to it so that they don't fucking have to at least stop interrupting to make your fucking statements," she said as she winced, the boiling liquid was still on her and until she got it off she was still feeling the burn of it on her skin. "I am mad at you but guess what, torturing you sort of makes any kind of argument I have for what I'm not getting invalid. You can say it's not but I don't exactly get to sit around and complain 'oh, poor me, Ephram won't live with me in a uselessly large house after I broke his leg and literally drank from it' so while our relationship does not entirely revolve around...," Bellamy looked at Anaxis who had taken back Ephram's formed and shook her hand at him. "Whatever it is. In this case the shit I'm mad about it kind of does involve what happened with it and it's super not cool you're making me do this in front of it." Realistically even if she hated it though it was far easier to rant and rave when the face she was looking at was not Ephram's.

"It's also rather pathetic you're acting like all of this is a surprise to you. 'Oh Ephram has a bone to pick with you that doesn't involve me,' you share a fucking mind, as if you didn't know. God, you're so fucking dull with him there. Even if I was weak enough to think anything of you now I'd be bored to tears with this Coke Zero version of you." Bellamy could feel herself wanting to shift, ever part of her body wanted her fangs to come out and her eyes to go black but fortunately the candles in the room stopped her. Walking away from him she went to get another tea towel to wipe off her thighs and shirt.

"I din't come here ​just​ so's you could handle small talk with the fuckin' demon!" Ephram's voice rose in frustration, his face twisting up a little as he maintained his grip on being at the mic, so to speak. He didn't understand Bellamy's objections but that was no surprise -- he'd often found her reasoning impenetrable when she flew into one of her rages, and now was no exception. "I mean, I'm fuckin' here too, ain't I? And I just explained to you that neither of us is in full control. You're gettin' two for the price of one whether you like it or not." He grimaced as he adjusted the tea towel pressed against the demon brand, starting to see spots of blood coming through even the thickness of the folded-up cloth.

Shutting his eyes as Bellamy went to mop up the coffee that had spilled on her, Ephram moved the towel aside and spread one hand over the ichor-leaking branded flesh. His breathing sped up as he pushed green magic against it, then gold, and by the time he was finished the brand was bleeding afresh. He pressed the towel to it again and said, "I negotiated us some alone time." The Anaxis eye was still present, but it had faded to a milky white with the blue of his iris just barely showing through. "If you wanna talk this out, Bella, then let's talk it out. You're pissed I decided against figurin' out how to be immortal and stay with you and live with you, I get it." Ephram slumped down in his chair. He was contrite when he said, "I understand how that would hurt you, honey, it ain't that I don't. But things change, y'know? I could never have predicted it would all end up like it did."

Ephram was quiet for a moment, staring into the candle flames as they flickered. "When I said I wanted immortality," he continued, "I wasn't ... there was a fair amount of fucked-in-the-head behind that statement, Bella. I still thought I could never be allowed love, or a future with partners, or a possibility of gettin' rid of the goddamn demon. And then--"

Shaking his head slightly at the serendipity of fate, Ephram finished, "And then it happened. The demon got pushed way, way down and it was ​because​ of the people I'd fallen in love with. For the first time I could see myself havin' a life, honey, a family of my own like I've wanted for my entire shitty life." He rubbed a hand over his face. "I read a billion Archie comics when I was a kid. I'm the one what likes Riverdale. And even if I cain't bring myself to be sorry that I found lovers who I wanna spend the rest of my life with, I am sorry I went back on our agreement and hurt you." He stopped there, wanting to leave well enough alone or at least gauge how Bellamy felt about this. Before he dug himself any deeper.

She didn't like it. She liked to think she understood it but it was a self loathing understanding where she knew it was better for Ephram to be here than with the people who hadn't handled the demon even if they'd probably be doing a whole lot better at it than she was. It was impossible for her to even conceive of a way to handle this all rationally, at this point she was just trying desperately to not screw things up and yet she was. Every part of her that wanted to scream and Ephram and had been was mad at herself for actually doing it all at once. She only just got a sliver of him back and this was going to make him abandon her completely because everything she said she believed was right, she didn't deserve to be mad at him, even a little.

