#don't even get me started on when we get to see that flashback from crooked kingdom

[fulltimeviking]

Every now and again i end up reminding myself that probably not this season, but at some later point we are going to actually see Inej's backstory, and despite the fact it won't happen for a while it always hits me like a ton of bricks when i remember because i'll absolutely never be ready

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Call Mom

CW: PTSD/flashbacks, BBU in general, haunted, ghosts, reference to a murder, severe chronic panic

Jameson's Masterlist (scroll down)

-

Aw, crap. Hey, Johnny, do you remember where I put that girl's number? Like, Katie, or Caitlyn, or... do you remember? Hey! Johnny! Put down the fucking xbox controller for two fucking minutes and give me a hand, won't you?

Fingers snap right in front of his face.

Johnny!

Jameson jerks in a breath that sounds like a whine, sitting straight up. The fan blows cool air over his sweat-soaked skin and he shivers, cold inside and out. The air in his room is freezing, suddenly. Outside it's so dark you can't even see the trees - the power outage must still be going, there aren't any streetlights. Thanks to the clouds, no stars or moon, either.

Just darkness.

Wait, if the electricity's out...

He looks up. The ceiling fan is perfectly still above his head, even while ice-cold air keeps goosebumps rising on his arms, the hair standing up at the back of his neck.

See, was that so hard? It'll take like five minutes if we work together, I swear.

"Nat?" He mumbles. "S'at... you?"

Checked there already, actually. Checked the fridge, too, so where the hell did I put it?

He's the only person in this room.

Jameson goes from still half-asleep to fully, painfully awake and aware in a single breath.

The voice comes as clear as if it was right next to him, a voice as familiar as his own - but he has no idea whose it is. There's no one here but him - even Trash Cat isn't here any longer, probably hunting a tiny piece of plastic downstairs that he'll end up stepping on in the morning. So far she hasn't eaten any of them. He doesn't even know where she's finding them.

Johnny, come on. Let's, like, retrace our steps.

His head starts to ache more with every single word, the pain working like tendrils behind his eyes, a pressure trying to crush his skull from the inside. Something flashes, bright and almost like a spectrum of rainbow colors, in the corner of his right eye, but it won't resolve when he turns his head.

I got home from work, I told you we had a hot customer who gave me her number, and then... then what?

Jameson stares into darkness so complete it feels like it has weight. Like it's sitting on the bed next to him, like the mattress dips underneath it. A body made of memory, slowly pulling together the pieces of what's been hidden. Clawing them out but leaving deep weals across the inside of his mind, like a corpse's fingers digging into loose dirt to climb out of his grave.

"Caitlyn," He whispers, as the thought crystallizes. A memory, pure and perfect. Some sliver of whatever they broke the person he was into. Some small piece of the man who signed up. "Her name was Caitlyn, not Katie. She... wrote it on the fucking paper."

Right! Okay, so, clearly I told you her name, and then what?

Jameson turns his head, and there he is.

Hank.

His breath catches in his throat.

Hank is younger than he is, even though he was older then. The older brother, trapped in time, while Jameson - Jonathan - keeps aging. The rakish smile is still there and, Christ, Jameson had forgotten that he'd done that stupid thing to his hair - you forgot everything about him, you begged them to take him away from you so that it wouldn't hurt anymore. He's still got that one crooked tooth he'd refused to get braces to fix. That crooked tooth had been in his dental records. It was how they identified his body.

The fucking crooked tooth, the silver-colored fillings, then the DNA tests...

"No," He whispers, going for a vicious hiss, but what comes out is far too close to a whimper. "No. This is-... this is a flashback. This isn't real, this isn't-"

Maybe I left it in yesterday's pants?

"This isn't real, fuck off." Jameson shoves himself off the bed, forgetting his stupid fucking legs don't work. His knees buckle as soon as they have to take his weight.

He lands wrong on one arm and the pain spikes up through his shoulder, making him cry out in the hoarse, rasping voice that his life has left him with. "Fuck!"

He rolls onto his side, but he can't stop himself.

He looks up again. He doesn't want to remember Hank but he's desperate for one more look at his face. Just the one more time.

Just once more.

Hank sighs, raking a hand back through his hair, leaving it mussed-up and sticking out, looking ridiculous. He did that all the time. Bit his nails, too, and tried everything to stop but he never did. He wore those jeans with the ripped knee all the time, their mother had hated it. Hank, wearing the t-shirt for the band they'd gotten concert tickets for but never got the chance to see. Hank, dead for years, smiles to one side at a brother who isn't there.

The brother who erased him.

"Hank," He whispers. "Hank, you gotta-... you gotta go. You're hurting me-"

Damn. Man, it wasn't in my jeans either. Well, I'll find it sooner or later, I guess. Hank shrugs. His eyes are in shadow, not quite defined. Jameson wonders if it's because he's forgotten what color his brother's eyes were, forgotten it deeply enough that even this can't pull it back.

It'll be okay, Johnny. It really will. Hank looks right at him. Jameson's breath catches in his throat. The room is so cold the air burns as he breathes. It never gets this cold in California. It can't be this cold in California. I mean it. Don't cry yourself to sleep over this.

"I cried myself to sleep... all the time, but I don't now. I'm not-... that guy." He can barely speak. He sees his breath puff out when his lips move, and Jameson slumps back. His voice cracks, it creaks like old floors. He didn't stop crying for weeks. He didn't leave his bed. He did any drug he could find trying to not think about Hank, until he realized there was only one way to make sure he never had to think about what he'd done, by letting Hank walk home alone that one night, again. He didn't want to think about that pain anymore.

They had promised him he wouldn't ever have to hurt like this again.

They lied about that, too.

Jameson makes a sound he refuses to admit is a choked-off sob. "I'm not him, Hank. I'm not Johnny... not anymore."

Hank stands, and it's impossible. He's not here. But he holds out his hand anyway, and Jameson takes it without thinking. Hank's grip is so cold it burns, but Jameson lets his dead brother pull him to his feet anyway.

He smells like earth and ice.

"I'm not him," He whispers.

Right, like that argument ever works. Hank just grins, shaking his head. The man Jameson was - the one he had begged to leave behind - is the reason Hank will look like this in his memories forever. He's the reason there isn't another Hank, only this one, locked in the memories he wanted to boil and burn out of his own head. They're still there, though. They break through.

They never stop breaking through.

He would crawl back into Robert's cage himself if it only meant he didn't have to remember that it's his fault Hank is dead.

Tears run hot down his cheeks - the only thing in him that isn't frozen is his grief, wildfire in his chest leaving nothing but ash behind. Forests after wildfires are ghosts, Hank said once, when they were both high and everything sounded fucking important.

Jameson had called him an idiot - he remembers that now. But... he also thinks Hank was right. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can, focusing. He isn't here. Hank cannot be here. "I don't remember... remember you-... I don't want to remember you! It was my choice to forget!"

Hank claps him on the shoulder. His smile goes briefly gentle and soft. Jameson can see it with his eyes closed. Whatever you say, man. Just promise me you'll call Mom sometime soon, okay?

The pain is too much. If he can't pass out soon, he might die just from having to experience it, unending, never stopping, rising higher and higher. "Mom...?"

Yeah, dumbass. Mom. Our mother? Who gave birth to us and never lets us fucking forget it? I keep trying to talk to her, but I guess my signal's bad. Hank laughs, and Jameson's whole body breaks with the sound of that familiar laughter. The way Hank could throw his head back without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, how he'd hear that laugh across a crowded room and know it was his brother's, know right where he was.

Until he didn't.

Until nobody did.

Until the cops found what was left.

Until-

Jameson jolts again, and finds himself still lying on the floor next to his bed. He's burning up, boiling hot, pouring sweat until his sleep shirt sticks to his back and his arms feel slick with it, his hair sticking to skin. A droplet trickles down the back of his neck like a fingertip, barely touching. He rips his shirt off, then his pants, throwing them as far away from himself as he can, until he's naked on the floor but it isn't enough.

He's still sweating, still breathing in harsh gasps, fighting around the strength of his racing heart to get enough air to fill his lungs. He looks frantically around, but no one's here.

The ceiling fan circles lazily overhead.

He takes in a breath, his heart pounding. It feels like it's going to grow wings and fly away, up his throat and out of his mouth. He's still crying, he realizes only now. He closes his eyes as tightly as he can and fights tears back through sheer willpower and rage, curling his hands into fists. Just like they used to be, his fingers know - muscle memory of mittens that had kept him powerless, once. Now, he does it on purpose, and he forces them to curl through the pain.

Forces down the dream.

Wills himself to forget he ever had it.

"Four... f-four things you can see," he whispers to himself, slumping back down. His voice keeps trembling, catching, and it's everything he has to open his eyes again around the pounding headache in his skull and look. "The-... moon. Out the... window. The, my dresser... for my clothes... M-My, uh, the picture Nat p-printed of me and Allyn... fuck, the... the doorknob."

Every time he thinks he knows how much of his body can hurt at once, some nerves he didn't know existed decide to join the party. He has to breathe in and out, slow and controlled, trying to will his body to cooperate. He won't walk tomorrow, he can tell already. It'll be a day to spend in bed, or using his wheelchair. It might be a week until his body lets him walk again.

He fights back a new well of rage and despair at how well he knows the next way his body will fail him. He can't think about that right now, or the pain and the panic will spiral out of control. He might hurt someone. He can't hurt anyone, not ever again.

He won't.

"Three... things I can touch," He murmurs. "My, my... my shirt, fuck, gross, sweaty... my... my hair... the floor, feels... cold, feels good... the corner of my bed..."

It helps. He makes himself focus on this, on real things, not the nightmare of his brother.

He won't remember his brother.

He won't.

"Two things I can hear. Uh, the, there's... crickets or something outside, and-... and I can hear-"

Hank's voice whispers right next to his ear.

Call Mom.

His breath hitches.

"Not real," he whispers. "One... one thing I can taste..."

All he tastes is blood, and for one horrified half a second he's sure it's Hank's blood, until he realizes he bit his tongue in his sleep.

The blood is his own.

Call Mom.

-

[wandafiction]

Touch - Just Us Chapter 42

Warnings: Mentions of Abuse, PTSD and Mentions of Surgery

Word Count: 3384

Series List | Chapter 41 | Chapter 43

================================

(Wanda PoV)

I got a message from Nat telling me to come back in, which was weird because I thought she was going to come out. I look back to where Carol, Tony, Pepper and Morgan are in the waiting room. They want to wait till Y/n has spoken to Dr Raynor to see her because they don't want her to feel pressured into speaking. We also had a nice conversation about Y/n and how we all agree she puts others before herself way too much but that is something we can all work on helping her with. Not that we don't love her for looking after us, but it hurts to see that she has the weight of the world on her shoulders and is trying to deal with everything and not let people in. Thankfully she has opened up to me a bit, which Carol informed me was great progress for Y/n especially after only knowing her for a month. 

I'm proud of that fact. 

Anyway back to our schedule programme.

I knock lightly on the door, hearing Nat's voice quietly beckon me inside I almost melt at the sight of Y/n wrapped in her arms. The flashback or episode, whatever we call it, must have taken a lot out of her. I smile lovingly at the pair as Nat plays with the end of Y/n's hair her arm wrapped around Y/n's shoulder the other over her waist, while Y/n's head rests in the crook of Nat's neck. Its quite a funny sight to see because Y/n is over a foot taller than Nat, yet here she is being the little spoon for once: which makes the reality of the situation hit hard realising how small she looks with her body curled in on itself. My poor baby. 

"How was it?" I perch myself on the edge of the bed as I drag my finger up and down Y/n's calf.

"It was good. She opened up quite a bit to me, more than I thought she might." Nat turns her head to look at Y/n a small frown forming on her face as she looks back at me. "I don't like that Steph woman." 

"You and me both Nat." I join Nat in frowning as I think of her and what she has put Y/n through. "What did she tell you about her ?" 

"Just that she would hit her, she didn't say it was abuse but I sort of gathered from her none answer to my questioning. She also mentioned how it started of great with Steph but soon turned into something else." I could cry at the idea of someone hurting Y/n like that, she is so sweet and caring. To use that against her when she was in such a bad place is fucking abysmal. If I ever see her I don't know what I will do, but it most definitely won't be pleasant.

"Anything else?" Y/n shuffles in her sleep her brows furrow slightly making my worry spike.

"No nothing else." Nat turns to see what I'm looking at her face morphing to worry as Y/n starts moving about more, and Nat loosens her grip on Y/n so not to hurt her but her arms still in place just in case. 

"Y/n baby?" A small whimper leaves her mouth her brows almost touching in the middle as Nat starts to stroke around her face trying to get some reaction from her.

"Y/n, I need to wake up." Y/n's body jerks slightly mine and Nats worry growing. 

A few seconds later Y/n's body jolts from Nat's arms, both of us too slow to react as Y/n falls off the bed onto the hard cold floor but it doesn't seem to faze her. Her eyes are tightly shut as her hands scratch at the back of her shirt trying to pull it over her head. Without another moments hesitation I jump from my spot, slowly making my way over to her as to not scare her by accident. She hunches her body over as she finally grips onto her top pulling it over her head and throwing it on the floor, her hands moving up and down her back and then to her front. I hear Nat gasp and realise she has never seen Y/n's scars before, well I guess this is one way to find out about them. 

"Y/n can you hear me." I ever so slowly bend down in front of her making sure all my movements can be seen by her, even though her eyes are shut. "Baby?"

I see her nod, that's a good sign. That's better than what we were getting at Tony's office. I place my knees on the floor so I am matching her slouched height her arms still roaming her body.

"Baby can I hold you?" I hear a small whimper as her hand touches the scar by her ribs. "Y/n, I know it's hard to hear me and concentrate but I can't do anything without an answer." 

"Please." Her tears are a starting to fall to the floor and it's taking everything in me not to cry, it is not what she needs right now. "Please touch my scars I need to know nothing else is there." 

"Okay. Im going to do your back first. Is that okay?" I want to make sure she knows my every move so I don't cause a trauma related reaction. 

"Mhmm." It's all I need to place one hand at the bottom of her neck, where the scar starts before tracing the scar ever so slowly with my fingers putting pressure on it so she can feel my hand. I make it halfway down her back when her had shoots up to hold my wrist, my movements immediately stop but she simply pushes my hand into her more. As I look at my hand and the scar below it I realise it's not just one scar here but maybe two or three. I've never noticed it before because it looked more like a skin blemish or something. It's just a few inches to the right of her spine so I use my other hand to put pressure on that one and her hold on my wrist instantly relaxes. 

I look up to Nat with tears in my eyes, but when I feel Y/n's hand let go of mine I continue my journey down her spine, now noticing more and more scars as we go. I've never actually taken the time to look at them, take them in.

I mean that and she is pretty much always on top so I don't get to look at her back. Not the time Wanda! I know, sorry.

When I make it to the bottom of her spine her body relaxes a lot, her arms wrapping around herself like she is trying to protect herself from something. She leans upwards, her eyes fluttering open for a second before closing again, but not as tightly as they were. She opens her mouth to say something but all that comes out is a croak, so instead she pats the ground behind her. Instantly I get the message, but I keep my movements slow and steady. Once I am behind her I move my legs from under me so they are either side of her my ass on the cold hard flood but I don't care at this point. I look up to Nat.

"Go get Dr Raynor she is in the waiting room with the others." I ask Nat, hoping she will understand that Y/n may not fully let go until she is outside. I feel horrible to have to kick Nat out but I also feel like Y/n won't release her emotions if someone else is here. Hopefully she trusts me enough to let go in front of me, because I don't want her doing this alone. 

"OK, I will be back in a minute." Nat gives me a simple nod before slowly making her way off the bed and out of the room.

Once she has gone Y/n pushes her body back into me making me gasps at the sudden movement, not expecting her to react so quickly to a change in the environment around her. Her back is pressed hard against my front, her head on my chest as most of her body is laying on the floor. She grabs my hands pulling them around her body, pulling my right hand down to the round jagged scar just below her right ribcage. I move my hand slightly putting light pressure onto it, the movement of my hand against the sensitive scarred skin causing a few goosebumps to arise but Y/n seems to completely relax in my hold. Her hands rest against mine as she pushes her fingers in between mine, her finger tips resting in my palm while her palms are on the top of my hands. 

"I've got you dorogoy. You're safe." I rest my lips and chin against the top of her head as I speak into her hair practically.

It takes a few more minutes for her body to stop shaking with emotion, her eyes becoming dry but remain red raw while her cheeks are tear stained. It breaks my heart to see her like this, but I'm glad that I can do something to at least help ease her out of it: even if it's as simple as drawing random shapes or words of affirmation she has me. Her eyes are still shut and have been since she fell off the bed. Oh shit, yeah, she fell of the bed.

"Dorogoy you didn't hurt yourself did you? That's quite the fall you took?" Her eyes flutter open at my question, her head tilting backwards so she can look up at me and I smile at the sight of her and those extraordinary eyes. She shakes her head lightly at me as a small smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

"No, maybe a sore butt. However, nothing else seems to be hurt or broken which is good. I didn't end up with a black eye this time." She huffs out a laugh as I lean down to give her a kiss. 

"That's good then. Dr Raynor and Nat should be up here any second. Do you need help getting back into bed at all?" 

"I will be okay, could you just pass me my top please." Her eyebrows furrow once more, I hate that look on her face it makes me pout. "Sorry, just, did I take this off in front of Nat?"

"You did yeah. But she won't ask questions unless you want her too." I have a question of my own but don't know if now is the right time to ask so instead I ask something else. "Why did you need me to touch your scars?" 

"I had a dream, or I guess you could class it as a flashback. I was back with Sarah and my daughter, then I was in hospital hooked up to wires. It was like an outer body experience while I was in the hospital, I couldn't feel what they were doing to me but I was outside my body watching in. I saw myself on the operating table with my spine being operated on. When I woke up in a daze, I needed to make sure it wasn't real. Trick my brain back to reality."

"So the pressure of my hand on your scars, allowed you to realise that's all that is there and that you definitely weren't on the operating table." 

"Yeah." Y/n pushes herself up from the floor, me following closely behind to make sure she doesn't stumble. She climbs back on the bed tucking her feet under the covers, patting the small space next to her as she leans against the back of the bed. I beam at her and move to sit next to her, I move my legs under the covers but rest them on top of Y/n's. She puts her top back on, then lifts her arm up so I can lean against her as she wraps it around me pulling close. We relish in the moment as the room is engulfed in a comfortable silence, just our soft breathing can be heard. 

There is a small knock at the door, and through the small pane of glass I can see Nat and another woman who I can only assume is Dr Raynor. Y/n waves them in, trying to keep the room quiet for as long as she possibly can. Nat notices the silence so makes her way to one of the seats by Y/n's side of the bed giving both of us a small smile before we all turn to look at Dr Raynor. She smiles at Y/n but turns to me holding out her hand.

"Hi, you must be Miss Maximoff? I'm Dr Raynor, but I go by Christina." I happily lean forward shaking her hand in mine.

"Yes that's me, Wanda is fine please." She gives me a polite nod, turning back to Y/n.

"So Y/n I heard you had a bit of a hiccup today?" Y/n shuffles to sit up straighter dragging me with her slightly so I can remain happily leaning against her.

"I had two actually." Her voice comes across more confident than I expected it to, and I have to hide the proud smile that wants to break out on my face, because smiling right now? Probably not the best timing.

"It's good that you can admit that. Did it happen just now?" Christina keeps going even though me and Nat are still present and I'm not sure how I feel about it, shouldn't this be something between the two of them. 

"I had another flashback, fell off the bed, ripped my shirt off. Sorry about that Natasha. Uh, Nat. Then Wanda helped to ground me. Now I'm here, comfortable and calm." Y/n says it so naturally it's like it's rehearsed, maybe it is to a point. 

"What was the flashback?" I see Nat shuffle slightly in her seat, and Christina seems to notice because she changes her question. "Do you want your friends to be in the room for this session?" 

"Yes." The word rolled off her tongue effortlessly, making me smile up at her leaving a small peck on her jaw. 

"What do they know?" 

"Not enough." I lean my head back to look at her face, disappointment written all over hers.

"Why not?" 

"Didn't get around to telling them." 

"Y/n." Dr Raynor's voice is stern, and it sort of reminds me she is just that Dr Raynor. None of this Christina bullshit, she is Y/n's doctor not a friend. If she wants to be addressed by her first name, that's fine but not from me. 

"I don't know." Y/n's voice almost sounds like a child who is being scolded by her parents.

"Y/n." That's all it takes for Y/n to snap.

"I'm scared okay!" She sucks in a breath at her words as she looks between me and Nat, a pleading look in her eyes. 

"So I will ask you again, do you want your friends here for this session?" 

"Yes." Dr Raynor smiles and nods, bringing the spare chair from the corner of the room to a few feet in front of the bed. We can still see her easily but I guess we only really need to hear her anyway.

"Why?" Is the first thing Dr Raynor asks after situating herself on the chair.

"Why what?" Y/n tries to hide her irritation in her voice, but it can clearly be heard.

"Why do you want your friends in this room?" 

"Firstly, let me correct your statement. Wanda is my girlfriend, Natasha is my friend. So that means your question should be 'Why do you want your people in this room?'" I rest my hand on Y/n's thigh giving it a small squeeze, so she brings her free hand down to hold it and I can see Nat smiling at Y/n's words.

"Okay so why do you want your people in this room?"  

"Because they need to know." 

"But why can't you tell them later?" I get that Dr Raynor is a very skilled and highly recommended therapist but my God do I want to bang my head against the wall with all these questions, I would lose my patience at her and shout. But this isn't about me, so I can't. 

"Because I won't have the strength to tell the story twice so close together." Me and Nat turn to look at her, and she bows her head at the admission. 

"Ladies, you seem to have questions. Go ahead." Dr Raynor opens up the floor to us while Y/n seems to be collecting her thoughts.

"What story are you making her tell?" Nat is the first of us to speak.

"Y/n is going to recollect the day of the accident from start to finish. We have been working on training her brain on desensitisation. So when she has a reaction to something she can normally gain control back easily and ground herself. Today caused a lot of past trauma to resurface so when she tried grounding herself the copying mechanism didn't work because her brain completely shut down on her. So by making her tell the story it's like kick-starting her brain, because we will use her coping mechanisms throughout the story." Dr Raynor explains it in a way that we can understand and so we know everything that is about to happen.

"When you say past trauma, do you mean just the accident or do you mean her ?" It's the first question to pop into my mind after the explanation.

"If by her you mean Steph. Then yes, the way Y/n's brain and body react to things is due to the trauma which was not only caused by the accident but by Steph as well. Now I will not go into detail but it wasn't great for Y/n's PTSD for obvious reasons. So even though this may feel like a massive step back in progress I can assure it's not. It's the first time in a long time since we have had one of these episodes, and after being in zero contact with Steph for over 7 Months it has helped a lot. Anymore questions before we continue?" 

"Just one." Dr Raynor looks at me motioning for me to continue. "Is there anything more we can do to help make sure we don't trigger, I don't know if that's the right word. But to stop us from doing something that can trigger a trauma response? Or some way that I can help her during an episode as she called it, where I don't have to ask if I can touch her because she doesn't always hear it when I ask." 

"The word is trigger. Y/n doesn't have many but she has a few. We can discuss after she tells the story and I can give you some information on how to teach Y/n's body how not to react to yours so you don't always have to be so careful with your touch. It will also allow her subconscious to recognise your touch and should help ground her more. It can take a while, and at times be frustrating when you feel like it isn't working. But we can work on it if that is what you both want?" 

I turn to look at Y/n, wanting her to make the decision whatever she is comfortable with doing even if that means not doing it. She looks up at Dr Raynor then to Nat then to me a smile playing on her lips.

"It's what I want. I want Wanda and Natasha to be able to help me." Dr Raynor notes something down in her notepad before facing the three of us.

"Let's get started."

================================

[vioartemis]

Too far

(Amber Freeman x Ghostface! fem! reader)

Summary: After Amber and you were forced to become the new Ghostface, you realize your happy end just slipped through your fingers as you snap at her Request are here (with more details here and here) and here :)) a/n: it's quite short I'm sorry, got stuck at the end not really knowing what to do... Warnings: Ghostface stuff (violence, blood, injuries, etc), angst, no happy end (English isn't my first language, I'm sorry if there are mistakes or if something doesn't make sense TvT)

"Let me get this straight. You met a guy on reddit, started talking because you agreed Stab 8 was shit, and now he wants to start a new killing spree and frame Tara's sister for the murders?" you asked your girlfriend as calmy as possible

"And if I don't help him, he said he would kill you..." she added, looking down with tears in her eyes "I'm so sorry Y/n..."

She looked miserable. You never saw her like that. It was not her type to cry or let others step on her. You were her only weakness. She would do everything in her power to make sur you were safe.

You were the only reason she accepted to become the new Ghostface. To keep you safe. But that meant that she was in danger now. Because the bad guys never win.

She was acting weird lately, you knew something was off. But you wouldn't have imagined something like that. The thought of your girlfriend killing people - even if it was to protect you - made you sick.

"Hey, it's okay" you pulled her in for a hug "Telling me about it was the right thing to do. We're going to figure that out together, okay?"

Amber wrapped her arms around you and held you close, burying her face in the crook of your neck and apologizing all over again. She knew she fucked up and felt guilty about it.

"I'm so sorry..." she repeated "You're probably wishing you never had met me..."

"Of course not my love... I would never wish for that... You're the best thing that happened in my life..." you kissed her to wipe her worries away "Listen, here's what we're going to do... tell him we will help him"

"We? Wait no Y/n- I don't want yo to get hurt. That's too dangerous you can't- I don't want you to become a criminal because of me..."

"Amber, my love. It will be fine, I won't expose myself. I'll help you with the technical issues"

I was, in fact, not going to be fine. Taking care of 'technical issues' wasn't enough for Richie. He would force you to kill, threatening you to hurt your girlfriend and you if you didn't.

<><><><> ♡ <><><><>

That was it. Everyone was dead, including Richie. It was finally over. You were alone with Amber, in her house, both covered in blood.

You should be happy that it was over, but you couldn't take your eyes away from your friend's body. Tara's body. You felt like she was looking at you, her dark brown eyes wide opened in shock. Dead. Because of you.

You had flashbacks of Wes, how afraid he looked when you sunk your blade in his throat. How he begged you to let him live. How he would never know his mom was dead too.

You thought you would throw up immediately. It was a pure torture. Seeing him looking at you like that, terrified, crying for help. Every time you closed your eyes you could see him. Dead. In front of you.

How Judy died thinking her son was dead because she wasn't here in time. How she sounded when you called her. The panic in her voice, how it was shaking when you told her you gutted Wes. How you stomach twisted uncomfortably at the lie you told her.

How all your friends looked at you after the 'big reveal'. After you betrayed them all. How Tara begged you to untie her after Amber locked her in her closet. How she still had hope that you might change your mind and help her.

How she looked at you when you aimed at her with the gun, tears in her eyes, pleading you to stop. To spare her. How her eyes got wide when you told her you couldn't, voice shaking, tears rolling down your cheeks.

How the realization hit her. Her lips were trembling, she couldn't look at you anymore. She knew she was going to die of your hands before you even pulled the trigger.