Bellamy threw the tea towel into the sink and turned to see the magic resonating from him and the blood. The blood calmed her partially, even if it made her hungry it made her feel terribly that all her yelling was just making things worse for him. Why couldn't she do anything right with him? Why couldn't she just do everything like she was supposed to for a few minutes? In the blink of an eyes she was on her knees in front of him, holding the tea towel against his wound and willing it to heal even if she knew that unlike him she couldn't do that. "That's not why I'm mad," she responded, staring at her own hands as they gently pushed on the fabric. "How many times did I ask you if you meant it, Ephram? I kept asking and asking and you kept telling me you were working on it and I knew you weren't and I just needed you to say so and guess what? You never did and then I come back and Ruby is going on and on about how amazing life with her husbands and complaining that when you two aren't there she's lonely with the myriad of pets you already have so she has to get a new one. Then I see you stupidly massive house and even hypothetical you didn't want that with me but it wasn't that you didn't want a massive house, it was that you didn't want me and saying you didn't want a stupid building was just your way of avoiding telling me you never wanted me," Bellamy said, her eyes filling up with a mixture of blackened goo and tears that come out a sheer gray colour as the tears streamed down her face.

Bellamy pulled a hand away and wiped the goo from her nose, sobbing harder as he continued. "So I was your back up plan when you thought no one would love you?" she asked him, pulling her other hand away now to press against her chest so she wouldn't begin to sob. "God, you're saying all of this is exactly what I didn't want. How do you think telling me all of that would make me feel better, Ephram? You basically just said I was nothing to you, that you didn't find family until you found them. Well fuck you, I thought we were family, I thought we were more than family and I was never mad you found them, I know they're better than me and that Freddie is everything you deserve and even Ruby despite the fact she's destructive to the both of you but it's one thing to say I screwed things up with everything I did and another to completely invalidate everything I thought was between us, especially when I tried to end it, I tried to do what was right when I came back and told you we were bad for one another and you insisted that was awful of me. Was this what you wanted, Ephram? To make me have the smallest amount of hope to finally point out that no, I was only ever just someone to waste time with until you fixed things in yourself." By this point she wanted Anaxis back, not because she intended anything with him but at least she could tell him to fuck off and not worry so much about it affecting her. Shaking her head Bella inhaled snot and goo that came from her tears and looked down at her hands with her finger tips touched with his blood. Maybe blood was all she had in the end, no one intended to be with her and no one ever had.

"Bella," Ephram said. Then he slid off his chair to the ground with her, pressing his hands against her thighs and feeling the familiar softness of the flesh there. "Oh, honey -- that ain't what I meant at all. I'm sayin' it all wrong if that's what you got out of it. Although I mean, Jesus, you coulda brought up some of this with me before it got to this point, y'know? Save us both the agony."

He didn't move to pull the little vampire against him, although that was his first instinct; he wanted them to talk it out even just a little bit before they let physical closeness erase everything else, as it so often did with them. Or at least it used to. Ephram wasn't sure about that now, wasn't too sure of anything when it came to Bellamy right now.

"Listen," he said, "I meant it when I said it. I was looking into it, I was planning on it, I even fuckin' told Ruby that was my plan! I was all in, Bellamy. You're my best friend. Why would I not wanna spend centuries with you? I meant it. But then things changed." Ephram's fingers pressed and kneaded against Bellamy's thighs, hoping she'd understand even a little. "I never lied to you about it. And you weren't never a backup plan, girl. You think I woulda stuck by you through all the goddamn shit we went through just so's I could have a fallback plan? What kind of psychopath would do that kind of thing?"

Scowling, Ephram moved his hands, leaning back at the hips. "You never trust me, is the thing. You got all these lil checkpoints in your head that folks gotta meet, but nobody ever goddamn knows what they are and so we fail you every single time. Because I din't follow what ​you​ thought was the way to go about it, it instantly means I never cared about you and you were nothin' to me and I lied to you. I mean fuck, what the hell would I have to fuckin' do to make you believe I love you and I wanna be around you? Would I have to forgive you even if you put me through unspeakable torture, would that do? Because guess what, Bella, I already did that one!"