And Sam's desperate scream after you shot her sister before her eyes... How it broke your heart to see her like that, knowing she couldn't protect the one she loved the most.

Protect the one she loved the most... That was what got you in this situation in the first place. You never wanted that. You never thought it would go like that. It was not supposed to go like that.

Amber and you were supposed to give Richie to the police with evidence. But she got scared. She thought you would've had problems too, being his accomplices, even if he forced you.

She told you it would be better to find another solution. Frame him for all the murders, not reveal yourselves with him. You trusted her. But her plan didn't work out.

None of this shit plan worked out.

She swore you wouldn't get hurt. She swore she made him promise nothing would happen to you.

But he stabbed you. Three times. And Gale shot you in the leg. And Sidney smashed a bottle in your face, leaving you with a deep cut on the left side of your face, going through your eye. You would probably never see with this eye again.

You had no idea how you were still conscious. You were so tired. The only thing you wanted to do was lay down and close your eyes.

Too caught up in your thoughts, you didn't hear Amber come up to you, until she entered your field of vision.

"Are you okay...?"

"Am I okay...? Am I okay...? Of course I'm not okay!"

You flinched when she tried to put her hand on your arm and took a step back.

"Don't touch me."

Now it was her turn to flinch at the tone of your voice.

"All of this-" you gestured toward the corpses around you, including your own wounds "-it's your fault. All. Of. This."

"Y... you don't mean it, right...?"

"Oh yes I mean it. Everything is your fault, Amber. If you never talked to him-"

"But you know he forced me...!" the way her voice broke should have told you to stop here. But you didn't.

"-if you stuck to the plan we wouldn't be here! You swore I wouldn't get hurt. You swore I wouldn't have to kill anyone! And look where we are! I killed my friends! For you! Because I got caught up in this stupid shit! Because of you!"

Your voice became more and more louder as your rage built up.

"I got stabbed three fucking times! And I will probably never see properly again! All that for what? For what huh? Tell me for what I did all this shit?!" you were yelling now, tears and blood blurring your vision "For you! Because I didn't want to let you alone! Because I thought we would get out of this before it got out of control! Because we had a fucking plan! A plan that you fucked up because you were too scared we would have had minor problems!"

"Baby... please stop..." She was crying now. Each one of your words felt like a stab wound directly in her heart "I- I love you so much I..."

"Well I fucking hate you!" you huffed, lips curling up into a smile - not a joyful one. "I don't even know why I stayed after you told me! I should have run away when I could. I should have listened to them. The others. Everyone. They warned me before we got together. They told me you were no good for me. But I didn't listen. I thought they were wrong about you. Turns out they were fucking right."

"Y/n..."

"You fucking ruined my life! I wish I never had met you."

Your tirade over, you took a moment to breathe, heart beating fast in your chest. You stumbled, and sat on the stairs, not giving her a single look. She didn't dare to look at you either.

She felt so empty, like you ripped her heart out of her chest and stabbed it, stepped on it, ran over it with a semi-trailer. She let herself fall to the ground, back against a wall. You waited for the ambulances and the police in this heavy silence.

When they took you to one of the cars, you were crying. Not even faking it. Real tears.

You didn't mean half of what you said to her. Even if you were angry - terribly angry - you could never hate her. You probably should, given what just happened. A part of you did hate her. But the other one was still desperately in love with her.

Maybe you went too far. Like this shitty situation. And exactly like it, it's too late to go back now. Even if you wanted to.

But you had to. It was the best thing you could do. For her.

It would be easier to go if she hated you. Easier for her to make a fresh start after. But god did it hurt... Telling her all this shit, knowing it would break her...

You lost too much blood, you knew it. It was a miracle you were still alive. You fought so hard to stay conscious during the last thirty minutes... but now you could let go.

The way Richie twisted the knife in your stomach probably damaged important organs, and the bullet in your thigh and the cut on your face didn't help. You had glass in your eye. Taking it out would probably kill you.

But it was okay. She was okay - physically at least. You were going to die, but she would be fine. There was no doubt she hated you right now. You hoped she did.

"It was the right thing to do, right...?" you whispered in the oxygen mask, as you felt yourself getting weaker

You felt tears rolling on your face. Your throat hurt. Your heart was in pieces. You regretted telling her all this shit. You just wanted to hold her before going. Just once.

"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it... I love you so much..." you murmured

As you started to slowly lose consciousness, your moments together flashed before your eyes; the first time you saw her, your first date, first kiss, her smile, her laugh, her sometimes questionable humor... her soft lips on yours, her hands slipping under your shirt, cold fingers caressing your skin...

She loved kissing you like that. You did too. You wished you could kiss like that one more time.

You wished things ended up differently.

She really was the best thing that happened to you. You wished you would have the chance to meet her again in your next life.

[galacticwildfire]

found.

Twenty Three

Pairing: Kenobi!oc x Din Djarin

Summary: Satine and Obi-wan’s daughter fought in the war against the Empire and lost her faith when she lost Mandalore. Until she found him. A lone Mandalorian searching for a Jedi.

Warnings: TW for torture, severe ptsd, mention of past miscarriage and intimate violence in the flashback. This one gets pretty dark in places and will for the next few chapters. But there is fluff and some smut amongst the angst.

Word Count: 7.8k

A/N: okay this was originally 10k words so I cut it off at the start of the interaction which means next chapter is going to be the definition of female rage and is already half written. My apologies for making everyone wait so long but it is back and next chapter will follow soon where shit will truly hit the fan.

ALSO I have gone back and rewritten from chapter 20 onwards, everything is the same but just fleshed out with more smut so enjoy

~

~

~

I was heaving on the floor of the cell on Cloud City, blood surrounding me, screaming into oblivion as if the pain in my heart was enough to kill me, to spare me. Screaming in rage in the slightest chance he could hear me. My bloodstained hand hovered over the burning brand on my ribs, heat pulsing from it but my mind, it was my mind Vader had picked apart.

Desperately I threw myself against the door of the cell as if I could break it down, as if my pain alone could give me the strength of Vader but I was no Skywalker. I was a broken girl with a planet of glass for a home and no one to protect me. 

In my fit of madness it felt as if the world was ending and with each slam of my body against the metal I heard the bombs dropping over Mandalore, felt them shake the ground beneath me and waited for the burning world to collapse down upon me and this time finally end me so I could die with my people. 

After what could have been minutes or hours I finally heard the door's seal break from the outside and raised a bruised and broken hand, reaching for what I thought would be Vader's saber to die if only to lay one strike down upon him, but instead I found her.

"Leia?" I gasped out and collapsed then and there as she took me in her arms. There was one person left to protect me after all."I didn't know- I didn't-"

What part I meant, I didn't know. All I knew was I'd been betrayed.

"Kyra?" she whispered in horror clutching me to her until I cried out from the contact to the burning brand, blood from my hands now staining her white suit. "What did Vader do to you?"

I'm gasping as I wake, struggling against the weight of Din in the tiny sleeping compartment, not realising where I am as I break it open and throw myself down onto the floor of the ship, looking up at the lights but no shocks rack my body and no blows come. Terrified tears stain my cheeks as he gets on his knees in front of me, repeating my name cautiously until he reaches for my face to bring me back to where we truly are.

"Kyra?" his voice quakes as I struggle for breath, hand reaching for my throat still gasping for breath and he pulls me into his arms, my head in the crook of his neck as I grasp his cloak for something to hold onto, to convince my mind and body that I'm safe. "You're safe, you're safe cyar'ika."

His voice trembles and I'm shaking violently as he rocks me in his arms and I don't know how long we're there on the floor until I can bear to look at him and he holds my face in his hands, not needing to ask, knowing enough by now to know what haunts me.

"You're safe," he tells me again, thumb caressing my cheek as I look down at my hands, finding them clean of blood even if I can still feel its warmth. "Kyra?" I shake my head, inching away from his touch. "Kyra, it's me, you're safe."

And yet my mind is twisted and its wires damaged enough I still sit there for moments more trying to connect what I see with the fear in my mind, trying to rationalise it, trying to tell myself there is no danger and therefore I should not be afraid.

On undamaged minds that may work, but not mine.

"Din?" I finally whisper, my mind finally equating his touch with calm, with safety, and I let him take me back into his arms as slowly I ground myself in him. 

"I've got you cyar'ika," he promises me, trying to hide how deeply I've scared him. "I've got you. I'll never let anyone hurt you again."

I wish I could believe that, for just a moment I almost do.

"The Empire," I begin as he takes my shaking hands in his own. "They aren't gone."

He slowly shakes his head. "No, they aren't."

I nod numbly and tell him "I want them gone, for good, no matter the cost."

A cost the Republic is not prepared to face, the cost of mercy.

But they never showed me mercy.

"We will start with Moff Gideon," he tells me, giving me something to hold onto as he rests his forehead on mine. "We'll kill anyone we have to. We'll do whatever it takes no matter the cost to keep you and the child safe."

His promise echoes through the empty chambers of my broken mind, reminding me of my purpose. To keep the child safe. Exhausted and wanting to forget everything but his touch I shut my eyes and do what I've always done, what I did when I was just a child captured by the empire, tell myself it was just a bad dream, a bad dream that never happened.

But it did.

~

I wake to the child nuzzling into me, still resting in Din's arms in the middle of the ship with a blanket wrapped over me, everything numb. But for the child's sake I take him in my arms and try to smile, and feel in the child a pain not so dissimilar to my own, a dark pain, a fear. But even more blinding is his compassion as he reaches out to try to ease my own pain, the compassion that makes a Jedi.

I close my eyes and feel flashes of sabers and blasters and hold the child a little tighter, feeling something is terribly wrong, or will be. Something more immediate than the nightmares that haunt us both.

"Kyra?" I hear Din ask, more than in tune with my expressions by now. "What is it?"

"Can you take the kid up to the cockpit, I need to meditate," I tell him and feel surprise at my own words, despite being a Jedi I could count the number of times I've meditated in the last year on one hand despite how devoted I once was to it.

"Alright," he says uncomfortably, not wanting to leave me alone, but somehow pulls me out of that darkness with one silly question "Is that a Jedi thing?"

"Yeah," I say, laughing softly as I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes. "Yeah it is."

Before he lets me go he squeezes my hand tight and says "If you need me, get me."

He has never treated me like glass, and now is no exception despite how badly I know he doesn't want to let me out of his sight. I'm thankful for it.

"I will," I tell him and watch as he lifts the kid up, able to find some joy in the sight before they disappear up into the cockpit and I'm left to contemplate what these dreams coming back mean.

I cannot remember the last time my nightmares had me in such a state. I remember Lando's concern when I'd wake in similar states not knowing where I was and trying to escape, how he'd call Leia trying to get me help with little luck. It is the first time Din has truly seen it, I know it's left him more shaken than he'd admit.

The closer we get to the planet the worse this feeling of doom is, perhaps it's being in close proximity to a place the force is so strong while in such a state, perhaps it's a warning.

Either way, there is a nagging paranoia in me that from experience can only be two things. The Empire and Boba Fett and so I try to rationalise before I jump to conclusions.

If Boba's been living in poverty on Tatooine as all but a ghost for this many years it is safe to say he wouldn't even have the capabilities to follow us, but still, I'm remembering parts of dreams I thought I'd long blacked out and so I force myself to sit in a meditative state to uncover what they are trying to tell me. Luke would probably drop dead from shock if he could actually see me meditating to work through my problems. I hardly remember the girl who managed to train Luke to be the Jedi he is, it's past time I found her again.

Yet my subconscious forces me to remember many events I'd rather not touch until it takes me to those early days with Boba, back before I ever feared him. When I'd found him weeks after my parents deaths, a man who captivated me as no other had, hired help I was stupid enough to not let go. I was one of the only people to ever tell him no when he refused my offer to join me, and most certainly the only one to live, and sure enough we found a price he accepted. 

In the early days there was little fighting between us, it was something built on mystery and a curiosity to learn more of one another, and then a deep respect. Captivating by this stranger in a time when I found myself growing ever more estranged from my aunt for my methods that she found either too pacifist or too extreme, her faith in me was little despite the strong front we put on. I found myself leaning on him as a trusted advisor to guide me through troubles with Mandalorians who resembled him more than myself, even if he was a clone to all others he still upheld our creed and significantly more credits than he did before he met me.

Long days on Mandalore fighting and mourning, days when I found myself struggling to hold what power I could and was somehow under the illusion I had power over this deadly man and mistakenly thought I was the one to seduce him in the dangerous game we played. I don't know how many times he asked me if it was what I wanted that very first time, leaving no room for me to regret it when he warned me of exactly what he was before he ever touched me. I all but begged him too, wanting to feel like a woman instead of a broken child, but I was too young to even begin to comprehend what I was getting myself into. 

But at nineteen you truly do believe you are sure of what you want, and he knew he was the only man I trusted. At some point before it fell apart that very first time he truly respected me when he watched me wield the Darksaber to defeat men twice my age and size who challenged me for it. Like that one of Vizsla who I sent back into exile after I defeated him in combat before all the clans for the crimes he had committed against my mother alongside Death Watch that final time when I was sixteen and struck Maul down.

That was the moment I gained the respect of the people, a respect Boba told me I'd thrown away by leaving Bo-Katan as regent to return to the Rebellion. 

Little did I know it was that very moment I returned to the Rebellion I'd lost whatever real love was between us. That was the moment we found ourselves on opposite sides of the war as he turned to the Empire to fill his pockets.

Every dark thing inside of me he brought out, and I was powerless to stop him as he turned my rage into something that haunts me to this day. It haunts me when I know at some point Vader put credits in his hand to bring me to him and I wonder for just how long before Cloud City he was trying to seduce me to the Empire's side so I'd go willingly. 

To this day I still don't know what were lies, all I knew was that despite everyone he'd done, he loved me and I him.

"You can claim you're better than me, doing what you do for the greater good, except you're lying," Boba told me that last night together. "You don't care about the greater good or honour, you do what you do because you want revenge. You kill because you like it. You have a cruel streak in you, princess. Deep down you are just as ruthless as I am."

I hated how safe I always felt with him even though I should have been terrified, because he was the only person in the galaxy who I could show the worst of me and he wouldn't even blink an eye. Even on Tatooine when I was Jabba's prisoner. Because the worst of me was only a fraction of the worst of him. "If I'm a killer then what are you? A masochist? A traitor? You are a man without honour Boba Fett."

Those last words struck a nerve. "You can pretend all you want. But you aren't a good person. You aren't a hero." He had me backed up against the wall of his room that Jabba's guards had thrown me into as a personal thank you for giving him Han. Jabba's gift to Boba. "Do you really think they'll love you once they know everything you've done?" His hand was around my throat as burning tears slipped down my cheeks. Not to choke me, but to keep me still as he revealed "Do they know you're the one who led me straight to Solo? That I incinerated your friend Skywalkers aunt and uncle?" I shook beneath his touch. "That you knew all along he was Vaders and lied to him, to everyone." But it was when his blaster pressed against my exposed stomach I knew that he knew. "To me."

"I lied to you?" I repeated dangerously, now in pure disbelief at the words I heard. "I?" I pushed him off of me then, my voice raising to a scream of pure rage as I shoved him again into the opposite wall. "I lied to you? All you ever did was lie!" 

"I never lied to you princess, I told you exactly what I was," he said as my hand itched for a blade. "You just never wanted to hear the truth." He stepped back towards me, telling me the words that were the truth. "You are not an innocent, you are not a victim, you are the one who never listened when I warned you of what I was and what would happen."

It was the truth, and yet it didn't make him an innocent either.

"Look at it," I told and slapped him across the face before I grabbed it and pulled his eyes down to the brand Vader left on me. "He left it just for you." He shut his eyed like a coward as I hissed. "Turns out he doesn't like his little bitch fucking his targets."

He pulls my hand back, and I'm smiling knowing I've hit him where it hurts. "I'm no one's bitch."

"You were mine," I remind him, knowing he was once my hired blaster. "A shiny bar of beskar and you're owned by anyone."

He grabbed me by the chain around my throat. "And you're the one in chains now princess so tell me how that's worked out for you? No home, no family, no one to love you that won't soon be dead. No one but me."

I slammed him back into the wall, reaching for any weapon within reach I could get my hands on "You fuck-"

"Hate me all you want princess, you love me."

"No," I lied, hating myself because it was true. "How can I after you fucking left me to Vader, after you betrayed me!"

"No more than you betrayed me," he said as if I had a choice, as if I wasn't screaming on the floor of that cell on Cloud City and it was then as I reached for his blaster he grabbed me again, throwing me back and pinning my wrists to the wall. "You took my chance to be a good man from me, to be a father-"

Tears burned in my eyes and I realised the greatest cruelty I could inflict upon him was to let him believe whatever Vader told him and I stopped fighting then as I looked him in the eye. "And I would do it again."

He held me by the throat and I watched seething as he dragged his blaster along my exposed body, the same blaster he'd used countless times to do such unholy things to me, and I didn't look away as he pressed it into my stomach.

He was deadly silent, finger over the trigger as I searched his cold eyes and felt the things he never learned to hide from a person like me. 

"I know you Boba Fett," I told him, I might have been the only person in the galaxy who did. "I know you love me." Finally his fist closed around my throat to prove to both of us that he didn't but I hardly blinked as he held it tight, enough to constrict my airways but still unable to bring himself to truly hurt me and somehow that made it worse. "Don't be a coward now, you could choke me to death and still would never come close to inflicting the pain Vader did."

"You were my target," he told me, digging the knife deeper with his words since he couldn't bring himself to do it physically. "From the moment you returned to the rebellion. You were my target when I dug you out of the rubble on Mandalore, every night together was all to get the information I was paid to bring to Vader, but you knew that didn't you?" I didn't give him an answer, I couldn't even give myself one as he tapped his blaster against my cheek. "And you let me do it because you loved me."

I could have used the force to pull the trigger, to end this as I begged him to do half a year before. For my blood to be on his hands, the blood of the woman he loved. It would have been cruelly poetic, but I was too bitter to die before seeing the end of the empire.

"How?" I finally asked him as I searched his heart and mind, finding such strong love twisted with darkness, finding the same in mine own heart and that darkness was what I could not forgive. "How could you do this to someone you love?"

"This was never love," he told me, seeing what I couldn't but his heart- he could not hide it from me, not from a Jedi.

"Liar," I breathed, smiling at the hate in his eyes, his lips hovering just above mine. "If it wasn't we would have killed each other a hundred times over by now."

"Kyra."

I jump at the sound Din's voice, pulled from the meditative state that's reminded me of why I don't meditate. I wanted clarity not pain, and I certainly don't have the time to unravel years of torture before I can figure out what the immediate danger at hand is.

"Are you alright?"

I nod stiffly, composing myself but still Boba's words haunt me amongst much else. 

"I'm just thinking, that's all."

"About the nightmare?" he asks and comes over to me, sitting down in front of where I am and takes my hands in his. "We're raising a child together ner karta, there isn't anything you can't tell me."

But there is. There is so much I haven't been able to speak a word of to anyone. Not even Leia after she found me there a bleeding mess on the floor but she knew. Her and Lando both saw me there, Lando in all these years has never once dared to mention what he saw and Leia... we held each other all through that night, not having to speak a word of what we'd both lost.

"Sometimes I dream of the war," I tell him, not going into detail. "More often than not they turn into nightmares." 

"But not like that," he says and gently presses "All these nights we've spent in the same room, I've never seen you like that."

I swallow hard and tell him just enough "In my nightmare I was trying to break out of a cell and when I woke I didn't know where I was."

He nods slowly, thumb running over the side of my hand, gently calming me but the only interpretation I can find of those dreams is that something is coming and I can't afford to let myself end up trapped and helpless again. I need to heed Boba's words instead of pretending I am not what he knows me to be. I never fought out of the goodness of my heart as a Jedi should, it was a search for justice that quickly turned to revenge. 

The time of pretending I am a peaceful person is over, I've trained Luke and Leia, I did my duty to them in resisting those violent urges to keep them from being tempted by darkness. I will fight darkness until the day I die instead of surrendering to it, but I can't deny my Mandalorian nature.

"My mother Satine, she was the most staunch pacifist in the galaxy," I tell him and realise how little I've told him of her. "She watched Mandalore be destroyed by civil wars before either of us were born, her father was killed during the last of them. I never knew him but he was a follower of the old ways, a warrior. It was him who taught Bo-Katan the way, and her who taught me. It was at the end of these wars your people were exiled to the moons of Mandalore."

"Concordia," he reveals and suddenly it all makes sense. "My people were of Concordia, it was there we lived before the purge."

"And that was the divide that almost got her killed more times than I can count," I tell him while he listens carefully. "She believed that the moment we commit to fighting we've already lost and that was the ideology that kept Mandalore neutral until the Empire decided otherwise and she did her part, playing along in order to protect her people until she couldn't." It's then an old guilt surfaces, a wound Boba would always tear open to be cruel. "All because her daughter was a Jedi. I had worked with the Rebellion for three years at that point, since the last time Death Watch tried to kill her, and so when she surrendered and was taken to Vader Leia and I tried to rescue her. By the time I found her Vader had tortured her to the point her body had all but given out, and her last words to me, the greatest pacifist to ever live, were that Mandalore's fate was in my hands now and to never stop fighting."

He's silent in contemplation of my words until he says "And you've never stopped. Even now you're still fighting the Empire."

"But what if I'm fighting the wrong battle?" I ask him finally, trying to find some meaning in these nightmares. "What if running around the outer rims fighting Imperial remnants is the wrong battle, one I've been fighting since the moment the war ended. What if the battle I should be fighting right now is for Mandalore? What if fighting the Empire to keep ourselves safe isn't enough?"

"Then I'll stand behind you," he swears to me but cautiously asks "What's brought this on?"

"I want Moff Gideon dead, I want my enemies to burn," I confess to him, that violent streak I've tried to hide baring itself. "I don't want to just hide away with Grogu living the reclusive life of a Jedi. I want justice, I want the one thing a Jedi shouldn't which is revenge."

He tilts his head towards me and I can feel the concern as he takes my hand "Then when we kill Moff Gideon we will find other Mandalorians, the fight for Mandalore is not lost unless you say it is."

I look at him and ask a careful question "I know you have the same ruthless streak that I do Din. You're a bounty hunter, I'm a soldier. We're both killers." He's quiet, not knowing where I'm going with this but all I know is that I need him to see the parts of myself I don't know how to love myself, to prove to myself Boba's words aren't true, that there will be no one to love me but him. "We might fight for peace, but that doesn't mean we aren't killers all the same."

"I know what I am," he tells me, voice rough. "Before the child, I was a cold-blooded killer, a bounty hunter, but I thought you hated that."

"No," I say quickly, immediately separating what Din is from what Boba was and realise "I'd be lying to you if I said I ever did. You said that you were never a hero like I was but I was never a hero Din, I never did the things I did for the greater good. I did them because like Ahsoka said, I had my mothers passion for justice but more than that I wanted revenge for the things the Empire had taken for me and to protect what I feared losing. I could never admit it because that is not the way of the Jedi."

"But it is the way of the Mandalorian," he says and I look down at our joined hands. "If you think that for even a moment that seeing that side of you would make me love you less then you're wrong." He lifts my chin back up as he tells me "I only love you more."

And with those words he makes me realise something no one else could in almost ten years, that I don't need a bloody and violent love that leaves me in agony. Not when I have him, a man who knows my past and what comes with it and yet loves me unconditionally. Who has taught me I can love without pain. 

The next thing I know I'm in his arms and he's holding me tight, the cold beskar feeling like home as I tell him "I love you Din Djarin. When I'm with you, somehow everything makes sense."

He chuckles lightly as he tells me "I wish I could say the same but I'm still trying to wrap my head around all this Jedi stuff."

I laugh with him now, the darkness forgotten as I tell him "This is what I mean, you can always pull me out of anything, no matter how caught up I get in my own head."

"Well it's hardly like you don't have anything to worry about," he tells me, always practical in his reasoning and admits to me "Sometimes I swear all I do is worry. Is this what it's like being a parent?"

My smile turns a little sad. "I wouldn't know, but I'm learning." My fingertips run along the edge of his helmet. "And I'm glad to be doing it with you, with a man who understands what it's like to be willing to do anything for those we love, no matter how violent."

He tugs me close as he tells me "Do you really think I fell in love with a peace loving Jedi? I fell in love with a Mandalorian woman who could hand my ass to me on a silver platter."

I laugh against his helmet "You've barely even seen me in a fight yet."

His voice is deep as says "The day I see you in beskar fighting is the day I'll be on my knees begging to make you mine."

My chest tightens at what he's suggesting and I play coy "I'm already yours."

He pulls me into his lap, squeezing my waist as he tells me "Not until I can call you my wife you aren't."

"Din-" I breathe, my hands on his chest plate as he pulls me flush to him and my forehead touches his, wanting it, wanting something I swore to myself I'd never want again but here I am. 

And I'm not afraid anymore.

"I want to kiss you," he murmurs, taking my hand and holding it to his beskar cheek.

"Then kiss me," I say, pressing my lips to the beskar, quite comfortable with the circumstances that come with it "I can-"

"I don't want you to close your eyes," he tells me quickly, and he nervously lifts up his helmet as he would if he was drinking and I gently put a cautious hand on his before I can see anything.

"Are you sure?"

"I am," he says and lifts his helmet enough that I can see the patchiness of his beard, his lips. I take his shaking hand in mine as I bring my lips to his, tracing the outline of his jaw with them, leaving soft kisses in my path.

"I love you," I breathe, letting him feel my words as I kiss him. "All of you, helmet and all."

"And I love you," he says, his voice raw and unmodulated and beautiful.

"I know I'd love to hear more of that voice," I say, running my thumb over his lips.

I can feel his smile. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," I smile back, kissing him softly before pulling his helmet back down. "But only what you're ready to give."

"I want you to see me," he says, but I can feel the conflict behind those words. "The creed I- I know it isn't what I was raised to believe but-"

"You don't have to explain my love," I tell him gently. "I understand, and I love you. You don't need to force yourself to abandon the beliefs you hold or make any decisions until you're sure of them."

"Thank you," he breathes, hands heavy on my body, showing me his love and need for me in the way he knows how since words don't always come easy to him, but he does better than he thinks he does. "I love you Kyra, more than anything." 

Except for the child but we both know that.

"I know," I promise him and he grips my waist just right and I have to bite back a moan as he begins tugging my dress up and I gasp out as he lifts me up, my back slamming into the wall as he pulls my legs around his waist, his strength always stunning me.

I'm breathless as he asks "How do you want it?"

"Rough," I answer, needing the release, needing the feeling of him inside of me that clears my mind better than any amount of meditation could and he holds me up with ease as he unzips himself and tugs my dress up to my waist, finding nothing beneath.

"Ever practical," he teases, wasting little time as I feel him line up with me, always ready for him.

"Always," I smile only to find myself choking out his name as he enters me. "Din-"

"That's it," he says soothing me through it, this being one sensation I don't think I will ever get used to. "Say my name."

~

By the time we're approaching Tython we're in the cockpit with Grogu, dressed now for combat in case it finds us as it so often does. Grogu's in my lap while Din's doting over him from the pilots seat.