Ephram was worked up by this point and starting to shake again, from his tightly-wound nerves and the blood loss both. "I never wanted a massive house! That one's only temporary till I build my own, Freddie rented it for us! Christ, you jump to so many conclusions it's a wonder you ain't grown frog legs yet." He paused to roll up the tea towel and press it against the brand again. "I thought -- I thought all this time we was fixin' ourselves and each other, is what I thought. The fact that you can turn around and tell me I wasn't committed enough and that I never thought of you as more'n family when you know damn well that ain't true, that I valued you like we was cut from the same cloth, that's--" Ephram stopped, shaking his head hard and starting slowly to get to his feet again. "You're the one who betrayed me and you got the fuckin' nerve to act like I played you all this time. You need to fuckin' grow up, Bellamy. You might have changed some -- and for the better, it's true -- but you still default back to these childish lil high school dramas in your head when somethin' don't go the way you wanted." He dropped heavily back into his chair, jeans having slid down some and keeping him from standing altogether.

Bellamy didn't really want him sitting close to her, part of her was ready to scream at him to leave but she worried she'd regret it because if she did ask and he did go perhaps it would be the last she saw of him and even if he didn't love her as much as she loved him she was willing to accept whatever she could get. This being the reason she never wanted to discuss any of this in the first place, Bellamy could have been happy thinking what she was and putting everything wrong with them on herself and not on him. "Actually I told Ruby, if you remember, I mentioned it thinking she'd have to know and you were mad at me for it," Bellamy pointed out, not scolding but genuinely reminding him because she needed him to see how easy it had been for him to think he had no intention of being with her in that way. "I don't think I'm the only one who let herself believe her own lies because deep down I think you knew you never actually wanted that life with me and I could feel it every time I asked you about it."

Breathing hard as he scolded her for the way she had acted in the past infuriated her. How could he accuse her of having these checkpoints when he hadn't even spoken to her since she'd returned. She had come so far and he didn't know any of that. Grinding her teeth for a moment she tried to stop herself from yelling not wanting him to hurt himself anymore than he already had from trying to keep this conversation going. "Please don't talk about things I've done like I'm doing them now," Bellamy requested quietly but unable to hold the sternness from her tone. "You said things changed when you realised you had a family and you could be loved, when you had them. I'm not jumping to conclusions. You may not have seen me as a back up plan because you didn't think there were any other options but when you got them I'd screwed things up and you clearly realised what deep down you knew, that I wasn't what you wanted, and that's fine, I really really am not mad at you for everything changing. I'm mad you weren't the one to tell me and I've just had to listen for months to how happy you all are knowing I'm not a part of making you happy. It hurt to have to just see it all happening, Ephram, and I know I can't complain about it because I put myself in that position and that's why I didn't bring it up. Maybe we should have talked about it but I don't want to be upset about any of it, I want to take it in my stride and recognise what I've done to have this happen but you have no idea how badly I wanted it." Bellamy continued to stare downwards, unable to look at Ephram's face when she knew he was getting angry with her.

"Please stop acting like I'm being irrational," she requested only to watch him stand. Immediately she stood too, hands taking his arms and pulling at him to sit again. Sure, he was agitated but the more he exerted himself the worse he was going to make the wound. "I believe at the time you thought you were but it's clear from the fact you can form a closer connection to people that you weren't. Sometimes I can think in my head 'what would thinks have been like if Freddie and Ruby and Ephram had come together after he'd already decided to remain un-aging with me' and I honestly can't imagine it because there is no part of me that thinks you ever would have gone through with it. Even if I hadn't screwed up. I don't even want to keep talking about it, I am not mad at that. I just wish you'd told me and that I didn't have to watch it get thrown in my face and I don't think that being upset about those things is childish and even if it is I don't care. I'm not perfect, I won't ever be perfect and the idea I should be completely and perfectly evolved in a few months in irrational. I overcame it, the thing inside you that I thought could give me what I wanted and more, maybe I'm childish but I refuse to diminish what I have done. Now stop standing, you'll hurt yourself."

"People talkin' bout their own lives ain't throwin' it in your face," Ephram groused, but he was fast running out of any desire to argue. "And you're right, you're the one what told Ruby, I forgot that. My mistake." He breathed out long and hard, setting his hand against the tabletop. "I don't know what you want," Ephram confessed simply. "I don't know when's the right time to tell you things, I dunno what the things are that you wanna hear about, I just don't know what's gonna set you off and what you'll think is okay. And I sure as hell don't know what way you interpret the things I say and what I do."