"Grogu." The kid looks up from his ball in surprise at hearing his name and Din chuckles lightly while Grogu goes back to his ball but he can't resist. "Grogu?"

Grogu looks back up at him and Din makes a sound of astonishment that leaves me sitting there drowning in adoration for this man but remember I'm still responsible for training the little green rascal. "Din, cyare, try the trick you did with Ahsoka, the one with the ball."

He nods and holds his hand out, voice gentle "Give me the ball."

Grogu leans away, not wanting to give up his precious ball and looks up at me as if asking if I'm really going to let him take it and I chuckle "It's okay Grogu."

"Grogu," Din says again. "Give me the ball." Grogu resists, and I begin to wonder if I should be more concerned over his attachment to that ball than to us. "Come on."

He hands it over and I do find it interesting he does understand us almost completely when we speak with him even if he can't talk back, not yet at least but considering all the poor thing's gone through I wouldn't be surprised if he was selectively quiet and that it's delayed his speech. One of the many things we will work on together.

Din holds the ball up between his fingers and Grogu leans forward on my lap "Okay, here we go. You can have it, just like before." Grogu reaches out but not with the force and Din tilts his helmet towards him "Grogu come on, you can have it."

And then I feel it, the focus and nod approvingly as he uses the force to reach out and bring the ball to him and as he catches it Din proudly exclaims "Dank Farrik!" Grogu quickly drops the ball and I kiss his little head as Din quickly backtracks "Hey no, I'm not mad at you, you did good."

"You did Grogu," I affirm gently as he coos "So good."

Grogu listens to Din as he says "When the nice lady said you had training I just-" for a moment I remember my own father training me, how excited he'd get when he saw the progress I'd made and Din reaches forward to put the ball in his hands "You're very special kid."

"You are," I say cuddling him in my lap. "And I'm going to train you just as my dad trained me. " He coos up at me and I smile "I'll teach you to use the force and to speak, to read." Din's watching as I lift him up and he squeals happily. "I dare say your dad will teach you to use a blaster."

"Not a proper blaster yet, but a training one," Din says and I laugh as he makes the motion with his hand. "He won't be able to pull a trigger so it will be one of the ones you squeeze."

"Oh maker I love you Din Djarin," I tell him in pure adoration and feel the warmth beneath that beskar. "And I love you too Grogu."

The kid's smiling as he reaches out, dropping the ball to touch my face and I kiss his forehead, holding him as Din reaches over to squeeze my knee before lowering us into Tythons atmosphere.

I'm absentmindedly humming to Grogu as we enter and look about realising we have absolutely no idea where to find this singular rock on a planet that's no doubt filled with old Jedi relics but thankfully it finds us as we lay eyes on what looks to be a type of temple with a stone in the centre.

"That the one?" Din asks me as if I know anymore than he does but remember I am meant to be the Jedi after all.

"That's the one."

"Alright kid," Din says. "Let's take you to the magic rock."

I shake my head at him while smiling, it's hard not to love him when he views the force with more wonder and mysticism than anyone I've ever met, it makes me see it through new eyes.

He circles it looking for a place to land while I hold Grogu up so he can see and Din says "I can't land on top, we'll have to travel the last stretch with the windows down."

"That's fine," I tell him but can't help the anxiety that comes as we land, that nagging feeling still there. "I just don't want to be too far from the ship."

He nods and he has a hand on my back as we walk out, I sigh when I see the distance we have to walk "Well, we'll be stretching our legs at least."

Din just tilts his head down towards me "Do you really think I'd make you walk?"

And so moments later we're flying to the top, Din holding the kid and I, and it makes me begin to reconsider the issue of my own armour. I discarded it out of shame but now... now it feels as if I'm starting to atone for my defeats.

Perhaps it's time I pick up my armour again, if not for myself then to better protect the child and Din's words are certainly a contributing factor. 

We land at the seeing stone and I take in the geometry of the temple, hesitant at what exactly this seeing stone entails but the force's presence here is undeniable. I'd heard stories but feeling it is something else entirely.

"Well, I guess this is it," Din says but still I look back towards the ship, not denying the feeling in my gut but try to not let it show for Grogu's sake.

"The legends say this planet is where the call of the force was heard by the first Jedi," I say to Grogu, the recognition of the name having come to me in the ship. "I remember the stories my father would tell me of the wars here between the light and the dark." I look around, having found the stone but know there should be far more ruins scattered across the planet Luke would find interest in and tell Din. "I want to stay and look about but I've got a bad feeling."

"A bad feeling?" he repeats, trusting my instincts by now.

"I can't pinpoint it, but I want to leave as soon as we're finished at the stone," I answer and he looks about confused since it seems we're the only people on this planet and decide. "After this we're going to Kalevala."

"Kalevala?" he repeats back to me, no doubt knowing the planet since it's in the Mandalore sector but in confusion as to why I'd want to go there

I've come to the place the Jedi originated from, but something is calling me back home and being here, it's as if the force itself is telling me to return.

"To my family's castle," I say and he tilts his helmet towards me in disbelief.

"Your family's castle?" he exclaims. "You have a castle?"

"I'm royalty Din," I remind him and that seems to shock him more than anything else I've ever revealed to him. "You know this."

"I know but there's a difference between saying you're a princess and having a castle."

I look at him incredulously. "Din, I literally ruled Mandalore."

"I know, I know" he assures me but still asks "You have an actual castle and you're living in an apartment on Chandrila?"

I blink at him in offence before confirming "Yes, I have a castle."

"Here that kid?" Din says to Grogu as we walk towards the stone. "You're gonna get a castle."

I laugh as we reach it and remind him "You know for him to inherit we have to take the proper adoption vows."

He stops for a second as if he hadn't even realised he hasn't yet. "You're right, we haven't." His voice is heavy as he tells me "Before you came along I- I could never bring myself to call myself his father. He was always a foundling in my care I thought I would have to give up, but now-"

"Now things are different," I say and hold him as I tell him "He's your son, your foundling, no one's going to take him away from you." I rub Grogu's head as I say "Isn't that right Grogu?"

He smiles and I take him from Din to place him on the rock "Okay now, I don't know what's going to happen but you're going to do what uncle Luke, and no doubt many other Jedi have taught you, and meditate." He makes an annoyed sound as I put him down and sigh "I understand, but you've got to do it, okay?"

He makes a sound resembling an okay and that's good enough for me. Din and I stand back waiting for something to happen and he asks me "Do you feel anything?"

Nothing overly strange aside from the impending doom and overwhelming concentration of the force and ask him curiously "Why, do you feel something?"

He looks around before answering "I feel the wind." He takes a glove off and holds his hand up. "Kind of."

Definitely not force sensitive then.

I take his hand and squeeze it, bringing his attention back to Grogu who sits on the stone watching us instead of connecting to the force.

"Grogu, concentrate," I lecture him. "I know you can feel it."

Din tries to help as he says to Grogu "This is the seeing stone, are you seeing anything?" Grogu just coos and he looks at me and asks "Can you?"

"I will" I answer, knowing if I sat on that stone and meditated I could certainly see many things, but it is Grogu who first needs to. "You see he and I always feel the force but because of how strong it is here it is easier for us to channel it and to have visions."

"Visions of what?" he asks me and I swallow.

"I dare say nothing happy," I tell him stiffly. "But we need Grogu to reconnect with the force without fear and for me to be able to use it to communicate with him as Ahsoka did."

He turns his head towards me and quietly asks "Why can't you?"

A question I've been asking myself for a while but the answer is simple, a combination of my own neglect in connecting with the force and the fact the only force sensitives I ever knew were my father, Luke and Leia. It's out of my expertise.

"You see Din, some people are naturally stronger with the force than others, they would be taken to the Jedi temple to be trained but there are those who are stronger than others. Grogu is one of the strongest to live, as was his father or rather sperm doner," I find myself muttering. "My father was never exceptionally strong and neither am I, he was only a few years younger than myself when he finished his training. It was his devotion and discipline to the force and to his training that made him strong in comparison to his apprentice who was much like Grogu, all raw strength but little discipline."

Grogu makes an offended sound and Din assures him "We know you're trying hard Grogu, it's okay. You're doing great kid."

"He is, compared to myself which has been a reasonable enough amount of raw strength but little discipline these past years. Meanwhile Ahsoka was likely one of the stronger Jedi if she was given to Anakin to train," I explain to Din. "And she's still had more training than I, proper training in the temple by many masters which is something I've never had. My father taught me well, but our time together was cut short. Despite training Luke I still have much to learn, and if Grogu can remember his training and I can see those memories it can help both of us."

"So you'll sit on the stone after him?" Din asks and I nod, turning my attention back to getting the kid to concentrate.

"Feel the force Grogu," I instruct him. "I know you can. It's strong isn't it?" He nods and I prompt "Now close your eyes and let yourself feel it, you don't have to be afraid, we're here, you're safe."

Sometimes I still find it strange, the jump from training a nineteen year old grown boy just older than myself to a child. Although it isn't that different really, Luke may be all serious now but maker knows he wasn't when I was training him.

Din looks around and asks me "Is he supposed to see something or is something supposed to see him?"

I actually stop for a moment at that question and wonder "Both could be possible."

Still Din walks around the stone as Grogu tries to concentrate wondering "Maybe there's a control or something."

I watch as he uses the settings of his visor to search for any mechanics in the rock until I have to interrupt.

"Din, ner cyare," I say, finding his effort to be involved in his training truly endearing, I really can't help but adore it, but have to inform him"That's not how the force works. Let the kid concentrate."

But just as the kid looks as if he's gotten into that meditative state his eyes open up and he reaches for a butterfly. 

Din sighs and tells me "I'll never understand the force."

"You will," I assure him and squeeze his hand. "The first thing is to remember it is not physical or literal, it is a sense as much as hearing or seeing, or rather feeling like you'd feel an emotion, but it takes effort to connect with." I look at Grogu and tell him "Effort Grogu, now close your eyes and focus."

I use the force to non fatally flick the butterfly away and after a sound of protest he closes his eyes and finally settles into a meditative state leaving Din and I in a state of awe as the inscriptions around the stone come alight and a force shield emerges around Grogu.

"Holy-" I hear Din begin and nod in agreement, not having seen anything quite like this before but our awe is interrupted by the sound of something entering the atmosphere.

Slowly I turn to see the ship entering the atmosphere and the very blood is drained from my veins at the sight of it, a ship I know far too well. 

My eyes fall shut, everything making sense now.

"Is it a Jedi?" Din asks in confusion and slowly I shake my head. "Kyra?"

I can feel him so strongly, that whisper that's haunted me right here, right now.

This can only end bloody.

"Get the kid," I order, drawing my saber. "Now!"

But as he goes to grab the child the forceshield blasts him back onto the ground and with wide eyes I help him up, anxiously looking up at Slave I and back to the kid.

"Is it the Empire?" Din asks me but I can't even bring myself to speak his name as I grab Din's blaster and he yells out as I fire five shots right into the forceshield only for each one to be reflected. "Kyra!"

"The kid's safe here but we need to get to your ship and get weapons," I order him, the forceshield being enough protection for me. "Get ready for a fight."

"What-"

"Ship, now!" I order and he yells out after me as I run down the mountain, keeping low as I make my way through the scrub, his voice fading out as he runs after me and I don't stop until I'm met with blaster fire and he quickly takes cover as I reflect the shots with ease and stand out in the open, unafraid and perhaps already a little mad.

"Kyra!" I hear Din barking out, trying to get me to take cover but I am not hiding.

"Come out Boba," I call and feel the pure panic from Din as he finally realises who we are facing, realises why my first instinct was to draw my weapon. "You hunted me down on Tatooine, don't run away now!"

I should be terrified but I'm not. He has haunted me for half a decade now, ten years since I first laid eyes on him. I know him too well to fear him.

But it's as he emerges cloaked in black a different horror has me in its grasp and I look upon the man I once loved as he stands before me, scared and deformed, as if he's aged twenty years from the damage done to him. 

The damage I did to him.

I draw a sharp breath and he sees it, he sees the horror in my eyes as I whisper his name.

"Boba."

[caspianxth]

SHADOW AND BONE SPOILERS!

okay first, Kaz would have not fucking given up his cane, and for a king?!?!? love it but he would not do that, it was adorable tho. Second, he just wanted to be loved:( i think i read it in the book cause they never said it in the show but all he wanted was the love of his people, and for them to be safe, and look what it cost him:( Third, why would they change all that, like yes i get this is basically a prequel for six of crows BUT i enjoyed jesper and wylan being slow burn and now theyre a thing?? like what happpens now instead of all the teasing and pining in both upcoming heists, and also with kanej, cause like yeah the love confession was word for word which was nice BUT theyre still TWO heists to come, what about the pining!?!?!! and speaking of inej, she's now free and also a slaver-hunting pirate, which is all she wanted but what about the heists!!!!! like i guess she'll come back out of the love in her heart but why have her achieve her dream just to give it all up?? And don't even get me started on Mal and Alina, like i get their story hasnt really ended, especially with the nikolai thing (poor baby), but wtf.

Despite all of that, I really enjoyed it, it was really well made, I just wish I didn't compare everything with the books, anyway, sending love, thanks for letting me rant none of my friends like s&b.

I do v much agree that it's v diff from the books, but I don't hate that! lemme dive in under the cut tho <3

I wish they had more time bc they were trying to do So Much though and I feel like nikolai's arc as a monster was just weirdly done. alas, lemme dive in!!

I actually disagree on the cane, and here's why. kaz had no reason to tell inej about jordie. he even says in his chapter he had no idea why he did it. was it because he loved her? or was it that he truly felt like she deserved to know? why would she deserve to know??? he also expands on this with jesper, someone who unwittingly betrayed him! he sees jesper as jordie and then when jesper asks who jordie is after kaz slipped and called him jordie, he doesn't tell jesper off, he doesn't shut down. he tells jesper that jordie was someone who meant a lot to him in a way that makes it pretty clear for me that he truly cares for jesper too. he didn't have to do that, but he did it for inej and for jesper, the crows who have been by his side longest. also in soc he allows the crows to drag him to a different cafe in djerholm after they stake out the prison transports. kaz's way is the highway at this point in soc, the crows haven't learned that they can team up on him the way nina and inej do for the ketterdam grisha in crooked kingdom, they didn't have to relocate, but they did. if kaz wanted to shut down their complaining he would have. instead he gave into their apparent need for sweet buns and hot cocoa. also, when we get flashbacks from the ferolind via wylan in crooked kingdom, kaz was the one who was warning wylan about tailoring his face using nina's powers on parem and it was kaz that believed that wylan's father still loved him. he even bet on it and lost (which is hilarious btw, I mean not for wylan but u get me). also, in crooked kingdom after kaz robs cornelius smeet and then crashes into him to return the dog whistle and returns his wallet, smeet gives kaz 5 kruge. he then turns and gives that to wylan. sure, they have pekka's money, but why would kaz brekker give wylan something for nothing? he also steals back jesper's pistols from club cumulus's safe. he claimed that a shooter's nothing without his guns, but jesper helped get his dad and wylan back to black veil just fine without his beloved revolvers. kaz also swore to inej that even if her legs were broken, he'd come back for her. yeah, he's in love with her, but would he do that if there wasn't still a kernel of kaz rietveld inside him?? would he give wylan 5 kruge or warn him that he might always have kuwei's face?? would he have worked so hard from the initial heist at smeet's to get wylan back his money by replacing jan's will??? no. dirtyhands wouldn't. kaz rietveld would. there's still pieces of him there, and that's exactly why he'd give his cane to nikolai. firstly, he still needs to be paid, a slow king is an easily killed king, and as kaz himself said he is more experienced with pain. it's the most logical move to make. kaz is also someone who still has kindness in him despite what he says, even in the show when he promises that he'll help nina w freeing matthias. there's a heart buried in him, and I for one love to get peeks at it. also I think they made his need to be loved by his crows in the show decently clear, like when he asks wylan when he last ate or when he gives up the deed for the crow club for inej (let's face it, dirtyhands could have found a way to get leverage on helene to make that work without risking everything for inej but he did it bc he cares about her) and with how he was keeping jesper's zowa powers a secret. even though jesper's zowa powers could have been pretty useful before, kaz said nothing. he also wanted all of the crows in the building when he took pekka down. inej was the only crow not in attendance (and matthias but he's in jail, so he kinda has bigger shit but kaz still paid the guards to keep him out of the fights).

w the wesper: gimme gimme gimme!!! I'd rather get it fast than not at all esp w how weird netflix has been the past year with what gets renewals and spinoffs and what gets cancelled. and I think they did it in a way that was very true to the characters!! it's so cute!!!! the stroopes!! you remember that nOW??!!??!?!?!? and can we talk about tolya being the #1 wesper shipper!!! also there's a gifset idk if I can find it tonight but it's kaz saying 'everyone's losing their minds' after wylan and jesper kiss outside ohval's and the caption on the gifset is 'my brother in ghezen you set them up' and I think about that a lot.

with inej I think that it's great that she's slave hunting early bc I think that it gives a really great opportunity for a bit of kanej closure that the books never had. at the end of crooked kingdom, inej prepares to leave and just says she isn't done w ketterdam (and by extension kaz) yet but that's p much it, even in king of scars / rule of wolves we don't get concrete kanej. I think with inej's story, it gives her that option to find her family and get that closure, and hell that could've been the payment kaz asked for when they returned to ravka, we don't know, but once she finds the slavers it'll bring her closure and I think that'll help give us a possibility of a definitive kanej endgame for the show.

also w the not malina end, I'm sorry but I'm all for it. I think it makes sense esp bc she used merzost to rip him away from death. we saw him in the field, he was content, he was at peace, and she legit Yanked him back. I think a part of him knows that. also, he did die. that no doubt changed him, so he's v right to explore who he is if not a mythical tracker and I loved nikolai dread-pirate-roberts-ing him by making him the new sturmhond even tho he isn't in charge. also I really really wish they'd done nikolai's monster story better. I wanted to see him w the wings and the talons and all they did was make him look like a nichevo'ya. boo!! but I think they were just trying to set up too much and cut a ton (harshaw and oncat 😭) and redo stuff to make it work, it felt like at times alina got sidelined for everything else they had to do.

also of course!!! ur welcome in my inbox bestie!!!

[jameui]

SPECIAL PRESENT 2

Requested

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

PAIRING: Sugar Daddy!Jung Yunoh x College Student!M!Reader (featuring: Bestfriend!Lee Jeno)

GENRE: Fluff, Smut

WARNINGS: Unprotected intercourse, huge age gap, a lot of IMPORTANT flashbacks (i think), daddy kink, sex toys, overstimulation

SUMMARY: You were a striving student in Resonance High and had perfect records. Besides your devotion to your education, you were also gifted with a talent. All these stuffs making your sugar daddy, Jaehyun, proud of you, so he decided to give you a night you won't forget.

He gave Jeno an acknowledging nod for looking out for you for him and carried your smaller body with your legs wrapped around his waist like you were an eight year old. "You asleep, baby?" You buried your head on the crook of his neck and shook them 'no'. "Alright. Cause I don't want dinner going to waste." He made you giggle while you hugged his body tighter that were hanging over his shoulders.

He pulled the door to the passenger's seat and gently seats you down on the comfy chair. He closed the door for you before moving to his side of the car. The driver's. He got inside and made himself comfortable, just as you were putting on your seatbelt. "Are we good to go?"

"Yeap. I'm starving already." You said patting your tummy.

He chuckled with his deep voice that you always find so hot and fascinating. "Were you practicing 'til the late night, again?" He asked you, concern lingering on the tone of his voice.

"Yeah. I stayed with Jeno, though. He was a better mentor, in full honesty." You pouted. "Ah, right. The mentor told me I made him proud." You said like a puppy who was complimented by their owner.

"He did, huh?" He said, before he raised his hand from the steering wheel and patted your head. "I'm more proud of you." You smiled and felt all your insides go giddy as you wiggled cutely on your seat.

You drove through houses and past buildings before you arrived at the older man's house. You were in your first year of college when you ran away from your family's house and moved to a more far off place, somewhere they wouldn't be able to track you down. To support yourself, you rented a room in a boarding house, but had to eventually leave due to you having not enough money to pay for the rent. You tried so hard looking for a job and you did, but it didn't last long. Although, you were paid a good amount of money that helped you with your house renting and food. Of course, you found a very unstable job again, but was fired for your poor performance. Yet again, you were forced to leave the the place you rented and even thought of actually working at a gay bar. Not until you stumbled upon, your now bestfriend, Jeno who offered you a shared room with him in his apartment, which you gladly took.

Jeno was one of your coworkers that you never really got to interact with, so seeing now that he's your roommate, you had to eventually get to know him more and you two grew closer together, becoming the best of friends that you two are now. It was quite coincidental that you two were studying at the same university, so it was a shock for the both of you. You two were roommates 'til the end of your first year, when you met Jaehyun on that faithful day, who was generous enough to invite you to live under the same roof as him. At first, you were very hesitant, but with the agreement he had set between you two, who were you to refuse? Like you said before, you were only up for it because of the money and pleasure.

"Daddy?" You called out to him. In the agreement, you were free to call him anything you wanted if you two were in public, but when it's just the two of you, that nickname should be the one used AND only that. He hummed in reply as his eyes never left the rear view mirror, parking the car in the garage. "Do you ever... er, I know it's a very unnecessary question, but..." You chuckled with hurt on your voice. "... Do you ever get tired of me?"

Jaehyun didn't say anything after he had parked the car. You two only sat there, Jaehyun turning the car engine off, then sighed. "Baby, listen." You were once about to speak again, but he cut you off. "I want to tell you something." The tone in his voice made your heart beat faster, more scared than that recent experience at the dance studio. He held your hand, your eyes falling on them before trailing them up to Jaehyun's who was looking deeply into your E/c orbs. "Don't think of it badly, but a few days into the relationship, I really did thought I wish I shouldn't have met you."

And there it goes. The heartbreak you had always deserved, but his hold on your hand never loosened, rather it tightened and his eyes softening when he noticed your eyes start to prick with tears. "I said, don't think badly about it, M/n."

"How could I not when you're literally breaking my heart?!"

"Baby, let me explain." Jaehyun told you, you letting out a huff.

"Then, explain and if you want to end all this, then just say so. I don't want to get my hopes up." You whined and crossed your arms.

Jaehyun chuckled. "Before I met you, I was always on my desk. Every single day, thinking of nothing, but only work." You side eyed him and huffed, again. "But, now that you're here, you're the only person filling up that space in my mind. All I could ever think of was you and only you. Your smile, your sweet giggles, the way your voice sounded so angelic when you sing, everything about you spiraled in my head, neverending." He softly told you, putting a hand on your thighs that was clothed with the long pants you wore. "You never came to me as just a responsibility anymore. You were my top, number 1, only priority. Now, I regret ever thinking like that."

"Stop, you're gonna make me cry." You shoved your hand on his face to shut him up, to which the older resorted to tickling you. You bursted into fits of laughter not stopping until you two were finally out of breathe. Your eyes locked with each other, your chest heaving up and down, Jaehyun still yet to stop from his chuckling. Once his chuckling died down, you couldn't contain it in yourself anymore and hungrily pressed your lips on his, moving to his side of the car to straddle his thighs.

Jaehyun was taken by surprise from your sudden action, but replied quite faster than you thought. His hands slid down to your ass, kneading it through your pants making you moan in pleasure, Jaehyun using this as a chance to slip his tongue inside your wet cavern mixing his saliva with yours as he danced with your tongue, taking dominance very easily.

His hands went further up your body, sending tingles down your spine making you shudder in your place. He pulled away from your lips, a string of a transparent liquid connecting both of you, whilst his dark brown eyes gazing at you with nothing, but lust deep within those orbs that stared into your soul. "You look so sexy, baby." He told you, before he sloppily placed wet kisses on your jaw, down to your neck making sure to leave hickeys that will be visible for days. The contact of his soft lips on your skin made you sigh shakily from the pleasure he was giving you. He caressed your soft skin from under your large shirt and found its way up to your erect nipples that he always fondly played with whenever you found yourselves in this same exact situation.

An unconscious loud, high pitched noise came out of your mouth, Jaehyun swelling with pride as he smirked, teeth grazing the supple flesh of your neck. "D-daddy.. Mmnh~" You hummed out in pleasure, your hands tangling themselves on Jaehyun's unkempt hair, your head completely empty, but the thought of how the man made you feel so good. "Daddy~"

The way the nickname rolled out your tongue in a very sensual way, earned you a growl from the older male before he bit on that sensitive part of your skin making you scream out a loud moan. He licked on that same area, sucking on it while doing so. Your eyes were half lidded when you felt something under you poke your thighs. He was hard.

Teasingly, you traced your fingers over his clothed member and played with the tip to drive him over the edge. "Stop teasing, baby boy. You know what happens to bad boys, right?" He whispered seductively into your ears, his hot breathe hitting your skin briefly, a minty scent filling your nose.

"Yes, daddy." You nodded your head meekly.

"That's a good boy. Now get to work." He ordered you as you moved back towards your seat in a kneeling position and ducking down to become face to face with the male's crotch. Even from now, you still couldn't get over the fact how he was so huge and how long his dick was. You were still yet to learn how this will fit inside of you. "Come on, baby. Time's a wasting."

You nodded your head submissively and reached over the waistband of his sweatpants and peeled them off only to discover that he was bare on the inside, his sweatpants the only thing that kept his bottom half covered. "Did you expect this to happen, daddy?" You smirked, placing kitten licks on the tip of his semi-erect cock. "You're so hot, daddy." You said, looking up at him while you rested your head on his thighs.

"Baby, please." He begged of you, eyes furrowing.

You smirked before you trailed a small lick from his balls up to his tip, making Jaehyun groan throughout the time he entangled in his hand a fistful of your hair. You can't help, but let a moan slip past your tongue as you continued to place kisses on the head of his cock. You glanced up at him only to see him viewing you with so much lust in his eyes. You understood this as a sign to stop your teasing and wrapped your lips around the head of his cock taking in only a few inches that you could fit into your mouth, using your tongue that sent shivers down Jaehyun's spine as he groaned from the pleasure you gave him.

But, this time, you wanted to make him feel better. You wanted to know how far you can go. You were determined to exert yourself to your maximum limit, so you took all of his cock into your mouth, not even bothering how much you choked around his dick when he reached further down your throat. Upon this, Jaehyun howled. He didn't expect you to take him whole, since you were basically only playing with the head of his member, so this was rather unexpected. "That's right, baby. Make daddy feel good."

You helped yourself first to fully adjust to his size, swallowing around him that made your throat tighten causing to send pleasure through Jaehyun's nerves making him groan out in pleasure, hissing out cusses that made your ego swell with pride as you started to bob your head painfully slowly for Jaehyun's liking.

Occasionally you would look up at Jaehyun who had his head tilted backwards, eyes shut, sighing from the familiar sensation you gave him while he let you do your work. He would take his head back down to you, to peer over you who sucked on his dick like it was a lollipop. "Fuck, baby. Faster."

You followed his command and went a little faster, earning a groan from the lust filled male as he started to guide your head. You stilled yourself, giving him the signal that he can go at his own pace. And so he did. But, you didn't expect that he'd fuck your mouth at a very rough pace.