Ephram spread his arm out, leaning the side of his head against his bicep. "You want me to not talk bout things you done," he said, "but you drag up all these things that I done like they's relevant now. And you ​are​ jumpin' to conclusions. I never deep down inside knew that you weren't what I wanted, what is that. Why the fuck would I be so self-deluded." It was upsetting on an intellectual level that Bellamy saw him as such a fickle, disloyal creature, but emotionally Ephram couldn't put any energy into it. She would always go ahead and think whatever the hell she wanted to and then justify it with a bunch of nonsense talk about how it was 'her truth' or something equally mis-applied. And at the moment Ephram didn't have the fortitude to care.

"I would love to have the extra time," he snuffled quietly against his arm. "I don't wanna leave Freddie all alone, after time and old age take Ruby and me along. I wanna stay with him till the end. But more than that, Bella...." Ephram's voice dipped lower, scratchy and etched with an enduring despair. "I want to lay down and rest. I been carryin' this burden so long, so long ... I'm wrung out already, girl, and I ain't even forty years old for five years yet. I'm bone-tired. I'm soul-tired. I love my life and the folks in it but Jesus, some days the only thing I want is to be gone from this world and all the suffering what's been my lot to bear."

Bella disagreed, she didn't think Ruby had ever intended to hurt her when she said the things she did but most people seemed like they had enough common sense not to flaunt all they had in front of someone who desperately wanted it. In the end whether or not she had been smart about it none of that mattered because it hurt her and if something was hurting her she didn't think she needed to expose herself to it until she knew she could handle it and clearly she could not. "I can't do anything about you feeling that way without you giving me a chance and I would request you not say this is a chance because a demon springing things on me is not a chance," Bellamy responded. Like Iann, he was clearly not confident with saying things to her about his life in general and while she did understand they weren't in a place for him to say things to her it all got swept under the rug fairly quickly.

"I'm fine with you bringing up things I've done but not if you intend to act as though I'm doing them now," Bella responded, shaking her head gently. At least he had sat down but it didn't feel good. Asking him to leave was still her most immediate thought. Maybe it was her body trying to protect itself when it was already weak or maybe she had been lying to herself about being able to handle all this and was only realising now that she couldn't. What if she had been so focused on dealing with Anaxis so she could have Ephram back she didn't realise whether or not she was healthy enough to deal with him. "I was," she whispered as he acted as though lying to ones self about anything was so impossible. To Bellamy this had been her way of coping and was not so silly, it was a challenge she still dealt with constantly. If he was saying now that's not how he felt then she genuinely didn't understand. If she was family and if she mattered and was loved then how did he suddenly think he had family and found love with them for the first time? To her it just wasn't making sense and clearly he wasn't taking in what she said to mean anything but childish complaints.

As he continued, a more sombre tone to his voice Bellamy just sighed, he felt bad leaving Freddie and he felt bad Ruby would die and he cared about the people in his life now. She didn't understand how he could leave her out of his words and not see why it would hurt. Whenever she thought of the most important people in her life two names appeared before all others and the idea of leaving them out when she thought of the sadness the rest of her life would bring seemed impossible. "Then go sleep, Ephram. Take my bed or take Isaiah's downstairs. Rest. I'm just upsetting you and would rather not."

When Bellamy told him to go sleep in her bed or -- fucking hell -- Isaiah's, Ephram didn't know what to say. He couldn't tell whether or not Bellamy had understood what he'd meant and chose to ignore it, or if she really didn't pick up on the fact that he had many, many days when he wished he could sleep eternally under the cold, quiet earth. She just looked hurt and upset and spoke about how Anaxis had been sprung on her by surprise, and that Ephram wasn't giving her a chance (that part made no sense to him; hadn't he always given her chances? Over and over again?) and sighing deeply because Ephram had once again managed to not meet one of her expectations.

"You want me to not expect you to be perfect but you hold me to these impossible standards," Ephram said. He peeled the now sodden tea towel from his tender, raw hip and set it gingerly on the top of his empty coffee mug so it wouldn't stain the table. Standing up, he did up his jeans again and said, "I won't stay. I'm sorry I brought this trouble to your doorstep when you wasn't ready for it. And I'm sorry I ain't been able to be as good a friend to you as I should. I ain't mad neither, but I don't wanna hurt you no more and it's clear that's all I'm doing. You take care, Bella."