You held onto his thighs to balance yourself, your eyes rolling back from how much you felt good with just your mouth getting fucked by Jaehyun. The older male grunted and laughed darkly whispering a few curses, letting out chains of groans and sighs that he couldn't help from passing his lips.

His pace didn't stop from increasing its speed, until it became an animalistic pace that made tears fall from your eyes, face reddening at how much stimulation he had put on your mouth. "Fuck, fuck! Baby, your mouth feels so good!"

He peeked over you and saw your eyes staring back at him, as you felt his dick grow bigger in size from inside your mouth. Your eyes were both locked together as he continued to buck his hips inhumanely inside your mouth. "M/n~ Ah~" He moaned out your name, but he was still not near to reaching his climax as he continued to let himself fuck your mouth. You were sure your throat will be sore the day after, but you could careless. This felt like heaven to you and you didn't want anything to stop you.

He finally stopped his harsh movements, letting you move at a pace you can handle. You used your tongue to swirl around his cock, making Jaehyun hiss, knitting his eyebrows causing the small creases on his forehead to appear. "Hah..."

To drive him over the edge more, you continued to suck on the sensitive part of his cock, which was the tip that was now leaking with precum. You slid your tongue over the slit of the bulbous tip of his dick, tasting the saltiness of the juice he produced with your help.

He was so over his head, that he let out a loud curse when his phone started ringing. "Don't stop, baby." You complied, his hand intertwining with the strands of your hair. You repeated the routine and got no reaction from the older male, but you can clearly see that he was just trying to restrain himself from letting out a moan. Feeling challenged, you bobbed your head up and down on his dick going faster and faster each time his tip hit the back of your throat.

Jaehyun, who was still on his phone, smirked down at you at how needy you are for his attention. So, he placed his hands back to your hair and singlehandedly pushed you you even further that made you let out a choked out gasp, but gradually grew accustomed to it, after he gave your head one final push, burying his dick inside your mouth thick spurts of his cum travelling down your throat, some dripping down your mouth. He thrusted a few more times to ride out his high before he let you pull away with a loud pop.

He finally hung up the call and caressed your cheeks, leaning in to whisper. "You did great, baby." He smiled down at you and that's how you eventually fell asleep, forgetting about the dinner that Jaehyun had prepared for the both of you.

Nonetheless, Jaehyun fixed himself up and carried you to his room. He laid you down on the soft mattress of the bed, pulling the sheets over your body before he gives your forehead a small lingering kiss. "Sweet dreams, my little angel." He said, then got up to to turn the lights off, happily watching you sleep one last time, before he went downstairs to finish his work.

The morning after, just as expected, you felt a sting on your throat every time you swallowed or even talk making your voice sound hoarse from the sore throat you were having. Jaehyun kept on apologizing, even though you kept on telling him that it was alright and that it wasn't his fault, but he still insisted and promised you to cook your favorite meal for dinner. Knowing the taller male, you knew there was no way around this, so you just gave in and nodded your head. He was also kind enough to let you hide his bite mark.

"I didn't know your voice could go that deep." Jeno teased you, poking the side of your ribs.

You slapped his hands away. "Fuck you." Your voice came out airy and raspy, sound almost like a broken croak, making you sigh. "Gah... I feel like I shouldn't have—ah—done that a day before the performance." You said, wincing when you felt that rising pain on your throat as you rubbed them to try and ease the sting that was fucking killing you.

"Guess, it's good that I don't do the sucking." Jeno chuckled that made you widen your eyes.

"Who—"

"Lee fucking Jeno. AH!" A rather harsh sounding voice, emitted from behind the said male, taking his attention before he smiled.

"Nana! You came!" Jeno opened his arms and ran to the boy, but he was pushed away by him making Jeno pout.

"Shut the fuck up, Jeno." He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "You gave me this sore throat." He glared at Jeno. "And, of course I came. After you fucking threatened me to—"

"Yeah, yeah. That's enough, Jaemin." Jeno said, covering the person's mouth. Jeno took his hand back as quick as lightning, when Jaemin licked on the palm of his hand, a smirk forming on his face. "Gross!"

Jeno was wiping his hands when you rolled your eyes and held a hand at Jaemin for him to shake. "M/n. L/n M/n. A 'friend' of my friend, is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you." You greeted him, Jaemin chuckling at the same exact situation you were in.

"What a top, huh?" Jaemin said, before he shook your hand. "Na Jaemin. Pleased to meet you." He smiled at you while Jeno pulled both your hands away from each other.

"HEY!"

"No. Just no!" Jeno told you both, while knitting your brows in confusion at him. "Jaemin. You're only mine."

"Of course, he's yours. I don't plan on taking him away from you. I just want to be friends." You said in reply to Jeno's statement who pouted. "Besides, I'm not as handsome as you, Jeno, so I can't compete with you."

"I don't mind cute boys." Jaemin crossed his arms, teasing Jeno and probably you, as well as a blush started to paint your cheeks.

"HEY!" Jeno yelled at Jaemin who rolled his eyes before he gave you a wink and walked off. Jeno glared at you and narrowed his eyes. "Mine. Jaemin's mine."

"Then, take him. Geez Luis, Jeno. I already have my own." You stuck your tongue out at him before you went to the studio to change into the costume you were to wear. You waited for your turn, a makeup stylist approaching you to put make up on you. "Oh." You said and the stylist just smiled and started to dab foundation onto your face that matched your skin tone. She gave you a small amount of blush on, giving you an eyeliner and a dark brown eyeshadow to give your eyes a fiery look to match the concept of your performance.

She immediately packed her things up and moved to another student, you giving her a bow as she left. "Wow, look at you. I didn't even recognize it was you." Jeno teased with his arms crossed across his chest.

You gave him a smile and fiddled with you fingers. "I'm actually feeling really scared right now. But, mostly, I can feel the adrenaline rush running through my veins that I could just scream and run out the stage and dance!" You said in glee, until you realized that you had forgotten telling Jaehyun about your performance. "Oh, no. Da—Jaehyun! I forgot to tell him." You groan and checked your pockets for your phone and remembered you left it at home, since you were to excited to even check yourself. You dejectedly sat down on a chair and whimpered.

"He'll be there, M/n. I can tell." Your mentor told you, when he heard your complaints about forgetting to tell Jaehyun, and you immediately lit up and hugged the person.

"Thank you!" You expressed your gratitude, getting the idea of what he meant. You pulled away from him with a wide smile glued stuck to your face.

"Now, you both need to get changed. The opening's 'bout to start." You and Jeno nod your head and went straight to the wardrobe to get change, seeing only two outfits left on the line.

"Just in time." Their dress stylist both gave them what seemed to be like their costumes that was kept inside a black plastic case with a zipper that attached the layer together.

You made your way to the dressing room, one for you and the other for Jeno. You fit yourself just right into the clothes they have assigned for you to wear. You looked at yourself in the mirror and was shocked to see how good you looked on these clothes you're wearing.

You were fit into a maroon loose silk long sleeved polo, the vertical front of the shirt that attaches it together was replaced with laces that stitched around the holes of your clothes' button hole. The sleeves of your polo went further down, just below your wrist, avoiding it from falling by securing it with a button on the hem of the sleeves. For your lower half, you were given tight fitting slack pants that accentuated the size of your bubble butt with your polo neatly tucked inside the waist of your pants. The length of your pants stopped exactly by your ankle, exposing that uncovered area, the wind tickling your ankles. You wore a closed black shoes that complimented the look. You also wore a display lip ring and earring that completed your look, your whole self changing right before your eyes. The gullible and fun you was no longer there, instead it was replaced with a much more unknown version of yourself.

"Damn, I look fine as fuck." You told yourself as you checked yourself out on the mirror that was placed in the dressing room. "Woah..." You said, tracing your fingers on the outline of your ass.

"M/n. You done in there? We're almost up." Jeno's voice called from the busky studio that snapped you from your thoughts and came out of the dressing room. Jeno's head turn to look at you taking in your new look with a lip bite and a whistle. "Damn, bro. You look so hot."

"Thanks, I guess." You giggled, blushing shyly.

A few more compliments later and your group was being called to move to the venue and be at the backstage to prepare. You just stuck to Jeno the whole time going back to the routine a few times to practice and perfect the dance. Jeno was a good friend to the point where he would always be there by your side whenever you needed him. Even at this time, he never left your side and helped calm you down by offering a bubblegum to you, your mind thinking about nothing, but focusing on chewing the gum. Jeno would always initiate a talk with you making you laugh all the time whenever he made faces or make jokes that weren't even funny making it hard for you not to laugh at.

But, it seemed like all Jeno's work went immediately down the gutter when you felt your nervousness come back at once, when the emcee of the opening program started to introduce you to the stage.

Loud cheers and a round of applause were heard as you made your way to the very spacious stage of the place. Your eyes fell to the crowd, feeling yourself break into cold sweat from all the nervousness you felt. It was too heavy that you couldn't—"Daddy?" You smiled when you saw Jaehyun in the crowd and waved his hand at you when you saw your eyes that was happily looking at him. You subtly waved your hand back at him, to which he smiled at, those deep dimples appearing for you.

You got into your position, which consisted of you lying down on the floor, with your right leg folded up, your knee raised up. You had a cutted satin fabric in your back pocket as a prop for yours and Jeno's solo later. You put your hands over your eyes, as a part of your starting position.

Soon, the music started booming through the speakers and you felt your body get trapped to the rhythm of the song as you felt your hands and legs get overtook by the music as you started to gracefully dance to each beat of the song. Jaehyun, with his phone, proudly deciding to film your whole performance.

The first and second half of the song was just your group synchronized dancing to the choreography of what your mentor had taught you and you leading some part of the dance, until the song made a huge turn to a very sensual groove that had only you and Jeno left on the stage. Your solo, with your partner, Jeno, started and everyone in the crowd whistled and gasped, including Jaehyun who felt a little jealous that it wasn't him with you on that stage.

You started with a freestyle by grinding your hips on the cold newly polished floor of the stage, before you were joined by Jeno who stealthily took the fabric from your pocket and slowly wrapped it around your source of vision. He took your chin to turn your head and face him. One hand, not too tightly held the blindfold up only enough, so it doesn't fall, while the other held the back of your neck turning both of you around, so your back faced the audience and he faced the crowd, smirking before he leaned in close to you and staged to make it look like he bit on your neck, then removing the blindfold from your eyes. Then, ending the performance with you falling down to the floor acting lifeless, while Jeno pretended to wipe his lips.

The audience broke into loud claps and shouting out praises in chorus, while Jeno helped you up to your feet giving him a silent thanks and bowed at the people who was watching your performance. You two walked out of the stage and was greeted with hugs from the students feeling like they made a very big accomplishment from how you made the performance very eye catching. "M/n! You were so great out there!"

"Thanks. Jeno helped me a lot." You said, nudging the older, who only chuckled.

"M/n." Jaehyun's voice grabbed your attention, holding his arms out as he smiled at you. You gave him a wide smile and ran to him hugging him with all your might.

"I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you." You voiced out apologetically, pushing your bottom lip forward into a pout and looked up at him. "Sorry, Jaehyun."

"It's okay, baby." He replied, before leaning into your ear. "Because I'm hoping you kept your promise and that's why I have a surprise for you."

You knew what he meant by that, the reason why you were blushing with your eyes wide open. "I.. er.. Yes, yes." You said, playfully punching on his chest. A week prior to today, you had promised to Jaehyun that if you're performance was successful, you'd finally let him pop your cherry, that's why you're blushing so profusely.

"Then, be ready. I'll be seeing you tonight." He whispered one last time before he kissed your cheeks and excused himself since he was still expected at his work.

The whole day, all you could ever think of was what his surprise was and how he would be able to fit his huge dick inside your ass. It was too impossible, you thought, but you were already feeling just as desperate as the older male. You wanted to know how he felt inside you, how he would fuck you 'til the daylight, how he would break your mind and fuck you until you forget your own name. Just the thought of it made you go crazy as you slapped your cheeks and sighed. "Fuck..."

You felt a presence sat themself beside you giving a loud sigh. "So, I'm guessing you're gonna stay up whole night, huh?" It was Jaemin.

You whipped your head at him and looked at him like he was some type of witch or future teller. "How'd you..."

"Gut feeling." Jaemin said.

You didn't know what you signed up for in that time, until today.

It was currently quarter to seven and you were now at the front of the doorstep, not even bothering to say a word. You could only blink your eyes several times, swallowing the large lump that formed in your throat. You let out a deep breathe and was about to put your hand on the knob when the door let out a soft creak and caught sight of Jaehyun who was dressed in nothing, but his boxer shorts. Your hands didn't left the air as you continued to stare up at him, before your eyes fell down his toned abs that were nothing compared to your flabby stomach. "M/n, baby! You're just in time." He smiled at you, but you were still as nervous as ever. Your eyes never left from taking in the view right in front of your eyes, admiring how much his body was so sexy, licking your lips as your eyes fell down his shorts. "M/n."

Your head snapped up towards him, finally out of your train of thoughts. "Yes, daddy?"

"I left your present on the bed, baby. Go check it out." He told you as you did what you were told and moved upstairs to your shared bedroom and saw a pink colored paper bag on top of the bed. You looked at Jaehyun hesitantly, who gave you a smirk and nodded his head up once to the bag to tell you that you should open it. So, you did. And didn't expect to see all sorts of 'toys' inside them.

"D-daddy... these all are..." You managed to let out, these only few words getting the chance to leave your mouth. Your hands trembled, not because you were scared, mainly because you can already feel yourself start to melt and the desperation to just submit to him already.

You felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around you loosely, Jaehyun's hot breathe hitting your neck. He pressed his lips down to your neck and placed kisses that trailed down to your exposed shoulder due to the large shirt you wore that was barely hanging on your shoulders. You tilt your head to the side, giving him more access to your neck as he started to nip on the skin. "Fuck, baby boy." He whispered into your ear, licking your lobe making you sigh in pleasure, as he started to grind his hard on against your ass.

"Ah... daddy.." You moaned out from the feeling of his clothed member on your butt.

He never ceased his movements until he saw your hands still holding onto the bag, his smirk growing wider. "I'll let you pick two, baby and it'll be our special tool for tonight. How's that sound?" He seductively asked you, his lips grazing the back of your ear.

You weakly nodded your head and checked the contents of the paper bag. You were too clouded with the thought of getting pleasured by the older man that you took out whatever you could take in your hand. The chosen items made Jaehyun smirk. "Good choice, baby boy." He moved away from you, already missing the heat his body radiated against yours. He took the bag away from the bed and threw it somewhere in the corner of the room and took the toys you had in your hand. "I gotta say, you have good taste, M/n." He said. "Strip." His voice fell an octave deeper making your knees buckle from his dominating demeanor.

[weaselbrownie]

we’re okay | d.m

draco malfoy x fem!reader

summary : draco and his girlfriend got in a fight but she stayed patient with him.

warning : swearing, angst, accusations?, fluff towards the end, talk about starting a family

a/n : flashbacks in italic

word count : 1.8k

01.30 am

It was late and you had to wake up early tomorrow for a potions exam but your mind was elsewhere. Tossing around in your bed the events of last night kept replaying in your head. 

"Why can't you see– I love you Draco"

"No Y/N you don't love me– you love the idea of fixing me!" Draco shouted at you through his gritted teeth and locked jaw. 

"You can't possibly think that's true..." You backed away from him as the tears in your eyes started to fall. 

Fighting and fighting was all you've been doing with Draco. You knew what you signed up for when you got into a relationship with Draco, but you never thought it would get this bad. Every day you try to hold onto him, try to lend him your hand because God knows he needs it in times like this. After Draco got the mission from you-know-who, he has not been himself. Always sneaking away, only to come back to his dorm past midnight. You tried for so long to try to talk to him but he wasn't budging, and now, here you were. All you wanted to do was tell him he's not alone and that you love him but of course he would turn that on you, twisting it into something sick. 

"Y/N we both know it's true, you come into my life when I'm at my lowest and you try too hard!" Draco continued to shout at your fragile state. 

"Try too hard? Try too hard my arse Draco– This is what I get for caring about you?" You fought back at him not wanting to lose another fight to him.

"I didn't ask for you to care for me– You came to me all on your own trying to be little miss perfect, fixing the broken boy like last year's project! Well, guess what? You can leave now, there's the door Y/N!" Draco spat out at you when a single tear escaped from the corner of his eye. 

Your body ran cold at his harsh words, you knew Draco didn't mean what he said but it still hurts like hell. You've been in his life since the very beginning, growing to love him through your years in Hogwarts. You knew he was hurting and it was hurting you more that you can't take the pain away from him, you love the boy so much to the point where you would sacrifice yourself in a heartbeat in exchange for his happiness.  

"What happened to you? What happened to the boy who helped me ride my first broomstick, to the boy who stuck up for me when those Gryffindors cornered me, to the boy who took me to the Yule Ball–" You chocked out in between your streaming tears "What happened to the boy who I comforted in his home when it was invaded by death eaters? To the boy I've loved since the first year?" You really couldn't control the tears anymore, you had to get out of here before it gets worse.

You shook your head before gathering your book bag and robe, slowly making your way past Draco and to the door he pointed to behind him. You placed your hand onto the doorknob before turning in your place to see Draco's back. 

"Please come back to me" 

With that you were gone, tears run on Draco's pale face– realizing that he just drove you out of his life. Y/N, the last person to truly cared about him, the love of his life. Draco broke down with a scream throwing anything he could get his hands on. 

On the other side of the door, you stood muffling your own tears as you hear him completely breaking. You wiped your face before forcing yourself to step away from the door and back into yours. 

You took a deep breath as you stare up to the ceiling of your dorm. Your roommate was out for the night so it was even quieter, the thoughts in your head screaming at you. You decided that maybe a cold shower would help you sleep.

Before you could even move a muscle the doorknob started rattling, thinking it was your roommate to go get something you turned your body away from the door and closed your eyes, pretending to be asleep. 

The door slowly creaked open and closed again. Footsteps started to approach your bed you could feel a shadow in front of you. The person in front of you stayed there for a moment before brushing a small strand of hair away from your face. 

When the fingertips touched your face you already knew it was Draco, you didn't need to open your eyes to know Draco was touching you. Playing along you stayed still pretending to be asleep as Draco admired your figure wrapped around a thick blanket. Draco placed his hand on the side of your cheeks, stroking it lightly before softly letting out a few words. 

"I'm so sorry"

"I didn't know why I did it but I didn't mean the things I said, I was just– angry, angry at myself for hurting you but angry at you for staying with me when I know someone else could make you much happier than I ever could" Draco softly said, still caressing your rosy cheek in the process. 

"I have never loved anyone other than my family and I don't know how to process the feelings I have for you. This is for the best sweetheart, someday you'll find a guy who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated– like a princess. I'll be okay, as long as you're happy" 

Draco whispered to you, as you felt a teardrop land on your cheek. Your heart aches, listening to him, listening to how he thinks someone else could make you happier. Little did he know that he was it for you, that he was the person you wanted to spend forever with. 

He kissed your forehead lightly before cupping your face again. Goosebumps start to form on the back of your neck as he leaves little kisses on your face. Your head going dizzy, inhaling his scent that you love to drown yourself in. 

"I love you Y/N" 

Not wasting another second he pulled his hand away from your face and sniffled a little. The warmth from his hand leaving your cheeks, and then you heard his footsteps drifting away from you. 

This was now or never if you don't tell him now you might never will. So with a determined mindset, you slowly sat up from your spot and turned around to see Draco opening the door of your dorm with his head hung low. 

"Draco.." 

He picked up his head and quickly turned on his feet to face you. His tear-stained face and his ruffled hair. He changed into a comfortable jumper along with sweatpants to keep him warm in the cold air. His eyes lit up when he noticed you were wearing his jumper, the very first jumper you stole from him in 4th year. He has told you many times to get rid of it as it was old but you never did, considering that it smells like him the most. 

You eyed his figure in the dark before extending your arms out and made grabby hand gestures at him. He smiled softly before closing the door and walking towards your bed. He touched your hands keeping them in his for a while before closing the space between the two of you with a tight hug. You rested your head on his torso with your legs dangling off the bed on either side of him as he kissed your hair. 

Draco finally let go of the hug just to kneel in front of you. He pouted when he saw your face with tears in the corner of your eyes and squeezed your thighs reassuringly. He took your hands and kissed your wrist before cupping your face to wipe your tears away. 

"I don't want you to go..." You murmured down at him 

His mouth fell into a straight line as he takes in the beautiful sight in front of him. His hands fell from your face to your hips, keeping them there and his head hung low too ashamed to look at his love. 

"Nobody compares to you Draco– N-not even close.." You cooed lifting his head by cupping his face much as he did with yours just seconds ago.

His silver eyes were blown, looking up at you with all the adoration and love the world could possibly offer. He opened his mouth to say something but before the words could leave his mouth you closed your lips on his. He stayed still for a second surprised at your action before closing his eyes and returned the kiss. The kiss wasn't like the many kisses you shared before but rather a needy broken one. His lips were soft and tasted a bit salty from all the tears. Without breaking the kiss you guided him to stand and join you on the bed. You backed up until your head hit the soft cold pillow and Draco hovering above you with his arms on either side of you. The both of you finally pulled away in need of air as you admired the boy above you. 

"Y/N wha-"

"Shush Draco," You said in your sweet voice looking into his eyes. 

He smiled down at you before letting go and crushing you. You smiled at him as he snuggles into your neck, leaving a few open mouth kisses. You wrapped your arms around his shoulder and kissed the top of his head before playing with the ends of his hair. 

"You will not speak such stupid words again Draco– I'm not going anywhere" You whispered to him as he picked his head up from the crook of your neck to look at you. "You do know that I want to spend the rest of my life with you right?" You cooed down to him as his eyes lit up once more. 

"Do you mean that?" Draco asked slowly, wanting every word you're saying to be true. 

"Mhm– After this pass, we can get out of here, get a house in the countryside with a big garden and maybe a pond. Then we can start a family, just the two of us– Unless you're not ready to start a family then we can wait as long as you want. Then we'll watch as the kids grow up and go into Hogwarts to start their own lives and then w–" You said as you imagined your life with Draco. 

He looked up at you with a soft smile before interrupting you with a soft kiss on your lips. He smiled and chuckled into your lips as you do the same, the kiss ended up being a small laughing fit for the both of you. 

"Darling I've never heard anything better" Draco cooed after you both calmed down. 

You smiled at the boy in front of you and returned to your previous position with his head on the crook of your neck and your arms around his neck. 

"I love you, darling" 

"I love you too Draco"

[ultrahpfan5blog]

Retrospective Review - Batman: Under the Red Hood

Batman: Under the Red Hood was a film that caught me completely by surprise when I first saw it. When this film released, I was biased against everything that was not DCAU in animated form. I didn't expect to like this film at all. I am not even sure I had red the story arc on which it is based, but I knew the history of Robin in DC comics. When I watched it, I absolutely loved it. To this date, this film ranks maybe second only to MOTP in Batman animated films for me.

Death in the Family is a very iconic story arc and the Under the Red Hood story arc is basically the resurrection of Jason Todd as the Red Hood, which is the moniker he has kept since then while going through various heroic and villainous phases. The movie is not quite a literal adaptation of the story arc, the way Year One was, but it gets most of the important basics of the story arc and the general structure. There are some characters included who were not in the story and some characters in the story arc who were excluded in the movie. But most of it is cosmetic changes. The essence of the story is still the same, which is Batman confronting his greatest failure. And that is a gripping and fairly tragic story of an estranged father and son whose directions in life have become different. The film starts with a piece of death in the family, with Joker killing Jason and Batman's failure to rescue him, and then it fades into current times where we see Red Hood taking over drug suppliers and their businesses and causing major issues for the Black Mask while Batman and Nightwing investigate who Red Hood is. The film approaches the central story as a mystery that is gradually uncovered. You get a nice view of the Batman and Nightwing dynamic in the first act and how that is probably the healthiest relationship that Bruce has with any of his former Robins. There is plenty of fun action sequences from the very beginning but the way the mystery uncovered is also very cool. The shock that you see in Bruce and Alfred, when they realize Jason is still alive, is palpable and heartbreaking. The film builds up very nicely to the first official confrontation between Batman and Red Hood.

The buildup to the official reveal is great and there are flashbacks interwoven throughout the movie of Jason as a kid and as Robin. The elements of Jason that were problematic such as his anger when he become a little older, are also shown. The film is wise to remove some of the more convoluted aspects of Jason's resurrection in the comics. The film's streamlining of the story is very effective. The inclusion of Joker in the storyline in a more expanded capacity is great. It adds a lot of substance to the climax of the movie. The Batman and Red Hood scenes, which are the crux of the movie, are very well handled. The first sequence where Batman comes in to team up with Red Hood and save him from the hired assassins is cool. It shows that he still has that protective fatherly instinct and Jason's faith in Bruce coming to save him, but also the fundamental conflict between them. The entire climax though is the real highlight of the movie. Where Batman and Jason fight, leading to the emotional confrontation which leads to the crux of Jason's ideological fight with Batman. We see Jason's facade crack and at the center of it all he is just a boy who is hurt that his father figure didn't avenge his death. Its a fantastic scene because not only showcases Jason's pain but also the strength of Batman's moral character. Its a scene which spells out why Batman has that no kill rule and how much he actually wants to kill Joker but he doesn't do it for his own sanity. Also, its a terrific Joker moment, who revels in the chaos he is causing, even though he is beaten up and tied to a chair.

I honestly don't have much in terms of complaints. The film has some exposition heavy dialogue. Stuff like the crooks explaining how Nightwing is the first Robin that Batman had. That's dialogue that is very much targeted at audience members who don't know who Robin is. There are similar instances throughout. They do make Black Mask out to be a bit of joke in this movie, because he is pretty hapless against Red Hood, then gets almost killed by the Joker when he hires him to get rid of Red Hood and has to be rescued by Batman. But these are honestly minor complaints. Its a well paced and well voiced film with really strong animation.

In terms of voice acting, after Kevin Conroy, Bruce Greenwood is my favorite voice for Batman. He has the right baritone and he conveys grief, anger, and regret through his performance. Jensen Ackles is the other big star here. He has that youthful arrogance in his voice which works big time, but he also is fantastic towards the end when Jason has to break down and show emotion. John Dimaggio is brilliant as the Joker. Apart from Hamill, there aren't too many Jokers that work for me but Dimaggio is fantastic. He wisely plays it different than Hamill and he is pretty dark and demented in his portrayal. Neil Patrick Harris is also excellent as Nightwing. Its a pity he disappears after the first act but he has the upbeat vibe that works well with Greenwood's Batman. Wade Williams as Black Mask is pretty fun. Jason Isaacs as Ra's al-Ghul and Jim Piddock as Alfred, round out the cast.

Overall, this is a top notch Batman animated film. Its my favorite outside of the DCAU and works really well as a standalone story. Brandon Vietti, who developed and produced Young Justice along with Weisman and also had Greenwood as Batman, does a real good job with this film as director. I find this film to be underrated because I think its a lot better than most of the DC animated films that have released in recent times. A 9/10 for me.

[yurtletheturtlehenderson]

Scars That Heal || Eddie Kaspbrak x Reader Series

• Ch. 12: Changes •

A/N: The missing gaps in time are on purpose since they will be in book 2 as flashbacks, which will include references to events you have not read yet. All fluff and shenanigans this chapter to make up for last, I hope you enjoy!

Warnings: brief mention of nausea and gore towards the very end, but otherwise, tooth-rotting fluff!

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐦𝐲 𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬

𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐩𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐧

𝐀𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐭𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐬

𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲'𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧' 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡

              - David Bowie, Changes

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

- 𝗠𝗜𝗗 𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧 -

    "I still can't believe you went after Bowers," Richie scoffs.

    As he steps off his porch and onto his lawn he looks over at his best friend and takes another gander at the bruises and welts littering her skin. Her lip was still busted and despite his and his mother's efforts to clean her bottom lip of blood, it must have started bleeding again sometime during the night as more had crusted over.

    "Yeah, well," she shrugs. "It felt good,"

    "Yeah," he snorts. "It looks like it,"

    "You know what I mean," She elbowed him and he nodded with a little laugh.

    "What d'ya want to do? I mean, we could keep standing around here like a bunch of idiots, but-" he shrugs, hands falling into his pockets, and Y/n smiles.

    "I dunno," she shrugs. A wince falls over her face, a painful-looking one at that. "But I don't think I'm gonna be welcome back at the Capitol Theatre any time soon."

    Richie nodded, a ghostly look falling over his face at all that had transpired in the past twenty-four hours alone. He still couldn't believe she had done that. He still couldn't believe a lot of things but her being in his corner after what she had found out seemed a little harder to believe right now. Especially after the junkyard... But - Jesus, that was already a week and a half ago, it felt like only hours.

    He could hear her words from the park the other day in his ears and he suddenly felt the urge to pay her back. He smiled his charming crooked smile and hoped for the best.

    "You still craving fries?"

    "Always," she answered, a look of suspicion written in her features. "Why?"

    Y/n didn't know why she kept asking these questions when she knew the answer. She didn't at all like the look growing in his eyes or the stupid feeling of guilt growing in her stomach.

    "Cause I'm prepared to make a deal with ya toots,"

     "Oh, yeah?"

    "Sure am," he says, patting his hand over his left pocket. "I'd been saving up for a long weekend at the arcade but that's a bust. And I just got a raise on my allowance ━ that's again, toots. Allowance. It's the money you get when you do stuff for people, you might never have heard of it--"

    "Is there a point here, Rich? Cause if so, you better get to it faster,"

    "Point is, I'm packing and I'm also craving milkshakes. So how's about I treat you to the biggest pile of fries your staved ass has ever seen--"

    Y/n shoots him a knowing look, ready to detest when he holds out a finger.

    "If," he continues. "you take me there."

    "Take you there?"

    "Take me there," he nodded. "By piggyback."

    Y/n gave thought to this, all while hiding behind an unimpressed look. As much as she hated to admit it, she was starving.

    Richie shrugged. "Hey, you're the one always saying you don't want to feel like charity. Well, this ain't charity, this is work with a reward. Take it or leave it,"

    Her unimpressed look grows stronger in an attempt to buy her time. But it's useless, her stomach answers for her with a long growl and a smile sneaks up on her.

    She steps forward, crouching down a bit for him to jump on her back. "Alright, let's get this over with."

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

    "You know, I was really worried about carrying you, but dude, you weigh like nothing. You're a fucking bean pole," Y/n says.

    She comes to a slow before straightened her back letting him slide off her back and onto the ground. The two of them had arrived at the nearest diner in the town square where they now stood.

    "Well, not to brag or anything, but," he fluffs his collar. "I took a massive shit before we left,"

    "Ugh!" a shocked and uncomfortable laugh breaks loose from Y/n and she sticks out her tongue in disgust. "Regretting this already."

    She threw open the doors and the two found themselves inside one of Derry's lesser diners.

    It smelled like sausage and coffee beans, and it had a vibrant red and black theme. There were maybe nine or ten people there, little kids included and they could hear the jukebox blasting a David Bowie song. Y/n had a hard time enjoying it with the combination of a full bladder and an empty stomach so she turns to Richie and nudges him with her elbow.

    "I'm gonna run to the restroom. Get us a booth?"

    "Do your thing," Y/n nods and disappears around the corner. As his eyes follow her, they land on the corner in question she had disappeared around where there sat the jukebox.

    He wanders over, eyeing the machine as Changes reaches a crescendo. A mischievous smile blooms as the lights from the window illuminated his face.

    "Three plays for a dollar, huh?"

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

    When Y/n returned from the restroom, she had expected to find Richie lounging in a booth somewhere, feet up and bugging the employees. She did not expect to turn the corner and nearly collide with the boy as he stood at the Jukebox and feeding all his money into it.

    "Dude! I carried you here, you owe me fries!"

    "And you shall get them my liege," answered Richie in a Shakespearean tone. "But first!" He dropped the act and looked away from the Jukebox for the first time, wearing an almost evil grin. "A social experiment,"

    Y/n's brow furrowed as she watched Richie punch in the same Tom Jones song over and over and over. It was then she caught on to what he was doing. She held out a hand as her eyes watched the Jukebox.

    "Hey, hey, hey, wait," she said, stopping Richie in his tracks.

    He looked up at her with a pout. "Relax, toots. I saved just enough for their biggest basket of fries, you'll get them." Then Richie saw the look on her face. He could practically see the gears turning.

    "No, not that. It's just..." she said, eyes never leaving the list of songs. "Before you put in more, you should throw in one It's Not Unusual,"

    And that's when the afternoon went from good to great.

· · ─── ·𖥸· ─── · ·

    By now, the duo had ordered and waited. They now sat tucked into a corner booth with a great view of the street corner and the passers-by of Derry. Changes had long since ended, and the remaining songs in the queue had trickled out. Richie memorized the song queue and was silently counting down until the big moment as he sat across from his battered-up best friend.

    Her busted lip poked out in a bored pout, her chin propped up on her palm as she balanced her head on the table while looking out at the graying town landscape. It always escaped her how Derry could possibly look so gloomy on even the hottest, brightest days of summer. Until recently that is, the truth all too clear to her and her friends now.

    The thought of the Losers scattered all over this hellhole only added to the gloom. They should all be here, together. Pointlessly debating which condiment goes best with fries, not fighting over... Over what they had fought over.

    Y/n's eyes finally broke away from the manhole at the center of the little intersection outside and wandered over to Richie. He had stolen the salt and pepper shakers from a few empty (and not so empty) tables and was currently doing his best to construct a salt and pepper shaker tower. His tongue was sticking out from between his curled lips and his glasses were sliding to the end of his nose at the angle he looking. The tower was nearly three shakers high and Y/n could hear him muttering, 'where's Haystack when you need him?' under his breath.

    The gloom Y/n had been thinking so intently on was suddenly ebbed away at the sight, and the corners of her lips hooked into a small smile.

    At least she had her favorite Trashmouth.

    "If you keep undressing me with your eyes, I'm gonna catch a cold," said Richie, never once looking up from his tower.

    Y/n snorts. "You're unbearable,"

    Richie shrugs defensively. "Hey, you're the one who said we're stuck with each other," he clicks his tongue and winks. "No going back on that kind of deal,"

    "Oh, I meant what I said," Y/n releases her chin and folds both arms on the table. She hated getting all serious again, but she just needed to be sure. Her voice softens, trying to catch Richie's eye. "All of it, okay?"

    Richie's hand around the salt shaker stops, and he pries his eyes off the tower and to his best friend. Despite her intentions and promises, everything that transpired the day before -- good and bad -- flooded over him and made him tense.

    She suddenly offered him her pinky and a small smile.

    "Stuck forever?"

    Richie rolls his eyes. He didn't quite know who to blame, maybe just the losers in general, but he was going all soft and lame.

    "Like my ass and a toilet seat, toots,"

    He locked his pinky with hers and the deal was sealed forever.

    Y/n leaned back on her side of the booth and took a large swig of the complimentary water as her eyes returned to the streets. The chatter of the diner had died down a little. There weren't as many people since they got there, but they were still filtering in and out. But when Y/n had a hard time shaking off the images she had of her best friend in the state he had been, she deems it safe enough to lean forward and lowered her voice.

    "You know," she began picking at her napkin, making slow and tiny tears here and there. "I--" she sighs, not knowing how or where to begin. "I wouldn't blame you."

    Richie, having abandoned his shaker tower, frowns.

"I wouldn't blame you if maybe, it was -- or is hard to be..." she shakes her head again and rubs her forehead trying to find the words. "I wouldn't blame you if it was hard to be around me and Eddie," She blurts.

    "I'm gonna stop you right there," Richie says. "We're not gonna do that, okay? You have exceeded your sappy meter and you're gonna need to wait about 48 hours for it to charge up again. I think we've both had enough, right?"

    Y/n swallowed her words. She swallowed any promise she was holding out to him that their feelings for Eddie wouldn't change anything. That she wouldn't ever want to stand in their way, however true it was. And instead, she made a new one.

    "Let's just agree, whatever happens, happens. Let that be whatever it needs to be. Even if that means neither of us gets to see that adorable, asthmatic pipsqueak ever again. Deal?"

    Y/n fought the bittersweet smile threatening to appear. She could see it now. Richie knew what he needed to know about himself now, and that was already a lot for him to handle. She could see in his eyes he wasn't ready for the possibility of whatever was his feelings for Eddie Kaspbrak.

    Y/n's stomach turns to knots when the thought crosses her mind, but that only confirms to her it was time.

    She looks around the diner, looking for prying eyes and she still finds none. She leans in, voice lowered as she fiddles with her napkin again. "I'm uh--," she clears her throat. "I've never told anyone this, but..."

    She lets out a sharp breath. "Well, let's just say Eddie isn't the first Loser I've ever had feelings for,"

    Richie shakes his head, making a "what am I supposed to do with that?" face at her sudden shyness. She only gives him a solid stare until it finally clicks.

    Richie collapses against the seatback with a gaping, triumphant look.

    "No. Fucking. Way," Richie slaps his hands on the table and leans forward, and an ugly excited laugh comes barreling out of his chest. "You big homo!"

    "Would you fucking shut up?!" Y/n hisses, reaching over and shoving him back against his seat by his forehead. She looks around the diner and determines no one had heard that. Maybe except one guy in his forties, but that was most likely about him knowing they did something to the jukebox. He was sat with his young kids, looking tired and all too suspicious of their laughter at the jukebox. Finally, she laughs a little. "Beep, beep you moron."

    "You telling me you and Little Orphan Annie...?"

    "I'm saying," Y/n sighs, shrugging her shoulders. "I meant it when I said you're not alone, alright?"

    The look in Richie's eyes hardly changes.

    "No!" She answers. "No, nothing's happened but..." Y/n shook her head. "I had feelings for a really long time, up until about two years ago."

    "Wowza," Richie sighs, leaning back into his seat and plopping one hand on the table. He sighs. "We sure know how to pick em,"

    "Yeah, you could say that," Y/n laughs.

    In fact, that's all she could say. A million things ran through her head, things she wanted to say to Richie but couldn't. Cause when she looked in Richie's eyes at that moment she -- they both -- knew everything unsaid could remain that way. With one look they knew. They knew that they could both count on each other, have each other's back. And that included Eddie too. They knew that no matter who held Eddie's heart, they could both agree that Eddie's happiness -- and each other's -- was most important.

    The sound of brass instruments invaded the atmosphere, pulling the duo's eyes to the jukebox across the diner. Their faces lit up in matching grins, both of them nearly forgetting the psychological horror they had just unleashed upon the diner.

    "What's new pussycat? Woah, wo~ah,"

    And thus began the best meal they ever had.

- 𝗟𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗔𝗨𝗚𝗨𝗦𝗧 -

    Y/n relished at the demanding burst of cool air that bombarded her sweaty skin as she stepped inside Keene's pharmacy. The grip on the money she had scraped together tucked tightly in her right palm grew tighter when the shopkeeper's bell announced her arrival. Her eyes fell to her injured leg, and by now her feet have already begun their journey forward towards the first aid supplies. The last of the bandages secured around her leg, and she winced at the faded and stained cloth that was in dire need of a change.

    Her eyes pick up from the ground when she hears a choked gasp only to find the boy that had been occupying her thoughts standing before her.

    "Y/n," His voice is meek and heavy with sadness, and you can hear the absence of breath in his lungs that she always seemed to create.

    Despite the staggering stampede of emotions she felt, she found herself releasing a chuckle. "Hey, shrimp."

    The name itself would have been strong enough to send hooks into the corner of his lips, tugging them into a half-smile had it not been for the sight before him; she was a wreck. Looked as if she had been put through an actual wringer and his heart stops for a moment, in fear. At that moment he is grateful he has his inhaler, Y/n had a talent for taking his breath away but he never would have dreamed of it happening this way. Already his mind is going at twice its speed, a mad swarm of thoughts that dizzy his head, and as quickly as he can he tries to pluck one - just one - thing to say to her. When he finally speaks, he is thankful that his voice has returned to him.

    "How's your leg?"

    He doesn't have to ask, the first thing he saw - the very feature that tipped him off about her - was the blood-soaked bandages wrapped around her left calf. He couldn't imagine why it would still be bleeding, much less this profusely given how long ago it had been. Perhaps it had opened back up. And Eddie felt it best not to address the new set of scrapes and bandages that were scattered across her arms and legs, though each one filled him with worry. But her eye... it was completely swollen, and several shades darker than a usual bruise.

    She grew rather sick looking at the question and instantly he was filled with dread. Had It gotten to her again? Was it something new entirely? Either way, he felt a great deal of guilt he hadn't been there, and more than anything he wanted her safe. Maybe, if it wasn't too crazy, be the one to look out for her. To protect her.

    "I just," she swallows thickly, eyes darting around to avoid his eye line.

    Eddie tilts his head, encouraging her to continue. She looks as if she's about to unload a great deal off of her chest, but after a moment she shakes her head.

    "Nothing," she lies. "Just need new bandages."

    Eddie's horrified expression does not waver, but only intensifies, zeroing in on her. He just simply can't ignore the state she's in. And while every instinct inside him screams to jump in and help, he knows that's not his call nor his place. But he had to ask, he had to know.

    "Are you okay?" He blurts suddenly. He mentally slapped himself. Of course she wasn't. "What happened...? You're leg? You're eye? Are you in trouble at home? Was it...?"

    She grows tense, and Eddie scolds himself once more when he sees her walls rebuilding themselves. He hated his stupid word vomit sometimes.

    "No, Eddie!" she says tiredly, sighing at her slight outburst. "I'm..." she sighs again, staring at the floor, looking almost... calculated.

    Finally, she picks her head back up, her expression flat, but her tone a bit softer. "Just Bowers. The usual."

    Eddie couldn't help but feel like she was lying. And that hurt him. But he understood. If she had pressed him about things at home he probably would have done the same. Eddie sighed deeply as well.

    He missed the way things were.

    He missed Y/n.

    He missed the feeling he got around her, the storm of butterflies and mind-numbing fits of laughter they'd bring out in one another. He missed the way his skin would tingle like every blood cell was on fire when their skin accidentally brushed together. Eddie missed the way he'd lose himself in thoughts about her like he was now.

    Eddie didn't realize it until that last thought crossed his mind, but this was the first time in weeks he felt something other than anxiety and fear. And maybe he was crazy, but when he looked in Y/n's eyes now he thought he saw it too -

    "I'm sorry, Eddie," she says, breaking him from his daydream, sending him falling back down to earth. "But I really need to take care of this."

    He glances down at her leg, the bandage still soaked with blood and he feels fear squeeze his chest again. She was leaving. And that meant he had to, as well. He would have to say goodbye and go back home to his mother. He could hear her haunted cries, whining at him and wailing. What took you so long, Eddie? Don't you know what you're doing to my heart?

    Eddie goes rigid at the thought when he realizes; the last time he saw Y/n... Those horrible things his mother had said to her and he... Jesus, what she must think.

    "Y-Y/n," he sputters desperately as she begins to limp around him. She had gotten no answer for once again he had gotten lost in his thoughts. But he couldn't have it end like this. He just couldn't. "Y/n, I'm sorry."

    She stops in her tracks and looks back at him, thoughtfully. A sad smile graces her face.

    "I know, shrimp,"

    Her eyes hold a thousand words, a million things she wants to say to him as he wants to say to her. But they die out, and she turns away.

    "Y/n!"

    He couldn't let her go, he just couldn't. Then why was this so difficult? He always had a mouthful to say, but around Y/n L/n, Eddie was always speechless.

    "I wanna..." he gulps, a pleading, sincere look in his eyes. "I wanna see you again." He admits.

    Y/n smiles sadly. Like she doesn't want to let him go either. But still, she gives him a pleading look after gesturing to her leg.

    "Eddie, I gotta take care of this,"

     His head sunk to the floor and he nodded, embarrassed. Of course, what the hell was he thinking? She didn't need him coming in and messing things -

    Her sudden sigh broke his thoughts. "Meet me outside in five? I could use some help,"

     A nervous smile broke out, stretching and hurting his cheeks and Eddie nodded when he met her eye. He was out the door without another word, back in the alley where he had first bandaged her up all those months ago.

    His mind raced with possibility and more unanswered questions. What would he do, what would he say? What had happened to her, and could he have been there to stop it? His face still burned with embarrassment when he thought of the things he let his mother say to her, how livid he was with himself.

    It was all he could do not to bounce off the walls from the jitters. The crates from the last alley visit, or at least some like it, remained and so Eddie eagerly took a seat. His knee bounced up and down at unnatural speeds as his mind raced, his eyes wandering the alley as the wind swept in a familiar summer breeze against his cheeks.

    "I really need to focus right now," he orders, his hands making delicate work of the bandage over the new kid's stomach.

    "You need to focus?" Richie snorts over his shoulder, causing Eddie's cheeks to burn.

    "Yeah, can you go get me something?"

    "Jesus! What do you need?"

    "Go get my bifocals. I hid 'em in my second fanny pack."

    Y/n leaned forward, balanced on her knees with a crooked smile that would with Eddie for days. "You have a second fanny pack?"

    The burning in his cheeks grew, and Stan joined in. "Yeah, why do you have two?"

    Eddie didn't dare meet anyone's eye, let alone Richie or Y/n's.

    "I need to focus right now and it's a long story. I don't want to get into it."

    Besides! He was telling the truth! He needed to focus. Who knows what kind of shit has gotten into this kid's system by now?

    Eddie had nearly finished with the new kid's bandages when he heard the jingle of the store bell.

    "Yep. Thanks." Came the hardened voice of Y/n backing out and towards the alley with a pressed and forced smile before turning for the alley and away from whoever she had been talking to. Eddie was the only one to have caught the small whispered words under her breath from the silence of the alley. "-for nothing, I guess..."

    Eddie shot up from his seat, subconsciously straightening out his shirt.

    "Everything okay? What was that all about?" He asked as Y/n finally joined him. Eddie sputtered, mentally kicking himself for prying. "I mean, you don't have to tell me or anything, it's just you seemed frustrated. You know what never mind, you probably want to get your leg fixed up, right?"

   Eddie stopped again, shifting on his feet when he realized Y/n must be waiting to talk. "Sorry," he mumbled. And to his great surprise, she smiled.

    "Don't be. I've missed your word vomit," she joked.

    Eddie could feel the corners of his lips twitching up in a smile, and something happened to him he hadn't felt in a long time; flutters invaded his chest, making the air he breathed feel lighter and his stomach was doing flips. And he would have fallen harder had he known Y/n's stomach was doing flips right along with him, and a burning sensation lighting up her neck and ears.

    "Well, here-" Eddie said, snapping out of his daze, no longer able to stand by and ignore the gash in her leg. He supposed it really was like old times. He stepped aside, gesturing for the crates and taking the bag of supplies Y/n had handed over.

    "For real though," Eddie began, eyeing her nervously as he unzipped his fanny bag and begun fishing inside for hand wipes. "What happened, Y/n?"

    Her smile fell, and her eyes dropped to her lap where her fingers fiddled together. To Eddie, it felt like a long time before she finally answered.

    "A lot's happened since Niebolt, I'll leave it at that,"

    Eddie nodded, and stepped forward, lowering himself to his knees before her injured leg, and began unwrapping the first of the supplies from her grocery bag. "It feels like years ago,"

    "Yeah, it does," Y/n croaks.

    There's another small silence and Eddie feels a tug in his chest when her eyes linger over him. He only spares a moment to meet her eyes back before taking a deep breath and holding it. With a wince, he unraveled the cloth and quickly discarded it. He tried not to linger on the injury; the edges of her claw-like scars remained, but it looked as if they had been messily pried back open.

    Like deja vu, Eddie found himself battling to keep his lunch in his stomach, but the overall worry in his system for one of his best friends triumphed over it this time around. He dismissed the urge to gag and instead darted his eyes to Y/n in between his work.

    "So..." he asked, realizing he didn't really know where to start. "how have you been? Other than, you know," he laughed nervously.

    To his relief, Y/n smiled.

    "It's hard not being around the losers. I only ever see Richie anymore. Even Bev and I haven't really spoken since the fight, which has been really hard. We've been in each other's lives for so long,"

    As Eddie finishes cleaning the wound, his heart sinks a little at her words. True, he missed Beverly very much. But he also knew all too well what Y/n spoke of, and judging by the look in her eye as she softens at him, she knows it too. She gives him a gentle nudge with her foot.

    "He misses you too," she says, growing another small smile. "Won't shut up about you, in fact. Which is saying something... Guess I'm one to talk, though," she adds, watching him nervously out of the corner of her eye, and Eddie's heart skipped another beat.

    "What about you, shrimp? Dare I ask?" She says with a smile.

    Eddie, Y/n noticed, had been unusually quiet. By now, on any other occasion, he would have talked laps around her by now but something was keeping him. Maybe he just feels a bit out of step, she thinks, as she did. It had been far too long since things had been normal for either of them. But something told her he was now particularly quiet perhaps because he wasn't all that eager to share how things had been for him since the losers split. She couldn't imagine things had been well at home with his mother given everything that had transpired.

    So she didn't pry. She changes the subject, hoping to get his mind off of whatever might be bothering him. Her mind returns to his previous questions, and she bites the bullet.

    "Quitting my job." She says finally, stunning Eddie enough to pull his attention away for a split second. "You wondered what I was doing there. And aside from restocking, I was um... I was quitting my job."

    "You got a job at Keene's Pharmacy? When?" Eddie asked, reaching for a strip of gauze.

    Y/n seemed to think about it for a minute, counting the days in her head before shrugging. Leaning forward, she holds the gauze in places Eddie begins applying the bandages. "I guess a little over two weeks after Niebolt. I did little things around the store, this and that really,"

    "How come I never saw you?" Eddie asked, and Y/n shrugged.

    "He had me running errands most of the time," and she smiled a little. "But sometimes I'd stick around a little longer. I'd offer to sweep or restock the shelves or something. It's stupid, I know, but... I don't know, I guess I was hoping to see some admittedly cute... shrimpy little dude come walking in to refill his inhaler. Is that stupid?"

    Eddie paused, unable to hide the smile or the raging blush taking over his face. Y/n smiled to herself when she saw it, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't feeling a little bit of it too. Finally, Eddie spoke. Or at least, he tried to. His voice came out hoarse and he cleared his throat, quickly shaking his head as he secured the bandages in place and began disinfecting his hands.

    "No. No, that's not stupid at all. I mean, I don't know if I'd say shrimpy, necessarily, maybe a little skinny but-"

    Y/n laughed, smiling hard at the boy she hadn't stopped thinking about for weeks. Like Eddie, she hadn't realized just how much she had missed him until now. But, she hoped, maybe she could change that.

    Eddie trailed off, his ears burning at her laugh but a smile on his face all the same. At this moment, everything was perfect. Or seemingly so, at least. And then...

    "Thanks, Doctor K,"

     He smiled, a sinking feeling in his chest knowing what was coming next as she hoisted herself back on her feet. "Yeah, of course."

    A silence falls over the two, a silence they know won't last.

    "I guess I should get going," Y/n says finally, gesturing down the alleyway. "I'm meeting up with Richie later, he's swinging by my place." And for a moment, she looks hopeful and Eddie already knows what she's going to ask. "You're welcome to come. We both really miss you,"

    Yet again, Eddie Kaspbrak finds himself with a million thoughts racing in his head, but no words on his tongue. What could he say that wouldn't hurt her? What could he say that wouldn't essentially admit he was still a coward who couldn't stand up to his own mother? What could he say?

    But evidently, he doesn't have to. Y/n can see it in his eyes, and any trace of hope deflates with her. She nods sadly, eyes now on the ground and her freshly bandaged leg. "I get it, Eddie. It's fine. You don't have to say anything."

    "Y/n..." He didn't know what felt worse; knowing he let her down, or the sound of her using his real name.

    "Really, it's okay,"

    But it wasn't okay. And Eddie knew that. Today he had been given a second chance with Y/n, and already he had fucked it up. Or so he thought...

    A smile returned to her face just before she left; it wasn't nearly as bright as it had been moments ago, but it was as real as any other he had seen all summer. And then she spoke. She spoke the three words over her shoulder as she disappeared out of view that returned a familiar spark to his chest.

    "I'll call you."

    There was hope yet.

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[valeskakingdom]

Request

Could I request a part 3? Jerome keeps the reader as his hostage for popularity and attention. Reader is really fond of the attention she gets as well and eventually sleeps with Jerome again? In the end she sees how Galavan kills him and is really sad?

Requested by @violentvaleska

So guys, here's part 5!!

Credit gif: @jokersbabe27

Jerome x female reader (part 5)

Warnings: mentions of violence and murder, depression

Word count: 3378

*Later that day at the charity*

"Already excited for my show, doll?" Jerome grinned through his magician costume. you hated that costume. It hid Jerome's beautiful face with a shitty beard, his hairs were under a stupid wig and a black cylinder. And that tuxedo...gosh, you hated it thought not as much as the wig or the fake beard. The worst on it was his name...'Rodolfo'. You were disgusted by that name.

No magician in that universe would ever call himself like that! It sounds so ridiculous!

"Of course! Though I already know you'll be amazing as always." You smirked pressing a kiss on his cheek "Give them the best show they've ever seen!"

"That ain't be a problem for me" Jerome grinned "Even Hundini wouldn't have seen such a great show." You giggled at his comment.

"Without further ado, please allow me to present you the Great Rodolfo!" Immediately, Jerome walked on stage, everyone was applauding - even you. You were excited for how he was acting as a magician. Of course, you knew he was doing it well anyway. Jerome was professional. He could play every role in this Earth perfectly!

"Ha! Greetings ladies and germs," Jerome walked on stage "I am indeed the Great Rodolfo! Please ogle my lovely assistant. Ohh, for my first act, I'll require a volunteer. Let me see. Duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, goose!" Jerome pointed at Bruce Wayne, the richest orphan in Gotham that was hated by every villain - really, everyone wanted to kill him.

"Hello, young man. Does this handsome gentleman have a name?" You heard Jerome saying after she went out to the crowd to bring him back.