With that he headed for the front door, doing his best not to limp and look pathetic along the way. His eye had clouded back over with white entirely, again.

Bellamy had not understood and mostly she ended up with her gaze focused on all of that blood that had soaked through the towel. She had made the wound worse by complaining about the demon's presence, if he hadn't stopped him from taking control then yes, things would have been awkward, but he wouldn't be bleeding so much. "I'm not meaning to," she insisted. All she wanted was to go back to how things had been before she even knew of Anaxis because it would have been a million times easier for them to merely play their cat and mouse sort of games mixed in with their heartbreaks unrelated to her illness or his. "Really I'm not," she insisted. "It's just hard, I don't know where you are anymore and I have no idea how you got there and none of what you're saying makes sense to me because it just feels like I've been forgotten in it all."

As he announced he was leaving there was that mixture of relief and fear. Relief because it certainly would be easier if he left, no more yelling and trying to cope with attempting to be a good person and failing throughout the whole thing and fear because with how badly she'd done it was likely she'd never hear from him again. In her knee jerk reaction she stopped him, wrapping her slender arms around his middle and burying her face in his chest. "Please don't," she begged, unaware of Anaxis' soon to be arriving presence. She could feel his blood and knew he probably did actually need to lie down but there was no way she'd get him to do it right away. "You came here for a reason and maybe I don't totally understand it because I don't totally understand you completely anymore but I want to, please. I know I'm meant to say I'm doing all of this for me to be a better person, and I am, but I don't know if I can handle completely losing you over something so stupid so please, please stay." Bellamy's blood fingers pressed hard into his back but not enough to hurt him - she hoped. "I love you ten times more than I could ever be mad at you, Ephram."

"Get this idiot to bed before he bleeds out on your kitchen floor," Anaxis snapped. "I'll give that fairy slut one thing -- he told our boy to stop being self-destructive, and like the pussywhipped fool he is, he's obeyed. Which sucks for me, since I'm used to, well ... keeping him on his toes, so to speak. Random jolts of self-inflicted pain are so motivating, don't you think, Bella?"

Ephram mumbled something, but he couldn't form the words right, marble-mouthed and slow. When he tried again it was more coherent: "We's both in different places, honey," he said. "I dunno how to be with you anymore'n you know how to be with me. I never forgot you, not when cutting off ties with you was so fuckin' hard to do, left a goddamn hole in me, Bellamy. But now you ain't the same shape as you was, and it's gonna take some time to git you re-fitted." He stroked her back rhythmically, the motion soothing him as well. "We gotta be patient with each other. Backtrack some when we need to. We ain't the same but we can be better."

He'd been flooded with relief and gratification when Bellamy had embraced him, because Ephram didn't want to leave in that way either. With sour tastes in their mouths and both feeling like failures where once things had always clicked into place. Now that she was smooshed against him, Ephram didn't want to move away and break that contact. "I really do need a bed though, honey, I'm like to pass out any minute now."

It would have been easy to break contact when Anaxis spoke but it was actually a kind of relief to think Ephram was not fighting it. For now Anaxis clearly couldn't do too much harm and if it was worse for Ephram to attempt to push it back then she would deal with it being around her as best she could, even if it unnerved her to think the demon would be in her bed once more. There was certainly no part of her since she had burnt the belongings that had connected her and it that had imagined he would be. "No," she lied to the demon. If Ephram asked her later she could tell him but there was no point now in agreeing, Bella's own self-destructive habits were keeping her as sane as she could. Without her closet crying fits and her often harmful acts to others and herself she would be in a far worse state than she was.

"I don't want to back track," she admitted, not trying to say she wouldn't but just being honest. Maybe they didn't fit the way they had and that would take time but it worried her enough to imagine him leaving her apartment just to go home so thinking about spending even less time together in any way shape or form was not something she wanted to get on board with. Her instinct was to just be together until it worked again, however irrational that was. Still there was no point discussing any of that now when he was so weak, so Bellamy simply pulled away enough to help him move. "Let's sleep," she said, pressing a kiss to his chest. Bellamy wouldn't sleep though, she would remain awake, watching his wounds and placing towels and oils on it whenever he seemed in a heavy enough sleep that the movement wouldn't wake him. Hopefully things would not be so painful for him in the morning.