"Bruce." The boy responded.

"Bruce! Well, Bruce. This won't hurt a bit." He clapped two great blades together "Is there a doctor in the house?"

Jerome sticked one of the blades in the box along with the other one. The audience gasped, them applauded him.

While watching you were astonished about Jerome's well, acting. Nobody noticed it was him. Neither Bruce nor the other guests recognized anything. Almost unbelievable for you.

"Some people say Bruce has a split personality." Jerome laughed loud while Barbara brought the little kid back to his actual place "For my next illusion, I'd like to call to the stage esteemed Deputy Major Harrison Kane."

Barbara pushed a rolling table, covered with a tarp, forward that it stood in front of Jerome. She pulled the tarp back and you could see any kind of knives laying down there. You were thinking about what was coming next. Is Jerome still playing with him or is he about to kill that guy?

Barbara bended down making the others noticed the next illusion was incoming. But a mistake happened, her mask fell down.

They're fucked!! You thought panicking. If anyone of the guests recognized them, they all would have a big problem. People would call the police, others die, the police finds you and eventually become informed about Theo, as well.

But Barbara kept being professional. Nobody made a move to start panicking or to call the police. Everything stayed normal.

"By the way, nobody is getting out here alive." At first the crowd laughed because they thought he was just joking - of course, he did not. Jerome killed the Deputy and the gunfire started. People were screaming and hiding in hope they weren't the next victim.

You flinched a little in surprise, although you might have expected it. Who would Jerome not kill expect you? He killed his mother, now the Deputy Major...it was just a matter of time to see who was his next victim.

For you, that all was pretty exciting, but also a big feeling of unpleasantness came over you. This situation reminded you of the day Jerome kidnapped you. You had flashbacks. You fear, you uncomfortableness, the nervousness, the wish to go home...everything came back - you knew best how the victims felt right now, and.

And as the last time, something told you that this situation wouldn't turn out well.

You wanted to be with Jerome right now. You just wanted to hug him, you wouldn't care whether he liked it or not, you just needed it.

But you couldn't go to him. You promised him to stay backstage to watch his marvellous show. And you knew, as everyone else knew what would happen if you broke the promise. His mood would change again and you needed to see whether it would turn out well for you or not.

You just stared at your lover. Finally he took the cylinder from his head as the wig, his black mask and the beard. Finally he presented himself again. You couldn't help but smile. You saw him being excited, being happy. He was the star in the show as he was the boss. You loved to see this: him standing there calm and managing everything while around him was pure chaos.

He was so professional you thought.

Out of nowhere, another woman was brought on stage, it was Lee Tompkins.

She was handhuffed, her gaze expressed fear and panicking.

They probably have taken her from behind as she was about to call the cops to tell what was going on.

You saw Jerome gazing at her with a smile - immediately, you hated her. You hated how you Jerome looked at her, how he smiled at her. It looked the same as every time he was smiling at you.

"Hey, darling" You felt shivers down your spine and jealousy came over you as he said that, you hated when Jerome was acting kinda flirty with other women. You always got the feeling they'd be much better than you but you also that your thoughts are wrong "I need to borrow your phone for a moment. We wanna tell Jimbo how the show's going on, don't we?"

And so he called him:

"Sorry Jimbo, it's just little old me!" He said nothing for a moment, then "Are you outside? You are, aren't you?" He cackled" Oh, goody!"

"Breathe, James. I haven't touched a hair on your girlfriend's pretty head." See for yourself. This is live television after all." You heard Jerome laughing after he responded to 'Jimbo'.

Then Jerome and Barbara tied Lee up on that big wheel pretending to shoot her head. It was all to entertain the crowd, to make them love. No one loved though - besides you. You loved their show. It entertained you and you loved to see your lover in action.

"True, but not the point. Hey, let's talk about what I want." Jerome walked down the stage closer to the camera "$47 million, a helicopter, obviously, the dry cleaning I left at Mr. Chang's be careful, the man is a crook, and mm, I don't know, a pony. Uh, you got ten minutes or I start killing people. Remember this is being broadcast to every home in Gotham, so, don't let people die. Bye!" Jerome laughed into the phone as he hung up "I think that went well." Jerome looked at you giving you a wink with a smile.

"Enough! You need to pack up your pathetic little sideshow and leave!" You suddenly heard Theo yelling from the other side of the stage. You were confused. What was he doing here? He told them to do this! Or did this still belong to the show?

"Is that right?" Jerome asked with a smirk.

"It may be presumptuous to speak for all citizens of Gotham. But we are sick of you! You're a small, vicious man with a pathetic need for attention. Enough man, for God's sake, enough!"

You were even more confused about Galavan's words. Something was in the bush. In his tower he spoke in high claims of Jerome that he was the star in the show, that he trusted Jerome most that he'll do it. What was wrong now?

"I'm curious what your leverage is here, Mr.?"

"Theo Galavan"

"Well, Mr. Theo Galavan, if you don't sit down, uh, I'm gonna shoot you. In your face."

"I know there is some human decency left in you. If you need a hostage, take me. But let these people go home! To their families, to their children." Before Theo could continue his speech, Barbara knocked him out with a some kind of pan. You giggled for yourself, almost laughed loud. It looked so stupid for you how he fell on the ground. It was like in a real blockbuster.

"Boring" Barbara stated.

"Right" Jerome cackled loudly, then he made his way to you with a big grin in his face. Automatically you grinned, too.

"How do you like the show doll?" Jerome grabbed your hands and pulled you close to him. You felt a slightly blush spreading over your cheeks as he pressed his lips against yours. His hands grabbed your cheeks softly to intense the kiss.

"I love it! It's very exciting" You grinned wrapping your arms around his neck while he wrapped his arms around your waist "But I'm much happier about you not wearing this cruel costume anymore. It covered your face, I hated it."

Jerome just chuckled about your comment and kissed your forehead.

"I have an idea," You just raised your brows looking at him in interest "Wanna be the star in my show?"

"Of course I do!" You smiled wide before he pressed his lips against yours quickly, then you both walked out. Gasps filled the room, all eyes were on you. They all knew who you were. You were the missed girl everyone was looking for. They either thought you were dead or that you were left at a lost place. But now you stood there - healthy, happy, self-confident.

"I know what you all think: That's (Y/n)! What is she doing here?! Where has she been?! I tell you all a secret: She was with me all the time." Jerome grabbed your face soft making you giggle "She's gorgeous, isn't she? Always has a pretty smile in her face."

Barbara pulled a next man up on stage positioning right in front of you and handed you a gun. Then she placed an apple on the man's bald.

"You know how to hold a gun, doll?" Jerome grinned wrapping his arms around you from behind. You felt his lips and his warm breathe touched your cheek. It was giving you chills in arousal.

"I'm not that stupid, Jerome." You made sure the gun was loaded. You positioned yourself to keep stable and pointed the gun at the apple. That was what Barbara and Tabitha have taught you over the days you were at Galavan's.

The man in front of you was shivering with wide eyes, his sweat was dripping down his forehead. His eyes expressed fear and you could see he wished you didn't kill him.

"Hold very still." Jerome growled at the man, then he covered his eyes with one hand "I can't look! Someone tell me how it turns out."

You inhaled deeply and concentrated on the apple. But as you pulled the trigger, just water came out and splashed into the old man's face. At that moment, you thought that Jerome jerked you around with tell you time the star.

Jerome just sighed in annoyance grabbing your gun and gave you a new one assuring you that he didn't know the gun was fake.

"Damn! Turn around." The man looked at you in fear and turned around. With his eyes he literally begged you not to shoot or at least to hit the apple. He was about to stop moving as you shot the apple from his head. The crowd gasps in shock and relief that the guy wasn't dead yet.

"Whoo!" Barbara cheered happily. You knew she was proud of you that you didn't blame yourself and missed the apple. You were proud of yourself, too. You shot without hesitation, not even thinking of missing the apple and accidentally shoot the guy.

Every one else kept quiet tho.

"Well, clap!" Jerome shouted kinda aggressively to the crowd - then they did it. Nervously and fast. He laughed slightly pressing a kiss on your cheek "Well done, doll."

"Thank you, Jerome." You grinned. He took the gun out of your hands and placed it on the table with the knives. Then he kept staring at them for a while, you could see he was thinking about something.

"Do you know how to use a knife? Just wondering." Jerome smiled at you.

Before you could answer though, you saw Lee kicked Barbara in the stomach making her grunt.

As Barbara looked up at Lee, you could see fury was written in her face. She was angry, mad...these words just described a very small part of her feeling. It was incredible how much hate a person could express.

You looked at Lee. You could see she didn't give a fuck about her consequences.

"Haven't been ten minutes," Jerome hissed holding Barbara's arm tight that she was unable to stab Lee "We need to buy you a watch." Soon as Jerome turned around back to you Barbara punched Lee in her face. The crowd and you all gasped in surprise. Jerome instead, just looked at you shaking his head in disappointment what made you chuckle.

"Well, I think it's time for tonight's first official victim. You all know and love. Poor rich boy...Parents murdered in an alley, and my favorite volunteer: Where is Bruce Wayne?" Jerome claimed waiting for the little boy's appearance - he didn't come though. Everyone looked around for the boy hoping he would come. They, as you, knew what would happen if he did - someone will die.

"You know, I'm an orphan, too, Bruce? I killed my parents, though." Jerome spoke to the microphone, then stepped away from it "Where are you hiding?"

"Bruce!" Jerome screamed in anger making you flinch a little - you were always surprised about his temper. It came rapidly and was gone after a few seconds "Where are you buddy?!"

"That little kid's afraid of you, Jerome." You giggled wrapping your arms around his torso kinda in hope to calm him down a little. You had no idea his temper could ride that fast. "Give that boy some time to realize how much fun he's gonna have with you."

"We don't have time, right now. We have a plan to follow." Jerome grumbled looking around for Bruce and slightly pushing you away from him. In your eyes, Jerome was  a mix of an infant and a monster or the evil itself. His impatience reminded you of a child that didn't get his will. And his eye expression expressed fury, evil and the strong wish to kill the kid. It was fascinating, and almost frightening.

"Kill his butler!"" Barbara suggested.

"Alright, last chance Bruce but it's about to get very butler-brainy out here." Jeromekept looking around. While that, some of Jerome's colleagues grabbed the butler's arms right pushing him forward to Jerome. He was an older tall man in a black tuxedo looking very concerned for the little boy - understandable.

"Brucey!" Jerome yelled looking through the crowd but the boy still didn't appear "I'm bored. Shoot the butler." Jerome turned to you with a grin, not even really paying attention to what was happening around him. He just wanted you.

"Stop!" Bruce claimed panicking and ran fast in front of the stage to his poor butler.

"Let's get this started, huh?" Jerome gasped pulling Bruce back while pointing a gun at his head "You! Check behind the curtain! Make sure no one's playing silly buggers"

One of Jerome's colleagues nodded and walked to the curtain. He moved it aside the entrance,  he got shot.

"Drop the knife!" James Gordon shouted pointing a gun at Jerome, but he just laughed and pressed the young Bruce Wayne in front of his body, a sharp blade was pressed on his throat almost cutting his thin skin.

"I don't have a clean shot!" Gordon shouted.

"Stay calm, Bruce." The butler tried to encourage the little boy after he took a gun, as well, pointing it at Jerome. He totally ignored what Gordon said. His mind was all around Bruce.

"It seems like we've got ourselves a pickle." Jerome stopped laughing but pressing a knife against Bruce's throat. "What do you say Brucey boy? Wanna boost our ratings, huh?" Jerome cackled insanely again "Smile."

"I said enough!"  All of a sudden Theo appeared behind Jerome. He looked mad, very mad. Again you got that feeling of uncomfortableness. And again you got that feeling that something bad will happen now. You saw it on his gaze. This devilish grin. Something was in the bush.

And you weren't wrong. Shortly after Jerome turned to him slowly, Theo stabbed a knife into his neck.

Everyone gasped in shock, you were the loudest though. You heart dropped, you couldn't move for the moment, your legs became weak, cat got your tongue - you weren't able to breathe normal. You felt poor as you stared at Theo's hand that pressed the knife in Jerome's throat deeper and deeper - and that all right in front of you. Your whole body shivered, you were about to throw up every minute.

Tears built up in your eyes and some even streamed down your cheeks. This couldn't be real, this mustn't be real! You couldn't loose him, not now, not again, not forever.

Things have happened not quite perfect and you were mad at him, you didn't want to be with him, you even hated him for a moment, you were afraid of him... everything. You could say for one moment he was your biggest fear in your life because you were scared he'd kill you every minute, or every time you did something wrong. But that faded, it was forgiven, your love was refreshed. It was stronger than the night you two met for the first time. Your connection was stronger than ever before - you knew you belonged together. Why else did fate decide to let you two meet again? Why else would you fall for him again? Why else did he all you his doll, his girl, his queen? That weren't just words...it was more, a lot more.

You knew Jerome couldn't show love as usual people did, but you knew he loved you. His soft side towards you, him trying to make you smile, him protecting you when Greenwood teased you or harassed you..,that was all real. He didn't act at all!

All the memories came up. His smile, how you two hold a conversation for the first time at the circus, you felt the warmth on you hand again when you remembered how he held your hand. You could feel his arms wrapping around your body, and you could hear him calling you 'doll'.

And all this was gone forever now.

"I know, I know." He pressed Jerome down to the ground "Im so sorry, Jerome. You have real talent. But now you see, the plot thickens. Enter the hero." You saw Theo grinning slightly.

You could kill him for what he has done to him - and to you. He took all your joy away, he ripped your heart in two and three it away that it shattered in thousands of pieces. He had to die in your eyes. He just deserved it. You wanted revenge. You wanted to make him feel what he has done to you. You wanted to make him feel how you felt - sad, broken, shocked.

"I was gonna be.." With his last breath and his last courage, he looked up to you still having a grin in his face. His mouth opened shortly as if he was about to say something to you, but too late.

He was dead - dead as your happiness, your joy, you will to live. Your heart felt so heavy that every beating was exhausting you, as your breathing. The world was spinning around you. You body and your psyche couldn't handle what has happened just a few seconds in front of you.

He died, your love, your everything - your Jerome. And he will never come back.

And you died - inside.

[bridgetotheskyyy]

Heliophilia || Yuji/Reader ||

Rating: Mature Warnings: Sadfic, angst Relationships: Itadori Yuuji/Reader Additional Tags: Oh boi do we love not to have plot, Plot is for wimps, Angst, Heavy Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - College/University, Slight comfort/fluff because the flashbacks are so lovely but other than that, JJK makes me so in my feelings, In my feelings about Yuji, Absolute Angst, Mature because of some detailed sex Summary: Then why are you hurting me? You wanted to scream back. But you knew — that horrible, sickly type of knowing, like the looming death of a loved one or the scent of a lie — that Yuji was not breaking up with you because he didn’t love you. That wasn’t it.

A/N: I've had this idea in my head for quite a while. I don't know why I'm so obsessed with it! Please tell me if you spot any errors or anything! Might write a companion piece. Read on ao3!

“I’m sorry,” Yuji’s voice fractured, resisting tears. Emotion was so pronounced in his atonement you could feel the pain living in his throat in your own. “I’m so, so sorry, (Y/n) …”

You faced away from him, back turned from him. Your nails bit into the leather of your jacket so. Your face hot, the threat of tears in your eyes, as well. You tried to focus on the blissful white noise of the fountain, pouring forth its waters in elegant streams, and not Yuji’s aching, agonized breathing.

“It all works out, doesn’t it?” You choked. “If you’re really sorry, you can use all this misery to fuel your cursed energy, can’t you? Not a total loss then —“

“Don’t talk like that!”

Yuji gripped your shoulders, forcefully turning you to face him.

“I love you!” he pleaded. “You know that! Don’t you ever say things like that! I love you, I just — I can’t — we can’t —“

Then why are you hurting me? You wanted to scream back. But you knew — that horrible, sickly type of knowing, like the looming death of a loved one or the scent of a lie — that Yuji was not breaking up with you because he didn’t love you. That wasn’t it. Silence stretched between the two of you in the edenic park and it carried the weight of years, filling the agonizing space.

Then why are you hurting me?

I love you but I’m a sorcerer. I love you but I’m Sukuna’s vessel. I love you but everything’s dying around me. I love you but I couldn’t protect Junpei and one day I won’t be able to protect you, either.

You found yourself laser-focused on Yuji’s hands pressed into your shoulders and wanted to prolong his touch. Finally, the tears began to fall, along with a sob that ransacked your lungs. You lowered your gaze to his chest, the urge to sink into him astounding.

“I love you,” Yuji repeated. “Please believe me …”

Please believe me.

I do.

You managed the last remnants of your strength to pull away from Yuji, one last time. You resisted the heavying ache in your chest as Yuji sunk to his knees, hugging yours. You yanked him away, walking away from the fountain.

“Goodbye, Yuji.”

In hindsight, you would never understand how the possibility of it being the final time you ever saw your ex-boyfriend Yuji didn’t bring you running back to him.

But you kept walking.

You flicked the blaring red reject button so hard on your phone it almost fled from your hand, slamming it on the nightstand and sinking back into the grove of sheets.

He wouldn’t stop calling.

It had started that night, having gotten back to your apartment. Thank the gods you lived alone; you broke everything in plain sight. By the time it was over, you were slumped onto the hallway floor, the kitchen floor a sea of broken plate glass, the pillows emptied of their stuffing, vases destroyed. All culminating in your neighbors hurriedly running over, thumping on the door, asking are you okay, we heard crashing, god, we thought there was a fight, are you sure you’re alone? Are you safe? Should we call the cops?

You waved them off best you could, but surely you were not nearly as convincing as you wanted to be with tear-reddened eyes and a croaked voice.

Just a hard time, is all. Just anxiety. I’m going through it, okay? I’ll be fine.

You refused to talk, but that hardly mattered — once it all hushed down, Yuji started.

Messages. Dms. Snapchat. Instagram. Anything he could use you get a hold of you was used to try and talk to you, clear things up, explain. You disabled it all, ironically thankful for the isolation his insistence was situating you in. And somehow you managed to get to sleep that night.

Now, two days later, the ritual was the same. Your phone blared to life, ringing a tone you now thought horrible into the air. You would rush to reject it, slam on nightstand, back to bed.

Rinse, lather, repeat.

You didn’t rise. You didn’t eat. Papers dedicated to different classes sprawled on your office desk, unsure of when you’d be able to get to any of it. Probably never; college seemed such a distant, small thing in the face of losing Yuji, hardly worth a paltry thought in your mind.

Five, afternoon passed. No call. By now, Yuji had to have been persuaded by someone else to stop hounding you — Megumi, probably discouraging him, even taking his phone away from him, maybe.

You’d never know.

Another thought, this one piercing your heart with unexpected ferocity — you even bucked as it arrived to upset you:

Maybe he was dead.

You’d never know.

Whatever relief you had felt as the hour passed into another and no call livened your phone was gone, replaced with grief.

And … longing.

You would’ve done anything to talk to him.

Please, you thought, twisting toward your nightstand, eyeing your phone. Please, call again. I promise I’ll pick up. Yuji …

Your phone did nothing, resting on your stand, black and unresponsive.

The first thing you grew to miss was his voice.

Your mornings would begin with his soft acknowledgment before being accompanied by lips pressed to your forehead — “Morning, (Y/n).” — your evenings full with Yuji, tailing you around the apartment, helping you with chores, telling all about some new show he’d binged over the weekend of some new movie he snuck off to see.

It was … so quiet now. The silence lived in your ears, so pronounced it served as its own sound. After a few days, you felt well enough to at least clean up what you had destroyed. After the chaos you had caused all that remained was a trashed apartment and uncomfortable tranquility.

The process of cleaning bestowed on you a new ache to refresh the others; usually at times like this. Cleaning day, at any normal time in your life —

“And then he picked up the bad guy’s gun,” Yuji continues, absentmindedly clearing the table of trash, dropping items into the large black trash bag.

“Mhm,” you hum back loving, reaching on your tiptoes to dust behind a picture frame. “Yeah?”

“And he shoots the bad guy and he misses,” Yuji awes from behind you, “only he doesn’t miss — they just make us think he misses because when the camera cuts back he’s —“

“Yuji?” you turn to him, eyebrows raised.

Yuji’s cheeks are reddening. “Heh. Sorry, was I rambling again?”

“It’s okay,” You drop the duster to the floor, peck him on the cheek. “Let’s just finish cleaning this table.”

But of course, he doesn’t stop — Yuji is excited and bubbly, especially when he helps you, and his anecdotes from movies, or shows, or sorcerer life, distract you from the grunt work of cleaning day — or any day.

You were miserably aware of the ringing silence, nestled in the space Yuji’s voice used to live as you cleared the table of plastic cups and empty plates all on your own.

The second thing you grew to miss was his kiss.

Yuji had been your first kiss and your lips craved the attention of his.

You were in class, your college professor rambling about some eighteen-hundreds writer while you twiddled your pencil. You bit into your lips hoping to satiate them, but it only worsened your yearning. The classroom began to fall away as memory tugged at your mind.

“(Y/n).”

Yuji’s voice carries your name so tenderly you almost fail to recognize it. You look at him as the first round of fireworks explodes in the summer night’s sky.

“New Year’s Eve, Yu-Yu,” you said, your own soft voice trembling. “Did you make a wish?”

“Wish? Heh, No, but there … is something I wanted to do.”

You part your lips as Yuji eliminates the space between the two of you, inch by cursed inch.

You swallow, letting the moment hang as sparks fly behind Yuji’s head.

“What?” You ask.

But your inquiry dies away as Yuji banishes the final inch.

His lips descend on yours. Soft, warm, sweet. He moves little, tentative, before your arms wrap around his shoulders and invite him closer.

“(Y/n), I —“

You refuse his words, cupping the back of Yuji’s head to re-close the gap between you.

He doesn’t attempt to speak again, pressing you against the railing of the park while his lips caress yours. Fireworks whistle behind you as they combust in the sky, showering down in luculent streams.

His kisses, then and thereafter, are loving, lingering — gentle until they are not; the union of lips dissolves into sloppy angles and reddened lips. Harsh breaths and Yuji bucking into your body, eager for more.

“Miss (Y/n)!”

You jerked. Raised your head.

“I have a hard time believing you’ve not heard your name once these past seven times I’ve called it,” Your professor glared.

No, I haven’t.

“I’m sorry, professor. Repeat the question, please.”

Your hand balled in your fist. You shouldn’t miss him. You shouldn’t miss him.

But you do. And the list of things you’ll miss will only continue to grow.

The third thing you grew to miss was his touch.

You shifted on the couch, painfully aware of the lack of Yuji’s presence at your back, snuggling into you from behind, legs intertwined into yours.

“Yuji …” you giggle. “Stop it …”

“What?” Yuji snuggles the back of your neck before finding his way into your crook. “I’m not even …”

Language dies as the two of you collapse into giggles. The tv plays a movie neither of you hold much interest in now that Yuji’s finds his way into your shirt, tickling the sensitive flesh at your sides.

“Yuji!”

“What?” he patterns your neck with kisses, pressing you closer to him with an armlock around your waist. He is so strong and holds you to him as you squirm.

Finally, you give in, cupping his face with your hand, you bring him in for a kiss. He hums into the kiss and reciprocates immediately, pressing into you properly —

A gunshot from a crime show you left on yanked you into reality. You blinked, sunk into the sheets, letting the tv’s artificial light fall over you.

Reality, where the blankets cannot compare to the boy you have lost.

But the thing you’d miss the most?

Yuji warms his cock inside of you as you burn red, hot lines into his back with your nails. He stains your perspired forehead with kisses as he empties his seed into you. His hips swerve, providing friction to your exhausted clit. You whine into his shoulder, furrowing your brow as your orgasm takes you.

“Ah — ah …! Yuji …!”

Yuji rocks into you a few more times, crescendoing your climax before hooking a hand underneath your knee and rolling in bed so you are side by side. You bite your lip, grind your clit on his strong thigh before settling, resting your head on his shoulder.

The silence is effortlessly serene and comfortable.

But Yuji breaks the silence. “(Y/n)?”

You smile, looking up at him from your place on his chest. “Yeah?”

“I …” he looks away, blush flourishing on his face. “I really love you alot, you know?”

You match his blush with one of your own as your eyes widen. Yuji overcomes some of his embarrassment to caress your cheek with his hand.

“I …” You trail, placing a hand over the one that currently holds your face. “I love you, too, Yuji.”

Even worn from sex, Yuji manages to perk, light coming to his mocha eyes. He smiles back at you.

“That’s good.”

You kiss his cheek, settling by his side for the night.

Yuji is the only warmth you know and the only light you recognize. You allow him to blanket you, shield you from any cold that exists.

“Thanks for that.”

You leaned against the headboard, a thousand-mile stare burning into the wall opposite to you. The aftermath of your sex slumped horribly in your stomach. Your guest zipped up his pants, reaching for his shirt next.

“Yeah,” You replied, absentminded and silent. “Yeah, sure.”

“Next time, okay?”

Your insides screamed to reject but instead:

“Yeah, okay.”

Your one-night stand left, leaving you thudding your head against the headboard. It hadn’t been bad, even unpleasant, it had been … fine. Cold. Impersonal. Impartial. You had never had fine. Not with Yuji.

Yuji, you grieved.

You turned your head to your phone, your hope of Yuji’s call blown out by its perennial blackness.

You clutched a hand to your heart, hollowed out from longing.

His love came last.

[neptunetheplanet7]

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 - 𝐚 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

DM ME IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE PUT ON THE TAGLIST!!

;mikasa ackerman x fem!lesbian!reader

;modern au, band au

word count: 1.6k

warnings: swearing, arguing

italics means flashback/memory recall

listen to the music masterlist

prev | next

The party ended but the yelling didn't stop. It had been about an hour since everyone left and about three since Eren saw Jean last. You were picking up a mess in the kitchen with Eren when he slammed his hands on the counter.

You jumped up and your eyes snapped towards him. His head was lowered and his breathing was ragged.

"Eren?" You made your way to his side of the room and placed a gentle hand on his arm. He turned to face you.

"Sorry." He wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you in for a hug. Your hands around his shoulders while his head rested in the crook of your neck. "When will they stop?" His voice was muffled against your skin.

You sighed, "I don't know. I hope soon or before Armin gets home at least." Your right hand carefully made its way into his gnarled hair.

He let out a huff against your shoulder. "Let's try to get some sleep, Eren. We can stay in the basement tonight, yeah?" You whispered. He nodded and pulled back.

The yelling coming from Mikasa's room grew louder as you passed the stairs. You opened the basement door and followed Eren down the stairs.

"You can take the bed." You offered and slumped on the couch. Eren nodded and waved sleepily while heading to the basement bedroom.

The next morning Armin had woken you up in a panic. "Y/n! Y/n, wake up!"

"What? What's going on?" You sat up, alert now.

"Mikasa's gone! Jean said she only left a letter. What the hell happened last night?" Armin's eyes were wide and he was visibly stressed.

"Mikasa's what? What do you mean she's gone? She can't be gone. Where's the letter? Did you read it?" You stood and gripped Armin's shoulders.

"Jean has the letter. She wasn't here when I came home and he was sitting on the stairs with it in his hand."

"When did you get home?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes ago."

You let go of Armin and scrambled up the stairs as fast as you could. Your eyes darted around for Jean when you saw he wasn't on the stairs like Armin had left him. 

"Jean? Jean where the hell are you?"  You were panicked.

The air started to feel stale as you racked your mind for an answer. Where was Jean? Where was Mikasa? Why did she leave so suddenly? What was in the letter? Would you get to find out? When will she come back? Why didn't she say goodbye?

You walked fast-paced through your house, searching for Jean. When you got to the kitchen, you noticed a stray piece of paper on the counter. You picked it up and realized it was what you thought it was.

Mikasa's tear-stained letter was in your hands.

"Dear friends, I'm leaving. Expect not to see me for a long time. I have a lot to think about. I can't be in the band right now. Not like this. Jean- I don't want to see you. Eren- I hope you'll forgive me. Armin- Go see the sea. Y/n- If only you knew. With love, Mikasa."

Your hand had come up to your mouth while processing her letter. Tears spilled down your cheeks as the realization sunk in. She was really gone and you had no idea when you'd get to see her again.

"Y/n, wake up. You fell asleep. We're at your house." Sasha nudged you and you were brought back to reality. Somewhere along the road, you and her switched spots so now you were on the passenger side.

"Ah, my neck hurts." You said bitterly while rubbing the spot your neck was previously, and unfortunately, resting on the door.

"Yeah, that's what happens when you fall asleep in a car," Connie spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. You flicked his forehead. "Hey, what'd you do that for?" He clawed at his head.

You said your goodbyes to the two and entered your house. It was now late afternoon, and Eren was back home.

"Where the hell have you been, tootsie? You look awful." He pointed his spoonful of Nutella at me in disgust. 

"Thanks, Eren. You're a real charmer." You gave a sarcastic smile before grabbing a spoon and joining him on the counter. "I've been out with Sasha and Connie. Where have you been all day?"

"Mind your business, L/n." 

You scoffed as he shoved the Nutella into your arms. "The hypocrisy." You muttered.

"Why isn't this house clean?" He looked at the living room and raised his hands in mock outrage.

"I'm not a cleaning lady! If you want it cleaned so badly, do it yourself!" You twisted the Nutella cap back on the container and tossed your spoon into the sink.

"But whenever I do it, you say it's wrong!" He whined.

"Eren, the dryer sheets go over the dryer and the detergent goes over the washing machine! What is so hard to grasp about that? That's how it's always been! But you probably wouldn't know, since you never do your own laundry." You clutched the counter in annoyance. 

"They're both on the same shelf! What's the issue?" He said, exasperated.

"What are you two on about?" Armin sauntered into the room and sat on a kitchen stool.

"Eren can't clean for shit."

"Hey!" He glared. You stuck your tongue out in his direction.

Armin laughed lowly. "You guys bicker like an old married couple."'

"How dare you say that! I would never marry him! Gross!" You made vomiting motions and fake retched.

Eren smirked. "Well, if things don't work out between you and Mikasa, I'm always around." He tittered.

"Eren, I'm literally gay." You deadpanned.

Armin let out a hearty laugh. "She's got you there." They grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and bit into it.

Before Eren could respond, the kitchen door opened to reveal Jean out of breath in the doorway. "Good evening fellow friends!"

"What's your deal?" Eren raised an eyebrow, referring to Jean's drenched form.

"It started raining. Pretty harshly." Jean wrung out his coat over the stairs.

"Sucks to suck!" Eren's hand slammed on the counter while the other was pointed at Jean.

"Any news on Mikasa?" You asked gingerly.

"Not anything new. As far as I'm concerned, I'm still picking her up at the airport tomorrow," Jean reassured. 

"Should we throw her a welcoming party or something?" Eren suggested. Everyone looked at him like he was a moron. His eyes narrowed. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Are you crazy? She left because of what happened at a party! Why would she want one now? Do you want to drive her away again? Mikasa has never been the party type, anyways." You exclaimed while crossing your arms in front of your chest.

Eren put his hands up in defense. "Sheesh, it was just an idea."

"Yeah, a real dumbass idea." Jean seethed.

To prevent a fight, you interjected, "We have this whole house to clean. If you want a good welcoming gift, you'll help me clean it." You gestured to the several messes in your line of sight.

Eren shifted his glare to you. "Where do I start, then?" He gritted his teeth.

"You can start with your filthy room, and then the basement since you're down there the most." You smiled sweetly and quickly spoke up again before he could protest. "Jean, you can do your room and the rooms on this floor, not mine though. Armin, you already keep the waterfront looking great, but if you could do a sweep-through of the deck that'd be awesome. Also, can you do the office upstairs? I can do everything else."

Everyone nodded and started to clean their designated areas. You went upstairs to finish Mikasa's room and then start on the others. You had already finished with your room. You stopped in front of her door and took a deep breath. Here goes nothing.

Several hours later, the four of you were slouched on the couch, mindlessly staring at a random movie on tv. Jean had tried his best to get comfortable but just ended up upside down. Eren was lying down with his head in your lap and his legs sprawled over Jean, much to his dismay. Armin had a blanket around himself and was leaning on you whilst trying his best to stay awake.

It was close to midnight and you all had a big day ahead of you. "I'm exhausted." Eren groaned from your lap. 

"I second that." Jean lazily raised his hand in the air.

"Me too. I'm headed up to bed. Goodnight everyone." Armin yawned and made his way up the stairs, occasionally tripping on their blanket.

"So am I. Eren get your scrawny legs off me!" Jean hurriedly tried to shimmy off the couch.

"Shut up, horse face! Don't tell me what to do." Eren grumbled while lifting his head off of you. You stood up after him. He sure was a pain when he was tired.

"Goodnight to you losers. Sleep well." He said groggily while going to the basement instead of his actual room. You stretched and headed to your room.

"Aren't you going to get up, Jean?" You rubbed your eyes sleepily.

"Yeah, you go on to bed." He waved you off while struggling to get off the floor. You chuckled softly.

After you got changed into your pajamas, you collapsed on your bed with a heavy sigh, taking a look through your old texts with Mikasa one last time.

posted: 8/25/21

neptunetheplanet7© 2021

no reposts, edits, or modification to my work by anyone other than me.

[willymywonkers]

Experiments

Summary: A flashback to when Wonka first opened up his factory, and his relationship with his partner and close friend, Maude, were all the rage. A new guy pulls into town and has his sights set on Maude. Drama ensues.

A/N: Oof, I apologize if the ending feels a little rushed. I should say this fic does have a bittersweet feel to it, but that's how I like it lol. I am working on rewriting one of my other fics because honestly I think I've gotten better at writing Wonka, lol

Willy Wonka made headlines around the world when he opened the largest chocolate factory ever in history. He stood proudly in front of the looming building as the press went wild.

People stood all around the factory, celebrating such a momentous occasion. Especially, Maude Figgle, who stood right in front of the crowd, chewing on a piece of gum.

While chocolate was Willy's main passion, Maude helped out in crafting different kinds of gum. She even invented a kind of gum that would never loss its flavor. The press never seemed to care much about her, even though she was the brains behind most of his famous candies.

"Hello, and thank you for coming." Willy began to speak on a podium. He began adjusting the microphone. He took out several notecards, flipping through each of them.

Finally, he spoke again. "It is with great honor that I, Willy Wonka, have finally opened the largest chocolate factory in the world. Candy has always been my passion since I was a little boy, and I couldn't have done it alone. Maude Figgle, my very good friend and partner, has done so many things to help me on this incredible journey that I could never imagined of doing it on my own. Now, without a further ado, Wonka's factory is now opened!"

The crowd cheered as Willy stood up and cut the rope of his shiny new factory.

Maude ran up the steps, waving to the crowd. She hugged Willy, tightly.

Will was a bit surprised at the hug. He chuckled nervously, hugging Maude back.

It was the happiest day of their lives.

Will sat in his office, admiring all the workers below. After just a few months, people already seemed to enjoy working at the factory. Will would go down from his office sometimes, and test the different samples that people had made.

Maude was usually in the experiment room, where she made most of her breakthroughs. She was currently testing out a type of rock candy that projected different kinds of emotions.

"Maude, if you keep chewing that gum, your jaw will close shut, haha." Will said, jokingly.

"Yeah, says who, Smartypants?" Maude chuckled, and continued chewing.

Gum seemed to be the only thing that keep her focus. Ever since she was a little girl, she had a habit of chewing gum. She would chew faster if she was nervous or extremely focused. When she didn't have gum to chew, Maude would chew on her hair, pencils, or anything to keep her mind to focus.

Willy's stance on gum was obvious. He hated the stuff, but when it came to Maude, he seemed to tolerate it a lot more.

"Whatcha working on?" Will asked, leaning over Maude's shoulder.

"None of your business." Maude scoffed.

Will pouted, crossing his arms. "Haha, jokes on you. This factory is my business."

"Oh, of course, Mr. International Hotshot." Maude pushed Will gently to the side, and grabbed a few chemicals from behind him.

"You better believe it, missy." Willy looked to the experimentation table. There seemed to be a rock that was glowing pink.

"What does that mean?" Will asked, looking to Maude.

"It's emotional rock candy. You just touch it, and it'll glow whatever color you're feeling." Maude said, excited at her new invention. "It's like a mood ring."

"Uh-huh, and what does pink mean?" Will asked, again, placing his gloved hand on the rock.

Maude blushed, slightly. "Um, it's usually referred to the feeling of love or well happiness. It's kinda not really completed yet."

The rock candy began to shake as well as turn several different colors.

Maude gulped, grabbing Will to the ground. The rock exploded and bits of rock candy seemed to blow everywhere.

Luckily, there wasn't any other workers nearby, but Maude and Willy.

Willy grabbed his cane, and started laughing. "That was magnificent! We should do that again, but next time we should add different labels on the colors."

Maude chuckled as well. "Hehe, of course."

"Yes, we should definitely do that when I get back from India."

Maude's smiled quickly faded. "Leaving? To India?"

"Prince Pondicherry asked me to build him a palace entirely made out of chocolate." Willy chuckled. "It's really a strange request, is it not?"

"Yes, but, who will be in charge when you're gone?"

"You will, of course."

Maude's eyes widened as Willy headed out the door. "But, wait, why me?"

"Why not you? You're the only gosh darn person I'd trust to run this entire factory."

Maude smiled, slightly. She seemed a little troubled. "I'll do my best, Will."

He smiled back at her, pulling her into a hug.

Maude hesitantly hugged back. She looked up at the chocolateir's face. He looked young and bright. His lips were almost kissable. His hair was all short and crooked.

Maude pulled out of the hug and looked away. The very words "I love you" hung to her tongue, as Willy walked out of the factory.

"Good luck, Will."

A few weeks later, the press were hounding the factory, curious to where the chocolateir went off to.

Maude tried to maintain her composure without him, but it was no use to the press. They liked to dismiss her like she was some secretary. It annoyed her at times.

Even some of the workers in the factory didn't seem to care that she was in charge. They would say revolting things behind her back. Soon she didn't show up to the break room anymore. She started chewing her gum a lot faster.

"Um, excuse me, miss." A man said, knocking on the door of Wonka's office.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Wonka isn't here right now. Is there anything I can help you with?" Maude asked, opening the door for the man.

"No, actually. I was just looking for you." The man stammered.

The man seemed to have red hair, with captivating green eyes.

"Well, is there anything that you need help with, sir?" Maude repeated.

"Um, I apologize if this comes off as a bit dodgy, but I wanted to ask if you'd get drinks with me later?"

Maude crossed her arms at the offer. "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to decline, because I've got lots of work to catch up on."

The man still insisted. "The drinks would be on me."

"Uh-huh. Another thing is I don't even know your name." Maude said, rolling her eyes.

"It's Ron, Ron Duncan." The man stuck out his hand.

She looked at his hand, and raised an eyebrow. "Maude Figgle. Now, I'm really swamped with work, if you'll excuse me."

"Look, I get that you're busy, but, I really admire your since I was a kid. In my opinion, you'd be better off without Wonka." The man turned to leave.

Maude stopped whatever she was doing and looked at him. "That's very kind of you. You know what, sure, I'll go."

"Great, then it's a date." Ron smiled at her and walked off.

From that first meeting, Maude didn't expect to be in a relationship with him. Ron seemed so nice and caring, but there was something off about him. She didn't exactly know what, but she did have a feeling that his intentions were cloudy.

When Willy got back from India, he was greeted by a tight hug from Maude.

"Ah, it's good to be back after such a long time. India is scolding hot, you know." Willy said, as he hugged Maude back.

"There's someone I want you to meet." She smiled at Will, bringing him over to Ron.

Willy's smile faltered, when she gave Ron a kiss on the cheek. "Heh, hi."

"This is Ron. He's my boyfriend." Maude said, holding onto Ron's hand.

Ron stuck out his hand for Will to shake it. Will hesitantly shook it with a disgusted look on his face.

"I find it extraordinary that after all this time you guys held up your friendship." Ron smiled. It seemed to have a sour connotation to it.

Will smiled back, just as sourly. "Uh-huh, yeah. We've had the same dream since we were kids."

Ron's smile disappeared, slightly. He gave Maude another kiss before heading off. It made Will grimace slightly, as Ron walked off.

Will didn't know how to describe it, but he didn't like Ron. In fact, he grew to despise him, but he just didn't know why.

Whenever he would see Maude all lovey dovey with Ron, it just made Will sick to his stomach. Soon, candy sales began to drop. His chocolate just wasn't tasting as good as it used to.

It started getting worse when spies began stealing his life's work. The only thing that kept him afloat was Maude.

One day, Maude announced that she was getting engaged. However, she didn't seem too thrilled about it.

Willy picked up on it right away. She didn't seem to want anything to do with him anymore.

Maude began to distance herself from Will more and more. He felt more hollow without her.

During the wedding, Will showed up to walk Maude down the aisle.

"H-hey, Maude." He began.

"Yes?" She answered.

Will couldn't get over how she looked in her wedding dress. Her hair was done up all nice, and her lips looked almost kissable. He placed his gloved hand on her cheek, as the words "I love you" hung on the tip of his tongue.

"Good luck." He said, as he walked her down the aisle.

[eeveedel]

I don't know if this is something you'd be interested in writing, but I would really like to see you write Alex and Louis' first time! Love your writing by the way 💕

Hi. I was reading all of your alex and louis drabbles again and I really loved the one where you wrote about their first kiss and the first time they realized they liked each other as more than friends. I would really love to see a drabble of the first time they slept together

Oh boy oh boy. Okay so, these prompts are two months old, that’s how I’ve been working on this. Not to be dramatic, but I love these boys so much, I wanted to give them a really good first time. Idk if I did it entirely right, but, well, here it is nonetheless. 

This is part of my ongoing OG Alex/Louis series, and you can find all the other parts here. This is the second flashback I’ve done in the series, and it takes place three years before Alex goes to war. Of course this contains adult content, and also some references to period typical homophobia and some references to religion if you squint. Also, (probably) poor prepping methods. Forgive them, they live in the 1940′s and don’t have much practice. Anyways, as always, forgive my editing mistakes and enjoy xx 

Autumn going to be the end of Alex.

He normally liked the colder weather. They were far enough away from any factory centers that the leaves still turned red, and normally, the grocery store sold cider and hot chocolate throughout the day, which gave him an extra excuse to see Louis.

But it had gotten cold fast this year, and he no longer even needed a hot drink as an excuse to see Louis.

Now, Louis was always at arm’s reach, like he was now. Louis was tucked into the far end of the couch, and Alex had settled his head on the other man’s chest. There was a thick blanket draped over both of them, but the fabric kept steadily slipping off Alex’s shoulders. Louis kept lifting his hand to pull the blanket back up, and sometimes when he would, he would also drag his hand through Alex’s hair and hold his fingers there.

“Alright, petal?” Louis asked now, reaching up to draw a hand through Alex’s fringe. Alex nodded, his eyelids fluttering but not opening, and he pressed his cheek down the fabric of Louis’s shirt, hoping Louis couldn’t see how his mouth twitched.

“M’alright,” he murmured, and Louis just hummed and brought his hand down to press a thumb to the corner of Alex’s mouth, rub over the dimple at the corner of his cheek. Alex sighed and puckered his mouth, pressing a kiss to wherever it would land on Louis’s clothed skin.

It had only been maybe two months since they had started to live together in their new flat, where they now had a safe place to exist together rather than just random stolen moments.

They had been courting before that. Or at least that’s what Alex liked to call it. They went for walks in the park, they took the train to see a movie in the next town over. They held hands when no one was looking and when they were absolutely sure they were alone, Alex would give Louis a kiss good night, still usually on the cheek just to be safe. Once, Louis had gotten an extra order of flowers at the shop that were going to wilt if he didn’t get rid of them, so he had gone to Alex’s flat, thrust them into his arms with blazing cheeks, and then had nearly sprinted away because one of Alex’s flatmates was in the next room. Alex had kept the flowers around long after they’d gone brown.

But slowly, random dates and stolen kisses weren’t enough. So they had bought the flat once they had just enough money between them to justify it. It was smaller than Alex’s old place, with just a kitchen, a small sitting room, a bedroom and a cramped bathroom, but it was meant for less people. There was a double bed frame still in the bedroom the last renters had left behind, and Alex assured the landlord they would sell it for two separate beds. Of course, they hadn’t. On the rare occasions anyone would stop by and would ask about the bed, Alex would make something up about Louis’s health being worrisome enough that Alex liked to stay by his side even when he was sleeping.

It was flimsy, and Louis rolled his eyes at Alex always having to tell people that he was apparently on the edge of death constantly, but it had done the trick so far.

Alex was happy now. He liked helping Louis make dinner even though they both burned things without trying. He liked having petty arguments over who was going to pick things up because neither of them exactly took to cleaning.

But then Louis would be like this, pretty and warm and gently stroking his cheek, and Alex’s lips would be skimming his chest, and suddenly he would just want something else.

“The fair’s in town this weekend,” Louis murmured, dragging his thumb over Alex’s cupid’s bow.

“It’s October,”

“I know. It’s the autumn fair. You can carve Jack O Lanterns and make homemade scarecrows and things,”

“So we can put them on a porch we don’t have?” Alex said, and Louis laughed, making his chest shake under Alex’s head.

“I just thought it would be fun,” Louis said, and Alex lifted his head and smiled.

“I’ll make you a Jack O Lantern if you want, honey,”

“No, you won’t. You’ll sit next to me and look pretty while I make it. You’ll just ruin it with your big hands on that little knife,”

Louis dragged his fingers over Alex’s hand as he did, tracing his fingers and knuckles, and Alex should have laughed, but instead he just closed his eyes and let his head fall back forward, pressing to Louis’s warm chest again. He kept his fingers clinging tightly to Louis’s own, though.

Alex loved the moments he got to touch Louis. They had been few and far between but it had been enough to get him to memorize every part of him, the bitten red lips, the jut of his knuckles.

But there were other parts of him, the smooth curve of his waist and his thighs and his belly.

When Alex had had his own flat, his own room, in a place far enough away from Louis, he had thought about those places, always covered by Louis’s loose shirts and jumpers and mysterious and hidden from him, and he had pictured what they would be like bare. The thoughts always made his hand tuck between his legs, made his sheets sticky and wet and his skin hot.

It was dirty, but Alex could clean himself off afterward, rub cool water on his face, and then sleep it away and go see Louis the next morning. Not let those filthy things he thought in the darkness of his own room interfere with something innocent like taking Louis a movie.

But they lived together now. Those places Alex had once only dreamed about weren’t easy to avoid now. Louis got dressed and washed up in the same places Alex did, and at the end of every day, they would by lying in bed together. Alex would always kiss Louis on the cheek and feel the heat of his body, but never touch him anywhere too risky.

They were together. They lived under one roof. But he was still being careful with Louis.

But he wanted more. He wanted to be able to drag a hand over Louis’s waist when he was at the stove cooking dinner, to settle a hand on the inside of his thigh when they were sitting and kissing, to fully press him up against his front and let them fall asleep like that.

He wanted Louis’s red bitten lips open and wet and his voice howling, he wanted to lap the sweat off the crook his neck, he wanted to run a hand all the way up his thigh and touch, feel it in his hands and on his mouth.

This boy was going to drag him straight into Hell.

“Alex,” Louis said, and Alex stirred, frowning a bit as he blinked open his eyes and looked up at where Louis was just staring at him with careful, firm eyes, “Where are you today?”

“Right here,” Alex said, “With you,”

“No, no,” Louis shook his head and tapped his finger against Alex’s temple, “Up here. Where do you go?”

“I’m still with you,” Alex said, “M’always thinking about you, baby doll,”

Louis’s cheeks colored a bit at that, and he smiled. Alex had called him that by accident a month ago and Louis’s entire face had gone red. He was used to it now but Alex still managed to get a bit of a rise out of him whenever the name would slip out.

“You are, huh,” Louis smiled, his complexion settling a bit.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. His fingers itched a bit, but he couldn’t reach out and touch, not with Louis looking at him so steadily.

Instead, Alex lifted himself up a bit, the blanket falling down to the middle of his back as he did. He pressed his mouth to Louis’s, feeling the smile under his own mouth. As he kissed him, he lifted his hands, but instead of setting them on Louis’s cheeks, he kept his hands gripped in Louis’s shirt instead.

And then when he pulled away, he kept his hands on Louis’s chest, spreading them out a bit. Louis stirred a bit, making a high, content sound in his throat. His head was tilted, and there was a soft smile on his face.

And then Alex rubbed upwards, his palms rubbing over the hard little nubs under Louis’s shirt, and Louis gasped and surged upwards.

Louis grabbed at Alex’s wrists, and Alex fully expected him to push him away. But he didn’t, he just held him. Louis’s chest rose and fell quickly under his hands, and eventually Louis lifted his gaze up from Alex’s fingers to his eyes.

“Alex?” he asked softly, so, so, carefully, and Alex inhaled and tried to pull his hands away but Louis squeezed his wrists and kept them anchored in place and shook his head fast enough to make his fringe flop in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said quickly, and again tried to pull away but Louis’s grip was steadfast, his lips pursed and hanging open a bit.

“You,” Louis started, and then swallowed, his tongue flickering over his lips, “What’re you doing?”

“I,” Alex stuttered, “Nothing. Don’t worry about it,”

Christ, like he could tell Louis to just ignore it when he had his hands plastered over Louis’s chest, had his body pressed close enough that he could smell the remnants of soap on Louis’s skin.

“No, no, you – “ Louis started again and shook his head, his voice getting firmer, “You want me?”

Alex’s mouth suddenly felt dry, even though that’s exactly what he wanted. Louis’s eyes flared a bit, and he spoke again before Alex could say anything.

“Don’t you lie to me, I know that look,” Louis said, “And don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about either,”

Alex blinked, flexed his fingers into Louis’s shirt a bit, his fingertips grasping at the soft, warm skin he knew was just underneath.

He didn’t even speak, but Louis breathed out, like he understood.

“Oh,” he said, his eyes flaring a bit wide, and again, Alex tried to move away, to fix this somehow, to pick up the pieces of his broken pride now that Louis was questioning him about this.

But then.

“I thought,” Louis swallowed, his voice trembling a bit too much for Alex’s comfort, “I thought you didn’t want to,”

Alex’s head felt too light.

“What?” he managed, and Louis just looked up at him and scoffed, but the sound was too soft and had no bite.

“We sleep in the same bed,” he said, “All summer, I didn’t even sleep with anything on. You barely even looked at me then. You don’t even touch me if I’m not dressed, what was I supposed to think?”

And oh no. Oh no, no, no, that’s not what Alex wanted.

Sleeping on the same mattress with a very naked Louis, soft with sleep and with pouted lips, was a kind of pure torture when Alex didn’t know if he could touch. There had been no boys before Louis, nothing to tell him when and where and how he could make him feel good. And even if there had been someone before this, Louis was special. Louis was going to get his best efforts with everything. Alex couldn’t touch him or look at him in any wrong way, he just couldn’t. Every movement had to be perfect.

But he’d done something worse in waiting. Louis had thought he didn’t want him, as if Alex wasn’t consumed with him, as if he wasn’t all he thought about now and as far as he was concerned, always would think about.

Alex breathed out so long his breath probably tickled Louis’s face, and he finally pulled enough that Louis’s hand dropped from one of his wrists and Alex instead lifted it up to cup his cheek. He stroked his thumb over the sharp, hollow curve of his cheek, enough to make Louis look up, his eyes big and nearly translucent blue in the buzzing light of the only lamp they’d put in the living room.

“Baby doll,” Alex murmured, “I want everything with you.”

Louis looked at him carefully, and then his lips parted, pointed air rushing out.

“Oh,” he managed, and then shifted a bit, “Well,”

The tip of his tongue poked out, wetting the center of his bottom lip, where there was the deepest, most damaged split.

“Did you – “ Louis stuttered, “Now?”

“We can wait,” Alex said immediately, “If you want to,”

Louis just shook his head, “Don’t you try to lie to me when I feel your prick poking into my damn leg,”

“Ah,” Alex stuttered, and tried to shift his hips and move away, “Fuck,”

But Louis reached up to grip the back of Alex’s neck and shook his head again.

“Christ, you think I’m gonna be angry for that?” he asked, “Why don’t you put a hand between my legs and see how I’m feeling right about now?”

Alex couldn’t even laugh. He didn’t even know if he could breath, with an open invitation to touch Louis in the most intimate place and also knowing he was hard and willing.

Louis smirked up at him, but then his mouth softened, his face becoming more open and cautious.

“I’ve never – “ Louis started, and Alex blurted in before he could even finish.

“Me neither,” he said, and Louis scoffed.

“You’ve never done anything with a bloke, I know. I mean I’ve never done with anyone,”

“Yeah, and neither have I,” Alex said.

Louis just blinked up at him.

“No,” he shook his head, “That’s not right,”

“Yes it is,”

“No, no. That Patricia girl you were hanging around with a couple years ago, didn’t you – “

“Never,” Alex managed, “She, uh, she said she wanted to wait until we were married,”

“And what did you say to that?”

“That I never intended to marry her,”

“Christ,” Louis sighed, “You really can’t let a girl down. Should I be worried?”

Alex’s eyes widened and he shook his head.

“I’ll never do that to you,” he said, and Louis weakly laughed.

“For God’s sake,” Louis breathed out, “Just c’mere,”

So Alex did. He let himself fall forward, let himself press his mouth to Louis’s once more. Eventually, Louis gripped onto Alex’s wrist and squeezed.

“You want to get something off me now?” he murmured.

Alex just pulled back and stared at him, and Louis looked back carefully until Alex finally lifted his hands and start to carefully unbutton his shirt. He pushed the fabric to the side, trying to get it away from Louis’s body as much as possible, but Louis rolled his eyes and sat up, pulling it off his shoulders and down his arms, threw it to the floor, and then laid back again. Then, Louis grabbed Alex’s hands again and brought him closer until he was touching Louis’s bare chest fully.

“There,” Louis said carefully, a laugh exhaling along with the word, and Alex just pressed his fingers into Louis’s smooth skin and didn’t speak, making Louis laugh, “This is what I get for sleeping with a virgin,”

“You’re a virgin, too,”

“Yeah, but that’s my problem, not yours,” Louis said.

Alex sighed and shook his head. He managed to pull his hands off Louis’s chest and instead reached for the buckle of Louis’s trousers next, but small, strong hands reached up to push him away.

“No, no,” Louis laughed, “Come on, I get something to take something off you now,”

“Oh. Alright,” Alex allowed.

He sat back, letting the blanket fall away from him and tumble to the floor, and then Louis sat up as well and went to lean over to him. He ran a hand up Alex’s chest and fiddled with the top button of his shirt, toying it out of its slot. He undid the rest of the buttons far quicker, but then groaned at the thin undershirt beneath it, which he quickly pulled up over Alex’s belly. Alex lifted his arms, letting Louis roll the rest of the thin fabric up and off. Once it was gone and tossed to the floor, Louis smiled at him and tilted his head.

“There,” he said as he pressed a hand over his chest, and then ran his hand up Alex’s neck until he cupped his jaw, the edge of his cheek, “Such a pretty boy, aren’t I lucky,”

Alex’s cheeks heated, and Louis chuckled and lifted his head to give him a kiss on the cheek.

“Can we go to our room now?” Louis asked, and Alex nodded and swung his legs over the side of the couch and stood. Once his feet were on solid ground, he grabbed Louis’s hand and squeezed his fingers. Louis squeezed back and then stood up with him, and once Alex started walking, he trailed just behind him, his hand gripped tightly in Alex’s own the whole time.

It wasn’t much warmer in the bedroom, but Alex had just bought them new sheets, sturdy and warm and not thinned out and washed to death yet. It would be better once they were wrapped up in them. But before Alex could even reach for the bed, Louis dropped Alex’s hand and then promptly reached for his belt, pulling on the buckle and then yanking on the leather bit to get it undone. Alex’s breath stuttered but he dropped his head, pressing a kiss to the curve of Louis’s shoulder. He felt Louis’s hand stroke down his belly, but his hand didn’t move down past his undone belt.

“Honey,” Alex breathed out, and Louis exhaled a moment later and finally undid the button of Alex’s trousers and pushed at the loosened fabric, getting it away from Alex’s hips. Alex lifted a hand, touching Louis’s waist while the other man pushing his trousers down to his thighs, and then Alex had to pull back and take the trousers off entirely by himself.

Alex immediately reached for Louis once they were gone, and he kept his hands firmly on his waist and then leaned forward to press a kiss to the crook of his shoulder. Louis sighed and looped his arms loosely around Alex’s neck, pulling him in and nearly keeping him trapped. Alex didn’t exactly mind. Louis really did smell nice, so gentle and clean, and his shoulder was soft even when the skin on his hands and feet had started drying and cracking from the cold.

He brought this hands downward, stroking at the top of Louis’s belly, and when the other man inhaled sharply, making his muscles shift and tighten under Alex’s touch, and it made Alex pause.

“Okay?” he murmured, and Louis huffed, and shoved at his chest a little.

“Damn, what’s a boy got to do to get fucked around here?” he said, but his voice was a bit weak, and Alex smoothed his hands over his waist, squeezed at his hips.

“We’ll stop, it’s okay,” he said, but Louis breathed out “No,” in the next breath and brought his hands up to claw weakly at his Alex’s chest, his blunt nails probably leaving shallow marks on his skin.  

“I’ve spent too many nights alone, please,” Louis said, and it was enough to make Alex tug away, making Louis’s arms fall away from his neck. Alex’s hands went to Louis’s belt, and he pulled on it quickly, the buckle rattling as he undid it.

“You’ve been alone, huh,” Alex managed as he undid the belt. He leaned forward, kissed Louis’s lips firmly as he pushed his trousers down, “You think of me?”

“What bloody else would I think of?” Louis said, then groaned when Alex knelt down to peel his trousers off his legs completely. Louis lifted his feet to kick the fabric away, and Alex grabbed his leg, lowering his lips down to kiss his ankle while he was there.

“You thought of me,” Alex breathed out, “I’ve been thinking of you. Ever since I first got to kiss you,”

“Oh, yeah?” Louis smiled.

“Christ, baby, I – “ Alex paused for a moment and then stood, facing Louis fully again, “God, I wanted to do so many things with you,”

Louis snorted weakly, and grabbed Alex’s hands yet again and brought them to his waist.

“Then show me,” he said firmly, and Alex blinked at him before fisting the fabric of Louis’s drawers in his hands and pulling.

Louis kicked the last of his underthings away in a moment, and then brought himself forward, taking off Alex’s pants away and then stepping back. Alex shook his drawers off his ankles and then looked up, swallowing back the dryness in his throat.

Louis was in front of him, naked, not for the first time, but this time Alex could really look, let his eyes roam. He had narrow shoulders that were still strong from lifting storage boxes, his chest a bit bony and dusted in hair that was darker than the stuff on his head, his nipples small and dusky. His legs were strong and his thighs were wide, but his ankles were as delicate as his wrists, like they were made of hollow glass and porcelain. There was the little swell of his belly, pretty tan skin over soft flesh, and his legs were turned inwards a bit, his thighs crossed and his knees touching, but Alex could still see dark, wiry hair and a firm cock.

Louis blinked at him and then went over to the bed and sat down before drawing himself onto the mattress fully, tucking his legs up and laying his body down.

“Come here,” Louis murmured, and Alex went towards him and into their bed that always felt far too small.

He laid down next to Louis and immediately set his hands on his slim waist, gripping tightly as he leaned into kiss him. Louis exhaled, his breath sounding like a laugh, as he kissed Alex in turn, and then pressed hand to his chest, curling his fingers against his skin. He pushed a bit, making Alex pull back and look at him with wide eyes, and Louis smiled weakly at him.

“One second,” he murmured. He rolled over, out of Alex’s arms, and then dug around in his beside drawer. Eventually, he stopped and rolled back over, gripping the tin of Vaseline he usually rubbed on his lips or his dry feet and hands.

“I, um,” Louis said, “I’m not sure where you want to be?”

Alex just blinked at him, his forehead creasing, “What?”

“Like,” Louis licked his lips, “Who wants to put their prick in and who wants to take it?”

“Oh,” Alex said, his eyes flaring a bit, “Oh,”

His eyes flickered down to the tin in Louis’s hands, and he reached out, touching its lid.

“And that’s – “

“To make things a little more comfortable,” Louis provided, a bit of smirk still ghosting his mouth.

Alex blinked at him one last time, considering it, and then quickly took the tin from his hands.

“I can, um, go in,” Alex said, “I just – I don’t want you to strain yourself too bad,”

“Oh, Lord,” Louis rolled his eyes and then shifted around a bit, “You really do spend too much time worrying. But alright, you can do it this time around,”

“Right,” Alex murmured, but still tapped his fingers on top of the tin.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked.

“What if – “ Alex started, “What if I hurt you? I mean, that can’t be comfortable, right?”

“Oh, honey,” Louis sighed and reached up, rubbing Alex’s wrist, “It’ll be okay,”

“But – “

“Listen, I imagine it’ll hurt a bit but I’ll let you know if it’s too bad,” he said, still watching him carefully, “I know you call me it a lot, but I’m not a doll, honey, I’m not gonna break if you push me a little,”

Alex just looked at him a little longer, and then nodded.

“Okay,” he managed, “Okay,”

He reached out again, smoothing a hand over Louis’s waist, and the other man smiled and nodded. So Alex let his hand going further down, to the generous swell of his bum. He exhaled, closing his eyes, and then pushed further back, to the crease between his cheeks. But he pulled back his hand before he could touch anything else, and just blinked at Louis with wide eyes.

“I, um,” he said, and then promptly unscrewed the Vaseline tin and dipped his fingers inside, “I forgot,”

“Good God,” Louis laughed weakly, and then lifted himself onto his elbows, “Here, let me help you a bit,”

He turned over onto his belly, giving Alex a nice view of his pale, ample bum, and he reached out again, this time with jelly-covered fingers, and once again prodded at him. This time, his fingers found the tight ring of muscle between Louis’s cheeks, and he rubbed over it with his fingers and prodded at it a bit, trying to loosen it, prepare Louis for what was going to happen. All the while, Louis just murmured and nodded, his eyes closed, his mouth curved up a bit.

After a few minutes of this, Alex pulled back, and Louis blinked his eyes open and smiled.

“All good?”

“I think,” Alex said, “I, um, here,”

He placed his fingers back into the tin, and then gripped himself with his covered hand, slicking jelly all over his cock. Louis watched him, his eyes flicking between Alex’s face and his moving hand. Then, he reached out to pet the inside of Alex’s elbow.

“So nervous,” he murmured, so quiet that Alex almost didn’t hear it. He shifted his hand back over his cock again and shook his head, unable to reach out and touch Louis in answer.

“Love you,” he said softly. He dropped his hand, wiping it against their already dirty, thin quilt, “Love you so much,”

He shifted himself onto his knees, taking his slick cock back in his hand, and then carefully lined himself up to Louis’s wet entrance.

“Love you more than anything else on this Earth,” he said. He just looked at Louis as he said it, and the other man didn’t say anything, just swallowed, closed his eyes, and nodded.

Alex held himself there, right on the brink, and then carefully pushed his cockhead right up against him, the head nearly slipping in.

“Oh,” Louis gasped sharply, and Alex immediately froze.

“No, no, I’m okay,” Louis mumbled, blinking his eyes open, “Feels real nice, baby,”

Alex just looked at him, not believing it, because Louis felt so tight and God, he’d slicked him up as much as he could but it still had to hurt, didn’t it? How could it feel good?

“You’re alright,” Louis said, bringing Alex back down to Earth. He sighed and moved his hips a bit, and Louis hummed and smiled.

“Come give me a kiss, petal,” he murmured, and Alex immediately leaned forward and pressed his mouth to Louis’s, feeling his warm breath sigh over his lips. Louis’s hand crept up the back of his neck, smoothing over his skin.

“Okay, okay,” Louis said softly, “We’re gonna finish this, alright?”

“Yeah,” Alex said quickly, “Yeah, of course,”

He shifted himself again, trying to make his knees more comfortable, and then he took himself in his hand again and pushed in a little deeper. Louis still gasped weakly and squeezed his eyes closed, and his hips shifted as Alex just stayed put, nearly half his cock inside Louis.

“Keep going,” Louis breathed out weakly, “I’m alright, just a little more,”

“Okay,” Alex agreed, “Just a little more,”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. His voice was so weak now, so soft, and Alex almost didn’t want to keep pushing, but he did, burying himself just a bit more. Louis gasped sharply again and grabbed his wrist, squeezing.

“That – that’s good,” Louis said, “No more, baby, no more,”

“No,” Alex agreed quickly, “No more,”

He stayed still for a while, just buried in Louis’s tight heat, and watching the man beneath him breath, his thin chest moving up and down, his neck slick with chest, his closed eyelids fluttering a bit. Finally, he opened his eyes a bit, slivers of blue under heavy lashes, and he swallowed before he spoke.

“You can still move a little,” he said, “And you can…talk to me,”

Alex swallowed and shifted himself again, every movement feeling like too much, especially when Louis groaned a bit.

“You know I’m never going to hurt you, right?”

“Yes, darling,” Louis groaned, his voice sounding a bit strained, “I know. You’ve got a big prick and that’s not your fault and I know,”

“Fuck,” Alex exhaled, “I’m – “

“Don’t apologize to me,” Louis nearly snapped, “Just – tell me something nice. Talk about my arse or something,”

“Alright,” Alex laughed, and then licked his lips, “You’ve got a nice arse,”

“Thanks,” Louis sighed.

“No, really,” Alex said. He started to rock his hips a bit, but he kept talking, the words spilling out of his lips as he kept moving, trying to hit something that would make Louis feel good, “I – um, I used to look at your bum when we were out. Like when you’d get on the train before me? I’d look at it then,”

“Oh, yeah?” Louis laughed.

“Yeah,” Alex said, “Your trousers always looked so tight on them. Hard not to look,”

“Mm,” Louis hummed, and then coughed, “Ah, shit, what else, keep going. What else?”

“I thought about you sucking my cock,” Alex burst out, and Louis blinked at him.

“You did?” he said.

“Yes, I – “ Alex swallowed, “Got such pretty lips, babydoll,”

“Uh huh,” Louis said, “And you wanted them around your prick?”

“Yes,”

“Anywhere? In your background? In our park? In the loo at the pubs?”

“Yes, yes, God,” Alex groaned. He thrust his hips up and Louis squeaked and reached up, gripping his shoulder tightly.

“Thought about you, too,” Louis breathed out, “Pulled myself off for a week thinking about you calling me ‘doll’,”

“Christ,” Alex closed his eyes and leaned down, letting his chest brush against Louis’s, and he pressed his face into the other man’s neck. He felt Louis blunt nails on the back of his neck, digging in tightly, and Alex bucked his hips shallowly. It was enough to make Louis gasp a bit, and he finally was finding a decent pattern, so he kept going.

“You wanted all that, huh,” Alex babbled, “Here I was scared to touch you and you were wanking off to me the whole time,”

“Uh huh,” Louis nodded, “I’m already going to Hell for kissing you, love, might as well go the rest of the way,”

Alex just blinked, his lashes fluttering over Louis’s skin, and then he pushed his hips forward, making Louis whine again.

“Alex,” Louis got out, “Baby, touch me. Touch my prick,”

Immediately, Alex brought his hand down, grasped against Louis’s belly until he finally found his hard length. He wrapped his finger around it carefully, moving his hand up and down, and Louis pushed on his shoulder.

“Harder,” he breathed out, “Do it harder, Alex, please,”

So he did, he moved his hand more roughly, and kept his hips bucking, his own prick moving against the friction of Louis’s tight heat. He groaned, pressing his lips to Louis’s shoulder, and he heard Louis laugh weakly.

“Can’t – shit, can’t believe some girl was going to marry you just for a taste of this,” Louis laughed. He brought a hand up to scratch at the back of Alex’s neck, “You’re gonna give it to me for free, huh, baby?”

“Give you everything in the world,” Alex said, “Everything. Burn up for loving you and not regret a second of it,”

It made Louis laugh again, and then his voice died off as he relaxed, his shoulder going pliant under Alex’s lips. Alex jerked his cock a bit roughly, and Louis cried out, his voice high and pretty.

“Alex,” he gasped, “Ah, Jesus Christ,”

He twisted up, into Alex’s touch again, and he kept working his hand over his cock, Louis’s grinding hips making his cock drag more against his walls. He felt pressure pool in his belly, and he kissed Louis’s neck firmly, hard enough that he could fool himself into thinking that the outline of his lips would make a bruise.

“Wanna make sure you feel nice. Wanna make sure you come,” Alex breathed against Louis’s skin. He thumbed at Louis’s head, making the other man twist again, and he felt Louis press more closely to him, felt him exhale over his ear.

“Yes,” he choked out, his voice wearing thin, “Yes, baby, please,”

Also squeezed his cock gently, but Louis shrieked sharply and then buried his mouth into Alex’s shoulder, forcing himself to go quiet.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and Alex shook his head and kissed his skin again.

“It’s okay,” he said, “No one will hear,”

It was a lie, the walls were thin and it was a Tuesday evening, people were going to be home and listening. But it made Louis relax and shift his hips again in the way that made Alex’s belly feel tight, so it was okay.

Alex kept moving his hips, kept working over Louis’s cock, drinking in the sweet sounds of Louis gasping and whining beneath him, and then Louis was letting out a loud, reedy whine that sounded never-ending. His body shook, and Alex felt sticky wetness wash over his hand, dribble down onto Louis’s belly below. Even when he had finished, he kept gasping as Alex kept moving his hips. Louis’s palm patted against Alex’s shoulder, and his destroyed voice whispered against his ear.

“Baby, come on, just pull out, I’ll pull you off,”

“No, no, I – “

Alex kept moving, feeling his body coil, and then he arched his back, one hand gripping onto Louis’s hip and the other twisting in the sheets, and he pushed himself forward a few more times, feeling Louis around him, feeling Louis underneath him, taking in his smell and the sound of his breath, remembering all the days and nights, early mornings and late afternoons, that he had thought about this boy, dreamed about the privilege to touch him.

It was all he needed.

Alex felt the coiled parts of his body unfurl, and he cried out, quickly burying his lips into Louis’s chest, and he felt himself spilling right into Louis’s body, making the other man squeak weakly in protest.

He gave himself a few moments until he was sure his release was over, and then he sat up a bit, taking his hand down and pulling himself out of Louis. It was wet with jelly and spunk down there, and he brushed his fingers against the sheets before he settled himself down next to Louis, placed an arm around his middle.

“You’re going to make me a bath, right?” Louis mumbled, and Alex smiled, pet his skin.

“Sure, honey,” he allowed, “Wash your hair and everything,”

“My hair isn’t what needs washed,” Louis laughed weakly, and then winced, “Christ, I’m gonna be sore all of tomorrow. Mrs. Lawrence is gonna ask me why I’m waddling around the damn store,”

“I’m sorry,” Alex said immediately, and Louis groaned, rolled over and kissed his throat.

“It’s alright,” he said, “You gave me everything I needed, you know that? Can’t be mad at you for that,”

Alex just blinked into the darkness, curling his hand against Louis’s belly. He felt like this could be his whole time, working a job that barely paid for a dirty, old flat, hiding behind a door with rusted hinges, as long as he got to go home and kiss his boy, circle his arm around him. He could pretend and drag his feet around girls and put up with this town and never get anywhere as long as he had Louis.

Louis would smack him upside the head for thinking like that, for making himself settle. But maybe that was why he was willing to give everything he had and ever would have to him.

“I’m in love with you,” he breathed out, not for the first time that hour, and even though it was dark and he had his face pressed into the sheets, he could swear he knew exactly when Louis started to smile.

“Convenient,” Louis said, “Since I think you’re alright,”

Alex couldn’t even laugh, because Louis’s voice was so gentle, so bright, that he understood. Louis loved him back. Even when he didn’t string the words together, he did.

“You want your bath?” Alex asked, and Louis shrugged.

“Later,” he murmured as he brought himself closer to Alex’s chest, “Later,”

The way he said it, Alex felt like it could mean anything.

They’d take a bath later. They’d fuck again later. They’d figure it out later.

Later. Later would be fine, as long as he could hold Louis now.

[book-o-scams]

Either 1. Do an analysis on the scene from Run for Your Ed where the Kanker's find that their ship-in-a-bottle is missing. Or if you don't want to do an analysis (please think about doing one though) you can just answer this question. Why is the Kanker's ship-in-a-bottle so important? * If you have any questions see the post on my blog. You have until Sunday to complete the analysis.

I’m excited to do this because ‘Run For Your Ed’ is a really great Kanker episode AND a really great LATER episode.  Season 4′s Kanker episodes have some of the most intentional character-exploration in the show’s entire run, and it’s really nice to see AKA so proactive about developing characters who are usually treated like extras, especially during an era  era where they were having trouble developing the central characters.  This season contains at least 3 episodes that begin from the Kankers’ perspective and humanize their motivations before setting them loose on the cul-de-sac, this being one of those episodes.  This season also contains ‘A Twist of Ed’, an interesting episode that begins from the Eds’ perspective but starts blending in the Kankers’ perspective when the Eds start to turn the tables on them.  It’s disappointing that we don’t really get any Kanker-focused episodes during the digital era of the show, but at least season 5 finally breaks status quo, first by having the Eds publicly declare the Kankers to be their girlfriends, and in the end by scaring the Kankers away for most post-s5 episodes.

Here’s a weird thing I noticed… for the last 3 episodes of season 4, the storyboard credit screen does not actually say “storyboard by.“  And although they are all episodes with the “Tout Le Monde“ credit--  a trend mostly used during seasons 2 and 4, while season 3 had more solo episodes and season 1 wasn’t credited very clearly, it’s a French phrase they use when all of the storyboard artists in the studio contributed pieces of the episode-- earlier instances of “Tout Le Monde“ as late as s4′s ‘Stuck in Ed’ included the “storyboard by“ line.  Kinda seems like an oversight as season 4′s deadlines got tight...  But obviously I know this is nitpicking, regardless it’s very interesting that Danny wanted the show to go out with so many group-effort episodes.  I wonder if perhaps it was to improve morale when everyone was feeling out of ideas?  Or if the artists actually disliked not receiving clearer credit?

Anyway the other reason I wanted to include this screenshot for Kanker appreciation month is that I noticed the Tout Le Monde episodes of seasons 2 and 4 (IIRC, it’s just Homecooked Eds, A Twist of Ed, Run For Your Ed, and technically the movie although it is not credited to Tout Le Monde) produced some of the most iconic Kanker moments and I think the Kankers’ group dynamics are influenced by the team spirit at AKA.

This is the first time we see the trailer park at night and the only time we see it at night without it being buried under snow.

Oh, I also have model sheets archived for this episode!  Here are some color tests using season 1 background lineart:

This episode is the only time we get to see the Kankers all sleeping in their bed, as well as the only time we get to see their pajamas.  I’m fascinated by which characters get pajamas and other sorts of alternate outfits.

So things begin peacefully enough, with Brahms Lullaby, lotsa night ambience, and a cute gag where the Kankers each have their own obnoxious snore that somehow doesn’t wake the others.

But soon enough, one crash downstairs wakes Lee and a second crash wakes Marie. 

The storyboarding seems to be intentionally framing this as the older sisters sharing a feeling of responsibility for their household.

Ohh, I also love whenever we get to see the Kankers scared shitless like this, it’s surprisingly not as rare as you’d think.

Have some cute sleepy Mays:

The girls have each others’ backs as they cautiously look down their staircase.

Thankfully I have the model sheet so we can fully appreciate this perspective:

In a subtle and effectively creepy little bit of animation, all the Kankers see is a tiny tin can rolling out of their kitchen.

Marie and May immediately turn to Lee for their next move.

LOVE this shot with the kitchen light.  Season 4 also has the hands-down BEST trailer backgrounds, we get to see so many interesting perspectives in these episodes.

Lee seemingly lets her sisters stay behind and charges to the kitchen with their wall-mounted swordfish (or is that a marlin…?).

However, the intruder has already left and we get a few more looks at the nighttime trailer park:

Relieved, Lee and Marie jump into the window and bark insults at the intruder.  Another good older sisters sequence, and this one I have a couple storyboard panels for:

They inspect their wrecked kitchen, and at first the background, Lee’s tone and the music sync up to make this look like a really depressing moment, this family with little to begin with having been eaten out of house and home.  And as fans, the next scene’s reveal that this is a redux of Ed’s sleepeating from season 1 is no surprise, and I think it’s being portrayed a bit less amusing now that it’s affecting families outside of Peach Creek’s ritzy suburbs.

But then we get this dramatic shot of Marie holding the table and it always throws off the mood of this scene to me…  I still love the scene as a whole but when Marie whines “why’s it always the good ones that get away!?” while looking at a bite mark out of something inedible, it kind of implies weird things about the Kankers and adult strangers and really any trailer park weirdo who might break in…  Especially after what the Kankers do without a second thought to Bro in BPS, this is more than a bit concerning.  It’s right up there with Marie saying “I LIKE cheaters“ in her second appearance, sometimes Marie’s defining trait in my mind is that she’s somehow LESS rational than the others.. Or maybe it’s just another reference to this specific interest they’ve picked up from their mom, in men who have big appetites…

I always want to believe this is actually a more absurd gag and that Marie is instead saying it to mourn the table where she eats all her meals, in more of a “why do the good die young” way… but then Lee and Marie continue the conversation, referring to this stranger as a bum they shouldn’t shed tears over and it’s cemented as a creepy moment.

Moving on, I love this unnecessarily detailed ketchup bottle Lee shakes and then tosses on the floor:

At least Marie ends up agreeing with Lee.  Then Marie makes a joke about May being the only one to clean this up and it gets a laugh out of Lee.

I love how much the later backgrounds in the show focus on how these homes look from various standpoints… Makes the world feel very lived in.

Take note of how the front door has been eaten through by Ed, exposing their yellow car out front. Ed apparently nibbled on EVERYTHING along that wall on the right…We also see a new telephone, a Chekhov’s Gun for a later gag in this scene…

Love the trumpets blaring as the camera swirls up to the missing heirloom.

“HOLY TOLEDO!” Lee and Marie exclaim in unison to underline that this is crossing a major line.

This angle is making my mouth water.  Latter-day EEnE backgrounds are to die for.

Getting back to my favorite time-wasting Kanker gag, even at their most personally attacked and mutually motivated, the siblings have to fight over who gets to hold the plaque first.

Marie strikes first.

Yay, May called first dibs before they jumped!

OH NO

Lee looks so much like Bro in this pose…

Could these just be Toomey’s drawings?  I’m not sure how often he storyboarded or how often he changed drawings during the design phase since the show’s so close to the boarders’ styles, but I feel like these square jaws are something I keep noticing when archiving Toomey’s model sheets.

Also, I love the phrase “someone shanghaied our ship inna bottle,“ very nautical.

May is moved to tears yet again this season as she fills the audience in on how this is a family heirloom that the Kankers were allowed to play with during bath nights at their old home.  Pretty cute memory, I wish the show had flashbacks at this point!

Does anyone know what it is May calls their old home here?  I’ve always heard it as “the Ol’ Hubcap“ which is convincing enough for me as a name for another local trailer park or just a nickname the Kankers would come up with for a nostalgic home, but it’s difficult to hear through her sobs.  Another popular theory, which I see is currently used on the EEnE Wikia’s transcript of the episode, is that she just says “the ol’ homestead,“ which is a pretty old-timey phrase if you ask me.. May’s certainly not made to feel “modern“ as much as Marie or Nazz are but it also seems unusual to give her such antiquated wild-west dialogue.

Marie covers May’s mouth before she exposes any more vulnerability or personal details about their backstories.

Marie is surprisingly lawful and proposes they call the cops.  I WISH WE GOT TO SEE THE COPS THEY MENTION AND THE FIRETRUCKS WE HEAR LATER IN THIS EPISODE, AAAARRRGGGHHHHH I just want to see more emergency vehicles, this season let us have an ambulance for Pete’s sake!

HEY LOOK IT’S THE PHONE I POINTED OUT.

“WHAT’S THE NUMBER YOU DIAL FOR 9-1-1?!”

Uh.. May, put the phone down, the Little Rascals Movie’s calling, they want their joke back.  Sorry, this episode came out when I was 12 and going through a terrible Little Rascals phase. 

This episode has really good camera direction…

“NO COPS!!“  Why do I get the feeling their mom would punch a phone to prevent the cops from getting involved in anything…

Such good looking backlit sparks!  Gonna miss backlighting during the digital era.

Can’t help but notice that these model sheets have been reversing the rimlighting on the Kankers…

In this very well composed and cinematic feeling shot, Lee vows to find the crook and recover their bath toy, “Kanker Style…“

Cue maniacal laughter and end scene!  It’s a pretty self-explanatory scene, but I really appreciate all the detail put into the Kankers’ poses and expressions and home life.  Season 4 doesn’t always sit right with me, but I think this episode has a pretty fun understanding of every character.  Hope you enjoyed studying this scene with me!